Brian's World

Thanksgivings

I’m back at RPI after Thankgiving break.  It always feels short, but it was just about the right length.  Any longer and it would have been cramping in on Christmas break, and any shorter would have made for just a long weekend.  Of course I got very little of my todo list accomplished, as expected.  I was really hoping for a homework day or a dedicated time I could accomplish some of this stuff, but that was simply not allowed.  Others had too much they wanted to do, and I had too little time to do it in.  This is how most breaks go.

As a result, I’ll be terribly busy for the next 5 days with all the work I planned to do over break to get ahead.  I think I’ve completed all the work due tomorrow, but I’m not 100% sure of that… there is the MatSci lab that I have no clue on its due date.  Everyday I have at least one assignment due, which would be cool if I was ahead by a day or two.. but I’m not.  My daily schedule doesn’t look like it will permit me to get ahead either.

Right now I smell Chinese food and I am hungry for it.  Its rare I smell food and want it, and even rarer that the food is Chinese.  I don’t like most of the food specific to asian countries, but I’ll eat white rice, the chinese-food version of chicken fingers, and the beef in broccoli/vegetables combo.  Soy sauce all around.  I do not like fortune cookies.  The concept that a cookie can tell me anything about my life is just about as logical as saying that the patterns wind blows grass can predict the future.  If by future you mean the direction of a shadow from a cloud then yes, anything else.. I am slightly more skeptical.

Facebook has been frustrating me.  My account has issues where it constantly gets logged out.  I login, surf around then WHAM, “You need to login before you can do that”.  Now I just quit the site, which is exactly what their business model wants me to do I think.  I would throw blame in the server replication realm, but thats just me.  Stupid facebook login.  Please fix soon, or loose me to Orkut or something… because thats where the cool kids definately are.

I had an opportunity to view Twilight recently.  It was surprisingly good.  I thought it was going to be Juno with fangs or something like that, but it was refreshingly not bad.  I wouldn’t say I swoon at the sound of a romantic movie about a family of vampires and a female (turns out its not a female vampire like I originally thought), but having a vampire meant that things couldn’t be terribly boring.  I did not read the books or hear much of anything about the movie, except that I was going to it, so I went in with a pretty open mind.. similiar to my viewing of Rent (the movie).  I didn’t know much about both movies, and if I had know the plot before hand I probably wouldn’t have liked them very much.. but they both turned out pretty decent.  Speaking of Rent, I could definately see Twilight the musical hitting broadway in a few years.  I think I enjoyed a few things about the film.  A) It wasn’t about the popular kids.  No one was the star of the basketball team, nor the most popular kid in school.  Actually, it was about social outcasts.  B)  I cannot recall mention of Dracula, or many of the common elements that are associated with vampires that are often overused in films with vampires.  (i.e people getting attacked, people hunting vampires, bats, coffings, zombies, etc) C) The main male character didn’t talk much, and when he did, it was thought out first.  Whether this is how real life works or not, I do not like it when the whole movie is talk talk talk talk talk, blah blah blah blah blah… everyone is saying all these words because they have nothing else to hold the movie together.  Overall a good movie, would see again/see the sequel(s) when/if the come out.

Quantum of Solace on the other hand was certainly not a 007 movie.  It was more like a 003.5 movie, or James Bond Lite.  I recall 0 cool new inventions, 0 plot, and minimal action sequences.  I think the most action packed parts were James Bond on the move.  That would be James Bond in the car, James Bond flying the plane, James Bond walking on the edge of the building, and James Bond in the taxi.  If this was Grand Theft Auto or the Travel Channel the plot might have made sense.  I thought the entire movie’s “plot” was actually just a warm up to the actual movie.  Quick mission, James Bond kills the eco-terrorist, on to the Russians or some real threat.  Maybe they needed a few dollars to get them though this economic downturn..I don’t know.  I expect the next 007 movie to be decent.

Mistaken, I consumed the chocolate for the 1st of Decemeber on my Advent Calendar.  I think I’ll take a Reese Peanut Butter cup to it for me to enjoy tomorrow, when it is actually the first of Decemeber.  I’m tired, off to bed for now.

Good Night Moon.