Ed has joined the wagon of bands. Check it out, yo!

Also, as I mentioned might happen on Tuesday, I ran out and snagged the Zwan CD: Mary Star of the Sea. Which I like. Really, you have to have had some amount of appreciation for Smashing Pumpkins to enjoy them (and I can empathise with those who didn't, because part of me didn't).

But my impressions go something like this:

Zwan: Mary Star of the Sea—
It’s an interesting album from the perspective of someone who’s been watching Billy Corgan’s efforts from a comfortable distance for the past decade or so. I really feel that Zwan is Corgan’s strongest effort so far. The music that has always felt like it was starving for something seems to have filled out a little.

Maybe all Billy ever needed was a real band. Perhaps all he needed was time to reach this point. Or maybe baldness has matured him.

Interesting trivia: A co-worker of mine noted that former Slint member Dave Pajo is now a member of Zwan.

Sunday evening I was at home, shuffling papers around.

On one stack of papers to be shuffled, I found a rubber frog. The rubber frog I purchased in the Wizards of the Coast store several weeks ago because I was besmitten. I looked at it and it looked at me, and it was love at first sight (Actually-- the love part happened several visits before the purchase).

So I purchased the squishy rubber creature. When I got it home, for lack of a better thing to do with it, I filed it on top of one of my many stacks of paper.

So Sunday evening, I found it one the previously mentioned stack of paper in need of shuffling.

When I picked up the frog, I remembered its significance. Also I noticed that it was sorta sticky. Sticky like those stretchy hands that came out of vending machines in the 80s that you used to swipe papers and such classmates desks.

What occurred to me is that this particular frog was a sort of wall frog. The kind of frog that preferred to be climbing walls, not sitting on stacks of paper. So I walked out into the living room and threw him at the wall.

He stuck.

So I returned to shuffling papers, assuming at some point he would fall to the small coffee table below.

So the next morning I got up and the apartment was gray. As I was procrastinating the act of leaving for work, I noticed a dark spot on the wall and remembered the wall frog. He was still clinging tenaciously to the wall where I had thrown him.

This was enough time for a wall frog to be sitting in one place, so I peeled him from the wall and noticed that he left a greasy wall frog butt print behind. I tried rubbing the butt print from the wall.

But unfortunately, it seems wall frogs permanently mark their territory.

There is a small paragraph in The Pearl.

This paragraph is near the end of Chapter 3. It comments on the human tendency to always want more; the tendency to never be satified with what you have. It never uses the word greed, but it does comment on how the trait is commonly spoken about disparagingly.

But this paragraph also comments on how this trait is responsible for humankind's ability to rise above other creatures that are content with what they are.

And it occurs to me: In an elemental sense, societal progress is the result of greed.

Another one falls! Steph has started a blog. It's for telling stories and such.

Also, there is a CD happening today. If I am particularly brave, at lunch, I will walk the 8 blocks to Borders in the cold and see if it came in.

Also Yesterday, I started reading The Pearl by Steinbeck because it's only 80 pages. Such a low commitment that I think I can take it.

Japanese is going to kill me this semester.

I was feeling all webstalgic this morning, so I decided that a few changes to the stylesheet were in order. This blog is now officially "kickin' it old school."

Last night I, in celebration of the Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne announcement, I resumed my efforts to finish Warcraft 3. It would be best if I could do so before the expansion comes out. A few Ork missions and the Night Elves to go. I should be able to stagger that across 6-8 months.

Tonight, Andrea and I go to the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. Which, as it turns out, isn't old school at all.

3.
Squinting in cold sun;
Exhaling steam, I shiver.
I must go to work.

Yesterday my Kanji practice at lunch was interrupted by one of the most spectacular coffee spills I've performed in a while. The coffee damage outlined as follows

* Japanese Textbook
* Japanese Workbook
* A yellow pad
* A pad of graph paper for kanji
* My beautiful Japanese folder/notes
* A small blue journal

I scrambled quickly to rescue The Art of Drowning (ironically, upon reflection). Which was only on the periphery and dampness on the cover was easily wiped off.

Really, I think I should give up and just dip my possessions in coffee the moment I bring them home. Ah well.

A long time ago (2 Sundays back) I saw Adaptation.

My initial reaction to it was similar to that of Being John Malkovich-- vaguely depressed. Those of you who follow the chronology of this blog will note that sometime thereabouts I was wrestling with squirming doorknobs, so my reaction might not have been my own. But I suspect it was.

In essence, I think what bothers me about Charlie Kaufman's films is that they filter the life of being a creative through a gray bitterness and cynicism. They have a tendency to overlook the fulfillment aspect of such pursuits.

Perhaps Kaufman, himself, has never found them to be fulfilling. Who knows?

I do, it turns out, find writing and creative pursuits fulfilling.

But when I look at someone else-- a professional portraying the creative in such a stark light, it makes me wonder about what I'm working toward. It makes me doubt that I want what I'm trying to get.

It makes me depressed.

But I think, perhaps, this is one of the levels on which Kaufman's films are so effective. Viewers can look at the creative pursuits that they didn't go after, and have always felt guilty about in that quiet part of their mind, and feel better.

Me. It makes me doubt. Which I do enough of on my own.

But the filter of rest and reflection has blunted that aspect of the film for me. Much in the same way it did for Being John Malkovich. It has given me a distance from the film that has allowed me to see the whole composition and recognize a quality to the piece that sent me running but has now drawn me back to look again.

That is to say, I highly recommend checking this one out.

She's back at it! I could burst from happy!

If you aren't familiar with the Webcomic Strings of Fate, now would be a wonderful time to acquaint yourself. She's just begun working on Act 2.

Ms. Jen Wang is both a skilled storyteller and artist. She makes me feel old. ^_-;

Last night I was driving, nay flying, home about midnight listening to The Best Cigarette. The poem "Morning" came on and it occurred to me: Billy Collins would be in bed by now.

I smiled at the thought.

Also.

I recieved an email yesterday from one Dave McNeal of Bowlnut Kaffe founding fame. This email contained an oekaki of Natsumi-san of www.chashitsu.net fame.

I thought I'd share it here:

If he had a blog that I knew of, I'd link it. *hint hint*

Never ask me what I think of a movie (or a play, for that matter) immediately afterward if you want an honest answer. Because I'm one of those people who has a tendency to be overwhelmed by the whole experience of film.

I am easily seduced by stimuli. I am swallowed whole by the protagonist's experience.

And, if my opinions are not allowed a proper period of gestation following my initial viewing of a film, what you will get is not my opinion of the film but rather how the film made me feel.

The difference between these two perspectives is subtle in most cases. And by most cases, I probably mean half the time.

But there are those occasions where my immediate reaction and my overall reaction to a film clash.

So if you find yourself disagreeing with me... Well, you might try and wait me out. Give me time to assemble a more appropriate reaction given my own personal context.

Bah! This sounds more like an apology than an exposition!

A Dramatization:

You wake up. It's dark. Must be night time still.

You woke up because someone has rubbed sandpaper on the inside of your chest and it's rather uncomfortable. You've already consumed the bottle of Tums tablets single-handedly but they only chase the pain away long enough to get back to sleep so you can wake back up again anyway.

You twist around to push the blankets off. Too hot.

They seem far too heavy to be blankets and only with forceful shoving and kicking, do you free yourself from their grasp. That must be why you're sore all over beneath the skin. You were sleeping under a pile of bricks.

So now you stand. Maybe the room is swimming. Maybe it's not-- it's dark and you can't tell, nor do you really care that much.

Peppermints! Peppermints will silence the angry strobing in your chest! And maybe some water while you're at it, so that there'll be enough moisture in your mouth to disolve them.

The doorknob is wild tonight. It squirms from your grasp. It probably thinks it's funny, but you best it and escape the darkness of the bedroom into more darkness.

Water is hard to swallow in the quantities you want it. It spills down your front and you ignore it. Who will ever know you spilled anyway? Who will care?

You unwrap a peppermint and put it in your mouth. A wave of blessed cold washes down your esophagus. The strobing in your chest becomes a thrumming. Manageable.

More! You are going to want more! What happens when this one is gone?

But you can't just take peppermints to bed with you! You'd sweat all over them and they'd get sticky. And if you left them within arm's reach of where you slept, the cat could make off with them while you drowsed!

A ziplock baggie! Of course! It would be safe to sleep with a baggie of peppermints! Genius! You shove a handful of peppermints into a sandwich baggie and head back to bed and the warmth of your brick blankets...

Discussions on Fanfics: imortalized!

I've added a few bloglinks. Removed a few comic links. Added Exploding Dog (which, I'm not sure would not fall under Scott McCloud's definition of comics, per se. But I'm not Scott).

Adjective conjugation in Japanese is ridiculous! Tanoshikuarimasendeshita (was not fun) from Tanoshii (fun)!

Today, as it turns out, is the 12th day of Christmas. Today is also the day classes start up again. Chris and I resume our studies of the Japanese language this evening.

I have to admit, the break wasn't long enough for me.

But, again, when is it ever. If I never had another class and never had to work another day in my life, I still wouldn't have time to accomplish everything I want to.

I remember my idle days in high school and feel a sort fidelity to Gandalf (quoting the movie, which is more cement in my mind); "300 lives of Men I walked this earth, and now I have no time."

If you have any spare time, please send it along in care of Shaun Gilroy.

Using Kunk-Log to post this. So hopefully it'll hold together.

In any case, a new semester is about to begin. I got my grade for my previous bout with Japanese and I came out with a 4.0. I now have a 4.0 cumulative GPA at Eastern. I begin to understand why it's always the non-trads who graduate Suma Cum Laude.

Andrea got me an Ent for New Year because she is cool.

Also, there is lots of beautiful snow outside.