Hi, My Name is Nelson. This Is My First Time At Nelsononymous.

Oh yeah, I also saw Moon this past week. I've never seen 2001, but I imagine the aesthetics of and robot character G.E.R.T.I.E. in Moon were all homages to it. Duncan Jones (director, and son of David Bowie) and Clint Mansell (Requiem for a dream, and music) did a great job creating a bleak lunarscape and isolated atmosphere for Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) accurately. The effects were awesome as well, using a lot of practical effects/models and foregoing the CGI  magic everybody and their mother lazily uses nowadays.

I'm not going to spoil any plot points (if you've seen the trailer then you already know the twist), but the major reveal occurs within the first like 10-15 minutes anyway. Rockwell was awesome and got to display some range (i've always been a fan), and I don't know about you, but I want my future to be populated by robots voiced by Kevin Spacey and that calm, soothing tone.

But Moon is a thinking man's scifi movie, and I certainly appreciate that in this otherwise cerebral draught we call Summer-Movie-Season (I'm still going to watch G.I. Joe on opening night, so I'm not in some high, cinematic tower).

Was it worth the drive to Berkeley? Sure why not. The Landmark on Shattuck was really nice, and I always like going back to my first hometown and birthplace. Like salmon...like salmon.

Well, I'm a little bit older and a little bit wiser, and I've decided to write something. As an update, I'm semi-officially graduated from undergraduate college, and I'm working now in this job market, and ever-so-grateful for that. Those chemistry courses I said I was going to take a few posts back? Yeah those haven't been done yet. 2 semesters of chemistry prevent me from obtaining my diploma, so we'll just see how that shakes out. I've always wanted to be the 32 year old dude at the back of the classroom that people don't really know what to make of. Now I get to entertain that fantasy, it would seem.

I'm now working full-time at C3, LLC as a policy analyst, and generally in awe of my coworkers and everything they do. We're going to do some great and awesome things in our space, and obviously I can't talk much about it due to my NDA. But when we're up and out there, you'll probably find out more.

Still living at home, trying to accumulate a war-chest so I can move out eventually and live closer to work, or in the City. But overall, feeling blessed that I have a place to go everyday and do something I believe in.

and i'd just like to add, that Danny Boyle is currently one of my favorite directors. you know, despite the lack of real persistence on my part to view all the work in his portfolio (still need to watch Trainspotting and Sunshine, among others). Also, whoever this A.R. Rahman is, he also did an amazing job with the score for slumdog.

So i'm a pathological liar or an abusive blogger. Lock me up. By criminalizing lying on the internet you're just wrapping up billions of taxpayer dollars for minor offenses in a penal system that has just been perverted by power and money and unions and wasting everybody's time/energy/money/patience and turned into this overcrowded, grotesque-money-hole. What's that? I'm being subversive? oh you, get OUT of here.

I'm like that terrible father who says hes just going out for some cigarettes and you don't see him for like 15 years and he comes back randomly for one christmas and you're like, what the fuck dad? where have the child support checks been going? Into your bottle of Jim Bean? And i'm like, "SHUT UP, I'M NOT YOUR REAL DAD AND I NEVER WANTED THIS RESPONSIBILITY!"

Yikes, I think the absence from writing has made me, how do we put this delicately? batshit insane.

Things have changed since...May of this past year. I'm blogging from a shiny new MacBook running Leopard 10.5.5. How you like them apples, Microsoft? I've become THAT guy--the snooty elitist mac owner like the anthropomorphized Mac Mr. Justin Long. I've become slightly bitter and cynical about my long-time passion, CALPIRG, and so very burnt out from grassroots organizing on campus. I've become whiny when it comes to leadership and its really quite sad. I'm unmotivated and uninspired to fully exploit my learning in all of my classes, and I've kind of become a bum. But i'm a happy bum, and i don't really know what to make of that.

More introspective stuff later, but i'm tired. It's been a lovely day spent going to a perennial favorite of mine, Bonne Sante in Burlingame (thank you very much Ms. Lee), watching the amazing Slumdog Millionaire, and a stellar night of NCAA football. Let's hope that Big 12 South sorts itself out.

Just kidding, backing out on that contract. Breaching it, baby.

Twitter's just so much...easier and better...

What a bad ass title for a blog post. But yes, I'll make a contract with you, the overall internet, to try this social experiment yet again.

...also because it's summer and I have hours upon hours of free time, because I am a bum.

Applying for an internship with the Siebel Foundation. (Yes, that Siebel) I think I'm sticking around for the summer, taking some chemistry classes at De Anza in late June.

RIP for the thousands in the Schezuan province.

I am an attention whore. To toot my own horn, they are fantastic and freakishly realistic.

http://digg.com/gaming_news/The_Office_complete_cast_as_Mii_s_looks_JUST_like_them#c5120442

or if you're lazy and don't like clicking

http://www.flickr.com/photos/n1c2c8/sets/72157594516670929/

And I love him. Having never had the joy of owning a REAL pet as a child (and twenty-some-odd golfish are now rolling in their aquatic graves), I now have the great opportunity to raise a cold, lifeless mechanical entity! The robot in question?

iRobot's Roomba Scheduler. See, we were out on a mission this Saturday, and we went to Costco, and we were looking to buy a heavy-duty vacuum cleaner when we stumbled upon this fella, just looking at us with its blank LED eye-beacon thing, just short of wagging its tail, if it had one. It was between this Hoover monstrosity or the autonomous super-bot, and I think you know what happened next. Impulse buy? You bet your ass.

But once we read more and more of the features on the box, it was like we were looking at the Steven Hawking of vaccum cleaning devices compared to Some Rock. And it might have even been an intelligent rock, but it didn't stand a chance. No sir.

Hurray for technology!

Bastards.

Why can't you people tolerate some poor sap who apparently can't ride a bike to save his life? Yeah, hi. That was me. The dude on the 20+ year old Schwinn bicycle swerving left and right and looking like I didn't even know how to ride. Some complaints:

A) Fuck you old people. Please walk at a brisker pace. Your mechanical hips entitle you to this. Nay, demand you.

B) For people that like to think they are clever and witty, thanks for making snide remarks instead of seeing if I was ok when I seemingly lost balance while standing still and falling over. I have to explain, my brakes don't work, so slowing down is a dangerous feat in itself, involving Fred Flinstonian physics.
Lady: I hope you're biking drunk!
To which i wanted to reply
Me: I hope you're a fucking bitch, but not knowing you personally or the circumstances of why you said that to me, I'm not even going to be so bold as to assume you are one!

C) Fucking cars that use the bike lane as a second lane, and then cars that run yellow lights when pedestrians (and bikers!) have the right of way, like right in front of me, when i don't have any brakes. You get the picture. Needless to say, i got to embarass myself and humble myself many times today, in front of tons of people on public LA roads.

And they say people don't like biking. Pfffft.

...bastards.

Been a while, hasn't it? Yeah, i missed you guys too.

So my bike was stolen today, no joke. Funny thing this time is, only my front wheel remains. The front wheel, which i bought last week for 42 dollars, and my Kryptonite lock. You know, just to have the irony set in, last year over christmas break, i was smart enough to leave my bike outside Pardee, and my front wheel was stolen. This time i was treated to the opposite. I appreciate those fucking thieves's (or the universe's) twisted sense of humor. I give them props for that one. And just to compound the bizarre string of crime and theft targeted at me and my family, i will present two seperate, but related anecdotes.

My cousin Natasha, currently attending this instituion for grad school in Annenberg, had her car window smashed in and GPS unit stolen. Now this car is located in a parking garage beneath the very apartment she resides in. Entrance into said garage can only be gained by using either a garage remote, or a key. Apparently she joins the roster of other recent car-item-theft victims in the past week or two, from the same garage/building.

My brother im's me the other day to inform me that my car window was smashed in AGAIN. I assume he was driving my ML into the city to help move items from his home to his new home, but good lord! 2nd time in just as many months. Last time was Superman in the city, this time it's....Albert's thing in the city. Great. I just find it comical now. Which is probably just bitter cynicism taking hold.

Then i find out that a friend had her bike stolen recently as well. I think i'm just unlucky, or it just may be that suburb i live in called Watts, and its geographic location in South Central LA. University of Spoiled Children, indeed.

I've been busy with school and shit. 20 credit course load sure has its perks (surprisingly calm actually with little work load...oh damn i just jynxed myself.) I'll do some dedicated movie review post when i feel like it, sheeeesh. Just to keep score, i think its...the Descent, Little Miss Sunshine, Talladega Nights, Who Killed the Electric Car, Scanner Darkly. Damn that's a lot.

And because i'm really bad and also lazy, someday i plan to upload all my China photos, because they're tight.

I also get my glasses this weekend, i'm so hyped!