Inaugural film seen on my new DVD player: Rebel Without a Cause.

Seriously thinking about the Peace Corps again after I graduate. Sometimes it’s inconvenient not being in a long-term relationship: nobody to bounce ideas off of. Everything has to be solved single-handedly. A lot of responsibility, even if it is for yourself.

I’m a little thirsty.

Otto e mezzo, otto e mezzo, otto e mezzo…

That’s Italian, but I’m learning Arabic. I have an entire bucket of green tea to help me out. I wonder if I will master it? Maybe.

It’s early.

I’m taking up running, with the goal of finishing a marathon sometime in the next five years. Can’t be too bad for me… I feel like some kind of middle-class asshole in running shoes and track clothes, though. Oh well… I suppose the older you get, the closer you get to middle-class asshole.

I also registered for Spring 2001 after all. I will be taking my last three required classes as well as two additional Anthropology courses in archaeology and pharonic Egypt. We’ll see if I ever use that stuff… But who knows?

Got to get a DVD player so that I can finally start my video collection. I have a whole list of films that I want to own, but I don’t feel like blowing cash out my ass by buying VHS only to watch them become obsolete when I buy a DVD player. Even more importantly, VHS wears out too damn fast.

Holy shit… I have made the Dean’s list again for Fall 2000. I am supposed to be a rotten student!? This is ruining my self-image. If I’m not careful, I’ll graduate with an acceptable GPA…

Three more classes and I graduate. Wow.

On an early winter day we all get together to try to make our world a little lighter and to celebrate two thousand years since the dawn of the West, which eclipsed both Caesar and Pharoah, leading in the end to Washington and Moscow, the loving hearts of our own lives’ romance, of century twenty-one, of the modern era.

When you look back, you can’t really see how it all fits together — you can just hear the music and dream of the deserts of Israel and Palestine. It’s beautiful, just like city traffic in snow or Coke in a tall glass with ice or Chinese calligraphy on rice paper.

It’s very late and I’m very pretentious. I’m making myself smile. Good-night. Merry Christmas everybody. I wish you all the very best and love you dearly.

“God bless us, every one.”

Beauty, beauty, beauty… Sometimes, you just have to cry a little.

I’m way behind schedule. Shit. Working hard, but I’m trying to balance too many things right now. I need to work all day tomorrow, too, but I also have an errands list — go and pay off my tuition bill, go and buy cat food, go and get my car safety inspected and pay my @#($%* taxes… Damn, damn, damn.

Got NYC Ghosts & Flowers yesterday. Free City Rhymes may be the perfect Sonic Youth song, if such a thing has ever existed. If it weren’t for Small Flowers Crack Concrete, I might call this the perfect Sonic Youth disc. The day such a disc is finally released, I will lay down and die happy. Until then, NYC etc. is good enough for me.

Picked up a series of Micropolis Ultra-Wide 9.1GB drives that I’m going to RAID-0 over the Christmas weekend. This ought to be fun as hell. I have dual BT-958’s, so I’m hoping I can wire two up to each and pull about 50MB/sec continuous throughput from my root filesystem. Combine that with 512 megabytes PC133 that Linux can use as buffer cache in the VM system, and I’ll have a throughput monster. I should be able to do video editing at SVHS res with my eyes closed. Yes. Tech gibberish.

Back to work.

“I am Ra, from whom time began, rising, a red feather in the wind, turning, turning. I am the hub of a wheel, a day star hovering over an endless sea. I am not the harvest; I am the seed. I am not the lyre; I am the song. I will not pass away. I will not pass away.”

Autumn Semester 2000 is over.

I now begin work in earnest on my next book, which must be complete by two days after Christmas… Watch this, it’ll make your head spin.

Downy sins of streetlight fancies
chase the costumes she shall wear
ermine furs adorn, imperious
Severin, Severin awaits you there…

*Ahem* Final in Film 7870 just taken. I kicked ass. Ta-da!

Got to go work on my final paper for English 5950, due tomorrow at noon. At that point, my school work will be over. I then have a deadline Thursday for review of several outstanding chapters from my book. Then, I can settle down a little, but I’ve got to keep working hard because my entire book is due on the 27th.

So far, so good… Life goes on.

Hi, everybody… I’m not any richer, but I’m a lot happy.

This guy won’t die… I think maybe it’s time for a wooden stake. Or silver bullets with crosses cut into their tips.

First of the finals is out of the way. Two more major events to go and the semester is over for me. Then I can settle down and play games.

Now I’ve had time to really go at it with my Voodoo5, and it’s a keeper. In the last two months, I also bought a Radeon DDR and a Geforce, but I returned them both in turn within about two days of purchase because my Voodoo3 had generally better image quality, especially in Glide-capable games. Compared to my Voodoo3, the GF2 and the Radeon looked like total shit in Unreal, Deus Ex and Wheel of Time. Not to mention the fact that some Glide games (Ultima IX, Deus Ex) totally broght the DirectX cards (GF2, Radeon) to their knees with all settings maxed, while the Voodoo5 looks much better and gets 30+ frames thanks to glide.

I’m not an FPS demon. I’m satisfied with 30 frames. And I’m satisfied with my Voodoo5. I’ve spent all night playing Sacrifice at 1024×768 with 32-bit textures and 2x FSAA enabled. And it’s beautiful. Long live 3dfx.

Bloody 3D titles. The ultimate semester-end stress relief.

I went out and did some Christmas shopping for my family and for myself. Specifically, I bought a Voodoo5 5500 to enhance my addiction to games. I had avoided the GeForce2 GTS cards because of (many) reports of poor 2D quality, but sadly, this new Voodoo5 card has much lower 2D quality than my old Voodoo3 3000.

Still… All in the name of progress. I do seem to get much better frames with the Voodoo5, especially on games like Ultima IX or Omikron, and the FSAA and 32-bit texture support are very, very nice as well.

Other than that… Back to watching films. Ugh. Urgh. Urrrrgle.

I call this track the “domestic problems” song, spinning tonight for all you lonely people. Open up that jar and grab your umbrella, because it’s going to pour on the way to the church!

Women don’t care if any certain guy has never hit or or been violent in any way with a woman. Women claim to hate violent men, but they don’t — they couldn’t care less. The same women don’t care whether a guy is faithful or not. Women don’t care whether a guy is nice, polite, thoughful… Women don’t care whether a guy is intelligent or not. It doesn’t matter to a woman that a guy loves her or doesn’t — she isn’t interested even if it is only seeing her every day that makes his life worth living. Two things are important to women: is he cute and exciting enough to ride, and will he buy me good stuff?

This is why men marry housewives, not women; housewives enjoy peace, fidelity, manners, consideration and love… Unfortunately, housewives also tend to be gender neutral, and are therefore almost more accurately described as house-keepers; a woman on the side, just for light use a little now and then, may be of some help once a man is corrupted — once he has become disillusioned and hateful…

Or maybe it would be nice for a man to have a Venus of his very own, to be “domestic” with; after some time, his conscience could be freed of all of these preconsciously hated domestics. His primal self, oily and twisted, would gleefully emerge beneath the heavy stone. In a sudden reversal, Venus would be voraciously consumed. Isn’t it beautiful?

Shall I belong to one man whom I don’t love, merely because I have once loved him?

I think yes.

Because you will go on about the consequences, won’t you! Just what do you think you create? Try, then, to claim the right you seem to claim — the right to unapologetic amorality — or even to hateful amorality — and see where it gets you!

Rivets, I tell you! Rivets!

Sexiest woman ever: Anouk Aimée as Luisa Anselmi in Fellini’s 8 1/2. Every time I see the film, I have to breathe deeply for an hour. I’m still faint now.

“Happiness is being able to be honest without hurting anyone.”

Every time I see 8 1/2, I feel like I want to cry. And right now, I understand more than I ever have before. If only there was —