and Once Upon A Time became No More!

Ignoring the fact that I'm tired, can't write, and that none of this really makes any sense...
Mars is, apparently, quite awesome. So far we have the meglomaniacal warlords who moved there after Earth dropped into a(n artificial) black hole, numerous colonists (some ice skating along the canals, with fuzzy fets), Grok-ing, gigantic ant-like robots/Greek pantheon/Iliad, and a robotic haunted house which recreates every Poe horror story. It's decided: I'm moving to Mars. Though this plan might have to be delayed until NASA gets off its rational behind and starts building spaceships again.

I've lost all semblance of focus over the summer. I couldn't leave campus this weekend (except to watch the football game in Baltimore on Sat), but even so, it took me a ridiculous amount of time to do hardly any work. Even now, I'm writing this instead of finished up a Western Civ. essay. Although I know what I want to write, I can't think of the words, and inevitably wander off to do something else. Like read Bradbury.
Martian Chronicles was absolutely fantastic, but didn't help the schoolwork any. I had read Usher II way back when, but enjoyed it far more upon re-reading. Perhaps it was reading the story in context along with the rest of the book, perhaps it was merely because it wasn't assigned. Eh, it was fun.
Often, I find myself working just in order to complete schoolwork; not enjoying it, not truly becoming interested. It is unfortunate that most of what interests me doesn't even exist here. It's difficult to become excited about strings of numbers, integrals(sorry, George), and soporific .ppt slideshows. (Though the occasional possessed Op-Amp is very amusing. Remember kids, the circuits don't work if you let the 'magic smoke' out of the components!)

I have successfully wasted another 30 minutes by not writing an essay on the French Revolution! Huzzah & awesome is me! Incidentally, I've read all of Mega Tokyo this weekend, and very much need to get life.

Fun from Usher II:
"...Every man, they said, must face reality. Must face the Here and Now! Everything that was not so must go. All the beautiful literary lies and flights of fancy must be shot in mid-air. So they lined them up against a library wall, St. Nicholas and the Headless Horseman and Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin and Mother Goose-oh, what a wailing! -and shot them down, and burned the paper castles and the fairy frogs and old kings and the people who lived happily ever after (for of course it was a fact that nobody lived happily ever after!), and Once Upon A Time became No More! And they spread the ashes of the Phantom Rickshaw with the rubble of the Land of Oz; they filleted the bones of Glinda the Good and Ozma and shattered Polychrome in a spectroscope and served Jack Pumpkinhead with meringue at the Biologist's Ball! The Beanstalk died in a bramble of red tape! Sleeping Beauty awoke at the kiss of a scientist and expired at the fatal puncture of his syringe. And they made Alice drink something from a bottle which reduced her to a size where she could no longer cry, 'Curiouser and curiouser,' and they gave the Looking Glass one hammer blow to smash it and every Red King and Oyster away!"
Ray Bradbury, Usher II (Martian Chronicles)

No one likes reality, but other than referencing [my childhood], I'm not quite sure why I like that passage.

I have a new desktop, finally replacing the Bleach pic. from freshman year. Beauty, nature, & a smidgen of geek all in one convenient package, excellent.

2% milk spontaneously returned, hopefully for good, since it makes far better hot chocolate.