…and the lack thereof. My ability to fly away is what triggered the dreams, or maybe it was the other way around? At least Patrick Swayze helped me get back to safety during the freak sandstorm.
Garbage trucks come each Monday at around 5:45 AM. This is the second week I've noticed.
21 pages over the 50 page quota. All free. I loved every page that came out.
And I feel sorry for people who strictly follow crosswalk signals. Low traffic, cross-traffic stopped by a red light, and he's still waiting for the ‘Do Not Walk’ sign to change? (I cross in the meantime and he stares at me as if I'm some sort of rebel.) Here are some thoughts:
Advanced techniques and insights, such as waiting in the middle of the road, are learned more through instinct, and trial without error. Keep a weary eye, but don't be a slave to the signal.
I wanted to make buffalo wings from scratch, so I cut up some pre-killed chickens, frying around 10 wings and drumsticks. This wasn't enough for everyone, so I asked Andrew to get more for me (I couldn't leave the chickens unattended).
He returned with several more but starting making his own version, doing something prior to frying that was supposed to help the taste; he said he should be a chef. I thought he was being crazy. Andrew was so tall that even though he was resting on his knees in front of the stove, his head was a couple of feet over the fryer. And I couldn't figure out whether blue cheese dressing and tabasco was a good enough mixture to coat the wings in.
The kitchen was a small rectangular space carved out of a long square brick wall, on a piece of land surrounded by a canal; I didn't know what the walls contained inside. The walkway around the wall was a bit narrow. The canal was roughly 10 feet wide, with murky, swampy water and occasional trees growing from the sides, separating other island areas.
I jumped across the canal fairly easily but was always afraid to fall into the water, or even get my feet in (being barefoot, I didn't want snakes and insects biting my feet or risk catching a water-borne disease).
Moving backwards in time, I came from an attic – in a house a bit south of the kitchen – after checking my directory entry. The @Home servers cached data from so many months ago, so for a while I kept seeing my old info before figuring out how to get new data into the browser. And then I thought of telling Ryan that cable modems suck.
Backwards still, in the basement of this house, I was invisible and in an episode of The Pretender: Jarod was protecting some woman from an unknown man making death threats. He had to leave for a few minutes but was worried about this woman; she told him not to worry.
The camera zoomed in close a the door handle, and this woman slowly reached for it. Slowly turned it. Slowly opened the door to darkness and rain and flashes of lightening. Instead of the evil man appearing and dragging her away, she blew a whistle three times then quickly closed the door. Footsteps began falling onto the floors above, along with murmuring voices and flushing toilets.
Within a couple of minutes, several linebacker-sized men lined up around the woman. She apparently had a team of bodyguards living in-house.
I think the guards were just football players. They were still dressed in practice gear.
On the south side of Mumford Hall is a line of lightposts; the most westward one, closest to the payphone (but not behind it), is special. If you walk about 1/3 the way up the diagonal sidewalk and stare at this lightpost at night, you'll see that it's set in the middle of the tree behind it. It glows. It has a heart of sorts. It's neat.
And since I no longer trust my Elph in low light, I drew a rough rendition of it:
The sprinklers were on when I passed the quad, and I had this urge to get soaked. So I stood under them for a few minutes, just enough to get slight chills. Then I walked home with my glasses off (because I didn't want to look too dumb wearing lenses covered in water droplets), and all the lights more than ten feet away looked like floating, glowing, fuzzy balls.
Walk around campus at night. There's so much to see and do without really seeing or doing much.
Hieroglyphics changed their site design. It probably happened several weeks ago, because I haven't been there in a while. I think the old design was better. It was cuter at least.
I guess they needed a change after 4ish years of the same design.
I've spent a few hours the past two days sitting on the quad. Even packed a lunch today, the first time on campus. I just wish it was possible to keep this weather forever. It's so pleasant out there.
And I'm getting more comfortable with the shaved head. I want to keep it shaved a while longer, but the thing I worried about before resurfaced:
me: i shaved my head sunday
bro: what>
bro: why?
me: eh
me: just because
me: i wanted to see how it looked
bro: oh
bro: don't tell mom
me: yeah, i know
School also sucks, etc.. I want to disappear for a year or two.
Here's some reasoning:
Good omens and logic led to an experiment last night:
I now have the 7–10 AM slots on Mondays for Studio B of the Experimental Music Studio. I can't wait to start creating things. The gear looks so fun to play with. (But with much responsibility, of course, since the university gives $0 each year to keep things running. Yes, $0. It's run off of love, and grants.)
If you had a fighting fish, what would you name it? Some pre-thought-ups are:
Penelope, Tank, Archimedes, and kARRl mARRx
Write-ins are welcome and encouraged.
I get annoyed when people at stop lights start to move their car so that their rear wheels are past the stopline while the light is still red! Why don't they just run the damn light?
Jackasses.
I have two common problems with my feet. The first, and most universal, is that I tend to drag them when I walk. It's nothing like Keyser Sose, but it is a source of minor trips and stumbles. The second, and most specific to my urban Skecher boots, is that my socks always fall down my leg and well past my ankles; one could see the gap between my pants and shoes and think, ‘He's not wearing socks!’ (the boots are half a size too big, mind you).
Well, today I decided to do something different: I made a conscious effort to slightly raise my knees more. This resulted in more of a bend in the knees, an added emphasis on my balls (of the feet), and an overall decrease in foot dragging.
I had no incidents of falling socks to and from class this morning. This is enlightenment.
Despite a seemingly simple Tiramisu cake recipe, you'll never get it right the first time. Klara and I learned this the hard way: you can't make whipping cream rise with a fork.
It's still sweet and edible. Just not…pretty.
An interactive R2-D2 droid. Do you remember…Episode I?
There was a lanky man with a red shirt, sunglasses, and a hat standing by the quad. He was standing next to a tabletop full of newsprints and pamphlets chanting the evils of imperialism and the US, among other issues. He was, in short, selling subscriptions for a socialist newspaper.
While I agree with these views, I tend to shy away from showing interest in these people. Maybe it's out of embarassment, being seen in public with ‘activists’ that have little or no pull in policymaking. And besides, I don't want to be politically involved in the bedroom of some run-down apartment, writing manifestos with candlelight and no running water.
Today was a bit different, though. I walked out to the quad hoping to find a nice spot to study; there were too many people, so I decided to go to Espresso Royale. But as I walked closer to this guy I was curious about the contents of the paper, and I thought I could get a free copy.
The guy introduced himself as Dan, and we chatted for a few minutes. He asked whether I was interested in revolutionary politics, what were my views on Iraq and Israel, and then briefly explained what the group does. (They are the International Communist League, Fourth Internationalist, I think. That's the address he gave me.)
So as the sweat started to form around different parts of my body from standing in direct sunlight, I bid him farewell, having spent $10 on a one-year monthly subscription to Workers Vanguard, and three pamphlets from Spartacist Publishing Co. (subjects include imperialism, ‘Black history and the class struggle’, and a Trotskyist critique). It'll be a few days before I actually get around to reading these things.
More importantly, I hope it was worth it. I forfeited two mochas from Starbucks or a clearance item from Gap to potentially enlighten the leftist within.
Autumn first appeared today, and I sat on the quad to steal some of the lovely, cool breeze. There's also a new Gap sweater that's waiting for a debut. And maybe I'll go for another walk tonight.
Life would be satisfying right about now if I didn't have that damned algorithms class.
I wish everyone a happy September 11th. We all need to relive a day that's been relived every hour on the hour for the last 364 days. Victims don't need any peace, after all. And a standing ovation for that good ol' fashioned hypocrite, George W. Bush.
Will Ryan still make those gingerbread firemen?
I bought The New York Times for the first time today (part of my journalism assignment for this week is to find an obituary in the NY Times, among other things). So I'm looking in the obituaries and see one for Uziel Gal, inventor of the Uzi submachine gun. He died of cancer.
If I didn't take Derek's car today to go to Barnes &oble to buy some newspapers I might've never known who invented the Uzi.
It really is a big deal.
It's not fun to wake up to a room that's nearing 90° F after only four hours of sleep. (But I have this new urge to buy the complete Cowboy Bebop series on DVD and bring my Super Nintendo to campus – I apologize if I'm copying someone.)
Today was the last day for Dump 'N Run, a garage sale held at the YMCA with items junked by students last year. I could have walked away with much more, but then it'd be that much more to carry for half a mile. Here's what I bought:
I really believe that this sort of equipment will become next generation's antiques. For computer nerds, anyway. I wanted to buy some old software (like Aldus Pagemaker 3.0, on 5.25" diskettes) but decided against it for some reason. I regret it now.
It's some sort of Chinese or Korean publication (leaning towards the latter, based on the miniscule knowledge I have of the Korean alphabet and its use of circles). Positive Thinking might not be the title either, but those are the only English words printed on the cover, or anywhere else for that matter. The photos on the covers are very pretty, though, the only reason I bought them.
Did I mention that UIUC has many Chinese students? Many. These books are interesting to look at.
Why would anyone throw this out? To make me happy. This might rekindle my love for the game.
Why not? It's classic ‘70s.
Why not?
Could be interesting.
Illustrated childrens' books, with audio tapes? Hell yeah. (I bought the Star Wars things for my brother, though.)
This will compliment my pirated 4-CD Microsoft Encarta Learn French program. Oui.
A fresh alternative to cardboard ‘dish mats’.
One is a sky blue beret, the other one is black with a brim and a maroon ribbon all around. A hot wash to kill any lice and they'll be good to go.
The grand total was $6. Unbelievable. I made it late to this one, but I'll be there the first day of the next.
If only the other 14 hours of today were as productive and interesting as that one hour thrift-shopping this morning.
What's the point of living?
