Could be worse

I don't have much to say about 2009. Not really my best year, but far from my worst. Sure, I turned 21. Sure, I moved out. Sure, I made bunches of new friends. Of course, my academic status was nothing to write home about. Of course, I'm in the same job that I was in last year and it's starting to get to be not fun. Of course, not much happened as far as the love life goes. Of course, I'm here on the Internet writing when I could be doing something exciting for New Year's Eve.

I'm not going to publish my resolutions or anything, but the basic goal is to start off the decade with a hell of a year.

I'm going to make a post about books later and a post about films later. Expect to disagree.

It's like going to a birthday party for someone you don't even know or acknowledge the existence of.

Christmas has been lovely so far. Forced my family to watch Up on DVD for Christmas Eve, which of course was an excellent time investment. Tomorrow I return again to the homeland for a rare gathering of mother's side of the family, given that they are mostly not incarcerated or haggling over divorce papers this year.

Oh, what's that? You want to know what Santa brought me?



Not pictured:
-The Collected Achewood Volume 1: Worst Song, Played on Ugliest Guitar
-hardcover copy of The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
-Some paints and paintbrushes
-A book on ancient Japanese gaming
-some cash
-a package filled with snacks and candy and various junk food

The three model kits are substantial time investments. I've gotten a small start on the Gundam F91 (Harrison Martin custom) in the center, but the Unicorn and Sinanju are probably not getting done until the new year. The cavernous box of the Sinanju and its contents reflect this:



That's 22 part trees there - the gray ones are for the inner mechanical frame, the red and black ones form the exterior armor, and the remaining pieces form equipment like the shield, fuel tanks, and Beam Tomahawks - easily 400+ pieces that each have to be delicately cut out with cutters and trimmed with the hobby knife or sandpaper.

In other news, grades have slowly but surely made their way online. British Literature is an A-, which means she approved of my making fun of the 1930s-era English elite and general cynicism. You and me, Dr. Nygaard.

I have to work both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Grumble grumble. Not that I think I'd be doing much any way.

As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.

I'd like to take this moment to wish you and yours a Happy Festivus. The one day out of the year where the family can come together around the aluminum pole (very high strength-to-weight ratio), lash out to each other, do physical harm, and celebrate the most minor of coincidences.

The spirit of the season was exemplified recently as Cody and I went to do the grocery shopping. The fellow outside from the Salvation Army was doing his thing with the bowl and the bell as we were walking into the store (we had nothing for him, because we are Scrooges). Another gentlemen on his way out stops and mentions to the guy that he remembers him once asking for a cigarette a long while ago. The gentlemen brandishes a newly-bought box of cigs and hands one over to the Salvation Army guy's delight. Cody and I agreed that it was pretty cool as far as random acts of kindness go.

It's a shame one or both of them will probably die of lung cancer.

I have a second story which is not quite so tingly-feel-good, but I feel it's worthy of note. A customer and his family were in search of this fancy Audio Bible that brings together a bunch of big performers and so I lead them to it. I offer him the Standard Edition and then bring down the Ritsy Special Edition which they seem curious enough about. But I indicate the $130 price tag, causing the man to exclaim "Jesus" under his breath. In my head I chuckled.

This next one goes out to all the pretty girls

Five semesters down, three to go. I think the three exams went reasonably well and my papers even more so. I know Intercultural Communications is a lock, because the instructor gave us like 15 extra credit points so a triple-digit score is within the realm of possibility.

There's no reason to keep the store open until midnight during the holidays. Definite money-loser if last night was any indication. Retail workers, don't let your bosses con you into doing midnight shifts. The only thing worse than working on a busy day with hordes of customers is working a dead night with naught but your footsteps echoing off the shelves for company.

Saw The Road. Viggo Mortenson plays an exceptional Man and the kid who plays the Boy is surprisingly not annoying. It's about time for a big "2009 in film" post so I'll probably save my full thoughts on the movie for then. Very good film though.

Christmas is coming and I need wrapping paper for gifts. I'm not about to pay for it like a sucker, though. Taking it into work and doing it at the store's wrapping station is also probably frowned upon. All I have are old copies of the Onion, so they might have to do.

Now that schoolwork's done, I can get to what really matters - movies and model kits. My NT-1 Gundam "Alex" finally showed up, so I can get to work on that. It's a shame the scale is too small for the pop-out machine guns to actually work, but I'll deal with the parts-swapping. In the time since we last spoke, I acquired a HG GOUF Ignited and a HG GINN, but I don't think I care enough to talk about them. The GOUF is cool because I can now re-enact Athrun Zala's escape from ZAFT headquarters and his climactic duel with their star pilot Shinn Asuka and his shiny new Destiny Gundam. I don't know about the GINN, though. I have enough spare parts around that I could create a custom GINN Heavy Weapons or GINN Experimental Firearms type, but I don't know if I feel like investing that sort of time into a kit I got for free and will probably just throw in the box.

Um.

I've touched a girl before, I swear. True story.

You should probably go

As I started writing this entry, I went and checked PAWS to remind me what my class titles were. And one of the closed classes totally opened up! Real lucky timing here. Shakespeare teacher basically said that he was so awesome and had too many students looking to get into his totally kick-ass class, so too bad, you snooze you loose. Which is fine I guess, but you guys should really offer more sections of a class that is required for EVERY ENGLISH MAJOR. Schedule for Spring 2010, semester the sixth, looks like this.

MONDAY:
12:00 - 1:50 ENGLISH 316: World Cinema - "Hong Kong Cinema"
2:00 - 3:15 ENGLISH 366: Non-Fiction Prose - "The (Not So) New Journalism"

TUESDAY:
9:30 - 10:45 ENGLISH 378: Survey of Current Literary and Cultural Theory
11:00 - 12:15 JMC 214: Advertising in American Society
2:00 - 3:15 COMPSCI 150: Survey of Computer Science

WEDNESDAY:
12:00 - 1:50 ENGLISH 316: World Cinema - "Hong Kong Cinema"
2:00 - 3:15 ENGLISH 366: Non-Fiction Prose - "The (Not So) New Journalism"

THURSDAY:
9:30 - 10:45 ENGLISH 378: Survey of Current Literary and Cultural Theory
11:00 - 12:15 JMC 214: Advertising in American Society
2:00 - 3:15 COMPSCI 150: Survey of Computer Science

And I'm totally in the same class as my roommate! I have a guaranteed friend in Computer Science! This sort of thing never happens, as all my friends are in lame majors like History or Art. I am way excited.

All my papers are done. One was on dead babies, another was on House and how everyone lies, the third was on the inevitability of death and the final one was on LGBT people. One of these things is not quite like the others. All that remains are two traditional exams on Monday and then we're done.

I beat Assassin's Creed 2 (the rest of the sentence is spoiler country), and I've gotta say that it is possibly the best game I've ever played that let's you both hang out with Niccolo Macchiavelli and assassinate Pope Alexander VI.


So I ring up three copies of the latest issue of Shonen Jump for this guy, and I know full well that the only reason you buy the magazine in bulk is to sell the free Yugioh card at ridiculous prices. So I casually call him on it. He confirms this and proceeds to tell me that they're "finally making the God cards".

HOLY DAMMIT CHRISTMAS WHAT THE FRICK.

It's been a while since I was on the Yugioh "scene" (this would be about High School), but I remember the God cards. They were introduced in the show as the most powerful cards in all existence and while they were printed for the actual game, they didn't have the actual effects and abilities written on the card and were thus not tournament legal. But the cards they are giving away now are totally legal and the effects are totally listed in tiny 5-point font. What the hell, Konami? You used to be cool.

The blog is free, nobody's forcing you to read this.

If you say you never wanted to go to school at Hogwarts, you're a liar.

I think it would be really cool to live in jolly ol' Britain. A proud nation, they invented the cat and have had running water for nearly ten years now. You can get "crisps" and smoke "fags" and hang out with Ian McKellan and have tea time. They'll let you say "fuck" on TV and won't even think it's weird that you like football (you Yanks know it as soccer).

My British Lit professor, who is from some region of Europe, threw us all a very British Christmas celebration for our last class. (I can't place her nationality, but I know she says "right" the same way that Simon Pegg does, kinda like "roight") We had Christmas Cake, Christmas crackers, Stilton cheese, and even Eddie Izzard on DVD. She hung up a Union Jack and everything. It was actually way fun as far as English courses go.


I got hired at Borders about 2 1/3 years ago now and since then, I have been the only person added to the Inventory Processing Team - nobody has been hired since me. Clearly this is because they knew I couldn't ever be topped, but they had to resort to drastic measures and hire a new guy to help deal with holiday shipments this season.

You cannot imagine how long I have awaited this moment. The chance to take somebody under my wing, to show someone the ropes, to work with someone who doesn't go to bed at seven in the evening. The new hire turns out to be about as old as my dad. I do not feel comfortable educating anyone who is more than twice my age, so my dreams were somewhat dashed.

Which is not to say I don't like the new hire. He's attentive, eager to pick up the job, and has a last name for a first name, which is considerably badass. Do you ever see anyone named, for example, Remington or Dobson? No, because they're all outside getting into car chases, stealing jewels, and making out with gorgeous women.


I really want to see The Princess and the Frog, because I am a little girl consider myself an amateur animation aficionado. But I need someone to come with me because there are too many uncomfortable connotations to a grown man with long dark hair sitting by himself in a theater filled with little children.

Of course, this is why we have DVDs.

For watching movies in the comfort of your own home, I mean.

Not the other thing.

Gun = Jumped

Woo half snow day!

Even though here on the East Side, it was very unnecessary! I can look out my window right now and it's perfectly fine out.

I would have used the time to write my TV Studies final paper, but the professor extended the deadline. By a week. So yeah, won't be working on that for a while. I was supposed to do a presentation on my Film Paper today regarding Christian Metz, semiotics, and the Seventh Seal, but that's not happening either! So I could have actually gone to my morning class instead of cutting it to work on said presentation. Frustration.

So I spent my snow day lounging on the computer, taking roommate to his school that didn't close down, and buying groceries. Will probably play Assassin's Creed 2 tonight and maybe read what is sure to be the worst Star Wars novel ever.

I did work on my schedule today! As predicted, most of my classes are filled, but hopefully I can whine enough and they'll let me in. It's starting to look like Spring 2010 will be going a little something like this.

Monday
12:00 - 1:50 ENGLISH 316 World Cinema - "Hong Kong Cinema"
2:00 - 3:15 ENGLISH 366 Non-Fiction Prose - "The (Not-So) New Journalism"
3:30 - 4:45 COMPSCI 150 Survey of Computer Science

Tuesday
9:30 - 10:45 ENGLISH 378 Survey of Current Literary Theory
12:30 - 1:45 ENGLSIH 452 Shakespeare

Wednesday
12:00 - 1:50 ENGLISH 316 World Cinema - "Hong Kong Cinema"
2:00 - 3:15 ENGLISH 366 Non-Fiction Prose - "The (Not-So) New Journalism"
3:30 - 4:45 COMPSCI 150 Survey of Computer Science

Thursday
9:30 - 10:45 ENGLISH 378 Survey of Current Literary Theory
12:30 - 1:45 ENGLSIH 452 Shakespeare

Five hours straight of class on Monday and Wednesday, but easy Tuesday and Thursday.

Does anybody know if it affects or part-time/full-time status if you enroll with only 6 credits of open classes and 9 of closed ones?