Some Month-old New Year's Resolutions I Wrote to Myself and Forgot to Share Here

Discover shocking, new truths every day (via other means than the Drudge Report, of course)

Eat sushi more than Wendy's


mmmmmm

Watch an old movie for every new movie

Write wrongs

Don't NOT talk to strangers

Remind yourself daily where you come from (the water/Evil America) and how that affects you



Sing in the shower (but don't dance, or you might slip and fall)

Know thyself and thy tolerance for alcohol

Love all (and I mean every living creature...including bin Laden and George Bush and Bill O'Reilly)



Worry about wasting time more than money

An Observation or Two

There are some times and places wherein you're guaranteed to either get a scowl or smile directed right at you. It doesn't really matter who you are or what you've done; you're never deserving of the nasty look or instead, the kind acknowledgment of your presence. There will simply be a situation where you will accidentally make eye contact with a stranger, and that stranger can choose to frown or smile at you. I was thinking about when you can expect a frown and when you can expect a smile. I think most of you will agree with what I determined:

The grocery store on a late Sunday afternoon



Now, here in the central campus area, this may not be true, but for the most part, a supermarket that's packed full of hasty errand-runners, with babies in tow, is also packed full of some mean stares. But can you blame these frantic grocery shoppers? They've got a lot of stuff to do and work starts tomorrow! Argh! Just be careful, people have powerful shopping carts they can accidentally ram into you if you give them cause to.

The post office and the bank



When you're waiting in line to send off a package or deposit a check (though, folks, it's just as easy to drop it in an ATM!) -- your fellow line-waiters will probably be very friendly. There's only one reason I can figure this to be true, because the odds really are stacked against their happiness. They're not only waiting in line, but it's not like they're about to see a movie or something -- they're just doing everyday errands.

So my guess is that they choose to make the best of the situation and find that it's more entertaining to chit-chat with each other than to exchange ugly looks. Also, I think everybody hates whoever they are to greet at the end of the line. For some reason, we all tend to band against that person, as if they are the reason the line is so long -- when in fact, they are the reason the line isn't as long as it would have been if they weren't there to take care of business. Basically, whenever there is a common enemy, people unite. This probably happens at the grocery store, too, after people have already gathered up all their goods and are eagerly anticipating putting them on the mini-treadmill. Hopefully they don't end up in line behind someone who they accidentally rammed with a shopping cart though.

The bus and the airport

The bus and the airport really are crossroads between cultures... even more so than a bank or post office. It's a mixed bag of emotions here, as one unhappy or happy person can set the mood for everybody else. If there's a babbling homeless guy who everybody is amused by, the whole bus will give each other grins, as in saying "yeah, I think the babbling homeless guy is strange too, haha!" Etc. Same goes for the airport. Is there an annoying business guy yapping on his cell phone or a cute little 2-year-old galloping around?

The first day of class

Everybody feels refreshed on the first day of class -- whether in middle school or college. Lots of people smile at me when it's the first day, especially those strangers just walking past, almost as though they expect we'll become best friends throughout the school year, despite the fact that UT has over 50,000 students and I'll probably never see them again.

The 30th or so day of class

After the novelty wears off and people become lost in their own brains, reviewing the stuff they have to know for their chemistry test on their way to class, those smiles are few and far between. I wouldn't say people are overtly mean, but the difference between the first day (or week, really) of class and any day after that is pretty interesting. But how can you expect someone to take the effort to smile? They're way too busy!

Football games, movies, plays, and other entertainment you have to buy tickets to...

Surprisingly, when people are venturing out of their homes to have fun, they tend to treat strangers as, well, strangers -- people their mother told them not to talk to, etc. I think it's because people come to these events (a movie, stage musical, carnival, whatever) with a posse, a group of family members or friends, and thus they instantly separate themselves from everybody else. They can afford to. They're not needy of an ally. There are plenty of exceptions to this, of course, but I think putting a bunch of individual strangers into one room makes for a much nicer environment than putting three different groups of friends into one room.

I'd go on, but I have to read for my next class. I wonder how many smiles I'll get while I'm out and about on campus today?

MTV Reality TV Show Review

Thanks to my family's Digital Video Recorder and HBO on Demand, I always have hours of cable television to catch up with whenever I visit home. Marie, Pujeeta and I are stuck with one measly network channel, Fox, and what's worse is apparently every program on Fox features characters who only interact outside on snowy days. Or maybe there's something wrong with the reception.

Anyhow, there are so few genuinely good shows on television these days, that I choose to embrace the intentionally awful ones with loads of enthusiasm. Now, there are the standard shows I'll always be loyal to -- like "The Office" and the deceased "Sex and the City" (I never saw the first few seasons). However, while when it comes to movies, I can sometimes be a snob -- though not on purpose, mind you -- I'm not like that with television. It's like people are granted "good taste" amnesty when it comes to television, reality television in particular.

But here's the thing -- I only enjoy the stuff that's overtly tacky and vapid. The stuff that pretends to boast substance is annoying.

So, as you might have guessed, I happen to really enjoy MTV reality shows. Seeing as how I'm fairly familiar with MTV's reality TV show lineup, I thought I'd do a wrap-up of what this season has to offer.

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Oldies, but goodies:

"The Hills"

The follow-up to the hit show "Laguna Beach" features its alumna, Lauren (or LC), as she tries to make it big in the Los Angeles fashion industry, alongside her best gal pal and roomie Heidi. In the second season of "The Hills," we see a new and improved LC, one that actually talks! The LC of "Laguna Beach" was just a pretty face, but this time around, she almost seems interesting. Currently, however, the plot has revolved around spunky, annoyingly obvious Heidi, black-haired beauty Adrina, and smooth-talking Spencer. Basically, Spencer has desperately been trying to get into Adrina's pants, while assuring Heidi he "more than likes" her, not Adrina. Aw, how romantic. Anyways, however staged it is, it makes for good TV. It's fun to watch rich, beautiful, shallow people try to find love in all the wrong places (i.e. from other rich, beautiful, shallow people).

"Real World"

Now, "Real World" used to have a little street credit. Back in the day, MTV cast everyday young adults on the show. Folks you could relate to!

These young adults always came from wildly different backgrounds and would only ever be friends if they were fictional characters on a sitcom (as fictional characters on sitcoms rarely ever would like each other in real life -- think "Friends"), or, of course if they were... "picked to live in a house, work together and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when..." blah blah blah.

But anyways, the past few seasons of "Real World" have relied on a more basic, ratings-driven formula: just put really hot, party girls in the house. Fortunately, the three hot, party girls on "Real World: Denver" this year are mostly nut cases. Well, Colie (despite her strange, melodramatic behavior at the hospital when she got mono) seems pretty normal. But Brooke and Jenn each have their share of mental problems and the four guys in the house are always caught in the crossfire.

My favorite of the lot is frat boy Alex, who sort of reminds me of B.J. Novak's character in "The Office" -- he casually plays along, knowing full well the house is full of crazies. He might crack pretty soon though...

"Next"

What I like about "Next," which is still in full swing, is it perfectly illustrates what the downtown hook-up scene is all about -- simply placing your bets, buying girls drinks (or being bought drinks by guys), all in an effort to find the hottest ass out there. "Next" is simply a formalized, gimmicky version of that.

In "Next," you have your main girl or guy (usually good-looking, usually hollow) who in a sense, is given the opportunity to do some serious, hands-on speed dating.

The "Next" bus is packed full of the eager daters; most are physically attractive, but there are typically a few ugly and/or plain weird ones thrown into the mix too. So anyways, the daters each get to go on a date with the main "Next" star, in an order pre-determined by MTV. The main girl/guy can "next" the dater at any point (it's always funny when a dater is nexted -- new verb! -- before ever opening his or her mouth). If the main girl/guy decides he or she likes a dater enough to go on a second date with (or have sex with) them, that dater gets the choice to go on a second date with (or have sex with) the main girl/guy or get a dollar for every minute spent on the date. Spent an hour on the date? Well, you can either go home with your dating partner or take home 60 dollars. I'd go with the 60 bucks -- probably won't give you an STD.

"Next" slyly mocks the superficial, boring, stupid people who go on it and that's why I like it. MTV gives the stilted dating contestants the BEST lines to say as they introduce themselves to viewers.

"My Super Sweet 16"

"My Super Sweet 16" is just what it sounds like; every episode revolves around one or two soon-to-be-16-yr-olds planning the sweetest party EVER. They all have a few things in common: they're obnoxious and spoiled and they want to throw a sweet 16 party fit for, well, a BRAT. "My Super Sweet 16" is a shocking look into parenting gone very, very wrong and is also really hard to flip the channel away from.

New guilty pleasures:

"Maui Fever"

If you thought "Laguna Beach" felt surreal and staged, well, "Maui Fever" takes the cake. The cast mainly consists of bleached surfer dudes who openly pursue unemotional one night stands every single night of the week, it seems. But only after their long, hard days of teaching surf lessons... to their potential one night stands (tourists make great one night stands!) who they then recruit for the parties they hold every single night. There are two equally promiscuous, but slightly more intriguing, girls on the show; girl # 1, Chaunte, toys around with the only guy who has any heart on the show, Anthony. How thoughtful of her.

"Maui Fever" is the more mature, sorry did I say mature?, I meant slutty, version of "Laguna Beach." It's oddly fascinating because I had no idea people could lead such empty, sex-obsessed lives. But can you really blame them? There is a lot of sun in Hawaii and the sun is really hot and after a while, doesn't it start to kill brain cells?

"Exposed"

This is the latest dating show on MTV and essentially, two daters vie for the approval and acceptance of the main girl/guy. Except, as the main girl/guy interviews the two contestants, their best friend is feeding them questions to ask (through a secret ear piece) and alerting them to which answers are honest and which answers are complete bull shit. (Thanks to a 'lie detector,' or voice stress analyzer that MTV makes sure to inform is only used for entertainment purposes at the end of the show.)

So that's a fun twist. Except the questions are usually incredibly lame. "Have you ever picked your nose while driving in the car?" "Do you pee in the shower?" That's like truth or dare fodder -- come on, you have a real chance at putting these potential boyfriends/girlfriends on the spot and seeing them for who they really are! Ask them if they're homophobic or racist! Oh, wait... why is there even a need for a voice stress analyzer here? Do you really care if you hook up with a liar and a cheater if you're never going to call them again?

---------------

Shows like "Date My Mom," which I liked a lot, haven't been around much these days -- I guess MTV wants to give "Exposed" and "Maui Fever" a turn.

(On a side note, how scandalous would it be if they did a "Date My Dad?" So wouldn't work!)

Other shows, like "The Duel," I never really quite got, but people seem to like it because it's on ALL THE TIME. It has a little more brains than its peers, though. As does "Dancelife," which I want to give a few viewings before I comment about it.

In my next entry, I'll be reviewing TV dinners, the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen video series, and porn.

So, I thought I was being really smart.

I have to wait for the Forty Acres and Red River buses every day of the week and it seems that lately, those waits have lasted around 15 to 20 minutes (I never get to the bus stops at the right time). Texas has been enduring uncharacteristic 30 degree weather, which has rekindled many local weathermen and women's passions and abilities to overreact, and so 20 minutes feels a lot longer than 20 minutes. I love the cold and all, but I don't like just standing in it; I prefer to be on the go. This is why I think New York City would suit me so well -- I want to pull my hair out when there are slow pedestrians around me. Aren't you going to be late for class? Aren't you afraid of getting fat?



Today I didn't rush to the bus stop after class -- I picked up a coffee instead and then went to the bus stop. This way, I could keep a little warm with some hot, caffeinated liquid during my two 20-minute waits.

(And yes, I could walk to the Red River bus in the same time it would take for me to wait for the Forty Acre bus and take it to the Red River bus, but on that odd occasion that it is extra speedy, it can save me some time and also, after class, I'm dead tired in my mind and my body. Three hour-and-a-half lectures in a row today! Ugh! Whenever you sign up for a history class, in particular, you know it's going to be 100% lecture format. And that's super unfortunate. Why is it that history professors are the least interesting and entertaining professors in the whole university? Why do they always have the most monotone voices? Historians tell stories, pretty much, so I think maybe they should start taking a few hints from Steven Spielberg or something.)

Anyways, for some reason, to my surprise, both the Forty Acres and Red River buses came to me right away, as though they could smell my coffee from miles away. And they were each completely packed with people. If the Forty Acres bus ever was part of a "clown car" act of any sort (and I know it's a big bus, so that would destroy the purpose of the joke, but I digress), the act would never ever end. During any kind of weather that's not beautiful and sunny, that thing is just spilling over with people -- I sometimes feel I'm 9-years-old again and playing "sardines" when this happens. And then I'm reminded if there was an accident of any kind, we would all be squashed to death.

So anyways, both buses were full. This meant that I had to squeeze in and grip a horizontal little pole (on both bus rides; thankfully they're short). I had a lot of trouble finding my leverage and almost fell down for a brief half-second. Hopefully no one noticed, but I think they did and just were polite enough not to react with facial expressions or laughter.

Do you want to know why I couldn't find my balance though? I had a cup of coffee in my hand!

What I've learned from YouTube and "American Idol":

*Americans are delusional. They think they are more interesting and talented and insightful and funny than they really are... case in point:


*Atheists and Christians really do dislike each other (seriously, there's now a video war between them on YouTube... hey, folks, if technology means we now fight with video blogs instead of bombs, I think it's probably okay)

*We ought to leave artsy filmmaking up to the experts (YouTubers: just hit record, don't try to get fancy... because you kind of pretty much suck); I'd share a poorly-made YouTube video here, but it's really hard to pick out just ONE and more importantly, I don't want them to get seen and become even more popular than they already are

*The best stuff in life is free or, was originally aired on cable and then uploaded to YouTube so people could watch it for free and then promptly taken down because of copyright laws (boy do I wish Jon Stewart was easier to access)

Wait, is it the No Spin Zone or Truthiness we're dealing with here?

Colbert does O'Reilly on O'Reilly and O'Reilly does O'Reilly on Colbert, doing O'Reilly
(doesn't get any better than this, folks)

I'm in a really good mood.




Normally, I have pretty regular emotions I cycle through from day to day, week to week. I was never one of those people who needed anti-depressants.

But this past month, I don't know, I've felt consistently unhappy. Maybe unhappy is the wrong word. I almost wish I could have felt unhappy, or more overtly depressed. Then I could at least say I felt something, instead of a sort of blase ambivalence.

All I know is that happy is definitely not the right word for this last month's "major emotion," so my mood, let's just say, has been stuck somewhere short of happy.

And suddenly, I feel chipper. Even before my morning coffee, I'm feeling pretty good. I had forgotten what pretty good felt like. I would say I feel almost as good as Paula Abdul, when she was interviewed about "American Idol" on some morning news show.

I wish I could grasp what's different about today. I'm not on a caffeine high. Nothing in my life has changed all that much. Maybe I've just finally caught up with sleep. I get a little down if I haven't had enough rest: why do you think I value naps so highly?

What's strange is I should probably feel unhappy. I've got a lot on my plate today. I've recently almost burned a bridge with my sister. Classes start tomorrow, which means my life is about to get busy. But hey, reason be damned, I'm happy, and I'm going to capture this moment in a blog.

So, anyways, I wish you all happy emotions, whether they come from natural or synthetic sources!

And PS -- I'm really sorry about the poorly constructed sentences in my last blog entry. Can't help it, I was born a rambling woman.

There's an argument I've had so many times and I never can quite articulate my point.

My point is that "free will" does not exist. It's not an original idea -- plenty of famous scientists and philosophers have said the same thing. But it's the major reason I can't tolerate the logic of religion and I can't stand that I can't properly communicate what it is I mean by "free will" not existing.

Well, will exists -- but free? That's a misleading and misguided term, one that presupposes stuff we have absolutely no evidence of.

Human brains are complicated -- there is an array of emotions, neurological connections, genetics, memories, etc, that influence every single choice we make. Well, not influence, but form. Human brains are mysterious, but only because they are so fucking complicated; they've evolved to be that way.

If I'm ordering from a menu at a restaurant, I have a slew of options. But let's play around with just two, for simplicity's sake.

Do I want the pasta with chicken or just a plain hamburger? I'd probably pick the pasta. Is this because I have free will? No.

It's because factors A, B, C, D, E, and who knows what else caused me to "choose" the pasta. And of course, all these factors are then contingent upon how good my natural, reasoning abilities are, which is another factor all on its own.

But anyways, some of these factors might be obvious to us (and we can only really speculate about them anyways) -- my taste buds don't react as well to hamburgers as they do to pasta and chicken and so my reason says I should get the pasta and chicken. Other factors could be what kind of mood I happen to be in. Am I feeling experimental? Other factors could simply be memories of past experiences. Maybe I don't dig hamburgers that much, but perhaps I had pasta already last night and I remember this and am thus not as hungry for it; I've already had my fix. Maybe my body actually needs different kinds of carbs and I actually feel a natural appetite for hamburgers, over pasta, who knows? I could even be having a conversation about free will and just to prove to the person I'm conversing with that I can choose something random, I could point my finger to any random menu item and order that. Does that prove anything? No, it just proves the motivation to be random overrode motivation to eat something I know to be tasty.

Other factors, and there could be literally hundreds or millions more, we may not be sure about. They may involve complicated chemical reactions that go with every obvious factor we've just addressed.

But the fact of the matter is, from what I can tell, is that free will (or free choice) is only an illusion. Just because my body is physically capable of ingesting a hamburger, or my mouth and vocal cords are physically capable of ordering a hamburger, doesn't mean I actually had the choice to order it (if I did indeed order pasta instead, that is). Ordering pasta was merely an effect of various causes.

We look at many things in a purely scientific way. You see a game of basketball and you say the basketball has no free will, it's just at the whim of the players movements and the weather conditions and its basic makeup (how inflated is it?). But the players are similarly at the whim of their environment and biological and chemical processes of their body and brain, which are incredibly complicated, but no less determined by the rules of cause and effect, and ultimately pretty mechanic.

Just because you don't "know" all the causes that lead to the choices you make, doesn't mean they don't exist and didn't determine your choice.

A lot of people, once they get to this point, then say: Well, there's no such thing as morality and personal responsibility, then, if you say that! So I'm saying this because I was determined too, huh?

The answer is -- well just because we invented morality and personal responsibility doesn't mean those things exist on some higher plane and is the precondition for all that happens in the universe. It simply means all that happened in the universe and in human evolution led to humans inventing morality and personal responsibility. Those concepts won't go away, as we invented them for social purposes. They'll always be around (they're enduring), and anyways, because there is no free will, there is no harm in believing that it exists or doesn't exist, as we will believe whatever our brain allows us to believe, despite our own illusion that we have free choice in what we believe.

The reason I got inspired to write this is because I've always felt this way about free will and there was a youtuber who did a 30 minute piece (3 parts) about it. He articulated it so well. So if you're not really getting what I'm saying here, as I sometimes just can't find the words, give this a spin:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

The British (and Australian/Irish/Scottish) Invasion
of 6th Street

Austin is special for many reasons, and one of those reasons is 6th Street. My friends and I love to bar hop and we've recently noticed a trend. There are a lot of visiting British, Irish, Scottish, and Australians here in the city and they also love to bar hop.

Curiously enough, we never run into any Indians, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Middle Easterners, Norwegians, etc... Usually travelers are from England or Australia and then thirdly -- Ireland and Scotland, so they usually sport very sexy accents. And also, they're always guys.

Oh, and they also always are trying to get into your pants.

Last night my good friend Kathryn came down to visit and she and her friend wanted to check out the downtown scene, which they had only gotten a small taste of before. So we did.

We sat down at Maggie Mae's and an Australian guy approached us and preceded to tag along with us for the whole night. I ended up giving him my number at some point.

Kathryn noticed his license was from another American city that wasn't Austin and her friend overheard one of his friends talking about how they had been undergrads at UT for years. That's sort of strange, considering that the Australian told me he was in his first ever semester at UT and had grown up in Brisbane. I got him to show his license to me and listened to him explain his residence in Maine -- his mom lived there for awhile, it was a long story, he wasn't lying about his origin, he just didn't want to get into that. Right.

So anyways, we ended up losing him toward the end of the night and I got a call from him about three times as the bars were closing. I called back and left a message around 3AM: "Hey, just wanted to say, chops on the accent dude!"

He called back the next day, in a distinctly American accent, admitted he was indeed making it all up. But here's the funny part -- he actually asked me to call him back!!! Persistent little buggers, those Australians. Especially the fake Australians.

It's interesting who or what we choose to take our frustrations with life out on. Punching bags, younger siblings, politicians, telemarketers... I know you can't really find too much wisdom in teenybopper flicks based on books like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but there were a few lines of dialog in that film that always stuck with me. Here they are:

Carmen: I'm mad at my dad. Why is that so hard for me to see?
I have no problem being mad at you.

Tibby: 'Cause you know I'll always love you no matter what.

Dogs are loyal creatures, especially our collie Peaches. So I guess it makes sense that my dad has recently had a falling out with her. She's old and gets sick to her stomach easy and sometimes is too lethargic and arthritic to take the trouble to go outside to take a shit or throw up. She also sheds everywhere and is a reason I'm never going to get an overly furry dog for my own home. It is annoying, but she can't help it. I couldn't imagine feeling anything more than sympathy for her; she's pathetic really. King, our adorable, younger mutt, hasn't been hit in the face by a car like Peaches, doesn't have aching, 15-yr-old bones like Peaches, and because he smells better, he gets pet a lot more. So I often refer to Peaches as Eeyore; she even has that long, donkey-like face. She eats her food laying down. She mopes around the house mostly. However, her eyes light up whenever someone gives her just the slightest bit of attention -- but if you do this, be prepared for her to plead for more and more; she'll act like it's her last chance to ever get petted.

But my dad sometimes seems genuinely angry at her. Now, even before he got his "life sentence," compliments of glioblastoma multiforme, he always had a gripe or two with one of our animals. He just seems to be gripier than normal. One time when he was yelling at Peaches for her incontinence, I said: "She's sick dad, it's not like she's doing it on purpose." He responded with: "I know, but she has to accept that when you're sick, things change." I didn't think much about this at first, but it sunk in later. They're both sick.

I was thinking about who I take all my problems out on. There's one person I know of who probably would raise their hand immediately and have a good answer for that. Sometimes we only need those stress balls and punching bags, but occasionally they come in the form of actual people, and curiously enough -- they are usually the most important people in our lives. Hey, I'm honored if I can be someone's punching bag every now and then. We just have to be careful of what we do to those we love and care about or we're going to have burned bridges and end up with a lot more problems down the road, but problems that suddenly we don't know what to do with anymore.

Did you know that...?

I hate:

Rum, ugh, makes me want to throw up just thinking about it

Page turns, they suck when you're in the middle of playing a favorite song on the piano

Cancer >:(

Jane Eyre, the movie, only because I was sick and trying to gulp down horrible Thermaflu when I watched it and now I forever associate it with illness and gross-tasting medicinal beverages

Drivers who slow down way too much before they make a turn

When people choose to not think critically about things

That it's unhealthy to use Q-tips to clean your ears

The death penalty

Checking my bank account balance

I love:

Setting my alarm clock to wake me up a couple hours early so I can then fall back asleep

Sushi

Kissing, maybe even as much as sex

Dancing, but only when I'm very drunk

Debating various topics

The occasional cry that comes out of nowhere, it's cathartic
(and consequently: any art that makes me cry)

Coffee, but never black

Cuddling with my dog

Early morning chats with my mom and dad

Taking a shower after waking up hungover

Cold weather