UPDATED (5/27/02) addendum at bottom.
UPDATED (5/29/02) addendum at bottom.
Want a look at Harvard life? Then by jove check out this site! Just ignore the t-shirt clad background common folk. Ah, I feel like crumpets. And I think this is so incredibly cool!

ADDENDUM
The link was bad, pointing to Jim’s normal site, implying that I find him annoying and/or pretentious, which I don’t. I was trying to link to a picture gallery, his frameset threw me off. Now the commentary should make some sense.

ADDENDUM
Well, maybe it shouldn’t make sense, as the NEW link had two typos in it. NOW the real link is up. So there.

Haven’t actually seen it yet, but while waiting for Spider-Man to start I was able to see the last 30 minutes of Star Wars again, and it was just as exciting, and the audience reaction was exactly the same to almost all of the lines – groands to 3P0’s “I’m beside myself,” chuckles when they saw Yoda in kung fu stance to awe at the swordplay. So I’ll say it again – not a bad movie. What is the goal of a movie? To entertain? Star Wars sure does it. The love story, like I said before, is quite childish, but it is effective, more so compared to some of the Disney attempts. And gosh is that scenery beautiful. First thing I do when I make my first billion: build a space ship and blast to Naboo. Or, perhaps buy a small country and make a Naboo of my own. Because the utopia I see in my dreams is the same as I see on the screen in that planet.

Something else just hit me – the talk between Padme and Anakin about sand, and their different perceptions of it, was actually fairly sophisticated imagery for Lucas, and not half bad. Know what Steve Jobs said when he introducted the colored iMacs, that they were so cool you just wanted to lick them? That is the only way I can describe my reaction to Naboo.

Anyway, four minutes to Spider-Man. Might as well do a bit of revising on what I have of my Jerry Cohen essay while I wait for the second movie in two nights, perhaps a record for me.

Twenty minutes into my stay at Corner Bakery and I’ve finished my chili and the first paragraph of my paper. And I wonder, whatever happened to my sandwich? So I do what I usually do, I take my number and I go stand in an inconvenient spot until someone asks whats up. I tell the nice man that I’m waiting for my chicken panini. He goes to check.

Well, the panini made it into the oven all right…it was the whole taking it out part that was screwed up. He smiled at me as I saw him dump a heap of blackened bread into the trash. “Just a few more minutes, sir,” he said politely. So I broke out laughing and slowly walked back to my table. I LOVE this place! 🙂

I’ve decided that I’m a vegetarian. Cause I know people who are vegetarians who just eat fish, right? *cough*Sally*cough*. So how about me? No fish, rarely turkey, no pork, very little beef, just a lot of chicken. So if I wanted to go with this I could totally say that I’m a vegetarian who eats chicken. I mean, giving up the beef would be quite easy, and the only pork I eat is the sausage pizza and that’s cause its the only Aramark pizza I like besides their occasional chicken. So there ya go. I can start today. I’m a vegetarian, I just eat chicken.

How’s that? (Okay, so maybe its not free-range chicken, but then lots of fish are grown in tanks too). Its not like I’m saying I’m a vegan. So, whatever. If I was doing it for health reasons, fine. If it was because I cared about the poor animals, I better make damn sure I don’t buy any leather products or glue or dog food or bone china. If I were to do it it would just be to say that I was, and only because I don’t paticularily care for the other meats anyway. And, of course, I want to take a stand against the incredible American overconsumption of beef and whatever. But I’m already doing that by keeping it down to the occasional In-N-Out hamburger. So, I dunno, why be a vegetarian unless you either don’t really like meat or can’t eat it for health reasons? Cause if its because you care about the poor animals, I have a lot of other fun arguments to make. Like, that cheese over there? Why do you have that? Better be a crazy vegan or else the caring about the animals thing doesn’t fly for me, and I can’t see any other reason besides simple personal preference. Cause if we’re not eating cheese, why are we eating the poor carrots? 😛

Here is what I imagine would be really hard: being a Kosher vegan. Ouch.

Secondary, irrelevent thought, just struck me. Wonder if NP was at the Refusnik thing? Doubt it, but lots of fun Brandeis events at which she might make an appearance. And then, like any other time I’ve seen a celebrity or someone I know or have read or have read about or whatever, I’ll just glance over, give a little silent internal “hooray” and then proceed to ignore said person, going with the whole let them live their life philosophy. Unless, of course, I have a camera. But then I’m usually taking pictures of all the random people so I don’t feel very bad pointing it once or twice in the poor abused star’s general direction. I know, I’m terrible.

Oh, good grief, I’m finding myself having the urge to clarify again. And it’s 3am, so I should not be coherant. My idea of on-screen crush is so different than the general perception…its not a sex-symbol thing, its not a stalker thing (as I’ve said previously), and its not necessarily someone that I think I would paticularily get along with. Just someone who I’m drawn to because they’re good at their job (acting) and have a certain wit/intelligence such that they recognize that acting, while possibly the hardest profession, is not something one can let consume them. Oh, and for some reason the last two at least have been vegetarians. Weird.

Of course Star Wars the 2nd is getting reviewed to death, and I’m no seasoned film critic, but here are some interesting tidbits I discovered from watching the movie and (unlike most people) staying for the credits (yes, I’m writing this in the car after having just seen the movie and prior to driving home):

1. Yes, Mace Windu’s lightsaber is larger than everyone else’s.
2. Jabba the Hutt is apparently in this movie. Can’t say I saw him anywhere, but some guy is credited as playing him during the Australia shoot. Maybe they cut the Hutt…he is a big big anda ll.
3. If you think that humor is bad, you’ll hate the movie – it is written for an eight year old. When C3P0 gets dragged along by R2 he remarks, “this is really a drag.” Yeah, he actually says that.
4. What Paul told me is completely true – you can walk in half-way through the movie and the only interesting bit you’ve missed is the city chase. Nothing else in the first half matters. In the slightest.
5. Lucasfilm and ILM use super high end computers for all of their effects. Only the best for the job, right? So for this incredibly complex movie, I wonder what they used to do their pre-visualization? Well look here, in the credits, near the end! It’s not an Avid, or a higher end system. They’re using Power Macs with Final Cut Pro. Imagine that.
6. Yoda rocks. He does an action sequence. And it is just cool. That dude can kick some serious ass. Yoda vs. Spiderman would be quite a battle indeed. 😛
7. Dialogue is terrible. So plug your ears. Again, its written for an eight year old. The love story is like what you’d find in a Disney cartoon – kissing is the ultimate ecstasy. Deal. This isn’t an adult movie.
8. For those of you (like me) who have a passing interest in politics, again, it’ll be hard to stifle a laugh. I couldn’t. But I didn’t get any popcorn thrown at me, so I guess it is all okay. This is your eight year old’s first civics lesson, and today we’re going to learn about democracy equals good, dictatorship equals bad. Actually, we don’t quite learn that yet. That is for the third movie. But I think Lucas is doing a good job of keeping it at the level he wants it to be at. And the moral will be there, just not yet. And yeah, it’ll be shoved right down your throat, don’t you worry. With Lucas it is always a very simple good and evil.
9. Addendum: simple, but not simplistic. He shows controversy. He shows deceit in the Jedi Council. There is enough paper here for a thesis or two. The good and the evil are clearly defined and yet there is a bit of fuzziness that one hopes he will talk about in the next movie – cloning: good or bad? And, of course, why were they made in the first place. Another thing that bugs me: if that guy is really evil and of the dark side, why not cut off his access to your damn archives already?!
10. It is a bit graphic at times for a kids movie. A few times it reminded me of Starship Troopers. But it wasn’t too bad. And no swearing. And no sex. And no drugs. So I guess we’re good. There was even a don’t smoke PSA: “Would you like to buy a death stick?” the guy at the bar asks Obi-Wan. And our buddy Ben uses the Force to reform that cancer man right then and there!

All right, what do I think then? I think it succeeded brilliantly at what it was trying to succeed at. The effects were incredible, the sets were amazing, the action sequences rocked. And the story wasn’t unbearable. Just the dialogue.

Do I wish they had put so many great actors to better use? Of course. Did I expect them to? No way. I got a lot more than I expected, so it’s all good in my book. Oh, and did I mention that I got to see Natalie Portman? That, in and of itself, was enough. 🙂 Now that Amber Benson has been killed off of Buffy, college girl Natalie is my only on-screen crush. But obviously not in a stalker-y way. Although during the school year she is only 12 miles away. Hah.

I’m sure I could say a lot about last night’s Buffy, but I won’t, except on my previous (non-)spoiler posting, which seems to be becoming something of a thread.

Everything is wrapping up way too quickly. I have to start packing. PACKING!!! I still have three papers and two finals, but I leave on Sunday! Amazing…

This site, therefore, goes down sometime Thursday so I can pack up the computer.

Why did I have to meet such cool people so late in the year? Ah, well. There is next year.

The tradeoff I make is taking three hours out of my really hectic schedule to see the big musical going on at Spingold. Boy was that the wrong move.

Where does one start? The script – its a play about a guy writing a movie. He talks to his characters. They “rewind” when he doesn’t like something he just wrote. This gimmick has some great potential for self-discovery and whatnot. Added bonus: everyone he knows in life is represented in the script as a character, and the same actors play both parts. Brilliant!

Except the story is just terrible. I admit I left at the end of the first act, so its possible that as I write it is concluding beautifully, but I somehow really doubt it. Maybe it was the music. I hated it. Maybe it was the sets – ugly yellows, no personality, hard to tell which set is which. It could have been the sound – typical detective story voice overs badly recorded and playing way too loud on crappy speakers. Or the backdrops, which, going with the movie theme, were projected onto the set, but by a sub-par projector that made them hard to distinguish.

The dancing was cute. The story had potential. What it basically came down to was this: we, as an audience, make a deal with the writer. We will suspend disbelief for three hours and pretend like its perfectly normal for people to burst into song about their deepest feelings. In exchange, you give us songs that have a meaning, not just filler. I want a deep insight into each person’s character. I want something explained that I couldn’t have otherwise grasped. I want to learn something. That is the compramise. But the only song that came remotely close to actually revealing anything about these characters was the last one before intermission. I mean, sure, the sex innuendos with the tennis song are all well and good, but why???. Half way through and I still don’t know what the play is about.

So, anyway, I left City of Angels disappointed. Next time I want to look at seedy old LA I’ll rent Hollywood Confidential. It does a much better job.

It is a sign that I’m sick and high on Robitussin that I keep throwing in these terrible obscure references. The title is from a character in Trainspotting.

Hey, at least be happy you didn’t have to hear my explanation of how Reese’s Pieces become Peanut Butter M&Ms (hint – it involved a swimming pool).

Anyway, the last few days I’ve been pretty out of it, but that hasn’t diminished the amount of work to do, so I’ve tried to do a bit of it. Basically finished with the COSI project, which is implementing a classified ads system for books and housing and such.

Eating – this being sick thing has really put me on a good schedule. Breakfast at 9am, a first for me probably this whole semester, consisted of a egg and cheese on a bagel. Lunch wasn’t until four-ish and took the form of a pre-packaged roast beef sandwich, water, pringles, and carrots. Dinner at seven or so was a cup of strawberry yogurt with rice crispies and some terrible vitamin C fruit drink that Shelby recommended. Oh, yeah. And a bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms. Whoops.

Now the weather has turned bad again – all cold and rainy, and I don’t have any soft, comfortable clothes to throw on for the rain, so I’m just kinda not showing up for our final project meeting. Hey, they can figure stuff out without me, right? And I’m here if they need to call or IM. Unless I fall asleep again. I’ve been doing that a lot lately, but I’ve been waking up very refreshed, so all is good. And many of the symptoms are gone. So Mr. throat soreness, that is your cue to follow them off gracefully. Before I have to bombard you with Robitussin again!

Jacob Wolfsheimer (08:22 PM): You should be shot. Your away message is very revealing…and I don’t need to see you naked, thank you very much.
Danny Silverman (08:22 PM): Away Message: Buffy!!!

It is much more fun to watch a TV show with five or six other interested people. I look back on my year at Brandeis and I’m sad because it is coming to an end so soon, and it doesn’t seem like it’s even half-way over, and I’ve just met so many incredible people and it sucks to have to go away.

And for anyone at MP3.com who might be reading this: VUNET USA == GOOD!!! 😛

Bwah!

It has gotten to the point where I would rather not see or hang around with some of the people on my hall. And these are nice people, but their priorities are so out of sync with mine. The same people who were Simpsons-obsessed and reference-happy and trivia-full and funny are now reduced to a group who spends all of their time in one of three pursuits — throwing things in the hallways, playing computer games, and playing poker. The poker is a constant daily thing, for hours each evening, and they are deadly serious about it. No noise, no superfluous conversation, no outside help or influence or commentary. Break the rule and you get a harsh reprimand. Not much fun to be around. Luckily, the year is almost over, and my so-called mates will be replaced next year by a new set of nice people, with different interests, and we can try again. Meanwhile, I still maintain that Kelson is a completely awesome person. And I’m amazed at the sheer variety of people with whom he can get along. Scary. Perhaps he really is an alien…

Finally, some new pictures. Despite the camera being somewhat broken (the right flapper doesn’t work, meaning no changing of settings) it is still taking nice pictures. Next digital cam I ger will definetally be another Olympus. But this one still has some life in it.

But without further ado:

• A Friday Night in Cable (9 pictures)
  
• Rocky Horror Picture Show (17 Pictures, Rated R)

Today was a musical day. And I know I’m violating copyrights and I have never done this before but I just need to express myself through the songs. Well, one of them. The one that you can’t actually go out and buy anywhere.

So anyway it starts off with a boring LGLS section, then some fencing. Then it gets fun. We have our last official softball game, and it is against BEMCo, the other “loser” team, and it has just started raining…

Luckily there were no injuries and the game itself was quite fun. We did some of our best play of the short-lived season, and this in the rain and mud. And then in the seventh and final inning they somehow blew up back to the stone age. Which was okay, but somewhat saddening. I hit some good hits, made a few good catches, didn’t make any good throws, but it was really fun, most fun game I’ve played, and I wish it all wasn’t over.

I was humming Anthony Stewart Head’s LA In the Rain the whole time.

Tonight I LARPed, or micro-LARPed, or whatever, meaning my first experience with Live Action Role Playing. I was an alien. But they’re always big on keeping a lot of the story secret so that people who haven’t played can play in the future, so that is basically what I’ll say. I was an alien, and it was fun, but it wasn’t really like the big involved three day LARPs, so I dunno. I’d do it again, but I need to find out what a real LARP is before I commit myself to becoming a total nerd.

Oh, yeah. The music for the LARP was something from Forrest Gump, or something.

After the LARP I went into the room of gamers before heading to the library for some late night study time. In the middle of our James Bond knock-off game (which was somewhat fun), it started snowing, and I mean that beautiful snow you see in the movies, not normal snow, which can range from icky to painful. Beautiful snow. And I, in my shorts and t-shirt, went out and basked in in for a minute before hurrying back to the game. The music? Why, Christophe Beck’s amazing Magic Snow Music from the Buffy episode Amends. Here is where I break my rule and post material online. This is the song. It is beautiful, doubly so if you’ve seen the episode. LISTEN!!! I just wish I had it in a better quality rip.

Wait! I left one thing out! A late dinner with JacobW, with an appearance by Edward. Ah, good old-fashion one-on-one conversation. The music? Screaming Infidelities, by Dashboard Confessional. Only because Jacob recently mentioned it on his blog. And I found out tonight that another of his pursuits is mixing techno music. He is so cool. 😛 Oh, and extra congrats on the new Hillel Theater Group board presidency. Go Jacob! 😀

While I doubt any of you reading will understand the unique culture and style of the Everything community (not as a down on you, but just because it is strange to the outsider), these sentiments are slight echoes of things I’ve had to deal with, and very enlightening:

Why noding about your personal life can be a bad idea (idea) by Morgon77
Fri Sep 8 2000 at 17:46:58 UTC

Honesty regarding one’s self can be very good, but only if you can detach yourself from it.

Having been in the internet atmosphere for several years now, and having experienced the sudden silence that seems to fall in bbs rooms whenever anything personal or idealogically beautiful goes from my brain to the screen, I have to say that true, open honesty about anything on the net is an open invitation to have your heart torn out.

Because the internet is merely words on a screen, many people are incapable of regarding what they see in the same context as, say, people’s feelings. You become a part of the entertainment, rather than a living soul.

Is this expression worth the risk? Personally, I think so, and have never held back from self expression. But I’ve also learned to stop caring or attatching too much importance to what other people think. That’s far too dangerous anywhere in life, but especially on the ‘net.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=739462

Read and learn is more like it.

Friends, let me introduce you to the latest phenomenon to sweep the Internet — Television Without Pity (www.televisionwithoutpity.com), or TWoP as it is known by legions of fans. Television Without Pity (motto: spare the snark, spoil the networks) is a Web site that recaps just about every minute of the most popular shows on television. With a sarcasm-loving staff of recappers, most in their mid 20s and early 30s, the site has a core audience of young adults who have a smirking love/hate relationship with television. As site co-creator Sarah Bunting describes it, “TWoP is for people who are watching TV and hating themselves for it.”

But, in typical fashion, my dad cannot grasp why anyone could find that site appealing. And I love him for it! 🙂

This will be printed in this week’s Justice, but since they don’t yet have their new site online, I figured I might as well post it here. (Yeah, I know, I could put it in my essays page, and I will later, but this way it gets more exposure)

If the Supreme Court changes the rules, Brandeis must follow suit.
by Daniel Silverman

In 1995 the US Supreme Court ruled that public school students who take part in athletics may be randomly screened for drugs by the school district. The case centered on the town of Vernonia, Oregon, whose public high school was witness to what authorities called a “substantial drug problem,” a problem that athletes were allegedly at the center of.

Fast forward seven years, and move from the football field to the choir room — that is where we are today. It seems very likely after hearing arguments on March 19th that the Supreme Court will substantially broaden its previous ruling, allowing school districts to randomly screen any student who “voluntarily” takes part in any extracurricular activity, such as student government, band, theater, quiz bowl, or even the Future Homemakers of America.

Public schools must, “[try] to train and raise these young people to be responsible adults,” Justice Antonin Scalia was quoted as saying in the New York Times. Part of responsibility is understanding government and the limits thereof. The Supreme Court has previously ruled that any federally mandated drug tests violate a citizen’s fourth amendment right against unreasonable searches. Doesn’t that rule apply in this case? Not according to Scalia, who does not find the provision to hold when applied to minors, i.e. “non-citizens.”

“So long as you have a bunch of druggies who are orderly in class, the school can take no action. That’s what you want us to rule?” Scalia asked the ACLU attorney pointedly. The American system of justice is based on a notion of trust. That is why we do not live in a totalitarian police state, that is why we are given privacy. The government must trust us to know what is best for ourselves, and must only intervene when the danger is to the greater society. So my answer, Justice Scalia, is yes.

If the Supreme Court rules, as it is predicted to do, that any student who takes part in an extracurricular activity may be subjected to drug tests, then the Brandeis admissions policy must be changed. If a student chooses to fight this gross infringement of rights by refusing to take part in extracurricular activities, she should be given no lesser status in terms of admissions then a student who is president of five high school clubs.

Justice Kennedy posed to the ACLU lawyer a hypothetical question of whether a school district could have two schools, one a “druggie school” with no testing and another clean school where testing takes place. “No parent would send a child to [the druggie school],” he said, “except maybe your client,” referring to the high school senior, now a Dartmouth student, who brought the suit.

It is very nice and productive when the Supreme Court publicly disparages a teenager who tries to bring a constitutional issue to light. It shows just what our highest court thinks of young people, and it shows, perhaps, how low our country has sunk in terms of civil liberties.

It also shows clearly why Brandeis University, if we are to take back our mantle as advocate for social justice, must fight this turn of events, starting with our admissions policy. Sure a position seen by some as “pro-drugs” might be considered unpopular, but when have we ever let that stop us?

Except at the New York Times. Goody!

“Everything is relative,” said Dr. Donald Jasinksi, a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins medical school and director of the Center for Chemical Dependence at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. “Does it destroy as many lives as alcohol? No. Does it kill as many people as cigarettes? No. Does it have as many deaths associated with it as aspirin overdose? No.”

However, the article also mentions one important fact that I had no knowledge of before:

While a majority of people seem to be able to quit, there appears to be a small segment of the population — some 10 to 14 percent — that can become strongly dependent on the drug.

Hmm. Good to know. Would have been nice to know it earlier. I really wish I could find a good source of NON-BIASED marijuana information, discussing the goods and bads, long and short term effects, without biasing those findings based on ANY political agenda. But I’m probably just not looking hard enough.

http://college3.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2002/01/29/897572.xml

I went to post an entry, got about five pages into it and had a computer crash, rewrote the whole thing in eight segments, and then upgraded the desktop to Mac OS X 10.1.4, which then killed that machine, and I guess MySQL didn’t actually write the entries to disk, or something odd…Anyone know how to recover MySQL data that might not have made it into the DB? Anyway, more to come when I re-write my re-write, again. Soon.