9/30/2005

You can't take the sky from me

To Joss Whedon and the crew of Serenity,


Thank You.

Whoa

You scored as Existentialism. Your life is guided by the concept of Existentialism: You choose the meaning and purpose of your life.

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.
--Jean-Paul Sartre

It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.
--Blaise Pascal

More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page...

Existentialism

85%

Hedonism

75%

Utilitarianism

70%

Justice (Fairness)

70%

Strong Egoism

50%

Nihilism

40%

Kantianism

30%

Apathy

10%

Divine Command

0%

What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03)
created with QuizFarm.com

9/28/2005

Extra, extra!

If you haven't caught it yet, you need to see the new HBO/BBC show Extras, from the insanely funny Ricky Gervais (The Office). Find a friend who recorded it, download it from the internet, whatever you gotta do, do it. It's fuckin' hilarious.

I mean, where else can you see Kate Winslet, dressed as a nun, talking about what one should say during phone sex?

Not to mention the bit about polishing her husband (director Sam Mendes)'s Oscar.

9/27/2005

Serenity

So...who's comin' with me to a noonish showing of Serenity on Friday?

::UPDATE::

For those who care, the earliest show is at 1:10 at AMC.

President may have worn defective vest

Well, don't you think someone should have shot him, you know, to test it? Then we'd know for certain if it was defective or not. (The vest, I mean. We already know that the president is defective.)

(Article at MSNBC)

Not A Word

Okay, this "word verification" thing is really starting to annoy me. If you're going to call something "word verification," should not the letters you're typing be in some kind of order so that they make actual words? Why can't they call it "random letter verification?"

Here are some recent "words" I've had to type:

tddgg
tsownn
ymiocq
wztwwbh
nzvkk
blcusbo
sombkfh
tmhgfjru
oxouah
yuhrn
adroh
ulzdjv
befaozni


I'm gonna make a list.

I need to get out more. Or at least start doing my algebra homework or studying for my geography test.

9/24/2005

Shocking

You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.
You are a

Social Liberal
(76% permissive)

and an...

Economic Liberal
(25% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Strong Democrat




Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating

9/22/2005

The Truth Is Out There

The Truth is a very abstract and subjective concept. It is both real and imagined, based on a person's point of view. Everyone is biased in one way or another, it's simply human nature. We each have our own unique perspective of the world, and of each other.

If you ask twenty different people the same question about what happened at, say, a traffic accident, you're likely to get twenty different responses.

When two people have a messy break-up (which can be likened to a traffic accident), or even a civil one, each person will have their own reasons for it, their own truths, which they will relate to their respective friends, who, in turn, will use their own personal experiences and interactions with the formerly-significant other to form their own versions of the truth.

The truth is, indeed, out there, but it's generally so distorted that we never see it for what it is, only for what we want it to be. I've always said that there are three (or more, depending on how many people are involved) sides to every story: He Said, She Said, and The Truth, which always lies somewhere in-between.

Again, it's all about perspective. We all have our own ideas of how the world works, or should work. We've all had experiences unique only to ourselves that have shaped how we see the world, and it is these unique experiences which cause us to relate those twenty different versions of the same traffic accident. We can see the exact same thing, but we process it differently. We remember things differently. We put emphasis on different aspects.

I've done things I'm not particularly proud of, or happy about, but to me, from my perspective, they were necessary. When I relate a series of events, I relate them from my point of view, how I perceived them. Someone else will have an entirely different, yet no less valid, account of the exact same chain of events. So who's right? Who's telling "the truth?"

In all honesty, we both are, which goes back to what I said before, about truth being subjective, both real and imagined. There is the objective truth of what actually happened, which no one will ever, truly, know, and there is the truth you remember, which only you are privy to, because as soon as you relate your truth to another person, their entire life up to that point will influence how they perceive what you're telling them, and then it becomes their truth, and so on and so forth.

Life is like the ultimate game of "Telephone." Remember that game, where everyone sits in a circle and one person whispers something to their neighbor, who whispers it to the person next to them, etc., until it gets back to the original person, and it's something completely different than what they initially said? That's life. You can tell twenty people the exact same thing, word for word, and each person will come away with something totally different. What might be a key piece of information to one person, it will simply be sloughed off and not given a second thought by someone else.

We can all hear the same thing, but it's what we subconsciously choose to listen to that defines our truths for us.

9/17/2005

Lazy Saturday

I should probably be finishing up my algebra homework right now, but there's only eighteen problems left to do, so I reckon I still have plenty of time to get it done by Monday night. Also got some World Civ to read, but that class ain't til Tuesday night, so I know I have enough time there.

I finished watching Firefly last night, so I'm all set for Serenity. It was quite bittersweet, coming to the end of the show, because it's so absolutely brilliant, and since Fox treated it, and Whedon, like crap, we're left with only the hope that, after Serenity (and Wonder Woman), Joss and company get the band back together for another few films. WW is slated for a 2007 release, which means the earliest we'll get another Firefly flick is probably 2009.

My all-time favorite television show is Homicide: Life on the Street. It had everything a great show needs to have: wonderfully complex characters, and amazing actors to portray them, along with kick-ass writers to guide the lives of Baltimore's finest. In my mind, no cast and crew has come close to what that group accomplished over the course of seven seasons.

And along came Firefly.

I really, really, really enjoyed both Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the final season, not so much) and Angel (the last couple of seasons I saw of it, anyway), but despite my love of Joss Whedon's dialogue and humor, Homicide reigns supreme.

I've been enjoying House and Grey's Anatomy, and The O.C., of course, but more than those imperfectly perfect cops? Not by a long shot.

And then I started watching Firefly on the Sci-Fi Channel, when it began airing the episodes (in order, even), back in July. Though I knew it to be an ill-fated love, I couldn't help myself. I was instantly hooked. (I didn't want to have to wait to watch the show on a weekly basis, and the scheduling left something to be desired, so I downloaded the episodes, all three and a half gig of them.)

Sure, there was Whedon's trademark humor and witty banter, but it was more than that. With Buffy and Angel, there was always the element of the fantastic. I mean, they were about vampires and demons, after all, and that always left me, as a viewer, slightly on the outside looking in. It's difficult to relate to two-hundred year old vampires, y'know?

Of course, one must suspend one's disbelief with shows like those, of which I'm perfectly capable, but that still leaves you with that sense of unreality, disconnectedness. I mean, it's not surprising that my favorite episode of Buffy (and one of the best three overall, in my opinion) was the one in which Buffy comes home to find her mother dead on the couch. Other than the very end of the episode, with the vampire in the morgue, there was nothing fantastic or supernatural. Buffy's mother simply died of a brain hemorrhage (or whatever it was). No zombies. No ghouls. Just life. And death.

Firefly was like that in every, single episode. Yes, it's a sci-fi show, with spaceships and lasers, but the heart, the pulse, the driving force was Mal and his crew. The characters felt more real because the situations in which they found themselves felt more real. No ghosts or werewolves. Just people trying to get by, to make a life for themselves out in the frontier. Y'know, like it used to be way back in the day on Earth-That-Was.

The best stories are like life. They don't always have happy endings and the good guys don't always win, and you can put yourself in the shoes of the characters and you know exactly how they feel. They make you care about them.

Homicide made me care for seven years. It's a damn shame we didn't have even half that time to get to know the crew of Serenity better.

Well, that turned into a bit of a rant, didn't it? Sorry 'bout that.

The Cardinals finally, officially, mathematically, clinched the NL Central division today, beating the Cubs 5-1 behind Mark Mulder's pitching and a bunch of great hits from the lineup. Two weeks to go in the season and the Cards can pretty much take it easy, get everyone nice and rested and healed up for the playoffs. They're definitely in much better shape than they were a year ago, with Carpenter healthy and the addition of the aforementioned Mulder. Plus the best bullpen in baseball doesn't hurt either.

Nebraska is playing Pitt right now, leading by a measly one point, 7-6, with about five and a half minutes to go. It's pathetic, really, this supposed "west coast" offense. It sure is offensive, all right. And I can't even say that the defense is very good. I mean, sure, they're 2-0, but look who they've played so far. Once conference play begins, Nebraska is going to get crushed in the Big 12 unless they can get this offense rolling, which, in all honesty, I don't see happening.

Someone suggested that I write a story for this, a collection of one-hundred word short stories (the proceeds of which will go to the CBLDF, my favorite charity), in which you cannot repeat any of the words.

That's a bit more difficult than it sounds. It's the little ones, like "the" and "it," words like that. I only repeated each a couple of times, so I need to go through and figure out a way to rephrase the sentences. It's an interesting writing exercise, to say the least, and it got me writing creatively again, which can be nothing but a good thing (unless I never actually manage a career in writing, in which case, I've really been wasting a lot of time and energy with all this).

Right now, though, I'm gonna go lie down. I'm exhausted. These idiot dogs keep waking me up at seven or eight in the morning, and I've been finding it difficult to fall back asleep after throwing them outside.

Oh, and before I go, I'd like to quickly wish Jennie, albeit belatedly (it was yesterday), and Daira and Jami (both today), Happy Birthdays. I hope you all had/are having wonderful days. Love ya.

The Aristocrats...

...is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time.

9/14/2005

Shut Up and Die Already

From the television in the next room, I can hear our jackass of a president giving a speech about 9/11 and terrorism and Iraq and blah, blah, blah.

Feel safer yet?

Every time I hear that weasel's voice, I just want to punch him in his smug, clueless, "What, Me Worry?" face.

No one has ever unlocked such venomous hatred in me as that man has. He has systematically, and ambivalently, destroyed my country, both figuratively and literally (remember New Orleans? I hope so, because it doesn't exist anymore), and he has to be stopped.

What else must he fuck up before he gets impeached? Bill Clinton received (and lied about) a blowjob from an intern. (If it had been a lobbyist, it probably would have been okay. I mean, c'mon, everybody's doin' it. Just ask Tom DeLay.) George W. Bush INVADED another country based on evidence he KNEW was fabricated, which is kind of like lying, isn't it?

The 2006 elections are fourteen months away. The Democrats must hammer home how vile, inept, and corrupt this administration has been. No more pussyfooting around. This president and his cronies have given us more than enough rope with which to hang them, and we must oblige.

For the good of the United States of America, for the future of this land that I love, George W. Bush must go.

Where's My Car?

I had forgotten how lousy the parking situation usually is in college. Any college. There's something wrong, I think, with mindlessly cruising up and down full lots waiting for that first car to back out, leading to a race, as students all rush to fill that tiny, empty void.

This is college. People are there because they want to be there, unlike high school, where you must attend. You would think they might appreciate that fact, and make it easier for their students to get to class on time. They could, oh, I don't know, expand the parking lots, build multi-level garages, whatever.

I'd say it's a good bet that over three-fourths of the students are on campus at any given time between the hours of, say, seven in the morning and six in the afternoon. I just think they all should have a place to park their cars. It would be one less thing to worry about.

Then, of course, after hours of ass-numbing lectures (which is not to say the classes are boring, necessarily, just that, you know, you're sitting in class for long stretches at a time), you have to remember where it was that you parked said car. This, in and of itself, should be worth a credit hour or two.

Walking out of the building, confronted by a seemingly endless metal sea, glinting in the afternoon sun, it's enough to make one weep. It'd be easier to simply sit on the curb and wait for everyone else to find their cars and leave, watching the multicultural parade drive by. Honda, Toyota, Dodge, BMW, Ford, Audi, etc.

...

Classes are going well so far.

My World Civ teacher must be pretty new at all this, I think. He speeds through his typed notes, expecting us to keep up, stopping every once in a while to say, "but you don't have to know that."

I think I did well on the first map quiz last night, though it was pretty easy. Ten places on a map of the ancient Middle East. Would've been difficult not to get it all correct.

We've begun discussing Sparta and Greece, and I wonder if the teacher knows the story of the 300. I'm sure he does. He seems like a pretty bright guy. He should mention it in class. It's a great tale.

Geography class is a hoot. The teacher is a guy I had a few years back, for at atmospheric science class in which I got a D, if I remember correctly, through no fault of the teacher, mind you. I earned that grade all by myself.

I might actually pay attention this time around.

Algebra is the one class I'm sort of concerned about. Like last quarter, the teacher is from India, which makes her a little difficult to understand. Much more so than my previous algebra teacher. And this one doesn't explain things as well, either, which doesn't help. We'll see how it goes.

9/09/2005

867-5309

A cute girl sat beside me in class the other day. I don't remember specifics about her appearance, because I didn't want to stare, but the scent of her perfume stayed with me the rest of the night. I don't know what it's called, but I'll know it when I smell it.

She arrived a little late to class, and missed the teacher handing out the syllabuses (syllabi?), so I slid mine over a bit and angled it so she could read off it, too. Not that there was anything particularly interesting to read, and the teacher was going through the important bits anyway, but it seemed like the polite thing to do.

Later in class, we were going over some equations, and the teacher was using examples from the book ($114 new). The girl hadn't purchased a copy of the textbook yet, so I placed mine in-between us so she could copy the problems.

I finished the problems before she did, and I glanced at her work out of the corner of my eye. She had interesting handwriting. Not extremely nice and neat, like most girls I've known. Not flowery or frilly, nor with the light touch I usually associate with women. It was actually kind of harsh, jagged and pointy, not cursive at all, but strong, straight lines. Curious.

Class ended, and everyone packed up their belongings and filed out the door, myself included. We have an assignment due on Monday, about fifty problems from the two sections we covered, which I shall be getting to presently. Halfway to my car, it dawned on me that the girl wouldn't be able to do the work because she didn't have a textbook yet. I wasn't sure if she was planning on getting one the next day from the campus bookstore, or if she was going to try to order one online, because the prices are way cheaper. I mention this because she had asked me how much the book was, and I told her, and she mentioned possibly looking online for it.

But if she was going to order it online, I thought, as I unlocked my car, it probably wouldn't arrive soon enough for her to have the homework done for Monday's class. I should have offered to let her borrow my book over the weekend. Maybe we could have met somewhere, a coffee shop or bookstore (aren't those one and the same nowadays?), and we could've done the work together, or she could have brought me the book back during Monday's class.

Unfortunately, I had these thoughts as I was pulling out of the parking lot. Before getting into my car, I turned and scanned the parking lot, hoping to see her, that it wasn't too late to make my offer, but she was no where in sight.

I kind of felt like an asshole on the way home. I had let her use my book during class. I knew she didn't have one of her own yet, but I neglected to take that next step, for whatever reason, and it gnawed at me the rest of the night. I hope she doesn't think me a jerk, though that would be better than her not giving any thought to me at all, right?

If she again chooses to sit beside me in class on Monday, I'll ask her if she got a book, if she was able to get the work done, and I'll apologize for not offering to let her use mine, that it hadn't occurred to me until I was in the parking lot.

Perhaps it's not too late to get her phone number.