Well, I'm back at school. It was an uneventful flight, which is always nice. The apartment, however, was in absolute shambles when I returned. We had anticipated a new roommate, and the subsequent cleaning that housing comes in to do when such an event occurs, so we hadn't cleaned before we left. But we have recieved no such roommate at this time, so the place looked like those houses they find 74 cats in. It took me living at home for a month to come back and see how sad the apartment looked. So I cleaned all day today and it's much nicer looking.


This was the weekend of buying things and forgetting them, or not buying things at all. I got some extension cords at home and left them there, along with batteries. I also needed a cable splitter which I did not purchase at all. So I go to the grocery store today and while I remember to buy sour cream for the ranch dressing mix I bought six weeks ago, I could not remember to get batteries even though I had written out a note reminding myself to do so immediately preceding my trip to the aforementioned grocery store. Now I have to go to Radio Shack, which is ridiculously over-priced and has the Slowest Cash Register People in the entire world. I swear, it takes them ten minutes to ring up each purchase.

At the grocery store, I did manage to pick up some Fruit-A-Freeze popsicles. (Not pupsicles, as I had originally typed.) These are really good, I endorse them. They've got bits of fruit in them. This time I got strawberry, which are good, but not as good as coconut. However, everything pales in comparison to the goodness and joy to be found in the key lime-sicles. Mmm.

I hooked up the original Sega Genesis up about ten minutes ago. I had forgotten what a pain it was to hook up game systems before you could just plug the red, yellow, and white cables into the VCR. There was some mild cursing. But now I can play Sonic! And Earthworm Jim! ("Tender.") For some reason I feel much cooler with a Sega hooked up than I would with a GameCube or a Playstation. I don't know why. (Although Metroid Prime on the 'Cube is most triumphant. That, my friends, is an addictive game.)

The crew on the documentary met at the director's apartment tonight. I had to bum a ride, which is just the pinnacle of humiliation for me anymore. Then, we could not for the love of Kripes find parking, and ended up circling for entire halves of hours. We ended up having to walk a bit, then, neither of us could remember the directions to her specific apartment, or its number, and of course had left said directions in the car. So we wandered around, looking at mailboxes until we found it, so we were a bit late. We all talked and brainstormed and then watched a doc that the director had cut last year, to have an idea of what we'll be doing. It'll be pretty swank, I must say. Really nice quality, and I'm excited now. I guess we're doing a test this weekend, although Amy (the director) wasn't entirely sure, at least to my ear.

I'm starting 24 Season One over again, now that I finished watching it for the first time. I think I'll try to watch an ep every night or so, time allowing, just to try and see things I missed the first time around. One thing that is just fascinating to do is watch Nina, knowing she's the mole. Of course, up till the last few episodes Sarah Clarke didn't know she was the mole and played it straight, but you can still read things into the performance that make it really interesting. Nothing huge in the first hour, which is all I've watched twice so far, but I'm sure it'll be cool when things start to pick up.

I've been reading fan comments about the first season, and I've seen a lot of criticism about Teri's amnesia (which I actually thought was a well set-up arc that had a purpose and played out well) and Dennis Hopper's performance (all such criticisms were entirely warranted), but I've seen little about Kim's relationship with Rick. This to me was really quite squicky, and although it makes some sense when you think of that Patty Hearst identifying with abductors thing (there's an actual word for that, I know), it still just rubbed me the wrong way. This guy knowingly kept her from returning home (whether or not he knew about taking her to Gaines is debatable; I think he did and didn't want to come clean about it), roughed her up a bit, chased her around, and then, when he's in danger, decides to help her out. And she just warms right up to him, to the point of trusting him over the people at CTU. It was just such an odd character decision they made with Kim, and it makes it difficult for me to like her character all the much, because this goes beyond a lack of common sense or her own culpability in sneaking out in the first place; I have little patience for television characters that blindly follow their heart (or loins) when they should obviously be doing something different. This really colors how I view Kim now, in this season.

My Hello Kitty light globe is staring at me, all dark and forlorn, wishing I had got batteries.