godream

So remind me, why can't we all just get along again? There's so much passive-aggressive nastiness floating around that it's more of a problem than the stuff we're all getting worked up about. If life were a movie, this would be about where something terrible and horrible happens and we're all forced to band together and resolve our differences in order to get over it. Here, catastrophe catastrophe catastrophe...

Oh yeah! Take THAT, 6.002! Who's laughing now?

... Granted, "now" is after six hours of frustration on a lab that was supposed to take 3, but still. I win!

And better yet, I feel like I actually got something out of wrestling with the goddamn breadboard for ages upon ages -- in addition to the general triumphant joy, it's possible that this has drilled some vague knowledge of ridiculously basic circuits into my brain. Which would be really nice.

Things I've gotten done: shopping for pizza feed, prep for pizza feed, execution of pizza feed (relatively smoothly, hurrah!), cleanup for pizza feed (mostly) -- these all as half of the killer indomitable beat_the_beaver/godream team. Also obtained dish soap for a small army (for the kitchen, will be gone within a month), a 36-pack of Mountain Dew (will hopefully last me two months at least... but with 6.170 I'm not holding my breath), and 36 packages of cream cheese (for the cheesecake feed, and by the way watching the expressions of fellow shoppers as you choose three dozen blocks of cream cheese and load them into your cart is a priceless experience).

Things I still need to do: psets (6.042 due Monday, 6.002 pre-lab supposed to be done by Monday, 6.002 pset due Friday, 6.002 lab to deal with probably on Tuesday afternoon, 6.042 online problems due Wednesday, 6.170 due Thursday and boy is that going to take ages), kitchen cleaning (tomorrow morning sometime, probably focusing on cabinet-top scrubbing), financial aid begging, D&D backstory prep, room cleaning.

Things I want: a good long hot shower, sleep, courage, and a long back rub. In approximately most-to-least likely order, though the last two are pretty much equally out of the question, I fear. [ETA: Goals 1 & 4 accomplished, hurrah!]

I sorta wish there were more hours in the day.

Live music makes me irrationally happy. Especially if it's a band I love. Especially if it's a band that is awesome live. And I went to see Mike Doughty's Band tonight, so I'm especially especially irrationally happy. Eeee!

(... and now to go do the logic homework.)

People are back -- the lounge was packed last night for our first cocoa. This is awesome.

Classes are going to be awesome. It's possible that my ass will be generally kicked, but they'll be awesome. And even if I end up totally consumed by keeping up with coursework I'll have a much better idea of what I can handle for future reference.

New frosh seem fairly awesome. Haven't talked to any nearly as much as I should have, but they seem cool.

Things are [hopefully] going to be awesome.

My loft is finally together! (With much, much, much help from beat_the_beaver and other friendly hall denizens.) It's a tiiiiny bit taller than EC regulations say it should be, but hopefully I'll get away with it. I forgot how much I love bunk beds -- maybe it's just the association with home, but I really like sleeping, reading, tooling, whatever, while way high up. And I now have lots more floor space too, which is really nice.

Plus, it looks like my stepsister is going to be un-grounded and able to visit after all this weekend, so there will be baking of Pie. Probably at least three, thus the capital letter. In fact, if you're reading this, you enjoy delicious fruit pie, and you're going to be around EC Saturday afternoon, leave me a comment and I'll try to remember to drop you an e-mail when it comes out of the oven -- I'm going home Sunday afternoon sometime and I'd feel better if it were eaten before then so I can put away the dishes, which may require more help than will be available on 4e alone. (Although most of the people who fall in those categories and will be reading this are already on summersalt so you'll get the e-mail whether you want it or not.)

Three more days left at work -- weird how fast perception changes from "this summer just keeps going" to "whoa, what do you mean school starts back up in three weeks?"

Yesterday morning it was proven to me that canned cream of mushroom soup (unlike canned spaghetti) can be eaten at least two months after the printed expiration date. Go figure.

I'm thinking I'm going to bake cookies tonight, and they're going to be everything-that-I-have-kicking-around kind of cookies. Currently debating if I can get away with loads of chocolate and cinnamon in the same cookie -- it sounds like a good idea to me. Anyone with brilliant recipes, feel free to share...

Carbon Leaf was pretty awesome, in spite of arriving too late to hear What About Everything, my favoritest song. (I cried. On the inside. In my bitter, angry heart.) The band's performance was interesting to watch in a couple of ways: for one, I've gotten used to watching lead singers who also play an instrument at the same time, generally guitar, and Carbon Leaf's lead singer whose name I can't be bothered to look up doesn't do that (though he did kick out the harmonica and a wind instrument I wasn't close enough to identify -- maybe electronic?) and by contrast with what I'm accustomed to, the just standing in front of the mike looked a little odd. Which of course says more about my concert habits than the band itself. :P The bassist had an interesting acoustic bass -- oddly proportioned, like an anorexic cello, but I think it was some sort of upright bass. And although the banter left something to be desired (that other city in Massachusetts is pronounced wusstah, not wor-ces-ter, and it got less funny every time, and there was a whole bunch of dead time to fill 'cause the humidity and temperature were all over the place -- if you don't like the weather in MA, wait a minute -- and kept messing with the instruments' tuning) the music was fantastic, which is really what it's all about anyways. I thought one of the guitarists in particular was really incredible, but the whole band was awesome and made me extremely happy.

One more week left at work, then maybe I'll go home for a week or so, then back here probably just as the huge wave of incoming frosh show up. Which I'm actually really looking forwards to -- it'll be weird for us not to be the frosh anymore, but it should be fun. And people will be coming back from their various summer things, and it will be Good, 'cause I miss everyone. I'm looking forwards to the school year starting (although also panicking a bit, 'cause omigod suddenly it's so soon.)

Okay, so an informal poll has concluded that nobody actually gets what terms such as "date" mean. And both girls and guys are always complaining about how completely bewildering the opposite sex is. So here's the solution.

( Elementary, my dear Watson! )

One of the slugs who'd left for the summer came by tonight to visit -- he was in the area doing some training thing for his job -- which of course has kicked me off to new heights of "aww, I miss everyone". Most of the gang won't be back till the end of August, but that's not stopping me from (somewhat-less-than-)secretly thinking "c'mon people, get back to slugfest already."

In other news, I read the latest Harry Potter and was unimpressed. On reflection I think it's because this one seemed to be very much a part of a series -- a few tricks picked up from the last book and tons of setup for the next one -- but I haven't read the other books in ages and it'll be ages before I read the next one (obviously, just like everyone else), so looking at it all by itself it just didn't do it for me. *shrugs* It's possible I just read it too fast. But I don't even feel the need to comment or speculate on INSERT HUGE SPOILER HERE. Huh.

On the other hand I did enjoy it more than Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver. I've really liked everything else I've read by him, but I couldn't bring myself to care about most of the book's huge, sprawling cast, and so it took me more than a month I think to slowly progress through the hundreds of pages till the end. I won't be reading the sequels.

This is where I should comment on a book I've really adored lately but none is coming to mind. Oh! I know, I read Cory Doctorow's three novels a week or two ago, and found all of them engaging and interesting both in terms of characters and ideas. Free downloads here -- yup, free, you can read about why there too -- go read, they're fantastic.