It's been a while

BEFORE I GO ANY FURTHER: "Don't You Evah" just came on the radio of the coffee shop I'm sitting in. I don't think I've ever heard Spoon on the radio.

Anyways, back to the point. It HAS been a while, at least in 2009 terms, when not updating a blog for four days means nothing less than calamity. My reasons are not so exciting. I haven't been swallowed by any large creatures nor have I had my computer stolen by a band of roving Mongols. I have, however, been living without internet in my home, and I've been a regular 9 to 5 working stiff, so there we go.

Work is actually starting to get interesting. Now that the lab is moderately populated and I've had a chance to speak with my supervisor, I'm no longer stuck sitting around the lab with nothing to do and no one to talk to. Now I spend the days learning Cubase-- ostensibly to edit the sounds I'm going to be using for my auditory experiments, but also because I feel it can't be a bad thing to learn--and reading over articles on auditory beacons and the hippocampus.

I'd love to say life without internet at home is somehow freeing, but really its just a pain in the ass. I haven't been able to Skype with my friends or my brother and sister, and paying bills, dealing with immigration, and all those other things teh interwebs make possible or easier.

They've now gone from Spoon to some sort of incredibly forgettable acoustic ballad. Oh well.

One of the nice things about a 30-60 minute public transit commute is that you get to read. I've made it my mission this summer to plow through as much as possible of my roommate's bookshelf. I'll skip the PoliSci textbooks, but Rousseau and Marx might be fair game. I'm a little ways into East of Eden right now, and it's amazing. There should be a law against forcing middle schoolers to read great authors like Steinbeck against their wills; it just makes them less likely to pick them up when they could actually enjoy them.

My final thought in this all-over-the-place post: the Prop 8 decision. I don't blame the judges for their decision. Deciding otherwise would have been political suicide. I do blame the 52% of California that's still so uncomfortable with the thought of two men kissing (yes, I know it's not actually that simple) they feel the need to strip rights from millions of tax-paying, law-abiding citizens, including some dear friends and family. Fuck you.