So I thought that once I was mostly done with school, that I’d have plenty of free time. So far, that isn’t really the case!
On Friday I went to see Iron Man, actually with the same people that I saw I Am Legend with at the end of last semester, interestingly enough. I thought Iron Man was a great movie. It was pretty Hollywood-y, but in mostly good ways. The only objection that I had was that the “terrorists” were pretty one dimensional characters. That wasn’t too cool, but what are you gonna do?
Other than that, I thought Robert Downey Jr. was great as Tony Stark and Iron Man, and the effects and the action in the movie were really well done. It straddled the line between being ridiculously awesome and being grounded in reality with great precision; even though the events of the movie were clearly unrealistic, there were very few moments that made me think “oh, come on”. Tony Stark was full of snappy one-liners, but they were all actually pretty witty. One thing that bugged me - why did every piece of technology have to glow SO BRIGHTLY? Great movie, though. It’s up there with my favorite comic book movies.
If you see it, be sure to stay after the credits! You’ll miss out on seeing the guy who might possibly be the baddest…dude… in the whole movie.
Man, I’m getting so close to the end. Tomorrow I have a paper due in Japanese, and also my Japanese speaking exam. Aside from that, I have another website to make for my Programming for the Web class.
That’s about it! After those few things, I’m all done. I have a hard time believing it, really.
Tomorrow’s the Media Study student show. I didn’t submit any work. I didn’t really have time! But I am getting some kind of award, so that should be pretty cool.
I wish this paper would just write itself. I have sooooo little interest in writing it at this point. But oh well! Better get to work…
Did you know Red Bull was originally from Thailand?
I was in Hoowa Supermarket, the Asian grocery store near my house, looking for a kind of furikake (seasoning for rice) that my friend said was really good and was not in stock at my usual grocery store. They didn’t have the furikake that I was looking for, but I did find a bottle of the original Thai version of Red Bull.
I drank it tonight because I was feeling really beat at around 6:00pm, and I had (and still have) a bunch of stuff to do tonight. It was interesting. It didn’t make me all twitchy like usual large-size energy drinks do, and it didn’t feel like the effect was as strong. But, at the same time, I’m still awake now! So I suppose it did something good. Anyway, for 99 cents, I can’t complain.
As promised in the previous post, here it is:
Taiko Drumming
I hope after watching this, you can get a sense of how impressive it was! Also, the part at the end where audience members were participating was absolutely hilarious.
This week has been SO BUSY. I’ve been doing stuff every day! A lot of that has been taken up by this friend of a family friend that I’m helping with a computer problem. It’s taken forever to figure out because it’s a dial-up problem, and those always take forever to figure out (who uses dial-up anymore anyway?!). I have it most of the way solved though, and I should be able to wrap things up tomorrow. Anyway, I’m getting paid for it, so it’s not too bad.
On Tuesday I went to see a Taiko Drumming performance at UB in the Center for the Arts. It was great! I took some videos, which are currently uploading to Youtube. I’ll make another post when they’re all set.
Last night some friends came over and played Taiko Drum Master (naturally) and Smash Bros. It was a lot of fun! They were very formidable opponents in both games, haha. The night before, I hung out with some friends on their front lawn because the weather was so nice. And the night before that another friend of mine DJed at a club! I kind of wish I could just sit at home for an entire day and not have to do anything sometime soon, but I’ve been having fun with most of the things I’ve been doing.
Finally got the Japan Nite video online! I’m afraid it will probably make almost no sense to anyone who wasn’t there, but it’s worth watching anyway.
I had a really busy day today doing a bunch of random stuff (like getting that video online). Also, I had to unclog the drain in the sink in my basement. I tried some Liquid Plumr to no avail whatsoever, so after that I went with Plan B: Stick a Bent Coat Hanger Down the Drain and Poke Around. Plan B was a resounding success.
One thing I didn’t do during my busy day today was my homework, so I’m gonna have to cut this short!
I made a new website for INF215: Programming for the Web. The assignment was to make a site about something that we’re interested in, so I chose to make it about electronic music. The content is kind of boring ( “I LIKE THIS MUSIC, ISN’T THAT INTERESTING?” ) but I really like the design of the site. It’s one of the first sites I’ve designed that looks vaguely stylish, and everything was completely made by me - the photos used for the header and the background were pictures that I took myself.
Still haven’t gotten that Japan Nite video online, but I will soon!
Every year at UB, the Japanese Student Association has an event called “Japan Nite”. At this event they have a show that they put on, and then afterwards there’s food and games. It was a lot of fun! I think this year’s show was really great, although it probably helped that I actually knew some of the people in it this year. (I didn’t last year.) Still, this year’s was definitely really funny and had a nice message. The food was pretty good, too!
To see the rest of the pictures, check them out here: Japan Nite pictures.
Oh, because there was dancing (and singing!) I took a couple video clips. I’ll get them online soon. Between my parents coming to my apartment for dinner tonight and the homework I have to do, I really don’t have any time to waste!
I’ve been really busy lately! Even this weekend was super busy. But the weekend was busy with cool stuff, so that was ok! First, on Friday, Stephen Colbert came to UB and gave us our own personal Colbert Report and more. Being a big fan of Mr. Colbert, I have to say it was one of the most hilarious events I have ever attended, and it made me happy that UB would have something so interesting.
If you’d like to see all of the pictures I took, you can check them out here: Colbert at UB picutres.
I got a flat tire for the first time this past weekend. I got home from work on Thursday night and thought everything was fine, but when I went outside a bit later in the evening I noticed that my rear driver’s side tire looked pretty flat (but not all the way flat). I’m kind of a hypochondriac with my car sometimes, so I was genuinely shocked that one of my tires was actually flat. I put air in the tire right then, but I could hear a hissing noise signaling its refusal to stay put as soon as I finished. I thought the tire would be completely flat by the next day and was starting to think about having to buy new tires, but when I woke up the next day it was kinda flat, but not horribly so. It wasn’t in any condition to be driven on though, so I had to call in to my internship and tell them I wouldn’t be able to come in, and then get to work on getting things fixed. I had to be at work (job, not internship) at 3:00pm, and was hoping I’d be able to make it.
So, I took off the semi-flat tire, put on the spare, and went over to Dunn Tire, which is right down the street. They said they could fix the tire in about an hour. I walked over to a discount bookstore in Northtown Plaza, killed a bunch of time in there, actually bought a book (about how the Democratic Party has alienated young voters by catering to “the middle” and also by being run by old, out-of-touch people… obviously written before this current election, which makes it all the more interesting in my opinion) and then went to Manhattan Bagel, got a cappuccino, and started reading the book. (It seems pretty interesting.) After that, an hour had passed, so I went back. It was all set, cost around $25, and left me with plenty of time to get to work. All in all, not a horrible experience! As far as getting a flat tire goes, it sure could’ve been a lot worse.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: the culprit was a rusty nail. Why there are rusty nails just sitting in the middle of the road waiting to ruin somebody’s day, I will never know.
In other news, I was playing with the website that I did for my last assignment in Programming for the Web. For the assignment, we were still supposed to use a table for at least part of the layout, so that’s what I did. I wanted to see how easy it would be to convert the page to a full CSS, no tables layout. Turns out it was extremely easy! You can check it out here if you’d like (at least until I start working on the third assignment, which will eventually go in that location). It doesn’t look too different from the old version I linked to in my last post. It’s more different on the inside than it is on the outside.
For some reason I have absolutely zero interest in doing my homework. I guess I better do it anyway!
