Patrick

unscripted

Alot of ambivalence about fonts. Serif or sans? I tried Times for a few days…it didn’t quite work. So I’m back to all sans—Verdana for the menu up top, for the small text, and for the date headings; Arial/Helvetica (depending on your system) for the article text. Text is the most annoying part of web design. The semester is basically over. I mean, I have another day of class and all, but as far as work goes, I’m done. Then it’s exams, and after that, two weeks of total slacking. Score. This is me trying not to be a total jerk. I need to lighten up. Ever since I came to college, it became my goal to sound smarter than everyone else. I guess I’m going through one of those “Who am I” phases again. Normal situation. Someone I know greets me. I answer with the wrong type of greeting. Life goes on. I can’t look you in the eye. I think I may have back problems because my mattress sucks. For entertainment I read a book that’s too boring to read but too interesting to put away forever. In it, a character speaks uninterrupted for twenty-three large paragraphs in response to the allegation that money is the root of evil. I didn’t have enough money to do laundry so I went to K-Mart and bought some boxers, socks, and undershirts. That cost me about fifty bucks. Tokelau is an island nation of ten square kilometers and has the lowest gross domestic product in the world at $1.5 million. Then again, they only have 1,400 people living there, so the country with the lowest per-capita GDP is East Timor. Then again, in Liberia 80% of the people are below the poverty line and 85% are unemployed. They only have one TV station and seven AM radio stations. C-ville has a dozen FM stations, but only a couple of them are any good. I’m waging a war with my wallet. There are a ton of CDs and books that I want, but I’m forcing myself to not buy them. Some people buy things cuz they need them, but I buy things cuz I can. Not that I should, I should be saving or something, so they say. I figure if I saved up all that cash I spent on useless trash I could probably buy a car or a house or something. Well, maybe not. I could at least get a Mac. Actually, I am going to get an iBook. All my friends of the Computer Science persuasion think I am nuts, and accuse me of choosing a computer based on appearance. Damn straight, I’m picking my next computer based on appearance. Windows is ugly. I used OS X in the media labs last year, and it’s awesome. Someone actually thought through the ergonomics of it. Ok so that ends today’s experiment in free association. Time to get ready for exams.

I’m 144 pages into Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. This book is not very exciting, but I do want to know who John Galt is. I saw a bumper sticker asking the same question the other day, and I later discovered this product is available online. Strange. I toyed with making this piece friend only. I don’t like that idea, so here we are back at being public. I do intend to remain practically anonymous, however. This was a very hectic week, but now the semester is practically over. Thursday was the worst/best, cuz I was out on grounds from 8am to 10pm. I was so sleep-deprived and delirious that everything was funny. At lunch we played this game where we passed a spoon around the table, and everyone had to put something (preferably food) on it. If anything fell off, the person who had the spoon was meant to eat the contents of the spoon. Well, I was dumb and tried putting a french fry on the spoon, which already had some goulash, bell peppers, and other shit on it. Of course, the french fry fell off. Damn. So I swallowed the goulash, et al., and promptly felt like shit. In a only slightly unrelated conversation, someone theorized that the dining hall puts pieces of metal in the food, for nutrients. But not iron, because it would rust. Steel is close to iron, right? So somehow I convinced myself that there was a steel ball bearing in the goulash, and that’s why I wasn’t feeling well. All day I went around saying stuff like “Geez, that ball bearing won’t digest!” and “There was a ball bearing in the goulash!” and then cracking up. People probably thought I was insane…well, folks, I probably was. So I made up for all that by sleeping for thirteen hours that night (huzzah for no Friday classes!) We ate at a Mediterranean restaurant, and I had a Falafel. I was good, I guess. I mean, I don’t know how a Falafel is meant to taste, so they could have served me horsecrap in a pita and I wouldn’t have noticed. Then we played Halo dos, at which I suckethed. Then Evan, our neighbor from second year came over and played as well. Evan is a fellow that has true nunchuck skills, for all you girls out there in need of a boyfriend, by the way. Speaking of girls, I realised that I haven’t dated in a long while. I could blame school, or the weather, or the gods, but I won’t…I’ll just move on and start dating again. Qualified applicants inquire within. One last thing to note. If you know me, you should already understand this, but for the rest of you: I am full of shit, and most of this stuff isn’t to be taken seriously. Except for the part about the goulash. It really did make me sick. For whatever that’s worth. - Sighs - I haven’t had time to really think recently. Hopefully this weekend will provide some time to do so. If I come up with anything revelatory, I will be sure to share it. Otherwise, I’ll see you all over winter break.