Brett

but such fun

like SpongeBob tells Squidward: “good for your soul”

Thanks to

Well this is cool

I pre-ordered Mae’s new (and final) CD, (e)vening, from Amazon. I got an email saying the price had decreased since I ordered it. I will get money back. That’s awesome

Screenshot:

I am enjoying so much @maeband’s (Twitter for the band Mae) (e)vening EP. Their last album (ever). A DVD that comes in the album is the video of their last performance, in November last year, and this recording of their concert is super high quality.

Mae has been a presence in my life for years. I am flooded with emotion thinking back over their story, which they have shared with all us listeners. I wouldn’t recommend any music moreso than I would Mae

These are examples of scenarios given in my microeconomics book exercises. They’re kind of strange

The graph below shows the demand curve for kumquats in Chicago

The graph below shows the demand curve for trekking poles in San Francisco

A congressman from New York, facing pressure from constituents alarmed at increases in the price of orange juice…

My roommate Landon called our other roommate Will outside to help him “look for a gift card he lost.” It was really a set-up, and between five of us guys we ambushed him in the dark, duct taped his arms, knees, and ankles together. Fighting five people was too much, and besides, he was enjoying it. After all, we were simply congratulating him for his engagement. ;)

We threw him into the car and drove to the beach, where we dropped him off. We drove away but circled back on foot. By that time, though, as he told us later, he had pulled some of the duct tape off and sawed the rest off on a rock wall. Since he was not at the beach when we got back to it, we headed back toward our house.

Halfway there, we looked out the car windows, and there was Will, staggering in tattered clothes, muttering to a soccer ball he had drawn a face on… or so we jokingly imagined. In reality, when we called out to him on the side of the road, he dove into a snow bank but then finally climbed into the car. We all laughed our heads off and had a grand time goofing around.

In the final moments, though, Will got back at the rest of us when he and Jesse (one of the ambushers, who already had his engagement “congratulations”) promised our own…celebration…when our engagements come around; and here’s the thing: Jesse’s prank was a pie in the face. Will’s was being bound and left facedown on the beach. This is escalating exponentially, so I had better get married soon lest I get the fifth or sixth prank and it involves some kind of international stranding or internationally broadcast embarrassment…

I went with my house

mates to a screening of Invisible Children’s new film Tony, and a discussion with four members of IC, including one Ugandan, afterward. I didn’t expect to cry because I didn’t expect the personal level of the story. I’m moved even by normal intercultural interaction; seeing Ugandan (love ‘em!) children (love ‘em!) in perpetual danger and fear quickly sobers you and softens your heart. And it’s not just Ugandans, because the fighting and fear is spreading to other parts of eastern Africa.

The aspect of Invisible Children’s focus that seemed most unique and was most exciting to me was building radio towers.

{video}

I get so excited by the opportunities that technology brings. For people that have radio communication, suddenly there is a way to be aware of approaching dangers, of the movements and patterns of the people who are taking violence from place to place. I spent part of last summer in a remote part of Papua New Guinea (that’s redundant–most of Papua New Guinea is remote), and our only communication with people elsewhere in PNG was through one radio.

Note that tall bamboo in the middle there. At the very tip-top tall top of that was the place radio waves went from and to. They got to the radio set via a wire that went from the pole to the house.

It makes all the difference: you go from having no long-distance communication, to being able to talk with people who are in a village that it would take you up to a week to walk to.

Monday night was one to go down in the books. Two upcoming posts will explain.

at the coffee shop I studied at yesterday. A woman a table over got up to put on her coat. When she lifted it up to her shoulders, the tails draped over my coffee mug, and as she pulled her coat forward my mug came with it. I scrambled to grab my mug, and then I pulled the coat up and over. The woman didn’t even seem to notice, while another neighbor and I laughed about how close it was and how sometimes we don’t realize close calls that are right behind us or are our own fault. :)

The scene of the incident:

During my Christmas vacation I went to the movie theater way more often than I’d ever done before. Tron, Narnia, Black Swan, Fighter, King’s Speech. Since the end of break/start of this semester, I’ve been to none. Back on pace. I guess I had a lot more downtime then