Crew party, or what I remember of it

    Never, even after the worst of my injuries, have so many people checked on me to see if I'm okay.
    This isn't my first time drinking, by any stretch. Back at home I've been drinking since I was a wee lad, thanks to my mother's Irish family, insisting I be acquainted with alcohol since a ripe young age. But tonight I've had a little more to drink than I've had in a while.
    For the sake of moderation, I've not had more than three or four drinks at home. It keeps me from getting hangovers or involved in regrettable affairs. But tonight was special; I was celebrating with my cast and crew. Our show launches in two weeks, and for the occasion we all got plastered. This is, to be honest, my first time really drinking socially (outside of family gatherings and my roommates chilling on the porch), and I'll have to admit, it's fun.
    If you know me well, you know that I'm always thirsty, so if I don't think about it, which I wasn't, this kind of affects my pacing. I ended up having all of my drinks in about an hour and a half and didn't start feeling drunk until right after I finished. For being clumsy and loopy, I'll give myself credit for having enough sense to at least stop when I knew if I had any more I would probably black out or at least do something incredibly stupid. I was still drunk enough not to have any awareness. For what it's worth, I still followed all the rules they tell you; drink lots of water between drinks, eat, count your drinks, all that good stuff. A little rundown of what I had:

• 2 shots vodka (it was that weird lemon-flavored stuff for cocktails so it tasted like cleaning fluid)
• 1 glass Champagne (toasting the show)
• 3 glasses Merlot
• 1 Fat Tire (our director Patrick at one point declared it was too hipster and started drinking PBR)
• 1 Sam Adam's Oktoberfest (tasted nothing like October as far as I could tell)
• 1 Pabst Blue Ribbon

    I'm not entirely certain about exactly how many glasses of Merlot I had or if I even had that last PBR, so my count is somewhere between 7-10 drinks. Anyway, checking an online BAC calculator, my BAC would have been somewhere around/slightly below 0.2, which is a fair bit higher than I reckoned at the time (go figure). According to Wikipedia, I was in the range for, and fit the general description of, Lethargic drunkenness:

Lethargy (BAC = 0.09 to 0.25%)

• Sedation
• Impaired memory and comprehension
• Delayed reactions
• Ataxia; balance difficulty; unbalanced walk
• Blurred vision; other senses may be impaired

I remember taking a nap on the couch during the party so I'm sure I was pretty lethargic.
    It was still a lot of fun, whether or not I was entirely there. I remember it all fairly well, considering it all. I talked to people a lot more than I would have otherwise, including our assistant stage manager Anna who looks just like Anne Hathaway. I don't know if I was being loud or if I was just trying to talk over the music, but I'm pretty sure I mumbled a helluva lot less, even if I did stumble over a few words ("I think you look like Anne Hathaway even when you're sober. I mean when you're sober. I'm sober. Not right now, but when I am"), and I distinctly remember picking up an absurd British accent for a while. Patrick claimed I didn't sound drunk, bless his inebriated soul. He's a really awesome director, I'll give him his due credit for picking a group that really gets along well and for personally being a cool guy.
    He definitely had a way of making me feel good about myself last night. I was saying something about not being able to act, and he turned it around and gave me some confidence. Now, I still don't think I can act, and he didn't convince me I could even then; all I can do is react, and honestly I can't feign emotion, I just have to trick myself into feeling it. Anyway, he told me I had a "movie aesthetic", and that my only problem was projection. It was stupid and meaningless, but I still appreciated the honest drunken thought.
    Apparently this is just the first of three crew parties for the production. Next time I'll try to pace myself a bit better, eat more, and for goodness sake dress better. It was more fun than expected. Hopefully I didn't do anything stupid, and next time I'll be sure I don't.

Half-Assed Review: Louisiana Story

    The Pulitzer Prize, as far as I understood it, is supposed to be a distinction of quality and innovation. Of course, this isn't really a subject that piqued my interest, being a bit more of of a film geek/engineer type, but in my futile effort to become a well-rounded person I've still taken the occasional dabble in Pulitzer winners to get some good taste. While all that written fiddle-faddle hasn't done anything for me, the Pulitzer Prizes have offered me a delightful loophole with their Music prizes. Thanks to them, I can still indulge in the pretentious pleasure of having Pulitzer-level taste without having to read a damned word. Music is purely aesthetically dependent; except for songs, which are really just poetry set to music, music has no message and has merit regardless of the historical context. By design, music can reference nothing but music (with some interesting exceptions, but that's another issue), and can have no political motive (again, with some exceptions). It's comforting to put on a record an not care about the composer's political perspective, life story, or the audience he was trying to move. Maybe my taste is pretentious, but I still like George Crumb. Most of his work is ambient and experimental and decidedly unlike anything your used to, but even his most discordant piano-mashing has a peculiarly beautiful quality to it.
    Reading through the list of winners, I found the perfect overlap in taste: The 1948 winner was for the soundtrack to the film Louisiana Story. Honestly that simple film association was enough, but in the past year I've also grown a bit fond of Louisiana. I've learned not to have high hopes for anything from the 40s, but the potential historical and sentimental meaning behind it seemed worth the 80 or so minutes it took to watch. If nothing else, I was wondering, compared to, say, The Princess and the Frog, how would they portray Cajuns and Louisiana in this film?
    Unsurprisingly, both for the era this film was produced and the nature of movies themselves, it was a wee bit idyllic, if not downright stereotyped. There was a mighty strong smell of the Great American naturalist coming out of the protagonist, what with his bare feet, affinity with wildlife, and friendly demeanor. Besides that he did live in a swamp, go hunting on a daily basis, and carry magic charms, which is probably about as stereotypically Cajun as it gets. The acting wasn't too great either, in typical 40s fashion (though to give credit where credit is due, the character of the protagonist's father was performed impeccably). But what the film did absolutely right, as far as my fantasies go, was whenever the Cajun family was in the home, they unapologetically switched to speaking French, without so much as a subtitle to explain them. It wasn't bothersome though; even without understanding a word of French, you can still understand the body language, and nothing essential to the plot is told in French (as far as I could tell).
    Speaking of the plot, there's really next to none. The best way I can describe it is, it's like There Will be Blood if nobody got hurt and they all lived happily ever after. The film plays like a documentary without a narrator. Things happen, and in the end, things happened. Regardless, Louisiana Story is a charming flick. It's not in my top 10, and it's not in my required reading list, but I recommend it if you happen to have identical taste as myself.

Espresso espensive

    To celebrate my first full day back in Charleston, I ate out. Nothing fancy, but for lunch I had a few hot dogs at the hot dog stand on Glebe St., and for tea I had a scone and root beer (actually I didn't have tea at all). Later in the evening I was feeling a bit gloomy so I went out to the nearest coffee shop and got an espresso to cheer me up. Today's total meal budget came to $11.76 including the little tip I left at the pastry shop. Keeping that accounting in mind, I'm disinclined to eat out regularly, but I've got a soft spot for the espresso. If it weren't so expensive it'd make it into my routine two or three times a day. Alas, the most reasonable espresso in town I've run into is $1.60, which would come up to $24 a week and about $96 a month, if I actually wanted to have my coffee at Caviar and Bananas. Assuming I had my own espresso machine the cost per double would probably come to about 30 cents, but I'd also have no excuse not to indulge on weekends, so I would still end up spending $27 a month on coffee if I kept up the pace and didn't over-indulge. Sadly, that would be an enormous luxury cost, seeing that my income is currently slightly less than survivable until I manage to sneak in a weekend job. This is why I'm making a habit of budgeting everything in my mind now. Still, my parents have been enormously helpful even as I approach the age where I can be rightfully brushed off as a deadbeat. Hopefully my GPA will go up enough for me to accrue some state scholarships and get out of this college debt trap.
    Obviously I haven't updated my diary in half a month now. Personal issues got in the way and the things I had to vent were private and completely unrelated to Charleston. So things have been duly vented to their proper audience. The best outlet has been doodling with my friend Shelby over the break. We see each other so rarely and she always cheers me up. Now that we've both doodled ourselves out on each other (that didn't sound suggestive at all), I'm ready to come back and face the world.

Rainy, dreary, beautiful day

    It rained all day. It's still raining now and probably will most of the of the night, on and off. This was the most beautiful rain I could ever ask for. There's a certain quality about the weather that heightened every possible sense. The soft drab gray sky and mist only accentuated the green trees and red bricks. Dead leaves and worms also start to release their odors on these sorts of days; all smells seem to mix in with the water and spread everywhere. Sounds become more vivid too; the clouds form an acoustic ceiling reflecting and concentrating the sounds of traffic, airplanes, and of course thunder. Last, but far from least, the feeling of raindrops, today only tiny beads of mist, tickle and chill my skin. This sort of day is the peak of prolonged physical pleasure. I'm not exactly poetic about it, but this was really the most beautiful day I've seen since I've moved here. There's nothing else I have to say for today. Just that it was beautiful.

First day of work

    For the one or two of you following this to check up on my studies, I did go to class and it was still a bit of a waste of time. After a certain number of weeks race discussion kind of boils down to the same four or five arguments sequentially invalidating each other, like rock-paper-scissors. In turn I basically have nothing original to do and certainly no hope for infallibility. By the end of the semester at least I might come up with something brilliant and original, but for my first paper (due on Thursday) I'm just writing off of the suggested topics list.
    After class I was just sitting outside of Simons waiting until I could begin work, and Robert came and offered to buy me lunch so I wouldn't be working empty. I really hate being broke right now. I really appreciate the favors but I feel so in debt. At least we're all friends and there's nothing formal and nobody keeping score. I really appreciated him doing that much, I felt really good having some meat in my system for the day.
    Well, I got to work exactly on time, and got on board immediately cleaning the shop. For those who didn't know (I can't imagine who since everyone who reads this is friends with me on Facebook), I work for the Theater department in the scene shop. It's a really nice workshop with lots of nice saws. I feel really comfortable there; there's not always enough work for me to perfectly squeeze in, but everyone's pretty relaxed and when there is work it's fun stuff that involves power tools in some capacity. My first job after helping clean up a bit was to cut out a set decoration with a jigsaw. I've never used a jigsaw before, and my cut wasn't perfect, but it was really fun and felt good to use.
    After that, I slept, and when I woke up, tried to help Robert put up his wall again. turns out that he didn't bring the staple gun because of something I said. Confusion sucks. We tried tape, it failed, we gave up.

Today was too long

    Social events, I have decided, are not my thing.
    I skipped my 5'o'clock class to go to an Anthropology department potluck. I hadn't skipped that class so far and I was hungry for something that wasn't variations on rice. Unfortunately for me, rice is the staple grain of billions of people in hundreds of cultures, so a proportionate amount of the food served was variations on rice, even if much better than what I can make. One of them even had cinnamon and was sweet, and another was almost a stew with spinach. I scarfed the whole buffet indiscriminately. It all tasted good.
    After that I went to see Toy Story 3 with Alex and Mary. Alex didn't know Mary and I were coming, but he gladly wedged himself between us in the seats. I doubt there was any though into it, and I don't care who sits next to whom since I was going to just watch the show, but I was really offended that he went ahead an butted in like that. Not that he butted into our group, no, we went to him, but when we went to sit down he directly separated me from my original company.
    Back at home, more writing, more slacking, a few conversations.

More of a continuation than a standalone entry

    So I slept in most of the weekend. I wrote and played games too (especially Syberia and Psychonauts), but mostly slept. Must have been exhausted. Anyway, since this is more about my life experiences and thoughts than videogame criticisms, I'll spare you my self-indulgence and spread a little of something I know you'll all love: Hate for anime nerds.
    First, to clarify, I don't hate anime nerds. Anime is actually pretty great, and if you care, a few of my favorites are Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Metropolis, and almost everything by Studio Ghibli and Studio 4°C. TV shows aren't generally my thing, so if I do watch a show it's usually just a one or two season thing, like FLCL or Death Note. And nerds are really excellent too. Even the most obnoxious guy with a Eureka 7 shirt I've met has been completely friendly, if a bit loud. No, the disdain is for one very specific subgroup of anime nerds: Women.
    Again, this is just a generalization that honestly only pertains to the vocal minority, but loud they are indeed. Somewhere on the intersection of feminine insecurity and social rejection rests this seemingly benign group of long-haired, bespectacled women with plain faces and a slight hunch who are absolutely revolted by any deviation from their ideal conditions. Naturally the world is by design less than ideal, so these ladies are always wearing some sort of sneer, but when something specifically irks them, however benign, they explode like someone just tried to eat their children.
    I'm no regular member, but every so often I like to show up for the anime club here at the College. Every Friday at 7 in Stern 206 we gather and watch whatever show the club officers think would be fun at the time. Although the purists insist on watching with Japanese audio and subtitles, it's still a really relaxed event, and it's fun because instead of getting really engrossed in the shows, we all make fun of how incredibly stupid the stories and characters are. It's a perfect immediate and involved experience; everyone can join and shout out, and you'll always get laughs if you do.
    But back to those women I mentioned before, they're always lurking in the front rows (because they're too hunched and short to see over people), waiting to scream at the audience if they get a little too loud for their liking, grumbling and groaning through every witty quip and comeback. This Friday in particular, before the meeting started everyone was playing around with Nerf guns, shooting windows and quoting movies while aiming at each other. Nobody shot each other, even with the foam bullets, but it was still fun. Until someone decided to aim his Nerf revolver at one of the club officers, who went into conniptions and threatened to throw him out of the club if he dared shoot anywhere near her and put the entire left side of the room in a bit of a nervous mood.
    The attitude extends outside of club hours. In fact, some of the well-behaved ladies in the club transform into irritable bitches the other six days of the week. My first encounter with this personality at this school was a while before the club even started meeting. This particular character seemed nice at first; a little self-deprecating and awkward, but me and my friends started encountering a nasty pattern. She was a complainer, which wasn't a problem in itself, but oh, whenever anyone offered help, or advice, she got furious. She was grown up, she would shout, and she doesn't need anybody patronizing her or acting like they're better at anything. Her insecurity was astounding.
    Now, aside from encountering this at the anime club, there isn't any immediate reason for me to specifically associate this attitude with anime nerds. It seems like anybody with mommy issues and a social stigma could be an überbitch. True, but there's two specific reasons I do. First, again because I've experienced this almost exclusively with anime nerds, and second, because anime seems to glorify this behavior. If you've watch FLCL, Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, or the show we watched this Friday, Toradora, you've seen what I'm talking about. Absolutely maniacally ungrateful and angry women with distorted perceptions of reality, and most of all no social tact. In the shows it's funny: Tiny, nearly insignificant little girls manage to coerce a small army under their whimsical command. In real life, it's disgusting. Unattractive girls lash out at innocent fun and well-intentioned help.
    Anyway, even with some enormous bitches venting hot air into the room, the anime club is still a lot of fun, and I recommend coming. If you show up a little early, a lot of the members get together to play Uno or Magic: The Gathering, and most of them are just fun to talk to anyway. The most you have to lose is a half-hour before you can decide definitively if it's fun for you or leave. Fridays at 7 in Stern 206. Be there.