Month: October 2003

I apologize. I know I haven’t been writing much lately. You can blame one girl for all this. Sue Conover. That’s right. Yours truly (Miles Rausch) is once again involved with a theatrical production.

This time instead of putting on the apparel of a Jewish hat maker, I am donning the garb of a wealthy Italian gentleman off to college. DSU is doing its version of “The Taming of the Shrew”.

I play a character named “Lucentio” (pronounced loo-SENT-chee-oh). Lucentio is a wealthy college student. His father has sent him to Padua (pronounced PAJ-ooa), from Pisa (pronounced PEE-zuh), to attend university there. While reveling in the beauty of the countryside, he sees (and falls for) the lovely Bianca (pronounced bee-AWN-ku). Lucentio and his servant Tranio (pronounced TRAWN-ee-oh) learn that the fair Bianca cannot be courted and wed until her UberBeast of a Sister, Katherine (pronounced kath-uh-REEN-uh) is wed. They hatch a plan.

The Lucentio plot is that he pretends to be a Latin Teacher/Tennis Star, Cambio (pronounced CAM-bee-oh). Bianca’s daddy, Baptista (pronounced bap-TEEST-uh), allows Cambio to instruct her. Meanwhile, another Pisan gentlemen, Hortensio (pronounced whore-TENSE-see-oh), is pretending to be a guitarist named Litio (pronounced LEE-chee-oh) with the same scheme in mind.

Dmmt.

They battle for the girl, with Lucentio winning. The infamous Hortensio instead decides to wed a widow played by Quinn Swenson (pronounced quinn-swen-SON), while Lucentio and Bianca enjoy their wedding in the final scene. One other thing that happens is the taming of a person quite shrew-like, but that’s not important because none of those characters are I… me (pronounced MY-uhls).

My guitar, also, will be featured in this monumental mockery of Shakespearean stuff. If I can ever teach Rob how to tune it, it may even sound not too bad up there. He sings terribly, but my guitar sings wonderfully… unless you push down the high e string on the third fret. Ooo, God. That’s awful.

There is a dark side to this play, however. Missed lines, bawfled entrances and erroneous lights, sound, and set have plagued this production from day one. It is as if Shakespeare himself, by his ghostly proxy, is trying to sabotage this work of art. There is an awful lot of n00bs in this play. There is an awful lot of goofing off in this play.

How will the play do?
Will the group pull it off?
Are those the correct phonetic spellings?

Tune in next time; same Awayken.Com | Vistan time, same Awayken.Com | Vistan channel.

The DSU Fall Theatre Production of Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare will be presented on November 1,2,3,4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Dakota Prairie Playhouse.

DSU students have free admission with I.D.

General Admission–$7.00
Faculty/Staff/Senior Citizens/Kids–$4.00

Ladies and gents. I realize that I have said naught to you in a long while. Life has become a tad bit more hectic. I’d forgotten how much time it takes to keep a girlfriend happy. You’d think she’d be content just to know me, but alas. Now she wants “dates” and “alone time” and “friendship”. This takes up a lot of time that I used to spend crying. I mean, writing on my webpage.

Something else to take up my time is a handy new program. It’s been quite the buzz. The recent news on the interwebnet today is the recent swinger of both sides, iTunes.

Remember Apples? I do. I remember way way back grade school. (Everything I am writing after this point is based on zero research. It’s very possible I don’t know what I’m talking about.) The computer lab we had was row upon row of Apple IIe computers. There they sat, silent and dark, waiting for us to give them food. We would cautiously pick out a piece of software and sit in the cold plastic chairs, facing the monsters. Then one child would go to carefully insert the software when a loud shriek tears through the thin, chilly air in the room.

Apple IIe’s demand the blood of seven-year-olds.

If one were to make one mistake, one would perish like so many before one. I learned to type really well. I also learned that if, while on the Oregon Trail, you get cholera or syphillis, you should stop to rest. Otherwise you will die and have to come up with a witty tombstone saying. It wasn’t that I couldn’t come up with any. Given the family business, I’ve seen my share of witty grave markers, but I didn’t want to die in the game. If I could just hunt all day every day, that would have been a much better game.

Those of us who followed the rules that the mighty Apple hath created walked away with a different feeling. Sure we lost half of our class, but we gained a respect for something we couldn’t fight. That thing is Apple Computers.

Then Apples became Macintoshes (awww, isn’t that cute?) but by the time our families started getting computers, they were all PCs, and they were much nicer than the blood thirsty Apple IIe. Plus, Windows does not require blood to work, only hemoglobin. Hemoglobin 2.0, actually.

So we grew up safe in the comfort of our fallible personal computers. We relished the fact that, if one thing could be counted on, it was a crash, virus, or odd behaviorism. Meanwhile, the minority were building themselves an unstoppable empire. Clutched tightly between the man-hands of a small market share and the bosom of a highly creative work-force.

When they finally resurfaced, the world was introduced to OS X. Boy did people fall in love. Mac Geeks were spotted by the thousands as they all tried to marry their computers and enjoy semi-normal relationships with the new operating system. But Mac OS X is slow to give it up, and so they had to wait for the next two iterations to come.

OS X came with some proprietary music playing/cd burning/cd ripping/playlist creating/crazy image rendering software called iTunes. This is slick software. Apple has this way of making me feel really jealous that I didn’t think of that. I could go on and on about this stuff but you can always read news on the net.

What’s my point?? Just like Windows had done so long ago, Mac is taking control of a market. The way to a man’s heart used to be graphics and marketing. Now the way to a man’s heart is mp3 playing. Music is a huge industry. Everyone listens to music, even Hitler. In fact, Hitler loved music and so did Jesus and Santa.

Everyone needs a program to do play their songs. My program of choice was Winamp. I loved it because it was not forced on me; it was sleek and small and skinable and pluginable. Now I like iTunes. I use it on my main machine, but not on my tablet (because lord knows I only have so much memory to spare).

What two major features does iTunes lack? Skinnability and plugin support. Dmmt, Apple. You make a great product but you limit it. Think of how the PC community would come out of the wood work to support your product if only you had skinning and plugins! Curses! Curses!

Alright, I’m better. It’s not the end of the world. I can skin my winamp and use those plugins and then use iTunes to play my music. Perfect. At least it doesn’t require blood. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go feed my addictor.

MARILYN MANSON‘s soul was prayed for yesterday (October 16) by dozens of Mexican evangelical Christians protesting against his scheduled concert in the city of MONTERREY (November 5).

Local government buildings in the centre of the city were swamped by around 100 people singing hymns and praying for the self-proclaimed ‘God of F**k’.

Demonstration organiser Arsenia Campos said: “We are praying for him so that he can know God and become transformed.”

According to Reuters the City Council was given a petition of 3,000 signatures by the protesters earlier in the week, pleading with Monterrey Mayor Felipe de Jesus Cantu, though on Wednesday (October 15) the mayor said that the gig would be allowed to take place as planned.

I’m writing this in Math class. Oh, but which one? Numerical Methods. So much math…

What is Numerical Methods? It is a class that illustrates and studies ways to solve things. Ok. You know your calculator? You know how you hit “cos(40)” and it gives you a number? Well, how did the calculator know what to give you? It uses Numerical Methods. Numerical Methods is all about finding the best mimic to whatever function you want to solve. What function can you make up that looks nothing like the real function but will give you a really close number?

There are so many different ways to do this. You learn one way. Then you learn an easier way to do it. Then you learn a better way. Then you learn an easier way to do that…. This goes on and on until class ends, or you shoot yourself. What bugs me about this class is that everything we are learning to do by hand can be done much more easily on computer or calculator (which is a type of computer, I guess).

The point is, this is old news. It’s like learning how to make babies when all you want to do is adopt. Adopting is less painful, and it gives a needy child a loving home. If you would like more information on adopting your own child, please click here.

I hate when Avery says, “And that’s it.” Then he lifts his arms and drops them at his side, and, lord knows, I have no idea what he just said. There’s different ideas, notations, variables, subs, i’s, n’s, x’s. Enough to drive a man insane.

I’m tired today. Math Modeling hates me. I think I’ve found a class that is my match. I’ve gone so long and so far without really feeling stupid. I have, with some degree of success, been able to master math class after math class. Modeling, however, is a nemesis to behold. There is something about it that I just don’t get. I feel so lost. There is no book, so I only have my notes. Maybe that’s it. Or maybe my math luck has finally run out. Or maybe I just don’t pay enough attention. Or maybe this stuff is hard and it’s not my fault. Or maybe it’s Megan’s fault. but its not

Avery, “Well, let’s do one.” YOU do one. I couldn’t care less what happens when you figure out a Cubic Spline Interpolation. We have 8 equations, 6 conditions and 4 variables to figure out for this problem. And all he wants to do is connect some lines. It seems like a lot of work for a crappy art side-project.

I think back to Math Modeling. Palmer had us physically endure an exponentially growing population. He just keeps dividing the room in half. Pretty soon you couldn’t tell if we were snakes in mating season or really scared of the other guy in the room who was not in our class. I swear Justin Luitjens touched my ass.

Avery, “Don’t be surprised if this shows up on your take home final. But it probably won’t be in this nice format we found today.” Thank you. I was worried that I would never see my Spline again. Spline crunching action. Spline – more puns. Whatever.

megan is great. she is my favoritest person ever. It’s amazing the things that show up when you leave your computer unattended. Shocked face. I had a train of thought, and I have no idea what I was heading towards. This is how the dangers inherent in a website become exploited through nonchalant lethargy. I call it “rambling”, and that is what I’m doing right now. I’m totally avoiding being funny and just talking to you guys.

Because I can.

Girls are a major topic of this site. An “AWAYKEN POWERED” search of the site, will garner quite the list of sites. I’m not sure how many, exactly, because I’m lazy(desert).

“AWAYKEN POWERED” does not mean “good” or “useful”.

Posts like Girls Are Evil

Girls Are Evil 2

En Terra Saunt Tay

I Love Heather, How Can You Not?

Step One : Sign

A Sophomoric Attitude on Blasphemy

and the unfortunate

I Shouldn|t Have To Post About This.

Why do I bring these painful, depression-laden posts back to the painful, hungover lime light? I have an announcement to make.

I have a girlfriend.

Her name is Megan Flynn and she has an awesome website. You might have noticed a slew of completely ambiguous comments from “megan” or “meggie.” That’s her. So far, the most she has had to say is “Way to go Miles” but she will soon learn the art of website commenting.

Ok. She’s a freshman here at DSU. She’s an English/Design major. I met her through tutoring. As in, I tutor Math 021, and she comes by to flirt with me. Her friend Jenny has also commented on the site. It’s so weird how many coincidences there are between me and Jenny and me and Megan. So weird, that, were I to post it here, all of you would claw your eyes from your faces.

Conclusions are for nerds.

It’s happened to all of us. There we are at our birthday party. As a treat to those gathered, we get up to perform a routine of some sort, one which we have done a thousand times before. We sing or dance or juggle or set fires (whatever we are good at) but then something goes horribly wrong. Next thing we know we are in the intensive care unit in a Las Vegas hospital fighting for life.

This was the story last Friday. While I was quietly sitting at home reading the bible, one of this countries most famous and loved duos of magic became almost an uno. I am talking about Siegfried and Roy. Yes, the very same ambiguous couple where one has a name you can spell and has tigers and the other has a name I have to look up every time I type it and does magic.

Siggy and Roy were performing at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas for Roy’s 59th birthday party. During the midst of the show, at approximately 8:10 pm, Roy, whose real name is Roy Horn, walked on stage announcing that his tiger Montecore was about to make his first performance. This, however, was a lie (as most things in life are) since Montecore, whose real name is Jeremy Malchert, was a veteran of the stage. But then something went horribly wrong.

The 600 pound tiger sauntered on stage, acting drunk and unruly as his stage show requires, and stopped just within sight lines. Roy, having no magical ability, pulled the tiger to the center of the stage. The tiger, as his stage show does not require, head butted the entertainer. Roy, displeased with Montecore’s digression from the script, tapped him with his microphone. But then something went horribly wrong.

An eyewitness to the show reported that, “Then the tiger went like mad nuts. He stood up on his hind feet and decked that German guy. Then the tiger turned to the crowd and was all like ‘Now I will eat his soul’ and he chomped on his neck and carried him off. I was like, ‘Whoa! This show is awesome’ because I was sitting there for 40 minutes waiting for naked chicks to come out, and I get to gay guys with accents doing magic on tigers? What’s up with that?” Awayken.com was not able to validate this rendition of events.

The commonly held believe is that after Roy hit his tiger with his microphone (probably not a good idea), the tiger bit him in the arm. Roy, probably in a panic, started to beat the tiger with his microphone. Over and over the crowd could only hear the *thump* *thump* of microphone on fur, and the panicked screams of a German entertainer about to die. Then the tiger snatched Roy around the neck and carried him off “like a rag doll.” But then something went horribly wrong.

It was reported (by that same stoner above) that Siggy then “ran on stage, right, and floated that other guy’s body out into his space shuttle. It was unreal.” In reality, Roy was rushed to a hospital where his condition was reported as “critical”, and doctors were reported as being “cautiously optimistic.” The tiger was sent to his room with no internet privileges, and, as of yet, no charges have been filed. Montecore could not be reached for comment.

To be honest, readers, when I read the actual article, I laughed ROFL style, as befits the bad person I am. Honestly. How beautifully ironic can you get? He didn’t even do magic. All Roy did was find tigers and put them on stage. He was an animal trainer and his boyfriend did all the work. Still he is loved. Still he is written about.

The recent events have sparked a waterfall of interest in the general public. Everywhere on the street the words “Hi” and “Hello” are being spoken. If you replace those with “Roy” and “Dead” then you know how hard it is to have a conversation with people nowadays. But then something went horribly wrong.

Even the teenagers are getting into it. Being wholly responsible for making English more confusing, pre-teen/teen/only-slightly-post-teen students around America are coining the phrase “pull a Montecore” and “to Roy.” To “pull a Montecore” means to attack a friend as a 600 pound tiger might attack a gay German half-magician. Inversely, “to Roy” is to bear such an attack. “To Roy” is an infinitive so you could say, “Hey, Mom, quit Roying” or “President Bush just Royed that poem!”

The rest of the population is taking a more reverent approach, watching TV. The internet, too, has gained slight popularity as television strives to keep the nation abreast growing developments. It may one day be said that this event is what “made the internet”, but it is too soon to tell.

Despite the ordeal, Roy has still managed to communicate with doctors and family gathered in his room by a system of blinks and thumbs ups. Earlier today, he released this statement. “I have worked with these tigers for years. Montecore, himself, is one of my stage favorites. What has happened is a testament to the danger inherent in the field of fooling wild animals into not eating me. I do have this to say, though. I totally didn’t see that coming.”

Neither did us, Roy. Neither did us.

Ordinary people become extraordinary through their deaths. Two years ago on September 11th, just such a thing happened. A horrible tragedy brought courageous firemen and police officers to the same level as epic heroes.

Some people are extraordinary even before death, and this makes their death all the more important to society. These people are legends as men, but they become deities as corpses. Dirty, rotting corpses.

I’m talking about Johnny Cash’s death. I’m also talking about John Ritter. He was a great blah blah blah. For his outstanding services to cinema and television, John Ritter was given only a small sentence in Purgatory. Given recent attempts by Jehovah’s Witnesses to make it in, certain restrictions have been put on an entrance to Heaven.

As a measure of precaution, whenever someone graduates purgatory, they are made to interview with God, who questions them on their life. The following is an entrance interview between God and John Ritter.

God : [getting up to shake his hand] Hi John. How are you?
JR : I would pun one of the titles of my movies, but I really can’t remember anything I acted in.
God : [laughs] Yeah, I do. How was your stay in Purgatory?
JR : Uneventful, mostly. I didn’t mind it so much.
God : Let’s start. [rustles pages] Let’s discuss your movie career.
JR : Oh, God.
God : What was that?
JR : Umm… Oh, wait. Okay, I get it. Right. Uh… My movie career.
God : Right. I saw Problem Child. I liked it.
JR : Thank you.
God : What the hell were you thinking with sequels?
JR : Well, I didn’t write them. I just acted in them.
God : Just because you didn’t kill the kitten, doesn’t mean you didn’t rip the arms off of a smaller kitten and use those to beat the kitten.
JR : Oh My… I can’t believe you said that. That’s horrible!
God : Hey, you did it. You, Mr. Sick-Face. So… Three’s Company.
JR : Yeah.
God : [silence]
JR : Ok. I guess that wasn’t HTVs highest rated sitcom.
God : Lowest.
JR : Really?
God : Ever.
JR : It was funny.
God : [silence] [shrugs] Yeah, it was. And that Chrissy…
JR : Oh, no.
God : What?
JR : Please don’t.
God : I think we should talk about Chrissy.
JR: I don’t think we should.
God : I am God. [pause] Why shouldn’t we talk about Chrissy?
JR : Because I would feel uncomfortable getting an erection in Heaven.
God : Yeah, I would, too.
JR : You can… ?
God : [laughs] No. What are you? Stupid?
JR : Can we get to the issue at hand?
God : Allright. So, it says here that you crashed a burning bus of orphan children into a convent while screaming the foulest obsenities known in any language.
JR : What?
God : [frowning] That’s not true?
JR : No! I died of aortic dissection on the set of my new show.
God : No school bus?
JR : Of course not!
God : Oh. Well… good for you.
JR : [starts crying] This isn’t going well, is it?
God : You know what wasn’t going well?
JR : Please don’t ridicule me anymore. I just died. I’m still adjusting to that. You know how hard it is to go from being the top of the world to being six feet under it?
God : Do you know what it’s like to bury your son? No. You don’t. I do.
JR : I … I’m sorry.
God : I am God. [pause] Okay. That raps up our interview.
JR: Great. So, am I in?
God: We’ll let you know in 3 to 6 weeks.
JR: 3 to 6 weeks? Johnny Cash got to walk right in.
God: [silence] [raises eyebrow]
JR: 3 to 6 weeks. Got it.