Kaleidoscope
(1-10 July 2002)
10 July 2002
-What an utterly disappointing & lame-o end to what was going to be the
most exciting All-Star Game I could remember! A 7-7 tie is NOT satisfactory,
despite what Tim McCarver or Bud Selig or any other of these jokers might have
you believe. There are no ties in baseball. & there's nothing
less worthwhile than watching a close game into extras end without resolution.
I have a secret hope every time I sit down to watch baseball that THIS
game will be the 30-inning monster that breaks all the records & ends with
high drama after pitched endless gaming. & while no one wants to see
Garcia vs. Padilla for 21 innings, letting another couple pass would be fine
with everyone, including Lou Pinella. C'mon, people, it's not just an
exhibition, it's a GAME! No one's going to take an All-Star Game seriously
in the future with a precedent like this. In a word, boo.
-I'm going to post all the booklists sent to me in the past day or so, but there's
one major thing I have to resolve with one of the lists first. So never
fear, I've gotten your lists if you've sent them lately. Should be updated
tonight.
-Dinner tonight with Gregor, Jo-Jo, & the Gard-dawg. These are folks
I feel I haven't seen in ages (& I miss), & I'm quite excited about
the prospect. Ariela & of course Em will also be there... fortunately,
I see them a lot.
-I can't believe that Nikki thought the TP&H concert was a month from tomorrow.
It's actually tomorrow.
-I made what I described as "THE breakthrough" on ADO last
night, so now I'm pumped to get back in the proverbial saddle. It's been
an all-but-wasted few weeks writing-wise, but this is all about to change. I
feel silly not thinking of this before.
-Gregor was a no-show, but the dinner was still a great time. Apparently
I hadn't told Gardy about the engagement yet, so there were even surprises!
& I took my jacket off for him to boot.
9 July 2002
-Got the new CC album a little late in the day, but still on the first day.
Quality, but sporadic... I think they're just having more fun than usual with this one. It's all about
"Hard Candy", "Miami", & "Up All Night".
-The SepDawg's back, but it's up to you to see if he's better than ever. Hard to tell
the future is. But he's posted his booklist, & that's gonna get added in a sec!
8 July 2002
-I'm so happy that four (4) more people submitted to the list! It's
starting to actually look respectable! Right now, as you can see, Hamlet
& The Catcher in the Rye are in a pitched struggle for the top spot. Also of great interest to me is that
no one's personal #1 picks have been submitted to ANY OTHER list. So, get yours in while the weather's hot!
-I
swear I'm actually going to be productive today.
-A good day, all told... went to various bookstores in Harvard Square
& came away with about 10 pounds of mostly used books. Excellent stuff, even though the Kia won't think so at the
month's end. I love used bookstores.
-The part I don't love about going to bookstores is that I get angry with the
world for all the crap they've published, especially in light of the fact that nothing I've written has been published
outside of a school lit-mag. This has it's good effects, though... I'm newly reinspired to finish American Dream
On by next week. Not gonna happen at all, but I'm so inspired, I might actually meet my October
quasi-deadline.
-After running into her at the Harvard Book Store, my Religion prof (Gutschow) from my last term at the
Deis is now my most-well-known (personally) professor. I've now had two (2) extensive conversations with her about
stuff beyond academics, beating out all other professors I knew in my college tenure. The opposite of high school &
kinda crazy.
-Do people know about pouring peroxide in ears to clear them out or is Em just making this up?!
-Hmph.
Bleh.
-My apologies to Julian for not posting his book picks earlier... this is the problem with having too many
e-mail account forwarding issues. I should simplify. But his picks are up now.
7 July 2002
-Yar! I remain triumphant in Trivial Pursuit, despite Lisha's &
Em's efforts to take me down with the vile Entertainment pink! We were stuck with the oldest Genus edition, which is
good for stuff like the Geography & Arts/Lit categories (absent in subsequent geni), but so horrible for the pink
questions. With one pie piece to go, I failed to answer 15+ straight pink questions correctly. Horrendous.
But I recovered. Good hanging out with the Lishster.
-New Counting Crows album & the All-Star game coming
up... very exciting.
6 July 2002
-Rough day in a lotta ways. I guess the world's trying to make me eat
my words about things being just fine. But they do work themselves out eventually, & I'm okay, I suppose.
Just a weird state right now. Bleh. But hey, at least we played some basketball today. Getting out
the energy of doing that is great, especially when I feel I get less tired as games go on.
-Kevin Grinberg is #2 onto the
Book List. Julian sent me an e-mail with one entry that I don't think counts as sufficient. Lots of people are
working on their lists round here, so get ready to send yours...
-Owen Meany's still #1, but 1984 is right
behind it after Andy Bragin submits. So far, all the contributors have weblogs of their own... interesting...
5 July 2002
-Hey everybody! Everything's going to be okay! It seems almost
everyone's having a bit of a hard time. I think this is real & universal, but no reason to despair. Puts
things in perspective though.
-Jenny is the first one in to the Book List. Why haven't you submitted yet?!
4 July 2002
-Tirrell/Stevens def. Clayton/Garin 1430-1240 (2-1). This was a
true heartbreaker. Ended on a five-spades redoubled bid, wherein I had a 50-50... if I led diamonds, we set them
(redoubled/vulnerable) & almost guarantee a win. Instead, I led clubs & we lost. Crudbuckets. Please note
that this is on revised scoring from my previous awarding of 1000 for a 2-0 rubber & 750 for a 2-1. Drew &
Luke report that it should be 750/500 instead.
-Clayton/Garin def. Stevens/Warner 990-0 (2-0). Lauren's brand-new
to the game. Unfortunately, her first bridge rubber lasted 2 hands.
-Check out the brand new
section! Please explore its contents & submit your 25 best books as soon as you can compile them! The
project is underway!
-Crazy e-mailing in real-time.
-Okay, that's it. Who wants STATLER & WALDORF DOLLS
so badly? Granted, I love the old fools up in the corner of the Muppet Show balcony. But people keep traveling
to the BP in search of stuffed Statler alongside stuffed Waldorf. This is me turning my pockets out, having no links
to such actual plush memorabilia. Now go tell me what your favorite 25 books are, Statler & Waldorf
fans.
-Good Lord, do I have a tough time with 4th of July. It seems like every year I'm the rain on the parade,
& tonight I just had to bow out of the parade entirely. I almost never withdraw from something because of a bad
mood, but so many have yelled at me in the past for not doing so, that I just couldn't take it tonight. & it
certainly wasn't just the celebrating-a-country-I-disrespect gambit. Not even mostly. I just can't deal with my
nightmares anymore & it's time to go back to not sleeping. It's time to be proactive. It's time to stop
being taken over by a mind that's adversarial & hostile towards me.
3 July 2002
-More Afghan content over at teppsystem. I know because I just put it
there. Also some family history stuff that almost surprises me, because my dad's opening up quite a bit. He's
still into privacy, I suppose, but I'm glad he's opening up on the web. Groovy.
-Also groovy is that Ariela FINally
brought the Blackadder videos!! Quality programming at its very finest. Why don't they make TV like that
anymore? & don't tell me they still do in Britain because I've seen what these videos advertise as the modern
equivalents... no dice.
-Lisha points out (accurately) that the Pledge I commented on earlier had few noble intentions
in adding the "under God" line. True enough, & it reminds me that what I don't actually like about that
line there is that it associates the US with God... a rather presumptious claim. Go listen to "With God On Our
Side" by Dylan. Then hang out with me this weekend. Then remember the lesson that I report on the June
Drought page... BACKUP EVERYTHING!
-I am crazily reliant on computers.
2 July 2002
-Em's very hyper.
-Yesterday was quite an errandy day, but nothing terribly
eventful happened. I dunno. Stina called & was grumpy (though she swears no one in CA knows she can get
grumpy, whether or not they think multidimensionally - ha!). But she expected me to have great crazy things to report
from 36-48 hours ago. Nope. Just gettin' stuff done so far.
-In other news (think of me as Steve Yuhan here,
reporting on search traffic), people really like my oldschool Book List. That's the
main thing they're coming to see on all BP traffic that isn't from people I know. This is inspiring me to revise my
booklist, or to do some sort of thing with that like the Dylan List. Everyone ready to
submit a top 100? Didn't think so. Maybe a top 25, like the Dylan. What are the odds than many books
repeat? I bet this would at least be a survey with wider appeal than the prior one, which hasn't been added to since
March.
1 July 2002
-It's July. Who let that happen? That's just
crazy-talk.
-Last night, Gris failed in his attempt to beat me in miniature golf, as Emily triumphed & Lily was 3
back. I was actually not embarassingly awful, which was a nice change for me in the minigolf world. More
importantly, the place we went to (in Littleton) was really quite nice... like the legendary minigolf places, but one you've
never actually been to. It had actually large items instead of a dinky plastic windmill. It also had about a
100,000 mosquitoes. Something about lots of stagnant water & light.
Introspection, My Worst
Friend* (Current)
Ye Olde Archive (Past)
The Blue Pyramid (Source)
Tell me this is not the end...*
*-lyrics from an as-yet unreleased song, "The Same Old
Frontiers",
by SWClayton.