Look, everybody, I made a thing!
240x128, 3.3MB
320x172, 6.2MB
480x260, 16.6MB
Brent's Rule for Impatient People: Watch whole thing.
Steve's Rule for Stupid People: With the sound on.
Legal foolishness: The above thing is totally unapproved by Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and generally every single entity in the world who is not me. This is parody and as such protected fair use.
Oh, right, this thing.
I was planning on replacing my top pic with a grad photo, but decided this would be rather foolish as it's now eight months since I graduated. (While I'm on the subject of graduating, I have realized that, listing my finest hours in college last December, I neglected to mention that time I used the Chewbacca Defense in a mock trial for my Society and Technology class.)
However, I do advise that everybody enjoy the Quicktime movie I made; see Top.
Ch-ch-ch-changes. All over the site. Updated the Features Page with some new avatars, the KateStory page with links to the new locations of books XIII-XV since the boards were converted over to a new system and a synopsis of Book XV since it's done. Plus I've fixed a few bad links and things like that around the site.
Added a Life and a Stream I originally wrote back in May right before I left NAU.
Decided to add the above thing to the features page as I'm curious to see what will happen when people start finding it by accident.
Added one more Stream which I wrote back in May.
Noticing that the Rent movie trailer was now available in three different versions, I correspondingly updated my own Rent movie trailer (see top of page, Features).
New Life.
(Originally Written 05.07 -- actually, 05.08 -- at 2 AM)
There's something uniquely and poignantly human about watching an abstract idea turn into a concrete reality.
Take last December 17, for example. The day earning a college degree went from being an abstract idea in my head to being an actual ceremony where I put on goofy clothes and walked up on a podium for a handshake. ("I can't believe you guys actually wear those robes and hats," I heard a Danish man remark earlier tonight.)
As for tonight, well, I've known for some months now -- ever since I decided to stay one more semester after graduation -- that I'd be leaving Flagstaff, and my friends here, in mid-May. But I don't think it really hit me until just now, putting away my laundry, when I thought to myself, "All right, what do I need for this week and what can I go ahead and pack?"
As a rule I wear a pair of pants for two days before throwing it in the laundry. I put on a fresh pair this morning, so to handle Sunday through Thursday, I realized I only needed to hang up two pairs of pants. Jeans, considering how gorgeous the weather's been. (Despite occasional freak snow. Which I'm going to fucking miss when I'm in Tempe in July and it's 115 out.)
Two pairs of jeans. Only two pairs of jeans left before I move out.
Flagstaff's been good to me, and I'm going to miss it. But I've been lucky -- I won't lie and say I've accomplished my every goal, not with that gorgeous 2.79 on my transcript, but I've accomplished most of them. I studied artificial intelligence with Dr. John Placer, the man most responsible for my coming to this university in the first place back in the fall of 2000. I earned my degree, and can, still with wonderment in my voice, describe myself as a scientist. Back in fall '01, I got to use the Chewbacca Defense while playing an evil corporate lawyer in a mock trial. (This should have probably gone in my "My Finest Hour" stream back in December.) I struck out on my own, and, in my fifth year of school, finally moved into a dorm with my own bedroom. Thank God. And, most importantly of all, I met some really amazing people who I will sincerely and dearly miss.
It's a funny thing about my life -- I never stay in one place for more than five years. And when I finally, really and truly am satisfied with my situation, it's time to move on. As easily as I could look on this fact with cynicism, I find it liberating: I'm too young to tie myself down, I need to see the world, and what good is life without finding a new challenge when it gets comfortable?
Two pairs of jeans.
I'm gonna miss you motherfuckers.
(Originally Written 05.11 -- actually 05.12 -- at 2 AM)
I take a bike ride.
We've been to the brewery. We've stayed up late into the night, drinking and playing video games and watching cartoons, and we've said our goodbyes. So I take a bike ride.
Well, I go outside to have one last good look at the night sky in Flagstaff -- there's nothing like this back in the valley.
But when the Dome is lit up like Christmas -- or, well, graduation -- I realize there's nothing to see here, not on South Campus (but still more than Tempe).
So I decide I'll walk up the hill to Gabaldon, where I saw the two foxes six weeks or so back.
Then I decide I'll bike instead -- have one last bike ride before I go.
So I speed down the hill, the hill I absolutely love coming down, the one I hit at top-speed in early '04 not thinking that the parking lot below might be icy, and banged myself up a bit. (Yes, you dinks, we get ice in Arizona. The northern part, anyway. Which is, surprisingly enough, the location of Northern Arizona University.)
I don't stop at the hill to Gabaldon. I keep going. I think of the field, that one I went to back in November '03 to look at the stars. And I realize that if I head that way, I'll pass all the buildings where I used to live.
Cowden Hall. Home, Fall 2000-Spring 2002.
I bike past the kitchen, where there's a light on. I remember Jon's 18th birthday, when Brad bought him porn and we looked through it and laughed. An issue of Penthouse, I believe, with a particularly goofy spread with a chick giving a guy a footjob.
I bike past the north side, where I took my honors classes. Where I used the Chewbacca Defense in a mock trial. Where I submitted an essay that won Best In Class, a semester before being kicked out of the honors program because my grades were too low.
Gillenwater Hall. Home, Fall 2002-Spring 2003.
I bike past the lobby, and remember all the hall council meetings. I only went to meet girls.
I bike past the north side, where our room was. I remember the time Brad called us up at midnight to announce he was taking the 3-hour drive to come visit us, right that instant. He must have been in the same contemplative mood that night that I am this night. I remember the pounding nextdoor at 3AM, and how when we went to ask what the noise was, our neighbor, Landon -- Brad called him Lando -- explained that he had too many chairs so he was breaking some.
McDonald Hall. Home, Fall 2003-Spring 2004.
I bike past the room where we drank margaritas, ate pizza, and watched Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.
The field. The same field where we spun donuts the night before Cara graduated. Seems brighter than normal -- only one of the lights surrounding it is out this time -- but I still get a good look at the stars. Not as good as in Chino Valley, but a damned sight better than in Tempe.
I stand there for a long time.
For the complete tour, I suppose, I would head downtown, past the theatre where I performed The Rocky Horror Picture Show four consecutive Halloweens, and all the way up to USGS, where I worked last summer, when the dorms were quiet (except for the occasional chanting Mormons) and the foxes were out. But I don't have that kind of time or energy tonight. I turn around and head back.
I take a detour before coming back to my apartment.
The Engineering Building. Home, Spring 2004, those nights we were in there until 2 AM working on our capstone.
It's beautiful seeing the skeleton of the building. They've gutted it, and I take immense pleasure in looking at the concrete and metal and thinking, "That used to be the Unix lab, and that's the 3rd floor NT lab where we suffered so late into the night working on our capstone."
They insist they're still on-schedule to have the construction complete by September. Yeah. You keep telling us that, guys; maybe somebody will believe you. Not like anyone ever accused the administration of being bright.
And so I head on back.
Pine Ridge Village. Home, Summer 2004-Tomorrow.
I'm going to miss this town.
Games: Dragon Warrior VII. I don't know why.
Books: The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk.
Games: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The One With Two Colons in the Title
Created 05.08.20