Eek!

Um…Mr. TiVo? Yeah, hey. You do know that the Oscars never end on time, right? So when they say three hours, they mean four? You do know that, right? So you’re not going to stop recording after only three hours, are you? So that I can’t find out which one got best picture? GRRRRRRR!

Addendum: If you don’t mind some naughty language, read this, probably the best Hollywood-related article this year. And A Beautiful Mind won? Damn! After Lord of the Rings got like 50 other Oscars! Ah, well. At least Randy Newman finally won an award. I mean, geez, the guy has had sixteen nominations. How bad must he have felt the last 15 or so times?

They call me Mr. Tibbs!

Sidney Poitier was given the lifetime achievement award at the Academy Awards, which I just got around to watching now on my TiVo. As I watched the tribute video I realized for the first time that Laurence Fishburne is black. I seriously didn’t notice or think about him being black until I saw him among all the other black people in the tribute video. This is meant as no disrespect to black people or to Laurence Fishburne, but simply as a statement of fact. When nothing is made of color, it is my natural inclination more often then not to completely miss it altogether. Odd. Or, perhaps, cool.

Another question: why when they show everyone in the audience before the Poitier speech they show all black people, except Julia Roberts? Do her big teeth blind people to her skin color? Dunno.

Oh, Woodrow!

I went before the Student Senate tonight (last night) for two club charters, the third and fourth that I’ve participated in so far. Everyone is starting to remember me. 🙂

The Computer Operators Group (COG) was pretty easy. I expected the Societie Chaotique Brandeisienne (SCB) to be much more difficult. Boy was I in for a surprise.

I start off with an actual explanation, instead of my characteristic avoidance. Basically, it was something like this: “I have heard comments so I’d like to dispel some myths right from the start. SCB is not a club devoted to causing famine and strife. The best explanation is to go to the basic question of why bad things happen to good people, or, more specifically, why does shit happen?

“Discordianism recognizes that some things cannot be explained, don’t make sense, don’t have a purpose, and cannot be controlled. The secret is to learn to deal with it. Discordianism can be seen either as a religion disguised as a joke or a joke disguised as a religion. Only the truly enlightened can really tell. The religion was formed in 1958 in a bowling alley by two guys who were discussing order and chaos.

“We would like to form this club in order to spread the philosophy of discord through meetings and such.”

Okay, that was nice. Now questions. First, as a point, someone reminds me that the “S-H-I-T word” shouldn’t be used, as we are being broadcast live on WBRS. Which is cool, cause its the third time I’ve come before the senate and the third time I’ve been chastised for saying something bad on the air (the second time was for calling President Reinharz “Jehuda,” I can’t currently recall what the first transgression was, but I think it might have had to do with speaking out of turn). So, anyway, Josh Peck, student union president, raises his hand. Jon calls on him, and he asks, basically, what I’m doing there. Something along the lines of, “if your club discourages order and planning, why are you coming to us with this constitution?”

I answered, “there was considerable debate about whether we should come forward for approval. SCB does not recognize the power of the student union and we are only coming here to make you feel good. We figured might as well go with the system this time.” To this I got a lot of table banging, the parliamentary way of saying “I agree” or “you go boy!” Heh. I made fun of the Senate and they clapped.

Someone also asked when we planned to have our regularly scheduled meetings, as our constitution didn’t state. I told him that they would be irregular. Someone also wanted to know how we planned to keep order. I suggested that we would be perfectly happy with anarchy.

With that done Justin motioned to go back and vote by unanimous consent, but Wuhzeng “Woodrow” Fan, my arch-nemisis (in a playful way) objected. So they just went back and did a normal vote, and I passed by a vote of everyone (about 20) to 1 (Woodrow) with no abstentions. They didn’t even ask me about the provisions of the constitution that give the Chancellor complete power, allow him to appoint a Viceroy and a Chief Janitor, and remove all democratic process whatsoever from the club. Heh.

After all this I was still in time to catch the last production of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, put on by the Undergraduate Theater Collective, which was pretty darn good. Go Brandeis! I love this school!

Mutant X

TiVo decided I might like Mutant X, a TV show about a band of outlaws running away from a secret government genetic engineering operation that is trying to get them back. They each have a crazy power, such as some cool animal agility, lightening bolt control, telekinesis, or whatever. The bigshot is this guy named Adam who apparently is just a normal guy (no superpowers) who is good with computers (go figure) and is keeping all the mutants safe.

First off, the camera work is really cool. They do the whole cutting around, speed up, slow down, Matrix stuff. But other than that, I don’t really see what the appeal of this show is. The romance, in the ep I saw, was farrrrrr overdone, for no real purpose. Also, everyone seems to get along too well. They have a very tricky situation, and yet the writing makes the arguments seem kinda disingenuous. Third: location. They have this secret headquarters that no one is supposed to find, but every time I see it I recognize it as the water treatment facility that they used in The Pretender as the secret base of The Centre. So I get confused. The good guys are the same people who stole Jarod from his parents and forced him to be a Pretender? What is going on here? Oh, and also, it shows that they’re filming in Toronto.

Final strike is the exposition. Its more absurd then West Wing has gotten. Ya know how on West Wing they repeat things over and over and over for no conceivable purpose? Like, someone says a line that you hear just fine, and the character says “what?” and the guy repeats the line….and then Toby says it to C.J. walking down the hallway, then she says it to Rob Lowe as she goes into her office, then he tells Josh, who tells Donna, who tells Charlie. For no real reason. Well, in this show, its different, but just as annoying, in fact more so: you see the fake broadcast, which the bad guys have already said is a fake broadcast, and the good guys go, “ooh, I think its a fake broadcast!” Then they decide to leave their secret water treatment plant and go to the bad guys layer, and even when they get there they just keep expositing. “Okay, we got in, now go get the secret MicroDrive to save our data!” “I got the MicroDrive, let’s go.” “No, first we have to put the virus in their system.” “Oh yeah, the virus.” Its just silly. Silly in a stupid sort of way.

So in summary, one more show that can be avoided, leaving more time for the important things in life.

Like Buffy.

Someone else’s life ruined by the slayer

Thanks to the crazy FX schedule, I was, for a time, trying to catch two Buffy episodes a day. Now that I’m caught up, I have only seen two episodes in the past two weeks. I’m proud of myself. But also kinda sad. This guy over at TeeVee says:

…I’ve been spending two hours every weekday watching this show. If I’d spent that two hours a day doing something useful with my time, I’d be fluent in Japanese by now. I’d like to think that I’m going to do something useful with my time when I no longer have a big section of my dayplanner devoted to “Watch Buffy reruns from years ago,” but I expect I’ll take the opportunity to schedule in some essential lying-around time.

http://www.teevee.org/archive/2002/03/19/index.html

Kittens are my anti-drug

First time I haven’t watched 24 live. For once school work took priority. Not that I missed it, not with my trusty TiVo! 🙂

Looks like I might be attending a Buffy gathering in LA on March 30th, assuming I don’t have other plans. Odd but possibly interesting and fun. In another bit of Buffy hilarity, the post from TWoP that I quoted a few entries back (pancakes and spatulas and such) was written, oddly enough, by a fellow Brandeisian. What are the odds? I mean, seriously take a moment to consider this chain: Brandeis student likes Buffy. Said student visits TWoP. Posts message on message board. I like Buffy. I visit TWoP. I happen to find the thread. I happen to find that single post more memorable than any others on the board. I put that post on my blog. This person somehow finds my blog and reads her own post (despite a bad attribution, now fixed). She e-mails me.

One could think a higher power or some form of magic is at work here. Its just soooo odd. But really cool. Don’t think she’s going to the LA gathering, seeing as she’s probably not from LA. But if she is…oh my, I’d have to renounce my atheism.

Field Notes

This passage from Lisa Schiffman’s Generation J speaks for itself and I have nothing to add, but the sentiment is one that I embrace and see as a wonderful explanation for what I am trying to do here.

Historically, anthropologists have been loath to publish their field notes. They’re often too personal, too honest, a tad too unscientific. They show a hodgepodge — stories and scenes, conversations, facts and figures, questions, confusion — a collection of stuff, evidence of what it means to be a cultural observer. They show stray thoughts, character flaws like impatience and self-righteousness.
[…]
Field notes. They’re supposed to show patterns. They’re supposed to reveal societal underpinnings, magnify our smallest actions into larger meanings. How?
[…]
Me and you: the observer and the observed. Who is enlightening whom? I want to say this right now, right here: we can help each other.

There will be no secrets. There will be no rules. Take these notes in your hands. […] Tell me what you find. I’m sure I’ve missed something important. Whatever you see, tell me. And I’ll tell you. I’ll keep telling you. We’ll tell each other. And through each other, we’ll find ourselves. That’s how it works.

While what I offer is different then Schiffman’s notes, the intention is the same. To understand this. To explain it. As for what “this” is I cannot say, but that is, perhaps my task. And an essential part of this quest is interaction and feedback.

I think I’ll go outside now, in the snow, and watch people. See how they act.

You Thought I Was Strange???

Check out what regina welch posted on the TWoP Buffy forum about the show’s metaphors:

Flat earth. Right, so, the world is the pancake. Frying pans represent the whole system of alternate worlds in which the Buffyverse exists. When a character is hit over the head with a frying pan, it is a moment of choice, where fundamentally something about the world changes (on a surface level, the person gets knocked out, but it could be more…).

Spatulas are our coping mechanisms for keeping the world (pancake) as we know it under control. But spatulas also exist outside the flat plane of the pancake itself. I posit that spatulas represent the Key. That’s why Dawn doesn’t need a spatula; she is one. The spatula (Key) can modify, blend, or separate different pancakes (worlds) within the frying pan (larger system of worlds). When Buffy defended herself against Spike with a spatula, it was foreshadowing of the scene outside the house in “As You Were” where she tried to reject Spike because of Dawn. (Of note, she was carrying a flattened burger at the time.)

All this time we’ve been complaining about anvils, they’re really hitting us over the head with frying pans. Go figure.

But it’s also a commentary on the show as a whole. The world is not really flat, like a pancake, but we’re watching a two-dimensional television show, where ideas have to be flattened for our easy consumption. ME keeps hitting people with frying pans to remind us that our world is a three-dimensional entity, in which the Buffyverse is just some rather intriguing food for thought.

And I almost die from laughter. But not quite. With my last breaths I put this post up. And quickly realize that most people will not find it the least bit funny. At all. And in a Freudian slip I almost typed “buffy” in place of “funny.” Which again, is probably not something of relevence to the general community. But its 1:30 at night. And I have a 12 page paper to turn in by the end of Sunday, and I only have one page written. And I’m giddy for some unfathomable reason that might have to do with the strange cultural dishes (well, food on dishes) I ate, courtesy of some event called Culture X that celebrates diversity. And as a white person in the room I was quite in the minority. Which, again, is not very relevant. But was amusing.

And I ate falafel. And my spell-checker can’t tell me if I’ve spelled that right or not, so I’ll go with it.

Okay, leaving now.

Edited to add: wow, Sunday is today! and to fix some formatting. And to say, oh god, I’m adopting TWoP forum conventions, explaining why I’m editing things. This can’t be good. Must quit while ahead…nope, missed that a mile back.

Internet Etiquitte

I was just reading some coding examples in my quest to learn Tcl. One was a process that checks for all-uppercase posts, and then returns this message: Your ad appears to be all uppercase. ON THE INTERNET THIS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING. IT IS ALSO MUCH HARDER TO READ THAN MIXED CASE TEXT. So we don’t allow it, out of decorum and consideration for people who may be visually impaired.

Its funny, because I hadn’t realized it before, but all of my years on the net have caused me to actually comprehend UPPERCASE as SHOUTING. When I’m reading something in my mind and something is all uppercase, I actually read it and think it as shouting. This self-referential message made me realize how much your perception of reality can change due to computers. Before the net I would never state “sigh” instead of actually carrying out the sighing action. Now I state it much more often then actually do it.

In the Simpsons episode I was watching yesterday the Comic Book Guy, upon reading something disturbing on his computer, shouts out, “No emoticon can express the anger I am feeling!” Hmm.

Fooling Around

I decided to waste some of my precious time fiddling with Boogle for no apparent reason. I revamped my network file search tool’s crawler and put in a rudimentary uptime calculator thing. Then I rescanned the entire network. Again I got over 1.5 terabytes (1500 gigabytes) of files catalogued. So I go do a search, and alas, only three Buffy episodes and no Angel episodes. I go to all this trouble, and I get NOTHING!!! But at least I can be happy some dummy is getting his Britney Spears fix. Sigh. People here have no taste.

ADA

All this week and perhaps longer our Intro to Law class is dealing with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It should be a very interesting week, because this legislation is very interesting. It seems, at least to me, to be a dramatic reversal of the federal courts’ trend towards actively seeking out cases that allow them to set precedent for changes with regard to issues of social justice. In fact, the courts were, at least initially, very reluctant to expand the power of the ADA. I see both sides of this issue and have certainly thought about it before, so hopefully class tomorrow and the rest of the week will help me to clarify a bit. Yay, education! 😉

Good and Evil

Wired News makes the astute observation that all of the good guys on 24 use Macs and the baddies use PCs. Thus it was easy to spot Jamie as the mole because she was using a Dell. When Wired confronted one of the writers about this, his response was as follows:

“Very clever of you to figure this out,” said writer Michael Loceff in an e-mail. “But your powers of observation could have carried you a little further. For instance, the bad guys use Nokia and the good guys, Ericsson. The good guys play chess and the bad guys play Go. The good guys eat popcorn and reconstituted soy protein and the bad guys eat red meat. The good guys are on the quarter system and the bad guys on semesters. However — both the good guys and the bad guys read Wired (News).”

See, I just knew that Nokia was evil! But semesters…uh oh.
PCs Are Incorrect On TV (Wired News)

Summer, Happiness, Etc.

For some reason I am very jubilant or happy or jumpy (or whatever the synonym is that I’m looking for) right now. Its kinda cool. Makes me want to go do something…

I think I’ve decided basically what I’m gonna do this summer. My intention is to learn about Hollywood, the industry, etc. My goal is not to get a grunt job so that I can move up the food chain and become a big shot Hollywood actor or producer or writer or whatever. All three of those careers interest me, but its not something that I want to dedicate my life to at this point. Stan Brooks says the best encouragement you can give a kid who wants to work in Hollywood is a good put down. The only people who make it in that business are those who are incredibly tenacious and will never take a no. I’m not really as much of that kind of person, and, although I find the business interesting, I don’t think I have the commitment to it at this time. So here is what I’m gonna do:
I’ll send in my resume to the various places whose addresses I’ve dug up. Then I’ll sit back and relax. My first day in LA I’ll go down to CENEX and register as a non-union extra. Then I’ll start looking in Variety for things in production, and start volunteering. Stan Brooks said that if someone called him out of the blue and just volunteered to help out on a set, he would be fine taking that person, so he suggested I try said and see what happens. If nothing comes of it, I go to Maintex and get their web site up. Or try to…

With any luck I’ll get some fun and crazy experiences in the big city and learn a bit about the biz and the atmosphere and the culture, and maybe meet some interesting people. Sound like a plan?

Obligations

Apparently my obligation as one of the single-holders of our new suite is to provide the stove/hot plate and the microwave. I can so do that! This is gonna be really cool!

In other news, in 10 minutes I have my Psychohistory class and my three hours of presenting…and I really feel…not ready. Hmm. Gotta go get back to my reading!!! :-/

The Vision

A specter approached the young man sitting in the clearing. “You have questions,” it stated. “I will answer them.”

They young man had been thinking of magic. And wondering: what is this thing we call magic? How does it fit into this world of rational thought?

“Magic is what you think it is,” the specter explained. “It is what you need it to be. Some people need me to be a hallucination, so to them I am. You need guidance, so to you I am a spirit of knowledge. A specter of something otherworldly.

“Magic is all around us. It is not a simple spell, a spark and some miraculous transformation. Magic is the unexplainable, the life force that binds us, the energies that shape who we are, and what we are to become.”

“Why,” asks the young man earnestly, “can I not see the magic?”

The specter understands the man’s question, and answers thus:

“You see the magic every day. Your real question is this: why can magic not be measured? Why can’t it be tested, prodded, experimented with? The reason for this is simple: magic is for the individual. It is for those who wish to believe. We tempt and tease with magic, draw people in, but never reveal the truth. It is only for those who truly believe and truly seek enlightenment that the magic becomes clear and open to manipulation.

“Magic is energy, it is in your spirit and the spirits of all things. It cannot be measured because it is not of this dimension, it is not physical, it is not quantifiable. Magic is life.”

The young man sits back and looks up into the sparkling night sky. He contemplates the stars. “I think I understand,” he states. “Other religions speak of an all powerful God, a supreme being, whose presence will never be revealed but who must be believed in through faith alone. This is no different.”

“You are partly right,” replies the specter. “The mainstream religions of today require the embracing of a set of values and traditions that many people find irrelevant to or out of touch with modern society.

“Magic is the belief that one can find one’s own path, one’s own way to enlightenment. And magic is different in that it is real. For a man who wants to believe, the energy of magic can be felt all around him, inside of all things.

“The question is not, ‘do you believe in that crazy magic stuff?’ but rather, ‘why wouldn’t you want to?'”

The young man closes his eyes in thought. He wonders why magic and mainstream religion must be in conflict. He wonders why the mainstream is so quick to judge those who are different, who have beliefs that stray outside of the realm of modern thought. A thought hits the young man like a shot and he jumps up. The specter is nowhere to be found. The young man calls out plaintively to the cool night air, but his words echo off of the mountains. Then, faintly, he hears a voice.

“Do as you will shall be the whole of the law…”

He turns and follows the voice, but it leads only to the strong current of a brook. The man jumps into the frigid water and his skin glows with energy. What did the vision mean? What is this new law? And how does it apply to the young man’s life?

He leaves the brook and travels back to his urban dwelling under the light of a full moon. Tomorrow he will have to go to work. He doesn’t mind, for he can barely wait to experience tomorrow night.

Happy Happy Happy

Everything is working out quite nicely. I’ll be in a suite next year with seven very nice people who seem both interesting and easy to get along with (I know two of them and had met a third). Our mini-lottery for once found me with a bit of luck in tow, as I landed one of the two open singles, so I get to room alone, while still having the advantages of having a roommate or, more specifically, seven other suitemates. 🙂 I was very worried about housing and really wanted something single, and the suites are very nice, so this is a great development. We have private bathrooms (two for the eight of us…but no ventilation…), a common area, lots of windows, lots of room, and little oversight (in terms of “forbidden items” like, say, toasters). /me claps hands.

Now on to the 200 pages of reading I have tonight for my Psychohistory class tomorrow, which I get to present this time…