Spring Cleaning

I decided it was time to clean out my closet, since I haven't done that. Ever. Mostly I just shove more stuff in there. But on Tuesday I decided it was time to clean it out and start boxing up things. This seemed like a simple endeavor, but I've spent three days on it and I'm still not completely done. It turns out I still had most of my old high school notes and I think the combined paper probably murdered an entire forest. I did decide to keep about two pages of my government notes, but only because one had funny pictures and the other had an old doodle of mine that I find fascinating. Why is it fascinating? Because it was the very first doodle of its kind, of course. I like to consider it a historical document. The rest of it all, I recycled, saved another forest. Cleaning off my dresser was easier as it involved more simple throwing stuff away and now I can actually see the top of my dresser again. Some day I might actually clean out the drawers and see what they look like too.
In the course of all the cleaning though, I came across old notes from people and birthday cards and whatnot. Trouble is, I have no idea who the people are who gave them to me. Clearly it was important once, since I kept them all, but now I have no clue. I suppose the logical thing to do would be to label things, but who thinks of labeling birthday cards from a decade ago? Even the ones I do remember who they're from end up in a box anyway and it'll be another ten years before I look at them again. And who knows, maybe the next time I'll end up throwing them away too. In the mean time it's nice to read them again. Also, it's very dusty up there in my closet, makes my hands very dirty. I'd clean that too, but let's be honest, it really doesn't matter. Besides me, I don't think anyone's going to go poking around up there. If they did they're be very unhappy with how their hands would be afterwards, and not just because of the dust. I'm sure there's a spilled soda up there too and it's nasty. For the record, it's not my fault either. The thing managed to do it by itself and I didn't even know the can had soda in it. I might break down and clean it up eventually, but not any time soon. I'm not in the mood for that kind of thing. And there is still the lingering matter of my bed. Who knows what's under there? I refuse to cross that bridge for a long time. It's dusty under there too and I hate dust, it makes me sneeze. Obviously.
So, there it is. The great crusade against my cluttered closet that is still in progress. I probably have all sorts of odd things hidden in there just dying to be dumped in the garbage. On to the next!

Thought for the day

"Good things never last, Mr. Denham."

Pandora

I pulled up Pandora a little while ago, because I have yet to get iTunes on here or my music, and if you don't understand that, read my last blog. We're not going there. Anyway, Pandora. Occasionally, I admit it does get on my nerves, but I was willing to forgive it when I found one of the greatest stations ever created, the Film Scores station. But then it kept trying to slip in some sort of new-age nonsense in there as if I wanted it. But overall we get along.

I felt a need to go looking for old-time 1920's style music today, and in the process I found an entire station just for opera! I had already been going through the trouble of trying to build one the hard way, working my way from Luciano Pavarotti, because the man was amazing. Well, that was a lengthy process, and now I have a handy ready-made station for it. But, since I wasn't looking for opera in the first place, I continued my search for nice 1920's ragtime, having already found a nice Early Jazz station. This time, I got distracted by one called Choral Music. I admit it, I love choral music almost as much as I like good opera, better, sometimes. So, naturally, I added that station too. Having satisfied my curiosity in that field, I resumed my search for what I actually intended to find, only to be waylaid by a station entitled Showtunes. Generally speaking, I'm not obsessed with showtunes or anything. I'm probably classified as a passing fan, only truly interested in Wicked and Phantom of the Opera. But, I added the thing anyway, and it pulled up Chicago and we became friends. This made me quite happy, and I went back to finding that ragtime again. Finally, I found that there is no ragtime station and this was disappointing. Not to be deterred, I asked it to make a station centered around Scott Joplin. I think Pandora must be trying to increase its good karma, because it instantly gave me a string of perfect ragtime songs, just like I wanted. So, as of now, Pandora and I are very good friends. This will last until I go back to my Train station (funny, isn't it?) and it decides to pull up a live version of a song. I hate live versions, but does Pandora let you tell it that? Of course not. But until that or a new resurgence of new-age I-wish-I-was-music pops up, we shall remain on good terms.

That'll do, Pandora, that'll do.

Goodbye, Clark

I named my laptop Clark, or rather nicknamed him that. It's like racehorses, they have a real name but everyone refers to them by their nickname because let's face it, PioneeroftheNile is a mouthfull. So, Clark's official name is Superman, but I call him Clark. We've been together for a long time, nearly six years. He was a birthday present my senior year, about a month before I graduated high school. We had our ups and downs in our relationship and I gave him a good smack more than once, but I still love the guy, he's reliable. But now, after all the grief he's given me, he's really topped himself this time. This time his entire motherboard may be shot, in fact, it probably is. It's not exactly the end of the world because I can still use the computers on campus and I was planning on replacing Clark as soon as possible after this semester anyway. But, for him to die now, in the middle of the semester, is really horrible timing. I can't afford to replace him, much less fix him, and I've lost that ever vital connection to the outside world. When we lose our tv at the house I won't even be able to watch DVD's anymore. Granted that doesn't sound very dramatic, but let me tell you: IT IS. Me being deprived of DVD's, of my anime, that's a BAD THING. I do not like it. The next worst thing would be to lose my books.
And, since all bad things must happen all at once, my watch died. Both of them. Both of my watches' batteries died at the same time, so now I am watchless. For you to understand how horrible THAT is, let me explain: I have had a watch since I learned to tell time in first grade. I have never been without one since. We're talking nearly twenty years of wearing a watch here, and now it's gone. This week is turning out really lousy. Piled on top of all this was the various papers I had due this week, tests, quizzes, etc. The only upside to all of this is that it's a long weekend. What I'm going to do with it, I have no idea, but at least I get more sleep. Hurary for small favors.
So, goodbye, dear Clark, I'm going to miss you. You almost survived college for as long as me, and you earned your retirement, even if you were a pain in the neck most of the time. Farewell, my friend.

Winter

Winter is such a nice unique sort of time of year. The only time of year when your hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows will freeze along with your nose and everything in it. The snow drifts are growing larger, like some diabolical monster from one of my video games. It just gets bigger and bigger and the only viable way of killing it involves a healthy dose of flame-thrower. The only upside to all of this right now is that there isn't any ice. Ironically enough, it's too warm. Cold enough to snow every day, just not enough to create the usual layer of ice hiding under the snow. That's nice and all, but now instead of the cars sliding on ice they just get stuck in the snow. It's an interesting trade-off and I don't know which one I'd prefer. But for now I get to deal with treading my way through the snow piling ever higher and measuring how high it is today (about to the knees now). It's more fun to look at it from the comfort of my living room. The couches are nice. :) And I can sit here and think about the fact that I don't have to walk to school in the dark and the snow until Tuesday. Happy Weekend!

Epic

I have read more than a few manga ever since I discovered just how awesome it is but there are few that have really made an impact. But, the other day when I was stuck on a shuttle for a few hours I was reading some and I came across another one that just makes you sit back and go "whoa..." Now, that doesn't happen very often. Bleach and Naruto have had a few moments that get a close reaction to that, especially recently. But I think that there are only a few that can really say they had the "whoa..." factor going. One would be One Piece. Not the whole thing mind you, just a handful of chapters when Luffy's brother, Ace, is captured and the Navy tries to execute him. Luffy comes to save him, and the chapter after Luffy has set Ace free and the two of them are trying to escape was good enough to deserve the "whoa..." in addition to a "holy...." I just stared at it for a while. And there haven't been very many manga chapters that have done that except for Ichigo's Mugetsu chapter and the flashback chapter about Naruto's wicked awesome dad fighting Madara. But it's important to remember that those are only about one or two, possibly a handful of chapters within the entire series that's good enough to warrant that. One Piece has so many chapters now I don't even know how high it is. Just the epic chapter that had serious "holy..." going on was number 574 and it's still going. So, I have to wonder if Naruto and Bleach can pull it off again. Bleach has failed to seriously interest me or impress me since the Mugetsu chapter but Naruto is making a noble effort to see how many characters can have epic boss fights and that's good, but still lacking the "whoa..." or "holy..." factor in any degree of significance. At the top of my list for any manga and certainly for the "whoa..." factor would have to be Fullmetal Alchemist. There were plenty of chapters that had the "whoa..." or "holy..." factor, but the final chapter had both with a generous dose of "gggpoiehpotviutpjqoklpaojkmnkaoerhggppyyytthhhickkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" It was just that good. I was at a loss of words and that does not happen often, anyone who knows me can tell you that. But the last chapter of Fullmetal Alchemist was just so epic it reduced me to gibberish. Rurouni Kenshin had a pretty epic ending too, but didn't have the "reduce to gibberish" factor. Still, overall, Kenshin and Fullmetal Alchemist are the best shonen manga I've ever read. As for shojo, well, I rarely read it and usually grow very tired of it. But, still, there has to be a best of what I have read, and I think that's Fruits Basket. It has good balance between the romantic comedy/drama without getting melodramatic. And it ended the way I wanted and that gives it serious brownie points. Some day I will finish reading Tsubasa and make a call on that one, and I get the feeling it will get some serious "whoa..." "holy..." and "oh wow..." points. At any rate, it's pretty much one of the best shojo just because there are so many swords in it. Can't go wrong with swords.
Now, I understand I've left some out, more than likely because I haven't read them yet, but this is my take on the ones I have read. Death Note doesn't make it up there just because it was more of a mind trip than anything. Plus it ruined the ride when L was gone. So, there it is. We'll see where the chips fall after this.

Odd thoughts for today

It's interesting, being in college. You hear and see much more interesting things as you walk to class. For instance, today a bunch of people were dressed up for Halloween. Including a Mr. Incredible, the green teletubby, a witch, a teddy bear, Naruto (^_^), Dorothy, a girl with her pants on backwards, and Mario. It makes your day much more interesting. Plus, there's the interesting perk of walking through the bookstore and hearing two white guys who are obviously American speaking fluently and happily in Chinese to each other. You can substitute in Spanish or a half a dozen other languages for that too. It's interesting that way.

And a fun quote for today, courtesy of my roommate:
"Mmm, it smells like cookies! ..... Oh my gosh, I'M making cookies! There's like ten seconds left!"
It's been a fun day. :)
I spent a good chunk of the morning/afternoon with the author whose manuscript we've been editing and it was a blast! It's so much fun to just sit down and talk to an author and have fun eating lunch together and laugh over how awesome Firefly is. Nerdiness never felt so good. :D