Month: September 2003

Hurrah, just enjoyed a rousing game of Ping Pong with Carmen and Tricia. I observed that Carmen’s name is easy to remember because she is well-travelled and wears a lot of red. We’re not sure if she’s joking or not, but she clams to be the equivalent of nobility in her tribe (in Nigeria). Because of this, we occasionally jokingly call her “Princess.” I like to greet her in the morning with “Buonjiorno, Principesa!”

Me [Grand Moff Tarkin voice]: Well played, Princess, but even a divine mandate will not save you if you lose the ball.

When Tricia joined in, we spent quite a bit of time chasing the ball. We ruminated over a hybrid sport between ping pong and soccer. I suggested “Sing Song.” Never mind.

See? This is why I should use LiveJournal. I wouldn’t post pointless stuff like this, because it would spam others’ Friends pages. XD

And now, another riveting episode of The Madcap Adventures of Priscilla Spencer. This week’s installment: Das Boot(leg)

I finally caved on my anti-KaZaA morals in the name of scholarship and Mathematics — Maple is $150, and all older and wiser students say it’s not worth buying. However, while online, I decided to see if I could also find a bootleg of X2. Here is what I ended up downloading, all of which labeled variants of “X-Men 2 Movie Marvel Bryan Singer etc etc etc”:

1. Porn

2. Spider-Man

3. X2, but only the second half

4. The movie trailer, dubbed in French

5. Spider-Man again

6. The first Harry Potter movie

::sighs and waits for the next attempts to finish downloading::

Life is so hard. But esoteric, bilingual puns make it worth living.

Edit: W00t! Got the first half! The sound is a bit echoey and it has Chinese subtitles, but hey, it’s all good. I wonder if an Engrish version exists…

Further Edit: *melts into a puddle of drool* November 25th? I certainly know what I want for my birthday…

From the Ancient Files of Priscilla N. Spencer: Alternative “Dido and Aeneas” Translations!

Purcell: Ah! Ah! Ah! Belinda, I am prest with torment.

English: I’m feeling depressed.

Teenager: God, I need coffee.

Pirate: Arr, me wench. I’ve a scurvy pain in me pegleg.

PseudoGerman: Ach, Belinden. I’men tormentenpressen.

Valleygirl: Ooh! Like, Belinda! Like, I am, like, seriously needing some, like, Tylenol or something.

Nadsat: Belinda, my droogie, I’ve a horrorshow pain in me gulliver.

*snickets* Why didn’t I continue this?

I find out about the results of the Penn Singers auditions tomorrow night. I did the best I could (“Til There Was You” from The Music Man — I think I did commendably), and one of the auditioners knows and likes me, but again, lots of girls and not a lot of spots. In the meantime, *crosses fingers*

Oh, and this makes me happy: ♥

::snorks madly:: and I thought Gay Bar was funny!

I think I would train to become an enlightened Tibetan monk just to gain the ability to give people mental wedgies.

Through my analysis of urbanism, in which the production of space and visuality become part of the ardent power discourse of Florentine public life, I am ultimately led to conclusions about the spatiovisual politics of the piazza to which, as I am keenly aware, some readers might apply the term “radical.”

This man actually takes himself seriously. I am so insanely amused. Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence is now officially the funniest book I’ve ever read. I’m laughing out loud reading this more than I do reading Discworld books. I’m so sorry that readers find your conclusions about the piazza’s spatiovisual politics so radical, Mr. Trachtenberg. We’re here to support you!

Wow, I can’t believe I have to read 90 pages of this stuff. I love how I really don’t care about this subject at all. XD

Eep! Apparently there are some who know not of SIGGRAPH’s splendor. Because I find the niftiness of SIGGRAPH impossible to put into words, I resorted to Googlism to find the words I wanted to say.

SIGGRAPH is a (or rather, the) special interest group for computer graphics. It’s an international organisation dedicated to the generation and dissemination of information on computer graphics and interactive techniques. It’s the largest conference in the world for computer graphics and the quality is regarded as exceptionally high. Reps from ILM, Pixar, WETA, and more all flock to the annual conference, and the attendees revel in the coolness like a kid in a candy store.

Does that give a fair idea?

Just got an email saying that I didn’t make Counterparts, and I found that I really wasn’t disappointed at all. In fact, I was almost relieved. It reminds me of Junior year, when I tried out for The Pajama Game and didn’t make callbacks. Because of all the crazy stuff I was involved with at the time, I was overjoyed. (Of course, it turned out that Mr. Blaydes just accidentally left me off the list because I auditioned at a weird time because of “Ten Little Indians” and I ended up getting a principal role, but the comparison is still sound.)

What can you expect when they’re only taking five-some students out of over a hundred? Plus, I just got back from lunch with Jing and Max, two DMDers, and we spent the entire time gushing about SIGGRAPH. It’s rather refreshing to know that I’m not going to have seven thousand conflicting interests! And speaking of conflicting interests… Moni, how are you coming with that TVSP line art? *grins*

We had our first SIGGRAPH meeting last night. Squee, so many opportunities for crazy fun! And you’re only as involved as you want to be, so if I end up with a massive extracurricular schedule, I’ll still be able to participate somewhat. This weekend, they’re giving Maya lessons, and a RenderMan tutorial is soon to come. They’re training up a bunch of animators to work on a short film, which will be submitted to the big kahuna SIGGRAPH conference this summer.

Wow. Though I’d love to do a capella or theatre, if I don’t get in, I won’t be disappointed. Gravy, I love this place. It’s so wonderful to finally* be surrounded in real life by people that share my great and t00by love for computer graphics.

* Why do split infinitives always sound so much better than the properly-structured alternatives? Bah.