Greatest writer ever? Errr…

Maybe it was because all of the plays that my school chose to be the required reading for English classes happen to be the ones that were unbelievably annoying, but I did not enjoy Shakespeare very much during my high school years. 

Let’s start with freshman year. Maybe it didn’t help that my English teacher was a bit… loony and passive-aggressive. We were forced to read Romeo & Juliet or at least the ones in the normal English class. The honors English classes got to read Julius Caesar, which I am told is one of Shakespeare’s greatest and there were a few that expressed that they did enjoy it.

First off, I believe English classes tend to kill anything in the required reading. Being forced to read something is not something very appealing to anyone. In addition, there is also the tendency that overexcited English teachers make their students overanalyze every single word. That kinda kills the magic of reading critically and finding things out for oneself at a leisurely pace without the badgering of a crazed person using grades as a threat incentive.

To start off, Romeo & Juliet was most definitely not one of Shakespeare’s greatest works. I don’t care what anyone says, I find the main characters to be whiny and overly hormonal teenagers who need a good smack in the face. I don’t understand the connotation of Romeo being the poster boy of romance, when he was really a whiny brat who is in dire need of common sense. Seriously? Falling in love lust with someone whom you have met five seconds ago and then running off to get married. That’s not love, that’s just an inability to keep one’s trousers on.

Yes, it’s a tragedy that is supposed to be some sort of lesson to use your brain and common sense. But is there anyone really that stupid? Wait… don’t answer that question.

The next year, most of the students were forced to read MacBeth. This one I didn’t mind too much and I don’t really remember any sort of aggravation associated with that particular play.

There wasn’t any required Shakespeare reading for my junior year, but instead we were forced to read more John Steinbeck and to say the least I would have been more than willing to go back to Romeo & Juliet than read any novels by Steinbeck ever again. Even though I had a very awesome English teacher, it was the most painful thing we ever read… actually, no that’s a lie. We read many painful things that year.

And finally senior year. I was fortunate enough to have another amazing English teacher… not so fortunate to be forced to read Hamlet. I believe Shyaporn of YouTube sums up my feelings about Hamlet quite nicely:

Hamlet - Emo Prince of Denmark. But less painful than Lord of the Flies that was part of the required reading that year.

Wait, what do you mean by, “scroll?”

I consider myself fairly computer competent considering the amount of time I spend in front of a computer. I’m no hacker and go into spiels about hard drives and whatnot, but I’m a little above average. And by average, I mean people who have no clue about basic computer knowledge such as how to install software by themselves without freaking out.

I’ve helped people in the past solve various issues. Connecting to ResNet wireless (which is a pain in the ass for anyone), installing printers, viruses/spyware, et cetera. I think I should start making people pay me or at least feed me in return for fixing their computer.

I’m also the one that always ends up fixing the internet in this house. It’s usually a simple process of pressing the reset button multiple times until all of the right lights show up… and sometimes it’s a chain of being on hold and transfers.

Although, this task cannot be given to my parents despite my specific instructions on how to do so when I’m away for school. Luckily, there were no problems with the internet during the entire time I was away with visits nearly every other weekend. If there were, I’m sure there would have been a meltdown of some sort since we have internet phone service. If the phone service company is having problems — no internet. If the internet is having issues — no phone.

Now my parents are fairly… technology incompetent. Although, this is reasonable in their case since they grew up in a country where indoor plumbing was a luxury and in some cases in the country side, it’s still considered a luxury.

My father knows how to handle basic electronics and which wires go into which slot. Pretty much anything that involves audio or a TV, he’s pretty well off without needing my help.

When it comes to computers… he’s lacking. Such as tonight, I had to explain the basics of drag and drop, viewing items in list form, and how to undo something. I’m not even sure he even manages to even use the desktop computer he has, since after all of the things he’s done to it — and having no clue what he did to screw it up — I’m surprised he hasn’t smashed this evil thing to little pieces. Honestly, I have no clue what he did to the thing and even if I did I think the only way to save the poor thing is to destroy it.

He asks me why I don’t use my old craptop while I’m home for the summer. Let’s see, the craptop so old that it’s barely hanging in there and I prefer working with a computer that actually works.

My mother on the hand has never touched a computer in her life, let alone know how it works. She barely knows how to work a basic DVD player, TV, and satellite box. Especially since all of the newer TVs have a different setting for DVD player, game consoles, cable/satellite, et cetera when in the old days all one had to do was go to channel four and turn on whatever device one wanted to use. There are still times when I have to make the TV go to the DVD player setting and other aspects despite the many times I told my mother how to do it herself. Even when it’s already in the setting it needs to be, I sometimes have to make it go to the Vietnamese channels since my mother doesn’t know what to do.

“Ah! Mary ah! (most Asian children will probably understand the “ah” or “ee ah”) It won’t go to Saigon TV. (the name my mom calls it, despite the fact that the network states the name of the station nearly every five minutes — via audio or visual logo)”

“Ma, you need to press the buttons faster. Otherwise, it won’t go to the right channel.”

It also doesn’t help that whatever requires pressing buttons — with the exception of the microwave, she presses them very slowly. This goes for everything from phones to TV remotes, and of course in the case of the TV if one does not press the buttons in a timely fashion it’ll either cancel it out or go to the wrong menu or channel.

Speaking of which, she most likely doesn’t know how to use a cell phone either outside of speaking into the mouthpiece. Or rather anything overly complex, she will be very slow with. I don’t think she has gotten the full grasp of the wireless phone my father bought a couple years ago to replace the broken one.

How to shake off an unwanted admirer and/or stalker

Warning: this is a result of insomnia, sugar, and caffeine. Use with caution and results may vary!

• Lock him/her inside an elevator.
  

Why? Well, it seems kinda fun. That and this should give he/she the hint.

• Gently reject his or her affections by stating that you’re too busy saving the world.

Not only will this leave them in a state of confusion, but it would be a valid reason if it was true. Who has time to commit to a relationship with someone whom you do not like in a non-platonic manner when one is too busy preventing bad guys from taking over the world?!

• State that you’re already in a relationship. And to top it off, say that your lover is a moose.

First off, this should scare them off by just stating the fact that you’re taken. However, to make sure they’ll never bother you again, the moose bit will scare them off for sure. They’ll either think you’re a complete nutcase or that if the moose bit is true that the moose could possibly kill them.

You have chicken soup, I have rice congee

Rice. The typical staple food of all Asian households and used/eaten for most meals. Even if it is not in it’s grain form, it’s in some other type of way. Rice noodles, cakes, crackers, and whatnot. I’m sure most Asian people have eaten rice congee (porridge) at one point in their lives. It’s our Asian equivalent of chicken soup.

It’s a relatively simple dish of rice boiled in lots of water until it has a soupy texture and add flavoring of some sort to your liking. My mother likes adding some pieces of chicken and chicken broth mix to it, since plain congee is relatively a very bland dish. In my case, I like to add lots some chili sauce and green onions in addition with the chicken.

When I was growing up, it was used as baby food since the baby food in grocery stores did not agree with my taste buds. Later on my mother cooked it when I was sick most of the time. When I had braces and had them tightened every other month and couldn’t eat anything solid for a week because it was too painful, my mother made it for me. When I had a couple teeth extracted and then later on my wisdom teeth; congee was what I ate morning, noon, and night.

It’s good comfort food. Except for the times when I ate so much of this stuff when I was sick I thought it was coming out of my nose. Those were the times when I craved solid food, but couldn’t have any since it would be too painful to eat any of it.

And it’s another left turn

Want to know a great way to cure insomnia other than popping sleeping pills? Watch Nascar. Eventually watching cars go in a giant oval and making left turns will bore you and nothing will be better than sleeping at that point.

I really don’t understand the appeal of Nascar. It’s just a bunch of cars going around in a giant oval at dangerous speeds and making left turns. Oh, and the occasional crash which is most likely the only high point during the entire thing. What is really mind boggling is that when these races are on TV it lasts for hours. I can understand for other sports, but car racing? Since the cars are going so fast, shouldn’t races only be at the most fifteen minutes depending on the number of laps?

In addition, the commentary during the race isn’t exactly the most riveting or exciting thing to listen to. It’s not very difficult to determine which car is going faster than the other.

And I’ve noticed that many people that actually watch Nascar and enjoy it are the ones that fit into the stereotypical rednecks. Yes, the ones with questionably low intelligence to actually enjoy cars going in a giant oval.

YEAH! GO MAKE THAT LEFT TURN! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Ain’t this excitin’?

Ummm… riiiight.

Now, I can understand why people like to participate in Nascar. I admit that driving at insanely high speeds and somehow not die is appealing. I really don’t get why anyone would want to really watch this stuff for hours on end.

I think I’ll go cure some of my insomnia now.

toothpastefordinner.com

Reader’s block?

For someone who is a complete bookworm, this is probably the worst thing that can happen. Especially when said person still has nothing better to do with her summer vacation other than chores and watching crap television.

It’s pretty much like writer’s block only with trying to read books instead, even if it is a book that the person enjoyed before. There’s no dire need or effort to read and an inability to focus on whatever is written on the page. Usually this results from reading too many textbooks and other required reading for classes.

Strangely enough, this resulted from me trying to read Pride and Prejudice as my attempt to read some more classics. My reading was slow going and I figured I would read something else to clear my head so I could focus again. Nope. Didn’t work.

Now I’m bored and I can’t read any of my books since my short attention span has gotten even worse.

Zappity, zap… [insert explosion of some sort]

Overused question and topic, but I was inspired after watching the first X-Men movie and my favorite TV series Heroes. But, what would your superpower be? However, there is a catch. The power has to fit your personality somehow just to make things more interesting and to prevent any future (and annoying) all-powerful Mary Sues/Gary Stus.

For example, Hiro Nakamura from Heroes. His powers of bending time and space (teleportation and time travel) fit him perfectly. When he was first introduced in the series, it was portrayed that he was a clock watcher. So him being able to time travel and teleport (since he can’t drive, and is thus dependent on Japan’s efficient public transportation system) fits him perfectly.

Being the complete nerd I am, I have given this a lot of thought when I could have done more important things and I have narrowed it down to three.

Invisibility: Reason being was that as a kid I was picked on a lot since I was an easy target, and being the only Asian student in the entire elementary school didn’t help either. Nowadays, I kinda just blend in the background and no one would really notice, and my wallflower tendencies would suite this power pretty well. Also, there have been many moments in my life when I do something stupid and wish that either of the following happened: disappear or that the Earth would open up and swallow me whole.

Telekinesis (ability to move things with your mind): Being a psych major contributes to this, since this power would involve the mind which is what I am studying at the moment. I’m also short person, therefore reaching things from tall shelves is difficult. As much as I love to force people to get stuff for me, I prefer getting it myself. I also tend to multitask a lot and sometimes wish I had a third arm to help me accomplish more. Also, I would be able to fly in a way with this power, since I could lift myself up with this ability. Two for the price of one.

Mind reading: Again, because of the fact that I’m a psych major and the human mind and behavior fascinates me. However, there are some things people do that cannot be explained no matter how great of a psychologist you are, so I figure mind reading will help. Also it would make psychoanalyzing someone so much easier, because I would be able to delve into their minds and find out what makes them tick.

On a completely unrelated note (sort of), the second season of Heroes will be released on August 26, 2008 on DVD and Blu-Ray. And since the first season of Heroes was available on HD-DVD before Blu-Ray won the format battle, season one will be available on Blu-Ray on that date as well. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Blu-Ray player.

For now, DVD players are still cheaper as with DVDs. So until Blu-Ray discs and players becomes less expensive and become more of the standard like DVDs were when we still had VHS, I’ll stick to what my wallet can handle. Also, computers have yet to have Blu-Ray drives installed in them and I watch most of my movies on my laptop since my parents usually hog the TVs in the house.

Okay, it’s nearly 3 AM and I’m going to bed.

Net neutrality and why people should give a damn

First off, let’s start off as to what is net neutrality before I go into a rant about how stupid people are.

Net neutrality is basically letting people access whatever site they want without limits like making them pay a certain fee just for access. The only thing that will limit the person is the speed of the connection they have (dial-up or broadband) and what type of computer they have. And any sort of parental controls that were put on the computer.

So if net neutrality was gone, then the internet would be like TV. People will have to pay for packages that will give them access to certain sites and no access for others. The more you pay, the more access. However, this severely limits the amount of access of sites anyone would be able to access, since it’ll be the big company websites (Yahoo, MSN, whatever) that people will have access to. So the websites that are small and created by ordinary people (albeit web design/computer design savvy) won’t be visited. People’s personal websites, blogs, and other things that they bought (domain name, server, et cetera) will have little to no access. Basically, indie websites are gone.

Therefore it would be stupid if people did not support net neutrality — I’m talking to you Senator McCain.

Now that is over. I’ll get to the point of this sleep deprived rant.

I’m not sure how someone is able to sit in front of a camera and spew bullcrap about the future of the internet all in one take. There are several flaws in this “argument:”

1. This goes against several anti-trust laws. I’m not sure about other nations, but I’m sure most they would have anti-trust laws of some sort.
2. Capitalism and the free market system (competition) would prevent this whole end of the internet in 2012.
3. I doubt competing ISPs will be in cahoots with each other. Besides if they did try doing that, then it would be illegal.
4. People will immediately protest of some sort. Eventually the ISP will give in if they want to make any money.
5. It defeats the point of Web 2.0 (internet involving collaboration/interaction among people such as blogs, YouTube, et cetera).

And after further investigation on the video page. I saw this in the list of tags they had:

Hmmm… Let’s see, misleading tags for those searching on YouTube. This is known as trying to con the audience into watching one’s videos for more views/subscribers.

Upon further investigation into their channel page:

Let’s see here. Misleading titles and video screenshots. More lies to get views and potential subscribers. And after watching a couple of their other videos, it’s pretty much just mindless, incoherent rambling about gaming that isn’t very interesting.

Yes, these people can be taken seriously. [/sarcasm]

And the worst part is after reading a lot of the comment on the video. It’s surprising how people were able to eat up everything they were saying. Minus a select few that actually watch the news and stay at least somewhat informed. Honestly, are people that gullible? I mean the beginning of the video was somewhat believable with them supporting internet neutrality. But this whole spiel of inside connections and whatnot. Where are their sources and research?

It was a botched attempt for anyone that actually pays attention to the news. The BS meter was off the charts.

Now I’ll shut up and go back to sleep.

Evil marketing scheme of Disney

I love Disney. I grew up with Disney films and TV shows. Now the TV shows kind of suck at the moment, but I’m somewhat comforted by the fact that most TV shows for children kind of suck as well.

However, along with my gripe with Disney milking all of their films/franchises for all its worth there is the Disney Vault. It’s not an actual vault, but more of a marketing scheme to take certain Disney films out of the market and then re-release them for a limited amount of time. Along with the re-release they remaster the film and add extras such as behind the scenes, interviews, and all of the other things that hardcore Disney fans love.

However, the time period between taking the film out of the market and re-releasing it is random. And therefore drive Disney fans insane. This happened to me a few years ago when Disney re-released Beauty and the Beast onto DVD for the first time. I thought I would have some time to buy it, but instead it was back in the vault in no time. Literally. Now, I desperately wait for it to be released again sometime in the fall of 2010 (what it was rumored to be re-released anyways).

Sadly, despite how evil this scheme is, it works. Especially with words such as, “For a limited time only! Get it now!” in their advertisements. Fans scramble to their nearest store to get their copy before it’s snatched away from them and locked away in Disney’s deep archives. In their minds, it’s to make the older films fresh for the younger generation, which makes up the majority of Disney’s audience.

Also have you ever noticed that Disney films never end up in the bargain bin in any store? Instead take it out of the market and selling it for top dollar. Evil, but it works. It just annoys the fans to make us wait for the film to be in production again. Either that or pay a fortune on eBay.

For other films, when it’s first released to DVD it costs about $25. After a while it gets to around the $10 range. However, many Disney films are taken out before it gets to that point.

What really annoys me and other fans alike is when some films which have been in the DVD shelves for a while are randomly taken out and sent to the vault with no announcement like they usually do for their other films. Case in point, The Nightmare Before Christmas. I found this out earlier when I tried to order myself a copy from Amazon.com and found out that it was no longer in print. I tried multiple other sites and it gave me the same result.

Only today (with a random Google search) did I find out that it is to be re-released with new features and will also be released in Blu-Ray on August 26th, 2008. Now if only I had a Blu-Ray player so I could see how beautiful it would be to watch a Burton film on Blu-Ray, but I digress since I have no money for a Blu-Ray player. Nor do I have a summer job to make my wallet look less pitifully empty.

Math is the bane of my existence

I have never been the best math student. The most advanced thing I can really do well in is basic algebra. Anything above that is beyond my comprehension.

During high school, most of the time I was able to understand how to get to point A to point B using whatever steps that were needed. However, when I actually sit down to do my homework I believe the following happens:

1. I read the problem and try to find a similar one in my class notes to help me solve it.
2. The problem makes minor changes in itself such as switching a couple numbers or rewording itself while I look at my notes.
3. I work on said problem with the changes.
4. Repeat steps 1 to 3 for the rest of the assignment.
5. Math problems resume its original form.

I wasn’t a terrible math student, since I somehow manage a final average of about a B or B- in most of my report cards. Reason being that most of the math teachers I had only checked if their students did the homework and not actually look over every single problem if they did it correctly. So that can explain why I haven’t flunked out of math in high school.

And yes, my theory of the math problems magically changing is absurd, but when have I ever let my weirdness get in the way?