"He spoke of a world in which people traveled in cars and rocket ships powered by music alone."

This is an interesting article.

Dale: 1, Dinoflagellates: 0.

Finally (to some extent) witnessed the dinoflagellate phenomenon last night. Math Rock and the Turtle took me down to a La Jolla Shores bonfire with some people they knew and I was able to witness the eerie blue-green glow on the crest of the waves. Dang, that's really cool. I imagine that if you were out further into the water and were swimming, it would be quite astounding, but nevertheless, the waves themselves were exceptionally sweet. Here's an example:



But this marked the nth day in the last few weeks that I've stayed out rather late. This, I think, needs to come to a conclusion rather quickly. I'm trying to get work done on my dissertation, and I find it rather difficult if I'm not in my standard routine. I'm a very routine oriented guy. Or so I've discovered about myself. Perhaps this is why people tend to get bored of me rather quickly. Happens all the time. I've gotta work on that, and quick. But the upshot is that I'm having a tough time getting work done on the D, and so I'm going to have to a) either learn how to work without having a set routine or b) get back into that routine. I think I'll have to end up doing the latter. I hope that doesn't make any individual persons bored of me.

I think I'm also a little tired of constantly being the oldest person in whatever group I'm hanging around with. Whenever anyone asks: "Who's the oldest here?", everybody points in my direction. Not that it matters in small group settings, but at large sized thingys (for me that's six people or more), it gets a little tiresome. I especially don't like it when people I don't even know start commenting on my age in relation to them. Where do they get off? I mean, it's fine if I know you. I don't worry about my age all that much (well, this current paragraph notwithstanding), but where the hell do you get off, stranger?

Don't you love reading whiny, complaint-ridden blog posts? There's more where this came from. And the next one might not even mention the dinoflagellates.

Does this sound inconsistent to anyone else?

1. We are fighting in Iraq because we wish to "take the fight to the enemy", so they attack us there, not at home.
2. We will stay in Iraq until the Iraqi security forces can adequately fight "the enemy".

But wait - if we're going to cut and run as soon as the Iraqi security forces can fight, we're no longer taking the fight to the enemy. The enemy is free to attack us on our shores. (Given, of course, that which the Bush Administration stresses, i.e., that most of the Iraqi insurgents are in fact foreign fighters, so would have no cause to come into contant with Iraqi security forces unless American soldiers were in Iraq.) If we really want to take the fight to the enemy, doesn't that mean staying in Iraq until the enemy is defeated? But that conflicts with 2.

Somethin' fishy is goin' on here.

She's got an old death kit she's been meaning to use.

A pox on Einstein's Bagels. The venerable breakfast/lunch establishment has gone over the line. They have stooped to the lowest levels of corporate malfeasance. Let me tell you a story.

My favorite item at said Bagel shop (which I only get on rare occasions because of its status qua ridiculously bad for you) is the bacon-and-cheddar bagel sandwich. NOTE, however, that such a sandwich is not on their menu. They do, however, have a bacon-and-cheddar EGG sandwhich, which I detest. Now, up to the unfortunate date in question, when I ordered my bacon-and-cheddar bagel sandwich, they would charge me for a bagel, plus cheddar, plus bacon. Completely rational! Totally accurate to my order! The whole she-bang came to something like $3. Anyway, a week-or-so ago I attempted to order my bacon-and-cheddar bagel sandwich, and they charged me for the bacon-and-cheddar EGG sandwich. I corrected their mistake (the egg sandwich comes to something like $4). Nevertheless, they told me that, though they had that option in the computers, and could ring me up in the totally rational, totally accurate way, it was new "company policy" to charge me for the egg sandwich, and then simply not give me the egg.

WHAT?!?! So, it's now company policy to charge me for things that I don't order? (Not to mention that what I was actually paying for was never displayed during this transaction, i.e., had I never had the experience of paying for the order rung up accurately, I would have never known I was being overcharged.) Damn! If you're not outraged, your not paying attention. I mean, I could understand if the only way they could ring me up for my order was by doing the egg sandwich, minus the egg. But that's NOT the only way they can ring it up! They totally CAN charge me correctly! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!! UNSCRUPULOUS!!! I can't do this by myself people. What difference can one man make in this crazy world? But if we band together, we can put an end to ridiculous bagel surcharges! Who's with me??

In other news, I watched Barry Lyndon last night. I'm still digesting it. It's a VERY long, sprawling film. VERY slow. It has some nice, typical Kubrick elements, however (Lord Bullington's walk into the club to demand satisfaction is straight out of The Shining). Nevertheless, I think I was a little disappointed. Though it was positively gorgeous, I was hoping for a little more than an exercise in creative cinematography. Oh well. Perhaps I might change my views after a few days of reflective consideration. In addition, I've been working on another song for a while now, and I'm once again hampered by the inability to write lyrics. I'm serious - if anyone has some good ones lying around that would work for a chorus in 7/4 at about quarter=160, lemme know. As it stands, however, I'm stuck on a verse that tells the story of a young American gentleman being bilked out of his rightfully earned breakfast. Somehow I'm thinking this is not universal enough for wide acceptance.

In ancient Rome there was a poem about a dog who found two bones.

Apparently, once a month Shakespeare's Pub in Mission Hills hosts a trivia night, and apparently, the team I was invited to join last night are absolute beasts when it comes to trivia. I think there were something like 36 questions and we got 31 right. I was proud to have contributed a few answers, one of which was the answer to: "Which James Bond movie did Tina Turner sing the song to?" Answer: Goldeneye. And I didn't know that as a result of playing endless hours of Goldeneye 007 on the N64. I actually knew that for legitimate reasons. Coincidentally, after I got home from trivia night, Goldeneye was on.

The one disturbing thing I found out last night was the sheer cost of cool concerts in San Diego this summer. I was pissed as hell at myself for not going to any concerts last summer, but not I'm recalling the reason I didn't. Tonight David Byrne is playing. Tickets: $55. Later this summer: Devo: $70. Mark Knopfler: $49. Street Scene: $65. Huey Lewis: $80. What the hell? I can't afford any of those shows. Ugh. The only shows I might be able to afford are those I'm only marginally interested in seeing. SUMBITCH!

Who calls the english teacher "daddy-o"?

Didn't make it to the game. People were pleading a) poverty, b) hangover, both of which are reasons I can respect. So instead I took a little jog down to the frisbee golf course and played myself a round. And despite being momentarily distracted when I picked up the score pencil, it was a nice round. I Shot a tidy 75, despite a very disappointing 6 on number 5. (And a 5 on number 9.) Frisbee golf is one of those activities I like to do in solitude sometimes. Unfortunately, this requires me attempting to avoid almost everyone on the course. Like nice, civilized people, everybody tries to be friendly and make casual conversation. Unlike most times, however, well, come to think of it, like most times, I really don't like trying to make casual conversation with strangers. So, through no fault of their own, they gain my general annoyance. Such is the plight of people attempting to be civilized while I'm attempting to play a solitary round of frisbee golf. C'est la frisbee golf.

I'm at Lestat's right now, which is this coffee shop I've mentioned before. This place is a real mixed bag. It could be the best coffee house on the western seaboard, but the clientele is a little bit sketchy sometimes. And they leave their front door open, so a steady waft of stale cigarette smoke filters in while I'm trying to enjoy my Boyland Bottleworks Brand (tm) Black Cherry Soda. In addition, I have no idea what they're playing over the stereo now. At first it sounded like some sort of Oingo Boingo song, but that's definitely not Danny Elfman on vocals, and now there's this chorus of kids joining the main dude. Hmm. Not sure I like this one. Oh wait, maybe it is Oingo Boingo. The next song is that "Hey!" song. Hmm. I stand corrected.

I'm a little nervous, I think, about moving into a place by myself. I have never, I repeat, never lived by myself. Ever. It was parents until college, then Klaus, then Kyra after college, then Kyra in Boston, then Kyra in San Diego, then my current roommate in San Diego. It'll be strange. I wonder if I'll get lonely. Signs point to 'yes'. I have a tendency to like to be social for mundane things like lunch and other such activities. Check for Depeche Mode references in the near future.

A bag of bones in his pocket.

Man, I want to go to the ballgame today. Tough part is finding somebody else to go. Going to ballgames by yourself is even more pathetic, I think, than going to movies by yourself. Ballgames are less completely engrossing. You're supposed to have conversations during ballgames. I really feel like a dog and a beer. And some baseball. Dang. Anybody wanna go?

I'm a' movin' on down.

To a deee-lux apartment in Normal Heights. It's a one bedroom, a little bit more than I can afford to pay (to the tune of $695 a month), but I've got a little money stashed away. Also it's only a six month lease, so if I decide that I can't afford to live there after all, I can jet after six. I have to be moved in by the seventh of July, which means I'll be paying about $900 in rent next month alone, but it should work out ok, all things considered. This just means I'm going to have to move much earlier than I anticipated (actually, I don't really have to move on the 7th, but I think I'd rather be out of my place sooner rather than later).

San Diego Apartment Hunt: Day 2!

Well, this apartment hunting thing is getting a little old already, and it's only been a day and a half. Yesterday, I was really excited about this studio in Mission Hills, the rent was a paltry $625, and the inviting voice on the message said that I was to "drive by" and call them after I saw the outside of the place. So I "drove by" and called them. Sometime between when I left campus and when I got to Mission Hills, the dang thing was rented. Screwed!

Then there was the second place I saw yesterday. It was the middle apartment in this line of bungalows in Bay Park. Now, from the sound of it, you might think this area is full of good things (views of the ocean, etc.) Well, the only wave-like sounds heard in this apartment would be the sound of the following three things moving in and out of phase: Interstate 5 (a paltry 30 yards away), Amtrak tracks (20 yards), Morena Blvd. (10 yards). Noisy place, no view. Actually, that's false. There is a view. It's a view of the Hilton, a hotel that actually has views. So not only do you not get to see the ocean, you get to see all those people who actually do get to see the ocean have lots of fun seeing it. Jerks. Anyway, this apartment itself was very nice. And the landlord dude was willing to wait until the middle of July. The only weird thing is that he refuses to prorate the rent from the middle of July. I can move in when I need to, but whenever I move in, a full month's rent is due, and that date (say, the 15th) becomes the date when my rent is due henceforth. So what the hell's the point of waiting until the middle of the month? I only get one paycheck per month, so it's not going to be any financial help to me to start in the middle rather than at the beginning. Either way, I'm paying $625 plus whatever I have to pay at my current place.

Then there's today.

I have another appointment in about a half-hour, but the last place I saw was a decent sized studio (actually, not that huge, if you ask me - contrary to the landlord's claims), but it was one of these "I have room in my basement for a studio apartment, and I may as well rent it out to somebody" kinda' deals. I'm not super comfortable with such an arrangement. It sort fo seems like just another way of having a roommate. PLUS it was more in rent per month than the Bay Park place AND it opened up RIGHT on the 805 freeway. Talk about noise. I think I'm going to pass on that one.

Frankly, this process is exhausting the hell out of me. I'm thinking of just taking the Bay Park place just to get the whole thing overwith. Sure, it's a crappy neighborhood, but the place is decent and it's moderately affordable. Ugh.

Well, it finally happened.

Finally, after a long year and a half of totally immature, boorish behavior; after completely ignoring the fact that he was the one who lacked power in the arrangement; after being warned several times by the person who had power in the arrangement, my roommate finally got us kicked out of our apartment. Kicked the hell out. Out on the street. Out on our ears. Well, not now, but thirty days from now.

Apparently (because I wasn't there, I was busy winning another couple of bucks off the poor saps in my bi-weekly poker game) it went down like this: roommate has friends (several) over to watch the basketball game. Friends and roommate proceed to create a ton of noise. During overtime the landlord bangs on the door and tells them to shut up. Roommate (willing to bet drunk/high) accuses him of being a hypocrite. Landlord gives him thirty days.

I suppose technically I'm free to stay. But I a) can't afford to live there without a roommate and b) as readers of this blog are well aware, would much rather be living on my own in some studio in some crappy part of town. So I'm going that route. I just can't believe it. This is the same stuff that nearly got him kicked out last time. He KNEW that the landlord gets pissed off when he screams at the top of his lungs during basketball games. He KNEW that the guy doesn't like to be argued with. How can you be so dumb? Ugh. This tops it.

It works out for me just fine, I hope. I'm going to get out of the lease. Presumably next month will be prorated. I just am flabbergasted at the shear irresponsibility of my roommate. Just can't believe it. Honestly can't believe it. He had every incentive in the world to keep our landlord happy. He wanted to leave at the end of the summer, leave for good. Now he has to find some sort of short-term temporary arrangement before he leaves town. Just astonished, am I.

Oh where, oh where am I going to live? Guess I should start combing the ads.

I said to my reflection, "Let's get out of this place!"

For some reason, a reading group of which I am a member decided to meet at 9am today, the first Friday of the first week of summer, to discuss some stuff on David Hume. Now, the discussion was enlightening and all that, and helped me further a few thoughts of my own on a Humean-inspired project I'm currently fussing about, but fer chrissakes, 9AM ON THE FIRST FRIDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF SUMMER?!?! Dang. I was wantin' to sleep in and all that.

Tonight I'm going over to the house where a friend is dogsitting to show a few people "Stop Making Sense" by the Talking Heads, just received from Netflix. It's gonna be fun a) because it's been a long time since I've seen that and b) it's a really really fun video. Dang you, Klaus, I even like the Tom Tom Club song. Classic moments include David Byrne singing perhaps the most honest, tender love song I've ever heard to a lamp, the Big Suit, etc. I'm planning on drinking a little bourbon and perhaps also shooting a little stick. It should be fun. Much of the gang will be there: the Turtle, Math Rock, Mrs. Robinson, maybe the Graduate.

My general mood today is a little weird. I had to do something yesterday that I knew was coming but was not particularly happy about. It's for the best, I'm sure, but in the meantime it sucks. Sorry for the crypticality, but you know, secret stuff and all that.

I'm currently trying to get a little dissertation work done before I head on over to the Turtle's place. I'm currently revising Chapter 2, which has my arguments against all other relevant philosophers. Problem is, I have to clear one hurdle at the very beginning, and I don't think what I have to say so far is particularly compelling. Nozick's position is just so damned implausible, it's hard to say anything compelling about it. I sound like I'm just dismissing it, which I shouldn't be. Ugh. I have one measly argument against his Wilt Chamberlain case, but so far I'm really grasping at straws. Perhaps inspiration will strike tomorrow. Or tonight after bourbon and stick.

She was right there with it.

Natural phenomena can be a serious disappointment sometimes. Take this week, for instance. On Tuesday, whilst at an end-of-the-year party for the grad students here, it was announced that San Diego County was under a tsunami warning for the rest of the night. And since this party was being held in an apartment complex aptly named the "Coast Apartments", it was a little freaky. A little, shall we say, freaky-deaky. Apparently there was a 7.0 magnitude quake off the coast of northern California, and since the waves have a tendency to move south-eastward from the north, we were facing a big tsunami-sandwich.

Nothing happened.

Which is good, I suppose. I mean, a tsunami killed all those people over in Indonesia not too long ago. But, I mean, nothing happened. It would have been cool to have seen at least something. Like, a few non-tsunami but nonetheless monster waves. Diddly.

Which, according to some, was a very good thing because they were planning on surfing that night because the dinoflaggellates were out. Now, if you're not familiar with these things, you're not alone. But apparently they're some sort of algae that creep in during the summer and that are naturally bioluminescent (like lightning bugs) and they cause this eerie weird blue light when disturbed. Apparently, when you're surfing, it looks like there's a neon blue streak trailing you in the water. So, naturally, I was interested to see these things.

Total disappointment.

I went yesterday night (Tuesday) down to the beach to see if I could see any strange blue lights going off with the waves. Bubkis. Goose-egg on the natural phenomena for Dale this week.

Until today.

I went to see Star Wars Three again today, which was enjoyable again. (Though I have more questions: it seems as though, after Star Wars Three, Vader is clearly the Number Two Guy in the Galactic Empire. But where the hell does Grand Moff Tarkin come from? I mean, he seems to be in charge of Darth Vader ["Vader, release him!"], so, I mean, is he some mystery man between the emperor and DV? If so, I would have liked a little more explanation.) In any event, during the first battle scene, I feel my seat a-rockin'. Nothing scandelous, I just thought it was the bass from the movie, or perhaps some jerk behind me kicking me. Then I learned that a 5.3 magnitude earthquake went off about two hours from here while I was in the movie. Very strange. It was a different sensation than the first time I was in an earthquake: the first one was slower, more dizzying, I felt like the bottom floor of the building I was in had turned to jello. Not this time; this time it was much more like you see in the movies: rapid, jostling. So I'm 1 for 3 on the cool natural stuff. Dang. I need to up that percentage somehow. Well, maybe not the tsunamis.

Let me hear you make decisions.

Sorry it's been so long. Grading and whatnot. But at long last, I am done with all of that malarky, and it's finally time to get my sweet-ass summer going with some extra-fine it-kicking. Actually, when all is said and done, it's not going to amount to much of a summer. I have to start teaching in August, and I have to try to get some dissertation work done before then. My only real free time is going to be in September. Hopefully Klaus will let me hang out at his place for a while, so it will seem like a bit of a vacation, but then school starts again at the end of that month. Wow. Where did the summer go?

There's a ton of stuff I want to do this summer. I want to start having movie nights again. I want to meet some new and interesting people, possibly in other cities. I want to avoid having to help my dad move in. I want to finish two, count 'em, two James Ellroy novels.

I also want to catch up on my Netflix. I feel like, in the beginning, I was just taking my queue as it came, you know, watching the movies that got sent to me. Now, I'm really micromanaging the top of my queue so I get sent the movies I feel like watching right then. That's the wrong way. I want to go back to the old way. And hopefully I'll be able to this summer.

I also learned that my roommate is going to be leaving the program. Too bad, say I, but that means he's also going to be leaving the apartment at some point. Which means I will be leaving the apartment at some point. Whew. I was beginning to feel a little wanderlust. I want to live in my own place with my own stuff and a cat. The cat thing is becoming something of a priority. I'm sure you're all aware of the sob story involved in giving my old kitty away, but I'm really intent on giving some cat a good home in the near future. That's a must. And besides, them sonsabitches are cute.

Also, I want to be visited by friends. So far I've lived in one of the top vacations spots in the country for three years and I've entertained one guest. I'm sure people have, you know, excuses and whatnot, but I'm a heckuva good host. So, you know, if you're taking that California trip, gimme a call. I'll get you drunk at Lancer's.

I get this feeling I'm in motion.

Why does Wild Mood Swings suck so bad?

I take it as given that it does. I mean, I'm not going to play that "yeah, sure, it's bad for the Cure, but 'bad for the Cure' is really good by the standards of any other band" game. That album sucks. It's crappy. No further inquiry on that point is required.

The question is: "Why?"

And it can't just be because 'the songs are worse'. That's obvious. It's also no more illuminating to say that 'the songwriting is not up to snuff'. That's just another way of saying that 'the songs are worse'. I mean, I could see what they were trying to do. They weren't going for an all-dark-all-introspective type work, a la Disintegration or Faith. Seems to me they were going for something along the lines of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me or Head on the Door. So that rules out one possible explanation for WMS's crappyness. It can't be because there's a mixture of upbeat, happy songs with the more prototypically Cure-esque tunes. Because KMKMKM and HOTD are all really quite good. 3KM competes for their best ever.

It also can't be because the upbeat tunes on WMS are more unadulteratedly happy than the songs on 3KM or HOTD. I mean, well all know that "Why Can't I Be You???" is not really a 'happy' song, after all. And the more upbeat songs on a lot of the other records, Wish for example, contain a hint of anger. Listen to "Doing the Unstuck": "It's a perfect day to throw back your head/and kiss it all good-bye". Even "Friday I'm in Love": "I don't care if Monday's black/Tuesday, Wednesday heart attack". Still melancholy. "Mint Car" and "Return", however, diverge from this. "The sun is up, I'm so happy I could scream/and there's nowhere else in the world I'd rather be", for fuck's sake! I mean, this is genuinely happy stuff! There could be a banjo playing the backing parts!

But that can't be the reason. Why? Because even the sad songs on WMS are shitty. (I use the terms 'happy and 'sad' with full awareness that they're not unproblematic categories; I take it that most people who have at least a passing awareness of the Cure's corpus know roughly which songs I'm talking about when I use those terms. "Just Like Heaven": happy. "100 Years": sad.) "Jupiter Crash", "This is a Lie" are both awful. The latter especially. Even the best song on the record, "Want" is not up to their standard album-openers, even the later ones like "Out of this World" and "Lost".

Perhaps a bit of history might help us. WMS was recorded right after a major personnel change: Boris Williams, Porl Thompson out; Roger O'Donnell, Jason Cooper in. Might we blame the newbies? Not so fast: Roger O'Donnell had a huge role to play on Disintegration, their best, by most people's reckoning (I'm not so sure about that, but it's definitely one of their best). And that lineup went on to recover nicely with Bloodflowers and their eponymous last record. I mean, the last two aren't quite up to W or D, but they're still rather good. In any event, the presence of O'Donnell and Cooper couldn't be the explanation. The Cure has endured many many lineup changes with compelling results.

I think, rather, the explanation lies with the songwriting on the record. Specifically, the songs lack the same boldness found on their classic records. The same reckless abandon, or whatever that means. You know what I'm talking about. There's a sense in "The Kiss" that the band might just run completely off the rails. That sense reappears throughout KMKMKM: "Hot! Hot! Hot!" anyone? That sense also comes back on W (Wish for those of you who haven't been following along with my abbreviation scheme). Not so on WMS. But how to put your finger on courage? How to quantify it? Listen to the songs on the record: many of them have almost exactly the same structure. The sound is also pared down. Here, I think, we can take a potshot at O'Donnell. On D, he uses sweeping pads, huge, layered keyboard voices. Not so on WMS: he uses either single voice instruments or noises that approximate classic keyboards (such as the Hammond B-3) without filling the spectrum in the same way he did on D. You might respond: yeah, but didn't W almost lose the keyboards completely? And that record certainly fills up the spectrum!

Here, I think, we should point to the absence of Porl Thompson. His guitar work on W does the same thing that the keyboards on D and KMKMKM do: they create a wall of sound that the band then uses and that Smith sort of wraps his vocals in, like a warm blanket. Lyrical missteps are excused, because the rhythm and sound of the vocals perfectly complement the sound of the backing voices. On WMS, if Smith has a slightly cheesy lyric, there isn't anything in the music to pick him up. Too much of the burden of making the song interesting lies with the lyrics. And that's the true anomaly - never before have Cure songs relied on the lyrics to create interest in the song. The lyrics are almost always very good, quite compelling. But they were always gravy. The music almost always is compelling enough on its own to carry the song with or without the lyrics.

And, let's face it, the lyrics on WMS are not up to this challenge. I don't have any other explanation for this other than their cheesiness, topics that are either cliched or uninteresting. Luckily this was a one time (or slightly more than one time) thing.

Why am I broaching this topic? Oh, I dunno. I came across the CD when I was loading my iPod the other night, and thought to myself: you know, I used to think this record sucked. Given my recent maturation and whatnot, maybe it's better than I remember. Nope. Still crappy. And that's too bad.

Put the tape on erase.

For all those looking for the next musical opus from yours truly, it should be up today or tomorrow. This one's called "Love in the Time of Mothra". The time is a bit weird: it alternates between bars of six and seven through the whole thing (it's roughly four minutes long). Anyway, once again, the words are a little sparse, due in major part to my steadfast inability to write lyrics of any use. Oh well. I shall submit for your approval. It'll be up on the Castrato page.

Tomorrow I'm going to stars 6 & 7 8 9.

I was going to post today about some extremely sad, depressing, disturbing news that I received on Friday. However, I decided that this is not the place to do so. I wouldn't mind if the readers of this thing included no one I actually know, but as that supposition is false, I should just say that, wow, Friday was a very weird night. Up late with relatives, drinking lots of wine, smoking cigars, talking about all sorts of sad, strange stuff.

This was after the graduate students put on a shameful display at the annual Faculty/Grad Student softball game. Actually, I'd say much of the shame rests on the shoulders of the faculty, who decided it would be well within the rules to bring in any former minor-leaguer they could get on the UCSD payroll. It's as if we were Cheer's and the faculty were Gary's Olde Towne Tavern. I think the score was something like 16-7 or something. Crappy in the extreme.

Grading time is upon me again. Thankfully I only have 8 or so portfolios for one class to go before I get hammered with 65 three-hour logic finals. Those will be crappy to grade, but probably not all that crappy; I really don't mind grading logic because it seems to go fairly quickly once I get going.

Music recommendation of the week: The Orb's "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld." This is a CD I've had for many many years but haven't listened to it in a great while. It's some seriously cool, good stuff. Ambiant, etc. If you're into that sort of thing.

I'm tired of the soup du jour!!

Running on-campus errands is one of those activities that can either be really invigorating, or really horrible and depressing. Consider my attempt to change a grading option for an independent study I was doing from letter-grade to s-u. First, I went to the registrar's office. They tell me to go to the Office of Graduate Studies and Research. I go to OGSR.

OGSR LADY:
I don't know what the registrar's tellin' ya'. I haven't changed a grading option in years!

I go back to the registrar's.

REGISTRAR LADY:
Naw, we don't do that here. Graduate students do that through OGSR.

Back to OGSR.

OGSR LADY:
Oh, you want to change the grading option!

That time really sucked. Today, however, I was able to get my errands run with only a modicum of frustration, that arising because I have to pay 65 bucks as an "advancement fee". That sucks. And then, when I finish my dissertation, I'm going to have to pay $119 as a "thesis filing fee". What the fuck! I had miscellaneous fees. Anyway, apart from that I was able to go to the registrar's, the cashier's office, OGSR, the bookstore, and the post office without anything going horribly wrong. And that's pretty good, considering I went to five whole places where I had to deal with UCSD employees. Something usually goes wrong one out of every three or so such circumstances. But not this time. Way to go.

O God, it's raining but I'm not complaining.

I was frazzled a little today. I had to get up and return my rental car, and then wait around at the rental car place until a dude from the fixit shop could come pick me up so I could pick my car up and drive off. I didn't get to campus until 11:15. Ugh. I figured out that my work is a lot like Homer and Marge Simpson's marriage. It's built on a solid foundation of routine. Interrupt that routine, add a sexily-voiced coworker (who sounds suspiciously like Michelle Pfieffer - or however the fuck you spell her last name), and things go haywire. So the trip to the fixit show this morning was my life's equivalent of Homer Simpson meeting that girl in that one episode where he sings the song about Marge bringing him a turkey. Hell of a life, what?

It's nice having my car back, though. I forget how nice it is when I have it. I think I really have a great relationship with my car. I mean, it's no Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell - or however the fuck you spell her last name - or anything, but it's a good relationship. It treats me right. It thought it would take a little getting used to going from the rental-car-automatic-transmission to the Dale's-car-manual, but it took off like nothing ever happened.

Another monumental event happened in my life in the past few days - I realized that for the first time in about three years I'm going to go to a rock and roll show this summer! WOOHOO! The Pixies, the White Stripes, and the Flaming Lips are playing in San Diego (along with a smattering of crappy bands) for a big festival in July, and I'm gonna go. Dammit. I'm gonna go. Future self, I'm telling you that you must obey the promise that I made to my present self. You must buy tickets to see this rock show. It's been so long since I've seen any kind of live rock and roll. It's pissing me off, actually. I missed the Urge Overkill show at the Casbah because I didn't know about it. I refuse to let that happen ever again. Rock and Roll, here I come.

Eh, maybe I'll just play Hungry Hungry Hippos.

I don't care if Monday's black.

I bought the big iPod. The 20-gigger. So far the coolest thing about it is going through and transferring all of my old CDs that I haven't listened to in a very long time. Wish, U.F.Orb, Songs of Faith and Devotion, etc. Again I was amazed at iTunes' remarkable ability to salvage nearly destroyed disks. Disk two of my two-disk U.F.Orb combo (the one with the 40-minute full length mix of "Blue Room") was totally unplayable. Perfect transfer. Sweetness.

The only real drawback is being that guy. You know the one. Walkin' along the street like a dipshit listening to his goddamn iPod. So I'm one of those dipshits now. Oh well. Stuff like that happens.

I also love the little game that comes with it, the music quiz. It plays you ten seconds of a song and you have to correctly identify it from a list of five. It gets a little hard, too. I missed a couple once.

Hmm. This is starting to sound like an Apple advertisement. And given my sworn obligation not to whore myself at the alter of corporate America, I now must balance with equal time.

SCREW iPOD!

Well, that wasn't exactly equal time. It was roughly equal to the equal time Fox News gives to the left-leaning folk. Perhaps I should adopt the following: Thosewhodig: Fair and Balanced Coverage of the Alter of Corporate America!

Maybe not. Ugh. I need to get back to work. Get back to work, self. Self, gets yo'self back to work.