Month: January 2006

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Review: Rumor Has It

So, Brooke and I went to see “Rumor Has It” last night… Overall, it was a decent movie, but I’m not really sure if I liked it or not. I mean, it’s kinda hard to classify. It wasn’t a romantic comedy really, since the plot didn’t center on a romantic attraction (it was as much a “romantic comedy” as “The Graduate“…obviously…). It wasn’t a drama, obviously…but it wasn’t really a comedy either, since it didn’t have that many laugh-out-loud moments.

The acting overall was excellent; the casting worked out surprisingly well, especially as in the case of Shirley MacLaine. The story itself was rather intriguing, but I kinda wish I’d seen “The Graduate” a bit more recently…I’d recommend you see it before watching this “sequel.” One key moment toward the end that I didn’t care for was where Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner have there “this-is-the-moral-of-the-story” moment and such…felt like a classic ending of “Full House” where the music plays and you say “ooohhhh…that’s the point of the movie” …

Overall, it was a decent movie, but perhaps not worth spending $8 to see in the theater. It has its amusing moments and the acting was good. The story was relatively enticing. And yet…I dunno…something about it…just could have been a bit better…

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This semester…

So yeah, Christmas Break wasn’t long enough…I had to go to class last week on Wednesday, so I avoided doing anything else for school besides that…something of a boycott, I guess. But anyway, I’m thinking it’s time I get back into the swing of things and start on some school work.

The next semester will encompass a few new aspects of graduate school for me to deal with. First of all, I have to give a 30-45 min. presentation on February 22nd. Considering that I hate public speaking, this kinda freaks me out…at least I have 1.5 months to prepare, I guess. Secondly, I have one more required rotation through a lab before I need to pick one to do my Ph.D. research in. You can do more rotations if need be, but I’ve got to have something picked by next fall. The three rotations I’ve complete thus far haven’t really stood out as places where I’d be particularly happy, so I’m hoping to pick a good one next. Either way, I’ll need to pick one of those in the next few weeks as well. As far as classes go, I’m doing essentially the same stuff this semester as I did last semester, except that I’m taking an ethics course as well…that, and I’m giving a presentation rather than just watching one.

Otherwise, everything is “same old, same old”… Brooke is doing classes entirely at night now, which allows her to substitute teach every day… She’s also still working at Kenrick 8 Theater, so I’m hoping to score more free movies if at all possible…

Anyway, long story short, I’m expecting a semester very much similar to the last one. Quite different from undergrad, when I’d take some different classes, new teachers, etc. But this one will be much the same as the last. Guess I’m not complaining much…but a little variety would be nice… Let’s just hope I can make it ’til Spring Break…

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End-of-the-year Quotes

Here are some good quotes from people who passed away this year, published in TIME Magazine, dated January 2, 2006:

“I wasn’t tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day… No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
— Rosa Parks

“I live in racist America and I’m uneducated, yet a lot of people love me and like what I do, and I can make a living from it. You can’t do much better than that.”
— Richard Pryor

“The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it’s so accidental. It’s so much like life.”
— Arthur Miller

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
— Hunter S. Thompson

“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
— Johnnie Cochran

“The military don’t start wars. Politicians start wars.”
— Gen. William Westmoreland

“I’m not a slave to objectivity, because I’m never quite sure what it means. It means different things to different people.”
— Peter Jennings

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Long week…

So, it’s been a relatively long week. Unfortunately, my grandmother passed away on Dec. 26th in the early morning hours after complications from breaking her hip on Dec. 23rd. While it was unfortunate, it’s best that she wasn’t relegated to a nursing home; it would have taken 6-8 weeks to recover from the hip surgery, and even then, it was likely that a). she would have had to stay in rehab or a nursing home even longer and b). that the other hip joint would have given out within two years. She had a stroke 18 years ago that caused her to spend a lot of time in rehab and she vowed to never do it again. I’m just glad she didn’t have to. It really sucked that it had to happen at Christmas time, let alone that she was to turn 84 on Jan. 3rd. Regardless, it’s likely that she shouldn’t have survived the stroke in the first place; she fought to recover and was able to spend the last 18 years watching her grandkids grow up. And for that, and many other reasons, I’ll never forget her.

Anyway, that ordeal has taken up most of my Christmas break… I start class again on Jan 4th (grrrrrrrrrrrrrr…), so I’m going to spend the next few days being as worthless as possible. We had a few people over last night for a New Year’s shin-dig and I think we all had a good time.

I’ve also been having problems with the web server…I’m trying to get the whole thing fixed up, but I’m afraid it’s a hard drive failure… The system keeps requiring a reboot to fix it and then I have to run the equivalent of a “scandisk” to fix it (“fsck,” for those Linux-users out there). So yeah, I’m trying to fix it, but this site may be up and down from time to time.