Month: October 2001

October 17, 2001

drug talk with megaphone

Woke up feeling extremely groggy today, which is the first time that has happened this year. Maybe it has something to do with the kicking of my own ass on the wall last night. Did some crack climbs without freebasing for the first time and gave myself some nasty scars. So this morning I kept looking outside expecting to see snow. The October light is all wrong now; there should be snow on the ground.

Alas, no snow.

Doug never came home last night. Last I heard him and Grimm were stealing plants from girls’ apartments to make them lose the Stadium Office Game. I would not be surprised if he’s dead in a ditch somewhere. Office Game is serious business, and vengeful plant thievery often does not go unpunished in our society.

Oh, there he is. Doug just walked in the door with a megaphone. He couldn’t decide whether to buy a megaphone or a sleeping bag, so he got both.

[SHREEK] “I SAW YOU FIRST.”

It even has a siren… the RA stopped by, but Doug convinced him it was Grimm and his five-cone amplifier that made all the racket.

I just capitalized the letter ‘a’ in a piece I wrote and laughed about it’s poignancy for two minutes. It’s little things like that that make me love my major.

October 14, 2001

a plagioclase theory of all

Conception. Inception. Action. Question. Reconciliation. Resolution.

It seems to be the natural order of things, and it seems to happen on an infinite number of fractal scales… the mundane, the ordinary, the unimportant, the curious, the demanding, the necessary. I guess the important thing is to give all levels the same amount of dis/interest. Perhaps not exactly the same, but only as much as the corresponding size of that fractal demands.

I’m accepting the fact that my keys are not going to show up on my doorstep, Peter said his school got an anthrax threat, every time the new motorcycle goes outside it rains and the printer has fallen back out of order.

But damn, I am rock solid on mineral identification. Plagioclase, olivine, orthotricyclin, hornblende and the all-encompassing, metaphysical-theory-generating potassium feldspar.

Ph33r m4 l33t K f3ld5p4r ph1l050ph1!!

Justin Roth was awesome at the Amazing Grace on Friday. Mark and I jumped in the Lake afterwards. If my editors can get their act together, expect a write-up in the infamous Statesman.

..about the concert, not the Lake… but if you want the juicy details of our swim I’d be glad to share. Oh so glad. More than glad.

October 13, 2001

slick imagistic thievery

Please keep your pants on. This is not as exciting as it may look.

…or maybe it is. Welcome to Cromlech version 0.09 …kind of. I got impatient and uploaded the new site, even though it’s only about half done. Part of Writings, all of Music and Slapdash Jest need to be updated. Outside still needs to be created.

Nevertheless, you will notice the interface is considerably slicker than before. I put good thought into its inception and implementation. And graphics are much, much cooler than they’ve ever been, and I credit that to my site designer. Most images are property of myself (or Mazataka, or Carlsberg, or persons other than myself) so they are used with permission… kind of.

You, on the other hand, may not use them without permission. …unless, of course, you are Mazataka, or Carlsberg, or Schwan’s, or the Wisconsin Department of Energy… Ah hell, feel free to steal the whole damn thing.

Except my art. If I find you trying to pass my art as your own I’ll remove your neck.

I need sleep. I assume you do as well. We’ll sleep together. I’ll give you all the spooning you’ll ever want.

October 12, 2001

header blender

Ok, this is how it goes. When I fall asleep, little gnomes sneak quietly into my room. They all climb up on my bed and one of them whips out a bone saw. He grinds along the full circumference of my skull and they crack my head open like a coconut. The top tilts back on a hinge. Another gnome takes an egg beater, sticks it deep into my brain and cranks on the sucker. Once my gray matter is reduced to a thick slurry, the gnomes staple my head shut, pack up shop and go home.

I lost a $50 check. I threw away a $30 check and saved the accompanying, worthless invoice. I lost my keys. I need to pull myself together, but I feel it in my knees, and the room begins to spin, and I slip and bump my head, split open and melt.

October 11, 2001

to upgrade your skeleton

What an absolutely glorious day. Warm, sunny, with that crisp smell of autumn thick in the air. I saw a woman out walking her pet skeleton across campus… it was rattling and grinning all over the place. Hey, we all need our exercise.

I upgraded my USB drivers a few days ago, and as a result my printer starting working more consistenly and my scanner asphyxiated. So to get the scanner working I uninstalled all USB drivers and reinstalled them with the mentioned upate.

Good. The scanner then worked fine and the printer went dead. Tried updating the printer drivers, reinstalling the USB drivers again to no effect. Uninstalled and reinstalled printer drivers. Updated drivers. Didn’t work. Reinstalled printer drivers without updating them…

…my life is nothing but reiterations of previously experienced deja vu. Please note that the redundancy in this statement coincides with the redundancy of my typical actions.

Reboot… Success! Outdated drivers are obviously the only way to go. For the first time ever my printer and scanner work simultaneously. Glorious day!

We’ll see how long it lasts.

October 9, 2001

the odor has been mischaracterized

A few miscellaneous thoughts:

The Duluth News Tribune has been very entertaining the last few days. One headline read “Time is short, Busch says.” I couldn’t figure out why a liquor company would make such a statement, and why it belonged on the front page. Then I looked again. Whoops, it actually said Bush… I guess being 21 has me subconsciously interpreting news as alcoholic press releases. Weird.

The next headline read “Meth class brings new challenges.” Closer inspection revealed that the class in question was not Meth, but Math. That’s good. God forbid they started teaching elementary students skills that are both useful and extremely lucrative.

Then I spied the papers latest News Corrections, which were outright bizarre even without mental modulation. I quote:

A column in Sunday’s News Tribune inaccurately characterized the cause of odor in a staff car that resulted from walleyes caught by a News Tribune outdoors writer. A bag containing the walleyes had leaked in the car.

It’s comforting to know that the paper will correct itself when an odor has been mischaracterized. I’m just glad the odor wasn’t a missing staff member.

Have you ever tried to brush your teeth and missed? You aim with the toothbrush, bring it to your mouth, and at the last second it alters course and skirts across your cheek, leaving a trail of toothpaste in its wake. Have you?

Yeah, neither have I.

I lost all my keys. Apartment, Tempo, trunk and UMD Practice Rooms are now inaccessible. My keys are probably somewhere between here and Yarn Harbor. I retraced my path four times and found nothing.

I cut my lip on my electric shaver. Then I cut the other one.

October 7, 2001

wedded to video game fatalism

Greta and Tyler’s wedding was beautiful and insightful… we can anticipate a long entry in Memoirs when all is said and done. Be patient. I’m currently chock full o’ thoughts.

Speaking of surveys, I am feeling really good right now. I took a survey on www.selectsmart.com to figure out which Final Fantasy girl I am most compatible with, and I was happily set up with Princess Garnet as my #1… Flowing dark hair, fine eyes and a body that only the geniuses at Squaresoft can create. What a great girl, featured in Final Fantasy IX; princess turned adventurer turned lover of a handsome swashbuckler with a tail named Zidane. ZiDANE.

See the correlation? See why I’m so excited? How awesome would it be to date a girl that has the ability to summon eidolons (giant magical beasts, for the uninformed) and whoop the enemy’s ass? She could even take on the Machine Room, which started acting up a few days ago. The whole apartment was shaking all morning.

We’re fated for one another.

October 5, 2001

a ripple

It’s still there. We can try to ignore it, forget it, oh how hard we can try, but it continues gnaws away at our minds.

Last night I dreamed of jets crashing into buildings… again. I always watch from a different angle than the cameras showed; that’s the only way I know it is a dream and not CNN. This time I was riding on the wing… I could see the passengers through the windows. Some had their faces buried in hands, weeping. The others looked strangely calm, stoic. Perhaps when your fate is set, when there’s nothing you can do, you just sort of black out. Your mind stretches off elsewhere and you sit. Composed.

Then the impact. The world rippled like the surface of a pond.

This changes everything.

We must never forget, but at the same time we must manage as though things are somewhat normal. The cheerful Celtic music may strike a solemn chord within you, a wrenching sadness flowing beneath the surface of great gaity, but as is the nature of reality. You steal a glance at her eyes, wondering if she is thinking the same thing.

Yes she is. Maybe not at the moment, but it is there.

It is in all of us.

October 4, 2001

we’ll pencil in the elements

Everyone has a date book. Currently mine reads as follows:

Today: Geology test and Journalism homework

This week: Finish Wooch! scrapbook

This weekend: Go to Greta and Tyler’s wedding. Miss the Big Wu and Sunny Wicked shows in Duluth.

This month: Upload Cromlech 0.09 [rolling deadline]

This year: CONFIDENTIAL

Before 2007: Graduate from UMD

Today to infinity: Maintain sanity

Despite my statements suggesting otherwise, some progress is being made on the new Cromlech. I completed the main page and have almost finished the menus and title bars for all sections. Of course, graphics are the fun part. Next I attach templates, reorganize cells and subpages, and try to end up with as few faulty links as possible. Actual content comes later, I fear.

Just remember that even for all my whining, the only reason I do this is cuz I ultimately enjoy it. The end product is usually worth the self-imposed rigors. I am well adjusted. I think.

Other things of note: Do not attempt to grab the oven’s heating element when it is on. I actually did this. Please do not ask why, for it involves (as does everything in this apartment) Ryan burning stuff.

Great Wooch! meeting last night. In ‘voting’ for t-shirt designs we operated a tyrannical government under a democratic facade. Suckers.

Philosophy r0xx0rz, d00d.

October 1, 2001

agog in anxiety

For those of you who are waiting anxiously for the next version of Cromlech, you’re just gonna have to get more anxious. I’m agog at how much stuff I’ve managed to plaster the Internet with, and right now life involves tons of scanning, coding and cursing.

Soon, my friends. Not yet, but soon.