The Crazy Cult of Trivia

My multitudes of fans are begging for more. By this I mean two people, which compose approximately half of said multitude, have told me that I have not written anything here for a while. So here I go.

Yesterday I went to help with the trivia night LCM hosted to raise money to have an intern next year. Most of us had never heard of a trivia night, but apparently they are serious business. We speculated that they are a St. Louis phenomenon, or maybe just a geeky old person phenomenon (not to imply I have anything against geeky people who like trivia - I'm just not old). For the unintiated, what happens is a group of about eight people buy a table. The tables compete against each other to write down the most correct answers to several rounds of questions. Each table brings their own refreshments, and this does not mean a bag of chips. They bring elaborate prepared dishes and several bottles of wine (and this was in a church gymnasium. I never would have thought to bring alcohol to a church, but they all seemed to accept it as normal.) For some reason, this event was located at a church in Chesterfield (or some such exotic foreign land beyond the reaches of the shuttle route). We were special because we had a celebrity announcer, a sports radio announcer who goes to Bethel. It was all very organized and intense. Our carefully, individually-planned jobs took place in between rounds, a chaotic time when the answers are collected and scored. Meanwhile games and sideshows go on like at a professional sporting event. Another girl and I were assigned to selling 50-50 raffle tickets. Since we had to have the concept of a 50-50 raffle explained to us, we started by explaining it to each of the tables we approached, but usually they would interrupt us and say "Oh, you mean a 50-50 raffle. How many drawings are there? After what rounds?" And then they would be upset because apparently 50-50 raffles are supposed to offer a sort of bulk discount, but our tickets were a flat $1. We weren't technically allowed to play along with the trivia, but we did on the side anyway. It was hard. But we came in fourth place out of 17 tables. The LCM grad group, who had a table sponsored by someone else, won.

So then I came home and should have gone to bed, but I watched a movie instead. I wanted to watch one of the videos I purchased with my gift certificate a few weeks ago. For some reason, as soon as I had specifically purchased something to do when I had nothing better to do, I have had better things to do. Having something better than nothing to do all the time is not really a particular goal of mine, so I'm not sure how that happened. I take not having a life very seriously (see previous posting). Anyway, I watched Casablanca. It was kind of funny because, without ever having seen the movie, I knew so many lines before they said them - I'm so used to hearing them parodied, it was weird to listen to them being said just like a normal part of the dialogue. It's kind of like in Lyceum senior year when Miss Fisher made us memorize the whole "to be or not to be" thing, and then you notice that about every other line from that is used all over the place. It's kind of like that, only it really isn't.

So now I have to do my linguistics homework and my CS homework. I'm thinking my linguistics homework takes about five minutes, but my CS homework will probably take longer than I expect it to, like it always does. So "longer than expected" is probably the wrong way to say that. What I mean is it will take longer than it should.
- posted by Darcey @ 8:59 PM

 
Important VCR Dilemma

First, today's important piece of wisdom: Do not grade OMM quizzes at 2 am, even if you don't have to wake up until after 11. Sleep first, then grade. Just so you know.

But if you do grade OMM quizzes at 2 am, don't be sad. Once you've finished fixing them, you can play outside and be happy. Isn't it lovely outside? I took a walk. There are some pretty little neighborhoods hiding around here. They're very peaceful.

My plan after my walk was to watch the West Wing I taped last night, so that I could tape over that with the shows that come on tonight while going out to dinner for Rory's birthday. (Happy birthday, Rory!) But Emily is watching the TV, so my plan was foiled, because she would just be confused if I tried to get her to watch the West Wing when she doesn't normally watch it, when she would prefer to go on watching the show she is already watching that makes much more sense. But I don't trust the VCR to fit the West Wing and Thurs night shows all on one tape. At least they have the Apprentice on now, and I don't have to tape for that hour. So what should I do? Should I just sacrifice taping Will and Grace for getting all of ER? Or should I try for it all and risk being left hanging never knowing the end to ER? Or maybe I will just be able to watch ER when it comes on. And how do I know when to start and stop taping any of them? I just looked up the TV schedule and Will and Grace officially starts at 8:32. Why?? These are the things that are critical in my life. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion.
- posted by Darcey @ 6:13 PM

 
Emily saw a mouse. Ew.
Ew. Ew. Ew. And that's all I have to say.
- posted by Darcey @ 11:23 PM

 
My Less Exciting Weekend Thus Far

I just came home, and there are people I don't know eating Chinese food in the living room. Well, two of them are Emily and Anthony, and I know who they are, but there is another guy and another girl I don't know. Well, actually, I haven't seen the girl - she was in the kitchen - so I don't know for sure that I don't know her, but anyway, I think they are going to watch a movie, so I guess that means I can't watch whatever bad television was going to come on.

Anyway - I just got back from trying to spend my gift certificate at the mall. Who knew that would be such a challenge? I feel like I went into every store and there was nothing in any of them. Apparently it is time to buy t-shirts, and I wasn't in a t-shirt kind of mood yet, so I tried to look at jeans. I thought the jeans at Express summed up my search pretty well. At Express, they really want to provide you with variety and choice, which is why they offer both Super Low Rise and Ultimate Low Rise! So I was all out of ideas and went to the music store, because I really needed a new set of headphones, because my old ones were broken and I'd been holding them together with tape. But I had two $25 gift certificates and they weren't the kind you could just use a little bit of, and the headphones weren't $25, so I needed to waste the rest. So, to make my mommy proud, I bought a random collection of cheap videos! Their video selection is really nothing compared to the DVDs anymore, but I've been wanting to have something I could watch when I wanted to watch something, so I got Fight Club and Casablanca, neither of which I have seen, and Pleasantville, which I think I have seen once and I think it was ok, but I don't really remember. I thought the three fit together nicely.

The logical thing would have been to buy a CD from the CD store, but I really didn't have anything that I wanted to get. I wish I did. I would like some new music. Any suggestions? Anyone? Please? I took Kazaa off my computer a while ago, since it wasn't working very well and I didn't really want to get sued for a bazillion dollars for something that wasn't working very well. And the music on the radio has just been annoying to me recently. So now I don't know where to find new music. Next time I go home I will get the latest copy of my brother's vast collection. It contains a lot of bad pop music from the past two decades that he likes to make fun of, some classic rock/guitar music, some current rock/punk/alternative sort of things that 16 year old boys like, and other odds and ends, like TV theme songs and things that are just plain weird. That will at least be something amusing, even if it doesn't contain any great new bands whose CDs I will want to race out and spend my other $25 gift certificate on.
- posted by Darcey @ 8:57 PM

 
The Exciting Events I Plan to Avoid This Weekend

1. LCM Chili Cookoff - It has warmed up outside and they are trying to make a really big deal out of the whole thing - it's on the swamp and they've invited deans to judge or something and they're trying to get a bunch of campus groups to participate, but I still just don't really want to stand around outside and eat chili, which I just don't like that much. We'll see how it goes.

2. Valentine's Day related activity - not out of lonely bitterness, but as a simply practical matter. (Side note: Mom: I checked for packages again, still none.) For one thing, my roommate's fiance is coming to visit for the weekend, so I feel I should probably try to leave them alone. Another thing, there will be probably lots of people out filling up restaurants or movies or places where one would generally go out on a weekend.

The Less Exciting Things I Plan to do Instead:

1. My monthly trip to the grocery store. I have been trying to plan the logistics of this. I have no leads on a car, so I'm planning for the shuttle. The problem is I need to buy a lot of paper products (kleenex, toilet paper, paper towels, etc) that take up a lot of space, so I don't know how to carry it all. My original idea was to reduce the number of bags by using paper bags, but then my mother reminded me, because mothers remember such things, that the paper bags here do not have the nice handles on them that the ones at home do. So, in another update directed to my mother, I had thought after talking to you about taking the attractive over the shoulder tote bag that Anthem gave me at the end of the summer to carry bags in, but it turns out I left this charming accessory at home. Perhaps if I really want to look silly, I could bring a luggage bag. But I don't think I want to look that silly. But I do seem to want to buy a lot of food. The problem with my monthly trip to the grocery store is that I buy a volume of food enough to last for a month, but most of what I want to buy has to be eaten in the first week or so. The logistics have definitely ruled out buying any pop, but I think I can make do with what I have, especially when I do buy some more iced tea mix, which this past week I have been forced to carefully ration out. Far more information than anyone wanted to know about my food purchasing habits. Moving on.

2. I could go shopping at the mall for more interesting things this weekend. I do have that $50 gift certificate. More shuttle riding!

3. Homework. CS 241 will cause my head to explode before the semester is out. I have learned that whenever she uses the phrase "really simple" in class, it means she is going to go incredibly quickly through something incredibly complicated. I got back my homework for this week. I had gotten right the things I didn't understand and lost points on the few things I thought I did understand. So that really helps.

4. Clean the bathroom? This is a task I strongly dislike, and one I maintain really doesn't help this particular bathroom feel much cleaner, but I suppose every once in a great while it must be done, and if I have nothing better to do, this may be the time to do it. I recently did another chore which really doesn't accomplish much in this apartment: I swept the floor. I am much less opposed to this task, and do it with a much more sanitary frequency, but it really doesn't clean the floor much, especially when what it needs is to be thoroughly mopped after the recent weather. But I did clean up most of the lady bugs that seemed to have come into our apartment to die a while back. Again, more information than you wanted to know. I'll stop now.
- posted by Darcey @ 5:40 PM

 
plus my computer is freezing every five minutes, so I very soon may be entirely cut off from the rest of universe. So in my final minutes of contact, I'd just like to say Godspeed, rest of the universe. I hope we meet again.
- posted by Darcey @ 3:47 PM

 
I have no means of immediate contact with the outside world

My phone service has disappeared. Yesterday afternoon for several minutes the phone refused to call home. Anytime I tried to call Indiana, it said call failed. (any other location worked fine) Then eventually it decided to work and I thought it was all better. But now I have no service whatsoever. The date and time pop up on the screen, but "T-mobile" does not. So in the event of an emergency, no one can hear me scream. So I keep wanting to call someone to fix it, but I can't! I will try email. I'm sure they respond to Saturday afternoon emails in no time at all.
- posted by Darcey @ 3:08 PM

 
The Belated Tale of My Week

I have not typed anything for a little while, so I will begin by trying to remember what I did starting last Friday when I was last here. I seem to think I spent a lot of the weekend at LCM. Friday I went to get the free food, and then we all watched Ed. Apparently, it was the second to last episode. I haven't really been keeping track of Ed, since they moved it away from the West Wing and also since it became obvious that every episode for the last four years or so has had pretty much the exact same plot. Once I learned it was the second to last episode, though, I immediately saw through all their clever plots to tie up all the stories of all the minor characters, as in "Oh, what's her face obviously doesn't have the flu, she's pregnant, and that other what's her face is going to end up with that even more obscure what's his face." Anyway, then on Saturday I went back to LCM to make Super Bowl subs for sale to the church people. Then Sunday I went to church and afterward I was sort of obligated to go to this thing they've been advertising as a sort of Bible study about sex. But what it actually is is a big argument about whether LCM should adopt a Reconciling in Christ statement, a statement that specially welcomes gay members. So everybody got all excited and emotional and there was lots of heated debate, which is not something I particularly enjoy. Then, on Monday, it was the first day of an actual Bible study thing that LCM is starting, which does not involve sex or controversy of any kind. We are divided into groups, and so far my group consists of three people, two of whom are me and Emily. So 66.7% of our group supports a motion to make the futon in the living room our permanent location. Unfortunately, the other 33.3% lives on the Forty, so I don't know how that's going to work out. Other than that, it went well.

So that was all I did with LCM last weekend. Now LCM is going to be worthless for a while. This Friday they are going to go eat with the Jews and learn about being Jewish. But the problem is you have to pay $10 to eat with the Jews, which goes slightly against the idea of Free Food Friday. And then next week, they are having something called a Chili Cook Off, which I don't understand entirely. Apparently it involves a lot of chili, which I'm not the biggest fan of, and, even more inexplicably, it involves being outside, a terrible place I've been going to great lengths to avoid. So I have no organized activity to attend for two Fridays in a row, and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Furthermore, on the subject of LCM being worthless, I've been thinking about how it is going to be even more worthless for all of next year. All of the seniors plus Emily will be gone, plus I'm told a couple more people may be abroad and such. And when I actually think about it, there are far fewer juniors than it seems like there are. I suppose there's a pretty good set of sophomores, but I don't usually talk with any of them much at all, and, really, if they're not going to come to LCM events for the personal amusement of me, why do they bother coming at all? Every now and then, a freshman shows up, but I don't think there are any at all who come regularly enough that I would know their name. So hopefully there are a lot of bright young Lutherans waiting to hear from Wash U as we speak.

So that's all I have to say about LCM. Back to my week... I also went to the first Eliot Review meeting of the semester. It was in the middle of the Super Bowl, because poets don't care much about football or Budweiser commercials. But because the Super Bowl is so very long, I got home just in time for the halftime peep show. I'm so very grateful I didn't miss that. Now I think I will go to bed, since tomorrow is the day I have to wake up in the morning for my important TA duties. Stay tuned for the rest of my fascinating story.
- posted by Darcey @ 12:18 AM