The Packbats' Weblog

Wow, I just stole a meme from a total stranger (sable_twilight, to be specific). That "latest posts" script must be warping my brain.

In any case:

1. Grab the nearest book.
   
2. Open the book to page 123.
   
3. Find the fifth sentence.
   
4. Post the text of the sentence in your own bulletin ... along with these instructions.
   
5. Don't search around and look for the "coolest" book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

Mine, from Forms of Verse (what can I say?) was:

  Down came the storm, and smote amain
     The vessel in its strength;
  She shuddered and paused, like a frightened steed,
     Then leaped her cable's length.

Extra credit if you can identify the work from which this is a quote.

Like the previous exercise, I followed the directions and analyzed the rhythm and content of the given passages. Unlike the previous exercise, all three passages are from the same author; in fact, they are from the same work: Virginia Woolf's The Waves.

(Note: The Waves is still in copyright in the U.S. until 2026. This is ridiculous, since the author has been dead since 1941, but nevertheless current U.S. copyright law confirms this. However, the use of short excerpts in a scholarly fashion, like I have done below, is protected as Fair Use.)

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( Original Passages from "The Waves" )

( Analysis )

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Next is an exercise in writing in meter. Should be easy enough – I'll post any poems it inspires.

After yesterday, today was fairly quiet, however active it may have been in comparison to most of my summer thus far. I slept in late, spent my early waking hours on making an ambigram of my initials (a project that turned out acceptably well, all things considered), eked out a Scrabble victory against my dad ^z, and ate breakfast at 11:00.

The first ... well, no, the ambigram was first. Let me start over.

The second significant event of the day was the opening of the box of Magic: the Gathering cards nanakikun ordered. This is significant to me, as opposed to just nanakikun, because I decided to follow ^z's example and buy a share of the cards. Thus, I have an additional 200 random cards, many of which are strong candidates for entry into my main deck. I have yet to actually perform said modifications, however.

The third event of the day occurred a couple hours later, after ^z asked if I'd like to go out to Best Buy with him. Said trip was motivated by the recent failure of the family microwave oven. Instead of turning on the internal light, rotating the food, and making that distinctive humming noise while cooking the food, our microwave would turn on the internal light, rotate the food, and make the distinctive humming noise while not cooking the food.

This is not to be confused with the failure of our previous microwave. That one kept cooking the food without any trouble at all; its only problem was a rapidly-deteriorating door handle, which eventually would require the user to pull on a little metal tab (once part of a larger, and mostly plastic, assembly) if said user wanted to open the thing.

In any case, the third event (and the fourth, but I get ahead of myself) occurred on this trip I took with ^z; specifically, it occured when we stopped at the FOL used bookstore. The bookstore was very nice; there was a paper sign taped to the door advertising sci-fi magazines, 10 for $1, and there was a Joe Vs. the Volcano poster among all the other movie posters decorating the entrance. More importantly, they had a lot of books. Among these books was Forms of Verse, the one I bought; it appears to be a primer on the technical aspects of all the numerous forms verse can take, and a moderately well-written one. Being both an aspiring poet and an aspiring fan of poetry, I purchased it.

Well, I sorta-purchased it. It cost $2 before tax, and ^z gave me a $2 bill to spend on it, so I only paid 10 cents. I got it, anyway.

The fourth event was the purchase of the microwave at Best Buy. We got one similar to the one we had, except slightly lower wattage and a different brand. It did not fit in the trunk, however, due to there not being enough maneuvering space – thoughts of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and the impossibly-jammed couch came to mind – but ^z suggested putting it in the back seat, instead.

The last stops on the trip were the Yekta Market, at which olives and feta cheese were bought, and the Safeway, at which artificially-flavored orange soda was bought, and then we came home. The microwave was successfully installed, and all was well.

In other news, I'm now a registered member of the Internet Infidels Discussion Board. This could be interesting.

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Entry was edited for clarity on June 8. I'm pretending that I'm allowed to do that. No content was removed, however.