Things keep happening and I keep not writing about them. Of course, some of this was because I was some thousand miles or so away from my computer, but the last week it’s basically been inertia. Anyway, I’ll get back to that.

Tuesday and Thursday I was knocked out, drugged, and left bleeding in a dark alley. Okay, so only the middle one, which was as close to gainful employment as I’ve been all summer. And getting up at 6:15 didn’t even suck as much as I thought it would. But that might be because there was a stimulant involved.

Right, so upon my arrival at the U of C hospitals, I signed some things, ate a granola bar, and produced a urine sample. Fun. Anyway, I then had to swallow two rather large green capsules of a) stimulant, b)sedative, or c) placebo. I felt kinda peppy, so it could have been stimulant. The main part of the procedure was actually comprised of sitting around reading magazines and waiting for the drug to kick in. And then, after a brief survey to determine my mood and whether or not I was getting the shakes, the real fun began. I was shown series of images at varying speeds (all the way up to about 8/second or so), and then I’d get another set of images, and I’d have to say if they were in the first set and how sure I was. All of this was done on what looked like a fairly early model iMac. The images ranged from close-ups of flowers or bugs, to landscapes, to angry snakes, to people, to people with massive burns or facial tumors, to people having sex, to a wad of cash, and that one that was just a hand with a gun pointed at the camera. Lots of variety, apparently designed to provoke a variety of emotional responses. Fun.

Oh, and I later learned that I was, in fact, dosed with D-amphetamine on whichever day it was (double-blind study). Apparently it was supposed to increase my emotional responsiveness, and thereby allow them to determine some facet of how human memory works.

I felt peppier on Tuesday, but then Thursday I was rash and impulsive, so it’s hard to day which one. Thursday, for example, I climbed the tree in our backyard for the first time in at least several years. This was tricky, because it mostly grows up except for the little branches that just get in the way. But with some creative maneuvering I made it high enough to step onto our garage, which I promptly jumped off of without even seriously injuring myself.

Also, despite the fact that it is an impractically long commute, I love taking the CTA to and from U of C. Chicago is an awesome city, not only because we actually have practical public transportation. There’s just so much cool stuff to see. And for some reason, I just really dig the way old neighborhood get, with all the architectural variations and dense tree cover. And I really love the trees that have clearly gotten bigger than anyone planned for them to be, seizing fences and pushing up sidewalks. It’s just cool. Although it is possible I was drugged when I came to this conclusion, so.

You know, I always find it rather alarming when I blog over a page in Word, even though technically there will be no pages in the final format. I can be a little wordy and ramble-y at times, but I’m sure that hasn’t come to anyone’s attention yet. But the point is, I haven’t even gotten to all the main content of my post, that being my trip to Texas to visit Megan, which was awesome.

Houston is a strange and foreign land, and the natives have a wide variety of indecipherable customs, such as left-turn signals with two red lights. And they fry alligator, which is actually pretty tasty. Yes, I tried several new foods, most of which I liked. Shut up already.

As I was saying, Houston is a land of sweltering heat, primordial humidity, and vast tracts of land – Vast enough to have $3 dollar parking in the strikingly small downtown area, suburb-esque subdivisions well inside the city, and one particularly ugly suburb of prefab mansions (when you have the same grand, colonnaded, chandelier-strewn entryway as the guy next door, it dampens the effect).

But where was I? Oh, right, awesomeness. Despite the above and aside from the total lack of public transit, Houston is actually a pretty decent city. But that’s really beside the point, as I had spent all of five minutes there when Megan snuck up behind me at the airport. And much happiness ensued.

Such as the baseball game we went to on Wednesday, back when the Cubs were still kinda in the wildcard chase. And they beat Houston, woot! Also, Carlos Zambrano hit a home run that went right under us in right field. It was awesome. And Minute Maid is a good park, even with that crazy-ass hill in center field – and the train. Seriously, a train.

Er, anyway, there was also a sojourn into one of Houston’s parks, with much frisbeeing and resultant attempts to breathe water (did I mention it was humid), and occasionally people were tackled for no good reason. Also, there were sadly no alligators in the creek, merely turtles. But supposedly there are alligators. And we climbed a tree, which was also fun. Now I’m going to digress for a moment and claim that tree-climbing is the hip new thing to do, because I am a trend-setter, and I’ve already climbed two this month. Right.

Also, we went clubbing. Yes, I went to a club – a primarily Hispanic club, no less. odds, anyone? But Megan’s friend Ana recommended it, and thus with two Venezuelans and one Spanish-fluent Texan, I was doomed. It was actually a lot of fun. Though henceforth when I travel, I shall take nice clothes, no matter how implausible it is that I shall need them, so that I need not borrow school shoes from recent acquaintances. Anyway, there was much dancing and colliding with random passers-by, and a live band that was actually pretty good, despite my not being able to comprehend any of the lyrics. Also , Megan was dressed up, which was interesting, as this is something that happens only a few times every millennium, and so that gave me ample opportunity to both make fun of her and compliment her profusely.

And there was a museum of natural science, which happened to have a huge exhibit on the Lord of the Rings movies, which allowed the two of us to geek out in appropriately extensive fashion. Teehee. Also, there were rocks, in a very impressively varied mineral and gemstone exhibit… and a giant squid… and a hand-on demonstration of fluid dynamics that I had way too much fun with.

And, let’s see, Houston has this really cool freestanding waterfall dealy, which is all lit-up and night and flagrantly romantic. And there were movies, and DVDs, and lounging about, and playing with dogs, and meeting of various friends, and trying of new foods, and I’m probably forgetting something still, but whatever it was, that was great too. Really, the only trouble was that I eventually had to leave. Marvelous trip, spectacular girl.

Alright, this has gone on just long enough. I’ve got to stop putting these things off.

Alright then...one more post before I'm off to school:

Earlier this week I was fortunate enough to see the new film by Jim Jarmusch "Broken Flowers" starring everyone's favorite satirical deadpan comedian-Bill Murray. I'll start off by coming right out and saying it was excellent. Murray delivers and oscar-worty performance and let's hope he actually wins one before he has to settle for one of those crappy lifetime achievement ones, because everyone knows those are for losers.

Overall, the movie is a film of awkward silences, which I suppose is Jarmusch's schtick. If you've ever seen his film "Coffee and Cigarettes" (in which Murray also had a bit role) you'll know what I'm talking about. However, it's those silences that really make the film. Most mainstream films are heavy-handed in the way they present what the characters are thinking, but "Broken Flowers" lets the viewer decide on their own. The characters are thinking whatever you're thinking. Also, the fact that no real background for the characters is given adds to the audience's ability to piece things together for themselves, which is where the success of the movie lies. There are scences where no dialouge is spoken and literally nothing happens. Yet these scenes are not throwaways. They somehow all come together to create a more concrete identity for the characters.

Doing nothing seems easy enough, but it took some impressive performances to pull it off in "Broken Flowers." As long as we're on the subject of performances, Murray's role in this film will doubtlessly be compared to his work in "Lost in Translation." Certainly the characters are similar (this is definitely not the Bill Murray from "Life Aquatic"), but with the different directors the movies become incomparable, although Murray deserves acadamy award nominations for both. And the character of Winston seals the movie.

In the end, I'm no movie critic, so I'll let the professionals sum up what I've been trying to say. This is from the great Roger Ebert:
"No actor is better than Bill Murray at doing nothing at all, and being fascinating while not doing it. He has the uncanny ability to invite us into his performance."

There you have it. Check it, yo.

Well...I suppose since Pat has now flown the preverbial coop for Texas, I'm responsible for maintaining the blog somewhat. Although I myself leave for the beautiful town of Grinnell this coming Saturday, so don't expect too much. But to keep you entertained for the time being, let me recount a conversation I had with Peter Tutanes yesterday as we were watching the Little League Girls' Softball World Series on ESPN2:

Peter: Softball, huh?
Alex: yeah. It's actually the Phillipines playing.
Peter: Really?
Alex: yep.
Peter: Hope they win, or else they'll have to go back to the army
Alex: hahahahahahaha
Peter: What?

It has been a few days, hasn't it? Speaking of a few days: 4.

Anyway, for those interested, there's another poem up, "Crazy Ideas". For those not interested, an update:

So, for some reason, Judge Dredd never ceases to be amusing. Quoth Maciej, "The law uses tongue." Although properly speaking, Sylvester Stallone is "The Lauwhh" or something to that effect. Though the movie we actually watched at Altier's that day was City of Lost Children, which was quite bizarre and quite good, and in general stipulates that the universe acts as one massive Rube Goldberg machine. A single tear eventuially causes a ship to run aground, for example. Also, Ron Perlman is a French circus strongman.

Remarkably, I've been to the Quarry twice without ever seeing a movie there. This streak will have to end sooner or later, assuming I find more reasons to be deep in the southwest suburbs.

So, the next few weeks get crazy. This weekend there's a big family camping trip, from which I return Sunday. Then Tuesday I leave for Houston, visiting Megan and being generally elated, as I have not actually seen her since we started dating. That would be the "4" from earlier. I return the 22nd, and then the 23rd I am exposed to (conceivably) harmless drugs and shown disturbing images. I do that again on the 25th, and maybe try to wedge a day or so down at U of I in between. And then I'm back to mostly wide open schedule-wise. Of course, lots of folks will be gone by then. Best wishes and such to anybody I don't manage to see again.

Also, this is weird: http://www.hugi.is/hahradi/bigboxes.php?box_id=51208&f_id=842
Link provided to me by Ryan Rubin, also the first person besides me to buy Albatross Hour merchandise, thereby fulfilling my dream of having a dollar (after CafePress allows 45 days for returns).

And finally, a small piece of advice: DON'T SMOKE THALLIUM.

You know, I really like penguins, I really do. But they don’t seem to like me. Thursday, on our third attempt to go to March of the Penguins, we actually made it to the theater, at which point the projector broke down five minutes into the movie. We got refunds (or super-refunds, in the case of Kate, who got an Adult refund on a Student ticket). In any case, we fell back upon a strategy of night Frisbee, and fun was had by all.

In other news, I’ve got new glasses, made from that classiest of high-strength metals, titanium. Yeah, I know, incredibly sexy… and shiny, too. I assume this will enhance my night vision, maybe. But the good news is that I am slightly less blind than I was last time I got glasses. So, woot. Interestingly, when I tried to get less expensive frames, they just asked me if they could increase the discount. So, apparently I can haggle successfully, or something.

And… let’s see… Sky High is a much better movie than I expected. I mean, it’s got Bruce Campbell, and much amusing superhero-yness. Were you to strip down the plot to it’s basics, it would be a pretty standard high school comedy. But the fact that the cliques have superpowers really improves things, and there are some nice twists that you just couldn’t get outside of a superhero high school. And there’s some seriously fantastic comedic acting (protagonist support, if you will): the aforementioned Bruce Campbell as gym teacher; Kevin Heffernan as Ron Wilson, Bus Driver; And Kevin MacDonald, utterly ridiculous as Mr. Medulla, mad science teacher. So, yeah, seven thumbs up and all that.

And… off to finally see Too Much Light. Whee!

Ah, August. Well, a bit of a letdown so far, but I imagine it will pick up in week or two. It’s really a very promising month. Though July, as the song goes, was very strange.

Alright, so I promised apocalyptic destruction. You’ll have to settle for weird. But it’s really outstandingly bizarre. So, right, I explained the bit with Megan, which was completely unexpected, and would have made it a crazy month to begin with. However, the weird-shit-o-meter kicked up to 11 shortly thereafter, as, after much surreptitious facebook editing and behavior that was fishier than an offshore fishmarket run by legitimate Italian businessmen, Kate (yes, Kate my ex) began dating Zach (yes, Zach my roommate). Although it is technically true that this all began with Zach being very drunk, they seem to have risen above that (not that Zach is not, as I speak, very drunk, as that is entirely possible). And I’d like to say that I saw this coming, and I did, although for a time it was merely a strange unshakeable pit of terror and unease in my stomach. But I wish them well. And for the most part I am even convinced that they will not, somehow, kill us all.

It’s not that this greatly bothers me. It’s just one of the more bizarre coincidences I’ve ever witnessed, and one of the few where it seems plausible that a higher power is fully intent on screwing with my head. And so, for reasons too numerous and too obvious to list here, I feel I have a certain right to give them good-natured shit about this.

On an entirely separate subject, I will occasionally risk my own sanity for the sake of innuendo. Moving on…

Ah, yes, before I close the book on July, I must admit that there is one other event that defies probability. One fine Wednesday evening, I saw Murderball with folks. Murderball, I must say, is probably the first movie to make being confined to a wheelchair totally frickin' sweet. Wheelchair rugby is a crazy sport, with colorful character and Mad Max machinery. Go see Murderball if you can. God damn filthy Canucks…

And so, upon returning to Maciej’s car, it was discovered that the right rear door was open – wide open, not just unlocked. This was, in fact, the very door through which I exited the vehicle. Yes, I am that stupid. I left the car door open. However, nothing was stolen, most likely because a car with the door wide open is highly suspicious, and most likely a cunning trap. I fear this incident will never be forgotten, especially now that I have committed it to the internet.

So yeah… July was a little weird, a lot of fun. Bring it on, August.

WHEEEEEEEEE!