winnings!

Losing an hour,

Doesn't take away THAT much

Excitement from me.

It's important to take things as they come, and when a beautiful day comes along, it is important to take it! So yesterday I pretty much wrote off the entire day to enjoyment. I had stayed up late Friday night (Sean and I went to see Watchmen, which was a lot better than I expected, and then I got sucked into a game of Settlers of Catan with Evan over the internets, in which I totally pwned him ;), so I woke up around 11, ate breakfast, and went to parkour! Although I haven't been to it in some time, I noticed that I was a lot better at wall climbs. Presumably that is due to the fact that Roy and I have been training pullups. Woot!

In addition, I went hiking in the Dean Wilderness yesterday with Jaimie and a few of his friends (I knew two of them, Ronak and Jess, but the third, Sara(h?) was new to me). It was gorgeous, and we climbed the fire tower there. We also wandered down to the lake to search for fossils and watch the sunset. On the way down there, there was a burned-down house that was still partially standing; the fireplace/chimney and lower floor walls remained. So we climbed the chimney and poked around in the ruins a little.

After hiking, I went with Roy to the Union to see Milk, a film about the first openly gay man to serve in a high public office. It was really good! It's super sad how people treat(ed) homosexuals during that time. Hard to believe that just 30 years ago people were being denied housing and jobs just because of sexual orientation. Even harder to believe that they still get treated that way sometimes today.

Then, on to Max's place to watch Iuri (my capoeira instructor)'s band play. They had a really awesome hiphop/reggae/rock(?) thing going on. It was hard music to dance to, though, at least for me. I don't really rock out to that stuff very often.

Later, Atomic Age Cinema! I had heard of this previously, but I had also been told that it was for the 21 and up crowd, which, though disheartening, didn't surprise me. Anyway, I didn't ever look into it until last night. Basically, at a theatre here called the Cinemat there is something like "Mystery Science Theater 3000" live. A horrible movie is screened, and four guys dress up in ridiculous costumes (Dr. Calamari, for instance) and mock it, and anyone is welcome to join in. The movie last night was "Death Bed: The Bed that Eats." It was a rather enjoyable film about a bed that dissolved people in yellow digestive acid that quite resembled beer.

Today I've done real work... well, mostly. I finally hooked up with Chris Beckley for the first time in months, and we went to Gum Boot dancing lessons. I guess his logic teacher runs them. Anyway, Gum Boot dancing is based off of communications developed between miners in Africa. It's a whole lot of boot slapping and -stomping. I enjoyed myself, despite the fact that I was, in a word, terrible.

Now I think I'll go explore some of the weird stores around here that I've never been to. The big Sahara Mart is something that I'm pretty anxious to explore. I also noticed that I pretty desperately need new shoes for parkour, so maybe I'll check out things to that end, as well.

fire alarms and math nerds

Math nerds, unite!  By

The power of numbers,

We play... Settlers?  Hm.

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of attending a party of math nerds.  Those people can be lots of fun in large groups, especially when there are party games around that encourage it.  For instance, during the course of the evening, we played Apples to Apples, and one green card that came up was "edgy."  The winning card?  "Stop signs."  Maybe not math nerdy so much as... well... regularly, generally neardy, but fun nonetheless.  We also played a round of Settlers of Catan, which I whupped up in, thanks to the still-burning shame of losing last time I played with Evan.  :P

The board that we used for it was super-nice, though.  I borrowed it from a friend's roommate, and he had built a wooden briefcase to tote it around in and everything.  I'm pretty sure he had every expansion, but we elected to forgo the expansions in light of the fact that half the people who wanted to play had never played before.  Might have been too confusing.  But I'm thinking that I probably want to get a board of my own sometime; it's a good game to have around.

Also yesterday was Capoeira.  It's such fun!  We extended our respective repertoires of badassery by cartwheeling over barriers.  Have you ever tried it?  It's terrifying!  But you feel frickin awesome when you do it.  :D

Oh!  And I finally got my W-2 from Google and filed my taxes.  Thanks, Uncle Sam.

This morning I was awakened by an odd odor shortly followed by a piercing beeping noise.  Evidently Georgia had left a pot on the stove for a wee bit too long, and the stuff in it had turned the charcoal.  Our fire alarm was not happy.  Unfortunately, it was really unpleasant to throw open all the windows and doors downstairs, as it's approximately 28 degrees here (that's -2 for you metric folk ;).

Undaunted by previous kitchen incidents, I started making bread this morning.  It should be super tasty: cranberry cinnamon sugar.  Mmmmmm.

Anyway, I'm hoping to find some excitement for this weekend.  I'm thinking that I'll probably dye my hair back to brown so that it's mo' betta' for my Silk Spectre costume.  Watchmen releases on Friday!  I'm excited!  :D!