A day at the mall, the usual ramblings on Shakespeare, and a new e-mail address
I spent a good deal of the day at various malls shopping for various going-away-from-home-and-moving-into-university stuff. I should point out that I am a largely defective consumer; I have never been particularly fond of shopping, and the only thing I enjoy doing in a mall is sitting on a bench and watching all the people go by (it's surprisingly engaging). I must have missed some critical phase of our culture's Consumer Indoctrination Program, since I find it difficult to motivate myself to be a good consumer. In any case, I had great fun today when I came across an escalator at a moment when no-one was on it; I was at the wrong end of the escalator, and so I saw my opportunity to see if it is actually possible to run up it when it's running against you. Sure enough, it is possible, and it's quite fun. It's like running on a treadmill, only uphill. (Please forgive my ignorance if there is in fact such a thing as an uphill treadmill, which there undoubtedly is; as I say, I failed the Good Consumer-ship course in school.) In any case, it was a somewhat life-affirming experience, though I suspect that Big Brother was watching me and noting my dangerous non-conformity.
Perhaps it was out of fear of Big Brother's retribution for my act of non-conformity that I meekly engaged in active consumerism later that evening. Yes, dear reader, I actually bought something in a mall. It was a recording of Beethoven's ninth symphony, to be exact. You may find it surprising that I didn't already have a recording of this standard piece, but such is the case. You see, one of the first recordings I ever bought was a cassette tape of Beethoven's ninth symphony, but, like most cassette tapes, it eventually wore out from frequent use. Thus, I had not listened to Beethoven's ninth symphony in several years when I recently came across an audio clip of the beginning of the second movement in the Windows Media Player on my new computer. I listened to the clip, and I remembered how much I loved the piece. Somehow, no matter how many times I have heard it, I still find it fiercely joyful and life-affirming. Even more life-affirming than walking up an escalator the wrong way. And so, for a short time today I renounced my anti-consumerism, and paid nine dollars and nineteen cents for Pierre Monteux's 1962 recording of Ludwig Van Beethoven's ninth symphony. It was well worth it.
(Please feel free to make references to milk commercials here.)
In other news, I now have a new e-mail address: lascaux@gmail.com . This is because I will be going to university in a few days, and I will not be using my former address any longer. (Actually, I've set Outlook up so that it will forward any e-mails for me to the new address, but I don't know if it will work.) I had quite a hard time finding a good name for my Gmail account; all of my first choice names were already taken. "Mathew" was taken, as was "Clippy," and I was dismayed to find that every single Shakespearean character's name that I checked was taken. Granted, I didn't check them all, or even most of them, but after I discovered that Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and (alas!) even Yorick were taken, I decided to stop checking. I must say I'm interested to know what kind of person took poor Yorick, though not interested enough to e-mail them to find out. And yes, I'll admit, I'm a tad jealous of them.
Finally, since I haven't posted a quotation of the day for quite some time, here's a classic that you have probably heard before, but that I hope you will enjoy all the same:
Quotation of the day:
"All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand." - Steven Wright
Perhaps it was out of fear of Big Brother's retribution for my act of non-conformity that I meekly engaged in active consumerism later that evening. Yes, dear reader, I actually bought something in a mall. It was a recording of Beethoven's ninth symphony, to be exact. You may find it surprising that I didn't already have a recording of this standard piece, but such is the case. You see, one of the first recordings I ever bought was a cassette tape of Beethoven's ninth symphony, but, like most cassette tapes, it eventually wore out from frequent use. Thus, I had not listened to Beethoven's ninth symphony in several years when I recently came across an audio clip of the beginning of the second movement in the Windows Media Player on my new computer. I listened to the clip, and I remembered how much I loved the piece. Somehow, no matter how many times I have heard it, I still find it fiercely joyful and life-affirming. Even more life-affirming than walking up an escalator the wrong way. And so, for a short time today I renounced my anti-consumerism, and paid nine dollars and nineteen cents for Pierre Monteux's 1962 recording of Ludwig Van Beethoven's ninth symphony. It was well worth it.
(Please feel free to make references to milk commercials here.)
In other news, I now have a new e-mail address: lascaux@gmail.com . This is because I will be going to university in a few days, and I will not be using my former address any longer. (Actually, I've set Outlook up so that it will forward any e-mails for me to the new address, but I don't know if it will work.) I had quite a hard time finding a good name for my Gmail account; all of my first choice names were already taken. "Mathew" was taken, as was "Clippy," and I was dismayed to find that every single Shakespearean character's name that I checked was taken. Granted, I didn't check them all, or even most of them, but after I discovered that Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and (alas!) even Yorick were taken, I decided to stop checking. I must say I'm interested to know what kind of person took poor Yorick, though not interested enough to e-mail them to find out. And yes, I'll admit, I'm a tad jealous of them.
Finally, since I haven't posted a quotation of the day for quite some time, here's a classic that you have probably heard before, but that I hope you will enjoy all the same:
Quotation of the day:
"All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand." - Steven Wright