Movie reviews, random thoughts, and pie.
Found a theme I really like (finally), but it doesn’t seem to be WordPress 2.2 compatible. For the moment, all widgets are offline. I’m trying to fix this as quickly as possible.
On the subject of widgets, do ya’ll like having the twitter thing along the side along with the daily digest posts, or should I ditch the digests?
I caught the 1:55 showing of Spider-Man 3 with a friend yesterday. I don’t trust myself to write an in-depth review without being entirely too spoilerific, but I figured I could share a few thoughts.
Plot spoilers follow, so read at your own risk.
Overall impression: 3.7 out of 5
How did we get to this point?
Every Spider-Man movie has seemed to have a strong overarching question at its core that the story tries to solve. The first was simple: What would happen if a geeky kid got superpowers? It really just covers the initial stage of learning why such powers must be used responsibly (a difficult lesson in Peter’s case) and the idea of heroic self-sacrifice as crucial.
The second film expands on these ideas and stabilizes them. In the first film Peter accepted that there must be consequences and trade-offs, but in the second he’s taken this to an extreme to the point where everything’s coming apart around him. The idea here is to show how a superhero must strike a healthy compromise between his heroic duties, friends, family, love life, and his own personal needs. It’s no good to be a selfless lonely champion if you burn yourself out. By the end of the movie Peter seems to have learned this lesson well, which leads us into Spider-Man 3, which might as well be called a psychological drama.
When SM3 opens, it’s immediately obvious that Peter has reached a point of balance between his normal and heroic lives that was not present in the first two films. He’s happy and fulfilled and doing quite well in his relationship with Mary Jane. His movements and fighting style are smoother, more intricate, and more complex: he’s learned a lot since the first movie, and he’s finally starting to really resemble the capable hero we comic-book fans are on such good terms with.
Where are we, exactly?
And that’s actually the problem: things are going too well for him. In the continuity of the movies, from the death of his uncle to this point Peter has never really lost a fight. He’s managed to save his aunt and MJ every time they were threatened, and things have generally gone his way.
This has led him to have one trait his comic-book counterpart (who seems to suffer one personal disaster after another) does not. He’s just a bit too proud, and a bit too arrogant and overconfident. He’s a great hero, to be sure, but I think it’s important to remember that true heroes will never give themselves that label. This movie, I think, is concerned with the final bit of Peter’s metamorphosis into a more complete Spider-Man: the realization that he is not always right or infallible, that he will make mistakes and terrible things will happen, and he will have to learn to forgive both himself and those who’ve wronged him, and acknowledge those he himself has wrong. It is, in short, a critical and necessary re-affirmation of his humanity.
Yet, one does not simply wake-up and realize they have lost touch with their human side. For this to happen Peter must be brought very low, and this explains the movie’s dark tone. Events, some his own making and some not, systematically combine to tear his happy life to shreds, and Peter is too out of touch with himself and those around him to recognize the dangers, instead allowing himself to descend into his own darkness. This movie is as much about the fight between Peter and his inner demons as it is about Spidey and his latest rogues, and neither fight is very pretty. The tone is dark as pitch in places, and if you’re anything like me you’ll be sitting there trying to mentally convince our hero not to travel down his current path. Even the moment in which he comes back to the light is painful, as its set in motion by a rather shocking, painful-to-watch event. But he does, and in the end a more stable, humble hero emerges.
Diamonds in the Rough
As usual for Spidey movies, this one is made by the minor characters that help compose Peter’s universe. Parker’s landlord and his daughter stuck out particuarly in my mind. She’s actually one of my top five favorite characters at this point, and she can’t have spoken more than 1000 words in the last three films. JJ Jameson is continuing to be developed as a grey, nicer-than-he-wants-to-admit character, as opposed to the one-dimensional jerk he’s so often presented as in other mediums (especially the Spider-Man animated series). I really like that. Eddie Brock (Venom) is delightfully unsympathetic and smarmy even before he becomes completely evil, and his attempts to compete professionally with Peter provide some very interesting moments. After seeing the movie, I really like the Sandman, who I wasn’t familiar with before I saw the film. I had read some other reviews that painted him as too simplistic and flat, but I don’t think that’s it at all. He is, indeed, a simple man–not the larger than life characters we’re used to after seeing Doc Ock, Harry, and the Green Goblin–with a simple, laudable mission. Given the effect he has on Peter and vice-versa, he’s arguably one of the most important characters in any of the three films. Harry Osborne is believable both as evil incarnate and penitent hero. Without these interesting characters to blunt the impact, watching Peter struggle with his own darkness might have been too overpowering. May Parker was her usual powerful, understated self, and as usual we didn’t see nearly enough of her.
Visuals and Effects
As usual, these were all stunning. Things in Peter’s New York were bright and alive and just seemed to jump off the screen…except for when they needed to be moody and dark. Then they left you feeling like there was a cloud hanging over the theatre. The soundtrack is likewise excellent.
Negatives
The ending is rather abrupt, and leaves the status of Peter and MJ’s relationship somewhat vague. As usual, the writers killed off a character or two that I didn’t think really needed to die. At this point I want a Spider-Man 4 not for the sake of itself, but because I feel there are a few loose ends that really, really need to be tied up. This would be a terrible movie to end the franchise on. Harry Osborne’s character was also sadly underused. I would have liked to have seen more of him, and I’m not at all pleased with his role in the finale. He’s essentially written out of any future sequels at this point, which is a shame when his character obviously had so much potential.
Worth seeing?
If you’re a Spider-Man fan, the answer is a definite yes. The Harry Osborne stuff alone is worth the price of admission, as the path taken with him is quite different from the one in comic book canon. As I said above, it’s a different sort of Spidey movie, so it’ll be a different experience than the first two. The tone is significantly darker, the violence more brutal, and some of the things Peter does while under the influence of the Venom symbiote are more than slightly questionable–there was more than one spot where I cringed–and it’s a bit slower paced. If you’re considering taking a little one to see this film, think carefully about it. The PG-13 rating is well deserved, and it’s closer to R than PG, in my opinion. If you think your child is too young to see violence that leaves physical scars or excessive brutality, or people with serious relationship issues, this probably is not the film for them.
[tags]spider-man, spider man, spiderman, spider-man 3, spiderman 3, spider man 3, review, movie review[/tags]
I was listening to a podcast of Leo Laporte’s KFI program (The Tech Guy), and shared his surprise and shock when he found out about Google Web History, which, if enabled, keeps track of every site you’ve ever visited through a Google search, including the dates and times of the visits. Every. Single. One. Additionally, if you’ve got the Google Web Toolbar installed, every single site you visit, even if you don’t get there through Google, is added to your history.
I can see where this would be a useful feature–if you wanted it. It’s password protected, and you have to sign into Google to use it. However, if you’re the type that leaves themselves signed into Google all the time, and someone else sits down at your computer, they could conceivably see everything you’ve looked at since Web History started tracking you.
Since this service is apparently added to your account (and possibly enabled–Laporte’s account was tracking him, but mine was not) automatically and without your knowledge, this is a potential major breech of privacy. Bad form on Google’s part for not sending out an email to registered users or at least printing some sort of message about it on signed-in users’ iGoogle pages.
If you’re concerned about this, some useful links.
As a sidenote, the Google Accounts help system seems to run on Python, at least partly. Cool.
[tags]google, google web history, privacy, leo laporte[/tags]
Edited 13 March 2008 12:25 CDT: Noticed some strange grammar errors/missing words on my local copy and wanted to make sure they weren’t present on the net.
I’ve been aware of (and disgusted by) this Mary Jane “Comiquette” for about a week, and meaning to post on it, but I kept putting it off. I’m not including the actual image in this post because looking at it for more than 30 seconds makes me cringe and more than a little angry. Aside from that, it’s just not something I want displayed on a site that amounts to my primary presence on the entire Internet.
Fandom seemed to be doing an excellent job of vocalizing our collective outrage. As a warning, some of the links on that page lead to pages written by very pissed-off, if not highly eloquent people, so there might be a spot of profanity. I link to it not because I want ya’ll to read all of it, but because I want you to get an idea of how many people are talking about this across the comics-oriented part of the blogosphere. At first, I didn’t feel I really needed to add to the discussion, as so many eloquent people, some of whom I have the honor to know at least tangentially, had taken up the challenge with wit, intelligence, and well thought out critiques. If you’re not into comics but want to know what all the fuss is about, I’d suggest this short entry from one of the founders of Girl-Wonder, a network of sites dedicated to the positive, empowered depiction of women and girls in the comic industry.
But as the week went on, I thought more about it, and came up with some things about this that bother me that aren’t being mentioned anywhere else (that I’ve seen) or that I’d like to expound on. Then, I turned on MSNBC this morning and saw that the whole thing had finally hit the news–I first saw it at 11:25AM CST, and it’s been repeated several times throughout the day. One of the “experts” they had on, a comic book store owner, basically said the statue was okay because it was a) a very expensive statue aimed at adults and b) corresponded to Mary Jane’s current self-image, as she’s a supermodel/actress. So, apparently, according to this guy, it’s okay so long as children don’t see it, and also, for those of us who didn’t know, Mary Jane’s self-image is not that of a Vogue-class model and Broadway actress, but is somewhere closer to stereotypical hypersexualized trailer trash, which is all you can logically take away from this statue without a certain measure of delusion coming into play. Given the fact that Spider Man and Mary Jane are the Marvel equivilent of Superman and Lois Lane, this is an absolutely terrible excuse.
Needless to say, my anger, which had boiled down to exasperation, was re-ignited, and I’m writing this as a catharsis as much as anything else.
Why This is Important to Me
There are a few reasons why I’m taking the time to write all this. Most immediately, the statue doesn’t represent the character of Mary Jane I’ve come to appreciate as a Spider-Man fan. For that matter, I can’t imagine Peter ever expecting her to dress that way. Secondly, this is symptomatic of the larger sexism and mysogny in the comic book industry. There’s a reason I feel slightly embarrassed about being comic aficionado, and it has nothing to do with the stories and everything to do with the fact that this sort of display is entirely too common and I’d rather not have to deal with people looking at me like I’m reading porn when I happen to be caught with an issue of … anything. This statue just happens to be so egregious in its offense that it managed to make the national news. Still, it provides an opportunity to express dissatisfaction with this sort of behavior, as many of its flaws (e.g.: dumping logic and established characterization for the sake of hypersexualization) are endemic of the industry at large. I’m not sure what the solution is, as money talks and too many people are willing to buy this sort of trash for the content creators to be fiscally motivated to commit to positive change, but I do know that spreading awareness must be part of that solution.
One of the big justifications I frequently see for this sort of hypersexuality is the assertion that comic book women aren’t real, so whatever’s done to them or however they’re dressed doesn’t matter. But the thing is, comic books, movies, and television are pervasive enough that they may influence how (some, especially younger) readers perceive reality and expect it to be. In this context, I do not believe I need to explain why this statue sends an undesirable message. Those that argue it’s for adults not children don’t seem to realize that if a young person were to see this in an adult’s collection–and make no mistake, at 130 bucks this thing is meant to be displayed–they would assume it was an acceptable thing to have around. That’s not a message I think anyone should even potentially be sending. You could argue that the solution is to not let kids see the thing (or anything like it) but if it’s not something you want a child to see because it’s inappropriate, what exactly is it you’re selling if not a sexually exploitive piece?
Let me make a quick inductive comparison. The person on the left there is Doreen Green, otherwise known as Squirrel Girl. She’s one of my favorite (and also sadly underused) teenage superheroes, and happens to be 15 or 16 years old–it’s hard to be exactly sure with comics. Now, with her age in mind, try to picture her in a pose similar the one presented in the Mary Jane statue. You’re likely left with some level of unease and distaste. Why, if according to the manufacturer there’s nothing wrong with this sort of thing? It’s inappropriate because of her age, which can only be the case if it’s an explicitly sexualized pose, even if it’s not necessarily pornography. The Mary Jane statue is therefore not simply aimed at adult consumers in terms of price range, as the manufacturer suggests, but deals with adult subject matter, and should be either acknowledged as such, or preferably not sold at all. It should not be represented as the mainstream view of this character, as this gives a wrong impression not only of the comics but of those of us who read them that find this sort of thing offensive.
That’s pretty much my argument in a nutshell. There are some individual points I want to address for those interested, but I am aware that not everyone will want to read more about this, as what follows will be a closer examination of the incongruities of the statue itself and the coverage it’s received in the news, so I’m placing the rest of this entry under a cut.
[tags]comics, comic books, spider-man, spider man, mary jane, mary jane watson, statue, sexism, misogyny, marvel, msnbc, news media, statuette, Sideshow Collectibles, squirrel girl, censorship[/tags]
Continue reading ‘Sexism in Comics: The Mary Jane Watson Statue’
According to this, WordPress will be a part of the Google Summer of Code this year. Looks like a lot of backend stuff is on the agenda, but I’m especially excited about the idea of threaded comments being included in WordPress’ core. I’d much rather have this feature fully integrated and built in than have to rely on plugins, even though an excellent plugin for threading exists. (I’m still debating whether or not I want to install BTC or wait on this internal threading implementation, which may or may not materialize this summer.
Technorati Tags:
wordpress, google, summer of code
As some of you may know, I am very much interested in patent law and internet/computer law, especially in areas where they intersect. This interest is in fact what led me to decide, approximately two years ago, to apply to law school in the first place. I picked SMU because of it’s strength and reputation in this field.
I am aware, however, that intellectual property (IP) is a vast, nebulous field that covers a lot of different things, and when I tell people I want to do “patent law” or “intellectual property law” I could be talking about approximately 64,001* different things, from entertainment law (book copyrights, movie rights, etc.) to software patents.
I thought it would be interesting, then, to every once and a while do a brief post on some of the cases/issues I’m following and why I think they’re important, and what, as a Computer Science major, Political Science minor, and general geek with (for the time being) no legal training, I think about them.
If you’re interested, I’ve pulled a few things off Slashdot that caught my attention. They’re under the cut.
*This number brought to you by the US Department for Impressive Fake Facts and Figures (US DIFF), Hyperbole Division.
Continue reading ‘A Patented Method for Abusing Patents.’
Graduation is tomorrow. Today I was allowed to attend the staff walkthrough so I could make sure the stage was sufficiently accessible for me. The ramps were good, and having an opportunity to practice should prevent any tunnel-vision related mishaps.
In approximately half an hour I’ll be heading to the President of the university’s reception.
My family is starting to arrive. Two of my aunts and one of my uncles are due today at some point, and my parents are in place. As for tomorrow, a brief itinerary is in order. I’m leaving off some of the events (e.g.: robe pickup and return, robing, etc.). Needless to say, according to the official timeline, things are planned down to the minute.
Peace out. Unless I have time tonight (unlikely) the next time I post to this blog, I’ll be in possession of a BA. Glee.
[tags]graduation[/tags]
Introduction
So, as I mentioned before, I’m doing renovations. One of the features I had wanted to install was the ability to use OpenID to leave comments on entries. OpenID is a system for using a single online ID across multiple services. For instance, everyone who has an AOL Instant Messenger account has an OpenID. The linked FAQ gives more detail, but it’s not exactly concise, so I’ll try to give a short, simple definition. An OpenID identifier is a way of identifying yourself to a website that supports the standard, without having to create a seperate account on that website. For example, every AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! IM, Google, and Microsoft Windows Vista* users all have OpenIDs** (though Google’s support is unofficial at this time). So if one of these users goes to a site that uses OpenID (such as Digg, the he or she can use their OpenID-enabled username and password from AIM or whatever else, and be logged in. Creating an account at Digg is unnecessary.
Why is this cool? I don’t know about you, but I have literally dozens of accounts/memberships on various sites throughout the interwebs. Remembering each user/password combo for each of them is a major pain. I let my browser handle it, and it’s all done automatically, but all this means is that I’ve forgotten what my actual username and password settings are for these sites. If anything ever happened to my Mac OS X Keychain, I’d be, if not necessarily screwed, majorly inconvenienced. However, if all of these sites supported OpenID, I’d just need to remember one password, and that would actually be my password/ID combination across everything. Furthermore, on many sites, full accounts are never actually created for OpenID-based users***. All that matters is that the OpenID is valid and the person using it thus exists and is unique.
* I cannot believe I’m complementing Windows Vista. Surely it’s a symptom of fatigue or budding senility.
** These are not the only sites that have OpenID support. At all. Here’s a gigantic list.
*** Some sites, however, will require the user to record information used to enable certain services. This depends on what exactly the site does. A message board, for instance, will need to know certain things, like display settings and so forth.
OpenID and I
Why am I interested in this? I like the idea of regular readers registering on my blog for comments, so that I can know it’s really them I’m talking to, and not just someone pretending to be them via anonymous posting. At the same time, I recognize that creating another userID/pass combo is at best annoying, and at worst, a total turnoff that will keep them from commenting at all. Hence the option to use an OpenID, which a good number of people will likely have.
Those who criticize the OpenID system are worried it will kill anonymity on the internet, as blog admins might deactivate anonymous posting in an attempt to eliminate spam comments. This is an especially unfortunate mindset, as this approach won’t even necessarily work. I personally will not disable anonymous posting because I recognize it has value–many people do not feel comfortable leaving any sort of personally identifiable information on any website. But I do have to individually approve anonymous comments, and make sure my spam blocker doesn’t kill anonymous comments that are in fact legit. This can be time consuming (and would be for sure if I had more traffic), so I’m all for any system that gives people more options for authenticating themselves. Authenticating saves me time and gets comments visible faster–and eliminates the risk of me accidentally tagging something substantial as spam and deleting it.
So, yeah. The OpenID Wordpress Plugin I installed was buggy and just created a Wordpress userID and pass when an OpenID was entered at login, which sort of defeats the point. Ideally, the system would just note that the person trying to login has a valid OpenID and that would be that. Unfortunately, from what I’ve read this sort of functionality would require redesigning certain bits of the code. There’s an ongoing effort to get this implemented. I’ll be watching the voting closely.
[tags]OpenID, AIM, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Digg, Google, Wordpress, blogs[/tags]
Anyone watching this blog* has undoubtedly noticed there’s a lot of changes happening. I’m trying to get things into a more featureful, interesting state. It’d be a lot easier if I had any visual design talent (at all), but since I don’t, I’m relying on templates others have created. Perhaps someday, when I’m rich and powerful, I’ll hire a graphics designer to create the picture I have in my head.
In the meantime, I’m trying to do my best to enhance the experience with some fun plugins. I’ve installed a few and will be adding more over the coming week (it’s giving me something to do with all the nervous energy that’s accumulating pre-graduation).
Anyhow, on to the new features.
For those of you who either haven’t heard of it, or, like me until about two days ago, heard of it but had no idea whatsoever what it was (besides being really trendy), Twitter is perhaps best described as a miniblog. Each post is restricted to 140 characters. From the site, “[Twitter is a] global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: ‘What are you doing?’” Updates can be placed on the website, over IM, or over the phone. I’m not the type that feels the need to post everytime I do something so mundane as eating a sandwich–unless, of course, it’s a really fantastic sandwich–but I often find myself doing something I’d like to make a short note of, either because I want to share it with all of ya’ll or because I want to expand upon it in a longer post later when I have more time. In my opinion, this is a perfect use for Twitter, especially when integrated with a larger blog.
Also, every day at midnight a post with the day’s tweets is generated. For those who remember my promise to post once a week at least, don’t worry–these automated posts do not count towards my quota, especially when they contain such sage comments as “I drank The Purples.”
There are many social bookmarking sites on the web. The One Wiki article explains it more thoroughly, but basically these services allow a user to create a list of bookmarks visible to their friends and or the Web at large. Also popular are social news sites: news sites in which the content is submitted by the users. Digg is perhaps the best known of these. The Share This plugin allows anyone to easily submit the post/page they’re viewing to these services.
I post lots of links here. The Link Harvest plug-in records all of these and puts them on one page for easy access. I’m still having some issues with it. Namely, it doesn’t seem to like Wikipedia very much. Aside from that, it seems to work well.
I’ve got some other goodies planned for installation, but I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it.
* Does anyone watch this blog? Sometimes I wonder. If you’re watching, comment and let me know. 
(And for those bots and jerks that keep trying to post Viagra adds to my comment sections, you’re more than welcome to stay quiet. I know you’re there.)
[tags]wordpress, wordpress plugins, wordpress themes, Share This, Twitter Tools, Link Harvest, Alex King[/tags]
The next step in the law school process is to fill out a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). I did the worksheet for this last night, using Apple Safari. So I just went to actually do the thing, again using Safari, and was told I was using, and I quote, “a non-certified browser.”
Now, I keep Flock (a Firefox deriviative) around for just this sort of thing, but it still grates on me when I’m told the default browser that ships with every Macintosh on the planet, and which most novice users will have neither the knowledge nor inclination to want to change, is insufficient. Especially given that most of the time, these sorts of messages are generated by javascript that is checking not for functionality, but rather a specific user-agent string in the HTTP headers (the string your browser uses to identify itself to the world).
Note that Safari is based on Apple’s WebKit rendering engine, which itself is based on KHTML, the HTML rendering engine built into the Konqueror web browswer included with KDE, the Linux desktop environment. I wonder how many Linux/Unix users are unable to access this form with their standard setup. (Thankfully, Firefox is also bundled with virtually every Linux distribution.)
It also shows bad design in general on the part of the web designers. I was able to do the worksheet and fill out the form to get my Department of Education PIN, with Safari, but not do the application. This is a rather silly inconsistency. I wonder how many calls the FAFSA support hotlines get from people confused about this.
I’ll be starting up Flock now, which like any Firefox related application is dog-slow and somewhat unstable on my (admittedly aging) system, and going to work on this application. Bad Department of Education. Bad. No cookie.
Rant over. I think I’d like some cheese now.
[tags]fafsa, interoperability, safari, mac, firefox, khtml, flock[/tags]
As of 8:30 AM this morning, my grades are in for this semester. Academically, at least, it’s officially over. I’m quite happy.
Guerilla Movements in Latin America: A
Senior Seminar in Software Engineering: A
Independent Study (Genetic Programming): A
Communication and Memory: A
Computational Graph Theory: A
Semester GPA: 4.00
Cumulative Total GPA: 3.846 (Magna cum Laude range, for those curious.)
As soon as possible, I have to send an official transcript to SMU that shows proof that I’ve graduated. I’m not sure when that appears on the transcript (right now it just might show that all my grades were in but that no diploma’s been awarded), so I’m going to call the registrar in a few minutes and check on that.
Excitement!
Edit (9 May 2007, 1:10 PM US Central Time): Just turned in a request to the registrar to have my transcript sent out as soon as degree notation has been added.
Law School
It should be taken as an indicator of how hectic it’s been here that it’s taken me a full nine days to post about this after finding out, but I’ve been accepted into SMU Law.
I cannot put into words how excited I am about this. WHen I heard I literally laughed like a crazy person, and my chest was hurting at the end. My mother told me I was going to be the only person who had a heart attack when they found out they got into law school. -_-
What follows is a transcription of how I found out, as I want to be sure and get it down before I forget. It was, as things usually are with me, sort of strange. My application was received February 15. They sent me an email notifying me of this and telling me that my decision would be mailed out no later than April 30, and that they would not give out decision information over the phone or email. I quote: ” SMU policy does not allow decisions to be given out over the telephone or e-mail.” Reading this, I quite naturally believed it, and resolved to wait.
And wait. And wait.
By 26 April, I still hadn’t heard anything, and I was starting to get nervous. Now, I knew that when a law school decides to reject you, they let you know immediately. So the more time that went by, the better I felt I was doing. At the same time, I never expected to have to wait so long to find out, so part of me was seriously wondering if something had gone wrong. Had they lost my application? Mailed my results somewhere else?
So on the 26th (a thursday), I decided to call SMU Admissions. From what the e-mail said, I wasn’t expecting to be told my results, but I wanted to make sure everything was okay–that a gerbil hadn’t escaped from the biology labs, scuttled across campus and devoured my application, or something. It could happen.
Anyhow, the woman who answered the phone was not my admissions councillor, but I explained that while I knew they couldn’t give out information over the phone,I was nervous, having not heard anything, and wanted to make sure all was well. She pauses for a moment, and asks me if I’m in Austin. Well, I’m not, but I’m only 30 minutes away, and I tell her so. She then reads off a Social Security Number, asking if it is mine, and when I respond in the affirmative, she says “you’re on our list of people to call today.” So I immediately think to myself, “they don’t call people to decline admission,” and sure enough the next thing she’s telling me is that I’ve been admitted. She congratulated me and and said a few other things, and I got off the phone and cackled like an insane person. Literally. It was Joker-quality laughter. I immediately called my parents, both of whom screamed with joy in much the same way.
I must admit, I can’t really remember much of what was said in that first phone call after she told me I was accepted. It’s all sort of jumbled up in a fog of glee. So much so I was actually starting to wonder if I’d hallucinated the whole thing, as I literally couldn’t remember half the conversation. After about 40 minutes of this, my admissions councillor called for the aforementioned official notification, which I was on the call-list for. Needless to say, this wasn’t nearly as shocking a conversation, and I remember it clearly. She told me my “admit pack” would arrive by Tuesday at the latest.
Well, Tuesday rolled around, and no package. I was anxious, of course, as it’s one thing to hear it over the phone and another to see the full admission materials. It didn’t help that I knew I had to get a deposit in by the 7th, but had no idea where to send it. The University post-office can be slow sometimes, as it’s less a real post office and more like a gigantic office mailroom, so I was willing to wait till Thursday. When it hadn’t arrived by Thursday, I called my admissions councillor back, and she checked their computers. Turns out somehow my zip code had gotten input wrong, and the package was sent to Austin somewhere. (For once, this wasn’t my fault. I went back and checked my application, and I put the address in correctly, despite Adobe Acrobat’s attempts to thwart me, on behalf of the universe.) She reissued me another package, with the right address. It’ll be here Monday or Tuesday. She also pointed me to the web address for doing deposits online, so all is well.
The End of The End of the Beginning (No, That’s Not a Typo.)
Ah. The final twilight of senior year. Well, everything but Capstone is done, and that’ll come to a close on Monday. I’ve got one last independent study meeting, but it’s after grades are turned in, so it’s more an informal wrap-up than anything else. I had made a list to illustrate how busy I was over the last seven days, and I was going to post it here for your amusement, but in my glee of finishing things, I threw it away after checking off the last item. I will say that I was lucky enough to be exempted from what would have been my only written final exam. It was a take home, which would have helped, but it was also due yesterday, and as of Thursday I’d not had time to work on it very much, aside from doing some rudimentary planning, so this worked out great. I look back at the last several days and sort of boggle at the amount of stuff I managed to do.
Except for three events, only one of which will effect a grade, next week will be devoted primarily to social engagements and chilling out before the big event. Glee. I … I really don’t think it’s hit me that it’s ending yet. For four years, this has been my home for most of the year. All my closest friends are here, and either I’m about to leave them if they’re staying behind, or like me they’re graduating and scattering on the winds. I’m going to do my best to stay in touch with them, but–I’m not really sure I have words to describe it. Everything’s changing, and it’s wonderful and exciting and a little sad at the same time. Now, I’m going to stop talking about this before I start feeling truly old.
Other Things
Had an infusion on Friday. The last one I’ll have at the Austin clinic. Already feeling better.
Spider-Man 3’s out. Looks to be awesome. I won’t be seeing it for at least another week, as I want to let the crowds die down a bit.
WordPress Threaded Comments.
So, I just realized threaded comments are not built-in to WordPress. Since I use a lot of forums and community sites (LJ, MySpace, etc.) I’m very used to having threads, and would like to enable them. A little Googling revealed Brian’s Threaded Comments, which looks to do exactly what I want, and do it quite well. Unfortunately, From what I’m reading it doesn’t look like it supports the K2 Theme System yet, which I’m using. I’ll be keeping my eye on it.
As a sidenote, this post marks the first time I’ve used a trackback. I’m penetrating the blogosphere!
Go to: Brian’s Threaded Comments.
[tags]wordpress, brian’s threaded comments, k2 theme[/tags]
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