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BioGio

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Blog Entries posted by BioGio

  1. BioGio
    Hey.
     
    It's been a while since we've seen each other. How are you holding up?
     
    Are the kids alright? I still miss the littlest one. What did you decide on for the name--Jimmy?
     
    No? Oh, right, Timmy.
     
    Well...
     
    Kind of funny bumping into you here. You look great, by the way.
     
    Anyway, I should really be going. But we should get lunch some time--catch up. You should still have my number.
     
    Yeah, well, uh, see you around--I mean, maybe--if we do. Good-bye.
     
     
    -------------------
     
     
    In all seriousness, though, now, I guess I'm back for a bit. What's with this new reputation thing on the posts? Is it like le epic Reddit upboats, and does it indicate who "reputationed" the post? Any other new features I should know about.
     
    (And I am very sorry for the above awkward-encounter-w/-estranged-person-dialogue-thing, which dialogue-thing didn't really stick to a solitary theme or storyboard and was generally kind of lamely executed. But it felt oddly fitting and humorous, and I find myself funny when I do stupid junk like that.)
     
    - BioGio
  2. BioGio

    November

    By BioGio,

    I decided a few hours ago to join NaNoWriMo 2013. I'm still not totally sure where I'll be going with this novel, but I'm quite satisfied with my first couple hundred words. I also don't know how much I want to write, and the tight structure with which I feel the need to write fiction will surely hinder me from reaching 50,000 words in the month. So, I don't have any definite goals--of really any sort--in mind. My only expectation is to return to fiction writing.
     
    Perhaps every week, I'll select a few short samples or a brief passage to share here, as a small incentive to continue. Would anyone find that interesting?
  4. BioGio

    Trouble with the Curve

    By BioGio,

    So, yesterday I ended up not seeing The Master and instead going to Trouble with the Curve with two friends. I naturally have plenty of opinions about it, but they've all been said better, more eloquently, more professionally, and more clearly elsewhere. See what Roger Ebert or somebody thinks if you'd like to hear whether it's any good.
     
    See, the thing is, there's one major aspect of that movie that still stands out to me above all the others. The "I am your father" of Trouble, if you will.
     
    I could tell you that Amy Adams delivered a great performance, but I only recall a couple of lines.
    I could tell you about how forced parts of the romantic sub-plot felt at first, but that was corrected quickly.
    I could tell you that Justin Timberlake was played his character endearingly, but I don't recall much about it.
    I could tell you that it was a little bit too predictable, but that could be said for anything.
    I could tell you that the ending was rushed to perfectly happy endings, but I didn't mind it for the most part.
    I could tell you it was memorable overall, but that wouldn't fit the theme of this entry.
     
    No, what resonates most about Trouble is the fact that, at one glorious moment which may be the greatest second of cinematic history, Clint Eastwood yells, for the second time this month, at a chair. It was rather spectacular: We had just finished talking about Eastwood's RNC chair-rant, when, only an hour into the movie, he replicates it. What a stroke of pure serendipity.
     
    Seriously, though, it was a pretty good movie, well-acted but occasionally a bit too perfect.
  5. BioGio

    Who Wants Portal 2?

    By BioGio,

    So, I apparently have a 75%-off Steam coupon for Portal 2 (and it expires August 30). If anyone would like it, you can have it. Just inform me of your account name and I'll get it to you some time tomorrow.
  7. BioGio

    Delivery

    By BioGio,

    I just received my two copies of Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges: one book in English, el otro en español. The book consists of seventeen of his best short stories, and I believe that I even managed to find a decent translation (read: not Hurley's).
     
    yay
  8. BioGio

    Feelin' Dystopian

    By BioGio,

    Grey-ish color theme (except for a dull red "search" button), gears as decoration--especially in the blogs--, icons of faces/eyes staring... yup, BIONICLE Zone Power is now a dystopia. (Brave New Zone Power?) Not that the old one wasn't also "dystopia-esque," with its nearly sterile use of white and pale blue. Wait, what if the entire Internet is a terrible evil future?
     
    Anyway, the Takua icon is really cool.
  9. BioGio

    The Master

    By BioGio,

    EDIT 9/22/12: The release date was revised a while back; The Master actually came out yesterday. I plan to see it Sunday, so I'll try to post a few thoughts here. Is anybody else planning to see it?
     
    A new trailer for The Master came out yesterday. There's still a while to wait (with the release date being 12 October), but I'm really looking forward to this one.
     
    Oh, and in tribute to the myriad "ask me" entries floating around currently, here are some of the questions asked by Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character (Lancaster Dodd) during a stowaway's informal "processing."
     
    Do you make thoughtless remarks?
    Do you browse through railway timetables for pleasure?
    Do you get occasional twitches of your muscles when there is no logical reason for it?
    Do past failures still worry you?
    Is your life a constant struggle for survival?
    Would you rather give orders than take them?
    Are you often impulsive in your behavior?
    Do other people interest you very much?
    Do you find it easy to be impartial?
    Are you likely to be jealous?
    Are you logical and scientific in your thinking?
    Do you rarely suspect the actions of others?
    Are you usually truthful to others?
    Are your actions considered unpredictable by other people?
    Do you often ponder over your own inferiority?
  10. BioGio

    Gravity Falls

    By BioGio,

    Why aren't you watching this yet, BZPower?
     
    I mean, I know that we're generally a bit behind the curve (see: any use of memes in the history of BZP, how late it took for MLP and Homestuck to get huge). Still, we should at least try to catch up.
     
     
     
    (yes I'm aware that the gif is terrible)
  11. BioGio
    Well, this might be interesting. I really hope Luhrmann uses music from the 1920s in the soundtrack but fear he may prefer pop as he did in Romeo + Juliet.
     
    Oh, and Leonardo DiCaprio looks great as Gatsby, but I have to question whether he has the ability to say "old sport" convincingly.
  15. BioGio

    "read Full Entry"

    By BioGio,

    Is anybody else having an issue in which every blog entry displays the "Read Full Entry" button even when the full entry is displayed?
     
    I'm beginning to feel like I've messed up some personal settings or something. It's a bit disorienting to constantly think that there's more to every post but discover there's actually nothing more.
  16. BioGio
    >notice new messages
    >click on little envelope icon
    >read first full message
    >forget about other message or look at other site/topic
    >remember second message
    >look at little envelope icon
    >it doesn't report the existence of another message
    >you are now entering THE TWILIGHT ZONE
    >(in reality, just look through list that drops down from envelope icon... but it's still always a bit confusing)
  17. BioGio
    This resource may be valuable to you if you have substantial difficulty in creating names.
     
    To give an example, I ran one test in an attempt to generate BIONICLE names akin to those used in 2001.
     
    First, the input:
     
    Categories:
    V=aueio
    C=nklmhtpgjrwv
     
    Rewrite rules:
    ii|i
    aa|a
    ee|e
    oo|o
    uu|u
     
    Syllable types:
    CV
    V
    CVn
     
    Now, a bit of explanation:
    Categories: I only used two categories (vowels and consonants), since basically every major name from 2001 followed the simple pattern of consonant/vowel alternation. It is possible to create more categories (such as back vowels or fricatives) to control probabilities better or to enforce different phonotactic rules. The frequency of letters comes from the names of the six Toa Mata, the Turaga Metru, and the Toa Inika (prior to renaming). In fact, all of the information for this generator comes from analysis those eighteen names. It is worth noting that I omitted the "wh" of Whenua, because it has no clear meaning. If you want to include it, note that the vocabulary generator does not allow digraphs in the categories: You’ll need some other symbol and a rewrite rule.
     
    Rewrite rules: I know that doubled vowels occasionally occurred (e.g., in Lhii and later Hewkii), but they did not appear in the sample I used. Also, these doubled vowels seem to have no defined meaning, and I dislike how they look. So, yeah.
     
    Syllable types: The only exceptions to consonant/vowel alternation that I found were in consonant+vowel+n (e.g., in Kongu) and in cases when two vowels appeared together (e.g., in Onua), so there are three syllable types.
     
    The output was the following (pretty close to what I intended):
    Hoko anuaki atekiamu ea nulu munkunkalan ku utielun kuni liu ane ninu hilupi ka. Kana le ma keluna ne lame kuno. Tale ka e ka gani tenka! Nuo kinninku nanmen aiwano nun. Ina janla kinnineaju he ni nanuna kine. Nu nahan na lin nukanlan mon nin? Gonani lu ananhun aopenun lulena. Ea kukon kai ua u nenunoa hima? Haekane ela na numa nala nulula kau. Lae ka ko enutama alele amunonen lalu. Min ma najuntehen nuhe tannonalun hon ninanela. Nunepue gae ge menlen nenitoahun. Kimun lunokan ilin kano kola. Niheake nu inennun hakan takulu tau nakeja nuhitan nano ma ahu! Nanu ea nonkounulo nikin ta laven aunenken. Ka alun a memali eahu na? Urehen paman. Nulentalumu nenu nun kinanu ateko ula. Lama aka nata pinnanalen honu lannukumi! Atuni umelenu awae ne nu u. Eau gaea a elanti ula hanala i. Kaie au hope kalon nakana? Nenakui uona menkunahi e wi wu. Wu a ae. Nuhuha eke heno takianu mukakon. Io au u nale. Una ku o nopanua uke. Amuo mea ene nini meule nulo. Uhen u kemihei akulemanka kanou. I tanakuhani nuanenu uheoka ganhune mepe.
     
    There’s certainly room for improvement, especially since I only analyzed eighteen names. If anybody else can expand upon the work I've done, that would really be useful.
  18. BioGio
    So, I finally got around to seeing the 1968 version of The Producers. (I had previously seen only the 2005 musical.)
     
    Gene Wilder was hilarious as the neurotic Bloom, and Zero Mostel is always amusing. (Mostel actually reminds me a lot of a friend of mine who actually recommended the movie to me in the first place; sadly, he's moved back to Israel since then.) And, personally, I prefer the goofy hippy version of Hitler to the flamboyant portrayal of DeBris as Hitler that was used in 2005.
  19. BioGio

    Tim O'Brien

    By BioGio,

    A few days ago, Tim O'Brien won the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing, which he earned for... well, it's kind of obvious given the name of the award. Over the past several years, the award has gone to historians, this seems like a pretty powerful affirmation of O'Brien's contributions.
     
    Anybody have any recommendations pertaining to his work? I read his novel/short story collection The Things They Carried. Is Going After Cacciato worth reading now, or should I start with his autobiography?
  20. BioGio

    Comic Sans

    By BioGio,

    Okay, this is it. I just saw Comic Sans used in a political attack ad. It's official: Everyone uses Comic Sans, and no one knows why.
  21. BioGio

    ^3

    By BioGio,

    That episode was pretty good. Definitely liked the Doctor/Amy/Rory relationship, which was pretty well developed. I will admit, when Rory first went off to the hospital, I assumed that it was just to get rid of him, but his sub-plot ended up pretty satisfying.
  24. BioGio

    Korra Finale

    By BioGio,

    It took me a few days, but I got around to seeing the last two episodes of Book One from The Legend of Korra.
     
    Ultimately, the finale was pretty good. Everything made sense, the more reasonable theories were validated, and so on.
     
    Now I'm really feeling nostalgic. The end of Korra has left me with a desire for more like The Last Airbender. TLA had a certain quality--a basic nature--to its scope and world that I really miss. Not that there's anything wrong with staying in one city or having a character with less of the spiritual ties, since no one wanted a TLA clone, but the grandness of TLA definitely benefited it. Between a shorter season and the smaller scope, Korra is very different.
     
    I don't think that I dislike that, though.
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