I have a statue of a dragon playing a guitar on my desk, and you (most likely) do not.

Having finished my sixth semester, I feel it is my responsibility to update you on how my studies are going. Primarily to ensure that my "blog output" for this month does not come out to null, even if my attempts to keep up with other people I know who keep blogs (read: Kathleen) have been laughable.

I got to write a paper about John Woo for my Hong Kong Cinema class. I got to talk about The Matrix, Reservoir Dogs, Equilibrium, gun kata, Samuel L. Jackson, Cowboy Bebop, and assault weapons all in the same paper. I finished the class with a perfect A, but the instructor has a reputation as an easy grader.

I got to make a joke about Jack and his giant beanstalk when asked to analyze a fairy tale with Freudian psychoanalytic methodology in the Literary Theory class. I ended up with a B for this one.

All in all, a 3.5 GPA for the semester, which is the best I've managed in a long while.

Tentative schedule for Fall 2010 goes like this:

MONDAY/WEDNESDAY
9:30 - 10:45 English-372 Folk Literature
11:00 - 12:15 English-400 Intro to English Linguistics

TUESDAY/THURSDAY
2:00 - 3:15 English-233 Creative Writing (mostly taken for shits and giggles - the instructor is friendly to sci/fi and fantasy, so it should be fun)
3:30 - 4:45 English-452 Shakespeare

ONLINE (SO WHENEVER THE HELL I FEEL LIKE IT)
Commun-350 Human Communication and Technology

If I feel like it? I don't have to be awake until 1:30 in the afternoon for half the week. The other half, I can go home when most people are starting their lunch breaks. Be jealous.


But onto things of slightly more import.

Cody and I managed to score both Red Dead Redemption and Heavy Rain without even having to pull out our wallets. Or indeed, anything else we typically store in our pants.

I haven't had a chance to play either, but I've watched my roommates' initial forays into Red Dead Redemption, and I can tell you that there is no satisfaction quite like that to be gained from shooting a man off his horse with your revolver while maintaining control of your own horse while racing alongside a speeding train. I'll be speaking in Wild West-isms for a good week straight once I play this.


Saw Iron Man the second and was well-entertained. The first film is probably the stronger one, but so long as Robert Downey Jr is going around being smarmy, drunk, and shooting missiles from his wrists, I'm happy. Sam Rockwell was fun to watch as the hapless Justin Hammer and Don Cheadle is more or less an improvement over the apparently-a-douchebag Terrence Howard.

Also, I try to avoid using this blog as a venue to tell you which women "I would totally do", but jeez, Jon Favreau made the right decision to choreograph all of Scarlett Johansson's fight scenes as Black Widow in mostly slow motion.


I was really pumped for Star Wars: Allies, the midway point in the Fate of the Jedi book series. Grandmaster of the New Jedi Order Luke Skywalker and Sith Master Gavar Khai, are forced into teaming up to take down a malicious Force-using creature called Abeloth awaiting in the Maw, a cluster of black holes. What I had hoped for was 350 pages of just these two guys, Jedi and Sith, kicking ass and taking names across the galaxy, saying stuff like "I like your moves" and "I like your style". The cover even suggests that this is the case.



I did not get this. What I did get was their two kids, Jedi Knight Ben Skywalker and Sith Saber Vestara Khai making kissy-faces at each other and dance around the issue of whether or not they want to go to prom together. And then the battle with Abeloth takes, like, four pages.

I'm very glad that I work for a place that lets me borrow these books instead of paying money for them.


And I'm sure you want my thoughts on the House finale. It was pretty great. I just hope House and Cuddy manage to stay together this time around.

Allow me to leave you with this:

I think it would be really cool to write for The Onion

"For Dummies" Publisher Announces New "For Complete Fucking Morons" Book Line

HOBOKEN, NJ - At the East Coast Publishers trade show this past week, Wiley Publishing, the publishing group behind the popular "For Dummies" book line, rolled out the first books from their new "For Complete Fucking Morons" series.

The "For Dummies" line has become one of the best-selling series of "how-to" books on the market, but CEO Jeffrey Price says that there is a whole new audience out there to be tapped into. "The Dummies books have always been popular with the average dimwit, but as the past decade has proven, there is a constantly emerging population of idiots, dipshits and fucktards out there."

While the Dummies line has historically been successful, sales have been dropping off in recent years, says marketing researcher Naomi Blackwell. "Companies have always been able to rely on those who aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer for their sales, but studies have shown that even that population is slowly being eclipsed by a new demographic of goddamn nimrods. The kind of people that can't even screw in a light bulb without a frickin' book."

Many of the series writers are excited for the launch. "It's been a lot of fun writing the Morons series. We always had to treat our readers as if they had some semblance of intelligence, but now we get to dumb it down as much as want for these shit-for-brains dumbasses" says Roger Clemens, author of the upcoming "Childcare for Complete Fucking Morons."

The new line is set to be released over upcoming months with titles such as "Computers for Complete Fucking Morons", "Boiling Water for Complete Fucking Morons", and "Neurosurgery for Complete Fucking Morons". Many retailers have already begun decreasing their stock of the Dummies line in preparation for the new line's arrival.

"The Dummies books are always decent sellers, but more and more customers take the book off the shelf, attempt to read it with a really confused look on their face, and toss it on the floor on their way to the Twilight novels or Glen Beck books," remarks Borders bookseller Amy Carson.

"I mean, my God, what dumbfucks," she added.

The marketing campaign for the new series touts many improvements over the Dummies line, including new enlarged, easy-to-read prose using only words with no more than two syllables and a greater amount of references to contemporary reality TV shows. The diagrams and pictures will now be in vibrant color to keep readers' attentions, and the pages themselves will be laminated to protect against ripping and spilled energy drinks.

"We're confident that this new series will be a hit with all those total fucking asstards out there," says Jeffrey Price.

Whatever you do, don't blink.

I'm boxed in here. I seriously have trouble driving anywhere, because literally every single road is under construction. Excessive roadwork on every one of my typical routes to work. I'm seriously out of ideas other than saving enough money to by myself one of these and just flying to work.

On Wednesday I got called into work. We were playing host to the famous romance novelist Debbie Macomber. She writes books about God and knitting, so you may be able to guess what the audience was like. Three hundred plus 50-60 year old women all filling up the cafe area. Every chair in the store had been reassigned to the event, and there still wasn't enough room. The author herself seemed like a fairly nice old lady, but the evening was not terribly fun. Complaints that were lodged to me:

- They managed to miss the handing out of wristbands marking their position in the signing line despite having them at the top of the stairs before heading down. Fortunately, most people just got into line wherever they felt like it. A fight or two might have broken out, but most of them would have had to sit down and catch their breath after the first punch.

- The fact that Macomber started at about 6:40, when the event promotion clearly stated that she'd be starting at seven. She wanted to get started and get started she did - these authors have a certain momentum. She spoke for only about fifteen minutes anyway and started signing books. The whole decision process was out of my hands you could say, so yell at her.

- We did not account for the large amount of people with standing/walking problems. They were ushered to the front to the best of our ability.

We went an hour past close so that everyone could get their book signed. Got paid for essentially standing around, but still. Crazy old women. There was a particularly patient gentleman who had been somehow (and I don't want to think too hard about how) roped into getting his wife's book signed as she couldn't be there herself. There's a marriage that is either on shaky ground (speaking from a masculine standpoint) or fucking ironclad. When he finally got his wife's books signed, the old ladies behind him assured him that he was a great husband and that the good Lord would bless him.

I don't know, maybe God's a fan of the books.


And speaking of patience paying off, I finally got to register for classes next fall. I've only selected one so far, but it's an important one. ENGLISH 452 - SHAKESPEARE. Required for every single English major basically, this is the first year that I've been able to catch it - indeed, harpooned it like some great thrashing sea beast. I dunno how the class will turn out, but at least I'll finally have it behind me.

By popular request

Gather around children, for I have a story to spin.

We were on our way to get pizza, my chums and I. The two of them having polished off the bottle of SKYY Vodka from the refrigerator, and I am of course perfectly sober. I am very much the escort, to make sure they don't get arrested for public drunkenness or get murdered for making rude remarks about the wrong gang member's choice of attire.

(Aside: I regularly serve this role, in the perhaps unconscious hope that some young lady will note my responsibility and care for my friends and throw herself into my arms. This has not occurred and Cody tells me I am stupid for thinking this.)

In any case, the three of us walk along North Avenue at 1 in the morning and something catches our collective eyes. There is a dude (the bro type, on his way to a sick kegger, no doubt) in the drivers seat of a parked car, and the woman in the passenger seat seams to be doubled over. She is ill perhaps, head resting in the guy's lap. Then we note that her head is bobbing up and down, and yep that guy's getting his staff spit-shined by a comically drunk young woman.

For those of you who have never seen an act of public sex, it is one of those things that tears you between two sentiments. One that says "Ew. The nerve. Get a room, you animals" and one that says "Wow, just like in the movies!" It's very much a religious experience. I keep calm and continue walking with a grin, but my friends are snickering and laughing until one of them gives the guy the thumbs up. The dude in the car comically puts his finger to his lips, miming a librarian's "Quiet, please".

They later briefly entered the restaurant we settled on and I resisted the urge to loudly say something like: "BOY, THIS EVENING SURE BLOWS."



So working caused me to miss what was apparently a really swanky shindig. Focus Refilled, which I am told attracted somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty people, winded down basically right after I got off work. There would have been tons of artsy-fartsy people to mingle with. Some of these people would have probably been English majors that I could have mooched advice from. Some of them might even have bothered to talk to me.

It doesn't help that one roommate just quit his job and the other one hasn't bothered with one to begin with. So while I am shelving books for minimum wage they're (I can only assume) playing awesome video games, and meeting cool people, and eating nice food, and kissing beautiful women, and making new friends.

I need to do something about this annoying "responsibility" thing that causes me to do things like leave social functions early to study and refuse to ever call in sick to work.

brb, seizing the means of production

Thank God the Daily Show is back today. Now I know what opinions I should have about politics and the SOCIALIZT NAZI HELTHCARS. I need him to help me think of snappy comebacks for people who are trying to talk politics on Facebook of all places. I really don't need to know every time someone joins a "obamas stupid lol" group, but there it is, clogging up my newsfeed.

Okay, so the newsfeed shows me a lot of stuff I don't need to know.

In any case.

Nothing happened over Spring Break. My hours at work shot up which is nice, but deprived me of most of my free time. Spare time was spent bumming around Brewing Grounds, which I believe is where Cody sleeps these days. I wish I had something of substance to write about on the subject of Spring Break, but the material's just not there.

I did learn that when we're talking retail, customer loyalty is proportional to the size of the discount you're offering them, and customer civility is inversely proportional to same.

I also learned through a new contact that the English major program is actually super easy. Take the classes and you're done. No thesis paper, no speech, no nothing. I'm kind of disappointed in a "is that all you got?" sort of way. My History Major Friend has to apparently write a whole textbook and my Art School Roommate I guess needs to have a portfolio of his work stretching all the way back to finger paints in kindergarten. I just attend a seminar and, I assume, go to the alley behind the Open Pantry at Oakland and Hartford and take from a dumpster the manila envelope that contains my degree.



The vast majority of you should probably just leave now.

I went to a gaming tournament over the weekend. For a collectible card game that I haven't played in years. Didn't win a single game, which is about how I expected it to go down. It's way easier to swarm the field with monsters now. Time was, it was a miracle if you had even three cards on the field at once. Stardust Dragon showed up way more than I expected it to, because people are now packing Starlight Road, a mechanic which would never have been used in my day.

Some kid with a Different Dimension deck even muttered "newb" under his breath. I was top-decking Fissure to destroy a Jinzo, finally allowing me to use Call of the Haunted to take back my Summoned Skull while you were still wetting the bed, kiddo.

But I did some decent trades. And the fact that I own a copy of Archlord Kristya, which in addition to being one of the best cards in the game right now is also worth INCREDIBLE amounts of cash on eBay right now helps me sleep at night.



Most Gundam fans are familiar with the Gundam Wing series above all others, and many of my readers are no different. Bandai is finally gracing us with a high-end 1/100 scale Master Grade model from the series, in the form of the titular machine, the Wing Gundam.



It's lovely. The Wing is probably my favorite After Colony design and this is the first time that the series has gotten a Master Grade model, not counting the Endless Waltz Wing Zero which Adam has or the Katoki Redesigned Wing which is just a "what-if" sort of thing. Someone buy it for me.



It transforms and everything!


/Post for post's sake.

So I'm thinking about becoming an alcoholic

Twenty-one is such a fun age. When most people in my generation turn that age, all it really means for them is they trade in their Solo cups for actual bar-issued highball glasses filled with the same terrible beer they were weaned on. Beer is pretty awful in most cases, most of the beverage's allure coming from the fact that you aren't allowed to drink it. If we made the opportunity to headbutt a brick wall illegal for those under eighteen, I can guarantee the amount of teens in hospitals for head concussions would skyrocket.

Though I make the exception for Strongbow which is actually a cider anyway, so yeah. Beer = gross.

Wine is nice enough to have, but I don't quite see what all the fuss is about. Certainly, it fits well enough in your hand while you're sitting alone yelling at the contestants on Jeopardy, but there's not much utility beyond that. Still, nothing wrong with keeping a cheap bottle around. Our refrigerator currently houses a 2/3 full bottle of White Zinfandel. To be fair, most of my views and indeed knowledge on wine mostly comes from episodes of Black Books.

No, liqueur is where it's at, children. I've managed to fairly consistently keep a bottle of some variant of Irish Cream Whiskey in the house. For the moment, we're on St. Brendan's, so chosen for its low price (compared to Baileys), and for its funky bottle design. It has a punchier transition from the original milk chocolate taste to the burn of the whiskey, but ultimately is well-suited for my purposes. Leaning back in your chair, holding a glass of this on the rocks at the end of the day while something like this plays in the background makes you a debonair son of a bitch.

So do you readers like liqueur? What are some liqueurs that are tasty?


Anime Milwaukee was actually pretty cool. Ten bucks to get in for a day and see some pretty wacky things. Like Vic "Edward Elric" Mignogna kissing the bald head of Chris "I've voiced every anime character ever" Sabat. That should be on Youtube by now, come to think of it. Hold on a sec.

Yup. There we are.

Of note are their compatriots, Wendy "Envy" Powell and Todd "Alex hasn't actually seen anything he was in" Haberkorn excitedly recording the exhchange.

Sadly, you had to be preregistered in order to get decent spots in the autograph lines, and I can only spend so much time in the company of fat neckbeards and high school girls who squeal at frequencies only dogs can hear. So no autographed DVDs for me.

My wallet was fortunately unharmed by the vendor room, given that it was mostly filled with shit like this. As opposed to the shit I do collect.

However, I am giving serious thought to going in costume next year, like so many others. There is one costume that is at once perfectly appropriate and fairly cheap to make. I could go as Lelouch vi Britannia in his school uniform. All you need is a full black outfit (where am I gonna find that?), some gold fabric for the trim and you're done! I could have the hair for it, and I'm basically anorexic anyway, so I could pull it off. Also, I think I can do the voice.



Plus, I'm told that chicks dig the bishounen.



Look it up. I have enough links in this post as it is.

George Clooney is so sick of this

Imagine you are working along a deserted street late at night, say one in the morning. Say that this street is N Farwell Avenue. It's a Saturday night (okay, Sunday morning I guess) and the bars are starting to let out. You are with your boyfriend perhaps. There's a minor fog, but nothing too bad. You pass a coffee shop, closed obviously because who buys coffee at such an hour?

This coffee shop is Brewing Grounds for Change, a local volunteer-run joint. In the large windows you see what appear to be mannequins. Very life-like ones. Why would a coffee shop put mannequins in the windows? Maybe it's some weird hipster thing. You go in for a closer look, when perhaps one of the statues moves a hand or appears to chuckle to itself or exchanges glances with its fellow.

Imagine that you proceed to FUCKING LOSE YOUR SHIT. I was one of those statuesque folks and if you were this person, let it be known that you, whoever you may be, made our night. Your boyfriend laughing at your fear was the icing on this terrifying cake.


Right, the Academy Awards. Hurt Locker won, which didn't really surprise me. In a startling upset, Up managed to win best animated picture. And Tarantino went home with jack squat save the best supporting actor for his man, Christoph Waltz. The best thing about the night, though? Cut to George Clooney for an instant.



There we are. Aaaaaaaand, George Clooney reaction shot.



I'm imagining the phrase "What the hell do you want from me?" in his voice and it works so well.

And I almost forgot about Neil Patrick Harris's surprise musical number. The other best thing about the show. Is there anything that can't benefit from a little Enn Pea Aitch?


My coworkers are often very concerned for my welfare. I'm not sure why this is, but I continue getting offers of food from them. It may be the fact that I work with a handful of what are basically stereotypical Jewish mothers, but I am never without a source of free food. It is thanks to one of these wonderful coworkers that I had to clear out a shelf in my refrigerator to fit a bunch of random Chinese leftovers tonight. After a party, they had nowhere to go, so she tried to see if anyone at work wanted them, insisting that I take it all off her hands. Radical.

Cody still hasn't got over his last battle with East Asian cuisine, so his reaction should be way hilarious.


What else is in the news? Oh yeah, a protest at school turned into way more of a clusterfuck than it should have been, and both the students and authorities can probably be blamed for this. Bothering the lawmakers in Madison who allocate funds to our schools might have a better chance of working, no matter how tiny that chance is.

And for Chrissakes, did you really take marijuana to a place where there would be likely to be police officers? Are you a goddamn idiot? You might try laying off the weed.


Anime Milwaukee is this weekend and Vic "Edward Elric" Mignogna will be there. I may have some things for him to autograph. But I am staying away from the furries. These anime cons attract some frightening, and frankly terrible people. You may consider me entrenched, like a harried journalist reporting from inside a strange and alien cult.

So very industrious

It's been quite a decent weekend for getting things done.

-Went to work.

-Got a perfect score on the first online exam for my Advertising Class. And I only had to cheat on a few of the questions!

-Scouted out a new game store. And found out that their tournament players are mostly not douchebags.

-Had Taco Bell.

-Had Noodles & Company.

-Had chili. (Yes, these are all accomplishments, shut up)

-Took care of taxes.

-Balanced the checkbook.

-Took out the apartment's trash AND recycling.

-Found Brawn at my local dump of a Wal-Mart. I can get behind any figure that has dual pistols AND a shoulder-mounted chain gun.

-Finally saw Moon, and I have to say that it's a goddamn crime that it's not up for a single Oscar.

-Read 100-ish pages of Underworld by Don Delillo.

-Read nearly half of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, bringing me perfectly up-to-date for my class on New Journalism.

-Caught myself saying "In True Blood" instead of In Cold Blood more times than I am entirely comfortable admitting to. Again, I blame the bookstore.

-Made a post on my increasingly neglected blog.

YOU ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD

Because the bookstore is being stingy with the hours, I'm looking into second jobs. I really like the bookstore and don't want to leave it, but it's not bringing in the green that it used to, especially now that I am living somewhat on my own. I don't plan on leaving the bookstore though, because the idea of having some control over what the masses read is incredibly attractive to me.

So I'm going to try the UWM library. I have a contact. And I've seen the people they have doing the shelving there, and I can tell you I can shelve CIRCLES around them. And it's actually a lot like the bookstore anyway! There's a multimedia area, a children's book area and a coffee shop! They both even have hobos come in sometimes!


This may come as a shock, but I was pretty big on the Yugioh scene, back in the day. Even had a gig as a columnist on a fairly prominent gaming web site. (No, I'm not linking it for you. If you really want to see how and what I wrote six years ago, you're gonna have to work to find it.) The game has improved somewhat over the time that I was away from the game once Konami got it through their heads that the game needs a little thing called BALANCE. So I've been tentatively dipping my feet back into the pond. I blame Andrew.

This means buying packs of cards. This is much easier to do when you're twenty-one compared with fourteen because you can drive, have income, and a certain disregard for what the register monkey thinks of you. Among the cards pulled, I grabbed this thing:



It's a Blackwing Tuner that can be used in a Synchro Summon even while it's in the graveyard so long as you're using it to summon a Blackwing Synchro monster like Blackwing Armor Master.

That's not important.

What is important is that this thing is selling for BIG BUCKS. A piece of shiny cardstock is selling for 50 bucks on the secondary market easy. And what's more, most players are predicting that the card will only skyrocket in value once the next Banned/Restricted Card List comes out next month.

That's a 1250% fucking return for something that I got out of a four dollar booster pack. What I am trying to get across to you, dear reader, is that I am now (proportionally speaking) FABULOUSLY WEALTHY.


Card game players have a tradition of shelling out insane amounts of currency for these pieces of paper. I remember when the only way to get a Mechanicalchaser was to fork over nearly half a grand for it. And of course, Magic the Gathering players are well familiar with the Black Lotus, a card that at one time could be auctioned for a final price well into the four figures.


No, I can't imagine why I'm single at the moment.

In the dungeon you encounter a Swarm of Hipsters. Roll for Initiative.

Swarm of Hipsters has resist 5 radiant damage thanks to their stupid ugly sunglasses. However, they take double sonic damage when you play music that they thought they were the only ones who liked. Their armor class is poor thanks to mostly shopping at underground thrift stores, but beware. You grant combat advantage to them since they always think they have the high ground.


Let's talk Oscars. The awards that kind of matter. And it's less of a wank fest than the Golden Globes or the SAG.

Best Picture has been expanded to 10 nominees. The only good to come of this is allowing Up a chance. This is only the second time an animated movie has been up for Best Picture, the first time being Beauty and the Beast back in the nineties. There's no way Up will win, and after all it still has Best Animated Picture (or the "Pixar Invitational") but can you imagine? If Up won I'd be deliriously happy. So much so, that I'd probably blindly say yes to anybody who asked a favor of me for like a week afterwords. (...ladies...)

Realistically, I'm hoping that the Academy will do what they did for Scorsese and give Best Picture to Inglorious Basterds to honor Tarantino's past films. And also, it was a pretty darn good film.

-District 9? HAH. No way, not in a million years.
-Avatar? I doubt it. A Golden Globe means nothing. It'll sweep the techie stuff thought.
-Up in the Air? I can see it, but there's too much competition.
-A Serious Man? Possible, but the Coen Brothers just got a Best Picture two years ago.
-The Blind Side? GOD NO. PLEASE NO.

So it's a toss-up between Hurt Locker, An Education, and Precious I think.

Best Director could be Tarantino, but I think it'll be Bigelow. If only because I think the idea of James Cameron losing out to his ex-wife for a movie with a fraction of the budget of Avatar's is high-larious.

I'm going to say Jeff Bridges for Best Actor, though this could be Colin Firth's year.

CHRISTOPH WALTZ VILL BE ZA BEST SUPPORTING AHCTOR, JAH? VAHT ZAY YOU, FRAULIEN?

If Sandra Bullock gets Best Actress, the Academy Awards will lose so much credibility. Mo'Nique will take Best Supporting Actress.

Best Screenplay I'm firmly calling for Tarantino. You just can't beat lines like "Say Auf wiedersehen to your Nazi balls." *gunshot*

Best Adapted Screenplay I'm gonna go ahead and call for Precious.

So many loyalties at conflict here for Best Animated Picture! I want Up to win because I love Pixar so much, but I really want Princess and the Frog to show that 2D animation is far from dead. And what of Coraline, whose roots can be traced back to Neil Gaiman aka "Jesus the Christ"? I can't choose!!

And Best Foreign Language film? Um... *throws dice*. Ajami (Israel) will win. Totally.

And those are all the awards I feel qualified to talk about.



I finally found a store that restocked and put out Bludgeon! I can say with complete confidence that it is the best action figure of a skeleton samurai that transforms into a tank I have ever encountered. If only because I was only a year old when his original iteration came out. The 2003 release doesn't count because he's just a repaint of Generation 2 Megatron and as such, has absolutely no samurai elements. They didn't even bother with a new head!

And where does Jesus come from? Man and God, right. He's kinda like Spider-man.

The new semester is upon us! Reports:

We begin our week with World Cinema, specifically the films of Hong Kong. Any class that shows you Kung Fu Hustle on the first day can't be that bad. Also, I know the professor and she is way cool. She saw fit to mention that I was brilliant and awesome in front of the whole class which is really greatly appreciated. I don't remember her exact phrasing because it was hard to hear it over my blushing. Also, there are bunches of senior auditors for some reason.

Immediately afterwords is Non-Fiction Prose, specifically the New Journalism pioneered by your Hunter S. Thompsons and your Tom Wolfes. Too early to judge but I like what we've done so far.

Next day begins with Current Literary and Culture Theory and oh my God. It's taught by a real-life Irish person! He talks almost just like Colin Farrel and says things like "bloody hell" and "your mates". He's also the source of the title for this post and is rather self-deprecating towards the English department. Which I like. What I don't like is that I had to shell out eighty dollars for a course packet the size of a phone book. I will be very cross if its all reprints of stuff that I have already.

Advertising in American Society follows. I'm kinda thinking about doing a JMC minor, so we'll see where this goes.

Finally Elementary Statistic Analysis. Oh Maths, how I've missed you! Time to blow the dust off of the trusty TI-83+ and compute some confidence intervals, standard deviations and t-curve values! And I'm suddenly glad for all that time spent on German, because now I can get past the instructor's accent!


In other news, Heroes continues to run. Peter's back in usual form by saying to himself, "HEY I JUST GOT THIS NEW, UNCONTROLLED POWER FIVE MINUTES AGO, LET'S TAKE IT FOR A SPIN BY TRYING THE HARDEST THING I CAN THINK OF ERRRGGGHHHHMFFFFFFFFFF". And while Matt had the right idea when he trapped Sylar, burying him behind a wall in your basement seems like poor planning on his part.

Yesterday, the Grand Glorious Leader and CEO-For-Life of the Bookstore Which Shall Not Be Named jumped ship. After just a year "turning around this company" he finally threw up his hands, flipped us the bird one last time, took his money and hopped on a plane to Tahiti for his well-earned vacation. I salute you, good sir and eagerly await to hear about your replacement.

Obama is doing his state of the union address right now. I could go watch it... or I could wait for Jon Stewart to tell me the important parts tomorrow and maybe sneak a dick joke in there somewhere. The answer, I should think, is obvious.

Sometimes there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place.

I don't know what to do without Coco. I started watching Leno back when I was a young'un and thought he was alright, but then I became old enough to stay up until midnight if I wanted to. And then there was Conan O'Brien. A host who fits well with my generation and is not content with adhering to the basic rules of hosting a talk show. Conan bucked the rules and consistently provided an entertaining experience that you couldn't get on any other show.



And now Jeff Zucker has managed to alienate an entire generation by canning him. You gotta admire Conan for going out with class. He could have railed against NBC for this injustice, but he instead focused on the good times he had at the network and how even having the Tonight Show for such a short time was one of the best things that ever happened to him. Don't be cynical, indeed.

I will admit to drinking following his last show. I will also admit to checking out a restaurant that'll serve you a slice of Macaroni and Cheese Pizza to you at one in the morning with my far more inebriated chums.

I rewatched The Big Lebowski last night and words still fail to express my love and appreciation for this movie. Words and phrases like "Duder" and "That's just, like, your opinion, man" have entered my everyday lexicon. One of the few actual movies that I own personally, along with In Bruges (another movie I could watch over and over again).

Having combed almost every store I can think of in the Milwaukee area, I am prepared to announce that Revenge of the Fallen Bludgeon does not exist. I saw his casemate, Recon Ironhide, but that must be some shipping error. I'll have to assume that Wisconsin is like a black hole to Hasbro's shipping center. I can still count on my hands the Jetfires and Long Hauls that I've ever seen on store shelves and they came out in August.

Lots of work these past few weeks, followed up by a completely blank work schedule for this week. What the hell, guys? Sure I just got offered a shift, but still. I know payroll's bad, but not even one night? Hrm.

School begins tomorrow. Finalized schedule after working my way through the Byzantine scheduling and degree requirements:

Monday
12:00 - 1:50: World Cinema
2:00 - 3:15: Non-Fiction Prose: The (Not so) New Journalism

Tuesday
9:30 - 10:45: Survey of Current Literary and Cultural Theory
11:00 - 12:15: Advertising in American Society
2:00 - 3:15: Elementary Statistical Analysis

Wednesday
12:00 - 1:50: World Cinema
2:00 - 3:15: Non-Fiction Prose: The (Not so) New Journalism

Thursday
9:30 - 10:45: Survey of Current Literary and Cultural Theory
11:00 - 12:15: Advertising in American Society
2:00 - 3:15: Elementary Statistical Analysis

Oh my God, my copy of Underworld from the school library is all marked up in highlighter. It looks like they got bored a few pages in and stopped, but marked-up books drive me nuts. NUTS.

Blog output low. I have trouble making something out of nothing is all.

They're pants that hang like a skirt

So I haven't gushed about the best medical drama on television past or present for awhile. House returned this week and was absolutely fantastic, if only for the fact that they finally addressed the rabid House x Wilson fanfiction writers. Their bromance is one of the best parts of the show and the two of them pretending to be gay for the episode is one of the best things the show has done recently. When two middle-aged men move into an apartment together, what else can the neighbors think? I could watch this episode over and over.







Why on Earth do these Livejournal people put these stupid borders around their .gifs when those pixels could be better used on a larger image?

Conan O'Brien has been on fire this week. It should surprise nobody that I'm completely with Coco on this. I've got your back, dude. I thought that one gag that fell flat with your audience was hilarious.

I'll be tuning into the Golden Globes this weekend even if they don't matter. It still has celebrities doing funny things and giving out meaningless awards. We can try predicting winners! And host Ricky Gervais might show up drunk!

My instructors for Spring 2010 are already setting up their D2L online course pages and we know what that means! I can see the entire classlist and see if I know anybody! So far no luck, which leaves the names that I don't recognize. Let the e-stalking begin!

This post sure does suck.

The guys in Intel really dropped the ball on this one

At my job, I sometimes have breaks. Much like you fine law-abiding Americans, I'm sure. There are a multitude of restaurants in the same strip mall as Borders and you usually pick one to go get lunch at.

I had just been told, after two and a half years of working at the store that the Noodles & Company down the way will totally give you a free soda if you mention that you work in the same mall as them. A. Whole. Free. Soda.

WHY HAD I NOT BEEN INFORMED OF THIS UNTIL NOW?

So, as my break started, I declared that I was indeed going down to prove this for myself. Co-workers gave me the look that Bruce Willis gets when he tells people that they're actually going to land the astronauts on the asteroid itself.

It would be risky for sure. What if this policy was no longer in effect? What if I tell them about it and they think I'm an idiot or some free-loader who just wants free soda? We simply could not have this. So it was with understandable apprehension that I strolled into the restaurant. It was busy, what with the dinner rush. Too many witnesses. Any one of these rubes would be there to witness my failure, or worse, call the authorities.

I idly fingered the Borders badge sitting in my coat pocket the same way that a novice criminal caresses his automatic on the way to his first armed robbery. And my badge was a lot like a gun. I could pull the trigger and BOOM free soda. The pistol was loaded with taste bullets, fully chambered with the hammer cocked ALL THE WAY BACK.

The counter. The clerk is slightly fatigued, but in good spirits. A good sign, but we mustn't allow ourselves to get overconfident. Too many X-factors at work here. The guy next to her is clearly a supervisor - I could see the "no" fully queued up behind his veneer of affability, his triumphant sneer waiting in the wings. And what of the people in line behind me? I can't hold up the line with my need for free beverages or things could get violent.

I laid out the deal and displayed the Borders badge - my symbol of authority and my only bargaining chip. Her poker face doesn't falter as she pulls out a cup and slides it across the counter asking if I would like anything else.

I felt like a cop holding up his badge to make his way into the crime scene. I smile inwardly and make my order.


This is what passes for excitement in my life.

And still not ginger!

Winter Break is slipping through my fingers. Only two weeks remain and there is so much left to do!

Mother Nature decided that I was having too decent of a week and decided to snow everybody in on the night we were totally supposed to go down to the brewery, get mildly drunk and play trivia for the night. And by "we" I mean the good people at Borders Books Fox Point. My friends, we don't do nearly enough as a family. Work doesn't count.


I did manage to see The Princess and the Frog though. And I managed to con Keelin into coming with! Because I don't need to add "sitting in an empty theater alone" to my list of reasons to feel lonely.

It's a really great movie and I think deserving of a high place in the Disney canon. The animation is really very pretty and there are some amazingly animated pieces such as the "Almost There" song number and the scenes where Facilier does his voodoo stuff. And speaking of, Facilier is definitely one of the more frightening Disney villains and I would hardly be surprised if the kids sitting in the theater with us had nightmares that night. The music is good stuff and the characters are well-written and well-developed. It's also way funny.

The first fifteen minutes or so were a little overflowing with Disney-isms though. "Remember Tiana, when you wish upon a star, anything is possible. But as long as you got heart. And family. Remember to work hard, but stop and smell the roses on the way! Anything is possible if you try and what's really important is what's inside. And outside." But they narrow their focus towards the end.

If you're at all interested in animation or just want to feel like a kid for a bit, it's for you.


In other news, David Tennant regenerated! Into some bloke named Matt Smith! Who's barely older than I am! "End of Time" had John Simm back as The Master, so I was immediately sold. I keep up with Doctor Who sporadically because I only catch it on Sci-Fi or PBS and am too lazy to download it, but I made the exception this time. And God, was it cheesy. Like, you could squeeze it onto crackers, but that's par for the course for Who. I'll be watching the Eleventh Doctor with great interest.

Ooh! And Timothy Dalton played a Time Lord! This is possibly the most convincing bit of evidence for James Bond actually being a Time Lord. He keeps on changing appearance and seems to be able to come up with an ingenious way out of any situation. Think about it.




The Master Grade F91 Gundam looks good on paper, but not so much in practice. So it was a bit of a disappointment. Too many stickers for the yellow areas and the joints are either too weak or too tight. The construction is a pain in the rear and I came close to busting several pieces along the way.

The Variable Speed Beam Rifles (VSBRs) are a fun gimmick though. They slide into position easily and look pretty cool. The Beam Shield is pretty neat as well - a lot better than the one they gave to the Destiny Gundam. I might review it up later, but the basic verdict is that you should get it if you really like the F91 part of the Gundam universe, otherwise pass on it.



The Master Grade Unicorn Gundam on the other hand is immensely well-done. The design is great and the transformation to Destroy mode is quick and simple.



As is usual for Universal Century models, it still manages to look regal and impressive while just standing there, and the dynamic design makes up for the somewhat sub-par articulation.

Tune in next week when I might actually have something interesting to say.


(Pictures are, as usual, not mine. They belong to Dalong and TASTE)

My 2009 in books

Seems as good a time as any. I'm currently in the middle of Anna Karenina but let's face it, that's not getting finished before 2010. I read quickly but my attention span and initiative are poor. I'm not able to sit around for a whole afternoon and knock out 400 pages like others are, but here we go. Here are the highlights of what I read this year.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Ignore the Oprah Book Club sticker on the front. Transgender/intersexed literature is fairly rare, so it's a good thing that the work is pretty good. Our narrator gets a little overblown at times, but that may work in your favor if you like, for example, references to Greek mythology. The family saga portion is entertaining enough and our main character's struggle may be hard to relate to but is still compellingly written.

City of Thieves by David Benioff
A very good piece of WWII-related fiction involving two Russians who will be released from prison (one is in for stealing food, the other is a soldier who tried desertion) if they undertake a very peculiar mission. A fun read with hints of that morbid "war sucks" theme. Reads like it would make a thrilling film.

Dune by Frank Herbert
So I finally went and read what many see as required reading for sci-fi/fantasy fans. I'm not sure I see it. Maybe it's because I know full well what Frank's son does to the series with Kevin J. Anderson later on, but I didn't think it was terribly amazing. Good and worth a read, but not amazing. The setting is cool enough though.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
This is excellent stuff if you have the patience to memorize family trees. It's written in such a way that makes you feel as if you're in the middle of a dream and is basically a very tolerable postmodern work. Fascinating characters and a great sort of magic permeate the novel. Called a classic of world literature for a reason.

The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan
Unremarkable as far as fantasy goes. Worth a read, but I don't think I'll be returning to the series. Also, the author sees fit to continue reminding you of how gay his protagonist is. Is he ever gay, I mean just look at him go, making out with men and everything, he is soooooo gaaaayyyy.

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
OMG I <3 Neil Gaiman. I finally got around to reading what many consider to be his magnum opus and it did not disappoint. This is the ultimate in graphic novels, even for (I might say especially for) those who don't read graphic novels. Brilliant characters and fascinating use of mythology and theology ensure that all ten volumes will be on my bookshelf for a very long time to come.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Loved it while I was reading it, but opinion has kind of soured slightly. Still an excellent read but it gets kind of melodramatic and could probably have used an editor.

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the Edge of the World by Haruki Murakami
Probably the weakest of Murakami's novels that I've read so far, not that that's saying much. A little on the obtuse side, it gets to be a real slog towards the middle. But it has its moments.

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Copy and paste thoughts on Shadow of the Wind. I would probably preferred it if there won't so many blatant references to Shadow - it should have been more distanced from its predecessor.

Snow by Orhan Pamuk
A very thick book, but worth the read. It's one of those novels that almost makes the setting itself a character, in this case it's Istanbul. Excellent if that's a region that interests you.

Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Probably the girliest thing I read all year, but her stuff is pretty good and this one is no exception. Definitely read if you have an interest in the time period.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
It's a very good piece of fantasy but I can't get over the fact that our main character is just so awesome. Kvothe borders on Mary Sue-dom and the school setting feels like a rehash of Harry Potter. Still, it's written pretty well and there are hints at both a much more interesting narrative below the surface and the idea that maybe our main character isn't being entirely truthful with us.

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
This is a good one but it's a bit dense. There are a lot of wacky Spanish names to remember, but the way it portrays the two main characters (two vaguely-Quixotic guys founding a literary movement) through accounts made by various side characters is fun to read and piece together in your head. It's a look at the seedy underbelly of poetry that you never knew existed. Also, the title would make a great name for a rock band.

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie
Kill Bill meets Lord of the Rings with a touch of The Count of Monte Cristo. A very entertaining read, but not terribly deep. Eat popcorn while you read it.

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Easily the best book to involve a giant squid corpse as a minor plot point released all year. (Runner-up: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood)

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Oh Virginia Woolf. You're a wacky one and To the Lighthouse is probably one of your best. It's also the only one I've read. But I liked it.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
A great non-fiction read. I wrote about it earlier but I'm too lazy to link it.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
I'm a sucker for these clashing immigrant stories and The Namesake is one of the best. It managed to make me in turns depressed and happy so it's a fairly emotional read. Would probably be my favorite of the year were it not for...

White Teeth by Zadie Smith
I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I love Zadie Smith. Her writing and characters have a way of pulling you in to the story and she can force you to snorting laughter and then to tears within ten pages. She nails this whole "hysterical realism" thing and her story of the clash between generations of an immigrant family and their neighbors, friends, and co-workers is brilliant stuff.

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
Making fun of English high society? Definitely something I can get behind. Pervaded by a dark humor and satire, it can be a depressing read but there still continues to be the impression that Evelyn Waugh was smirking to himself as he wrote out the main character's final tragedy.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Hm. It was pretty good, but I think overrated. Some unrealistic characters and situations, but the approach to Heaven is an interesting one. I'm not quite willing to heap praise on Sebold just yet.

Star Wars novels in general
While the Fate of the Jedi series shows some potential, it's been pretty unremarkable so far. I cannot fathom making Admiral Daala, best known for multiple attempted genocides, into the Chief of State of the Galactic Republic. However, Luke and Ben's journey is probably the strongest part of the series so far and I'm very interested to see where the "Lost Sith" plotline goes.

Deathtroopers was a lot better than a book where Han Solo fights zombies has any right to be.

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor is easily the best Star Wars novel released this year. A brilliant character study, the book is the closest to the pulpy Star Wars adventures of old. It's surprisingly deep for a Star Wars novel, analyzing things like morality and narrative structure.


That is all.