The Agrinautica

   Friday being Lyric's birthday celebration and Ten For One Night (Officially "10-4-1" night, which has the double meaning that at first drinks are 10 for 1, but half an hour later they're 4 for 1, and then they're 1 for 1) at the Grad, Kristy and I met up with Lyrics friends at the Grad. It was crazy, we got six drinks for $4 something. Unfortunately one can only but two drinks /person at a time and the lines were too long to go through twice in the first half hour. But I gave in and went back during the 4 for 1 period and my drink was still only around $2.
   Then everyone scampered off to M Street (I didn't even know there WAS an M street?!) for this girl Bitafilter's "White Trash" theme party. Kristy and I made a brief appearance and then took Tipsy Tapsy home. "Maybe we should drink more or they won't let us on it?" Another idea I came up with during the long wait to get through to Tapsy Tipsy was to order a pizza and hitch a ride back from the East Davis Suburban Labyrinth with the pizza delivered (Kristy: "on the minus side, that would be more expensive, but on the plus side, we'd get pizza out of it!").

   On Saturday my former flatmate Ben came to down (did I mention that Ben moved out? Replaced himself with another Indian guy). I think Ben and my other flatmate Jason just came with me to Kristy's place where we all hung out and watched The Simpsons on DVD. This night blurs into the preceding and proceedings evenings a lot in my memory though.

   Sunday night was an indie dance night at The Grad (made possible by Jordan "DJ Boy Wonder" Smart), & Ben's birthday. We convinced him to commute from Novato an hour away again, and go to the Grad with us. Kristy made awesome cup cakes in cones for the occasion.
   Anyway, our expeditionary force to The Grad consisted of Ben, our flatmate Jason, Kristy's flatmates Chrissy and Jadine, Kristy and myself, and we were joined by Jardine's friend Michelle. Everyone had a blast, and there was definitely jockred in the air.

Picture of the Day

(More Pictures)

   My flatmate¹, Ben, graduated yesterday. I think I may have been able to walk yesterday as well, as policy allows one to take part in commencement even if one has one more quarter to go, but I hadn't even looked into it. It would feel to weird to do that when I'm not yet done.
   Anyway, as its four years and a quarter since I entered this place, a lot of people from my class were graduating. I'd like to congradulate the other people I know who graduated: (in the order they appeared in the programme) International Relations Majors: former ASUCD Court plaintiff Almaz Ahmed-Falol; noted ASUCD rabblerouser Robert Baron; the last nonevil² UCDMUN Secretary-General, Nishan Baumik; ASUCD governmentcrat Liz Burrel; brief UCDMUN Secretary-General Veronica Frozen-Yuruoglu; Jordana Jusidman, whom I had english with every year from 7th grade through 12th; former ASUCD Comptroller Cameron Menezes; former ASUCD Senator Sapana Shende; and the only graduate in Medieval Studies, my flatmate from freshman year Mr Trenton McManus; in Political Science Kalen Gallagher; and former KDVS director, and friend from freshman year, Teresa Kinney (kilkenny); in Sociology, former executive office judicial liason and Senator, Janine Fiel; ASUCD Senator Caleb Hervey; ASUCD Ethnic & Cultural Affairs Chairperson, Pam Palpallatoc; and in Computer Science, Paul Ivanov (pavelthegeek). I'm sure I missed some people, these are only the names that I recognized while flipping through the hundreds listed in the programme during commencement.
   Of the above, I met Kalen, Teresa, and Ben on my very first night here in Davis.

   The Day began with a few mishaps. Kristy and I had BOTH set our alarms and somehow BOTH failed to go off. Not sure how that happened. Anyway the occasion of getting up early was to drive Kristy's flatmate Chrissy to the airport so she can go to London for Christmas (she found $700 tickets five days ago?!), so Chrissy just woke us up. Then I got a call from Ben -- he had gotten a flat tire out in Dixon. So I piled out into my car and drove through the blasting rain to go help him with that.
   "'No man left behind,' thats the phrase of the day -- that guy got thrown across three lanes of traffic and hit by two cars, dammit he's coming home" - Ben reported when he got back, referring the lid of a large pot that had gotten blown out of his car during the flat tire adventure -- he apparently ran across the highway to go rescue it.
   His friend Jenny didn't make it to commencement because her car decided not to release the key from the lock AND rolled down the windows. wtf?

   Anyway, after the ceremonies we all came back to The Casbah, where Ben and I reside. His parents made delicious Indian food and along with a number of Ben's closest friends we set about making merry. Ben's parents are awesome. "Seriously, people sometimes invite them to parties just to ensure ensure the party isn't lame," Ben would later note. During the party one of his friends asked him about his lack of restraint in talking about anything and everything within earshot of his parents, to which he responded "You don't understand, I call my parents after I get laid!" to which I added "So yeah, he doesn't call his parents very often." But seriously, his dad was like the life of the party.
   And really, I think it was the best party I've been to in years, literally. Eventually I checked what time it was in hopes it wasn't 2am yet -- I was suprised to learn it was only 8pm. Eventually, around 9:30, we all decided we ought to go to The Graduate. I drove because I am of course the eternally sober one.
   Turns out the Grad was having "14-19 night." Wtf. I've heard of all-ages nights, but 14-19? And furthermore: THE GRADUATE isn't open to say, GRADUATES, on GRADUATION NIGHT??? They should have their name revoked. Anyway, discovering this we ran to the car again asap because it was raining like mad. We decided to head to The Cantina.
   Arriving at the Cantina we found it completely dead. Next it was resolved to go Sophia's. The other car drove the two blocks over there, but Raquel, whose car I was driving, drunkenly decided to start walking over there, so Ben and I had to follow suit (Raquel was Garian's roommate freshman year. They had a severe falling-out). The weather at this time I can only describe as a blizzard of rain. I hadn't even brought a coat or jacket of any kind because I'd assumed we'd be going straight into the grad, so I'm wearing short sleeves and I couldn't have been wetter if I'd jumped in a pool. Meanwhile Raquelle is wearing a coat and complaining about hypothermia.
   Anyway we get to Sophia's, and its the first time I've ever been into the bar there. It looked quaint and pleasant in there. On the subject though, I must note that the attached thai restaurant is from my experience an insult to thai food. When someone says they like the food there I literally feel insulted. For example Kristy ordered a dish with peanut sauce last time, a staple of Thai cuisine, and it clearly tasted like peanut butter. Everything else I've tried is similarly terrible. Fuck that shit.
   But I digress. At Sophia's they said they were closing in ten minutes, at 10:00. They said we should go to the G Street Pub. We decided to retreat back to our place, but first Raquel wanted a drink. But she couldn't find her ID. There followed a half hour of her panicking and trying to figure out what happened to it. It turned out to be in her back pocket.
   We once again trekked through the torrential rain to the car, returned to The Casbah. Upon our return we discovered that Jenny's car had been towed. Recall she was the one with the previous trouble involving her car not releasing the key.
   Anyway, we continued to have a lot of fun for several more hours after that. I'm probably forgetting more important details but the bottem line is I'm not sure I've ever been to a party that lasted so long, and man it was fun, and holy crap it was actually at my own place!

¹_{one may have noticed I recently started using the word "flatmate" in place of "apartmentmate" or a broad interpretation of "roommate." This is not a malikian attempt to sound gratuitously british; rather the word is a lot more clear and concise than either of the two alternatives.}
²_{Actually the current Sec-Gen, Michael White does not appear to be evil. The legacy of institutional disfunctionality and evil left by Sec-Gen Myung still haunts us however.}

Picture of the Day

Jason, Billy Zane Ben, and I -- the residents of The Casbah

   Last weekend we actually cleaned our apartment, since someone was coming to look at the apartment the next day to consider replacing Ben (who is graduating in a few days). The apartment then being unnaturally clean, we vowed to have a party the following weekend (to rectify the cleanliness of course). On Friday evening we had this shindig here at my place (which my former flatmate Adrian and I dubbed The Casbah). This was the first party we've ever had here.
   We aimed to keep it kind of small since this apartment isn't very big. I think we hit our target number of attendees pretty precisely, but I think the apartment can hold more -- so hopefully we'll be throwing a bigger shindig at the beginning of winter quarter.
   Ben and Jason both want it to be a theme party. Jason is pushing for "athletics," and Ben is pushing for "almost naked."

   Also, our friend Garian made one of her semiannual visits and attended our shindig, which was awesome. Ben, Garian, and I were basically best friends freshman year.


   Saturday evening was the Phi Alpha Delta winter cocktail, and this morning I got a new cell phone since my old one's battery life had dwindled down to about three hours.


Picture of the Day

Kristy and I dressed for the PAD cocktail.
TWO days until I have to shave off the mohawk, likely forever.

   Yesterday Kristy & I went to Sacramento and got my new computer from the UPS warehouse there (after UPS got tired of trying to deliver my computer while I was in class -- they'd often find the only 20 minute window when none of my roommates were home). So now I have a computer, but I can't get on the internet until the ThickAir people come look at its MAC address or something.

   This morning my apartmentmate Ben was assembling his own new computer. As he did so he made some comments like "hey, I'm going to go mount my computer now" and "the fan is too big, it doesn't fit in the hole." Jason (our other apartmentmate) weakly ventured "thats what she said," but we ignored him, I could sense that the time was not yet right. Finally, there was one more piece to be inserted into the computer. Ben held up the CPU chip and said "its amazing that it all comes down to this thing thats only about a centimeter long," and then, then I knew the time was truly at hand, and I said triumphantly, "thats what she said."
   Ben plans on putting the old CPU chip into a teddy bear.


   Thursday in the middle of lecture Professor Jon Carlson asked "how many of you have class on Fridays?" Three people in the room of about 60 raised their hands. "Neither do I, and I thought I was getting off easy, but if everyone has Friday off, than that means I'm the chump with a class Thursday evening, which is really like a Friday evening" speculated Professor Carlson during the 4:40-6:00 Tues/Thurs POL124 (Politics of Global Inequality).


   Yesterday was Sashie's 21st birthday. 17 of us went to local restaurant Sophia's and piled into their quarantine private party room. Then we all went to The Grad and did our best to create huge stockpiles of the the $1.10 well drinks before the price went up at 10:30. Most we got long island ice teas, and some tokyo ice teas and tahiti iced teas (which I liked the best). Then the ladies pranced about. This was the second time I've been to The Grad I think.
   Eventually we left that place because people wanted to investigate the other bars on G Street. Kristy and I stopped at Pita Pit. The first time we ate there Kristy hated it. We went back the other day and she reluctantly admitted it wasn't bad. Last night she jocked it, saying "maybe when I don't get not meat its not bad... don't quote me in livejournal on that!!"

   This morning Sashie called me to ask how she got home last night.

   Now I need to scamper off for the second night of partying.

Previously on Emosnail
   Two Years Ago Thursday: Dreams & Memories - or a noteable lack of the latter. And an echidna bites me?!
   Two Years Ago Yesterday: These Are Secrets Everyone Knows - Quotes from nuclear physics (PHY137), former (current at the time) ASUCD queen advisor Vicki Swett acts unobjective as usual, and quite icey, and my good friend Kristy makes me eggs and bacon at 1am. <3
   Year Ago Today: All Hail the Governator - Arnold Schwarzenegger wins the California election. 106 of 135 candidates in this election get fewer votes for governator than I did last time I ran for ASUCD Senate. Comments to this entry indicate that readers for the most part had no idea what I was talking about.
   Year Ago Thursday: Gratuitous Acts of Piracy - A make some songs by the awesome band Hefner available to The People. But now I've lost all those songs in the series of computer crashes I experienced this summer. So if you happened to download them from me or have them from somewhere else, I'd greatly appreciate it if someone would make them available to me. Also, you should all go try to find these songs anyway.
   Year Ago Yesterday: Admittance, Racism & Standards - At the time I let the two quotes stand in contrast to eachother without further comment, but now that you've had a year to make your own opinions, I'd like to say that Gregory Jones is a fucking idiot and a blazing example of the most retarded of attitudes. I hope he gets scurvy and fleas. Also there were free apples on the quad on this day in history. Chamber of Commerce Day happened again this year but I missed the free apples (and bemoaned it repeatedly).
   

   As previously noted, yesterday was the one year anniversery of me turning 21. It also incidentally was my 22nd birthday.


Thai Bistro
   A bunch of us went to Thai Bistro for dinner. Kristy and I were late due to the impossibility of finding parking in downtown davis, so we missed Lamar Heystek, but he left a bottle of vodka for me with my friends (dutch vodka of course).
   Anyway, I was a bit concerned because both livinsmall and obisan69 had reported unsatisfactory experiences with Thai Bistro (former, latter). The service however was completely adequate and the food delicious. I got this red curry + bamboo shoots + basil + jalepenos dish and it was extremely scrumptious (I think it might have been called "Dai kang?").


   Neither Adrian nor Jill had had Thai food before and they both loved it. In addition to the aforementioned, we also had in attendance little Christie, Courtney Caruso (deaconfrost224) , one of my good friends from freshman year who I haven't kept in touch with so much recently, Ben, and of course Kristy.

   After eating, we all (minus Courtney) went to Kristy's to partake in her mad skillz at making cake & tiramisu (we had both actually because Kristy is excellent). Then Adrian and Jill suddenly both had to go home around 10pm (::caugh::tomakeout::caugh::) and the rest of us just hung out and talked for a long time.

   Kristy got me a flogging molly shirt and a strongsauce belt. ijockherso.


Completely Unrelated
   Strongsauce pictures - I found this site the other day while idly plugging things into google and seeing what came up, specifically that one was a result of the word "shipwreck." The first word I tried was "hind" by which I mean the beautiful russian MI-24 helicoptor, and I mention this random tangent because we were watching Firefly today and there was an ambulance shuttle / hovering vehicle / thing that was TOTALLY made from a Hind frame and I was loving it.