I went and watched The Motorcycle Diaries at the Plano Angelika. The movie wasn't quite what I expected. I guess I expected it to be more journey-centric, but it was mainly stressing how the characters are supposed to change over time. I dunno, I just don't think if I'd seen the same things I would have been transformed in the way they were. Oh yea, and watching them suffer made me realize how silly a cross-continent "adventure" really is- especially if you're poor, hahaha.

I read the whole of Marvel 1602 at Barnes & Noble over the break. It's a Neil Gaiman work about if the Marvel superheroes had existed in the 17th century instead. You'd think that that'd be completely weird, but it works. The intro puts it well when it says something along the lines of: [superheroes are not a creation of the 20th century; they're merely modern day manifestations of character archetypes that have been around for ages.] Most interesting. Also, ever since I read the DaVinci Code, I've been intrigued by the idea of a Templar treasure that could bring down the church. 1602 offered another, slightly more far-fetched possibility for what that might be.

*I also finished reading V for Vendetta during the break. It's only the second graphic novel that I've bought; both have been by Alan Moore, perhaps not so coincidentally. It wasn't as good as Watchmen, but it was still an interesting read. It's about anarchy and overthrowing an oppressive government. It actually scares me a little how much it all made sense to me at times. I don't mean to wax Jedi, but I see in myself a darkness, that seeks to overpower me from within. It cries out for change, and it has reared its ugly head at least once before in my past. *sigh* I'm afraid I'll fall to the dark side sometimes. But yea, I think that's probably as much as I should say, unless I want the FBI keeping a close eye on me for the rest of my life, hahah. But yea, suffice it to say that I find something inexplicably alluring about revolutionaries and "sticking it to the Man." Maybe it's really just a deep-seeded desire to be free... from everything. To have full control over my own life.

"Anarchy means 'without leaders'; not 'without order.' With anarchy comes an age of ordnung, of true order, which is to say voluntary order."

We had a pretty uneventful Thanksgiving this year. We actually had our Thanksgiving-esque turkey dinner last night cuz my grandparents left for Taiwan this morning. So tonight, me & my parents went and had dinner at Best Buffet. It was ok I guess, but it just didn't feel much like a holiday per se. It was kinda lonely with the grandparents gone and my brother off in HK. The times change so fast. Be thankful for the moment and hang on to what you can, cuz nothing gold can stay.

Anyways, after dinner, I was feeling antsy and wanted to do something, so I went and watched Spiderman 2 at the dollar theatre. I liked it better than the first. The theme of not being able to do/have what you want in life really resonated with me. I also liked the "smart but lazy" thing, hahaha. Ah, the curse of all of us, heheh.

I finished watching the Full Metal Alchemist series this weekend. It was pretty good- among the better series I've watched this year. It raises some moral/ethical questions and makes you think about what it means to be human. And I liked the concept of Equivalent Trade: "People cannot gain anything without sacrificing something. You must present something of equal value to gain something. That is the principle of equivalent trade in alchemy." Good stuff. Oh yea, also watched Windstruck. It kinda just seems like My Sassy Girl rehashed in a lot of ways. Still an amusing watch though.

A good pencil is hard to find. Several factors contribute to the greatness of a pencil. The feel of the wood, the smoothness of the paint coating, and even the quality of the graphite. But the single MOST telling factor is the eraser. The cardinal sin of all pencilry is having an eraser that doesn't erase. For truly, an eraser that cannot erase is hardly even an eraser at all. Such insolence will NOT be tolerated! I've been tricked into buying those cheaper pencils many a time, only to agonize for months afterwards as the uncomplying erasers smudge lead all over the place. I end up shelling out more money for those pencil-top erasers than I do for the pencils themselves. And can you even begin to put a price on all those mission-critical calculations that have been utterly ruined by lead smears? Unforgivable. Pencilmakers who make pencils with crappy erasers should be banned. In my book, the prime offender has hands down been Papermate pencils. I hereby boycott the purchase of Papermate pencils. I declare myself free from the smudges; no longer will pencil lead be permanent as ink. Errors shall thus forth be remedied.

"If the number 2 pencil is the most popular, why is it still number 2?"
~Unknown

Ok, so I just wasted my entire day playing Maple Story- another one of those free MMORPG's, but this time it's side-scrolling! My former roommate Victor mentioned it to me today in passing, and well, the rest is history, haha. But yea, in order to prevent a repeat of that horrible pre-exam time addiction I experienced with RO, I've decided it's in my best interest to uninstall the game now before any more harm is done. Ah well, I played it for a solid day- I got the gist of it I guess. But dang, I don't know why I find these games so addicting. Like when I break it down in my head, it all seems like such pointless button-mashing and mouse-clicking, but when I play it, it's a completely different story, ya know? Bah.

*Watched The Incredibles this past weekend with Rex & Rachel. It was really good. Parts of it made me think of Watchmen. Oh yea, and there was that hilarious(ly embarassing) incident of us trying to sneak in outside drinks, hahaha- 'E' for effort, haha.

The Mad Scientists' Corner. So here're some random ideas that have passed through my mind recently. (And also, is "here're" even a valid contraction? I know I definitely say it a lot. Not that that would make it a word.)

The Cold Rocket. So in propulsion class, we talked about engines and how they basically rely on something expanding (i.e. hot gas). Well, we also talked about how one of the biggest limitations on how hot you can get the fire burning is the melting point of the metal in the engine. Like, if you study chemistry, you know that stuff burns best when the fuel and air (oxidizing and reducing agents) are mixed in perfect stoichiometric ratios. But in real life, most (aircraft) engines aren't run at that fuel-air ratio, cuz (among other reasons,) if you did, the fire would burn too hot and start melting your engine. So anyways, I was thinking about how the reason you need the heat in the first place is to make gas expand really fast (to push the plane forward). And then I got to thinking about how water expands when it freezes. And I started wondering if maybe there'd be some kinda chemical mix that expands like when it gets cold. Well how about it, chemists?? Then couldn't you have a rocket powered by both hot & cold sources, and they'd like cancel each other out or something? (Hah, actually, the more I think about this one, the crazier it sounds. But it seemed like a pretty interesting notion in my head when it first occurred to me, haha.)

Hot Water. They recently upgraded the power station across from the aerospace building, and it just happens to be next to the stream that runs through part of campus. And I remember reading a long time ago about how at lots of industrial plants, they use water to cool off the hot generators, then they dump the heated up water into nearby rivers. And it said that the increase in the water temperature of the river would kill the fish inside. Well, they also happen to be laying new piping around campus, and that got me to thinking: why can't they just take the hot water from industrial plants and pipe it to places where they actually need hot water, like office buildings and houses and stuff? Then those buildings wouldn't need their own separate boilers for hot water. It doesn't seem that unreasonable. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they do it already and I just never caught that memo, haha.

Smoke Detector-Style Air Freshener. For any of y'all who've used the men's restroom in Kinsolving since they renovated, you know that it always smells horrible! It's like they hire a giraffe to go in and poop on the floor every morning or something- I'm not even kidding! But yea, the stench got me thinking about how smells are basically caused by little microscopic particles of stuff that hit the olfactory receptors in your nose. And I thought about how smoke detectors work similarly by "smelling" the smoke. Well, I figger, it wouldn't take that much of a leap in technology to develop a fart detector. And I'm sure someone must have thought of that already, but then I think you could set up a system like sprinklers to automatically dispense air freshener when a fart or fecal deposition is detected.

(*Edit: so apparently, smoke detectors don't work like I previously thought. I think carbon monoxide detectors do though; same general gist anyways.)

Washing Machine Time. I've noticed that the timers on the washing machines here on campus are ALWAYS slow. Like it'll say that it's only gonna take 33 minutes, but it takes closer to 37. It's like they're subject to some kinda washing machine relativity in which time slows down in the frame of the washer relative to the observer, haha. I've considered the possibility that the shaking involved in the washing process would throw off the timing mechanism, but I find it hard to believe that they'd miss such a blatant design flaw. I dunno, at any rate, it still bugs the hell out of me.

"He ate a cheesecake *thiiiiiiiiiis* big!" Ok, so before the tall-tale gets stretched any further, I did NOT eat an entire cheesecake. I merely downed a bigger piece of cheesecake than anybody expected me to be able to finish; but at best, it was still just a slice of a whole cheesecake. So we were having dinner at Buca di Beppo for Amit's birthday, and the food was pretty good (albeit a bit pricey). And we were certifiably stuffed after the "real" food, but we decided to get some dessert anyways. And the waiter said that the cheesecake was good for 2 or 3 people, so we were expecting an entire cheesecake, but it turned out to be only a slice. So we finished that off, and I told the waiter that we were disappointed at the piddly size of the cheesecake. So he was like, "Man, if it's so piddly, let's see you kill one by yourself. If you can finish it, it's on me." And by all measures, I was pretty full, but this was one challenge I just could NOT back down from. Heh, but the waiter obviously didn't know who he was dealing with. =P He underestimated the shear hossitude of the beast within my stomach, mwahaha. I owned that cheesecake like nobody's business and got it for free. Flawless victory.

But yea, dang, that cheesecake must have undone like weeks worth of healthy eating. I've lost about 10 lbs this semester so far. I think the main contributing factor is the fact that the Wendy's in the Union is too far now, so I'm too lazy to get myself a snack late at night, haha. Add to that the fact that Gregory gym is a lot closer now too. But yea, this semester, I'm finally seeing traces of the six pack that has been AWOL since high school. It's like uncovering remnants of an ancient civilization that have been buried and forgotten, haha. Buuuuuuut that cheesecake just dumped a couple tons of sand back over those ruins I guess. =P Meh, who wants to be fit if you can't eat what you like, right?

Blogger got rid of the template I used to use (well, mainly just the background) some time back. I'd been putting it off for awhile, but I guess it was in need of a change. It's hard finding a new template that I like though. *sigh* Old ways resist change. Nothing looks like my blog when I see it. =/ Hell, I dunno if I'm even gonna keep calling it the "Captain's Blog." Anyways, expect to see the look of the page to change a bit in the next couple days, weeks, or however long it takes...

Went to the Omega's Jocks & Schoolgirls party tonight- my favorite house party of the year. It was still a good party, but I had more fun in past years, I guess. It was good to finally get some firewater in my system though. This semester has been marked by a remarkable lack of insobriety. Maybe that's been the cause of my problems this semester- I need that aid to forget. It helps you escape the pains of reality. Bah, famous last words of an alcoholic, eh? =/ Went to Kirbey Lane afterwards.

*I went and had dinner at Kevin's place tonight. He made a ton of food for us, and we just ate and chilled. Brought back nostalgic memories.

**That night, I had a dream of the good ol' days back when me & Kevin did the science fair thing.

looks like another 4 years of hell. 4 more years of the rest of the world hating us. The death of pro-choice as we know it, the death of gays' rights. Uggghhh, it depresses me to even think about all the ramifications. Time to move to Canada, man.

Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen)
by Baz Luhrmann

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99,
Wear Sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.
The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.
I will dispense this advice now....

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth;
Oh nevermind- you will not understand the power and
beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now
how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked...
You are not as FAT as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind-
the kind that blindsides you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts,
don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy;
sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind...
the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults;
if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life...
the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22
what they wanted to do with their lives,
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary...
what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much
or berate yourself either-
your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body; use it every way you can...
don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it,
it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own...

Dance... even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents,
you never know when they’ll be gone for good.
Be nice to your siblings;
they are the best link to your past
and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go,
but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle
because the older you get,
the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard;
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths:
prices will rise,
politicians will philander,
you too will get old,
and when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young
prices were reasonable,
politicians were noble,
and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you.
Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse;
but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair,
or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but,
be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia,
dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal,
wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts,
and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen..."


...watch the music video for the song. It's 10 times more powerful. I can remember when the song came out back in high school, but I guess I was too young to appreciate it back then. I watched it again today and was very moved. (Rediscovered by Rex)