Category: Roommates

July 11, 2004 /

On Friday I left work early and went to the lab where Maria is working for the summer, in order to get my brain mapped. Brain mapping means they put a lot of very wet sponges all over your head with rubber bands, so they can go in the room behind you (with a one-way mirror window) and laugh at you until they pee themselves.

It’s a pretty neat process, if not very comfortable. They do some really interesting work there, although Maria apparently disagrees with me on that. I got to be one of the first participants in a new experiment one of Maria’s coworkers has designed. I can’t tell you what it was about, but I might be able to get a printout of my session; apparently my data was “very clean.” That’s nice to know. I should be out of Re-Education And Happiness Camp any day now!

June 26, 2004 /

Ever since the (pretty good) PC speakers which came with my computer started misbehaving to death about two and a half years ago, I’ve been dealing with a nonincreasingly satisfying series of compromises on audio: first, spotty PC speakers; then my dad’s old ancient RCA stereo receiver and its equally-ancient-but-durable monolith speakers; then some bookshelf speakers (kindly lent me by Maria) with the same receiver, which has now begun its own gentle decline into inevitable doom.

Today that same Maria finally compelled me to do what I’ve wanted to do forever, which is buy a freaking decent pair of PC speakers that will sound good and last. I picked them up at Circuit City and installed them just now; only 2.1, but they’re Altec Lansing and THX and I can probably add them into any surround system I eventually build.

Really, really nice speakers. Really, really nice to be able to hear both sides of music again.

June 2, 2004 /

I’m sitting here at work, killing time until 6:00, when most people will have gone home and I can actually try running my queries because the database won’t be so busy. The Interweb no longer entertains me, and I can’t think of anything interesting to write. I feel dried out and cold. It’s been a long day.

It will be nice to have this done, though (if it works), and not have it hanging over my head. Plus there’s a possibility of seeing Der Flöra tonight, and who knows what will happen over the weekend? There are a lot of people whose company I enjoy in Louisville right now; it’s June, and it’s about time I stopped getting enough sleep.

May 30, 2004 /

(This entry is posted as dated in my pocket notebook.)

I’ve passed the Waddy Peytona exit probably a hundred times. For the first time in my life, I’m actually in Waddy, at a somewhat sleazy Citgo truck stop, in a back room with no windows. Ian is asleep on one end of the beaten couch; I’m writing at the other. By all accounts, we’re within a few miles of a tornado.

There’s a scattered copy of The Trucker, a half-sheet format free newspaper, on the floor. It appears to be largely concerned with rising diesel prices. Maria called two minutes ago to say that the heart of the storm should be where we are in about three minutes. The rain just slacked off a bit; it sounds like there’s hail mixed with it now. There’s a thick skylight over our heads, which makes me nervous, but it beats the big window-walls out front.

There’s a large TV back here, which is turned off, and a smaller cycling-ads set which is on. It’s connected to some kind of truck load monitor with four large buttons. Every ten minutes or so it shows “local weather,” by which it means the highs, lows and actual temperatures in five parts of Kentucky. Amusingly, it shows nothing related to storm or tornado status.

Maria just called again. Apparently the funnel clouds have dissipated just before reaching Waddy. It should be safe to drive in ten minutes or so.

May 23, 2004 /

Unless I’m mistaken, Lisa and Flora and some other neat people graduated today. Congratulations, Lisa and Flora and other neat people!

Jon and Amanda are married!

May 23, 2004 /

Last night I went to my first-ever rehearsal dinner–pancakes at Cracker Barrel, followed by a leisurely visit and then a hesitant drive to the chapel out in the middle of Shelby County. It was hard to find, but deservedly so: it’s a gorgeous spot, and somehow entirely cicada-free.

I got to host Jon’s bachelor party, which consisted of coming back here with Ken, Chris and me and watching A Mighty Wind and laughing a lot. We throw some pretty wild parties.

This morning Ken kindly picked up Maria and me and drove us back to the aforementioned chapel, where we took pictures (one of Jon’s WWE-style entrance, one of Amanda’s, and then some less important ones) and waited.

Eventually there was a wedding. The bride wore flip-flops, and the reverend’s microphone kept fuzzing out. It was sunny, and outside, and butterflies kept zooming through the service. Amanda and Jon were very beautiful, and I’m so proud and happy that for this little while, I don’t even miss them.

May 20, 2004 /

Spring of my junior year of college, I played Hastings in our school production of Richard III, a fun role in which I got to chew scenery, wear an enormous bathrobe and get my head cut off. The guy who was supposed to take the mold of my real head for that last one bungled it pretty badly; he bought this fancy molding compound, let it harden before applying it, and ended up having to mold my head with really cheap plaster.

Regardless, it was my severed head, and I really wanted it after the play was over. The drama department denied me this, of course–they already had a longstanding tradition of crushing my dreams by then.

When we went to see Lisa’s show last Friday, I got to see Flora, who showed me his senior-presentation scrapbook. It was really nice work, and he was kind enough to give me a piece of it, something I will now treasure as if it were the real thing:

David and Brendan with Brendan's head.

Yeah, I told you it was a pretty bad mold. There’s a reason they kept it in a bag most of the time.

May 17, 2004 /

Ken, Maria and I rolled down to l’Centre on Saturday to coo over Lisa’s senior show, which was all very massive color-gradient glass pieces, and awesome. I can’t really describe them to you–she has a couple pics up, but seeing them in three dimensions and with more light was much better.

The next day, Maria and I argued over whether or not I am indie–something for which I vaguely hope, but never considered myself cool enough to achieve. She pointed out that in addition to my mild but distinguished collection of obscure t-shirts, I do know two glassblowers, and that’s some solid cred there. I should have known that in the indie world, friends are primarily status symbols and tools to an end. (And for the record, Maria used to date a rock star, so I’m pretty much never going to be indier than she is.)

May 9, 2004 /

Maria and I were discussing the increasingly esoteric and convoluted nature of spam, just now, including the fact that much of bulk email no longer serves a discernible purpose. I frequently receive spam from nonsense names, advertising nothing, free of hyperlinks or parsible sentences.

I pointed out that one reason it’s gotten so complicated is the constant, high-speed arms race between spammer and anti-spam software vendor; as new regular expressions are devised and new efforts made to beat them, whole fields of technique can be created and discarded in a week. And then Maria said something that chilled me to my very bones.

“What if,” she said, “the vendors are putting spam out there just to keep selling their software?”

I’m terrified, now, that she might be right.

Anyway, read Spam As Folk Art.