My thoughts on the week:

Nowhere in Africa: The best movie I have seen so far this year. stunning..
Run Lola Run was good too.

I love Gerhard Richter. Gerhard Schroeder ist toll.

I should avoid Econometrics like the plague.

I miss being in a major metropolitan area. ]

I haven't listened to the radio in a really long time.

BBC and NPR radio-my new favorite radio stations

In heaven, the rock musicians are all Brittish.

Alex doesn't dance enough. I hope he dances this summer otherwise we'll have to go up to Halsted and Waveland on June 26 so that I can dance with members of the opposite sex.

I got my summer work schedule, and I got a raise. And I'm working at Stevenson Park in FoPo, so I'll be really close to the El' for the CCFR internship which means I don't have to run like hell from the El' to work everyday.

Fenwick's choice of date for the graduation of the class of 2004: Who the hell has a graduation at 7pm on a Friday night? Come on people. And of course it directly conflicts with the Stills concert because it's only a FRIDAY night in the summer. WHO WOULD SCHEDULE A ROCK CONCERT ON A FRIDAY NIGHT IN THE SUMMER, YOU KNOW??!!?? Why would anyone ever schedule entertainment events on a friday night in the summer, do people even go to those anymore.

Class registration: Done in 4 mintutes- a new record for me.

MyFall 2004
Modern Dance 101: Somewhere my mother is rolling her eyes.

Dirty Wars and Democracy: on the dictatiorships of Brazil, Uruguay,Chile, and Argentina (evidently Brazil and Uruguay had dictatorships at sometime during the 1970s-1980s-who knew?)

Introduction to International Relations:

Intro to Philosophy: There was a really cool Religion class on the Immanence of Buddhism that I wanted to take, but if you take it you have to go to Japan for Winter Term, and if I'm an RA and on the swim team Japan= no go. It would be fun though if I could have been in the class, I wish I could have been. Then I could be like, "Mom, I have to go to Japan,...no I didn't know anything about it, evidently it was part of the course though..., I mean I really have like no choice in the matter...I guess I'll just have to make the best of it and go to Japan. So anyway, point being, instead of a religion course I figured that philosophy and I might get along better. We've never been formally introduced to each other anyway, so...why not hook up now?

Intermediate German: Because I WILL study abroad in Germany. And as we say in 102: German ist zuper kuhl. German is so much cooler than Spanish, and this time I won't get stuck with the professor who's from Berlin-yay!

Advanced Swing Dancing Exco: so I can learn shim sham, shag, balboa, more lindy. fingers crossed on aerials. My goal is to be good enough to teach the class as an upperclassmen.

Sadly some of this will have to get dropped with the whole RA gig, and swimming. But I did get all my first choices so I'm really quite delighted with it.

I have a 10 minute oral presentation that I have to work on for German class. Mine is on Chicago in der Sommer (Summer), that and I have to memorize Der Loreley for the Blauersalon next weekend. With each week that passes, the air gets heavier with the angst and stress finals.

Finals, finals go away. Come again some other day.

Tschuss

Hey hey!

So I've been rather busy for someone who had 5-hour surgery a week ago.

On Thursday I went to "Al's Char House" in LaGrange with M.C. Captain Crunch. We were suprised how long our food was taking so we asked the waiter (an asian man in a cowboy outfit). He said: "New York strip take longer to cook."
When the food got to the table we saw why. I kid you not...this steak was 1' long and 6" thick. If my dad had eaten the whole thing he probably would have gone blind and died. So we're eating steak for the rest of the weekend now.

Afterwards, we went to see Master and Commander. An excellent film if I do say so myself, and I don't even like Russell Crow.

Friday was fantabulous. We went to the wicked awesome Cubs game and had a hell of a time. For those of you who missed it, not only did Dusty throw the best fit I have ever seen, but the Cubs were behind the whole game until the 9th inning when Sammy and Moises hit back-to-back homers to win it! Sammy tied Ernie "Mr.Cub" Banks for the all time Cubs HR record at 512! Needless to say the entire 40,000 present went out of their minds. I thought the upper deck was going to collapse. So many drunken fans! If that's the only Cubs game I get to attend this year, I'll be happy.

On the "L" ride home we also got a free show. Some lady thought it would be a good idea to get up and preach to all the sinners on the train. She kept it up for a good half-hour until her stop came. Basically, God is awesome and I owe everything to him. However, I don't need to go to church anymore because that's just a crooked institution. I'm sure Kate would have shouted "Amen, sister!" Crazy people are fun.

That ranks up as my second best ride on the Green Line. The first was when Julie Koziol lost $40 to a crooked cup and ball game and Pat tried to win it back for her.

I got the pictures back from Drag Ball, if you're interested.

Yep. So Alex has once again foiled my plans to visit him in the hospital by recovering so quickly. On the whole, though, I’d say that’s a good thing.

So I’ve been off on a whirlwind tour of the Midwest, which is to say, Ohio and Michigan.

In the end, I did not manage to attend the drag ball, although Oberlin was chock full of transvestitism in preparation for the big event, ranging from hastily-donned dresses to week-long, body-shaving, prosthesis-adding feminizations. Kate and I visited the team preparing “Janita Swan”, and it was really very… impressive. The glitter writing of “DIVA” on the back of the underwear was an interesting touch. I hear he got second-place in the judging. Yes, there were judges. You wouldn’t expect the biggest drag ball in the Midwest to not have judges, would you? Fascinating.

Ah, Oberlin: putting the “liberal” back in “liberal arts” as always. They have an environmental science building that can recycle human waste, so of course they had a big event encouraging people to use the toilets there. They were serving free vegan (and regular) brownies. Although after looking at the vegan brownies, I really wonder why they even bother trying. Besides that, I did a little more touring of the campus, visited the art museum with Kate and my family, and saw a piano recital which I nearly fell asleep in, due to a combination of factors.

And then, off to Michigan to visit the relatives for Easter. Of course, we drove up on Sunday morning, so we didn’t get to church. I think that move me officially into “heathen” territory (or “non-practicing” for you politically-correct types). Fairly boring actually, but alright. My grandmother is making me a quilt out of old blue jeans for my graduation, which is sort of a cool concept. Aside from that, I spent probably too much time playing with my cousin Kyle’s X-box. But hey, I can now say I’ve beaten HALO (he did most of the work; I followed and shot the things what turned my crosshairs red).

And so I returned on Tuesday, fully intent on visiting Alex, only to find out Wednesday that he had been out of the hospital since Sunday. Durable bastard. On the whole, it’s probably a good thing. The morphine withdrawal has driven him mad, though. Well, maybe, he was pretty mad to begin with.

And somewhere along the way in the earlier portion of the trip I read Quicker Than the Eye by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury is the man.

The bored amongst you should play 20 Questions against the computer at the new link. It's remarkably good sometimes. It figured out platypus in 13.

I'M AAALLLLLIIIIIIVEEEE!

Ahem....well...yes...anyway....surgery was fun...sort of...I guess....or not at all....either way.

It was done laproscopically (involves cameras and robot arms) this time so the recovery was faster. They didn't even give me a morphine button. They just stuck a "medicine tube" into my spine (the same kind of business they give women in labor). Also, major props go out to Sween-Dog and Anti Semitic Tim for their visit. Hell Boy and Superman comics along with a baseball signed by Tim "Rocket Socks" Martin made that green jello go down so much easier.

I'm convinced that I have a super mutant healing factor ala Wolverine because I just keep bouncing back from these surgeries....and it would be really cool to have a super mutant healing factor.

I was born with a plasitc spoon in my mouth,
Maxwell

Wheee! Spring Break.

Also, new link in the Madness section, "I've seen things."

Well, as long as everybody else is updating the blog, I think I'll post, too. Besides, Sween-Dog yelled at me the other day for not posting in awhile. (Also, ask to read his "Confessions of a Derbisol Addict", quality stuff)

Things have been decent over the past couple weeks. Khyber Pass was yummy. Rushmore was good until I fell asleep (I was just lucky I didn't wake up naked in a corn field in Indiana with 50 cents taped to my forehead. I hate it when that happens.)

Radio show yesterday focused on the cyborg menace and unoriginal names for cats and dogs. Listen when they archive it, it's good times.

I'll being going into the hospital tommorow @ 6:00am for another surgery. I'll be there about a week (what a great way to spend spring break. Some go to Jamaca, some to Mexico. Me? I go to the University of Chicago Hospitals to get cut open. YES! Free morphine, too!) I better see some visitors or else I'll kick all your butts when I hobble back into school after break.

Pat, Peter, and I have Abbey Road names now:
Me: Maxwell Silverhammer
Peter: The Sun King
Pat: Mean Mr. Mustard
Polythene Pam is still open....any takers?

With deepest lack of colons,
Maxwell Silverhammer

It always takes forever to get home from Oberlin, and an instant to get back to get back to Oberlin. craziness


It always looks preetier here when I come back to. I blame relativity.

The Khyber pass was good; I think I just like Greek and Mexican food more. I really like Greek food, everything except that cheese that they light up that I can never remember the name of; but Alex will and then I'll be 0 for 3 between smoking the Mary Jane, Fiddler and on the roof, and the whatchamacallit cheese. I wouldn't know how the Nan tastes; I wasn't fast enough.

Someday I will see Goodbye Lenin!

See, I finally go away to school and can go where I please without parental juxtaposition and there's nowhere to go. On the upside, not going swing dancing Friday has allowed me to get the coolest dancing shoes ever, so that's happy. I will go to Ida Noyes every weekend this summer to spite meine mutter now. She and I are really going to be duking it out this summer, esp. with class and interning in the city every day- (victory will be mine.)

Next weekend: Drag Ball. My friend Chris has offered to lend Pat both a dress and shoes; I think this will be a new kind of peer pressure. Leave it to the admissions office to have all the admitted students come to Oberlin, the same weekend as Drag Ball. Next time maybe they'll get Safer Sex Night and Parent's weekend to coincide. Drunken people in drag vows to be an interesting show for the Lange family.

Oops. It seems to be next week already. Time keeps doing that to me. Space is out to get me too, actually, so I’m just trying extra hard not to piss off gravity, because there are only so many fundamental features of existence I can deal with at once.

But anyway, the Week of the Girl has come and gone already. Alas. It had its ups and downs, but it was great to see her again. But, first, chronological order: So last time I posted, I was anticipating the Napes party, which was, true to expectations, awesome. I am addicted to air hockey; I beat Maciej, but kept losing on the last point after that. Whee! Air hockey! Then there was lots of dancing and craziness. So I bravely and intermittently attempted to dance. “Come On, Eileen” is more danceable than one might expect, especially with crazy leg-flailing. Sweeney nearly died after that; it was funny. I blame the derb. Other people have covered the party already. It roxxored.

Then there was Friday. I got to pick up the Girl at Midway, after looping around only a few times. Traffic near Midway is madness, of course, but easy enough to deal with. After negotiating which, I took the Girl home.

Saturday was complicated. Seeing Fenwick win state in hockey was cool, although the best part of the game was Eric Park’s “Janda… I’m having your baby,” sign. Then we took a trip down to Rolling Stone along with Peter, because Ohio just doesn’t have as many opportunities for low, low prices on music. I got Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, and it’s good. Mmm, crazy surreal lyrics. Also, “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” is worth the cost of the whole album.

And then, let’s see, what did I do Tuesday? Yes, I ate ice cream at Petersen’s, and it was good. I had the hot fudge turtle, and Kate had a banana split, which she really liked. And, of course, we got photographed and put in the Tribune the next day, for an article on rising dairy prices. Ellie was there too, as evidenced by the pair of hands in the lower right. That’s what she gets for sitting on the other side of the table. Before which Alex and I did the radio show, which all y’all should listen to when they put it up. It’s a good show, good music, and lots of talk about the E-Baby incident. Then Alex and I watched a seagull eat slices of cheese that we found in the link. He would circle around for a bit, and then he’d come down and we’d be like “Yes! He’s gonna eat the cheese!” and then the seagull would come down and start trying to eat the cheese, and eventually he’d manage to pick up the whole piece and scarf it down. This happened twice, and then the next piece we put too close to the school, and then we were out of found cheese. Truly it was the most awesomest bird-related experience I have ever had. But then I got to go from there to ice cream, which is even better than cheese, even if they’re both related to the rising cost of dairy.

Friday, unfortunately, the attempted swing-dancing plan failed, which was very disappointing, especially for the Girl. But eventually we managed to have a good time anyway. We (myself, Kate, Alex, Peter) had dinner at Khyber Pass, which was my first experience with Indian food. Tandoori chicken tastes suspiciously like most other kinds of chicken, but Nan is a very impressive interpretation of bread. Speaking of Tandoori chicken, yes, I ate meat on a Friday. meh. Then after much debate at the video store (although the zombie lobby was crushed early on) we rented Rushmore, which is a pretty funny, occasionally weird movie with an excellent soundtrack, during which certain people fell asleep. And then it was good-bye to the Girl, and back to pining for me. All in all, a good week.

Also this week, Colleges and stuff:
Chicago- Yes
Oberlin- Yes
Stanford- Waitlist (Boo!)

So I’m down to Chicago, U of I, and Oberlin, each of which has its advantages, with Chicago being the best overall but most expensive, U of I having a really good computer science program but somewhat locking me into engineering, and Oberlin being willing to give me a nice pile of cash and being a good liberal arts school but probably not all that great at the computer science. While I’m figuring that out, I’ll have to send Stanford a nice “things I have won since last I wrote” list to try and persuade them, and see what happens.

So yesterday, I went to Chicago’s admitted students thing to visit dorms, and that was pretty neat. If you live in the off-campus dorms, you can get a really huge room, because they made them out of luxury hotels. The on-campus dorms aren’t bad either, but they don’t have a living room. Choices, choices, choices.