The Misspent Life

Saxophones

I don't like them.

Shorn

It is gone.

It Is Time for Something Drastic

I am in a very foul mood.  I don't know exactly why, it is a combination of things.  First, I am imagining the amount of work I need to go over the next few weeks.  Second, I have money things to deal with.  Third, I have to wonder what I'm going to do for the summer and beg around for additional funds.  If that comes up a cropper I might have to end up working as a temp and that is chafing at my pride.  Before I went to grad school I was working with the C-Suite, now if it comes to this, I will spend my summer working in a file room or something.  I'll be taking German classes at night, though, and would spend the last month in Germany either taking a class or just being a bum.  I don't like thinking about the future because the future brings risk and that gets me all on edge and starts messing with my circuits.  On top of all this add an upswing in existential angst and regret about grad school and the attendant life of solitude and penury.  We don't want my circuits to blow in DC.  That would be bad.

Anyway, so what am I going to do about my foul mood?  Well, first I'm listening to a Swiss radio station's morning show and they are having stupid chat with a comedian and playing Shania Twain (her newer stuff, which isn't as good) and now...Bon Jovi.  Ugh, no.  That doesn't help.  I'd listen to my new CD that I got on iTunes.  I'm talking about a new Dolly Parton CD where she sings hippy folk songs.  It is actually pretty darn good except for one glaring example--her cover of Imagine.  That is unbearable in the original and isn't helped by a schmaltzy, string heavy twang sound.

But I know what will.  I'm going to get my hair shaved off tomorrow.  All off.  That will help me feel like I'm making a break.  It is going to be drastic.  Unfortunately, seveal of my classmates have gone the same route and so I will look like a copycat.  I don't care.  I saw some recent pictures of myself and I don't like it.  Any of it.  It has to end.

In Which We Say Good Bye and Hello

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our friend Quicquid.  But while we moarn his leaving us we can say hello to our new, old friend Basil Seal, so there is hope that we may see Quicquid again in a new guise.

Who?

I don't know how many of your are availing yourself of the opportunity to watch the "new" Doctor Who that is premiering on this side of the pond.  I would doubt that many of you are as it involves watching the Sci-Fi Channel.  Anyway, regardless of if you are watching it or not I'm going to share some thoughts with you now.  I will begin with the positives.

First, I am glad that they did not fiddle with the theme song.

Second, the special effects are second-rate, as they should be.  I do not know if that is because they want to maintain the feel of the show or if it is because the BBC is still as cheap as they were when the older ones were being made and this is the best that they could do.

Third, I'm surprised that I'm not cringing every time Billie Piper comes on as Rose, The Doctor's traveling companion.  She is actually doing pretty well.

Now for the negatives.

First, I'm not too keen on their attempt so far to "humanize" The Doctor.  I don't care if he is sad and lonely; he is a Time Lord.

Second, the second episode involved the destruction of the Earth in five billion years.  They just so happen to have music from ancient earth to play for this occasion and it happens to be "Tainted Love" and Britney Spears' "Toxic."  That was a stretch.

Third, while I really enjoyed the first episode's plot--mannequins come to life--the rest haven't been so good.  There have been some bizarre aliens, but nothing too bizarre.

Anyway, on the whole I enjoy it.  You should try to check it out.  I've got the new Battlestar Gallactica coming to me soon on Netlfix so I can geek you out even more.

Whoops

Apologies for being absent for such a long time, I can tell that I was missed.  Anyway, I returned from my Spring Break safe and sound and immediately had to write a paper that I was supposed to work on during my break.  This one I finished at the wonderful hour of 5 am.  Of course I didn't start it until midnight, so no one to blame but myself for that one.  You can imagine that my sleeping habits have been somewhat off kilter even by my standards.  By the time I had gotten myself back into the regular habits of life I found myself stricken with a strange stomach ailment that made me unable to do anything but lay down and think about not being sick.

But all is well again.

More Thoughts

• Do not, I repeat, do not see the movie Junebug.  Although it got good reviews, it is not good.  It is slow, stupid, and disjointed.  There is no resolution (which I think might be the point) and at one of the important scenes in the end I started laughing out loud because it was so silly.
• I like pop music.
• Call Me Earl hasn't been as good as it used to be.
• I prefer Pepsi in cans, but Coke in bottles or from a fountain.  I cannot drink clear pop unless it is very cold.  I enjoy pop mostly for the fizz and like to drink it very fast so that it burns the back of my throat.  I am sure this is very bad for the back of my throat, but life is short and you might as well start falling apart early.
• The Office is a very sad show, given how funny it is.  There is always a large dose of sadness and loss in each episode.  I think it is better than the English original.  Kind of the like USA!
• While I like mountains, I'm not a fan of hills and prefer terrain to be flat.
• Meekins is just about the best Beanie Baby lamb that I have seen (and I own just about all of them).
• I do not think I will drink any green beer tonight.
• Kure, kure takora.
• I listen to a few podcasts, but I'm not very good about listening to them regularly.
• A lot of these NCAA games have been close, and they often involve a big team and a small team that people didn't think should be in the tournament.  I think this shows that the small teams should be there.  Again, I don't really care for it, but I really should start now.
• Comcast's DVR is not as good as TiVo.  The on screen controls aren't as clear and the response to the remote is terrible.  Also, it lags.
• Today was a little easier for a pimp.
• While Evil Monkey is popular, Stewie is still the favorite.  I understand that people don't think the newer seasons are very good but I haven't been able to watch it since it is on at the same time as Desparate Housewives.

Got Nothing?

I don't have anything for you so I thought I piece together a few random notes:

• It is still hard out here for a pimp.
• I don't understand how Bucky is still in American Idol.  Really, I don't get the appeal.
• Madagascar, the cartoon movie about the animals from New York is not very good.  Shrek is not very good either.
• POPS is having trouble with Laura Ingram's website.
• Politics is completely useless now.  I discern a certain centrifugal pattern developing in the party system.  The media is completely irresponsible and worse than useless.  They are a major cognitive retardant and the so-called "new media" frankly only do just a little bit better.  It is like watching a cripple fight without the enjoyment.  The Congress is entirely irresponsible and cannot be trusted with anything which requires a stronger Executive.
• It has been really windy in Chicago, and was very hot in DC.
• Tocqueville wrote in his Democracy in America about the legal establishment being the American aristocracy and a check against what he saw as revolutionary and frivolous tendencies of democratic society.  Lawyers, he thought, were inherently conservative because they stuck to precedent, tradition, and reason.  Ha!
• Why didn't Brokeback Mountain win?  No pudding.
• Who is excited about the NCAA tournament starting today?  Not me, although I should be.
• Trader Joe's is a great store.
• I am having trouble with my taxes because TurboTax seems to be throwing darts and assigning my income to random states.  I am also a bit peeved that my newly impoverished income was taxed at my old yuppy income.
• The Unit is a good TV show.
• Who misses the Olympics?  I don't, although I had Olympic Fever at the time.
• It is snowing a little bit right now.
• People write about revolutions from above being conservative revolutions.  This is getting tiring as I do not think it is necessarily true.
• Everyone likes the Evil Monkey.  He seems to be a hit.
• I'm not a big fan of this Spring Break thing before Spring actually comes.  It is simply cold most places.  I'm also not looking forward to being done with classes by the beginning of May.  That just seems wrong.
• I don't have the slightest clue what I'm going to be doing for the summer, and it is starting to get me nervous.

Bad Film

In an effort to show some solidarity with our friends the Danes I have recently gotten some Danish movies from Netflix.  Last night I watched one, Lars van Trier's Medea. Wow.  What an example of pretentious European film-making!  Lack of dialog, strange camera angles, lots of howling wind, rain, and bleak landscapes, strange imagery, it had it all.

Whoo Hoo!

So it is Spring Break for me.  Unfortunately I am not going to be heading to the beach to get drunk off of watered-down Coronas and cheap tequila and to catch VDs from state school chicks.  But it is still Spring Break!