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My brother and I are off to Massachusetts for my parents' anniversary until Monday, so there will be little (if any) posting until I get back. I'm also not planning on answering much mail while I'm away - I intend to spend a lot of time sailing and lying around outside reading, but not so much using the maternal laptop.
I went textbook shopping today, which means that it's officially fall. No, shut up - I don't care that it's still August until Monday - new textbooks means new semester and new academic year, which means fall, fucking finally. We've had a pretty mild summer as far as summers go, but I won't be sorry to see the last of it. As for the book shopping itself, it was much as it always is - some professors wait until the very last minute to submit booklists so you're left wondering whether there will be nothing but a coursepack or whether you'll be hit with another hundred dollars in books to buy a week from now. The textbook level was mobbed as it always is, filled to capacity with other people just like me, wondering whether saving seven bucks by using an old copy of Plato's dialogues (bought for another class) is worth having to look up the different page numbers every five minutes and still being confused because the translations are also different. Incidentally, I'm trying not to think about the fact that I'm doing the god damned Greeks again. But I did find the lone remaining used copy of a philosophy of mind textbook - my minor triumph for the day.
Walking back up University Place left me a little nostalgic - the incoming freshmen have been here for a while, I think (I recall some sort of post-orientation introductory stuff I was supposed to attend my first year), but everyone else is just moving in now, with their twin extra-long sheets and mini fridges. Sometimes I miss living on campus, but then I remember that I no longer share a single one bedroom apartment (deceptively called a suite by Housing) with three other girls, and that at least where I live nobody will steal all my dishes when they move out come May.
1. Make flutey noises with Corona bottles containing varying amounts of liquid (preferably Corona). Some of you may, upon hearing said flutey noises, be reminded of that bit in Myst - yes, the first Myst, the one from like ten years ago that pissed off all the Hardcore Gamers with its puzzles and lack of coherent plot but was like pure crack on a CD for we few (we happy few).
2. Continue playing really ridiculous amounts of Pokémon Ruby despite the fact that I, like, totally beat that wussy-ass little Champion dude a couple weeks ago. God dammit, I will finish my Pokédex. And I'm seriously bringing down the house in that little Poké-Vegas thing they've got going on in Mauville. All of this is CowboyNeal's fault.
3. Play slightly less ridiculous amounts of Silent Hill 2. I do actually know that there's a third one out and that it's purported to be better than the second one, but I'd like to finish this one before I go and buy the next in the series. It's a little absurd that I haven't finished it already - I bought it used as a Christmas present to myself back in December - but I hadn't touched it in months until a couple of weeks ago. That's not for lack of affection, you understand, but merely a disgraceful inability to make time for my trusty PS2.
4. Apparently I've spent all of this evening playing video games which I didn't really realize until I actually wrote it up. But then, I can probably blame that on the Corona.
When my brother suggested after a couple hours of scripting language madness yesterday that we stop by Rice To Riches, he promised that I'd like it so much I'd post about it: and sure enough. It's a tiny little cafe all done up in translucent white and orange plastic, and it sells only rice pudding. And bottled water too, I guess, but the big deal here is definitely the rice pudding: twenty four flavors of it, from Coffee Crackdown to Strawberry Floozy. Now, I'm not generally a rice pudding kind of gal: I do not believe there has been a morning that saw me waking up with a hunger for rice pudding that just would not be denied. But this was some pretty fantastic rice pudding, and since it's not too far from NYU, I'll probably be back.
Last night's Spinning On Air featured a deliciously long interview with both Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner, talking mostly about Our Cancer Year but also about American Splendor and the film. I'd link to the stream for that episode, but it looks like the site hasn't been updated in a couple of weeks. And speaking of the film, the more I see and hear from the real Harvey and Joyce, the more impressed I am with actors who played them. Both were perfectly cast and I don't think they could have done more justice to their roles. I'd encourage everyone again to go see it, but a couple of you have let me know that it's not playing nationally, at least not yet. It's currently out in New York, parts of California, and Cleveland, but the wide release is scheduled for "a later date."
And since it's a comic-turned-movie sort of weekend, I re-read Ghost World this morning. Another good one to read and/or rent.
I don't know what the hell you think you're doing. When you were getting ready for work this morning, there must have been a moment when you thought: Oh look, the ridiculous little Kate Spade knockoff I bought in Chinatown is much too small for my carefully Ziplocked lunch and Harlequin novel; I'll just go ahead and bring a pink-striped Victoria's Secret shopping bag in which to carry them. That way, not only will I be carrying two bags instead of one, but I'll also be broadcasting to all passerby the possibility that underneath my tasteful capris I might be wearing naughty underpants.
Here's the thing: you look completely ridiculous carrying a tunafish sandwich in a bag that you'd like us all to think recently cradled your latest crop of tissue-wrapped thongs. Nobody cares what your taste in panties is, and furthermore if you'd look around on the subway you'd notice that every other female on the god damned train is also carrying a Victoria's Secret shopping bag. Notice that one woman over there whose shopping bag has been in heavy use for so long that one handle has actually ripped out of the bag and she's forced to hold the bag closed with her left hand instead of casually letting it dangle off her wrist. Is that really what you want to become? Look around, I beg you, and you'll see that there are no fewer than five other women in this car alone carrying the same pink bag. It's neither scandalous nor interesting that you've chosen to follow suit, so please - buy a god damned purse. No, a real purse, one that's larger than your cellphone. And then leave the shopping bag at home.
I caught American Splendor last night, and I'm glad I did. It's only playing in two theatres in NYC, but it's well worth finding one near you - it's easily the best movie I've seen this summer. Pirates of the Caribbean was undeniably fun (and I'll probably buy the DVD), and Seabiscuit was a good film as well (ditto), but I can see American Splendor ending up like Harold and Maude - one of those I'll watch every once in a while and recommend whenever someone brings it up. I'd seen the trailer and hadn't decided one way or another (why trailers are so uniformly awful is something I don't think I'll ever understand), and it was this review at the NYT that finally convinced me to seek it out. Incidentally, if you're already a fan of either the film or the comics, Amazon has a decent price on the first anthology.
My apologies for yesterday's brief downtime - we're in the midst of a Solaris upgrade and all the good times that entails, so things are a little wonky. Wonkiness is surely but a small price to pay, however, for a shiny new operating system.
Things are a little wonky offline as well, at least through the end of this week - I resigned from my job a while back, and Friday's my last day. Until then, I'm swamped with finishing up old projects and avoiding new ones. My farewell lunch is today, which does make me a little sad. I haven't been at the company long, and I had hoped to stay longer - with my schedule this semester, however, either my work or my studies would suffer more than seems worth it. I'm taking five courses instead of the usual four starting in a little less than two weeks (four of which are philosophy), as well as studying for the GRE, writing my senior thesis, and TAing for another philosophy course. I'm looking forward to it, though.
My brother let me know that I was nominated over at TBOTCOTW for Sexiest Female Blogger. It turns out that voting ends tomorrow, so clearly you should head over and let your voice be heard on this crucial issue of international importance. After all, what's sexier than a twenty two year old chick who watches Digimon before work every morning? Nothing, that's what.
Long-time readers will not be unaware of my peculiar obsession with punctuality; I know I've admitted in the past that I'd rather be an hour early for something (anything) than fifteen minutes late. Often this comes in handy - I've never missed a flight or train for anything short of a hurricane, for example. Sometimes it gets a little ridiculous - during exams, my regular earliness is exaggerated to the point at which I'm leaving the house while the streetlights are still on. This allows for last-minute (or last-hour) studying once I reach campus, but it doesn't allow for much sleep. But that aside, the point is that I am perpetually on time. Last semester I didn't miss a single lecture at NYU, and I have never been less than ten minutes early for work at my current job.
However, I think I may have found the cure for at least my early-morning earliness in the form of another guilty secret: I like Digimon. Yes, the goofy Japanese import that sounds like it couldn't be anything other than a poor man's Pokémon. I'm not going to defend my fondness for children's cartoons in general in Digimon in particular - at least, not right now - because it's not really defensible at all. But here's the best part: I first started watching Digimon in its old after-school timeslot after I got laid off from my last web job a couple years ago. Then my faithful viewing was relegated to the new episodes on Saturday mornings once my return to school and work had me showering and leaving the house on a regular basis once more. Since then, the show has reasonably declined in popularity, and I haven't found it listed in the Saturday lineup any longer.
But then one morning a few weeks ago as I was getting ready to leave for the office, I flipped on the TV to listen to the news on NPR (my TV is also a radio), and it was still tuned to the station on which I had been watching something the night before. I was thumbing the RADIO button when I realized that the show playing was in fact the never-before-seen (by me) fourth season of Digimon, scheduled on a glorious weekday morning at 7:30 am. I'm usually out the door by 7:30, but that morning and each one since then I've stayed at home until a shocking 8:00 am. I've still never been late for work, but now I'm a mere ten minutes early instead of forty. I don't think outrageously cute monster cartoons will cure me of my chronic earliness entirely, but I think it's probably good for me to be less early, anyway.
