penn christmas

it is that time of the year. we've all witnessed the mounds of debris that accumulate following the end of the school year in the face of looming move-out-by dates. but i have seen nothing in this league. this isn't just grab some functional shit and hold a garage sale material; there are several things worth taking and keeping, including a bunch of shit that has literally never been used. i personally kept it to a minimum because i could easily imagine myself thinking things useful and deciding upon move-out that they are not so useful as to be moved. we spent very nearly all our time in front of one house with fifty feet of curb covered in crap, in some cases the general connotation of crap, and other cases the bad connotation kind of crap. thankfully no literal crap. strangely, one of the girls who lived at the house responsible for the pile and a friend of hers came out and poked around a little with us. they were chatting about how wasteful the whole thing is, which confused me as it was presumably partially their shit. turned out it belonged almost exclusively to other already-gone roommates. in any event, they were really nice and let us in to see if we could find anything else we might want. some things are better gotten from directly inside a house than off the curb on a day when it rained heavily in the morning and afternoon. we helped them clear out the fridges (yes, plural) and gave us most of the beer leftovers, few cans of bud/coors light, whatever it was free. i kept some ethernet cable, an extension cord, a wine key, and a flask. the flask is like new; probably used once. my buddy found it inside a bag inside of something else. you do have to sift to find the good stuff.
i wasn't interested in accumulating large items or additional kitchenware (TONS of it), but other people made some serious scores. one dude had a poker table, one of the nice ones with all the notches and stuff. he wound up with a set of what appeared to be almost never used golf clubs in a nice bag from the basement of this same house. not that i'm gonna golf, but that shit is worth a bunch of money. same guy also wound up with a hookah, also in the basement. one passerby enthusiastically seized on a bag of women's lacrosse goalkeeper equipment. at this point i was just standing around so i struck up a conversation with the guy. he explained that this was precisely what he had been looking for: padding he could vacuum re-mold. of course. he did not say what he was going to re-mold it into, and i should have asked. somebody else picked around everything for a long time and took only partially empty spice containers. overall, most of what was left around were household essentials, and the heart of the situation is that people decide they would rather purchase the same things over again in some form than move these things with them, for whatever reason. also a disturbing amount of books. that being said, we still did quite well. i helped haul a never-opened package that was a metal shelving unit from ikea, twenty liquor glasses (mostly margarita; now we have no choice but to have a margarita party - tough life out here), a never-used air mattress with auto-pump, a lava lamp in fine condition, a working cell phone with charger (discovered in the following manner: cell phone charger? fuck that, won't work with any phone we knew for sure, twenty minutes later find the cell phone, spend the next half hour finding the charger back), two ziplock bags full of change (these people were literally throwing money away, yes there were quarters), six miro prints in a nice informative laminated sleeve (in synchronicity (marked! fuck you spell check) news, the wikipedia link for the artist refers to steely dan at one point, and i'm currently playing countdown to ecstasy), some other random shit like garlic and shallots and flashlights and a shower clock, and a nifty collapsible handcart to help schlep it all of the few blocks back.
did finally manage to make it through finals at the end of last week if anyone wondered. went pretty well. the foodery did indeed pose the most perplexing situation on friday. it went well, and i am currently enjoying one of the selections, rock art's double esb. pretty good, not unlike a big ipa or a smaller double ipa, 80 ibus and 8 percent abv. only real difference is in the hops, not typical of american ipas. still have a double simcoe ipa in the fridge, looking forward to that.
the kensington kinetic sculpture thing was on saturday and we made it down there. the kinetic sculpture thing had nothing on baltimore, but the race was part of a larger artsy festival thing, which was alright. some serious hipster-watching time. some pretty decent art too, and also some ridiculous stuff for sale for too much money. got to see some parts of the city i hadn't before, and that would have been enough for me anyway. philadelphia brewing company was there, but unfortunately i didn't have any cash; there was also some aromatic food making me wish i had sold my books back earlier. when i did sell them i went to dock street, so all was not lost. anyway, the "race" was a fun thing to do on the first day of nothing to do in some time. it was also my sister's birthday and we went to a bar i enjoyed despite its suspicious location in old city. hoptimus prime on tap is an argument in its favor, but the lack of an unbearable douchebag quotient was most key. a good time was had by all.
i also found out that i did get that research assistant job with my property prof. knowing i have something is a huge load off, especially down to the wire like it was; found out minutes before my last exam. unfortunately i haven't heard back on details since responding to the offer, but i'm sure the guy is busy trying to grade some exams and raise some kids. in any event, i'm looking forward to it, and that is a pleasant change of pace from the cloud of uncertainty about what to do this summer. almost even looking forward to fall semester now that i get to choose a few classes. i spent i good chunk of today trying to get that figured out. one thing i really want to take has these bizarre prerequisite requirements which are basically that you took all the first-year courses and then like one of eight possible other things. i think that is bullshit; if any one of eight classes can qualify, how important can that background be? not important enough to keep me out of this colloquium is the answer to that. law and human behavior is the topic, and i can't think of a whole lot that i would rather study at law school.
technology update: i am getting a new phone. this one still fucks up constantly. it gets better sometimes and then just sucks again when i need it not to do so. i hate how reliant i am on the thing, but it has nonetheless become something i expect will work constantly and it bothers me when it does not. as for the computer, things seem to be going well. i can now just shut the screen and let it hibernate again; for a while i had to shut it down fully or it would start to drain the battery while claiming to be using ac power. unfortunately, i tried to use the computer in a somewhat clumsy state the other evening (mondays at the mill creek, i have returned) and something went wrong with the power supply. i tried to remedy the situation, one thing led to another, and the end result was that one of the prongs for the outlet part of the thing broke off. dismayed, i decided to deal with it in the morning. this morning i recalled when i originally took the computer in to the store. i brought my power supply just in case, and the guy told me i needed a new power supply and so on. he also told me i had to take my old one back with me, stating that it was my trash, not theirs. trash it might be, but fortunately the separable part of the power supply goes from the transformer to the wall, and that chunk from the old one combined with the main part of the new one has me in good shape. lucked out big time on that one.
tomorrow i still do not have any real work to do. i will try to clean some i think. if it is nice out i will probably make the trek to get another bag of outrageously priced cat food. maybe do a little grocery shopping. also hoping to get my first crack at grand theft auto 4. i don't care what anybody has to say about it, good or bad, i just want to play it. i am pretty sure it will rule. i haven't played regular video games in a while, so we'll see how it goes. not a bad agenda to have.