Blog – Page 32 – john paganetti

Astronomy Final

Last semester I took astronomy, which was a fairly easy class, and not as interesting as I was hoping it would be. We didn’t really spend much time on the sky, and talking about constellations and such – apparently that’s more astrology. Oh well. So, much of the class was a lab where we would have to do math, and use equations, and generally do things (the complete opposite of what I had expected).

Like good slackers, many of us managed to get by doing as little work as possible. There were some labs where I never had to leave my seat because people would come by with answers, and I would give them some answers I had gotten from someone else. It was wonderful, and we were all doing fairly well in the class, until the Lab Final came around. The lab final was more strict than the standard labs, and we all had to work alone.

Because of our lab habits earlier in the semester, none of us really knew anything, and we were all pretty sure we were going to bomb that final. Our TA knew this, and being the cool guy he is, helped us out in an incredibly cool way. With about 10 minutes left in the final, he went up to the front of the class and told us, “I’m gonna go downstairs and get a snack out of the machine. I’ll be back in a little while.”

So the cheating commenced, and as far as I know, we all did pretty well on that final. It’s nice when people let things that don’t matter slide.

Applied Daydreaming Syllabus

Applied Daydreaming
Instructor: Som Juan
0 Credits – Fall 2008
Meets M/W/F – Time/Place: TBD

Prerequisites
Childhood.

Part I: Course Description and Requirements
You are expected to bring a piece of paper and writing utensil to every class. It is up to you whether you use them or not, but you are expected to bring them.
Each class will feature selected readings from Wuthering Heights, Moby Dick, The Joy Luck Club, and other works conducive to daydreaming. Class will be dismissed 15-20 minutes before the scheduled time to allow people a chance to share what they thought about.

Part II: Class Participation
Strictly forbidden. There will be no questions allowed during class, and any other distractions that would disrupt other students are highly discouraged.
If, however, you wish to practice public speaking, or otherwise help out with the class, talk to the instructor after class. It can be arranged for you to read from the text during one or more of the class sessions.

Part III: Course Objectives
The aim of this course is to help students rediscover daydreaming by exposing them to situations where daydreaming is unavoidable. This is not a course discussing the merits, styles, or philosophy of daydreaming.

Part IV: Grading Policy
Grades are based entirely on attendance. There will be no test or quizzes, and all homework is optional. At the end of the semester, the student will grade their own performance based on the quality and quantity of their class sessions.

Crap

Joe: in general, the old one was really unsuccessful because it was crap
John: makes sense
Joe: whereas the new one was crap with special effects, so it was successful
John: new one wasn’t crap
Joe: it was visually astounding crap
John: ok
Joe: special effects
John: but shouldn’t that take it out of the realm of crap?
Joe: no, that’s kind of the point i’m making
John: I’m pretty sure a golden turd could be sold as a paperweight or something
Joe: like i said, it made it successful
Joe: but a golden turd is still a turd
John: :-/
Joe: you can sell golden turds, sure
John: its also a paperweight
Joe: a regular turd could be a paperweight too, it’d just be messier
John: I’m going to confuse this metaphor until I win

Paint the Bus

Alright, so here’s the status for the summer. In the next few weeks we’ll be building the interior (very rough, but the hard stuff will be out of the way). After that, on August 16th (its a Saturday) we will paint the bus. You’re invited. Everyone is.
Bring paint. I don’t […]

Bring paint. I don’t have enough paint, so bring some if you plan on using any. I recommend spray paint, just because it’ll be easier, but if you’re bringing other kinds of paint, bring whatever you’ll need along with you. One big thing is to make sure the paint you bring is meant for exterior use.

There is no real plan for the paint job. Paint what you want. Look at what the person next to you is doing, and work off of that. The only restriction is that we can’t have anything blatantly illegal or offensive. I want to be able to get in to places, and I don’t want to get pulled over any more often than we already will.

If you want to drop by on Friday and help wash the bus, feel free to. Bring girls in bikinis. If it rains or something on Saturday we’ll just paint on Sunday. Hope to see you there!

Evil

I have found the most evil creation in all of existence. I’m down in PA at my aunt’s house for the week, helping her paint and get the house looking awesome, and I found something while cleaning out one of these rooms. She has sheets and sheets of bubble wrap, specially made to not pop. Instead of a single isolated bubble, all of the bubbles in a line are connected, to make a larger air pocket. So when you press, the air just compresses in another chamber, and nothing pops. Evil.

Grey Fox 2008

Grey Fox was pretty damn cool. It shouldn’t be surprising, but I wasn’t confident in the new place. When we first arrived, we drove through the (new) ghetto. Even though its a lot nicer than the old one, its not really a great first impression. The next thing I saw was flat. It turns out this isn’t as bad as I figured it would be, and really makes the whole place much more accessible. And the view from the amphitheater isn’t bad, although nowhere near the old place. It was the top of the amphitheater that sold me on the place. From there you can look down on the stage, and past that the camping. I was able to camp up there, and I’m certain it made the whole experience better.

Ron Thomason, in his infinite wisdom, put it well. He said, “I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve mentioned that they miss the other site. And that’s just the way it oughta be, because think of all the good times we had there. And the way I kinda look at it is: I ain’t done havin them yet, and I hope you all ain’t either.” That pretty much set the tone for this year’s fest.

One thing that bugged me more this year than in previous years was my allergies. For some reason, living in a hay field for a week didn’t sit well with my allergies, and I was almost constantly congested. I quickly found out that if I was working on something, or walking around, my nose wasn’t clogged. So I would go for walks instead of sitting around, just so I could breathe comfortably. It was kind of like Crank, with snot.

It struck me as weird this year, because I realized that I probably won’t be there next year. Granted I won’t be too upset about missing it for the tour, but there are many great people there who I only see once a year. I think I’ll have to bring the bus to visit some of them.

I’ve got a bunch of pictures of the new site on Flickr. Someday I’ll probably take pictures of people or things that happen there, but it’ll probably be a while. I think I take pictures of the physical place because the environment there is so hard to explain and convey, in either photographs or text. Video could work, but anything short of being there just doesn’t do it justice.

I’ll try to write a couple stories about Grey Fox (both past and present). Its weird that I wrote so damn much about my one time at Bonnaroo, but I’ve barely written anything about a festival I’ve been going to for twenty-one years.

I’ve got a lot of dogs in the fire

I’ve been extremely busy this last week. Its probably a theme that’ll continue for the rest of the summer. Landshark work, bus work, a new scheme thing I’m working on – lots of work. And then, just the normal social things that go along with summer. I’ve actually had to just take a day or two and put them aside to do nothing. Because things don’t stop.

Tomorrow morning I’m taking off for a week to go to Grey Fox, at its new location. It looks flat and boring, but hopefully things will work out.

Revue

Did some theater hopping today. I’m getting familiar with where each theater is by its number.

Hancock was meh. If you saw I Am Legend and were disappointed when it failed to reach its potential, then you will be very disappointed with Hancock.

Next was Wall-e. Wall-e is loaded with social commentary, which I wasn’t expecting. Anyway, Wall-e is pretty much a smaller, cuter Johnny 5, and you do end up caring for the characters, even though they’re robots.

We popped in on Wanted while waiting for the next movie to start. I’d seen Wanted before in its entirety. It still sucks. This is sad because it makes Wanted the second movie to break the Morgan Freeman Rule. Oh well, we still got to hear Morgan Freeman say “motherfucker.”

Get Smart was ok. Most of its jokes were pretty spread out, but they were all pretty good.

I don’t expect anything else decent to come out until the Dark Knight.

Cleaning up

So I posted a thing on Craigslist about free bus seats, to see if I could get rid of them (the fact that they only have legs on one side make them hard to sell). One dude just came by to get a couple for his dorm room, and a couple people are popping by later to grab some more. Now is your chance, if you want one. Tell your friends, or anyone who’ll listen. Once this bus is empty, we can get working again.

I heart fireworks

We bought an assload of fireworks this year. No more than normal, actually, but we had some left from previous years that made the whole stash seem a bit bigger. Most of it we blew up in a big field near a friend’s house in Niantic. A handful were saved for “future occasions”, so we lit those off last night with Fran.

I like how Phantom’s website has videos in flash now. It didn’t help me in buying anything this year, but I think we’ll stop buying assortments next year and see what we can do.