HELLO

sup guise.

Spider Web

The other day some douchebag spider spun a huge web right outside of my door, like literally 5cm away from the door. I didn't see it in time and my reaction was much like Akmal Saleh's in this YouTube video at 0:24. And then I spent ten to fifteen minutes looking for the spider on me, and when I couldn't find it, I went back into my house to change. Stupid spider.

That is all.

Things I care about

I have just realised that having actual titles for my posts means I don't have as much freedom to go off on tangents if I want to make sense. This sucks because now I have to put more thought into what I will write about. Who knew that blogging needed to be so structured?

Anyway, here are my thoughts on a few things which all fall under the vague title of 'Things I care about.'

Below is an interview of Citizen Kane director Orson Welles, in which he describes a lifetime of trying to prove Hollywood wrong as "an enormous waste of spirit and an enormous waste of energy." According to the uploader, this interview was done 8 days before his death. (He died suddenly from a heart attack.) I find it very tragic that someone could describe their life in such a way. This guy made what is widely considered the greatest movie of all time and in return was hounded by the American film industry.

I want to take advantage of this sudden interest in gender issues at our school to mention my own thoughts on the matter. For a while now, I've kept a mild interest in gender equality (for both women and men). When Treskin made her speech at assembly last week I decided to listen with an open mind and found she raised points worth considering. When we use words like 'man' and 'mankind' to refer to the human race we imply it was men alone who determined the actions of our race and that it will always be this way. Of course, there are downsides to modifying our vocabulary in the name of political correctness. Sometimes, it just isn't worth it. I don't think anyone plans on following guys with gals anytime soon. (I hate that word by the way.) But it is always worth considering.

More importantly, I believe that gender equality is a topic we should treat with thoughtfulness rather than the apathy or even derision it frequently receives.

And now for something completely different, I also care about the upcoming Crysis 2 PC multiplayer demo, which looks awesome. Also, I watched Cinema Paradiso and found it to be my favourite movie I've seen for a while.

This is funny

I just found this on wikipedia and found it really really really funny. This is from the article for The Hottie and the Nottie a film with Paris Hilton in it.

For its release in the United Kingdom, the film was advertised as "The Number One Film", with small print revealing its being number 1 on the IMDb Bottom 100

HAHAHAHAHA

That is all.

A Poorly Spent Friday Night

I was going to make a decent post today but instead I started playing a flash game called Rebuild. Basically it's a strategy kind of game where you try to build a colony amidst a zombie apocalypse. This game is so addictive I nearly spent 2 hours on it.

Also, I've decided to start using proper titles for my posts because I have realised naming them after the day they were posted is not that funny and also kind of lazy. Expect mind-blowing post titles in the future.

MONDAY

Today I put on my cadet KFF and a big black trench coat I found in my closet, then started shooting random objects with my little cousin's Nerf gun while pretending to be Clint Eastwood in some old cowboy movie. It was really fun until I started feeling self-conscious and silly.

Another nice thing that happened to me last week was that I logged into my Neopets account and got a pleasant surprise. I had managed to make a +1066.67% profit on the Neopian stockmarket. 113,250 NP isn't that much, but it was enough for me to start playing Neopets semi-regularly again. I'd stop but it's too hard because now Neopets is on my Google Chrome 'most visited' list and I don't have the heart to remove it.

So the main purpose of this post is that it's well into Year 12 and I'm feeling a bit guilty about wasting my time like this.

THURSDAY

Here's an interesting news article Edwin told me about today:

A Chinese neighbourhood was contaminated with human waste after an explosion caused by sewage-stealing thieves.

The incident began early one morning in China’s Guandong province, when a narrow alleyway in a residential neighbourhood was turned into a river of raw sewage – it transpired that a septic tank truck had arrived to illegally siphon off the neighbourhood’s sewage.

However, the truck’s hose exploded, flinging sewage all over the street. The driver of the truck reportedly fled the scene of the explosion as soon as he could, leaving only his ruined hose and a street full of sewage behind.

Sewage is a valuable commodity in China – not only can it be used as manure and to produce methane, it also has a wide variety of other industrial uses.

Even the garbage collectors were annoyed – one who witnessed the event whilst he was picking up rubbish angrily remarked “All the trash I just collected – ruined! It’s all covered in filth. I had picked up some electronics too, but I can’t sell them now.”

The local fire department was summoned to deal with the mess, and apart from a foul stench it was soon contained.

At this stage, many will doubtless be wondering what it is with China, sewage and things which explode…

Original article here.

OCD

Lately I've no noticed that for some reason the OCDs (Obsessive Compulsive Disorders), which were previously mild, are now becoming increasingly prevalent in my life. For example, I am now really picky about grammar and punctuation (instead of tawking lyk dis). Notice that I know start my sentences with capital letters (and so are my "I"s) and I actually used commas in the previous sentence. The fact that OCDs is underlined in red right now is really beginning to piss me off. Also I was reading this book and then I got really angry because it had a misplaced modifier. For those of you who don't know what misplaced modifiers are, here's an example:

Eagerly awaiting her birthday, Mary's presents were all picked up and admired by Mary many times throughout the course of the day.

If someone was to write this sentence and show me, here's what my reaction would have been like a few weeks ago:
"OK cool."
But if you gave that sentence to me today, this would be my reaction:
"WHAT THE HELL?!?! ARE YOU STUPID?! MARY'S PRESENTS DIDN'T EAGERLY AWAIT HER BIRTHDAY, IT WAS MARY!!! THE SENTENCE SHOULD READ Eagerly awaiting her birthday, Mary picked up and admired her presents many times throughout the day."

Also, my OCD on cleanliness is beginning to interfere with my life. I never sit down in my house with my school uniform on because the germs will get everywhere. Also, every morning, before I drink my milk, I sterilize my cup by washing it with boiling water because I'm afraid that the previous night insects were in there (also insects tend to occur a lot in my dreams. I also dream more now and I usually remember the dreams too). And I always wipe my plates clean before I put any food on them. The good news is I was never a really neat person so the fact that my room is messy is fine. It just has to stay clean.

Oh yeah, I've also grown a little bit more paranoid about stuff. Ever since that MedEntry guy said that universities can check up on your Facebook and social networking, I've been extremely cautious about what I say on Facebook and on this blog (even though if they read this blog I probably wouldn't get offered a position since I look like a person with no life (I do have a life by the way and enjoy interacting with other people)).

I hope I don't become like one of those people like Monk (Wikipedia the TV show), because although the show is cool, I don't want to end up being like that guy.

Office Quote of the day: The guys are having a little shindig of their own in the warehouse. From 2:30 to 3:15. That is the only time that Bob was available. Sort of a guys' night out. A 'G-N-O' if you will. A 'gno.' Actually it's more of a guys' afternoon in. A G-A-I. A gay. Not-- not... it's uh, not gay. It's, uh, just uh, it's a bridal shower for guys. A guy shower. An hour long shower with guys.

That is all.

MONDAY

The movie below is a very amazing action scene from a Bollywood movie. Anyone who subscribes to Ray William Johnson or follows Maddox has probably already seen this. But for those who haven't...

WEDNESDAY

In 2012 both Nolan's third Batman movie (The Dark Knight Rises) and the new Superman movie are scheduled to release. Being a major fan of the DC Universe, this is very exciting for me.

Zack Snyder (who directed Watchmen and 300) will be directing the new Superman movie (titled Man of Steel). I think Louie told me this a few months ago but I only became fully aware of that fact today. I think the director choice is pretty decent. Snyder's movies are always visually impressive, as long as he have too many of his trademark slow motion shots. In any case, the Nolan brothers are pretty involved (Christopher Nolan is producing) so that's reassuring. They've already casted this British guy called Henry Cavill as Superman. Judging by this photo, he'll look convincing enough with a good shave.

Much more surprising news though, was news that Anne Hathaway is set to play Catwoman in the new Batman movie. She's actually cast as 'Selina Kyle' which is Catwoman's real name so I'm guessing that her character will undergo some kind of transformation like Harvey Dent/Two-Face. Selina Kyle is also Batman's love interest in the comics and acts as both his ally and enemy so that will probably be in the movie too. Catwoman was a pretty logical choice as a character for the new Nolan film though casting Anne Hathaway was really unexpected. She looks way too happy and innocent to fit the image. But she's a great actor so I guess that's all that really matters.


Another confirmed casting was Tom Hardy (who played Eames in Inception and Handsome Bob in RocknRolla) as Bane. This is the villain in the comics who freed every inmate of Arkham Asylum to wear down Batman then went to his house and broke his back. It's a very iconic image.

I'm wondering right now how he's going to look in the movie. Nolan tries not to suspend disbelief in his Batman series by introducing superpowers or implausible mad science which is why he stayed away from villains like Mr Freeze or Poison Ivy. Bane is supposed to get super strength from a drug called Venom that gets pumped in his body. I'm guessing Nolan will handle that aspect very carefully to maintain the feel of his previous movies.

There will also be another female character, who is yet to be announced. The movie will have more sequences shot in IMAX than The Dark Knight, which will be really cool. Also, this movie will be made with the intention of making it the last, which is quite rare because usually a few loose ends are kept for future profitable sequels. Anyway, an ending for Batman will certainly be very interesting. Knowing Nolan, it'll probably be something ambiguous and abrupt like Inception.