You're not fooling anyone, Disney

Normally pointing out obvious recycling in media is a job left to Jamie, who consumes roughly 3,967 times as much pop culture as I do (zing!). This time, however, I'm quite proud of my spot, so here it is.

You know the latest Pixar film, Wall-E? Remember the unique, original auto-pilot "Otto?" Here:

That's him, on the left. Brand-new (as of his launch 700 years before the movie takes place), state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line. Designed specifically for the Starship Axiom, his maiden voyage.

Wait... actually, come to think of it, that's not right. If I'm not horribly mistaken, the Axiom wasn't actually Otto's first posting. I believe he journeyed through space some 22 years ago (that's 124 years before he received orders from BnL in Wall-E). Only back then, his name was Max.

He's gotten a refit (looks like Apple bought the specs from Mattel and sleeked up the design a bit), but that's definitely the same robot.

And what? The 1986 film Flight of the Navigator was a Disney movie, too? You don't say.

Nico 1, Disney 0.

Maximum efficiency

Now that I have integrated a blogging application to my iTouch, my journey towards the most efficient possible level of unproductivity has reached a whole new phase.

In a related matter, I find the Twitter application superior to the actual Twitter website. And by the way, I totally had Twitter BEFORE it was cool.*

*or rather, before it was popular at Manchester, which to be fair was far after it was cool in more civilized parts.

Just a list

Since someone wants me to write about my break, TODAY I:

1. Made myself eggs for breakfast and felt accomplished.
2. Returned Mr. Velazquez's call (left a message).
3. Played Oblivion.
4. Learned some new songs on the guitar.
   
5. Went Christmas shopping (overheard: "Doing some last minute shopping?" We were STARTING our shopping).
6. Ate some superlicious food our neighbor brought us just because he's awesome. He also brought us an original painting and his baby. We didn't get to keep the baby.
7. Went to Hacienda and hung out with an insane number of people from my high school class. Well, I really only hung out with the people on my end of the table. Two drinks and you might as well have paid for a meal.
8. Came home and did this (nothing) until 2am.
   

This seems sort of Zen.

Complain!

....No. Este sitio es un de felicidad, y juré desde el comienzo que no iba a usarlo para tales cosas.

...reflect?

Que tontería. No sería genuino, lo que es bueno, pero tambien malo.

Don't blog!

ESO.

Doing right is more important than being right.
Extending a hand is better than saving face.
The permanent outweighs the transient.
The transient creates the permanent.
I am responsible for my own actions.
My priorities are not those of others.
These are things I should remember.

(mentí)

Well, according to ME...

I had a professor in Costa Rica who would assign his own writings for our class readings. In those writings, he would cite as sources other writings also by him. Our class sessions became four-hour long ego stroking sessions for him, and we were stuck in the uncomfortable situation of writing essays for Dr. Avruch in which we would use phrases like "according to Avruch..."

The bastard gave me a C on that paper.

Why you should never do research

I'm writing a paper that I'm kind of psyched about. Well, I'm psyched about the idea for the paper, and I'm psyched about finishing the paper. This whole in-between segment where I write the paper... well, as you can see, I decided blogging was more important.

I think my critical error here was deciding to write a good paper and thus heading over to EBSCOhost for some hardcore research. I immediately found a paper that expresses my ideas perfectly, and with far more impressive word usage than I could ever hope to achieve. At least, I think the paper expresses my ideas, because it's using some really heavy academic language that makes me quite certain that my Manchester education has in no way equipped me for more than two days of graduate school. If I have to read stuff like this on a regular basis, I'm finished.

In case you're still reading in hopes that I'm going to write something that will somehow apply to you*, I have a very important recommendation: Make a Pandora station based on Joni Mitchell. The resultant fusion of musical perfection will blow your mind.

I highly suspect that this energy drink (Amp Elevate, for "focus") I've been working on is not helping my paper get done. Nothing like externalizing blame for my own total lack of academic responsibility.

Concerning bailouts

I think I should just short-sell every company that has not yet declared bankruptcy or asked for a bailout.

Speaking of bailouts, I had to ask for a $135 one from my mom today to avoid an interest charge on my credit card. This is the latest development in a flip-flop from some conventional wisdom I had earlier in life: in previous years, I didn't let myself have much cash because I knew I would spend it. Now I find myself being much more careful with my cash than with my magic moneycard, so the latter payment method has been banished to a frozen existence.

You see that Visa*? That's what you get for taking my requested $250 limit and raising it to $3,800.

And still speaking of bailouts, if my math is correct, the $700 billion bailout to the financial industry could have been used to give each and every person in the United States $23,000. Talk about stimulating the economy... If we're going to come in and rescue institutions that have made terrible financial decisions and lost all their money, why aren't we willing to do this for individuals?

In fact, I think when I call my bank tomorrow to slip in my last-second payment, I'll ask about applying my share of the package.


*Actually, 1st Financial Bank USA is the responsible party.

Law enforce this

The title applies to a story I'm not telling.  You see, it's not at all interesting to read, a criticism I believe applies to most of my blog entries from the past year or so.  I was reading over my old Xanga stuff and realized it was WAY more entertaining than all this dry crap.  I should consider publishing under a pseudonym.

Meanwhile, I've realized that there is some value in allowing those truly shining moments of hilarity and wit, which I do sometimes have, to remain between me and the person I happen to share them with.  Trying to maximize my audience tends to minimize the joke, and relationships are more important than webpage hits anyway.

Don't throw rocks at boys or girls, as it could be considered a crime.  I think we can all agree on that.

Statistically speaking, it's pretty likely that the three dollars sitting on my desk has traces of hard drugs on it.  Creepy.

Let the record show that I did not agree to catsitting.

THAT's more like it.