Poor ducks

I always feel bad for the ducks who land in the law school's zero-depth fountain. They clearly think it's a regular pond, because they invariably sit down when they land, as if they're expecting to float. When they instead discover that they're scraping their butts on the granite, they stand up, shake their tail feathers a few times, and then stand dejectedly in the fountain for a few minutes, as if looking for indications that deeper water is nearby. It never is, and they always fly off, disappointed, after a few minutes.

More, please

I love it when journalists get it so very, very right: The Great Ethanol Scam

FedEx Can Ship Anything!

Even whales.

How to be a butthead

Looking for a way to demonstrate just how much of a butthead you are, but not quite certain how to get the message across? Parking your enormous gas-guzzling SUV (with custom rims, no less) in the "Reserved For Alternative Fuel Vehicles" spot at Whole Foods is a pretty good way to start.

And yes, I checked--it wasn't an enormous gas-guzzling SUV hybrid. Not that I think hybrids should be allowed in spots reserved for alternative fuel vehicles anyway, since they don't actually use any alternative fuel. In fact, I don't really think having alternative-fuel-only parking spots makes any sense in the first place, since it implies that vehicles which run on ethanol are actually environmentally friendly, and not a giant hoax made up to benefit big agribusiness.

I guess it is possible that the driver of that SUV could have given me a well-reasoned explanation of how he parked in that spot to make a statement about the problems inherent in using "alternative fuel" as a proxy for "environmentally friendly," but I suspect that he was more interested in being a douche bag. Unless that SUV has been modded to run on home-brewed biodiesel.

A dedicated public servant of Illinois

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Deborah Seyller, Kane County Circuit Clerk. If you don't see it, look harder (hint: what the heck is on the wall?).

I'm famous!

Not really. But I was on Chicago Public Radio this morning:
Me being famous.

Two disappointments

First off, I've never been a giant fan of Final Fantasy, but Final Fantasy XIII looks like it's going to absolutely reek. From Wired: [The main character, Lightning, is] backed up by her partner, Szah, who has a baby Chocobo living in his afro. Wired asks the appropriate question: [H]ow does Final Fantasy XIII address all the things that make an RPG an RPG, and not just a brief series of simple battles connected by lengthy computer-animated story sequences? Personally, I don't think the series ever has addressed those things; what has made Final Fantasy (arguably) great have been its stories, and when the story involves uncomfortably stereotypical-looking black guy with a baby magical-ostrich-bird-thing living in his oversized hairdo, well, it's time to call it quits.

Similarly, the BSG finale was ... unsatisfyingly predictable. The first hour was amazing, but the epilogue left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Happiness ...

Is getting home at 10PM and realizing that you still have a couple homemade brownies left.

Snippings from the Intarwebs

There is just too much excellent, wacky stuff out there today for me to not post links to some of it.

The best "impromptu" train station dance routine I've seen (via the always-excellent Marisa Wegrzyn).

An audaciously and hilariously inappropriate women's razor commercial (via BoingBoing).

A Detroit News (yep, they still exist!) article about an urban raccoon hunter who is now my personal hero (also via BoingBoing).

Mirror's Edge: First Impressions

Just started playing Mirror's Edge a couple days ago; I'm about a third of the way through. Some initial thoughts:

1. You die a lot, which can be incredibly frustrating. However, it's the kind of frustration that is due to a steep learning curve, rather than seemingly insurmountable difficulties or a game system rigged against the player. Once you accomplish a particularly difficult maneuver, the frustration quickly turns into a warm glow of accomplishment--until you screw up the next move and die again.
2. Figuring out when to jump when you can't see your feet is really hard. If you jump too early, you don't go far enough, and you plummet off a skyscraper to your death. Jump too late and, well, you don't jump, you just perform the aforementioned plummet.
3. Most of the stunts you perform would look much cooler if you could actually see yourself performing them. Mirror's Edge is kind of like watching Olympic figure skating through a camera duct-taped to Michelle Kwan's forehead.
4. I'm trying to play the game without ever shooting anyone. This is really freaking hard, because everyone ELSE has guns, and they're not even remotely shy about using them.

In sum, it's fun, but it's going to take me a while, and it's probably not a good game for you if you get frustrated easily.

Roland Burris

From the Chicago Sun-Times: Roland Burris says, on the subject of whether his race is relevant to whether he should be seated in the Senate, "I have never in my life, in all my years of being elected to office, thought anything about race."

Oh, really?

Alien Life Discovered

Well, not really--it's a rare species of squid. I know, I know, comparing deep sea critters to space aliens is about as witty and original as a sock, but this squid is freaking creepy: Link via Slashdot

New species of squid, or a sign that Dread Cthulhu will soon rise again? You decide.

Only in Russia...

Another excerpt from my fabulous textbook:
"Imagine that you are a spy and that your partner is a double-agent. Your innocent conversation reveals that you are both trying to uncover the other's recent whereabouts. Use the preceding two dialogs as models."

Excerpt from my Russian workbook

This is a real assignment. For reference, Kevin is the fictitious American exchange student in the textbook's obligatory accompanying soap opera DVD.

"When Kevin can't sleep, he thinks of a Russian noun and combines it with an adjective. He says it works wonders! Do you want to try his method? If you are not asleep by the end of the exercise, think of another dozen Russian nouns and combine them with the following adjectives!"

Excuse me, I'm trying to do my homework, not fall asleep! Yes, anyone who has learned a second language knows that endlessly conjugating verbs and declining nouns is one of the most boring things in the world. But gleefully informing us that the exercise is going to be so boring that we'll probably fall asleep, and then telling us to do it over again if we're not--well, that's rubbing salt in the wound, and then sprinkling some lemon juice on it for good measure. Sheesh.

Does it bug anyone else...

When politicians deliberately drop the "g" off the end of "-ing" words in order to sound folksy? Obama was particularly bad in the last debate: he enunciated everything perfectly except when he was talking about Joe the Plumber, at which point he apparently forgot how to use the letter "g".

Displeased

Forgive me this rant, if you will. The southbound #6 bus was extremely late arriving to the State and Lake stop, and the situation only got worse as we proceeded down State, trying to cram the two or three buses' worth of passengers that had accumulated along State into just one bus. We had to leave not one but two guys in wheelchairs waiting on the sidewalk because there was simply no room for them.

Getting to Hyde Park late meant that I didn't start my reading for tomorrow until 5PM, which meant that I didn't leave the law school until 8PM. Then, the northbound #6 had a busted bicycle carrier (a situation which seems to be increasingly common as of late), so I ended up biking up the lakeshore to get home. Fifteen miles and an hour later, I'm tired, sweaty, thirsty, and hungry enough to fly to Alaska and go moose hunting with Sarah Palin just so that I could eat one.

And I still haven't finished my Russian homework.

The End of the World

Apparently a girl in India was so afraid that the Large Hadron Collider would destroy the world that she committed suicide. This leads to an interesting question: if you knew for certain that the world was going to end, would you stick around to watch, or would you check out early? Discuss.

Pillow Posts -- 8-15-07

Sorry I haven't posted much recently--I've gotten to that part of the summer where everything has pretty much become routine (Oh, you want us to replace an entire lineset? Yep, been there, done that), so I don't consider as many things interesting enough to write about. At the same time, I'm also tired, so I have less energy to write. However, we're getting close to the end of the summer, and there are some things I want to cover before I forget about them.

First off, last week was Mark Morris Dance Group. For some reason, they traditionally start their performances a day early, which meant that we didn't get a day off last week. That was okay with me, because I ran sound, and I got to work with live musicians, which are kind of a trademark of Mark Morris. Another trademark of Mark Morris is that he's a personality, and he certainly is that--when one of the interns came onstage to give him flowers at the end of the performance, he swooped her down and kissed her full on the mouth in front of 600 people and a bunch of video cameras.

This week we have Henri Oguike, and his choreography is some of the best I've seen this summer--I really like it. I also like the fact that he brought freaking taiko drums with him. The drumming piece is loud and energetic and a whole ton of fun. Apparently the drumming keeps shaking loose bits of wood and dust from the rafters of the theatre, and anything loud enough to do that gets my enthusiastic approval.

Pillow Posts -- 7/26/07

A couple notes of interest:

We have a new production coordinator, named John, in the Duke theatre, while Hannah (Rocky) is now the Shawn production coordinator. It's not really my business to say why, but the old production coordinator of the Shawn is no longer at the Pillow.

This week's company is the "Bad Boys of Dance". It's a "project company", which means they were assembled for the specific purpose of doing this one performance. That means that the tech process was a little less smooth than normal, because they're putting this all together from scratch. Most companies come in having performed their pieces dozens or hundreds of times before, so the stage manager and lighting designer know how everything works. With these guys, however, our day and a half of tech time is also what would be the equivalent of tech week at the university level. Today was a bit frustrating, but I think we'll get it all worked out.

A reporter from the local NPR station, WAMC, was here today, which I thought was cool, because it's the first time I've ever seen a radio reporter in the field. Print journalists and photographers carry cameras, laptops, and notepads, but this guy was just walking around with a microphone and some sort of recording device. It was very simple and elegant. I'm going to see if I can find out when his piece airs.

I encountered a frog in the men's bathroom this evening. I caught it and released it in the local pond. There are a couple frogs and a salamander that have taken up residence in the pools of rainwater caught by the tarps covering our piles of platforms. Still haven't seen any bears.

I'm starting to get tired. Not that I don't enjoy being here, but the days are long, and the summer is even longer, so I find that I need more and more alone time and sleep to stay happy and energetic during the days. I'm glad we're past the halfway point--I can at least see the end on the distant horizon.

Pillow Posts -- 7/21/07

Inside/Out was actually outside today! Huzzah! I'm glad it was, because today was the performance of the School, and trying to cram all 25 students into the Ruth St. Denis would have sucked. Plus I'm sick and tired of setting up chairs.

I met a very friendly (but somewhat shy) Bichon Frise named Dudley, who was coming to his first I/O performance, and I saw a girl avidly reading the 7th Harry Potter book. The show itself was a toughie--the first half was a bunch of short pieces with quick bits of speaking in between. The show went something like this:

• Un-mute microphone
• Mute microphone when speaker finished.
• Start music playing
• Fade up music
• Fade out music at end of dance
• Pause music once it is faded out
• Cue up next track
• Repeat

The cues themselves weren't tricky, but there never seemed to be more than 30 seconds of downtime, so I was constantly checking levels and equalization settings and trying to visualize my next set of actions so that the coming cue would go off correctly. It was a pretty big adrenaline rush; I was feeling exhausted for fifteen or twenty minutes after that.

Derek told me today that I did a really good job this week, which makes me proud. Derek isn't really the kind of person that I would normally seek out to work with, but I know he has very high standards for the work he does, and so the fact that I seem to have (mostly) lived up to those standards is pleasing.