Sleep Spent

I should have been listening to Ben Folds for years. Instead, I only really began to appreciate his music and sense of humor this year. I’ve been making up for lost time recently, and BF5 and Counting Crows have been figuring prominently in my listening habits. My favorite songs at the moment are Philosophy, Underground and Fred Jones Part 2.

And yes, this marks the return of the Song of the Week page. I still don’t have my hard drive back, but I’ve figured out how to get songs off my iPod, so we’ll see how long I can last on just that.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not that I don’t fly, becuse I do. Eli and I were talking about it recently and I reckoned that I’d traveled to destinatoins by air at least 50 times in my life. Of course, much of that was spread out over many years and many airlines. I shudder to think how many miles I would have accumulated if my parents had signed me up when I was little. (Actually, the programs were probably different then, with expiring miles and all that. Oh, well.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Ladies and gentlemen, isn’t it time we put down our guns? We’ve been figting this War on Terrormabob for too long now. Yes, it’s time we stood up for peace!

Or, perhaps, sat down. Or maybe layed down. Yes, I think that would be best.

It’s time we all masturbated for peace!

Think George W. should go pick on someone his own size? Go ahead and slap that salami!

Think nation building should begin at home? Then send a message to those in power by flogging your dolphin.

The method of the day is “Use Both Hands.” Actually, to be honest, I’m a little concerned about December 31; don’t know where I’ll find a friend to masturbate with. :-)

I just seem not to be able to catch a break when it comes to travel! This story took place on Monday, 8 December, the same day as my Humanities final.

(Please note that Ryanair is a company which understands the old axiom “sex sells.”)

---

Michelle and I left the Dublin hostel at 06:45, planning to catch a bus at 07:00. We succeeded, and half an hour later found ourselves at Dublin airport. That was where the fun began....

Read the rest of this entry »

Michelle and I, being the fiscally-minded people we are, decided to take the group coach from our apartment in Kensington to Heathrow for our final flight. (In fact, when we booked the flight, we made sure it was later than the group departure so that taking the coach would get us there with plenty of time.) We were not actually ON the group flight, though.

The coach left promptly at 8:30, and we arrived at Heathrow at about 9:00. Then the confusion started. The group flight was on Virgin Atlantic, so they knew where to go. Our tickets, however, stated that they were “United Airlines operated by Lufthansa.” Doesn’t that sound to you like we should be checking in with Lufthansa? We queried some United staff (the United check-in area was right next to where the bus dropped us off), and the answer came back that they didn’t know anything about the flight numbers and that we would need to go check in with Lufthansa. In Terminal 2. Several kilometers away.

So, we hoofed it over to Lufthansa and got in line to check-in, confident that we were in the right place. Alas, Lufthansa didn’t know what to make of the tickets and (apparently fictitious) flight numbers either. The check-in clerks were only mildly helpful, directing us to the ticket desk where we could get everything sorted out.

That took far longer than necessary, though, because the woman behind the desk was very short and, in a word, unhelpful. We had to ask her four times to call United for us so we didn’t walk all the way back there just to discover that, oh, wait, no, we needed to be at the Lufthansa desk again. She finally deigned to do it and we heard something about “When was it cancelled.” Michelle had been crying before now, but this really set her off, understandably. We felt like a ping-pong ball being batted around. No one seemed willing to take responsibility for our situation.

Unhelpful Woman sent us back to United, which took another half hour to reach. No one at the United ticket desk recalled having spoken to Lufthansa about our case, but it seemed the problem had already been rectified. Some kind soul had placed me and Michelle on a non-stop flight from Heathrow to SFO! We were actually going to get back sooner than we would have flying through Munich! We were both very happy. United even let us call our parents for free to alert them to the flight change. Nice people, those.

There were no further issues, and we got into SFO at 17:30. So good to be home!

Passport Agent: How long will you be staying in the UK?
Nick: For about twelve hours.
Agent: Finished with your studies?
Nick: Yes.
Agent: So you’ll be leaving for good then?
Nick: I hope not! I just don’t know when I’ll be back yet.

In Brussels right now, except they spell it with an x: Bruxelles. Having a great time! I had a real Belgian waffle, some fritas (French fries; really Belgian) and a real Belgian sausage.

Turns out some friends of Jordan’s are here, so we hung out with them today.

Fortunately, the money is going to JUST hold out. Looks like I’ll squeak by with a few dollars to spare.

Rob and Jordan are making fun of me, so I have to go now. Amsterdam tomorrow!

Holy shit! I’m done!

That’s right, folks, I am officially finished. Five days late. But I’m not going to let that distract me from the fact that I just completed the last essay of the quarter. Let the (frugally budgeted) partying commence!!

In other news, Jordan and Rob arrive in 6.5 hours. (American Airlines, Flight 136.) Just enough time for some sleep....

This is so sadly hilarious, I can’t do it justice. You just need to go look at it.

The HisTory of Michael Jackson’s face

I love music. But more than that, I love music that challenges me. I like immersing myself in a song or an album and getting more out every time I listen to it. This is why lyrics are so important to me: cryptic lyrics are great fun to analyze and pick apart. (See my We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes analysis.)

I was listening to (This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan (mp3) today and I heard something that I’d never noticed before. I don’t know how that’s possible, since this is my favorite song of all time and I’ve listened to it many hundreds of times so far. But there it was: an echo in the first verse that’s delayed several beats.

This isn’t the first time I’ve discovered new things about a song long after first being introduced to it. The same thing has happened with Toad the Wet Sprocket and Radiohead. And the Counting Crows. And, of course, the Beatles. It’s just wonderful to find music that not only stands up to repeated listening but fairly challeneges you to Look Closer.