Summer Session '05

Summer session starts tomorrow, yak, I'm not ready to go back into my hermitish life yet!

This summer's lineup of classes are:

• Molecular Biology Of HIV
• Data Mining (Audit)
• Biochemistry (Self Inflicted study to prepare for Fall)
• Portuguese (Also self-inflicted so I'm not preceived as a stupid Americano in Brazil)

Please contain your jealousy and yes, I am aware of my own insanity :)

Goodbye wine, goodbye martinis, goodbye social life ... I will see you in July !

Crash

Fantastic film!

Following the style of Interesection and Magnolia, Crash unfolds in unlikely segements then seemingly disjointed stories loudly and rapidly converge. Fear and prejudice are the driving forces in this story, the question is does fear drive prejudice or is it the converse?

Glad to see Matt Dillon come out of hiding to give a good performance. Sandra Bullock, who I usually don't remember, gives a good performance as well, she does have emotional range after all!

The filming is brilliant; the score fades and scenes become over exposed and focused solely on facial expression to highlight emotion, odd angles create objects out of proportion giving a chaotic and unsettling feeling at just the right time. The plot leads you into a false sense of knowing EXACTLY what will happen next, until it swerves to an unexpected conclusion. Humor, tension, joy and tragedy integrate seemlessly into a film that will hopefully see some award. It deserves several, this is the best film I've seen in years!

Hitchhikers Guide To Crap

No offense to anyone who loved the movie "Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy" but I thought this movie was ASS. Extremely disappointing since the book series was brilliant and iconic to me in the 80's. It was fortunate that my friend Noeha and I had margaritas before the midnight showing; the late hour and tequila had a numbing effect. Just for the record we were not the only people disappointed with the film, of the 20 or so people in the theatre only Noeha and I remained 15 minutes into the film.

Lets hope the putz who made this crap will spare us from a sequel! :)

Brazil - Initial Thoughts

Evil friends of mine are orchestrating a clandestine plot to extract me to Brazil. Oddly, this trip will coincide with my birthday. Strangely, the thought of spending my birthday with good friends on Rio De Janeiro's Ipanema stretch of beach is appealing to me. While the evildoers secretely arrange hotel accomodations, day trips and interesting people to meet, I am learning what I can about Brasil; language, culture and otherwise. You know, I could get used to going to foreign countries for free :)

Initially I was a little concerned about travelling to South America, having heard horror stories from friends that have been to Chile, Peru and Venezuela. However, a lovely Brazilian couple I met through my friend Noeha assured me that Dallas is more dangerous than Rio; Sao Paulo they claim is another story. Basically Rio De Janeiro is Brazil with training wheels. Yay!

Ebay. Click. Portuguese Language CD. Click. Snipe, win, buy. $4.99 via Paypal, click. Receive, open and learn. Portuguese is an interesting language. It looks and sounds like a blend of Spanish, French and Italian. That I know pieces of those languages is both an assest and a liability. I find at times I am slipping into "French mode" or "Spanish mode". Oh well, my goal is to be able to speak and read better than any Brazilian 3 year old by September! :)

More about Brazil later, I must yoga.