Well I am certainly glad I saw Arrival so that I get the wug joke in http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=29480#more-29480

Saw "Arrival". It did have some nontrivial linguistics content, but it still felt kind of wrapped up in a discernible layer of Hollywood Woo. The science wasn't wrong, but the dialogue felt... all kinds of wrong. Maybe I just had too high of expectations coming into it. (5/10)

Had some dinner at Aliada with akiva and sasha and K, and afterwards saw Herzog's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" in Socrates park. Enjoyably bleak.

Still pretty hot out today. Went to see the new "Ghostbusters", thought it was decently funny. I liked Kate McKinnon's weird theatricality the best. I expect --- and maybe this expectation comes only from the era that I actually watched saturday night live, back in the Dana Carvey-Mike Myers-Phil Hartman days of yore --- a kind of awkwardness of ( Read more... )

Super busy and productive day ( Read more... )

Got a haircut from my sister; her new salon space looks pretty nice. Saw Zootopia, was good family entertainment with the occasional sneaky-adult-pop-culture-reference, as expected. Back home to nyc tomorrow.

Continued filling the backlog of disney movies I'd never seen as a kid, this time: Emperor's New Groove. Enjoyably self-aware, minimal music, much like Lilo and Stitch. And, of course, now the internet makes 5% more sense.

Watched the Big Short and had some korean bbq. Movie was great as a movie, accurate rendition of the tone of the Michael Lewis book from what I remember it. Here is a piece I found that claims to rebut some factual claims the movie made about how fucked/unfucked we are in the post-2008 world.

Made some lasagna with K, this time included some spinach and peas. Turned out pretty good. Watched "Boxtrolls", also enjoyed it.

2015 has treated me ok. It has been full of nontrivial tumult and change; new job, new apartment. Don't know what to expect of 2016 --- but that seems normal.

Watched "twinsters" on netflix, the true story of Samantha Futerman and Anaïs Bordier, identical twins separated at birth and adopted by families in totally different countries, who discover each other as adults via a combination of internet and sheer coincidence. It lies in an interesting space between a documentary and polished version of someone ( Read more... )