On Hell, and the Raising thereof

Just watched "Hellraiser" and it's a pretty messed up movie. Kinda on the gory side -- can't say it had more than one or two scary moments though. Now I wanna watch number 2, supposedly it's better, and read some of Clive Barker's fiction (me being interested as I am in that sorta thing).
Finally finished Slaughterhouse-Five, it's a little weird but really really good. I'm not sure if it deserves its place on the Modern Library's list of Best 100 Novels of the 20th Century, but I liked it.

In other news, the Knox Jazz Ensemble is going to Elmhurst, Chicago for its largish jazz festival/competition type of deal. We'll be playing about 5 songs and getting judged on our ability (or lack thereof) compared to other college's bands. As we've actually won competitions of this type in the past (9 years in a row, baby), it may end up being a cakewalk. The grand prize is allegedly either a Lamborghini or an 18-month trip around the world on a luxury cruise-liner, you get to pick. As tempting as the Lamborghini is, if we win I'll have to take the cruise. Oh yeah, and the winning band also gets $3.5 million to spend however it wants. I'm thinking a good portion of that'll go toward tuition 'n' such. Seriously, though, I'm leaving Friday at noon and won't be back 'till ridiculously late Sunday night or Monday morning even. Good times.

In world news, yes, like 49% of the country, I'm angry about this additional money that Bush wants for the war -- 82 billion dollars this time. I seem to remember something about Bush saying he was going to cut spending....oh yeah, that was in all his campaign speeches. Well, on a positive note it's good to see that the "never, EVER deliver what you promise" rule still holds for candidates that are elected. Honestly, you could tell what they're actually going to do by just reversing all their promises. "We're going to clean up the environment in these four years, and make the planet a better place for our children and grandchildren." Translation: "Ehhhhh, we might get around to pretending to put limits on polluting companies, but really we'll just alter the data so it appears that way."
There's a new study out that says by the time 2030 is here the United States will be a nation of entirely old people, and that the working adults will be taxed so heavily they'll become unable to support themselves. While I doubt this will actually occur, it's just another of my multitude of reasons to move to Iceland as soon as possible. Somehow I tend to think that people smart enough to establish a democracy literally hundreds of years before anybody else are my kinda people.

Finally, it's fun to get AIMbots to say funny things. Here's the latest from my pal. "SmarterChild: How does it feel to be more of a pimp than jesus christ?"
It feels good, SmarterChild. Real good.

"Do I.....Do I conduct with my penis?"

In the intermediate time between posts I've been happily busy. This is the first term where I don't have one class that I dislike -- probably because I'm no longer taking any comp sci courses. Tomorrow (or today) I have an appointment at the career center to discuss stuff. My Wednesdays and Thursdays are so ridiculously busy that the weekend comes pretty quickly. Our new biology professor seems weird -- she sorta reminds me of my 7th grade science teacher. She covers a lot of things in a very short amount of time, and doesn't seem to have a sense of humor at all, but she's a good teacher.

People who use the "mood: ____" things are starting to annoy me. If your message doesn't get across the point, then it's kinda sad that you have to sum it up in a single word. I'm just going to start doing that in everyday conversation, assholes. People will come up to me and ask, "Hey Schmidty, how's it going?" and I'm going to be all, "Mood: Pensive," right in their faces, then sit back and watch what they do. You just wait, it's going to be a huge fad and catch on. It'll be as stupid as when people say "lol" in actual conversation.

This brings me to my next point, which is how IM creates really funny circumstances. Well, maybe just in my suite. My roommate and the guy next door will frequently sit on their laptops, at the same table, and talk over IM instead of saying things out loud. These are people who are literally two feet apart, and who argue all the time in actual conversation. Just think about the thousands of years of technological advancement for this bizarre situation to occur. Man went through all the trouble of inventing spoken word, but he decided that wasn't good enough. He needed written word, as well. Thousands of years later, the first computer was created -- decades later, it was followed by the laptop, and then the Internet, and THEN AOL Instant Messenger. So man, instead of using his previous knowledge of spoken word, will apparently communicate electronically, given the choice -- even though it's slower. These two people are literally employing thousands of dollars of technology for the noble purpose of speaking slower. Wow.

I gave Bevy a copy of American Gods, which she seemed to appreciate -- it's by Neil Gaiman (haha Gay Man, yes, we all get it, Dave) and we both really like the other book he wrote, Neverwhere. Pick either of them up sometime if you're in a "real" fantasy mood. Also, I just finished Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson -- really, really good book. The title does NOT do it justice in any sense of the word. And yes, I know none of you will actually read any of these books, most likely. I will still keep recommending them to you -- perhaps it's futile, but you never know -- I could actually convince someone to read a book someday.