The incoherent bloggings of a die-hard Star Wars fan.
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Eminem - Just Lose It
Ever wanted to blog something but can't seem to remember what you had wanted to blog until a couple entries later?
Last Monday was judgement day for our manila paper cell rafts in 3D Design. The five groups had finished (we did for the most part; we were missing a row in our second layer) and we set out to a local pool to test to see if our weeks of hard work would actually pay off. And stupid me, I forgot to bring my camera.
As I mentioned before, the raft had to be made entirely out of manila paper and packing tape, it had to be cellular in structure, and it had to hold someone's weight in water and keep them afloat and dry for at least two minutes. Four out of five groups, including us, miraculously succeeded. The group that failed kept their guy relatively afloat but he got pretty damn wet, lol. Our raft started to tilt to the right side in the second minute; I doubt it would have lasted three.
Looks like my account on what happened in the car accident won't save my insurance from having to pay for the other guy's car too. The man hired an attorney (who just happens to have the same last name as he does) to defend his case that I hit him from behind. Apparently he also claims he was injured in the accident, though he looked more than fine when I saw him. Either way, he had a passenger with him who's helping him defend his case, and I have no witnesses. I suppose there's still a chance that the inspection of the damages to my car will support my side of the story since it's virtually impossible for me to have hit him unless my car did some sort of clockwise spin, but then again that would rely on my word that the car stayed straight. Sigh...
Artwork by Scott Bevan and Kent Earle, creators of White Ninja, updated every Tuesday and Saturday.
2 days until Election Day 2004!
4 days until the debut of the teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
5 days until The Incredibles!
200 days until Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
To those of you who haven't heard, Ricky Slocum died in Iraq on Sunday. According to The Signal, he "was manning a gun turret on a Humvee during a patrol in the Anbar province Oct. 24. The vehicle flipped while swerving to avoid a barricade that blocked the road, throwing Slocum the Humvee. The injuries he suffered proved fatal; he was pronounced dead at Abu Ghraib Hospital." L.A. Daily News has the story here, and CNN has him listed here. My condolences go out to his friends and family.
Well, the latest polls have been showing that Bush has not only totally skyrocketed in Hawaii but seems to have a pretty solid hold on Florida's 27 electoral votes. Ohio's solid 20 votes has been going back and forth, but I think it's pretty safe to say that the election will probably go in Bush's favor. Four more years of the Dubya. Sigh... I guess it's consolation that we didn't have to take the Kerry gamble. Maybe that old presidential curse is still in effect (I don't really mean that, so don't take me seriously).
As for the rampant internet rumors of Jim Caviezel donning the blue tights and red cape for the new Superman movie, director Bryan Singer has declared them false. He has instead chosen relatively unknown and rather young actor Brandon Routh. Superman Returns, with a tentative release date of June 2006, will be a semi-sequel to the first two Superman films (probably since Supes 3 and 4 sucked so badly lol). But frankly, if Singer was looking for such a young actor to play the Man of Steel, I think he should have picked Tom Welling of Smallville fame. Oh well, hopefully Routh will bring the character justice. To me, Christopher Reeve will forever be Superman.
On a totally cooler note, Lucasfilm has just released the teaser poster for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith today! The faint image of Vader's helmet hidden in Anakin's billowing robe is pretty slick, compared to the crappy and totally unoriginal poster concepts that have been floating around lately. I still think the Episode I teaser poster is hands down the best design ever. Still, this new Episode III poster's design is quite ingenius in its use of dark imagery and violent red. Can't wait to see Drew Struzan's official poster this spring.
5 days until Election Day 2004!
7 days until the debut of the teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith!
8 days until The Incredibles!
As you all probably already know, I was involved in a car accident Wednesday morning on the 5 South on the way to school, and it was heavily raining at the time so the roads were pretty slick. I was in the fastlane when I started hydroplaning; I lost control of steering and I slammed into the center divider. The airbags deployed and there was considerable damage to the front left corner and side of my car.
It was pretty terrifying, seeing as which the moment after impact the airbags started deflating visible fumes into the car. I couldn't see clearly as my glasses had been knocked off. In a moment of panic, I thought the car was on fire. I couldn't really escape, since to my left was center divider and to my right was a fastlane of dodging cars.
There was another car involved, although I have no memory of hitting anything but the center divider. A man driving a Lexus claims that I hit him from behind while he was driving on the fastlane ahead of me, but the elements don't seem to add up. The damage to his car was tightly on the back left corner, and most of the front and all of the right side of my car was untouched. I might have believed him had he said he was in the second lane, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Anyways, I'm waiting for 21st Century to give me a call so I can tell them my side of the story.
Sigh, this sucks. I suppose I should be glad that I wasn't hurt at all; I mean, this was a high-speed collision. Damn El Niño.
In other news...
12 days until the internet debut of the teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith! Subsequently, the teaser trailer will play on the big screen the next day with the release of Pixar's The Incredibles.
Accept it or not people, Hayden Christensen is in Return of the Jedi. Apparently Chris didn't know about this until Thursday night, when we had our one-month DVD release anniversary Star Wars marathon (the first one never really happened). Considering all the press asking us about how we felt about the changes to the films, I thought he knew what they were, lol. I liked his reaction: "What the hell?!"
My sister got hit by a car while riding her bike. She's fine and all, nothing broken, but like... wow. Glad she's ok.
Quick blurb on the third presidential debate. Both candidates seem to have really listened to their criticisms over the past two debates and really upped their game. Bush was less condescending and more sincere, especially when he spoke of his family; Kerry stopped saying "I have a plan" and ending at that, this time elaborating some more. Kerry still kept using the inaccurate job statistic, so by a tiny margin I'm gonna have to hand this last one to Bush. We'll see how it all turns out on Election Day.
Alright so here's how this all started. Sometime in freshman or sophomore year of high school when I was with Jeremy Strauss, I was trying to say "technical difficulties" in a sentence but it came out all garbled, and Jeremy thought I said "technical billy buddies." Being the immature bunch that we were (are), we got an enormous kick out of this, and it instantly became an inside joke of ours.
At some point, Jeremy decided to search online for "technical billy buddies," and for some entirely bizarre reason he found this unusual image (I haven't a clue what search engine he was using; Google gets you nowhere):
When Mike and Jen started their Clever, Only Not messageboard a few months ago, Jeremy randomly posted the image again and asked me to photoshop it (I believe he wanted me to add a lightsaber somehow, seeing as which half my photoshops involve them). On whim, I decided to use the clone stamp tool and erase the squirrel.
Suddenly amazed by my work, Jeremy challenged me with an ultimatum: if I could effectively erase the entire old man so that the resulting image would be realistic, he would set fire to his balls. I knew it was perfectly possible; though it would prove to be difficult, I set out on the task to meet his challenge. I was nearing completion when I realized I had to leave if I wanted to beat the traffic to go down the Irvine and spend the weekend with Tim. Upon returning a few days later, I never really got around to finishing it, despite people nagging me to do so. Yesterday the cable went out and I temporarily had no internet access. Bored, I completed it.
Sadly, Superman has died. Christopher Reeve passed away yesterday of heart failure having fallen into a coma Saturday. He was 52. The man we all grew to know as The Man of Steel was one of the strongest supporters of stem cell research and the search for a cure for paralysis. It's a pity that his end came so soon; he was apparently making good progress. Immortalized in his monumental films, his paralysis foundation, and even mentioned by John Kerry at the second presidential debate last Friday, he certainly won't be forgotten.
"Dedicated to Christopher Reeve, who makes us believe that a man can fly."
-Mark Waid & Alex Ross (Kingdom Come)
Join the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation in voting YES on Proposition 71.
Well, the second presidential debate was rather disheartening. Bush initially came off as... really angry? Kerry's constant use of that inaccurate job loss statistic was pitiful, as was his totally off-topic reply to the question about taxpayers' money funding abortion. All around embarassing. I'd like to think Bush had the edge in this debate, but his unprofessional mannerisms and old hat attacks on Kerry made it seem he wasn't taking any of this seriously. IMHO, it was a .
Our next project in 3D Design is quite the challenge. In groups of five, we have to design and build a structure consisting of repeating and interlocking cellular units of manila paper held together by packing tape that will hold one of our group member's weight in water and keep them completely afloat and dry for two minutes. Sounds impossible, yes, but apparently it is not. In previous years, projects either outright failed immediately or actually stayed up for well over the two minute limit. Anyways, each of us has to build hundreds of these cells at home and spend our classtime building the raft itself, based on my overall structural design and someone else's cellular design. After hours upon hours of tedious work it will all go down in a matter of two minutes (or two seconds). Here's to hoping.
Nice to finally have some new blood at the arcades. Hey Liz, Dustin told me about the numbers thing. Clearly I am smarter. ;)
I OWN at Soul Caliber 2. All day today I ruined people's egos by joining in and destroying them. Heh heh.
Anyways, in the spirit of being in the midst of the presidential debates, I'll leave you off with several ingenioius political cartoons I found in the Fark forums (well, the Cheney one isn't particularly clever, but it's damn funny).
Sheesh, haven't updated my blog that much in the past couple weeks. Not that nothing much has changed or anything, just haven't gotten around to it. Don't worry people, I'll still be blogging. :)
My parents are off in Japan with Grace for a couple weeks. It's nice to have the house to myself, aside from it being awfully quiet.
I sure do hope you all have been keeping up with your politics and watched the debates, presidential and vice presidential. It still astounds me how so many of the young people of my generation who are the crucial new element to this election seem so nonchalant about their vote. In the past few days, I would ask people who they felt won the first debate; the clear majority of them either said they did not make the effort to watch it or they found it "boring."
Still, most of them seemed pretty adamant who they wanted to vote for based on the most simplistic and/or ignorant of reasoning. Without listing any names, I've gotten people saying (nearly verbatim): "I'm totally voting for Bush because he's a devout Christian. They say he prays a lot," or "I'm gonna vote for Kerry because Bush only went into Iraq to avenge his father," or "Bush because I think Democrats are dumb," or "Kerry because he's not Bush." One of my friends, who has made a healthy habit of supporting the Bush administration and voicing an intent to vote, has yet to even register.
Somebody shoot me, please. Repeatedly. To the face. Where are you, Howard Dean?!
Ok, I have to talk about the Star Wars Trilogy DVD's one last time. They are fantastic. The sheer image quality is astounding (the multitrack-cut sound quality has its flaws but is great to say the least), and if you at all enjoyed these films or have any respect for the digital format, I highly recommend you go get them.
Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Shawshank Redemption 10th anniversary DVD's are out as well!
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