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do it!

Don't know why I'm posting on this account since I am most definitely not a sophomore anymore. Passed tenth grade, thank you very much. Oh well.

But while you're here. Let me complain a bit.

School.. Garr.. How awful.
OK, I admit it's fun to see people again, after a summer of being a traveling recluse (from my friends anyway).
And I'm excited for some classes, i.e. English, Video Pro, Math, French. I'm kinda excited for Physics, but it might be just be hard and boring.
English - I love Chiarella, and I'm excited because... well... it's English. But a little worried about whether I'll do well.
Video - Mr. Castle seems chill. And I am really excited to learn about the other parts of movies--what goes into them and all the stuff normal people don't notice. You know?
My favorite Mr. Castle quotes from the past three days:
"Where do you draw the line between a broomstick and a stapler gun, and a broomstick-stapler gun?"
"You can spin around 359° in that chair, but the second you spin around 360°, you're out in the hall."
I'll keep you updated
Math - First time in my high school career that I've had a decent Math teacher. All of my previous ones haven't lasted longer than a year. And they don't leave 'cause they're scared of me.
(So hard to resist making references to the curse on the Defense against the Dark Arts job.)
And French because there's one French 4 class this year, so everyone taking French is in it. And I love them all.
And because there are TinTin books in that classroom!

In other school-related news, I'm dropping photography. My teachers sucks. I have a free 5th period! Whoohoo! Which, actually, I'd kinda like to fill. Who wants a free fifth? If anyone knows anybody who needs service students 5th period. Hah. I mean, other than my current teachers. Even if I love them, I'd rather not see them more than once a day...
And I have Mr. Price for US History, who's the best I could have asked for--if I absolutely have to take a History. He spends more than half his time on one tangent or another. Taking after my own heart.

"Students planing to major in English may wish to enroll in EN 120, and EN 220 Literature Seminar, which are field-specified...." -Boston University English Department.

Faculty planning on teaching students, may wish to proofread...

Had to share that little bit with you, because I love you all.
grammar police.. *cough*Alia*cough*

And I've been thinking about BU lately. (Despite the gross spelling errors... heheh.) It looks pretty nice. I love Boston. Except for Dunkin' Donuts. Lordy... Starbuck's suits me fine, thanks. Unless, of course there's a Peet's in the vicinity. Mmm... tastes almost as good as irony.

Guess I gotta get a new LJ name, now that I'm a junior, huh? Oh well...

No joke

Ever feel like you might actually get some work done? Running out of ways to procrastinate? Fear no more! Here is your personal guide to get you through finals! These are all tricks that have worked for me, so I can guarantee them for you!

A. Of course, post something useless and absurd on livejournal.

B. Read someone else's useless and absurd post on livejournal.

C. Practice typing your own name:
Sophie Hearn
Sophie Hearn
Sophie Hearn
Sophie Hearn
Sophie Hearn
Sophie Hearn
Sophie Hearn
... and so on.

D. Find some ice cream.
Damn, no ice cream.

Alternately, make s'mores!
No campfire? Me neither. Just use the stovetop. It works almost as well. As long as you don't mind carcinogenic marshmallows.

No chocolate? No problem! A convenient substitute is chocolate fondue. Mmm.. Melty.

E. Twiddle your thumbs!

G. Learn your alphabet better.

H. Get the ticks from off of your dogs. (If you have no dogs, you can always look for ticks on yourself.)

I. Start your summer homework before the school year's out.

J. Go to a friend's house for a "study" session with the intention of working hard, but knowing somewhere in the dark recesses of your mind that such a situation is entirely implausible.

K. Spend hours on the phone/text messaging people about how you are so stressed about studying.

L. Calculate the number of minutes until your Math exam. Then multiply by 60 to get seconds. (This way it looks like you have a reeeally long time to study before your final.)

M. Stare out at the Golden Gate bridge for a while. Remark on its beauty. Contrast it to the Richmond bridge which has no such beauty.

N. Pick at your fingernails.

O. kay I should really get off this thing and do my Chemistry.

I'm writing an essay on an old dead French fabulist. And the only enjoyment I get from it is the fact that I get to say fabulist every other word. I want to be a fabulist when I grow up--just like Aesop. Then people can say I'm a fabulous fabulist (because what other kind of fabulist would I be?). So this is fun.

I had a rockstar (which was really gross), a mocha, a cup of coffee, and two cups of tea. How late can I stay up? I'm shaking...

12:18 am. Let's tabulate. I'll keep this open tonight.

---

1:14 am

Alrighty. Still working my little butt off over here. But I'm fully caffeinated for another 2 hours at least.

And my brain is turning into escargots. That can't be good.

Am I a reed or an oak tree? Do I give a fuck?

---

2:28 am

I took a 10 minute nap. And woke up forty minutes later.

---

2:56 am

It's really hard to focus at this point. If I get at least a 50% though, I can make it out of the class with a B. So my goal isn't too high. And she's an easy grader.

---

3:40 am

Let's not go into how much I cried for the last French final, but this one may well be worse. I'm really beginning to hate Jean de la Fontaine. And not just cause he's ugly. But seriously, you should see this guy. When I have trouble trying to think of something to say, I go back to his wikipedia page and laugh at him to ease my pain. He may have been a bastard because he wrote this poem, but at least he had an excuse. (I'd attach a picture, but I can't figure out computer talk this late at night--you should look at his Wikipedia page.)

---

3:58 am

Another cup of tea.

Maybe I should put in three teabags. Would that add more caffeine? I can't even tell at this point. I wish I could make coffee, but the grinder's too loud for 3:58 am. Maybe I'll take it out to the backyard... Yeah!

---

4:12 am

Surprised I can still articulate? Me too.

---

4:23 am

Think I'll go to bed now. For an hour and a half. And then try to speak for 10 minutes straight tomorrow, which at this point would be hard enough to do in English.

-Only one word needed: dictionary; all-inclusive.
-Always in last place I looked.
-Sideliner morale, rarely steps to plate.
-Slight packrat tendencies. Developing habitual postponement.
-I do not conform at all. Refrigerator.
-Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis -- ha, mine's longer than yours.

-Work in progress, come back later.


-People watcher. Wonders if she's watched.


This was a terrible singles ad (sorry, I'm doing it in Applied Technology). I'll make a better one later. If I get around to it.

M, 35, looking for person.
Preferred body-type: non-descript. Age: any.

My interests include staring at the ground, sitting, standing.

My favorite flavor of ice cream is plain, as is my favorite flavor of yogurt, candy, soda, and pie. Although, really I don't eat much of those kinds of foods. Whenever possible I only eat bowls of plain white rice.

Must not mind being bored. Must be willing to sit and do nothing for long periods of time.

Turn-offs: Roller-coasters, sugar, adrenaline, television, music, loud noises and/or people, thinking extensively, bright colors, children, heat, cold.
Turn-ons: meditation, the color white, the Bible, well-trained cats, water.

Some of them aren't really paragraphs. Just things that pop into my head. But there's more than ten, so maybe that'll make up for their lack of length. Most of them were intended to be elaborated upon, but I got a bit lazy, so you get it straight from the brain--no emendations. Or... straight from the slightly illegible pen scribbled on my hand in a moment of... "genius..."


Still debating my stance on bumper stickers. In general, I like to have something to entertain me whilst driving (or being driven). Even if it is just to laugh at the amount of dumb ideas and/or slogans that people are willing to broadcast. For those I especially love the old Volkswagon vans that have four million bumper stickers sporting essentially the same concept in various amusing forms.
On the other hand, sometimes I just don't want someone's perspective shoved in my face. As Bernadette's grandpa said, "Opinions are like buttholes; everyone has them, and no one wants to hear about anyone else's."
Notice: Prius owners supposedly have many shared opinions with the Volkswagon owners, being that they are generally both left-wingers and/or hippies. And yet the rear ends of Prius' remain suspiciously sticker-free. More evidence supporting the theory that Prius owners buy Prius' simply so that they can be a Prius owner. Or perhaps to use the carpool lane in Prius' earlier days.

According to the CIA Factbook, Swaziland's life expectancy is 31.84 years. That means that if John McCain lived in Swaziland, he would statistically be dead--twice.
John McCain is so old, when he was in school, there was no history class. John McCain is so old, he's got an autographed bible. John McCain is so old, his social security number is 1.
(Note: not his real social security number... Don't get me in trouble here.)

I don't understand why anyone would not be afraid of heights. Let me explain my fear with some sound syllogistic reasoning:
If you are hundreds of feet in the air, there is a big enough chance you could fall--especially if you are inhumanly clumsy, which I am. Falling hundreds of feet is usually fatal, unless you're a cat, which I'm not. Dying, as a rule, is not generally a desirable outcome. Ergo, one is well-advised to fear heights.

Sequel to the Kama Sutra -- Your Child and You.
(Note: not Karma Sutra. Witty, though.)

Just think of those poor saps who got their degrees in biology right before Watson and Crick figured out the structure of DNA.

One of the benefits of living by yourself is that you can eat straight out of the Ben and Jerry's container and no one cares. Even better, you can pick out all the pieces of chocolate chip cookie dough, and leave the rest. Ideally one would find a partner who likes the rest of the ice cream without the cookie dough. Or one who will eat the mushrooms and pepperoni off the Supreme pizza. When I'm feeling particularly shiftless, I don't bother asking for no mushrooms or pepperoni, which means I have to give those to my dog.
(Hmm... that was not intended to be a double negative, but I still feel guilty somehow...)

Do exceptionally talented spam-subject-line authors get paid well for their work? Or do they just do it for the love of the game?
Shall I elaborate? Example:
Would one get paid more for: "Warning: Your Vanguard account may have been hacked"
Rather than: "FLAVa FlAv just SEnT U A MilLiOn BucKZ!!!!"
My heart says yes, but my intuition says no.

I'll take this opportunity to express my loathing for the TeEnAgE GiRl WrItInG ThAt DoEs ThIs. There are much better and less annoying ways to demonstrate your ignorance. Also, it's a waste of time to keep hitting the shift key.

Speaking of ignorance, are Dove chocolate and Dove soap the same thing? I've always been baffled. If so, why would someone make both chocolate and soap? And if not, then why doesn't one sue the pants off the other to prevent this confusion.

Tennis is such a friendly sport. You still get love when you haven't scored any points.

My brother works as a waiter for the Sizzler on San Pablo. With the help of an employee discount, he routinely brings me home free food of slightly questionable quality.
I'm very grateful, but I only wish he'd applied at Zachary's or In-n-Out.

When someone says "I think you had to be there..." it usually involves a story that wasn't funny in the first place.

Similarly, there is usually an aboundingly clear reason why deleted scenes in movies end up on the cutting room floor. After watching several of those this weekend with my brothers, I have no choice but to conclude that only crazy people would buy a DVD for the outtakes. When I buy a DVD, I buy it for the movie, not the commentary or the special features. Commentary sucks because you can't pay attention to the movie. You'd have to watch it twice in a row: once to watch the movie, and once to listen to the commentary. Lame.

Do kids nowadays email their letters to Santa?

Sometimes I just make up adverbs. Aboundingly. Add -ly to an adjective or participle and voilà! Aboundingly should be an adverb, but I'll trust Oxford on this one.

How do women get around in high heels on cobble-stone streets without destroying their ankles?
Almost every European city I’ve visited has some cobble-stones and almost all the women are in high heels. It's bewildering. I suspect there are high-heels-on-cobble-stones training camps all over Europe.

When talking about your homework in past tense, do you say you bullshat it or bullshitted it? Sounds awkward either way, but often it has to be said.

Dear Peanut Butter Jelly Bellies,
No one likes you. Please die.
I hate grabbing a handful of Jelly Bellies and finding out too late that there was a peanut butter one hidden within. It ruins the entire mouthful. They should just stop making them all together. It's all about watermelon and buttered popcorn.

On that note, since everyone loves irregular plurals, how would one pluralize Jelly Belly? Have they trademarked Jelly Bellies as well, or is it one of those apostrophe ones (Jelly Belly's) to preserve the intellectual property?

Why is it that every narrator is either a Brit or an Aussie? I admit their voices are sexy, but is there any kind of lucrative business for a young American aspiring to narrate for an informative and slightly dull television show?

If you have been, are, or ever intend to be on Team Karen, I don't want to be friends anymore.

My brother used to own some lizards that he kept in a cage and fed with crickets. Back then all our awkward silences were conveniently filled with that all-too-clichéd chirping noise.

Running in laps around the gym in P.E., I have plenty of time to think about the inaneness of what we are doing. What if we harvested all the energy that is being put forth by the students? We could stick them in hamster wheels. (We're already running in circles--just... you know, tilt them.) Then hook up the wheels so that they collect energy when they spin. By instituting this new system in high schools across the country, we could save millions on electricity.
And as an added bonus, particularly green (by which I mean eco-friendly) students may feel more motivated to run in class.
I propose we adopt this new system beginning next year, when I will no longer be taking P.E.

Life in the fast lane implies a way of living which is full of excitement, activity, and danger. But as I remember it, our fast lane on the highway is a carpool lane, meaning you've got to have 3 or more people in the car with you. A carpool is more like you driving your kids and their friends to and from soccer practice. Life in the fast lane = soccer mom? We should revise either the idiom, or our highway system.

Will teens evolve to have stronger backs if teachers keep making them carry heavy books? Like a co-evolution thing...
Or will we just design better backpacks?
And don't give me any shit about rolling backpacks... In my book those things don't exist.

Anyone else ever use a vacuum as an alternative when you're in dire need of a lint brush?

I'm a humanitarian. I recycle on a regular (enough) basis. I turn out the lights when I leave the house. I feel empathy for people in third world countries. And I have for many years devoted myself to community service, by which I mean that I sometimes buy "Street Spirit."

I stated some time ago that chocolate was the one thing that could possibly outrank cheese. Recent events have made me reevaluate and possibly alter my position.
Exhibit A: I just found a box of Russell Stover that was given to my brother a month ago. It still had most of the chocolate in it, and it was shoved in a corner next to the microwave. Russell Stover is for wusses, and I detest Russell Stover, whoever he is. I must admit, I shouldn't judge all chocolate based on this. I'm sure there is an equivalent in the cheese industry.
(Kraft? After some amount of processing, I don't think that even counts as cheese anymore...)
Exhibit B: I just had some really amazing cheese and baguettes. I don't even know what it was called, though I should. Something foreign that I wouldn't ever be able to spell, let alone pronounce.
So I guess I'm back to neutral on the cheese v. chocolate.

You know what's annoying? When they say on a package:
Serving Size: one serving
Servings per container: about 11
Then you have to mentally divide up the package into about 11 pieces, and it's just not worth it any more. Then you go ahead and eat it, not bothering with the fact that you just ate 1200 calories in one sitting.

Other annoying things include those foil muffin cups.
Firstly, paper cups are better because they're more fun.
Secondly, in a package of foil cups, they put paper separators between each of the foil ones. And you can't use the paper separators to make cupcakes, or you will be in big trouble. But they look just like the actual paper cups.

There are those bookstores that will take your used books in exchange for new used books. But sometimes it's a hassle to get down to the bookstore and such. Well, I tend to acquire lots of books somehow, although I don't buy them. I don't know how... And no one in my family will fess up. So I read the books, and then I don't know what to do with them because I didn't want them enough to buy them in the first place. But I'm a fairly lazy person, and I don't want to schlep all the way to the bookstore to pass them along.
I suggest we set up a system where people leave their used books on BART, or other public transportation like buses, airplanes, etc. Then someone else will come along and find a book that they've never read. Hopefully they, in turn, will leave another book at some point. Or possibly the same book. Free place to dump your old junk and pick up new junk. And you'll never be bored on BART again. They'll always be a book or two lying about.
Ha, sounds like next year's FLI project in the making... psht not...

Ever been to one of those airports where the police all ride Segways? Anyone looks dumb on a Segway, but the cops look especially stupid because they're all full of themselves. Like some weird sci-fi movie, and you really want to laugh, but you can't because they're cops, after all. And you can't help but wonder how they would manage to catch someone who might be running from them. Do they just jump off the Segway and run as well?
(And I keep wanting to call it a Segue for some reason...)

Those damned elitist bastards. At Krispy Kreme and Taco Bell you can't go through the drive-through without a car, which seems logical enough. After all it is a drive-through But the fact is that the drive-through stays open all night, and the store closes much earlier. They are denying donuts and tacos to all those people who don't happen to have a car, but who still want tacos and donuts at 3:00am. If someone doesn't have money for a car, is it really fair to say they can't buy midnight donuts.

When I was a little kid I always wanted to be a competitive eater. Who could ask for a better job? You get free food and people applaud if you eat it. I eat all the time--imagine if I got PAID for it... And applauded. But I don't think my stomach could handle it. Are there trainers, like in other sports? (Does it sound bad to call it a sport?)

Nachos, I believe, are one of the few foods that are oh-so-very-difficult to multitask while eating. They demand your full attention. And not only that, you want to give it to them.
(ps. sorry, Ross, about the guacamole on my Things Fall Apart...)

I get full bitching rights for at least a couple of lines. My mum took away my TV! I'm so sad.. But I would be okay(-ish) with that... I don't care that much about TV. She took away Netflix, too! Man, how am I supposed to function in a modern world? I wont have any idea whatthe hell anyone is talking about. I've been trying to subsist on you-tube,but the little fuzzy box just doesn't do justice to anything.
So I went to my dad's to catch up on my Tivo, and apparently the living room now belongs to my brother's xBox. Goddam it. And ths was what was on Tivo:


"This antique pie pan was passed down from three generations of avid pie makers. It's rather rusty and covered with cherry goo, because I heard cleaning antiques decreases their value. We've had it for 63 years without cleaning it once. How much do you think it's worth?"
"Well," responds a grey-haired man, thoughtfully staring at the pan, "This piece was made in 13th century Greece, and if you flip it over, you will see it has the inscription, roughly translated, 'put pie in me.' This is a very common saying during this time period, and denotes a very fine pie-pan maker. As it turns out, it is actually made of a high quality platinum, which adds a slight change in the price. I would say that at auction, this piece would be valued at 780,000 dollars."

Cheesy sparkles fly across the screen, and another pair ofpeople appears.
"This was my father's sock collection," explains the girl. "He spent his life collecting socks. I've kept them for as long as I could, but really this is just getting ridiculous. How much could I get for this antique sock collection? My dad always said that King Leopold of Belgium wore this one," she went on, holding up a tattered blue sock, "but it's twin was lost in World War I."
"I'm not sure what your father really meant by 'antique.' Many of these socks are in their original packaging, making them in mintcondition. Unfortunately, you'll notice that on the back they say 'Made in China - 1992.' I don't think they're worth more than one or two dollars a piece. You should probably just give them to the thrift store."."
"Oh," the girl says, crestfallen. "Well, that makes sense... He was a bit senile at the end there."

"My grandmother had this painting in her house. It was the only thing she ever loved. She treasured it more than life itself, and when she died, she left it to me. It doesn't really fit with my decor, so . . . how much do you think I can sell it for?"
After a moment of thought, he responds, "Maybe... $100 dollars. . . But that's mostly just the frame. Sorry, who did you say was the painter? Thatmight change the value, but I can't read the name..."
"Oh, my grandmother paintedit."

A woman holding a fine glass bowl asks the specialist "Could you tell me a price value, perhaps?"
"Do you have a loose estimate?"
"I'm somewhat experienced in this type of thing," the woman responds, looking down at her bowl. "I would guess maybe $5,000, but really, you're the master."
After several minutes of hemming and hawing, the antiques specialist replies, "That's probably 80-90 thousand dollars."
The woman's jaw drops, and she loses her grip on the bowl, smashing it to pieces.

A young couple sits at a table across from a man. Betweenthem is a finely decorated urn.
"I think we might be talking four to five figures here," says the man. "Let's just check the date on the bottom of it." He takes it and flips it upside down. As he does, ashes spill between his fingers and trickle onto the ground.
The husband looks forlornly at ashes scattered across the blue carpet. His wife next to him pipes up: "Oh that's all right. We never likedthat uncle much anyhow, did we honey? Now, you were saying? Five figures?" She turns to her husband. "Did you hear that, hun? Maybe Old Uncle Ed will finally do us some good."

"Well," says a man standing in line, "They said we could take this 'fine pitcher' back to our hotel room and use it as an icebowl. This thing's worth less than our lunch today."

"This is my antique camera collection," a young man says to the antique dealer.
"Oh yes. Look at--"
"I don't know how much it's worth but I have a general, ballpark idea."
"Okay. Well let's--"
"First of all, this Nikon is old, but it's in great condition. If you consider the model type and the year it was made, I think it could be almost $5,000."
"Well you're getting clos--"
"This next one is my personal camera that I used to use, but it's still in good shape. This one was passed on by my grandfather. I think it's worthprobably $7,000."
"You're still not quite--"
"And this third one is my favorite. It was actually used to take a picture of--"
"You know what? If you want to record 20 minutes of yourself talking to the TV about your goddam cameras, go use YouTube. That's not what this show is for!"

"I'm a bit of a Harry Potter nerd. I've been collecting all the books. I doubt this one is worth much," said the woman pickingup a bookfrom the top of the stack. "It's really old--from the first year it was out. It would be in mint condition except there's all this writing from the author in the front cover. I'm sure that decreases the value a bit. And besides, it's not even the American copy, which is a bit embarrassing to be honest.I didn't even bother reading it after I bought it. Luckily last year I bought the whole American set from Barnes and Noble."


Okay, so I don't know how many people actually watch The Antiques Roadshow . . . But that was my satire.

---Oh, she's sick. My neighbor's dogsitter's son's friend saw her in the hospital yesterday.


When we were kids, we used to have days like this. One a year, picked at our discretion. My parents called them “Abracadabra Day." We could skip school and do anything we wanted (within financial reason). I should mention that out of all the possible things we could do, we usually stayed at home, ate junk food, and watched Indiana Jones. My hypothetical day is about to be a lot different. I hope.
My ideal day off would likely be spontaneous. The problem is, it's a little hard to plan spontaneity. So I guess we'll just go with it.
I wake up and stumble toward the kitchen. My mum's already left for work. She's in Davis and wont be back until 6:00 or 6:30 due to meetings. So says the note on the fridge. Lying on the counter is my unfinished essay that's due 4th period. I think about the day ahead and contemplate whether school is really worth it. I've already taught myself the math from the book. (Not that my math teacher could possibly teach me anything anyway.) Not to mention that French quiz.
I conclude that it is definitely better not to go, and I manage to convince myself that my mum would have let me stay home... But I don't call her. (I don't want to bother her, you know?) Having settled my guilty conscience, I decide to have some fun.
My brother Ernest is still at home, asleep. He's only been home for a few hours. Late night, I guess. I try shaking him and yelling in his ear. When that doesn't stir him, I pull out my trusty supersoaker and squirt him in the back of the head. He grunts and whirls around. His eyes wide, he aims an open palm at my face. I dodge and step back, knowing he can't quite reach me in his groggy state.
“Wanna be my chauffeur?” I ask cheerfully jingling his keys.
Confused, he peers at me through blood-shot eyes. I hold out two twenty dollar bills and his face lights up. Suddenly he's not angry with me anymore. We settle on a deal. He'll drive me for free if I pay for gas and food, and as long as I get him back in time for his class at the community college. I know this will be risky, considering the amount of food he eats, but I agree. I hop into his Lincoln Mark VII and we head out to get crêpes and bubble tea, making a wide arc around the school to avoid Mr. Barone and his trademark x-ray rainbow glasses that can spot a truant from a mile away.
After a peaceful walk around the block, we decide that we need to make the day more extravagant. We call up my uncle who lives in Marin, and ask him if he'll sail us around the bay.
He sounds dismayed on the phone as he says, “I'd love to, but the boat's being fixed.”
We thank him and make to hang up when he stops us. “Wait. I've just gotten my pilot's license. Would you like me to take you in the plane instead?”
We quickly agree. “Promise not to tell our parents, though?” Ernest asks.
He laughs heartily. “Well, if you promise you wont tell on me. I'd probably get in more trouble than you.”
We wait for him on the landing strip at the airport and share a bag of Jelly Bellys while discussing if it's really safe to fly with Uncle John so soon after he's received his license. (This being, of course, the same John that drove around on a dirt road in the rain, with both of us on the roof.)
He arrives and we jump into the little plane. Ernest calls shotgun, so I hop in the back.
We're far in the air before he asks if I've got my seatbelt on. I look incredulously at the back of his head. Does he think I would get into a plane with him without a seatbelt? Now my mind begins to drift and I wonder how much safety a seatbelt would really provide if we were plummeting toward the earth.
A loop-de-loop quickly spins these thoughts from my mind and almost makes me throw up. Ernest laughs at me, so I throw a Jelly Belly at him.
Uncle John eventually lands the plane. He flies back across the bay after saying goodbye. Ernest has to get to his class, so he drops me at Peet's for a cup of joe and a scone (yeah, that's right. I said it. Scones are awesome. Don't deny it.)
I'm contemplating how to ambush my friends and get them to join me. I'm sure as hell not spending my day off by myself. It shouldn't be too hard. If I can't cajole them into it, I'll have to put a bag over their heads during passing period and kidnap them. They'll forgive me once they're out of there.
After some finagling and skillful maneuvers, they find themselves outside the 7-11 with no idea how they got there. I just go along with it and pretend I don't know how I got there either. We all stand around and drink Slurpees for a bit, more than slightly bored and increasingly sugar-high. No one wants to return to school, but no one has any brilliant plans, especially without any transportation. (The BART is far too difficult to walk to on a stomach full to the brim with flavored ice.) We think about stealing a car, and then remember that we are supposed to be 80% realistic.
Finally, finally, Ernest is done with his class. He calls me back on my cellphone (which is magically not broken for today.) We all pile into the car and he drives away without asking where we're going. I'm thankful, because I have no idea. We end up a few blocks away, stopped in front of a house I have never seen. I'm confused but don't question him. He slams the door, and within a few seconds he's beckoning to me from the stoop. I follow his lead, leaving my friends staring at us from the car. A few minutes and several thank-yous later we return with a box of fireworks bought in Utah by one of Ernest's friends.
We drive to the pier with the box rattling around in the back. It's getting a bit dark, so we set up a barbecue and roast some shish-kabobs. It's past seven now, and Mum said she'd be home. We figure we'd better finish up or she'll be worried (and/or furious). We set off the fireworks and have our own mini show with plenty of OOHs and AAHs from ourselves and passersby.
As fate would have it, some dickhead calls the police, so we have to hurry away. We pass the cop-car as it races down the road to find the source of our illegal pyrotechnics. (Yeah, we magically know they're coming. Don't mess with my logic today. It's impeccable.)



And of course I go to school the next day with a folded note.

I think, unfortunately, mine was among the blog suggestions in the pile for this prompt. I really, really don't want to do it. I guess I was feeling particularly un-creative that day, and I thoroughly regret it if mine helped to tip it. Why didn't I write something like... "Describe in detail your favorite plant" or "Debate: Peet's or Starbuck's?" or something else that never would have been chosen.
Bah. Humbug. I don't know what I want to do with my life. Isn't this the part where the counselor says, "What would you do if you had a million dollars?" and all the smart people say they'd invest, all the nice people say they'd give it away, and all the honest people say they'd spend it.
Yeah, so I don't even know what I'd do with a million dollars. I'd buy a house I guess. With a picket fence. Just because I could. Why not the picket fence? I'd buy the whole library, so I wouldn't have to sweat about getting books back, or late fees. And I'd buy the video store, too. And I'd buy a reeally comfy, humongous bed. But I'd definitely still have some kind of job for fun and to give structure to my life so I don't become a lazy bum.
I don't think our counselors ask that anymore. Maybe some student thought it implied that they were giving away a million dollars...

I don't really know what I want from life. I guess until I find some goals or passions, I'm just along for the ride. I don't really fantasize about ideal stuff because it just pisses me off.

I want to work at home I guess. So I can be near the kettle at all times. (Tea is vital to happiness.) I want a job where you can stay in your pajamas until noon. Then when you have insomnia, you can wake up at 2 in the morning and do more work!
I guess, since this is ideal, I'd probably do something creative. Or maybe write logic puzzles! Like Will Shortz.
I think I'd like to have kids someday. Probably. And they can't be assholes or I'm throwing them back.
I would definitely not, no matter what, be famous. Or have a job having to do with being in front of people. Ever. Even being a tour guide would make me cry. It would have to be in someplace no one ever goes to--like North Dakota.

I want to live someplace where it changes weather according to the season. I mean, I love the weather here, but I wish we had definitive winter, spring, summer, and fall. And preferably live where they speak English. Or a language I can learn quickly. Or maybe Ecuador. I've always liked Ecuador. And they have cool food.
I hope I don't die before I'm.... I dunno... 40 at least.
I hope some interesting things happen. (I know that's vague, but I'm not asking for a birthday present here.)
I hate mundane and pointless things. [like this blog?] As long as there is some purpose somewhere in my life, I'll be okay. (scratch North Dakota, then...)

[But of course it's a pipe!]

La Trahison des Images
[The Treachery of Images]

I always kind of space out in the direction of this picture during class. (That and the creepy guy who says "children are tasty.") I guess I like it because it cleverly challenges your perception while still being completely logical. It still sort of confuses me, but it's easier to organize my brain when I figure things out writing about them. So bear with me while I try to make something coherent from bits and pieces of my thoughts.

When I first saw it I thought That is clearly a pipe. What else could it be?
Then I realized the caption was right! Surprise, surprise. I tilted my head to the left, and I saw a dancing old man!

No, not really. Not at all. Feel free to stare at it all day long... You wont see a dancing man, and you wont see a pipe. (Unless you happen to see your grandpa in the other room doing a crazy little jig and taking a smoke.)

What you see is not a pipe; it's a picture of a pipe.

Actually the reason I picked this was because it reminded me of something someone said to me a while ago. They said "the word 'dog' doesn't bite." I thought it was one of those sayings people use to try to sound smart, and that make sense, but at the same time don't really make much sense. But now I understand better. It shows the difference between words and actual things, just like the picture shows the difference between images and actual things. The witty little Belgian dude himself said you can't stuff tobacco in it.
Or maybe Magritte was just getting pissed off at all the people saying that his work wasn't realistic because he was a surrealist. Maybe he wanted to show that no matter how closely we can come to realistically portraying something in a painting, we can never catch the item itself.

Do you hear what I'm saying?
If you do, check your ears, because I haven't said anything...

   It's like... Currency. All there is behind it is the belief that it is worth something. Way back when we used bartering, like "I'll give you my chicken if you give me that burrito." Then we used coins made of precious metals and stuff. Those were real, tangible things that were actually worth something. But now you give the guy 5 little pieces of paper and he gives you a burrito. The only reason he accepts this as payment is because he believes that it's worth something too.
The only reason we think this is a pipe is the belief that it represents a pipe and the belief that there is some substance behind it. But the painting can never replace the object itself because you can't smoke a picture of a pipe. (Shut up you logicians. I know you can.)
(Okay, that was a terrible analogy. Like all my analogies.)

  You see that picture and think "pipe." But why? Our past experiences are the only things that make us assume that this is a pipe. A child who doesn't know any better might surmise that it is a toy. (And let's face it, nowadays who the hell smokes a pipe? Maybe if you gave them a picture of a TV and said "this is not a TV" you'd get a better reaction...)
We base all of our perceptions off of our previous knowledge of the world and prejudgment which we have accumulated over our lifetimes. [schema!] We know certain things are good and bad, and certain things are pipes and some are dancing old men, but we only learn these things through repetition. When we're kids, they show us a flashcard depicting an insect and say "this is a butterfly." We soon accept that it is almost as much a butterfly as the one on the flower outside, about which they say the same thing.

So what makes a pipe a pipe? The way it looks, or the fact that one could smoke with it? The fact that we say it is one? But we could say that a lamp was a pipe. Would that make it so? The word "pipe" is just a random composite of letters equated with an object. Even a pipe that you can hold in your hands is not a pipe; we just call it a pipe.
Conveniently enough, they use the same four arbitrary letters in French as well as in English so this didn't get more confusing than it already was with my poor analytical skills.

Or--another brilliant idea--Maybe it's a piece of chocolate wrapped in pipe-looking foil!

Dang that wasn't really very coherent. Oh well, I don't want to fix anything because I'm lazy.

      Before I started school and into preschool, I was dressed entirely from the thrift shop. My mum wasn't cheap or poor or anything. She just liked shopping there. I didn't mind. I ripped holes in everything regardless of which store it came from or how expensive it was. If I didn't like it much, it might mysteriously acquire bigger holes much more quickly. My clothes were cute enough, but usually that was unrecognizable beneath the dirt, chocolate, popsicle juice, and anything else that came into contact with my grubby little hands.
      I was an easygoing kid, and I only remember one time when I absolutely refused to wear something. It was a pair of plaid shorts. I don't remember them as being all that ugly, but it's more than likely that I was just exercising my four-year-old independence. My mum eventually forced me into them by telling me that I was going to school naked if I didn't wear them. She used that threat whenever I took too long to get ready in the morning. She still does sometimes.
      First through third grade I mainly dressed in my school outfit. I went to a Christian private school for some reason. My parents aren't religious at all, but they felt the need to send me there. My school uniform was a white or navy blue tee-shirt or button-down (tucked in) and a plaid skirt with optional leggings or tights. On cold days girls were allowed to wear khaki pants like the guys. (I don't remember what the minimum temperature for a "cold day" was, but I remember thinking it should have been higher.)
      That was almost all that was in my wardrobe for those three years except on the weekends when I put on my soccer outfit for games/practice and when I delved into the dress-up bin to be a witch or a princess.
      My hair was a mess when I was little. It still is sometimes, but back then it was terrible. One day I got so fed up with it that I cut it off. Not shaved it with a razor or anything, just went at it with a pair of those scissors with the rounded tips. I wasn't trying to make myself look better, and I certainly didn't achieve that. It reminded me of the haircuts that little girls give to their Barbie dolls, the kind I might have given to my Barbie dolls, had they not been decapitated and shot into the Eucalyptus tree within hours of the box being opened. (kind of reminding myself of Claudia here . . .)
      Before I moved to the Bay Area, I had the preconceived notion that everyone in Berkeley wore tie-dye, all day long. When I moved, one of the first places my parents took me was Telegraph, which of course only corroborated my theory. The next Saturday I dyed most of my wardrobe tie-dye with a few of those packets you get from summer camp. My mum was peeved, but my punishment was that she wouldn't buy me anything to replace it for a while.
      For the remainder of elementary school, I was a total tomboy. I wore my brother's old over-sized tee-shirts and guy's pants a lot. I wore hammer pants, but mine were extra loop. My dad's a handyman and I idolized him when I was little.
      I was so excited about my 4th grade gorilla Halloween costume that I wore it every weekend for almost an entire month. Most of October and even into November. It was already ratty and scruffy by the time the 31st rolled around, though it did give me an advantage because I already knew how to walk in it. I could go to twice as many houses (and therefore get twice as much candy) as my friends who stumbled in their capacious clown shoes and futilely tried to see through their power-ranger masks.
      Middle school is an awkward time for everyone I think. At least, that's what I gather from looking back on the thousands of pictures I took. My step-sister tried to take me under her wing while I was in middle school. That's what she called it. It might be more accurate to call it experimentation. I was her guinea pig.
      It did not end well. She tried to put me in skirts and dresses and plaster me with makeup. Then she tried to dress me from Abercrombie which I couldn't stand. She did anything she could to get me out of my tomboy stage, but I wasn't very cooperative. She finally gave up on me about the time I got braces. (Again. I had them twice. Damned incompetent orthodontists.) And I fell back into my habitual jeans + tee-shirt. I tried out jewelry, although she had scared me off makeup for a while to come. I got bored too and dyed my blond hair magenta.
      The dye eventually died as well, when my hair was about to. By the time I was through with neon orange, green, and purple, my hair was like a washed up rockstar; once so vibrant and bright, it just sat there listless and sagging, waiting for something to happen. It was the color of the ocean, the consistency of straw, and threatening to fall out or kill itself if I didn't do something about it. So I dyed it black, which helps according to the hairdressers.
      Eventually I escaped middle school and went to high school where . . . well . . . I didn't do a whole lot. I don't like shopping, I hate stores, I abominate malls, and I'm just about the laziest person you will ever meet. I don't care enough about what I look like to get my ass out of bed before 7am, so I didn't change much after that.

I wish I weren't such a nice person, so I could post all the middle-school pictures of my friends. Or maybe it's not my altruism. Maybe I'd just be scared for my life if I did put them up...

[edit: I decided to risk it. These are too much fun. See any of your classmates? But don't worry, Lyla, I wont put up the candycorn one from Reno.]



I would like to point out that the following two pictures were taken on two totally different days, thus proving that this is how Jamie always looked in middle school.

Except for that one time, when he looked like this:

One of the very few pictures of Mr. Poole:

Being a band geek:

Lyla hasn't changed at all:

This wasn't even Halloween:

Ever the diva:




Okay, that was worth it, even if I'm about to be killed. Wasn't middle school fun, guys?

You should be jealous.
Her son moved out a while ago, but she still likes to cook enough food for him, so we (namely I) reap the rewards. She almost always cooks us a meal or two everyday. I was sick and she made me some amazing soup. She also brought over a custard pie and a bunch of yummy tea.
This morning she brought two breakfast burritos and eggs benedict. I guess it wasn't really breakfast, because she doesn't usually get up until noon, so I ate it when I came home for lunch.

She's like the grandma I never had. Not at all like the one that lives in Vermont and comes once a year to wrest my room from me. I wish my grandma would just send a custard pie via airmail and be done with it, or at least steal my brother's room every other year, instead of mine. Then again, I don't blame her for not wanting that room. I wouldn't brave it either. She could at least repay me with some breakfast burritos, not by taking up my couch space and my TV space for watching baseball and American Idol.

My neighbor lives in the apartment building next door. She says when the garage door to the building opens, it always shakes her cakes and they don't set right. Two nights ago she made a cake for us at four in the morning because she wanted to make sure the door wouldn't open and ruin it. When was the last time my grandma made me a cake at four in the morning?

p.s. This is not, by any means, to sell short my other neighbors. I have these two policewomen living next door as well, and they've got some pretty interesting stories to tell. And I have to say, it's always nice to be on the good side of the Berkeley Police Department. Just in case.
There's also this weird guy who keeps telling us not to feed his cat, which I don't. Why would I?
Sometimes I find the cat in my house... I think the neighbor is setting us up. My theory is that he lets his cat in through our window, planning to frame us for feeding it. He probably thinks it's a felony. Maybe he's trying to get payback for all those bottle rockets in his yard.
What he doesn't know is the cops are definitely on my side. They like that cat about as much as I feed it.

1. Do you believe in karma?
Hecks yeah!
Well... sorta.
Erm... I don't know, actually.
No. I just decided I definitely don't. Wow. What an enlightening blog!
Bad shit still happens to good people, and good shit still happens to bad people. Doesn't that prove karma wrong? In your face, Karma!
(Not that you can categorize people into 'good' and 'bad' anyway, but you get the idea.)

2. What one current event in any aspect of world news do you think is being most neglected or underrepresented?
I wouldn't know about if it was being so underrepresented, would I? It's not like I search obscure current events.
The fact that Paris Hilton got a role on The L Word. So neglected. Poor Paris. She never gets ANY attention.

Actually I think it's supermassive black holes. They could eat our whole planet in 5 seconds. I'm exaggerating, but they're still scary as hell.

3. If you could have any one superpower, what would it be and why?
When I was a kid I always wanted super stretchy arms like Mr. Tickle. If I lost the remote, I could press the TV button from the couch. I could draw on the whiteboard while the teacher wasn't looking. It would also come in handy for pickpocketing (although so would invisibility).

4. If you could invite any 5 famous people or characters to your birthday party, who would you pick?
Pass. I don't like famous people.

5. If you could live in any film or book, what would you select? Would you want to be one of the characters, or would you want to be you (introduced as a new character)?
We had this question today in GSA. I said I'd be Juno, but I'm definitely considering revising my answer. Being pregnant doesn't look like all that much fun.
I guess I'll steal Justin's and go with Harry Potter. I mean, magic? Come on. Plus they have house elves and shit so you don't have to do any work.
Or maybe Time Bandits as one of the bandits. Time travel + thievery = goodtimes.

6. Who of your friends would make the best president? I can't wait to know why.
Wow. If any of my friends become president, I'm moving to Canada. Or better yet, Mars. (Sorry, guys. I'm only joking. Sort of.)
Hmm... Who's the most easily manipulable? Who could I get to make me Vice? Or at least a governor or something... Screw democracy and "voting" for your governor. Maybe... Karin? (Just kidding, Karin. I love you.)
Now if I honestly HAD to pick one of my friends to be president, it would probably be Thomas. He went to a leadership summit, so he knows how to be a leader. Haha. But really, he's hella smart, I think people would follow him, and he'd make good choices. Probably. Maybe. (But you can't be president, Thomas, unless you let me run your campaign or something.)
If not him, then Bernadette, because she knows her mind. She's got good morals (better than me, anyway) and she's smart. She knows how to take advice from people when she needs to and she could probably get hecka people to follow her.

7. I used to always trip out that my strawberry Chapstick tasted so strongly like strawberries (and why was I eating so much Chapstick?). Then I realized that it wasn't the taste that was strong; it was the smell. They say that smell is the strongest scent. What is your favorite smell? USE CONNOTATIONS, FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE, OR ANALOGY in your (butter) saucey answer.
My diet from ages 4-7 consisted mainly of chapstick, so I know where you're coming from. And yes, it does smell amazing, but tasted rather waxy.
My favorite smell is the smell of VICTORY!
It smells like spray paint smells to a teenage hoodlum. It smells like coffee, eggs, and cigarettes to a hard-boiled detective. It smells like baby formula to a hungry cat. It smells like rum to a pirate. It smells like justice to a superhero. It smells like homework to a teacher. It smells like a quarter to a hobo.
Enough figurative language for ya? 'Cause I can keep going with these crappy analogies all day, but they're just getting redundant.
(ps. If that doesn't count at a smell, I pick rain on a creosote bush. What can I say? I love the desert.)

8. If you could invent a new class for AHS to teach, what would it be?
Throw-Paper-Airplanes-Out-the-Window-and-try-to-Hit-People-on-the-Sidewalk Class. Wait, they already have that. They call it Geometry.

Personal Hygiene. (pH for short.) More people need that than you'd think, you know? Just try walking near those locker rooms any time there's a bunch of teenage boys.
Although... that might be kind of an awkward class to teach. Maybe we should just integrate it in with Health.

9. Identify any symbol from any film ever (pick your favorite if you can think of many from which to choose). Identify what it means and why you picked it.
I never pay attention to symbols. It's probably a bad habit, but I don't tend to analyze things in my spare time.
How 'bout chocolate, in Chocolat? Or the groundhog, in Groundhog Day? Too painfully obvious?
Okay. Here, since I just watched it: in American Psycho, the business cards represent status and desire for power and reputation and all that stuff. All of the business cards look basically the same, except this one is colored eggshell instead of ivory, and that one has Romalian font instead of Caelian Brail. They all become obsessed with markers of status, like cards and restaurant reservations. It's all about image. Whenever Bateman sees someone with a better business card than him, he gets pissed. And he usually kills them.

10. Will humankind still exist in 300 years?
Yes. We've survived for two million years so far. (If you count close relatives.)
I'm an optimist, but you know... We'll figure it out, even with all the dumb people in the world.
(If we don't get sucked up by a supermassive black hole, that is.)

Also, this is obviously the more logical side of the argument. If no one is alive in 300 years, there's no one to prove me wrong. I can never be proved wrong until there isn't anyone to prove me wrong. So I win.

11. What is the most embarrassing song to ever grace your IPOD? Why was it there, may I ask?
Do I have to tell you? I want to lie, but I'm not going to.
I bet you so much that my embarrassing songs beat yours out of the water.
I was at my former neighbor's house, and she came up and handed me her favorite CD from a radio station that her friend works at. (Mind you, this gal is about 65, 70 years old now.) So I popped it in, and uploaded the songs thinking they'd probably be classical or jazz or something.
One of them was an old country song called "He Likes to Nibble on My Cupcakes." Oh Jesùs.
The other one was put on by my mum. Apparently she thought it was hilarious. It was called "Detachable Penis" by The Butthole Surfers.
Neither, thankfully, are there anymore. God. That was really embarrassing. Thanks a lot.

12. Corey Chin's brilliant question (and it's got me curious): How much would you charge to clean Mr. Ross' microwave?
That's a tough one. Maybe he could get it done for free if he told people before they used it they had to clean it. Naw, no one would. They'd rather eat frozen burritos or starve. I know I would.
Well, maybe 50 bucks, an automatic A+, sitting in one of the big squishy chairs all year, and some popcorn (to put in the microwave, once it was clean). Yeah, maybe....
[edit: haha Lyla already did it for free. now i'll charge $10.]

13. Did you support your answers?
If I say I did, does it still count?

i can't believe mr. ross is making me do this when i could be sleeping. how many people write that? i guess sleeping is just what's on the mind of a lot of teenagers. i'm tired, but i have to feel like i've accomplished something today, or i'll feel bad. and this is the thing that takes the least effort and still makes me feel slightly accomplished. that's basically my forte, doing whatever takes the least effort.
i wish everyone would shut up and let me concentrate on not focusing! The radio is distracting. "the muscles in his bladder don't work any more." thanks, radio! i really wanted to know that.
oh, wait, but now I feel bad. The man on the radio is a paraplegic. I hate it when you realize you've done something dumb, but you can't fix it because it's documented in your random brain blog that you aren't allowed to edit.
The guy needs money to get his bladder fixed, and his healthcare wont cover it. Damn. that's why we suck. no universal healthcare. he should move to canada. You know why else we suck? cause we don't use the freaking metric system! where the fuck did we get our system from? Why 12 inches in a foot? 10 is so much easier to do math with!
i need to clean my room. there's crap all over the place. there's a creepy CPR dummy on my floor from when we learned to do CPR in PE with Ms. V. Whoa there were a lot of letters in that sentence. anyway, it has a Sharpie mustache and goatee. i hate mannequins in general, but this one's all rubbery and floppy which makes it that much worse.
i still don't know how to do CPR after being taught four times... so don't look to me if you go into cardiac arrest. there's a chance I'll save you, but i might just kill you. I'd probably get it confused with bowling instructions or something else Ms. V taught us.
I can't believe Mr. Ross is making me do this when I could be learning to save your life with that dummy.
okay, i wouldn't be. it's been sitting there for months. i'd probably be solving sudoku. and you'd still be dead from cardiac arrest. so ha!
wait.. weird brain jumps.
which did come first, the chicken or the egg? i think it's the egg. i don't think any other animal could just magically pop into a chicken. and, unless God pointed a finger and a chicken materialized, it didn't come out of thin air. but what if another chicken-related animal had an egg that was mutated and turned into the chicken? evoluuuutiiooon.... that was not a very well planned out argument for the egg. i admit it. no time to plan now, i'm blogging.
mm... chicken & eggs. i'm hungry. it's 11:30 pm, and all i ate today was a bit of cornbread, some macaroni, some cinnamon and a piece of white bread. strange diet today... i played a game of extreme spoons, and the loser had to eat a teaspoon of cinnamon. guess who lost... i don't even like cinnamon. and then I just ate the bread cause they said i couldn't do it in under a minute. 58 seconds! nyah!
my teeth hurt. stupid retainer. i have to remember to go to the orthodontist on monday. 3:40. why couldn't it be during the school day? damn.
i wish i had some hair dye. and I wish my hair wasn't screwed up.
I tried to dye the dog's hair once. only on his paw. the dye didn't take and he started licking it, so I washed it off. it was kinda tinted blue for a while though.
one time we went to the vet, and i saw the doctor put a thermometer up the dog's butt to take her temperature, so in the car on the way home i stuck my magic marker up her butt to try for myself. poor girl. she barked at me and tried to bite me. i was only four though.
okay... wow. that was a weird story. why did i think of that? very strange note to end on but time's up. g'night.

[good thing i editing. it was basicaly incomperhensibel, what with all my spelling mistkaes.]

Here we go...

So. . . to tell the truth, I hadn't heard any of these songs until I bought them on iTunes yesterday. Bear with me here.

One Thing Leads to Another - The Fixx

I think this song represents Spade's relationship with Brigid. He tells her in the song
The first few lines: "The deception with tact / Just what are you trying to say? / You got a blank face which irritates . . . / You see dimensions in two" falls in place with their first meetings. Spade quickly notices that she's lying about her sister, and it's hard for him to tell what she really wants from him. She's got a good poker face, because she covers every lie with another lie. That's probably frustrating for Spade, because even if he did want to help her, it's pretty difficult while she's lying the whole time. She sees only in two dimensions, because she only ever thinks about it from one angle: how to play her cards so that she benefits most in the situation. "But when one little cross leads to shots, grit your teeth/You run for cover so discreet" She double-crosses all the people in the job to get the falcon, but when it starts to get violent, she gets scared and runs to Spade for help, trying to be discreet about the fact that it was all actually her fault.
"The impression that you sell/Passes in and out like a scent." Brigid gives the impression of a damsel in distress, but Spade sees through it quickly, and so she tries again with another lie.
"Then it's easy to believe/Somebody's been lying to me/But when the wrong word goes in the right ear/I know you've been lying to me/It's getting rough, off the cuff I've got to say enough's enough" I think this part corresponds to the end of the novel, when Spade is telling Brigid that he knows she killed Archer. All of the stories don't add up, so he knows that someone was lying. The wrong word in the right ear is her powers of deception. She can tell you a lie and make it look pretty, make you feel empathy for her, and use her. In the end he knows she did it so he says "enough's enough" and he gives her over to the police.

Spies Like Us - Paul McCartney

This song could be about any hardboiled detective, but since Spade is the archetypal hardboiled detective anyway, it fits. "Hey don't feel afraid/ Of an undercover aid /There's no need to fuss /There ain't nobody that spies like us" This could almost be the jingle of the commercial for Spade and Archer Investigations, or, currently, Spade Investigations. They reassure their clients that there's shouldn't be feared because they're the best spies around, and they'll get the job done. The next stanza starts, "We don't know the meaning of fear/We play every minute by ear" That's Spade and Archer trying to be tough. The song is portraying their toughest and most boastful side, but it is also showing a part that is true to Spade. He doesn't get afraid. He doesn't show it when he is. He sometimes has a plan, but mostly he follows clues until the answer reveals itself. It shows this again in another line: "We get there by hook or by crook / We don't do a thing by the book / Never needed special clothes /How we did it no one knows / I guess we must have had what it took." Here is more boasting of Spade. He doesn't need to do things the traditional "Sherlock" way. He just does what needs to be done, no matter what it takes, and in the end it all works out. He doesn't need fancy ninja gadgets and spy gear like James Bond.

Diamonds on the Inside - Ben Harper

This song, I'm sure, was originally written about a girl, but I think it describes the Maltese Falcon itself. The title, obviously, was what drew me to the song because under the black enamel the falcon is jewel-encrusted.

"I knew a girl/Her name was truth /She was a horrible liar."
I think this seems like the falcon everyone believes in the it, despite the fact that it's a fake. The statue is like a beacon of hope for all of these people who will go through so much to get it. Through all the deceit to acquire it, none of them suspected that the bird itself might be a deception. The bird that they had all been working to get was only made of lead.
"Make sure the fortune that you seek/Is the fortune that you need/Tell me why the first to ask/Is the last to give every time" This whole stanza seems like the falcon talking to the people that are after it, mainly to Brigid. It tells them that they don't need all that fortune. It isn't really worth it. The first to ask, probably Brigid, gives nothing in return. She has sex with Spade, but that is only to get something from him. She is a femme fatal and therefore she does not give anything to people out of the goodness of her heart. She only takes things from other people out of the goodness of their hearts. It also could be telling Brigid to stop lying. "What you say and do not mean/Follows you close behind" Brigid says a lot of things that she isn't planning on following through with. The falcon might be warning her that her lies will come back to haunt her.


Femme Fatale - Velvet Underground

I think everyone uses this song because of the name, and it fits the book Brigid because she's a femme fatale.

"Just look into her false colored eyes/She builds you up to just put you down, what a clown." Almost everything about Brigid is a lie. Eyes are supposed to be a window into someone's soul, and even Brigid's eyes are lying. She tells Spade these crazy lies, and builds him up by making him think she loves him, and in the end all she's really doing is using him. She probably does the same thing to lots of other guys too. "You're put down in her book/You're number 37, have a look." She really knows how to work Spade. She's probably done it before. The lyrics are speaking to Spade or to any other guy who's been exploited by this type of girl. "She's gonna play you for a fool, yes it's true/'Cause everybody knows she's a femme fatale." Brigid's only goal is to get the falcon and stay out of too much trouble for it. "Little boy, she's from the street/Before you start, you're already beat." Spade isn't dumb. He knows the ropes of the detective business. This line is what Brigid thinks before she meets Spade. She thinks he's some little boy who's going to be easy to trap and use. Sadly for her, it doesn't work, and he sees through all of her lies and tricks.

Poor blog... It's getting lonely over winter break!

Procrastinating is way too easy. First there's a pool table, a Wii, a dart board, and season 3 of The Office all at my disposal. Then of course, we've got livejournal, which is just begging for me to post something that doesn't need to be posted.

I've still got 'gate 22' written in Sharpie on my hand. It reminds me of the airport every time I try to forget. Security checkpoints, escalators, the sickly-sweet smell of Cinnabon, being charged $10 for a bottle of water and a pack of Mentos... Oh, how I miss it... At least I got my holiday traveling done after the holidays are over, so there weren't many people on the plane. I got a whole row of three seats to myself to put up my legs. But I'm here now, in Phoenix. The power outages, raging storms, and winds of 80+ mi/hr are only on the telly for me. Hope you all are having fun with them, though.

Obama won in Iowa. That's cool. I like him. We'll see about New Hampshire. Those New Hampshirites are a different breed. They aren't all the stereotype of the unread, backwoods rube who somehow manages to get his tongue stuck to a metal flagpole at least once every winter. Who knows.

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(ps. I drove past an ostrich farm today. Hella cool.)