Setting Sun - The Chemical Brothers

Two weeks of class until spring break. Those two weeks will be a weighted uphill sprint, but the reward will compensate all energy lost.

I am the proud winner of an E-bay auction for the original Final Fantasy. ~$10 with shipping, which beats the hell out of the $50 GameForce wants for the same title. Within two hours, I may also own the NES Castlevania trilogy and StarTropics.

\/\/00+

The Good That Won't Come Out - Rilo Kiley

You scored as Bebop (Cowboy Bebop). Hope you donâ??t mind being anime. Your style just fits perfect with the crew of the Bebop. Life is tough and your crew knows it, but you will find a way to survive. You always do. Now if only Faye would quit gambling all your money away. Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 88% Serenity (Firefly) 81% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 75% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 63% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 63% Moya (Farscape) 63% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 56% SG-1 (Stargate) 56% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 56% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 50% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 38% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 31% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

I had a rather bad dream last night. I was up at the House of Gyod which my parents were leasing for some reason. Some guy whose name I forget but whose office I used to clean at Stanford Real Estate came by to weightily remind my father that the loan my parents had taken out to finance my writing a musical (first time I'd heard of it) had yet to turn any profits. Dad took it in stride, but reminded me that I might want to get started on it. He also said I should move into that house and live there. I was kind of excited about the prospect, but not enough to commit. I agreed to make it an alternate house by bringing some of my clothes and toiletries over.

Scene shift: I'm doing my show on KCSU when the entire system reboots because of a power blink. Keenly aware of the dead air, I impatiently wait for the computers to come back on (the CD players had mysteriously vanished) so I could keep playing. Then out of nowhere, no less than a dozen people show up in the studio (not the station, but actually in the tiny room with me). Among them was Stefanie Berganini, the KCSU station manager. In real life, she's chill, but for some reason her presence in my dream put me under a lot more stress about the dead air. The auto-DJ came on and started playing some metal band. I scrambled for anything to play, but every CD I put in the player wanted me to input a CD key before I could play it. I woke (quite stressed and exhausted) before resolving the situation.

I think I'll go out and embarass myself by getting drunk and falling down in the street.

In real-world news, I feel like a techno-mage. I purchased enough equipment to enable Lappy to project itself onto my television screen, so you can say good-bye to PS2-Import Anime incompatibility. This means we can now watch Advent Children without any trouble.

I must needs read Michel Foucault now.

Anyone Can Play Guitar - Radiohead

Balancing your checkbook has to be one of the most depressing activities known to man. Please, let me kill babies instead. I would rather spare them the pain of one day watching their finances list like a schooner running aground on a reef. Each entry marks another fathom shallower, another hole in the hull, another man overboard. My paychecks attempt to patch the leaks with felt squares held in place by cans of tuna fish.

Destiny, protect me from the world.

What makes it more depressing is the knowledge that I'm squandering my family's trust in me. This money is partially an inheritance from my grandfather's estate and partially the fund my parents set aside for my post-high school education. What am I spending it on? An education specializing in a field any talentless hack can claim as their own. I don't want to end up washing cars and selling deodorant "until I finish my novel." I don't want to end up spending night after night tinkering with half a dozen unfinished stories in my messy apartment, never finishing, never publishing. I don't want to end up remembering these as the "good ol' days," the time before everybody realized how dead-end my life is.

Have you ever seen successful men who keep in touch with unsuccessful friends?

I want to be a Stephen King/Billy Collins synthesis. Part brilliant novelist, part brilliant poet. I feel I have what it takes to achieve that goal, at least partly. There are times (occuring more frequently now than in years past) when I feel an extraordinary amount of creative energy simmering beneath my consciousness, just waiting for me to put pencil to paper (or fingers to keys) so it can boil over. I know it's enough to get me a cut above the pseudo-gothic poetry e-zines and bad fan fiction sites, but I'm not sure if it can take me where I want to go. I'm not sure if I can take me where I want to go. I don't know if I have enough courage, fortitude, and discipline.

I got a head full of ideas that are drivin' me insane.

So here I am. I feel like I'm at a crossroads (brilliant cliche, O aspiring writer). I can choose to dedicate myself intensely and unequivocally to my work, or I can choose to slack off, spend my "writing" time dicking around online or playing some video game for the umpteenth time. What I choose now, when the pressures of school are high, will determine my dedication when those pressures are gone. I need to develop a habit of sitting down and writing at least once a day, but my schedule is so chaotic I can't set aside a specific time.

If you fudge this, you'll fudge every battle for the rest of your life.

What if I'm wrong, though? What if I really don't have what it takes to actually make a career out of my writing? I could spend my whole life trying to sell one novel or one book of poetry without any success at all. I would stand before the White Throne with no answer when God asks, "What did you do with the investment of talents I gave you?" I'll just stare at my reflection in the polished gold floor and wonder if Purgatory is really as bad as they say.

You wasted life. Why wouldn't you waste death?

I Used to Hate Cell Phones but Now I Hate Car Accidents - Norma Jean

I'm taking Principles of Literary Criticism this semester, and I feel extremely out of place. Most of my classmates fall on the right or the left regarding the literary canon, what should be taught, et al. I fall cleanly outside the spectrum because I believe literature, just like music and painting, is primarily an art form and should be judged thusly. Unfortunately, apathy doesn't make grades, so I have to read a bunch of e-reserve texts I don't give a shit about. Worse, I have to print them out and bring them to class for "discussion," but my printer still isn't operational (I need a USB cable), so my finances are suffering the Death of a Thousand Papercuts at $0.12/page. Fuck academic pretension.

The rest of my classes are okay, though. Intermediate Creative Writing is a lot of fun, and there are some people from my E210 class in my section. Music Theory II is more of the same, but the instructor is more interesting and lenient than Dr. King, so that's good. Intro to Poetry and Intro to American Lit are exactly what I expected from 200-level lit courses. Overall, I think this semester should maintain an even keel. Especially once the job is out of the way.

I received a call from a director wanting to cast me in a scene from a Tennessee Williams play. I'm meeting him and the other cast members tonight for a read-through.

Food is money.