Vatican Priest of the Month: June Edition

Yes, June is almost over - but I haven't forgotten about sharing my peculiar calendar of Vatican priests with all of you. Here's our man Giugno (Junio, I think, is also an appropriate name), who enjoys Italian cooking, long serene walks along the beach, spending tranquil moments at home with his cat, partaking in distressing and highly deviant sexual practices, and masterminding intricate assassination plots. He also takes great pleasure in boring a hole with his eyes through your fragile soul.

Surely the people who pieced together this calendar knew that something was desperately wrong with these photographs?

Glory Days

This book cover pretty much says it all. I think I actually succeeded in piecing together a decent MA dissertation by devoting 15 solid minutes a day to it. The rest of the 8-hour work day (ha! ahahahahahahaha!) was occupied by reading various fiction books unrelated to my topic, reading juicy celebrity gossip, walking over to Paul's for very sugary mocha coffee, perusing snazzy leather handbags on EBay, lying in the sun on the roof, downloading essential soundtrack-of-my-life music, and watching the entire first season of ER.

And I'm going to get away with it all on 10 July, when they crown me MA in a delightful little ceremony - in a church no less. Brilliant! Wonder if I'll get a Distinction?

The Age-Old Superhero Question

One topic of conversation that has come up frequently these days, thanks to the release of X-Men III, is this:

"If you were a superhero, what would your powers be?"

This is a really difficult question, one that might require in some cases a 20-part answer. Musing upon Jane Grey's ability to manipulate matter at a subatomic level, I began to think back to high-school science courses and the state of Absolute Zero. Absolute Zero, you will remember, is 0° Kelvin (–273.15 °C, or –459.67 °F). It is "the point on the thermodynamic (absolute) temperature scale where all kinetic motion in the particles comprising matter ceases and they are at complete rest in the “classic” (non-quantum mechanical) sense." [Thanks, Wikipedia!] At Absolute Zero, matter is sapped of all infinitesimal traces of heat and energy. Everything freezes solid. It's so cold that ATOMS and all of that other business STOPS MOVING (well, virtually stops moving). That means that most objects and beings simply would shatter. Life cannot exist at such an extreme temperature.

By international agreement, thermodynamic temperature is measured in Kelvins. Many engineering fields in the U.S., however, measure thermodynamic temperature with the Rankine scale - where absolute zero is 0° R. That's pretty funny - as per usual, the Americans insist on having their own scale for everything (sorry, lovely American friends!). That probably means that if those uber-cool Japanese developed an anime about an Absolute Zero character named 'Kelvin,' the American adaptation would rename the character 'Rankine.' I have to admit, though, 'Rankine' sounds a bit less geeky.

(Pause)

I'm probably in no position now to point the 'geeky' finger.

ANYHOW, I thought it would be pretty crazy to have the ability to inflict 0° Kelvin on objects, environments, and people (yes, of course, only the baddies). However, unlike Jean Grey of the X-Men, I would be able to control my insane power. I would only use it when absolutely necessary. I think it would be nice to use it only when locked into a perfectly focused, pure state of complete, all-consuming rage. Also, I would be much more complicated than that crappy Iceman-Bobby kid. I'd have the power to destroy the world - heck, maybe even the UNIVERSE. I would have the ability to exist in an Absolute Zero environment - so I could levitate into space (which, by the way, is only slightly warmer than 0° Kelvin). That makes me a super-crazy-cracked-out mutant. I'd be the character that everyone-can't wait-to-see-but-has-mixed-feelings-about-because-she-only-shows-up-to-destroy-the-world. Maybe because I was such an insanely powerful character, I'd be kept in a secret government facility. Maybe I'd wander the planet like a lost soul. I could be mute - because I need some sort of weakness and being mute is, like, totally mysterious. I think I'd be immortal, too. YEAH!

This is all about telepathy and telekinesis, so I don't think gestures are crucial to my attack. I know gestures can be pretty cool, but they also can be pretty lame. Maybe I could have some sort of staff or scythe which I could use to tap things that hadn't quite shattered on their own the first time around.

Like any good apocalyptic character, I think I would retain my shortness, cuteness, and innocence - who would ever know that I was eons old and could turn you to cosmic dust with a coquettish bat of my eyelashes? That's epic hot right there.

This evening I discovered, to my initial dismay, that Absolute Zero is already a character. He figures in the Mega Man X and Mega Man Zero video game series.

However, this Absolute Zero kid doesn't actually do anything that involves 0° Kelvin. His outfit is kind of clunky, too. How do you run at supersonic speed in those boots? Also, I'd be embarrassed if my weapon blatantly ripped off the light sabers from Star Wars. I think there might be a Final Fantasy character that has an Absolute Zero attack, but I'm just going to ignore that one.

Well, now everyone knows that I'm a geek AND completely insane. This is probably a good place to stop for the night.

UPDATE: Andrew has pointed out that the crazy kid from Mega Man X is actually called Zero, not Absolute Zero. This is good news - however, it also means that my unshakeable faith in Wikipedia has now been shaken.

Christians: 1; Moors: 0

Here's another panel from the Cantigas for your delectation [click to enlarge, hooray!]. Aw, look at all the cute little people defending their city from the evil Moors! According to the text, they are 'Heavenly knights, for they were white and shining and came by order of the Virgin.'

Heavenly knights, you are so damn precious. I'm going to take you home and put you in a little box.

Tragedy Averted

For a few hours yesterday, I was utterly convinced I had lost my beloved sunglasses. Those of you who have lived with me for the past 7 months know how crucial these sunglasses are to my daily existence. I cannot go anywhere without them because they are the only thing that keeps my hair out of my face - and as such, yes, I do wear my sunglasses at night. Sometimes I find myself crawling into bed and realizing that I still have them on. I will wear them on my head even when I'm wearing my regular glasses - my intense love for them surpasses the troubling fear of looking like a complete idiot. Headbands, clips, barrettes, whatever you will, nothing compares to my sunglasses. They cost me 10$ at the local pharmacy and I hope they will be with me, like all steady and loyal friends, when I'm on my deathbed.

So imagine how I felt when yesterday, they were nowhere to be found. I immediately accused various friends of having them in their room. Then I checked the toilets (because, usually, when I lose something, without fail it is in the bathroom). I rummaged through my various bags. I called the pub where I'd been the night before with Krystyna. I checked behind the microwave. I looked for them on the roof. I retraced my steps in my mind. Nothing.

I began to mourn but then became excited by the prospect of buying 'hip,' enormous sunglasses that would dwarf my face and make me look dangerous and rich. Surely they could hold my hair up just as well? Maybe even better? Perhaps I deserved more in the sunglasses department!

Fortunately for my bank account, my darling sunglasses turned up in one of my bags - in a pocket that I would NEVER squish them into, usually. Very odd.

...Anticlimactic, I know. But it was a very scary time. And it's important to share scary stories in order to move on. N'est-ce pas?