Any Superman fans out there?
So do you remember how he died, then was gone for a while, then came back, only more powerful than before? Well, the same sort of thing has happened to me. only I don't wear tights. Not in public, anway.
But I am more powerful than before. Scary, isn't it?
In any case, I've been a busy bee. First of all, as you can see below, I've migrated all of the old posts from the xanga site to here, right down to the comments. Everything you need should be available through this domain, so to those of you with blogs, change your links. So what have I been up to, you ask? Well, quite a bit, as I will likely discuss in future posts.
Let's see...so I'm back in Ithaca, and surprisingly happy about it. Aside from taking a class, I'm working on a super-cool project in
Human-Computer Interaction group at cornell. (Take a sec to look at their logo. Yes, it is a little stick figure with a squiggly line to a box, presumably representing a high-tech computer. Apparently, not only is the Information Science department on the cutting edge in HCI, but also in squiggly-line development technologies. My theory is that at some point they needed a logo, and someone drew out this one, likely on a napkin. And then they forgot about it. Silly researchers.) We're developing a nifty little system to help directionally impaired people such as myself find their way around Cornell's sprawling rural campus. I do not know how to tell if a campus is sprawling or not, but Cornell's campus definitely sprawls. It sprawls the begeezus out of Columbia's campus. The system, using GPS and wireless technology, will show a person using a palm computer or a
smart phone where he/she is on a campus map. In addition, it will direct users to "hidden collections," such as the
kinematic model collection or the brains collection. Supposedly, the brains collection, a set of (disembodied) human brains, are the possession of the Department of Psychology, though I was under the impression that psychologists studied
living brains. If my suspicions are correct, the brains
really belong to Cornell's Department of Necromancy and Zombie-Related Activity (NeZRAc), but let's just keep that between you and me.
So I think that brings you up to date, with the big things at least. I'll give you some of the little things here and there, which much more regularity than once every four months. Oh, and one more thing. If you haven't yet noticed, I've started a
second blog, one which will be for more serious stuff - my musings (some Jewish, some not) and maybe a bit of poetry. I have a couple of poems up there, but look for a real introductory post there in the nearish future.
Before I sign off, in the interest of full discretion, I should make a few rather important clarifications. I intentionally do not follow the style of many bloggers, who frequently link to humorous or interesting pieces scattered throughout the web and in other blogs. For the time being, at least, I have dedicated myself to bringing you a set of somewhat more original humor than your average blog. Which is not to say that I don't occansionally borrow
other writers' styles, but that's an altogether more acceptable and clever form of plagiarism. And being clever is what counts. But the material on this site is original, to the benefit of both the reader and my ego. Which brings me to my next point.
This blog, this whole hours-consuming enterprise, is merely an elaborate attempt to boost my ego. As the third of three children, as the kid picked last in gym, as the kid who (no kidding) was fed worms and put in the dryer by his older siblings, it's time to fight back aginst a world which has ignored me and all it has to offer me for too long. I am self-possessed, hear me roar!
This blog is for my ego. That is its purpose. The more people read it, the better I feel about myself. I suspect that this is true of many blogs out there, but I am coming out and saying it. You, my readers, are here for my amusement, for my enjoyment. Dance, monkeys, dance!
Ah, this is the life.
If only these tights didn't chafe so much.
Yes! My costume could involve not only nudity, but action as well! After Shabbat, I set to work. I had a trenchcoat already, and I realized that wearing my dress shoes with no socks on accentuated my beautiful unclad legs. So I was done from the neck down. Then, to round it out, I borrowed a sketchy hat from one friend, and some apt sunglasses from another. I was set. I had only to go out to the party and expose myself. I know what a lot of you are thinking. "Ilan? You did WHAT?! You've GOTTA be kidding me." (Except for you, Charlie. You're probably thinking "Cheese. What if I was made of cheese?" But you're special, Charlie.) Your incredulity is justified, I must admit, but sometimes, a man has to do what a man has to do, and sometimes those two men are really one and the same. I went to the masquerade, and I gloriously threw open my coat in front of crowds, and while I did not win the costume contest due to blatant favoritism and/or disgust, man, was it liberating.
For the benefit of our younger viewers, and in case I ever want to run for a public office higher than Assistant Dogcatcher, I have only included the "before" picture here in plain view. But for those few voyeuristic readers who just need to see it, look here for what's behind the trenchcoat. Don't forget to zoom in!
