saturday, july 1

•••    by the way, I like happy poetry. one of my favorites, and one whose final lines have never quite escaped my mind, is plunder. so you see. enjoying joy.
4:44 PM +

•••    lately all the debut fiction I read in the new yorker has left me incredibly depressed. why? why are all these stories about rape and death and failed relationships and abandoned lives? I don't get it. for some reason it seems as though our brains are wired so that we respond to negativity in pseudo-intellectual pop culture. it's easy to be deep and sad. it's not so easy to be deep and happy. are we fooling ourselves into thinking that just because something inspires some sobering thoughts, it's good literature? or art or music or anything else? are we afraid that by seeking things that are pleasant rather than disquieting we will be labeled as shallow and our interests labeled as trite?

I am not one of those so-called shiny happy people, but I refuse to believe that our collective human psyche is such a mess that we don't know how to respond to profound happiness and fulfillment. so what makes it so hard to tap into?

in any case, it's depressing.
4:37 PM +

•••    hahaha! I am done with my research assignment two whole days before it's due! may pubmed have a lonely, lonely weekend without my company. :D
3:55 PM +

•••    I'm sure you will all be thrilled to know that I can still sing along with the original annie movie soundtrack - word for word, pause for pause, start to finish. (I have a little trouble with the parts when miss hannigan and daddy warbucks are singing at the same time, because I only have one voice, but I do know what both of them are saying. ;)

annie (the musical) was in the middle of its broadway run when I was one year old and we lived in manhattan. it was one of the first words I learned to recognize on sight, from all the posters. I would point it out in the subway and on passing buses. my mother thought that was very clever.

when I got older and more adroit with language, I would get the movie record out of the music library at lincoln center. by the time I was two I had most of it memorized. I used to stand on top of an old suitcase in the middle of our apartment and sing along to "tomorrow" at the top of my lungs. eventually I inherited my own copy. I still know where the scratches are, and where the one skip is. it would almost be wrong without the skip.

anyway. nostalgia. :)
11:44 AM +

friday, june 30

•••    I rarely play games of any sort on the computer. I've only bought one game in my life (riven - myst was a gift), and ever since I got internet access seven years ago, I just haven't cared so much even about my old favorites like simcity. I stopped playing my old dos and hand-coded basic games completely. when I got my new computer, I didn't install any games, and I deleted most of the games it came with. at school I watched my hallmates spend hours on things like snood and jack and sextris... while I was spending hours mucking about online.

but now, thanks to zannah, I have centipede and pacman and tetris sitting on my desktop, waiting to be unzipped. I'm not sure if this is a good idea. ;)
11:19 PM +

•••    I love the way the setting sunlight makes half the leaves outside my window shiny and the other half glowing, and how the grass through the cobwebby screen looks like it belongs in an easter basket.
6:39 PM +

•••    inexplicably tired, I am.
also hungry, but that is more understandable.
6:24 PM +

•••    being an idealist makes me happy.
12:30 PM +

•••    I've been online for three hours without once having the urge to blog something. what's up with that?
maybe I'll feel different after I take a shower and get dressed.
10:28 AM +

•••    is it too much to hope that "chaaa" is a ringing endorsement... ? :)
12:03 AM +

thursday, june 29

•••    like brenda, I got somewhat odd results from the mmdi questionnaire - but they were odd for different reasons.

historically, I'm inxp, with the original mbti test putting me at intp by the slightest margin over infp. (on some tests I come close to intj, but never infj - I'm not sure what that indicates, but whatever.) I've figured out by experimenting that my results are almost always determined by a single answer. (on a few, I've actually gotten tie scores between two different types.)

so, this test says I'm an infp. that's not surprising, because the wording of the questions wasn't resonating much with my analytical intp side. and there were too many questions about ignoring things - I don't ignore individuals or ideas or things, I ignore social pursuits. it also says that my "team role" is crusader. this doesn't make much sense. I mean, it sounds nice, and it's certainly part of my personality, but it's not the dominating trait by any means.

it turns out, the test isn't even agreeing with itself, as I discovered when I looked at the numbers that indicate how close a match I am to one personality type or another. even though it said I'm a crusader, my actual scores have me pegged as equal parts innovator and scientist (15 points each), followed by crusader (13) and explorer (11). (if that seems like an awful lot of high numbers, it's because I am in no way a conductor or a coach.) the only conclusive thing indicated by my type scores are that I'm an insomethingsomething. intp, infj, and intj have a three-point span and are all within ten points of infp. so, whatever.

the most interesting thing about this particular adaptation of the myers-briggs type indicator is the dna strand. if I could make my own, I think it would be FiTieNiFeSeiNe. after fitie though, it all gets pretty fuzzy.
3:44 PM +

•••    for whatever reason, I haven't been terribly interested in my hits or referrals or linkbacks or any of that lately. (in general, while I'm not seeking recognition by doing this, I like to know when I get some!) I really almost missed this. and that would have been sad, because I would have missed out on a worthwhile weblog. (read the stuff about people being people.)

for the past few days I've also been doing less aimless surfing and more directed reading on the web, which may be why I was oblivious to the latest weblogs-are-dying / they-are-not / quit-making-such-a-big-deal-out-of-it flurry until recently.

I don't have a weblogging mission statement, or even a weblogging mission idea. maybe that counts as one anyway. ;)
1:10 PM +

•••    I think someone needs to actually make a weblog named I tore out my heart, rubbed it across the keyboard, and this is what came out... I would read it. I would make it, if I didn't already have a weblog.
12:34 PM +

•••    do you think anyone who goes to see the perfect storm is going to care how meteorologically accurate it is?
on the other hand, I suppose it's always good to be informed. it's all about balance.
11:17 AM +

•••    the new taco bell commercials - for the enchirita, or whatever that sauce-smothered thing is - really and truly make me feel physically sick. I'm veggie, but I don't usually mind seeing meat on tv. anyone want to explain this to me?
12:01 AM +

wednesday, june 28

•••    the thing I really dislike about working on macs is the single mouse button.
6:25 PM +

•••    oh man. if the faa approves this, I'm so gonna blast off this planet. maybe now I have a reason to want to make money. I could design a one-person rocket - hell yeah.
5:59 PM +

•••    for the most part, I'm not a big movie fan (especially mainstream movies - sorry, I'm an entertainment snob, or something). but for some reason, I really like reading movie reviews. especially when they have funny title graphics!
4:01 PM +

•••    for lunch today I ate a whole mango.
all by myself.
hehehe. :)
2:37 PM +

•••    apparently the sun's magnetic fields are snapping around like rubber bands during solar flares. maybe this is what they were talking about on star trek when they did that slingshot-around-the-sun time travel thing. :)
8:34 AM +

tuesday, june 27

•••    I love random stuff like this: the cheese flies at midnight.
7:18 PM +

•••    I like comics. not superhero comic books, although do I have a soft spot (and a hardcover collector's book) for the flash. comic strips. I always read every strip in the sunday colors, even garfield, which hasn't been interesting since 1983. lately, though, I'm feeling dissatisfied.

it started with the end of calvin and hobbes. I love calvin and hobbes. I have every calvin and hobbes strip in existence in one of the fifteen books on my shelf. I make references to calvin and hobbes in casual conversation. just try saying "smock" around me. I love it not just because it's funny, because I identify with calvin's warped sense of reality more than I care to admit, and because I think hobbes could teach most humans a thing or two - I also love it because it looks damn good. take a really good look at calvin's facial expressions; the attention to detail in his fantasies; the alien landscapes encountered by spaceman spiff; the shadows and sillhouettes that surround tracer bullet; the myriad different things hobbes conveys just with his fuzz.

there's nothing like it anymore. non sequitur has replaced c&h as my favorite current strip, but it just doesn't compare. I enjoy the geek humor of dilbert and fox trot, but they are two of the flattest strips around. rose is rose is pretty, but it's incredibly repetitive. doonesbury is funny, but half the time all you see is a building. for better or for worse is consistently mediocre in every department. the rest - well, at best they're mindless; at worst, comic travesties. and I really wish someone would put garfield out of his misery.

anyway, I've been poking around online, at big panda and such places, and I just can't find anything that fills my need for something that's visually interesting and tells a good story. I know they must be out there. so tell me: what should I be reading?
2:45 PM +

•••    proving once and for all that there is a big difference between the east and west coasts: I don't know anyone at college who talks like this. and I haven't heard anyone with cred say "phat" since I was in high school.
(via weblog wannabe)
12:00 PM +

•••    woohooo!!! score one for astronomy! apparently people do understand the need to protect space from radio pollution. here's to future discoveries.
11:25 AM +

•••    ack. is george w. really this stupid? is there a compilation of intelligent things he's said somewhere, so that I can feel less depressed about american politics? (come on, I'm young and idealistic. it's my first presidential election. please?)
(link via the middle of some metafilter thread)
1:24 AM +

•••    sometimes I feel like the universe is being nicer to me than I deserve. I wish it would learn to pace itself.
12:41 AM +

monday, june 26

•••    I'll tell you what qualifies doctor laura to be a moral authority: nothing. even her insistence that she didn't meant to insult anyone (which she immediately follows up by saying that every parent who is not part of a heterosexual couple is unfit - whatever) fails to let me see her in anything resembling a sympathetic light.

let me just say that I am proud to be part of the moral decline that is apparently sweeping the country. and henceforth I will pay no attention to doctor laura, because she makes me feel rather ill.
5:36 PM +

•••    I voted for more new york minutes. because I miss central park like nothing else in the world. you can take the girl out of manhattan, but . . . well, you know.
3:17 PM +

•••    poor dinos - they may never find a permanent home in the evolutionary tree. what I don't understand is why this destroys the dinosaur-bird link. just because birds didn't necessarily evolve from dinosaurs doesn't mean they didn't have some common ancestor, just like australopithecines and humans (and all pongids). anyway, I'm glad things worked out for the birds. it would be a darker world without them.
1:14 PM +

•••    when I did a paper on the human genome project for freshman biology (that was in 1996), no one thought there would be even a rough copy finished by the year 2000. I guess that shows that making it a commercial endeavor did make a huge difference, but still. it's nice that they managed to work together.
8:55 AM +

•••    I think I would make a good shirt ninja, but I'm nonviolent.
12:19 AM +

sunday, june 25

•••    is it wicked when you smile
even though you feel like crying
(I think maybe? we are all wicked)
11:53 PM +

•••    today's activity: reading one of my favorite books for at least the thirtieth time, in between naps. sundays are good. :)
5:23 PM +

•••    I hate this. if people were not so intent on categorizing things as girls' toys, maybe no one would have given me a hard time when I was little for not liking more of them. but what I really want to know is, why do the boys get the chicken run toys?! give me a break. ::scowl::
1:22 PM +

•••    aardman animations is getting all sorts of attention these days for chicken run. but did you know they've been publishing claymation shorts on the web? check out angry kid - at a minute apiece, these episodes are short, sweet, and definitely funny.
12:56 PM +

•••    both of my little sibs are off to camp today. when my parents get home tonight, it will be just me and them for the first time in years. funny being an only child again now that I'm not a child.
11:49 AM +