Brain De-Freezing

Today's new song touches a topic close to everyone's heart: postponing #2 as long as humanly possible. Everyone's knows those painful moments in their lives where #2 is all but poking out, but you just can't put down what you're doing, or you're too lazy to walk over to the bathroom, and so you clench everything and swallow hard with your butt. Later of course, your sphincter has to stretch like a cannon barrel, but as Russians say: "art demands sacrifice."

In any case, the lyrics are before you:
Verse 1
Sometimes it hits you you're lying in bed,
your bladder says i'm ready, let me go or i'm dead
your colon's screaming i've been due for a while
and your intestines now measure in mi-iles
you're thinking

Chorus:
oh God
i got to go
but no, i can hold it
just a little longer
if i just squeeze and squeeze and squeeze those mighty cheeks
i know i can hold it just one more week

Verse 2
Two hours later you're blue in the face
but you never give up, this is a long distance race
you chant your strongest mantras and pray for success
and hold that sphincter tight so you don't make a me-ess

Chorus
...

That's as far as I've gotten so far, I'm afraid if I continue, things aren't going to go well for the protagonist. Here's the MIDI: Week #2 The melody is unambiguous, each note represents a syllable.

Got some puzzles secondhand from friends that are doing interviews. My brain wasn't exactly ready for any strain, so even reading them in the IM window was a struggle. Here they are, there's two of them:

1. Find the smallest number x such that any number above it can be obtained by a linear combination of 6's, 9's and 20's. (For example 127 can be obtained with five 20's and three 9's)

2. You have 2 glass balls and a 100 story building. You need to find the smallest numbered floor such that a glass ball will break if dropped from it. Minimize the number of floors tried.

WARNING: Don't read on if you don't want to hear hints or solutions

I didn't manage to find an elegant solution to the first problem before succumbing to the temptation of using brute force. Basically I tried numbers almost consecutively until I found six consecutive integers that held the requisite property. From there it is trivial to prove that any number higher will also hold the property. I won't say the answer in case someone has extremely well-developed peripheral vision and spots it while reading the spoiler warning.

I have no idea what the best answer is to the second problem. There are a handful of strategies that all have the same worst case scenario, but I'm too lazy to delve into calculating the average case scenario. The basic idea though, is to pick some interval, say n, and try every nth floor until ball 1 breaks. Then use ball 2 to go through the yielded interval. So say n = 15, try 15th, 30nd, 45th, etc. Worst case scenario is if ball 1 breaks on the 90th floor. Then you use ball 2 to try floors 76 through 89.

In any case, the best thing to do first would be to estimate the terminal velocity of the ball. Perhaps it will reach it after falling fewer than 100 floors, narrowing the testing range.

New Song

Introduced my parents to Malcolm in the Middle yesterday. They exhibited a common hypocrisy: while watching, they laughed themselves stupid, but when I asked them later what they thought of it, the biggest compliment they could muster was "I don't get it." Well, there's a good cure for "I don't get it," and that's "do it till you get it," so if they're thinking they're getting out of seasons 2-7, they're going to have to rethink their strategy.

Started a new song today, on commission from Mario. The requested topic was "how to discipline your children." Leaving the punch to the chorus, so far I have:

Verse 1

When you say Bobby, rub my feet,
or I've had a long day
make me something to eat,
you should only see obedience
don't put up with any less

Verse 2

When you say sweetie, I'm feeling kind of tired,
go and do my work
so I don't get fired
you should only see obedience
don't put up with any less

Pre-Chorus

But if the little ingrate doesn't run and obey
if he starts to whine and begs to go out and play
then you know it's time for discipline
then you know it's time to give him some...

I have a rough idea for up to but not including the pre-chorus. Here's the midi: Disciplining Freeloaders

The vocals begin 8 or 9 measures in, just match the dominant voice to the lyrics. It's nothing spectacular at the moment, I'll have to juice it up.

I left Boston yesterday, and in the emotional hurricane that surrounded the event, Chun let some truth slip through her usual compulsive lying. Her email to me yesterday had a great line, which I reproduce here with her permission: I have so little time to squeeze all the fun out of you. Now that's honesty in a relationship. I finally understand why I have intuitively been keeping so few friends. With more than a couple of people constantly squeezing me, I wouldn't stand a chance. It also now makes sense why I eat so much but remain skinny and beautiful - that's a tip for you fatties out there - hug yourselves and lose some weight.

Back to the NJ

Spent some quality time in front of the mirror yesterday, practicing facial expressions so I can better fake being a normal person. I'll be making some first impressions soon in Texas, and if I wear my natural mask of stoned disinterest I might end up with the same quality friends as I made in Boston (this is where my friends find out whether they're optimists or pessimists). I also needed some work on that smile you give people that you pass on the street, especially the ones of the cute and female persuasions. Prior to today, my mouth had only one smiling position - corners of the lips wrapped around the ears and eyes reduced to sub-Asian width slits. After much struggle with disobedient facial muscles, the mirror yielded minor results. Oh well, at least I can frighten people away with my variety pack of terrifying grimaces.

Came back home today. The bus ride was uneventful; my seat-mate turned out to be quiet and polite. I couldn't find anything to get annoyed at, which was tremendously frustrating. As a result, I didn't sleep a wink, and finished another award-winning book that was somewhere between "OK" and "pretty decent."

The book was Forever Peace, by Joe Haldeman, a professor I took a class with at MIT. He was more interesting in real life than on paper, and much more humorous and irreverent. The book in contrast takes it self much more seriously.

The plot captures one of those rare moments in 2001: A Space Odyssey where the music shifts from lullaby-esque to artificially-dramatic, and a big black pyramid appears to herald a new evolutionary or technological leap for mankind. In this case, the evolutionary leap is mental neutering, or to use Haldeman's word - "pacifying" - creating man that cannot initiate violence unless it is in self-defense. Asimov of course already explored this concept, and managed to write about it much more lightly and interestingly. For the sci-fi illiterate, I'm refering to Gaia from the extended Foundation Series. In either case, Haldeman mantra is: your balls are not in your sack, they're in your head (the one upstairs).

Texas is only a week away. Tomorrow I resume training in faking friendliness.

Busy busy

Went over to civilization today and played some Mario Kart. Trash talking is a very big part of my game, and served me true while I battled video game amateurs (girls), but earned me only a close second when I faced Paul, the hero of our hit song The Paul Song. Of course if I had beaten him we would have had to rewrite the song, so perhaps I was subconsciously sabotaging myself, and I'm actually twice as good as he is at Kart. At last, a sensible and simultaneously flattering explanation.

We also played Taboo, which was even more fun. The teams were boys versus girls, which ended the only way it could, and I don't mean in an orgy. (Boys won by a long shot)

Before Chun came home, I jammed with Band-in-a-Box for a while - mostly major and minor blues. Every day I try to convince myself to go downstairs and plug into the amp, but it's so far, my inertia is so great, and the couch and refrigerator exert a gravitational force usually restricted to black holes and neutron stars.

I've been reading The Time Traveler's Wife out loud to Chun during the last week, but the page numbers are growing frustratingly fast and it's getting near that part where... where... hold up... where's my handkerchief?... sniff... anyway, no more reading. I'm going to grow breasts if I don't pull myself together. Time to go on a testosterone binge. Arnold, Bruce, Christian, you're going to return me to the male race.

Just remembered a great joke Justin Lee told me during the Maine trip:

Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None, feminists can't change anything.

Ouch

Chun and I had a revealing conversation today, while necking half-way through The Importance of Being Earnest. I was feeling good about myself, Chun having just unleashed thousands of calories worth of honey onto my Winnie-the-Pooh ego. I was feeling invincible. Then the conversation took an unexpected U-turn:

Chun: I'll always be here to boost your ego.
Mark: You should throw some curveballs now and then, keep me on my toes. (What was I thinking??)
Chun: OK! What should I say? How about...you're ugly...or...you suck at guitar. Hmm...no I better not, I'm afraid I'll hit too close to home.

Read that last sentence again. OUCH! In other words: "you want honesty? Alright. You're a worthless Quasimodo."

The Importance of Being Earnest taught a valuable lesson: never feel guilty. Lie to your friend, betray your brother, tattle, cheat, but never feel guilty. It was especially inspirational to me because I have so much to learn in this department, being of Jewish blood, and thus having 12 extra guiltophilic chromosomes.

Put in an excellent effort today in terms of watching TV. Saw two Malcolm in the Middle episodes I'd never seen before, and realized I can appreciate physical comedy. There was a scene this where Malcolm, Reese and Dewey are trying to frame Craig (the resident fatty) for running over Reese's leg and causing the huge welling that was actually obtained in an incident better kept secret from mothers. At the climax, Reese is pretending to be in pain, bleating unconvincingly "oww, my leg, oww oww." Dewey decides to help out and punches Reese (much more convincingly) right in the wound,transforming the pathetic bleating into authentic screams of pain. I must have laughed for two minutes straight, tears, stomach clutching, knee slapping and everything. People in pain, what could be funnier!

Camp

More nonsensical letters:

Hey Michelle,

First of all, you should know better than to call me before 3PM. At my age I need my sleep. If you don't want to wake me up, please call between the hours of 6PM and 7PM.

I'm still in Boston, though I've been alone most of the time starting 15 minutes ago. Everyone here is in paid slavery from 9 to 5. Booooring. It's Chun's first day today. She has mandatory orientation, something like that punishment in school where you write nonsense on the board 50 times:

"This hospital was built in 1874. 70% of the people who've attended this hospital are now dead. 80% of new employees experience acute depression, anxiety, migraines, vomiting, and jumping-out-of-windows tendencies...blah blah blah."

While she's away, I've been sitting in the apartment yelling "Ah Ah Ah, Ee Ee Ee, Oh Oh Oh, sss, sss, sss, SSS! SSS! SSS!" at the top of my lungs, after/along with my virtual singing teacher. There have been no complaints so far, so perhaps what sounds to me like nails across a blackboard really sounds like angelic choirs of Robert Plant clones.

Surprise! Chun's going to write to you too! The next paragraph or three are from her. Not to put her on the spot, but she has the funniest, most interesting stuff to say to you. I hope you're as excited as I am to see if she can live up to the pressure.

Later, gator
Mark "Too Good To Be True" Vayngrib

Hi Michelle!

This is Chun, not Mark. I started work today. It was pretty wonderful, but if it doesn't get a whole lot more wonderful fast, I might have to throw myself off the roof. Hopefully it'll be a 1-story building. Mark's been wonderful so far, but surely you know how amazing he is. Let me just say that twice more: Mark is soooo amazing. AMAZING! OK, calm...calm...breathe...Ommmmm. Phew! OK...I'm trying to think of other stuff to say, but all I can think about is how great Mark is...hmm...bye I guess.

Just kidding, it's Mark again. Chun will send you a letter via mail.

See ya soon,
Mark "Sometimes Also Chun" Vayngrib

Boston

Took the Greyhound into Boston yesterday. I took the window seat though I usually much prefer the aisle, and paid dearly for not sticking to my preferences. A fat lady composed of equal parts cosmetics and irrationality sat down next to me, and scolded me during the next 4 1/2 hours about me encroaching on her personal space. I was not permitted to so much as hang a momentary elbow over her territory. She would close her eyes now and then for long stretches of time, and I would relax and not realize the first eleven times that it was a cunning trap that ended in harsh words and stern looks expressing strong doubts as to whether I was raised in civilization or in a jungle on planet Traflamadore.

The reception in Boston was regal in Oriental style #1: authentic Chinese food, Americanized Chinese women, and a big apartment to experience everything. Foolishly imagining this reception would stretch past the door to the apartment, I made the mistake of walking over to one of the local MIT zoos to experience some other people from my good old college days. Instead of chocolate and extensive praise, I received the slightly less entertaining sight of people weighing themselves on the Wii Fit for an hour and a half and having the gall to pretend they were actually having fun.

Today we (myself and fans) are going to dine at India Quality (Good Taste Chinese anyone?), and then see The Dark Knight. I'm expecting a great Joker. Heath Ledger may be dead, but that doesn't mean I'm cutting him an inch of slack. It just means he won't be able to defend himself when I give him a scathing review.

Lies

More dutiful letters from a dutiful brother:

Hi Michelle,

This is Mark (your brother). Nothing's happening here, so I'm forced to make up lies to entertain you. Anywhere from one to all of them might be true though, so make up your own mind about which you believe.

While you've been away, crazy things have been happening here. From here on, nothing but the truth:

First of all, Mom's having another baby! And due to the marvels of modern science, the doctors said they could speed up her gestation period (usually 9 months) to two and a half weeks, AND it'll be born 12 years old. Unfortunately, since we don't have the money to take care of it, we're gonna have to dump it at the local adoption clinic. 12-yr-olds are about $30 a piece these days, so that's a clean profit.

Dad changed his name again, you'll never guess to what. His new name is Michelle. He wants to prove he can be a better Michelle than you, so you better practice every day in camp. Meanwhile, he's definitely proven to be a louder and hairier Michelle, though we haven't voted on whether that's better or worse.

Grandma bought a leash for Boris with a little electric tazer attached. Now she can give him a mini-heartattack without straining her vocal chords. She's also been spinning webs of lies about me promising to come over three times a day, but I've been calling her bluffs, and not going.

I have this annoying pimple on my face, with a hair growing through it. I tried to rip it off, but it must be a mutant or something, it's way too strong for me. Finally managed to kill it with a combination of John's holy water and a blow-torch.

Finally, some sense fell down from the sky and I've decided Texas life isn't for me, and anyway, it's about time to get married and have some children. Chun's flying in this Wednesday, and we're going to the altar on Thursday. Everyone except Serge and Natasha are invited, we can show them photos afterwards. Mom and Dad have reluctantly postponed enlightenment for the next 20 years, so they can devote all their time to spoiling their grandchildren: little Ding Dong and Ming Cheung.

OK, I think you'd better go now, too much good news is bad for the kidneys.

-Mark "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" Vayngrib

P.S.: Don't worry about missing the wedding, we'll save you a slice of cake.

Off to Boston tomorrow for a little while, though you should pretend you don't know this, whoever you are, in case I don't want to see you. Today's ass-ignment - finish Eat, Pray, Love, start and finish A Wrinkle In Time. Jonathan Strange has been ruthlessly abandoned; after suffering through 100 pages awaiting the arrival of the main character and some sign of action replacing description as the main vehicle, I remembered that I am an excellent quitter and hung an early ending on the crap novel. I harbor little doubt that my 100-page version is at least eight times better than the original 800-page one.

Uh...Oh...Aaaaaah...Ohh yeaaahh

Ong-Bak-ed today. The martial arts were super. Plot-wise though, it pretty much sucked: A village of Buddha-idol-worshipers, with Gross National Product of about $1.50 breeds a martial arts genius - Ting - who has 6 extra Y chromosomes and titanium elbows. One day the Budda idol's head is stolen. Snapping out of boredom like a bullet out of the hand of a bullet-throwing monk, ubermale Ting travels to Bangkok and knocks on every skull in town looking for the holy bust. After killing everyone and beating their corpses into the dust, Ting and the Buddha sculpture's head return to Poverty-and-Hopelessness village to live happily ever after or at least until the sequel. Gratuitous violence abounds throughout. In one scene, Ting skins himself alive, and then rips his own head off just because he's that tough.

Michelle's off to camp again, and so am I in a couple of days. 10-day camp with Chun starts this Thursday. The schedule includes 3 days of whispering sweet nothings into her big rabbit ears, 10 days of eating her wonderful cooking, 5 days of tearful goodbyes, 2 tickets to The Dark Knight, 1 big apartment with kitchen, bed, bath, and complete privacy, 1 change of clothes (to be used for the return trip), a gross of hugs, a bushel of kisses, and of course a daily serving of cinematic entertainment - agreement with parents states that I must not fall behind in this department.

Tuesday reading - Eat, Pray, Love. Weighing in at 2 lbs and ~330 pages, it's more of a snack than a book, at least compared to various maguses, stranges and time travelers' spouses.

Did pushups thrice today, upholding the current record. The numbers are slowly rising, and so are the complaints from the neighbors about the constipated groans that frequent the night air and are always performed as a duet.

I Rule

Visited my cousin and his new wife today. After putting on some clothes, they ate breakfast in front of our malnourished faces and tortured us for information. Specifically, my cousin took an unexpected interest in my choice of career-path - not having one. He threatened me with gefilte fish so I blabbed like a girl-scout. He expressed doubts about the potential success of not earning any money, and told me to contact him when I'm ready to reform and follow him into law.

Driving Michelle to the sleepaway camp drop off tomorrow at 7AM because I'm such a good brother, and because she's still better at yelling and whining than I am at tuning it out.

Played/sang some Beatles/Something Kinky songs with Mom/Michelle today, with microphone/guitar, and an odd number of good ears. Upon completion, we decided the quantity of fun garnered merits a reoccurence. Perhaps even one as temporally proximal as tomorrow.

Chun showered me with ego-candy today, so I'm high as a kite, and sprinting to brush teeth and sleep before Dad comes upstairs and shoves a Ford Explorer through my bubble. Come to think of it, I've got to try this out on my friends - flatter them silly and then hit them below the belt with a figurative folded chair from IKEA. That'll teach them...something.

Not much

Recording session scheduled for tomorrow. MIDI will play drums, Mark will provide the other instrumentation, and Mom will do the yapping with perhaps Michelle harmonizing; the men in this house have very limited ability to stay on pitch.

Reading Jonathan Strange and M. Norrel. Easy read so far, but haven't decided if the potential entertainment value is worth the risk of reading 800+ pages only to have read The Magus over again.

Going to visit more relatives tomorrow, then taking care of Dad for the rest of the day - he plans on getting pretty sick.

Not so great and pretty blah

Finished The Magus today. It was fairly disappointing, even more so because everyone else who's read it worships it like a golden cow. It's very much closer to an ordinary cow, one that tips over like the Titanic once you've eaten half of it. The book builds up a nice momentum of mystery and suspense, and then suddenly halfway through, swerves into ridiculousness. If Spiderman and Count Chocula suddenly showed up, it wouldn't make the book worse. Kidnappings on even pages, "is this real? Wait, what is real?" on odd pages, and an occasional full-out Halloween dress-up parade thrown in for good measure. The book eventually cops out with a sort of "oh, everyone except two characters don't actually have souls - that's why they can assume every personality, as well as none." The ending is of course inconclusive and unsatisfying, unless you stay until after the credits, and hear Samuel Jackson's parting Latin peroration. The line literally translates to: "Male Romantic Lead and Female Romantic Lead #6 eventually get back together," but really says: "you've just wasted some time you could have spent rereading Catch-22. Sucker!"

Saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army to clear my head. After 600 pages of golden cow, it was like going to the bathroom after a hot-dog eating competition (pure relief, not pure shit if that's what you were thinking). The plot is devastatingly simple: There's some dude who hasn't gotten a tan in thousands of years, and that REALLY pisses him off. To get revenge, he's summoned a bajillion gold-plated T1000's from the future. All he now needs is the golden party hat which allows the wearer to make the T1000's do his bidding - dance, play fetch, kill everyone on the planet - the usual. Hellboy finds this poor bastard, rips his face off, rips his head off, rips out his arms and legs, and enslaves his family. Now that's good old American fun.

Oh, forgot to tell you, this is a split-screen movie. While all this is happening on one side of the screen, Selma Blair showcases booty-shorts and full-coverage panties on the other. Booty to ass-kicking ratio is shamefully low, but hey, that's what the Internet's for.

Improbable

Today defied all odds. First of all, I didn't get a root canal. Instead, I fell for the oldest trick in the dentist manual - first make them pay for a new filling in the doomed tooth, and then make them pay again a week later for a root canal. The first step of this new plan took place today, the second won't be long in waiting. The filling, which was supposed to allay sensitivity to cold - instead decided to not do that. Russian dentist #2 better watch his fingers next time he sticks them in my mouth.

The second odds-defying event was the lack of cinematic entertainment at the day's end. The problem is that Mom and Dad don't watch movies after the yoga lesson, but they do turn the selfishness dial to 11. I had several films lined up to be sacrificed, and even naively made some popcorn. Then, just as I approached the territory of the Play button with a practiced digit, Mom decided today was the day she was to begin her formal guitar training, and the setting was to be right between my headphones and my ears. And so she wouldn't be distracted by the popcorn while she played, she and Dad chomped it all before I could say "You Porkers!"

Went to Barnes and Noble's today, picked up a copy of The Magus and attempted to find where I left off at home in my library copy. Ten minutes of confusion later, I realized that I held a book version of a "director's cut" edition - complete with new scenes and revised old ones. Frustration and cursing ensued: unlike a DVD, this book didn't conveniently store the additions and revisions behind a separate menu item. Instead everything was interwoven with the original. I eventually found my place, but the book continued in an almost style alien to the one I had been reading. This would be even more annoying if it merited reading both versions.

Oh, forgot, some more whining: The Magus is slowly and disappointingly becoming less and less mysterious, magical, mythlike, and more Da-Vinci-Code-esque - a new twist, a new puzzle on each new page. I was wondering when the drama was winding down what could possibly take the next 200 pages, but it's obvious now - baloney and cheese.

MCATs and Squirrels

A love triangle meets several times a week on the left fence of our backyard. Two of the squirrels clearly form a couple, but the third invariably attends their dates.

These squirrels, now that I think about it, are an almost exact replica of my life at college with Chun and Mario:

One lies draped over a fence bulb as relaxed as a loogie - he's usually off to himself, sleeping, or observing the other two. He turns away when the cuteness of the couple approaches disgusting. This is Mario across the board, though not nearly as lazy as the real one.

The second lies in often awkward-looking positions, with arms and legs branching at impossible angles, and head sometimes stuck in between the posts, like an ostrich in the sand. Nevertheless, he manages to look eternally relaxed; his eyelids teeter up and down. This is me.

The third runs circles around me, and climbs on and off in frenzied attempts to weed out something that's apparently permeated my entire hide. Though the squirrel version uses her face and not her hands to administer the cleansing, this creature is clearly Chun, who loves picking things out of other things, the first usually being dandruff, and the second - my hair.

The other, more obvious details of the love triangle's existence are not appropriate for the multitudes of 5-year-olds who peruse this blog daily, and I wouldn't want to be in breach of blog-writer-blog-reader ethics. Use your imagination.

NY/NJ forecast for tomorrow: pain, anaesthesia, death. Chances of root canal - 99%. Chances of overpaying for parking - 100%. Chances of watching a movie before going to bed - an ever unflagging 100% - that's destiny. Big day tomorrow NY/NJ, 299% worth of various crap.

Georgia forecast: light breakfast followed by 5 delicious hours of MCATs. Everyone wish Chun good luck, though this time the test is the underdog. Good luck Chun!

Family

Being an excellent brother, I put up with all kinds of demands from my not so baby sister. The latest is to write letters to her while she's at sleepaway camp. This borders on the ridiculous, because she is back every Saturday morning for the weekend. This means that in order for me to successfully get a letter to her by Friday, I have to sprint to the post office as soon as she gets on the bus on Monday, and scribble something mildly entertaining down before their truck leaves. Here's the last one I sent her:

Hi Michelle,

Hope this week is even more fun than last week! While you're away I make sure to practice Stairway to Heaven, do algebra word problems, and watch two movies a day so that you don't fall behind. It's a rough life being both you and me at the same time. I've even picked out some sneakers and a dress for myself, but Mom and Dad are making me choose one of the two.

Did you play guitar at the talent show? Or did you decide to do something else instead? What did other people do? I guess you'll have to tell me at home because by the time this letter gets there you'll have already complained to me in person about not writing.

Dad and I are doing pushups twice a day now, so prepare to see two muscle-bound warriors when you return. I don't want to brag, but our beauty is on a truly meteoric rise.

OK, I don't want to keep you in your tent too long and get your counselors fired, so go pretend you like them.

-Mark "I can barely type cause my muscles are so huge" Vayngrib

P.S.: Here's a cute joke I found:
Teacher: You copied Fred's test didn't you?
Student: How did you know?
Teacher: Fred's paper says "I don't know" and yours says "Me, neither!"

Unfortunately this won't earn me any credit with Michelle. One letter is worse than none, being half as good as the two-per-week she ordered.

Managed to convince my parents to come visit relatives with me yesterday. Going alone means becoming the center of attention, and my inflated sense of modesty abhors such situations. Ergo, I have to take a wingman - in this case two.

Visiting anyone is always most difficult for Dad, especially if it's relatives. The tragedy isn't in the action, but the aftermath. He goes, he plays the social butterfly, he almost makes them believe he still gives a damn, and no one but his roommates - me, Mom and Michelle - see the vomit-laden journey home.

Hmm...I suddenly grow suspicious of his habit of going to sleep last. After all, he does put up with Mom and me, and sometimes Michelle for long stretches of time. He probably has to pump his stomach nightly and self-prescribe obscene quantities of anti-depressants. I half-want to sneak downstairs tonight and throw down the curtain, but it's almost like spying on Santa during Christmas; I'd much rather believe in the gruesome fairy tale than the indubitably more mundane truth.

Good Luck Chun =)

Watched Kit Kittredge today. Finally, a movie that met expectations. Very low expectations. The popcorn, on the other hand, was exemplary. It was so good, we popped the family free refill cherry, and downed the second serving with forty minutes of trite overacted time-filler to spare. You know you're suffering when you begin to miss commercial interruptions.

Michelle is leaving us again. I know I know, I don't deserve it, who else gets two vacations a month? To celebrate, I have a date with Barnes and Noble's and then perhaps some hours of guitar inadequacy. Life is good.

Also going to try and get back to Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal which has been gathering dust on my harddrive. Not doing anything useful can be really time-consuming, and I've been neglecting my foreign language studies.

I think I might visit some of my relatives this week. They all suffer from a congenital defect called "family values," and risk getting a heartattack if kin enter their vicinity and don't drop by. I definitely don't want any dead family karma. Those tend to take revenge on you by manifesting as some horrible disease. You can hope it's merely physical like cancer and not truly insidious like "family values."

Less than two weeks left till I get to visit my girl! She's probably fainted twice reading the previous sentence, expecting horrible jokes on her account. If so, I hope today is not the morning of July 10th, and I haven't made her late for her date with the MCATs. Yes, yes, she's one of those - aspiring murderers. Steady hands, loves blood, kills your rabbits for free (I'll never let this one go), and refuses to settle for a lesser profession than sending people's insurance rates through the roof. But...that's all in the faaaaar future. For now, she's a little study-monkey, working her butt off to earn herself debts and slavery for the next X years. Aaanyway, por donde iba?...It's so easy to get distracted when people have ambitions to poke at. What I wanted to say...I think...was: let's all help her with a cheer. Join hands you homophobes...and:

Chun, Chun, she's our man,
Even studies on the can,
Verbal, physics, bio, chem,
Wait a minute...what the hell is she thinking? She's an electric engineer...ahhh!...must salvage the cheer...Good Luck Chun!

Giving Guests What They Deserve

Boris and Natasha came over today to help us put a dent in our groceries, and to give Dad a chance to expound on his favorite topic- "what you're (all of you) doing wrong in your life." This encompasses most things, so there was no shortage of conversation material.

Boris is a fairly quiet guy with a bald head of low to medium shine. He and Dad used to work together. Natasha is Boris's woman, and owns the rights to all of the voiced opinions in their relationship. The conversations at the table were naturally between Dad and Natasha, and occasionally between Natasha and Dad. The others sat back, listened, and restricted themselves to occasional nervous quasi-giggles so as not to deflect the stream of preaching onto themselves. I wasn't present at the sermon, having retreated to my sanctuary upstairs, but judging by the suffocating silence that ensued upon B & N's departure, many wonderful things were said.

Michelle came back today and proceeded to unleash a torrent of camp songs onto my poor ears. Having feasted on 24-bit silence for 5 days, sticking a fork up there probably would have felt better.

Saw a Korean romantic comedy yesterday called My Little Bride, pronounced Eorin shinbu. It was more than less tolerable, and a couple of scenes were quite funny. The main source of entertainment was the extensive repertoire of facial expressions exhibited by the main actress. It also explains why the movie is rated moderately high - white people have a hard time telling Koreans apart unless there's some artificial disambiguation factor - in this case facial antics of a caliber usually reserved for emoticon upgrade packages.

The story is not too elaborate. A 16-yr old high-school girl is forced to marry an older (~25) friend because otherwise her beloved trickster grandpa refuses to have a pulse. The newlyweds then spend the next 2 hours falling in love with each other, while pretending to drive each other up the wall in the neoclassic Korean way.

Home Schooling

I started this book today that's supposed to teach me jazz guitar technique in 20 weeks - rougly 4-5 months. The stated practice regimen was a meager 50 minutes/day so I thought "why not?" Nuh uh. The right answer was "yeah, right! (accompanied by a sarcastic cocking of the left eyebrow)."

Unfortunately this 50 minutes/day claim was another case of false advertising. If you can complete the daily assignments in this book in 50 minutes, you are way beyond needing the book in the first place. No matter. I'm not letting some stupid book, that's not even a real book (it's a pdf), beat me in one sitting. I will give up tomorrow at the earliest.

Came across a couple of funny quotes while surfing GNX3 forums:

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." – Brian W. Kernighan

and

"Failure is not an option -- it comes bundled with Windows." - Unknown Smartass

Today, I made the true claim that there are more good actors and actresses. Unfortunately, I not only made it, but voiced it. I was in the car by myself, miles from home, thinking I was safe. No sooner than I uttered the fateful words "women suck," Mom materialized and began exercising her Constitutional right to feminism. I was treated to an interminable lecture on Women in Film starting with 1903's The Great Train Robbery.

Dad is calling me to do pushups. I've been obliging him lately. I hope this is what they mean when they say you should give back to your parents for all those years and dollars they spent raising you and teaching you to be grateful.

Thursday

Played some tennis today with Wang, Lee and Bolach. Didn't win, so there's nothing to write about. Did get sunburned though; I now look like the Kool-Aid man.

Michelle returns Saturday morning at the crack of noon, a fatal blow to my sleeping schedule. Weather forecast is positive - sunny, hot. Volume levels inside the house are to double, number of stores visited per day - triple. Yep, it's back to reality.

Learning how to use my GNX3, so my $300 in Guitar Center's vault can feel like they accomplished something.

Saw Hellboy today. Pretty dumb, and pretty long.

To Australians

Ran out of health/dental insurance starting yesterday. Normally this wouldn't phase me, but for the last 22 years of my life I've suffered from a little-known condition called spontaneous rapid dental decay. In English this means that in a couple of months, possible as early as late August, one of the remaining 12 living teeth in my mouth will mutiny. Not having too many ways to wage war, it will commence operation suicide. With dental insurance, I usually catch the little bastards somewhere in the second trimester, and go to Russian dentist #1 or Russian dentist #2, who give the culprits a lobotomy. Now I suppose I shall have to learn to love pain and suffering.

I have an appointment at Barnes and Noble's today at 8 - an unlikely coincidence with today's 8 o'clock yoga lesson chez moi. I'm thinking two servings of Battle Cry of Freedom, a grande hot chocolate, and then a serving of aimless browsing.

...

Back from appointment, and one less national bestseller left to read. I dipped my toes into The Lovely Bones, and didn't feel a damn thing.

Watched an Australian comedy - The Rage in Placid Lake. Not really sure what happened because my tolerance for good movies has gotten so low from lack of experience, the film threw me into an epileptic fit. Nonetheless, there's a good if unorthodox aftertaste.

The film is about a human teenager raised by hippies. His name is Placid Lake. He has a girlfriend - Gemma - who is the brain of a Helga in the body of an Amber. Placid, also a genius, but cursed with the body of a rhesus monkey, is constantly tormented by bully classmates who experience acute withdrawal if they're not molding his face into a new shape. Instead of buying a gun and shooting everyone in school like we do in America, Placid waves a big red figurative flag right in their Aussie faces, and then refuses to move when they charge. After another incident where Placid barely escapes with his life, he decides to make a change - as Gemma puts it - "from fearless to spineless." Apres-metamorphosis, Placid enjoys his newfound job, friends, and lack of principles, while Gemma tries to cope with his slithering, while trying to decide whether to be the next Neils Bohr, Isaac Newton, or Euler (does he have a first name? or is he like Sting?). The rest you must find out for yourself.

To Patriotism

Spent hours today trying to force Pro Tools M-Powered down my computer's throat. Eventually the gag-reflex subsided and persistence triumphed, but let's give a round of applause to the runners up: the evil forces of Windows and M-Audio. Tomorrow, we'll see if a $50 M-Audio USB gadget is enough to make crappy recordings, or if second-rate quality takes a greater investment. Best case scenario for tomorrow - I'll be OD-ing on tutorials - worst case - Mom will be pestering me about fixing the M-Audio-box-shaped hole in the wall.

Before I tuck myself in every night, I usually read for a while. It tends to be something I've already read and that's easy to read. The aim isn't to knock myself out into dreamless sleep, but to treat myself after a tough day of searching for motivation. Currently, I'm rereading the second book of the Vasiliy Yan trilogy chronicling the formation of Genghis Khan's empire. Genghis Khan has already died long ago and his grandson Batu has taken over the reins. I'm at the point where Batu is about begin a Russia-wide epic beating. For the next two hundred pages, he's going to be ripping off Russian heads, boiling Russians alive, pretending he wants to be friends with the Russians and then ripping off their heads and boiling them alive, etc. Here I'm getting to feel like a bit of a traitor. This Batu guy, and especially his commander in chief are so cool, I want them to take over everything - Russians, Americans, Atlantis - whatever will prolong the crusade. I have discovered I have absolutely no patriotism, or in the case of Russia - matriotism, as long as conquest is described in sufficiently romantic language.

I'm beginning to think that these kinds of books are a horrible idea. Romanticizing hundreds of thousands of people getting murdered by Mongols isn't going to teach America's children a damn thing. The government needs to do something about this - this book needs to be rewritten with Americans doing the romanticized killing. The dead Russians may also require some dilution - perhaps a couple thousand dead Iraqis and a couple dozen British corpses - the former for realism, and the latter because they're probably starting to forget who won the Revolutionary War. I somehow doubt Independence Day is as big a holiday there as here.