Revamp!

So, remember that whole "Plus/Minus/Riff/Raff/Exo/Endo" thing from a while back? No? In short, I experimented with a gimmick maybe twice on here that allowed me to skip having to think up a way to introduce multiple topics into the blog, in favor of just rating them on a rather arbitrary binary rating system as Good or Bad, which was done in a completely subjective manner. We're bringing that back now. And I've decided that this time, we're going to use a system that's not only arbitrary, but confusing. I thought of picking things to name the different ratings after that were the epitome of good and bad, but then that'd lead to all sorts of trouble with comparing things to things that are actually much worse than they are. And I don't need that.

So here's what we're doing.

"Plus" (or "Riff/Exothermic") will now (by "now", I mean immediately now and then never again) be "Sub-Zero". Why? That seems counter intuitive. Sub, for one, generally denotes something as inferior, or in the case of the phrase "Sub-Zero", negative. It evokes images of cold things, of not being able to walk to class without your hair freezing, and illness. So why Sub-Zero? Several reasons. Reason One: My apartment's kind of hot, and I like thinking of cold things for the moment. Two: At such temperatures as are evoked by the phrase "Sub-Zero", these things are possible, and they're too amazing not to be included at least somewhere on my blog at some point. Three: Sub Zero was by far my favorite Mortal Kombat character and deserves recognition.

"Minus" ("Raff/Endothermic") is now "wow", which I've lowercased here, but still indicates "World of Warcraft", which is bad in that it eats souls. I could just have easily gone with something that actually does eat/steal souls (such as Shang Tsung to keep the MK thing going, or SoupTaper here, but I thought it would be funny if I went ahead and caught some heat for insulting people's livelihoods by making bad equal to WoW.

The first thing that will go into "WoW" will be Blogger, for once again deleting what I've written. It recovered about a third of my post after deleting it for taking too long to type.

I'll try to recreate, then. Which is kind of a waste of time when I don't know if Blogger's just going to delete this one too.

So, on with the actual post.

Sub Zero

• The mentality that would lead me to believe that since I couldn't sleep last night and have an 8:00 am class, I should press on, forgo sleep entirely and try to remain conscious and alert enough to meet with SonBinh Nguyen's group this afternoon at 5:00pm. We'll see how that all goes.
• Corpse Bride for being quite enjoyable, even if it wasn't the sweet ambrosia that the $30-nonconformist-basketball-shoe/18-bleach-and-blue-dye haired fan was expecting. In my opinion? Quite good. Visually stunning, entertaining as it should be and a better option than sitting at home. Many were disappointed that it wasn't "The Nightmare Before Christmas", but then, if I'm not mistaken, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" already kind of took care of that. This was a different movie, made twelve years later. Much like my advice following Revenge of the Sith, stop complaining about how it doesn't live up to earlier things and enjoy the damned movie.
  
• The 3 Penny Cinema for being a nice cozy little theater in which to watch the abovementioned movie, for applying the $4.50 student charge to graduate students, for having a short-film festival next weekend with such gems as the Confederate Zombie Massacre, which can't not be awesome, and for having a more than reasonable price for beer in a movie theater. Being from PA, I wasn't aware you could even do that.
• The IRA actually going ahead and disarming, which is a positive step, despite the fact that I can't say it'll be permanent. Perhaps now, some peace can go ahead and get started, though I'm somewhat unfamiliar with the political climate in Ireland at this juncture. Still, this month's disarmarment fulfills the July promise to do so, effectively showing that the IRA is willing to work toward peace. Paisley's right to be skeptical, if only because the IRA historically has been a terrorist organization, and most would be smart not to trust a terrorist organization as far as one could throw them. This will have a huge impact on peace efforts, as the IRA can finally actively more towards coexistence. Lovely.
• Jon Abrams, for recording an album over the weekend (?!) and sending me a song ("Three Years Underwater") with the instruction "distribute this". I'm on a school computer right now, so if any of you wants to hear it, just send me an email and I'll get you his song.

WoW:

• Slate Magazine, for using Hurricane Rita/Beatles puns twice on today's page, because Lovely Rita was too good a song to merit "Ugly Rita" and "Metering Rita" puns. Also, because I've motioned against hurricanes somewhere on R+M, and I'm of the firm belief that the action of having hurricanes should cease while my motion is on the floor. We've had enough. Please stop it.
• That whole Dover, PA scene for perpetuating misunderstanding as to the application of the word "theory", for attempting to break down the bar on establishment of a state religion, and the continued misnomer of calling "Intelligent Design" science. It's not. For a more extended commentary, go back to here. Side note, I'm not the only one that makes the locust/cicada mistake. Several people her on the first day of orientation said the same thing. I feel happy about that
• The Chicago Tribune for deciding that Google Bombs are news, despite the fact that a similar Slate piece was published in March of 2002 which was itself almost a year behind the initial discussion surrounding the "talentless hack" bomb. So, in essence, the Tribune is commenting on something that's over four years old, specifically the "miserable failure" bomb.
• My inorganic lecture, for being 20 minutes shorter than the 40 minute commute on the L it took to get there at 8am this morning.
• Insolent fools. Because they are insolent, and fools. This meatloaf is shallow and pedantic.

That's all for now.