The Dark Side: When Midi-Chlorians Go Bad

Update: This about sums it up.

I finally saw Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith last night. I have a disclaimer before offering up my opinion.

Disclaimer: I will admit to having read a fair number of reviews before seeing the movie itself. However, given the division in opinion (the majority of reviews are positive, but those that aren't tend towards the hyper-acerbic) I would like to think my opinion suffered less from predisposition than it might have. I did try to watch it in an unassuming state of mind.

One last thing before I get to my opinion: After the movie ended, Ben's first remark was: "Well, that was actually pretty good."

I'm afraid not, Ben. It was crap.

I'll discuss the good first.

• Most of the special effects were, predictably, slick.
• It is less terrible than the two preceding it.
• It is Jar Jar Binks-free. Well... Not really, but at least we don't have to listen to him.
• Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) is actually a good actor.
• Wookies are awesome.
• General Grievous was actually pretty cool. I think he'd have been a more effective psychopath if he couldn't feel pain, though.

And on to the bad.

• For god-knows-what-reason, not all of the special effects are good. The giant lizard that Obi rides, for instance, looks terrible and unreal when running. Not good. Also, I found myself wondering if Yoda was actually still a puppet. That's what he looks like.
• The writing sucks. It is just terrible, I'm sorry. The dialogue -- all of it -- is horrendous.
• The acting is atrocious, absolutely unforgivable. Ewan McGregor is, quite literally, the one good actor in the entire production. With regards to the other actors (and actresses; Natalie Portman is also spectacularly awful) I have honestly seen better acting in high school productions. Dammit, I've seen better actors than Hayden Christensen in grade school productions.
• There is not just a lack of chemistry between Christensen and Portman, there is negative chemistry. Good god, the dialogue between them... The horror, the horror!
• The scene transitions -- that is, the transitional effects -- are inexplicably sucky. I mean, wtf?
• They kill Mace Windu, the bastards.
• Yoda is incredibly sissy. Mace Windu could take Yoda. The logic: Mace Windu beat Darth Sidius; Darth Sidius beat Yoda; Mace Windu could take Yoda down.
• With regards to the battle driods: Who programmed them to have attitude? With R2D2, okay, he's an astromech droid, so it makes sense for him to be sassy. With the battle droids, though, it's just insulting.
• Darth Vader's scream ("Noooooooo!") at the end is amazingly bogus. It's also way too easy to make fun of ("Stellaaaaaaaa!", or, in this case, "Padmeeeeeeee!"), which is not a wholly desirable quality in a what is supposed to be a heart-rending moment.
• Speaking of heart-rending: Apparently Lucas wanted people to leave this movie with tears in their eyes. I suppose that's possible, but when you have two wooden actors supposedly in the throes of love (yes, that's supposed to be love; any resemblance to indigestion is purely coincidental), it doesn't really grab you. I mean, the romance would have been more believable if it had been between two cans of Campbell's® Chunky Noodle Soup ("Mmmm Mmmm Good!") rather than two dullards, attractive dullards though they are.
• Count Dooku is a terrible impersonation of Sean Connery, and you know it.

Now, while I do assert that the movie is crap, it's not massively craptastic. The other movies were; that's why everyone thinks this one is good. Well, that, and maybe because people are idiots.

This will be updated as more things occur to me.

Last Weekend

Yesterday I had my last day of classes. Man, it feels so good. The end is so close.

That said, I'm going to miss some people: the majority of my teachers; some teachers that aren't mine but still make things cooler; my friends; and of course, the eye candy walking around campus.

I studied for my Geometry exam, which is on Monday, and I plan to continue my studies tomorrow. I'm going to throw in a few other subjects, too. I need to do well on these exams; not just to maintain my grades, but out of a personal desire to do well.

This personal desire isn't totally overwhelming my frivolous tendencies; later on I'm going to dinner and a movie with Gus and Ben.

Superpowers

From What's Your Superpower?

RePolling

I'm trying again with a new poll. It's kind of good that I am, since apparently people (re: Ben) defrauded the other one.

Sorry about all that, as well as for the lack of content.

Weirdness

The site's acting weird. I dunno why. It renders nearly fine in Safari, not so great in Camino or Firefox. I'm trying to fix it.

Update: It's also screwed up in Internet Explorer.

Update: I deleted the poll, and that seems to have fixed it. Must have been something wrong with the JavaScript.

From here, where?

Since the summer will be starting pretty soon for me (not soon enough, of course, but soon) I wanted to see what sort of things you, the reader, would like to be seeing more of. I plan on doing more writing in my free time, and a blog is an excellent writing exercise, as well as a way to get some fast feedback.

In other news, my sister's getting back from college today. I hate to say it, but I feel much more apprehension than any positive emotions. I dunno. We'll see how it goes.

Update: As of 6:22 PM Tuesday, I am already hating her again. That actually took longer than I thought it would.

Edit: I deleted the poll to see if the JavaScript was what was messing up the site.

Slurpy Borkday

Yesterday after school I went to Gus' mom's house to celebrate his recent birthday. I gave Gus Star Munchkin. The regular D&D crew, except for Evan, convened for a birthday party that only a collection of geeks could pull off.

We finally finished our Forge of Fury (also known as the "Forge of Furry") campaign that we started last summer. Somehow we managed to get through it without ever actually going into the Forge of Fury. The coolest part was easily when we blew up the black dragon with methane deposits.

That was an awesome campaign, I'm sad that storyline is over. I can't wait to see what comes up next, though.

After that Ben and I went over to Gus' dad's house to spend the night. We played a lot of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on his Xbox. I was rockin' the arena as Serra Keto (I actually won a fair amount), Gus gravitated towards General Grievous (who scares the ever-loving bejeezus out of me), and Ben played cheap with Darth Vader or Count Dooku.

I didn't get a great night's sleep (if this post is more incoherent than usual, that's why) although I did get more than average. I'm tired, but happy. These D&D sessions always leave me in an amazing state of serenity.

Such good times.

Auslaenderpolitik

My incredulity is too great to be expressed.

My mom, while checking her old AOL email account (I set her up with a Gmail account, but the transition has not been complete) got an email in German.

Polyglot that she is, this piqued her interest a fair bit. Regardless of the fact that she didn't know who sent her the email, she opened the attached file.

Did I mention that she was using a laptop running Windows 2000? Well, she was.

Long story short, she now has a virus running helter-skelter through her hard drive. Firefox might be pleasantly secure, but there's not much protection when you basically invite malicious code in.

I love being a smug virus-free Mac-using bastard.

Update: Possibly related: Right-wing Germans in spam frenzy.

Eight to Four

So, I played a tennis match yesterday, doubles. My partner and I won, and pretty nicely, too. There are a couple of things that I attribute this to:

1. I played on the left-hand side primarily, and him on the right. My backhand is a stronger shot, in terms of over-all consistency and accuracy, so I play like a lefty.
2. We've had more experience playing together.
3. Our opponents were, um, somewhat easier.
4. Also: I was using a different racket than my old one. My old one isn't as well-suited to me as it used to be, and the strings are also ridiculously loose. The one I used was much better.

I had a few nice shots. The best one I can recall was a sort of leaping backhand volley I made that won us a point.

There's another match tomorrow, but we won't be playing in that one. Good thing, too. I could use a break.

Edit: Our game's been cancelled due to rain. I'm not sure what we're going to be doing instead.

Update: Turns out we did nothing instead. Yay?

Journalism

I'm not dead, believe it or not. I've been busy... Same old excuses as ever. There's really no getting around it. Sorry.

Yesterday and today we had a visiting author, Josh McHugh. It was pretty cool. The only profession I've ever really though myself suited for was that of an author, but I'd never really given much thought to free-lance writing.

Anyway, Josh spoke to our English class, and I must say, he's a pretty cool guy. He's written some good stuff, which I've mostly seen in Wired. He gave us an exercise where we had to write a pitch of an article for an editor.

The one I wrote went through two mutations. It started out as something fairly generic, got slightly more specific, then even more specific. The third version was the one I submitted. Surprisingly enough, when we voted on the three that we would choose for publication, mine got the most votes (eight out of eleven or so).

I think I might actually end up writing it, or at least a draft. With a real article I'd have to do interviews and suchlike, which obviously I'm not going to do any time soon.

Evil Monkey Is Back

Norm finally has Evil Monkey Productions up and running.

Hi there, cats and kittens! Welcome to the newly-redesigned Evil Monkey Productions website.

I think it's been a few years, now, that there's been an "under construction" sign up. This is the first time I've ever seen anything actually come from it.

Norm does fabulous work, but it's sad how little of it can be seen sometimes. Hopefully he'll start updating more often.

Edit: It turns out Norm sounds like RJ. That's only really relevant to maybe three of you, but it's still odd/cool.

Friday the Thirteenth

I'm not a superstitious person, but today was still a nice surprise.

It turned out that I got my schedule wrong; the Geometry test wasn't today, but it's going to be tomorrow. That made me very happy. Plus Jazz Ensemble was cancelled, so I had some very nice extra time.

The English test wasn't great. I was pretty much brain-dead by second-to-last period. That's always a problem.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to Make My Own Waffle.

PollyBlog

Good for Nothing
It's always been a negative phrase to me until today. Then I flipped it upside down and meaning spilled all over my mind. To be good for no god, no commandment, no reward, no threat, no person, no reason, no thing. Just to be good like the sun or a pretty flower or oxygen or a smile. A person who is good for nothing is truly the essence of goodness.

From Life as a Pollywog.

Major good stuff.

Pleasant Weather

Today's weather is easily the best we've had in a long, long time. It's sunny out and I'm feeling good.

I'm still sick. It was such an unbelievably nice thing not to have school. You have no idea.

Tomorrow's going to be lame. In the afternoon I have three tests, one after another without a break in between. That's one low-quality afternoon, there.

I need to get well. Quickly.

Contentious

Well, my mouth finally stopped bleeding. Now I just have to deal with my cold and sore throat.

I'm still in a good mood, though. Why? I have no school tomorrow. Boo-yah.

I really need a day off. I've honestly worn myself ragged with work. I need sleep and rest. There's only about three weeks of school left but lord I am tired.

Homestretch time baby.

Skin of My Teeth

I just got my last baby tooth pulled. Tenacious little bugger, that one. It was supposed to have come out by itself ages ago.

WHOIS Suspicious

Today I got an email claiming to be from ICANN. It went like this:

Dear Valued Customer,

ICANN, the organization responsible for the stability of the Internet, requires that each domain name registrant be given the opportunity to correct any inaccurate contact data (WHOIS data) associated with a domain name registration. Our records for your domain are as follows:

[...]

To review and update your WHOIS contact information, please log into our management interface at: https://manage.opensrs.net

If any of the information above is inaccurate, you should correct it. If all of the information above is accurate, you do not need to take any action.

Please remember that under the terms of your registration agreement, the provision of false WHOIS information can be grounds for cancellation of your domain name registration.

If you have any questions or comments regarding ICANN's policy, please contact them directly at icann@icann.org.

Thank you for your attention.

Best regards,
AccountSupport

It looks legit, except for a few things. First, there was this addendum:

NOTE: Please do NOT reply to this message. This is an outgoing message only.

Second, the email address showing up as the sender is support@accountsupport.com. Didn't seem right.

I decided to open up the original thing to see if it illuminated its origins any more. Browsing through the miscellaneous data, I discovered the IP address it appeared to come from: 216.40.35.x. I looked it up on Hostip.info, which returned that it belonged to Anjou, Canada. Hostip.info isn't always perfectly accurate, but ICANN's US base is in Marina del Rey, California... A far cry from Canada.

For the time being I think I'm going to ignore the email. Its legitimacy is questionable enough that I'd prefer to run the risk of whatever is a result of neglecting my WHOIS info rather than allow someone to get my domain name, username, and password.

Update: My dad, who has had no small experience with phishing (not as a victim, but as a natural cynic who has yet to succumb) agrees with my suspicion. With that I decided to report it to Gmail as a phishing attack. If anything comes from that I'll blog it.

Mother's (Birth)Day

Happy mother's day to any moms that might be reading this.

It's also my mother's birthday, which is really (usually) a gyp for her. Kind of like having your birthday on Christmas. This time we made it up for her.

We got her a Nikon Coolpix 7600. She was... Surprised, to put it mildly. She hadn't even been asking for one, though she did want one in her heart of hearts.

It was a satisfying experience.

In other news, I've gotten a cold. In bleeding May. Et tu, mater naturae?

We Aren't the Champions

Just lost some matches to my school's oldest rival. I didn't play with my usual partner, but I'm not sure how much difference it made. I'm on the highway now.

I'm Getting Published

Read more about it here.

On the Go

I just got myself set up with Blogger's new service, Blogger Mobile.

I could already do the whole mail-to-Blogger thing, and I can post my cameraphone pics to Flickr, but this will... Um... Well, I can post pics directly to my blog, which is good, I guess... I mean, I could do it before, but the option is online, so now I can choose when I want to. So, uh, yeah.

Proofing

I just finished writing a three-page analytical essay for English. It's due later today.

I like to live dangerously. (No not really, it stresses me out a lot.)

I have a big problem proof-reading my writing. I can barely stand to look at it. It's such tripe it hurts almost physically. I regard my writing as basically draining the dregs of hypothetical literature from my brain.

It doesn't help that I have yet to make an argument in an essay that I actually believe and/or support. Most of the time I'm just making it up as I go along. I guess it says something about me that I'm able to make it work, but it's not necessarily a positive thing.

Pass the Aspirin

Why doesn't the sentence "I knew you will do that" make any sense?

I can't think about that for too long or my brain starts hurting.

Making the Grade

Right, here's how my grades are shaping up.

First term: 3.8
Second term: 3.0 (don't ask)
Third term, first list: 4.0

So yeah, I'm doing the work again. It helps. This oughta give me some more wriggling room vs. my parents.

Wodehouse

“We have known each other so long,” said Emerson, “and I have told you so often that I love you that we have come to make almost a joke of it, as if we were playing some game. It just happens that that is our way, to laugh at things. But I am going to say it once again, even if it has come to be a sort of catch-phrase. I love you. I'm reconciled to the fact that I am done for, out of the running, and that you are going to marry somebody else; but I am not going to stop loving you. It isn't a question of whether I should be happier if I forgot you. I can't do it. It's just an impossibility, and that's all there is to it. Whatever I may be to you, you are a part of me, and you will always be a part of me. I might just as well try to go on living without breathing as living without loving you.”

--P.G. Wodehouse, Something New.

Lunch is an Illusion

We got our new dining-room seating assignments today. Once again they've failed to lump me with any of my friends, but Ben is conveniently close this time. He's at the other end of my table, and if we both sit in the center, then we can talk. It's nice.

Rather than having regular tennis practice today we watched a video. On tennis, naturally. The one we watched was named "Mental Toughness" and consisted of strategies for positive mental attitudes and so on. I wasn't able to scorn it as I normally do as I've been goofy-happy recently.

I was sort of interested because some of the things they recommended doing are things that I myself have sort of gravitated to. Suppressing body language, relaxing between points, that sort of thing. I can't really comment on how much it's helped me, though.

RAWR

Today was another awesome day. Ben called me up at around two asking if I wanted to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I made the snap (and easy) decision that, yeah, I did.

Forty minutes later I was at the theater. I saw it with Ben, Evan, and Gus, and I've got to say, we were all pretty impressed. We're all devotees of the book, and we were pleasantly surprised. We went into it expecting the worst, but it was better than we thought it'd be. It wasn't as good as perhaps it should have been, but there were a few scenes that I kne Douglas Adams would have liked. The factory showroom on Magrathea was probably the best part.

They did dumb down a lot of it, sometimes wholly unnecessarily, and that ticked me off. You can't have everything, though.

When my dad picked me up, I found out he had gone to our local Apple store and picked up a family pack of Tiger. Aw hell yes.

It took slightly under an hour to install and it is freaking awesome. I'm posting this from Dashboard and the widget DashBlog. Tiger is so freaking cool I cannot begin to describe it. I can't, I won't go back to XP. Goddam.

Yesterday's D&D session was also freaking amazing. Holy hell I am having a string of goodness. I hope this doesn't mean I have cancer or something.

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