Veni Vidi Vino

I know that's not how it goes, but whenever I can, I adopt Caeser's phrase for my purposes. My favorite is "Veni vidi wiki" the first time I used a wiki. In ancient latin, a "v" is pronounced as a "w" (which makes me think that perhaps w's name should be double v), so really, "veni vidi vici" is "weni widi wici". Well, I thought it was clever. Too bad for most people to get it, I have to explain. That's the problem with learning ancient languages, nobody else knows them.

Anyways, its on to the Misadventures in Cambria, where we spent our time playing Apples to Apples, eating, and drinking. For those of you won don't know, the road from Paso Robles to Cambria is full of vineyards, which means lots of wine tasting. Having not yet acquired the taste for wine, I was a little aprehensive about it, but decided I would at least try to like wine, since it seems most of the rest of the world does.

The first day was somewhat meh-ish, seeing as most of the wine just tasted like vinegar to me, but I plowed through with lots of water and crackers. And pretzels and mustard, for not only do they sell wine, but most places sell lots of very good food. However, by the second day I was more able to appreciate the wine, and poured very little of it out. Hurray for me.

Anyways, there wasn't too much craziness going on in Cambria, since the triptofin (stupid big words) was usually kicking in by the time we got back from tasting. But Chris and I did manage to spend about an hour using the Apples to Apples cards to create extemporaneous stories. That was entertaining, and I think my story about Katherine Hepburn getting in car accidents in Italy that she thought was the Effiel Tower. Guess you had to be there, but everybody was entertained by it.

What else.... oh. On Thursday, Rob, Chris, and I went to see Robots, which was very entertaining. Its not really comparable to The Incredibles, because its not a serious movie at all. I mean, Robin William's character sings "Singing in the Oil." There's no way it was serious. It was surprising, however, to see how little screen time all the huge names got. Especially when they played them up so much in the previews. Oh well. It was entertaining.

Well, that's it for today. Tomorrow will be all about my family vacation to Arizona and Utah. So stay tuned!

mistakes

So there are some typos/grammer mistakes in my previous post that I'd like to explain. I'd just spent the day at church, and then entertaining three little girls that thought my room as a play room and proceeded to play with all the toys in my room, which I had to take away from them for the most part because they're too little to play with them (like the katana that's in my room, for instance). So I was tired and didn't really want to proofread. So sue me. Now I'm off to buy lego!

The Further Misadventures

So, a couple weeks ago it was Rachel's birthday, and since Chris was in town, we were over at his house. Rachel complained that she was bored on her birthday, which isn't allowed, so we decided to go try to find a game to play. Well, this was at 9 pm, so there weren't too many stores open at that hour. We tried Toys R Us, but that was closed, so we asked Rachel is there was anything she wanted to do. Frist bowling was mentioned, but then Rachel told us that there was this "seedy" pool hall near her house that she's always wanted to check out, so we decided to go there. We played two rounds of pool (I won both!) and then had to leave because the smoke was making me sick (yes there was somebody smoking inside). After that, for some reason Rachel suggested that we stop at Kinko's and make copies of stuff. Well we get there an one of her friends was there doing something, so Rachel wandered off to talk to her, while Chris and I was the little kids table and began coloring.

My picture was called "Hi Mo" (which is funny and will come up during a later post), and I don't remember what Chris named his. Anyways, after this we decided to go to Barnes and Noble because both Rachel and I are obsessed with books, and its open until 11. There Chris bought the game that had started the whole adventure (Apples to Apples, which is an awesome game) and we returned to his house to play.

Thus ends the Further Misadventures of Becca and Chris (and Rachel), which will be continuted tomorrow with a recounting of the trip to Cambria and my foray (how do you spell that word) into wine tasting.

Lack of posts

Well, some of you have probably noticed a lack of new posts recently, and I've got some pretty good reasons for it. This past week, I've been on vacation with my family across Arizona and Southern Utah. How fun. Before that, I spent part of the week in Cambria tasting wine, and when I got home I was just plain busy. So I do have much posting coming up, which should hopefully make you sick of reading about my life, which is really my goal anyways.

More to come shortly.

Good movies

I watched two good movies today. Well, actually I caught most of one two days ago, but I finished it up today, so it still counts. The first is Gattaca (released in 1997), which is a very good sci-fi movie in it with Ethan Hawke, Jude Law, and Uma Thurman, who all give great performances, I think. Its about what could happen if genetics gets to the point where out entire society is based on identity through DNA. And the story of a person with "imperfect genes" who tries to overcome them. I won't do it justice trying to describe it here, so I'll stop and just say you should watch it.

The second was Fight Club, which is more recent, so everybody should know what it is. Fight Club was on FX's dvd program, so I got to see some behind the scenes stuff, which was interesting. Apparently, according to the director and actors and stuff, its supposed to be a dark comedy, which I can see. Its got some pretty cool camera shots, and the dialogue is pretty good. I appreciate some of the randomness of the characters that shows through the dialogue. And its got a very interesting ending.
And both Brad Pitt and Edward Norton give excellent performances.

If you haven't seen Gattaca, I suggest watching it, and the same goes for fight club. Although, just so you're warned, it is a little dark and violent, hence the word "fight" in the title.

Soccer

I love soccer. Everyone should know that. If you don't, I don't see how you can be my friend. Anyways, the reason I say this is that I remembered how much I love just practicing soccer. See, I've joined this adult league, and the team really sucks, but they try, and the main reason they aren't good is because there are like four people who have never played soccer before. They want to learn, and go to the one practice a week when they can, so I'm having fun trying to teach people.

The good thing is that my friend Tiffany who I played with in high school also wants to play, so I have one friend on the team, and she's good. Which is going to make things much more enjoyable. But tonight I just had a blast playing 3 on 3 and keep away, or just passing and trapping. And I'm going to play indoor, too, which just makes my day. Because I love soccer. Have I mentioned that?

Anyways, not much has been going on in the life of Becca, except that Spring Breaks start soon, which I'm excited for. That means people will be in town, starting with Chris next week. Which means that I have more people to hang out with and cause a ruckus.

Leave a comment!

Waiting for what?

So I was sitting watching the clock for the bell to ring today, and I realized how much of my life I've spent waiting for something to happen. Of course, for the most part I've been waiting for class to end, but I also spend a lot of time waiting for other things. Like last night, I spent an hour waiting for Alias to turn on. Pascal talks about how the present is the scariest part of time, because there are ways we can control the past and the future. The past is okay because it can't change; we know what happened so we don't have to worry about it. And in the future, its possible to change whatever we want/need to. But in the present we seem powerless to a certain extent. All the things we could have changed are in the past, and the present just seems to be the consequence of the past.

Okay, done rambling.

At the book store

Today I had to go to Barnes and Noble. And yes, I do mean had to. Shadow of the Giant was released today, and I had to buy it and read it. The only reason I'm typing this now is because I finished. That's one thing about Orson Scott Card's books that annoys me; they're too short. Except for Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, which are only so long because there's tons of philosophy disguised in them. And we all know philosophy is long winded.

Anyways, this book again lived up to my expectations of OSC. Although I thought there was supposed to be one more in the series, and it appears that he's pretty much left no loose ends, except for one that I think is meant to be remain loose. But who can tell. Although if the series is over, I will be sad. Not disappointed, but sad.

Then again, he could start over after Children of the Mind, now that he's developed Peter's character.

While I was at BN, I saw something that made me sick. It was The Nora Roberts Companion. Has literature been so degraded that we now have companions to those books? I mean, how much stuff could there be to fill that book? Apparently a lot, since it was a good sized book, but come on! Who would actually want/need to buy that book!

And I just realized that there is a loose end which could warrant another book. And I realized another thing. OSC hardly writes any physical descriptions of characters of places. Everything is focused around dialogue, which I think is awesome. Because in his stories, physical descriptions don't matter. Well, things like troop movements matter, but the looks of buildings, and even people, don't. Anyways, its getting late and I'll probably have to work tomorrow.

And if you haven't yet, go find your nearest OSC book and start reading it. I promies you won't regret it.

Ethics

Okay, so I've been thinking about ethics lately. Please don't ask me why, because I really don't know. Perhaps it was a quote from Alias when one character says, "Legally, he's right. Morally, he's a jerk." So anyways, onto ethics.

Plato said that if we know the good, we'll do the good. Now, all talks of incontinent actions aside, the real problem that ethics tries to address isn't how do we do the good, but how do we know the good. So many of the ethical frameworks out there focus not on how to do the good but on how to know what it is that we're supposed to do. Like Untilitarianism just takes for granted that you'll do what you should, as does Kantian(ism).

I guess I just always thought that we kind of threw Plato's ethics out due to his lack of ethics, but really, all the people that have come after him have tried to do is figure out how to know the good. Now, this doesn't take into account weakness of will, which is when we don't do what we think the good is. Or at least I think that's what it is. Keith gave us a cursory glance at weakness of will, even though its his area of expertise.

I don't really have anything to say on ethics except that I think you should be thinking about it, but not just like the philosophers do, as in what is the good, but also as in, how do I do the good. Because that's the hard part. And perhaps especially, how do I want to do the good, because no matter what Kant says, an action is more ethical if it is inline with your desires than if it isn't. As in, an action is better if you want to do it rather than if you do it out of a sense of duty.

And I'm really trying to live up to this site's claim of incoherentness and rambling, so I'm going to leave it at that. Just thought I'd let you know what I've been thinking about.

Okay, okay

Okay, so here's a new post. I know that you have all been sitting on the edge of your computer chair (or whatever your sitting on) to read it, and now you can once again have a life full of useless Becca happenings.

So, onward to the happenings! This past weekend was Chris's annual (one n or two) trip up to Berekely, and I decided to go along because I was sick of being home. As many of you know, its always interesting when Chris and I have time to hang out with no mature influence (hence this summer's work in progress). Anyways, the trip started with a four hour car ride in driving rain, which was fun. Halfway through it, the windshield wiper came off and proceeded to make a horrible screaching sound, reminicient of nails on a chalkboard. So after Chris tried to mask the sound by turning up the music (we might have been listening to the Shins then), I made him pull over so we could fix it. Yes, in the driving rain. And did we, smart people that we are, park under some sort of covering? Of course not. So we both got soaked, because of course neither of us put on a jacket.

So, let's see, what else happened on the ride up. Oh, Chris came up with a potential title for his potential story. It is actually a quote that somehow came up in normal conversation, "Even winebago's dream." I believe we were talking about the stupid pictures that are painted on the back of some RV's, of like African animals (lions and so on) and how, even if you did take a car to Africa, it certainly wouldn't be an RV or winebago, due to the fact that it would get stuck on the first hole in the dirt roads there. But even winebagos can dream of going to exotic places. And that was probably more information than you wanted, but ha. You've already read it, and I've already wasted your time! I win.

So we finally get to the Bay Area, and Chris doesn't exactly know where he's going. He knows how to get there once he sees a landmark, but he doesn't know what the landmark will be prior to seeing it. So we're listening to the soundtrack from The Life Aquatic (Very fitting. If you haven't heard it, you should listen to it) and trying to find our way to Rob's apartment (still in driving rain). Eventually (after no wrong turns, good job Chris) we get there, and Chris proceeds to parallel park. Now, to be fair, the cars on either side were very close and it was going to be a difficult park. First, after backing up and going forward about four times, Chris ends up getting stuck so that his back tire is flush against the curb, and he's too close to to front car to really do anything about it. At this point I decide that he might need some directing, so I hop out (yes, its still raining). Eventually we are able to get the car parked by some very clever maneuvering. It was impressive. And I'm wet. It was very fitting that we were listening to that soundtrack. I think I have pictures of the final product of parking, and hopefully they will be up soon.

Okay, what else. Oh! We came up with a new sort of insult/threat. "Don't make me go Darwin on your butt (or other word)." This came about because we were crossing the street, and I told Chris about the stupid people up in Spokane that wear all black and decide to cross Division in the middle of a block at 10 at night. Then I said, "I wish natural selection still applied." Because in all honesty, it no longer applies to human society. And if you want to argue that, bring it on!

Oh! And I got a Chris point! It was great. We were at swing and for some reason, punning about "bee". Don't ask me why, I don't remember. Anyways, Chris, in his usual punny way said a pun using the word "be." Something like, "It'll have to beeeeeee (with emphasis) blah blah blah." And I turned and said "Maybe you weeeeereeeeee (with emphasis)." I was gleeful because 1) I got to make fun of Chris punning and 2) I got a Chris point for it. Lauren also got a Chris point later (darn her!), for remembering Rob's nickname from Mammoth, which was Whisky Bob. Don't ask why.

Oh, and on to my philosophical rambling. So we were in the car coming back from swing, and somebody asked where we were. The response was "the middle of nowhere." Then Rob's friend Stella who had gone with us said that there can be no middle of nowhere. Since I had been stopped by Lauren from talking about the Chinese room (Penrose!), I needed to get my philosophy out for the day. I said yes there could, but she said no. So I turned to Stella and asked her why there could be no middle of nowhere. She said that because nowhere had to be ever expanding, there could be no middle of it. Now, I was about to start a full fledged argument (not that I really vehmenently disagreed with her, nor was it important, I just haven't got to argue a lot recently) but Rob ruined all my fun. He warned Stella that she wouldn't win, and it was in her best interest to stop. She asked why and he told her that I'm a philosophy major. Unfortunately, she gave up without a fight.

So I have to think about this. The first question that must be addressed is if nowhere exists. For there can only be a middle to something that actually exists. SO lets assume that nowhere exists. Does that mean that it has to be ever expanding? I don't understand that. But even if it is ever expanding, wouldn't that mean that everything is the middle of nowhere, for everything would be equidistant from the non-existent edges of nowhere? I think so. This is the same question as whether a geometric point can have a middle. I've thought about this before in the context of the universe. Medivals thought that the Earth was the center of the solar system because God created the Earth as the most important thing. This was why they couldn't accept the idea of the Earch orbiting the sun. But if the universe is expanding, can anything be the center, or is everything the center? This is somewhat different than if there were no edges to the universe, but only a little.

Okay, I'm done rambling for now, because there isn't that much to ramble about. I just wanted to let everybody know that I have been engaging my mind a little. In other news, my new website would be ready if I could get some images. Hinthint shen who has Photoshop.

Okay, that's it for now. I'm glad I've bored you by now.

Coming soon...

The Misadventures of Becca and Chris will be at a website near you on Monday or Tuesday.

Pie

So this month is Marie Calander's pie discount month. Its a month I truely love, because their lemon cream cheese is like the best pie ever made. Ever. If you haven't had this pie, you must. Its like lemon cheesecake with lemon meraing pie filling.

Unfortunately, Marie's was all out of this pie when my dad went to buy them on Monday, so he got two chocolate satin or something like that. Its what the rest of my family likes. So that means I'm going to have to go there by myself and buy my own pie. But I've been working all the time, and my evenings have been full of soccer, which are luckily ending next week.

As you can tell, I'm a bit obsessive about this pie. As you would be if you've tried it. I also bought three packages of Hot and Spicy Cheez-Its yesterday, which makes me very happy. And they're the big boxes, not the little ones that I can go through in like two hours. And I have a pack of Mt. Dew. In other words, I'm in bliss right now.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I have peanut butter cups also.

So, what has been going on in my life other than food? Well, I've started working, which is both lame and good. Its lame because I have to wake up before 7:30, but its good because I'm getting paid. I've worked every day this week, which sort of surprises me, because I had expected more of a part time thing seeing that I've been hearing how many subs there are. But I guess that most of them are also working for the other districts around town, so that stretches the numbers a bit thinner.

Also, my website is getting close to completion. I've figured out most of the content, now I just have to write the code for it. And see if what I want to do is possible/easy enough for me to do. Which it probably isn't.

As for philosophical thoughts recnely, I think I've had some, but I've forgotten them. Maybe I'll remember it later, but probably not. I'm sure you're crushed.

Let's be serious....

Are you kidding me? I heard about this on the radio and was disturbed. For dogs who need to stay connected. I mean, come on.

In other news, my new program for corrupting the youth has officially started. I subed for half a day yesterday. Mwahaha. And soccer is finally winding down, since the regular season ended yesterday. That means that my weekends will finally start opening up, which means travel time, hopefully. And to start that off, I'll be up North visiting Rob next weekend if all goes well.

Stupid....

Stupid sickness, stupid orientation meetings, and stupid lack of quick easy food for dinner. Okay, I'm done complaining now. In better news, after missing a week due to the stupid State of the Union address, Alias was back on last night. Hurray. And that's it.

Post-Superbowl

Okay, I'll admit it. I slept through most of the Superbowl. Its just that the NFL doesn't interest me all that much. See, I'd had to get up early the past couple days, and then had to go to my brother's Eagle Court of Honor, so I was tired. Oh well.

After my nap, I went over the Burzlaff house for the end of the game and some good dinner. We watched the Simpsons episode that was on after the Superbowl and then Chris headed back to LA.

I haven't been doing too much lately, although I have been helping my mom's students with Science Fair and other stuff. She's an ESL teacher, so her students don't know how to write English all that well. I've also been very busy refing soccer, which never fails to remind me that there are a lot of stupid people out there. Friday I went to watch BHS play Liberty so I could actually enjoy the game. And it was very interesting to be on that side of the game. Its been a very long time since I've just watched soccer without playing or refing. But some people are just stupid. Fans will always yell for a foul, sometimes so loud that they can't hear when the ref does call it. The problem is that it takes far less time for a person to open their mouth and yell then for the ref to bring the whistle up to their mouth. Stupid fans.

And BHS fans are some of the best around, because Leslie won't let them get out of hand. But Liberty fans are horrible. You'd think that Mika would have them under control since she went to BHS and knows how fans should behave.

In other news, I'm meeting Rach in a little bit to work on my story. She has a novel and I have a story. But I'm not sure how much work I'll be getting done, since my goal is to steal what she's done so far so I can read it. Mwahaha. But don't tell her.

I've been working on my other site, so hopefully it'll be up soon, although that might be delayed depending on when I can get a copy of photoshop.

Universals

So yesterday during one of my games I was thinking about universals. And I was thinking, if they do exist (which I think they do), what they exist as. I mean, it'd have to be something like probabilities, but how can something like a universal exist as a probability that something in its subset will do something. I haven't quite figured out what I was thinking about last night, since all three games were boys, and they're too fast for me to be able to think while running.

Anyways, another reason I was thinking about this is that a couple weeks ago I was eating with my family and we somehow got to talking about Title IX and differences between men and women. So I had to think that if there are some sort of intrinisic differences between men and women, they would have to express themselves in probabilities, but how can you say that something is universal if its a probility. Anyways, that's it for my incoherent rambilings today.

Links

Oh, I forgot to tell you to check out these links. They're hilarious.

Darth Tater

Patches

Cheerleaders?

That's if for now. And thanks if I got one of these links from you.

So I'm a slacker?

Okay, its been a while. I realize that I haven't posted for a long time, but the truth of the matter is, I haven't had much to post about. Whenever I have deep thoughts, I don't have time to write them down, and they are gone by the time I get to my computer. But oh well.

So, I finished the Warcraft campaigns. And I have to wonder why humans are always seen as either weak or corruptable, while elves are the uncorruptable strong ones. This must have started with Lord of the Rings, where the immortal elves are able to resist the ring and know its evil, while the world of men are mostly unable to do so.

I saw Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow a couple days ago, and I loved it. A lot of people complained that it had no plot, but that's the point. Its only supposed to have as much of a plot as it had. Its supposed to be a throwback to old movies, and is the only comic book movie lately that has actually been like a comic book. Plus the cinematography is awesome. I love the lighting and the shadows. Anyways, if you haven't seen it, you should.

Rachel has decided to finish her novel this month, and I can't decide if I want to push myself to write. I mean, its fun, but I never started so that I could finish, I just started to start. If that means anything. But perhaps I will. So be prepared for new polls to be coming out soon.

"You've Got Mail"

Okay, so I just finished watching the last half of You've Got Mail because it was on tv and I now have a tv next to my computer so I can multi-task. Anyways, all Tom Hank's character does in the entire second half of the movie is manipulate Meg Ryan's character, and the audience is supposed to think its nice and romantic and all that? I'm sorry, but if somebody manipulated me like that, I think I'd be a little angry.

And now I've found Mission Impossible (the first one) in order to take my mind off the romantic comedy that I just saw. In all honesty, though, You've Got Mail is one of the better romantic comedies out there, but that's not saying much. Anyways, today was my mom's brithday, so we got to go out to dinner at Applebee's. Since Robby wasn't home - nobody knew where he had gone - I had hoped that we could manage to leave Robby out of it, but my mom had to call him and tell him where we were. So we had a nice family dinner with all of us there.

Anyways, after we left, Robby decided it would be fun to take my dad's car without telling or asking anybody. Well, Billy and I got to go on a search to find the Expedition, and take it home without telling Robby. So we'll see if Robby calls the police and reports it stolen, or if he calls home and tells my parents what's happened.

And you might ask why I don't talk about something other than tv or my family, but really, there's not much besides that going on in my life right now. Except that I corrupted a group of third and fourth graders at church last night. Actually, I got to corrupt the entire group of K - 6th in the beginning, but then after games, I had a smaller group.

And now I'm watching I Love the 90's Part Duex. Year 1996. If you haven't watched this show, you must. So far they've talked about Steve Irwin, Romeo and Juliet, and now Ceaser haircuts. Apparently those are the haircuts where its just really short and your comb it forward?

So, I've compiled a list of the top five things to do when you're sitting at home completely bored.

5. Sleep - just ask Amanda, this is a good way to spend your time. Not that she's sleeping because she's bored, though.

4. Surf the internet for hours - always a favorite.

3. Watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer - two episodes on FX a day in order.

2. Learned stuff - reading, writing, and latin.

1. Warcraft - working on the undead campaign right now.

Bored, or maybe boring

If you wonder why this isn't being updated all that often, its because nothing is going on in my life right now. Its completely boring, which is why I'm completely bored. I now have a tv in my room. Granted, its really small, but its still in my room and right next to my computer. So now I don't even have to get out of my chair if I want to watch a show. Of course, there's only like three per week that I really want to watch, but still. When those come on, I won't have to leave my room.

I'm missing the snow, which isn't helped by the fact that Calvin and Hobbes lately has had snow comics, although they are entertaining. Here's one I found recently.



I wish I had grown up in the snow. Somehow I can imagine that I would have done some of the same things Calvin does. But alas, I got a late start on wintertime fun. Oh, and sorry the comic is so small. The bigger one was getting covered up by the menus on the right, and I haven't found all the tricks of this site yet.