Well, hell… if I knew what I was doing, I’d have to have a plan, wouldn’t I?

I love thunderstorms. More beautiful weather today. It actually was traditionally beautiful most of the day, but we got some hardcore intermittent thunderstorms this evening. And I’m just the kind of person who stands outside longer when it’s raining, so that was fun.

And it looks as though I might not fall asleep in Social Science this quarter. Huzzah. It’s communists a-go-go at the moment, but we are getting into the 20th century after all. Also, timelines of the start of World War I are amusing. For the first week of August, Germany finds someone else to declare war on every day. You know, it’s been kind of a bad century for Germany.

So let’s see… coherent descriptions of events. So the final event of spring break was the seeing of a movie with, let’s say… more incest than you’d expect from a movie with incest. Good movie though, in its own way. But either way, we managed to commandeer another Dunkin’ Donuts, so it was well worth it. Good times.

I managed to do so much stuff over spring break that it almost feels relaxed back here at the U of C. Of course, things are still winding up here. Ah well. And it’s not as though I have nothing better to do, I just don’t want to do it yet… delicious, delicious procrastination. I ought to write another rant.

Well, this is interesting. I feel almost normal. And normal, you should realize, is very strange for me. I have a certain flair for weathering ridiculous intensity, after all. And I’m just a crazy bastard on principle.

Number of times this week a woman has said she could beat me up: 3… anyway…

Billy Joel… I didn’t see that coming. But “Only the Good Die Young” is stuck in my head lately, so there it is. what’s odd is that this is the second Billy Joel song I’ve had seriously wedged in my head lately. It’s shaping up to be an interesting and amusing trend, but I draw too many connections.

And I had “Twentieth Century Fox” stuck in my head, but I know exactly how that got there… and she always did say she wanted more nicknames, but I’ll run that by her when she gets back from Florida.

Inaccessible rambling and wry one-liners – that’s what I’m here for, folks… well, maybe normal was a bit of a stretch. But I’m close enough.

And it’s impossible not to feel good with the weather like it is. It is fuckin’ beautiful out there. We hit the 60’s today. And I do love the 60’s. Good as a temperature and as a decade. Anyway…

I do love the word “anyway”. It hides abrupt changes of thoughts slightly better than “[generic transition]”. Of course, “[generic transition]” has sentimental value for me now, but that’s an entirely different topic. And although that’s no reason in and of itself for me not to switch to it, I can only pack this blog with so many obscure personal references…

And so it goes…

Oh man, I’m not sure I’ve actually done anything here but amuse myself, and possibly exasperate one woman, who isn’t actually paying attention at the moment. So most of you should think of this as another (but now excessively long) throwaway opener. But I hope I have been modestly entertaining, or failing that, bewildering.

Yeah, you should see what I don’t publish. Actually, you shouldn’t; that’s kind of the point of not publishing it.

Well, I’ll get a sensible post in later today; nothing really happening at the beginning of the quarter. Kate tells me they don’t give me enough work. I’m almost inclined to agree.

Then again, sometimes I make people nervous.

And… intelligible commentary begins now. Man, if I keep doing throw-away openers like that, I’ll just make more people nervous. At any rate, I have once again seen Javier and the Bear in concert, and I must say they rocked me in a manner similar to that of a hurricane, while my face was transmuted to a liquid state… awesomeness. Missed the first couple of songs due to vehicular trickiness, but what I heard was great. I got there in time for “Ziggy Stardust” and it only got better from there, from drifts in to covering country with “Mama Tried” to original rock epics like “Goat People”. And that’s leaving out some of my favorites. Anyway, much rockage and praise of both Javier and The Bear. Also, they are slowly shaping a cultural institution by replacing “Freebird” with “I’ll Fight You for Your Woman”.

And similarly in music, I managed to blow slightly too much money at Rolling Stone the other day. Rolling Stone is a beautiful thing. Eight-dollar CDs and copies of the Onion: what more can a man ask for? This week’s additions to my slowly growing musical collection:

-Derek and the Dominos, Layla (Christ. That is some fine guitar. And everything else, really.)
-Simon and Garfunkel, Sounds of Silence (a little sloppy, but worth it)
-Postal Service, Give Up (They still own my soul, but more so now. Also doubles my albums for the current decade.)
-Bob Dylan, Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (haven’t gotten through this yet, but Bob hasn’t done me wrong yet. Also, for a while there I had his hair.)

And much more happened this week, but I’m tired.

And finally, incongruously, being a poet gives everything an upside; I’ve written more than usual lately. I may even have to start letting people see it. But I’m told poets die young. Clearly, I’ll have to become a musician instead… hmm. Well, maybe something in science. Although I don’t think computer programmers have been around long enough to figure out what our life expectancy is.

Very few people realize that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is the same man who later became known as Conan the Barbarian…

So I'm home, and what a long crazy quarter it has been. For one, most of you probably think it's crazy that I had a quarter instead of a semester, but that's only where it begins.

Analogy of the day:
You know in Star Wars, when they go after the Death Star, there's the one guy who gets to make the shot first? And it's pretty impressive, given the situation, that he's gotten to that point and survived going up against the Death Star all the way down the trench to where the exhaust port is. He's clearly a damn good pilot, right? And so he gets to make the shot first, and there's a kaboom, but it doesn't quite work. It just "impacted on the surface." So it doesn't really count, and Luke has to come along to save the day, because he's the protagonist. You know that guy?

I'm totally that guy.

Now, for some this would be depressing, but they're missing one overarching truth:

They're going to build another Death Star. Of course, then the question becomes, "Are you Billy Dee Williams?" And I think we all know the answer to that question. And even if that is not the case, they'll probably build at least one more after that. The Empire had a real fixation with Death Stars. Compensating, I suspect.

Which means the point is...

I remain incontrovertibly geeky. Frankly, I can't believe this didn't occur to me sooner.

Sweet Zombie Jesus! I’m alive!

Also, when the snow is insanely fluffy like it is now, it’s easy to catch it on your tongue.

I wrote probably the best social science paper I’ve written this quarter in just over three hours.

And I’M DONE! WOOHOO! TAKE THAT WINTER QUARTER!

Oh man, did I need that pickup. You can only spend so many days straight on frantic academic effort before the burnout sets in (or the Death Flu, in my case). I’m really looking forward to hitting some double-digit sleep in the near future. And emerging from social semi-isolation (er… except for the fencing party).

And finally, I must laud and heap with praise all those involved in UT’s production of The Crucible, AKA that play that I watched immediately before the Death Flu set in. Contrast with illness only improves theatre. And what marvelous theatre it was. Witch hunts are intense, especially when you know the psychotic bitch who’s trying to kill everybody, and the self-righteous bastard of a judge that’s letting it happen – also, the wobbly drunken comic relief character. But really, they’re great people. The drunk one would be Zach, for those of you playing along at home in “how often will the word ‘drunk’ occur in the same sentence as Zach?” game).

And so, though I am not doing anything particularly impressive over spring break, well, I’m rather fond of breathing room. I will be chilling somewhere in the vicinity of Chicago for the time being (I don’t have to go home till the end of the week).

Mind, I have no idea how I made it through this quarter. I promise, at some point soon, someone will prove to me that I have no idea how to live, and that pure, random guesswork is all that keep my heart beating. But now I’m just being needlessly metaphorical.

Half-giddy, half-exhausted,

Ladies and gentlemen, Jackson Browne!

Running on - running on empty
Running on - running blind
Running on - running into the sun
But I’m running behind

Yeah, and happy Pi Day everyone, just to prove I am still geeky enough to go here.

I know I've said my life was boring, but the Death Flu? Man, the Death Flu is not an acceptable way of adding spice to my life.

Alright, the flu that I have is not deadly to my knowledge, but that’s what we’ve been calling all the diseases which seem to be sweeping the University. I’d forgotten how unpleasant vomiting is; distinctly un-fun, although fortunately I only had to deal with one episode. And chills, those are distinctly unpleasant too. The Death Flu shattered my temperature regulation to the point where I had to huddle under blankets after drinking a large quantity of cold water.

Of course, the three days before the death flu were a clinic in how to shatter my immune system. So, I’d been up late for a couple nights finishing my Comp Sci final project, with minimal sleep (10-ish over two days), and then there was the fencing party.

Now, the fencing party was quality: much insanity, much brilliance, moderate amounts of alcohol, and an occasional reference to naked wrestling. Also, Dictionary is a fantastic game. For example:

Verbigeration –
“the constant or obsessive repetition of meaningless words or phrases”
“The untimely arrival if a very big object in one’s location, crushing the spine”
“The process of debating the economic merit of professional wrestling… while naked”
“Poking a verb with a stick until it attacks, killing you and your entire family”
“The process of turning any word with more than 28 letters into a verb”
“… also, ‘refrigeration’ as pronounced by a speaker of a tonal language”
“Lindsay is a lush.”

That last one is not entirely in the spirit of the game… anyway, depending on which version of the game, you would vote for whichever definition you believed was real, or whichever you thought I wrote. The first one is real, by the way. Mine is “crushing the spine”.

Alright, where were we? Ah, immune system troubles. You see, after the party broke up at 3:00, a splinter faction formed, and we continued the party elsewhere, mainly by playing spades and euchre. Insane? perhaps. At any rate, we continued until everyone decided to go to breakfast. At which point we had breakfast, and then tried to watch a movie (The Emperor’s New Groove). Alas, within 30 minutes, everyone was asleep, and we woke up in time to see the end credits. Official end of party: 11:00 AM. Woot. Alas, my digestive system went to hell shortly afterward, beginning with the inability to eat lunch and culminating in the aforementioned vomiting 12 hours later. But it was a good party. And also clearly not a boring week.

Today’s emotions are sponsored by Tom Petty, whose distinct absence from my iTunes has been corrected.

And clearly, I have to blog something to take a break from code madness. Go CompSci final project!

And I may be taking a slightly more stream-of-thought direction, because I’ve been reading the early archives again (sheer brilliance, some of it, and incoherent otherwise). What can I say? I like nostalgia.

That and I’m developing a hell of an introspective streak. Alright, fine, I’ve always had an introspective streak, but I blame recent expansion on my being single, which is fascinating, in that I’ve never been legitimately single before. Well, I was kind of, but that was before I had any idea what I was doing. Not that I do now, of course. But the lack of an immediate direction is new.

Then again, there is a world of “single” totally foreign to me, and I had a chance to observe this at lunch today. I speak, of course, of the hookup people, some of whom I chatted with at lunch, and whose strange customs fascinate me to no end. Seriously, it’s like a parallel universe (cue “Everyone else has had more sex than me”). If you’ve never heard a gay guy criticize a girl for her perspective on oral sex, well, it’s actually very entertaining… and only slightly disturbing with respect to certain details. I’m trying to decide whether revealing those details myself will be more or less terrifying than leaving it to the imagination. Measurements were involved. I’ll stop there. Moving on…

Speaking of good, clean fun, there’s nothing quite like seeing a man mummified in duct tape, as was done to our ScavHunt captain, Marvin, last Wednesday, for a fund-raiser no less. $2 to the team fund got you 30 seconds of tape time. Someone laid down $20, and that’s when Marvin was truly doomed. Tape usage was creative and efficient. By the end, he was completely immobilized, and we had to make sure he was still breathing (due to duct tape corset action)… before we decided to carry him triumphantly through the halls of Max East. Eventually, we did get him out of the tape (alive, even).

Also, the purpose of the ScavHunt meeting was actually to choose the team name. Know this and despair, for we are:

Team Fluffy, Destroyer of Worlds!

Now that’s climactic. And back to Java-mancy...

Yes, I've finally done it. I'm proud to announce my triumphant return to social commentary! That's right. I've finally written another rant. Hope y'all like it.

Editorial of a Madman XXI:
Giving up Sanity for the Sake of Our Lord
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, it’s that time of year again: A time of chaos and uncertainty, a time of loss and pain for billions, a time momentarily preceded by wild and crazy partying in New Orleans. Yes, it’s that time of year again. Yes, it’s Lent.

The term Lent, of course, originally refers to the fact that at this point in his career, Jesus was “living on borrowed time”, according to this passage from Paul’s second letter to the Decepticons:

“(1) Yea verily, for lo, Our Lord went into the city of Jerusalem a hunted man, and his life was on loan from the Sanhedrin, (2) yet they darest not pick him up in the midst of the disciples, for they were turkeys. (3) And lo, forsooth, that very Tuesday Our Lord went into the house where he was staying with a crowd of the disciples, (4) and there he taught them, ate with them, and got shit-faced, that he might demonstrate the cowardice of the Sanhedrin.”

This, of course, is the origin of Mardi Gras, which was moved to the preceding Tuesday so as not to interfere with the feng shui of Lent, which, in light of later events, became a time of fasting and repentance, rather than continued partying down.

But is the Lent of this day and age really true to the spirit of Lent? Has Lent, like Ramadan and Yom Kippur before it, become just another over-commercialized fast-fest? Are we simply wandering in a spiritual desert of readymade Lent sentiments and pagan symbolism? Are we abstaining from true religious meaning? Perhaps.

Few are aware, for example, that for most of the year, the Easter Bunny works as a homosexual Jewish pornographer, a fact that is both disturbing and, for all you know, accurate. But, in reality, the problems of Easter are an entirely different issue from the problems of Lent. We’ve all seen it: The Lent decoration start going up in January, and less commercial, but no less meaningful, holidays like President’s Day, Earth Day, and National Pig Day (March 1st), fall by the wayside. Valentine’s Day, of course, is no more than a bitter, resentful footnote surrounded by failed resolutions against eating chocolate. Some would argue that Valentine’s Day is an integral to compelling a true spirit of suffering and resolve in Lent. Others would suggest that these people are in need of a stiff drink. This usually ends theological discourse, but I digress. In fact, I digress constantly and enthusiastically.

So it was written, so it shall be done,
Doctor Funk

Oh sweet Jesus have I been fencing. And writing papers – so many papers. But let’s focus on the fencing.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold! I am officially the worst male epeeist to attend the Midwestern Fencing Championships at Notre Dame: 0-7, 35th out of 35, baby, though a couple bouts were very close. The team did alright though: 8th out of 14. But the point is, ‘twas most fun, and educational. For example, I learned:

-Everyone has matching socks, but only Oberlin’s fencers are crazy enough to wear matching rainbow socks.
-That said, only Chicago’s men’s epee team was crazy enough to wear matching Burger King crowns. I was the Archduke of Bohemia. Said crowns were obtained in Hegewisch. Why Hegewisch, you ask? Well…
-The 6:15 Friday South Shore train does not run all the way to South Bend, but the train 90 minutes behind it does, and the best way to get that one is to stop over at Hegewisch, on the Indiana border.
-MSU’s fencing team is nearly as cool as ours, and was fun to play Mafia with.
-Gold medal sabreists are really, really good at what they do. Got to see the roommate of everyone’s favorite Irishperson in action. Very impressive. I intended to say hi, but I didn’t get the opportunity.
-U of C students will discuss metaphysics at the drop of a hat, although how we got to that topic from computer games I still don’t know.