Here's the thing...you know?

Movin' On Up

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:13:32 GMT

LiveJournal, I don't really know how to tell you this, but I think it's time. We've been together off-and-on for about three and a half years now, and we've had some good times together. You know that I haven't always been the most attentive person in the world, but we understood each other and it worked. But I'm done with college now and it's a big time of change for me; I think it's time that you and I called it quits.

No, it's not that there's anything wrong with you! You've been great. Sure, some of your formatting caused frustrations and there were more than a few limitations on what I could do with you (though I admit, you were a lot more...flexible than I initially anticipated), but all in all, things were great. I'm sorry, but it was bound to happen. Look, people change, grow up. No, I'm not saying that you're 'childish'! I just think that it's time for me to try something new for a while.

It's just...I've found someone knew. She's called Blogger, and not only is there much improved functionality, but it's also tied in with other blogs I could set up and to my Google account. I know, I know, how is anyone supposed to compete with Google? I'm not saying it's fair, LJ, I'm just telling you how it's going to be.

My new blog is going to be a little more...structured. Rather than writing about my life, which I don't think anyone really wanted to read anyways, I'm going to write more about the world and about all the crazy things about it. I even named it something random, "a day in the life of a shoe," which I think is a sign of how this time it's going to be less about me and more about how I see the world. Yeah, I know the title's a little weird, but I explain what it means in the first post. Hey, it may be a bit unconventional as titles go, but there's no need to resort to name-calling.

Look, this is a chance for both of us to start anew. We've been great together and I have no doubt that you'll find someone who'll be better for you than I ever was. I'm sure we'll both be happier this way. It may be hard now, but you'll understand soon. And hey, if you want to read it sometime, you can check it out here. Maybe we can be friends again someday, LiveJournal. I'd like that.

-Jon

Holy Crap

Wed, 28 May 2008 20:06:03 GMT

I'm done with college. And have an advanced degree! Do they give those things out to just anyone these days? Jeeze.

What has two thumbs and is a colossal idiot?

Fri, 09 May 2008 05:21:32 GMT

This guy.

So much for epic adventure. :-( A regular old road trip should be fun, though, right?

The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus

Mon, 05 May 2008 19:16:07 GMT

So, there's a story of these seven guys in ancient Ephesus who slept for 200 years. They were Christians at a time when it wasn't a good idea to be a Christian, and their refusal to sacrifice in the Imperial Temple got them labeled as enemies of the state, so they ran off into the nearby caves to form a plan. They laid down to take a nap and when they woke up to get some bread from the city, they discovered that it was 200 years later and Christianity was now the religion of the whole empire.

This is all well and good and I bet they were pretty happy to hear they wouldn't be tortured anymore, but my question is this; if someone had fallen asleep in a cave in 1808 and woken up today, a change in state religion would be the least of the shocks in store for them, but intuitively we don't see there being that big of a difference in daily life between 250AD and 450AD. Is that wrong or has the rate of change in the world been radically accelerated in the last few centuries?

It's very easy to say that it has, that technological development is the most important driver of change and that having a new kind of well is not the same as having the cars, iPhones, hospitals and readily accessible pornography but that kind of presentism (is that a word?) makes me nervous. Historians may quibble over the effect of Constantine and later Christian emperors, but there would definitely have been a marked difference in life between 250 and 450; would people at the time have felt it the same way as we do today?

This is far more interesting than writing my papers.

You can never be too rich, too thin or have too much hard drive space

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:10:30 GMT

I just went to sell 35 of my old course books back to the bookstore; they rejected a bunch of them and I got ~$135 total; not bad, not bad...

Critical Issues Survey

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:32:49 GMT

I had a fun present in my mailbox today from John McCain and my buddies over at the GOP. It's some of the most blatant propaganda I've ever seen, though it's couched in a "Critical Issues Survey" to help them get their "Victory 2008" program going; keep in mind that I like McCain and typically vote Republican and I think this is nuts. Here are a few samples:

Do you believe our economy will grow if we cut taxes and put more money in the hands of hardworking Americans who pay taxes? (hint: if you say 'no,' they revoke your GOP membership card.)

Which of the following factors do you feel is most adversely affecting the economy in your are?
a) Burdensome taxes
b) Unstable Real Estate Market
c) Threat of Terrorism (yes, you read that right)
d) Severe Government regulations
e) Growth of Government Spending
f) Unpredictable Fluctuating Fuel Prices

Should America surrender in Iraq regardless of the consequences in the Middle East?

Should we appoint judges who will interpret the law instead of liberal activists who will make new laws from the bench?

Do you think we should work to give parents with children trapped in failing schools more choices to help their children have a better future? (no, John, I'm opposed to better futures)

Do you think that forcing every American into a socialize national health care system is the best way to deal with uninsured patients?

Should the Victory 2008 program be focused on turning out the Republican vote and registering 2 million new Republican voters?

The thing ends with a choice between two options. One is "I support VICTORY 2008 (it really is all caps and bold) and am enclosing my most generous contribution of:" and the other is (in smaller print) "Yes, I support the Victory 2008 program, but I am unable to participate at this time. However, I have enclosed $15 to cover the cost of tabulating my survey."

Are you serious, guys? First off, is any voter really going to see this as a survey? I sincerely hope not. And who do you think you're actually going to convince that it costs $15 to tabulate my survey? I thought the Republicans were supposed to be the party of efficiency...

I'm torn on whether I should fill this out 1)as the hardcore leftist 2) seriously (perhaps impossible) or 3) as the most right-wing person I can imagine. What do you guys think?

Law School!

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:47:44 GMT

Well, it's offical; I sent in my deposit today and I'm going to The University of Michigan Law School!

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:42:47 GMT

Hmmm, well, I seem to have run out of things to clean and it's too early to start packing. I guess that means I need to pick a law school now, huh?

Well I thought about the Army...

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:23:50 GMT

So, the senior essay is now behind me. Here's what I still have ahead of me between now and graduation:

Mac/PC Presentation (4/15) - I'm going over differences between the two operating systems, how to do common tasks, etc. for people who know one but want to learn or are considering switching to the other. It's open to the whole Yale community, though I highly doubt many people are gonna show. Anyone have thoughts on stuff they think I should have?

Roman Empire Presentation (4/15) - Fuck this shit; I've gotten almost nothing out of this class and really wish I could have dropped it, but I need it for my last graduate credit. Ugh. I need to read some shit and tell everyone in the class what they say, because Lord knows they're not going to have read it.

Pick a Law School (~4/25) - So, I technically have till the end of the month, but I don't want to risk fucking myself over and cutting it too short. I go back and forth by the day between Duke and Michigan and sometimes just want to say 'fuck it' and join the Army, so I really don't know. I think once things calm down after this week, I'm going to put together a long list of my thoughts on it, both to get them out and to send them around and see what people think about my choices.

2 Final Papers (5/9 and ?) - One's gonna be on China's involvement in SE Asian wars during the Cold War (no, it's really not interesting, don't be fooled) and is supposed to be around 20 pages, though it'll prolly be about 15. All I need is a C, so I'll shoot for a B/B+ and I should be fine. As for the other, I have no fucking clue what it's gonna be on, what he's looking for, how long it's supposed to be, when it's due, nothing, so I'm just not worrying about it. That plan can't backfire, can it?

In other news, happy 'Black Day' to all my fellow singles out there. http://tinyurl.com/6ce3ys

Between now and Sunday night, I need to...

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:03:32 GMT

1) Get a haircut (failed - completed Monday)

2) Do laundry (succeeded!)

3) Go to the gym at least once (failed - completed Monday)

4) Send a bunch of long emails (succeeded!)

and finish my senior essay. That draft I mentioned? Well, it is 'competent and fair,' according to my adviser, but still needs a lot of work. Better than 'incompetent and unfair,' right? (succeeded!)

Edit: And now that it's turned in, I never have to read about the Supreme Court again! Oh, wait...

Lost Cause

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:28:34 GMT

I think I'm just going to declare today a lost cause and not bother trying to get any work done.

In other news, I need a girl. Seriously.

A draft!

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:24:26 GMT

I've got a draft. It's 10,500 words long, which is about 2,000 words short of the max, certainly reasonable given the degree to which I tend to add when I edit. I've got a little less than two weeks left to go before the damn thing is due and I'll be running through one round of editing today before submitting it to my adviser to look over while I'm at Duke.

Now, it should be mentioned for the sake of clarity that this draft actually sucks (like, really sucks) but I don't think that's something we really need to focus on right now, is it? I should also note that, while this is certainly the biggest thing on my plate right now, I still have two other 25 page papers to write before I can graduate and I haven't even got a topic for either of them. Pfff, no problem...

First Belugas, then the Rodeo...

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 05:08:51 GMT

In case you were wondering, yes, Easter is really freaking early this year. The second earliest possible day, in fact. How can there be an 'earliest possible day' you wonder? Well, as with so much else in Christianity, it's...complicated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computus

From another Wikipedia article on the issue (with my commentary):

The calculations for the date of Easter are somewhat complicated. [Ya don't say!] In the Western Church, Easter has not fallen on the earliest of the 35 possible dates, March 22, since 1818, and will not do so again until 2285. [Mark your calendars!] It will, however, fall on March 23 in 2008, but will not do so again until 2160. Easter last fell on the latest possible date, April 25, in 1943 and will next fall on that date in 2038. However, it will fall on April 24, just one day before this latest possible date, in 2011. The cycle of Easter dates repeats after exactly 5,700,000 years, [They sure planned ahead, huh?] with April 19 being the most common date, happening 220,400 times, or 3.9% compared to a mean for all dates of 162,857 times, or 2.9%.

In senior essay news, I've got the thing almost halfway written, but I'm more than halfway through my outline, which may prove to be a problem. We'll have to see; if I can get a 10,000 word draft to my adviser before I leave for Duke on the 27th, I'll be golden. Speaking of Duke, there will be a giant "omg, where am I going to go to law school?!?" post at some point, I'm sure. I know you're all oh-so excited.

I want so badly to believe...

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:40:39 GMT

So, I'm almost done researching this senior essay and, while it's not going to be great, it'll do the job; I've got most of the material I need, and writing the thing should only take a day or two. I'm a little worried that I'm not going to have sufficient material to get to the max length, but I'm thinking my readers won't mind if they have to plow through a couple fewer pages than normal.

More importantly, though, I find the fact that this has actually gone quite well (knock on wood) very disturbing; I'm supposed to have been doing on this all year, yet in a few days of work I can catch up and still do the job? What does that say about the history curriculum here, or, more worrisome, about what I've actually learned here? Did I really learn anything or just how to crank out shit that'll do the job?

Oh yeah, and I'm struggling to reach normalcy on the other stuff and it's also coming along pretty well despite some setbacks. In order to spare those of you who read this from excessive melo-drama and emo-ness (and because I don't want to get in trouble!) I've taken to writing a quasi-journal on my computer, largely in the form of letters that I'm not going to send. It's been really helpful, but created a weird mental block once I wrote one I am going to send...

Facebook + Google + Yale = Way Too Powerful

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:42:33 GMT

There’s a really cute girl who sits next to me in class and, looking for distractions from my current state, I decided to grow a pair and introduce myself to her today. I used the power outage (half the campus went dark this morning*) as my in and got a first name (turns out it was a nickname), a class and a major. There was no boyfriend mentioned, she was fun to talk to and she seemed to like me, so my interest was piqued.

Knowing that I didn’t have enough info to facebook friend her, I did some looking through Yale and, then Google, then Facebook and found all kinds of stuff that made me feel like a stalker (I wasn’t really looking for it, I swear!)

I learned what sorority she’s in. I got her address and, since she’s from Dallas and I have a lot of friends there, I wondered if she lived near them. Google’s creepy new street view gave me a picture of her apartment complex when I looked. Weird. Facebook's pictures showed me that, while she doesn’t list it, she clearly does have a boyfriend (damnit) and Google also gave me a lot more about her extracurriculars than I cared to know.

People scared of Google and the Internet, I have far more respect for you than before. And to the girl in question, sorry it now looks like I stalked you. Though if you find this, you were clearly stalking me, too, so we’re even.

* - it should be noted that, while most of the campus went black, important emergency systems like the electronic locks, hall lights and wireless access stayed on. This says a lot about our priorities as an institution.

My Senior Essay Plan

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 21:34:32 GMT

I write an essay about Mexican people and turn it in. When they ask me what the hell I was thinking, I'll say "Oh, wait, senior essay? I thought we were supposed to write a señor essay! Sorry for the misunderstanding. [pause] Can I have my diploma now?"

What do you think?

Wait, it's not spring yet?

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:25:34 GMT

Spring cleaning is a good way to keep your mind occupied. I recommend it to all of you out there with more on your plates than you care to deal with.

Plus, it provides immense amusement for your roommates.

The Eltie DHS security team missed my swiss army knife again

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 19:58:43 GMT

I sometimes wonder how people would respond to what would be undeniably perfectly legal behavior in an airport. Would I get nervous glances and stares (and a call to security?) if I were reading The Anarchist's Bible while waiting for a plane, or if someone glanced over my screen while I was eating at the food court Popeye's and saw pictures of weapons or terrorists?

This reminded me of a experiment my friends and I wanted to do in high school; we have a friend who's ethnically Indian but as "red-meat and baseball american" as it gets, has no trace of an accent and is a US citizen but looks scarily like a terrorist if he doesn't shave for a couple days. We wanted to put a towel on his head, like a turban, except position it such that right in the front and center was a Holiday Inn logo or something and see if he could get on a plane. We found the stereotype-bending and absurdity of the idea to be hilarious, but I'm sure that the people on that plane wouldn't. Whether he could get on or not, it would almost certainly have gotten us on a terrorist watch-list or something.

Maybe even wondering these things is the reason why I didn't get that FBI internship this summer...

Obsolete

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:11:37 GMT

I think this bad-boy may have outlived its usefulness, though it’s probably still too early to tell for sure. It’s gotten to the point where I update it so infrequently that I can’t imagine anyone still reads it, and I’m so far behind that to update anyone who doesn’t interact with me in person would take more energy than I’m interested in expending right now; add in the fact that there’s a whole swath of my life that I can’t discuss on here and you have something of an obsolete little webpage. Sigh.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Back to the three days from hell...

It finally happened

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 01:17:41 GMT

Today, I got a new phone number. It's nice and easy to remember, but it's not the old one, which is more important. Sigh. Here it is:

713-703-7073.

Ugh.

And yes, eventually, I will update about this summer.

Verizon, I can't decide if I hate you or love you...

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 03:01:37 GMT

So it looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get a Texas phone number. (sigh). I'd been hoping to keep my wonderful 216 forever, but apparently you can't have different area codes on the same family plan and if we all got on a family plan, it would save my parents more than $100 a month. Damnit. They also apparently don't do call-forwarding, so when you switch, you're fucked. How do people do this normally?!?

In other news, this has been one of the busiest and most hectic weeks I've ever had. I have real responsibility and people actually need me to do shit. Gah! That BlackBerry wasn't an idle toy, it seems...I'll write more about that later, but for now I'm going to take a shower, eat some candy and go to bed. Mmmm, bed...

I have slept about 2 of the last 36 hours.

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 02:26:35 GMT

Well, I made it; still not as bad ass as my dad, who drove from Cleveland to Houston straight, only stopping for gas and food, with effectively no one else in the car (Betsey slept and listened to her iPod the whole time and did no driving).

He's got about 35 years on me, but I'm catching up...;-)

Go West, young man, haven’t you been told? California’s full of whiskey, women and gold.

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 03:56:13 GMT

I wrote this in the Newark Airport at like 5 in the morning. I'll write an update with more info about the trip later on. For now...back to sitting around and doing nothing.

Well, I don’t have much use for the first two (see title), but I certainly wouldn’t turn down some of the third, so Westward I go! Yay for Toby Keith. Actually, making a playlist for this trip was quite easy because there are so many songs about California. Hell, the Beach Boys made an entire career out of just writing about it. But before I get to the sunny paradise of the Best Coast, I have to deal with this coast. Sigh.

Well I want to get one that says “I Hate New York”. Seriously, this place blows. Everyone is angry and mean all the time and for no reason! On the shuttle bus thing from the parking lot to the terminals, this middle-aged guy was screaming at the bus driver because she didn’t know which Continental terminal his flight to Houston was in. Why is that her job, may I ask? I’m pretty sure the twenty-something paid minimum-wage to drive a bus doesn’t have the entire Newark airport flight schedule memorized. Maybe you should write a letter.

The next pieces of fun came while we were lining up for the security check. Because I got here obscenely early, the line began forming outside those nice little cordoned off areas. This apparently confused some people, particularly one guy who could be heard yelling “What the hell is this?!” repeatedly as he walked towards the checkpoint. He started walking past the line when his meek little wife called after him “Vinny, Vinny, I think this is the line for security!” He whirled and gave her a scowl and then cut in line right in front of me (I was around the middle of the line). His wife said “Vinny, you can’t just cut in line like that!” and looked at me. Vinny, who at about 5’3”, 200 lbs looked like he could break me in half as his warm-up to some real mafia hits, turns to me and says (to which one of us it was unclear) “Oh yeah? What’s he gonna do about it.” The answer was, of course, nothing, so I just smiled at him and hoped maybe he’d think I was Russian or something. He just huffed and went back to loudly complaining with his wife in tow.

To be honest, Vinny kinda did me a favor; he thankfully drowned out the absolutely inane conversation of these three girls behind me in line. They were talking about anything and everything which popped into their brains, but particularly one of their boyfriends and the possibility he would propose to her. Good God, he should get out while he still can! Excerpts from the conversation included “Jesus fucking Christ, look at that girl’s ass! Gah! I wish I had an ass like that. I could get me any football player I wanted” as well as “Look at that kid. I can’t believe his mom let him out with a nose like that. He should be in a cage or something.”

My personal favorite, though, was when they got into a discussion about the way different people treat engagement; the girl who was a potential fiancée was saying that she has a strict one-year limit on engagements. I couldn’t help but wonder whether it would ever be an issue since I couldn’t imagine any sane person spending more than 15 minutes with her by choice, even if she had that amazing ass, but I digress. Anyways, she said that “the minute he pops it, I’m gonna be planning. If we’re not hitched in the year, good-fucking-bye, fugitaboutit, it’s over and I’m moving on. I don’t care why, I’m not waiting for more than a year.” Wow. When I finally bolted from the security area, they were screaming at each other about whose fault it was that they had packed their $30+ hand lotion in their carry-on rather than the checked bags.

I shouldn’t forget to mention the dressing down I got from TSA (or whatever they’re called now) for what I saw as common courtesy. Anyone who flies frequently knows the gray bins they have you put your stuff in for it to go through the machine. Well, when I got up to the unpacking table, there weren’t any there, but there was a whole big stack on a nearby cart, about four or five steps away. Nearby (about 15 feet away) was a big fat TSA employee sitting in a folding chair and picking his teeth with a toothpick. His purpose there seemed to be to yell at people and remind them to push their bags along since the conveyer belt sucked and wasn’t doing its job. Anyways, I grabbed a whole stack of the bins and brought them over to the table so everyone wouldn’t have to walk over there for one of the bins. When I set them down I heard a loud “Hey, kid! What the hell you think you doin? Put those back!” I turned around to see the fat guy (still sitting in his chair) beat red and pointing to me. I looked at him, puzzled, and pointed to the bins; “These?” “Yeah, those, schmuck. If I wanted them there, I’da put em there myself.” I just shrugged my shoulders and put them back. If you want to hold up the line by making each person take an extra 30 seconds, fine by me.

Other fun things I’ve seen today were an old lady slap a teenager clean across the face because he bumped into her and call him a “young punk,” the handicapped (excuse me, handicapable) woman who ran into me as I was standing still in front of the info screens and yelled “Watch where you’re going, kid!” as well as a Dominican guy shaking his kid by the arm and screaming at her in Spanish for (it seemed) dropping her toy on the dirty ground. I fucking hate this town. And don’t try the “you’re not in New York, you’re in New Jersey,” because we’re all well aware that not only is it all the same people, but also because they’re the same thing; there’s a ‘New’ in front of them and they suck. Seems pretty simple to me…

End rant. Now, should I try and sleep some of the 2.5 hours between now and my flight or should I try and tough it out? Given the strength of my irrational pride, I suspect I’ll be awake…

Technology is my solution to being bored

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:31:51 GMT

The following post was written while I was sitting in a Honda dealership; it’s being posted while I sit in a discussion on the history of ethics. I’m so addicted to technology…;-)

So I’m here in the New Haven Honda dealership since I’m a bad car-owner and have been negligent in keeping my car serviced. That and I got a last week and I need new tires. But that’s not really interesting; what I’m going to write instead isn’t really interesting either, but I’d rather write it.

So like I’ve said, I’m working for Yale’s IT department this summer, but before I didn’t really know what I’d be doing; I figured I’d do some odd stuff as it came in, hardware, etc, but it turns out that I’m doing that and I’m in charge of the support for the summer. It’s been going well and I’m enjoying the semblance of authority and prestige I have in the whole thing. To be honest, though, it sounds far more important than it actually is, but the cool part about it is that I got a fun little gadget from ITS: a BlackBerry. Now, it’s unclear why they need me to have a Blackberry, since the main reason they gave it to me is so that people will be able to get in touch with me without ITS having to give out my cell-phone number. They also set up an e-mail account for it that they’re giving out to people, but as far as I can tell the majority of its purpose could have been fulfilled with a normal cell phone. (shrug)…I’m not gonna turn it down.

Anyways, this thing is really cool. I’ve fallen quite strongly in love with it (sorry Candice…I promise you still come first :-*) and I’m actually back to considering getting a smartphone (the Motorola Q [get link], if I do it) when I’m up for a new contract in three weeks. I’d given up on it for the sake of the LG enV [get link], which is a really cool phone with a QWERTY keyboard but which doesn’t do e-mail or internet as well as the Q. The problem isn’t the initial cost, it’s the monthly cost; if you get it, it really only makes sense to get the voice + data plan, but at $80 a month, it’s pretty steep. I’m going to have to put some serious thought into it. What do you guys think?

Other cool things to report include a fun trip our bioethics program took up to the Hastings Center on Monday and Tuesday. The Hastings Center is a bioethics think-tank across the Hudson from West Point, and a lot of the people who work there are guys whose books we’ve been reading this past year. My personal favorite was Tom Murray, which isn’t really surprising since I really liked his book. He spoke about his current project, a reevaluation of a report he wrote twenty years ago on the ethics of performance-enhancing drugs in sports. It was really fascinating.

The other big guy we got to see was a man named Daniel Callahan whose book we read last semester. His big thing is on health policy and research, and while I liked his book (though I wrote a paper about how much I disagreed with a particular thing he argued in it) I was really, really disappointed in his presentation. For one thing, he seems obsessed with the idea that the solution to every problem is a complete reevaluation of human society; well, gee, Dan, that’s not really that helpful. He says that obesity is an example of where our culture of ‘more’ is fundamentally wrong (though he blames the transportation system, school busses and McDonalds, too) and then he also criticized the American focus on progress as damning the healthcare system through too much success in research. He pushes for a better, universal healthcare system which sets limits on providing care and offers (but strongly discourages) care above and beyond that. He would want the system to concentrate on caring rather than curing, something I find particular counter-productive. Anyone who knows me well knows that I don’t really believe people who tell me that progress, research and technology are bad.

I was also unimpressed with his presentation more generally; he wasn’t a very good speaker and he mixed up dates and facts quite frequently (using the Nuremberg Code of 1947 as an example of a bioethics trend he was identifying in the late 60s). I wasn’t too surprised by this since my dad had noted to me at one point that, while he has good ideas, his specifics, whether scientific or otherwise, were often quite lacking. This, I think, is the danger of the ‘interdisciplinary’ approach to these kinds of things; you’re knowledgeable about lots of things, but not knowledgeable enough about anything. I just hope I don’t fall into that same trap myself someday.

After we left the Hastings Center, we swung by my aunt and uncle’s house and picked up my cousin, Candice’s sister and one of their friends and drove them into the city for a Fall Out Boy Concert. The concert was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed hanging out with Candice and the girls; the opening acts generally sucked (the girls knew most of them but I didn’t) and it was longer than I would have liked or expected, but it was still fun. One of the bands screamed the name for this cut at one point during their act (the meaning of it was somewhat unclear) and another enjoyed talking about ‘rapping for hoes, pimping for hoes’, and they all couldn’t sing. It was fun. Fall Out Boy put on a really good show and they really got the crowd going. We got lost on the way home because construction diverted us off the highway, but we still made it home safely. All in all a successful time.

Other than that, there’s no much to tell. Jean, Candice and I have been spending lots of time together which has been really cool, and I recently finally bit the bullet and got an external hard drive (500 gigs for $150…not a bad deal). I’ve been spending a lot but not enough time studying for the LSATs, which are on the 11th (gulp). I think I’ll be ok, I’m just really nervous. Surprise, surprise there…

Well, I’ve got at least half an hour left to go on my wait, but I’m pretty much out of things to write about for this entry. I’ll have more to come later on, including a political update one of these days and a movie preview for the summer (the latter likely before the former). Until then, you stay classy limited-grou-of-people-who-read-this.

"It ain’t like I like chick on chick o somtin"

Sun, 27 May 2007 15:54:10 GMT

Ok, so that’s a lie, but if Will Smith gets to so blatantly lie in his song, I get to do it on my lj. Random? Yes, it came up on my iPod as I was deciding on the title for this entry.

I’m writing this entry from Hobby Airport in Houston, the tiny airport near our house that JetBlue and Southwest, being the contrarians that they are, fly from. It’s a nice airport and it’s about half the distance from our house as IAH, the massive airport to the north, but the security is much tighter. I stuck a thing of toothpaste in my bag without even thinking of it yesterday and they found it. The woman must have thought I was a bald-faced liar ‘cause she asked me if I had any toothpaste or a shaving kit and I honestly said no ‘cause I never bring that stuff with me on these flights, but she reached in and pulled it right out. Ooops. Hey, at least they didn’t find my pocket-knife. ;-)

In order to make this entry more productive, here’s my review of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End for you guys. Don’t worry…no spoilers. Enjoy.

So before I start bashing this movie, I need to say that it had four big plusses:
1) The CGI was incredible. Davy Jones looks real most of the time (to the point where my mom thought it was make-up until Tim pointed out that make-up can’t move) and the rest of the animation is incredible.
2) This movie, almost as much as the second one, really reminded me of why I love the first one. It’s kinda like going to see your brother-in-law’s crazy family reminding you of how awesome yours is in that sense. That was a really strange analogy given that I just spent the last couple days with my family and I don’t have a brother in law…
2) This one didn’t feel like the prequel to another movie, which to be honest might make it better than the second one right off the bat. That leads me to my last plus…
3) They’re done with these damn things. I hope.

So, now for the bashing. I can’t do too much to tell you why I disliked the movie because a lot of it comes from plot elements that will ruin it for you. Suffice it to say that I really didn’t like the plot and it felt like it was really pushing it. I mean, it’s actually kinda impressive in a sick way that it stretched credulity to the point where it made a movie about cursed pirates who raid the Caribbean having been condemned to barren immortality by the Aztec gods. Some of the random shit that they did left me scratching my head and just wanting them to get on with it. Go see the movie (and make it an even bigger box office success if you must) and then we can talk about it.

The main thing that pissed me off besides the plot was that they don’t explain anything! What the hell, guys…you can’t just throw this stuff out and expect us to just go with it. “Oh, ok…he can’t set foot on land more than once a day every ten years.” Says who? How do they stop him? Does this have any freaking meaning if you can just carry a bucket of water around? Ugh, I have oodles of things I would have wanted explained, but I can’t write about them here because it would piss people off. I did have to rush out to go to the bathroom at one point, but I was gone for less than three minutes, and I doubt that they answered all of this in that stretch. Basically suffice it to say that, if you saw the last movie and you were waiting for answers, you’re prolly not gonna get them this time around.

I (obviously) had other, more general critiques. First off, at over two hours and 45 minutes, it was WAY too fucking long. Movies like this shouldn’t be that long. Period. When you also consider that at least half of if not all of the first movie was preparation for this movie…wow. As with the second movie, it felt like they really didn’t come up with any new jokes, they just did a screening of the first movie, wrote down what jokes people liked from it, and then did them again in another form, often with a far more bewildering and less funny result. Johnny Depp also frustrated me beyond belief, which is not surprising since he is an infinitely frustrating human being in general, but I really liked him in the first one. Not so here. More generally, I just really didn’t like what they did in terms of character development with any of the characters. Not only did I did I patently hate all of the characters by the end of Part Deux (a feeling which just got worse throughout this one), It all felt really contrived and fake, though I honestly can’t tell you how much of that was because of crappy writing and how much of it was crappy acting. There was certainly a lot of both, but I sometimes felt like a coroner staring at a guy who’d been poisoned, shot, struck by lightning, and decapitated and you have to decide what killed him. Not an easy or fun job.

I think my main general critique was with the basic premise of the second two movies (if they didn’t add up to five hours together, I’d be tempted to call them one movie): we’re supposed to be supporting the pirates over the evil East India Company. Now, they don’t really give you a chance to disagree with them ‘cause they are about as subtle as Michael Moore at a donut shop (what does that even mean?) but it doesn’t change the basic fact that our sympathies are supposed to be with a band of lying, cheating, murdering, all around moral-less people over what is one of the most powerful civilizing influences in world history. We’re supposed to back blatant theft (what else is piracy?) over production and economic development. Why? ‘Cause they want the see “to be free” it seems. Jesus Christ. I’m all for freedom, guys, but if piracy is freedom, I’m glad Jack Sparrow (or at least who he’s based on) lost in real life. I don’t know if the anti-globalization undertones were intended, but they were certainly very strong; lots and lots of “the world is changing and you need to find your place in it” “no, I must fight the power!” kinda language, stuff I don’t really have much patience for (which shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Now, I won’t go as far as the Ninja and say that it was a terrible movie ‘cause it certainly wasn’t. There was a lot of fun dialogue and the action and images were visually spectacular. It was definitely worth the $10 of my parents’ money (a big plus to seeing movies with my family) for the “must see” factor, the ability to write this scathing review (I love doing these…) and the overall fun of the experience. I do have to admit, though, that one particular line from the Ask a Ninja review (see above) just kept running through my head over and over again. “There are just too many pirates! If you’re in the first movie and you’re not a pirate, you’re a pirate in this movie." He had no idea how right he was.

Alright, well, I’m on the plane now and we better be taking off soon, so I’ll sign off. It was a really good trip home, though I’ll write more on that when I get back to school. I get into JFK at 11:30 (hopefully), get a CTLimo at 1 (hopefully) and get to campus at 4 (eh, prolly not). Then I get to make my way to HHH and try to get into my room, at which point I get to find a place to park near the building (unlikely given that today is Class Day and tomorrow is Graduation) and try to unload my car full of shit (oh man, I hope it’s still there…wouldn’t that be a fun way to start the summer?) , then at midnight I get to watch the band movie! [shoots self in head]. Once more into the breach dear friends…

Addendum: Ok, so, the chick who sat next to me was massive. Real fat, and I mean orca fat. The seat strained when she sat down and I couldn’t sit square in the seat because then my ass touched hers. She didn’t smell weird (that’s the kiss of death) but she sneezed a lot. I swear, if I get sick, I’m tracking her down and, I dunno, stealing all her cheeseburgers. In other news: yay for free wireless from JetBlue! Boo for having to wait an hour for CTLimo. Yay for getting back and seeing my Puerto Ricans! All in all…good deal.