View Johannesburg Movie

Hey faithful readers! I would like to point all three of you to this trailer for this film about segregation coming to theaters sometime over the summer.

Did you watch it? Now watch this one.

-justin mitra

Valuable Junk Materials? (Super Crossover Post #1)

The other day, (Friday the 19th), after a long series of events (gone into detail here), the people of Kairos and I ended up in the Tim Horton’s at the local mall, clustering together at our own tables. At my table were Phäzys, I, some people who may or may not have a blog, and myself. “I” was working on some sort of math with Phäzys, while… umm I walked around and talked to some other folks. By the time I got back, Phäzys and I had finished working on their nerdy math stuff, and had split up and began mingling with the others. While Phäzys likely went off and did some sort of physics related thing, I decided that she wanted to play some sort of game. She ended up playing an evil, evil game known as Dutch Blitz. However, that’s not the point. I’m here to talk about one of the games I played before moving onto Dutch Blitz. This game, I’m sure you’ve all seen it before, involves drawing a small X on opposite corners of a sheet of paper. You put your pencil on the X, put your finger on the top, and then have it slip out from under you, leaving a line or mark or whatever. The other player would then do the same. The first player would then put the pencil where their own line previously ended, and continue from there. The goal was to make your line hit the other persons X.

“I cant believe it.” I said upon seeing it. “With all this technology. With all our iPods, and laptops, and computers, you’re playing a game involving, no, entirely consisting of drawing lines on paper.”
“Make a blog post about it,” I replied, and went back to her game.
So I am.

Do we really need all this technology? I mean really? Like, right now, I literally have technology hanging out of my ears, plugging me into this big box which in turn, is plugged into two smaller boxes. One with lots of tiny buttons, and one with lots pretty pictures and shapes that show up when I press the tiny buttons. That can’t be necessary. Us with all our DVDs and VHSs and PVRs. Heck, many of the movies we own we don’t even bother to watch unless it already happens to be playing on one of those TV stations. Our forefathers would be turning over in their graves. We’re too lazy for leisure. How did this ever happen?

I mean, the most peaceful I’ve ever been in recent memory, was when I was at a camp run by some hippies, sitting on a log on a beach, by myself, miles away from even the most basic form of tech. Not even a watch. It was so quiet. No buzz, or beeps, or hums that you don’t really register as being there. The only sound was of the waves, and even that was quieter than the fake ‘there is electricity active in this room, powering some machines’ sound we hear everywhere. It was silence. True, proper silence. You can’t get that in the city. Not even in our little suburbia of a town. But, I’ve already made this rant.

How come that was so nice? Isn’t that what we made technology for? To make our lives nicer and easier? Then why doesn’t it work that way? If you give a kid a lake and a remote control boat (OK, you don’t actually have to give him the lake), he would likely have more fun skipping stones. Obsessing over the right size and shape. Getting the toss just so, so as to maximize it’s distance. Much more fun than pressing a button and tilting a knob.

Conversely, if you give a kid a little GPS mini-map tracker thing, and shove him into a forest, he’ll be too busy looking down at the doohickey in his hand, and miss all the pretty flowers, fluffy bunnies, and dangerous, dangerous bears. If the imaginary fictional kid did not have the pretend device, he would hypothetically have to look around to see where the was, and as a result wouldn’t get eaten by the fluffy bunny.

Cliche example: you buy an infant a big, umm… nondescript toy, let’s say, and they’ll spend hours playing with the box. ‘Cause the box could be anything! It could be a castle, it could be a cave, a big office building, it could even be a box!

It’s really late and I forget what my point is, so I’ll stop here.

-justin mitra

Varying Journeying Movements

Time travel! Yes faithful readers, this is going to be that post. Modern society (read: Hollywood) dictates that if time travel were possible it would follow one of two laws.

1) History can be changed (aka The Back To The Future Theory)
The classic albeit broken theory. The one that was first used before people went all butterfly effect with causality. Case in point: Back to the Future. In the movie our protagonist Marty McFly, through the course of the movie, almost prevents himself from existing by messing with his parents relationship. This hypothesis works under the assumption that you (the time traveler) weren’t there the first time through. Now that you are here, things must be different. This is often played optimistically, along the lines of “By golly, we can make a difference!” In the movie however, the possibility of not existing was shown rather ham handedly by having Marty’s limbs slowly fade away the less likely it became that he would exist. Barring the biological questions this raises, the act of his right hand ceasing to be there in and of itself affected the time line by hindering his electric guitar playing skills… Weird movie.

2) Whatever Happened, Happened
The thinking mans’ theory. Also, very lazy. It’s played up like there’s going to be some elaborate interconnected change for the better, and then… no. It turns out the guy was always supposed to go back in time and do whatever it was he did. Sometimes… no, always ends up having caused whatever made him go back in time in the first place, thereby making a stable time loop. This has more depressing overtones as the main characters for the most part thought they could change the course of events and ultimately learning that they suck.

I think Professor Farnsworth summed it up best with “Don’t do anything that affects anything, unless it turns out you were supposed to do it, in which case, for the love of God, don’t not do it.” Some shows, such as Doctor Who, get to pick and choose by saying things such as ‘fixed event’, ‘time is in flux’, and ‘Time War’. Other shows however *cough* Heroes *cough* can’t seem to make up their mind.

I however, have come up with my own theory.

Now, let’s say someone has a time machine. This person is named, let’s say… pulling a name at random, Philip. Now, Philip wants to go back in time to meet, again, pulling a name at random, Hachikō. He arrives and, ends up killing, let’s say, Shakespeare with a, let’s say, anti-tank dog. Philip will suddenly think “Oh no! It was me all along! I was the one who killed Shakespeare with an anti tank dog!”

I mean, why should the time travelers mind be protected from the ripple effect of time? After umm… Shakespeare is killed by the uhh… anti-tank… dog, the history books will change to reflect this. After the history books change, the history lessons change. Therefore, while in history class, Philip will now learn of Shakespeare’s new untimely and admittedly unusual death. Sure, the events directly causing him to want to go back in time could be protected, but the other events are changeable, like the real death of Shakespeare (which I’m too lazy to look up right now).
In short, when you time travel, you will always, from then on, have time traveled.

Thoughts?

Vital Journey Memories

Faithful readers, some of you may know that I’m a very sentimental person (marble, VBS shirt, digimon mug, etc), so that’s the bit of me that’s talking right now. I was recently forced to write a piece about how “Discovery leads to change”… or not. It… it wasn’t a very narrow topic. Anyway, I got to thinking, if discovery leads to change, why not rediscovery? Rediscovery of self. If ever on your journey called life you loose yourself, have something to look back on. Be it a blog, or a writing assignment from school, or even an old finger painting from kindergarten. Something that makes you say “Wow, I… remember that.”

Blogs are perfect for this. You only really make a post about something important to you (at least, important enough to blog about it) so when you read something you wrote from a year ago, you WILL remember it. Relish in how optimistic you were; how deep you sounded; all your forgotten resolutions.

You’re bound to find something useful.

And if not, well… you’re not doing it right.

—

“What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?”
This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table.
Richard continued, “What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve learned something about it yourself.

– Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams

Very Jumbled Messages

TvTropes, for those of you who don’t know, is a ‘wiki’ type site that “is a catalog of the tricks of the trade for writing fiction. [They] dip into the cauldron of story, whistle up a hearty spoonful and splosh it in front of you to devour to your heart’s content.” It has also expanded to cover movies, and books, and comics, and so on. It is surprisingly absorbing and has sucked me in for many a night. I was stumbling through its many pages, when I found its page on Unfortunate Implications. Click and see things in a new light.

(Do a forward search (Ctrl F on most non apple computers) for ‘Twilight’ under Literatur,e or the Live Action TV show ‘Heroes’ for a laugh.)

Vexationaly Jumbo Maddening

Recently while working, I met with two customers who, let’s say, rose head and shoulders above the others. One made me chuckle a bit, while the other filled me with impotent, impotent rage.

Event 1 – The Kindness of Strangers

Occasionally, customers will assume I’m new. I don’t know what that says about me, but anyway while working the till, a bus driver walks up to me. He says he wants a coffee, and then I press the button. He then says it’s a refill, and gestures toward his cup. “Oh, ok,” I nod and press some buttons accordingly.
While pouring the coffee, I hear the gentleman say “You’re doing great!”
I pause for half a second as my mind processes. What do… oh, I see where this is going. I didn’t say anything ’cause if I HAD been new, that would have been very encouraging. It WAS encouraging, in a way. Usually, it ends at that. Usually.
I hand him the… no, I gently slide him the cup and ask if he wants a lid. One of those brown plastic things. “No, I already have one,” he says. “So, how long have you been working here?”
So. Here we are. “Two years,” I answer.
“Oh,” he pauses. “Oh… you look really young.”
I reply with my usual cheer, “… umm, have a great day!”

Event 2 – The Old and the Restless

A few hours later, near the end of my shift, an elderly lady walks in. An elderly lady with a breathing tube and a thermos of oxygen. As a result, I resolve to be super super nice to her. ‘Brighten up her day’ as it were. Smile. Be polite. Respect. Keep this in mind.
She orders a large butterscotch sundae and asks “You don’t have waffle cones anymore, do you?”
I smile and reply “Why, yes we do!”
She smiles. “I’ll have one of those.”
“Would you like it with or without chocolate?” Smile.
“Oh.” Smile. “Without.” She puts down a twenty.
“That will be [amount].” I say. I pick up the twenty. However, she looks confused and starts squinting at the menu. I stop before typing in the twenty in case she wishes to contest or change her order. After about three seconds, she looks at me, “Well what are you waiting for?”
“…” I type in the twenty and start picking up change.
“Are you the one making it [the food]?”
I look up and smile. “Yup.”
“Then could you HURRY UP?”
Oh. That’s… different. I hand her her change and begin making her ice cream. Between the ice cream stage and the butterscotch stage one of my previous customers (from about thirty minutes ago) asks if his poutine was ready. Now, he should have gotten his food about thirty minutes ago so I was obviously concerned. Did you take his order? Yes I did. Did the order go through? Yes, I had already made the other half.
While trying to figure out how what ever happened happened, I stop walking for a SECOND. Not missing her cue, the woman decides to pitch in her advice.
“EXCUSE me, while you’re TALKING, could you please HURRY UP?!?”
I just… look at her and slowly tilt my head to the side slightly. I finish the sundae and hand it to her.
“Can I have some NAPKINS?”
My eyes dart to the napkin box a quarter inch to her left. Instead, I pull open the drawer and hand her three napkins and turn to finish her order.
Chocolate. Empty, empty, and chocolate. A plain waffle cone was nowhere to be found. I ask one of the higher ups only to learn that it was all we had. Great. I address the situation by talking quickly.
“I’msorrywerealloutofplainconesweonlyhavechocolateisthatallright?”
She sighs. “Well, WHY didn’t you tell me BEFORE I ordered? Fine. Fine. Just hurry up!”
I make the cone and hand it to her.
“I’m going to need more napkins,” she says, shaking her head.
I point at the box. “They’re… right over there.”
“Oh.” She grabs a handful and walks out the door. I just stand there for a second. All the other customers saw the exchange and all looked on with sympathy. I would later learn that she did this often, but that the tube acted like a multiplyer, making her more… interesting. I stand there looking at the door and then, with my usual cheer, “Have a nice day!… Can I help the next customer?”

Vain Joke Making

… can be viewed here.

Very Junior Mention

By the way, I have turned on summaries on this blog. That means for posts like the one before (and likely the joke post imediately after but not including) this one, you will have to press Continue Reading to read the whole thing.

-justin mitra

Viraly Jounded Moment

For writing class, as a sort of final project, we were each supposed to write a short (half a page) piece which would be photocopied and all together made into a class set of self bound books. Well, booklets. However, disaster struck! Several (or just one, I’m not entirely sure) stories vanished and were unable to be photocopied. Including mine. This meant not only did I lose the original copy, but also that NO ONE else got a copy of my story either! It was as if there were this party, and the mailman dropped my invitation. This is one of the things that really gets under my skin. I’m sure I’m probably not the only person this happened to but that doesn’t really soften the blow. But as far as my week went, this was just the icing on the cake.

Anyway, here’s the thing I wrote, reconstructed from memory, and expanded upon.

Human Nature

Day 6:
———-
It is alive. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, it is alive and it has escaped. I see now how futile my attempts at containing it were. No lock could hold it. No fence strong enough to seal it away. I suppose, seeing as it may very well be the last thing I do, I should give it a name.

But how to name such a beast? A beast with four limbs. A beast with two hands and two legs and clever eyes. There’s an intelligence behind those eyes. A mind that think and feel and plan. A mind that can adapt. Even now, I can feel it watching me. I don’t fear it beacause of what it is; no creature could be blamed for that. Are we to blame the bird because it has wings? The fish because it swims in the deeps? No, I fear it for what it could become. It is dangerous enough as it is but..
If it makes tools? Forms tribes?

Something just fell off the shelf in the other room. I feel as if I’m running out of time. If it does get smarter; if it does expand, then I hope someday someone finds this and forgives me. Another sound. Closer now. I will try to fend off the beast as long I can but before I do, I shall name my monster. My monster with fingers and toes and a head that can think.
I shall call it a Wallaby.

Very Something Whatever

I think I’m feeling a little better.

-justin mitra