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Malbela, which is the Esperanto word for ugly (literally translated, "unpretty"), is the weblog of Robert Mungo. A webdesigner, a college student, an international man of mystery... except for the "international" and "mystery" parts. Find out more...

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« March 2004 | Main | May 2004 »

Poem On Your Blog Day

It's apparently Poetry on your Blog Day, based on New York City's Poem In Your Pocket Day. April is national poetry month, and in celebration you're supposed to share your favorite poem.

Most are sharing deep meaningful poems, full of angst and depression. Sorry, my favorite poem is nothing of the sort.

When I was in High School, probably the 11th grade, I joined the poetry society. (I was just so damn cool. In the poetry society & on the debate team...) As part of the initiation, you had to memorize a poem & 'perform' (for lack of a better word) it for three teachers who would then sign your t shirt. A shirt you had to wear for a week.

I washed the damn thing every night.

Most people were wearing their white t shirts, hoping for their long sleeve black t shirt, and reciting poetry that was meaningful and profound.

I went for funny.

The crew was complete: it included a Boots--
A maker of Bonnets and Hoods--
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes--
And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-maker, whose skill was immense,
Might perhaps have won more than his share--
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck,
Or would sit making lace in the bow:
And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck,
Though none of the sailors knew how.

Lewis Carroll, best known for his Alice stories, is my favorite poet simply because he proved to me that poetry didn't have to be deep and meaning and boring. His "The Hunting Of The Snark" is some of the best 'nonsense' poetry ever. Subtitled 'An Agony In Eight Fits", the poem is long but once started it's hard to stop reading. When joining the poetry society, they decided that since I'd picked a poem that can only be described as an epic undertaking, I'd only have to remember a portion of Fit The First, but I'd often find myself in the second fit before I knew it.

Poetry doesn't have to be highbrow. Poetry is about emotions & feelings. Humor and joy are feelings too. Lewis Carroll, Shel Silverstein, heck... even the guys who tell dirty limericks are all poets in one way or another.

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer,
A wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er,
A magic bean buyer …

The most accurate quiz evar.

You Are Ed Wood From "Ed Wood." You definitely have your name in history, although probably not for the reason you believe. Yet you are very accepting, non-judgemental, and optimistic almost to a fault. You also have a thing for angora sweaters. How could anyone not like you?

Take The Johnny Depp Quiz!

If they'd gone with black, yellow, white, & red instead...

Is it just me or does the new Iraqi™ flag look like it was designed with the color swatches from a Donald Duck character study?

$&*(&#@^?

I shouldn't let it get to me.

For some reason, I let it get to me.

Of course, by 'it' I mean 'everything'.

I put the dog out this morning and the sky was starless, a perfect matte blue with the trees in black silhouette. As the dog disappeared into the blackness of the backyard, I stood on the deck and welcomed the chilly predawn air into my aching bones. I slowly lowered myself down onto the deck, laid on my back, staring skyward.

When you're quiet and the world is still, you can hear the creek moving. The creek doesn't stop when its late at night, it doesn't take a break. I laid out on the deck, on my back, staring skyward, listening to water rush down through the creek and crash over the little waterfall. It's no more than a 2 foot drop, but it sounds so loud in the predawn hours. The roar of Niagra in my backyard. As I lay there, Niagra offering up her music up to me, I started to let my mind wander, to think.

I don't know that I've thought a lot lately.

I think I'm tired. I think I'm too old for this. I think I need a hug. I think I need to just let go.

I take on too much and I think I need to stop, but it's in my nature. I took that personality test a while back and I found it kind of funny.

I'm the healer, the crusader. Does anyone know how hard it is to be a healer? Just look at the examples... Galahad found the holy grail and then begged to die. He couldn't live without his cause. Joan of Arc completed her quest, outlived her usefulness, and was awarded by being burn at the stake.

Maybe it's time I make myself my cause, maybe it's time I heal me for a while. Healer, heal thy self and all.

But it makes me feel guilty.

Why does loving me, caring about myself make me feel guilty?

My knees ache, my legs hurt. I can't see half the time. I have a constant headache. All I want to do is sleep. But I get up every morning, put on my happy face and greet the dawn.

My smile's a fake. It has been for ages.

I need to rest.

Blowout

Click image for larger version (popup).

Describe yourself.... through song.

Annie posted this and I decided to try it.

Basically you have to answer 10 questions, but the catch is that you can only use song lyrics and the lyrics can only come from a single artist.

Of course, I picked my favorite.

1. are you male or female?: "Put on your makeup boy, you're your favorite stranger."

2. describe yourself: "I can be cruel, I don't know why, why can't my balloon stay up in a perfectly windy sky"

3. how do some people feel about you?: "He fixed you up real good, till I don't know you anymore."

4. how do you feel about yourself?: "I believe in peace, bitch, I believe in peace."

5. describe your girlfriend/boyfriend/interest: i'm not in love. so don't forget it, it's just a silly phase, i'm going through"

6. where would you rather be?: "Get out of my garden"

7. describe what you want to be: "So if i die today i'll be the HAPPY phantom and i'll go wearin'my NAUGHTIES like a jewel"

8. describe how you live: "lately, i'm into circuitry. what it means to be made of you but not enough for you"

9. describe how you love: "these tears i've cried, i've cried 1000 oceans, and if it seems i'm floating in the darkness"

10. share a few words of wisdom: "We both know it was a girl back in bethlehem and on that fateful day, when she was crucified, she wore shiseido red and we drank tea by her side."

Theta States

I should learn not to listen to ambient techno when I'm relaxed & doing homework. It's been MeFied, but I thought I'd share:

ThetaStates

I recommend "No Ones Around, There's No Need To Fake It" and "Ambient 3".

Now, back to homework.

Columbine

Today is the anniversary of The Columbine Highschool shootings. Here's an interesting (and frightening) site that includes their Yearbook photos that were removed before the yearbook went to press.

(BTW, this is the first time that that April 20th has fallen on a Tuesday since 1999)

Networking 9 to 5

I finally got the computers networked together properly. Now Samantha & Endora are speaking again. For some reason they couldn't see one another. I can't figure out why they couldn't, but I'm just gonna go ahead and blame Zone Alarm.

No real reason why I should blame Zone Alarm, I just feel like it.

But now I can listen to my MP3s on both computers.

Somedays...

Somedays you just feel the need to be a little prettier than normal.

Somedays you just have to took at the bright side of everything.

I'm a firestarter.

So, what can I say? I just wanted a glass of iced tea and somehow I set the kitchen on fire.

Today just hasn't been my day.

Yesterday I was full of aches & pains, and just generally not in a good mood. I got home at around 7pm, and went right to bed, and slept through til 5am. This morning I woke up to a swollen shut eye & leg cramps.

It was, to say the least, interesting.

I went back to bed shortly after getting up (Sorry Rach, I'm glad you won, but then again I knew you would!) and slept through til about 4pm. I got up, watched Montel & decided I need to make tea. That's when the trouble began.

Diana & Brian had left a pan with a little oil in it setting on the stove. I put the tea on the burner in front of it. There was apparently a little oil on the side of their pan that caught fire & ignited the whole pan. I thought I'd put it out by putting a pot over it, but when I tried to move it away from the hot burners, it flared up again & slightly burnt me. (I'm ok btw) In surprise, I dropped the now flaming pan on the floor, where it made a nice charred ring of linoleum.

Who's bright idea was it to make the floor in the kitchen out of PLASTIC?

Of course, once I've gotten the fire out and I'm sitting there looking at the charred rubble that used to be my kitchen floor... the smoke detector goes off. That's when I started crying and laughing.

Now I realize it's a smoke detector and not a OH MY GOD THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!!!!11111oneoneone detector, but really, this is one situation that's not 'better late than never'.

work-a-holic

I've just spent the last two days creating a webpage for my co-op. I hate tables and I seriously could create a table in my sleep now.

And it doesn't help I have other things to do & I'm still not done with the friggin' page.

Oy.

It finally happened.

I just tried to close my browser by clicking in the upper left hand corner.

I'm not using the mac right now.

Jenn, you've finally fully converted me.

Damn you.

It's what I'm reading

It appears that everyone has a Kinja list now.

So, here's mine.

My personality Type is better than your personality type.

I just got finished taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Apparently I'm an INFP, the Healer.

Healers have a profound sense of idealism derived from a strong personal morality, and they conceive of the world as an ethical, honorable place. Indeed, to understand Healers, we must understand their idealism as almost boundless and selfless, inspiring them to make extraordinary sacrifices for someone or something they believe in. The Healer is the Prince or Princess of fairytale, the King's Champion or Defender of the Faith, like Sir Galahad or Joan of Arc. Healers are found in only 1 percent of the general population, although, at times, their idealism leaves them feeling even more isolated from the rest of humanity.

Wanna know how much INFPs rawk?

Calvin & Wesley Crusher are both fictional INFPs. (I wonder if Wil Wheaton is a INFP in real life.)

At least one person thinks that Darth Vader is an INFP that gave into his evil side.

No Blogathon04

No! It can't be!

No Blogathon for 2004.

Frykitty is taking 2004 off and will be back in 2005. This sucks... maybe I'll do my own blogathon this year anyway.

l'anglais s'il vous plait

N'est-il pas plein d'humour que le président des Etats-Unis et les républicains dans le congrès nous exigent boycottent le français, pourtant le personnel de la Maison Blanche au discours cette semaine conduisaient Nissans ? Nissans achetées par Renault il y a quelques années. C'est un véhicule français.

"I'll go back in time to before it hit the ground... take about 20 minutes..."

Seinfeld & Superman: Best Buds and AMEX shills.

Despite them abusing Superman to get people to go into debt, this is pretty funny.

<Jerry> that guy just stole my dvd player!
<Superman> What? Am I not here? How do you miss this?

More superman fun: Action Comics Issue 1: The first Superman comic.

By Presidential Decree...

Well, since so many of you have demanded that I write about the presidential visit, I've finally decided to break down and write it.

The day was long. I mean, it seemed to drag on for at least a week. Waiting in line was fun though, because everyone was basically heckling the president.

<Robert>: Doors open at 7:45, arrive by 9... I wonder who the opening act is?
<Brian>: GWAR!
<Robert>: And on the second stage?
<Rachel>: Rage Against the Machine, duh.

We finally get in, but not before I get the wand twice. I think that woman with the wand liked me, because she got awfully fresh with that thing. Of course Rachel had helped me out by loading me down with her cigarette case & lighter in line, so they probably thought I was trying to use second hand smoke to give the President cancer.

Before we even get into his speech, I'll go ahead and get his mispronounced/misused words out of the way. Some of them may have simply been his accent. And for the record, I pronounce nuclear the exact way he does.

Desirest/Desirist

Could possibly be a person who desires or a phrase used to describe the state of being most desirable. (Actually appears from the transcript to be the words 'desires' and 'to' drawled together)

gooderer

The state of being even gooder than gooder. see also 'bestest' (more than likely was 'good, er, er' as he tried to remember his next line)

entourage

different pronunciation, same word. George, it's not 'on-tour-ugh'... I can't help you with this one.

Of course I know that I shouldn't pick on him about the way he speaks, since I speak quite less than perfectly myself... but it's so much fun!

I sat in the seventh row, with a direct line of sight with the president. It was kind of amazing to be that close to the man who's running the country. He had some interesting points, but of course I didn't agree with most of them. In fact many of the people in the crowd, most of whom were Republician seemed to be heckling Bush before, during, and after his speech. I don't personally like the man, but I feel sorry for him that he's become so universally disliked, especially when it's obvious that he's little more than the spokesman for a giant political machine.

And he didn't help himself much at our school when he started calling us by another school's name. We're wondering how long it'll be before Dr. Zeiss changes our name to PCC, after all, we have Presidential backing for the change now.

(And for you web designers out there... Why is the White House website not valid HTML (no doctype or encoding set either) or even Section 508 valid?)

On again, Off again, On ag... oh dammit just let me know when it's over.

Well... that thing that isn't going to happen? Well it officially is. Finally.

The School is going to be the site of Bush's speech on the economy and Job Creation.

And I got invited.

Now, I don't really respect Mr. Bush, but I do respect the office of the President and I'm going to go hear him speak.

But does anyone know how to keep from laughing?

heh

heh heh heh

heh heh

... ummm

yeah.