Burning Man. It’s out on the playa. Playa is your life, or rather, becomes your life. Not because you need it, but because it permeates into your entire being when you’re there.
Here’s a before pic:
And an after pic:
(click pics for original size pictures)
The second picture really doesn’t do it justice. The playa is so fine that it will get into anything. And the wind whips it up into solid fog almost. As seen here:
Some dude just backed into my car. At a stop sign. He just threw it in reverse and ran into my ass.
WHAT THE FUCK?
Last week Tano asked me if I was interested in going to kenpo with him. The instructor that he was taking classes from in Pasadena had moved to a studio in Diamond Bar, so Tano wanted to start up again. He invited me to come with him. So, last night we drove out to the studio and attended.
It was in the back of a little industrial park. The kenpo studio was behind a hula dancing studio. So, the entire night there was hula music and drumming. Not exactly conducive at some points, but I actually didn’t notice it most of the time. There were three of us that were there for the class. Myself (a newb, no belt), Tano (orange belt), and some other guy who’s name I did not get (green belt.) Turns out the third guy used to work as a security guard at Caltech. Small world.
It was a lot of fun. It didn’t seem like I did a lot of work, but I was sweating pretty good by the end of it. I learned 3 (of the 10 yellow belt) techniques, the first blocking set, we went through all the punchs and kicks (and boy did my hips hurt after that. We didn’t even do that many!), and a whole bunch of footwork. Clearly that will be the hard part. Learning the moves for the techniques was not particularly difficult, but moving my feet presented problems.
We’ll be going Mondays and Wednesdays for sure, possibly on Fridays too. Definitely something to look forward to at the end of the day.
I have an ant problem in my apartment. I’m sure that, initially, it was my fault. I let the dishes gather in my sink too long, and a few days later I noticed that I had little friends roaming the towers of dishes. They were coming in under the front door. So, I cleaned up my dishes, killed all the ants I could see, and kept things clean for a couple of weeks. I thought I was free and clear.
Then one day I noticed that I had a line of ants come out from under my counter, across the floor to my pantry and up the side. I opened the cupboard and couldn’t find where they were going. I killed all the ones I could see.
Some time later I decided I wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so I grabbed the peanut butter out of the cupboard. It had ants on the outside of it. I opened it up, and it had ants inside of it too!! So, I killed all the ants again, fished the few out of the jar, and made myself a sandwich. I put the peanut butter in the refrigerator.
The next morning I got up and checked the “route” that I had squashed the night before: it was clear. Wooho, little fuckers. So I took another step into my kitchen and noticed minute movement. There was another, new line of ants traveling from under my dishwasher across the entire kitchen, and up the other side of the pantry. I was livid.
I went through my cupboard trying to figure out what the ants were in. Apparently, ants like Cheerios! So, pissed off, I called the apartment manager. She informed me that everyone had ants and that she’d send the handyman out to spray. I don’t think he ever came out as my ant problem didn’t appear to have been culled by the end of the day, and there was no indication (like the signed work ticket) that they’d even been in the apartment. Unfortunately, it was Friday, and I had weekend plans.
Last night I returned home with Grant’s Ant Stakes (courtesy of my mother). I placed one by the dishwasher and one by the pantry cupboard. This morning, I saw at least half a dozen ants running around on them. No noticeable declination of ant population, but I’m hopeful that they’re on their way out.
We’ll see.
I am now the proud owner of one of these:
198 of 750.
And, in case you live under a rock: The original comic
So, I just got back to my computer. On it was an ICQ message from Tano. It’s quite a story.
Apparently, some dumb ass couldn’t get through the front gate to our complex. They tried the keypad, but it didn’t work. So, what do they do instead? They ram the gate with their car and force the gate open. It’s broken now.
The punchline: The apartment manager was in her car behind them. She wrote down their license plate and the make and model of the car and called the police.
Justice is served.
So, last night I watched Episode II again. It has been probably about a year since I’ve seen it. I watched Episode I before going to see Episode III, but my old roommate had my DVD of Episode II so I wasn’t able to watch it ahead of time.
That’s terribly unfortunate. For the sake of Episode III, I mean. For instance, if I had watched Episode II previous to seeing Episode III, my Episode III review would have read thusly:
“Thank fucking god it was better than Episode II.”
Although, Episode II does contain the best scene in the entire prequel trilogy, in my opinion. It’s the only time that Anakin even appears to be turning to the dark side. When he rescues his mother on Tatooine. Say what you will about “scowling Hayden”, but that’s the only time in any of the movies where I thought, “Wow, he’s going to be evil. Very, very evil.”
And I still can’t get over the fact that good actors were reduced to reciting lines in that. George, you’re a horrible director and writer. Great ideas, poorly executed.
Fair warning, this contains spoilers. Stop reading right now. After this paragraph, this essay is rife with specific points about the movie. If you keep reading, don’t complain to me that I spoiled the movie for you. Seriously, spoilers now.
Where to begin? I suppose, at the beginning. The opening space battle was visually stunning, but far too chaotic when compared to the space battles of previous (and latter) episodes. The beginning of the scene on the space cruiser to rescue Palpatine was entertaining. Some people don’t like that R2 can fly. I say screw them. R2 is a badass. That whole scene was quite good, right up until Dooku showed up. Fortunately, he died like the bitch that he is. Unfortunately, it was wholly unsatisfying. Palpatine was way over the top.
The short “love” scene between Anakin and Padme was, much to my surprise, actually believable. It was, much to my chagrin, the only believable part of their relationship. Too bad it revolved solely around, “omfg!!1! I’m preggers!!1!!1″
The “intrigue” of the Jedi Council/Chancellor political manuevering was tired. Anakin’s “angst” over the situation was too overplayed, and his “descent” to the dark side was almost completely arbitrary. Palpatine’s “mentorship” of Anakin was, once again, way over the top.
Enough with chronological, I’m just going to skip around now. Let’s move on to lightsabers. Nothing in this movie touched the raw strength and speed of the duel in Episode I between Obi Wan and Darth Maul. And nothing touched the finesse and grace of the duels in the original trilogy. A few of the duels were alright, but all of them suffered from, in my opinion, very poor editing.
A duel breakdown:
Dooku vs Obi Wan & Anakin: Too short
Mace vs Palpatine: (gets it’s own section)
Obi Wan vs Greivious: too many sabers
Jedi vs Stormtroopers: (own section)
Obi Wan vs Anakin: good, poorly edited
Palpatine vs Yoda: good
Let us now look at what I’m am going to refer to as “The Insult to Mace Windu.” Mace shows up, with a contigent of Jedi, to arrest the Chancellor. The Chancellor sumarily beats down all of the other Jedi. They didn’t even put up a fight. Slice, slice, slice, and then there was one. Ok, I guess we’re supposed to believe that Palpatine is some sort of lightsaber badass. You wouldn’t be able to tell by the way the scene is editted, though. So, Palpatine and Mace square off and a duel is to be had. It looks like it’s going to be close, but then Mace busts with the mad moves and now Palpatine is sans lightsaber. Cue whiny Anakin entrance.
So, now we have to witness the entirely unbelievable and wholly trite “downfall” of Anakin Skywalker. While Mace stands poised above Palpatine, ready to deliver the killing blow, we are left to listen to Palpatine (once again being played way over the top) launch in on his now trademarked “the bad guy has to have a speech before he dies” scene. You can guess what happens. Wait, no you can’t. See, one would assume that Mace would try to kill Palpatine, and in a nod to Return of the Jedi, Anakin ignites his lightsaber and blocks the killing blow, sparking another duel. One would be wrong. One would be horribly wrong. In a mish-mash of editting wonder, Mace’s hands get lopped off and the Chancellor fires off the lightning. Mace falls out the window to his death. I was honestly waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out at this point and yell, “Dude, you got punked!”
It was that bad.
Now, let’s move on to the other travesty of this series. The scourging of the Jedi. With one notable exception (which I will get to in a moment), all of the Jedi were slaughtered like bitches. Not a single one of them fought back to any great extent. There they were, leading their battallion of clone troops against whatever droid faction they happened to be facing, when all of a sudden, they realize that all of the clone troop’s guns are now pointed at them instead. Bang, bang, dead. There was no fighting back, there was nothing. Hell, even a few of them were shot in the back. WHAT THE FUCK, GEORGE??? These are JEDI. They are BADASSES. At the very least, a dozen clone troops needed to die due to the end of a saber before a jedi was allowed to be shot. Even Yoda almost got jumped. But apparently, he’s the only one with any Force reflexes.
The clearing of the Jedi Temple was, at one point, very poignant. When Anakin enters the council’s chambers, and a youngling steps up to him and says, “Master Skywalker, there’s too many of them, what do we do?”
You can feel the tension, the despair of these children.
The notable exception I mentioned above comes when Bail Organa attempts to enter the Temple, and is told that it’s dangerous by a squad of stormtroopers. As he’s walking back to his ship, a youngling comes out of nowhere and goes. to. town. on that squad. He is killed, yes. But he went out valiantly. He is my new hero. I need to find out his name.
On to the end. Knowing that a whiny Anakin Skywalker is underneath that suit totally changes the view of Darth Vader. Especially since George gave us the real what-for and made him whine *while* he was in the suit. I mean, come on man, that’s just not fair.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that I knew that the movie would suck. That’s a given. The parts that I had hoped would be good, sucked too. That’s what really burns me.
So, we just got this sent to us via one of the all-campus mailing lists. It is a crime bulletin put out by the campus police department. What I quote below is an excerpt:
Upon arrival, our officer contacted a 20 year old male UCR student who had been was punched in the face by a known male suspect, who had fled after the attack. The victim suffered injuries to his face and mouth, and was treated at the scene by Fire Department paramedics. He was later transported to the hospital by a friend.
The suspect is believed to be an off-campus neighbor of the victim, a 24 year old UCR student, with whom the victim has had on-going problems and arguments with.
Anyone with information regarding this incident should please call our Investigations Bureau at
I’m tempted to call them up.
“Yeah, about the crime bulletin you just posted. I know this guy, he lives next to this other guy. They fight all the time. Are they the same people? No, I don’t know their names.”
Last week, I received a phone call at work:
“Systems, this is Phil.”
“I’m looking for Phillip Cheetham.”
“Speaking.”
“Hi Phillip, my name is <something> and I’m calling in regards to your Mastercard account with Direct Merchant’s Bank. It shows here …that …you …have already paid your bill. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“I do what I can. Have a nice day.”