I just finished Cujo, which Stephen King wrote back in 1981-2, when he was hooked on who-knows-what. He actually claims not to remember writing Cujo, but, while it's definitely not his best work, I really respect King now.

Well, kinda. My plan was the read Firestarter written while he was clean (a good example of his typical work) and then read Cujo (a good example of his unrefined drugged-up style) and then I'd know how good of an author he actually was.

After following through with that plan, I'm beginning to see that King, like Grisham and Crichton, is really formulaic (with the exception of one clever twist at the end of Cujo which gives it a semblance of a moral).

Most of his books are about some extreme form of mental abnormality (fear of clowns, insomnia, pyrokinesis, etc, but mostly irrational fears), a specific evil that is in some way related to that abnormality but never the same thing, and vague, benignly-positive force that works behind the scenes.

Read It, possible his best work, if you don't believe me. There's always turlewax.

Of course Stephen King isn't scary. Do I need to tell anyone that, at this point? But he is a master of technique, using polysyndeton, and all these other really cool things-you-can-do-with-words, effortlessly even in Cujo.

His stories rarely have a moral beyond the whole "Good over Evil" thing (which is not a moral), and you can usually tell who is going to die next, but he has real, well-marketed talent, and I think I've learned a few things from him.

Mainly, it was an excuse to read two Stephen King books when I'dve otherwise been forcing classic literature down my throat; it was such a nice break, after Cooper, to read something crisp and easy, yet nonetheless well-written.

And now to go read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Sigh.

I need to get up ealier every morning -even though today was my day off, I woke up around 8:30 instead of my usual 10:30, and it was amazing.

Before noon, each hour seems like two regular hours; I accomplished so much this morning, and my newfound productivity extended long into this afternoon.

My main accomplishment today was revamping my schedule, my original schedule for third term being far too light. I may now sign up for "Survey of Western Art II".

Like Graham with macroeconomics, I've often found myself with opinions about art that I could not support, and much like that other prententious blowhard, I feel compelled to improve my knowledge.

In some ways I regret not taking Art History in high school. If there are parallel universes, there is definetely a branch somewhere where I did just that, and that Dan is probably a completely different person, having never had Mr. Stark again or gone on an Econ-club trip or spent every afternoon with Sex & Poverty, who I loathed so much.

Anyways, it's a mixed blessing, is my point.

In any case, it's time I abandon this misbegotten blog, and get some rest and such. Later.

I finished J.F Cooper's The Spy about half an hour ago, and it was good albeit a little dense. I'm told the next book we're reading for Freshman Studies, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by T. Kuhn, is even more dense, so this was a good warm-up for my homework tomorrow.

Freshman Studies today was a little heated. The Diplomat, who as anyone would still readily attest is a nice guy, is continuing to get on everyone's nerves in class. I've gone over why he annoys me before, but my main gripe with him lately is his constant forced integration of current events into class discussions.

In high school I took Speech, and in my Extemporaneous Speaking category everyone was like The Diplomat; lording their knowledge over others at every opportunity. They don't even realize they're doing it, I think, they were just raised on approval, by parents and teachers who told them not to pay attention to the other, stupider kids.

Every day The Diplomat goes to class, and writes on his legal pad and nods vigorously at everything and sits all alone. He no doubt gets better grades then me, and like I keep saying, everyone likes The Diplomat outside of class. Still, he rubs me the wrong way, possible because I see so many things in him I don't want to be, yet could easily become.

The low point of the class period was when a three way discussion of free speech broke out between The Queen of Plantz (who argued off of her beliefs and opinions), The Diplomat (who argued off of news articles and court rulings and judicial impacts, like the former Policy debater he so obviously is) and myself (I argued off of moral implications and vague, topic-specific (read: "chilling effect") words like the former L,D debater I so obviously was).

Somehow, The Diplomat got started on the collapse of the Russian economy, and it's causes, but luckily some other students jumped in and turned our narrowminded debating into an actual class discussion.

Calc is making sense; I've been explaining things to The Vain Man lately, and often without volunteering to.

Greg says I have no hobbies, because writing and reading and computer games aren't hobbies in his mind. Since I have more time than him (and I do) it follows that I should have a great variety of activities to entertain myself with while he's at the Con. I don't, and it bugs me more than I let on to him, but I resent reading for fun being equated with 'schoolwork'.

Anyways, later.

E.B White once said, and I know this because it was on an admissions application essay:

"Where I would like to discover facts, I find fancy. Where I would like to learn what I did, I learn only what I was thinking. They are loaded with opinion, moral thoughts, quick evaluations, youthful hopes and cares and sorrows. Occasionally, they manage to report something in exquisite honesty and accuracy. That is why I have refrained from burning them."

He was talking about his journals, and though I've often thought the same way about my own journals, tonight I'm applying this to my blogs. I want to delete them, and by them I mean a great many of my old entries.

Last night's is a prime example. Who cares? It's sort of funny, but it's obviously a rant that I only posted to amuse others; I really don't hate smileys enough to have that be all I was thinking about that night, I guess I just felt like I needed to post something.

That happens a lot, and I'm sorry, but, well, that apology is more to myself than to anyone else, because I'm the only person who needs to read this. And while I'm apologizing, I had to find that quote again; I didn't remember exactly how it went, and I certainly didn't recall who wrote it.

There are, however, the accurate moments, when I'm spewing emotions like a raging volcano or waxing philosophical about Legos and Weeble-Wobbles. The kind of stuff I can only write at night, when I'm tired and I just don't care anymore, in the less important ways at least.

Still, most of what I blog is crap, and I'm sick of it. I make a lot of promises to myself, and a lot of ultimatums about each new promise, but this time, this time it's for real. Well, all I can do is try, and I'm going to try to avoid stuff like last night.

Enough metablogging, time for some self-obsessed ranting.

I revised my paper today, the Freshman Studies paper that made me realize how conceited I'd'bn being about my writing, and while the writing is admittedly below par, I've lost a great deal of respect for my professor.

He's biased, you see. The corrections he'd said were self-explanatory were not helpful writing tips, but rather refutations, and unsubstantiated ones at that, against the points I was proving. At one point, after I gave evidence of Frankenstein's inability to beautify his monster despite "infinite pains and care", then explained that subsequent monsters would therefore be just as ugly as the original, he circled my analysis and wrote simply "No!".

I'm not upset, if I'm coming off as upset. I am, after all, an asteroid, cruising through space oblivious to thrust-ships or other asteriods or well-intentioned-yet-nonetheless-narrowminded Economics professors. It's just not a big deal, this paper, but it's been in my mind all day.

I just think it's odd, not even inexplicable-odd but simply interesting-odd, I can't explain why, really, but it's cool to mull over, it feels like a poppyseed muffin that I can play with inside my head. Well, it does.

I had a good weekend, by the way; I relied too much on my roomate and neighbors for enterainment, which is a bad and easy trap to fall into, but now the week is coming so I can figure out what to do.

That's what Monday and Tuesday are always big on; if Sunday is my day to make vows, then on Monday and Tuesday I'm always trying to get my bearings in a new world.

I smoked a clove cigar this weekend and played some racketball, again with Greg and Nick-From-Next-Door, but while it was fun, it's just not at all what I saw myself doing in college on weekends.

I should be sitting in a coffeehouse or something discussing great novels and bad movies with some cynical post-ironic intellectuals, or at least, I don't know, something to that effect.

I guess I was naive. It certainly sounds naive, given the horrible horrible poetry our pseudo-intellectuals write.

Life is better, I guess, when it's different and suprising, but I can't keep doing this forever. Then again, I can't be sure of that; it was fun, and it's sure to grow on me. I just don't know what I want to do. Something, and I guess I'm doing that already.

Later everyone.

It's time someone spoke out against this menace, and no one else seems to have the guts. I hate smileys.

I hate them I hate them I hate them.

With the exception of my now signifcantly less-chin-endowed heterolifebuddy, most people who use : ) or = ) or :) or 8 ) or one of the hundreds of other 'clever' combinations are either:

#1. People, mostly girls, who don't realize how immature it makes them look. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, because some people have a natural naivety that should be reinforced with this during the conversation. Or mayhaps they're just a very happy person, and they need to remind you every few messages.

Still, excessive use of smileys by this group can result in conversations that simply cannot be taken seriously, and should be avoided during anything resembling serious discussion.

#2. Guys. Guys tend to be more reserved than girls, and least in the smileys category, and this is a very good thing. We're less emotionally expressive, and that extends to MSN and ICQ conversations as well.

Nevertheless, some people in this second group overuse smileys, and it's creepier as they get older, methinks. It's obvious to everyone that using too many smileys makes one look younger, because back in 6th grade or whatever we all did that, but when guys well into their forties are using smileys, there's a problem. Why would any guy want to look less mature?

Anyways, now that that's off my chest, I can tell you about my weekend. But I won't. You'll have to come back tomorrow, because I'm very, very tired.

I spent a lot of time today doing homework; probably five or six hours. It was all reading, and it's really amazing how much better I think after so much reading, and how tired you can get just from reading for a long time.

Once I'd finished, for the most part, my mind was really cooking, and it was like I was on a higher plane of existence. Even my Counterstrike scores were better. Way better.

Today was a good day, partially because of my homework, I guess. It felt good to accomplish so much.

Also, Danielle called during one of my little breaks, which was a pleasant surprise. It's always fun to talk to my non-MSN/ICQ using friends, who otherwise don't really exist for me while I'm here at Lawrence. Out of sight, out of mind, as it were.

At lunch I went downstairs far too early, which meant no one was there to sit with save The Belarussian and her very Eurasian-looking crowd.

I was on the radio again tonight; The D.J had to cover someone else's shift so we were on when no one would be listening to us; as such, we called random phone numbers asking for requests, with mixed results.

In any case, I'm already up much too late, which means I have to end my blog with the typical 'it's late' cop-out ending. Later.

I'm so proud of my little subtitle, I'd just like to reiterate the circumstances surrounding that quote.

So, anyways, I was calling Dylan on his cell phone, after leaving Adam Miller's house. Or maybe that was a dream I had, but we'll pretend these are the circumstances. I was calling one of those two for whatever reason, in any case.

It was Dylan, I believe.

So I call his cellphone and mix up a number or two, and this guy answers, from the background noise, it sounded like he was at a party, and it took a few rings too. When he picked up the phone he was in mid-conversation:

"…as if sheep existed."

I asked "This isn't Dylan, is it?" and he said "No man, wrong number."

I was stunned, you see. Not by "No man, wrong number." but by "…as if sheep existed".

It remains the most absolutely random, inconceivable bit of conversation, and whenever anyone mentions sheep, I think back and wonder what the hey that guy was talking about, that night I called.

I did not post yesterday, but Blogger thinks I did. Once again man triumphs over machine.

Well, without reading Manney's blog for today, which, I suspect from the first sentence, deals with a theme similar to my own, I can safely say that Prof. Alger now thinks I'm a conceited dastard.

Probably, at least. I had an appointment with him today to talk about my Frankenstein essay, which completely deserved the B grade it received. As I had earlier suspected, he thought that my writing my too wordy, too dense, and often simply too vague to be considered good reading material for my target audience, that is, the other students in my class.

For example, while I associate Archimedes with solitary, epiphany-driven science and the story of him shouting "Eureka!" and springing from the bathtub, Prof Alger noted that my peers would not understand the word in this context:

"…the sum total of a hundred spontaneous "Eureka!"s. Scientists, however, are in reality rarely as Archimedean as Frankenstein."

I got offended, though I didn't show it, at the idea that I would have to sacrifice such a lovely spur-of-the-moment allusion in order to dumb down my essay for the rest of the class.

Later, after accepting much of my Freshman Studies Professor's common sense advice, I brought up my biggest fear, telling him that I didn't want to change my writing style, only the quality of my writing.

He was really nice and understanding and all, but he said "You're the author" and that really made me think about how conceited I'd been.

I am not an author. I am a writer, yes, because I like to write and in fact need to write, but I am not an author. Authors are successful writers, who make money writing books and such, but I haven't even come close to finishing a book, let alone getting it published. I am not an author.

Being called one made me re-examine my current situation; I have in no way been recognized as an author by any authority. I am, in fact, just a Freshman at a small Liberal Arts college who's taken one real college English class and thinks he can write.

Dumming things down is what many writers do all the time; journalists have to simplify complex stories in crisp, succint prose, and thousands of writers write for people younger than themselves.

It's about the audience, and even if I'm sure Archimedes is common knowledge, it may not be to my class. Only three of us took physics in high school, after all. Likewise, I had no right to act so aloof when going over my paper with Prof. Alger; I'm here to learn how to write, and if people want to help me get better at it, all the better.

It's so disheartening to realize how stupid we were in the past.

Speaking of stupid, The Young And The Restless is on outside my room again; the guys kiddy-corner are so interesting! I eves-drop all the time, because they talk so loud about their sex lives and such, and I'm really glad I don't own any firearms.

Anyways, that's all my news for today; I have tomorrow off, so I really am going to catch up on my reading and homework.

And write, so I can stop having such an attitude about it.

My room feels a little more like home today; at the poster sale I had been so eagerly anticipating, I bought Monet's Houses of Parliament, London, Sun Breaking Through Fog, one of my favorite paintings, and a smaller poster with three Van Gogh paintings on it.

Greg mocked me for picking art, but all the movie posters I wanted that they had are already prominently displayed in several rooms on my floor, so rather than be trendy I'm questing for a [Pi] poster or some such thing, so far with mixed results.

I finished my essay of Frankenstein last night, submitting a first rather than a final draft so that Prof. Alger's winged servants at the writing lab fix minor errors rather than screw with my writing style.

Now for Freshman Studies we're reading Galileo's scientific paper on the four moons of Jupiter. As you would probably expect, it's not exciting at all. I made the mistake of raising my hand in class when our teacher asked if anyone had had physics, and now two other fools and myself have to explain optics to the class on Friday.

At lunch, in a typical act of random socialization, I crashed the table where the Stillwater folks were sitting, accompanied by some random prospective students who were just there for the free food, and a girl from my German class. The conversations and entertainment at that lunch were very random.

Tonight I drove into town to get new tires, taking Greg and Nick from next door along for the ride and a few errands. Fleet Farm was "booked" because I didn't have an "appointment" according to the girl at the counter, so we just did errands; I bought some snacks and we ate out in the real Appleton mall.

Tomorrow I have to go into town again, which will suck, just to get new tires.

Another busy day, of sorts.

I've spent a lot of my time at college catching up on parts of our culture that I've overlooked. Greg has helped me, in many ways; he's exposed me to jazz, funk, jazz fusion, and countless comedians who everyone knew about save me, and thanks to him I've seen most of the Godfather Trilogy and now, as of tonight, The Exorcist.

Ah, and what a wonderful day for an exorcism, indeed. We ordered a pizza and made a night out of it, following up the movie with cigars, and all in all I was pretty entertained this evening.

Wow, it's only a little past midnight and I'm really tired. I had class today, which was fine, but after four hours of back-to-back morning classes without time for breakfast, and yes, I am whining, I was already worn out.

At lunch I ate with The Poet and her roomate, one of my many acts of random socialization today. That was fine, but, while The Poet isn't slow, there's a two or three second delay in all our conversations; she can't process cynicism as well as the average Joe or Jane.

And she loves mittens, possibly more than anyone else in the world. And feel-good movies.

Actually, lunch with The Poet was a welcome break after The Diplomat's little stunt today. He was taking himself all-too-seriously in Freshman Studies, which can be annoying, and kind of was, but at least he toned down the elevated dictionating.

Anyways, he left class early, and everyone was wondering where he went, then I spotted him at lunch, eating at the Trustees Luncheon. Now, at least subconsciously, he has yet another thing to lord over everyone. Then again, this wasn't a scholarship luncheon, it was a luncheon for the people who volunteer and such around campus, so I suppose it's his due.

Lent is upon us! Run from the hordes of fish-eating Papists!

Grilled cheese and breaded cod are gonna get really old, if this is how Lawrence handles every Friday for the next however many days.

Going back to more recent events, at dinner I was cajoled into going into the recreation center to play racketball or basketball or something, and I duly went at seven with Greg and our nextdoor neighbors… to exercise!

I ended up playing basketball with The D.J while everyone else played racketball; we had a pretty good group there, like six people, and later got a nice four person game of basketball going.

Wow, do I suck. Naturally I haven't played basketball in years, and I haven't exercised in months, really, so I was gasping for breath and having a heart attack while guys twice my size bested me at that foolish sport.

After a jammed finger (mine) and the accidental hitting in the head of a slightly less frail opponent by my teamate during a botched pass, we were ready to go, having spent more than an hour at the gym.

I ran into The Insurrectionist back at the dorm, and was invited bowling, a hall activity involving him, The Vain Man and maybe three other people, but I declined, and went instead to a showing of The Birds at the campus theater.

Greg, bored out of his mind, came with, and it was pretty good. It's fraternity rush week right now, and I'm not rushing, so I'm glad there are so many non-frat activities and such to occupy.

I'm all tuckered out now; it's been a suprisingly busy day.

The D.J.: Welcome to '80s night on WLFM Classic Rock Hour. Here to introduce our first song is Dan! Wooh!

Me: Hi, I'd like to request Tainted Love by Soft Cell, because I love synthesized music. I just can't get enough of it!

I know, dear reader(s). It sounds so funny, so incredibly witty, and, like me, you were probably glad, reading it, that so many people (apparently our campus radio station has plenty of listeners in the small, otherwise radio-station-less towns around Appleton) got to hear it. I would have said the same, had not my next door neighbor recorded the show.

Great heathen gads did I sound gay.

I'm fairly certain that my voice doesn't usually have femmy tone it did on tonight's broadcast -though now I'll never be sure again- but in any case my little quip tonight was, as Graham might say, queer.

I've had to listen to my little speech a half dozen times by now, on a recording that The D.J. next door keeps playing over and over again, on maximum volume. So… high… pitched… so… effeminate… gah!

One more time, this time, note the possible connotations of the quote. Everyone else has:

Me: Hi, I'd like to request Tainted Love by Soft Cell, because I love synthesized music. I just can't get enough of it!

I'm going to sulk for a bit, then write in my journal some more before I cry myself to sleep. Later all.

I fell asleep last thinking that there are two kinds of pride.

There's the pride that really pisses me off, basically your run-of-the-mill overconfidence and vanity. People with this affliction tend to be completely full of themselves, and care about moronic things like, say, getting the highest GPA in their graduating class so they can get into pretentious little colleges with good reputations. It's all about status and rank and awards, and complaining about not having enough status and rank and awards.

Then there's the good pride, the honest belief that the world is infintesimally better off with you in it, the basic belief that you are a good person, beneath all your faults. A comforting thought indeed.

It's an obvious differentiation, and owes more to Pride and Prejudice and my constant obsession with placing things in two opposable categories, than to any blatant creativity on my part. Still, I like to think that this basic pride in oneself is a good thing, unless your a delusional serial killer.

Dodged a chance for nonrandom socialization early today (it sucks to be dense) but I decided to go see Army of Darkness and Evil Dead II at the campus theater, a presentation brought to you by The Hedonists, in order to make up for my poor decision-making skills earlier today. Sadly, there was no one there except me and a half-dozen Hedonists, all of whom had seen the Evil Dead Trilogy far too many times.

Actually, I'd anticipated this, and tried to inform a few people, who I knew had similar movies tastes, about the event, which was very poorly advertised. They were all music majors, though, and today was a practice night for many of them.

The Diplomat is starting to annoy everyone in my Freshman Studies class; I found myself disagreeing, just to spite him. He's still really nice, you see, but he uses needlessly complicated debate terminology all the time. The guy can't seem to let go, and it distances him from the people in class who don't want to hear "perceived relative moral obligation", or some such nonsense, when 'guilt' would do.

Also, he doesn't wear socks, and in fact hangs with the same crowd as Sockless Pete of British Writers I fame. Not wearing socks in the winter, with loafers no less, is very wrong.

Another odd fact; I actually heard this one girl from my class, Modern Hippy, say that left-handed guys are sexier than right-handed guys. So I held a pen in my right hand and asked her "Do I make you horny baby, do I?". It was remarkably out of character, but nonetheless worth it -it was probably the funniest thing I'll say all week. Still, I had no idea that girls, even weird ones like Modern Hippy, thought left-handed guys were sexy.

People were too nice to me today. I even got a hug after my fortune cookies said "Hugs are special", which, as you can plainly see, is not in any way a fortune, from a girl whose fortune was "You enjoy spending time with family and friends."

I did have to explain to the guy next door, whose radio show I'll be on tomorrow from 10-11 pm, (as a guest commentator on the song "Tainted Love", maybe), that guys can have girl friends without dating them. I don't desire to date anyone, but I'm not going to shun an entire gender.

Night.

The Vain Man just came in here and asked for help with math; it was the first time in a while that I'd seen what I was pretty sure was an honest emotion come out of him, and it was kinding vindicating, after hearing him actually brag about not being done with math earlier, to have to show him what to do.

Until the quiz tomorrow that I didn't study for, I'm going to feel very smart. Then again, this may be yet another one of his calculated social ploys, directed at an oblivious me, but I don't think so.

First, I really don't think he cares about me beyond what I can give him. And secondly, we can demonize people all we want, but there's always something a little good left in them.

Which is why, if someone likes the circus, I'm quick to tell them that Hitler liked the circus, too. He did!

I was kind of dead to the world mentally for much of today, as anyone who talked to me can readily attest. Partially that was from sleeping in; after a certain point more sleep just makes me lazy.

Likewise, I decided that today I wouldn't listen to music, just to see if that was having a negative effect on my thinking abilities. For a few hours, it really helped not to have song lyrics running through my head, but late this afternoon I started feeling like I needed that particular psychological caffeine.

The last factor that slowed me down today, the factor that pushed me over the edge, was reading. After I finished my homework, I relaxed by reading, instead of playing computer games, and the strain was a bit much for my brain. It knew that it was still thinking, and it didn't like that at all.

It shut off, prettymuch, until tonight, when I decided that the no-music idea had been counterproductive, and woke myself up with some early nineties tunes. In the meantime I managed to have quite a few awkward conversations on MSN. (I also found out that The Lanky German is coming to visit this summer. Huzzah!)

Conversation One:
I talked to Graham, but my instant messaging program kept crashing or something. I eventually gave up on the conversation after the third such crash, but attempted to resume it later, mistaking him for someone else in a tragically misdirected message.

Conversation Two:
A girl I was chatting with invited her boyfriend into the IM conversation; we really had nothing to say to one another at all, and his entire personality seemed a bit forced in that particular conversation. Too jokey, too many misunderstandings and smileys. Also, he talked to me as if I were 16, not 18 or 19 or whatever I am nowadays.

Well, anyways, I've got Calc tomorrow. Night.

I'm having trouble writing, mainly because my day left me with no coherent impression and I don't feel that I can simply resort to adding up a bunch of events every day, in order to make a log entry. Well, whatever.

The whole day was basically just the world's effort to boost my spirits after Calculus. I'm fine in the class; I get what's going on and I do fine on the tests, but for some reason I can't express myself in there; I'm always wrong, or confusing, or what's worse I'll garble something so badly that I don't even know what I meant.

I have nothing to contribute, and therefore I suppose I should contribute nothing, but it's hard to remain silent for an entire class period. And, of course, The Vain Man is the perfect teacher's pet, although he didn't annoy me as much today.

So after the humiliation of not knowing a harmonic series from a convergent series (which, for some reason, those punk class of '04 high school kids in my class found amusing. Well, at least I can drive, I guess.) I had to rebuild my ego.

Thankfully the world was helpful. My next two classes were good, although The Diplomat and The Feminist monopolized the conversation in Freshman Studies to some degree. The only real downside was when The Diplomat, who knows full well that I too was in debate, tried to answer my rhetorical, discussion-encouraging question about Frankenstein's moral obligation by explaining Utilitarianism to me.

Gah! And it's called Negative Utilitarianism, by the way. He wasn't deciding how to distribute medicine or fresh-baked cookies, he was preventing murders. Anyways, I was annoyed, but it's impossible to get mad at The Diplomat.

The Feminist also lifted my spirits, observing that my question didn't have a definite answer.

Then again, the discussion isn't mine to manage; I'm just another student, and it would have done fine without a question I obviously asked just to look intelligent.

I sat with a girl at lunch who can't eat things with nuts in them, or she dies. She carries around a needle with some sort of peanut anti-venom or something in it, in case something she eats has a nut. She was suprisingly popular and cool, for someone with such a ludicrous affliction.

You don't stab it into her chest though, like with an adrenaline shot; all her friends knew to stab her in the thigh, in an emergency.

I talked to a lot of people at lunch, in fact, that I hadn't spoken with in quite some time, maybe months, which was really cool. Of course, it tells you how exciting weekday nights are around here, when I can say that my day peaked around one in the afternoon.

Also, I now know that John Gordon and Jeff Gordon are/were different people, after a hilariously stupid mix-up. Well, maybe it wasn't that hilarious. But surely stupid.

At least I didn't mix up Jeff Gordon, NASCAR super-star, and Dale Earnhardt, that guy who died saving all those lovable orphans from certain death.

Is it too early to make jokes about Dale Earnhardt's death? How about Princess Di? What's the socially acceptable period of time that must pass before I can make jokes about the tragic deaths of these infinitely important people?

Ah, that was a moronic segway. As you can see by the quality of my writing, I'm exhausted. Goodnight.

Who's this Holden guy? According to some survey thing Graham directed me to, I'm:

One morose (censored). Everytime something goes the way you want it to in life, as soon as it is at its peak, it always comes crashing down to hit you in the face. That factors in with your almost always unreachable goals, and that you always manage to say the wrong things at the wrong time. If you just get a haircut and quit trying to make the impossible happen, you're going to be much better off.

I'll leave your imaginations to the task of applying that to me, but it does make me sound like the tragic idealist I'd so like to be. Anyways, this weekend was blah, prettymuch. Friday's highlight: Watching Memento again on Greg's $300 surround sound system.

Saturday, after a marathon five hour homework session, I finished all of my homework, prettymuch. Which meant that Saturday night, I had no excuse but to attend a party (waaaay across campus at Sage) that Greg coaxed me into attending.

Ah, my first big party in a little while. There's a reason for that, though, as I remembered. Parties aren't bad, but I'd rather sit around and joke with a half dozen people then cram into a room with Greg, strange freshmen girls, the strange charismatic senior guys hitting on the aforementioned freshmen girls, and the assorted freakish extras that, combined, made it impossible to move through the sweaty, Stevie Wonder-permeated room.

I tried something called Huber (or as Greg called it "burnt beer"), which tastes vaguely like German beer (though it lacks an umlaut), but beyond that, I chose to remain sober, so as to enjoy the party. Spot the paradox in that last sentence.

Yeah, it's hard, at least for me, to socialize with a bunch of strangers when you can barely hear each other talk, though I did make attempts, which is more than I can say for the strangers, all of whom were satisfied with talking to the little social groups they came with.

I met two people from my dorm, whose names I already forget, and I ran into the girl who gave me a ride to Rice Lake to get The Deathtrap. Wow, what icy silence! I guess asking for a ride to a place she was already going, when I was in a jam, must have really offended her. In short, the party was nice, in the sense that it was nice to be out of the room, but not something I'd do if I'd've had other options.

Today, well, I read today, like every day. I've been trying to read for an hour or two every day, and today I continued to work my way through J.C Cooper's The Spy, having finished some book about Dresden last week. That always puts me in a good mood, reading, so I got along with The Vain Man when he started up a conversation with me.

Now, all that's left is to post the log that Graham is harassing me for. I'll write some more thoughtful commentary later.

The ingredients in Altoids are basically just sugar, gelatin, and more sugar, with a little artificial flavoring thrown in. Popping these newfangled sugar cubes throughout the course of the day, though it would make one's breath minty (or wintergreeny) fresh, is probably really bad for your teeth. But that's just my opinion.

Dental concerns aside, today has been surprisingly annoying, and I'm just now enjoying the fruits of solititude as I try to unwind.

First. I realized early today that I may or may not despise The Vain Man. He greets me with a hearty "Hey, how are you?" then walks on, without even bothering to so much as care about my answer. He hits on girls in a really insidious and disgusting matter (constantly feigning insecurity and mentioning his "ex-girlfriend"). He is so abhorrently self-assured that I can't listen to his overconfident voice without wanting to puke.

To put it simply, if Meghan Rahn and The Ghanan bring out the best in me, he brings out the absolute worst, though I restrain myself, because he can't help the horrendous ugliness of his personality, which it seems I alone can see.

I saw Steve Martin in "The Jerk" last night. It was good, though not great by any means.

In Freshman Studies, the professor spent the entire hour talking about writing style and such. It was excrutiatingly boring, and listening to him describe how he's micromanaged our writing for the term, I felt like an infinite number of very angry monkeys were beating me over the head with an infinite number of typewriters. His speech was necessary, but only to a point, and I refuse to let his protocal (4 pages of it) suck the life out of my essays.

I've been calming down now, and admittedly only about two hours of my day was actually bad. I think I'll go read now; I've been sitting here for far too long.

Now with archived content! I finally got it working! I'm so excited! Time to sleep!

How does Michael Jackson succeed? Does he just buy his own albums? Where are all these fans coming from? It just doesn't make sense at all.

Why is it that, in such a cynical age, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen aren't more wary of a backlash against adorableness?

I don't know Amazon.com, but that's a good question. Let's all ponder how Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen "proved themselves more lovable than ever" in the film Winning London, while I try to get my Amazon.com recommendations back to respectableness.

Item! Graham is having guest-writing done by a certain The Onion columnist, as evidenced by his recent praise for some TLC program I've never heard of. Either that or he was in a really good mood when he wrote his Tuesday update, because the light and zesty tone didn't have a trace of bitterness.

Which means you'll just have to find another webpage for refreshing cynicism today.

Speaking of which, I realized today, in math class no less, that I really don't like math. It was fun when it was easy (by-the-by, he gave us a problem Monday that he didn't expect us to finish, which is another math trick I don't like) but now that it's difficult and challenging, I realize that I don't want to do this my whole life, or now, come to think of it. It's too cold and logical. Where's the heart, I ask you?

So I'm not sure what I'll do. I may stick with Calculus, because I really can do the stuff once I remember how; I guess I have plenty of time to decide.

Qur'an class was really nice right after a quiz, even if only a few people were talking. I learned all about Manichaens and Zoroastrians and such; surprisingly enough most of the information in the "Heresies" sections of my Catholic Apologetics book was accurate, so I was an authority to be reckoned with. It was so nice to not be frustrated and confused by something for a change.

There was a lecture today on Frankenstein instead of our usual Freshman Studies class. He (the English professor who spoke) talked all about parallelism and such, and about how easy it was to critizise this particular novel with confidence. For example, if I decided that Frankenstein's monster is the symbol of Mary Shelley's stillborn child, then I can make hundreds of conclusions that no one can refute, because somewhere, some critic agrees with me. Take that, (Xi)^2 * (Xi - X(i-1))!

There's an interesting story about a stalker I've been saving up as well, but I'll wait on that. Off to Counterstrike.

The calc problem has defeated me. Why can I no longer calculate the Riemann sum of (Xi)^2 * (Xi - X(i-1))? Honestly, I used to be able to do Riemann sums, but I've forgotten, and though I worked on that single problem for more than four hours today, my end calculations were obviously wrong. Tomorrow I guess I'll find out Professor Sanerib's grading style -I chose to show all my work and my best incorrect answer, rather than just copy from the back- and hopefully survive the quiz.

In the meantime, I need my rest, so goodnight. I'm sure you never got through yesterday's post anyways.

The Hedonists are in town; more specifically, they're next door.

The Hedonists are the members of a local campus organization called Y.U.A.I, a Chinese acronym apparently, and something I can't pronounce, so they will remain simply The Hedonists, and Y.U.A.I, as well as it's children organizations (like F.L.O.P, or Films Lacking Ordinary Perspective, and the equally interesting organization Church and State, which basically just buys them drinks) will be simply and forever The Hedonist Club.

They really are a great group; incredibly dysfunctional and twisted but with excellent taste in movies and entertainment; I try to attend most of their activities without actually helping to plan them, the social leech that I am. It would be the perfect organization to join, but they're really insular, and, as I said, twisted and dysfunctional, and I really don't want to join in their joyous codependent frenzy at the moment. Later perhaps.

But The Hedonists, though friendly, wait for no one, and as such they are currently having a raucous shindig, which would be fine with me if only they'd do it somewhere other than next door. They do this once every week, prettymuch, and I have to stay up until they're party is over, because I can't go to sleep with year-old punk music blasting next door.

In any case, today was my first day of classes. Great heathen gads, what a day.

Please Dan, tell us about your day.

Well, I got up to move The Deathtrap at 7:30, because as of 7:00 this morning it was illegal for students to park in the teacher's lot by Colman… hmm, Blogger may go down in a few seconds. Crimeny. If it does, I'll add more tomorrow, I guess.

As I was saying, I had to move the van, so I parked it on the street and took a chance on the meter, choosing not pay because I'd be back in an hour or two and it was early and cold. Then, because the office was for some reason closed until 9 am, I went to my first class. Calculus II.

The Ghanan was there, oddly enough, and she's really, really, really nice. Like Meghan Rahn, but with enough of a language barrier to make a conversation with me seem profoundly interesting, so seeing her is always a treat. This is probably the only class I'll ever have with her, seeing as she's a Science major and I'm a Humanities guy.

There were some assorted extras there as well, people I'd interacted with from time to time, but, well, I don't really like any of them, with the exception of the guy from my German class. The professor walked in, and he had Mr. Blong's enthusiasm without my former math teacher's lack of restraint. I had to stay silent when he asked what a derivative was (I'd spoken seconds earlier, and some taboos just make sense) but I wanted to yell "A Limit!"

I'm just thankful that he didn't say "The limit of the sum is…", one of Blong's staples, or I would have screamed "THE SUM OF THE LIMITS!" I wouldn't have been able to contain myself, so many times did Blong lay that half sentence before our class. I have one problem due Wednesday, and a quiz, so tomorrow I'll look at the problem, which is sure to be very complicated at the pace this class is set to go. Then again, it's review.

There are two kids in our class with '04 Letter Jackets, and judging from their smooth visages, these kids are too young to shave, placed in the class only to intimidate us. Then again (once again then again) I probably intimidated the wunderkinder, well, probably not, but still, I bet some of the other college people did.

I had to go immediately to my next class, without socialization, because it started five minutes after my first class ended, and I know that in my condition (one of those out of shape conditions) it takes me a while to get from Briggs to Main Hall.

Qur'an, they call it, and I still get the disconcerting feeling that I'm being trendy, especially remembering the all-too-full class. Her biggest in years, which worries me. Still, I enrolled in the class before Islam was popular (from an American pop-culture standpoint -Buddhism is out! Islam is in!), and after seeing everyone else getting enrollment sheets signed after class I feel like a trendsetter. Well, not like the suicide bombers, I guess they were the trendsetters on this one, yet still…

I'm a sophomore now, too, which is cool; I had to tell Cueney I was a Freshman. Thanks APs. I really don't know anyone in the class; there was this one girl from my German class but I guess she decided that since she's a Senior she doesn't need to notice Freshman; she acts above us lower classmen at times.

There is a lot of reading for that class, which should weed out the twenty-some people we crammed into the dozen-person-occupancy room. Five books, including most of the Qur'an, but once I'm done I can lord my knowledge over others. Well, not really, but I'll understand the workings of a religion pretty well, one I knew little of beforehand, and that'll be really helpful.

I went to the office after class and got a parking spot in the local garage for $25, and by the time I was done, and had found the $3 parking ticket on my car, and had fed the meter enough for two hours, I was off to my last class.

Ah, Freshman Studies. More people I know are in that class, including my old friend Dungeon Master, which is nice. This one guy, The Diplomat (a nickname I vaguely remember seeing somewhere else, though I doubt I'd've used it) seemed oddly personal during the introduction part of class (which was prettymuch all there was left, after our Professor had spoken). I get this odd feeling that I've met him before, but he didn't seem to know me.

Mabye it was deja vu or whatever. I don't have Catch-22 handy to check my vus, so who knows.

Anyways, the professor was an Economist. If someone would have described him to me, I would have thought s/he was exaggerating, but he really does seem like a ultra-proto-stereotypical Economist or mathematician. There are rules, and they will be followed. It's not that he's oppressive, it's that he thinks that the rules of writing and the rules he writes down have the force of Supply and Demand. I'll give him more time, but I think he may have a problem with creativity, if it involves departure from protocol.

Tomorrow I have off, which gives me a chance ot catch up/get ahead, after all this sleep I'm losing.

I'm about to go to sleep, but I feel bad about a few things, you see. Firstly, I snubbed The Insurrectionist the other day, when he came to my room looking for conversation but I insisted on playing computer games instead of making an effort; I didn't (for whatever reason) think that he may have been offended, but it was rude of me, however strong the pull of Counterstrike was after all those weeks without it.

Likewise, Jenna, no one thinks you're ugly. And my comment about people at the E not dating each other was a lame way to answer the question of why E people were hitting on you; it's not like none of them hadn't met you before, you're at the E quite often, so my fresh-meat-style theory has admittedly little weight. It was just the best I could pull out of… thin air, and I do love my little theories. But seeing as neither Graham nor I would classify you as 'E people', there must be some difference between you and the other regulars, and the guys may be picking up on that.

Lastly, I must note, if only to consternate good old Graham, that smoking pot it bad. It's my opinion, not a judgment on pot smokers everywhere, so anyone is free to disagree -I'm not even going to bother supporting it here, because my reasons are subjective and personal (that's right, subjective AND personal), and I don't want to argue, but nevertheless, I think someone has to stand up for the squares here.

It's not like the government is portraying our beliefs/opinions/preferences in the most flattering light, and I don't think anyone else is going to bother to disagree with you on this.

Ah, there's nothing like late-night penance, except for Strawberry-Rhubarb pie, which is prettymuch the same thing.

"I saw him sometimes shudder with horror; at others a lively surprise, unmingled with disbelief, was painted on his countenance"

But alas, unlike the Magistrate, my countenance was never painted with anything but frustration and boredom. Gothic novels, like, say, Frankenstein, which I am reading tonight, are all to often like dark chocolate; too rich to be fully enjoyed, and too overwhelming to allow someone to finish it all. It's not that I'm stupid, it's that I don't like flowery, dreary, anticlimatic, look-at-me-I-can-use-nature-imagery-to-establish-mood, redundancy-filled novels about human suffering and the nature of man. Bah.

A pox on Shelley! A pox on Joseph Conrad!

I'm overstating here, but my point is still largely true. It was (very) well written, but it wasn't the kind of book I like; not my cup o' tea, as it were. And to be fair, I've never actually gotten through anything by Conrad -not that I haven't tried, though- so I guess I can't judge his writing style. Come to think of it, his stuff is dense, not Gothic. Eh.

Note the parallel between the "bah" paragraph and the "eh" paragraph. Look at me, I'm Mary Shelley, I can use parallel ideas to create contrast and support my themes!

Just kidding. She's a dead genius so she won't mind if I bash her a bit to boost my ego. I can't imagine what it would be like growing up when she did, in the early 19th century. I guess everyone had a huge vocabulary back then (and, if I believe Shelley, they all spoke the same way with only minor differences, regardless of class, but I'll lay off now), judging from the other stuff I've read from then. I mean, she was 19, maybe 20 when she wrote this.

And having just finished the last chapter, I am quite impressed.

I've got three classes tomorrow, actually I'm only allowed to take three courses this term. I have to get up early to move my car to a legal spot, then I have Calc II, then Quran (no, I signed up for it this summer, long before September; I don't suddenly feel a thousand year old religion is important just because of a few terrorists) and then Freshman Studies, and now that I have my required reading done, I can sleep for a few hours.

The drive home seemed short, in retrospect.

Crispix gets far too little play, I've decided.

And a happy new year. My resolution is to treat my mind and body better than I do; its such an overused New Year�s resolution that I don�t think I need to elaborate.

In the meantime, while I�m still pretending to adhere to the aforementioned resolution, I completed the video game Halo today, earlier this morning before I went to bed. I felt like lounging about the house, in any case, and it was either play video games or read my assignment for next Monday, Mary Shelley�s Frankenstein.

Halo was good, not great, but good. Like a bad movie, it entertained me for hours and hours, but left me unfulfilled. My pulse was never racing (like it did for Goldeneye) but I still felt an odd compulsion to beat the levels.

It�s a sad thing, your last video game. Somehow, I knew when I was playing Halo, even when I bought it, that this was the last hurrah. I will buy no more games for N64 or X-Box, and my skills at the electronic arts will slowly dwindle. Years from now I may even forget the Goldeneye controls I spent hundreds of hours burning into my brain. Perhaps thousands of hours.

The sad truth of the matter is that I�ll find the video games of the next generation incomprehensible, and maybe even consider them a waste of time despite my many happy childhood hours. It�s all over.

I can accept this; I still have Counterstrike, for a few more years at least. Still, video games were a huge part of my life (and I suppose their multiplayer games will remain so, from time to time), much like the Legos I cherished in my innocent youth.

Legos, now that really still depresses me. Everyone knows that Legos are cool; ask any teenager, maybe even any adult, and unless they, like my poor innocent cousins, have been seduced by the vile Playmobile menace, they�ll readily attest the ultimate superiority of Legos, above any other toy, even.

Although I still enjoy Weeble-Wobbles, for their stubborn refusal to fall down.

Anyhow, when I was little I swore that I�d still play with Legos when I was older, that I�d spend all my money to get the really expensive sets with like six guys and gold and cannons and such. In fact, I did at one time spend almost all my money acquiring a Lego �Islanders� set, the complete set, mind you.

Then, it was gone. Not the set, which is still somewhere in my closet next to the briefly popular boardgame Thin Ice and a few Mousetrap pieces. The urge to buy and play with the supreme toy, I was referring to. I know I like Legos, but I�m not about to purchase any, and I don�t have the slightest idea what I�d do with them if I did. I don�t want to play with them.

Looking back, there�s a whole string of toys I was utterly comitted to, each of which I forgot in turn. Since I was the object of my parents� brief, surprisingly liberal attempt at toy-buying without regard to gender bias, I�ll forgo a list of my childhood toys (it wasn�t that bad: there were no dolls and guns were plentiful), but needless to say I�ve been fooled many times.

How could I keep falling for it? Is it a trick after all, or can the mind change so much in a matter of years, of months, so as to suddenly disregard a beloved toy? Halo brought me to a conclusion that was half-formed in my head for a while; I know by now that only creepy guys who live in their mother�s basements and date much younger girls (or, more likely, no one) play video games all their lives.

But Legos� I guess this whole video game thing brought it all back for me. The video game console is the modern child�s Matchbox car (ah, my hundreds of Matchbox cars� sigh) or Lego set. It is the preferred status symbol of the prepubescent, and the constant companion of the postpubescent geek, and now, it is out of my life, like the Legos I loved so much. Off to the side, but just not as interesting, for whatever reason.

On a less depressingly whistful note, my break has been fine. I spent a very large portion of my non-Halo time with the guys, loosely defined as the group of Graham, Larson, Manney, Dylan, Adam and Jenna, give or take a few people depending on the situation, doing the usual Perkins-Graham�s-Movie Theater routine, which is fine; its the best entertainment this town can offer.

You never regret your entertainment choices in Brainerd, you merely take comfort in the fact that you managed to find something to do.

Ah, and the things I did -I did so many things I never stopped. For New Year�s I stayed at Graham�s with the guys, and as anyone can tell you, we played X-Box long into the night, except for when we went to pick up Larson at some other, much less sober, party and my mom called while we were out and apparently concluded that we�d driven to Duluth. Which, needless to say, left me spluttering. Spluttering.

When I wasn�t with the guys, I did get to see a few girls; I ate at 371 Diner with Danielle, and gave her her Christmas present: five magic beans in an apothecary jar. Well, we thought it was freaking hilarious, so there. I hung out with Beth before she left for the cities, and forced her to see Babe, which I�d been talking up for quite some time. Meghan Rahn also got cajoled, by the unstoppable tag-team of Graham and Dan, into having coffee at the Coco Moon with us, which was interesting. Her ideas are perpendicular to everyone else�s at times, which makes for great conversation.

Ah yes, and she�s, as my mom put it once, �One of the greatest people on earth.� I guess some people just make me want to be a better person, and being around Meghan made me want to start reading Frankenstein for Monday. But, well, I�d rather sleep and play video games. I suppose now, without Halo, I�ll have plenty of time to read in any case.

Speaking of sleep, I�d just like to officially observe that my hetero-life-buddy Larson and I got in a huge fight yesterday, and that, well, I hurt him pretty bad. When you see Larson, if you can even recognize him after my magnificent fisticuffsmanship, remember: Don�t mess with Dan. Larson would like to warn you himself, I�m sure, but the doctors say he can�t talk for quite some time.

My fists of death will pound your face into a bloody pulp! Fear me, lowly mortals, and my chin-shattering fists!

I suppose I�ll visit Larson soon. 201 Bed 2. Later.