eateggs

Hey. Wait. What happened? How is it … 1:30 am? Wasn’t it just 9:00 a few minutes ago?

Herbert Hoover once wrote, “Bessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.“

Yaar! This theater is eating my life. Eating it whole and raw. My grades this semester are going to suffer, (suffer, suffering, suffered) accordingly. Last week, logging my hours, I came up to 59.5 between Monday and Friday evening. To date, I’m at 417 hours. Logged. Plus however many countless hours not logged, like tonight … reading forums. Learning about screen masking to keep things looking good when we show Flat prints (as opposed to Scope). Learning about lummens per square foot, about aperture sizes and the differences between a lamphouse and a console. Three-phase vs. single-phase power. Stereo vs Dolby Stereo SR (really cool, actually–encodes four channels of data into two analog audio tracks using phase-inversion, which is then extrapolated into six semi-discrete channels) vs Dolby Digital (six true discrete channels) vs Dolby Digital EX (7 discrete channels) vs DTS vs SDDS (8 discrete channels). About a thousand things that are unique and important to the theater industry … that 99% of the world doesn’t even know exists. And it just eats my life. Consumes hours and hours. It’s interesting. And, at times, applicable.

Mostly, I just wish that the people involved with planning and designing the new Procrastinator Theatre had spent a little time doing research … were moderately versed in the subject. Had SOME clue about the difference between a Scope print and a Flat print. Knew SOMETHING about projection booths. About … ghaa.

Oh. I wrote a term paper, the other day. Sat down at 8:00 pm. Finished at 9:00 am the next morning. Rocked steady, the whole night through. And the result … well, I hope my Prof finds it rather interesting, anyway. (Mostly, I suspect he’ll be thrilled by the time he gets to mine just to read complete, grammatically correct sentences…). Here’s the first paragraph:

In his The Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche paints an image of the “noble classes” before the ascendancy of Christian morality. In this paper, I will broadly reconstruct this portrait, examine Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as a case study of this unfettered noble spirit, and put both works in a modern context relating to the War in Iraq.

Intrigued? Oh, I’m sure you are.

Here. Just for you. A link! …
https://eateggs.com/files/2007.12.04-PericlesInIraq.pdf

It’s a character study of Mr. Kurtz (The Heart of Darkness), operating from the framework of a Periclean “noble”, as described in The Genealogy of Morals. Man, it’s fascinating stuff. Let me tell you. Actually, you might find it slightly interesting if you’ve read both of the aforementioned works recently. Otherwise, it’s completely inane and academic. Actually, it’s not even that academic. But hey…

Along the way, I came across a quote that I rather like:

One skill is needed—lost today, unfortunately—for the practice of reading is an art: the skill to ruminate, which cows possess but modern man lacks.

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals

Clever, eh?

Dear Whoever Just Send Me A Text-Message,

I don’t mean to be rude. I’m not intentionally ignoring your text. It’s just that …

Well, if you didn’t already know …

Fine, I’ll go ahead. I’ll say it. I’ll let you know the TRUTH:

That white light … coming from my phone … is the white background of my blog, shining through my phone.

Most of the time, when I hear the chime that tells me I have a new text, I just laugh. ha ha … ha. ha?

Really, though– why would you text me? To ask me if I’m AWAKE? Honestly, you KNOW the answer to THAT question. Just CALL me, silly!

So yeah. To who ever you may be … please feel free to continue to send me text-messages. Be advised, however, that I will probably never read those messages. Not because I’m obstinate … or trying to be rude, or anything like that. It’s just that there’s a giant gaping hole in my phone where my screen used to be.

Best,
-Mark

—
In other news, grading papers (as a T.A.) can get to be monotonous after a while. Every once in a while, though, you find an answer that breaks the monotony, such as having a student list “probable liver failure” after “tuition” and “opportunity cost of not having a job” as a “cost” of attending college.

I found another particularly good one this afternoon. When asked to “provide a description of what the apartment market will be like as a result of the price ceiling,” most students responded something like “there will be a housing shortage” or “the quantity of apartments demanded will be greater than apartments supplied.” One student, however, wrote that “the market will be crazy & one huge fight between people looking & waiting for an apartment.“

Boy, if that’s not a perfect description of a market shortage– I don’t know what is. =)

In high school, we used to facetiously talk about the weather, any time it was a little cold and we didn’t feel like going outside, by saying “No way, man. I’m not going out. It’s like … two, outside.” Usually, this meant that it was about 45° F and windy. Or that we simply preferred the creature comforts of our gas-fired, forced-air heated houses.

It’s a beautiful and sunny morning, in Bozeman. Sitting in my room, the sun sparkles brilliently off a thousand white surfaces, covered yesterday in another three inches of fresh snow.

Yesterday was cold. Really cold. And today? Well … it’s two. No “like” about it. It’s two degrees Fahrenheit, with a two-day expected high of 20° F.

But, I don’t mind. I’ll bundle up a little more, this morning, and set my shoulder against the cold. I think I’ll walk to school, rather than ride my bike.

This is the beginning of a beautiful day.

That settles it. I’m pretty much dead. I just want to sleep… but I have lots of stuff I need to do … it’s not even stuff I’ve been putting off–it’s stuff I just haven’t had the time to do. Like prepare for my Business Law final this afternoon. Kinda wish maybe I had spend a little more than, oh, say, a half-hour feverishly preparing.

God, I made a douche of myself.

It’s Thursday afternoon and … I’ve clocked 48 hours of work in service of the Procrastinator Theatre since Monday. I’ve gone to like three classes this week… spent less time sleeping than in class.

What do I have to show for it? Well… I have a long, meticulously researched document about Digital Cinema and non-theatrical venues that no one, in their right mind, would possibly want to read. To prove my point, I’ll post a copy. Knock yourselves out:
Due Consideration – Digital Cinema & The Procrastinator Theatre.

Actually, I think there’s some hope. Tom Stump sees the necessity of a 35mm projector in the new theater, and is working on getting a cost estimate to expand the projection booth. Oh? You’re interested in that, too? Here: I’ll upload the requirements synopsis that I put together this morning, instead of going to accounting of my euro history class. 2007.11.29 Projection Booth Requirements.pdf

Microsoft Word does this thing where it gives its new documents sequential numbers every time you open a new copy– as in “New Document 3”, “New Document 5”, etc. This sequential counter closes when you close all windows of Word. The last new document that I created was “New Document 81”. That’s ridiculous.

I nearly went crazy, last night. I was on campus at 10:00 am yesterday and finished classes at 11:00 am. At 10:00 pm, after the show at the Procrastinator had finished (some student-run presentation on Uganda … I was just there to unlock the theater and teach the presenter how to use the LCD Projector. I could have left, once it started, but somehow I sat down–revising for the sixth time in four days the research document I linked above ..) I hadn’t eaten since noon, and had only slept for two or three hours, on the couch, the night before (and the night before that had been similarly short).

So there I am, at the Procrastinator at 10:00 pm. Instead of going home, I rode my bike up to the SUB to go visit the new theater. When I last visited, two days before, there was just a vast, empty room where the Pro and a lounge will eventually be. But when I arrived last night, a series of aluminum studs of one wall bisected the space… I don’t think I broke out in a cold sweat … but that’s how I’ll probably remember it.

Somehow, in the back of my mind, I’d be entertaining this mad dream that we could still convert the ticket booth in to a concessions stand. But I failed to act on that dream … probably intimidated by the staggering amount of effort required to alter the momentum of the construction machine. Well, there was my dream–with aluminum studs driven right through it. Where a counter could have, would have been.

I can’t describe the feeling–terror, mostly. It was too late. They were building, and they were building wrong. They were spending hundreds of thousands of student dollars, to build the wrong thing.

I panicked. The construction HAD to stop … just for a two days … just until Friday afternoon, when the STUDENTS would finally get a chance to properly discuss the arbitrary decision, made three years ago, to switch to digital projection and eliminate the projection booth in the new Procrastinator Theatre.

For a few minutes, as I wandered between piles of waiting aluminum studs, or pawed listlessly through the available blueprints … I could only think of sabotage. How could I stop the clock? How could I buy two more days for the students? I thought of stealing all the blueprints and burning them (they’re wrong, anyway…). I thought of chaining myself to the aluminum studs…

Eventually, I left. I found Scott in the ASMSU office and ranted for a while … then eventually headed home, where I raged and screamed for another two hours. I must have used more profanities last night than any three nights drinking combined.

But, eventually, that too subsided. At midnight, I finally ate some dinner. By 2:00 am, I was tired… and needed to be up at 6:30 am to find Tom Stump, first thing in the morning.

And then things started to look up. I found Tom in his office, on his way to the SUB. We talked on our way over. I explained that situation … that we would be unable to use digital projection in the new theater, and briefly explained the reasons. And then, greatly to my surprise, he turned to me and asked what it would take to get a 35mm projector installed. By noon today, MSU’s architects had received a request for a price estimate of the modification. I was buoyant.

Around 1:00 pm, I started working on my bus 361 “final”. It needed probably 3 hours of work. I gave it about 45 minutes.

And then I went to class, and looked like a staggering douche.

Then the bubble burst. The balloon popped. Something gave out … gave in. I was gone.

And now? I’ve never been so depressed. I really don’t think I have. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so crippled by lethargy–been so keenly aware of a chemical imbalance in my brain that’s stopping me from acting like a normal person…

I don’t think I’ve ever worked at something so hard or with such tenacity as I have these last four days. And then, when I sat down after giving my pathetic speech in 361… that was the end. Everything was done. The class… everything I can do for the Procrastinator…

I think it’s the new medication. It’s a wild ride. I’ve been wondering when all the chemicals in my brain were going to collide… it’s absolutely wild. I’ve barely eaten, and I’ve barely slept. Yet I’m not hungry, and I’m not tired. I don’t feel healthy, but I don’t feel sick.

I’m going to click “submit” now.