Piled on.

Wow did I almost get screwed with my pants on today. In addition to all of the load o' homework that I alluded to last night (see Buckle Down), I found out today that my Senior History Seminar exam/paper has been moved up a week to next Thursday. Meaning that in one day, I have an in-class exam, a take-home paper, and a take-home midterm all due. Granted I was able to get a weekend extension on the Seminar paper, but I'm really rather regretting my waste of a spring break.

That schooner is gonna look sooooo good tonight.

Last one in the building.

Or maybe they had more in the back. All I know is that I needed a new hat and the UO delivered; now I can cover up both the shaved-ness and the subsequent growing out.

FUWC.

The Weather Channel website this morning said it was 30 degrees at 6am with a 23 degree wind chill. So preparing for the worst, I still went for a walk with my neighbor Michelle and...it was freaking nice outside. We went for about 30 min., and I probably would've kept walking if I was actually interested in, you know, expending effort.

Buckle down.

Alright I allowed myself an evening with a movie and the penultimate episode of West Wing for the season, but this is getting ridiculous. I have an exam over Weber in my soc. theory class next Thursday (an exam that I have not even begun preparing for); a midterm over the cultural history of Korea (for which I think I've read the book); a 3-4 page reaction paper to the Communist Manifesto to write by Tuesday (okay that one's a gimme); and I have to get proofs back to my yearbook publisher (proofs that I wasn't expecting because they told me repeatedly "You will not get proofs for the final pages." Oh, okay).

But I have classes all day tomorrow, my first softball game tomorrow night, followed by a schooner at Louise's, and then some errands Friday morning. But seriously folks, Friday afternoon I'm gonna get on this stuff. Absolutely. Uh-huh.

Brilliance.

I just came back from a free screening of the film CSA, directed by KU's own Kevin Willmott (who happens to be the nicest freaking guy I may have ever met in my life when I took his portrait last year for the Jayhawker) and it. Was. Spectacular. I'd been waiting an entire year to see this movie and I am thrilled that it has been picked up by IFC Films for distribution this summer. I was looking forward to taking Prof. Willmott's 'Anti-War Films' course next fall through the American Studies dept., but now I cannot wait for it.

While it did take several flights of fancy in reimagining the course of American & world history (without the allies winning World War 1, there would have been different conditions in Germany that would have assuredly prevented the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, as just one example), the film was still a very remarkable effort in capturing a greater social context for just what life would be like in a slave-owning nation. The packaging of the film as a British-made documentary being broadcast in the US was a nice touch, as it allowed for updated commercials using true historical advertising. The film had just the right amount of awkwardness and humour to really connect the idea that we were truly just a few steps away from all of this playing out.

And here I thought using newspapers was cool enough.

Via Lifehacker, this really great idea for wrapping gifts. Probably not so much for Christmas or Easter, but I can think of some nice applications for Valentine's Day.

Yes Liberty Hall, I'm looking at you.

I know absolutely nothing about this movie, except that I don't think there's another film coming out that I want to see more. Is it me or does it kinda have shades of Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run)?

As if I needed a reason in the first place.

Last night:

Jeff: Dude, why is 'Give me more boobies!' written on the back of that note you wrote for Michelle?
Ryan: *looks at note for a moment* Oh! Thats, I wrote that down a few weeks ago because, yeah, it was on Robot Chicken, and I knew that Joah was watching it too, and I was gonna put that on her wall on Facebook. But I didn't. Because I like not getting bitchslapped.
Jeff: *stares at computer* That's about the most boring reason for writing that down. Ever.

On type.

[CAUTION: The following may strike you as unbelievably boring and nerdy.] As some of you may know, I finished what I consider to be my 'true' senior project last week: Jayhawker, the Annual MMV. After taking over the yearbook in September, I hoped to restore some lustre to it and while creating "the People's Yearbook", would also have something that I could personally be proud of after spending the better part of a decade in scholastic journalism.

All of this is by way of saying that my most agonising decision, more than staffing or copy or which photos to use, was typography. I asked the advisors to let me splurge a bit and buy some fonts from a professional foundry, rather than keep relying on free stuff, and they allowed me to do so. After looking through the foundries on the Veer website (which is a great site/service and veeerrry time-consuming), especially the fonts from Fountain, I decided to stick with Hoefler & Frere-Jones out of New York City, from whom I already had Didot and one of the several Knockout series; in addition, I got Cyclone and some of the Gotham line of fonts. Though I was going to have some structure for the book as far as captions and other elements are concerned (that is, keeping them consistant throughout the 160 pages), I decided to use the fonts interchangably and keep the book as different from spread to spread as I could.

Anyway, as we all know, once you buy something then you immediately see other things that you think you'dve rather bought instead. Throughout the year I kept seeing other fonts and type families that I could see using in the book, but I actually did stick with my three 'exclusive' fonts and am very much pleased with the final product. Until I saw These. Three. Fonts. So bold, so inspired (yes I seem to be on a kick of using that word lately with everything), so modern yet betraying a very classic heritage.

Not that any of that matters because the Annual is done and it's being printed as I write and thus this is all academic. But the thought of those typefaces dancing across the pages of my book is at once breathtaking and disquieting, like nostalgia for a thing that you know never happened. And never will.

Dreaming.

Business 2.0 commissioned a design firm to come up with ideas for Apple's next big thing. My favorite is the wrist watch, though I can see the cell phone being hyooooge.

Extremism in blonde hair.

In a perfect world I could go a lifetime without having to mention Ann Coulter on my blog, but this isn't a perfect world and I know this from the fact that she is getting away with advocating a constitutional crisis. From this morning's LJ World:

Sublimely confident that no one will ever call their bluff, courts are now regularly discovering secret legal provisions requiring abortion and gay marriage and prohibiting public prayer and Ten Commandments displays. Just once, we need an elected official to stand up to a clearly incorrect ruling by a court.

Contrast this to the ever-rational Paul Krugman in the NY Times:

We can't count on restraint from people like Mr. DeLay, who believes that he's on a mission to bring a "biblical worldview" to American politics, and that God brought him a brain-damaged patient to help him with that mission.

What we need - and we aren't seeing - is a firm stand by moderates against religious extremism. Some people ask, with justification, Where are the Democrats? But an even better question is, Where are the doctors fiercely defending their professional integrity? I think the American Medical Association disapproves of politicians who second-guess medical diagnoses based on video images - but the association's statement on the Schiavo case is so timid that it's hard to be sure.

Anyway, she's speaking tonight at the Lied Center. I was asked if I was going, to which I responded that I would sooner make a list of the top five metal implements with which I would gouge out my own eyeballs. In case you're curious, no. 5 is a spatula, and no. 2 is a Ford F-150.

Too much stuff.

No I'm not referring to my homework, though it certainly is an apt title. I don't know how many people will be looking at this, but I'm gonna guess that they probably don't run in the same internet circles as I do. So I'm taking on myself to filter the inspired sites and work that I find and perhaps some send some visitors their way. Starting with perhaps my favorite photography blog, Chromogenic. Though I also love the candid street photography of Joe's NYC, it doesn't have quite the same range as Justin, who includes studio work as well. Anyway, you're gonna spend hours going through their sites, as well as MakingRoom on my side linkie.

Nothing makes one smile like coffee and high explosives.

This is just too weird and original and inspired and painful. Via The Morning News.

Fashists.

Perhaps some disclosure is in order. I am not a 16 year old boy. I do not live in Orange County or any other suburban area. In my life I have never gone surfing or skateboarding.

But. I. Love. Hollister. I can't get enough. How so many people can go through life without wearing a California-themed t-shirt from Hollister is totally beyond me. Yes I'm aware that Hollister is connected to Abercrombie, and that in the end they're all just selling an image. But dammit, it's an image I love: comfortable, laid-back, just diggin' the world and everybody in it. Have I bought into the hype? Perhaps. But at $15.50 a tee, how can I afford not to?

Breakin'.

So today was my last day of break, since I'm on a T/R schedule. How was my week (or more accurately, 12 days) of freedom? I drank two beers on St. Pattie's Day, watched our boys get humiliated on national television, finished up the greatest yearbook ever™, watched it snow outside, did almost no homework whatsoever, and then proceeded to rip up my head while shaving, thus making my decision on whether to grow out my hair that much easier.

I suppose one could call that a good enough break. If there was a god above, though, I'dve been in Spain. Or pretty much anyplace where I couldn't use the line "watched it snow outside." Hmph.

Take Two.

Alright, this is my second whack at blogging. I can't really explain why the first attempt went by the wayside, and it pisses me off a bit because I had some good stuff there. Anyway, I'll be updating this constantly I'm sure because once I get into a rhythm of capturing and recording the madness around me, I am ON. And that's before I even leave the apartment.

Explanation.

The title of this blog comes from Hemingway's 'The Sun Also Rises.' The line, written in narrative, comes one hundred pages into the novel. I just think the inclusion of that line, when it could have so easily been taken out, is the sign of a fantastic mind at work. Or, just as possible, everybody who published Hemingway was as wacked as he was and didn't really care about it.