Perambulation

  • Finally finished reading Updike’s Rabbit, Run. It only took me one and a half years. Probably the third longest time to completion for a novel that I’ve read. For a book that doesn’t have V2 rockets, wasn’t set in Dublin, and doesn’t have wheelchair assassins, it was quite heady at times. The language and structure is quite rich, but I think the main source of slowness was that I couldn’t empathize at all with the protagonist. Dude’s kind of a jerk. One down, three more in the tetralogy to go.
  • http://howswaldo.com/ Best thing since Garfield Minus Garfield.
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZh6ZSRoYg
  • Trying to summon up enough resolve to do this, but I feel like I keep faltering.
  • Also, what’s up with endoskeletons? How do they work?

Stray thoughts

  • The new dehumidifier arrived today, and as I suspected, the power brick on the old one was broken but the old unit itself was fine. So now I have an extra dehumidifier unit lying around. Hoping to get a replacement power brick, but even then I might be too lazy to return the new dehumidifier back to amazon. On the plus side, I might not suffocate on our apartment air during these intermittently rainy days.
  • If I’m single next valentine’s day, I might make it a tradition to just do taxes on v-day night. I was pretty close to finishing up in under an hour, but I’ve hit a few snags with tdameritrade. Oh well, I was about to watch A Very Long Engagement or Serendipity or something last night, which might not have been a good idea.
  • During taxes, I realized I’m a little behind in my charity giving for last year. So far, it’s been EFF, Stanford, and the studio I go to. I’ve been thinking about Doctors without Borders and/or Wikipedia. Other suggestions?

Things on my mind

A most lovely weekend, which — despite whatever results from this coming week — will hopefully still remain wonderful in my mind.

  • Went to my first Viennese Ball to watch K+E’s opening choreography. I’m glad that all their hard work paid off; it really looked like the two of them whipped everyone into shape. And their dances definitely had their cuteness stamp all over the choreography. I might actually be tempted to stay and dance next year… we’ll see. Also, a lesson: don’t throw out all your white dress shirts just because you’ll never need them for work.
  • Saturday morning and early afternoon were, like, perfect.
  • And then rehearsal started and it was pretty much sheer madness. The AD looked like he was re-choreographing the piece on the fly. My working memory was about 8 counts, and the girl’s been battling some ankle/foot injury and can’t go full out (which means I couldn’t copy or cue off her). So all we have to go by is some video captured on his phone of us weakly marking the steps. It’s going to be a long 10 weeks of rehearsal…
  • Ran some errands on Sunday. Got a smog check for my car which cost $60; I guess not too many places are open on Sun. Went shooting with sister and some friends. Also first time I went to costco in a while. All those TVs near the entrance were calling me. Should I buy a TV and maybe a couch to go with it?
  • The nights have been a bit quiet, so I’ve been making it through The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen. Some of these fairy tales are pretty serious, especially the ones he wrote later in his life.