Loss of Innocence: Porn a Top Search Term for 7 and Under Kids

So personally I find this terrifying.  While most of these results do make sense, and kids definitely have a right to wonder about sex and such, kids this young shouldn't be searching for porn.  See the results below:

While most of the results make sense, and it's perfectly legit for sex to be on that list, it is quite scary that porn is the number 4 search term for seven and under.

Kara's Cupcakes: Not As Good As They Claim

So I went over to the city (SF) with my friend Shannon on Sunday to get cupcakes from That Takes the Cake with the coupons we got from TownHog last week.  Unfortunately, That Takes the Cake is technologically challenged and did not post that they were taking a holiday break on their website or on their answering machine.  So I found myself stranded in the city with Shannon and a cupcake craving.

So I pulled out my standard solution for when I'm craving sweets in San Francisco: get an Espresso Escape Sunday from Ghirardelli Square.  So we drove over and found prime parking just off the corner.  We thought we had it all good, until we got to the restaurant and saw an enormous line: clearly someone wanted to keep us form enjoying our sweets.

We got back in the car, and Shannon suggested we try somewhere else, so we looked up Kara's Cupcakes: the number one cupcake bakery in San Francisco.  I figure if it's number one it must be really good.  Turns out they had a location in Ghirardelli square.  Clearly the stars were aligned.

We got out of the car, walked over and walked into the bakery.  It smelled so good.  I looked at all the options.  Unfortunately they didn't have a Red Velvet cupcake (which I was really craving).  However they had a Java cupcake: a chocolate cupcake with coffee flavored buttercream frosting.  I figured I love coffee flavors, this is the coffee cupcake, must be good.

Boy was a disappointed.  While the cupcake itself was pretty moist and tasty, it really wasn't all that special.  It tasted like the standard Ghirardelli cupcake/cake mix.  Nothing ultra special.  The frosting on the other hand was terrible.  When I get something coffee flavored, I want it to be coffee FLAVORED. This frosting was more like the "essence of coffee" or buttercream with a "hint of coffee flavor."  It was goddamn awful.  Well it didn't taste bad, it just wasn't really good.  I personally think my coffee frosting made with instant coffee, butter, and Kahlua is significantly better.

The chocolate covered coffee bean is a nice touch.  Unfortunately, the ones from Trader Joe's are much better.

Overall, I didn't think the cupcake from Kara's Cupcakes wasn't worth worth the $3.25 I spent on it.  In fact, I would never buy another one of these cupcakes because they're not that good.  I really don't see why anyone would buy a cupcake from Kara's.  I think it's more of of a tourist attraction; there must be much better cupcakes out there.

Hopefully the cupcakes from That Takes the Cake will be significantly better.  They definitely look amazing!

A Shitty Twist ... Make That Just Slow

A really long time ago (like multiple years), I remember reading in Datebook (the entertainment section of the SF Chronicle), this was during the phase between the Datebook being the pink section both times.  Anyways, back to business.  So one Saturday (or Sunday or whatever morning), and I was reading reviews of upcoming movies, or recently released movies, or new to DVD movies or something, and this one review caught my eye.

So anyways, the film is called Twist, it's a modern day version of Oliver Twist set in Toronto with gay hustlers.  It seemed like it could be some fun to watch since the leads: Nick Stahl (Dodge) and Joshua Close (Oliver) are both extremely attractive.  Sadly this was not the case.  Maybe it's just that I didn't click to well with the characters, though I felt like I did, but I honestly didn't think the movie was that great at all.  I felt like it was merely okay and that just doesn't cut it for me.

If you have any plans to watch this film, I recommend against it.  It had great potential, just didn't meet my expectations and hopes.

I change my mind, I liked it a bunch, it was just a tad too slow for my taste.

Lip Dub Competitions: Who Said Lip Dubbing Was Done and Over?

So we all remember those Lip Dub videos that were big a few years back. If you don't, you should cuz they were actually pretty cool. The fad came and the fad went and we saw some pretty good videos.  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, people would generally make a music video of lip-syncing. The catch was a pretty big one: the entire video had to be one shot with no cutting in the middle.

Overall we saw some pretty cool videos come out of this.  However lately the fad has come back, as a competition.  Check out the following two videos and read what I have to say about it afterwards.

Shorecrest High  with Outkast's, "Hey Ya."



Rival school Shorewood High responds with "You Make My Dreams."


Personally I think both videos are pretty damn awesome.  Designing any video this long with choreography that goes through a school and has people lip-syncing is difficult in itself.  Shorewood however definitely wins the prize: teaching everyone how to lip-sync backwards is just OUTRAGEOUS.  Whoever taught them how to dub backwards has talent, that must be really tough.

I wonder what will happen in a few years.

Love and Other Disasters: Quite Fun

So a while back I was looking for a fun movie on Netflix's Watch Instantly, and I found the aforementioned movie: Love and Other Disasters. It was honestly much better than I expected. Staring Brittany Murphy and Matthew Rhys as Emily 'Jacks' Jackson and Peter Simons. Peter's a writer, trying to make his big break. Emily works in fashion, and is still sleeping around with her x-boyfriend James plaid by Elliot Cowan. At work one day she meets Paolo played by Santiago Cabrera, who she mistakenly believes is a gay photographer (he's actually straight).

She decides to set him up with her best friend Peter. She doesn't realize Paolo actually has a thing for her. This movie is surprisingly entertaining, taking place in England (think lots of hot British accents). This movie packs some nice quirky humor, a fun plot, and some very surprising writing. I enjoyed the hour and a half I spent watching it, and I think you will too.

Why Can't Growl Actually Work?

So there's this great application for the Mac called Growl.  In my opinion this is a must have for all mac users.  It adds great functionality to nearly all applications either through built-in support or through outside plugins and applications.  Growl itself mimics the built in feature of outlook to pop a notification (on the right I believe) when an email is received through Microsoft Exchange email.  The difference is that this service works for EVERYTHING you can think of.

Pretty much every application out there has a plugin of some sort to function with growl.  For fb it can tell you when someone writes on your wall or sends you a message or whatever, for gmail it tells you when you receive an email.  With iChat or Adium, when someone IM's you and when someone signs online.  There's a plugin for iTunes to display a popup with the song info when you're playing a new song.

Essentially Growl is really handy for notifications.  However, unfortunately, it isn't perfect.  Growl freezes constantly for me (sometimes every hour, and when this happens it hogs my computer's CPU).  This is a major problem.

While I do love Growl, I wish it worked better so that I could actually rely on it successfully.

The Final Destination: Same Old Fun

In the fourth (and seemingly final) installment of the Final Destination franchise, The Final Destination, we have another set of teens and adults who evade death and slowly die afterwards as fate kicks in.  I personally felt like this film was significantly better than the second and third, but not as good as the first film.

Beware of spoiler alerts: they are prevalent in this post (for all 4 films).

The first film had very good actors, and a surprisingly good plot-line.  The second film had an interesting twist: death was finishing up its work.  In the second film, everyone had missed an incident in which they were destined to be killed (such as staying in a hotel where everyone died) because of someone being killed by fate in the first film (in this case the girl being run over by the bus).  Everyone started dying backwards, and it was essentially fate finishing up all of its lose ends.

All films do sport very realistic catastrophes: the pride on our biggest fears, and that's why they work so well.  In the first film: a plane crash; there's plenty of these every year.  In the second, film we have a crazy car pile up, and in the third, a roller coaster derails.  Of all the catastrophes, I think the one in this movie with the most "over-the-top" catastrophe: a nascar crash that kills most of the audience.

The biggest difference is that it seems as though the protagonist may die while saving some of the other characters.  And he has a flash-forward in the middle of the movie.  Other than that, it seems as though this film follows a regular, fun, crazy and bloody routine.

Yummy Yummy Cupcakes (from TownHog)

So I recently found this awesome new company: TownHog, a new startup over in SF (that's San Francisco for those of you not from the Bay Area).  It's a pretty cool company with an awesome concept so I figured I would write about it for anyone from the Bay Area.  All you gotta do is sign up for emails at TownHog.com.

A couple times a week you'll get an email with some great deal.  The savings are guaranteed to be at least 50% off!  Anyways, this weekend's deal is awesome, so I wanted to share it with all of you.  You can get $18 worth of Cupcakes from That Takes the Cake in San Francisco for only $9.  While I haven't actually tried the cupcakes, I've heard great things about them from coworkers back at one of my old jobs (Jeff Malmuth and Company), and I strongly recommend you take part in this deal if you like sweets.

To take advantage of this deal (or this week's deal if it has changed), click here.

Enjoy the cupcakes, I know I will!

Brittany Murphy Dead ?!?!?!

Holy shit!  Reports came in this morning that Brittany Murphy, age 32, known for her amazing performance in Clueless, and Don't Say a Word died of cardiac arrest this morning.

911 received a call at 8am PST from the home she shared with her husband, Simon Monjack in LA.  She was pronounced dead upon arrival when she arrived at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

The story is still progressing; more information will be posted as it is known.

She will be missed.

Caffeine: Your Mac Needs Some Too

So pretty much all of us watch TV and movies on our computer or make presentations in front of large groups using a projector.  It's happened to all of us: your computer goes to sleep at precisely the wrong moment and screws everything up.

That's why you use caffeine.  It's a small application that essentially consists of a cup of coffee on the menu bar.  You click it, and your computer won't go to sleep.  Click it again and you turn it off.

The application even has a couple cool ways to customize how your computer goes to sleep so that it's perfect.

With caffeine, you'll never have your computer go to sleep at the wrong time.

He Wolf: A Perfect Rendition

So I guess Tim wins again for providing one of the coolest videos I've seen this week.  Check out this video made to She Wolf.  It's pretty much identical which is pretty damn awesome.

No further comment is really necessary.  Enjoy though.

Lady Gaga's Christmas Mix

So my friend Tim sent me this video.  I think it's hilarious, and decided to share it onward.  Watch the whole thing for the funny Taylor Swift part.
No further comment is really necessary.  Enjoy!

2012: Better Than Expected

So I decided last night to watch 2012.  I had seen a bunch of previews for it, and although none of my friends had wanted to see it, it still seemed like a lot of fun, and I decided it would be a blast to watch.

So I searched for it online and finally found it here (in case you want to watch it).  Keep in mind I don't guarantee how long the movie will be available on that site.  Anyways, I really liked that movie.

While it was obviously just a crazy mega (151-minute) action film, it was a fun one and I enjoyed watching it.  There are some fairly impressive special effects, even when I'm watching it in a 5 inch square on my computer.  The plot itself is surprising.  While obviously some things were expected and did make sense and were implied in the trailer, I did not expect there to be as much colossal damage (even after movies such as Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow).

The actors were also surprisingly good.  I particularly liked the Russian family.  I won't say much more because I would start ruining the movie and throwing out spoiler alerts if I did.  But if you have 2.5 hours or so one afternoon, watch 2012.

Glee: My Latest Distraction

So I guess I lied a little.  I know I promised that I would be ultra active over winter break on my blog.  Then I posted an announcement, then a short post about a concert with a promise I would post pictures.  I then was totally lame and skipped a day.  So I guess now I'm apologizing and writing a more real post.

I did have a great excuse for why I was absent.  I got hooked on Glee.  I really don't know why, since I can't explain what I like about the show very well.  The plot itself isn't that amazing.  (Spoiler alert for the rest of the post)  It centers around a group of teenagers, some popular some losers, who are all part of a Glee club.  Like all teen comedy/dramas, everyone has crushes on everyone and has slept with someone else.  There's the token everything, and the show is extremely stereotypical.

There's a pregnant cheerleader who lies about the father.  But the drama isn't only in the students.  The guidance councilor is in love with the spanish teacher.  The football coach on the other hand is in love with the guidance councilor.  The principal suffers from the budget cut flu and is over-obsessed with saving money in any way possible.  His loyalties mistakenly lie with the Cheereos coach, Sue Sylvester.

Jane Lynch is simply brilliant in the show.  She is a vindictive crazy-woman who is hell bent on making sure the school's Glee club falls apart and things go back to how they once were.  Personally, I think  she's beyond hilarious, and I think the show would not be nearly as good without her or her character.

I strongly recommend everyone check this show out.  I caught up in one day, and I absolutely loved it.

Lady Gaga Concert Tonight!

So I figured I should proclaim my excitement for the Lady Gaga concert tonight.

I'll post as many pictures and videos and such (if I can actually take any) tomorrow or tuesday.

Until then, I leave you with the following two songs: a crazy Gaga Remix and a Trevor Simpson mix of Just Dance:

What's Your Mac Missing?

So after a bunch of people have asked me what apps they should get for their (usually new) macs and such, I decided I should probably start actually recording this information rather than just tell everyone verbally.  That way I don't have to keep telling everyone the same information and I can avoid forgetting awesome apps.

Therefore I'm gonna be starting a new line of posts with the label "Mac Must Have" signifying it's an awesome app you should probably set up for your application.  I'll also comment Mac related informational posts with this tag when relevant (such as a post on how to get your google voice number ringing on your mac).

So here's the important aspect:
Click here to see all posts on this topic.

Coming up: Caffeine.

A New Home!

So I realized that I never formally introduced our new blog.  Life of the Mind = Death of the Soul has a brand new home!  It is most unsurprisingly http://www.lifeofthemindequalsdeathofthesoul.com/.  You should all check it out and spread the word.  Since I'm now on winter break, I plan on blogging significantly more often.  Hopefully Sylvia will too.

I still wanna make a nice logo for the blog.  Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

P.S.  I'm home!

Teacher Put a Hit On a Gay Student

If you want to just read the article, you're welcome to do so right here.

So a teacher in the state of Georgia attempted to put a hit on one of his students.  Apparently the teacher passed a picture of the 16-year old in question to another student and indicated he would pay to have the boy killed.

This followed a large argument the day before in which the teacher, Forde took the student out of class and questioned the boy's sexuality.  On the day of the incident, he threatened to "hit [the boy] in his fucking mouth" when they got in an argument in class.

Personally I think this is disturbing and disgusting.  While I understand that everyone has their opinions, it's one thing not to accept a person's homosexuality, and it's another thing to try to kill them for it.  A person who is this against homosexuality has no right to work in an environment where youth are exploring their sexuality since it is extremely harmful.

I would be extremely disappointed if this teacher did not lose their teaching license for good.

Awareness Test

Read the instructions in the video (follow them), and watch it.  Then scroll below and read my response.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

So my analysis is the following: if you actually read the directions (and followed them) you didn't notice the moonwalking.  If you just watched the video without following the directions, then you saw the bear immediately.

Overall, I think this is a pretty good ad.

What do you think?

Looks Like Disney's Getting a Facelift!

So I wanted to apologize for being MIA for a couple weeks.  The quarter caught up to me (as it is still doing and I've been really busy).  I'll do my best to post at least one post a week for my faithful readers (Tal, Jessica, Jesika (sorry for spelling it wrong initially), etc.). Hope you like this post and I'm writing one for tomorrow already.

So I was reading in a MacRumors article that Steve Jobs and the Apple Store Team are helping Disney recreate their Disney stores.  They plan on doing an "Imagination Park" idea.  While Steve Jobs did not explicitly come up with the Imagination Park idea, he rightfully pushed that Disney needs to totally recreate (a remodel just wouldn't be enough) their stores.

For those of you who are wondering what Steve Jobs is doing giving Disney advice, here's the long story short.  Way back in the dawn of time (aka the '80's) Steve Jobs created Apple with Steve Wozniak.  After a long time with Apple, he was kicked out.  He went on to start Pixar.  In the mid-90's, he was rehired by Apple, but remained CEO (I think?) of Pixar.  Sometime in the late 2000's, Disney bought Pixar, and Steve Jobs became the largest shareholder of Disney stocks, and a member of Disney's Board.

Anyways back on topic ...

The Disney stores have always been over-priced, and very commercial-esque.  They were one of those things that were always the same everywhere.  Unfortunately, that always the same bit has left them feeling old and out-dated, not hip and baller like the Apple Stores are.  Also, since everything is so expensive, and the economy has gone to the shitter, they're probably barely making any money at the Disney stores (this might explain why the one in SF is closed.  Can't remember if Chicago's is still open or not).  Anywhose, I'm liking the idea of modernizing and technologifying the new Disney Stores.

Disney has had some great hit's in the past.  With Apple and Steve Jobs's help, I'm hoping they can actually create legitimately succesful and fun stores.  Keep in mind that I probably will not be buying anything there for a very long time as I am out of my Disney prime, and (thankfully) I am currently child-less.

Some details of what they're planning include the following:
- mobile checkout
- karaoke contests
- chatting with disney stars via satelite
- magic mirrors where Cinderella talks to you
- 13 foot Lucite trees that light with fireworks
- They'll even have a scent aspect:  associating smells with audio (they gave the example if a Christmas Carol is playing, the store might smell like a christmas tree ... I find this VERY creepy).

Anyways, you can read more on this NY Times article.

It's Scary How Easy It Is To Surpass Security

So I read this article a few days ago, and it honestly terrified me.  Like no, I don't have trouble sleeping at night, and I honestly feel like I'm much safer than they am (and not as big of a target).  Plus I sort of luck out since I inherently meet the one suggestion the article provides: USE A MAC!

So anyways, if you wanna read the article and see how easily people were cheated, and how freaking smart the the frauders (is that even a word) are, I strongly recommend it.

I definitely enjoyed this read, and I hope you do too.

The GREATEST Facebook Quiz EVER!!!!

So I was killing time with Sylvia yesterday.  And by killing time I obviously mean procrastinating and ignoring homework.  We turned to one of our favorite activities: taking really stupid Facebook quizzes (I had no idea this the plural form of quiz had a double z in it).  Anyways, one of them in particular stood out.


Not only was the topic amazing (What crime would you commit?), but the questions and possible answers are heavenly.  My particular favorite were definitely the "Pretend you are in a grocery store, the lights go out, what do you do?" question and the "What woukld you do if you found a smashed man made of rice crispies?"  Yes, would was actually spelled woukld on the actual quiz, I am capable of using cut-and-paste tools.


Anyways, the questions and answers are simply BRILLIANT, and I wanted to share it with you.  Btw, I got Murder as my answer.  Guess I'm a real killer ...

Why Did Wall Street Fall?

SMART PEOPLE!  

That's what some guy in a bar in the middle of the midwest said.  Sadly enough, his reasoning is really really good.  You should probably read the actual NY Times article here before you continue (I was smart and set up a custom link that will work after the NY Times shuts down the online free reading).  Any-who's, on to business...

So just like the guy who wrote the article and Daring Fireball, I really can't find any obvious flaws in this guy's reasoning.  Hopefully you will be able to help me out and find an error in his argument.

Enjoy the read.

Microsoft (Didn't) REALLY Fuck Up: Turns Out The Data Isn't Lost!

Update: Microsoft didn't lose the data.

I recently posted about Microsoft losing all the user data for Danger's Sidekicks.  It turns out the data was recovered.  This is an update, and you can read the original here.


Microsoft just announced that the data in fact is not lost (they were able to recover most to all of the information).  After testing the accuracy of the data and creating a restoration timeline, Microsoft will restore the data to the Sidekicks starting with users' contacts.

Apparently there was a system failure that caused data loss of the core data and the backup (which honestly totally blows).

Either way, it's good they were able to recover.

LADY GAGA GOES ON TOUR !!!!

So for those of you who are like totally behind on times (aka don't already know about the announcement made today [Oct. 15, 2009]), Lady Gaga is going on tour (without Kanye).

A little while back (I think last week), Lady Gaga announced that she was releasing a new CD titled "The Fame Monster" which is a repackaging of her current CD "The Fame" plus 8 new awesome tracks (I haven't heard them, but I'm assuming their awesome).

Today she announced a brand new tour: "The Monster Ball".  She did however hint on her twitter about the tour in November the day the "Fame Kills" concert was cancelled.  I'm really excited for this tour, and hopefully I'll get to see her in SF and in Chicago.  I've cut and pasted the dates below for your convenience (I've bolded and highlighted the ones I want to be at), and I'll post more info when I get it!!!

November 27 – Montreal, Quebec, Canada – The Bell Center
November 28 – Toronto, Ontario, Canada – Air Canada Center
November 29 – Ottawa, Ontario, Canada – Scotiabank Place
December 01 – Boston, MA – Wang Center
December 02 – Boston, MA – Wang Center
December 03 – Camden, NJ – Susquehanna
December 09 – Vancouver, BC, Canada – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
December 10 – Vancouver, BC, Canada – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
December 13 – San Francisco, CA – Bill Graham Civic
December 18 – Las Vegas, NV – TBD
December 19 – San Diego, CA – San Diego Sports Arena
December 21 – Los Angeles, CA – Nokia Theatre
December 29 – Atlanta, GA – Fox Theater
December 31 – Miami, FL – Knight Center
January 03 – Orlando, FL – The Hard Rock
January 07 – St. Louis, MO – The Fox
January 08 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theatre
January 09 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theatre
January 12 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theater
January 16 – Atlantic City, NJ – Borgata
January 20 – New York, NY – Radio City Music Hall
January 21 – New York, NY – Radio City Music Hall

Radio App for iPhone?

So there's quite a few rumors that Apple is creating an in-house Radio Application for the iPhone.  I'm really hoping this is true.  However, I am more excited about a little side-note mentioned in 9-to-5's article: the ability to broadcast radio from the iPhone in the 3GS.

Currently, whenever I want to listen to music in my car, I always need to connect my iPod to a radio adapter plugged into my lighter jack and tune in through my car's FM radio (sadly I do not have an iPod adapter).  The big problem with this is if I need to use GPS.  My two options are:
      A) Use GPS and listen to the radio.
      B) Listen to my iPod and use the build-in GPS and endanger myself.

Obviously neither of these are ideal solutions, and the ability to broadcast an FM signal from the iPhone would definitely solve this problem.

Sadly, I do not have any belief that this will ever become a reality for the iPhone.  It's not that I think it's impossible, or too difficult, I just think it's beyond the scope of the iPhone.  I believe until Apple finds a more specific and more important use case for broadcasting an FM signal from your iPhone than to simply play your iPhone's music or talking on the car radio/stereo, they will not fully develop this feature.

Maybe Steve Jobs does have a trick up his sleeve that I can't think of ... but honestly, I sadly don't think radio broadcasting will be a feature on the iPhone.

A Radio Tuner on the other hand ... that will definitely become a reality.  Most of you probably don't remember, but back around the time of the iPod Color (I believe) Apple improved their wired remote and built a Radio Tuner and Screen into the remote.  Even back then Apple understood that the iPod did not replace the Radio (though now that Energy 92.7 has been shut down, I see no need for radio in the Bay Area).

Apple will surprise us soon with some tricks up its sleeve.

Also, if you want to read the original article, click here.

Microsoft REALLY Fucks Up: Looks Like SideKick May Be Gone For Good

So there are some things out there that are simply unacceptable.  This is one of them.


In today's day and age, data lossage is catastrophic.  All corporations duplicate or triplicate their backups to avoid possible data lossage because it is both important, and it's loss could be the end of the corporation's existence.


Microsoft clearly believed they could beat Murphy's law.  Clearly they couldn't.


If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Microsoft recently lost a large amount of data: the personal information stored on people's Sidekicks: aka their contacts, photos, calendars, etc.


Stuff like this cannot happen.  This is as though one day Google appologized that they lost 20% of users' emails and contacts.  THIS CANNOT HAPPEN.  Companies triplicate their backups of all data for this very reason, often keeping a copy or two off site (or out of state/country even) to avoid major catastrophe's.


Word on the street is that something went wrong during an upgrade, and now all the data is gone.


Sidekick is already falling apart as users are now switching to other devices/companies.  I doubt sidekick will ever succeed again after this failure.


If you have a sidekick and just lost your data from this, my sincerest apologies.

Update: Microsoft didn't lose the data.  For more information, click here.

Skins: My biggest distraction ...

Hey.  I just realized I never hit post on this.  It's from back around September 19th-ish time.  Hope you like it.

So I took a weekish break from constant posting, and I figured I should explain why.  So on Netflix I was recommended to watch Skins, a British TV show that looked pretty interesting, so I figured I would try it out.  I rented the first disk of season 1 and really liked it.  As soon as I finished the first disk, I checked around if the local Video rental stores had the second DVD.  Sadly none of the close ones did.

I turned to my alternate source: SideReel.  I quickly found out that shows were significantly better online because most of the awesome music was cut from the DVD due to high licensing costs.  If you wanna check out the awesome music from the show and trailers and such click here.  It was interesting because the show starred a bunch of relatively unknown actors.

Nicholas Hoult plays Tony, a cute guy who's a bit cocky but lovable, sort of the glue in the group.  He's dating Michelle, played by April Pearson.  She's kind of a crazy partier who has the looks and self esteem to do anything she wishes.  Tony's best friend, Sid (played by Mike Bailey) is the odd-ball.  He hasn't really done anything with girls, doesn't have anything near Tony's looks, and is hopelessly in love with Michelle.  Effy (Kaya Scodelario) is Tony's younger sister.  She's less a part of the group, but leads her own crazy life and bridges the first and second generations of the show (more on that later).

Maxxie (yes spelled with two X's in his name is played by Mitch Hewer.  He's cute, blonde, and gay :D (what more could you want in a TV show).  He's a fun guy, and best friends with Anwar, the only actor on the show I recognized.  Most of you probably know Anwar; played by Dev Patel, a star in Slumdog Millionaire.  He's a British Muslim, from a religious family, without a pick-and-choose attitude towards his religion.

The group rounds itself out with three more characters: Chris, Cassie, and Jal.  Chris (Joseph Dempsie) is a sex maniac who has a thing for flirting with his teacher Angie (Siwan Morris).  Cassie (Hannah Murray) is an anorexic girl whom plays with drugs and is fairly unstable.  Jal (Larissa Wilson) is a brilliant clarinet player who is under-valued by her family.

The cast was hilarious during the first and second season.  I really enjoyed how each episode focused on developing one character further.  In the first season, we got to know them.  In the second season we watched them deal with all their problems.  It is amazing how such an unknown cast (only one big hit) could do so well and create such an amazing series.  It's also sad that none of them were able to continue to great careers afterwords.  It's also interesting to note that most of them were similar ages to the characters on the show.  Some where two years older (Chris), but most were in fact the correct ages.

You might notice that I've brought up terms like first and second generation, or people being good in the first two seasons.  This is because the producers, or creators, or writers, or network or someone (I don't know who specifically) did the unthinkable: killed the entire (practically) cast after two seasons.  They cut all the actors from the main group except for Effie who would bridge the gap between season 2 and 3 (she was the younger sister so she would be one of the main actors in season 3).  Effie's parents who were occasional guests would remain her parents throughout season 3 and 4.

This change does seem better than doing what they did with The O.C., where they continued an entire season after all the characters had graduated from high school.  In that season, half the characters were supposed to be in college, and the writers kept instigating crazy problems in order to bring the characters back together.  Unfortunately though, they risk the chance of not succeeding as well with the second generation.  I can't attest that the second cast is inferior to the original, but I definitely didn't click as well with the second generation as I did with the first.  This may however have been because I was comparing them to the first generation who I had really grown attached to, and not because they were actually a bad cast (I'm sure the fact that the first generation had a cute gay boy and the second didn't have one was a large factor in my decision).  Also, the second generation just seemed younger then the first generation.

The Best Flag in the World

So I saw this yesterday through Daring Fireball.  I definitely agree with him.

It's from the Benin empire which lasted from 1440 through 1897 in pre-colonial Africa (where Nigeria is now).

What do you think?

Update: So apparently some people can't see the image.  You can see it here.

Verizon Sucker-Punches AT&T

Sorry for the large lack of posts ... school kicked in so free time is much more limited.

Anywhose, this video is hilarious.  Verizon is essentially showing off how much better their 3G service is to iPhone users.  They even make fun of the "there's an app for that" by going "there's a map for that."

While I personally cannot test the differences in 3G coverage, I definitely can attest that the service at my house (3G or regular) has gone down uber-significantly ... in fact, I get the circle (which predicates Edge coverage if you're lucky enough to not know what this is, be really happy ... and I'm not being sarcastic at all :D)  At school I don't have much service ... like one bar or less in my room.  That's why I use Google Voice to receive all calls in my room.

So for your pleasure, here is the video:

Oh, and it will supposedly be aired tonight during Monday Night Football.  Also, for those of you who didn't realize it, the video is all shaky cuz it's being videotaped by a handheld camera of some sort from a TV or projector or whatever.  Also, if you wanna see the article I saw this from, click here

LaTeX Handwriting Recognition

So anyone who's ever coded in LaTex knows how many different symbols there are and how hard it is to remember which symbol you want or memorize the info on it.

So Philipp Kühl and Daniel Kirsch developed this cool website where you draw your symbol in a box and they analyze it and give you the info about the symbol you're looking for. From the little testing I've done it works fairly well, and they even have a section on assisting with training the software and such.

Here's a link. Hope it works well for you.

Catching Fire, A Really Fun Read

So Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins arrived finally on Thursday finally, and I was really excited to read it.  Trust me I wasn't disappointed.  While some complained that Collins spent too much time recapping stuff from The Hunger Games, I thought the recapping was just right.  I hadn't reread the first novel since the first time I read it back in April, and I really could use some little reminders of who all the characters were.

While I'm sure (as my mom made sure to emphasizes), I did not get the full effect of the novel having read it in under 5 hours (with time for dinner), I honestly really enjoyed it.  Catching Fire took off right where The Hunger Games ended and continued the story well.  Collins jam packed quite a lot into the novel, and I really wished she had spent more time on the actual competition this year, as I felt like it was a bit to short.  Don't get me wrong, the game was of fine length, I just felt like the writing was too short and not built out as well as I would have liked.

I'm not great at writing a bunch, but I guess I should give a small description of what the topic is about.  If you haven't read the first novel and want to, read only one more paragraph...

So in this world, Panem, there is the Capitol and 12 small, poorer districts.  In order to remind them of an ancient revolt, each year the 12 districts must send 1 boy and 1 girl to compete to their death (in a semi-battle royale style) to their death.  They are prepared and couched by previous winners and participate in the competition, known as The Hunger Games, and the celebrations surrounding it.

(This is where you should stop reading if you have any interest in reading The Hunger Games)

In the 74th year, in District 12 (the poorest district which specializes in coal mining) sported two competitors: Katniss and Peeta.  They were pegged by Peeta and their mentor Haymitch as the star-crossed lovers, knowing one of them will have to die.  Anyways, long story short, Katniss beats the system and they both survive.  In this book they must make the rounds as tradition requires to visit the other districts and the Capitol.  They await to train this year's competitors from District 12 for year's competitions.

Unfortunately, President Snow plagues Katniss with a task: help quell the growing dissent or suffer the loss of her family and loved ones.  To make matters worse, every 25 years, Capitol holds a grand version of the Games, and boy does President Snow have some crazy tricks up his sleeve.

Hope you enjoy the book!

A Fun Watch: Bart Got a Room

So a while back (as in within the last two to three weeks), I saw a preview for this movie: Bart Got a Room.  It looked kind of funny and quirky, sort of reminded me of Keeping Up with the Steins (which was also pretty fun).  I didn't expect this movie to be amazing, and honestly, it wasn't, but I still really enjoyed it.  There was decent acting, and lots of great lines and situations.

I think that's why I liked this movie so much.  The quirky, off-beat humor was probably what I loved about this movie.  I really enjoyed watching it; although somethings were predictable (ie the hooker), I didn't expect the movie to go exactly as it did (which is a GREAT thing for me since I've found movies to be pretty predictable as of late).

I liked this movie.  I don't know how much I would want to watch it again, since I'm not one to usually rewatch movies (except (500) Days of Summer which I will definitely watch again multiple times).

Surveillance 24/7 Totally Sucked ...

So I was looking for something fun to watch on Netflix online and happened upon this movie.  It seemed fairly interesting / too hot guys making out definitely seemed like a fun idea.  Boy was I wrong.

From the very beginning the movie was really weird.  You re-watched the same clips a bunch of times in the beginning on different screens and heard the same explanations nearly identical over and over.  I was like okay, this is pretty trippy but i'll keep watching.  I wasn't engaged or interested at all though.

I was basically waiting for the cute guys.  They met up within the first like 10 minutes or whatever, and it was hot.  Then that was over and the following began. This was where I started getting bored.  I was watching the movie while talking to friends only because I wanted to see where this was going, but I really wasn't too interested.

By 30 minutes, I stopped paying attention.  At 50 minutes I closed the Netflix Watch Instantly viewer.

I don't recommend anyone watch this film for anything other than the hot guys.  If you're watching for them, close the movie after the morning after scene.

I-See-You, Do you?

So one evening during VMworld I watched this quirky movie called I-See-You.com; although the description sounded completely moronic, I decided to watch it, and was REALLY surprised by how funny it was.  The premise: Lydia (the mother), played by Rosanna Arquette, loses all of her family's money on the stock market.  Her husband Harvey (Beau Bridges) flips out and throws her computer in the pool as he realizes the family's entire life is ruined.

But their son Colby, played by Mathew Botuchis (who's extremely quite by the way), and his girlfriend Randi (Shiri Appleby) hatch a crazy plan to make them money: film the family 24/7 and play it online so they can make money.  The plan is an instant success; the only problem is no one in the family (including his sister Audrey, played by Baelyn Neff) has any idea they're on camera.

This movie is hilarious as you see how crazy the family is, how they react to their fifteen minutes of fame, and how they try to re-spice their success once their show starts to plummet.

Stack Master for iPhone Review

So I was lucky enough to get a promo code from zinc Roe, Inc.'s twitter to test out one of their newest iPhone games, Stack Master, over the weekend.  Obviously I've been playing it non-stop all weekend, and truthfully I've been loving it.


The game has a pretty simple premise:
You have crazy mind-control powers, and you can balance objects in the air.  Your goal is to stack as many objects on top of your platter without having them fall.  The catch, you lose your mental power over time, and you gotta keep the stacks balanced too.  Just to make things worse, they have a spiral-thingy that makes you lose your powers even faster, and a crazy huge black cat that's meant to distract you like crazy.

I really enjoyed the game, and found that it was fairly reasonable since you could get to around 8 or 9 objects within your first few tries.  It was a challenge, though possible (as you can see from my awesome high score!).  I personally am not one to just sit around and play video games or games on my iPhone on a regular basis since I am not obsessed with them, and I'm not really too good at them (this is part of why I'm shocked at how I'm so high in the world standings and don't really believe it).

Pretty much all video games I play on my phone fall into two categories.  1) Commute games: games that I can play on the train or bus and do not need extreme precision/balance.  This includes 1to30, Flood-It!, Hangman, etc.  2) Waiting Games: games that are fun and don't take too long to play since I often have to end them really quickly or suddenly.  This includes BikeOrDie, Labyrinth, MazeFinger, Archers, etc.  Stack Master definitely falls into the "Waiting Games" category although that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I just sadly cannot play it while on transit.

This isn't a bad thing, it's really important to have good games to play while you're waiting for your really late or irresponsible friends.

I just had two complaints.  A lot of the control buttons (such as the ones on the leader board) were two small for my fingers.  Also, in the beginning there were a ton of energy boosters (many more than I needed), but I found that at a certain point my problem was just that the replenishers just didn't come often enough, no matter how high my stack was, and I constantly died at around the same time-point which was fairly annoying.

I've attached my high score just to prove I was number two in the world!!!

My analysis:  totally buy this game, it's a bunch of fun, and I would recommend everyone buy it!

The Font Fiasco

So Ikea recently pulled the unthinkable: they changed their font.  Now seriously, how big of a deal could it be when a company changes their font.  Clearly, it could be a really big deal.  Ikea has always used a custom version of Futura for their type-face.  The font has become a key part of the Ikea brand, fitting in flawlessly with the economical but modern design the company boasts in their furniture.

Unfortunately though, having a custom typeface can be extremely expensive, especially with regards to multiple languages and such.  Ikea made the logical cost-cutting choice: change to a major font in order to lower the company costs.  Unfortunately though, everyone has an opinion, and in this case, most people didn't like ikea's decision.

Consumers have come to respect Ikea for its breathtaking designs, and low prices.  Consumers have grown to love the upstairs show-rooms, the huge maze of products downstairs, and Ikea's store as a whole.  The decision to pick price over quality and design has always plagued Ikea, and lately they have been making the wrong decision more often than not.  The problem is not only that Ikea chose to change their font, it's the font they chose to switch to.

Verdana is a font designed by Microsoft specifically for the internet.  With the large large spacing between words and lines, it is much easier to read at a small size on a monitor.  The draw back to these successes though is that it really isn't too pretty of a font.  In fact, at large sizes (such as catalog titles, product labels, and Billboards, it looks completely horrendous.  This is what consumers are pissed about.  Ikea sold out big time.  They chose a hideous font (though some say Microsoft may have bribed them), and for a company that claims to have great design, they definitely flunked out on this one.

UPDATE:

I forgot to mention that there's a petition with over 5000 signatures already.  You should all go sign it ASAP!

We Don't Care If You Can't Handle It ...

So for a very long time (pretty much from the very beginning), people have constantly been getting pissed at AT&T for the terrible connectivity and service on their network with the iPhone.  There are simply too many holes in their service, and times when in major metropolitan areas (SF, Chicago, NYC), you simply cannot get a 3G or EDGE connection.  This is normally, try to imagine how terrible it gets when there's a major event or celebration (I personally experienced this at pride this summer and at VMworld this year).

So essentially, support for the iPhone on AT&T's network has been terrible.  In fact, between going to Israel and coming back, my service has gotten even worse: I now have practically no service in my room in places where I had service before on my old Sony Ericsson phone and on my iPhone.  So obviously this really sucks for me.  If I didn't have Google Voice, I just wouldn't be able to talk to like anyone.  So after a really long time of people being pissed off at AT&T, AT&T decided to respond.  Watch the video and then I'll respond.




My response is quite simple ... I DON'T GIVE A DAMN!  I pay $30 per month extra as an iPhone user for the 3G connectivity and other services (visual voicemail, iPhone OS updates, etc).  I expect to receive the services I pay for, and I don't really care for any explanations over why I can't receive them.  Obviously there are hiccups in services (such as Netflix's hiccup with Watch Instantly).  But they did their users right, and everyone who tried to watch a movie during the time with no service got 2% back.

AT&T made a decision to take on so many iPhone users, and it's really not my problem that they can't handle all the users.  Basically, I think this explanation is complete PR bullshit.

Not Always Right, Always Funny Though

So my friend Tim pulled through again and introduced me to a hilarious site called Not Always Right when I should have been heading to bed Wednesday night (though I guess actually Thursday morning).  The site is essentially conversations that are hilarious where one side is clearly mistake (generally the customer out of stupidity or simply being a total dumbass).

There isn't really much more to say since the site pretty much speaks for itself.  I just thought I would say that "Every (Bad) Crowd Has A Silver Lining" is definitely my favorite one so far.

So forward this on and enjoy it while you can.  My friend Sylvia and I strongly believe it will disappear into the realm of old news once it becomes too popular like Texts From Last Night and fmylife.com; I just hope that time won't come too quickly since it's really quite a fun site at the moment.

Who Robs an Apple Store With a Security Guard Inside?

Well apparently five people form New Jersey did. As explained on MacRumors, five people managed to Rob an Apple Store in Sagemore, NJ. In 31 seconds they managed to steal 23 MacBook Pros, 14 iPhones and 9 iPod touches. Seems pretty reasonable right, they smash the window with a rock and steal the crap.

But get this, there was a security guard inside. Apparently this store was already robbed, so they had a security guard inside during the night to guard the store from being robbed again. Clearly the investment was a worthy cause since it worked oh so well. Any-whose, they played the video online and they're trying to get info from anyone who knows anything.

I just thought this was fairly interesting so I figured you might wanna hear about it ...

Aardvark: Get All Your Questions Answered Live

So my friend Tim introduced me to this great new service called Aardvark that I've been using for a while now, and it's been really cool.

So the basic premise is that you often have questions that you want answered. Generally, I turn online first and search there. For my specific questions, I'll sometimes find answers under Yahoo! Answers. But what happens when I don't find the answer quickly? I'll often keep looking through the search results and get blogs and forums about stuff related to what I need to know, or such. Traditionally, if I couldn't find my answer, I would need to make an account on the forums and post my questions there, hoping to get an answer. But that could often take forever, or simply be unreasonable and such.

So this is where Aardvark comes in: when you don't find your answer online quickly by googling, you ask Aardvark the question. Now Aardvark isn't some crazy smart AI, it is simply a service that connects people who have questions with people who have answers. I've found so far that it works REALLY well. In fact, I haven't had any question that hasn't received a good answer (and believe me, I've asked some very difficult questions).

When you sign up you choose the topics you believe you know about, and Aardvark will forward you questions about those topics later on. Aardvark will even tag the topics on the questions you ask. Usually the auto-tagging works pretty well, but occasionally it fails miserably (it's fairly entertaining when it does). Aardvark is pretty reasonable about the amount of questions you get asked (you can set how many you want), and theyre generally legitimate questions. They even have an option to type "google" if the questions was stupid and could be answered by simply searching Google for the answer (like when someone asks when does movie ______ release on DVD). Aardvark even goes one step further and provides the user with a link to those results.

Generally it's important not to ask stupid questions (I've gotten a few) because it really pisses people off and doesn't make them want to help you. Most of the stupid questions I've gotten were of people "testing" the service. I found the answers to their questions as the first or second option on Google, and it was an annoying waste of time. If you're going to ask a question to "test" the service, at least ask a question that isn't on the first page of results when you Google the topic or whatever.

Aardvark is also integrated very well with IM, email, facebook, and twitter. The most convenient thing about the service is that it operates mostly through IM: you ask your questions, get answers, and help people out through GChat, AIM, MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger, so you don't need to have a website open or download any special software. You can also ask questions by direct messaging Aardvark on twitter. It also goes further by allowing you to easily invite friends from your emails and Facebook to Aardvark, and when someone from one of the services joins Aardvark, you have a place where it tells you and suggest you add them to your network of friends. They're also beta testing an iPhone app, and you can ask questions via email. I'm waiting to be able to ask questions via SMS, since that will be the most convenient ever.

Aardvark generally forwards you questions from your network: your friends, friends of friends, groups you belong to, and location. Since the service is starting up, they're really promoting that you invite your friends and such to Aardvark. They claim that when you have 10 friends join, you'll get a free T-Shirt (they claim they will contact you). So far I've had 13 people accept personal invitations (22 people in my direct network), and I have not had anyone try to contact me (it's been at least a month or two).

Any-whose, whenever you have questions you can't answer, turn to Aardvark, you'll be surprised by how well it works.

If you need the link again, it's here: http://vark.com/s/A0re

So I just realized I posted this twice by accident. Sorry.

Lies & Alibis ... Fun and Quirky

So I watched this fun movie a while back called Lies and Alibis, also known as The Alibi (though netflix doesn't have it by that name). It was quite a lot of fun.

So anyways I found it last night when I got home from VMworld and was looking for a film to watch on netflix online. I watched the first 15 minutes and remembered how funny and quirky it really is. The premise is the following: A guy develops a service that helps men and women with their infidelity. It allows them to cheat on their spouse and will help maintain the illusions their clients create.

The owner of the company, Ray (Steve Coogan) has a simple rule: he does not cover crime, or revenge. In the opening scenes he hires a new employee, Lola (Rebecca Romijn) Who is extremely creative, quick on her feet and insightful. It seems the two will be extremely succesful, and Coogan is hopeful he will be able to hand off his first, and only remaining personal client to Romijn. His client has just one little request: to take care of his son's alibi personally before the son's wedding. Reluctantly, Ray agrees.

The only problem is, the son kills his mistress, and suddenly Coogan is framed for murder.

This is a great and fun film, and I hope you enjoy it.

I Found a Bug in Snow Leopard: Mac Keyboard and a KVM

So I upgraded early last week to Snow Leopard at work to complete testing of VMware Fusion 2.0.5 on Snow Leopard at work. If you use both, it works great (see the blog post), and I have been using Snow Leopard since.

I noticed really quickly an interesting bug between Snow Leopard and my KVM at work. For those of you who don't already know, a KVM is a device that allows you to share a monitor and keyboard & mouse between multiple computers (the one I have serves up to four) so that you don't need to have 4 monitors and 4 keyboard and 4 mice on your desk. It's pretty cool and useful.

Anyways, in order to simplify things, you always connect your mouse and keyboard to this device. OSX does a great job of detecting the keyboard to figure out which key layout it is. In Leopard, this setup worked fine, and the keyboard was connected perfectly. When I connected it the same setup to Snow Leopard, my keyboard was detected as an older keyboard. This doesn't seem like it would be a huge problem, but before Apple created the new thin keyboard, the function keys were in different spots. The volume control and eject button were over the number pad; Dashboard and Expose were setup around the F8 key, though without any images. There were no play or pause buttons then either.

When I connect my keyboard directly to my Mac Pro, it is detected correctly. However, when I connect it to the KVM, it detects it incorrectly. Initially I thought the computer detected my keyboard as the old one since the dashboard and expose buttons were over the F8ish function keys, but I later realized that the volume control was not over the number pad as it had been in the past. In fact, I have been completely unable to find the volume control anywhere on the keyboard.

I'm assuming this is a bug in Snow Leopard with the connection to the KVM since this did not happen at all on Leopard. Obviously I am not sure exactly what is causing the problem, but it's really annoying and I'm hoping it is fixed sooner rather than later.

Aardvark: Get All Your Questions Answered Live

So my friend Tim introduced me to this great new service called Aardvark that I've been using for a while now, and it's been really cool.

So the basic premise is that you often have questions that you want answered. Generally, I turn online first and search there. For my specific questions, I'll sometimes find answers under Yahoo! Answers. But what happens when I don't find the answer quickly? I'll often keep looking through the search results and get blogs and forums about stuff related to what I need to know, or such. Traditionally, if I couldn't find my answer, I would need to make an account on the forums and post my questions there, hoping to get an answer. But that could often take forever, or simply be unreasonable and such.

So this is where Aardvark comes in: when you don't find your answer online quickly by googling, you ask Aardvark the question. Now Aardvark isn't some crazy smart AI, it is simply a service that connects people who have questions with people who have answers. I've found so far that it works REALLY well. In fact, I haven't had any question that hasn't received a good answer (and believe me, I've asked some very difficult questions).

When you sign up you choose the topics you believe you know about, and Aardvark will forward you questions about those topics later on. Aardvark will even tag the topics on the questions you ask. Usually the auto-tagging works pretty well, but occasionally it fails miserably (it's fairly entertaining when it does). Aardvark is pretty reasonable about the amount of questions you get asked (you can set how many you want), and theyre generally legitimate questions. They even have an option to type "google" if the questions was stupid and could be answered by simply searching Google for the answer (like when someone asks when does movie ______ release on DVD). Aardvark even goes one step further and provides the user with a link to those results.

Generally it's important not to ask stupid questions (I've gotten a few) because it really pisses people off and doesn't make them want to help you. Most of the stupid questions I've gotten were of people "testing" the service. I found the answers to their questions as the first or second option on Google, and it was an annoying waste of time. If you're going to ask a question to "test" the service, at least ask a question that isn't on the first page of results when you Google the topic or whatever.

Aardvark is also integrated very well with IM, email, facebook, and twitter. The most convenient thing about the service is that it operates mostly through IM: you ask your questions, get answers, and help people out through GChat, AIM, MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger, so you don't need to have a website open or download any special software. You can also ask questions by direct messaging Aardvark on twitter. It also goes further by allowing you to easily invite friends from your emails and Facebook to Aardvark, and when someone from one of the services joins Aardvark, you have a place where it tells you and suggest you add them to your network of friends. They're also beta testing an iPhone app, and you can ask questions via email. I'm waiting to be able to ask questions via SMS, since that will be the most convenient ever.

Aardvark generally forwards you questions from your network: your friends, friends of friends, groups you belong to, and location. Since the service is starting up, they're really promoting that you invite your friends and such to Aardvark. They claim that when you have 10 friends join, you'll get a free T-Shirt (they claim they will contact you). So far I've had 13 people accept personal invitations (22 people in my direct network), and I have not had anyone try to contact me (it's been at least a month or two).

Any-whose, whenever you have questions you can't answer, turn to Aardvark, you'll be surprised by how well it works.

If you need the link again, it's here: http://vark.com/s/A0re

Star Trek (2009), fucking awesome!

So I definitely would not consider myself a Trekie. In fact, I don't think anyone out there would consider myself a Trekie. Prior to this last month I had only seen Galaxy Quest (which was hilarious) and Star Trek: Nemesis. Nemesis totally sucked, I think I was like in 8th grade when it came out ... anyways I saw it and it sucked. So because of this I never really had an interest in like the space sci-fi-y movies or TV shows, and never allowed myself to watch anything Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica.

Anywhose, so I never went to see Star Trek when it came out in may or whenever because I maintained I'm really not a trekie. But on the way to Israel they were playing it, so I was like what the hell, I'll watch it, and it was really good.

It had a few familiar faces:

• Zachary Quinto from Heroes who was honestly REALLY REALLY good.
• Leonard Nimoy from the original Star Treks!
• Eric Bana the lead from Munich.
• Zoe Saldana from Center Stage who didn't have a huge part in this movie but was great. She was also Anamaria in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
• John Cho from the Harold & Kumar series ... did you know there was a Harold & Kumar go to Amsterdam, cuz I definitely did not.
• Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
• Anton Yelchin, my personal favorite since he's fucking amazing. He was the star of Charlie Bartlett, and the kid who gets kidnapped in Alpha Dog. Yelchin is charming and hilarious. To think he was only 19 when he filmed Star Trek.

Anywhose, I had fairly low expectations for this film, and honestly, I really really liked it and have even considered watching the other trekie type movies (Michael you can educate me there).

Sober by P!nk, which is the original?

So I guess I'm kind of stepping on Emale's turf with this one. Emale, if you read this, sorry.

So I was driving home today and listening to the radio, and there was almost nothing on. So I was listening to this station by Alice (I think it's 93.7), but it's in the Bay Area, so if you're not in the Bay Area then don't search for it on the airwaves. Anyways, back to the conversation ...

So a song came on that was pretty familiar, and I was like hey it's P!nk. But it was hella slow, so I was like this is an interesting remix. So I decided to Shazam it to see what song it was, and was shocked by what I found.

Quick detour for those of you who don't know what Shazam is (if you do, skip to the next paragraph). Shazam is this awesome program that records an 18ish second clip of music, and analyzes it and spits out what song it is. As long as the recording is of decent quality, not outrageously noisy in the back ground, or immense amounts of talking. I've found it almost always works in the car, and yesterday it even worked while people were talking very loudly for the first 8 or 9 seconds. Oh, did I mention it can even identify most official remixes? Anyways back to business ...

So Shazam told me this was Sober by P!nk. I was like wait what, I listen to that song all the time on Energy 92.7 and Wild 94.9, and this definitely wasn't it. So I got home and did some research. Turns out I wasn't listening to the original version, I was listening to the "Bimbo Jones Radio Edit" all the time. And it totally makes sense, that version is WAY better.

When I first heard this on the Radio, I was like this is really boring and slow, but that's because I was expecting the fast, hyper, upbeat, club version I was used to. When you're driving home at 1:30pm, going 70 on a nice sunny day, you want a crazy fast hyper dance song, you don't want a slow, relaxing, semi-depressing song. But when I watched the video and listened to the song at home today, I changed my mind. I really like this song.

I always thought (through the Bimbo Jones Edit) that this was a crazy song about having fun sober at a party and like how the fuck does that happen (since you rarely have fun when you're sober and everyone around you is drunk off their ass). But the original really isn't like that. You watch as P!nk observes how pathetic her own life is (cool effects with the whole her watching herself and comforting herself while puking). She slowly takes the step to realize it's wrong, going nowhere, and she doesn't need that. So she moves past it, and you see some weird effects.

Then you see her seduce and hook up with herself, which I personally think is creepy and completely fucked up ... Then again, I guess it's twins to the next level.

But she really gets it: "When it's good, it's good, it's so good, till it goes bad ..." This is what partying is like, and seriously, it sucks when it goes bad.

It's interesting how in modern times with so many crazy remixes out there it's often difficult to find the original version, or the specific version of a song. Just search for any pop song on youtube, and you'll see tons of remixes, it's crazy.

In case you wanna hear the sound clips / see the video, here's the original version Sober, and here's the Bimbo Jones Radio Edit.