Hylame!

So, during a down moment at work (read: any time in the entire morning), I decided to check up on the ol' email, see if anyone sent me:
1. an email
2. a request for a sub at WRCT, even though I'm 2 hrs away, because I can't unsubscribe from their e-mail list as long as I'm a member there
3. a curiously misspelled advertisement for soft-ware from ado be or micros;oft, or possibly "vi@gra or other Licensed Iove t@bs", or maybe even something called "The Extender" (... err, i wish i were kidding)

But instead, I was greeted with:

this lady. I think. Ms. Young Professional herself, complete with low-cut but conservative red blouse and smug "I own this company and, therefore, am disgustingly rich" smile. Flanked by her bodyguards, err, coworkers, "I'm too masterful at Tae Kwon Do to even cut my hair" Boy and "My white shirt hides my enormous muscles, but my bald head makes no effort to conceal that I have a brain the size of a rat doot" Man. She kindly informed me that access was denied to webmail.andrew.cmu.edu, because of "policy violation." She did not inform me that I was immediately put on probation to ensure that I didn't commit other seditious activities, but I'm pretty sure it's true. I think an agent is watching me as I type right now.

At any rate, I think it was that lady. It could have been this one though:

Ms. "My neck is so crooked because I'm actually Stephen Hawking." HER bodyguards can fade into the background, chameleon-like, until, all of a sudden, your jugular is no longer entirely inside your body.

Well, no more email for me. Boo Hyland for doing something lame. Come to think of it, that's really the first lame thing they've done though, besides existing in a boring field, so I'll cut them some slack. Besides, if you have a pressing urge to contact me, you can still email me at Daniel.Tasse (at) onbase.com. Fantastic.

A fantastic weekend

So first, I got to see my Cleveland friends- the usual gang, Kemal, Adam, Pete, Dave, plus Kevin, Grace, and Emma. That was great fun, we went to Kemal's and futilely attempted to play a lot of sports. Sat around, ate hummus, reminisced about Ignatius, etc. Man, that was only the second time this summer I've seen some of them (I think) and it's almost July! What the heck?!

Saturday was excellent- woke up super-late, bought some food, cooked it, Pittsburghers came over- Gerrit, Catherine, and Zach, followed shortly by Beej, Julie, Kaitlin, Connor, Tim, Joe, and Ashley. Made for a great time- we ate picnicky style, threw a frisbee, burned those little toy expanding snake things, played tag variants (also "Man with Bags"!), made a fire, a bunch of fings. It was generally fantastic.

Then Sunday, we went to the Unique Thrift Store, bought some shirts, played Whirlyball, ate at the Winking Lizard, the whole deal. Good times.

It was a good weekend- whichever half you were there for, you probably remember. (or neither, in which case I'm sorry I didn't get to spend time with you)

Another week of WORK! bloogh! (drowns) time to catch up on SLEEP before said week! (this is lame, all my entries end in how I'm going to go to sleep. Whatever. You want original entertainment, go see some improv or something!)

Was it that obvious?

Today I went to a Cleveland scavenger hunt. Run by a group called (i)Cleveland. An event for interns all over the city. They want us to stay in Cleveland after we graduate, and I don't want to stay in Cleveland after I graduate. Fair enough.

They got us to run around downtown, getting pictures of stuff like "a piece of public art," "an elected official," "a segway," and so on. Whatever, I got paid for it. And I got to meet other interns from around Cleveland, which was nice. The guys I came with, from Hyland, were the biggest nerds. So when we got thrown into random teams, I thought, great, new people. To divide us into teams, first they asked "who's been skydiving?" Two people, out of maybe 100. "Okay, who's been to another country?" Probably 90. So I finally got arbitrarily assigned to a team, and we made awkward introductions- my voice is so damn low. I can't be heard, and my name is one ambiguous syllable- "Dan." Jim? No, Dan. Hello, Emily, Bill, Amber, Matt. Err, good to meet you... some more words I can say to keep the conversation going.

It as at this point that I looked around and remarked, "They could have just given us all random numbers." And Amber, tan, beautiful, wearing a low-cut shirt and lip gloss, (that's what it's called, right? just to make her lips shiny, not add color) Amber looks at my name tag and asks "What company are you from?" I said "Hyland Software," but remember, my voice is very low, a gravelly, nasal bass. So she asked me again, and I raised my voice to the audible range. "HY-lend SOFT-ware." "Oh. That's what I guessed, something technology-related."

I sputtered back, in the most cocky, self-assured swagger I could muster, "Heh heh. Was it that obvious?" but I was lost in the deluge of conversation and background noise. The gravelly, nasal bass flopped around in the bottom of the conversation boat.

Later, I asked her, where do you work? "National City Bank, in advertising." Oh, that's what I thought, something SHALLOW.

Well, she was really a nice enough kid, I talked to her for a bit- she was on my team, after all. She meant no offense. Still, it was a label. And I will never see these kids again. Isn't it ironic how, defending myself from her labeling me, I labeled her?

---

Err... I have to go now. I meant this to be a normal blog entry, really. At any rate, that's the most interesting thing that's happened to me in the last day. Hey, scaveneger hunting > working.

Observations

I locked my bike to the bike rack today, locking it but only twisting one digit, in such a way that if anyone tried a couple combinations, plus or minus one, he'd be able to steal it. Not that anyone working at Rich Software, inc. in Suburbia, USA would steal an average bike anyway. Someone stole my helmet off my bike the other day at Giant Eagle in Suburbia, USA, though. The lock was locked the same way, just twisting one digit- and still locked when I returned.

I got myself a glass of ice water, even though pop (and coffee) is free. Most of the people I work with are overweight. I read somewhere once that "engineers in general tend to be in good shape. Computer hardware engineers in particular. Software engineers tend to be a bit rounder."

As I left the cafeteria, (called the "diner" for nostalgia's sake, I guess, although the CEO is probably in his 30's- he doesn't have anything to be nostalgic about! Called the "diner" for the same fake sense of nostalgia you get when people talk about the good ol' days of baseball) I ran into George, the Vice President of QA. QA means Quality Assurance, which means software testing, but I guess you can't have a Department of Testing. Just one level too direct.

Anyway, George, probably in his late 50's, clearly defies the "round" standard of software engineers. He's tall, skinny, and angular. And imposing. A gangly bogeyman Vice President of Quality Assurance. He's always around our cubicle area, I constantly hear his tall, angular, and imposing voice, when he's telling people to "update to the latest build" or some such nonsense. Some people, particularly managers, say he's a great guy. Our "training director" said that George was the reason he came to work at Hyland. It's true, he seems likeable enough- almost paternal. He learned my name the second day I was there, I give him credit. The tall, forceful, fatherly skeleton Vice President of Quality Assurance.

He gave me that nigh-condescending "How are you today, Dan?" with a touch of "and" before the "how", like Stan Laurel or something: "And how are you today, Dan?" His presence forced my voice into submission; my strong, planned "Hi George, good, how about you?" ran together as he strode past (quickly, of course). It came out as a mumble, "Hijorgoodhrbrt you?" This is partially because I've never been too sure about addressing the Vice President of Quality Assurance as "George", even though everyone does. He's the kind of guy you wouldn't want to offend- he'd laugh it off, but there'd be a subconscious tick back there somewhere, and since he probably controls the company, he'd eventually have you fired and blacklisted. He responded "Good." with a downward pitch. I couldn't tell if that meant "I'm good too" or "It's good that you're doing good." Probably both.

I swiped my card in the clock-in machine. It was 9:13. Oh well, last time I came in on time was a long time ago. Does anyone notice? I'm sure someone does. And hey, it comes out of my paycheck, so there you go. Yesterday was nice: as I was clocking out, I fumbled with my wallet, and just before I swiped my card, the clock's minute changed. That fumble earned me 25 cents. (17.18 cents after taxes, but hell, whatever. Why whine about taxes? Everyone else already is.)

I fired up my computer, packed my bags for the day-long cruise in the ocean of ennui. Looked at my map of Copper Mountain ski resort, realized how nicely divided the trails are. There are your green circles, all in one spot, there's a lift serving only blue squares. There are the back bowls, slashed with yellow to indicate "high alpine adventure terrain." The back of the mountain was closed the day I was there, but you can tell their majesty just from the map. Nobody talks much around here, even at lunch, but one of my coworkers noticed my love of skiing today and it provided a good four minutes of conversation.

The other day, I burned my hand while cooking- the first thought through my head was not "ow" but "at least this will provide something to talk about."

---

Damn, that got grim in a hurry! Sorry about that! Maybe I'll continue it and turn it back to a happy note. What do you think? More observations or other somewhat creative writings? or "stop being a pretentious corporate-america-bashing indie fuck and go back to writing what happens each day"? or "good start, but that was really poorly written, and it didn't even have a conflict"? let me know if it held your interest, shoot, post anonymous if you like. It was fun to write anyway.

God damn, Ted Leo

So it's pretty trite to say that I want to have his babies, but maybe, whenever he has kids (wait, he doesn't already, right? does he? i don't even know, he's 34, it's possible), maybe I could say I want to have his babies in the sense that I could actually steal them. Because if they rock anywhere near as much as their dad, that would be a lot of rocking.

Forget all the modern pop/rock music. I hope the list of "rock heroes" who will be remembered from our modern era will somehow include Ted Leo.

On another note, I'm thinking said list will include System of a Down, for which I'm not sad. Among the alternative rock crowd, these guys might be the only ones to put out a solid, original product. And they've been doing it for 4 albums, still good, still popular, and they have a double album coming out I guess, which may be their "big" album, you know? So if they end up being recognized as much as, say, Metallica or some other less-good band, I'd be happy.
(instantly loses all "indie cred") whatever. they're pretty good and you know it.

Went to see "Man with Bags" tonight- it was weird and absurd and experimental. I think I had the wrong outlook- I kept looking for a plot line. It was super-tenuous at best, because it was weird, absurd, and experimental. There were definitely cool parts though. And it was good to see Miss Brown and Mr. Gray again. (quote my mom: "you're going with people named 'Brian Gray' and 'Julie Brown'? okay, you're making that up. That sounds like a box of crayons.")

Tomorrow: Family party! Glug! That's not a happy noise. I'm missing a gathering with good friends from grade school that I haven't seen in a long time for it. Also it's in Tiffin, which is 1.5 hrs away, and it will involve many relatives that I don't know. I will recite the standard conversation, "hello, i'm fine, i'm going to CMU, studying computer science, it's going well, i'm working at Hyland Software, it's going well too," about 78975168496 times.

aahahhhahahh sleep, or I'd post more. Guten nacht, Herr Fischer!

Fish tonight!

So I kinda forgot to defrost it ahead of time, and the marinade wasn't very good, but thanks to the magic of GEORGE FOREMAN, it turned out fine. Add broccoli and rice, and all together, it made for a successful meal. Thanks, GEORGE!

I think I'll just turn this into a food blog. Where I go "yayyyy food!" every so often.

Also hooray Ted Leo thursday! And most other things.

err... FOOD!

2 nights ago: mandarin orange scallops
last night: jamaican jerk marinated pork and "salsa vegetables"
tonight: fajita things w/ chicken, leftover salsa vegetables, and brilliant black bean and corn salsa from Trader Joe's
later tonight: pineapple cake!

So the jamaican jerk marinade was excellent, and so was the George Foreman grill I was cooking it on. Look out Webster 403, George will be sharing the residence next year. Umm... throw in "omelets for breakfast" (ingredients: see "fajita things" ingredients, plus eggs) and it's pretty much been a good week for food all around.

Tomorrow: whitewater rafting traveling. Well hey, it's not work. I don't know any of the kids going, because it was organized through my high school, and my dad, being very involved w/ the high school, decided to go, so there we go. A lil' awkward. But hey, rafting, cool.

What else... Oh! Music at work! I just figured out that it's generally accepted for people to listen to music there, so might as well join them.

Good list:
Interpol (had never really listened through their cds before)
the Flaming Lips (okay, I'm a tool who just jumped on the bandwagon at Yoshimi, but I like it a lot)
!!! and Ted Leo* and the Shins and Beck (obviously)
ARCADE FIRE ep (not as stellar as Funeral, but man, listen to "No Cars Go" or "Headlights look like Diamonds" and tell me there wasn't greatness in the making there. Wait, there was.)

Not bad, but not suiting my tastes as much, so don't reply angrily with "Hey, this band's awesome!":
Elliott Smith (too quiety... I do like "Rose Parade" and a couple others though)
Matt Pond PA ("Closest" is fantastic, and I don't mind "Lily Two" or "KC", but as for the rest, see description of Elliott Smith)
Fiery Furnaces's "Gallowsbird's Bark" (sorta fun pop, but really just an appetizer for the greatness that is "Blueberry Boat")

*so, does "Me and Mia" have a video? I don't think so, yet, anyway. So here's how it should go: A guy sitting in a cubicle, surrounded by other cubicles, watching his computer's clock tick. An e-mail pops up, it's his boss, asking what time he'll be in tomorrow or something, like lumberghesque. He's puzzled, he thinks for a bit, then types something short and defiant, like "I won't." sends it, dashes out of his cubicle, vaults over the railing of the 2-story atrium's balcony, jumps on his bike. As the song ends, you see a gridlock of cars, and him riding his bike joyfully past.

It has nothing to do with the song, and it's terribly trite (har har. cubicles.), so it shouldn't be like that at all. But that's what I felt like today, while listening to the song. Minus the bitchy boss and jumping over the balcony.

Speaking of which, they'll be in Cleveland, one week from today. Hot! Y'all should go.

My friends are home from college! And they'll be here soon. WooOOO! So I'm out.

Tripsburgh!

Yeah, I took a trip to Pittsburgh! It was hot! I mean awesome, not actually climatically hot, but it was that too.

Thanks first and foremost to Kaitlin and Beej, for letting me stay at their abodes, making me foodstuffs, and tolerating the fact that I basically said "Hello, I'm in Pittsburgh, I have no plans, entertain me!" :)

Thanks to Alan, who came down to the 'burgh with me, and Tim, who almost did, and was prevented through no fault of his own.

Thanks to Leslie, Brianna, and Diana, for hosting Zach's birthday party and making delicious burritos with mole, and to Zach, for having a birthday to merit such a celebration. Thanks to Beej, Ram, and Aaron for spearheading the trip to the Oaks Theatre to see Psycho, and congrats to Aaron for winning a shower curtain.

The "I wish I had a video camera" moment goes to Connor O'DinosaurMalley.

Thanks to Beej for getting me to start listening to the Beatles, to Scott and Katie for letting us invade their apartment to play board games, to the dice for ... okay, I rolled seven dice (each with two zeroes, two ones, and two twos) and came up with a total of zero. I soon lost the game.

Houpla to the Church Brew Works for being awesome, having a little less churchiness and a little more restaurantiness than the average church, thanks to Gerrit for teaching me how to throw a frisbee, which was bought at said Beer Works.

And congratulations to Ken Tew and all of us for creating a fantastically awkward moment by not acknowledging each other at the Eat'n'Park visit.

I love you all, have a good night.

More about fings

Hey!

So life's flying past as usual. I had to go and get a job this summer, which makes the weeks go fast but the days go so slow. Sigh. So about this company:

Pluses
-Very casual, almost no dress code, free pop/coffee/tea
-Fun things, like going to see Star Wars during work, or having an all-afternoon party involving racing mini battery-powered motorcycles
-Getting paid approximately $infinite/hour
-Biking distance from home
-I'm sure I'm learning a ton
-Resume booooooooost!

Minuses
-Boring. If this is what life is like as a worker in computer science, get me out now. Long days sitting in front of a computer, making minor changes to a tiny part of a document management software suite.
-The people. Besides a few, most are standoffish and unfriendly. Well, not unfriendly, so much as just not very social.*
-Long days. But I can't complain about that, that's, er, a normal 40-hour work week.
-I fell off the damn mini-motorcycle. :|

*I swear, if my life were a movie, everyone in that company is a reused actor, someone I've met before, acting in a completely different role. We've got my high school economics teacher, one of my juggling friends (in a few years), my cousin, a kid from my high school... it's not quite uncanny, but it's only partially canny.

Anyway, as for the rest of life... this weekend was cool, saw a lot of folks from high school. Oh shoot, my birthday happened too! Yeah, I got a cell phone, which is pretty cool, for convenience reasons. I also got a George Foreman grill- oh yeah, I've been cooking! Damn! Cooking is fantastic! Next year, I'm cooking a lot, and you're all coming over to Webster for some delicious meals! And hey, other people like to cook too- we should all cook stuff and eat stuff! It could be like some lame cooking club, except it wouldn't be lame, because COOKING! Hot!

Man, cooking is so good. And there's this new grocery store near where I live too, called Trader Joe's, and it is so good too! Good healthy tasty natural foods, for cheap! Too bad there's not one in Pittsburgh (is there?)

So yeah... I really like food!

I, um, work for this company...

Background: This week, Hyland Software got its 5000th customer. So they planned a party... for this Friday (tomorrow)...

Email I received: (And by "mini-bike" they mean those little motorcycles that are so small they look silly. Ever played "pocket mode" on Moto Racer? It's that. Obv. these aren't too powerful- they go like 15mph. But still. Here's the email:)

---

The Hyland 5000 mini-bike races will be held tomorrow in the back parking lot. Each grouping will race to determine their representative in the finals. We grouped certain areas together to facilitate the race times and such. We will then have the semi-finals races to determine the top four for the final race.

This is a "race at your own risk" event. If you plan on racing, we recommend wearing pants. We have gloves and helmets for those who wish to race.

1st Prize - $500
2nd Prize - $250
3rd Prize - $100

The four finalists also get to take their mini-bike home with them. The others will be raffled off.

Here are the times for the departmental races:

TIME - DEPARTMENT(S)
12:00 - Diner & CEC
12:10 - Tech Support
12:30 - Development
1:00 - Sales, Latin American Sales
1:30 - Marketing
1:45 - IS, OnBase OnLine
2:00 - QA, Documentation
2:30 - HR, HSU
2:40 - Product Management, Education Services
2:55 - Operations
3:10 - Installations, Project Management
3:20 - PSG, Custom Solutions

Thanks and Good Luck!

---

Err... so my company, it's a Dilbertesque cube farm, but it's, uh, evidently an awesome Dilbertesque cube farm.

I am psyched

To do list:

1. Organize room, sell half of contents of closet on ebay. Like cards from the old Star Wars card game- would you believe someone would still buy those? Wow, ebaying might be fun. I could skip that whole "employment" phase of life and go straight to crazy-old-lady-ness. Buy and sell antiques, I mean, shoot, there you go.

2. Build a computer. We've got all the parts now... and I figure, I'm a CS major, it's one of those things I'm supposed to know how to do. (I guess I'm also supposed to eat Unix for breakfast, live under a table at an anime convention, hack into someone's computer just because I can, build a shrine to Halo and make hourly pilgrimages, grow my hair out like a rock star, except longer, grease it every day and ponytail it, hack into someone's pacemaker just because I can, and make seven million dollars by age 23... *sigh* I'm doing my best here)

3. Skip this one if you don't want to hear about boring computer crap. So I work for Hyland Software, in sunny Westlake, Ohio. Their main product is called OnBase; it's a huge enterprise document management suite. Companies use it to manage their databases of scanned and other documents. A user can login to OnBase through a "thick client" or a "thin client," much like using Mulberry vs. using webmail. The thick client consists of a large executable, like most programs you might run. The thin client includes a group of .dll files called the "core." The thin client accesses the core through a web GUI. Now, a developer might not like the thin client, for whatever reason, and he might want to create his own GUI. We give him (not him/her... first of all, "him" is gramatically correct; second of all, I don't think a woman would want to develop her own GUI. Hey Connor, you could make a misogynistic joke here, like: How many women would it take to develop a GUI for Hyland Software's OnBase? None, they all just use the thin client! ROFL ROFL LOL!) anyway, we give him the ability to develop his own interface solution through a module called "hyland.services". This module is powerful: using it, a client can run the following commands: Connect, Disconnect, QueryDocuments, GetCollection, GetDocumentData, and StoreDocument; thus, obviously, he has all the functionality he needs. Currently, hyland.services is written in C#; these developers might want it in Java. Because I am an experienced Java programmer, my project is to rewrite this C# code in Java. This is more difficult than it sounds, however, because, using Microsoft's .NET capabilities, a C# developer can access the Core, which is written in C++. It's fascinating, really, the Common Language Runtime in .NET allows languages to interact seamlessly like this. However, Java is not a Microsoft language, so, naturally, it is not included in the .NET revolution. This makes it difficult to use certain classes, such as one called "PropertyBag", which are in the Core. I may need to rewrite these classes from scratch. I don't think this will be much of a problem, though, because, for example, PropertyBag is really just a glorified hash table. Hah! They thought it was worth giving it its own class, when it's mostly just a hash table! What jokers. You didn't skip this one, did you? Serves you right. I warned you. At any rate, the differences between C# and Java are mostly cosmetic, so it's usually easy to just copy and paste the code. I think C# is a superior language, because it provides lots of easy tools to programmers, such as streamlined get and set methods. However, the world has Java holdouts, which is fair. A popular Java IDE, Eclipse, is available free at www.eclipse.org, and to develop in C#, most programmers use Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, which is expensive.

4. So a summer w/o acting, or improv!... I'm telling you, by the time I get back, you'll have to feed me lines of code, and I'll spit out the output in binary through my ears or something. Maybe I should take up poetry: here, I wrote an Ode to Poetry:

Poetry
Poe, a tree!
Oh, it is comprised of a singer most popular during the mid-90's famous for such hits as "Angry Johnny" and "Hello" (or possibly, the gruesome author of "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Fall of the House of Usher," and other literary classics... but then it'd be Edgarallanpoetry, which it certainly isn't), as well as one of nature's most beautiful creations, the magnificent tree!
Anger or gruesomeness, and beauty!
They fit together like butter and margarine, combining into a gooey mess, and why would anyone ever combine them?
Which is really the essence of poetry.

I appreciate your honest comments. But in all seriousness, #4 on the to-do list is read, so I'm going to go read (Catch-22 right now) and then go to bed.

Having a job

makes the time off so much sweeter.

On lameness

Lame: not going to the Decemberists concert. Oh well, it's reasonable... it is 2.5 hours away from you Pittsburghers on a Wednesday night. (and probably not good for me to go to either, considering I uh overslept until 10:30 today! whoa!)

Not-lame: my job, which I thought was lame. Now that I'm actually doing something and not just inundated with a lot of reading that I don't understand, it's pretty cool. Further updates as exciting things happen!

Totally not-lame: coffee. it's up there with the arcade fire in terms of awesomeness.

Also not lame: dinner. Whoa, dinnertime, see you kids later!

Post! Raisin Bran is a healthy way to start your day.

So what have I been doing this week that made me so busy I couldn't even post anything?
1. organizing room, it's a mess!
2. planning/executing my mom's mother's day/birthday festivities.
3. (sigh) playing Secret of Evermore, an old SNES game. I guess my inner dork shines through.
4. running errands, etc. Wow, there's a lot to be done in a family of 4 people!

Whatever. I start work next week. I have to say, not working is more fun than working, but this job should be cool. Hyland Software's the name, and, err, document management (I guess) is their game. Which sounds boring. But hey, at least I get to do something related to something I know how to do.

Enough about the future, it's time to live in the past! What I'll miss about last year:
1. Double-majoring in acting and having fun, minoring in CS (easiest major in the school!)
2. Improv
3. All those swarms of bees
4. wait for it... Donkeypunch!
5. Beast Bird Fish
6. Parties, especially at Webster and Kaitlin's house, because they're awesome. Also at that house next to Il Valletto, even though I don't know the people, because they have roofs!
7. Midnight Breakfast Buffet at Eat'n'Park! Goal next year: go to the buffet and get one of everything. Unless my eating ability goes blank. Which is a terrible thing to do when you're asked to eat everything.
8. Acting out that dialogue between Theresa and Sarah with Rob and Kaitlin. Like Running Bear!
9. Steven Rudich's incredible 251 lectures! err... cancel that.
10. Klaus's fantastic 211 lectures! Wait, I'm enrolled in the "Klaus teaches things he likes" class next semester.
11. Losing The Game.
12. Shoot, what's the point? This is lame, writing down everything I liked about the last year. It's all there, we all remember it clearly. So I'll stop being lame.

Right... I guess I did promise lists. So there they are. Boo-yah! Boo-yah! chk-chk-chk-chk-chk...

And... cut!

All the craziness is finally over. Freshman year, 1/4 of my college career, probably the 3rd best year of my life so far, is over.

(Well junior year of HS was best I think, then senior year. Maybe vice versa. For what it's worth, though, last semester may have been the second best four-month period of my life (after summer 04), but fall semester was kind of a turd.)

Hey, now this entry will be a Choose Your Own Adventure! If you want to read an introspective, pretentious, indie-fuck blog entry, continue reading. If you want a normal blog entry and some nice easy-to-read lists, wait for my next post.

So for the movie of my life:

A scene of a party on a rooftop. No guardrails or anything, just a roof. Around, there's one big lit-up building, a distant view of Hamerschlag Hall, and a valley with not much in it. It's May, but still brisk outside. Everyone's relaxed, mostly quiet. A ladder leads to another rooftop; on the higher roof, a circle of people passes around some pot. I'm on the lower roof, someone suggests I should be a politician. I say, "No, if I were a politician, I'd be over here (sits down, completing a circle), talking happily with you. But I'm over here, (standing on the outside of the circle), looking a little awkward." I talk with some people, go inside, talk some more. Then we all go to Eat'n'Park, which was pretty normal.

So the moral of the story is, life's sometimes too perfect to be real. I don't mean perfect as in love, because that certainly hasn't happened yet, or tremendous luck, because that hasn't either (although some would argue that I got lucky when they were handing out lives, and I'd agree). Just too movielike.

I'll stop being all weird now. That all felt like something out of Garden State. But it really made me stop and take notice. Like the day I went biking in Bloomfield, came back, saw my house at the fence, and threw a frisbee for a while. A different perspective. Not in any noticeable way, but it's like the lighting operator threw a different gel over the lights of my life.

On another note, I love you all. The goodbyes got ridiculous, I kept saying goodbye over and over again to the same people. But now I actually am gone. So I do love you all.

Next post: easy-to-read lists, I promise!

The mewling hordes grate on my ossicles

They desire a post. Can't they see that everything is a turbulent hurricane now, turbulent in the sense that a rainstorm of ice cream is turbulent. A beautiful mess of cheesecake and raspberry sorbet, with graham cracker and chocolate shavings.

And by mewling hordes I mean nobody in the entire world. And by that entire first paragraph I mean:

So it's finals week. Is it bad that it's like fun-week, with the occasional test? Well I feel like I'm doing fine on them so far, so I think it's good. So basically I'm all happy now, except that the seniors are leaving. Damn I wish I could go to Meatfuck tonight- last chance to see many of those kids... but there's a board meeting. Well, as Grubb says, get used to it, it'll happen a lot.

Oh, err, yeah, for those of you who don't know, Meatfuck is a trip to an all you can eat Brazilian steakhouse. Very high on the list of "most decadent things." But hey, it'll still be there next year.

At any rate, there's Kennywood Friday, Beck's "Guero" on my computer, going home on Saturday, and a week of relaxation.

Wait... dammit! I'm going home, that means I won't see any of you kids for a few months! Yeah, I realize this, but it hasn't really sunk in yet. Shit! Well... y'all should come visit Cleveland. Just a hop and a skip away from Pittsburgh, and hey, it's not racist as hell. I'm serious about a Cedar Point trip, if anyone's interested, it'd be cool. My house is always open.

And if not, I'll see everyone in August. Next year ~= cool. (that's a "will be equal to")

Bam thwok!

The week is over, things are getting better. Now the fun begins.
Finished 1 homework assignment in each class
Finished Amazons-bot (thanks mostly to Jay)
Read (most) of the plays proposed for Homecoming 2005
Ready for show(s) tomorrow (yeah Scotch on the Rocks!)
Performed improv show tonight (yeah no-format!)
And had a blast doing it all.

One week left of school. Makes me damn sad. Man, I'll miss you guys. If you're reading this, I'll probably miss you.

And if you're reading this, thank you too. This year's been a bit of a crisis for me, a bit of a self-confidence test, a bit of a social trial. Thanks to a few awesome people (okay, a lot of awesome people), I'm mostly back to my old self.

I don't have anything more to say, so... preference vote! Me stopping this entry: 6 for, 1 against, 2 abstentions. Call for a vote: 7 for, 1 against, 1 abstention. WOOO formality!

Quite the day

Wow, today was a day.
Board preview, woo, went well, that's all. 1 week till showtime!

Elections! Board for next year = awesome! Oh yeah... and I'm an EBM. Whoa. I am very surprised- a no-talent no-experience punk like me. I'll stop that now, it sounds like compliment-fishing. I can certainly get the job done, I know what's going on, and hopefully I can prevent some feuding silliness. It'll be a good year.

Some homework, a fondue festival at Catherine's, I ate too much, but it was so good. Relaxing with some very good folks. Right on brother. Scotch-n-Soda Theater is the best.

In the meanwhile, one big crunchy week. Wish me luck, and sleep, and the ability to finish things. I'm feeling optimistic. This is one of those weeks that's not just drudgery- it's a challenge. Raargh, let's do it!

Blogging... the modern prayer

See, when I arrived in Pittsburgh this week, on Monday, after interviewing for a job at Hyland Software in Cleveland (I got the job btw, woo!), I was at the Greyhound station, the epitome of callow youth, wandering around bleary-eyed.

John saw me walking around, asked me for the time. He was average height, weight, whatever... black guy, looked a little scraggly but you couldn't really tell... except his teeth. They were all messed up. I told him the time, then he asked "what are you looking for?" I explained my plight. He introduced himself and walked me over to Fifth Ave. where I could catch my bus. He was a kind old guy, like your nice uncle or something. Then (and who saw this one coming?) he asked me for some money.

Voice A: Don't give him money! They always told you that. Even at your catholic high school. Be compassionate, direct them to help, don't give them money.
Voice B: But...
A: He'll just spend it on booze. Or drugs, or worse.
B: But that...
A: Downtown is shady. You take out your wallet full of suburban-white-kid money, everyone will know you're loaded. If they don't already.
B: But he...
A: It's obvious psychological techniques. You're learning about it in 85-102. Foot in the door: he asks you for the time, then money, you give him some. Reciprocity: he helps you, you feel obligated to help him.
B: Well...
Me: Sorry, man, I don't have any money with me.
John: Come on man, just one dollar, that's all I ask.
A: Look, "just $1" he says. You can't buy any food for that, it's just for his next drink. Besides, you can't give him money now, you just said you don't have any.
B: But it's just...
A: Fine. Give him a dollar. Then get on your damn bus.
(I give John $1 and get on the bus)

pause

B: Fuck! You gave him $1? Look, the guy needs help! Give him a few bucks. Or there's a Wendy's around the corner, buy him dinner. He just walked down, I dunno, 5 blocks out of his way to help you out. If, say, a cab driver did that, you'd give him a couple bucks tip. You can't assume he's some subhuman because he's a beggar. He didn't look or smell like a drunk or a druggie, maybe that's all part of his scheme, but damn! Your taking his directions and giving him a measly dollar doesn't help anyone.

On this day of silence, here's a silent internet modern secular blog-bullshit prayer. Sorry John, I shouldn't have stiffed you like that. Hope you're doing all right. Maybe you just totally fooled me with your ruse, and you're a mugger or a nasty liar, but I hope you're just honestly trying to get by.

So if you're downtown and a black guy named John with bad teeth helps you out, ... I don't know what. Help him out too.

Carnival!

AKA the Wiz!

Because that's all I did during carnival... I saw the booths for about 45 minutes with my family today. Other than that, it was Wiz, party, sleep. Man, so much fun. The Wiz was pretty fun- I'm not going to lie, it had boring bits, I mean being Extra McChorus, it's not thrilling acting-wise. But hey, still a big production, still fun people! So I'll list some highlights, stream-of-consciousness wise or something

Dorothy: Toto! Where are you, Toto?
Aunt Em: Dorothy? Is that you? I've been needing your help all afternoon!
Dorothy: Soon as I find Toto, Aunt Em. Toto!
Uncle Henry: (enters with bucket on head) Uncle Henry Uncle Henry Uncle Henry! (hits head with fists) Uncle Henry Uncle Henry! (trips over stage lights, falls into cyc, pulling it down with him)
Pit: (looks confused)
Danielle: (Kills Dan Tasse with sticks) (some sharp, some blunt)
Laurel: Go to bed!
Bees: Wheeeeeeeee!

Apparently I gurgle. Brian Gray impromptu-style invited us to crash at his house, and we talked about improv, and he makes tea with flair. And let me just say, he was a great face for the organization as AD, and one of the reasons I stayed involved in those pivotal first few weeks.

So my name got painted on the fence again. My Henderson friends, I'm sorry I haven't seen you in like a week, because I've been so busy w/ the play. But you're awesome to paint my name on the fence. See, everyone has been so profusely declaring admiration for me recently, I feel very awkward. Unfortunately, in some cases, I have been assuming that such adulation is somewhat condescending: if you really admire someone, you'd be more discreet about it. And if it's condescending, then it's like "cute little Dan..." but then that person puts me on a lower status level, which makes it hard for me to ever have a good friendship with that person, which is too bad. But I guess sometimes it isn't: it's genuine appreciation, and if people are truly that gracious, I'm kind of an ass for assuming they aren't. So I apologize to those people, if I fail to acknowledge your kindness, I'm sorry.

(said in a Will Haines voice when there's a lull in the conversation) Will Haines. Geez, for all the crazy things you've done and said this week, you deserve a mention here. Even though you'll never read this, because you think it's stupid, and it is. So normally I'd say you're my hero, but because said things this week include sledgehammering the wall of my existence and wearing a unitard onstage (not sure which is worse), I will point you out as an excellent foil. If I were an author, I'd create contrasting characters like us- like the Darkness and the Shins. Which makes things fun- if all of your friends are just like you, what's the point?

Oh yeah, the Shins played. People whined about "they're not a great concert band" and "low-energy." What do you expect? They're the Shins! They played Saint Simon, I was happy.

And Julie Brown. Well obviously a mention of your feuding rival Will begs a mention of you, but you are such a cool kid in your own right (kid in an entirely non-condescending way) and I'm glad I got to hang out with you, be it at Eat'n'Park or whatever else crazy thing happened this week. You are one person I always enjoy spending time with. Goodwill is so good. And if I'm a doctor and you ever have a fatal incurable disease, I'll let you know. Be sure to hang out in Webster a lot next year.

Eat'n'Park midnight breakfast buffet: $6.99
Future medical bills: $20,000.00
If I had to pay a dollar for each calorie I ingested tonight: $1000-2000
Flannel shirt: $4
Nice black pants: $4
Goodwill store: $excellent
Oh right, there's supposed to be a priceless in here somewhere.
Endless Cyc, Dave Pellow, and Choad jokes: priceless.

Wow, so there you go. Carnival. Further updates may follow as I regain my memory.