Oh, yeah.

The line at the top, "I shall indeed speak the truth to you..." is from "Hymn to Hermes" in the Homeric Hymns, wherein baby Hermes steals all of Apollo's cattle and gets into all manner of mischief, and gets away with every bit of it.   ¶ 5/17/2002 04:57:00 PM

  Alicia keeps on pestering me with digs about the obscurity of the name of my site.

Well. It _is_ obscure. Heh. What of it?

I like Hermes a lot. The Greek messenger god, also god of travelers, crossroads, thieves, and guide of souls to the underworld. He's well-rounded and clever, and you might say he's who I would choose to be my patron god, if he would have me.

Anyhoo. Argephontes is one of his epithets. He killed this big ugly monster with lots of eyes, and Hera put them on the feathers of a peacock in remembrance. Argephontes means something like "Bringer of Light to the Sky," which I don't get. But I like it. Peacocks traditionally represent ego and fluff.

So. We've got an epithet of Hermes, which is cool in itself. Then it means something nice-- I like to think of myself as making people smile, at least. I hope I bring a little light to the readers. If not- WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? Last, its pretty egotistical of me to have this blog all about me and expect people to be interested in it... kind of like a peacock. Get it?

So that's the really short, its-almost-five-o'clock version. Hopefully it clears things up a bit.   ¶ 5/17/2002 04:53:00 PM

  Adendum to Everything Alicia and I have said about Attack of the Clones:

The kid playing Connor on Angel right now would have made a crackin' good Anakin Skywalker.

And you know what else? I found out he's (a very young looking) 23. He's a month older than my boyfriend.

So it isn't pedophilia when I say that he is SOOOOOOOOOO very hot. Yum Yum. I was starting to get kinda worried there, you know?  ¶ 5/17/2002 03:51:00 PM

  Holy Smokes, Batman!

I just did.. Math. Long forgotton algebra, with Fractions no less. Wow.   ¶ 5/17/2002 02:27:00 PM

  I wrote a really-real review of AotC. You can read it here.  ¶ 5/16/2002 04:06:00 PM

  Ahh. Coke. Pannini. Life is good.   ¶ 5/16/2002 02:37:00 PM

  I'm terribly hungry.

I came in at 10 this morning, due to the extreme lateness of my going to bed last night (this morning), which through off my whole eating cycle. 12 seemed too early to take lunch... I just got here! Now it seems too late to take lunch. If I suck it up for 2 hours, I can just go home an hour early. The only problem with that is... the hunger. I think I'm gonna walk over to the union and see if I can grab a tide-me-over snack, and since I won't have left campus, it doesn't technically count as a lunch break.

Despite the groggy inability to concentrate on any substantial work whatsoever and the 2:00 carbohydrate deficiency, I did get up, though. Congratulations, Mikkie, you can nearly hang. Which isn't of, course, the same thing as hanging. Damn if an all-nighter didn't used to be a thing to me. I am _old_.

Food now. Grumbly.   ¶ 5/16/2002 02:15:00 PM

  Dear George Lucas,

You suck.

"Half-Assed" isn't good enough. You should know better.

Thank you for not making any fart jokes, but next time, can we please have some good dialogue?

Love, Mikkie  ¶ 5/16/2002 10:12:00 AM

  I really hate George Lucas. He's got me by the fucking balls (figuratively) and I hate him.

I wasn't excited about Attack of the Clones. Really. I'm moving this weekend, and I brushed off opening weekend like it was a bad Ben Affleck flick. No biggy, I thought. I'll go... eventually. Whenever.

Until Ryan IMed me earlier.

FNCRyan: hey, you there?
Bus Mik: yup
FNCRyan: Nate wants to know if we wanna go to a midnight showing of Star Wars
Bus Mik: tonight?
Bus Mik: Ok

And as simple as that- Bang. Suddenly I want to go. Tonight. When I have to be at work early tomorrow morning. I didn't mean to type "ok," I meant to say "I don't know," or "maybe." But it just happened, almost against my will.

But the plot thickens. It's sold out at Peabody Place, which is the only theater in Memphis (the theater here isn't worth mentioning) that sells tickets online. The other two theaters we frequent aren't sold out, but someone has to drive up there- a full hour each way- and buy the tickets before they sell out.

I volunteered.. Why, I ask myself? Just this morning I was happy to wait two weeks- maybe even three- for this bound-to-be-bad movie. I made a pact with myself that I would not be excited. I would not be duped. Not again.

But here I am, ready to drive to Memphis and back at 5 when I get off work, to get tickets for a midnight showing of this movie. Drive back around 10:30. Come home again at around 3:30 or 4:00. Sleep for three hours, and then work all day. I wouldn't have blinked an eye at doing this when Phantom came out, but then again, I didn't know any better yet.

Face it, Mik, you are a victim of the delusion that George Lucas will stop chopping away your childhood, chunk by chunk, and make it all ok.   ¶ 5/15/2002 02:51:00 PM

  I got a book. Or, more appropriately, Ryan got me a book.

Ok, he got us a book. But still. The newest Robin Hobb book, Fool's Errand, is now in my possession! Yay! These books are getting mighty close to being my favorite series ever. Nostalgia and loyalty are the only things keeping Roger Zelazny from being at least merely tied with Ms. Hobb.  ¶ 5/15/2002 01:40:00 PM

  Moving Update:

Heh.

Last weekend we packed the clothes. Most of them. I keep saying this over and over so that I feel as though I've done something useful. Other than that... well, I;ve packed several things in my head. By Saturday, I want to have all the books (AHHH!) packed. By Sunday, the Kitchen and Bathroom should be moved and in the new house. Those things don't worry me so much, though. I fear the closets. I refuse to even open them. I don't want to peer in, I don't want to know.

I'm hoping that after we move all the furniture on Sunday, what's left will seem like less in an otherwise empty apartment. Because its all so ... daunting. When you move, you realize you have a lot of crap. And so, when you pack, you want to sort the crap from the stuff you want to keep. Only the more you move things around, the less space you have to do it in, and it all seems like a chaotic whirlwind of STUFF.

I am having lust for file cabinets, nifty tupperware containers (with DRAWERS!) and shelving units to organize all the crap I didn't know I had.

I really hate moving. Can I stress this enough?  ¶ 5/15/2002 11:45:00 AM

  I pride myself on my ability to trick inanimate objects into doing what I want them to.

So my phone. I just figured it out, I think. If I pick up the receiver- get a dial tone- and dial 9 for an outside line, it goes all wonky with the telephone sounds and won't give me one. But if I dial an inside number, say, the one I have to call to get my voicemail (its automated, so I don't have to worry about disturbing and/or hanging up on anyone), and then hang up during the call, release the hang-up button, and immediately hit the 9, then it all works. If I just pick up the phone, hit 9, wonky telephone noises.

I'm thinking... could be wrong here... but I think its time for a new fucking phone.  ¶ 5/15/2002 10:19:00 AM

  My phone is acting weird. It absolutely refuses to give me an outside line.

I neeeed to make a phoone caaalllll. Whaaaaa.   ¶ 5/15/2002 10:12:00 AM

  Speaking of Top 10 lists... Someone put together the Top 10 Sexually Tilted Lines from each of the Star Wars Movies.

And you know, about 70% of them all come out of the mouth of Han. Hee.   ¶ 5/14/2002 10:59:00 AM

  Oh Jesus. Seriously.

Check out Letters To God. I really hope that someone just doesn't understand the complexities of being tongue-in-cheek... but I highly doubt it.   ¶ 5/13/2002 04:59:00 PM

  A while back ago, when I first decided that I ought to have a webpage, Alicia suggested that I put up top 10 lists of things in High Fidelity fashion. I thought it was a good idea, and then promptly forgot about it. Really, there are several things that I'd like to do, but can't seem to find the patience or the time to do much more than the blog. Anyhoo, I've been cleaning up my computer-- deleting old files, etc., and I found the one list I made. So I might as well put it up here. Who knows? I might just start posting these as a fairly regular thing (don't count on it, though. This is ME we're talking about).

So, here goes:

Top Harrison Ford Movies of All Time

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark.
This is, Hands Down, my very favorite Harrison Ford movie ever. There're Nazis and Snakes and, of course, Indie. I luv me
some Indie.

2. Bladerunner.
Well, ok. This one is technically a "better" movie than Raiders. It has...issues. Ever read Prometheus Bound? But. This is
not a list of Top movies. THis is top HF movies. So it gets to be #2.

3. The Empire Strikes Back
"I know."

4. Star Wars (alternatively, A New Hope, for hard-core purists)
I don't think i have to say anything here.

5. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Bullwhip. More Nazis. More Snakes.

6. Regarding Henry
The girl in me says this one has to go here. Because it makes me cry.

7. What Lies Beneath
As Maggie would say, "It's very European!" Its also wonderfully disturbing. If you didn't catch whats in the snow in the
very last fade as the camera pans out, you better go back and look at it.

8. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Yes, I do feel bad for putting an Indie movie this far down on the list. Sorry. But. Willie- bad 80's hair and she's a whiny
BITCH. WHY does Indie want her? I know she's just random Booty, but again- bad 80's hair.
On a good note- This is probably the only movie where "Hey! Lets make it a family film by throwing a kid in!" actually
doesn't ruin the movie. Short Round rocks my world.

9. Frantic.
Also "European." Also very good.

*Note: You may be thinking to yourself, "why not just round it out to 10 and throw Jedi in there?"
Well. Let me tell you. If I were to rank every movie HF has ever been in, Jedi would be on the very bottom rung, with the posssible exception of 6 Days, 7 Nights (what was he thinking???).
I do NOT have a hate on for Return of the Jedi. Unlike many of my fellow Star Wars fans, I rather like it. However, HAN IS A PUSSY IN THIS MOVIE. And that cannot be forgiven. Ever. Thus its absence.


  ¶ 5/13/2002 04:33:00 PM

  Ok, one more thing re: the last post.

It's nice when you have managed to establish yourself when you work someplace that has as many employees as the university does. Departmental contacts do make life and my job easier. If you don't know people, then you have to go through mountains of red tape to get anything done. If you do, you might have a few rolling hills, but things happen. However, I have discovered that there is a catch. It's called passing the buck.

If they know you, they can pass stuff off to you that they don't want to deal with. I.E., Financial Aid knows damned well that we have already awarded all our scholarship money for entering freshmen. It's MAY. This stuff starts happening in March (you have to get the jump on the private Liberal Arts Schools, you know. Very political). Anyhoo. They know. I keep getting these calls from mommas and daddies, whose little Madison or little Brandon or whatever needs a scholarship. And so and so from Financial Aid gave them my name and number, because they didn't have anything, but I might have something departmental?

The worst part is that, not only am I the bad guy, but I am the other side of the mountain of red tape that the people who call looking for money have to go through. Why can't people just be straight-forward? "Your kid is out-of-state, has a 19 ACT, and a 2.5 GPA? Sorry. No Money For You. And we probably don't want them here anyway, so we aren't breaking our backs to find something." Even just a simple "No, I'm sorry. The scholarships that your son/daughter was eligible to recieve have already been awarded.... yes, there were so many good applicants. Have you considered a Stafford Loan?" would be fine. Nice, even.

I swear.   ¶ 5/13/2002 03:11:00 PM

  I just talked to the Bitchiest Woman Ever.

I don't understand why people think that the state of Mississippi should just give away money to their kids. I'm talking about kids with a 21 composite ACT score. Don't yell at me because they won't waive out-of-state tuition for your daughter. You're daughter needs to either 1) go take the ACT again (and again, and again, and again) or go to a FUCKING STATE SCHOOL OF YOUR OWN.

Really, people. UM is not an expensive school, by any standards. And besides. I recognized the area code as Memphis, and she told me she lived in Germantown. Germantown is the rich, white suburb of Memphis. Nice. Wasp-y. Did I mention rich? It's always the people who can totally afford it who bitch about the cost the loudest.

And do you know what else? If you can't afford it, there's a thing called a Student Loan. Ever heard of them? It's the cheapest money you will ever borrow. Make your children take a bit of responsibility and contribute to their educations. Bah.   ¶ 5/13/2002 02:51:00 PM

  I really, really hate moving. Packing is among my Official List of the Assiest Things Ever. You would think that, as things get packed, the apartment would look emptier. Instead, the more we pack, the more it looks like there is left. I don't understand this. I never took physics, but from what I understand, that cannot be.

Most of the clothes are done, except for what was either dirty or withheld so that we would have something to wear this week, so that's good. Basically, I figure that we have more clothes and books than we do anything else. So if we get the clothes and the books packed, then there shouldn't be too much left? Only, I started thinking about it. There isn't a room in the house that doesn't have books in it. Even the bathrooms have a book or two. There are books on shelves, books under the bed, books in the dresser, books in the closets.... really, we have a lot of books. And not enough bookshelves. So packing the books will actually be a chore. I'm hoping the laws of physics that I don't know will work with me on this, and that when its done, it really _will_ put a dent in the packing. Please, oh please. Cuz I hate it.   ¶ 5/13/2002 11:35:00 AM