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[Jan. 26th, 2012|12:05 pm]
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Micmacs is such a nice little french film. it is hard to describe. it is a comedy with an eccentric band of weirdos who get involved in a plot of revenge against arms manufacturers.
it is by the director of the city of lost children, delicatessen, and amelie. i had been planning on seeing the former 2, but hadnt gotten around to it, yet. |
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| Messages for Nathan |
[Oct. 2nd, 2011|05:39 am]
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If you want to leave me a message, feel free to leave it here in this post. I also have my IM information and my e-mail address on my user info page so you can IM/e-mail if you prefer. This journal is open to anyone and everyone to comment. Anonymous posting is allowed. |
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| Aaaaadventure time! |
[Sep. 5th, 2011|11:58 pm]
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Who knew the ice king could be so feminist? Fionna was pretty reasonable, aside from praising him. Maybe ice king secretly has a thing for Finn. Cake's voice wasn't cute like I'd have hoped, but it was still good. Male-Marceline seemed cool. I was hoping to hear Fionna shout like Finn does when he geta excited. I suspect that Finn's voice cracks less now because the voice actor is older. I think he started at 15. He is the younger brother of Penn (Finn) in the pilot. Hearing the authentic, voice cracking, pubescent shouts makes it all the more hilarious. |
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| [LJ2ME (http://www.xfyre.com/sw/lj2me.html)] |
[Aug. 24th, 2011|08:42 am]
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Oh, so that's what a 5.8 earthquake feels like. Earlier this year, we had a 3.0 in Maryland, even though none had occured that big for like, a trillion years. IMO it's a global warming conspiracy. When the earthquake hit, I was like "stfu I'm napping." It woke me up :( fucking earthquake! |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 10th, 2010|01:23 am]
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So I was watching part of this documentary where a low-ranking geisha was putting on her makeup. It wasn't put on like you'd expect, with those pads and foundation. She was using this brush thing (with softish bristles) to paint on a shiny, semi-fluid coat of white makeup. For some reason, I found this really compelling. It's hard to explain; it's partly like her face was being painted and partly that it made this unique, shiny coat coat as she did it, unlike other makeups. She didn't even need to carefully close eyes when she did it, and it went on quickly and smoothly. Perhaps even the fact that she has ~azn eyes~ made it somehow visually work better. I always thought asian eyes seem to fit more naturally together because they're smoother...as if someone cut them out without haphazardly crinkling them like non-asian eyes (random side note: random clips I saw on YouTube from this adoption documentary had one, now grown, asian girl talking about how when she was young (having white parents), she would look into the mirror and couldn't figure out how her eyes were different from anyone else's and therefore mock worthy).
I wonder what the reasons for becoming a geisha are, in spite of the high level of difficulty of becoming one (many drop out as low-ranking geisha in training...much like college, as it is basically a live in school with dorms). Certainly, being wanted, admired, and respected (in a specific, limited sense), plays a part, but I want to know the specific reasons. It's hard as fuck work. You basically live in special housing under a geisha "madame" who sponsors your training, room & board, and a few other things, then takes your monies over time and gives you a percentage. You are required to spend a large amount of your time as a geisha and even when you have free time not as a geisha, you're still required to adhere to a certain code of conduct. When you sleep, you are required to sleep with this extremely uncomfortable neck pillow (like a roll that's only under your neck), which means minimal sleep, all in order to keep their delicate and sophisticated hair styling intact. That's just one of many pieces of dedication they have to go through, in addition to regular chores and existing within a rigid social hierarchy where higher ranking geisha criticize and demean lower ranking ones.
Geishas is toughs. I've learned about them before, but never bothered to write. This particular show was called Discovery Atlas, and each episode covers a different country, covering some of the more unique, less covered (by popular media), and interesting aspects of different countries. In the Japanese episode, they also showed two giggling (seriously...very giggly) Tokyoan (sp?) teenage school girls who were used as product testers for a company that makes photo booths, among other things. They were sort of like the Japanese equivalent of valley girls...it was weird.
In the Russian episode, they showed this church boat that was literally a small church (complete with a tall steeple) pulled by a tow boat along various bodies of water to visit rural areas of Russia that don't have any religious buildings at all and use this as several-times-a-year opportunity to do things like baptisms. The priest's family lives inside the church boat. You can just think of all the amusing variations of things you want to bring to rural people on boats... Maybe a strip-boat would be profitable? I wonder if anyone has made mobile stores on water? I know there are casino boats and cruise ships, but those aren't the same. To some extent, bringing back the old fashioned style vendors/traders would help rural areas those don't have a lot of sorts of stores locally, especially if you have a product that's more of a specialty. |
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| Skanks in NYC |
[Aug. 29th, 2009|04:04 am]
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URGENT IN DEPTH REPORT: PLEASE FORWARD* August 29, 2009
by Nathan J. Yoder
#1 SKANKY SUPER STAR
Liskula Cohen, a fashion model who is clearly well into her 60s, is the winner of the first place award for Skankiest in NYC. Unfortunately, she is no longer hot, like she may have been back when she was a covergirl. Actually, who am I kidding? This skinny as mega skank was always ugly and must have sucked the dick of every photographer to get her jobs as a covergirl. How else could a filthy, disgusting and foul whore get such jobs?
Notice how totally unpopular and unknown she was until now. This lawsuit exists for the EXCLUSIVE purposes of: A) generating publicity for herself and B) getting revenge for getting butthurt over a random, unknown blogger. It's a new variant of an old form of lawsuit called a CyberSLAPP (Strategic lawsuit against public participation) lawsuit. Its purpose is to intimidate people trying to say or do something, not necessarily actually win (i.e. generate "chilling effects"). It's fucking schoolyard antics and thin-skinned tattle talling on something people have a right to say.
There are some other key facts concerning developments with the former model Liskula Cohen: #1 - In her recent lawsuit, evidence surfaced proving that this skank-among-skanks was licking the sand out of Justice Joan Madden's vagina during the trial. #2 - Cohen is a psychotic, lying, whoring, still going to clubs at her age, skank. #3 - Cohen may have been hot 10 years ago, but is it really attractive to watch this old hag straddle dudes in a nightclub or lounge?
More information: Google reveals blogger's identity after Vogue model's 'skank' insult
*These are all opinions.
-------------------------------------
OKAY, so what is this REALLY about?
An anonymous blogger (now revealed to be Rosemary Port, a 29-year old student at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC), using Google's blogger.com service, wrote a post that is very insulting of Liskula Cohen. Until now, no one had really heard of Port's blog, as it's very unpopular and it was taken down after the lawsuit started. I have recycled and partially reworded all of the lawsuit-worthy statements which Port made above for satirical effect.
Cohen sued Google to reveal the blogger's (Port's) identity. After Google received a subpoena, they didn't fight it and instead complied, all the while claiming that they care about privacy and sympathise with "cyberbullying." So much for "doing no evil," but most of us who pay attention have already noted Google quietly pulling shit like this.
Cohen has since filed a $3 million defamation lawsuit against Port for her single blog entry on her very unpopular and unknown blog. Google is being counter-sued for $15 million for not fulfilling their fiduciary duties to fight the lawsuit (Google originally defended her but simply complied instead of appealing) and it's possible Cohen may be sued as well, under anti-SLAPP laws (see CyberSLAPP.org).
So what were the words that were so horrendous as to warrant breaking anonymity? Port called Cohen the skankiest skan in NYC, with some elaboration on that, including "psychotic, lying, whoring, still going to clubs at her age, skank" and "may have been hot 10 years ago, but is it really attractive to watch this old hag straddle dudes in a nightclub or lounge?" There wasn't much more than that. So basically, she gets her privacy violated and sued for $3 million over someone writing a few sentences elaborating on how Port considers Cohen to be a skank.
While Port's comments were immature and childish they definitely fall under the realm of freedom of speech. It really, really pisses me off that people just let their random emotions get the best of them and use LEGAL BULLYING (i.e. SLAPP lawsuits) to intimidate people and equally emotional judges ruel along with them, without any legal basis or respect for our founding fathers and the long history of freedom of speech that comes from them. For fucks sake, it's just childish name calling from a nobody, which no one even read, and now some litigation happy nitwits are taking advantage.
And some people thought that the new law illegalizing being annoying on the internet wouldn't be enforced frivolously. We don't yet know if the defamation lawsuit will take advantage of this, but the fact that the courts are taking this seriously is proof that you can succeed in suing people for insulting you over the internet.
Port's claim, which was rejected by Justice Joan Madden, was that blogs "serve as a modern-day forum for conveying personal opinions, including invective and ranting, and should not be treated as factual assertions." Yet another idiot in the system (including all three branches--judicial, legislative, and executive) who doesn't understand modern technology in the slightest. As a rule, technological laws and the courts that enforce them usually take at least 20 years to play catch up with technological trends. This is combined with numerous judges and legislators who will freely manipulate and trample on blatantly on the constitution, ignoring even the most obvious interpretations, in favor of their irrational, knee-jerk reactions.
THANK GOD that Port and her lawyer, Strazzullo, are willing to take this all the way and set good precedent, unlike many people in SLAPP/intimidation lawsuits who cop-out, even when they can afford to fight or can get pro-bono work, resulting in negative precedent being set (like this or that; sorry that I can't come up with better examples off the top of my head). Regarding the case, Strazullo said: "I'm ready to take this all the way to the Supreme Court. Our Founding Fathers wrote 'The Federalist Papers' under pseudonyms. Inherent in the First Amendment is the right to speak anonymously." |
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| NEW VENTURE BROS. SEASON 4 PROMO |
[Aug. 19th, 2009|10:31 pm]
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Hey guys, check out this awesome Venture Bros. Season 4 preview on Jackson Publick's LJ (one of the show's creators). It looks very, very awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I had to turn it off because I felt like I'd spoil myself. They seem to keep reinventing themselves every season. It's unusual for a show to keep getting better every season, even up to season 4.
Incidentally, I am trolling that post, even though he doesn't respond that I know of, and am keeping this post public just to see if anyone notices. You'd be surprised how long, if at all, it takes until some people take notice to public admissions like this.
EDIT: Oh, apparently jacksonpublick does respond, occasionally. He informed me that there are no lightning clones in Season 4. I figured that was the case, but some part of me was hoping that the clones were generating the electricity that zapped those guys, so I added it in as deliberately stupid speculation. |
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| HALP I need advice for buying a PC display or HDTV. |
[Jul. 22nd, 2009|01:54 am]
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I am considering buying either a PC monitor or an HDTV, both of which would be hooked up to a computer to act as a regular PC and a DVR (i.e. like TiVo). Which one would be the better option when balancing display quality and price?
I could be wrong, but it seems that PC monitors are a lot cheaper for equivalent display quality (even monitors with 16:9 aspect ratio). Why is that? It seems too good to be true. Is it just some marketing thing or am I missing something?
Once I decide which one to use, what's a good buying guide? There are like a million models and it's hard to determine. Is there something other than contrast ratio, aspect ratio, and supported resolutions to go by in terms of display quality?
I'm considering having the PC be output only (i.e. no DVR functionality) if that will reduce the cost a lot, but the cards for HDMI/DVI input don't seem much more than $150 extra. I'm probably going to be simply getting a new video card for my current PC and potentially a new hard drive to store the movies. I'll probably use free and open source software, but if commercial software comes seems much better. I'll definitely not not pirate it. |
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| Shark Shield?!?! |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|01:24 am]
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After seeing them try out a potential infomercial product for deterring sharks on the show Pitchmen, I had thought that all current technology for deterring them was bunko, but I was wrong. The one they tried was some silly sound based thing that managed to put the tester in danger because it didn't work while in shark infested waters.
The Shark Shield actually works, but it's like $650. It uses an electric field that sharks naturally try to avoid. One of the shark's senses is for electric fields, normally used to sense the passing by electric fields of other fish (all living things have an electric field "aura," albeit a weak one). This one is pretty strong and causes them to run off.
I saw this demo video as this shark tried getting near a guy, but swam off every time he got too close, like it was super hot and he would get burned if he got near. It causes more spasms in the shark's snout as it gets closer and who knows what other unpleasant sensation via their electroreceptors. It's harmless to the shark, but very unpleasant. |
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