And now for something completely unrelated...

Far be it from me to use this blog as a platform to discuss anything serious, so I'm delving pointlessly into the trivial world of movies, which I love (spoiler alert!).

Does everybody remember how terrible the movie Flightplan was? I do. I actually liked the premise of the mystery: woman and daughter get on plane, daughter vanishes, and no one believes the mother or admits to having seen the daughter, until mother and audience suspect she might be crazy, only to find out there is a dark conspiracy at hand. On the other hand, the other day, I saw a great movie. It's called The Lady Vanishes and it's directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on a novel by Ethel Lina White. I've been watching a lot of Hitchcock's early work lately (fished from the $5 DVD bin at Wal-mart!), and it's a lot better than I expected. I was shocked and a bit disapponted to discover that this earlier Hitchcock movie (The Lady Vanishes) not only has the same plot as Flightplan, it's also a much better movie. Apparently, the people responsible for Flightplan deny that The Lady Vanishes was even an influence.

I can see how they might think that they made it original enough to stand on its own intellectual property footing: they changed a train into a plane, an old lady into a little girl, and a conspiracy headed up by an underhanded political enemy of Britain posing as a brain surgeon into a conspiracy headed up by a political enemy of the United States posing as a Federal Air Marshall. Also, the new one is in color. 

Is anyone making original movies anymore? I know that they must be, and a few squeeze through the bullshit every year, but what the hell? Here are a few of the movies currently playing in the US: The Dark Knight (a really great movie--I have nothing bad to say about it, but it definitely falls under the "remake" category), Mamma Mia!, The X-Files, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Hellboy II, and The Mummy III. Seriously. At least, I guess, those movies admit that they're based in other material. 

I smell a lawsuit!

Or is it lolsuit?

If you're pregnant, and are even entertaining the idea of carrying to full term, make sure your nurse isn't a Downer.

I can't believe that such a drastic mistake could be made under such simple, strict routine. Admittedly, the mistake was made at an abortion clinic, so the woman was probably planning on termination anyway, but really . . . That's a royal fuck-up.

So i think i witnessed an attempted abduction ...

So I was wondering what I should have done, or what you would have done
Me, I did nothing. Is this the kind of person I am? Am I the kind of person who turns the other way, looks but does not see?
Here’s the situation:
I had just gotten done with work. I’m tired, wet, I smell like too much chlorine and covered in scratches from little children’s fingernails. The sun is still peaking thru some early evening clouds, people across the street from my car are having a barbeque, I can smell the charcoal.
I turn my car on to the familiar rumble of the engine and drone of the radio, I weave in-between the sea of parked cars and pedestrians. I turn onto Montana, as always, there are no cars to wait for on the stop sign.
I’m following a scion, covered in ads. I think, I wonder if advertising on scions are the new thing for startup companies 1800SWAPNOW or was is swappers? Something swap. You don’t want your lease, and they do. No mention of what they want to do with your lease. I’m thinking, chop shop, or something similar.
They are going painfully slow, with their right hand turn signal on. my right hand turn signal is on. I just want to go home and shower, what are they going so slow for? Its green right?
Oh theres a pedestrian, a woman, taller, larger, white capris and a black top, maybe they are waiting for her to cross the street.
Wait, she’s not. She’s turning right as well, walking along Boudinot. This must suck, who walks on Boudinot, its all cars and the sidewalks are crap. The swapper scion is going slower, in the lane next to the sidewalk.
Im not waiting on these folks, they are going snail speed, there is no reason to be holding up traffic. I merge around them and drive on
I glance in my rearview mirror, something seemed wrong as I passed. The woman had turned, and looked at the scion. I see the door open as I look back. Maybe they are picking up their friend, or offering her a ride.
Wait, no she doesn’t want their ride, she slams the door shut and walks on. There are oncoming cars, I need to look ahead. I look back again a block further, I can’t see them, its too far and over a hill.
What is going on there? Where they harassing her? Where they thinking she was a prostitute? Was she? Does it matter? Should I have called the cops and told them I saw something questionable? What should I have told them? Is it fair to her that I was driving away from this “pimped out” SCION? Who tries to impress someone with a scion?
I drive on. I don’t notice where I’m going. And before I know it, I’m home, its 10 minutes later, and there is nothing I can do now to help, right?
Now I’m spending the next hour talking to myself seeing if I did the right thing. If I stopped and got out of my car, offered her a ride to saftey, making up fake fights where I don’t care I’m still wrapped in a towel, I am not armed, I have no fighting skills. I am a badass, defending my fellow woman. But this didn’t happen to me. I didn’t pull over, I didn’t call the cops, I defiantly didn’t pull moves Chow Yun Fat could be proud of.
What is humanity if you cant stand up for your fellow human being. But then, how do I know that that is what it was, couldn’t it have been a domestic dispute, a broken relationship, a friendship that went sour. All I know is that the driver, with the biggest assumption: was male, did not get along with the woman walker. Does that mean, it is my responsibility to fix this, to help them, if no help was asked . And most of all, does this mean that, in crisis, I cannot help those in need.

deadly nuts

so i have always wondered if you could like, hijack a plane, or rob a bank if you knew some one was allergic to something, namely peanuts. now this might sound outrageous, and a little stupid. but would it be a deadly weapon? is it illegal to use something as ordinary as a peanut? i think so, especially if the intent is to harm, as this is.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog

Now, I know some of us here can't appreciate a good musical, but I hope you all give this a chance. It's cute and pretty funny at times.

Hockey Scores

I finally found a ringtone worthy of my phone.

MeFi has a good writeup on the situation.

Obama: Losing the Vote

Hi everyone. I think everyone here can understand my own desire to some extent to have the Obama who campaigned for the primary as our president. On June 30, Obama lost my vote for the presidential election, and I'm writing about it in a public form because I want public feedback - I want to want to vote for Obama, but at this point, I'm disillusioned. Obama lied, and when a candidate campaigns on how un-politician-like he is, and then demonstrates that he is willing to lie to the constituency, well, that's pretty politician-like for me. First I'll put in some background for those who don't know.

FISA 2008 is the 2008 revision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. It officiates the rules governing how the United States government is allowed to spy on foreign nationals. It makes it very clear that court oversight is necessary for the usage of domestically-located lines of communication - wiretapping mostly but you'll see in a moment that it also applies to the Internet's medium of communication. The court oversight stipulations are not limiting to the ability of the government to obtain timely information for most scenarios that I can think of.

Beside all of this is my own opinion that the Constitution is a statement about humanity, not just citizens of the United States, but I understand that consistency is critical to rule of law - which we'll hit a bit of a fault in just a minute with. FISA 2008 was introduced in 2007 under the advisement of President Bush.

President Bush violated the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights when he ordered certain telecommunications companies to attach black boxes to their internet routers without a warrant. Those companies broke the law by complying.

FISA 2008 was eventually revised to include a section granting a brief court review to the telecoms - cursory in nature and ostensibly an immunity clause. On December 27th, senator Obama said that he would filibuster any revised FISA that included an immunity clause.

On June 30, the results of the FISA 2008 vote came out, and it turns out that Obama voted to pass it.

Aaaaaand....
Tell me I'm wrong. Please, someone tell me why!

Aww.

^-^

 

For the squealy little girl in all of us.

I think I would sell my soul to play with one of those pandas.

I don't want to piss off the US government

just imagine how bad it is when a song gets stuck in your head, now pretend its the barney theme, at 11 ( but these speakers got to 11). oh and your in guantanamo prison ...... no sir,no thank you.

US Bank Hates me

Here's a map of the US Bank locations near me. Guess where I live.



If you said in that big gaping hole that looks like a circle, you'd be right. I wonder why US Bank chose not to service Fair Oaks...

Eh, I don't mind so long as the service isn't so bad as to eat two of my cards in as many weeks...

Ork Posters

I found this today. Reminds me of the text poster sara made of orbital. Extra points to those who can find the gay men!

They have San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles (the Beijing of the civilized world), and more. Check it:

DEAR JESUS: FOR CHRISTMAS I WANT A PONY AND SOME SAUSAGE.

I'MA GET MY JESUS ON!

At this point, I am becoming hateful toward religion at a rate which I thought I would never see.

HOLY SHIT

HOLY SHIT.

The fourth one bothered me most.

The Girl Effect

Check this out. After studying developing economies for a little bit, this video really does make a lot of sense. Infrastructure in developing (read: poor) countries lends itself to limited education opportunities for women, and individuals as a whole. After reading and understanding as much of the statistics as I could lay my hands on, that's the conclusion that I came to, and I certainly wouldn't think that it's the wrong one. Increasingly, the availability of small loans to individuals in the developing world is becoming available to those with the ability to lend. And this isn't bad in a financial sense. Why does China have such a large return on investment? Because they're starting from so low in the spectrum and advancing to such a relatively enormous level that the change (the margin - economics is a science of margins) is enormous. These underdeveloped countries have the opportunity to provide good, reliable and safe investments to Americans with the desire to invest their money in something good and worthwhile. Watch the video, take something from it, and post in the comments your thoughts.



PS: yeah, the video is a pretty good example of good graphic design too, but that should be a sidenote in your head.

Happy (Independence/Twilight Zone Marathon) Day : An Essay with Footnotes!

This might be a strange thing to write an essay about. It might also be strange that I wrote an essay for fun, but it's not an essay so much as an homage, I guess. I also find it vaguely distressing that I now watch enough television to write an essay about it, but I guess my priorities have shifted since I have become a college graduate. I saw an episode of The Twilight Zone tonight that I'd never seen before, and I felt compelled to share it with anyone willing to read the following.

             “The year is 1997,” Mr. Rod Serling informs us. Three men (yes, men) are aboard a spacecraft that looks like our traditional notion of a flying saucer, on a mission to explore and take samples of a newly discovered planet in order to determine its inhabitability for colonization. Upon reaching the planet, a crewmember sees something strange on the surface. The captain doesn’t see it, but grudgingly agrees to check it out. Once landed, they discover a spaceship. Inside the spaceship they discover their doppelgangers[1]—exact replicas of  themselves—only dead. The Captain believes they may have circumnavigated time[2], and that this is a sign that if they leave the planet their ship will crash and they will die, ending just as their counterparts did. Meanwhile, two of the men (the Captain is the exception) experience visions or hallucinations of their loved ones from home. The first man gets to his home to find that his wife has received a telegram notifying her of her husband’s death. The second man meets his daughter and wife near a lake, and when roused from his reverie the viewer finds out that his family has, in fact, been dead since before our travelers left Earth.

            The Captain supposes, and convinces his colleagues, that they are being tricked by whomever lives on the planet. He is convinced there are unseen aliens on the planet that use mind control to show them whatever will scare them as a defense against their planet being colonized[3]. The only way to test their new theory is to take off and attempt a return to Earth. They successfully get into the air, and decide that the Captain was right. Now, the Captain says he is going to prepare again for a landing, because they know what was happening, and there is no longer any reason for them to fear the planet; they will collect their samples. They nearly crash, but descend back to the alien planet, believing that if their theory was correct, the crashed spaceship containing their doubles will be gone. They land uneventfully, but the spaceship is still there.

            One of the crewmembers insists that the visions they saw were real, and that they are in fact already dead, and their bodies were those in the other spaceship. Unwilling to believe this, the Captain takes off again, and the spaceship flies off into space. Mr. Serling’s voice tells us that the Captain is a man of will so strong that he is blind to what he does not wish to see. He compares the spaceship to the Flying Dutchman, wandering forever through the Twilight Zone.

            I love the Twilight Zone. It ran for five years, between 1959 and 1964, before we’d even landed on the moon. The very essence of the show was the exploration of possibilities that exist only in our imaginations. In this particular episode, we envisioned a future (as soon as 1997!) when men are zipping around the universe colonizing planets, and what they find, literally, is their own demise. I think one of my favorite things about the show is the ambivalence of the possibilities imagined therein. It is at once optimistic and foreboding. It shows us that we cannot fathom in our wildest dreams what we might one day be capable of, while simultaneously warning that we may go too far, that we may be forced to face that which is most terrifying (usually in ourselves). The plot and tone of the stories have influenced countless other shows (“Simpsons did it!”), and I submit that it’s one of the best television shows we’ve ever produced, but feel free, as always, to disagree. 

---

[1] Seeing one’s own doppelganger is sometimes thought to be a harbinger of bad luck or death (Wikipedia: Doppelganger).

[2] This is an event that has happened before on the Twilight Zone; once an airplane crew got disoriented and lost communication with everyone, only to find when they looked out the windows that they were flying over a prehistoric Earth complete with dinosaurs.

[3] This is very similar to what happens in the movie Contact when Jodie Foster gets to the alien planet and is deluded into thinking she sees her dead father, until she realizes she is speaking to a figment created by an alien being on the planet to make her more comfortable.