cranberries

Devastation and flooding rocked the delta today.

The ten-day intensive circus training time is gone, taking with it any hope that any of us will be genuinely productive for more than a few hours a day. While it was running, we kept a schedule of what we were supposed to do, hour by hour. Over the past few days I've tried to keep a similar solo schedule for myself, but realistically it might as well read

11 am- eat a soup, check webcomics
12 pm- watch the daily show
1 pm- think about cats

Ashlyn and I have recently burned through all 26 episodes of The Vision of Escaflowne, a disgusting blend of starry-eyed-romance girl anime and giant-robot-smashing boy anime, whose soundtrack primarily consists of a chorus of Japanese men singing the title over and over in Gregorian baritone. That, combined with the usual bullshit Japanese philosophy, reminds me why I hate anime. The theme song, seen here... reminds me why I love it.



Wow, it's almost 1 pm... I should probably get started on cat-thinking. I'm really glad the world isn't covered five feet deep in them. Really, really glad.

my car punched itself in the face

Still here. The A Different Spin training time is becoming less super-intense as we get better at what we're doing, but I suspect the dropoff also has something to do with the fact that we've been at it for 5 days now. It starts at 10 am, give or take cooking time of a bagel, and ends at 10 pm, give or take when we run out of lamp oil and muscular integrity. But it's jolly good fun, and we're all getting a lot better at everything we do. I have every faith that both the shows we're working on will end up ravishingly fabulous. The fire show is great; the daytime show will be great as soon as we can write some decent patter instead of shouting profanity at Tim and gibbering on about cranberries.

make your hadron last for hours with natural male enhancement

The Large Hadron Collider is not going to destroy the world; unfortunately that's about all anyone seems to know about it. To remedy this, the scientists behind it (who all appear to be attractive, intelligent, 20-something-year-old women) have released a rap video to help explain the purpose and workings of their rather arcane ten billion dollar project.

Science... is awesome. The fact that we're exploring our world and figuring out how the whole game works is great, and it makes me sort of abstractly sad that my life isn't on any kind of track to contribute to that great work.

edit/addendum: yes, of course anyone working on the LHC is intelligent, and it doesn't take a video to show me that... my particular combination of adjectives was just born from the fact that smart girls who rap about their giant underground particle accelerators are automatically members of the hottest branch of femininity: brilliant women with a sense of humor. Yes, the video is too pixelated for me to see how attractive they are. The point is, it's irrelevant.

Whatever, it's my birthday, I'm drunk. I'm excused.

Ricky tells me that those girls probably weren't really the scientists involved. I am unwilling to accept this hypothesis. Leave me my dreams.

Good morning, me.

It's my birthday. And so, at midnight, I put on the gas mask, fishnets, and dance belt (for Tim and Ricky's sakes) and lay in the tub for several minutes with the shower running cold, drinking a teacup of rum and cackling gleefully. I then went out to the living room, turned off all the lights, and juggled glow clubs while wearing an eye patch just to see if I could do it. When there are no parties to be had, one must resort to madness.

And now it's bedtime; tomorrow begins the great odyssey of A Different Spin.

Nothing to be done.

The Art Nouveau Philadelphia Society for Beckett in the Nude will have its first public exhibition this Saturday in the chapel at 7th and Hildebrandt. Formal dress is encouraged for audience members; Friends of the Society displaying badges will be admitted free of charge. Questions and concerns should be addressed to director Oliver McKittish, especially regarding the media coverage of the May 23rd shutdown of metro stations in the Glasgow area for tech night and dress rehearsals.

We hope to see you there!

I draw a thing, then I write a thing. Who knows.

When Captain Ferrier first invited us on the cruise I thought it would serve as nothing more than a lark, a flippant getaway to the skies aboard the most modern of airship luxuries. I was unaware at the time of the workings of such crafts, and thought them merely another item on the daunting list of things that would never be relevant to my own life, and therefore never worthy of serious research. Leave the baking to the bakers, the shoemaking to the cobblers, and the workings of highly inflammable airborne dirigibles to the obscenely rich, I thought.
However, when Melinda and I boarded the craft in person, I knew there was something here beyond mere goggle-sporting hobbery. There was a majesty to the swelling canvas balloon above; a regal air described even in the rudder fins on either side of the humming turbines on the rear of the ship, ready to carve the sky and cut wisping trails through the clouds. It was a commanding craft; I had never seen anything so grand.
But beneath the magnificent blimp there was an element that struck me as out-of-place. The entire "crew" of the ship seemed to consist of one squat, unpleasant mechanical man who, presumably due to his lack of a visible mouth, never said a word to myself, Melinda, or the captain during the entirety of our voyage. It clunked about on oversized mechanical feet, performing tasks which I, as an admitted aeronautical novice, can only assume were vital to the maintenance of our flight. At one point as we drifted above the Melbingian Sea, the automaton actually approached me, looking distressed, and would not leave until I gave it my pocket watch. The creature stared at the watch for no less than two full minutes before handing it back to me silently and clanking onward about its duties. I suspect I shall never know the meaning of this behavior, and it troubles me somewhat.
Perhaps when I have returned to the university I shall read up on these matters. Airships and mechanical men. I cannot name the curiosity this voyage has awoken in me, but somehow it feels truer than any previous pursuit I have undertaken.