It’s a little known fact that me and my friend Robin are Olympic level Ms. Pac-Man players. We honed our skills in college when there was a Ms. Pac-Man machine in our dining hall, and it’s been magic ever since. Here we are ten years ago:
And when we stumbled upon hunted down a Ms. Pac-Man machine when we were in Providence, RI this weekend, we had to hold a reenactment, not too unlike Civil War reenactments in all their splendor and magnificence:
Here’s to ten years of Pac-awesomeness and tens and tens more.
Like marriage, turning left onto a major road is a privilege, not a right. After the influx of additional traffic lights in our town, it became apparent to me that the problem can broadly be defined by residents of smaller roads not wanting to wait at intersections longer than they feel is right. But when looking at the situation a bit more precisely, the problem is better defined by people thinking they should be allowed to make lefts onto major roads at all times.
I live on a road that intersects with the main street of our town, aptly named Main Street. I know that if I want to make a left onto Main Street between the hours of 8AM and 8PM, rather than turning from my block directly onto Main Street, that I need to take a few additional side roads to get to a light that will allow me to make a left easier. It adds about thirty seconds of travel time, but that time is made up by not having to wait at the intersection for the opportunity to make a left.
In addition, the main shopping center in our town has a single-laned exit with no traffic light. If a person wishes to make a left out of the parking lot, they can hold up an entire line of traffic to make a left onto Main Street. Meanwhile, there is a parking lot across the street from that intersection with two entrances. If you make a right onto Main Street, you can easily turn into the parking lot across the street, then make another right onto Main Street, which will send you in the original left direction and on your merry way.
Basically the point I’m trying to make is that if we required it to be easy to make a left onto all main roads at all times, nearly every intersection would have a light at it. Yes, I understand that lights are most certainly necessary at some intersections, but there are ways of getting places without having to make a left onto a main intersection. In the situation I described above, it’s even faster to make the right and use the parking lot across the street to turn around than waiting for an opportunity to make a left. So really what I’m trying to say is, drivers suck and everyone should be as wonderful as me. THE END.
As I was working diligently, I came across these quotes of Star Trek cast members’ reactions to the movie Galaxy Quest that I thought I’d share. Patrick Stewart’s is obviously the best:
“I had originally not wanted to see Galaxy Quest because I heard that it was making fun of Star Trek and then Jonathan Frakes rang me up and said “You must not miss this movie! See it on a Saturday night in a full theatre”. And I did and of course I found it was brilliant. Brilliant. No one laughed louder or longer in the cinema than I did, but the idea that the ship was saved and all of our heroes in that movie were saved simply by the fact that there were fans who did understand the scientific principles on which the ship worked was absolutely wonderful. And it was both funny and also touching in that it paid tribute to the dedication of these fans.” – Patrick Stewart
“I thought it was very funny, and I thought the audience that they portrayed was totally real, but the actors that they were pretending to be were totally unrecognizable. Certainly I don’t know what Tim Allen was doing. He seemed to be the head of a group of actors and for the life of me I was trying to understand who he was imitating. The only one I recognized was the girl playing Nichelle Nichols.” – William Shatner
“I loved Galaxy Quest. I thought it was brilliant satire, not only of Trek, but of fandom in general. The only thing I wish they had done was cast me in it, and have me play a freaky fanboy who keeps screaming at the actor who played “the kid” about how awful it was that there was a kid on the spaceship. Alas.” – Wil Wheaton
“I think it’s a chillingly realistic documentary [laughs]. The details in it, I recognized every one of them. It is a powerful piece of documentary filmmaking. And I do believe that when we get kidnapped by aliens, it’s going to be the genuine, true Star Trek fans who will save the day. I was rolling in the aisles. And Tim Allen had that Shatner-esque swagger down pat. And I roared when the shirt came off, and Sigourney rolls her eyes and says, ‘There goes that shirt again.’ How often did we hear that on the set? [laughs]” – George Takei
A picture from the upcoming Britney/Brittany episode of Glee, clearly inspired by the video she did with Madonna for Me Against the Music:
Naturally I’m stoked about having a Britney Spears episode of Glee, and it’s made all the better by centering around Brittany. I thought the Madonna episode was fantastic, though the story did strain a little too hard in order to use the Madonna songs they wanted. I think we can all agree that the episodes work better when they pick songs based on the story instead of the other way around. But as long as they stick to only one or two theme episodes a season I think it’s fun.
As I was walking to work today I saw someone who looked to be approximately my age smoking out of an old fashioned wooden pipe. He was hustling to work just like everybody else and smoking out of a pipe seemed like no big deal to him. “What a douchebag,” I thought. Yes, that may seem harsh, but it got me thinking about people who only do stuff that meet certain requirements they’ve set for themselves. Snobs, if you will. But not snobs in normal everyday life, just snobs about certain things. Examples I’ve heard in the past include:
1. Only being able to drink Starbucks and refusing anything else. Really? Dunkin Donuts coffee is delicious, stop being so elitist!
2. Refusing to go to a movie theater that doesn’t have stadium seating. Oh really, you want to drive half an hour longer to a more crowded theater and pay double the price just so you can have your precious seat?
3. Only eating sushi that is imported overnight directly from Japan. Okay, no, I haven’t really met anyone like that, but I have met people that don’t like going to a certain type of restaurant because surely it isn’t as good as what they’ve had elsewhere.
4. It’s dijon or nothing!!! I’m half kidding about this last one, put your pitchforks away.
Let’s not beat around the bush, these people are snobs. These people didn’t start out in this world any different from you and me, but they’ve conditioned themselves to only like things a certain way. I can’t be certain that the guy I saw smoking out of the pipe is one of these people (“Oh, silly child! Cigarettes are so plebeian!”) but it got the big red playground ball in the brain rolling. I tried to think of things that I can be snobby about and — not to sound all high and mighty (“snobby”, one might say) — but i really couldn’t think of any. I was joking the other day with my parents about how I could hardly make out what was happening on their television screens since their DVD players were so blurry compared to my blu-ray, but obviously I was joking and haven’t reached that level of snobbery yet. I almost never turn down going to a movie or going out to dinner due to what we’re eating or seeing, and if those decisions haven’t been made yet, I usually leave it up to the other people to decide because I really don’t give a damn.
That brings me to the question of the day. What are you snobby about? Or if you’re perfect like me (yeah right, no one is as perfect as me) what other snobbish habits have you come across with other people?
When Natalie Portman, my wife, isn’t getting sexually harrassed by cocky and rude bloggers, she’s getting sexually harassed by Mila Kunis. Check out this new trailer for the upcoming movie Black Swan by Darren Aronofsky:
Darren Aronofsky makes awesome movies including The Fountain (yes, it was awesome, shut up if you didn’t think so), Requiem for a Dream (which was awesome, but I never want to see it again, thank you very much), and The Wrestler (which was surprisingly awesome and made me love Mickey Rourke and 1980′s wrestling).
Did you know that Star Trek: The Next Generation was the first — and currently only — syndicated television show (a show produced outside of network television, then sold to networks for broadcast, examples include Baywatch, Xena, and Legend of the Seeker) to be nominated for the Emmy for Best Dramatic Series? It was nominated for its 7th season (most likely as a testament to it’s cultural significance rather than the quality of that particular season itself) in 1994 but lost to Picket Fences. But as everyone says, it’s an honor just being nominated.
See more pictures from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows here. Entertainment Weekly also reported that the split between the movies will be around Chapter 24. If you need a reminder of when that is, check out this handy listing. Since the book is 36 chapters long, it sounds like they’re squeezing a lot of story into the first movie, which I hope means that the final battles will make for an action packed second movie. I felt completely jipped when the battles at the end of Half Blood Prince were cut from the movie and I don’t want them to be rushed this time around. I will be sorely disappointed if I don’t see Professor McGonagall leading an army of desks!
Okay, so I finished the sixth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’m sure you’re all relieved and dying to know what I thought. I only hope the edges of your seat aren’t worn out from all the sitting on them you guys have been doing. So what did I think? I’d say this season was about even with the fifth, still not quite up there with the fourth, but still a solid season of Trek.
Standout episodes include: Relics, where Scotty from the original Enterprise is found alive. It was such an emotional episode, not only seeing an original crew member, but having them try to help around the new Enterprise and telling loads of old stories and being completely disregarded. Thankfully the old dog still had a few new tricks up his sleeve and everything worked out in the end. A Fistful of Datas, where Worf and Alexander are in the holodeck acting out a wild west story (what could possibly go wrong?) and Data begins popping up everywhere. Besides all the iterations of Data, I also loved Troi in that episode where she was able to let loose and be a gunslinger.
The Chain of Command two-parter where Picard is taken hostage by Cardassians was also quite good. Though I have to say that the Babylon 5 episode Intersections in Real Time did the interrogation thing much better, but this was still a solid effort. Ship in a Bottle, where Moriarty is awoken and devises a way to get off the holodeck was a lot of fun. Tapestry, where Picard is killed and Q allows him to go back and change some of his past “mistakes” which has some interesting consequences. That was a fantastic Q episode with all the fun and humor we expect from Q, and made up for the lackluster Q episode True Q from earlier in the season. Starship Mine was an awesome Die Hard-esque episode where Picard has to singlehandedly protect the Enterprise from terrorists.
Lessons, where Picard falls in love with the new head of Stellar Cartography and the pair literally make beautiful music together was a particularly touching episode. I wish the relationship between Picard and Commander Daren were allowed to blossom over a few episodes, but it was still a beautiful episode. Though the Seinfeld-esque coincidences aren’t lost on me.
::Picard falls in love with a Stellar Cartographer::
Distressed Planet: Is anyone here a
marine biologiststellar cartographer?!::DIES::
Okay, she didn’t really die, but almost! And naturally they had to break up before the episode was over. Like I said, I wish that relationship could have lasted a few episodes. But this is Star Trek and unfortunately the writers like to stay away from continuing storylines, which has its benefits and consequences. Second Chances was another good one where Riker finds a double of himself and we get to deal with the Riker/Troi romance which makes me all tingly. I’m not looking forward to the Worf/Troi romance I’ve heard about in the seventh season, but I just gotta keep in mind that everything works out in the end. And of course the season finale two-parter Descent where a community of Borg acting individually under the control of Lore was fantastic.
I’m in the home stretch! I’ve heard lots of mixed things about the final season, but I’m looking forward to finally seeing the finale All Good Things, which I’ve managed to stay spoiler free from all these years.
