Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

Going Going Gone (And I Did Nothing Wrong)

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My feet aren’t terribly thrilled with me this morning…but the rest of me is quite glad I finally got a chance to go out to the_vogue last night.

Normally I tend to be out dancing at least every other weekend, heading out every weekend when I can swing it. Between working retail during the holiday rush, being sick, and just plain exhaustion, though, it had been over a month since I’d been able to get out and go bouncing. Far too long…

Good night, though. Right about the perfect sized crowd for me…not dead, but not slammed either. Enough people for a good night without having to fight your way onto the dance floor. Said hi to gracesine before she wandered over to the_mercury to meet up with some other friends; chatted for a while at various times with Shawna, sirriamnis, Brooke, Suzanne, Chris, Mikey, Ron, and other occasional random people; and did the usual bouncing around on the dance floor.

Amusing moment of the evening: now that the club is non-smoking, it made the one guy who forgot about the smoking ban really, really obvious as he sat in the corner having a cigarette. Nobody went up to say anything to him until Evan came on the microphone between songs and said, “Welcome to a smoke-free Saturday night at the Vogue….” Suddenly, the guy got a hilarious “Oh, shit!” look on his face and started frantically stubbing out his cigarette. Quite funny.

And…I finally got to bounce around to a song I’ve wanted to hear in a club for a few years now — Information Society’s “Going, Going, Gone (Razed in Black remix)”. I love the original, but this remix makes it just that much better. It took bugging Evan a couple times before he finally got around to playing it right after last call, but he did, it didn’t empty the floor, he liked it, and ogremarco commented that it was a really sweet remix, too.

Hell, I knew it would go over well. ;)

Eventually, back home to sleep, and now up and getting ready for another day in the trenches at the mall. Whee!

That school thing

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Well, it’s official — there will be no financial aid for me in the immediate future. Since aid for the current ’05-’06 year is determined by how much was made in 2004, and as I was applying for winter quarter (late enough in the season that the majority of the school’s aid money has already been passed out), I just don’t qualify. Meh.

On the bright side, as long as I apply first thing in January when the next round opens up, I should have no problems with getting aid for the ’06-’07 school year…starting in September. Until then, though, I’m on my own.

So, Prairie and I are going to see what we can do to scrape together enough funds to get me into one or two classes for the next two quarters (if we can get two 5-credit classes paid for, that’ll cover the 10 credits for a minimum full load) just to get me started and in the system. It’ll likely be a little tight — especially once I drop down to part-time at work come January — but it’ll be a start.

Narnia and Christianity — does it matter?

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After reading Terrence’s ‘Saying No to Narnia‘ and Pharyngula’s ‘Narnia as an inoculation‘, both of which pointed to a Guardian UK article titled ‘Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion‘, I was somewhat annoyed. As an open-minded, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-Bush liberal who was brought up in a Christian household and counts Christianity as a major part of who I am and why I’m an open-minded, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-Bush liberal, it occasionally gets under my skin when I’m reminded yet again that ‘Christian’ has become a dirty word synonymous with the worst of the bigoted bible-thumping set, tainting anything that it touches.

It was quite nice to see Arcterex’s take on the same article, then:

I read the Narnia books as a child, and absolutely loved them. They had a similar draw as modern day Harry Potter. The downtrodden who think they aren’t anybody in the world finding out that they are a heros in a magical world.

Of course, then I found out later on in live about the religious overtones in the books…

And couldn’t care less. A good story is a good story, and personally I find this sort of ignorant reporting as bad as the Christian groups who go around saying how Harry Potter is promoting kids to become satanists and how it’s an evil book. It’s a friggin’ book and a good story. Geez.

Damn skippy. Sure, there are Christian overtones to the Narnia stories. There are Christian overtones to the Matrix stories, the Lord of the Rings stories, the Star Wars stories, and countless other stories (both printed and filmed), too. Why all the rancor? Just because the religious right (who all too often seem to embody the antithesis to the Christianity I grew up with) has jumped all over The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is it suddenly impossible to go out and enjoy a fun fantasy movie?

Sure, you can read all sorts of meaning into the stories and why they’re being brought to the screen now — religious indoctrination, right-wing propelled mass media conspiracy theories, whatever. You can also tell your inner Fox Mulder that every so often it doesn’t matter and go watch a movie.

That’s what I’m planning on doing.

Wishlist time!

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Seeing how it’s less than a month before Christmas and we’ve run full-bore into the season of greed and avarice giving, I figured I’d put up my wishlist. Of course, the one thing standing in the way is that for the most part, I really don’t have a wishlist…at least, not a serious one.

As far as wishlists go, there generally seem to be two basic types: the more serious “these are things I’d enjoy having because they’d be useful and good to have”, and the more frivolous “these are things I want because I’m a greedy boy and they’re cool”. Needless to say, I’ve always been far better at creating the second type of list.

So, in all seriousness, I’d be quite happy with good wishes, hugs from friends, and other such low-cost things. Socks are often good, as is clothing (preferably black, of course) — I’m long past the stage where I’d look down on getting clothing as opposed to “stuff”. As big a fan as I am of “stuff”…clothing’s just more practical, and at some point along the line I became mature enough to actually realize this. In other words, I don’t need anything.

However. If you’re in more of a mood to get me “stuff,” I’m not about to complain. ;)

My current “stuff” list tends to vary wildly by the month (or day, or even moment), but I have been occasionally tossing items into my Amazon Wishlist for a while now. What follows, then, is a rundown of what’s on my wishlist as of today, going from more realistic (that is, cheaper) on up to the wildly unrealistic (in some ways my favorite category, as the amount that I covet something seems to be inversely proportionate to the chance of my actually ever getting it).

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Quarrantine

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Urgh.

I have The Ick.

It started creeping in yesterday afternoon with a slight tickle in the throat, and has progressed steadily from there. Joy of joys, this is just what I needed.

Meh.

Post-Thanksgiving Wrapup

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Heh…I guess after three days, I should really move my ‘happy Thanksgiving’ post down the page a touch, eh?

Thanksgiving was quite nice. I had both Wednesday and Thursday off, and Prairie’s dad Lon came down on Wednesday afternoon to spend Thanksgiving with us. I got to take him shopping to help him pick up an iPod Nano, and then we watched Star Wars Episode II in the evening.

Thursday was spent entirely at home, relaxing and puttering around. Prairie cooked up an incredibly good dinner (in the words of Arlo Guthrie, “a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat”):

A Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat...

Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes covered in marshmallows, gravy, rolls, jello salad, cranberry jelly, and pecan tartlets and pumpkin pie for dessert. Yum!

Unfortunately, eventually all that ended, and Friday rolled around. Black Friday, to be precise. There are definite pros and cons to having a mall-based retail job…and wow, but that day was insane. I had a split shift: 7am-11am, off for six hours, and then back from 5pm-10:30pm. Uff-da. Busy all day long (there were actually people waiting at the store gate when we opened at 7am) — and unfortunately, I just didn’t seem to be getting the right customers, as I ended up having the least sales of any of the sales staff that day. “ Ah, well…I know I’m not a born salesman, I just do the best I can while I’m there.

More long days Saturday and today, but I’ve got Monday off to rest. Quite looking forward to that, too…

Buying a camera?

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Oh, by the way…

On the off chance that any of my Seattle-area readers are considering or planning on buying a camera this holiday season, I’d love you forever if you came by the Kit’s Cameras store in the Northgate Mall while I’m working. I can’t do anything like dropping prices or some such thing, but not only will I do my best to get you set up, it’d make my sales numbers look that much better. ;)

Make it stop!

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Apparently, sound carries through the ventilation ducts in our apartment building.

The downstairs neighbor — on the other side of the building — has had “All I Want For Christmas is You” from the Love Actually soundtrack playing on repeat…

For.

Six.

Hours.

It’s most clear in our bathroom, but it can be heard throughout our apartment. I’m actually lucky that I had a three-hour training meeting tonight…Prairie’s actually been here all evening (hiding in the bedroom with all the connecting doors closed and watching TV has been saving her sanity).

I just called the landlords and let them know. “Oh, you’re kidding!” Heh. Our best guess (I tried knocking on their door) is that they’re not home, and left a clock radio alarm on or something.

Whatever it was, it looks like the landlords just got in — it finally stopped.

Six.

Hours.

Bless our landlords, for they make Christmas stop.