Nifty-ness
Ahhhh. The pleasures of a day off from school. It is immense. My room-mate and I decided that it was a good time to go mall-ratting. You know. Loitering, basically. And loiter, we did. First stop was the Spokane Valley Mall, which was depressingly devoid of life. After that, we went to good old Northtown, where everything is. Pretty fun, except for the abundance of guys there with their girlfriends. Given my chronicly unattached status, this was quite depressing, to see all of these couples walking happily arm-in-arm, while I remain painfully single. Other than that, it was fun. I got cheap sunglasses and a laser pointer to satisfy my addiction. That's right, I'm addicted to lasers. I know, I'm a geek.

Jeah!
I am finally on the eve of a three-day weekend. Yes, that's right. Tomorrow is Faculty Development Day (FDD). When Keith Wyma, my philosophy prof, asked us how we thought the faculty could make our lives as students better, the response was a unanimous "More Faculty Development Days!" In related news, it has been decided that a portal to a demon dimension has opened up in the maintenance closet in our Modern Philosophy class room. Seriously, we could hear this unearthly howling coming through the door We suspect that we were placed there due to our mad metaphysical skillz, and we might be able to fend off any stray demons coming through. Or it just might be that the staff has decided to kill off all the philosophy majors, and a convenient "run-in" with some slavering extra-dimensional beast might be just the thing to get rid of us. Why does the world hate us philosophers? We aren't THAT bad, are we?

Weirdness incarnate
Today, I am in need of some personal item that describes me. This is rather difficult because I don't have many items that are, well, personal. I mean, I have stuff that looks cool, and that sort of thing, but it doesn't necessarily describe me or my background. I suppose this is because I am not an overly sentimental person. I don't just save stuff as a reminder. I have no photographs of people or places of importance, and no things that I attach emotional significance to. Perhaps this is why my life is generally pretty cold in manner. At any rate, I am still trying to figure out what to do about it. I think the thing is that, though I am generally pretty friendly and the like, I am also pretty private about my emotions, thoughts, and ideas. I don't like the idea of other people knowing too much about me, so I put up a smoke-screen of weirdness to hide the even weirder parts of who I am. I keep my emotions and thoughts shielded from public view, and sometimes it makes me hard to approach. Last night, I realized part of the problem was that I shut out my closest friends from what was troubling me. I have trouble trusting people with my innermost being, and this forms a barrier to deep and meaningful relationships. I am always afraid of having these emotions exploited or mocked, but the fact of the matter is that my friends don't deserve my mistrust. I owe them the trust to share what I am feeling, but it is so bloody scary. Wow. That was depressing. But strangely alleviated.

Damnit.
God created women to keep me humble.

"The time has come," the Walrus said...
..."To talk of many things. Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, and philosophy papers." Yeah, so that's pretty much what I did today. I wrote a philosophy paper, or rather, the first part of a series of three. Topic: Blaise Pascal. A really interesting guy, if you are a philosophy type. If not, well, you might not care.

Book review:
So I just finished the first novel in David Gemmel's Rigante novels, The Sword in the Storm. The Rigante are a tribe of agricultural warriors who live in a land very reminiscent of modern-day Scotland. The main character in the book is a young warrior named Connovar. Through the course of his exploits, he attracts the attention of magic spirits called Seidh, a thing for good or ill, since they are not totally benevolent. Due to his selfless protection of his friends and family, he is chosen to save the Rigante from an invading Roman-esque army. On the whole, I found the book entertaining and for the most part well written. The only complaint that I had was that Gemmel's characterizations are sometimes a bit too far on this side of perfect. Characters are all basically good at heart, with a few minor blemishes here and there, but nothing a healthy beating or talking to won't cure. The only exception to this is Connavar, who engages in mass murder, revenge, and adultery. What makes his character remotely redeeming is his keen sense of guilt. He knows when he has failed, when he has broken the law, and he accepts the punishment for it. Ultimately, it is a tale of how he learns to forgive. As I say, though, many of the characters are more flat than they needed to be, and serve no purpose but to act as things to happen to Connavar. For the sake of the good story and skillful description, I will overlook the sometimes one-dimensional characters and give this one a three out of five stars.

Try Saying That With A Straight Face
So last night, I saw Daredevil. I must confess that I have always liked the comic quite a bit, with solid writing from classic writers such as Frank Miller, Kevin Smith, Brian Michael Bendis, and numerous others. However, looking at the casting for the title role, I was immediately suspicious. I have a hard time taking Ben "Moonraper" Affleck seriously as an actor, and his attempt to appear angsty was laughable. I suppose that given the material he had to work with, it would be hard to make it appear otherwise, but it just really sucked. I mean, come on. Who would actually say, "I'll be a guardian devil." It was ridiculously overwrought on that whole point. The fight scenes were poorly choreographed and poorly shot, as it was difficult to tell just what exactly was happening. Also, was Matt Murdock bitten by a radioactive spider, in addition to having his eyesight burned away and his senses increased by chemical waste? I mean, in the comics, Daredevil was a talented fighter and all, but he didn't have superhuman abilities outside of his senses. It's like once young Matt has his accident, he suddenly has these phenomenal abilities the likes of which have never been seen. The only upside of the movie was Colin Farrell's take on Bullseye. He pulls off the raving maniac turn startlingly well, and is a spot of entertainment in an otherwise uninspired piece of work. I also was amused by Kevin Smith's cameo appearance as a Silent Bob-esque coroner and forensic examiner. Also interesting was the use of the names of Marvel writers (all of whom have worked on Daredevil at one point in the comic's run) as opponents and the like (i.e., Bendis, Smith, Miller, Romita, Quesada, etc.).

Also, last night, I joined up with my comrades-in-arms from the Mac Basement in a massive eight-player round of Halo. I must say that the guys in the shaft were ownzed by our superior gaming skillzorz. Our box was 3 and 0 for the evening, cleaning their clocks at every turn. The only close one was a big round of CTF on Sidwinder. One amusing moment was when we were inadvertently forced to be the hapless blue team. Now, I am a dyed-in-the-wool red-teamer, so it was rather amusing when I died and spawned back in our blue base, and found myself surrounded by blue guys. Natural instinct took over and I began to attack my team-mates like mad. At this point, I remembered that I was ON the blue team, and a healthy amount of laughter was had at my expense. We still won, and I was able to engage in a good amount of fustigation on our opponents. Thenceforth, we stayed on the red team. Best quote of the night: "Fudge has nothing to do with it, Mr. Bond."