Ricky

Ha!

2006-02-16T18:35:23Z

<td align="center">Your walk is:
Possibly Influenced by Narcotics

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com</td>

Nothing else to say about this one.

This is hilarious

2006-01-12T07:19:10Z

I currently have a cat in my lap that thinks the cursor on the screen is alive. He's following it with his eyes like he wants to pounce. Cuter things could hardly be imagined.

In other news, Justin Nestor had a cooler abroad experience than me. He got enlightened in India. Not fair.

I saw Anthony Knasas and Lauren McCarthy today in Barnes and Noble. Weird and random, but it's great to catch up with old school friends. I bought "The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay" (sp?) and the new The Darkness album with a giftcard. Contrary to my earlier fears, The Darkness does not now suck and I have hopes for a third album and a continuation of new 80s hair-metal style music in the modern day. Keep the flame alive!

Geekery and Immobility

2005-12-28T18:05:24Z

That's about all I've been up to for the past few days. Other than getting out of the house to see some of the Derby people, I've pretty much just been playing around with my new Wacom drawing tablet (cheer!) and becoming re-obsessed with World of Warcraft. I tell you, that Arathi Basin subgame is pretty intense. I can feel my muscles atrophying, which may call for some actual excercise today. If not a simple scale-down from the time I spend in front of the computer. In fact, maybe I won't even use the computer at all today!

...except for now.

...and to check facebook.

Mission Accomplished

2005-12-15T12:23:45Z

I finished my last exam here today over in Italy. Now I've got a week of relaxing, drinking a lot of wine, and being awesome before I have to pack and head back to the States of Unity. I'm definitely proud of being over here for so long without starting an international incident, or just plain dying of malnutrition due to my own poor planning.

Soon I shall return, and my days will be full of much needed sleep, comic-updating, and World of Warcraft relapses. Not to mention finally having a ROOM OF MY OWN. I can hardly wait.

snackbot @ 2005-11-14T00:02:00

2005-11-13T23:00:51Z

My apartmentmates and their friends where just watching a porn movie. It ended, and they applauded for about a minute.

That's Italy for you.

Verona

2005-11-13T18:52:43Z

I went to where Romeo and Juliet took place yesterday. They had Romeo and Juliet's houses, and even Juliet's tomb!

...which is interesting, because they never actually existed. Cute city, though.

Bologna refuses to be sunny. There was a brief interval as we rode the train south in which the sun came out from behind the clouds, but it didn't last. I feel like this is why Europe is so much more artsy than the US, they have long stints of really moody weather.

In other news, I updated The Comic again.

Cliches?

2005-11-07T02:09:10Z

I've noticed that a lot of Livejournal posts are about people motivating themselves to go to bed. And also a lot of mine are shameless self-promotion of the COMIC. This is an exception to neither of those.

Sicily was great fun, but now I'm back in Bologna and it has been a fairly yucky combination of cloudy and rainy for a week. Yes, Yucky. However, last night was an after-the-fact "Halloween" party in which I dressed up in my typical last-minute fashion as Superman by borrowing Karen's red scarf and tiny tiny Superman t-shirt. I learned there that never, in any circumstance, should scotch whiskey and pineapple juice be mixed, unless you favor a drink with a slight taste of cardboard.

So back to that whole "bedtime motivation" thing. Buona notte. And the new comic may take a few hours to self-update, I'm not sure when Keenspace thinks it's midnight. The new one includes (at least one) awful pickup line.

Apocalypse Now, or Apocalypse Later?

2005-10-26T21:49:31Z

So according to Fran Ferguson, the president of Vassar, a terrible earthquake just struck Kashmir and decimated everything around. Did God decide to start destroying the world lately without telling anyone? Hurricanes, floods, earthquakes... now all we need is a glacier to go crazy and move Alaska 300 miles into mainland Asia.

On a lighter note, I updated THE COMIC again. I'll be gone in Sicily for a week though, so I won't be able to update again until afterward. In the mean time, I recommend that you all start digging glacier bunkers to protect against the inevitable onslaught. Or else prepare some colored syrup for the biggest snow cone you ever done gone and seen.

COMIC!!!

2005-10-11T16:36:34Z

I got around the firewall, so I've been updating THE COMIC like woah lately. Yeah, "like woah". I'm hip, I can use unpopular outdated sayings to indicate frequency of my comic updates.

Italy has been good lately. Very very rainy, but good. It finally stopped raining a couple days ago, and now the chill of fall is setting in. It'll be interesting to see how the country looks under a layer of snow. In any case, it's time to go to my cooking lesson. Yeah, "cooking lesson". I can skip home-economics in middle school only to end up taking a class in cooking here in Italy.

...I think it's time I stop literarily backing up my every action.

It's the Final Countdown!

2005-09-20T15:47:08Z

...get it? That song's by "Europe". And I'm in... Europe...

Diminuitive livejournal subject string jokes aside, I do believe that this is my first post from good ol' Bologna. However, I'm not so much in "fill everyone in on the interesting facets of my life" mood as I am "rant about the insufficiencies of my internet access" mood. So here we go.

The real meat of this rant is about the University of Bologna firewall. This little gem of coding, meant to keep my little computer safe from the big bad world of internet-born computer viruses, is very much like American foreign policy in that it would rather not let anything in at all if it had the choice. This means that besides requiring a password simply to open internet explorer, I am forced to gawk at my inability to open any outside program (be it AIM, World of Warcraft, or any other online game/program) that does not go through IE. Now, I've signed on to AIM a couple times, but those have all been through the AOL website and with the use of the crappy instant-load version that they suppply there. As a result, I feel mostly like I'm on the outside of a glass house, looking in at the whole world inside and able to communicate a bit by tapping on said glass and writing words with my voice steam, but otherwise I'm disconnected. The biggest gripe I have with this is the webcomic.

Essentially, Vaguely Amazing had grown into one of my most time-consuming and fun activies of the summer, second perhaps only to the OTHER thing that I cannot access through the firewall. You may remember that foray into the world of webcomics that Jeremy and I started last semester, but as of late it has sort of fallen apart. I'm really glad, however, to see that Jeremy updated it just the other day. What with me in Italy doing essentially nothing yet trapped behind a firewall and without a drawing tablet or scanner and him at Vassar with all of the above but no free time, the times are, how we like to say, "tough". So I apologize mostly for my lack of involvement in the strip for the past month (and a half?), but until I invest some serious money into a tablet or find some way to scan in artwork, my half of the deal is sort of at a standstill. I'll probably break down sooner or later and order a tablet from the Wacom site, so the future is not too bleak. The next step will be finding out how to log into an FTP program through the forementioned firewall, but hopefully I have a few hacker tricks up my sleeve.

Well, there's my rant. Not so much fun, but I promise there's one involving caffe' and singing "Maria" from West Side Story at the top of my lungs with an english-speaking Italian while walking down the streets of Bologna at 1:30 at night. And puppies. You guys have been such good listeners, you deserve puppies. Maybe even a cauldron full of puppies.

Ciao.

Who the heck is Dudley Do-right?

2005-08-02T16:40:24Z

First off, I updated the Comic again. It damn well took me 4-5 hours to color it the way that I wanted to, so I'd appreciate people checking it out.

In other news, there's this whole Italy thing, which honest to God snuck up on me like a ninja in sneakers. I'm leaving on Friday to go to Hastings, staying with Jeremy for a day with Karen, then Karen and I are heading into the City to catch the group flight. I keep going back and forth from being really excited to really nervous, but I'm happily in one of those "blissfully ignorant of how much packing I have to do" moods which sets me in the excited bracket.

There was a killer thunderstorm last night, if anyone was awake at around 1:30. A tree right across the street from my house got struck, so there was a brilliant green flash, a loud snapping explosion, and electrical shock noise as the branch that got hit broke off and damaged some of the wires around a telephone booth and kicked all the power around it off. I stumbled through the house until I could find a couple candles, then sat up in my room fearing God until the storm passed. Now, I'm not a pussy, as Karen called me for doing so, I just have a moderate respect for nature, especially when the branch that was struck could have been over MY house. Anywho, I'm in one piece and the power came back on a few hours later, meaning that I woke up with my lights and alarm clocks flashing.

Online Quiz? In Livejournal? Surely not!

2005-08-01T04:51:38Z

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

Extraversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	53%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Altruism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Interdependence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Intellectual	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Mystical	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Artistic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Religious	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Hedonism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Materialism	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Narcissism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Work ethic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Self absorbed	\|\|\|\|	16%
Conflict seeking	\|\|\|\|	16%
Need to dominate	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%

Romantic	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Avoidant	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Anti-authority	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Wealth	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Dependency	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Change averse	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Individuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	43%
Sexuality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	83%
Peter pan complex	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	63%
Physical security	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Physical Fitness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	84%
Histrionic	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%
Paranoia	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Vanity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
Hypersensitivity	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	56%
Female cliche	\|\|\|\|\|\|	30%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

I like how contradictory some of the responses are. I think that says something about me. But I'm not sure what. Wait, yes, I do. What's your name again?

I quit

2005-07-20T00:19:47Z

You win, nature, you've officially made the most obnoxiously oppressive weather. It's so humid, I feel like I'm constantly sweating just from the moisture I pick up from moving around. Circus Arts class today degenerated to a tremendous water fight, which was not altogether unwelcome. Pretty much all productivity has halted. I feel lazy, but man.... it's just too hot.

Speaking of productivity, I updated the comic, so check it out.

In other news, I really want to read Harry Potter before my campers / my sister ruins everything for me. God damn vices... the Japanese make addictive video games, the Columbians make coffee and cocaine, the Americans make greasy fast food, and the British make enticingly involved whimsical novels. Guess I'll go stick my head in a bucket of icewater or something.

(note: any unfair stereotypical bigotry preceding was entirely unintentional and in good fun)

Convenient, because that's where I'm heading soon

2005-07-10T21:15:13Z

Your Inner European is Italian!

Passionate and colorful.

You show the world what culture really is.

Who's Your Inner European?

Two decades

2005-07-10T01:52:24Z

So... I'm 20 now.

It's been a sort of boring age so far. I officially became 20 on Friday, the 8th, and since then I've pretty much done nothing. I guess it's partially my fault, since I never try to find anyone, and I just sit around hoping that other people will call and invite me to someplace entertaining. 20 is a pretty useless age anyway... where you lose your status as "teenager" but doing quite ascend to anything glorious, as one who turns 21 does.

So... yeah. I really don't have much to say, other than the fact that I'm 20 now. And that I'm watching "Waterworld" on TV. Oh Kevin Costner.

I'm shy

2005-07-05T00:23:25Z

I get really self-conscious while riding my unicycle around. I rode it down the street for the first time today ever, and I ended up getting applause from a passing car. The odd thing is, since seeing a unicyclist in Hingham is so much more rare than seeing one at Vassar, it becomes pretty much a show-off event. Now, I like showing off, I just wish there was a place I could ride without looking like I was trying to get everyone's attention. A group of 13-year-olds called out to me from across the street asking if what I was doing was hard, and I recommended trying it since one of them said they always wanted to learn how.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't want to be "that guy." You know, the one who's going around with a big hat with flashing lights on it or something to attract attention. Only instead of a hat, it's a unicycle... yeah. Gotta love it, though.

The end of days

2005-05-17T05:25:26Z

Well, not in the apocalyptic Arnold Schwarzenegger sense. More like in the college sophomore year sense. It's weird, I'm caught between a feeling of intense sadness and complete apathy. It must be my teenage hormones kicking in. Maybe this will all be solved in two months when I turn 20. Criminy, time moves fast. Well, rather than waxing poetic and being philosophical and spilling my guts, or any other similar saying, I'd best go study for my last exam, which is in fact tomorrow and threatens my constantly with the fact that I have spent little to no time preparing for it. Arrivederci.

Shameless self-advertisement:

2005-05-08T18:59:05Z

Since I'm trying to get the word out, and it looks like Jeremy and I have really begun to get a solid updating schedule going, I'm going to take this moment to plug the webcomic that we've been doing for the past few months, entitled:

Vaguely Amazing

It's kooky and bizarre. Essentially, it's the life of myself (Ricky Hawkins) and one Jeremy Warren, two eccentric college bums and our crazy antics. There might even be a rhino or some other members of the animal kingdom involved. Check it out and tell your friends, we'd love it if our reader base grew beyond Jeremy's middle-school brother's friends.

Ciao tutti

2005-05-02T22:44:13Z

Recentamente, era a una festa del dipartimento d'italiano. Ho bevuto un po di vino, e ho mangiato molti canoli. Era molta bella. Allora, ho deciso di scrivere un po nel mio Livejournal, ma solo in italiano. E' stato un grandissimo tempo che non scrivevo. Fosse scrivero' piu nel futuro. Parlando di scrivendo, ho una tema di scrivere che vuole otto o dieci pagine. Dio mio. Lo scrivero' subito. Arrivederci, tutti.

You can tell I'm either bored or sick when I update twice in two days

2004-12-21T04:49:01Z

...and I'm a little bit of both right now. Still recuperating. My stomach hasn't stopped grumbling for the past two days, although now it grumbles uncomfortably rather than painfully, so that's a plus. That, and I'm doing a lot of book-reading, computer-playing, and sleep-getting. I fully approve of the bit of "Ender's Game" I've read so far (thanks, Swampy), and I've challenged myself to go through all of Diablo II by the time break is over. We'll see if I can keep it up.

That, and I need to be productive. I really need to work on some flash / drawing stuff over break too. Looking back, this mission seems to be sort of impossible due to the foundation of counterproductivity that has already been lain. Again, we'll see if I can keep it up.

Okay, time to be productive. And by that I mean talk on AIM and eventually go play Diablo II or read or sometime. Or to ponder why I feel compelled to end Livejournal posts like conversations... hmmm...

There go my dreams of taking over the world

2004-12-20T01:56:41Z

Well, I hate to follow up a sad entry with another sad entry, but the last one was over a week ago and this has been a fairly unpleasant couple of days.

To look at this all optimistically, at least I've learned several things. First of all, after having stayed up until 4:00 am every single day for the past two weeks due to exams and just plain stupidity, attempting to wake up at 9:00 am and driving my friends back home from college was a bad idea. Whether it was nerves, fatigue, food poisoning or a combination of the three, I was horribly sick from 5:00 am until 1:00 pm yesterday, which meant not only backing out on driving my friends but also staying at college 4 hours longer than I was supposed to (hopefully not incurring fines due to my physical state) and having Karen drive me (in MY car) to her grandfather's house where I would stay and recuperate for the next 24 hours. They are both wonderful people, by the way.

So I leave Karen's grandfather's house at a little after 2:00pm, today. Driving back would have been rather inconsequential, had I not been pulled over by a Rhode Island state policeman for speeding. Apparently I was going 85 in a 55 mph zone... yikes. All I knew is that I was matching the speed of all of the cars in front of me, but I must have not been paying too much attention beyond that. To make matters worse, in all of my naivete I pull over on the left side (I've never been pulled over before and was confused), which caused the policeman to remark that I "almost get [him] killed." Double yikes. After fixing my lane positioning, I gave him what he asked for and, seeing that it was my first offense at anything ever, he knocked down my fine from $375 to $75. I guess I should be super happy about that, but it's still $75 and I wonder if I should have mentioned that I've been feeling a bit flighty all day due to the fact that I haven't eaten much solid food all weekend. In any case, I can't take over the world anymore because now I have a police record and can be easily identified.

Here I am now, safe and sound at the Cape House. You can bet that I didn't drive any more than 7 miles above the speed limit the entire way, no matter how many cars passed me, and didn't go further left than the middle lane. Perhaps this is the advent of the safest driving I've ever done; who knows? All I know is that I am 10 lbs lighter due to sickness, $75 poorer due to stupidity, and Christmas presents are looking a whole lot more expensive and last-minute.

snackbot @ 2004-12-03T17:41:00

2004-12-03T22:43:16Z

Sometimes it seems like there's a lot wrong with the world.
Sometimes it seems that it's because of you.
Sometimes, you wake up at 5:00 in the afternoon and post depressing Livejournal posts like a Middle School girl.

This is one of those times.

Doing online quizzes makes it easier to update

2004-11-30T18:35:11Z

You scored as Christian. The Good News is...you're a Christian.

You my friend are a non-denominational Christian. You strive to be a better person and are generally concerned about how your actions affect other people; however, you do struggle with disobedience as it may make life uncomfortable for you. Your greatest battle will be against lukewarmedness. Dude, fight the good fight.

</td>

Christian

75%

Buddhist

55%

Catholic

50%

Anarchist

50%

Jewish

50%

Cult

40%

Religion
created with QuizFarm.com

If there was an option for "too lazy to practice a religion," then I'd totally get that one. It's been a long time since I've actually sat down and thought about beliefs. It's also been a long time since I've actually sat down and written a ten-page paper. Much less two of them. Hmm... maybe my priorities are elsewhere...

Consider those turkeys eaten

2004-11-27T17:42:11Z

Well, here I go again, leaving Hingham to head back to Vassar. It's weird how little I was back this time, but I guess it'll only be a month before I'm home for Chrisma-chanu-kwanza-dan (or whatever that Virgin records commercial calls it). Thanksgiving was nice, I ate a few helpings of good stuff and was assaulted by three 1.5 to 6-year-olds for most of the day. This little girl Samantha, my brother-in-law's brother's daughter made up a game of tag where I couldn't get her as long as she was "on base," which meant touching any of the walls. It was interesting considering I had almost no voice for all of that day, having woken up unable to speak and only slightly improving across the day. Whatever was causing it is pretty much gone now, so I should be ship shape by the time I get back to Vassar. I also got to hang out with a few people, some more than others, lately. It's nice to see people from home, even when I accidentally (?) sleep past 9:00 so I can't go to breakfast with them on the day I leave. I blame the fact that I was up until 4:30 last night watching a fireplace slowly die down. I have to be packing anyway, as I leave in about an hour. Speaking of packing, I'm bringing my old anime that I haven't seen in years... it's going to be a regression into nerd nostalgia, I'm a little ashamed to be so excited. Jeremy will partake, at least.

In any case, I'm sorry to any Hingham people that I didn't get to see while home, there just wasn't enough time! You know who you are *coughCaitiePetersonIpineforyou!cough* Until next time, poor and ignored Livejournal!

Gah with a capital "gah"

2004-11-22T02:41:44Z

I'm being horribly unproductive today, so I feel that I might as well cap it off by posting on Livejournal. And by bitching. That helps as well. And by eating. Actually, come to think of it, I have an Entenmann's raspberry danish sitting on my refrigerator just begging to be eaten. Perhaps I'll update something more interesting later, and perhaps not. Ha! I am the master of suspense!