Another lesson in "We needed a test to tell us this?!"

I am Hastur! The Unspeakable One is the master of those who seek to unveil the mysteries of death. It is through meditation upon the Yellow Sign that the devotee of Hastur seeks transcendence to the city-realm of dim Carcosa. Through a complex series of visualizations that expand the aspirants void-consciousness, the final age will arise. Ruled by the ominous King in Yellow, a new stage of reality will come to fruition. Of the Olde Ones, Hastur is considered to be one of the most difficult to work with, his teachings being reserved exclusively for the Cthonian Adepts and Lords.

Which Great Old One are you?

So tired....

Must keep working...

So we are moving the CS dept today. ALL of it. All 25 faculty and staff. Machines unhooked, parts bagged and labled, and set for the movers to come tomorrow and sunday. And then... and then... we get to unpack it all Monday!!! Weeee

Wait.. this is a shitload of hard work... dust is everywhere, up my nose, in my eyes, on my hands and arms - My entire body wants to sneeze, but only my nose knows how. Ack!

Need shower... need rest... need food...

....

Dishonor

I knelt in the garden for hours, trying to seek the solace of meditation, but instead my thoughts were unstill, leaving me awash in their chaos. Dishonored, shamed - how could I, one who had dedicated both my life and my sword to my master have been so dishonored? Dismissed from his service, not even by him, but by one of his sons, for being disrespectful. But of course I was disrespecful - how could anyone respect one such as him, a young, brash man who has never shed blood in battle, yet commands us because he is his father's son. I have nothing but respect for his most honorable sire, but this boy - how dare he have treated us the way he has. And then, he dismisses me from service, for daring to question his practices.
Dusk is settling, and the cicadas are begining to sing. It is sping, and the cherry blossoms are just coming to bud. Rain has made the ground moist, and its dampness has soaked through my clothing. Yet still I sit, contemplating this bare sword blade which I hold across my lap. I could be free of this horMy famrible dishonor, I know, all it would take would be my own death. My family would bear no burden for my death, knowing their son had regained face in his choise of deaths - yet I cannot bring myself to do it.
Why? Because I know, in my heart, that the boy who has shamed me has no honor of his own. He is only a leach off his most honorable father.
There are other ways to regain face, other ways to regain lost honor. Having never lost honor in the first place is the best of these. Now, I must show the world that I am not the one dishonored, but that the whelp is. The best way, the only way, is to survive, and prove myself worthy to be in the continued service of his father. And I will.

Its amazing the internal struggle one can resolve by talking to someone, and being told what you had already thought of yourself.
I will not kowtow to an inflated, faux authoritarian who knows no other way to deal with critizism but by shame and punishment. I will stay, and I will survive, and I will flourish. For all that I have done in the past, and all that I will do in the future, proves that I am better than I have been labled as being. I have honor, far more than some, and those without honor cannot dishonor me.
And I will find much pleasure at being the bone that sticks in his craw, the stain he cannot wash out. I will always be here to remind him that I am better than he is, that I, unlike him, have honor, loyalty, and an unwavering sense of duty.

So yeah, there are a few things left in this world that get me in a bad mood...
Professors who speak down to me in condesending tones and pretend to be friendly when actually being bastards are one of them

I had one of those last semester. This semester, I sort of have one.

I admit, the keyboard on my laptop is loud, and I type VERY quickly, so its a constant sound, especially when I am taking notes. And I admit, allot of times I'm doing more than JUST taking notes. But neither of those reasons are enough to very subtly sugest that I shouldnt use a laptop in class at all. I would understand it if some other student had complained to me - I've had that happen before, and usually between the two of us, one of us will move, relocate, or otherwise make the situation tollerable. I would even understand if other students had complained to him, and he told me that. But I think he finds it annoying that I sit and type during class discussions, occasionally looking up and saying things in the discussion, or making comments on the presentations, or what ever I'm expected to do. And another thing - if you are planning to enter a business enviroment, you better be damned well prepaired to deal with less than perfect speaking conditions - especially with the sound of a keyboard going while you are speaking. There are these little things called meeting minutes that are now almost always taken on laptops or desktops or hell even PDA's.

And that he threatened my participation grade when I was fairly sure I had been more than vocal in the class... thats very uncalled for.

Maybe I am just being pissy. Really, I'm just trying to slog through that class, no matter how nice the professor is, it doesnt make the subject any less unplesant, and me any more comfortable with public speaking.

So yeah, its Monday morning, and I'm up early. Almost got up at 10, but managed to get 30 more minutes sleep before giving up. So I'm at work.

In all my Oscar nonsense last night, I forgot to mention that I bought a Gamecube yesterday, along with Animal Crossing and Resident Evil 0.

Mmm Animal Crossing. That game is so addictive. And the worst part is, it is real time, so there is no reward for playing it hour after hour after hour - instead, you are rewarded for game play over an extended series of actual days, months, and hell, years. You have to wait for upgrades to your house (takes overnight), upgrades to the store (takes two days) and hell, even for mail order deliveries. The game is so out of the ordinary, its refreshing. Especially to have seen my bf's roomie going insane waiting for things, asking if there were ways to make time go faster, and in general freaking out over how slow game time was.

That real time element is what keeps me from playing it constantly, so its a perfect game for me. Resident Evil 0, however, is going to eat my life until I beat it. Gah.

Oscar Moments -

Best of all was the all surviving best actors and actresses, along with supporting and honnoraries... so beautiful to see all of them together. How well those divas of the Golden Age have survived, and so beautiful are they - even in silver. And the actors of the age - so wonderful all those great actors there side by side. So amazing. Olivia de Havilland is still so beautiful, though now she is a Matron, not the beautiful young woman she was when she won for "The Heiress" in 1949. Jack with his big three, looking cool as ever, even though he didnt get the fourth one tonight. Louise Rhiner - the Great Zigfield and The Good Earth, still alive! (Props for mention of Judgment at Nuremberg ! )

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Best picture:
Chicago - Winner
Gangs of New York
The Hours
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Pianist

So wonderful to see Michael and Kurt Douglass on stage together, and Kurt still with his wonderful sense of humor, making fun of his own speach problems. We all know what I was rooting for, right? Good.
I LOVE the presentation of the winners name. Ripping the card in half, each taking half, reading, and then yelling "CHICAGO!"
I guess this means that I have to see it now. Damn.

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Best Actor: Love the montage... so many great film moments -
Adrien Brody, The Pianist - Winner
Nicolas Cage, Adaptation
Michael Caine, The Quiet American
Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York
Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt
Haven't seen the movie... but, going against so many experienced, talented actors, especially Jack...and had the cahones to dip kiss Hally Berry... "Woah, bet they didnt tell you that was in the gift bag..."
"There comes a time in life where everything seems to make sense... this is not one of those times."
"If it werent for the insomina and sudden pannic attacks, this would have been an amazing journey."
And he actually yelled down the orcastra to talk about the war... and actually said the least offensive anti-war sentament during the night. "A peaceful and swift resolution." Considering what the movie was about, it was the best he could do, I think. But he should remember - "If you wrong us, do we not revenge?" Enough fucking political polarization, please.

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Best Actress - Love the montage begining with Fargo! Such a reminder of all the wonderful females who have graced the screen... Beauty and power and emotion and most of all pride.
Salma Hayek, Frida
Nicole Kidman, The Hours - Winner
Diane Lane, Unfaithful
Julianne Moore, Far From Heaven
Renee Zellweger, Chicago

Such a hard one this year - Jullian Moore is by far my favorite, but just for how beautiful she is. But Nicole Kidman.. she has done so much and not been rewarded... Thank god she won it for The Hours instead of that trash she was nominated for last year. The crying into the statue with that back turned.. nice! She has come so far since Dead Calm!

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Best Director -
Rob Marshall, Chicago
Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York
Stephen Daldry, The Hours
Roman Polanski, The Pianist
Pedro Almodóvar, Talk to Her

Nothing here I was really rooting for - rooting against Gangs of New York, on principle. Really glad to see Roman Polanski win it, after all the wonderful things said about his work on the movie The Pianist.

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Humor:
"And now to introduce someone I consider a close personal fantasy, Julia Roberts."
"It was so sweet backstage, you should have seen it, the Teamsters were helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo."
"Later, we will do a montage of people you think are dead, but aren't."- Steve Martin

"Every time an Oscar is awarded, an agent gets his wings."
to the Oscar statue - "This is his ass, these are my lips." *kisses statue's ass*
-Kathy Bates

"Always a bride's maid, never a bride - my foot! I have my very own Oscar till to death do us part."
- Peter O'Toole

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Peter O'Toole - Honorary Oscar - Fucking AWSOME. One of the best Hamlet's ever, best of all the Shakesperian Kings, every one he played - And my favorite, Lawrence of Arabia
"They come in a world of iron, to make a world of bone..."
Passed over too many damned times - Finally he gets what he should have had from day one! So beautiful and moving a speach, without having lost a sense of humor.

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Best Original Song:
As much as I hated "The Gangs of New York," U2 did a beautiful job with "The Hands that Built America." The song is a much more noble sentament than the movie was, and its a shame it will be forever associated with it.
"Oh my love / It's a long way we've come / From the freckled hills / To the steel and glass canyons..."
Lose Yourself is a powerful song, and I'm so damned glad it won. He deserved it, for all the power in the lyrics, the emotion and the strife he has lived through. A breakthrough win if there ever was one, in my opinion.

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On Chicago and LOTR:TT
Its a shame that LOTR: TT was up against Chicago in nearly every category. It shouldn't have been alowed, and it robbed LOTR:TT of allot of the spotlight it deserved, and likewise, LOTR:TT stole allot of attention from Chicago. I am, however, a bit conserned that Best Adaptation didnt consider LOTR this year, but The Pianist was based on a damned powerful story.

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The END
Steve Martin: "We have finally reached the half way mark!" Pause "There are so many people I would like to thank, namely Steven Spielberg, why, because it couldn't hurt!"

So Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi, better known as "Spirited Away", won for Best Animated Feature. I'm happy. Hayao Miyazaki, a wonderful director with credits from Lupin III to his perhapse most well known work, Princess Mononoke, should have gotten this years ago for Nausicaa or Kiki's Delivery Service, or hell even Crimson Pig. Hayao Miyazaki is helping to bring the beauty of Japanese animation to American mainstream audiences, slowly but surely, with his films. He deserves all of this, and so much more.

From the IMDB Bio:
"Hayao Miyazaki was born in Tokyo on January 5, 1941. He started his career in 1963 as an animator at the studio Toei Douga, and was subsequently involved in many early classics of Japanese animation. From the beginning, he commanded attention with his incredible ability to draw, and the seemingly-endless stream of movie ideas he proposed. In 1978, he directed his first TV series, "Mirai shônen Conan" (1978) (Conan, The Boy in Future), then moved to Tokyo Movie Shinsha in 1979 to direct his first movie, the classic _Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro (1979)_ . In 1984, he released _Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds (1984)_ , based on the manga (comic) of the same title he had started two years before. The success of the film led to the establishment of a new animation studio, Studio Ghibli, at which Miyazaki has since directed, written, and produced many other films with Takahata. All of these films enjoyed critical and box office successes. In particular, Miyazaki's _Princess Mononoke (1999)_ received the Japan Academy Award for Best Film and was the highest-grossing (about US$150 million) domestic film in Japan's history."

I'm convinced there is something about this time of year that breeds dissonance. We all feel it, we all respond to it - and I find that year after year it grows stronger, affects more people.

Wolven has unfortunately tapped deeply into it this time. I am resisting my own feelings of conflict, but I fear for him. I also see it in Erik, and his family, as they deal with a death in the family, and the stress of his roommate's new job on top of it.

How would you answer when someone you have loved for five years, through thick and thin, pain and struggle, and your own stupidity, says they don't understand why you love them. I know, god, I know, that he is more than the bitterness he projects to drive off things he doesnt want to deal with. Erik, if you do read this, I love you because I know you are who I was ment for, and nothing can ever change that. Nothing.

The Universe is a cruel thing, and I hate it with all my heart.