The Travails of the Astounding!

I lost my wallet earlier this week. At first, I dismissed it as merely out of sight but within reach. Eventually, I needed it for this and that and looked for it. I looked, to no avail. The wallet was missing. Later, say... a day later, I looked around more thoroughly, cursing the drunken state I was in the last time I had seen it, while fantasies played in my internal projector or a drunken Larry flinging it at birds in the sky. I searched, and scoured, but to no avail. It was truly gone, my wallet was lost. For a brief moment I considered how we as people all have our 'papers', and if you lose em, your value and effectiveness dips ever so slightly in direct proportion to what you've misplaced. Lose enough, and you've lost it all. This event was the catalyst to a host of ontological inquiries, the likes of which one only asks themselves amidst a crisis. Not that this was truly a crisis. At most, I'd have to pay for the bus from now on (my CMU id takes care of that), I'd have to order a new debit card, and I might not be able to travel outside of the state for a while till I got a new state ID (no NY trip), which would be difficult. Nuisances, but nothing serious. The contents of the wallet weren't the issue, isn't the issue. What IS the issue is: Why do I see MOST clearly in times of crisis? AND: What will I do about it? Am I a growing/evolving life form, capable of incorporating observations and experience into meaningful adaptation? Or am I the repetition of a slightly different theme composed long ago, and played ad infinitum since?




Oh, and I found my wallet.

You Can't Always Not Get What You Don't Want from the album "Down Here" by Tracy Bonham

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On Saturday a 5 week long saga of pain and sacrifice came to an end, and we here at 2613 Tilbury (or Awetastic* Land, as the locals refer to it) were saddened to say goodbye to Christian who had become our 5th roommate. He and Vicente have been working on creating an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) server and client system completely from scratch for a Networking Class... IRC gained popularity in the early to mid 90's amongst teens who were looking for ways to trade files and chat freely, all before the gnutellas, napsters and AIMs. These days IRC is used by sadistic professors who enjoy torturing their eager young students with exercises in techno-futility. YAWN, I know. ANYway, during the first week of the project Chris spent all of Friday night here. He didn't leave til 1 or 2am, and I was amazed that he had the stamina to work for so long on something that seemed like it would be a relative breeze to do.



The following week, he would get here during the weekend day and leave by night, it was all smiles and chuckles. From my perspective, it looked like with all that comin and goin, the end would surely come soon. Somewhere thereafter he began sleeping over and spending every waking moment of his life in the room between the social room and the kitchen. Quite often I'd come downstairs to find them staring at their respective screens, headphones on, babbling incoherently to themselves. This would usually devolve into a quite rumble-rambling, which would escalate into arguments that sounded like they were getting pretty heated, as a matter of fact I think one or two of them WERE really heated, of course none of this can be confirmed as I had no clue what the words coming out of their heads meant. They had all the familiar symptoms of the English language, but somehow from their lips to my ears it sounded like a screenwriter from Star Trek on speed, all jargon nouns, no sense. Like guardians of the fort, they'd sleep in shifts, and went through tons of Dr. Pepper and coffee. Sometimes mixing the two. By the time the 5th week rolled along, the project was finished, or more accurately, was due. Both Vince and Chris spent more time in their work area than in their beds, showers, and classes combined. This here is a photo testimonial of a truly bizarre time in which I could find other people in the house with even worse sleeping habits than mine. Although Jim "World of Warcraft" Boyle, probably has me beat these days, since he has to take drugs every four hours.....

BUT THATS ANOTHER POST!

*Awetastic- A stunning combination of Awesome and Fantastic, coined by Larry early 2004.

Spy vs. Spy from the album "I, Swinger" by Combustible Edison