I watched V for Vendetta recently (again), which is one of my favorite movies. Not only is it full of deliciously dark political criticism,  it’s absolutely gorgeous, from the cinematography to the graphic design. I’ve always been a big fan of the logo they chose to represent the evil regime.

It shows up whenever the party needs to make itself known, in speeches and meetings and badges. Oh, and all their 1984-esque posters.

It’s a quite attractive symbol, stark and memorable. Easily scrawled on walls and armbands, an essential feature for a representation of any uprising radical government. The shape, known as the “Cross of Lorraine,” was used by the Free French Forces during WWII as an “answer” to the swastika. Very fitting in a lovely twisted way.

Shortly after I watched the movie, I was headed over to Boston on the red line. I sat down, yawned, and then did a huge double take at one of the posters. It was an advertisement for the American Lung Association.

The double-barred cross has been used in a lot of ways through history, but usually as a symbol of some fighting force which presents radical liberation and patriotism, strength and unity. Not words that really come to mind when I think of the ALA, but then again – anything is possible. When our modern day terrorists start disseminating their very own St. Mary’s plague, watch for the ALA to step in to the election and capture our hearts and minds with the promise of health and order. Especially if the illness is an upper respiratory infection. (ba-dum, ch) Seriously though, when I was Googling for that logo I looked up some of the ALA’s posters, and a lot of their old ones are – well, militant looking.

Oh, some of them are sweet enough. Cute kids, caring words, showing how much “your” lung association is working for you.

Things change after they win the election – no smiling faces on the posters anymore, only words. Words of fear.

After that the curfews start. The night patrols are given free reign over civilians and the parts of the city not covered by surveillance dwindle ever smaller. It’s easy to control the news networks and keep the citizens in fear, all that’s left is a little nudging to keep patriotism strong. Keep our country united against the Enemy.

The ALA will gain ever tighter control until one day Hugo Weaving will appear and blow up the headquarters of the National Academy of Sciences, starting a new age of freedom and independence where we can all once again breathe easy.

So I was going to gush about how gorgeous Express’s Christmas window display is, but then I realized it’s November.

November, and Starbucks has already replaced my favorite latte, Pumpkin Spice, with my 2nd favorite, Eggnog. November, and even in Boston there’s no snow or ice to be seen, yet fake snowflakes are hanging from ceilings. I’ve carried around my sweater for the past 4 days and rarely needed it, but visions of sugar plums are starting to dance in my head. In other words, it’s time again for Christmas Creep.

Christmas has always been the most profitable time of the year for retailers, but about 10 years ago things got really crazy. In 2000, Lowe’s made it company policy to have its Christmas merchandise on the shelves by October 1st, and as we all know, as soon as one big company makes oodles of money off a stupid idea, every other company will follow suit. (Except, for some reason, Nordstrom’s.)

Many many people get all humbug-y about Christmas Creep; Christmas isn’t just about money, extending the season dilutes it, Jesus wasn’t born over a period of 3 months, yadda yadda yadda.

Me? I like it! Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year, and as I am a poor college student with artistic inclinations, I tend to hand make the few presents I give out. I totally understand the arguments of others, people who go shopping waaaay more often than me, and have to listen to “Oh Holy Night” on repeat for a couple hours, but that isn’t my position, so I tend to enjoy it. The longer I get to stop and smell the pine trees, the better. The aesthetics are so wonderful – people actually care about making things look pretty and, dare I say, “festive,” which is NOT such a priority the rest of the year. As much as it has become about presents, that “Joy to the World” aspect is definitely still there. Being in Boston for Christmas also definitely helps – down in Texas, where Santa rides a Harley, fake snowflakes baking in the “winter” weather don’t have quite the same effect. As capitalist as the reasoning behind it may be, the prolonging of the shopping/decorating season only builds my anticipation for the true time of Christmas.

Companies aren’t going to stop with their Creeping anytime soon, but at least some of them are getting jolly about it. I hear tell this is an actual Hallmark card:

I put this on flickr a while ago, but I wanted to write a little something about it too. Had a quick thought about this – everyone knows the “like” meme perpetuated by girls age 7-25 (ish) where “like” forms 30%-60% of the words in a sentence, and pretty much everyone who recognizes it as a meme but doesn’t do it thinks it’s really, really annoying. However: it’s technically correct. Maybe not grammatically, but at least in meaning. Take, for example, the phrase:

“Like, Cynthia totally said, like, ‘Angela – that dress is so, like, fugly, I just can’t stand it.’ and then Jamie, like, punched her straight in the, like, face.”

In a very philosophical way this is MORE correct than if there wasn’t a single “like” in the sentence. Cynthia isn’t saying what Angela said EXACTLY as she said it – she’s saying it LIKE she said it. Translating thought into words is such an imprecise science that prefacing every thought with an unsure modifier brings that fact into every conversation. If only people always kept in mind that miscommunication is an unavoidable fact of life, perhaps we’d all, like,  get along better.

Or should I say, the Tech ran my angry rant!

In Defense of the Art of the Pen

Pick up your paper copy around campus now – they’re sure to become lifetime collectibles and are only available for a limited time. No autographs, please.

There’s a lot of innovation happening these days -advances in technology, health care, physics, materials, yadda yadda yadda. But you know what hasn’t changed in a while? Bathrooms. As much as I rather dislike talking about this subject, I had an idea the other day which I’d really like to see implemented. Who always remembers to check if there’s toilet paper before you go in? Nobody, that’s who. And then things get really awkward. We can’t rely on the custodians to constantly check in and replenish, but we can always rely on the goodness of others (right? right?). How ’bout we add a little toggle indicator on the door of each stall which you can flip when you use the last bit of tp. Not always accurate of course, but if there’s a cute little red graphic of an empty roll staring at you, you’re at least going to check before getting to the awkward point. You know, something like this…

I don’t wanna do it, but somebody should. And slip me a little credit, won’t you?

That title was really fun to write.

The internet’s been pissing me off lately. Here are some reasons why:

• Guess which gender runs insurance companies
• Religion really needs to stop interfering with the learning of science
• KFC’s new sandwich is 100% animal product
• Yay, political hypocrisy

And now a picture of a man playing an accordion!

I’m about to embark on a cross-country journey which means I’ll need lots of entertainment along the way. Unfortunately, my car was built in the brief period between when tape decks went out of style and aux inputs came in, meaning unless I want to burn bazillionty CDs I need to develop a novel way of playing my iPod in the car. I happen to have a cheap pair of USB speakers and an iPhone, so I bought myself a USB car converter and set out to make a car dock for my phone. It turned out REALLY well, so I thought I’d share it with the world.

(more…)

Had a random cute idea for a Mac Background that I just had to build.

I present to you: Fake Keyboard Reflections. ::spooky artsy music plays::

(click for fullsize)

I’m just so tired of seeing all these Apple style reflections on websites thinking they’re cool. (ok, ok, they’re actually rather pretty. Happy now?)  If someone wants to try this out on a Mac and send me a picture I would be ever so amused. :)

I rarely pay for something with cash, but when I do it’s usually for some small food item and there’s usually a tip jar nearby. If I’m in a hurry or am wearing something particularly girly (i.e., without pockets) I just drop any coins I get in change into said tip jar. Accordingly, the amount of tip is inversely proportional to the value of the last 2 digits of the price.

I’ve been paying attention and this isn’t a rare occurrence, so if someone working the counter at a coffeeshop wanted to make a little extra money they’d make the final price just over a whole dollar. Of course, the risk you run with that strategy is that the person paying might actually have enough change to cover it, leaving you with almost no tip. Of course, if they’re the type of person who actually carries around change they probably aren’t the kind to dump all their extra change in a tip jar either.

Car horns are damn useful, but being on the receiving end (and sometimes the giving end) can really ruin someone’s day. In my opinion it’s due to the fact that the noise itself is so grating as to be insulting without having words. Yes it’s noticeable, but somewhat unnecessarily so in most situations. Yes if someone pulls out dangerously close in front of you, slamming your hand into the center of your steering wheel is probably the best response. But if someone in front of you just isn’t paying attention to the light change there must be a more polite way of letting them know. How about using a different sound in circumstances where the choice to use the horn isn’t instinct? Something akin to the text message notifications on most cell phones. A smaller button, somewhere else on the wheel or on the dash. It would still end in a little embarrassment on the part of the honked-at, but it’s the difference between tapping someone on the shoulder and saying “excuse me” and shoving them out of the way and into the pool.

Here’s one of the more interesting facts I have learned lately: As many of you know, I am completely, totally, 110% addicted to House, and as such the recent death of a much loved character effected me very strongly. It’s completely changed the series, but at the same time added yet another scrumptious level of complexity to the interpersonal relations of the cast. It totally caught me, and pretty much everyone, by surprise, and I couldn’t help but wonder why they did it. Well, I finally found out – he asked out of his contract to go work for the Obama administration! How cool is that? I imagine it must be difficult to ask out of a contract for such a well-known show, but I can’t think of any better reason.

Also, is it just me or have the last couple of Family Guy episodes been unusually fantastic?