I returned to my computer today to find it happily resting on the Welcome screen. When I left it, it had been logged in and I had a few windows open. Not so anymore - it had done it again: my computer had restarted in my absense, leaving me clueless as to why or when this had happened. The silent killer. As much as I like technology, any computer that I own seems to never be fast enough for me, or have strange and inexplicable driver or compatability issues that plague me throughout my ownership of said machine.
Ever wonder why the Italians made antipasti an appetizer? They couldn't combine it with the pasta in the main course, or the universe would implode.
A friend asked me when you would possibly use calculus outside of an extremely technical engineering job. Here's the answer: Suppose that a cannon was being fired at you, and you had, for some reason, a graphing calculator, graph paper, and various writing instruments. Given the angle of the cannon, the amount of gunpowder, the friction of the barrel, the weight of the cannonball, and about a dozen other tiny measurements that, while seemingly small, nevertheless make an important impact on the flight of aforementioned cannonball, you could conceivably figure out the path of the projectile in time to move out of the way.
And even then, you would still not use calculus.
It's likely that I won't end up using any of my AP exam scores to receive credit for classes at the University of Pennsylvania. What a waste of time.
My schedule for Penn was incredibly hard to create. It seems that the course timetable is designed for people to take four courses per semester, instead of five, because every time I tried to fit in the fifth course, it'd end up with me having classes for about ten hours straight.
Flight to Philadelphia, PA on August 26, 2006 at 7:55 AM. Next time I come back will be winter break, starting December 21.
That's all, folks.
Jul 31, 2006
Jul 18, 2006
A Letter
Dear Movie Writers,
As an individual who feels the pressure of a certain amount of social responsibility, I feel that I must inform you of a fact that has been percolating in my mind for some time now.
Guys getting kicked in the balls isn't really that funny anymore.
For the past half-century, and even before that, scrotal impact has been a mainstay of the slapstick comedy form of movies. That, in itself, is acceptable. Where throwaway gags and shallow puns abound, men being kicked, punched, or otherwise struck between their legs are sure to fit completely in place.
My conscience, however, takes issue with the spread of testicular crushings into any and all other genres. It seems as though it's become almost a requirement for any movie that even remotely is intended to be funny to have someone's nuts bashed in at some point, coupled with a long and drawn-out reaction from the victim.
It's really not that humorous anymore.
Granted, the fact that the mechanics and setup of the male anatomy make it possible to completely incapacitate a victim with a swift kick to the groin is interesting in and of itself, but put into the larger context of a scene in a movie, does not always have comedic value.
Finally, the strange contortions that the sequence of events in a scene sometimes has to go through in order to facilitate the genitalial crunching of some hapless bystander often give a movie more strange turns than the driving routes Tom Cruise plans out to avoid the media seeing his new baby.
I felt that it was my responsibility to tell you this, in hopes that you may think of some new ways to infuse humor into a scene.
Thank you,
Nirav Sanghani
As an individual who feels the pressure of a certain amount of social responsibility, I feel that I must inform you of a fact that has been percolating in my mind for some time now.
Guys getting kicked in the balls isn't really that funny anymore.
For the past half-century, and even before that, scrotal impact has been a mainstay of the slapstick comedy form of movies. That, in itself, is acceptable. Where throwaway gags and shallow puns abound, men being kicked, punched, or otherwise struck between their legs are sure to fit completely in place.
My conscience, however, takes issue with the spread of testicular crushings into any and all other genres. It seems as though it's become almost a requirement for any movie that even remotely is intended to be funny to have someone's nuts bashed in at some point, coupled with a long and drawn-out reaction from the victim.
It's really not that humorous anymore.
Granted, the fact that the mechanics and setup of the male anatomy make it possible to completely incapacitate a victim with a swift kick to the groin is interesting in and of itself, but put into the larger context of a scene in a movie, does not always have comedic value.
Finally, the strange contortions that the sequence of events in a scene sometimes has to go through in order to facilitate the genitalial crunching of some hapless bystander often give a movie more strange turns than the driving routes Tom Cruise plans out to avoid the media seeing his new baby.
I felt that it was my responsibility to tell you this, in hopes that you may think of some new ways to infuse humor into a scene.
Thank you,
Nirav Sanghani
Jul 5, 2006
"Cut Short"
I was just shown an article in the Houston Press today by Todd Spivak, an article that resides online. You can read it here. It's the full story of Pavlos Karnezis's explusion and later readmittance to Hightower High School, along with the way that certain people complicated the situation almost beyond repair. Read it and spread it around, please.
Jul 4, 2006
Still Funny
This is still funny, every time I read it:
A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.
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