11/11
I’m sitting at my desk sipping an Orange Slice. Newton’s Principia was stolen the other day. I guess they let anyone request it and put their grimy paws on it. Someone’s grimy paws were sticky this time.
I’ve had the busiest weekend imaginable! It all started Friday (as weekends usually do) when I left with Nicole, Jesus, and (note the change in roster) Kori Haymore, one of the new students. We went to the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. It was very nice. We stayed in the Innermost Cabin, which was barely enough to fit four people and a Franklin stove. We walked around a bit and then sat by the fire and kerosene lamps reading the journal entries from previous guests. Of particular interest were the horror stories by various eleven-year-old children. My favorite was “Werewolf Man” although “Pigmonkeyman” was also a favorite. I’ll post fulltext up here soon.
The next morning I got back from Ipswich with less than 15 minutes to go before once again leaving to go to the only proper bowling alley in all Boston. It turns out that New England has its own special type of bowling called Candlepin Bowling that seems inferior. The balls are smaller and the pins are simple cylinders. Hardly engaging! Anyway I got my best three game series in my life. I’m launching a new section of my page devoted to bowling scores. This may sound odd, but I’ve wanted to do this for about five years now. I got 137, 128 and 149. 149 was the best game of the night and my second best score ever, although the best average score goes to Emma Goodman, an IMSA girl from the great bowling state of Illinois. The last game was quite eventful in that I hit the first 50 pins down without a slip. Four spares and one strike.
Later that night back at Olin we held a Dead or Alive 3 tournament in the Dining Hall on the big projected screen. The scene was quite impressive, quite larger than life. I’m not a big fan of 3D fighting games or the X-Box in general so I merely spectated. Afterwards I felt nostalgic so I downloaded MAME in order to play Galaga. Well worth my trouble.
The next morning I woke up to attend a five-hour session on the traditional Japanese board game Go. I am starting to enjoy it more and perhaps I will get better at it. It is perhaps the most complicated game I know and there’s no chance for me (or any human or even a computer) to ever master the game. The best Go-playing computers can’t beat twelve-year-olds. Go was heavily featured in the movie Pi: Faith in Chaos which is coincidentally my favorite movie.
Right after that I took my take-home physics final in what would turn out to be the only three-hour patch of free time for the weekend. Keep in mind it’s already Sunday by this point. I had to hurry up and finish the exam (which I felt I did quite well on, even though there were many little details to consider).
I really wanted to go to the local Mars Music store because they are going out of business nationwide. Everything must go! Prices marked down 20-40%! That means a lot for musical equipment! That can make or break so many potential sales! My mom and I were talking about buying an electric guitar so that we can complete the newest boy band craze at home, Hutchins. Hutchins is like Hanson except instead of being from Tulsa, OK, we are from Edmond, OK. No difference. Except shorter hair. Anyway it turns out that both locations near me were in the list of four stores nationwide that have already closed, so I didn’t get to go run around crazily and pick out items like candy. Oh, bother.
The weekend ended on a wonderful note when I went with Sheeva to the Fountains of Wayne concert. It was at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston on Comm Ave. This venue is great! I highly recommend it! The place is so small and cozy and right when I walked into the auditorium I found myself right in the center only 6 or 7 people back. I stayed there and danced with Sheeva the whole time, often to an extent much greater than that of the considerably older populace about us. While there I bumped into Que Anh and Erin McCusker, both of whom had accompanied Alex Valdivia. This means that 7.5% of our school was there. I got there an hour after doors opened and I completely missed the first act, OKGo. I should have known Que Anh would come since she is obsessed with them. The show ended relatively early but started relatively early as well. I knew every song except for the ones that are on the new album. The verdict on the new material? Fountains of Wayne are coming back for more in their third release due out this spring, moving in a more experimental direction while continuing to capture the familiar catchiness and heart of their earlier work. By the way, nothing beats the final piano of “Leave the Biker”. It sent shivers down my spine. After the second (!) encore I grabbed a nice brown shirt that says simply “FoW” and got back home with a good amount of time to goof around and then get a good night of sleep.
Keep in mind that I am also sick and this last weekend was met with much coughing. I’ve vowed to slow down my plans this week and let this finally subside.
