bitter, party of two?

I keep a “Quote of the Day” feed at the corner of my personalized Google homepage. I like the randomness, and as far as distractions go, a quote is short and sweet.

I particularly enjoyed this one from yesterday:

Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth. – Rex Stout (1886 – 1975)

I’m not sure why it struck my fancy, since I’ve never known any millionaires, period, much less any whiny ones. It just seems kinda funny, and it could be accurate, from what I do know about wealth and famous millionaires.

Still, it might not be as deliciously nasty as anything someone like Oscar Wilde might have said, but it’s definitely got the wry part down, a la Mark Twain.

And further still, I don’t think I’d mind having my fortitude tested in millionaire-dom. When will I get my chance?

Filed under: best thing, fun

Color!

Today was one of the more fun classes we’ve had this year, and not just because it was half as long as a normal class! No, it’s also because we were given a lecture by the resident go-to bloke for restoration at our film archive — well, before he retired last year. The lecture was on the history of color film, and it seemed pretty comprehensive (though i’m sure there’s still waaaaay more to learn about it).

It’s cool to see how the technology progressed, but what’s surprising is how early color showed up in films – people were trying all sorts of things, from tinting and toning the films with just one or two colors, to devising all sorts of methods for hand-coloring or stencilling in bits of color to make the image appear just slightly more realistic than plain old black and white.

And even when color first came out, there were tons of things they did that kept weren’t necessarily ‘realistic’ looking. But then, even when Technicolor became the established way of doing things, ‘realism’ wasn’t really the effect they were going for, but rather a more aesthetically pleasing sensibility, akin to that of a Rembrandt painting.

The lecture was especially cool because it was accompanied by running film clips of varying qualities – from fully color-restored prints to awful scratched up separation elements and test footage. He showed us parts of his restoration of “Becky Sharp,” a landmark film in many ways, and what was interesting about that was that even the restored versions weren’t technically exactly like they should have been, because the yellow separation master positives (or whatever the hell those things are called) have been lost, so they had to resort to trickery with light and color (aka MAGIC!), and the final product still looks different from the other parts where all three color separations did exist and were restored.

Anyway, I’m still charmed by the whole idea of hand-coloring. The first time I saw an example of it was on some show on Turner Classic Movies, and it was amusing but endearing; but watching that stuff never gets old, because you can’t believe that people cared enough to make the effort. To call it painstaking would be seriously understating the case.

Filed under: school

how not to be a student

I’m so behind on reading for my classes it’s not even funny. Unless you’re not me, then I bet it’s *hi-larious.*

I just can’t seem to get my ass in gear when it comes to Reading The Flipping Articles. They can even be interesting sometimes, and yet…

Other stories, like this one about Roger Federer by David Foster Wallace call out to me to be re-read. Metafilter begs to be refreshed every hour. Same with del.icio.us/popular. Then I start working on one or more website designs, and before I know it, it’s midnight, and I have class the next morning with more reading left to do.

Classes are great, though. “Archaeology of the Media” is mostly a lecture about the various gadgets and technologies that have been used and developed since the days of proto-cinema, and it’s taught by a veritable fire hydrant of technical knowledge. “American Archives and Manuscripts” deals with archives that (as we’ve been going over them in class so far) deal with records rather than films, but the lectures have just started getting interesting, so who knows where that’ll lead. And “Information Structures” is about all the stuff I should’ve learned before attempting to do any web development or design work.

And still, the readings…I don’t know. Things were a lot easier, for some reason, when I was a psych major. I think the readings need more people in them to keep my interest. My attention span is just too shor

Filed under: school

there’s no “I” in “object”

Dude, if I have to read one more sentence containing this error, “this and that happened, causing a rift between my friend and I….”

Listen: “She and I were eating lunch outside” is not the same as “Petey sat by me and her.”

The difference? No, actually, they’re both correct. It’s something else.

In the former instance, You and your Friend are the subjects. You guys are doing stuff.

In the second example, You and your Friend are the objects. Stuff is happening to (or for, or between) y’all.

I know how when you were little a kid, your teacher probably corrected you whenever you said something like “Me and her were eating lunch outside when…” And so you were conditioned always to use the phrase “She and I” or whatever. But their pedagogical zealotry has led to half a generation of grammatical misusers, and it’s starting to drive me nuts. People are even quoted in the New York Times doing this.

Just to hammer it home: “My mother and I went to the mall.” “Petey bought flowers for both my mother and me.” Petey did NOT. FREAKING. Buy flowers “for my mother and I.” Or “for she and I.” Or even for “her and I.”

It’s not even that hard. You would never say “Petey got this for I,” or “Petey got this for she,” so why in the world would you switch to using the subject pronoun, just because there’s suddenly more than one of you? Petey may be a no-good rotten two-timer, but that’s no reason for you to become Grammar Ape.

And you’d never say “This dispute is between he and they,” because that sounds ridiculous. Well, lemme tell you, “this is between she and I” sounds even worse, because you think you’re being all correct, but in reality, you just sound like the unedumacated person your teachers made you become.

Filed under: personal

roll call

there are twelve people living in my house right now. two old people from canada, two old people from korea, my family, and four people from Vegas.

twelve people, 2.5 bathrooms.

it’s gonna be a long weekend.

Filed under: personal

LA public transit – not so horrible!

I spent almost the whole day in San Fernando Valley, aka the butt crack of southern California. It wasn’t too bad, actually; the valley’s a bit like the suburbs south of Los Angeles, only more soulless and empty. They’re trying to clean it up a bit, and go gentrified/faux-boho.

Luckily, today turned out to be gorgeous and more like SoCal wintry, aka 65 degrees and sunny. I actually enjoyed my lunchtime ride in the near-empty bus, going down the near-empty Sunset Blvd, up past the Getty and Skirball (even the 405 was clear, from where I could see it).

Coming back from the Westfield Topanga, which is sort of like a suburban version of the Century City Westfield, only more soulless, I took the MTA’s Orange Line, which is in reality a big grey bus that rides a dedicated, transit bus-only road. It still stops at a few traffic signals, but it was better than any subway line, because it was above-ground, well-ventilated, and not many people use it yet (spacious).

I did have to switch to a Rapid (Red) bus to get back to Westwood in Van Nuys, but even though that one took the 405S back, the freeway was so open that coming back, during rush hour, took about as long as getting there had.

Nevertheless, a one-way trip to West Hills takes over an hour, so this isn’t something I am going to do regularly. Or even like, ever again. Have a nice life, San Fernando Valley!

Filed under: Uncategorized

time to update

I will be busy this quarter. If I thought last quarter was bad, with 45 pages of Paper to write, this quarter I will have 35 pages…for one class. around 20 for another. And I haven’t had my third class yet so who knows what more he’ll pile on us.

Luckily though, the workload is a bit more distributed this time, so I wont’ be having to write those hundreds of pages all in three days; rather, they’ll be three separated days. Or hopefully more days than that.

The true goal for this quarter will be to learn time management.

Filed under: school

the best thing i read today

Lots of fun stuff to read today, but coming in just under the wire for “the best thing I read” is this post from Parisist, about an article in the LA Times about a sort of police exchange program, with a group of French cops coming to LA for a ten-day program where they will learn from LA cops. Um, yay?

France’s finest will receive training in everything from firearms to pursuits to crowd control. If that’s not enough to send shivers down your spine, after training is complete the officers will patrol the L.A. downtown subway (yes, one exists) and then provide security detail for the upcoming Golden Globe Awards. However, as they will be far out of their jurisdiction, they will be unarmed.

Seriously….???

I’m really not sure why they’d need this “exchange program.” I always had the impression that French police were insanely professional and, unlike certain members of the LA PD, competent. In other words I’m not sure they’re doing themselves a favor by taking lessons out here. I wonder how the American police would do over in Paris.

Still, you have to love this picture.

[Okay, and I will also link to the bigger news story today, because I am totally drooling over the iPhone. It's just so pretty!!! One sad thing about the insane (if deserved) attention Apple's getting from their "Macbook Nano" is that Dell had some neat announcements too, at its own keynote for the CES thingy or whatever it is. Like, they're being all environmental and pro-social and doing good stuff. But yeah.....iPhone!]

Filed under: best thing, computer

chqtting

You gotta love the French and their damn proprietary French keyboard layouts. Their QWERTY is actually AZERTY, so when you forget to change the language settings, or press the wrong keyboard shortcuts, you get this:

(13:18:57) Sister: so,ethineùs zrong
(13:18:58) Me: ???
(13:19:00) Sister: keyboqrd hqs zeird keys
(13:19:06) Me: hmm loooks like you have french keyboard
(13:19:08) Me: on the win98?
(13:19:10) Sister: yeq
(13:19:12) Sister: h,
(13:19:12) Me: ahahahahhahahaah
(13:19:14) Sister: hqhq help
(13:19:18) Me: look at the language bar
(13:19:23) Me: check that it’s EN not FR
(13:19:31) Sister: hoz
(13:19:36) Sister: hoc
(13:19:38) Me: click on the blue button
(13:19:44) Me: on the taskbar
(13:20:01) Sister: oh
(13:20:03) Sister: there we go

I remember it took awhile to get used to that when I had to check my email at the internet cafe every day in France.

Even Germans have their *own* damn keyboard layout. Honestly, if you use the Roman alphabet, why not just set up your keys the good old-fashioned American way? So what if our layout makes no sense?

I think they do it just to spite us.

Filed under: computer

i, consumer!

It’s two weeks after Christmas, but this week my family has gotten some nice new stuff for ourselves.

- I got new glasses! They’re Calvin Klein frames, but nicer looking than the ones I got at Target last year (what was I thinking?). I went to this new shop that opened in K-Town that the guy my parents knew from their old eyeglasses place opened up for himself not long ago. I ended up picking the very first set of frames he picked out for me, that’s how good he is. It’s called Eyeland Optical, inside this building on New Hampshire and Wilshire.

- For a late Christmas present, my sister and I pitched in to get our parents the Simplehuman coffee maker. It’s a single-serve coffee machine, but it makes much less noise than the Tassimo, it has a much smaller footprint, and it’s much easier to use and better-designed. And the coffee that comes with it in a sampler pack is really good (Molto). I already wish I could have another cuppa but that’s probably bad for if I want to sleep later tonight.

- My sister got a MacBook!!! It came at closeout prices, because it’s the first dual-core model from last May, but still! I’m using it to write this right now (setting it up for her, and, you know, making sure everything works *wink*) and it roooooooocks.

- And pretty soon we’re gonna have to buy a new car, now that the insurance money has come in. We like Allstate, by the way.

All in all, a very wallet-draining week. But I think (hopefully) that the stuff we got is good enough to keep us satisfied, materially, for a good long while.

Filed under: fun, personal