Terrible Thunder Lizards

Strange but true: dinosaurs were made of Kevlar. "That's great, Professor Shiny," you say, "but what does that mean to me?" I'm glad you asked. It means a lot of things:
1) Those canoes you (meaning I) always look at but can't afford are made of dinosaur. This leads us to point #2:
2) Dinosaurs were related to fiberglass. Professor Shiny knows this because that's what the canoes he can afford are made of. They are also related to aluminum, like the canoes Professor Shiny rents at the river where he takes float trips.
3) If you find a dinosaur, soak it. If you can rehydrate it so that the skin isn't crinkly and dry and stretched over the bones, it will be worth something like $300 per square foot.
4) Since Kevlar does not occur in nature, dinosaurs must have been artificial. Why does this matter? Well, Jimmy, it once and for all discredits those pesky evolutionists. Eat that, you godless scientists!
5) That cartoon The Terrible Thunder Lizards was way more accurate than the game Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. The Terrible Thunder Lizards were blown up by missiles on a regular basis, and survived with just a blackening of their hides. The people in the Cadillac shot and killed thousands of dinosaurs with very little difficulty. I haven't played it in years, but I'm pretty sure I remember the dude beating dinosaurs to death with his bare hands.

Meanwhile, in the real world, I went to the flea market today. Normally this means I wandered around for 20 or 30 minutes, then left empty-handed and bored. Today it means I got complete copies of The Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger on SNES for $5 each. Five dollars. Complete. If you're as big a geek as me, you're either jealous or not paying attention. If you aren't a geek, you have no idea why $5 is abnormal for games that are 10 and 12 years old, respectively. In that case all I have to say is "If you can't be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, well that's your own lookout."

I went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide last weekend. While it was changed quite a bit from the book, um...too bad. The books didn't exactly mesh with the radio plays, and neither was perfectly represented by the TV miniseries. Douglas Adams rewrote every time. Continuity was not fun for him, so he rejected it. Plus, seriously, how would he fit it all into two hours? And I realize he did not write the movie entirely alone, the director co-wrote it. Co-wrote. Meaning helped him. Not without Adams' input, I think it's safe to assume. So stop whining and enjoy it. It was a very fun, lighthearted movie, with some changes that I didn't necessarily much care for(like the Arthur/Trillian relationship, which was undoubtedly a posthumous change), but overall a fitting adaptation of the story and a great tribute to the best known work of Douglas Adams. And if you liked nothing else about it, enjoy Mos Def. I've seen a few rappers-turned-actor, and he was the best by far. I'd actually watch other movies with him in them.

Dazed and Confused

Sorry for the lack of updates. I intended to post on Wednesday, as well as put up that story, but finals week just got in the way. Then laying around like a bum all of Friday got in the way. But now, the semester is over, it's summer, yay! I'm at work right now, and I'm excited because Adult Swim is, at this moment, showing Metropolis, which I've wanted to watch for some time now, and just haven't managed to make the time for it. They also, tonight, started airing Samurai Champloo. I watched the first dozen or so episodes subtitled when they were first being fansubbed during its Japanese TV run, and I'm anxious to see if the dub is any good. I know the show is good, I enjoyed it tremendously the first go-round, and even if I hadn't seen it, it's from Shinichiro Watanabe, the genius who gave us Cowboy Bebop. Unlike CB, which of course was a jazz-based futuristic bounty hunter show, SC is a hip-hop based feudal Japanese wandering samurai show. Okay, formulaic I admit. Not a traditional formula, but mot so far removed from the concept of his previous well-know anime. Regardless, if you like anime, and didn't hate Cowboy Bebop, (I know, it's crazy, but I've met a few who couldn't stand it,) you should give it a watch. It's not necessarily the most accessible series, (not as easy as, say, Lupin the 3rd, but certainly not as insider as, for instance, Keroro Gunsou. Compare its potential mainstream appeal to, maybe, Paranoia Agent or Chrono Crusade, or CB, of course) but anyone who digs animation, or action flicks, or hip-hop outside of the mold of JayZ/Ludacris/Snoop/insert-other-random-pop-rapper-here should be able to get into it pretty easily.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Lisbeth started her new job on Wednesday. She's been pretty exhausted since then, understandably: she has had an incredible amount of information to absorb in a very short time. She really likes it so far, though. It's strange having her gone all day, when we've been able to poke in on each other between classes and such, but we've been eating lunch together, which eases the transition, at least for me. She was so excited yesterday, they issued her a laptop. We stopped at my house to get Sandy on the way to a barbecue, and she was able to sit in the car and read blogs, because the computer they gave her has built-in wireless. Didn't work in the coffeeshop though.

Speaking of that coffeeshop, I'm never eating biscuits and gravy at the coffee shop across from campus again. They were raw. When I complained, they apologized, and explained that since they have no oven, they microwaved the canned biscuits. Lisbeth had a single order, I had a double, all were raw, and they tried to make up for it by offering us a donut. Oh, well. I wasn't very attached to that place anyway, since the coffee isn't that good, and some friends of mine own a coffee shop across town.

I've been very slowly writing this post over the past hour, and Metropolis is about half over now. I'm pretty impressed with it. I heartily (thus far) recommend it.

School's Out for Someone

Lisbeth got a job! A real, grown-up type job, with a salary, and benefits, and daytime hours and all of that kind of stuff. She interviewed yesterday at 3:00. She finished about 3:45, came over here so we could go get ice cream, and a few blocks before we got to Sonic, her phone rang. It was only one hour after the interview had ended, and they were offering her the job. I wish i had had a camera when she answered the phone: her face bore one of the most ecstatic expresions I've ever seen. Her voice remained fairly calm, but her face was exploding, her hands were shaking. It was great. I'm excited for her, because it's a great job, that seems made for her (even if I've already said that.)

Apparently the comment function is not functional. The last post has five comments, but says zero, and blogger is supposed to notify me by email when a comment is made, but that hasn't been happening lately. If anyone needs to get in touch with me, and a comment I won't notice for a while won't do it, email me at sethcwhite (at) gmail (dot) com. And I'll post the story soon, I need to do just a little more revision.

Also, regarding that link last time to someone's mom, I finished going through those pictures and reading the captions, and I find it not so funny now. I thought it was just some pack-ratting (is that a usable verb?) but there seems to be a serious compulsion at work. I hope she is all right.