Brain Potpourri

Going a little stream of consciousness here briefly...

Dentists are highway robbers.

I think you can tell a lot about a person by the trivia team names he comes up with.

After a fanciful night at Mum's, I have given up on alcohol for a while. (Proximal cause, not distal)

BSG finale was very disappointing, considering how good the first half was and the potential they had!

Eastbound and Down is hilarious.

Oh god, they've made a Sandlot spin-off TV series. What's worse: it involves a selfish ball-player being sent back in time to the Sandlot by getting hit in the head with a baseball.

On that note, baseball trivia questions are bullshit!

Nanolab is driving me nuts.

I've been quite off this past week, in trivia, conversation, and facts and things; probably a combination of going crazy and giving up alcohol.

Got into 2 new manga recently, and I recommend both: Fairy Tail and Toriko. They are both shounen manga; the latter is done by the protege of Oda, the mastermind behind One Piece, and chronicles the adventures of the zany titular guild of carefree mages. The one complaint I had heard before reading--and one I have to agree with--is that the fights are too fast paced. But it's amazing the sheer number of unique characters introduced in a mere 130-ish chapters so far, and even more incredible is just the complexity of the art that the crew turns out weekly! If I had artistic ability I would love to go in the direction of manga, but the amount of skill and work ethic that needs to be employed seems impossibly daunting.

Toriko chronicles a mercenary hunter as he hunts down rare, wild, exotic, and most importantly dangerous animals for use in the culinary world. It's just a fun amalgamation of the typical shounen fighting storyline and food/cooking, and I rarely read a chapter without feeling hungry afterwards!

I also read Undercurrent this weekend, but it's more of the seinen genre (I believe). I wasn't too much of a fan; the story follows the life of the owner of a bath house whose husband disappeared 2 years prior, and it's a somewhat depressing story and simply not my thing. But a friend of mine translated it and I wanted to read his work. Perhaps translating for a scanlation group is something I should look into to practice my Japanese....

Reasons such as I wrote the above manga shit are why I'm convinced I'm going to end up with a cosplayer/fangirl/wapanese/weeaboo girlfriend. Those girls seem to be the ones whose interests will intersect with mine and that I would have a modicum of success with, once I can penetrate their anime-convention inner circle of friends much like Tuxedo Sperm entering Sailor Egg. I would grease the wheels with my smooth Japanese (which it's well documented that white girls who love anime can't understand), and then bam! I'm in her more than Gendo was in Rei! But I'm going to have to teach her that "glomping" and yaoi aren't cool.

Finales

I got 2 rather disturbing fortune cookie fortunes in as many days. The first read "The wise lumberjack always carries a sharp saw," and the one I got today said "The color red will be important in your future." On first glance they're not so bad, in fact, they're more original than the usual vague fortunes one tends to see. The former is just a colorful way of saying "be prepared" and the latter is only a little strange, but a fortune nonetheless. But when I start playing the "in bed" game, oh boy, how those fortunes paint my future career as a serial murderer/rapist!

I love reaching the end of a story; it instills me with that satisfaction of completion. Of course, this causes me to watch shows a lot longer than I should--e.g. Smallville, which I watched even after the vampire episode because I wanted to finish the show. It eventually did become so horrible that I quit mid-season, a relative rarity for me, one only such lovely shows such as Heroes have achieved. Usually I'll wait out the season after a show has lost my support, such as I did for Big Bang Theory.

This week I finished Resolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds, and I'm on the edge of my seat to go read the next book in the series. But more than that, several shows reach their season ends this week:

- Spectacular Spider-Man: This show really is spectacular. Season 2 was solid all the way through, and I love the references and hints at upcoming characters. I feel a little embarrassed that it took me 23 episodes to realize that Liz in the show meant Liz Allen (the comic's Harry Osborne's ex-wife), and even more so that only in the finale episode did I notice her character's name is in the opening credits. My only complaint is the theme song. Bring back "radioactive spider-bladder"!
- Wolverine and the X-Men: How do you take an X-Men show with a plot convoluting at least 4 major comic storylines and character development so 2-D you think you're actually staring at paper? By not understanding the goddamn characters in the first place. Seriously? Worst written Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue, etc. that I have ever seen. And I've seen the movies. Thank goodness season 1 is over--I can stop watching--but why does the season 2 spoiler looks so good when I know it'll be so bad?
- Battlestar Galactica: It's sure been a trip, BSG. But it's time to put you to pasture. This last season has been exciting, but your penultimate episode? Why didn't you do this sort of character development back during seasons 1 or 2? Why wait until now? I hope your finale has enough time to be as epic as it was meant to be.
- Big Love: This show just gets crazier and crazier. Seriously one of my current favorites, and it just makes me wonder how they come up with it! Great writing, incredible acting, and more plot twists than Chubby Checker singing about plot. Who'da thunk a show about polygamy would be this gripping? Whoever it is, I salute you.
- Kurogane No Linebarrels (Linebarrels of Iron): This show is the only anime I'm watching right now while not on auto-pilot. I love mecha anime, even with the flaws every show made after Neon Genesis Evangelion seems to repeat, but there's something about this one that makes it feel like it's been done right. I couldn't manifestly see ways of the story playing out better.

I picked a crappy weekend to go out of town; but thank the gods for DVR. BSG, Big Love, and Linebarrels, wait for me!

Final Answer

I want to be a game show host.

I did not, in fact, decide this after watching Slumdog Millionaire, although I did watch that last night. The movie was pretty good and well made, but I don't really understand the hype that was built up. My friends and family who'd seen it gave me the impression that it was a life-changing movie, when really it's just a solid love story that appeals to everyone. Maybe it's the novelty for them, but I can recommend several Korean movies at least that I'd say fall on the same level, including My Sassy Girl and that one with the mom's love letters whose name I can't remember (might be Love Letter or something similar).

No, I've just been watching a lot of game show bloopers recently. And game shows, in fact. And game show hosts have it made! They get to kiss and fondle all the female guests, experience hilarity with idiot contestants, have all the answers, and experience a long-term and above-average but not over-bearing state of celebrity... assuming the show is a good one and you're not incredibly dumb like the host of Street Smarts. Of course, I'd still recognize him on the street. And game shows are just fun!

Yet there's one, tiny, eensy-weensy, insurmountable hurdle in my path to the freely giving prize money away future. And I don't mean being a Jew. My research has shown a strong correlation in recent years between being a moderately successful comedian before graduating to game show host status, even in foreign countries like Japan (let's face it, the only one that matters)! Now I have to focus not only on being a comedian but being actually funny! Fiddlesticks.

Sometimes I'm Not A Fake Scientist

I finally got the first nanotube in 6 months hooked up to our experiment! Not only that, but it's the first device I have processed completely from scratch! Now I just have to hope the vacuum doesn't screw up. I think I'm on campus way too much, or maybe it's a combination of not sleeping much and daylight savings, but I crashed thoroughly last night at 10 PM. A lot sooner than my usual 2 AM bedtime. And yet I don't feel nicely recharged. Ah well, only a few days left in the quarter.

At least I aced my Japanese speech! I could be the next prime minister (笑)! Still am enjoying Japanese more than science at the moment, but it's too hard to force myself to study much kanji. My final's this Saturday, which is complete bullshit. The time of the final completely match the time of Burger King's free burger shot promotion, which is double bullshit. Oh, such sacrifices I make!

Scott 1, Monday 20ish

I hate Mondays. Not in the same way Garfield does, and not because it's a new work week (although I think Monday needs to be punished because of that), but rather because of NBC. Monday night is home to Chuck and Heroes, a nice 2 hour chunk of evening programming I despise. It wouldn't be such a big deal were these shows not watched by my roommates. When I come home, the TV is occupado at least until 10, probably longer if a new episode of Big Bang Theory is on (shudder). How will I be able to watch How I Met Your Mother, the previous night's Big Love, or my Netflix DVDs, or maybe play a video game, and still get to bed at a decent hour?

But tonight I was the first one home. I got to watch HIMYM and be on my merry way long before the middle of the night. The little guy finally won!

Renshuu Renshuu

Memorizing a 5 minute long speech is hard. Memorizing it in Japanese is harder. It's particularly hard when I spend more time getting 81 million points on Super Stardust HD than on memorizing. Damn daylight savings time taking away my precious hours of procrastination!

I thought I was over my Asian girl group pop music phase, but this song is too catchy and the girls too cute: Girls' Generation - Himnae.

Straight Outta Compton

Box margarita tastes like Ecto Cooler. And it's in a box! I feel pretty damn classy.

My nausea point of no return is now no higher than 4 drinks. Possibly less depending on circumstances. It's making having alcohol related fun not so much fun anymore.

The sad part is I still want to go party and hit up bars often. I want to go with friends, but not to hang out with them. Primary objective is to meet women. Talking to friends is plan B. I don't find anything wrong with this, and it should even be expected of me, but it makes me get to the point where I wonder why I ever drink at all. People I know through people I know are all dudes.

Tonight I went to a math party. I love the math party, but they seem somewhat insular. I'm sure physics people seem that way too; as far as I know only about 4 of us tend to socialize outside the department with any regularity. But math has no better ratio than we have. Chemistry has some girls going for it, but as I saw last week they were rather cold. My math buddies have confirmed this. Gotta infiltrate biology or psychology somehow.

I'm not sure whether I've blogged about this before, but there are groups of undergrads practicing choreographed dances in the parking structure every single godsdamn night when I am leaving lab. It appears to be for various culture nights. When did this become a thing? And why does every culture consist of R&B in various proportions? I suppose everyone wants to be black after all. I don't even know how they can organize so many people night after night when it seems like such a pain to get people together even to watch a movie. Point is, they're way too close to my car and I'm afraid I'll hit one someone one day after he takes a bit too long of a crip walk.

Tears, Bored To

Is exactly how I feel about Watchmen. Who watches the Watchmen? Well, I don't. Not now that I feel like Sam Neill's character in Event Horizon. Where we're going, we don't need eyes to see.

Caveat emptor: I had a bias going into the movie; I did not like the comic either. But here's what's going on in this movie, and I'll try to avoid spoilers for the most part. Good parts - sharp visuals and effects; characters mostly true to the comic; soundtrack not bad (if sometimes out of place); directed well; deus ex machina movie ending executed better than deus ex machina comic ending. Bad parts - it's not 1 story, it's 6 separate ones jammed into 3 hours, and doing so muddles obfuscates any small iota of plot this movie hoped to have; some of the important character development is omitted, probably to keep the twist ending a shocker; and most importantly, probably the biggest reason I hate Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and whatever else I've read by Alan Moore: every single scene is saturated with enough melodrama to keep the CW in business for another year, dripping with lines so heavy handed that God himself couldn't lift them.

Okay, hyperbole aside, but shit I was writhing in my (not the most comfortable) seat for probably 2 hours, my margarita buzz having worn off after the first hour. Let's face it, my recommending this movie to anyone is less likely than oxygen spontaneously turning into gold through quantum mechanics.

March Forth

Lab is making me rather frustrated lately. Only 5 survivors out of 75 in this latest round of fabrication. Time to start another one. Stupid microchips; fabrication makes me want to claw my eyes out, but I'd make it too dirty. Also, I have to amend my joke that when I snap and kill everyone in the cleanroom, now I'd have to leave one person alive because the buddy system's in effect now. But saying such things on the internet is just going to set off more FBI flags; gods know I'm already manifesting signs of psychopathy--typing in a blog that no one reads is pretty much talking to myself.

The quarter's almost over; little over a week to go until I'm done with everything non-lab related. Of course I don't get a spring break, but I'll try to play hookey a day or two! Still, thinking back on the last couple months, not much has really changed in my life for the better. I think I found one of my missing pieces of confidence, but I've become more of a slave to lab. When will I graduate?!?!? Perhaps it's ok to stay put in this economy, but I despise spending time in the subbasement. No girls, but what else is new? Japanese club started getting boring/depressing/inconvenient as well....