Feb 28 5:30PM
Fr: Godsgrrl To: robm
SATAN has decieved you as much as he decieved EVE!!

Feb 28 5:49PM
Fr: robm To: Godsgrrl
How did you know I was on my way to the store to buy apples?

This is what I started writing last Wednesday:

I was sitting for my M & I exam this morning with fifteen minutes and half a problem to go when the loud, shrill siren of the fire alarm pierced the room. After a few moments of stupefied silence, my professor composed himself and said, "All right, here's what we'll do... turn in your exams and leave the building. You have two minutes. Class is over for the day." Anyway, the point is, I have some free time, so I thought I might get some thoughts down before starting my office hours at the station.

• Much has been said about how Howard Dean has used the Internet to revolutionize political fundraising, as he raised some obscene amount of money in no time at all. After months of putting up with quotes in newspaper articles from swaggering bloggers about how "the power of the Internet has changed everything," it was strangely vindicating to wake up this morning and hear that Howard Dean will be the first presidential candidate in 25 years to raise the most money and not receive his party's nomination. The power of the Internet indeed!
• We've been watching the AT&T Wireless acquisition at the house for a while now. It turns out the roommate and I are both GSM freaks, and Vodafone buying AT

...aaaaaaand then I puked my breakfast out. Don't ever give yourselves food poisoning, kids. It's bad mojo.

More news as events warrant, and boy, do they warrant!

Went to a "technology night" at school tonight and learned how to use Macromedia Flash:

I was expecting it to be harder to use. Maybe I just haven't gotten deep enough in yet, I dunno. At any rate, it was a good reminder to install my "copy" of Flash (and hope it doesn't give me teh virus.)

Another week below freezing. That makes three now. I'd like to say that this is some kind of personal record, but when I was 12 or 13, it was like this for the entire month of February. There was a week or so during which the temperature never even got above the zero mark. This was when I had a paper route and still walked to and from school, guaranteeing at least an hour spent in the frigid cold each and every day. It is hard to complain too much about this "Iowa cold." (Though I have had to buy a crowbar to get my car doors open on those mornings it is completely encased in ice.)

Right now I am writing from the computer lab on campus because one of my roommates has a very strange dating protocol, wherein we--the other roommate and myself--are barred from the house. I only mention this as a lead-in to the pictures I have recently obtained of our very kick-ass pad, which is a total dive but very spacious and cozy. (I hope to have these pictures available very soon.) Everyone in the Ames-area is invited to come over at any time, by the way--except right now, for obvious reasons. And also tomorrow and Saturday nights. I'm guessing Sunday isn't so good either. In fact, if someone else has a house I could hang out at for a while, I would appreciate a call or email--at the dot-org rapidfish, I am robert.

Other news: one Mr. Omar Tesdell--the co-founder of the student activism group Time for Peace, journalist, and all-around cool guy--won an award that puts him on par with one of the founders of Books for Children, an MIT group that sends books to kids in developing countries and that has spawned a number of similar organizations all over the country. This is pretty cool, mostly because it's a nice reminder that even podunk Iowa can spawn some pretty amazing people.

I needed that reminder after the police showed up at a house in our neighborhood last week and impounded a whole bunch of chemicals used in the production of ultra-high grade methamphetamines. I walked by the house in question Saturday night, and it looked like just another run-down house. At least I think it was the house in question, because there was no mailbox and no identifying numbers anywhere on the house; just peeling paint and bare wood. Many houses in Ames look like that or worse--most memorably, the one on the corner of 5th and Grand with the large holes in the walls and "ENTER HERE ---->" spraypainted on the side in black. It's to be expected, of course, even in a college town like this; it's just a nice reminder that most everything in the University's brochures is a falsehood of some sort.

Anyway, enough of my aimless rambling. I'm supposed to be here studying Spanish, so I might as well get to it. Adios!

Hopefully Google will pick this up, so that it is at least on the internet somewhere:

SATURDAYS ROCK
Concert series at the Bali Satay House, Campustown, Ames

Continue reading "For the robots"

It's been a long, weird week; a week in which I didn't get much of anything done. I did finally finish this crappy flyer for the station, and hit a lecture or two; worked on some lab projects and shoveled a lot of snow. A lot of snow. Ames has not experienced above-freezing temperatures since January 23, when the mercury reached 52°F (12 °C); that night the temperature dropped to 18°F (-8°C) and hasn't gotten much higher since. This wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't also received snow on nine days out of the past two weeks. The snow falls, but it doesn't go away, and then what are we supposed to do?

Sunday (in the middle of 32 straight hours of heavy, powdery snowfall) my roommate and I went over to some friends' house to watch The Game and eat roast chicken. I don't mean to bash the NFL, but most of the day's entertainment (NSFW) came after the game. It was a special day, after all, so we got their kitten together with some yarn and a paper bag. My words can't do justice to the wonderous display that followed, so I will leave the rest to your imagination.

This is not a terribly substantial addition to my previous writings. I made some good cajun food tonight, and it's hard to be serious about anything. Nothing too complicated: some red beans, rice, chicken and a can o' "extra hot" tomatoes and green peppers. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so spicy, but it was fantastic when it was all done--a twenty-five minute epiphany on my tongue. This isn't to brag, now; compared with real food--dishes and entrees, even!--that other people make, well, let's just say that Iron Chef Sakai is victorious. Tonight's concoction was, however, the first dish I've ever cooked and really enjoyed, because cooking is a strange, arcane magic that I've never fully comprehended.

...time to go; the lemon bars are done and the 90 Day Men record is skipping. Kippis!