The Long Road

Archives: July 2005

Friday, July 29, 2005

I had decided to paint my room red a while ago. Last month, I finally got around to it.

The adventure began at Home Depot where the paint person told me that I would need primer first. He suggests a half-tinted primer that would come out pink when applied. Whatever, I get a gallon of pink primer, a gallon of red paint, and a quart of beige (for the trim). Lots of hilarity ensues as we prime the room into a very very bright pink. The primer goes on very smoothy and evenly, painting is easy!

Once the primer's dry, I start with the red paint. Now this doesn't go well. Wherever I've run the roller over a spot a second time, the area is a lot darker, and where the roller first touches the wall is equally dark. So the first coat goes on quite unevenly. It's not a big deal yet, since I'm told that a second coat will even things out. Coat two...nope. So I go back to Home Depot and the woman whom I talk to says "oh, if I had been serving you the other day, I would have recommended another brand." So I'm like "OMGWTFBBQ!!!111!" She was right there when I bought the red paint! She was even the one who mixed the beige! So I get a second gallon of the paint, same brand. I wasn't keen on switching brands..what if I couldn't get the same colour? So at the end of gallon 2 and coat FIVE, the streaking continued.

continue reading [more]

Posted by Rayne @ 02:56 PM EST [Link] [9 comments]

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Whose parents have given them this - or any - sex "talk"? Mine...have not.

Posted by Rayne @ 09:11 PM EST [Link] [9 comments]

From one of the producers on the Transformers movie: "We are going to stay true to the Transformers", a bit later..."No, I don't believe that is going to happen, I don't know why you would want the original voice over actors."

The guy obviously doesn't get it. There is no hope for this movie anymore.

Transfomer fans am cry.

It's hard to put into to words, but having the original actors for Optimus Prime and Megatron in the movie would definately push all the right geekbuttons. I can't even imagine someone like Tom Hanks saying "Transform and roll out!". What's with Hollywood's obsession with casting big names in voice-over roles anyways? They're expensive and unnecessary. Hollywood should have learnt by now that appealing to a property's core fanbase is important when it comes to movies like this, and casting the original voice actors would be a great guesture to prove that they "get it". I swear to god, if Optimus Prime is voiced by Ben Afflect and transforms into a fire truck, I will boycott this movie by... downloading it and seeding it for a whole month!

Transformers was basically a 30 minute long toy commercial when we were kids, but think of the opportunities that arise with a live action movie! Not only will they be selling toys to a whole new generation of kids but the movie could be a 2 hour car commercial. Obviously, no one's going to go out and buy an 18 wheeler but they can easily update some of the other robots to more modern models. If I were a car manufacturer, I would most definately go up to the movie guys and try to get my vehicles in the film. I'd love to see transforming Carreras, Vipers, Rams, and 3s.

A few pages discussing the interview quoted at the beginning have been taken down! hmm...

Posted by Rayne @ 10:56 AM EST [Link] [9 comments]

Friday, July 22, 2005

Well, not "good" but at least more authentic feeling.

• Chopsticks. If you're table is set with forks and knives, you're in deep trouble.


• Bowls. Chinese people don't eat from plates; chopsticks don't work well with plates.


• Tea. You must be served tea without having to ask for it. Bonus points if they ask you what kind of tea you want. My brother suggests Oolong, more specifically, I recommend Tikuanyin.


• Rice. Unless you ordered only rice and noodle dishes they have to give it with your meal.

I'm pretty sure I had a 5th point but I can't remember it at the moment. At one point I believed that tea and rice should be free with your meal but most restaurants don't really do that anymore, they charge some small token fee.

A bit more about teas. I've tried a large variety of tea and in my opinion, anything that isn't a black or green tea is a huge desecration of tea. Sure some of the fruity stuff smells nice but they drink horribly, there's always a bit of a tart aftertaste to them and they don't taste anywhere near as good as they smell. I like having a cup of steaming hot apple + cinnamon tea sitting around just for the amazing aroma of it, but drinking's it just a no-no. Similarily, adding milk and sugar to tea is just weaksauce!

Posted by Rayne @ 11:17 AM EST [Link] [12 comments]

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

I have a Dockers (one of my favorite brands!) Stain Resistant dress shirt. The fabric is really nice and soft and it's coated in something (probably teflon-ish) which is what makes it stain resistant.

Everything you drop onto the shirt just sits on top of it and easily glides off. Water just beads and rolls. Stains can be literally wiped away. It's cool.

What's not so cool? When you're in this dress shirt on a 20 minute walk in 30+ degree weather. Sweat just fricken sits there!! It doesn't get absorbed by the shirt to be evaporated but instead somehow becomes a layer in between you and the shirt. A very uncomfortable layer! It was as if my upper body was encased in water. Not as cool as it sounds.

Posted by Rayne @ 12:15 AM EST [Link] [8 comments]

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

How you feel about and react to someone depends on the social context. Specifically, a friend of mine recently mentioned that whenever he goes out to dinner with a certain girl it always feels like a date. The problem is though if you don't call it a date in the first place, you're not getting anywhere. Being on an official date versus just hanging out puts you in a different frame of mind completely. Everything you do gets evaluated by the other person into pros and cons.

It's like when you're dating someone and everything they do is cute, or adorable, or goddamn sexy but as soon as the fantasy is over the context changes and the other person's neat little quirks just aren't as appealing anymore.

So the point is that if you want dinner to BE a date, you have to tell the other person that! Not only does it make your intentions clear but it also opens up their mind to possibilities that they might not have considered otherwise.

Posted by Rayne @ 12:44 AM EST [Link] [5 comments]

Saturday, July 16, 2005

we didn't make first contact with another intelligent species within my lifetime. There's no real reason for wanting it to happen, I doubt I would personally benefit from first contact in any ways except for just simply knowing that yes, there IS life out there. Not that there's any doubt in my mind, I am absolutely, positively certain that intelligent life is out there. Any one who thinks otherwise is phenomenally stupid. The universe is so unimaginably immense that life should have a chance in more than just 1 place.

What would really suck is if there's plenty of alien lifeforms out there, but we never met each other. Imagine if all those sci-fi McGuffins didn't exist and we could never travel or communicate at faster than light speed. I guess we don't really need to imagine them not existing since they probably don't. If everything is limited to lightspeed, the possibility of alien contact would be terrible! It'd take hundreds (thousands!) of years just to send messages to each other. That's assuming we even get to find other life-bearing planets. It's a sad thought, like two ships passing each other in the night and not realizing what happened.

Posted by Rayne @ 01:22 PM EST [Link] [8 comments]

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

2003's Peter Pan is one of the best children's movies I have ever seen! It is impossibly well cast and acted (considering that the movie was carried by children!) and no expenses were spared in trying to create a believable Never Neverland. It's unfortunate that the movie pretty much bombed when it came out because it truly deserves to be seen. From what I can gather it was also very true to J.M. Barrie's original vision of the book which includes awesome lines like "You offend reason, sir".

The movie also has the longest tear-milking scene I've ever seen! For five minutes, we're treated to Peter Pan chanting "I do believe in Fairies, I do, I do", then every other character joining in and tears everywhere. I can imagine that if you were to see this in a theater full of kids that they'd all join in. It is a really obvious, manipulative, and drawn out scene; not since Pikachu's attempts to revive Ash in Pokemon: The Movie have I been this close to crying in a movie.

Posted by Rayne @ 09:53 PM EST [Link] [6 comments]

Monday, July 4, 2005

In "Ringworld" and its first sequel, "Ringworld Engineers", you wrote truly imaginative, interesting, and hard sci-fi full of weird aliens and complex technologies.

What the FUCK happened to you?

Books 3 and 4 of the ringworld series are filled with nothing except sex! All the characters ever do is talk about or engage in sex! Everytime they meet someone, it's always "I wonder if and how they practice rishathra" Look! I wasn't sure how to spell the dumb word for inter-species sex, flipped to a random page and found it!! At least in your earlier books there was a perfectly valid reason for characters to "rish", but now they do it all the time and with everyone they meet! Couldn't you have found something more interesting with which to occupy your characters?

Please get over your insane obsession with sex before you decide to write another Ringworld book, or at the very least try to make the sex titillating.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Reader

Posted by Rayne @ 12:05 AM EST [Link] [6 comments]

[Archive Index] [Main Index]