Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Mm, Christmas. Well, sort of. This has got to be the least festive Christmas break I've ever had, but I'm still having a good time. I've been hanging out with Kevin every moment I haven't been asleep or sick (boy do vomiting and fever put ME in a holiday mood) and I haven't called any of my other friends. I SUCK. A little, anyway. (suck)
Yesterday I beat Myst. I started it the day before. It was a lot easier than I remembered, although maybe beating it before helped. I cheated last time, though. This time I used my brain. Can't get Riven to work on the laptop, though. The instructions should really include "and if you're using a Mac, FUCK YOU, haha." The third one is OS X native, but I don't wanna skip ahead.
Yesterday I beat Myst. I started it the day before. It was a lot easier than I remembered, although maybe beating it before helped. I cheated last time, though. This time I used my brain. Can't get Riven to work on the laptop, though
Monday, December 15, 2003
I just had this really weird diaphragm spasm that woke me right up. Nothing like unexpected, searing pain to shake off the drowsies. At any rate, here is a middle-of-the-night post. It's better than no post at all.
This evening I went with Lori to church. I'm not religious at all, but her church was doing a Christmas concert thingy and I like Christmas concert thingies, so I went. It was far nicer than I'd even suspected. I felt as though I spent two hours soaking, and some of the bitterness soaked right out of me. Like being blanched, I told Lori (see that post with the exploding pumpkin seeds). Her church is this enormous, fancy affair at the top of a cliff on Mulholland Drive. It was incredibly foggy when we arrived, so there was no view at all. When we left, though, I turned to see the giant window behind us, and was mesmerized. Lori had to come grab me and drag me outside, where there was an even better view. It was the whole city, laid out across the horizon like some shimmering dream. I wanted to stay, but Lori was cold. It was cold. And windy.
But nice.
This evening I went with Lori to church. I'm not religious at all, but her church was doing a Christmas concert thingy and I like Christmas concert thingies, so I went. It was far nicer than I'd even suspected. I felt as though I spent two hours soaking, and some of the bitterness soaked right out of me. Like being blanched, I told Lori (see that post with the exploding pumpkin seeds). Her church is this enormous, fancy affair at the top of a cliff on Mulholland Drive. It was incredibly foggy when we arrived, so there was no view at all. When we left, though, I turned to see the giant window behind us, and was mesmerized. Lori had to come grab me and drag me outside, where there was an even better view. It was the whole city, laid out across the horizon like some shimmering dream. I wanted to stay, but Lori was cold. It was cold. And windy.
But nice.
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
It's quite a shock when you run to the door in your bathrobe, expecting your roommate, and find a middle-aged hispanic man. But he fixed the sink, therefore he's my new favorite person.
In other news, I finally got my very own copy of Mike Mignola's "The Incredible Screw-On Head." Woo! Are you ready for "Hellboy," the movie?
heaven's gonna burn your eyes
In other news, I finally got my very own copy of Mike Mignola's "The Incredible Screw-On Head." Woo! Are you ready for "Hellboy," the movie?
heaven's gonna burn your eyes
Saturday, December 06, 2003
True Story: Since I went to that concert where Beck talked about Elliott Smith, I've been seeing Elliott Smith everywhere. I read about him in three different magazines, and my friend Jason made me a whole Elliott Smith CD and hid it outside my door, under a mop. The mop is unrelated. What is related is that Jason markered a great design on the CD, with a tattoey sort of heart w/ a sword in it. I knew Messr. Smith died recently, because Beck played one of his songs in memoriam. What happened to him? I asked Jason the other night. "He stabbed himself in the chest," said Jason. "Didn't you see my CD?"
Current Music: guess who!
Current Mood: blue -- my favorite color, but not a nice place to be
Current Music: guess who!
Current Mood: blue -- my favorite color, but not a nice place to be
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
So I read in the news today about how Donald Rumsfeld won an award from the Plain English Campaign for a remark he made last February, something about "unknown unknowns." I have not been party to many of Mr. Rumsfeld's speeches, but I guess he talks kind of strangely. According to a BBC report, a book has been published interpreting some of his comments as existentialist poetry. Hee hee.
In other news, Penny Arcade's "Child's Play" thingy seems to be going really well. I'm poor, so I can really appreciate that at least two PS2s (at $180 a pop) have been bought already. "Child's Play" is sort of a fundraiser to give toys to really sick kids at a hospital somewhere up there in the left part of the country. Go PA! I think maybe I'll buy a black ballet barbie doll to send (it's on the kids' wish list). That'll be my good deed this X-Mas.
"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think ... and I assume it's what I said." -- Donald Rumsfeld
Current Music: something classical
Current Mood: chai-tastic
In other news, Penny Arcade's "Child's Play" thingy seems to be going really well. I'm poor, so I can really appreciate that at least two PS2s (at $180 a pop) have been bought already. "Child's Play" is sort of a fundraiser to give toys to really sick kids at a hospital somewhere up there in the left part of the country. Go PA! I think maybe I'll buy a black ballet barbie doll to send (it's on the kids' wish list). That'll be my good deed this X-Mas.
"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think ... and I assume it's what I said." -- Donald Rumsfeld
Current Music: something classical
Current Mood: chai-tastic
Tuesday, November 25, 2003
Lately I've been going to the BBC website for my daily news fix. I've noticed that they seem to have a different selection of America-related stories than U.S. sites do, and their coverage of international news is much greater. Sometimes they talk funny, though. It took me a good five minutes to figure out that this mysterious "Number 10" they kept referring to was the Prime Minister (well, not Tony himself, but the official entity of the Prime, uh, Ministry). It's kind of like how we say "the White House" when we mean the executive branch here, I guess. I don't know if the editing of the BBC news is any less biased than that of American sources, but at least it's a different bias.
swimming in the frozen sky
swimming in the frozen sky
Monday, November 24, 2003
So I went to this concert on Saturday, and I was meaning to say something about it but I'm lazy. One of the local public radio stations put it on as a fundraiser, and a bunch of artists played. I just went because I wanted to see Beck and Gary Jules, but Liz Phair was there, and Jurassic 5 and Damien Rice and Jem and the Polyphonic Spree. I'd have to say Beck and Jurassic 5 were my favorite, tho' it was cool to see Gary Jules perform his one (1) big hit song (from the Donnie Darko soundtrack, you know, that one). I got a neat Beck shirt with a storm trooper face on it. A guy at Starbucks asked me if it was something Japanese. I said "Uh, no, it's a storm trooper. From Star Wars?" The Polyphonic Spree played last, and let me tell you, they are TERRIFYING. All 25 of them. They're all really young, except for the main singer, who's like 40. And they wear gospel robes. Also, they gyrate. "Hey, it's the sun! And it makes me shine!" They appeared to be having a great time, but I was scared.
Current Music: Yann Tiersen
Current Mood: caffeinated
Current Music: Yann Tiersen
Current Mood: caffeinated
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Meggish midnight adventures, continued:
So at about 3:30, I was hungry. All there was to eat, though, was a packet of pumpkin seeds I'd been keeping as kind of a museum relic -- they were the saltiest things on earth. They were saltier than salt. I swear. Anyway, they were mostly inedible. But then, I thought "Hey! I just learned about blanching, I bet that'd fix them!" So I went to the kitchen and boiled them until the salt was gone. Then they were slimy, so I put them in a pan and stuck them in the oven on "broil" to dry out. Ten minutes later, I started to hear a weird popping noise, and had visions of the kitchen exploding, so I went in to check on things. The living room and kitchen were full of smoke. The pumpkin seeds had started to explode. Disaster! Fearing the racket of the smoke alarm, I grabbed my fan and started running around the apartment with it, and I opened the windows and the front door. That didn't help a whole lot, so I sprayed a bunch of air freshener around. Now the apartment smells like "summer rain," or the perfume counter at Macy's, I'm not sure. I had to throw out my pumpkin seeds. I'm still hungry. Maybe I should sleep.
Current Music: what? who?
Current Mood: zzz
Man-o-man, I've been working on this template for hours. But it's BEEYOOTIFUL! Send me a comment, and relish how the feedback template matches.
Current Music: the voices in my head
Current Mood: tired
So at about 3:30, I was hungry. All there was to eat, though, was a packet of pumpkin seeds I'd been keeping as kind of a museum relic -- they were the saltiest things on earth. They were saltier than salt. I swear. Anyway, they were mostly inedible. But then, I thought "Hey! I just learned about blanching, I bet that'd fix them!" So I went to the kitchen and boiled them until the salt was gone. Then they were slimy, so I put them in a pan and stuck them in the oven on "broil" to dry out. Ten minutes later, I started to hear a weird popping noise, and had visions of the kitchen exploding, so I went in to check on things. The living room and kitchen were full of smoke. The pumpkin seeds had started to explode. Disaster! Fearing the racket of the smoke alarm, I grabbed my fan and started running around the apartment with it, and I opened the windows and the front door. That didn't help a whole lot, so I sprayed a bunch of air freshener around. Now the apartment smells like "summer rain," or the perfume counter at Macy's, I'm not sure. I had to throw out my pumpkin seeds. I'm still hungry. Maybe I should sleep.
Current Music: what? who?
Current Mood: zzz
Man-o-man, I've been working on this template for hours. But it's BEEYOOTIFUL! Send me a comment, and relish how the feedback template matches.
Current Music: the voices in my head
Current Mood: tired
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
So yesterday in my magazine editing class, we had a guy from Los Angeles magazine come in and talk to us about ... Los Angeles magazine. He's one of the staff writers, and was one of the first aboard when Emmis (sp?) Media bought the magazine and set about changing it. As far as regional magazines go, everyone wants to be like Texas Monthly. It apparently has a long history of high-quality writing and stuff, and is the most financially successful regional publication out there. Our speaker said that when he joined LA mag, he envisioned something like the New Yorker. Now, the problem with that is that although LA mag and the New Yorker have a similar reader demographic (white, affluent, educated), there are certain crucial differences between their situations that mean the magazines will NEVER EVER be similar. For one thing, the New Yorker didn't make money for a long, long time. That was okay, because it was owned by a family that published it just because. LA mag, though, is owned by a publicly traded company that demands a return on its investment ($31 million!). Why wouldn't it make money if it were like the New Yorker? Well, it doesn't have a big endowment to hire top-notch writers, it doesn't have a national readership, and it doesn't have a long reputation. Also, richwhiteeducated Angelenos seem to be kind of ... ahem ... shallow, and more into glitz and top ten lists than literary criticism and essays. Oh well.
Current Music: Beck (I'm going to the concert saturday, woo!)
Current Mood: snarky
Current Music: Beck (I'm going to the concert saturday, woo!)
Current Mood: snarky
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
A note from the apocalypse: Here I sit, at my favorite corporate monster of a coffee shop, with my wireless internet and a grande chai latte. I'm reading the L.A. Times online. What is my chai sitting on? A copy of the L.A. Times. This is kind of silly.
I have yet to figure out if they want you to pay for the papers they have here. Maybe I should ask.
mmm, chai
Current Music: whatever Starbucks is playing
Current Mood: mellow
I have yet to figure out if they want you to pay for the papers they have here. Maybe I should ask.
mmm, chai
Current Music: whatever Starbucks is playing
Current Mood: mellow
Saturday, November 08, 2003
Lori and I don't watch the TV news. I've been taught, in the secret cabal of the print journalism department, to look down on the news barbies and their cohorts. Especially the local ones. Local "news," eew. At the paper where I worked this summer, we had to call and fuss at a local station for reading one of our stories on the air without crediting us. Radio stations have been known to do that too, so I hear. At any rate, my loyalties lie with the printed page. We may suffer the slings and arrows of convergence, but we don't compete with Jay Leno for Nielsen ratings. Lori doesn't watch the news because she says it's all bad. I'm not sure I'd choose ignorance over depression. Maybe she should watch the TV news, at least they've got kittens being rescued from trees and whatnot. That would make anybody happy, except maybe somebody who hates kittens.
So what do we watch instead of TV news? Animal Planet. There's never anything bad on. I also watch the Food Network, but when I see too much of that, I start baking things and forcing Lori to eat them. Also I talk like that guy on Iron Chef. Oh, and then there's Cartoon Network. We needs our daily dose of Adult Swim, precious. It makes us happy, yesss. Not like hobbits. We hates nasty theiving hobbits, yes we does.
Oh, Lori is my roommate. Don't be getting any weird ideas, just because we're co-dependent.
Current Music: Matrix Revolutions soundtrack
Current Mood: I hate laundry, I love my PS2.
