New Music That Makes Me Happy (Well, Sort Of)

Celtic Woman's new album is great...this is my favorite, but I also love You'll Never Walk Alone, Follow On,  A Woman's Heart, and many others.




This is a very poignant song...I have the "real" version, but I first heard this song on the Muppet Show, so I thought I'd show y'all that version.



I LOVE the single they released from the Hunger Games soundtrack. It has just now inspired me to read all the books again before the movie comes out.

Last Night

I sat with one I love last night,
She sang to me an olden strain;
In former times it woke delight,
     Last night-but pain.

Last night we saw the stars arise,
But clouds soon dimmed the ether blue;
And when we sought each other's eyes
     Tears dimmed them too!

We paced along our favorite walk,
But paced in silence broken-hearted:
Of old we used to smile and talk;
     Last night-we parted.

-George Darley

P.S. Yay for finding books such as 1000 Years of Irish Poetry at Half-Price Books!!! I knew there was a reason I always went to the bookstore when I'm melancholy.

Internet Community, Take Note!!!!

Federal government censorship is NEVER acceptable.

Please take a stand against SOPA along with all the other sites blacking out in protest.

Here's one petition.

Here's americancensorship.org's form to Senators that you can send off.

Remember what Faber said to Montag about what happened after people stopped reading--"So few want to be rebels anymore."

Resistance is victory!!

Have You Hugged Your Constant Today?

I watched my favorite episode of Lost the other day because...well, I just had the urge to for no reason that I can really say. It made me think how fantastical and awesome this individual story arc was even IF the ending sucked.

Just think hypothetically for a moment. What if you and I were dating. In love. Looking to marry. Then I suddenly cut off the relationship and joined the armed forces.
Two years later, after not hearing from me at ALL, I call you and say I need to see you. You refuse. I then track you down through your father.
Though irritated, you let me talk. I tell you that if you ever loved me or still have any hope for our relationship, you need to give me your phone number and keep the same number. I'm not going to call for eight years, but when I do I NEED you to answer.

Those of you who watched Lost will, of course, recognize that I am talking about Desmond and Penny's story arc, specifically the events in The Constant. (probably my favorite episode of the series)
Though Desmond never specifically tells Penny that he's jumping through time, watching it again made me think about that (almost entirely) unlikely scenario. How in the world do you tell someone that if you don't make contact with them in eight years (during those eight years, we WON'T talk. At all.) you will die of disorientation by time travel.

Asking someone to be your constant is an incredibly serious thing to ask. Literally life and death. It has a bit more leverage than asking someone to be your valentine. Whatever that means today.

And so, I'd like to present you with

Lady Brainsample's Guide to Choosing Your Constant

When considering a constant, there are many important factors to consider. This guide endeavors to help you explore the important questions to ask about the person who potentially qualifies.

1. Is your candidate familiar in both time periods?

This isn't the time to call up Susie from second grade. The candidate should exist in both time periods and also be someone you can potentially get ahold of in both time periods.
Lady Brainsample recommends taking very careful consideration about using parents or grandparents because of this qualification.
As our posterboy Desmond Hume knows, there can be a large amount of time between the two periods one is shifting to and from, so if you happen to have been isolated on an Island for a few years and suddenly need a constant, you don't want to call on your Great Grandma Louise who was on the brink of death the last time you saw her. Likewise, even if you are pretty sure Susie would agree to be your constant, if you haven't spoken to her since the last time you attacked her with snowballs, (with the assistance of your tiger) she probably isn't the ideal constant.

2. Is your candidate someone meaningful to you?

You may have your old boss's phone number burned into your permanent memory banks, but if you toss and turn in your sleep with nightmares of your boss's former demands that he needs you to come in Saturday, you probably don't have a meaningful relationship with him.
Because the whole reason you need a constant is to avoid a brain aneurism, you don't want to speed up the process by your only contact being someone who threatened to do so every day of your life you worked for him.
To avoid dying by brain aneurism by time travel, your constant should be someone whose voice and presence bring about positive feelings. Our posterboy Desmond Hume, for this reason, picked the woman he loved, Penny Widmore, to be his constant.

3. Is your constant likely to believe fantastic phenomena?

Though Desmond Hume didn't directly tell Penny about his time travel problems, Lady Brainsample recommends being more straightforward to your candidate about their duties as your constant.
If you are great friends with your physics professor, but he makes a comment about how only nut jobs believe time travel could ever be possible, it's probably a good idea to be discrete about your time travel problems and look for a constant elsewhere.
On the other hand, if your conspiracy-theory loving best friend sports an X-Files "I Want to Believe" shirt with the appropriate spacey planet earrings and green eye shadow, she is probably more likely to believe your time traveling tales and be more than happy to assist you.

If you answer yes to all three questions, then congratulations! You've found yourself a good candidate! All of us at Cease Repining wish you the best in your traipsings through time travel.

Happy Bill of Rights Day...

Congress: "Oh, yeah, here's the National Defense Authorization Act that gives the executive branch the power to take away basic rights set out in the Bill of Rights. This is all for your safety. You're welcome."

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised 'for the good of its victimes' may be the most oppressive." -C.S. Lewis

......

I've spent quite a bit of time today writing all of my representatives. Every single one of them voted for the travesty. In fact, EVERYONE from my home state other than Ron Paul voted for it which REALLY disappoints me.

I urge you, readers, please see if your representatives voted for it and if they did, send them angry (but hopefully polite) letters and withdraw your support!
~
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."-Edmund Burke

Yes, I Cry During Happy Movies

Lady Brainsample has had three days in a row of being almost completely happy, so she wishes to make a blog post. Not only was yesterday a mostly happy day, but Friday she found out there is a SLIGHT chance she may be able to get an A in the dreaded Business Law class.

But that's not the point of this blog post, so she will switch from third person back to first.

I saw The Muppets. (the movie, not them in general...)

Now, when I found out last June that they were making a new Muppet movie that was going to be a theatrical release, I was skeptical. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Muppets. Always have. But the last thing they made that had to do with the Muppets (I think it was some sort of TV or direct to DVD-type special called Letters to Santa or something like that...) failed to please.
It wasn't that it was BAD bad, but it wasn't the regular caliber of proper Muppet productions. It was a predictable plot with mediocre music that was obviously contrived to squeeze money out of the franchise. Honestly, the last great Muppet movie was probably Muppets From Space.

Even the movie before that (It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas) wasn't that great. There were moments I absolutely LOVED, (see this blog post) but overall, it was just meh.
But anyway, up until it actually came out, I was skeptical. Then one of Mom's old friends saw it and said that if it didn't win Best Picture, the Oscars would be exposed for the sham that they are.

Ok, that's encouraging. Hope slightly restored.
Then I heard the beginning of the latest Overthinking It podcast, in which they were planning to discuss the movie. Before I stopped listening to it, (didn't want to hear spoilers) they said all sorts of stuff about how you MUST see this movie, etc., etc., etc.

Ok, I'm excited.

I was not disappointed. So, I echo others. GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

There are SO many things I loved about this movie. The music was outstanding, the non-Muppet actors did a fine job, the Muppets themselves looked GREAT.
The story was great; reading the synopsis, I thought I would be able to predict where the story was going to go, but I didn't.

But what was really awesome was a feeling I got that was similar to how I felt watching Toy Story 3. When I saw Toy Story 3, it felt really relevant to me because Andy was going to college, he was the same age as I am; so it was like they made the movie not only for all the kids of this generation, but also for the generation that grew up with the Toy Story movies.

Similarly, with the Muppet movie, when we finally meet Kermit again, he talks about how they've waned in popularity, but in spite of that, Walter, the greatest Muppet fan, loves them and eggs them on to put on another show. Whenever Kermit said something about people not knowing who they were or caring anymore, my mental thoughts were, "I still love y'all!!!"

All of the Muppets reuniting again in the story was incredibly awesome, Kermit finally admits that he loved Miss Piggy, and I don't know how to write about other stuff that I loved without sounding so inCREDibly sappy.
Even more sappy than I sound when I tell you readers that I cried. A whole lot. Not just during sad parts! During all the happy angsty parts. When Kermit and Piggy finally started singing Rainbow Connection together, I completely lost it.

Final comments: Jim Parsons was AWESOME as his appearance as the human version of Walter; Chris Cooper makes a great villain; and I loved that Uncle Deadly (one of the less well-known Muppets) got to have a featured role and turned good at the end.

And because I haven't posted anything about my cats recently, I'll show y'all my attempt to get Trillian (our newest) to take a picture with me.
It didn't go as planned, ha ha.

More Truth in Webcomics

Comic credit goes here. I own nothing.

Just Because I'm Paranoid

This is disgusting.

Whether you're Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian, this should make you mad. John McCain has obviously not read the Bill of Rights lately, or he would have encountered some amendments such as this one:

Amendment IV: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, again unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

....or how about this one:

Amendment V: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

...or maybe this one:

Amendment VI: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense."

.........

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."-Ben Franklin
My finding this story today after having watched Red Dawn last night makes for an incredibly brain-loaded day of thinking of contingency plans. But my thoughts on Red Dawn will have to go onto another blog post.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

-W.B. Yeats

I Am Insanely Happy

I've been really, really happy for no reason for the past few days, and it has come to a climax today.

Why, you ask, is today so special?

Well, anyone who knows me well knows that I can't cook. With few exceptions. Very, very few other than box dinners, rice, pasta, canned chili, and things that you throw on the steamer or into the oven.

Recently, I've been thinking about what I want to make on a regular basis when I go off to college next year. Today, I attempted and succeeded at making one of my favorite things in the world....

.....potato soup.

To be specific, a wonderful creamy potato leek soup.

And so I am insanely happy.

I Wish I Were More of a Ferris Than a Cameron.

That is all.

Well, not really all. How awesome is the new Hunger Games trailer?!

Also, I'm thinking of having a discussion on Jerry Maguire, one of the greatest non-sports sports movies ever made.

In the mean time, enjoy Tom Cruise's genius in the flip out scene. I'm a DANCER, and I don't know how he contorts himself like that, ha ha... If you wish, skip the rest of the clip, but please watch him FLIP OUT!! It will make your day more hilarious.

I feel better already.

Processed

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that." -John Cusack as Lloyd Dobbler in Say Anything

Efficiency

Pretty in Pink and Say Anything: A Discussion about Love Transcending Class Lines in Teen Movies of the 1980s

I watched one of my favorite movies yesterday, Pretty in Pink, and while watching it, I was struck with a number of similarities in subject matter and theme to another one of my favorite movies, Say Anything.
If this were a proper literature paper, my thesis statement might be something like "Pretty in Pink and Say Anything are perfect examples of 1980s coming of age movies about romance across class lines."

Just as a tangent, I find it funny that MOST 80s movies I watch instantly become favorite movies. Well, other than Sixteen Candles. I liked it, but not like I like The Princess Bride, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Say Anything, Pretty in Pink, Overboard, The Lost Boys, Back to the Future, Dirty Dancing, The Goonies, and Ghostbusters.

Anyway, watching Pretty in Pink again, I'm still among the camp that thinks Andie (the Molly Ringwald character) should've ended up with Duckie. (Jon Cryer) Now, don't get me wrong, to make a movie that will make money, I understand what they mean when they said in the bonus feature, "Ya can't make a movie where she doesn't get the cute guy in the end."
Also, they discussed how if you make a movie about romance across class lines and then have the lower-class heroine end up with the lower-class guy, that doesn't send a good message about love conquering all and stuff like that.

The big problem with that in Pretty in Pink is the lack of character on the part of Blane (Andrew McCarthy), the rich kid Andie falls for. I just don't find him interesting and lovable like I do Duckie. Yes, he at first thinks he can go out with Andie despite backlash for it from his rich friends and possible backlash from his parents, but he loses any respect I had for him by backing out on taking Andie to the prom and making up the excuse that he had "asked someone else earlier and forgot."

Duck, on the other hand, though he acts a bit like a jerk when he finds out Andie is going out with Blane, he only does so in an overreaction. He truly believes that Blane is only going out with her to use her and finds that disgusting when Duckie himself has been devoted to her for so long and loves her so much.

Now turning to Say Anything, I believe this movie also is thematically about love over class lines, but in a much subtler way. In Pretty in Pink, there is very obviously a divide in the town: a literal wrong side of the railroad tracks. Andie at the end of her first date with Blane doesn't want him to take her home because she doesn't want him to see where she lives.

In Say Anything, the "class line" isn't so much about physical address and/or amount of money, but about education and prospects, and this I believe is more likely to be realistic in today's world.
While in Pretty in Pink we have Andie, the "lower class girl" and Blane the "rich guy," in Say Anything we have Diane Court (Ione Sky), the valedictorian and Lloyd Dobbler (John Cusack), an intelligent and sweet but underachieving guy. Diane has been accepted to a prestigious study abroad fellowship in England, while Lloyd has no concrete plans for the future and what plans he does have include trying to become a pro in kickboxing "the sport of the future."

In Pretty in Pink, we have pressure placed on the couple from their social groups and on Blane's side, his parents if they knew about what was going on, but Andie's father encourages her that if they love each other, they should forget about their friends.
In Say Anything, most of the action takes place after graduation. At the party Lloyd and Diane go to as their first date, Lloyd's friends all like Diane (though they all wish they could have known her before graduation. It is explained that she took classes at the college in their town as well, so wasn't involved heavily in the student body.) After graduation and the final party, social groups aren't much of a force over the summer, so pressure on the couple in this movie comes in the form of Diane's overprotective loving father. (John Mahoney)

Diane's father doesn't object to him based on money; (Lloyd at the time is living with his grown sister and his parents are working in Europe.) he objects to her dating him because of his lack of prospects, saying to him, "You're not a permanent part of her life. You're a distraction."


In both of these movies, we have an absent mother and a father who wants to take care of his baby girl the best he can. In Pretty in Pink, the father is still bereaved from his wife leaving, so he's more...how do I say this?...sympathetic to his daughter's happiness in the way of love. 
In Say Anything, the father also wants his daughter to be happy, but he sees that goal as being accomplished by urging her to get the best possible education and preparing for the future. He sees anything (or anyone) that takes even a little away from that as a distraction and a waste of time.


And so, you ask, what is to be gleaned from all this? 


I'm not sure. In Pretty in Pink, the ending is left hazy. Andie obviously chooses Blane, the rich kid, and we're left to hope that things worked out for them in the end despite potential criticism from his parents and being ostracized by his friends. We know that Duckie gains respect for Blane for coming alone to the prom and tells Andie to go after him so that they can be happy. Her father wasn't much of an issue. And so we have a fairy tale type ending.


In Say Anything, we also have a happy ending, but this one is a bit more bittersweet. Diane's dad is conveniently convicted of embezzling money from tenants of his nursing home, and so put away into prison and not much of a driving force in his daughter's life. She forgives him and visits him before she leaves for England, but decides to be with Lloyd even though from prison, her Dad still disapproves of him.
I'm left to wonder what happened when (or if) they came back from England. I'm sure they were happy together and Lloyd got his act together to take care of and eventually marry Diane, but assuming they ever went back to America and Diane's dad ever got out of prison, what kind of family dynamics would they have?
Would he still be angry for her choosing to be with Lloyd or would he see that he was unreasonable and accept them? And would they care if he did or not? We know that she forgave him for what he did with the money, but would she still want to have a major relationship with a man who stole most of what they had and caused so much unhappiness for her and Lloyd over the summer before they got back together?


Who knows.

A Visual Representation of Lady Brainsample's Life Right Now

Photo Credit.

How's everyone else's Monday going?

Why Exactly Is Calculus Required for Business Majors Again??

Thank the Lord for take home calculus tests. Thanks also abound for calculus teachers who will understand my motivation for this blog post.
My motivation? The solution my teacher himself gave us to fix the problem we're having trouble with isn't working. I've tried it three times and checked my work each time, but the stupid integral won't cooperate and give me the x bar for the center of mass.
Long story short, ("Too late!") I've given up on that problem, so that frustration is going to be channeled into a blog post.

The problem?

Whatever shall I write about?!?!

And so, in perfect irony, the frustration of not being able to think of anything to write is simply being added to the frustration of calculus.

[Insert Pithy Title about Angst and/or Disney Pictures Here]

So, I was going to favor y'all with a post yesterday about how I had post show depression, but that it was going to be all right and I had positive/humorous ways to deal with it, but then I got a terrible grade on an online test which made my mood plummet.

Today, I'm not so depressed, so I will attempt to blog again.
I'm very pleased with coincidental timing that really helped me yesterday. I got a book from the library a few weeks ago about...I guess the way to describe it is how to deal with being a first born. (whether you're first born because of actual birth order or by being functionally first born.) At some point after the debacle of that business law test, I picked up reading where I had left off a couple weeks ago and was barraged with admonitions that you DON'T NEED TO BE PERFECT. It's NOT the end of the world. So that was good.

Today, I wish to share with y'all some really cool pictures I found on the internet today.
This graphic design student for fun decided to manipulate Disney animated characters to where they looked like real people. The results (I think) are absolutely stunning. I especially love the Jasmine and Esmerelda pictures. And there are more on his website.

I'm Not Normally a Huge Fan of Music Videos...

....but this one is awesome.

Truth in Webcomics

Wherever you'd put actor/spy, I'd still be in that stage.

You can also substitute likelihood to speak with proper grammar and how much your mother/teacher made you diagram sentences with this same graph.

Hee hee...

Thank you, calculus. I now sufficiently know what most of that means. Well, other than the heart variables of course. I'd love to be able to take the square root of love.

"Who is more foolish? The dork or the person who marries the dork?"

This one's for my AD.

I need to get myself a Spinal Tap shirt...

This one goes to my mother. Thanks for passing that gene down to me, not only for the student's angst dreams, but also the director's, actor's, and stage manager's.

Credit goes here and here.

Things Lady Brainsample Is Pondering Over These Days Based On Her Current Reading Material

"As physicians, psychiatrists have the right to prescribe drugs or electroshock, to hospitalize patients, and to treat people against their will. They are the only mental health professionals who routinely exercise these powers." -from Toxic Psychiatry, by Dr. Peter Breggin

"It is remarkable, Hardin, how the religion of science has grabbed hold." -from Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

"There is indeed a peculiar charm both in friendship and in eros, about those moment when Appreciative love lies, as it were, curled up asleep, and the mere ease and ordinariness of the relationship (free as solitude, yet neither is alone) wraps us round. No need to talk. No need to make love. No needs at all except perhaps to stir the fire." -from The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis

"The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one.'" -from The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis

"For it is the very mark of Eros [Lewis' classification of romantic love] that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms...Eros never hesitates to say, 'Better this than parting. Better to be miserable with her than happy without her. Let our hearts break provided they break together.' If the voice within us does not say this it is not the voice of Eros." -from The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis

"Maybe we are not such fools as we look. But though we be, we are well content, so long as we may be two fools together." -from Lorna Doone, by R.D. Blackmore