Archives: February 2005
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
A bit late, I was busy. Here's a list of Hollywood movies I'm looking forward to. As in previous years, it's mostly "genre" films - sci-fi, fantasy, giant armies, etc. Why watch movies about real life when escapism is just so much more fun!?
Make the jump to read [more]
Posted by Rayne @ 01:04 PM EST [Link] [6 comments]
Monday, February 21, 2005
Don't remember if I've complained about this before..but it doesn't matter, there can always be more complaining on the matter! Math and Engineering students at UW get TWO DAYS OFF for "reading week", or as well call it, "reading two days". Thursday + Friday of this week. Basically, it's a long weekend.
It's just unfair that everyone else gets nine straight days to go home, or on a vacation, or sit around in this crazy town when some of us only have 4. I think I should have taken the three days off anyways though. I only had 3 hours of classes in those 3 days and two of those, I've stopped going to...so it's not like I'd be missing out on THAT much more. And the 3rd hour of class I'm skipping this week for an interview.
Damn this school and their stupidness.
On a related note, I am done midterms. FOR LIFE! That is an amazingly cathartic statement to make. Whee! It feels really good to be able to say that. No more midterms! Ever! I'm lovin' it! Although...I may or may not take an M.B.A. at some point later on in my life, so the honesty of that declaration may only be true for so long.
Posted by Rayne @ 11:30 PM EST [Link] [7 comments]
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Stockholm syndrome, if I remember correctly, is when a kidnapee falls in love with (or relates strongly to) a kidnapper. It's a psychological defense mechanism wherein small acts of kindness are magnified against the situation and objective perception of the captor is distorted.
This is somewhat similar to the whole girls-love-badboys thing. Because it "means so much more when they're nice". Which just means that they get too used to regular niceness and take it for granted.
This post is prompted by the latest issue of Flash where Flash tells Batman: "Tell Tim what you told Dick the day he left to join the Titans. In all these years, you only said it once. But it meant more to him than anything else in his entire life." A bit of context - Batman is a hardass; he's cold, calculating, and distant to everyone. He's also compassionate yet never show it. Tim (Robin 3) and Dick (Robin 1) look up to him immensely but feel like they're always kept at arm's length. So when Batman says or does something nice towards them, it means a lot. They remember and cherish those moments.
So the point is that I think we all - boys and girls - fall for it when someone is rarely nice to us. The rarity of it makes it special. Not that we go out looking for these strange relationships but we are susceptible to distorted perceptions, however temporary, of people we wouldn't normally feel a certain way for.
I think we can all (I can, at least =P ) think of instances where we thought someone didn't care about us or even knew we existed only to find out differently; when that happens, our perception of them changes and if they manage to remind us once in a while that they care, we get strung along from moment to moment, not really caring that there's nothing in between. Just think, how much do you notice when someone says "hi" to you everyday VS someone you thought didn't know you saying "hi". Same principle.
What's the lesson in all of this? Be an ass to everyone but make sure to be nice to 'em once in a while. They'll love you for it.
Posted by Rayne @ 03:54 AM EST [Link] [8 comments]
Monday, February 14, 2005
I had a paper in philosophy due a couple of weeks ago. The requirements were really vague "in this paper, detail how you would discuss philosophy with an alien". Err? Apparently vagueness is to be expected in philosophy. This, I did not know.
I had no idea how to even approach it, I mean, how do you write this sort of "paper" without having it be a narrative? Do narratives count as a valid form of philosophy homework? The confusion was huge. Anyways, seems like most people wrote a story. I did mine at around 2am the night before it was due and finished it before class. For something like that, I wasn't expecting a seriously good mark, but I ended up getting in the 90s. SUPRISINGLY.
I say surprisingly because it's not the most rigorous of examinations on the topic, and I'm used to my writing style of broad declarative statements not being well received in certain types of courses and thought this one would certainly be one of those. In the end I thought the paper was pretty good, but not worth in the 90s, maybe everyone else's sucked! Have a looksee!
Posted by Rayne @ 11:53 PM EST [Link] [3 comments]
Tuesday, February 8, 2005
Enterprise is cancelled! This was most definitely a weak show and yet I kept watching it like the masochist I am. The first three seasons were as un-trek as you could get and that’s a pretty dangerous situation to be in for a show that has to rely on its core audience. Captain Archer, like Janeway, went around the galaxy being antagonistic and chiding everyone he could find while never questioning the errors of some of his own choices. I most certainly didn’t enjoy watching him yelling and talking down to everyone he met from crew members to total aliens. Then there’s the fact that less than a handful of episodes were dedicated to the non-big-three cast members, the blatant disregard for established continuity, hugely convoluted temporal-cold war, and gratuitous T&A; the show was truly ill-conceived in the first place. There was some good to the show, including the BEST effects on TV and a well developped romance between Trip and T'Pol.
But that was only the first 3 seasons. Season Four without Braga and Berman was definitely a step in the right direction. The time-war mess was swept under the rug after a First Contact-rip off ending and 4x03 was pretty much a new beginning, it’s what 1x01 should have been. The changes added a lot of texture to the universe and depth to the characters and the show FINALLY made use of the fact that it was a prequel to tell stories that would help build the Trek universe but then quickly seemed to fall into gimmicks of guest stars and wink-nudge aliens. The changes were definitely too little too late. I certainly won’t miss this show, but its ridiculous the amount of incompetence that was shown in killing both this show and the movie franchise.
Posted by Rayne @ 01:17 AM EST [Link] [7 comments]
Monday, February 7, 2005
I hate having inconsistencies in my collections. I was at a shop yesterday afternoon and they happened to have a few European Albums (monstrously large French hardcover graphic novels) for 7$ each. So I ended up buying two of them (by the writer/director of Immortel), the ones that I thought seemed like they were self-contained stories and not part X of a Y part series. I don’t like having to hunt for stuff to fill out stories but more importantly, I didn’t think I’d be able to find the rest of these stories in the same giant format. Can you imagine having part 1 in giant hardcover and part 2 in normal comic book sized softcover? Just the thought of it makes me cringe.
It’s like owning ONLY The Two Towers, or worse, owning TTT:EE but the theatrical versions of FOTR and ROTK. The inconsistency would be a never-ending gnawing pain in the liver.
I am somewhat thinking now that I should have bought all the ones they had regardless. The price was unbeatable, and it’s almost impossible to find these things in most places. But, incomplete stories…different formats…ARRRGH!!
Anyway, I’m certain there’s a word for all this, what is it?
Posted by Rayne @ 02:39 PM EST [Link] [3 comments]