Present Engagements

1. I'm building a ballista on a $10 budget.
Our physics department is hosting a Punkin' Chunkin' competition, which is both a concept and a phrase that fills my heart with joy. The idea is to see who can attain the greatest range with a homemade, jury-rigged gourd-flinger. Naturally, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to combine my love of ancient technology with the destruction of produce (cf. Halloween 2009, "De Motu Citrus Nitrensis"). As such, I've spent a number of hours rummaging through local dumpsters and junk piles for building materials. The ten dollars went towards a coil of rope, but if I can find any for free I'll use it instead. I'd share my design plan here, but I'm keeping it secret lest any rivals stumble across this blog. If everything works out, I'll try to post pictures or videos.

2. I'm interviewing for medical school.
Tomorrow. It's my first one. Still haven't really processed it. I mean, what? Me? Interviewing for med school? How did that happen? I'm just a humble punkin' chunker from a punkin' chunkin' clan - not doctor material. Don't be silly. (Can you tell I'm a little nervous?)

Granted, part of me is sure I'm going to blow the roof off this thing like a tornado in a trailer park, but that's the same part of me that also says things like "If this medicine thing doesn't work out, you could always be Supreme God-Emperor of the Galaxy," so I'm taking its advice with a grain of salt.

If this last bit seems especially prideful to you, you're right. It's part of my campaign to hit all seven deadlies in one day, because today is 3. International Blasphemy Day. So crowning myself king of the cosmos seems like a decent way to get in pride and offend the Invisible Sky-Beard all at once. Now, I'm off to find a lingerie-clad model baking a chocolate cake she won't let me have, and that should cover another 3 or 4 no problem.

Incendiary

I just saw Buckethead at the Recher in Towson. His opening act was a mohawk-sporting hulk named Wolff (of Drums and Tuba) who, living up to his absent band's moniker, spent the better part of an hour doing unwholesome things with, and to, a tuba. We then stood for another interminable hour with an ever-more-restless crowd, waiting for the virtuoso to appear. Just as we began to ask ourselves "How long would you wait for Buckethead?" he descended upon us. The rest of the evening is a haze of shrill and blinding shredding, the music that Disney plays in its animatronic attractions, Buckethead dispensing gifts from a giant blue sack, an excellent John Williams interlude, and some genuinely solid and meaty metal riffs. The man, it must be said, is a prodigy. At times it was entirely unclear if he was playing the guitar or giving it multiple orgasms. My ears still feel cotton-plugged and my legs ache from standing, but the 90-minute set flew by. Not all of Buckethead's music is gentle on the ears, nor even entirely pleasant, but it is powerful if for nothing other than the immense skill it evinces. And his more melodic tracks can be perfectly sublime.

Did I mention that he wears a KFC bucket over his featureless white mask and does not speak during shows? Well, he's earned the right to be as strange as he wants. When you're that good with a guitar, no one cares what you're wearing on your head.