Leap day

It's the last day of February, thank goodness. I've hated this month for a good many years, and it seems this year it's been especially bad. Not even just for me, but also for those around me. I guess that's why it had to be a day longer this year.

Last weekend I hung out with Rachel and on Sunday went over to Gus' to hang out with him and Ben. We had planned to play some music and some D&D, but we ended up just playing D&D. It was a lot of fun though, it's been about nine months since the last time I played. I'm out of practice, but my velociraptor-riding halfling ranger is getting me reacquainted.

I've been in a bit of a slump this week. Just feeling pretty tired and lackluster all the time. General symptoms of depression, they'll get better as I get back into actually doing stuff. I've been too idle. I did hang out at Chris' yesterday and had a very nice time, it helped a lot to lift the monotony.

Hopefully, today should break the streak. I'm going to go see Rach's school's production of Footloose with her. It should be a good experience, even if it can't hope to match the awesomeness of last year's performance of Sweeney Todd. Tomorrow we're going to get to see Gogol Bordello at the Electric Factory, which should just be super awesome.

Valentine's Day was okay. I meant to blog sooner afterwards, but never did. Rachel was feeling pretty under the weather and traffic was terrible so it wasn't all that it could have been. Better than last year, but there's some room left for improvement. I'm just glad I got to spend it with her. We saw Atonement which I thought was just terrible but Rachel seemed to like it.

I recently picked up Super Mario Galaxy and Guitar Hero III. Both have been affording decent entertainment, and it's good to be actually playing my Wii after about a year of disuse. I am just getting more and more excited for Super Smash Brothers: Brawl. I preordered it through Amazon, I don't know what that means vis à vis delivery times but it'll be good enough for me.

Parties

Saturday morning I made sandwiches and went on a picnic with Rachel in Valley Forge. Even though I think I've always lived less than an hour away from there, I've never spent more time around it than it takes to drive past it. It's beautiful, although it was bothersome when we were looking for picnic spots and half the place seemed to have "Danger: Buried Asbestos" signs. I don't know what the deal is with that. We ended up finding a nice spot not too far from the Welcome Center, so we'd hear the occasional cannon-fire in the background.

Afterwards, we drove out and picked up Gabo to go to a concert/party held at an acquaintance's mansion. And I do mean mansion -- this place was big enough to hold all of the places I've ever lived. Walking up to it you could have thought you were walking up to a town hall. It was huge. We really only came to Meat Rainbow, and even though we showed up about an hour after the show was scheduled to start, we got to see them setting up.

It was not a very big audience. It was me, Rachel, Gabo, and the drummer's girlfriend most of the time. It was sort of depressing, but kind of cool, too. It made it a much more private affair. We got to talk with the band and they said that next show we show up to, they'll let us in free if they can, since we're such good fans. Their set was good, but after they were done, there wasn't much for us to hang around for. We ran into a friend we made at the last Meat Rainbow show and ended up following her into West Chester.

We hung out at a coffee shop for a while and then somehow ended up at the top of a parking garage. By some freak coincidence, we ran into some friends of mine from school -- Pat, Sharif, and Eric. They were there just chilling with some of their friends, and we all hung out for a while. Eventually we headed back to the party, but we took Sharif and Eric with us, and dropped Gabo off on our way. It was a pretty good party, I didn't know many people there but they all seemed pretty cool. When it was time Rachel dropped me off and gave Sharif and Eric a ride into Philly with her.

Sunday was Father's Day. My sister and I went out to brunch with him. We gave him his presents -- DVDs of Good Night, and Good Luck and For Your Consideration, and a picture of something that we got for him on eBay but it hadn't arrived yet. Afterwards we went to the movies. I wanted to see Knocked Up but they seemed against it so we ended up seeing Ocean's 13. It was actually really good the second time, a lot of things that didn't make sense the first time were clearer this time around.

Monday I went to the birthday party of Sam S., a friend of Rachel's. I'm pretty terrible at parties, doubly so at pool parties, so the first half or so of the time that I was there wasn't great. I resent being called anti-social; I'm just not social. I didn't go out of my way to strike up a conversation with anyone, and, to be fair, none of them tried to talk to me either. Not that I can blame them. I knew I had a problem when I realized that I was narrating current events in my head from third-person perspective. The second half was better. I ended up talking to two people I didn't know. In the end I was glad I went.

Today I've got my place to myself. The rest of the folks are on a train going somewhere. I'm taking a train tomorrow out near to Quiggy's. I'm going with his family to Stone Harbor for a week. It's going to be pretty great. I was hoping that the Nintendo DS Browser that I ordered would have been shipped by then, but I'll still have my laptop and cellphone. I'll be taking the chance to test out the Opera Mini 4 beta. I'm sure I'll be Twittering while I'm gone.

Return to summer

Wednesday before last was the official last day of school. It was technically a half day, although most everyone stayed the whole time since there was a picnic afterwards. I took the opportunity to pick myself up a yearbook and get signatures and so on. It was really a pretty boring day. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, saying goodbye to people. Mostly that was because a lot of them I knew I was going to see that Friday at graduation.

Graduation was good. I picked up the Sonic Yearbook (a compilation of audio recordings -- mostly songs and such -- that's been recorded throughout the year. I appear twice: playing guitar on one jam session and singing in the background for an impromptu a cappella rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'") and a t-shirt. Not all of my friends showed up, but most of them did. In general there were a lot more people there than I was expecting, and more than I think there were last year.

It was harder this time. Most of my friends I knew I wouldn't see again until next year, and I had a few friends in the graduating class, too. It's nice how easy it is to keep in touch with people these. I got a couple of phone numbers and email addresses that I hadn't had before, and I might be bassist for a new musical project. But it always seems to be the case that things tend to fall through and time gets wasted and things get pushed back. But at least there will be next year, and phone calls and instant messaging and facebook to get me through until then.

Gus and Rachel came over Wednesday to catch a ride with me to Gabo's movie night. I took the opportunity to give Gus The Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords as a belated birthday present. We listened to music and played around before heading over to Gabo's. It was just us until Gabo's friend Max came over. Evan was going to be there but he didn't show up. We watched Snatch, which Max brought. IT was a little hard to follow but I enjoyed it. After that we watched part of A Mighty Wind before it was time to go.

Gus and Rachel stayed at my place for the night. We watched V for Vendetta, which I liked even more this time around, and then went to bed. The other slept in late, but I woke up at the usual time. That was good because I was able to take care of some chores and such before they got up but it was bad because I was operating on very little sleep for the rest of the day. We ended up going to see Ocean's 13. It was loads better than 12 but not quite as good as 11. We hung out at the mall for a little bit and made shopkeepers nervous, then went back to my place and watched a few episodes of The Venture Bros. before everyone had to go.

The summer's gotten off to a pretty good start. I don't have much planned for the rest of it but I think it'll shape itself out nicely.

Andrew Bird, Prom, Field Day

Friday morning I was supposed to go to my middle school's version of field day. They call it the Greek and Roman Games. At the beginning of their career at the school, a child is assigned as either a Greek or a Roman. At the end of the year, the two clans compete in a variety of events. It's also a time for alumni to come and visit and see how things are doing. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was less than ideal, and it was postponed until Monday. I was already in Philadelphia that morning when I found out, since I was going to get a ride with Rachel, so we ended up just going to the art museum.

The art museum is pretty awesome. The last time I was there was with Gabo to see the special Andrew Wyeth exhibit. The last time I went there to just see things was probably over a decade ago, which is rather criminal. It really is a fabulous institution, although we had the misfortune of visiting while the entire museum facade was covered in scaffolding for some reason. The interior remained as fabulous as ever, and it was a great way to spend some time until lunch.

After lunch we went and picked Gabo up from the train station. We wandered around South Street for a while. Gabo hasn't spent that much time on it, and it was fun getting to show her around. It was only recently that I've spent much time there, so I can remember what it was like. Fun stuff. I also got a new watch resized but managed to misjudge it so it's still slightly too big. Frustrating, but that's okay.

That night was the much anticipated Andrew Bird concert. I've been looking forward to it since it was first announced, 2+ months ago. I've also been holding on to my tickets for about the same length of time. I only learned the name of the opening band the day before the concert -- Joan as Police Woman. We briefly checked out her myspace page and found it to be pretty indistinctive.

Finally the time came to go and stand in line for the doors to open. We were around fifteenth in line, we only got there half an hour early. We saw Evan and one of his friends standing in line. After the doors opened and we got standing room (reasonably close to the stage), we gathered into a clump and talked. Joan as Police Woman came on and was pretty unimpressive. People didn't stop talking during her set and she got obviously progressively more upset, until Evan said that she looked like she was going to shoot lasers out of her eyes. She did, too.

Then Andrew Bird came on.

Honestly?

Effing amazing.

He's one of the most attractive men I've ever seen and is a ridiculously talented musician. He played about an equal mix of songs from Armchair Apocrypha and Mysterious Production of Eggs. He also played one cover (not sure what of), Dr. Strings, and one new song that he forgot midway through but was still awesome. The only disappointing part of the concert was when the bass gave out and somehow they were only traveling with one bass. The bassist ended up spending the rest of the concert playing guitar or keyboard. Oh, the lighting was pretty bad too. But everything else? Awesome.

Gabo and I slept over at Rachel's place. The next day we took Gabo to the train station and then got on the train later that day ourselves. We went back to my place, hung around for a while, and got ready for my prom. We missed Rachel's prom to go to the Andrew Bird concert, which I do still feel bad about, but I'd feel worse about if it wasn't tied for most amazing concert ever. After we got ready and it was time to go we discovered my mom lost the car. After half an hour or so of wandering around the parking lot it turned out she had left it at the train station somehow. We ended up getting to prom an hour late.

My school has a pretty relaxed prom, luckily. The theme this year was "Blacklight Fantasy," which was pretty cool. The DJ didn't suck that much, and was reasonable about taking requests. I was even able to get him to hook my iPod up so we could play "Piano Man" and yell along. I was surprised to find out later on that this year had the greatest turn-out for a prom yet, because there were still very few people there. I had a lot of fun, because a bunch of my friends were there and I do better not in huge crowds and all that. I think Rachel was able to enjoy it too, albeit it not as much. The best music was played in the last half-hour or so, apparently because some students over-ran the DJ and I had forgotten my iPod back there. (I had been wondering who had such good taste in music, and apparently it's me, though I suppose I was just an enabler.)

The next day we hung around and went to see Spider-Man 3. My feelings about it can be summed up as: They did the best they could. There were just too many elements for them to work with. Something would happen and then not be followed up on for ten or so minutes. They shouldn't have had that many villains. Also: Emo-Spidey? Ridiculous. Topher Grace's voice for Venom? Also ridiculous. I enjoyed it, but it was no Spider-Man 1.

Monday I went to the Greek and Roman Games. Rachel couldn't go because she had surgery (wisdom teeth). But Ben and Gus and Gabo were there and some other people too. It was pretty fun. The score got tied at 12-12, and then the dirty Romans won the last event. The Greeks had a moral victory, I say. Afterwards I went home with Ben and Gus. I'm crashing at Ben's place for some undefined number of days for undefined reasons.

Tuesday I went with Ben's mom to pick him up from school and so I got a chance to wander around my old high school's campus a little bit. The only student to recognize me was a girl who I never had a class with or really even spoke to for more than 45 seconds, but had a crush on me freshman year. I went to drop in on my old advisor and had a nice talk with him. It was pretty weird being back there and also kind of stressful.

That's about it. I've been writing ridiculously long posts, but it all seems to be necessary. In case you missed it, I did publish my NCACS post.

A pox upon me

The past week has not been very eventful. Last Tuesday (not yesterday) I woke up itchy, with what appeared to be bug-bites littered around my body. I looked at myself and thought, wow, I know the weather turned warmer recently but I didn't think bugs would have hatched that quickly. I didn't think much of it and just tried to avoid scratching. The next day at school, I overheard a kid mention how he'd been absent for chickenpox. And I thought, oh, damn.

Sure enough, I had contracted the 'pox. I had supposedly been immunized against it when I was younger, but it's evidently not a 100% thing. I was fortunate in that I got it very mildly. Benedryl helped a whole lot with the itchiness, Tylenol helped with the feverishness and headaches, so I really just had to deal with feeling really tired and generally kind of gross. Today will be the first time I've left the property in a week. Luckily it's spring break so I haven't missed much school.

I passed the majority of the time watching movies, playing video games (really just Soul Calibur III), and reading. So here's a few movie micro-reviews.

• Lethal Weapons 1 & 2 - Mediocre. Maybe I would have liked them better if I had watched less Law & Order as a lad and wasn't taking a law class in school. So little respect for protocol or due process, to such an unbelievable extent.
• Total Recall - The best, and only, movie I've watched with a main character named Doug. That made it kind of weird for me when I was watching it. I enjoyed it though, really decent sfx given when it came out.
• Office Space - A classic. The third time I've seen it, and it's just as good.
• Andy Barker, P.I. - Not actually a movie, but a new TV show. It's good though. I like Andy Richter and Tony Hale, the actors are good, and the writing is too.

I have also listened enough to the new Modest Mouse album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, to pass judgment upon it. I don't like it as much as their last two albums, but it's still pretty good, and I think it's worth picking up if you like them. I don't find the melodies in it as compelling, and the vocal style is more often of the kind that I disliked in their older stuff, but that's really a taste thing. Of any song on it, I'd recommend "Missed the Boat" to listen to.

On Monday Rachel came by and dropped off some headphones I had left by accident at her house last time I was over. We walked around a bit before she had to go. Then yesterday she came over again for a little bit. We would have gone out, but there were circumstances preventing me (I wasn't feeling very good and it was part of my punishment from last week). It was a nice day so we sat outside on my balcony and talked. It was last week or the week before but she asked me to escort her to her prom this year and I agreed. So I've got that to look forward to.

Monday night my mom, sister, and I attempted to have a Passover Seder. It wasn't flawless, but we tried. We got the food more or less right, we did what of the readings we could, and although the whole thing was pretty jerry-rigged, it was a nice night. If any of us had taken it more seriously, there would have been some serious disappointment and/or offense taken. But we didn't, so it was good.

I've also spent a lot of time working on my iBook, which I finally had fixed and got back after it broke in whatever, December. I backed up the hard drive, properly this time, wiped it, and tried to reinstall Mac OS 10.4. Unfortunately, at some point my install DVD got scratched up and so I kept getting errors during install. I bought a disk repair kit, and used it repeatedly, but it didn't help. I eventually managed to get it to work by only choosing to install the absolute basics. I'm still working on getting all of my applications and settings and such on it. It's running really nicely, especially given it's going on six years old.

I've also been working on going through and adding labels to some posts. Given the 200+ posts on this blog, I can't imagine I'll finish that task for quite some time. I'm just waiting until I find myself with a hunk of time, nothing better to do, and I'm in a nice, OCD mood.

Start of spring

I'm posting at a more or less consistent once-per-month pace, but I've noticed that the posts in question are just hideously long. I think I'm going to try and institute a once-per-week policy instead. With any luck I can squeeze enough out of a week to make a post.

Monday I got the new Andrew Bird album, Armchair Apocrypha, in the mail. I've listened to it 10+ times since then. Yeah it's pretty amazing. I wouldn't say it's as good as & the Mysterious Production of Eggs, but given that that was a pretty much perfect album, you've got to be willing to cut some slack. There's a good interview with Andrew Bird over at the Onion's A.V. Club.

There's an interesting atmospheric difference between the two albums. I don't know the proper language to describe it, but I'll give it a shot. In Eggs, when I listen to it, I pretty much picture my head as a dark parlor room with me standing in the middle and Andrew Bird playing in my ear. It's a contained, private sort of feeling. In Apocrypha, it's different. Rather than there being that sort of contained feeling, it's like I'm in that same parlor room, but the roof's been taken off and the universe is pouring in. It's something in the acoustics of the album, I can tell, that make it sound open-air somehow. It makes me almost agoraphobic.

It's an amazing album, though. It's crazy, so many bands that I like have already released albums or are releasing them later on this year. Air, the Apples in Stereo, Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, the Shins, all have new albums out. Once I've listened to them a bunch more I'll probably post up some kind of review.

On Tuesday I finally got my learner's permit. I'm not sure what I would have done if there had been another set-back or if I had failed the test or something. Amazingly, things worked out and I walked out of the DMV triumphantly. It was made all the sweeter by the knowledge that Ben had failed his permit test earlier that day (although he got it the next).

Wednesday was the official first day of spring. I didn't get to enjoy really anything seasonal about it, but it was just a good day in general. Good things happened at school and after school and all that. Thursday was also pretty great. The weather was just beautiful and I had my first driving lesson. My mom took us over to a parking lot and I drove around it for a while and familiarized myself with the controls and habits and suchlike. This driving thing doesn't seem like it's as hard as maybe I thought it would be. Except for parallel parking, that would appear to be as heinous as I ever imagined. Then again, it was my first time actually driving, so I don't suppose I should expect too much.

Friday I went to school and hung out with Rachel for a bit afterwards. On Saturday I went over to Gabo's house to model for an oil painting. Unfortunately, I was oppressed into remaining clothed. Gabrielle is doing it for an art class but she said after the semester's over she'll give it to me. Were I to have a fireplace, I would hang it over it. I suppose I'll settle with hanging it over my bed, or across from it so I see it first thing in the morning.

After I got home from Gabo's I did some philosophy work. Fun stuff. After concentrating on that for a while, Rachel came over. We were going to watch Little Miss Sunshine with my mom, sister, and sister's boyfriend, but while we were waiting one of Rachel's friends called up and said they were going to be seeing 300 at the local multiplex. I'd watched LMS pretty recently and heard a lot of hype about 300, plus I've been fascinated with Sparta since I was taught about the Battle of Thermopylae in fifth grade. So we drove out and saw it.

I thought it was a pretty decent flick. I haven't read the graphic novel, so I can't really compare the movie to it. Nevertheless, I thought the cinematography was pretty cool. The acting was good. And it's awesome because Spartans really were as bad-ass as they were in the movie. Obviously, there were a load of historical inaccuracies, but none that I couldn't really accept as cinematic exaggerations. I did have some trouble with the gore. Not with the quantity so much as the inconsistency. There was a lot of it, but they didn't take it all the way re: decapitation etc. Not that I'm complaining, exactly.

Unfortunately, while I honestly felt it wasn't such a big deal for me to skip the pseudo-family gathering, my mom felt otherwise. I was planning on seeing Chris on Sunday but found myself grounded. I feel it's a little unfair to be punished when I hadn't knowledgeably been disobedient, but my appeal was rejected.

I've been doing some mechanical work on the blog and I've been trying to update it for all the New Blogger fanciness but I'm running into some difficulties. Bear with me, please.
Edit: Turns out Blogger is just giving the shaft to its users who publish by FTP. Nice.

Tesla could kick Edison's ass

It's Nikola Tesla's 150th birthday!

10 July 2006 marks what would be the 150th birthday of the great inventor Nikola Tesla. For those who could make it, Tesla is immortalized as a statue at Niagara, New York depicting the master of lighting; a Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Serbia; and he is featured on the Serbian 100 dinar banknote. For those who cannot reach such exotic locales, later this year a movie by Christopher Nolan (who really should be working on a follow up to “Batman Begins”) will depict David Bowie as the good Mr Tesla.

David frikkin' Bowie! As Tesla! I can basically think of nothing better.