The bad news: it’s in Cincinnati, so we’ll only be able to see each other on weekends. :( Mom has pointed out that I’ll be kept busy with work and class, which is true, but it’s going to suck not seeing him every day. He starts Monday, so I’m going to try and squeeze as much us-time as possible out of the remaining hours till he leaves on Sunday. We’re going to Oktoberfest tonight at one of the local Catholic cathedrals, where I plan to get a tasty mug of Kentucky Ale, and perhaps also try some wine.

We’re taking a trip to visit my parents tomorrow, and I know my cousin will love that because she’ll get to chase ducks and possibly bounce on the trampoline if her parents allow it. I brought along some homework for Wednesday, including reading in The Upanishads for Asian Philosophy and Utopia for honors. I started on Utopia the other night, and that was actually more fun that I expected, but that’s probably in part because I had experimented with an iceless Mudslide involving Kahlua, Bailey’s Irish Cream, Rain vodka, milk, and Hershey’s syrup, so I probably could have read the phone book and enjoyed it as much.

I was amazed at my astronomy class today, not because of the insight and knowledge I gained, but at how little was shown by my colleagues in there. One kid asked “If Mercury’s so hot, why isn’t it considered a star?” and some questions that were asked of us included “What is the most massive object in our solar system?” and “What type is that most massive object?” I distinctly remember in fourth grade studying our planets (there were nine in those days *nostalgic tear*) and learning about these various things, and I can’t believe anyone can get to college and not know some of this stuff.

Jess and I are hoping to get a head start on moving into our new apartment by moving big stuff in tomorrow and the smaller boxes of things on Saturday. This is mainly because it’s supposed to rain Saturday, and we aren’t keen on soaking our beds, couches, etc.

I have a funny story from yesterday. So I was sitting on my bed, studying for the calculus test, when Todd came over. He was very tired, having had a long day of work and then working out. He laid down on the floor and started watching TV, but before long, I noticed he was asleep. I let him sleep a while and then stopped studying to come sit down with him. I fiddled on my laptop a bit and found The Booze Test, which has a bunch of trivia questions about alcohol. I took it and Todd woke up, so I asked if he’d like to take it. Now, he was awake, though still acting all sluggish and sleepy, but he started to take the quiz.

Initially, I asked him the questions and put in his answers. It was on a per-question basis, so if you got a question wrong, you had a couple more chances to get it right. He got one question wrong several times and the quiz just stopped because he had lost all his points. He got annoyed because he hadn’t finished the quiz but I had, and told me I didn’t have to sound so happy when I told him he got a question wrong. I protested that I wasn’t sounding happy, I was just saying “wrong” in my normal voice. He was getting all upset and wanted to take the quiz himself, so I gave him the laptop. He was going through it but, after answering a question partway through the quiz, the page just stopped refreshing and wouldn’t show the next question. This made him even more upset, so he muttered something about going back to his place… Then promptly fell asleep again.

I stayed on the floor and pouted for a few minutes, because I was annoyed that he’d gotten all upset over a dumb quiz. He woke up about two minutes after he’d fallen asleep, saw me upset, and asked me what was wrong. I ignored him, thinking he was just being a jerk because he obviously knew what was wrong. He asked a couple more times and I finally told him that I didn’t appreciate him getting all annoyed with me over some dumb Internet quiz. There was a pause, then he asked, “When was this?” That was my first clue that something was up. I told him, “About two minutes ago!”, but he didn’t remember it at all. I confirmed that he really didn’t remember taking the quiz, getting upset at me, or getting upset at the quiz at all, then I described what had happened to him. Nope, still didn’t remember. I brought the quiz up on my laptop again, and he went through it, this time easily answering the questions, but it still didn’t seem familiar to him. Well for me, this was deja-vu real bad, except Todd wasn’t all grouchy and he was actually getting the questions right.

I’ve had that happen to me before, where I’ll apparently talk to my parents in the middle of the night if they notice me awake, something like that. Todd and I laughed about his experience later when we were going to Chipotle, and I told him I couldn’t really be upset at him since he didn’t even remember doing anything wrong. He told me that when he woke up and saw me all upset, he wondered if the hermit crab had died. I guess I know not to interact with Todd when he’s partially asleep, because he has a short temper then and won’t remember the conversation later anyway!

• Dr. Zoidberg died. The poor little guy just fell out of his shell the other night when Todd picked him up. We thought he’d been looking grayish for a while, and he hadn’t been as active. I’m thinking about picking up another crab to join Ricky Bobby so he won’t be lonely.
• Todd and I went on a tour of Maker’s Mark distillery today with a Lexmark group. It was very interesting and I got a lot more enjoyment out of it than I had expected. They let us play around in big wooden bins full of mash. Some had a really thick, doughy crust of mash on top, others had just a thin layer, depending on how far along in the process they were. You could breathe in the fumes of some and burn your nose, while others had a very mild alcoholic scent.
• Todd, Eric, Kelly, Brent, and I are going to see Ratatouille tonight, and boy am I looking forward to it. I’ve loved the other Pixar films and it’s always exciting when a new one comes out.
• Kathy, Elaine, and I went shopping last night. In the middle of Sears, when opening my phone to pester Todd, the display went out on my phone. Todd thinks a wire in there finally snapped after two years of use. Turning it off and back on didn’t help, nor did taking the battery out and replacing it. It still dialed and seemed to function normally, I just couldn’t see anything. At least it had the good grace to die in a mall, so after 1.5 hours of standing around in a cell phone store, I walked out with a new phone: the LG CU400. It’s pretty sleek looking, has a camera and video-recording capabilities, but other than that, the battery life was good and I can do what I want with it: talk and text message.