Completely Random Pictures

I saw this sign at the airport last week: 

I think I'd feel a lot safer if guns were allowed on planes. Who's going to want to hijack a plane full of armed passengers?

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Cindy got her hair done for our traditional Zoroastrian wedding this past weekend 

I was amazed by the number of pins I took out of her hair at the end of the night. (the rice was in her hair too, but that was from the priest throwing them into her hair)

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I see skid-marked toilets all the time, but look at the position of the shit on this one I saw today. 

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"I thought we were betting on horses today."

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another memorably stained toilet. 

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at a local Cuban restaurant

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When we created a wedding gift registry at Bed Bath and Beyond, they immediately gave us this:

And to think, all this time I've been eating dinner with one plate and one utensil

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Whenever I thought Cindy was registering for too much stuff, she always reminded me that at least she wasn't the type of girl who registers for decorative pillows.

(no offense to girls who register for decorative pillows)

(but offense is fully intended to guys who register for decorative pillows)

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Juice had the copper pipes stolen from his air conditioner for the second time this year 

This is especially annoying because the thief will only get $75 for the pipes, but it will cost over $500 to repair the air conditioner.

I gave Juice the following advice after the first theft, and I'll say it again now: He should put a note on the air conditioner that says this:

Dear Thief,

Instead of stealing my copper pipes, please bring this note to my front door and I will give you $100 cash.

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I know this was done to honor the Chicago Blackhawks, but still, it looks kind of alarming at first glance.

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Ok, this is ridiculous, I've got over 2,000 pictures on my phone.

I've been saying this for DAYS

all students in American public schools should be required to take a Health class.

Health and the Human Body.

And not just one semester like I had in high school. But every single year. K-12

If we want to bring healthcare costs down, we need to teach people how to take care of their bodies.

I think it would be more helpful to teach students why cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fatty foods are bad for them, rather than teach them about amoebas and cytoplasm and whatever else we were taught in science class. (Not saying that stuff isn't important, but shouldn't people learn more about their own bodies first?)

I've been saying this for YEARS

and I've probably said it somewhere on this blog, but here it is again anyway:

High school students should be required to take a financial responsibility class in order to get a diploma.

It's absolutely crazy that high school students have to sleep through Beowulf and Wuthering Heights, and yet they're not required to take a finance class.

movie reviews

I’ve watched all ten of this past year’s Academy Award Best Picture nominees, so I’m going to rate them all for prospective viewers. (And I’ll try not to write reviews that give away the entire story.) It was hard to rank these against each other because entertainment comes in all different forms. That being said, here are my personal rankings from worst to first:

Up – I enjoyed the first 10 minutes, but it got a little dull for me after that. It touched on some interesting themes (especially the old man letting go of his past) but moment to moment it didn’t keep me entertained as any of these others. Grade – C+

Up In the Air – I saw this movie 18 years ago when it starred Eddie Murphy and was called Boomerang. It still kept me somewhat interested throughout, but some of the characters were caricatures, and that always lessens a movie for me. Grade – B-

Blind Side – There’s nothing wrong with a good old fashioned feel good movie. I enjoyed watching this one, and out of the nine movies, this came the closest to getting tears out of me (maybe I was just in a feel-good mood that night.) Although, even more than the story itself, the issue with the NCAA investigation (which only took up about five minutes of the movie) is something that has stayed on my mind ever since. Grade – B

An Education – Maybe it was a sign of the times (England 1961) but on one hand this movie shows us a very intelligent girl with Oxford aspirations (heavily fueled by her father), and on the other hand she is willing to make some big decisions based on very little information. It makes her seem very fickle, but that’s probably the point the author is trying to make about people and their ambitions and emotions. (So as you can see, it was a thought provoking movie.) Grade – B+

Avatar – I saw this one 14 years ago when it starred Will Smith and was called Independence Day. Nonetheless, the visual effects were incredible and make it worth watching. The plot is a tale as old as time, but was full of some very surprisingly explicit political statements. (I liked the score too (I don’t know what James Horner did before Glory, but some of his stuff sounds pretty similar to me. (which is fine)) (And I have thoughts on what Avatar 2 should be like.) Grade – B+

A Serious Man – I didn’t want to like this one. The Coen brothers seem to walk the fine line that separates being entertaining and thought provoking, from being too cryptic and pretentious. Fortunately, A Serious Man fell on the entertaining and thought provoking side. A Serious Man was certainly designed to be somewhat ambiguous, but a moral dilemma for the main character seemed to be present throughout. I enjoyed the filmmaking too: lots of cool camera angles and colors and transitions and music. Grade – A-

Precious – This would be the story of the guy in Blind Side if he was a girl and wasn’t good at football (but was just as big.) I would say that this movie didn’t pull any punches, except that the author actually said she had to pull some punches in order to make it into a film (which makes me curious about the book.) Precious was almost difficult to watch at times, but worth watching, and something that you’ll think about long after you’ve seen it. Grade – A-

District 9 – Maybe I am saying this because I don’t watch very much sci-fi – but this was by far the most unique of the bunch. I loved the story, loved the partial-documentary style presentation, loved the main character, and loved that it took place in Johannesburg. I think they could have spent a little more time developing the story towards the very beginning, but nonetheless, a very cool movie. Grade – A

Inglorious Basterds – Great drawn out scenes full of thoughtful dialogue and unique characters that really captured my attention. There were parts that made me laugh, and parts that made me cringe. The first Hitler scene is one of my all time favorites. I ranked this movie #1 at first when I first wrote this post, but switched it on my proofread. Grade – A+

Hurt Locker – Great movie. I think what I liked most about it was that the filmmakers didn’t try to do too much. They came out and explained the theme for the main character right away, and then developed it with a handful of focused scenes. And in doing so they made you think about the dilemmas of modern urban warfare, the dilemmas of war in general, and even the dilemmas faced by the ordinary man. Inglorious Basterds was more fun to watch, but I’ve found myself reflecting on this one a lot more. Grade – A+


*** Footnote -- I don't know anything about the business of filmmaking, but it certainly seems like the Academy has quite a bit of influence.

somewhat interesting quickie

As I proofread that last post, I was surfing the internet and came upon this blog post about a book that argues the internet is making people less able to focus.

There is definitely some truth to the argument (I was supposed to be focused on proofreading that wedding planning post but instead was surfing the web and came upon that post about surfing the web making us less focused.) But I'll say this: if it wasn't the internet, it would be something else. I didn't have internet in my apartment during my first year of law school, so instead I learned how to play guitar in-between my 50 nightly games of Hearts.

But I do think technology makes it worse. I don't think Anna Karenina would be 1,000+ pages if Tolstoy was trying to write it in present day Moscow. It'd be a short story. Or maybe it would be a blog where he's Levin just rambling about his desires or lack thereof. (Or maybe it would still be 1,000 pages, but then War and Peace would have never been written.)

I blame it a little more on TV. Having a remote control made it so that I could constantly keep myself stimulated when I was a kid. I would even flip channels during a program I was watching. To this day, I can't pick up the remote control at my parents' house without my mom saying, "Oh no, get the remote away from Cyrus."

While watching TV, my mom always put the remote control on the coffee table, whereas I kept it constantly aimed at the screen (even if I was watching a movie.) (I have started to change though.)

But what made me read less was my high school English curriculum. I used read a lot when I was kid, but then I started high school and was forced to read stuff like Wuthering Heights, The Great Gatspy and Lord of the Flies. That kind of literature made me dislike reading.

I was 14 years old, I was listening to Ice Cube and masturbating to pictures of Daisy Fuentes, I wasn't ready for F. Scott Fitzgerald's dense prose about the complications of adult love. (I may never be ready for it.) I couldn't even read the Cliff's notes for most of the high school curriculum. I remember I used to ask the person sitting in front of me to give me a 30 second plot summary of the book as our in-class essay topics were being passed out.

Even as I was typing this post, I was interrupted because I forgot I had a Field Day meeting and Ponce showed up at my door. I guess the more people try to do, the less they can focus on a single thing. (By the way, if anyone reading this is interested in participating in Field Day, let me know. I'm not very good about spreading the word. We just opened registration, and you probably need to let me know soon because last year we filled up in about a week.)

I read a 1,000+ page book last year and I couldn't believe that a person was able to sit down and write the entire thing -- and then I learned that he wrote the book in prison. (the book was pretty good, but it could have easily been 200 pages shorter.)

(I wrote this post yesterday, but thought it was weird to post two things in one day.)