Saturday, September 2, 2006 - Today, Yuoo went to the Loblolly courthouse to vote. The official voting day is not until this upcoming Tuesday, but officials are encouraging everyone to vote early, especially after the Mud Incident of 2000. The voting went well. I would tell you who Yuoo voted for, but that's a secret. ;-)
Yesterday at work, every-creature on Yuoo's team worked on making cell videos. In the Biomancery department of the Etheratory, they take lots of pictures of teeny-tiny organisms, and Yuoo and his coworkers have been turning those pictures into movies.
Today, Yuoo went to the library and checked out The Origin of the Species, written by H.M.S. Beagle. Yuoo believes that the universe was created by Aslan as He sang it into existance. Of course, Yuoo knows the basics about Mr. Beagle's theories and discoveries, but after seeing lots of Beagle-bumper-stickers on people's cars, Yuoo has decided to read the book.
Also, Yuoo's birthday is coming up soon.
Monday, September 4, 2006 - Today, Yuoo went to watch a football game with his friends. They weren't at the game there in person, of course, but they watched it. It was his favorite team, the Cinnimonrolls, versus the Candicanes. Yuoo's team won. It was fun.
Today, an environmentalist named Hunter Crocodile died in an accident. It was sad. Yuoo used to watch his television show.
Monday, September 11, 2006 - Five years ago today, something very terrible happened. There are already too many words hanging in the air, and right now, I don't really feel like adding to them.
Today, Yuoo had just finished shopping for groceries, he was in the parking lot when he saw a huge flock of birds fly overhead. There was a well-landscaped drainage pond with lots of trees, surrounded by a fence, in the middle of the parking lot, and the flock of birds decided to land there.
"That's a lot of birds," Yuoo said to himself, but that was only the first wave. Another flock flew in from the west... then another, then another, then another, then another, then another. It seemed like the trees themselves were alive. (And very noisy trees, at that!) For a city of its size, Loblolly has a lot of greenery. Even in the middle of a supermarket parking lot, there were enough trees (and a small pond) to sustain a vast, black cloud of migrating birds, taking a rest break on their journey to who-knows-where.
As he stood there watching the birds, an idea for a story came to Yuoo's mind. However, instead of just telling you the idea, I'll wait until we finish writing the story.
Yuoo likes to walk outside around the perimeter of the Etheratory building. It makes him feel like he is in his mother's country again. Every day, it seems like they add something new to the Etheratory. They're digging a ditch to put down really-high pressure water pipes, or they're adding a ether-transformer gizmo to the top of the building. It makes a person feel optomistic to see things being improved little-by-little around them.
Yuoo weighs just under 45 kilograms right now. His dieting hasn't been going well. He has decided to start doing jumping jacks in the morning.
Work has been rather boring these past couple of days. Someone is coming out with a new edition of an alchemy handbook, and Yuoo's team is replacing all of the black-and-white diagrams with 3D color ones. The boring part is that a lot of the images have already been made, and when the file hasn't been named appropriately (which is quite often), Yuoo has to search for the image by hand. The servers have years and years worth of images on them, all semi-organized in lots and lots of folders. Yuoo said to the guy sitting next to him, "This is like searching for a needle in a haystack."
He replied, "No, it's like searching for a needle in a stack of needles."
Today as Yuoo was waiting in traffic at a red light, he saw an old raccoon panhandler holding a cardboard sign, and Yuoo decided to buy him something to eat. Yuoo told the raccoon to go to a nearby pizza place, and he bought him (and his brother) a pizza there. There were a lot of people in the area, so Yuoo didn't think it would be dangerous. Yuoo spoke with the two brothers (a raccoon and a ferret) as they were eating. The raccoon was certainly an odd person, and Yuoo can see why he is homeless. After lunch, he asked Yuoo for a ride, but Yuoo said no.
Today, Yuoo went to the $1 theater and saw a movie he really enjoyed, Monster House. There were a lot of computer-animated movies that came out this summer, and Yuoo was surprised to find that Monster House was one of his favorites. Yuoo thinks it will be a great kids' Halloween movie. Yuoo wasn't really impressed with the other CG movies this summer, though.
As he was buying the ticket for the movie, the lady at the ticket counter (a mole with creame brown fur) asked him about the book that he had with him. Right now, Yuoo is reading reading Origin of the Species. The ticket lady is a follower of Aslan. There was no one else buying tickets at the time, so Yuoo and the lady spoke about Creation and Evolution and how they might fit together. It was kinda funny, holding a casual conversation with someone behind a glass window with a microphone.
Yuoo has just finished watching the Star Wars, Episode III movie, which he checked out from the library. Any science fiction or fantasy movie always requires a good imagination to be enjoyed. It doesn't matter how advanced or how simple the special effects are. For such a movie to be successful, the things you see on the screen should only be a suggestion of what is "really" happening in the story. (In other words, your mind should be encouraged to fill in the gaps.)
Tomorrow is Picnic Day at Mortar Abbey. They'll be going to Brown Todd Park.
Monday, September 25, 2006 - Today at Yuoo's workplace, someone cleaned out the air ducts. The way they usually do this is by sending a ridiculously strong (and sudden) gust of air through the ducts, which makes the whole ceiling clatter.
Well, Yuoo certainly knows that this technique works because he happens to sit right underneath one of these air vents! Yuoo had to clean off a thin layer of dust that settled on his workstation, on his fur, and inside his ears. It was a mess. I suggested to Yuoo that he start carrying an umbrella to work.