Exit Pursued By Bear

I have decided to change locations, use the new Blogger dashboard settings and options, and get more of a fresh start. So much has happened to me since I started my little site freshman year of college, my catestrophic first break up, struggling with school, that time I saw the lead singer from Everclear on the street. I thought maybe I should jettison some ballast and move on to a brighter future. The new Twirling Towards Victory site can be found at: http://tasteslikefreedom.blogspot.com/
Come check it out, or even better, link to it so I can once again rise like a phoneix from the pits of Google.

Vae Victus

I am sure in my increasingly long abscences I have alienated all of my dwindling readership, although I suppose I maintain this site for my own amusement and reflection. For the last several months, I have gone with and without internet, a computer, housing or food, and a variety of other niceties in a disappointed paralell to my three months of semi-homelessness (self-imposed of course, if I ever write an autobiography, I'll call it an "inward journey" or something) so I guess there is at least some reason for my inability or disinterest in posting.

Regardless, I re-assure the cold, pitiless vaccuum of the internet that I will attempt to be more faithful to you, oh mistress of digital thaumaturgy, in the coming months.

And now for some linky. All hail the future prototype of Optimus Prime.

Elephant Gold

It has been some time since I last posted, but I have been in that state lately where I just live one day to the next, without concentrating too much on what has been happening or what is to come. For Halloween, I saw Shaun of the Dead with my friends, which despite its moments of shocking gore, was extremely funny and enjoyable. My various gaming activities are still serving as a focal center for my social life, everything else revolving around them in a fashion quite common for the subculture in which I have emersed myself.

On a side note, I have found that I really love Hamlet. I've spent the last two weeks pouring over the text in my Shakespeare class and I can see why it has earned its noteriety. The "To be or not to be" speech cused one of the most intense and thought provoking debates yet, and while I'm excited to move onto Othello soon, it makes me a little sad to leave Hamlet, which I feel you could spend an entire semester studying.

Anyway, hopefully I'll post again soon when I have something more meaningful/interesting to say.

A Pox Upon Me

To my great joy, I have been afflicted with some sort of hideous disease, the likes of which has not been seen in the world since the Black Plague escaped the dark continent and devoured the villages and homes of our forefathers. You know what I think had something to do with this was that Coloubos monkey from Africa that bit me, I knew that would come back to haunt me. Suffice it to say, I have been suffering general "cold" symptoms for a week and a half now, but at least my four days of feverish delirium are over. After solitary confinement to my bed and computer for so long, with limited food, water, and social contact, I literally stumbled out of my Residence Hall seeking morbid companionship late friday night. However, all of my friends ABANDONED me for "real life" such as going downtown or somesuch. Fortunately, by the end of the evening, I managed to find Adnan and Brendon, who I can always count on to be invariably be there, playing video games or watching movies. Now I merely roam the campus reminding the young, happy, carefree students of the cruelty of fate as my body has been transformed into a grim spectre of death.

But enough about my fun times. Life goes on in the wide world, much as it always has. Since school started almost a month ago, I have been off-campus but once, and that was a brief visitation to that cold, unfeeling world brought on by Nastassja basically dragging me around Portland like some flimsy marionette (ie typical woman to man relationship). I hope to change that fact by making more excursions to the local theatre where I can enjoy upcoming "motion pictures" which are now in color, I am told. However, I still require money to exchange for goods and services, I'm working on that part of the equation, we'll see what happens. Other than that, I'm still a bore, a layabout with no job, no girlfriend, and I more or less attend class and do homework in some haphazard fashion; life couldn't really get any better, really.

Catch you all on the flipside.

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious by this Sun of York.

As usual, I have nothing to say about what I have been doing at school, even though I am doing a great many things. Some things Jedi would consider unnatural. About a week ago, I acquired through VERY LEGITIMATE means a copy of Final Fantasy: Advent Children for my computer's over-taxed harddrive and it is worth every megabyte. The movie was clearly made for nerdy boys as the CG is incredible, 70% of the camera time is action, action, action, and there is no romance to speak of to slow down the all-important animated violence. If you anime, you'll like this movie, and if you don't like anime, you'll still probably like it to a certain extent. While the film was made to capitalize on the enormous fanbase of Final Fantasy VII, it's still quite appealing to the Squaresoft "layman."

Additionally, this week marks the kickoff of my Vampire: The Masquerade game that has had much anticipation here at school, and it seems to be shaping up nicely. I have spent countless hours writing complex characters, what I feel is a layered plot, and made preparations to have two experienced Storytellers aid me in running the game, I think it's going to be great. I have to practice my improvisational speaking and acting skills, as well as prepare some nifty costume switches, as nerdy as all that sounds, everyone seems to have a really good time.

This semester I've been taking a course concisely titled "An Introduction to Shakespeare" which has been going wonderfully; some of you may have noticed the tagline title from Gloucester's opening speech in Richard III. I have long been a critic of lionizing the man, but upon in depth study of some of his early works I am beginning to appreciate the brilliance that many an English scholar has discovered buried in the texts.

Exit pursued by bear.

Responsibility, what's that?

Well the summer came to a spectacular finale (sarcasm) and I am finally back in school (sorrow). So far, I've been showing a surprising amount of enthusiasm for my classes, particularly my English literature courses (dim hope) both of which I was somewhat dreading for my previous lack of interest in stodgy English writings (reminiscence). With Erik overseas and Stephan graduated many of the responsibilities of the Lewis and Clark Gaming Society have fallen upon myself and Brian (dread). We've already had two very successful nights of 'Ninja' and we had over 30 new signups for the gaming society this year, putting at us still being the largest and longest running group on campus.

This year I have papers due almost every week starting this week, and while that isn't the most terrific news (truth) on some level I enjoy flaunting my natural talent and interest in non-fiction prose (total bullshit). Finally, I close by mentioning the annual cross-dressing dancing is coming up, and in pervious years I have shunned it, this year I may just give it a whirl (confused excitement).

A Serious Moment

Last monday night, almost a week ago now, my sister was in Salem, drinking with a number of boys (this being the second time in her life that she has gotten drunk) and she fell out of a second story window. After most of them fled the scene, a paramedic found her, called an ambulance, and she was rushed to the Salem hospital where she was placed in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Her entire right side of her body was paralyzed, and she was unable to regain conciousness for several hours.

As you can imagine, this was something of a... shock for my mother and I. Seeing my little sister Tanya (barley eighteen years old) hooked up to all the machinery, with a neckbrace, a triple pump IV, it was a bit much. She was discharged from the hospital on thursday, and we took her home, where she is slowly regaining the ability to walk. Fortunately, it looks like Tanya will make an almost full recovery, although it is unknown at this time if she will ever completely recover movement of her right foot and ankle.

It's hard to imagine that my entire family is just my mother, Tanya, and I. All of our relatives are far away and we keep limited contact with them, if something happens to one of us, it'll just be two left, which isn't much of a family in a way. I'm spending more time with Tanya now, and we're trying to keep her spirits up, as she was robbed of her much vaunted independence for some time; I just hope this is a wake up call for her to get her life going in the right direction.

For anyone that reads this and knows my mother and/or my sister, you can contact me or them to arrange a visit if you would so like, I'm sure they would appreciate it.

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

A few nights ago I got to see a DVD version of Constatine and I was really impressed. Despite my unremitted hatred for Keanu Reaves' acting, I thought he did an okay job in the film. I typically enjoy movies that capture that "world of darkness" style, and no matter what you may have thought about the plot or the characters, you cannot deny that the editing and camera shots throughout were amazing. The idea of Angels and Devils competing for the souls of the living is an intriquing plot, one that I enjoy, but I think it is often poorly executed in cinema. I would recommend the movie, if for nothing else, but to see the amazing job they did with Satan at the end. Watching Constatine reminded me that Nightwatch is coming out, something I have high hopes for, see for yourself.

I am the Lord of Death

Dr. Binford, one my bosses here in the lab, is taking a trip to South Africa to catch spiders for about two weeks, and since the majority of her research students are gone for the rest of the summer, it leaves it on my shoulders to take care of the entire spider room. She came down on friday and had a chat with me, and I got to ask her some questions about the spiders here and it's really cool the work that's being done, if you're into that sort of the thing. For instance, the sicarius spiders (a relative of the brown recluse that is found in and around Argentina) is so rare and little studied that for a variety of the specimens, myself and a few of the other research students are the only people in the world to observe them hunting and feeding, which I personally think is really cool. But for the next few weeks I'm spending double shifts in that tiny, hot, spider-filled room, which despite my previous post on the subject, I have come to enjoy working in anyway.

Also, Brian- the individual I'm living with- and I have been playing this old, old rpg/rts game called "Warlord: Battlecry II" and despite having very dated gameplay and graphics (we're talking WarCraft II/Age of Empries quality here) it's a really fun game. It's probably the only successful merging of rts and rpg I've played, since WarCraft III deceptively masqueardes itself as one thing, but is really just a strategy game. This is the kind of game that is in your local EB bargain bin for $3 and is worth $30. I have probably spent more time playing this old, overlooked game that won no awards than both Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Halo 2 combined, which is saying something about the quality of both those games and the quality of the product in question.

It's like playing something made by Looking Glass Studios all over again. If you're interested, you should be able to find information about in on the Ubisoft page (yes, the people who made Splinter Cell). Check it out.

Spinward, Corward, Backward, Forward

How about a post that isn't so intimidatingly long? Working in an office is really a different experience than my usual lineup of jobs requiring more physical labor or tending to human larvae. I seem to be exploring the stereotypical office "characters" more every day. One thing I've noticed is the back office is entirely crewed by Vogons. Yes, Vogons, the villians from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. There is a collection of older individuals who all have raspy voices and stooped backs working in a darkened collection of cubicles like some kind of Turkish slave galleon. Navigating the complex inter-department network of the college buearcracy is akin to running through a maze to find, not a block of cheese, but the entrance to another maze, typically one that requires me to make copies to three different people. But it's not all that bad, I'm not moving 200 gallon containers of boiling soup in a factory floor in unsafe conditions getting yelled at in some kind of Slavic language I don't recognize (that was earlier in the summer, before I decided I wanted to have a future after all). Plus, the kind of work I do in the office is reserved for the most temporary and unskilled positions, so I imagine it's not quite so bad when you get higher up, not that I'll work at the college for too long anyway.

Moving from the summer housing to my Fall 2005 room on the 16th, it's confirmed and I have one less thing to worry about now, I'm so tantalizingly close to being ready for the 2005-2006 year I can taste it. In the meantime, I have more summer to frivolously enjoy.

Charles