Given a tapas restaurant, find the minimum party size for ordering the menu.

The purpleline’s heated seats are as an apology for the blueline’s traitorous obnoxiousness.

“I refuse to compare people to public transportation. Unless it is in regards to size. Because I have described people as being as big as a bus before.”

The & Company is literal.

Amissum haud immemoratum umquam cordi.

Yay being able to use a Classics degree.
“I hope you get to use it again some time for more than 10 minutes.”
heh I take what I can get. Or, rather: it's lost but not forgotten, forever in my heart.

Hamletmachine fractures a story into its most haunting aspects. The tragedy is madness.

“I was Hamlet: I stood on the coast and spoke with the surf, at my back the ruins of Europe…”

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And if that doesn’t work, just say that your uncle locked your dead dog out of the apartment, and he’s only in town for 2 days.

Humor me for a second.

Food chain of command.

The Eagle is what it is: a mediocre Roman epic movie. The are no characters, no themes, no plot, merely geographic and historical setting; but the film makes no pretenses that it intends any other delivery.

The weekend, like my SI single, starts to end.

Excellently squired.

Like the turtle found on the side of the road, we keep the tangent overnight, then let it go away.

We withhold ourselves until we are ready to do something. But the world is never on the same page as us.
But you can’t blame the world there, only the us.
Oh, I was going to blame the M[].

"Watson is at a disadvantage when it comes to humor, wordplay, irony, and so forth. But then again, so are many humans that I meet, particularly the ones working rental car counters."

The last 7 words turn what could have been satiric wisdom into mediocre stand up, or turn mediocre stand up into ironic commentary on how humanity need not fear the loss of one defining quality.

“Let’s paint the picture of the perfect place…”

Looking in all the wrong places

“…And the grass is getting greener each day…”

On to the next thing.

“…Yeah, we’re going down…”

“All the things she said / Running through my head…”

Running through the streets at 2am, where there is only one direction to go: onwards, one way or the other along the snowbanked trenches of Broadway. Past music spilling from dying bars; past barred cemetery gates; toward the destination, the departure point reached with fresh composure, like evoked lies and poetry. A thaw as the blackclouds gather, 3 thunderstrikes lit the sky, and winter remains the forgotten season.

“…This is not / Enough…”

I can’t plan a return
‘Cross bridge I burn
Away, so here I stay and yearn
To learn to learn to learn.

Some part of me will always go aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah when I send an e-mail.

Telemachus goes to Nestor before he goes to Menelaus

I think the former wouldn't be a problem if we lattered. But because we don't, then it is.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this 4th wall.

“We are two mariners…”

And Moby Dick as an 80s rock musical.

“…And before us grew the angry jaws of a giant whale…”

Something requiring deciding quickly probably isn’t what I wanted to be doing anyhow.

Def and don’t think.

You have a very attractive checklist.
“I get told that all the time. Though you may need to tweak it.”
I’ll tweak your checklist.

Entertaining the distraction.

Did I miss a call from you? I was too busy watching a pirated copy of Black Swan with M[] and D[] and B[] and M[] that froze right after the masturbation scene. fml. Luckily, the hilariously, hilariously mistranlasted chinese to english subtitles provided enough comedy to cut any tension.

Our problem isn’t that we overthink, it’s that we underdo.

I love when I simultaneously realize what I like, why I like it, and what I need to not do.
I hate when I accidentally try to go to thingI'msearchingfor.com instead of searching for it.

“Upon the rooftops in dead of night / You'll hear me cry, I'll shake you from your sleep…”

Scaling 4 foot snowdrifts so densely packed in places that my weight is supported, and eventually stagger into a Decemberists’ concert. Story of my life: despite the redline’s best efforts, I shall have fun.

“…For I am a poor and a wretched boy / A chimbley, chimbley sweep…”

I'm thinking of doing something crazy and foolish, like going outside. Nevermind. I'm actually looking up Pacific Northwest Tree Octopi.
Oh, well good. That was going ot be my suggestion, in fact.

I’m thinking of doing something crazy and foolish.

You know, you’re hard to read. You like Paris, and hate French.
I like places and hate people. Oh. haha That was a language, not a substantive.

The problem with a veto is how a 2/3 majority overrides it.

The lesson of Yalta is that there’s always Tehran.
“See you in Berlin, then.”
Meet you halfway.

Youth passes like a clung autumn, left behind when the last day of school is abandoned.
Snow days are forever.

“…School’s out forever…”

“They’re falling down like a domino…”

The problem with debt is temporal: the future is obligated to the past. But unless the debt is for future’s benefit, why should they undertake past’s burden? Rather, future protests, and righteously defaults. But then what is past to do: what motivation for goodwill, if they are merely enacting their replacement?

“…All the kids in the marketplace say…”

Thus passes Machiavelli, done in by a supermajority of past and future.

“…Walk like an Egyptian…”

Saw King’s Speech, the natural progression from My Fair Lady’s satirization of linguistic distinction in social strata: can a speech therapist make royalty sound like royalty? But I can’t help myself from considering outrageous unintended parallels: George son of George, unexpectedly ascending to highest power ahead of his elder brother, thrust into a geopolitical war against a charismatic madman, and crippled by an inability in language usage.

I wasn't sure whether to refer to as a friend or a friend's roommate. It's in between, like, half-a-friend. Like, J[], before we had our bad poetry bonding moment.

The right and wrong way to communicate.

Already pillaged her recycling bin: it’s what she would have wanted.

You got to be careful about falling in love with trash cans.

“I once forgot my bookbag at Olive Garden, but that doesn’t make me the mayor of Italy.”

The many flavors of theta.

“Long time no see / Long time no say…”

Being nice is the gateway to being sneaky.

“…And your capital letters keep me asking for more…”

Every website is at most 6 links from Kevin Bacon’s wiki page.

“The Huey Lewis Show” isn’t just funny, but also therapeutic, when the audience prompt, for a newspaper headline they will never read, is “Chicago Beats Green Bay”.

DC is so not the city to move to if you need a winning football team to stick around.

The Iceberg.

If this makes no sense it’s because I really am running out to buy lettuce.

Submitting a recursive metaentry feels like phoning in a guilty pleasure, but a SI single is a SI single.

DreamMe writes DreamRecLetters for DreamJobs.

Do we blame the chili, or do we blame the bowl? Let’s blame the bowl.

Wait, no, stop. You insist that you can’t reveal who the last 2 were, right after you mention that he visited you and she visited you, and you know I’m clever enough to figure this out, and you think this counts as not telling anyone.
“I’m not saying anything.”
I don’t know anyone who can lie to themself better than you.

Happy birthday, I got you a hint.

It’s almost as good as how instead of directly inviting me to visit, you call me up and complain for an hour about how all your college friends who visit you wind up having sex with your boat or high school friends. Fine, I’ll see when I can come by.
“Wait, no, stop. I have to go build an attic.”

Plan B: I crash asleep early and hopefully stave off whatever I’m coming down with.

Back from escortry, with a SI single.

"I'd like to write a crossword with you.
Oh, wow. I don't know what to say. I mean, yes, of course, but shouldn't we discuss marriage first?

Packing, in the non-firearms sense of the word.

In the words of Genesis 1, calling it a day.

“There goes another night…”

Multiplication is hard.

“…Through these hard times…”

The closest thing to cat food is scones.

Dogs are funny. Neither you nor I would willingly, let alone enthusiastically, eat salmon, garlic, and bananas together.

“You know I’ve got to be more than this…”

Reason is in twilight: advantage and interest have reached their paradoxical limits. There is no incentive for optimality. Society cannot self-sustain, not constructed within a a set of negative loopholes. And so rationality goes the way of faith; statistics and economics and psychology become alchemy and astrology and parapsychology.

“…The more you think, the less you act this way…”

Fake it till you make it.

“…The fake sound of progress…”

Another SI single, which will hopefully allow a replacement hat delivered for my delivered Inker trophy! I do regret how in the interest of readability, I did forgo AABCC phrasing: “Obama pledges in the State of the Union that there will be a State of the Union pledge that we will put an American on Mars by the end of the decade by the end of the decade”.

<horrified> You just cut the cat!

Objectwork.

“There’s a 50% chance I’m getting a kitty. What should I name it?”
I have to suggest Schrodinger.

One part ancient grammar lesson, one part backhand, one part validation of paranoia.

I’m wingmanning her.
“Aren’t you wingmanning him?”
She’s in the accusative, he’s in the dative, and the girl he’s talking is in the genitive.

Looks like this year I’m resolving to have more interesting gchat away messages.

If there were a random guy (I'm envisioning Cash Cab style, only without the staging) who'd ask random folk who their rep was, for a $X prize- people would remember, just in case, wouldn't they?
“To create public awareness. We should ask some questions about breast cancer.”
That's why more Americans don't know their government representatives. It's not a practical trivia question. There's no incentive to know it.

Probably would be more upset at the lack of free trivia if I weren’t just bankrolled for the rest of the month.

It seems like purple will be the in color this year, per the Pearson Publishing & Modeling Agency.

“CCSS K.L.1
Lavender is evil”

This year I resolve to have more interesting solutions to the New York Times crossword.

Is it okay if I get a New Yorker Cartoon calendar?
Sure. They make great notepads in coming years.

“What’s a groupon?”

Too Much? Not enough.

“Are you J[]?”
“Yes?”
”You were great in Pillowman.”

“Embrace the past and you can live for now…”

A kiss.
A party.
A touch of fun.
A SI double (including a win!)
A brunch.
A nap.
A performance of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.

And all with friends old and new, here and far, good and amazing.
2011 and I are going to get along just fine, I think.

“…We are the voices / This is a New Year…”

“Wide-eyed, grinning in the darkened room…”
Every night as I go to sleep I realize what I need to do.
“…Coming in the morning in the afternoon / Forgetting…”
Every morning I’ve forgotten it.
“…Fully dead already but forever young…”
If I could change anything it would be their inability to change.
“…There's some things that I'm regretting…”
Don’t berate yourself. That was the best mere thought ever had.
“…A gypsy told my fortune then I told her hers…”
I like that about you. Most people get ethically elitist.
“…You'll be looking for your lover in the midnight sun / And you'll perish for your lover when the frost has begun…”
I have a philosophical objection to dichotomy.
“…Why love one thing and not the other…”
You have to like the person you are or be the person you want.
“…I am destroyer / I am lover…”

The poor Cyclops, intention never known, who has no control over whether he is perceived to be blinking or winking.

I don’t think we understood each other or ourselves.

Alcoholics are like pessimists, except instead of always having a half-empty glass, they always have an empty glass.

“…Alcohol, I still drink to your health…”

That's why I'm asking: I'd never do something like that without your okay, or at least your meh.

It's more a thought than a potential action.

Another SI single, from comparing too easy to pick on Washington institutions: the Redskins and the Democrats.

Clue: Museum Caper removes the elegantly simple gameplay of the original but adds a necessary component for mystery, trading the element of whodunit for the thrill of perpetration. Clue players may as well be third person inspectors far removed from the incident. Clue: Museum Caper players must identify with their pawns.

Things have changed.
Foremost, I have settled in a place where I am content with my past and present. For that I have obtained some new things, prominent among which is a netbook, the ubiquitous Bleem. Which, being ideal for my daily commutes, allows new opportunities for communicating just when I have so much I want to relate. So, appropriately enough, it is time to proceed with what I have begun.

You know how they always say, never trust wikipedia, but you do, because, I mean, really, okay, it's true theoretically that something could be wrong, but, c'mon, it's wikipedia? And, I mean, if there were an inaccuracy, you'd expect it to be something really esoteric and not immediately verifiable, by, say, a 7th grader with a budget of $2.25?
“Wikipedia teaches me things. But I can't ever let anyone know. I have to pretend I found the facts in a peer-reviewed journal.”
Now wikipedia has taught you the greatest lesson of all.

Something wiki this way comes.

FML, S&R ed.: MLIA

Fishing for compliments, but just the remarks are biting.

“You never say hi any more.”
Works both ways. The Commutative Property of Saying Hi to People in the Office

Every single time I sneak back to my past, my wit is found. Back from STL, with a third-place SI!

“That rainbow looks symbolic.”
<5 minutes later> The Senate just repealed DADT.

Two Watchers were killed. Whodunit?

As Cinder, oldest and wisest of the Fae, I found Oberon was distracted, Titania flighty, and the soulless Vampyrs everywhere. Puck was causing mischief with Arthur, and by the time I had an eye on him, Watcher #3 was killed. I tasked Puck and his sister Nineve with protecting the other Watchers, keeping the latter safe, the former [mostly] out of trouble, and working together we secured one of the weapons: a wand. Then a Vampyr keeled over: but a few minutes later he was up and about again. Still, since too many knew about the wand, I secretly entrusted it to the Fae assassin, Bounty, with orders to use it only by command of myself or Lord Oberon, who was the only other I told. Unfortunately, I then discovered the reason for Oberon’s distraction: a preoccupation over a vendetta with Merlin over his harassment of Nineve. It was a risk, but I took the wand back for myself, not sure if Oberon’s judgment would be unbiased enough.

Investigations indicated that the Court held a murderer. A Watcher’s spell cleared Morganna. A Vampyress tried to manipulate me against Guinevere, but it was clear she was innocent. I cornered Arthur alone in a back hallway, and brandishing the wand, compelled him to tell me what he knew; it was clear the lad was rash, but no murderer. With time almost up, and for Oberon’s sake- I returned the wand to Bounty, and unleashed her on the last possibilitiy: Merlin.

My crime was hardly concealable: even if the manner of Bounty weren’t known and Oberon’s motive not public knowledge, the Vampyress, Arthur, and the Watchers all knew that I had murder weapon, and my alibi wouldn’t stand up. So be it.

The Inquisitor revealed the truth. I had killed Merlin. Merlin had killed one of the Watchers- but only one, the third victim. For Merlin had deduced that that Watcher had gone rogue, and in fact the murderer of the first 2 slain Watchers!

The best present is being present.
The best thank you note is an available couch.

Facebook e-mail accounts: for those people who like the convenience and features of normal e-mail, but wished Mark Zuckerberg could read it over their shoulder.

I’m like-button phobic.

"What Holds the Heart" offers a challenge: are its lapses due to acting, directing, writing, producing, or which combination thereof? This perplexing question often is more captivating that the actual performance. But as much could be said about those flaws, that was not why the play was seen: quality is not the only quality.

And yet there a few scenes where what transpires on stage, especially despite the obstacles, lets something transcendent slip through, moments when the audience can feel their breath held.

“Blah, blah, blah…”

A 25 year old acting like a 17 year old acting like a 25 year old; half a joke (about nonstandardized spelling?), half an operatic tragedy. The entire nation one day will wake up and stumble slowly home, shamefully realizing that they did Ke$ha.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUGS

“Nonce words ending in -ed ('provided with') may produce other rhymeless words, such as be-fezzed (wearing a fez) and aitched (full of H's). However, these are not always certain (rached, a horse with a white streak down its face?).”

Zeugma Appreciation Society, Chicago chapter.

“So I'm still wondering, are we anti-rhyme or pro-rhyme?”
We're anti-rhyme, except in cases of rape or incest.

“I got my sights set…”

People, pages, plays, packages.
I wish I didn’t have to look back.
I wish I didn’t have to look forward.

“…I can’t wait to see you again…”

“Water Engine” is a different play having been seen as well as heard. The sounds heard are spatial, not lineat. The props only exist in the mind, except for the messages: scripts, letters, points of light. The characters skip into and out of the narration. But it also becomes a different play from the intervening time feauring an alleged persecution over released information.

Whatever’s left.
[My white elephant is a white elephant.]

Again saw Black Swan, recognizing what had already been seen.

I have one last candle flickering; not a candle any more, just a flame, sitting on my menorah, dangling it's legs over the rim of the candleseat. The candle is gone, but the flame is all, “It's a beautiful night, I'm not yet ready to turn in. You all go ahead without me; I'll catch up later.”. And then he just sits and watches and smiles warmly.

Those who do not understand why I still use the menorah I made in preschool, and not an expensive “nice” menorah I’d have been bought or been given or had made more impressively, they are looking for a work of art, judging everything by a standard they don’t even understand. They don’t see that I see something I created, something that resonates with me, something I’ve used. Where I see a cross-section of tree rings, they see wax needing to be scraped off, evidence of use obscuring bare utility, residue obscuring shine. They don’t understand that residue can be beautiful. Or they only understand selfishly, conflating their opinion about their own residue with universal truth, and ignoring as ugly what another perceives as beauty.

You’re feeling poetic.
I’m feeling poetically.

“Come inside my love and join me / I’m your worst nightmare…”

Creature of the night, or at least not daylight.

“…Tonight I’ll spread my wings…”

Black Swan is a glimpse into a world where everything is strictly black and white: the rigidity of dance, the institution of a performance troupe, the brusque NYC, the stark white and black color schemes. There is no comprehension of emotion, no place for red in this world collapsing into itself with the realization of monochromatism.

But there is a meta pleasure, in viewing a committed vision into a narrow, tragic (indeed, tragically narrow) world. Like the realization that which color is irrelevant in a world where the revelant fact is the realizing the schismatic nature of the world, the film is simultaneously a part of and a culmination of the prior elements in Aronofsky’s canon.

The extra unused stove/oven sitting in the corner of the laundry room has been transfigured into an abandoned mini toaster oven in the opposite corner.

“I’ll be in the corner reading poetry and prose…”

Because it's 2am and I'm sufficiently impressed and before you go into hiding, I should probably tell you that “stop doing that” is said loudest and most often in first person, and thank you.

“…You can’t force a dance party…”

Diplomats and spies have motive and means to kill, yet the agency of demise is a crime of passion. The only elements missing are Assange’s corpse and Christie’s pen.

Even the ground under dragons wobbles.

Watched HP7.1, which, like every other HP film, diverges in feeling from its predecessors; but unlike the predecessors, that feeling is at most secondarily from technical reasons. Certainly the doubled length, the lengthy interval since reading the once-read source, or the filmmakers’ accumulation of experience contribute to the effect. But the setting is different: this is a quest into the real world, not against the backdrop of education. The characters are different: these aren’t shepherded schoolchildren, but mentorless new adults. The theme is different: this isn’t yet another progression step on the path to maturity, but with a defined endpoint visible.

“I can be alone, yeah / I can watch a sunset / On my own…”

Happiness is not needing to seek approval.

“…Make me very very happy…”

Another joyful return after a long hiatus, with a SI single into third place.

“The kisses of the sun were sweet / I didn’t blink / I let it in my eyes…”

Looking back and forward, and seeing familiar forgotten faces, who are recognizing, remembering, stating firmly and warmly: You are one of us. This is where you belong. Stay.

“…And now the night is gone / Still it goes on and on / So deep inside of me…”

Such familiar faces, with names that on the edge of recollection; such familiar names that have drifted away from the face; such familiar stories that are shared among such divergence. Everybody has a bright future ahead. Everybody speaks, everybody listens, everybody understands each other.

“…And everybody’s singing…”

For one night, everybody was the most popular kid in high school. For one night, Past and Present are balanced in joy.

“…La la la la la…”

“You'll remember me when the west wind moves…”

Misheard “I never make promises lightly” as “I never make promises I can’t keep”. Both convey the same idea, but there are underlying linguistic differences. For “can’t” is a definite binary, unlike the spectrum of capability implied by “lightly”, with a Venn diagram of promises that could be kept and promised that were. But the actual lyric is especially disappointing in the context of the following “And there have been some that I’ve broken”. For “can’t keep” modifies promise, but “lightly” modifies make. Thus what is expected to be a contrast, with an impersonal statement instead of the active subject, is instead a parallel.

“…Many years have passed since those summer days…”

I hear a different tune, and I look upon the same path.

“…When we walked in fields of gold…”

The worst Thanksgiving travel horrors are those which are self-imposed.
The best Thanksgiving travel graces are those which are gratefully given.

“If they had brought my luggage, but didn’t deliver it onto dry land- it would have been enough.”
“And if I had been picked up at the airport, but hadn’t gone to Nando’s- it would have been enough.”

“Speaking words of wisdom…”

"Take care" is unoptimistic, assuming a dreary miersable world which requires its occupants to focus lest they never see each other again, their planes not arriving properly unless they doublecheck the destination with a flight attendant. The care is wariness, not meticulousness. And yet, this also assumes a world in which occupants are in complete control over their outcomes: with enough care, anything is achievable.

Whereas "[god] be [with you, [wherever you may go]]": that has a freedom, and the opposite of determination. "[see you] later": clingy, certainly, but acknowledging a bond, by which some day the interaction will be resumed. Unlike "take care", which enjoins us with our own responsibility, these conclusions are passive, with a defined or undefined higher power in control of what will happen.

For I like being, not the overachievement of being. I do not listen to make; I hear be. Lack of control does not bother me; for there is a difference between external and internal control, and what I do not is being unable to control internals, and having to control externals. "Take care" is not my world.

“…Let it be…”

“What's your position on the Elgin Marbles controversy?”

As they say in Canada, that’s what she said.

“Some of my friends from LSE thought they could just hop a fence and wander around the Acropolis, the fools.”They might have been British.

“What are you doing? What- what- what are you doing?”

Neither the sassy nor the gay are what’s necessary for averting tragedy.

Last laugh: While lost, we’ll hide
Our lust inside
A long list of missed reasons why’d
Not knock, lest it be tried.

Midnight bacon is an amazing thing; but now for 2 reasons.

“Ok, I followed the instructions, but now my bacon is trapped within the microwave. Am I supposed to remove it? If so, how? Please help.”

“My only criticism is that it's too bad its a late night recipe only, my children have to be in bed early so they won't be ever able to try it. :( Please post one for early morning bacon. Thanks!”

“This recipe looks great! Could you please add the instructions on how to switch the oven on and off.”

“You didn't specify which brand of paper towel”

“Do you have any recipes for cereal? The kind in a box? I really like cereal, but it seems tricky- milk first? cereal? big spoon? little spoon?”

“Sounds yummy, but I'm a vegetarian. Do you have a way to make this without meat?”

“I've just realized I let the bacon overlap a bit on the center of the plate and my microwave has already been going for 2 1/2 minutes”

"You can follow logic or contest it all..."

Accomplish or experience is a dichotomy.

"...The element of progress that you mentioned's gone / And deevolved to something you were headed toward..."

Pyroclasty or spontaneity is a concern.

"...I don't want to regret what I did..."

Not now or special.

"...Like a cast shadow..."

With better tea and just us for aw.

“Too Much Memory” retells Antigone, but it is, as introduced, a metanarrative: a retelling of a translation. And so on the show’s final night, with the troubles of the previous night avenged, with the Bush administration deposed, with combat troops withdrawn, the play feels superfluous. The actors sit watching action as much as the audience they face; the chorus inserts herself among the audience and actors as necessary. The actual plot no longer seems necessary to the mirrored reactions.