laisha

I'm pretty sure it's a good movie. And I'm pretty sure I liked it. Still, the movie leaves a distinct "Yes, but..." taste in your mouth. The special effects are decent, and the director is happy to make do with actual explosives as opposed to brilliantly rendered flames and shrapnel. The movie does a fabulous job of not over-extending credibility with the few examples of alien technology and weaponry, which after growing up on a diet of lightsabers and energy blasters is refreshing. The characters are decently acted, and the documentary segments throw you off the well-beaten "Heroic Saga" path from the start.

But.

The macguffin is... macguffiny, which is forgiveable enough in a movie which manages to avoid so many other pitfalls. The development of the main character is sacrificed to the narrative structure--although kudos to the writers, who left skin on that particular rock and hard place. There are bad things about the movie, yes, but...

As these things go, it's a unique take on one of the favorite dead horses of science fiction. The corpse is neither beaten nor strung up in satire, and at the end of the day leaves you with an intriguing new perspective.

It's worth a second watch.

#1

//SALEM is working at the fax computer. PAMELA walks past and does a brief double-take.//

PAMELA: Oh, is the fax fixed?

SALEM: What?

PAMELA: The fax. Did they fix it yet?

SALEM: //looks at the fax computer// //looks back at PAMELA// It was broken?

PAMELA: I don't know.

SALEM: ... It wasn't broken?

PAMELA: Well, I didn't get any faxes yesterday.

SALEM: Yes.

PAMELA: No, but I didn't get them.

SALEM: Yes. Exactly.

PAMELA: But the computer should forward them to me.

SALEM: Yes. It only does that if someone faxes something to you. Nobody did. Ergo, you didn't get any faxes.

PAMELA: Oh. //A pause. PAMELA walks away//

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#2

//SALEM is sitting at the reception desk. A CLIENT walks up.//

CLIENT: Did you get my email?

SALEM: I'm sorry?

CLIENT: I sent an email. I need to confirm you got it.

SALEM: Oh. Ok, did you send it to...

CLIENT: Yeah, I sent it.

SALEM: ...//pause//... to the APG email account or the gmail account?

CLIENT: The office one.

SALEM: Ok, whose office email did you send it to?

CLIENT: The office one!

SALEM: Yes, but I need to know whose email address you sent it to.

CLIENT: The one on the card! //CLIENT waves a hand at the TABLE. TABLE holds 12 different business cards.//

SALEM: ... I'm not sure I can help you. To whom did you send the email?

//LINDA walks in.//

LINDA: Oh, hello CLIENT. Sorry I'm late.

CLIENT: Did you get my email?

LINDA: Email? Just a moment. Salem, did you get a fax?

SALEM: Just now?

LINDA: I'm not sure. //turns to CLIENT.// When did you send it in?

CLIENT: Just now.

LINDA: Just now.

SALEM: ... is this the email?

CLIENT: YES!

LINDA: Yes. Wait, what?

SALEM: Or is it a fax?

CLIENT: YES!

LINDA: Umm...

SALEM: Ok. Right. You. Did you EMAIL something, or did you PUT IT IN A MACHINE AND PRESS SOME SHINY BUTTONS WHILE IT WENT "WHEEP WHOO-OOP BRIRDLEDEE DEE" AT YOU?

CLIENT: I don't remember noises.

SALEM: Then it was an email. Linda, check your email. Everyone go away now.

Asia Pacific Groups loses its copier. 24 hours later, they get it back.

I hate my job.

If the email server is down for more than six consecutive hours, next time I will check to make sure the janitor didn't turn the motherfucking servers off.

Reason. Logic. An Admin Assistant craves not these things.

While browsing the despair.com website in sheer boredom this afternoon, I was approached by my boss brandishing a piece of paper. On it was a water-spotted mixture of illegible scrawl and occasional arabic letters strewn halphazardly across the page.

"Make signs. Then put everywhere," he said, gesticulating wildly with the paper. This did not help my attempts to read it.

Contents of the sheet are as follows:

To prevant(sic) flu:
1. Reduce persycal(sic(???)) contact
2. Avoid hand shake
3. No hugging at all

The following conversation ensued;

ME: Euhh... what?

BOSS: Is for flu.

ME: Yes, but why?

BOSS: On the news. They say flu is everywhere. Put signs up so we do not get sick. And don't eat pork.

ME: Y...no. No, see...

BOSS: No! News says is global now!

ME: Yes. Yes, it is. But you don't get it from eating pork, and it's not especially lethal. It's just a flu. You don't ha...

BOSS: No! No, put sign everywhere. No pork!


No pork, indeed.

My job makes my IQ sad some days.

Taken from http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/off/1191959624.html

"Haven from Corporate Drudgery

Spacious haven from corporate drudgery available for rent near SFSU/Ingleside. Location is ideal for any "business" purpose, and located on the second floor of a primarily abandoned building. Lots of homey charm, especially in the floor plan. Rooms range from a full-size cafeteria and kitchen to closets just big enough for a small desk or other apparatus. Plenty of storage. Windows easily shuttered from street view to preserve privacy or security. Quiet streets with very little foot traffic or neighbors.

Altar in large conference room can be repurposed if necessary.



it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests"



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



It never ceases to amaze how surreal life gets.

Background for this story; I have absolutely no experience in anything related to my current job. I had just returned from eight months of frigid hell in northern Japan teaching english to recalcitrant teenagers, and came home to San Francisco just in time for the shit to really hit the fan; I was unemployed, homeless, and sleeping on my perpetually broke boyfriend's air mattress while I waited for my ship to come in.

And then it did.

Within three weeks, I landed my current position. True, the actual job description was a bit different then and the work was only part time, but thanks to a healthy heaping of schadenfreude became a permanent full-time position with benefits coming in the next two and a half months.

I now work for a mortgage / real estate agency out in the Sunset district of SF for a very nice gentleman with a fierce overbite and the worst eyesight that can still be called such. The switch from part-time cold-call bitch to Administrative Assistant came after the regular admin had a medical emergency the day after I started. I've been answering phones and getting pushed around by frustrated real estate officers ever since.

Things here didn't really take a turn for the bizzare until my boss instructed me to write an advertisement for one of his properties, sight unseen. I listed address, square footage, and a vague businessy description of the environs--usual nonsense about easy transportation and "ample" street parking. No interested parties were forthcoming. The next week they offered to take me on a tour of the property.

I was feeling especially grownup and successful while we drove out to the Daly City / San Francisco border, and it was in this pit of urban decay that the property was located. Things were not shaping up well when upon arrival we were greeted by a weatherbeaten and tagged sign zip- tied to the rusty chainlink fence around the parking lot. Between the graffiti it read something like; warning notice, blah blah, blighted lot, blah, fines, etc. Not being able to see it, my boss walked right past and up to the building. As he fought with the lock I noticed that the ground level had broken windows and that the front double doors didn't actually lock. The mobile fence-thing kept people from actually getting inside, but you could reach between the bars and shove the door open. A few dirty leaves had already gotten in, and skittered across the unfinished concrete floor when I nudged the door.

"Ground floor tenant is church," my boss explained, and then indicated I should follow him up the now open stairway.

Entering, I was confronted with the powerful and unmistakable smell of chickens. I grew up on a farm and there is nothing so powerful, nor so recognizeable, as the stench of dirty chicken coop. To my chagrin there were no chickens. Nor was there any evidence of there having been chickens at any point in or near the stairway. It was like the invisible, dooming hand of some chthonic Chicken-Lord hovered over us all.

Leaving the angry chicken ghosts behind, the upper floor consisted of rooms designed by a mad and supremely paranoid cultist on a shoestring budget. There were full bathrooms complete with tiny foyers (to what end God only knows) which could only be reached by going through two or three other windowless, warrenlike rooms. Closets abounded, and often led into one another in strange and not terribly interesting secret passageways. A full size kitchen and cafeteria were tucked into one room, and of the three main "conference" areas, one had had cheap tatami mats alternately taped and stapled down over the carpet. Noticing my confusion, the boss shook his head.

"Koreans," he mumbled with a mainland Chinese sneer. I decided not to press the issue.

The last thing we toured was the main room. Bright, bordello-red worn carpet that smelled like incense and dust, leading up to the slightly raised platform at the other end which held...

...a defaced altar.

In their haste to leave, the Korean church had simply scraped all the decorations off their altar and left the brutalized wooden monstrosity behind. My boss shows no inclination to remove, hide, or otherwise destroy this artifact.

Now I have to find someone to rent it.

This place is bizzaro world.

Next time I go insane and decide living in Japan would make a nice change of pace, I set up all utilities by myself. Period. No third parties involved. And I want one of those cushy government-sponsored positions with the subsidized housing you don't have to fight for your deposit and who pays your taxes or takes all your taxes out the first time around. And who doesn't try to deposit your pay after you leave the country. (Currently fighting the last one, probably going to be ok)

Jesus. I just... Wow. This place is nuts.

This made the geek and lit major portions of my brain want to team up to kick this guy's ass.

http://denofgeek.com/movies/221398/in_defence_of_jar_jar_binks.html

Somebody is going to hell for putting their kids through this.

Awesome.

Today is my last day at Senmaya.

Yeah, I cried. Then one of the teachers handed me a huge bouquet of roses and carnations. They even liked my speech. I`m going to miss the final assembly because I have to go to Hanaizumi, so I don`t get to see the kids one last time. We already had a goodbye class, so it`s ok.

I`m really happy to be heading home, but I wound up having a lot of fun with this job. There`s so much I would have done differently; probably would have bailed on the company when they changed the job without telling us, definitely would have arranged for my own apartment. But even the crappy bits have been a good learning experience. I even managed to make friends with my head teacher. Now that I`m not making steaming piles of inadequacy and also fail in her classes, she`s been really friendly. She still has the Beecken-sensei vibe, so it`s like a giant tiger who you`re mostly sure won`t bite your face off.

Then I have this weekend to figure out the gomi situation. Anything that can`t fit into one of the half-size garbage bags has to be taken to the Trash Center, and nobody seems to know where it is. (This happens a lot in Japan. ME: "Hey, a perfectly normal situation has presented itself. What shall I do?" JAPAN: "In all the history of all our islands, such a thing has never come to pass, Outsider. Why do you question us on this Thing Which Cannot Be?") So I`m going to cut the larger things into small pieces to make them fit into the bags. Size seems to be the only objection, and year-old abused tatami counts as burnable.

I find out what the hell is going on with taxes on Monday.

Hey, for those of you who are more familiar with PayPal;

I just spent an hour messing with the help questions, and I still don't know what's going on.

I found a good deal on a plane ticket home, but the travel agent I spoke with said that they (the office) don't take credit cards over the phone. They want me to pay through PayPal.

Paypal refuses to take a credit card for this transaction, insisting that electronic check is the only possible way.

My questions are A) Why?
B) Is there any way I can get them to take a credit card without having to sign up for PayPal's?
C) This is starting to weird me out... should I just bail?

Directions: Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

1.) Pain Diaries
2.) Sarcasm
3.) Zombie apocalypse
4.) Filthy Hippy Vegan shoes
5.) The Game

1. Ah, the Pain Diaries. Because nothing says pain like humor. That, and if my narcissism is going to be on display, it might as well be funny.

2. See #1. Sarcasm makes me feel like less of a dumbass. I've built up a culture of sarcasm so that on the rare occasion I am dead wrong, I can just say "Oh, I was being sarcastic," and not have to confront the crushing weight of my own ignorance.

3. They are coming. Maybe not in the shambling, brain-hungry variety, but sooner or later everything is going to go tits up and hordes of virus-laden undead will come for the shattered remnants of society and if you want to be the first up against the wall, by all means continue to scoff, you doomed bastards.

4. God damn it. I hated those shoes. They were a horrible, poorly-constructed mistake that smelled like death and hemp that I will probably never live down.

5. Yeeeah. That kind of went from amusing antagonistic pasttime to all-out nuclear assault. I am the Pakistan to Matt's India. Damn it.

Today was the goodbye ceremony for the 三年生. There was a skit. I made an ass of myself.

The MC was the teacher I work the most with. She`s endearing the way an elderly maiden aunt might be, but she is hell to teach with.

She waltzes onstage, and what does my dumb ass do? Bored with Japanese Cheerleading, and annoyed with the tiny chair digging into my hip bones, I jump up and scream;

"まってました！”

Three people got it, all of them teachers. Only two of them thought it was funny.

And 1500 confused teenagers wonder if the ALT has finally snapped.

...you know, this pretty much comments itself.

Waugh! No! Go back! WHAT??? *flail*

And now for something completely different...

I think I got approached by a money laundering operation. Their description of the "services" provided was limited to "art supplies", and the entire description was basically "People send you money. You cash the money. You take 10%, and then send the money to a different bank account. 'Cuz we don't have an office in your state yet. Yeah."

Two months of concerted job searching, and I get this?

After all that, the dentist's verdict is that the extraction would be too difficult and he won't do it.

So very frustrated right now. Both with lack of Japanese skill, and with Japanese dentistry as a whole.

The good: I will be having my wisdom tooth removed on Friday afternoon.

The bad: They can't provide a translator.

The solution: Bring cell phone to dentist, and pass it back and forth while the nice OL translates.

The office has been really nice about this, but it kind of drives home the need to get the hell out of here. I hate this town, and I hate the fact that the services implicitly promised by the contract are void when I'm 80 f*ing kilometers from anything useful.

Infected wisdom teeth are not fun.

Less fun is calling two hospitals and three dental clinics, only to find that no medical professionals in a 20-km radius speak English and communication is limited to "My teeth hurt".

Interac nicely provided the list of places to call, but apparently spaced that I might need help communicating. Waiting to hear back from a slightly desperate plea for translator assistance, which may or may not happen tomorrow.

I tried to get asprin from the grocery store today and hilarity ensued.

First of all, Japanese grocery stores have only a superficial resemblance to American models thereof; it is a room full of stuff, and the stuff is for sale. In the states, you can be relatively certain of walking in to any mid-sized grocery store and finding an aisle devoted to various health products, one of which is probably an OTC painkiller. Not seeing any, I asked the clerk. The following dialogue took place in Japanese.

ME: Hi, do you have aspirin?

CLERK: Euuuuh... what?

ME: Aspirin. Do you have it?

CLERK: Sure! Right over here! *walks to ice cream aisle, and stands proudly pointing at a cornetto*

ME: That`s close, but no. Aspirin. A su pu ri n.

CLERK: Ohhhh, right. Sorry about that. Here you go! *walks around the ice cream asile, and is now brandishing a pudding cup.*

ME: Yeah, no. Ok, nevermind, thanks.

Another well-meaning teacher just handed me a small two-stick kit-kat package. It is pink. I am dubious.

It could be that this pepto-pink abomination is only package deep. Valentine`s day is a week away, so maybe it`s just a ploy to break up the usual monotony of red. Maybe, but just remembering the Muscat Kit-Kat adventure is making me gag. Ok, here goes.

Oh thank god.

Nothing but ordinary, brown chocolate inside. The kit-kat appears untampered with, although... no, wait. I spoke too soon. There is a disturbing chemical odor which fails utterly to be strawberry, cherry, or whatever hell-concoction it is obviously not. The chocolate is a uniform and inviting brown.

I`m going to just get this over with.

Oh god, no.

It`s like someone injected strawberry quik into a kit-kat. This is easily worse than the Muscat incident. At least then, I was expecting unmitigated weirdness. This... travesty, has the gall to pretend to be a perfectly acceptable and much-beloved candy bar, only to spew pink chemical slurry onto your tastebuds in a feat of spite nearly unheard of since the Geneva convention.

Now I`m eating umeboshi just to get the taste out of my mouth. Yech.