Going to Detroit tomorrow! Visiting my old roommate for a few days.

so i've not shaved in a week and a half or so. first i had the cool stubble thing going, then it went into an awkward more than stubble but not quite beard thing, but now its in cool (dare i say sexy?) actual beardness. oh yeah

"that's ok cause so are you"

Yay! I thought I lost my cell phone yesterday, which would have been a bit of a hassle, but it was discovered safe, sound. Now I can go back to not actually calling most of the #s i have saved in it. But i have the option to call now, which is important :)

"Wanna be my lady in the water?" If a gentleman asked a woman this, would it be:
a. good
b. bad
c. creepy
d. other (please specify)

Advice for all you out there-if you start dancing to "My Cherie Amour" in the supermarket, someone may walk by and see you. Just a tip.

Any suggestions for things to do in DC over a weekend?

Today may be one of those not leaving the apartment days. Me and the world wide web to keep me company.

The tapwater tastes a bit strange today. I suspect a communist plot to contaminate our precious bodily fluids.

(lest anyone think i'm weird, or at least weirder than i really am, i hope you get the movie reference)

Saw the original episode of Miami Vice Saturday night on NBC. It was great!
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen it, stop reading here, as I'm about to list some highlights.


Crockett (Don Johnson)'s partner, played by Jimmy Smits, perishing in an explosion from a rigged car during a drug deal. And unlike those shows that just cut from the actor to the explosion to imply the person is being killed, they actually showed, for a split second, the guy (or more likely a dummy dressed like him) fly out of frame from the force of the explosion.

Crockett punching his new partner Tubbs after Tubbs saying something out of line to him, then Tubbs, after accepting Crockett's apology, suddendly punching Crockett in return-good old male bonding.

Tubbs starting to go downstairs for ice on Crockett's houseboat after the punchfest to be greated by Crockett's pet Alligator!

Tubbs indignant racial attitude. See: "I know we all look alike to you"

Random breakdancers/ pop-lockers on the streets

The obligatory meeting bad guy in the strip club scene.

Tubbs and Crockett taking out several bad guys (who have automatic weapons) in a shootout without even having to duck behind anything.

Crockett and Tubbs meeting after Crockett, in his sportscar, chasing the guy who ends up being Tubbs who is driving a SPEEDBOAT (yes, the car on land is chasing the speedboat in the water). At one point, Crockett's car is flipped on its two left wheels then falls back onto all fours, all without even slowing down. Also Tubbs thinks he's escaped by hiding under a bridge, but of course when he starts to pull out from under it Crockett jumps down and lands behind him and punches Tubbs as he turns around.

the 80s. that's what they were like.

First time I heard a sermon that started by talking about Fear Factor.

Also had dinner w/ J-dawg and her boyfriend (as well as her sister and the boyfriend's friends). Twas good-we made calzones, chatted, all that.

Ah dreams. Had one this morning that involved me being in a class taught by Cornell West and being put in a group of other black guys (probably inspired by seeing the wedding party yesterday) for an assignment. Then I go into Harvard Square (I think) with a friend (I think) where I run into a girl that I used to have a crush on. She does that playful thing where she comes up behind me and puts her hands over my eyes and says something to me. I, having seen her reflection a few seconds before, am like "Hey ___" and she's like 'how did you know who it was?' I do confess to having caught a glimpse of her. I think we kinda flirted a bit more in the dream (remembe that this is more than I have done in real life with her or anyone else for that matter, and I'm pretty sure this particular girl in real life has no idea i used to like her). I then return to class and realize I've forgotten to do the assignment. I consider skipping out on the class (it was established at some point that we got two absent days during the semester) for fear of being called on during lecture.

So basically this dream combined my chronic unrequited crush-ing angst and my recurring fear of being caught unprepared in school (which has inspired many many dreams for some reason).

The streak continues. The Electric Slide has now been played at 103,247,322 black weddings :)

Seriously though, went to a wedding this morning. It was fun. Some highlights (in the sense of amusing me):

The pastor saying that one of the keys to a happy marriage was to keep passion in your bedroom. Then repeating it many times, emphasizing "your."

The best man putting the garter on the woman who caught the bouquet and her leg hiking very high up suddenly (I thought he was the one to do the hiking but my mom insists she did it herself).

The older guy with the big afro leading dances when most people were too shy to get up and move.

The bride's very enthusiastic response of "yes, I will!" to the vows (even more stark in contrast to the groom, who was obviously happy but spoke in a low voice that most of us couldn't hear).

The best man (if i heard right) saying " 'gratulations" to the groom during a toast.

The ringbearer (the grooms 9 yr old son) walking down the aisle with both flowergirls when the wedding party came back for the reception.

Cut my hair for the first time in almost a year. I've been meaning to do it for a while, and figured it'd be nice to be clean for the wedding i'm going to tomorrow. My head looks so small now though. On the bright side, should i choose to wear a hat at some point, i can.

So does the fact that my nose occasionally bleeds for no apparent reason make me a bit nerdy? Or am i that for other, non-nose reasons?

I seem to have little motivation to write this paper of mine.

So Israel has, according to reports, killed almost 200 civilians in Lebanon. I do understand that they need to secure their country and that if people were launching rockets into DC or Boston that were randomly falling in the city and sometimes killing people, we'd want to stop that and rightly so. But at what cost?

A military analyst for CBS said that, because Israel uses military force to recover its captured soldiers whereas the US only searches for them w/o using force, Israel places a greater value on "human life" than we do. Um, I somehow don't see killing a highly disproportionate number of citizens (and mainly civilians at that) in other countries to rescue a few represents a greater value placed on human life. It is placing a greater value on ISRAELI life, and by implication a lesser value on the lives of others.

There was also an ambassador from Israel who said that the difference between Israel and the groups like Hezbollah were that everytime Israel kills a civilian in one of their countries, its an accident and a great tragedy, whereas when they kill an Israeli citizen, its a victory. While I agree that the second half of statement is true of groups like Hezbollah and that that makes them morally worse in an important way, I think the first half of that statement vastly overstates the Israeli government's moral high ground. I don't think they purposely kill civilians, but when they do so accidentally its not because of a tragic mistake despite their utmost efforts to avoid so. They take calculated risks of hitting civilians to achive their goals, and it doesn't look like they are too hesitant to launch missiles or bombs that will, not only possibly, but probably kill civilians (sometimes if fairly large numbers as in Lebanon). They aren't trying to target civilians, but i doubt they are very broken up when they do, as long as they get their target.

Back in Maryland. Apartment hunting went well, but then didn't. After seeing 8 apartments in one day, we narrowed it down to 2. But just before leaving to go back to DC (yay 8 hour train rides!-no, really, they're fun when you have a lot of CDs) one of the other roommates had to pull out, so we had to start over. Some new places for us have been found, so its not a total loss by any means, but did put some wrinkles in our plans. Alas, such stuff happens.

Lots of apartments to look at tomorrow. Wish me well.

Also lots of girls dressing down around Cambridge due to the heat. Must avert eyes :)

Made it back to Boston. Good old 10 hour train rides (it usually takes 8 hours from DC, but this one was scheduled to go longer for some reason). At least it got here on time, as the train rarely does. Didn't get as much sleep as i wanted as the guy behind was doing the loudest (and kinda gross sounding) snoring i've ever heard in person. Also I think there was a girl on the train I know from Harvard, but I don't really know her that well and wasn't sure it was her, so i kinda walked by her and waited to see if she showed any signs of recognizing me. She didn't, but I hope she didn't think i was being rude (well maybe i was). Mainly i was just being awkward, as i tend to do.

So I'm currently praying for Gaza and Israel and Lebanon. At first I was somewhat sympathetic of Israel going to great lengths to recover their kidnapped soldier, even if other factors were at play. I've thought before about if i were president or head of some organization like the UN (yes, i have modest, realistic goals for life), I'd like to be able to guarantee the safety of my citizens all over the world, especially if they were doing something important, like UN relief work (on top of the horrors inflicted on the local people of places like Darfur, it also really saddens me when relief workers trying to help the situation are targeted as well, and i see agencies either just accept it or pull out, as I guess they don't have other viable options). I may have gotten the idea from a West Wing episode where, fairly early in the President's administration, there's a terrorist attact that kills American citizens and he is angry and wants to have some kind of big, as opposed to measured or proportional, response, evoking the protection of citizens of ancient Rome anywhere in the world.

But all that aside, this current Israeli response seems to be spiralling out of control. At first they were causing massive damage (and probably inflicting hardships on a lot of people, blowing up bridges and power stations and whatnot), but at least it seemed that people weren't dying. But now dozens of people have died, including those in the recent clashes in Lebanon, including civilians. Now I'm not really a utilitarian or anything like that, but causing the deaths of dozens of people in order to save one (now three, counting the two soldiers captured by Hezbollah) is pretty ridiculous in my opinion. Just to be clear, I'm also not one to blame Israel for everything-I'm actually pretty sympathetic to them a lot of the time, and in these conflicts I think that those who target civilians intentionally are worse than those who do not (though i think that discounting civilians as collateral damage is not that much better morally). I think the militants linked to Hamas and Hezbollah have a big part of the blame here, but i also hold Israel, as a state and one that portrays itself as the victim, to a higher standard (as I do the US in its war on terror, war in Iraq, etc). This means that I think they should show a LOT more respect for life, especially civilian life, even if their enemies might not and it may lessen the advantage that the Israel (or the US) has over their enemies. And when i talk about respect for life and especially for civilian life, I mean all of them, not just the ones that are Israeli (or US) citizens.

Pray.

getting ready to head up to cambridge this weekend to look at apartments. so apparently if you wait to book plan tickets a couple of days before your trip, they get expensive. who knew?

Going to a wedding in 2 weeks. My mom's friend's son is getting married to someone, so i'm going w/ mi madre. Finally gives me a chance to wear my suit. Though i probably won't be meeting any women (the thought of me and my mom scoping potential dates Wedding Crashers style is a little disconcerting). Or is it? Yes, yes it is.

i don't remember ever seeing a headbutt to the chest before.

Renewed desire to get to know God better

Yes! Internet is back! Now to mindlessly surf...

Yay! Power!

So power was restored around 4pm yesterday, right after i left for my second library trip to charge my phone, and a mere 47 hours after the initial failure. Apparently a neighbor went down to the work crew and talked to the manager. He claimed not to know that our power was still out (the rest of the area had it restored the morning after it went out but our neighborhood had not). This is despite the fact that the power company had a recording set up telling us when they expected our power to be restored (with the deadline shifting each time my mom called them). Assuming said power company has not made incredible advances in artificial intelligence (sorry, i've had that snide comment in my mind since yesterday), someone at the company did realize we were out of lights. Second, it seems that the reason we were out was that some guys had knocked some things loose during a previous repair job, so that the storm on the 4th finished dislodging whatever parts they had jarred. Oh well, its back on now so i'm happy.

Of course, we've since had problems with the phone lines, meaning my internet isn't working and i'm am back at the library yet again :)

So still without power at my house (in the library at the moment). The 11:30 am deadline for having the lights back on seems to have not held. Oh well, there have been a few benefits. Besides listening to a lot of music (Alanis Morrisette has a few issues), I've had romantic candlelight dinners the last two nights. Granted they were alone (unless you count my mom in the other room, though I don't think that adds to the romance :)), but still, not something i usually do. Alas. It is interesting to just have some quiet time though and reflect or whatnot, so it hasn't been a total loss. Still, electricity and hot water would be nice.

So yesterday (the 4th) around 5pm we had a storm and our power went out. We're estimated to get it back by 11:30am tomorrow (the 6th). In the meantime, it's been giving me a chance to catch up on my CDs. Listened to two Run DMC albums that i had bought a while back (really entertaining even though its about 20 years later), the first EPMD album (with a lot of samples and beats that have been reused in later songs by people like Jay-Z and Nas among others), a live Michael W. Smith album (a Christian artists whose CD i picked up a long time ago and initially didn't like that much but have grown to really enjoy, especially as some of the songs are used by Harvard Radcliffe Christian Fellowship and thus have a deeper meaning for me now that i've sung them w/ others) and a Live (the band) album, though i did fall asleep listening to that one (not bc it was boring but just bc it was late at night and dark). Currently at the library. Wish me luck :)

Went out w/ CB and her boyfriend today (they;re in town for her friend's wedding). We had vegetarian indian food. it was good, as was seeing them. I found out there was written music for drums, dashing my hopes of becoming a drummer. Sadness (not really though).

So with the Fourth coming up, i was thinking about this whole flag burning amendment thing, which failed to pass by one vote in the Senate. Now I understand that people feel strongly about it, but i really don't see how so many people, especially legislators, don't see making such an amendment as a big infringement on free speech. Granted a lot of them were probably supporting it just for political gain and not true conviction, but still the fact that it came so close to passing Congress is kinda scary. And even the argument that burning the flag is action and not speech (i think i heard Diane Feinstein make that argument to explain her support for the amendment this morning), why should someone not be allowed to burn a piece of their own property if they like. Now, I don't think its generally a good idea to insult people that way. I personally find other things more offensive, like burning crosses (not just because I'm black but also because I'm Christian), but i think there's a big difference btwn something being offensive and it being worthy of outlawing. And really, even moreso that the stuff congress often considers, arent there more important things to be done. Alas.

So i felt kind of bad-my friend (lets call him "G"), had this important meeting earlier this week in Boston (concerning money for youth jobs, which is really important for them for keeping kids out of trouble and danger over the summer), but i didn't call him to see how it went. and when i saw him online just now, i was about to IM him but he called me before i got a chance. Not that he seemed upset or anything about me not calling, but i did want to do so this time before he called me. Darn my lack of effective concern. hey, there he is now on the phone.