| it's like whedonland, only different... |
[Jul. 16th, 2009|04:15 am] |
Damn ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) outoftime! She knows I don't have time for another challenge community, but she made one and then waved it in my face that Fringe wasn't getting any members. So... it's not my fault! Really...
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| New Comic Day! |
[Jul. 15th, 2009|05:21 pm] |
This week I got one book:
New Mutants #3 (pretty good, I'm enjoying the relaunch)
Full reviews as usual at my comic reviews site for anyone interested.
Work was okay. I showed up right as he did.
On the way home, because of all the commercials I stopped by at McDonalds and tried their Mediterranian snack wrap. It was not bad. Probably won't have it again (since I very rarely eat out at places like that), but I didn't regret trying it.
Also, after weeks of not being able to find one anywhere, I snagged another bag of Greek (Feta, Olive, and Oregano) potato chips. My precccious..... It was the only one there, alas. At the other grocery story that carries that brand, I see a box way up high on the shelf that's got that flavour, but it's underneath a couple other boxes of chips so they probably won't crack it open for a while. But I'll keep watching, and waiting. |
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| Quick life update |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|05:03 pm] |
I have been unexpectedly struck with a mild case of Girl Problems. You know, the kind I could easily diagnose and prescribe for if I weren't personally involved. :-/
I took last week off from work, divided into two halves:
1. Trip to Spring City, Tennessee with my parents to see my grandpa, Fred. As I have a very strong natural resistance to guilt trips, and an iPod loaded for bear, I had lots of fun catching up on sleep, sun and quiet; my parents were not so lucky. Fred is doing relatively well, but the house feels rather empty with my grandma gone. TV watching is a central activity; unfortunately, there is no news and fewer TV worth watching.
2. Aggressive relaxation at home, with Matt and I staying out of each other's way as usual - not out of malice or distaste, but simply that our Xboxes are located in separate rooms, and our social circles are more like a Venn diagram. I have read and acquired copies of the Foundation trilogy and Asimov's first two robot novels, Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, and Grant Morrison's New X-Men - and I'm 300 pages into Augustine's City of God. I am apparently developing a social life, which is a not unpleasant feeling that manages to surprise me every time.
On Saturday, I also attended a small Magic tournament, with far less preparation than the Street Fighter events in February and correspondingly lackluster results (2-1-2, purely my fault for not going 3-1-1). As before, encounter with the greater hobby has cooled my enthusiasm, to the extent that I declared "I don't own any cards" and gave away everything I won at the event for a non-sanctioned "championship" deck.
This segues nicely into this week's project: Selling off junk on Ebay. I currently plan to dispose of the following items:- Essential Wolverine comic books vols 1-4
- Dell Inspiron E1705 laptop, with all the bells and whistles
- Big lots of TCG stuff: Magic, Star of the Guardians and Wizkids Pirates
- A complete set of Star of the Guardians cards
- Strong's Exhaustive Bible Concordance
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| Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3 |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|11:24 am] |
Just wrapped up my breathless tour with kissingdaylight and rainsymphony, plus occasionally my roommate Matt. Some observations:
- Like all superhero narratives, Buffy has become a soap opera with vampires. A focus on character development is only natural once the "hook" of introducing the characters and their powers has been played out for a few episodes, and even more natural for a show which is targeted aggressively to teenage girls. (Says the man who, at age 8, read the entire Babysitters Club series in order...)
- I like to make fun of Joss Whedon's take on romance, where all kisses are consuming waves of passion and all relationships are doomed to end in fire and blood. However, he does make some cute couples, thanks to strong characters in general, so I don't mind that much. Hopefully with a change of scenery for seasons 4+, there will be fewer conversations revolving around sexual tension. (Hope against hope, really.)
- The show has definitely benefited from maturity. They hired a fight choreographer, the sets are more atmospheric and varied, the minor characters are breaking free of Buffy's orbit, and long romantic arcs are better when your couple has something to talk about besides how much they want to get in each other's pants (see: Season 2).
- Since I didn't see Season 3 in one unbroken whole, I'm not as confident about predictions, although my batting average was pretty good last time. I am expecting 2-3 occurrences of sex, a shape-shifting villain, a human serial killer, a sudden surge in utility for Xander, a "New Mutants" team of minor characters who have underworld connections but aren't working for Buffy, and the return of Spike as Emma Frost.
I've also been thinking about character parallels between Buffy and X-Men. (I'm sure there are other superhero analogs, but I only really know one team; and since Whedon is clearly thinking of classic Claremont/Byrne X-Men, so will I.)
( Read more... ) |
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| Housecleaning (before my parents come to visit) |
[Jul. 13th, 2009|07:36 pm] |
So hey guys, I gots games for sale. ( Here's a list. )
Other stuff:
Japanese Blazblue promo materials: Blazblue Secret Gig artbook (Very similar to the preorder artbook) and character mini-poster set, available separately or together!
If you're interested in any of this, let me know and we can negotiate a price! |
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| Things from the internet that make me SHOUT |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|10:27 pm] |
Today I was all like "I'm not going to spend any money!" And then I spent like $40 or something. :( Anyway, I articulated this via Twitter aaand
I really... I really want a new TV, guys. :( But the only reason I want a new TV is to get a next-gen console, and games, and that's already like five million dollars. Plus, I would have to find some "free time"?
The other day I was logging onto a website (that-shall-not-be-named) which I visit with some frequency and I look closely at the long login page URL. And what do I see? I see this:
(My password was filled in, but has been redacted in this image because I don't trust none of ya.) Yeah. Thanks guys. Thanks a lot. I wasn't using that password for anything else! (FUCK)
And of course, I do enjoy a good facebook ad:
Why did I even get this ad? I don't list "mamaries" as an interest. Also, is it supposed to be "cheery" or "cherry"? It is neither, it is "a stupid waste of money because I don't even know what it is for." My best guess is that it is a charity fund for women who want bad boob jobs? Yeah, "bitter 24-year-old homosexual male mathematics graduate students" is a poppin' target demographic for that. If I ever see this woman in real life I will probably slap her (and steal what I can only assume is a luscious strawberry daiquiri :9).
*sigh* The internet-- I don't even know what it is for.
Anyway, I will actually maybe have something substantive to talk about soon: There have been two Embarrassing Personal Episodes in my recent personal history that hopefully will come to a close sometime this coming week. Also, look forward to a special bonus issue: Preparing for Qualifying Exams. :D
--Psyfe |
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| Do we see what the clock makes you do |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|10:08 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | (listenin' too long to one song) | ] |
I love my job. I think that's pretty much all I can say about the program here though. I love MY job. I am doing a GREAT job at it. I'm far better at this than I thought I would be. I still have more to learn, more to practice, things to improve. It's not always fun, but it's always worth it, and that is meaningful.
The writer's group I joined really is the intellectual jackpot. I ended up submitting the first part of Ink Well because I am determined to get it all out of my head soon soon soon. They asked all the right questions. It was the most productive workshop I've ever submitted anything to, ever. The direction it gave me offered a lot of clarity to the jumble of story and footnotes I've been stacking stacking stacking for four (or more) years now.
Last night I thought about Corey for the first time in weeks, and his insignificance in the world made me laugh. It's too bad that he fell so short of even his own expectations, but I hope he makes the best of it. Some people just have to settle for mediocrity, I guess. Some people seem destined for it. I held out hope for his own sake for too long. I made his life too easy. I provided too much for him. The more good people I meet these days, the more I see how misguided I was toward him, how manipulative he was, how weak I became. I really don't see a time in my life that I'll be able to completely forgive myself for all those mistakes I made in Charlottesville last year, but I hope I can do something from here on out that, at the very least, lessens those regrets.
That theoretical physicist I met, for instance. I want to meet more people like that. I want to meet more people who believe in infinity and live in tiny apartments with cats and are incredibly smart but a little withdrawn, who know a lot about black holes but are more interested in simple things like yoga. Speaking five languages and being from Europe are pluses but not requirements. Having an awesome name and a great smile are absolute musts.
Sometimes I think a problem with being young and then not being young anymore is that at first you think that all your experiences are unique only because they are unique to you but then you find out that they are quite common to everyone and there is very little that you can do or have done to you that no one else has done or experienced before and then even life becomes some kind of formula and the things that infatuated you before stop seeming important like punctuation or syntax or using grammar properly or seeking out love or clinging to friendships that stopped being friendly a long long time ago.
I love little kids. I want to work with kids forever. If I were to ever claim a real purpose in the world, it would be to better the life of a child: to empower her imagination, to teach him to be polite and assertive, to give each one the tools to decide what to value and why. I love, I love, I love my job. |
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| Hurt Locker |
[Jul. 12th, 2009|12:07 am] |
"Hurt Locker" is a really good movie about a bomb disposal crew in the Iraq war. I went in half-expecting a sandy version of the 80s Vietnam movies, like Hamburger Hill or Full Metal Jacket, but it was very different. It manages to be pretty much apolitical, neither really anti- or pro-Iraq war - it's almost entirely ground-level from the perspective of the specialists. It examines quite clearly the motives of why someone might want to face death on a daily basis - indeed why they might need to. There's a number of harrowing and intense combat scenes and it manages to depict bomb squads without even once giving a shit about cutting the blue wire vs. the red wire (which is a pet peeve I have about bombs in movies)
It felt pretty realistic, I'm curious about people on my FL who've been to Iraq if it's anywhere close.
Also, it has lots of explosions in it, brilliant action sequences etc. but it's shot and edited clearly and there's a reason for all the action. It is an intelligent, well written action movie, but people seem content to go see Transformers 2 and complain about how much it sucks, well, go see this instead. |
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| Awesome event, awful name |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|11:09 pm] |
Amidst all the work I'm doing, I completely misplaced the date for California Extreme 2009: THIS WEEKEND! I've been wanting to go for a while, and I swore I'd make it this year. Fortunately, I still can!
For the uninitiated: California Extreme is a huge arcade/pinball show with hundreds upon hundreds of machines on display from many different eras in gaming. There are several extremely rare games and unemulated, unreleased prototype boards that can't be seen anywhere else. Best of all, after you pay your entry fee, you can play everything there for free! (at least, I think you can? I could be wrong, a few units could be off-limits.)
So is anyone else in the Bay Area considering going? It's in Santa Clara, i.e. the SJ/South Bay area. I'm hoping I can find someone who's planning on going down that I could carpool with and simply pay for gas costs, but if I can't swing that, I'll probably just Caltrain it. Anyone? |
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| new math |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|08:43 am] |
Heard from an anonymous Twitter source:
All TJ courses are now out of 4.5 and AP courses are out of 5.0. Also, cutoff for A reduced from 94 to 93, and B+ from 90 to 87.
Is this true? They know that college admissions folks can both read and do math, right? They'll just deflate them. Regardless of whether the kids these days are JUST TOO CODDLED, what is this good for?
yours in grumpy crufty alumni-hood,
tim '05 |
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| Robert S. McNamara |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|11:36 pm] |
With the death of former SecDef Robert McNamara, here's a good clip from the superb documentary "Fog of War", Errol Morris' film about Robert S. McNamara and the reasoning behind Vietnam, WW2 and other wars of recent history, with digressions into things like seatbelts.
I don't know if I want to say rest in peace, his crimes were enormous. But later in life he asked many questions about what he had done, and the documentary shows a thoughtful man who, if not atone for policies he had issued in the 1960s, at least attempted to explain them or understand them.
Fog of War is a complex movie and well worth watching in its entirety. This is just the first five minutes. |
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| Camping- |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|11:09 pm] |
I'm looking forward to this, regardless of the fact that I have no camping gear... and not a lot of money with which to buy the things I figure I'll need. lol.
But I swear, I will be amply prepared, no matter what, for a leaking tent and a freezing cold night. I still have to move my AWS up a Friday, but I doubt Eric will mind. He seems almost too easygoing, and I worry that I'll be tempted to take advantage of that. I can move quickly when I have to... specifically, when I've gotten some SLEEP. lol. (You know? ....Speaking of which?) I really could use some of that... just a bit? 6 hours a night doesn't do it for me any better than it ever did in middle school, high school, college... mm. Strangely enough, some things in life never change. (So we graciously accept this fact, adapt ourselves, and kick those circumstances in the chops the next opportunity we get............... ;) I kid. ONLY MOSTLY, THOUGH.)
Also- I'm really sorry, Ryan, but your story is driving me bonkers. I haven't seen English errors like yours since... well... it's been a while. I dunno if I can fix your stuff the way you want it to be fixed... not without nearly writing the thing myself. D=
But never fear! We will try to keep your story and your writing style in-tact. You'd just better cooperate. ;D And trust me when I give you some good, old-fashioned literary criticism. I may not be an English major, but I sure as hell can still write a paragraph properly. (blog posts to the contrary, I swear.)
Also- building up my work wardrobe is some expensive business, never mind the loans, the car payments, and the apartment for which I'm still searching. But I have decided- I want something NICE. Or professional... whichever comes first.
Also: I've read about and seen more of the YA Japanese animated culture than I think I ever want to have done over the course of, y'know, my life. I'm done with this. I need some old-fashioned BOOKS- good ones- in which I can lose myself without losing intelligence or imagination. I can't even begin to list all the series I've plowed through in the last year. =|
Anyway- SLEEP. I need it. |
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| Anthrocon wrapup |
[Jul. 6th, 2009|08:50 am] |
What a great con. I saw ALMOST everyone I was hoping to see, even if (as always) it was too brief in most cases. I hung out with some great folks, and even got a chance to DJ at an impromptu little dance on Sunday night!
Great seeing everyone! Now, back to the real world. :/ |
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| TV Fall End of Season Review: |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|12:32 pm] |
Like I did for the midseason, here's my thoughts of the second half of the TV season, stretching roughly from the new year, up until now. I'll generally not be commenting on the whole season, just the second half (excepting of course shows that only debuted in the new year, etc). My criteria for inclusion is if I watched it with most of my attention, most of the time (either now, or up until the midseason point... there've been some dropoffs). There WILL be spoilers, but I'll break each show into a cut.
Prison Break: In short: Well, it's over, and ended up okay, but I still think it should have ended over half a season earlier. ( Read more... )
Heroes: You know how a guy being tortured to death might look over to another guy being tortured to death, but by a window, and say, "Hey, at least you have a nice view."? Well, that's sort of what the second half of S3 is like from the perspective of the first half. It's still a cluster$!@$, but it's the tiniest bit better. ( Read more... )
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (cancelled, sadly): Short version: Second half of the season started very very poorly, but got kickass at the end. I'll miss it. ( Read more... )
Lost: Complete season ran in this half, so let's discuss it. Short version: Quite liked it. One of the few cases of a show that's picked up from a couple bad seasons and has gotten better, and, what's more, gone from a show that started with limited SF influence (a couple hints here and there in the first season), to one that is definately all out SF. ( Read more... )
Dollhouse (new show): Short version: Started poorly, and still probably Whedon's weakest show, but it did pick up. ( Read more... )
House: This is kinda episodic, so there's not much to say. Short version: The big development shortly after the midseason started, although full of emotional play that made for a good few episodes surrounding it, can't help but lower my interest for the show. ( Read more... )
Criminal Minds: (cut and pasted from the midseason review since it still applies) Another episodic show. I don't even know why I like it, especially since the awesome Inigo Montoya (that's his name for me from now on) left, but I still mildly enjoy it. No spoilers, no cut. Still enjoying it, maybe because it's my only real 'serial killer crime' show I watch.
Bones: Another show I watch more by circumstances than choice - it's on, nothing else is, and I like it enough to watch it regularly so long as nothing conflicts. I kind of like the way they use rotating assistants, which allows for a variety of different fun characters they use again. Otherwise, the show's okay.
Supernatural: Short version: Mixed, not feeling the arc so much but still enjoy the series. Don't really like a lot of the big developments this year and don't expect that'll change next year.
( Read more... )
The Office: Not much to say here. Why? Because I stopped watching it. Not a deliberate act, but it conflicted with Supernatural and somewhere along the way I just stopped bothering to look for episodes online. It was my last half hour comedy show, and now it's gone. Since half the fun of watching it is the ongoing plotlines that don't mean much in isolation, I don't even know if it's worth watching reruns,since they'll skip episodes. *shrug*.
Stargate Atlantis (ended): There were only two episodes left at the end of my midseason review, so it still technically qualifies for this. And those last two episodes were pretty good. Not great, but enjoyable. Still I'm more looking forward to Stargate Universe than I am to an Atlantis movie. They had a good run, but if it ended there I'd be okay with it. (Whereas SG1, I'd still be very disappointed if we never got anymore)
Doctor Who (Planet of the Dead only): I don't have a lot to say about it, I think I already did a post about it. In retrospect, a decent stand-alone episode. Not great, not horribly bad and full of stupid, but almost completely forgettable. In fact, aside from the companion and the general thrust of the plot, I'm having trouble remembering anything about it at all. Can't wait till RTD's gone.
Doctor Who (classic): I finished my run on Sarah Jane Smith some time ago, and just recently finished the Leela run. Short: I quite liked Leela. But the Doctor's a bit of a jerk. ( Read more... )
Wolverine and the X-Men: Short version: Still pretty enjoyable. Not up to Evolution enjoyability yet, and too much focus on Wolvie, but fun. ( Read more... )
Spectacular Spider-Man: Watched S2 in this midseason arc, and you know... I think I'm going to call it. This is now the best of the Spider-Man cartoons ever. ( Read more... )
Battlestar Galactica: All I have to say about this I've said before. It jumped the shark with the final five. Sure, they did a couple cool things with it, but on the whole it's left me a little cold this year, and a very poor ending.
The Listener (new show): There's very little new SF out there, so I wanted to give a new one a chance. This is a Canadian show picked up in the US during the writer's strike. And, you can tell it's Canadian... because it's crap! Okay, not really, but it's a little lame, overearnest, and not all that great. ( Read more... ). I officially gave it a chance and I am done with it.
I think that's about it. If there are any other shows you know I watch (or wonder if I watch) that I left out, feel free to comment and I'll let you know what I think. |
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| If time were only part of the equation |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|08:30 am] |
I suppose it's only natural that I should jot some things down that have been rolling around in my brain. These are thoughts like marbles, which, between my ears, sound a lot like a bowling alley when I tilt my head one way or the other. I guess that means my gray matter is wooden and well waxed. No strikes though. Not even a 7-10 split. I'm guessing that will happen if I ever come to a conclusion on anything. It's been awhile since I've had a true a-HA! moment. Anyway...
I would like to raise the issue of the Cadillac Escalade. A couple of months ago I started noticing them, and I don't mean just seeing them around. I mean, I could nonchalantly scan a parking lot and suddenly zoom in, Terminator-style, on any color or model. For awhile I was convinced that one of the previews on a movie had subliminal messages in it, and it was affecting me hardcore because I had to watch it over and over and over again to fix a bad splice. I mean, I'm lucky if I can spot a corolla that isn't the same year as mine, much less a particular make and model of a huge-ass SUV tearing up the city streets. And it wasn't that I just knew that this was an Escalade, it was that I wanted it once I saw it. I mean I really, really wanted it. That doesn't make any sense at all. Am I not the one who jokes about pouring gasoline over Hummers and lighting a match just to see how the driver really likes burning up that fuel? Don't I dream of someday owning an electric or hydrogen-fueled car? Wouldn't I be much happier in a town where I actually had the option to walk somewhere instead of being cornered into my neighborhood by highways? I went on the website and designed my own, which would set me back about $88k and a couple lifetimes of bad karma. Since then (and coincidentally since we finally got rid of that badly-spliced preview), my desire for an Escalade has faded dramatically, but their numbers on the roads only seem to increase. What I really want to know is when the marketing demographic switched from rappers and drug dealers to soccer moms and whether this is a nationwide trend, or something unique to the suburbs of DC.
Last night's Rocky Horror shift wasn't so bad. For one, this was my fifth year working the Fourth of July, and even though it was busier than in previous years (which were always dead dead dead and therefore easy easy easy), the customers were pretty understanding when I told them they were going to have to wait to buy their tickets cause the grand finale of the fireworks show that the country club down the street does every summer was almost over. For two, the young niece of that creepy old guy was there and she had never so much as held a sparkler in her life, so it was awesome to watch her learn how to run around with fire. Incidentally, it turns out that said creepy old guy is great with kids, so I guess everyone at Rocky has their clean little secrets. Thirdly, Katie, who just started working this shift with me, breathes new optimism into my cynical perspective every time she gets excited about the cast members, the costumes, and projecting the movies. Stand By Me did not get the crowd I was hoping for, but I have high expectations for Repo, Ghostbusters, and Goonies in August.
Last week I went to a meeting of a writer's group in DC. One of the members is actually an intern from the conference I went to in Indiana, which seems like such a happy coincidence. The other three members are attorneys, so I feel that I somehow hit the intellectual jackpot. I'm forcing myself to put Ink Well aside for the time being to see if I can still bang out a proper story without all the philosophy and criticism, but I've got nothing and only ten hours to turn it into something. I went through some old notebooks to look for the ideas I've collected and done nothing with over the past few years, but I haven't gotten that spark yet. It is fun to see the initial inspiration for different scenes and chapters in my book, how differently they turned out and how, in some cases, I didn't change a thing. It's my baby, it really is, and it's almost done. Give me another year. Why am I setting it aside? Oh yeah, because I need some time away, just a little bit. "Reels" is for kids and it's still in it's infancy, but that may be the road I have to take today, yuck.
The POINT of that last paragraph when it began was to say that I think I need to move to the midwest. When I was in town last week, I decided to test out my tunnel-vision theory about the area, so every time I caught someone's eye, I made sure to smile, which actually made most people frown and look away. Are you so consumed with your political/social/commercial agenda here that you can't even accept friendliness from a stranger? I used to think it was the traffic, but I was on foot. Maybe I should carry around a mirror and let people know what they look like when they're walking around with too much on their minds. In any case, this entry needs a concluding sentence, but I have no conclusions, so this one will have to suffice. |
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| Thoughts on the Twitter M10 review concept |
[Jul. 4th, 2009|11:05 pm] |
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I wanted to try something new, since I don't have a good outlet for a normal style review and the usual style would run into the problem of far too many cards that are functional or actual reprints and don't justify much in the way of comment. I feel at this point that I've proven to myself that I CAN do it if I want to (although it would take a long time to do it with any kind of quality), but is it worth doing, with or without a traditional bookend or five? I would like everyone's thoughts. |
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