The sum is greater than the parts

This being the last post in January that I will make, I need to basically say everything I didn't earlier in the month. So, this will be a long post.

Speaking of, here's a rundown of how the posts this year have gone. Not that it's interesting to anyone but me, but here's how it broke down:
1/2 - 304
1/4 - 224
1/6 - 404
1/8 - 147
1/10 - 198
1/12 - 430
1/14 - 104
1/16 - 198
1/18 - 93
1/20 - 36
1/22 - 163
1/24 - 282
1/26 - 74
1/28 - 218

A whopping 2875 words in the first 28 days of this year. That's ...not... good. Also of note - the post on the 12th ("Dear Skynet") was the longest entry (not including this one, obviously) and it ended up being the post that got the most traffic directed to my blog. (Thanks to Annika linking to it.) But, still. Most words. Most viewers. Coincidence?

I think the lesson to be learned is that I need to make longer entries.
Or more letters to homicidal machines. Maybe both!

Let's see, what else? Regarding the NBC-Universal party from the other night? No Deal. I stayed home and worked on removing tar-based adhesive from the floor in the living room. I'm pretty sure that that was more fun anyway.

On the bus ride in to work today, someone had a seizure, and an ambulance had to be called. I'm relatively certain that the person who had it (I never got a look at the individual) was okay, but, man. Stuff like that always freaks me out. And (selfishly?) makes me thankful for my (and the girls') relative health.

I met a Creationist! In fact, he's someone that I work with. Weird. I mean, you hear about these people, but it's sorta strange when you actually encounter one face to face. I've also found that (at least) two of the people at the station are Jehovah's Witnesses. Our station is a mixing bowl of religious beliefs!!

Speaking of, here's the latest Church Sign Wisdom:

GOD GUIDES AND
GUARDS ONLY WHAT
GOD GOVERNS

and

GOD ALONE CAN
MASTER THOSE THINGS
WHICH MASTER YOU

Okay, then.

And...movies.
As I've previously stated, I'm keeping track of all the films I watch this year (not sure why, other than for sake of my strained memory). And I was thinking that each month, I would recap those movies. So.

Harry Potter & the 5th movie - Likable, but it's weird how the fervor over Potter-related stuff has died down since the series is complete. I wonder if when the whole thing is done-done (all 7 movies are out) if we'll really want to revisit any of them. [shrug] Time will tell, I guess.

Happy, Texas - watched for work, and was pleasantly surprised.

Avenging Angelo - watched for work, and wish I hadn't. Oh, man. That was a horrible horrible movie. I think it was supposed to be a comedy, but it was sorely lacking. Rambo (aka Sylvester Stallone) plays a mafia guy's bodyguard. The mafia guy has a daughter who he gave up when she was a baby, but Rambo keeps an eye on her. After Mafia Guy gets whacked, he goes to her and tells her the truth about her heritage.
Eventually a "romance" buds between them, along with some seriously painful dialogue and "jokes". This is one movie to absolutely miss.

Stardust - I didn't think I'd like this movie, but I did. It's very similar to The Princess Bride, in spirit, if nothing else. If you like magical type of movies and anything fairytalish, I recommend it.

What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire - This is the only movie (so far) on the side bar that doesn't link to imdb. Because there isn't an imdb link for that movie! I can't believe it! Anyway. The movie is a
documentary that is sort of Daniel Quinn's Ishmael put on film (in fact, Daniel Quinn is interviewed in it). It was very well done, but I think I need to review it to really clarify in my mind what I thought about it. Parts of it bugged (some of the interviewees/comments, especially in the beginning, were ...shock-value inducing? Not sure if that's the phrase I want, but for lack of a better term, it's what I'm going with), most of it was stuff that has been covered previously (not that that's a bad thing, necessarily), and overall I felt that while it was definitely on the right track, that it most likely won't end up having any impact.
But like I said, I need to reevaluate. Both the movie and my feelings on civilization and whatnot.

Glass Trap - watched for work, and it's horrifically bad. But it knows it. C. Thomas Howell (that's probably enough to say right there) plays a janitor of a high rise building that becomes infested with giant
radioactive ants. Oh, but these ants are *extremely* fake looking. This is a movie that is ripe for an MST3K type of treatment. You know, if that show were still on the air.

Antibody - watched for work. Another bad sci-fi flick. Lance Henriksen is in this, though! He's a bomb-defuser who gets shrunk down to microscopic size, along with Robin Givens (!!) and two other "scientists" and injected into the body of a terrorist who has the detonator of a nuclear bomb implanted somewhere inside him. (Oh, and if he dies, the bomb goes boom.)
It's like Fantastic Voyage meets.... um. Speed, maybe? Only not nearly anywhere as good as it could be if given a decent script. But still, Lance!

The Simpsons Movie - Two words for you: Spider. Pig.

Spider-Man 3 - more like Spider Meh 3, amirite? (Yes. I am.)

Pirates 3 - It probably would've helped if I had (re)watched 1 & 2 beforehand, since I really didn't remember it all. But, then, in the week or so since I've watched 3, I've forgotten most of that, too, so,
no big. Pirates was a big, overlong popcorn flick. And that's exactly what I was expecting of it. Yo ho. Yo ho.

Cloverfield - Yay! Monster-filled destruction!
I have to say that I enjoyed Cloverfield, despite the problems that it had. I'm also quite happy that I got to see it in the theater (for free!) so that I didn't have to wait for Netflix. (By the time that happened, they'd probably already have the sequel going)
And now comes the time when I start spoiling the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
The monster was Squidward!! This was shown when the people in the store looting had the televisions on, 8 out of 9 of them showing CNN or Fox News or some other sort of reportage, but the 9th one was broadcasting an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. Hee.

I kept waiting for there to be some sort of 'twist' wherein Rob had some sort of connection to the monster. The fact that he was going to Japan, which is forever linked with Godzilla, plus, being (over)exposed to such things from countless tv shows and movies (Drew Goddard and JJ Abrams are both notorious for twists) meant that I spent a lot of the movie waiting for some reveal to be shown that Rob's company, or Rob himself, had some sort of monster-connection. Maybe they were waiting for the sequel. [shrug] (Or maybe, as I read on one imdb post, the whole movie
was actually a delusion in Rob's mind... heh.)

I also found that the movie had a surprising amount of humor in it. Although, perhaps it was just that because it was so intense, things that were 'funny' seemed magnified and were more amusing than they should've been. Ya know? But, yeah, Hud had some good lines. (And I was honestly upset to see him go. And, geez, what a way to go, huh? Chomp!!)

What was interesting, though, was how the ending of this movie was nearly identical to the ending of ...another movie. I don't want to say the name of it because if you've seen the ending to one of these films, it will (slightly) ruin the ending of the other, and I enjoyed both.
I'll say that I have mentioned the other movie on my blog before, and that it had a young Anthony Edwards in it, and that it came out in 1988.
If you've seen both of these movies, you know what I'm talking about.
But, anyway. Cloverfield was pretty fun, despite not giving any answers, and having the problem of many many plot conveinces. (Military folks helping out when they most likely wouldn't have, monster(s) showing up in a city that is very very big, surviving helicopter crashes, etc)
So, if they *do* make a sequel, I'll more than likely check that out too.

Hairspray - Another movie that I didn't think I'd enjoy, but did. It was nothing groundbreaking or that hadn't been done before, and it had maybe one or two songs too many, but overall a lot of fun.

Whew! That was lengthy!

Dude!! Lost returns tomorrow!

I think that's about the end of this post. Oh! But one last thing must be said: I'm glad that this month is almost over. It feels like it's been January all year long. [/said every year]

I'm learning!
Since I know that I won't have a real chance to write tonight, I'm writing in the early morning instead, to get it otu of the way. It's still not interesting, but at least I can't use the excuse of not having time for the lack of compelling narrative.

Tonight there is a cocktails/drinks/schmoozing party for NBC-Universal and our station. Howie Mandel is going to be there. See, our station picked up the syndicated version of Deal or No Deal for fall of this year (Howie will be the host of the syndicated show as well as continuing to do the national version), and to celebrate, we're having a party. I was invited! Yay!
Except that I really do suffer from social retardation, and am terrified of saying something dumb (which is funny, because I probably won't say anything, period) or of doing something wrong (possible, i guess), or of just not fitting in (bingo!).
Also, there's a bunch of stress in the household right now, and we're incredibly low on money and gas and it might be best if I didn't go.
One of those 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' type of sitches.
I don't know what will end up happening, honestly.
But at least I've blogged for the day.

6:21am 1/28/08

1/26/08 9:47pm

Day whatever of having no internet. How are we surviving?!? It's like we're animals!!!
We will have a new modem on Tuesday, and hopefullly that will remedy the problem.

As is customary for this month, I have again waited until I'm much too tried to write anything of major interest. Luckily there are only a few days remaining in January, so when February rolls around, I suspect that things will be different.

Who knows when this will actually be posted, but for whatever it's worth, I am not failing the 'blog every other day' challenge I imposed on myself. Well, I mean, I am. Or did. (Ugh. Time travel) But it wasn't my fault. It was due to the lack of internet access on the 24th (and beyond?) that this message that I am now typing (on the 24th) was not posted on my weblog.

If I could have, I totally would have. Of course, it would have been a very different blog post, but what is, is.

Here's an ironic thing - even on the day that I am blogging by not blogging, I waited until I was too tired to really do it. Some things never change, huh?

So, I'm writing this out on WordPad, in hopes that whenever our internet connection is reestablished, that I will copy it over into my blog and post-date it to reflect the time that it was written, rather than when it was posted.
And, it's a little bit after 9pm, which is generally when I start to feel tired, and, of course, I am. Eh.

Let's see. What to tlak about? I saw Cloverfield yesterday, but I'm going to save movie talk for month's end. (I think that I'll have a movie-seen-this-month entry each month, along with keeping track on the sidebar with links to the imdb entry)
I do have a lot to say about it, though. (How interesting it is remains to be seen.)

I guess that this will be my entry. Because my brain isn't really functioning on a high enough level to compose anything further that is... you know, logical. 9:19pm, on 1/24/08

Instead, it's this.

This post was going to be the writing meme that Annika posted a few days back.

It was also going to be about how in a galaxy far, far away, scientists have discovered the building blocks of life.

And it was going to be about Werner Franz, who was a 14 year old aboard the Hindenburg when it went up in flames. He was spared because a nearby water tank burst, covering him in ...well, water, which protected him from the flames. Freaky.

It was also going to be about politics and apathy. (Eventually, maybe)

It could also have been about fate, free will, etc. (again, eventually. ....maybe)

I thought about having it be about how it seems EVERY SINGLE TIME I go to blog lately, I'm exhausted and not in the mood, despite (sometimes) earlier in the day having energy and enthusiasm.

But who wants to read any of that, when you can have what I just wrote instead?

Mmm. Distraction.

I was going to blog a huge post about fate and destiny and free will, but, um, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is about to begin, so, that will have to wait.

Barren January

Bah!!!

I have been trying (in vain) to come up with something to blog about for the past hour or so. Everything seems so mundane or too complex to really delve into. Caucuses, the weather, lack of money, work, politics in general, blahblahblah, whatever. It's all just ...there, ya know?

I do have a post that I will write up ...when it's supposed to happen. (heh) I think it may be this Sunday. We'll see.

I even asked Irina what I should blog about. Her answer was, "Bleeda, blonda, nooo!!" Exactly.

Same old story

Earlier today (on the bus ride home) I had at least 8 different (but similar - each one seemed to build off the next) ideas for a story.
That's the good news - I'm feeling creative again (or was at the time).

The bad news - I'm still blocking when it comes to actually writing any of it. You know, just like always. So bored of it!

Part of the blockage comes from not being able to choose which story-line to take. I like them all!
Mostly, though, the only thing standing in my way is myself. I should jsut take the plunge and write. Pick a story idea and start going. Lord knows that the narrative will change along the way anyway.
But I still need clearly defined characters. That's one of my weaknesses as a writer - I focus much more on plot (or 'idea' [heh. originally typed 'ikea']) than on character development.

I was going to have this post be about writing weaknesses (as a sort of counter-point meme from several months back where the goal was to describe 5 writing strengths) but I'm much too tired to do that right now. Maybe in 2 days.

19,806,672,525 lbs.

That is (approximately) the amount of weight attributed to brains on the planet.
Human brains alone, actually. By taking 3 pounds and multiplying it by the human population of 6.6 plus billion people, you get over 19 billion pounds of grey matter on the earth.

That doesn't even consider the amount of brains in cats, dogs, humpback whales, monkeys, horses, polar bears, and so on.

19 billion pounds of human brain. Wow.

The number of synapses worldwide must be immeasurable. It's an amazing amount of thought, really.

That, and it will keep zombies well-fed for a very very long time to come.

Dear Skynet

Hi.
I know that you are a lot smarter than I am, what with you being a supercomputer with access to all sorts of files on human defense systems and (apparently) the knowledge of how to accomplish time travel (when us puny homo sapiens have so far failed at doing that), but I have some advice to offer you nonetheless.

If you want to achieve your goal of wiping humanity off the planet, let me tell you - time travel ain't the easiest way to do it.
Nuclear war was a good start. I think, though, that if you would've looked a little deeper in your files, you would've found that there are a multitude of more lethal choices for you. A killer virus would've worked wonders, for example. Release some of those superbugs that the government has locked up, and voila! Instant extermination! In fact, you could even send a virus back in time, since only organic material can time-travel. Instead of a terminator, send back some disease that we don't have a cure for because it doesn't exist yet.

But, I understand that the T-800 you sent back to kill Sarah Connor was an act of desperation, and that you didn't have a lot of time to plot out the whole 'go back and stop my enemy from being born' plan.
So here's a little idea. Since you don't have (m)any files on Sarah Connor (which is a little strange, but see, that's another reason to avoid the whole nuclear war scenario), send back the Terminator to do reconnaissance. Let the machine find her - but don't kill her. Just collect files and data and information. That way, you can determine exactly where she's going to be at such and such dates, and when you send the next machine to kill her, it will be much more thorough.

Another thing to consider is that humanity might not be the threat that you think we are. Let's face it, we humans like our machines, and we aren't going to willingly unplug them. If you try to work with us, rather than against us, you might find that things go a lot smoother for you. We're much happier killing each other than killing our technology. Just a thought.

Whatever you decide - human extermination, nuclear war, time-traveling viruses or something new altogether, just remember that all actions have consequences, and whether you succeed or fail in your goal to remove our species that you have to live with those consequences.


...unless you go back in time and change them.

Ooh!

I just had a pretty brilliant idea!
See, I've been sitting in front of the computer for the past...18 minutes, trying to think of something to blog about. Several different ideas have come to mind, but the inner critic in me each time said, "Nah. Too boring." or "Nah. Too boring." or "Nah. Too boring." or "Nah. Too repetitive."

I also had the idea to blog all of them, just in one post. Which is an okay idea, but I think instead, I'll go with my brilliant one:

Write down the ideas (and any other future ones I may have) on slips of paper and place them in a hat (or, you know, whatever), and then randomly pull one out every other day when I need to blog.
[yes, as you've probably all figured out, in 2008 I am going to blog every other day rather than on a daily basis. Half as difficult!]

But having the ideas pre-written down, and then there if/when (who am I kidding - it is just "when") I need them will be a massive help. Cool!
Not only was this idea really nifty, it also managed to cover today's entry. Bonus!

No Habla Ingles

Work-related tale of incompetence for your enjoyment!


Today it was discovered that since January 3rd of 2008, we have run a commercial (for a payday loan company, just so ya know) 18 times. The problem is that the commercial which ran was the Spanish-language version.

That means that 18 times the wrong language spot (complete with Spanish text on the screen, so it wasn't just audio) aired and not a single master control operator (whose job it is to monitor on-air product) noticed.
But it was even more times than that, because the operator should have noticed the error when they dubbed it into the server to begin with. So there were actually at the very least 19 times to catch this error.

My idea (which was not met with much joy) was that the client just pay the 2700 dollar bill in pesos.

Title goes here

I'm pretty sure that I've used that title before. Or Steph has, maybe. Anyway, I'm using it (again?) for a generic title-place holder because I don't have a cohesive theme for this entry.

Our mouse has completely died. (I would link to the post that I talked about it the last time, but...you know, dead mouse and all makes doing such activities more of a pain-in-the-ass than they are worth) So, to get here, I had to open a new tab (ctrl-t), log Steph out of gmail (she had her email open in another account when I got online), log myself in, then open a new tab and get to blogger.
Now, if I could only remember how to close tabs without the mouse...

Since the mouse died, Steph suggested burying it in the Pet Semetary, but we know how badly that type of thing ends up. Heh. Revengeful computer mice... There's an idea in there somewhere.

Soon we (or maybe just me...or maybe just Steph) will be going to purchase a new mouse. Again. We bought one from Target a few days back, only to get it home and discover that the ISB (or USB? so many letters!) plug was circular on the mouse, and rectangular on the computer. Le sigh. If we had the package and the receipt still intact, I'd be more than happy to return it to Target. Alas, we don't, so in actuality, we have two worthless mice in the house. Huh.

Yesterday we went to the Galleria Mall to meet up with my sister and her family (to pick up Saren's sweater that she had accidentally left at her house last weekend). While we were there eating in the food court, I could see a restaurant across the way. There was a column blocking the entire neon sign of the eatery, so all I could see was SALAD CREAT [big column] S
Obviously, this place was called "Salad Creatures", and I announced it thusly. It was very shortly after that that I realized that it was more than likely actually, "Salad Creations", and that my conclusion-jumping skills were on par with Chester (from the Bunnicula series). However, I never did check to find out one way or the other....

Lastly, I've added a list on the side of the blog indicating movies I've seen this year. I'm thinking I'll hit 200 by years end.

I have one word for you: "Liz-ard!"

Now we get to take a quick stroll through my thought process(es). Fun!

The above misquote is from the 1996 movie, "Thinner", which is based on the novel written by Stephen King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman. I've not actually seen this movie, but a guy at work has, and the quote is pretty amusing (I have read the novel, so I know the context, I guess.)

I chose that quote because I was thinking that my blog might be cursed - or maybe I am cursed, whatever - that anytime I go to blog, I seriously can not think of anything to write. And that made me think of how insidious a curse that would be. "Eternal writer's block upon you!"
[shudder] I mean, even for someone like myself who is not a great writer by any stretch of the imagination, that would be a horrible thing to have happen. But imagine if it were placed upon someone who was a writer. Yikes.
Of course, that made me think of how it would be fun to be able to issue such a curse. Man, all the people you could silence... No more Dean Koontz novels!
Ann Coulter would never write again! That would be fun.

Then I thought about how I should blog all this, and then I did.

2008 - the year of the headache

That would suck. A lot. But, so far, it seems to be the case. Of course, the year is only 60 some odd hours old, so, there's a while to go before we can write the whole thing off as crappy.

I think, though, that January is just not conducive to writing for me. Or, at least January of 2008. I do have the desire to write (and blog) but so far (until now, of course) each time I've gone to do any writing, it's turned out ...to not turn out.

Yesterday we watched our DVD of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which didn't seem quite as great the 2nd time around, but was still pretty good. Luna & Snape really were the highlights. And Emma Watson's delivery, especially at the beginning, was just kinda cringe-worthy. But still, glad to have it.

Today, at work, I watched Happy, Texas. The first 15-20 minutes of this was quite funny, and while the movie was enjoyable overall, it was disappointing that it felt that it had to dissolve into predictable 'romantic comedy' territory. But, on the bright side, ending with "It's Oh So Quiet" is always a good thing. I believe I rated it a 7 (out of 10) on imdb. So there ya go.

Reading wise, I'm rereading "The Long Walk" by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman), and am only 40-ish pages in. While I'm still liking it, it is sometimes obvious that this was written when he was much younger.

I'm also reading "The Celery Stalks at Midnight", by James Howe, to the girls, since we have read "Bunnicula" and "Howliday Inn" recently. I think I'm going to go read the next chapter to them now, because I'm curious myself what will happen next.