finally flickr fupdate!

My flickr is finally updated. I'd have put the pictures in a set, but flickr won't let me. I let my pro account die, so if you can't see the pictures because my bandwith is used, I'll renew it.

It's how I roll. Enjoy!

what strange machines we are/ what strange machines we are (3x)

Since it's been so long since I've updated the ol' blog, I figured that, hey, since I have a couple of hours to kill, I'd let all two (or three?) of you know why:
1. Pretty much nothing has been going on. Things at the store are actually not too bad, financially; we were very worried how the construction out front would impact business and it doesn't seem to have too much. We've even had some really good days, and if those keep up enough to get someone to buy the store in the next six months, I'll still have a job.
2. I've been working on this year's Elsie Hooper Art Contest. It's been fairly slow going because I'm working on a larger scale than I usually do (instead of the middle of an 8" x 10", I'm using the whole of an 11" x 16"), and it's turning out fairly well, but I still need to find a larger scanner than I usually use when I'm done. Also, the other entrants won't be able to possibly cheat this year because he has actual judges for the finalists. Which is good.
3. I'm working on another story off and on. This one takes place in an airport, which, aside from being something I've wanted to do for a while*, has a very low likelihood that there will be interspecies erotica.

That's more or less it. Flickr update tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on my speed in getting the yet-to-be-taken pictures uploaded.

I'm pretty sure that I called some previous entry the Most Boring Entry Ever. I'm also pretty sure this one beats it.

*Many of my story ideas have involved airports in one way or another. The Spokane Story originally began in an airport, years after the events of the story's current incarnation, and the characters were drastically different. But I've always (usually) enjoyed airports and would like to write several that take place in them. Just because.

in which i use numbers

So. Classes. Ahem.

1. Eastern Religion and Philosophy is taught by a guy who looks a tad like Steven Spielberg, but with considerably more bow-ties-per-shirt. He seems to know what he's talking about, although it's a bit difficult to tell over the roar of his mumbling. However, I do have that class with Biz and Alexis and so the chances of making through the class are high.
2. Brit Lit 2: The Sequel is taught by a woman whose previous job was being Velma Dinkley and teaching kindergarten. I loathe the class with almost, but not quite, every fiber of my being. Alexis is in that class with me, too, but because it's still illegal to throw up your hands and then leave some sort of backhand smack as a parting gift, I may not survive.
3. Stress and Coping is taught by Andy Richter. A taller and thinner version of him, but still. I have no friends in that class, but the teacher seems fine. As far as psych teachers go.

The chances that I will turn to drink: Slim.

You know what I hate more than customers? Regular customers. With their giant boxes of books. And their relentless demands and questions and complaining about prices. You know, this was far more witty when I thought of it yesterday, and it's not really working now, so I'll jump that ship while I can.

The chances that I will punch someone when they drop a giant box of books on the counter: High.

The chances that this post will continue on to the Special Guest Topic: Low, because I didn't end up seeing Grindhouse tonight. Alas.

khaaaaaaaaaaaan

This was going to be a post, keeping with my theme of essential kernels of knowlege, pretty much as an excuse to link to the short video of Jack White recording a song for the new White Stripes album but is now about how Blogger is a bully.
I clicked on the Old Blogger button, but it kept taking me to the Make Google Account section, and when I tried No, Seriously, I Want The Old Blogger option, it took me to the Ha, You Cannot Access Your Account Unless You Sign Up With Google screen. So here I am, with New Blogger. I feel like the big kid at school made me give him my lunch money, but let me think I had choices.

Jerks.
In retaliation, I'm going to keep using Blogger, just to show them.

And here's the link I was talking about.

And the new Bright Eyes video, because I keep listening to the song over and over.

because i don't actually have anything original to say...

...here's that excerpt I talked about before, from World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War; this is told by a guy who made movies to boost the country's morale. Although the film, Avalon: The Battle of the Five Colleges, bombed initially, it was found to lower ADS (Asymptomatic Demise Syndrome, or Apocalyptic Despair Syndrome) and he made several other movies before the war was over. It's a very good book, I really liked it. So here you go:

"Just outside of Greater Los Angeles, in a town called Claremont, are five colleges --Pomona, Pitzer, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, and Claremont Mckenna. At the start of the Great Panic, when everyone else was running, literally, for the hills, three hundred students chose to make a stand. The turned the Women's College at Scripps into something resembling a medieval city. They got their supplies from the other campuses; their weapons were a mix of landscaping tools and ROTC practice rifles. They planted gardens, dug wells, fortified an already existing wall. While the mountains burned behind them, and the surrounding suburbs descended into violence, those three hundred kids held off ten thousand zombies! Ten thousand, over the course of four months, until the Inland Empire could finally be pacified. We were lucky to get there just at the tail end, just in time to see the last of the undead fall, as cheering students and soldiers linked up under the oversized, homemade Old Glory fluttering from the Pomona bell tower."

Sorry, Mary, they didn't have anything about Stanford.

color me EXCEEDINGLY DISAPPOINTED

The Mountain Goats Show (Is All Sold Out)

Am E Am E Am C G C

Since I found out, last October, that you'd be in my state
I counted the days until the show, I couldn't wait
But it was all in vain
That's been made all too plain
I spent fifteen minutes on hold listening to muzak
And though it got old I somehow still stuck with it
Casting my mind back to the morning
When tickets went on sale without warning

I was unprepared, I admit that now
Why should I have known a date and time?
How should I have known you'd get sold out?
If I could have found a payphone maybe I'd sing a different tune
But there're no payphones from here to Singapore
No one carries change for them anymore
I found a booth buried in the snow on the lawn
Little did I know that the phone was gone

A voice came on and I told her tickets were my want
And oh! I found that all my hope was all for naught
From the desperate waiting list I hope to hear
And make note for better planning, for a cell phone, next year
When the throngs sing No Children I won't be among their number
Though I thought I would, I was sure I would, last October

there's a monkey in the basement. how'd the monkey get there? how'd the monkey get there?

Because it's been a while since I've last posted, I figured it'd be just about time to blow my own horn. Although there's really no saying the horn will be blown, because anyone and everyone who wants can enter and everyone and anyone who enters has exactly the same chance of winning.
You're probably thinking: where's the link? Or explaination?

Right here.

So, yeah.
Actual update later? I've got something from a book I want to share, but the book is at work?

NOTE: Mine is (currently) the top left one. And today's entry title is taken from The Monkey Song by The Mountain Goats. Jus' so's you know.

this is going to be short, because it is late. and i am tired.

AT THE BRAINSTORMING MEETING FOR BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE:

Executive One: Have you seen that Underworld movie? We should do something like that.
Executive Two: We produced it, and I totally agree with you. Let's do it.
Executive One: Well, we've done vampires and werewolves. Vampires are always popular.
Executive Two: I like werewolves more.

THEY SLAP AT EACH OTHER FOR A MOMENT.

Executive Two (panting): I win! I win!
Executive One (also panting): N-uh! I win!
Executive Two: We could just use the same plot as Underworld.
Executive One: Brilliant! And how much should we budget for the werewolf transformation effects?
Executive Two: Nothing! We'll save millions by just using trained wolves and colored contacts!

THEY HIGH-FIVE. AND MISS HORRIBLY, SENDING AT LEAST ONE HURTLING THROUGH THE WINDOW. (It doesn't matter which. And what's with that title? It's gawdawful.)

sounds about right...

In an effort to liven things up, here's my current list of ten (actually 12 because I couldn't just choose one Okkervil River to end it with) songs to take to a desert island in no particular order.

The Fall Peter and the Wolf
Tonight Sibylle Baier
Grendel's Mother The Mountain Goats
If You See Light The Mountain Goats
I Wish That I Could See You Soon Herman Dune
Strange Machines Peter and the Wolf
Fake Palindromes Andrew Bird
Whistle of a Distant Train Ed Harcourt
The Vice and Virtue Ministry Happy Bullets
Song of Our So-Called Friends Okkervil River
The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion Okkervil River
The War Criminal Rises and Speaks Okkervil River

What are yours?

oy

I've got to make up for last night's depressing post. I'll just give you the URL for the unfinished site? Maybe you could tell me if things are all crazy or illegible or oddly phrased so I could fix them? Except for content, it's more or less how it'll be when it's done. The links should work, which is always a plus?

Click Here!

you see that slogan at the top? ignore it this once.

It's late.

I'm watching Seinfeld, and putting off writing a short story that's actually a rewrite of one I did last year and turned in to my professor (I hated turning it in because it was rushed and I hated out it turned out) so that I can show it to him come January in an attempt to get into a graduate fiction workshop he's teaching. This is the mindset I come to you with.
Just so you know.

Seinfeld, or television shows in general, are weird in that I don't notice the age difference too much: making a sort of never-never land. The difference in real life however, is that ten years seems like a tremendous amount of time. Changes that people go through in half that time can be astronomical. I don't want to get older, I really don't.
I'll know different people, I'll live somewhere else. Maybe even this blog will be a distant memory. I looked at my grandparents the other day --while my Grandma was lecturing me on not having an outline for my life, which did NOT help, faithful reader(s)-- and saw myself in their age. My hands knobbled with age, etc.

But I've got no resolution to this. It's inevitable. On a lighter note, I hope to finish my website around the middle of January. I'd give you guy(s) a link, but I just have an Under Construction page at the URL.
And things will look better in the morning, they always do.

at least the title for the new harry potter is cool

I think that I've missed my calling. I should've been in a soap opera or been a basic cable television judge. I can look shocked. Moreso, I can do it very poorly. I can also pull decisions out of a hat, regardless of any sense of the "law."
Why yes, I have been watching a half hour or so of daytime television.

three horrifying things

1. A "Global Haze" to reduce the earth's rising temperature.
2. The draft possibly being reinstated
3. Zombie apocalypse

already, he's sealed his victory as pop-culture ass of the century

Do you remember, in the Naked Gun movies, how OJ Simpson's character would constantly bumble and get terribly injured usually by fault of Leslie Nielsen? And it was often pretty funny, right? Remember?
And do you remember how he drove home, innocent as he is, very slowly on the highway while being pursued by the police? And how he killed his wife and her lover? And how the glove didn't fit? Right?
Well, most people would happily fade into the farthest part of the collective consciousness. They'd think of their two kids, who still have to go to school with other kids. They most certainly wouldn't create a sketch wherein they try to sell a used Ford Bronco because that would be in terrible terrible taste.

I read something this morning that spurred this post, and all of the above is to get you in the right frame of mind. Or something.

However awful that was, surely (SURELY!) OJ wouldn't do anything on national television. Not during prime time certainly. Because you'd think that deep down, somewhere in a part that wasn't sold to Satan, OJ would think of his kids. This is, of course, assuming that he didn't do it.
Most of all, he wouldn't reconstruct the murders, explaining, step by step, how he WOULD'VE done it. If he had. Which he didn't. No, like Michael "I will not rest until I find the real molesters" Jackson, OJ "I will not rest until I find the real murderers" Simpson didn't do it.
But the fact of the matter is that's exactly what he's doing.
The next thing you know, he'll just dig up his wife with rusty shovels that he's scratched "INNOCENT" into and demonstrate how he would've killed her. But he wouldn't do it on TV. He'd do it in the park, every hour, on the hour.

Because he classy.

just so that when book seven comes out, i can say i said it before it did

R.A.B. is Regulus Black.

easily the most absurd thing he has ever said

There's an annoying guy in my Brit Lit class who, aside from turning around in his seat to stare at whomever is talking, says inane and incomprehensible things. Today he, during a discussion of Shakespeare, suddenly put forth that the Bard was gay to which the teacher (who deserves a medal for not killing him already) replied that those sorts of reports have been made although there is little concrete evidence. He also noted that there were several biographies of late that said similar things about other historical figures; such as Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler. The latter was based primarily on a photograph where he is shown in a "gay" stance, and is thus hardly basis for an entire biography. All of this is set-up for the comment for which this post is named.
So, of course, the kid said that Hitler was gay because "he kept his moustache in such good condition."
Needless to say the class couldn't let this pass as we have for so many of his other comments and people began incredulously talking amongst themselves, which unfortunately made me miss his other reasons.

I was also busy laughing with Steve.

NOTE: I would've found the picture, but I don't really want to type "gay" and "Hitler" into Google Images.

like in terminator 2!

If my hands were hit by a hammer, they would shatter and then melt and reform into my hands. Except they would be on the ground and not on my wrists where they belong. So that would suck pretty hard.
I'm trying to say that I'm outside, waiting for the bus, after getting out of Rosemary's Baby for film class and listening to the Sufjan Christmas EPs. It's very cold.
Today's been about mid-way on the "Crappy?" scale for no particular reason. Just one of those days.
I guess that's about it.
I'll probably blog again later this evening, woozy on needing to sleep. It's the last day of my nineteeth year, which is mind-boggling to me.

UPDATE:
Day=Now going all right. In 20 minutes, I will be 20. I don't really have much else to say. I'm watching Scrubs? Good times there.

EDIT:
I just now noticed the link doesn't work. Well, it does now.

how cool is that?

I just want to give a little shout-out to my friend Bob, whose movies are getting closer to actually being flimed. If you have an hour or two, I'd suggest reading Elsie Hooper in its (so far) entirety. Even if you only read a little, you'll be able to see how awesome it is.
There's no comic for his other movie, The Man Who Killed Bigfoot and then Hitler. But it has a pretty sweet title and was published, in script and serial form, on his website for a while until he had to take it down.
So yeah, I'm pretty psyched about it. It'll be fantastic to see it on the big screen.

you know what hurts a lot?

Biting your tongue really really really really hard. And not the side or the tip either, somewhere in the middle, but closer to the tip. You'd think that after almost 20 years with the same tongue I'd be used to it. Or at least I wouldn't bite it so hard it bled.
First thought upon biting tongue: "Holy crap, I just bit my tongue! What?!"

oh man oh man oh man

So. In the next week or so I'm poised to declare my majors, which is, let me tell you, pretty much terrifying. According to my advisor, I'm also supposed to start applying for grad school and graduation during my Junior year. Which is next year. Except I don't know where I want to go, and I only vaguely know what I want to do.
(Well, I know what I'd like to do and pretty much where I'd like to go, but the chances of me being able to do either is, at the moment, nil.)
This is madness, I'm not ready to be in the World yet. Who do they think I am? Some sort of person who is prepared for this?
Bah.