Y’know how, like, during a regular semester, you’re like, “Oh, cool, I’ve got six weeks to get these assignments done”?

It’s sort of like that in a minimester, except, since it’s a minimester, the time frame is greatly reduced, and it just clicked in my brain that our last regular day of class is next Monday (the final is on Tuesday), and I’ve still got three of the take-home quizzes to do.

Tonight I wrote a two-page paper exploring Falstaff in regards to being a coward: was he or wasn’t he? I referenced Klingons, defined the paper in the scope of being “highly subjective”, and came to the conclusion that he wasn’t — I mean, c’mon, he did fight Douglas, leader of the Scots, before throwing his blade down and playing dead. That’s gotta count for something.

Tomorrow I’m writing a scene analysis of Henry V, the Laurence Olivier 1944 film (because the Branaugh film was unavailable on Netflix), scene 4.3 — the famous “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” speech. I’m also working to finish a report on the longbow which enabled the vastly outnumbered English forces to defeat the French at the Battle of Argincourt as depicted in the play.

I’ll be happy to turn in two tonight; thrilled if I can turn in all three.

The end is in sight. (And it looks like a speeding freight train).

After ceasing on the Patrick O’Brien Aubrey/Maturin series of a British ship captain and his surgeon during the Napoleonic Wars, I recently dove back in where I’d left off, with book #13, “The Thirteen Gun Salute”, wherein Aubrey and Maturin are off once again to foil the vile cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

I’ve been re-thinking my abandoned Zeus project. Here’s my concept:

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The finished project’ll actually look more like the top image, but taking interior details from the latter: like, a common gun-deck, and a stable so that the ship’s officers and crews can have freshly slaughtered livestock.

From the funniest series of science-fiction books (ever!), Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, I present, from smartiac’s Brickshelf gallery, the starship that thinks it’s a sneaker, Heart of Gold … in brick. Which, y’know, depending on how the improbability drive is feeling, might not be all that improbable…

I’ve seen that title show up on lots of blogs lately, but I’ve been busy enough with school and work — excuses, I know — that instead of exploring the why of the title, preferring instead my usual snarky response, namely: “You’re right! Condoms belong on penises, and penises belong in vaginas!” Of course, for those gay men who enjoy having anal sex with other men, and for those straight men who enjoy having anal sex with girls, wearing a condom is equally as important: it isn’t just for keeping someone from getting pregnant, but primarily to prevent the spread of STDs.

So, back to the title, I was grateful to read a post on The Needs of the Few which does an excellent job of explaining the origin of the phrase and the stupidity of some fucker with the improbably name of Frosty Hardison. Go there if you want to read up on it, because it is 12:22am as I write this, I’m tired and have a long day tomorrow, and I want to go to bed — but I’ve still got a little more to go before I end this.

I don’t know if global warming is real or not. I don’t. All I know is that tonight I was walking into my apartment building sometime after 9pm and it was warm enough outside I would have been very comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt. And not “comfortable enough to run from my car to my apartment” warm, but “comfortable enough to take the top off my hypothetical Jeep and go for a drive” warm. It is the middle of January, which is supposed to be the coldest month of the year (or one of them, anyway), and it feels like a beautiful Spring day. Maybe this unusual weather is the result of El Nino, or some freak natural occurance, or maybe some religious group’s God decided he wanted to fuck with all of us. But it seems to me that since the industrial revolution, we’ve been putting a lot of pollutants into our environment, and the Earth might not be reacting all that well to what we’ve been putting out there. A liberal conspiracy? Maybe, but I prefer to think of it as common sense.

Tomorrow — er, today — a cold front is supposed to hit us and winter will finally behave like winter. I hope so, not because I don’t like the warm weather, but because hopefully a cold winter will make people remember how much they want a nice hot pizza delivered, and maybe I’ll actually make some money.

Here’s to January: be a bitter freezing bitch, first month of the year!