memorial day

TODAY IS OURS

Today is ours; let's live it.
And love is strong; let's give it.
A song can help; let's sing it.
And peace is dear; let's bring it.
The past is gone; don't rue it.
Our work is here; let's do it.
The world is wrong; let's right it.
The battle is hard; let's fight it.
The road is rough; let's clear it.
The future vast; don't fear it.
Is faith asleep; let's wake it.
Today is ours; let's take it!
---Anonymous

hmmmm

i wonder about everything. serious. tangential. doesn't matter. endless wondering.

i wonder if this means i have ADD.

poor form, vol. II

all right, i'm not a man-hater. i'm not a sweeping-generalizer. but the time has come for me to log in on the bad behavior of grown men. dating can be hard. dating can be easy. sometimes we excel at it, sometimes we can't hit the flint to stone and get anything started if our lives depend on it. but here's the thing--why can't people just be straight up? sure, the game, the chase, the allure of untapped potential when you meet someone you like--all good. some guy out there in y-chromosome land, please just tell me WHY you can't conduct yourselves on the up n' up?

scenario:
meet a guy. you give guy your number. guy calls. you invite guy out to rockin' event where you and friends are gathered. guy comes. is attentive. is sweet. reveals facts about his life. you reveal facts about your life. you laugh. you dance. you flirt. there is hand holding. phrases are uttered like, "you are awesome!" "that is so cool!" "i am having a great night! good music. good friends. pretty girl." finally all friends leave and you ask the guy if he needs a ride home. you drive him home, have some snogging in the car which is mutually enjoyed. you talk a bit about past girls/boys. you decline an invite to go up to his apartment because, after all, you just met 4 hours ago. the guy says, "i really like you so far." (note that "so far" implies there will be something MORE in the future.) nice evening. you text the guy the next day. he texts you back within two minutes. then, NOTHING. no calls. no texts. no emails. zip.

guys. this is POOR FORM! oh, such Poor Form. what's the deal there? it is FINE if you want to weave a game to see if you can get a girl in the sack. it's done. that's fine. girls do it too. BUT, if that's what you're looking for, why reply to a text the next day if you struck out and you have no more interest? or if you are looking for something more serious too, and you liked the girl, why text her back if you aren't going to call and see her again? so LAME LAME LAME. Poor Form. You know the rules.

The world would be a better place if people would just try to be a bit more empathetic, put themselves in the shoes of others, and if everyone was down with the Golden Rule.

then and now

these words are from mario savio's memorable speech, before Free Speech Movement demonstrators entered sproul hall on the UC-Berkeley campus to begin their sit-in on december 3, 1964:

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"

when will we decide it is time again to throw our bodies upon the gears? complacency. apathy. passivity. all enemies of a true democracy.

summer of opportunity

people, it is the summer of opportunity!! do not let one moment be wasted. do not hesitate to think what others will think. when an opportunity arises, SEIZE IT immediately! meet new people! never be without a business card, or a slip of paper with your name and number on it! writing down the digits is a production, and there are new friends and love interests waiting to be cultivated and fostered. if you are at a party and you talk to someone for 34 seconds and you like them, give them your number and tell them to call you sometime! if you are walking down the street and you see someone whose shoes you admire, tell them so and ask them if they want to get a coffee! you come with nothing, so you have nothing to lose. get busy! be active, not passive! take advantage of this SUMMER OF OPPORTUNITY!

poor form

the following behaviors are blatant examples of "Poor Form" and should not be tolerated by civilized persons. everyone fouls up on occasion. however, if you are habitually a victim of one of or a combination of these social snubs as performed by a particular person, take stock! it is probable that this person holds no regard for your feelings and/or is knowingly inconsiderate.

1. double-booking.
there are two modes of double-booking. in the first mode, the person has plans with you and then a different opportunity arises and they completely cancel on you. in the second mode, the person makes plans with you and then abruptly ends your social time together early in order to catch up with and end their evening with anther person(s).

2. b-list invitations.
for example, the person has 2 tickets and since their FIRST choice of guest can't make it, they ask YOU as their second choice. you've just been b-listed.

3. last minute cancellations.
barring a death, accident, or last minute acute illness, 24-hours-notice is necessary for any cancellation to be any any way acceptable. the less notice that is given for a cancellation, the worse the offense. any ditch within 6 hours of the event (without appropriate death/accident excuse) is egregious.

another clever word

so here it is: asymptotic (adj.)
this is a calculus word. an asymptote is a straight line associated with a curve such that as a point moves along an infinite branch of the curve the distance from the point to the line approaches zero. thus, asymptotic means, essentially, approaching zero.

"My patience with your inconsiderate behavior is asymptotic." (wearing thin; approaching zero)

this word was busted out on me by a dude who probably skipped several of his calculus classes. i love new words. my friend josh is usually a person i can count on to introduce new vocabulary into my lexicon. therefore, i love josh.

Karl Marx

you know, i don't know jack about Marxism. lenin. stalin. yeah, russian guys. lenin first, then stalin. but Marx is the Uber-Russian, or so it seems. and that mysterious group, The Left... i feel like i am trying to crack the codes of the bad guys in an episode of The Tick (i hope you have all seen The Tick and Arthur battle The Swiss, the gang who goes about with swiss army knives on their backs, pulling out implements for every need and occasion.). i wonder what The Left would look like in cartoon form. hmm. now that i am thinking about it, i think maybe The Tick DID battle joseph stalin at some point.

in addition to my marxism angst, i think my cat has a noticeable loose tooth. crikey. some days it seems optimal to just run off and become a ship's captain.

note: The Tick DID INDEED battle joseph stalin, or at least stalin made an appearance assisting The Terror. AND there was a second, fake stalin named "stalingrad" who was a grad student who dressed up and acted like stalin as an homage. The Tick is/was a GREAT cartoon. here are two links to the hall of villians The Tick and Arthur (his sidekick, an accountant in a moth suit) went up against:
http://www.cs.rose-hulman.edu/~stinerkt/tickdocs/asvl.html
http://www.thetick.ws/tvvillains.html

El Seed was also a great super-villian.

parrots and pirates

something to consider: if you had a parrot, what would you teach it to say?

i would teach my parrot to say things like, "shiver me timbers!" and "yo ho ho!" and "walk the plank, ye land lubber!" it seems a wasted opportunity to own a parrot and not teach it pirate-speak. "arrrrrrrrr!"

i might also teach my parrot to say, "brass monkey."

and so it ends

oh my god. emperor of the sea ended tonight. they didn't even number the episode, it just opened with the words, "final episode" across the screen. and jesus, it was wrenching! i am so depressed! i missed the final 6 or so episodes of age of warriors and was terribly upset at that, but now i am thinking it saved me some deep despair.

here is a link to the show's website with photos at the bottom of the page. it's in korean, but it's self-explanatory:
http://www.kbs.co.kr/drama/jangbogo/plus/photo/photo.html

in the final three episodes of e of the s, they killed off main characters left and right! first lady jami's right hand man who had become the head of the royal guard was killed. then lady jami herself did some Intense Thinking with Falling Tears standing on the rocks by the sea, then she walked out into the water and drowned herself. then a couple of emperors were killed, along with miss jung hwa's brother and then her escort. then tonight yeom-jang stabbed bo go jang right in his own receiving room after they drank sake together. with sentimental music and tears dropping and flashbacks to them sparring when they were teenagers. awful. then war broke out between hwang-ho and chung-hae-jin and EVERYBODY was killed: bo go jang's wife, chae-ryung, and daughter, the master, bo go jang's lifelong best friend yeon (whose pregnant wife hae-jin was killed 8 or 10 episodes previously), the third in command of the chung-hae-jin forces, the third in command of the hwang-ho army, then yeom-jang's right hand man, then yeom-jang himself in the final two minutes-- shot full of about 20 arrows on the beach, as miss jung-hwa made her escape with bo go jang's baby. she and bo go jang had a life of "twisted fate" and were never able to be together, but in the end she winds up with his baby... those two, along with two other chung-hae merchant (father and son), master jo, and the bad guys led by mung kim were the ONLY characters left standing. AWFUL! i guess that's what happens with historical dramas. the era ends, the show ends, everyboday dies. live by the sword, die by the sword.

i gotta learn to speak korean.

vocabulary

two of my favorite words are "remuda" and "carapace."

medieval korea rules!

i love medieval korean historical dramas with english subtitles. when i was doing my coursework i used to watch AGE OF WARRIORS, which followed the drama that unfolded in the court of the emperor in 12th century korea. in its 130-some episodes, one finds one of the best series ever broadcast on television. when i came to dc, i suffered a dry spell. i even emailed the public television stations here begging for them to run A of W (i missed the first 30 episodes or so) but i was rebuffed!

as of late i've been watching EMPEROR OF THE SEA on AZN television. this series has 52 or so episodes and focuses on the development of trade routes and merchant companies in 9th century korea. there are only about 6 episodes left, and i am forlorn. just like A of W, E of the S is chocked full of cheezy costumes and music, melodramatic pauses and stares between characters, and wickedly simple, stylized sets. there are also ridiculously unrealistic fight scenes featuring pirates, military guys, the main characters, and the escort warriors. some of the silly devices they use in the show that i find immensely amusing include:

1. in american tv and cinema, when people ride horses they kick the horse in the side and say, "yah!" or "giddyup!" and the horse goes until one says, "whoa." in medieval korea, when riding a horse at a gallop it is evidently imperative to say "hyah! hyah! hyah!" on every "downbeat," every time one's butt hits the saddle in the galloping rhythm. needless to say, it is IMPOSSIBLE for a large group of warriors to sneak up on anybody with such a cachophony of "hyahs!" ringing out for everyone to hear.

2. since the show is about the development of trade routes and merchant companies, several scenes in E of the S take place in the marketplace--in Dang, in Moo-Jinju, in Yangju--and if one character is walking the aisles between the booths (which they call "stores") and sees someone they DO NOT want to run into coming toward them through the crowd, the charcater merely jumps into an "alley" and half squats facing the wall with their hands and cheek on it, and the other person/ people walk on by without seeing the "hiding" character. evidently vision, or specifically peripheral vision, was not in medieval korea what it is today. thank god they didn't have cars. they would have killed themselves and all medieval korean pedestrians stepping into crosswalks.

3. there is a lot of silent thinking with music playing in the background in this show. often this thinking takes place while standing on some rocks looking out at the sea. the characters stand alone, with perfect posture, as if they are engaging in the yoga pose Standing Mountain. i love it when they stand and gaze at the sea thinking Intense Thoughts. the intense thinking is enhanced when the character cries, which in medieval korea only involved the spilling of tears out of the eyes. they never scrunch up their faces in sadness/anger/anguish, and they never make a crying sound. there is just Standing, Thinking, and Tear-spilling.

4. they also use excellent phrasing in the translation of the show. one of my favorites is when the lackey returns to the main group of characters after having been sent on some errand and the head person of the group will always say, "did you find out?" not "what did you find out?" or "did you get the stuff?" but always, "did you find out?"

5. being escort warriors and medieval koreans in general, where danger lurks around every corner (although if one would look, they would see it lurking there, hands and cheek to the wall), they all carry long swords in scabbards. but they don't have any kind of device attaching this weapon to their belts. they just CARRY their swords. all the time, in their left hands, there is a sword. even when they are riding the horses ("hyah! hyah! hyah!"), they must ride holding the reins with their right hand, with the sword in their left. very inconvenient.


EMPEROR OF THE SEA IS ALMOST AS GOOD AS AGE OF WARRIORS. the korean broadcasting system is the shiznitt! here is the E of the S website. i hope you read korean:
http://www.kbs.co.kr/end_program/drama/jangbogo/index.html

crazy people

you know, some people are just CRAZY. unapologetically, obstinately crazy. it's like they were given a different rulebook and a different dictionary at birth, and they grew up in the world with everyone else (a mixture of various types of crazy people and sane people), where ostensibly in the same society there are some shared values, shared mores, shared social cues and customs. but somehow, the crazy people turn out crazy. words don't have the same connotation with them. they interpret your actions differently than most, and believe the meaning of their own words and actions are wildly different than the way most people would interpret them. how does this happen?!!

the clue to determine if someone is just being a pain in the ass or being crazy: you cannot tell a crazy person they are crazy. they will never budge from their obstinate belief that everyone else is wrong, or at least the firm view that they are totally right or within the bounds of normalcy; whereas a relatively sane person will AT LEAST consider another point of view.

you just can't tell a crazy person they're crazy.

free stuff in cairo

my friend julie is fascinated by the stuff people try to give away on craigslist. here in dc, the free pages are saturated with furniture and general household detritus people want to ditch or sell when they move.

in cairo, however, there are exactly three things listed for free on craigslist:

free wishes granted.
free wish.
free bible.

my blog

this is my blog. its title comes from a favorite sentence my best friend and i were thrilled to find was a textbook practice exercise in mrs. norma bennet's typing class when we were in 12th grade.

the giant is very big if you know what i mean.
the giant is very big if you know what i mean.
the giant is very big if you know what i mean.

i can type this sentence much faster and with much better accuracy now, than i could then.

last night i ate dinner with four friends. i had an appetizer, a side of sauteed spring vegetables, and 2 dirty martinis. somehow the bill got split 5 ways and i ended up paying $50. i HATE it when that happens.


"When you split the ticket three ways the steak eater picks the pocket of the salad man."