I am listening to the iTunes free sampler for electronica. It is unexciting, but not terrible. There have been a couple of songs I really enjoy.
I am also playing around on facebook. According to the "pulse" feature, 42% more UCSC people listed Amilie as a favorite movie than did Fight Club. I really need to watch Amilie. I have Fight CLub, and while I wouldn't list it as one of my favorite movies, I like it and see why it has a cult following. But I really really need to watch Amilie all the way through. Kevin, next time we watch it, we must start before 11:00pm.

Remember this...

I think the "Iraq" themed college night went a little too far.

Born Different

I love this.

http://www.borndifferent.org/

This ad campaign originated in the Colorado Springs area, this type of public awareness and education is more than overdue for the Midwest (and just about everywhere else).

I think the financial base of this foundation definitely needs to be expanded.

1 down, 4 to go

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/26/people.lancebass.ap/

Perhaps this was national news, but things take a bit longer to make it into Humboldt.

Ugh.

So it seems that we, not the terrorists, are the greatest threat to homeland security.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060728/ap_on_re_us/gays_military

Now, why would you get rid of someone who is one of 300 members of the military, with about two million total members, who speaks Arabic without even following your source? Why would you break you own goddamn idiotic policy when it would require you to get rid of someone with a rather valued skill?

Ch-Ch-Changes

Needless to say, everything up here has changed.

The first week after the death was understandably difficult. There were many instances where I would be needed to watch the kids while Amanda and Peter would go off and mourn. Amanda does most of her crying in her room and at night, while Peter prefers to express his grief at the beach and on the Piano (he had me drop him off at the Dunes every couple of days, I didn't know what he was doing out there until I picked him up early one day and heard him crying from 1/2 mile away).

Amanda has really surprised me with how strong she has been throughout the ordeal. She really wanted to get back to her normal life as soon as possible, unfortunately in a small town, people noticed that the baby she was carrying was gone, and would mistakenly give their congratulations. The mood around here has defiantly improved over the last week; in fact Sunday was the first day she didn't cry at all.

Peter has taken six weeks off work which is understandable: he really isn't in the right state of mind to hear other people's problems at the moment.

Maisy has been rather angry since the death, she is understandably confused that one family member is gone, and has been temporarily replaced with this quasi stranger (the kids have only met me once or twice [the Moore's keep their distance from the rest of my family- hence the Eureka location]). One of the first things she said to me was "what are you doing here? You aren't in our family." Since then, our relationship has taken a nose dive; she views me as this stranger who's here to replace her parents in their time of grief. Things have improved slightly between us, instead of ignoring me completely; she now treats me like a servant. I'll give it time.

Amanda and Peter are saying that Benny is crying more than before, but as far as our relationship goes, we've never been closer (apparently his favorite person is his 26 year old nanny Jessica; he has said many times over that he would like to change her poopie). (BTW, Benny really likes My Life in the Bush of Ghosts)

After Lilliana died, Amanda and Peter decided to not make any long term plans until after July 1st of next year. Their original plan was to sell this house, move into a rental until the fall, and then move to Europe, but now they've decided to let Maisy finish her first year of kindergarten in Eureka

The house was put on the market last week, who knows how long it will take for it to sell, the market has really cooled up here (frankly, the longer the better because the place that they're renting in Manilla is more than a few steps down from this place- it is however a five minute walk to the beach).

Luckily for me, the days here have passed by quickly because they are all basically the same. Wake up, eat, take care of kids/clean until naptime (my favorite time of the day), clean, insert family afternoon activity here, dinner, drink some type of Belgian beer, and watch Strangers with Candy.

Thankfully, I'm nearing the halfway point of my stay. I'm ready to get back to my own life.

Goodnight Moon

In the great green room
There was a telephone
And a red balloon
And a picture of-

The cow jumping over the moon

And there were three little bears sitting on chairs

And two little kittens
And a pair of mittens

And a little toy house
And a young mouse

And a comb and a brush and a bowl full of mush
And a quiet old lady who was whispering "hush"

Goodnight room

Goodnight moon

Goodnight cow jumping over the moon

Goodnight light
And red balloon

Goodnight bears
Goodnight chairs

Goodnight kittens
And Goodnight mittens

Goodnight clocks
And Goodnight socks

Goodnight little house
And goodnight mouse

Goodnight comb
And goodnight brush

Goodnight nobody

Goodnight mush

Goodnight to the old lady whispering "hush"

Goodnight stars

Goodnight air

Goodnight noises everywhere




From Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

Los Gatos

My poor doggie.



Apparently it was over 105 degrees in Los Gatos yesterday.



I could hear him panting while on the phone with him.

This is Oscar with this flaps extended.



I hope my sister carried him home like I asked her to, because Pugs die in extreme heat (as do most living things, with the exception of most Los Angelinos and Los Vegans- it must be a combination of all that smog and silicone).

--

I was on the phone with my Dad last night, and he creamed any hopes of me coming to LA at the end of the summer. I asked about my birthday hard drive (with the exception of my Mom, my family has virtually ignored it again this year) (I asked for a new hard drive for my computer [100GB, 7200 RPM]). My Dad was hesitant, and then said he didn't know where he'd be able to get the money. On top of this, he has my sisters tuition help request (a pathetic $300) to worry about. This means that any hopes of my parents paying for part of my travel costs from San Jose to LA have been dashed.

My parents combined income is somewhere just below 200G a year, and yet they're continually strapped for cash. I asked my Dad why he thought this was, and he said "It seems that whenever we get a raise, we buy a bigger [or more expensive] house."

Is something wrong here? When did the idea of owning a home turn away from "a place to raise a family" to "a piece of real estate to constantly trade around/ equity machine"?

I once asked my dad if he ever considered what the impact of selling their last house and moving out of Los Angeles did to my sense of "home." I worked on that house with my own hands, in fact, the only reason that they were able to sell their house before that was because I helped fix up their first house. His reply was "you were paid for the work you did, home exists wherever your family is. Love makes a home."

What love?

He doesn't get it.

bleh

Today at work I thought of so many things to write - here and elsewhere - but now that the day is done, I don't feel like writing anything.

Bleh...

Classes and such

So I did well on my midterms, and did significantly better in math than Spring's math grade would suggest. I officially think that Statistics is the only math beyond geometry worth knowing, and that calculators that do the grunt work are gods.

I am also evidently staying through the second summer session at UCLA after all and finishing out Research Methods now so that I can take whatever psych upper divs I want as a junior starting in Winter 2007. Since I'm apparently not getting any more of a job that what bits of hours I can do for the temple, I may as well take classes so I'm not bored out of my mind. As it is, I will be the only one home during the days on Wednesdays and Fridays next session, since my parents will be at work and my sister at camp. The only truly shitty part of it from my perspective (since my parents are paying for it, not me) is that it keeps me down here one week longer. Oh, well. I'll have 14 more units to take with me. I really will be a senior for two years.

Work and whatnot

Alright. My job is completely boring and the muggy heat is miserable. My farmer tan is out of control - It's going to take until winter break to correct it. I don't like that it's impossible for me to be gone for any less than 15.5 hours for 8 hours of work.

Jenni - that "Genesis of Language" book is a little much for me at this point. Interesting for sure, but it's something I'll have to come back to.

I really need to catch up on sleep, I feel very much unlike myself right now.

The bright side... I'm back to reading John Cage. I really owe John Cage a lot - he's really transformed my life in very positive ways and I have him thank for being able to be overwhelmed by the beauty of things as they are.

Wow

I thought this was an interesting article...

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0623,reischel,73391,6.html

wehweh.

So I haven't written an epic blog yet... it was a busy weekend and work is kind of a drag. However, you can stay slightly up-to-date by reading my personal blog: http://cpl593h.blogspot.com.

More to come - maybe tomorrow.

Can They Smell It?

For the fourth or fifth time in the last several months, I've been assulted by a gay dog.

It must be something I'm eating.

(Sausages)

Los Angeles Ramblings

I've had a reasonably good past few days. Human Sexuality yesterday as a little weird, but fascinating. The teacher had everyone take surveys, though they were different for the men and for the women. The one he gave the woman showed us five male faces with questions like,
"Which is the nicest?"
"Which is most hostile towards women?"
"Which is most intelligent?"
"Which is most attractive?"
When it got to that and to, "Which would you pursue as a short-term romantic partner?" "Which would you pursue as a long-term romantic partner?" I just wrote in, "N/A; I do not pursue men for romantic relationships." At least I get to fuck with the statistics. The next part of the survey was about menstrual cycles (just things like when and for how long). He said when this survey had been done as a study, it found that women find more "masculine" faces more attractive when they are ovulation because, evorlutionarily, they want to pursue the strongest genes for their children. Also, he mentioned another study which even he didn't completely believe that showed that ovulating women find sexual activity that shows poor gene effects (i.e., homosexuality, beastiality, etc.) more disturbing than they do when they are not ovulating. My professor didn't think it could likely be true (the study is relatively new and hasn't been reviewed multiple times yet) since it seemed unlikely to him that a woman's view on homosexuality changed week to week. I personally have to believe it's not true because I've never experienced it to be true; otherwise I'd be in trouble every month, suddenly disgusted with myself. But I still found it interesting. Sorry. I'll stop boring you with Female Sexuality. I also plan to organize and rewrite my notes from the course later, so you can look at them later.

I did, however, do the eye thing with a girl right after the class. It's much harder to do with girls, since most women either look everyone or no one in the eye and it's much harder to detect the intense and prolonged look that comes from a mildly interested lesbian, and it always excites me when I can pull it off. It was the first time I've seen her, and I didn't see her again today, but oh well. I'm only on the campus for three more weeks anyway. I don't really want to meet someone down here; I don't want to be tied to the area at all beyond my parents. But she was very Santa Cruz, and I was just happy to have confirmed one down here.

Today was a day that should have been bad (I had a stats test), but that was good for no reason at all. I think I did well on the exam, which I oddly ENJOYED taking (it's amazing what understanding material will do for you when stressing about and taking a test), and I have plans to get together with Caitlyn and possible Kendall this weekend. I must say, it was a refreshing change from the usual bad day that should have been good. I still hate UCLA and Los Angeles in general, though.

Beautiful

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6593253909585524706

Amen

My Dad didn't get it.

He works hard for his money so you better treat him right...

Today was my first day of work.

I woke up at about 5:30, showered, ate PBJ for breakfast, then made a couple of shots of espresso before I was out the door on my bike to the Covina Metrolink station. $10 round trip to and from Union Station.

After I arrived at Union Station it was a quick walk down the way to "Patsauoras Transit Center" where I caught the #10 express Big Blue Bus to Santa Monica. $1.75 one way express bus to Santa Monica on a nice, clean bus. If you've never been on the Big Blue Bus do yourself a favor - they are dreamboats.

I biked two or three blocks to my destination: 7th and Wilshire. The lot that I am attending to is a private lot for employees and clients of primarily Asylum Visual Effects. They are apparently big players in the digital effects market. There is also a hearing aid place for transparent skinned, overly rich, senile senior citizens and a high end salon called Aya. Teknion is in the same building as Asylum but I have no idea what they do. Basically I make sure that the people coming in are supposed to be there and that people that aren't supposed to be there are not coming in.

There was a lot of downtime on the job. I had a good, long chat with my uncle for most of the day since he was there showing me the ropes. However, when I'm there by myself I'll be able to do a lot of reading. I get to read a lot on the train and the bus. Today I burned through about 1/3 of the ethnolinguistics book Jenni gave me. The book completely fascinates me. This is the first real text I have read that goes into depth about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which is what drew me to linguistics in the first place.

One of the perks of this job is that I have access to the amazing food that Asylum puts out. They have good coffee and this and that for breakfast, and a full lunch buffet in the afternoon. Nice... another perk is that I'm working for my uncle under the table, so this job of mine doesn't impact my financial aid for the school year after this.

My schedule is looking good. For this week I am working Tues.-Thurs., but for the weeks after that I will work Mon.-Wed. Four days off in a row is not bad at all - my schedule will allow me to plan plenty of adventures. In fact... if I wanted to take a train somewhere, I could take the bus to Union Station after work and catch a night train to my destination...

Another good thing: I'm close to UCLA and there are plenty of busses I can take that'll take me directly to UCLA from Santa Monica. Yes, Jenni...

Colin and Claire

Trustafarian (adj.)


1. Trustafarian

a. a spoiled rich white kid who smokes pot.
b. a person who, in an act of rebellion has taken to smoking pot, pan-handling, and following grateful dead rip-off bands during the week, and then returning to his or her parent's cozy home in the suburbs during the weekend.
c. one who lives with poorer people in an attempt to gain credibility, or street-cred, while disguising the trust fund they actually live off

Don't let that guy smoke any of your stash, he's a trustafarian, and never has his own to share.


2. Trustafarian

A rich young white person, from a mansion house in the shires, usually with trust funds from mummy and daddy yet pretends he is poor. This species, more often than not, have dreadlocks, wear ethnic clothing, play the digeree-doo, dodge soap and generally mope around thinking they alternative and above everyone else. Over the last 20 years or so they have infested India, Thailand and Nepal under the premise they are travellers, not tourists. Most will end up working for their daddy as a venture capitalist.

Look at that trustafian sitting there twiddling his dreadlocks. What a c**t.


3. Trustafarian

Priviliged white kids who subsribe to the hippie lifestyle (because they can) since they have no worries about money, a job etc. They can then devote their lives to eating organic, following Phish (or Spoon), and wearing dreadlocks (no need for job interviews).

Sarah is a trustafarian. It's totally evidenced by the combination of her brand new car and nice digs with her "earthy" clothes and dreadlocks.

Colin, take off that goddamned ugly shirt and shave, you good for nothing trustafarian.

From urbandictionary.com

Happy Birthday, Kevin!

That's all. :-)

Guilty Pleasure Movies!

I admit it. I have a guilty pleasure in the movie Titanic. It may have fallen from "amazing" with 11 Academy Awards to "stupid," but I like it. And it did have those 11 Academy Awards. There have been other movies with incredible amounts of hype that were terrible and duly got no major recognition. Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones, for example. The first Star Wars trilogy was astounding, but that movie was shit.

Also, Kate Winslet's hair is red, and she's naked.





On a separate note: Kevin, I'd like some explanation.

A Strange Occurance

So, I was bored and decided to see if I could find out if my professor had done anything recently, since he did say he was inloved in the Williams Institute at UCLA Law, which works for GLBT rights. As it turns out he wrote a book, which I'd actually rather like to get ahold of and read:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814706924/ref=pd_po_rvi_1/002-6157130-8078449?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155
That's not all that strange. He's got a JD and a Ph.D in issues in sex and gender; it's not surpirizing he wrote a book on sex in the law. What was strange was that off to the side, amazon said, "based on yoiur recent searches, you my be interested in the following items," one of which was the "Trading Places" DVD of the Eddie Murphy movie from 1983. It's a movie I watched several years ago with Steve and Ezra, that Steve thought was amazing and Ezra and I thought was so-so, but humored Rabbi anyway. My recent searches have been for the above book, the wine book I sent Kevin, and some music albums as I was trying to organize iTunes. Nothing having anything to do with this movie. How would it have come up? Of all things, why this one movie that will forever remind me of Steve?

Selling my stash

It's finally time to sell my record collection. I sorted through everything and set aside what I didn't want to sell. Once I alphabetized everything, I looked at my "keep" pile, bit my lip, then put them in with the rest. I've had trouble letting go of sentimental objects in the past, but that's something that I need to get over - bye bye records... every single one.

I have 151 records to sell. Among them are some rare and fairly sought-after, and some are very sentimental to me. Among the rare:

-New Order "Blue Monday" 12" single, original pressing
-New Order first Peel session, flawless
-David Bowie "Aladdin Sane" first RCA American pressing, near mint
-Kraftwerk "Computerwelt" first pressing German import
-Kraftwerk "Autobahn" first pressing

The Sentimental:

-All of my Depeche Mode, Soft Cell (how did I get two copies of the 'Tainted Love/Where Did our Love Go?' 12" maxis?), New Order, Bauhaus, OMD, David Bowie, and Kraftwerk

I look at some of the things in my collection and think "I can't believe I bought this... I can't believe I used to listen to this!" I won't even mention the records...

This makes me feel kind of sad, but I feel happy and relieved to get rid of things I don't need and have put far behind me.

I'm also selling my electric guitar. It's also a sentimental object; it was a present to myself after my dad died and after I graduated high school. I've really put guitar behind me and I never want to go back.

___

The baby died.

The family is devastated.

A blood clot formed prematurely causing the placenta to detach. She suffocated.

The condition is known as abruptio placentae.

I'll never forget hearing a four year old say her final goodbye to her dead newborn sister.