I was watching an episode of Smallville the other day. Not a great show, barely watchable actually. I think that if I didn't like superman I wouldn't like the show at all. It's not very well written, there's no main villian, Clark's parents give dumb, feel-good advice, and I couldn't care less whether Clark and Lana ever get together. It's a bad show but I keep watching because I have a silly hope that each episode will be better than the previous. But I didn't bring up the show just to bash it. Yesterday I watched an episode where Clark got some red kryptonite that turned him into "evil Clark" who wasn't actually evil, he was just slightly more selfish and impatient than the normal boyscout Clark. He asked out Lana and took her to a bad boy bar full of rebels and no-good frat boys. And you know it was a bad scene because they were playing Andrew WK as dance music (though the dancers were pretending it was something slower). What bar plays Andrew WK? I would go there every day!

Wednesday was Kate Reid's birthday. It was a combined birthday party with one of her housemates. I got the evite and was confused because it was for Jeff's 30th birthday and Kate's Sweet 16. I don't know anyone named Jeff, nor do I know anyone who is 16 years old. Later I figured out that Kate was re-doing her sweet 16 birthday. Apparently guys do not get sweet 16's, something I didn't know. Also I thought it was going to be a quiet birthday since it was midweek, but it turns out that Georgetown spring break starts this week, so Wednesday was like a Friday for the dozens of Georgetown students who were there. So I stayed up too late and drank too much, and spent Thursday nursing a hangover. Today I'm ready to work though!

(Peter comments about the random people who wish him happy birthday on facebook)
Sarah: I wished you happy birthday on facebook!
Peter: I don't mean you, you stay here with us. It's people I never talk to. People who, if they told me they were coming to DC, I'd be like "Eh. Have fun."
(I know he's not talking about me because I definitely didn't wish him a happy birthday on facebook)

Saturday was Peter's birthday party. I took a cab and rushed over early, just because Puja had told me she was going to be leaving early, and then it turned out she had cancelled without warning me. So I spent a bit of the night sending Puja pointless text messages, because I know she hates them and they cost her 10 cents each.

Rachel suggested I invite Micros, but I don't have his phone number, nor Eric's phone number to get Micros' phone number. Maybe this whole "get numbers as you talk to people" idea wasn't a great one. So far I have Puja, Rachel, Kate & Kate, and then all my sisters and their husbands, and my cousin James, and the local chinese food place. I guess I don't see a lot of people.

Sarah figured out how to add punctuation to my text messages. It's a very slow process. If you get a text from me with punctuation then it means I really care. (If it's a question, you darn well better answer it.) Except a period or a smiley face, my phone likes to do those. I still can't figure out how to change the auto-completion when it suggests a word. I'm going to be sending a lot of form text messages from now on.

Oh and I spoke to Diana briefly and it wasn't a disaster. It was more successful than I was even hoping.

I got a terrible haircut at the hair cuttery last week but everyone had the good taste to not mention anything. I even had a pretty good story, if it had come up, about how the stylist and I ended up yelling at each other in the middle of the salon because she was cutting it wrong.

(walking with Kate when it's a little cool out)
Kate: I would have to take my hands out of my pockets and I don't want to do that.
me: I've heard that putting your hands in your armpits is warmer than your pockets.
Kate: That's true, for body heat... Or you can cut open the belly of a tauntaun and crawl inside.

I finally finished the Next Generation. Bought the set on dvd 2 years ago and have been slowly watching the episodes. I didn't watch quite every episode, but I gave each one a chance. If I could tell it was going to be bad 20 minutes in, I'd skip. Like that one where all the characters turn into kids. No Patrick Stewart! I could tell right away it was skippable.

The series finale wasn't as good as I was expecting, based on all the critics' raving I'd read. The time-backwards phenomenon was interesting, but it didn't really make a lot of sense. And considering that they were trying to tie this episode to the Encounter at Farpoint premiere, I was expecting something more dramatic.

I think my favorite episodes are the Wounded and Sins of the Father. Pretty much, as soon as Klingons show up, you'd know the episode was going to be a good one. Q is also a pretty good indicator of a good episode, and the borg, though neither is quite as good as the Klingons. I'm not sure now whether to start on DS9 or go back to the Original Series. Haven't watched much of either of them yet.

(from the episode A Matter of Honor, when Riker visits a Klingon ship as part of an officer exchange)
Klag: If Klingon food is too strong for you, perhaps we can get one of the females to breast-feed you.

I'm eating a late dinner and rewatching that episode of Vampire Diaries where both the witch guys get killed. Puja told me that she was surprised that they killed off both characters so quickly, but for me it was like Christmas came early. Both of those characters were annoying. Now I'm mostly just really, really hoping that the brother will die. Ugh, that whiny brother. I've never been much of a bully, but he really provokes the bully-side of me. Every time he's on screen I wish I could punch him in the stomach and stuff him into a locker.

I'm not a huge fan of the girl witch either, but she's really more of a deus ex machina plot device than a person. It bugs me every time she says "my powers" as though she has a specific quantity of spells to work with. When really, she can make feathers float, do a vampire dog-whistle, make water catch fire, and whatever random thing they have the special-effects budget for. Instead she could call it "my magic" or "my reason". As in, reason for being a part of this show. Now she's dating the brother. Maybe they'll go driving together and get in an accident. Then we'd finally have a show free of annoying characters.

I'm surprised Elena, being a doppleganger and all, doesn't have a list of "powers". The girl in true blood can read thoughts and shoot white light. Maybe they'll reveal something later.

My final thought about VD: the wiki is almost unreadable (I was trying to look up the doppleganger powers). It's like a sixth grader wrote this thing. I'm really hoping this isn't because it's directly quoting dialogue from the tv show, but that's very possible.

(Paul Barnett talks about a Nokia presentation at a technology festival)
Nothing more frightening than realizing there’s groups of anthropologists in a room having bananas thrown to them and hooting and throwing leaves in the air who are coming up with how we should use telephones.

I watched Dead Ringers tonight. It's a movie about creepy twin doctors and their crazy issues due to being twins. I was going to make a tasteful, hilarious joke here about how, if you happen to have twins, probably the best thing for everybody would be to drown one of the babies in the bathtub. But then it occurred to me that Ravi is having triplets, and they will probably be creepy. He should put each one in a different daycare, encourage them to develop their own personalities. None of this completing each others sentences creepiness. I also have two uncles who are twins, but they've both been very different for as long as I can remember.

Dave Reynolds sent me a great mug from Micronesia. It's a mug with photos of the governor of Micronesia's face on it. And apparently the mug shots are sort of a forced tradition because he does not look at all happy to have his photograph taken. One photo has him glaring at the camera and the other has him giving a very forced half-smile. If this was a tumbr I'd post photos of it on here. It's really quite funny.

(comments from a provocative news article about how 25% of married women wish their marriage proposal had been more romantic for various reasons. Guys not having rings is one of the cited complaints. Male readers came out of the woodwork to criticize.)
Dubs: "If you like it you should of put a ring on it" so she can lord it over him and constantly remind him how she deserved to have the picture perfect proposal, the perfect wedding, the perfect marriage, the perfect family....and ultimately the perfect divorce...all due to delusions of grandeur and an over inflated sense of entitlement and unrealistic expectations.
Doug: I had the ring when I proposed. I had it made up beforehand. I caught hell because I "should have" proposed then taken her out to buy a ring that she liked. Can't win for losin'. The first gift of many which were unsatisfactory for one reason or another. Oh well.

Last Friday I lost my phone in a taxi. Called it a couple times but nobody ever answered, and then the battery died so I gave up. I went to AT&T on Saturday and told the saleslady that I wanted her cheapest phone that had decent battery life and text messaging.

So it's my first flip phone, cost me $10, and the battery life is outstanding! My old phone would last like a day, this one has gone for 3 days now and is still at 5/6 full! Also it's super, super light. I'm pretty pleased. The only downside is that texting is slow and I can't figure out how to put punctuation into my texts. There's going to be a lot of run-on sentence texts from now on.

I don't call the parents for weeks, call up this evening, and get quickly hustled off the phone because I'm interrupting them watching the Boondock Saints! What!?! I'm the first born son!

(from Deuce Bigalow: Male Giggalo. Deuce picks up a woman at a bar.)
Deuce: Maybe we should take care of a little business first.
Claire: If you prefer.
Deuce: I don't have a set price or anything, but I have been getting ten dollars.
Claire: I'm sorry?
Deuce: Well that's my going rate. But I'm willing to negotiate.
Claire: [chuckles] That's funny. But the price is five hundred.
Deuce: You're gonna pay me five hundred dollars?
Claire: No, honey, you pay me.
Deuce: Oh, I get it. This is some kind of role reversal. I'll play along with this.
[deep voice]
Deuce: Okay, 300, 400, 500, you're my hooker. No, seriously, where's my ten dollars?