My computer daytimer program ate all of my data. Amazingly, I remembered my entire schedule although I told myself it would be allright to forget everything because I had it written down on the computer. I'm now trying to justify using the daytimer program.

New layout. Let me know if the type is too small. or other quirky things =)

We ended up seeing the "Mothman Prophesies" last night. I slept with the light on.

We also ate at a frou-frou resteraunt on Park Ave. - "310 Park South". I used to eat here a lot when I worked on Park Ave. as they had good, cheap lunch specials. Well, at night, the prices go up and the actual quantity of food goes down. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that a good dinner consists of a 10 pounds of pasta at the Olive Garden or the buckets of food they bring at the Cheesecake factory; I just would like to see more than 5 ravioli on my plate when I get my food, that's all. I should've gotten the hamburger - half the price of the pasta and I knew it would have been good. Overall, a waste of money, something I do not have a lot of.

I had my first good Martini. I ordered one at Pebbles resteraunt about a year and a half ago, just to be all cool, and it ended up tasting like paint stripper. Well, I decided to drop my pride and order a fruity one, brightly colored, and it was good! Sure, everyone could have called me a nancy-boy, but, hell, it tasted good.

I think I'm going to critique the stories for my writing class. I might even try to figure out how to change the layout of this site! Wish me luck!

I'm at Braden's house right now on their computer, but I thought I'd put a little entry in about my first trip to Universal Studios.

Should have done it a lot sooner. For a few reasons:

1) It's a lot of fun and a nice change from Disney parks (at which my uncle Roger has worked for 30+ years resulting in double digit visits to each park for me...it gets old).
2) I would have appreciated everything more as a child or teenager.

It was a blast though...especially the Men in Black ride where you get to shoot laser guns at a bunch of aliens that try to attack you while you spin around in a shuttle-thing. Braden shot the most, but I came in a close second. We also did the regulars like Kongfrontation, Twister, and Jaws. I got soaked at Jaws! I was in the one seat that all the water enters the boat from - at one point, I looked down to see my waist covered with rushing water, no shoes, no legs, just my waist. I never dried out.

We left early since we have these nifty AAA Season passes. Only one problem - you don't try to drive back into Orlando at 5pm. What were we thinking? We got off, but then started going the wrong way down back roads. Well, we ended up driving almost all the way back to Universal! Finally I saw Orange Ave. and told Braden to take it. 2 hours after we left, we were at my house getting dry clothes.

I have no idea what we're doing now...I'll tell all later...

I could barely concentrate during my Marx class tonight. I spent all the time in between when I last posted and my class reading about 50 pages of Marx's writings. The problem with the writings is that they're notes taken from his notebooks and published after he died, so you'll be reading and the page will say, "To explain further... (The remainder of this document has not been found)."

The problem with the class is that it's held from 7 to 10pm in this building at UCF called the VAB (Visual Arts Building, not Vertical Assembly Building, for the uninitiated). Well, it's a dungeon and there are no windows and it happened to be really hot and I happened to have taken an aspirin on an empty stomach and the teacher has a habit of using "You know" as a verbal tick. Class not fun.

I got home and ate dinner while watching an ER rerun with my parents (Maura T. was not in it very long, but she got to deliver the most dry humored line of the overly dramatic hour). Then I watched an Ally rerun on FX...I wanted to see one with Anne Heche, but she only appeared during the last 3 minutes. Her portrayal of a woman with turetts syndrome is morally reprehensible, but ultimately the funniest I have seen her. I don't think I spelled that syndrome correctly.

I'm going to Universal Studios for the first time tomorrow (w/ Braden and Nicole), so I better get sleep.

Two fun things:

1) I got an "A" on my "Oz" adaptation proposal for class! The teacher made me think I was going to get a "C".

2) My blog has been linked to for a second time! J.M. Martinez, a classmate from my Grad writer's workshop and all around nice guy, linked to me from his own blog which can be found at his great site that also includes lots of content (did you hear that kiddies, CONTENT!) about Nabokov and other writing/pop culture-y things.

As a shameless plug for my friend Megan, the other site that links to me is Megan's blog which includes fun ramblings and results from all the obscure tests she's found (and to let you know something she'll never tell you herself - she's quite the poet...and not the overwrought stuff from high school lit mags, but real deep reaching stuff that constantly makes me go "hmmmm").

I'm taking a break right now from my readings from my "Marxist Political Theory" class...oh man, sometimes it feels as if Marx just like the look of pen on paper - so much of this is repetitive! I know he was trying to bring about a new way of concieving the world, but, man, do it in less words.

;) I'm going to be struck by lightening for being so coy.

We finished the opera "Salomé" in Avant Garde class. Wow. I blew it off earlier as having "really kinky stuff with John the Baptist", but this opera really delves deep into the human psyche and the issues of right, wrong, desire, pyschosis...One minute I thought the theme was the how lust is a perversion of love; then I thought it was about how our desires can be so lofty that when we don't attain them, we kill them and revel in mediocrity; then all these religious connotations came up - perfection (likewise, God) is unatainable in our own power, so we spend our lives killing our desire for something spiritual...Marx did that. A lot of people do that. I sometimes do that.

None of these are answered questions, which leads me to believe that "Salomé" is an effective piece of art. Too bad Strauss is dead, I'd congratulate him. Wilde, too, considering that he wrote the story that Strauss adapted.

Scrubs is also a good show (see list below), but a little heavy handed with it's humor. I'm waiting for them to devolve to a pop up video format with little bubbles that point to someone and say, "What they are saying is funny, laugh" or "How ironic, don't you think?" or "Look, here's a funny fantasy inside JD's head".

Otherwise, I recommend it if there's nothing else on. I like it better than "Friends" (sacrilige, sacrilige) <---is that even how you spell that?

Rerun of "The West Wing" tonight. Good one though. Mom likes the show a little bit too much. I told her that it was good that they did a show before it tonight called, "Inside the Real West Wing", which was a tour of George W. Bush's white house, because I believe that a majority of people actually think that Martin Sheen is the president (and I also believe they feel safer and more satisfied with their government because of that mix up). Maybe now people will understand who they're voting for before they go cast their ballots in 2004, thus eliminating the question for poll workers everywhere - "Where's the Martin Sheen/Jedidiah Bartlett box?"

Maybe I can barter my "West Wing" tapes for Nicole's "Gilmore Girls" tapes. I'm so pissed that I have a class on Tuesday nights and miss it! Thank God that Braden does too (not that he cares about GG, but Nicole forces him to watch), that way Nicole tapes all the good shows ("Buffy", "ER" - thursday during her horse riding lessons, "Angel")- except that we can't figure out her facination with "Judging Amy". As I'm writing this, I'm wondering how she actually tapes all those shows...they must have 2 VCRs...must look into this. Either way, I hope she'll agree to a veg out night where we can watch them all. If you're reading this, Megan, and you haven't seen any of them, you're invited too =).

Gotta get to Russian homework. Da Svidanya.

The nicest thing happened today:

I got out of my Script Adaptation class late because the instructor somehow thought that we were going to watch two adaptations of "The Wizard of Oz" within 2 hours and 45 minutes (yes, there is actually a silent version of "Oz" made, well, when silent films were being made). Well, I had to get to church because I know my parents would be mad if I was late or didn't show up, but I also needed to eat because I started feeling nauseas. I ended up stopping at McDonalds (I know, bad place to eat if I'm already feeling sick, right?) and I order. I hear the guy's voice over the drive thru intercom say, "That'll be $4.17, please pull up to the first window" and I think, what a friendly sounding voice! I don't know why, but this kid's voice sounded genuinely nice.

Well, I brush that thought out of my mind - there's no way to judge someone's niceness by the tonality of their voice, right? - and drive up to the window. I pull my money out of my wallet and turn to the guy and he has one of the happy meal toys in his hand and puts it right in my face. It's this strange mechanical looking baby with vacant purple eyes that plays creepy music when you touch it. The kid leans forward and starts whispering, "Do you see the stuff they give us? We're supposed to give this to children? I mean, you bearly touch it and it goes off." He then starts laughing merrily about it and I start laughing about it, noting how scary it is (but that may just be my own issue, I don't know). I hand him my money and he puts in in the till and then I notice that he's taking a VERY long time counting out my change.

So, I reach out my hand for my change and he puts it in my hand. Then he gets this really big smile and says, "Because you laughed at my joke, I'm giving you only shiny coins. Have a great night!" and he waves me off.

This is a 16 year old kid. This is someone who is supposed to be sullen and disappointed with life. I'm thinking, what in the hell just happened?

So, I drive up to the next window with this huge smile on my face, all of a sudden really happy that I have shiny coins. And I'm SO appreciative of the fact that he took the time to do that. And really, the whole thing wasn't that big of a deal, but it totally brightened my day.

The above happening impacted me so much that I actually started thinking about the makeup of "human nature" (if there is such a thing) and what it really is. I think a lot of people believe that human nature is each human's ability to do evil and maybe even a propensity to it (like N. Hawthorne stories). Others, like the trancendentalists, believed that human nature is each human's ability to reach new heights of potential (aka "good"). I'm wondering if it doesn't lie somewhere in between. I think that human nature is each human's potential to do good _or_ evil and is only dependent on the human's choices.

It was just nice to see someone be good for once. =)

I didn't get the Hudsucker Proxy one. I'm disappointed. This is a fun test that tells me nothing about myself...oh wait, just like the other ones!

I've been rethinking what I said earlier about "The Strokes". I listened to their CD again and this time, I actually founds signs of inspiration. Pretty good, especially as you get towards the end of the album. Okay, my mind is totally gone. Love to all! Blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch who watches over you... I could listen to this song all day. I realized that I didn't acutally own "Flood" by They Might Be Giants, but that I've been borrowing Braden's copy multiple times over the last few years. It's really exceptional - you should buy all their albums. but everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around... I realized that I don't have to wake up early tomorrow...what a great thing! everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads... Oh, caught Aaron on his cell, but my voice kept reverberating back to me. I started to end sentences because I thought I had finished them. Today? I felt like I would faint at about 7 pm, but otherwise it happened to be an interesting day. My first two classes were swell, even the Avant Garde class in which we watched the first half of "Salomé" by Strauss - really kinky stuff regarding John the Baptist - a must see. Then I edited my story till my eyes blurred over, printed it out, and took it to the copy center. Had I seen the "Sort" button earlier, I wouldn't have had to stand there sorting 15 copies of a 24 page short story for a half and hour. Class went well. I'm worried about sounding too harsh to the others when I critique, but I think I did fine. My written critiques are another story as they're set in stone and the author will read them in his/her home without me to let them know that I like them and all, but felt obligated to point out what didn't work for me. What a horrible thing. So I turned in my story - and then I reread it just now. My God! I made so many stupid errors. And words! I left out entire words! Now they will know for sure that I'm a schmuck (a revived favorite word) and have no businessin a Grad. class. I hope they're nice. "A pool of liquid pooling..." - what in the hell is that? I wrote it, but I'm having trouble understanding it....is that like "Seven maids a milking" or "NIne pipers piping"... okay - no more. I will not think about it at all. This all would have been easier to process had there been something good on TV when I got home. Monday, January 21, 2002 Now I have to get to all the other homework that I didn't do...oh wait, did you say that today was a holiday? Hmmm....I'll look into that. Ha! I did it! I finished a 7,000 word short story! That's 25 pages. Oh, and it's all shit! It's all horrible and will be chewed into very small pieces by my Creative Writing Workshop class, but you can be damn sure that I finished. Yeah! F***in' A'! Sunday, January 20, 2002 I'm thinking that Megan is the only other person who reads this...oh well, I'll keep writing... Just finished watching the Golden Globes. Harrison Ford gave the best Lifetime achievement award speech I've ever heard - and all in 2 minutes (I still despise Barbara Striesand for taking, like, a half hour two years ago). I am soooo glad Jennifer Connelly won - she has put in some of the best performances over the past few years (think "Requiem for a Dream") and she never gets any recognition. And she hasn't aged since the "Labyrinth", so you have to give her something for that. ...oh yeah, I still think Russell Crowe is a schmuck, but at least a good actor... ... oh yeah, I so knew "Moulin Rouge" would win, as well as the beautiful and amazing Nicole Kidman. Eat your heart out, Tom! Okay, enough celebrity revelry...back to work... After watching "High Fidelity", I realized that I don't do enough lists...I was great at it in middle school, though. Top 10 records in my play list right now: 1) Radiohead "Amnesiac" 2) Radiohead "Kid A" 3) The Pixies "Trompe Le Monde" 4) Matador Records Sampler "Everything is nice" - 3 cd set for $10!!! Definately worth it. 5) REM "Up" 6) Cat Power "What Would the Community Think?" 7) Poe "Haunted" 8) Elliot Smith "Figure 8" 9) Soundtrack "Magnolia" 10) Madonna "Greatest Hits Vol. 2" I bought two new CDs - The Strokes and REM's "up"...funny, everyone's freaking out about the Strokes and I don't find their music incredibly inspired. The CDs a lot of fun to listen to and I'm sure will be a nice addition to my driving line up. As for the REM, I'm enamoured with it already. If you're familiar with their past stuff, like I was (I was a big REM junkie in the late 80s even though I was like, 10 years old) "up" is an eye (ear?) opener. It's funny that everyone thought "Kid A" by Radiohead was the first time a contemporary rock band experimented with electronica, but "up" came out long before "Kid A"...either way, both bands took a different track and they're both worth a listen. I got absolutely nothing done last night AND I missed the screenwriting thing (of which I'm glad). I got sick, though. I don't know if it was Megan's cat or the Thrift stores or a combination of them all, but I got home and collapsed into bed with a sore throat and a runny nose. Well, I woke up with my regular wheezing (bronchial asthma since birth) and had to drink a lot of coffee and take aspirin until my lungs de-inflamed... the only crappy thing is that I didn't get any writing done. I'm torn between my almost finished story about a real estate agent, my not finished, but totally planned out story about a suburban housewife, or my edgy seduction in a retail store story...I'll probably do the almost finished one first because, well, it's almost finished. So, since I had nothing else to do this morning, I found out the following about myself: The Eighties Pop Act Test deems me: 50% Eighties Pop Act You are The Smiths: You were a peripheral player in the eighties, people thought it was cool to be your friend, but they never really wanted to spend time with you. Go watch Twin Peaks reruns. About Me Name: Keith Location: Tampa, Florida, United States View my complete profile MySpace www.myspace.com/keebers Hangouts Gawker Jezebel Friends (Online/Otherwise) Megan Juan Anne Tricia Jessica Read Often flibbityflu flickr The Onion Google News slashdot the server side Oswald Chambers Previous Posts My review of the new Fall season: Meh Just a handful of almonds... I guess it's weird to end a blogging hiatus like t... Repost this or... There's a problem with vacations for people who th... Back in Blog Farewell and God Speed! 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