//Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart?

Will someone please call a surgeon

Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart

That you're deserting for better company?

I can't accept that it's over...

I will block the door like a goalie tending the net

In the third quarter of a tied-game rivalry...

//

I feel must interject here you're getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself

With these revisions and gaps in history

So let me help you remember.

I've made charts and graphs that should finally make it clear.

I've prepared a lecture on why I have to leave

These are some of the lyrics to The Postal Service's Nothing Better. My roommate and I have been pretty obsessed with this song over the past few weeks, mostly because it's very catchy and gets stuck in your head easily, but also because it plays very well in the background while we study. However, I have slowly come to the realization that these lyrics portray my situation a little better than I would want them to.

Due to some ... interesting text messages, I have lost a friend that I did not really want to lose, but need to get over now that it's over [I feel must interject here you're getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself].

On a different note, here's a little something that I'm writing right now:

Ideals, running through my mind, like ideas and unwritten papers and lyrics to songs I heard in 7th grade,

HEY! Get-get-get-get-get over it!

Let it go, this too shall pass....

I've gotta get a message to you, hold on, hold...

We make a good team, you and me, we do. You can scratch my back, and I'll scratch my back, too!

When we're drivin in the car, it makes my baby seem so far; I need you to be here with me and way over in a bucket seat...

Don't you feed me lines about some idealistic future; your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures...

You're my sunshine; and I want you to know; that my feelings are true...

And then worst of all, you never call baby, when you say you will.

Hold you in my arms, I just wanted to hold you in my arms, I just wanted to hold...

A [few] Week(s) In Review...

This entry is aptly titled as I have not written on here in quite some time, and have heard a lot of complaints on that note, so here goes:

Over the past couple of weeks I have done a lot of things, including:

1. Taken THREE midterms and passed all of them.

2. Set up a new TV in our room with my roommate, which has turned our room into the new hangout room for the floor, which so far has been ok. However, we may need to lay down the law in a bit as we both have some studying to do this week.

3. Played a good amount of Settlers of Catan in the last couple of days, including teaching two new people! This may have been the first time in a while that I have taught two new people and they both caught on well and liked it.

4. Saw my dearest mother, as she came and visited last weekend. Oddly enough, NEXT weekend is the real Mother's Weekend, but that's ok, I still greatly enjoyed seeing another familiar face besides Les's! Besides, she brought a lot of support and advice and clementines to munch on :)

5. Become stronger friends with a few people that I did not expect to.

6. Enjoyed the lovely weather around Corvallis, as well as a newly fixed bike to enjoy it on.

7. Playing Maslanka's 4th Symphony in Wind Ensemble, with a very challenging part for me on the toms. [check it out here]

That's about it.

Camping/Climbing, a DIFFERENT way...

This past weekend I went camping and climbing down at Smith Rock (for all you people who live out here and know where that is). For all the other folks out there, it's about a three hour car ride through a winding mountain road from Corvallis. Now, I am a very experienced camper, and I have been on many different styles of camping trips, from eating steaks out of a car and having bathrooms with flush toilets and showers to eating granola at 10,000 feet where you have pack out EVERYTHING, including your TP. So, I thought I was ready for this. And that's where I was wrong.The changes started before we even left. One of the guys was packing the back of his truck and brought a grill. Not like a little, small grill, no, a huge, full-sized charcoal grill. He also brought three mountain bikes and a couple other things that will be mentioned later.

Once we got there on Friday night, I noticed something else: While starting the grill, I'm used to using a charcoal chimney with newspaper to start the coals going, but this guy used the ultimate cheating weapon: lighter fluid. This was weird because I grew up being told that lighter fluid is cheating by both my parents and the entire Boy Scout community. But here this guy was using it to start both the fire AND the coals. But enough of that, on to the climbing.

Climbing involved a lot of sitting (or sleeping in my case) waiting for a route to be open and then set up. To climb, someone good (in this case Matt) has to "lead climb" to set up a rope to the top, letting all of us inexperienced climbers do it the easy way. we started out on a pretty "easy" wall, at least in terms of ratings. However, the beginning move was too hard for me and I didn't have the finger strength to do it. The second route that we set up was actually harder, and I belayed a couple people for the beginning, but once again, the beginning was too hard and no one but the two experienced climbers made it up. Finally, the easy wall that we wanted to start on opened up. This route I finally did climb, and I didn't even cheat! This left me feeling at least a little better about myself.

So, general conclusions from the trip: napping in the sun gives you sunburn, the cab of a pickup is NOT comfortable for 4 large guys, Climbing is hard and requires ridiculous finger strength, and charcoal chimney's are the way to go for effective charcoal-starting.

Spring Break, Part ONE

Day Two of Spring Break bodes well:

I am sitting next to LesUrs on a couch in the townhouse, enjoying the rower gab and amusing TV commercials. We got back from the baseball game (we won, go Beavs!) with a star gymnast sighting as well as the "O" Guy. We are planning a big feast tonight, including Corn Dogs (yesterday was national Corn Dog Day) and some Slushies later. This spring break will be all about relaxation and sleep (a full 9 hours last night and 10 the night before), plus some video games a couple movies last night made for a very relaxed GregUr!

Never fear, ye olde concerned parents! I have SOME productive plans for the week: I am planning on practicing a lot, as the music building stays open, and will go rock climbing a lot as well with my house-mate/host MD. Then, on Thursday, we go up to camp on a private lake with the whole Sackett Gang!

[...] Mode

I am in partial procrastination mode.

It is finals week, and of course, my room is the cleanest it's been all week.

So far, today, I have cleaned out my closet, reorganized my bookshelf, taken apart my bulletin board, and finished folding my laundry.

In between these things I've been studying for my Communications Final tonight at 6.

So, all in all, I think a productive day, don't you think?

On an another note, I am very excited to see almost all of my family over the next month. I get to see my dearest mother the third weekend of April, my oldest sister and aunt the first week of April and, of course, I always see the older one. Now all that's missing are the father and dearest younger sister...

Late Night Bike Ride

Exhaling, exerting, expiring, enigmatic and eloquent.

Revolutions of the tires, rolling, riling the blood, riding, resplendent in the dark, cloudy night.

Going, going, gone, guiding, gaps in the pavement.

Bile rising, blowing hard, beginning to fade, back in the saddle, bovine scent.

Tortured legs, tilting away, tantalizingly close, too far to matter.

Stars evade, slight change in direction, seeing nothing, sensing only oneself.

Ominous darkness, ostentatiously waiting, ogling at this pathetic show of strength, oppressive.

Vicious wind, vigorous leg pumping, vainly struggling, valiantly struggling, volatility of gusts.

Quick on the Conversed feet, quotient of exertion matched, quelling all fears and doubts, quaking with exhaustion, quite worth it.

All-inclusive, awe-inspiring, absolutely helpful, awfully painful.

//This is something I wrote after coming back from a late night bike ride (1:30 am). It was windy, and a little wet, and a little chilly.

OK Go (lots of links!)

OK, so I spent some time on YouTube today just surfing around and came across soe really cool videos, all by the band OK Go. Originally hailing from Chicago (now in LA), this foursome has a very fun feel that I love. They also have a goal to make a music video for all the songs on their new album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, which so far they have done some tremendous work. They post all their videos on YouTube, where they have become wildly successful. This is what I'll share with you today.

This Too Shall Pass(Rube Goldberg Edition)

This is one of my favorite videos because of the Rube Goldberg machine involved. They used about 40 engineers and physicists from CalTech and other such smart places to make a "Brain Trust" to come up with ideas, and then did the entire video in one take(not the first(see the paint on their clothes), but still impressive!).

This Too Shall Pass (Marching Band Edition)

This edition of the video I like as much, if not better than the other, mostly because it has a Marching Band in it (Notre Dame). I like the camo, and especially the spelling out the letters in black and white.

Invincible

Things blow up. That's all I have to say.

WTF?

Though the lyrics may be a little racy, the video is VERY cool. It's very similar to the extended exposure shots I do with photography. I especially like their thriftiness in making this one (dollar store for almost all of it. That and gaff tape).

And finally, the video that started it all:

Here It Goes Again

The original favorite, it is now the most favorited video on YoutTube with over 50,000,000 views!

Besides these, they have a couple other videos that I really enjoy, including this one, just because it's so simple.

Enjoy!

[all information on the band was taken from their YouTube page or Wikipedia]

Dead Week [Stuck in Reverse]

For those of you no longer in college, the week before Finals week is called "Dead Week". Some institutions call it "Read Week," but no matter the name, it still kinda sucks. The teachers are not SUPPOSED to assign anything due, and they are supposed to be no tests or quizzes. However, I know a lot of people where they have all their papers and such due this week and not next. So why call it dead week if it's not really dead and nothing changes?

On a different note, here is a little something I wrote:

Facebook statuses fly

across my screen, flitting like

birds with insignificant wings and

no motives. They are sel-

fish and condescending, hel-

pful and useless, calling

attention to themse-

lves like mating calls, wishing for

attention.

ATTENTION, ATTENTION, ATTENTION:

I AM IMPORTANT!

HEAR ME ROAR!

because everyone cares

about your silly song lyrics, or

how depressed you are and

the things that your friends

did. The inside jokes

are too claustrophobic for me,

and I still-

"Dark blue, dark blue, have you ever been alone in a crowded room, well I'm here-"

"-and safety belts, bucket seats have all got to go. When we're-"

"try your best but you don't succeed. When you get what you want and not what you need-"

stuck in reverse.

"-is sick"

"-is tired"

"-has homework to do"

"-needs a break"

"-LOVES MILK!"

To comment or not to comment, that is the-

stuck in reverse.

A New Roommate and "Chicago-style" pizza

For all of you out there who have not heard the news, I now have a roommate for next term! This may sound un-exciting, but nonetheless, I am very excited. This new roommate, who we'll call JW, is a pretty cool guy. While chatting on Facebook over the last couple of days it turns out we have a lot of things in common and have yet to run out of things to discuss. So happy day (oh happy day...)!

On a different note, classes are going somewhat well, though Computer Programming will be the death of me.

To continue this post, some musings on life in Oregon vs. life in Chicago:

-It rains here. A lot. And that may sound odd because everyone knows that it rains in the Northwest. But I've realized this as I try and keep my bike dry. Now, once again, this may sound odd, you might say, "It's a bike, who cares?" or, "You live in Oregon, it rains, get used to it!" BUT, that's a little bit difficult because I really do like my bike. Having just received it at the beginning of this school year, I'm still in the "new bike needs to stay shiny," phase, so I try to keep it as dry as possible. I park it under buildings whenever possible, and dry it off as soon as I get back to my dorm after it rains.

-It's warm here. For example, in Chicago the weather right now is 46 degrees, with a low of 35 tomorrow. Here, it is 52 with a high of 60 tomorrow. Needless to say, I will be wearing shorts, and Chicago will be cold.

-I miss Potbelly's. I got a nice wake up call from Jon this morning and he ended by saying he was in Potbelly's and ordering a Dream Bar. This makes me miss those tasty, crunchy, hot subs from that eccentrically decorated restaurant.

[I realized I never mentioned the "Chicago-style" pizza...]

The dining hall was trying to serve "Chicago-style" pizza. Unfortunately, it failed miserably (as you'd expect). They cooked it too fast and too hot, so the bottom burned. And they just double layered everything and didn't make it a true PAN pizza. Oh well, I can't wait till the next time I get TRUE Chicago-style deep dish. :D

Copying my Sister. and film.

Once again, I find myself opening with "sorry for the long lag time between blogs," but, unfortunately, it's true. After reading LesUr's blog about ME, I decided to I would blog about HER. Well, mostly about what she blogged about. Which, when you look at it, is somewhat cheating or plagiarizing. Oops. My COMM 114 (Argument and Critical Discourse) teacher, MTH 231 (Discreet Mathematics for Computer Science majors) teacher, COMM 180 (Movies and Film Rhetoric) teacher AND ECE 112 (Electrical Engineering, Concepts) teacher would be ashamed (why yes, that is me trying to say that all FOUR of those teachers spent the first half of the first class talking about plagiarism and how it's bad.) And yes, that was me telling you dear attentive readers all about the classes I'm taking this term. Except for Tap I, which is VERY hard to plagiarize in, as it's dance. So you can just say you thought of it on your own, or that copying is the highest form of flattery. And they'll take it, because they're dancers, and dancers crave flattery, right?

On a different note, this film class is very exciting, as

1. I get to take it with LesUr;
2. It requires 0% of outside work for me; and
3. It's actually interesting, and the professor is very good and retiring, which means he doesn't care what he says.

On that note, we watched our first movie tonight, Deliverance.

Now, this 1972 "thriller classic" as Wikipedia says (see, I cited it, no plagiarism!!) was, on most levels, pretty good. The famous "dueling banjos," scene was excellent, though I did not realize that it was actually between a guitar and a banjo, but that's OK, that kid was amazing.

[thinking back, I don't think it was actually the kid playing it. But either way, it looked pretty darn impressive!]

Overall, though, the general tone of the movie was pretty creepy. They mention some pretty heavy stuff, stuff that I did not expect from that film. I had some preconceived notions going into it, but nothing prepared for that all that. However, I think the general rhetoric of the film was excellent. The filmmaker used excellent suspense techniques, as well as an almost lack of soundtrack to create tension on the screen. Ingenious.

So, on to happier topics. M and I are doing well, thank you for asking. Go look at the latest (read: 684) xkcd comic to understand a little something about us.

And yes, I DID just find the little link tool to input links straight into the text. So enjoy the little sites I send you off to, I promise they're worth it.

Except maybe THIS one...