Diary
yay.Ooo ooo first update from school ooo ooo classes start tomorrow ooo ooo got my radio show application in ooo ooo dinner made me sick
Yeah so I'm back. My room is just the same as always and it's just as messy as I left it. I'll clean soon enough, but for right now I'm fine with boxes and bags all over. I pretty much came over here first thing today and had Teresa help me move my stuff back up and then we went grocery shopping. I kind of bought too many frozen things so I had to throw away the ancient bag of califlower in the back of the freezer. Yeah it froze into a solid, inedible block, but it had been around for so long that I felt bad throwing it out...
My first class tomorrow is with a professor whom everyone says is the most evil, unpleasant and mean teacher in the school. Yay for that. The rest is better, though.
1/12/2
whatcha doin tonight
Well, I go back to school tomorrow. I always say that vacations feel too short, but this one didn't really all that much. Not to say that I didn't like it, it's just that time seemed to progress at a pretty standard rate. I'm going to be working in a lab soon and I'm terrified. Other than that though, I think things are OK. My classes aren't terribly interesting, but it won't be that insanely-difficult-and-uninteresting-but-required-by-the-department bullshit of last semester, at least.
The other day I got a big box of poison in the mail. It was just photographic developers and such, but they all made it very clear that they were poison. My selenium toner came with detailed instructions of how to force yourself to vomit if you ingest it. Zak, Kevin, Eric and I tried to eat a durian and it should have came with the same.
I guess I should get down to sleeping in my room for the last time for a while...
1/7/2
would you let me in
So I was on the radio again today and this time went a million times better than the first time.
Mistakes made this time:
- Had the monitor on FM Air instead of program when I tried to talk at first, so there was this crazy delay that made talking difficult.
- My Losing True CD started skipping when I tried to play "Tiger Dare" (but luckily in the first few seconds) so I had to skip it
And I think that's it.
So here's my playlist:
The Secret Stars - "Snowday"So, I didn't play much in the way of new music, but snowy days always make me sentimental. And there were a couple of new songs, at least. I was happy with how it turned out...
Jupiter Sunrise - "Cherry Wine"
Tara Jane O'Neil - "Sweet Bargaining
The Naysayer - "Currency"
Fugazi - "Life and Limb"
Karate - "Today or Tomorrow"
Brittle Stars - "Occasional Appearance"
Etienne Charry - "Raye Du Bottin"
Of Montreal - "I felt like smashing my face through a clear glass window"
Jupiter Sunrise - "Josie's House"
K. - "Regular Girl"
Yesteryear - "Blizzard Song"
Ted Leo - "Biomusicology"
Red House Painters - "Follow You, Follow Me" (Phil Collins cover!)
Ida - "Shrug"
The Secret Stars - "N29 It's Alright"
Getting there was the tough part. It's snowy here. Snowy snowy snowy. The drive to Troy that usually takes less than half an hour took an hour and a half. Oy.
Also, last night I got snowed in at Zak's. When I tried to go home, I realized that the snow was considerably higher than the bumper on my poor, little Honda Civic, which meant that going forward wasn't really a possibility until the roads were plowed. So, I slept on the couch and all was well.
The first person to get me one of the new iMacs gets a big hug.
1/4/2
someone could have just told you if they were honest
Whenever I go for a long time without putting anything in my diary, I start to feel that the next thing I should say should be something horribly profound and significant. However, I never have anything horribly profound and significant to say, so trying to do that would just mean that this would be dead for another month.
The winter break has been pretty good so far. My sister got married, Christmas was nice, and I had a perfectly boring New Year's. A picture of mine got used in the cover art of an awesome album, too. There is a lot of stuff for school and such that I should have taken care of by now but haven't, but that isn't bothering me.
If all goes well, I'll be on the radio again on Monday, and hopefully it'll actually be at 6:30 this time...
12/17/1
10,000 Watts of Mayhem!
So I did radio today - madness! Madness! The problem was that I had to go on an hour before I was planning, meaning that I had about 20 minutes to run back to my room, grab a bunch of CDs and records and run back to the station and hope for the best. I guess it turned out all right.
Here's my playlist (you can tell that I didn't have all that much time for variety...)
Secret Stars - "Snowday"And it'll only get easier from here. Hopefully.
Eric Metronome - "Learned to Forget"
K. - "Reminder"
Low - "Embrace"
Dalek - "Swollen Tounge Bums"
Ida - "Blizzard of 78"
Yesteryear - "Hurt Yourself Again"
Ted Leo - "St. John the Divine"
B'ehl - "Swim By"
Souvenir - "Au Bord Du Soleil"
Metronome - "Invisible Friends"
Belle and Sebastian - "We Rule the School"
Metronome - "Invisible Friends" (Again! I pressed play on the wrong CD player!)
Karate - "Sever"
Fred Thomas - "Les Etoiles Secretes"
Geoff Farina - "The Rights"
Secret Stars - "Andy and Girls" (My plan was to go out on "N29 It's Alright", but I couldn't find my Geneologies CD when the time came...)
12/16/1
Falling up the stupid stairs
So I was studying and studying and studing for my a-calc exam tomorrow, and I dedided to do a little math. I found out that for me to get a B in the course, I would need to get a not-so-possible 105 on the final. For me to get a D, I would have to get under a 60. So guess what I'm probably going to get? My second C for this semester and my second C in college. Unbelievably fucking annoying. If it weren't for the fact that three out of my four classes were insanely difficult and the fact that I wasn't interested in any of the four, I probably would have done better. A big "if" I guess. Next semester doesn't look too promising, but at least I'm taking one class that isn't physics or math.
I'm hopefully going to fill in for Renee's show tomorrow on WRPI (91.5FM) tomorrow, so if you have a radio handy and you're within 75 miles of Troy, NY (or if you have a computer handy), I'll be on at 6:30 EST, unless somebody else takes the spot. I plays the music.
12/15/1
la la back at school. La la.
I stopped at home just long enough so that I really had to drag myself back here. Just one more final... one.
I have soooo much stuff that I really should be doing other than going to bed, but fuck it.
12/13/1
z
I finally got to spend some time in the darkroom today, and here's some of what I came up with (sorry about the file sizes, I'm tired and it's late and I don't feel like messing around with shrinking and compressing and such):
One - You're either for ficus-based religious symbolism, or you're with the terroristsI also visited the lab of the professor that I'll hopefully be working for next semester. I hope this turns out ok...
Two - A geko (is that how it's spelled?) tree
Three - Dancing leaves
I brought Teresa to the bus station this morning, so it feels kind of silly to still be at school considering that I don't have a final until monday, but it's all good.
12/12/1
Feh.
So now everyting is finalized except for my advanced calculus class. B in quantum, A in comp sci and... C in intermediate mechanics. This is going to be my first C at college. Lame. Goddamn hard-earned C, though...
Teresa and I went to get take-out tonight, in the fourth or fifth or something place we've tried around here. This place was so awesome though - the interior was amazing. Empty, but still. The tofu was SO good...
Right now (2:30am) I'm listening to the music that someone in my dorm has been playing for the past two hours. It goes "thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump..."
12/12/1
Karate choppin' all night
I have a B in quantum physics! Yay! Since it's an 83, taking the optional final wouldn't bring me up to an A, so no final for me! Now I just have the others to worry about. The computer science one is tomorrow. I have to get a 30 on it to get an A in the class. Whee.
I started playing another stupid time-stealing video game in the middle of finals. This won't end well.
The upside is that I only have two more tests to take and then I can stop talking about fucking school all the time.
12/9/1
This is what happens when you live in a bubble
My sister is getting married in less than two weeks. When did I find out? Yesterday. There is such a thing as concentrating too much on school.
12/7/1
almost there...
Another test down. I guess this one went pretty much how I expected: keeping with the other tests in quantum physics, it was just how many formulas I could remember. I remembered some, forgot others, and I think I drew the pictures pretty accurately. It works, I guess.
The new Secret Stars web site is beautiful.
12/7/1
ouchies
So it's four in the morning and I'm awake. I woke up suddenly because my lower right leg hurts. How does one pull a muscle while sleeping? And why must people take showers at four in the morning when I'm trying to get back to sleep?
12/6/1
la
Well, that's one test down. I guess it went as well as can be expected. The one tomorrow in quantum physics is a toss up: the tests in that class are always a matter of how many formulas you can remember, not how well you understand and apply the concepts. I'm hoping to get an 83 - that's the good spot where I'll be locked into a B whether or not I take the final.
On PETA's web site, there's this video of a cow, suspended and being bled. You first look at it and assume, "oh gross, they're just showing footage of the slaughterhouse draining the blood from a corpse." Then you see the leg twitch, then the mouth open, and then the eye open. I couldn't take it the first time I saw it a few months ago and I still couldn't when I looked at it now.
12/5/1
it's the same thing steps one two and three
Work work work, that's all I do. Begin obligatory silly personality test:
 | If I were a work of art, I would be Edgar Degas' Dance Class. I appear soft and gentle, but hide a core of rigid structure and discipline. I work hard and follow orders, because I am determined to succeed, but remain attached to displays of frivolity and maintaining my appearance. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test |
Test tomorrow, test friday, and then a few tests after that for good measure, but I guess it's really not all that much.
Time for bed, I guess. Thought that currently popped into my head: I'd much rather be watching cartoons. True. I guess it's a good thing that I don't have a television. This computer is enough distraction for me...
12/1/1
From a thousand years ago
I've done all together too much homework today, but I haven't even done half of it yet. This semester is going to go out with a lot of me scribbling equations. It's really annoying when I have to go between five different incomprehensible text books looking for the least incomprehensible explanation of something when they all use different notation...
Today Teresa and I went to this asian market by Central Ave. Not only do they (pay attention, Zak) have durians for $1.88, they have all sorts of terrifying, foul smelling foods that Teresa assures me taste good. Of course, that's what she said about the spicy seaweed stuff she gave me this morning, but they do have all sorts of cheap and good tofu, so it can't be all bad. They had a tin of cookies that for some reason contained a Jackie Chan VCD, but I decided against it.
Only nine more days until finals! Eeks!
11/30/1
Monkey mate in the jungle, robot replicate in factory
My PowerBook is back and about to kick your ass! Yay big screen, yay fast enough to run Flash, yay has the programs I need to not fail my classes, and yay sane operating system. Ever notice that while Windows people make a big deal about having two mouse buttons, their operating system, even Windows 2000, gets confused as to which one you're pressing?
I decided not to go to the show tonight because Wetwerks was playing. No offense.
Today I tried to figure out how to write programs for Macs instead of DOS like they teach us in Computer Scince here. I'll I've managed to do is make a program that draws an empty window and then quits when you hit the mouse button. I decided that all the rest is just details and I'll ignore that for now since I've got more pressing things to worry about.
11/29/1
I hope if it was that bad I could just walk out
I'm still on the stinkpad because my PowerBook is still being drooled on by the cross-eyed goons at CompUSA. Arg.
I did pass all of my WRPI tests last night, so I'll have a radio show sometime hopefully, which should be cool.
I've been really tired today for no good reason, and I'm not a fan. I think I'll go to bed early tonight and tomorrow work my behind off on all of the homework that's due by next friday (and some this coming monday), and then go to the Kamikaze Hearts show. I'm not sure if anyone is going with me though...
11/26/1
Did you meet Haystacks Calhoun?
My apologies for not writing - my PowerBook has been in the filthy clutches of CompUSA for a while now, as they attempt to nurse the screen back to non-psychadelic health. In the meantime, I'm borrowing my mom's IBM thinkpad, which is reminding me why I never wanted to use Windows again. You know what I like about Microsoft?
...
Anyway, today was my second time kickin it on RenŽe's radio show, Louder Please. I played Ted Leo and Eric Metronome songs, but I did the Ted one at sort of the wrong speed because the pitch on the turntable was set to +2%, which bugged the heck out of me, but I bet no one else noticed... this is why I'm learning, after all. So maybe I'll be on the air next semester. Weird.
I was very tired today because I have a ten AM class - I have eight o'clock classes next year; I wonder how that's going to work? I guess I'll just have to see.
Christ I even hate the keyboard on this thing! It's so stiff and opaque!
Thanksgiving was nice. My brother visited unexpectedly because of my dad and all, and my dad's now out of the hospital and much much much better.
I went with Eric and his brother and his brother's friend Tom to see The Man Who Wasn't There on friday and that was cool. I like Cohen brothers movies but I never get around to seeing them. On saturday, Eric and Zak and I watched Techno Police, which I picked up at Goodwill a while back, and it was absolutely, unbearably awful, which is to say that it rocked in the way that terrible early-Eighties Japanese cartoons about robots with the Godzilla Overdub Squad doing the voice acting do.
11/18/1
busybusybusy
Work work work, that's been the last few hours. At the beginning of the day, I got up and took pictures of the meteors. Then I went back to bed because I was cold and tired and the sun was coming up anyway. I got back out of bed around 11 and got the pictures developed and then drove all the way back to Schenectady with them. Of course, very few of them actually have meteors in them since I had the lens stopped down a bit too much for all but the brightest ones to affect the film, but the pictures themselves aren't too bad, meteors or not. I really like Agfa Vista 100 (I'm pretty sure that page is translated from another language...) - it has much nicer colors than any of the other color print films I've used, and very sharp. I'll share later, but now I have to go to bed...
11/17/1
I can't stop thinking about it...
In about four hours I'll be getting up to take pictures of rocks falling from space.
I haven't mentioned it on here before, but my dad is in the hospital because his appendix burst. He'll be ok, but let's just say that the only reason I'm getting up to take pictures of the meteors is because he wanted to see them.
11/17/1
lalala
So I actually got to go to a show with Ariel yesterday! It's been about a billion years...
I was one of "those people" last night, as in some of the freshmen in the first floor of my dorm were playing really horrid dance music at 2:00-3:30 in the morning so loud that stuff in my room was shaking even though I'm on the third floor, and I called public safety and complained. I don't like having to be the asshole who calls the "cops" but fucking shit, go to a club or something, losers.
11/12/1
forced removal of the people on the corner
I went to bed too late and got up too early and took a nap in the middle of the day, so for all intents and purposes I am not awake. I'm not going to even try and do any quantum physics work tonight, because that's hard enough when I'm not in a stupor. On the whole, today was fairly forgettable and I intend to do so.
I'm sorry to all the people who have written me emails to which I haven't responded. It's been one of those months.
11/11/1
ain't got no job
So today instead of working on my i-mech homework all day, I went and rented Friday with Teresa and Frank, which was definitely more enjoyable than my day would be otherwise, but now I have to stay up very very late to finish this and then get up early to hand it in. And I would be having trouble with this crazy shit even if I was awake. But whatever. That class is going to fuck up my GPA no matter what, and it's annoying because it's mechanics. I don't give a shit about mechanics. Right now I'm on a problem solving the motion of a triangular plate. I don't know anyone who has triangular plates, and if I did I wouldn't be spinning their plates about an apex anyway.
The weekend was good, though. Going to Cornell was fun and the ride back was just as good.
And now back to work. I wish I didn't have shit to do...
11/8/1
oh. this again.
My PowerBook screen is being stupid again. It's not as bad as last time, since it never goes away completely, but it will occaisionally decide that white is teal and black is red, which makes it a little confusing to look at. I don't want to bring it back to CompUSA, though, since it's not summer any more and I do actually need to computer for school now. I just hope it doesn't get any worse...
I did my schedule for next semester. I'm taking three physics classes and a class on existentialism. It looks to be fairly hellish. I'm not looking forward to taking statistical mechanics and thermodynamics at 8am on Fridays...
AAARRRRR!! WHY CAN'T MY COMPUTER JUST KEEP FUCKING WORKING! THIS IS DRIVING ME NUTS!
11/6/1
Oh well
So I voted today. Everyone I voted for lost. Shit. I guess I can't expect much in the way of Green Party victories in an era of insane nationalism. Maybe next time...
11/5/1
all bored, anesthetized
I really shouldn't be as happy as I am right now, but I'll take what I can get. I guess it's the fact that I handed in a lot of stuff and did a test today so there is a lot of stuff behind me now. Now I get to worry about how it all turned out, but I'm not yet. I'm just happy that there's another six-straight-hours-of-class monday gone...
11/4/1
one of those
Today was one of those days when I had so much work to do that I gave up on getting it done perfectly and went for just done. It seems that every big assignment that comes about it starting to get like that, which I'm not too fond of, but there really isn't much else I can do.
I have a snobby little game that I play whenever there's a big sporting event - I try to go as long as possible without knowing the outcome. I was pretty much set for this one since I'm at school and I don't talk to anyone here who gives a shit about that, but of course I had to find out in a really irritating way (because that's what always happens). I heard it shouted by the people in the room next to me. Which wouldn't seem weird at first, except there is no room next to me. There's a building next to me. We're separated by a windowless brick wall and it sounded like those howling troglodytes were sitting next to me. How do you get that excited about someone breaking his leg?
11/2/1
like you think it will
I had to break my rule of never doing homework on a friday night because I have so goddamn much to do this weekend and I wanted to get some done tonight so I could hang out with Teresa and/or (hopefully and) Zak tomorrow. I'm really tired now, but I'm not going to bed until the I-Mech homework is done, and that's that. Even if my eyelids are so very very heavy. I'm not going to... Does green tea have caffiene in it? Cause that's all I have.
11/2/1
rrr!
Yeah that's what I wanted. I wanted to be woken up early in the morning by frat boys blasting Dave Matthews at their stand selling American flag related pap. Yeah.
10/31/1
Doo doo doo
I would probably be upset about the fact that I stayed at home on Halloween night and did a take-home test if I liked Halloween, but I don't. As long as I can remember it was just a time for some kids to act like assholes and for some kids to go out and be cute and have fun and then get attacked by the kids who are acting like assholes. I was always in the latter - I've never thrown an egg or covered anything with toilet paper or shaving cream and I guess it's too late to start. Which is good. You know, Teresa told me before that where she comes from (a far-off land called "New Jersey") they have a night called "Cabbage Night" the night before Halloween and that stuff gets done then. And probably on Halloween, too. Barbaric place, really.
10/29/1
this is what we do.
From the New York Times:
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct. 29 -- In the raw gloom, Haziza, 12, helped find her mother and baby brother, dead in the rubble of their collapsed home.So explain to me how the "war" is going to make people stop wanting to attack the United States.
It was early October, the first night of the American bombing of Kabul. The electricity had been cut. Searchers were desperately lighting pieces of paper, one after another, trying to burn away small patches of darkness. In her mind's eye, the girl said she recalls two still bodies, "their faces crushed and covered with blood."
As she spoke, her eyes drifted left and she flinched, as if again in that moment, whether conjured from the stamp of memory or the elastic of imagination. She is a refugee now, having left everything behind but her thoughts.
"She seems unable to concentrate for long," said her teacher, a woman named Mullalai. "Sometimes I look back at her and she is crying. So I go to her. But what is there to say?"
10/28/1
Christmas isn't safe for animals.
So I have another test tomorrow. I'm mostly hopeful.
Right now some bastard is smoking cigars or pipe tobacco outside my window and now my room smells like that and it's making me queasy. I hate that smell.
Yay for clocks being set back, though.
I'm sorry if this is all disjointed. I'm not really paying attention...
10/25/1
something never happened
You know, I'd love to get an iPod, but here's my reason for not buying one:
I'd guess that in large quantities, bubblegum costs about fifty cents a pound. The iPod costs four hundred dollars. That same four hundred dollars could get you eight hundred pounds of bubblegum. The iPod weighs like six ounces and you can't even chew it. Nuff said, as they say.
I wish I didn't have that test on Monday. Then I could see Tara Jane ONeil on Sunday. But now I have to study. Great trade.
10/22/1
bad ideas onto frigid seas
So I have a test in quantum physics tomorrow. I'm not sure I understand everything that's going to be on it, but I think that might just be because it doesn't make any fucking goddamn sense. But that's just me.
I think after the test is done I might get a brief break from the craziness of the past couple of weeks... before the next test next monday that is. It's really annoying - I really wanted to go see Tara Jane O'Neil at the Flywheel this coming Sunday, but since my test is ten o'clock monday morning, I don't really see how I could do that. If I didn't get a D on the last test in that class, maybe, but I don't know... Why does it feel like going to college keeps me from pursuing the really interesting parts of life?
10/21/1
Yeah I think I heard about it
So Teresa and I watched Death Race 2000 last night - eventually there will be no doubt left in the world that it is the most rocking movie ever made.
It's the middle of Sunday and of course I'm doing homework and of course it's a big assignment and of course it's due tomorrow. That's pretty much what I've been doing every night for the past week or so. It can't keep up like this for too much longer, right?
And where in the world has Kickbright been?
10/17/1
This is me being busy
Sorry about not updating(calling/emailing...). Busy busy busy. I donated blood yesterday and it didn't hurt.
10/8/1
two two three four
I have a cold, I have a lot of homework, and I have a test tomorrow. And the US is giving the terrorists what they wanted, and more people are going to die. Oh, and the heat in my room isn't working and it's just barely above freezing (33 degrees) out. So I guess this is a pretty miserable night.
At least the whole day wasn't misery - Zak and I went to a thrift shop and I ended up getting a reel-to-reel tape recorder for four dollars, with a reel that has what seems to be an interrogation on it included...
If I didn't have to study, I would go to bed right now in the warm, comfy sheets and go to sleep. But I can't because I have to make up some shit on a homework problem in hopes of partial credit and do what I can not to fail that test. How about you have a good night for me?
p.s. There's no difference between being ecstatic that there's a war going on and being ecstatic about the opportunity to be righteously indignant that there's a war going on.
10/7/1
if things can get worse, where the fuck were we?
I can't stand violence. Any time that someone decides that it's ok for them to kill someone else for whatever purpose, he has lost sight of any principle that's worth fighting over. And it happens over and over again. What happened a few weeks ago was one of the most heart-stoppingly horrifying things I've ever seen, probably the worst, and part of that horror was dreading what the response was going to be. I don't know enough about what the militaries are doing right now to make a guess at how it will end, but we've seen a thousand times what happens when any group believes that it has a moral duty to kill someone else, whether it's for the purpose of justice, or righteousness or whatever. Each side will always have that feeling and it will intensify and fester with each action taken by either side. I don't want anyone killed. Even if they killed a thousand people, I don't want them killed. It won't make the world safe, it won't satisfy a need that was brought about when anyone died, it will only make another person dead and a million others angrier. And there's no way for everyone to see it that way because they think their anger is justified. I couldn't tell anyone that they couldn't be angry because absolutely atrocious things have happened, but I have never seen a case where anger has brought about anything other than suffering and itself, so how could it be right?
But what the hell do I know? My belief that killing and hurting anything with the ability to notice is bad has already made me live a lifestyle that seems so ridiculous to the majority of the world that I have to laugh at it and pretend that I'm just weird. But I'm not weird. The whole fucking world is.
10/3/1
I don't want to know if she floats or drowns...
So Teresa and I went to see Independence Day because it was playing on campus... and I normally don't like the be like "oh my god! that guy was so weird!" (which is actually a lie) but oh my god! That guy was so weird! There was this guy who went alone and was more into this movie than anyone I have ever seen being into a movie. When anything midly dramatic happened, he was twitching and clasping his hands and simply looking so entralled that he was about to explode. When anything exploded, he gave a big started jump, and a lot of things blow up in that movie. I could understand this at something more amazing, like Ninja Thunderbolt, but this was just a Will Smith movie! Once I thought about it though, I realized that he's actually pretty awesome - something so stupid can bring him unbelievable joy and he didn't give a shit about anyone watching him do it. The kid is all right.
I should do more work than I'm going to do tonight, but whatever.
9/30/1
awake?
So Teresa and I went to a show last night at the show was very good, even though we had to leave one song into the last guy's set. We had to leave because we went to see Dancer in the Dark, which started at one in the morning and ended at three thirty and was very sad. So now I just got home and it's four. Teresa and I did a naughty thing at the club - since no one seemed to be playing anything when we got there, we put in five songs in the jukebox and the first guy had to wait for our GoGos and Prince songs to finish before he could play. Sorry, guy!
I'm going to bed now.
9/26/1
tremble at the knee
School it pretty much at the tide of suck right now. I'm getting that feeling of getting sucked under and losing my balance, but at least I know that I've done this a thousand times before and it all eventually ebbs. That's my way of saying "math is hard." The I-Mech test fucked my shit up and I'm not so happy about that, and I'm pretty stumped on the homework that's due for that class tomorrow. So yeah. And also the stupid printer in the computer science lab doesn't like my computer so I have to run home and run back to hand in the studios. This is simply because the people who run the network decided that it would be fun to set it up so it has Appletalk on, but it's invisible so I can't use it. I think they're just being assholes.
So Teresa and I saw Requiem for a Dream tonight. Depressing depressing depressing...
Also, yesterday I developed the film from the show on saturday - I was trying to get it to be very very grainy so (and non photo dorks can skip this part) I pushed Tri-X 3 stops to iso 3200 and developed it in Rodinal 1+60, thinking that if I got an image at all it would be incredibly grainy... but to my dismay it came out beautifully, with high but not insane contrast and fairly small grain, considering. Of course I've only examined the negatives (but in an enlarger with a grain focuser, so I have some idea), I guess I'll have to wait until the film scanner is going in the darkroom before I can really see what's up (and share!). But I like the idea of doing this this way because of these simple facts:
1 roll of Tri-X: $2.40, processing done by me for a couple of pennies worth of developerSo yay. And if I can ever learn how to develop color film without starting a fire or poisoning myself, things will be even cooler...
1 roll of Superia 1600: $5 plus $15 processing for machine prints that are always cropped wrong
np: Shanti Project Collection
9/23/1
zip zip zip
Wish my luck on my Intermediate Mechanics test tomorrow...
9/21/1
z?
I just spent six hours in the darkroom. I'm not sure if I'm dizzy because of chemicals, darkness or not eating...
I'll scan pictures soon enough...
9/19/1
september, I'm sorry...
So I actually did my homework tonight. Yay. I also stopped back home and got some stuff that came in the mail, including my E-ZPass tag and the Troubleman Mix Tape compilation album. Cool... I got it for the Secret Stars song, but I've also been a rabid Melt-Banana fan for a long time (the people who are still shuddering from time spent in my car in high school can attest to that) and there's a lot of stuff along that vein. It's good because for some reason I've been in the mood for music where the lyrics might as well be "BLARHHHH! RABARABA! POIT! SPOOOD!" today.
9/16/1
the world is never stationary, but sometimes it falls off the rails
I know the best thing to do at this point is try to live normally, but all the while there is this unending heavy feeling in my chest. I don't know if anyone else has gotten this feeling but it seems that some things work now and some things don't: I could go to a show, watch a movie, hang out, basically do anything that's free of expectations and relevance but anything that depended on a feeling of importance, like homework, studying, or anything for school seems impossible. Is it possible to move on without forgetting?
There are friends of friends that might be gone forever. No execution, no war, nothing could make that even remotely better. If justice is a restoration of balace how could that ever happen? Will bombing end hatred? Will blame make us safe?
I can't sustain this tone.
Jerry Falwell called it "what we deserve." "Fuck you, Jerry Falwell" doesn't seem to cut it. I just can't imagine that coming out of a sane human being.
9/11/1
...
So my class ended early and the first thing I did was go over and try to give blood. There was a line stretching across two buildings and they had as many people there that they could take donations from in a day. All I could do was put my name on a waiting list so they can call me when they're ready.
So what can be said? I don't think it's right to attach one's political stance to something like this. A lot of people are trying to help, which is awesome. A lot of people are demanding retribution against people who haven't even been shown to be involved, which is degrading to humanity. No matter what happens afterward, this is horrible and the only choice we have is whether we make it better or worse.
9/10/1
Nothing, tra la la?!
So today sucked impressively! Nothing earth shattering happened, but there was a lot of running around that didn't really need to be done. I hate days that end with me thinking, "there's no reason for me to remember this, so I probably won't." Tiring and pointless...
I really do intend to put up those pictures from the Ted Leo show soon. I mean it!
np: Jai Agnish: Automata
9/6/1
trust me, I know what it's like
So yeah. Tomorrow is friday and today was thursday and there's not much more to say.
9/5/1
Poor dumb bird
So tomorrow I'm going to hand in my first problem set of the semester with a problem with a "this is what I get and I know it doesn't make any sense" answer (an object has initial velocity Vo and there's gravity and a resisting force that varies with v-squared. I do the differential equation and get it moving tangentially with time, so it periodically will be moving with infinite speed. Huh.) It hasn't even been two weeks! Bah, rocket science...
I didn't have any class today, so I can't really say today was stressful at all, though. Chillin out max and relaxin all cool and such. I bought a stapler with grape iMac inspired stylings...
9/4/1
we don't have time or the will to intrude
Today was so boring that writing in my journal is making me sleepy. It was all about physics today, and I'll leave it at that. Tomorrow might be better... thursday will suck, but other than that, the rest of the week looks better...
9/3/1
today I:
- Went back to schoolNight night!
- Stared blankly at first homework problem for quantum physics
- Called Ariel for the first time in a while
- Picked up Teresa at the bus station
- Went to Price Chomper with Teresa
- Went back to my room and ate a mouth happy/stomach sad dinner of Veggie Stix
- Wrote in diary, intending to go back to staring blankly at problem for quantum physics
9/2/1
I'm a big ol' beet...
Hopefully I'll have the pictures from the show up pretty soon. I'm at home now without a scanner, so I can't do it quite yet, but soon. I'm not sure if I want to just scan in the prints since they got kind of messed up again (frames in the wrong places again) and there's supposed to be a film scanner in the dark room soon. At least the people at the photo place were nice about it - the girl there was totally going to spend like hours trying to get the machine to place them right, but if I let her, a) it wouldn't be very nice of me, and b) they would be done when I was back at school. I've had worse with no apologies from other places, so whatever.
In other news, I bought a ficus for my room. That is all. Goodnight!
9/1/1
It's too bad nothing terrible happened today - numerology is fun...
Very cool show, very cool weekend, very long drive, very tired Nick.
8/28/01
today's a good day to see this
So now I've had all of my clases once and I'm feeling a lot better about this semester. Computer science is going to be lame, but that's just because computer science is lame in general. I'm hoping that I can just do the work when it needs to be done and then get on with my life otherwise.
But enough of that school shit because I'm going to see Ted Leo in Boston on Friday!. I'm driving out with Teresa and staying on her boyfriend Frank's couch! Yay!
Today Teresa and I went to Huck Finn's hoping to get me a futon for my room, but when we got there the price on the one I had been looking at went up from like $70 to $100 so I was like "nah." I tried buying some other things, but they kept on rejecting my debit card, so we went to Wal*Mart instead. Yeah, that's right, I went to Wal*Mart - shut up. But now my bed has a Powerpuff Girls comforter with matching pillowcases!
8/27/01
We love the city
You wanna know why I'm pissed off that Agfapan APX 25 was discontinued? This. That's not a very good print, actually (and scanning it to screen-size doesn't help show off the detail...) - hopefully sometime soon I'll go back into the darkroom and bring in more shadow detail (aka lower the contrast) and use the one I took with a smaller aperture to make the bottom of the sign sharper. But still!
Anyway, I had classes today. It wasn't spectacular, but it wasn't horrible either. I only have one tomorrow (as opposed to six straight hours of class from ten until four today), so things can only get better.
I had to go to Price Chopper today and by twenty dollars worth of air fresheners. I forgot what dorm bathrooms are like...
8/26/01
skool
This is my first night in my new dorm room. I actually have classes tomorrow. I'm not terribly pleased with this, but I think I feel a lot better about the whole thing this year than I did in other years. At least I'm established here to some degree and I'm beginning to shake that feeling that I've always had that there's RPI students and there's me and we're so totally different that there's no way that I could ever fit in here. I remember times when I was like "fitting in? nah - no one needs that! Be yourself blah blah blah." Which is pretty much bullshit because no matter how happy you are with what you're doing, if you can't share how happy you are with someone who can understand why then it's not going to last very long. But I get that now and it's better, so yay.
I unpacked in an extraordinary way for me: I actually unpacked all at once. I normally just leave things in boxes and then take them out when I need them until everything is unpacked. That method has it's benefits - you find out what you need and what you don't and more importantly, it requires very little effort. The downside, though, is that you're living out of boxes and it's depressing. So everything's unpacked. I'm listening to Geoff Farina on my completely set up stereo, and typing on my organized desk. I just need to put up some pictures to cover up these stupid white walls...
8/25/01
barring any unforseen pictures in our heads...
So last night I went to Ladyfest in Easthampton - it was a really cool show (K. and the Naysayer played, among others, so yay!). It got out at a little after one in the morning and it's a two hour drive home, but it was ok (I'm not dead, am I?). I like being on the Thruway and the Mass. Turnpike so late at night that there's no one else around except for the tractor trailors that are pulled over and sleeping. It's really strangely nice...
Review and pictures soon, too - I'm just busy moving right now, so maybe after everything is settled.
I go back to school tomorrow. I know that this semester is going to be hard, but whatever happens it'll end in a few months for better or for worse. Better is that I pass everything and move on with no problems, worse is that I don't pass everything and have to retake classes. You know, I've never failed a class in my life - the lowest grade I've ever gotten in anything was a C+ in History in high school because of a test that everyone in the class did bad on. So how can I tell myself that I can deal with the possibility (which is very real - people who are much smarter than me fail intermediate mechanics all the time) of actually getting an F? Eh. I'll figure things out as they happen...
8/19/1
Damn... a week
I went to the darkroom tonight, and goddamn is Agfapan APX 25 sharp as fuck when it's developed in Rodinal! Too bad the enlarger I was using wasn't all that great, but still. I'll be going back again some time soon since I only made one print off of that roll...
In a week, I'll be starting classes. I'm not too big on this idea yet.
8/14/1
you never have your camera with you
I saw the most awesome thing ever today. Zak and I were driving over to Eric's to watch Death Sport (which was not the most awesome thing ever) and inside of the Friendly's on the way was a group of four clowns sitting in one of the booths, in full make-up and costume, just chatting and eating. I just imagine that they were having a great conversation...
8/12/1
*bzzrt!*
So I went to a very cute show (hopefully I'll have the pictures up soon, even though I know they're going to be blurry) last night, and this morning I bought another goddamn camera! Not because anything was broken on mine, but it'll be a lot more convenient and will let me do more stuff and well... want!
I got home at about 2:30 last night, and for some reason I was wide awake by eight in the morning, and then I helped paint Zak's house for most of the day. Tired.
A cute thing though was that I got this email from a complete (I think?) stranger (Jen) that just said, "You have a great personality." That was the whole thing. I thought it was nice...
8/10/1
The riches or the wig?
So I was about to put up this long-ish thing on the stem cell issue and then I realized that it would be stupid to put such things in my diary as I am neither a blastocyst nor a medical researcher. Besides, when was the last time you actually cared when someone on the internet offered you his opinion?
My brother leaves for Georgia tomorrow for graduate school. It's really weird to think about because I've known him longer than basically anyone else near my age and I've lived in the same town as him all my life, and by tomorrow night, he'll be living hundreds of miles away...
8/8/1
lord lord es hot!
Today was one of those days when it's so hot that you don't even feel like coming up with colorful ways of saying how hot it is. Blech. Everything smells bad on days like today, even things that normally don't have smells, like window sills and lamps. It's weird. And pretty distasteful if you ask me, so I wish the sun would just cut it out...
8/7/1
five times back to the well
Today I ordered the Death Race 2000 DVD from Amazon and an Ansel Adams paperback... take that, "People who ordered this also bought..." system!
7/31/1
doo dee
Yeah yeah, sorry no entries blah blah blah. What's the point of writing the same thing over and over again? Life has been pretty good, and pretty much homogeneous. I guess Zak was busy tonight, so I guess that's the only difference. I wrote a new music review, which doesn't tend to happen too much these days, too. So I guess that's that.
7/23/1
oooh sorry diary
Whoops - it's been two weeks. Not much on the "big news" front has happened, but the things that have been going on were nice. Work is not so bad most of the time, and I've almost been able to chill enough. I haven't been getting enough sleep though, but with work, I'd have to go to bed at 7:30 every night to get 8 hours of sleep, so screw that.
I went to the Adirondacks this weekend with my dad and brother, and last weekend I went to Eric's camp. So outdoorsy... in the middle I played video games and fretted.
7/23/1
oooh sorry diary
Whoops - it's been two weeks. Not much on the "big news" front has happened, but the things that have been going on were nice. Work is not so bad most of the time, and I've almost been able to chill enough. I haven't been getting enough sleep though, but with work, I'd have to go to bed at 7:30 every night to get 8 hours of sleep, so screw that.
I went to the Adirondacks this weekend with my dad and brother, and last weekend I went to Eric's camp. So outdoorsy... in the middle I played video games and fretted.
7/10/1
...hey!
So yeah, it SNOWED. I mean, nothing that built up, but there were definitely flakes, and it was made even more creepy by the fact that it was sunny while this was going on... Other than that, I saw Final Fantasy tonight, and it was ok-ish. Also, I'm tired. I go to bed. Night night!
7/8/1
sleepy
Yeah, so the show last night was very good. I've decided that I need to get more sleep. I'm getting that feeling like being propped up on a coathanger that I used to get when I had to wake up early all the time and it's summer so that's no good. Of course, working in an opposite direction is the fact that I have to be at work at 8:15 tomorrow, which means I have to leave the house by 7:55 which means I have to be up by seven which means I'll be a miserable grump the whole day. So my apologies in advance if I talk to you...
7/5/1
work work work - I'm a working worker!
So nothing happened today. I went to work and got a big block of film in the mail and that's just about it. Whee.
7/3/1
I need to get out more
For I don't know how many days in a row, I've done absolutely nothing with myself. I went to work and then spent the rest of the day playing video games or fucking with my guitar. It's really too bad that nothing is going on...
The older entries are here...