Koshervision Studios

I'm not sure when the X-Games died in my mind. I remember staying up until the early morning, watching events such as Street Luge and Sky Surfing on ESPN 2.

But the X-Games has turned into something terrible. No more of those two events. No Speed Climbing. No Inline Skating. No Wakeboarding. Surfing has managed to not be in the X-Games for two consecutive years, despite initial promises to bring it back this year.

Instead, we have four disciplines. BMX (necessary), Skateboarding (ditto), Motocross (...yeah, okay), and Rally Car (wtf?!). That's it. Also terrible are the events within each of the disciplines. Both BMX and Skateboard have that awful Big Air event. How boring. I couldn't give a damn. Both have added an event called "Street" which seems to consist of launching from the top of a staircase, doing a trick, and not eating pavement. Pretty lame. Skateboarding needs two events, and two events alone: Vert (aka halfpipe) and Park (a freestyle run through an area with pipes, rails, walls, and the like). BMX needs four: Vert, Park, Flatland (doing tricks on a space of pavement), and Racing. You know, that thing that BMX used to be known for?

Rally Car just needs to die.

The X-Games has gone in a retarded direction since it was conceived in 1995. It's hemorrhaged events and athletes all in pursuit of "stadium events." Guess what, guys? Extreme things don't happen in a goddamn building. They happen outdoors, on the streets, in the air, on the water.

Maybe when you guys realize that again, I might start caring. Until then, I want no part of it.

It's been a few months since I touched this thing, but I figured that with a change of scenery, the time was right to begin again...again.

I will be spending the next 14 weeks in Hopewell, VA, just outside Fort Lee. I'm down here to take the Operations Research/Systems Analysis Military Applications Course (ORSAMAC). I've been with the Army as an analyst for almost 21 months. If this course doesn't give me a decent idea of what being an ORSA in the Army is all about, nothing will. I don't think I've not done ORSA stuff, but I don't feel like it's been a big part of my job. I want to do well here, get course credit for grad school, and improve my prospects for my next assignment, wherever it ends up being.

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Today was administrivia (that should definitely be a word in Webster's, instead of "ginormous") and intro to Probability. Refresher for me, but a lot of the military guys in the class haven't dealt with it before. There's only three or four civilians, with the rest being military, and most of them seemed to have business degrees (I did hear one accounting and one industrial engineering). I don't mind helping the military guys with this stuff. I tutor on the side for Kaplan; I like to help math make sense to people.

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I haven't really explored the area yet. Been a little busy setting my room up, buying food, yadda yadda. I might stick around this weekend, I might not.

Monsters vs. Aliens is a singularly American movie.

MvA could not have been realized by any other country than the USA: not produced by, not set in, and not reflective of. The culmination of 50 or so years of culture has been distilled into an hour-and-a-half movie, with an option for 3-D.

What other culture on this, or any other planet, can relate to references to Beverly Hills Cop, Encounters of the Third Kind, An Inconvenient Truth (extremely ham-handed, by the way), Spaceballs, Dance Dance Revolution, Starbucks, and the pop group Aqua? Hell, the movie contains a line of dialogue that is more true of America than any I think I've heard: “Once again, a UFO has landed in America, the only country UFOs ever seem to land in.” Only in the USA can a bunch of people, each looking like a bunch of freaks to each other, bond together and accept each other despite differences in appearance and behavior yet still be drawn into conflict with an outside society.

And so MvA is self-referential. The USA is a bunch of monsters, and everyone else belongs to one alien race or another. And the message seems to be clear: you can have monsters or you can have aliens, but you can't have both. So, to all you aliens out there: if you want to be one of the freaks, one of the outsiders, there's a place for you here. But if you attempt to come in and recreate society in your own image, you might not have a very pleasant outcome.

I'd almost, almost think it to be a message sent to Osama and his ilk that a global Caliphate would be most unwelcome, but they are the most alien of all. The message would be lost in translation.

Just a list of movies I'm thinking of going to in the coming months.

03/27/09 - Monsters vs. Aliens
05/01/09 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine
05/01/09 - Battle for Terra
05/08/09 - Star Trek
05/29/09 - Up
06/24/09 - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
07/17/09 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
08/07/09 - G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

If you've got something to add, let me know!

( I've only seen 81 movies on this list. I must be deprived. )

Oh, Saturday.

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Went to the Harford Waste Disposal Center to toss off a monitor and a printer. It's an odd feeling to throw computer parts into a large dumpster and watch them shatter. Not necessarily gratifying. Almost...sacreligious. There also appears to be a disc golf course in the area. Who knew?

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Hadn't been to the gym in over a week, since I had been sick. Seems that I've lost some strength. Also did some DDR that day, too. I think I burned over 1000 calories in cardio alone.

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Went to see Coraline, my first jaunt to the movie theater of 2009 (I'm pretty sure, anyway). FABULOUS. Everyone go see it. I desire the soundtrack.

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It was snowing when I left the theater. This is March; that kind of weather is unacceptable. Hurry up and warm up so I don't need to have the heat on!

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I think I need a new guacamole recipe. Mine has progressively gotten worse, I think.

Apparently, the "25 Things" meme got featured on Slashdot. So, I guess it's about time I did it myself. It was compared to a real life virus, but I have a pretty damn good immune system so it took a while for me to get infected. Though, I am currently sick. Also, I am HELLA lazy. So lazy, in fact, that I'm only going to do "18 Things." Nyah.

0. I was once a computer science major a long, long time ago. We start our arrays at the zeroth index. So too our lists.

1. I'm an only child. I do, however, have three half-siblings that are 7, 5, and 3 years older than me. The eldest is a brewmaster in Colorado. The other two live in southern California.

2. My favorite authors are Harry Turtledove and Orson Scott Card. I read pretty much anything they write. I'm not sure I could name a favorite book from either, or even a favorite series from either.

3. For purposes of horoscope, I am a Pisces (a sign of perplexed emotions, and tends to be meditative and rather hushed and secretive; it reflects somewhat of a bland, remote personality which tends to be rather going with the flow), blood type A+ (calm, patient, sensitive, responsible, overcautious, stubborn, unable to relax ), and a Rooster (acute, neat, meticulous, organized, self-assured, decisive, conservative, critical, perfectionist, alert, zealous, practical, scientific, responsible, over-zealous, critical, puritanical, egotistical, abrasive, opinionated).

4. I've lived in the USA (California, Virginia, Georgia, and Maryland), Turkey, Germany (twice, and was born there), and England. Each has had it pluses and minuses, and in retrospect, I don't regret living in any of those places. Well, maybe Germany.

5. Some quotes that are attributable to me: "All things are something things." "Didn't your mother ever teach you what tacos look like?" "One wheat, two sheep, SUCK IT!" "I'd try and explain, but you'd think I was retarded." "Somebody's going to the basement!" None of these gets better in context.

6. Some movies that I watched repeatedly as a kid and made an impression on me: D.A.R.Y.L., Flight of the Navigator, Labyrinth, Yellow Submarine, Temple of Doom, and The Empire Strikes Back. I think that sums me up pretty well, actually.

7. I think that the first Olympics I have memories of is the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (was living in California at the time), but I remember the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea so much better. My grandmother, who lived in Florida, taped events and sent them to us. Among the events were sprinting, women's gymnastics, swimming, and soccer. I watched that tape many times.

8. I transferred after the first quarter of 3rd grade from Turkey to Germany. I was usually a year younger than the rest of my classmates in school since I never went to Kindergarten. My new classmates were not aware of this fact about me until the "Are you [x]?" song on my birthday in class. Suffice it to say, I got somewhat embarrassed that day.

9. I was in 5th grade when German Reunification happened. I think we got to go home early that day.

A. I've watched a lot of anime. It started with Voltron, which was the first anime for a lot of us. (Robotech filled the void for most of the rest.) I still watch a lot of anime, and I'm trying to work through some stuff that I never got around to (Fullmetals Alchemist and Panic, for two). I could not begin to list all that I've seen.

B. My current favorite sport to watch is American football, but my first love to both watch and play was basketball. It was more accessible in pretty much every way. I totally get into March Madness every year.

C. I've done random collections over the years, none of which have really stayed with me. Coins, stamps, pins, sports cards, pogs. The only thing I really get good at collecting is dust, since I don't clean my living space and belongings that often.

D. I started playing Dance Dance Revolution again. I get sucked into video games from time to time, and DDR was one that I was obsessed with for some time. I'm attempting to use it now as a weight-loss measure, and we'll see how well that works.

E. I do not put much stock in the power of a single person's vote. I mostly think voting is a waste of time. That being said, I have never missed an election.

F. I read a lot more fiction than non-fiction. I find I care more about a good make-believe story than a bio or a history. It is said that truth is stranger than fiction; I just find that the truth oftimes gets embellished.

10. One of the oddities about my house in Germany was the radiator. No place I've lived before or since has had one. Our cat, Misty, used to curl up on it.

11. Religious summer camp in England was an experience that I was not prepared for and won't forget. Prayers that I'd never heard, total strangers from areas of the country I hadn't yet visited, and everyone wore black and had long sideburns. Utter madness. Yet, I won't trade memories of that time for anything.

12. I introduced myself at community college as having "a twelve-year-old minivan and a twelve-year-old cat."

13. My bar mitzvah was the impetus for my parents buying a minivan three years prior.

14. I wrote a poem for a competition once: "An Obnoxious Sestina". It didn't do very well. I've also written a sonnet, but not for a competition. I'm not very good at poetry.

15. Third grade, as I've stated before, was a very odd grade for me. In one quarter, I got an F in Science and an A in Health. In the subsequent quarter, I reversed the two.

16. My first Super Bowl jersey was Super Bowl XXXI, Green Bay vs. New England in New Orleans. It had the number 97 on the back and was Mardi-Gras colored. However, the next year, I ordered a Super Bowl jersey and hat in advance and wore them to a Super Bowl party.

17. I brought an elevator ceiling down on three people by praying to Cyndi Lauper.

18. I burned a friend with a knife.

"How is the $150 million for honey bee insurance creating jobs?"
"Neil, I think as we just said, that's a red herring."

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT LAST SENTENCE MEANS.

If I work out tomorrow, I will have gone to the gym 8 out of 11 days. I have never been to the gym so often. It is my sincere hope that I can keep this up. With the expectation that it might be months in coming before I see significant results, I really have to commit to this long-term goal. And I'm really horrible about long-term goals.

Well, something good has already come about because of Obama's ascendance: I have a gallery on Obamicon.Me.

We'll see where this goes.

LOL of the day:

"They're bluffing," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said. "The United Nations is still 15 years away from a nuclear bomb. Hell, they're 20 years away from achieving universal primary school education, and knowing them, they'll probably focus on that first."

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/u_n_acquires_nuclear_weapon

I told the NCAA what to do about their BCS idiocy, back in January. And now, Congress is getting involved.

GUYS. If you follow my advice, you'll be in-line with Congress's stupid bill, but in a way they don't expect. It doesn't force you into a playoff. It's a simple fix. Don't let Congress dictate to you how to run your business, though that seems to be all the rage these days.

On a side note, the media can't parse a press release. Or, they may just be choosing not to.

[Edit: Link to Congressional bill fixed.]

So, when are our friends in Canada, Britain, Germany, and France going to join us in the 21st Century and elect a person of color to the head of state? Heck, France could even come into the 20th Century by electing a woman.

(Politics sure is fun.)

Well, that's that.

I hope when I wake up, the USA still has a divided government.

Just a message to everyone who had to stand in line to vote before today: y'all dumb.

It took me longer to walk to my polling place than it did to vote. Hell, it would have been longer to drive. No line. No fuss. No disenfranchisement.

Now, to sit back, and watch society collapse.

Oh, and remember...

Okay, everyone, shut the hell up about getting out and voting. I GET IT. I DON'T NEED TO HEAR IT FROM YOU.

How about I spam everyone every six months about going to the dentist? That's way more important.

I just want to put this out here. I'm really glad that the election is almost over, as will be our long national nightmare of a campaign.

I thought that 2004 gave us two terrible presidential candidates. So terrible, in fact, that we would not see two worse candidates in many years. Depressingly, America sunk lower just four years later.

John McCain and Barack Obama are two of the feeblest candidates EVER. Worse than Bush and Kerry. Worse than Bush and Gore.

This should have been a runaway election for Obama. The fact that it hasn't been shows how terrible he is.

McCain shouldn't even have gotten this far. The fact that he has shows how inept his competition was.

The matchup should probably have been Romney versus Richardson (Hillary will never be a serious contender, and Fred Thompson likes the idea of being president more than he does actually campaigning). Two men with executive experience. One had economic chops, the other foreign policy chops. It could have been a fascinating campaign, contrasting the two men. Instead, we're saddled with a candidate whose Progressive agenda would probably make Woodrow Wilson jealous and a candidate who can't find a consistent message on anything _but_ foreign policy.

Whichever choice you make on Election Day, America, it will be the wrong one.

I dreamed of someone that I had forgotten, but am not sure ever existed.

Great nuance must be used when making robocalls where the subject of said robocall is a robocall made by the opposing party.

(Maybe I have let my opinions become known. Well, fuck you all. :P)

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
kosherpickle goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as Time Lincoln.
coleoptera gives you 6 red lime-flavoured jawbreakers.
downtym tricks you! You get a rotten egg.
jaynneboae tricks you! You get an eraser.
niobecyane gives you 4 purple root beer-flavoured gummy bats.
pedantka gives you 6 dark blue grapefruit-flavoured gummy worms.
promark420 gives you 4 mottled green licorice-flavoured nuggets.
reinvent_love gives you 16 white watermelon-flavoured wafers.
relevantpink gives you 11 teal grapefruit-flavoured pieces of chewing gum.
washable gives you 14 light green grape-flavoured nuggets.
xenosauridae gives you 18 mottled green strawberry-flavoured wafers.
kosherpickle ends up with 79 pieces of candy, a rotten egg, and an eraser.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.