Inefficiency

So I like things to run efficiently. Mostly because efficient things allow me to be lazy. And get done quicker, which allows for more movie watching or video game playing. But I don't just like efficiency in my time - I also like energy efficiency, and some things I just don't understand.

So working in an office I understand that there's going to be different temperature preferences, and that compromise will have to be found between people who like it cold, and those who like it hot. But I can't understand how people can be using floor heaters during the peak of summer. All that means is that somebody else is being selfish and has turned the AC down way too much. Seriously, I know two people in my office use floor heaters regularly (and there's a total of 8 people in the building) and I've seen ladies in the other building with theirs on, too.

Then there's the fact that I know lots of people (my entire family) who leave lights and TVs on all night. I'd really like to do a study to see how much energy it takes to leave a TV on all night. Anybody know? Anybody know how to test it? There's got to be a website out there that tells you how much energy certain appliances use (and how much that costs!).

All I can say is that in the middle of hearing people complain how much energy costs, there are some pretty simple things that are beginning to really annoy me about how others are inefficient with their energy. After all, increased demand is a surefired way to increase price (and the converse it true).

I think I like Mr. Nelson's idea of hooking up a generator to a bike to power a television. Think my family would buy it? And now this has become a really long rant. Sorry.

Enough talk!

So apparently I don't talk enough because after teaching (and talking) all morning, my throat is definitely sore. It didn't help that I woke up this morning with a sore throat (well, I have all this week, but this morning was worse).

Also, apparently I can also add in my head better than other people (although I don't understand how 1800 + 600 can be hard to add).

In other news, I've become obsessed with the Veronica Mars soundtrack. It has a lot of names I recognize from other soundtracks and mixes I've seen recently, and also some new names for me to look into. I think I shall have to aquire some new music for all the car time I'm going to be spending with my brother shortly.

And coming soon: what I will be doing in less than a week!

Good times, great oldies

I love TCM Scene It. Part of me is disguisted at myself when Chris and I play it (and Patrick was definintely disguisted), but it's the same with any specialized trivia game like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit, so I guess it's nothing new. Plus there are occasionally clips of movies that I haven't seen. So it's educational, too.

Cowabunga!

Apparently there's a new TMNT movie in the works. Now, I know there are many of you out there who, like me, lived for Leo, Donny, Mikey, and Raph when we were younger. I'm not going to deny it; I definately did my fair share of jumping off the jungle-gym doing kicks and yelling, "hi-ya!" to my heart's content. So while I'm not getting my hopes up due to the abusurdly lame movies that have come out recently, I still am going to hide a little bit of excitement from the now jaded 22 year old that I have became.

So while the excited 5 year old and the sceptical 22 year old in me battle it out, I think I'll take another look at the trailer. Because it just looks cool.

Timing

Timing is everything, and well, my timing is at 90 hours (including lunch) and counting.

Exodus

So this past weeked marked an Exodus from Bakersfield. Rachel started off with her journey over seas - spending a day in Frankfurt and then going on to bigger and better places. Then, Chris and I both decided to go down and visit people in the LA area (seperately).

Friday night I got down here and Rob and I decided that we felt like pizza (this turns out to be a bad idea). To go with the pizza, Rob made a pitcher of margaritas. Then we played some GS and opened a bottle of wine that I had from last summer (Laura's white zin - yum!). Pretty soon, Natalie joined us, having just finished work. So the three of us goofed off and had a very enjoyable evening.

Now, the reason the previously mentioned pizza was bad is that it somehow managed to give us food posioning. So Saturday was not a really fun day, although we did manage to make a trip to Dreamplay and Robert showed me all the various ways he gets payed to play. Then we came back and oozed while watching some Veronica Mars episodes (which I am now hooked on).

Luckily I'm feeling much better today and will (hopefully) be able to make it home without any problems.

PopWatch

So lately I've been hooked on ew.com's daily PopWatch blog. A lot of the posts aren't interesting to me, but the guys that write it are funny, and there's usually about three interesting posts per day on there. So anyways, I think I'm going to try to post daily about the more interesting stories and links that I find there. Here are a couple from recently.

Shock the man - I'm still not sure how I feel about this, but I was definately laughing when I first found the site. Of all the ways to make money...

Oh dear Lord! - Just watch and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Pretty pretty please! - I'll copy what the PopWatch writer had to say about this link:

Arrested Development: The Movie?
There's still money in that banana stand: Maebe says there'll be an Arrested Development movie. Maybe.

Alia Shawkat (who played the ambiguously-monikered, super-jaded, movie-producing, cousin-kissing teen on the short-lived but much-beloved and altogether over-hyphenated Fox comedy) has the following to say about a possible AD leap to the big screen: "Mitch actually recently told us that there is a good possibility for a movie, and that he's talking to Ron Howard about it."

Well, they did end the show with a movie pitch to series producer/narrator Ron Howard. If they pulled it off, wouldn't that, like, totally be the metaness to end all metanesses? No, that would be an Arrested Development movie about the Arrested Development movie, told from the perspective of the guy who's programming Arrested Development: The Movie: The Videogame. ("Play as GOB. Play as Michael. Play as The Loose Seal.")

In any case, my head will happily explode, and when it does, I promise to YouTube it for your enjoyment.

Network Neutrality

Lately I've been seeing some links online regarding this issue called "Net Neutrality." In an effort to make sure that all of my readers are informed (and since it involves all of us who use the internet) I thought I'd point it out to people if they haven't heard of it already.

Now, I'm not sure if I really understand the issue, but here's what I've gathers of the gist of it. Basically, non-neutrality would entail that the ISP could decide who and what gets the best and most bandwidth. They could choose to give certain sites better quality, while pushing others to the backburner. Neutrality would basically leave things as they are.

A couple pros and cons that I can see right off:

Pro-neutrality pros - The flexibility and freedom of the internet is protected. Sites like YouTube, blogger, myspace, and P2P servers are protected.

Pro-neutrality cons - If bandwidth gets tight, people could "hog" all the bandwidth with streaming and P2P programs. You could also have to start paying per bandwidth amount, rather than per month. Consumer prices will increase because of the increase demand of bandwidth.

Anti-neutrality pros - ISPs can better allow for certain streaming of voice and video files, giving you a better experience. There would be tiered pricing by ISPs, allowing you to only pay for what you want.

Anti-neutrality con - Obviously, the reason that certain ISPs would allow premium bandwidth to certain companies and site would be because they would pay the ISPs. Since in the conceivable future everything will be coming to us through the internet (cable, phone line, etc) this could mean that you can only use certain service providers, creating geographic monopolies, which are bad for consumers. Also, sites that focus on freedom and sharing of information are going to be at a disadvantage (sites like YouTube, especially).

For more information, go here and try to figure it out for yourself. And if I've figured this wrong, please let me know. This seems to be a pretty important issue, potentially changing the future of the internet, which is going to get even more important than it already is, I think. If that's possible. Anyways, here are the websites for the various sides For Neutrality and Non-neutrality.

Who are the 4400?

A better question would be, "How come I didn't start watching this earlier?"

This show made a tiny blip on my radar last year, but didn't really stick (it also didn't help that I had a very changing schedule last summer, and couldn't regularly watch TV). But this summer I decided that I would start watching it, and this weekend I did.

Basically, this show has everything that I love in TV. Compelling characters, writers and producers who aren't afraid to kill of main characters (making any suspense they create more real), and (most importantly) philosophical issues in every episode. Let me tell you a little about it:

The premise of the show is that since about 1940, people have been disappearing from all over the globe. Then, all of a sudden, they all reappeared in a big ball of light at the base of Mt. Reiner. None of them have aged a day, and they can't remember a thing that happened while they were gone.

So obviously, the first idea (since the ball of light came from space) is aliens. And this isn't put to rest any when some of them start to develop pretty awesome powers. The great thing, though, is that the show isn't technically about the 4400, it's about two NTAC (National Threat Assesment Center, part of Homeland Security) agents who have to investigate these people. Of course, it's not that simple, and these two agents find themselves tied up pretty tightly into the lives of many 4400. So there's action (they're basically the equivalent of FBI agents), Sci-Fi elements, philosophy (especially later they get into matter of ethics - or I could just be reading into it), and interesting characters who have to learn to deal with all sorts of new situations. And because of the nature of the people taken, it's not all about adults learning to deal, there's also teenagers and even kids. And did I mention that the writers aren't afraid to mess people up (emotionally, physically, relationshiply) and even kill them.

I think this might be taking the place of Alias. Too bad it's only on during the summer and has really short seasons. But oh well, I suppose it's a start.

It's been that long?

I remember when Billy and I bought our family its first DVD player. It was our Junior year (in high school) Christmas, and we decided that we wanted a DVD player, and the only way to get it would be to "give" it as a present to the whole family. That way we killed two birds with one stone. I know when it was because at the same time I got The Matrix on DVD (because I knew it would look awesome through the DVD player). Now I'm thinking about buying a second DVD player in addition to my dual VCR/DVD player because it can play DivX movies (also the DVD part of my player doesn't work since the remote is broken, so I'm not being excessive).

It's amazing how much growth the home entertainment industry has seen in the past 6 years. And how much my movie collection has grown in the past 3 years.

Year in Review

So the half year mark has come and gone, and it's a little disconcerting. Usually, I have my school schedule to keep my sense of placement in the year real, but not this year. So it was a little strange when I realized about a week ago that it should now be closer to the end of the year than the beginning. And as such, I've decided to post my Year in Review.

Now, most of what this will be about is movies, because the events of my life for the past six months have been pretty mundane and repetitive. So I won't bore you with them. But I will give my opinion on the movies that I've seen in the past six months. And shock you all with their sheer number (and I will show you what a complete loser I am and how much time I spend alone in my room watching movies by the number). But I don't care.

First off, I've seen 139 movies this year. Now, these are movies that I've seen for the first time, so it doesn't count repeat viewings of the same movie. This is actually more like 128 movies, because some of them I didn't see the whole thing (stupid 25 minute drive home from work). To break this up a little bit, I've seen 6 movies in theaters (four that have been released this year), 12 on HBO, and 27 on DVD. That leaves the rest to be seen on TCM. That leaves about 83 to be seen on TCM for those of you who are counting. 87 of the movies I've seen this year have been on one AFI list or another. So that's the numbers, now on to content.

I really think I'm going to be unable to pick a favorite movie seen this year, mostly because of the sheer number of really great ones that I've seen, but I'll break it up into categories and hopefully make some desicisions.

First, on the AFI lists:
Film: Lawrence of Arabia
Thrill: Rear Window
Comedy: Bringing Up Baby
Passion: It Happened One Night
Hero: Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird)
Villain: Hannibal Lector (The Silence of the Lambs)
Non-AFI movie: Dark City

Close runners up were: Some Like It Hot, Ball of Fire, The Quiet Man, On the Waterfront, and To Have and Have Not.

My favorite book has been: The Once and Future King
Favorite Season of TV: Firefly

So there's my boring recap of the year - hopefully the rest of the year will see me doing something other than sitting around watchign more movies.

But I doubt it.

I miss the cold

I think summer officially starts soon, and I’m definitely missing my winter. Don’t get me wrong, I love the summer. I love that it stays light until 9:00 (even if it does make it so I never want to go to sleep) and I love playing games outside in the heat. I love all the fun things that go along with summer – outside concerts, swim parties, and camping. But winter is my season.

For one, it’s always associated with soccer for me. High school soccer season ran all winter long, and even if it wasn’t technically winter when I played up on Spokane, it still felt like what a Bakersfield winter feels like. Then there’s all the snow activities of the winter, even if I haven’t had much of them lately. Snowball fights, snow football and soccer, and most importantly snowboarding are only possible in the winter.

Of course the winter also has its drawbacks. Fog means waking up earlier than I would like, and the fact that it’s still dark until about 6:30 makes waking up early difficult. Living in Spokane during the winter meant adding at least half an hour to any drive time, not to mention digging cars out of the snow and walking carefully because of ice. Actually, ice was awesome because you could have contests about who would fall the least and the most because of ice, and watching it happen is great, but still inconvenient.

I miss wearing layers. Winter is my favorite clothing season (did I just say I have a favorite clothing season? Wow), mostly because it’s the easiest. It’s very easy to dress appropriate for the weather (you don’t have to guess if it’s going to be warm or cold – it’s going to be cold), and I love wearing long sleeves. And scarves and beanies. And especially sweatshirts and vests. And gloves. And mittens. I wish I could wear winter clothing all year long.

So here’s to decreasing marginal time until it’s winter again, now that spring is over. Yay for winter being close than it is far away