Get me away from here, I’m dying

I do a lot of complaining about Irvine, and it is 100% deserved. I think people often assume I’m exaggerating, or else simply don’t understand how the town could have ended up this way–in Berkeley over the weekend, I talked to someone who couldn’t understand how Irvine could be a planned community and yet have no downtown. I’ve tried to make use of vignettes to exemplify how barren UCI is aesthetically (judging from photos around campus, it’s the one UC campus that Ansel Adams couldn’t make look good) and socially (the pub is closed on weekends, or it was when it wasn’t closed for renovations). But I’ve never found an example quite as effective as this quote from the UCI library’s temporary exhibit on UCI architecture:

“The Engineering Tower (1970) and the original Computer Science building (1971) are hallmarks of the Brutalist era. As documented in campus photographs, UCI was chosen as a location for the futuristic film The Conquest of the Planet of the Apes in 1972 because the architectural style and barren landscape fulfilled the director’s image of a post-nuclear future.”

Yes, that’s right. I’m enrolled in a university that bears a strong resemblance to a ruined world ruled by apes.

This TV has words on it

Two slightly fun word things:

1) Julie and I came up with a word for people who wear red-and-gold scarves to see Harry Potter movies. They are called “Gryffindorks.”

2) Headline in today’s SF Chronicle sports section, regarding a failing team: “Coach Admits Fear Exists.” Very existential, I thought.

Enjoy your leftovers!

How you remind me

There was a stir on the internet a couple years back about the band Nickelback, and how their new (2003) single was basically the same as their first hit. The evidence is here.

Pretty great. But that has nothing on the self-plagiarism George Bush engaged in today.

Making love with his ego

Ladies and gentlemen, I present myself, Ziggy Stardust, Halloween 2005. Not only is this the last Halloween costume of the year, it’s the last Halloween costume I’ll ever do.

No, it’s not. That’s just what David Bowie said at the end of the Ziggy Stardust tour. The costume came out okay, given that I painted those stripes on myself and I’m terrible at arts and crafts. To be sure, it doesn’t look like it was supposed to (the source photo I was using, sent by the incomparable Megan Burns, is here), but it looks feasibly like something Bowie might wear, especially with the wig and the gold circle as give-aways; I think three people recognized it with no prompting on party night.

The rest of my pictures from this Halloween, and Halloweens past, are here. While you look at those, I’ll be thinking of next year…