kitewithfish

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In an effort to rid my brian of the weirdness that was this movie, I am now listing quotes:

I'm a pimp. And pimps don't commit suicide.-- REPEATED LINE.

We created a gap in the fourth dimension. And then we shoved monkeys into it.

Cockchuggers II.

No-one rocks the cock like [NAME]. ---REPEATED LINE

Destroy capitalism. Dethrone God. -The motto of the NeoMarxist Collective.

The line "We saw shadows of the morning light/shadows of the evening sun/till the shadows and the light were one" is from Jane's Addiction's song "Three Days", which is featured on the soundtrack of the film.

Here endeth the quotes.

Apparently, this movie is the second part of a story, the first part of which is detaile in a graphic novel I have not read nor seen. And, quite frankly, I'm okay with that.

First of all, let's get one thing straight. The name kind of sucks. iPad sounds like a really high tech menstrual product, and if they had had a single woman on the project, they would have caught that pretty early on.

But, let's get to the bottom line: I don't think I want this. Which really is kind of a first for me- most of my life has been defined by a running theme of "Oooh, shiney" and base lust for Apple's newest products. It started with iPod and only grew stronger as the iPod grew smaller and more powerful. The iPod Touch nearly killed me. The iPhone is still a source of drool, even if I would have to work around the rather stupid calling plan. The drive to purchase the shiney new toy has been strong, if curbed strongly by my need to buy food, pay rent, and clothe myself.

I have just watched the Apple video introduction to the iPad (snort) and the wonders of its touch screen, the way you can move it, the LED lighting (okay, that I want, but who doesn't?), and honestly? I don't think I want this.

Issues:
1. Cumbersome: I like my laptop because I can sit with it on a table or my lap without any special tools and use the computer. I can type, operate the mouse, and still shift my position around- the keyboard provides a stable base for the screen, which can then be tilted for ease of sight. The iPad has no base, and the position that the model in the video assumed to keep the display tilted right looked incredibly uncomfortable. You can't lay it flat on a table easily and still use it without leaning over it. At 1.5 pounds, it's too heavy to hold one-handed for long.

2. Dependent: This thing has no optical, DVD, or BlueRay drive. You need an entire nother computer to use this thing. I ranted about this with the MacBook Air. Lack of a self-sufficient system makes it a big shiney toy, and quite frankly, I would rather a toy that did the same thing and was more portable, like the iPhone. There's a reason the things are designed to fit in a pocket.

Now, on the plus side, this thing is not priced like a laptop, so that means that fairly rich people will be able to play with this sucker without too much ado. It may turn out to be a better creature than I expected, but I am skeptical.

What I really want? Is for the touchscreen technology to work its way into the next generation of the MacBook family. I like touchscreens, but I want a computer that works like a real computer, not just a toy and I'm not willing to pay for both. I'm willing to wait a while.

Today, I had lunch with the other "Young Adults," from church, which is the only group where that phrase does not refer to anyone between 15-20. Because, Hi! At 17, you are not actually anywhere near being an adult in a world where more people go to college supported by their parents, which is what comprises most of my social circle. If you are leaving home and going to work or college on your own dime, then maybe that's a time when you're starting to be an adult, but for most of the people I know, it's an extension of childhood's nurturing space.

Anyhoo, ended up sitting with several other people interested in being ordained and/or going to grad school. It was kind of intriguing, because the only other people I know who were doing this were already in process, in grad school, and most of them were already ordained transitional deacons. Which kind of shows you only one facet of the process. And in any case, I last felt really active in a parish in my first few years of college. I really have not had a lot of good feeling about church since then, and a fair amount of bad feeling from my mom's losing her job. So, it's kind of nice to see it from the perspective of happy people who are interested in their work and want to get something done, and have a good reason to expect that they're going to be able to accomplish something. It's far less depressing than I thought it would be.

ANGIER Pleased to meet you, Mr. Ackerman.
ACKERMAN Likewise, I'm sure. Let's get on,
shall we? Angier smiles.
CUTTER (down to stage) Turn it on, please.
After a moment, the machine SPARKS INTO LIFE. ELECTRIC BOLTS CASCADE from the GLOBE and SPLASH on the stage.
ACKERMAN Very pretty.
Angier smiles at Cutter and head back down the stage. he STEPS himself into the machine and DISAPPEARS.
The machine SPUTTERS out and is silent.
ACKERMAN (CONT'D) That's it, Cutter? He simply
disappears? That's not a trick. He has to come back. There has to be a-
VOICE (O.S.)a Prestige?
ACKERMAN
Exactly- Ackerman begins to turn around- then STOPS- ANGIER IS STANDING DIRECTLY BEHIND HIM. Ackerman is dumfounded. He looks back down at the stage.
Anckerman
steadies himself;
ANGIER Are you interested in helping us?
ACKERMAN
(nods) Yes. But you'll have to dress it up a little. Disguise it. Give them enough reason to doubt it.
(quiet, Pardon me.
ACKERMAN (CONT'D) haunted) It's very rare to see...
real magic. since I've seen...

I would very much like to read a story someone wrote about the last time Ackerman saw real magic before Angier.

Here are a list of convictions that Sci Fi and Fantasty have forced upon me by useful tactic of blowing my mind.

1. District 9 - Humans are more likely to put aliens in slums and steal their technology and their children than treat them humanely. Aliens, unless you can prove really, really convlusively that you are superior to us, don't come here. We'll screw you over.

2. The Sparrow- If we discover life on another planet, the Jesuits will be the first humans to make landfall. No need for wrangling, a large budget, and an instinctive desire to explore. “For the greater glory of God” covers just about anything.

3. So You Want to Be a Wizard- The entirety of the universe is described within the pages of a book- it is the operating manual and hard drive for everything that ever way and ever will be.

4. Sandman- Women in groups of three are one of the organizing forces of the universe. Fear them, and under no circumstances piss them off.

5. Harry Potter- When you don’t care about the characters anymore, it’s time to stop reading.

Read Guy Debord's THE SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE, and ask how his theories relate to the modern wired world, the concept of an interactive Web 2.0, and in particular its relationship to fan culture and media studies.

And, in another note, I found that program I was looking for. It's called Readability, you can get it here: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/. I particularly like using this to look at Tvtropes- it adds a particular air of authenticity.

More and more I wonder if I should be doing something in media studies, some days.

I read, several months ago, an article in the Opinion section of Nytimes.com that talked about a website that also functions as a Mozilla add-on. This program allowed you to functionally turn off all the graphics and ads on a webpage and view only the main block of text that you wanted in a rather classy font and text size.

I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the add-on or website that was mentioned. I have just spent about half an hour pawing through Nytimes.com trying to find the article again. I have recently lost all of my bookmarks and history from my computer, so I can't just paw through my old links to try and find it again.

Did anyone else see this? I would love your help, please!

Rewatching the first season of the West Wing- the scene's of Leo's marriage breaking up in FIVE VOTES DOWN is so very heartbreaking, given how tough he is all the time to everyone else. He's so incredibly broken.

It is 23 degrees Fahrenheit outside, which makes this the warmest day in the past week. It is also snowing incredibly heavily, which is actually the reason for the rise in temperature. It's incredibly pretty in certain areas of the city today and incredibly slushy and gross in others, which is the nature of snow as well.

I am currently wearing:
-woolen socks
-waterproofed hiking boots
-thick red nylon leggings, footless
-even thicker black knitted leggings, footless
-an adorable cotton skirt of two layers
-a sleeveless shirt
-a thin purple sweater

Last night I watched MULHOLLAND DR at Doc Films, which was incredibly strange. I kind of expected that, but honestly, it was really beyond my expectations of weirdness. I'm fairly convinced that a great deal of the film was a dream sequence, but beyond that I can only take away the fact that Naomi Watts is an excellent actress. The whole film could be more comprehensible if maybe two scenes were added explaining what the hell was going on, but there was some really incredible moments of tension and suspense, and I think that it was worth five bucks for the cultural experience.

designed and directed by his red right hand.

In doing bills, my red pen started to leak all over things, making it rather difficult to finish things off.

Having gotten my loans under control again, I am feeling much better about my life in general, and have established a functional budget for the rest of this academic year.

I have only just now realized how tense being back here makes me, but I am making a point of letting myself take time and relax through things. I have my first class tomorrow, and I'm feeling pretty good about it.

EDIT: I wrote this several days ago and it never got posted. I'm backdating it for this reason.

Back in the Windy City once more. I am only now getting up, having given myself yesterday and the best part of today to get my strength back.

Anyhoo, things to do:

-get mail
-get food
-pay rent (now, you don't have to worry about the check bouncing)
-reregister for the regenstein locker (this is a bit time sensitive)
-get syllabi for classes if possible- start ordering books online asap
-check registration for the orthodox aesthetics
-look over your budget again and make sure that you are keeping things inside budget
-look for internships and summer work

In a horrifying twist, Logan Airport no longer seems to offer free wireless internet. It certainly did the last time I flew, this summer.

This begs the question, of course- how are you online, then? There is temporary free wireless, sponsored by some company who will not garner the free press that mentioning them here would give them, and this is really, really quite annoying. I thought Logan was one of the last free wireless airport holdouts, but it appears to have gone over to the dark side.

So, as you might have guessed, I am headed back to the Windy City and the new quarter before me. Huzzah!

In another move of cunning, my overpacked bag weighed exactly 50 pounds, the limit for bags without having to pay an additional overweight charge.

Random thought- wouldn't it be better for the airlines to stop charging for baggage, and thus encourage more people to check luggage and thus make it easier to get things through the security check? I wonder if there would be some federal money for this....

How did I spend the last day of 2009?

I slept in, got some of the torpid stench of the airport off my skin, made a breakfast of whatever random food was left in the house from before we left on vacation to South Carolina, and then looked up the library's hours for the next few days. It turned out, they were indeed open today, but closing early and not going to be open tomorrow, so I trundled off through the falling snow to the library and dumped all my books off. Sadly, most of them are unread, but I did get to the conclusion of Henry Jenkin's Convergence Culture .

I set my laundry to going, and headed out.

Despite my best efforts to be careful, the snow was of that determined sticky variety that clings to itself, the ground, your clothes, and even ice, making the going perilous and my knee bloody before I made it to the library. Adding insult to injury, I landed on it several times on the way back to my house.

On the plus side, however, my newly acquired and brimmed hat worked wonderfully to keep the falling snow off my glasses, and that makes me a happy girl. Cold, wet, and bloody by the time I got to the library, but happy. The mitten/fingerless gloves also worked well beyond expectations, and were quite snazzy.

It's been 2010 for about twenty minutes now, and I have called My Boy (TM) to gloat at him about the face that I am now in THE FUTURE, while he is in the past. He attempted to convince me that time was an illusion, but I know that's just an argument people have made in THE PAST, and told him so.

I resolve nothing, as I am really not inclined to keep these kind of promises made to myself at arbitrary intervals. But, I will note, that I start this year where I want to be in every sense but the absolutely physical, and with firm intentions of getting back to that soon as a well, too. Much in the world is wrong and bad, but it will be alright, someday.

Arrived safely in a resort hotel that is far in excess of what I was hoping for from my rather frugal mother.

Rather fuzzy round the edges because of alcohol intake and the wonderfulness of my siblings.

Inexcusable, but I will be posting lyrics now, as I have just watched for the first time a non-stoppy rendition of Lim's Firefly fanvid, "While We Have the Sun", which is beautiful and a little hurty on your soul if you are in the right mood for having your soul made a little hurty. Which I am, being boozy and several hundred miles from my boy.

Sweet Christ on a cracker, I am pathetic.

( While We Have the Sun )

Queue the Willy Nelson, ne?

The family is off to the supposedly warmer climes of South Carolina, and that means I am up and ready bright and early to get my little buns out the door.

I'm actually kind of pleased that our original plans to fly on Christmas got stymied- the tradition of my family is to unwrap and enjoy presents at a leisurely pace, and having to curtail that and get ready to fly out fast seemed like it would really have ruined the mood.

We got my father an iPod Touch under the impression that, since he is a bit of a hacker, he would be able to make the necessary machinations with his Linux box to get iTunes up and running, but after several hours yesterday that seems to have been put aside. I feel bad about that: I thought it would just be a matter of installing something extra to get iTunes to run on Ubuntu, but it seems that we may have gotten my father a particularly nice and shiny rock for Christmas.

On Christmas traditions:
Christmas Eve: Lasagna. It must be Lasagna. This is because my father was almost half Italian. And I do not mean that he's 7/8's Italian- I mean he's totally Irish and it was a very near miss on being Italian.
After the feast, one present- not one of the big/good ones, but a small one. (Brother boy usually handles the doling out of presents around the circle, and his anxiety about making sure that we like out gifts usually means that he hands out his presents first. We try to limit that a little- what's the fun if he doesn't have to squirm like the rest of us?)

Christmas morn- The kids are usually too lazy to move in the morning for presents or not, but since we were once small and spritely, the rule was long ago established that you can unload your stocking before the others get up, but you can't open any presents. This worked pretty well if you discount the year that I got my stocking at 4 am, demolished it, and then moved on to my sister's.

Brother acts as the gift-monkey and hands presents out to everyone in a round, and then one person opens them at a time while the others coo. There is very little open animosity- if you don't like a present, you generally approach the person later and get a receipt to exchange it. For the most part in these later years, people have gotten pretty good at figuring out what other people want in terms of presents, so there are very few moments of real unhappiness anymore.

And I could probably go on, but I have no yet gotten any coffee in my belly.

MacBook Pro 13 laptop: name, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
various and sundry undergarments
a small book on the stupid things people say
Coraline, the film
Sweeney Todd, with Johnny Depp
wondrous and wooley socks
various and sundry delicious candies
a handmade casserole dish, made by my dear sister

Name of the Laptop- I'm torn between calling it the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, and calling it just Nell, for the main heroine of that same little book.

EDIT:
The little puter has been christened "the Primer" and all goes according to plan.

Testing, testing...

New laptop, makes me rather happy. I am currently running like six programs and transferring files from my external harddrive, a feat which would stymie my old 'puter like no other, and yet, New!Puter is fine. Oh, the joys of new gobs of RAM.

I really should think of a name for the new puter, but for the moment, the only thing that comes to mind is "the precious," a la Gollum, and I don't think I want to add a new set of oddities to my current life.

But, then again, he is a verra, verra shiney new puter.

Arrived home safely, and exhausted: what is it about sitting in one place for several hours that it so incredibly tiring?

Traveling places when there is no one looking out for me in the place I'm leaving. Irrational, but it keeps happening. I was texting my dad all the way through the trip to the airport.

me: Waiting for bus. Cold and bored.
Dad: That will make your arrival all the more heartwarming.
me: bah, humbug!

me: yay bus!
Dad: I love your travel updates. :)

me: On blue line. Yay L!

me: (at airport) Second gate change done. Coffee ineffective taken orally. Considering IV drip.
Dad: Try inhaling.

Saying goodbye to My Boy was a little schmoopy and sad- he still is entertaining his parents, so he's sending me updates about stuff.

Loot count so far:
1 (one) new green eyeshadow from Sephora
1 pair (one) leather snow boots
3 pairs (three) black gym socks that pass for dress socks if you don't look too close.
1 (one) repaired, cleaned and fitted bequest ring from my grandmother- it's actually quite lovely.

Leaving in the morning. Home for Christmas.

I have completed my last paper! I am done!

Current plans- going to get a drink with the last person at the Div school who I know to still be around, and later meeting up with My Boy.

I would write something interesting and clever, but at this moment, I am really just sort of basking in the lovely feeling of not having anything to do of a serious nature, and having completed my damned paper.

I honestly might consider going to bed, but the possibility of actually speaking to someone is shockingly appealing at the moment.

I'm packed, as much as I can be for the fact that I am going to be around for another day, and I basically just have to hang out tomorrow, dump the trash, mail some things, and give My Boy the milk, sour cream, and bread that I can't expect will last the two weeks I'm gone. And, honestly, clean house a little because things have gotten a little gross during the time when all the occupants were stressed out for finals and getting things done.

I'm having dinner again with My Boy and his parents again tomorrow night. It's likely to be the last time I see him before I leave. Poo.

I really kind of wish I were the type of person able to get a paper done before its due, but really, finals bring out the procrastinator in me. If I had been able to get this sucker done a few days earlier, I could have spent more time with the boy, but as it is, its done and I will be back soon enough.

But he says he's going to meet me at the airport when I come back to Chicago. :D

Current Music: Finale - When Love is Found/It Feels Like Christmas - Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Ghost of Christmas Present

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kitewithfish

January 2026

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Southland Tales

The iPad

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Note to Self

Every now and again, science fiction and fantasy throw me for a loop.

Note to Self

Help me find this website/ Mozilla add-on again!

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The lady is armored,

You're one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan

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Appalled

Welcome to the future

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On the Road again....

The Loot

Merry Christmas, motherfuckers!

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Sweet, sweet freedom

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