Today was hot! I had to get a pop. I grabbed my keys and headed out.
"Where are you going, Angie?"
"To get a pop, Pop."
"Pop? Why don't you just drink beer? There's plenty here."
"...Thanks Pop, but I'll stick with the pop today."
My poor Pop. He needs a drinking buddy.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Mac Trouble:(
I downloaded firefox 3.0 and now my dock has disappeared and my F9~F11 functions don't function, and for some odd reason (not related I think), my external harddrive won't show up under the list of devices, even though it's clearly connected. So minus that last trouble, it's now basically a PC. Time for a trip to the Apple store!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
The World is Their Bathroom
Today, for some reason, I felt like going on a loooooong run. Well "long" turned out to be about 3 miles because I had to go pee really really bad, so when I reached Alberton's, I stopped by to use their bathroom, and by the time I walked out, I had lost all inclination to run again. Motivation is so short-lived.
Anyway, on my way back home, two heavy raindrops fell from the sky and splattered about a foot away from my head. The raindrops were gooey and white with spots of brown. I was this close to getting shat on by some twittering fiend! I looked up into the sky-high trees, shading my eyes with one hand from the bright white summer clouds, and scanning the evergreens for the bird who did the crime. There it was! But as I spotted it, it suddenly occurred to me that the bird might not be finished relieving itself. Yikes! I dropped my gaze and dashed madly away from there.
Anyway, on my way back home, two heavy raindrops fell from the sky and splattered about a foot away from my head. The raindrops were gooey and white with spots of brown. I was this close to getting shat on by some twittering fiend! I looked up into the sky-high trees, shading my eyes with one hand from the bright white summer clouds, and scanning the evergreens for the bird who did the crime. There it was! But as I spotted it, it suddenly occurred to me that the bird might not be finished relieving itself. Yikes! I dropped my gaze and dashed madly away from there.
Irrational Love
Ooh, I'm pretty excited about the latest Pixar project, Wall-E. They compare it to a Charlie Chaplin/Buster Keaton silent film (well, Wall-E is a lipless robot, after all), and above all, it's going to be a genuine love story. Sounds different from the previous Pixar films right? The human race has been transported to some other planet, and get this: they are all obese and ride around on some sort of robotic wheelchair-loungers drinking super-sized soft drinks. Har har.
One particularly interesting thing mentioned in the article is what elements they use in the movie to help audiences connect to a movie made with CG about robots. The combination of CG and robots is very heavily fantastical. Since both the story and the visual story are so laden with fantasy, this is where the importance of sound comes into the picture. They bring in sounds from reality- like a hand-cranked WWII army generator- and sounds that are familiar to us- like E.T.'s "throat-singing"- to give us a link to unfamiliar, alien territory. Here is the premise of the story in the writer/director's own words:
"...the point of my story, which was the premise that irrational love defeats life’s programming, and that the most robotic beings I’ve met are us.”
Sounds a bit contradictory, no? Well I'm sold, and I can't wait to see it! The first part of his premise is in line with my thinking that we humans are fundamentally irrational creatures. You could tell us that this is the reasonable thing to do, but time and time again, we will do opt for the unreasonable thing to do. Well, maybe not opt- it's more driven by something other than conscious choice. Why do girls fall for the bad guys? Why do men love bitches? (No, I haven't read the book.) Why does she keep going back to him when it's clearly not to her advantage (in terms of happiness) to do so? Irrational love- it's what gives us stories- books, movies, and myths.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Pinky and Obama
I'm starting to think that there is such a thing as too much imagination. Too much Pinky and the Brain, Mr. Brooks! Better oil those creative gears a little less often!
Hm, I just thought of something. The theme song to this show goes:
Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain
One is a genius
the other's insane
It just occurred to me that Brain, the genius, is also very very insane. And who can blame him? Geniuses (genii?) don't see the world the same way we ordinary-minded folk do. Genii are aliens in their own home-planet. Of course they are insane. Of course, insanity is relative.
As for Obama, I happen to think that he has the rare combination of acute intelligence plus a good heart. Rare among politicians, I mean.
Hm, I just thought of something. The theme song to this show goes:
Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain
One is a genius
the other's insane
It just occurred to me that Brain, the genius, is also very very insane. And who can blame him? Geniuses (genii?) don't see the world the same way we ordinary-minded folk do. Genii are aliens in their own home-planet. Of course they are insane. Of course, insanity is relative.
As for Obama, I happen to think that he has the rare combination of acute intelligence plus a good heart. Rare among politicians, I mean.
Maybe Bill Watterson Can Stay in Retirement After All
Oh man, I just caught up on reading xkcd comics. I think they might be the next best thing after Calvin & Hobbes.
Qui dara fine al gran dolore? L'ore.
(Basically: Time heals all wounds.)
Who knew this Italian echo (compare end of question to answer) would apply to such a mundane business as a bad haircut? See, a few weeks ago, I got a bad haircut. What made it bad? I asked for a trim and a layer. 30 minutes later, I look in the mirror and...damn, I'm not a baby, I'm not going to get upset over a bad haircut because I know hair grows back, but when I got home, the first thing I did was look up "layer" in the dictionary. Just as I thought, a "layer" involves a gradation of sorts- a gradual transformation from short to long, for instance. I then checked in the mirror once more, and sure enough, there was nothing gradual about the transformation. It was more like a 30-foot freefall starting somewhere behind my ears. And spikey, like those girls in Korean dramas who try so hard to look trendy. Yuck, I thought. Who can put an end to this great sorrow? Only time. Time- and ponytails, which make me look younger, true, but this is more desirable than looking like a Korean pop star.
Anyway, so today marks the first day since the Haircut I let my hair down and it looked okay.
Qui dara fine al gran dolore? L'ore.
(Basically: Time heals all wounds.)
Who knew this Italian echo (compare end of question to answer) would apply to such a mundane business as a bad haircut? See, a few weeks ago, I got a bad haircut. What made it bad? I asked for a trim and a layer. 30 minutes later, I look in the mirror and...damn, I'm not a baby, I'm not going to get upset over a bad haircut because I know hair grows back, but when I got home, the first thing I did was look up "layer" in the dictionary. Just as I thought, a "layer" involves a gradation of sorts- a gradual transformation from short to long, for instance. I then checked in the mirror once more, and sure enough, there was nothing gradual about the transformation. It was more like a 30-foot freefall starting somewhere behind my ears. And spikey, like those girls in Korean dramas who try so hard to look trendy. Yuck, I thought. Who can put an end to this great sorrow? Only time. Time- and ponytails, which make me look younger, true, but this is more desirable than looking like a Korean pop star.
Anyway, so today marks the first day since the Haircut I let my hair down and it looked okay.
Cheers to time and ponytails!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Babies, Slugs, & the Eternal You
Babies are so funny! Take the one sitting 2 tables away from me at Starbucks right now. First of all, she's dressed adorably with a teeny tiny denim skirt and pink ruffly headband to match her pink shirt and booties. Second of all, she's gnawing and licking the shit out of her fingers, like a caveman with a big juicy hambone. Sometimes though, her hand comes out of her toothless mouth and falls into her lap (slobber and all), but rather than lifting her hand back up, she leans her whole teeny tiny head and torso over and tries to grab the lifeless hand with her mouth. Sometimes she misses. Once she leaned over aiming for her hand, but she landed on her mother's knee instead, so she just started licking her mother's knee, while her mother held onto the back of the baby's skirt to keep her from falling. Crazy babies! They make me laugh.
Also, they will eat anything. There once was a baby named Ziyanja who lived downstairs from us at our old apartment. One day, we were changing her diaper and amidst the pile of poop lay two shiny-no-more quarters. Poor Washington. It's despicable the way we desecrate our founding fathers! I wonder what disgusting things I ate as a baby? Cal, a classmate of mine in elementary school, ate a slug when he was two. That is so gross. Why do slugs turn orange when you salt them? Hm...when you salt the slug, its body secretes slime to the outside in order to dilute the salt so it can breathe. So when you salt a slug to death, you're forcing it to secrete all the liquid from its body, and basically drying or suffocating it to death. Ok, I'm feeling slightly nauseous now. I really hope no one was eating while reading this post.
Yesterday, I met up with some friends I had not seen in 6 years. !!! We haven't changed a bit. I kid or course, but only slightly. I think, judging from last night's experience, there is a part of us that remains eternally the same no matter how much we change in other respects. Like the exuberance of one, or the genuineness of another. Our database of things we've seen and done and learned has grown exponentially, but the template on which these things were laid remains unchanged, ever since we were the size of that Ferocious Licker babe...who is now gone. Boo. I guess I'll entertain myself with a book now. I'm currently reading Oh Jerusalem, by Lapierre and Collins. It was donated to me by Tom, who urged me to read it before I head to the mideast. So many things to do, so little time!
Eternally Yours,
Archimedes
Also, they will eat anything. There once was a baby named Ziyanja who lived downstairs from us at our old apartment. One day, we were changing her diaper and amidst the pile of poop lay two shiny-no-more quarters. Poor Washington. It's despicable the way we desecrate our founding fathers! I wonder what disgusting things I ate as a baby? Cal, a classmate of mine in elementary school, ate a slug when he was two. That is so gross. Why do slugs turn orange when you salt them? Hm...when you salt the slug, its body secretes slime to the outside in order to dilute the salt so it can breathe. So when you salt a slug to death, you're forcing it to secrete all the liquid from its body, and basically drying or suffocating it to death. Ok, I'm feeling slightly nauseous now. I really hope no one was eating while reading this post.
Yesterday, I met up with some friends I had not seen in 6 years. !!! We haven't changed a bit. I kid or course, but only slightly. I think, judging from last night's experience, there is a part of us that remains eternally the same no matter how much we change in other respects. Like the exuberance of one, or the genuineness of another. Our database of things we've seen and done and learned has grown exponentially, but the template on which these things were laid remains unchanged, ever since we were the size of that Ferocious Licker babe...who is now gone. Boo. I guess I'll entertain myself with a book now. I'm currently reading Oh Jerusalem, by Lapierre and Collins. It was donated to me by Tom, who urged me to read it before I head to the mideast. So many things to do, so little time!
Eternally Yours,
Archimedes
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
The Most Surreal Tutoring Experience Yet
Today, I was supposed to be tutoring, but instead, found myself sitting on the couch while my student's ailing grandpa regaled us with Slavic drinking songs and the Baloney Song (all 6 verses of it!).
"He doesn't usually act like this," said my student, "He must still be drugged up from his hospital visit."
Yeeeeah, that would explain it. I almost expected him to bring out a hat and cane and start criss-crossing the room with his merry tunes.
Tomorrow is the deadline for sending the contract for the teaching gig in Irbil. It's times like these when I don't want to leave my comfy tutoring business here in WA.
"He doesn't usually act like this," said my student, "He must still be drugged up from his hospital visit."
Yeeeeah, that would explain it. I almost expected him to bring out a hat and cane and start criss-crossing the room with his merry tunes.
Tomorrow is the deadline for sending the contract for the teaching gig in Irbil. It's times like these when I don't want to leave my comfy tutoring business here in WA.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Pacific Northwest, Down Under
I just read an Op-Ed piece in the Times, written by one of my favorite writers, Brian Greene. Not surprisingly, in his article called "Put a Little Science in Your Life", he says a lot of things that draw an amen from me, but one really great point he makes is that when teaching, there's a lot of drilling and rigor involved and technicalities to learn, but it's okay- crucial even- to take a break from these micro-learning activities to tell the students about current research, theories, and applications. Storytelling is not just for kindergarteners or English class. In science and math classes, the students may not be old enough or knowledgeable enough yet to understand everything you're telling them, but that doesn't mean they aren't picking anything up. It's really about planting seeds in their minds that they will pick up on later, when it becomes more relevant or comprehensible. In fact, that aura of mystery that surrounds abstract, unfathomable ideas may be just the kick they need to want to keep going with the drilling and technicalities.
The train ride from Tacoma to Portland was lovely. Water paralleled the tracks almost the entire way down, and lush, green vegetation surrounded either side in all forms, from wild sky-high leafy trees to tame farmlands with their freshly mown grass. The girl I sat next to was returning from visiting her boyfriend in Seattle, and when she told me that, I was instantly taken- whimsied away, you could say- by the utterly romantic idea of having to take a train ride every week to visit my boyfriend. I have funny ideas about romance, I know.
The actual weekend in Portland was just as wonderful. I went with Tom and his friend Steve, who was visiting from Australia, and Steve's friend Liz gave us a great weekend tour of Hawthorne, the hippie neighborhood she lives in. In her neighborhood, the houses and shops are unique-looking, not mass-produced cookie-cutter types, and there is even a house that looks like it is made of construction paper (because of the way it is painted, not how flimsy it is). The day we got there, we went to Bagdad cafe, and had good, hearty happy-hour food, including delicious cajunized tater tots, mmmm. Steve, who taught English in Japan for a year, would call them oishi ("delicious"), which he remembered by the classy mnemonic:
"She's delicious!"
"Oh-is-she desu?"
There was a talented street musician strumming away at his guitar just a few feet away from our outdoor seating, skateboarders rolling by on a regular basis, and pedestrians dressed as buckaneers and other strange fixings, though Halloween is long past (or long to come). The cafe was also a movie theater that showed second-round movies for $3 a pop, and they have a few of those, Liz told us, in the area. Basically, all we did all weekend was eat out, drink out, and nap in. It was quite refreshing and relaxing. We also took the piss out of* each other and got the piss taken out of because apparently that's what Aussies do for fun, and if you can't take a joke, then you can't survive Down Under.
Some things to know about Portland are: Bikes are ubiquitous. If you want to fit in, you better get a bike and use it! And also, they are known for their bridges, microbrewery beers, (Tillamook) cheese, and dormant volcanoes. The weather is very much like Tacoma-Seattle weather: mild, temperate, cloudy, and if it rains, it's really a misty rain, and it smells just as good.
*roughly translates as "made fun of"
The train ride from Tacoma to Portland was lovely. Water paralleled the tracks almost the entire way down, and lush, green vegetation surrounded either side in all forms, from wild sky-high leafy trees to tame farmlands with their freshly mown grass. The girl I sat next to was returning from visiting her boyfriend in Seattle, and when she told me that, I was instantly taken- whimsied away, you could say- by the utterly romantic idea of having to take a train ride every week to visit my boyfriend. I have funny ideas about romance, I know.
The actual weekend in Portland was just as wonderful. I went with Tom and his friend Steve, who was visiting from Australia, and Steve's friend Liz gave us a great weekend tour of Hawthorne, the hippie neighborhood she lives in. In her neighborhood, the houses and shops are unique-looking, not mass-produced cookie-cutter types, and there is even a house that looks like it is made of construction paper (because of the way it is painted, not how flimsy it is). The day we got there, we went to Bagdad cafe, and had good, hearty happy-hour food, including delicious cajunized tater tots, mmmm. Steve, who taught English in Japan for a year, would call them oishi ("delicious"), which he remembered by the classy mnemonic:
"She's delicious!"
"Oh-is-she desu?"
There was a talented street musician strumming away at his guitar just a few feet away from our outdoor seating, skateboarders rolling by on a regular basis, and pedestrians dressed as buckaneers and other strange fixings, though Halloween is long past (or long to come). The cafe was also a movie theater that showed second-round movies for $3 a pop, and they have a few of those, Liz told us, in the area. Basically, all we did all weekend was eat out, drink out, and nap in. It was quite refreshing and relaxing. We also took the piss out of* each other and got the piss taken out of because apparently that's what Aussies do for fun, and if you can't take a joke, then you can't survive Down Under.
Some things to know about Portland are: Bikes are ubiquitous. If you want to fit in, you better get a bike and use it! And also, they are known for their bridges, microbrewery beers, (Tillamook) cheese, and dormant volcanoes. The weather is very much like Tacoma-Seattle weather: mild, temperate, cloudy, and if it rains, it's really a misty rain, and it smells just as good.
*roughly translates as "made fun of"
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