that's sweet

a very sweet image.

I'm sorry to hear

about your nephew. You think you're out of the woods when the prenatal tests come back all normal. You think you're out of the woods when the baby's born with all the fingers and toes and enough oxygen. But the first time they're sick you realize you're never out of the woods.

I was sitting in the old family rocking chair that is my grandmother rocked my dadf in, and Carolyn crawled up in my lap to tell me something. I rocked her back and forth and she said "I'm only pretending to be a baby on your lap, you know." I said "Yeah, I'm only pretending to be a mom with a little baby in my arms." She smiled; her eyes slowly fluttered shut.

Successful operation

Keegan came through the 5 hour operation pretty well apparently.

Although tons of swelling. They've got him on morphine. Wow.

Anyway. The tumor came out "easily". It was floating in liquid rather than attached, or something.

The tumor was sent off for analysis, so it'll be several days before they know exactly what they're dealing with.

They're doing another MRI tonight to check for stuff they might not have seen during the first MRI. Particularly with the large tumor making things hard to see, i guess.

Anyway. They're thinking chemo for him. Not sure if they find more if they will go after it. I guess it depends. I imagine they're hoping it's just the one.

Anyway. He's not out of the woods. But things are looking up for sure.

cool patient name for tonight:

Yoko Soho

Saw a flyer for a group forming on campus called P.W.R.T.B.T.S (S.I.T.R.). Which I learned stands for "People Who Ride Their Bikes To School (Sometimes In The Rain). They got my attention with their quirkiness, I wanna attend their meeting.

I'm sure you did fab on your histo final, Diane.

I'm sorry, that's a difficult story to tell

due to it's tediousness.

I'm sorry, too, Scott, about the baby. What kind of brain tumor is it, do you know?

I'm so tired lately. No energy to blog. Got caught in the rain tonight riding my bike. I hate that. More because of the embarrassment of arriving somewhere soaking wet than anything else.

Tonight in my Stats class, a woman in my class who looked familiar came up to me and asked if I had taken Nutrition last semester. I said yes, I had, and she said she took it last semester, too; she was in the Wednesday class, but often had to attend the Thursay class, which was my class, due to a schedule conflict. She said she remembered that I had a lot to say in class. We both remarked how much we got out of the class, and I told her about my talks with the prof leading up to my LOR's, and how I came to really like the prof. She told me how she had started interacting with the prof., too, and as a result had come to realize what a cool subject nutrition was and that she had decided to major in nutrition due to that class. I thought, gee, here's a moment where careers are decided on, passions are found. Then I thought about all the subjects I would have liked to spend lifetimes learning, but wouldn't be able to, and that made me sad.

no! not dirty old man at all!

maybe a sad old man. So I say "yeah, I know what blue tooth is, that's how your headset's communicating with your phone. Do you walk around all day with it in your ear?"

i know what bluetooth is...

...but i have a feeling your story is going to turn down the "dirty old man" lane.

Anyway.

In more serious news, my brother in law's 4 month old baby boy has a brain tumor. A large lump is protruding from the top of his head. They are operating in the morning.

He's at Dallas Children's, which is supposed to have a top-notch pediatric cancer unit.

I'll let you know.

We're all pretty freaked out.

weird moment of week the last

So this time I'm at the MacArthur Bart station (kinda like "MacArthur Park," which as you know is where that cake got left out in the rain), platform two, waiting for the connecting train to San Fancisco/Milbrae to come to a stop across the way on platform one, which is the annoying ritual one has to endure on weekends because there are no direct San Francisco trains on the Richmond line (which is the line you have to take to get to Berkeley),and although it isn't the weekend, it IS Martin Luther King Day, so the annoying weekend schedule is in effect. Anyway, there's this older gent with a shock of white hair standing in my proximity who has a high-tech looking earpiece stuck in his right ear and an incredibly tiny cell phone hanging around his neck like a lavalier mike. I'm admiring the technolust of the set up when I happen to make the age-old mistake of eye contact. The gent smiles and points to the earpiece and says "do you know what bluetooth is?' ...

I'm sorry babycakes, I'm just too tired, I'll have to finish this story tomorrow.

i apologize

for my lame posts.

But I am not coming to Canada - correction: upper Ontario - in January or February.

Nope.

Just not gonna.

Hay!

Any one out there?

I just took my histology exam today. (I think I said it was Feb 26 but it was actually January 26.) I have post exam mania. Not that I did all that well; but I'm glad that it is over. I did the best I could, and even if I had cheated, I couldn't have done a whole lot better because I went home and couldn't find the answers to the questions that stumped me in the book. So I figure I did as well as the people who may have cheated, a thought that always bothers me in these distance courses.
I figure I at least passed. But I still have not gotten one graded assignment bacvk from the beginning of the semester, which I find strange and inexcusable.

Hey Dana, bring your swim suit just incase we go swimming somewhere. There is a pool in Espanola. Sometimes we go there when we go shopping.

Carolyn is very excited about you coming.

that Foreigner song

"I Wanna Know What Love Is?" Probably the most annoying song of all time.

Weird moment of the week:

I was at the bus stop this morning so I could go downtown and pick up my beater bike which was stashed at the Civic Center Bart/Muni station because when I came home from Berkeley the other night it was just so cold and I was just so tired that I just couldn't face the long largely uphill ride home so I left it there, and ride said beater bike down to the Hall of Justice so I could drop off Sticky's Certificate of Completion of Traffic School (as a favor to him), with a stop before hand to my guilty pleasure Haight Street McDonald's to absorb some carbs and do some Probability and Statistics homework... so anyway, I'm at the bus stop, and there's this stack of 3 books on top of what appears to be an unrolled lightweight sleeping bag and a ragged quilt, half on the ground and half on one of the transit shelter seats. The books are "Wasted: A Memoire of Anorexia and Bulimia" by Marya Hornbacher, "Listening to Prozac" by Peter Kramer, and "A Man in Full" by Tom Wolfe. I figure the stuff is orphaned, so I pick up "Wasted" and start to read the back cover. A pierced teen chick with shaved head approaches and says "those are mine, but I found 'em..." I put the book down and said "no prob, I just can't resist picking up books to see what they're about, it's a sickness..." the chick looks homeless, and I figure the dirty bedding materials are hers, too. Next an old Chinese woman comes up. She sees the pile of stuff and starts to say something shrill in Chinese, making gestures of "drawing inward." The homeless chick, who has been standing in the street anxiously scanning for the streetcar, comes back to the shelter, probably because she thinks we're messing with her stuff. The Chinese woman starts to point to the homeless chick's bedding, saying something unintelligible and making her gestures. The chick just seems confused. I finally understand what the Chinese woman is trying to get across, that the homeless chick should put her quilt inside the sleeping bag so it won't get dirty and will be aesier to tote around. In the meantime the chick, embarrassed and confused, has gathered up her stuff as best she can and is standing in the middle of the street with it. The Chinese woman and I dedcide to take matters into our own hands and go over to the chick, take her quilt, and start to fold it right there in the middle of the street. The Chinese woman is sorta orchestrating the maneuver with deft precission, and I remark to the chick "Grandma's the expert here." We finally get the nasty bedding all folded and packed into the sleeping bag just as the N Judah comes rumbling up to the stop. I fish around in my bag to find a couple of dollars to give to the chick, but she's already snuck onto one of the aft cars.

so

the only way you can redeem yourself for the lameness of that last post, Scott, is to COME TO FREAKIN' T*******H!!!"

hi

nothing new around here.

Sticky

would probably like to see me converted to the cult of meat, but he no more expects it then for me to suddenly become a card-carrying Republican.

I already had the person who schedules for the lab moan to me about how they don't have anyone to work the graveyard shift on Friday the week I'll be visiting you. tough shit, deal with it.

We do have a vast

array of fairly inexpensive vegetables in the grocery store here, but I must admit, it would be fun to report to Sticky that within 3 days of visiting us, you were huddled in the snow, gnawing the ankle of a caribou and betrothed to an Inuit seal hunter. I mean just for fun.

be not afraid

I'll bring some weird stuff, just so you can see the insane variety I have access to. I'll also come armed with a few recipes, we can do an iron chef kinda thing!

Everyone here

likes, and doesn't like, different stuff. I'm used to cooking meals that people sort of assemble themselves to their liking. So it's not a big deal; I was just curious. Actually for a beef farmer, Ed is not really a big meat eater, same with Carolyn.(I'm probably the most carniverous.) But they do like those simple carbs. I swear the two of them could live on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Fruit Loops. They humor me when it comes to vegetables and salads, which I like. I make a lot of homemade soup to try to trick them into consuming things like squash or spinach. I know you given up on cooking, but if you do know any cool meal ideas that might be fun for our culturely deprived tastebuds, feel free to come grocery shopping with me. I've been making Carolyn and me friut/yogurt shakes every morning for breakfast, so there's lots of that kind of stuff around if you like it. There is Tofu in the grocery store, but it frightens me. I never know if its gone bad or it's supposed to taste like a sweaty gym sock.

the karmic wheel of bfc

it was a year ago that I attended my ACO (All Clinic Orientation) where I learned about the clinic and put my name on a clipboard to be a prospective volunteer. last night I coordinated the first ACO of the year, which means I was responsible for recruiting the speakers from each of the sections, setting up the room, greeting the fresh-faced Berkeley undergrads as they filed into the commons at the bfc (the big room at thre back of the clinic with beat up old couches and chairs and a blackboard with multi-colored chalk). So I got to speak knowledgably about the clinic and my section, answered a few questions, introduced the speakers. It was weird, mainly because it was exactly a year ago thst I was in one of those chairs. The clinic seemed intense and cool at the time, and now it seems just desperate and quirky. Also yesterday, one of the old-timers at the clinic, one of the "oligarchs" as we call them, came up to me and said, "you've been working a lot, Dana, I think you should have your own clinic key." Yeah, I know it's dopey, but it really made me feel a fuzzy warm sense of belonging.

call me sometime!

aunt Dana is from the uncool California contingent. However, I will endeavor to be as subversive as possible to young impressionable minds. I will gladly do all those things with Carolyn!

As much as I try to tread the straight and narrow vegan path, I occasionally stray into the path of a pizza now and then. But no meat (that includes fish and chicken), and cheese is far enough down the slippery slope without considering eggs. But feel free to eat whatever you want in front of me, I'm no diet fascist (god knows Sticky's no vegetarian, although with my own strange power of control over his decision-making in restaurants, and his health-counscious food paranoias, he actually consumes very little meat when we're together).

So do I need to bring ski boots, or are me gonna chance it that my gargantuan feet will fit in someone's boot? I bought some snow boots already, they're really nice, almost fashion-y, yet rugged. I like 'em a lot, even though they're evilly made of leather. They were on sale at Nordstrom's. Still have to get a parka and long-johns, I'll do that next weekend.

Yeah

Call me some time.

Carolyn is really excitied about you coming. She has big plans. I told her you like to draw. She really likes to sit and draw with people. also she wants to go skiing and sledding with you and she wants to ask you everything about California which she associates with coolness because her teenage cousin lives there.

Oh, by the way, do you eat cheese and/or eggs?

Super Volcano vs. Super Mom

i'm so creepy
even though i'm mostly sleepy
people lurking still can find me
yet i can hardly find myself
lurkers know my whereabouts
but i'm puzzled by the ins and outs
of here and there and there and here
and whether to drink
domestic or imported beers
it's just so creepy
i just don't know
how it rains
or why it snows
or why tsunamis beat the crap
out of unknown places
on an unknown map
or why super volcanoes lurk
beneath wyoming
waiting to obliterate
cincinnati's wyoming
and smother us in silicate dust
and rip our lungs apart
in a final fling of primal lust
on a scientist's unknown chart.

we got one more chance to make it real, to trade in these flares on some weals

my theory
is that i creep people out
on some visceral level
like a skull talking
on a cell phone:
the juxtaposition of breezy gossip
and mouldering bones
it'll take an over-the-top
letter of recommendation
to get me into heaven
st peter crumpling my padded CV in his hand
fabricated references, glaring typos
and him asking
all i wanna know is one thing:
how do you say that in patty page?
how do you say that in patty page?

no new repetitive motion opportunities

in my life. Just the usual constant Brownian Motion associated with life in the lab. However, I did sleep at Sticky's last night, and didn't feel sore when I woke up. maybe I should take the matress down from the treehouse and give it a few swift kicks.

I leave SFO at 11-something pm on Monday night to get to Sudbury at 11:23 am Tuesday. Don't worry, I'm good at sleeping on planes. I go through customs at Toronto (I also have a stop at O'Hare-- Wheee!) i can give you regular phone updates if you like (or SMS updates-- that's my new fave way of communicating with el Sticko).

Totally exhausted. Trying to stamp down a sleep-dep migraine today. I have a full slate of activities for this weekend, in addition to the Fri & Sat night Gravies. School starts next week. Help me, Mr Wizard!

Yeah, proper

nouns have me freaked out at the moment. I had really only thought about someone googling my name.

Is it something repetitive you're doing at work, new equipment, bending or reaching across a a desk or bench for something?

I discovered I can't sit crosslegged on the floor without my knees hurting after a while.

What time do you have to fly to get into Sudbury at 11am? Where do they have you going through customs?

lately my back

has been hurting, especially right when i wake up in the morning. it's not the spine or lower part of my back that hurts, its the muscles on the sides in the middle of my back, the latissimus dorsi i believe they're called. it's knda puzzling. it can't be because my boobs are ginormous and causing me to constantly strain against their weight! i haven't been doing any sit-ups. i'm thinking it's either because i'm doing some major thrashing about in my sleep (which begs the question of what mental demons are causing me such troubled sleep), or because i've worn a hollow in my futon, causing me to bend my back too much when i sleep (i generally sleep on my side). and i used to sleep curled up like a dog in the back of my Geo Metro when i took trips! if i've become this fragile, it's just about time to take me behind the barn for some ol' yeller shotgun tough love!

i'm curious

why you expunged the set of posts about facial recognition and the Wong article. What's incriminating about that? Or is it just the proper names and their googlability?

...Like the ominous disembodied phone voice says on the Loud Family tribute album: "on the internet, nobody knows you're a rock star."

Thanks

now can you edit out the T-word from the last post. I doubt the ' ' marks will make any difference. It's an unusal word. We will have to think of another name for my metropolois.

the shameful truth:

it's not easy to find our blog, but it is findable. truth is, almost everything on the web is findable, tangentally googlable. unless i guess you have your own server, encryption, firewalls.
... and don't forget about TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS (someone has that evil department's science-fiction-freemason-y emblem as wallpaper on one of the monitors in the Red Star Room at the bfc) yes, those red stars on the wall are commie red stars-- the clinic has a once proud but now sorta embarrassing maoist tradition).

done (course you had to go to about the 10th page of 'Tinytown' links to find it)

Normally I like free food, and there's always too much of it. I could eat quite well simply roaming around the hospital and clinic, foraging when hungry. Problem is, most of it is really bad for you. My latest guilty pleasure is tater tots. The hospital caf serves tater tots as a breakfast item, and I must say, they are the best tater tots I have ever had. When I go down there, I try to order oatmeal alone, but I just... can't... help myself. God knows what sort of hydrogenated oil they're cooked in, but they're like little nuggets of heaven.

Hey Dana

Do me a favor and delete the post "Scott" from 12/20/04. It links us to Google. I'd be eternally grateful.

I'm not saying

that it's not easier to learn to recognize facial characteristics when you are very young; but by your analogy, a facial "ethnotype" is comparable to a language, and I just don't buy it. Sure, I'll grant you that if one is raised almost exclusively around one ethnotype, one will probably be able to recognize subtle differences between individual faces better than those of a different ethnotype. Hell, if you were raised by chimps, you'd know ape faces better than human faces. But brains are to a large degree pattern recognition engines. If you are motivated to learn differences, you will learn them. Yes it's easier to learn such things when you are young, that's when the brain is more "plastic." But that's different from saying that Ms. Wong's complaint about her Caucasian colleagues is because of a neurological blind spot. I contend that if they knew more Asians, they would have more interest in Asians as individuals, and would be able to distinguish individual Asians better. Is this really about defining rascism, or at least racial insensitivity? I don't know. Give me the link to the article and I'll have a better idea.

yeah, what is it

about journalists? Even in Discover magazine, the science writers are always fixated on the social aspect of whatever they're writing about, the "so what does the existence of dark matter mean for you and your family?" attitude. What I want is a journalism of misanthropy. But I guess that wouldn't sell much ad copy, huh?

Never heard of the artist Bransky, but if he's a guerilla stenciller, he's ok in my book. If you ever come and visit me, we can go out stencilling some night.

even though they're like the genetic chosen people

Asians aren't immune to wanting to feel oppressed. Winston never tires of reminding me how Asians are the only minority group where you have to score higher than a white person to get into a good program.

Prejudice against Asians doesn't generally stem from "looking down" at them, it comes from fear of being outcompeted and eventually marginalized.

too late

the car's already rented-- you know me, I try to never inconvenience people, it's my knee-jerk reaction of "what, why would they want to take the time out of their busy schedules to come and get me? Plus, I'll have to leave for the airport at like 5am when I head back, that would be just plain cruel."

My contention is that one's ability to recognize faces is not based on ethnicity traits that one selects for, but rather interest. So if one doesn't know many Asians, then maybe one's brain doesn't get past the broad patterns of "this is what a Chinaman looks like" to "yeah, that's freakin' Mr. Stickyrice, I'd recognize that mug anywhere."

Extrapolate it to animal faces. If you love dogs, you get good at recognizing individual dog faces. If not, all Doberman Pincshers look the same.

Do you want me to pick you up?

That's what I was planning, but if you want to rent a car and drive yourself that is okay. I don't want you to feel trapped here. You can always use one of our vehicles; it's up to you.

I got celebrity email today. Jan Wong is a writer for the Globe and Mail. she wrote a article about how she is this supposedly well known journalsit, but as soon as she leaves the Globe and Mail building, her own collwagues don't recognize her on the street because she looks like "just another Chinese person." Or she is confused with another Asian columnist who works for the Globe. She interviewed professor of something-or-other who said this happens because of cultural sterotyping, subconscious racism, etc.

Anyway I emailed her said that inability to recognize faces of other ethnic groups may not have anything to do with stereotyping - I've read more than one article about scientific studies concerning face recognition, and they claimed that infants and small children who are not exposed to certain racial features have difficulty distingusihing variations among them later in life, and people of different races really do look very similar to them. It's not just a white person phenomenon; other groups have the same problem. And I said that there was even a particular area of the brain (fusiform gyrus of right temperal lobe) responsible for recognizing faces - people who have a stroke or injury there often have normal recall except for the ability to recognize faces or learn new ones. I said I wished I could remember the names of the studies, but it was a few years ago, and that I was late for work.

I was surprised she emailed me back. She said "That's interesting stuff. Might be worth looking into," but from the rest of her email, I think she still felt it was it primarily a socialogical not a biological thing. But then most journalists are like that. Science isn't their strong suit.

Although, there are probably some socialogical aspects - Since moving from a city of 2 million to a twonship of 250, it's been a struggle to change the way i interact with people. In a big city you just sort of float anonymously through the crowds without really even looking at people. But in a township of 250 people, you have to pay attention, all the time, to whose walking past you on the street, standing next to you in the grocery store, or passing you on the road, because they will think there's something wrong if you don't acknowledge them. And sometimes I thin I do have some kind of brain defect in remembering faces; although it isn't ethnic groups so much as all of those little old ladies in fuzzy hats who come intinto the doctors office where I work.

in deference to this blog's title

I suppose I should note in passing the split between jennifer Anniston and our boy Brad Pitt. Would getting preggers have made a difference? Who can say. What no one can dispute is that they were certainly a handsome couple.

In our own small show of support to Mr. Pitt, Twinston and I went to see Ocean's Twelve last night at the Cadillac dealership (a.k.a. the AMC 1000 Van Ness). Both of us fell asleep at various points during the movie, which is not to say that it was a boring movie, just that we were both tried.

My weekend consisted of the same crazy pattern I've been fostering for the last few months: garveyard shift at Davies, then shifts during the day at the bfc. grab sleep when I can. Saturday night I fell asleep on BART coming home from bfc and was halfway to the airport when i finally woke up. Yeah, sure, this is gonna work for the long term.

hey, here's my evil itinerary:

Arrive Sudsy-bury Tues. March 1 around 11 am. So I'll show up at your joint after that however long it takes to drive to der island (what, 2½ hours? something like that?)
Flight leaves around 9, 9 thirty am on Monday march 7. that will get me home in time to catch part of my Monday night class and show up for work on Tues. morning. As for the flight to Ca-na-da, it's a red-eye, I'm leaving for the airpost directly after my Monday night class gets out (actually, I'll sneak out at the break). It's a shoe-horn itinerary.

What are your flight times?

I'm assuming you'll probably get in late because of the time change. Even if you left California around 8:00, which is noon here, I don't you could be here before 5 or 6pm. I'm just trying to figure out what days to take off work.

Don't move to Columbus!!

Okay, it's nice in a boring, homogenized midwestern way. But to me it seemed the wrost of both worlds, a surprizingly high crime rate (around OSU anyway) awful traffic, and yet not a lot to offer for such a big metropolitan area. And a dinky river. Even Cincinnati has more local color, historical interest, etc. Columbus is just the Red State epi-center, a perfect consumer test market, the birthplace of Wendys, and idiot newspaper columnist Bob Greene! About the only good thing I can say about Columbus is that it had good Chinese restaurants, because of the large Asian population around OSU.

If you want to move - go to Cleveland. It is not the dangerous, polluted, rust belt city people used to make fun of. It is relatively cheap to live there, has a diverse economy, world class museums, symphony, ballet, theatre, libraries, universities, access to the Great Lakes, a large ring of interconnected parks in and around the city, and you are like an hour away from open country. Of all the places I lived in Ohio, it was far and above my favorite, although people in Cincinnati, like my parents, have been brainwashed by WLW radio DJs into believing it is some hideous urban hell hole. At least visit.

Thoughts

Distance Ed... could be a double entendre. Did I spell that right?

The package has come, and stupid me, I haven't opened it. But as soon as I finish writing this (and the Bearcat game is over) I will go downstairs and open it.

We went to Columbus today.

Helen's team was invited by another girls team to play them at Corecomm Ice Haus, which is really not a separate facility, but is part of Nationwide Arena where the Blue Jackets play (or would play if the NHL weren't on strike). Very nice place. NHL nice. You can see the difference with the Cincinnati Gardens, which I'm sure once upon a time was nice.

Incidentally, Helen's team won 8-1. I'm pleased with Helen's progress. She has a growing sense of what's going on, which was lacking early on (duh, I guess). But she didn't have a good idea of what the blue line meant, and offsides, etc. But she's not the only one. But better and better.

Both Helen and Owen commented after the game that they want us to move to Columbus. The downtown is so nice. And German village. And the Arena District. But... just like Cincy there are rough areas. At least they have their assess in gear for the downtown. But Columbus will probably only be a place to visit. Neither of us can afford to leave our jobs. I took a huge 401k loan to get this house, which I have to pay back, and as long as Audra stays with UC the kids can go to school for free.

I thought Diane's comment about the tsunami was dead on. Jeez. 160,000 dead... God did not save YOU. Jeez. People are amazing.

Oh yeah, our snow has all melted too. Amazing.

Year

Distance Ed does have its draw backs, but sometimes it seems worse than it has to be. You miss the comradery of fellow students and you aren't exposed to the unique perspective of a professor. But it seems to me you could be, if it were organized right and if people took more of an interest in the interpersonal aspects. Personalities can shine through on line. Even in a science class it matters. I remember my Japanese algebra TA at Miami, my Russian immunology prof, and pathogenic micro instructor who associated a disease with a movie in which it appeared. But distance courses are: just read the book, look at the pictures, take the test, and send in the money, of course. It's sometimes as disappointing as those things you got when you sent in five box tops and $2.50 for postage and handling to some breakfast cereal company. At least I get to keep the CD rom this time (I had to send the projector slides back last semester.)

old woman behind a counter in a small town

has got to be the most bittersweet song in rock music (in my opinion). "I just want to scream HELLO!" every time I hear the last part of that song, the world just comes crashing down around me. "Hearts and thoughts they fade... fade away." It's such a poingnant expression of the impermanence of all of human relationships.

yep, that's size 11 womens.

10½ may fit, it's hard to say. I realize how hard it is to have recreational stuff prepped for a guest. When jen visited me here, I was all happy that I was gonna let her ride the good mountain bike for the week. But no matter how much she fiddled with the height and angle of the saddle, she couldn't get it to feel "right" when she rode it. In the end she spent the week riding the beater bike, which felt just dandy to her, but is about 15 pounds heavier. If you tell me what exactly to get, I could bring ski boots with me that would fit for sure. Otherwise, we'll leave it to the scrunchability of my poor feet.

Y'know, I'm always leery of online and corespondent-type courses. I know the learning from such classes is just as effective, but there's something about the hardship of having to show up for class week after week that adds that air of accomplishment to a course, don't ya think? And speaking of which, I realized today that the spring term at city college will have started when I visit, and you're only allowed to miss 2 classes during the semester, so what I'm gonna do is depart here on Monday 2/28 and leave there on Sunday 3/6 so as to only miss one session of my Monday class. I'm sure I'll miss another Monday sometime during the spring due to bfc or, hopefully, an interview.

oh yeah,

scott's post-soul-stice gift pak® is on the way.

okay, so we're set, right?

I'll be showing up sometime during the weekend of Feb 27/28, torture you for the week, then leave the weekend of Mar 5/6. Tell me your final thoughts on this, as I plan to secure tix as soon as I get the green light. The vake's been approved, I'm in the rumination stage for buying boots.

oh wow

that's freaking hilarious! how can they be so paranoid? Jello Biafra's right-- we're living in a police state of the mind.
oh yeah, I also got Sticky a sack of transit tokens. Much appreciated, as he commutes to work by streetcar (he'd be insane if he didn't; he works downtown where parking ain't cheap). Tokens are getting hard to come by; it usually portends that they're going to raise the price of bus fare.

I got Marc a $50 gift certificate to Slim's (the venue owned by Boz Scaggs that hosts a lot of decent bands); here's hoping he (Marc, not Boz Scaggs) fixates on Asian chicks less and rocking out more.

Tonight I went to see a Judy Garland movie (restored print of the 1954 version of "A Star is Born") at the Castro Theater. You don't get much gayer than that. I went with my friend Marion, who is perhaps the least sexual person I know.
there's a movement going on to boycott the Castro Theater because they fired the old film program director and hired a new one that wants to show fewer old classic movies and more modern artsy fartsy movies. The boycott is not of the theater itself, but just the concession stand, as, according to the boycott leaflett, selling popcorn and jujubees is how theaters make most of their money. I ignored the boycott and bought a hideously overpriced oatmeal raisin cookie (it wasn't very good; I suspect it was vegan).

How was your Chistmas?

I actually mannaged to piss off all my relatives without even visiting them this year. My mom is in the habit of cutting out articles out of the the Cincinnati Enquirer and mailing them to me. She put a bunch in her Christmas box. Almost every year, for one reason or another, my mother's boxes get choosen to searched by customs. No other boxes I get ripped open and examined, but somehow my mom just inspires suspicion in people, because she is overly careful and paranoid, I guess.
Anyway, she asked if her packages were opened and inspected by Canadian Customs, and I said, "Oh yeah, but why did you send me all those newspaper articles about Bush in Canada with every other word blacked out by marker?

My family went nuts! They really thought the Canadian government censoring my mail. They were ready to call the Canadian Embassy. I said, Uh, I was just kidding... they havn't spoken to me in weeks.

send it!

who cares if it's late for Xmas. Maybe it's early for my birthday?

Maybe it's early for Summer Solstice?

I can always use a new t-shirt and especially one of your cards.

we went to Vegas

for 3 days this past week. It was a horror of delayed flights (it's been raining like a sonofabitch out here, in case you didn't know), then the first day we were there I spent like 16 hours sleeping, but man, the bed was so GINORMOUS and so SOFT and we had TWO FUCKING TV's IN THE ROOM, why'd they put us in this room fit for Donald Trump? And the pillows were so DAMN soft. Man, did I sleep deep, Winston says I have sleep APNEA and I'm gonna have a sudden stroke, but what does he know, he lost $3300 on the craps and blackjack tables. I lost 75 cents, but I couldn't get us tickets to BLUE MAN GROUP, but man, the blanket was made of fucking ANGEL DOWN or something...

austin city limits

Jan. 22-- Guided by Voices caught LIVE.

anyway, hey Scott, so I got this box with your Christmas present in it, y'know, the usual t shirt type of present I usually send, not meant as a gag gift but kind of a slice of life, something significant to me, I don't know, t shirts always kinda express it well to friends, the impermanance of it all, wearable art, y'know? Anyhoo, I meant to send it for xmas, but I didn't have your address, but now I do, though it's too late for xmas, so the xmas card will seem dumb and everything, but it's already taped up in a box, so it's just sitting there, I don't know what I should do... what should I do?

HEE HO! toaster pastries sound off!

frosting!
chocolate frosting!
frosting with sprinkles!
marzipan and macadam!
cow renderings and dust mites!

Gifts

I got Helen "Spacecat and the Kittens": the fourth book in the space cat series.

I got Owen Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in Latin. We also got him a watch. I also got him a book on 1001 chess sacrifices and strategies.

This sounds like Owen-weighted gifting, but Helen got a bunch of stuff that ABM bought, so I think it evens out.

ABM I purched a camera tripod for her (a nice one), a 7 qt crockpot, the Wedding Singer DVD.

I got for myself a fleece robe and fleece pajamas to replace the tattered 15 year old robe that I had been using.

ABM got me the Lord of the Rings DVD collection. All 3 movies. plus the additional DVDs with extra scenes. etc.

I also got the directors extended version of THX 1138. This is probably the best gift from my perspective. I frankly didn't like the Lord of the Rings movies, although the third movie was pretty good in terms of the battles. Overall, the LOTR movies were (in my opinion) very poorly translated into cinema. Great scenery. Great effects. But.... cutting stuff, okay, I understand, there's only so much room, but that adding in new stuff of your own creation? and changing major aspects of the characters' relationships? That was just uncalled for.

You want to cut stuff? Okay. But don't add stuff that you came up with. That's b.s. If Tolkien didn't write it, it doesn't need to be there.

Anyway. That's it from here.

Our foot and a half of freaking snow has almost completely melted, except where it was piled up there is some residual. Otherwise, it is gone. It was almost 60 today. Same tomorrow. Freakin' amazing. Cincinnati.

P.S. Happy New Year