Buy me this hat (in black, pleeeease) and I shall love you and sing your praises forever.

TALIAFERRO REMINISCING, PART THREE

Since none of you have sent me a definitive memo begging me to discontinue this series, I'm going to keep running with it. You have only yourself to blame if these pictures don't strike your fancy.



Danny grabs Liz as she attempts to finish a Cheez-It. Lovely.

Mike, pondering a lack of cutlery during Catherine's birthday party. A classic picture, in my opinion.

Danny, Hank, and Alan celebrate the release of "Hitman: Contracts" on my birthday. (This gives you an idea of the way I'm able to keep track of what game is released when.)

If Jen or Stephanie (a.k.a. Phanie) knew that I'd taken this picture they'd probably do me bodily harm...

Another typical Tali scene: Joe plays DDR while Matt crashes on the couch.

A picture taken by Ben the night of my birthday (yes, same birthday). Hank, Alan, and Tyler posed in front of the colored windows of the Muscarelle Art Museum. A bunch of other stuff transpired that night in the form of photographs, but that can wait for another post...

Yes, I know it's 4:30 AM. Hank and I and my nephew, Dennis (who is visiting) and I are up late playing video games. We might as well give him the full college experience: XBox, PS2, lack of sleep, and bad food. Except we went to Wawa so the food is decent.
Reflections on the PMA dance...well...I was kind of a lame date, I suppose. Becky seemed kind of upset and tired throughout the dance--she's got problems of her own. I felt sort of bad for being kind of a dork, but whatever. On the plus side, I got a new suit and shirt for less than fifteen bucks at the Thrift Store when I went costume shopping earlier today.
Pictures to come soon, as soon as Tex can send them to me...

TALIAFERRO REMINISCING, PART TWO



The Dorm of Awesomeness itself, and the locataion wherein most of the following photos were taken.

Zack making his way through the maze we built out of lounge furniture. The fact that we did indeed build a maze out of lounge furniture gives you a basic idea of day-to-day life in Taliaferro Hall.

Joe, shortly after sampling a piece of dried mango dipped in Tosito cheese sauce. Hence the facial expression.

J.P. being himself. What more can I say?

And now for a real, actual, honest to God post. With words and everything. And no pictures. Imagine that.
Yesterday was very good. I had a kind of nerve-wracking Physics lecture in which the professor reviewed the test and I estimated my score to be around an 82. Imagine how I felt when I got it back and it was a 92. (Note: the class average was a 63.) Anyways, so then I had MiliSci, in which I got my paper back uncommented on--an interesting story, that. CPT Mensch just stopped reading after the sixth paper, saying that he'd "read enough." I talked to him afterwards and it turned out my paper wasn't one of them, so I'm just going to proofread it and give it back pretty much as is. Whatev.
Then I went out for coffee and shopping with Liz and Lynn. I met them, by a happy turn of chance, in the UC during lunch. Afterwards Lynn said she wanted to go for a walk so I took her and Liz to Aromas, where I got a peppermint square and a tribe mocha. Then Lynn and Liz decided they wanted to go book and stationery shopping. (I got caught up in the fever; I bought a book called "The Finicky Cat" at the bookstore and a fountain pen at the stationery store.)
But yeah...I love spending time with interesting, funny, smart, and attractive women. It kind of just makes (made) my Wednesday.
And now my Thursday is made because I am acing Physics and have the Phi Mu Alpha formal to look forward to. Wheeee!

TALIAFERRO REMINISCING, PART ONE



Alan challenges Matt to a spoon fight. Note the position of the hands on the clock; this was sometime after a midnight Wawa run.

Tyler looks contented. And stoned. As usual. Then again, I'd probably look about the same in his place...

Hank in a relaxed pose. As one wag put it, "That picture is Hank in his natural state--drinking Dr. Pepper, sitting around talking, and doing nothing."

One of the many fires we had in the fireplace in Taliaferro Lounge. Probably a runner-up for my favorite picture from last year. *sigh*

Aaaaaannndd now for the photo of th' day. For those of you who aren't familiar with W & M, or at least have never visited the campus, here's a panoramic view of the lovely Sunken Gardens in the middle of Old Campus. Enjoy.

(By the way, the gargoyle in the very last picture was moi. For those of you who don't know me by sight.)

TALIAFERRO REMINISCING, PART ZERO (so not really) (but kind of)

A picture montage of college live in general and my life in particular. You've been warned, comrades.



A picture of my adorable niece Geneva, taken when she and my brother Joe and sister-in-law JoLauna came to visit me. She loved the lounge and turned it into her playground.

Alan and Hank messing around with Hank's computer. A picture from Pleasants 108, pre-interior decoration. Since I don't currently have the camera I can't show you the current awesomeness of our room. Note the third desk with the TV on top of it; we put in three work orders to have the thing removed and nobody took it, so we put the XBox, PS2, and TV on top of it. Thus was Hank's Media Center created. We now would not give up this desk for anything in the world, except possibly money.

A picture of almost half of Taliaferro watching a movie sometime in mid-April 2004. One of my favorite pictures from my days at Tali.

Two lovely ladies with whom I had the pleasure of visiting the rooftop of Millington Hall. Their names are Em and Rach.

Pretty cool, huh? I got the "Hello. com" thing running so now I can post pictures on my blog! Wo0-hoo! *steeples fingers meditatively* Hmmm...now what else can I inflict on an unsuspecting Internet...?

Today was pretty good. We had a quiz in Linear Algebra which I think I did okay on--most of my work I could check with my calculator, so it went fairly smoothly. Then I goofed around here for a bit and went to Orgo at 1:00 as usual. As usual, it was long as hell, but I realized for the first time (d'oh) that there are no men in my section of the lab. There are four lab groups along our section and of the members, one is me and the other seven are women. So we had kind of a group therapy thing going...only other Orgo people under the pain and suffering of an Orgo Lab. Turns out this one girl, Caitlin, and I have Kanene as a mutual friend. She and her lab partner are in Orgo for Life Science majors, so I asked them how Coleman was as a professor--I'd had him as a lab instructor last year and he was pretty good. The class is at freakin' 8:00 in the morning, though. Whew. Thank God I'm not a bio/neurosci major.
I was also commiserating with another girl, whose name I don't know, about the spectroscopy problem on the test. Seems Professor Harbron made a mistake in writing it and nobody got the damn thing right. Her idea of restitution was to give people partial credit. Our (that is, this other student and my) take on the whole thing was, either give us full credit for it or completely eliminate it from the test. Either way is fine with me--I got a 158/200 on the test, which is a 79. If she drops the question, I'll have a 146/180, which is an 81; if she gives us full credit, I'll have a 166/200, which is an 83. But, we both agreed, even though it would be the fair thing to do (since it was the professor's mistake and thus we should not be held accountable), she's not likely to give us that luxury.
Other than that, Orgo was a nice social hour for me. I'm feeling more free and easy these days, than I have in a long time, even though I'm regretful about the way a lot of things have gone. Life is just a series of strange dichotomies, I guess...

In which our hero discovers The Unfortunate Cup of Coffee

So I head over to the Caf for my usual Saturday brunch routine. I always get potatoes, corned beef hash, and a biscuit at the food line, and then coffee and orange juice (sometimes iced tea, too) at the fountain drink station, and maybe a couple cookies or a piece of cake. And some fruit, too. Anyways, they have run out of biscuits by the time I get there. Okay, well, I got here late so that's to be expected. I go to the drink line...and BOTH fountain drink stations are out of order. Not only that, the fruit juice stations are out of order too. This leaves coffee, pink lemonade, hot tea, and the milk stations. So I decide to get some chocolate milk and coffee. Except not, they were out of chocolate milk. Then I go to the coffee dispense and push down on the top. Nothing. Not a drop. This is repeated for each of five dispensers, until finally I get some coffee.
*glug glug glug fwwwsshhht*
The last sound was the sound of the dispenser going dry. While my cup is only half full.
Now, for the most part, I am a reasonable man. But lack of coffee can drive reasonable men to do unreasonable things. So it was with a crazed mind and lustful intentions that I grabbed an instant coffee packet, poured it into my cup, and filled the rest of my coffee cup with hot water.
Yes...that's right...I admit to the sin of using instant coffee. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned...
But the thing is, even with that horrible trangression aside, I still need something refreshing. You have the ying, the HOT, of the coffee, coupled with the yang, the COLD, of something like orange juice, or iced tea, etc. It provides balance to one's meal and eases a troubled mind (and mine was getting more troubled by the minute, no thanks to Dining Services). So I reluctantly got a glass of the pink lemonade from one of those big plastic containers where the juice is always swirling around...yeah...you know the kind. So I go to my table, sit down, take a nice sip of the cold....DISGUSTING lemonade. Whoever invented that particular brand of drink is going to Hell, mark my words. I had to make do with an unbalanced breakfast, drinking only my coffee and staring disconsolately at the fruit drink station.
However, I made things a little bit better by getting myself a pancake and making a makeshift crepe by putting a little bit of chocolate syrup on it and folding it over. The pie I had gotten was chocolate banana meringue or something, and was still frozen in the middle. I took two bites and left it.
So yes...this has turned my vague dislike of the Caf into a burning hatred, which I doubt can ever be fully quenched. Even if they do that silly renovation and turn the Caf into a dining hall of light and joy and abundance of good food--I shall never again trust its gustatory offerings.
So take THAT, Commons Dining facility.

And Blogger (TM) destroyed my post from yesterday. Nice. Oh well, at least it wasn't anything important (like anything on here ever is?).

And if I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
It's just that I've been losing for so long

So I'll keep on moving
Things are bound to be improving these days
One of these days
These days I sit on cornerstones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend
Don't confront me with my failures
I have not forgotten them...

-Fountains Of Wayne


(Once more with feeling.)

Wow. I am impressed. You look at all the signs in this picture and you think "God...it had to be staged." Were I that photographer, I would be pounding myself on the back for my own sense of ironic awesomeness.


(Hat tip to http://www.lileks.com/)

A predictably sad but true characterization of today's younger voting public...

Update: our room is now awesome. Hank and I have magically transformed an average room into a stunning display of savoir faire, to say nothing of hors d'oeuvres. First of all, we put a futon in and put our clothing cabinets on either side of it. My Pink Floyd and Guitar Chords posters are facing each other, one over the futon and the other over the TV. Then Hank went out and got a bunch of old records, which we took out of their covers and taped to the wall in a checkerboard pattern. Finally, Hank and I went out coffee table searching last week. We didn't find one--'til we came another side road, and at the side of the side road was: a DETOUR sign! We decided that one DETOUR sign was better than a coffee table, so rather than settle for a coffee table we brought the sign with us. It has since been made into an awesome table via four cinderblocks. And we also now have a rug, thanks to the May family. It's amazing to think that, after adding two pieces of furniture to our room, we appear to have MORE space in here.
So yes...it's great not being so confined by the coffin-like dimensions of Taliaferro and actually having room to put things in. Hooray for Pleasants 108!

Dad and I listened to the debates on the way home last night. Overall, I thought Bush did excellently--his speaking has improved so much since he took office in 2000 (was it really only four years ago?). He managed to put Kerry on the defensive--which reduced him to a mournful, sanctimonious, self-pitying, droning state of boilerplate promises and 9/10/2001-era thinking.
There was one thing he said that really stuck out, for some reason, in my mind:
"Iraq isn't ready for elections. King Abdullah of Jordan says that there's too much chaos in Iraq for elections."
My question is--what the hell does King Abdullah know about free and democratic elections???

An excellent piece by Deroy Murdock here. It gives a perspective of Kerry's "home-front" record that I hadn't considered very closely. Until now.

I'm currently recovering from the triple whammy of a cold, the flu, and a stomach bug, so blogging will be light. I feel as though I've made a definite peace with Lynn--a peace I should have been willing to make from the beginning. It's through the grace of God that I don't screw up more relationships than I do--what with all my unrealistic expectations of others and how I believe they should behave. And I feel as though I'm letting Andrew live less and less inside my head, which is also as it should be. He and I aren't rooming together anymore, and the time we spent together is now behind us. I need to be able to let my feelings go--anger at him for percieved wrongs, sorrow that we can no longer be friends, and a host of other emotions that just drag me down. We are separate people and we'll find our separate ways, and the only thing that is reasonable to hope for now is that my path will be bent towards transcendence rather than vindication, and to peace rather than triumph.