Golden State Warriors

Oh, basketball, how I've missed you so. You fill a hole in my heart.

Megaman Pumpkin Carving

Another year, another Halloween. Aside from being able to purchase cheap candy at stores, pumpkin carving is my favorite part of Halloween... since last year anyway. This is only the second time I've carved a pumpkin. I guess traditionally you might carve a scary pumpking or something, but I like to opt for some random pop culture thing that has my attention recently. And since I played Megaman 9 not too long ago, I carved a Megaman pumpkin in all his 8-bit glory. I'm not obsessed with Megaman, honest!

Thanks to Annie for hosting the event.

In case you're wondering, I carved an Indiana Jones pumpkin last year:

Bit Art

I'm sooo gonna do this. It'll either be Mega Man or Link from Zelda. Hmm, where could I buy perfectly cut colored paper squares? Post-its are a possibility if they have the suitable colors.

Wendy's

I love Wendy's. It's possibly my favorite fast food chain. What amazes me is that they still have their 99 cent menu with their Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and 5 Piece Chicken Nuggets. Like today, I got two Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers and two orders of chicken nuggets, all for $4.31. I didn't have an easy time finding this Wendy's, and it was slightly out of the way, but it was worth it. I also think Wendy's has the best chicken sandwiches of the major fast food chains.

Back in high school, we had an open campus for lunch. It was pretty awesome, 'cause we had one of almost every fast food chain within a 10 minute drive radius. Wendy's was one of the places we would frequent during lunch. I even had this 10% off coupon that had unlimited uses and never expired, which was handed down to me from my sister, which in turn I handed down to my brother. I'm sure it was horrible for us to eat fast food all the time, but it sure beat eating cafeteria food :). In college, we would also make runs to Wendy's 'cause it was cheap and opened late at night. And of course, 'cause it was delicious. So Wendy's and I go way back. I like to think that after all these years we can call each other "friend."

Kevin

You are my friend.

Alvin

You are my friend.

To Draw Again

It's been a while since I've drawn anything other than random doodles along the margins of my notebook. I've missed how relaxing it can be. Anyway this was done at the request of Eric. I drew it in pencil and ink and touched it up in Photoshop.

Add Keyword

There's this cool feature in Firefox I never knew about until someone pointed it out at work. You can add a keyword for different search engines, so that you can type the keyword in the address bar as well as the search term and it will search the site. For example, I have "yt" set for YouTube. If I go to the address bar (Ctrl-L shortcut) and type "yt street fighter" it will search "street fighter" in YouTube! It's more efficient than using the search bar on the upper right of Firefox, since you can easily choose the search engine provided that you remember the keyword. To add the keyword, right-click the search bar in whatever site, and choose "Add a Keyword for this Search...." Easy peasy.

TV

I have a TV in my room now. It is wonderful.

I'm not sure how counterproductive it is. Usually I just sit in the living room to watch TV where I cannot effectively multitask. Now I can still sit at my desk with the TV on in the background, which I can easily choose to ignore, without the inconvenience of wandering between rooms.

Traffic Lights

On my way to work I hit 13 red lights of 22 traffic lights. It was so frustrating. Four of the green lights came at the end of the commute (where they are usually always green), so at one point I was at 13 of 18. I made it through a couple other green lights only because I coasted between lights such that the next light would turn green just before I completely had to stop. TWENTY-TWO traffic lights turns a four mile drive into a 20+ minute drive!

Synecdoche, NY

Shattuck Cinemas held a sneak peek of Synecdoche, NY, along with a Q&A with writer/director Charlie Kaufman. In case you don't remember, Kaufman wrote the screenplays for Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Btw, if you're like me and have no idea what synecdoche means, here's the wiki entry for it.

The movie is really interesting. I had certainly enjoyed it and it held my attention, but I'm still not sure to what degree I like the film. Like all of Kaufman's movies, this one is quite weird and has a lot of dreamlike elements permeating throughout. The movie is good in the sense that I'm still thinking about it and what all the pieces of the movie mean. However, it does meander a bit in the middle, which makes the approximately two hour running time seem really really long. I don't really know how to describe the movie or the plot. It's largely about death, but also everything else. The movie focuses on the life of Caden, a theater director, from ages 40-80 and his struggles with his personal life and the development of his magnum opus he's putting together.

Charlie Kaufman seems like a pretty shy guy, possibly a bit of a recluse. In any case, he seemed nervous when giving a brief introduction to the film, but the Q&A afterwards was good. Kaufman declined to answer questions about the significance behind certain scenes or elements, because he doesn't want his motivations to be the end of the discussion. His movies are in some sense a conversation with the audience. He writes what he is interested in and presents it in the hopes that we may, for at least that brief moment, be interested in it as well. Our side of the conversation is how we interpret what he puts on screen or if we find our own significance in the movie if any. I asked him how he came up with the title. It was just one of the title ideas he came up with while writing the screenplay that he liked.

I didn't really identify at all with the characters. I don't think I've reached that age yet, so I didn't speak in that way to me. I'm going to do a little bit of interpretation of the ending of the movie so if you'd like to bail out now then do so. If not, then keep reading, although I don't know if what I write will make any sense if you haven't watched it yet. But just in case....

*SPOILERS*
(highlight to read)

Inadvertently or not, Kaufman dropped the hint that the movie is also about aging and how the elderly are pushed aside and forgotten. For the most part, the film is really focused on Kaden and his medical and relationship troubles. It gets really weird by the end, and we find an 80 year old Kaden living inside a closet with some woman speaking to him through an ear piece telling him what to do. The movie is about Kaden and yet it isn't. He's been pushed to the periphery to be forgotten, hidden inside a closet. He is told what to do by some voice. Like the elderly, he is a slave to another person's words, until he is told to "die." Kind of depressing really. There are a lot of existentialist undertones to the movie and repeated comments as to how insignificant we all are. I don't remember the exact phrasing of the sentence, but the gist is something like this: we are all extras in other people's lives. We are all the primary subject of our own biopic, but we are also the faceless extras that pass through the lives of others, like extras on a set. I remember reading a bumper sticker that said something like that, but I don't recall the exact wording. Anyway, like it or not, the movie makes you think... partly because it's just so weird and head scratching inducing.

Dragonball

Not gonna lie... I want to watch this hahahaha. Call it morbid curiosity or nostalgia or whatever, but even though a live action Dragonball movie is a ridiculous idea, I'm intrigued by how it will turn out.

And Emma Rossum's a cutie, even with the bangs.

Burn Notice

Michael Westen is my hero.

I'm so addicted to Burn Notice. It is a great show. It's fairly light entertainment, but it's done well. The plot is as follows: Michael Westen is a CIA agent that was burned, meaning he was cut off by the CIA. All his assets have been frozen, his job history erased, and he is stuck in Miami. The overall story arc is Michael is trying to figure out who burned him and why. Each episode he uncovers tidbits about the mystery, but otherwise the episodes are fairly episodic. He uses his spy skillz to help people who need it - those who are in danger of being killed, kidnapped, or forced to commit crimes. He's like a modern day MacGuyver with a heart of gold, 'cause he often doesn't charge for his services. He tries to diffuse the situations without resorting to guns a-blazing by being resourceful. I don't recall him ever directly killing someone either. When he does have to use hand to hand combat, they're choreographed quite well, such that you actually believe that someone could disarm or win such a fight without being made of steel. Punches are rarely thrown as he usually uses joint locks and take downs to subdue attackers.

One of the best parts of the shows is he often provides voiceovers to explain what he's doing and why or how to handle oneself in certain situations. He explains what different weapons are good for, how to fabricate snooping devices and weapons, what to do in a fight or car chase, where good places are to hide valuables, and how to sell your character when conning someone. It's certainly not enough information to do it yourself, but you get the overall idea. I don't know how accurate the things he says are, but it's pretty interesting.

Beyond the case of the week, we get to see his interactions with friends and family, which adds a minor bit of drama to the story and humanizes the character. It's enough to add another depth to the show, but without ever becoming a distraction. Oh, and Bruce Campbell is on the show. And for some reason Michael really likes yogurt. It's probably an eccentricity to highlight the fact that he's not an invincible machine. But he always wins. Like me.