Living the SLO Life

Well here I am, writing my first entry in over a week. Christmas came and went, New Years is on its way, and the start of winter quarter is fast approaching. But you know what? I don't think I'm really going to mind going back. Sure, I love being home...vacations are always good. And I love being able to see all of my favorite people here. But I do actually miss some of the people from up in SLO, and it will be good to see them again. Nonetheless, I'm sure I will thoroughly enjoy my last week at home.

Sorry for my lack of bloggage this week. For whatever reason, I haven't felt like writing every night. That said, I still don't feel much like writing. So I'm just going to write about a couple of interesting stories that I personally want to remember, and the rest of it I'm just going to leave up to my brain to remember. If you really want to know what else I did, you can ask me someday.

--I spent a large portion of last week playing trumpet outside of bookstores. Joanna, Jenna, Brig (or Andrew, if it's Sunday) and I stand out in front of Borders (or Barnes & Noble, if it's Sunday) and play various Christmas tunes, with a trumpet case conveniently set out in front of us to collect money from anyone willing to throw it. I enjoy spreading the Christmas cheer, and I made 100 bucks. So it's win-win. Woot. Just one interesting thing to note here: the first day we went out caroling was last Sunday, which turned out to be a mistake. Everyone and there grandmother was outside of a retail establishment belting out Christmas songs, and finding an unoccupied location proved to be quite the challenge. Borders? Australia-bound Poway clarinets. Vons? Madrigals. Albertson's? Women's Ensemble. Trader Joe's? No place to set up that isn't in the middle of the parking lot. Ralph's? Nobody, but the manager reports that someone has called ahead and will be coming soon. Yes, we drove to all of those places. Long story short, we finally settled at Barnes & Noble in Carmel Mountain. This wasn't our first choice...we prefer places like Borders: people who go there seem (to me, anyway) to be more relaxed and not in such a hurry. Those who go to Barnes & Noble are more of the kind who are on an errand...they want to get their book and get the heck out. They're the kind that will pretend to dig around in their purses to give them the excuse to not notice the talented musicians. At any rate, Sunday wasn't the best. We had our biggest day on (big shocker coming here) Christmas eve. The patrons of Borders donated a record-setting (for us, anyway) $160. So woot. The money is good, but I'd enjoy playing even if I didn't get free cash.

--On Wednesday (or perhaps it was Monday) after caroling, Jenna received a desperate call from Mitchell. An RB graduate who served in the military was returning that night, and the Royal Regiment was turning out to greet her upon arrival with the school fight song. But, no trumpets had shown up! Gasp! So the four of us jumped in our cars and got over to the RB Radisson as fast as we could, losing Brig in the process. (The trek from Carmel Mountain to the industrial park along West Bernardo Drive was made very difficult that night due to a ten-or-so-car pileup on the Rancho Bernardo Road I-15 offramp.) We arrived at the hotel twenty seconds or so behind the limo and the veteran, and we pulled up to the sound of the last repeat of the fight song. It was disappointing, but it was still a sight to see: the band playing, flags waving, and 50+ people who had turned up to welcome the veteran back. So it wasn't totally for naught. And hey, I got to go to the Elephant Bar with a bunch of my friends afterwards (after fighting traffic back to Borders to retrieve my wallet that I had left outside of the store).

All right, that's a couple of good stories. I know I didn't tell them all that well, but quite honestly I don't really want to be writing any of this. I know I'll be glad later that I did...but for now, I can't stand to write any more. So I'll have to talk to you later.

(Late) Merry Christmas,
Josh

mood: pretty good...nothing specific
music: a special on the Science Channel about causes/effects of traffic
location: my room, Dad's house, Ramona, CA

Hey! Does anyone want to buy my Prelude? I'm pretty sure we're asking too much money for it. I feel so out of place on AutoTrader because everyone else knows all the sell-your-car lingo...you know, pw's and cc and obo's and stuff. And I'm just some schmo who things his car is worth very much more than it actually is. Sigh. I swear I saw similar Preludes online for somewhere in that price range, but I guess not. Oh well...you are supposed to ask for more than you expect to get, right? We'll see. Seriously, though...if anyone wants to buy my car let me know.

So yeah, after writing yesterday morning I putzed around Dad's house for a few more hours, playing some more with his home automation. I figured out how to write programs, and I had all sorts of weird things happening. Open the garage door, the dining room lights dim. Close the front door when the kitchen windows were both open, the master bathroom lights go out. And if the phone rings, every light in the house goes to as bright as it gets. It was awesome. It sounds dumb, but I'm still convinced I (or anyone) could write some useful programs. I created a "night mode" that, with the touch of a button, turned off all the lights except for the hall and stairs, which dimmed to almost nothing. So see? Useful.

Dad and I went to Stir Fresh - that Mongolian grill by the RB library - for dinner. This is one of those places I have missed at Cal Poly, although I have heard rumors of a similar restaurant somewhere in SLO. But until I find it, I'm going to enjoy my Stir Fresh. So there.

From there I went to the BHMS/RBHS joint Christmas concert. I was quite impressed by both the middle school and the high school, although the music they played was quite predictable. (After all, it is a Christmas concert.) RBHS had to stop and start over in "Russian Christmas Music" thanks to the chime player's inability to count for three measures...this is the second year running that they've fallen apart at the Christmas concert (if you'll recall "The Eighth Candle" incident). The concert was, nevertheless, superb, as you would expect from Rancho Bernardo. I'm certainly in the Christmas spirit.

After the concert I had dinner with Stacie, Jenna, and Natalie at the Poway Denny's. (Actually, they had dinner, I had an oreo blender blaster.) I returned home by about 11 and stayed up late watching the finale of "The Apprentice" which Mom had recorded for me. I have mixed feelings on the turnout of it...but I'm sure that not many people reading this blog are overly interested in those. So, I'll just skip ahead to telling you all that I went to bed.

I got up at 8 this morning to get ready for Joanna to pick me up at 9. We headed over to the high school for a day chock full of musical delight. First we met Mrs. Todd and sat with her class to watch the first assembly (which the performing arts department puts on every year at this time, featuring the band, the orchestra, and choirs). The Christm...excuse me...holiday assembly is very much more enjoyable when you don't have to sit through it twice. Funny how that works out, huh? Following that exposition of musical talent, we sat through Mrs. Todd's intro. to business class, which happened to be watching The Santa Clause. (Mrs. Todd made the class writing some stuff about advertising down so that if anyone asked she could say that her class learned something that day.) Her class was off to fourth period in no time flat, and we chatted with her for a good twenty minutes (because, frankly, Mrs. Todd is awesome) until Joanna and I went over to the Carmel Mountain Costco for lunch. Upon return to the high school we found Carp's classroom and sat in there for 5th and 6th period, listening to his AP gov classes perform their political Christmas carols. Most of them were pretty amusing, but by the end of the day I was pretty darned sick of "I hate Bush, I like Kerry" (or vice versa) sung to the tune of "Frosty the Snowman." Joanna, Stacie, Tiffany Wells, and my rendition of "Feliz Navidad" still takes the cake, I have to say.

Joanna dropped me off at home after sticking around Carp's classroom to talk with Jenna for a few minutes. I decided it was high time to do something constructive, so I detailed my car. I spent about two hours scrubbing and vacuuming and windexing, and my Prelude is now cleaner than I have ever seen it. It was a pain in the butt, but maybe I can squeeze a couple more bucks out of the sale (if the sale ever happens). After pulling back into the garage, I was still in the mood to get stuff done, so I fixed all of the Christmas lights that had been displaced by the wind in the last couple of days. Woot.

I had breakfast...for dinner. I do enjoy my breakfast foods...

Lauren came over a little before 8, and - after playing with Tessie for a good half an hour - we drove over to Blockbuster to rent Mean Girls and also to Starbucks to pick up a caramel apple cider and a peppermint hot chocolate. We returned home, watched the movie, and Lauren went home. It was more exciting than I'm making it sound but there really isn't much more detail than that to get into.

And now I'm finishing off this entry. Hooray! I think I shall now go to bed, as I got up earlier than I would have liked to this morning. Good night.

Cheers,
Josh

mood: slightly worried about my used car sale
music: none
location: my room, Mom's house

Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
[Peter is trying to buy a coffin.]
Peter: "I'll take it, but I won't pay a cent over $60."
Salesman: "Sir, that casket costs $1000."
Peter: "70 bucks."
Salesman: "Huh?"
Peter: "2000 bucks."
Salesman: "That's twice what it costs--"
Peter: "40 bucks."
Salesman: "What?"
Brian: "He...he doesn't know how to haggle."

Yes, I know I haven't been too good about updating this thing recently, but to be quite honest I haven't really felt like doing it. I have no specific reason to explain this...although it probably has a lot to do with the amount of time it takes me to write an entry, which is generally at least an hour. Oh well, I'm writing now, and since I haven't done a whole heck of a lot between the last time I wrote and now, it shouldn't take me all that long. So here we go.

Tuesday was not the best. I got to the Volkswagen dealer by about 11 to have my rear-view mirror glued back on to my windshield, which I assumed would be about a ten-minute process. It turned out it was a ten-minute process - to glue the mirror on. But they couldn't let me drive until the glue was dry, which took over two hours. Sigh. I had them shuttle me over to the Good Guys just across the freeway so I could browse the electronics, both there and at the Circuit City across the street. I was also lucky to have my crossword puzzle book with me in the car, so I brought that along to help me kill the time. I had lunch by myself at McDonald's, and upon finishing I remained there to do almost an entire crossword puzzle (which I think I'm getting better at). So wasn't that fun. I think I had my car back somewhere in the neighborhood of 2:00-2:30. Hey, at least it didn't cost me anything (it was pretty hard for the dealer to argue that the mirror falling off within an hour of purchase of the car was "normal wear and tear").

From Escondido I took highway 78 all the way east into Ramona. That's quite a nice drive, going through orange groves and past the Wild Animal Park...you know, that area. Emu farms and whatnot. I don't remember what I did for a little while at Dad's, but after not too long I was driving the pair of us down to San Marcos so we could go to Fry's so I could see about CD players for the Jetta and also to the Old Spaghetti Factory. Upon arrival at Fry's we found the car audio department and asked if they had anything that was compatible with the VW stereo (the Jetta came with a very nice audio system, sans the CD but with hookups for one already in place). They told us no. Period. So hooray for driving for 45 minutes before calling them for thirty seconds. Oh well. The Spaghetti Factory was good.

I drove all the way back to Ramona to drop Dad off, and then I drove all the way back into Rancho Bernardo to go to Alena's for a couple of hours to help her study for physics. (I actually remember some mechanics!) This was not as exciting as helping Rosalie with hers, simply because Alena pretty much had everything figured out and there wasn't very much she needed help with. But that's good news for her; she had a test yesterday and she seemed to think that she did pretty well on it. So woot. I drove all the way back to Ramona at about 11, bringing my total of Ramona-to-civilization one-way trips to five for that day.

Wednesday was another I-don't-have-all-that-much-to-do kind of day. I read through the manual for my Jetta, learning all the oh-so-great features that came with it. Have you ever seen that VW commercial where the guy's reading his manual and then seems to read something exciting so he drags his wife outside to where he's parked his new VW? He puts the key in the driver's door and watches in amazement as all four windows roll down by themselves...yeah, my Jetta does that. I don't really know when I'll ever use that feature, but it did make me laugh when I read it in the manual. I showed the feature to Mom and she had pretty much the same reaction as the wife in the commercial: she rolled her eyes and walked back inside. Hey, I think it's cool!

The other thing I did yesterday was program all of the lights in Dad's house into his home automation. Now, (almost) every lightswitch has a computer address, so you can control them all from one of the three touchscreens he's installed in the house. It's fun to stand in the laundry room and turn all the lights off in the living room, across the house. Now I know this seems to be something that's more for computer geeks and has no practical application, but let me argue my case here. Now that you can control the lights from the home automation system, you can program them to do all sorts of things. For example, you can turn every light in the house off with the touch of a button when you leave. Handy, huh? Or, if the smoke alarm goes off or if the security alarm is tripped at night, you can set every light in the house to go on. You can also write a program for, say, a "vacation mode" for when no one will be in the house for a few days that will arm the security system, set the heating/cooling system to a more energy-efficient mode, and turn on certain lights for a few hours when it gets dark so that it looks like people are home. So honestly there are some useful things you can do with this system. It may take computer geeks (like Dad and me) to program them, but any idiot can operate the programs. At any rate, it's fun.

I had a quick dinner with Dad and then I drove back down into RB to pick up Alena. The two of us went to the orchestra concert, which was excellent as always. (I particularly enjoyed the harpist...I might have to learn how to play harp someday.) I saw all sorts of people at the concert who I haven't seen in ages, although I was moderately disappointed when nobody wanted to do anything after the concert. I suppose all the high-schoolers had class the next day, but what's up with the college kids wanting to go home at 9? Boo hoo...so I dropped Alena back off at home and drove back up to Ramona. (As much as I do enjoy staying here with Dad, it is most inconvenient to have to drive at least a half an hour to get anywhere of interest.)

So yeah, that's what I've been up to for the last couple of days. Not very exciting, huh? Well, Joanna and Stacie will be getting home either last night, today, or tomorrow, and the RB people will be on break starting Friday at 2:25...so that's when the fun will begin! Hooray. I'll look forward to that. But for now, I'm going to go program more home automation.

Cheers,
Josh

mood: I'm feeling a little isolated up here on the mountain
music: "Sell Out" by Reel Big Fish; not the pep band version
location: office, Dad's house, Ramona, CA

Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
[Referring to Peter's father, who left a baseball game unexpectedly]
Lois: "So he just left without saying anything?"
Peter: "All I asked him to do was buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks."
Brian: "I don't care if he ever gets back......Seriously. I wasn't being cute. I really hope he's dead."

All right, here we go: the second attempt at a description of Saturday and Sunday, plus some of today added on for good measure. Hoo-ray. I’m actually typing this in Word because I’m not connected to the internet; I’m sitting down in the family room watching Mrs. Doubtfire. I love this movie! Did I ever tell you that I saw the house from Mrs. Doubtfire? It’s on Steiner Street in San Francisco…Dad and I went in search of it when I recognized the street name while the two of us were driving through California on our college tour. Interesting? No? Well, just a random fact…

I’ll skip through Saturday and Sunday and hit just the humorous/amusing tidbits I don’t want to forget:

-Kevin and I picked up Kevin’s friend Jeff from the SLO airport on Saturday because Jeff’s flight was cancelled and he had nothing to do for a few hours. The three of us had lunch at Carl’s Jr., and then we dropped Jeff back off at the airport. It was at that point that we noticed the restaurant next to the airport was named “The Spirit of San Luis.” Ha ha…get it? I thought it was amusing. Kevin thought it was “twice as punny for half the money.” (He hates that I find this quote hilarious because he thinks it’s stupid…oh well, you have to admit it’s at least moderately witty.) Anyway, this just goes to show that there’s never a dull moment at the SLO County Regional Airport.

-Kevin and I went to the basketball game against Loyola Marymont University (or something to that effect...I actually couldn’t remember at the time what “LMU” stood for so I just decided to refer to them as “Lower Michigan University”). The Mustangs overcame an early ten-point deficit to beat the Hornets in the end. Hooray. I had fun like I usually do at the games; Kevin met some bandos and learned some band cheers. On the way back from Mott Gym, I received a cell phone call from Ashley while we were in the middle of George. Well you can imagine my horror at having my cell phone go off right in the middle of a performance. I promptly turned off my phone to avoid any further embarrassment. Wait a minute…screw that! This is college band. I answered my phone and talked to Ashley as I Georged down the street. And it was awesome.

-Kevin and I left right after the game, making our traditional stop in Ventura for a Chipotle burrito and also stopping at the Irvine Spectrum to deliver the French horn to Rosalie. At one point in a Los Angeles traffic jam I had to slam on my brakes pretty hard to avoid hitting the car in front of me, and wouldn’t you know it? The sunglasses I lost back in September came flying out from under my seat. Hooray.

That does it for Saturday. Sunday was a fairly low-key day. Errands and stuff, not much else.

Okay, so here’s the skinny. We’ve been looking at getting me a new car because my Prelude has so many miles on it. It’s been a great car, but there has been debate over whether it’s safe enough for me to be driving, particularly through Los Angeles. I personally would love a new car because I could get something that can fit more people more comfortably. (Those of you who have ridden in the back of my Prelude will understand where I’m coming from.) So anyway, long story short, we bought a new car today. Well, to be more accurate, we bought a new used car – driven previously by someone else but new to me. It’s a relatively new car and it’s in such good condition that I think it feels like a new car…

So what car did I get, you ask? It’s a 2001 Volkswagen Jetta. I’ve always liked VWs…they’re not too expensive (not all of them, anyway…they actually have one called the Phaeton that retails for about $96,000) but they do – in my own opinion – have a lot of style. So yeah. The Jetta is smaller than most, but I can now fit five in my car comfortably. And you should see the trunk space! I’ll spare you all of the other details, but suffice it to say that it’s a very nice car and I’m very lucky to have it.

And that was the excitement for today. Mom and I even negotiated the price ourselves…we got about $1200 off of the sticker price…not bad for my first time, I guess. Oh, and here’s an amusing story: we had just purchased the car and I had driven it home. I was futzing with the rear-view mirror, and it fell off of the windshield. We had just written the check, and the car starts falling apart. I called Classic Volkswagen up and they said it’s not problem to fix it, so I’m taking the car down there tomorrow morning for the needed repairs. But really? What are the chances of that happening? It was pretty funny, but only because I’m still convinced that the car is in very good condition. But maybe I should go read that warranty information more closely…

Okay, well that’s all for now.

Cheers,
Josh

mood: peachy
music: watching Mrs. Doubtfire
location: family room, Mom’s House, San Diego, CA

PS – I’d like to apologize to Microsoft…I’m sure when you develop software as complicated as Microsoft’s you can hardly avoid crashing every so often…as frustrating as that is…

Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
Peter: "Lois, when I'm through with them, our kids will be so smart, they'll be able to program their own VCRs without spilling piping hot gravy all over myself."

I hate Microsoft. I hate Microsoft. I hate Microsoft. I hate Microsoft. I hate Microsoft. I hate Microsoft.

I wrote two days' worth of entry. I formatted it. I spell checked it. I completely finished it other than to click "publish." And that's when stupid Internet Explorer decided to crash.

I hate Microsoft. I hate Microsoft. I hate Microsoft.

I'm not going to sit here for another hour and rewrite it all. I just don't care that much.

I hate Microsoft. I hate Microsoft. I hate Microsoft.

So good night to all. I have actually had a good couple of days, so don't judge my mood by the tone of this blog. It's just that

I hate Microsoft.

Cheers (but not to Microsoft),
Josh

mood: I hate Microsoft.
music: "She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby (we play it in MB and it's been stuck in my head for days)
location: Mom's house, San Diego, CA

Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
Peter: "I'm not competitive. In fact, I'm the most non-competitive. So I win."

I'm having trouble remembering what I did yesterday...typical college student, no? Seriously though, I'm very tired, and I'm pretty sure that everything I did yesterday was the fill-the-empty-time kind of stuff...so that's probably why I don't really remember all of it. I do remember not being bored though, so that was nice. I guess I'll just get started with what I do remember.

I slept in until about 10:30 after having stayed up the night before writing in my blog. It was a nice thing to do, although the consequences of it would be later felt...but I'll get to that. I got up and decided to go to the gym, but to run rather than to lift weights. I haven't done any cardiovascular exercise in a while, so it seemed like a good thing to do on my day off. I ran about 2.25 miles in twenty minutes, which isn't too spectacular by any standard. My biggest accomplishment was jogging for the entire twenty minutes without having to slow to a walk to rest, which I usually end up having to do. I was quite proud. The biggest obstacle, though, wasn't that I was tired but instead was that my leg muscles got sore pretty fast (I did stretch beforehand...but I haven't ran in a while). But I made myself go for the whole time, so hooray.

A little later on I found myself at Sandwich Factory enjoying my usual roast beef and swiss on wheat, and I ran into Jacob (from the third floor) so I finished lunch with him. We parted ways in the music building, where he stopped to pick up his baritone and I picked my favorite baby grand to practice carols on.

Later that evening I ran into Amy while checking my mail down in the main lobby, and she suggested that we drive over to Atascadero for dinner at In-N-Out, as she hadn't been there since last summer. I was all for that, so that's just what we did. It was a good meal, except for the fries, which must have been the bottom of the batch because they were all the little scraps. Oh well...bad In-N-Out fries are still better than just about any other fry.

The people on my floor were in the mood for a board game, and who else would they go to to satisfy their craving? We played Taboo for about a half an hour. Amy called in the middle of it, and the two of us drove down to Campus Market to spend the remainder of our plus dollars on stuff (they have chocolates and honey and coffee mugs and whatnot). They were pretty much sold out of everything, but they had a good selection of poster prints left. I got two very nice ones for myself: a pair of paintings from some secluded beaches in Hawaii. They're on my wall above my bed now, and they coordinate very well with the greens and blues of my bedspread. I'm satisfied with that purchase.

I spent the rest of the night studying for my last final: physics. (I had also been studying at scattered intervals throughout the day.) I remembered everything from the first two midterms pretty well, and I had what I thought to be a good grasp on the new material. I went to bed without much worry.

What follows is a story about the joys of living in a dorm. I was in bed somewhere between 11:30 and midnight, which was later than I probably should have considering I had to be up by 6:30. Still, though, it was a moderately good time to go to bed. Unfortunately for me, the majority of the people on my floor didn't have finals on Friday, so they were already done with fall quarter classes. They decided to stay up all night. And not just really late "all night," but literally all night. I didn't fall asleep until about maybe 2:30. I woke up again sometime around 3:30, fell asleep around 4:30, then woke up again at 6, at which point is seemed pointless to try to sleep anymore so I just got up then. I was pissed. I mean, really pissed. All this week it has been relatively quite around here, but when people finished with their finals, they didn't give a flying rat's ass about anyone else who might have finals the next day at, say, 7 in the frickin' morning. Seriously, all night while I was awake I was thinking about how great it would be to go out there and beat a few of them down with an assortment of blunt objects. It wasn't so much that they were keeping me awake, but it was the fact that after they finished with finals, there was no longer any reason to stay quiet. I mean, who cares about other people, right? People are so self-centered, and it makes me so angry. They knew they were keeping everyone on the floor awake, too, because when I walked out the door to go to my final they asked if I was able to sleep at all. No, I replied. They apologized, which didn't really mean anything to me because if they were truly sorry at all they would have shut the heck up at some point. Another thing that irks me about the situation is that Katie (the RA) walked in while they were playing a movie at full blast in the common room, and she didn't do anything about it. Of all the times to shut down something like that, don't you think finals week, when we're supposedly under 24-hour quiet hours, is the time to do it? Sorry...it was a situation that just made me very angry.

But aside from my being exceptionally tired this morning, my final final went well. I knew most of the new stuff, and figured out what I didn't immediately recognize. The review section was very easy; every problem was verbatim off of a previous exam, with a quantity change or two here and there for variety. I may even have gotten everything right, although I did skip checking over my work at the end in favor of going home that much sooner to try and sleep some more. Being tired aside, I actually did enjoy the final. I have particularly enjoyed the waves and optics part of this course...it's almost sad to see it go. But life moves on.

I came home and slept for maybe an hour, but Kevin got up right about the time I got back into bed. He was working on a collage for Sarah, and the crumpling paper and spray-on adhesive kind of made sleeping difficult. So I got up. Strangely, I wasn't too tired...but hey, I'm not complaining. I walked down to the UU to get a smoothie from Lucy's Juice, and on the way back to the dorms I ran into Amy, who insisted that I help her with calculus before her final. We studied in the UU for about twenty minutes, which was when I had to go to take Julio to the SLO regional airport for his flight home. We had a heck of a time finding the street we were supposed to take to the airport, which was sad because both of us had been on the street before. Whatever...I was tired!

I later returned my textbooks to El Corral Bookstore (save for calculus and physics, which I will probably end up using again in a future course) and made back a handsome $56.25, which is pretty good considering I didn't sell the two largest/only hardcover books. Amy called again while I was in line there asking if I could take her somewhere to eat since all of the campus restaurants/cafes had closed. So I drove her to the downtown Baja Fresh and back.

A little later on, Rosalie, Steven, Heather, and I went out to celebrate Heather's birthday (which is coming up in a week or two). I invited Ben along because I found out today that Courtney broke up with him last night and I wanted to try to cheer him up/take his mind off of it. The three of us drove around looking for a place to eat, but being unable to find anything that we could eat fast enough we decided to eat dinner after the movie at 7 that we had already bought tickets for. We saw Ocean's Twelve, which I enjoyed very much although it wasn't as good as the first. (It's pretty much impossible to beat the first.) Ben decided to walk home at that point despite our insistence on driving him, but we figured he had a lot on his mind so we just let him go. Shortly after that we ran into a homeless man in a wheelchair, reeking of booze, who needed help adjusting his seat cushion. Steven and I helped him as best as we could, although we evidently didn't do a good enough job because the man shouted that we were "queers" as we left. But what can you do? The remaining four of us then went to the Denny's on Madonna Road, because when do you ever go to Denny's and not have a good time. I arrived home at about 11:30.

So tomorrow is going to be a day of highs and lows. High? Basketball game. Low? Six-hour drive. Rosalie forgot to get her french horn out of the music building, which was locked by the time we arrived home from Denny's. She's leaving early tomorrow morning, surely before the music building will be opened up again. So I offered to get her horn for her tomorrow after the basketball game and meet her at some mall in Irvine to drop it off. Theoretically it isn't too far out of my way, but we'll see. So yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

As for right now, I'm going to bed. Kevin is staying over at Sarah's, and almost everyone else has already left for home. I feel like the only one in the entire tower, which is a welcome change from last night. So right, I'm off to catch up on sleep.

Cheers,
Josh

PS - Thank you to Joanna, whose birthday card arrived on Thursday in the form of a jigsaw puzzle.

mood: tired
music: the silence of the hall and ambient noises coming in through the open window...why would I pollute that with music?
location: dorm, for the last time for the next three weeks

Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
[talking to the camera on an interview on "The Real Live Griffins"]
Peter: "You know, some people think that dandelions are weeds. But you know...uh...I always think, who the hell decided tulips were so great?"

It's 12:31 right now. I'm tired, but I'm still awake. I have no final tomorrow, so I see no reason why I need to go to bed now. Instead, I'm writing this entry, which I'm actually in the mood to do for the first time in a while.

I have to start with yesterday: I got up at 6:30 so I could be at my music theory final by 7. Ick. I skipped breakfast because I figured I'd be done with the test early enough to still have breakfast at a reasonable hour, thus buying me an extra twenty minutes of sleep...a good exchange, I'd say. Anyway, I walked down through the morning mist to good old room 130 in the music building to take my first final of the week. It was pretty straightforward: eight measures of harmonic analysis with three to five chords per measure. It was in the same format as the worksheet he gave us that we spent the last week learning how to do. If anything, the final was actually easier. It was a good piece I had to analyze, written by Dr. Barata himself. Obviously it wasn't too complicated or anything, but I asked him to play it at one point so I could try to identify by sound a chord that didn't have three different pitches in it, and it actually was quite a beautiful piece. Sometimes I wish I had majored in music...it may not be as practical as I'd like but there are times when I have a tremendous love for music, and this was one of them. It would be really cool to get good enough at identifying chord progressions so I could listen to anything and reproduce it on piano. But getting back to the subject at hand, I'm pretty sure I nailed that harmonic analysis along with the three worded questions that came along with it. And so ended Introduction to Music Theory.

That whole process took me about 45 minutes, and since I was in the music building I could hardly resist the opportunity to practice my Christmas tunes on one of the practice room pianos, even though I was still quite tired. I'm pretty sure I had a smoothie either right before that or right after...not really important. Long story short, I was heading back to my room by 9.

I had slipped back into bed and was drifting off to sleep when Rosalie called wondering if I wanted to study calculus with her (because we're both taking the same class, albeit with different teachers). So sure, that was fine with me. We decided to study in one of the Yosemite laundry rooms so we could wash our clothes while we studied...you know, killing two birds with one stone and all that. We were down there a good two and a half hours, going over parametric and polar equations. It was interesting (the situation, not so much the math) because I can't remember ever studying with another person; it's always been a solo activity for me. But Rosalie was having some trouble in a few areas and I think I was able to clarify a few things for her, so woot for that. I had previously decided that I'm not good at explaining things to people because they'd come to me with their math questions from a lower-level calculus and I would rarely be able to help them. But Rosalie seemed genuinely thankful for the help I gave her so I must have done something right. I concluded that I can't help people in the lower-level calculus classes because they ask me about the specific hardest problem in their homework on a subject I haven't thought about for months, but I'm quite clear on concepts I've studied recently and can explain them reasonably well to others. So that made me pretty happy. Plus, now I have clean socks.

After that I don't really remember what I did, which just proves that whatever it was wasn't overly important and therefore doesn't deserve much mention here anyway. I probably had a sandwich at Sandwich Factory, practiced piano and trumpet, and took a nap. Something to that effect, anyway. I also checked my mail and received birthday cards from Lauren, Alena, and Dave, and another book sent to me by Dad: Backgammon for Serious Players, the follow-up to Backgammon for Winners. Thank you all; again, I love mail!

I had dinner with the bandos at Light House, something I've missed out on during the last ten or so days due to the increasing amount of time I'm spending with Rosalie, Heather, and Steven. It was fun, although nothing much happened that warrants discussion here. I kind of remember not being too pleased with the selection of food that night...but what else is new?

I don't remember what I was doing/finishing/beginning to do later that night when my cell phone rang again. It was Rosalie, again wondering if I wanted to study calculus, this time with another girl from her class. I said sure, because I quite honestly didn't have anything better to be doing (and the obvious fact that I enjoy Rosalie's company in any context). I met her outside of her tower and we walked down to the UU together. Four hours later, after one in the morning (hence the lack of bloggage last night), we concluded our study section and dispersed. It was a long journey through chapter 12: infinite sequences and series. I don't want to sound all high on myself, but I think I was able to help them a lot. Chapter 12 is affectionately known as the "chapter of death" by my calculus professor, and Rosalie and her friend's knowledge of the material consisted mainly of memorized formulas (formulae?). I've decided the reason why I'm good at math is because I'm not satisfied with learning something until I understand why I'm learning it. What does this formula do? Why does it act this way? What purpose does it serve? That way, it isn't just an exercise in memorization. Instead, it's logic: if I can't remember a formula it doesn't matter because I can derive it myself using my knowledge of what it's supposed to do. So, I was able to help Rosalie because I could explain to her what all the calculus does...the numbers have an actual purpose! Hooray! I felt pretty darned good because Rosalie kept saying how much I had helped. I felt good not because I had impressed her or something, but because I felt like I had done something nice for someone. And that's a good feeling.

Needless to say, I slept in as late as I could this morning. My calculus final began at 10, so I had planned to sleep in until 9:30. Unfortunately, Kevin got up at 9, and you know how when you wake up twenty minutes before your alarm is set to go off it's nearly impossible to go back to sleep because you know you're going to have to get up in twenty minutes anyway? Yeah...oh well. The calculus final went well, despite taking much longer than did the music theory final. I knew how to do about two-thirds of it immediately without a problem, and I'm pretty sure I figured out the rest without any major errors. I guess you never know, though. Regardless, I walked out of that one with a little over an hour to spare.

The rest of the day was...in a word...boring. In two words? Really boring. I have only one final left to study for (physics) and there's a limit to how much of one subject I can stand to study. All of the people I'd love to invite over for a movie or a board game or whatever are too busy taking and/or studying for finals. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time practicing piano, and I'm getting pretty tired of that. I seem to have completely lost my interest in video games, and I've watched pretty much all of my good movies. Seriously? I was so bored today. Ugh. I watched Antitrust and did the physics homework I hadn't yet done, and I still had time to spare. I dread tomorrow, where I don't even have a final to occupy my time.

I went to dinner with Steven and Rosalie (Heather had a final) at Light House after Rosalie had finished her calculus exam. I think she thought it went pretty well; there were a couple of minor things she didn't know how to do but overall it went well. So that's good. She certainly deserves a good grade...she studied enough for it. Anyway, potatoes, pork roast, and a spinach salad later, we were walking back to Yosemite. I bid the two of them goodbye, wondering what the heck I was going to do with the rest of my evening.

Kevin came back into the room from (I think) being on the phone, and he told me I looked like I needed to take a break from the physics I was studying. I responded that I had absolutely nothing other than studying physics to do. We discussed some possibilities and eventually decided that I should drive down to Borders in search of some excitement. Naturally I called Rosalie to see if she wanted to go...she did. Long story short: I bought a book of the Monday NY Times crosswords (Monday's are the easiest), Rosalie studied physics, I distracted her with questions about my crossword puzzles, we got kicked out of Borders when they closed at 10, we drove to the downtown Starbucks, I bought us gingerbread latte/caramel apple cider and a chocolate chip cookie, we got kicked out of Starbucks when they closed at 11:30, we went home.

Ah, and that's pretty much where I am now. So hooray! I think I rather like this entry...the title, by the way, is the result of multiplying an infinite series by an infinite series. You have to foil it out like you would with polynomials, except these have an infinite number of terms, hence you foil to infinity. As long as you understand why you're doing it...

Cheers,
Josh

mood: tired, bored (although less than earlier today)
music: none
location: dorm

Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
[Peter and Brian are building a baby's cradle]
Brian: [reading directions] "Insert rod support A into slot B."
Peter: "That's what--"
Brian: "If you say 'that's what she said' one more time, I'm gonna pop you."

Well I just discovered that one of the little rubber footies on the underside of my laptop has fallen off. I can't find it, so now my Latitude tilts back and forth. I know everyone reading this knows how much things like that bug me...lack of symmetry and whatnot. I'll have to call Dell and badger them into sending me a replacement footie...

So hooray! My birthday has come and gone, although I still look forward to celebrating it at home next week. I slept in for a large part of the day, so there really isn't all that much to write about. But I'll give you the usual rundown anyway.

I got up somewhere in the neighborhood of 10:00. I took my shower and then opened the Amazon.com box that's been sitting on my desk for two days. I received it on Friday and assumed it was a birthday present, so I didn't open it. It turned out to be Backgammon for Winners sent to me by Dad. Over Thanksgiving I played a lot of backgammon with Dad, Uncle Roland, and family, and Dad kept saying how he had read a book on backgammon strategy that got him interested in the game and how he thought I should do the same. So now I can do just that. Thanks, Dad!

I met the band crew at Vista Grande Restaurant for brunch. I wasn't overly hungry, so I totally didn't get my $13.62 worth of food. What I did have, however, was pretty good. (Plus, I have too many plus dollars anyway.) So that was fun.

I went directly from VGR to the music building to warm up for the basketball game. Long story short, we watched the Mustangs lose by a couple of points to the University of San Francisco Dons (at least, it sounded like the announcer kept calling them Dons). So frustrating! In addition, we didn't have a tenor drum player who was able to come to the game, and as a result we weren't able to George down to Mott Gym. Can you believe it? Not getting to George on my birthday! That aside, I always enjoy pep band games, and this was no exception. I was also quite thrilled that there wasn't a water cooler around for people to dump on me because it was my birthday (as is the tradition during marching season). So woot for staying dry. Oh, and we do this one thing called "Ow!" where the winds play a little introduction thingy into a drum cadence and then dance through it until it ends and everyone yells "Ow!" (appropriately enough). Well, it being my birthday and all, the piccolos and clarinets decided I deserved some special treatment, so they came up and surrounded me, shimmying the whole time. I don't know how to describe in words just what a shimmy is...but...well...it was pretty hilarious. Definitely memorable. So that was that.

By 5:30 that evening I was ready to meet Rosalie, Heather, and Steven to go to mass. Rosalie drove us over to the mission, then to dinner at Firestone (yummy tri-tip sandwich), then to Bali's for frozen yogurt (which Rosalie treated me to). The three of them quietly sang happy birthday to me over our yogurt...it was actually quite touching because I've known these people for a week now and yet they seem to have so much interest in it being my birthday. Really, they seem very considerate...they're the kind of people who don't really ever say anything bad about anyone, which is very refreshing. They don't drink, they don't sleep with everyone they meet, they go to church...these are the kind of people I've been looking for since I moved here, and I'm so glad to have found them. (Don't get me wrong...I still love the band folk...they're just slightly too perverse for my taste.) So yes, those of you who said that the my kind of people are here somewhere, they just take longer to find, were absolutely correct.

Steven had to leave us after we returned from dinner because he had a take-home final he needed to finish before Monday. Neither Rosalie, Heather, nor myself had a final on Monday, so we went up to their room and stayed up until 1 talking. That was fun. (It was at this point that the pair of them discovered that I have a blog, so in case either of them ever happen to read this, hi Rosalie and Heather!)

And then Monday happened, with lots of sleeping in and calculus studying and piano practice. I'm not going to go into detail to describe today because my music theory final starts at 7 tomorrow morning; I need to get to bed now. So good night, sleep tight, and I'll see you soon.

Cheers,
Josh

mood: relaxed...this is turning into quite an easy week
music: Kevin's stuff...some symphonic goodness
location: dorm

Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
Stewie: "Yes, I rather like this God fellow. He's very theatrical, you know. A pestilence here, a plague there. Omnipotence. Gotta get me some of that."

Hey everybody. The finals I'm worried about are behind me...I've got three more spread out between Tuesday and Friday, but I'm not overly worried about them. So I'm pretty much considering my winter break to already have started. Woot!

A word of warning about the following entry: I've not been feeling well for the last couple of days, and my condition has worsened over the last few hours. I've been feeling very bleh for a couple of days. And then - the genius that I am - I had pizza for dinner and then went to watch Resident Evil in a stuffy dorm room...and now I feel quite a bit more bleh. I don't have any specific symptoms, so I wouldn't call myself sick. But I wish I felt better. Anyway, I'm just trying to warn you that what follows might not be the most coherent thing you've ever read. Plus, I'm watching You've Got Mail in the background. (Yes, I did just watch it. But before I was listening to the director's commentary, and now I'm just watching the movie. Give me a break! I need something to cure all the gore in Resident Evil.) Nonetheless, I'll start from yesterday morning.

I stayed up a little later on Thursday than I had planned on, but I awoke Friday morning with a lot more energy than I would have expected. So I rolled out of bed to meet the usual shower, backpack packing, Sandwich Factory for breakfast, physics, music theory, and calculus. Friday was the last time I would sit through these classes, aside from the finals. Kind of sad, really. I'm particularly going to miss music theory. I may not have learned all that much new material, but I have an interest in the class nonetheless and I really liked Dr. Barata. He really did try to make the class interesting, and he did - at least to me - succeed. Here are a couple of quotes from the last class meeting:

"Mary had a little...too much to drink."

"We have a sale in men's haberdashery."

Reading these back to myself I can see where anyone reading this blog who isn't in my music theory class wouldn't really see any humor. But trust me: when they come out of Dr. Barata's mouth, they're hilarious. In this case, he was demonstrating how seventh chords can make an otherwise cheerful song (like "Mary Had a Little Lamb") into...uh...something not as cheerful. And evidently, seventh chords are what the pianists at Nordstrom play the most. Anywho, I'm very glad I took this class, and I am going to miss it.

After calculus I biked back to the dorms for a bit of excitement: my key refused to open my door. Don't ask me why. I must have been pushing in too hard or something. I called my RA only to get her answering machine, but that seemed to do the trick because my key worked after that. Go figure. Anyway, I exchanged my books and left for the Vista Grande Restaurant to have lunch with some assorted bandos.

--------
This dashed line is here for a reason. I'll explain in a bit.

I had the "engineering club" sandwich at VGR. I had to order before everyone else had arrived and I ate while all of them were still waiting for their food because I had a class at noon. So that was fun.

I then went to my last physics lab (with no final...not to be confused with my physics lecture, which definitely has a final), then home for a nap and some last minute studying, then EE 111 for that final. This particular exam wasn't anything I hadn't seen before, but it still annoyed the heck out of me. It wasn't a test to see if I had learned anything (because, as I have said many times, EE 111 doesn't actually teach anything) but instead it was a test to see if I had studied for the test. For example, in the previous class meeting three current EE seniors came in to tell us about their senior projects. It was a waste of time: I don't know anything about EE yet so their attempts at technical discussions were lost on me, and they, being college seniors, have no experience teaching and therefore couldn't bring what they had to say down to my level. So, since I didn't learn anything at all that day, it would be completely unfair to ask me anything specific about the presentations. What, then, was I asked on the final? "What were the topics of the three senior projects that were presented in class?" It was a question to see if I paid attention, not to test my comprehension of a subject. Stupid class. But it's over now, and I think I BSed enough to get an A or A- in the class.

I was in my room with Jake (from my floor) playing video games a little later on when I noticed Amy (from the trumpet section) walking by outside. So I went to the window and yelled out to her, and long story short we decided to go and have dinner at the Avenue before the basketball game we both had to go to. Jake, of course, immediately proceeded to tell the whole floor that I had a date. Sigh. I told Amy about it later, so we jokingly decided it was a date, so that brings this week's total up to three. (Hey, if fake dates count then so do dinners at Light House.) Anyway, we ate and went over to the band room.

The basketball game was fun...we beat Sac State by a margin of only a couple of points. It was over by 9, leaving my Friday night pretty much wide open. Lauren called while I was en route back to Yosemite and we talked for twenty minutes or so. I called Ben after that to see if he wanted to do something, but I couldn't get hold of him. So I went and sat out in the common room and listened to everybody talk, not really having anything to say. I had thought about calling Rosalie to see if she wanted to do something but I figured I'd try to play it cool...I did just see her the night before. So my night was looking pretty dismal. But wouldn't you know it? Rosalie called me after about fifteen minutes of sitting in the common room, so I went over to her room and the five of us (four from Thursday night and a new friend, Jared) played Hoopla and Apples to Apples until 2 in the morning.

And then I came home and went to sleep.

I got up this morning, showered, and went to Light House by myself for breakfast. After assembling a hefty plate of an assortment of breakfast foods, I ran into Ann and Claudia from the third floor and the three of us ate together.

After that I had a lot of free time. I did two chapters' worth of physics problems, practiced piano for about two hours (I'm brushing up on my Christmas songs), and otherwise found unproductive ways to pass the time. The usual band crew and I went for pizza at Back Stage, during which Rosalie called to ask if I wanted to go to dinner (can't be there for them all, I guess...) We then watched a movie, which I vaguely remember writing about earlier. I came home from that and started writing in my blog.

I had gotten through up until noon on Friday, but (at the location of the dashed line above) a few people from my floor asked if I would lend them my car so they could drive over to the local frozen yogurt shop, Bali's. I wasn't too keen on the idea, so I instead drove Kristen, Jake, and Catch to Bali's, and the four of us had some frozen deliciousness together.

When Rosalie called earlier to ask me for dinner I asked if she wanted to do anything later tonight, but she had to study. So, upon arriving back at the good old R2 parking lot, I gave her a call to try and brighten her evening. Her window happens to be between the parking lot and tower 2, so I told her to look outside while I stood out there and waved to her. Very Romeo and Juliet, no? Well, she thought it was cute and funny, so there you go.

And then I came back here and finished writing in my blog. Hey! It's midnight, December 5, 2004! I'm 19!! I suppose I don't technically turn 19 until 5 this morning or whenever it is that I was actually born. (By the way, I'm turning off my cell phone tonight in case anyone decides I need to be called at the exact moment I turn 19. That's all well and good, but it's my birthday and I'm sleeping in!) This reminds me: thank you to Stacie, Mom, and Dad for sending me assorted birthday cards and presents. I love mail!

Okay, well I'm going to bed for the last time before I'm 19. Good night, all. I'll see you in a week or so.

Cheers,
Josh

mood: old
music: You've Got Mail, sans the director's commentary
location: dorm

Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
Peter: "Joe, I've had new neighbors before but none of them were half the man you are. And since you're half a man already that splits them into some kind of fraction I can't even begin to measure."

I went to bed last night at 11:00 and got up this morning at 8:00. It was wonderful. Kevin woke me up because he had to get up for his 8:00 class, but that gave me an hour to drift in an out of sleep before I finally got out of bed. I highly recommend this; I'm pretty sure it's the best way to wake up: slowly but surely. Anyway, I went to the gym...second time this week! I feel pretty good about that, both physically and mentally. (I was suspended from school today. Why? For bringing these guns [flex biceps].) And I had my smoothie on the way home...tres delicieux.

I went to calculus, and then in the hour between that and my EE lab I practiced piano, stopped by my room to exchange textbooks, and grabbed a slice of cheese pizza from Back Stage. Then it was off for my last meeting of EE 151 lab. At the end of every class at Cal Poly, the students fill out anonymous evaluations of their professors. The professors have to stand out in the hallway while a student administers the evaluations, because otherwise the results would "be skewed." And guess who got to be in charge of administration in my class? Oh, that's right. It was quite the excitement. I got to walk the sealed envelope all the way down to the EE department office in the next building. Aren't I special?

Upon return to class, I started the final (finals week is next week, but all classes that meet only once per week take their exams in their last meeting, in the week before finals). I think it went rather well. There were a few parts I was fuzzy on, but overall I knew what I was doing. And I actually found a large portion of the test very interesting, and that's always a good feeling. So that's one final out of the way (well, two if you count that California government test, on which - by the way - I got one out of only three A's given out). Tomorrow is my final in my EE 111 lecture, which I'm more worried about. 151 had more structure. There were six complete labs that we did over the course of the quarter, and each one of them had a very specific subject you were supposed to understand: Ohm's law, transistors, diodes, magnetic fields, etc. We didn't go into detail into anything, but we did get and idea about how each subject was important to the EE field. It was fairly easy for 151 because all I had to go was go back and read the lab procedures and my reports. 111, however, is a different story. Almost all of the stuff that we learned was common sense. I have access to the professor's lecture notes online and I can review all of the homework assignments, but on none of them is there anything that seems to warrant memorization. For example: he has about twenty Power Point slides on good test-taking skills. But all of it is...well...duurrrr. So I don't know how to study. Arguably I should be going through his notes again rather than writing here, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I haven't liked that class, and I'm not about to start now.

Anywho, we had a recording session for MB after that. We recorded all of the music we played in field show this year. I'm not sure where these recordings go but hopefully I'll get a copy of them from somewhere.

I got home and studied for EE 111. Midway through that I called Rosalie to see if she wanted to go to dinner. After two long hours of studying more for 111, I met Rosalie, here roommate, and Steven (Stephen?) from her floor, and we walked down to Light House for their special holiday dinner. I was quite impressed with Campus Dining...they had tents and twinkle lights and inflatable snowmen and red and green tablecloths...the works. And the food was a slightly nicer version of what they usually serve (just like Boise is a slightly nicer Fresno...Joanna knows what I'm talking about).

I arrived home after that and made myself a comfy spot on my bed to watch The Apprentice, but not five minutes had I been settled before Rosalie called me again to see if I "needed to go to Walmart." Well, I didn't really need to go...but it was a pretty darned good excuse to not study more for EE 111. So the same four of us were off to Arroyo Grande for some discount shopping goodness. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say (or is it "suffice to say"? Someone please set me straight on this so I can use it in conversation) that I had lots of fun.

I arrived home just as The Apprentice ended, so I rewound my trusty VCR and watched it from the beginning, fast-forwarding through the commercials. This week's episode was particularly good; I called Mom at the end of it for our weekly Apprentice discussion and we ended up talking for twenty minutes or so.

And then I put off studying some more so I could write in my blog. And golly gee darn it's just to late to study any more. So I'm going to go to bed and hope for the best tomorrow. Good night.

Cheers,
Josh

mood: super (said like George Bush Sr.)
music: none
location: dorm

Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
[While doing the laundry, Peter climbs through the dryer and arrives in Narnia]
Goat Man: "Welcome to Narnia. I am Mr. Tumnus."
Peter: "Hey, give me back my sock, you goat bastard!"

Not much happened today. Class, laundry, homework, windO, boredom. I don't mind these days when I don't have much to do; it's actually quite refreshing. But I don't have much to write about, nor do I feel much like writing about anything.

I do, however, have a couple of quotes from Dr. Barata (music theory) that I'd like to share because they amused me:

"Out in the desert there are no sidewalks...there are gila monsters."

"Mr. fifth gets left behind; he's the canoe."

Now I'm sure you're all wondering how these relate to music theory, and I'm quite reluctant to tell you because it's almost more fun to let you guess. But I suppose I'll explain...this time. We were analyzing a chord with a bunch of A flats in it and Dr. Barata told us the story of when he got "a flat" (tire) in the desert outside of Las Vegas. The second came from analyzing a chord that had only two different pitches: Dr. Barata compared the occasional necessity of leaving out the third pitch to going on a camping trip and you can't fit the canoe in the car so you have to leave it behind. I know - randomness. But I laughed. I actually even wrote down the quotes so I'd have them to write in this blog. See how much effort I put into this?

But not tonight. I'm lazy, I'm tired, and I have a final tomorrow. So I'm off to go study. Riiiight.....study.

Cheers,
Josh

mood: a little bored...but also a little excited about tomorrow because I might get to go to dinner with Rosaile again tomorrow
music: I was planning on watching You've Got Mail (again), but I turned on the commentary and was so interested in it that I couldn't concentrate on the blog writing. I had to turn it off.
location: dorm

Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
Stewie: [to a ticket agent] "I've got an army to raise and I must get to Nicaragua. I require a window seat and an in-flight happy meal, and no pickles! Oh, God help you if I find pickles!"