See Stew. See Stew link. Link, Stew, link!
I still haven't had a chance to see Chamber of Secrets, but The Sorcerer's Stone was on TV today, and this thought occurred to me: How could there possibly be any rodents within 50 miles of Hogwarts with all of those owls flapping around?
And yes, I appreciate how silly it is that I'm able to suspend my disbelief for the rest the Harry Potter universe, but that point snapped me out of it.
My mom and I had a conversation about my post about The Monkees the other day. The first thing she brought up was that back in the day, bands had "fan magazines" so that folks could keep up on what the band was doing. And once I was reminded of that, I remembered that even TMBG did something like that up through the mid-90s.
But her more interesting remark was that "People want more information these days." This struck me as a profound observation, but I think there's still a question of causality. Is an increasing demand for information being met by an increasing supply? Or is more information being made available because people will consume it?
And that raises another question: Are people being given the information they want, or are they just consuming the information the information they're given? Is it demand driven or supply driven? That is, is the mainstream media covering what people actually want to know, or are they covering what will get ratings?
Unfortunately, for now all I have are the questions without any good answers. But I do have a funny quote from my mom: "I know more about Paul McCartney's life now than I did back then." Hopefully that distracted you.
I realized today that I can count on one hand the number of things I have left to do before I graduate. Now, first of all it's unprecedented that the number should be so low before Thanksgiving. Second of all, I can count how far I am from graduation. On one hand, baby! Check it out:
In all that time that my sister was totally into The Monkees when I was a kid, I never really knew when The Monkees were from. I mean, I knew that the TV show wasn't current, because even my young eyes could tell that the shows were old, but it never even occurred to me to ask how old they were.
And for that matter, in all the years since, I never bothered to really find out much about them. But all of that changed tonight, when, while going through my CDs, I ended up reading the booklet in my copy of The Monkees Anthology.
And once I found out that the group started in 1966 and had a big 20th anniversary thing in 1986, a lot of things clicked for me all at once. The timing of my sister liking The Monkees made much more sense. All of the things my sister said about "Michael not being part of the group" (That's how I remember what she told me. It's probably not what she actually told me. Hell if I remember. I was six.) as though it were current news now makes sense, because michael not touring with the others for 20th anniversary was current news.
Of course, that news currency question was another question that I didn't ask then, but which only occurred to me years later. In fact, one evening while letting my mind wander about the Internet and the impact it's had on how quickly information is disseminated these days (and in particular, I was thinking about news about the music business and how easy it is for me to check up on TMBG at any given moment), I got to wondering how my sister got current information about her favorite bands when she was a kid. And my mom before her, for that matter. I jokingly wondered to myself (not knowing then about The Monkees' 20th anniversary shindig) if my sister had been reading my mom's magazines from when she had been a teenager and passing the content off to the unsuspecting six year old as news.
(And now that I've typed that, I somewhat sheepishly realize that my sister had early MTV to feed her news, while my mom before that had the radio. For some reason neither of those options really occurred to me in my thinking about the internet that night, and I instead only thought about the internet of today versus magazines back then. Probably because they're both text based mediums with a rich dose of color for good measure. Meh, I stand by the joke as written.)
So since I plan to go snowboarding an awful lot this season, I decided I want to document every day, so I can see if I improve, and make goals, and so on. So get used to a lot of this, and I don't blame you if your eyes glaze over. This is more for me than for you.
Kirkwood opened on Saturday, and I was there! We left at right around 5:30 and made pretty good time, despite a mishap with missing the unmerging of 88 and 49 in Jackson and not realizing it for about 20 minutes when we came across the junction of 12 and 49 and wondered where 88 went. So we turned around and went back to Jackson and got on 88 and got to Kirkwood at about 9:45.
It was a nice easy drive, because the road was clear, despite highway signs warning "WINTER CONDITION." "What winter condition is there?" we joked. "It's only 54 degrees, so I don't think it's cold. It's not snowing, there's no ice on the road, and it's not even really windy. Nope, doesn't seem like there's a single winter condition to be seen today." Of course, a little while later there was snow on the side of the road, but that's all there was.
I was vaguely worried about the conditions on the mountain while we were driving up, but when we got there, my fears were relieved, and I wasn't at all worried about using my own snowboard for the day (I had considered the possibility of renting a board for the day and using my own boots). The worst I rode over all day was a little bit of grass or branches sticking up ever so slightly, though bent very downhill. There were a few runs with exposed rock, etc, but they were well marked.
Despite there only being three real lifts open (four if you count lift 1, but it's a too-flat green), it wasn't very crowded. I'd say there were fewer people on those lifts than there are on a normal weekend in February when the whole mountain is open, so there was plenty of room, and the lines weren't too long most of the day. In fact, one of the longest lines I waited in was just to pick up my season pass.
I was amused by the a few overzealous liftees who were making sure that they filled up every lift, even when there was no line, but one guy I rode a chair with wasn't: He told me he was waiting in line before they started the chairs that morning. When it came their turn, he and a second guy with him made it to the chair, but the third girl who was supposed to ride that chair failed to get up to the line in time. The newbie liftee, not knowing any better being stupid, tried to hold the chair for the girl to get on, but when the newbie liftee couldn't hold it any longer, he let go, and it hit the two waiting guys in the back, knocking them on their faces. Not only that, but the guy I was talking to tweaked his ankle before his first run of the season. How much does that suck?
Solitude and The Reut both had nice groomed snow that was soft enough (thanks to the sun) to not hurt when I fell, but plenty hard enough that it was still worthwhile. I split my time pretty much evenly between those two lifts, though I did take one run up Cornice. While the other two lifts were both nice and smooth, Cornice was covered in marbles and other various chunks of ice that made any sort of edging impossible and made falling very painful. In addition to that, parts of the top descent were block off as being rocky, which made it even less worthwhile.
The one thing I wasn't particularly prepared for was the heat. Unfortunately, my jacket actually has lining in it and isn't just a shell, so despite wearing my jacket halfway unzipped and just a t-shirt underneath, I was sweating a lot for the first half of the day. Thankfully it cooled off after lunch as the sun quickly set, and my face got numb after a few falls and the subsequent trips down the mountain.
Another thing I wasn't prepared for was eye-protection. I could not for the life of me find my goggles on Friday night, so I borrowed a pair of sunglasses which actually worked very well. But then again, Saturday wasn't a good test of the versatility of sunglasses, because there wasn't a storm -- I'll have to wait and see how they fair when it's actively snowing at me. The only real problem I had with the sunglasses was at times wind slipping around the edges as I sped downhill would bring a tear to my eye. Someone suggested that that was just because the sunglasses didn't fit as closely to my face as they should. And compared to goggles, the glasses didn't fog up at all, which was great.
My board and bindings were well behaved, for the most part. While at Whistler I had issues with my bindings stretching, causing me problems when I tried to switch from heel to toe, I didn't really have a problem with that on Saturday. I slightly moved the high-back of the binding forward on Friday, so that might have had something to do with it. On the other hand, I had pretty serious problems with my pants rubbing at the back of my calves, leaving me in a lot of pain when on my heelside, and it still hurts now. It felt like the skin was being rubbed raw, but later examination reveals that it was just being rubbed red. That problem could also be because of moving the high back forward, so I'll have to figure out a compromise. Despite the pain, my board held its edge very well throughout the day.
Overall, I was very happy with my performance. I fell a few times, but nothing seriously painful. I can't even remember what caused the falls now, but that's probably something I should pay closer attention to in the future, so I can figure out how to avoid falling. I had many good hard fast runs, and I'm excited about the rest of the season.
And I've been sore all day, of course, but it just serves as a reminder of the fantastic day I had on Saturday. And it'll be less bad later in the season when I've gone enough that all those muscles are well oiled.
Oh baby, it's snowing at Kirkwood. Actually, it sounds like a pretty nasty storm, and I'm kind of glad I'm not there...
But oh, snowboarding is so close. I can't wait. I'd love to be able to go the weekend before Thanksgiving if conditions look good, but I may have to wait until December 7th/8th before I get to go. At least at that point I'll be done with classes and just have two finals left in my undergraduate career.
Heh, one of my thoughtful co-workers just sent me this email:
update, 11/10: Bah, apparently Kirkwood doesn't archive their news, because now that link above is dead. But that's okay, because there's a new update today: Kirkwood's opening on Saturday the 16th! As in, a week from Yesterday. I don't know if I'll get to go, but it's more contingent on me finding a ride than even my workload (despite having my last midterm on the 18th).
Every other year, I've taken Amtrak home for break on the Wednesday evening right before Thanksgiving. But every other year, I've also returned to Berkeley on Monday, missing a class or two in the process (depending on the year).
You probably think that given my goal of perfect attendance this semester, I'm torn about missing those classes on Monday. However, Monday's classes aren't the ones I'm actually worried about missing, because I have to be back before Monday anyway. I'll probably have to return to Berkeley on Saturday, because I've got a project due on Monday.
No, the classes I'm worried about missing are the classes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. You see, since I'm going to have to return to Berkeley on Saturday, I'd only really get two days at home if I left on Wednesday evening. But if I go home on Tuesday, I'd get an extra day, putting my vacation closer to its normal length. Of course, if I do that, then I also miss 3 classes and break my perfect attendance record.
I'm pretty sure I'll just go home Wednesday, preserving my perfect attendance. I think I've been holding off on buying my tickets in case I accidentally sleep in and miss a class or something, but the longer I wait, the more expensive the tickets will get.
My PowerBook has seen a lot of action over the last couple of years. She's got a small crack in her case and her screen just isn't as bright as it used to be. I shorted out her processor and spent a month without her. One of her batteries died this summer and now she just doesn't have quite as much stamina as she used to. And this is probably psychological, but it seems like it takes a lot longer for her to turn on these days.
But none of that is actually what's been bothering me these days. No, what's bothering me these days is the keyboard. No, the keys aren't sticky, despite a few spills. And the keys still have plenty of spring, despite being removed several times so I could clean underneath them.
No, the problem is that I've typed so many words on this keyboard that some of the keys have been rubbed shiny smooth by all that action. The right half of my space bar is very shiny, while the left side retains its original flat finish. The left shift key is equally shiny, while right shift is just as unused.
But my real problem is that the F and J key's nipples just aren't as perky as they once were.
Where once my fingers gravitated to those little protrusions without any effort, now I have to locate capslock and return with my pinkies to verify that my fingers are in the right place.
When I'm in bed beside her, it takes effort to put my fingers where they're supposed to be. I might poke her in the 'i' if I'm not careful.
When she's on my lap and I reach blindly for an f, it's not uncommon for me to accidently hit a 'g' instead.
Hm, I wonder if they make BodyPerks for PowerBooks?
I got yet another Jury Summons today, after getting off scott free with the Kern Summons from June (I wasn't called).
Actually, it's worse than that:
I got a summons to serve in Oakland on December 4th, and a second summons to serve in Hayward on December 2nd. Literally two envelopes, containing two separate Alameda County Jury Summons. How ridiculous is it that I got my fifth and sixth jury summons in two and a half years (between two different counties) on the same day?
Man, Hayward! Hayward is sufficiently far away from Berkeley that I had to look it up on a map to see exactly where it was! It's like 20 miles from my apartment!
I'm trying to figure out how I can use each one to get out of the other, because after 10 weeks of perfect attendance, I'll be damned if I'm going to let jury duty sabotage that one day (or three days, depending on which summons I listen to) before my last day of classes at Berkeley.
And to top it off, I also found a notice that my rent is going up $30 next month taped to my door today. Bah.
Hopefully your Friday was better than mine.