Review of Crumb (1995)
Radiohead Video
Friday, January 5, 2007
Video (and) Review (and) Picture
Hola from the land that Beck forgot. Just kidding - the Beck is stuck at the ER, so I'm here all by myself, don't wanna be. So here's a new movie review I wrote, a link to a homemade and utterly creepy but very cool video of an acoustic Radiohead song, and the answer to the "which picture is on my desktop?" quiz . Enjoy!
Review of Crumb (1995)
Radiohead Video
Review of Crumb (1995)
Radiohead Video
Awesome, With Class
So, just delivered an A++ lecture and thought I would share. This may get hyper-nerdy; you have been warned.
So we've been talking about hypothesis testing in Statistics these past few days back from break. On a fundamental level, understanding what goes on in hypothesis testing would require at least a vague, dreamlike memory of pre-break concepts. Ahem. So we did our best with serious gaps in our groupwide knowledge of probability curves, z-scores and such, and hopefully the whole thing sunk in more or less well.
Things got very interesting today when we talked about the implications of the implicit structure of hypothesis testing. When a claim is made (i.e., 4 out of 5 dentists prefer colgate), in order to test that claim you set up two hypotheses. The first is called the "null hypothesis," the assertion that nothing fishy is going on and the claim is actually true. The second is the alternative hypothesis, that the opposite of the null hypothesis is true, and as such these two hypotheses have to be more or less mutually exclusive.
By its very nature, nothing in inferential statistics is ever 100% certain: you are taking samples to represent wholes, and as such there is always the possibility, however remote, that your sample is not representative. So it turns out that when you test a null hypothesis, you can never absolutely accept it; really what you're doing is making a decision between rejecting the null hypothesis (if it is blatantly incorrect) or failing to reject it (if you cannot prove it to be false). This may sound like a subtle distinction, but it is not.
Our justice system, for example, relies entirely on this method of hypothesis testing. When a person is indicted, they are assumed innocent until proven guilty. The null hypothesis becomes "they are innocent" and the alternative becomes "they are guilty." The trial becomes a sampling process of the evidence (surely being sub-omnipotent we cannot ever present ALL the evidence), and we take that evidence and compare it to our null hypothesis. If the null hypothesis is shown by evidence beyond reasonable doubt to be false, we reject the null hypothesis and accept that the alternative hypothesis, that the person is guilty, must be true. However, if the sample of evidence does not compel us to reject the null hypothesis, then we are left with only that option: we do not reject the alternative hypothesis, it's simply that we fail to reject the null hypothesis. The language is glaringly complicit with this idea: the accused is not declared "innocent," he is declared "not guilty." Meaning that he may be innocent, he may even probably be innocent, but the most that we can say is that we are not rejecting that possibility, NOT that we are accepting it.
Null hypothesis testing, then, has a very noticeable trait: you can never prove anything with it, you can only disprove things. Take the supposition that "there is no such thing as a naturally purple polar bear." In this case the null hypothesis is that there are no purple polar bears; the alternative is that there is at least one purple polar bear. You will be extraordinarily hard-pressed to prove that there are no purple polar bears; you would have had to have seen every polar bear in the known universe and confirmed it to have been non-purple, plus you would have had to have investigated every nook & cranny that serves as a potential purple polar bear hiding place. You would also have to do this for an infinite amount of time, based on the chance that the purple polar bear is just constantly evading you. Etc. The point is that the null in this case is near impossible to prove, but exceedingly easy to disprove: all you have to do is show up with one purple polar bear, and you would be forced to reject the null hypothesis. The absurdity of the situation aside, it is vastly easier to disprove things than to prove things; any ad that claims that "Studies prove" probably means that there is an exceedingly small probability that what we're saying is false and therefore we're assuming we're probably right.
So the reason class was so cool today is because we were discussing this idea, that you can basically never know anything for sure; all you can do is make reasonable guesses and assume they are correct until something shows you otherwise. There are an unlimited number of examples this from science, but we touched on a few of the big ones: Copernicanism, Relativity, practical physics. And we slowly got to the point that no one ever asserts that what they're saying is undeniably true; good science revolves around hypotheses that are capable of being shown to be false. What we do is draw conclusions based on the evidence at hand and so long as our conclusions continue to be consistent and useful, we continue to use them.
So this was the big AHA of the class today - that science could actually care less whether things are true or not. Science (a lot of it, anyways) is entirely rooted in stats; no one would ever be able to show or "prove" anything without P-values. And statistics implicitly admits that nothing is certain, that everything has a chance of being incorrect, and the only reason we work with assumptions that cannot be shown to be true is that it would be entirely impractical not to do so. Assuming that things that are probably true are actually true is at base an exercise in pragmatics: we use science and the models and theories it provides not because of their truth, but because of their utility. Science is far and away the best thing we've come up with for accomplishing things, and it is this that drives science (not to mention the dollars associated with that utility), not some abstract notion of the quest for truth. If the tools science use fundamentally can't tell you absolute truths, how could science ever hope to?
So pragmatism was the big word of the day; you have to shift your thinking in stats and science away from "Truth" and towards that which is useful. I have a couple of fairly devout religious kids in the classroom, and they really enjoyed the subsequent thought: that all of the clash and emotional conflict of the Creation v. Evolution debate is by definition incompatible and not really a conflict at all. Creation deals in truth; it is a truth that may or may not be actually *True*, but it does not really have a beef with Evolution, because evolution theory will only be considered "probably true" insofar as it continues to be useful. Science does not pretend to "know" anything, nor was it ever meant to. Religion, on the other hand, professes to know a lot of things. On the plus side for the reli kids, this means that there is no real conflict between the two doctrines unless you incorrectly assume that science is revealing truth. The main problem, I think, is that the notion of "what is the objective truth" is such a desirable endeavor that scientists tend to overstep their own self-imposed bounds. Occam's razor is generally taken to mean "All things equal, the model that is simplest is best." The word "truth" appears nowhere in there. The minus for the reli kids, of course, is that things like Creationism, by virtue of their assertion of Absolute Truth, is by definition NOT SCIENCE, and as such belongs nowhere near a school science curriculum.
The notion of science as it pertains to its utility regarding the world and the separation of that notion from the one of science as it objectively describes the true world is a painfully abstract and subtle one. I.e., I don't think USA Today will be heading off the argument with this entry as its headline anytime soon, and that's not to say that I think it's the reli-heads who don't get it, I don't think the science-heads get it, either. Of course, there are outstanding and overlapping components of this problem; practical decisions are made by virtue of religiously held ideas and concepts of truth are derived from scientific findings. So I would be hard-pressed to argue that the conversation does not need to take place. I would just argue that the vitriol and fire of the debate could effectively be dropped; any argument that claims these two areas of study are in conflict and veers near fisticuffs is letting irrational heat cloud the fact that on the rational level, these two views are really not at odds. The irrational side is an embarrassing and vital component to people, but tempering it in intellectual debate would be much appreciated.
I ended the class today with the aphorism: "Science is pragmatics; leave truth to religion and philosophy." I'm not sure where that rates on the cheesiness scale. But the point was made loud and clear, understood and discussed by my students, and so it feels a bit like I* got through today.
* - I also successfully negated the entire thing with "this is coming through the filter of me, so take it with a grain of salt." That's what known in show biz as "a disclaimer."A devilish one be I, arrrrrr.
So we've been talking about hypothesis testing in Statistics these past few days back from break. On a fundamental level, understanding what goes on in hypothesis testing would require at least a vague, dreamlike memory of pre-break concepts. Ahem. So we did our best with serious gaps in our groupwide knowledge of probability curves, z-scores and such, and hopefully the whole thing sunk in more or less well.
Things got very interesting today when we talked about the implications of the implicit structure of hypothesis testing. When a claim is made (i.e., 4 out of 5 dentists prefer colgate), in order to test that claim you set up two hypotheses. The first is called the "null hypothesis," the assertion that nothing fishy is going on and the claim is actually true. The second is the alternative hypothesis, that the opposite of the null hypothesis is true, and as such these two hypotheses have to be more or less mutually exclusive.
By its very nature, nothing in inferential statistics is ever 100% certain: you are taking samples to represent wholes, and as such there is always the possibility, however remote, that your sample is not representative. So it turns out that when you test a null hypothesis, you can never absolutely accept it; really what you're doing is making a decision between rejecting the null hypothesis (if it is blatantly incorrect) or failing to reject it (if you cannot prove it to be false). This may sound like a subtle distinction, but it is not.
Our justice system, for example, relies entirely on this method of hypothesis testing. When a person is indicted, they are assumed innocent until proven guilty. The null hypothesis becomes "they are innocent" and the alternative becomes "they are guilty." The trial becomes a sampling process of the evidence (surely being sub-omnipotent we cannot ever present ALL the evidence), and we take that evidence and compare it to our null hypothesis. If the null hypothesis is shown by evidence beyond reasonable doubt to be false, we reject the null hypothesis and accept that the alternative hypothesis, that the person is guilty, must be true. However, if the sample of evidence does not compel us to reject the null hypothesis, then we are left with only that option: we do not reject the alternative hypothesis, it's simply that we fail to reject the null hypothesis. The language is glaringly complicit with this idea: the accused is not declared "innocent," he is declared "not guilty." Meaning that he may be innocent, he may even probably be innocent, but the most that we can say is that we are not rejecting that possibility, NOT that we are accepting it.
Null hypothesis testing, then, has a very noticeable trait: you can never prove anything with it, you can only disprove things. Take the supposition that "there is no such thing as a naturally purple polar bear." In this case the null hypothesis is that there are no purple polar bears; the alternative is that there is at least one purple polar bear. You will be extraordinarily hard-pressed to prove that there are no purple polar bears; you would have had to have seen every polar bear in the known universe and confirmed it to have been non-purple, plus you would have had to have investigated every nook & cranny that serves as a potential purple polar bear hiding place. You would also have to do this for an infinite amount of time, based on the chance that the purple polar bear is just constantly evading you. Etc. The point is that the null in this case is near impossible to prove, but exceedingly easy to disprove: all you have to do is show up with one purple polar bear, and you would be forced to reject the null hypothesis. The absurdity of the situation aside, it is vastly easier to disprove things than to prove things; any ad that claims that "Studies prove" probably means that there is an exceedingly small probability that what we're saying is false and therefore we're assuming we're probably right.
So the reason class was so cool today is because we were discussing this idea, that you can basically never know anything for sure; all you can do is make reasonable guesses and assume they are correct until something shows you otherwise. There are an unlimited number of examples this from science, but we touched on a few of the big ones: Copernicanism, Relativity, practical physics. And we slowly got to the point that no one ever asserts that what they're saying is undeniably true; good science revolves around hypotheses that are capable of being shown to be false. What we do is draw conclusions based on the evidence at hand and so long as our conclusions continue to be consistent and useful, we continue to use them.
So this was the big AHA of the class today - that science could actually care less whether things are true or not. Science (a lot of it, anyways) is entirely rooted in stats; no one would ever be able to show or "prove" anything without P-values. And statistics implicitly admits that nothing is certain, that everything has a chance of being incorrect, and the only reason we work with assumptions that cannot be shown to be true is that it would be entirely impractical not to do so. Assuming that things that are probably true are actually true is at base an exercise in pragmatics: we use science and the models and theories it provides not because of their truth, but because of their utility. Science is far and away the best thing we've come up with for accomplishing things, and it is this that drives science (not to mention the dollars associated with that utility), not some abstract notion of the quest for truth. If the tools science use fundamentally can't tell you absolute truths, how could science ever hope to?
So pragmatism was the big word of the day; you have to shift your thinking in stats and science away from "Truth" and towards that which is useful. I have a couple of fairly devout religious kids in the classroom, and they really enjoyed the subsequent thought: that all of the clash and emotional conflict of the Creation v. Evolution debate is by definition incompatible and not really a conflict at all. Creation deals in truth; it is a truth that may or may not be actually *True*, but it does not really have a beef with Evolution, because evolution theory will only be considered "probably true" insofar as it continues to be useful. Science does not pretend to "know" anything, nor was it ever meant to. Religion, on the other hand, professes to know a lot of things. On the plus side for the reli kids, this means that there is no real conflict between the two doctrines unless you incorrectly assume that science is revealing truth. The main problem, I think, is that the notion of "what is the objective truth" is such a desirable endeavor that scientists tend to overstep their own self-imposed bounds. Occam's razor is generally taken to mean "All things equal, the model that is simplest is best." The word "truth" appears nowhere in there. The minus for the reli kids, of course, is that things like Creationism, by virtue of their assertion of Absolute Truth, is by definition NOT SCIENCE, and as such belongs nowhere near a school science curriculum.
The notion of science as it pertains to its utility regarding the world and the separation of that notion from the one of science as it objectively describes the true world is a painfully abstract and subtle one. I.e., I don't think USA Today will be heading off the argument with this entry as its headline anytime soon, and that's not to say that I think it's the reli-heads who don't get it, I don't think the science-heads get it, either. Of course, there are outstanding and overlapping components of this problem; practical decisions are made by virtue of religiously held ideas and concepts of truth are derived from scientific findings. So I would be hard-pressed to argue that the conversation does not need to take place. I would just argue that the vitriol and fire of the debate could effectively be dropped; any argument that claims these two areas of study are in conflict and veers near fisticuffs is letting irrational heat cloud the fact that on the rational level, these two views are really not at odds. The irrational side is an embarrassing and vital component to people, but tempering it in intellectual debate would be much appreciated.
I ended the class today with the aphorism: "Science is pragmatics; leave truth to religion and philosophy." I'm not sure where that rates on the cheesiness scale. But the point was made loud and clear, understood and discussed by my students, and so it feels a bit like I* got through today.
* - I also successfully negated the entire thing with "this is coming through the filter of me, so take it with a grain of salt." That's what known in show biz as "a disclaimer."A devilish one be I, arrrrrr.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
And I neglected to mention...
The last review from 2006 - Enjoy!
Thank You For Smoking (2005): 80
What I found most surprising about this little ditty was how deftly it avoided the preachy air of any other dagger-sticking anti-tobacco satire. In fact, despite the front and center product placement of cigarettes, the continuing debate, money at the cost of morality, etc., this satire really touched very little on those central issues and took a nice, energetic left turn into spin, perceptive control, dupe-ability and the skill of rhetoric. I think the film itself was bursting at the seams with energy but often let go of the reins; Adam Brody in particular was a little weak, and there were other moments (the "subtitled" sequence at the beginning) that lent an air of anything goes to the film that deflated fast; the energy was maintained, but the plot and or style fell into more familiar territory, rendering the early forays into goofiness gimmicky rather than provoking. Despite that, the energy was well-carried by the lead man Eckhart; he nailed this role in a serious way, the likable slimeball never feeling forced and his family man interactions great. SO while it turned into a wild, goofy bit of a movie that was a little bit uncontained, it also managed to use an absurd (and obviously intentionally so) plot as a platform for this notion: that the show in this day/age is bigger than the content, that the relative dangers or risks or deaths have no bearing at all, that it is the messenger who probably does need to be shot. The movie gave me an energetic look over the brink, and while this was a nasty, cynical look, the performances and film were delivered with such care that the wink wink message that came through was not a biting indictment of tobacco, but a biting indictment of sheepishness in general and some comfort that others can see the chaos, too.
Thank You For Smoking (2005): 80
What I found most surprising about this little ditty was how deftly it avoided the preachy air of any other dagger-sticking anti-tobacco satire. In fact, despite the front and center product placement of cigarettes, the continuing debate, money at the cost of morality, etc., this satire really touched very little on those central issues and took a nice, energetic left turn into spin, perceptive control, dupe-ability and the skill of rhetoric. I think the film itself was bursting at the seams with energy but often let go of the reins; Adam Brody in particular was a little weak, and there were other moments (the "subtitled" sequence at the beginning) that lent an air of anything goes to the film that deflated fast; the energy was maintained, but the plot and or style fell into more familiar territory, rendering the early forays into goofiness gimmicky rather than provoking. Despite that, the energy was well-carried by the lead man Eckhart; he nailed this role in a serious way, the likable slimeball never feeling forced and his family man interactions great. SO while it turned into a wild, goofy bit of a movie that was a little bit uncontained, it also managed to use an absurd (and obviously intentionally so) plot as a platform for this notion: that the show in this day/age is bigger than the content, that the relative dangers or risks or deaths have no bearing at all, that it is the messenger who probably does need to be shot. The movie gave me an energetic look over the brink, and while this was a nasty, cynical look, the performances and film were delivered with such care that the wink wink message that came through was not a biting indictment of tobacco, but a biting indictment of sheepishness in general and some comfort that others can see the chaos, too.
Trey it ain't so...
But really, you knew damn well it was so. Hiatus = failed rehab? You betcha.
So that's mildly depressing, but perhaps explains the 8.15.04 debacle. If you don't know, that was the date of Phish's last show (which I listened to via streaming radio out of Vermont), and "caterwaulingly discordant" doesn't even quite describe how sloppy / bad it was. One of the few times I've been pretty embarrassed by / for them. But since Trey was on the smack, I suppose all is forgiven. All of this is more or less a wash, as it sounds like Trey will just be sentenced to a rehab program, which apparently has been necessary for some time now. I mean, fish market stew, police in the corner, coming for you? Drug use, who knew?!?
In less drug-addled news, I thought I'd throw some links up here today...
13 photographs that changed the world
No Iwo-Jima - but guess which one is sitting as my desktop now?
A serious collection of music videos
Vital for all kinds of unearned nostalgia...
A lot of free games
Like seriously. A lot.
Princeton's Art of Science, 2006
Some seriously cool stuff there.
That's about it. Here's to a grand Thursday night!
So that's mildly depressing, but perhaps explains the 8.15.04 debacle. If you don't know, that was the date of Phish's last show (which I listened to via streaming radio out of Vermont), and "caterwaulingly discordant" doesn't even quite describe how sloppy / bad it was. One of the few times I've been pretty embarrassed by / for them. But since Trey was on the smack, I suppose all is forgiven. All of this is more or less a wash, as it sounds like Trey will just be sentenced to a rehab program, which apparently has been necessary for some time now. I mean, fish market stew, police in the corner, coming for you? Drug use, who knew?!?
In less drug-addled news, I thought I'd throw some links up here today...
13 photographs that changed the world
No Iwo-Jima - but guess which one is sitting as my desktop now?
A serious collection of music videos
Vital for all kinds of unearned nostalgia...
A lot of free games
Like seriously. A lot.
Princeton's Art of Science, 2006
Some seriously cool stuff there.
That's about it. Here's to a grand Thursday night!
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
She used to love him, but... she had to... it's all over now?
And 2007 is off to a roaring blaze. Beck and I spent New Year's Morning staring outside at the cold rain and decided it was a good day for a coffee / cozy fire combo, the cozy fire portion decidedly lacking from our abode. So we made the short trek up to Blackstone Coffee and hunkered down in decidedly-undoghaired leather seats next to a fake fire with some coffees made with fake milk. We listened to some nice tunes (Velvet Underground and the Dead, among others), lunchtime regulars' flirtations with the by-rule (and equal opportunitably questionably) consistently cute coffeehouse girls (seriously, that place is like the cuties version of a Russ Meyer film) (Ha ha) and cuddled up with our books, Beck with an Annie Proulx novel and me with...
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: NR, largely so Nyet survives.
Besides, one could argue that pornography is by definition not art (it being "creative activity of no literary or artistic value"), so a non-rating seems in order. Just kidding. But really, I may not be able to define "bodice-ripper," but I know it when I read it. Ha. Okay, really, Outlander is an exciting book; Gabaldon is an excellent storyteller who does manage to weave a tale that throws the reader into the forests of the Highlands with her characters. I actually felt that the best aspects of the story centered around the political intrigue surrounding Jamie and his various relatives. Without ruining too much, there's a complicated dynamic between Jamie and his uncles, and everyone has multiple motives to oust one another. That sets a cool "trust no one" tone for the book, and the narrative weaves nicely around these bits, leaving things to be revealed for several hundred pages. So I liked that aspect. Some (some) of the fight scenes were nice and breathtaking, something that I personally find very hard to pull off, so kudos to the author for that. And, for all it's over-the-top goofiness,I'd be lying if I didn't say that jamie and Claire's relationship is largely well crafted.
But... and there's always a but, especially in the novel... there were a lot of missteps throughout. The bodice-ripping is, predictably, corny as hell, "I felt his readiness" being perhaps an all-time classic bad euphemism (apparently "it's my readiness in a box" didn't fit the beat). But it was really what felt like gratuitous rape scenes and an obsession with homosexual rape-torture that was pretty off-putting. Jamie and Claire's interactions alternate between vomit-inducing-ly sappy, hideous (the whole "I must beat ye and teach ye a lesson" section was painful), and really, bizarrely stone-faced. I suppose I found it uneven.
These are a lot of complaints - I was overall entertained and interested enough to want to find out what happens next to young Jamie and Claire, but I asked Beck in lieu of reading another one. Maybe that sums it up best.
And for the record, all this time I've been accusing Beck of reading bodice-rippers, I was right. She now can claim no rational defense.
Back into the blog - so I sat at Blackstone, hiding my copy of Outlander behind a copy of War Peace, hoping no one would see through my veneer (while coincidentally reading about someone's veneer being seen through. Repeatedly.) (The seeing through happened repeatedly, not the reading). Two coffees worth of time spent, Beck and I traveled to the S where, as fate would have it, we ran into Ben and a skinny stranger who looked like a cross between Jay Clyne and Brian Baker. I am probably the only person in the known universe for whom that has meaning. Anyways, it turned out that when the Ali is away (in LA for a vacation), the Ben will... invite a Physics PhD friend over to visit. I for the record, have no physics PhD friends (that I know of), so that makes the score of the Ubernerd Games...
Ben: 6.022 * 10^23; Nyet: 6.626 * 10^-34
So it turns out Ben and friend Dave are having gnocchi for dinner, making it from scratch, and would we like to eat with them. Heck yes. It being New Year's Day, I invite them over to watch football; they decline as they are watching the extended version of The Two Towers, further cementing Ben's victory. So long story short, we make it over and have a great meal of broccoli, salad, butternut squash soup, gnocchi and homemade tomato sauce. Awesome. The actual gnocchi-making process was hilarious, involving a furious debate about the consistency of the dough and should we / should we not add more flour, leading to the inevitable comment that you cannot deflour gnocchi, or at least not while a group is watching, nyuk, nyuk. Beck kept this vein up with a well-timed "debriefing" pun later, and I threw down with a "medicine is for chumps, I mean chimps" while explaining my med school history for the umpteenth time. All in all a great time: Dave went to camp with Ben and Ali, college with Ben and Ali, and somehow it doesn't slip out that Dave used to date Ali until about 3/4ths of the way through the night. Woah! Easily the best husband / former boyfriend relationship I have ever seen. Kudos to ben, or maybe I should avoid him for the next few weeks lest that embittered rage surface.
(The best part is that Ali called here last night to wish happy new year's, said she had heard that we had dinner with the twosome, and then asked how I liked her ex. When I said he seemed like a cool guy, she replies "Yeah, I used to do him.")
(That's Ali!)
So Tuesday was Beck's first day in the ER and my own first day in a special corner of hell where we spent HOURS talking about myspace and facebook and IMing and the new computer system. Blargh! I trekked home to an empty house after that amazement, ran 6 miles (woohoo!) and settled down to prepping for classes and several episodes of Angel. One episode in season 4 left. I hate Connor. Lonely night; beck got home late and I passed out more or less immediately after she sat down to eat dinner at 11:15.
Today was the first day back with the kiddos. All good. Back in the swing (though they admittedly remember nothing). Nice to start with a 3 day week, 4 day week, 4 day week, 3 day week combo. Cool.
I'm going to go watch the ND / LSU Sugar Bowl now. No one mentions that this is southern Louisiana home of pickpockets and loose women v. the Catholic Church, and or the supporters of God's mysterious ways v. Katrina victims. These are the angles I would really like ESPN to comment more upon.
And as a reward for reading the slew... here are highlights from the captain insane-o Boise State Oklahoma game the other night:
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: NR, largely so Nyet survives.
Besides, one could argue that pornography is by definition not art (it being "creative activity of no literary or artistic value"), so a non-rating seems in order. Just kidding. But really, I may not be able to define "bodice-ripper," but I know it when I read it. Ha. Okay, really, Outlander is an exciting book; Gabaldon is an excellent storyteller who does manage to weave a tale that throws the reader into the forests of the Highlands with her characters. I actually felt that the best aspects of the story centered around the political intrigue surrounding Jamie and his various relatives. Without ruining too much, there's a complicated dynamic between Jamie and his uncles, and everyone has multiple motives to oust one another. That sets a cool "trust no one" tone for the book, and the narrative weaves nicely around these bits, leaving things to be revealed for several hundred pages. So I liked that aspect. Some (some) of the fight scenes were nice and breathtaking, something that I personally find very hard to pull off, so kudos to the author for that. And, for all it's over-the-top goofiness,I'd be lying if I didn't say that jamie and Claire's relationship is largely well crafted.
But... and there's always a but, especially in the novel... there were a lot of missteps throughout. The bodice-ripping is, predictably, corny as hell, "I felt his readiness" being perhaps an all-time classic bad euphemism (apparently "it's my readiness in a box" didn't fit the beat). But it was really what felt like gratuitous rape scenes and an obsession with homosexual rape-torture that was pretty off-putting. Jamie and Claire's interactions alternate between vomit-inducing-ly sappy, hideous (the whole "I must beat ye and teach ye a lesson" section was painful), and really, bizarrely stone-faced. I suppose I found it uneven.
These are a lot of complaints - I was overall entertained and interested enough to want to find out what happens next to young Jamie and Claire, but I asked Beck in lieu of reading another one. Maybe that sums it up best.
And for the record, all this time I've been accusing Beck of reading bodice-rippers, I was right. She now can claim no rational defense.
Back into the blog - so I sat at Blackstone, hiding my copy of Outlander behind a copy of War Peace, hoping no one would see through my veneer (while coincidentally reading about someone's veneer being seen through. Repeatedly.) (The seeing through happened repeatedly, not the reading). Two coffees worth of time spent, Beck and I traveled to the S where, as fate would have it, we ran into Ben and a skinny stranger who looked like a cross between Jay Clyne and Brian Baker. I am probably the only person in the known universe for whom that has meaning. Anyways, it turned out that when the Ali is away (in LA for a vacation), the Ben will... invite a Physics PhD friend over to visit. I for the record, have no physics PhD friends (that I know of), so that makes the score of the Ubernerd Games...
Ben: 6.022 * 10^23; Nyet: 6.626 * 10^-34
So it turns out Ben and friend Dave are having gnocchi for dinner, making it from scratch, and would we like to eat with them. Heck yes. It being New Year's Day, I invite them over to watch football; they decline as they are watching the extended version of The Two Towers, further cementing Ben's victory. So long story short, we make it over and have a great meal of broccoli, salad, butternut squash soup, gnocchi and homemade tomato sauce. Awesome. The actual gnocchi-making process was hilarious, involving a furious debate about the consistency of the dough and should we / should we not add more flour, leading to the inevitable comment that you cannot deflour gnocchi, or at least not while a group is watching, nyuk, nyuk. Beck kept this vein up with a well-timed "debriefing" pun later, and I threw down with a "medicine is for chumps, I mean chimps" while explaining my med school history for the umpteenth time. All in all a great time: Dave went to camp with Ben and Ali, college with Ben and Ali, and somehow it doesn't slip out that Dave used to date Ali until about 3/4ths of the way through the night. Woah! Easily the best husband / former boyfriend relationship I have ever seen. Kudos to ben, or maybe I should avoid him for the next few weeks lest that embittered rage surface.
(The best part is that Ali called here last night to wish happy new year's, said she had heard that we had dinner with the twosome, and then asked how I liked her ex. When I said he seemed like a cool guy, she replies "Yeah, I used to do him.")
(That's Ali!)
So Tuesday was Beck's first day in the ER and my own first day in a special corner of hell where we spent HOURS talking about myspace and facebook and IMing and the new computer system. Blargh! I trekked home to an empty house after that amazement, ran 6 miles (woohoo!) and settled down to prepping for classes and several episodes of Angel. One episode in season 4 left. I hate Connor. Lonely night; beck got home late and I passed out more or less immediately after she sat down to eat dinner at 11:15.
Today was the first day back with the kiddos. All good. Back in the swing (though they admittedly remember nothing). Nice to start with a 3 day week, 4 day week, 4 day week, 3 day week combo. Cool.
I'm going to go watch the ND / LSU Sugar Bowl now. No one mentions that this is southern Louisiana home of pickpockets and loose women v. the Catholic Church, and or the supporters of God's mysterious ways v. Katrina victims. These are the angles I would really like ESPN to comment more upon.
And as a reward for reading the slew... here are highlights from the captain insane-o Boise State Oklahoma game the other night:
(masih) tentang hati
ternyata memang mencinta adalah hak paling manusiawi
ketika percakapan tak sengaja dimulai
dari sebuah pesan singkat yang salah alamat
bertanya kabar dan bertanya keadaan
apakah memang diperlukan ruang nyata
ketika imaji sudah begitu indahnya
tertata dalam angan yang selalu bermimpi
dan hati ini selalu ingin dan selalu ingat
pada ruang kosong dibelakang sang hati
yang sudah lama terlupakan
kusam dan usang
kebohongan selalu menjadi pagarnya
karena tidak ada yang mampu masuk
dan menjadi pengisi sang hati
kini semuanya dimulai lagi
ketika bentangan perhatian dan rindu menjadi penghubungnya
sekilas semuanya begitu indah
apakah akan sama sampai akhirnya?
terkadang saya tidak ingin berbohong kepada hati. karena bagaimanapun juga dialah bagian terdalam. yang paling mengerti. terbawa kembali cerita lalu. ketika banyak sekali yang menjadikan sang hati sebagai tempat sampah. maaf, begitu banyak yang membuatmu sakit. orang-orang yang katanya ingin masuk, tetapi hanya berdiri di luar, melihat sepintas kemudian pergi menjauh. padahal saya tahu, itu bukan yang mereka katakan ketika pertama bercakap. sakit, perih, dan tak tergantikan. sang hati kemudian berontak, dan berucap. tidak akan ada lagi jalan bagi kalian untuk masuk. tetapi ternyata sang hati termakan perangkap sendiri. karena dalam gelapnya sepi, dia tidak bisa bertahan. walaupun ada perhatian dari teman, tetapi mereka hanya bisa sampai ke beranda sang hati. tidak ada yang sanggup mengeluarkan sepi yang ikut terkunci. ketika hati menutup semua pintunya. telah lama terkungkung dalam kesendirian, sang hati akhirnya menyerah. mengalahkan keegoan yang menjadi pembatas. mengakui bahwa dia ingin berisikan cinta.
Kini seseorang datang membawa cerita baru. Sejumput kebahagiaan telah dia berikan sebagai awal. Secercah impian perlahan menghampiri. Dalam setiap ingatan, dan selalu berharap. Akan ada sebuah pesan dari dia. Beginilah awal sang hati lagi. Mencoba berdamai dengan semuanya, karena sepi sudah tak tertahankan lagi. Semoga bisa menjadi cerita yang indah.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Two Thousand Zero Seven (Party Over?)
Welcome to the New Year, Foo's!
I made it back into Grafton last night, as previously reported, where Beck and I had our gift exchange. She guessed my big gift, dance lessons, and as far as my other gift is concerned... well, it was Dave Eggers's new book What is the What, and she got the exact same thing for me. So we are either entirely in tune with one another or both very, very selfish people as we got something we clearly wanted to give ourselves. Or something. I'm not sure. But that was a wash, too, and so my last gift, Beck's beloved movie The Goonies, was a total afterthought but the only actual surprise she received. Yay me.
Beck's gifts, on the other hand, ruled. She got me this great book, What is the What, and she got me a Multipass to the Daily Show and The Colbert Report. So now all that time i would have spent bettering myself and or reading about Scottish readiness will be spent watching mock news. Somehow I anticipate still being two steps ahead of my students. I am pumped.
We went out to Bauhinia with Beck's classmate Theresa. (Side note - I just asked Beck how to spell "Bauhinia;" Beck's new nickname is "smarmy-ass comment maker."). Fun times, and good food taboot, and several vet-related stories as well as a Historical account of the collapse of Gingerbreadia. We left the restaurant well before 9 o'clock and then came home to not stay up until midnight. If we were horses, you would shoot us... wait for it, wait for it... because we are lame. Fortunately, we woke up to a 38-degree-and-raining 2007, so we are pumped about all the foreboding things that insinuates about the upcoming "big year" (not just for the "of the pig" reasons, but also because, apparently, Beck is graduating, I'm getting married, we're in all likelihood moving, all of which is news to me. 2007, who knew?) (5 months of freedom!) (Freedom.). But it's generally nasty and cold so far, so beck and I left the frigid confines of Providence Rd. and headed out for some Blackstone Coffee and reading by the fire, which was very nice, very nice indeed. Then on the way home we stopped at the S&S where we ran into none other than his holiness Ben, aka He Who Now Must Pay For Our Wedding Thanks To Ali, who is actually spending his New Year's Day Ali-less and with his friend John, a Physics PhD from Cornell who shares our humble distaste for the vast majority of vet conversations (which, as you may be able to guess, largely revolve around terms like "rectal" or "anal sacs" or are about professors and / or classmates, none of whom you have ever met or will ever meet or even generally know what they look like, which has an unsurprising tendency to render such conversations boring and force you to be creative in your self-entertainment, often resulting in effective mind-un-numbing activities like reading the labels of cheese). So they are making homemade something-that-I-couldn't-hope-to-remember-or-spell tonight, so we are now having dinner with Ben + guest, and hopefully this time the homemade thing will not look like brains as it did when beck last attempted this concoction.
Woo! Anyways, 2007. Love it or leave it. Back to you soon with more accounts and/or commentary.
I made it back into Grafton last night, as previously reported, where Beck and I had our gift exchange. She guessed my big gift, dance lessons, and as far as my other gift is concerned... well, it was Dave Eggers's new book What is the What, and she got the exact same thing for me. So we are either entirely in tune with one another or both very, very selfish people as we got something we clearly wanted to give ourselves. Or something. I'm not sure. But that was a wash, too, and so my last gift, Beck's beloved movie The Goonies, was a total afterthought but the only actual surprise she received. Yay me.
Beck's gifts, on the other hand, ruled. She got me this great book, What is the What, and she got me a Multipass to the Daily Show and The Colbert Report. So now all that time i would have spent bettering myself and or reading about Scottish readiness will be spent watching mock news. Somehow I anticipate still being two steps ahead of my students. I am pumped.
We went out to Bauhinia with Beck's classmate Theresa. (Side note - I just asked Beck how to spell "Bauhinia;" Beck's new nickname is "smarmy-ass comment maker."). Fun times, and good food taboot, and several vet-related stories as well as a Historical account of the collapse of Gingerbreadia. We left the restaurant well before 9 o'clock and then came home to not stay up until midnight. If we were horses, you would shoot us... wait for it, wait for it... because we are lame. Fortunately, we woke up to a 38-degree-and-raining 2007, so we are pumped about all the foreboding things that insinuates about the upcoming "big year" (not just for the "of the pig" reasons, but also because, apparently, Beck is graduating, I'm getting married, we're in all likelihood moving, all of which is news to me. 2007, who knew?) (5 months of freedom!) (Freedom.). But it's generally nasty and cold so far, so beck and I left the frigid confines of Providence Rd. and headed out for some Blackstone Coffee and reading by the fire, which was very nice, very nice indeed. Then on the way home we stopped at the S&S where we ran into none other than his holiness Ben, aka He Who Now Must Pay For Our Wedding Thanks To Ali, who is actually spending his New Year's Day Ali-less and with his friend John, a Physics PhD from Cornell who shares our humble distaste for the vast majority of vet conversations (which, as you may be able to guess, largely revolve around terms like "rectal" or "anal sacs" or are about professors and / or classmates, none of whom you have ever met or will ever meet or even generally know what they look like, which has an unsurprising tendency to render such conversations boring and force you to be creative in your self-entertainment, often resulting in effective mind-un-numbing activities like reading the labels of cheese). So they are making homemade something-that-I-couldn't-hope-to-remember-or-spell tonight, so we are now having dinner with Ben + guest, and hopefully this time the homemade thing will not look like brains as it did when beck last attempted this concoction.
Woo! Anyways, 2007. Love it or leave it. Back to you soon with more accounts and/or commentary.
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