Random stuff
I burned myself again last night while boiling noodles. I was standing over the stove, trying to break in half a stack of noodles so they'd fit in the pot, and when they finally cracked, my right hand jerked into the pot of boiling water. Fortunately I got lots of cold water on my hand promptly (after I got the noodles all squared away) so it looks like I'll avoid the nasty blisters I had from my last cooking incident.
Right now I'm listening to "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill", a CD which I only bought and got into a year ago, six years after it came out. I was just thinking about how it's not uncommon for me to catch up to cultural phenomena only years after they're relevant. I only really started to like "Beavis and Butthead" and Nirvana after their cancellation and Cobain's suicide, respectively. I'm probably almost ready to start appreciating "South Park" by now (in my defense, I've only rarely seen it, but I know many people who adore it, so I expect I will someday too). I'm skeptical of any heavily-hyped new thing ... it took me years to get around to reading the Harry Potter books (which I now enjoy).
I used to be legitimately worried that I liked the music that I liked only because it was (mostly) obscure; that being a snobbish culture asshole was more important to me than appreciating the innate value of things. I've decided that's not the case though. I'm definitely a snobbish asshole, but my snobbery is completely justified. People (and here I'm not talking to you, the blog reader, but the unwashed masses), get some taste why don't you!
My girlfriend occasionally peruses MTV when she needs some brain candy, and I've taken the opportunity to make a careful examination of the many and varied shows that they offer. My analysis: all of the shows on MTV are complete ass and I hate them, except for The Andy Milonakis Show, which is surprisingly watchable.
The Lauryn Hill album is really damn good, by the way.
Oh, and someone made a model of the Sears Tower using Jenga blocks. It's not clear if they used glue or something -- if not, that takes huge balls. It falls over, it could kill someone.
posted by contrarybear @ 2:36 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
i was like that in school. i used to not understand the math of the 2nd grade until i got into the 3rd grade and so on. always too little, too late. not that i ever applied myself.
i was more into languages.
Mia: I'm a snobbish asshole because I reflexively think anything popular must be watered-down and inane. Fortunately, that's not always the case.
NH: I took four different foreign languages at different times in school, which means I know all of them slightly and none of them remotely well. I wish Dutch was more popular outside Holland, or had more famous literature. Are there any Dutch novels that would be worth it to read in the original language?
Mmmmmm.... no.
I've asked the question of colleagues about books to read in Dutch and got more or less the same answer. I enjoyed trying to read Marcel Möring's _In Babylon_ in Dutch, but got distracted and never finished. I did get through _Han de Wit gaat in ontwikkelingshulp_, but that was a lot like some 10th grade assigned reading. I saw this description of a Mulisch novel and may try that one of these days.
Onno and I were just discussing Dutch literature the other day, because someone had asked me if he evers reads in Dutch (he doesn't). So I asked him why that is, are there any Dutch authors worth reading, and he basically said no. He doesn't care for Harry Mulisch and there was one guy he liked, but he said he's too into pushing the envelope and being weird now.
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