two.points.collapsing

i’d better check in here before it’s too late.

see, my plane leaves for the magical land of toronto, canada (by way of charlotte, north carolina for some reason) at an unseemly 8:30am tomorrow. this, in turn, means that the shuttle service pickup time — since it’s an international flight — is an ungodly 4:25am; and furthermore, if i don’t wish to spend 9 or 20 or however many hours of travel enjoying my own day-old layer of film, i had better get up at 4 in the morning to shower up. jesus h. and this is supposed to be a vacation.

the real problem is that i can’t really sleep on planes. that may very well be altered this trip though out of my body’s utter rejection at waking up and being active at 4:30 in the morning. staying up til then i can handle sometimes. getting up then is the dumbest thing ever.

but, i will at least get to read a lot, listen to music, and eventually end up chillin’ with dearest kate, which i am anticipating with lots of jittery excitement. (this is where we all go, “spring breeeeeaaaaak! woooooooo!”)

if i don’t get back on for a few days, or even at all until next weekend, just picture me galavanting about the country with a big smile on my face, arm in arm with good friends, and try not to hold it against me. sometimes wacky adventures just don’t factor blogging time into the equation.

i take off for toronto on saturday morning. i should not, should NOT, have to take an anthropology quiz friday morning. that’s stupid. classes that expect you to do anything really constructive when you’re an oliver stone film away from spring break (i.e. a few hours) are just wrong. “backwud”, as it were, as in facing the damn incorrect direction here. so i will not study for this, i will not even prepare in any way for this. if i do not know the answer to a question, i will write a short comical story about a monkey who has involved himself in some sort of mischief. everything will all work out.

thus is the luxury of pass/fail classes of which i only get one in four years, sadly. and the extra sad part was that i still did leagues better than a lot of people on the midterm a couple weeks ago. eh, i’m just a sharp guy.

blogger has a warning that at midnight it’s gonna be down for hours. that’s a long time. so i best be posting this a’fore it’s too late.

but before that, a quick plea: if you read this and you want to hang out tomorrow night, please contact me. my plane doesn’t leave til saturday morning, but all my roommates will be gone by late afternoon tomorrow and i’ll be all alone all night and i’m afraid of the dark when i’m by myself.

a ride to the airport on saturday so i don’t have to pay the shuttle service would also be welcome. as would free pony rides.

goodnight.

did you get the song of the week yet? you should, it’s really good.

i remember thinking a few things last night that i want to put down somewhere. one was that i wish i had a reading-speed dial which i could turn up or down at will. at first, looking at the anthropology reading i have to do before friday, i just wished that i could speed-read. but then i thought about it, and i don’t really want to read everything really quickly. sometimes i like to take my time and read something nice and slow and savor it, enjoy it. plus if i read too quickly, i might run out of good books too quickly and have to wait around for new things to come out, or spend all this effort looking for things to read, as opposed to feeling like there’s a wealth of things out there right now i can’t wait to get a chance to read. so i need a dial where i can turn up the speed for drudgerous things like anthropology articles and turn it down for delicious novels and the like. that would be ideal.

the other thing i was wondering came to me listening to my operation ivy cd, which after years and years, and after putting most of my ska affectations behind me, i still appreciate quite a bit. i guess it’s sort of outside of the ‘ska’ thing enough to endure despite the association for some.

anyway, what i was thinking when i heard the chorus to “knowledge”, where tim keeps yelling “all i know is that i don’t know…all i know is that i don’t know nothing” (taking his presumed intended meaning and ignoring the double negative of course), was did he have in his mind, or even possibly any prior or possibly subconscious awareness of the famous socratic quotation of, “One thing only I know and that is that I know nothing,” when he wrote that song? i mean, was he a philosopher-punk (as opposed to a philosopher-king, i guess?), having achieved his own enlightenment on the streets, or did he actually stomp around in his boots and his hoodie flipping through volumes of classical greek philosophy. these are the things i wonder about.

“take this under advisement, jerkweed!” . . .

yeah, that’s right. i finished die hard tonight (well, except the last 20 or so minutes. i’ve had a really short attention span all week since studying so much on sunday. what can you do). i’m pretty sure that’s the best use of the word jerkweed in any film, ever. i dare you to prove me wrong.

i also dare you to listen to the song of the week without getting the sound and rhythm of this chorus stuck in your mind like the face of that one girl you always wished had loved you back. it haunts you at strange moments, i’m telling you. walking home after a hard day. trying to read. i was taking a test today and it just kept coming back no matter how i tried not to think about it. i think it’s just something about william wilson’s peculiar voice and those sad echoing guitars that make aveo something i’m really drawn to, and bridge to the northern lights like that face i just can’t keep out. i like it though.

if you like it too, there are more on their site for you to try.

can i set blogger to not switch over to the next day until 3 or 4am, so when i write things late at night (i.e. after midnight), i don’t feel the need to draw attention to the fact that i’m describing events of what is technically the previous day but as far as i’m concerned was just earlier today? that seems like something i should be able to do.

yeah, today (tuesday) turned out okay. i finished another neat book, i readied a special package for its intercontinental flight, and i watched half of die hard. that movie just kills me. how can there be so many cheesy/priceless one-liners in a single film? it’s amazing! i mean, the friendly black cop actually says, “my car is getting turned into swiss cheese out here!” . . . and means it! i love it.

but back to the literature, i have to find a new book to read now, because my stack of books-in-waiting is down to the one i’m about to start and no more, which is trouble, because i hate having nothing to read. especially since i’m about to embark on spring break, during which i’m sure i’ll finish at least one book in the many hours of aiport and flight time on the way to see kate and some other friends in far off cities.

hey, that’s right, i’m going to see kate and my other friends in a matter of days! now that’s some good news. let’s get out of this place. go somewhere colder, somewhere new, and somewhere i can spend time with dear friends i see far too infrequently. or never, as the case may be (but we’ll not dwell — the emphasis is on how much i’m looking forward to saturday and how soon saturday will be today).

yes, today (tuesday) was such a good day i deserved to buy myself 30 dollars worth of cd’s. i mean, i need something fresh to spin in the player while i’m grumbly and groggy on the plane to maintain good spirits, don’t i? i think i deserve it. and i want to be smiling when i get off the plane so i don’t scare off my hosts. so it’s really for the best.

there are those days when the idea of leaving your apartment to do something like work, or school in this case, is just such an inner struggle of conscience. i really ought to go to class, your good side says with its halo shimmering. but dammit if i wouldn’t much rather stay home and read a book, listen to music, work on a mixtape, or a bundle of other things, fires back the cooler but not necessarily better side of evil. not to suggest that problems are always two-sided with absolute rights and wrongs (morality is all sort of wishy washy, really); i’m just resorting to classic imagery because it’s convenient.

luckily i did go to class though, otherwise i wouldn’t have learned that human bipedalism (walking on two feet) has resulted in narrower pelvic sizes, therefore reducing the size of the infants which can be passed through said region, which is basically why human babies are so utterly helpless — they’re continuing their gestation outside of the body, instead of staying inside until they get too big to be born without killing one or both of the people involved. no wonder newborns are so mushy; they’re not fully formed yet. i mean, baby horses can walk within minutes of being born. human babies are just like squirmy balls of play-doh.

so this is why we go to school. because we learn great things like that.

i still am a fan of non-school time though, in which i can complete arts and crafts projects (for certain parties whom will know who they are soon enough) and read neat books. or do radio programs, even. that start at 7 pacific tonight. that are more fun when people listen.

“when i say hello mr. thompson and step on your foot, you smile and nod . . . hello mr. thompson.”

“i think he’s talking to you . . .”

studying pays off kids. may not always be the case, but every now and then spending most of a day reading from a textbook can actually be good for you. i think i did a fine-ass job on that test just now. boo yah.

whenever i hear or find myself saying “boo yah” (rarely, don’t worry), i always think of the tomacco episode of the simpsons. “props to mindy on the grab!” . . . .

well anyhow, a job well done on a test warrants a night of straight up, full on relaxing. nothing school related will be done tonight. lord no. oh, and today in the mail i finally found the french version of the amelie poster that i bought myself for my birthday — in january. note to fellow bloggers: ordering stuff from some dude in germany and selecting “ground shipment” entails much patience. but i am very pleased with my purchase. say what you will about the film; i don’t care. i’m asserting my right to enjoy a sappy-sweet romance in french with an adorable central character, and to subsequently hang a poster of said adorable girl on my wall, only with a french title to prove that i’m cultured (but the title rhymes in french! it really is cooler that way!)

final note and clarification. when i said last night about not wanting to get a joe-job for the summer, my friend joe read it and thought i was referencing a conversation we had had about summer jobs. i had thought that the phrase “joe-job” was pretty standard verbage for run-of-the-mill unfulfilling employment, but if this was not the case for you consider this my explanation. and, if you are joe and you are reading this, that may not have been a reference to you, but this is:

“joe is so hardcore people are afraid to stand next to him. they see him and they’re just like, ‘whoa, that’s joe, i better back up.'”

i (heart) joe.

jesus, i sure don’t want to spend even more time this morning studying contract law. all these rules . . . it makes a man never want to sign his name to anything ever again.

maybe some taquitos would ease the pain.

oh man . . . my head is swimming with contract law terminology. i’ve been studying for my business law midterm for many many hours and it’s making me ill. ugh.

but hell man, even two midterms in one week can’t keep me all the way down. this is the last week of school until spring break! shit yeah. a week from now i’ll be chilling with kate, post-pinback-show. that will sure be something, eh?

haha, that’s canada humor. of the unfunny variety.

but it’s hard to be too excited with so much crap on the table here. not just the two midterms, but the pending issues of getting a good summer job that is life-sustaining (i.e. pays adequately), career-advancing (i.e. not a joe-job), and dare i hope, interesting or fun. we can only cross fingers and burn offers to certain advertising gods on that one. oh, and we can’t forget the extra BONUS issue of trying to find a good place to live next year with the whole crew. the lady we’re dealing with now for a potential house is not exactly what i’d call together. more of the addle-brained nervous-i-have-to-put-my-trust-in-you variety. but at least she’s . . . umm . . . nice?

prescription: root beer.

slacker! no post since thursday? no concert review from death & dismemberment until two days later? what kind of a blog are you running here anyway?

alright alright. i’m sorry. i’ll try to do better. friday was good because school was minimal and concert was loveable. but no you are invited? i have to say that was sort of a letdown. maybe they’ll come through when i see them again two weeks from yesterday in boston for spring break (air guitar pose).

honesly though, the show was superb. i’d never heard an aveo song before in my life, and they pleased me very much. i would have bought their record if i had more cash on me. good stuff from a three-piece band. very enjoyable for an opener. would see again if given opportunity.

then my first dismemberment plan live experience which, although i have no others to compare it to, i have to say was top-notch. they made my week. they just play with so much enthusiasm it floors me. and i’ve never wanted to bust a move at a concert so much in my life as when they started in on “the city”. hot damn, that’s some sweet sweet music. dig the plan man, dig ’em a lot.

personally, though, i have to say i was let down by death cab. i attribute this to a) them following the plan, who are much higher energy and more intense; and b) the el rey having superhard floors or something, because i whenever i’m there, i get really sore from standing all night by the time the last band is halfway done. i don’t know, i think i would have put them second to last and ended with the perkier band if it were my show to plan, because death cab is really good and played a good set too. my heart just wasn’t in it by then, so i didn’t feel as awestruck as i did last time i saw them. sorry guys, it’s not you, it’s me. well, and the fact that you followed a much more upbeat band that sort of set a weird mood going into a set of drastically less frantic indie rock. nothing personal.

tonight (well, saturday i mean) was another concert — yes that’s two nights in a row. this one by snmnmnm at the campus coffee house. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: these guys may be weird with their tuba and their accordion, but they’re so much fun! they’ve officially won my “best local band” award until i can think of a better one. i even bought their cd (which doesn’t come out until tuesday. i’m so much cooler than you).

perhaps i should have been more descriptive or even amusing in relating the past few days but i’d rather go to sleep now. do yourself a favor though since i haven’t made you laugh in days (or probably ever) — go to this page and download the “bologna feet” sketch. holy crap, that’s a laugh riot.