Internal Mirror Plane

Back from the "dead"

Hope y'all had a lovely Thanksgiving (or just break, depending). I'm hangin in the library breaking the Sabbath to finish up a paper, and am listening to religious music so I won't feel quite as bad about it. Not to be a giant ling nerd, but how many of y'all can say something like "how beautiful the radiant bride / Waits for her groom with a light in her eyes", and how many of y'all require a "who" in there, as in ". . . the radiant bride / Who waits. . ."? Yeah, write Twila Paris about it. Unless, of course, you have to write TO her, in which case. . . hey. How many of y'all need both a "who" and a "to"? Anybody need a "who" but not a "to"? A "to" but not a "who"? And who thinks I'm starting to sound like Dr. Seuss?

It's all about the bundles of isoglosses, baby.

Hopper! DMiv! Astronomy! Drugs!

Here at LMU, we have a handy student organization called the Society of Physics Students, or SPS, and it meets just about every Tuesday at 5:30PM in Smith, the physics building. The signs, however, make less of this detail than of the all-consuming (ha!) fact that "Snacks are Provided!!!", but that's not the best part. The best part is reading the little descriptions of what the guest speaker will be talking about. This week, it's "Better distances to star clusters," which I for one know is something I strive for in my daily life. But wait! There's a heart-wrenching realization ahead as we skim on down this perfect page of physics-meeting marvel!

"Unfortunately, most current distance methods only give values good to about 10%, which means that the ages of star clusters are uncertain to at least 30%."

Nooooooooooooo! Not uncertain star-cluster ages! Anything! Anything but that! I can't bear it! Write your congressperson!.

Last line sound familiar?

Aaaand for you, Faitsey, and any of my other ling majors who are taking 550 next quarter, a theme song: "Indian Flute," by Timbaland and Magoo, featuring Raje Shwari and Sebastian. Partial excerpt, courtesy of http://www.letssingit.com:

I got my eyes on you (mera raja)
Baby let me tell you that are the truth (tu hai me raja)
I love your Indian flute (mera raja)
Oh da da do da da do da do (sing it to me)
Tu phil a mera milen antha (sing it to me)
Tu phil a mera pyar hua (sing it to me)
Darasa tu mein loo to kya (but I can't understand a word you're saying)

Taking a Bite out of Crime

When a person goes to the Blogger homepage (http://www.blogger.com) in order to sign in so he or she can update/edit/chant-and-dance-in-circles-around his or her blog, a person may espy, on the right-hand side of the page, a brief list of some blogs that have very recently been updated. Those of you who have been around to watch me attempt to look up a single word in a dictionary can attest to my immense capacity to fly off tangent and end up babbling about the etymology of words like "prolix" and "superficies" and "plaudit," one thing leading to the next until M-W has to be prised from my cold, devoted fingers, so you can start to imagine. Call it curiosity, or slackerdom, or something. Everyone else, suffice it to say that it's good times watching Schu trying not to notice things but caving and chasing after them anyway. So I love this little recently-updated blogs thing, because I get to read all these little titles of different people's forays into writing stuff and "publishing" it, and if I were a little weaker, I could probably kill a good half-hour just looking at that. But I have this silly thing called class, and an accompanying foolishness called studying, and so y'all will have to investigate on your own if you feel it's worthwhile.

The highlights of 12:07 PM were:

1. "xiribitatatata," just because that's frickin' cool,

and

2. "LuV iS sOmEtHiNg YoU cAnT. . .", because the first time I looked at it, I definitely thought it said "Love is something you can eat."

Mmmm. Love. Hmmmm. Or is that pumpkin bread?

Well, the weather outside is frightful. . .

Yesterday: high 78, low 59.

Today: high 53, low 20 (withOUT windchill, thankyaverramuch).

If variety is the spice of life, I know a whole bunch of people who are currently coughing, choking, and reaching for their water glasses.

Antisocial Kind-of-Rhyming Quatrain of the Day!

If the ocean were vodka and I were a duck,
I'd swim to the bottom and never come up.
But the ocean's not vodka, and I'm not a duck,
So pass me the bottle and shut the f*ck up.

--source: How to Win Friends and Influence People , D. Carnegie, copyright 1936

Intriiiiiiiguing:

http://www.believermag.com/child/index.htm

Another lecture with Dr. PKA-- New & Improved, Only without Yakalos!

Today, Dr. P re-explained the concept of polarizability, which pretty much says that as you move down a column of the periodic table, atomic radius increases, so size of orbitals increases, so electron density in each orbital decreases, so things are more flexible (same number of electrons in a bigger space). Only he did it by telling us a story about rodents.

So about four years ago, a mouse apparently took up residence in Dr. P's house, and it was kind of annoying ("you'd be going to get milk in the morning, and psht! there goes this little mouse running across the kitchen, and it's kind of-- well-- really disgusting"), and so he spent a lot of time trying to catch it so he could evict it. Alas, his efforts mostly met with failure, because he'd get close to it, and then "you know how there's space under the door? There's always half an inch, three-quarters of an inch between the door and the floor, and the mouse would just squeeze right under there and get away. But the mouse was at least an inch, inch-and-a-half tall. How did it fit? No, wait. Let me put it another way. What if I had a golf ball? What if I rolled a golf ball at the door? Would it go under?" "No!" chorused the dutiful class. "So what's the difference?" enquired PKA. Answers from "the golf ball's harder!" to "the mouse is going faster!" to "density!" rang out. And what was Dr. P's response?

"Squishability!" he crowed. "The mouse is squishier! That's all polarizability is! It's squishiness!"

My o-chem teacher is crazy and amazing.

Postscript: After class was over, the born heckler sitting next to me called out "Did you ever catch the mouse?" Grinning reply: "We moved."

A song for one of those days:

Psycho Killer

Original Song By: Talking Heads

I can't seem to face up to the facts
I'm tense and nervous and I
Can't relax
I can't sleep 'cause my bed's on fire
Don't touch me I'm a real live wire

Psycho Killer
Qu'est-ce que c'est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away
Psycho Killer
Qu'est-ce que c'est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away

You start a conversation you can't even finish it.
You're talkin' a lot, but you're not sayin' anything.
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.
Say something once, why say it again?

Psycho Killer,
Qu'est-ce que c'est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away
Psycho Killer
Qu'est-ce que c'est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away

Ce que j'ai fais, ce soir la
Ce qu'elle a dit, ce soir la
Realisant mon espoir
Je me lance, vers la gloire
We are vain and we are blind
I hate people when they're not polite

Psycho Killer,
Qu'est-ce que c'est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away
Psycho Killer,
Qu'est-ce que c'est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away

Quit making fun of my typewriter.

The joys of the Internet:

http://www.satirewire.com/features/culturalweb.shtml

Hi. My name is Schu. I'm fasting for Ramadan. . .

I learned three things last week:

1. It's possible to integrate a consensus-based microlevel of social network with a conflict-based macrolevel of social class in order to describe the mechanism of linguistic change! What a relief! Now I can sleep at night, secure in the knowledge that this integrated model may also feature a Marxist view of the linguistic market AND Hojrup's life-modes acting to maintain linguistic codes!

2. If you are a metalworker, you will hate melting-pot theory, because there are folks (we'll call them "the Commies") who think it's "total and absolute dangerous B.S. that doesn't happen and who wants to be all the same anyway blah blah blah," and then there are folks (we'll call them "the Space Cadets") who think it's "so true! we are all becoming one! that's good! or bad! or something! blah! blah blah!", and the Commies and Cadets will get all up in each other's faces going "well, this!" and "well, that!" and "well, your mother!" and the welders in the room will just sit there puzzled, because ain't nobody said which metals have gone into the pot, or how hot the pot is, so you don't really know what kind of alloy's going to get formed, and then you realize that that's the point. That's what a person needs to realize about melting pot theory in order to form a valid model. A person needs to know enough about metal to understand the full analogy-- not all cultures are going to get all jumbled up and melted together and homogeneous until everybody's the same, but they will mix and/or assimilate, some more than others, and produce a different product than they would in isolation. Aaaaand then you have to gouge out your eyeballs with a blue medium PaperMate ballpoint pen, because people are talking about muhfuckin oppression again, and you wonder if it's too late to major in Gettin the Oppression People to Shut They Pie Hole Before Y'all Become No Avenging Angle-Welder and Bust Some Butane in They Butt.

3. "Local businesses" are seeking cheap publicity and will accordingly donate $1 to the local Neighborhood Services for each non-Muslim LMU student who agrees to fast for Ramadan today. I don't really like the idea-- only $1? smacks of people just wanting to draw attention to their cause, whatever that may be-- but it doesn't hurt me and it helps Neighborhood Services, so I'm doing it anyway. If you're hungry right now because I persuaded you to do it too, just think happy thoughts and repeat "Three more hours until sundown." If you're annoyed right now because you think the local businesses have some shadowy ulterior motive, here's the website for you. If you're irritated right now because I didn't tell you about the Fast-a-Thon, you are not someone who should be fasting, so "you got no beef hahahahaha," as my ever-mature brother puts it. Otherwise, I'm out of snappy banter, so you'll have to make do until I can eat some food and replenish the supply.

"Jupiter has done something wrong"

Astonishing news about the gas giant.

Y'alls, quit hatin' on Howard Dean.

Guess who just got sucked into a minor torrent of politics? You and me both, baby.

It goes like this: There are waaaaay too many Democratic candidates for president. I honestly don't know why most of them are running, since at least Kucinich, Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards, and Sharpton are (a) not electable and (b) make no point, other than Al Sharpton, who makes the point that he is Al Sharpton and will never go away. This leaves Moseley Braun, Clark, Dean, and Kerry.

How many of those four are electable? I say two, plus or minus two, more likely to the minus side. Kerry and Clark would be good choices to combat charges of Democrats being "soft," and are, as the only veterans, the only ones who get to say anything at all about war, at least in my opinion. Kerry, however, seems elitist to me, and I hate the way he harps on his service. I love Clark, and I wish there was some kind of chance he could get elected, but he's pretty far behind in fund-raising, last I heard, and a person really has to doubt whether he'll make it through the primaries.

If it were more certain that Bush would win, I'd say put up Moseley Braun, no contest, because she's the least electable candidate, but she makes the biggest point. She's social commentary just by living, and while realistically I have to say that the first woman president will have to be a white Republican, I still can't deny that I would have so much more faith in the government if there were someone in the White House who looks like me and my neighbors.

Quite a number of Democratic voters, myself reluctantly included, love Dean, because he's not snotty (dude, I don't care what anybody says. I respect him for the whole Confederate flag thing), he's pissed off, he's kind of funny, and he's respectful of his highly intelligent and accomplished wife. Plus he's a doctor. Unfortunately, he's also about as upper-crust and green as it gets, plus he's run negative ads against people from his own party, and he doesn't really have that much experience.

So I guess we're looking forward to another four years of Bush. Everybody send nice cards and chocolate and love to John Paul Stevens.

Boy, do I wish I'd read the user's manual to my toaster earlier.

It includes sections entitled "How to Toast Bread" and "How to Clean Your Rival Toaster," which is actually not as funny as it sounds, unfortunately, because there are no epic showdowns between dueling small appliances, just a company named Rival that makes them. However, there's also a "Note: When first used, your appliance may smoke slightly. Any smoke or odor is normal and will not recur after a few uses." But when it's heading out to the 7-Eleven at three in the morning for cigarettes. . .

It's a miracle I haven't killed us all, as I realize now after reading the "Important" section, since never before this morning had I contemplated removing all protective wrappings from food before placing in toasting slots; avoiding toasting foods with "runny" frosting, icings, or open fillings; never inserting a fork or other metal object into toasting slots; or realizing that different breads require different settings. What would we do were it not for the gracious foresight of Rival ("a Division of the Holmes Group," apparently)? Probably be forced to come up with actual stuff to write about. And we can't have that.

So I'll just leave you with three final Broadly Applicable Rival Toaster TM R C Chunks o' Wisdom:
2. No toque las superficies calientes.
4. Es necesario mantenerse pendiente cuando use este aparato cerca de los ninos o lo usen ellos.
11. Para desconectario, desconecte el enchufe del tomacorriente.

Hee!

a joke from Mr. Cline:

A squad of Marines were driving up the highway between Basra and Baghdad.
They came upon an Iraqi soldier badly injured and unconscious. Nearby, on
the opposite side of the road, was an American Marine in a similar but less
serious state. The Marine was conscious and alert. As first aid was given
to both men, the Marine was asked what had happened.

The Marine reported; "I was heavily armed and moving north along the
highway. Coming south was a heavily armed Iraqi soldier."

"What happened then?" the corpsman asked.

"I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein was a miserable piece of crap, and he
yelled back: 'Tom Daschle, Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton are miserable
pieces of crap'.

"We were standing there shaking hands when a truck hit us."

from http://aidandcomfort.blogspot.com:
Grammarians urge North Korea, United States to begin actual, physical war

CAMBRIDGE, MA — Admirers of the English language today urged an end to the war of words and a beginning to the actual, physical war of armies in Korea.

“We can rebuild Seoul, but the damage being inflicted now will scar the language for generations,” Mason Lawrence, PhD, professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, warned in a press conference Tuesday. “Already the horror for myself and my colleagues is nigh unbearable.”

Lawrence cited one particularly devastating salvo in which the North Korean Foreign Ministry responded to an American peace overture with the statement: “The U.S. loudmouthed supply of energy and food aid are like a painted cake pie in the sky.”

Should President Bush respond in kind, Lawrence said, the world could suffer a holocaust of diction and grammar.

“The president is not known for oration, to put it mildly,” Lawrence said. “So far, he has not strayed from written statements concerning this crisis. However, should he be provoked into an impromptu speech – I shudder to consider the consequences.”

8 "little-known facts" from the classic Mr. Cline:

1. Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don't have film.
2. A day without sunshine is like, well, night.
3. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
4. When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.
5. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
6. She's always late. In fact, her ancestors arrived on the "Juneflower."
7. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be without sponges.
8. Just remember ... if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.

Yes, it's perfectly safe. No, it's not explosive. Yes, it could be true that Elvis is still alive. No, you may not check for him in our bathroom. . .

All right, so the recent posting re: newspaper night kites has generated a veritable (ahem) firestorm of controversy, with comments ranging from "That is so not safe" to "Dude, you lit fire kites without me?!" to "Cincinnati Fire Kite what?" In the interest of everyone's edification, I thought I'd devote a little time to that today.

For my non-science-buff buddies: A person can make a Cincinnati Fire Kite by taking a sheet of newspaper, folding all four corners up and together in the middle, then securing them there with a small piece of tape or perhaps a single staple, although I prefer tape for reasons that will soon be abundantly clear. Then a person flips over the soon-to-be Fire Kite, so the seams are on the ground, grabs three (plus or minus two) of her best friends, and passes out lighters, matches, or other fire instruments, although I can't recommend striking flint rocks, since that's never really worked for me. Then this person and helpers light all four corners of the newspaper at as close to the same time as possible, and this glowing, gleaming, flaming contraption rises, floats eerily in the air, and finally burns itself out before melting ashily to earth. Theoretically.

In practice, a person usually ends up just torching a fair amount of newspaper. This is the finickiest science experiment since acid-base titrations last year in chem lab, and you can't even make a pKa curve out of it. Not that I'm complaining. I hate pKa curves.

For my absent accomplices: Yes, I lit fire kites without you. Where were you when DMiv and I were wandering around looking for people to come along and finally had to head out on our own with Hopper, who confessed about five minutes after jumping at the chance to "come set stuff aflame with us!" that he's really, really afraid of fire and freaks out around matches?

For my non-literal moms: Oh, come on. I brought DMiv. DMiv spent the first ten years of his life refusing to drink anything other than tap water, grape Juicy Juice (in the bottle, not the boxes), and Meijer's 1% milk (not skim. not 2%. not whole. 1%. oh, and don't think he couldn't taste the difference between Meijer's and, say, Kroger's, or that he wouldn't pitch a big ol' seven-foot furry hissy over it, because he could, and he would, and he did). What does this tell you about him? DMiv is the least adventurous person on the face of this great green Earth. He thinks about things like how life would be different if pi were 4 and what the moon looks like in the sky (most recently, a thumbprint), and he's so cautious he'd make you wash your hands before and after pulling a fire alarm. No worries. Schu is safe, and so is Smith Hall, along with all the other buildings on campus and, in fact, the greater metro area-- no, the whole state-- no, the whole country-- actually, make that everywhere between here and Myanmar (the former Burma).

It's almost cold enough for Cincinnati Fire Kites, y'all. Stock up on newspaper, tape, and matches, and come visit me so we can light some off, safely and non-explosively, of course. (Not that this is ever a concern with Schu's family-- cough cough UNCLES ED THROUGH BERL cough cough.)

Sand has not buried man's sense of humor
By Byron Crawford, Courier Journal 7/4/03

On this Independence Day a few poetic lines from the
sand have found their way home to Kentucky from one of
her sons - Capt. Jay Padgett of Frankfort, a National
Guard chaplain serving 7,000 miles away at a desert
outpost in Kuwait.

Since he was called to active duty in late February,
Padgett has performed three weddings, baptized 18
soldiers, conducted scores of devotionals and worship
services, counseled, briefed and notified many troops
on a myriad of matters, taught a course on Iraq and the
Bible and still found time to compose a poem which two
of his friends passed along to me:

"I Do Not Like This Dust and Sand
An Ode to Camp Virginia, Kuwait, with apologies to Dr. Seuss."

I do not like this dust and sand
I do not like it on my hands
I do not like dust in my head
I do not like it in my bed
I do not like sand in my hair
I hate it in my underwear
I do not like this dust and sand
I used to like the color tan
I do not like dust on my clothes
I despise it up my nose
I do not like sand in my face
Invading all my private space
I do not like dust in my mouth
I do not like it north or south
I do not like sand east or west
Nowhere is where I like it best
I do not like dust in my ear
It's hard to reach, I cannot hear
When it gets in my drink and food
It affects my attitude'
I like it not with ham and eggs
I do not like sand on my legs
I like it not in socks and boots
Nor on my veggies, meats and fruits
This dust and sand floats everywhere
It dances in the desert air
I like a dust storm even less
Because it leaves a gritty mess
I want to leave this sand and dust
But until then in God I trust.

In civilian life, Padgett, 39, married and the father
of two is associate pastor of music and pastoral care
at Graefenburg Baptist Church in Shelby County and
serves in the Kentucky National Guard's 206th
Engineer Battalion in Harrodsburg.

And just in case you haven't met your news quota for the day . . .

. . . a few things far less annoying than filibusters and famous fighters:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_837529.html?menu=news.quirkies

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=3823926

Civic Duty and Booger Jokes

I know who I'm voting for next year:

http://www.davebarry.com/president/dave2k/index.htm

Knock knock. Who's there? Nobel. Nobel who? Nobel! That's why I knocked!

Gotta love the smell of s-limonene in the morning:

http://www.nobel.se/chemistry/laureates/2001/public.html

Six Hours

It's the dark hours, the wee hours, the cold hours now, and I feel like I should be getting up, but I'm going down, because it's 6:15AM and I've been up 24 hours with three hours' worth of nap under my belt (better hope it doesn't break before the dawn does), and the only way I know I'm tired is because I can't walk straight, can't talk straight, chiral spirals of what's real keeping me awake but only dimly aware. I can still smell the smoke from Hap's cigarette. It's clinging to my clothes, and her voice, oddly unlike Rage's, is on holding patterns in my head, and I know I've just made two big sisters, from the way they woke me at six, but I don't know how, and I don't know why, and all I remember of the last two hours is my name getting louder at the end. "[Schu]," said Rage, then with a little more force: "[Schu]," until her voice seeped through my sleep, not like the ring, which thankfully startles, but gentle, and then vague wisps of "awww" settled in the air from Hap. Everything about Hap's hazy, in a warm kind of way, and she always seems to know exactly what to say, but Rage is practicaler. (Is that a word, practical-er? Is now.) They look so little alike, sometimes, for identical twins, but it doesn't matter, and my mind's half-shattered with all this lack of sleep, so maybe I'm just imagining.

We talked about Chinese food, and peanut-butter-and-jelly pizza, and they laughed when they heard my majors, having "knowingly" guessed psych. "Microbiology and linguistics. Not psychology! Impressive." Hap wants to get her master's in counseling, having graduated last June, and Rage is newly married, thinking of having a baby soon, and they'll live vicariously sometimes, one the other, I assume. It's almost amazing what it's like to spend so long in that room, asleep on the couch like Rage or under the desk like me, or waiting wakeful like Hap did, watching staticky cooking shows on the beat-up old TV and speculating on the origins of oregano. I hope for all y'all's sake you'll have such times when strangers turn into your family, because there's nothing for this ash-dust world but acquaintances' hope and trust.

Thank you and good night.

Hee!

from http://www.satirewire.com

Starving, Dying Poor to Get Much-Needed Net Access

Okinawa, Japan (SatireWire.com) — The world's poorest nations reacted with elation yesterday after learning the G-8 economic powers have pledged to bring them into the digital economy by wiring their countries. "With access to stock quotes, entertainment news, and streaming video pornography, I will finally be able to feed my family," said Jamil Jurawa, who lives near a contaminated well in a small east Gambian village. "This is a great day and I hope not to die of dysentery before it ends."

In late July, the Group of 8 authorized a Digital Opportunity Taskforce, or "Dot Force,'' to investigate how to wire the Third World and help bridge the rich-poor technology gap. Relief agencies denounced the plan as absurd, insisting that food and medicine are needed first. But the Dot Force argued that information is also critical, and to prove its point, it provided computers and Internet access to Jamil Jurawa and his brother Tamar, who lives in a neighboring Gambian village. The two exchanged instant messages that, said Dot Force members, exemplify the knowledge-sharing power of the Internet:

"Tamar, I have no food. Do you have food?"

"Jamil, I also have no food. But tonight Britney is to chat at E-Online!"

"Good one! I am ROFLDM (Rolling On The Floor Laughing and Dying of Malnutrition)."

"OK! CTFN! (Contracting Typhoid Fever Now)."

The All-New Adventures of Sass & Schu

Earlier today, I, Raeschu, your non-worthy-of-corpse-draggiting comrade-in-arms (planting the seed, young'uns, planting the seed) was studying physics with Sassily, my partner in non-literal crime. The cool thing about this diversitywise, as pointed out by my university-shill buddy Demonic, is that we are collectively one black kid and one white kid, one upper-working-class kid and one upper-middle-class kid, but the descriptions a person might think would go together don't.

Aaaaand now I feel like I should draw you a grid or something, 'cause I've made the post into a logic puzzle ("The student who currently plays basketball ran cross-country in high school. The student who is white is not the same student who swears more frequently if and only if Schu is taller than Sass. If Sass is taller than Schu, however, the student who sings out loud for no reason and the student who knows how to throw knives (accurately) are not the same, and the student who is scrawnier is the one who likes physics better despite being the one who did not take AP Physics in high school. The Speed Racer who came in sixth place. . .").

Anyway, we went up to the front desk of the Science-Engineering Library, asked to use a group study room, and handed over our student IDs, which the desk staff keep in order to. . . I don't know. . . prevent us from running out of the library with the room tucked discreetly and deviously under our shirts? It's not as if a ten-by-ten hunk of concrete, metal, wood, and steel is the most pilferable item, because honestly, it would take me a lot longer than a one-hour block just to deconstruct the thing enough to carry it away, and since it is a freaking library (shhhh! library voices!), jackhammers might look a little out of place, and the pounding of pneumatics and shrieking of saws might, just maybe, tip someone off ere I was successful in my nefarious mission to Steal SEL. But who knows. Maybe a wrecking ball sounds just like someone's soul shattering from frustration with physics.

So Sass and I did our homework, or, more accurately, cursed at our homework and discussed weekend plans, which is just plain sad, because (1) it's only Wednesday and (2) we had yesterday off. That was not very exciting, except for the part when she showed me her mobile phone, and it had a little animated picture of some fish, and I was captivated for a good four minutes, because "they look so real" (insert wide-eyed Schu here).

The exciting part was when we came back to the desk to retrieve our IDs and, presumably, demonstrate to the staff that we had not, in fact, wedged the chalkboard into our backpacks or the door down the back of our pants or anything. The lady at the desk picked up our IDs from their designated desk home, ACTUALLY STUDIED THEM CLOSELY, did the little compare/contrast thing: ID-to-kid,-ID-to-kid, and then glanced at me one more time, one of the cards one more time, and boldly handed me Sass's ID. We had to hold it in while we were still in the library (shhh! library voices!), but once we got outside, we took one look at each other and laughed so hard I got close to a near-death experience.

Ahhh, LMU. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

My grandma knows what's up

Thanks to the Roomie and her penchant for the soaps, your intrepid host has a new goal in life, one that seems challenging yet perhaps reachable: I don't want people to hate me so much that after I die, three of them surreptitiously steal my body out of the casket, drag it out to the woods, prop it up against a handy Dumpster, tell it what a horrible person I was, then dump it in the middle of the aforementioned dark woods while other "mourners" talk yet more trash about me, literally spit on my "grave," and then unknowingly bury an empty box. Think I'm up to it?

Oh my, yes, we love our All My Children.

Mmmmm. Toned speech.

I seriously doubt anyone reading this personally subscribes to the Chronicle of Higher Education, but some public libraries do, so I hope I may encourage you to make a pilgrimage to your local library and check out the back page of the November 7, 2003 edition. It's not just cool, but frickin' cool.

Sandwiches and Soliloquies

(from last night, during a break in a bout with vicinal halohydrides)

I'm back now in the Cafeteria Cafe, and I'm watching the only one here who isn't watching me. He is absorbed, oblivious, opaque, leaning slightly over the open paperback on the table in front of him. His arms are folded over it, hands curled in and touching, nearly clasped as in prayer, and do not move save to turn the infrequent page, or make a note with a distinctively pink ballpoint pen. Hey! I recognize that pen! People were giving them out at the Student Involvement Fair! So our hero's economical.

He's also tall, from what I can tell, as his feet tucked back under the chair are mammoth, a symphony of sneaker, and his jean-clad legs extend far enough that the angle formed by his upper and lower legs is quite acute. His arms are a mystery, muffled in a gold-beige corduroy coat with elliptical patches on the elbows of the sleeves, but his right hand, at least, is strong, richly veined, with fingers that manage somehow to be elegant and delicate although they do not lack for size. His nails are cut neatly, nearly as short as mine, to the point just before they bleed.

When he is woken by the clatter of a newcomer's tray on a table near him, he glances up and over, then out, then reaches with one strange and lovely hand for the white Styrofoam cup of coffee that sits mostly untouched in front of him. He still doesn't notice me, paying his social dues with a nod to his new near-neighbor but not glancing in the opposite direction, and never in my life have I been so glad to be a ghost, invisible and invincible and intent.

His hair is dark, cut close in a fuzzy, uniform cap that extends just below his ears, no extra, and exposes his fast-forming widow's peak, and I can't help but wonder which blade he asks the barber to use when he goes to get it buzzed. #3 is my bet, and it is with no little glee that I note he has been able to fend off presumable haircutter advances, keeping his sideburns negligible and his eyebrows bushy, dramatic. His clean-shaved chin is strong and rounded like the rest of his distinctive features, lean but without keenness or the sharp of clear angles other than his oval-frame glasses. Their somber, straightforward stoicism reflects their owner, and even his posture carries the air of silence, stillness, gap and pause, enduring and endearing. . .

I glance at my watch, and pick up my tray, and walk out into the world with a little of his aplomb.

A happy and solemn Veteran's Day to all.

In Which the Atmosphere and Aura are cast, leading the Gentle Reader to a Greater Understanding of the Environs in Which our Fearless Protagonist is found; and in Which Many of the Protagonist's Friends and Allies are introduced, namely the Perpetually Drunken Brian, the Childhood Friend DMiv, the Roomie, the Ineffable NoLack, and of course that Most Incomparable of All, the Best Friend.

As it will surprise likely none of y'all to hear, I am a college student. The school I attend is referred to in my psychology professor's thesis as "a large Midwestern university," and I kind of like that, so you may consider me a denizen of Large Midwestern U., or LMU, as we like to call it in these here parts, or would if that were the actual name of this fine institution of higher learning. I learn o-chem, physics, and computational linguistics; my buddy Drunken Brian learns not to shotgun > 17 beers in under ten minutes; DMiv, my friend since we were four, studies discrete math and number theory; my roommate The Roomie learns anatomy, biology, and exactly how many Oreos we can eat, between the two of us, in a 45-minute sitting; my buddy NoLack learns how to "transpose an entire freaking allegretto, THEN realize that it was supposed to be from B-flat major to F-sharp major, not B-flat major to D major," in his non-music-theory-enthused words; and my aforementioned high-tech friend does what she can with everything from game theory to Turkish vowel harmony to Babylonian translators. So there you have it.

Creepy Christians-- and More in Store!

Have y'all ever made a typing mistake and ended up accidentally going to, for example, http://whatever.blogpsot.com ? It's this site that claims, and I quote, "AN INCREDIBLE TESTIMONY PROVING THE BIBLE IS TRUE, PLUS A COMMENTARY
ON THE NEAR FUTURE ARE JUST AHEAD ON THIS HOME PAGE. PLEASE READ IT." By which they mean "If y'all ain't accepted J-sus Christ as your personal L-rd and Saviour, have a HOT TIME IN HELL HAHAHAHAHA!", as evidenced by their "Jews Information Desk", for starters.

That loud sighing sound you just heard was progressive Christians everywhere letting out a collective groan.

However, nothing's without its redeeming features, and the thing I love about this site is that no matter what you type in front of the "blogpsot.com," it takes you to this same page. So "internalmirrorplane.blogpsot.com" will take you there, but then, for that matter, so will "thevirginmaryisaslut.blogpsot.com" as well as "hahaheretic-followers.blogpsot.com."

Hee!

Just so you know.

Beats "Mom" in a heart with an arrow through it

All right, y'all, you'll have to forgive my cheesiness in writing this on a paper napkin (who out there remembers when napkins were exclusively cloth? Yeah, go on and raise your hand. That's what I'm talking about). It's not that I'm going for the beat-poet pretension-of-no-pretension thing. It's not that I have reached a new extreme in poor-college-studentdom and am unable to invest 99 cents in a writing tablet. It's not even that I like the silky smoothness and gentle texture of this perfect paper product, although that too is true. The fact of the matter is, I've been up since 6AM after going to bed around midnight, o-chem has consumed all the paper I had in my backpack, and I am going to have to take physics notes on my forearms. Hmmmm. Physics. Hmmmm. Forearms. Maybe I should just tattoo the Schroedinger wave equation into my beefy left bicep. Any volunteers to help me out with that? You! Yes, you! Come on down! You're the next contestant on "Tattoo Raeschu!" (cue wild applause).

Home Sweet Home

Check it out!

Hello world!

. . . or misdirected folk stumbling across the page!

So! The other day, I was talking to my friend, and she mentioned that she was in the process of learning HTML. "HTML?" I repeated, mental images of Hurling Transient Microphone Love or Hater Train Mom Lassos dancing like shifting sugarplums in front of my eyes. "A programming language. It's for my blog." "Your what?" exclaimed your typewriter-using, cramped-right-hand-abusing host. "My blog," repeated she, and suddenly, it all made sense. "Hey, that o-chem thing I've been obsessing over? Totally E2 dehydrohalogenation!" But after a few frantic moments of scribbling, the aforementioned right hand bloodied with blue ink as potassium tert-butoxide spurred cis-4-tert-butylcyclohexyl bromide to anti elimination in E2 that crazy-coolest of all reactions, I got her to stop laughing at me long enough to clarify. "Okay," quoth I, contemplative and still. "What kind of a blob?"

It's all downhill from there.

Thus commenced the blogging commitment of yours non-technological truly. Go easy, young'uns, and happy trails.