year in review

kie: labizzle fo shizzle. ugh, all of a sudden i feel so... cliché. who would think that so much street slang would make it into the mainstream. i blame the schools.
kiel: actually, now that i think of it i kind of have a headache.
kio: secretagent on somafm

this is my first weblog entry of 2004 so i guess it would be fit to recall some interesting quips and quotes from entries past. kind of like a clip show, only in internet form. just as i love to hear the sound of my own voice, i love to see how witty i am in print as well.

january 7: "tell me if this is weird or not. the other day i had a dream that i ran into the rev. al sharpton and asked him if he was going to run for president. he said yes, and i gave him a pat on the back and said 'good for you.' is that weird?"

hopes were crushed...

january 9: "the chances of me writing a semi-autobiographical one-act play about two guys sitting at dunkin donuts are growing slimmer. this is because i'm starting to realize that my life is just not as exciting to other people as it is to me. then again, you're reading this, aren't you?"

january 16: "oh well, i guess it's better than inhaling toxic fumes. ah! speaking of that, another great part about working alone is you never have to worry when you fart. like if someone's there you're thinking "oh great, now what?" but who's gonna come in the lab at 12 midnight? and furthermore, if it does still smell, you can always blame it on the bacteria. now that stuff REEKS. now there are some situations when farting alone can be dangerous. in an elevator for example. if you're going a long way, there's a chance people will get on along the way. even if you're only going one floor, the people that get on when you get off will still see you, and, inevitably, discover your secret. then again, by then you'll be long gone."

then there was the time i ran out of gas. this was in the volkswagen fox still.

january 22: "i was running late, so i didn't stop for gas. i figured i would go after the play, to the nearest gas station, which is about a mile away from the theater.
well, friends, that was a mistake. i didn't make it more than about 500 yards from the theater when i freaking ran out of gas. i mean, getting a flat tire is one thing. at least you didn't do it on purpose and there was probably little you could do about it. however, when you run out of gas you have no one to blame but yourself.[...] i've never run out of gas before. i've come close. dangerously close in fact, but never actually sputtered to a halt. it makes me wonder what kind of gunk just went through my engine that for so long had been harmlessly floating on the top of the tank and only now was sucked in and semi-combusted."

also, on january 22 was the epic tale of the time i locked myself out of the resnet office and wandered around the basement of garland. the whole entry is good, but i'm not gonna post it here. check it out

how about this gem from february 13: "the real challenge of the job is dealing with people who treat a computer more like a magical machine and less like a simple device. by that i mean, if something goes wrong, they throw their hands up in the air and immediately call for help. well, actually, they call six-help. that's a pun, friends." wow, that's still funny.

haha regarding the homeland security terrorism color-code system:
february 14:
"NEWS HEADLINES:

• department of homeland security upgrades terrorist alert status from grapety purple to raspberry red.
• sources say osama bin laden may be wearing any of a number of clever disguises and may be in obsessive pursuit of fruity breakfast items de facto reserved for kids.
• cia director toucan sam pledges to 'follow his nose' to al qaeda operatives."

also in february, this happened:


then i was in secret garden in march and april, so i hardly updated at all. nothing interesting at least.

may 30: "there are two inventions in the automotive world that i am extremely grateful for and frankly are not given the credit they deserve.
first: the arrow on the gas gauge that tells you what side of the car the gas tank is on. wow.
second: the little notch on the handle of the gas pump that allows you keep the thing squeezed without holding the handle. you know, the thing you flip out and it gets in a notch and keeps the valve from closing off.
awesome inventions. see this is the kind of thing you think about when you drive in silence."

then there was my little phase of ms paint comics about life in the lab:
e.g.

yeah...here's a doomed quote.

june 3: "so the car issue is resolved. my dad test drove the elantra and put a deposit down on it immediately. the guy had come down to $2500 from $5000 so it was pretty much a done deal. even though my loyalty will always be to german cars, i figure i can drive this bok choy mobile around for a couple years and then sell it at book value and either break even or maybe make a profit. thing is i gotta somehow find the money to pay for it. " so much for that.

then in august i made an entry from a pay-for-play internet terminal in the dominican republic:
august 5: "things to check off on my lifelong list of things to do:

- break even at a casino
- haggle
- eat goat meat
- get propositioned by a prostitute
- get rejected in 3 different languages
[...]
okay. i hope you appreciate this entry, it cost me like 4 bucks.
[...]
right-o. the disco is about to let out so it's time to prey on drunk german girls.
auf wiedersehen!" yeah that pretty much sums up my trip.

then, to paraphrase monty python, august gave september a miss and went straight into october. that's when i started getting all executive summary. like everything was a neat little list, and consequently, not very quotable. october was the month that my car got wrecked


so much for selling it at book value. some excerpts from october's list:

october 8:

• i was in "the butler did it", the barnstormers orientation show.
• i saw a car on the sidewalk that had just mowed down a parking meter and unsuspecting trash can.
• i quit my job at the dinner theatre (for all intensive purposes)*
• i got a boot for 2 outstanding HOPKINS parking tickets

october 23:

• i totalled my car
• i wore a bathrobe in public for an extended period of time
• i peed on the statue of john harvard while jesse kept watch so i was not caught in flagrante de-micto (that's a pun, folks). so much for grad school there.
• i directed a show for barnstormers freshman one-acts (and let us never speak of it again)

yup. pretty straightforward october. here's a gem from a long rant about BAT, with whom throughout the year faithful readers saw my relations break down, then finally break off.

november 20: "it's not even a step down the right path. it's a walk down a long road strewn with bullshit that eventually will take you right back where you started, only with wasted time and smelly shoes."

also from that entry was this one, a personal favorite:
"finally, on a lighter note:"


i made a gigantic entry over thanksgiving break, for lack of anything better to do. re: schuylkill county:

november 27: not everybody knows everyone (although i'm convinced that my dad either 1) went to school with, 2) grew up with, or 3) has had at least 3 beers with everyone in this whole county. but that's neither here nore there, my dad is just an extraordinary guy.), and getting your picture in the paper is a big deal, even if it is *looks at refrigerator downstairs* for getting elected to student council as my cousin alison was a few months ago. yes the picture is still on the fridge. and yes the principal is in the picture. and yes the principal is a priest."

then there was my feeble attempt at philosophy:
"well anyway i thought it was cool and made it a personal semi-goal to visit all 7 continents before i die. then i walked outside to take out my contacts (the case was in the car) and looked up at the blue-black night sky and the millions of stars visible with minimal light pollution on top of a mountain. really mind-blowing. you know that insignificant feeling you get when you look up at the stars and think, "you know, one, just one, of the 20 quintillion visible stars is one trillion times as big as me. that's a million million. that's a thousand thousand thousand thousand. i am so very small..." then i thought about the extraordinary things one can do in this world, and how they are really small, then the ordinary things: the ordinary people, the ordinary faces, the ordinary jobs. how everything is relative. and i got to wondering if my existence cuold change the world. or the universe. or just one person. and i smiled and hoped."

the jhmi shuttle:

december 10: "the shuttles leave homewood and jhmi every half hour and the ride takes about 20 minues, so if you're quick, you can catch, say, the 1100 shuttle there, power-walk through the hospital and the children's center (knocking over pregnant women and small childern with great gusto), then run up monument st. to the outbound shuttle stop at 1130. the shuttle is basically a school bus. and sitting in the very back seat is not advisable due to 1) the circa 1970 shock/strut design of the bus and 2) the poor condition of baltimore city roads. at one point my ass was literally 12 inches away from the seat."

and finally, my final entry of 2003 was one, like many from home, made at like 5 am.
december 23: "last night i was at dunkin donuts from about 9:00 pm until 2:45 am. yes, that is 5 hours and 45 minutes. yes, that is enough time to watch two out of three lord of the rings movies (not extended versions, though). yes, that is enough time to drive to massachusetts from here. yes, that is enough time for the average person to blink over 4000 times.

i liken this not to an overly pathetic existence, but to the times of jonathan swift, where educated men spent their days in coffeehouses philosophizing, discussing the state of the country, and fermenting novel and wild ideas about various issues."

yup. that's it for 2003. some time this week i'll make a post about what is actually going on right now, in 2004, because believe it or not there's a lot.

right now, though, i'm late for rehearsal.

ed: this post summarizes my favorite stuff from 2003, though i included some entries in their entirety in the favorites list. i do so amuse myself. -9/5/06