Musings From New York

TGIF Chuckles

Rumsfeld: "Mr President, 5 Brazilians died mysteriously today! Do you want to make an official comment?"

Bush: "Oh, man! How many are in a brazillion?"

Mirror mirror on the wall ...

Gowri & I have been debating ... well, arguing really, about what I am: Geek or Dork. I think I'm a Geek and she thinks I'm a Dork. And so today she found an online test (which in my book is a sign of dorkiness) that she asked me to take, and that she took using her perception of me ... and here are the results:
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My test:

Pure Geek
39 % Nerd, 56% Geek, 39% Dork

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Geek, earning you the title of: Pure Geek.

It's not that you're a school junkie, like the nerd, and you don't really stand out in a crowd, like the dork, you just have some interests that aren't quite mainstream. Perhaps it's anime, perhaps it's computers, perhaps it's bottlecaps, perhaps it's all of those and more. Your interests take you to events and gatherings that are filled with people you find unusual and beyond-the-pale, but you don't quite consider yourself "of that crowd." Instead, you consider yourself to be fairly normal.

Which, you are.
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Her test:

Modern, Cool Nerd
82 % Nerd, 91% Geek, 30% Dork For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern,Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Congratulations!
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My reaction to all this? ...

A girl thinks I'm cool!! Whee!

The Agony!

This time, an excruciating wait.

Everybody Hurts ...

... Or at least, I do. I neglected to stretch out properly after a weights session at the gym yesterday and now I can't move my arms at all. Funnily enough, I can move my wrists and fingers, but the simple act of putting on a shirt this morning caused so much pain, that it would've bought a tear of joy to the Marquis de Sade.

I think it was Bob Dylan who wrote in his first draft of Knockin' On Heaven's Door, "Mama take these biceps offa me ... I can't use em anymoah". It wasn't received quite so well, I believe.

The Fall Lineup

So skimming over my DVR's programming, I guess these are the shows I'll be looking at this fall:

• Two and a Half Men
• The Office (the American version, which proves that the Brit humor can be far superior!)
• The Simpsons
• Family Guy
• My Name is Earl (I have to check it out still, it's on my DVR)

What I want to know is ... where the heck is Scrubs?? A Google search led me to some forums where I found out that Scrubs Season 5 was coming "mid-season", which I suppose is in end-October sometime. The other show I'd like to see is South Park ... it's been AGES since I saw an original episode of South Park ... did the show stop without my knowing it? The show that's really missed is of course, The Chappelle Show. And due to Scifi Channel's creative scheduling, I have to wait till January for new episodes of SG-1, Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica.

A quick word on BSG ... this show is the best action/drama on TV right now. Yeah I probably have a high geek quotient that must be slaked, and I probably gravitate to the Trek/Space/Scifi/Weird Looking Crap type shows ... but even so ... the excellent writing and the sheer pace of BSG just hammers the viewer ... and the tenterhooks that the writers leave you on are excruciating (end of Season 1: Adama was shot; End of Season 2: Adama launches a military stike against the Pegasus). With the departure of Richard Dean Andersen from SG-1, that show really stumbled. BSG more than took up the burden of "must-see TV. I know some fans of the original BSG (the 70's show) don't find anything in common with the current one. I say, "Bugger Off!" to those folk. While the general priciples might be common (humans on the run from the Cylons), the new show is to the old one what ... Empire Strikes Back is to Return of the Jedi ... what Goblet of Fire is to Sorceror's Stone!

The BSG miniseries that kicked off the show, as well as the first season is now on DVD. For all that is holy, if you think you have good taste in TV shows, watch it, if not buy it!

Blessed Am I ...

... For I have seen the face of God ...

... And it was quite, quite bald ...

... And didn't have much of a flowing white beard either ...

Yeah, I went to see Terry Pratchett at the Barnes & Nobles over at Lincoln Square a couple of weeks ago (I typed this piece up and lost it to a ... uh, computing "kerphlooey" ... that's the technical term). PTerry was touring the US to promote the release of his new book, Thud! ... and it's companion book, Where's My Cow?

I met Vidya earlier that evening, and as a result, I arrived at the bookstore late (it's all Aditi's fault! She's too cute! And she was talking in baby-talk to me! Awwww!). As a result, I stood outside the speaker's hall craning to hear any words that made its way past the thick brick & mortar walls ... honestly, you'd think B&N would have the foresight of hooking up a speaker outside the room, wouldn't you? Oh, and then spent a couple of hours in line waiting for my copy of the book to be signed (it says "Better Wishes". Hehe, I earned "better"! Sucks to you, previous person in the line!)

Thud! is a City Watch book ... and the best since Jingo. The Fifth Elephant & Nightwatch were most certainly enjoyable reads, but they weren't as entertainingly funny as (for example) Men at Arms, or Feet of Clay. The plot is quite straightforward: the dwarves & the trolls of Ankh-Morpork are about to celebrate the 2000th (give or take) anniversary of the Battle of Koom Valley, at which the dwarves ambushed the trolls and the trolls ambushed the dwarves. And in that explosive situation, someone lights the match ... a dwarf leader is found dead next to a troll club ... (insert ominous music here)

You know, there's a pattern to City Watch books ... a dot-the-dots game ...

1. Someone is killed
2. Sam Vimes can't solve the mysetery and gets mad at someone
3. Vimes chases the suspect, and along the way ...
4. He loses a lot of sleep, and a lot of blood, which in turn causes him to ...
5. Have a near-Death experience, which in turn leads him to ...
6. Arrest someone extremely important & dangerous (dragon, head of the Assassins Guild, vampire, etc.)
7. Solve the mystery, and all the associated political/ religious/ mystical angles
8. Get rewarded by Vetinari

Hey I just wrote a book myself! Whee!

Oh, Thud also refers to a chess-like (apparently) game thats played by dwarves and trolls. It's been converted into a real board game, as is due for US release sometime in October (according to some flyer I forgot to pick up at the book signing)

Placeholder

I'm still around chaps ... just a little tied up in some personal affairs. I had written quite a bit and then an accident with the mouse (clicking "Back") wiped out everything. I'll retype stuff as & when I can.

Serenity

I've spent the last couple of weeks watching DVDs of the now-aborted TV show, Firefly. This show, which ran on Fox a couple of years ago, was cancelled after just 1 season ... bringing the total number of my favorite shows that Fox cancelled to three - Firefly, Futurama, and Family Guy ... Is Fox afraid of shows starting with "F"?

Anyway, as you must've guessed by now, I've become a bit of a fan of the show. I've watched 3 DVDs out of 4, and barring the backdrop-setting-hence-weakened first 2 episodes, I must say that this is one of the finest TV shows I have seen in recent years.

To give you a bit of the backdrop, 500 or so years in the future, Man has colonized the stars ... much like Europe colonized the American continent. In fact, that analogy is the central thread to the show. Someone took the "Space, the final frontier" bit from Star Trek, and said "Hey, the Wild West was the frontier!". And so we have a Sci-fi-Western action/adventure show.

No weird looking aliens, and noone has to keep a straight face while saying "If we couple the plasma conduit in Jeffries Tube 1-B with the polarized emitter array, we should be able to generate a graviton beam powerul enough to distrupt the space-time continuum!"

Now even though the show was cancelled, there was enough backing for it to be made into a movie. And that movie is being released under the title Serenity, in a couple of weeks' time. And from the reviews & previews that I've read on IMDb, this movie looks too good to miss!

If you have the time, and the access to the DVDs, give this show a try. Stay patient through the first disc - you will NOT be disappointed! I hope that the movie's success puts some pressure on Fox to relaunch the show. I really, really, REALLY do!

ArchonPvP

So I was introduced to World of Warcraft's Player-vs-Player (PvP) games this weekend. I can't belive I've been missing out on this for so long!

It was a lot of fun. Primarily played Warong Gulch, which is a 20-player (10 Alliance, 10 Horde) Capture-the-flag competition. Now, I have played Capture-the-flag on Rainbow 6, and Halo 2 on the XBox (Bet you didn't know that Nikhil!) But the difference here is that I know all the guys I'm playing with. And even if I haven't partied with some of the players, I know that I can expect a certain level of ... for lack of a better word, professionalism - because they're in the Archon Guild (hey, we don't call ourselves the Premier Raiding Guild of the Scarlet Crusade Realm for nothing!)

Anyway, I played about 6 games over the weekend. The shortest game we played was 10 minutes - the Horde players had NO clue what hit them! The longest 30 minutes or so - we got into a defensive stalemate where each team had their opponent's flag, and went into defensive mode (to win, a team has to have their flag, and the opponent flag). But thanks to some AMAZING teamwork we managed to break that stalemate. And I think I got about 170 kills ... I think my rank is going to be Corporal when the tallies are made!

ArchonPvP FTW!

Happiness, Redux ... umm ... Reredux?

I highly, and very happily, recommend the One Man Star Wars Trilogy to any Star Wars buff. However, let it be noted that if you are like Gowri - a Star Wars-hatin' Philistine, without as much taste for genre-defining movies as a demented hedgehog ... in a sack - you might want to think about giving this one a miss.

Truth be told, this was the second off-Broadway production I've attended (the first being The Prince & The Pauper, 2 years ago). Lamb's Theater itself is a nice cozy little place ... a far cry from the lofty, eyrie-dotted peaks of Broadway theaters. And I was quite lucky to get tickets in the 2nd Orchestra Row ... and right in the middle too. Charles Ross was performing right in front of me!

The show itself is quite short - the three original movies are condensed into rapid-fire 20 minute segments, for a total just over 65 minutes (including water breaks). Ross performs ... well, you've read the title ... by himself. He makes all the sound effects, all the characterizations, etc. etc. ... Think ... Whose Line Is It Anyway Star Wars Special. That doesn't do much justice to the show, but its a place to start when describing it. There are no props, the only enhancement he uses is a couple of lighting backdrops to indicate Death Star explosions, or the swamps of Dagobah.

And it is very, very ... jaw-achingly (and in 10 minutes too) funny. Does good to the soul to have a laugh like that. Apart from the acting out of the scenes, Ross does throw in some wry & witty observations ... Such as:

• The guy who explains the Death Star assualt plan in Episode IV ("You are required to manouevre straight down this trench, and skim the surface to this point ...") is the only guy in all the movies to refer to the Princess as Lee-ah (everybody else pronounces it Lay-ah) ...
• Luke's last spoken line is about 15 minutes before the end of the movie (at Vader's death scene) ... that prompted the wry comment "I'll never work in film again!" (very true ... Mark Hamill became stereotyped as the goody two-shoes, and hasn't acted in any major Hollywood production since Return of the Jedi ... he has become an accomplished voice-over actor for animated films ... definitive voice of the Joker, as I've mentioned in the past)

So, if you can catch the show (check the website for details of various performances), make sure you do! You won't regret it!

PS: A big thanks to Priya for telling me about the show in the first place <3