Currently in Earphones: "Drowsy Maggie" performed by The Chieftains, "Love Pledge / The Arena" by John Williams, from Star Wars Episode II.
Might as well update, I guess.
Memorial Day Weekend is coming, lock away your daughters!
In Fencing news, Epee is sure is fun. I got a chance to spar with Patrick and learn some valuable tips while getting my ass kicked. I got some good hits in, and it felt so good to know that if someone came charging in at me, all I need to do is use my reach and stab out. As Patrick said, an Epeeists best defense is his point. He fleched against me twice and both times I just counter-attacked and hit him first, much to my delight.
Matt had his way with me, so to speak, afterward. He had me work on disengaging an opponents take of my blade. Consequently, there was a lot of blades spinning about. I had to do single and double disengages from each line, and also change-of-line disengages (where ol' Rock swept his blade down to a low line then back up to a high line in both 7 and 8). I got really worn out but Rock kept on pushing me, which was double edged. On one hand, I don't think I'd ever been so physically worn out, arm wise at least, as then. I seem to remember thinking, "So this is what it's like to be pushed really hard," while after every mistake I had to take a second to catch my breath. On the other hand, I was glad I was being pushed, which I'm sure is increasing my stamina.
Went for a swim this afternoon with Toes, Preston and Sascha. I'd forgotten how much fun it was to swim! I was really surprised at the 12 foot deep end where the diving boards were: I've become so used to 8-9 foot depths that it seemed boggling to have a deep spot twice as tall as I. Though I didn't partake in any of the diving that went on off the boards (Toes was quite majestic with his spins and pike-positions), splashing about sure was a blast. I left early for the Baroque performance around 5:15ish.
Not too much to say about the performance, other than I rushed over the rehearsal at 6 and everything else went off without too much of a hitch. We accompanied Theresa Tam in her performance of a Bach Cantata and played the Brandenburg 4. I said a hopefully not final goodbye to the Cellist Anya, who I've become good friends with over the past few weeks. She said she'll probably be coming back for Fall Quarter Baroque Ensemble, Score!
Well, it is now 12:30am, Saturday morning. I am now going to bed. That is all.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Monday, May 23, 2005
Parents, People, and Footmen Frenzy
Currently in Earphones: "Absurd" (Whitewash Mix?) by Fluke, from the Sin City Soundtrack, "Battle of the Heroes" by John Williams, from the Star Wars Episode III Soundtrack.
Hello All.
What a weekend.
So, first off, hung out with Toes, Sascha, Lisa and Preston Fri. Night. Watched Equilibrium and socialized. I joked with Preston that I'd rip the line "We've been watching you, Preston." from the sound track of the DVD and play it in odd places to freak him out. Lamented missing a swim with Toes and Sascha, but I think I'll be able to make it up later. Went to bed late.
Woke up at 11 am Sat. Morning and got ready quickly to meet my parents for lunch. Missed breakfast at the DC. Joined with the parents around 12:30 with much rejoicing. Drove downtown to futz with the bank and ended up finally getting a taste of what Murder Burger had to offer. Came back to start laundry and walked to the MU with mum and dad. Pointed out a thing or two that I wouldn't mind having, and dad gladly took care of the bill. Came back to finish up laundry and got some help folding. Final small trip to Rite Aid to pick up some amenities, the bill once again picked up by the Father unit. Bade the parents goodbye and set out downtown again.
Picked up the Star Wars Ep. II Soundtrack (Now I've got all 6, wowzers!) and the Sin City soundtrack. Got a ticket for the 10:30 pm showing of Ep. III and swung by the bike shops to see if I could pick up some new pedals. Realized that sun stays in the sky longer during the summer and that the stores hours hadn't compensated for it. Returned to eat, only to find that I'd missed the insanely early dinner hours at the DC. Ventured to Subway at the U-Mall and picked up a sandwich instead. Headed out on foot around 9:20 pm to the theater in order to get a good place in line.
Met up, by coincidence, with Beck from Paloma and her boyfriend. Chatted amiably until we were let in. The crowd was still in the "OH DEAR CHRIST" level of people and geeks, and were appreciative of the new "Narnia" trailer, as well as the now familiar "A Long Time ago..." opening and crawl. I thought the crawl rather odd, phrase-wise (It starts out with "War!" and when trying to be all weighty and dark like Empire, it felt too light).
I will say this, the Lightsaber fights are twice as fast and furious as anything you've seen before. Though it seemed that for the final Anaken/Obi-Wan fight Nick Gillard, the fight co-ordinater, thought "Spinny moves and attacks are cool, so it should be really cool if I make the fight consist of nothing but spinning, whirling moves." It follows the same geek logic as "If Ninjas are cool, and Pirates are cool, then what could be cooler than a Ninja Pirate?!?!" There is a section of the fight where both combatants whirl their sabers around in an impressive display of prowess, but don't actually hit anything, only to finally reel back and whack their blades together really hard in the classic "Frowing-at-each-other-over-clenched-blades" cliche. The Fencer in me was goin' "If it looks cool and it doesn't work...."
Got up late and ate breakfast with Andrea and Troy. Played Star Wars Battlefront with Troy for an hour or two and did some reading. Watched a little Naruto and then dragged myself over to play IM Ultimate Frisbee. Now, tossing a Frisbee around is fun, and I originally thought that Ultimate Frisbee would be the same. And it is, to a certain extent. But for me it was too much competition and not enough fun. I'm glad it's over. Got back and ate with the crew at the DC.
Had a really horrid moment when I was doing my Psych. reading and realized I had TOTALLY blanked at the Baroque Ensemble thing I was supposed to go to earlier on. It was a recital for Teresa Tam, who we backed up for a Bach Cantata. I was so set for it a few days ago after rehearsal. "Alrighty! 3 pm at the music building on Sunday! Got it!" And when the heck do I remember it? 7 freaking pm on Sunday evening! Too much other crap going on and pushed it right outta my head. Goddamn, that's the second recital I've missed. I guess it's a good thing then that I missed the deadline to add it as a class and get my measly one credit for it: at this rate I'll need to drive spikes under my nails to make sure I remember the final concert. Yeeeeesh....
On a final, more happy note, I'm starting to get into playing Warcraft III online with Will and co. Footman Frenzy is the name of the game, and man is it fun. Games take up just enough time to fill in gaps between finishing one thing and waiting for class or some such: about 15 min to half an hour. A nice time killer.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Hello All.
What a weekend.
So, first off, hung out with Toes, Sascha, Lisa and Preston Fri. Night. Watched Equilibrium and socialized. I joked with Preston that I'd rip the line "We've been watching you, Preston." from the sound track of the DVD and play it in odd places to freak him out. Lamented missing a swim with Toes and Sascha, but I think I'll be able to make it up later. Went to bed late.
Woke up at 11 am Sat. Morning and got ready quickly to meet my parents for lunch. Missed breakfast at the DC. Joined with the parents around 12:30 with much rejoicing. Drove downtown to futz with the bank and ended up finally getting a taste of what Murder Burger had to offer. Came back to start laundry and walked to the MU with mum and dad. Pointed out a thing or two that I wouldn't mind having, and dad gladly took care of the bill. Came back to finish up laundry and got some help folding. Final small trip to Rite Aid to pick up some amenities, the bill once again picked up by the Father unit. Bade the parents goodbye and set out downtown again.
Picked up the Star Wars Ep. II Soundtrack (Now I've got all 6, wowzers!) and the Sin City soundtrack. Got a ticket for the 10:30 pm showing of Ep. III and swung by the bike shops to see if I could pick up some new pedals. Realized that sun stays in the sky longer during the summer and that the stores hours hadn't compensated for it. Returned to eat, only to find that I'd missed the insanely early dinner hours at the DC. Ventured to Subway at the U-Mall and picked up a sandwich instead. Headed out on foot around 9:20 pm to the theater in order to get a good place in line.
Met up, by coincidence, with Beck from Paloma and her boyfriend. Chatted amiably until we were let in. The crowd was still in the "OH DEAR CHRIST" level of people and geeks, and were appreciative of the new "Narnia" trailer, as well as the now familiar "A Long Time ago..." opening and crawl. I thought the crawl rather odd, phrase-wise (It starts out with "War!" and when trying to be all weighty and dark like Empire, it felt too light).
I will say this, the Lightsaber fights are twice as fast and furious as anything you've seen before. Though it seemed that for the final Anaken/Obi-Wan fight Nick Gillard, the fight co-ordinater, thought "Spinny moves and attacks are cool, so it should be really cool if I make the fight consist of nothing but spinning, whirling moves." It follows the same geek logic as "If Ninjas are cool, and Pirates are cool, then what could be cooler than a Ninja Pirate?!?!" There is a section of the fight where both combatants whirl their sabers around in an impressive display of prowess, but don't actually hit anything, only to finally reel back and whack their blades together really hard in the classic "Frowing-at-each-other-over-clenched-blades" cliche. The Fencer in me was goin' "If it looks cool and it doesn't work...."
Got up late and ate breakfast with Andrea and Troy. Played Star Wars Battlefront with Troy for an hour or two and did some reading. Watched a little Naruto and then dragged myself over to play IM Ultimate Frisbee. Now, tossing a Frisbee around is fun, and I originally thought that Ultimate Frisbee would be the same. And it is, to a certain extent. But for me it was too much competition and not enough fun. I'm glad it's over. Got back and ate with the crew at the DC.
Had a really horrid moment when I was doing my Psych. reading and realized I had TOTALLY blanked at the Baroque Ensemble thing I was supposed to go to earlier on. It was a recital for Teresa Tam, who we backed up for a Bach Cantata. I was so set for it a few days ago after rehearsal. "Alrighty! 3 pm at the music building on Sunday! Got it!" And when the heck do I remember it? 7 freaking pm on Sunday evening! Too much other crap going on and pushed it right outta my head. Goddamn, that's the second recital I've missed. I guess it's a good thing then that I missed the deadline to add it as a class and get my measly one credit for it: at this rate I'll need to drive spikes under my nails to make sure I remember the final concert. Yeeeeesh....
On a final, more happy note, I'm starting to get into playing Warcraft III online with Will and co. Footman Frenzy is the name of the game, and man is it fun. Games take up just enough time to fill in gaps between finishing one thing and waiting for class or some such: about 15 min to half an hour. A nice time killer.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Wumpus!
Currently in Earphones: "Crusaders" from Kingdom of Heaven OST, "Contradanza" perf. by Vanessa-Mae.
Hello All.
First off, Epee rocks. I FINALLY got to use one last week on Thursday (and got beaten about the head by Rock during the lesson until I got stuff right). It feels SO GOOD to be released from the chains of Right of Way. Granted, I see the wisdom of it. But goddamn it, if I can poke you first, I should freaking get the point! What good is right of way when you can stab someone before they even get within scratching distance? Wha-BOW! Damn if that sucker is heavy tho...
Psych Midterm tomorrow and Anthro Project due the next day, then a Viola lesson on Friday. Bring it on!
My newfound realization of the whole relationship thing has curbed my ardency for a partner, but it's still there. Perhaps it's time to start asking ladies out for coffee. There's a great thing: just a small get together, nothing too lengthily, just enough time to have some conversation and test the waters. Just enough of a hint towards attraction but not too serious. My God, why didn't think of this sooner? It's Brilliant! (Now watch me go and screw it up, oy.)
Alright, there's a big ass space below this for some reason. Blogspot's being an arse fez and I don't know why...
What Are The Keys To Your Heart?
All this from asking me questions about animals...Ok then...I don't agree with that marriage thing, but everything else in order. Use your own judgement.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Hello All.
First off, Epee rocks. I FINALLY got to use one last week on Thursday (and got beaten about the head by Rock during the lesson until I got stuff right). It feels SO GOOD to be released from the chains of Right of Way. Granted, I see the wisdom of it. But goddamn it, if I can poke you first, I should freaking get the point! What good is right of way when you can stab someone before they even get within scratching distance? Wha-BOW! Damn if that sucker is heavy tho...
Psych Midterm tomorrow and Anthro Project due the next day, then a Viola lesson on Friday. Bring it on!
My newfound realization of the whole relationship thing has curbed my ardency for a partner, but it's still there. Perhaps it's time to start asking ladies out for coffee. There's a great thing: just a small get together, nothing too lengthily, just enough time to have some conversation and test the waters. Just enough of a hint towards attraction but not too serious. My God, why didn't think of this sooner? It's Brilliant! (Now watch me go and screw it up, oy.)
Alright, there's a big ass space below this for some reason. Blogspot's being an arse fez and I don't know why...
The Keys to James' Heart |
You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. |
In love, you feel the most alive when your partner is patient and never willing to give up on you. |
You'd like to your lover to think you are loyal and faithful... that you'll never change. |
You would be forced to break up with someone who was ruthless, cold-blooded, and sarcastic. |
Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything... no secrets. |
Your risk of cheating is low. Even if you're tempted, you'd try hard not to do it. |
You think of marriage pessimistically. You don't think happy marriages exist anymore. |
In this moment, you think of love as something you don't need. You just feel like flirting around and playing right now. |
All this from asking me questions about animals...Ok then...I don't agree with that marriage thing, but everything else in order. Use your own judgement.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Moving on then...
Currently in Earphones: Kingdom of Heaven Soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams
::picks self up and dusts self off:: Well, so much for that then. Pluses, I can flirt and look at girls and not feel guilty. Minus, I'm alone. As C3PO said, "Here we go again..."
Boy, that O'Neals book of Irish Dances is really cool, I keep on finding great tunes in there. I'm especially fond of anything in the A Minor mode, which there are a bunch of. Can't wait to show the fencers et al. what I've got in my fingers now!
2/3rds the way done with my Anthro Project. I'll need some sort of intro and concluding paragraphs as well as some citations. Thank goodness I have one more discussion to get the facts straight about how the citation should go. I hope I'll get a good grade for this...
Saw Kingdom of Heaven and bought the soundtrack. The movie isn't bad and the music rules, composed by Harry "Enemy of the State/Metal Gear Solid" Gregson-Williams. There's a great moment in the movie (which I'm sure I've told everyone about by now) where the Orlando Bloom character, Balian, just did something cool to halt the Saracen advance on Jerusalem. There's a shot of Balian looking out from the battlements, assumedly at Saladin, the commander of the Saracens, and a shot of the latter looking back. There's no dialogue, but I could totally imagine: Balian, "You gotz pwned, beotch!" Saladin, "Yeah, I got pwned." I'll probably end up getting the DVD when it comes out.
Got TC's Shindig in 45 min, I'll probably give an update on that after I get back, but until then, I look forward to it.
Enough. More Later.
- James
::picks self up and dusts self off:: Well, so much for that then. Pluses, I can flirt and look at girls and not feel guilty. Minus, I'm alone. As C3PO said, "Here we go again..."
Boy, that O'Neals book of Irish Dances is really cool, I keep on finding great tunes in there. I'm especially fond of anything in the A Minor mode, which there are a bunch of. Can't wait to show the fencers et al. what I've got in my fingers now!
2/3rds the way done with my Anthro Project. I'll need some sort of intro and concluding paragraphs as well as some citations. Thank goodness I have one more discussion to get the facts straight about how the citation should go. I hope I'll get a good grade for this...
Saw Kingdom of Heaven and bought the soundtrack. The movie isn't bad and the music rules, composed by Harry "Enemy of the State/Metal Gear Solid" Gregson-Williams. There's a great moment in the movie (which I'm sure I've told everyone about by now) where the Orlando Bloom character, Balian, just did something cool to halt the Saracen advance on Jerusalem. There's a shot of Balian looking out from the battlements, assumedly at Saladin, the commander of the Saracens, and a shot of the latter looking back. There's no dialogue, but I could totally imagine: Balian, "You gotz pwned, beotch!" Saladin, "Yeah, I got pwned." I'll probably end up getting the DVD when it comes out.
Got TC's Shindig in 45 min, I'll probably give an update on that after I get back, but until then, I look forward to it.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Thus another End
Currently in Earphones: "Remembering Ned Kelly" by Klaus Badelt
Salutations.
So it ends. Failed again. It was like maddeningly trying to tie down a ship that was leaving port, and not only was it painful to realize that no matter what you did, that the ship would leave, but to have to hack through all of the lines you painstakingly tied down, each a valiant effort to halt the inevitable, pains me.
I don't know what's worse, that I'm so near to crying that I can't do it, or that my regret is tinged with emptiness.
I've done a horrid thing, I've lied to my partner about how I felt about her, in hope and with the intention of changing that lie. Everything was in place for a happy relationship, except me.
I leveled with myself and in such took a step forward, recognizing that I, too, should get happiness out of a relationship. Yet there is no self-satisfaction in this step. To be similie-like again, though I felt the swell of the Romantic in me as I fought the demons away from my ladies' castle, protecting her from them, I realized there was only pain to be had if I couldn't reciprocate her Love for me. I realized that I was doing no good for myself by staying at that castle, and though I knew that the demons would then get what I was trying to protect, I realized that I didn't care enough.
I tried. I wanted to badly to Love her. I wanted it so bad that I could taste it in her mouth, that I could feel it, just below the surface of her hands, I could feel the dull yearning when she was away. And yet, it was only a weak construct of my feeble mind.
Forgive me, Lady Dragon. I have done you a horrible disservice. So I take up the motley and the Jester's staff once again, and though your regal clothes made me feel kingly, I will always be the Fool.
Enough.
- James
Salutations.
So it ends. Failed again. It was like maddeningly trying to tie down a ship that was leaving port, and not only was it painful to realize that no matter what you did, that the ship would leave, but to have to hack through all of the lines you painstakingly tied down, each a valiant effort to halt the inevitable, pains me.
I don't know what's worse, that I'm so near to crying that I can't do it, or that my regret is tinged with emptiness.
I've done a horrid thing, I've lied to my partner about how I felt about her, in hope and with the intention of changing that lie. Everything was in place for a happy relationship, except me.
I leveled with myself and in such took a step forward, recognizing that I, too, should get happiness out of a relationship. Yet there is no self-satisfaction in this step. To be similie-like again, though I felt the swell of the Romantic in me as I fought the demons away from my ladies' castle, protecting her from them, I realized there was only pain to be had if I couldn't reciprocate her Love for me. I realized that I was doing no good for myself by staying at that castle, and though I knew that the demons would then get what I was trying to protect, I realized that I didn't care enough.
I tried. I wanted to badly to Love her. I wanted it so bad that I could taste it in her mouth, that I could feel it, just below the surface of her hands, I could feel the dull yearning when she was away. And yet, it was only a weak construct of my feeble mind.
Forgive me, Lady Dragon. I have done you a horrible disservice. So I take up the motley and the Jester's staff once again, and though your regal clothes made me feel kingly, I will always be the Fool.
Enough.
- James
Sunday, May 08, 2005
What part of "Blarg" don't you understand? (Updated)
Ok, good news/bad news time.
The good, or roughly equivalent: consumerism and going home for a bit. The book of Irish Dances I ordered (musically, that is, notes and so forth) finally came, and boy, is it chock full of awesome stuff. I recognized a good amount of the tunes, and low and behold, I found an interesting dichotomy. Now, there is a fairly well used Reel called "Sleepy Maggie" or "Drowsy Maggie," I had originally thought they were just two different names for the same thing, but it turns out I was wrong. I found two different reels under each name. The cool thing was this: the majority of recordings of Sleepy Maggie I'd heard were Reel called such in my new book. Drowsy Maggie, however, was also in a recording (and sounding rather similar): The Chieftans did a rendition of it, calling it "The Reel with the Beryl" following another tune called "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" (also found in the new book). This illustrated the commonality of the same song sharing different names. No-one ever bothered to catalogue old fiddle tunes, so sound-alikes are common.
And speaking of commonality, good news/bad news in a little dose for the book. I had been looking for some sheet music for "O'Sullivan's March" and found the book I now own. Yet, when I finally opened up to it and started playing, it sounded like NOTHING I'd ever heard. I wasn't disappointed, I could easily play the version I've heard by ear. On the positive note, I FINALLY found the version of "Ms. McCloud's Reel" that I have a recording for. The funny thing was, every other place I've found "the dots" for that particular Reel had it as another tune from what I had originally heard (The one done by Gaelic Storm in "Whup Jamboree/Ms. McCloud's Reel"). Huzzah for notes that match the music!
On other media consumption, I picked up the Soundtrack to Star Wars Episode III (with its kick ass bonus DVD) and House of Flying Daggers. The "music videos" on the SW DVD are pretty neat, not what I'd call 5 star material, but cool enough. The music itself is usual Williams, which is a good thing, but can get rather similar with too much listening. I'm always amazed at how ol' Johnny can sound so different, yet so the same. Now, given how prolific the guy is, I can forgive him for using what works. The only opportunity for laze here is that whole "Bridge to the first movie of the original trilogy" thing. I'm starting to hear some startlingly familiar phrases here and there. Nothing too bad overall, but I'm getting the feeling this guy is resting on his laurels a tad.
Wow, I'd forgotten how much I liked the fight scenes in House of Flying Daggers. The story is enh, but I really like the swordplay. The first one in the Peony House highlights the major reason, it's not frantic. Regular people can follow it without being confronted by this wall of lightning-fast moves, and as such appreciate it more. With things like "Hero" and "The Matrix," we see all this amazingly fast and intricate work, too fast for us to really follow, and can only take it in as a whole with general amazement. "Wow, look at those guys go!" In this movie, you're like "Wow, not only are those moves cool, but I can actually follow it! It's no longer this impressive flurry of fury, but something I can handle bit by bit. Awesome!" The cinematography for the fights are cool too, because of the use of fast frame rate/slow frame rate/fast frame rate/slow frame rate. Instead of feeling like a bullet time Matrix-ripoff, it's like pauses in the overall rhythm, to let the audience catch its breath and then continue on. Neat stuff!
The only complaint I have about the DVD is the documentary, in which all the clips from the movie are hopelessly washed out color-wise. It's also a documentary made for and by the easterners. The translation and subs are spot on, but the narration clearly is geared for the Asian culture: Slavish praise for too long at odd times and a decidedly stingy narration. After being spoilt, I suppose, by the western-style documentary for "Hero" I find it hard to draw pleasure from this one. All in all, not bad though.
I get to go home for a bit tomorrow. Woo!
Ok, for the annoying/bad news. First, the easy one, I've got to work on my Anthro project. Wahhh wahhh wahhh. Ok, that's done.
Second, and for the second time, Toes has stood me up. Maybe that's too harsh, but that's what it feels like. It has been something like this: (Tuesday at lunch or fencing)
Me:"Hey, Toes! Wanna watch a Movie Friday Evening?"
Toes:"Oh yeah! Friday works."
Me:"Right on! I'll contact you Friday afternoon for the specifics."
Toes:"Sure, sure."
A few days pass, Friday comes along, evening arrives, and I contact Toes.
Me:"Toes, lemme know when you're ready for the movie."
Toes:"Movie?"
Me:"Yeah, you agreed to watching a movie on Friday, remember?"
Toes:"Hmmm, I don't remember...."
Me: "Dude!..."
Toes:"Yeah, Sorry, I'm already doing something...."
And then I, annoyed and hurt, putter around and eventually fall asleep. This is annoying. Granted, the first time, we still got together and watched movies, but relocated to fit the other agreement Toes had made. It was fine, because it turns out it was another fencer, so it was all cool. This time, I have no freaking clue what the other thing he was doing was. I was too disgusted to ask anything else.
So my problem is this, I don't know if Toes is just a flake (Which I wish he's isn't, but may be the case) or he's trying to tell me something. I don't know if I just need to be in contact with him more to remind him, or if he has other pressing matters to do on Friday evenings. I'm guessing it's not the latter, because I've watched movies on Fridays with him before. I don't want to have to confront him with it, because I don't like calling someone out on being flaky, and if it happens to be the other case, boy, that'll be a hard pill to swallow. I want to be his friend, because we do cool stuff and I enjoy his company, but.....well, I just don't know.
I know, it's not like seeing a movie is a dire matter, but I feel hurt. He agreed to something, and then went right ahead and planned something over it. It makes me feel unimportant, and to this day I haven't had a friend who forgets an agreed time. I suppose there's a time for everything. I'd feel better knowing that it was just him being forgetful and flaky and that it wasn't me. But until I find out, I'll continue to feel bleh.
UPDATE:
Ahh, good. Toes was just busy and forgetful. I got a flurry of apologies on my cell/net/AIM etc. when I got back from home. We ended up watching AvP and it was all good. I'm now chatting with My Lady and she's fretting over how she's gonna get to a friends B-day party today (it being midnight, Sunday morning). I bid her good luck and am gonna go rest my weary head. Oh, and if you want to see a good movie, go see Kingdom of Heaven. You probably won't be blown away, but you won't regret it either.
Enough. More Later.
- James
The good, or roughly equivalent: consumerism and going home for a bit. The book of Irish Dances I ordered (musically, that is, notes and so forth) finally came, and boy, is it chock full of awesome stuff. I recognized a good amount of the tunes, and low and behold, I found an interesting dichotomy. Now, there is a fairly well used Reel called "Sleepy Maggie" or "Drowsy Maggie," I had originally thought they were just two different names for the same thing, but it turns out I was wrong. I found two different reels under each name. The cool thing was this: the majority of recordings of Sleepy Maggie I'd heard were Reel called such in my new book. Drowsy Maggie, however, was also in a recording (and sounding rather similar): The Chieftans did a rendition of it, calling it "The Reel with the Beryl" following another tune called "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" (also found in the new book). This illustrated the commonality of the same song sharing different names. No-one ever bothered to catalogue old fiddle tunes, so sound-alikes are common.
And speaking of commonality, good news/bad news in a little dose for the book. I had been looking for some sheet music for "O'Sullivan's March" and found the book I now own. Yet, when I finally opened up to it and started playing, it sounded like NOTHING I'd ever heard. I wasn't disappointed, I could easily play the version I've heard by ear. On the positive note, I FINALLY found the version of "Ms. McCloud's Reel" that I have a recording for. The funny thing was, every other place I've found "the dots" for that particular Reel had it as another tune from what I had originally heard (The one done by Gaelic Storm in "Whup Jamboree/Ms. McCloud's Reel"). Huzzah for notes that match the music!
On other media consumption, I picked up the Soundtrack to Star Wars Episode III (with its kick ass bonus DVD) and House of Flying Daggers. The "music videos" on the SW DVD are pretty neat, not what I'd call 5 star material, but cool enough. The music itself is usual Williams, which is a good thing, but can get rather similar with too much listening. I'm always amazed at how ol' Johnny can sound so different, yet so the same. Now, given how prolific the guy is, I can forgive him for using what works. The only opportunity for laze here is that whole "Bridge to the first movie of the original trilogy" thing. I'm starting to hear some startlingly familiar phrases here and there. Nothing too bad overall, but I'm getting the feeling this guy is resting on his laurels a tad.
Wow, I'd forgotten how much I liked the fight scenes in House of Flying Daggers. The story is enh, but I really like the swordplay. The first one in the Peony House highlights the major reason, it's not frantic. Regular people can follow it without being confronted by this wall of lightning-fast moves, and as such appreciate it more. With things like "Hero" and "The Matrix," we see all this amazingly fast and intricate work, too fast for us to really follow, and can only take it in as a whole with general amazement. "Wow, look at those guys go!" In this movie, you're like "Wow, not only are those moves cool, but I can actually follow it! It's no longer this impressive flurry of fury, but something I can handle bit by bit. Awesome!" The cinematography for the fights are cool too, because of the use of fast frame rate/slow frame rate/fast frame rate/slow frame rate. Instead of feeling like a bullet time Matrix-ripoff, it's like pauses in the overall rhythm, to let the audience catch its breath and then continue on. Neat stuff!
The only complaint I have about the DVD is the documentary, in which all the clips from the movie are hopelessly washed out color-wise. It's also a documentary made for and by the easterners. The translation and subs are spot on, but the narration clearly is geared for the Asian culture: Slavish praise for too long at odd times and a decidedly stingy narration. After being spoilt, I suppose, by the western-style documentary for "Hero" I find it hard to draw pleasure from this one. All in all, not bad though.
I get to go home for a bit tomorrow. Woo!
Ok, for the annoying/bad news. First, the easy one, I've got to work on my Anthro project. Wahhh wahhh wahhh. Ok, that's done.
Second, and for the second time, Toes has stood me up. Maybe that's too harsh, but that's what it feels like. It has been something like this: (Tuesday at lunch or fencing)
Me:"Hey, Toes! Wanna watch a Movie Friday Evening?"
Toes:"Oh yeah! Friday works."
Me:"Right on! I'll contact you Friday afternoon for the specifics."
Toes:"Sure, sure."
A few days pass, Friday comes along, evening arrives, and I contact Toes.
Me:"Toes, lemme know when you're ready for the movie."
Toes:"Movie?"
Me:"Yeah, you agreed to watching a movie on Friday, remember?"
Toes:"Hmmm, I don't remember...."
Me: "Dude!..."
Toes:"Yeah, Sorry, I'm already doing something...."
And then I, annoyed and hurt, putter around and eventually fall asleep. This is annoying. Granted, the first time, we still got together and watched movies, but relocated to fit the other agreement Toes had made. It was fine, because it turns out it was another fencer, so it was all cool. This time, I have no freaking clue what the other thing he was doing was. I was too disgusted to ask anything else.
So my problem is this, I don't know if Toes is just a flake (Which I wish he's isn't, but may be the case) or he's trying to tell me something. I don't know if I just need to be in contact with him more to remind him, or if he has other pressing matters to do on Friday evenings. I'm guessing it's not the latter, because I've watched movies on Fridays with him before. I don't want to have to confront him with it, because I don't like calling someone out on being flaky, and if it happens to be the other case, boy, that'll be a hard pill to swallow. I want to be his friend, because we do cool stuff and I enjoy his company, but.....well, I just don't know.
I know, it's not like seeing a movie is a dire matter, but I feel hurt. He agreed to something, and then went right ahead and planned something over it. It makes me feel unimportant, and to this day I haven't had a friend who forgets an agreed time. I suppose there's a time for everything. I'd feel better knowing that it was just him being forgetful and flaky and that it wasn't me. But until I find out, I'll continue to feel bleh.
UPDATE:
Ahh, good. Toes was just busy and forgetful. I got a flurry of apologies on my cell/net/AIM etc. when I got back from home. We ended up watching AvP and it was all good. I'm now chatting with My Lady and she's fretting over how she's gonna get to a friends B-day party today (it being midnight, Sunday morning). I bid her good luck and am gonna go rest my weary head. Oh, and if you want to see a good movie, go see Kingdom of Heaven. You probably won't be blown away, but you won't regret it either.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Small Update.
Currently in earphones: "Home (Radio Edit)" by Dream Theater, "Harder to Breathe" by Maroon 5
Hello All.
I got a 90% on my Psych Midterm! Huzzah! Now on to Freud!
Ohh man, this week hasn't been going to well so far. Monday night I'm studying for the Psych. Midterm, it's around 9:30pm and I'm checking my UCDavis E-mail. I see the letter with all the info for the next few weeks about the Baroque ensemble, and darn it if I missed that night's rehearsal for a performance the next day! Not only that, but since I was freaking out about the midterm, I also forgot about the performance. "Baroque rehearsal at 7 tonight...Baroque rehearsal at 7 tonight...Baroque rehearsal at 7 tonight..." I told myself this morning, and halfway through it this evening, I realized I blanked on my Viola lesson at 6. Arg! I sent a profuse apology to my teacher and am hoping there might be some time this week to recoup. Blah.
On the good side, the Star Wars Ep. III soundtrack is out with a free DVD. Now, this DVD has a bunch of Music videos to all the movies with music by good ol' John Williams. There's one out on the net that caught my attention, and I am so ready to get the thing because to me, it oozes coolness. "Wow, James, you sure are a material guy, always talking about Music and Movies you want." What can I say? Media is my fave stuff. And hey! I finished Howl's Moving Castle (GENIUS book, by the way) and am working on The Count of Monte Cristo (the huge abridged edition). I'd forgotten how good books are. If only I had more time to read the stuff for pleausre and not the textbooks....
Enough. More Later.
- James
Hello All.
I got a 90% on my Psych Midterm! Huzzah! Now on to Freud!
Ohh man, this week hasn't been going to well so far. Monday night I'm studying for the Psych. Midterm, it's around 9:30pm and I'm checking my UCDavis E-mail. I see the letter with all the info for the next few weeks about the Baroque ensemble, and darn it if I missed that night's rehearsal for a performance the next day! Not only that, but since I was freaking out about the midterm, I also forgot about the performance. "Baroque rehearsal at 7 tonight...Baroque rehearsal at 7 tonight...Baroque rehearsal at 7 tonight..." I told myself this morning, and halfway through it this evening, I realized I blanked on my Viola lesson at 6. Arg! I sent a profuse apology to my teacher and am hoping there might be some time this week to recoup. Blah.
On the good side, the Star Wars Ep. III soundtrack is out with a free DVD. Now, this DVD has a bunch of Music videos to all the movies with music by good ol' John Williams. There's one out on the net that caught my attention, and I am so ready to get the thing because to me, it oozes coolness. "Wow, James, you sure are a material guy, always talking about Music and Movies you want." What can I say? Media is my fave stuff. And hey! I finished Howl's Moving Castle (GENIUS book, by the way) and am working on The Count of Monte Cristo (the huge abridged edition). I'd forgotten how good books are. If only I had more time to read the stuff for pleausre and not the textbooks....
Enough. More Later.
- James
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Well, I don't know who that guy was....
And now to the better things of this weekend...
Went with Toes over to Courtney's place on Friday. Learned how to play Pinochle. Now, being interested in linguistics, I'd wondered how you got the seemingly universal pronunciation "PEE-knuckle" out of what looked like it should be along the lines of a Spanish "Pee-NOH-klay." In any case, it was quite intricate and fun. You only play with the 10's, Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces, but with two sets of them found in a usual 52 card deck. I'd go into detail, but it's both too much info and I've forgotten a good amount of it. We watched Alien 3 and 4 and I didn't get back to the dorms until around 4 am.
Luckily for me, I wasn't needed for painting at TC's place in Sac until around 12:30 (rather, I was getting a ride over there at 12:30). I slept in until around 11:20 then showered, ate, and headed out.
We had an absolute blast helping TC paint his living room. Those who showed up included Myself, Toes, Adrienne, Aljay and Fez. What helped speed the procedure, in addition to having 7 people there, were these neat Paint roller/resevoirs. There was a roller on one end, connected to a hollow tube (about a meter long or so) with a plunger that could be drawn in and out of it. The plunger also had a trigger that pushed it into the tube about an inch with each click. So what you would do is place this special cap on the paint can, which looked a little like a soft drink cap because of the plastic, straw-like protrudance in it, then jam this little nozzle near the roller end of the tube down on the straw-like thing. Then you'd unlock the plunger and pull it out, drawing a bunch of paint into the hollow tube. Suffice to say, you'd then squeeze small amounts of paint into the roller when needed. It was a cool toy.
We painted the anteroom and living room, the former what TC described as a "Library green" and the latter with what was called "A Cup of cocoa." Boy did the painting go fast. TC was so impressed that he was constantly complimenting with a "Wow, you guys rock." Toes and I were even able to get the upper reaches without step stools, and ended up doing most of the high edging. Adrienne commanded respect with the Roller/resevoir, yet was "playing to lose." She got the most paint on her, from being the only one to lean against a wet wall, to stepping in one of the trays and getting paint inside her shoe. It was all in good fun, and we had one hell of a time.
Alas, there was a dark spot in our time there. At one point we heard a bang that could have been a gunshot or a tire, and we didn't pay much attention to it. When TC's wife, Chris, went to grab some extra brushes from Home Depot, she discovered that someone had side-swiped their car: it had torn a gash in the tire (the bang we'd heard) took off the fender from the left side and crushed some sort of undercarriage component that was directly in front and to the right of the front-left tire. Big-ass bummer. And not only that, but we later discovered Fez's car to be hit in the same place, but with less damage. His tire was intact, but the left portion of the bumper was torn off as well. It was quite a bit of a downer, but we still managed to have some fun afterward.
After I returned, I got into a right old funk when I wasn't able to see My Lady. It was a culmination of many things that happened over the week, capped by this last thing not working out and lasted into Sunday. Fortunately for me, I was finally able to talk about it to a friend and, luckily, My Lady. As seems to be her usual custom, she stays up waaaay to late Saturday and then sleeps in until Sunday evening. Seeing my rather dejected previous post, she came to meet me and I, by then feeling considerably lighter, told her of my troubles. I was able to spend some good time with her afterward which also drastically helped my mood, and since then have been studying my Psych.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Went with Toes over to Courtney's place on Friday. Learned how to play Pinochle. Now, being interested in linguistics, I'd wondered how you got the seemingly universal pronunciation "PEE-knuckle" out of what looked like it should be along the lines of a Spanish "Pee-NOH-klay." In any case, it was quite intricate and fun. You only play with the 10's, Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces, but with two sets of them found in a usual 52 card deck. I'd go into detail, but it's both too much info and I've forgotten a good amount of it. We watched Alien 3 and 4 and I didn't get back to the dorms until around 4 am.
Luckily for me, I wasn't needed for painting at TC's place in Sac until around 12:30 (rather, I was getting a ride over there at 12:30). I slept in until around 11:20 then showered, ate, and headed out.
We had an absolute blast helping TC paint his living room. Those who showed up included Myself, Toes, Adrienne, Aljay and Fez. What helped speed the procedure, in addition to having 7 people there, were these neat Paint roller/resevoirs. There was a roller on one end, connected to a hollow tube (about a meter long or so) with a plunger that could be drawn in and out of it. The plunger also had a trigger that pushed it into the tube about an inch with each click. So what you would do is place this special cap on the paint can, which looked a little like a soft drink cap because of the plastic, straw-like protrudance in it, then jam this little nozzle near the roller end of the tube down on the straw-like thing. Then you'd unlock the plunger and pull it out, drawing a bunch of paint into the hollow tube. Suffice to say, you'd then squeeze small amounts of paint into the roller when needed. It was a cool toy.
We painted the anteroom and living room, the former what TC described as a "Library green" and the latter with what was called "A Cup of cocoa." Boy did the painting go fast. TC was so impressed that he was constantly complimenting with a "Wow, you guys rock." Toes and I were even able to get the upper reaches without step stools, and ended up doing most of the high edging. Adrienne commanded respect with the Roller/resevoir, yet was "playing to lose." She got the most paint on her, from being the only one to lean against a wet wall, to stepping in one of the trays and getting paint inside her shoe. It was all in good fun, and we had one hell of a time.
Alas, there was a dark spot in our time there. At one point we heard a bang that could have been a gunshot or a tire, and we didn't pay much attention to it. When TC's wife, Chris, went to grab some extra brushes from Home Depot, she discovered that someone had side-swiped their car: it had torn a gash in the tire (the bang we'd heard) took off the fender from the left side and crushed some sort of undercarriage component that was directly in front and to the right of the front-left tire. Big-ass bummer. And not only that, but we later discovered Fez's car to be hit in the same place, but with less damage. His tire was intact, but the left portion of the bumper was torn off as well. It was quite a bit of a downer, but we still managed to have some fun afterward.
After I returned, I got into a right old funk when I wasn't able to see My Lady. It was a culmination of many things that happened over the week, capped by this last thing not working out and lasted into Sunday. Fortunately for me, I was finally able to talk about it to a friend and, luckily, My Lady. As seems to be her usual custom, she stays up waaaay to late Saturday and then sleeps in until Sunday evening. Seeing my rather dejected previous post, she came to meet me and I, by then feeling considerably lighter, told her of my troubles. I was able to spend some good time with her afterward which also drastically helped my mood, and since then have been studying my Psych.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Saturday, April 30, 2005
We don't need no friggin' titles.
Currently in headphones: ".45" by Shinedown, "Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras" from Brahms' German Requiem.
I would like to apologize for the following rant to the regular readers out there. This egocentric happenstance is not indicative of normal posts and should not be construed as such. Regular readers are urged to skip this post in favor of catching a more informative, interesting entry to occur later. I apologize for the inconvenience.
begin(personal tangent)
Alright, what the hell am I supposed to feel here? Whenever something happens and I can't see My Lady, I always feel let down. Which, I suppose, is normal, but I feel like a manipulative, evil partner for it being so. I've always read those love stories, in which the young, infatuated man can't seem to take being away from his other and usually breaks some rules to see her, achieving brief happiness but complicating things later on. What I usually thought of the said young man was that he was overly brash and destructive in the long run and shouldn't have done what he did. He somehow should have been more mature and waited, making the small sacrifice of loneliness to, somehow, be happier later on.
Now, before I continue, let me just say that I've at least reached a level of comfort in the after-effects of my last romantic endeavors. As my Psych textbook says, Separation is a gradual thing, not an instant resolution. Therefore, I don't worry that I'm "hung up" on my last relationship, because I know that something that intense doesn't just disappear quietly. I don't know how long it will take for me to fully "get over" it, but I'm not worried that it has not yet happened.
With that said, in my last romantic encounter, I suddenly came to realize what pain it was to be away from the other you cared about, and following in the footsteps of the dissatisfied youths of the stories, I let my feet do the thinking. Though nothing incredibly dangerous/bad happened on my yearning sojourn, I will merely say that the effects of such were opposite, and started my downward spiral that led me out of those final months.
I was vindicated in my thinking, and nastily so, for my immediate actions had the opposite outcome, as it had been repeatedly shown in the stories I was familiar with. Now, to be fair, that wasn't the only factor in this romantic demise, but it sure as hell expedited it.
Now, at this point in time, when I am again frustrated by the coming together of circumstances and the like that prematurely separates me from My Lady, I feel bound. On one hand, I feel the frustration and the letdown that I can now empathize in those stories of old. On the other, I'm so frikin' biased based on that last time I let my self and soul wander that I dare not do anything lest I complicate the matter. So I beat my head and heart against the cages of reality and my bias and feel generally horrible.
As Peter Parker inquired of the world, "Am I not supposed to have what I want?"
Man, I've got issues.
End(personal tangent)
If you, reader, have read all down to here, you are entirely vindicated in thinking less of me. Something so intensely personal probably has no right to be where the public can see it, much less the impertinent whining of a thwarted Romeo. Once again, I urge you to disregard this post in reference to the continuity of what this blog should be. I'm sorry to have wasted your time.
Enough. More Later.
- James
I would like to apologize for the following rant to the regular readers out there. This egocentric happenstance is not indicative of normal posts and should not be construed as such. Regular readers are urged to skip this post in favor of catching a more informative, interesting entry to occur later. I apologize for the inconvenience.
begin(personal tangent)
Alright, what the hell am I supposed to feel here? Whenever something happens and I can't see My Lady, I always feel let down. Which, I suppose, is normal, but I feel like a manipulative, evil partner for it being so. I've always read those love stories, in which the young, infatuated man can't seem to take being away from his other and usually breaks some rules to see her, achieving brief happiness but complicating things later on. What I usually thought of the said young man was that he was overly brash and destructive in the long run and shouldn't have done what he did. He somehow should have been more mature and waited, making the small sacrifice of loneliness to, somehow, be happier later on.
Now, before I continue, let me just say that I've at least reached a level of comfort in the after-effects of my last romantic endeavors. As my Psych textbook says, Separation is a gradual thing, not an instant resolution. Therefore, I don't worry that I'm "hung up" on my last relationship, because I know that something that intense doesn't just disappear quietly. I don't know how long it will take for me to fully "get over" it, but I'm not worried that it has not yet happened.
With that said, in my last romantic encounter, I suddenly came to realize what pain it was to be away from the other you cared about, and following in the footsteps of the dissatisfied youths of the stories, I let my feet do the thinking. Though nothing incredibly dangerous/bad happened on my yearning sojourn, I will merely say that the effects of such were opposite, and started my downward spiral that led me out of those final months.
I was vindicated in my thinking, and nastily so, for my immediate actions had the opposite outcome, as it had been repeatedly shown in the stories I was familiar with. Now, to be fair, that wasn't the only factor in this romantic demise, but it sure as hell expedited it.
Now, at this point in time, when I am again frustrated by the coming together of circumstances and the like that prematurely separates me from My Lady, I feel bound. On one hand, I feel the frustration and the letdown that I can now empathize in those stories of old. On the other, I'm so frikin' biased based on that last time I let my self and soul wander that I dare not do anything lest I complicate the matter. So I beat my head and heart against the cages of reality and my bias and feel generally horrible.
As Peter Parker inquired of the world, "Am I not supposed to have what I want?"
Man, I've got issues.
End(personal tangent)
If you, reader, have read all down to here, you are entirely vindicated in thinking less of me. Something so intensely personal probably has no right to be where the public can see it, much less the impertinent whining of a thwarted Romeo. Once again, I urge you to disregard this post in reference to the continuity of what this blog should be. I'm sorry to have wasted your time.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Glad that's over....Wait, there's more? Titty biscuits! (Updated)
I suppose another post is in order.
For those of you not acquainted with this specific online toon, do so immediately. Monty Python Fans a plus...
http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/
Hey! I find the exclamatory statement in the title of my post funny! (found at the above site).
Just finished my Anthro midterm. Wasn't quite as bad as I'd thought. Sure, I still goofed on the dates (and almost avoided a question, but figured an educated guess rather than a sneaky turn of phrase with no info a better choice), but I was surprised at how much I retained. It's not that the information is difficult, just a heck of a lot of it.
On one sore point, the division between more monkey-like types (Cercapithacoids) and more ape-like (Hominoids) is slightly debated term-wise. Rather, just the Hominoids. Generally, Man and his precursors are referred to as "Hominids." Technically speaking, the term HominID and HominOID are very close, but the former meaning Human and the latter referring to the branch HominOIDia. Now, a smart person went "Hmmm, Hominid is really close to Hominoid, what if we classify just humans as HominINEs? That way anything resembling Hominoid/-nid is in reference to the Family Hominoidea while Humans and there kind be relegated to the Subfamily Homininae." Brilliant! No close spelling to twist the tongue and mind.
However, our Professor, respect him though I do, has elected to keep calling Humans and their kind Hominids (as it has been for years, which usually doesn't post a problem). But, especially on one question of the test, there can be some marked confusion. There was a certain fossil, Proconsul, that had the makings of being in the Family HominOIDia. The question was, did it have the traits to be placed higher up in the tree, with the Hominines, viz Us? The phrasing of the question was thusly..."Your friend argues that (a primitive trait, not useful in classification) makes Proconsul a Hominid. Explain why he is wrong. What traits DOES it have to place it in the family Hominoidia?"
Now, the question steps on its own feet. The Primitive trait is ONLY considered Primitive when comparing it to something higher up on the evolutionary tree. Viz, "Lucy" has five fingers and a grasping thumb, therefore she should be considered a Homo Sapiens. That doesn't work, because ALL Hominines have five fingers and an opposable thumb. It was a trait that begun with a really far back ancestor, and since we all have it, we can't use it to refine our classification WITHIN our small group of Hominines. Therefore, we need to search for a Derived trait, or a specific difference that sets us apart from more CLOSELY SIMILAR ancestors.
It is the Final part of the question that maddens me. It's obvious that the Primitive trait does not justify placing Proconsul with us Hominines. However, if they are asking for a trait that places them with HominOIDs, then they've just given us the answer and not really stepped anywhere. The Primitive trait becomes Derived when we step farther away from specifics. Yes, Proconsul was in that LARGE family Hominoidea by that Primitive (now derived, from this viewpoint) trait. However, there is also a trait that places it in the Subfamily Homininae with us, but are you asking about that, or the large family Hominoidea? What I can't tell is whether they've lumped the -noid/-nid together, in which case they should have said "What trait does make Proconsul a Hominine?" Or just asked a "Duh!" question with no merit. Get this stuff straight, people!
< /anthro rant >
Alright, sorry if I was getting all textbookish, but I had to get that outta my system.
I've still got a Latin Quiz to study for. The Midterm for the class is also coming up soon, not to mention the next Psych Midterms. Yeeesh! I get done with one only to have another pop up.
On the plus side, I get to go paint TC's House on Saturday. That should be fun.
Perhaps I'll get to see my Lady again soon, as well. I hope so.
UPDATE
Currently in headphones: "Dogs Among The Bushes" by The Cheiftans.
Bother, My Lady is busy friday. Hopefully I'll have some time saturday evening to see her. I know I shouldn't be grumpy about it. I don't have priority in her life. Wheres the justification in feeling a bit down then? Suck it up, buddy!
Latin vocab down, working on grammar with Mr. Hatfield as we speak. Hands down, the Future participle ending "-ūrus" sounds the coolest. Such as "Athēnās profectūrus, comitēs aspexit dormientēs." or "As he was about to set out for Athens, he looked at his sleeping friends." The "pro-fec-TOO-roos" is just so tasty on the tongue. Latin kicks ass!
Recēdite, plebes! Gero rēm imperiālem!
Enough. More Later.
- James
For those of you not acquainted with this specific online toon, do so immediately. Monty Python Fans a plus...
http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/
Hey! I find the exclamatory statement in the title of my post funny! (found at the above site).
Just finished my Anthro midterm. Wasn't quite as bad as I'd thought. Sure, I still goofed on the dates (and almost avoided a question, but figured an educated guess rather than a sneaky turn of phrase with no info a better choice), but I was surprised at how much I retained. It's not that the information is difficult, just a heck of a lot of it.
On one sore point, the division between more monkey-like types (Cercapithacoids) and more ape-like (Hominoids) is slightly debated term-wise. Rather, just the Hominoids. Generally, Man and his precursors are referred to as "Hominids." Technically speaking, the term HominID and HominOID are very close, but the former meaning Human and the latter referring to the branch HominOIDia. Now, a smart person went "Hmmm, Hominid is really close to Hominoid, what if we classify just humans as HominINEs? That way anything resembling Hominoid/-nid is in reference to the Family Hominoidea while Humans and there kind be relegated to the Subfamily Homininae." Brilliant! No close spelling to twist the tongue and mind.
However, our Professor, respect him though I do, has elected to keep calling Humans and their kind Hominids (as it has been for years, which usually doesn't post a problem). But, especially on one question of the test, there can be some marked confusion. There was a certain fossil, Proconsul, that had the makings of being in the Family HominOIDia. The question was, did it have the traits to be placed higher up in the tree, with the Hominines, viz Us? The phrasing of the question was thusly..."Your friend argues that (a primitive trait, not useful in classification) makes Proconsul a Hominid. Explain why he is wrong. What traits DOES it have to place it in the family Hominoidia?"
Now, the question steps on its own feet. The Primitive trait is ONLY considered Primitive when comparing it to something higher up on the evolutionary tree. Viz, "Lucy" has five fingers and a grasping thumb, therefore she should be considered a Homo Sapiens. That doesn't work, because ALL Hominines have five fingers and an opposable thumb. It was a trait that begun with a really far back ancestor, and since we all have it, we can't use it to refine our classification WITHIN our small group of Hominines. Therefore, we need to search for a Derived trait, or a specific difference that sets us apart from more CLOSELY SIMILAR ancestors.
It is the Final part of the question that maddens me. It's obvious that the Primitive trait does not justify placing Proconsul with us Hominines. However, if they are asking for a trait that places them with HominOIDs, then they've just given us the answer and not really stepped anywhere. The Primitive trait becomes Derived when we step farther away from specifics. Yes, Proconsul was in that LARGE family Hominoidea by that Primitive (now derived, from this viewpoint) trait. However, there is also a trait that places it in the Subfamily Homininae with us, but are you asking about that, or the large family Hominoidea? What I can't tell is whether they've lumped the -noid/-nid together, in which case they should have said "What trait does make Proconsul a Hominine?" Or just asked a "Duh!" question with no merit. Get this stuff straight, people!
< /anthro rant >
Alright, sorry if I was getting all textbookish, but I had to get that outta my system.
I've still got a Latin Quiz to study for. The Midterm for the class is also coming up soon, not to mention the next Psych Midterms. Yeeesh! I get done with one only to have another pop up.
On the plus side, I get to go paint TC's House on Saturday. That should be fun.
Perhaps I'll get to see my Lady again soon, as well. I hope so.
UPDATE
Currently in headphones: "Dogs Among The Bushes" by The Cheiftans.
Bother, My Lady is busy friday. Hopefully I'll have some time saturday evening to see her. I know I shouldn't be grumpy about it. I don't have priority in her life. Wheres the justification in feeling a bit down then? Suck it up, buddy!
Latin vocab down, working on grammar with Mr. Hatfield as we speak. Hands down, the Future participle ending "-ūrus" sounds the coolest. Such as "Athēnās profectūrus, comitēs aspexit dormientēs." or "As he was about to set out for Athens, he looked at his sleeping friends." The "pro-fec-TOO-roos" is just so tasty on the tongue. Latin kicks ass!
Recēdite, plebes! Gero rēm imperiālem!
Enough. More Later.
- James
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Wine, Women and Song!
Hey all!
Wow! What a weekend! Where to begin?
I had a lovely time with M'Lady Friday evening, though it did get rather cold. Heavier jackets next time!
Saturday morning, I get up at 8am, shower and meet up with Toes to go to Cuarto. We met up with Tim and soon Preston's parents and the SLO folk. As what was appearing to be a trend, Preston was still sawin' logs when the prescribed time arrived. When he finally did get up, he was so surprised and out of it that he was bidding a happy birthday to everyone he met for lack of attention. What a way to begin a 21st B-day. It was all good.
We drove up to Napa/Sonoma and visited first the Buena Vista Winery. Very cool, quaint place in a glen with most of the old buildings intact. Had a very informative tour guide named Doug, who as Patrick pointed out, "Would probably still give tours even if they didn't pay him." Doug loved what he was doing and loved the entire subject. He studied Enology and Vitrinology (The former a branch of Chem. the latter one of Bio.) and was neck deep in information. Two things stuck with us, as he urged us to remember. One: There are two types of wine, good wine and bad wine. It's all about what you like. Nobody is wrong when it comes to judging it. Two: in most cases of wine merchants hawking their wares, you can always add an "..., or not" to anything sounding too much in one direction or the other. Once again, no-one is wrong when it comes to judging wine. Consequently, if you hear a "This vintage has a great, buttery after-taste and really tickles your tastebuds" (or other, better wine lingo, I didn't exactly memorize the wine adjectives) or something in the negative direction, chances are a ".., or not" can also clarify it. Good stuff.
We also got a great amount of tips for how to taste wine, ones that I'm not going to soon forget, far away though my 21st is. The whole swirling of the wine in the glass and the smelling of it isn't just visual bravado. First off, bad wine will smell different if swirled. That's point one. If you smell it, swirl it, smell it again and find a different smell, warning! Oh, and on an initial note, if you go wine tasting, if you drink a proportion of (2-1? 3-2?) water to wine, you can avoid much of the adverse effects of it. Also, when switching from one wine to another, 3 sips are needed to accurately judge the taste of the new sample. Rinse, calibrate and test. Back to the immediate tests, though.
Color plays a role. If you let light go through the glass and cast a colored shadow on, say, a napkin, you can tell quality by color. Generally, Doug said, good wines are Brick to Burgundy, however the heck you judge that. Or not! He also said he's had good wines darker/lighter than he mentioned, but it was a generality that was usually true. We left Buena Vista in high spirits.
We had lunch in Sonoma proper in the small central park. There was some errand Patrick had to go on, so we walked all around the surrounding shop fronts. There were numerous back allys with some great shops to be had. We found one that had not only an Irish store, but an Irish pub as well. We went down it for kicks and those who knew the words started singing "Johnny Jump Up." Patrick and some of his SLO buddies have received and really like all of the Gaelic Storm stuff that I initially sent to Preston, and we've got quite a group of people who just like to sing for fun. We kinda died down as we entered the store and looked around. We found some great merchandise, though didn't get anything. Here's the great part. As we were exiting the store and making our way back up the ally, we heard someone say "Can you sing again?" There was this group of what looked like semi-goths, all decked out with black hair and designer sunglasses, all of whom were looking intensely interested in us. Every obliging, we immediately broke out again into a spirited round of "Johnny Jump Up" and sung our way out of the ally and up the street. We might have gotten some odd looks, but man did it feel good!
I won't waste too much time on our other trip to Benzinger Winery afterward. The tour was nice, and the guide was knowledgeable but ehh. As a corollary, Patrick said "This guy would probably not be giving tours if he wasn't getting paid." What was different was we got a tour through the fields and into the caves. Very neat visually.
Part two of the birthday was an evening of food, fun, and a sleepover. Made a quick stop back at Davis to grab some overnight junk and my Viola. Boy, I hadn't had a sleepover in ages! We were very fortunate to have Preston and Patrick's family as our gracious hosts. In addition to owing a roomy and beautiful house in Roseville, they made sure we were well taken care of. Food a-plenty, lots of sleeping space (and cushions) and even toiletries offered if needed. Fun Stuff!
Had a great big barbecue and played with Stripe, an old but rambunctious pup that liked his tennis balls. Started a round of Name that Tune (finally was on a winning team!), opened presents and socialized. Both Preston and Patrick received numerous wine bottle openers. Patrick even got a wine rack and an entire carton of different wines from the SLO crew. Preston got a fencing jacket and a sabre, and man is he ready for it! I promised Patrick I'd try to turn Preston from the Dark side, but it's not gonna be easy. How many saberists does it take to screw in a light bulb? Eight. Two to run screaming at each other, one to call halt, four to abstain from making any claims, and one to go get someone else to change the light bulb. (For those who want a more raunchier light bulb joke of that evening, How many Liberal Arts Majors does it take to screw in a light bulb? They don't screw in light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs!).
We played Name that Tune until Midnight, I unfortunately didn't get to string along on me instrument. We all pretty much were told "Here are some places to sleep. 'Night!" and left to our own devices, though there was definitely a strong suggestion to the "Goodnight!" that left no room for bunkum. We got ready for bed and crashed around 1.
I woke up around 9ish and took my shower, went downstairs and ate a hearty breakfast. We chatted and socialized a bit more before heading off to our respective universities. Not much of note there.
The only other point of conversation was our second IM Ultimate Frisbee game. We managed to improve: we lost only 9-5, which was darn good considering that we lost the first game 13-3. Now, you're probably wondering why the game stopped at 9, and funny about that. Evidently the teams aren't segregated by dorms (or even years) because we got some additions to our team, V from Nova, John from Malcom and our very own RA Gus. Man, did those guys earn their keep! Had an amazing dive catch from V that netted us a point, John was all over the place tossin' and catchin' with verve, and Gus proved himself a valuable asset even though he proclaimed that he "wasn't a very good thrower."
Here was the crux, however. There was a pretty tall dude from the other team that always went long, and I guess he was a little uptight, but Gus was covering him in defense. The both were running to catch a wayward toss, and both jumped to get it. There was a little jostling, as often happens in these games, but right afterward, the guy said something along the lines of "You fucking touch me again, I'll fucking (something or other, but not an idle threat)" to Gus, who immediately called for Time out. "Time out! This man threatened me!" I was far off, didn't hear the full exchange, and at first didn't think much of it. "Threatened? What the? What could have been so bad as to give Gus pause?"
After I heard about it, however, I instantly revised my opinion of the guy. The game was stopped as soon as the Ref. heard the story, and although they still won point-wise (viz the game), they got a Sportsmanship demerit, which carries more weight. So, say there were on the cusp of getting in the playoffs, 2-2. With the demerit, they stand little to no chance of making it against any other team that's 2-2 as well. While they may have won the fight, we shook them up point-wise, which may or may not have caused that guy to shoot himself in the foot. It was a moral victory if nothing else.
Thus my weekend has been. If Julia gets her rear in gear, I might watch a movie with her and Ikhlas. If not, I'll probably turn in early. I wouldn't mind the sleep to recover from this full weekend. And with No Latin tomorrow, I can sleep in for a long time. Wow! What a ride!
Enough. More Later.
- James
Wow! What a weekend! Where to begin?
I had a lovely time with M'Lady Friday evening, though it did get rather cold. Heavier jackets next time!
Saturday morning, I get up at 8am, shower and meet up with Toes to go to Cuarto. We met up with Tim and soon Preston's parents and the SLO folk. As what was appearing to be a trend, Preston was still sawin' logs when the prescribed time arrived. When he finally did get up, he was so surprised and out of it that he was bidding a happy birthday to everyone he met for lack of attention. What a way to begin a 21st B-day. It was all good.
We drove up to Napa/Sonoma and visited first the Buena Vista Winery. Very cool, quaint place in a glen with most of the old buildings intact. Had a very informative tour guide named Doug, who as Patrick pointed out, "Would probably still give tours even if they didn't pay him." Doug loved what he was doing and loved the entire subject. He studied Enology and Vitrinology (The former a branch of Chem. the latter one of Bio.) and was neck deep in information. Two things stuck with us, as he urged us to remember. One: There are two types of wine, good wine and bad wine. It's all about what you like. Nobody is wrong when it comes to judging it. Two: in most cases of wine merchants hawking their wares, you can always add an "..., or not" to anything sounding too much in one direction or the other. Once again, no-one is wrong when it comes to judging wine. Consequently, if you hear a "This vintage has a great, buttery after-taste and really tickles your tastebuds" (or other, better wine lingo, I didn't exactly memorize the wine adjectives) or something in the negative direction, chances are a ".., or not" can also clarify it. Good stuff.
We also got a great amount of tips for how to taste wine, ones that I'm not going to soon forget, far away though my 21st is. The whole swirling of the wine in the glass and the smelling of it isn't just visual bravado. First off, bad wine will smell different if swirled. That's point one. If you smell it, swirl it, smell it again and find a different smell, warning! Oh, and on an initial note, if you go wine tasting, if you drink a proportion of (2-1? 3-2?) water to wine, you can avoid much of the adverse effects of it. Also, when switching from one wine to another, 3 sips are needed to accurately judge the taste of the new sample. Rinse, calibrate and test. Back to the immediate tests, though.
Color plays a role. If you let light go through the glass and cast a colored shadow on, say, a napkin, you can tell quality by color. Generally, Doug said, good wines are Brick to Burgundy, however the heck you judge that. Or not! He also said he's had good wines darker/lighter than he mentioned, but it was a generality that was usually true. We left Buena Vista in high spirits.
We had lunch in Sonoma proper in the small central park. There was some errand Patrick had to go on, so we walked all around the surrounding shop fronts. There were numerous back allys with some great shops to be had. We found one that had not only an Irish store, but an Irish pub as well. We went down it for kicks and those who knew the words started singing "Johnny Jump Up." Patrick and some of his SLO buddies have received and really like all of the Gaelic Storm stuff that I initially sent to Preston, and we've got quite a group of people who just like to sing for fun. We kinda died down as we entered the store and looked around. We found some great merchandise, though didn't get anything. Here's the great part. As we were exiting the store and making our way back up the ally, we heard someone say "Can you sing again?" There was this group of what looked like semi-goths, all decked out with black hair and designer sunglasses, all of whom were looking intensely interested in us. Every obliging, we immediately broke out again into a spirited round of "Johnny Jump Up" and sung our way out of the ally and up the street. We might have gotten some odd looks, but man did it feel good!
I won't waste too much time on our other trip to Benzinger Winery afterward. The tour was nice, and the guide was knowledgeable but ehh. As a corollary, Patrick said "This guy would probably not be giving tours if he wasn't getting paid." What was different was we got a tour through the fields and into the caves. Very neat visually.
Part two of the birthday was an evening of food, fun, and a sleepover. Made a quick stop back at Davis to grab some overnight junk and my Viola. Boy, I hadn't had a sleepover in ages! We were very fortunate to have Preston and Patrick's family as our gracious hosts. In addition to owing a roomy and beautiful house in Roseville, they made sure we were well taken care of. Food a-plenty, lots of sleeping space (and cushions) and even toiletries offered if needed. Fun Stuff!
Had a great big barbecue and played with Stripe, an old but rambunctious pup that liked his tennis balls. Started a round of Name that Tune (finally was on a winning team!), opened presents and socialized. Both Preston and Patrick received numerous wine bottle openers. Patrick even got a wine rack and an entire carton of different wines from the SLO crew. Preston got a fencing jacket and a sabre, and man is he ready for it! I promised Patrick I'd try to turn Preston from the Dark side, but it's not gonna be easy. How many saberists does it take to screw in a light bulb? Eight. Two to run screaming at each other, one to call halt, four to abstain from making any claims, and one to go get someone else to change the light bulb. (For those who want a more raunchier light bulb joke of that evening, How many Liberal Arts Majors does it take to screw in a light bulb? They don't screw in light bulbs, they screw in hot tubs!).
We played Name that Tune until Midnight, I unfortunately didn't get to string along on me instrument. We all pretty much were told "Here are some places to sleep. 'Night!" and left to our own devices, though there was definitely a strong suggestion to the "Goodnight!" that left no room for bunkum. We got ready for bed and crashed around 1.
I woke up around 9ish and took my shower, went downstairs and ate a hearty breakfast. We chatted and socialized a bit more before heading off to our respective universities. Not much of note there.
The only other point of conversation was our second IM Ultimate Frisbee game. We managed to improve: we lost only 9-5, which was darn good considering that we lost the first game 13-3. Now, you're probably wondering why the game stopped at 9, and funny about that. Evidently the teams aren't segregated by dorms (or even years) because we got some additions to our team, V from Nova, John from Malcom and our very own RA Gus. Man, did those guys earn their keep! Had an amazing dive catch from V that netted us a point, John was all over the place tossin' and catchin' with verve, and Gus proved himself a valuable asset even though he proclaimed that he "wasn't a very good thrower."
Here was the crux, however. There was a pretty tall dude from the other team that always went long, and I guess he was a little uptight, but Gus was covering him in defense. The both were running to catch a wayward toss, and both jumped to get it. There was a little jostling, as often happens in these games, but right afterward, the guy said something along the lines of "You fucking touch me again, I'll fucking (something or other, but not an idle threat)" to Gus, who immediately called for Time out. "Time out! This man threatened me!" I was far off, didn't hear the full exchange, and at first didn't think much of it. "Threatened? What the? What could have been so bad as to give Gus pause?"
After I heard about it, however, I instantly revised my opinion of the guy. The game was stopped as soon as the Ref. heard the story, and although they still won point-wise (viz the game), they got a Sportsmanship demerit, which carries more weight. So, say there were on the cusp of getting in the playoffs, 2-2. With the demerit, they stand little to no chance of making it against any other team that's 2-2 as well. While they may have won the fight, we shook them up point-wise, which may or may not have caused that guy to shoot himself in the foot. It was a moral victory if nothing else.
Thus my weekend has been. If Julia gets her rear in gear, I might watch a movie with her and Ikhlas. If not, I'll probably turn in early. I wouldn't mind the sleep to recover from this full weekend. And with No Latin tomorrow, I can sleep in for a long time. Wow! What a ride!
Enough. More Later.
- James
Friday, April 22, 2005
Fridays are Good.
Greetings All.
Fairly uneventful Fencing last night, just honing those rough skills.
This weeks Latin quiz was ok, but there were a few things that tripped a lot of us up. Preston H. and I were scratching our heads over some of the Parsing and synopsis. Was it Progressus esset? it had to be, it's a deponent verb, there are never any active forms for those. Hooray for lazy Supine forms, Alright! Just Laying there!
Mel lent me her Fiddlers Fakebook, looks like it has some good stuff in there. More and more I see that there are standard reels/jigs/sets that appear everywhere and are known by the same name, which is both good and bad. Good: lots of variations to learn on the kick ass war horses that are staples of Fiddlers. Bad: not a whole lot of difference overall. I love comparing notes with Mel, because we're both communicating on the same level, if not the same skill. As Preston T. said, "You're just two halves of one big fiddlin', bow squeakin', musical talent."
Got the Ned Kelly soundtrack. More Klaus Badelt-y goodness. Some neat signature sounds from the composer, some Celtic feel, and some nice string solos. Now, the final track, "Remembering Ned Kelly," is a solo string playing the main theme, but what's driving me batty is I can't tell what string! A review of the soundtrack mentioned a Viola Solo, but then called the string in the final track a Violin. However, when I listened to it, it was in a low register, which made me think initially a Viola, but then I realized that Violin's can go quite low too. Gah! I so want it to be a Viola, but I need to be sure. I'll pass it by Mel and see what she has to say.
WTF!?!?! I got a 72% on my Psych midterm?!?! No freaking way! Yeah, I missed a few questions, but I missed 11 of em out of 40? Piss off! Now I have to take that goddamn final. Frikin-A.
That aside, tonight is going to be cool, because I finally get to spend some time with My Lady, and then the next day have a kick ass time (about which won't be mentioned here). Bring it on!
Enough. More Later.
- James
Fairly uneventful Fencing last night, just honing those rough skills.
This weeks Latin quiz was ok, but there were a few things that tripped a lot of us up. Preston H. and I were scratching our heads over some of the Parsing and synopsis. Was it Progressus esset? it had to be, it's a deponent verb, there are never any active forms for those. Hooray for lazy Supine forms, Alright! Just Laying there!
Mel lent me her Fiddlers Fakebook, looks like it has some good stuff in there. More and more I see that there are standard reels/jigs/sets that appear everywhere and are known by the same name, which is both good and bad. Good: lots of variations to learn on the kick ass war horses that are staples of Fiddlers. Bad: not a whole lot of difference overall. I love comparing notes with Mel, because we're both communicating on the same level, if not the same skill. As Preston T. said, "You're just two halves of one big fiddlin', bow squeakin', musical talent."
Got the Ned Kelly soundtrack. More Klaus Badelt-y goodness. Some neat signature sounds from the composer, some Celtic feel, and some nice string solos. Now, the final track, "Remembering Ned Kelly," is a solo string playing the main theme, but what's driving me batty is I can't tell what string! A review of the soundtrack mentioned a Viola Solo, but then called the string in the final track a Violin. However, when I listened to it, it was in a low register, which made me think initially a Viola, but then I realized that Violin's can go quite low too. Gah! I so want it to be a Viola, but I need to be sure. I'll pass it by Mel and see what she has to say.
WTF!?!?! I got a 72% on my Psych midterm?!?! No freaking way! Yeah, I missed a few questions, but I missed 11 of em out of 40? Piss off! Now I have to take that goddamn final. Frikin-A.
That aside, tonight is going to be cool, because I finally get to spend some time with My Lady, and then the next day have a kick ass time (about which won't be mentioned here). Bring it on!
Enough. More Later.
- James
Monday, April 18, 2005
Post! Post! Post!
(Currently in earphones: Schindler's List Main Theme. Comp: John Williams)
Greetings All. I suppose an update wouldn't go amiss.
Psych. Midterm went off without a hitch. Two or three questions on the specifics got me ("Robert got damaged in the Cerebellum. Which of these will he NOT be able to do?") but I think I did fine overall. Also got an A on last weeks Latin Quiz, Huzzah! Glad I was able to whack the heck out of it.
As I was leaving the Midterm, I heard someone call my name. I turned and, lo and behold, there was My Lady! We met and exchanged cordialities and chatted a bit, then parted, each having our own respective schedules. It felt good to run into her like that, thank goodness we'll have some time together on Friday. Though given that I now have an appointment on Saturday to make, I might not be able to stay the whole night with her. We can still meet early tho, so I'm not worried.
Broke down and ordered the Ned Kelly soundtrack (got it used for 15, score!). What I wanna know is, what the hell is Decca Music doing putting a crapload of info about the soundtrack on their website, evidently produced by them, yet not (a) release it in the US and (b) not sell it on their site?!!? Ahh well, Go Klaus Badelt!
I'm wonderin' if it's worth slogging through two Anthro textbooks that are essentially telling me the same info. I'm almost done with Don Johanson's Lucy and the Extinct Humans book is giving me all the same stuff. Yes, I've learned about Dart, Bloom, the Taung Baby and Africanus, what more is there? I have a hunch that I'm gonna need to wait for further chapters of Extinct Humans for new matters, however, so I'm not abandoning it. What's getting me is that, so far, there really hasn't been a whole lot of work for Anthro. I'm waiting for our Prof. to drop a research paper on us, and both Jon and I know it's comin'. I'd prefer it now to later, because now I know I have the time. It's on it's way, I know it!
You know you're a college student when it's 10:30pm and you're like, "Damnit! What am I gonna do with all the time between now and going to sleep?" Yay for hecka late classes in the mornings!
Oh, and it turns out its a full CALENDAR year that I have to be doing Foil. I was SO CLOSE to taking Epee lessons from Matt. I had an Epee in my hand, it was IN MY HAND, MAN! Then the ol' Rock went to check with TC and found out otherwise. Darn it all! And what burns me a bit is that both Mel and Sascha (who, granted, have been fencing longer than the rest of us novices) can both go on to new weapons. Mel is already deep into Saber and Sascha began Epee with Matt. Ahh well, at least Preston and the others are still doing Foil for lack of experience like myself. Still, I HAD IT IN MY HAND, I TELL YA!!!! Yeeesh.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Greetings All. I suppose an update wouldn't go amiss.
Psych. Midterm went off without a hitch. Two or three questions on the specifics got me ("Robert got damaged in the Cerebellum. Which of these will he NOT be able to do?") but I think I did fine overall. Also got an A on last weeks Latin Quiz, Huzzah! Glad I was able to whack the heck out of it.
As I was leaving the Midterm, I heard someone call my name. I turned and, lo and behold, there was My Lady! We met and exchanged cordialities and chatted a bit, then parted, each having our own respective schedules. It felt good to run into her like that, thank goodness we'll have some time together on Friday. Though given that I now have an appointment on Saturday to make, I might not be able to stay the whole night with her. We can still meet early tho, so I'm not worried.
Broke down and ordered the Ned Kelly soundtrack (got it used for 15, score!). What I wanna know is, what the hell is Decca Music doing putting a crapload of info about the soundtrack on their website, evidently produced by them, yet not (a) release it in the US and (b) not sell it on their site?!!? Ahh well, Go Klaus Badelt!
I'm wonderin' if it's worth slogging through two Anthro textbooks that are essentially telling me the same info. I'm almost done with Don Johanson's Lucy and the Extinct Humans book is giving me all the same stuff. Yes, I've learned about Dart, Bloom, the Taung Baby and Africanus, what more is there? I have a hunch that I'm gonna need to wait for further chapters of Extinct Humans for new matters, however, so I'm not abandoning it. What's getting me is that, so far, there really hasn't been a whole lot of work for Anthro. I'm waiting for our Prof. to drop a research paper on us, and both Jon and I know it's comin'. I'd prefer it now to later, because now I know I have the time. It's on it's way, I know it!
You know you're a college student when it's 10:30pm and you're like, "Damnit! What am I gonna do with all the time between now and going to sleep?" Yay for hecka late classes in the mornings!
Oh, and it turns out its a full CALENDAR year that I have to be doing Foil. I was SO CLOSE to taking Epee lessons from Matt. I had an Epee in my hand, it was IN MY HAND, MAN! Then the ol' Rock went to check with TC and found out otherwise. Darn it all! And what burns me a bit is that both Mel and Sascha (who, granted, have been fencing longer than the rest of us novices) can both go on to new weapons. Mel is already deep into Saber and Sascha began Epee with Matt. Ahh well, at least Preston and the others are still doing Foil for lack of experience like myself. Still, I HAD IT IN MY HAND, I TELL YA!!!! Yeeesh.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Picnic Day: Afternoon
Hello All.
First off, I can do my laundry whenever I damn well please! If you wanna go goof off at Picnic Day, be my guest, but don't whine at me when you see me being productive and lugging laundry around. At least I wont be caught Sunday night with no clean clothes to wear, ya lousy oafs. Sheesh.
Marched in the parade with the Fencers: it was AWESOME. Whenever we had a brief stop TC would have us salute the spectators, our opponents, and fence! It was a real crowd pleaser, especially with the frats and sorors. Loud, raucous yells of "GET HIM, STAB HIM!" and "FIGHT, FIGHT!!" were embraced and absorbed, and I found myself getting a boost from them instead of feeling disgust at the crudeness of the "greeks." This is how ya fight, ya tottery wineskins! This is REAL Swordplay! We managed to get applause pretty much every time we stopped and fenced. I only wish I had some water with me at the time and it was longer, that was a sweet experience.
Watched "The Duellists" with a smattering of fencers last night, and M'Lady. I'm glad people enjoyed the movie, I was worried it wouldn't go over so well. Speaking of fencing movies, TC was talking about a line in Cyrano de Bergerac that he preferred from a specific translator (that I didn't catch). Something along the lines of "I am too big for mortal men! GIVE ME GIANTS!" which was then picked up and mangled by the rest of us for that practice, today and surely into the future. My slip was (having only seen the one version) mentioning the Depardeau version of Cyrano, to which TC replied with a rousing "HELL NO!" Damn, I guess being somewhat entertaining and having William Hobbs as fight choreographer on the list things going for it wasn't enough. TC's reasons why it sucked: "One, it's got Gerard Depardeau in it. Two, it's in French. And Three, it's the [I don't remember the name] translation." Now I need to find the version TC approves of, One: Because it's TC. Two, because he's got good taste in movies. And Three, it's the [blank again] translation. Huzzah!
Hopefully I can spend more time alone with M'Lady tonight, I felt rather short changed last night when we had to part early. Perhaps I can make it up tonight.
UPDATE:
Blarg. I dunno. Name that Tune with Preston and Crew was fun and all, we had some good laughs and some great music, and it was generally good all around. But.....urf. I wish I had some more time with My Lady....Maybe some insta-karma from being rather aloof when she had to cancel a previous meeting, I dunno. Is it wrong to feel such regret?
Enough. More Later.
- James
First off, I can do my laundry whenever I damn well please! If you wanna go goof off at Picnic Day, be my guest, but don't whine at me when you see me being productive and lugging laundry around. At least I wont be caught Sunday night with no clean clothes to wear, ya lousy oafs. Sheesh.
Marched in the parade with the Fencers: it was AWESOME. Whenever we had a brief stop TC would have us salute the spectators, our opponents, and fence! It was a real crowd pleaser, especially with the frats and sorors. Loud, raucous yells of "GET HIM, STAB HIM!" and "FIGHT, FIGHT!!" were embraced and absorbed, and I found myself getting a boost from them instead of feeling disgust at the crudeness of the "greeks." This is how ya fight, ya tottery wineskins! This is REAL Swordplay! We managed to get applause pretty much every time we stopped and fenced. I only wish I had some water with me at the time and it was longer, that was a sweet experience.
Watched "The Duellists" with a smattering of fencers last night, and M'Lady. I'm glad people enjoyed the movie, I was worried it wouldn't go over so well. Speaking of fencing movies, TC was talking about a line in Cyrano de Bergerac that he preferred from a specific translator (that I didn't catch). Something along the lines of "I am too big for mortal men! GIVE ME GIANTS!" which was then picked up and mangled by the rest of us for that practice, today and surely into the future. My slip was (having only seen the one version) mentioning the Depardeau version of Cyrano, to which TC replied with a rousing "HELL NO!" Damn, I guess being somewhat entertaining and having William Hobbs as fight choreographer on the list things going for it wasn't enough. TC's reasons why it sucked: "One, it's got Gerard Depardeau in it. Two, it's in French. And Three, it's the [I don't remember the name] translation." Now I need to find the version TC approves of, One: Because it's TC. Two, because he's got good taste in movies. And Three, it's the [blank again] translation. Huzzah!
Hopefully I can spend more time alone with M'Lady tonight, I felt rather short changed last night when we had to part early. Perhaps I can make it up tonight.
UPDATE:
Blarg. I dunno. Name that Tune with Preston and Crew was fun and all, we had some good laughs and some great music, and it was generally good all around. But.....urf. I wish I had some more time with My Lady....Maybe some insta-karma from being rather aloof when she had to cancel a previous meeting, I dunno. Is it wrong to feel such regret?
Enough. More Later.
- James
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Of Blades, Music, and DVD's
Hello All. Feeling a bit back to my usual self.
First, fencing (which seems to be a big topic now). Last Tuesday's practice was both really bad and really good. I started out in a real deep funk, somehow feeling like my lack of progression was all my fault for no reason whatsoever. I was in a real, "Oh, yeah? Well I'll show them! ::GRRRRRRRR SNARRRRRRL SEEEEEEEEEEEETH::" mood. However, as soon as I got fencing, I gradually got better. "Hey! I CAN score touches! I CAN execute fairly complicated moves! I CAN somewhat fence!" After sewing my remaining shreds of dignity into a somewhat usable cap, it cooled off my hot head fairly well. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, where I can break out with the Epee. Score!
In musical news, I made the decision to put my private lesson and Baroque ensemble back to back. Tonight it turned out well. In my lesson I tried working a bit on Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata and was advised by my tutor to go for something else (or stick with the Sonata, it is my choice). I'll play around (seriously) with that and another prospect and see which is better. We've got some good stuff in Baroque. Another Bach Cantata (can't seem to get away from those) and amazingly, a Concerto Grosso by Corelli that I somehow have played before somewhere. Odd stuff. There will now be not 1, not 2, but 3 things for us to do this quarter. In addition to our noon concert (in which, I think, we'll be doing "Ich Habe Genug" again) we have two recitals to play (one with another Cantata, which I enjoy more than the previously mentioned). More dates and info later.
Been trying to secure a DVD player and the Lounge of my building for a Movie with the fencers Fri. Night. Ferdinando, the guy with the "easy" DVD player (read, gets passed around like a cheap French whore, excuse the misogyny and blame Matt Rock) is fine with it, but now I need to ask the usual Friday night movie goers in my dorm if THEY have plans. Oy.
I fade....I need the touch of M'Lady to restore me. Can I hold until this weekend? Days seem eternities....I will prevail. I am stronger than that.
Apologies, reader. I fear I bore you when I wax sickeningly poetic like that. I'll endeavor to keep that to a minimum. Crud, I just realized I need to study Latin Vocab. Awayyyyyy!
Enough. More Later.
- James
First, fencing (which seems to be a big topic now). Last Tuesday's practice was both really bad and really good. I started out in a real deep funk, somehow feeling like my lack of progression was all my fault for no reason whatsoever. I was in a real, "Oh, yeah? Well I'll show them! ::GRRRRRRRR SNARRRRRRL SEEEEEEEEEEEETH::" mood. However, as soon as I got fencing, I gradually got better. "Hey! I CAN score touches! I CAN execute fairly complicated moves! I CAN somewhat fence!" After sewing my remaining shreds of dignity into a somewhat usable cap, it cooled off my hot head fairly well. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, where I can break out with the Epee. Score!
In musical news, I made the decision to put my private lesson and Baroque ensemble back to back. Tonight it turned out well. In my lesson I tried working a bit on Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata and was advised by my tutor to go for something else (or stick with the Sonata, it is my choice). I'll play around (seriously) with that and another prospect and see which is better. We've got some good stuff in Baroque. Another Bach Cantata (can't seem to get away from those) and amazingly, a Concerto Grosso by Corelli that I somehow have played before somewhere. Odd stuff. There will now be not 1, not 2, but 3 things for us to do this quarter. In addition to our noon concert (in which, I think, we'll be doing "Ich Habe Genug" again) we have two recitals to play (one with another Cantata, which I enjoy more than the previously mentioned). More dates and info later.
Been trying to secure a DVD player and the Lounge of my building for a Movie with the fencers Fri. Night. Ferdinando, the guy with the "easy" DVD player (read, gets passed around like a cheap French whore, excuse the misogyny and blame Matt Rock) is fine with it, but now I need to ask the usual Friday night movie goers in my dorm if THEY have plans. Oy.
I fade....I need the touch of M'Lady to restore me. Can I hold until this weekend? Days seem eternities....I will prevail. I am stronger than that.
Apologies, reader. I fear I bore you when I wax sickeningly poetic like that. I'll endeavor to keep that to a minimum. Crud, I just realized I need to study Latin Vocab. Awayyyyyy!
Enough. More Later.
- James
Monday, April 11, 2005
My Sword misses it's target, amidst other things.
I suppose I should do an update then.
Here goes.
Went to the Tourney on Saturday. It was better than Berk, but not nearly as fun, for some odd reason, as Cal Poly. I still felt that damn funk from not doing as well as I'd hoped. Frikin-A! It would have at least been nice to have WON a bout. I came damn close, two of my first 4 got to La Belle (That's a tie for last point, for you non fencing types) and I only got handed a doughnut once. I guess I was spoilt after making out 2-3 in the first pools at Cal Poly. Now, I did get 1-4 at Berk in the first pools, but the one victory was against a guy obviously not too good (he only did one thing..ATTACK). I really don't know what it is. On one hand, it's like I don't like the competitive atmosphere. Most everyone of the people I meet and fence are jolly good fellows (and lasses), but there's this taint that permeates me whenever I walk away with a loss. Yeeech. And yet on the other hand, it's like, well, I'd like to win at least 1 or two bouts, ya know? Walking away with a smattering of points is ok, but still! I guess I'll just have to work harder.
Got to talk a bit more with Colin of CPSLO, very neat guy, and gave me some pointers as well.
Went to Woodstocks afterward and chatted it up with the Gemini Preston and Patrick (The latter I introduced myself to, he's got some qualities I like a bit better than Preston, namely: he is an Epeeist and knows that Epeeists rule). It was interesting though, like having a slightly different version of our own PNT but equally cool. Also chatted with most all the fencers both at the tourney and at Woodstocks after. Stuck pretty much with Preston, Sascha, Mel, Frieda, Toes, Matt, Cody, Nam and the crew. Went to Cuarto at midnight with Preston, Patrick, Sascha, Mel and a few others to soak our weary bodies in the hot tub. Good stuff. Conked out afterwards.
Sunday, did my reading, lounged about, watched Predator 2 with Toes, and most unfortunately, had to cancel my visit with My Lady. As right as it was for her to get her homework done and buckle down, it still was a letdown. Sometimes the right thing to do doesn't feel that way. I have little hope for anything with her before this weekend, namely because of my schedual. Hopefully she'll be able to make it to a little evening Soiree that Preston has planned on Saturday. ::sigh::
I really should do a Viola Practice. In fact, lemme do it right now.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Here goes.
Went to the Tourney on Saturday. It was better than Berk, but not nearly as fun, for some odd reason, as Cal Poly. I still felt that damn funk from not doing as well as I'd hoped. Frikin-A! It would have at least been nice to have WON a bout. I came damn close, two of my first 4 got to La Belle (That's a tie for last point, for you non fencing types) and I only got handed a doughnut once. I guess I was spoilt after making out 2-3 in the first pools at Cal Poly. Now, I did get 1-4 at Berk in the first pools, but the one victory was against a guy obviously not too good (he only did one thing..ATTACK). I really don't know what it is. On one hand, it's like I don't like the competitive atmosphere. Most everyone of the people I meet and fence are jolly good fellows (and lasses), but there's this taint that permeates me whenever I walk away with a loss. Yeeech. And yet on the other hand, it's like, well, I'd like to win at least 1 or two bouts, ya know? Walking away with a smattering of points is ok, but still! I guess I'll just have to work harder.
Got to talk a bit more with Colin of CPSLO, very neat guy, and gave me some pointers as well.
Went to Woodstocks afterward and chatted it up with the Gemini Preston and Patrick (The latter I introduced myself to, he's got some qualities I like a bit better than Preston, namely: he is an Epeeist and knows that Epeeists rule). It was interesting though, like having a slightly different version of our own PNT but equally cool. Also chatted with most all the fencers both at the tourney and at Woodstocks after. Stuck pretty much with Preston, Sascha, Mel, Frieda, Toes, Matt, Cody, Nam and the crew. Went to Cuarto at midnight with Preston, Patrick, Sascha, Mel and a few others to soak our weary bodies in the hot tub. Good stuff. Conked out afterwards.
Sunday, did my reading, lounged about, watched Predator 2 with Toes, and most unfortunately, had to cancel my visit with My Lady. As right as it was for her to get her homework done and buckle down, it still was a letdown. Sometimes the right thing to do doesn't feel that way. I have little hope for anything with her before this weekend, namely because of my schedual. Hopefully she'll be able to make it to a little evening Soiree that Preston has planned on Saturday. ::sigh::
I really should do a Viola Practice. In fact, lemme do it right now.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Friday, April 08, 2005
Stop Chill-axin and start upgradin'!
Hello All.
Ceeeeripes! I had an annoying night. Popped awake at 3:15 AM with my head reeling. Not a headache, but it felt like my brain was doing the whole memory waltz of transferring short term memory of the previous day into my long term memory, but I was awake while it was happening. It rendered the phrase "SHUT UP, BRAIN! Or I'll Stab you with a Q-tip!" frighteningly applicable. I took some benadryl and went to lay down in the lounge for a bit. After I calmed slightly, I went and veeeeerry sloooooowly dropped back to sleep. Only problem then was I overslept and had to skip out on a good amount of my morning routine before running off to take my Latin quiz (Which I beat the crap out of, luckily).
No more classes for the day! JOY-GASM! But damned if I still have stuff to do. Haircut, Laundry, and set up for tomorrows Fencing Tourney. Since I'm done with my Latin HW, I can pretty much relax, and that's just what I'm gonna do: Chill-ax (credit to Will and Al of the 1st floor for explandin' my vernacular vocabulary...(Playing WCIII, Will:"Oh hell, it's Bill Kazmeier! Kill him, Al! ::dies:: hella gayz0r!")
OMG, Klaus Badelt's soundtrack for Ned Kelley sounds both Celtic/Irish AND features VIOLA SOLOS?!?!?!? I'M SOLD!!!!!!
Hope I do ok in the Davis Tourney. I hate being slow to warm up: I always seem to get doughnut-ed my first few bouts before I even start to feel ready. Ahhh well, Everyone come watch!
Enough. More Later.
- James
Ceeeeripes! I had an annoying night. Popped awake at 3:15 AM with my head reeling. Not a headache, but it felt like my brain was doing the whole memory waltz of transferring short term memory of the previous day into my long term memory, but I was awake while it was happening. It rendered the phrase "SHUT UP, BRAIN! Or I'll Stab you with a Q-tip!" frighteningly applicable. I took some benadryl and went to lay down in the lounge for a bit. After I calmed slightly, I went and veeeeerry sloooooowly dropped back to sleep. Only problem then was I overslept and had to skip out on a good amount of my morning routine before running off to take my Latin quiz (Which I beat the crap out of, luckily).
No more classes for the day! JOY-GASM! But damned if I still have stuff to do. Haircut, Laundry, and set up for tomorrows Fencing Tourney. Since I'm done with my Latin HW, I can pretty much relax, and that's just what I'm gonna do: Chill-ax (credit to Will and Al of the 1st floor for explandin' my vernacular vocabulary...(Playing WCIII, Will:"Oh hell, it's Bill Kazmeier! Kill him, Al! ::dies:: hella gayz0r!")
OMG, Klaus Badelt's soundtrack for Ned Kelley sounds both Celtic/Irish AND features VIOLA SOLOS?!?!?!? I'M SOLD!!!!!!
Hope I do ok in the Davis Tourney. I hate being slow to warm up: I always seem to get doughnut-ed my first few bouts before I even start to feel ready. Ahhh well, Everyone come watch!
Enough. More Later.
- James
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Frisbee. Fun and Annoying, what a Recipe
Greetings All.
What's on my mind is just how I can somehow get more beaten up doing something as benign as tossing a Frisbee about than fencing, where someone is actively attacking me. My list of Frisbee Accidents so far...
- Scrape on my knee after almost doing the splits while slipping on a piece of grass, falling backwards a ratcheting my back knee across some concrete.
- Body blow from colliding with my buddy Brian. He's always one that goes all out for a throw, and he and Troy had a pretty big collision last night. Luckily when Brian and I fell over each other, the grass helped in reducing the damage. I only got some minor abrasions on my knees.
- Major bruise on my ring finger from crushing it under my body and blow to my right shoulder. Tried to keep my balance while laying out for a wayward throw, ended up tripping and my momentum carrying me into a shoulder-dive right into a small concrete partition of one of the dorm bike-rack areas. That one's gonna be with me for a while.
- Bits of skin taken out of my index and middle fingers. Got my timing down on my throws, so I can pretty much do any type of one by flinging my arm out and letting the disc shoot out from my hand. What I didn't figure as I did this over and over was the damage a chewed up edge of the Frisbee, my probably-not-the-best-way grip, and the way I was releasing the disc was doing to my hand.
Owwwie.
What the heck is up with that? Every time I get hurt, I always worry that it's gonna impede my fencing, and I worry about the Tourney that's coming up here in Davis on Saturday (the 9th) in Hicky Gym (HINT HINT ALL). But then the next day I'm only feeling minor discomfort and forget about it, and soon I'm out again tossing the Frisbee about when I have nothing to do. It just seems to be this week that I've been getting banged around; I was tossin' that ol' disc about before break with no injury, so I'm guessing...Well, I don't know. I'll just try to be more careful.
Anthro looks like a whole lotta fun. I hope today's lecture will confirm it.
Damn, I gotta do my Psych reading, eat some lunch, maybe put in a call to the 'rents, read some more of the Anthro book, practice my Viola (I wonder when William will confirm the days the practice rooms are open?) and at the end of it all go fence. Whew!
::UPDATE::
I'm on a roll! Was fencing with Preston: through some product of flailing blades, I managed a parry in 6, but not quite. His tip got caught on my guard, stuck, then released, snapping down on my pinky finger. I now have a gi-normous blood blister right on the cuticle. I must give him credit, it was a strong blow and yet didn't break the skin. All I need now is to get injured on my thumb and that'll make all the fingers on my right hand. Oy!
Enough. More Later.
- James
What's on my mind is just how I can somehow get more beaten up doing something as benign as tossing a Frisbee about than fencing, where someone is actively attacking me. My list of Frisbee Accidents so far...
- Scrape on my knee after almost doing the splits while slipping on a piece of grass, falling backwards a ratcheting my back knee across some concrete.
- Body blow from colliding with my buddy Brian. He's always one that goes all out for a throw, and he and Troy had a pretty big collision last night. Luckily when Brian and I fell over each other, the grass helped in reducing the damage. I only got some minor abrasions on my knees.
- Major bruise on my ring finger from crushing it under my body and blow to my right shoulder. Tried to keep my balance while laying out for a wayward throw, ended up tripping and my momentum carrying me into a shoulder-dive right into a small concrete partition of one of the dorm bike-rack areas. That one's gonna be with me for a while.
- Bits of skin taken out of my index and middle fingers. Got my timing down on my throws, so I can pretty much do any type of one by flinging my arm out and letting the disc shoot out from my hand. What I didn't figure as I did this over and over was the damage a chewed up edge of the Frisbee, my probably-not-the-best-way grip, and the way I was releasing the disc was doing to my hand.
Owwwie.
What the heck is up with that? Every time I get hurt, I always worry that it's gonna impede my fencing, and I worry about the Tourney that's coming up here in Davis on Saturday (the 9th) in Hicky Gym (HINT HINT ALL). But then the next day I'm only feeling minor discomfort and forget about it, and soon I'm out again tossing the Frisbee about when I have nothing to do. It just seems to be this week that I've been getting banged around; I was tossin' that ol' disc about before break with no injury, so I'm guessing...Well, I don't know. I'll just try to be more careful.
Anthro looks like a whole lotta fun. I hope today's lecture will confirm it.
Damn, I gotta do my Psych reading, eat some lunch, maybe put in a call to the 'rents, read some more of the Anthro book, practice my Viola (I wonder when William will confirm the days the practice rooms are open?) and at the end of it all go fence. Whew!
::UPDATE::
I'm on a roll! Was fencing with Preston: through some product of flailing blades, I managed a parry in 6, but not quite. His tip got caught on my guard, stuck, then released, snapping down on my pinky finger. I now have a gi-normous blood blister right on the cuticle. I must give him credit, it was a strong blow and yet didn't break the skin. All I need now is to get injured on my thumb and that'll make all the fingers on my right hand. Oy!
Enough. More Later.
- James
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Hey! Wasn't I just here?
Hello all, might as well put up another post.
I hope Anthro 1 is gonna be good, I've got it with a good friend of mine, a Mr. Jon Helm. He's an awesome guy, and although the Prof. explains quickly and somewhat flatly, I'm diggin' the subject material.
I have no idea what Psych is gonna be like. I read the first module in the textbook, which was rather general, as you can imagine. I also need to be a guinea pig for psych experiments to get credit and ultimately pass the class. I've been advised to sign up early and get those out of the way. Come Monday, when the online regs open, I'll be at my comp guaranteed.
Latin 3, more of the same. Though a bunch of us (luckily, I thought I was gonna be the only one) realized we needed to go over a good amount of stuff we barely covered at the end of Latin 2. Yeeeesh, I don't like having to run to catch up, but it looks like that's gonna have to be the case.
I tell ya though, it's nice to only have one class on Fridays. I'm finished after lunch, which gives me plenty of time to either get HW out of the way or just veg. I'm diggin' it.
Had another nice night out with My Lady last night. Poor lady, she's caught between a rock and a hard place. Though she still has the chance to appeal her rather abysmal math grades and get back into the Engineering saddle (ugh, I'm not too fond myself of their regimented schedule) she's worried about how her family is going to react. Let's just say they're not in the best position to be taking such news, correctable though it is.
I can only hold her and be with her, trusting in her strength of mind, spirit, and will to get her through. I wish I could do more, but alas, I can only stand and watch. I love her very much.
Enough. More Later.
- James
I hope Anthro 1 is gonna be good, I've got it with a good friend of mine, a Mr. Jon Helm. He's an awesome guy, and although the Prof. explains quickly and somewhat flatly, I'm diggin' the subject material.
I have no idea what Psych is gonna be like. I read the first module in the textbook, which was rather general, as you can imagine. I also need to be a guinea pig for psych experiments to get credit and ultimately pass the class. I've been advised to sign up early and get those out of the way. Come Monday, when the online regs open, I'll be at my comp guaranteed.
Latin 3, more of the same. Though a bunch of us (luckily, I thought I was gonna be the only one) realized we needed to go over a good amount of stuff we barely covered at the end of Latin 2. Yeeeesh, I don't like having to run to catch up, but it looks like that's gonna have to be the case.
I tell ya though, it's nice to only have one class on Fridays. I'm finished after lunch, which gives me plenty of time to either get HW out of the way or just veg. I'm diggin' it.
Had another nice night out with My Lady last night. Poor lady, she's caught between a rock and a hard place. Though she still has the chance to appeal her rather abysmal math grades and get back into the Engineering saddle (ugh, I'm not too fond myself of their regimented schedule) she's worried about how her family is going to react. Let's just say they're not in the best position to be taking such news, correctable though it is.
I can only hold her and be with her, trusting in her strength of mind, spirit, and will to get her through. I wish I could do more, but alas, I can only stand and watch. I love her very much.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Foo+Bar = ...Well? Whaddya think?
Greetings all.
Night before classes, and everyone's doing something, 'cept me. Yeeesh.
Had a grand ol' time in the City. Toes and I went all over the place. He's now all official with his own knickers, jacket and glove and should cut a fine figure, if not perfect fencing, at the salle. Broke down at Virgin and bought a copy of the newest "The Count of Monte Cristo" (Go William Hobbs!) and the later Concerti Grossi of Corelli. For some odd reason, they switched the sections around again and, by some twist of fate, stuck the Porno/Gay/Lesbian DVDs where the Soundtracks used to be. "I wonder if they have the new...OH DEAR CHRIST!"
Came back to Davis without a hitch, though managed to once again forget a few things. Nothing a quick pop in the post can't fix though, I'm not worried.
Practiced some Frisbee-ing about with my other dorm buddies, hopefully we'll be good enough for ultimate Frisbee IM's when they roll around. All I know is I like tossin' the old disc around. Hopefully we'll get one of those lighted ones so we can continue practicing on into the night when we have the time.
Wish I could talk to My Lady a bit more, last time I chatted she was in a right old funk after an altercation with her family. Yeah, I kinda figured "fight" even though she said "discussion" (ahh, how revealing blogs are...I like monkeys....I was a Martian in my past life.....Wait, are you still reading this?) I was hoping to maybe see her in the flesh (sick minds turn off now), but, like most of my on-the-fly decisions, it fell through when I waited too long and saw that she was off watching movies. Damn.
Ahh well, there's always this weekend.
One more trip 'round the dorm to see what others are doing, and if nothing, holing up with the ol' Lappy to watch a movie by my lonesome. Feh.
Enough. More Later.
- James
Night before classes, and everyone's doing something, 'cept me. Yeeesh.
Had a grand ol' time in the City. Toes and I went all over the place. He's now all official with his own knickers, jacket and glove and should cut a fine figure, if not perfect fencing, at the salle. Broke down at Virgin and bought a copy of the newest "The Count of Monte Cristo" (Go William Hobbs!) and the later Concerti Grossi of Corelli. For some odd reason, they switched the sections around again and, by some twist of fate, stuck the Porno/Gay/Lesbian DVDs where the Soundtracks used to be. "I wonder if they have the new...OH DEAR CHRIST!"
Came back to Davis without a hitch, though managed to once again forget a few things. Nothing a quick pop in the post can't fix though, I'm not worried.
Practiced some Frisbee-ing about with my other dorm buddies, hopefully we'll be good enough for ultimate Frisbee IM's when they roll around. All I know is I like tossin' the old disc around. Hopefully we'll get one of those lighted ones so we can continue practicing on into the night when we have the time.
Wish I could talk to My Lady a bit more, last time I chatted she was in a right old funk after an altercation with her family. Yeah, I kinda figured "fight" even though she said "discussion" (ahh, how revealing blogs are...I like monkeys....I was a Martian in my past life.....Wait, are you still reading this?) I was hoping to maybe see her in the flesh (sick minds turn off now), but, like most of my on-the-fly decisions, it fell through when I waited too long and saw that she was off watching movies. Damn.
Ahh well, there's always this weekend.
One more trip 'round the dorm to see what others are doing, and if nothing, holing up with the ol' Lappy to watch a movie by my lonesome. Feh.
Enough. More Later.
- James
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