Happy, happy 25th B-day to the A-Child. Hope it's a good one bro. Of course, I took birthday revenge on you and sent you exactly the present that you sent me! Ha ha ha! As Ralph Wiggum might say, I stoo-stoo-stoop to your level! Mwuhahah. I did manage to call Captain Goober and leave a message consisting of nothing but me saying "Five squared" in "Revolution Number Five Squared" fashion (i.e., "Five squared... five squared... five squared" said in monotone, approximately 48 times). When Aaron called me back, it led to this exchange:
A: That message was crazy.
N: I thought you might like that.
A: When did you get all existentialist like that?
N: Um, what? Not that I'm not existentialist, but...
A: You know, existentialist. Like Salvador Dali.
N: Um, dude, I don't think Dali was an existentialist.
A: Yes he was!
N: I'm pretty sure he was a surrealist.
A: And surrealism falls under the umbrella of existentialism.
N: Uh, oh, but it doesn't.
A: Yes it does! I learned that in school!
N: You sure about that? I'm pretty sure that's not right!
A: It is too right. Dude, I know the art stuff, okay!?!?
N: Okay, whatever dude. It's your birthday.
A: No man, I'm telling you, Dali was an existential... wait.
N: Yeah?
A: I think I meant impressionist.
N: Well, that makes more sense.
A: Right. Impressionism is an umbrella of surrealism.
N: AN inverted, melty kinda umbrella.
A: Huh?
N: Nevermind. It wasn't funny.
Later on, Aaron attempts to reprise my phone message:
A: Square root of 525... square root of 525...
N: Um, dude. Dali. Try again.
A: Huh? Oh, yeah, Square root of 625.
N: I guess Dali wasn't an exponentialist either.
Borderline pantheon joke right there. You may now bask in my self high five.
Life as a Pseudo-Bach has been less than stellar, I must say. I miss the Beck, and she is having some awfully long days up at the equine ambulatory rotation in upstate NY. And Wriggs and Speelarkle have been less than calm in her absence, resulting in a lot of in-and-out-of the bed all night, resulting in a lot of asleep then awake, asleep then awake all night for me. Badness. Combine this with some ill-advised late-night NBA video gameage, movie, and/or chapters of books, and you've got a tired dude. Combine that with some hangage at the chateau Ben-Ali, and last night's Ultimate game followed by Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad show, and you've got someone near comatose trying to teach your children about hyperbolas (a deadly virus, according to one student who, last I checked, is not hard of hearing).
Let's do this thing - BACKWARDS! Rainy disgusting day today, filled with one student showing up late for a 7:45 quiz with the timeless excuse that she had "overslept." Bollocks! Many a snide comment about my own 5:30 wakeup time ensued. And yet, I let her finish the quiz. WTFIUWT, everyone. So then biology with a student, then math SAT, and then class, where I ran what should have been an excellent RPG-style exercise forcing them to solve equations with conic sections. Ah, What Should Have Been and What Never Was - it went well, and then the usual suspects (AC, JC, CU, ATT, etc.) decided to be jackasses about the entire endeavor. There's a heady feeling of May burnout in the air at the 'Nut these days; not coming from me, mind you, but from... my lovely students. More SAT verbal tutorage, a great conversation with Win about these fallible times and the inanity of everyone outside the set that is Win and me, and back home to now. All of this against the backdrop of miserable rain, gray skies and 40 degree weather. Holla, New England, Holla.
Last night, 9 pm-11 or so - live at the Middle East Upstairs with the Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad. Jamie's doing well, and they put on a *serious* show - packed the room on a Thursday evening, all the kids bopping up and down like only the league of elite suburban-raised white dancers can. I kid, I kid - in all seriousness, rocking crowd, and GPGDS has added a keyboardist and some schwank guitar effects since the last time I saw them. Just really a brilliantly solid show - perfect energy, crispness, and Jamie's made this weird from transition to talented, confident musician to straight-up rock star in the best way possible - just uber-confident now and has this air about him that says just let it rip, groove and play. They sounded absolutely fantastic, and like I said, could not possibly have been a better vibe in the club. Awesome stuff, and I think the GPGDS is doing nothing but steepening that upward slope. Keep it up, yo. Saw Meghan and Greg there, too, and shared a few stories under the general category of "Walnut comedy" as we parted ways post-show. Came home, rolled in about midnight, walked dogs, etc., and got not enough sleep (proceed to paragraph 3 for a less Momentous chronology).
Before the ME show, headed down to MIT at 5 to wait for our 6 pm game with the combo team of Mr. Sparkle and Bad Egg, heretofore known as "Bad Sparkle." Now that is a niche audience joke. So raining, disgusting, windy weather, and BS doesn't show with a full squad until approximately 6:55. So we begrudgingly agree to play and proceed to get our asses kicked - we just had a ton of trouble dealing with poaches, couldn't guard their XX's to save our lives, and had a whole lot of clogging / dropping / throwing-away that only enhanced the bad loss effect. I personally played alright, though I am still struggling with hitting girls on incuts (particularly, in my vain and self-centered defense, when they are cutting erratically and not really running). So two turns in those situations, one on a garbage time huck attempt to Andre, but otherwise solid play, including a bunch of near handblocks, some goal-saving poaches, three or four poach-D's and the like. Oh, yeah, and maybe the most brilliant scoober I've ever thrown to Dave Wu - break mark, over two poachers and floated it right into a little pocket out of reach of the stack, hitting him in stride for a 25 yard gain. (Hey, it's my bloggy and I'll brag if I want to). Other highlights - Sprecher went a little psycho on D, and... that's it. Really. A very uninspired performance that can probably be attributed to our lack of ability to get up for a late-starting game. That's not to make an excuse, it's just to say that a lot of Roiders got it into their heads that the game wasn't happening and proceeded to play accordingly. Bah, humbug. Ugly stuff. I took off my soaked clothes and headed to the Middle East. Ben was nice enough to walk the dogs.
Speaking of Benjamin, on Wednesday I drove with him to the Toyota dealership so he could drop off his car and then headed back to the aforementioned chateau for beers and fun. Ali got home at a reasonable hour, so we went to Sebastian's, a local fish joint. Good stuff. Hilarious times, per usual. We headed back to their place afterwards and watched...
THE WORST EPISODE OF "BONES" EVER.
Bold claim, right? I think they need to teach the May 10, 2006 ep of Bones in script-writing courses on the day they cover "How Not to." The plot was "ripped from the headlines" (a tagline always indicative of true creative genius) and every inch of dialog managed to be terrible and a vague aimless debate on the merits of the Iraq was and the soldier's place in history, etc. I mean, David's lines made Angel's "Buffy, I love you" deliveries reek of Olivier. On the plus side, the Secret Society at Yale is now known as Skull, Ali and Bones. Cause in Aliwood, it's all who you know, and Ali knows Bones.
Somewhere, I'm sorry Mr. Jackson, but you're holding a bowling ball and muttering "Bo knows Ali?" under your breath.
Seriously, really great time on Wednesday. Tuesday and Monday were both spent grading tests, and let's just say the red inkwell runs dry. Students seem to be losing focus, seniors are being jerks, everyone has plays and art shows... we have entered the May of our discontent. Right on schedule.
Alright then - we've had 4 straight days of rain and no sign of letup anytime soon, so this weekend may be an Ultimate Wash. Boo-urns But Ali's 30th is tomorrow, and you know ONLY mayhem can ensue. 'Twill be surely recorded in the annals of web. Until then...
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