Skye and I are going on vacation tomorrow, so my infrequent posts will become more so.
We recently saw three movies on DVD.
- Nick and Norah's infinite Playlist. We both liked this. It was ultimately probably forgettable, but it was definitely enjoyable while I was watching it.
- Beverly Hills Cop. So-so. I remember liking it for Foley's shenanigans, but there really aren't that many in the film. The rest of the movie is mediocre.
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button HA-ATED this one. Awful. Terrible. And long. I was wishing that it would be over when we were less than 40 minutes in; this is unfortunate because the movie was two hours and 40 minutes long. First, it was boring. The movie starts with three different stories: two from the past, and one in the present. All three were boring.
Next, the movie is about a guy who ages backwards, YET THE PLOT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM AGING BACKWARDS. Seriously. With only very minor changes to the script, this could have been a boring movie about a guy who ages forwards. They decided to take a potentially interesting idea and do nothing with it.
Third, I generally like it when movies/TV shows/etc. use different story arcs to support each other. In this movie, there was a side story about a clockmaker who made a clock that ran backwards. This seems like a nice idea to reinforce Button's situation, right? Wrong. They simply had a character describe the clockmaker for maybe 5 minutes, but it did not interact with any of the other stories at all. Button didn't seem to know about it, and it didn't affect him. Don't just make up supporting story arcs for the heck of it - INTEGRATE, MAN!
Finally, it was looooooooooooooong and boring. Also, boring.
Happy early birthday to my bro and my cuz! Happy end of July to the rest of you.
I am in a workshop this week with a bunch of other professors. I have attended workshops with high school teachers in the past. Do you know what the difference between professors and high school teachers at workshops is? Professors act like good students, high school teachers act up. All of the professors this week sat toward the front of the class, paid attention, asked questions, and showed up on time. Most high school teachers I've seen do the opposite - in fact, they act like high school students do (roughly).
I don't mean this to be inflammatory.
My advisor and I were once talking about how wonderful our Mac laptops were. He commented that it was so versatile that he even used it as a flashlight - the power had gone out that week, and he used his laptop to light his way to a real flashlight.
My response was something like: "Well, it is an awfully inefficient flashlight. It uses a lot more energy than a regular flashlight." My advisor didn't say this, but I wish he would have told me this: "You just ruined a perfectly good story."
I've been slacking quite a bit - sorry.
An interesting article on why America
doesn't do so well with science. Basically, Hollywood only presents scientists as nerds or evil. The former has always been obvious, but I had never considered the latter is true. The article cites Crichton as being particularly guilty of this (scientists turn dinosaur DNA into terrorizing dinosaurs! Science is bad!).
I have some ideas, and I am trying to figure out if I should write them down or save them for tomorrow in case I don't have anything interesting to write. This is because I have an idea that creativity is finite, and a person only has so many songs/stories/paintings in them. I think that I am wrong about this, but the attitude lingers.
In the spirit of fighting that attitude (and considering that I haven't posted in 6 days), here is a little more:
Here are three songs that are surprisingly popular in my new home town. I didn't hear them much on the radio in the other places I've lived. This could be due to the fact that I had radio stations that I really liked in all of the other cities, where I have to make due in my new location. Here are the three songs:
- "Carry on my Wayward Son" - Kansas. This isn't surprising, since it is a classic classic rock song. I also like the song, and think that it is well-put together; there are several different parts to the song.
- "Kyrie" - Mr. Mister. It seems like this should have dropped out of the rotation about 30 years ago.
- "I Hate Everything About You" - Ugly Kid Joe. It seems like this song was barely popular when it first came out. Maybe that wasn't fair - I remember seeing the video a lot as a kid. Still, it doesn't seem like this quite holds up to the test of time.
I also remember that the lead singer of Mr. Mister was offered the lead vocalist duties in Chicago after Peter Cetera left. I think that he should have accepted.
I have more to say, but I'll save it. This is due to laziness, not fear of exhaustion.
The
Lost post is back! OMG!
I wasn't going to write this after first, but
Bad Z commented that she and onefourfive were planning on watching
The Wire soon. So, here is my
The Wire-related comment: "Is there a cooler person on Earth than Bunk Moreland? Seriously, the man exudes style."
I am feeling like a genius. First, I fixed our Skype phones that had stopped working for no good reason. Okay, so all I did was reboot the router and the base station, and - fine - one of our two phones still doesn't work, but we have a working telephone now.
Next, recall that I had a couple of leaks fixed in my EV, and that it didn't start so that I could bring it home. Well, I fixed it last night. There were really only two problems: the first is that I needed a new accessory battery, which I got last week. The car still didn't start.
Let me break this down: the car didn't start with the old accessory battery because the battery wasn't able to provide enough current to the main contactor to start the car. The battery didn't start after the new battery because the connection to the main contactor became dislodged while I was changing the battery. Initially I thought that this was completely my fault, and that I just forgot to reconnect it. In fact, the connection was connected between the main contactor and something that I didn't mess around with at all, so it really wasn't my fault at all.
As a bonus: I now know how to hot wire my car. So if my keys even disintegrate, I can still get home.
A nice video of our new senator beating up on Ann Coulter, via
Mano.
Ann-coulter-al-franken - The best video clips are here
I find that I am only really thinking about six things right now:
- Math
- Running
- Buffy
- The Wire
- Yardwork
- My electric car
This doesn't make for a very interesting weblog.
I'm very close to proving the conjecture I made a couple of weeks ago. Now the problem is: is the problem too easy? There is a chance that this result is known to a lot of people, all of whom deem it too trivial to publish. That would be a shame.
Michael Jackson fans are
crazy with a capital "nuts."
I'm re-watching
The Wire while re-watching
Buffy. My life is great. Jimmy McNulty is one of the greatest TV characters ever.
Today is the day I turn from getting background on my research to actually thinking of new stuff. I came up with a conjecture last week, and today I decided that I should be able to prove it soon. Basically, I just need to be very careful in keeping track of a bunch of things. It is promising.
Do you know what I loved? When MTV had blocks. I think that they had "Rock Blocks," "Hard Blocks," "Rap? Blocks," and "Buzz Blocks." They would show several videos from the same type of music in a row. I loved that summer (summers?).
USA! USA! A US All-Star football team is
dominating in a world championship. They beat Mexico 55-0 and France 78-0. Now: isn't this like India beating the US in cricket? Is this really something to be proud of? I think not.
Headline:
Vegetarian Diet 'Weakens Bones'. Pretty interesting headline, huh? It seems like maybe a vegetarian/vegan diet isn't such a good idea, right? Read on: it says that the association with vegetarianism and weak bones "is clinically insignificant." I suppose a headline saying "There is no significant link between a vegetarian diet and weaker bones" is quite a bit less attention grabbing.
Congratulations to Tsjaz and CHG for letting out the big family secret yesterday. Grandma is now in the know.
