Diary11/30/00rrrah ta ta Yay so I finally have my new AC adapter for my computer. It had been over a week since I had a fully functional computer! I was kickin it old school in my time off. By the end of tuesday I thought, "what the heck" and stopped listening to CDs and just played records. Just like the olden days. But yeah I like my new plug. It looks like it's from mars. And the coolest thing about it is that I can turn my computer on now! Poor Ariel is not feeling well. She stayed home from school. Aww... don't you want to make her feel better? In the rest of my life... there was this person here, but I gave up. Not worth the effort anymore. And how on earth did everybody else in the world know about that Ivory Coast 7" that Jodi is on before I did? I can't go online for a week and everything changes! 11/26/00 phooey So here's the problem: I still don't have a power plug for my computer. According to The Surprisingly Friendly and Funny Guy at the Apple Store, it should be here by Wednesday. Ariel, wonderful, lovely, super, life-saving Ariel, let my leave my computer at her house last night so that I could get a full battery charge (her mom has a powerbook, too) that I'll hopefully be able to stretch until my plug arrives. This does mean however that I won't be able to have my computer on very often because I'm afraid of some sort of Big Scary Emergency Assignment that I Have To Do On My Computer between now and Wednesday. I really shouldn't even be doing this now, I guess... Anyway, the long weekend was pretty cool - I just wish more people were in town for all of it. But whatever. It was nice except for the things that weren't, but there were a lot more things that were nice so it's all good. Was that a sentence? Yay for the first entry in the contest! np: Yesteryear - Under the Rug 11/22/00 agh. The power adapter on my Powerbook is broken and all of the computer stores are closed tomorrow. This sucks because I was planning on writing reviews tomorrow and there are only a few minutes left before my battery dies. So... that's why if you don't here from me in a while. Just to recap the past days, I got my spiffy new camera and I've been playing with that, I chilled at Ariel's house last night and I'm going to my grandparents' tomorrow. Typical scene with my family: My Mom (to my grandparents): Why don't you turn your chairs towards each other instead of pointing at the television? You could talk to each other then.Oh, I'm looking forward to this... 11/20/00 never be taken in by poets Easy way for Nick to cheer himself up when he's feeling down: put down the fucking Bright Eyes records and listen to something more cheerful. It's so simple yet so effective. Well now I know that answer to Nick Hornby's question: I am, in fact, miserable because I listen to pop music. Glad that's settled. I only have one more hour of class this week! Rah! And apparently my camera arrived at my mom's house so I'll be able to Also, there's a new contest that you can enter in the forum. Yayayaya np: Of Montreal: (the red record with the really long title) 11/17/00 in a moment i become a sweet little cat and i dance on the fwying saucer Yay today was nice even though i didn't really do much of anything. I skipped my first class of the day (bad nick! bad!) since it was a TA session and I didn't really feel like getting hints on a homework assignment that isn't due for another two weeks. So nyah. After all of school was taken care of, I went home and then to Ariel's house. We were going to rent a movie but we just chilled on her couch instead. Cool cool. 11/16/00 (a bit past midnight, though...) dream for me when I can't dream first things first.. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEL EVEN THOUGH IT WAS TECHNICALLY YESTREDAY BUT STILL! Hee yeah... otherwise not much has been going on. I almost bought a telephoto lens on eBay, but some jerk outbid me at the last second. Ah well. I hope it breaks. The box on my Blistex says "do not apply more than 4 times daily." oops. *twitch* 11/15/00 eww There aren't very many good answers to "what's that smell?" but a particularly unpleasant one is "that banana I didn't know fell behind the fridge a month ago." 11/14/00 i've got the apple in me, too Now, today was nice. Not that anything exciting happened, but I had a nice long conversation with Ariel on the phone and I finished my big ol' logic assignment four days early. And the weekend is one less day away, right? I did a silly thing - I realized on my way to theoretical physics in the morning, I forgot to put on my glasses. I never forget my glasses, not since I've been wearing them. But there I was, half way between my dorm and the class buildings with one minute to go before class started, so I couldn't turn back. It was really weird. I had that same feeling as those dreams where you're in class and you've forgotten your homework/pants. The teacher and board were all fuzzy even though I was sitting in the front row - when did my eyes get that bad? 11/13/00 more weight! When does Nick's earlies class start next semester? 8am. When does his latest class end? 8pm. This is going to be fun... My camera is apparently on its wayyayay. So maybe I was slightly daring today? More than usual at least. I do feel like an old fogey with my outdated technology... (ha ha nobody knows what I'm talking about). But really, today was just another day at school. There are four more of them this week and I'm not too happy about dealing with it, but I will. Hopefully I'll do something fun this weekend, because I don't see any end to this week's suckiness. I should write some reviews, really, but I have a big matrix algebra assignment due tomorrow, a big differential equations one on thursday and logic one and a theoretical physics one both due on friday. So I'm booked. I don't think next semister will be that bad though (other than the schedule) because I'll be taking two real philosophy classes so I'll be a lot more happy and motivated. Heh. RR! I wish I had something about myself to say rather than school, but there's nothing! I haven't done anything today that a robot couldn't do. Well it's almost vacation time, right? np: Dressy Bessy - Pink Hearts Yellow Moons 11/12/00 ewh mah goh Wanna know what sucks? Experimental physics sucks. It's a class I have next semister, that while being a four credit class, has 7 hours of class each week. Optics, another class I'm taking is 4 credits and has 6 hours of class. I still have to pick out my philosophy classes, and those two block off most of them. Along with computer science, which sucks beacuse the reason I took differential equations early was to open up a spot. Damn and blast. I "won" the camera auction, so at least I'll be looking forward to xmas. Only five school days left this week! (I'm trying to be optimistic) 11/11/00 ...been like this for weeks... Ok, I lied. I didn't write reviews today. Sowwy. I did go with my dad to go camera hunting. You could tell there was a bit of a shock in him when he saw that the local stores charge six hundred dollars for the one I want, without the lens. So we ended up going to eBay. I can't wait for Chrissymas now. Yeah, so I haven't done my little speech about the presidential election yet. First, the me personally part: I voted, but I didn't really. See, I did an absentee ballot, so since nothing in New York was very close, they're not going to bother looking at it. I can feel the power coursing through me. As for the big mess, Gore should be president. I don't care who you support. He won the popular vote. The whole point of democracy is that the government derives its power from the people and if there is some way for a person to be put into the highest office in the US while the people would rather have someone else, it's not anything. It's not a democracy, it's not a republic, nor is it a dictatorship, an aristocracy or any other of the claims that have been going around - it's a system governed by chance. The system of judging the people's will doesn't have as many significant figures as we expect of it due to both the Electoral College and the flawed vote counting system, so two premature rounding errors are introduced. And it will be a big fucking error when Bush fills the Supreme Court with anti-choice, pro-school prayer zealots. Anyway, don't worry, I won't bring it up again. Other than the afforementioned, I didn't really do much of anything today. I talked to Ariel just long enough to find out she has something important to tell me but can't say anything until tomorrow. Isn't this fun? 11/09/00 how can you say what you want to say? Yeah, I haven't updated in a few days. I've been too busy ruining my averages in all of my classes. I'm done with that for the week, though. I put up my first show review in ages, if you care about such things. 11/06/00 a song in a house that i built with my hands I'm still recovering from the Ida show, but it was so so so worth it. I'll write a proper review on a day when I don't have a math assignment due (which counts out tomorrow and wednesday, but I'll try at least). Even though my camera decided that it was a good idea to freak out and eat my memory card a few songs into Ida's set (it wasn't), I had a great time. And the drive wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. And at least I could recover the pictures that I did take. Yay! Now I'm really really looking forward to the all-manual camera I'm getting for christmas (a Nikon FM2n, go me). At the show I got the new Naysayer album and Peregrine by Tara Jane ONeil. I maladroitly made a big slash on the b-side of the latter with the phonograph needle after the first time I played it, but it thankfullly still sounds fine (more than fine, actually - it's an awesome album...). Even more luckily, I didn't break the needle... 11/05/00 be still... So, right now I'm sitting in my car outside of the Flywheel in lovely-ish Easthampton, MA. I say lovely-ish because I really don't know, it being dark and all. It turns out that I got here way early, but that's good because I got way lost once I got into town and I would have freaked if I was in any danger of missing the start of the show. As it is, I got in a good hour and a half of being lost - the first part actually being lost and the second part wandering around once I found the place. There's still half an hour before the show officially starts, which I assume means doors open and then it starts after that, but I've never been here before, so I don't know how it works exactly. The drive here was suprisingly easy, except for the last part. I passed by the flywheel at least twice without noticing it and then saw it by accident. The Thruway and Turnpike were more crowded than I expected, but it's all good. I bought two bottles of water I didn't need trying to coax directions that I didn't need out of people in various gas stations. I'll keep them as a trophy, I guess. I probably look like a total freak sitting in the back of my car, typing on a laptop like this. No one's looking, though, I don't think. That's part of the problem - it's dark and I can't see the keyboard so this will probably be rife with typos, but that's ok. Wanna know why? I'm going to see Ida in a little while, that's why. Don't hit me. The as for the rest of the weekend - it was very cute. I pretty much just hang (hung?) out at Zak's house, and we did all matter of silly things, but our best idea yet is our fake hair-metal band, Mullet (there's a ~ over the M, too). You should see the logo Zak drew - it's straight off the cover of some metal head kid's math notebook. It's now 7:04, and I don't know if it's time to stand outside of the Flywheel yet, but I'll turn my computer off now. 11/03/00 (again) your leaving just gives you away So today I made the big drive down to Bard to pick up Zak and Ka-Man because neither of their parents could do it... I think that's the furthest I've ever driven alone, which is actually good practice because I have a two and a half hour drive two ways on sunday when I go see Ida and the Naysayer and Tara Jane O'Neil in Easthampton. I still can't wait. Plus Zak is home this weekend, so I'm a happy boy at the moment. In addition to that, I just got the new Karate album in the mail today, and well, just goddamn. Yay my life right now. CHORUS: Smug bastard isn't he? 11/03/00 ik Throughout the course of my life, I've been woken up by three senses - touch, hearing, and sight. Today was the first time that I've been woken up by smell. There was (and still is) this hideous onion/bratwurst smell coming from the hall. Normally I wouldn't think this was so weird, but keep in mind that it's 7:30 in the morning and I first got woken up at 6:30. I'm just picturing some dude waking up at 6, putting on leiderhosen and frying sausages in the hall... 11/01/00 flash 1 2 3 4 5 Today was dull. There really isn't that much to say. At least the date tapers off nicely. np: the Secret Stars - Genealogies 10/31/00 on a clean white wall Ohhh... it's the last day of Rocktober and I didn't write any new reviews like I wanted to - I had to study for a pesky differential equations test instead. Bah. I've decided that grape Kool-aid is the best thing humankind has ever made. Prove me wrong. 10/30/00 show me the road where second guesses turn gold I'M GOING TO THE IDA SHOW ON SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's going to be six hours of driving in one day, but I don't care, I need an adventure and if I have to go at it alone then so be it. It should be lots of fun though. I so excited! I'm really starting to get Kickbright withdrawl really badly. Where are you, Jeffery? Are you ok? np: Glitter Jazz - Refrigerator 10/29/00 there's that fameous sound... IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!!! 10/28/00 David is the leader of the prosperous Giant Crabs I like it when saturdays leave me happy. If you've been keeping tabs, all of the entries for the past week were either me complaining or talking about school, and I find it dreadfully boring, so I can't imagine what you might be thinking... anyway, last week is over and I'm all the better for it. Today I watched Ariel and Anna (and other people, but their names don't begin with the letter "A" and I don't know them that well besides) in the high school production of The Crucible. It rocked. Hooray for anti-McCarthyism. I'm thinking of doing a naughty thing... you see, Ida is playing at the Flywheel in Easthampton, Mass next sunday, and I just might go. This would pretty much require that I miss my first class of the week, but I think it would be worth it. God knows it's been too long since I've done something exciting. The only stumbling block is that I don't have a car of my own and I would have to convince my mom that she should let me borrow her car so I can go alone to a strange city and come back that night or the next day and skip class. That shouldn't be too difficult, right? 10/26/00 gasp! Tomorrow morning I'm going to do something that I've never done before - skip a class. That's right. I'm a good for nothing social deviant. I'm skipping it because it's at 9 in the morning and I have a test at ten. It's just a TA session anyway. I've never even missed a class at college before... np: Of Montreal: The Bedside Drama: A Petite Tragedy ...I don't like this lonely life... 10/24/00 ugh I did a lot worse on that math test than I should have - I made a major booboo at the beginning of a 20 point problem that caused most of my work to be wrong and then I realized that about 2 minutes before the test was over, so I scribbled frantically trying to get it done and my frantic scribbling was completely wrong. I lay my life on the craps table of partial credit... I'm currently in the middle of a theoretical physics assignment that has beat the hell out of me and is now standing over me laughing. I can't finish it. I don't know what's going on, but if I don't do more, I'll be screwed. And there's a test on this stuff on friday. My brain feels like it's splitting in half. On the good side, I got the new Radiohead LP in the mail today - I'll have to wait to form an opinion, but it's not as wanky as I was expecting. Yay. Plus, the packaging is pretty neat - it's a double 10" (and they're both really nice sounding records). I just can't believe that I got it for $7.99 when Amazon.com and CDnow are charging 27. Saul Goodman fucking rocks. np: the afforementioned 10/23/00 shotglass in a fishbowl Tonight was E-mail Catch-Up night. I wrote 8. I still have a whole bunch to go. I remember the old days when I would respond to an email the second it got to me... what happened? I have a big ol' test tomorrow. I studied for it tonight, and I'll have to study more tomorrow. Such is life. What does Nick do to entertain himself on such busy-yet-dull nights? Um, not much. Play videogames and pester Ariel when he can't take calculus any more... np: the Kindercore #50 comp. (CD #1 - yay!, CD#2 - YAY!, CD#3 - shrug) 10/22/00 never, never I'm back at school. *yawn* I need to write a bunch of emails, but I'm too lazy to do it at the moment because I just finished my takehome midterm for logic. I hate it when one insignificant little problem turns into a monster that takes forever. It was one of those annoying things where it's something absolutely trivial, but we were only allowed to use the simplest laws and anything else had to be proven. In the middle of the proof, I had to freaking prove one of De Morgan's laws without using tautalogical consequence, so I had a proof by contradiction inside of a proof by contradiction which was inside of another proof by contradiction. A 24-line proof for a problem as innocent as "prove ~(P ^ Q) v P". The whole time I was just like "I can tell you it's true by just looking at it! I'm a human! we can do such things!" But anyway, it's done, correct, and I emailed in. Yay. That was a dorky paragraph, wasn't it?. Sorry. Blah blah indie rock blah blah... And enough of the word "proof". I chilled at Zak's house for most of the day today - we furthered the process of painting his mom's Mac red and we threw clay at a tree. It's a lot more fun than it sounds. Through a spat of ill-advised Tang consumption I've had more vitamin C the past two days than I'll need for the next two weeks. np: Karate - Death Kit/Nerve 7" 10/21/00 here is a graveyard of YOU! I've been letting this slide, haven't I?... Today was nice - zak was back, ariel was around for a few seconds, and Zak and I watched Dr. Strangelove and a Transformers tape. All was good, except for one little problem - I lost my fucking credit card. Grr. I know exactly where it is, too. You see, we went to CompUSA to get t-shirt transfers for my printer and the girl at the check out quite visibly didn't give a damn about working there anymore (I don't blame her...) - she actually walked off part way through me paying for stuff. Unfortunately, she never took my card out of the little carbon paper rubbing thingie, and I'm far too unaware of what's going on around me in general to have noticed. I didn't find out that it was gone until I tried to buy my groceries today and fumbled around like an idiot trying to find it. Luckily I had almost enough money on me to buy my stuff (I had to borrow 12 cents from Zak). This whole situation is probably going to get annoying quickly. 10/16/00 all the rust on this old car falls away in the rain as i stare well the past few months, the one thing l was really looking forward to was the Ida show at Bard on friday. Turns out that Ariel can't go, which means that I can't go. I didn't even have enough time to adequately mope because of a super-long math assignment that I still have to finish half of before class tomorrow. I suppose I should do my logic midterm. and the theoretical physics problem set. and the one for DiffEq... COME ON, COLLEGE! I NEED TIME TO CONCENTRATE ON BEING MISERABLE! 10/15/00 pigs, stairs, john cleese and the booty room This weekend certainly was interesting. Zak picked me up right after class and we went on the 3 and a half hour drive out to Cornell. Not too many strange things happened on the way, but we almost hit a pig. It was running away from these people in overalls. I'm sure that if we had the windows open we would have heard banjo music. One thing that suprised me about that area of the state (the finger lakes region, I guess) is that it looks really nice and smells terrible. All the changing leaves were nice and all, but oh my gosh do the farms there stink. ...Anyway, we got to Cornell without much difficulty, and Kevin brought us up to the auditorium like place where we watched the Life of Brian which was followed by a question and answer session with John Cleese. He rocks. After that, Kevin showed us Wegmanns, this amazing supermarket near his school. Isn't it sad how obsessed we are with supermarkets? They had the most amazing selection of Goya products! Then we went over to Wells, which is Raessa's school. That's where Zak, Kevin and I spent the night, which is sort of odd because it's an all girls school. We stayed in the, eh... "booty room". It's a spare room on Raessa's floor that you can rent out for $5, that well, isn't often used for sleeping, per se. Ick. Zak and I got the beds (we slept in/on sleeping bags that Zak brought) and poor Kevin slept on the floor. I hope no rumors got started as a result of seeing Raessa go in there late at night with three boys... The next morning, we woke up all grumpy and sore and dirty. The booty room didn't treat us very well. We managed, though. Once we finally got out, we went to this state park, and went up this trail that turned out to be about half an hour of walking up stairs. It was very pretty though, so I didn't mind, even though I felt like I was going to die at the end. I forgot to bring my camera to it, though... After a little bit more of doing little errands in Ithaca, Zak and I went home. I had never looked forward to a shower so much in my life. I chilled at Zak's for a little bit after that and fell asleep at something ridiculously early like 11. Then today, Zak, his dad, his sister Pisie, Ariel and I went to another park, but I forgot its name. Something-kill. (kill=creek in dutch). Another very pretty place, and I actually remembered my camera this time! So, that was my weekend, a very pleasant one. And now I'm back at school. poot. Pictures: the booty room10/12/00 drive! drive! 95! Tomorrow, Zak and I will be driving out to Cornell to visit Kevin and see Monty Python's the Life of Brian (one of the cast members or something is going to be there, but I can't remember the details). Rad. Zak's going to be picking me up right after my last class ends... I wonder how many important things I'll forget to bring with me... Also, tomorrow is friday the 13th. In October. On a full moon. Ariel starts work tomorrow - where will she be working? A haunted house. This'll be interesting. np: Karate - s/t 10/11/00 and i'll call it 'the cellular phone incident' Differential equations was all messed up today. scene 1: this kid who often sits somewhere near me brings in someone else's backpack (I guess something happened to his). Contained in this backpack, unbeknownst to him, is a cellular phone. About 10 minutes into class, the phone rings, but it's not a normal ring - it's one of those incredibly annoying cellular phones that plays a song when it goes off. The kid doesn't realize that he's involved and seems rather annoyed at me, although anyone with two ears can tell that the noise is coming from his bag. About 10 minutes after that, it goes off again and he yells "turn that fucking thing off!" at me. I point out that the noise is coming from his bag, and I have nothing to do with it. He acts like he thinks I'm lying and says "show me your hands." So I do. They contain a pencil. I point out again that the noise is coming from his bag, and after a few more seconds it stops again. Class resumes, he rummages through his bag, finds the phone, and hopefully feels like a colossal idiot. He apologized after class, though, so this entry is the extent of my bitterness. scene 2: 10 minutes before the end of class, every lightbulb in the auditorium but one goes out. The one over me. What's going on today? At least I'm not sick anymore... np: Ted Leo/Pharmacists - Treble in Trouble 10/10/00 voodoowhodoyoudodowhat? Yesterday was cool - I chilled at Zak's most of the day. Zak played fat rat with his sister, which means that she wore big strechy clothes and they put as many pillows and towels and whatever else in them until she was shaped like a beach ball. After that, we pretty much did nothing except play video games. That night, he and Kevin brought me back to school and I promply became deathly ill. I still am, but the annoying thing is that it keeps changing - I was really stuffy before, then I was really stuffy with a headache and now I just have a headache. I don't want to know what the next step is. np: The Ida Retsin Family - Volume One 10/09/00 arararaharah Hee what a terrible entry to leave up for almost a week... ah well. In the last few days, I've just been chilling at zak's house - Kevin was back for a little while and then went to Chicago for the hell of it, and in the meantime, Zak, Ariel and I have just been having fun not doing much of anything. We've been all about Jim Henson lately - we watched the Great Muppet Caper last night and Labyrinth before that. You have to love a movie with David Bowie singing to muppets. I've successfully avoided doing any work since I've been home. I'll probably regret it later, but I don't mind. I'm not even sure when I'm going back to school - I don't have class tomorrow until 1. I'm oh-so-irresponsible. 10/03/00 uuuuuuhnhng I just became deathly ill in the last hour or so. It had better wear off by the time I wake up in the morning... So Ariel says that she has PSATs on October 21st. The Ida show we were planning on driving down to Bard for is on the 20th... I hope something works out. I can't take another thing falling apart. And you know that test I mentioned a while back - the impossibly difficult one? I got a 22. Brr. The highest grade in the class was a 48, though, so it's not like the grades mean anything once the test is that screwed up. It's kind of like giving a normal test and then saying "lets see how you do under water and upside down!" - the results don't necessarily correspond to a normal test. Anyway... not that I'm bitter. I did really well on the theoretical phyics test I got back today, and I care more about that. The older entries are here... |
