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Perspective...
Beth sent this to Diary-l today. It was too good to not jot down.
Now able to look back on four Star Wars movies, McGregor reflected
on the cinematic saga. "What's incredible is the different
levels they work on," he said. "They're like fairy tales. Which I related
to but which is also fantastic for kids. Then also there's good
versus evil, and spirituality ... all these levels work. It's a very
complex piece of work. There's a lot of commentary on our world in it, whether
you notice it or not. It's not simple, it's complex and rich."
Valerie is a talented and lovely woman that I met and had the pleasure to know on the University of Illinois campus. She has her own domain, digitalmaven.net. She is a talented web developer and designer and I know she'll have a successful career in the industry. She even keeps a semi-regular online journal. She just got a new camera and she took a photograph of herself for it. Isn't she gorgeous? The "geek" shirt just makes her ever more tempting. Rawr.
Oh... and check out the cover for Wired's Webmonkey. Turn up your sound. I laughed quite hard when I saw this one. Genera Plantarum A beautiful photograph I took today of the pansies that grow in my mother's garden. 
The pansy is in the violet family, Violaceae. It is in the genus Viola (I don't know the species name. Anyone?). Viola roots have medicinal compounds in the form of saponins and alkaloids. They are used in expectorants and emetics. I've actually got several Violaceae-related factoids that are interesting. More on them next entry! In the News... I'm not sure how permanent this section will be. Just snippets of news that I find interesting and my one-sentence commentary. Dying with dignity is something that I strongly believe in. I'm so happy that Georgette Smith was allowed to die with dignity. Thank you medical ethicist Kenneth Goodman. "If a patient is cooperative, well-informed and uncoerced," he said, "she can make any decision she wants, including one that leads to her death." Look. I think that you can do whatever you want with the hard drive space on your own personal computer... however watch out what you put in the hard drive of your university issued computer. It seems that the dean for Harvard Dinivity School was forced to resign because pornography was found on his computer when the material was found on his machine. It was discovered when the professor asked the computer department to transfer the images tot he new disk drive when he requested more space. You'd think he'd be smart because he was a professor...
Stupid Criminals, Part I
Stupid Criminals, Part II |
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| May 19, 1999 |
| Sike! |
|
I know why I can survive on hardly any sleep. I get it on my commute to work! I was lucky today in that I caught a New Jersey Transit Bus that was practically empty. I had two seats all to myself. I like to recline one of the seats more than the other and "fall" into the crack and sleep in that little groove. It's much nicer than leaning up against the windows. My paranoid side always fears the glass is going to give out and that there would be something evil lurking in the dust on the window sills. The winner of the Most Amusing Email of the Day(tm) contest was one that I received from my great friend, Jim. We both lived in the same dorm (Yay Allen Hall!) and we hung out frequently my last year or two in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. When I was a sophomore, I recognized and saw Jim frequently in the computer room in the basement of Allen Hall, playing networked Marathon and the like. I thought the crowd that he talked to and hung out with looked very cool "my-kinda-people"-ish but I was too shy to actively introduce myself. So, I kept quiet, checking my email and chatting... one eye on the screen and another jealously eyeing the group playing Marathon with delight. (FYI: Marathon is a networked shoot-em-up game for the Mac.) Well, I got the opportunity when I met Chad. My second semester of my sophomore year, I took my first serious botany course, Plant Biology 260: Systematics of Flowering Plants. This was a defining course for me, Constant Reader. It put me firmly in the track of getting a botany degree, with a strong interest in the systematics field. Well, Chad was in the course with me. We both sat near the front of the classroom and I got enough gumption to start talking to him ("Hey you know, we're both from Allen! Cool!") Well, one thing led to another and I met Jim and we hit it off. Then he lived in an apartment with my friend Tori (another beautiful and gorgeous woman and probably one of the smartest individuals that I know. "Eileene, I learned Java last week! It was cool!"). I would come over their place frequently with Mike and we would watch anime and game. It was great and I loved it. This is how Jim described me in an email message today to a large group of people: Eileene, aka Iko-chan, is one of my good friends. Chad knew her but didn't hang out too much. He was scared and stuff. She was an Allenite. I should say is. Once an Allenite, always an Allenite. You can visit her kick ass web-site at http://www.woolgathering.net that tells all about her and stuff and Joisey. We gamed a whole lot. Yay RoboRally, Settlers of Cataan, 1830, etc etc. Woo. I need a fix. *tap arm* Did I mention the word *HENTAI*? Truly the only girl that ever made me blush by pointing out the cute girls to me. "Oooh... there's a nice one Jim." *blush* I think it's a terribly flattering description. I love you, Jim. Mike loves you too, man. Anyway, Jim sent me an email message today that I loved so much I jumped out of my chair at work and did a little dance. He sent me a picture of Chad in full Jedi regalia. I got permission by Chad to post it up (yay!). Here it is. 
Chad put it well when he gave me permission to post the image. "I figure I might as well be a famous freak if I'm going to be a freak. And I'm definitely a freak =)" I can't wait for my costume (wonderfully, supplied by Beth). I promise to post lots of pictures of me expressing my own geekdom. Tap tap tap. I looked up from my computer monitor to see standing by my desk. "So, how was the movie?" asked. I smiled. "I didn't see it yet. Friday. I'm taking a vacation day on Friday and I'm going to see it then." "Oh really? I know someone who had tickets this morning and I thought it was you. I remember that they said it was the midnight show. I could have sworn it was you." I smiled even wider. "Nope! Not me. I'm not that big of a fan. The logistics are terrible, especially since I live in Jersey." "Oh yeah..." [long awkward pause] "Well, I was just wondering. I've got to get back to work." "Me too." ... I repeated this script several times today. It seems that the Star Wars fan is, surprisingly, not as big of a Star Wars fan as everyone perceives her to be. |
© Copyright 1999, Eileene Coscolluela
[woolgathering]