And then I found ten dollars

Now that the awkward pause is successfully broken (props to Mickey. Whatever props are. Some kind of structural support? Why would Mickey need them? Speaking of which, it's a good thing I've firmly resolved not to launch into any digressions, or this parenthetical remark would just go on and on with no sign of stopping. Bad to worse, bad to worse. Yes, I'm glad I had that foresight), I feel I may begin. I do realize that my recent efforts to keep this blog updated have been somewhat less than whelming. For the longest time, I believed that this was because nothing interesting had happened to me in the interim. But then I realized, hey, none of the stuff I've ever written about before was interesting, so what's the big deal? In fact, I have now not one, not two, but three distinctly-uninteresting-to-the-point-of- blogworthiness rants. Pretty swish, eh?

All right - first off: Rain. Rain? Yes, the weather these days in the greater Stanford area has been a bit damp. I would call it "sunny with occasional cloudbreaks", possibly escalating at times to "sprinkling", but it seems that California breeds a much more limited meteorological lexicon: here, it is either "sunny", "cloudy", or "clinical depression". It starts to rain, and straight off you'll find everyone running about complaining about the weather and how dismal it is making life and so on and so forth. Now, I do try my best to not feel above this sort of thing, because that can become both rather overbearing and rather inconvenient (for instance, when it's forty degrees, sometimes one likes to be able to forget the fact that this isn't considered cold where one comes from, at least for long enough for one to put on a jacket. Or long pants.) Yes, I do try to put that behind me, but when in response to the drizzling our RA sends out a link to a weather website to the dorm list just so that people can see what rain looks like on a weather radar, or when a fire drill is postponed "for the safety of the residents" until the conditions become "more clement", well, suffice it to say that I am wearing my shorts with pride.

But enough with that. Second on my sundry list: Deep questions. As you almost certainly know, I am on the leadership team for Testimony this year. Every year after auditions the group goes on a post-audition retreat, one of the goals of which is to get everyone acquainted at least enough to learn everyone's name so that later, instead of saying "one of the basses is sharp", we can be specific, saying instead "Ben is good looking". To that end, I had the unenviable charge of 'icebreakers' for the aforementioned event.

One of the undeniable conclusions that I believe I can draw from my experience in this life is this: nobody really thoroughly enjoys icebreaking games. They're useful, sure, but stiflingly awkward. This being, apparently, a fundamental fact of the universe, and therefore not to be trifled with, I decided to not fight it by trying to come up with some new, somehow entertaining name game, instead going the easy route and just coming up with some probing questions to ask people.

Between myself and some timely help from friends over instant messenger, I eventually found myself with quite a list. Unfortunately, I didn't bother to save this list after printing it and since I burned the original in Recreational Book Burning, it is now sadly no more. A few questions have stuck with me, though, due largely to the fact that I was given them by other people and found them quite clever and stick-with-one-y. Here they are, along with my personal answers to each. So you can get to know me I suppose. Without all the awkwardness of actually asking me. Right-o.

Q: If you were a super villain, what would your super power be?
A: I think that my ideal super-villain power would be Super Rhetoric. Think about it - I could bend the will of anyone to my own. Imagine the evil possibilities. Run for president? Convince the DOL to give me a driver's license? Endless.

Q: What were your three favorite Halloween costumes of all time?
A: So, we didn't tend to put too much effort into our Halloween costumes as kids. I did have one rather elaborate get-up, though. You see, my sister, being, as she was, a girl, always wanted to dress up as some sort of princess or fairy or the like. One year, she decided she was going to be the tooth fairy, and I was going to be the tooth. And the tooth I was - a big white tooth-shaped box with two plump little arms sticking out the sides wondering how in the world it was going to hold all its candy when it couldn't even bend his elbows. Excitement all around.

Most of my costumes were not nearly so elaborate, though. The only other two which stick out in my memory were both last-minute scrambles. One was Mr. Yuck (for which I took a whole bunch of those Poison Control Center yucky-face stickers and put them all over myself. Come to think of it, I have no idea why our family had so many dozens of those stickers. Woah - that's really weird.) The second such costume was Leaf Man. You can guess what that entailed.

Q: If you were a man/woman (meaning the one that you're not), what would you want your name to be?
A: I would want my name to be Renée. What an absolutely fabulous name. It makes one happy just saying it, no? It has the added convenience of me not knowing anyone by that name, so it's safe to praise sans connotation.

Q: If you were going to brainwash the children of tomorrow, what would you want them to believe?
A: I think I would want to instill a greater musical tolerance into people. Because really, beyond a few acoustical basics, musical appreciation is completely subjective and cultural. It seems like life would be better if our ears could pick up more stuff as music. Then again, I don't know if listening to terrible art music is a great solution to this problem. That's where the brainwashing comes in.

Okay, that's all I remember for now, but if any more spring to mind, I shall let you all know promptly. Please do leave comments with your own answers to these and other witty questions. That would make my day, if not week.

The third point I plan to hit is my story of how I discovered KZSU, Stanford's on-campus radio station.

So, one day I was tuning my dial, beating the fuzz, splitting the beam, flipping the wax. In short, I was trying to find a radio station. Anyway, there I was, and I had found this excellent latin music station with all these horns and fiery congas and maybe even a rapper or something else, I don't know, and I was all - "hey".

Then it was over, and I thought I would have to hit the dial again when what should start playing but some classical aria for mezzo-soprano based on the text of The Jabberwocky. At this point I felt it necessary to append the suffix of "now" to the aforementioned reflection, making "hey now" in all.

I listened on, and what should the strange and wonderful silver box on my desk procure next but a sound bite from the Spatula City scene in UHF. At this point I abandoned the "hey now" endeavor, replacing it with the rare, but under certain conditions of excitement applicable, "snap!"

Then, just when I thought it couldn't get any better, they started reading a P.G. Wodehouse short story. Out of absolutely nowhere. It was wonderful. It was fantastic in the most literal. It was astounding. They have, to sum it all up, my vote.

Well, what'd I say, three? Guess this is the end. Hopefully I'll be a little more punctual in the future. Speaking of the future, a little poem recently occurred to me, and I think I'll put it up here so that I can put other stuff in my AIM profile:

The future lies before us,
on that we all agree
Likewise past comes in advance
I'm sure that you will see.
And so we know that future,
Which (it follows) follows after
Also goes before! It is
A temporal perplexor.

Anyone know a good way to fix that last line? A little slanted, I find it. Perhaps if anyone asks about it, I'll nod my head sagely and say "yes, yes. Aah, the beauty of it." And then they'll feel pretty silly, not seeing the beauty in it and all. Yeah. That's what I'll do.

Song of the moment:
"Bubble Toes" by Jack Johnson. So, Stefan heard Mr. Johnson's sophomore release, On and On, and bought it for me. A tight little album. Stefan then advised my mom to buy every other Johnson album in existence for my birthday (perhaps you think I exaggerate - I do not, for there are only two) so that I could tell him if they are any good, which they are, and if he should buy them, which he should not. Why? Because I just bought like eight CDs for under ten dollars, so why spend that kind of money on one album of good music like Jack Johnson? Supporting talented musicians? Fair enough, but I'm too cheap. Fish Fish Fish.