Category: Uncategorized

79670271

as if i needed yet another example to prove that the current administration does not represent me in any way whatsoever

originally written 07.31.2002

“In the way they’re kind of writing it right now out of the Senate Finance Committee, some people could spend their entire five years on welfare – there’s a five-year work requirement – going to college. Now, that’s not my view of helping people become independent, and it’s certainly not my view of understanding the importance of work and helping people achieve the dignity necessary so they can live a free life, free from government control.”

– george “i’m not geoff hing’s president” w. bush proving that he’s an idiot who spent his college days drinking at the frat house and is completely out of touch with the scores of college students who actually do something meaningful with what relatively few educational opportunities they’ve been granted

there’s some criticism of bush’s opposition to a blatantly communist and disgustingly radical amendment to welfare policy that would “permit only 10 percent of welfare recipients in any state to meet the work requirement by attending college” here and here. as if the ridiculousness of his reasoning and obvious personal bias aren’t indictment enough. here’s an idea – how about old gw gives his drunk ass daughter’s college fund to someone who’s willing to do something with the opportunity rather than wallow in privilege. that would be great.

79669141

hot in the city tonight

originally written 07.31.2002

it’s hot in the city tonight, but not in the fun way of the song that was on claire’s mix cd when all the kids in the house danced around and acted silly and just chilled out and had fun. it’s hot in the city in the way where you just feel like you’re swimming through the air – a slow crawl stroke making little progress toward land. maybe the swimming analogy is because of the humidity. i don’t know. it’s not so much the heat itself, it’s how it makes me feel – slow and dumb. or maybe that’s just the fatigue. i made it through my classes ok, and hacked together a bunch of stuff at work, finally finishing the documentation for the tools that i had written to make the new hires’ job a little easier. but, as soon as i got home, fatigue hit me like a sledgehammer, and i’ve been sort of sulking around the house since about 8 pm. it’s almost 10 now which means i should be able to go to sleep soon without fscking up my sleep cycle too much – not that it really matters – poor time alocation has made me into a bit of an insomniac lately anyway.

even the house seems fatigued. maybe it’s just empty. claire’s gone, shad just moved out, though i’ve still seen him a lot lately, he’s one of the few people i feel completely comfortable around these days, i just found out that paul’s gone to maine for 10 days. the rest of the house seems to be under some general malaise. adam slides quietly around the house in his normal unsettlingly serene way. matt just quit his job. katelynn’s cool, but to me she seems like the kind of person who’s got shit together but isn’t happy. strong enough to function but still struggling under some invisible burden. i’m alright i guess. not great, not poor. the jobs good, i’m doing well in school – there’s just no magic in this summer. my room seems boring and bare now that shad’s moved out, and the living room, which katelynn seems to tidy with a disturbing frequency, seems lifeless and sterile when relieved of it’s clutter.

so the reason i’m exhausted is from altogether shitty time alocation. i’m already playing catch-up and the new classes have just started. last night i went up to cleveland to see the weakerthans play a show at the grog shop. i drove up with chad, shad, and katelynn along for the ride, and had a pretty good time. we ate at soul vegetarian which is a few doors down from the venue in coventry and gorged myself on the feux-country fried steak sandwich and chili-cheese-fries. i was farting through the entire show, and embarrasingly trying to hide my indigestion in class today, but it was worth it. the two opening bands were altogether lame. one of them was cleveland’s own brandston, who i thought i had liked from their recordings, but were pretty uninspiring in person. it’s not that they were horrible, just horribly mediocre. the nail in the coffin was a cover of the pumpkin’s “today”, performed in a wholly un-ironic fashion. how dull. the weakerthans were awesome though. engaging and straightforward they sounded every bit as good as the records. they played letter of resignation which is my favorite track as well as some neat new steel guitar twinged countryish tracks. the singer (the one who used to be in propaghandi) has such a distinctive voice – it’s nasal and high, plaintive, but definitely genuine. the music is what emo music should be – emotional and personal without being histrionic. it’s weird how a lot of bands like the weakerthans are able to evoke emotions from me in a way that so-called emo music doesn’t. i still really like bands like, say, recover, it’s just that i don’t always need music that evokes ntensity and passion – sometimes meloncholy or pensiveness is in order too. but yeah, the weakerthans were awesome. totally unimposing but at the same time completely captivating. musically clever, lyrically beautiful, it was well worth sitting through the first two lame bands to see them play.

on the way home, everyone else dozed off, but we listened to all three of the dismemberment plan records that i own and i somehow managed to stay awake long enough not to drive us into a ditch. we made it back to columbus around 5:30 am, just eight hours until i had to be sitting in my material science class

i went to another good show recently as well. went over to the legion to see silencio and fire down below. erin came, which was cool because she never goes to the legion, and so did shad and yon. it wasn’t a big show by any means, but it was a good time. silencio is my favorite band in columbus right now. jazz meets technical metal meets hardcore meets math rock maybe. i dunno. it’s technical as all hell but still rocking. it makes me want to quit playing guitar. fire down below was a new-school hardcore band from philly with two vocalists. they played to maybe a dozen people. fewer if you subtract the kids who live at the legion. still, they didn’t seem to hold back and played with an intensity and a sincerity that really impressed me. it was awesome, and by the end of their set, my ears were wringing and i was soaked in sweat. the other thing that was so cool about the show is that i got to hang out with erin in my element – didn’t feel like i was compromising or missing out on anything.

a funny thing happened en route from the 7-11 to that legion show. erin noticed that someone had left her keys in the trunk of her car. erin, being the do-gooder that she is tried to locate the owner, but none of the kids on the street knew anything about the car. so, she pocketed the keys and we went to the show. yon proposed that we just leave a note later. after the show, i wrote up a note that said “dear chump, you left your keys in the trunk so we took them for safe keeping. call ***-**** (ask for geoff) and we’ll give ’em back”. erin thought the chump part was being an asshole, so i crossed it out and replaced it with “victim of misfortune”. i thought of just opening the car up and pounding on the horn, but even in showman mode i’m not that bold. i just took the keys home and left a note for my housemates in case the owner of the keys called while i was out. apparently she called the next day, and despite the rudeness of my windshield note was really grateful that we had found the keys. katelynn said that the girl told her that she was chronically leaving her keys lying around. it’s really strange. girl leaves her keys in the door, we generally leave the house unlocked, and nothing catastrophic happens. nothing gets stolen, and no one gets raped. so much for the ghetto. after the recent serial rapist scare, i’m starting to think that south campus is worlds safer than north campus.

but yeah, it’s getting to the point where i can’t even write coherently in my journal anymore. at least it’s cooling down. i’m going to take a few more swigs of my cheap kroger cranberry juice coctail, brush my teeth, and go to bed.

79668899

job skills

i just got some unsolicited e-mail that actually interested me. apparently ohio has some program that offers up to $8,000 in technical training for individuals with income less than $13,290. i’ve never really been into the whole certification game, but if i can get free training, i won’t have to stress the test so much ant it might be worthwile. even if i don’t get the ccna certification, the skills might still be worthwhile.

art class

not just the superchunk song, but also my little pipe dream. i’m bored to death of cis classes and want to do something a little more creative – don’t get me wrong, programming could be considered art – but i’m more interested in using it as a tool for a more multimedia approach than as an artform in and of itself. so, i’m trying to get in to the art 551 new media robotics class. should be interesting since i don’t have any of the prereqs, but the class looks amazingly rad. i guess i could go out and mess around with this myself, but taking a class a) makes me feel better about prioritizing it with other things in my life, and b) gives me access to a lot of hardware and supply resources from the university which is awesome. we’ll see how it goes

whirlwind

is how i’d describe my life of late. just finished with finals yesterday, and luckily they were two of the downright easiest exams i’ve ever taken. i didn’t study as much as i would have liked to, but at least the terms were short so it meant i had less time to forget already learned material. what really didn’t help was my friend alicia’s visit. alicia and i were friends in high school and played together in a punk band called fallout before i went away to be a nerd in columbus, and she went to study art at tyler in philadelpha. alicia’s in a new band called x’s x’s. this summer they’re touring, and although they could’t get a show in columbus, they stopped at the sweet life to spend the night en route between pittsburgh and chicago. i hardly ever get to see alicia, just here or there when i come home, or sometimes at a show, which is a shame, because she’s really one of my last connections to the high school period in my life. everyone else who i was friend with back then just seemed to have very different priorities in life and interests, and in the end, when i went away, it just didn’t make sense to try to preserve those ties. but alicia’s rad, and i think that being in a band with people is a lot like being in a relationship with people, so it’s good to stay in touch. besides, alicia does a lot of the stuff that i wish i would do if my priorities were different or i wasn’t a big ol’ wuss, e.g. touring all the way across the country and even into canada. it was a little weird to meet her band mates, and i fealt a little like an outsider when i would venture into their conversations, but they seemed to be cool kids, and the band got along better than most bands setting out on a tour. alicia also gave me a sweet tofu recipe which i made for the critical mass picnic and seemed to go over really well. despite the possible scholastic advantages, hanging out with old friends and living vicariously through them for a few hours is a good time.

columbus isn’t so bad after all

was my thought yesterday, as, in my post exam euphoria, i managed to have a really great afternoon/evening. i rushed home to cook up some x’s x’s breakfast, then i ran into shad and we hooked up with the rest of the critical mass kids. it was a fairly sizeable ride, at least 20 kids, and sally, johnny, chad, brian, and a bunch of other regulars were there. it was the first time i had done critical mass in months, so it was a good time. afterwards, we rode all the way up to the park of roses in clintonville and had a bit of a cookout. someone brought a grill, jami brought her new puppy which i’ll even confess was adoreable. we played kickball and my team got trounced, but still had a good time. what i realized is how much happier i am when i can feel like part of a community rather than just a clique or a small group of friends. it’s nice to go out and do something with people you haven’t seen in a while – catch up, hang out, ride bikes, whatever. it was one of the best time’s i’ve had in a while. i guess it just goes to show it’s not so much where you are, but what you do. i can’t imagine having a better time, even in a cooler city.

went to a couple of parties later that night with shad. went to brian’s, a kid shad knows, and i met at critical mass and just chilled. they had a keg and it was kind of noisy, but definitely not wanabee frat-boy asshole scene that seems dominant at 90% of columbus parties. still, it was a little weird because i’m horrible at socialization, and didn’t really know people at the party. furthermore, unlike in scotland, it seems like everybody at a columbus party knows someone else, so you can’t really strike up a conversation with strangers and meet new people. also a problem is that everyone i would know at a columbus party, i only know because they’re ultra socialites who know tons of other people, so they’re doing the whole social butterfly thing and can’t save me from my akwardness. oh well. it wasn’t a bad time. it’s good to get out every once in a while.

decided to try to write a shit-talking columbus kid gossip zine as a joke, though i’m soon realizing that i don’t even know enough kids to make it seem realistic. it would be funny as hell. columbus is so small that there’s already tons of gossip going on and there’s nothing like adding fuel to the flames. i think it’s all well intended – i’ve not met anyone who was a real asshole about gossip – one just gets sucked in and the truth gets distorted somewhere along the way

79196098


summer

originally posted 07.19.2002

but yeah. i’m looking forward to summer. and i’m talking about real summer. i’m talking cruising through the ‘burbs with the windows rolled down listening to bling bling thug-hop or rap-core which is only acceptable listening material for cruising and trying to front to 13-year-old thug wannabees or slackers with 3-foot chain wallets. i’m talking about epic skate sessions and evening soccer games. i’m talking coming out after dark because it’s too damn hot to do anything during the day. i’m talking tofu-dogs adn that cheap, bright-yellow mustard that’s fifty cents a jar. i’m talking about “celebrating your nation’s independence by blowing up a small part of it.” i’m talking about taking the day off and finding a swimming hole where you can drop from large heights into odd-colored water that is probably way too shallow for safety. i’m talking about hiking through the woods and not noticing the bug bites or the poison ivy because the woods are just that beautiful. i’m talking about finding some run down diner or convenience store and making it your place for the summer. i’m talking about life’s only headaches being the ones you get from drinking your misty slush too fast. i’m talking summer, man, summer. and i’m glad i’ll spend it with you.

79196056

reboot

trying to get started writing in this journal again is tough. hell, i don’t even read other people’s journals like i used to. i don’t think it’s that i have less free time, it’s just that, well, i think at least, since i’m back with most of my friends, i have less need to document my life as much. for me, one of the best things in life is the magic of a shared experience. something epic, or habitual, that people will remember and talk about whenever they find themselves in the company of their co-conspirators. when your co-conspirators aren’t around, i guess you just have to compensate. that’s a theory anyway.

went to a show last night. saw local shredders the awakening, and el scorpio. i’ve always really expected the awakening, byt was never super into them, but tonight, they actually blew me away, and i just kept thinking, “damn this is hot”. unfortunately, well for me at least, they’re going on tour so i won’t be able to see them for awhile. oh well, at least there’s silencio, my new favorite band. they play rich, technical music that combines elements of metal, jazz, math rock, and indie rock into a sweet package. seeing bands like them makes me want to quit playing guitar. also listening to sage francis a ton. he’s this white, straight-edge, vegetarian rapper from providence, ri. if the straight-edge/veggie thing wasn’t enough to make me like him, he also has amazing lyrical skills and enough insight to say something with the skills. oh yeah. down for converge after seeing them rock at more than music as well as jawbreaker because they’ve been on the house cd player.

anyway, i wanted to write more, but i’m exhausted … tomorrow for sure.

79196055

quote of the day – “you would have to kill me …”

originally written 06.24.2002


You would have to kill me and prop me up in the seat of my car with a smile painted on my face to get me to go near Hollywood.


– philip k. dick, author of the short story minority report, now a major hollywood motion picture

my time in pa

originally written 06.24.2002

last week when i was in PA, I

  • skateboarded with tim in my driveway
  • stayed up all night listening to hardcore records, watching donny darko, playing pool, and watching the us get beat by poland
  • talked about tech, life, and whatnot into the wee hours of the morning with patrick
  • wrote an xmms plugin to append the currently playing MP3 song title to my e-mail signature
  • watched wonder boys, dancer in the dark, and a bunch of neo genesis evangeleon episodes
  • got called gevin by tim after he snorted lines of sugar
  • wrote nice car batman on piece of paper and stuck it to the windshield of some boy racer’s car in the parking lot of the middlesex diner
  • made a box monster costume to make fun of peter’s short lived stint working at carlisle cardboard container. unfortunately i had to leave before i got a chance to wear it
  • listened to some of tim’s ever-expanding record collection
  • enjoyed the fruits of my mom going into maximum baking mode: vegan cherry pie, chocolate cake, and chocolate chip cookies
  • played soccer with tim, mario, peter, patrick, josh, chris, and brian and ate boca burgers cooked over a fire afterwards
  • got rid of ms windows on my workstation
  • watched a really bad harrisburg senators baseball game with my parents. snickered as my dad told the confused parking attendent that he had a bruised patella
  • beat peter at scrabble because he gave up to get some sleep before an early shift at the box factory
  • read the minority report short story and optic nerve, love and rockets, and lone wolf and cub comics.
  • went to the mall and record stores with kavein, tim, and david. acted obnoxious and had a wonderful time
  • colored a picture of a burning american flag at the burger king on above excursion
  • went to church with my mom, got scolded for giggling with tim, talked to old people

77680135

06.12.2002 – travel, rock show, zinesters

originally written 06.12.2002

08:30 – costa coffee in glasgow international airport, sipping good orange juice that i bought with the last of my gbps. my flight doesn’t leave for another three hours, but i figure the earlier i get somewhere the less can go wrong. as much as i’d love to bop around the uk for a few more weeks, i need to make this flight back to the us. it’s early morning, but it feels like midday. i’ve been up all night packing, cleaning up the flat, and shooting the shit with iain, marco, and pete. the sun’s been up since 03:30. already i’ve taken three different modes of transportation and had my bags searched. orange juice and loud music (icky line) help me slow back down.

walked with iain around 04:30 to the 24 hour shop for probably the last time in my life. that must be where he got the porno mag that i found slipped into my backpack. amateur. that’s nothing compared to the laxative prank. luckily i discovered the mag before i opened up my bag for security. i disposed of the mag by giving it to a young boy a la jason lee in chasing amy. that’s a lie. it’s actually in trashcan somewhere in edinburgh. and no, i didn’t look at it before i threw it away.

so yeah, been up all night. played a little magic, did everybody’s dishes and chit-chatted with marco to stay awake. later i watched a movie version of d.h. lawrence’s short story the rocking horse winner. pretty crazy how they can turn a short story into a two hour long movie. needless to say, it didn’t help much in terms of keeping me awake. once the sun came up, i knew i was golden. dumpster dove behind the tesco for a box for iain’s cutlery, and in the dim morning light i realized once again, how foreign edinburgh really was. even off the main street one finds little alleys, closes, kirks, and any number of secret places. in the morning this revelation is even more exciting. in the hour after the clubs have closed but before the city wakes up the streets are silent and the secret cobbles seem yours alone – quiet, intimate.

the last few days in edinburgh have been rad. hectic but rad. yesterday i hoofed it around old town to procure various items for people. i hate shopping. i think i did ok though. after that, i met timothy for a meal at bann. the food wasn’t as good as it has been, and i found the conversation a little akward since timothy had brought his older brother along. my problem. felt even more dumb in conversation when there were two of them there. still it was good to see him one last time before i headed back stateside. he’s definitely one of the most interesting people that i met whilst in scotland, and the kind of kid that isn’t exactly the norm at osu. made tentative plans to check out shows in philly in the fall, but who knows if that will happen.

rob left for his home near manchester yesterday. it was a strange goodbye. no embraces, no long remarks, just a quick “it was nice meeting you”, and that was it. rob made the observation that he’d probably never see me again the other day. it was actually refreshing. it’s nice to entertain the notion of maintaining friendships across continents, but it’s hard enough staying in touch with people stateside. it’s sad, but once you go off to uni, you really realize how fleeting most of your relationships are.

by far the coolest thing that happened recently was the show on monday night. getting ready for this show, along with the world cup, made research and exploring the city fall to the back burner. odd perhaps, but sometimes the most important things about a foreign place aren’t the most obvious. it’s strange that i had to travel across the atlantic to find people who were up for mucking around musically, but what’s important is that i had a great time at el bourgo’s first and only show. i had e-mailed timothy weeks ago to see if he wanted to play, and he said yeah. i thought it might be an odd situation because we didn’t have a lot of time to hash out details, and after hearing we were doing kylie minogue covers, he seemed a bit nervous about playing his “sincere” tunes. turned out to be no problem at all. the biggest obstacle was, like most of the shows i’ve played, the equipment. it took forever to figure out how to rig up the tron’s ghetto pa system, and marco was really freaking out. i just kept thinking that things were just going to end badly. marco’s high strung, and with pete, you can’t really tell if he’s just really low key, or if he just doesn’t care. so i thought that we were going to hit the infighting stage of our band early. luckily, the guy who usually sets up the sound was called, we plugged stuff in, and the instruments and vocals all sounded ok.

timothy played first, and he was just awesome. i confess, that my intent in inviting him to play wasn’t only because i was excited to play his stuff, but also because i thought it would be good to have a sacrificial lamb. well, between his pounding on the classical guitar, the sincerity of his vocals, crazy kool keith-style shades, and anectdotes about scottish kids throwing shoes at him (complete with groundskeeper willy accents), the set was super cool. i was completely impressed.

we went on after timothy, and up on stage, i realized that between timothy’s friends, marco’s friends, and pete’s friends, there were probably fifty people in the basement – i expected ten max. what made things more intimidating still was the fact that these people didn’t stand cooly with their arms crossed in the corner. they wanted entertainment, they applauded emphatically, and talked amongst themselves when they were bored. the set whizzed by. i fucked up a few times, but was able to cover it for the most part. marco seemed more relaxed than when we were dealing with the pa (and he didn’t even have to drink the bottle of buckfast that he had purchased). all in all, it was a huge success. our songs went over well. people laughed when we sang about iain and kendell nunn. rob even liked the one sincere song that i wrote. after our set, pete and friends played a few covers. it sounded good, but as they got drunk, things degenerated into extended versions of no woman no cry which, despite being an amazing song, loses it’s pleasure after two dozen choruses. but yeah. it feels amazing to play a show again. it was an accomplishment. in like a month we wrote ten original songs and learned two covers and rehearsed them to an acceptable level of quality. i just keep thinking what we could have accomplished if we would have started in january. aesthetically, this project was far from my ideal band, but in terms of sheer fun and creative output, it was an amazing success. marco and pete, despite their musical talents were receptive to what i wanted to do, as well as forgiving when i messed up my guitar parts. it was sweet. i’m going to miss playing with them.

ok. off to find out what gate my flight departs from and who’s winning the various world cup games…. (too bad about france. we gave a hearty nasal huh-huh-huh yesterday when we found out they got stomped by the danes).

sweden draw argentina. argentina’s out. sweden’s in. argentina and france are not going to be in the final 16. the pundits must be going crazy.

i am a bad person. i am sizing up the other passengers on the flight, and i’m disappointed that i don’t see anybody interesting, or, should i say, i’m disappointed that i don’t see anybody like me. there’s not even the young male who skates. no precocious six year olds with maurice sendak or bookish pre-teens with harry potter. now it’s not entirely my fault. i think i deserve to be a little cynical since i’ve never sat next to anybody who has deemed me conversation worthy (or vice versa) in any of my flying experiences. so, at this point, i’m hoping that i don’t have to listen to the mindless chattering of the elderly folks around me for the entire flight (which, it turns out, i don’t), and i’m hoping that nick hornby can write (which, it turns out, he can).

young child is being, well, a young child, which is to say loud and rambunctious. stewardess, no wait, that’s wrong – flight attendent tells mother that she’ll have to put the tray table (which is somehow acting as a play implement for the kid) up. but, assures the flight attendent, she’ll bring some cookies for the child later. this is when the 20-something guy in the next row forward asks if he too can have some cookies. i’m convinced that this scene is out of a movie or a book or something. at the very least, the flight attendent had heard this one before. i’m glad i’m not too clever when it comes to being able to banter with fligth crews..

so this plane is tech. lcds in the backs of each seat rather than shared screens, control handsets that look like playstation controllers but require a far more advanced diagram to operate, and adjustable headreasts that seem remarkably like the special pillows that peter insisted would be the cure to my problems of sleeping on planes, if only i were to purchase one.

i must have dozed off because i somehow find myself clutching a pair of earplugs and an eyemask and not remembering the last minutes (hours?). i look out the window and see something that i’ve never seen before. white, whispy clouds and below, only blue.

16:00 in what i’ll call “scotland time”. i’m bored now. finished reading how to be good. i’ll have to think on my reaction to it. it was an enjoyable read, but i’m not sure how much more. read through all of my thrasher as well. i’m starting to get bored with skate mags again. at least the pictures are pretty.

so plain blue beneath the clouds has given way to rocks and snow and ice. i have no idea where we are right now. could it be greenland, or canaduh? i’m hoping it means that we’ve crossed the atlantic and it won’t be too long before i’m in jersey and heading for some good veg*n chinese. wakerly and dom said that the first thing they were going to do when they got back to the us was to hit up the taco bell. me, i think i’ll up the ante and go for some mi mariachi, or el rodeo, or whatever that place is called. can’t wait to get on the ground and have some fun.

listening to records ot kill the time. this the rocking horse winner record is ok. not sure if i really dig it though. it’s really wussy. the band name is great though. i sort of like it now that i think about it. my first impression is keepsake with a female vocalist.

played magic against marco last night. it was sweet. he even gave me the black deck that i’m so fond of. damn i’m a nerd.

some kids have a new e-zine called ant zine. i don’t hate it.

77679724

carnage, sunlight, foot in my mouth

originally written 06.10.2002

end of the year (for me june has always had more significance than january in terms of the changing anum) means end of the year pranks. so it all goes back to pete bringing home a super soaker type water gun. so of course we got engaged in a flat water battle and i got toally soaked. but, in addition to that, rob made an offensive against the girls in flat 8. not to be outdone, the next morning, anais nonchalantly came into our flat, walked to the sink, filled a pint glass with water and dumped it on rob. today rob got her back by squirting her with the water gun while she was obliviously engaged in conversation. but the real point of all that buildup is that rob suspected that iain (who gets on with the girls upstairs exceptionally well) had tipped off the girls that rob was responsible for the initial aquasault on flat 8. so rob was out for vengence, and i think he always fancies a good prank anyway (he did after all go on and on about the amount of urine that was unknowingly consumed on his rugby tour over easter break). after iain shaved a penis into my head, i, of course, had to initiate some form of reprisal. rob made the suggestions of a technique often cited in prank lore, but never, at least in my or rob’s case, executed: laxatives. so we made morning run to the mall to get laxatives, minor groceries, and nick hornby novels. to our chagrin, we found mainly wussy natural laxitives – not the kind of harsh chemicals that were sure to inflict carnage on our naive flatmate’s bowels. back at the flat, i employed the crush-pills-with-one’s-student-id technique i learned freshman year from watching (i’d totally have sex with dave mathews but i’m not gay) mike to crush the laxatives into a fine powder which we added to various beverages that iain was likely to consume. we put two 5 kg tablets in his cherry coke, and 5 tablets in his milk. he consumed the coke throughout the day, but not the milk. rob was really disappointed. i think he expected south park-esque explosive diarrea right away. well, by the time evening had come, iain was getting a lot more regular, and after he drank the milk i knew we were in for some fun. luckily, i think we got the dosage right so as to cause discomfort but not danger. i was a bit worried because you always hear the urban legeands designed to prevent such antics, but to be honest, the results are amusing but not spectacular. there’s no spontaneous excrement. iain described the experience (unknowingly of course) as having controllable but watery shits. rob managed to convince him it was on account of bad kung pao chciken from the chinese dinner we had last night. to be honest, i feel quite bad and am having some sympathetic indigestion myself.

so i’m going to have to eat some crow here. i tend to watch movies with iain quite a lot as he’s a movie addict. the thing is though, he’s one of the most unprejudiced people i have ever met, so he can even enjoy a cheesy british werewolf flick without criticizing it. so, tonight we just got some cheesy movies, both of which turned out to be completely entertaining. “zoolander”, a comedy written, directed, and starring ben stiller was a film that came highly recommended by tim, but that i thought looked like normal hollywood drivel. it’s one of those movies that is really good buck just has shitty trailers. the movie just ended up being a great satire of the fashion industry and is one of the most consistantly funny movies i’ve seen in awhile. we also watched “bring it on” which wasn’t exactly good, but was at times so cheesy that one couldn’t help but like it. for example the cheating college boyfriend saying “but you’re not my sister” to his dorm room bed buddy, as well as the token street girl from “east compton” saying “you’ve been touched by an angel girl” cracked me up and caused both phrases to enter my vocabulary. the movie was fun, and it’s good to see the punk rocker get some ass every once and awhile, even if it is on the silver screen. too bad it’s still the cheerleader. though, sadly, i must confess, in my high school days i wasn’t without secret affections towards the more intelligent and academically minded cheerleaders.

it’s 4am and already starting to get light out. the sun doesn’t set until after 10. it’s cool, but completely destroys my sleep patterns.

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06.08.2002 – mike, exams

originally written 06.08.2002

so california mike goes back to the states this morning. he’s this kid who goes to ucla and was in my computer security and distributed systems classes. he’s intelligent, clever, nerdy and i had a good time just talking shit with him and his partner in crime, dom (chicago to la transplant). got a text message from him yesterday saying that he wanted to hook up before he left. that’s always flattering because i sometimes don’t know where i stand with people. especially when i can be a real bastard about returning phone calls. part of it has to do with the fact that most previous invitations had to do with going out to some club and i’m always a bit reluctant to go out with people if they’re going to get absolutely wasted. it really shouldn’t be an issue when my tolerance for drunken antics has increased 100 fold on account of my flatmates. perhaps it’s that i just don’t want to be disappointed when i find people who i regard as very intellgent and clever acting completely stupid. there was no reason for concern last night. we went to this chill club on lothian street called medina. it’s a middle eastern themed joint and has these giant couch-like corners where you can just lounge about with your friends (or practically have sex as was the case with the strange couple going at it in the corner). the idea of a chill out club seems pretty foreign to america, or at least the middle america represented by columbus. in columbus, there seems to be two kinds of bars: bars with bad house music and patrons intent on date rape and scuzzy dive bars filled with punks and grad students that are only tolerable because they don’t fall into the former category. so yeah, i’d say that even though it’s not really my thing, edinburgh has a really good nightclub scene, especially in terms of having diverse offerings to appeal to tons of different going out tastes. but yeah, it was great to talk with mike and dom one last time. mike is just a generally gregarious guy who likes engaging people in conversation and isn’t afraid to talk about his jukebox software in a night club. dom is more quite but really intelligent and interesting. anyway, they drank, i talked, and we made tentative plans to rendevous in august for a midwest adventure. it’s always weird going out with other people’s friends, and mike, being the gregarious guy he is, had lots, and it’s even worse when they’re really smart, clever people who can put you in your place. i was able to strike up a conversation with one girl who happened to be from westerville. she had gone to high school with kids i had met during my first year at osu. it truly is a small world after all (insert mental image of singing, smiling, ethnic children here). but yeah, we talked about columbus, siblings, school, etc. i always feel good about myself when i’m able to converse with strangers as i’m normally rather introverted. if there’s one thing i’ve seemed to learn to do a bit better since i’ve been abroad, it’s been the skill of talking to girls. the reason, i think, probably has more to do with the fact that i have a girlfriend, and that many of the girls i meet, also studying abroad, are similarly attached. so, i think that romantic tension that sometimes underlies conversations one has with members of opposite sex when a conversation gets rolling is largely nonexistant. so, conversation seems easy and natural as opposed to contrived and arduous.

i finished with exams today. destroyed human communications yesterday, and computer architecture went really well today (even though i’m pokey and didn’t get to the last part of the second question before time expired).

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06.02.2002 – world cup, elmer gantry, the promise ring, pink, andrew w.k.

woke up early this morning to catch the pre-game. iain was still up from the drunken festivities of his mates’ housewarming party, but soon retired to bed, and didn’t even wake to utter obscenities when i knocked on his door to get him to come to the pub. we got to the pub just as it opened at 10:15, and took our seat. the pub wasn’t licensed to serve alcohol that early in the morning, but there were still people there watching the game. it was a good game. england dominated during the first half and scored on a powerful header off a corner. they looked in top form. they were winning a lot of 50-50 balls and generaslly taking it to sweden. beckham looked great. he was playing confidently and placing balls into the box as is his typical duty. not a bit of hesitation from his much publicized foot injury. he did, however, get substituted due to fatigue around halftime. and after halftime, the english side was really a different team. sweden score early on, and really dominated the second half. england was lucky that the swedes didn’t score another goal. rob chalked the change up to a strategic error. he said that sweden had compressed the midfield making it difficult for england to maintain control of the play, and the large swedish defense easily won the long balls in the air. sweden’s the team i’m pulling for in the this world cup final because they have freddie ljundberg, and because the us’s hopes of advancing, despite rumblings that the team is one of the most respectable yet, are pretty small. still, being in a group with the likes of england and argentina, sweden’s chances might not be much better.

started reading elmer gantry on the recommendation of tim. he described it as a slow-reading but interersting, though perhaps somewhat dated, critique of religion. dated? no way! a read a chapter or so, and the first thing that came to mind was “promise keeper”. seems the idea of the manly christian is a pretty old one, and i suspect that it will continue to be an attractive selling point for the christian right. closer to home, i can’t help but think that maybe some of the christian hxc bands that i generally regard as pretty innocuous are just a slightly hipper version of the promise keepers. that would be funny actually. to start a brother’s keeper rip-off band called promise keeper and sing about moral purity and manly strength. to be honest, that’s probably why sxe caught on in the hardcore scene. i can bear to call myself straight-edge because, as the term was conceived by ian mckay, one of the least promise-keeper-like males i can think of, i feel confident that sxe needn’t only be about mindless faith in an ideal that simply replaces vice rather than transcends it. to be honest, if being sxe had been an easy decision, like if the decision to become straight-edge had meant being welcomed into a cheering throng of throwdown t-shirt clad musclemen, i would probably be getting trashed right now. the fact that in hs, i was in the minority as someone who didn’t drink or do drugs, convinces me that my abstinence was more than just another fad. it might have made me more comfortable with myself, but it certainly didn’t win me any popularity points at school. but, i digress. i like elmer gantry so far. it’s criticism of “promise keeper” christianity is clever, and biting, but maintains the subtlety that marks all good satire. what fun would criticising an institution be if they knew they were the brunt of the joke?

i go back and forth on whether i like the promise ring‘s album very emergency. the tracks jersey shore and skips a beat are so cheesy, yet so good, that i can’t help but love them, but the rest of the album is a bit too saccharine for me. i’m interested to hear their new album, wood/water which supposedly sports a more sophisticated sound that is neither the emo stylings of their older material, nor the pop of very emergency.

i saw some live footage of pink on viva+ last night. the girl’s a rocker! who would have thought? her past efforts have always had an r&b twinge to them, and this is not entirely missing from her latest, more rock-oriented, release. but her live show has no choreographed dancers or bling-bling mcs. she’s got a full band and could just as easily be mistaken for allanis morrisette as eve. i’d say that pink is the most relevent female artist in music right now. appologies to ani and kathleen hanna, but pink is the only female artist that comes to mind that is positioned to break the prepubescent masses out of their britney-fied daze. the thing that i notice most, is that pink’s performance is seems to, at least in some part, reflect her personality. maybe it’s not completely honest, but it’s more honest than seeing a confused little girl shake by numbers. her music is angsty, but not whiny, and in a way that seems like it should resonate with real, live, human girls. pink is sexy, but in her own way. if you look at her, she’s a big girl. tough, square jawed, and muscular. hair cut sharply in a manner that could just as easily be considered butch as it could beautiful, but in a way, she’s both. britney, on the other hand, is a reflection of the same lolita fantasy that has occupied pop culture for years. boring. outmoded. meaningless. i’d like to think that society’s notions of female pop icons can just be cloberred, but barring that, at least i kown they are being caressed a little.

also saw the new andrew w.k. video for she is beautiful. i don’t hate it. catchy at best, tolerable at worst. like kid rock, but without offending every single one of my aesthetic and ethical sensibilities. more of an homage to multiple genres (ramones style punk meets hair-rock) than rock’s moreau-like monstrosity of rap-rock fusion. andrew w.k. is good if only to give me an example when i’m arguing with people about why certain acts are so lame. andrew w.k. escapes being lame only because he’s image-conscious without posturing. he distills mindless fun down to it’s most basic elements and thus avoids being an asshole. it’s partying hard without drunk hookers and hot rods. dozens of stupid r&b/pop boy bands can croon minutes of lyrical drivel and not capture the sentiment any better than w.k. does with the words “she’s beautiful” (which, if i’m not mistaken, is pretty much it for the song’s lyrics. he won’t need a teleprompter if he ever does a reunion tour). i guess that’s how andrew w.k. can create something that is neither particularly original or intriguing but is still incredibly refreshing. he keeps the songs short and the interviews long. that’s the way the world ought to be.