• I fell asleep somewhere, and had a dream. The dream contained a really neat idea, and I wanted to remember it, so I wrote it down or typed it up somewhere. I don't know where! Psy.
• Why signaling before lane changes is important: apparently, it's very difficult to tell when the asshole in the lane next to you (that would be me) is going much, much faster than you are, and will not have time to safely brake if you just drift in front of him unannounced. Fortunately for all concerned, there was an empty lane next to me (that I wasn't allowed to be in, but hey) and disaster was narrowly averted.
• Does someone want to explain to me how it aggravates the suffering of those who have lost family members to the police action in Iraq when photographs of flags draped over aluminum boxes are taken? I really don't grasp it. I have family members, and I can't imagine how it would negatively affect me; I don't have children, though - maybe that's why I don't understand?
• We're having "Office Olympics" today, and one of the events is "trike races." I want to skip out early instead of attending the Office Olympics, but I'm holding out hope that this is what they mean when they say "trike races."

When have I slept?

• Sunday morning: 8 hours
• Monday morning: 1 hour on the floor of my office
• Monday afternoon: 30 minutes in my office chair (oops)
• Tuesday morning: 6 hours
• Wednesday morning: 45 minutes in my office chair

So - in the 72 hours since I woke up Sunday morning, I've slept 8.25 hours. And all this coming off of being sick or having severe allergies or something. I know other people routinely go without sleep for much longer, but this is killing me. Hopefully no one will mind that I leave work around noon to take a nap before class tonight.

(Why couldn't I have had this level of durability when I was working on my appellate brief, so I wouldn't be sweating whether I'll even pass that stupid class? Oh, right - I was sick or having severe allergies or something. Psy.)

Warning: The following post contains spoilers about the 2004 film The Alamo. Please stop reading now if you haven't seen it.

So I was reading the letters section of the Dallas Observer, and I came across this gem:

Please fire Mr. Wilonsky. It seems that he almost cannot write a review of a movie without giving away the ending.

I was intrigued. How does one go about spoiling the end of a historical drama? So I went to look at the review:

But most galling is how Hancock has given The Alamo the Pearl Harbor treatment; he may be the anti-Michael Bay in that he refuses to fetishize the violence or cower before the gods of computer animation, as director Bay did fighting the Japanese, but Hancock has learned how to turn an inspirational tragedy into a real crowd-pleaser, yee-haw. Every film made about the fall of the Alamo ends with the slaughter--the teary finale, followed by the solemn coda during which the audience is asked to mourn in silence as they head for the exits. Not this time. Here, Hancock is in full Michael Bay mode, tacking onto his story of sacrifice a final tale of heroism and victory: Houston's defeat of Santa Anna and his forces in the field at San Jacinto, which led to Santa Anna's surrendering of Texas. An Alamo with a happy ending--now, that is revolutionary.

So there you go - the big spoiler is: Texas is not part of Mexico anymore. Please note that the reviewer, the newspaper, and the letter-writer are all natives of Texas.

One of my fellow 1Ls talks about good interviewing skills:

I met with a judge last week in Alabama to talk about a summer clerking position and when he left the room for a minute I was compelled to be as nosy as I could be, so I began to peek at all the briefs he had piled on his desk.

So I'm curious, because my copy of "Emily Post's Guide to Polite Interviewing" is still in storage: Is it acceptable behavior to leaf through papers on someone's desk when you're interviewing for a position with them? Am I just a stick-in-the-mud for thinking it's kind of rude?

Occam's Razor for idiots:

If you believe that a good summary of Occam's Razor is:

The simplest theory is correct.

or

The simplest theory is the most likely.

Please replace your understanding with

The simplest theory is easiest to disprove.

They're all misstatements, but the last will at least prevent you from saying anything that begins with "Occam's razor proves..."

So apparently (and this is likely old news to everyone but me), I, Robot has nothing at all to do with I, Robot. They just welded the name (and the three laws) onto an unrelated screenplay once they acquired the rights. So, yeah.

But seeing that the title of the screenplay was originally "Hardwired" reminds me to mention how disappointed I was to learn that the film Hard Boiled was not based on Hard Boiled.

Although I'm happy to see live action adaptations of comics, most of my favorite comics are ones that I really don't want to see adapted to the screen. Some of them (Ronin, Night Force), it's because I don't trust anyone to do a good job, in part because I'm pretty sure doing a good job would necessarily mean creating a box-office flop. (I would dearly love for someone to prove me wrong, though.) Others, though, I just don't think belong on film - it's impossible for me to imagine enjoying a Dr. Strange film, or a Thor film, or a Cerebus film. (Did I just admit to really liking Dr. Strange, Thor and Cerebus? Oops.*) I've been wracking my brain since Spider-Man came out, trying to think of a property that I'm just dying to see on film; something that's actually plausible, if not likely. I think I've settled on Hard Boiled, now that I've been reminded. Sure, the plot isn't what's awesome about Hard Boiled; the movie would be totally different from the comic. But I think a successful Hollywood movie could be made that would still be recognizably Hard Boiled. And man, wouldn't that be awesome?

* - I also really dug ROM and Dial H for Hero, but I've outgrown those.