never seen an ep of 24, Lost or Heroes. Am I missing out?

Last week I had a unique and magnificent experience that caught me entirely off-guard.

A lovely friend of mine from out of town came to stay at my place the other Friday. We had gone out for a fun dinner with a mutual friend that night and I actualy really liked the way the visit was capped off (with another mutual friend) the following night but there was a bit in the middle which was my fave.

We sat on my floor in my freshly cleaned and organized (first time since I moved in at the beginning of November) room and watched two episodes of Frasier. Apparently she thinks Frasier is hilarious. (44) [Interesting fact which made the whole thing a little bit sweeter - she thinks it's funny for the same reason my dad thinks it's funny and I also NEVER expected to hear that kind of thing from him. Delight!] I suggested that or CSI Miami or Charlie Brown Christmas and she said "meh" to all three. I also offered her to sleep early but everything was a "meh" or a "maybe" or a "whatever". That didn't bother me in the way that maybe it looks like it did - I just wanted to be able to do something that SHE would enjoy. I could really go any which way.

Oh boy. I don't want to go into too much detail because I'm not sure I could even capture it. I guess it's been a long time since I've enjoyed TV with anyone and it's even better because she's not exactly a "TV person". I was completely caught off-guard and completely enthralled.

I think we also watched CSI: NY afterward which can be SO FUN with people who get into it because you talk and brainstorm and interact with the show, trying to help the investigators solve the crime. Ahh, glorious. (45)


I feel weird. I think I'm a little tired of gifts. It feels like it's been long week. Tired of calculating, planning, wondering, wishing...and there are birthdays around the corner which tire me at the thought. That being said, there are ABSOLUTELY worse things to be tired of.

Atlanta

Things I like*

-"Home Improvement"
-cantaloupe
-books that force me to make time to read them
-God's grace toward me
-that Christmas is solid
-my family
-reprieve, relief, chance

*while I am trying to be mindful of how freely I use the word "love", in this case "like" really means "love"

Things I like

-finding the gift that makes me say, "Badabang!"
-interest relief, courtesy of the National Student Loan Service Centre
-unexpected telephone calls from Sudan (BOOYA!)
-people who go away for Christhams and leave their nice house for us to use

Well... am I the last person to discover that Seth Meyers' brother, Josh Meyers, is on MAD TV? This is greatness..two brothers on rivaling late-night sketch/satire American comedy shows?? Great!

I think last Christmas is going to be better than this one. I should be more optimistic.
I should get my hypocritical head out of the Walgreens holiday model and back into the reality of my life.

ucgh.

I can't believe it. What I predicted came true and another brutal wave of Regret washes over me.

We should have participated in 10 different conferences over the past twelve weeks: five worth 5% and five worth 1% for a total of 30% of our grade.

I a) didn't keep up with the readings and b) felt quite intimidated the few times I was close with the readings and wanted to give it a shot. Then it became too late and I was left with three conference activities. Fifteen out of thirty didn't seem so bad but in reality, it's not that great.

Then I really looked at the postings
and reread the instructions

And discovered that I could have nailed it, especially if my work would be compared to other contributors'. I'm not sure it should have been compared but I feel like that happens anyway when you're looking at a discussion format.

Just got two of my marks back and found out I have 5 out of 5 both times. ...That means I should have tried before and done something...a 1 of 5 is better than a zero, it really is. Regret.
I want another chance and I won't get it.

"Oh God. - why do You do these things?"

I just internally asked reflexively.

Phew.
I scroll down to read other numbers on my statement and I'm thinking, "Really...why do You keep blessing me like this?" (43) It overwhelms me in a strange way. I can't even tell you.
I'm almost sad about it. Well...maybe if I weren't already in a sad mood, at the end of a sad day I'd feel better. I somehow doubt it because at this moment I'm entering the territory of the numb. Favorite place. Not...favorite place.
Sentence fragment.

Gosh, God, what? What are You getting at? I'm not ungrateful, I'm just thinking that there's something I've missed because You just won't stop. What are You trying to get me to do with these gifts. Help a brother out.
Thanks be to the God with so many beautiful names.
We been learning about them in smoup (small group) and I said them later tonight in a light-hearted context, all in a string but they really meant something to me for the first time. Beautiful names, rolling joyfully off my tongue. The God of so many glorious Names, wow.

I need His blessings and grace and SOMETHING this week. I need His help.

I have cable in my room. :|

I am so scary. (My brother used to say "scary" where he meant "scared".)

This has never happened before. I forgot about the fact that I own a TV when I moved over here cos I've just never needed to use it. I'm either living with someone who has a telev or I live somewhere without cabes.
I brought it over tonight from my friend's basement, pulled a coaxl out of a bin, plugged the telev into a socket I was sure didn't work and then hit the power button for kicks. Instantly I have channel 46, the Comedy Network, in glorious color.
The television in the cold, cold basement is on two of its last legs with weirdly blurry and poorly colored image. I went to that after two months of 42" HD and it was difficult but I was glad to descend from luxury and what was developing into snobbery. But now I'm really happy to have just a normal, average telev that's prolls about 15 years old but works fine.

Even now, the sound of cable programming in my bedroom is weirding me out something fierce. Like actually never, never have I had this. I get it when I sleep on the couch but that is another animal altogether, of course.

I'm hoping this will be more a blessing than a crutch. I hope it changes things for the gooder. The truth is, I think it will quite enable me to multitask in greatness.
Well....thanks, Jesus.

You know, I walk in the library and subconsciously try so hard to avoid getting static shocks...I touch the wood paneling on my way to the evelator after I've passed the security barriers.
But just now, after a three-minute jaunt through the book stacks as I take a telephone call, I stopped briefly at the water fountain and got zapped. You know what? I enjoyed the throw-back. It wasn't one of those painful shocks, either, the one where you SEE the electricity jump, blue and white, from the metal to your hand.
Memories!

Îa Mauna Kea

Do struggling artists get a bad case of the "I told you so"s after they hit the big time?
I was thinking that if you get to the point where people tell you you're great and born to do X and talented, etc. etc., is there something in the back of your mind that, a little frustrated, murmurs, "Yes, I know that...I've been trying to tell you."
I wonder how many greats have given up before they got a chance. It's same as my wondering whether there's a faster runner in the world who lives in a country that can't send them to world or Olympic competitions. What if someone can do 100m in 8 seconds and we never hear from them? I guess it's not that important to know who runs the fastest hundred metres, and neither is it so important that all stellar performers are discovered. I still wonder.
I'm thinking of the scene in I, Robot (2004) when the main character, Spooner, finally gets proven correct which I will ruin if I quote it or re-create it further.
It's the moment when something you've been sure of but only had your testimony and your word to back it finally gets a slew of overwhelming indisputable proof. Yep. Like if the person you're accused of murdering walks into the courtroom during your trial (and you live in an age of DNA testing).

I feel frustrated on behalf of these others.

didn't realize til just this moment that the "trek" in Star Trek is....just a regular noun referring to something like a journey or a hike.

WOW. The things you learn when you pay attention.

I feel myself loosening up a bit, in some encouraging ways. My tongue is a little looser (not unbridled) and I'm relaxed. It's good.

I had my first can of Red Bull on Saturday. I would have been glad to go my entire life without having ever touched the stuff. When it first hit the market, I was quick to pronounce it a crutch of the weak. Either you can stay awake or you can't.

Saturday was Day Two in a row of not enough sleep (2 1/2 hours at night and one 4-hour nap, which I guess makes an average of 4.5 hours per night) and Sunday needed to be early and Saturday had to be late, mostly for a course assignment. I didn't trust myself to go home and I didn't dare fathom a nap. So...I went to Shopper Drug Mart and paid $2.49 for the little blue & silver can.

Thank the Lord it didn't taste as terrible as I'd assumed it would have to - like cough syrup or anything else medicinal/important that works. In fact, it was fine. I was really expecting to go sproinngg! quite quickly but it took about a quarter of the can for me to at least think I was feeling something. I drank the whole think fast because I had become immediately skeptical that it would work at all and wanted to get it over with.
It was.. a slight elevation but it was enough to get me through. There were a few moments where my legs were upset that my brain was pretending they were less tired than they were and I did this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyR1BCfG3PY

I was listening to the radio and someone (in an ad or maybe just a DJ) said something about a caffeine crash and I said out loud, "I'm gonna crash??" I immediately laughed at myself because the tone was QUITE earnest, almost like the "Is it gonna be like this forever?" from David after Dentist.
I'm not a caffeine person. Yeees, I like me some soda pop but the caff never gets me me and I don't drink coffee so...I would not have expecting the powerful headache that befell me in the few hours before I went to bed.

All in all, an interesting experience and one I envision repeating every blue moon.

torn, in a way

Two powerful influences/two powerful pictures relating to American culture:

1) On The Colbert Report this evening, Colbert asked his guest, Woody Harrelson, if he could shave his head to show support for the troops. When Harrelson said yes, Colbert flashed this priceless, I-can't-believe-I-get-to-do-this look at the camera, before breaking character and reaching across the table to verify, "Are you serious?"
He ends up shaving the bit in the middle of Harrelson's head which has already started thinning which I assume was Colbert's way of cutting him a break. He stopped, and sat back down..laughed a bit and told Harrelson who he now resembled. (I really wish I remember who that was.)
Colbert spent much of the interview harping on Harrelson for being against the war and for starring in a new film that showed war to be so horrible that people at home would start realizing how bad it is and maybe want less to declare war on this thing and that.

So...it was much to my utter DELIGHT and SURPRIZE when, after the commercial break when Colbert usually says something obscure and finishes with, "G'night everybody!", we see him behind Harrelson's chair again, finishing the job.
Not only do I love that they're going the whole nine but they're singing the American National Anthem while doing it. This is the part where the cultural impact ends and but my personal entertainment continues and is amped up. They're singing in harmony -well, Colbert's singing a harmony, a really interesting one that I am guessing he learned as a boy - and Harrelson is a fine singer! As in, he holds that melody down TITE, son.
I'm amazed that he looks so calm (and proud!) while Colbert is actually doing a good job of buzzing and singing fine. I suppose the fact that they're both performers means they might not find things like this as difficult as say, those who don't perform for a living. OOf. I enjoyed it.

I'm forced to note how this scene makes perfect sense. One man calls another out, bravado on the line and the second accepts the challenge. They show solidarity with their soldiers in the armed forces and they show pride in the glory of their nation by singing its rousing praises.

Would ANY other country (culture) in the world do this? (Would we?)
Even if they did do it, would it mean the same? Would it be lofty and commonplace in the same moment? Would it be a statement and a laugh rolled up in one?


2) I was watching a PBS documentary called The Man Who Studies Murder and at one point the narrator mentions that the US is an "especially provincial kind of country and [it] tend[s] to know almost nothing about the rest of the world so most American people in Crime are shocked to even be told that their homicide rates are completely out of wak with the rest of the world."

He makes his point very effectively but possibly sneakily (in the same way Rick Mercer sometimes makes his points). He's at a firing range, a sort of training grounds for civilians who want to learn to handle firearms properly, and he shows a few clips of people talking about how violence in the US compares to violence in other countries around the world, and talking about why they decided to get the training that they're on the range for. They sound provincial, yes and they sound ridiculous -- maybe even deluded.
(I make the comparison to the Rick Mercer Report implying that great editing and selection of spokespeople can make a much tighter case than perhaps what reality and proper sampling would render.)

So I'm sitting there thinking, "Yep, I see the world reputation is entirely backed up by these people speaking for themselves. Do they not realize that the people they're talking about defending their property, family and selves against are...fellow Americans?" Why do they talk about their theoretical assailant as if they're not a real person or like this is a problem that's been externally imposed? A paper bag of poop left on your doorstep? Man, they aint even sound like they want violence or crime to decrease because they're happy to wield a gun.

Anyhow, this was the piece de resistance:

It's a monologue given by Dr. Ignatius A. Piazza II from the Training Institute at Front Sight Firearms (that's the "firing range" I was talking about before) to a room of maybe 20 to 30 people, some of which are young boys, maybe 13 at the oldest and very few (if not none - I didn't notice) of which were women.

"Now, we do not live in a violent society here in the United States. When's the last time you heard of a family being pulled from their home in broad daylight? The woman and daughter raped in the street; the man shot in the head. You ever hear of that happening in the United States? I never have.

"Does it happen in other parts of the world? All the time. But because we don't live in that kind of society, because MOST of you will die in your beds, fat and happy at a ripe old age, never having experienced someone trying to take your life.

"Now, when violence does occur, how much physical damage or humiliation are you willing to accept or to witness occur to another before you'll step up and stop it, using lethal force if necessary?

"What I want you to do is raise your hand up when you've made the decision to shoot - not talk - shoot.

[narrating]"'He reaches into his pocket and he takes out some shotgun shells [one guy raises his hand; about 8 others raise their hand, seeing his] and he starts putting them into the magazine tube. [a few more raise their hands] He racks the action and he's looking around and he says, "There you are, you S.O.--[the final hands go up] BOOM-shh-ch, BOOM-shh-ch, BOOM-shh-ch..."' OK, all your hands are up. ...That's good."

For the record, his tone was pretty even, unexcited; not seeming like he was being manipulative. This would be the first time in my life I would correctly identify propaganda without the help of anyone else. I was disgusted and still am.
("shh-ch" is how I write the sound of racking the action...or...I don't know terminology.)


So now I have these two contrasting excerpts (almost opposing) and I don't even know what to do.

post #654

I realized today that this month marks ten years that I've been playing the accordion. I later adjusted it to say that I have probably played for the equivalent of three years and then really just known how to play since November of 1999. How strange to think. It would be nice if I played like a ten-year veteran but it's simply not the case and I can't expect those results without putting in the effort.
I might say the same for piano where I've known how for nine years in September but I prolls have played for the equivalent of about 4 or 5 years. I am ashamed of this.

I'm also ashamed of the way I act in situations that involve discussing/making/performing/arranging/etc.-ing music. It's not right and it's not God-honoring. I'm terrible at this. I need help....and today must be the first day I really meant that. I've noticed before but, with no lash-back, it's hard to fully grasp the ugliness of what I'm doing.
I'm grasping it now. I'm not adding anything!

Pff.

I just need to stay away from microphones and stages and performing until I can play with my brother nicely.
Seriously...I think a time-out might be in order.


In the back of my mind, I'm lamenting all the things I have neglected to do for weeks or months on end. I think that I just don't have enough time. I think that no one knows how far behind I am in my reading, where else I've dropped the ball, ET CETERA, ET CETERA, ET CETERA.

But then, I'm writing a blog post right now.
that's not a priority.
not.....it is, to me. it really is. but it can't be prioritized above these other things if I'm going to also lament neglecting them. I can't have both.

What a wretched man I am!







Who will rescue me from this body of death?

"If the conduct of the men had been alarming in the boat, it became truly threatening when they had come aboard. They lay about the deck growling together in talk. The slightest order was received with a black look, and grudgingly and carelessly obeyed. Even the honest hands must have caught the infection, for there was not one man aboard to mend another. Mutiny, it was plain, hung over us like a thunder-cloud." (99-0)

Stevenson, Robert Louis. _Treasure Island_. London: The Aldine Press, 1957.

I donno; I just liked it. I'm starting to see why Stevenson is upheld and is in our canon. I mean, I appreciate that the book is good and that I like him but now I'm starting to see where he gets acclaim from the literary and lay world.
I remember having that moment with Shakespeare and I think it was in a third-year English course called Shakespearean Receptions. THAT was a good one with an excellent prof and a T.A. who looked like Jim Carrey.

"Couples Retreat" (2009)

One thing I can say about this film which I found intriguing is that it seemed to have in mind - or be directed at - a demographic that doesn't exist and this truth is actually mirrored in the pairings of actors who played the couples.

I'm still not sure what to make of it but I'm going to take some time to observe the trend first.

6.9/10

great.

Great - a close friend of mine very recently became engaged to be married. This is hugely exciting. I'm pumped.

Great - last night my three-year-old cousin infomed his mom that the spot between your nose and upper lip is called your "fuddle bone".

Great - today at Starbucks a man asked me, as he was leaving the table we'd shared, "¿habla español?" and I looked up apologetically and said, "no." And then in the next moments, as he confirms ("You don't speak...?") and says he's almost never wrong about this, noting that I have a Spanish face, I think, It would have been more convincing if I didn't understand a Spanish phrase asking whether I spoke the language. I found it fascinating that my brain just translated and delivered an answer without noticing the irony or whatever else.

Great - I was asked to stand up, during church today, welcomed home. It's....always nice to be remembered and enjoyed and corporately befriended.

I donno why, but this made my day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRIRTQ_k-Sg

(truth be told, I can think about four things that made me like it but...wow. I feel weird.)