Jeremy Lin on Academic Pressure

Food for thought during exam time.

Incredibly, there have been haters responding to Lin's deeply personal account of his own struggles.  Well, screw those people.  I for one am grateful that he shared his vulnerability and offered a space to discuss the sometimes overwhelming pressure to perform, be it academically, athletically, or any other form.  You know, the fact that someone is prominent and successful does not mean that his or her psychological pain and lived experience are any less real or significant.  Let us all make an effort to be better, kinder, and more compassionate to each other, OK?

Nerd Journal: Doppelgänger Alert

Quite by accident I stumbled across another Mad Minerva here.  Now according to the lore of the doppelgänger, she and I must never, ever meet in person!

Nerd Journal: We Survived Final Exams!

My response is a combination of these two animated gifs:

Tasty Chinese

Here's an interesting post about language, translation, and usage.

I can't help including an anecdote from a big family get-together from a while back.  It was late, and some of us were hungry but too tired to go out, so one of my aunts offered to cook something quickly. How about some frozen dumplings?

OK, said my ever-ravenous brother. "What kind?"

"Big Testy," said my aunt (she's got a rather thick accent.)

"Big WHAT?" 

"Big Testy!"

"Big Testy?" he asked, just to be sure.

My aunt started getting flustered. "Testy!" she repeated. "Testy, testy!  Big!  Testy!"

My brother looked at me and smirked.  I knew exactly what he was thinking.  My mother looked confused.  We didn't bother to enlighten her.  My aunt opened a bag of frozen dumplings and proceeded to empty it into a big pot.

The brother then intercepted the bag before it fell into the trash can.  He read it, started laughing hysterically, and waved it at me.  It read "Big Tasty brand frozen dumplings."

Oh, man.  He and I still laugh about it, the Big Testes Dumplings.

Need A Study Break?

ARRRRGGGGHH, FINALS!

But if you need a study break (or five or twenty), you can go marathon TV shows on Netflix or go see Captain America: The Winter Soldier for the third time (something that I may or may not have done very recently).  

By the way, I know I owe you a real movie review, but let me just say this for now:  If you don't see this flick you are totally missing out.  89% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes?  BRING IT ON. 

I'm going to see the new Spider-Man flick too, but I'm frankly pessimistic.

Nerd Journal: IT'S FINALS WEEK

What Finals Week is saying to me:

My reply:

I'M BAAAACK. Here's a Movie Review, My Adoring Public!

Absence makes the heart grow fungus -- I mean, FONDER.  

Yup, I've been ludicrously busy in Nerdworld (it's conference season, my lovelies!), but I finally can catch a breath.  So here's a peace offering: Get ready for a ton of movie reviews all in a row, beginning with ...

Con-Hair

So in this Oscar-nominated 2013 movie's 1970s-era parade of brash con artists, ill-tempered Feds, corrupt New Jersey politicians, and the Mafia, just who is playing whom?  You'll spend two glorious hours trying to figure that out even as you marvel at Christian Bale's incredible comb-over, Jennifer Lawrence's bouffant, and Bradley Cooper's super-tight perm.  (Seriously, I'm surprised this flick didn't win the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Look at Amy Adams' hair!  LOOK AT IT!)

I don't want to say too much about the elaborate plot because I don't want to spoil anything.  Suffice it to say that in the hands of a lesser director and a lesser cast it could have gone badly wrong, but David O. Russell and his gloriously perfect cast (there's not a single actor out of place) turn it into one of the best movies of 2013.  The colorfully quirky, larger-than-life personalities race, rocket, and roar through the scenes, and they do it with flawless style.  You know, "style" is not the first word that I think of when I think of "1970s," but somehow the sheer confidence and zest that the cast bring to the project make even the perms and polyester seem completely plausible.

The con is on with Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) and his partner Sydney Prosser (Adams), but when they get tangled up with a Fed with ambitions of his own (Cooper), the Mafia, and a corruptible politician from Camden, New Jersey (Jeremy Renner, as far from his Hawkeye role as he can be), the action kicks into high gear.  Add Rosalyn (Lawrence), Irv's total loose cannon of an estranged wife who just might throw a wrench into every plan, and you've got yourself an Oscar-caliber caper and then some (This flick was indeed nominated for 4 Oscars.)

In short, don't miss American Hustle.  As complex and sharply intelligent as it is compellingly constructed and occasionally laugh-out-loud hilarious, it is as visually irresistible and scintillating as ... as ... must not descend into a 70's reference ... as a disco ball!  (Dang it!)

Mad Minerva gives American Hustle a grade of A.  The soundtrack alone deserves it.  So does Jennifer Lawrence's sprayed-into-oblivion hair and Christian Bale's amazing transformation from gorgeous hunk into balding, paunchy Irv Rosenfeld.

RottenTomatoes gives it the bona fide Fresh rating of 93%.

American Hustle runs 138 minutes and is rated R for language (e.g., F-bombs galore), some sexual situations, and brief violence.

I'll Take That As A Compliment

One of my students just called me a "badass"!

Nerd Journal: With Friends Like These ...

Thor: The Dark World came out on Blu-ray yesterday, and when I got home from class, I found a copy of it waiting for me, courtesy of those evil enablers Count Chocula and La Parisienne.  I may or may not have played it 4 times in the last 48 hours while helplessly cursing Loki for being so wickedly splendid.  I'm not sure how it could possibly be any worse.

SHUT UP.

Sochi Opening Ceremonies: As Bizarre As You'd Imagine. Plus Geopolitical Nerd Fight

You just KNEW it was going to be a weird night when the Trololo song ended up in the proceedings and this happened:

As for the rest of the evening, I should preface this by saying that in my corner of Nerdworld, watching the thing with a bunch of fellow nerds turned into an argument about geopolitics. Whoever keeps trying to say that the Games are non-political is a fool.  You know, I wasn't going to bother blogging about the nerd fight, but why not ... You saw the ceremonies yourself and know the extent of its content. But you weren't in my living room. So if you want to hear what happened, it's all after the fold.

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fungus ... Er, FONDER

Sorry I've been away, darlings!  Life, you know.  School.  Work.  Responsibilities and such, plus trying to freeze to death here (where new snow falls even as I type)!  I'll try to be back more often with the usual supply of frivolous sundries and occasional lapses into serious looks at foreign policy ... but mostly frivolous sundries because our foreign policy is pretty much too horrible to contemplate.

Obligatory Complaint About the Polar Vortex

I am frickin' freezing here!  The wind chill is in the negatives.  I can't tell if this is campus or the ice planet Hoth!  Stuff like this convinces me that hell is a cold place, not a hot one.   Perhaps my incandescent rage will keep me warm enough to prevent hypothermia.  Thatisall.

Nerd Journal: FINAL EXAMS ARE UPON US!

Need I say more?  Regular posting and commentary will return after exams!

Finals. Yeah, it's like that.

This Isn't Fun Anymore

I guess by "this" I mean observing and commenting on domestic and foreign politics.  The inmates are running the asylum.  Everywhere I turn utter madness is running rampant.   Commentary via animated gifs below:

Nerd Journal: Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

Reason for my prolonged absence? Two words: MIDTERM EXAMS.  I should be back online here soon.  Those of you who no longer have to deal with midterms as student or teacher, rejoice and be grateful!  I haven't slept in days.  Literally days.  I quit counting the number of cups of coffee I've been going through per day because I decided I don't want to know.  Is it possible to get coffee poisoning?  Ha.

Nerd Journal: Lacking Not The Will But The Capacity

One of my acquaintances just got on social media and, in a rage about the government shutdown, wished for the extinction of the Republicans.  Yes, this person used the word "extinction."  Yeah, scratch the surface of an ardent leftie and you find a nascent tyrant, yadda yadda yadda, but it's always a bloody disappointment when this happens to be true of someone you personally know.  

I don't care if the statement was supposed to be a "joke."  Decent, reasonable people can disagree on policy, but they do not wish extinction on political opponents.  You don't say, "Gee, I wish I could just disappear everyone who doesn't agree with me."  How many eggs do you want to break so you can make your leftist omelet?  Millions of dead kulaks would like to know.

You remember this earlier post?  I'm way beyond disappointment now.  I am in a towering rage.   I don't think I can actually be true friends with people like this. I can be a courteous classmate or colleague or co-worker or whatever, but I don't think I can really be friends with someone who spews political hatred.  Needless to say I've never told this person what I actually think.  

I'm not saying that I can't be friends at all with people who hold different political views.  I'm just saying that there's a Self-Righteous Hateful Jerk Threshold that I can't tolerate, you know?  Still, I recall what a friend of mine once said: "Hooray for free speech!  It lets you know who the jerks and idiots are so you can avoid them."  TRUE DAT, especially in an era of social media.

Trollin' Trollin', Trollin'

A thought occurred to me that this might be some kind of a first in the annals of political rhetoric on insulting one's own audience.  See: On Tuesday Obama gave a weird, incoherent speech that managed to insult both the Right and the Left (according to him, apparently I care only about "military might" and not a whit for anything else).  Then the very next day on Wednesday Putin writes an op-ed that trolled the entire nation.  So, gentle readers, we've been trolled twice in two days by the heads of state of two different countries.  Gee, I can't wait to see what happens today, and it's only Thursday.  I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS WEEK TO BE OVER. 

UPDATE: Well, I had to ask, right? Right on cue ...  Troll du jour is of course Assad himself, now making conditions about "giving up" his chemical weapons.   

Nerd Journal: Social Media Is A Nasty, Hateful Cesspool

Sometimes I'm tempted to pull the plug entirely.  Political discourse is now basically a matter of wrapping oneself in threadbare self-righteousness and viciously demonizing whomever you don't like.  The entire thing's become a mess of wannabe perfect angels and objectified irredeemable devils, with almost zero grasp of the fact that we live in a world of flawed human beings or that reasonable people can disagree for reasons that aren't nefarious.  I'm tired of this never-ending hate-filled BS.

Nerd News + Rant: The Association for Asian American Studies Wants to Boycott Israel

At its most recent Nerdmoot, the AAAS passed a resolution to this effect and became the first American professional academic organization to support this.  I'm not a member of the AAAS, but that's not going to stop me from hating on the decision anyway.  Rant follows after the fold.

Yep, We're Screwed on Social Security

Basically, I've kissed goodbye to all that money that gets sucked out of my paycheck in the name of Social Security.  I'm never going to see those sweet little greenbacks again.  Bye, darlings!  Look, we all know that Social Security has become an unsustainable Ponzi scheme.  I'm fully expecting the whole rickety structure to have collapsed by the time I get to retirement age.  You'd have to be an economically illiterate idiot if you're my age and still thinking that you won't get totally screwed by this.  

On a personal note, I got into an argument with some elderly relatives not too long ago when Social Security came up in the conversation.  I did not - did not! - want to talk about it, but they kept on and on until finally I couldn't help myself anymore.  There's not going to be anything by the time I retire, I said.  I am flat-out assuming that I won't get any Social Security at all.  But the government promised!  they insisted.  You paid into it, so you have to get something out of it!  I gave up at that point.  How can you be so naive?  How can you be so baffled by the ideas that (a) my generation's going to get the shaft, and (b) the only smart thing to do is to plan ahead as if there won't be any Social Security?  

I knew better than to say that what I'm paying into the thing now is going toward the checks going out now, as in their checks.  Mama didn't raise no fool.

Now my peers and I gloomily wait to see if our pessimistic predictions will come true of the government raiding IRAs and 401(k)s and every other kind of savings so it can pay for its profligate, irresponsibly managed joyride.  Heck, it's like in those old cartoons when a hungry character looks at another character, and that second figure morphs into the image of a delicious roast chicken or something.