So the past few months I've been sadly ignoring my banjo in favor of class and internet and Gargoyle and sleeping. I figured the new year is as good a time as any to get playing again, so for the past few days I've been doing the Daily Frail on http://tangiersound.wordpress.com/, which is the home base of my banjo heroes, father/son duo Pat and Patrick Costello. They're really fantastic teachers and are great at utilizing the web's ability to create social spaces and propagate knowledge. Although the banjo is their primary focus, they also do workshops for the steel guitar and ukulele and have some interesting and enriching thoughts about the nature of music-making and life in general. They are also designing and selling a growing line of high-quality American-made banjos that seem excellent. I would really recommend checking them out.

Anyways, today was the first day of classes, including my much-anticipated class with Terry Lawson. Lawson used to be the primary film reviewer for the Detroit Free Press, and I grew up reading his reviews, so he's kind of a pseudo-celebrity to me. So far he seems extremely high-energy and a little prone to heading off on tangents. The title of the course is "The Screenplay as Literature," but he seems resistant to the concept inherent in the name, and has pitched it as moreso an introduction to the structure and history of screenplays and a precursor to the Screenwriting class. Anyway, he seems cool and knowledgeable and will tell us stories about interviewing Rob Schneider and other excellent adventures in journalism.

Okay, well I'm obviously out of practice blogging and the past two paragraphs have exhausted me, so I'll stop now.

Cathy's Pretty Much the Best Peanut Butter Cookies Ever

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream together

• 2 sticks butter
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 1 1/2 cups crunchy peanut butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat in

• 2 large eggs

In a separate bowl, sift together

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Stir flour mixture into butter mixture. Roll the dough into 1-inch balls and space evenly onto baking sheets. Using a fork, flatten each ball, making a criss-cross pattern. Lightly sprinkle sugar on top. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Consume voraciously.

Hi guys. You might have noticed that I haven't been blogging recently. This is partially due to business and partially due to the fact that I've been purging all my blogging impulses through Twitter (http://twitter.com/Misoks), which you should all join.

Recent things of interest:
-Attended reading by John Hodgman, got both my copy of The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and the Gargoyle's autograph bomb signed, and bantered with him for a while
-Interviewed/bowled with Mason Proper, a band that is coming to a town near you
-Went to the Garg 99th anniversary reunion banquet and had M. Eddy and K. Jacque staying in my apartment for a few days--lots of drinking
-Wrote a few papers before reading the directions fully (at least one of them got an A)
-Got into UMich's New York Arts Internship program, which will hopefully result in me getting an internship this summer (hopefully in New York)
-Co-Invented the Warsaw Rules for Scrabble (the best kind of Scrabble)
-Hosted a pizza visit by noted Gargalum G. Borman (a man who likes to get in on the bottom floor (which sounds dirty but isn't))
-Drew lots of naked people

It has been an eventful semester so far. Currently rushing to find a house for next year before they're all snatched up and trying to stay on top of the 10 minutes of Life-Drawing homework I'm supposed to be doing every day.

Dream: I am waiting in a line to play a solo for my clarinet teacher before a recital. Dave and Gail are in line, too, and we chat awhile. By the time we're close to the door the teacher's in, I realize I've forgotten my sheet music and I'm really upset that all my waiting has been in vain because I'll have to go all the way home and back. So I leave to get it, but all I do is run outside and down a hallway to a refrigerator. I retrieve two kinds of pills, a glass, and a jug of milk and start running back but decide I probably don't need the glass and the jug of milk. I run back to the fridge, replace them, and run again to the waiting room. By the time I get there, Dave is leaving the teacher's room, holding a giant (maybe 4'x4') supermarket cold cut package labeled "CHINESE HAM." He looks enthusiastic. I get back in line with Gail and it becomes apparent that Max has formed a new organization called "Brothers and Internets for the Advancement of Max Eddy." Then my alarm clock wakes me up.

I'm in the final stages of packing now, which is basically when I sit down and look at the remaining objects in my room and think about going downstairs to get some bags or something to put them in but decide that I would rather go on the internet. I'm also waiting for April to call and give me the signal indicating she is ready for OPERATION: FUNTIMES, in which many activities will be participated in by me and three hot asians. One of these activities is called "BestBuy" and another is called "Foods" and another is called "Go to Cranbrook."

Tomorrow I'm off to Ann Arbor again. Bittersweet, as most events are. Despite my complaints and persistent boredom, I do enjoy living a life of leisure at home with lots of free food, a yard, a car, my family, and my puppy. But I also am eager to get back to my life of action and stresses in A2. I'm excited and proud to be editing the Garg this year and taking classes and living in an apartment, etc, etc.

In other news, if you are a cool person who likes things, you are invited to join this forum, started by myself and some friends. It is good.