i prefer pi

I had a long update planned, but all that I really want to say is that I’m glad that you’re around. Yeah, I’m tawkin’ to you.

There is presently a hawk sitting in front of Crocker Hall, feasting on the carcass of a pigeon, which, mere minutes ago, was alive. Sometimes you don’t even have to watch Animal Planet or CNN to see the savagery of fallen nature.

Three things, no four:

1. I went to Westminster Presbyterian Church this morning. It was good.
2. I worked the RUF table at the MSC Open House. It was good, but it could have been better.
3. I went to Mary and Jay’s engagement party. It was good. The best advice of the night was when Jay suggested that ring sizes should be announced on the second date, before there was any consideration of weddings or serious relationships, so that they were out in the open for future reference. Saw Joe again. Crammed Andrew, Eric and I in the back of Lindsay’s car, while Erin enjoyed the luxurious front seat.
4. I am tired. It will be good (to go to sleep).

That’s about it.

I watched Napoleon Dynamite for the first time tonight. The experience was… painful. It’s a lot like watching the BBC’s series The Office; it’s a comedy, and you know that it’s supposed to be a farce, but it’s so awkward, so garish, so close to the mark that it approaches documentary status. The appeal of the film has to be its universal accessibility. Of course, it’s a waste of time to talk about the movie, since I was the last person on the planet who’d never seen it. I liked it, but I won’t be buying the DVD or anything…The number of people that I know who are getting married within the next year is becoming increasingly alarming. I think that I’ve had friends involved in about one wedding a year since graduation; since Christmas break, I’ve discovered that I’ll have three more married friends come the end of summer (and one more come the end of this month!). I’m happy for all of them. I would insert a quip here about my expiration graduation date approaching soon, but I can’t think of one, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

Today was my last first day of school in college ever. And I didn’t have any classes. Interesting.I sat in on Military Ethics today with Eric because I thought that I needed one more PHIL class to get my minor. It turns out that I was wrong, but I think that I’m going to audit the class anyway. The lecture seems as though it may be on the watery side, but I’d like the opportunity to bounce off of hardcore military people for an hour every week.

The RUF “Welcome Back” party was held last night. As I was standing there, I began to wonder exactly how many people it takes for me to begin to feel uncomfortable, because I definitely felt that way. I absolutely enjoyed talking to everyone there, but when I’m around more than a dozen or so people, I start to feel less like a person and more like a personality — “Try to say ‘hi’ to everyone. Don’t stay in one place too long. Make sure that you don’t end up standing by yourself.” I suppose that the shallowness and desire to “prove” myself are personal problems. Thoughts?

I’m happy to report that both my sink and my health have been (mostly) restored today. A great thanks to the plumber and the Physician who made it possible, and to everyone who asked about us.

If you are squeamish, read no further. It suffices to say that last night was No Good. I felt extremely full after supper last night, and after Eric helped me back to Northside, extremely ill. I lost the bulk of my supper and, from the looks of it, a bit of my lunch in the Crocker Hall bathroom, thought “well, at least the worst of it is over”, and proceeded to vomit another half-dozen times during the course of the night, which I spent curled up on the futon. I didn’t have that much to eat, so the last four times were those wonderful bile heaves (along with one rather interesting instance in which I tossed up nothing but the water and sport drink that I’d just put down the hatch). Eric, Amber and Dimitri are all feeling fine, which means that I was sick before going to supper last night like I suspected, and that it’s My Own Dumb Fault that I wallowed in misery. Too little sleep + no solid meals + large supper = unwise decision making. I believe that, had I payed attention in LASERS (Learning And Surviving Everyday Responsibilities Successfully) in 9th grade, I would have remembered that Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance and opted to take better care of myself. Oh well… feeling better this morning, but I’m going to go back to sleep for a few more hours and replenish my fluids. Healthy Caleb ETA = 6 PM.

A late-night update: you may not know it, but the world’s worst plumbing fixture just happens to be isntalled right here in College Station. Not only do I now have no water pressure, unresponsive knobs, a dysfunctional gasket that sprays water all over the counter, and no hot water, but now I also have the privilege of having a sink that dispenses water the color of skim milk. :thumbsdown: to Reslife.

Welp, I’ve moved back on campus for the last time as an undergrad…

*** SPOILER ALERT ***
In this post, I will discuss the TV show Alias, including details of the previous three seasons, along with tonight’s fourth season premiere episode. Don’t worry if you haven’t seen the things that I’m writing about. You’ll discover before long that Alias exists in a bizarre alternate universe in which the laws of causality don’t really apply — past and present events have no bearing on future outcomes. All the same, I feel that it would only be fair to inform you of my intentions before we proceed. You have been warned.
*** SPOILER ALERT ***

When watching Alias, I’m often reminded of a scene from Peter Schaffer’s Amadeus in which young Herr Mozart tries desperately to justify the creation of his new opera, The Marriage of Figaro (if you have the Special Edition DVD, you can follow along, starting in Chapter 25):

“I have scenes…” Mozart stammers, his mind racing. “The end of the second act, for example. It starts out as a simple duet, just a husband and a wife quarelling. Suddenly, the wife’s scheming little maid comes in — it’s a very funny situation! Duet turns into trio. Then the husband’s valet comes in (he’s plotting with the maid). Trio turns into quartet. Then a stupid old gardener comes in, quartet becomes quintet. And so on, on and on and on: sextet, septet, octet.” He pauses for a moment, and looks at the Emperor, Joseph II. “How long do you think I can sustain that, Majesty?”

The Emperor is taken aback for a moment. “I… have no idea,” he says.

Mozart resumes, ebullient. “Guess. Guess, your majesty. Imagine the longest time that such a thing could be sustained — and then double it.”

Emperor Joseph II looks intrigued. “Well… six… seven minutes?” Mozart presses him. “Eight minutes?”

“Twenty, sire. Twenty minutes!” Mozart laughs. “Twenty minutes of continuous music. No recitatives!
Sire, only opera can do this. In a play, if more than one person speaks at once… it’s, it’s just noise. No one can understand a word! But with opera, with music… you can have 20 individuals all talking at the same time, and it’s not noise. It’s a perfect harmony!”

In the beginning, Alias was harmonious enough. There were the Good Guys, the CIA, and the Bad Guys, SD-6 — never mind that most of the Bad Guys thought that they were Good Guys. We then discover in succession that Sydney’s mother didn’t die in an accident, that she was murdered, that she was a KGB operative, that she never actually died in the first place, and finally that she is The Man, the master puppeteer pulling all the strings. Except that this situation would present an ultimate, if unexpected, evil force in the world, someone that could be universally reviled, and absolutes are notoriously bad for ratings. So naturally other players are introduced, and we climb higher and higher still in this global shadow government, reaching absurdly dizzying heights. The intrigue and excesses introduced in the first season are pushed beyond reason as the series progresses. Ultimately, it’s revealed that there were no Bad Guys at all. Or maybe everyone is a Bad Guy. I really can’t remember anymore. In tonight’s premiere, Sydney discovers that her father had her mother executed after finding out about a contract that she’d put on Sydney’s life. To further complicate things, Nadia, Sydney’s half-sister by her off-again/on-again boss (and former villain) Sloan, vows to kill the man that murdered their mother, unaware of the fact that she now works with him. Amnesia and deception, betrayals and double–double-agents are the norm; no situation is too far-fetched to pursue, no character too virtuous to skew.

Perhaps more troublesome than the fantastic storylines is the actual content of the show. In tonight’s two-hour premiere (that I can remember), we had two men violently knocked unconscious (one by being beaten on the back of the head with a blunt object), one man pushed out of the side of a train speeding over a railway bridge, audibly hitting several metal beams on the way to his death, a kidnapping, Sydney nearly drowning after a gas mask is forced onto her face and filled with water, and a sword/meat cleaver fight, which ends with someone’s death by stabbing. And that’s not even considering the questionable sexual situations presented in any given episode of the show. With the atrocities of war committed in the past year by combatant forces, the obscene “stress positions” used on detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, the decapitation of civilians published on the internet, and the thousands now dead in Iraq, one wonders how such “fiction” is even palettable.

Even more bewildering is the fact that the level of impunity afforded to the protagonists is tolerable. In tonight’s episode, Sloan states (in roughly so many words) that “the government doesn’t care how we get our job done, just that we get it done.” The response to terror attacks has been an increase in governmental control in the USA, in Russia, and around the world; I suppose that this is a rather unsurprising case of art imitating life.

Unfortunately, Alias has become a grotesque farce, more Faust than Figaro. The fact that the writers of the show have managed to hold things together this long is laudable, but in the end, even Mozart couldn’t keep his fantastic fugue flowing forever.

EDIT: After reading over this again, I realize that Alias isn’t the only show that gives me grief. Lost has had several scenes tonight that I could have done without, as have the last few episodes of Enterprise and Gilmore Girls — every show that I watch. Absolute avoidance of television is a virtual impossibility in our society, unfortunately, but I feel led for 2005 to commit to an abstention from watching television by myself and to discuss TV programming with the people that I’m around more often. I share this not to puff myself up, but so that everyone knows what I’ve resolved and can ask me how it’s going. Thanks again to everyone that has kept tabs on my triathlon training during the last few months — it’s been a big encouragement and a great motivator to know that people will ask me how I’m doing.