Category: Roommates

Post Road Trip Day Something

February 23, 2004 /

I cleaned a lot of plates in Berkeley, pumped a lot of pain in the EFF offices. But I never saw the good side of the city… until I played Illuminati with Leonard, Seth and Zack while Sumana danced to songs about shell accounts.

Actually I saw several very neat sides of the city, including BART (which beats the tar out of TARC, I’m afraid, leaving it with one measly C) and Salon Central. I missed out on the party at City Hall, but I sure heard a lot about it. The weather was gorgeous, and I made new friends (Jacob from Alaska is three, and he and I played hide-and-seek from O’Hare to Louisville).

Recent excursions into Powellian hyperbole notwithstanding, I had a freaking great time in California, thanks entirely to my kind and generous hosts. Even though I’ve been up for about 30 hours trying to grab the tail end of all the work I missed, I don’t regret a thing, and I can’t wait to go back. Maria and I spent a good chunk of yesterday (when I should have been, um, grabbing the aforementioned work-tail) making the first real arrangements for this summer’s Calicomicon journey. The Five Lords of the Texas Eagle will sow terror and reap, um, comic books!

February 12, 2004 /

Maria wants me to inform you that that’s the Valentine’s Day IdiotCam©, up above. Mostly we both just like it because there’s chocolate involved. Chocolate!

February 5, 2004 /

Lady In The Next Cube must be having a rough day–she turned on the radio at 0900 and hasn’t turned it off since, which means that since the batteries are dead on my Discman, we both get to enjoy it. As I told Maria, I now understand that they really meant Soft Rock Music. All Day Long.

So yeah, basically I’ve spent the day trying to decide whether I could crash through the plate-glass window wall, and if the resulting fall would kill me. Soft Rock Hits. All Day Long. I didn’t think I was going to make it, but then–could it be? Yes!

I was saved by Wham!. Careless Whisper came on and revived my flagging spirits by reminding me of the BNL live cover to which Jon and I used to rock out in college. Glory be.

It was quickly erased by Sheryl Crow, of course, but still.

Pain is A-ALL YOU’LL FI-I-IND!

February 2, 2004 /

I wear a winter hat in the winter–the kind of hat variously referred to as a wool hat, a skiing hat, a skull beanie or a sipple cap. You know what I mean. Mine is dark blue and says GUSTER on the front. It keeps keep me warm very nicely, but because I have ridiculously fine hair, removing it causes a static explosion–the kind of wildly divergent hairdo that made me a pariah for life in middle school and now causes my roommate no end of amusement.

The other day in Prob ‘n’ Stat, I looked around the class at perfect coifs and wondered if anyone else there wore my kind of hat. If so, how did they keep–wait! There were people wearing wool hats! They apparently just never take them off all day.

That’s brilliant!

February 1, 2004 /
Maria: Brendan, you really are getting good at frying sweet and sour chicken. I like eating it when you make it, and I appreciate your making dinner tonight. I just have one request.
Me: (standing in the blasted, grease-spattered wreckage of our kitchen) Yeah?
Maria: Don’t do it.

Calling All Puppies

February 1, 2004 /

Maria asks me to mention that her birthday is on Thursday, and ergo, someone should buy her a puppy. She wants a puppy. I request the same thing, with the addendum that you keep it at your own house, and also feed and water and take care of it and pay for its shots.

Just… just get your own puppy.

January 20, 2004 /

Maria and I played the “Try To Name All 50 States” game a little bit ago. In eighth grade (which, incidentally, is when I acquired my spelling block about the word Massechuse- Massachusetts), I could have done that without batting an eye. Tonight, Maria got a perfect score. She beat me. By thirteen.

January 16, 2004 /

Last night I forced Ken to eat the worst chicken parmesan I’ve ever made (Maria, wisely, pleaded a weak stomach) and then we made DC come over and randomly watched Empire. Which, you know what? Is a pretty funny movie.

For instance, up until Cloud City, somebody dies every time Darth Vader is on camera. He strangles people who take responsibility, he strangles people through the TV screen, he strangles people while other people pretend not to notice. And then there’s the part where one of the Star Destroyers gets hit by an asteroid, and its captain in the little holo-display looks horrified and disappears, and Vader doesn’t bat an eye. Or doesn’t act like it, anyway. Finally, at the end, after they barely lose the Falcon, Admiral Piett (who’s been standing around nervously as others fall like wheat the whole movie) watches Vader walk off in a cold silence and just swallows once. The expression on his face is great.

Maybe that’s the problem: thinking about the last two movies, I can only remember two jokes that didn’t involve Jar Jar.

January 16, 2004 /
  1. The day before yesterday, Maria made carrot cake, and just moments ago, we used it to have carrot cake soup for breakfast.
  2. Yes.
  3. Oh God yes.