The department that occupies most of this floor, at work, has decorated with a theme for today. The theme is Hillbilly Wedding. I want to die.
Month: October 2005
I make a very convincing Nazi
Lisa posted it way first, the how-fast-can-we-make-a-photocomic version (my estimate: five minutes in toto). I am a sneaky person who had the advantage of the original raw files to work with, so here’s mine, an hour and a half of work later:
Raiders of the Lost Ark in Three Panels
(SPOILERS)
My cousin Bruce came home Friday, for the first time since his kidney failed and he suffered acute pancreatitis. The survival rate for the severity of his illness is, they say, almost as bad as it gets. Bruce is a statistic (the only good kind).
I am ashamed to admit that while I wrote to Bruce, I never made time to visit him in the hospital in Indianapolis. My life experience has taught me to dislike and fear hospitals; I know that’s nothing next to what Bruce must feel now. I’m just glad he’s home.
Uncle Brendan Reviews Things You Won’t Buy
Two months ago I promised to talk about my Koss pocket equalizer, and I never did.
In short: it’s good! It doesn’t quite provide as much bass as the full bass boost function on my CD player, but then there’s not as much bass in an mp3 as there is on a CD. With the treble and midrange set at like 80% and the bass at 200%, though, I find the audio quality significantly improved. It works fine with rechargeable batteries; since my Shuffle is already rechargeable, that means a significant savings over my CD player (which ate only alkaline). I profess myself satisfied.
The thing is actually bigger than the Shuffle, as expected, but they still fit in my breast pocket together. There’s a little hiss, but it’s only detectable in quiet places. More significant is the fact that unlike my headphones and mp3 player, the equalizer is unshielded, and evidently contains metal elements long enough to pick up some kind of radio. This usually isn’t a problem, except a) near power lines, b) near big flat buildings that bounce lots of radio at you, and c) when my cell phone goes off. It really sucks when my cell phone goes off. It does the DAT-DT-DT-DAT bursts of white noise, like a hideous ringtone just for me! At least I don’t miss calls anymore.
Someday I’ll get a real mp3 player with an integrated equalizer, but until then the Koss equalizer is worth its annoyances. One thumb up.
When I was in fourth grade at St. Mark Elementary, a once-fine school now under the purview of fools, there was a pair of brothers a year or two older than me–both in the same grade. I don’t remember their names, which were pretty generic, like Joe and John or something. Also in their grade was a kid named Ricky, who pretty obviously had a learning disability.
Pretty much the only reason I remember these kids is that at lunch, most days, Joe and John would tease Ricky with essentially the same patter, day after day. I knew what they were doing was wrong, but I was very small and very timid, and anyway if I could hear what they were saying in that tiny lunchroom then so could the supervising adults.
The routine went something like this. Joe, the (much) larger brother, would lean over and mutter something in John’s ear. John, who did almost all the talking, would prod Ricky and ask him whether he liked a big’un.
Ricky would shake his head and laugh.
John would ask again, to see if Ricky was sure.
“Yeah,” Ricky would say, laughing harder. “Okay. Yeah. Yeah.”
Joe and John would laugh too. Sometimes John would turn and announce to the room that Ricky had confirmed his affection for a big’un.
John would continue the interview, asking Ricky to if he liked lamb fries.
Ricky, laughing louder and in exactly the same tone, would say “Yeah. Yeah. No. No I don’t.”
Ricky, John would repeat, do you like them lamb fries.
Ricky would laugh harder yet, the way people laugh when they think laughing is what they’re supposed to do. He would be laughing too hard to speak by now, so he’d just nod, up and down and up and down. Joe and John would exchange high fives.
I could tell by the tone of the participants that this was not a kind thing to do. I tried to imagine what big’uns and lamb fries could be; I came up with vague and unsettling and unhappy ideas. I didn’t understand the jokes, but I knew I would one day.
I’m twenty-four with Master’s degree and I have no idea what they were talking about.
Update 10.24.2005 1544 hrs: The Internet has informed me that lamb fries are fried lamb testicles, and that a big’un refers to, well, you can probably deduce that from context.
Thanks, the Internet.
I lost my phone in maybe the stupidest way possible. It is not coming back. I have a new one, and I still have the same number, but I have very, very little of my old contact information. I got some numbers off Facebook, and I will get those that haven’t changed in two years off my old Sprint phone.
But that’s still not most of the people I know. So! If you have talked to me on the telephone before, or want to talk to me on the telephone now, or would like to talk to me on the telephone someday, I’d like you to call me so I can store your number. Remember, my number is the same! (If you don’t get me, leave a message so I know what name to put on it.) You can also email me your number. Put your address in there too. Maybe a couple bucks. You got some potato chips? I could go for some potato chips.
There’s a woman who works in my building whose name I don’t want to type exactly, for fear of Google, but which is pronounced “Ah NET tuh.” Short E. Her last name is Doss.
A few minutes ago, I heard over the building intercom: “Anita Doss, please dial zero… Anita Doss, please dial zero.”
A couple minutes later, this time in an impatient tone: “Anita Doss, please dial zero… REPEAT, Anita Doss, please dial zero.”
Five minutes pass. Then, sounding harrassed: “Anita DESS, please dial zero…”
When I put on Facebook that my music preference was “whatever you liked two years ago,” I wasn’t kidding. I finally bothered to count this morning and noticed that “Hey Ya” is in 22/24 time. And I’m getting really into the original Extraordinary Machine, the unreleased Fiona Apple album that leaked onto the interweb and got everybody all hot and bothered in 2003. Now the album has been retooled and actually released, and I’m just starting to listen to the stuff I ripped off Maria’s pirated CD that she got from Graham.
Expect a lot of stories that sound like Fiona Apple in a week or so, when I cycle through my current buffer. The buffer is why yesterday’s and next Wednesday’s stories are about outer space, because last week I was getting really into Firefly (on which I was a little behind–it came out in 2002).
In other stuff about music, I can’t stand Harvey Danger, so I’m upset that I have to buy their album. Values versus taste! Does anybody want a Harvey Danger album for a Christmas present?
Maria and I are bringing Ian home from LA for Thanksgiving, so he can eat food that is not peanut butter or jelly. It turns out that plane tickets around that time cost some money! We have the flight already reserved; he’ll leave early Wednesday morning, the 23rd, and return Sunday.
If you would like to help make Ian come home for Thanksgiving, we would really like it if you’d give us some ten or twenty bucks. Cash or checks are fine, and I can give you my mailing address if you have to mail a check. We’ll have a card for him that you can sign and I will even make you out a receipt.
He won’t be around for Tuesday Night Basketball, so maybe we can have a special-occasion Basketball on a different night instead. I think that would be fun. Imagine that it is like a charity benefit party, and you can deduct its cost from your taxes! Except you can’t, but come on, like you pay taxes anyway.
On Saturday night, Maria, Michael and I went out and saw Serenity.
On Sunday, we went right back out and saw it again.