For any of you who lived through junior high, you know that 420 is a number associated with marijuana. Well, today happens to be April 20 (4/20), and I go to the University of Colorado, a very liberal place of higher learning. I had heard bits and pieces about some sort of 4/20 celebration on campus, and today I saw it.

I left the engineering building about 4:15 to catch the 4:30 bus home. I noticed that there were a lot of students headed toward Farrand Field, and when I rounded a building so that Farrand Field was in view, I saw a large crowd...and a literal cloud of smoke rising. It was 4:20, 4/20. My first thought was that surely they are only smoking cigarettes. The field is on campus and even more there were CU Event Staff near the field. When I got downwind of the field, I smelled the unmistakable scent of weed, which was detectable more than a block away!

There were signs posted saying that Farrand Field was closed today and that video surveillance was in effect. Yet, there were several hundred people on the field toking away. It was a bit comical because there were all the celebrants gathered in a large crowd, and behind the fence and in the street there were others who wanted to observe, but have no part in it. Sort of like a zoo I suppose.

Anyway, the event is apparently fairly well known and is even mentioned on this Wikipedia article on 420.

World of Warcraft

Nintendo DS Brain Age

Buy yours here.

I haven't posted about it before, but I freaking love this show.

So I Tivoed this one thinking it was "Land" of the Dead, not "Dawn" of the Dead. I didn't realize that until I was about 3/4 through the movie and Dennis Hopper never showed up. Oops.

Well I was content enough to watch a movie starring the grown-up star from Avonlea. Sarah Polley takes the lead as she wakes up to find the majority of her neighbors running around as flesh-eating zombies. She runs into a few other people who haven't been infected yet and all of them take up residence at the local mall. They fend off attacks and make plans for escape to a remote island, and in the process a whole bunch of zombies get killed in a whole bunch of ways. My favorite was the chainsaw slot in the monster-truck van.

I'm not really one to judge zombie movies--nothing really gets me scared or creeps me out too much---so the movie pretty much went where I thought it would and did a pretty decent job of it. Polley, Ving Rhames, and Jake Weber provide balanced performances that make us root for them, and the rest of the cast do a great job of being paranoid, stupid, or naive enough to die entertainingly.

I was entertained well enough.

"Always Love" by Nada Surf, from The Weight is a Gift

to make a mountain of
your life is just a choice
but i never learned enough
to listen to the voice that told me
always love
hate will get you every time
always love
don't wait ‘til the finish line

slow demands come around
squeeze the air and keep the rest out
it helps to write it down
even when you then cross it out

but always love
hate will get you every time
always love
even when you want to fight

self-directed lives
i want to know what it'd be like to
aim so high above
every card that you get dealt you

always love
hate will get you every time
always love
hate will get you
and i've been held back by something
you said to me quietly on the stairs
you said
hey you good ones

In other news, a friend got me World of Warcraft as a gift and I'm installing it right now :0