Author: Toren

Smart is sexy, don’t you agree?

I like having friends who are smarter than me. It keeps me on my toes.* It’s actually not that hard to do. Oh, muffin, I have my occassional clever idea here and there, but generally I am akin to a post, smarts-wise. The point is this: I have added a few new co-blogger links to the left. Michael Tice is an old friend who lives in Californ-i-a. He is a Lovecraft fan, is a lot of fun (to my knowledge) and is probably the smartest guy I know. He has a lovely and very talented wife, Rebecca, and I wished I lived closer to them (or vice-versa). Secondly, Janet is someone I’ve never met, and I know through Marlo, and again – smart as a whip.

Also, if you’re looking through comments and somebody’s comment doesn’t make sense because it seems to reference another comment that doesn’t seem to be there – it’s because Kirsten taught me how to delete comments. Mwoo-hahahah. Take that, anonymous posters. That’s right – anonymous posting bothers me that much.

*plus hanging around brainiacs and asking lots of questions is a lot easier than reading those dusty old books.

A Stamos-neutralizing idea!

And I thought it was junk mail. I got a letter from the war amps. Once in a while I throw a couple US dollar bills in an envelope and send it off to them. So when I got something in the mail from them I thought it was just another “got anymore cash for us?” form. But instead it was my address label stickers “order.” The second best part about them is that they’ve got a picture of Astar the Robot on them. The first best part of them is that I forgot that I had put “Cloney McStudent” in the name field when I ordered them, so now I’ve got about 60 address labels for Cloney McStudent at my home address. That had me giggling like an idiot for a full minute. That’s one giggle per label, people! Well worth it.

Lastly:
I thought of another good irony today: I don’t know the origin of the word etymology.

“I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle.”
– Arthur Dent

I’m not excited about anything right now. It sucks. In fact, there are a few things I am dreading. But I want something to be excited about.

Come to me…

(Sorry kids, I’m not usually in this kind of funk. Am I?)

Orange you jealous of my new warmups?

I like everyone at the Sunshine Market except for one lady. She’s the lady who’s always trying to sell everyone lottery tickets and yadda yadda, although I think she gave up trying to sell them on me. Anyway, I bought a large bag of mandarin oranges the other day and she said “why don’t you just buy them in the box”

I said “I like to hand pick them all” instead of what I was thinking, why don’t YOU just buy them in the box?”

She said “are you worried you might get a couple of bad ones in a box?”

“Yes” I replied curtly.

“If you get any bad ones you can bring them back and we’ll exchange them.” she offered.

“That’s nice, but shut up.” I didn’t say.*

“Also, they’re cheaper in the box.” This last statement I didn’t believe, so I checked the prices of the mandarin boxes behind me. The cheapest one was $5.99. I paid about $5.40 for my bag of hand-picked beauties. I took my bag of oranges home and found an empty mandarin box that Stewie had bought several weeks ago. I dumped the oranges into the box – my $5.40 worth of oranges wouldn’t all fit in the $5.99 box – so next time I’m at the Sunshine I can rub that in Mrs. Lottery Ticket’s face at the same time I bring up the fact that they’re out Tootsie rolls still.

When Stewie observed my experiment he told me I can never make fun of him when he does his own kitchen experiments. But really I never make fun of him in the traditional sense – I just look at him like he’s from Io.

*Besides – why would I take the risk of having to haul back some bad oranges to the store when I could just make sure my produce is within acceptable perameters when I buy them? I ask you.

I was planning on working on Yvonne’s belated xmas gift tonight, but instead she called me up practically begging me to come and play Settlers of Catan with her and Ursula. I said I would play Catan if we could also play my game, Conquest Beyond, and there was agreement. I also played a game called Abalone which was pretty good. I barely won that. This also seemed (impromptu-ly) to be the night where I broke my tea-totalling ways. I got a little drunk, just enough to feel it, and just enough to blurt out what I was making Y for xmas. I learned one thing: Pepsi & rum is disgusting. For anyone who doesn’t know, I haven’t been drunk since about 1991. I had a couple tiny tiny sips of a mixed drink in December of 2002 and I have been known to eat chocolates with liquour in them, but otherwise I have not touched a drop of alcohol in about 13 years. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but I probably won’t do it again for a while. I think it would probably only “feel right” in the company of close friends, and in a small group, at that. I would want to be already comfortable before I started drinking. I guess that’s normal, isn’t it? To have a drinking buddy or buddies? I would want to keep pace with who I was with – and I found myself trying to drink (or be drunk) no more or less than Yvonne. Ursula was also drunk to some extent but I wouldn’t had known had she not said so (having met her only 2 nights ago). Anyway, it was fun, and I hope I haven’t disappointed the world by breaking my passive vow of sobriety.

On the other hand, I don’t have to go through the rigamarole of explaining to people why I don’t drink anymore. Because I do! Can I say that? Can I say that I drink now? Or do I say that I am a non-drinker who recently had a few drinks? (Well, I didn’t finish my third one, but I digress.) How often and how much do I have to drink to be able to say that I am not a drinker? How long do I have to go without meat to be a vegetarian? How long do I have to go without smoking to say I’m a non-smoker?

Keep your nights open from January 30 – February 1st because we are going to see The Animation Show at The Ridge. Brought to us by Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge. Oh my, yes.

Among the hundred of known extrasolar planets, about 15% are closer than 0.1 astronomical units (AU) [the distance from Earth to the sun] from their parent stars. But there are extremely few detections of planets orbiting in less than 3 days. At this limit the planet HD209458b has been found to have an extended upper atmosphere of escaping hydrogen. This suggests that the so-called hot Jupiters which are close to their parent stars could evaporate. Astronomers estimate the evaporation rate of hydrogen from extrasolar planets in the star vicinity. With high exospheric temperatures, and owing to the tidal forces, planets evaporate through a geometrical blow-off. This may explain the absence of Jupiter mass planets below a critical distance from the stars. Below this critical distance, they infer the existence of a new class of planets made of the residual central core of former hot Jupiters, which they propose to call the “Chthonian” planets. Awesome. [Thanks to Wayne for the info]

Um er ah…

Happy gnu year! It’s 2004. Two Thousand and Four years Anno Domini. Year of our Lord. Not After Death. I wish it was After Death though. Then there would be like a 30 year period between BC and AD that was essentially “null time”. Maybe it would be called DJ – “During Jesus”.

The best part of 2004 (so far) was walking to the bus stop with Yvonne and Rebecca. Not to say that I didn’t have fun at Ursula’s game party – but (a) the conversation wasn’t as good and (b) I didn’t find a ten dollar bill on the ground when I was inside. And also (c) walking in the snow with my boots is fun. And also also (d) the smaller the group, the more comfortable I am. Did anybody see that absolutely terrifying New Years Countdown on FOX that was basically a T&A-rife ad for “American Wedding?” Tasteless.

At the party we played Cranium, Settlers of Catan and Hoopla. I don’t recommend Hoopla, but Cranium was pretty fun. I’m sure everyone who is reading this has played Settlers a million times (I know Mr. Chris has Starfarers of Catan) but it was my first time playing it last night. I am not terribly fond of strategy games. I never really liked Risk or any of those “building an empire” video games. Probably because I’m not very good at them. And I’m impatient. Yeah, Cranium was definitely the most fun game of the night.

Being in group activities like that is interesting because I am fascinated (sometimes) with human interaction (Other times I am dreadfully bored with it): gauging personalities as they come to the fore under different situations; watching how different people react when they’re winning or losing the game; noticing how some people (unconsciously) tuned other people out. I noticed a couple times when Rebecca said something relevant to her team’s game but the only person who seemed to notice was me, and I was on the opposing team. I empathized – that happens to me a lot depending on the group I’m with. Basically I guess I most observed how difficult it is for people to pay attention to one another (myself included of course) but I will be the first one to admit that it is hard to do in a room with more than three people. Apart from all the observing, I had a good time and I found all the new people I met to be genuinely nice and friendly and decent.

Playing these competitive games made me realize how much I like roleplaying games because everybody is working together rather than against one another. But there are times when you want to lay the smackdown on your friends just to show them how awesome you are. Try to take my Scrabble away and I will poke my finger in the general area of your eyes.

I love the snow. It makes me smile.

I forgot to mention that yesterday I received notice from our dorky (I almost didn’t put in an adjective but then I thought – pff, he’s never going to read this) building manager that all of the storage lockers in the building were broken into. Nothing was stolen from ours, and apparently the only victim of the burglery was the dork. Sucks for him. We didn’t really have anything of value in there except for two fans and my bike, which I haven’t used in at least 3 years. I think the chain needs tightening but I never got around to taking it into a shop. I’d like to ride my bike some times but it can be scary in the big city. Also people look goofy on bikes. There, I said it. That never stopped me when I used it to get to work, but still…people look goofy on bikes.

I got some very nice mail today. One package was a felt Cthulhu doll from Tim Emrick (I posted pics on this blog of them a little while ago). Thanks Tim, I really appreciate it and I will continue to do so! It was very kind of you to send that. The other thing was the DVD of Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath – the animated adaptation of Lovecraft’s short novel in which I provided the voice for the main character. I avoided putting it in all day because I was cringing at the idea of listening to myself voice act badly, but when I finally put it in I was not too terribly embarrassed. Slightly embarrassed, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Apart from that, it’s pretty neat. The animation style & direction surprised me pleasantly, and the music is good but it’s a bit too loud (sometimes it’s hard to hear the voices). Also I think it could stand to have more quiet, music-less scenes. But that’s a minor issue. It’s a very strong effort and I am pleased that I was given the lead role.

Yesterday I printed out the first half of my diaries for the year 2003 (not to be confused with this blog, although many entries from the blog are in the diaries). Sixty-four pages in an 8 point font and that’s only up to July. Come January I am probably going to send out an email to everyone about my experiences in 2003. The first time I did that was last year, as many of you know. It’s very hokum (I was going to say jejune but I don’t know what that means) and lame, I know – but that’s what this time of year is all about. I picture Cinnamon J. Scudworth at his desk writing “dear family and friends, is it possible a year has passed since my last impersonal, over-informative, photocopied holiday update?” to inspire me. So, get your spam filters ready for that one. This year’s will probably be a lot shorter than last year’s though, so be thankful.

And now that it’s over, I present The True Meaning of Christmas (mostly stolen from another website, but pasted & edited here for your convenience).

In Rome, Saturnalia—a holiday in honor of Saturn, god of agriculture—was celebrated. Beginning in the week leading up to the winter solstice and continuing for a full month, Saturnalia was a hedonistic time, when food and drink were plentiful and the normal social order was turned upside down. For a month, slaves would become masters. Peasants were in command of the city. Business and schools were closed so that everyone could join in the fun. In addition, members of the upper classes often celebrated the birthday of Mithra, god of the sun, on December 25. For some Romans, Mithra’s birthday was the most sacred day of the year. In the early years of Christianity, Easter was the main holiday; the birth of Jesus was not celebrated. In the fourth century, church officials decided to institute the birth of Jesus as a holiday. Unfortunately, the Bible does not mention date for his birth. Pope Julius I chose December 25 in an effort to adopt and absorb the traditions of the pagan Saturnalia festival. Holding Christmas at the same time as traditional winter solstice festivals increased the chances that Christmas would be popularly embraced. On Christmas, believers attended church, then celebrated raucously in a drunken, carnival-like atmosphere similar to today’s Mardi Gras. Each year, a beggar or student would be crowned the “lord of misrule” and eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink. If owners failed to comply, their visitors would most likely terrorize them with mischief. Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined “debt” to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens.

So, next year – more terrorizing with mischief, I think.

Being injuriously hit by an ambulance.
The fact that monosyllabic has five syllables.