Violet




Today my little blue bird died.

We adopted her in 2005. She was a baby and her beak was still black.

She loved a little hot dog plushie (which was stolen in 2007 by a bratty cat)and would preen his hair.

My dad loved her more than anybody.

She was doted on constantly by that little yellow-green guy on the left since they were both babies:



I miss her.

I'm not dead

Just behind on posts.
Things this week:
  • Midterms
  • Articles/interviews
  • Catching up on studying/homework
  • Work (I grade papers! Oh man do I have stories about being a T.A. in high school. I am an awful employee. Was, I mean. In high school. NOT NOW. Google, shut up about me!)
  • Catching up on/re-doing sleep cycle
  • Making the trek to the DMV for my written exam
  • Rethinking the course of my life
Updates I should make:
  • The Malibu runs like a wagon, does this bizarre pulsating revving noise while idle, and is covered in dings and nail polish in improbable places. It will be fixed up and sold to someone who is not me.
  • I am really uncomfortable putting too much online right now. This is all too googleable and I hate doing this shovelware blogging but there ain't much I can say without offering a caveat or ten: what I have to say isn't all that interesting or non-libelous. I have really high standards of what I let the world read from me and it isn't this.
  • Stuff in the works: the Renaissance Pleasure Faire (awesome nerdy bawdy Sunday), movies I've seen recently on DVD (and my soon-to-be Netflix experience!), stuff I'm doing with my awful draft I completed for 2008's NaNoWriMo (namely, quantifying it in order to separate myself enough to deal with it without having to actually read it), another Series of Transportive Events post, the arrival of my Coraline Nike Dunks in the mail earlier this week (photos to come!! I just need my camera) and several other things I want to roll in (retroactive posts are icky, but I may do them for the sake of organization. Besides, it would be on the timeline -- I went to the Ren Faire on Sunday, for instance, and the Dunks came in Tuesday.)
Keep an eye out for more from the hypnic jerk.
That is all.

Happy nerd driving maybe

Waylon Smithers w/ Malibu Stacy by Eay on Flickr via Creative Commons

I am doubly surprised at my fortune today. First, and to my utter nerdly delight, I found Serenity on DVD for $10! And I discovered that my dad went behind my back and purchased a 1997 Chevy Malibu for my use!

I don't know how to feel! I really don't. Should I be terrified? Happy? Guilty?

Just today I was telling Magali that my parents would never buy me a car in a million years, and here we are.

I think I will meet said Malibu this weekend. When I think of Malibu I think "Malibu Stacy" from the Simpsons. I think Stacy would be a great car name, especially if I consider the car a male. The car I'm learning on, a white 1986 Pontiac 6000, is called Mr. Wiggles on account of his former tendency to veer violently to the left.

I think I will read my handbook and get ready for my permit test tomorrow (the one I had expired last week). Then we'll see how these things reconcile themselves.

Mountiewire.com is live!

Print issue 2 of the Mountaineer is out, and mountiewire.com is printed right below the masthead, so I assume it's safe to link.



The site is a little buggy right now, but there's already a ton of stuff to look through on the multimedia front. This gets me giddy. Go go go!

Technically wrong but actually friggin' right: referring to my classmates as "kids"

Photo credit: shc32 on Flickr via Creative Commons

The other day in my intro Italian class, my professor stopped her lecture and chastised the class for talking too much. I bristled despite myself, remembering my high school days not-too-fondly. I had to control that little nag of annoyance of my classmates and teachers -- it's what caused me to stop attending classes in high school and (consequently) put me here in the first place. What surprised me, though, is that I have yet to escape this stupid dynamic: kids act a little badly, teacher punishes kids, kids feel rebellious, teacher enforces more punishment, kids feel like crap and act more rudely.

It's true that there was a noticeable murmur on one side of the classroom whenever my professor drifted to the other side to answer a question or address someone directly, and she did tell people to quiet down. But the ensuing lecture about keeping our mouths shut while the professor was speaking seemed over the top to me. At several points she mentioned incredulously that she was not teaching kindergarten. If this is so, why were we being lectured about this at all? Wouldn't a polite reminder of respect suffice? Most of us at community college are technically adults by now, and I can't help but feel that we hardly act and are treated as such.

I have to wonder sometimes -- had I not screwed up so badly in high school, would I be in a four-year university right now? And would a professor of a four-year university harp on things like loudness and attendance?

I think the concepts of being an adult at four-years and community colleges are very, very different. At the CC level, most people are commuting and working and raising families or living at home and working toward a discernible goal. At higher-level schools dorms evoke a kind of childishness and don't really encourage work or family obligations. Yet I get the impression that rude conversations and ensuing diatribes wouldn't be tolerated at a four-year school. Why is it a norm here?

Also: SIIIGH ATTENDANCE. It enrages me that this is tied to grades at the CC level. If I can get my work done and the tests aced but I still miss a couple of classes, then I shouldn't be docked for a personal choice (or illness, in my case). I know that if I miss too much class I will fail. Things like attendance and self-control (texting? are you serious?) should be a personal responsibility for alleged adults. Professors shouldn't have to enforce this stuff.

How to save the newspapers

Jonathan Mann -- of Song A Day fame -- invoked the lip-synching talents of the print-dinosaur staffers at his local alternative weekly, the East Bay Express.



Devastatingly hilarious and hopefully untrue. Maybe it'd work on my CC campus, though ...

I already have Mann's "Hey Paul Krugman" in my head, and now this? GET OUT OF MY LIFE JONATHAN MANN

Is exhaustion a psychadelic drug?

This site disturbs me at a deep and fundamental level of my being. I can vaguely sense it plumbing the dusty corners of my mind, mussing up the wiring and causing me to be inexplicably drawn in by dancing boobahs and techno music.

Do not even think about drugs of any kind right now. If you are already under the influence of some mind-altering substance, I have nothing to say to you.

I leave you with screenshots of my last couple of hours.





How far gone am I? This last one is my desktop.


Bonus: This is a children's TV show. Watch the introduction.
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