posted 2005/06/30 at 18:56
Okay, so it turns out that Lara is going to be in Ohio for much longer than I'd previously figured on, at least through most of next week. There aren't any definite plans for her coming up here yet, but since she's coming here to look at colleges, I'm hoping we can use that as an excuse to get her up here to play DDR. (Marc can take her around BGSU, I can take her around UT.) I'll post more when we have definite plans, because it would be super-awesome if I could figure out a way to get Lara and Jessi together. The east coast answer to Tanya and Amber, if you will.
I'm still not getting a lot done here. I think part of it has been the weather (when the barometric pressure keeps going up and down like it has been recently here, my body goes all odd on me), but I think part of it may be just the psychological stresses of the diet. I hadn't really noticed this until recently, but once I have dinner (which is probably later in the day than most people have it since I have my "big meal" at lunch), I just don't want to do anything else for the rest of the day. Normally eating food is an energy booster for me, but I think what's going on is that once I'm done eating for the day, there's some part of my mind that goes, "Okay Sean, you've got to get to tomorrow without eating now, so why not just go to bed and then you can eat sooner?" Part of this may have to do with the fact that it's been so long since I've had a day off my diet, though, and hopefully going off on Saturday will help me regain a bit of energy here.
On that subject, can anyone offer me any opinions as to the food at Fazoli's? There's one in Maumee, and I've been tempted to go there for a while, but I don't want to go if the food is crappy or too expensive.
posted 2005/06/28 at 17:31
I fucking hate going to the dentist. I like my dentist, mind you, but I still have so many bad memories of my childhood dentist that it makes it hard to get over those old fears. Anyway, I did have one small cavity, but I won't be able to get it treated until August. In the meantime, though, I did have that one stain on my lower front teeth taken care of, so now I'm slightly less ugly than I was earlier. (Which is to say, I'm still plenty ugly.)
Plans might be changing for later in the week, because I found out yesterday that Lara is actually staying in Lima. The DDR machines in Bowling Green will be much closer to where she is than the machines in Cincinatti. Lara still hasn't made any definite plans, but I'm hoping she can come up here because one, it will save me a lot of driving; two, Christina and Milena are 100% guaranteed not to show up in Cincy and I'm guessing Penny probably can't make it either because of school and work; and three, if Lara's up here then there's a better chance of Jessi getting her older brother to drive her down so the two of them can meet Lara too. Hopefully this all works out, but we'll wait and see.
posted 2005/06/27 at 17:49
Well, the good news is that as of last night I've now finished re-learning everything from first-year Japanese, and I've already started working on second-year stuff. The bad news is that because of the way I've scheduled things, this means that my vacation is now roughly halfway over and I'm not getting shit done here!!! I swear, either there's something wrong with time or there's something wrong with me, and I'm not sure it's entirely the latter.
I still don't know if I'll be going to Cincinatti or not later this week, but one thing's for sure: I won't be running into Christina or Milena down there because they're off vacationing with their kids. Poop. Especially after all that personal stuff I went through a couple of months ago, Christina's kind of been my confidante, and she's the only one of my new friends who's really online often enough that we get to talk on a regular basis. Not having her counsel for the next little while could be kind of rough.
I'm almost certain there were some political news tidbits I wanted to complain about here, but I can't seem to remember any of them right now. Maybe they'll come back to me later.
posted 2005/06/26 at 19:10
Since I didn't want to go shopping last night when it was 93 degrees out, I figured I'd put it off until this afternoon since it was "only" supposed to get up to 91 today. When I left the house, it was 96 outside. Yeesh. Even borrowing my parents' air-conditioned van wasn't enough to keep me from sweating all over the place, and as if that wasn't bad enough, when I got to the arcade they barely had the air conditioning on there. No way I could DDR in those conditions. Sigh.
On my shopping trip, though, I was able to get the main item for the care package I'm going to send Christina and Milena here. I wasn't able to get the other smaller items I wanted, though, so I'll have to wait to send the package until I get those. (This will probably have to wait until the end of the week, since I really don't want to go out in this weather any more than I have to.)
Oh, and fair warning: if that cool front does go through by Friday or Saturday, I may be making a drive down to Cincinnati one of those two days to meet hurtpiggypig, aka Lara, aka the only Eastern US female DDR player with more Heavy/Oni AAAs than Jessi. I'm not sure if any of my usual SW Ohio/N Kentucky crew can make it (especially since I'm not sure of the date/time yet), but I wanted to give fair warning in case this works out. I don't know all that much about Lara to be honest, but anyone good enough to be on the same DDR team as JBoy has got to be awesome. :)
posted 2005/06/25 at 18:55
I need to go to the health food store before it closes in an hour to pick up some stuff, but it's still 93 degrees in the shade outside my house. My car is not only not in the shade, but it also has no air conditioning to speak of. Just doing my shopping today may make me sweat enough to call that my workout for the day.
A couple of days ago the final book from my Amazon order -- Ira Shor's Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change -- came in. All of these books, mind you, have to be read on top of the books I need to read for when I take UT's MA exam next summer, and to say that I've progressed well on that task over break would be a gross overstatement. Sigh.
I'm feeling a bit better after I went through that real depressive spell I had on Thursday. There's still some goings-on in my life that I need to discuss with people, so the usual suspects should be ready to have me contact them on messenger or even via cell phone. Hopefully I can get this stuff sorted out quickly here and get back to my life. Or whatever it is I have that passes for a life.
posted 2005/06/23 at 17:22
You know, right after I made that last post, I re-read it and couldn't believe most of what I'd written. If I could apply that kind of energy to my political stuff and not comparably insignificant stuff like basketball, who knows how much I might actually get done here?
Anyway, I'm sure some of you are wondering why I made that big thank you-laden post to Christina and Milena a couple of days ago. I hope they don't mind me mentioning this on here, but they sent me a "care package" with all sorts of wonderful self-pampering things in it. Christina and I seem to really sense each other's emotional states really well, and I think she could see just how bad that whole period of Mark's parents being here was for me. (It was even worse than I let on here, to be honest.)
For a couple of days, that package had me feeling good. Not just my usual "absence of pain" good, either, but actually feeling all right with myself. Sometime yesterday, though, it all came crashing in on me.
My guess is that it's the same self-esteem problems I've had throughout my life (that I haven't had anyone to help me treat for nearly a year now), but I just can't help but feel that I really don't deserve nice things, from Christina and Milena, from my friends, from life in general. Especially given what happened with school stuff this past year, whenever I think of how good of a friend I have in Christina or Milena (or Penny or Jessi or Don B. and so on), I can't help but wonder, "Okay, now how am I going to fuck this friendship up?"
I guess the whole gift-giving thing took on an added dimension earlier today that has me really confused, thinking about both the person I currently have "an interest" in as well as the person before that. I really can't go into details about that in public, but these people both know who they are and they can e-mail me if they want further details.
Anyway, enough of the pity party here. I'm gonna go to the arcade here, and hopefully I can DDR my troubles away at least for a little while.
posted 2005/06/22 at 17:37
Oy. The plan for today had been that I'd go to Wildwood to do some reading and then get in a walk over there, but my hay fever is kicking up something fierce. Just being outside for a couple of minutes to visit Skooter had me sneezing up a storm. Guess I'll be stuck inside for another day here.
By the way, I haven't been mentioning the NBA playoffs/finals because I haven't been watching them, but what is up with this "if the Pistons don't win the title this year then last year's championship was a fluke" bullshit? I mean, in the second round the Pistons have to play the Pacers, who come out not only to avenge the brawl last autumn but also to keep Reggie Miller's career alive, charging that series up with emotion. Right after that, the Pistons play a relatively rested and immensely gifted Miami team and take it to the limit with them, and tough that series out in seven (and if you want to argue that the Pistons wouldn't have made it to the finals if Dwayne Wade hadn't been injured go right ahead). Then they have to face a Spurs team which got a whole extra week of rest before the finals because they were never really tested, yet the Pistons keep coming out and grinding it out with them. Yet if they don't win the title, then they're not a legitimately "great team?"
What really bothers me is everyone who keeps saying that the Pistons have no "superstars." I think it's become endemic in all sports, but especially in the NBA the term "superstar" seems to have no correlation to a player's playing ability. A "superstar" is merely whatever athlete gets the most endorsement deals or makes the most news off of the playing field. By today's terms, the closest thing the '89 and '90 champion Pistons teams had to a "superstar" was Dennis Rodman. If Isiah Thomas started his playing career in the NBA today, no one -- basketball journalists or fans alike -- would even notice him.
Anyway, I'll watch game seven tomorrow night just because, although my gut instinct tells me the Spurs will walk away with the game. Whatever happens tomorrow night, though, I have two points to make: one, that no matter what any idiot columnist says, the Pistons have already proven their mettle as one of the greatest teams of their era; and two, Detroit is still MOTHER FUCKING HOCKEYTOWN. Don't ever forget that.
posted 2005/06/21 at 03:41
I guess when I go back and edit a previous post, that's what causes my XML feed to only display the first few lines of an entry. So in future, whenever I have to go back and edit a post, I must remember to create a bullshit entry immediately afterwards to clear the XML feed up. Like this one.
posted 2005/06/20 at 16:40
Christina and Milena:
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!
posted 2005/06/19 at 22:29
As promised, a brief rundown of my latest order from Amazon (sans the one book that was shipped seperately and is now, according to Amazon, on its way to me):
On the book front, we'll start with Ira Shor's Critical Teaching and Everyday Life. This is actually a precursor to Chuck Knoblauch and Lil Brannon's Critical Teaching and the Idea of Literacy, the book I read for a class in the fall of 2003 that first introduced me (along with the professor who taught the class) to critical teaching/radicalteaching. I had a chance to read through part of this book when I borrowed it from the library for a paper I did last autumn, but I really need a copy of my own here, not only to help me with the construction of my own classes, but also as a reference to debate the points made by the Brainwashing 101 crew.
Keeping with books, I also picked up Peter Elbow's Writing with Power (New Edition). This was another book I referenced for a paper last autumn, and if I had my druthers I'd use this as the primary writing text for my composition class. As it is, I'm stuck using the inferior John Trimbur-penned textbook The Call to Write, but I'll probably photocopy chapters out of Writing with Power to help "supplement" Trimbur. Elbow should help with my pedagogy as well, even if we don't exactly come at writing instruction from the same perspective.
Turning to CDs, I picked up a couple of Catherine Marie Charlton CDs like I said I would. The first, Strange Attractors, seems to focus a bit more on Charlton's jazz tendencies, and while it's a strong solo piano album, it might not find a regular place in my "CDs for studying" rotation simply because some of the pieces would be too distracting for that. However, the other CD of hers I bought, River Dawn, is perfect for studying and other things, and may, in fact, be the best piano solo album I've ever heard. (Believe me, that covers a lot of ground.)
When I place my next order with Amazon -- which I'll need to do soon here, since I still can't pick up many of the books for UT's MA exam here locally -- I'll probably keep growing my CD collection by picking up some of the solo piano albums from Narada Records' glory years in the 1980's: CDs by Michael Jones, David Lanz, and others. Maybe someday I'll copy the tracks to my computer here just so I can set up Musicmatch to play a random stream of piano solos whenever I'm working on stuff, but of course I still have a problem with the whole MP3 compression thing and stuff. Bah.
posted 2005/06/17 at 19:24
Don't have much time here, but I just wanted to say that my brother-in-law's parents are on their way back to the UK right now and I'm about to head out of here to enjoy my newfound freedom. Amazon even shipped most of my order to me already, so I'll have some nice reading material for when I go to Wildwood here. (I'll fill you all in on the Amazon order later; suffice it to say there's some interesting stuff here.)
Oh, and Don B.: Jeff came over here earlier and was hanging downstairs with Mom. Was I hearing what I think I was hearing?
posted 2005/06/16 at 18:11
Less than twenty-four hours to go before my brother-in-law's parents are out of this house for good. (Or at least a real good while.) Can I hold on?
I think if there's one word to describe how I'm feeling right now, it's "bratty." I just want to shut off the whole rest of the world and take some serious me-time here. If I weren't so sick of being in this house, I probably wouldn't even leave here once Mark's parents are gone. I'd just shut myself up in my room here and relish the ability to have my time as my own to do with as I please again.
I've had a lot of conflicting feelings about having Mark's parents here, but one of the ones I've been more conscious of recently is fear about my own behaviour. I mean, let's face it, I am a pretty "rude American," and I've really had to watch myself around Mark's parents here to make sure I don't say or do something that would offend their British sensibilities. I guess I kind of felt the same way a few years ago when a koto group came to Toledo from Japan and I helped with their performances and such. (Only then I was anxious as all fuck because I'd only had a year of Japanese at that point and could only construct the simplest of sentences.)
Even when I'm IMing Christina or e-mailing Penny, I find myself incredibly nervous, hesitant to say all that much because I'm worried about something I say being interpreted the wrong way. Christina and Penny are probably the two people in my life I trust the most right now, and I still feel this way. Certainly there have been recent episodes in my life that have forced me to be more cautious about the things I say, but that thread's been running through most of my life. I think I may know one of the reasons behind that, but going into detail on that would probably take a whole column somewhere to sort out.
For now I need to go back to things here at the house. Hopefully I won't bust a valve here for the next day, and then I'll be able to go off somewhere and really cut loose.
posted 2005/06/15 at 04:04
Hi. It's four in the morning and I'm still awake. This has kind of been a common occurrence over break, which as you can guess makes going to Wildwood to read during the day kind of hard. (Impossible with Mark's parents still here and me being signed up -- against my will -- to their personal entertainment committee.)
The thing is, during the night I can escape, and last week I did so several times in order to make grocery runs for foods of mine that others had gotten into. These past couple of nights, though, I got to thinking about going to an all-night restaurant and doing some reading there. Around these parts, that basically leaves me with two options: Waffle House and Steak 'n Shake. Waffle House is kind of out of the question because they probably don't have much in the way of food I'd be interested in, and there must be something about the architecture of the restaurants that gets to me, because every time I pass a Waffle House I think to myself, "That looks like the perfect target for an armed robbery."
As for Steak 'n Shake ... well, obviously the steakburgers are out of the question, but the shakes? Milk and ice cream, nothing there I don't love. For the hell of it, I just typed in steaknshake.com into my browser now and got the official Steak 'n Shake Website. Complete with a menu listing all the varieties of shakes, malts, and other desserts they have available.
Check the menu out yourself if you dare; all of a sudden dieting doesn't seem such a good proposition to me anymore ...
posted 2005/06/14 at 21:15
My attitude's a bit better today, in part because my brother-in-law's parents decided to move up their departure a day early. Now they'll be out of here Friday afternoon, leaving me free to go to the stores that evening to pick up In The Groove for PS2, although I'll likely save that for a couple of days and go play DDR at the arcade instead. There's no telling what I'll be up to those first few days they're gone, but I hope it involves me spending lots and lots of time outside of this house.
I don't know whether or not I'll be going off-diet to celebrate though. I'm still suffering a bit from IBS, although it's not as bad as it once was and I don't want to risk upsetting my system by loading it full of fatty foods. The strange thing is, for the past week and a half I've cut all sodas and spicy foods out of my diet, and I don't really feel a temptation to go off-diet, or at least not a craving for off-diet foods. I guess I'm just worried because it's been when I've made radical shifts in my diet in the past -- like cutting off my soda -- that my off-diet binges have gotten stronger and more frequent and eventually lead to me quitting my diet. I guess I should try to ride this current wave of on-dietness as long as I can, huh?
Oh shit, now my parents are singing bad comedy songs to my brother-in-law's parents. Somebody help me!
Edit: After doing yoga tonight, my parents actually decided to play their old Ray Stevens videos. Good fucking grief.
posted at 02:49
Gee, do you think I could have made that last post of mine more angsty? Sigh. I swear, having my brother-in-law's parents here is just driving me batty. I don't believe in violence, but I keep fearing that one of these times I'm just going to snap and come back to consciousness knee-deep in dead British people. They're only going to be here through the end of the week, but every day that goes by that my plans get disrupted, or my personal belongings get used, I just get more and more on edge. I think they got on my last nerve a long time ago, and it's only my senses of politeness and morality that are keeping me from pitching a fit.
posted 2005/06/13 at 20:02
I finally placed that order with Amazon earlier today. In addition to getting a few books to read over to help me design my composition course in the fall, I also picked up a couple of Catherine Marie Charlton CDs; I'll give all the details when the order arrives. Unfortunately, Amazon says the order likely won't arrive until the beginning of July because one of the books is a special order, and I really didn't want to have to pay additional shipping on it. Thankfully other than In the Groove for PS2, I don't have any other big purchases in my immediate future, not like I've had the opportunity to spend much what with being trapped in the house and all.
I really hate Tom Cruise -- I always have -- but it's been hard not to follow all the latest buzz surrounding him and Katie Holmes. The funny thing is that I frequently drive past the Catholic high school Holmes went to here in Toledo, and quite honestly I'm not sure what's worse for her: what that school did to her, or what Scientology's going to do to her. I could say something about the kind of people that Catholic school turns out, but of course I always have to be the nice one in matters like these and "turn the other cheek" while everyone else slams me at will. Just because I look like a big punching bag doesn't mean I actually am one, you know.
Oh, and to make matters worse, that conference I'm going to in November just registered me as a "Mr. Sean Shannon." I sent back a terse reply to that e-mail really quickly. So, while the rest of the universe is dumping shit on me, anyone else wanna get in on the fun? Hmm? Hmm?
posted 2005/06/12 at 20:43
The folks are back from their vacation, which means at least now I can blubber to Mom about all the stuff my brother-in-law's parents have been doing in regards to eating my food, using my stuff, things like that. One more week before the house gets back to being the five of us, and I only hope I can survive that long.
I spoke to Mom about my continuing problems with IBS, and she recommended that I go off of bananas for a few days here to see how that affects me. I've been eating the bananas to boost my potassium level since potassium's supposed to be good for my muscles (and believe me, I've got a major case of DDR legs right now), but Mom's worried that my insides are rebelling because I've overdone it on potassium. I guess I'll just have to see how a few days off of bananas treats me; thankfully the folks will be making a big grocery run tomorrow, so I'll see if they can get some other fruit I can substitute in. (Or maybe I'll just spend the extra calories on bigger meals, since this past week of no spicy foods and no caffeine has been incredibly depressing.)
I've actually gotten a couple of e-mails about maloneysbaloney.org in the past week, which reminds me that I really need to get something new up there. There's lots of stuff I want to write about, I just haven't been able to get around to writing it up here. Normally the time I spend Sunday evenings listening to Music from the Hearts of Space is prime writing time for me, but because of various factors I'll be spending most of that time playing DDR tonight instead. With my brother-in-law's parents sleeping in the loft just outside of my bedroom, I can't really play music that loud late at night either. I really need to start getting my schedule around here so I can be doing more during the day, although at least late at night I never have to worry about my brother-in-law's parents butting in on my business. (Although both of them snore loudly.)
Hopefully by this time next week I'll start regaining my sanity. Snort, like I ever had any to start with. Le sigh ...
posted 2005/06/11 at 23:02
... passed on to me by Christina ...
Things you enjoy, even when no one around you wants to go out and play. What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level? Make a list, post it to your journal... and then tag 5 friends and ask them to post it to theirs.
- Walking in Wildwood (for myself walking, not exercise walking).
- Taking photographs.
- Listening to new age music, especially piano solos.
- Listening to classical music.
- Listening to (and feeling) the wind in the middle of the night.
- Eating greasy pizza and ice cream.
- Yoga.
- Meditation.
- Long drives by myself without any music on.
- BDSM.
- Masturbation.
I will tag to do this meme ...
- Penny.
- Jessi.
- Don B.
- Joe P.
- JBoy.
posted 2005/06/09 at 18:32
A list of foods of mine that my brother-in-law's parents got into yesterday -- and this is just yesterday -- without asking me first or telling me later:
- My bananas.
- My yogurt.
- My milk.
- My fruit juice.
- My pizza sauce.
- The special spring water from Iceland I can only find in Ann Arbor.
Yeah, playing DDR wasn't the only reason I went up to Ann Arbor earlier this week. Now it looks like I get to go up there again real soon here. Sigh. Ann Arbor seems like such a lovely town, too, and every time I go up there I get more and more pissed that the University of Michigan turned me down for their MFA programme last year.
Anyway, last weekend while I was out and about I finally picked up Mega Man Anniversary Collection and I've been playing that a lot lately. I already finished Mega Man 3 (my favourite of the series) up, and I'm working on 1 and 2 right now. I own 1-6 for my NES, but of course I'm worried that the cartridges will eventually go bad on me; as it is I need to take my NES into the shop because I can barely get it to play things anymore.
I need to make an Amazon order here soon to get a couple of books on teaching to help me with planning my Composition course in the autumn. I've already decided to buy at least one Catherine Marie Charlton CD in this order since I've loved everything of hers I've heard so far, but I'm really tempted to get more presents for myself even though I really shouldn't. Hey, I'm in a fucking bad mood here, I should be allowed to pamper myself a bit, right?
posted 2005/06/08 at 16:24
After all the little things that drove me to the brink these past couple of weeks, I kind of figured that the universe had one last punch to the stomach to give me. Sure enough, yesterday Penny had to cancel our get-together next week. She couldn't help it (I can't go into any real detail on that), and it's not like I could ever be mad at Penny for anything, let alone something like this. I guess I'm just mad at life right now for the hand I've been dealt.
Making matters worse is that -- and again, I can't really speak openly about the circumstances -- I'm really worried about how Christina and Milena are doing right now, and I wish I could be there for them but both their circumstances and my own kind of prevent that. I'm not going to deny selfishly wanting to get out of here because the current situation with my brother-in-law's parents being here is driving me bonkers (especially with my mother being over six hours away through this coming weekend), but more than just wanting to escape this house, I just really need to spend time with friends now, and it's not like I've got (m)any of those left in Toledo.
I can't think of anything intelligent to close with here.
posted 2005/06/07 at 21:33
In the past thirty-six hours, current residents of this house have used my towels, water bottles, and cookware without permission or telling me about it after the fact, and run me out of several items of food, again without asking me first or bothering to say anything afterwards. Now tonight I'm going to have to make two separate store runs to replenish the items I need (again, no one here tells me when they're going to the store), and I'll have to stop here between trips since I need freezables from both stores.
Is it any wonder my IBS just returned with a vengeance?
posted 2005/06/06 at 14:06
Okay, just before waking up I had this dream about this young (let's say early twenties) African-American man on the daytime version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (with Meredith Vieira, not Regis). The guy gets up to the million dollar question, which is:
Originally, peace flags were made from what colour?
A. Red
B. Orange
C. Yellow
D. (can't remember)
Anyway, the contestant seems thoroughly confident and explains how he knows the answer, and gives yellow as his final answer. The problem is, Meredith says the correct answer is orange, and so for the first time (at least in US history) someone incorrectly answered the million dollar question.
I suppose I have two questions here. One, is there any factual basis at all for the question (and answer) in my dream? More importantly, though, why in the heck am I having a dream like this? Can anyone find any possible interpretation for it?
posted 2005/06/05 at 04:55
I just saw my parents off on their six-hour drive (followed by half-hour ferry ride) to the Shannon family vacation house. I know I'm too old for this, but whenever they take off like they did just now for long periods of time, I really worry that this will be the time that something happens to one of them and I won't be able to do anything to help. Especially since I'm the only one in the household with a cell phone, if something happens to them and they're far away from a phone, how will I find out? Sigh, I'm still just a snot-nosed kid when it comes down to it.
On the subject of comfort, while I was off-diet here for the past week I let myself have quite a lot of red cream soda. When I was at Antioch -- one of the greatest times of my life -- I basically subsisted on Fruitopia and Barq's Red Cream Soda. Back when Final Fantasy VII came out I was on a Barq's Red Cream Soda kick, so that kind of doubles the whole comfort aspect. (And of course I've been playing through Final Fantasy VII recently, so there's that angle too.) These days, though, I haven't found any Fruitopia in years, and I have to buy Kroger brand red cream soda because I can't find the Barq's anymore.
Oh well, I'm just about to have my last taste of it, because when I wake up later today it's back to the diet. Hopefully my insides can take it ...
posted 2005/06/04 at 17:28
Uh ... hi.
There's kind of been a lot going on this week. I'll just bottom-line it out by saying that I got sick on Monday. Unlike my other recent illnesses, which have all been upper respiratory system-based, this one is entirely in my digestive system. Having had this problem before on a few occasions, I can say with near 100% certainty that this bug is entirely stress-induced; not only have I been trying to adjust to having Mark's parents here, and dealing with the remnants of the near-meltdown I had late last week, but there was another thing earlier this week that really had my stomach in knots there for a couple of days. (A few of you know what I'm talking about, and those of you who don't know, no offence, don't need to know.)
So basically these past few days I've been trying to take care of myself here. I've laid off of spicy foods and caffeine in order to try to calm my system down. Yesterday my ankle finally felt up to DDR again, but I had to stop after about an hour because my insides just couldn't take all the bouncing up and down. And no, I didn't weigh myself on the first of the month like I should have because it totally slipped my mind. Next month, I promise. (I know, why don't I just go to once-every-two-month weigh-ins at this point?)
Anyway, things with Mark's parents are going okay, I guess, although that's mostly because I've been spending as much time as possible in my room, away from everyone. Hey, if I don't see them then I can't cause any trouble, right? The thing is, not only are Mark's parents not going on their motorcycling trip this weekend like they'd planned, but my parents decided to go on vacation up north all next week. That's going to make all next week totally whacked out for me. (You'd think with all the time I've been spending in my room I'd be more productive on my summer to-do list, but in fact the inverse has been true, and I can't blame my tummy bug too much for that.)
At least now I finally have my own car back, and with any luck sometime after my parents get home from their vacation, I'll be going down to see Penny again. I'm a bit worried that the trip may fall through because of some problems Penny's been having recently, but seeing Penny again has been something I've been looking forward to since, well, the first time I met her. And believe me, if her exam week weren't this coming week, I'd be bribing her with cash and presents and promises of sexual favours to let me crash at her place until Mark's parents fly back to the UK.
That's it from this end, I guess. The diet resumes tomorrow, although I may need to alter my food intake just to make sure I keep eating foods that won't mess up my insides too much. I don't know how much I'll be on IM in the coming days, but I could sure use people to talk to here.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon