So, I realize this is a pointless post, that it's a bit immature, shows my indecisiveness, and has no bearings on your lives whatsoever, but I can't decide which books I should take with me to London. I have six to choose from and I think that might be too many
this is where you come in.
what book should i read first, second, and so on
Here's what I got:
~Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
~My Name is Will: A novel of sex, drugs, and Shakespeare by Jess Winfield
~The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
~The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
~The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
~Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Please help me
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
grrrr. argh
Would someone like to tell me why it is that dentists seem to think it necessary to numb you the fuck up in order to fix a cavity
!!!YET!!!
though you cannot feel your entire face due to the TWO numbing shots that take, literally, a minute each to administer, they always find a way to drill into the one nerve that somehow missed the numbing and proceed to drill in that area for five mintues, regardless of the fact that your eyes are filling up with tears and your butt seems to be walking itself down the chair.
le sigh
!!!YET!!!
though you cannot feel your entire face due to the TWO numbing shots that take, literally, a minute each to administer, they always find a way to drill into the one nerve that somehow missed the numbing and proceed to drill in that area for five mintues, regardless of the fact that your eyes are filling up with tears and your butt seems to be walking itself down the chair.
le sigh
Sunday, June 21, 2009
I thought this was pretty badass...
A man asked Cecil ( from her http://www.straightdope.com/ fame) to explain Schroedinger's cat. He questioned in verse. She replied in verse. I thought it was badass so I'm sharing
Dear Cecil:
Cecil, you're my final hope
Of finding out the true Straight Dope
For I have been reading of Schroedinger's cat
But none of my cats are at all like that.
This unusual animal (so it is said)
Is simultaneously live and dead!
What I don't understand is just why he
Can't be one or other, unquestionably.
My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
In one I'm enlightened, the other I ain't.
If you understand, Cecil, then show me the way
And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
Then I will and won't see you in Schroedinger's zoo.
— Randy F., Chicago
Cecil replies:
Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.\
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though--my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was.
"Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at--
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom--whatever--but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring--or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough shit.
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed--
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability--certainty, never.
'The effect of this notion? I very much fear
'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse."
'So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried--
In vain--until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven--but five bucks says he ain't."
— Cecil Adams
Dear Cecil:
Cecil, you're my final hope
Of finding out the true Straight Dope
For I have been reading of Schroedinger's cat
But none of my cats are at all like that.
This unusual animal (so it is said)
Is simultaneously live and dead!
What I don't understand is just why he
Can't be one or other, unquestionably.
My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
In one I'm enlightened, the other I ain't.
If you understand, Cecil, then show me the way
And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
Then I will and won't see you in Schroedinger's zoo.
— Randy F., Chicago
Cecil replies:
Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.\
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though--my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was.
"Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at--
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom--whatever--but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring--or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough shit.
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed--
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability--certainty, never.
'The effect of this notion? I very much fear
'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse."
'So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried--
In vain--until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven--but five bucks says he ain't."
— Cecil Adams
Monday, June 15, 2009
Books, books, books and some more books
Again, sorry for the gaps. The life I lead in the summer is not at all interesting...
but the books I read are, so that's what I'm writing about today. Yay.
I actually did my research before I went off to find books to take with me to London. I set after books that were going to captivate my interest like The Shadow of the Wind did five years ago, thus that was the base research book.
Before I go on, I have realized something fully that I kind of knew all along: I am way too picky with what I read. Unlike my relationship with people, I refuse to give a book a second chance and, sometimes, even a first chance. If it doesn't strike my fancy in the first two pages, it's down on the bedside table and isn't touched again but to be put up on the top shelf of the bookcase. I realize this is a gigantic downfall in me, because I miss out on some really good reads, but if I'm not completely dominated by a book from the start, I feel as if it is not worth my time to try to plow through it.
I actually did that with the first Harry Potter book, believe it or not. I read the first few pages...gave it a few chapters and then put it down. Not for me. Someone told me that I had to get to Hogwarts before it got good, and since it was someone I trusted, I plowed through. The outcome was sunny, thankfully, though it did take me until the 4th book to get to the hopelessly addicted stage.
There are very few books that people recommend to me that I will pick up from the bookstore. Now, if you're to shove the book under my nose and command me to read, it's likely that I'll give it the good, 'ol college try.
You will have mighty success if you give me short stories. I adore all sorts of short stories; they are within the page limit that my patience will allow in most cases. And if it's a 30 page story and I get 10 pages in and don't like it, it's only 20 more until the end, so why not finish it? They also have a quality of drawing you in quickly, because they must. Novels get the luxury of having a little more time to bide before they submit their final argument.
And old friend used to shove book after book at me and none of them stuck, because she didn't truly get that, while I appreciated a good love story, the tired stories about down-on-their-luck fishermen's daughters finding love in the unsightly muscled pirates were not the kind of thing I was interested in. The only book she gave me that I enjoyed was Phantom by Susan Kay, and that's mainly because it was glorified Phantom of the Opera fan fiction.
She didn't like the book anyway, so she gave it to me. Go figure.
I would never have had the pleasure of reading anything by Kevin Brockmeir without Sam, as well as a good portion of Steven King's short stories, so I'm thankful for that. House of Leaves is debatable ^_~
I don't know if I'll ever stop having bad dreams about that one.
Okay! So, the books that I bought:
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (haven't bought yet, but will tomorrow, seeing as it is coming out on the 16th. yay!)
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
I have since read The Thirteenth Tale. Reaction still to come.
The Red Tent is a first-person narrative told from the point of view of Dinah, daughter of Jacob and sister to Joseph (you know, the Joseph of the Technicolor Dreamcoat fame ^_^). She is telling the stories of the women of her time that were left out of the bible, because the men could not go into the red tent, which is the tent that the women went to during menstral cycles and for childbirth. It's a book written by a very devout jewish woman who has a taste for feminist literature. Fun fun fun and historical.
The Historian is the book I know the least about. Wikipedia is telling me that the "plot blends the history and folklore of Vlad Ţepeş and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula."
Here's the web address, if you're curious. They could probably tell you more than I could
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Historian
The Angel's Game is Zafon's most recently translated novel and the story exists in the same universe as Julian Carax and Daniel and the whole cast of characters from The Shadow of the Wind. I'm not sure if it includes them, but it exists in their Barcelona, so that's good enough for me. I'm just going to pray that the translator was as good as the one that came before her.
The Thirteenth Tale touches on truth, storytelling, and the ghosts that exist when they are not confronted. The reasons that I enjoyed this book, as well as The Shadow of the Wind, had to do with the plots centering around people's pasts. The pasts of these rich, entitled families were buried deep with the people that had experienced their cruel elements and had died because of them.The Aldayas and the Angelfields do not share the same experiences and maybe not even the same dynamics as a family, but the horrors that the parents commit against their children, consciously or unconsciously, and how that shapes those involved has always interested me.
There's so much more to it than what I'm saying here and I've always had trouble expressing myself, so go on and read it if you're looking for a gothic-esque novel. I read it in about three days, so it's not too hard to get through. It's a good read.
And lastly, given that you know what I read now, do you have any suggestions? I have a good $33 left to spend if I go up to EL again before my trip, so tell me something you think I should read, and I promise this time, I'll pick it up and give it an honest shot.
take it easy. don't die. don't get raped. keep reading
but the books I read are, so that's what I'm writing about today. Yay.
I actually did my research before I went off to find books to take with me to London. I set after books that were going to captivate my interest like The Shadow of the Wind did five years ago, thus that was the base research book.
Before I go on, I have realized something fully that I kind of knew all along: I am way too picky with what I read. Unlike my relationship with people, I refuse to give a book a second chance and, sometimes, even a first chance. If it doesn't strike my fancy in the first two pages, it's down on the bedside table and isn't touched again but to be put up on the top shelf of the bookcase. I realize this is a gigantic downfall in me, because I miss out on some really good reads, but if I'm not completely dominated by a book from the start, I feel as if it is not worth my time to try to plow through it.
I actually did that with the first Harry Potter book, believe it or not. I read the first few pages...gave it a few chapters and then put it down. Not for me. Someone told me that I had to get to Hogwarts before it got good, and since it was someone I trusted, I plowed through. The outcome was sunny, thankfully, though it did take me until the 4th book to get to the hopelessly addicted stage.
There are very few books that people recommend to me that I will pick up from the bookstore. Now, if you're to shove the book under my nose and command me to read, it's likely that I'll give it the good, 'ol college try.
You will have mighty success if you give me short stories. I adore all sorts of short stories; they are within the page limit that my patience will allow in most cases. And if it's a 30 page story and I get 10 pages in and don't like it, it's only 20 more until the end, so why not finish it? They also have a quality of drawing you in quickly, because they must. Novels get the luxury of having a little more time to bide before they submit their final argument.
And old friend used to shove book after book at me and none of them stuck, because she didn't truly get that, while I appreciated a good love story, the tired stories about down-on-their-luck fishermen's daughters finding love in the unsightly muscled pirates were not the kind of thing I was interested in. The only book she gave me that I enjoyed was Phantom by Susan Kay, and that's mainly because it was glorified Phantom of the Opera fan fiction.
She didn't like the book anyway, so she gave it to me. Go figure.
I would never have had the pleasure of reading anything by Kevin Brockmeir without Sam, as well as a good portion of Steven King's short stories, so I'm thankful for that. House of Leaves is debatable ^_~
I don't know if I'll ever stop having bad dreams about that one.
Okay! So, the books that I bought:
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (haven't bought yet, but will tomorrow, seeing as it is coming out on the 16th. yay!)
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
I have since read The Thirteenth Tale. Reaction still to come.
The Red Tent is a first-person narrative told from the point of view of Dinah, daughter of Jacob and sister to Joseph (you know, the Joseph of the Technicolor Dreamcoat fame ^_^). She is telling the stories of the women of her time that were left out of the bible, because the men could not go into the red tent, which is the tent that the women went to during menstral cycles and for childbirth. It's a book written by a very devout jewish woman who has a taste for feminist literature. Fun fun fun and historical.
The Historian is the book I know the least about. Wikipedia is telling me that the "plot blends the history and folklore of Vlad Ţepeş and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula."
Here's the web address, if you're curious. They could probably tell you more than I could
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Historian
The Angel's Game is Zafon's most recently translated novel and the story exists in the same universe as Julian Carax and Daniel and the whole cast of characters from The Shadow of the Wind. I'm not sure if it includes them, but it exists in their Barcelona, so that's good enough for me. I'm just going to pray that the translator was as good as the one that came before her.
The Thirteenth Tale touches on truth, storytelling, and the ghosts that exist when they are not confronted. The reasons that I enjoyed this book, as well as The Shadow of the Wind, had to do with the plots centering around people's pasts. The pasts of these rich, entitled families were buried deep with the people that had experienced their cruel elements and had died because of them.The Aldayas and the Angelfields do not share the same experiences and maybe not even the same dynamics as a family, but the horrors that the parents commit against their children, consciously or unconsciously, and how that shapes those involved has always interested me.
There's so much more to it than what I'm saying here and I've always had trouble expressing myself, so go on and read it if you're looking for a gothic-esque novel. I read it in about three days, so it's not too hard to get through. It's a good read.
And lastly, given that you know what I read now, do you have any suggestions? I have a good $33 left to spend if I go up to EL again before my trip, so tell me something you think I should read, and I promise this time, I'll pick it up and give it an honest shot.
take it easy. don't die. don't get raped. keep reading
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Sad excuse for a blogger
Wow. It's summer and I can't even write in this thing.
Whatever.
Another few days spent in East Lansing. This was just the week for 21st. There was Katie, Ainsley, Mandy, Tyler. I think that's about it, but that's quite enough; leads to a lot of drinking.So, we spent the evenings in Woody's and in Bdubs, with me taking sips and finishing off people's Buffalo Bowls (which were quite fantastical). I realized that Seven and Sevens really need to be mixed well to taste good at all. I would eventually like to try a Red-headed Slut, just because of the name alone...but then again, come to think of it, there are a lot of bombs and shots I'd like to try just because of the names. I got to try a Mai Tai. wOOt
And, of course, the drunk conversations were real worldbeaters. Friday night/morning came to an end with Sean and Ryan having a conversation of the semantics of arguing about and knowing the usefulness of religion (specifically Catholocism). Wow. I've witnessed conversations where two people talk themselves into all sorts of circles and up the butthole of God, but I have never seen it quite so bad. Things Ryan had disagreed strongly to two minute previous is now the foundation of what was supposed to prove what he was "saying in the first place." And I felt the need to interject when both of them were WAY off in terms of Catholic dogma, but then I realized that it would do more use to tell a bunch of hyenas about the nature of the Trinity than to mention it to the two of them, so I kept my mouth shut and went to sleep.
Saturday night yielded a conversation that I think I'm a little bit tired of having: the reason why I seem to be so quiet when I get drunk. le sigh
All right, now. Perhaps this conversation is had because we have run out of other things to talk about, which is entirely possible. You can only discuss the nature of squirting so many times before that gets old. Perhaps this conversation is had because people know they can get a rise out of me when we talk about it, which seems like the most likely reason. I somehow doubt that it's had because it really interests people, but if it is, please tell me why it is so interesting. I really don't think it's anything to read into.
I talk SO MUCH during the day because when there is silence in a room, I tend to start to feel awkward. However, when I'm drunk, there's a warm fuzziness and a sense of ease, so if there's a lull in the conversation, I don't feel the need to fill it up with questions and stories. Do I have barriers up when I'm drunk? Sure, but I have barriers up when I'm sober, too, and they're pretty much the same barriers - filters, I like to call them - that I "put up" because I don't feel that saying something rude, stupid, insensitive, secretive, or whatever and then blaming it on the alcohol is any way to be a responsible person.
I really don't have that much to reveal anyway, guys. I am pretty much an open book and will discuss anything with you -drunk or sober- as long as you bring it up. I'm not going to plague a party with my childhood experiences if there's no reason to do so, but if you're so damn curious, feel free to ask. I love answering questions, so ask me.
So, you tell me: what is it that you think I'm hiding from you when I'm drunk and quiet? What is it that I'm not doing that I should be doing? Because when you tell me that I do not take advantage of situations presented to me when I'm drunk and if I opened up, I'd experience more, I get real confused as to what you mean. Give me an example, please. When has an "experience" made itself open to me while I was drunk and I didn't take advantage of it? Lord, just tell me what it is you want me to say or do.
Other than that, it was a wonderful trip to East Lansing. I played Left4Dead on the 360 and made it through an entire campaign on normal, which means I learned how to use the 360 controller. Go me! ^_^ And Topher got to dry hump me while he was dancing around, so that was...fun, I guess. I got to listen to five people playing D&D, which was an experience. I am a nerd, but I have not heard nerdspeak quite like this before. It was a lot of fun. Got to see Christine's apartment and that made me super excited because soon, Emily and I shall have one just like it. Yay! All in all, the trip was quite good. I was happy to be there for Katie's 21st.
Okay, now that I've recapped and had a rant, I shall leave everyone for another few weeks while I think of something to say in my next blog post.
take it easy. don't die. don't get raped
Whatever.
Another few days spent in East Lansing. This was just the week for 21st. There was Katie, Ainsley, Mandy, Tyler. I think that's about it, but that's quite enough; leads to a lot of drinking.So, we spent the evenings in Woody's and in Bdubs, with me taking sips and finishing off people's Buffalo Bowls (which were quite fantastical). I realized that Seven and Sevens really need to be mixed well to taste good at all. I would eventually like to try a Red-headed Slut, just because of the name alone...but then again, come to think of it, there are a lot of bombs and shots I'd like to try just because of the names. I got to try a Mai Tai. wOOt
And, of course, the drunk conversations were real worldbeaters. Friday night/morning came to an end with Sean and Ryan having a conversation of the semantics of arguing about and knowing the usefulness of religion (specifically Catholocism). Wow. I've witnessed conversations where two people talk themselves into all sorts of circles and up the butthole of God, but I have never seen it quite so bad. Things Ryan had disagreed strongly to two minute previous is now the foundation of what was supposed to prove what he was "saying in the first place." And I felt the need to interject when both of them were WAY off in terms of Catholic dogma, but then I realized that it would do more use to tell a bunch of hyenas about the nature of the Trinity than to mention it to the two of them, so I kept my mouth shut and went to sleep.
Saturday night yielded a conversation that I think I'm a little bit tired of having: the reason why I seem to be so quiet when I get drunk. le sigh
All right, now. Perhaps this conversation is had because we have run out of other things to talk about, which is entirely possible. You can only discuss the nature of squirting so many times before that gets old. Perhaps this conversation is had because people know they can get a rise out of me when we talk about it, which seems like the most likely reason. I somehow doubt that it's had because it really interests people, but if it is, please tell me why it is so interesting. I really don't think it's anything to read into.
I talk SO MUCH during the day because when there is silence in a room, I tend to start to feel awkward. However, when I'm drunk, there's a warm fuzziness and a sense of ease, so if there's a lull in the conversation, I don't feel the need to fill it up with questions and stories. Do I have barriers up when I'm drunk? Sure, but I have barriers up when I'm sober, too, and they're pretty much the same barriers - filters, I like to call them - that I "put up" because I don't feel that saying something rude, stupid, insensitive, secretive, or whatever and then blaming it on the alcohol is any way to be a responsible person.
I really don't have that much to reveal anyway, guys. I am pretty much an open book and will discuss anything with you -drunk or sober- as long as you bring it up. I'm not going to plague a party with my childhood experiences if there's no reason to do so, but if you're so damn curious, feel free to ask. I love answering questions, so ask me.
So, you tell me: what is it that you think I'm hiding from you when I'm drunk and quiet? What is it that I'm not doing that I should be doing? Because when you tell me that I do not take advantage of situations presented to me when I'm drunk and if I opened up, I'd experience more, I get real confused as to what you mean. Give me an example, please. When has an "experience" made itself open to me while I was drunk and I didn't take advantage of it? Lord, just tell me what it is you want me to say or do.
Other than that, it was a wonderful trip to East Lansing. I played Left4Dead on the 360 and made it through an entire campaign on normal, which means I learned how to use the 360 controller. Go me! ^_^ And Topher got to dry hump me while he was dancing around, so that was...fun, I guess. I got to listen to five people playing D&D, which was an experience. I am a nerd, but I have not heard nerdspeak quite like this before. It was a lot of fun. Got to see Christine's apartment and that made me super excited because soon, Emily and I shall have one just like it. Yay! All in all, the trip was quite good. I was happy to be there for Katie's 21st.
Okay, now that I've recapped and had a rant, I shall leave everyone for another few weeks while I think of something to say in my next blog post.
take it easy. don't die. don't get raped
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