posted 2004/01/30 at 22:30
First of all, I'm not going to the Green Party of Ohio convention tomorrow. I really want to go, but logistically it's just not feasible. Thankfully I can participate in the Green Party primary online (if you're interested, I'm voting for Peter Camejo), and hopefully wherever I end up at this time next year, I'll have a Green Party convention to go to.
One of the big things that's been going on recently (not the big thing which you've probably guessed by now) is that I'm joining up with a few other Spectrum members and getting a band together. I've been too far removed from my own music to think about using it with the band, but I've been going through my own collection, trying to figure out stuff we could play. And so help me, I put on "I Will Remember You" and I almost lost it. Why does everything finally have to start going right for me at UT when I'm just three months away from leaving?
posted 2004/01/28 at 20:11
You know what a fun drinking game is? Sit me in front of a television broadcasting a Howard Dean interview, and take a drink every time Dean starts a sentence with "I'm the only candidate ..." and then I say, "... except Kucinich." You'll probably be puking in your shoes within 30 minutes.
posted 2004/01/27 at 12:47
Note to University of Toledo: You need to have more fucking snow days.
So yeah, Saturday the Green Party of Ohio is having its 2004 convention down in Columbus. So help me, I want to go. But if I go, that will mean getting up at four in the morning on a Saturday, trying to make two three-hour trips in my dinky little Camry, and all for making local connections that may not matter much if I move out of state later this year to go to grad school. But I can't deny that I want to do everything I can to help this election season, and maybe that's worth all the hassle of the trip. Suggestions?
I'll have to think about it tomorrow, though; I've got another big night lined up tonight that I'll leave all you scamps to talk about on your own.
posted 2004/01/26 at 22:31
Somehow I just knew that the mild December we had would give way to a hellaciously cold and snowy January. My hands are in a horrid state right now, and to top it all off, in addition to all the snow we've already got on the ground, we're going to have a couple of snow-and-ice falls in the next twenty-four hours. Did I mention how much I can't stand driving when the weather's like this? Because everyone around me gets sick of how much I mention it, and I don't intend on stopping anytime soon.
Oh, and for a real kick in the pants, my PS2 crapped out on me right in the middle of a DDRMax2 workout, and now I may have to send it back to Sony to get it fixed. Right when I was finally getting halfway decent too, not to mention all the weight I've lost as a result of playing the game. And hey, can someone explain to me why, in spite of owning damn near every video game system that's come out in the past twenty years, two of the three systems I've had that've had problems have been from the latest generation of consoles? Are they deliberately building the boxes to be as shitty as possible now, or what?
posted 2004/01/25 at 22:57
New on Backwash: "How Could I Be So Immature?" A brief discussion of how I've been feeling in some of my more introspective periods this past week. I wish I could be more subtle about this stuff, but, well, I can't, okay? I haven't even liked being so brief here on the .org recently, but for all that some stuff in my life is finally starting to go down, I'm such a jumble of emotions right now I don't know how to express most of this stuff. Hopefully I'll figure out how soon.
posted 2004/01/24 at 22:10
Okay, I'm ... here, I guess. There was a chance of me going out again tonight, but it got canceled at the last minute. Good thing, too, since it's already into negative degrees out there.
Just so people don't get the wrong idea, I haven't been drinking or drugging at the clubs, nor have I been dancing. ("So what have you been doing there, Sean?" "You figure it out.")
On the subject of dancing, in my ongoing tango with DDRMax2, I've finally gotten to the most difficult of the Light-level songs, and I'm wanting to know just how anyone can expect anyone else to move so fast. Seriously. On the plus side, I'm getting at least 90 minutes of dancing in five times a week, and all those pounds I put on in the autumn are coming off pretty damn quickly. But I still ain't letting any of you watch me play.
posted 2004/01/23 at 18:53
Can't talk; going to a film festival at UT tonight followed by another club. Yes, I'm slowly becoming everything I never wanted to be, and the damnedest thing is I like it.
posted 2004/01/21 at 05:21
I survived. No, scratch that: I fucking thrived. I don't want to jinx it by saying too much, but let's just say that I may have finally turned the corner in my life.
posted 2004/01/20 at 16:25
Just as a point of interest, if anyone wants to tune in to CNN following Dubya's speech tonight, they're going to have a camera crew in Toledo (since Dubya's visiting Owens Community College tomorrow), and one of the people they'll be talking to is Donovan Nichols, UT's Student Government President from last year who helped me in my as-yet-unsuccessful attempt to get gender identity added to UT's non-discrimination clause.
As for me, I'll probably be at a bar around that time. Yes, I said a bar. And hopefully I'll live to tell you all the tale later.
posted 2004/01/19 at 19:10
Subject header of a spam I just got: "What would happen to your family if you died?"
My immediate response: "They'd probably rent out my room."
Nice to know that no matter how much success I find in life, I'm always going to be a miserable bitch, huh?
posted 2004/01/18 at 22:30
New on Backwash: "Boogie No More". Come read about my shopping habits and learn just how much of a hypocrite I can be.
Yes, I changed the colours here a bit; I was sick and tired of hearing people say that my site is "burgundy and green" when it's supposed to be purple, dammit. I wish I could make the purple darker, but I can't do that under the browser-safe palette so you'll have to put up with it for now. Just didn't want any of you to think that your monitors were freaking out or anything like that.
posted 2004/01/17 at 23:48
If I wasn't already certifiably insane, I'm sure that waiting for my grad school applications will make me that way before too long here.
I still haven't even gotten all my courses straightened away yet since I'm doing so much on my own here. The bad news is that it looks like I won't get my dream of having a semester with Fridays off, like I was hoping for. The good news, though, is that I won't have a class that starts before 1400 any day of the week, which is probably a good thing given some other stuff that's going on in my life. More on that later.
I figured it out earlier today: fourteen more weeks of classes, a week of Spring Break and a week of finals, and that's it for the undergraduate stuff. But still, where will I go from there?
posted 2004/01/15 at 23:40
Here's a strange side effect of DDR that I hadn't counted on. I have this black bucket hat I wear all the time, and of course I have it on when I do DDR. But tonight it was, as those kooky kids today would say, ass-cold, and my hat started to freeze. It's never done that before, and unfortunately it's too ragged to sustain another trip in the wash. Go figure that, huh?
Something very big could be in the works in my personal life here, but I don't want to give any details away yet. Let's just say that I could be owing some huge favours to a fellow Spectrum member here shortly.
posted 2004/01/13 at 16:28
I got my official GRE results today. Not only did the 750 Verbal and 800 Math hold up, but I got a 6 out of 6 on the Analytical (essay-writing) section as well. Hopefully that should turn some heads in my grad school applications. Now if only my portfolio's good enough to get a foot in the door in the first place ...
posted 2004/01/11 at 21:51
New on Backwash: "Making Our Airways Safe". This was originally written as an assignment for the Persuasive Writing course I took last semester, where we were supposed to try to use humour to make a point. I got an A in the class, so I guess I did okay with this paper, but read it and judge for yourself.
Sorry to kind of cop out on not writing something new for Backwash this week, but right now I'm kind of nervous about the start of the next -- the last -- semester at UT. Yesterday I realized that I'll be graduating in less than four months, and I was like, AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!. <John Aston voice>But I'm feeling much better now.</John Aston voice>
posted 2004/01/09 at 23:48
Me with Christmas money and a Triple Replay Points coupon at Media Play is never a good thing. Yes, I now own a GameCube (Indigo? But of course!), along with Mario Party 5 and Mario Kart: Double Dash. The funny thing is, I bought those games intending to mail in for the collectible Zelda disc that used to be bundled with the system (the bundle had been the second item on my Christmas list behind the keyboard), but then I get the box home and the Zelda disc is in there anyway. Go figure.
By the way, am I crazy for thinking that Sonic Shuffle is better than Mario Party? Just asking.
Classes start back up on Monday, but I won't be there because my honours courses and independent study haven't been scheduled yet. So as of right now my only courses are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, although I'm guessing that won't last for very long. I went to campus earlier today and got my textbooks, so Sunday I'll get everything in order and wonder just how in the hell I'm going to get from here to May with my head on straight.
posted 2004/01/06 at 15:52
You know, last Friday and Saturday we hit 50 degrees or higher each day. Right now it's 9 degrees out. Yes, that's Fahrenheit, thanks for asking. And the wind chill's 10 below, and only threatens to get worse as the day goes on. At least I don't have to go out today, but it's at times like this I wonder why I didn't look at more graduate schools in Florida than I did ...
posted 2004/01/05 at 21:45
Mark flew back to England today to take care of selling his house and getting the rest of his stuff to bring over here. I knew this was going to happen, but nobody bothered to tell me it was today until after he left. I swear, for as close as we are as a family, no one here ever bothers to tell me squat ...
For those of you scoring at home (if not, try flowers), my application to Indiana University went out today, along with my first poetry submissions in a long time. I'd been waiting on this one magazine to get back to me, and I didn't realize I'd waited three whole months after their usual "we'll get back to you" date. So hopefully I can start getting that taken care of, plus I'll be picking up one of the Market books for fiction later this week so I can start getting my short stories out there. Given that most MFA applicants aren't even published before they start applying, though, I think I've got a leg up there. Now it's only a question of whether or not my portfolio's good enough to get me in the door anywhere, and whether or not the GPA and GREs will get me a nice mountain of scholarship money.
posted 2004/01/04 at 21:45
New on Backwash: "Year Changes Suck". A short recounting of how my New Year's celebrations went, along with a look into my increasingly messed-up mind. Somehow it feels like my paranoia and depression may hit new heights in 2004.
posted 2004/01/03 at 22:48
My DDR obsession has now grown to the point where I actually went out and dropped the cash for a RedOctane Ignition v2.0 pad. Either the obsession, or the fact that I woke up this morning and it was like both my legs were screaming, "AMPUTATE ME! AMPUTATE ME!" The new pad is a lot more comfortable than my old el cheapo pad, and it doesn't slide around like the old one was, but the sensors on it are so big that I can barely stand in the centre and not trigger one of the sensors. I have a feeling these things aren't made for people with size 13 feet. I'd think about modding the pad, but since the arcade pads likely have the same size sensors, I figure I'd better get used to it. That's assuming I ever get the money to afford a DDR arcade game of my own; still no way in hell I'm playing in front of anyone else.
On another note, since I clearly need to stimulate some other kind of discussion to get people to talk over on the .forum, here's a list of some of the songs I've been playing since getting the keyboard for Christmas:
- "Return to the Heart" and "Madre de la Tierra" by David Lanz, from The David Lanz Collection of sheet music (I actually got my copy autographed when he visited our local Media Play back in 1994)
- "To Zanarkand" from Final Fantasy X (MIDI file taken from a Yuna fansite and transcribed to sheet music by MidiNotate)
- Tori Amos' covers of "Time" and "Famous Blue Raincoat", taken from the MIDI files at tori.net and also transcribed via MidiNotate
posted 2004/01/02 at 23:39
It actually hit 55 here in town today. Perfect day to go to Wildwood and walk, which I did for an hour. Then I came back here and played DDR for an hour and a half. Then I spent the next two hours popping the blisters on my feet. Sheesh. And yes, it will get colder and snowier this coming winter; I can guarantee it, since I'm having to walk between main campus and engineering for one of my courses next year.
As far as my new year went, you'll read about that on Backwash this weekend. Let's just say it didn't go well.
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