My brother IM'd me with the text "RAMS DID IT!!!!!" at the exact same moment as someone in the hall shouted "RAMS DID IT!!!!" Not that surprising, but the timing was superb.
Monthly Archive for January, 2000
Well, it slipped my mind. Not that I would have watched it anyway, if I'd been thinking about it. I was working all afternoon. I had no clue who was playing until something like halfway through the game, when I overheard someone talking in the hall.
Now, while it's true that the game is over and I already know who won... I would have rooted for the Rams, because that's my birth sign. I work on such simple principals... At any rate, I've wasted enough time on that thing which wasted everybody elses time today. On to more pressing issues.
School has been going pretty good this semester so far... Two weeks down, thirteen and finals to go. Of course, I haven't gotten anything graded yet, and I'm still not officially enrolled in Asian Studies... But other then that, things aren't bad. My classes just require a lot of reading. No big deal, other than I can't even think about reading something for myself... I have no time.
Work continues. I didn't get the second ResComp job I applied for because the job suddenly became non-existant due to some interesting reorganizations that happened. So that brings us up to spring hiring for the 2000-2001 school year. I'll probably apply for TC and SysAd, though that doesn't mean I'll get them or anything. Here's to hoping.
First thing is that the Final Fantasy site I was considering making probably won't happen right now... The first reason is school is sucking my life away, and I have other projects I'm working on... And the second reason is another FF site appears to be doing something similiar to my idea. So I'll let them do it, and I'll find something else to do.
The second thing is in the back of my mind I'm toying with the idea of setting up a web site to track West Alumni. If it happens, you'll know about it. If it doesn't, you'll forget about it. That's how it goes. If you have suggestions, let me hear them!
And the most important thing to readers of this site, I think, is that this site is going to be undergoing HEAVY reconstruction in the near future. (The funny thing is, it'll look mostly the same when I'm finished... It'll just be much cooler on the back end, making my life even simpler.)
So the thing is, I discovered this thing called PHP, which is just about as slick as snot, and does all kinds of fancy things. So I'm reimplementing everything using PHP, which serves several purposes: First, it gives me a great big new bullet to put on my resume. Second, it allows me to do more things with the site. And Third, it'll allow me to change things even easier (as if it wasn't easy enough already) when I get the itch to do so.
The downside to all of this? Everything is going to break for awhile... The What's New and Random links may be broken for an extended period of time, even after the initial transformation is completed. I'll figure it out, though, and make sure it all returns to optimal levels.
And if there's anything you've ever wanted to suggest about the site, let me know!
So this is your fair warning. There won't be too many content updates in the near future, and things may be broken all over the place. I'm sorry, but it's for the better. I'll do my best to keep things navagable while I'm changing things.
Someone was telling me about a dream they had, and she was at a loss to describe a particular aspect of the dream, so she asked me if I'd ever seen "Wayne's World", and suggested that it was like the "buddleyboop" transition. Then, I went to the DC to eat lunch, and saw some of my floormates. So I went to sit down with them, and as I sat down, someone said "Have you ever seen `Wayne's World'?" That afternoon, I went to the ResComp office, where an answer to the question of the week included "Sum Yung Guy", which is a bit of a stretch, but it's still a Wayne's World reference.
This is what was sent to the Sun and the Californian. In other words, this hasn't been professionally edited, and it could be significantly different in the published form.
What people really want to learn from Susanna Kaysen's story as it is told in "Girl, Interrupted," is whether or not they are likely to end up in a mental institution like she did. "Girl, Interrupted," tells the tale of Susanna, who, after a brief interview with a retired psychiatrist in the spring of 1967, signs herself into Claymoore, an expensive psychiatric hospital. The appointment with the psychiatrist was made by Susanna's parents after she chased fifty aspirin with a bottle of vodka, which she claims she did because of a headache.
The movie is based on the book of the same name by Susanna Kaysen, in which she tells her true story of how she ended up in a mental hospital. Having read the book some time ago, I was dubious when I heard that a movie would be made. Each chapter of the book is organized around a different theme, and the ideas which Kaysen puts forth aren't necessarily told with reference to specific events that happened while she was institutionalized. This forced the screenplay writer to invent numerous scenes where Susanna delivers important insight in the middle of otherwise boring dialogue.
The episodic feel of the book was surprisingly well preserved in the first half of the movie. Scenes from the book and scenes created for the movie were strung together in an incredibly effective way, which helped to give the viewer a much better feel for Susanna. Winona Ryder does an incredible job of portraying Susanna as a relatively normal eighteen year old girl who too much is expected of. We learn early in the movie that Susanna is the only member of her graduating class who will not be going on to college. Doctors at Claymoore diagnosed Susanna with "Borderline Personality Disorder." After reading aloud from a book the description of a disorder which sounds like the personality of any teenager on the verge of adulthood, Susanna exclaims seriously "Oh, that's me all right!"
The second half of the movie, however, suffers greatly from an attempt to add a plot where there was none. Angelina Jolie does an amazing job of portraying Lisa, who has been at Claymoore for eight years. When the writer decided that the movie needed a villain, it was Lisa who got the nod. Unfortunately, Lisa is a sociopath, which makes her a poor choice for a to be evil, because it's very easy to sympathize with her. A more logical villain would have been the institution which kept Susanna away from Society for a year and a half of her life. Instead of embracing the opportunity to question who decides what normal is, the movie plays this down. When Susanna has an opportunity to escape with her boyfriend to Canada, she chooses to stay with her friends in the institution, and tells him "if they're insane, I'm insane,"
Susanna ultimately leaves on Claymoore's terms, and she is allowed back into the real world. Georgina, played by Clea Duvall, watches "The Wizard of Oz" as Susanna prepares to leave, which offers the suggestion that Susanna was free to leave whenever she wanted. Instead of believing in her sanity, Susanna allows herself to get comfortable in a place where she doesn't have to make any decisions. This idea puts the responsibility for Susanna's predicament squarely in Susanna's lap, which makes it hard for the viewer to feel sorry for Susanna, and makes it hard for anyone to be a villain when the Susanna is doing the worst thing possible to herself.
In the short span of two hours in front of the television recently, I was
assaulted by more than 20 references to the coming of "the new
millennium" - from countdowns to limited editions. The onslaught seemed
endless.
I'm not sure what all the hype is about, considering there are a good 370 days until the beginning of the third millennium of the Common Era.
You see, back around 523 CE, the papal chancellor Bonifatius asked a monk named Dionysius to prepare calculations for the dates of Easter. Instead of continuing the tradition of counting years since the founding of Rome, Dionysius chose instead to number the years since the birth of Jesus.
Dionysius, however, was not a computer scientist and numbered the year in which Jesus was born as the year 1 CE instead of 0. Thus, the year immediately before 1 CE was 1 Before Common Era (BCE).
A millennium is defined as "a span of 1,000 years." Scaling down to a decade, which is 10 years in length, we see that the last year of a decade beginning on year 1 would be year 10, thus making the first year of the following decade year 11. From this example, it is simple to see that the last year of the second millennium is the year 2000, making 2001 the first year of the third millennium of the Common Era.
Unfortunately, Dionysius' calculations as to when Jesus was born were wrong. The Gospel of Matthew says that Jesus was born under the reign of king Herod the Great. Herod the Great died in 4 BCE, which means that Jesus was born in or before 4 BCE.
What this means is that if you were looking forward to celebrating the first year of the third millennium (or the last year of the second millennium) since the birth of Jesus, you've already missed it, because the last chance you had for that was about five years ago.
The first question, then, is why is there such widespread confusion over such a seemingly straight-forward issue? The most obvious answer is the triple zero explanation. The roll-over from 1999 to 2000 looks much more significant than the transition from 2000 to 2001. The multiple zeros have been the source of confusion in the past and led people to celebrate the dawn of the 20th century in both 1900 and 1901.
Compounded with the Y2K computer bug, the triple zeros have set 2000 off as an exceptional year. The beginning of the new millennium is also an exceptional event, and somehow these two exceptional dates have been joined in the minds of the masses as being one and the same.
The second question is why has the modern media made no attempts to correct this commonly held misconception? Back in 1799, the editors of The London Times made it clear to their readers that 1799 was not the last year of the 18th century.
Clearly, times have changed, as not only has no attempt been made by the media to correct the error, but the media has only helped propagate the problem.
Apparently afraid of telling the truth at the risk of contradicting a common misconception and appearing wrong in the eyes of uninformed readers, the media has given up its job of informing and educating the masses.
And this detail scares me more than the misconception itself. If the media can't be bothered with telling the truth, then how can I trust any news I read?
That's not to say that Y2K isn't a big deal. Certainly, the potential failure of countless computer systems and the onset of the last year of the second millennium are not to be belittled. But a few zeros should not be confused with the dawn of the new millennium.
As we enter the last year of the second millennium, however, we should be more aware than ever that the information we assume to be true - be it from the Internet or in newsprint - should be questioned and verified at every turn.
I'm not sure what all the hype is about, considering there are a good 370 days until the beginning of the third millennium of the Common Era.
You see, back around 523 CE, the papal chancellor Bonifatius asked a monk named Dionysius to prepare calculations for the dates of Easter. Instead of continuing the tradition of counting years since the founding of Rome, Dionysius chose instead to number the years since the birth of Jesus.
Dionysius, however, was not a computer scientist and numbered the year in which Jesus was born as the year 1 CE instead of 0. Thus, the year immediately before 1 CE was 1 Before Common Era (BCE).
A millennium is defined as "a span of 1,000 years." Scaling down to a decade, which is 10 years in length, we see that the last year of a decade beginning on year 1 would be year 10, thus making the first year of the following decade year 11. From this example, it is simple to see that the last year of the second millennium is the year 2000, making 2001 the first year of the third millennium of the Common Era.
Unfortunately, Dionysius' calculations as to when Jesus was born were wrong. The Gospel of Matthew says that Jesus was born under the reign of king Herod the Great. Herod the Great died in 4 BCE, which means that Jesus was born in or before 4 BCE.
What this means is that if you were looking forward to celebrating the first year of the third millennium (or the last year of the second millennium) since the birth of Jesus, you've already missed it, because the last chance you had for that was about five years ago.
The first question, then, is why is there such widespread confusion over such a seemingly straight-forward issue? The most obvious answer is the triple zero explanation. The roll-over from 1999 to 2000 looks much more significant than the transition from 2000 to 2001. The multiple zeros have been the source of confusion in the past and led people to celebrate the dawn of the 20th century in both 1900 and 1901.
Compounded with the Y2K computer bug, the triple zeros have set 2000 off as an exceptional year. The beginning of the new millennium is also an exceptional event, and somehow these two exceptional dates have been joined in the minds of the masses as being one and the same.
The second question is why has the modern media made no attempts to correct this commonly held misconception? Back in 1799, the editors of The London Times made it clear to their readers that 1799 was not the last year of the 18th century.
Clearly, times have changed, as not only has no attempt been made by the media to correct the error, but the media has only helped propagate the problem.
Apparently afraid of telling the truth at the risk of contradicting a common misconception and appearing wrong in the eyes of uninformed readers, the media has given up its job of informing and educating the masses.
And this detail scares me more than the misconception itself. If the media can't be bothered with telling the truth, then how can I trust any news I read?
That's not to say that Y2K isn't a big deal. Certainly, the potential failure of countless computer systems and the onset of the last year of the second millennium are not to be belittled. But a few zeros should not be confused with the dawn of the new millennium.
As we enter the last year of the second millennium, however, we should be more aware than ever that the information we assume to be true - be it from the Internet or in newsprint - should be questioned and verified at every turn.
The professor here is a bit tipsy... For lack of a better word. But he's been at it for awhile and seems to know how to prepare a lecture, so he's not all bad. The material is pretty cool, and is kind of cog sci related... It's like a subset of psychology. So far the readings have been very interesting, and the books look interesting.
I've had a hard time staying awake in this class, because it's in same time slot as Art History was last semester, which is just a bad time for me. Further, I haven't been sitting with anyone in class to keep me awake... I'll have to work something else out, or find friends in there, or something, because it seems to me that the lectures are interesting if I can stay alert.
This is a team taught course, with someone different teaching each of the major parts of Asia that are being covered. That's a good thing, because the guy in charge of the course is little off the wall. He prepared a good lecture, though he showed no indication of being aware that he went five minutes over. And he read attendance to determine wait list status... In a lecture hall of 200 students. But the material seems interesting, particularly the parts of the course on Japan and China. The low point will probably be the south asia part of the course... Oh well. That's sandwiched between Japan and China, though, so that'll keep me sated.
This class has something like 10 white guys in it... But I've been able to stay awake, both because I'm afraid the professor is so nuts that he'll do something if I sleep, and because I've been sitting by Tyler (works on the Squelch), who is perpetually amusing.