odd

Work With What You Know

Following is the beginning of a conversation I had with my brother this evening.

-Hello?
-Hey.
-Oh, hey, what’s up?
-Not much. You?
-Not much either, you know, just applying to jobs.
-Oh yeah, how’s that going?
-Well, the job I applied for last week – you know, with the hotel interview and everything – I didn’t get that one. But I’ve got an interview later this year I’m really excited about.
-Cool! Where is it?
-Just this place in Washington, a research center.
-Wow, that sounds pretty awesome. I hope you get it!
-Thanks. How’re your applications going?
-Ok, I mean, I’m almost done with the essays – I still have to go over them obviously, but I’m mostly done. Now there’s just the bureaucratic stuff to finish. Oh, by the way, have you heard about the book “The End of Mr. Y”?
-No, don’t think so, what is it?
-It’s right next to me now, that’s why I mentioned it… it’s this cool book I’m reading, it’s got a lot of really awesome references to all these psychological and philosophical theories in it.
-Cool, I should check it out. You know a new Terry Pratchett book came out?
-No! Seriously?
-Yeah, a non-Disc-World novel.
-He writes about something that’s not Disc World? Wow, I didn’t know he ever did that.
-Oh yeah, he’s got a bunch of books that aren’t to do with it.

….My brother and I have fun phone conversations. The conversation continued on to talk about many fantasy writers, the reasons why so many of them are Mormon and some music. I now have homework from him. I need to check out this British show called “Ultra-Violet” and another show by Aarin Sorkin. I need to read this short story called “A Logic Called Joe” and look up “The Hipster Olympics” on Youtube. There will be a test.

Sweet Relief – and Some Zombies

I just finished my application for the University of California schools. Meaning three campuses, three schools really. UCLA, Berkeley and Santa-Cruz. The application process was long and grueling, confusing and upsetting, disturbing and tiring and most of all FINISHED. It’s finished.

My brain feels so incredibly fried up and used and dried and broken and exhausted and strange and zombified. But at least I got this done. It’s a wonderful feeling, to have the weight of the first deadline off my mind. True, four down and still fifteen to go, but that’s something nonetheless.

In celebration, and laziness, a haiku to explain the way my head feels:

Zombies ate my brain,
Because zombies don’t eat trees,
Carnivorous swine.

So let’s get the ball rolling.

I wonder how that term was coined. I would assume from some sort of sport, but who knows. I do know one thing though – if I ever have to run a business meeting of some sort, and I have to say that sentence [and all heads-of-meetings have to say it] then I’ll literally get a ball rolling and we can have a nice game of table-top football while we’re brainstorming. I think that sort of work environment could be more pleasant for everyone.

Yesterday I went to the most peculiar beach with Sir B. F. It was a beach all right, with the mandatory bar and restaurant not far from it. The beach itself wasn’t the odd thing though really. It was the sea. They had roped in part of the sea. Yes, roped in. There was a big rope with floating plastic bobbing things on it roping in a small section of the sea. I found this a blatant and disturbing attempt to control the great ocean! Quite fitting, as it was in a city named after the greatest conqueror of all time basically, Caesar.

The thing that really got to me though was that human beings can hold their breaths and we could’ve swum UNDER the rope and gotten to the rest of the ocean. Geniuses.