I finally saw Donny Darko this weekend. Before I start off, let me tell you that I was (a little unfairly) biased against this movie from the beginning, mainly because it’s the darling of angsty teenagers and film-students-creatures who are about on par with those little sucker-mouth catfish you put in your aquarium to keep algae off the glass ( Read more... )

I hate flies. I really, really, really hate those little monstrosities. It's weird-- I have absolutely no fear of spiders, snakes, even jellyfish (I swam through a colony of moon jellies once. Their tentacles are too small to sting, but the feeling is really creepy-- like being licked by a giant tongue made out of a bag of pudding). But ( Read more... )

I've noticed that in my writing I prefer to make my characters female. It's probably because I'm naturally more inclined to pay closer attention to women-- kind of like that one Bond movie where Q gives the cyber-car a female voice so 007 will actually listen to its directions ( Read more... )

I haven't looked at my grades for last semester yet. I really, really, really, really DO NOT want to see my grades. It's only going to make me feel bad, again. I'd just like to get my degree and move on, please. I don't need any more guilt about screwing up everything remotely math-related. Hell, I've already fucked up my first real work as a ( Read more... )

There was an Aurora Borealis over Ann Arbor last Saturday night. Sweet as! I wouldn't have even known it was there if my brother hadn't told me about it after coming in at four in the morning after some tomfoolering galavantery with his ruffian cohorts ( Read more... )

I should know better than to rent a movie that's been labeled "the scariest film of the year" (anybody see "Identity"?-- Holy crap, you mean all the characters are actually just different personalities in one guy's head? And-- gasp-- the CHILD was the killer all along? Screenplay credits by my ninth-grade Creative-writing class ( Read more... )

I tell ya' man-- is there anything greater than techno remixes of old video game soundtracks? Well, is there? I thought not.
Somewhere out there, in the deepest reaches of time and space, someone must have a released a Best-of-the-Best CD of this stuff.
I must find it....

To the DeLorean! Engage the flux capacitors!

Well folks, Biology and I are back on speaking terms again. Part of it is due to my recent education in the nematophagus (nematode-eating) fungi. So here goes my little lecture ( Read more... )

I am really beginning to despise the academic world. The word "academia" is quickly becoming synonymous with stodgy, bookish old white people who like to cultivate ideas without much action. Have you ever noticed that it's practically a requirement of academics (or intellectuals) to hate television? Why? Is reading Dostoyevski's "Notes From ( Read more... )

Well, maybe I don't hate biology as much as I said last night. But the experience of getting fired from a lab has been a lot like being bit by a favorite pet-- in time I'll be able to forgive it, but there just won't be as much open enthusiasm anymore. And I'll always be a little wary.