More Sex!

The girl I mentioned in my June post was pretty nice.

The relationship turned into meeting weekly for casual sex.  A mutual lack of personal interest made this the third least dramatic relationship of my life, right behind the other two in the past two years where I had sex with the same girl frequently and never really talked to her.  The difference in this one is we actually engaged in pillow talk the first two times, before it devolved into glorified masturbation.  Also, she liked to be on top.  I didn’t like her to be on top.  Tension!  Second hook-up in row who either totally gets off just from sex, or has no interest in being finished off after the Event.  Awesome.  I’m still not sure where I stand on ensuring a partner’s satisfaction.  I want to make sure they keep coming back for more, but on the other hand, I’m not going to go out of my way if they won’t ask for something.

I went to a party a couple weeks ago and met this totally fascinating drunk girl.  I was fucking jazzed to bang this girl, because I could tell she wanted to.  We had been flirting off and on the entire night and things were just getting to the point of decision when… her friend kicked her out of the party and told her to go home.  Damn the cockblock!  I complained about it on the way home to a girl friend and she got huffy and said that she would never date someone like me, someone who wanted to have sex with drunk girls.  I’m really trying to figure out what’s wrong with it, I swear, I just can’t.  The only phrase that comes to mind when I considered the possibility was “it seems like it would have been fun”.

Wall-E’s inadequate conclusion

I really, really wanted to love this movie. I should have loved this movie: First of all, I’m crazy about two of Pixar’s recent films, The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The former was a nearly perfect superhero movie as far as I’m concerned, with fantastic action sequences, creatively employed powers, a complex lead, an interesting villain, a decent message, and, perhaps most importantly, a hilarious sequence of scenes involving the team’s haute costumer (“…and guest”). Ideally, the climax of such a movie would deliver a moment where each member of the team realized his full potential as an individual, while also complementing the abilities of the others, in order to finally and barely overcome the nemesis. The movie did not quite accomplish this, but it tried, and I give it credit.

I mention this because I believe that you choose a genre for a reason. Bringing the superhero genre to a film about a family was brilliant because it gives the opportunity to show, spectacularly, a family finally coming to appreciate each other for their unique characteristics. Ratatoille, similarly, used the dynamic and intense field of French cuisine, with its high heat and bold flavors, and exploited the natural enmity between vermin and cook to tell a rich story about what it means to have a passion, what it feels like to be an outsider, and, finally, what it takes to balance a new life with an old one.

In short, Pixar does not mess around. So when they chose to do science fiction for their latest film, I was thrilled. I love science fiction. I’m not talking about space opera here, although that can be great as well. True science fiction comes down to thought experiment. What would happen if an advanced civilization was reduced to near extinction, being chased around the galaxy by ruthless enemies? While we’re at it, what if we couldn’t even tell whether these same enemies were human or not? Battlestar Galactica is currently the epitome of what science fiction can and should be, but there is a long tradition of great science fiction that works in this same vein: Ask an important question, think about your conclusion, and invent the technology you need to tell the story, skipping the messy, unimportant details.

Wall-E sets the stage well in this regard, in both the primary and background story lines. How does one express love, or even less fall in love, without words or facial expressions? What
will we become if we are forced to leave this planet? And, on the grandest level, what is the endgame for our society? This is the makings of good science fiction. Furthermore, Pixar presents magnificently, demonstrating creatively the language of the film through Wall-E’s entertaining interactions with his environment, and communicates the failures and ultimate fate of humanity quite effectively. Greed and ignorance have destroyed our planet and exiled us to the cold reaches of space. Remember: greed and ignorance.

The love story mostly succeeds, although I have a few issues here as well. From a feminist standpoint, Wall-E’s seduction is somewhat offensive. Girl arrives, demonstrates her superiority, tolerates boy, then passes out for reasons out her control. Boy then possesses, gropes (check out when he pries her arm out), and ties up girl, then stalks her when her parents come to pick her up. Sensationalized account notwithstanding, it is a very traditionalist and outmoded account of courtship. Without spoiling anything, I also found the climactic moment unsatisfying. Although it would have been devastating to the film’s audience, I feel that they missed an incredible opportunity for true tragedy. Kind of like tacking on a happy ending to a Hans Christian Andersen fable. Still, the ability of the Pixar animators to communicate a wide range of genuine feeling through their robot actors is impressive and worthy of accolade.

OK, with everything else out of the way I can finally get to my serious beef with the film. How does humanity deal with the awakening provided by Wall-E and the revelation of plant life on earth? Apparently, by acting like spoiled, petulant children. Humanity’s surrogate in the film is the captain, who takes on the mantle of Man of Action on behalf of the drooling, squealing, and, later, helplessly flailing masses. When the captain learns about earth, provided via the same idyllic scenes that in our own time lull us into fatal inaction, he is overcome with resolve to return to earth. Never mind that he has acquired no actual information about the current state of earth. Never mind that his apparently competent and well-informed autopilot seems to think that this is an extremely bad idea. Or, for that matter, that we have no reason to believe anyone but the autopilot can even fly the ship… No. I want to go to earth and I want it NOW.

So, here are the qualities of humanity’s savior: greed and ignorance. We spend the remainder of the movie watching idiots fight off their caretakers, put the lives of all humanity in danger, and beat a hasty path back to earth, which, by any reasonable standards, is in no way ready for a deposit of spoiled, needy, skill-less blobs. As a moral fable, Wall-E would like to be teaching us to consider how our current actions will affect future generations, and to occasionally forgo instant gratification with deference to planning and reflection. Lesson learned? Hardly.

Why do I think I’m better than that?

Why do I think I’m better than that?

$500 PC Build: Core 2 Duo E7200

First of all, my sincere apologies if you were trying to find reliable information on some of these components and the whimsy of google sent you to my blog. I am neither an expert nor a real hobbyist; however, every few years I decide to upgrade my computer and it is inevitably cheaper for me to update the build I’ve been working on for the past six years rather than buy a boxed system. Without further ado, here are the results of my triennial foray into pc building.

Obviously, the first constraints to be considered are the budget for the project, and the goals to be reached within that budget. I decided I had about $500 to spend. As for my needs, a few things make this project slightly unusual. First of all, my xbox 360 is currently serving my high-end gaming needs so for the time being I will try to make do with my GeForce 6600GT graphics card, which was only middle of the road when I bought it this time in 2006. Second, my primary interest at this point with the computer is in music production. As such I decided to focus on processor performance and memory. Finally, I have been well-served my newegg.com in the past in terms of price, speed, and customer service, so I decided I buy all my components there to make my life a little easier.

Component 1: CPU

the CPU was the only logical place to start my search, especially with a GPU out of the picture. In the past I have found $100 to be my sweet spot for processors so through a few simple google searches I found two early contenders: the Intel Core 2 Duo E2160, and the AMD X2 5000+. My past two processors have been AMD, so that’s where I gravitated first, and the 5000 seemed to be the budget sweet spot. However the more I read the more it became apparent that with a little overclocking the core 2 duos could produce much bigger bang for the buck than the AMD chips. Starting with the E2160, hailed as a “budget champion” I then realized my budget could support a stronger CPU and discovered a brand new chip with the 45nm architecture, the E7200. At $131, with strong reviews and apparently easy overclocking, I felt like I had a solid choice

Choice: Intel Core 2 Duo E7200: $131

Component 2: Mainboard

When I updated two years ago Gigabyte had emerged as a great choice for quality budget mainboards, and as far as I can tell that is still the case, although Asus had a competitive offering as well. The two newest chipsets for the Core 2 Duos are the X38 and X48, but the budget choices in those categories are lacking. As far as I could determine, the P35 chipset is the next best thing and actually offers comparable performance to the newer chipsets. It was fairly easy to narrow my choice to two boards: the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS2L and the Asus P5K SE. The gigabyte features solid-state capacitors and what appeared to be superior overclocking options, except for one glaring problem: the DSL2 for which I read reviews has been replaced by the GA-EP35-DS2L, an identical board with a power saving utility added. As far as I can tell the utility disables the option to make adjustments to the cpu voltage, which limits overclocking options. I nearly went with the P5K, but switched back after making the following considerations. First, I am fairly conservative overclocker, and from the reviews it appears the E7200 is capable of a 25% overclock to 1333 (333×4) FSB without adjusting the core voltage. Second, I might actually benefit from the power saving features, and third, that if I decided down the road I needed extra power it may still be possible to disable the power saving features and boost the voltage (at this point I couldn’t dig up a conclusive statement one way or the other).

Choice: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS2L $89.99

Component 3: Memory

My first idea here was what seemed to be a fantastic featured deal on newegg: a 2 GB G.Skill pair marked down from $99.99 to $59.99. However after a little bit of research it became apparent that the DDR2 1066 rating on this set would be superfluous. Again, I am speaking only from second-hand research, but it seems that overclocking the memory beyond synchronous speeds is superfluous. In other words, if I boost my E7200 to a 333 FSB (or 1333, because something multiplies it by 4 somewhere) then the memory only needs to operate at 667 (again, some multiplier working here) for an essentially maximal experience. With that in mind I found Corsair XMS2 2 GB pairs for $29 after mail-in rebate. I haven’t been following component prices, but this seems like an incredibly good deal. A day after I placed the order for everything, I realized it would be insanity not to get another set (now bumped up to $31 after rebate), ending up with 4 GB. If I had realized at the time I would be buying 4 GB I might have considered the 2×2 set marked down to $82, but I certainly can’t complain about what I ended up with. Word of warning: after I made the purchase I stumbled across some comments indicating that they may be using lower quality components than previously. If I had spent more I’d be worried.

Choice: 4 GB: 4×1 Corsair XMS2 1GB DDR2 800 $60

Operating System

Thanks to university licensing I was able to save on an OS purchase the last two times I built, but this time around I’m taking the plunge and buying a windows product. Not really thrilled about it. There were some serious choices to be had here. Vista vs. XP, OEM vs retail, and 32 bit vs. 64 bit. None of the three were easy. I settled on Vista mostly through consensus of scanned reviews and security info that I could find. OEM might have been the wrong choice but with retail at double the price, even if I need to buy again when I upgrade I’ll still be breaking even. Not to mention that when that time comes I may want to upgrade to 64 bit. This was the choice that gave me the most trouble. The 32 bit OS means I’m pushed right to the memory max, but on the other hand compatibility will not be an issue. Frankly I had a bad experience trying to install Windows XP 64 two years ago and it probably impacted my decision. I have no 64 bit apps on the horizon any time soon, so I settled on:

Choice: Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-bit OEM – $99.99

Final Build:

CPU: C2D E7200 $130

MB: GA-EP35-DS2L $90

RAM: Corsair XMS2 4×1 GB $60

HD: WD Caviar 320GB $70

OS: Vista 32-bit OEM $100

PSU: Seasonic S12 II 380W $70

Total: $520

Well, I hope you enjoyed the rundown of the major choices I made for my system. The PSU may have been excessive but I went with a cheap one last time and my system had frequent problems with overheating, so I decided to make an investment on quality (and quiet!) this time around. Obviously that could be brought under $50 to bring us under budget.  As for other components, I bought an external sound interface a few months ago, I have a nice LCD monitor, I’m sticking with my 6600GT for the time being, and my case has nostalgia value. If you have feedback on any of my choices, I’d love to hear it; the parts are in the mail and there’s still time for me to switch

Essential Greeting Cards

Lets just get this out there

Pan’s Labyrinth

What an incredible movie.

Two of the most powerful moments in cinema in the final thirty minutes.

First, the doctor chooses a right death rather than a simple act of service to evil.  Sticks it to the captain and with nothing more to say picks it up and walks away, knowing it would be his final walk.  If you are not thinking of the meaning of life and death by this point in the film, something has passed by…  how can our lives be worth living if it has never been worth dying?  This is the same feeling I got watching “The War”.  Perhaps the best we can do is appreciate those lives given up as we live out the frivolity afforded us.  Perhaps not…

But of course, this is not the message of the film; it is the fairy tale, the real fairy tale that comes to a point as ofelia lies dying.  It is the truest fantasy ever put to film because we know in the end that it exists only in her imagination.  An existence in the mind of a child should be well more than is required for true existence, the way I see it, and that is the brilliance of the film.

V for Vendetta comes on next… a reminder of why some movies get 5 stars on netflix and others only get 4… but still, natalie portman is otherwordly

Its not how it seems

i have enough in me at the moment for a book worth of posts.  I still feel this is important, and I can’t say why I’ve been delinquint.  Obviously, drunk.

 I’m going to try to separate the threads into topics, and hopefully the important ones I’ll save for when I am sober.

Too Easy

“Some one is trying to organize us.

 I told him I was intoxicated, and I might read it when I was sober.”

 I need to start by quoting my roommate, who is always more drunk than I.

 My blood alcohol is at the bare minimum .12 by now.  If there is an intelligence that allows one to fix grammar while drunk, I have decided I have it.

 New topic.  Tonight reinforced:  I have a thing for TCC: Tiny, cute, crazy.  the cute is not just “hot”; it’s a facial thing, an innocence that returns me to a more primordial state than the one in which I normally operate.  Boner.

 Please do not think that I’m writing this of clear mind.

 Tomorrow was a TC, with the final C (crazy) still debatable.  She seems fine to come to this party.

Shit

Wasted.

More later

Sex Dream at Work

I tend to update more often when shit happens in my life.  The one weekend adventure had an unceremonious ending, and not much has happened since then… I went to a party a week and a half ago and made out with yet another cute, tiny, and probably crazy girl, who never called me (my phone was dead so I couldn’t get her number).

 I took a nap through my off period at school the other day in my office, and had an intensely sexual dream.  I share my office with two other math teachers.  In an interesting world, I would wake up to shocked looks from my office mates as I was squirming around and moaning in my sleep.  In this real, boring world, I woke up, realized it was time for class, tucked my boner into my waistband, and headed off to make some copies.

Demonstrates a true lack of moral fiber

I sat at my table at 4:45 this morning, procrastinating by thoroughly reading the box for the new mouse traps we bought, after about a week of watching glue traps ineffectually and suspiciously slide around the kitchen.  “Never have to see or touch the pest!”, the box advertised, boasting a hands-off system where the quarry of your prey is indicated only by the sliding of an arrow from “set” to “trapped”.  “Simply dispose of the trap when triggered,” glossing over the issue of humaneness.  Truly a product for the modern American, I thought.  Who wants to be troubled by the idea of a living creature; worse yet, a cute living creature, struggling helplessly as it suffers the fate of the Gherardescas?

 As irony would dictate, at this moment I was alerted to sqeaking and shuffling noises coming from the next room.  Our once ineffectual glue traps had acheived a feat of synchronized conquest, and here I had two fuzzy little prisoners on my hands.  I considered, neither lengthily nor briefly, how to dispose of them.  Simply chuck the glue traps, prisoner and all, down the garbage chute?  Inhumane… and yet the other options were, though it speaks poorly to my character, less appealing.  In retrospect, a quick death would probably be the correct option.  Catching a pest then rereleasing him into the city to afflict my neighbors seemed counterproductive, but as for killing the thing?

 I would say that “I couldn’t do it” but in the face of my obvious physical capabilities to the contrary, the statement holds me to a unacceptably low standard of free will.  Rather, I wouldn’t do it, and I chose not to do it, and settled for the regrettable choice of bagging the critters up and tossing them, traps and all.  They were pretty cute little buggers too…