(no subject)

[phthalombrage]

Main food sources: Teddy Grahams, almonds from a bag
Main light source: computer screens

Compressed history of past two weeks or so.

There was liquid nitrogen in the cluster because Zach had a glass thermos and went down to Doherty B-Level to fill it. We cracked flowers, dipped an Expo marker, etc., but eventually had to stop when the bottles Marty was exploding outside made huge banging sounds and we ran inside. Ttuttle had a ham radio tuned to a police band, but we heard nothing. More excellent work of Campus police.

KGB CrimeNet: to make and inspire the home.
Puzzle Hunt was Saturday. I was really impressed. People showed up- not as many as we hoped for, but enough. Teams seemed to like it, finished faster than planned, and came up with some pretty wicked sweet plays. Funny they were mostly the same topics. jcreed, lea, wlovas and lea's kiwifriend won. I'm glad I stuck in the NZ police codes! I did mostly Almanac work... co-wrote henchman dossiers with mglisson, scanned in and digitally repaired (uncolorable trenches in pages from the outline work) chrismaphone's sweet character sketches, wrote ~90% of the bullshit that went in for Fun, Fun, Fun. I was the Little Girl in our event puzzle (which everyone but jcreed liked... I personally found it a little bewildering when we playtested it, but I had looked at so many internet kittens and cats in sinks and played with falling sand that my mind was kind of gone and I was insomniac and antisocial...). Tarsis was a depress-tastic orphan and Alan was the quintessential Insane Man. I was the Hand of Carmen for the runaround postcards and fence notes (complete with teddy bear and ACME weighted companion cube stationery), and I hope I didn't set Ross back too far by doing them at the same time as my search for pictures of the brown box/ million-dollar hole. His logistics for the runaround mad it go seamlessly. Dannel and I put up the posters for the Choose-Your-Own Adventure (he also shooped my Canadian Superheroes and Writer's Block images). My color by number puzzle was junked for gwillen's (awesome) ricochet robot finds kitten thing and everyone (but lea and two other people) hated Writer's Blocks. And I helped poster! Other than that, I sat on top of the projector in PH 100... I guess I did a lot of shit? We made a pretty good team... Even though being around people so much started to get to me after a few late nights, I really liked the ones I was working with. I hope the ones who are here don't disappear too fast and that mrwright comes back sometimes. Every night, the whiteboard in 4625 filled with random hilarious crap... it was so weird to see ACTUAL people in suits with laptops around the conference table in there today... the room fulfilling its actual purpose for once, not just being our sweet hideaway in which to plot puzzles, vault over the table, laugh at the heat and a/c for being on simultaneously, edit things with Alancookies, eat pizzas, try to articulate "articulation" and watch late-night movies (Man of the Year, after liquid N2 day) when people in the cluster were doing OS. When gwillen and mrwright get the website and logistics stuff up, I might post a link. They did a great job on that, too, despite the last-minuteness. And edanaher on the webdesign/implementation. Also, he actually answered phones. He and Stefan are eerily alike: climbing things, juggling, not wanting to answer phones, coding/math skills, random recycling. Maybe they're both robots. If Stefan is in fact seriously looking at CMU, he should visit just so I can be like "Evan: Let me show you him." But I have no estimations/projections on that. I feel kind of guilty for just NOT answering phones, but I guess I kept busy with the stationery-making?

Some other highlights: Val's chief jacket and chiefiness. Drew as Dexter Bastard clutching all the erasers in PH100 and looking mopey as glisson's jailbars fell on his likeness. Jared as Greg, with all the enthusiasm. I'm pretty sure gwillen loved being Crackapella's bass; you could tell. Mrwright jumping up randomly onto Ivan's shoulders. The warm, yeasty bread mines of New Jersey (oh god!). Ivan just knowing how to tie a noose (+ playing with a lighter). He's so nice, but crap, so many dangerous things! The last play about Chuck Norris, tech support and Gandhi. The girl's a Theta?
Creativity: One team used the key to Davy Jones' heart on a chain wrapped around a water bottle to depict the key to Jared Cohon's heart, but the non-frosh (Caroline) said MONEY! Ha. But money duct-taped to a piece of hose with non-kosher pepperoni wrapped around it was pretty eck. Josh's non-kosher item was a dead roach. Creepy guy was creepy. Fucking creepy. I swear he's a rapist. Handcuffs? Mace? Fake gun? Shifty, beady eyes? Glisson maintains he's just awkward, but Rigel agrees that creeper vibes were emanating from his body at last week's meeting.

I was so fucked up on Thursday, though... I had to make sure I stayed in my room as much as possible Friday and avoided friends/the cluster. What am I going to major in? Can I actually understand CS? Will Admissions ever get back to me about MSC? Liz was very nice to offer to talk to her boss and try to get me in doing what she's doing... maybe I'll do that? I need money so I can buy a hairdryer and a can opener and possibly start going climbing. I should really talk to chris about that last one, but you know how I deal with people.

I'm getting more comfortable in my surroundings, I guess, socially. Yeah, fuck, good to hear, huh?

Ashley taught me a new time step in awkward one-on-one tap workshop. My only regret is that I can't exactly go back to FLEX and show Cynthia and have it be like old times. I like that she (Ashley) talks to herself; even the well-adjusted people do here. Yay! There was an econ major gaming in the cluster, also.

But Fuck, it was cold today.


So just before 4 AM, the fire alarm goes off in Donner.
My first thought is fuck it, I'm staying here. It will be cold outside. It's too fucking late. It doesn't feel like there's a REAL fire. I'll need another sweater or something. I was just napping and I need to start my Interp paper due today... maybe I should bring my laptop. Maybe I should bring my laptop anyway. My roommate was still kind of passed out, as usual, and not wearing pants, which is... uh... so I kind of got up and found shoes and looked around for my ID until she eventually got up.
But girls in the hall are running and some of them are screaming and shit, so I think maybe the ugly decorations they stuck up (plastic bags, crepe paper, dead leaves, spiderwebs, etc.) caught fire from the Christmas lights they also put up. So I left...

The stairwell smelled like burning ass, and people were still leaving the building. Apparently some people slept right through it... admittedly, the alarm isn't very loud inside the rooms. It was FRIGID outside, and only one cop had come. I could see my breath, but I wasn't as entertained as I would normally be. It's 4AM, I'm shivering, almost the entire population of my building is with me, oh god, firefighters, where are you?

Evidently some unnamed idiot had CREMATED a bag of popcorn in the microwave, but the firefighters were pretty slow to respond, so we didn't get to go in for another ten or so minutes.

In the morning, the grass was frosted over and PH100 was EVEN COLDER than it had been when it was bothering Jared after puzzlehunt. It's always so cold. They had the heat on, but probably not very high, and there's such a high ceiling anyway (as bird adventures demonstrate) that the volume of air is huge. Heating won't do as much in there as it would in a normal room. I love radiators; I should be a cat.

MSE homework got done in calc and physics, I took a 1.5 hr powernap, interp paper was slapped together whilst eating birdsfood, sitting in MSE exam review lecture and asking Caroline why I should really be in MSE in the cluster.

KGB was particularly animated this week. Maybe it was because Dom was back and there was a balloon in the room? Also, Jared had no facial hair or glasses and sported the Greg fedora. Chrisamaphone said his face was missing. Mallory thought it was a good look for him. I was just glad he continued to do the sharp body movements and stuff so we knew he was actually Jared, not Jared's Evil Twin. People tried to kill him. Shawn did a creepy chapelin thing and described his automatic hedge-trimmer injury again (I had been in the cluster with Rigel when he told the story and at puzzlehunt when news of it broke). Alan looked strangely cheerful; maybe he was glad to have Shawn back at a meeting? Chris got a chalk-filled eraser to the face and puffed out a cloud of chalkdust in saying "ten." Liz took forever to protect herself. That orphan story was EXCELLENT. I will always know when Zach Sparks is laughing. Jesus Christ- everyone knows.

And Schatz tonight. Best part, as always: shredded cheese and cran-grape juice. win. I showed Rigel the Terrible Secret of Space and the general room two of my dances from last year: Geena's, spurred by the Madonna marathon in Schatz (someone gay must work there; Chaz loved her) and Ed's, in the spirit of bad lighting.

Speaking of Spirit, Spirit rented puppies. It was intensely popular; Rigel couldn't play with the big dogs as she had hoped, but Mallory's camera didn't go to waste.

I wish they had kitties. I miss kitties. I'm jealous of whoever gets to keep the cat Val has.

And the leaves are turning and some are almost all gone!
I must photograph the beautiful trees tomorrow before C@CM and mail some leaves back to shasa and cakkiepe in Flohdah and maybe chole and Grandma. I need to call that woman on Halloween. I also need to call my parents. ARGHGH I have a matsci test wed and dance x 2 and interp appt fri calc hw fri and physics for tomorrow and a c@cm assn and mse lab thur and something else ohgodmakeitstop
But like, Donneryoga and KGB halloween party are there. So yay!

(cliché start) I don't need sex; CMU fucks me every day.(end of line)

I entertain myself in mysterious ways. I should start physics.