Am I an unconscious XP whore?
I could be. I'd written two different day logs (here and here), and in both of them I simply asked why my rep/XP went down on other nodes. I had hoped someone would /msg me an answer (or opinion or suggestion). Instead, I came back a couple of days later and suddenly I'd being drowned in rep/XP on the day log that I wrote.
This was not my intention.
I was honestly and legitimately asking a question regarding how my rep/XP were going up and down. I wasn't pandering for more rep/XP. Far from it, truth be told. I think my rep/XP should be earned through nodes that provide previously missing information about a subject, not because I complained about getting downvoted.
So what can I do?
Can I return these rep/XP? Is there a "return to sender" option on them? Obviously not, but is there some way I can make up for this. Maybe there is a Church of Everything2 where I can pay penance? Either way, I just wanted to clear my name of this crime.
Today I ventured off campus down to the Warner Theater in Erie. I went to see Michael Feldman's Whad'Ya Know? radio program. For those of you who haven't heard the show (and are too lazy to click the link), it's a comedy/quiz show on PRI.
Before I made my way down from Mercyhurst, cutting through the wonderful Lake Erie wind, I had given some thought as to what I would say if Michael talked to me when he ventured into the audience. A lot of his humor comes from just talking to normal people in the audience and trying to find idiosyncrasies in their personalities. Playing the encounter out in my head I thought it might be nice to throw in an E2 reference. (Plus I could reap the rewards of the XP windfall I would recieve.)
So anyway I get down in my seat, which was very good -- ten rows back on the aisle and look around. Not many college age kids, I guess I was living outside my demographic.
The show starts and Feldman interviews a local politician - a real asshole who was polite just for the show. Then the band plays and he searches through index cards people filled out. People are encouraged to write a question on a card they want to ask Michael. Usually the more mundane the question, the better the chances he'll comment on it. On mine I wrote: I heard you were an English major in college, and I am one now, so what can I do with an English degree? Or, can I have a job?
As he walks down the aisle, the aisle my seat is on, he pauses and asks a 10 year old kid whose parent had gone to the bathroom if he had driven here himself. He converses with the kid further, turns around and takes two steps, positioning himself in front of me.
I don't know what it was, but he grabs my arm and begins asking questions. As I stand up I notice the academic dean of my college is sitting several rows away. Don't say anything too stupid.
I honestly forget what exactly he said to me. It was one of those situations where you are so dumbfounded that the situation you imagined had come true you are caught off guard. I do remember him accusing me of pining for his job. "Not until I'm dead," he said to me. But he offered me Jim's (his version of Ed McMahon) job, so long as I killed him. The last bit of wisdom he offered to me was in regard to me being an English major. He said, "My advice to you, double major."
It wasn't until an hour after the show ended that I remembered that I didn't mention E2. I kicked myself, but as time goes by further culture jamming situations are sure to present themselves. Of course if you want to shower me in XP now that's fine.
For those of you how want to hear me in action: http://www.notmuch.com/Show/Archive.pl?s_id=65
I watched "Only Yesterday" again last night because I was too bored to do any more homework- after that I went to bed. I have been trying to find the rest of "Record of the Lodoss War" online, but I have had only limited success so far. I have also noded some random stuff that I happened across in the last couple of days, mainly about Japanese and anime- hopefully I will finish my homework soon and be able to write some more.
My neighbor and I are going out for Korean food later- I am really hungry today as I have not eaten much the last few days due to being sick...
this afternoon I did a WU of "grave of the fireflies" and one about Japanese- I think I am getting into a habit of finding nodes of stuff that I am interested in that although they have writeups already, do not have a satisfying write-up on them and then creating a writeup that I find satisfying.
Yesterday I made my first mix CD.. here's the track listing. It's pretty cool, although I feel a few songs don't really belong, and I could have done better on the order.. but still a good accomplishment.
short and brutish Built to Spill The Plan Weezer My Name is Jonas The Promise Ring Emergency! Emergency! Johnny Lang Paint it Black Weezer The World has turned and left me here Modest Mouse Tiny Cities Made of Ashes Guided by Voices Non-Absorbing Modest Mouse All Nite Diner Sugar Ray Abracadabra The Promise Ring Make me a Mix-Tape Collective Soul Simple Eagles Get Over It Harvey Danger Woolly Muffler Sneaker Pimps Six Underground Incubus Drive Sunny Day Real Estate Every Shining Time You Arrive Dido Thank You (It's not so bad) Guided by Voices Echos Myron Allman Brothers Band Soulshine Live I Walk the Line
Well, a number of repeats from my last mix, but that's just because I gave that one out and didn't keep a copy. Isn't it strange how much feeling a song can envoke? I put some of my favorite happy songs on there (like "Emergency! Emergency!" .. ) but as I was listening to the Dido song (the song is about her feelings the morning after..) it made me miss someone.
What happened this weekend? Well, not much that interesting. Geeky stuff, mainly. Got invited to a party Friday but declined, mainly because of fear. That, and my car was in the shop.. and I know that my ride home that night wasn't going. Oh well.. I should break out of my shell some more. I guess my biggest fear when it comes to meeting new people is that I am not an interesting person .. but that really is irrational. I should just shut the fuck up and dance.
Lately I've been beginning to find that when I drive myself my light is found. Whatever tommorrow brings, I'll be there with open arms and open eyes.
-Incubus
Bloody siblings. "I had a curfew when i was his age, he should have one too" is my sister's argument. So I have to be home by midnight. Bah. I meet Diana, Stewart, Gill and a gothed up Kyle in a pub in town - they're heading out to the Cathouse, hence Kyle's attire. He's not really a goth, just thought he'd dress up as one. But I leave them to get the last train home at 11.20.
"I had a curfew when i was his age, he should have one too" is my sister's argument. So I have to be home by midnight. Bah.
I meet Diana, Stewart, Gill and a gothed up Kyle in a pub in town - they're heading out to the Cathouse, hence Kyle's attire. He's not really a goth, just thought he'd dress up as one. But I leave them to get the last train home at 11.20.
Friday
My cousin Richard is up from deepest, darkest Merseyside, and I'd heard that some of my friends were going to the Art School. I can't get in touch with them to confirm it, but head up there instead, hoping to meet them at some point. We get in, have a beer, and eventually find that they're at the QM, and about to go and see Hannibal. So it's back on the underground, and down to the teeny wee Grosvner, which is so hot it's like a sauna. (it also seemed like the entire 1st year mechanical engineering course were in there) After that, people just headed home, so we did too.
After that, people just headed home, so we did too.
At about 9pm, it looked like I wasn't going to be going out anywhere. Ten minutes later, I had plans. Unusal, really.. The same bunch of people as before, with the addition of Becki, Gill's friend who I'd met in Edinburgh a couple of weekends ago. We went into town, not really with anywhere in particular in mind. The Arches were expensive, and I got completely confused when trying to find Strawberry Fields. I'm not sure where I was trying to take us, but we ended up at the Strathclyde Uni union instead. We stayed there till closing, and then walked back to Murano Street. Gill, Kyle and Roger share a flat there, along with a bunch of other people, some crazy, some not. I think my friends fall into the crazy variety, as we attempted to get five people into a single bed. It was fairly comfortable, but Kyle went off to his own bed after a while, and Becki took a sleeping bag on the floor. Techically, I slept with Gill. (although in practice, I spent the night wedged between her and the wall)
The same bunch of people as before, with the addition of Becki, Gill's friend who I'd met in Edinburgh a couple of weekends ago. We went into town, not really with anywhere in particular in mind. The Arches were expensive, and I got completely confused when trying to find Strawberry Fields. I'm not sure where I was trying to take us, but we ended up at the Strathclyde Uni union instead. We stayed there till closing, and then walked back to Murano Street.
Gill, Kyle and Roger share a flat there, along with a bunch of other people, some crazy, some not. I think my friends fall into the crazy variety, as we attempted to get five people into a single bed. It was fairly comfortable, but Kyle went off to his own bed after a while, and Becki took a sleeping bag on the floor.
Techically, I slept with Gill. (although in practice, I spent the night wedged between her and the wall)
Sunday
I'm not entirely sure why, but Roger decided we should start the day off with a bit of yoga. It was the first time I'd done it, and it was pretty good. We did get some funny looks from the people in the flat next to the car park we were in, though... As I mentioned, some of the inhabitants of the flat are a little crazy. Some had let substance abuse get the better of them, and the kitchen was full of popcorn. Once we'd tided that up, we started on the various other spills and such about the place, and eventually cleaned the whole room. Not any of our mess, but the people who made it weren't likely to clear it up any time soon. Everyone else went swimming this afternoon, I went home to work on my PDE project - a sellotape dispenser, made out of card. Fun. Really. It's crap. And I guess I'd better go get some real sleep now. . .
As I mentioned, some of the inhabitants of the flat are a little crazy. Some had let substance abuse get the better of them, and the kitchen was full of popcorn. Once we'd tided that up, we started on the various other spills and such about the place, and eventually cleaned the whole room. Not any of our mess, but the people who made it weren't likely to clear it up any time soon.
Everyone else went swimming this afternoon, I went home to work on my PDE project - a sellotape dispenser, made out of card. Fun. Really. It's crap.
And I guess I'd better go get some real sleep now. . .
Got high tonight and wrote this about 2 different books I am keeping. One, a 5 Year Journal, the other a sketch book. All an effort to keep this from being another day I won't remember. Why do I like to write like Shakespeare when I get high? I don't know.
Well, as far as I'm concerned, here in the Eastern United States, it's still February 18, 2001, so I will write my day log here. I'm still sick, so I gave a sympathy up-vote to everyone else who wrote a day log about being sick. I feel all your pain.
I'm listening to "Dancing Queen" by ABBA. It's fun using other people's computers because then you can see all the weird music in their playlists. See, on my own computer, I would never think to enqueue this song, but now that I'm listening to it, it's kinda nice. I honestly think one of the best parts of being a college student is the freedom to wander aimlessly into someone else's room and just use their stuff. Only 3 months left. Somehow, I don't think grad school will be the same.
Eww. The next song on the playlist is "Lucky" by Britney Spears. Sorry, I just don't feel her pain.
So, how was my day, you ask? Well, it was ok. I woke up late, I watched the Daria marathon on MTV, I did some work, I had dinner, I did some more work... and here I am. I really like Daria. She's exactly who I wanted to be in high school, but I somehow never managed to quite shake off the desire to be popular, at least in some small way. I think there's something really impressive about someone who honestly doesn't care about other people's opinions. Sadly, she's just a cartoon character.
Hmmm.. Only 10:30 pm. Maybe I'll go get some dessert. Another great thing about college -- fast metabolism. Everyone talks about the freshman fifteen. Nonsense. I'm convinced that everyone immediately gains 15 pounds upon graduating from college.
Well, stay tuned for the next installment of my life. Maybe tomorrow I'll get into Stanford. Keep your fingers crossed for me. (Is it ok for me to say that? I'm Jewish, so I've never been sure.)
So what did I do today? I woke up at 1:00 and went out to the Hamden area with lillianvalencia. We talked about mutual friends and their problems, etc... Then we returned and went our merry ways...
CR left just before midnight. It was another day of half-life level editing and deathmatching.
It's amazing how fast this weekend went by. Just being totally busy with something has resulted in the most extreme temporal compression matrix that I've ever experienced. It's almost like travelling forward in time. I swear that this weekend was only about 10 hours long.
Now my mind is no longer preoccupied, and I'm back to where I was on Friday. I'm thinking (obsessing?) about Sara again. She would like to get together with me on friday for lunch to talk about us and things. This is scary. This is important. I can tell already that this is going to be a week of high anxiety. I need to be as honest as possible with her without sounding too pathetic. I need to gather my thoughts, but tonight I need to study for a japanese quiz.
Yesterday was another bad day. I have this shitty cold, feeling even worse today, coughing and hacking. I felt like doing nothing, felt sad and felt my addiction pulling at me. I went to lunch with a girlfriend, that was nice, we commiserated together. I feel pretty bad for her, she feels stuck in a marriage with a man she loves and I know he loves her, but he has no passion for her any more. So she never gets what she wants. I know that feeling, and I couldn't stay in a relationship like that.
My problems will get better, I have no doubt at all. It's ghosts from the past that haunt me not the present, so I have a lot of hope. But right now, it's almost impossible to get through. I talked to my sister for an hour yesterday. That was really good. She told me the rat story - yeesh. She told me about her experience with a psychic. Man! I never knew there could be such a thing as a real psychic - this one sounds like she's a real one. She knew things about my sister that only my sister could have told her - and didn't.
Today I am still feeling miserable, both with the cold and mentally. I am trying to clean my room, get rid of some of the clutter - but after five minutes I lose the conviction that it will be good for me and I just stop. I don't really care right now. Nothing really matters right now. There isn't anything I can do except something that will get me out of the house and away from my brain. On to the comic book store!
We woke up at around 11:30 AM, did the whole hygiene thing, and walked with wet hair in -11 degree temperatures to get illness inducing food. I had dry scrambled eggs, sausage and a salad (the salad is good!) We came back to Jon's dorm to regroup and then headed to the library to get some books he needed for class. The library is sketchy as hell.
I wrote in my journal while Jon wrote article summaries. Lovely fun.
I think we went to get lunch now. I had a gross steak and cheese from a school-run Blimpie. It proceded to make me very ill.
Later on we decided to give Jon a haircut! We hunted around for someone with clippers and then went in the bathroom for hair-cutting fun. We also re-shaved the short parts of my hair (back and sides.)
I somehow managed to get in a fight with my ex on AIM. She was being super-bitchy to Trojal just 'cause he has a cute girlfriend now. I told her to fuck herself and she proceeded to rant about how I have no right be a dickhead to her just becasuse I'm in a bad mood, and how I'm so immature and she never thought I was mature in the first place. Blah. It actually upsets me to some extent. I'm so not over her, yet.
First, I had some significant difficulty with having other computer room staff helping me to get on the Network. I had a network card, but none of the drivers on the Win98 CD worked with it. The one person who is considered to be the Network Expert in the computer room was unwilling to help me with my difficulties - he was too busy playing games to bother with something in his supposed area of expertise. As a result, I was somewhat put off, and disinterested in playing computer tournaments.
On Saturday night, I hosted a Scavenger Hunt. It went well, all things considered, but I was greatly surprised that almost all of the teams managed to find something for every item on the list. It made me aware of how easy some of the items were; I'll have to come up with more challenging ones for the next convention.
On Sunday("Today"), I played in a convention for one of my favorite board games, RoboRally. The game was being run by somebody who decided to take the convention heading, RoboRally Extreme, a little too far. The first round took almost 4 hours; the final that he set up involved 9 boards, 6 flags, and 8 players. This promised to make for an extremely long game.
After some heated complaints and arguments, I convinced him that it was too much. He took away one of the flags, which STILL made it far too long. However, he would not be swayed to simplify it more, and we began the game. It took over six hours for the first person to win, and I was close behind him. I would have been in second place shortly after him, but several players took it into their heads to try to foil me - never mind the fact that they were more than two full flags behind me, and were sacrificing any chance of taking third by doing this. As a result, it took me two hours more to reach the final flag. The entire tournament took over 12 hours - during which time, I could easily have played four other tournaments, or ten Computer Room tournaments! Monday morning, I took this complaint to Board Game HQ, and they agreed that 12 hours was far too long for RoboRally. There are some other board games that take that long by their very nature, but RoboRally shouldn't be one of them.
Monday was largely uneventful, as I woke up very late, thanks to RoboRally. I collected my winnings for computer games, and spent them on a Video Girl Ai CD in the dealers' room. I still haven't listened to it, but I will sooner or later.
I hope the next con, Gamex, is better...
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