Fall TV in 2009? Very Nice!

If you can't tell, I'm a big fan of TV. Or at least when it's good quality. This fall has been a true winner with Dollhouse, FlashForward, and Glee.

Sure there's a huge chance Dollhouse won't be around for long, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it while it's still on. Dollhouse has truly come into its own this season. The characters are starting to evolve and we're starting to see their individual moral grey areas. Topher, who seemed like an ass with no conscience last season, has started to wonder if what he is doing is not quite right. We're also getting closer to the apocalyptic vision Joss showed in Epitaph One. If you haven't watched this season, I might recommend skipping the first two episodes. The third episode is when the season starts going.

FlashForward has been pretty good so far. The story's fairly interesting, and (like Lost) the answer to the mystery is not obvious. The acting is great with Joseph Fiennes and John Cho. Most important, the concept is fantastic: what would we all do if we had a glimpse into our futures? The only complaints (minor in my book) are the following: (1) the writers underestimate the intelligence of the audience watching the show, constantly repeating everyone's flashforwards as if we can't remember from one moment to another & (2) Dominic Monagan as one of the villians? REALLY? Sorry, but I can't buy him as threatening. John Cho as a serious actor? Yes. Dominic Monagan as a villian? Not at all. Other than those two qualms, I really like this show.

GLEE! This is the greatest show on television. Granted, I do love musicals and that might add a bit of bias. However, the magical musical numbers aren't the only reason this show rocks. This is by far the most realistic show about high school in a small(ish) town that I have ever seen. The (student) characters actually seem like real kids, trying to fit in, trying to find ways to get out of Lima. I like that they have problems, but the problems are high school problems, such as unrequited love, teen pregnancy, and popularity. Most shows about high school these days feature students who are more like 20-something socialites than kids. It's refreshing to see a show and be able to say "that's like what I went through" vs. watching some ridiculous drama. Sure the kids are a bit stereotyped, but in a way, high school students do follow stereotypes. Since teenagers are always so worried about fitting in (or sometimes not fitting in), they tend to bond towards a particular group and end up as a stereotype. The adults, on the other hand, are the truly ridiculous part of the show. It's a bizarre twist when the students are the serious part and the adults seem to be there for more comedic value. As much as I love Matthew Morrison, his character, Will Schuster, gets a little grating and annoying. Jesslyn Gilsig, as Schue's wife Terri, is a straight-up harpy. Ken Tanaka is just pathetic and sad. Jane Lynch's Sue Sylvester is THE comedy in the show. Every line out of her mouth is gold. Either way, if you want to watch the best show about high school since Freaks and Geeks, Glee is that show.

Vampires!

I've been a little lax on checking my normal Gawker media blogs, like io9 lately. Well, I just remembered what I was missing. THIS:


io9 & Julia Carusillo deftly created a chart encompassing the top 50 vampires in pop culture, from Dracula to Bunnicula. It's pretty impressive and the greatest thing I've seen this week. See it full size here. Personally, I want it poster-sized, in my room.

The Epic Marathon Post

If you read this, you might know that I've been training for a marathon since May. Well, marathon day finally arrived. And at 7:16am PST, I crossed the start line and began my first mile. Approximately 5.8 hours later, I was done. Normally I try to minimize personal posts on this blog, but this was such a big event in my life and I think it's pretty relatable to most people.

I guess one of the most important facts when relating my story is that, prior to starting training, I had never run more than 4 miles in one go. I was not (and would say that I'm probably still not) an endurance athlete. Even running a 5K was difficult for me. My normal 5K time average about 11-12 minutes a mile. My fastest mile was 9 minutes. Plus I have exercise-induced asthma. To sum up, I'm no crazy, natural athlete. If anything, it takes even more work for me than it does most people.

When I first started with Team In Training, I followed the schedule every week and made sure I did my runs in the evening. I went to every Saturday morning group training session. However, my fundraising was going very slowly. Once school started in mid-August, I had about $2,000 more to go and I started to get a lot busier. My schedule really affected my training. The big part that I missed was three long runs. The longest training run I completed before my marathon was only 14 miles. This was in no way recommended. My coach tried to convince me to switch to the half, but by that point I had already run three half marathons in training.

The week before, I was really stressed out. I still had $1600 more to go with fundraising and I didn't know what to do. Most of my friends and family had already donated and I didn't have any time to plan another event or do anything that would raise that amount of money. I went into my gym on Tuesday morning (BTB Crossfit!) to workout and started talking to Melissa, who owns BTB along with her husband Jeff. Jeff recently beat Hodgkin's Lymphoma for a second time in 2008, and they both raise a lot of money for ACS and LLS. Melissa said she'd post my link on the blog, but a few minutes after I email her the link, she sends me a reply back saying they'd decided to donate a portion of the money they had raised during a recent Fight Gone Bad fundraiser to LLS through my page. A portion of $1300. I was able to finish out the week just focusing on interviewing, school, and getting ready for the marathon.

Despite a couple of delays, I made it to San Francisco, wandered around a bit, picked up my bib (#389!), and got to sleep early on Saturday night. Sunday morning, my roommate and I woke up at 4.30am and started getting ready for the day. Ate some potatoes, tied my shoes, made sure everything was in place, then I headed down to a meeting with my teammates. At 6.30am, we all walked down to get in the mass of runners. We made our way to the middle and waited for the start. If you've never run a big race (Nike had 20,000 runners), you are missing out. I don't even like crowds, but there is nothing more exhilarating than being out there with that many people, all shapes and sizes, all with the same goal: FINISH. Sure we got started a bit late, but the time tag on my shoe took that into account.

I crossed the start line at 7.16am, right as the sun was rising. The crowd spread out relatively quickly, so by mile 2 I stopped having to dodge people. I started off running a 4:2 run/walk with two of my teammates, but had to break from them at around mile 4 because they wanted to stop and take pictures. I just wanted to run. I didn't have a watch, so I counted on my internal clock telling me when I needed to walk and probably started out doing around 8:2. It was a beautiful morning and I felt like I could keep going forever. The scenery through the first half was just incredible. I ran by myself for about 11 miles, slowed down a bit, then the 5.45 pacer caught up with me. I wanted to finish in under 6 hrs, so I started running with the pacer, Caroline, and continued that for about 9 miles. We were doing a 4:1 run/walk and that worked out really well. I wasn't quite exhausted enough yet and was still able to fight my body into continuing to run. However, that fight was a bit harder to win when I was running on my own and didn't have someone to keep up with.

Around mile 23, I started breaking. I had to start walking and leave Caroline and the pacing group around mile 24. I knew I just needed to keep ahead of the 6 hr pacer. I walked for about a mile and a half, trying to build up the energy to run through the finish. Midway through my walk, I hear someone shout my name and my grandmother starts walking beside me. I wasn't expected to see family until the finish, but it was so great to get the extra boost of encouragement. I needed it. I said a temporary goodbye to my grandma and started running again. I had about a mile more to go. My coach starts running with me and tells me how proud she is and how she couldn't believe how hard I was able to push myself. I couldn't either. At about half a mile to go, I see my cousins and aunt and uncle. They start running alongside shouting encouragement and I just couldn't believe it.

Everyone was talking about the San Francisco firemen that hand us our necklaces when we finish and how they were going to give them a kiss and whatnot. I barely even saw them. When I crossed the finish line, I started crying. I couldn't believe that any of it was happening, that I had raised all the money, that I had completed the marathon. All through the race and all through training, I was telling myself that I could do it. In the back of my mind, though, I didn't think it was possible. When I finally crossed, I couldn't stop thinking about all the support I had received from my family and friends, how lucky I was to have so many people that love me and want to see me succeed, how close I had come to failing, and my family that had come to see me finish. I had wanted them to come, but I didn't realize how important it was that they were there until I actually got near the end.

It still all seems like some sort of surreal experience. But it was real. I finished 261 out of 350 for my age group and 3473 overall. I finished in 5:50:09, reaching my goal of under 6 hours. I averaged a 13.5 minute mile and kept a steady pace the whole way. I couldn't have done it without all the help along the way.

Pictures up later.

Update on why I've been failing to update

Job searches are difficult. Trying not to fail out of a class before you've even started is also difficult (thanks ISyE senior design!). Raising a puppy who still thinks she can play with you as if you were also a puppy is difficult. Basically, I've been really busy. However, I have managed to:

- Read The Surrogates
- Read Pride & Prejudice & Zombies
- Read Beasts of Burden
- Get a gigantic box of free comics, new & old, including some 70's Spiderman
- Check out another Atlanta band that's amazing (A Fight to the Death!)
- Start a meetup group that caters to drunk nerds

I've also finished training for my marathon and, thanks to my lovely crossfit gym, BTB Fitness, almost reached my fundraising goal. I'm running my marathon this Sunday. Hopefully there will be more updates after I have one stressor down.

9 Movie Review w/ Spoilers Included

I saw 9 last week and decided I'd write a quick review about it. That quick review happened a week late. What can I say? The life of a 5th year engineering student is mildly hectic.

9 was about as excellent as I thought it would be. It's hard to go wrong with a two-word summary of "rag-doll apocalypse". I could see this being my favorite movie if I was 12. I say that because it was incredibly simple and sort of adorable. The apocalypse is brought around by a popular favorite: machines. I'm pretty sure a zombie apocalypse is more likely than machines turning against us. But I guess a world in which a scientist puts parts of his soul into rag-dolls would get taken over by crazy machines. Either way, the rag-dolls are pretty simple characters, mostly one-dimensional. I chalk the lack of character development up to this actually being a kids' movie. It was short enough to be just a quick break from reality. I would definitely watch it again. io9 has a longer review that I've linked to below and Charlie Jane is definitely more critical of the film than I am. I think it's highly enjoyable if you don't expect too much.

io9's 9 Review

GLEE Liveblog - Acafellas!

8:54pm - Currently watching America's Got Talent with my roommate. This show is giving me an aneurysm.
9:00pm - GLEE!
9:01pm - VICTOR GARBOR! Oh Victor... your portrayal of Anthony in Sweeney Todd was riveting.
9:03pm - "He was the understudy to the candelabra in Beauty and the Beast. On Broadway!"
9:05pm - Two thumbs up cake, FTW.
9:06pm - "No creative outlet other than writing my Desperate Housewives fan fiction."
9:07pm - Acafellas!
9:14pm - "I learned a lot on Special Forces. I was on the strike team in Panama when we went after Noriega."
9:16pm - This Spiderman song is hilarious. Can I watch Acafellas all day?
9:18pm - "like a cool fog that sweeps over an ocean"
9:21pm - "Come over, it's Liza Minnelli week on TCM."
9:22pm - Who is this dance group that they get to play Vocal Adrenaline? They are amazing!
9:27pm - "He just downed six bottles of cough syrup, which is a lot, even for him."
9:30pm - "There are a lot of moms at your gigs, right?"
9:31pm - "My love life is hanging by a thread and that thread is Acafellas!"
9:36pm - Mercedes' crush on Kurt is hilarious. Who hasn't had a crush on a gay boy?
9:38pm - "I'm in love with someone else." [gazes fondly at Finn, then Rachel pops up] "Rachel?" "... Yes, for several years now."
9:39pm - Rock through the windshield was classy.
9:48pm - The coach with mascara... YES
9:50pm - Roommate on Matthew Morrison: "He is precious. I just want to touch him."
9:51pm - "I don't want any more of those locks of your hair."
9:53pm - I love these WeightWatchers Hungry commercials. They make hungry look so cute!
9:55pm - "Throngs of screaming teenagers don't do it for Josh Groban. Josh Groban loves a blousy alcoholic."
9:57pm - "My dad took my baby away when he found my tiara collection in my hope chest."
9:58pm - "That's the smell of failure and it's stinking up my office. I'm revoking your tanning privileges for the rest of the semester."


YAY!

Glee LiveBlog

GLEE!

9:00pm - Hey it started!

9:05pm - This is unfortunately all in the preview. Nothing too new.

9:07pm - Lea Michele is sorta adorable.

9:08pm - I have a bit of a crush on Matthew Morrison. I need to find the picture of me with him from his Light in the Piazza days.

9:14pm - The woman with the red hair is hilarious. I need to find her name.

9:17pm - Jane Lynch (cheerleading coach) is hilarious.

9:18pm - Her name is Jayma Mays. I remember her from Ugly Betty.

9:20pm - The only problem I find with this show is Matthew Morrison's wife on the show. She's way too bitchy and nagging. That stereotype is more sad than funny.

9:21pm - Really Fox? There was a commercial 6 minutes ago!

9:25pm - Celibacy Club... ha. Love it.

9:26pm - "Someone once told me to keep from erupting too early, you should think of dead kittens or something."

9:30pm - Commercials blow.

9:33pm - I don't actually know what song their singing, but the dance is hilarious.

9:36pm - "The dry cleaners here are just as good as the dry cleaners in Europe."

9:37pm - Really commercials? Really?

9:40pm - Tulipalooza. Do these occur in realy life? Because I want to go if they do.

9:41pm - What's this random picnic in the auditorium? Oh it's just Lea Michele and her crazy.

9:43pm - Rachel and Finn start kissing and Finn remembers some guy he ran into while learning to drive. Find the scene, watch it. Or I'll find the scene on Hulu and post it tomorrow. Shit's hilarious.

9:48pm - Wait... they're having cheerleaders join the Glee Club? Hmm...

9:51pm - Second mention of Tulipalooza. Just googled it. Occurs in Holland, MI, May 6-9. I want to go.

9:53pm - Lea Michele - "Can I use the auditorium to practice? Our neighbors are filing a complaint." I'm going to go ahead and say that Lea Michele can bring it and any neighbors she has would probably complain about the amount that her voice can carry. /musical theatre nerd-ness

9:56pm - It's over? Really?

I'm sorta huge musical nerd, so I might do this every week. I was planning on doing a review of 9, but I'm going to have to go to sleep. Classics on WREK 7-9am!UPDATE: Found the picture of myself with the lovely Matthew Morrison. Thanks Flickr!

My First Dragon*Con: Day 2

So here's what I meant to go see today: Digital Forensics & Anti-Forensics (Electronic Frontiers Forum), The Science of BSG (Main), Stealth Science and Skeptical Thought w/ Adam Savage (Skeptics), and Skeptics Guide to the Universe (Skeptics). Absolutely none of those happened for me. Digital Forensics & Anti-Forensics is actually tomorrow (Monday), I got there too late for the Science of BSG, and both the skeptic panels had really long lines. I'm sorry Adam Savage, you aren't Felicia Day. Instead, this is how my morning went: TV Zombies Rising (American Sci-fi Media), How Much Longer Does Homo Sapiens Have? (Science), 25 minutes of Copyright 101 (Electronic Frontiers Forum), and (because I thought it was Digital Forensics) Self Publishing (EFF). Here's the overview:

TV Zombies Rising: I'm a fan of the ASFM panels. They seem sorta like huge goofy discussions. I love that. In this one, we were talking about all the Sci-fi/Fantasy shows that got cancelled this year, including one of my favorite shows, Pushing Daisies. Not going to lie, it was basically most of us bitching about them being cancelled, but still highly enjoyable. That is, other than this crazy women in front of me who was really loud and didn't really add anything. At one point, someone referenced the fact that there were a million crime shows on tv because America is stupid and she felt the need to yell out that she has a degree in forensics and that it takes a month to process DNA tests (actually, I just looked it up and the usual average is 5-10 days, min 72 hrs for rush). Excuse me miss, but most people don't watch those shows for the reality. Anyway, other than that, highly enjoyable.

How Much Longer Does Homo Sapiens Have?: This talk was given by Dr. Seth Shostak of SETI (they look for aliens!) and it was like a less irritating version of my Energy and Environmental Analysis class. By less irritating, I mean not irritating at all. It was basically a "Earth can't support man for much longer, what should we do?" type of talk, but with more humor.

Now onto my two favorites for the day, both by complete accident:

Copyright 101: I was only at the end of this one because, unlike every other track, the EFF track goes for 1 hr 25 minutes instead of an hour. I feel like I lucked out, because it was great! It was given by a lawyer whose name I unfortunately don't have. It was mainly educational, so I guess I actually don't have much to write about.

Self Publishing: I'm not an author, which makes it even more surprising at how fascinating I thought it was. This panel featured Jennie Breeden of Devil's Panties, Scott Sigler, A. Kovacs, and Gail Martin. They talked about the various dificulties publishing, self-publishing, marketing, and all other things relating to getting your collection of thoughts out to the world. Y'know how I said the panel yesterday about zombies just talked about their books and it was horribly boring? Well A. Kovacs and Scott Sigler know how to market a book while actually discussing what they are there to discuss. Scott's new book is the first (and only) book published by their new publishing company, Dark Overlord Publishing. They almost never referenced the plot and just talked about their adventures in book publishing. Jennie Breeden was also great. She's a local webcomic author who has dealt with major publishers and self-publishing.

Overall... great day. And now I really want to buy Scott Sigler's The Rookie.

My First Dragon*Con: Day 1

I know Day 1 was technically Friday. However, I missed Friday in it's entirety. Seriously... the whole day. After 2pm, I was home and stayed there. I was barely awake before that. Therefore, my D*C experience started at 2:00pm this afternoon. I wanted to go to a BSG panel this morning, but finished my run too late. Here are the panels I went to: Women's Intuition & Other Myths (Skeptic Track), BSG: So What Happened? (American Sci-fi Media Track), Vampires vs. Zombies (Dark Fantasy Track). Breakdown below:

Women's Intuition & Other Myths: This might not be much of a surprise, but this might have been my favorite of my (short) day. The panel was composed of the women of Skepchick and they were fantastic. Basically, they talked about things (primarily in advertising) that pissed them off. Examples: the idea of women having some sort of intuition, beauty products, diets/diet pills, Jenny McCarthy, "magic" rocks/jewelry (magnetic bracelets), and stuff of the sort. Favorite quote: "Viagra actually has the same effect for men and women." "It makes their penises erect?" Most of it was stuff I already knew (wrinkle creams don't work... for anyone!), but it was still a fascinating discussion.

BSG: So What Happened?: I loved this one as well. The ending of BSG was not that great (in my opinion) and I was definitely looking forward to talking about it. Best thing about this one? Someone brought in Blue Curacao mixed with Malibu Rum and they were giving out drinks. Or more of, they said "anyone want one?" and myself and 5 other people dashed up for free booze. This panel was more of a group discussion with the "panelists" primarily moderating and giving some opinions of their own. I wouldn't really say we arrived at any conclusions, but I loved the discussions. Except for the girl behind me who said "like" and "um" about three times in every sentence. Drove me a bit nuts. Other than that, it was great!

Vampires vs. Zombies: I thought this would be a "which one's better" or "which one would win in a fight" type of debate. It was supposedly a "which one's better" type of debate, but... it really wasn't. It was just boring. The "experts" were authors who write books on vampires and zombies. Doesn't sound so bad, right? Too bad they all seemed to just want to talk about their books. I'm sorry, but other than a short introduction which states your background, I don't want to hear about your books (unless I'm at a reading). This was dull even compared to my manufacturing lectures.

All I've got left tonight is the Browncoats' Mighty Fine Shindig (or the BSG Party). It will be written about.

Random complaint not really related to D*C: I hate downtown. Somehow I always manage to go the wrong way. And speaking of misdirection, what is with the Hyatt? That hotel was the most ridiculous. Who plans hotel layouts? Are they ever supposed to make sense? Everytime I go to a hotel with the intention of finding a particular room, it always takes me forever! Ok that's all I got for tonight.

District 9 Review + a quick update

I saw District 9 about two weeks ago. That is how far behind I am in updating this blog. And life.... everything else is going that slowly too. Either way, this is a quick review with spoilers.

Disclaimer: I am totally a sci-fi nerd, if you happen to have just recently stumbled upon this rarely updated blog. With that in mind, I really liked District 9. It took a sci-fi approach to the human condition and did it incredibly well. It didn't make any of the characters into heroes. The main character, Wikus, only becomes a "hero" out of a strict sense of self-preservation. In that respect alone, I would say this is, in many ways, one of the most realistic movies of the year. Granted, I am a bit of a pessimist. I think that's actually all I have to say about District 9 without going on some sort of political rant. It was a very good, incredibly well-done movie that I highly recommend. Well worth my $9.

Now for the quick update: since classes started back up, I'm sitting in front of a computer for probably max of 2 hrs a week, versus 50+ when I work. This gigantic decrease in internet activity is most likely the cause of the decrease in blog postings, twitter updates... everything. The puppy is also taking up quite a bit of my time. She's getting to be a big girl! 3 months and 25 lbs. There will probably be less music reviews as time goes on, but I will probably keep up with movies and tv. Actually, I'm really excited about the shows that are starting in the fall. Hopefully I'll get a chance to update again soon!