We Amuse Myself

Hiatus from Blogger

2009-12-14T04:51:00.003-05:00

Okay, I'm officially annoucing my move to my Korean blog, Adventures in Korean. I won't be posting any more on this blog, until after I return from Korea.

Also, the esteemed Bunny has a picture page in the same vein as The Various and Sundry Travels of Carl the Bear... but the idea is completely original! And the page is super special and embedded, so this link is the only way to get to it, until I get away to putting a super special and secret link on my blog's homepage.

Cinematic Saturdays with Obi Wan and Walter Bishop

2009-11-07T22:11:00.005-05:00

After a convenient name change, this blog seems to be developing a very specific theme.

Men Who Stare at Goats

Starring: Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey

Grade: A

Before I begin, I'd just like to say, for those of you who have seen The Informant or read my post about it - these movies (while certainly not the same) have a lot of similarities. Half-way through the movie I realized this. But unlike The Informant, this movie was advertised as a comedy and is. Even during the moments where you kind of cringe at what's going on, it's still funny. (And of course, I still like The Informant, even if it wasn't as funny as advertised). Now onto the movie!

Dude, I pretty much loved this movie. At the moment I can't think of anything bad about it, other than at times I wanted it to go a little faster. But I'm also really tired so maybe if I wasn't than A.) I might have found something bad about the movie and B.) I might have not wanted it to go faster towards the end.

Let me start this movie intro by saying that if Miss Alice is reading this paragraph, she might want to skip it. There was a commercial for (I think - and isn't it funny I can't remember what the ad was advertising) a TV-movie. And it started on a close-up of this guy talking and all you can see are his eyes. And I'm thinking 'I know that voice and those eyes... it can't... be...' And the camera pulls away to reveal Glenn Beck. And the woman sitting behind me says with pretty much no restraint "Ugh, I hate that guy." And the theater busts out laughing. And the theater was pretty much in sync with the laughs from that point on.

On to slightly less controversial politics - now, I'm not exactly a fan of hippies, but I have to say after watching the hippie scenes in this is movie, where the "Men Who Stare at Goats, as it were, are trained to be psychic soldiers... I wouldn't mind spending some time in that camp. So the basic premise of the movie is that a reporter, Bob (McGregor) is investigating a government program from the 80's called the "New World Army", where men were trained to be "Jedi Warriors" or "Psychic Spies", via New age practices and things like that, and he's being told the story of this program (which is seriously based on some stuff that actually happens. See my side note on MKULTRA on the bottom of this post) by Clooney's character, Lyn. There's obviously more too it than that but this is the basic premise.

Okay, I could really just go on about this movie, especially because I'm tired, so I'll just break down the stuff I liked in bullet points.

Lyn's demonstration of (his liberal intrepretation of) how a Jedi warrior disables an enemy opponent: there are actually two insistences of this - both hilarious - and the second probably my favorite scene in the whole movie
The Jedi warrior references subtle juxtaposition with Ewan McGregor (aka the young Obi Wan Kenobi - if you don't know who I'm talking about... get out. Now.): this was supposedly unintentional and they just happened to cast McGregor for the part. Whether true or not, whatever, I don't care. It was funny.
The glorious, GLORIOUS 70's rock. Long live Boston.
Pretty much the entire last twenty minutes of the movie. I will give nothing away, but it's great. And it led me to decide my next bullet point.
Jeff Bridge's character (the original psychic warrior) is Walter Bishop. And through the transitive property, Jeff Bridges is also Walter Bishop. And Walter Bishop is the Dude.

Now go see the movie!

And if you're still reading: MKULTRA. Look it up on Wikipedia. Basically it was this CIA program from the 70's where the government tried to use LSD to see if they could read and end up controling the minds of people, such as communists and dictators, people like that. A lot of people died and the program shut down. When I was in high school, the documents about the program were unclassified, and my friend did a really awesome research project about it that I wish I did instead of stupid HUAC and the stupid McCarthy Hearings. (Stupid McCarthy... stupid not reading about the smoking gun til I had already written my whole paper...). It's pretty crazy the things they did. Crazy... or... Genius? Nope, it was crazy.

Filmographic Fridays! #2

2009-10-03T00:03:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I realize it's not Friday anymore. You'll have to excuse the tardiness; I thought the Stargate: Universe premiere was only one hour, when it turns out it was two. And even though it's not a film, I give it two thumbs up, just for being more interesting to me than Stargate: Atlantis.

Movie(s) du jour:

The Informant!

My Grade: B/ B+

I'm on the fence about the grade for this movie, because all the trailer's billed it as a comedy, and while it's funny, it's not a hilarious, laugh-out-loud type of comedy. BUT this movie gets major props from me for the ending. It's not a twist or surprise ending but it is interesting and sort of unexpected. I don't want to give anything away, in case you're the type of person who (like me) does not and TRIES NOT to see things coming, but it really made me think more critically of Matt Damon's character(as in applying critical thinking skills to his character, not necessarily thinking badly of him) . Also, even though it's not laugh-out-loud funny, Matt Damon's narration throughout the film is surprisingly entertaining and cuts down scene transitions and other less interesting parts.

I really did like the film, but I was expecting a comedy. This movie is really more of a dramedy. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's a very entertaining dramedy, however it should have been advertised that way.

The Invention of Lying

My Grade: B+/A

My first instinct was to give this film an A, but I quickly realized that was because I had lowered expectation for it that I shouldn't have had. I was expecting this movie to have the funniness of Ghost Town (another Gervais movie), which was funny but not really funny. This movie however is quite funny. And the best part (for me) was that it had a nice message that didn't feel forced. There were actually a couple of messages: one about lying, obviously. I'll just let you guys figure out the rest when you see the movie, because there really are several good messages watchers can take away. To sum it up, I'm going to quote Roger Ebert's review "In its amiable, quiet, PG-13 way, The Invention of Lying is a remarkably radical comedy."

However, the movie does have one aspect that could be seen as a downside. Given that this movie is about people who can only tell the truth, the issue of religion, God and the afterlife was bound to come up and the movie does poke fun at these things. But I thought it was funny and wasn't offended, so there.

On a side note, I'd like to make a little comment about trailers. One of the reason's that I found The Invention of Lying as funny as I did was probably because I had really only seen two trailers for it. The second trailer I saw just an hour before the movie and it only contained a couple of seconds of new things, so nothing really over-spoiled for me there. And both hid the major plot points of the movie well.When I go to see a movie, I like to know it's basic premise and to have only seen ONE trailer that shows it's scenes and stuff. Teaser trailers don't count as trailers in this total. If I see more than one trailer (and in the cases of some movies four or five) I just feel like too much of the movie has been revealed.

While in both the movies talked about here, I saw the trailer for the new movie It's Complicated. This movie has an awfully long trailer (maybe two or three minutes - it's ridiculous). So I really hope they don't release a second one, because I already feel like I've seen to much of it.

Finally, after seeing it's trailer today, I'm really excited about Men Who Stare At Goats. Which had already hooked me anyway by it's awesome title!

Korea Update

2009-09-22T22:08:00.003-04:00

So I got tired of waiting around til I go to Korea to start my Korea blog, but I also didn't want to have a Blogger blog (no offense Blogger) for it, since uploading pictures is a pain in the butt. After shopping around, I eventually started a blog for Korea on Wordpress. I'll still use this one for my 'unrelated to Korea' posts, but I'll be using Wordpress for Korea/'getting ready for Korea' stuff.

And I already got one view on two of my posts! Yay! Anyway, here's the new blog:

http://koreanadventures.wordpress.com/

Also, I would definitely recommend Wordpress as a blogging host. It's got a really sweet dashboard set up although I haven't yet tried to upload pictures...

Rest in Peace

2009-09-14T23:08:00.004-04:00

As two out of three of this blog's followers already know (and one will soon be finding out, provided she keeps reading), my grandmother died last Sunday (September 9th, 2009 at 7:44am, to be precise). She died of Alzheimer's, which is very sad because it meant she died in a lot of mental pain and unfortunately because of her arthritis she was in a lot of physical pain as well. While I'm certainly not happy that she died, I am glad she was finally able to pass because she was trapped in a bad place for longer than anyone's grandma should be.

I thought I'd share some of the stories from the last few months of her life, since some of them are very sweet while others are a reminder of what a little monster Alzheimer's is. First let me start with the bad.

What initially started off as forgetfulness quickly developed into the fabrication of memories as Grandma tried to connect together what she could still remember. She accused my grandfather (her husband of 60 years) of cheating on her with a woman living in the next town over, and eventually of having children with her. She forgot her youngest child, my aunt, before eventually accusing her of marrying my grandpa. She started asking people where her father (who has been dead since the 70's) was, and occasionally referred to my grandpa as her father. Sometimes she switched to 'Dark Mommy', as my mother and her siblings called the phase when Grandma threw and destroyed things, shouted things, acted generally violent and not herself. By the end, she had lost muscle control, was confined to a bed and was asking people to get her a shotgun so she could kill herself, because even though she couldn't remember what was going on with her, she knew that something was very wrong.

But Grandma still had some lucid moments, and some very ponient moments up to the very end. At her funeral, my mom was telling me about how loving my grandparents were in the last few months. It caught my mom and her sister off-guard because they (and I) could never remember their parents being very affectionate to each other, but by the end, my mom said she could really see how passionately they loved each other.

When my grandma was accusing my grandfather of cheating on her, he sat there very calmly and said 'No Bernice, you're the only woman I've ever loved. I've never loved another woman.' And when she died he sent my aunts and uncles on a search for a picture my grandma sent him when he was in the Navy, because he said it was his most precious possession and he was afraid she might have torn it up as 'Dark Mommy'. At the end, they had a moment together where my grandma said she wouldn't have traded her life for another without my grandpa. During her funeral and through the long Catholic service, Grandpa never took his eyes of her coffin.

It wasn't until they started carrying out Grandma's coffin when I (and my aunt and youngest cousin) became overwhelmed. I was okay with Grandma dieing, but it was upsetting to see my poor grandpa in so much silent pain. The woman he loved for 60+ years isn't with him anymore and the way she died must have been so emotionally devestating for him.

There was a moment of silence during the funeral and not being one to pray to God I prayed to my grandma, that she's able to make it to her heaven, that she's able to find and be with my aunt Marianne again and that my grandpa finds them when he dies. Unfortunately my grandfather, being a hardcore Catholic, believes that everyone spends some time in purgatory after they die before they're allowed into heaven, which I'm sure is only putting him through more mental unhappiness right now. Personally, I think Alzheimer's was their purgatory.

Filmographic Fridays!

2009-08-28T18:57:00.005-04:00

Hmmm. I might just have to make this a thing, given how I do love those movies.

Movie du jour:

Inglourious Basterds
My Grade: A

I was tempted to give this movie a lower grade, because of my bias towards some of the characters who died (and this isn't a sentimental film, so you can be sure people die). But I'm going to be bigger than that and give it an A. It was a damn good movie. I was thinking about comparing it to District 9 but I don't like it when people compare movies across genres so I won't.

I think my dad said it best when after the movie he declared (and I'm paraphrasing, cuz I forgot what he actually said) 'I know this movie was supposed to be over the top, but it's a lot more historically accurate then some movies that were supposed to be serious historical depictions.' And unfortunately the best part of what he said I can't remember. He said something other than 'over the top' but like I said... can't remember what it was. But it rings true, in terms of the realisticness of the ending and the way the plans put into motion unfold. (PS. I just asked my dad what he said, and he couldn't remember either but this time he used the word 'outrageous')

Also, I'd like to give some props to Christoph Waltz who plays Col. Hans Landa. He was one magnificently evil bastard. I suspect that one day he might be on the list of best film villians, not because he was particularly evil but because he was so deliciously calculating in his evil.

And thus I shall leave you with that. Calculated evil.

And Now For A Little Flora And Film

2009-08-24T13:29:00.004-04:00

I got back from my day at the botanical garden so late that I didn't have time to post about it. And from Friday to Sunday I was in PA and outside of wireless internet range, which is why this post is several days late.

I knew there was a botanical garden in DC, but I didn't realize it was also a conservatory. The botanial garden was nice, but since it's August a lot of the flowers were loosing their blooms. But still very nice and in the early summer I bet it's beautiful.

Then, after eating a delicious and extremely filling meal at the American Indian Museum, I went to the conservatory. WOW. That building makes me want to work in DC so I can go there everyday; it also makes me wish I had gone there before leaving College Park.

My personal favorite rooms were the orchid room and the Hawaiian room. The Hawaiian room was the coldest in the building. I kept trying to hang out in there since it was so hot, but it's pretty small so everytime someone came in I had to leave.

UNFORTUNATELY, a series of unfortunate events (not the book series) led me to leave my memory card for my digital camera and my cell phone (which I needed to get a ride back to get my memory card) behind. So no beautiful pictures, which is a real shame.

After that, I went to go see Julie & Julia at the Chinatown Theatre.
My Grade: B+

I enjoyed this movie as much as a thought I would, and perhaps more. I have to say Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci, playing Julia child and her husband (respectively) were extremely enjoyable to watch. I'd probably give the movie an A, but at times the storytelling was a little slow and mainly the Julia Child obsession (although fully admitted) was kinda creepy. But it was a nice movie and worth the extra expense of seeing it in Chinatown instead of at home.

The only thing is... everytime I see a movie where meat that still looks like the animals that it once was is being prepared... I leave wishing I was a vegetarian... but I love bacon too damn much.

Adventures in the Urban Jungle!

2009-08-19T21:37:00.019-04:00

Today and tomorrow I'm in College Park participating in the last part of a study. But each day I'm only there for like an hour. So as to not waste the trip back to the alma mater, I decided to take a trip to the National Zoo today. And it turns out it was a pretty nice day to do that. The weather was nice, and when it rained for all of five minutes it was a pleasant sort of drizzle that saved me from the mild heat for a moment. It wasn't crowded (although I did notice the Zoo had more than its fair share of pregnant ladies) and best of all - THE ANIMALS WERE OUT! I think this is the first time I've been to a zoo and been able to see all but one animal (some camera shy little jungle cat) because they were all out in their exhibits.

... Okay that's a lie. I didn't see the lemurs either because I past by their enclosure too late and they had gone inside. But that was once I was trying to get out of the zoo... so it doesn't count. *tear* I just wanted to see a momo... Oh yeah... I didn't see the lions either. But the tiger distracted me enough that I didn't miss it too much- more on that later.

And while some of my pictures sadly didn't come out, most of them did and some of them are actually really good considering how at a zoo you need to snap 'em on the fly. So for your enjoyment: My Zoo Photos with Captions

Behold the clouded leopard! So sleeeee-peeeee.

I was very happy to find both pandas out and about, and so very photogenic.

This panda spent about 5 minutes contorting around its tree trying to scratch its back. I should have taken a video.

Next, I give you: The Death Stork

You know how some storks bring you babies? Guess what this one does.

This guy was one of the highlights of my trip. He was just chillin' out next to me while I stood by his enclosure and took pictures. It was almost as if he was posing.

Another highlight of my trip: the elephant shrew. Watching it root around with its adorable elephant nose was actually pretty awesome. I also should have video taped that too (curse you brand new camera that I haven't completely figured out!)

And finally: El Tigre.

Now there's a bit of a story that goes with this picture. But I'll have to type that later, because it's time to put my laptop away.

PS This is my new desktop photo.

Okay, hopefully I'll finish this up tomorrow, because I'll have new pictures of the National Botanical Garden to share (and possibly a movie review if all goes according to plan).

Let's Go to the Movies!

2009-08-16T13:38:00.004-04:00

I've gotten back into the swing of going to the movies, so I thought I'd write down my two cents concerning their two-thumbs-up/down-ness.

The Proposal: Starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds
My Grade: B+

Now I'm sure you're wondering why I bothered to see this movie, and my answer is that there wasn't anything else playing in the rinky-dinky theatre where I live. But also, I like watching Sandra Bullock movies. They can be formulaic but they're fun and a nice, easy movie going experience.

I didn't have super high hopes for this movie, which meant I was pleasantly surprised. I think what worked for this movie was that the trailer really didn't reveal too many of the funny scenes so there were plenty of laughs you weren't expecting. Although the story is kind of predictable and it ends how you think it will, I felt the development of the main character's relationship was reasonable enough. Plus, one line at the end (I feel) saved it from having a completely unbelievable, unrealistic ending.

All in all, this movie could have had some more original story-telling, but there were enough unique moments and the characters have enough honesty that I'd watch this again.

My Sister's Keeper: Starring Abigail Breslin, Alec Baldwin and Cameron Diaz
My Grade: B-

The reason I saw this movie was that my mom had a free movie ticket at the Navy base theatre, where tickets are only $4. So I saw it with my mom and my sister (which was a little awkward). I hadn't read the book, but I knew the plot and I knew the ending of the movie had been changed. And I'm glad they changed the ending. It may have just been because of the dialog in the movie, but the way the story progress and the things they prepare you for, I feel using the book ending in the movie would be just too unbelievable. I don't even like it as the book ending, but whatever.

This movie was pretty good but I had a few issues with it. The main things is the order of the scenes. If you're supposed to take it at face value and things happen in the order they're presented to you (not including the obvious flashback scenes), then it doesn't really make sense. But if you follow it according to when the older sister has hair, with things hinging around when she gets sick again and when she gets chemotherapy, it still has issues. I'm pretty sure they were intending for the scenes to be out of order, but the intended order is not clear.

This movie probably could have been a C, especially considering my above complaint and a few other things, but I really liked the acting of the main characters. Another nice feature was I felt they really prepared you for the (non-book) ending, so although it's sad, it's not exactly tragic. It's an ending that will sadden some, but it's also one that I think should make people think about what they value and what they would do if they were in a similar situation. And thinking, although unplesant, is good.

District 9: Starring Sharlto Copley and Jason Cope (He was Christopher Johnson)
My Grade: A

This has the be the first movie I've seen where I read Roger Ebert's review and have come to disagree with it. Ebert says that this movie just doesn't have enough Sci-Fi to be Sci-Fi gold and wasn't too happy with some of the storytelling elements. For example, without revealing too much, he wasn't too happy with how the aliens don't have a lot of initiative.

But like The Proposal, there are a few lines here and there that I feel counter-act Ebert's points. I was impressed by the complexity of the District 9-world. If it had been more complex, it probably would have been confusing, while if it had been less complex, it probably would have felt incomplete or not entirely thought out.

I was genuinely impressed by a lot of aspects of this film. The aliens looked very realistic in their movements and facial expressions. The formation of the script (which I found out later), is practically unbelievable; the scenes were planned, but the dialog was improvised. Also, even though he infuriated me at times, I really like how the main character (with his lovely name of Wikus van der Merwe) was neither unrealistically heroic nor unrealistically adverse to what was happening to him.

While the film did have some short-comings, I think it's one of the best and most unique films of its genre for quite a while and I'd be quite disappointed if there isn't a sequel of somekind. Which brings me to the ending. A few reviewers commented that it was too dark/ ambiguous. First of all, ambiguous? Not at all. And while I'm fully happy with what happened, it could have easily been darker while staying true to the story overall. This isn't a Sandra Bullock movie guys.

Let me edumacate you on films- 80's Style

2009-08-06T22:52:00.005-04:00

I had been planning on blogging about something else yesterday, but I forgot what that was. Plus John Hughes died so I thought I'd honor his film career by blogging about my favorite John Hughes memories.

Memory 1: The Breakfast Club
Now, I don't mean the movie, I mean the one-person club my cousin started, where the dedicated members would watch the movie The Breakfast Club every day during breakfast. I kid you not. She must have had very long breakfasts. I do now know how long this club lasted, but it was a while

Memory 2: Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Now this lovely John Hughes romp (his only only rated-R - * el gasp!*) I was first introduced to not too long ago. I was visiting my grandparents and they wanted me to come with them to their senior living community's weekly movie. And I was like "Aww man, I like spending time with my G-parents but I don't wanna sit through an old fart movie. It has the word automobile in the title..." But I went, and sat in the could-be-very-comfortable-were-it-not-for-the-lack-of-arm-rests high back chairs, ate their delicious senior popcorn (It's more mature than regular popcorn) and found myself enjoying the movie. But, like many John Hughes movies, the end was far too happy. Could have used some death, that's all I'm saying.

Memory 3: Pretty in Pink/ Some Kind of Wonderful

Let's face it, they're basically the same movie, but it's okay because they were supposed to be. Look it up; it's on Wikipedia so it has to be true. You know what I like about Pretty in Pink? - Duckie. You know what else I liked - the song. Can't go wrong with a good theme song. You know what I like about Some King of Wonderful? - Watts (aka the Duckie of Some Kind of Wonderful).

Not to get off topic, but I'm biased, since she was played by Mary Stuart Masterson. Don't know what it is about her, but every movie/ TV show she's in, I like. Fried Green Tomatoes, excellent. Her role in Law and Order: SVU, excellent, despite how depressing SVU is. Benny and Joon - uh, hello. Classic. She's my female equivalent of Gary Oldman. Don't know what it is about him, but everything he's in, I like. Hannibal, excellent (Oh yes, he was in it. The credits lie.). Those episodes of Friends he was in where he played Joey's drunk British mentor - only happened to make those episodes my favorite Friends episodes. Playing Sirius Black in Harry Potter -... we won't be talking about Harry Potter... No, no. But man, if those two every hooked up (not necessarily in the traditional use of that phrase) in a movie, watch out.

R.I.P. Mister Hughes. You have filled my childhood with many a movie.

Tea cups! Glorious tea cups!

2009-07-27T20:49:00.009-04:00

This blog seems to be quite ADD. I still haven't gotten down the creek, but it WILL HAPPEN SOON! I got majorly distracted by belated spring cleaning. I had been slowly cleaning the house since getting back, but we donate our old stuff. This slows down the process because my mom meticulously logs everything we donate, so we can get a sweet tax break. When she move out of her house (effectively donating half of everything that was in it), she got a couple thousand dollars back, so it's worth while.

Anyway, now that I have a working laptop again, I decided to stop waiting for my mom and take the matter into my own hands. Organizing and logging junk is REALLY tiring... But since yesterday I've accumulated a lot of stuff to donate.

Most of the stuff is junk (albeit well-cared for junk that the thrift store should be happy to receive, unless they look a gift horse in the mouth like last time- See Side Story -->)

SIDE STORY!

My mom had stored a lot of clothes and a bunch of

other stuff from my childhood that for some reason

she thought I'd take when I have kids. And this

was nice stuff, not raggedy old stuff that had been

left to be eaten by moths in the attic.

So she was somewhat horrified when she saw

the woman at the thrift store throwing out

WHOLE BOXES off our donated stuff,

apparently because if we're donating

lots of stuff, most of it has to be junk.

That was literally their reasoning.

But then I found these old tea cups just packed away in a box lid. I'd like to know the whole story about these tea cups journey, since from what I know they seem lucky to still be here. First my mom saved them from the blackhole of my grandma's house (G-ma's an agoraphobic horder, you see) and it's a good thing she did because a couple of years ago we had a family reunion and start cleaning out a lot of G-ma's house. So these tea cups probably would have been tossed too, since they don't match. Then I ended up saving them from my mom's house when she was donating everything.

Pictures! Look at the pictures! (A whole bunch turned out blurry >:( So I'll be adding new ones tomorrow hopefully)

Good-Bye My Old Lappy

2009-07-25T17:54:00.006-04:00

So I know I promised to post pictures of my fabulous trek to the creek near my house with dog in tow, but sadly it seems I'm fighting off some kind of sickness. The major symptom is that I'm exhausted, which has been preventing me from doing anything other than play with my new laptop. Which has made me think that I didn't give my old laptop a proper send-off.

Sure, it was starting to get old and slow down a little, but considering all the problems with it, it was quite the trooper and lasted a lot longer than it would have, had I not be patient with it. It went through 3 (or 4) power cords, three keyboards, several sticky little feet, one mother board and finally died with two packed hard drives. And that reminds me - warranties are a good thing. Especially when the motherboard was fried. We sent it back to Dell and they replaced it, the keyboard and the feet (several of which I had bumped off) for free. Sweet.

And yeah, by the end it's memory was going and I couldn't multitask on it as well as I once could, but what can you expect from an over four-year-old (a.k.a. out-dated) laptop used as heavily as I used it? And let me tell you, I used it heavily, perhaps even sometimes abusing it. I'm sure we all remember the time I chucked it out of my lap and onto the floor - we NEEDN'T bring up why! And then there was the time I sat up in my bed and rammed it into my dresser, which was far too closely placed in my first college dorm room. That knocked out the front left corner of its frame. A few weeks later, I found the right corner knocked out; don't know how that happened. I dropped it at least once outside of its carrying case. I dropped it at least once inside its carrying case. It overheated more times than I'd care to admit (leading to the burnt-out motherboard), which was partly the fault of its poorly placed fans, but also because I just used it so dang much.

But now, my poor little laptop, it's time for you to be free. Let's have a moment of silence as I put Lappy out to pasture.

Introducing My New Lappy

2009-07-23T21:29:00.005-04:00

Weee! I got a new laptop! And after a bumpy start, it's up and running smoothly. In celebratory celebration of the arrival of my new laptop, I thought I'd post. Unfortunately I really have nothing to say. I mean, I could say something, but only a fool says something when they have nothing to say. So paint me a fool cuz here I go:

I have to say there is some sadness in recieving my new laptop. Due to a major miscommunication error, I wasn't able to back up any of the information on my last (/first) laptop before it died. So playing majong on my laptop (other than surf the internet, which, let's face it, get's boring after a while) reminds me so very much of all the wonderful things and memories I may have lost forever. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to get my stuff off... and by I'll I mean my parents will because they're engineers and saving computers is what I like to imagine they do for a living.

So with a slightly disappointing (as of right now) laptop mopping around my living room, making me all kinds of sad, I thought I'd take my dog for a walk - which reminds me, one nice feature my new laptop has over the old one is a port for SD cards. Hopefully this will lead me to both taking and post more pictures, as I love pretty things. Like pictures.

Along the walk, which ended at this really peaceful creek near my house, we met this young gentleman... who I instantly feared, if you know what I mean.

Handsome, yes? The picture quality looks a little off, but considering how far away I had to shoot from (and thus how much I had to zoom) to keep it from pulling it's head back in it's shell, it's actually pretty good.

And that's it for the pictures, because my tiny-weeny memory card couldn't take any more pictures. But tomorrow I shall go back to the magical creek and take lots of lovely pictures to share, because it is a very pretty creek.

Oh yeah, I guess I should tell you guys what I found in my pocket (even though I think most of you guys know by now). MY GAMES! I FOUND MY GAMES! AND THEN I PLAYED MY GAMES AND THOUGHT 'HOLY COW, I HAVEN'T PLAYED THESE GAMES IN THE A LONG TIME - WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON IN THEM?!'. And then I went back to playing Pokemon Ruby because there's just something satisfying about playing a really easy game that's I've been in all it's previous incarnations. (Including the not released in the US Green Version - yes, I am that dorky).

It's a Miracle, a miracle I tells ya! Part 1

2009-07-05T19:21:00.002-04:00

I've been doing some spring cleaning lately, which has led me to find many old and not so interesting things. Some of the things were interesting though. I've found a bunch of old notebooks with little sketches in them, and a lot of old photos perfect for black mail. But then I went through a box full of some stuff from my first years of college and some other stuff that I think just got thrown in there.

Which is how I found my Gameboy Advanced along with my long missing Pokemon Ruby game (that's right, I played it). My sister's held onto her Sapphire game and I had been looking at it earlier (the graphics are really bizarre) and I was kind of missing my old game which I never finished out of frustration (You know what you did, Solrock!). So it was nice to find my old Ruby game.

But here's the even better news - and the three people who read this blog will know what I mean. I was wearing this hoodie I have bu pretty much never wear or bring with me any place because I don't like the material. I've had it hanging in my room for ages and only took it down on this occasion because I could find my other hoodies (or maybe I was too lazy to go downstairs and get them, you choose). I put my hand in my pocket and felt something kind of bulky. Now, I haven't used this hoodie in ages, so it's anyone's guess what this could be. I pull it out and to my surprise I find-

Are you guys curious?

Are you on the edge of your seats?

I'm gonna let you guys ponder about what this could be for a while (mostly since I want to play some Pokemonz). Feel free to post any guesses... hopefully posting is back up.

Next Stop... KOREA!

2009-07-05T15:10:00.002-04:00

So I'm not due to go to South Korea for another month, but I figured I'd start transitioning the blog in that direction. That's right guys, in just a few months this blog will be all Korean, all the time!

But first, I present for your entertainment - Secret Asian Man:

The World May Never Know

2009-07-01T21:33:00.003-04:00

Okay so I had been planning on posting a Michael Jackson blog for a few days, but I see Alice has beat me to it, as well as most of the rest of the world. Curses, World, you've beat me this time! So I know a lot of people are wondering, following the King of Pop's death, what will happen to his estate and massive debt? What will happen to his children? What will his ultimate legacy be? But we here at We Amuse Myself am considering the bigger questions:

WAS he the one? WAS that kid really his son? I mean after all, he says himself 'those eyes were like mine'. Sounds like a confenssion to me and yet he INSISTS that kid is not his son. Now we may never know the truth!

Furthermore, WAS Annie okay after all? There were bloodstains on the carpet, so I wasn't terrible hopeful, but you never know. She does manage to escape to the bedroom... And for the poor-of-hearing listeners out there... WAS Annie really Oakley? Now the world may never know.

Also, while reviewing the footage of Thriller, which I think sufficiently answers the question of 'Was MJ a zombie?', I was pleased to see Mr. Vicient Price got top-billing. The man did great voice work. But the best part of the video was when it switches to the theater and Michael Jackson's smiling and eating popcorn. Best. Expression. Ever. Check. It. Out.

Jesus. Christ.

2009-06-22T22:50:00.000-04:00

You know what hurts like a bitch when you get it in your eye? Shampoo that's what. I got some (actually I think it might have been a glob >:( ) in my eye about ten minutes ago and I'm pretty sure that the pain of getting shampoo in your eye is akin to having your eyeball set on fire. Curse you, Pantene and your two-in-one shampoo and conditioner combo that speaks to the lazy person in me who still wants nice hair!

But from this experience I have learned 3 things:

1. I thought I had gotten shampoo in my eyes before. Now I KNOW this is the first time I've ever had shampoo that wasn't for babies in my eyes.

2. Tears... are MAGICAL. I think the burning traumatized my tear ducts at first because it took them awhile to start working and washing the shampoo away. Until then I was standing in the shower trying with no success to open my eye near the cold water. But once the tears started coming the pain dissipated pretty quickly. It still hurts, especially when I turn my eye, but it's more of an itchy pain and at least now I can occasionally open the eye.

3. I keep a very cool head in panicky situations. The pain came really quickly and I kind of just grabbed my eye and tried to get it in the water. Later I was thinking 'Huh... I didn't scream... that's weird...' Stuff like this has happened before and in more extreme circumstances, where I probably should have panicked or something like that, and instead I was kind of like 'Crap. Gotta fix this.' Which is definitely a good thing. Although that said... I can also think of many not emergency or panicky situations that still needed attention where I just sat there and watched things slowly unfold before I finally get off my butt and do something... I guess I'd rather be quick with the important things and slow with the less important stuff than vice versa. I'd like to keep my vision, thank you.

Blogger is driving me nuts... Also, I did some butt-kicking

2009-06-22T21:04:00.001-04:00

This post is mostly just a reminder that I need to post later. Right now I'm frazzled. And you don't want to see me when I'm frazzled.

PS I switched the template back to see if you guys can post again. I only had the other template so I could have three columns, but I don't need three columns any more. That is a number of column far to extravagant for me right now.

Diversity

2009-06-08T01:24:00.003-04:00

Oh yeah! I almost forgot I was going to post about Diversity.

I can't remember how I stumbled upon this dance group, since I don't watch Britain's Got Talent (or American Idol, but if I were to choose, I'd totally go with BGT). This group is almost too good to be true. I won't say too much about them, other than I'm glad they won (no offense to Susan Bole fans; she was good too). You'll just have to watch them to form your own opinions.

And I also say that Perri, the little boy with the awesome hair, is ADORABLE. (The other little boy, Mitchell, is cute too, but I'm a sucker for awesome hair and glasses on little kids).

Watch them!

Also, not to be a total dork, but the opening of their Finale performance (the one that I attached to this post) makes me wonder if they play Pokemon.

Bulletproof

2009-06-08T00:55:00.002-04:00

Since I have to stay up until 2:30 tonight, whether I like it or not, I decided to surf the internets for sweet new music and perhaps blog a little. And it turns out I've actually managed to do both (or start both. We'll have to see if this get's posted).

I was in the mood for some Lady GaGa, since I heard Love Game on the radio two days ago and gosh darn it if her disco stick didn't get all kinds of stuck up in my head. So I was watching the video on YouTube, and La Roux's Bulletproof video popped up. I had never heard of the group (which as it turned out is a British electropop outfit) or the song, but figured 'Eh, what the heck?'. And I was pleasantly surprised because I really like the song, and after watching the whole video the singer's crazy British style (if you've seen any La Roux, I think you know what I'm talking about; if not, you're in for a treat) grew on me.

Anyway, just thought I'd share.

And without further ado: Bulletproof by La Roux. Enjoy

If I had an iron I'd iron the irony right out of my life

2009-06-03T00:49:00.003-04:00

Okay, I think it's time for part three of my Random Ramblings!

So I'm looking into buying a new laptop. I had one basically designed but my dad's doing wh-knows-what and keeps not buying it. I could buy it myself, but he did say he'd get me one and unlike my parents who have jobs, I'm not made of gold. I realize they're not made of gold either, but they have more cash to throw around than I. If I had a picture, I'd post my sister's $300 dollar prom dress that my mom bought her (I think I told you guys that story... If not, my mom bought my sister a $300 prom dress, which she then had to hem and stuff). In comparisson, my dress, shoes and accotrement were only $25. Because I'm awesome.

Yesterday I was doing something on my computer (nothing creepy, I just can't remember what it was-probably something dorky like gaming). Didn't add anything to it, didn't delete anything. Then this morning I turned it on to the Blue Screen of Death. I restarted it in Safe Mode (it told me to) and the same thing happened. CRAP-SICLE.

Now, I wouldn't be THAT unhappy, since my undergrad career is over and I can go ahead and purge my computer of most of its data now anyway. And I wouldn't even be terribly bent out of shape to loose my music, since it is on my iPod and I can use that to put them back on my new computer. But there is, on my computer, a certain folder, which holds certain documents that I VERY MUCH DO NOT WANT TO LOOSE. They're part of an EXTENSIVE on-going project that I have been working on for OVER FOUR YEARS. I got two freakin' degrees out of four years of work, and so help me I will live and these files will live to see their fruitation as well!

But they are not yet to fruitation, so I won't say what they are. Is your interest peeked? Too bad, still not telling.

For several days now, I've been thinking about how I need to put them on my flash drive. I have earlier copies of them on it, but I've changed them a lot so they're pretty outdated now. Once I realized that my laptop was dying I was subtly asking my parents if they could get data off the hard drive (and by subtly, I mean directly). Long story short, after much strife, my computer engineer pappy was finally able to hook my hard drive up to his laptop and pull the folder off. YAY!

And it is now safe and secure on an external hard drive. I can breath a sigh of relief.

But I can't help but notice the quicidence of my laptop dying right after I spent several hours researching and designing it's replacement. I've got my eye on you, Lappy. Literally, because I'm typing this blog entry on you.

Without further ado, I present the most likely cover of my new laptop. It's for the birds! (Hahaha, I crack myself up):

Random Ramblings, Part 2

2009-05-28T13:25:00.003-04:00

Well, the Spider Incident succeeded in thoroughly distracting me from my Random Ramblings, which I wanted to get done in a timely manner. And I thought I was recovering from the Incident well, until last night. I was walking around downstairs in the dark with my dog, which I do most every night as a summer vacation tradition, when I walked into the bathroom. Since it was completley dark around, I didn't bother to turn on the light, but I still noticed there was no toilet paper left. So I start to leave the bathroom, when I think 'Hey, what if a spider was using the toilet?'

Why my mind would ask that question, I do not know. It has it's own little life up there in my head. But I ended up thinking about a giant hairy spider sitting on the toilet, wearing a black jack dealer's outfit (again, don't know why) and reading the newspaper... That is not an okay thought to be having right before going to sleep.

Back to my other Ramblings!

#2: Angel and Demons!

After I got back home, we decided to go see a movie. My dad suggests Angels and Demons, which I did want to see, but I wanted to see Star Trek more (and Star Trek's been out longer so I'd have less time to still see it). But my dad says my sister's already seen the movie, and by this point in my life I've fought enough battles over the movie theater to learn that we see the movie my sister wants to see (but I get to push her out of the seat I want in the theater, hehehe). She saw Watchmen three times, she can't go see Star Trek a second time?

The best part was that Start Trek started at 5:10 and Angels & Demons started at 5:45, and we were getting ready to go around 4:30 so plenty of time to see either movie. At 5pm, when my dad finally goes to find out what the heck is going on with my sister who's voluntarily incommunicado, he finds out she has no intention of going to see either movie. Which means if we had left at 4:30 when we were supposed to, we could have seen Star Trek. *sigh*... Yet another movie that would be sweet to see on the big screen that I do not get to see on the big screen...

BUT I did enjoy Angels and Demons. I will try to avoid any spoilers, but there was this one character I liked surprisingly much and - I can't go on without giving any spoilers. Okay don't read further if you don't want to spoil the movie:

Are you sure you want to spoil the movie?

One last chance?

Are you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY SURE you want the movie to be COMPLETELY AND IRREVERSIBLY spoilt for you?

Oookay, don't say I didn't warn you.

So, coming from a catholic family/county but not being catholic myself, I'm aware of a lot of the short-comings of the catholic religion, meaning that when I see catholics in film I tend to have a 'meh' attitude. So when I saw the Carmerlengo in Angels and Demons, I was like 'meh'. But then, his character grew on me and I was thinking 'What is this? A high-powered catholic figure who seems to care about people more than upholding silly traditions?' And I was all like, 'Yeah, this is a catholic I can get behind - in a non-conversion sense'. But then the movie took its course and I was left thinking 'Aw man, not only did it turn out he's NOT a person who cares about people more than upholding silly traditions, but he's psycho too?' They just couldn't give me a catholic figure I could respect, could they? No no, that would be far too much...

I still enjoyed the movie though, looking past the huge scientific error with the whole anti-matter thing.

(The movie's totally spoilt for you now, isn't it?)

Speaking of science, I'm (or rather my dad is) watching a History Channel documentary on how penicilin was first made. Turns out it came from a moldy cantelope, not moldy bread. But it's turning my off because they keep saying 'fun-ji' and not 'fun-guy'. I don't care how you want to pronounce it, you will pronounce it as I want to hear it! If it's pronounced 'fun-gus' with a soft 'g', then it should be pronounced 'fun-guy'!

A Story that I Must Share

2009-05-24T19:25:00.002-04:00

So something horrific happened to me about an hour ago. I was sitting on my bed minding my own business, reading some stuff during my new found free time, when I felt a bug of somekind fall from the sky (or rather my ceiling) and hit my face. I figured it was a moth since it came from above and was bouncing around my mouth, and although I like moths I didn't want one around my face right before I eat dinner. So I flicked it off and it fell on my bed.

Also not wanting it in my sheets, I started looking around for where it went. I pull back my covers and find A BIG, HAIRY SPIDER. WHICH WAS ONCE ON MY FACE. BY MY MOUTH.

And I'm pretty sure this was the same spider who's life I spared yesterday, thinking, 'Even though this god-awful ugly creature is chilling out in my house, it deserves to live and helps to keep the other pests at bay through digestive means.'

So that's the game we're playing spiders? I spare your lives and you dive-bomb my face? Time to get the newspaper.

Random Ramblings, Part 1

2009-05-23T23:09:00.004-04:00

So I realized I haven't posted a post recently. And then a day or so later, someone pointed this out to me (can't remember who, but I'll go out on a limb and say it was probably either Alice or Ms. Bee, since you guys are the only ones who read this... I'm going to go into a corner and pretend to cry self-loathingly now... explaining this totally doesn't work as well as being in your apartment and just doing it... *sigh* I'm going to miss my apartment adventures...) So I figured I was overdue for a post.

But I don't have anything specific to say. Instead, I'm going to make a quick lists of topics I'd like to touch on and then hopefully follow through and actually touch on them via a brief explination following the list. Eh-hem:

Graduation
Angels and Demons/ My sister's back in my life (thanks a lot graduation)
The irony of buying a new laptop on my old laptop
There was something else but I forgot. Maybe I'll remember when I get to this one.

Graduation!

So I know a lot of people were like 'Meh, screw the main graduation' and in some cases even 'Meh, screw all graduations'. But I was like 'Bee-yotch/Dude-Bee-yotch, please. I just spent four years of my life taking classes that would lead me up to this moment. I'm gonna enjoy it as much as I can'. Plus by partaking in all of them, I can totally compare and contrast them using those critical analysis skills I supposedly developed in college.

The main graduation was alright, but I would advise all future graduates who plain on going to it to 1. Bring a water bottle 2. Bring something to entertain you. It's two hours of people talking at you, and not all of it is interesting. For the most part it was interesting, but around the 1:30min mark, I started to wish I had brough my DS. Which probably would have been weird... Especially since the only game I still have for it is Pokemon... *sigh*

The Director of the CIA was our commencment speaker, and he actually gave a really nice speech. I want a copy of it now. And one of the graduates, who went to jail for 8 years when he was sixteen for carjacking, spoke and he had a nice speech. It's ashame my parents couldn't hear any of it since they were in the nose bleed seats and there was this annoying baby crying in the section through all of the good speakers. It was seriously annoying, and I'm saying that even though I like kids. And as soon as that kid shut up, another one on the other side of the Comcast Center (which is where graduation was) started crying. (On a slightly related topic, why do parents bring their babies to R movies with loud explosions and other things babies shouldn't be around? That's just innovient and damaging to the experiences of everyone involved.)

As for the psychology and German graduations, I expected this going in but the German one was SOOO MUCH NICER than the psych one. First of all, our German advisors totally bought us graduation bears. ADORABLE! (I shall upload a photo later). Okay, so I didn't want to admit it, but I'm still a sucker for stuff animals. And they actually had nice personalized statements about our accomplishments and honestly seemed to be proud of us and a little sad we were moving on. The psych graduation pretty much boiled down to 'Do you have cum laude or above status' (No) 'Are you in psych honors?' (No, fools in the office totally advised me wrong so I never got a chance to do it - yes, feel the bitterness ooze out of my pores) "Are you in Psi Chi?' (No, see comment for the psyc honors). But they did acknowledge the fact that I have a DOUBLE DEGREE instead of a double major. That's right, let the props befall unto me. I had to chuckle at the people who were only psych grads, since psychology is probably the easiest major to double major with. I know I probably overuse this words sometimes, but seriously. To not double major comes off as lazy. Seriously.

The only nice thing about the psychology graduation was that it was right across the street from the Dairy so we all got free ice cream (for me, Midnight Madness, with hot fudge, whipped cream and cherries, in case you were wondering) and free water, which after sitting through 2 hrs at the Foreign Language Graduation at the Grand Ballroom and then running to Richie Colloseum for 2 hrs to participate in the Psychology Graduation, I needed quite a bit of quenching.

So after the German graduation, a roommate of mine commented that I was taking this graduation and moving on stuff with very little sentimentality. And in my mind I was thinking 'Well, that's cuz I AIN'T gonna miss you guys'. But I thought that would be mean to say at our graduation. Especially with her grandparents there. So I did not. (Although, her grandma totally said in front of everyone that it looked like she had gained weight... she was wearing her graduation robe, of course she looked fatter, what a thing to say at someone's college graduation.)

Oh before I forget, I was wearing two medallions for all three graduations. Those things are freaking heavy. Also, undergraduates shouldn't be given graduation hoods, since they're not supposed to be confered until you get your doctorate, as I learned.

Back to sentimentality. But I was thinking about it later on and I realized that never again while I run, completely out of breath, up those godforsaken stairs to a certain Japanese apartment. Never again will we all gather in that triple, where my crazy words can baffle and befuddle the ears of those around me only to be later tagged on the wall of my awesomeness. Never again will I need to seek refuge to complain about my seven inconsiderate roommates (that sounds like a modern folk tale), but also never again will I have this safe, familiar haven to go to in the event that I get suck with even worse roommates later.

MOVING ON!

I'll do the rest later. I'm totally in the middle of watching Quantum Leap and this post is turning out to be pretty long.

Environmentalization! Go!

2009-05-13T00:02:00.004-04:00

Okay, so apparently I'm super late on this, since it's been out for over a year, but I thought I'd spread the word. Spreading the word on Stuff.

Yeah, the video's a little one-sided, but since it's geared partial towards children it kind of has to be. I actually found out about the video while reading an article (which I could not find again later...) about how teachers are using it as a resource to supplement out-of-date textbooks and encourage discussion on the environment. Apparently a dad sued one of the schools that showed this video because it was one-sided and didn't show the benefits of capitalism. Okay, I get that. But kids see the benefits of capitalism every day. Videos like this are important because it helps to show kids (and adults who maybe don't think about this kind of stuff as much as they should) that there's a downside to our lifestyle that we have to take into consideration.

Now, I was raised right, in terms of environmental awareness. My grandmothers are both gardeners. My parents have composted all my life. My one grandma has what we call a 'depression era mentality' in that she never throws anything out (it's kind of a problem actually... but my point is, my family is frugle). My dad uses worm poop to fertilize our vegetable garden and luckily we live near farms so in the summer we buy our veggies locally. And both my parents bike to work whenever possible. Oh yeah, did I mention my mom lives in a tent - very minimal environmental impact there.

So I kind of thought things like recycling and composting and not throwing stuff out when it's still perfectly good was pretty much a give-in. Of course you should do that: saves money, saves the environment. But since coming to college, I've realized that's not the case. Some people in particular are EXTREMELY wasteful to the point where it's just kind of ridiculous and it's almost as if they're wasting on purpose. (I mean seriously, is it necessary to leave the kitchen light on, both living rooms lights on, the pantry light on and the TV on when you leave to go to your 50+ minute class? Seriously.)

That said, I think it's really important kids learn about all aspects of capitalism and consumerism. Yes, there are a lot of benefits (YAY! STUFF!). But we need to be responsible with our capitalism and I've come to realize that responsiblity doesn't come naturally to a lot of people (and not just environmental responsibility). Cleaning up after ourselves is a mindset that we have to learn and also understand before it becomes as natural to us as consuming.

Okay, I'm done preaching. So have you guys heard about the kid who got suspended for going to his girlfriend's prom? Crazy, right?

PS Buy worm poop. And compost. I know you guys are lazy about that.

I seem to be posting when it rains. What does that mean, psychologically-speaking?

2009-05-04T14:38:00.003-04:00

It's a shame more people don't read my blog thus making that monetization thing more profitable for me (Wee money! Yay capitalism!) since I mention a product in practically every post. And the product for today's post (I think this might become a thing):

Annie's Howngrown Cheddar Bunnies!

I was skeptical when my mom first introduced me to Annie's macaroni, but now I'm hooked! Or pretty close to being hooked! I've never eaten their cheddar bunnies before. Just wait a moment while I crack open my crisp new box and try a bunny-sized bite.

Noticement 1: (Actual Cheddar) Tastiness

Noticement 2: Not as crackilicious as Pepperidge Farm crackers

Noticement 3: Holy crap the bag inside is actual full!!

Conclusion: 2 out of 3 ain't bad

Dude. Annie's has so many products. Fruity bunnies, chocolate and vanilla bunnies, bunnies you can cook, bunnies that are already cooked. I've gotta eat 'em all (guess what game I'm currently playing?!)

Final Off-Topic Note: Is anyone else getting kind of excited for the Star Trek movie? And thinking that The Simpson's episode this week is pretty darn good?

Musings Regarding Past Musings on Earthworms and Further Earthworm Suicides

2009-04-26T21:16:00.004-04:00

Utterances which make use of a certain number of words, particularly if said words are in some way unsual, either in use or in make, and which could just as easily be written using a less than certain number of words, particularly if these new words are more commonly used in the daily vernacular, are of great delight to this blogger. Which is how I came to read the book "From the Mixed Up Tales of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." It's a good book; all should read.

Anyway, I saw an earthworm on the sidewalk the other day so I thought I'd continue my musings on them. Now, it had been a pretty hot, rainless series day, which is why a certain large earthworth sprawled out on the sidewalk attrached my attention. What, oh little earthworm, were you doing trekking across the hot and bumpy sidewalk designed for human, and not annelid, trafficing?

It was dying, that's what it was doing. And by the time I found it, it was baked all kinds of up and being eaten ants. I know it was just an earthworm, but it was silly fairly sad to see it sitting there, sunburnt to a crisp. At least it returning to the earth to remain a part of the circle of life.

Also, I looked up on Wikipedia why earthworms go to the surface when it rains. Apparently there's a theory that the rain makes the soil to acidic so the earthworms come to the surface for a more neutral environment... I guess I shouldn't be putting them back into the ground on rainy days...

If a seagull flies over the sea, what flies over the bay?

2009-04-22T17:34:00.004-04:00

A bagel, ahahahaha! Okay, you'll have to excuse today's post because I'm very hungry. How hungry am I, she asks to know one in particular? I'm soooo hungry that-

Well, as soon as I saw this at 3:17pm this dreary morning, I read this article:

Director Ron Howard defends "Angels & Demons" from Reuters.

And I was enjoying it, because I enjoy both Ron Howard movies, Tom Hanks movies, angels and demons (when they're delightfully naughty demons). Let's face it, I enjoy most movies. If you look at my Netflix's profile, I don't have any movies rated below 3 stars (granted... some I haven't rated...).

But what I found MOST delightful, was the fact that they called the movie's predecessor (and I quote; this is not my own typo) "The Da Vinci Cod". I want. To see. That movie.

At least that's what I thought I read... But then I reread it a little bit later, and somehow the Cod became a Code. Was it a trick of the light? Was it a crafty Reuter's cover up? What is something more ... sinister, involving Illuminati and creepy albinos who preform corporeal mortification regularly upon delicate flesh (corpi morti, as I apparently like to call it, hurts more for us fair skinned people)? The possibilities are frightening.

Still, could you imagine a book/movie called "The Da Vinci Cod". Far be it from me to waste my time and effort making a Photoshop picture of what I envision when I can just find it made by someone else on the internet. I submit for your approval (a la the Midnight Society), selected inserts from "The Da Vinci Cod":

Found at (where else) the Hans Swift Geneology Website

Found on Marc Olmstead's Blog
(don't know who he is but apparently he's a trash whisperer, so... yeah...)

Found at The Pacific Northwest Shop
(You ca nbuy it as a T-shirt. Nice)
(Also, apparently Mona was a cannery girl. Always knew she was a little ... fishy. Ahahaha!... okay I'm done.)

And last but not least!

Found on The Lotus Pond
(Which is a wiccan blog, apparently, which also no longer exists. That's right... The Da Vinci Cod has the power to exist... in non-existance.)
(PS I made the link green for it's sweet, sweet lotus power.)

Also, I ordered a certain pokemon game of the Platinum variety from Ebay. Still haven't gotten it... Ebay's slower than Amazon. Also, also, according to the Daily Show, the Islamic jihad that's going on is just a pokemon game with guns. I'd love to see a picture of that. Curse you Da Vinci Cod. Now I have no strength left to search for such pictures.

Hungry. So very hungry... Want to move... to Sweden... Meat... balls...

(hehehe, balls)

Pandora

2009-04-17T18:57:00.003-04:00

The preferred method of listen to music at the lab (when we want to drown out the screams of the children - I'm kidding of course; the children don't scream. They know better than to do something like that.) is Pandora. One of the graduate students was listen to it the other day, which reminded me that I have a Pandora account and should use it more often to explore and extend my musical library.

While searching around on my Kate Bush station (pretty much the only one I listen to), a Loreena McKennit song started playing. Loreena McKennit music is exactly the type of music that makes my imagination wander - I mean more than usual. So I was reminded of the little figure on the sail boat that didn't quite make it through my last stream of consciousness. I thought that I might give him another chance today. The current song has him walking with a sad old camel through a vast bejeweled desert (I had better not see a book out in the next year with that plot! I had it first!), but since this song is almost over, I'll start the stream of consciousness with the next song. By the by, the song is "The Mystic's Dream" in case you're interested and I like it indeed.

Okay, SoC starting with Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery". Which I haven't listen to in a long time so that should keep my SoC fresh. Also, it's a weird little song, SoC-ly speaking, so I should come up with something interesting. Ready.... GO!

The little figure is walking through a dreary cityscape, with rain pouring down over his head. Shadowy figures are walking around him, stealing a look every now and then. He sees a shining light through the rain, so having nothing better to do with his life, he starts walking towards it. As he walks the dark swirls around him, like its dancing. He comes to the foot of a church (cuz it's in the song) and he bursts inside, wanting to know where the light is coming from. There are people in the pews praying. Not one of them looks up as his runs to the alter, dripping dirty water on the floor. He reaches a staircase. He can hear faint music from the upper floors (by the way, he's also wearing a trenchcoat and a fedora). He tries to climb but as he does the congregation of pew-prayers comes to the bottom of the stairs and starts pulling on it. As the stairs unravel the steps turn into musical notes that he has to climb to get to the upper floors. There a little girl with a big blue bow is sitting at an organ, playing not-organ music. And the song is over. Just when it was getting good.

Now a Psychedelic Fur's song ("All of This And Nothing") is playing. I want to see what the little girl does so I'll keep going. The music that comes out is oddly up beat, and the girl sways back and forth, humming alone in the darkness. The figure approaches her and hits some keys next to her. There are colored bottles on the dusty windowsill behind the organ. The light shines through it, dappling the figure and the girl in rainbow light. As the girl plays, the figure is transported to a dance floor. Somewhere very far away, colored lights just like from the bottles streams down around him. There are lots of other people in the dance floor place, all of them dancing and having a good time out of the rain. He looks up at the stage, seeing the girl, older now as a DJ, with a little blue skull cap and still moving to her own music. The figure tries to dance, but it seems he's forgotten how. The girl sees him in the audience and smiles. She leaves her hands at the controls (don't ask me how) and goes to join him. And now that song is over.

Well that got really weird. But I liked it. Next time, I think I might just do a SoC post to this song (see below), because it's really pretty. REALLY PRETTY.

If American Idol had any singers like this, I'd have watched more than one season. That's right, American Idol. I'm calling you out.

I pimp my brain for Science

2009-04-13T14:14:00.005-04:00

And I get paid for it!

In the future, I will probably not remember what my head went through on Monday, so I thought I'd write it down in hopes that this detailed account will one day spark flickering memories of my once glorious college years that are so rapidly coming to a close.

The time: Sunday night
The place: My apartment
What was I doing: Not-showering for science.

They didn't want any kind of product in my hair (they being the people running the EEG study I would soon be participating in) so they ask me to not wash it the day before. I realized that didn't mean I couldn't shower, but eeh. Stinky is as stinky does.

So Monday morning, I woke up at 8:30, dressed, skipped breakfast because I forgot to bring a stupid spoon with me (stupid spoons... gar, why are you in the kitchen corner where it's hard to see you?) and walked over to Marie Mount, the building that never ceases to annoy me. Then I walked up to the pretty sweet language research suite (that's probably not what they call it) and was swept into signing a pretty standard consent form.

By the way, I just realized they said the only harm that would come to me during the study would be discomfort from sitting for 3 hours. I think they missed something, but I'll get to that later.

I signed the consent form and the experimenter told me more specifically what they're looking for in the study. Basically they wanted to see the brain processes I use while I'm reading English sentences and trying to determine if the sentences are 'correct' or 'false'. Then he (the experimenter) proceeded to put the EEG gap on my head.

I was expecting the EEG gap we use in our lab currently, which is basically a flexible net with nodes on it. Then we pipe a solution under the nodees to increase its conductivity of the kids' brain waves. What I got was the EEG caps they used to use in the lab, which I had seen hanging out (literally) in the lab but never seen used. Now I know why.

This one is also a net, but it's a solid net with the nodes build into the cap. So you can't stick a pipette under the net to squeeze any solution under the nodes. However, there are holes in the nodes and the experimenter explained he'd be using a dull needle to put a gel into the nodes to increase connectivity. And it would take about an hour and a half to do.

While he was doing this, I got to watch TV on Hulu, which was pretty cool (My choices were 30 Rock, The Office and Parks & Recreation) For most of that 1hr and 30mins, I was fairly comfortable. The experimenter basically just stuck the dull needle into the node-holes and screwed it in a little bit. Nothing to worry about. But then apparently 3 of the nodes weren't dropping under the treshhold they had set (in the CDL we do it around 50, but this lab keeps in between 10-15, except I found out this experimenter had dropped it to 5... nice)

So he and another experimenter spent about 30 minutes literally screwing the needle into my head to get the nodes to connect better. It was then that I started to notice the pressure that was putting on my head. And after 10 minutes of solid screwing motion, it really started to hurt... The needle cut my scalp at the node right on the front of my hairline and also the one on my temple (that one hurt the most; my temple is a delicate place, guys).

Anyway, after that I was ready to start the study. I was told I'd get a break every 15 minutes so I figured it would be like how they have it at the CDL - there'd be a break automatically built in the program. So I sat there, starting at the black sentences on an white screen, on a white apple computer, on a white desk before a white wall in a white cubical. Needless to say, my butt and my eyes were not happy. The thing about EEGs is you need to stay really still since the brain wave readings are affected by even the slightest movements, even blinking. And I know they expected me to move some, but I wanted to be a nice little participant and stay as still as I could.

After about 15 minutes, I asked for a break before starting the second block. It was then that I realized that the breaks weren't built into the program; it was up to the discression of the experimenter to stop it and he was supposed to tell me every 15 minutes to take a break. But he was new so he wasn't. I had a watch and I was timing the task. So after maybe 20-30 minutes, I asked for another break. Because my eyes were completely dry and my back was killing me. The experimeter told me I'd have about another 30 minutes, so I sucked it up and got back to work, hoping to plow through the last couple. Except it lasted for only about 3 minutes, since I had plowed through them already during my second go. I REALLY wanted to stop looking at that screen.

So he took the EEG cap off, I washed my hair in the sink since it was full of gel and then I went to my psychology class at 1pm. Sweet. $30 for minimal effort and a little discomfort. Now I can cross 'participate in an EEG study' off my list of things to do before I die.

Continuation from Yesterday

2009-04-12T19:12:00.008-04:00

I was actually debating whether I wanted to bother posting this since I got on a role doing my Polish work earlier (which involved me going through my books and basically compiling information they should have had already compiled for the student reader). But since I promised it, I figured I'd finish it.

The golden question: Why was I watching Gone Baby Gone on Netflix yesterday?
The golden answer: Anime!

Okay, I see I'm going to have to connect the dots since that question-answer combination probably doesn't make much sense. It alllll started about 8 years ago... Fine, fine, won't go that far back. But in high school I used to watch my fair share of anime and read my fair share of manga. Problem was, the manga belong to my friends and the anime I watched on my TV, none of which I brought to college with me (So many friends at UMBC; why didn't they come here?!)

I've been out of the loop, so to speak, for a little while. Then, Mr. and Mrs. Alice took me to a certain comic book store and MADE ME buy a certain delightfully childlike comicbook by the name of The Amulet (Alright, I bought it out of my own free will). Which led (possibly... maybe not, but they happened around the same time) to talks of going to Otakon.

Haha, me go to Otakon? No, that was something I did in high school. Now I'm moving into the real world... going to be an adult soon... can't be running around... doing crazy things... enjoying the last bit of my childhood before I grow too old... Ha. That would be... *disappointment sigh*...

And of course buying The Amulet led to buy the previous discussed Flight, and I thought that might be the end of it. Just buy a Japanese culture-inspired comic book here and there, not an issue.

And then on Friday a certain Ms. Chelsea of a certain Japanese apartment visited me and showed me multiple theme songs from various popular animes via YouTube. And thanks to her showing me a website that had all the old Toonami videos, I started reminicing about the shows I used to watch ...Gundam Wing & G Gundam (my sister made me watch it...and I liked it weirdly a lot) ... Cowboy Bebop...Sailor Moon...DB(Z)... Yu Yu Hakusho... Case Closed (yeah, yeah I know it's Detective Conan auf japanisch) ... Tenchi Muyo!...Man I'm just enjoying typing their names down... Outlaw Star... Oh yeah, Ruroni Kenshin (my friend was OBSESSED with that show)... Inuyasha...FLCL...Lupin the 3rd...(Okay, now I'm just looking up the old Toonami/ Adult Swim lines ups, but I still remember watching them) Good times... good times...Samurai Champloo and Wolf's Rain were the last series I watched and I didn't finish them... I stopped watching them around 2005.

Ooo! Ooo! G-Force! I used to watch that show all the time when I was in elementary school! It's called Gatchaman in Japanese! Go watch it NOW! That was my first anime, not counting My Neighbor Totoro, and I loved it! Loved it! Way better than Voltron. (Pssh, Voltron). It's one of those shows I almost don't want to watch again out of fear that it might not live up to my childhood memories. I remember watching it with my grandma and she was curious about the masked woman with the lipstick... it was a man. See picture below.

Sexy, am I right?

Anyway, so I remembered all the happiness I had watching my little anime shows. And Ms. Chelsea and I talked about Otakon as well, and apparently I'm going.

So Friday night I wanted to watch TV, and with anime fresh on the brain I wanted to see if any of my old shows were on Netflix. They are not, at least not to watch immediately. But it recommended I watch these two shows, one of which was Air TV. Don't know if any of my three lovely readers in a certain Japanese apartment have seen that show but it looked okay for a late night watch. It's apparently based on a video game, and from the look of the show I'd assume it was a dating simulation game (... not that I've played those... I haven't, but I figure they probably look a certian way). And I was enjoying it, it was alright, predictable but still enjoyable. And then I met Potato. OHMYGODSOCUTE! You all need to watch this show if you haven't already, just for Potato. I will post a picture.

SOOO CUUUTE! And when he barks he goes 'Piko!' Sooo cute. Need I say more? I have to say, Ein used to be my favorite TV dog (Sorry Scooby, just not German enough)... I think Ein has been overthrown.

So Cute -->

So I was still watching the series yesterday morning (as in, I continued it yesterday morning, not I stayed up all night to watch it and it continued into the morning). But at a certain point I got anime-overload and needed to be brought back to reality. So I looked at what movie it was recommending, and I saw Gone Baby Gone. They had been recommending I watch that for a while, and since I liked the TV show they told me to watch, I figured I might as well watch this movie. And sure enough I thoroughly enjoyed it. But then I had to go back to my happy little child world because it's a tough little movie.

And now I'm watching the British version of The Office. Which is WAY raunchier then our American counterpart. The things they get away with on the BBC.

Third time's the charm, Baby Doll.

2009-04-11T18:54:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I know I've mini-ranted about posting too often in the last two posts, but I figured I might as well go for the triple threat. Plus I've sort of been following this story and thus I feel obligated to end it. (Brace yourselves, I like long stories and this one won't be an exception.)

I've been feeling very productive today, but I haven't had much too do. I finished my German homework, but decided to not move on to Polish since it needs more focus and I'm in the middle of watching Gone Baby Gone (which I'm enjoying a lot more than I thought I would actually, although there's a lot of profanity. I feel a little awkward watching it with my innocent little Flight book right next to me. If it had ears I might have covered them up to keep it innocent...)

So I figured I'd check my email in case someone sent me something that might busy me for a few minutes. And there I find a package notification from the North Desk. Could this be my GRE book? I go down there to find out.

Sidebar Story: ------------------------------------------------------------>

Join me over here guys

While I'm waiting for the package I glance down

at the package list (or rather the list of the name

of people who have recieved packages).

On the list I happened to see a name of someone

I used to live with Freshman and Sophmore year

(because I'm noisy), and who is apparently still

living on North Hill as ofSenior year.

I knew there had to be more of us,

the lucky few who got sweet, sweet North Hill

housing Freshman year and have managed

to keep it until our senior year.

I know how I, and the two others I knew about

who currently call a certain japanese apartment

home, have managed it, but how did this Dude/Dudette

(I won't say who; I'm noisy, but not a gossip)

manage to pull this off?

Okay side story over. Go back to the other side.

And sure enough, the package was my GRE book. Yay! Two days early! I'm sorry I doubted you, oh speedy, wing-footed Amazon delievery god! So now, once I finish posting this (and my movie), I can start being productive!

Also, when I went to get the book, I saw a cute couple with their two kids taking pictures by that tree with purple flowers by the entrance to the Dungeon. It's annoying that the fact I can't take any lovely Spring pictures is being rubbed into my face, but I couldn't help but smile. It was really cute.

And just a heads up, I'll probably post why I'm watching Gone Baby Gone (via Netflix, FYI), since that's part of a larger story, which I'd like to tell, even if no one else is interested in reading it. It'll be nice to look back one day (probably next Tuesday) and see the bigger picture. Not that it's all that big.

Musings on Earthworms

2009-04-11T13:43:00.006-04:00

I wasn't going to post this, since I already posted today, and yesterday. But without my lovely ladies in a certain Japanese apartment to absorb my random thoughts, I feel this is my only choice. (That's right guys, feel guilty for leaving me all alone in my apartment).

It's raining today, but I had the Wanderlust anyway. So I started taking my usual route and what do you know, there's a bunch of suicidal earthworms out there just waiting to be stepped on. Such things make me sad so as usual I felt compelled to pick them up and put them back in the dirt (the less wet patches of dirt, so they drown less easily...)

When I found the first one and set to work scrapping away the mulch in the nearest garden bed, I began to wonder if I was actually rescuing them. In a community service class I took two years ago, we once read an article about people who pick up starfish along the beach and throw them back into the water. Except that they're actually doing the ecosystem a disservice because the starfish, whether they like it or not, are supposed to get eaten by seagulls on the beach instead of eating other things back in the ocean. My class took that to mean we shouldn't be doing any community service because it will inheriently off set the ecosystem of the community and threaten some aspect we can't quite see. Yeah. (i.e. They didn't want to do the community service portion of the class, lazy bums). See The IT Crowd episode "The Red Door" for a lovely interpretive dance that goes along with this hands-off approach to preserving the ecosystem.

But sometimes I have to wonder, do the earthworms crawling along the roads and sidewalks during storms actually serve a purpose and am I disrupting that purpose when I attempt to "save" them? Am I even saving them or do they just end up dieing (...dying?) in the rain-soaked dirt? I am preventing them from continuing on an important journey from dirt patch to dirt patch, like some weird earthworm mating ritual that can only be completed when the rain is falling just right?

This are the things I think about when it rains.

Anyway, after "saving" maybe five earthworms (and feeling bad for not rescuing another two or three), I came back to my apartment, washed my hands (because earthworms, although important for the soil, have cooties), listened to Tokio Hotel's "Bereichte", which cheered me up nicely, and sat down to write this blog entry.

One day, I'll go out into the rain with my little yellow umbrella and just spend the day watching the earthworms and see what happens. And then feel bad if it turns out I was helping and my non-interfering-scientist/observer-self lets them die.

Adorable Hypothetical Picture of my Future Rainy Day Adventure

Courtesy of Pink Sherbert

PS: I think Mythbusters already answered this question.

Where have all the good men gone?

2009-04-11T11:30:00.004-04:00

I realize I posted yesterday, and posting on a daily basis isn't really my thing (at least... not yet!). But after seeing this on OMG! (which I'm sad to say I actually do read when the gossip is juicy- what's that? Stevie Nix will let Lindsay Lohan star in a movie about her over her dead body? That'll be one weird movie.)

But I felt compelled to write after reading this article: "Former Power Ranger Actor Sentenced to Death". I remember first hearing about this, and hearing that the perp, Skylar Deleon, was one of the original Red Rangers. Which made me really sad because the Red Ranger was always my favorite and I was a total Power Rangers geek back in the day. I remember walking over to my friend's house on the weekend when I was like 7 or something and we'd watch the show in this big room with lots of pillows and windows so it was really bright and comfortable.

It's always a shame when perfectly good childhood memories like that get tainted.

So I figured I'd look up this Skylar Deleon on Wikipedia and see exactly which Red Ranger he was, because he didn't look like either of the Red Ranger's on the show when I watched it. But then I was redirected to the page "Murder of Thomas and Jackie Hawks", which was odd since even the most D-list celebrities have Wikipedia pages now-a-days. But that was when I found out he wasn't the Red Ranger but rather a character in one episode, so I didn't feel as bad after that.

But apparently his dad was a convicted drug dealer, which made me feel a little sorry for him since that can't be easy to live with. But then I felt less sorry when I read that he bound and gagged the couple he was accused of killing and throwing them overboard tied to an anchor. And then he hired a guy to kill his uncle and cousin who had helped him murder some other guy.

So yeah. Now the taint is less strong, but it's still present. Curse the taint...

Patience is a virtue... whether I like it or not

2009-04-10T15:27:00.008-04:00

YAY! I'm having a good day today (sorry to those who are not). Which is nice since yesterday I had only an okay day. It ended better than it started. It stated with me burning my hands. Curse your delicious cheapness, Cup O'Ramen!

I tried to take pictures of it using the camera function on my phone but they didn't come out very well (Plus my stupid phone won't hook up to my stupid laptop to deliver the pictures - too much stupidity, I guess). The burn really isn't bad and it doesn't hurt anymore, but it's the first time I've burned myself and something's actually remained. The water was boiling and just off the stove... to be honest it mostly looks like I have rosacea, which I do not.

Days like this make me wish I had a camera, or rather a good one. I have two cameras actually, but one is a film camera so it's pretty much useless now (It was just about out-dated when I got it... I was happy to get it but in hindsight it was kind of a foolish Christmas present). The other one is a digital camera but it eats batteries like their going out of style (which they probably are at this point) and it doesn't have internal battery so it's just about useless most of the time... There was a really pretty picture opportunity by the Art-Soc building (that looks strange written by the way), but it wouldn't have come out using my phone.

That was the start of my good day. But then I got a package! It's the Flight book from Amazon. It turns out I ordered it on April 3rd, not March 31st.

I need to master my temporal understanding better, so that it is as awesome as my spatial understand.
I apparently need to be more patient.
Where oh where is my GRE book?

I'm actually very patient with most things. I'm not at all an instant gratification kind of person. The only thing I'm not patient with is technology, because it's suppose to be fast. So when it is not fast, it's not doing its job. (That's right my laptop, I'm talking about you).

Anyway, now's the part of the post when I share pretty things with you my reader(s). One of them was shown to me by Alice (is "by" the right preposition in that instance?) but I figured I'd pay it forward since it's so pretty.

Skyfeeshies say: Click on us! We have super-awesome, hyperlink action!

When this was shown me the other day and I immediately knew I had to post this... Let's see if I can get YouTube and Blogger to work together harmoniously.

Okay, so I could not get YouTube and Blogger to coexist in a harmonious fashion. I used other means. But it got here nonetheless. PS. This guy/These guys is/are the same who made that Coinstar commerical where all the coins come zooming out to form a shoe or phone or something you can buy with your extra change. I lovez them. Or at least their videos. Plus their first video was an XXX video of chair-on-chair action. How can you go wrong with that?

Perhaps the only thing interupting the zen of my day is that my roommate (who is no longer the kind of person who goes home every weekend) is on the phone talking really loud in our room. I'd move, but I want to take advantage of our sweet bay window. Gosh Darn it! Maybe she should go downstairs and talk loudly there. It's not like we don't have space.

Because I don't want to add on a bad note (plus she's off the phone now), I'll end with this:

Punny Question: "What did the dehydrated frenchman say to the other?"

Punny Answer: "What do you want me to do, Pierre?"

Hahahaha (Get it? Pierre = pee air). This pun is brought to you by the most recent episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Decent of Man. Which everyone should watch just for the Steven.

SPRRRIIIIIING IS HERE

2009-04-08T17:22:00.004-04:00

Yay for Spring! But boo for needing to find something to do with my life.

So here's the deal: I was TOLD, by a certain person whose name starts with Mari and ends with anna that I should buy a GRE study guide from Amazon.com. Which makes sense since I like to save the money. Money is important to me. So I did that. And I bought Flight Vol. 1 since I wanted to get it and it meant I didn't have to pay for shipping. LOOK AT THE BEAUTY! (Beauty to be inserted later, once Blogger stops being not-cool. <-- I decided to keep this comment to remind myself of when Blogger is uncool. Seriously, uncoolness is not cool)

LOOK AT THE BEAUTY!"It's so beautiful!" they cried with awe and admiration. "If only we had one!" Well you can! For only $13.99 on Amazon! Go now! What's that? Of course this message isn't small to emphasize it's subliminity.

Amazon told me they'd ship the books separately so they'd get here at the optimal time, but I still wouldn't pay for shipping. So I'm like, 'Awesome.' But THEN I noticed the estimated shipping time for the GRE book, which was shipped on the 31st (... I think.... I don't pay attention to these things). Imagine my surprise when I found out that my GRE prep book will reach me around April 13th, but the Flight book, which was shipped this very morning, will reach my by the 6th.

What the heck Amazon? GRE prep: Obviously of greater importance. Kind of a no brainer.

By "around" they better mean about 6 days earlier. That's right. I should get it promptly by yesterday.

But I did not.

At least I have Spring to cheer me up.

Except it's cold and rainy.

...*Sigh*...

PS: What's the deal with"!" not being allowed in the blog title or the blog label? That totally throws off my caps lock-ocity. Blogger apparently hates me.

Happy Two Days After the April Fools' Day.

2009-04-03T12:19:00.007-04:00

So I was editing my blog profile (in case no one can tell), and I opened up the window where you can change how the posts are presented. And as the example post, Blogger provided this:

"Lorem ipsum vim ut utroque mandamus intellegebat, ut eam omittam ancillae sadipscing, per et eius soluta veritus."

... When did blogger learn Latin? ... and did this font get smaller? Hello? Argh, its not increasing my font. Okay, there we go.

So, Part 2: CSI

I'm watching CSI right now. The opening: Totally don't get it, and yet, I likes it.

So, Part 3: Pretty!

I was surfing around on Blogger, and some one posted a comment about Japanese book binding and had a link to an Etsy page where you could by a starter kit. (Which happens to be this link, by the by) I almost got to make a book bound Japanese-style at Maryland Day two years ago, but SOMEONE told me she had already been to take area of Maryland Day and it was really boring, and then convinced me to follow her around while she took pictures of the apparently not-boring areas. Most boring Maryland Day ever...This Maryland Day, I am totally binding a book. And getting an apple tree seedling.

(PS If certain people who happen to both read this blog and live in a certain Japanese apartment, or who don't read this blog but live in this certain Japanese apartment and are told about this post by those who both read and live want to show me how to do stab bindings (Did you guys get all that?), I could return the favor by showing them how to make something oh-so-very German... but we'll probably have to use our imagination muscles).

So, Part 4: Frustration!

I consider myself a pretty tech-savvy person (despite what you guys reading probably think). I'm able to figure out new tech pretty easily, but for the life of me I cannot get Blogger to put a picture into this blog the way I want it to. I'm blaming Blogger, since I can put pictures in just about everything else. It's a shame, my blog could be so pretty... *PS I eventually got the picturing to work, but the fix wasn't ideal, and there has to be an easier way to input pictures.

So, Part 5: I'm seeing a lot of features on other people's blogs that I want to steal/copy-in-a-non-plageristic-fashion. That said, there will be a lot of crash course blogging coming up, untill I figure out how to make these things, since so far Blogger has not be very helpful at showing me how to do them, or even doing the things that it's supposed to do.

So, Part 6: Taco Liberty Bell

In case you're still reading, guess how Taco Bell is helping/ helped to reduce our National Debt:

"In an effort to help the national debt, Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country' most historic treasures. It will now be called the "Taco Libery Bell" and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing. While some may find this controversial, we hope our move will prompt other corporations to take similar actions to do their part to reduce our nation's debt."

Now I'm just waiting for the Statue of Liberty Mutual, or the Golden Arches Gate Bridge. Best tourist spots ever.

Do I have an conscious?

2009-03-26T11:40:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I realized that the post yesterday, although hilariously typo-filled, was not a true stream of conscious blog, because my conscious was being manipulated through the watching of TV shows and unable to stream unburdened. So now I'm going to do another stream of consciousness blog, while listening to some delicious Vitamin String Quartet music that I just got yesterday (Weee!). Music is more stream of conscious-y than TV shows, so this should work better.

I once did this for a high school English class. I wrote a crime drama interspursed with my musings about whether this actually works while the class listened to some bluey/jazz music (I can't really remember). It was pretty cool, actually, and as it turned out it worked.

Right now, "Welcome to the Jungle" is playing and I just realized I haven't corrected my German homework. It's a good thing I got out of my lab class early, so I actually have time to fool around doing this. This song is making me uneasy. I'm switching it.

So I TOTALLY, so very much love "Iris" by the Googoo Dolls. It's one of the only song's I have rated on my iTunes. I was very happy to find the string quartet version did it justice. This stream of consciouness isn't as fun without my random yells at the TV or without my mind wondering into a crime drama. But this song is too mellow to inspire a crime drama... Nope... nothing's coming to mind.

I am seeing, however, a sail boat sailing down a slightly choppy river. There are storm clouds behind it and the single figure in the sail boat is trying to get somewhere before the storm hits and tares his boat to ribbons. But that's what I usually think about when I listen to this song. Where he is going or coming from changes from listen to listen. Right now there's land ahead of him, which you can only just see through the fog. Green mountains are rising out of the top of the island (it's apparently an island). There's a port town appearing out of the fog. That's good. He'll have some place to dock. But the storms starting to roll in might fast, he better hurry. I don't think he's gonna make it. Especially since the music isn't getting dramatic enough. Nope, storm's starting to rain on him. There are people at the dock that can see him as he struggles to get wind in his sail (it's a windless storm apparently). Oop, song's over, storm swallowed him up.

... I liked that! I'll have to do this again with a different song. See if the little dude can finally get out of the storm. But for now, I must correct my German.

PS The string quartet "How to Save a Life" just came on. This might be more condusive to Sailor-Man actually putting up a fight in his sad little sailboat*Note to self.

I got bored of the bumbers theme

2009-03-25T20:09:00.005-04:00

So I had an idea for my next post, an idea which I offered to certain individuals who have ears and probably heard me say what I said. So I figured I'd actually do the idea. Said I idea was that Id type for an entire hour and see what comes out. I wouldn't particularly think abut what I'm typing (which I'm not - I'm also not looking at the screen or my hands. Woot! What'll wanna bet there'll be less spellying errors etc. in this post than any other).

So here is my truly first stream of conscious post. i'm watching Roswell. And totally actually paying attention to it. Not that I normally don't pay attention to it. I do. It just seems like it would be hard to pay attention while doing a stream of consciousness blog. But it would seem incorrect! That's the beauty of stream of consciousness. At least, my consciousness.

Elite. That's a fun word. E- leet.

This episode is dramatic. I don't think the FBI is as dramatic as it's depicted on TV. Things rarely are. It's probably really boring. My thoughts are coming up boringly... Paying attention is helping me to not think of things to type. Unless you guys want to read a synopsis (thourgh my eye) of this peisode of Roswell. Any takers? Unless you're standing right behind me (*looks over shoulder*), I won't hear your pleads for the synopsis, so it's too late.

Not telling people that someone's dead?! What's tht all about. PS. This new che scenario in the kitchen in Roswell. I lovez it. I lovez the Maria/Michael dynamic. Screw Liz/Max/Tess.

I haven't really seen Tess yet, but her hair is freaking blonde. Like blode blode. The kind of blond that doesn't really happen.

They just mentioned St. Mary's Hospital. I live near St. Mary's Hospital. (Maryland that is) Don't go there. They miss diagnosed me once. Maybe I'll tell that story one day. It was stupid. They gave me medicine they told me to take to "get better" even though I wasn't sick. Then my doctor told me to not just automatically the drugs doctors give me. I should investigate it first. Weird thing for a Doctor to tell me.

Aww. I ike this new nice sheriff. I think it's because the actor always plays mean dudes. It nice to see him as a nice dude. Yo know how people sometimes sympathize with the villians in movies. I wonder what that says about them psychologically.

Everyone. Everyone's invited except Tom Hank's son. Kiss her fool! What's wrong with you! It's really poison. No it's supposed to soak through your skin and kill you. It's an alien dating-trick. He got her shampoo. I totally was going to say that before it actally happen. I'm cracking up right now. How could he get her shampoo. That is awesome. AWESOME. I think it's a secret alien ritual. He wants to moisterize her hair, thus gaining access to the deepest most intimate parts of her under-scalp, ie her BRAIN.

Michael isn't your brother... or is it?

He's having a baby? I don't think that's what he said. If you let someone it, you'll have someone inside you. So she's having the baby... what has she and Alex being doing?! Ahhh, the blonde hair has returned. I can't really hear her accent. I mean the australian one. I can hear the othe accent. I guess she's trying to fake an american accent. It would have been cooler if she just kept hers.

Oh Emo Alex. Aaaalways allone. And getting all kinds of creeped up on by dark cars with creepy guys instead them. So the car's pregnant? Don't believe him! He;s crazy! Go with the sheriff who wanted to kill your friends two episodes ago! Noticing the cross in the background? Jesus is trying to talk to him. Through the sheriff. Thus the sheriff is the voice of God. And thus the sheriff is Alan Rickman. A=B=C. Transitive property.

Oh they'll pay her. With ALIEN money. Which is blood. HUMAN blood. Or Maria's tears. Poop-head. Dudes, always pick up the checks. Especially when they have their apartment. Apartments for bow-chickabow-wow.

Psychicness, my furry headed friend. Psychicness. You're freaking sister can go into people's minds after all. That was a cool shot. I like the redness. DRAMA! Dude, Tipolski went crazy. All kinds of crazy. I'm out of thoughts. See, even he sees she's crazy. But he robably things a lot people are crazy.

You know, this is going to start becoming really weird once I switch to watching Avatar with Alice. Since Roswell is only 40ish mins long - Why do they always hang out there? To not be over heard. There are less depressing places for them to be not overheard in- without commericals. So this 1 hr blog will last longer than it. Although I'll probably hAVE TO get my power cord my then. Yes, caps lock, inTENtional. I do like how this scene allows for the lake. It's a nice lake. With a nice breezy. Maybe if Roswell were more breezy, people wouldn't be so dramatic all the time. EeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Well, now we know something's gonna happen to him. THANKs MARIA!

Dude, Isabelle and Alex seriously need to hook up. Before Alex dies. He means STEAL her car. AGAIN. Yes an orb. Or. A sex toy. I'd go with the latter. It's Tipolski's sex toy. She's a dirty, dirty guidance counselor. Ow my arms hurt. Actually it's more my elbows. I didn't go to the gym today. It should be my abs that hurt. But my foot hurt earlier, so I didn't go. Typing nonstop kind of makes my finger tips hurt. That's how you guys know I really am consistantly typing. (With short breaks when I can't think of anything - that's a bumpy road. How have they not lost a tire or something?) FEEL MY PAIN! THE PAIN OOZING FROM THE TIPS OF MY WEARY FINGERS! Scenes like these are not friendly to the frequently-motion-sick. IE me. Although I didn't get sick on the subway. He'll never like it! Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

It's so cute. She's gonna get killed for her teenage love. Oh not! Boy fighting! It's not as pretty as girl fighting. Stop fighting guys, you're breaking up the group! There will be plenty of beatings once you end up in alien prison. Whether it be the prison humans keep aliens in or the prison aliens keep aliens who don't completely their mission of destroying the planet in.

Did she? DID SHE?! I don't know if I want to believe him. I need my powercord. ALICE! Bring me my cord! Also, show me how to use this blog! Okay, he sounds believeable. My psychicness seems to be on the fritz. I do not yet have my cord and I haven't been educated in the art of blogging. Okay, now I DON'T believe him. That was a creepy line he just said. IT'S NASETO! OR however you spell him name.

Don't let the sheriff touch Tipolski's sex toy. He'll use it on Maria's mommy. Ewwwwz. It's gotta be Naseto. Who else would be driving a creepy car at night. IT IS! I KNEW IT! YOU READ IT HERE FIRST! Like... 10 years after the episode actually aired. I think he killed the dude. Cuz Naseto's a poop-head. More so than Michael. AHHHH! There never was a psychiatrist. My veins in my hand are flicking from typing. Time to break for my hands sake. I love rhymes.

I'm blogging on the floor now. I'm also sitting on the ground. It's kind of hard to type on my laptop. On one's lap. Awesome. It's Avatar time. And his armor. How dare Shannon steal what I was thinking. A prison. Or a gay bar? I think it's the latter. Oka, I don't think my mind is going to wander too much with Avatar. It's too cute. See, my mind wanders way more with drama, like Roswell, than with cute drama, like Avatar. Dude. It would suck if he slipped right there. Since he was hanging my a rope wrapped loosly areound his hand. Not very secure. Not exactly rock repelling. More like rock slipping and falling off-ing. Worst. Extreme. Sport. Ever.

Demented love. Oh demented replacement familar love. I love it. They're the best fake father-son pair ever. Take that, whoever else is in that category. It is great. I know it's a brilliant idea. It would totally be an easy category for them to win. And It's totally possible that other people are in that category. It is important! Why don't people believe the merit of this category.

Who wouldn't want to live in an upside temple. Yes, we KNOW him.

He'd make them tea. you should have listened to him when he tried to teach you tea making and pi-shou. WWAD? Worst. Question. Ever. See, if you listened to Uncle more often you wouldn't be in this mess. Sure it's too loud. Loud like a fox. Air fox. Air benders don't believe in future. Nice dude. Nice. I'm convinced. You should join them. That's not a creepyline at all. I'll 'wait' for you. Dude. Stalker talker. Just saying. Stalker behavior. Seriously. He's been touched... By Obama.

T-E-A-C-H F-E-R-E-B-E-N-D-I-N-G. Is she deaf to. You know he wanted to turn Appa into a pretty purse and matching boot set. Sweet. And shedful.

Why can't we be friends. Why can't we be friends. NOOOOO! The first time around, that is not what I wanted to hear. Three. YEAAAAAAAAAARS! So the end of the episode made me happy. Well, then all he has to do is blind them. Firebending'll take care of that easily. I always tell people when I send assassins after them. It makes it more fun. For me. Hehehehe. Run little ants. Run.

I was gonna say he's not a human being, but unless I go back to Roswell, I couldn't think of a snappy enough response of what he is. He saved him! Because he lovezes his great-grand-daddy. All the Appa's are dead now... Only Appa lives. Well, he did through rocks at turtle-ducks, so... he hasn't completely avoided animal cruelty.

Nt-As-Much-of-A-Jerk-As-He-Could-Have-Been-Award. Won by the young of the -Best-Fake-Father-Son-Duo member. Best. Awardshow. Ever. es you are! Embrace your grandson! He needs some familiar lonvin'

OH NOZ BURNT FEETS! THAT'S LIKE BURNT EYES! WORST HALLOWEEN GAME EVER. ude, serious. Just stop. Seriously. I was just about to type that. Why ARE you so bad at being good? He loves being yelled at my Toph. Ke-ching. (See "Grace Kelly" by Mika)

Winner of the Most-Obvious-Question-To-An-Answer Award. He can't be left alone by himself. As a love slave, get it right. He's offered himself as a love slave. Which makes the "and then we'll jump him" line just hilarious. AHHHHH SPARKY SPARKY BOOM MAN! I wish I knew his real name. It must be Ivan. He seems an Ivan. I have 20 mins left. I'm not counting the break. My hands got too tired.

OH NOZ! Ivan hates not getting paid. IVAN SMASH! This blog probably makes no sense without the episode. Alice has realized her error at last. She has given me the power of blog. That's worse BBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMERRRRRRANNNNNGLE! WHY WERE YOU MISSING! NOT CLASSIC SOKKA!

Anyway, that's worse than the power of love. Which burns hotter than the power of fire and scalding hot water. Which burns pretty hot, I don't think I need to explain how how that hotness can be. So... imagine if you will the burn of my blog. Burning. Burning. Sizzling. Starting fires with its heat.

He's changed. Through the power of love. The fake-father-son love. It's more powerful than my blog power. THAT'S HOW AWESOME THEIR FAKE-FATHER-SON LOVE IS. YAY! AWESOME GREAT-GRANDFATHER-GREAT-GRANDSON LOVE arc begins! Just wait till they dance together. Brings tears man. Brings tears. Aww. Play nice with the little boy.

Okay I'm done... Can't really write more.... My tight hurts. They apparently like on a ship.... It is weird. My leg is all kinds of hurty. When is this going to end! The blog time, not the episode. I lovez the episode.

Katata'll cut a bitch. *eye brow raise* I need a picture of that. Okay, now I'm done.

Vier mich!

2009-03-16T23:32:00.012-04:00

See the title! It's a pun. Get it?! I'm totally slapping my knee right now.

But seriously. I suppose those of you reading this who don't understand the Deutsch (that is to say, the German) will need a translation. However, to explain the joke would be to ruin it, so I will say nothing other than 'Look it up, you un-gedeutsched fiend!'... Okay, you're not really a fiend. But you may find me to be one, as you won't be able to understand this blog. After this point, it's about to be typed in German. Are you ready? No? Well, geeeeeet reeeeaaaaady aaaaaaannnndddd...

JETZT!

Ich tippe jetzt auf Deutsch. Es dauerte nur 4 Posten, bevor ich auf Deutsch tippen musste. Ganz geil, ja? (Alice, du solltest Chelsea oder Marianna fragen, ob sie für dich übersetzen werden... Aber wenn du das noch nicht gemacht hat... dann könntest du nicht meine Wörter und meinen Rat verstehen... NEEEEEEIIIIIINNNN! Das Schlimmstest! Vielleicht wirst du die Namen erkennen und die werden genug sein.)

Okay, jetzt teile ich meine Lieblingsfilme (aus DuTube, natürlich) mit euch, weil sie soooooo lustig und ausgezeichnet sind.

Nummer Eins:

Meine Mutter hat mich zuerst diesen Film gezeigt (Er ist auf Englisch). Es ist für immer und ewig lustig.

... Scheißzapfen (das ist meine Übersetzung von "crapsicle") Blogger lass mich nicht, Filme, die mir nicht gehören, aufzuladen... (Das ist genau, warum jemand muss mich die Wunder von Blogging durchbilden...) Okay, kein Problem... Ich werde die URLs der Filme mit euch teilen. Ganz antiklimaktisch... ich weiß...

Nummer Eins noch einmal!:

Berlitz Ad (guck mal!)

Well, now I'm disappointed and out of German steam. Stupid Needing-to-own-the-videos-ness. Poop. Okay, I'll hurry up and finish this very anti-climactic blog. Here are the other videos. Watch them and get out.

Number Two:

"I Will Jetzt Gleich König Sein" from Der König der Löwen (Why? Because I listened to it little 13 times in a row today, and I think I like it better than the original - Also, it comes with the lyrics! Woot!)

PS: Watching these videos in German just helped to remind me how much I heart the Lion King. I don't care if Disney stole it from Kimba the White Lion. Can Kimba sing like Simba?! I think not!

Number Three:

"Du bist Deutschland" (Because Du are Deutschland. Also, I TOTALLY used to have this on my computer... WHY did I delete it! Stupid Not-being-able-to-downloard-from-YouTube-Anymore-Ness...)

And to make it an even Number Four:

Monty Python Mr. HilterSketch (Sure it's in English but it's MONTY PYTHON. Plus there's German Untertiteln!).

PS: If you like these, the Funniest Joke in the World and It's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart also showcase the German spirit. And there's a German cameo in the Italian Lesson.

Now go away and let me sulk in peace.

PS Totally figured out how to use the hyperlinks to post the videos this post. Take that Bloggesphere! You may have won this battle, but to be sure I SHALL win the war!

Pairs of Three

2009-03-11T12:45:00.003-04:00

Lookie here! I have three followers! Hence this posts name! BTW... TOTALLY going to keep up the numbers theme for as long as I can. I already have an idea of my next blog title... Don't know what it'll be about though.

Now that there are people following me (You poor fools - Don't you know I'm a lemming-We're ALL lemmings!... okay no I'm not, at least. Lemmings don't have opposable thumbs.), I feel obligated to actually maintain some kind of blog. The question is, what to write about? I was thinking it might be fun to just do stream of consciousness posts, which is mostly what I've been doing up to this point, but I don't want to scare anyone with the rambles my mind can come up with. I could do stream of consciousness posts based around the post title, which will continue to be number themed, but then I'll just be scaring with numbers. And I've had enough of calculus for now.

In my efforts to discover what others deem 'bloggable', I've noticed people like to post pictures of things they've either made or found to be awesome. Now, I can find things to be awesome no problem, but making things? That requires creativity and skill. But this creativity and skill of mine lends itself more to wordsmithing and not... thingsmithing.

Also, I've noticed that other blogs are far fancier than mine. I'm going to need to edumacate myself on this "blogging" that I seem to have gotten myself into. Until then, I guess I'll just keep up with this train of consciousness blogging.

Reader Beware.

...You guys ever read Goosebump books? Although corny, I like the little 'Reader beware, you're in for a scare' tagline. And the Monster Blood trilogy: Totally. Awesome.

Attempt Two!

2009-03-06T13:51:00.006-05:00

I'm still working out the nuts and bolts, if you will, of this blog-thingy. For a member of the tech generation who's parents are engineers that can totally create their own computer programs and spy on others via trails carelessly left on their computer, I am not as skilled at this as I should be. ,

So this entry title is reminding me of Attempto, which in the Latin means "attempt" and which happens to be the motto of a certain German university I heart, Tübingen (oh yeah, check out that umlaut action!). I have a picture of it somewhere. Not to digress, but one thing that saddens me about the Interwebs is that you loose a lot of dramatic pausing - which I also heart. For example, I can't really type "Just a minute while I go find the picture"and then have you wait at the edge of your seat, drowning in agonizing anticipation of what majesty I could possibly unveil. I mean, I could do that, but let's face it, where's the drama that I love oh so very much? You can just scroll down at look at the picture.

*sigh* Just go head and look at the picture all ready! *grumblegrumble*No one appreciates presentation anymore *crochtycomplaining* Gaze upon it's Schönheit!

Attempt. I think that's a good motto. We made not succeed but we will at least attempt. But than I suppose it depends on what you're attempting. Attempting to invent the light bulb, pretty much a good thing and you may even get some other inventions out of your failures. Attempting to start World War Three*, not necessarily so much.

Aaaaanyway. This post ended up being way longer than I planned. It's the magical allure of Tübingen, don't ya know.

*Funny story. Maybe I'll post it one day.

Post Number One

2009-03-05T23:06:00.001-05:00

And there was a BLOG!

Because curious Ms. Alice demanded it, I have descended (or ascended) from whatever cave-hovel I was hiding in so as to write this blog. Why dear Ms. Alice wants to know more of what's going on in my head is beyond me... perhaps it is because she is just too gosh darn curious.

So I don't really have anything interesting I want to write yet ... but while creating this account I did notice that Google already had my email, which was a little surprising but not unexpected once I thought about it. Then I noticed it also had my PASSWORD! Who told it my password? How did it know what word I would pull out of the little Pandora's box that I call my brain, what word I would deem worthy and cunning enough to protect my PRIZED blog? How would it know the exact intricate combination of letters, numbers and whatever you call these things -> (?!@#$%^&*) that would have to be strategically inserted to assure maximum blog protection?!

There's only one explanation: Google has become clairvoyant. We must now fear it and destroy it for it can forsee our rebellion.

Happy Alice? You see what you've unleashed on the Interwebs?