Work and Duty

So, I turned 21.
That was good. Had a nice birthday, too. I got some neat loot, including underwear, Drakensang and books.
I am here to talk about the books. I could instead talk about how since I last updated this, I started learning French, working out and generally had some amazing experiences, but instead, I'm going to rant about German literature for a while, because I have just finished the best German novel I have ever read.
( Let's go on a trip! )

( But there's hope yet. )


So, saying it was a satisfying read would be quite an understatement. And now I have to sleep.

Oh man I haven't written here in forever. I was planning on doing a small piece on some of the surreal experiences I'd had recently, but then I saw something so subliminally crazy I had to do it instead. The meme of all memes.
Yoinked from the great maniac_online :
-Put your iPod / mp3 / music-player / on shuffle.
-write a segment to the first twelve songs that play. Doesn't matter how long the segment is, you have to end it when the song ends, and no, you can't use the repeat button.

I apologise in advance for the horrible quality of what follows.
Also, I added a thirteenth song/text because I like the number thirteen.

( What have I done, what am I doing this is stupid )

DSFfgdgarfgreg. I should go to bed now, before I notice all the mistakes I made.

Merry Christmas everybody! I hope yours was as awesome as mine.
I got shirts, kickass ties and the ultimate snobness:
Sterling Silver Collar Stays.
Sterling Silver Collar Stays.
I repeat:
Sterling Silver Collar Stays.

I am so fucking awesome.
I need sleep now. Goodnight, hugs out!

No seriously I fail so hard. The interview meme that is spreading like AIDS the common cold right now? I totally missed the point of having to post my replies HERE hurr hurrr.
I r smarts.

Okay, question time.
( First, questions by greenbear )

Annd, here goes ( maniac! )

ETA: ( pyrrhocorhax chimes in! )

So obviously it's time for me to copy the meme:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will post the answers to the questions (and the questions themselves) on your blog or journal.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. And thus the endless cycle of the meme goes on and on and on and on...

DO IT.

Oh boy, where to begin?

( tl;dr crazy dream incoming )


Well, at least it wasn't as bad as some of my previous experiences.

Oh, and we went to do some pre-christmas shopping today. You know that horrible Christmas muzak, which is ten times worse than regular mall muzak? They aren't playing that here. At all. In fact, I was puzzled when browsing the pizza section "...are those..bagpipes!?"
Turns out they were playing Schandmaul. In a mall.
Fucking Schandmaul.
The badass metre shot through the roof. I mean, seriously.

Oh god I am tired.
Hugs out, people.

Oh man so many things happened since I last updated this. Where to begin?

First, I watched House for the first time this Monday. It was...good, I guess. At first I was all "meh" but then it grew on me (related to, but not entirely the result of, getting used to that horrible mumbling) and it seems the later seasons get more badass than the first one (we watched a bunch of random episodes from different DVDs).
So yeah, that's another bandwagon I've come into fleeting contact with a couple years late. Also, the NSS (semi-regular get-together of a couple English majors and...actually, pretty random people) was a great success. Tons of new faces, and I had to explain to the Americans that I am not English at least four times.
Oh, I got to philosophy-bitchslap people, too. And heard ridiculous new arguments while doing so, specifically for allowing people to have guns. Apparently you need to have a gun to "shoot corrupt cops when they come into your house at night to take you away" (I am not making this up) otherwise you have no Freedom(tm).

On a more cheerful note, MEME ALERT!

"Reply to this post, and I'll tell you one reason why I like you. Then put this in your own journal, and spread the love."

Do it, people.
Now I need sleep. Hugs out!

GUYS.
I SAW FREDDY KRUEGER TODAY.
Or rather, an old man in a black-and-red striped sweater with a hat and creepy grey gloves and a scary face set down next to me on the bus.
Considering his age, I doubt he knew the films but...damn, he woulda been one hell of a cosplayer.

I need sleep.
So much. But I also haven't posted here in like forever. Things have been pretty good for me lately, but super tiring and busy. Papers, tutoring and catching up with old friends - I have no idea where I am supposed to have the time for all this anymore. Yet, I managed to at least triple my internet points. And because I'm too lazy to review it all, I'm just going to link bomb you to some amazing shit I found online.

What's that, you say? Video overload? Okay. I also have addictive games and stuff. No seriously, some of this is incredible.

God I need sleep. Maybe add stuff later.
Goodnight and hugs out,
-Kentrin

Urgh.
I wanted to make a quick post yesterday about how freakishly busy everything suddenly got and how tired I am and how everything seems to be delayed (yet I still lack the ability to say No when people ask me to tutor them, amazingly) but then the crud struck me down with a spiked club of unholy sickness +3, surprise attack. It literally came from one moment to the next, and now I have that kind of teh sick that makes you hurt all over,  but especially your head and eyes, makes you weak and hungry but too sick to keep anything down and... you know the kind?
Yeah, you probably do.

Urgh, this gonna be too long and unpleasant to the eyes so.
( Cut for further rantage )
I'm pretty sure that I wanted to add something else here, but I have no idea what it was. Brain working at half capacity.

As a sort-of upside to all this ( I am now having totally fucked up crazy ideas at random intervals. )

Hugs out, irg.

Too tired to make a real post, but there are some quick points I'd like to update on:
- When shopping for groceries I encountered a man (I presume) in stormtrooper armour, complete with blaster, running around yelling "PARTY HAAAARD". It was epic and win.

- Somewhere out there is a man who can make sense of elephants. It is not me.

- Reading stupid_free  will make you depressed.

- This is by far the coolest post-election article yet. It rates Obama's victory a 4/10 for being unrealistic, then goes on about why zombies should run. www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/10/barack-obama-zombies-running


God I need sleep so badly. Edit when I am awake.
Hugs out.

<capslock>
THIS JUST IN: CONGRATULATIONS FROM GERMANY ON ELECTING A PRESIDENT WITH A FUNCTIONAL BRAIN. I HEREBY DECLARE TODAY HISTORICAL ELECTION DANCE DAY, YOU MAY DANCE TO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING SONGS (OR ONE OF YOUR OWN CHOOSING):
1. EYE OF THE TIGER
2. I WANT IT ALL
3. ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST
4. ODE TO JOY

OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT FITS.
/capslock

Srsly, congrats on Obama victory all around. We're breathing a huge sigh of pacifist Eurofag relief here.

November snuck up on me.
Or rather, NaNoWriMo did. Despite looking forward to it for quite some time and telling myself I'd definitely participate this year, it totally took me by surprise yesterday when zuki_san 's journal reminded me that it is, in fact, November and I have to get off my ass if I want to get in on the fun!
Then I realized I had no idea whatsoever what I'm going to write. And being a plan-it-out-in-advance person, I really wanted to have an outline ready before starting on the real thing. So I quickly made one up today and decided on a fantady novel, for several reasons. It will be easier to make stuff up as I go, it's perfectly in-genre and will feel less jarring to me if I leave cheesy passages as they are, I had a world setting in mind for a while that I wanted to elaborate upon anyway and this is the perfect excuse (my inner voice beckons me to invent "Renpunk". Yes, you heard that right.) and it's not like anyone will read all of it anyway. The basic story outline?

A handicapped carpenter's son (the son is handicapped, not the carpenter), a brave swashbuckleress and a fish-dog transvestite are forced into one quest after the other, recovering artifacts for a race of pacifist giant spiders, slaying unicorns and eventually defeating the not yet specified lord of the legions of yet undecided doom.

Yes, that's it.

Relying on the advice of the NaNo team, namely that

3) Tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.

I want you all to constantly nag me about the progress of this. There is no other way I will be able to finish this. If you see me (gneshy) on AIM, go and remind me to get my ass back to Word. Thank you in advance.

On a more general note, I bought shoes, celebrated an anti-holiday (don't ask. Mainz is weird) and played the most awesome game of hide-and-seek ever there.

Hugs out.

Uhm... so there wasn't much to post for a week that wasn't angsty or extremely boring to anyone likely to read this. If you, against my expectations, DO want me to tell you about pre-socratean epistemology, I will happily comply, though.

So here's some random thoughts on this week:
1. The Prolegomena is either evidence of epic troll's remorse or an even more epic follow-up trolling. To write an entire book for this purpose is awesome. You rock, Kant.

2. Two and a half years ago, I went to a Döner joint on campus(no, not actually studying at that time, but still). It sucked. Today it was so rainy I didn't want to walk any further for a snack, so I went there right again. It rocked. Their cooking definitely improved -  I haven't eaten that good a salad in a looong time.

3. Today I met a banket. With an eyepatch.
I repeat: A banker. With an eyepatch. Ten times superior to regular pirates, I tell you.

4. Aside from not actually being one, http://www.mspaintadventures.com/ is probably the best webcomic I've read in a long, long time.

5. I still don't quite get hyperlinking in LJ. Also, I really don't have anything more interesting to ramble about. Bah.

Hugs out, people.

EDIT of the EDIT: See point 5. I fail at linking. Amusing article, now with links!
www.shockmd.com/2008/10/11/computer-games-good-for-you/

That's all.

Today was a day full of chaos, chance encounters and amusing miniature odysseys. Upon arriving in time for my first class I discovered the professor was sick and decided to stay anyway, considering the next one I wanted to catch was in...oh, two and a half hours!

( Dramatic Time Warp! )


I also tried to write the promised rant about my experiences on women ruling the internet, but it turned out senseless and unstructured and will have to wait until I can get my thoughts together again.

Hugs out!

Today I got pwnd by traffic and missed my train hardcore. Which sucks when you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO BE in Mainz at 2pm or you will get no more monies from the Federal ministry of Lulz and Edumucashunal Activism (main article: FLEA). I managed to get here even with time to spare but then wasted all the spare time on internet and comic nerding (see FAIL) and now have to hurry.
BUT before that I must post this meme as promised to cm1greenbear . It is silly and fun.

Comment and I will:

a) Tell you why I friended you.
b) Associate you with something -- a fandom, song, color, photo, etc.
c) Tell you something I like about you.
d) Tell you a memory I have of you.
e) Ask you something  two things I've wanted to know about you. Because questions are awesome.
f) Tell you my favorite userpic from your list.

You may want to repost this so I can fill it out for you(see MULTIPLE ORGASMS), but don't have to.

Hugs out!

EDIT: I got my admin done alright, and the guy was super helpful (I shall make a post about his office one of these days, it is awesome) but I kept fidgeting and trying to get it all done with because I had a proseminar I was apparently going to be late for. So I ran over to the Philosophicum and burst into the room .....to find two lonely guys playing cards. The conversation went something like:
They: "Looking for that marxism proseminar? "
Me: "Yeah."
They: "Dude, it starts next week. Don't you read the course list? GTFO Newbie."

The funny thing being that I DID read that announcement because I remember laughing at it thinking "God Neubauer is such alazy ass awesome guy" only when it became important I TOTALLY FORGOT. Lol I am full of epic fail today.
Also, made some minor changes to my LJ. Hurrhurr.

</lj>

Heeey nerdfags. I recently braved the office hours and the cop machine again in order to obtain the required reading for that other proseminar.
To find out it wasn't done.
So what are we gonna write that exam about in, oh, THREE DAYS? Don't know. Since the reader, which was supposed to be published in September, isn't done, and I will not be able to check again come Monday and Tuesday, I am going to go into that proseminar presuming the exam will be about NOTHING. The sweet topic of non-existing Victorian Poetry. Yep.

To distract myself, here is another lame awesome music meme, even though this is at least one hundred years old and you all probably did it already. But Velesti recently dug it out for me and the results are too hilarious not to post. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the soundtrack to my life:
( Apparently, my life will have lots of epic battles. )
God I need to read so much Reinaissance comedy now. TONS OF IT. Not that I mind, though.

Hugs out!

Hey there! Today I spent all my money on copies.
Yep.
I literally had to stop reading materials for this semester when I ran out of money. At 5c/copy. I am halfway through the matieral for one proseminar.
Yep.
According to my experience both with this particular professor and the rest of the department, these people are real smart. So how come they think that just because they teach 3-4 courses a semester their students have an equivalent schedule? Is it so unfathomable that a student  who has more than a dozen courses per semester isn't willing and/or able to spend incredible amounts of money and time on just one?
To make matters worse, the proseminars in this department have a text knowledge test at the very beginning - this means that I have to read all the texts for the seminar by next Tuesday. All several hundred pages of it.
This wouldn't be so bad if it was the case for just one - but no, I have to do this for several proseminars (though admittedly none of the others have nowhere near a three hundred page course reader). Is it too much to ask that professors every once in a while think of the possibility that peoplehave something else to do in their free time? It's not that I don't like the proseminar. It's not that the professor's an idiot (actually, she is rather awesome). It's not even that I don't like reading fucktons of academic historical analysis and hard work. No, it's the my-course-is-the-navel-of-the-universe-syndrome that I hate.
Ugh. I should probably go back to reading these required materials.

And play more MS Paint Adventures (which is awesome) before I explode into a full-fledged rant on the general stupidity of mankind and those people who keep babbling about how the LHC is going to prove god and cure cancer and shit OH MY GOD THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS SHUT UP .
I should really better get back to reading now.

I recently got a new music player, Foobar2000, which I am very pleased with. Oldskool, yet customiseable. Wonderful. You know what this means, don't you? YES. FAGGOTRY
DOUBLE MUSIC MEME TIME.

I'm going to go with tarendol 's first because it is shorter...
( A is for Apple, B is for Buttsecks. )</div>
And secondly, that of cm1greenbear , which is longer and still fun. Yes, with commentary again.

( Moo-sick is nothing like Mad Cow Disease... )
THAT'S IT and I got some freakishly accurate/fitting/disturbingly prophetic random hits on the second meme, too.
A great distraction for a night, don'tcha think?
If you are interested in any of these songs, drop me a line - on AIM, email, comment, whatever. Some of them are great.

Hugs out, man.

EDIT: Now that I think about it...ADDITION TO THE MEME: If you comment on this, tell me: Do YOU have a "personal theme song"? And, of course, what is it?

You know what sucks? A week cut off from the internet.
You know what sucks worse than a week without 'net? A week without 'net because the bank "misplaced" several hundred euros and all your week-long problem solving efforts are entirely misdirected.
So basically, I was cut off from news and memeish crazyness for some time, and I have a ton of internet stuff to catch up to. I used the free time to read Dune, which kicked ass, and play tons of good old System Shock (irony: Major point of the game is your character being a hacker with neurally implanted wireless internet. Go figure.).

Totally disturbed sleep patterns and psychotic super computers aside, it's good to be back. Just think of all the hugs I missed out while I was gone!

Dear Friends,

We have gathered here today to bid farewell to the last in a series of impractical and expensive cars my mother has owned.
At age 63, she has finally caved in and bought a car that is, first and foremost, useful.
What I'm talking about?  Today my mother gave up her tuned BMW for a Citroen Berlingo for added comfort when traveling with the dogs.  This memorable event has led me to remembering fond stories about automobiles in our familiy, particularly her last BMW before this one, which she only refers to as "the red one".

( I only call it the pimp car. )

So after her nostalgic waxing over that one, she started telling me about all the new and awesome features this more practical car would have.  This is not exactly verbatim, but it summarizes the conversation pretty well.

( I had heard that the French had a different car design philosophy, but.. )

Srsly. WTF @ the French?