|
11.30.03/22:39 insubordination People never tell me anything. Example:
"Yeah, so I'm going to England for a few weeks. See you when I get back."
That's my dad. Always with the spontaneous travel and insanity. I'm happy they came to visit, though. I miss my dad and my sister. Chelsea is the greatest. She bought me PENCILS.
And I drank maybe too much KMX/vodka on Wednesday, but I suppose you'll have that. There were many fun family gatherings, and I suppose the pictures will speak for themselves.
I can't go another paragraph without thanking Amber for getting me Cat's Cradle. Wow. Best present ever. She is so much fun and rocks unequivocally.
Friday, I read the whole thing from cover to cover. Last night, I wrote new short stories. I suppose I will give you the link to one:
[lettuce prey] (short story)
11.29.03/17:35 newly converted bokononist Much thanks to Amanda's friend Alex who has generously submitted 12 new words to the glossary. He is in the band Estranged and maintains their website. Here is the link:
http://www.members.tripod.com/annoyingfreak/
I insist that you all go there right now and go to all their shows and buy all their cd's and t-shirts and donate money to their favourite charities/drinking establishments.
11.26.03/11:48 ni-do simasita kedo... So...yeah. I had interesting and fun times yesterday that I'd tell you all about if this were my livejournal (it's not). I had a big shocking surprise for site visitors planned for today, but it's not finished yet and I have to go out of town for a few days on business.
Oh, by the way, my mom is great. She brought me soup the other day. What could be better than that? Here's a picture of me and her and Crazy Matt.
Happy Thanksgiving, if you're into that kind of thing.
11.24.03/22:01 st. louise is listening Wow. Today was just fantastic. So listen: I took Jean to my Japanese class and it was great, and after that we played so much DDR. Well, she did. I only went two or three times...
And I did my presentation today on Haruki Murakami for Creative Writing class. I got to play my song and though it wasn't flawless, I was okay.
nick looks fierce jean being cute me looking cool
After class, I missed the bus. But it's okay, because this cute girl from class gave me a ride home. And we went out for milkshakes. Wow. But the best part is that she might even like Kurt Vonnegut and Chuck Palahniuk as much as I do.
While I'm ranting about writers, I will tell you something else. This weekend I read Flatland. It's about what life would be like in a two-dimensional world. If you follow the link, you can read it yourself. It was written in 1884, so the copyright has expired. Plus it's only like 50 pages long.
[barefoot princess] murakami imitation, short story
That's the other short story I promised you. I had to write it as part of my final assignment. The other part is this song, inspired by The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles.
[wind up] 1.57MB, mp3--click here for the-> [lyrics]
11.20.03/23:32 dansu simasyoo ka? Remember Pee Wee's Playhouse, when they had that magic word that was like the topic of the day? Sometimes that happens in real life, where one thing will somehow become the topic of your day. Well, today's magic word is 'dance'.
The picture on the left is just for Jean. We have DDR in our Student Union arcade now, so maybe she will actually come visit Pitsubaagu Daigaku....maybe. Next to that is my slightly less pathetic Tetris score where I got the slightly bigger rocket.
I tracked this song today. It's the theme song from Furi Kuri. The Pillows are freaking great. If someone wants to buy me their CD for Christmas, I would love you unequivocally.
[ride on shooting star (acoustic cover)] 1.83MB, mp3
If that doesn't make you excited enough, I wrote TWO new short stories as well. One you will get either tomorrow or Saturday, and this one you can have now.
[crooked-toothed girl] short story
11.17.03/23:10 more southside adventures Things that make me say yokatta.
-Survived Japanese class. -Went to Southside with Sarah. -Got Reese Cups from Aunt Marianne. -Saw 'Master and Commander' with Uncle Den. -Writing class was cancelled. -Figured out the automatic timer on my camera. -Wrote a new short story--[excerpt from dangerous lapels] -Finally got pics of the kanzi bus. -Bought this sweet-ass tie for two bucks.
Things that make me say komatta naa.
-Only six people showed up for recitation. -$40 for car registration. -Dropped my cell phone in crosswalk and almost got hit by lots and lots of cars while retrieving it. -Missed my bus because of time lost retrieving said phone. -Tyotto byooki ni narimasita.
11.16.03/18:45 dirty haiku contest winner The dirty haiku contest is finally over. There were more entries than I thought there would be, and even more participants than I anticipated. Thanks for making the judging really difficult.
Here is how I determined the winner: I took my six favourite haikus from all the entries received and numbered them from 1 to 6. Then I rolled a die. It came up 6.
And the winner is: Sarah Scheinman of Point Breeze, Pgh!
all wet and
soapy Bonus points for use of the word 'nakey'. 11.14.03/06:43 tadaima....again. Okay, so I went to Phoenix, Arizona for one day. The purpose of the trip was for Jesse to visit the Art Institute of Phoenix. Here are some pictures.
The very last picture is much bigger than the other ones because I made it my desktop. That place is freaking gorgeous. It was like 73 there and everywhere we went there were people wearing coats and talking about how it's 'winter'.
Are you serious?
The sky is right out of a Claritin commercial, and I didn't see one bug the whole time I was there. I'm convinced they have no bugs in Arizona.
When we took the bus from Metro Circle it took an hour, but only cost $1.25. Jesse didn't believe me when I told him that not all cities are outrageously overtaxed and overpriced like Pittsburgh. He didn't believe me about the airplane headphones not being 8th inch jacks, either.
So the real question so far has been, 'Why go all the way out to Phoenix for just one day if you're not going to really do anything super-fun?' It's more about the spontaneity, just a vain little attempt to assert some control over my ritualized and heavily-scheduled monotony.
11.12.03/00:48 phoenix ni ikimasu? So I went bowling with Jesse again. He suggested we fly to Phoenix tomorrow so he can look at a school he wants to go to. And now I have to wake up at 6 instead of 8.
If all the ticket-getting and plane-catching nonsense goes well, I won't talk to any of you 'til sometime Friday. Hopefully I'll get some good pictures.
Today I saw I man wearing a placard that said the end is near. He said that sex perverts will not go to heaven. He said we are all corrupt and the time for our judgment is nigh.
And from the way it's storming right now, I can almost believe it.
11.11.03/17:58 bowling for concubines I went bowling today. It was very informative because I learned that: I am not good at bowling.
Maybe I'm not good at grocery shopping either. I came home with a gallon of cranberry juice and lots of Pringles.
This week, I've gotten lots of really good dirty haikus. It's going to be very tough to pick a winner from such good submissions. Remember, the contest ends Saturday at midnight.
And, there are more Nara Sensei quotes. Like seven of them. To properly enjoy them, you have to picture Nara Sensei, a six foot tall Japanese man with grey hair and a bushy mustache. Don't get the wrong idea by the quotes, 'cause I have nothing but respect for the guy. He's the man.
11.8.03/18:34 idea-snatching Matt and Dirt Monky did this song using a 4-track recorder and goofy sounds from a keyboard. It was a pretty ridiculous song, its only redeeming quality being the name they came up for it (game show kitty). And I thought about this, and it inspired me to write a short story.
[game show kitty] (short story)
Speaking of Dirt Monky, he wrote some great guitar for a Nicotine Fist song called 'blinding'. I've been singing it in the shower for the last few days and so the only thing I can do to get it out of my head is track a solo version of it. I have to apologize, because I can't do any of the cool guitar stuff that Dirt did in the original. I'd post that version, but the sound quality came out really bad and it's pretty fuzzy.
[blinding (solo)] mp3, 2.05 MB <lyrics>
I've had this Japanese chocolate since July. I bet it's still good. In fact, I'm betting my health on it right now by eating it. Mmmmm...dubious candy. Would you like a six-month-old piece of chocolate from halfway around the world? I'm willing to share.
11.6.03/20:29 think it solicitation? No doubt you've heard of this spam e-mail where the Nigerian millionaire wants your bank account number so he can share with you his millions of dollars. I kind of thought it was a joke until one of these things made it past my spam filter.
Click here to read it. I suggest you contact the e-mail address at the top of the linked page if you wish to make lots of money by doing no work and giving personal information to strangers.
As you can see, my return-envelope collection is growing daily, and before too long I will reach my goal of thirty and send them expired coupons or whatever junk mail I happen to have sitting around. The peanut butter is a tribute to my favourite Sensei.
Today on the bus, I actually met another Pitt student who commutes from Moon. And she's cute, too. What a small world.
11.5.03/20:32 hooray for fruit roll-ups Yeah, that's right. Fruit roll-ups. Do you have a problem with that? Didn't think so.
First off, I'd like to say congratulations to Scott for being elected Mayor of Shelbyville. For those of you who don't know him well enough to know differently, he's a stand-up guy.
Let me explain the pictures. Yesterday, when I was visiting my uncle, I was waiting outside his apartment building for about ten minutes and there was this old lady who kept coming to the window and staring at me. I know she was staring at me because every time I'd look up she would run away from the window. She was quite surprised when I took a picture of her...
And the other one is a brand new SHS pencil I found today in this box of wires and junk. If you've ever seen me around campus doing homework, (rare, I know) these are the only pencils I can write or draw with.
Whenever I play for people anywhere, they all ask to hear this song. So I figured I would put up an acoustic version. For the lyrics, go here.
[nepenthe (acoustic)] mp3 file, 1.73 MB
I'm working on another short story, which I hope to have posted tomorrow night after I get home from failing this Japanese Society test.
11.3.03/22:15 chemically imbalanced These last few days have been kind of fun. I feel pretty cheerful and all of that. Like maybe I will make a difference. Here's an example of what I mean, it's a short story I wrote about a thing that happened to me today.
[taxidermy major] short story
Also, you probably noticed that October has been archived.
There would be pictures today, but I forgot to put the little memory stick in my camera and consequently, I have none for you.
Sorry.
And on the way home, I met this girl who was also on the bus with me this morning. Apparently, she works in my hospital and knows all the safety officers and some of the other people I work with.
Of course, if she were a patient, she would know them too.
Makes you wonder.
|
|
