Needing a Delilah.

Schrödinger’s books: simultaneously marked up and marked down. They do not have a fixed price until they are scanned at the register.

Bonded.
Got paid.
Went bowling.
Got extra day off.
Had the fan repaired.
Got offered a promotion.
Laid on the grass on a nice summer evening, watching stars through the clouds, eating butterscotch frozen custard and talking with friends.

Sevenfold drought yields sevenfold prosperity.

Ratatouille is solid enough to seem like it should not need the ending monologue directed at critics. The main character has no romantic interest, and he also lacks the usual anthropomorphized sidekick; he instead is accompanied by an imaginary figment of his own mind, living in his own solitary world. Oddly, though without my disputing, the heir to French cooking is Italian.

“Rocketman, burning out his fuse up here alone…”

Birthmarks and bottle rockets, but other things are just as psychotic as they seem.

Instead of going to see “Transformers” last night, they went to see Chicago.
The musical?
No.
The city? For what?
Breakfast.

“Sometimes I feel I've got to / Run away…”

What better way to celebrate independence than to take a trip halfway across the country heedless of the return route.

“…For I toss and turn / I can't sleep at night…”
---
ETA 1 week, to somewhere in the Upper East Coast.

“You were talk, talk, talk, talking in circles that day…”

Some days start stupid, some days achieve stupidity, and some days have stupidity thrust upon them.

“…When you get to the point make sure that I'm still awake…”

Plural memories.

“I’m not American. I don't get paranoid.”
I am American. I get paranoid of non-Americans.

Just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

“...I'm not sick, but I'm not well...”

Ocean’s 13, having seen the 11th but not the 12th, is enjoyable like the first, for again it offers a simply pure plot. The pacing of the plot does feel a little uneven, like it suffers from too much momentum: things fail and succeed as if set by a strict linear relationship. Oddly, though, it is the absence of characterization which makes it feel empty. The first film handled this component neutrally, as if the plot were let to unfold without regard to character. But here, characterization seems almost deliberately checked for an established plot. In a way, this reflected in the title: 11 were 11 people, but 13 is 2 sequels past an established number.

Left/Right
Male/Female
Red/Bravman

At first it seems obvious that cats would use the subjunctive: “I would claw at your leg, if I could do so without having to move.” But then one realizes that they probably don’t even need the indicative. To a cat, the imperative is sufficient: “Move.”

At least by switching to business I’ll be able to balance my checkbook. Whereas if I did engineering, I’d be able to fix my car. Which is also a useful skill, I suppose.

Getting to work.

I missed the 2. I missed the 44.

Why don’t they have a copier that also holepunches?
They do.

There should be a system to deal with incompetent underpaid apathetic central officers misfiling German dictionaries in the science-fiction fantasy section.

Should we use our 400 Schnucks napkins or our 600 Vanity Fair napkins?
I should be all we should use our whatever napkins in case we have a blah-de-blah, but I don’t care right now.

So I was wondering, if I were to be all- OMG where are the DVDs?-...
<panics despite holding said DVDs>
...how you would react. And now I know.
<recovers and narrows eyes>

“A secret to be told, a gold chest to be bold, / And blasting forth with three-part harmony...”

There is something about seeing happy people being happy that makes people happy.

“...How about the power to move you...”

Everyone of the show has slept with at least 2 other cast members.
I think you mean characters.

It’s a movie I like, just not to watch.

I’d forgotten how passive-aggressive she could be.

I’d never hated Hermione Granger before.

And now finally some awkwardness that isn’t you or me.

It’s growing on me.

Still don’t know what that smell is or why the fire isn’t spreading.

I hate it when someone is annoying but doesn’t realize they’re annoying.
This is totally one of those ironic moments when I’m an annoying person who doesn’t realize I’m annoying, isn’t it?

Special Topics in Calamity Physics is exactly like a certain movie, which if named would irrevocably spoil a book much undeserving of spoiling. Overly rich in directly cited allusions, the story manages to be both extremely alien and completely familiar simultaneously. The questions raised are not left unanswered; nevertheless I’m still not sure I know which of those answers are correct.

I have a suspicion, and should probably reread.

Knocked Up is an oddly good movie, because it is so subtly good. It doesn’t seem like it should be; in fact, it seems like it should be utterly mediocre. And yet, it consists of nearly pure quality. The acting is weak at times, but somehow nevertheless the characters, themes, and symbolism seem too plausibly real.

The problem with objectivity and subjectivity is that indecision trumps them both. Is that one good? Is this one better?

I use my shotglass for mouthwash.
I use my mouthwash bottle for alcohol.

Summertime Mixer. Whether in the group that likes it or the group that doesn’t, drink up.

Did you know that they used to treat narcolepsy with meth? In addition, Hitler.

Apartmentwarming Party tonight, in honor of 6252 S. Rosebury, Apt. 1. All welcome. Stop by tonight for as much or as little as able.

The cure for gelato withdrawal is Ted Drewes.
---
Because it’s great to be back in STL: Apartmentwarming Party Friday evening.

Surf’s Up has 3 excellent qualities: it is short and simple and full of penguins.
---
Apartmentwarming Party this Friday evening. If you’re in STL, you’re invited.

Page by page, on the same.
(Seeing double.)

Futons are good things.

We would have much less furniture if we were living on the second floor.

“Look forward to great fortune and a new lease on life.”

If you can’t stand the heat, don’t sit near the furnish.

“Every person is the architect of his or her own future.”

“Sister’s sighing in her sleep / Brother’s got a date to keep…”

6252 S. Rosebury, Apt.1

“…Our house…”

All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power. And maybe not even the kind word or the unlimited power.

Long delay for food.
Rolls falling apart.
Persistently asking for cash payment.
Cockroach.

There are reasons why sushi shouldn’t be eaten.
There are reasons why a tip shouldn’t be left.

Once bitten, twice shy.
I want to be doing something fun tonight.

All normal people are alike; every crazy person is crazy in their own way.

“Moo.”

Pizza and accordians and waking up at 7:15am: The more found, the more missed.

“Ribbit.”

“Make me a pizza.”

I can’t go to a bar to not drink because I don’t have a fake ID. This takes absurdity past the level of soulless parasol wielding Japanese tourists.

We have 3 copies of this book: one is marked at $14.95, one at $15.95, and one at $16.95. And the one marked at $15.95 is preprinted at $14.95 and in the computer at $16.95.

"Don't you just love when you get blindsided by something you never ever saw coming?"

Taken aback. I’m still not sure.

Countdown.

Everything should have a penguin easteregged in it somewhere.

I need a pancake.

“I’ve grown accustommed to your face...”

After the first listening, the liked songs are kept, and those that are hopelessly irredeemable are discarded. But there are inevitably some indeterminate songs. Some may have uncertain melodic, thematic, or lyric quality; others may be positive in one category but negative in another, with uncertain net. These are borderline music.

All music deserves one listening, for the purpose of evaluation, except country.

Inverse Ninja Theorem
The total power of ninja in a location does not depend on the number of ninja.

Saw Pirates 3. Better than the second, with more plot but less action; but worse than the first.

“Oh.”
Everyone was thinking it, but someone had to say it.

To know about the game is to play the game.
To think about the game is to lose the game.
If you lose the game, you must announce it; then there is a 30 minute period during which the game cannot be lost.

I managed to remember the game while forgetting to lose it. Is it possible to win the game?

Tell me something.
“I just lost the game.”

Rome to home.

I must, I trust, eschew
Blindsided view
With respect to perspective, to
See without eye ‘pon you.
---
Today’s words: Ciao bella

All things have mass.
Paris is worth a mass.
Therefore, we’ll always have Paris.

Gerald Ford : Richard Nixon :: Arnold Schwarzenegger : Paris Hilton
---
Today’s word: Sempre

“UoV egw genomhn agapwmenou wme migeisa…”
I have become beloved of swine.
---
Today’s word: Cripta

Vae victis.

“‘It’s like the Roman Empire. Wasn’t everybody running around just covered with syphilis? And then it was destroyed by the volcano.’ Do you think she was right? Why or why not?”
I can provide no better answer than to quote Suetonius’s completely accurate account of Aeneas’s final words to C. Mussolini Caesar, which were inscribed on the Aswan granite wall dividing the temples of Fortuna and Mater Matuta: “You lolligag to first. You lolligag to second. You lolligag to third. What does that make you? A heffalump.”

(-50 for not including a solution to the Corner Triglyph Problem)
---
Today’s word: Rovina

“What’s the difference between grad school and hell?”
“You’d never tell anyone to go to grad school”.

“How much sleep did you get the first year?”
“Don’t answer that.”

“A classics PhD is a guarantee that you’re somewhat literate.”
---
Today’s word: Lavoro

Gilette’s Razor
All things being equal, the simplest solution works, but a multi-blade approach works better.
---
Today’s word: Lavoro

Sitting in one place for days on end and letting the bowling balls crash upon my head, my record is 75.
---
Today’s word: Lavoro

If I don’t get free time, no one gets free time.
---
Today’s word: Lavoro

“Poetry is the space between whispering breath that words on a page don't have.”

One of the hardest things to do is to read bad poetry.

“…and you are glad, too, the Ukrainian masseuse you see every Wednesday / is not in love with you, and has no plans to be…”
---
Today’s word: Lavoro

What I know about opera:
They sing.
It means work in Latin.
---
Today’s word: Lavoro

Mayday.
---
Today’s word: Lavoro

What do you call the mini Greek dictionary?
“The Little Liddell.”
So what’s the intermediate one called?
“The Middle Liddell.”
So that makes the big one the Big Liddell?
“No: the Great Scott.”

Anything that can’t be found in LSJ deserves a note.
---
Today’s words: Cravatta a farfalla

Kleptomania: the gift that keeps on giving.
---
Today’s word: Prego

“I can't see much of the future…”
Past/Present.
“…Spurn my natural emotions…”
Thinking/Feeling
“…We won't be together much longer…
Dream/Reality
“…Ever fallen in love / In love with someone / You shouldn't have fallen in love with?”
No/Yes
---
Today’s words: Ho perso

7 1/2 bowls of pasta e fagioli is not an accomplishment, but merely lunch.
---
Today’s word: Zuppa

“Which is worse: wikipedia or sorcery?”
I have no idea what you’re talking about, but that was an amazing thing to walk in on.

Done talking.

“In putting together this report, we opted for expediency rather than research.”
---
Today’s word: Veloce

Time out.
---
Today’s word: Intervallo

Sanity, mortality, and historical accuracy are overrated.
(Caligula, roughly speaking.)
---
Today’s word: Pazzia

“4 days is too long to go without.”
Hasn’t it been 5?
<counting>
“No, it is 4.”
Well, to the Romans, that would have been 5: inclusive counting.
“It can still be 5.”
Well, to the Romans, that would have been sex.
---
Today’s word: Senza

Ab urbe condita.
---
Today’s word: Compleanno

Oh my god it’s 4:20

8pm, LabSci 300. Free. See me there.
---
Today’s word: Improvvisazione

“How ridiculous is this? We only have the volumes from A to O! What kind of alphabet ends with O?”

It’s all Greek to me.
---
Today’s word: Greco

What’s your number?
“8. We good?”
We good.
“Oh wait. Add 3 to that. We still good?”
Slut.
<shocked look>
Sorry, double digits.
“I need to consult J[] about this.”

<cough>

“So once you hit 10, that’s it for life?”
You could hit triple digits.
“Then you get a triumph!”
“An obelisk might be more appropriate."
But the arch may be more symbolic.
---
Today’s word: Tosse

Executor.

Jenny- Italian jewelry, Le Glay
Kevin- Heffalump (Noah and Bucher get visitation rights)
Amy- 69 sweatshirt
Elizabeth- chocolate stash, computer
Mother- hair straightener
Dad- Notebooks
Ms. Levin- paper notes
Laura- bus card, umbrella
---
Today’s word: Testamento

"The evening was as uneventful as a spin of Left Foot Red when your left foot is already on red."

Epilogue
U[]C[] and D[] never worked out. I suspect after he found out about her sexuality, that was that.

H[] and I are good friends, and it definitely wouldn't have worked out between us.

S[]Gu[] is slowly progressing with R[]. They've definitely had obstacles, but things look hopeful.

I have to meet with F[]W[] in a few minutes to talk about next week.

The Pope is still Catholic.
---
Today’s word: Ancora

“How’s the Italian coming?”
Let’s not talk about how much I’ve forgotten.
“Oh, I thought that the daily word in your Away Messages was indicating that you were picking it back up?"
It’s indicating that I know how to use the Internet and an Italian-English dictionary.

It’s official.
---
Today’s word: Italiano

The Best Restaurant Ever is Il Pino at Via delle Terme Romani 71, Bacoli (near Baia). Not only were they open on Easter Sunday, but they put up with my awful half-forgotten/near-hypoglycemic ally faint Italian, and rushed out a plate of gnocchi to go, and gave me free water and free coffee while waiting, and even gave me one of their forks to take with me. Which I returned, for as awesome a souvenir as it would have been, they deserved it back, along with a huge tip.

(This would have been the first time I ordered or paid for coffee if it weren’t that I didn’t do either.)
---
Today’s word: Forchetta

[may retroactively add an account of Campania here]

Campania for a week; buried for all time.
---
Today’s word: Orologia

Putting things in orders.
---
Today’s word: Pulire

Voracious; put it in my mouth.

Can you feel the fascism?
---
Today’s word: Fragola

“Cum meis poni statuam perennem
Nerva Traianus titulis videret,
inter auctores utriusque fixam
bybliothecae…”

Hitting the stacks.

“…Nil totum prodest adiectum laudibus illud
Ulpia quod rutilat porticus aere meo…”
---
Today’s word: Biblioteca

Cute Diet
Only eat cute things.

This may be impossible to uphold when in Italy during Passover.
---
Today’s word: Carina

Nothing better.

A man rushed into the doctor's office and shouted, "Doctor! I think I'm shrinking!" The doctor calmly responded, "I'm busy… you'll just have to be a little patient."
---
Today’s word: Cattivo

Now let’s do it right, without the stupidity.

She’s my brother. I’m her sister.
---
Today’s word: Basta

The entrance to Hell is a barricaded abandoned inoperative escalator descending into an opaque abyss. It is located along the way to a 75 bus.

“An escalator can never break; it can only become stairs. You would never see an ‘Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order.’ sign, just ‘Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience.’.”

I don’t know why I get such enjoyment from descending up escalators and vice versa.
---
Today’s word: Inferno

“Can we pretend none of that happened?”
Can we pretend that none of today happened?

I have trust issues. I wouldn’t want to live with anyone who couldn’t be bought.
---
Today’s word: Casa

Let the pronoun they serve as an indefinite 3rd person singular pronoun. At the most basic level, this allows the he/she conundrum to be circumvented. However, this more generally allows deliberate vagueness, by allowing description without detail. Even gender and number can be obfuscated.

No idea on a solution, pronoun based or otherwise, for distinguishing between the 1st person plurals formed by 1st + 2nd from those formed by 1st + 3rd.

We are so awesome. We-GFWBAFB2P, that is.
---
Today’s word: Insieme

“There are 7 rules about the uses of the subjunctive, and one is that the uses of the subjunctive are infinite and you’ll spend the rest of your life learning the uses of the subjunctive.”

There is a magic in someone who has not touched the language in years having their eyes glaze over as if entering some mystic trance and pouring out from the restraints of forgotten strands of memory the simple rhythm of do, dare, dedi, datum. The language has spoken to me.
---
Today’s word: Latino

[My @wustl account seems to not be working. If anyone e-mailed me in the past week, especially about housing, please resend by IM.]

What’s it called when you kidnap an inanimate object?
“Stealing?”
No, but if you also hold it for ransom.
“Thingnapping?”
---
Today’s word: Biscotti

[My @wustl account seems to not be working. If anyone e-mailed me in the past week, especially about housing, please resend by IM.]

There are better hours to have lost.
---
Today’s word: Ora

[My @wustl account seems to not be working. If anyone e-mailed me in the past week, especially about housing, please resend by IM.]

The 300 is gratifyingly enjoyable despite it being an epic and overhyped, although divergence from historical details, even if artistic, still must incur some minimal level of wincing. The most incongruous moment, however, is when suddenly the Spartan numbers drop from 297 to 2; although the sudden abandonment of unity for individuality feels just as dissonant. There is certainly an allegorical theme, although that is much an issue of current modern geopolitics as much as one of historical accuracy.
---
Today’s word: Teatro

[My @wustl account seems to not be working. If anyone e-mailed me in the past week, especially about housing, please resend by IM.]

Some days need 2 rolls.

When they’re this wrong and you’re this right, it’s worth remembering that *you* don’t have to justify yourself to *them*.
---
Today’s word: Simpatico

One has to feel bad for Mussolini: no matter how hard he tried, he just could never be Hitler.
---
Today’s word: Ave

William Henry Harrison Principle
Brevity is either elegant or awkward.

Much has been done/needs doing.
---
Today’s word: Sei

I went on Spring Break and all I saw were some corner triglyphs. (And some lousy obelisks. They were limestone. I don't want to talk about it.)

[may retroactively add an account of London here]

[may retroactively add an account of Sicily here]

Spring Break:
Sicily 3/2-10
England 3/11-18

Some vacations I would pay to take.

"What did you do on your vacation, grandpa?"
"Killed a mugger."
---
Today’s word: Vacanza

Giving up self-sacrifice for Lent.

This is not a good week to be one of my appliances.
---
Today’s word: Pantaloni della notte

“Et fortasse cupressum scis simulare...”
I wish no one knew how well I draw a cypress.
“...Quid hoc...”
---
Today’s word: Albero

“Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean...”

Returning back from Verona, I discover that I do not have my camera, though I know the exact location on the train where it must have fallen out. However, I am stonewalled by the Tiburtina customer assistance attendant, who refused to respond to my Italian or to what I had someone write out lest my pronunciation mangled the conditional. Despite the ticket office, the luggage department, the station’s bookstore, the Ostiense ticket office, and the trenitalia help line all sending me exactly to him, and despite him working in customer assistance, he would not take my request, nor even give me the office’s phone number.

At least I can take pride in bookstore workers internationally being overly nice and helpful.
---
Today’s word: Odio

“In fair Verona, where we lay our scene...”

Between 5:30am yesterday and 5:30am today were the best 24 hours I have yet had in Italy. Gardens of obeliskine trees amid hedges and fountains beneath a hilltops rustic walkway to a breathtaking view at and over the treetops. A circumference of ruins. Balconies, battlegrounds, and battlements; theatrics, theatres, and amphitheatres. Roman jewels, Romeo & Juliet. The Arige makes the Arno look like the Tiber. Verona is a city laden with so much romance that I wish I had not seen it, so that I could experience its wonder on my honeymoon.

I went to be alone and found myself with people; there’s a lesson there.

“...There is no world without Verona walls...”
---
Today’s word: Giardini

“I got one foot on the platform...”
David Carradine, Liam Neeson, George Carlin, and Jon Bon Jovi walk into a bar.
“...The other foot on the train...”
---
Today’s word: Blu

George Washington is an aeteological mythic figure created early on in the republic to explain various customs and eponyms, such as the name of the capital city. In fact, most of the original Presidents of the United States are likely mythological, providing the country with a cosmogonical succession myth that gradually became absorbed into the state religion. Nevertheless, George Washington is historically significant in that he allows us to see how the people viewed an ideal leader. But regretfully, there is no evidence that he ever existed.
---
Today’s word: Mito