all falls down

Kanye West - All Falls Down (Live) (pops)

It's almost over.

One more day of regular classes, then four (hopefully three) tests, and I'm done for a month.

I figured out my grades for the final. I need at least a 72 to get an A in Spanish, and I need to get at least a 68 to get an A in World Civ.

Communication shouldn't be a problem, but Psych will kill me if I have to take the final. I should exempt out, but if I don't, I'll at least have all week to study for it, because it's on Friday.

I need to listen to more music. I've been so busy these past few weeks that I haven't even listened to my Last.FM station in two weeks. I feel bad, because I really like music, and being too busy for it is kind of depressing.

My cat has transitioned from "all outdoor" to "outdoor when we don't feel like messing with her". So she's outside for most of the day, but she usually gets let in in the evening after dinner. She's explored the entire house (except my room, because there are too many exposed electrical playthings). We blocked off the few places she can't go, and now we just let her roam and hope she comes when she gets called.

Which is weird. She is the only cat I've ever known that comes when you call her and follows vocal commands. Most cats are too independent for that. She basically sleeps and eats all day, so maybe she figures she's got a good thing going.

Well, that's it. Tune in next week when I'm in the middle of Exams Week and I will have even less time to put anything down here than I do now.

anything but down

Sheryl Crow - Anything but Down (pops)

You know, if you were to "Tom Petty"-fy this song, it could really kick ass. You know, male vocal, more guitar, harder rhythm section, more Southern accent. Then again, those last three apply to pretty much every song ever.

Anyway, here's a survey.

-------

1. Honestly, what color is your underwear? White

2. Honestly, whats on your mind right now? Ricky Williams getting suspended again. (ESPNews is on in the background.)

3. Honestly, what are you doing right now? Typing this. (Whoa. Meta.)

4. Honestly what did you do today? Went to class. That's about it.

5. Honestly, do you think you are attractive? Maybe on a good day. Usually, no.

6. Honestly, have you done something bad today? Define "bad". Killed someone? No. Almost cut someone off in traffic? Yes.

7. Honestly, do you watch disney channel? Only Toon Disney, and only when they show The Tick or X-Men. (Such a nerd.)

8. Honestly, are you jealous of someone right now? Not really. I'm envious of some of their possessions or their relationships or their social standing, something like that, but not of the entire person, because everybody's got their something that's really messed up.

9. Honestly, what makes you happy most of the time? Lucha, no work to do, and maybe a really good cheeseburger every once in a while.

10. Honestly, do you bite your nails? Nope. Trim them with a set of clippers.

11. Honestly, what is your mood right now? Tired.

12. Honestly, have you had an eating disorder? Nope. I actually eat a normal, fairly healthy diet. I have a horrible metabolism, compounded by my general apathy towards movement.

13. Honestly, do you want to see someone this very minute? Yes.

14. Honestly, do you have a deep dark secret? I open-mouth kissed a horse once.

15. Honestly, do you hate someone right now? Yes. And they most likely have no idea. It's better that way.

16. Honestly, who/what do you want to hug right now? That would be the person who I got this survey from, because I didn't do anything for her birthday besides the obligatory lame e-card.

17. Honestly, are you loyal? To a fault. You turn on me, though, and I'm taking everybody with me.

18. Honestly, are you in denial? Not really. Though, if you're in real denial, wouldn't you deny being in denial?

19. Honestly, have you recently thought of something forbidden? Yes. The Lambada.

20. Honestly, who is/are your best friend(s)? Several people who I never see anymore. So, technically, no one.

21. Honestly, do you like someone? Yes. Always. Not always the same person, but I always am deeply in like.

22. Honestly does anyone like you? Not that I know of. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

23. Honestly, is it going anywhere with them? N/A

24. Honestly, do you smoke weed? Nope.

25. Honestly, do you smoke cigarettes? Nope.

26. Honestly, do you do drugs? Just the ones my doctor gives me.

27. Honestly, have you ever drank alcohol? Only in cough syrup form.

-------

There, was that so hard?

down with the sickness

Disturbed - Down With The Sickness (pops)

I've been sick. That's why I haven't posted. Wednesday night my throat started to get sore, and by Thursday it was so sore I could barely talk. Luckily, on Friday my classes got cancelled/deemed unimportant, so I stayed home and slept/lounged.

I'm just now to the point where I'm feeling better. And just in time, too, because I have a ton of homework for an upcoming Spanish test. Plus, I've got a Psych test Monday and a poster presentation due Wednesday.

Then, next week, the fun really starts because it's Finals week. Awesome. Hopefully, I should only have three to take, and only two are anything to worry about. The Spanish is going to be an absolute killer, and World Civ is going to suck about as much.

On the plus side, we get to see how well I can BS about Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism in contrast to my last test where I BS'ed on Christianity.

I'm going to go to sleep now and wake up early so I can make a bunch of graphs out of my twelve page paper. Then I get to listen to incomprehensible Spanish accents tell me how to say "I have died".

Remember kids: "He muerto."

beat of my heart

Hilary Duff - Beat of My Heart (pops)

The past few days have been a bit mixed. I'll explain.

First, I got my World Civ test back, and I somehow made a 92. I guess the power of coinflip test-taking is still alive and well.

My Spanish test has been pushed back to Tuesday, giving me five extra days to do my lab work.

My major porjects all got pushed back a day, whihc is nice.

My Psych class is canceled Friday because one of my classmates got accepted into a major regional conference for her research project, which is good because, obviously I get out of class, but also because I genuinely like her. She's a 49 year old mother of three who decided to go back to school solely because she wanted to enrich her life, and I like people like that. People who can't stand not learning are people I get along with.

I had a chance today to outline my political philosophy in one sentence. I think it's pretty nice: "I despise idiocy in all its forms." Quick, succinct, to the point.

Speaking of which, we're probably going to turn Iran into a glass parking lot before this thing's all over with, aren't we? "Exploring all options" isn't exactly comforting.

You've gotten to this point, and you're wondering, "He said it was a mixed few days. So far, I've only seen good stuff. WTF?"

Well, when you have a lot of good things happen to you at once, you know a hell of a bad thing's right around the corner. This one's a humdinger.

My cousin's cancer is probably back. He's my father's sister's second child. He had large cell lymphoma when he was eight or so, but it went away fairly quickly with chemo, and he hasn't really had any problems since. Now he's 22, and he'd been having abdominal pains for a couple days. He went to the doctor, thinking it might be his asthma, or maybe (at worst) appendicitis. Turns out, his platelet count was extremely low, and he needed to be sent to Grady as soon as possible. But thanks to the wonderful American insurance system, he's been having to wait all weekend to get in to see anyone at Grady. He was specifically told not to shave, go out, or do anything that could potentially cause him to get cut, because he could bleed out in minutes. Yet they couldn't get him to a hospital where he could see what exactly was wrong.

So the entire family's stressed out. My immediate family and my grandmother are supposed to be the only ones that know, but that lasted about a day and a half (wasn't me that leaked). Now everyone in the extended family above the age of 10 knows what's going on, and freak-outs of epic proportions are due any day.

I just hope the results for his initial tests are back soon. Not knowing is millions of times worse than knowing.

Fun times for everybody. So how was your weekend? Better than mine, I hope.

copperhead road

Steve Earle - Copperhead Road (pops)

300th Post! Yay!

In honor of such a storied occasion, I'm going to keep this one short.

Well, not so much that it's the 300th post, but that I'm super busy. I've got a little work left on everything, plus some lab work for Spanish (due Thursday).

I'll try to do better once school gets out, okay? May 4th is my last day (I think), so get ready to lock up your women and your liquor. Okay, just your women.

Have fun between now and Tuesday (my projected next post).

bang and blame

R.E.M. - Bang and Blame (pops)

Today kind of sucked.

I took the massive test in World Civ, over material which, you know, she didn't teach.

It would be different if I were the only one who thought that, but I'm definitely not. An informal poll of the class says she's gone from being merely ineffectual to being actively harmful.

According to the Dilbert division of management styles, this is not a good sign. Of the four types of bosses, active evil is by far the worst. Active good is best, then inactive evil and inactive good are tied for second. So far, the Dilbert management principles haven't steered me wrong, so I continue to believe in them.

As an aside, if anyone wants to buy me the Dilbert DVD set, go right ahead. You can go through my Amazon wishlist and have it sent directly to me. The link's on the sidebar.

On the good side of today, I actually understood everything in Spanish class, and I'm to the point where I can watch the news on Univision and understand 90% of it. Don't ask me to speak Spanish, though. That, I suck at.

More importantly today, I also got my HGD paper done. Barring any final revisions the prof makes me make, I'm done except for the posterboard presentation. Since that's on the 26th, I get to kind of sail free for a while in there.

I need to work on my group presentation for Communications. I got assigned the "Art" group, and since I'm such a natural leader (*ahem*), I got to subdivide everything out so that I get to cover music. Awesome. I kind of have a background in music, so that's pretty nice. Every once in a while, it pays to take charge. Also, the other groups are kind of imploding all on their own, so my group looks a lot better in comparison. Schadenfreude for the win.

My cat (who desperately needs a new name) seems to be back to stay. She's a scrapper, and seems to win every fight with the other, not-so-friendly neighborhood cats. Hey, the other cats had their chance, but Here was the only one who came up to us to let us pet her. Therefore, she gets the food and the attention. Seems only fair. Plus, Here is by far the most scrawny of the neighborhood cats.

I think that's it. Be sure to keep reading the new-and-continually-improving LuchaWiki (link on sidebar). It's growing every day, and I'm doing my part by filling out info for the Japanese and non-Mexican North Americans. If you have any expertise, or can just copy information from Wikipedia, please help.

See you Thursday (hopefully).

not pretty enough

Kasey Chambers - Not Pretty Enough (live) (opens in Windows Media Player)

I have a psycho teacher.

Well, one psycho teacher, one teacher who means well but is misguided, and one who is really nice but gives a ton of work that probably isn't all necessary.

All three have conspired together (I assume) to form a dark cabal bent on making my life suck for a couple of weeks.

Three major, grade-altering projects, all due in a span of two days. Plus at least two Spanish tests, two World Civ tests, one Speech test and one HGD test within the next three weeks.

Have I mentioned that this time of year sucks. It's called a pacing guide, and it's there to ensure this kind of stuff doesn't happen. Follow it, and all will be well. Write some extra time into the guide, so maybe the students can have a break a couple of times during the year.

So in essence, grrr.

Also, my family has adopted a cat, or rather it adopted us. It showed up last week, and so far it's here most of every day. The twisted sense of humor in our house has led to her name: "Here".

As in, "Here, kitty, kitty".

We were going to name her "Bucky", after Bucky D. Katt of Get Fuzzy fame, but she turned out to be a she, and "Bucky" doesn't work for a female cat.

Again, twisted sense of humor.

She is like a dog in that she comes running off the porch and greets me when I get out of my car. And I don't even smell like cat food. I have never had a cat do this. Ever. Maybe a weird cat for a weird family.

Anyway, that's it for this week. Tune in next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

do you realize?

The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize? (pops)

How's it hanging?

I tried to actually do something in the time between my last post and this one. I'm not sure I succeeded, but here's what happened.

Showtime had a free preview weekend. This is the only time I usually get to watch semi-recent movies, because theatres usually suck and I never have time to go to the rental place. I watched a few movies, to say the least.

Number one was Saw. I'm not usually a horror guy, so this was a little out of my element. Still, it was a good movie if you ignore a couple of plot points. One, why didn't Larry, a doctor, notice the guy in the room was breathing? Two, why did he tie off his leg at the ankle when he should have tied it off at the femoral artery? Much less blood loss that way. Anyway, Saw was a good psychological-style thriller, but the Rashomon deal is kind of played out. The kills, which were the reason most people saw the movie, were suitably gory so mission accomplished overall.

I watched Walking Tall. A nice, simple action movie. It doesn't try to really be anything it's not, so in my mind it works. Dwayne is perfectly servicable as an action star. The plot is simple, and if you overthink it, is full of holes, but this is the kind of movie where thinking is bad. Overall, thumbs up.

I also saw Soul Plane. The less said about that, the better. One thing, though: Sofia Vergara, if you're reading this, please feel free to write, call, or email me. Pure hotness.

Finally, I watched Fahrenheit 9/11. Yeah, it's biased, counter-jingoistic, anti-authoritarian propaganda, but the source material wasn't fabricated out of thin air. Michael Moore's probably blowing a lot of little things way out of proportion, but I don't believe in coincidences that big. Independent investigations were absolutely necessary, and the lack of such investigations was unprecedented and conspicuous. Something's rotten in Denmark. The movie is okay for a documentary, but Moore knows when to heighten drama and add levity. He knmows his stuff. Thumbs up.

So that's it. You've got your three and a half movie reviews. Now I'm going to go do homework for a couple of days. Three presentations, due all on the same day. Awesome.