Selfish Crab

Top 4 Reasons to Skip New Year’s Celebrations

1. You have laryngitis
2. You have no one to smooch
3. Most of your good friends are away on vacation
4. um.. New Year’s is a lame occasion anyway

Yeah, I decided this year that I wasn’t going to play into the whole New Year’s festivities. I don’t need to look back on the old year. I do enough introspection to drive a yuppie to a bodhi tree. And the new year? Bah humbug. The future’s fine.

I thought I was going to sleep through the New Year turn, until I realized this meant I would have to be in bed before midnight. I quickly abandoned this plan, and instead spent the night watching TV and blogging my brains away. “Blogging my brains away” sounds dirty.

But yeah, wow, my past couple of entries have been lonnggg. I guess I’ve been bleeding lonely and have been spending all my energy writing. There’s worse crimes. Lord knows what rko is doing with his spare time.

# 2002 Dec 31    {rompin' years}    #

Went snowboarding for the second time. Had a bunch of discouraging spills (can you say “snow up your nose”). But my friends gave me a pep talk and some pointers. Left the mountain with a Decent rating. I’m eager to go back. I’ll beat you yet, Mountain. Oh yes, I’ll have my day soon enough, just you wait. I will tame thee. And tame thee in a stylish smooth carving manner, yes I will.

Also, in unrelated events, I have come down with laryngitis. Which means, I cannot talk. Not that it hurts to talk. Rather, the muscles in my throat just will not function properly. My voice goes all over the place, often ending on a squeak. It’s like being thirteen again. Except, without all that chubbiness and bad clothes, and hopefully with a bit more sex appeal.

Being unable to speak is really interesting. I’ve noticed it is really hard to get around in the world without speech. First of all, I obviously can’t use the telephone / cellphone at all. So that knocks out a major way of communicating over long distances (thank god for AIM). Second, people are forced to look at you when they speak with you because all you have to respond with is your facial gestures and maybe hand gestures or a notebook. Thirdly, it is damn hard to hit on girls.

So at the equipment rental place, there was this really cute asian-looking girl renting ski blades with her friends. I could have sworn we played the eyes-darting game. But hey, it was 9am. That’s too early for bravery. Later on, when my friends and I were taking a lunch break at the food court at the base of the mountain, I saw her again sitting with her friends two tables across from us. Look. Look away. Look. Look away. With my newfound swagger of the past couple weeks, I would have found a way to introduce myself, I swear. But then I realized that with my voice, there was nothing I could do but rasp as charismatically possible.

I pointed her out to one of my friends, and she said, “Go talk to her. Oh… that’s right. You can’t. Then, write her something! I know! A haiku. Write her a haiku. That will totally win her.” It was the stupidest idea I had ever heard. Hi, let me charm you with tradition forms of Japanese verse. After that, I feel shower you with praise in Greek lyrical form.

Anyway, so obviously, I never talked to the girl and will never see her again in my life. Well, who knows… Let’s give this a shot: Hi, are you an extremely cute asian girl with a bright smile and who wears her hair just so, that was at Mountain Creek on Sunday December 29th and rented ski blades at McAffee’s Rental Shop and ate lunch at approximately 2:30pm at the Vernon Base Area Food Court and may or may not have played eye games with a fairly hunky asian boy with wild hat hair and a sharp look about him? Please send me an email. And also, I apparently wrote a haiku for you:

i am without voice

you are sunshine and rainbows

please give me number

# 2002 Dec 31    {greatest hits, rompin' years}    #

Saw Lord of the Rings: Two Towers the other night. That movie is so overwhelming it’s hard to describe it beyond using a combination of four-letter words and blasphemy. I loved it.

Whenever you have a movie based on a great book, this eternal debate arises: “Should I read the book first? Or watch the movie cold?” Does first reading the book ruin the movie, causing you to spend all your time looking for differences between the two and scoffing at what was cut out? Or does watching the movie ruin the book, filling your mind with visuals that you would have liked to imagine using your own vivid sense of fantasy?

I want to try to settle this issue indefinitely: each format spoils the story for the other. You can only be told a story for the first time, once. And once you have heard a story, you can only be reminded of it the next time you hear it. There can be fresh re-hashings of an old tale, but I feel that the sort of excitement and suspense that come from not knowing where the storyteller is leading you, comes just once. If you read the book first and then see the movie, you spend a lot of time noticing the difference between the two . “Hmm… I thought he would be taller”; “Hey, that skipped that whole part”; “She was exactly how I imagined her”. What you are doing is becoming more focused on the Telling than on the Story. And that makes a whole different experience.

So the issue becomes Who Do You Want to Tell the Story? The writer or the filmmaker? Both have very different tools in their kits. Books can be eloquent, mind-enriching, and other things. Movies can be immediate, vivid, and other things. (I put in “…and other things” because I do not even want to pretend that I can fully describe what books and movies can be.)

Again, which storyteller format do you prefer? Sometimes this can be more like, Which storyteller do you trust most to bring this story to life? This answer is usually the writer. The film-creation process receives a lot of meddling from money-focused people who do not care about storytelling. And the writer is often the creator of the spirit of the story, has it in mind at all times, and does not violate that spirit to ensure that more 12- to 15-year-olds show up for blood, guts, and titties.

Ok, so in summation, I’m actually going to weasle my way out of giving a definitive answer. I’m a pussy. Let’s just say we “treated the issue with a thorough discussion”. If you have read the book first, congratulations, you can read. And have fun griping about the movie. If you watched the movie first, good job, In Bruckheimer We Trust. OK, seriously, whatever format you choose, just know what reasons are underlying your decision. (Wow, I really hope I’m not full of shit. I haven’t made a single assertive statement. Except for that last sentence, there.)

Lastly, I know it’s surprising, but in my dorky childhood I never got around to reading Tolkien’s classic trilogy The Lord of the Rings. So I have been watching these movies cold. And I must say, for movies based on books, the Lord of the Rings movies have an incredible amount of life to them. Tolkien would be proud of the amount of care and faithfulness that the movie-creators put in these movies.

Yeah.

# 2002 Dec 26    {opine, rompin' years}    #

A white Christmas. Nothing is more pleasing than federal holidays synchronized with the appropriate precipitation.White Christmases aren’t great for everyone. Somewhere out there, there are men and women, cursing and pulling on their snow boots, firing up their snow plows. Someone’s got to clear those roads… because people need to drive and not stay at home with family on Christmas. Those here at [selfish crab blog] salute you for your steadfastness and your commitment to duty.

# 2002 Dec 25    {rompin' years}    #

I think “ambidextrous” is right-handed talk for “I wish I were left-handed”.

# 2002 Dec 22    {rompin' years}    #

Last night I went out to rid myself of my semester-long stress and to dance in the street celebrating the end of a hellish semester.

Went to West End and put some music in me. The playlist consisted of 1 hard cider, 1 amaratto on the rocks, 1 kamikaze, 1 absolut mandrin shot, and for an encore, 2 cups of pitchered Bud Light. I was a loose little boy, and it showed. For a time, I had to worry about chapped lips. It was a beautiful time. Great end to a semester. I will now not use the word “semester” for at least a month.

# 2002 Dec 21    {greatest hits, rompin' years}    #

Done with finals. Finally. What an exhausting terrible semester. Glad it’s over and that I can move on with my timid little life.

I always thought that period between end-of-finals and winter break is a strange little time. There’s such a feeling of not knowing what to do with yourself. There’s no immediate responsiblities to take care; no problem sets, no tests, no class to attend. It’s just free-floating time. For a small time, we are without our usual immediate goal and we are completely aimless. It’s very disconcerting.

Sometimes I would just stare out into space and imagine what to do with what seems like an infinite amount of free time. Should I take up an instrument? Should I read a book? Maybe try painting? I guess I just wanted to quickly fill the void of Stuff To Do.

# 2002 Dec 20    {rompin' years}    #

More and more of my classes are taped for CVN, allowing distance learning for working professionals and night students. Tapes of lectures are mailed out to participants and copies are stored at the engineering library for reference use. They are also beginning to experiment with streaming web video. My friends and I have figured out some loopholes with the preview page that let us view any lecture this semester (well, any idiot with a View Source button can figure it out.)

I must say, watching lectures in your room is great. As others have noticed, you can do a lot of things on the side while still listening and learning. You can get up and stretch. You can pause the video and take a bathroom break (splurge, and go for that number two!) You can wear as little clothing as you want. You can even scratch yourself without getting that guilty sinking feeling and followed by that pleasant rising one.

My favorite enhancement, though, definitely is adding musical accompaniment. Load a lecture, fire up winamp and your 8 gig mp3 collection, and have some fun. You can add a beautiful soundtrack to what I sure you are most interesting lectures. Think of the possibilies. Transaction Management and Crash Recovery too yawn yawny? Not when Prof. Gravano lectures over the creepy harmonies and crashing guitars of OK Computer. ResolutionTheorom Proving not touching your soul? Prof. Stolfo makes perfect sense with Dashboard Confessional strumming earnestly in the background with you singing along: “when i’m back from the road/ and you’re out on it/ i’m tired of this distance/ and i believe the sentence is invalid/ if you find nil on the clause list/ using the refutation theorrrroommmm/ theeoorrroomm/”

# 2002 Dec 14    {rompin' years}    #

Verbatim’s Vinyl CD-Rs: I got Bay packs of these for his birthday. They even have the good blue undersides. Dopeness. These are a great gift for friends with intense music and CD-burning activities.

# 2002 Dec 14    {Links, rompin' years}    #

dave: i am an expert at making ramen noodles. the opening of the package. the boiling of the water. i don’t even have to read the directions.”

dave has a really quirky and subtle sense of humor. It has the sort of nuances that pass over many readers’ heads. I love it. I think he could have a career writing great O’Reilly books.

Sometimes I try to emulate his “murmur” style of humor, but then I realize I’m more apt to use the “WA-HOO LOOK AT ME FUNNY FUNNY WA-HOOOOOO” style of laughs. Oh well. Maybe I will learn to dance, and beat him in that. See you on the dance floor.

Update: He responds. Wee, interblog dialogue (rhyme).

# 2002 Dec 12    {rompin' years}    #

For a study break, I spent my entire afternoon watching movie trailers over at the apple website. I really like watching movie trailers. Well, I love movies in general, but there’s something really addictive and exciting about trailers. They can be formulaic (template: voice-over followed by quicker and quicker cuts of actions scenes ending with a single funny line by one of the main actors), but it’s like I get to watch 15 mini-movies in a half hour.

I noticed that there sure are a lot of spy movies or spy parodies out there.

• Agent Cody Banks – about a kid agent who is as smooth with the ladies as I am
• Johnny English – a comedy featuring Rowan Atkinson (aka mr. bean!)
• I Spy – the owen wilson/eddie murphy vehicle
• and of course, that Bond movie

I really like this clever new trailer for the Seinfeld movie “Comedien”. It uses Hal Douglas, who is “that guy” that does every frigging trailer and is the voice for the A&E network. Y’know, “in a world where….”

There’s a bunch of movies that I really want to see. Here’s another stupid list:

• Gerry, a movie starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. From the first five seconds of the film, I knew I wanted to see it. It looks a “deep” and beautiful movie. (God, I hate that term.)
• Equilibrium – this movie has 1984/Brave-New-World ideas in it, combined with some killer fight/gun scenes. Yummy. I like my dark futuristic thrillers with kung-fu and double pistol action, thank you very much.
• The Guru – this one’s for my brown readers. Originally released in the UK as The Guru of Sex, it’s about an Indian guy trying to make it in Hollywood. Chock full of Indians, references to Bollywood, and sentences with “cab driver” followed by sighs.
• Roger Dodger – about a kid that seeks out his uncle (who’s apparently a “ladies man”) to get some tips and pointers about getting the ladies. Bonus: also features Elizabeth Berkley aka Jesse from “Saved by the Bell”

Wow, I could probably blab on and on forever about the movies. Alright, enough nonsense, back to the books.

# 2002 Dec 10    {rompin' years}    #

Another sun-rise. I have the constiution of a wet noodle. I give up this time. Going to bed…

# 2002 Dec 10    {rompin' years}    #

Cold pizza is the best because you can take as long as you want to eat it. No one is ever going to say to you: “Hurry up and eat before it gets… um… more idealized.”

# 2002 Dec 6    {rompin' years}    #

So it’s December already, and hence near the end of this semester. Ugh, good riddance. Despite all that I have learned, I’m a bit unsatisfied with the semester. I have had nowhere near as much time to develop personal relationships or seek out new friendships as I would have liked. Bleh bleh bleh. Don’t even get me started on girls.

I’ve noticed that, in tune with the end of the semester, now is the time that people begin to say things like: “Wow, this is the second-to-last lecture in Automated Biochemistry that I will ever have”, or “Sniffle, my last chance to fall asleep while Prof. Munson drones on about morality.”

I think I’ve grown too jaded to ever wax sentimental about that sort of crap. I’m more like: “Oh God, just let it end now. Let me take my finals and then let me go home and sit in the snow to sort out my entire future.”

Gotta sort out my future. Right now, it’s a fuzzy blob of programming software development girlfriend travel lawschool and lots of questions marks. Lots.

# 2002 Dec 4    {rompin' years}    #