Fractal Geometry

Design Reports are due in about 14 hours.  Several of us are pulling all-nighters.

Earlier today, we were trying to evaluate how much of the natural gas provided we were using as fuel as opposed instead of raw material.  This conversation happened:

"...34 billion standard cubic feet?  Isn't that...more than what we're given?"

"Yeah, about 5 times more."

"So we can't run our process?"

"Shit."

"Shit."

"Shit."

...............

"34 billion scf a day...doesn't that seem too big?"

"A day?  That's for a year."

"Yeah, we're given 7.5 billion scf per day.  It's an insane amount."  [This amounts to a total of about 7% of the entire stream that we're using at all, btw.]

"...Oh.  That's a relief."

We laughed for like half an hour.  I think we annoyed all the other groups.

===============

One of the groups we are sequestered in the back room with just had the following conversation:

"I think one of the autobots should be a Prius.  He actually get smaller when he transforms."

"I wish our Megatrons did that." [They named some of their equipment after Transformers because they are so gigantic.]

"Our half a billion dollar flash tanks?  I wish they transformed into something less expensive."

I may be sleep-deprived, but I think this is terribly funny.

I will no doubt have many things to report here later--not limited to a summary of the rest of my New York trip and an extended whine-fest about the one dubbed "Angry Andy," but first, yet another reason for my continuously compounding hatred of LJ and it's insulting brand of politics:

(Posted from LJ news):

"New Team Member
Looking ahead to 2009 and beyond, we determined that we needed to bring on new talent to assist the Advisory Board in long-term planning. We wanted to select someone who had international experience and who understands the pressures of living in the public eye. And most importantly, we wanted to be sure that he was someone who had the respect of the LiveJournal community.

After a lot of searching, we are excited to be able to introduce the newest addition to our team. Please welcome him at our new community: lj_2009"

I mean, HOW could they have decided this was the right guy for the job?  It blows my mind.  Deadjournal, you beckon me...

Tuesday:

Katy and I went down to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and poked around on the upper floors for a while.  They were sticklers about photographs so I only got a couple that turned out decent (no flash allowed).

Katy went off to work (NYU Institute of Fine Arts) and I did a quick loop of the Met's first floor, then moved on to that famous Frank Lloyd Wright-designed art gallery, The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum of New York.  For those of you who don't know, Wright designed the building with the express purpose of thumbing his nose at the art community.  The building's design is terrible for a gallery--the walls and floor slope, the main part is so open it's intimidating and the side galleries are claustrophobic.  Going up (and then down) the spiraling walkway is about a 1-1/2 mile walk.  Ironically, the art community embraced this rebellion. 

Up until late May the museum is featuring an exhibition of works by Cai (pronounced 'Saayee') Guo-Qiang (who is also functioning as curator) called "I Want to Believe"  Cai's  work consists largely of his fascination with gunpowder as a medium.  Much of his work is public--fireworks shows, carefully-crafted explosions with significant shape and meaning.  His works that do not incorporate gunpowder are also very interesting: nine tigers pierced with hundreds of wooden arrows (meant to depict both beauty and violence); a wrecked fishing vessel lying atop a mountain of broken china; wolves running, rising off the ground in an attempt to scale the Berlin Wall, only to fall short; and (dominating the exhibit) a still-motion depiction of a car bomb exploding and flying through the air, all the way up to the top of the building.

I'm not usually big on modern art--I see much of it as self-absorbed, obscure or at least indecipherable.  I really enjoyed the Guggenheim exhibit, though.  For one thing, Cai's art (as he says) is meant to be democratic.  He believes that art should be about people, for people--everyone, not just other artists.  His art is simple, inventive and thought-provoking without being the least bit pretentious.  That and the explosions earn a thumbs-up from me.

My feet were aching something awful, so we went back to Katie's apartment to rest for a while.  We decided to have Polish food for dinner, so we took the Subway over to Brooklyn.  Polish food, I have discovered, is cheap, yummy and very suitable to an American pallet.  The meatloaf was superb.

We went back to Katie's boyfriend's apartment and played Wii for a while.  He had this downloaded game called Marble Madness, which is addictive like crack, I tell you.  Then we headed over to this bar called The Soft Spot and had a few rounds.  A friend of ours was coming to stay that night, and we were only going to have one, but you know how it goes.  We get this call from her--turns out she's sitting in a bar across the street from Katie's apartment and we're still in Brooklyn.  With much cursing, we head back and promply get bought another round at St. Dymphna's Irish Pub.  I was perfectly fine with that...the bartender (whose name I believe was Dollan...from Dublin) was pretty cute.

Went back to Kate's place.  Packed my stuff in preparation for...

Wednesday:

Got up. Ate leftover Chinese for breakfast, finished packing my stuff.

Gave myself a #%*&%! first degree burn on my flat iron.  Goddammit that hurt, and now I have a blister.

It was my first time traveling in any sort of serious way by train...not to mention by myself.  I got to Penn station and was expecting something similar to an airport.  I suppose in its essence that expectation is fairly good, but really it's much less hassle.  There's no security at all, and they don't even check your ticket until you're on the train.  Boarding was rapid and kind of haphazard, as the tracks are displayed with almost no announcement on a big board and the common area is a big empty expanse on which it is too easy to sit and get distracted.  There were west and east tracks, and naturally I went down the wrong one and got turned around.  (Although not so much that I got on the wrong train.  That would be pretty hard.)  Train seats are also about 20 times more comfortable and roomy than airline seats, and there are electrical outlets.

Upstate is definitely a different world from the city.  It reminds me of Eastern Washington with a lot more deciduous trees, although i suspect once things start to green up it looks much more like Seattle than Spokane.  Albany looks about the same size as Spokane, though, and Troy is a few minutes up the highway.

RPI is a much smaller campus compared to UW.  I haven't seen much of it yet, as that will be tomorrow.

I was going to write this up last night before I forgot anything, but decided to go to bed instead. So let's see what I'll get through, shall we?

Sunday:

Woke up at like 2 p.m. I'm not used to sleeping right next to a window, and definitely not used to the kind of bright light you get from street lamps around here. Also, jet lag. Anyway...

My cousin got up early because she wanted to make this traditional Italian easter bread called brouchetta formaggio (sp?). She used the cheese she bought at the market the day before, but the yeast was bad or something and it didn't rise at all. It was good, but it was so dense it was like bagel dough. We had omeletts for "brunch."

My cousin took me on a walking tour of midtown Manhattan during the afternoon.  The weather was really nice again, even though I understand that usually it's pretty gloomy this time of year.

We took the subway up to Central Park.  I imagine the park is much more impressive once Spring actually hits...it was kind of brown and bare-looking (and smelled faintly of horse dung).  We walked partway around and then broke off near Rockefeller Center.  Then we went down to Bryant Park for a rest and I got some pictures of the New York City Public Library.  We then went up to Times Square for the light show and I got some pictures there too.

We ordered delivery Chinese for dinner.  mmm.

Today:

Got up early so we could be at the Natural History Museum around opening time.  We saw lots of cool exhibits and I took some photos, especially of the dinosaur fossils.  Katy is especially fond of dioramas and we were happy that some of the exhibits haven't been completely PC-ified yet.  We were there for about 5 hours.

We ate a nice lunch at this place called EJ's Luncheonette, then headed over to the Museum of Modern Art.  My cousin is a graduate student in Art History at New York University, so she has a lot of information about the art there.  Modern Art is probably the kind I know the least about, to be honest, so when she kept asking if there was anything in particular I wanted to see I couldn't come up with anything.  We did see Starry Night and some of the more famous Norman Rockwell and Damien Hirst pieces.  They had an interesting exhibition on art derived from the natural world and one on design.

Tried this frozen yogurt store called Pinkberry.  They've become popular with movie stars because it's a very good, not-too-sweet, low calorie snack.  I can see how it could be kind of addicting, although I was a little unhappy with the weird artificial sugar aftertaste it had.

We had dinner at this place up the street from my cousin's apartment.  Their Vindaloo was quite spicy, so i didn't eat it all.  Now I have two sets of leftovers in the fridge and have to figure out how to eat them.

My cousin got a cuckoo clock from her boyfriend last Christmas.  It's a real cuckoo clock and it cuckoos every hour, it's the most hilarious thing.  She was on the phone with a friend of the family, who is coming up tomorrow night, and trying to reset her clock.  Being on the other end of that conversation must have been interesting with that incessant cuckoo sound in the background. XD

Edit: Photos up

Anna and Andrew drove me to Sea-Tac at about 10.  I was going to take the bus (hell, it's free) but I was afraid I was going to miss my flight.  Turned out it was delayed anyway.  I ate some thoroughly awful Chinese in the terminal and waited.  The plane got in late and they were practically sweeping us down the causeway with a broom.

Had a middle seat, which sucked, and I was in the exit row so I couldn't reach my bag underneath the seat in front of me.  I had to pry it out with my feet every time I wanted something.  Everything on the plane cost money: TV, movies (conveniently located on the screens on the back of each seat), food.  I got desperate and paid $2 for a Clif bar.

Arrived at JFK about 9 pm local time.  The terminal reminded me strongly of the airport in Frankfurt.

The cab ride to East Village (SE Manhattan) was a horrifying $50, and the stupid machine in the back of the seat refused to read my credit card.  My cousin had to come down, swipe hers and yell at the cab driver, who screwed up on the first charge.  Can't decide if he was being an asshole or merely incompetent.  First New York experience: cab drivers.

Got up at 2 pm Saturday.  My cousin's roommate is gone, so I get an actual bed instead of the futon.  Their shoebox-sized apartment doesn't have what I generally consider to be adequate curtains, but I can live with that.

It was a pretty pleasant day.  The sun was out and it was about 50 degrees, which is about what it has been in Seattle.   We trekked up to Union Square, where they were having a gigantic random pillow fight.  Feathers were everywhere, it was hilarious.  While we were there we also ran into a bunch of people holding political signs.  We kind of ignored them at first until we realized that it wasn't election time.  The whole thing was a viral marketing stunt for the new Batman Movie.  The campaign was Harvey Dent (a.k.a. Two Face) for District Attorney of Gotham City.  There were people marching with a megaphone, and a campaign van.  We pretended to want to join up and the chick there started handing out t-shirts and buttons and stickers and posters.  Random free souvenirs for the win.

We did a short walking tour of Manhattan.  We saw the flatiron building and this place where Abraham Lincoln once gave a famous speech (can't remember which) and walked down a couple of historic streets.  I got a picture of the site of the famous Stonewall Riots.  My cousin bought some fancy cheeses at this specialty marketplace and we ate some really excellent crepes at The Crooked Tree.

That night we took the subway up to 26th street went and saw the Upright Citizen's Brigade, a famous NYC improv group.  I first heard of them when I went to the Rob Corddry comedy night at UW three years ago, and have been wanting to see them ever since.  Katy's boyfriend Ed came with us.  We had beers and watched the show, which involved among other things a Jewish superhero/lifeguard with excessive pubic hair and cop/detective duo with a rather dim and psychotic outlook on life.

After the comedy show we trekked back to East Village and went to the Crocodile Lounge,a little dive that serves free pizzas with every drink.  We ate pizza and had beers and cursed out the broken skee-ball machines.

Tomorrow: Easter brunch, the Guggenheim Museum, and Central Park



PS: If you can't access the photo links, try this instead.

The one-day content strike is on for this Friday, March 21, from midnight GMT to midnight GMT.

For 24 hours, we will not post or comment to LJ. Not in our own journals, not in communities. Not publicly, privately, or under friends-lock.

This is a protest that will have long-lasting effects, showing up forever in the daily posting statistics.

This is a protest that will not harm LJ in the long run, as leaving LJ might do.

This is a protest that will demonstrate the power of community, as all users unite to support Basic users, the concept of adfree space, and our right to enjoy any interests we choose.

This is a protest that will educate the new owners that LJ is driven by user-created content.

How Can You Help?

DO post about this in your own LJ.
DO post and comment about it in appropriate communities.
DO turn off LoudTwitter and your RSS feeds for 24 hours.
DO feel free to friend me for updates, and defriend when the strike is over.

DON'T forget to get permission from community mods before making an off-topic post or comment about the strike.
DON'T be spammy with your posts or comments about the strike.
DON'T forget to turn your LoudTwitter and RSS feeds back on when the strike is over.

Appropriate Times

The 24-hour strike will begin at the following times for the following locations:

Thursday, March 20, 2:00 PM -- Honolulu
Thursday, March 20, 4:00 PM -- Anchorage
Thursday, March 20, 5:00 PM -- San Francisco; Los Angeles
Thursday, March 20, 6:00 PM -- Mexico City; Denver
Thursday, March 20, 7:00 PM -- Chicago
Thursday, March 20, 8:00 PM -- Montreal; New York
Thursday, March 20, 9:00 PM -- Buenos Aires
Thursday, March 20, 9:30 PM -- Newfoundland
Midnight -- London
Friday, March 21, 1:00 AM -- Paris
Friday, March 21, 2:00 AM -- Istanbul
Friday, March 21, 3:00 AM -- Moscow
Friday, March 21, 4:00 AM -- Dubai
Friday, March 21, 5:00 AM -- Islamabad
Friday, March 21, 6:00 AM -- Bangladesh
Friday, March 21, 9:00 AM -- Tokyo

Why Are We Striking?

We are holding the Content Strike because we want the new owners of LiveJournal to better understand the power and resolve of the LJ Community of Users.

We are holding the Content Strike because all of us, Paid, Permanent and Plus users as well as Basic, want to demonstrate our solidarity as a Community of Users. We do not consider Basic users to be freeloaders, we consider them to be valuable content-providers and Friends.

We are holding the Content Strike because we ache to do something to show our displeasure, and commenting on the news post -- even with cat macros -- just isn't powerful enough!

The strike has four terms:

1. Restore basic accounts for new account creation.

2. Inform users before any change to the site that affects how we use the site or demands on our resources.

3. Run change proposals by the Advisory Board and take their advice into account before implementation of any change.

4. Homophobia, misogyny, and racism must not be a part of the decision making processes about appropriate content of the site, including what user interests are deemed appropriate.

NOTE: We are aware that there may be good business decisions for eliminating Basic accounts. If Basic accounts are to be eliminated, though, that action should be taken only after approval of the Advisory Board and consultation with the LJ Community of Users.

Will This Make Any Difference?

The protests are making a difference. Within the last three hours (as of 3pm March 17, '08), the censored interests have been restored! If you look at the Popular Interests page, you will once again see the formerly filtered "fanfiction", "depression", "bisexuality" -- even "faeries". LiveJournal is once again presenting its true face to the world, not a sanitized blandness.

Please continue to spread the word about the Content Strike. We are not merely consumers. We are a Community of Users, and we will be heard.

LiveJournal Content Strike, Friday, March 21, midnight to midnight GMT.
No posts. No comments. No content.

It's been a long silence. I miss writing here, especially now that the election season is really warming up. I'd love to get into a long discourse about the candidates and the issues...unfortunately, battery life is short and my thoughts are disorganized.

The cohesive phrase I had in my mind when I went to post here was: Gotta love Seattle: I know of no other place that can transition from full-out sunny day to cool, windy, gray and overcast in 20 minutes.

It's amazing how much better a mood I'm in now that the sun's ducked behind that thick blanket of clouds. I don't like the sun much, and Seattle's been quite warm and bright the last few days. Don't get me wrong, sunny days in this city are a treat because the area itself is so green and alive. But I prefer to enjoy the scenery from through the window unless the situation necessitates. I'll go hiking. I'll go sailing. But going outside to do homework? Blech.

I suspect this may also be a result of being Irish.

------Quick and Dirty Life Summary------

Recent highlights:

*Yours truly was elected to be a district delegate for Obama...in a precinct that went for him over Clinton at 90%. Felt vindicated as votes in the state gave him a huge boost.
*Discovered Rock Band. Luckily, can't afford to buy it.
*Scientists have invented a new kind of rubber than can repair itself.
*Got pissed at my bank for reaming me with $40 worth of overdraft charges on an $8 debt--two charges that should have been processed a month ago.
*Someone living in my building has an air horn and likes to run down the halls sounding it. I think I may rig up a tripwire and some paint balloons this weekend as a special gift for them.
*It was my birthday on the 20th. Ryan and I went to Red Robin, and then I studied for a midterm. Tests really suck the celebration out of life.

Recent articles and blog posts that entertain me.

*On the incorruptibility of kids and the adults who forget it, cleverly disguised as a AIDS documentary review
*An experiment: single sex education
*The Zygote-American Community's Battle against Porn (If you're not laughing already, I feel sorry for you.)
*O'Reilly and the Roombas of the Apocalypse (Or: the Ream Master 5000 Terrorist Hack Conspiracy.)
*Internet Mobs are Surprisingly well-behaved...and awesome
*I miss legos.

There are days when I think that media cliche about the love-hate relationship a woman has with her body is apt. This is one of those days.

I make no bones about the fact that I have boobs. They're kind of hard to miss. There are days when I LIKE that I can draw attention in that regard. There are days I wish they were detachable with Velcro (this would especially handy during meals and at any point when I might wish to exercise).

There are most certainly days when I envy those early-alphabet cup sizes. It must make shopping for bras so much better.

I acquire almost all of my bras through Victoria's Secret. It's expensive, but trust me they make a damn good product. I'll spare you the physics; if you don't know what to look for in a good bra there are plenty of iVillage articles out there.

The one thing that occasionally plaugues me about VS bras are tiny little made-in-china factory flaws. Usually they are the little nagging things that spawn mainly from the fact that I spend a lot of time with my bras. They are companions of which I cannot be rid because the alternative is simply horrifying.

[Super Happy Fun Box Statistic: the average breast, even during moderate activity, has an average mobile range of 4-8 inches, with a total range of 2-14. This recent research blows conceptual estimates out of the water. Because people actually took the time to estimate. I have to wonder: video game or porn industry?]

One of these flaws decided to rear its big fat head today. It involves the underwire.

Any woman in the audience has just winced, am I right?

Underwires are an essential but incredibly finicky element of any kind of useful bra. They provide structure, but if shoddy in any way can pinch, slide, jut, bend, break or do just about anything else material science has ever heard of.

In my case, the element of the bra designed to hold said underwire appears to be made of a fabric that, while it appears solid, is actually the cloth equivalent of a polarizing filter. Everything facing in the right direction passes through unscathed. "Everything" being the underwire.

I am adjusting my shirt in my 10:30 class when I realize that the wire has, in fact, wormed its way through. Not in a way where it is merely peeking shyly through with whispered dreams of a sunny day. It basically attempted a full-blown jailbreak. It was trying to build the skeleton of one of those horrible full-frontal-assault 1940's sci-fi bras, guided from the inside by adequate cleavage.

I spend most of class regurgitating Latin vocabulary in a caffeine-induced haze while trying discreetly to staunch the wire's bid for freedom. I achieve partial success, which is somehow worse because now the wire is in partial control. I have a big metal thing protruding about halfway into my boob. I am mortified of the prospect that this is visible through my shirt.

After class I had to confront my instructor about my last test*. The wire has refused to yield. She inspects me briefly as if concerned that I have a massively misaligned compound collarbone fracture. Afterward I run to the nearest bathroom and readjust.

The wire has since refused to wave the white flag of defeat. Repeat this scenario twice more and you'll basically understand my day.

I plan to take my revenge on the offending article with a needle and thread as soon as I have them in my vicinity. Unfortunately I'm stuck at Benson trying very hard to avoid doing actual work.

Boobs are a great excuse for that.

-----============-------

*Apparently I was on Mars while filling in a series of four bubbles on the Scan-tron sheet. My answer on the text copy of the multiple choice test do not even come close to what I actually put down. No idea how this happened.

-----============-------

Quote of the Day: Seek simplicity, and distrust it. -Alfred North Whitehead

( Because I haven't done a meme in a while )

If this were actually a flash drive, I...no...nevermind...

http://www.strapya-world.com/categories/2331_3883.html

For the last 3 years or so, I have been saying to myself, I must really organize my growing list of bookmarks. I must really do this, because it's becoming impossible to find anything through the haze of broken links and incomprehensible names.

This is not to say that I do not back up my bookmarks. This would quite possibly be suicide.

So tonight I decided to pull my exported bookmarks from my PC, load them into my laptop, go through them and eliminate duplicates, and finally get off my ass and use that Firefox sync plugin.

Four hours later I am about ready to kill things. My neck hurts from hunching over a computer screen. My fingertips are numb from typing (and this doesn't even happen to me when I fic). I'm hungry, sleepy, and feeling incredibly as though I should have known better than to wait this long. I'm cranky that I took time off from a great Jack Sparrow crack fic to do something actually productive.

At least now, I will hopefully be able to find the right bookmark on the 3rd or 4th try, instead of giving up and desperately punching a description into Google.

Oh Internets, why are you so wonderful and yet so incredibly frustrating? ;_;

So I stumbled across this quote and had a nice amused moment.

Janel Maloney (Donna Moss on The West Wing, on her co-star Bradley Whitford): The first thing they should do when they start cloning people is clone Brad Whitford. I think it should be a constitutional right that all women have one. He's just a lovely guy and he's been extraordinarily kind to me.


*whine* I want a Brad Whitford!

I was maybe ten minutes into Charlie Wilson's War when I had the thought: This has Aaron Sorkin all over it. I was SO right.

I love Sorkin's work. I know a lot of people feel he's too smart for his own good, but I think his expertise about politics and ability to get inside the characters' heads really worked well. I would have to do some more reading to know exactly how much of the movie is conveyed truthfully to how it actually happened, but I know there is only so far you can go until it stops being good theater.

But the details begin to not matter so much, when you think about what the movie really means. For those of you who don't plan to see it (or just don't know about it), Charlie Wilson's War is based on real events and real people. Charlie Wilson is a former Congressman for the Texas 2nd. His district didn't have much to demand of him, so he was in a perfect position to earn favors and develop all the right connections to get something done when he needed to. He served in Congress during the latter part of the Cold War.

The movie takes place during the 1980's, when Afghanistan had been invaded by the Soviets. The danger of this invasion was brought to Wilson's (Tom Hanks) attention by rich activist Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), a determined CIA agent Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and a strategic visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is largely credited for leading the Appropriations Committee to lay down $1 billion worth of covert operations in the region.

I can see why this movie's been nominated for so many awards. It's not only clever and well done, but conveys an important message. Yes, the characters are complex and the acting is wonderful, the cinematography and costumes and sets are great...but that's not what it's about. It is as much about the US political process as it is about how we beat back the Soviets in the Mideast two decades ago.

It is about how Congress spent so much money to supply the Afghans anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry, trained them, gave them hope, genuinely sought to aid these ailing people in a humanitarian sense...and then refused to spend another $1 million to rebuild their schools, to provide infrastructure. The part of this that the movie leaves unsaid, of course, is that this lack of infrastructure is what caused the Afghanis to turn to the Taliban for help. And I think anyone who's been around much in the last 7 years understand where that went.

The movie ends with a quote from Wilson, "These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world. Then we fucked up the endgame." The US did a good thing in going to help Afghanistan back then. The Soviets were doing terrible things to them. With a bit more investment, we might have made an Arab ally in the mideast (one, I might point out, we sorely need at the moment). But the public largely didn't know the extent of the covert operation, and Congress wasn't willing to authorize another penny after the Soviets were out of the picture. The Taliban promised to educate the children - and at the time, something like 2/3 of the country's population was under the age of 14.

I think the film, by the nature of its story, portrays an unflattering portrait of the American legal process. Not that I would go so far as to say it is offensive or un-American. I really hope that no one reads that far into it...and if they are, I'd say it's a fair bet that it's due to Sorkin's reputation as a scumbag druggie Hollywood liberal. But I think the point of the movie is much more neutral in its political message: It may be easier in our minds to hit hard, and fast, and then leave everyone to do what they will...but it's not in their best interest, or in ours. The enemy of our enemy is only our friend if we make friendly gestures.

A person who is in any way insightful can't help but wonder what is in store for current US operations in the region. Yes, our country's actions of late have been far from covert, but the same basic principles still apply. After we pulled out of Afghanistan in 2001, the country was doing very well for a while, until they realized they lacked real economic support, and the Taliban came creeping back in. The same could happen in Iraq, whose citizens are less fond of us than even the Afghanis.

I think it's also true what the movie says about involving religion in a conflict of this type. The problem with having God on your side is that, inevitably, God will end up on BOTH sides. That is a dangerous game to play, and in the current global mentality shows few signs of moving away from it. All of this is a bit troubling, and I can only hope that the people who have all the influence, intelligence and resources are as aware of the danger...and wish they would make a self-sacrificing gesture and admit it.

==================

We also saw a preview for Valkyrie, a movie about the plot by Nazi officers on Hitler's life. Tom Cruise is playing the ringleader, Col. Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, to whom he bares more than a slight physical resemblance (which the real von Stauffenberg's family isn't terribly fond of, apparently XD).

Maybe I am just making this connection out of thin air because I've been writing FMA again, but if you read over the biography, you'll see that von Stauffenberg lost missing his left eye. That's the same eye Roy lost, and Roy also attempted to assassinate the Fuhrer. Differences in the details persist, but still... since I know for a fact that FMA is full of blatant Nazi Germany references (as well as Vietnam, WWI, Gulf War, Iraq, Iran-Contra, etc.), I can't help but make that little leap of logic.

Must suppress fandom. Must find stick to beat back fandom. Torches. Pichforks. EEK GONNA EAT ME~

No sleep tonight. Too many ideas. Must write.

When it comes to my fanfiction, I tend to find that what I get into is largely seasonal. Winter has come around, which means for the first time in about two years I've rediscovered my warm fuzzy spot for Roy/Riza.

Yes, a new fic. Much more angst than fluff this time around, but so far I'm liking it. The final product will probably be severely pared down. It's been a while since I've written R/R and I don't like fics for that series to get bogged down. On the other hand, maybe I will read over it later and decide that all the words fit too well to remove.

Hopefully the first few chapters will be fit to post in the near future.

I think part of this inspiration comes from the fact that my last R/R fic is still, 3 years later, being favorited on a frequency of about twice a month. Considering that it's posted on FFnet, I find that fricking amazing.

===================

In other news, Xmas was good. I have a large wad of cash/cash equivalents to squirrel away in my savings for NY and Europe this summer. I also have a few new video games and the 2nd book in the Greywalker series. I liked the first book enough to want to read the second, despite some stylistic agreements I have with the author. Definitely an interesting plot, though.

I'm seriously considering buying a new TV. The ancient tube one I have in my room is woefully inadequate for my loverly PS3, and it weighs a TON. I've wanted to be rid of it for a long time now. I'm shopping in the ~20" LCD range...they are getting so amazingly cheap.

My schedule today was as follows:

9:30: get up. Study for quiz.
10:30: take quiz (I think I got it ^_^)
11:30: food with Sally
12:30: To Benson to work on the roughly 4 assignments I have due in the next week.
12:30-18:30: work like a schizophrenic ADHD fourth-grader on aforementioned projects
18:30-19:30: bubble tea break
19:30-0:05: work more and get slightly more accomplished despite lack of caffeine.
0:15: get home. As I'm explaining aspects of the homework (due tomorrow at 10:30 am), I am looking past my friend to the two guys making out and grabbing each others' butts. My day has been one of distractions, let me tell you.

Sum total of hours spent in Benson: 10:35.
Academic items resolved: 6/11
Estimated hours of sleep tonight: not many.


I have a presentation and a test tomorrow, neither of which I am prepared for.

...I hate finals.

There is something very very strange going on this week, aside from all the homework shit (I have spent almost exactly 1/2 of my entire weekend--24 hours--in Benson doing Engineering), I seem to be having massive misfortune over my socks.

Yes, you heard me right. Four separate pairs of socks have been ruined in the last week. And by ruined, I mean damaged so severely that it would be not worth my time to repair them. Because I am a clothing minimalist, my entire stock of socks hovers between 8-10 pairs, depending on what I find under my bed.

It may be a combination of the damp, boots, and lots of walking back and forth across campus. Or it may simply be very bad luck. In any case it's ridiculous. I may be forced to wear crusty socks because there is no way in hell I'm doing laundry every 4 days while finals loom.

The really strange part is, I haven't LOST a single sock to the dryer monster. They just simply keep dissolving.

[Unknown LJ tag]: Hot water bottle--stays warm using the natural properties of water!
[Unknown LJ tag]: ...Please tell me it does not say that on the package. I think a part of my chemical engineer self just died a little.

I am not sure I have completely forgiven her for saying that...even though she was joking.