Shouzer

Ronald McDonald performing the Thai Wai, used to show respect as a greeting. I do it all the time as well when I go to the schools to teach. I just thought it was really funny to see an American icon in the pose.

I managed to procure an iPhone today. While it definitely seems to have been worth it so far, I have to mention that I was right when I said waiting in line with a bunch of Apple fanboys would suck (though at least I only had to wait about 1.5 hours). Most of the people I was around were alright, but some of them were just assholes. That doesn’t matter, though. What does is this:

My initial thoughts? The keyboard is surprisingly easy to use–significantly easier than was implied by the first reviews. I haven’t had issues using dual thumbs at all. The screen is simply amazing. I’m consistently delighted by its clarity. The interface, as expected, is great. In particular, this really is the best iPod Apple has ever produced. As you can see from the last two pics, it’s relatively small. My previous phone was an E815, which isn’t exceedingly large. It’s no RAZR in terms of slimness, but most phones aren’t.

Oh, and Safari on the iPhone? Magnificent. It really does render pages exactly as it should. Zooming in and moving around is very easy, and I imagine I’ll do it a lot when I’m just sitting around. Lastly, as a nice little surprise, when I dock the phone I’m able to pull pictures off it directly through Explorer. Windows just recognizes it as a camera, which is pretty handy.

[Edit:] Wow, I really need to dust off my desk, eh?

The work is actually getting better this week. I am on standby on Mondays, which honestly kinda sucks, but I’m looking at it as a wild-card day. It’s also nice that I won’t have to do student reports for those five classes. Tuesday was really good. I work at a kindergarten all day, and it is a great school. The kids are adorable, and they are really smart. They have gotten used to me and my TT, so now they know our signals, even the K1s who are only 2-3. We we tell them to hush, they actually do it.

Today was a pretty good day as well. It used to be a totally crap day for me, but I laid the smack down on my bad classes last week. This week, they were quite well behaved. It was really nice to see the discipline being effective. There were three other teaching teams from Fun Language at that school today as well, and one of them was threatening to send naughty students to my TT if they were bad. Apparently, it worked. She is pretty feisty.

Food was really good today as well. I had this garlic chicken thing at lunch which was really nice. I was getting tired of eating fried rice so I got some of the Thai teachers to recommend me something. This is surprisingly hard to do. Every time I’m out with them, I ask them what to order. They almost always say fried rice or basil chicken. Both are good, but I like a little variety. The restaurants don’t have menus, and when you ask a Thai person what they have, they generally say, “They have everything.” I tell them I want a burger. I had some Greek food in my apartment this afternoon which was a welcome change as well. It was just feta cheese with olives, tomatoes, onions, and bread, but it was quite nice to eat something besides rice. I went to a Japanese place with some friends at the night, and that was one of the most amazing meals I have had in a long time. We shared pot stickers, fried pork, and some sushi. It was amazing.

Tomorrow I’m heading to a new school. For some weird reasons I haven’t been to this one yet. It’s another day of all kindergarten, and I’m teaching phonics the whole day. Hopefully, it will go alright. Friday is my super fantastic day. I have four classes; I’m done before lunch. It is magnificent.

Bangkok

New ones are at the end. I went to the National Museum and Dusit Park this weekend. Dusit Park was at one time the compound of a royal palace. Now, the buildings have been converted to museums and other tourist attractions. It was my favorite touristy place that I have been in Bangkok thus far.

I went to see a movie last night called Rakna 24 Hours. This, obviously, was a Thai-made movie, and I have to say that I enjoyed it. The whole experience of going to a movie in another country is quite strange for me because I always process it differently than other people in the audience. I have seen Ocean’s 13 and Pirates 3 here already, and there were times in both of those movies that I was laughing hysterically while everyone else was sitting in silence because they did not understand the cultural reference. The same happened to me last night. Everyone in the theater was laughing while I was sitting there lost because of bad subtitles and/or a lack of understanding of the culture. I actually enjoy being on both sides of the coin. It’s honestly pretty cool to be the only one in a huge theater that understands a joke, but it’s also pretty neat to be in a theater in a foreign country watching a film native to that country.

I had to convince the ticket girl last night that I actually wanted to see a Thai movie, which was difficult as she didn’t speak much English. She actually called one of her fellow employees over to laugh at me and ensure that I did actually want to see this movie. They were both quite surprised that I was willing to read subtitles. I’m not sure why since Thai people do this all the time with American movies.

The movie itself was about a guy with split personalities. There was a set of twins, one of which died during birth, and the two consciousnesses moved into one of the bodies. Ble A got the body on odd days and Ble B got the body on even days. (I may have that reversed.) When this/these boy grew up, he started to work at 7-11 because everyday was the same, meaning neither brother would miss anything. A new female employee (Tau), though, catches of the interest of Ble B, but Ble A does not care for her. Ble B asks A to be nice to her, and he starts to fall for her as well. Tau falls in love with Ble as well, despite a few missteps caused by lack of communication between the brothers. For example, Tau tells B that the next day is her birthday, but he does not tell A because he wants to share the experience with her. On Feb 13, B promises to propose the next day, but once again does not tell A because once again, he wants to share the experience. To make matters worse, when B finds out that A is in love with her as well, he gets quite angry at him. In the end, Tau’s angry ex-boyfriend enters the 7-11 and shoots Ble while Tau is struggling with her newfound realization that Ble is two brothers trapped in one body. On the surgery table, the two brothers meet in an out of body experience, and they realize that one of them must die. A bites the bullet while Tau realizes that she is in love with A and not B. Tau runs off, and B spends the next two years working in 7-11s around the country looking for Tau. He eventually finds her, but she rejects him again although she allows for a friendship. Yes, he got stuck in the dreaded friend zone.

Normally, I hate movies which use the stupidity of characters as a plot device. I think that obviously if your girlfriend tells you that you need to give her a birthday cake the next day, you tell your brother about it if is going to be inhabiting your body. Also, if you only have the body half the time, you have to realize that a marriage is going to require a commitment from both brothers. Neither is going to be the brother in law in this situation as B suggested. I was able to forgive these transgressions in this case though because the much more obvious problem with the plot was that two people shared one body. This included a scene at the beginning where the two babies were in the womb, and they swam around and tried to help each other. Yes, there is plenty of room in there for two babies to swim around futilely grasp at each other’s hands. If I could accept that, I think I can accept that the two brothers would be jealous and somewhat uncooperative.

And Jared-> That is how you do a movie review.

I liked this article: Link

This guy is obviously quite full of himself, but he presents an interesting argument. I’m not sure how valid it all is. For instance, he claims that his method of measuring climate change is the most accurate in the world. Hmm…I’m not so sure I buy that. Maybe if someone else was writing about him, but it sounds more like an egotistical scientist trying to gain some acclaim.

The idea that the sun is the driving force behind climate change makes a lot of sense though. I wouldn’t think that minor changes in the atmosphere would have nearly as much of an effect as minor changes in the energy of the sun as the minor change in the sun would result in a massive change in the amount of energy the planet receives. Changing the filter isn’t as effective as changing the source.

Have I mentioned how good my Fridays are? Well, they rock the house. I only have to teach four classes, and they are all before lunch. I’m back to the office by noon. I spent the afternoon writing next week’s lesson plans and cataloging my new phonics flash card set. I can leave if I want to, but I wanted to take advantage of the time to do the lesson plans. To make things even better, I get to teach two K3 classes, which are by my favorites of the week. The kids are old enough that they can play games and have fun, but they are young enough that they still like stupid jokes and silly songs. They are a lot of fun.

Yesterday, my regular school was canceled, so I went out to observe some other teachers. They each had 5 classes, and they were teaching them all the same lesson. I’m glad I don’t have to do that every week. Variety is the spice of life. The cool thing about this school, though, was that all of the buildings surrounded an inner courtyard, and the kids had recess in there. We came back from lunch, and they were out playing basketball, so we joined them. They were just shooting hoops, it wasn’t like 5 on 5 or anything. It was still pretty fun to play with the kids in an unstructured environment though. Plus, towards the end of recess, all of the kids were standing outside of their rooms overlooking the courtyard, and they were watching us (just the teachers now) play. They were all cheering when we made shots, which was rare for me. One of the other teachers started hamming it up a bit, trying to get more cheers like Randy Moss in the end zone. I have to say, it was a pretty good time.

The thought seems to be that getting an iPhone is going to require camping out and standing in line.  I’ll be honest, if that’s what it takes, I’ll just get a Blackjack and be on my way.  If Apple can’t get out enough phones in the initial shipment, that’s ridiculous.  Don’t get me wrong, I want one.  I want one bad.  But I don’t feel like I should have to stand around in line with a bunch of god damn zealots.  As much as I like my MacBook Pro, I still really don’t like many of the Apple fanboys.

Everybody that reads this thing knows that I get long-winded about some issue/event in sports occasionally. In addition, since the inception of this blog, I’ve let my love affair with the NBA Draft bleed onto your computer screens. Today, I do both. I’m going to try my hand at a mock draft, and maybe some of you who read a sports article now and then can critique me. I don’t care if you disagree with my team selection, judge my writing.

1. Portland Trailblazers select Greg Oden. Oden has been projected to go here since Clinton’s first term, and it’s still not even the biggest no-brainer of the draft. This is:
2. Seattle Supersonics select Kevin Durant. There is still no hard evidence that Portland is going with Oden; that’s just what everybody believes they will do. It makes no difference to Seattle. This is a two-man draft, so the Sonics just take whomever the Blazers don’t.
3. Atlanta Hawks select Brandan Wright. I don’t think they’re taking Horford, as recent rumors suggest. Even for the Hawks, that’s too much talent duplication. I actually like the idea of passing on Conley here, though. I see the logic that says Brandan Wright + Law/Crittenton is greater than Conley + J. Wright/Thornton. (They’re drafting #11, too).
4. Memphis Grizzlies select Al Horford. Horford compliments Gasol well, and he’s the best available player here.
5. Boston Celtics select Corey Brewer. This is probably the most likely top 10 pick to get traded, but I think if they keep it, they’ll go for Brewer. He’s an upgrade over Wally, and gives them some defense on the perimeter.
6. Milwaukee Bucks select Mike Conley. Their biggest need is SF, but if Conley falls here, I don’t see them passing him up. Jeff Green is a possibility.
7. Minnesota Timberwolves select Jeff Green. A lot of mock drafts have them taking Spencer Hawes, but if Green is still on the board here, I think he’s a steal. A foundation of Randy Foye and Jeff Green isn’t half bad, if they are serious about moving Garnett.
8. Charlotte Bobcats select Yi Jianlian. I’m going out on a limb with this one. I haven’t read of these two being connected at all, but I think it’s a great match. The Bobcats need a center, a scorer, and someone to create some media buzz. I give you Yi.
9. Chicago Bulls select Joakim Noah. This would be a great scenario for Chicago. He can step in and play right now and an immediate upgrade over P.J. Brown. Ty Thomas and Joakim Noah will be busting up weak Eastern Conference front lines for years.
10. Sacramento Kings select Spencer Hawes. I think this is a best case scenario for Sactown, too. He becomes the successor to Brad Miller in the post. Hawes has the most low-post scoring potential of anyone in the draft besides Oden.
11. Atlanta Hawks select Javaris Crittenton. I think they take him over Law because Crittenton plays for Georgia Tech, and they could probably use the home town support. Either way, one of the two goes here.
12. Philadelphia 76ers select Julian Wright. Maybe this is where Al Thornton goes, but my gut says Wright. More upside, and upside means everything on draft night.
13. New Orleans Hornet select Thaddeus Young. Nick Young makes more sense because of the hole at 2-guard, but Thaddeus is a wonderful talent with upside. I’d start him over Peja and lose no sleep.
14. L.A. Clippers select Acie Law. This one should be an easy pick for the Clippers. Cassell is too old to be starting in this league, and Shaun Livingston is rehabbing from one of the worst sports injuries I’ve ever seen.

Well, that’s the lottery. I’m not DraftExpress, Chad Ford, or NBADraft.net, but I think I’ve got some cred.

Laundry was interesting today. I went down to the laundry room, and some woman’s clothes were in the big machine, which I needed. I have to do laundry once a week because I only have 5 work shirts. That means I brought far too many clothes, but I digress. I moved this woman’s clothes over to the smaller machine and started to put mine in. Then, the door opens, and I had to suppress a gasp. There in the doorway was an older man dressed in a woman’s negligee. He’s got long blond hair, his toenails are painted red, and his fingernails are pink. I didn’t notice his eye color. I did see that he had a cane, and wore one sandal, I think on the foot that caused his limp. He spoke with a normal man’s voice, and a British accent. It was as though he had just walked out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Nice guy though.

I’ve watched a lot of movies lately. I guess in the past week or so I’ve watched nine movies. Maybe that’s not a lot to some of you crazies out there, but I think falling into the class of “crazies” generally speaks for itself. Anyway, I figured I’d give my impression of some of these movies. I’ll try to keep it short and succinct, but sometimes that’s tough when you’ve got a lot of bitching to do.

Smokin’ Aces – I’ll be honest… I’m not sure what I thought of this movie. That’s pretty weak on my part, I know. How hard is it to decide if you liked something? It should be pretty cut and dry, but sometimes it’s not that simple. It should be, but it’s not. Maybe we should work on that. Computers should tell us whether or not we liked something. And then make us believe it. We’ll call that phase 2.

So, the movie had some decent action and some quirky characters, and that’s about all I was expecting. So there’s a plus. On the other hand–let’s say my right hand–the ending was strange to me. It seemed like all of a sudden it wanted to get all psychological on me or something, but it shouldn’t have. It was no good at it.

Knocked Up – Everybody seems to be in love with this movie right now, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. It had a fun story for the most part (and I can dig that), but it really didn’t make me laugh. I like Paul Rudd quite a bit, but that doesn’t make up for the lack of funny. Comedy requires funny. Last time I checked, that was the point of a comedy. Maybe the rules have changed since Borat. I don’t know. Computer?

Miami Vice – Meh, Collateral was better. I haven’t seen Heat, but I imagine that’s better. Jordy says it was the most “visually inspiring” movie he’s seen in a long time, and I say it’s a lot of dark, grainy shots. Oh, and long unnecessary closeups of Colin Farrell. I mean, nothing against the guy. He’s alright, I’d say, but I just don’t really care to stare at him. It’s not my bag, baby.

The parts of the movie with nice views of Miami didn’t drive the plot. Instead, they were just there to extend the pain. I guess that’s not my thing. The pain doesn’t make me feel alive; it just hurts.

I really did like the story, but I was hoping for more overall. In all reality, I don’t see how you can say this movie is more “visually inspiring” than something like Return of the King. For the record, Jordy didn’t say that. However, that would be the honest impression I got from his post.

Vertigo – Supposedly one of Hitchcock’s best films. Supposedly. I read about it a little after watching it, and it really wasn’t considered special immediately after its release. So maybe in 15 years I’ll love it too? That would be weird. I guess that’s when phase 2 is deployed.

Until then, I’ll keep believing the plot was slow, and it took James Stewart out of his element. Yet I was fine with that. I really was. I wasn’t going to complain. I was planning to keep my mouth shut. Even if things in a movie bother me, I typically don’t complain about them, unless it’s the ending. But then the ending sucked it up, and I had to find something else that pissed me off too.

Breach – I went into this movie hoping for a lot, and it delivered. Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillipe (btw, wtf is up with his IMDB photo?) both did excellent jobs. Chris Cooper in particular. All around, I’d recommend it to anyone, though I’m admittedly biased by my fascination with the fact that it’s based on a true story.

Rear Window – Now this is a great movie. Hitchcock did such great work with just one setting–a single room in an apartment. James Stewart literally doesn’t move more than 10 feet the entire movie, but it keeps its pace (hurray!), the characters are enjoyable, and you really never know for sure what’s going on. Oh, and the ending doesn’t suck. Bonus points there. Bonus points.

X-Men: The Last Stand – I’d love to own the first two X-Men movies. They were great. They had a fair bit of action, but it was always driven by interesting plots. The third movie wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. I would think “good” is typically what the Hollywood types typically strive for. In this case, it was a blatant attempt to make more money. Ah money, you wily foe. How I desire you, yet you consistently elude me.

Way too much happened in the movie, there was absolutely no character development, and the battle at the end felt rushed. They also killed too many people. At least the series looked like it was about wrapped up, but then they threw in a last second “cliffhanger” to leave open another sequel. I guess they saw more money as a possibility.

Children of Men – I thought this movie was good. It wasn’t great, but I don’t have too many complaints about it. I really liked Michael Caine’s character, and I think Clive Owen is a great actor. I think most of my issues come from the lack of giving background information and a lack of closure.

I really didn’t understand the state the world was in. For instance, where was the main safehouse at? Inside the fences or out? If out, then it seemed relatively nice, so what was the big deal? The same goes for Jasper… His life seemed decent enough, so why was everybody else going apeshit? Finally, the ending didn’t really explain much, which is a consistent complaint of mine across any form of media. Leaving it up to the viewer is a copout. If I wanted to use my imagination, I wouldn’t be fucking staring movie screen for two hours.

Pan’s Labyrinth – I just watched this movie last tonight and was greatly underwhelmed. Metacritic has it as the 4th best rated movie of all time. Are you fucking kidding me? What jackasses gave this movie a god damn 98/100 average on Metacritic?

I actually enjoyed the movie. The acting was good, and the plot kept moving. It was entertaining, to the say the least. But it certainly was NOT what I’d heard it to be. Honestly, I think there’s too many people out there just longing for quality foreign films. For that matter, this may well be a quality foreign film (though I doubt it). Yet it’s ridiculous to consider this “fantasy” movie anywhere near deserving the acclaim it’s gotten.

For one, it’s not a fantasy movie. It’s simply not. Does it have fantasy elements? Certainly. Count the number of minutes it spends in those fantasy settings, though. A total of maybe 10? Out of 120? What it comes down to is that it’s a fairy tale, rated R only because it has unnecessary violence and odd moments of swearing.

Second, there was nothing revolutionary about the story or the cinematography. The Captain was a cliche; he was nothing more than an over-the-top, sadistic bad guy. The mother was a coward who put her children in a dangerous situation. And the fantasy elements just did not deliver as they should have. The melding of fantasy and reality was interesting, but, again, it was underplayed.

Finally, it failed to make me care about the characters. The little girl is dumb (don’t eat the grapes, asshole!), the mother is blind to her family’s situation, and Mercedes should have killed the Captain. I just find it hard to sympathize with characters who are morons.

Anyway, don’t take my word for it. Go see the movies yourselves, and if you’ve already seen them, let me know what you thought. Then let the computer decide for you.

Ayutthaya

I went for a day trip to the ruins at Ayutthaya yesterday. The train trip was one of the most interesting parts. The train cost 15 baht which is insanely cheap. Especially since it cost me 50 to get to the train station. The train broke down on the way there somewhere in the middle of Thailand. I actually enjoy these little setbacks because they make for good stories. Ironically, I spend more time laughing about these kinds of things than I do talking about the really cool things I’ve seen. I think pictures tell the story of places better than my words ever could.

Ayutthaya was quite cool once I got there though. It is the old capital of Siam, and there were a lot of ruins from around 1400AD. I spent most of the day seeing old temples. There was a ruin from a palace, but there wasn’t much left of it.

The weirdest thing happened to me yesterday though. I was walking up to temple when this group of girls approached me. There were about 6 of them, and they were in their late teens. One says, “Just one picture please?” I agree, and wait for them to hand me the camera and get in their pose. Then, before I know what’s happening. The girl that asked me stands up next to me, and one of her friends snaps a picture. Then, they pull out a notebook and ask me to write me name and where I’m from, which I did hesitantly. There were half a dozen other names in the book above mine. I walked away from the encounter with a dumbfounded look on my face, and some Thai guy who was selling cokes patted me and the shoulder and laughed. I have no idea why they wanted a picture with me. I was looking incredibly skanky at the time though. I had already been walking around in the heat of the day for about 2 hours, and I was drenched in sweat. (I actually got so sweaty yesterday that I have white streaks all over my shirt from the salt in sweat.)

I wasn’t sure whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. It could be, “Wow, he’s so hot! I must have a picture with him!” Or it could be, “Wow, I’ve never seen a white person before even though I speak English. I want to take a picture of him so we can sit around and laugh at how weird he looks later.” After much soul searching, I decided to take it as a compliment.

One of the coolest things for me is that I already feel like I’m part of the community. Some of the people here that I regularly do business with recognize me and know my “regular” order. The motorcycle guy that takes me to work doesn’t even have to ask where I’m going anymore. He sees me walking up from 2 blocks away, jumps on his bike, pulls it to the spot where I jump on, and then takes me to the office. No verbal communication required. I love this because it saves me from failing to communicate my destination, and it means we have an established fare so I don’t have to try to negotiate.

There’s a guy that sells smoothies at night that are to die for. These things are flat out amazing. He is out at night on the road between my apartment and the skytrain station. I buy one every time I walk by him. He knows me as well which is kinda cool.

They probably know me because I’m white and I stand out. The taxi has the added advantage of seeing my uniform. There are a few other teachers around here as well so he probably knows it better than he knows me. Still, I like that people here know me already.

I was sort of half watching last weekend’s NASCAR race.  I normally keep my distance from this stuff, because it burns.  Megan’s brother was there though, and I figured I could at least pay attention.  It turned out to be a major disappointment.  Rain delay after rain delay eventually caused the officials to call the race.

Watching this, I realized that NASCAR can in no way be considered a sport.  There was some rain on the track, so they quit.  They just quit and gave the win to Jeff Gordon, because he was in front at the time.  I’m sure he was happy about it, but I’m sorry–that’s just plain pitiful.  They’re literally driving around in cars.  Rain is going to stop some cars?  “Ooh, but it’s too dangerous.”  Well then slow the fuck down.  If you’re too stupid to drive 200+ miles per hour in pouring rain, you might deserve to get in an accident.

A football game would never get canceled because of rain.  Quite the opposite, I’m sure.  People enjoy rain and snow games more.  Why?  Because that’s what a sport is.  Baseball falls into the same category as NASCAR, unfortunately.  But at least they makeup the rained out games or play the rest later.

Riding in taxis in Bangkok could best be described as trippy, even though Microsoft Word tells me that trippy is not a word. The first thing that hits you is the music. A grown man is driving the taxi, but you would never know it based on the music. It sounds more like a 13 year old girl’s room. On the way to school this morning, I heard N’Sync, that sound from Music and Lyrics (I only know that because I saw that movie on the plane), and Gloria Estefan, at least, I think it was Gloria Estefan. I’m really just guessing about that last one to be honest.

The other thing that hits you about the taxi riding experience is the insanity of Bangkok traffic. I’d like to consider myself to be fairly adventurous about driving in cities, but I would never drive here. Rules of the road? There are none.

Right of way is given to the driver with the most courage. People make right turns here (the drive on the left) by inching into oncoming traffic until they are far enough into it that said traffic has to stop. Then, if there are other cars waiting behind to turn, they force themselves in as well until the cars going straight make similar headway into the row of turning cars.

Thankfully, the motorbikes don’t really do this. They do piggy back other cars making these moves though. They also drive past long lines of cars waiting at stoplights by driving on the wrong side of the road. They drive down the middle of the road between opposite flowing traffic. They also ignore stoplights as much as possible.

The highways are not much better. The lines painted on the pavement are really more guidelines than they are rules. People drive on the shoulder here, except it’s not an entire car length wide. So they are half in a lane and half on the shoulder. The cars in the first lane spill into the second and so on. Merging and changing lanes is similar to turning. You just move into the next lane and get as close as possible to the other cars until they get out of your way.

Luckily, you get used to it. It doesn’t really bother me that much. Actually, it never really did. What’s really weird is even though it seems like chaos to me; all of the drivers seem to understand what’s going on. They aren’t bothered when people cut them off or driver half in their lane. It’s just the way things are done here. Wrecks are avoided because the behavior of other drivers is predictable. It’s just different from America.