Slowly Learning...

Nervously fingering his glass, leg tapping relentlessly on the ground, he bites his lower lip and smiles the uneasy smile of a man in way over his head. She seems steady and confident, two things that he is most assuredly not, as she seamlessly flows from one topic to the next. He tries his best to insert his own wit and wisdom into the conversation, but it’s obvious that he’s trying too hard and forcing it. As he sips his drink, almost too nervous to swallow, you can see him begin to perspire. Beads of sweat form on his forehead as he stutters at her question. The best he can do is to deliver a trite, pseudo-intellectual response, filled with muddled clichés. He’s lost in her beauty, trapped in the depth her eyes hold. He wonders what a woman such as her could possibly see in a man such as him. He can’t even look at her when he talks, choosing instead to speaks to his drink. She leans in closer desperately waiting for him to make a move, but he retreats further back into his own insecurity. As he speaks his hand lightly brushes up against hers. He stops mid-sentence, frozen in his tracks. His face feels flush with a sense of fear and joy. His cheeks turn a deep crimson as he pulls his hand back, nervously apologizing and looking away. Gently she leans in closer and takes his right hand in hers. His heard begins to pound as butterflies flap wildly in the pit of his stomach. Her porcelain skin is soft and warm. Sheepishly he looks up to see her crimson cheeks and smiling face. She tenderly cups his hands in hers. He trembles ever so slightly as the tension flows from his body, replaced by contentment...

Posted by Thom at 2:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've just recently rearranaged my room at my mom's place, and now am in the process of sorting through all the stuff that I had stored away in different nooks and crannies. One of these such things is my collection of DVDs. Ever since I moved out of my last apartment they have been living in old paper boxes. I'm not sure if I have the room to properly lay them out here (or the energy to go through that, but I do at least plan on sorting through all of them and revisiting them. I have also decided that as I revisit them I want to make a new list. A while back I made a list of my top some-odd-prime number DVDs. Now I want to make a list of not necessarily the best films in the collection, but the ones that I would highly reccommend seeing at least once, just so you can experience them and say that you have seen them. So look for that along with my first attempts at posted creative writing.

Also, I know that DVDs are great and it was highly fashionable (and in some cases still seems to be fashionable) to have dazzling menus, with video and music/sound playing. That's all well and good, but it's also gets very annoying very quickly. If you are watching a DVD with a friend/date/etc. and you are talking after the movie or something, with the remote not within a close reach, it gets very very grating to hear the looped music over and over and over. It's especially bad when you do what I like to do and fall asleep to a film. You almost have to choose the film to sleep to based on what the title screen is like. God knows how many times I've had messed up dreams because of the title menu. Or worse yet, when I'm awoken by the menu. I'm not a happy camper when that happens. As anyone who has shared a bed with me can attest to, I'm not the most happy person when I get woken up. In fact I'm usually not coherent enough to be chipper, or pleasant at all, until I've been up for at least 30-45 mins. So when an annoying title screen wakes me up, or even when I just wake up to an annoying looping title screen, I start to develope a deep hatred for not only the title screen, but even the movie as a whole. The same basic concept works with my alarms. After having Zero by the Smashing Pumpkins as my wake up song for a good 4 years, I grew so irritated by that song that I still cannot hear more than 15 seconds of the song without clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth in hatred. So to future DVD assemblers, leave out the fancy title menus. If you're DVD really needs that to sell the film, then it just isn't a very good film to begin with.

PS - There is a rather humourous story behind the title of this post, which I will share with those of you who are unfamiliar with it later.

Posted by Thom at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wish that I were a writter. Of all my dreams and fantasies this one delves deepest into my secret desires. There are many artistic talents that I wish I had, but this is the greatest of them all. To be able to molds words and sentences into beautiful narratives full of glorious imagery...that would be divine. Sure, I have a fine grasp of the English language, and a rather robust vocabulary (especially for a math major), but I don't have that gift. The words don't flow through me. Instead they feel forced or contirved. It's never stopped me from trying, but it has made it a challenge. I'm never content with what comes out. I have these lavish, flowing prose in my head that seem to come out as rough, institutional passages. In the end I get frustrated and scrap anything I ever bother to jot down.

These scribblings rarely make it past some meager notebook that I later discard with great disdain. It's as if I am subconciously sabotaging any attempt I make. But no more of that. I have this space, and along with my other postings I plan to use it to post bits and pieces of what I do write, hopefully forcing myself to commit to the writing process, and maybe even producing something that I can someday look back on proudly. I know many of the things I will end up posting will be incomplete, inane, or even indecipherable, but I will post them anyways. It will force me to revisit my writing and edit, edit, edit in order to prove to the world that just becuase I am a mathematician I am not so absorbed in numbers that I can't see the beauty in words as well.

So please, bear with me through this process. And any feedback (positive or negative) is welcomed and greatly appreciated.

Posted by Thom at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So my good old Cavalier got a flat the other day, and I've been too busy to get to the shop and have the tire repaired, so I've been stuck driving my mother's car for about a week now. I know on most any level my mother's car is considered a superior automobile, but I just couldn't get used to the feel of it. I've grown to love my little Cavalier.

Finally today I had some spare time after work and class, and I managed to get all greasy and grimey taking off the flat (felt good to get dirty enough to actually justify showering twice in one day) and I took the flat up to the shop to get repaired/replaced. Then I scooted back home with the good as new tire, and managed to get dirty all over again putting it back on (to be clear I didn't shower in between taking the flat off and putting the new tire back on, I'm not that dumb. The first shower was after work, the second after all the car stuff). And man did it feel good to get back behind the wheel of that car. All the controls and buttons are right where they are supposed to be (no more turning the windshield wipers on trying to turn off the headlights in my mom's car) and it just fit so nicely.

I'm not sure what it is, but I just feel so much more comfortable and safe and in control in my own car than any other car. I've driven my mom's Impala, my dad's Mustang, etc. And I wouldn't trade my Cavalier for any of them.

PS - One reason for that, and possibly the weirdest one too, is that in my car the radio volume is done with little bars, not acctual numbers. This may not seem like a big deal to most people, but to me it is. This is because I can't leave the volume on a non-even number that isn't a multiple of 5. It's one of the strange minor ocd things with me. It just bugs the hell out of me. However, when there aren't any real numbers (or imaginary ones either), then I can set the volume to whatever I feel is appropriate.

Posted by Thom at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I have found, movies that look semi-appealing to me and receive a rating in the 60-70 range on Rotten Tomatoes tend to be some of the most entertaining. These movies tend to be directed more towards certain audiences and not at the market in general, and most of the reviewers miss this in the process of rating them. When the negative feedback includes comments like, "After a while, all of the excess, however glorious, just gets, well, excessive ... By the end, I didn't know which I wanted more: a cigarette, or, like, a whole bottle of aspirin", then I know that this is what I am looking for. True, this film didn't have quite the story (or feel) that SinCity did, but it was still a visually appealing experience with plenty of action to keep you entertained.

Were there faults? Yes. The actual story parts seemed to drag and not really draw me in, and the sex scene was just completely awkward. Still, the overall feel and effect of the film was about what I expected.

If you're looking for a deep story that is completely accurate, look elsewhere. If you want an entertaining ride with interesting semi-historically accurate figures and events, this is the one for you. (Also, the grandness of the Imax experience for the film nicely adds to it all).

RATING: Worth a full price ticket, Worth an immediate rental on netflix.

Posted by Thom at 3:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I rarely make resolutions in Jan, and if I do I almost never stick to them. There's too much going on then. I'm not settled enough to really resolve to change things. So I considered Chinese New Year resolutions, but that's still a busy time for me. Right now things are still chaotic, but a more visible chaotic. So as my birhtday approaches I've resolved to make a couple of New Year of Life Resoluions.

First off, I resolve to severely cut back on TV. In fact, for the next month or so I plan to all but cut it out completely. It's too much of a distraction for me, and I don't get that much out of it in the end.

Secondly, I resolve to cut back on videogames as well. As just like with TV, I plan on removing them completely for at least the next couple weeks. And then I'll go from there. However, this one mainly applies to solo gaming. In the context of a social setting it's different. Much like alcohol, drinking alone is major sign of a problem, but drinking (moderately) in social settings is more acceptable. So unless I'm with other people, gaming is off limits. The only exception to this rule is Dr. Mario becuase I do a lot of my inner thinking and problem solving while playing Dr. Mario. The rest of the games, however, as more filler that just eat away at hours of my life. And at this point right now I don't have hours to just give away like that.

There are also a couple of other things to change in my habits and customs, but those are the big two. And I think I can do this, for as Nicki clichely put it earlier, I can do anything I set my mind to. I've already given up denim and fast food, and I've gone extended periods without TV before. Plus I managed to even give up meat for a month, so this should be no real problem. Once you break the cycle, it seems to stay broken in my life.

Posted by Thom at 11:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The proof is extremely easy, the hardest part is proving that it makes any sense at all." - Dr. Skogman

"Let's pretend that any of this made sense, which it doesn't." - Dr. Skogman

"Are you sure you're doing Math homework? Because I don't see any numbers on your paper..." - Wife of a fellow Masters Student

"You can do this for non-commutative rings, but then of course you life gets infinitely worse." - Dr. Skogman

From my week-long never-ending load of math work, I have found that even for me math starts to look like a bunch of crazy numbers and symbols (mostly symbols, for I guess that actual numbers are only for the lower levels of mathematics). I never thought I'd say this, but after what seems like about 120 straight hours of math, I need a break. This weekend cannot get here soon enough...

Posted by Thom at 9:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a highly praised movie, and I can certainly see that. There are some great performances (I especially liked Robert Downey Jr., but how much of a stretch is it for him to play a coked out alcoholic?), and it was very well done (when has David Fincher gone wrong?), and as far as I can tell it was rather historically accurate. However that was one of the biggest problems too. Much like the original case (as far as I know, if I am wrong with any of this please feel free to correct me), it was never actually solved. Not to ruin it for anyone, but in the end we have some strong cases made, but no definite killer. It's like watching Usual Suspects (which I highly reccommend since it is one of my alltime favorites) and never finding out who Kaiser Soeze is (or just having five different people who could all plausiblly be him). Also, the nearly 3 hour length is a bit much. I know there needs to be a sense of gaps of time passing, but it just seemed a little stretched out and long for me. It might work for a book, but for a movie they needed to maybe focus in on just a few less characters.

In the end, I can't say I was too disappointed for the amount I paid to see it (which was full price, but still less than $9). But if you really want to see a real quality film about an actual serial killer I reccommend renting The Boston Strangler. In my opinion this 1968 film had everything this one had, but done better.

RATING: Worth something between a full price and a matinee ticket, worth a Netflix rental.

Posted by Thom at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm bogged down with work this week, so I'm gonna keep this short with bullet points. (plus this is a rather old one, so you've probably already heard plenty about it).

- Once again a male-vocal Bond song sucks. Can anyone name one good Bond song done by a man? (Choosing Chris Cornell doesn't help things any though since I hate just about everything he's ever done).

- Eva Green was a fantastic Bond girl. Not only did I find her extremely attractive (Me liking a Paris woman? Never!), but her role was perfect too. It's nice to have some physically empowered Bond women (Michelle Yeoh, Halle Berry) it's also nice to see one who is mentally strong and has some nice actual wit to her (not just lame Bond puns). Also, did I mention I thought she was hot?

- The story worked great, assuming you treat it as Bond before he became Bond.

- I love Daniel Craig, but I'm still not sure about him as Bond. However he does seem to have the toughness of Connery with the possiblity of the sauveness of Moore. Gotta give him more time before I rule him out or in.

- The poker game was lame. That final hand is only believable in the scene from The Croupier (when Clive Owen stacks the deck). Otherwise, not gonna ever happen. Thankfully they didn't rely on that and had plenty of side action going on there.

- I enjoyed that while there were the special effects moments, the movie didn't completely rely on them. There was plenty of semi-realistic action to fall back on.

- As much as I loved Pierce, after the last couple Bond flicks I wasn't really excited for the new one to come out. However, I can honestly say that this Bond movie actually made me anxious to see the next one (assuming they stay on this new modern Bond path).

RATING: Worth full price (especially for Bond fans), but you'll probably have to get it on DVD now (which I reccommend highly).

Posted by Thom at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)