And now, because I can't think of anything compelling to write about, I will reach back into the mists of time and retrieve an item from a folder -- a folder known to most only as My Documents.
This time I give you a masterpiece dated April 27, 2005, although the date modified time stamp tells me it was last edited at 7:55 AM on April 28... 35 minutes before it was due. From freshman year of college:
"The way in which a movie is edited is key to how it is understood. With some movies, the editing is thoroughly thought out in order to advance the plot in a very specific way. The Conversation, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is one such movie. The film’s use of temporal relations helps create suspense, confusion and a sense of mystery."
Note the masterful way in which I expanded my word count by adding useless words like "in which." Consider my choice to write a list when one word could easily have summed up the thought. Take a moment to reflect on my scholarly assertion that some movies use editing for a reason.
I imagine the single most important factor in choosing to write my essay on The Conversation was the fact that Francis Ford Coppola goes by three names. That's one more name than most other directors. That's one less word I had to put thought into during my efforts to reach the minimum word requirement.
This has been From the Vault. Join me next week when I mull over "Poverty Reaction Paper 3.doc."
I'm behind in writing in this thing. I've meant to add something every day. Somehow I haven't had time. I still have to write about my experience walking through the rain on Friday, but I'm too tired to go into detail about that right now. I think the story that follows is worth reading about, but I feel like I'm about to fall asleep so I'm not sure if any of the words after this make any sense. I used the word "but" in two sentences in a row. I feel like that's bad writing, but I don't care.
Here is something important you need to know: American University basketball is amazing and we're going to the NCAA Tourney. It's going to happen. I have decreed it so.
We knocked off Army today, but at a bit of a price. One of our better players looks like he might be done for the season. Color me embarrassed because I had no idea who the guy was who came in for him.
At half time, I was talking to a Washington Post blogger I read and met once before. Occasionally I'll shoot him an email. When we were talking he asked why I'd never mentioned that someone related to Nick Hendra had been involved in This Is Spinal Tap. "I don't know who Nick Hendra is," I said.
He told me Hendra played for our team. Oops.
As fate would have it, Hendra actually got some playing time in the second half after the injury and he was pretty big in securing the win. He's apparently one of the best recruits we've ever signed, but for some reason Jeff Jones, in his infinite wisdom, decided he deserved no playing time this year.
Hendra threw down what I can only describe as an amazing slam dunk because I'm too tired to think of other, more descriptive and flowery words. Anyway, he kicks ass, and that's all I have to say about that.
I was immensely impressed by the turnout today. I'm almost jealous that we're no longer the super fans. Everyone has stepped up their fanhood to match us. And by "us" I mean probably myself and one other guy who consistently went to games this year before it was clear we were going to be tops in the conference. Then of course there's the track team. They've easily supplanted us at this point.
Oh well, I just want to storm the court on Friday.
This post is awful. Go ahead and skip reading it.
Addendum: If anyone has any idea where I can buy an American University jersey, please let me know.
I wasn't at all with it when I was walking to class yesterday. I'd pulled an all-nighter and something had come loose in my head.
I had a feeling my brain was in the process of overwriting the previous day's morning because sleep hadn't provided any separation between the dates. My brain sacrificed the shields for more power in the engine room and it just couldn't register the repetition. I didn't get a warning asking me if I wanted to save under a different filename. The Morning of March 4, 2008 is gone. How sad.
It's weird brushing your teeth when an entire night has completely disappeared. For me, embracing a new day isn't possible in this scenario.
At any rate, during the walk, the Ghostbusters theme song popped up on my iPod. This is a song I will generally skip. It has a five-star rating that I generously bestowed upon it, but I'm never in the mood to listen to the whole thing because it's not one of those songs that makes me feel hip and cool.
This time I let it play. I was too out of whack to respond to my normal objections. Still, other primary brain functions were operating normally. Specifically the brain functions that cause me to walk to the beat involuntarily like a complete moron.
I haven't determined how to turn this off, but other, more self-aware parts of my brain valiantly do battle to combat the issue. The result is a halting gait that I'm sure makes it appear as though my legs are fighting to stay on the ground due to a lack of gravity below my waist.
When "Ghostbusters" made its way to my ears, I knew I was in trouble. I pictured the closing credits to the cartoon. You know, the part where they're all dancing down the street and for some reason there's confetti all over the place and a huge crowd is cheering them on.
My knees began to wobble. I leaned back a little bit. My arms bent at the elbows. I had the sudden urge to snap. My butt might have even partaken in a bit of a shimmy.
I regained composure for the most part, but I can't be certain I didn't have occasional leg convulsions accompanied by fist pumping making it look like I was approximating a stereotypical Russian dance as performed by a Chris Tucker impersonator.
I had to suppress the urge to burst out into laughter at least six times. I ended up grinning like an idiot or I guess like the ghost in the opening credits, not that this is unusual for me.
When the song ended, a Green Day song attempted to take over. "Doooo you have the time...?" Billie Joe Armstrong began to ask me. "No," I responded almost out-loud and hit the back button so I could hear "Ghostbusters" again.
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For your reference and personal edification:
Opening
Closing
I can only hope I looked like an amalgamation of the two.
If we somehow manage to lose tonight, I will fully accept all of the blame both because I leaked the cheer sheet and because I won't be able to make it to the game (but how was I supposed to pass up press passes to the Wizards game and a chance to meet one of the players?!).
I now bring you the unedited text of a document I recently unearthed from 2005:
"Innocent until proven guilty." "You make it sound like a forgone conclusion." "That's the saying, Jack." "Innocent unless proven guilty. Our justice system should really take a look into adopting that saying."
By kc
Bravo, "kc." Bravo. This is some pretty awesomely hokey dialogue.
Part of me is embarrassed to have written this. Firstly (what a terrible word) because I'm sure a bunch of other idiots have come up with the same thing thinking they were really clever, and secondly because there is no story to go with it. It's just a bit of dialogue I apparently thought was cool. I'm not sure this is the kind of thing you can flesh out into a screenplay...
There's another part of me that cautiously supports what I wrote. I guess this is pretty normal trepidation for a writer. Sometimes you can't convince yourself something you've written is crap until someone else tells you it is.* And why should I feel stupid that other people have written the same thing? I'm pretty sure I came up with it independently.
"By kc." That seems to assert pretty clearly that this is my intellectual property. Still, looking back at the lowercase letters of my name makes me wonder if I'm betraying some kind of doubt that this is original work.
Hopefully it's just a personal flourish I've forgotten about.
