See Stew. See Stew link. Link, Stew, link!
Saving the Net / Who Owns What?
Admittedly, this link has been all over today, but it was a really good editorial, and it even referenced Lakoff / Moral Politics. Actually, some of what was in this article reminded me of what my Lakoff term paper was supposed to be about, but this article had a much better execution than my term paper. And the brief mention of Howard Dean at the end of the article finally got me to go check him out, which I'm really glad I did.
I saw The Hulk last night (at the parkway. yay for the parkway.), and it definitely had its extremes. At times I really liked it, and it times I almost laughed out loud. While I was watching it, I was a little put off by the style, but thinking back on it today, I think it's growing on me. It definitely had some artistic cinematography. I don't really know what I was expecting, but I had serious suspension of disbelief issues...
I mean, seriously, how would a student at Berkeley afford to live in a house like that in the Berkeley hills? And I'd like to know where they found the sign that said "San Francisco 61, Berkeley 65." That's impossible in so many ways.
Damn, BofA approved my credit card application. Those punks. Not having a credit card was something I was kind of proud of, but now I'm going to end up in debt just like everyone else. Man, the real world sucks.
Have I ever mentioned how much I hate the fact that having a credit card is damn near required in this day and age? Because I do. And I mean required in the "the only way to do this transaction is with a credit card" sense, not in the "I can't afford stuff" sense. Case in point: The reason I applied for this credit card in the first place was just so that I can get a new cell phone plan, in my name (rather than my dad's).
In case you didn't figure this one out for yourself, you'll definitely want to wander around with a bunch of Zigzagroons in your party for awhile. Their "pickup" ability will fairly often pick up all kinds of useful items -- in particular, it's pretty much an infinite supply of things like Ultraballs and Rare Candies and PP Ups and Nuggets (which you can sell for a lot of money to buy everything they don't pick up). All they have to do is be in your party, and every few battles you can just skim the items they've picked up.
I'm a little upset by this, because it kind of unbalances the game. In color and metal, you had to ration your money and your pokeballs, so you could only catch so many Pokemon before you ran out of money and had to move forward in the game to find more trainers to fight. But with this change, it's possible to just spin your wheels and keep catching more and more Pokemon and making more and more money without actually advancing in the game at all. At the same time, it's very convenient, and it certainly makes my life easier.
On a slightly unrelated note, I really need to get over this incorrect chain of logic: Birds eat fish, and birds fly, and fish live in the water, therefore water pokemon are weak against flying attacks. Because it's wrong, and I know it's wrong, and yet I keep trying to attack water Pokemon with flying attacks.
Yeah, this is a pretty good list. I either own, have played, or want to play about 2/3 of that list. In particular, I'm currently grooving to Pokemon Ruby and Wario Ware, Inc: Mega Microgame$!
I test drove some cars last weekend, and I had the somewhat troubling thought that maybe I don't like driving cars.
Let's see, the history of cars I've driven started with learning to drive in a Toyota Previa, followed by a Camaro, and then a Dodge Ram, a Geo Tracker, and a Toyota RAV4. So with the exception of the Camaro, every vehicle I have any significant experience with was fairly high off the ground, and even the Camaro had enough quirks that it's hardly in the same category as your average car.
So last weekend, I drove a Honda Civic and a Toyota Camry. I didn't care much for the Civic at all -- Its turn radius was actually much worse than anything I've driven except for the Ram and the Camaro. The Camry had a pretty nice ride, but I don't really think that's what I want.
I also drove a Honda C-RV, a Honda Element, and a Subaru Legacy Outback. The Element's nice in theory, but in practice I didn't like it that much at all -- though I'm sure my opinion of it wasn't helped by the fact that the saleswoman somehow managed to pick out a dark blue Element without air conditioning on a 105 degree day in Bakersfield. Anyway, the Element could turn better than the Civic, but it seemed really pokey, and it's got enough other quirks that I don't think I'd ever be able to deal with it.
The C-RV turned better than the Civic, and was really the closest thing to what I'm used to driving (primarily the RAV4), but I don't really think I could bring myself to buy an SUV. The Outback was of course very nice, and though it's more or less a station wagon (though it has some very important non-station wagon qualities), it felt a lot more like driving what I was used to than a car. The Outback, however, is a bit more expensive than the other vehicles I've been looking at, and gets less than average (of the vehicles I've been looking at) gas mileage.
The thing is, as convenient as I know a car will be, I don't really want one. So I've kind of convinced myself that I'll feel better about having a car if I get something that has less in common with your average every day vehicle in the consumption and emission department, which means I've been looking pretty closely at hybrids, and in particular, the 2004 Toyota Prius. So since nothing I test drove jumped out at me and said "me me me!," I'm going to deal without a car for awhile (yay BART/CalTrain), and when the dealership finds out about Prius allotments, I can make a deposit which secures me a place in line, and when they're available (October at the earliest, I think), I get "first right of refusal."
Sure, the Prius is still a car, and there may be some things I don't like about it in that respect, but it'll have other redeeming qualities that'll offset the fact that it's a car.
Unfortunately, it doesn't like the 2004 Prius is going to come in the pretty "Electric Green Mica" that the old Prius came in, so it looks like I'll have to settle for white or silver. Oh well.
This post really wasn't very good, but I've had it half written for a week, and I just wanted to get it out of the queue.
Saw: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
I saw T3, and it was enjoyable enough, but probably not quite worth the $6 I paid for a matinee. Maybe $4 or $5. It would have been far better to see it at the Parkway for cheap while eating pizza and drinking beer, and without so many preflight previews and ads -- I'll have to keep that in mind for the other summer movies I want to see. Anyway, I thought it was ridiculous how they got into Cate's father's lab off screen, apparently with no trouble at all. Also, there were a few too many homages to the first too movies -- almost like they thought this movie would be better if it referenced the first two a lot. Finally, while I thought Claire Danes was really cute with her red hair in My So Called Life back in the day, she really didn't do much for me at all in T3.
I finally picked up Pokemon Ruby today, but while flipping through the instruction manual I was pretty disappointed to see this note (emphasis mine):
In Pokemon Ruby (or Sapphire), you can choose from either a boy or a girl. No matter which one you choose, there is no difference in the story. However, it is recommended that you choose a character with the same gender as yours."
Bah, how is it Nintendo's place to "recommend" gender roles for children? I decided to play a girl (I named her "Drew") just to go against Nintendo's "recommendation."
I was also amused by a literal interpretation of this sentence: "Your gender and name cannot be changed later."
Oh jesus this thing is funny. You'll have to see it to believe it.
Obviously you have to go to a particular type of concert to play this game. Your average punk concert, for example, is probably not the best choice of venue for this thing.
The game we like to play at concerts that inherently adapts to the concert you're at is the "borderline t-shirt game," wherein you predict at what point a shirt (usually of another band) stops being sarcastic and starts being in questionable taste at any given concert.
The Heavy Drinker's Guide to Iowa City.
Hm, how about I get drunk and pass on the plane on the way to Iowa City, and then I don't have to get off the plane? Yeah, that'd be alright.
I mainly post this because it's a cheap link. That is, this is a bit of a meta-link that links to many other (more interesting) things, some of which are better than others, though they're all about swearing.