But I find the subject of this piece of spam immensely entertaining:

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

I know it means in a sexual way, but I just keep having images of malevolent spambots trying to incite violence. That, and flaming wives.

I have not written in forever. Hopefully this will get fixed soon. Seeing that I’m out of school. However, I’m also working 80 hours this week. So we’ll see. In any case, here’s an entry.

One of the majors that my school offers, and the first that I seriously considered (although not anymore) is Folklore and Mythology. This is pretty cool on its own, and also because as far as I know, it’s the only university that offers it. However, despite the fact that it would be a pretty awesome major, I think their world-view and mine would really conflict. This is from the introduction to a book on vampires I got out of the library:

“Not only is the vampire a creature which in the past was considered a genuine phenomenon, it is also a universal presence. The implication of the development of this myth in different parts of the globe, in so many unconnected cultures, and its ancient origins, is the fears that it arouses are deep-rooted in the human psyche.”

The emphasis is mine. So the fat that vampires show up everywhere and everywhen is because it’s a deep-seated fear? That’s what F&M people think I guess.

But I’d like to apply a little bit of an Occam’s Razor here (I think I’m using that correctly…)… Isn’t the easiest answer not that it’s a fear, but that something resembling a vampire actually exists? That’s what I’d like to think, and I think it’s simpler than analysing the collective fears of the world…

Sigh.

(The quotation is from “Legends of Blood: The Vampire in History and Myth” by Wayne Bartlett and Flavia Idriceanu.)

(Also, I’ve flipped through a bunch of these books, and every single one published in the past 10 years mentions either Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Van Helsing, or both. Mostly both.

This was easily the best superhero movie (that I’ve seen, at least) in the past 15 years, and probably more. And this is primarily for two reasons, ones that I would never really think to associate with a comic book movie (and perhaps that’s the problem?): Robert Downey, Jr., and brilliant writing. First off, this movie is absolutely hilarious. And not in an Underworld sort of way. The dialogue is witty, quick, and, well, just great. Even less funny moments are still very well-scripted—the double-entendre “I know what you’re going through,” delivered by Obadiah Stane when Pepper Potts is looking through his secret computer files springs to mind. Tony Stark’s superintelligent asshole character is wonderful to watch, especially his relationship and continual banter with his secretary, Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow, who is also great, and who I had no idea was in this movie). A lot of his character is the writing, but perhaps even more of it is Robert Downey, Jr. He plays the character with just the right mix of snobbery, humor, and sort of actual feelings. Somehow he manages to be sympathetic even when he is not so himself to anyone else.

Jeff Bridges is also kind of hilarious and over the top as Obadiah Stane, the exec-turned-evil, with a bald head and a beard. Incidentally, I just watched Tron the other night, and I prefer his character in this movie… The other stars of this movie are really the background details. There are so many little things that just make it really entertaining and cool to watch. All of the future tech is wonderfully conceived—the suit is great looking, but that’s not all. In the background, whenever anyone is talking to a computer or on the phone, a screen writes up what they’re saying. Or there are just displays in the back of Stark’s lab that are showing strange but wonderful cross-sections of the suit and the technology. Or the heads-up display of the suit is really cool looking. They apparently hired a futurist to help them with these designs, and it was a good choice on their part. Also technical details that some filmmakers might miss. Like the vapor cloud that forms around Iron Man’s body for a fraction of a second as he passes the sound barrier. Or any number of other things.

The only real flaw in this movie comes in the lsat thrid, when it turns from being something very different (but still a kind of hero movie) to being a classic big brawl with evil enemy superhero pic. This is much less interesting, primarily because it’s less funny, but it’s still done very well for what it is. I’m thinking here of the big battle in Spider-man 3 which was incredibly boring to watch. This is animated (yes, I have to use that verb) wonderfully, and is pretty exciting and entertaining.

So see this movie. Please.

And stay until the end of the credits.

I’m on par with the Boston Phoenix. Er, sorta.

but this is really just to test something out…

I really like chickens. And roosters. Chickens and roosters are so cool. Also eggs. Man I love fried chicken. I would love to live on a farm and fry a chicken every day.

In real life, I saw a duck with many many ducklings in a line behind it crossing the road today. Cool stuff.

I want one of these two cats.

Chaucer

Pepe

This afternoon I heard something that I had not heard in at least a year—a busy signal. It was less the fact that heard it that surprised me, and more the fact that I had not noticed that it was missing from my life. (Not that that’s a bad thing, of course.) I figured out that the only way I could have heard that was if there was no one home at the number I was calling, and the answering machine must have already been taking someone’s call. (Or that there were two calls already going through, but I called again afterwards and got the message, so I assume that’s not true.)

So then I got to thinking about why I hadn’t heard a busy signal in so long. I realised it’s because everyone has cell phones now, and even if they don’t, most people have call waiting. So you either get a person or voicemail, and you never don’t get either. It’s weird how quickly we’ve gotten used to this instant connectivity. That’s technology, I suppose. This is also presumably why no one really knows each others’ numbers anymore; they put it into their phone once and never have to dial it again. I used to know all of my friends by heart, and now I can hardly say the area code of any of my friends at school. I still know the numbers I learned before my cell phone, though; maybe it’s tactile memory.

I was watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 the other week, and they were making fun of a short film called “Century 21 Calling,” about Bell (I think?) Labs’ presentation at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. This was off-and-on hilarious (it kind of dragged for being a short), but it was interesting to see what they saw as the future of the telephone. All the modern features—call waiting, speed dial, and so on— were actually there, but they were activated either by people or by punchcards inserted into the phone. Weird stuff. But it all happened (with some advances in user interface, of course).

Finally, two things that annoy me about phones.

1) In movies, when someone is making a phone call, and the person on the other line suddenly hangs up (usually because they’re angry, kidnapped, or killed), it makes the dial tone noise. THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN!!!!! When the other person hangs up, there is a click and then silence. No dial tone, nothing. After about thirty seconds the little noise comes on saying that you should hang up, but no dial tone. There has been one movie I have seen EVER that has done this right. Awkwardly, I can’t remember what it was, except that it was a very mediocre movie otherwise, but that little fact made me like it a lot more. And the dial tone appears in far too many movies to just be an accident. Maybe the dial tone is more dramatic? I don’t know.

2) When you dial a number outside your local area code, but you forget to add the 1 in front of the number, the phone tells you. If it knows that you need the one, then it knows where you’re trying to call. Therefore it should just connect you there. Seriously. I’m sure there’s some technical reason for this, but it annoys me to no end. Cell phones do it automatically, so should land lines.

Those are my two cents about the telephone industry. What does a payphone cost nowadays? It used to be 35¢… Well, if it still is, which I doubt, those are my 35¢ about the telephone industry.

(Also, incidentally, you can always tell where a person is from by whether they say mobile or cell phone. If it’s the former, it’s most likely the UK.)

Well, this is going to be a little bit of a reveal into the inner workings of the blog. Sort of. One of the wonderful things that WordPress does is show you how many people are visiting your site, from where, and what they’re looking at. Imagine my surprise when I discover that I seem to be one of the only sources on a livejournal phenomenon called salmoning. In the past day i was discovered as this, and my readership has soared—of that one particular article…

I happen to glance at my stats at 2:38 this morning and am amazed to see:

But it gets better!

2:32 PM:

6:33 PM:

And finally, just now, at 11:43:

Still going strong, even after almost 24 hours. This is mainly from two livejournal communities. The first day’s worth of hits is from the community for victims of salmoning, that I linked to in the earlier article, and the second is from community where people ask questions. Someone asked “Who has been salmoned?” with a link to me. I guess I’m now the go-to blog when it comes to telling people what salmoning is. Pretty cool. I’m proud of myself.

Anyway, back to my insanely busy schedule (I’m in a play and finishing up the semester, which is why I have hardly updated at all recently). When I have to study for finals, I’ll certainly write more…

If you press option-delete in Word it deletes the whole last word that you wrote. This seems useful. How did I not know this before?

I just added a new link to my blogroll over to the right there; it’s a blog called Gossip Geek, which is a fun semi-tongue-in-cheek look at people at Harvard. Really entertaining, both from a gossipy standpoint, as well as a more meta view.

I’ll post more as time allows, by the way; I’ve been really busy lately with a lot of rehearsals. I’m in a musical called Jekyll and Hyde, which has been made most famous by the questionable casting in the Broadway cast. Who, you might ask? Well, David Hasselhoff. As Jekyll and Hyde. Here’s a video. Hilarious.

Now, in this show, the music is really good. That is, the melodies. The lyrics, however, are miserable. There’s a song all about façades and hiding behind them, for example, which includes the line “the houses ’round here are all flashy and swank and the front bit is what’s called a façade.” I did not come to a theatre for an architecture lesson… Also the line “it’s like when hope dies.” It’s no “Cry Me A River.”