Saturday, March 13, 2004
It's way too early to be doing this, a fact which I hope mitigates the woeful content below. But Rebecca insisted.
Jetlag is a cruel mistress. I'd only just gotten over the five-hour time difference when I fly out here to Kansas City (the present lack of broadband explains my silence of the past few days, for which I apologize, Rebecca darling; it shan't happen again) and am shoved back another hour. This seems to have had a rather adverse effect on me; both of the past two mornings I have risen at or before 6am. Also mama and I end up crashing at about 11pm. Last night we were all set to drink sake and tea and stay up and watch movies, but both of us pooped out. Perhaps we will do this again today, preferably around noon. In any case I must wait until she wakes up. Right now it is just gone 7am.
Few things to report, I will admit. It is regrettable that most of this medium's lustre derives from distance. That is to say that whatever we can see at a distance we find enticing, at the very least, as the only things we can see over long distances are mountains and stars and so forth, all things majestic and awesome. Once we are on the mountain, it looks considerably more whelming, and the ant-people below us become the object of our awe.
Right. Would you like some more of our special this morning, early-bird bullshit with a side of home fries? I should go back to bed. And yet on I go. "I can't go on, I'll go on." Art and bitching. Same thing.
Whelming. A few weeks before break, I was subjected to a viewing of the Taming of the Shrew adaptation 10 Things I Hate About You. In it, the ditz playing Bianca replies to the query of a fellow ditz:
FELLOW DITZ: I know you can be overwhelmed, and I know you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be "whelmed?"
BIANCA: I think you can in Europe.
Sheer brilliance. It's actually a shockingly and brilliantly ludicrous movie. The part where Heath Ledger, wearing unpardonable hair throughout the movie, commandeers the high school marching bard to publicly serenade Katharine, was very well-received. But this is not the point. The point is that Bianca has a point, though she doesn't know it. In talking with the other Americanos there, I have come to the conclusion that we are very whelmed indeed. Neither over- or underwhelmed, just plain whelmed. There is no more tingle of wonderment or thrill of the New. It's become Habit, the great deadener,a second nature worn over the first. But this is nothing new. Nor is it bad. It just happens to everything, and we get on with our lives. And we will emerge from this, as the Oracle at the Carlin household said, very shevelled.
Bad blog, Sam! Bad blog!
Few things to report, I will admit. It is regrettable that most of this medium's lustre derives from distance. That is to say that whatever we can see at a distance we find enticing, at the very least, as the only things we can see over long distances are mountains and stars and so forth, all things majestic and awesome. Once we are on the mountain, it looks considerably more whelming, and the ant-people below us become the object of our awe.
Right. Would you like some more of our special this morning, early-bird bullshit with a side of home fries? I should go back to bed. And yet on I go. "I can't go on, I'll go on." Art and bitching. Same thing.
Whelming. A few weeks before break, I was subjected to a viewing of the Taming of the Shrew adaptation 10 Things I Hate About You. In it, the ditz playing Bianca replies to the query of a fellow ditz:
FELLOW DITZ: I know you can be overwhelmed, and I know you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be "whelmed?"
BIANCA: I think you can in Europe.
Sheer brilliance. It's actually a shockingly and brilliantly ludicrous movie. The part where Heath Ledger, wearing unpardonable hair throughout the movie, commandeers the high school marching bard to publicly serenade Katharine, was very well-received. But this is not the point. The point is that Bianca has a point, though she doesn't know it. In talking with the other Americanos there, I have come to the conclusion that we are very whelmed indeed. Neither over- or underwhelmed, just plain whelmed. There is no more tingle of wonderment or thrill of the New. It's become Habit, the great deadener,a second nature worn over the first. But this is nothing new. Nor is it bad. It just happens to everything, and we get on with our lives. And we will emerge from this, as the Oracle at the Carlin household said, very shevelled.
Bad blog, Sam! Bad blog!
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Added to the essay section over there on your left...
...but not with one of mine. Nick and Mike sent along an article this guy wrote after tailing the Record Vol. 100 editors for a while. It's interesting, pretty good, and unfortunately in a terrible format, but I am frankly too lazy to correct ten pages of hatcheted paragraphs. It's worth reading, though, plus I am mentioned in it--more accurately, he transcribed Nick and Mike arguing with me over the phone, presumably about a drinking article which was ended up having the overall effect of a fart in a gale, and which I kind of regret. But do not rescind. Go read it.
Also when Mike is quoted as saying, "I like Waiting for Godot; It's very existentialist," it makes me want to cut him. Because it just does, okay?
Also when Mike is quoted as saying, "I like Waiting for Godot; It's very existentialist," it makes me want to cut him. Because it just does, okay?
Too good.
Home
It is home again. It is what, that went flying over land and sea to see home again. It is come home to see things changing. It is blogging from the first PC ever to hum in this home. It is that familiar old wonderment and confusion, looking for things in places they're not.
And it is weird using a PC. We've always been an exclusively Mac household, but then Papa went and bought a really cheap, high quality Dell. I understand. He needs it for work stuff. I don't love him any less. I still love my Mac dearly, but hey. This is what happens. Like the Manhattan Storage ads say (and you must always at least listen to what advertisers say because they are the only ones who know what they are talking about), Bad things happen when you leave the city.
But good things are happening too, more good than bad. People in this family are getting work, and in so doing, getting--more to the point--recognition. People are doing well, I think. It's a big watershed year for this family and I'm missing it, which bums.
Car crash yesterday. Indeed. Mom and I were in the taxi on our way home from the airport, and we see two cars hit each other, and the guy in front of us stops short, and our driver hits the brakes. The brakes lock. Chill of dread and excitement as we feel the brakes lock. The wheels stop, but the message that implies is not communicated to the motion of the car itself, which happily continues, converyed along by the slickness of the road. There is a thrill and a chill and SLAM. We the hapless passengers continue our forward motion, and rather forcefully at that, the which is at last impeded by the presence of the blue divider, which helpfully reverses the direction of our progress and hurls us backwards. We do hit that barrier with some terrific force; this is no mere jostle we are talking about, this is a real car crash. The bottle of Diet Pepsi I'm holding I squeeze, hard, and the pressure builds and the Diet Pepsi fizzes and the cap unscrews and the Diet Pepsi streams out from under the cap all over my fingers. We are going to be on the traffic report, WNYC Shadow Traffic, the woman will say, serious delays on the Gowanus or the FDR or the Grand Central Parkway or Harry van Arsdale Jr. Boulevard, there's been an accident, traffic is bottlenecked. And the hood just crumples. Smoke billows out from under the hood. Then suddenly it is still. There is no more motion. Everything has stopped. Well isn't this interesting. Everyone is fine, no problem, mom has bunged her knee some on the piece of fiberglass that protects the map of New York sticker, but otherwise we are fine. A cop car stops and they put up flares to divert traffic. There are four cars totaled, in total. Then there is confusion because Look Officer how are we supposed to get home, but then a nice taxi driver stops for us and he asks if we need a lift, and we say My God yes, and leap out of the cab, gather my stuff from the boot, and run after the guy. And so we get home for like $35.
The flight was considerably less eventful, except for right before we boarded, after I bought a nice litre of Bushmills at duty-free for EUR16 which I am not sharing, and when I was on line to go through customs, and I hear from behind me, Sam? And it's Sparky, looking dishevelled but homeward-bound (or more accurately Miami-bound). Sparky my third-year friend from Pittsburgh, president of the TCD ultimate squadron, the only other American full degree student on the team, doing English and History. We have only just spent the weekend together in Sligo for a tournament. We last saw each other the previous night. Long time no see. Sparky is a very cool girl about whom much more will indubitably be published. But so that was something. She had a five-hour layover at JFK, so we chilled there while waiting for Mama who was late because she couldn't remember what terminal I was coming into. Because apparently now at JFK, if you take the A train in, you can't just take the bus from Howard Beach. There is no bus. There's only the AirTrain, a tres swish monorail which will run you $5. Appalling.
Also the tournament in Sligo was fun. We came fourth, inexplicably (we were seeded way, way low), but won Spirit, which Trinity have never done before, on the force of our superhero outfits.
Yes. Superhero outfits. We all came as different heroes. I unfortunately had to settle on Neo because Mr. Beckett prevented me from going out and shopping for green body paint and purple shorts so I could be the Hulk, and I just had all the accoutrements required for Neo at home. It was cool enough, but the EUR7 tux pants Dave (Superman) bought for me at a charity store were so big that they started falling off as soon as I started playing. We lost the first three points of our first game because I couldn't keep my pants on, Eoin couldn't keep his kilt on (yes, he was playing in a kilt; he was a Celtic Warrior/William Wallace deal), and Batman's cape (a black garbage bag) kept flying off. It was at this point that I abjured (all at once) coat, sunglasses (fogging up something fierce), black shoes, black shirt, and pants. I could play in none of these, so I took it all off, put on my regular team shirt and my runners, realized I had no spare pants, and went running around for the next few hours in my jockeys. The next day I found myself playing shirtless half the time. I became The Man of No Clothes On.
But Superman, Batman, Robin, and Spiderman were nothing short of spectacular. Robin especially. Our three DC comics heroes (the first three) all discovered the joy of tights, so much so that by the end Dan was running around with REAL MEN WEAR TIGHTS written on his chest. Sparky, unable to come up with a Wonder Woman outfit, ended up putting on a skirt, a wig, and a red bra (over her t-shirt), and wielding a sword. She looked like some kind of pop-art Valkyrie, basically. We also had a Jedi Knight, complete with really fun extendable light saber, and a french guy who for some reason just happened to have big fluffy rabbit ears, who became Super Rabbit (said in a French accent. He has the most cliche french accent ever, it's hysterical. We made him give the thank-you when we won spirit. It was hysterical. You had to be there. Heh.
Hating our name (Fite-Wassilaks, named after our old captain Chris Fite-Wassilak for some reason no one remembers), we decided to change it at last. We were going to be playing against our namesake for the first time, and it was widely acknowledged that if he had cast us off (he could still have played with us, but chose to be a part of this all-star team instead, which of course won), we were going to cast him off, too. Men in Tights was thrown out quickly, but epiphany soon struck. Dave got it: Force Kings. Say it out loud.
Say it loud, say it proud.
The kitty is on my lap and I am home and life is good. Anyone want to offer me a job?
And it is weird using a PC. We've always been an exclusively Mac household, but then Papa went and bought a really cheap, high quality Dell. I understand. He needs it for work stuff. I don't love him any less. I still love my Mac dearly, but hey. This is what happens. Like the Manhattan Storage ads say (and you must always at least listen to what advertisers say because they are the only ones who know what they are talking about), Bad things happen when you leave the city.
But good things are happening too, more good than bad. People in this family are getting work, and in so doing, getting--more to the point--recognition. People are doing well, I think. It's a big watershed year for this family and I'm missing it, which bums.
Car crash yesterday. Indeed. Mom and I were in the taxi on our way home from the airport, and we see two cars hit each other, and the guy in front of us stops short, and our driver hits the brakes. The brakes lock. Chill of dread and excitement as we feel the brakes lock. The wheels stop, but the message that implies is not communicated to the motion of the car itself, which happily continues, converyed along by the slickness of the road. There is a thrill and a chill and SLAM. We the hapless passengers continue our forward motion, and rather forcefully at that, the which is at last impeded by the presence of the blue divider, which helpfully reverses the direction of our progress and hurls us backwards. We do hit that barrier with some terrific force; this is no mere jostle we are talking about, this is a real car crash. The bottle of Diet Pepsi I'm holding I squeeze, hard, and the pressure builds and the Diet Pepsi fizzes and the cap unscrews and the Diet Pepsi streams out from under the cap all over my fingers. We are going to be on the traffic report, WNYC Shadow Traffic, the woman will say, serious delays on the Gowanus or the FDR or the Grand Central Parkway or Harry van Arsdale Jr. Boulevard, there's been an accident, traffic is bottlenecked. And the hood just crumples. Smoke billows out from under the hood. Then suddenly it is still. There is no more motion. Everything has stopped. Well isn't this interesting. Everyone is fine, no problem, mom has bunged her knee some on the piece of fiberglass that protects the map of New York sticker, but otherwise we are fine. A cop car stops and they put up flares to divert traffic. There are four cars totaled, in total. Then there is confusion because Look Officer how are we supposed to get home, but then a nice taxi driver stops for us and he asks if we need a lift, and we say My God yes, and leap out of the cab, gather my stuff from the boot, and run after the guy. And so we get home for like $35.
The flight was considerably less eventful, except for right before we boarded, after I bought a nice litre of Bushmills at duty-free for EUR16 which I am not sharing, and when I was on line to go through customs, and I hear from behind me, Sam? And it's Sparky, looking dishevelled but homeward-bound (or more accurately Miami-bound). Sparky my third-year friend from Pittsburgh, president of the TCD ultimate squadron, the only other American full degree student on the team, doing English and History. We have only just spent the weekend together in Sligo for a tournament. We last saw each other the previous night. Long time no see. Sparky is a very cool girl about whom much more will indubitably be published. But so that was something. She had a five-hour layover at JFK, so we chilled there while waiting for Mama who was late because she couldn't remember what terminal I was coming into. Because apparently now at JFK, if you take the A train in, you can't just take the bus from Howard Beach. There is no bus. There's only the AirTrain, a tres swish monorail which will run you $5. Appalling.
Also the tournament in Sligo was fun. We came fourth, inexplicably (we were seeded way, way low), but won Spirit, which Trinity have never done before, on the force of our superhero outfits.
Yes. Superhero outfits. We all came as different heroes. I unfortunately had to settle on Neo because Mr. Beckett prevented me from going out and shopping for green body paint and purple shorts so I could be the Hulk, and I just had all the accoutrements required for Neo at home. It was cool enough, but the EUR7 tux pants Dave (Superman) bought for me at a charity store were so big that they started falling off as soon as I started playing. We lost the first three points of our first game because I couldn't keep my pants on, Eoin couldn't keep his kilt on (yes, he was playing in a kilt; he was a Celtic Warrior/William Wallace deal), and Batman's cape (a black garbage bag) kept flying off. It was at this point that I abjured (all at once) coat, sunglasses (fogging up something fierce), black shoes, black shirt, and pants. I could play in none of these, so I took it all off, put on my regular team shirt and my runners, realized I had no spare pants, and went running around for the next few hours in my jockeys. The next day I found myself playing shirtless half the time. I became The Man of No Clothes On.
But Superman, Batman, Robin, and Spiderman were nothing short of spectacular. Robin especially. Our three DC comics heroes (the first three) all discovered the joy of tights, so much so that by the end Dan was running around with REAL MEN WEAR TIGHTS written on his chest. Sparky, unable to come up with a Wonder Woman outfit, ended up putting on a skirt, a wig, and a red bra (over her t-shirt), and wielding a sword. She looked like some kind of pop-art Valkyrie, basically. We also had a Jedi Knight, complete with really fun extendable light saber, and a french guy who for some reason just happened to have big fluffy rabbit ears, who became Super Rabbit (said in a French accent. He has the most cliche french accent ever, it's hysterical. We made him give the thank-you when we won spirit. It was hysterical. You had to be there. Heh.
Hating our name (Fite-Wassilaks, named after our old captain Chris Fite-Wassilak for some reason no one remembers), we decided to change it at last. We were going to be playing against our namesake for the first time, and it was widely acknowledged that if he had cast us off (he could still have played with us, but chose to be a part of this all-star team instead, which of course won), we were going to cast him off, too. Men in Tights was thrown out quickly, but epiphany soon struck. Dave got it: Force Kings. Say it out loud.
Say it loud, say it proud.
The kitty is on my lap and I am home and life is good. Anyone want to offer me a job?
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| Graphic Design Job |
