Slowly Learning...

So I just received startlnig news. Some unidentified woman (I asked for her name, but she refused to give it) just called me and insisted that I knew Alyssa. When I told her I didn't she told me that I better admit that I do, or I'd be in some sort of legal trouble. She then proceeded to tell me that my wife (I can only assume my wife is this Alyssa person) had been fooling around on me.

So, if any of you out there happen to run into my wife, can you please tell her that I'm looking for her because I'm very mad that she's been cheating on me. Oh, and I'm also rather peeved that she never introduced herself to me. To think, I've been married all these years and never knew it!

Posted by Thom at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"Without commutativity I can't use the binomial theorem, and my life sucks." - Algebra Professor

It may seem like an odd thing to say, but I just can't trust people who keep their keys clipped to their belt. I'm not quite sure what it is, but something seems off about everyone I've ever seen with their keys clipped to their belt. I know this is an unfounded belief, but I just can't seem to shake it. And if this is one of the only main prejudices I have then I can live with that one.

On a completely different topic, I've come to realize that the most important feature of any electronic device I buy is durability. I have a bad habit of beating the shit out of all of my electronics. It's not intentional, but I end up dropping, bumping, or otherwise accidentally banging any electronic device into something. In three years of school at Cornell I must have gone through about three to four discmans, and countless numbers of headphones (I'm estimating somewhere in the area of ten pairs). I also managed to wear out my first ipod so badly that within a year (granted this was a year of overseas travel to various locales in China; and the fact that I ended up using it as a elaborate portable HD at the end might have also played a factor) that the ipod was full of dents, all of the files were corrupted and unreadable, I can now longer even get my computer to recognize the ipod three quarters of the time. Needless to say I'm trying to take better care of the new one, but it's hard. Just about any electronic device I own has some sort of dent/scratch/scar on it. So I guess what I really need is not necessarily something that is durable, but something that will still work relatively well once "broken-in" a little.

Posted by Thom at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been writing down quotes that I've found amusing form my daily life for quite some time now. And since I am now posting on a rather regular basis, I figured I'd share them with you all as I go. However, seeing as how I have now taken the path to becoming a Math professor, I must warn you that a lot of them might be only funny to me (or a select few other individuals out there). So I feel it necessary to run the following warning for all future posts (bootlegged from http://www.xkcd.com/):

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Posted by Thom at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh. My. Lord. I don't know where to begin with this one. THis was perhaps one of the most rediculous movies I've ever seen. In fact, I had to take notes during the movie just so I wouldn't forget it all. Let's take a look at those notes now...

The action was great, especially since there were no wires or anything that have become standard in martial arts action movies. Just pure natural action. The fights were even more impressive considering some of the long single shots used. However, that's about where the movie ends.

Plot? Story? Acting? All those things seemed to be missing. Basically the movie was sort of like Double Dragon, but with less of a plot to it. Jaa fought a progression of street thugs, to the tougher inline blader thugs, to the tougher thugs on bikes, to the tougher thug on a motor bike, to the mini-boss: a thug on an ATV. The constant stream of random encounters with what seemed like limitless bad guys was straight out of an old school side scroller. They even had the gangsters dressed in 80's punk outfits. Classic. Even better, the massive white dudes that he had to fight (Abobos?). Throw in a final woman boss with a leather outfit and a whip, and you pretty much have the Thai take on Double Dragon.

But that's not it, there was plenty of other things to report. First off, the mud bath striptease...yeah, nice out of place touch. And the Austrailians being shocked that some of the Thai women were being sold as prostitutes? No way! Not Thai women! No one ever thinks of Thailand as a place that you can easily buy sex.

In the end though, the action just didn't do it. The complete lack of plot, the terrible acting (I've seen better actiing in porno), and just about everything else was just too much to overcome. Still, for a cheap laugh with some entertaining action it could be worth it.

RATING: Worth the time it takes to watch it, but probably not worth the money it takes to obtain a copy to watch.

Posted by Thom at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Most people hate driving in terrible road conditions, and that's why I love it. When it's just moderately bad out people drive safe, but they still drive. When it's completely shitty out, they all get too scared and stay home, so I have the road all to myself. It's wonderful to be able to cruise down the road without worry, cause even if you start to fish-tail at all, there's nobody to worry about hitting. In fact, I hope I start to fish-tail some, so I can learn how to get out of it. Nothing teaches you how to drive other than experience.

And for those of you who feel that you have to have some big SUV to get through the snow, you don't. My tiny little Cavalier proves this everyday as I power through the foot of snow that I've neglected to clear off of my Dad's driveway.

Posted by Thom at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There's this Progressive commercial where a lady backs into a pole and smashes her car. And the Progressive people are nice enough to get her a rental and take her car to the body shop to be fixed. That's all well and good, but she also has her kid with her, who apperently slept through the whole thing and on one seems concerned. Now if you smashed your car up bad enough that you need a new car right away, and your kid doesn't wake up, you should probably get them to a hospital, cause they're probably dead. But that's just my opinion.

Posted by Thom at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When I saw the preview for this one, and 27% on Rottentomatoes, I figured maybe I'd get another Crank. Alas, it wasn't quite there.

There was one hell of a cast (Jason Bateman, Common, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, etc.), with some less than great ones thrown in (mainly Ben Affleck, who thankfully gets killed rather fast, and Andy Garcia, who I haven't seen do a good job in a single film), and the idea is a good one (slew of bounty hunters converge on one hotel to take out a mob snitch with a million dollar bounty on his head), but it just didn't come together. Out of the entire cast of characters I'd say that about 3 of 4 even made any sense at all: Ray Liotta as a hard nosed FBI agent, Tommy Flanagan as the methodically precise hitman, and Jason Bateman as the fucked up sexual confused, strung out lawyer. Ok, that last one really didn't make complete sense, but I love Jason Bateman and it was funny as hell. And when no one else really makes much sense, it's hard to really get into any of the characters or root for them. Something is definitely wrong when you're cheering for the heartless methodical killer, or at least I feel like something should be wrong with that.

In the end, the action was solid, but a bit over the top for a thriller, and the story was clever, but too convoluted for a shoot-em-up. Basically there was either too much story inserted here (for a nono-stop action style flick) or not enough story (to pull off the thriller/twisted story angle), depending on which way you want to go. If they had just stayed on one path or the other then it might have worked...but they didn't; and it didn't.

RATING: Worth a Buck? Maybe? Or at Least Worth a Free Ticket...

Posted by Thom at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently this film is on just about every Top 10 list of the year, and I guess I can see that. But then again I can't really remember what else 2006 held for movies.

It is a wonderfully done adult fairy tale, comeplete with some of the classic elements: young girl in a fantasy land, evil step-parent, mythical creatures, etc. Ofelia is even dressed like Alice at one point. However, Disney did not get it's hands on this one, thank god, for this truely is an adult fairy tale. From the almost over the top violence (I've heard arguments against it, but I personally thought it was justified and worked), to the rather frightening fantasy creatures (not only do the "good" ones look half-evil, the evil ones feel like they're straight out of Silent Hill or Resident Evil).

However, there are faults in it. For one, the evil step-father. How can he be so ruthlessly determined in his cause, and be a tracker of mythical Native American levels, yet be completely blind to all the moles in his organization, which are painfully obvious to the viewer (as well as a little girl who's almost completely trapped inside her imaginary world? At times he also seems too evil, but then again it's not too far fetched to believe someone so determined to bolster the Facist cause would act like him.

Also I'd have thought that the Spanish army would have had a few more troops stationed there to fend off all those rebels. In the final conflict they had but 20 troops left to fight off 50 rebels. But that's just nitpicking on my end.

My biggest problem would probably be with the lack of fantasy elements. I know that a lot of other things were happening in the story to help bring it along, but I wanted to see more of Ofelia's magical world. That is where the true magic in most parts of this film were found. The rest was mostly just a war picture.

RATING: Worth a Full Price Ticket (but not for the young or squimish), Worth a High Netflix.

Posted by Thom at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

6:46 - I've already heard way too many "he almost intercepted that one!" calls. If the ball is tipped off of the defensive players extended fingertip it's not "almost intercepted". That's just a tipped pass.

6:50 - We're all professionals here...botched extra-point; kick-off, fumble; hand-off, fumble. And don't be blaming the rain here.

6:55 - Wait, did I just hear some guy names "Booger" made a tackle? Please tell me I heard that right.

7:04 - Less than 13 minutes into the game and we already have 4 turnovers? Two hands people, two hands!

7:14 - When did pointless videos replace player photos? If you're not actually gonna move/speak then you don't need to have a video. And stop having the players raise their heads like that too. It's annoying as hell.

7:25 - Are The Police really a "super group"? Not in my book, and not just because I don't like them.

7:28 - More commentary nit-picking: If you trip someone up by his ankle you did not "wrap him up".

7:33 - I really have to stop listening to the commentators. I've heard more insightful color commentary from video game announcers. I'm going to end up driving myself insane if I listen to Simms and Nantz all night long.

7:40 - So seriously, it's the halftime show of the Superbowl and the best you can do is Prince? God we have over-reacted way too much from one little nipple. Personally I say that the whole halftime show should just go away. It's a pointless interuption to a football game.

7:50 - Second back-to-back fumbles. This is just plain sloppy.

9:01 - I couldn't stand to even try watching the halftime show, so I played through Assignment Ada instead. And much like many of the bosses in Resident Evil 4, I beat Krauser with a mere 11 shots left. Damn that is a good game. Back to the Superbowl though.

9:28 - Ok, I've officially lost interest. Game is pretty much over anyways. At least now we can stop hearing "Will Payton ever win a Superbowl?"

Posted by Thom at 6:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some random thoughts and quotes from the past week...

"I don't know which way this proof is going, but it will turn out well in the end...I hope." - Algebra Prof. (instills a lot of confidence)

The previous quote also brings up a good point that I missed in my earlier post about changing majors (yet again). In general I don't like middle school and high school teachers. Sure I do have plenty of teacher friends, many of whom I consider to be very close friends, but on the whole I generally don't get along with the teaching community. They just tend to annoy me and bother me, which probably isn't a good thing in the long run. However, I have always enjoyed my profs. They tend to think a little bit differently and are more like me. Therefore, college is more the place for me.

Talking about differences, does the VFW discriminate against veterns of the Civil war?

I don't know why, but I find Natalie Merchant to be a very attractive woman. The only problem is that I've never really seen what she looks like. I've based this notion in my mind on her music and a brief memory of the 10,000 Maniacs live video of Because the Night. Now I could do the simple thing and actually look up more recent pictures of her, but I think I'd rather just continue with my possibly misguided view as it now stands. At least for a lilttle longer.

Every station on the radio can claim to play the most hits per hour, but my radio station truely would as I layered 20 hit songs on top of each other. Top that 98 PXY!

So let's talk more about hits, namely CSI. I actually watched this program the other night, and it was terrible. They tried to cram two stories into one, and neither was satisfying, while both were full of so many holes it made me want to scream. The main hole in the main story: a limo driver gets shot with his own gun, which they find in the limo, however there are no fingerprints on the gun at all, dispite the fact that the killer had no gloves on and the gun was never wiped. Plus the show already seems to fall prey to the problem with all series on the way down, too many celebrity guest stars. Normally you bring these in once you've jumped the shark (see the last 5 or so seasons of the Simpsons), but this show isn't nearly that old. I think I'll stick to Law and Order for my crime-style drama.

And my last rant of the night brings us to cell phones. I can see the advantages of hands-free devices for your cell phone, but I cannot endorse them. My personal belief is that if you can't at least devote one hand to the phone, you shouldn't be talking on the phone. It just seems that we take multi-tasking way too far now. However, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is some great need for a hands-free set. If anyone out there can come up with one let me know. I'm willing to admit that I'm wrong if you can come up with one, or shoot holes in your arguement if you can't.

Posted by Thom at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)