(no subject)
minesweeper, real life
courtesy greg. awesome find.
opening scene of saw4. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. it's really graphic. they call this genre torture porn for a reason.
http://view.break.com/346309 - Watch more free videos
comments later in the entry.
21 amazing fruit facts
okay. moreso just because... the guy is really goofy? i dunno. i watched it all the way through.
kevin james magic on you've got talent
do you want to discuss how he did this? i emailed someone who made a comment on the board. response: you should read something about magic, then you'll understand how much criss angel and david blaine are crap.. (i'm probably better than them) and david copperfield is a genius =)
office, outtakes
fav is the last one with TOBEY
lacey and pasha, hip hop
really liked the choreography, not as big a fan of pasha
lacey and pasha, smooth waltz
favorite part, the initial lift behind pasha.
sabra and neil, jazz
the planche, definitely. here what i am sort of really mindblown about this clip, among other things. but having come from a summer where all i wore were tucked in button down shirts, you can't do anything as simple as lift your arms without your shirt coming out of your pants and making you look really not as clean cut. but his shirt still stays really well tucked in DESPITE jumping and moving all crazy. damn.
disclaimer. sooooo i haven't been updating the blog as much. sorry. i think this is a slight trend in this blog, which is just a trend towards more protected entries. thoughts:
--it is slightly in opposition with my "what are you afraid of!?" ideology, but the thing is, there are things that i simply can't write about publicly. and it's just sort of a hassle separating out what can and can't be public.
--blogging itself is not really doing it for me. like the idea of this anonymous person befriending you is cool. but i don't think that that necessarily happens. like i am not necessarily receiving as much feedback as i would like. which discourages me from writing as much. that, and it turns out that i do not actually receiving criticism. well, i do on an ideological level, but not really.
national treasure 2 trailer. holy crap, this trailer is incredibly. i am so excited.
facebook group. COME on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol. and they were mentioned in a CNN article! that is some pretty good publicity right there. (name of the group: I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head. )
on that note of sheer aggression....
news recap. various links.
they probably won't go back to the utah mines. that's pretty poignant.
5 year old boy set on fire after doused by gasoline. that... sucks.
"He's become spiteful, I am not sure why," said his mother, Zainab. "He is jealous of everyone. If I say the slightest thing to him, he cries. He's sensitive."
that strikes me as being a really insensitive statement on behalf of the mom.
virginia tech internal report decides that nobody was at fault. agreed.
intel hires a lobbying firm. i never really thought about companies needing lobbying firms.
self-declared 15 companies that will change the world. no, redfin is not on there. but there was a company that makes 3D PRINTERS!! how cool is that. i have no idea how that would even work.
veronica mars/kristin bell is joining HEROES!!. okay. fine. this may encourage me to watch the show. let's get a pic.
hellllllllls yeah.
the office.
article about kelly kapoor. i didn't learn this until last night with anthony, but did you know that KELLY AND RYAN ARE BOTH WRITERS FOR THE SHOW?!?!?!??!?!?
after learning this, i just became infinitely more infatuated/impressed with them. that they can be so incredible and so young and be writing for the office?!?!?!? AND BE IN THE OFFICE?!?!?!? arrghhhh. as in, ryan actually wrote the episode where ryan sets the office on fire.
While visiting her parents in her hometown of Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Office star Mindy Kaling spent most of her time doing one of the things she loves the most: shopping.
Kaling was supposed to be working on a script for The Office’s fourth season. Instead, the 28-year-old writer and actress ended up going store-hopping along Newbury Street last week.
“I can’t believe that I put off this writing,” she told the Boston Herald. “We had five weeks to write it and I’ve waited until the last week because I was too busy shopping and hanging with my boyfriend. I can’t believe how incredibly irresponsible I’ve been.”
Known for her portrayal of ditzy customer service representative Kelly Kapoor on The Office, Mindy Kaling became interested in comedy writing after taking a satire class at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School during her junior year.
“It was a crash course in all things comedy and it was amazing,” she said. “That course itself, in my mind, is worth the tuition for all four years at BB&N.”
“I think that Ryan is in for it,” Kaling explained. “I don’t think Kelly would even know where the phrase ‘hell hath no fury’ is from or even know what that means, but we’re going to see that literally enacted upon Ryan, which I think is going to be funny to see. My character is kind of such a sweet ditz, so to see her be scorned and turned into Medea will be really fun and a challenge as an actor.”
Kaling also revealed that a past character is set to make a comeback in the show’s fourth season. “We get to see a character who we think is no longer going to be on the show any more,” she said. “Someone who we think is long gone. They make an appearance so I was excited about the script.”
aggregated list of spoilers for season 4. pretty much none of them are interesting. but if you can't get your hands on enough office stuff.... the first four episodes are going to be hour-long episodes!!!
i sort of worry about the office season4. hopefully it will stay strong.
right now, the potential tv sched: desperate housewives, the office, definitely. possibly heroes, survivor. and... that's it? lost doesn't premiere until spring. i don't think i'll watch nip/tuck.
i like the style.
on how college life has changed. again, don't have the link, but it's from a NYT editorial, i think. essentially about how college life used to be the shizz because it was all intellectual, and now it's just "feckless" students. (learned that word today!!!!) excerpt:
But in contrast, today's colleges lack this cultural and intellectual vigor. One college student complains that "people here are so insanely uncreative, and they're proud of it." The main problem in his eyes was that his classmates "had to spend their entire high school experience studying for the SATs or something and didn't really get a chance to live life or experience things."
Why aren't people paying attention to the campuses? Because, as a discrete experience, "college" has begun to disappear. My radical, alienated friends brought up the University of Chicago's marketing materials: bucolic images of a mystic world apart, where 18-year-olds discover themselves for the first time in a heady atmosphere of cultural and intellectual tumult. But college no longer looks like that. They wondered how long the admissions office thought it could get away with it before students start complaining they'd been swindled. I posed the question to a brilliant graduating senior, someone I've been friends with for four years. "They're assuming that the marketing is for students," he explained. "It's not. It's for parents."
Who had, you know, gone to college back when it was college.
sorry, did find the link: essay contest
anthony. had dinner with anthony last night. something that really impresses me. which is, he knows a lot about a lot of subjects. such as:
--he knows a lot about the markets. like i thought i could hold my ground in a talk about the stock market. but ... i understand it. i just don't have a lot of opinions. as opposed to anthony. talked a bit about VOLATILITY, which was pretty exciting. he also knew a lot about subprime and apple.
--a discussion of alcoholism. which sort of brought back memories of jules and his discussion re: what makes someone have an alcohol problem. interesting point of view, which is: problem drinking is just binge drinking and throwing up and going to the ER or something. alcoholism, on the other hand, can be determined by frequency, but not necessarily the intensity. it is largely driven by motivation. as in, if you drink every night to sleep because you're so depressed, that's a problem. but if you drink every night socially, that's okay. i think that's a pretty solid grasp of alcohol problems.
--a discussion of economics. again, i sort of remember studying this, but he was essentially arguing that perfectly rational people should equate their leisure time with their effective hourly wage. (jim, what are your thoughts on this?!?). but i was arguing how this was not necessarily a solid rational deduction. and then he lost me by using some pretty serious terminology, such as "granularize" and "linear" (which i do understand, just not in the context of this discussion. "what function is linear?" "a 3 dimensional function over three different factors" "...")
--discussion of THE OFFICE. he brought up the school of thought that KAREN is actually better than pam, which is absolutely unheard of. it was actually a really interesting argument that sort of became slightly regarding destiny and true love. and does karen deserve to be broken up with? he also disagreed with my "tobey is the most awesome character, i am tobey" comment. in fact, he thinks that tobey is slightly sketchy. also talked about ryan and kelly. jan as a character. how they play up michael's feminimity in a variety of ways.
--the research that he's doing. which is actually some pretty exciting imaging stuff.
the entire time, we went to this reallly nice pub/restaurant sort of place, where he talked about beers. and cmon. i know nothing about beers. other than the fact that... they're an acquired taste, to put it lightly.
wikipedia: list of paradoxes
# Horse paradox: All horses are the same color.
# Berry paradox: The phrase "the first number not nameable in under ten words" appears to name it in nine words.
# Curry's paradox: "If this sentence is true, the world will end in a week."
rotten tomatoes saw4 teaser article
Jigsaw and his apprentice Amanda are dead.
Upon the news of Detective Kerry's murder, two seasoned FBI profilers, Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Agent Perez, arrive at the depleted police precinct and help veteran Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) sift through Jigsaw's latest grizzly game of victims and piece together the puzzle. However, when SWAT Commander Rigg, the last officer untouched by Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), is suddenly abducted and thrust into the madman's harrowing game, the officer has but ninety minutes to overcome a series of interconnected traps...or face the deadly consequences.
Rigg's citywide pursuit leaves a wake of dead bodies, and Detective Hoffman and the FBI uncover long hidden clues that lead them back to Jigsaw's ex-wife Jill (Betsy Russell). The genesis of Jigsaw's evil is unveiled, exposing the puppet master's true intentions and the sinister plan for his past, present and future victims.
here is what the twist is going to be at the end: jigsaw is still alive and is actually controlling the wife who is trying to control the FBI detectives.
ended up watching the first few minutes of saw4 by myself in stm. not a good idea. totally freaked me out. thoughts about the first couple minutes: totally gory (duh). but the premise is fairly incredible, albeit executed not to its full potential.
universal and itunes drm. didn't keep the article, but:
Since announcing that they will not renew their contract with iTunes, Universal, one of the "big 4" record labels, announced this week that they will start selling DRM-free music online. Cory Doctorow, an advocate for the removal of all DRM "crippleware," says that this move is inevitable since Apple only allows the music they sell to be played on an iPod.
"For record companies, there are only two choices: sell Apple-crippled music and increase Apple's control over the online music business, or sell uncrippled music. Uncrippled music -- MP3s and other open files -- are superior to the crippled versions. You can play them on more devices and do more with them. No customer seeks out music because it's crippled -- DRM doesn't sell music. None of the iTunes customers bought music because they wanted music that was locked to the iPod and wouldn't play on competing devices. People who don't want to pay for music just download it from P2P, where all the music is already available for free, without DRM. If you want to convince people to buy your music, you can't start by making it worse than the free stuff. "
and on that note, i've been exploring a genre of music that jules introduced me to known as "alternative rock", i think. playlist is courtesy of a last.fm station known as jmfh. some of the best:
spinto band - oh mandy - i lovee the resolution of the first couple chords
boy kill boy - civil sin - angsty
funeral for a friend - into oblivion - almost pop-ish
wheat - i had angels watching over me - i like the chord progression
kristofer astrom - just a little insane - easy listening. borderline country.
sytycd finale. quick thoughts:
--how did danny show more personality in the finale episode than he did THE ENTIRE SEASON?!?! i sort of wanted to die during the "she's totally lying" bit.
--happy for sabra. for the record, totally called the final four and the winner of the show
--the re-dances were nice, although i think that the original dances were always better than the ones that they redid.
--i really liked how all the choreographers got to request dances
--again, for the record, favorite dancers for season 3: anya, sara, and kameron. final 12, 8, and 10, respectively.
i really like the style in this picture as well. perspective on the skater.
espn. alexis, one of the interns, graciously invited ESPN vp of advertising, sean, to come speak to us. some really cool stuff that he talked about:
on the importance of branding: monday night football has always been on ABC. originally it was on a portion called "ABC Sports", but then ESPN thought that it was stupid, and rebranded it as "ESPN on ABC". this simple change in NAME (no changes in production value, hosts, etc) increased popularity of monday night football by 34% (i forget exactly what metric he used.)
on the necessity of watching football on HDTV. "so you get a huge HDTV, and you watch praying mantises eat hummingbirds and think it's so cool, but then after two weeks, you realize that you don't actually like watching that, and go back to watching football." hahahahhahahhahahaha.... those nature videos are so cool though!!!
but yeah. discussed how he sees espn on hdtv as being really important, segmentation of the population, difficulty in choosing programming for the espn channels.
on hosts. apparently the kind of hosts that you want are "love him or hate him" hosts. apparently there was a host like that on sportscenter who was really great. or.... MARY MICHAELS ON SYTYCD?!?!?!?
on the effects of youtube and ESPN. they are trying to retool their ESPN 360 site to be as easy as youtube, but concedes that as a "legit" site, he cannot infringe on licenses like youtube does. they are still working on making it competitive.
sportscenter is also a very profitable program for them because it requires virtually no cost. compared to sporting events which require manhours and manhours of production costs.
totally off subject, but two things i want to do for my parents if i become rich:
1) buy them a huuuuuge flat screen and cable
2) take a vacation at the banff springs hotel
defining "culture". because... i feel like a line should be drawn between culture vs. customs. because i feel like customs are a fairly "petty" way of learning culture. or are they one and the same.
i would say that culture is described by values. and i suppose you can't define culture without making some grosss generalizations, but here goes: (and i suppose i can say this because i'm asian)
asians i feel as a whole are fairly abrasive and vindictive. they put a very high value on family, but with a very strong focus on respect and obligation. (whereas i feel like there is a strong focus on family in american culture, but in a different way than asian cultures. more so in a thanksgiving sort of way. i don't know how many cultures have more than 2 generations living under one roof, but i feel like this is also done in other cultures as well.) americans i feel are more materialistic and spend a lot.
julian robertson: "the united states and new zealand are the only two countries where people spend more than they earn."
okay. i feel like i had more to say. but i guess i don't.
stephen: "asian people only care about themselves."
i forgot how this came up in our conversation. but it did.
vocab lesson.
CHINESE. something that i've learned is that languages don't translate perfectly because there are always going to be very subtle implications of the words that we use. here are some phrases that don't translate well from mandarin/taiwanese that also contain metaphors for life!!!
nian - (literally) sticky. (usage) inseparable. except there has to be a very strong younger brother/older brother feeling. or a needy feeling. as in, you can use it for best friends too, but generally, you can only use it in one direction.
as in: "james very nian his older cousin"
i feel like i very easily nian other people. i just very easily look up to people and just invest all of my effort in getting to know them.
sai nai - flirtatious in a whiny/sassy way.
as in: "she is so sai nai"
asian girls have a difficult time being playful flirtatious. and they often resort to slapping, excessive playful amounts of grief, and whining. think my sassy girl.
niao - it is sort of used in the same sense of "beg" that "oh, she begged me to go to the movie, so i went." except there isn't as much of a pathetic/desperate/power difference implied. just a extremely friendly "CMONNNNN JAMMMESSSS"
as in: "at first, i didn't want to go, but after she niao me, i went reluctantly"
okay. obviously my conscious persona will disagree with this, but on some level, i really enjoy being niao-ed. like i feel like part of me just holds out on things just so people will do that.
SALES AND TRADING. i learned a couple of pretty cool phrases this summer. including:
push back - playing devil's advocate, but in a casual situation.
andrew: i called russ, and he gave me a lot of push back.
i have noticed that i've started pushing back on a lot of people. just having a normal conversation, and just disagreeing for the purpose of furthering the conversation.
headline fatigue - as in "markets rallied in the afternoon due to headline fatigue of the subprime crisis." as in, if there are hundreds of articles about the subprime issue, we will start ignoring it.
bleed (or contagion) -
as in: "people are worried that the subprime issue will bleed into the prime markets" or "they are worried about the subprime contagion"
pretty straightforward.
it turns out that there are some really graphic terms. such as "we're just waiting for hedge funds to start hurting from the subprime crisis and then start puking the bonds at really cheap prices."
an example of the subprime crisis. damnnnnn that is a pretty awesome graph.
realizations about myself:
--when i meet someone, i very often like to look at it in a very long-term perspective. as in "where exactly is this going", and then act accordingly. for example, interns from summer programs. i think we have all been to enough summer camps to know that it is hard enough to keep in touch with close friends from summer stuff, much less acquaintances. hence...
--i really like to make conversations serious. this is bad. unless you're with people who like to talk serious. which is not very often.
--in entourage, i would be E. in the office, i would be tobey. i love tobey. probably because i am tobey.
--if i really like someone (romantically?), i will sort of fast forward to "later stages" of relationships, unbeknownst to them, sometimes making the relationship sort of weird.
--being able to make faces is crucial to low status humor. if you do high status humor (eg dead-pan style like michael cera/erich), then you have to be really good at not making facial expressions.
realizations made by anna and trevor.
anna: i've noticed that when i'm in specific groups, i will be assigned a role, and that role will define the jokes that i can make and the idiosyncrasies i can have. and by consequence, i end up exaggerating those qualities in myself, even if they don't represent me as a person.
trevor: do you ever feel like going to college has made you stupider?...
my answer: depends on how you define stupider. but i would ofc say no. but perhaps under some specific interpretations of that word... but i did think about it for awhile.
on the theory of medicine. i learned this from pam when i visited her in nyc. i forget what the technical words are, but one of the things that she was looking at during her public health rotation was working on this issue: even when really rich people pay a lot of money for really poor people to get access to drugs, the poor people very often don't take the drugs. also a big issue for aids drug distribution in africa. why? good question.
but i have even gotten some drugs for my nose and eyes, and i definitely can't remember to use them every day. so i guess i have, to some extent, answered my own question.
things i want to include in my next facebook profile. i feel like these should all be categories to include:
List things that you are anti-consensus about: Apple/iPods/iTunes, Lord of the Rings, triscuits over wheat thins, desperate housewives
List things that 90% of the population knows where you are the 10%: cars, sports, american history, politics/the war
List things that are unique to you:
--i have semi-seriously consdiered writing games professionally
--i have practiced typing the alphabet to a point where i can type the alphabet in under 1.5s (pr)
--i am not the best about liquids and laptops; most recently, intentionally poured water on my computer
definitely did not expect that. heating and cooling as 50%!?!??!?! that is nuts. definitely makes a high temperature tolerance much more desirable.
inspirational words. normally don't do email forwards, but i thought this was a pretty decent email forward. if you enjoy this sort of stuff:
"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow."
"I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights."
"I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life."
"I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'."
"I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance."
"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back."
"I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision."
"I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one."
"I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone.
"People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back."
"I've learned that I still have a lot to learn."
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
depressing. but hey, wouldn't want my humor any other way.
courtesy greg. awesome find.
opening scene of saw4. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. it's really graphic. they call this genre torture porn for a reason.
http://view.break.com/346309 - Watch more free videos
comments later in the entry.
21 amazing fruit facts
Click to viewokay. moreso just because... the guy is really goofy? i dunno. i watched it all the way through.
kevin james magic on you've got talent
do you want to discuss how he did this? i emailed someone who made a comment on the board. response: you should read something about magic, then you'll understand how much criss angel and david blaine are crap.. (i'm probably better than them) and david copperfield is a genius =)
office, outtakes
fav is the last one with TOBEY
lacey and pasha, hip hop
really liked the choreography, not as big a fan of pasha
lacey and pasha, smooth waltz
favorite part, the initial lift behind pasha.
sabra and neil, jazz
the planche, definitely. here what i am sort of really mindblown about this clip, among other things. but having come from a summer where all i wore were tucked in button down shirts, you can't do anything as simple as lift your arms without your shirt coming out of your pants and making you look really not as clean cut. but his shirt still stays really well tucked in DESPITE jumping and moving all crazy. damn.
disclaimer. sooooo i haven't been updating the blog as much. sorry. i think this is a slight trend in this blog, which is just a trend towards more protected entries. thoughts:
--it is slightly in opposition with my "what are you afraid of!?" ideology, but the thing is, there are things that i simply can't write about publicly. and it's just sort of a hassle separating out what can and can't be public.
--blogging itself is not really doing it for me. like the idea of this anonymous person befriending you is cool. but i don't think that that necessarily happens. like i am not necessarily receiving as much feedback as i would like. which discourages me from writing as much. that, and it turns out that i do not actually receiving criticism. well, i do on an ideological level, but not really.
national treasure 2 trailer. holy crap, this trailer is incredibly. i am so excited.
facebook group. COME on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol. and they were mentioned in a CNN article! that is some pretty good publicity right there. (name of the group: I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head. )
on that note of sheer aggression....
news recap. various links.
they probably won't go back to the utah mines. that's pretty poignant.
5 year old boy set on fire after doused by gasoline. that... sucks.
"He's become spiteful, I am not sure why," said his mother, Zainab. "He is jealous of everyone. If I say the slightest thing to him, he cries. He's sensitive."
that strikes me as being a really insensitive statement on behalf of the mom.
virginia tech internal report decides that nobody was at fault. agreed.
intel hires a lobbying firm. i never really thought about companies needing lobbying firms.
self-declared 15 companies that will change the world. no, redfin is not on there. but there was a company that makes 3D PRINTERS!! how cool is that. i have no idea how that would even work.
veronica mars/kristin bell is joining HEROES!!. okay. fine. this may encourage me to watch the show. let's get a pic.
hellllllllls yeah.
the office.
article about kelly kapoor. i didn't learn this until last night with anthony, but did you know that KELLY AND RYAN ARE BOTH WRITERS FOR THE SHOW?!?!?!??!?!?
after learning this, i just became infinitely more infatuated/impressed with them. that they can be so incredible and so young and be writing for the office?!?!?!? AND BE IN THE OFFICE?!?!?!? arrghhhh. as in, ryan actually wrote the episode where ryan sets the office on fire.
While visiting her parents in her hometown of Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Office star Mindy Kaling spent most of her time doing one of the things she loves the most: shopping.
Kaling was supposed to be working on a script for The Office’s fourth season. Instead, the 28-year-old writer and actress ended up going store-hopping along Newbury Street last week.
“I can’t believe that I put off this writing,” she told the Boston Herald. “We had five weeks to write it and I’ve waited until the last week because I was too busy shopping and hanging with my boyfriend. I can’t believe how incredibly irresponsible I’ve been.”
Known for her portrayal of ditzy customer service representative Kelly Kapoor on The Office, Mindy Kaling became interested in comedy writing after taking a satire class at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School during her junior year.
“It was a crash course in all things comedy and it was amazing,” she said. “That course itself, in my mind, is worth the tuition for all four years at BB&N.”
“I think that Ryan is in for it,” Kaling explained. “I don’t think Kelly would even know where the phrase ‘hell hath no fury’ is from or even know what that means, but we’re going to see that literally enacted upon Ryan, which I think is going to be funny to see. My character is kind of such a sweet ditz, so to see her be scorned and turned into Medea will be really fun and a challenge as an actor.”
Kaling also revealed that a past character is set to make a comeback in the show’s fourth season. “We get to see a character who we think is no longer going to be on the show any more,” she said. “Someone who we think is long gone. They make an appearance so I was excited about the script.”
aggregated list of spoilers for season 4. pretty much none of them are interesting. but if you can't get your hands on enough office stuff.... the first four episodes are going to be hour-long episodes!!!
i sort of worry about the office season4. hopefully it will stay strong.
right now, the potential tv sched: desperate housewives, the office, definitely. possibly heroes, survivor. and... that's it? lost doesn't premiere until spring. i don't think i'll watch nip/tuck.
i like the style.
on how college life has changed. again, don't have the link, but it's from a NYT editorial, i think. essentially about how college life used to be the shizz because it was all intellectual, and now it's just "feckless" students. (learned that word today!!!!) excerpt:
But in contrast, today's colleges lack this cultural and intellectual vigor. One college student complains that "people here are so insanely uncreative, and they're proud of it." The main problem in his eyes was that his classmates "had to spend their entire high school experience studying for the SATs or something and didn't really get a chance to live life or experience things."
Why aren't people paying attention to the campuses? Because, as a discrete experience, "college" has begun to disappear. My radical, alienated friends brought up the University of Chicago's marketing materials: bucolic images of a mystic world apart, where 18-year-olds discover themselves for the first time in a heady atmosphere of cultural and intellectual tumult. But college no longer looks like that. They wondered how long the admissions office thought it could get away with it before students start complaining they'd been swindled. I posed the question to a brilliant graduating senior, someone I've been friends with for four years. "They're assuming that the marketing is for students," he explained. "It's not. It's for parents."
Who had, you know, gone to college back when it was college.
sorry, did find the link: essay contest
anthony. had dinner with anthony last night. something that really impresses me. which is, he knows a lot about a lot of subjects. such as:
--he knows a lot about the markets. like i thought i could hold my ground in a talk about the stock market. but ... i understand it. i just don't have a lot of opinions. as opposed to anthony. talked a bit about VOLATILITY, which was pretty exciting. he also knew a lot about subprime and apple.
--a discussion of alcoholism. which sort of brought back memories of jules and his discussion re: what makes someone have an alcohol problem. interesting point of view, which is: problem drinking is just binge drinking and throwing up and going to the ER or something. alcoholism, on the other hand, can be determined by frequency, but not necessarily the intensity. it is largely driven by motivation. as in, if you drink every night to sleep because you're so depressed, that's a problem. but if you drink every night socially, that's okay. i think that's a pretty solid grasp of alcohol problems.
--a discussion of economics. again, i sort of remember studying this, but he was essentially arguing that perfectly rational people should equate their leisure time with their effective hourly wage. (jim, what are your thoughts on this?!?). but i was arguing how this was not necessarily a solid rational deduction. and then he lost me by using some pretty serious terminology, such as "granularize" and "linear" (which i do understand, just not in the context of this discussion. "what function is linear?" "a 3 dimensional function over three different factors" "...")
--discussion of THE OFFICE. he brought up the school of thought that KAREN is actually better than pam, which is absolutely unheard of. it was actually a really interesting argument that sort of became slightly regarding destiny and true love. and does karen deserve to be broken up with? he also disagreed with my "tobey is the most awesome character, i am tobey" comment. in fact, he thinks that tobey is slightly sketchy. also talked about ryan and kelly. jan as a character. how they play up michael's feminimity in a variety of ways.
--the research that he's doing. which is actually some pretty exciting imaging stuff.
the entire time, we went to this reallly nice pub/restaurant sort of place, where he talked about beers. and cmon. i know nothing about beers. other than the fact that... they're an acquired taste, to put it lightly.
wikipedia: list of paradoxes
# Horse paradox: All horses are the same color.
# Berry paradox: The phrase "the first number not nameable in under ten words" appears to name it in nine words.
# Curry's paradox: "If this sentence is true, the world will end in a week."
rotten tomatoes saw4 teaser article
Jigsaw and his apprentice Amanda are dead.
Upon the news of Detective Kerry's murder, two seasoned FBI profilers, Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Agent Perez, arrive at the depleted police precinct and help veteran Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) sift through Jigsaw's latest grizzly game of victims and piece together the puzzle. However, when SWAT Commander Rigg, the last officer untouched by Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), is suddenly abducted and thrust into the madman's harrowing game, the officer has but ninety minutes to overcome a series of interconnected traps...or face the deadly consequences.
Rigg's citywide pursuit leaves a wake of dead bodies, and Detective Hoffman and the FBI uncover long hidden clues that lead them back to Jigsaw's ex-wife Jill (Betsy Russell). The genesis of Jigsaw's evil is unveiled, exposing the puppet master's true intentions and the sinister plan for his past, present and future victims.
here is what the twist is going to be at the end: jigsaw is still alive and is actually controlling the wife who is trying to control the FBI detectives.
ended up watching the first few minutes of saw4 by myself in stm. not a good idea. totally freaked me out. thoughts about the first couple minutes: totally gory (duh). but the premise is fairly incredible, albeit executed not to its full potential.
universal and itunes drm. didn't keep the article, but:
Since announcing that they will not renew their contract with iTunes, Universal, one of the "big 4" record labels, announced this week that they will start selling DRM-free music online. Cory Doctorow, an advocate for the removal of all DRM "crippleware," says that this move is inevitable since Apple only allows the music they sell to be played on an iPod.
"For record companies, there are only two choices: sell Apple-crippled music and increase Apple's control over the online music business, or sell uncrippled music. Uncrippled music -- MP3s and other open files -- are superior to the crippled versions. You can play them on more devices and do more with them. No customer seeks out music because it's crippled -- DRM doesn't sell music. None of the iTunes customers bought music because they wanted music that was locked to the iPod and wouldn't play on competing devices. People who don't want to pay for music just download it from P2P, where all the music is already available for free, without DRM. If you want to convince people to buy your music, you can't start by making it worse than the free stuff. "
and on that note, i've been exploring a genre of music that jules introduced me to known as "alternative rock", i think. playlist is courtesy of a last.fm station known as jmfh. some of the best:
spinto band - oh mandy - i lovee the resolution of the first couple chords
boy kill boy - civil sin - angsty
funeral for a friend - into oblivion - almost pop-ish
wheat - i had angels watching over me - i like the chord progression
kristofer astrom - just a little insane - easy listening. borderline country.
sytycd finale. quick thoughts:
--how did danny show more personality in the finale episode than he did THE ENTIRE SEASON?!?! i sort of wanted to die during the "she's totally lying" bit.
--happy for sabra. for the record, totally called the final four and the winner of the show
--the re-dances were nice, although i think that the original dances were always better than the ones that they redid.
--i really liked how all the choreographers got to request dances
--again, for the record, favorite dancers for season 3: anya, sara, and kameron. final 12, 8, and 10, respectively.
i really like the style in this picture as well. perspective on the skater.
espn. alexis, one of the interns, graciously invited ESPN vp of advertising, sean, to come speak to us. some really cool stuff that he talked about:
on the importance of branding: monday night football has always been on ABC. originally it was on a portion called "ABC Sports", but then ESPN thought that it was stupid, and rebranded it as "ESPN on ABC". this simple change in NAME (no changes in production value, hosts, etc) increased popularity of monday night football by 34% (i forget exactly what metric he used.)
on the necessity of watching football on HDTV. "so you get a huge HDTV, and you watch praying mantises eat hummingbirds and think it's so cool, but then after two weeks, you realize that you don't actually like watching that, and go back to watching football." hahahahhahahhahahaha.... those nature videos are so cool though!!!
but yeah. discussed how he sees espn on hdtv as being really important, segmentation of the population, difficulty in choosing programming for the espn channels.
on hosts. apparently the kind of hosts that you want are "love him or hate him" hosts. apparently there was a host like that on sportscenter who was really great. or.... MARY MICHAELS ON SYTYCD?!?!?!?
on the effects of youtube and ESPN. they are trying to retool their ESPN 360 site to be as easy as youtube, but concedes that as a "legit" site, he cannot infringe on licenses like youtube does. they are still working on making it competitive.
sportscenter is also a very profitable program for them because it requires virtually no cost. compared to sporting events which require manhours and manhours of production costs.
totally off subject, but two things i want to do for my parents if i become rich:
1) buy them a huuuuuge flat screen and cable
2) take a vacation at the banff springs hotel
defining "culture". because... i feel like a line should be drawn between culture vs. customs. because i feel like customs are a fairly "petty" way of learning culture. or are they one and the same.
i would say that culture is described by values. and i suppose you can't define culture without making some grosss generalizations, but here goes: (and i suppose i can say this because i'm asian)
asians i feel as a whole are fairly abrasive and vindictive. they put a very high value on family, but with a very strong focus on respect and obligation. (whereas i feel like there is a strong focus on family in american culture, but in a different way than asian cultures. more so in a thanksgiving sort of way. i don't know how many cultures have more than 2 generations living under one roof, but i feel like this is also done in other cultures as well.) americans i feel are more materialistic and spend a lot.
julian robertson: "the united states and new zealand are the only two countries where people spend more than they earn."
okay. i feel like i had more to say. but i guess i don't.
stephen: "asian people only care about themselves."
i forgot how this came up in our conversation. but it did.
vocab lesson.
CHINESE. something that i've learned is that languages don't translate perfectly because there are always going to be very subtle implications of the words that we use. here are some phrases that don't translate well from mandarin/taiwanese that also contain metaphors for life!!!
nian - (literally) sticky. (usage) inseparable. except there has to be a very strong younger brother/older brother feeling. or a needy feeling. as in, you can use it for best friends too, but generally, you can only use it in one direction.
as in: "james very nian his older cousin"
i feel like i very easily nian other people. i just very easily look up to people and just invest all of my effort in getting to know them.
sai nai - flirtatious in a whiny/sassy way.
as in: "she is so sai nai"
asian girls have a difficult time being playful flirtatious. and they often resort to slapping, excessive playful amounts of grief, and whining. think my sassy girl.
niao - it is sort of used in the same sense of "beg" that "oh, she begged me to go to the movie, so i went." except there isn't as much of a pathetic/desperate/power difference implied. just a extremely friendly "CMONNNNN JAMMMESSSS"
as in: "at first, i didn't want to go, but after she niao me, i went reluctantly"
okay. obviously my conscious persona will disagree with this, but on some level, i really enjoy being niao-ed. like i feel like part of me just holds out on things just so people will do that.
SALES AND TRADING. i learned a couple of pretty cool phrases this summer. including:
push back - playing devil's advocate, but in a casual situation.
andrew: i called russ, and he gave me a lot of push back.
i have noticed that i've started pushing back on a lot of people. just having a normal conversation, and just disagreeing for the purpose of furthering the conversation.
headline fatigue - as in "markets rallied in the afternoon due to headline fatigue of the subprime crisis." as in, if there are hundreds of articles about the subprime issue, we will start ignoring it.
bleed (or contagion) -
as in: "people are worried that the subprime issue will bleed into the prime markets" or "they are worried about the subprime contagion"
pretty straightforward.
it turns out that there are some really graphic terms. such as "we're just waiting for hedge funds to start hurting from the subprime crisis and then start puking the bonds at really cheap prices."
an example of the subprime crisis. damnnnnn that is a pretty awesome graph.
realizations about myself:
--when i meet someone, i very often like to look at it in a very long-term perspective. as in "where exactly is this going", and then act accordingly. for example, interns from summer programs. i think we have all been to enough summer camps to know that it is hard enough to keep in touch with close friends from summer stuff, much less acquaintances. hence...
--i really like to make conversations serious. this is bad. unless you're with people who like to talk serious. which is not very often.
--in entourage, i would be E. in the office, i would be tobey. i love tobey. probably because i am tobey.
--if i really like someone (romantically?), i will sort of fast forward to "later stages" of relationships, unbeknownst to them, sometimes making the relationship sort of weird.
--being able to make faces is crucial to low status humor. if you do high status humor (eg dead-pan style like michael cera/erich), then you have to be really good at not making facial expressions.
realizations made by anna and trevor.
anna: i've noticed that when i'm in specific groups, i will be assigned a role, and that role will define the jokes that i can make and the idiosyncrasies i can have. and by consequence, i end up exaggerating those qualities in myself, even if they don't represent me as a person.
trevor: do you ever feel like going to college has made you stupider?...
my answer: depends on how you define stupider. but i would ofc say no. but perhaps under some specific interpretations of that word... but i did think about it for awhile.
on the theory of medicine. i learned this from pam when i visited her in nyc. i forget what the technical words are, but one of the things that she was looking at during her public health rotation was working on this issue: even when really rich people pay a lot of money for really poor people to get access to drugs, the poor people very often don't take the drugs. also a big issue for aids drug distribution in africa. why? good question.
but i have even gotten some drugs for my nose and eyes, and i definitely can't remember to use them every day. so i guess i have, to some extent, answered my own question.
things i want to include in my next facebook profile. i feel like these should all be categories to include:
List things that you are anti-consensus about: Apple/iPods/iTunes, Lord of the Rings, triscuits over wheat thins, desperate housewives
List things that 90% of the population knows where you are the 10%: cars, sports, american history, politics/the war
List things that are unique to you:
--i have semi-seriously consdiered writing games professionally
--i have practiced typing the alphabet to a point where i can type the alphabet in under 1.5s (pr)
--i am not the best about liquids and laptops; most recently, intentionally poured water on my computer
definitely did not expect that. heating and cooling as 50%!?!??!?! that is nuts. definitely makes a high temperature tolerance much more desirable.
inspirational words. normally don't do email forwards, but i thought this was a pretty decent email forward. if you enjoy this sort of stuff:
"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow."
"I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights."
"I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life."
"I've learned that making a 'living' is not the same thing as 'making a life'."
"I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance."
"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back."
"I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision."
"I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one."
"I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone.
"People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back."
"I've learned that I still have a lot to learn."
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
depressing. but hey, wouldn't want my humor any other way.