California Uber Alles

The Da Vinci Code hit theaters this past weekend, and since I absolutely hate the hell out of dealing with opening weekend crowds (or just movie theater crowds in general - stop talking during the movie, assholes!) I waited until yesterday to go see it. Verdict? I thought it was a dull interpretation of what I thought was a very exciting, fun book. I also wasn't one of the lucky 10,000 who were finalists in Google's DVC contest, but at least it was fun.

I decided to finally use Yahoo's avatar maker and after a minute or two kicking it around, this is what I came up with:



Let's see, unicorn? Check. Skulls? Check. Red long johns? Check. Angel wings? Check. And last of all, blue motorcycle helmet? Check. Perfect!

While browsing 4CR I found a link to a video of somebody cheating at online Tetris DS. Is there anything lamer than cheating? At Tetris no less? Hella weak.

After catching up on season 2 of House, I'm pretty sure it's the greatest show on TV. A friend pointed out that it's rather formulaic, and sure, I'll grant that. Why? Because medicine is formulaic in nature - you follow the same basic procedure (differential diagnosis, run tests, test hypotheses, find an answer, treat) every time. So why should a show about medicine be any different? And when did all the good shows become medical shows? Scrubs is great, and I even like Grey's Anatomy despite the fact that Meredith Grey is possibly the worst character on television.

Considering myself somewhat of a scientist, I always loving seeing Quack science proven wrong. Apparently some types of air purifiers ("Ionic air cleaners") "purify" the air via the process of ozonolysis, an organic chemistry process by which alkenes (unsaturated hydrocarbons) are broken down into ketones and aldehydes (see my buddy Wikipedia for the info) - these ozonlysis "purifiers" actually end up contributing way too much ozone to the air, at some pretty nasty levels. So checking the scoreboard, that's Real Science 1, Pseudoscience Quackery 0. Party!

I had to watch a video about Dowsing the other day in psychology class. Before watching the video the teacher asked who thought the process was a bunch of hooey, and only me and two other people raised our hands. That means more than 90% of the class actually believes that you can take a coat hanger and a fine tuned ESP and find not only where water is located underground, but how deep the water is and the flow rate of the water. All I could do was shake my head in disbelief.

Speaking of psychology, the class I'm taking requires a minimum of 7 hours of participation in psych experiments of our choosing. That's right, the grad students don't get willing volunteers, they get conscripts. If I were a grad student I would be kinda ticked off - I mean, every experimental result I get was collected under duress. I tried to have as much fun as I could, but the setups didn't always permit that. Picture this: I walk in and there's an absolutely beautiful little redhead with a thick southern drawl. We talk while she's setting things up and waiting for the other participants to show up. Then when it's time to start, the REAL fun starts. The experiment was to try and link personality with genes, so they needed a DNA sample from each of us, and their method of choice was saliva. Kicker is, they needed a container the size of a small Dixie cup's worth of spit. That's a freaking lot of spit. So there I am, in front of this very cute girl, contorting my face and trying to muster a cup full of spit so that I could get this thing done. Worst thing was that after you thought you'd given enough, you'd have to have her come and check the level to make sure it's enough. Once given the green light, it was off to the computer to fill out a 300 question "personality" test, of which probably 295 questions were about suicidal ideations and personal perception. One tends to get a bit defensive after being asked 200+ times if he wants to up and off himself. One question's options were "I'm indifferent with my life", "I'm not happy with my life", and "I'm miserable with my life", and we were to "pick the most applicable statement". Awful grim, right? Where's the "I'm happy with my life", you dreary bastards? I sure felt happy after that! Oh, and part two (minus the spit, I hope) is on Tuesday. Hot. Damn.

Still waiting on MCAT scores. Mid-June is just so far away.

I found this amusing: a car in Ohio recently "flew" farther than the Wright Brothers original flight. An Aston-Martin inadvertantly launched off the track and "flew" 142 feet, a flight 22 feet further than the Wright Brothers back in 1903. Crazy.

Oh, even though I've never heard of the show (probably because I'm not a Briton) I've got crazy respect for Craig Robins, who did something amazing. A show he really loved, "Joking Apart" which aired on BBC2, had no slate for DVD release - the BBC was essentially sitting on it and doing nothing. So what did he do? He bought the rights to the show and put it out on DVD himself. Awesome. There are plenty of great shows (and I'm sure we've all liked one or two on the list) that have been cancelled before their time, and nothing happened to them because the network owning the property decided just not to waste any more time/money. I know I've got some favorites on such a list. Carnivale, John Doe, Arrested Development, Firefly...to name a few. Some of those had DVD releases, yes, but new shows can't be made because the networks responsible won't sell the show's rights. Man, I forgot how much I miss Carnivale. Damn that was a good show.

I've got a lot of new albums, I'll get back to you on how they are. I really wish somebody put out the full soundtrack for Tony Hawk's American Wasteland. Great game soundtrack.

Oh, and Happy 21st to my little sister, and happy 2nd to this humble blog. That's two years of worthless text down, a few more to go!