This evening, I went to a concert at the Coffee House. Since I knew all three performers, I figured it was my obligation to go. It gave me a nice sense of familiarity when Rob Roy’s guitar string broke. And then later, when Kevin Blaine’s string broke too. I think I might be a curse to guitar players.
Archive for April, 2007
For both a lack of anything better to do and a strange affection for the operetta, I went to see The Pirates of Penzance at the Mondavi Center this evening. It was a lovely performance with amusing parts I didn’t remember from the last time I had seen it. I got my ticket a few hours earlier yet still managed to get a decent seat in the second row of the upper tier. I was, however, seated between an oversize man and an Asian girl wearing too much perfume.
As I was pondering before the conductor came out, I thought to myself how slightly pathetic it was that I took myself out on a date. Then I remembered that on Friday nights, I usually stay at home and play the piano for myself or think about not writing posts. And while I usually like that, sometimes I get bored and complain to myself that I’m being too stingy. I mean, I even made myself pay for the tickets tonight. And I didn’t even offer to drive–I forced myself to bike! It made me a little angry. I don’t think I’m going to talk to myself for a while.
The other day in Greek, I caught my professor saying:
Another term for periphrasis is circumlocution.
I laughed at this and pointed out that he was trying to define something by an equally confusing word. He then explained that the latter was a Latinate word, the former a transliteration of Greek.
I don’t know what’s more sad—that it’s likely everyone already knew what a periphrasis was or that we all followed him in his line of thinking.
When I came home from school, I saw a special bike parked next to Brandon’s. It made me chuckle at the cuteness of it all. I guess it makes sense. I mean, where else would you park it?
As I was having sleepy dreams, I opened my eyes to realize I had slept in 10 minutes past my normal waking up time. I jumped out of bed, angrily turned off my silent alarm clock, threw on clothes, brushed my teeth, and left for school without having eaten anything.
It seemed strange to me that there were no other bikers out, but I figured I was running a little late and that it was a Friday after all.
When I reached campus, I passed through the usual professor parking lot and noticed that it was half empty. Knowing that professors don’t take off the day solely because
it’s a Friday, I checked my clock. The time read as I expected–8:53. Except, my class begins at 10. I rushed my morning to be at school an hour earlier than necessary.
A little bitter, I went to the floor that houses the offices of the Classics professors, figuring there would be someone there to talk to. I sat in the hall reading the paper until one finally came along. He was in a hurry, but explained that they were celebrating Rome’s birthday in his Latin 3 class and invited me along. Hungry for cake, I went.
Sure enough, in Lucretius that afternoon, we had the same party. I managed to have cake for both breakfast and lunch.
A few days ago, Jayna informed me of some mysterious chalk writings on the sidewalk in front of the house. We chalk it up (pun intended) to the manifestation of Tourette’s our young next door neighbor. As the writings are indeed quite funny, Jayna wanted to document them for me. However, for fear of being caught doing exactly what she intended to do, she pretended to take pictures of the dogs. I truly love the following images. The dogs sitting uncomfortably submissive in the edges, strange expressions in the foreground… I really think they could win awards. So artistic. But then again, that’s Jayna for you.
The above reads:
Attention: Brandon will have a GSI, A fancy term for Gay Sexual Interaction
When I came home yesterday, I noticed that a car was parked behind me. We have a tandem parking lot, meaning one of my roommates is supposed to park behind me. This was not my roommate. Instead, this was an older black VW Passat, license plate 2VDB912. I got home around 4:30, intending to go to the grocery store in order not to die of hunger in the coming days. I was excited that someone wrongfully parked behind me, meaning I could talk to the management and have some excitement. When I explained this to my roommate, he told me to calm down and not do anything. Unless I needed to go somewhere, I should do nothing.
I figured that groceries could wait. Instead, I wrote a very stern note about how if it happens again, I’ll have the car towed. I also put a sticky note on the windshield that said “BAD PARKING CHOICE,” so the driver would see it when he or she got in the car. It made me a little more happy.
Every so often, I’d look out the window to see the car still there. Finally, around 7:30, it was gone. End of story? I think not.
When I came home from school this afternoon, I saw my sticky note atop something bulky beneath my windshield wiper. In a smelly marker, the following words were written:
It’s All Love…
Had no where
else 2 park…
thank you 4
your kindness!
Beneath the note was a Valentine’s Day themed Pez dispenser. It was a random gift of thanks. I went to my apartment, showed my roommates, filled the dispenser, and remembered why it’s been so long since I’ve had Pez. That stuff is disgusting.
I think regrets in life are a waste of time. Partly because of this, I’m having a hard time describing the feeling that I will now never be able to meet Kurt Vonnegut. Ron, feel free to comment (although it’s not like you needed my permission before).
Since I had ordered a backpack and had it shipped to the REI in Sacramento, I made my way over there yesterday afternoon. I left Davis at 3:42, figuring it was early enough to avoid any major traffic (it’s about a 20 minute drive). For the most part, I was right.
When I got off the freeway, I encountered a strange amount of traffic. I only had to go three blocks, so I wasn’t too worried. When I got to the light, I discovered that there was a police car blocking the direction I was going. Knowing REI was on the left, I turned left, hoping there would be a simple back street. There wasn’t.
I followed the person in front of me through a parking lot until we came out headed the wrong direction. I went the only other logical direction, a decision which turned out to be seemingly wrong, yet inevitably right.
I’d say the whole process took me a good 20 minutes to drive 3 blocks. I had to go quite a while out of my way in order to get back to essentially the same place I started. Near the end, I felt completely lost and almost got out of my car to ask a police officer where I was going. Yet at that point, I sighted REI.
Apparently Google Maps has a new feature that allows you to personalize maps. Click on the below image to zoom in on my route and such.
It turns out the construction across the street hit a gas line, rendering the regular flow of traffic obsolete. I didn’t notice it at all, but someone said it smelled like the pilot light went out. I guess it’s a good thing they fixed it, but I’m still a little bitter.
As I was having tea with a friend this morning, I noticed three businessmen discussing something seemingly important around the table next to ours. This wasn’t particularly interesting or notable, yet there was one thing I seemed to notice about them. Each man had his fancy business cell phone on the little table next to his coffee. I suppose this peaked my attention because it’s not something to which I would normally call attention, yet there seems to be no clear reason for the action. Surely each man has a place he normally puts the cell phone (I would say the pocket, yet I know most businessmen prefer to keep their calling devices mere inches from the convenient, obvious, and logical place built in the pants for specific reason of storing such items, choosing instead to clip it on the belt). For some reason, each felt it was necessary to place the phone on the table. From the sound of their conversation, it wasn’t entirely professional and no sound came from the phones, so it was unlikely they were actually making calls. It just seemed very odd to me that they would do this, yet even stranger to think that I had seen this many times before and did not think it strange.
