Category: thisnthat

this is surprisingly cool :) Guess the Dictator and/or Television Sit-Com Character!!

Click here to take the Operating System Quiz by Nidonocu.

the cover story in this week’s LA Weekly is a terrific little piece on Flea’s music school! Check it out here: This Ain’t No Julliard! Life and Violins at the School that Flea Built.

oh ucla. *sighs*

I’m back for my fifth (and hopefully final) year at this university, finally with some semblance of direction, although not necessarily purpose (in the grand scheme of things, anyway). It’s so weird coming back to school after even just the shortest of breaks. Summer session is so different from the regular school year. For one thing, it’s a LOT less crowded. I can come to campus and find parking fairly easily, even if it means parking on the roof of that massive behemoth of a cement structure called Lot 2. that sort of ease is unheard of now; daily parking is sold out by 7am.

I’m digressing. The biggest difference isn’t just huge difference in the number of people on campus, but also the attitude. I can’t explain it… when I come on campus, I feel the urge to go shopping. I feel that encroaching smug complacency of being a quote-unquote “UCLA student,” in the land of beautiful people and pretty possessions. Now that I’ve been removed from it for a while, I can see a sort of.. sickness that pulled me and a few of my friends away in the first place. I guess… one way I’d describe it is by comparing it to how it felt on other campuses. I remember.. when i walked onto UCSD’s campus the thought that came to mind was “a great place to study.” I walked onto UCSB’s campus and thought “I’m getting drunk just standing here.” I visited Berkeley, and thought “this is where [deep voice] great thinking [/voice] takes place. One steps onto UCLA and feels like they’re being aggressively marketed to..by UCLA selling a sort of “great educational package” the way Manny Calavera sells “great travel packages.” One walks around campus and notices tons of people wearing UCLA sweatshirts and feels compelled to pick one up for oneself. One walks on Bruin Walk and feels every organization trying to sell themselves to you, the potential participant. And, not to mention that because it’s LA, everyone feels like they have to look good too… or they’ll cast a downward glance on someone who doesn’t.

Maybe I’m just noticing it because there are a lot of Greek people in this music history class i’m taking right now, or because it’s the beginning of the year and everyone’s in their mad rush to recruit/be recruited. I’m probably just speaking out of disillusion as a former recruit who kind of feels like she’s been taken for a bit of a ride. Not by the stuff she’s been part of, nono. I guess I finally feel like I’m in a place where I appreciate my education and this opportunity I’ve been given, and i’m so wary about selling it, or getting duped into buying something else. It took me long enough. *sigh*

	You are Rowlf! You don’t draw attention to yourself much, preferring to keep your cool and stay in the background.
Take the What Muppet Are You? Quiz!

manah manah!! (do doo… do do doo!)

I really *really* need to get a domain name and a webhosting service. it massively sucks being on geocities. I’ve come to this conclusion after dealing with the hassle commenting is when your own site host does not support scripts of any kind. I’m currently using enetation.co.uk, which is usually reaaaaaaally slow but accessible, but is currently completely failing me at this moment. maaaaaan.

so. i’ve made a resolution. I’m going to find a REAL host and put all sorts of cool doodads on my site! I’ll actually have space to put up all sorts of neat stuff! I’ll put streaming media on my site! I’m going to be able to have php, or at least cgi scripting available to use, and I will finally break free from geocities! whoohoo!

… but I need a name. what can I call it? I’ve thought of “www.pearlescent.net” but that sounds so … “memememememe.” does anyone want to share a domain and host sites off of it? otherwise, I’ll just go solo and think of a crappy name.

suggestions are welcome. please email me at straypixie[at]yahoo[.]com. (remove the extra characters, formatting, etc etc).

www.resfest.com

Film festival celebrating digital filmmaking.. and it’s coming to LA! I really want to go to one of the events where they screen a bunch of music videos done in digital. they’re screening videos from artists like doves, bjork, white stripes, cornelius, david byrne, the hives, clinic, dj shadow, and a bunch of others. yaaay cool music! yaaay cool videos!

anyway, check out the site, check out the festival! maybe you’ll find somethin’ you like too. :)

pearl got a haircut… and it looks weeeeeird…..

my hair is now short. ok, so maybe not THAT short, but i lopped off five or six inches! and now I have bangs!! aaaaaaaaah!!

first off, I can’t believe i’m even talking about this game. faithful readers of this site remember that I spoke of my diablo 2 addiction when I first began this weblog. two years later, it’s STILL being mentioned. good gracious.

anyway, the reason i’m mentioning it is because I’ve started playing it again. and not just me. in fact, jerimy’s even more into it than I am. admittedly, playing multiplayer is a lot more fun than playing alone (which I did a lot of the time), and playing with his kick-ass werewolf druid with grizzly summon isn’t bad. :) I’m building a lightning sorceress right now, focusing on chain lightning and thunderstorm with maybe some points in static field thrown in. static field is awesome. 25% damage each time! but I’m not sure how it fares in nightmare and hell modes so I don’t want to put too much into it. then again, i don’t think i’m actually going to get that far, so what am I worried about??

oh diablo. diablo took away every evening of the whole last week and our entire weekend. it was quite fun though. :) and just when we thought it was going to get boring, I dug up some mods and hacks for d2x and found a cool character editor… needless to say, it adds a whole other dimension to gameplay when you can give yourself all those cool items you wanted. :)

nevertheless, i’m itching to play warcraft again… or for that matter, starcraft. believe it or not, I’d never played starcraft until this year. oh goodness… blizzard, you give us too much good stuff!!!!! I can’t wait for World of Warcraft!!

time for a gaming break. -rubs hands together-

It was sooooooooooooo cold yesterdaaaaaaaaaaay.

I wore little more than a spaghetti tank, jeans, and a thin sweater yesterday and I arrived on campus in for a shock.

it was freaking cold. and drizzling a bit. would it rain too?? what kind of weather is this??? auuuuugh!!

frantically, I ran back to my car to search for another sweater! a sweatshirt! an umbrella! anything! unfortunately, I had cleaned out the car the weekend before and removed all extraneous things from it. including warm, fluffy sweatshirts. with hoods.

and not ONLY was it cold yesterday, I got to campus at 9:30, having spent a good hour and a half in traffic, and found that UCLA parking services were out of daily permits in lot 2. And all the other lots on campus. The only lots they had open were lot 32 (which was out in westwood) and lot 1 (behind the medical center, also in westwood). I ended up driving to Lot 32, found parking, missed the shuttle several times while searching my car for something warm, finally catch my shuttle only to be on campus too late for my 9:30 class. AUGHGHGHGH!!

Mean, Mean day!

On the other hand, I’ve made a friend in a couple of my classes! He’s my laptop buddy. Both of us, through the nature of our notetaking, are stuck sitting by power outlets all the time, so we end up sitting together in two of my classes. He’s neat! He’s married, so I get to ask him advice on weddings, etc.

Speaking of which, I still have no idea what to do about mine. Jer and I were thinking next winter maybe… or even this winter. hehehe. -shrugs- I guess we’ll see. I’m kind of wary of planning a wedding though… seems like too big a deal, too big a hassle, and too much politicking among family and such. simple and smalllll is fine with me! and well.. maybe a reception. :) woohoo!