The Alan Parsons Project

For creating music that intrigues, mystifies, elates, and freaks out, Alan Parsons and his eponymous project have earned

Cross Dress

My junior year at AC, I got the worst hangover of my life. I went to a party called "Cross Dress" at Purgatory, the Lambda Chi house. I went with my girlfriend at the time, Dawn, Bryce, and Melissa. I was dressed in a Hawaiian skirt and top, Bryce went the full nine yards with the shaved legs, dress, and makeup, and the girls had on their boy clothes. We sipped on screwdrivers for a while, until Bryce, some girl, and I found a full bottle of Bushmills Irish whiskey and decided to go hide and drink the whole thing. I remember two things after that decision: turning the bottle straight up and chugging and then doing the "bobby shuffle" which is similar to the "truffle shuffle" except it is done by a fat man in a grass skirt.

The next day I got out of bed once. It was to puke. It just happened to be at the same time Bryce was in the bathroom either puking or shitting, but probably both. I remember almost beating down the door, and him being none to happy to vacate the bathroom.

This reminds me of the time in grad school when I made Raymond dare me to chug a pint of whiskey. Apparently chugging a pint of beer had become to easy. I managed to chug the pint in about five seconds. I then wandered away from Billy's apartment. They found me about three hours later asleep under my car.

While we're talking about drunken incidents, I have to mention my senior year when I drank a 30 pack of keystone light and awoke the next morning in the trunk of my car. I'm 6'2'' and drove a ford escort at the time; it wasn't an easy fit. I don't know how I ended up in there, but frankly i was just happy to be alive.

portugal flamingo

such a good book

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power." - George Orwell, 1984

Tantric

We saw a restaurant called Tantric while walking around Boston Friday night. My comment: "It's probably pretty good, but I hear that you wait 20 hours and your food never comes."

One way trip

It has been suggested that the best first step to reaching Mars is a one man, one way trip. I would do this in a heartbeat. Its not so much about personal glory, but about the chance to do something meaningful, to see something no human has ever seen, to die for a good cause. I wouldn't have a second thought about it; I'd leave today. One life is meaningless against the huge leap forward this would mean.

NASA: call me!

Gattaca

For providing an all too realistic picture of our bleak future, pronouncing "degenerate" as "de-GENE-erate", deriving its name from the four DNA nucleotides, and being generally awesome, Gattaca has earned the first ever:

polysomnography

After 6 weeks of dealing with insurance, I finally got scheduled at the last minute for a sleep study this week. I'll save all the crap that happened with the insurance company for another time.

I've had trouble sleeping for a while now, and I snore very loudly. I am fatigued most of the day, so I figured it was time to get it checked out. So in early January I asked my doctor to refer me to a sleep clinic. On Wednesday night I finally went in.

The sleep study was bit of a surreal experience. I get there about 8pm and am taken directly to a sleep suite. It looks basically like a hotel room. There is a bathroom with shower, a recliner, a bed, a tv/dvd player... all the finest amenities. I sit in the room and do paperwork for about 30 minutes. While waiting for the lab tech, I turn on the tv and watch some Daily Show reruns. About 9 the lab tech comes in. She was a very cute and extremely nice girl who really made the whole experience a lot more bearable (although it was kinda of weird to know that this cute girl was going to be watching me sleep all night).

She brought in a cart full of medical supplies and a rack full of wires. She started the long process of turning me into a cyborg. A dozen contacts glued to various parts of my face and head, one contact glued on each leg, two chest straps, a heartbeat monitor on my finger, and a nose clip for measuring nose vs. mouth breathing. While she went to go hook up her other patient for the night, she let me try out the CPAP machine. I think I could benefit from one of these, but if I do get one it will take a while to get used to.

About 10:30 I crawled into bed and she hooked all the wires into the monitors. She went to her lab and talked to me through the intercom. I had to perform various things like moving my eyes and flexing my feet to calibrate the machines. The top chest strap wasn't registering for some reason, so she came back in to replace it. Finally about 11 she bid me a good night. I watched the new episode of the Daily Show. At 11:30 I wasn't too tired, but I figured it was time to turn off the tv and try to get to sleep.

It was very strange to have all of these wires all over me. I tried to relax, but it was difficult to get comfortable. At about 12:00 the tech came back in to check on the chest strap again. It still wasn't registering so she adjusted it some more. She left and told me to "try to get back to sleep." Then she said, "well actually you haven't fallen asleep yet, but you know. Good night." That really made me feel weird. Somebody knows if I am actually asleep or just laying there with my eyes closed. Very strange indeed.

I finally fell asleep at about 12:30 or 1. I think I only slept for about 15-20 minutes before I woke again. I turned on my side to get more comfortable. One of the contacts on my head must have come loose because the tech came back in the fix it. She left and I fell asleep after about 20 minutes. After maybe 30 minutes of sleep I woke up again. This time I was fairly wide awake. I just kept thinking that I was screwing up the study. I wanted to give them a good look at my snoring and I thought I possibly might stop breathing at points. But, I just couldn't get to sleep. I thought it was going to be like when you bring your car in for repairs and they can't find the problem. Whenever you drive it though, the problem always occurs. I figures that they would just think I am a liar.

It took me a good 90 minutes to fall back asleep. This time I slept until about 5:30. I heard the tech in the next room waking up the other guy. I also heard the snow plows in the parking lot; apparently we had gotten a couple inches in the night. She came in about 6, and of course, knew that I was awake. She told me that I sure did have a restless night. I told her that I was disappointed that I didn't snore. She said that I did indeed snore some, but only when I was laying on my back. When I rolled on my side, I was breathing better. She got me all unhooked and I went and changed my clothes. I could have showered there, but I decided to run back home.

I'm glad I did it, but I'm not sure whats going to come of it. I have to record my sleeping habits for the next couple of weeks. In about 3-4 weeks the doctor will get the results to my doctor. At that point I may have to come back in if they think I should do a CPAP test. I'm just afraid that they will recommend that I don't need a CPAP, and should take some sleep drugs or restless leg syndrome drugs or something. I REALLY don't want to become dependent on drugs to sleep.