Memoirs of a CPUNERD

Okay, spoiler warning for Pirates of the Caribbean 3. I will start this out by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed most of the movie. There were definite parts that were lacking, but all-in-all, I thought it was entertaining. Keep in mind I said entertaining, not riveting, thought-provoking, ground-breaking, or anything else grandiose. The movie was exactly what I expected, a fun story with cool effects, though hardly believable (even with the pretenses) and some awkward moments that made me suffer.

But to the point already! Sequels, remakes, adaptations, etc. are killing my enjoyment and (what little I have left) respect of movies! It’s bad enough that ticket prices have quadrupled in the past twelve years. But to make one pay almost ten dollars for a crappy, unoriginal, uninventive, boring, P.O.S. movie is just wrong. Seriously, there are so few good movies coming out these days, and with the exception of my love for Marvel Comic book movies (I haven’t seen Daredevil, Elektra, or Ghost Rider yet, so hold your tongue), all of them are original pieces of work. Seriously, I watched a German B-movie called In July that was better than more than half of the movies that are debuting in the U.S. The one area in which I am willing to budge is adaptations. Sometimes, awesome books make awesome movies. Though supposedly there have been a lot of flops recently.

Racquetball on Monday was interesting. I started out playing Mike and beat him 15-4. I had some amazing service return kill shots. It was weird, I haven’t had that consistent of a game in a long time. Next, I played Garrett and beat him 15-2. A few weeks ago I was having a difficult time with him. Then I realized that it was because he has become more adept at fielding, except for ceiling shots. Once I realized that, I just kept hitting ceiling-to-back-wall shots and had him in my hands. The coach though, he was a different story. Usually when we play, he gets up on me 10-2 or 10-3, then I rattle off the rest of the game on one streak of serving. His backhand is fairly weak, so I tend to go for that. For some reason though, I just wasn’t focused. I lost the first game 13-15, but then came back and beat him 15-7 the next game. I felt slightly better ; ) Tumbling was cancelled since John was out of town at the national meeting for all gymnastics coaches. I instead opted to play tennis with the intermediate advanced group. That went well, as I held my own no problem. I went to Chipotle for dinner and talked with Verena, Lee, and Shakeh about plans for Memorial day. I then went to the gymnastics club. It was completely crazy! There were some totally awesome tumblers in that club.

Frisbee on Tuesday was ridiculously windy. As you can imagine, that did not make it conducive to having fun. Badminton was almost as bad. I don’t know what it was, I just wasn’t doing well. Tennis was really good, the coach notice a problem with my power serve and helped correct it. I hope to be much more consistent with the serve soon.

On Wednesday, coach Munoz showed up for racquetball! The match was actually surprisingly good. We’ve both been playing for the entire year, and it showed. The final score was 15-12, but it could have easily gone his way. I played two games of squash with Dana, but she was injured so it was more just an exercise in passing shots. John was back for tumbling, so we worked on backflips. That night, we had a BBQ at my place. It went really well. Virtually everyone showed up except Tony (the bastard!), and Claudia because she had to study (though Victor showed up).

Thursday was a complete turn-around from Tuesday. There was virtually no wind! My team rocked that day. We beat both teams 7-1. I helped Noah with her pulls, and am hoping that soon she will be much better with them. Evan and I connected on several long plays, including two nice long-bomb scores. Tennis was good as well. I played with a tall Indonesian (who looked Chinese) named Stanley. He was about my skill level, so it was nice to be able to rally with someone who could hold his own.

I went to the GSA breakfast on Friday by myself because Shakeh had a test. After her test was over, we went home, packed up, then headed to Verena’s. We picked up Verena and her cousin Karolina (Charlie) and headed to Reno. Along the way, we stopped at Donner Lake to get some pictures.

We got into Reno and dropped our stuff off at my parent’s place. To kill time, we went to UNR to check the campus out. Verena and Shakeh wanted to see what it was like. I didn’t realize it, but the outside look of the campus is so much better than that of Davis. Even Stanford, besides the mission, didn’t look as nice as the southern end of UNR. We wandered around and took some funny pictures and videos while there.

  

  

After UNR, we stopped by Sebastian’s for a few minutes to say hi, then met my parents at Bully’s for dinner.

We woke up at a decent hour on Saturday. As people were straggling out of bed, they would have some coffee and chat with my parents. We formulated a plan for Tahoe for the day, which consisted of skipping Sand Harbor, visiting South Lake for lunch, then going to Emerald Bay and completing the lap around the lake. We would end the day with Sushi at a place Shakeh had been to previously.

  

So our plan was almost fool-proof. The one funny thing we found is that Sand Harbor was nowhere near full at 11:00! We were completely shocked, since in previous years, every day over the Memorial Day Weekend was insane. Since we had no bathing suits though, we said “screw it!” and just kept driving to South Lake. We stopped at Harvey’s and Hard Rock Cafe to have lunch.

  

After lunch, we headed to Emerald Bay to meet up with Cider-man and Chief Justice. While waiting, we got some stunning pictures of the landscape. Once Cider-man and Chief Justice showed up, we trekked down to the Bay and hung out for an hour or so. We then made our way back up, then finished the lap around Tahoe and headed back to Reno. We stopped at the vista point past Incline Village to get some more pictures of Tahoe.

  

Once back in Reno, we headed to Sushi Boat (formerly Seoul) for all-you-can-eat sushi. I of course didn’t have any, but everyone else had plenty and were very satisfied. We headed home after that and just hung out for two hours before going to sleep.sunday: woke up, packed up, headed home. went to starbucks, then jamba juice, then pirates 3. after pirates, hung out at my place, then went to sofia’s. shakeh and i went home, then watched cars (i fell asleep halfway through).

Sunday, everyone woke up, and we just packed up and headed home. Once we got back to Davis, we went to go see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. It was alright, but obviously nowhere near as good as the first. Seriously, I wish American’s would revolt against bad sequels. It makes no sense why crappy movies can keep making money. Anyways, after the movie, we went to Sofia’s for dinner and drinks, then just headed home. Shakeh and I watched Cars that night, then went to sleep.

Time and again I’m asked about why I got my tattoo. I actually like answering the question, but I get asked it so often that I’d rather be able to just say “look at my webpage.” To start with, I would like you to view the following. Okay, so now that we have that out of the way… I’ll address the common questions I’m asked.

How old were you when you got the tattoo?

I got the tattoo when I was eighteen.

Wait, did you get it on your eighteenth birthday?

No, I didn’t get it right when I turned eighteen. I got the tattoo in January and I was born in October.

So were you drinking or otherwise messed up when you got it?

I got the tattoo when I was 100% sober. As all my friends know, I don’t drink or partake in other things, so I’m always sober.

Was it a spur of the moment design?

Nope, I brainstormed the tattoo when I was fourteen. While the specifics changed over time, the concept remained the same. I figured that if I still liked the idea four years down the road, I would probably like it even later.

Do you still like it and think it was a good idea?

Yep, so far, I still like it. I also think it was a good idea to get it where others cannot readily view it without my permission.
How exactly did you come up with the idea?

One draws inspiration for things from their life. For me, religion was always a prevalent. I wasn’t a constant practitioner, but it was constantly discussed as I was growing up, and not always in a good light.

Well that explains the cross, what about the rest?

Try growing up in a family where your grandfather is one of fourteen siblings and not having death be constantly shoved in your face. I wanted to come up with something that was very “in your face” but somehow worked.

What about the two letters you have written?

Umm… if you’re one of my friends, it should be ridiculously obvious.

Monday was the usual stuff. I’ve been getting better at back-flips on the tumble track. But we’re all done with frisbee = ( I had to occupy my time with working again… bummer.

On Tuesday, I had a bit of an oddity. Justin and I were doing dumbbell shrugs as usual. He was using seventy-pound dumbbells. After he finished a set, he set them on a bench. I figured it was fine, as I’ve done the same thing. He apparently didn’t have one quite stable, since after I came back from getting water, he said “I just dropped one of the weights on my foot, I’m gonna go take my shoe off and check it out.” Turns out he messed something up pretty bad, his foot was all swollen (though he said it didn’t really hurt). Apparently someone at the ARC freaked out when they heard that someone was hurt and called an ambulance. In order to avoid a thousand dollars on an (unnecessary) ambulance ride, I just biked home and gave Justin a ride to the ER.

Later in the afternoon, Rachel came over to study with (and by with, I just mean at the same time, not same subject) Shakeh. While they studied for three hours, I helped a friend with an esoteric OO problem. Let me say this, overriding and overloading really need warnings in Java. C# enforces them, and that is one of the last good things I will say about C#.

I played squash instead of racquetball on Wednesday. Squash is always good for a workout. Of course, that brings to mind the obvious problem of being dead-tired before I go to tumbling. Speaking of tumbling, John was gone, so he had his team-captain come in and supervise the class. That worked out fairly well, we got to go and do our usual stuff, and just have a nice work-out/practice day.

Later in the afternoon, I had a meeting with Professor Staadt and Professor Ma. We decided that it would be a much better idea to narrow the focus of my unstructured-mesh vis project. This is actually better for me, since results will be easier to come by and rendering should be faster.

Thursday morning went really well. For some reason, my team just completely dominated in frisbee. I even threw a long-bomb to the end-zone that someone on my team actually caught! Of course, badminton didn’t go quite as well. I think I really need to play singles more. All the advanced people in the class have really good court strategy and movement, and I haven’t had a need for that since I only play doubles.

That night, the GSA had their usual free pizza night at Woodstock’s. I went, but had trouble getting anyone else to commit. I eventually just went there and met up with Ananya and Harry. Later, more people showed up, including Conny and Daniel.

I went to the GSA coffee and bagel day on Friday morning as always, but the usual suspects weren’t there. I ended up talking with Salim and his friend Stephanie for quite some time. I headed out form there and met with Shakeh to have lunch at Hunan. After lunch, I was supposed to play tennis with Paloma, but that got canceled so I just worked until 19:00. At that time, Shakeh and I went to Jamba Juice with Club-I. We stayed there until almost 21:00, which is when Lee and Verena got into town and were ready (two hours late mind you = p). Anyways, we met up with them and then watched School For Scoundrels. Afterwards, we went over to Anita’s with a few other people to surprise her for her birthday.

After such a busy Friday, it’s no wonder I slept in until 10:00 on Saturday. Shakeh and I met up with Lee and Verena at market around 12:00. Aftwerwards we went home and worked until 17:00. I then headed to soccer for a few hours. Shakeh and I went to Strings after that, then went home and watched Shrek 2.

Since we didn’t play on Saturday, Abhi and I played tennis on Sunday. I went home after that and pretty much just worked the rest of the night.

The Short:

I liked it. I didn’t love it. I feel the franchise is doing worse (but still doing good) with each new release.

The Good:

1. Kirsten Dunst still wearing tight clothes
2. The story was entertaining
3. Topher Grace. For some reason I really dig his roles, even that male-bonding flick, In Good Company
4. Venom. Excellent job bringing him to life
5. The guy who played the sand-man
6. Emo-Spidey’s sense of humor
7. With the exception of the very end where Peter Parker levels Mary Jane, the bar scene where he gets back at her. I know she broke up with him because Harry Osborn told her to do so lest he be killed… but still, has to be in my top three of favorite revenge scenes. And seriously, he totally used that fugly blond chick (What the heck were the casters thinking? Did she just do a good job on the casting couch or something?)
8. Remember the scene with the flag in the background? My row of people (75% internationals) all laughed incredibly loud when we saw that. Everyone else was quiet. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwkward.
9. The boss of the Daily Bugle and his receptionist. Slapstick Spidey at it’s best. If you didn’t like that scene, don’t call yourself a Spiderman fan because you probably would hate the comics. That is exactly the kind of comedy that the comics were riddled with. Of course, that all changed when they made Spiderman go all depressed, angst-ridden, quasi-teen. I think that changed and they made a backstory of him being replaced by an alien clone or something. I don’t know. Seriously Marvel, make up your minds…

The Bad:

1. Kirsten Dunst’s acting. Sorry honey, you’re good looking, but not that good looking. I’ll let you stick around as Mary Jane without complaining much because your lines don’t play a huge role in the story
2. The story tended to drag at times. Seriously, the running time said 2hr20mins. I thought it was going to end halfway through because the story was dragging that much.
3. Topher Grace getting killed at the end
4. The Venom suit being completely destroyed. Does this mean we only have Carnage ahead? Don’t forget, Venom was responsible for stopping Carnage, not Spider-man.
5. The Sand-man character. I know you don’t have a lot of time for character development, but why do you have to try and work him into the back story? Why not just let him be some random guy instead of tied to Spiderman? Also, please, why not make him die and keep Eddie Brock around?
6. Emo-Spidey. Sorry, he could be entertaining, but I simply didn’t like him, not as a good guy, not as a bad guy, and definitely not as a haircut model.
7. The Key-to-the-City ceremony. That entire scene was we-todd-did. “Ah hyuck hyuck, lay one on me while my girlfriend is looking. She’ll love it ah hyuck hyuck”
8. The news crew during the end scene. Seriously, this goes beyond asenine. Seriously contending with the guy in Casino Royale who was talking about the poker game. Okay, don’t even get me started on that crap.
9. Kirsten Dunst not getting wet
10. Kirsten Dunst making out with Toby McGuire when I’m only a few hundred miles away. I’m sure I could get Shakeh to okay it. Maybe if you hung upside down from a web?
11. Kirsten Dunst making out with James Franco. HE HAS A LAZY EYE DAMN’T! YOU’RE BETTER THAN THAT!

The Indifferent:

1. I’m still torn as to whether or not Harry Osborn siding with Spider-man at the end was a good thing
2. Harry Osborn dying
3. Peter Parker and Mary Jane not officially getting back together at the end

Closing Remarks:

I liked this movie, and would have paid full price to see it in the theatres. It was good that I went with a large group, because I probably would’ve gotten into a fight with some country-boy yokel who found it offensive and that I “violated them thar rights o’ his to craw and feels proud everytime when he sees him one o’ dem der ‘Merican flags in a hero movie.”
I hope Carnage rears his head, and therefore obviously I also hope that more movies in the series are made. So you know, I would’ve given the first Spiderman four/four stars, the second one three/four stars, and this one two-and-a-half/four stars. Any less and the franchise loses my fanboy-ness.
Last but not least:

If you didn’t realize this entry had spoilers from the title, you deserved to read it.

So now that my review is done, let me recount the tales of my way-worn week. I guess the beginning is a good place to start. Lee was still in town, so Shakeh, Verena, Lee, and I went to lunch at Zia’s. I did some work after that, then went to my last frisbee game of the season(le sigh…). We lost, I threw the only point we got (Antoine caught it). It was still a fun time though, and I would love to do it again. Afterwards we all went to Woodstocks in a rather sweaty manner.
I didn’t sleep well Monday night either, so I decided after I got home that I was buying an AC unit. I called up Rachel to see if she wanted to go with me, but she was taking her driving test. I then remembered that Verena didn’t have her seminar anymore, so I called her and she said she would love to do something unproductive for a few hours. I picked up some Jamba Juice, then we headed to Home Depot. I bought an AC unit, and what do I find when I get home? That the unit is meant for a top-down closing window, not a side-to-side closing window. Bummer, but I actually found a decent way to get it set up. I don’t think it’s working as well as it should since I don’t have any insulation around it, but we’ll see. Whilest I was still arranging my room, Shakeh and Verena went to get KFC for dinner. Man… I forgot how bad the grease was. Mind you that when I had KFC a few weeks ago, I got chicken strips.

On Wednesday, Franci was going to a movie, so she couldn’t make Girl’s Night. But Justin, Sara, Verena and I decided to go to the Farmer’s market. Shakeh would’ve gone, but she had a test the following day, and thus was busy studying. While at the market, we ran into Matthias and Anita, so we sat down and ate with them. When I was done, I ran into Marilena as well. I finished up the day by getting Kathmandu Kitchen and Buckhorn for Shakeh. Of course, the bag I had I was afraid would break, so Sunny rode home with me (she met us there for just a few minutes) with the food in her basket.

On Thursday, Shakeh had to go to a lab, so I bought us Dos Coyotes for dinner. While she was in the lab, I watched the second of the Bulls-Pistons game. Holy crap! What the heck is with the Pistons again? Seriously, They overcame a nineteen-point deficit AT Chicago. Craziness.

Shakeh and I rode to the GSA bagel day on Friday. Most of our crowd wasn’t there, so we just ate and ran. I picked up Round Table for lunch. Shakeh left for the Bay Area afterwards, and I went to take Sara to the optometrist. I went to the MU with Abhi and Angela for forty-five minutes or so. After that I went to pick up Sara from the optometrist. On the way back to her place, I told her that if she wanted to come watch me play tennis, that would be cool. She said definitely, as she would rather do that then sit at home and watch TV. With that said, I dropped her off so she could get changed, then went home and changed. I got to the courts and started my match against Paloma. I actually won 6-0, 6-3. Afterwards, Sara and I walked back to my place. I showered, then we watched most of Down Periscope before I took her home. I swung by and picked up Verena, then headed to Baskin Robbinns for Club-I. We hung out for about an hour, then Abhi, Verena, Angela, Ivanka, Ivanka’s husband, and I went to eat at Thai Bistro.

As if Friday was jam-packed enough, my Saturday was even crazier. It started with me waking up at 8:15 and getting ready for tennis. I got to the courts a little earlier than Franci, so I just started practicing my serves. Franci showed up, then a few minutes later, so did Abhi! We only had three people though (Tony is a lazy bas-tard-o), so we played me versus both Abhi and Franci together. Miraculously, I actually won 6-4, 6-2. After tennis, I went home and showered, then got ready and met Andrea at the Farmer’s market. We walked around for a bit, then met up with Sara, who finished work early. We grabbed a ton of fruit, juice, and then a hot dog. Once we were done eating, Andrea and I threw a frisbee around for a little while. Time was running low though, so we packed up and headed for the MU to meet Verena. After sitting in the shade and letting my poor stomach have a breather, we walked around the hippy fest for almost three hours. There was a lot to soak in. Mainly just booths, but also other people to see and hippy music to laugh at. We ended up taking so long there that I had to hurry home to change in time for soccer. Only four of us showed up though, me, Abhi, Carlos, Philipp. We wandered over to another group of four though, and played four on four for a while. Jeremy and Sung showed up a little bit later, so we upped the game to five on five. We finished around 1900, at which time I went home, showered again, then headed over to Philipp’s place. After picking Philipp up, we went to Guadalajara near Albertson’s for dinner with Abhi, then headed to the party. So much to say about it, but I guess the easiest thing is that you had to be there ; ) It was a toga party, though not many people were wearing togas unfortunately. Anita looked very good in her not-quite-toga-but-still-greek get-up. Abhi, Philipp and I were the first ones there, so we got to watch Jeremy and Anita play beer pong with his fraternity brothers who arrived shortly after us. For the rest of the night (until 1:30), I just hung out with the Germans. I took some brief interludes to help Anita’s friend Kim get Anita on the dance floor. I also had a perplexing conversation with Jeremy’s fraternity brother who couldn’t grasp the idea of people drinking a moderate amount, and not playing drinking games anymore.

As you can imagine, I woke up late on Sunday. I had to get ready quickly so I could head to Baker’s Square and meet Abhi. We were supposed to have seven-to-ten people at brunch with us, but it turned into just us two. Christian Dhom and his girlfriend Melissa showed up just as we were finishing our food. We stayed and talked for a bit with them, then decided to take off. As we were leaving, Hannah and Verena showed up outside. Verena had not indulged in any morning caffeine, so we walked to Starbuck’s. After that, we headed to the theatre. A bunch of people (in our group) ended up coming. The movie was good, as you already saw by my review. Afterwards, Shakeh and I went swimming, then took a nap for two hours. I still had to do laundry, so I just did that, then relaxed in front of the TV for a bit before going to bed.

I guess the fact that already people are leaving to go back to Europe/South-America/Asia has me a bit disgruntled. It’s sad to think that so many people come in to one’s life, and then just as quickly leave as they have to go home. I didn’t really get to know Sarah Keller much when she was here originally, but she came back for a month and I at least got to talk to her every now and then. But what happens you ask? She leaves… again.

We had our second to last game of Ultimate on Monday. We lost 3-9, which was weird because I felt we had a much better chance the entire way through this match then either of our previous two matches. Oh well, luckily I had fun though, because I didn’t have time to really do anything on Tuesday. Had some work to get done, and Wednesday night was…

Girl’s night at Radhika’s. But before I get to that, I also must say that we went to Verena’s to check out her new ink. Okay, back to Radhika’s. It was kind of weird arriving, because we knocked on a window assuming the voices from the other side were Radhika and the girls. It turns out they were Radhika’s roommates and some friends instead. We went further into their courtyard and eventually just knocked on the door. An older guy answered, and we asked him if Radhika was in. He said yes, and then just stood there. I then told him that we are friends of her and were here for dinner. He let us in and then just walked away… Oi. Dinner was really good. Radhika made some excellent enchiladas. The seating arrangement was a little unfortunate though. Radhika’s coworkers (from Mishka’s) took up the entire dining room table and wouldn’t make room for any of us, so all of us (with the exception of Justin who got there a little early I guess) had to sit in the leaving room, giving off a very polarized atmosphere. But we made the most of it, joking about various things and having a good time. Shakeh and I left a little before 22:00.

I had a meeting planned with Staadt for Thursday at 14:00, so I went to lunch with Tony, Verena, and Lee at Crepeville. We stayed there for awhile, actually a little too long. I was a few minutes late for my meeting with Staadt. The meeting went well, and actually lasted almost two hours. We went to the VR Lab though, which was a bad idea. I didn’t have time for my nap, so near the end of the meeting, I was starting to fall asleep… yikes! Later that night, I actually watched my first full NBA game of the season (and yes, it’s the post-season). It was the Warriors-Mavs game at Oracle.

On Friday, Shakeh had to go to the post office to pick up a leaky package. Her cousin had made the silly mistake of putting some highly syruppy pastries in a fragile plastic container (think of the containers in which you get pastries from Safeway) at the bottom of the care package she sent. So of course, the container got smushed and the syrup leaked. But a lot of the stuff she sent was still okay, and it tasted really good. After the post office we went to get some breakfast at the GSA office. The coordinator (a female grad student) snipped at me for taking more than one donut and/or bagel. I mean *gasp*, how dare someone actually eat more if they’re hungry… Sigh, I guess I shouldn’t say anything since if everyone takes a lot the supply runs out sooner. But then why not just buy more in the first place? Oh well, speaking of supplies running out early, our proposed road trip over Memorial Day turned out to be a bust. We were thinking of spending maybe $200/person at most, and it turns out the trip would cost at least twice that… So we had to ax it.

Yet another Saturday, yet another trip to the Farmer’s market. This time with Verena. Marilena was also supposed to show up, but she ended up no-showing because she was talking on the phone with her dad. After we got our fruit and hot-dogs, Verena and I went to the quad on campus to check out the Cinco de Mayo event, which sucked. I went home and worked. Originally Verena told me that we should be at Sarah Keller’s going away party at 19:30. That time got pushed back three times until finally she told me not to pick her up until 20:50. I did so, and as luck would have it, we were still early. We decided that instead of waiting around idle, we would go to Safeway and get a bottle of wine. We got back around 21:30 and proceeded to have a good time. Lee arrived a little later, and while we were waiting for Elena’s mojitos to liven up, we walked back to my place and through downtown for a bit. I ended up staying at the party until 1:00, at which time I left and went back home and actually kept working until 2:00.

Shakeh got back in town around 13:00 on Sunday. We watched fast food nation (which kinda sucked), and then I worked until 18:00. She then took me to Aioli Bodega Espanola for dinner for our five month anniversary. The place was really nice and had good food, though we had to eat a lot of bread to fill up (I think that’s expected though). We went home and relaxed until bed time. However I didn’t sleep very well because of the heat.