Good Omens

We had an awesome night last Saturday night. The Dance Club put on their first ever end of the year dance bringing both the Swing and Salsa facets of the club together under one roof. As officers we worked long and hard on planning this; trying to find a large enough place (Imperial Ballroom Academy in Fullerton), and coordinating both the money and people situation. We honestly had no idea how many people would show up and if my earlier attempts of trying to get swing people organized together was an indication of how the night would turn out, then we would have had about 10 people there.

But there were good omens right from the start, with us getting through traffic faster than expected and the Dance Hall owner giving us a room upgrade for free. I arranged the swing playlist to be played trying to find a good range of songs in terms of difficulty and genre, so I knew the music would be good (though I threw in "Conjunction Junction" ). But everything rested upon our ability to lure people to Fullerton for a free night of dancing, and by the end of the night, we had over 100 people show up to dance!

At the end of the night, when the last song had played, and the decorations had been taken down, and everyone had gone home, a small group of us officers went to Fred 62's. So here we are sitting in a booth in a small Hollywood diner at 2:30 AM, eating fries and drinking shakes when suddenly "Lean on Me" comes on in the background. We all just chuckle to ourselves and sing a bit under our breath when someone says, "Wouldn't it be cool if like the entire diner just broke into song and clapped?" We all nod our heads and go back to our food, all the while bobbing our heads. Until we hit the chorus, when obviously all the different groups around the restaurant had had enough of holding back and the entire diner did break into both song and clap. We had almost an entire diner of people sitting there clapping and singing:
"You just call on me brother when you need a hand; we all need somebody to lean on...."
By far one of the coolest moments of the evening and just perpetuating the myth of these good omens looking down on us.

Well that song has been in my head the entire week and I just keep reliving that moment in my head, thinking about just how cool it was. And it wasn't until later that I got to see some pictures from the event and saw one last good omen: Ethan finally got his book back from Natalie.

Check out pictures from the event here!

Passing Conversation

Bit of conversation I overheard while walking to class:

“...every Christmas I have asked my parents for a pony.”

“Every Christmas? But you’re a Jew!”

“Well yeah, but we still celebrate Christmas.”

“But you’re a Jew!”

“I mean we don’t celebrate it religiously….”

I don’t know what’s more intriguing, the fact that she still asks for a pony or the fact that she’s celebrating Christmas rather than Hanukkah.

The Toy and the Bee

Today was sort of a catch-up day for me, where I got to recover from my lack of sleep from the weekend and had a chance to do some much needed laundery. After I had just brought up a load of clothes to fold, there's a knock at my door and a USC Housing Service guy is at my door asking to look in my bathroom because there's some water leaking down below. He looks around a bit before calling up another guy and together they assess my bathtub to be dismal. They discuss how they need to replace pretty much the entire thing, but determine that the leaking isn't coming from my apartment. One of the guys then rushes towards to door to check back downstairs when he suddenly stops in front of me (where I am casually folding clothes) and looks at the Lego ship I got for my birthday.
"Hey, that's pretty cool! Is it yours?"
"Oh yah, I just got it for my birthday."
"Ah nice. Did you build it yourself?"
"Yup. I put it together the night I go it."
"Man that's really cool...."
He then calls out to the other guy still in my bathroom to come check it out. He joins his fellow worker in admiring my Lego ship. So here I am with two 40+ year old plumbers, basically who are just raving over this toy. It just goes to show that you are never too old to appreciate Lego. Like I told my dad, that 8+ age requirement on each box is just a suggestion.

Later this evening I found myself working on my last report for the semester with my partner Lindsay. She was on her laptop and I was sitting at my computer when all of the sudden I hear this tremendous buzzing sound. I turn my head left to see a huge bee frantically trying to get into the apartment by buzzing up against the glass door. I look at it for a while and then start to turn away knowing that it couldn't possibly get into the apartment, when it does the unthinkable: it manages to find its way through the crack between the two glass panes and enter the apartment. How a bee of that size could slip through the panel so many other insects have tried and failed to enter by is mind-boggling. But I didn't have time to think about it, I had to deal with the fact that a huge ass bee has invaded my living area. It finally settled down on my ceiling and apparently found something interesting because it stayed there. My original intent of shooing it out an open window/door wasn't going to work because it was making itself comfortable, so I had to take action. I sidle past it into the kitchen where I look for something big enough to whack it with. It seemed a little cliche, but a small frying pan seemed to be the best weapon against it. So I slink past it again and go to my closet where I put on a thick sweater (in case if I don't kill it and it decides to attack me I'll have a thick layer of protection on my arms) and for kicks my Costa Rican Crocodile Hunter hat. I get back to my frying pan, set up a chair and slowly inch up towards the still stationary bee on my ceiling, all the while Lindsay is waiting in the other corner of the room. I positioned myself and...
"Three...Two...One..."
*WHACK*
With one fatal swoop the bee is slain and falls harmlessly to the ground. I gently scoop it up and throw it away then casually replace the pan to the stove and return to my work. I'd say that's just another priceless memory I'm going to be leaving behind when I graduate. At least I got to test my mad frying pan skills.

Sundae Massacre

As a change of pace from my typical Tuesday evening, usually involving watching "Scrubs" and "The Office" back-to-back, I joined forces with a band of fellow hooligans and conducted myself in war. Now this wasn't your typical water balloon fight or even close to those bubble fights you tried to have with yourself while taking bubble baths. Seven of us college kids put on war paint and walked to one of the small parks in the middle of campus around 10pm armed with whipped cream, shaving cream, chocolate syrup and a tub of ice cream. Once there, each of us grabbed a different weapon; I was left with the tub of ice cream. And so we instigated an all out melee of chaos.

I must say that throwing handfuls of semi-melted ice cream at people is fun at first until your hands start to freeze off. This was one of the craziest, most spontaneous things I've done since I've been in college, and I'm glad it happened before I graduated. Needless to say we all ended up covered in head to toe with black and white goop everywhere. I even got a handful of shaving cream shoved in my left ear. Fortunately the campus sprinkler systems kicked on after we ran out of ammunition, so we washed up a bit before completely jumping into one of the fountains on campus. I then sloshed home still feeling a bit sticky and looking forward to a good hot shower. And to think, I almost passed it all up for TV....

The Mysticism of Culver City

It's funny how different everything appears when night falls. It's as if our very streets are transformed as the shadows creep up; distorting size, shape and color. Last week, I went out to Culver City to find a Trader Joe's for a little shopping, but did so without looking at a map. Now I had been to this particular store once before at night, and so I thought I could reconstruct my path (of course without knowing any of the street names since I didn't drive the previous time). I ended up driving up and down the same streets for about an hour until I finally found a Trader Joe's, but not the one I was looking for. As I was driving I kept trying to locate things that looked familiar, and at first I was navigating myself with ease through the streets. But the city looked completely foreign to me after some time because it was daytime. I now realize that the familiarity with locations while driving changes between night and day. During the day you can point out and describe each building in terms of its color and shape, navigating by familiar landmarks you can see. At night, that all changes and the only markers you have come from the illumination of the neon lights ablazen across the sky. Each building gives off a different color and emits a completely different aura to the common driver. Need an example? Try driving down Sunset during the day and then at night. Tonight I drove back to Culver City to go to the Best Buy there, and of course on a street I drove up and down a dozen times last week, I saw in the distance a neon "Trader Joe's" sign mocking me.

At least now I know where it is.

The Afternoon Nap

I had to wake up early this morning for my weekly Tuesday lab, which meant that I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night. I've been feeling on the brink of health for a few days now, so I feel that I need as much sleep as I can get. Also I had to teach the Beginning Swing class tonight because our teachers missed a day and didn't want to make it up. So in order to boost my health a bit and to give me more energy, I decided to take a brief 1-hour nap this afternoon. Afternoon naps are usually some of the strangest naps with the strangest dreams. At the end of my nap today, I found myself in a cathedral surrounded by a few choir directors I know, and it seems that my brother has just made another "brilliant" composition to be played in the church. These directors, whom I know, are telling me how wonderful the song was and they tell me that the text was taken from Genesis 4:6. At about this time, I am lulled back into conciousness as my alarm goes off. I sit up and then after a moment, grab my Bible and thumb to the "inspiring" verse, which reads:

"Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?’”

I think my dreams have finally gone from weird to just plain lame. As for the song, I think I should dedicate myself to compose a "brilliant" choir piece to this verse. Maybe it's one of those "Field of Dreams" things, where if I compose it, they will come. Until that happens, I really need to lay off my afternoon naps.

*Sigh*

My intention was to make a meaningful post today after a week of short posts, but I ended up battling my computer all day today, and finally have it somewhat working now. So, unless tomorrow brings with it some unforeseen troubles with it, I will try and update all on my life (though fighting my computer has taken up a good portion of it).

Popeman

Pope reborn as superhero in Colombian comic

April Fools Day Hoaxes

It's a little past April Fool's Day, but I couldn't pass on this link.

Random Chris Fact #52:

I brush my teeth and floss (if I have time) in the shower. It's a practice I somewhat adapted from my brother, and for some reason it just makes sense to do it that way. Now though, whenever I feel like I need to brush my teeth, I somewhat feel like I have to take a shower just so that I can.

TFS – Weeks 7-10

Well it’s been a while since I last updated about my film class and a lot of time has passed. The only way for me to catch up in telling people about what we saw would be to post about them all together. Fortunately, I don’t have much to say about the films since most of them I was “meh” about. So starting where I left off, we come to,
Gunner Palace This is a fairly unbiased documentary about what is currently going on in Iraq. One guy follows around several U.S. troops and catches more or less every aspect of their daily lives. As a movie it was somewhat convoluted in its format and storytelling, but the realism it captured was powerful. It provides at least an understanding of what role we’re playing there. Now available in select theaters.
Overall Rating: 3.5 Gunner-Filled Palaces

Dear Frankie This was the week we took our midterm, which was very easy by the way, and afterwards we were shown this movie without discussion. It’s a Scottish foreign film and in it a single mother lies through letters to her deaf son that his dad is on a ship sailing the world. When the ship he’s supposed to be on suddenly docks in Scotland, she has to find someone to play the role of the father for a day to keep up the lie. This was really a great movie despite the odd synopsis. Also playing in select theaters.
Overall Rating: 4.5 Fatherless Ships

Dot the I Another foreign film, this time from England where a Spanish lady falls in love with a stranger on the eve of her wedding night. The result is a love triangle between these two and the fiancée that leads to tragedy in the end. At least that’s what they’d like you to think and soon another story reveals itself. I felt that this movie was could, but it really could have been better and the surprises had no impact after awhile. Still an enjoyable movie, also playing in select theaters.
Overall Rating: 3 Bewildered I dots

Sahara Last week’s feature film that is based on a Clive Cussler novel of the same name. I’m told it’s a long book and the plot of the movie shifts from searching for a civil war battleship in Africa to contaminated water in Mali. This movie really felt like it was trying to be both James Bond and Indiana Jones at the same time, which was already done before in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Everything was very cliché and not funny enough to be enjoyable. I made fun of the movie the entire time; that is until I grew bored of even that. My advice: stay out of the Sahara!
Overall Rating: 1.5 Uncrossable Deserts

I'll update later about this past week's movie. Also Dust to Glory and Kontroll have opened up in select theaters so try and catch them if you can!