Another friend in another part of the world

I feel so lucky to have the friends that I do. The group of high school friends that I've kept in touch with are always spread throughout the world doing some incredibly cool unique things. From studying theoretical chemistry in Germany, to doing African dance in Ghana, to working for the ICTY in the Hague, to living and working at the Baha'i World Center in Haifa, to teaching English in Kunming, China - the different paths my friends take throughout the world continue to amaze me.

This is the newest adventure. My buddy Jesse is spending the next couple years in Antarctica working at a research station down there. Check out his blog: http://jesse-in-antarctica.blogspot.com

"Little Miss Sunshine" movie review

I went to see "Little Miss Sunshine" last night with a couple friends and was full of great expectations. Now, there are times when I'd like to see a movie and not really know anything about it ("Dot the I" is one of those such movies), but there are times when you can't really help it - case in point being "Snakes on a Plane". Now I had seen a preview for "Little Miss Sunshine" quite awhile ago and I knew right away that it was going to be one of those movies that I would really enjoy. So when it came out in limited release, I of course read all of the reviews and was pleasantly surprised to find that it got good reviews. Now, for the most part I don't take a lot of stock in reviews. There have been many a bad review for movies which I've absolutely loved, and a couple good reviews where I've truly thought that they were watching a different movie than me. But when a movie gets all good reviews, it's a pretty good sign that the movie is going to be at least decent.

"Little Miss Sunshine" was much more than decent. First of all, any movie with Alan Arkin as a fairly main character has to be good. Think of his character in "Edward Scissorhands" just 30 years older and a little less suburban. That being said, I can't ignore the rest of the cast either. There wasn't a weak link in the entire ensemble. Greg Kinnear did an excellent job as a failing motivational speaker who doesn't believe in failure, Toni Collette was perfect as the mother trying to hold the whole family together. Steve Carell played a depressed suicidal uncle, the foremost intellectual on Marcel Proust - no wonder he's depressed and suicidal. The brother is played by Paul Danno who has taken a vow of silence until he becomes a fighter pilot, and the little girl is played by Abigail Breslin who does an incredible job. The film mainly takes place in a beat up VW bus on a road trip from Albuquerque to southern California where the family is traveling so their little girl can compete in the Little Miss Sunshine Beauty Pageant. I suppose it would have to be classified as a fairly dark comedy, but you're definitely smiling all the way through the movie and you just feel happy at the end.

There's definitely quite a bit of cursing in it, so it's not a younger family movie, but it's not one of those that the language really takes away from the overall film. Basically it's just a nice funny movie about a semi dysfunctional family on a road trip so there daughter can compete in a beauty contest that she's obviously not going to win. The characters are great, its amazingly well written and there's enough funny moments and touching moments to just make you feel good after you've seen it.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone. I'll buy it when it comes out on DVD. 10 out of 10.

Pluto: A small, inadequate misfit

Isn't it enough that we took away Pluto's status as a planet? Do we have to resort to name calling and kicking it when it's down?

I was reading this article today from a link on Google News and came across this quote from astronomer Dava Sobel.

Referring to Pluto: "Adults relate to its inadequacy, it's marginal existence as a misfit."

Kind of harsh isn't it?

my refrigerator

Last week all of my roommates moved out and back into the dorms, so over the weekend I did a throughough cleaning of the house, including the refrigerator & the freezer. And believe me - that needed to be cleaned.

So now that I've gotten rid of all of the old food and have no roommates with their food, I look at my refrigerator and think, "Man, I really need to go to the grocery store!"

Proof of Dark Matter gives scientists a warm fuzzy feeling

Sticking with my recent "science in the news" posts:

For years astronomers and scientists have been using this theory of "Dark Matter" in space to help them understand different observations and prove different theories. Only no one had ever been able to scientifically prove the existence of the stuff, which kind of makes one uneasy after basing so many other facts and observations on the assumption that dark matter does exist.

So you could imagine hearing a collective "whew!" throughout the scientific community this Monday when studies of the Bullet Cluster were announced and given as the best evidence to date that dark matter actually exists. Basically, two clusters of galaxies collided and through observing the collision - astronomers had already know what collisions of stars and other previously studied bodies looked like - they detected the dark matter indirectly through gravitational lensing. Kind of cool, right?

So now they've got one thing checked off the to do list. I suppose the next will be, "alright, so we know now that it actually does exist, so now... what is it?"

But that might be a couple years down the road.


Picture is a new photo from NASA showing the Bullet Cluster and what is believed to be dark matter, shown in blue.

Roman God of the Underworld no longer special in the skies

Today astronomers from all over the world at the International Astronomers Union gathering in Prague finally nixed Pluto from the 9 (now 8) planets of our solar system. Pluto, named after the Roman God of the Underworld, just didn't make the cut after much discussion on a final definition for "planet". Last week a secret group of astronomers that had been appointed to define the word basically came out with a definition that a planet would be something with enough self gravity to make it round, but that didn't hold up since that would have brought in many other things to qualify as planets. So they scrapped that definition and came up with the following:

"To qualify [as a planet], a celestial body must be in orbit around a star while not itself being a star. It must also be large enough in mass for it's self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a...nearly round shape, and has cleared its neighborhood around its orbit." *


So no more Pluto. All of those elementary school teachers will have to come up with new mnemonics to teach their kids the planets without including Pluto. All new models of the eight planets will have to be built. Think of the impact!

I just hope Disney won't change the name of Mickey's dog to Uranus.



* source: BBC News

"Snakes on a Plane" review

This is not so much of a review as a suggestion to go see this movie. There are plenty of other reviews out there from writers with a greater gift for words than I have, so if you want to read a fun review, check all of those out.

First of all, I give this movie kudos for it's marketing racket. "Snakes on a Plane" as a title? Of course I'm going to see this movie. It leaves no mystery as to what the movie is going to be about. It's going to be about snakes - on a plane. If you're not into movies for the pure sake of entertainment and fun, if you're not into great B-movies, you're not going to see this, because it's called "Snakes on a Plane". However, if you want to see an entertaining movie, how could you not see it? So I was super excited when I saw the previews.

Then I got a call from Samuel L Jackson and thought it was so cool that I proceeded to have him call a bunch of my friends. That was awesome. I still have the message he left saved on my phone. Hopefully I won't rack up too many minutes listening to it. If you want to have Samuel L Jackson call one of your friends check out www.snakesonaplane.com

So finally the other night a group of my friends and I went to go see it. It did not dissappoint. There were scenes that made you jump, scenes that made you squirm, scenes that made you laugh, and scenes that made you say "oh snap!" Now, it's definitly not a kids movie. There's a lot of violence (basically a whole mess of snakes killing a whole mess of people - on a plane) there's some sex and of course the obligatory language that comes with Samuel L Jackson being a bad ass mother.

The movie is awesome. Go see it. I have to give it 10 out of 10 just because it was such a fun time. I'd see it again.

New Websites!

So the news of the past couple days is that I just got a new website for both of the bands I'm in. Both sites have our gig schedule and contact information which is always nice to have. I'm working on the Michael Waido Band website, and I'm kind of new to the whole HTML thing, so it'll be a learning experience and the website will get better with age - so continue to check it.

Anyway here's the links, check them out!

Second Wind: www.swband.com

Michael Waido Band: www.michaelwaidoband.com