Adventures

I just don’t feel like it

So i have been trying to make myself post something about my day trip to Vancouver last Friday, but i just don't feel like it.

I took some pictures in the train on the way up (i'm now in love with Amtrak, because i can actually sit comfortably in their seats), and i took some pictures of Vancouver and its surrounding mountains (awfully pretty). As usual, you can see them all on Flickr.

It was great to meet raincoaster, and we had a relaxing day wandering around shops, eating Chinese food, and watching other people wandering around.

So there you have it.

Icky!

So i was going along, reading my usual blogs and whatnot when i came across the following Language Log post:

Ask Language Log: The moist panties phenomenon

It's an article discussing "word aversion", a phenomenon experienced by certain people when they hear or read certain words. For many people, the word moist causes a sort of icky reaction, one that doesn't seem to have much to do with the meaning of the word. Moist is not one of my favorite words, and i distinctly remember my friend Jonathan in college having a definite aversion for it (Jon, if you're reading, confirm/deny for me, please).

The only other word i can remember having a definite negative reaction to is crepuscule, the French word for dawn, but i know there are others. I'll add more in the comments as i think of them, but i'm curious if there are particular words that make your skin crawl? Do tell...

Must-see film

Last night, Andy & i went to see King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. It's a documentary about the reigning Donkey Kong champ, Billy Mitchell, and an unassuming challenger from Redmond, Washington, Steve Wiebe. The set up and characters in the film are so perfect that people have wondered if it is actually a mock-umentary, but everything in the film is real.

Wiebe is a laid-off Boeing worker with a wife, two kids, and a house in the suburbs that ahppens to have a Donkey Kong machine in the garage. Mitchell is a strutting, Farah Fawcett-hair-wearing hot sauce hawker with his entire identity wrapped up in being the Donkey Kong champion. Mitchell comes off as an evil manipulator who uses his minions in the classic video gaming world to discredit Wiebe's winning score.

I'm not a good enough writer to express how good this film is. What made it even better was that Steve Wiebe, his wife Nicole, and their friend Mike Thompson (who is also in the film) held a Q&A session after the showing. Wiebe is still playing Donkey Kong, when he's not promoting the film, and Nicole wishes the machine would just disappear from their garage. Thompson has known Wiebe since they were children, and he is a fierce defender of the man and his score.

I highly recommend this film. It is full of funny, sad, and amazing moments, and it's coming to Atlanta soon ;-) Those of you elsewhere, keep a look out for it!

Oh, one more thing

My blog stats tell me that someone clicks on the link for my undergraduate thesis every once in a while. I would LOVE to know who you people are and if you actually read it. Pleeease drop me a comment here, if you're willing to go public with your identity.

Updates

I got an email today telling me that a student loan for $18,000 has been conditionally approved for me. That will take care of tuition, but i still need to find housing money somewhere. The email also didn't tell me how to go about actually getting the money...

I am planning a day trip to Vancouver, BC, next Friday. A fellow blogger lives up there and has offered to show me around a little bit. You can read her off-beat blog here: http://raincoaster.com

And that's about it for now.