so, what's new?

plenty of stuff going on, which is why i haven't posted in awhile...

1) before i forget, check out that PostSecret link over there on the right. i dunno how long that's been around, but i just found out about it a coupla days ago. great stuff. in other blog news, TMWCB has been doing some particularly great stuff lately.

2) recently celebrated my 37th trip around the sun at the Ancient Well, a surreal little chinese restaurant in the basement of a very institutional looking building down the street from our house. when i get a chance i'll post the flyer Jen made, as well as a photo of the fantastic Ding-Dong birthday cake Jen and her friend Holly put together. i've always liked having birthday celebrations in odd-ball places that i think my friends will get a kick out of, and i think this was the best birthday i've had yet!



Ding Dong Cake!

3) went and saw Martha Wainwright (sp?) and Neko Case at the Pabst Theater last night. that was pretty good.

4) i sometimes wonder about the symbolism (if any) of elements of dreams. a recurring theme for me lately has been bookstores and libraries. about a month or so i dreamed about an outdoor used bookstore--it was your usual tall, cramped shelves stuffed with books, except that it was all set up in a big parking lot. i seem to recall that it was a feminist bookstore, if that means anything. So then a coupla nights ago I dreamed that I visited a bunch of used bookstores in some section of what i assume was Chicago, and that at one bookstore I found a copy of the complete illustrations of William Blake, in color, and printed in the late 1800's (I have no idea if such a volume exists in real life, but that's what it was in the dream). for some reason i passed it up. So last night I dreamed that my pal Steve and I were back in Chicago to look for that book. except i couldn't remember which bookstore it was at, so we had to visit all of them. after lots of wandering around not finding anything, we stopped at some mom and pop Polish restaurant for perogies (sp?) but ended up leaving before our orders came. we passed the outdoor feminist bookstore at some point (all closed up, shelves covered with plastic tarps), and finally made it to one bookstore that looked familiar. had a feeling of deja vu that got stronger the more we looked around the place. finally found THE VERY SHELF where i'd seen the Blake book, but of course someone else had already bought it. i was bummed, but picked up the complete works of HP Lovecraft (a book I actually already own) and went home. the end.

5) so, I'm carrying 18 credits this quarter, more credits than i've ever attempted in a quarter or semester EVER. for the first 3 weeks it was pretty smooth sailing, and i kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. well, it hit this week, tho i think i'm gonna be ok if i get a boatload of stuff done this weekend. my VLSI labwork has sort of been a bust, but i'm trying. we shall see.

6) there is no number 6.

7) even tho school started kicking my ass this week, it didn't stop me from building a home-brew version of this thing, a graphical voltmeter so i can tell what some parts of my synth are doing in real-time...mine is a little inaccurate, but good enuf for what i'm doing. I'm pleased that even tho it took me awhile to get it done, it worked and i only spent about $7 bucks on it. a far cry from the $100 that Blacet wants for it. yay me. Next project, building Jen the sampler i said I'd have done by Valentines Day. the parts are in the mail...