#119 - st. patty's day

who knew green beer on st. patty's day would be so hard to find? last year mike and jeremy and keane and i went around looking for some green beer, we figured mai tai bar would be a safe bet but we got there and there was none! what's up with that? we looked around all over but finally gave up and just went to eat at bubba gumps. but it was st. patty's day and we felt defeated so we asked the waitress if she knew anywhere else we could get green beer and lucky us she was so nice she made us some green beer special.

so this year, my friend jill invited me to the block party downtown. perfect place to get some green beer right? i thought so. walking around (actually trudging through masses of drunk white people) none of the beer stands (which were like only 10 feet apart from each other) had green beer! finally we saw some girl with one so we asked her where she got it and she led us all the way through the street to the ONE stand that was making green beer.

way worth it.

pretty cool though, tons of people, kinda lame but that's how st. patty's day should be spent right? speaking of, irish girl did pretty good on american idol tonight i thought... don't know why simon didn't like it. but she was about the only one i liked, i guess i'm not a beatles fan because i thought all the songs were way crappy. the only beatles songs i know and actually like are "let it be" and "yesterday." i was surprised that no one picked "yesterday" last week. and what's up with the double theme weeks? LAME! and they proved it too because everyone was crappy tonight. only i like the irish girl and little bro (he should've sang "yesterday," i bet that would've been sweet), but since i didn't recognize his song and since it's st. patty's day i'll post irish girl. well... i didn't know her song either, but i kinda recognized it because the beginning is like the end of that lame "boyz in the hood" song... "punk ass trippin' in the dead of night.... hommie scored a key, he's gonna fly... punk ass fly." haha.

#118 - screw lost

let me tell you something about lost... lost sucks. okay, well i actually realized that halfway into season 3. i was a fan for all the second season (i didn't watch the first season at all, my parents watched it so right before the second season started on tv i watched the whole first season on dvd, which was great because i didn't have to wait a whole week between episodes so i actually remembered what happened), and half of the third season, but then i realized that the writers don't know crap. they've got no fricken' clue what they're doing. then they got all high and mighty with all their ratings and they figured, "well, since we have no clue how to finish a dang storyline, let's just put a bunch of secret crap in each episode and keep the nerds guessing." that's crap. who likes to have their brains played with intentionally? no one. that's who.

plus i can't stand when they make those commercials that say "and you won't believe what happens next!" or "and by the end, one of the survivors will die!" that's total crap. the whole point of killing someone off is shock value, well, goodbye to shock value! you're not gonna lure people in just to see someone die, and even if you do, they're only gonna watch like the last five minutes, reward the people who actually do watch. which, sadly, is me. i still watch, but i yell at the screen like a black person in a movie theater (or a white army guy in a theater, but surprisingly, NOT like a black army guy in a theater, they don't do that). like, "just answer the damn question biatch!" or "will someone just shot the fricken' loser already!" haha. i mean, who cares if they kill off half the cast already, do you even remember ben's daughter? what the hell happened to these people? would you care if any of those people in the picture kicked it already? at least that'll clear up some people and we won't have to bother with them anymore, i mean really, we don't need anymore new people on the damn island.

that being said, yeah, i'm gonna watch it again next week, because what else is on tv on thursdays?

#117 - top 12

okay, so little bro flubbed it this week. oh well, only the first week, 11 more to go right? but, i was actually pleasantly surprised with how good everyone else was. even the ones that i didn't like i had to at least concede something. like even though that country girl sang that craptacular song and still did that hideous eye thing, if you just listened to her voice, all the notes were actually spot on, or maybe i was just hypnotized by those horrid purple stars in the background.

anyway, i really liked brooke white this week, just the perfect way i like to listen to music, singer with solo piano, sweet! plus it's so crappin' hard to play the pian-uh and sing at the same time... which reminds me, i gotta get my piano. they all use yamaha, i'mma gonna git me a yama-haw too! but i need money first, hmm, still, that electric thing ain't gonna last long so i'd better start saving up. anyway here's my new list of favorites:

1. david archuleta
2. carly smithson
3. michael johns
4. brooke white
5. david cooke
6. ramiele malubay

so here's my question... why does everyone like jason castro? i don't think he knows how to sing loud. plus his dreads creep me the hell out.

#116 - pushing the limits

i love the discovery channel. there's a new series called "pushing the limits," basically it's a look at human anatomy, and more importantly physiology, and how we're engineered for survival and doing things that seem beyond human capabilities. the thing is, as amazing as some of the feats sound, it makes absolute complete sense. like how someone can survive being picked up and dropped by a tornado with just a few bruises (obviously you go unconscious and all your muscles go limp, then your bones become more flexible and you can survive horrific falls). the science of physiology that they use to explain everything i think is absolutely fascinating, but completely believable, like, how come you've never thought about it that way before. i mean, humans have been around for how many years now, obviously our bodies have figured out ways to survive in this world. one of my favorite examples was a man whose boat capsized and he was lost at sea alone. he survived for a week or so catching fish and eating the meat, but he wasn't getting a lot of the vitamins and minerals that he needed just from eating sushi. so his brain told him to start eating other parts of the fish, gross parts like the liver, scales, eyeballs, etc. and he said that those parts just started looking yummy to him. haha. but doesn't that make complete sense? like pregnancy cravings right? your body is telling you that you need something and it knows what it wants. how does it know that those essential vitamins are in fish eyeballs? who knows? that's the cool part.

but that all goes to support my theory that we're generally dumb because we don't listen to our bodies more often. there was a previous post that i talked about the "second brain," the one in your stomach... totally makes sense huh? so you gotta listen to "your gut," literally. we know what we want so listen to your body.

here's another cool thing, in terms of vision, our brain sees in snapshots, like at 30 frames per second, but in times of great stress that rate increases, which is why it feels like time slows down. makes total sense right? like when you play tennis, and there are those days when the ball looks as big as a basketball and you feel in control of everything? now just imagine if you could manipulate those stress chemicals to use when you needed them? well, maybe not "manipulate," but maybe the next time you're in a match or you're playing guitar hero, think about yourself in a stressful situation, and maybe you'll do a bit better.

another thing this series does is emphasize the importance of biological functions, like sleep. sleep is SO important! it's when you consolidate the memories of the day (filing in the important stuff and filtering out the unimportant), the theory is that when you're dreaming, that's your brain categorizing and filing away the memories of the day, the reason why you dream is because those memories are being refiltered through your brain without the aid of logic to hold everything in place, that's why they all run together and get wacky. cool huh?

i think i could talk about neurophysiology all day. such natural processes are so intriguing because it's completely universal... it relates to everyone, yet no one ever thinks about them. science is cool!

#115 - waste/sickness

i have a problem with these two concepts. on one hand, i've learned to be very conscious about the concept of waste. in terms of consumerism i think that's why i don't buy a lot of stuff, because i think, oh that means eventually i'll have to throw things away, and that feel like a waste. but more importantly, the concept of wasting time has taken a much more prominent role in my way of thinking. obviously we're all getting older and now i have to admit that i'm in my mid-late-twenties (boo), but there are still tons of life stuff that i've yet to do. and as well as i think i'm doing in trying to find those new experiences and everything (and i do think i'm on the right track), i find it very hard when i'm not making all the most efficient use of my time, on an everyday level. and that leads to trouble because then i feel guilty when i'm NOT doing that. sometime i feel like if i'm not filling every minute of my time with something useful, then i'm cheating myself out of life and that makes me feel both guilty and depressed because i'm missing out on potentially so much.

so this past week i got sick (really ironic, i was at the doctor's for like a annual or more than that check up and he was asking me if i had allergies, which i thought was weird because shouldn't he know? and i don't have allergies but he kept asking, and then that night i got sick) and so i had to skip working out and yoga and even took a half day off and spent the day on the couch. and through those days i kept thinking that i've gotta just push through and do what i'd normally do because then it would be a waste, but of course, when you're sick you just gotta take care of yourself and get better. somehow i can think it, but then i still feel guilty about it afterward. and that's how i get sick in the first place, because i try to do so many things and don't give myself time to rest and recover, going too strong for too long. anyway, now i think i've identified some of the things that trap me in this cycle, i write down everything i do on the calendar, and then if i don't see something green (i write in green pen), then that's a disappointment to me. then i went to that HMSA healthpass thing and they told me to log everything i do on a website, but then i think i'll stop doing that because it turns everything i do into a number and that's now why i do it, right?

anyway, i think that this sickness for me was a good thing because it made me slow down and reevaluate the rate at which i'm going right now. but on the other hand, something really funky happened... on friday night, when i was all sick-being, i had a freaky 12 hours when i was medicated, not feeling great, sleepy, and for a while there i actually had a really hard time telling reality from dreaming from memory. it was so weird. i couldn't sleep for more than two hours at a time so i kept waking up not knowing what time it was or if i should get up or go back to sleep. and then i got this weird pain in my stomach, not like a regular stomachache, the pain was higher, like in my upper abs and it was like really a lot of pressure. it was really bad, i couldn't lie in certain positions and i think i remember thinking "what would happen if i called the hospital?" could i drive there? it was kinda freaky, i couldn't tell if i was dreaming it or not.

so that sucked. i don't want to be sick anymore. so i'm taking sunday off, completely. that's a huge change for me, i've been doing something active everyday in the past three months and i've been loving it. i feel like i've got more energy, i feel fitter, more healthy, but i guess i overdid it a little and didn't let myself recover enough in the past few weeks, so i'll have to alter it a bit.

on the bright side, today a watched a whole marathon of "beauty and the geek." haha, that show is hilarious, but more important, it's a show about trying to make yourself better, both the beauties and the geeks. as retarded as some people think these shows are, i love them. it might be a "reality" show, but it's a good-hearted one because it's about trying to find common ground with other people and trying to improve oneself as well. plus it's just frickin' hilarious.

also, since i've been all sick i've got a chance to watch that american idol rewind, like they show all the old american idols with interviews and everything, man, it sucked back then. haha, like they were showing the performances from season 2, they were crappy, haha! so when the judges keep saying "this season is the best talent ever" it may sound like a line, but damn it's true. i can't wait for tuesday now, haha.

#114 - minimalist

sure, i've known for awhile that i'm quite a minimalist... well, when it comes to most things at least. like art, and music. i really enjoy music that's very simplistic, well, that's not the right word. i like when you can hear every note of music, not when everything's all mushed together in a big glob (also why i like japanese music so much, the orchestral kind like mononoke hime and stuff, not the pop kind). so david archuleta and brooke white on american idol have absolutely made the right moves in my mind. well, for that david guy, i just think everything he's done so far has been just spot on. phrasing, musical embellishments, song choice, i just think that everything has been right on both in concept and in actually-carrying-it-out.


brooke was one of my initial favorites, but i thought she was pretty bland and straight a couple of weeks ago, but i think i'm getting to like her again. once again, it's all about phrasing and making the right choices. both david and brooke very much remind me of katharine mcphee and melinda doolittle, all of them make all the right choices musically, which notes to sustain, which to change, where to break. like katharine mcphee's "over the rainbow" and melinda's "my funny valentine" and david's "imagine." they just do things right, and that makes a tremendous difference. of course, none of those people that i mentioned WON the darn thing, but that's tv eh? makes it all fun.

#111 - no chance

right. okay, he's good. no one else has got a chance this year. well, none of the guys at least. i thought that the aussie guy might have a shot, but nope. the unilateral vocal fold paralysis guy's got it, hands down.

and good for him too. i like this guy. but then again, only one of my favorite picks actually went on to win the whole thing so far, after seven years of watching american idol. the first year i picked tamyra gray, even though i was glad kelly clarkson won. then i picked (reluctantly) clay aiken. then i didn't like anyone in the third one, so i just voted for jasmine. i actually picked carrie underwood from the beginning, so that was cool. i also picked katharine mcphee from the beginning, but that weirdo taylor hicks won. and last year i picked melinda doolittle as the "hands down" winner from like the second show, but sadly i was very wrong.

so let's hope that doesn't happen again this year, because i really like this guy and i don't mind saying so either... i also may be slightly (and embarrassingly) jealous of him, haha. but let's not get too carried away, he's obviously no amateur, to be that good you not only need natural talent, but you've also had to had experience, and this guy did a lot before american idol, just browse on youtube for a bit and you'll see:


by the way, my favorite part of this vid is the super-haole lady at the end with the fake banter yelling "fantastic!" hahaha! seriously, if you don't even wanna watch it just fast-forward to the end... classic!

#109 - day 2

quick post... i thought the girls were kinda crappy. well, it's hard because it's the first time for everything, but no one really made me notice them that much... except for that filipino girl, i think she's HOT! haha, well, cute at least.

but, after all the guys and girls have performed, here's my top picks, in order of who i want to win (my picks, not predictions):

1. david archuleta
2. syesha mercado
3. michael johns
4. brooke white
5. ramiele malubay
6. alaina whitaker

... but we'll see what happens next...

#108 - here we go again

yup, time for american idol again... and i allow myself to be controlled by the american media.

of course, there are times when i feel it necessary to rebel against pop culture, y'know, when things get too ridiculous, like "temptation island" or "real world vs. road rules." but for this show i absolutely allow myself to feel the made-up hype. the way i figure, either i could call the whole show retarded or rigged or biased or whatever, but then where would be the fun in that? it's much more fun to let myself get carried away in the storylines and follow along each week, root for whoever looks good at the moment, and be guilt-ily envious of whoever's getting all the attention, haha.

so here's me, watching american idol, picking my favorites, wishing i could sing good enough to be on the show myself (well, not really, i don't really want to be on the show, but it's hard not to get caught up in the excitement when you see all these dorky "ordinary" people getting tons of play on national tv). so why not get into it? otherwise i'm just depriving myself of a pretty fun experience.

so... my pick this year? well, out of the 12 guys, so far i only care about one of them, the rest can all go, haha, well, i guess we should keep some of them on just for fun. but only that unilateral vocal fold paralysis guy is a real contender. i actually really like him, i'm rooting for this guy. by the way though... how "amateur" do you have to be to be on american idol? i mean, i guess if you really sing that good then you must've had to sing at least somewhere before right? then you're not completely new to singing in front of an audience and whatever (except i think carrie underwood was completely amateur, like she was from that tiny town right? and never been on a plane?). like this unilateral VFP guy has been on like star search and on tv and everything before, yeah, i did a little youtube research, but check out him singing "o holy night." definately my favorite christmas song of all time and just the way i like to hear music, nothing but a voice and a piano, pretty sweet.

#98 - aussie open

can you believe that this is my first post about the aussie open? it's almost over already? well, i've been watching the whole thing (go dvr!) so far and it's been a fantastic tournament, some highlights:

1. 2nd round: lindsey davenport v. maria sharapova - yup, SECOND round match, lindsey just had a baby like 7 months ago and is on the comeback, she's been playing really well, but maria was completely on fire, it was awesome. still, gotta feel sorry for davenport, she won three slams (us open, wimbledon, aussie open) but her last one came in 2000. she's been in four other grand slam finals since then but got beaten by a williams sister each time. too bad, it just seems like she should have won so many more, but how can you complain? she's won THREE!

2. 3rd round: janko tipsarevic v. roger federer - the match of the tournament for sure, federer was in serious trouble and only edged janko out 10-8 in the fifth set. i've been a fan of tipsarevic for a long time, it's good to see him finally get some due with the other trio of serbians, which brings me to...

3. the serbs: novak djokovic, ana ivanovic, and jelena jankovic. all in the semis, ana in the finals, novak to play for the final against roger federer tomorrow. ana took out venus, jelena took out serena. all of them have great personalities, they're all great people, i love rooting for them. add tipsarevic in there and serbia is my new favorite country.

well, there were a lot of other great matches, it seems like the best tennis of the year happens at the aussie open, maybe because it's the beginning of the tennis year and everyone's rested and rejuvenated for the year. lots of new faces begin popping up and there's lots to talk about reflecting on the past year. but anyway, we're on to the men's semifinals (roger v. novak, nadal v. tsonga, a newcomer) and the women's finals.... probably the prettiest women's final since... probably EVER!

#5 maria sharapova v. #4 ana ivanovic

#97 - hit and miss

bang. terminator : the sara conner chronicles is number one on my list at the moment. well, a pretty short list with no new episodes of the office or heroes or anything else on tv. but i was excited about this one for awhile back and i am not disappointed. although i have to admit that most of my excitement stems from the fact that i get to see this girl in action again. after firefly and serenity (she was even on an episode of angel) i've been itching to see her in a kick-ass role again and she dooes not disappoint. plus it's like terminator robot fighting which is all blocky and rough (not like how they make her fight in firefly) which is totally cool. i was worried how they would justify the time travel and all that, but the cancer thing was a great device, now they absolutely HAD to time travel because sara conner didn't have time to wait around for the events to occur. overall, i'm very happy with the way this new show has started and i'm looking forward to being a rabid dorky fan in the very near future.

ps - i've also heard that they're trying to make T4, another movie... not sure how that would work with the tv series... maybe it could be like after the events of T3 and all that, and then end with them sending back this terminator girl to get the events of the tv series started?

but, unfortunately, for every hit, there's a miss... and this one was a big disappointment... yup, american gladiators is total CRAP! so sad... but here's why:

1. way over-produced (sound effects, multiple camera angles, fake replays to try and extend the action... they think we don't notice just because it's a replay at a different camera angle)
2. gladiators are way too wussy - they need to talk less, beat up more, not lose
3. events are lame - they picked only the quickest and wussiest ones to reproduce and make easier (what happened to hang tough? there's only like three rings now!)
4. the eliminator makes the contestents look like pansies - does every single contestant face plant after coming off the balance beam? maybe they should screen contestants to see if they can swim. dropping off the hand-bike and climbing back up is WAY faster than struggling through the whole way. what the crap is up with the "travelator?"
5. i guess this ain't the 90's no mo'...

#96 - hasta la vista, baby

man, am i excited about this tv show. it's been a long long time since i was actually excited about something on tv (besides "the office"), but this one looks sweet. i've been preparing for "terminator: the sarah conner chronicles" by watching all the other terminators, luckily they've been showing them on tv and i've got dvr, score! hard to believe the orginal terminator came out in 1984, and even though i saw it after i had already watched terminator 2: judgement day i still like it. right now i'm watching terminator 3, and even though it's not a great movie... it made the right moves by hearkening early and often back to the first two movies for bits and expanding on the original storyline, i thought it kept pretty true, didn't leave any plotholes. that's why i'm so excited about this new tv series, well, for the terminator story and also because of summer glau, that's her up there. she's playing the bad-ass good terminator protecting john and sarah conner. and if anyone's seen her in firefly or serenity, you can bet she's gonna be a bad ass robot! the series is gonna pick up after T2 but how are they gonna keep it from running smack into the events of T3? how are they gonna justify the presence of a helper terminator after arnold had to take that lava dip?


anyway, that all which reminds me of firefly. too bad, poor show, got cancelled way too fast. i started watching it late, only after i found out it was written by joss whedon (who also wrote/created buffy the vampire slayer and angel). i think i like pretty much anything that guy writes, it's more "realistic" than other tv writing. i don't know, it seems more natural, his scripts are light, not all overly dramatic like every other show on tv. i recently found out that he used to be a writer for "roseanne" (another one of my favorite shows because of the writing) and he even wrote an episode of "the office" (my current favorite show). so i'm hoping maybe he'll have a hand in terminator, it seems like tons of actors & people from the joss whedon universe end up in the same shows (buffy, angel, firefly, serenity, lost, etc).


speaking of buffy... just thought i'd throw in another picture of eliza dushku, because she's hot!

#91 - marathon

so it's vacation... a very rainy vacation and so no beach or tennis or dog walking right now, and so i've got a lot of time on my hands. good thing there's tons of tv marathons on and i've got dvr! first of all, futurama, every night all night until the new year = sweet. then on the discovery channel every day will be a different show, yesterday it was mythbusters = awesome. hopefully man vs. wild will be on in the next couple of days.


random thought:

i notice now that i'm living by myself and watching tv by myself i laugh out loud a lot more than i used to when i was living at home. i guess i feel free-er to laugh at dumb stuff than i did before.


anyway, today there's true life on mtv all day. i think this show is probably the best on mtv (well, there's not much competition, i think it goes from next --> the real world --> parental control --> made --> the hills --> true life), and probably one of the better shows on tv period. just because it's reality without being very overdone, and of course a lot of the people in/on it are stupid, but there are some genuine people and sometimes it makes for genuine storytelling, so i like it.


so... watch a couple episodes in the morning with breakfast, go to the gym, watch a few more episodes with lunch, go to yoga, and that's what we call thursday.


oops, i forgot to post this one so it continues to friday and saturday... today is saturday and it's a MADE marathon today, woo hoo! i love this show, some people are retards, but for the most part it's actually kinda touching, especially when they take total losers who know they're losers but can't do anything to change it and actually succeed at what they're doing. like i really like that episode with that dorky girl who wanted to be a wakeboarder, she seemed really sincere about everything. i think i would've made a good "made candidate" in high school. right? total band geek wants to be made into a volleyball player or pro surfer? that would've been awesome! oh well...

next post: yardwork!

#90 - nippon!

guess what? i'm getting excited about movies again! woo hoo! it's been a long long time since i've been into watching movies. for the longest time i thought it was the most boring thing in the world, sitting for two hours watching badly scripted lameness. the only thing good was the popcorn (which is super-mondo-ly good, by the way). i think my movie-hating started around when "titanic" came out, because all the movies were getting epically long and i got tired of super dramatic action flicks very quickly. but in the past couple of years i've been probably a handful of movies, i tried to stick to either one of three categories:

1) little thinking required off-beat comedy - e.g. knocked up ("don't you hate it when your baby steals your food, stop stealing my food baby!")

2) super-hyped "must-see" movies that any of my friends would go see, these must be seen drunk - e.g. drunken spiderman 3, drunken transformers from the second row in the theater

3) japanese horror films

i guess it all started with "ringu" and then the american "the ring," and sequels of that... then there was "juon" and "the grudge" and sequels of that. for both of those i thought that storyline and creepiness of the japanese films were better but the movie making and disturbing-ness of the american films were way better, like, you couldn't get the story or the scary level of the american films without the japanese-type ghosts or the relative lack of dialogue that's common in japanese films, but then the japanese films lacked scariness due to the lameness of the movie effects and super-lame acting.
one missed call is a movie i saw at a hawaii international film festival a couple of years back, i thought it was great! it's like, the first half of the movie was pretty typical japanese lameness with some mixed in creepiness, but the second half of the movie was messed up! wow, i still remember being completely shocked at how suprisingly impressed i was by the second half of the movie, i guess it was good that i wasn't expecting much huh?
now they're making an american version and i can't wait to see it... it's been a long time since i've actually been waiting for a movie to open, but this is one of them. i hope it's not lame. it's got some girl who was in buffy for a couple of episodes (not faith, shucks), but that movie poster is just unnecessarily gross.
anyway, after all those movies started coming out a couple of years ago, my aunty started sending me recommendations for more asian horror movies, one of them was this one, "the eye." it was chinese so i think that made it a little better movie-making wise, and the storyline is pretty good so i thought it was great.
and now i just saw a commerical for an american one, woo hoo! and it's got jessica alba (everything thinks she's super hot... i thought she was hot at first, and then she was in fantastic four and i lost all interest, but i dunno, she might redeem herself). so i'll be seeing that one as well.


anyone seen any other good asian horror movies? oh, i've got one more, they haven't made an american version of this one yet... maybe because the story is a little too convoluted... but if anyone has seen it let me know what you think... it's called "the infection" a japanese one...

#80 - third rock

that last movie post got me reminiscing... anyone remember "3rd rock from the sun?" it's one of my very favorite tv shows. it's all about perspective. taking the things that get overlooked in daily life and seeing them for the first time. plus it was damn funny. anyway, it's that perspective that i wish i could capture a little more of throughout my everyday life. i get so stuck in routines sometimes that i miss out a lot on those things that go out outside of my routine. and then when something outside that routine interferes it causes me a lot of stress (even if it's a good thing, but that's the PDD side of me talking). if you could see everyday with new eyes how much more wonderful would each day be? what a great experience that would be, being able to step back and look at the world with an open perspective. it would be great.

ps - who the crap would've guessed that the long-haired girlie looking kid would end up in so many movies? pretty good roles too. weird.

#79 - the lookout

just saw this movie, i didn't know what it was about really when i put it on my blockbuster queue... so i was really surprised to find out it was about TBI! woo hoo! sure, i'm a dork, but i think neuropathy is just about the most fascinating thing in the world. and even though i'm in no rush to head off and get a second degree in neuroscience (i've got no more motivation for school, i got drained out of that after junior year of high school), that don't mean i won't read/watch/listen to every single interesting neurogenic article/tv show/whatever that comes my way. so, couple tramatic brain injury and a 100 minute movie together and you've got the perfect combination for me.

anyway, a pretty well made movie i think, in the respect that it handled tbi as the focal point of the story, but not so overpowering so it looks like some kinda PSA to seat belts. plus i'm a nerd and recognized the s/s of the disorder as they occurred in the movie. but bottom line, it was a storyline that was nicely in-tuned (if that's a word) with what post-tbi people really go through. i am especially fascinated with tbi because it's so incredibly common and can happen to absolutely anyone. don't you wonder, while walking around the mall, or going out to eat or something who around you might have had a tbi? i think that all the time, haha, because i see TONS of people who act like they should've had a tbi, whether they did or not, haha. but really, it's like being judgmental and biased in a good way, because i empathize more with strangers (whether i know or not about their neurogenic status), and i think it makes me think like a better person. in fact, sometimes i think that i must've had a tbi because i find myself doing tbi-like things more and more often... hmm.

point is, brains are cool. i think i might have to get back into adult neurogenics at some point in my career, something in the world is calling me back to it. eventually. maybe i'll get a tbi and then i'll be in therapy and then i can be that therapist who needs therapy himself. is it sad that i think that might be a pretty cool life? like, say you suddenly have a stroke and get aphasia and then you can't do your regular job anymore so you collect disability or whatever and then volunteer to be the therapist with aphasia who provides therapy to other people with aphasia? doesn't that sound like a pretty nice life? helping people out like that? well, i'm sure there are downsides... pretty big downsides, but at least you'd be helping people and it'd be like you really had a purpose in life. okay, i'm probably over-estimating the awesome-ness of that situation, but (getting back to the movie) i guess that movie just made me think that going through a traumatic brain injury like that would really give your life focus (how paradoxical is that?). i mean, you'd have so many difficulties that your goals would simplify up so much. but then again, you'd probably not want such a simplistic life and it would drive you crazy that you couldn't have more than a simplistic life (and who says you can't?).

anyway, i'm essaying here (remember how in high school, mrs. itagaki taught me that an "essay" is not just writing about a topic, but the word "essay" means a journey so when writing an essay it's not important that your train of thought is the same throughout... in fact, it's better when you use the writing to "travel" to new ideas)... but go check out the movie, it's very nicely introspective without being too overly dramatic. i liked it.

#76 - over-react much?

so, you have a free afternoon, you flip on sportscenter and everyone's talking about his guy. at first you think, "what the crap?" and then you start laughing, and then he gets louder so you laugh more, and then it goes on for like 2 1/2 more minutes and by the time he was done i was on the floor gasping for precious air to breathe in so i can laugh more and not die.

and who the heck CLAPS after that?! HAHAHA!!

#75 - year of the dog

just watched "year of the dog." i like this kind of movie. low-key. it kinda takes a lot to get me interested in a movie, after having netflix and blockbuster pass and with my parents going nutsos renting like 15 movies a week i've learned to filter the crap movies from the good ones. so actually, i should rephrase that it takes very little to get me interested in a movie, that is, it takes only a little bit of well-made movie to get me to sit down and watch the whole thing (usually i'll give it about 10 minutes and if i'm not interested it's back in the postage-paid envelope for ye!). like this one, very simplistic, not a ton of music or dialogue, but good use of non-talking time and seemingly plain yet effective cinematography. not like i know anything about movie making or anything, but i think that quality work is when you don't notice the camera angles or special effects or movie-production extras. just a simple story very well executed. not too intellectual, actually a bit depressing, kinda wussy, but surprisingly uplifting. i liked it.

#73 - humor

so i was watching snl tonight and it made me laugh. i think i tend to laugh for different reasons than other people, very different from my family at least. here are some things that make me laugh:

1. meaningless randomness - here's a good example:


2. repetition - like mike says, there's a point where you can make a joke over and over and over until it stops being funny... and then you make it again and it's even funnier:


then that one became even funnier after seeing this (even though i don't watch this show, this is where the snl joke came from):


then this one is just silly:


3. kids getting hit in the back of the head and falling down - self-explanatory:


very simple huh? no need to try and flesh it out, keep it simple and dumb and that equals funny.

#72 - why i will never drink heineken

forget the fact that the girl looks like a creepy evil elf or something, or that some idiot actually thought making her a cyborg would make her MORE attractive, but damn that music is first-rate crappiness. at first i thought i'd give the keg a try, but after seeing this damn commerical 17 billion times an hour during UH games i swear to never again drink another heineken in my life. this crapload of a commercial ranks right up there with the gary shandling show and mambo no. 5 (re: things that i hate from the very bottom of my soul).

but fortunately, the majority of beer commercials actually do serve their primary function very well, which is not hard since i like funny stuff and love beer. ejemplo uno:



i definately need a russian accent. bud light, you got a problem with that? also, example 2 (aka my halloween costume this year):