The Deception of Easiness
For easiness is desired. Education is pursued for it, balancing present rigor against future leisure. Yet puzzles get solved, boredom gets resisted, challenges get sought. One strives. One loves the one who one’s not with, even with a choice and a sigh. Elections get determined by front-runners, with problems and questions ignored for issues and stances. Those with the ability to lead are chosen over those who do lead. Hillary climbed because it was there; but so too is the anonymous molehill, which becomes mounted without acclaim.

In every potential there is an Erin and there is a Monica. One is easier than the other; the tricky part is that the other is also easier than the one.

I cannot start this.

“Do you want to take this back with you?”
Well, it seems a little too bulky; how often am I going to use it?
“The portable airplane power supply, not the car battery.”

Having a father who went to MIT is sometimes a very good thing.

“She has very red hair.”
“<scoffs>”

Allow me to be a Classics dork for a second, but omg they found the Lupercale.
“Allow me to be the pinnacle of a HP dork and just go squee at the name Remus.”

Registering what I already should have been finished with.

I know who I am.
I need to stop forgetting that.

Either with the competition or the hangover, good luck tomorrow.
“Perhaps both.”

The hardest part of figuring out the future is figuring out the present.

“Don’t think of it as 5am Saturday morning. Think of it as 5am Friday night.”

I actually didn’t hate the cluster system until 1pm yesterday.

Double, check.
Withdraw, the question.
Cluster,

“Social science is a vacuum.”

If anyone has any advice on particularly easy or painless SS courses/clusters among those being offered next semester, let me know.

[This would have been a funnier Away Message if my memory were better.]

“I have completed the first step towards my lifelong goal of becoming a robot.”
Robot teeth are the first step? What’s second?
“A robot circulatory system?”
Why can’t robots just use blood? I mean, the iron thing makes sense.
“Actually, it does make sense. <swears> Now you’ve got me thinking about blood-robots.”

I'm not going to be that kid.
"I'll be that kid."
Don't be that kid.

Porphyry was that kid.

Argh, I should have brought a water bottle. <checks> Argh. Okay, I'm going to run and buy one. Anyone else want anything?
"Can you fill up my water bottle?"
Wow. You so do go camping.

I dreamt. I was surrounded by books.

"Hey, can you bring me back a latte or a cappuccino?"
Wow. You so don't go camping.

Team Arrested Development Season 4 was unfortunately prematurely canceled. Given a series of upsets towards the end, how much the disastrously random seeding effects the results could not be extrapolated. But despite certain irregularities in the tournament structure, some very close games were played.

Let the veterans grumble: it’s not as good as it used to be.

Self-destruct.

This is one of those days when a hand that otherwise should win is going to lose in such a way that nothing can be done about it.

The saddest words in the English language are I can’t do this.

When in doubt, be Machiavellian.

Dear St. Louis Weather,
Be less bipolar.
Yours truly,

Operation Apparation.

Is is = = 1?

(What is, the meaning of this.)

The Illusionist unfortunately forces comparison to “The Prestige”; for the latter is better. While the former tells a story, with plot and characters and setting, the latter transcends to be a spectacle, a thing to be seen. And yet this probably depends on perspective. Seen as an in-flight film while leaving the country hours after reconcluding a relationship begun with lies and deceit, I liked it.

Half of the fun of seeing The Prestige is being amazed. The other half is turning to the other stunned audience members afterwards to discuss awedly how it was done.