I've been doodling today. It's supposed to be Stephen Fry, but it doesn't really look all that much like him. The bit at the bottom is made up, but it seems like something he'd say on QI, doesn't it?

I was going to volunteer with my mom for the Democrats Work project at the Atlanta Food Bank today. All was going well, albeit a bit late, as we drove along North Avenue. The car proceeded to make a delightful flop-flop-flop noise for 15 seconds, and then we lost power. On North Avenue. During rush hour. We managed to coast into the Varsity's parking lot and, after some wrangling around what appears to be the Varsity amateur car show (no, I didn't know it existed, either), we got towed over to the car repair place, where Ruthie picked us up.

Hung out with Ruthie, walked around Lullwater, and had the following thing happen.

ME: Is that a deer?
RUTHIE: ... Yeah, it is. Do they have deer here?
ME: Yeah, I guess...
We walk towards it, as it's standing on the path to leave. It darts away.
ME: Poor thing--forest's fenced back there, which means it still has to be on the path.
It is, in fact. We come across it and, rather unexpectedly, it runs towards us.
RUTHIE: Shit.
We back away slowly. The deer has none of this, and begins to run. We run away, terrified of a doe, as it chases us. It stops after about ten feet, but still.
NICE BULGARIAN FAMILY: La de da...
ME: KILLER DEER.
NBF: ...

So, yeah. Broken car and I was chased by a deer on what is, in a larger sense, my university president's lawn. Good times, man.

Upon being informed that the majority of those surveyed would pick 17 as the ideal age to be again:

PANELIST 1: Oh, that year was terrible! I had acne, bad hair, glasses...
STEPHEN FRY: I was in prison.

Bahahah. I love this show.

Here's a list of what I read over the vacation and thoughts about each, if they're of any interest.

The Freedom Manifesto (Tom Hodgkinson) was by turns interesting (his mention of permaculture, for instance, which was something I'd never heard of, but think is generally a good idea), thought provoking (can I really support myself by only working part time? that would be nice.) and really, really frustrating (when a Brit characterizes the Civil War as the rude north conquering the polite south, I will take offense because I would argue that enslaving people is pretty damn rude).

( More on the Manifesto )

Demon's Lexicon, (sarahtales) was pretty friggin' fantastic. Since I'm not familiar with any of the places where the book takes place (it's all set in England), the true-to-life discriptions of the town were more-or-less wasted on me. She writes a strong, interesting female character, a gay boy who manages to be charming and teenaged and yet not have his love life be involved (refreshing!), and engaging-but-flawed protagonists. I like!

The Tale of One Bad Rat (Bryan Talbot) was a library book graphic novel that I picked up primarily because the first two blurb reviews on the back were from Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore, and were glowing, which I assumed meant the book was bound to be good. I was not dissapointed. Really pretty art, engaging even for someone who rarely reads American comics (I cannot, try as I might, even really get into Gaiman's Sandman stuff when I read the comics, even though I like the story), and terribly, horribly sad in bits. It's about a homeless girl who runs away from her house and has visions--she sort've follows Beatrix Potter's journey across what I assume is England (again, scenic research lost on me) as she sorts it out. I really recommend it.

Carry On, Jeeves (PG Wodehouse) was charming. Hugh Laurie has it right when he calls the stories fairy tales for grownups. I've been watching the TV show on YouTube in bits and pieces, and since the book was on sale, I thought I'd read it. To anyone who hasn't read/seen the books/show, go do so, they're utterly and truly delightful in a way that books very rarely are, and they appear to be being re-released in paperback form by some English group (the one I bought was an on-sale version of that release, I think).

Oh my dear sweet fluffy lord.

Watched Serenity with my dad today. It was eight levels of excellent, partly because it's pretty fucking epic, partly because we were watching it via the Netflix Instant Queue, through the Roku (it is an amazing, amazing little box) on the HD TV. (Seriously. So cool. And my dad didn't know about various character deaths, so it was funny/sad to see him react when people got impaled and the like.)

Finished reading David Bodanis's E=mc2. It bills itself as "a biography of the world's most famous equation." I liked it less than Passionate Minds, his truly excellent dual biography of Emilie du Chatelet and Voltaire, partially because it was a little hard to follow (there are several interesting parts of the equation, but by exploring each symbol individually he does things like bring up an interesting tangent about how we got the "+" or the "=" signs but isn't able to pursue them), and some of the biographical information of the scientists didn't quite jive with what I remembered reading about them (which is sure to happen if you're trying to give them some life, I guess), but on the whole it was charming.

( I want to give Faraday a hug )

Okay, is it just me, or is Colin Meloy incorperating music/lyrics from earlier albums? I cannot remember, but "Here I am, softer than a shower" sounds really familiar to me, but I can't remember where it's from.

I <3 this man. Even if he is just shilling for Mars.



Oh, also I graduated yesterday. So woo?

I've been playing around with Poladroid. This was my favorite photo I've made with it so far. The cake friggin' exploded.

This video cracks me up every time I see it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Sarah Vowell
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

I was writing this essay about Extremely Loud yesterday aobut the motif of loss in the book, and I had this realization halfway through listing the three disasters in the book (Dresden firebombing, Hiroshima, and 9/11) that the two from WWII, which are described in this sort of horrible, visceral, tragic language in the book were both American actions on primarily civilian populations. The book's description reduced me to tears, and it was only in writing about that that it occured to me. I love, love, love that book, but it's... so sad. And I know that at least the atomic bomb was perhaps one of the only ways out and may have saved lives in the long term (Dresden, not so much, it was pretty indefensible), but... Jesus. WWII is one of those wars where I like to think that we were the good guys, as much as anyone is in a war, but especially with Dresden, which is just awful, it's clearly not entirely the case.

On that note! I've got my AP Calc exam Wednesday and AP Lit on Thursday, with AP Physics for three loooong hours next Thursday. Then I'm done, except for finals! I'm looking pretty well into the 5 range on Calc and Lit--not so much on Physics, blerg--so I'm pretty happy. On the way home, Adi was telling me he'd talked to Emily D. and mentioned that he was going to fail her dad's class (her dad is our physics teacher), and she responded with, "He says you'll probably be fine. And that Emily should quit saying that she's going to fail the exam. She'll be fine." I was not in the room, so this was apparently entirely unprompted. Heh.

Onword, to scrapbooking and banjo practice!

Here are the rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker).

The questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

1. emily temple cute mermaid print, 2. Unbound, your lunch is ready., 3. Druids Hill Conservatory, 4. Footbridge over Nam Khan river, 5. 36, 6. tea, 7. Copenhagen - Nyhavn, 8. Dread Spread 2008, 9. Sarah Vowell, 10. Double A trees, 11. Stay away from me weirdo !!, 12. Stocking

I got accepted at Northwestern.

I'm pretty psyched.

I am now the proud owner of a five-string banjo. Birthday!win!

Photos of both



The new haircut, with blowout. (SalonRed!)

( And the dress )

I mean, the cafeteria.



Much more cheerful was this piece of school defacing, I think:



Improv show was today. Bombed! Epically! It was impressive.

New issue of the paper out today. Check it.

(Also, I'm now keeping a replica of this at Wordpress.com. I kind of prefer their editing, so I may switch there permanently.)

Things that have made me cry inappropriately in the last few days:

1. The Jeff Buckley cover of "Hallelujah" in whatever episode of The OC it's in.
   
2. The end of High School Musical 3. (Slash fears about impending graduation)
   
3. That one commercial with the lost dog who makes his way home and I don't even know what it's selling. I think it's for American Express or something.

Got my prom dress. Pink and brown and shiny, knee-length, strapless. Probably was someone's bridesmaid's dress. Will be pairing with piano teacher pumps and maybe some white gloves and an updo.

We're at 103 hits on the SpotBlog today. That's... kind of mind blowing. I'm pretty sure that's more people than read the paper when we put it out. So, uh, that's pretty fly.

Oh, and snow day today! Cool!

Man, I forget how excellent a song "Hollaback Girl" is. Gwen Stefani is fun to see live.

Was very, very fun.

iTunes meme! I stole it from Lillie.

( Meme! )