The Agrinautica

   Yesterday, you will recall, the spaceship-that-coincidentally-looks-a-lot-like-a-cat narrowly missed being torpedoed by the Enterprise looking ship...

( Warning, the ensuing may or may not include a rude gesture )

   So we survived our adventure in Porto Nueva, Mexico. Our 12 person expeditionary force consisted of C-Bunch (entries, pics), his cousin SirPsychoSexy, their friends Byron Tyrone Tyrel Tyrice Bison Tyson & Branch, Kim Bowles (entries pics), Little Colleen (entries), Colleen Milton (entries, pics), C.Milton's cousin Elise, Lyrakeet (entries, pics), Sashakeet (entries, pics), Kristykeet (entries, pics), & myself (entries, pics). We stayed in two six-person suites, which were built in a vertically oriented manner, not-unlike a cat-tower. A narrow spiral staircase led up to the highest rooms, which being the highest parts of the buildings were quite tower-like.
   In the nearby lobster-oriented village, every restaurant seemed to have the exact same $12-16 lobster special (of corresponding amounts of lobster). It was really difficult to distinquish between the restaurants... and not only that they need to learn how to come up with more creative names, there was Porto Nueva Lobster Restaurant I, II & III, and Restuarant Del Mar I, II & III, etc etc!


Meanwhile Elsewheree
   Elsewhere apparently, Saddam Hussein had a rather unpleasant end to his New Years eve countdown . In Somalia, the Ethiopian and Transitional Government forces crushed the final Islamic Courts Union (ICU) stronghold between the evening of New Years Eve and the early hours of New Years Day. Local clan elders asked the ICU to leave the city (Kismayo) to prevent the city from being destroyed in the fighting, when the ICU refused, fighting broke out behind the front lines between the ICU and local clan militias. ICU commander Sheikh Yusuf Hassan stated "are not going to surrender. We will fight to defend Jilib and Kismayo until we die," shortly before there was a mutiny within the ICU forces and they began a disorganized flight from the battle area. Kenyan forces were seen moving towards the nearby Kenyan border to prevent ICU forces from crossing over, and the United States fifth fleet patrolled the coast to prevent ICU forces from escaping by sea. This appears to be the end of the ICU. The transitional government has announced weapons collections and amnesty programmes for former fighters.

   The weekend before last (Nov 18-21 actually) I was at the AMWEST Model UN Conference in Las Vegas. My official report is here.


   Anyway, barely had I returned (Tues Nov 21), then I set off (the next day, Wednes Nov 22) to drive down south for Tryptophane Day. Fortunately most of my relatives were gathered at our cabin in the hills south of The Grapevine
   On the way down I found one of those secret truck gas stations I'd always wondered about (where trucks sneak off to to gas up). A 76 gas truck was refueling there despite the fact there was a 76 station on the other corner, which I found amusing. Then two nice white cars passed me on the freeway. The first thing I noticed was the tall antennas sticking out the top. They has "CA exempt" plates and the numbers "91" & "92" respectively in little digits on the bumper, but no other markings. Curious I edged up until I was alongside the back one. Looking over I see a police sargeant (with an armful of gold chevrons on his shoulder) staring back at me. Creeped out I quickly dropped behind him and waited for some unsuspecting vehicle to fly past.

   Thanksgiving was pleasant. Then on Friday I drove down to Mission Viejo where I recovered from the rustic life for a few hours before proceeding down to San Diego to hang out with the delightful Kristy Kristersson.
   On Saturday we (Kristy & I, & her parents) went to the San Diego Zoo, which was excellent as always. I saw some sort of mustelid I thought was really cool but can't remember the name. That evening we ate at this place Fred's in old town, where I had delicious calamari tacos.
   And on Sunday I drove the ten hours back up to Davis. Altogether I spent at least 20 hours driving, which is a pretty traumatizing thought. At least I had a lot of time to think about things ... mostly future prospective LJ entries and/or ideas for ASUCD ;)


Previously on Emosnail
   I still don't know what I'm going to do about the "year ago today" series - I liked it a lot but it was starting to take up too much space on every entry, and that makes the whole lj pretty recursive. Anyway while linking previous AMWEST entries I noticed there was a lot about the simmering drama in ASUCD three years ago...
   Three Years Ago Today: AMWEST 2003 - And several links to aggie which were broken by The Great URL Massacre
   Two Years Ago Last Week: My Impeachment in Retrospect - And I lead the charge against the corruption of the former Elections Committee, as part of the ongoing War on Wrong. Eventually the Schachter Elections Committee was axed and replaced by the Orwellians

   Kristy visited this Weekend, which was awesometastic. She came in on a 10:35pm flight Friday night and I met her at the aeroport with a salad from Plutos.
   Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market and had various Davis-related adventures before the party at the Foyerhouse that evening. Kristy made delicious cupcakes for the party. In addition to the cupcakes, there were four pumpkin pies, jello shots, beer cans, a keg of beer, and Dave marauding with the beer bong.
   Kristy went as a St Pauli's Girl / German Girl, I went as Alex from Clockwork Orange. C-Bunch was a ninja that spoke out of sinc, Olivia was a girl in a red dress, Vater was a viking... Anthony Soto showed up with his girlfriend and they were both toys from toy story. Apparently Anthony largely made both costumes from scratch, crafty!
   Sunday morning Kristy & I ate at Crepeville and tried to do as many Davis-related things as possible before she had to catch her 8:30pm flight back to San Diego. )=

   On Halloween itself I decided to be one of those people who goes to class in costume. Every year I think about it but chicken out, so I decided to go for it. It was kind of awkward because only one out of every 100+ people was in costume. Additionally it turns out a lot of people have no idea what clockwork orange is so I got some weird guesses as to who I was. In my Brewing class however there was actually another Clockwork Orange person ... and as luck would have it he wasn't even the same character as me (Alex), because his friend had been Alex.

   Someone I ran into said "oh so you're dressed as yourself for halloween?" To which I said "What? NO! I definitetly do NOT normally wear a hat!"


Picture of the Day

Seconds before I harassed Professor Bamforth about spelling "Flavor" wrong.
It clearly should be "Flavour" (and as a proud Englishman he should certainly know this)
He stole my hat in retribution

PICTURES!

   This weekend as usual I went and visited Kristykins in San Diego.
   This upcoming Wednesday is my last day this summer in the bee mines. I'm staying down here for Kristy's birthday on Saturday (the 23rd), and then I'm going up to Davis on Monday or Tuesday.
   Last week we had an ABC News reporter tag along one day for a story, and another day some grad student from USC was making some kind of documentary that somehow involved us. This upcoming week the owner of one of our competitors is going to meet with Boss Dave to discuss selling us his company. ...

   I burned a CD for Bob & Jeremy. Its called Plazcrak II. Since the CD contains a sampling of the most awesome music ever created, I thought I'd enlighten you all with a list of what I included:

( Plazcrak II Tracks )

Picture of the Day

Kristy models the latest fashions

   So I finally got around to watching that 9/11 conspiracy theory video "Loose Change" a few weeks ago when Chad posted about it. Just as I suspected, it was a pile of tin-foil-cap conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, I think many of the more politically naive may be alarmed by it, but for my part I found nearly every assertion to be highly suspect.

   The many problems with it are far too numerous to even begin to address. In fact, the State Department Counter-Misinformation Team has issued a 10,000 page report in rebuttal to these conspiracy theories. Anyway, I just wanted to highlight one particularly glaring example of how misleading the "documentary" is:
   At the end of part one the video is talking about the impact hole in the Pentagon. It compares the size of a hole in a photograph to the size of the cabin of a 757 and argues that the aircraft couldn't have made that hole. The photograph does indeed show what appears to be a large hole blasted through the side of a building ... however there is an anarchy symbol spraypainted on the wall beside it on one side, and a "no parking" sign on the other. Incidently there is not vehicle access on the inside of the ring (which is what the shot is supposed to be), and I deeply doubt anyone in the pentagon was about to paint an anarchy symbol on the wall beside that hole.
   In conlusion, the video's producers knowingly used completely unrelated footage as "evidence" to make their delusional point.


Picture of the Day

People reacting to the Loose Change video?

(Not really)

   This entry is post-dated from Saturday, in preparation for my expected death on 06-18-06.


Roommate Replacement
   As of Saturday morning, Kristy had somewhere between 4 and 7 people living in her apartment ... its really unclear.
A. The Korean Girl(s)
   Kristy's floormate Chrissy has left for the summer and subleased her room. Because Kristy was gone at the time, Kristy delegated her approval to Jardine, and Jardine approved "the Korean girl."
   Chrissy doesn't even know the girl's name apparently, having her in her phone as "Korean girl." This is particularly silly in light of the fact that Chrissy herself is a "Korean girl," and grew up in Korea.
   Whats more, in the several days since she's moved in, the Korean girl has had two female friends staying with her, and none of us knows which one actually is going to live there. There's even a concern that maybe they all plan on staying there... in which case there's going to need to be some reapportionment of the rent.
   An important contributing factor to the confusion is that the girl has never introduced herself to anyone. She just started moving in and hasn't communicated with anyone other than some awkward "are you done with the bathroom?" type exchanges.
   AND, most suchsauce of all, all three are TERRIFIED OF CATS. WTF. Who's afraid of cats seriously? Bailey sauntered into their room and all three started screaming. One of them came into Kristy's room and pointed to their room with horror, Kristy went in to find Bailey lounging placidly on the bed. She scooped up our furry purring friend and relocated him. WTF.
B. The Vet Student
   This was earlier in the week. On Saturday afternoon Kristy came in and found another girl in their livingroom. "Hi, Becca must have told you about me" she introduced herself. "uh no" "oh... I'm Becca's new roommate."
   Fortunately, this new girl, Veronica, seems really nice (well I personally haven't met her, but according to Kristy), and gets along with Bailey. Kristy overheard her talking to him when she was alone with him, so plus ten points.
C. In Conclusion
   Two more peices of wisdom I would have thought one could take for granted, but apparently not:

• You have to clear new roommates with your existing flatmates
  
• For gods sake introduce yourself if your moving in with people. Especially if they're already living there, its just weird if you don't and unnecessarily insensitive to the fact that your moving in on their personal space.

Picture of the Day

Added on Sunday, from the party on Saturday.
Seriously you need to see all the pictures.


Previously on Emosnail
   Three Years Ago Yesterday: A Meme - Says I'm emo to the core, or something.
   Three Years Ago Today: Leafy Spurge - And roommates
   Two Years Ago Yesterday: 30 in 30 I - 4 - World Leaders & Music - "How would the world be today if Vladimir Lenin had embraced a regime of bolshevik emo-ism rather than communism" and other interesting questions.
   Two Years Ago Today: 30 in 30 I - 5 - Party At Sashie's Place - And polls indicate 66% of respondants want more tales of debauchery.
   Year Ago Yesterday: 30 in 30 II - 18 - Statistics Revisited - Analysis of blogological statistics, which scientifically explain the weird fluke that is the fact that some people have otimus on their friends list.
   Year Ago Today: 30 in 30 II - 19 - Little Big People Park to be Demolished - and I flee south.

   Alright so tonight I'm writing a paper on St Francis of Assisi. Or more specifically, I am to compare and contrast two movies about him, Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972), in which he's portrayed as a flaming hippie, and Francesco (1989), in which this apparently famous guy named Mickey Rourke plays him and he's a bit more emo and rolling in the dirt oriented.
   Anyway, I really don't mind writing about history, but I hate having to analyze films for a history class. Maybe if I'd signed up for a film class I'd expect this kind of crap, but I didn't. I signed up for a history class, and here I have to write several pages on some crap-ass director in the 70s wanted to portray a 13th century masochist as a hippie.

   Anyway, so yeah I'm disgruntled, and in a hurry, so yeah. But by Wednesday I'll be done with finals, so I'll have almost as much free time as otimus, so y'all better look out.. at least until I die on the 18th.

   So for todays little entry, by popular demand, I am going to talk about Bailey. Bailey appears to be mostly an unusual breed called "Australian Mist," causing him to have an aweomse grey-&-black leopard pattern, with a golden belly. slosha got him at the Woodland animal shelter when he was wee (and sick). But Sloshie's allergic reactions to cats proved too much so his Other Mother Kristy took over Bailey-raising.
   Because he was really sick for much of his wee-er weeks, he grew accustomed to being held constantly. As a result, he is much more cuddly than most (and especially male) cats. When one comes home after he's been left alone, he'll frequently mew until you pick him up and hold him for a bit.

   Bailey is BFF with Kristy's flatmate Jardine's pet bunny. The bunny was named "Oreo" by Kristy's former flatmate Chrissy, who got him as a gift from some sorority older sib or something. Since Chrissy literally never took care of the bunny, however, it was adopted by Jardine, who just calls him "Mr Buns." Me I call it "Orca," since its patterned like an orca. One thing we can all agree on though is that "Oreo" is a dumb name.
   But yeah, Orca & Bailey are best friends. Also, Bailey is fond of lying about on his back. In fact he's doing that right now! He's such a master of loungin.

   Bailey likes to wake us up in the morning by licking our faces, something that kittenbehaviour.com (or something like that - I don't have time to check facts here) says is a sign of particular loving.


   But he's not all well behaved. He likes to throw fiestas & pool parties. Crap fiestas that is! He gets a little carried away while burying shit in his litter box, and next thing you know he's just watching the litter fly for the fun of it. And then when we are emptying his litter box and have his little gifts all wrapped up in a plastic bag, he likes to bat at it, and we have to say "no bailey, no! NOT a pinata!" And if one leaves the toilet lid up (which is gross anyway people, seriously), he will sometimes decide to throw a pool party in it.

   But mostly he's a good kitty, waging war on his eternal enemy, Dots on Walls, sitting in windowsills, and hanging out with his catmom Kristy. He's one of the most loving cats I've ever met.


And now for the only reason half of you read this crap: Entry of the Day Awards: xaositecte definitely wrote another entry which will be remembered in blog-memory for years to come (at least when I'm reminiscing about past 30 in 30s) - What the various 30 in 30 participants would do with two cows, respectively.

Previously on Emosnail
   Three Years Ago Today: Previous Year in Summary - Or at least highlights of it. Yeah and cryptic references to missing my friend Kristy over the summer.
   Year Ago Today: Controversial Sauce II - The Sanctity of Marriage - Man if I'd remembered I'd have linked back to this when I got you all hot & bothered about polygamous marriage this year. Anyway, last year's conclusion: as far as "abominations to the sanctity of marriage" are concerned, divorce is many times worse than allowing gay marriage; or at the very least, allow seperation if people were dumb and make eachother miserable, but disallow remarriage. Also, a picture of a typical Davis student behaving as we typically do.

The Journey Home
   I was up most of last night reading about people with names like Vercingetorix, Vortigern & Catigern. Then, since I've managed to accumulate some important tasks at the Courthouse I had to go into work. Finally I escaped from there, but had to AMPAC Governor-General Sameer for an hour on the phone about the conference we are in charge of putting together next April, which was all good and well but it was hellorz hot out and I really wanted to go home and take a nap. Then I got home only to find someone parked in my parking place. The office determined the offending vehicle belonged to the guy who should have the spot next to it. When maintenance man Modesto contacted him regarding this, the guy said with attitude "well someone was in MY spot," as if that justified it all (and I hope you all know that you are retarded if you think it solves anything by parking in the person's spot next to you when someone has parked in yours). Finally I made it into my apartment only to find two catsup smeared plates belonging to my flatmate Jason on the livingroom floor, where he seems to think they belong.
   This latter offense is in clear violation of the policy my roommates and I had agreed to unanimously, that dishes must remain in one's room if one cannot clean them immediately. I've decided my current policy for dealing with this is moving the dishes for him when he's not home ... onto his bed.
   Also the solution to the best way to confront him regarding the fact that he's in flagrant violation of something he just recently agreed to with minimum awkwardness came to me after some thought... next time he's home and I find him in a clear violation of policy, or if he asks me about my relocation of dishes to his room I think I'll ask him in an earnest manner if he thinks the policy is too draconian and needs to be changed. That way I will come across not as accusatory but compromising, while he'll be faced with either feeling like a complete flake by saying this simple policy is too difficult (which I really doubt he'll do), or reaffirming the policy in direct reference to his plate behaviour.
   Anyway, then I was finally able to take a nap, but in my delirium was unaware that I'd left my phone in my car so I missed a call I'd been waiting for regarding some stew. )=

30 in 30 III
   Anyway, the result of all this is that I'm not really feeling like a top-notch slinger of hilarity at the moment, so 30 in 30 III is off to an inconspicuous start for me this year.

   So far we have 30 in 30 posts by apoplecticfittz, otimus, pavel_lishin, roter_terror & shid. Best entry so far I think is roter_terror's: "Listen up, folks. 30 in 30 is here and I am not ready for it! THEREFORE YOU GET BABY ANIMALS... with a twist! Here are 16 of the best baby animals I could dig up at a moment's notice. Your job is to vote for the best."

   Anyway, you may all be relieved to to know that one of my goals for this 30 in 30 is to try to steamline my blogging by spending no less than 30 minutes per post (30 in 30.. IN 30?)

Meanwhile in the real world
   In other news, last friday we had the initiation party for the newest batch of Φ A Δ pledglings. On Sunday I went to recently-former Califorina Aggie Editor-in-Chief Matty Jojola's party. It was a very interesting mix of people, with four guys wearing Davis Players Society polos hanging out with Kalen Gallagher in one corner while from the opposite side of the political spectrum city council candidate Rob Roy campaigned in the kitchen wearing a suit & tie. I got a scandalous picture of him eating a watermelon rind with some girl, as well as another of him giving someone a classic politician handshake, I'll put them up when I get a chance. Also my fellow justice & reverend Tim Coady was there, marrying people at random and granting indulgences.

   On Tuesday most of the Court came to the Internal Affairs Commission to discuss their opinions on the Court. Also this day we were reinforced by an editorial in The Aggie advocating that our Court be strengthened rather than abrogated. IAC was unwilling to concede anything, but none of them would speak in support of any of their arguments (other than that ASUCD is a business), preferring rather to try repeatedly to end the whole conversation by saying there was no legislation regardnig the subject. Aside from the fact that the discussion the preceding week had ended with "we'll talk more about this next week," I've certainly been around long enough to know that there's always "no plans," until suddently there are, and the plans are never put forward until after the political maneouvering stage.
nbsp;  Also they made an obvious effort to put us off as long as possible, which I thought was kind of petty & desperate. Regarding ASUCD as a business, it went around a few times until Chairman Harms announced his revelation that "ASUCD is not a government OR a business, it is an association." To which I responded that that was great but "what we are specifically arguing about here is that Kai Savaree-Ruess said ASUCD is 'not a public institution ... but in fact a business,' and a Court has no place in a business. If you say we're not a business but an association, you're not backing Kai's argument that I am here to counter..." I believe 90% of arguments improperly lost are lost because one allowed the opponent to change what the argument was about.. never let them get away with this.

   Anyway, since then Paul Harms has ceased to be the Internal Affairs Commission Chairman...


Picture of the Day

Kristy and I at Rock It

Previously on Emosnail
   Three Years Ago Today: Jello Shot Night - What we all did before we had 30 in 30 to occupy ourselves: slosha's dorm-mates throw a party which shall live on in infamy as "jello shot night." ...Kristy is eventually determined to be missing and is then found wandering aimlessly three floors down outside... d=
   Two Years Ago Today: 30 in 30 I - Day 1 - mrkevincostner was actually first out of the blocks at 10:20am, followed by stephenl who at 12:56 posted the official call to action. apoplecticfittz began with a new version of his recent Frasky Awards; lerani started with an amusing story about a retarded lawyer that managed to exponentially exacerbate her own ethics violation; fragglerocker84 started out strong with a well composed entry apparently about people on her vollyball team (its very well done for its subject matter, but the subject isn't the most interesting to random bloggers); and feuders also vows for the course of 30 in 30 to drink no beer (except for a number of frequent exceptions), eat no fast food, and run five miles every day. Additionally, jdryznar declares he's going to make 30 posts in 30 days about politics, while incomple also just posts half baked ravings against conservatives (at least for the first five I checked today).
   Year Ago Today: 30 in 30 II - Day 1 - First day of the second annual 30 in 30. Best entry for this day has been identified as Professor David, with second place going to otimus (who has since deleted his all his 30 in 30 II entrie, because he does strange things like that)

   Internet's been down for three days. SBC said the entire area was down, but ThickAir, whom we get internet directly from (through SBC lines) said that it should be working, but I wasn't showing up on their network. Technician said he'd reset the network and it should be up in twenty minutes. That was two days ago. Situation hasn't improved, and the technician hasn't answered or returned my calls since.
   So in order to go online I have to go into the freezing study lounge. Now, temperature was pushing 98 outside today, and everyone was complaining about it, but in here, I had to go get a coat. d=

   Anyway, today is my birthday (No one would know if it weren't for Facebook. I'm not really doing anything special, though Kristy & I might go to Rock It this evening.
   On Friday, for my birthday, Kristy made me a fancy dinner that consisted of, among other things, gnocchi (which is one of my favourite things ever), and for dessert delicious nutella pizza (pictures coming soon). She also got me some real port (I've only had $5.99 port before (= )
   My actual birthday started at 12:00 last night with Kristy calling me while I was hanging out at a campfire at Lake Berryessa with Jenn Smyrnos & Nicole Farazian, two very awesome people.

   Saturday was an official-unofficlal* Φ A Δ retreat at Lake Berryessa. It was fun. It was attended by Tessie Cross, Alex Estrada, Gena Rinaldi, Jenn, Nicole, and myself.
   Now Lake Berryessa is about half an hour away, and, it turns out, directly on our own Russel Boulevard.
   Russel, the main thoroughfare of the city of Davis: leaves town to the west; becomes a small squiggle of a road between farms; becomes a main thoroughfare in nearby Winters; becomes Highway 128; and goes right past Lake Berryessa.

* I'd like to go on the record that I think the "official-unofficial" categorization of events is dumb. Its not against our rules to have alcohol at events, so thats not a problem. Theoretically it has been argued that this categorization releases the fraternity of some liability -- I don't really buy that though, if something did come up I doubt any court would be impressed by the officially-unofficial nature of things. Really its primary effect is to violate the spirit of Φ A Δ bylaws, by explicitly reserving the right to violate Φ A Δ bylaws.

Picture of the Day

The Social Sciences Building
AKA The Death Star