The Misspent Life

Heaven

This has to be seen to believed. See also here and here.

Beyond Good and Enya

Today I sit down to write a paper on Friedrich Nietzsche's Jenseits Gut und Böse, otherwise known to you mortals as Beyond Good and Evil.  So to accompany my writing I decided that nothing would be more in against the spirit of the text than to listen to Enya.  I am nothing if not somewhat insane.

Breach

As you will have realized, I am rather busy and not posting very much.  Of course, you also know the reasons.  So I will just say that I had a nice dinner, although the food wasn't good, and friendly gathering at someone's house on Friday night.  Saturday night the plan was go to see the German film, Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), which is a supposedly fantastic film about the Stasi in the old DDR, but it was sold out!  So we casted about for a spell until deciding that we would go see an equally suitable date movie, Breach, about Robert Hanssen.  It was very good, and did an extremely good job creating Hanssen as a sympathetic character before knocking him down--it really humanized him and made you realize the sadness and corruptibility of man that could turn this outwardly devout and solid man into such a monster.  Of course, many people in the theatre were extremely dismissive of the scenes that showed him to be something admirable since they usually involved him being very Catholic or conservative.  Two major no-no's with the DC, we-are-so-important-because-we-live-in-DC-and-are-progressive set.  The only thing I had to quibble with is that in one scene they showed the change over from the Clinton/Reno pictures in the FBI building to the Bush/Ashcroft pictures.  The Bush and Ashcroft pictures didn't look very good and I wonder if they really used the same pictures--Bush's head was huge and Ashcroft's mouth was agape. They might be the same, but they really were not good pictures--and of course the crowd hissed.

But go see this movie.  Oh, I also had tapas for dinner.

Oscar Night

I will probably not be watching the Oscars (TM) tonight.  I have a short paper to write that I should have done yesterday instead of going out on the town.  All of my thoughts are on paper, but I still need to flesh it out and develop the argument so that it flows together coherently.  Plus, I think TiVo is going to be recording some things that would keep me from watching something else since I don't have my cable split.  Although I do like Ellen.  I was going to post something about Oscar (TM) predictions where I would pick the nominations that would definitely not win, but changed my mind when I realized that it would be lame-o with a capital Pathetic.  If I do watch anything it will probably be the red carpet, especially if E! has on Ryan Seacrest.  Also, who wants to see a 30 minute standing ovation when Algore gets on stage?  Not me.

No More Woe! Snow!!

I awoke this morning and looked out the window and what did I see?  SNOW!  White, thick, and heavy flakes.  Absolutely beautiful.  Hanging on the branches, covering up the cars, fantastic.  I just wish this happened tomorrow because then they'd cancel classes ;)

See ya!

Woe

Woe is me.  Winter has left us for at least a little while!  I am walking around without a coat on.  The poor dear is slumped in my office chair and cries a little when I go out to class or to grab lunch or to get a coffee or other liquid pick-me-up.  I can hear its whimpers even now.

As I type I am looking at my little Weather Channel Firefox plug-in and it is telling me that the temperature is now 13 degrees Celsius.  Why do I have my temperature in Celsius?  I am doing this so I learn what Celsius means for when I spend any time in Europe, which I hope will become a regular occurrence.  I don't have any way to judge between 5 degrees Celsius or 10 degrees Celsius, so I am slowly learning.  So what is 13 degrees Celsius in our trusty Fahrenheit scale?  Between 55 and 56 degrees.

NO WAY!

The Biggest Band in Slovenia

If there is one question you, dear readers, have always wanted answered, it is surely "What is the biggest band in Slovenia?"  Well, your days of wonder are over because I will tell you.  What?  This wasn't the question you have always wanted answered?  Well, no matter.  You will learn the answer anyway.

Terror

Last weekend I went to a party with a unique theme.  Midgets.  The reason for the party was a movie, The Terror of Tinytown, which I had never heard of but will never forget.  Have you heard of it?

I Am Becoming One of Them

In a few months my intellectual prowess will be unleashed upon the world as I present my first conference paper, marking another step on the road to academic obscurity.  The paper is not good, which means I need to spend the next few weeks doing extra research and rewriting it.  The conference is at an Ivy, too, and the theme of the conference is just ripe for tomfoolery and all around snooty, snotty puffery.

This is one more thing to add to the queue.

Humor Me

Someone famous and intelligent once said that you could tell a lot about a people by what they found funny.  So what does it say about me and my colleagues that we find this uproariously funny?