Just got home from work

Had to cover the South Carolina Primary Election.

It was actually kind of fun. I'm waiting for the endorphins to wear off, at which point I will crawl into bed and die.

Sean got pizza, so I'll eat some of that first, and start my download of Haruhi 11 (13) ;> (Looks like somebody plays go in this one?)

I'm sure I won't be in this good of a mood tomorrow, when I have to get up and go to work at my usual time. Ah well.

I didn't go

"Well, in case you don't go to the beach tomorrow--" Brooke said, but

"I'm going," I interrupted her. "I'll hate myself if I don't!"

But I sabotaged myself and stayed up past one in the morning doing nothing in particular. I was chatting with Roderick and Shafa, which was cool, but otherwise all I was doing was reading Attack of the Bacon Robots and being annoyed by the printing errors. I could do that any old time.

Part of it was that I was starting to get nervous about going to the beach by myself. I asked Sean if he wanted to go, twice, and he said no. None of my friends ended up being available. As I lay in bed this morning trying to wake up (I had one of those mornings where I think I'm going to get up and then for some reason fall back asleep), I thought, "Who'll watch my stuff while I'm swimming?" The answer, of course, was no one.

Later I was finally able to get up, and after a fit of coughing (stupid air conditioner always makes me congested) and my morning pills, I decided to check Google Maps to see how long it would take to get to a beach. I was assuming three hours to Tybee Island and two and a half to Myrtle Beach.

Google says it'll take four hours to get to either.

That didn't really mesh with my experience, so I checked Mapquest, which said four hours to Myrtle and three hours to Tybee. I thought it was faster to get to Myrtle Beach!

But either way, it was going to be more than six hours in the car, round trip, for not much sunlight at the beach.

So I'm sitting here at the computer instead of going.

If I'd gotten up early like I originally said I would, I might have gone. But I stayed up late. I don't really know why.

You watch, I won't have another chance to go to the beach for a long time, and I'll feel like a moron for missing this opportunity.

Oh well.

Has no one else noticed all the errors (printing or, perhaps, otherwise) in Attack of the Bacon Robots?

Should I go through and enumerate them?

I hate Photoshop

Well, I don't really hate it. I just wish it could do all the things I want to do.

I hate designing print advertisements in Photoshop. It's retarded.

I need to buy Creative Suite so I can have InDesign ;_;

Jesus buried in Japan

Because all the world originated in Japan, and everything great in the world returns to Japan eventually.

;>

Times Online: Japan is proud home of Christ's tomb

For two millennia the farming village of Shingo claims to have protected a tradition that Jesus spent most of his life in Japan. The village is the home of Sajiro Sawaguchi, a man in his eighties who claims to be a direct descendant of Jesus and whose family has always owned the land in which it is said that Christ is buried.

Mr Sawaguchi emerged as Jesus's heir only in 1935, when a priest in Ibaraki discovered a document in ancient Japanese purporting to be Christ's will. This document supposedly identifies Shingo as the location of the tombs of Jesus and Isukiri. The claim is widely believed. About 40,000 Japanese visit the site every year. Two years ago it was presented with a plaque by Jerusalem, and next Sunday [June 4] it will host the annual Christ festival of traditional Japanese dance.

According to the account in the Christ Museum next to the tombs, Christ arrived in Japan at the age of 21 and learnt Japanese before returning to Judaea 12 years later to engage in his mission and preach about the "holy land of Japan". The official Shingo history is that Jesus’s place on the Cross was "casually" taken by his brother, leaving Christ free to return to Japan. On his return he fell in love with Miyuko, a local girl, and lived happily with his family among the rice fields until dying aged 106.

Here is some more information from Japan Today.

According to the local legend, Christ first came to Japan, aged 21, during the reign of the 11th emperor, Suinin, and landed at the port of Hashidate on the Japan Sea coast. Apparently, he settled in Etchu province where, under the tutelage of a great master, he studied Japanese language, literature and various other subjects. The Legend of Daitenku Taro Jurai (Daitenku Taro Jurai was the name Christ is said to have later taken) claims that at the end of his 11-year stay, Christ returned to Judea, aged 33, where he taught about the "sacred land" of Japan. But, unfortunately, "Christ's teachings about Japan were considered too radical," and he was condemned to death.

The New Testament teaches Jesus was crucified at Golgotha, rose from the dead after three days and later ascended into Heaven. However, according to the legend of Herai, Jesus escaped this fate, and instead his brother Isukiri was nailed to the cross and died. Christ, meanwhile, fled with his disciples and went into hiding, carrying locks of the Virgin Mary's hair and his brother's ear. After an arduous journey across Siberia, Christ finally returned to Japan and settled in Herai where he changed his name, married a Japanese woman called Miyuko, fathered three daughters and lived to the age of 106.

[...]

For the people of Herai too, the revelation that Christ is buried in their village came as a shock when documents claiming Jesus had resided in Japan were discovered in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1935. Said to be Christ's will and testament and the proof that he had lived and died in Japan, the "Takenouchi documents" later proved to be fake. For years, many villagers felt that the shroud of mystery surrounding the large ancient tombs in a bamboo thicket had finally been lifted. The documents explained some of the village's customs, such as marking a cross on the forehead of a child when it first leaves the home and why Sanjiro Sawaguchi, a village elder, had "blue eyes like a foreigner."

This story seems to be rather old.

Wikipedia: Shingo, Aomori

The City of Shingo's homepage (as of right now, you can see the Kirisuto Matsuri listed in the Event Calendar).

Sounds like this would be a fun vacation stop. Since it's in northern Honshu, maybe Sean and I can hit it when I force him to go to Hakodate (Hokkaido). (He hates the cold, but I demand that he eat the best sushi in the world.)

Anybody want to run off for a day trip to the beach this weekend?

With this fabulous weather we've been having, I'm dying to spend a few hours at the ocean :)

AHAHAHAHAHA XD

Have you seen Yakitate!! Japan 67?!

When I first saw that old man, I thought, "Hey, it's Gollum."

And he is.

XD XD XD XD

I laughed so hard, at this whole episode. I love how the fourth wall just goes completely out the window now.

Jumping on the bandwagon

So apparently I look like Shirley Temple.

(Or at least I did 6 years ago. This is the picture I used. Yes, I'm a big cheater.)

I also look(ed) like Cameron Diaz, Heather Graham, Renee Zellweger, Monica Bellucci, Helen Hunt, Kirstie Alley, and Sharon Tate.

Sean looks like Heath Ledger, Ashton Kutcher, Justin Timberlake, Ralph Nader, "Tarkan" (?!), and Hayden Christensen.

Isn't that nice?

(Via Shafa.)

(Oh, and if you're wondering why I'm posting on my blog during work hours, I'm on lunchbreak at home bringing the car to Sean so he can drive me back to work and go to work himself. It's so much fun having my car in the shop.)

THX 1138

Tonight I finally watched my THX 1138 DVD.

I actually had the DVD before the fire and never got around to watching it. I also owned the original version of the film on VHS. When I first heard of the film, I was a teenager and very much in my Star Wars/George Lucas phase. I believe I found out about it from a book called Skywalking, an unofficial George Lucas biography my friend and piano and kung fu teacher Daniel had given me for my birthday. It's possible I heard about it on the Internet, though, because I was constantly downloading George Lucas-related materials back then, including some original drafts of the Trilogy (like the Jedi script in which Lando and the Falcon are destroyed when Death Star 2 blows up).

In any case, after I heard about George Lucas' groundbreaking first film, I was dying to watch it, but was unsure of where to find it. While it was loved by cult science fiction fans, it apparently wasn't very popular otherwise. When I did find it, it was by sheer luck--I happened to be in a video store in Wilmore, Kentucky, and there it was, sitting innocently on a display. I'm not sure why I was even there; maybe I was in staying overnight at a friend's and we had walked over there, or maybe I was passing time before or after kung fu class. Regardless, I was ecstatic, and my excitement broke through my usual shyness enough that I told the clerk how much I'd been wanting to see the movie. (Back then, talking to strangers was extraordinarily awkward and scary for me.)

I watched the tape over and over. I'm not sure when I found it, but I do know that when my friend Jeremy from the Governor's Scholars Program came to visit me at some point after high school, I sat him down on the $20 loveseat from Goodwill I had in my bedroom at the time and forced him to watch it. I forced everyone to watch it (much as I used to make people watch ReBoot, and as I now strongly suggest that people watch Kyou Kara Maou).

At the time, I had two understandings of the plot that I was absolutely certain were correct, and which now, after seeing the film again, I am reconsidering.

Maybe I'm too accustomed to having meanings shoved down my throat. Let's be honest, anime--or at least the anime I watch--isn't particularly subtle. But it seems to me that things aren't as obvious as they were when I was younger.

The first is a detail that apparently I missed (or maybe was changed slightly for the rerelease). I believed that what THX saw on the screen when he was looking for LUH was evidence that she'd died in childbirth. Now, it appears that she was simply terminated (and probably the child too, as I'm not sure she had time to come to term), and her number reassigned to a new embryo. The only reason they didn't kill THX was because his kidney was suitable for later use, after all. LUH was the instigator; the judge was probably more receptive to the prosecutor's arguments in her case.

The second is something a little more subtle. I honestly believed that SEN was in homosexual love/lust with THX. Looking at it now, I think that's a possibility, but I don't think it's absolutely definite, like I did when I was younger. Back then I interpreted SEN's desire to have THX as a roommate as his desire to have with him what LUH did. But SEN wasn't a voluntary nonconformist. He was too smart for his own good. He saw the flaws in the system, and it was his trying to fix them that got him in trouble. It's possible that he wanted THX around simply because he knew THX was different, too. He wanted to fit somewhere.

Maybe by "helping" THX by removing his temptation, he was hoping to give himself a good example as well.

I don't have a good enough memory to compare this version of the film to the original. At certain points I thought I could tell that things had been added, but when I watched the original trailer and the "Bald" featurette later, I saw that they'd been there in the original film. It appears that most of the added effects were background things and enhancements, and not changes to the main action. (One exception is the construction zone crash scene--the worker flies into a tunnel instead of falling to the ground.)

Some of you may know that I started writing a "novel" towards the end of high school and during my first year of college. I didn't have a title for it when I started, so the file was called "Bald.doc"...and the first scene involved a main character, trapped in a featureless room, his head shaved bald. I'm not sure how I could have written this and not thought I was completely ripping off THX 1138, but apparently I did, because I don't remember comparing the two until now.

That's kind of sad.

After I finished the movie, I checked out the original student film, which I hadn't seen before. And I have to tell you: it is pretty damn boring. You can see glimpses of what Lucas was going for--and what he achieved in the theatrical release--but it's certainly not well-rounded or polished. It's not feature-length; it's more a vignette, and what's irritating is that nothing happens until probably the last five minutes, other than THX running around.

I can't help but compare this to Steven Spielberg's brilliant early TV movie Duel, which was gripping the whole way through. Ah well.

(I've got to watch that again someday. I originally saw it on TBS.)

The last part of Lucas' student film is pretty good, so I'm not sorry I watched it :) It's interesting in a process sense, too, to see how the story evolved.

I liked how it ended, with the powers-that-be in complete denial of THX's escape. It's not shown in the film what is done after they go 6% over budget and call off the hunt, but I imagine it could be something like how it played out in the student film. My gut, though, says that they probably just never spoke of the incident again. They'd killed LUH, so there was no need to make excuses/lies to anybody.

(You know, it's also possible that LUH escaped as well, and they reassigned her number immediately thereafter. I'm not sure if that occurred to me back in high school. The romantic in me would like to think that she and THX are together on the surface now. Hopefully they can survive above ground!)

I had to watch the film with subtitles on because my laptop speakers don't play DVDs with surround sound very loudly. Because of this, I noticed a few things I hadn't before. The trial brought out an interesting conflict between "the masses" and "religion". The term "race issue" was bandied about in this context, which was surprising to me. This shed new light on the hologram--the only black person in the film--and the reason why THX and SEN were staring at him when he first appeared. I'm still not entirely sure what the races are--I started to think maybe it had something to do with cloning, though I'm definitely sure it has to do with "genetic purity"--but regardless, they all seem to be white people.

All in all, it's definitely a film worth owning. I'm glad I have it again :)

Brakes are expensive

Here are my notes from the phone conversation I had with the guy at Tires Plus.

front brake calipers and pads (plus labor): $421.18 - pad completely missing on left side

rear brake shoes: $104.99

rear bearings and seals (no labor): $223.92 - scored up, really hard to take off. might freeze up on spindle and then have to replace whole spindle - expensive because it's an older car

front CV axles both sides: $409.98 - don't know how these are because couldn't drive car - might be able to hold off on this

front brake rotors: $49.99 each - rotors completely chewed up

Did I mention my brakes went out while I was on my way home last night? I was braking at a light, and the car was making horrible grinding noises as usual, when all of a sudden the brake pedal gave way and went straight to the floor.

"Please stop please stop please stop," I said, as I turned the wheel slightly to the right in a vain attempt to lose momentum and avoid rear-ending the SUV in front of me. Thankfully, the car stopped.

I drove about 20 miles an hour to a gas station, where I pulled over and pretty much coasted into a parking space. From there I called Sean, who got me the phone number for Meineke and started giving me directions on how to get there.

"I can't drive there!" I said, thinking he must not have been paying attention when I told him my brakes had failed. "I need to get it towed!"

He was really quiet after that, so when we hung up I decided to risk my life and drive the car instead of calling a tow truck. I drove at about 15 miles an hour back down Martintown Road, up and down the hills, cringing at every stoplight, until I got to where Meineke was supposed to be.

Only it wasn't there.

So I pulled into a deserted parking lot and called the phone number.

"Hello?" came a man's voice.

"Hi, is this Meineke?"

"Well...I'd like it to be! It will be in about three weeks, I hope. We're renovating."

That wasn't particularly news I wanted to hear. I explained my situation to him and asked him what I should do.

"I wish I could fix your brakes!" he said. "I really do. But let's see...Tires Plus is here in North Augusta, and they do brakes."

And I knew where that was.

"You definitely shouldn't drive it!" said the Meineke guy. "Get towed!"

But, thinking that Sean would complain about the cost of towing, I drove. After all, it was just down the street. 10 and 15 miles per hour wasn't so bad!

Until a huge truck almost rear-ended me trying to scare me into accelerating. But I digress.

I got lucky at the left turn and was able to pull into the Publix shopping center without having to brake. I trundled along as slowly as humanly possible to Tires Plus, where I noticed a distinct lack of lights. I pulled around to the side and parked in front of a garage door that had the word "BRAKES" painted over it.

A man was coming out a side door. I got out of my car and called out to him.

"Are you closing?"

"Yeah."

"My brakes are shot. Can I leave my car here for you? When do you open tomorrow?"

"Sure. 7 a.m."

He took my name, address, and number, and then I moved the car (why? Why?) into a handicapped space (?!) at his request. I thought about bringing some stuff out of the car, but as I was going to have to wait for a ride in Publix due to the lightning and intermittent rain, I decided to leave everything. I scoured my purse and couldn't find my spare key, so I just gave him the one off my ring. As he was pulling out of the lot, he asked if I needed a ride, but as I was going to the other side of Augusta, I said I'd call someone.

After he was gone I found the spare in an interior pocket of my purse.

I called Brooke, who immediately agreed to come get me and take me out to Reid and Cheryl's, who had plans to take me out for dinner. Then I went over to Publix to wait, and while I was there I called Sean and told him I was mad at him for expecting me to drive a car with failing brakes.

I was also mad at me, for giving into that pressure...because North Augusta is hilly, and I was endangering myself and other drivers by being stubborn.

Oh well. At least I didn't die, right?

So Brooke came and got me and dropped me off at Fatz, where I met up with Cheryl and Reid and ate the sampler platter (ribs, chicken fingers, fried shrimp, and baked apples, and damn it was good) and received a nice birthday gift card for Cato. I also ran into the gentleman who gave us our couch, chair, bedding, and spare computer, and I cheerfully thanked him again and exchanged pleasantries with his wife and mentioned that we had some things they probably wanted back in the bottom of the bedding bag and they said no, that was fine, we could keep it.

I regaled Cheryl and Reid with the story of my brake failure, and Reid said, "Why didn't you call me?!"

I was a little taken aback and managed, "Well, I'm never sure what your schedule is."

"Well, don't worry about that. If it's an emergency, I can leave work. You call me next time."

That's the sort of thing I would have liked to have heard from someone else.

After dinner I went back to Cheryl and Reid's with them and Cheryl served me dessert--homemade pound cake, chocolate sauce, fresh strawberries, and whipped cream. Reid showed me the pictures he'd taken this past weekend at NASCAR in Charlotte, and I played with the dogs. Finally at around 10:30 I called Sean and asked him to come pick me up. Even though Cheryl and Reid both said they would be happy to take me home, I know it's annoying to get home in the evening only to have to go right back out again, and I didn't want to do that to them.

Sean had to stay late at work and arrived at about 11:30. We went home and I almost immediately went to bed.

So yesterday was my day for taking unhappy situations and shoving them aside for the sake of things that needed to be done. I got through work after the poking and prodding and med student embarrassment and weird non-lump, and I got through dinner after driving terrified up and down the hills of North Augusta praying I wouldn't get in a wreck, and I managed to be fairly cheerful.

Go me.

Today Tires Plus called at around 9 a.m. and gave us the bad news. I got up immediately thereafter; I was totally awake. Sean said he was going to talk to his friend Stephen about the matter, but he stayed in bed for several hours first. I pretty much expected that, but the interim was a little stressful for me. I didn't know what was going to happen about my transportation. Toyota of Augusta was supposed to call me about their next shipment of Toyotas and let me know if they were getting a liftback Yaris, but they never did, and it would take 12 weeks to get one special-ordered. I was pretty sure Sean was going to be unhappy with the cost of fixing the brakes and force me to buy a used car.

But when he got up he said nothing about doing that, and instead conferred with Stephen and called Tires Plus and talked with them and conferred with Stephen again and finally decided to do everything but the CV axles, because, as he says, the car isn't shaking like crazy in the higher gears. Which is true, but I'm not sure why he was so confident about it, as I'm pretty sure he hasn't driven my car since we went to Texas six years ago.

(By the way, I've been looking at old pictures lately searching for good ones to have printed to stick on my desk at work, and Sean is much better looking now than he was when we first met. Too bad I can't say the same for myself ;P)

In any event, that's settled. The car will be fixed, and I'll continue to drive it, and hopefully the Yaris liftbacks will begin to roll out in force later this year so special ordering won't be necessary, and hopefully with new brakes the car will be worth a decent amount as a trade-in, and hopefully Sean will agree to adding the power package and remote keyless entry to the Yaris...because really I think that's a safety feature. I like knowing I can get into my car quickly and be sure all the doors are locked as soon as I sit down.

And hopefully nothing else will go wrong on the little Subaru before then.

Other than, you know, its tendency not to start when it gets too hot. Which is apparently just something I have to live with.

Snakes on a Plane: The True Hollywood (okay, Ohio) Story

Associated Press: Pilot finds snake stowaway inside cockpit

"Nothing in any of the manuals ever described anything like this," said the 62-year-old Cross Lanes resident.

But advice given 25 years earlier from his flight instructor sprung to mind: "No matter what happens, fly the plane."

Coles attempted to swat the snake but it fell to the pilot's feet, then darted to the other side of the cockpit.

While maintaining control of the single-engine plane with one hand, Coles grabbed the reptile behind its head with his other.

"There was no way I was letting that thing go," he said. "It coiled all around my arm, and its tail grabbed hold of a lever on the floor and started pulling."

Now we're talking

NASA: Droids on the ISS

[MIT engineering Professor David] Miller's challenge to his undergraduate engineering class back in 1999 was to design a small, roughly spherical robot that could float aboard the ISS and maneuver using compressed CO₂ thrusters. The project, called SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold Engage Re-orient Experimental Satellite), would serve as a testbed for trying out experimental software to control clusters of satellites. The robotic spheres provide a generic platform consisting of sensors, thrusters, communications and a microprocessor; scientists working on new software ideas can load their software into that platform to see how well those ideas work. It's a quick and relatively cheap way to test new theories on software design.

Possible applications include NASA's return to the Moon (see the Vision for Space Exploration). One way to build a moonship is to assemble it piece by piece in Earth orbit. "Software designed to control small satellites could just as well be used to maneuver the pieces of a spaceship together," says Miller.

Orbiting ship-building docks!!!!!!

Thanks to Mom for the link :)

Notes to self

Go to bed on time if you have a doctor's appointment the next day.

Do not schedule doctor's appointments before work.

Do not have your annual checkup at the endocrinologist, because a med student will assist with the exam. This will not only be embarrassing, but it will take forever. Go to your regular GYN, a fine man who is friendly and professional and does not teach med students.

That wasn't a lump so much as a chunk. Calm down. At worst it is a cyst. You do not have breast cancer.

Chaucer's done it again

I'm a little late on this one, because I have to devote my full attention to the Chaucer posts in order to understand them :>, so I tend to put off reading them. But anyway!

Deedes of Majestee

Armor doth weare KYNG RICHARDE for proteccioun.

Oones as the cronique doth reherce, ther liued a kynge hight Darius who dide gather hys thre counsellors and aske what was the strengest thynge, wyn, womman, or a kyng? And the firste wyse man dide saye that the kynge was the moost of strengthe, for he hadde powir over lyf and deeth. And the seconde dide clayme that wyn was the strengest, for yt doth bynde everi man far moore than ony kynge. And the thridde sage dide saye that that wommen ben the myhtieste, for hir loue hath caused manye kingdomes to rise or to falle - and yet he dide adde that truthe was strenger than alle othir thynges, for in no wise may truthe be overcome. And then KYNG RICHARDE dide slaye alle of them.

KYNG RICHARDE doth nat sleepe; he exerteth his majestee while prone.

KYNG RICHARDE kan yive a summarie of Pieres Plowman yn undir a minute.

Whanne Parlemente dide aske for an accounte of the expenditure of KYNG RICHARDE his housholde, KYNG RICHARDE sente vnto them onlye a peynture of his visage ytwistede yn wrathe. Parlemente dissoluede ytselfe and the Knightes of the Shire dide flee to foreyn londes.

And these aren't necessarily the best ones. Go.

(I wonder if KYNG RICHARDE can do a roundhouse kick?)

Funny, but also kind of sad

Reuters: Would-be Japan robber asks bank how to do it

(Nice headline ;P)

A would-be Japanese bank robber asked staff how he should carry out the crime before meekly obeying a request to leave and then accidentally stabbing himself in the leg with a knife he was carrying.

The 58-year-old unemployed man went into a branch of the Saitama Resona Bank in the town of Kumagaya, north of Tokyo, on Wednesday, intending to rob it, a police spokesman said.

According to local media reports the man first asked a bank teller, "Any idea how you rob a bank?" The teller alerted another member of staff, who asked the man to leave.

"He left quietly when asked to," the police spokesman said.

It's funny to begin with, but then you start to wonder about the guy. He doesn't seem like the type to rob a bank. Is he desperate? What are his circumstances? Does he have a family to support? How long has he been unemployed?