Blog Entry 468

We moved into our apartment a week or so ago...technically. Daniel and Franco signed the lease and danced right in, while Mario and I stalled for a couple days, maximizing our abuse of his aunt and uncle's hospitality. For three or four days we'd make weak attempts to move, but the reasons to stay were numerous and just a fridge door away. We pretty much had no choice.

Yesterday I successfully made an ass out of myself trying to set up wireless Internet. I walked to Target (more than a mile away!) and bought one of those Cable/DSL routers. When I got home I threw four years of irrelevant MIT knowledge at the thing to try to get it to show me my mail. I eventually gave up and summoned the help of a real king among nerds - Gene, who by some freak coincidence happens to be my dad. Five minutes of teamwork later we deduced that the router wasn't actually a wireless router at all - it was just a bunch of Ethernet jacks held together by a "Cable/DSL Router" sticker. It was back to the store for me. Who would have thought that in 2008, when even plants are online (the sub-bark temperature of the 56-year old oak outside my window is a pleasant 76 degrees), non-wireless routers are still polluting the shelves of our stores.

We decided to try out Angel Food Ministries - this company that sells you packages of food at relatively cheap prices. The company cooperates with churches in different areas to handle the dissemination of Angel Food packages - yet another activity of the Christian franchise. Our church bears the innuendo-soaked moniker - "Love in Action Church." I'm expecting at least nuns in playboy bunny costumes. At best, I'll soon be a newly converted Christian. Anyway, starting on the 27th, I should be comfortably eating on $50 a month. I will update as to the success of this experiment immediately upon survival.

I've been having weird and unusually violent dreams lately. Not yet sure what they mean. The other day I dreamed about some psycho killer who I couldn't convince in time not to shoot Chun right in the throat. This is an obvious hint for me to work on my debating skills. The next part is harder to qualify. Chun made a miraculous recovery and the guy went on trial. However, to make sure his sentence was fair, he was a member of the jury presiding over his own case. In the dream, this frustrated me to no end, because he was obviously just going to walk. Anyway, I finally got him back by waking up. Now he's worse than dead - he's back to "never even existed."

We're Back

Haven't written in a while, so you'll have to pardon the spelling and grammar errors. I've mostly been sitting on the couch at the Mendiola house (as evidenced by the permanent butt-print), eating free food, and moving my wrist back and forth in that not-what-you're-thinking way.

Making progress with ear training, I can now hit about 80% consistently for all melodic intervals up to an octave. I've also started practicing hearing chord quality, though the results are hardly bragging-worthy.

I've gone to church twice here now. I think it's time to stop now, before it becomes a trend or worse, a habit. The pastor has kept me on my toes thus far, alternating ideas that verge on the sensical and ones that border on Nazi. For instance, he spent twenty minutes advocating above all else a personal relationship with God, a view I intellectually admire without having a shred of my own personal relationship. Then, just when I was about to bring out the applause, he started ranting about how there are only two types of people in this "fallen world," offspring of the seed - those who believe Jesus Christ is "the tits" (The One and Only Way to God), and offspring of the serpent - everyone else. Having found myself singled out as a son of a serpent among rows of flattered Christians, and offended for my family that only has one Zodiac-appointed snake among the lot of them, I respectfully gave the pastor death stares for the remainder of the pandering.

I've also been having frequent religious discussions with Mrs. Mendiola, with sporadic attendance by Mario. Usually this involves me inventing scenarios that involve her committing to some statement, and then try to trap her into a maze of deductions that end with her being the Antichrist. So far, she's done a remarkable job of remaining calm and unshaken, and most frustratingly, not yielding an inch. Not even calling her a fanatic, a terrorist, and pure evil convinced her otherwise. However, in my defense, it's much easier to defend against contradictions when your viewpoint of the world is "it's God's plan." Contradictions are then just the spice of his creative license.