Hype
I can’t believe after the amount of talk and articles and everything about the separation of the races on Survivor, it lasted all of two episodes. What a crock.
Banned Books Week
We’re at the tail end of Banned Books Week. (Well it’s really more like Banned and Challenged Books Week evidently, cos they include books that have a challenge, but haven’t been banned yet.) Honestly though, if you look at the list of banned books, it’s kind of crazy. I mean, really, Harry Potter? Where’s Waldo?! The Lorax?! (THE LORAX?!?!) Not that I think censorship is at all ok, but it just goes to show the utter ludicrousity of it. The Notable Quotes were insightful and said what I want to say better and without making up words.
Mango Passion
Last Sunday, while we were wandering around Berkeley Bowl (note to self: Never go to Berkeley Bowl on a Sunday afternoon again. EVER! We spent like 30 minutes shopping and 45 minutes in line), Yut noticed someone with a box of Mango Passion cereal in their cart, which he figured I (or maybe even we) would like, so we picked up a box. The good news is that it’s 96% organic (the little freeze dried mango pieces aren’t organic, for one), it’s vegan, has no genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the company donates 10% to some organization called Peace Brigades, and the box is printed with vegetable based inks on 100% recycled paper, if you care about any of that. Oh and it’s yummy. Which leads to the bad news: Yut and I finished the whole box in one sitting. Yes, all 5 servings. Although seriously, who actually eats just 1.25 cups of cereal at a time?! (No need to answer in the affirmative. :P)
White & Nerdy & Hella Funny
This is actually from a few days ago, so I dunno if y’all have already seen it or what, but DOOOOOOD, I just watched it like 5 times in a row and cracked up every time. :)) (via Chris Pirillo)
It’s Weird Al‘s parody of Chamillionaire’s Ridin’ (Dirty) with cameos by Seth Green, Donny Osmond, and Judy Tenuta. I just totally typed out Chamillionaire like I am so with it or something but actually I hadn’t heard the song ’til Weird Al. Also Donny Osmond was really funny, good touch.
I did have a problem with one line: “The only question I ever thought was hard was do I like Kirk or do I like Picard,” which DUH! Picard r0x0rs! Too easy!
Completely unrelated, but speaking of nerdy and Weird Al, Jeopardy changed their podiums which the contestants stand behind. It used to be easy to tell when someone rang in cos the whole name part would be outlined in white, but now it’s like a small red bar across the top. I don’t like it! Okay that is all.
Books and Movies for August
I’m going to try and be less wordy this time. :)
Books:
Lord Darcy by Randall Garrett — liked it. And I’d recommend it to anyone.
Death and Thraxas by Martin Scott — liked it. Fun read, but I wouldn’t buy it in hardcover. Paperback, sure.
And that’s it!
Movies:
Clerks — Ok. Funny parts definitely, but I didn’t love it like lots of other people seem to.
The Contender — Ok. Lots of interesting things going on, definitely easy to watch, but I didn’t love it.
Guess Who — Ok. Lots of laugh out loud moments, but didn’t add up to a great movie. Still fun though.
War of the Worlds — Ok. I mean, seemed like a good summer flick, but overall, eh.
Bewitched — Ok. Funny moments, but the whole was LESS than the sum of its parts. This is becoming a theme here. :P
Pride & Prejudice — Great! Yay the first movie this month I really liked. It was clearly a movie version of the book done by fans. I’m sad that they didn’t find a way to work in the first line of the book though.
Calendar Girls — Fine, and with really good performances. But I dunno, didn’t love it.
The Island — Sucks. It was trying to say intelligent things but it felt like the director didn’t care about the message, only about the action. Didn’t work for me.
Anger Management — Ok. Once again, had good performances and good parts but not enough.
1000 Photos
I just realized, I’ve uploaded 1000 photos onto my flickr. 1000! And I hit it on the dot without realizing it yesterday. Somehow 1000 seems significant. Of what, I’m not sure — a lot of photos, yes; a lack of editing, possibly. Also, I lurve flickr and photographs, clearly.
Also, I almost forgot, I have class this evening. But the spammers, they KNEW! I got an email from “intolerable Higgins” with subject “Lecture after lecture, class after class and still years more to go… why bother? just buy your deegree from schools that really need your money” [sic]. :P
Survivor
So how many of y’all watched the season premiere of Survivor: Cook Islands (the one with the segregation of the races)? I hardly know what to think about it, but I gotta admit it was v. watchable, fun tv.
Wii! — Pre-planned on IM
yut: oh wii on november 19 for $249
mim: oh yes!!!
yut: we preorder as soon as it’s available
yut: unit, extra controllers, memory card, and games
yut: oh the wii comes packaged with wii sports
yut: they have golf :P
mim: hehe super excellent
mim: you tell me when I can =)
yut: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6157625.html
yut: list of the games you’d like to get in the first round
mim: I think it works better when you pick our games =)
yut: this is my yes list of day 1 released games
yut: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Wii Sports (bundled with the Wii console)
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Trauma Center: Second Opinion
Elebits
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz
Rayman Raving Rabbids
yut: here’s the maybe of day 1 and future release
yut: Battalion Wars II
Big Brain Academy (temporary name)
Super Mario Galaxy (temporary name)
WarioWare: Smooth Moves
SSX
Prince of Persia (working title)
mim: hehehe wow =)
yut: and everything else is an initial no unless reviews and stuff change our mind
mim: wait why’s it coming out on a sunday?!
yut: no idea :P
mim: that’s 2 precious precious game playing days/nights less
yut: I know!!
yut: think ps3 is 2 days before
mim: gah, what is nintendo thinking?!
mim: from nunchukunit: http://www.joystiq.com/2006/09/14/critiquing-nintendos-wii-launch-details/
mim: http://www.skepticalgaming.com/2006/09/14/wii-launch-news-wrap-up/#more-94
mim: original article
mim: dude!
yut: hehe whoa
yut: 60 bux for controllers
mim: yeah
yut: that 180 for 4 players
mim: well less cos 1 comes with
yut: yah 3 * 60
mim: oh
mim: bad math on my part again :P
Know-Nothing
We went to a pub quiz at Beckett’s last night. OMG, it was so damn hard! There were 8 rounds with 8 questions per round, which means a possible 64 points. We got 29. Yeah, less than half. But seriously the questions included stuff like “Paris Hilton got arrested for DUI last week. She claimed she’d had one drink. What was it?” (couldn’t remember), “Anibal Sanchez (the player to pitched a no-hitter recently) is from where?” (no clue here!), and “What does the German law Reinheitsgebot regulate?” (so beyond no idea!). I mean there were some gettable ones too. Stuff like “What is Frankenstein’s first name?” which we should’ve known and knew the minute the quizmaster revealed the answer, but couldn’t get at the moment. But not enough for half. Still it was fun. But it did seem more geared for trivia freaks or something. Whew craziness! I think the pub quiz at Pyramid was much nicer. We still didn’t win or anything but it wasn’t like we were turning in 3 answers per round either.
It didn’t end ’til past midnight, but after we went home we played monkey golf on Super Monkey Ball 2. Cos for some reason when we hang with misa and neb, we play old video games that I hadn’t thought of in forever, but then we play it a lot afterwards. So we didn’t even get to sleep until late. I’ve been soo sooo tired today!
Since the pub quiz was so late, we finally went to see Little Miss Sunshine like we’ve meant to forever. Which btw, we both really liked it. It was so funny I laughed out loud and so touching I teared up. We went to see it at the Landmark California Theatre which has some great popcorn with real butter. Yum! Also, there were literally no people in the theatre with us, so I really did laugh out loud. :D
We were actually planning to just hang around Berkeley after the movie and maybe grab some food or something, but after all the popcorn we ate (we got a large cos we like the popcorn at that theatre so much) we were a little sick, so we went to EB Games and got Lego Star Wars II and went home after all and were a little late meeting up for the quiz. It was fun! But we kind of suck at puzzles. We kept on getting stuck at dumb places just cos we didn’t see something, then we’d figure it out and it’d be all, “DUH!”
Also after the movie, we decided to buy a lotto ticket. I dunno, the threat of bankruptcy loomed! No seriously, we passed by some place that sold them and thought, eh, why not. The girl at the cash register asked me my age. I was kind of flabbergasted (it’s been a while since anyone’s checked) and thought to myself, “Dude, I’m way over 18!” But the only part that actually came out of my mouth was “18!” Then I corrected myself and said, “No I mean I’m well over 18 is what I meant.” She looked at me like, uh huh, and said, “I’m going to need to see some id.” Ooops. I guess I couldn’t have been any more suspicious if I’d tried.
I typed that all out in a weird order. I was under time constraints! Project Runway is on now! So I’m done.
