hyphen-dash

Quote of the Day

2006-02-05T01:17:00.000-05:00

"Right. Sorry. What was I thinking? They have to be bright murderously livid colors of the insanity rainbow."

</laukaisyn>

Well, then.

2006-01-13T17:49:00.000-05:00

I really have to keep up on this.

I mean, okay. I had a good excuse to ignore you guys in December, when I was bogged down with finals, and I got saddled with group projects, and all...

But I'm not actually doing anything right now.

Seriously. I glued a bowl back together last night. That was the big event.

I mean, unless anyone wants to tell me how to get the blue Jinjo in Treasure Trove Cove.

</laukaisyn>

Quote of the Day

2006-01-01T21:31:00.000-05:00

"Have as few rules as possible, and break them all whenever necessary."

</laukaisyn>

Part public service announcement, part well-wishing...

2005-12-31T23:58:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how many of you believe this, but, well, this is how I look at the concept of New Years'.

How you spend the first day of the year is how you're going to spend the rest of the year, basically. So, hypothetically, if you have a shitty January first, you'll have a shitty 2006.

In other words, I'm advising the lot of you to go and spend your New Years' with people you care about. Family, friends -- whomever. Doesn't matter.

Have a happy, healthy, and blessed 2006, everybody.

</laukaisyn>

Quote of the Day

2005-12-31T20:52:00.000-05:00

"Nabisco owns a third of the world."
"What?"
"Yeah. And they own part of Goodyear. That's how they got Bubbleyum."
"That's impossible! A Canadian company owns Bubbleyum."
"Well, yeah, but Nabisco owns Canada. And Yugoslavia."
"There is no more Yugoslavia."
"See? See?! They over-extended themselves."

</laukaisyn>

I like sequels. Honest.

2005-12-29T15:00:00.000-05:00

It's one thing when you have a dream annually, and, like, every year, it's a continuation of last year's dream.

I can cope with that.

But I keep having these dreams -- and they're all, for the most part, unrelated -- where I'm just wandering aimlessly alongside a highway. And it's always a different highway. And it always leads into a new adventure, because I keep taking new exits.

This morning, I found out where I was going. I'm heading south, apparently. Towards Virginia -- because, apparently, I'm in Maryland.

Yeah. I was wandering along a major road -- it wasn't a parkway or anything, because we all know pedestrains aren't allowed on those. It was just a major road. It lead me to another major road -- Kent Street, I think. Hanging over Kent Street was one of those huge green signs with the white letters. All it said was "3MSJ5". That's it. So I wandered off to the right -- away from 3MSJ5 -- and that took me in a loop, back to Kent Street, and back to the Sign.

I stared at the sign for a bit, before realizing, "Oh! It's the third Maryland State Junction, Number five." (Apparently, in this version of Maryland, there are three sets of Junctions, and this one is number five in the third set.)

So, I take 3MSJ5. And that leads me down to Luke street. And on Luke street, there is absolutely nothing, except for one apartment building.

It's one of those where the staircases are on the outside of the building, so I climb to the ninth floor (of the ten-story building) and decide that I'm going to break into this apartment.

So I do. Do you know why I broke in?

For mouthwash. Or, actually, I may have broken in for toothpaste, but, when I didn't find it, settled for mouthwash. Because I proceeded to pull a toothbrush out of my pocket, and brush my teeth with the mouthwash.

When I checked the front door, the woman who lived there was coming home, so I ran out the back door, and, for some reason, ran into the tenth-floor apartment. I ran through that one, out the front door, and then down all those flights of stairs. Somewhere along the way, I spit out the mouthwash, tapped my toothbrush on the railing, and slipped my toothbrush back into my pocket. (How I got it to fit in there, I'll never know).

And then, I got back on a highway, and started walking again. Walking south. "Toward Virginia."

(Oh, and, on a side note, for some reason, Maryland state license plates, in this dream, are a yellow-to-whtie gradient with black characters -- like New Jersey plates in real life -- and Virgina plates are white, with black characters -- like Marland license plates, without the state seal in the middle.)

</laukaisyn>

The Night Before a Politically Correct Midwinter Festival

2005-12-22T20:23:00.000-05:00

'Twas the night before Christmas and Santa's a wreck....
How to be in a world that's politically correct?
His workers no longer would answer to "Elves,"
"Vertically Challenged" they were calling themselves.
And labor conditions at the North Pole
were alleged by the union to stifle the soul.
Four reindeer had vanished, without much propriety,
released to the wilds by the Humane Society.
And equal employment had made it quite clear,
that Santa had better not use just reindeer.

So Dancer, and Donner, Comet, and Cupid,
were replaced by four pigs, and you know that looked stupid!
The runners had been removed from his sleigh;
the ruts were termed dangerous by the E.P.A.
And the people had started to call for the cops,
when they heard sled noises on their rooftops.
Second-hand smoke from his pipe had his workers quite frightened.
His fur-trimmed red suit was called "Unenlightened."
And to show you the strangeness of life's ebbs and flows,
Rudolph was suing over unauthorized used of his nose
and had gone on Geraldo, in front of the nation,
demanding millions in over-due compensation.

So, half the reindeer were gone; and his wife,
who suddenly said she'd had enough of this life,
joined a self-help group, packed and left in a whiz,
demanding from now on that her title was Ms.
As for the gifts, why, he'd never had a notion
that making a choice could cause such a commotion.

Nothing of leather, nothing of fur,
which meant nothing for him. And nothing for her.
Nothing that might be considered to pollute.
Nothing to aim, nothing to shoot.
Nothing that clamored, or made lots of noise.
Nothing for just girls. Nothing for just boys.
Nothing that claimed to be gender specific.
Nothing that's warlike, or non-pacific.
No candy or sweets...they were bad for the tooth.
Nothing that seemed to embellish a truth.
And fairy tales, while not yet forbidden,
were like Ken and Barbie, better off hidden.
For they raised the hackles of those psychological
who claimed the only good gift was one ecological.

No baseball, no footbal...someone could get hurt;
besides, playing sports exposes kids to dirt.
Dolls were said to be sexist, and should be passe;
And Nintendo would rot your entire brain away.
So, Santa just stood there, dishevled, perplexed;
he just could not figure out what to do next.
He tried to be merry, tried to be gay,
but you've got to be careful with that word today.

His sack was quite empty, limp to the ground;
nothing fully acceptable was to be found.
Something special was needed, a gift that he might
give to all without angering the left or the right.

A gift that would satisfy, with no indecision,
each group of people, every religion,
every ethnicity, every hue,
everyone, everywhere...even you.

So, here is that gift, it's price beyond worth....

"May you and your loved ones enjoy peace on earth."

</laukaisyn>

Christmas bells, those Christmas bells, ringing through the land, Asking peace of all the world, and Good will to man

2005-12-17T18:03:00.000-05:00

At any rate, I've come to another unsettling conclusion: It's not Chistmassy. (Yes, I know that "Christmassy" isn't a word, but go with me on this one.) Do you remember back when they actually used to hang Christmas lights and tinsel? And play Christmas Carols, rather than just "holiday tunes"? Do you remember when they used to have Christmas specials on TV?

I haven't heard any Christmas carols. If you go in the bookstore in the commons, they have some "holiday music", but no real Christmas carols. No Lights. No tinsel. No trees. No menorahs. No ACLU suing some town in Rhode Island or Conneticuit over a Nativity scene on the Courthouse lawn.

It's just not Christmassy.

</laukaisyn>

Thought for the day

2005-12-12T21:11:00.000-05:00

This is just a random thought:

In a proper place setting, where the forks are on the left, and the knife and spoon are on the right, where do you put the spork?

</laukaisyn>

Quote of the Day

2005-12-05T15:33:00.000-05:00

"They should make razors gas powered."
"They should make trees gas powered."
"No, wait, trees are already gas powered."

</laukaisyn>

There are some days that make me wonder why I'm a Social Science major.

2005-12-02T00:04:00.000-05:00

"That is so cool! You type things, and it appears on the screen!"

Okay. Just so everyone understands where I'm coming from on this...

My English class has 17 people in it. The Public Affairs Scholars. We're special. It's English 100P, Argumentative Writing. Most of the other people on campus think we're psychotic. Like, one day, we're going to have a heated discussion in English, that's going to turn into an Argument, that's going to end with someone killing someone else.

We're scary.

So, for our final project for the semester, we have to work in groups, to build a website.

About something.

Ideally, the Website invites the student
to translate language concepts--specifically to reinforce what you say by the way you say it.

to consistently apply critical thinking about issues of validity, credibility and authority in reference to ALL information you are asked to review.
to synthesize information into a context which will allow you to effect change in the world.

Anyway, they dragged us to a computer lab in the Engineering building today, so that we could start on them. It was a nice change from having the entire day in the Public Policy building.

I seemed to be the only one to know where the Engineering building was, let alone where the room was in the building.

So then, we start playing on the computers.

We were supposed to be researching.

When our group got bored, I opened up NotePad, and said, "okay, so, what do we want it to look like?"
"I dunno."
"Okay, pick a color."
"How about blue?"
"Okay."

So I type in the basic <head> tags, and our friend, the <body> tag.

We start to play.

I save it, and open it in explorer.

I start to play some more. Save in NotePad, Refresh in Explorer.

And one of my group members blurts out, "That is so cool! You type things, and it appears on the screen!". I was really tempted to say something along the lines of, "Well, yeah, that's how keyboards work," but I didn't.

So now I have a gray-and-blue borderless table thing, and the only text on it reads "The Value of Summer Programs in Education".

</laukaisyn>

Quote of the Day

2005-11-27T14:46:00.000-05:00

"In other news, I'm at Lehigh with what appears to be a hot girls convention, it's 3 AM, and I'm trashed beyond belief."

</laukaisyn>

Quote of the Day

2005-11-22T00:45:00.000-05:00

"What is that, like, the tofu replacement of pot? I wouldn't think they'd need to do that, since, y'know, pot's already a plant..."

</laukaisyn>

"Have a good year everyone. Make it count for something."

2005-11-21T18:23:00.000-05:00

Everyone always talks about time in the sense of periodic cycles.

Days, months, years.

It's always, "this year'll be different."

That's why we make New Years' Resolutions.

Every December 31, we promise ourselves that we're going to make the coming year count for something.

But, January 1 is a pretty arbitrary day.

I mean, for more than a thousand years, the year started on the 25th of March.

...So I have a proposition, for the dozen of you that actually read my blog. Well, actually, no. I don't. My brother, Mat, does.

Deployed as of November 21 2005
See you in one year.
And just to throw this in there.
Id like to go the whole year without hearing, Schlack, thump, bam, whistle, thoomp, sping, spang, wzzzt, pop, crash, splang, tang tang tang, or the ever ubiquitous... Click, while walking.

Have a good year everyone. Make it count for something.

Battle Dragon -

From today, until November 21, 2006. It's one year. It may seem pretty arbitrary, but, it's still a year.

One year, for you to make the best of.

</laukaisyn>

The photobloggy water fountain saga countinues!

2005-11-17T19:13:00.000-05:00

You've already seen the water fountain. The water fountain just down the hall from my door. This was my RA's response to the situation in the pictures you saw yesterday.

</laukaisyn>

Photobloggy!

2005-11-17T00:29:00.000-05:00

Could someone please tell me what you have to do to a water fountain to get it to do this?

</laukaisyn>

Quote of the Day

2005-11-14T20:36:00.000-05:00

"But fossil fuels make cars happy."

</laukaisyn>

Quote of the Day

2005-11-13T00:00:00.000-05:00

"Eat my Unununium."

</laukaisyn>

There are some things that you simply shouldn't broadcast over the internet.

2005-11-12T22:52:00.000-05:00

I know I've been ignoring you guys recently, and I'm sorry about that. I mean, if you like Sixty Percent, and The Dragon and the Goldfish, well, that's great.

But I haven't been that great about posting to hyphen-dash.

I don't really have that much to say.

I mean, I'll just sit here, and stare, blankly, at the screen, trying to think of something to post to hyphen-dash. That invariably leads to the next chapter of Sixty Percent, but, it's not like I can sit here and talk to you about stuff.

I mean, you really don't want to here about all the random shit on my desktop, do you?

Well, the background is black, and it has a lightbulb, with legs, and the words, "Begone. This is not for your brains" in big, white letters.

It's littered with little icons, and most of them have titles like "ADVISING_AGENDA.rtf", "EMAIL ME TO DELANA", "schedule spring '06", and, of course, "@@8d340660c8e30691cdbfb04fdbc6461f.doc".

There's also "resmonthtemplate.psd", the remnants of a prank. We decided we wanted to be Resident of the Month, so we took the certificate off the wall, scanned it in, and photoshopped out the name of the person who actually deserved the award. We also decided, in our infinite wisdom, to take out the names of our RA and Community Director, and replace their signatures with those of Mortal Kombat characters.

The fake certificates were scattered all over the hall.

Then there's "ki.doc" which is... um... I don't actually know what that is, to be honest.

And then there's a movie file called "accurately_titled_porn.mov"... which isn't anything at all what it sounds like. It's really just us beating eachother up with nerf guns and cardboard tubes.

Yeah.

That's really all I've got to say right now.

</laukaisyn>

I love my alternate reality dream-world.

2005-11-07T03:13:00.000-05:00

Yeah.

I love those dreams that take place in the real world, but have absolutely nothing to do with reality.

I had such a dream last night.

Imagine me, going in for advising, for next semester's schedule. Me. The cute, little PoliSci major.

Now, just to set this up for you, I scored pretty low on my placement exams; next semester, I'm taking a math class called "Algebra and Elementary Functions". It's the second-lowest math class offered.

In the dream, I walked in, and tried to convince the head of the Public Affairs Scholarship Program that I wanted to be a Computer Engineering major -- a major that, if I really did want to pursue it, it would take me six years just to take all of the prerequisite math credits.

So... yeah.

I apparently want to be a Computer Engineering major.

</laukaisyn>

...because everyone needs a cardboard naginata.

2005-10-30T16:32:00.000-05:00

Yeah. It's a good thing my roommate was home for the weekend.

It's sad. The floor has all these little cardboard scraps all over.

And, well, there are also the nunchucks... made out of water bottles and string...

...yeah.

</laukaisyn>

I can't think of any bad puns for this one. Sorry.

2005-10-27T20:51:00.000-04:00

Well, I don't know whether or not you guys like Sixty Percent Chance of Rain. I have no way of knowing that. Because no one ever leaves me comments, or sends me email.

Ever.

There are, however, a few things that I do know.

I wrote multiple chapters all at once, so I don't have to touch the story again until November 25.

I also know that I needed a new vice.

That, though, is a little tricky. I don't like the taste of alcohol, I don't like the smell of smoke, and I can't get into any photography courses.

So I started a new story. You may have noticed the new link, for something called The Dragon and the Goldfish. Well, that's it.

It is -- no, I take that back. It will be a great deal darker than Sixty Percent. It's not a spy with a katana driving around in an ice cream truck with a dead body in the freezer.

It's different.

</laukaisyn>

This is the point where I stare at the screen and blurt out (expletive deleted)

2005-10-25T16:19:00.000-04:00

For all my theatrical costume shop experience, I'm making my halloween costume out of brown paper bags and duct tape.

Yeah.

It's going to be awesome, though. Provided I actually cut it straight this time.

We're going to be ninjas.

Yes.

Brown-paper-bag-and-duct-tape ninjas. With cardboard weapons.

Okay. Fine.

So, then I stumbled onto this conversation:

[02:17] <#1> You know ... everyone from the hub should dress like Ninjas and pirates for halloween.
[02:17] <#2> hell yeah!!
[02:17] <#1> And then we should have a huge battle in the Erickson Field.
[02:17] <#3> I need a pirate hat.
[02:17] <#3> and a poofy shirt.
[02:17] <#2> i will show everyone how to make a ninja outfit
[02:17] <#1> I want to be a Ninja.
[02:20] <#1> I need to getmyself a Ninja costume then.
[02:20] <#4> be a t-shirt ninja
[02:21] <#5> anyone know a good place to get a good looking costume?
[02:21] <#1> Shit, I don't have enough black articles of clothing to make a good outfit.
[02:21] <#2> you make it
[02:21] <#2> fool
[02:21] <#1> I could be a t-shirt ninja.
[02:21] <#1> DAMN IT!!!
[02:21] <#4> I can't count how many websites tell you how to make the mask
[02:21] <#1> #2 ... you got electrical tape?
[02:21] <#2> ummm
[02:21] <#1> Or black duct tape.

So, yeah. Yeah. Next, they're going to be trick-or-treating, and taking our candy.

Oh, yeah. That's right. You heard me. I said we were going Trick-or-Treating.

</laukaisyn>

Quote of the Day

2005-10-25T15:13:00.000-04:00

"If you walk through the streets of Baltimore, you might be a victim of Black-on-Black crime -- even if your white."

</laukaisyn>

Two words: Culture shock.

2005-10-15T19:49:00.000-04:00

It's one thing when you're in a costume shop, secluded from the world; and people come in to get costumes, and they tell you about the scary things that they need to dress up for.

It's another thing altogether when you see it first hand.

Maryland Rennaissance Festival (or, rather, Renfest) is one such place.

I will be the first to admit that any woman brave enough to wear a farthingale the entire day is scary. There were many such women there. It was scary.

The kilts don't bother me. The weskits don't bother me. The farthingales do.

</laukaisyn>