Started school yesterday and it looks like it's gonna be a boring semester. Although my Astronomy professor is pretty entertaining. She says things like, 'Oh well the lights are out, now I'm in the dark. Well...I guess I'm always in the dark, so it doesn't matter.' She knows her jokes are bad, but just keeps going. You can tell she loves her job and that's what's the most important, I suppose. Oh and I will be writing for the school paper for one of my classes. Should be interesting.
Me and a friend of mine are now collaborating on a zine called The Blah! Zine. We are currently working on the third issue, which I hope to be out in the next couple of weeks, but we will see. We have tons of stuff in it like comics, various other art, poetry, recipes, instructions on how to embroider, plus more so it might take a bit to get it all together. We'll see.
Yesterday as I came home from school I saw two cop cars, along with a fire truck and ambulance, down the street from where I live. Since I'm human I looked to see what was going on, even if I maybe didn't want to see. Unfortunately all this left me was a peak of someone on a stretcher with a white sheet on it, but it didn't look like the sheet was over the face. Now I'm wondering what could have happened? Was it a crazy person they had to tie down? Was it a dead person and the cops were just getting a look at the face? Was there even a body on the stretcher? I'm not sure it should matter except that if someone got killed down the street from me that's a little weird. I suppose I should not be so interested in everyone else's business. It just gives me half the story and leaves my mind creating the rest. Stupid mind.
And Guiliani dropped out of the race. Who's he kidding? He hasn't been in it for the last 3 months or so. The America's mayor a big haha and fuck you.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
movies, movies
Since I loved the book so much, this week I went to the theatre to see Persepolis. It left out some cool parts of the book (as almost all books done into movies do), but it was still awesome. The movie is in black and white, so I thought it might be a bit boring for some reason, but the animators are amazing and really did a lot with the blueprint Marjane Satrapi gave them. As soon as this comes out on DVD I gotta buy it and I hope it wins the Oscar for best animated movie. Even though Oscars don't mean that much anymore.
I also saw Sicko this week, which was alright in that Michael Moore sorta way. I almost always agree with his points, but I don't like the one-sidedness of his movies. Even though I agree I would like to hear what the other side says. I think if he did this he would appear a little more credible and less annoying.
As a side note, I wish everyone would leave the Heath Ledger story alone. Yes it's sad, but please let his family deal with it. Things like this are personal. It's embarassing that so many people want to know what happened to someone they didn't know and want to create things that are probably not ture. Unless, of course, you know him, there are many more important things going on in this world. And that goes for all of you Britney chasers too.
I also saw Sicko this week, which was alright in that Michael Moore sorta way. I almost always agree with his points, but I don't like the one-sidedness of his movies. Even though I agree I would like to hear what the other side says. I think if he did this he would appear a little more credible and less annoying.
As a side note, I wish everyone would leave the Heath Ledger story alone. Yes it's sad, but please let his family deal with it. Things like this are personal. It's embarassing that so many people want to know what happened to someone they didn't know and want to create things that are probably not ture. Unless, of course, you know him, there are many more important things going on in this world. And that goes for all of you Britney chasers too.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
winter reads
My quest to read all 7 Harry Potter's during this winter vacation is on-going, but I have had a chance to do some other leisurely reading while on break.
The first one of note is The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. This book shows what it's like to grow up in Iran during the Revolution. The great thing about this book is that it's not trying to convince the reader that Iran's politics is right or wrong. It shows the confusion one is confronted with when living in a country that is trying to modernize. Persepolis doesn't live her whole life in Iran, but even when she has leaves the country for something like ten years, leaving her eventually homeless sleeping in parks in Austria, she returns to her parents in Iran and finds her friends are much different than she remembers and that her parents really do know what's right for her. I suppose one must know this is a comic and it's based on the authors life. It's an easy read and one of the few comics I have ever been able to get through. Persopolis' life was much different from what you or me would call normal, but this book shows that normal is all in the eyes of the beholder.
Another book I managed to get under my belt is The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman. This book discusses exactly what it took for the world to become flat and some things the world can do to adjust. It's hard to see so many jobs outsourced, but this trend is only going to get more popular. As it does Americans must learn to specialize and become better at what they do. No longer can people be mediocre at their job because if this is the case the job can be outsourced and much more will be done by someone more eager to do the job. One interesting point he brought up at the end is that people must be willing to use their imagination to do better. He used 11/9 (the date the Berlin Wall fell) and 9/11 as examples. The fall of the Berlin Wall took much imagination for the positive while 9/11 for the negative.
One way to help make imaginations positive is to help bring other countries into this flat world, but in a good way. Developing countries must be introduced to the new world gradually and they must be trained in the right way. Industrialized countries must be willing to be honest, fair, and not always about profit. This may be hard at first, but the more countries involved in the flat world, the more resources and skills are available. Developing countries must learn to trust industrialized countries so that they can integrate and start making profits for themselves. This will probably be hard because of the way most developing countries have been treated in the past, but one can only hope time will heal. And fast.
The first one of note is The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. This book shows what it's like to grow up in Iran during the Revolution. The great thing about this book is that it's not trying to convince the reader that Iran's politics is right or wrong. It shows the confusion one is confronted with when living in a country that is trying to modernize. Persepolis doesn't live her whole life in Iran, but even when she has leaves the country for something like ten years, leaving her eventually homeless sleeping in parks in Austria, she returns to her parents in Iran and finds her friends are much different than she remembers and that her parents really do know what's right for her. I suppose one must know this is a comic and it's based on the authors life. It's an easy read and one of the few comics I have ever been able to get through. Persopolis' life was much different from what you or me would call normal, but this book shows that normal is all in the eyes of the beholder.
Another book I managed to get under my belt is The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman. This book discusses exactly what it took for the world to become flat and some things the world can do to adjust. It's hard to see so many jobs outsourced, but this trend is only going to get more popular. As it does Americans must learn to specialize and become better at what they do. No longer can people be mediocre at their job because if this is the case the job can be outsourced and much more will be done by someone more eager to do the job. One interesting point he brought up at the end is that people must be willing to use their imagination to do better. He used 11/9 (the date the Berlin Wall fell) and 9/11 as examples. The fall of the Berlin Wall took much imagination for the positive while 9/11 for the negative.
One way to help make imaginations positive is to help bring other countries into this flat world, but in a good way. Developing countries must be introduced to the new world gradually and they must be trained in the right way. Industrialized countries must be willing to be honest, fair, and not always about profit. This may be hard at first, but the more countries involved in the flat world, the more resources and skills are available. Developing countries must learn to trust industrialized countries so that they can integrate and start making profits for themselves. This will probably be hard because of the way most developing countries have been treated in the past, but one can only hope time will heal. And fast.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
rain
So Christmas break in California doesn't mean stomping snow off my boots or below zero with windchill. Instead it means rain and a jacket. And rain here is rarely worse than a sprinkle, so I can't complain. Currently southern Californians are freaking out because there is supposed to be a three day downpour. So far I've seen lots of clouds, but only some showers last night. No thunder. No lightening. Boorrriinnggg.
My break has been spent working, reading, sleeping, and movie watching. For those who don't know I'm trying to read all of the Harry Potters over break for no real reason except to say I did it. So far I'm almost done with the fourth, but I've started lagging because this one is long and I'm starting to understand why they are not all released at once (well besides the fact that it takes years to finish even one book, let alone seven). Considering the genre, these books are pretty good. I'm not one of those 'Trekkies' and I never read the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, so going into this I wasn't so sure. But now halfway through I approve. I understand why so many parents read these things to their kids. I would hope these books help more kids get into reading. I was an avid reader growing up, but around the age of 13 I was embarassed of this and tried to pretend I didn't like reading. I actually read very little (besides homework) until I was about 20. Probably not a wise choice.
High school is a weird age and I just saw another movie that covers teenage angst nonsense. The movie is called Juno and I was actually excited to see it. Unfortunately I was disappointed. Not enough Michael Cera or Jason Bateman. And although they tried to make it liberal and blah blah blah I felt that it was basically saying if the teenager didn't have the kid she was a bad person (Nation writer Katha Pollitt elaborates on this more at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080121/pollitt). Lame. Oh but Kimya Dawson helped on the soundtrack and it was pretty good. Overall not a terrible movie, but a disappointment for sure.
Hmm..well I'm gonna go wait for the rain to happen and watch another one of the Coen Brothers films. I got a box set for Christmas. Oh and PS No Country For Old Men was pretty cool. Pretty pretty pretty cool.
My break has been spent working, reading, sleeping, and movie watching. For those who don't know I'm trying to read all of the Harry Potters over break for no real reason except to say I did it. So far I'm almost done with the fourth, but I've started lagging because this one is long and I'm starting to understand why they are not all released at once (well besides the fact that it takes years to finish even one book, let alone seven). Considering the genre, these books are pretty good. I'm not one of those 'Trekkies' and I never read the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, so going into this I wasn't so sure. But now halfway through I approve. I understand why so many parents read these things to their kids. I would hope these books help more kids get into reading. I was an avid reader growing up, but around the age of 13 I was embarassed of this and tried to pretend I didn't like reading. I actually read very little (besides homework) until I was about 20. Probably not a wise choice.
High school is a weird age and I just saw another movie that covers teenage angst nonsense. The movie is called Juno and I was actually excited to see it. Unfortunately I was disappointed. Not enough Michael Cera or Jason Bateman. And although they tried to make it liberal and blah blah blah I felt that it was basically saying if the teenager didn't have the kid she was a bad person (Nation writer Katha Pollitt elaborates on this more at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080121/pollitt). Lame. Oh but Kimya Dawson helped on the soundtrack and it was pretty good. Overall not a terrible movie, but a disappointment for sure.
Hmm..well I'm gonna go wait for the rain to happen and watch another one of the Coen Brothers films. I got a box set for Christmas. Oh and PS No Country For Old Men was pretty cool. Pretty pretty pretty cool.
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