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brighter days are coming

Oh yes they are.

once once once

Once one invented and popularized the rising crust technology, everyone else had to follow.

story of the ampersand

countless other ampersand designs

John Southward wrote of the derivation of the name ampersand in Vol. 1 of Practical Printing: ‘This was originally a ligature & (et, Latin for and), and when the alphabet was repeated rapidly the last character named was “et per se, and” (that is, et by itself, and), which became corrupted to ‘and per se and”, and thence to “ampersand”’. In many ampersand designs the seperate letters E and T are easily distinguishable.
—Geoffrey Dowding, Finer Points in the Spacing and Arrangement of Type, Second Edition, 1957, p 18.

hardware blues

I had hoped to quip about my new computer equipment – ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard, Athlon XP +2200 processor, Corsair 512 MB PC3200 DDR RAM, Cooler Master heatsink/fan, stylish beige-black steel Antec ATX case with two case fans – but, after the power switched on then off five seconds later – with hours spent on trying to correct this problem – I've gone back to my old motherboard and processor. There's just no way I can waste more hours on pointless stabs in the dark.

And, I just received my Cowboy Bebop DVD in the mail. The quality of packaging for a pirated copy is quite nice, the video and audio quality is top-notch. But, and this is the most important part, the English subtitling is absolutely horrid. It's apparently not a copy of the official American release. I get what I pay for, though I would now gladly pay double for proper translation and grammar: ‘Mr. Jack’ and ‘Subaiku’ – for Jet and Spike – become less and less endearing as ‘BLDI’ and ‘ketchup’ are shown instead of ‘Bloody Eye’ and ‘tomato juice’.

And, it snowed quite a bit last night.

And, I've got much work to do.

And, my back hurts from sitting on the floor for so long trying to get my new computer parts installed.

How much worse things will get, I don't know. Maybe I'll slip and crack my head open.

wager

Upon telling Will that Andrew wanted to go to Pair-A-Dice (a casino) tomorrow night, and due to my hesitant tone in joining in on the gambling, Will enthusiastically spent the first hour of work walking me through the rules of Craps, and gave me a safe-betting strategy to keep my losses at a minimum, in hopes that I'd make up my mind then and there to go.

It sounds like fun, even if the details are still a bit jumbled in my head.

Maybe I will go. Maybe I won't. The idea of gambling isn't sitting well with me at the moment.

I wonder if I'll go another 22 years without having a lady to show my affection to on this commercial holiday…

he’s not guilty of child porn!

I bought Pee Wee's Big Adventure. It will be fortuitous if I can get all the airings of Pee Wee's Playhouse on DVD.

And why does a search for bukkake jon's dojo only bring up this? Am I one of the few who saw it many months ago that actually understood the meaning and found it hilarious? If so, that's sad.

addiction

Starting from a bit past 6 this morning, I began watching Evangelion. Episodes 14–20 later, I couldn't wait a few days to rent the last six episodes. I went to the bank, then to the music studio to sign up for the last slot of the week (someone had just erased his name from the spot not too long before me, and I know because I could smell the spit on the dry erase surface), then walked to Rentertainment before 10 and waited, waited, went to Panera and ordered a mocha and cinnamon roll, went back to Rentertainment, rented the last three tapes (because the DVDs were out), was told that I could only rent two before going over my 10 rental maximum, came back home and watched 21–24, walked back to Rentertainment and returned three tapes, came back with the final two episodes, and now I am done.

I apologize to Derek for watching so many without him, but, sometimes, I get extremely impatient. Sometimes I can't let things be. I have to see certain things to an end.

And the end was strange. Maybe in my haste, I didn't absorb all that I should have. It was…I still don't fully understand. Of course, there's an intentional vagueness to it all.

I need to shower and figure out how to survive until 1 PM tomorrow with no sleep. My body's gotten used to laying in bed longer than it should. Mind is still restless from the hours awake.

Pen Pen is cute.

folly

I had to go to the music studio last night at 10, but I had 45 minutes to kill and didn't want to sit around doing nothing. So, I took a nap, thought that I'd be 30 or so minutes late.

10:15 came around and I had no will or desire to get out of bed. The wind was howling and it was – still is – so cold outside. I didn't want to go or be there alone at this time. I gave up and missed a much needed session.

What's worse, I got out of bed sometime after 12 and crawled back in a few minutes later. Now it's 5:45 and my day is starting (while Derek's is ending).

Night time naps are a big mistake. I should've learned that the first time it happened.

The dream I had was interesting to me, though: I was some strange high school; a girl actually liked me and went out with me; I was framed for something, so I snuck into the cavernous basement of the school and ran away; I appeared in a little town – the likes of which you see in anime, with small Japanese-style buildings lining the street – and the first people I met was a baseball team; the team captain introduced me to triplets – each of whom was double-jointed – and, each one struck a pose, disjointing an elbow or shoulder or hand.

There was also a hovering noka (boat) and launching it off a high, grassy hillside. I think that was during high school, but I don't remember. And other little parts.

I want to punch Asuka in the face.

the new

After a bit of confusion (possibly due to lost mail) I've finally received my new credit card. Because the first two replacements didn't get here, they cancelled my old number and gave me a new one. The new card is much more crisp and clean:

the new blue is coo

You can't really tell by tilting the monitor a few degrees hither and thither, but that blue spot makes some sparkly rainbow flares that change size and position depending on the angle of incidence with which the light hits the surface.

Here is Old Blue:

the old is bold[er]

If you notice the last four digits of each (because the first 11 are identical), the difference comes out to 1996. By my reckoning – recalling simple rules for when I had to spawn new numbers on the fly – 248 cards have been issued off this block of numbers. In three years. They must distribute their student cards over a wide range of blocks.

Saddened I am that I won't keep the number I'd been using for the last three years, but happier I am with new look. Now, time to ask for my first increase in credit limit.

Oh wait, all my friends are shaking their head sideways, as if to say that they think this is a bad idea.

about Columbia

At the risk of sounding like a complete asshole, should anyone care this much? It's seven people that had their vehicle explode in space. Great.

Shouldn't we mourn the tragedies committed by people, societies, and governments?

I was flipping through channels a couple of weeks ago and saw on one of the headline news networks an advertisement for an upcoming special, an exclusive look at something plaguing nations.

The plague: starvation. Something so widespread, something that's been around for so long, and they're giving it the ‘exclusive look’ coverage?

This space shuttle coverage is a waste. It'd be nice if they gave the same air time to things actually going on in the world, sans al Qaeda and Hussein and Bush's witch hunt.

origin of…

Berserker. It's a Norse word meaning ‘Bear Shirt’. Berserkers were a special class of Viking warriors that basically psyched themselves up until they were insane. They had no mercy, and wouldn't stop until their enemies fled or died, or they themselves died. They wore no armor and wielded an axe. True badasses.

Another class of badasses were the Saxon Housecarls, and they wielded Danish Bearded Axes. Arrows were their downfall, directly or not.

I <3 The History Channel, but I always forget that it's there until Andrew starts watching it.

toes-up

My knees and big toes were killing me last night from the four hours of standing; shoulders ached from my bag; head ached from…being me (and loud music). I knew it was time to leave Paige's when I started dozing off during a second episode of Mr. Show.

The concert – group_of_forgotten_name › Owen › Mates of State › Rainer Maria – was less enjoyed because of the physical ailments, but at least Ryan and Pete and Dan and others were there. Pick-up lines that started with, ‘Is it raining outside?’ and other funnies.

Don't identify someone using peripheral vision: you might end up elbowing a guy from Mates of State (who will turn around with a smile of confusion and surprise, while you act like an idiot and laugh about it, making him think you're a complete asshole when in fact you were laughing out of embarassment) and not Pete.

The empty vassal is on his way.

to the rescue

I saved myself from total destruction and boredom by dragging my ass to Borders (correction: red line runs out to the mall during the day). Not that the time there was so exciting, but it's nice to have a slight change in things. I also found myself reading Chicken Soup for the Romantic Soul towards the end. That I enjoyed reading some of the stories in there is sad maybe, but whatever.

The fun didn't stop there. After coming back and chit-chatting with Dave, we went to Rentertainment and returned with Kung Pow, Blade Runner, and episodes 5–8 of Escaflowne (Dave wanted to know of a series similar to Final Fantasy, and that's the only thing I've seen that comes to mind; episodes 1–4 weren't in).

The Kung Pow DVD crapped out half way through; from what we saw, it had its moments, but I think they were trying too hard to be funny in satiring old kung fu movies. Blade Runner was interesting, though.

I might actually do some homework tonight. First, a sappy-nice quote of the week (or month):

Kissing is a means of getting two people so close together that they can't see anything wrong with each other.
—René Yasenek

and also

1 – I most like the smell of mochas and other coffee drinks on cold days, as the aromas temporarily warm me up a degree.

2 – As Will turned right on Florida Avenue, his car began to slow. He stuck his head out the window, trying to look at the tires, but his hat flew off. He stopped behind Oglesby, and I sprinted down Florida to retrieve his hat before traffic picked up. I came back to learn that the front-left tire was flat. ‘Screw work today’, I paraphrasingly quoted him as saying. He drove to the parking lot next to the Meat Sciences building, and I walked home.

Which leaves me to figure out what I should do with my new free time. Go to Borders? Sit in the apartment? Mope? But if I go into town, I'll need to catch the yellow line, and I don't feel like walking outside yet.

Why am I still in college?

how do I pay the remainder of my tuition?

With a $778 tax return. I'm still roughly $120 short.

wailing walls and a cow

There was a surprisingly high concentration of men with beards in Jerusalem (the restaurant on Wright Street, not the city) today, though most of them were white.

It was my first time going there, and I liked my beef kabob sandwich and Turkish coffee. The former was juicy and tasty, the latter earthy and slightly sweeth – I drank down coffee grounds for the first time, but only because I couldn't get the last of the liquid any other way.

Time to work.

Miyu

I can't tell if there's a deeper story to Vampire Princess, but I like it so far. It's a bit weird. Lava has a cool mask.

After all these semesters I'm finally making good use of Rentertainment. The God Father, Part II will be my afternoon.

I accidentally put aftershave on my forehead this morning.

what’s that sweet sound?

Only my closest friends (and by that, only those I've known since freshman year who've been a roommate at some point in time) will truly understand what ‘puking asians’ means, what it encompasses.

I present a more general phrase, ‘puking Bergmann’. Just imagine that you have a roommate named Derek who goes into the bathroom and creates a lush, vivid aural texture through the process of vomitting. Yum. Let's see if I can transliterate:

glurgblargleglurgleglurgahuhglurgaglurgaglurga.

And, interleaved between his voicings:

Splashsplashsplashdropdropdropdropdropdrop.

Several times.

You think there's a porn called Aiming to Please?

And who remembers the Saturday Night Live skit of ‘Jacko Broke his Backo’? It was a bit lame. What about the one with Senator Hefflin, Strom Thurmond, and Clarence Thomas? Chris Rock introduced himself and Long Dong Silver in the end. Does The Hindlick Maneuver ring a bell? No? That was a damn funny skit.

Dictionary.com has a toolbar! Bless them!

The little things I think about while clearing the kitchen sink.

hats off to a lovely day

Lovely!

the trees-felled

Today I made 1200 photocopies, double-sided, at the YMCA. Those were split into two sets of 600 which were then folded and assembled into this vegetarian dining guide.

During this dreadfully repetitive process, I had one stack on each side of me and oriented in such a way that I could use both hands to grab a sheet and do the creasing, instead of wearing one arm out completely.

So, after folding 12 of one sheet and 12 of another (12 being a nice multiple), either one or both stacks would be upside down or rotated. I pulled one sheet from each pile and put them together, rotating and flipping with each guide. It wasn't until the 300 mark that I realized I could manipulate an entire stack at once, instead of sheet by sheet.

It was a little after that moment that I also realized I could use my journal (a physical one) to aid in creasing sheets. I at last heralded the Industrial Revolution of paper-folding, doubling or even tripling my speed while keeping comfort levels the same.

But class called, and I left after three hours and having put together 384 guides (768 folded pages).

And maybe, if you're interested in finding out how domestic abuse is linked to animal abuse, you will come to 100 Gregory Hall at 7 PM on February 4 and, while there, pick up the dining guide I made and more than likely copied and folded.

Passive activism rules.