Today is one of those scary on-the-cusp days, sweet-taste-of-lazy-freedom before the sweet-taste-of-blood days. Tomorrow I'm starting another two 30-day trials.
The ones I'm doing currently are of course staying; there is as of yet no cancelling feature in my brain. But being on track with those lends a kind of excitement to my life, and also, they're just too easy after a couple of days. Crunches? Psh. No cursing? I'm cleaner than Sunday morning cartoons. Water was the biggest obstacle, but my method of dealing with it is working beautifully. For the first four days (I kept it a secret in case it didn't work), I'd drink water and accompany the action with appreciative moans: "Mmmm...this water...mmm...it's so good...mmm...wish I had more...no...must ration it...mmm...mmm...mmm." And now I think I've managed to convince myself, because water is actually starting to taste better! At least it doesn't taste like plastic anymore. Maybe it's just my tongue slowly being weaned off everything having sugar in it.
But onto tomorrow. Tomorrow, two new trials start, and they are both time-related.
The first is meditation. I will meditate for a total of an hour and a half every day - one hour in the morning, and half an hour in the evening. These will be done sitting with back erect (no snickering, this has been an adult blog for two days now), so as to promote the wakeful state, and will be flexible in theme. However, they will be personal growth meditations, not rated R back-of-the-eyelid movies. I will recap my experiences here, daily.
The second is writing for an hour. This can be fiction, non-fiction, editing already written stuff, putting graffiti on police cars, whatever; no constraints as to the content or form. The point is to get me writing more since I claim to like it so much. The one exception is that writing blog entries will not count as part of that hour.
Ok, so now I've pretty much taken on a part-time job. It's still only two and a half hours a day, but if I continue in this vein, I'll soon have to give up sleep. And all for free! I feel like a volunteer for the first time in my selfish life. Still completely selfish, but volunteering nonetheless.
More excitement - I've roped another friend into the 30-day trial craze. Her first idea was ridiculous - to lose 2/3 of her body weight. Being of completely normal weight, I think the only way she could fulfill the requirement and survive would be to cut off her arms and legs. Make that into a 30-day trial and you'd have to use sandpaper instead of a saw. Bleh. Instead, we agreed that she would increase the content-level of eating time. Now, every time she eats anything at all, she must turn off all other input to her brain: people talking to her, TV's fighting for her attention, her mouth that wants to talk and eat at the same time, her eyes that try to seduce every passerby, and all thoughts that fight for control of her only-human brain. Sounds like fun, I might sign up in a few days.
Other good ideas for 30-day trials that I'm either not brave enough to attempt just yet, or are on the waiting list:
1. Communicating only in languages I'm learning - Chinese, French, Spanish (no Russian or English), except in emergencies - This one is extremely exciting, I think I will try it soon.
2. Give up sleep - This may never make it to 30 days. Maybe I'll do this one as the last 30-day trial of my life.
3. Recording dreams every morning - This is cake, I should really just tag it on right now, but I'll postpone it a bit.
4. Starting a new 30-day trial every day - Brilliant.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Friday, January 9, 2009
Enable Adult Content? What A Terrifying Thought
In order to get this French movie I wanted, I had to download a piece of software called Graboid. It's pretty worthless, much like the short-lived Veoh player, but I've managed to squeeze some drama out of it. When I went to Preferences to see where it was putting the downloaded file, I saw a checkbox that said "Enable Adult Content." It was unchecked. I've been staring at it for two hours now with a consistent 120-bpm heartbeat. Is it just talking about the movie I'm downloading? Or is it talking about my life? Do I dare click it? How do I know I'll be able to unclick it if I find out that I'm actually an immature kid inside? Am I really that sheltered? Eh...I don't know, I'm pretty sure it's just for movies. ...But I wonder if it enables it for any movie... then this software wouldn't be as useless as it so wholeheartedly pretends to be. Then maybe I could even be pursuaded to watch The Visitor again. Deep breath. Click.
The 30-day trials are moving along nicely. Crunches are probably the easiest part of the deal, as they take up very finite periods of time to complete. Drinking water is the hardest, especially when your newfound friend in France has a fridge full of Cokes and is willing to email you one duty-free. Not cursing is not too much of a challenge, being as I don't talk to myself outloud, and I spend most of the day alone. Nevertheless, every now and then I fail, though I usually catch myself in the middle of the first syllable.
On a happy note, someone managed to read my novel! A guy I met through Natasha, whose name I will keep to myself for fear of tainting him with my reputation, read it and gave me some comments and pointers. Very exciting. This motivates me to edit it, and perhaps add. It also reminds me that February Album Writing Month is imminent. In the translated words of Song A Day For A Year Superman, "j'ai peur!"
Tomorrow, it's back to NJ for me. I'm stopping for a couple of hours in Boston to wave my hands, and then home.
On consciousness:
Madelyn: hehe, i didnt think much before that sentence
Madelyn: well, like most
Madelyn: of mine
Mark: yea, most of everyone's
Madelyn: you're too optimistic
...
Mark: did u think before that one?
Madelyn: not really
Mark: ur consistent
The 30-day trials are moving along nicely. Crunches are probably the easiest part of the deal, as they take up very finite periods of time to complete. Drinking water is the hardest, especially when your newfound friend in France has a fridge full of Cokes and is willing to email you one duty-free. Not cursing is not too much of a challenge, being as I don't talk to myself outloud, and I spend most of the day alone. Nevertheless, every now and then I fail, though I usually catch myself in the middle of the first syllable.
On a happy note, someone managed to read my novel! A guy I met through Natasha, whose name I will keep to myself for fear of tainting him with my reputation, read it and gave me some comments and pointers. Very exciting. This motivates me to edit it, and perhaps add. It also reminds me that February Album Writing Month is imminent. In the translated words of Song A Day For A Year Superman, "j'ai peur!"
Tomorrow, it's back to NJ for me. I'm stopping for a couple of hours in Boston to wave my hands, and then home.
On consciousness:
Madelyn: hehe, i didnt think much before that sentence
Madelyn: well, like most
Madelyn: of mine
Mark: yea, most of everyone's
Madelyn: you're too optimistic
...
Mark: did u think before that one?
Madelyn: not really
Mark: ur consistent
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Movies
[Spoilers ahead for movies you'll probably never see]
Yesterday I watched The Visitor. This is one of those movies that lends an example to the idea that just because a movie is decent doesn't mean you should ever watch it or will enjoy it in any way. With my taste, lots of movies fall in this category. Some of these are dramas with a central theme of depression or hopelessness or pain, like Crash or Magnolia and especially The Hours, the last being all but unwatchable. Some of these are movies about political turbulence and/or corruption, such as The Interpreter and The Constant Gardener. (There are a couple of exceptions in this second category that manage to escape being "eh'd" by me by virtue of possessing actors I like, such as All the President's Men with Hoffman and Redford)
Then there are movies that are considered good, but you can break your head open and never figure out the reason why. These are movies like Last Orders, which is like watching grass grow, except they've tricked you and given you a looped 5 second clip, so the grass doesn't have a chance. Gosford Park is another resident in this genre. Men especially should stay away from this movie.
And then there are movies like The Visitor, which have a boring past-his-prime dude reevaluating his life with the help of some semi-unusual circumstances. Think Bill Murray in Lost in Translation or Broken Flowers and take away all of his quirkyness. Or Sideways without Thomas Church's comic relief. Throw in some semi-entertaining supporting characters, but then have the main conflict be something excruciatingly boring, in this case deportation.
Actually, I changed my mind. Not about the dull nature of the movie, it's still a pain, but concerning the theme. The Visitor is about male bonding and complications during past-mid-life rebirth. It's about an old man bonding with a young man, borrowing some youthful vigor to restart his stale life, but then floundering around in a tedious plot instead of being allowed to enjoy his newfound youth. Yuck. Give me more young Tom Cruise blockbusters, young Tom Hanks comedies, and if you want to have an old main character, use Jack Nicholson, whose circus acrobat eyebrows can drag even the most boring mess out of the mud. (Except for Prizzi's Honor, shame on you Jack)
Also yesterday, I finished a movie I'd been massaging for the last 2 weeks - Samsara. This was not because it's boring (though it is slow), but because it requires a certain mood to appreciate. Of course this is true for many movies, but I happened to be willing to wait for this one.
The movie is about a monk, born and raised in the monastery. He's a complete badass; the movie begins with him coming out of a three year three month three day three hour and three femtosecond long meditation. Seems like he's set to graduate to Buddha level 6 at least, but then he sees.......a breast. And suddenly, his whole world turns upside down; years worth of hormones set his brain and body on fire. He becomes restless, he brims with desire to experience the world, he wants to possess the forbidden fruit before renouncing it. He leaves the monastery.
Then, for a while, his life is like the average man's dream life. He finds a beautiful girl, it's mutual true love, they get married despite her being engaged to another man, and he's wholeheartedly accepted into his new community. Seven or eight years fly by and he's knee deep in worldly affairs - raising a child, earning more money, etc., and not averse to it all in the least. But then certain circumstances and certain hints about the world are brought to light, such as other people's breasts and death, and he snaps out of the reverie and reevaluates everything again. And here he experiences and manages to convey such profound pain at having to choose between the two worlds (breasts and monasteries), that I managed to identify with him to the edge of tears. Is there a better compliment for a movie than such, from a miser of emotional display?
Yesterday I watched The Visitor. This is one of those movies that lends an example to the idea that just because a movie is decent doesn't mean you should ever watch it or will enjoy it in any way. With my taste, lots of movies fall in this category. Some of these are dramas with a central theme of depression or hopelessness or pain, like Crash or Magnolia and especially The Hours, the last being all but unwatchable. Some of these are movies about political turbulence and/or corruption, such as The Interpreter and The Constant Gardener. (There are a couple of exceptions in this second category that manage to escape being "eh'd" by me by virtue of possessing actors I like, such as All the President's Men with Hoffman and Redford)
Then there are movies that are considered good, but you can break your head open and never figure out the reason why. These are movies like Last Orders, which is like watching grass grow, except they've tricked you and given you a looped 5 second clip, so the grass doesn't have a chance. Gosford Park is another resident in this genre. Men especially should stay away from this movie.
And then there are movies like The Visitor, which have a boring past-his-prime dude reevaluating his life with the help of some semi-unusual circumstances. Think Bill Murray in Lost in Translation or Broken Flowers and take away all of his quirkyness. Or Sideways without Thomas Church's comic relief. Throw in some semi-entertaining supporting characters, but then have the main conflict be something excruciatingly boring, in this case deportation.
Actually, I changed my mind. Not about the dull nature of the movie, it's still a pain, but concerning the theme. The Visitor is about male bonding and complications during past-mid-life rebirth. It's about an old man bonding with a young man, borrowing some youthful vigor to restart his stale life, but then floundering around in a tedious plot instead of being allowed to enjoy his newfound youth. Yuck. Give me more young Tom Cruise blockbusters, young Tom Hanks comedies, and if you want to have an old main character, use Jack Nicholson, whose circus acrobat eyebrows can drag even the most boring mess out of the mud. (Except for Prizzi's Honor, shame on you Jack)
Also yesterday, I finished a movie I'd been massaging for the last 2 weeks - Samsara. This was not because it's boring (though it is slow), but because it requires a certain mood to appreciate. Of course this is true for many movies, but I happened to be willing to wait for this one.
The movie is about a monk, born and raised in the monastery. He's a complete badass; the movie begins with him coming out of a three year three month three day three hour and three femtosecond long meditation. Seems like he's set to graduate to Buddha level 6 at least, but then he sees.......a breast. And suddenly, his whole world turns upside down; years worth of hormones set his brain and body on fire. He becomes restless, he brims with desire to experience the world, he wants to possess the forbidden fruit before renouncing it. He leaves the monastery.
Then, for a while, his life is like the average man's dream life. He finds a beautiful girl, it's mutual true love, they get married despite her being engaged to another man, and he's wholeheartedly accepted into his new community. Seven or eight years fly by and he's knee deep in worldly affairs - raising a child, earning more money, etc., and not averse to it all in the least. But then certain circumstances and certain hints about the world are brought to light, such as other people's breasts and death, and he snaps out of the reverie and reevaluates everything again. And here he experiences and manages to convey such profound pain at having to choose between the two worlds (breasts and monasteries), that I managed to identify with him to the edge of tears. Is there a better compliment for a movie than such, from a miser of emotional display?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Frenching
I continued my French studies today, but from a different direction. I found a wonderful site with "French expressions they don't teach you in school." First of all, I have to acknowledge the truth value in their advertisement, I indeed knew none of the expressions. Then again just cause I didn't learn it doesn't mean they didn't teach it, in fact it probably means they taught it every day and I repressed it.
Anyway, like with every language, looking in as an outsider, everything seems funny. I'm sure French people giggle a little every time they say "it's raining cats and dogs." But from my persepective, they're a bunch of goofy little leprechauns based on their idioms.
The best way to learn these and simultaneously appreciate the humor value is to play it like a guessing game. For example, what do you think "C'est le pied!" (It's the foot!) means? When you give up, highlight the next few lines below to see the answer; it's in a white font so your peripheral vision doesn't ruin the fun.
That's great!
Apparently the French people have a very different opinion of what's great. An American might say "that's the tits!" (if he were in the right movie - specifically The Girl Next Door), and imply the same thing. The other options - "the cat's pajamas," "the bee's knees," the "the eel's ankle," "the elephant's
instep," "the snake's hip" make absolutely no sense in true American style.
"À boire ou je tue le chien!" (Bring me a drink or I kill the dog!)
Bring me a drink or I kill the dog!
Yea, that one's a little more obvious.
"Avoir les jetons" (To have the tokens)
To be scared
Go figure, French people must really love EZPass.
"Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles" (To have an ass full of noodles). Think about this one before you look, it's pretty transparent.
To be lucky
If you wake up in the morning and find noodles in your ass, you best praise the Lord they decided on noodles and not forks or refrigerators. I can't think of a situation where you'd feel luckier.
"Ça me fait une belle jambe" (That makes me a nice leg). Just think about having one nice leg and you'll understand.
A fat lot of good that does me!
Indeed, one nice leg and one ugly leg is probably even worse than two ugly ones. Especially if they differ across many parameters - hairiness, height, girth, color, shape, tatoo genre, number of toes, number of kneecaps, and leg personality traits like temperament and coquettishness. An prudish leg and a slutty leg make a dangerous pair.
And let's do an easy one to boost your self-esteem. "Ne pas avoir inventé la poudre" (Not to have invented gunpowder).
To be a little dumb
Well, I accept the compliment on behalf of the Chinese, along with the insult on behalf of the rest of the world. Good thing there's a lot of Chinese people.
Today was the second day of the 30-day trials. Success is of course at my side and seems like my friends are also doing well. Rock on. The hardest so far is drinking only water. Now, this may be cake for some people, but I haven't drank water by itself since 1964, and I was born in 1986 so this should tell you something. I usually drink ~6 cups of tea and ~3 cups of juice per day. The last two days I've been drinking 1-2 cups of water. This does not bode well; if I continue in this vein, I'll probably look like this:
After all, the average human body's around 70% water. Maybe I'll bring that statistic down to 69.99999999999999%...nah, let's save that for next month.
Let's see...what else... Ah yes, results just in. I asked Natasha today whether she would kill a puppy for a million dollars and immediately received an emphatic no and a cataract of tears spawned of well-imagined puppy murder. Doubtful, I offered her a scenario where the strangulation/throwing in river/lethal injection would be performed by a third party in faraway Kenya and all she would have to do is press a button. Suddenly, doubt and introspection were the main components of her constitution. Well, I guess everyone has their price. Except me of course. I wouldn't kill a puppy for the amount of the US National Debt (a hefty 10.6 trillion dollars) if it had previously chewed through my family tree all the way back to Charlemagne.
Anyway, like with every language, looking in as an outsider, everything seems funny. I'm sure French people giggle a little every time they say "it's raining cats and dogs." But from my persepective, they're a bunch of goofy little leprechauns based on their idioms.
The best way to learn these and simultaneously appreciate the humor value is to play it like a guessing game. For example, what do you think "C'est le pied!" (It's the foot!) means? When you give up, highlight the next few lines below to see the answer; it's in a white font so your peripheral vision doesn't ruin the fun.
That's great!
Apparently the French people have a very different opinion of what's great. An American might say "that's the tits!" (if he were in the right movie - specifically The Girl Next Door), and imply the same thing. The other options - "the cat's pajamas," "the bee's knees," the "the eel's ankle," "the elephant's
instep," "the snake's hip" make absolutely no sense in true American style.
"À boire ou je tue le chien!" (Bring me a drink or I kill the dog!)
Bring me a drink or I kill the dog!
Yea, that one's a little more obvious.
"Avoir les jetons" (To have the tokens)
To be scared
Go figure, French people must really love EZPass.
"Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles" (To have an ass full of noodles). Think about this one before you look, it's pretty transparent.
To be lucky
If you wake up in the morning and find noodles in your ass, you best praise the Lord they decided on noodles and not forks or refrigerators. I can't think of a situation where you'd feel luckier.
"Ça me fait une belle jambe" (That makes me a nice leg). Just think about having one nice leg and you'll understand.
A fat lot of good that does me!
Indeed, one nice leg and one ugly leg is probably even worse than two ugly ones. Especially if they differ across many parameters - hairiness, height, girth, color, shape, tatoo genre, number of toes, number of kneecaps, and leg personality traits like temperament and coquettishness. An prudish leg and a slutty leg make a dangerous pair.
And let's do an easy one to boost your self-esteem. "Ne pas avoir inventé la poudre" (Not to have invented gunpowder).
To be a little dumb
Well, I accept the compliment on behalf of the Chinese, along with the insult on behalf of the rest of the world. Good thing there's a lot of Chinese people.
Today was the second day of the 30-day trials. Success is of course at my side and seems like my friends are also doing well. Rock on. The hardest so far is drinking only water. Now, this may be cake for some people, but I haven't drank water by itself since 1964, and I was born in 1986 so this should tell you something. I usually drink ~6 cups of tea and ~3 cups of juice per day. The last two days I've been drinking 1-2 cups of water. This does not bode well; if I continue in this vein, I'll probably look like this:
After all, the average human body's around 70% water. Maybe I'll bring that statistic down to 69.99999999999999%...nah, let's save that for next month.
Let's see...what else... Ah yes, results just in. I asked Natasha today whether she would kill a puppy for a million dollars and immediately received an emphatic no and a cataract of tears spawned of well-imagined puppy murder. Doubtful, I offered her a scenario where the strangulation/throwing in river/lethal injection would be performed by a third party in faraway Kenya and all she would have to do is press a button. Suddenly, doubt and introspection were the main components of her constitution. Well, I guess everyone has their price. Except me of course. I wouldn't kill a puppy for the amount of the US National Debt (a hefty 10.6 trillion dollars) if it had previously chewed through my family tree all the way back to Charlemagne.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
30 Days
Yesterday I made some interesting decisions that of course resulted in interesting consequences today, according to one of the more stringent laws of the universe. The yesterday me decided to take Steve Pavlina's advice and do some interesting 30-day trials. The idea is that you commit to giving up or acquiring some habit just for 30 days. It's interesting because it's actually doable; 30 days is nothing special, and you have a much greater chance for success than when you make more dramatic commitments like "I will never eat Komodo dragon or any other kind of dragon meat for as long as I live" or my little sister's favorite: "I will stop drinking cognac in the morning." These belong in the impossible-to-sustain-so-don't-even-bother-trying category.
Naturally, I couldn't let myself suffer alone, so I dragged every person that had the misfortune of being on my buddy list into this experiment. Luckily I regularly purge my buddy list of stale friends, so I only had to bother a few. Some of them needed extra motivation, so I agreed to do their 30-day trials as well. Currently I am signed up for the following:
No drinks other than water.
No cursing in any of the 18 languages I know or the 57 I'm learning. This is not as easy as it sounds. Innocent words in one language are X-rated in another.
50 situps/crunches a day for one friend.
50 situps/crunches a day for another friend.
Being vegetarian (this is actually part of another experiment, but I might as well take credit for it)
Some of these come with clauses. For example, should I have temporary amnesia and regain consciousness to find myself holding a half-consumed non-100%-water beverage, I must call my partner in crunches "master" for an entire day, and vice versa should she do 0-49 situps/crunches instead of the requisite 50. Initially we decided the punishment was a kick to the head in high-heel shoes, but plane tickets from/to China are back over a dollar these days, rendering such a scheme financially impractical. Humiliation was chosen as a close second.
Other people are signed up for situps/crunches, writing poetry, running in the morning, learning French for half-an-hour a day, writing in their journals for 15 minutes a day, and...I think that's it. Good luck to all of you (suckers)! That'll teach you to be my friends.
Recently I've been reviewing French in an effort to lower my overinflated self-esteem (I have no doubt that I totally rule). Chinese helps in that department, but I figure the more the better. So I've met some French girls from Paris on Palabea - a language learning site, and started reading Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, in French of course. In between, I read vocabulary lists and study verb conjugations.
All this is much more fun that it sounds (and this is only half-meant to trick you into doing it). I realized I forgot how cool the French language is; when I last heard it, it was being so uninspiredly taught that I lost my appetite for it for 5 years. Well now we're back, and without teachers standing in the way of my education, success is inevitable. Vive la France et la langue francaise!
Oh yea, lastly, some excellent poetry inspired by sitting on the edge of a bed all day:
I am sitting with bad posture
now I'm sitting with good posture
I sure am good about my posture
and we're back to crappy posture
Remember what I said about "rhyming a word with itself" being the domain of the incurably brave badasses? K, just thought I'd remind you.
Naturally, I couldn't let myself suffer alone, so I dragged every person that had the misfortune of being on my buddy list into this experiment. Luckily I regularly purge my buddy list of stale friends, so I only had to bother a few. Some of them needed extra motivation, so I agreed to do their 30-day trials as well. Currently I am signed up for the following:
No drinks other than water.
No cursing in any of the 18 languages I know or the 57 I'm learning. This is not as easy as it sounds. Innocent words in one language are X-rated in another.
50 situps/crunches a day for one friend.
50 situps/crunches a day for another friend.
Being vegetarian (this is actually part of another experiment, but I might as well take credit for it)
Some of these come with clauses. For example, should I have temporary amnesia and regain consciousness to find myself holding a half-consumed non-100%-water beverage, I must call my partner in crunches "master" for an entire day, and vice versa should she do 0-49 situps/crunches instead of the requisite 50. Initially we decided the punishment was a kick to the head in high-heel shoes, but plane tickets from/to China are back over a dollar these days, rendering such a scheme financially impractical. Humiliation was chosen as a close second.
Other people are signed up for situps/crunches, writing poetry, running in the morning, learning French for half-an-hour a day, writing in their journals for 15 minutes a day, and...I think that's it. Good luck to all of you (suckers)! That'll teach you to be my friends.
Recently I've been reviewing French in an effort to lower my overinflated self-esteem (I have no doubt that I totally rule). Chinese helps in that department, but I figure the more the better. So I've met some French girls from Paris on Palabea - a language learning site, and started reading Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, in French of course. In between, I read vocabulary lists and study verb conjugations.
All this is much more fun that it sounds (and this is only half-meant to trick you into doing it). I realized I forgot how cool the French language is; when I last heard it, it was being so uninspiredly taught that I lost my appetite for it for 5 years. Well now we're back, and without teachers standing in the way of my education, success is inevitable. Vive la France et la langue francaise!
Oh yea, lastly, some excellent poetry inspired by sitting on the edge of a bed all day:
I am sitting with bad posture
now I'm sitting with good posture
I sure am good about my posture
and we're back to crappy posture
Remember what I said about "rhyming a word with itself" being the domain of the incurably brave badasses? K, just thought I'd remind you.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Web Design Unleashed, and A Day As Natasha's Sidekick
They say that the age of novelty websites is over, but yesterday I found a beautiful counterexample. Observe the 8th wonder of the world:
Elite Web Design In Action
I came upon this diamond in the rough while weighing my lunch options, and instantly knew I was in the presence of greatness when I saw their page title bravely set to "Page Title" (the thing you see up top on the browser bar, like "Gmail - Inbox 6,091,018" is what HTML-freaks call the 'page title'). It takes guts to do that, kind of like rhyming a word with itself in a poem - only authorized badasses do it with impunity.
Now, this is an Asian food restaurant as evidenced by the Big Words on the home page. However, these appear to be Asians of the Latin variety/persuasion as the Aboutus and Contactus menu items indicate. ...Hmm, the joke seems to lose power in retelling, they did it much better... Actually, it's almost proof that they're authentic Asians, as in Chinese and Japanese there are no spaces between words in a sentence. What better advertisement of hole-in-the-wall-Asian-restaurant authenticity than English illiteracy. Anyway, no more needs to be said. Go get some food there, and learn some of the latest tricks in web design.
I walked a couple of hours in Natasha's shoes today. Their lack of duct-tape to seal holes is neatly balanced by a lack of holes, so I wholeheartedly pronounce them wearable. That is until I put them on and had to duct tape them shut. But back to not being side-tracked, the shoes were actually figurative as you so cleverly guessed. I accompanied Natasha to one of her classes, and hung out at her department observing the local wildlife - nerdy graduate students who actually care about what they're studying, a species I long thought to be extinct. The class was up to the boring-class standards at MIT, and though I didn't fall asleep, I was the only one to not do so. MIT 1 - Dartmouth 0.
Then we went to the store and bought some food on the math department budget because today is Natasha's turn to buy food on the math department's budget. The food is intended for public consumption. During checkout, despite Natasha's threats about the Green-Earth Nazis at the bagging station forcing you to use the dreaded handle-less paper bags, after answering "do you prefer paper or plastic?" with "meh," I received a plastic one. I'm sure Natasha holding a semi-automatic Colt M1911 to each of their heads is just an irrelevant coincidence.
When we came back and served the food to the hungry math dorks, I was treated to the rare spectacle of a young woman single-handedly devouring an entire package of hummus in about 23 seconds. And now I must go throw up because I once again hit the replay button on that memory.
Ellen: how r u?
Ellen: warm?
Mark: yes
Ellen: buy yourself a hat
Mark: will do
Moral? She's (whoever she is) going to say it (whatever it is) no matter what, so be flexible in your perception of her flow of logic. And agree with her for Chrissakes, don't you have any self-preservation instinct?
Elite Web Design In Action
I came upon this diamond in the rough while weighing my lunch options, and instantly knew I was in the presence of greatness when I saw their page title bravely set to "Page Title" (the thing you see up top on the browser bar, like "Gmail - Inbox 6,091,018" is what HTML-freaks call the 'page title'). It takes guts to do that, kind of like rhyming a word with itself in a poem - only authorized badasses do it with impunity.
Now, this is an Asian food restaurant as evidenced by the Big Words on the home page. However, these appear to be Asians of the Latin variety/persuasion as the Aboutus and Contactus menu items indicate. ...Hmm, the joke seems to lose power in retelling, they did it much better... Actually, it's almost proof that they're authentic Asians, as in Chinese and Japanese there are no spaces between words in a sentence. What better advertisement of hole-in-the-wall-Asian-restaurant authenticity than English illiteracy. Anyway, no more needs to be said. Go get some food there, and learn some of the latest tricks in web design.
I walked a couple of hours in Natasha's shoes today. Their lack of duct-tape to seal holes is neatly balanced by a lack of holes, so I wholeheartedly pronounce them wearable. That is until I put them on and had to duct tape them shut. But back to not being side-tracked, the shoes were actually figurative as you so cleverly guessed. I accompanied Natasha to one of her classes, and hung out at her department observing the local wildlife - nerdy graduate students who actually care about what they're studying, a species I long thought to be extinct. The class was up to the boring-class standards at MIT, and though I didn't fall asleep, I was the only one to not do so. MIT 1 - Dartmouth 0.
Then we went to the store and bought some food on the math department budget because today is Natasha's turn to buy food on the math department's budget. The food is intended for public consumption. During checkout, despite Natasha's threats about the Green-Earth Nazis at the bagging station forcing you to use the dreaded handle-less paper bags, after answering "do you prefer paper or plastic?" with "meh," I received a plastic one. I'm sure Natasha holding a semi-automatic Colt M1911 to each of their heads is just an irrelevant coincidence.
When we came back and served the food to the hungry math dorks, I was treated to the rare spectacle of a young woman single-handedly devouring an entire package of hummus in about 23 seconds. And now I must go throw up because I once again hit the replay button on that memory.
Ellen: how r u?
Ellen: warm?
Mark: yes
Ellen: buy yourself a hat
Mark: will do
Moral? She's (whoever she is) going to say it (whatever it is) no matter what, so be flexible in your perception of her flow of logic. And agree with her for Chrissakes, don't you have any self-preservation instinct?
Sunday, January 4, 2009
New Hampshire exists! That's 23 confirmed states!
Yesterday Natasha and I drove to Dartmouth, though technically she did all the driving. It took five and a half hours and I received my usual rate of $0/hr for it, totaling roughly $0. We got in around eight, unpacked Natasha's entire house worth of stuff from her car-sized car and by midnight we were sitting in the cozy kitchen devouring her mom's more edible gifts.
Then we watched Leatherheads. Now this is a movie which has absolutely no idea what it's about. Most movies are pretty transparent and straightforward, even the bad ones: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about proving to you that there are things in the world that make even a well-balanced ridiculously good-looking individual like myself contemplate suicide from boredom, namely watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Last Orders is about British people doing absolutely nothing in realtime. For two hours. 27 Dresses is about the estrogen injection you forgot to take before you watched it. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is about a two-hour long kick in the balls, not my favorite thing to experience even vicariously.
Leatherheads puts these all to shame. After all, why go for one topic, when you can go for all of them? Football, mud wrestling, unrequited love, male bonding, fat people, the Great Depression, the Prohibition, betrayal, lies, Renee Zellwegger's oily face that's so slippery your eyeballs can't hang on, George Clooney's loony O Brother Where Art Thou character, broken telephone and World War I are just some of the broad range of topics which would take almost as long for me to list as for you to just watch the movie yourself. Anyway, each topic from this veritable zoo of plot devices gets about two minutes of play. As a result it feels like you're watching two-minute-long episodes of some show where the characters stay the same, but each new episode has only minor relevance to the previous 17. I give this movie an "eh." (with an audible 'h')
Today we went to have lunch with one of Natasha's friends here at Dartmouth, Seth, whose buoyant gregarious personality belies his terminal case of astronomy/physics dorkiness. We chatted for a while on some innocuous subjects that leave no memory imprint while munching on veggie pseudo-Mexican burritos. After lunch Seth felt sick (I sometimes have that effect), and had to depart in a hurry, looking over his shoulder every so often with that look Sam Neil gives the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Another good first impression by me.
We attemped a language experiment today. Natasha and I agreed not to speak Russian or English for what ended up being about an hour and a half. We had at our disposal a combined total of a couple of years of Spanish, French, and a semester of Chinese, the last of which unfortunately lying entirely on one side of the conversation. The first couple of minutes were full of inauspicious silence, Hitchcock style. Then awkward first words were breathed, mostly "..." and "uh..." But then, breakthrough, after fifteen minutes or so, we were chatting in a language I would hesitate to call Spanish, but which definitely was neither English nor Russian. A success by any standards, as long as they're really really low.
Lastly, I was thinking about blindfolds earlier today because Natasha was crocheting something that had the potential to become one, and I was wondering, does anyone purposely make a blindfold? Seems like blindfolds are usually items that have an alternate intrinsic purposes, like scarves or shirts or hands. There are precious few people in the world who (when you catch them crocheting) reply to "whatcha makin?" with "oh, it's a blindfold, can't you tell?" Let's just acknowledge that there's a demand for blindfolds and start making them and calling them what they are eh?
Then we watched Leatherheads. Now this is a movie which has absolutely no idea what it's about. Most movies are pretty transparent and straightforward, even the bad ones: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about proving to you that there are things in the world that make even a well-balanced ridiculously good-looking individual like myself contemplate suicide from boredom, namely watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Last Orders is about British people doing absolutely nothing in realtime. For two hours. 27 Dresses is about the estrogen injection you forgot to take before you watched it. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is about a two-hour long kick in the balls, not my favorite thing to experience even vicariously.
Leatherheads puts these all to shame. After all, why go for one topic, when you can go for all of them? Football, mud wrestling, unrequited love, male bonding, fat people, the Great Depression, the Prohibition, betrayal, lies, Renee Zellwegger's oily face that's so slippery your eyeballs can't hang on, George Clooney's loony O Brother Where Art Thou character, broken telephone and World War I are just some of the broad range of topics which would take almost as long for me to list as for you to just watch the movie yourself. Anyway, each topic from this veritable zoo of plot devices gets about two minutes of play. As a result it feels like you're watching two-minute-long episodes of some show where the characters stay the same, but each new episode has only minor relevance to the previous 17. I give this movie an "eh." (with an audible 'h')
Today we went to have lunch with one of Natasha's friends here at Dartmouth, Seth, whose buoyant gregarious personality belies his terminal case of astronomy/physics dorkiness. We chatted for a while on some innocuous subjects that leave no memory imprint while munching on veggie pseudo-Mexican burritos. After lunch Seth felt sick (I sometimes have that effect), and had to depart in a hurry, looking over his shoulder every so often with that look Sam Neil gives the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Another good first impression by me.
We attemped a language experiment today. Natasha and I agreed not to speak Russian or English for what ended up being about an hour and a half. We had at our disposal a combined total of a couple of years of Spanish, French, and a semester of Chinese, the last of which unfortunately lying entirely on one side of the conversation. The first couple of minutes were full of inauspicious silence, Hitchcock style. Then awkward first words were breathed, mostly "..." and "uh..." But then, breakthrough, after fifteen minutes or so, we were chatting in a language I would hesitate to call Spanish, but which definitely was neither English nor Russian. A success by any standards, as long as they're really really low.
Lastly, I was thinking about blindfolds earlier today because Natasha was crocheting something that had the potential to become one, and I was wondering, does anyone purposely make a blindfold? Seems like blindfolds are usually items that have an alternate intrinsic purposes, like scarves or shirts or hands. There are precious few people in the world who (when you catch them crocheting) reply to "whatcha makin?" with "oh, it's a blindfold, can't you tell?" Let's just acknowledge that there's a demand for blindfolds and start making them and calling them what they are eh?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
