Nick’s Blog

I did something interesting the past few weeks. After reading this website, I was curious as to what kind of music would effect my mood on a daily basis. Of course, thats not to profound. If you walk to class listening to Kenny G, you won’t be as ready to fight those evil differential equations as you would be if you listened to System of a Down.

But I took my experiment a little further. I frequently listen to music while I sleep.  I have an XM radio that plays a really nice commercial-free mix of certain genres. Usually, I just let the jazz station or something mellow play, and I sleep fairly well. But for a few days, under no direction nor purpose, I sampled different types of music while I slept and observed their impact on my day.  Doing my best to beat the placebo effect, I noted the following:

Listening to classical music while I sleep seems to make my days a little more productive, but I feel tired a little more.

Listening to jazz makes me feel lazy and worthless.

Listening to classic rock makes me feel bright and energetic, but I feel academically behind.

Listening to blues makes me feel competent and smart, but kinda pissy and cranky all day.

Of course, these are just initial results. Only been a few days per genre and who know, but I think I’m going to listen to blues more before test days and classic rock the rest of the time.  I suggest you try it out for yourself.

Back in the nineties, I was convinced that mankind could not create a band full of douchebags that could top Creed. In fact, to this day if you Google “the worst band in the world”, Google will try to correct your search by looking for Creed. Creed maybe wasn’t as bad some ‘talent’ on the music scene. They were certainly no worse than Vanilla Ice, Menudo or MC Hammer. However, Creed had an X-factor that seemed to agitate us more than most. See, most acts in music know where they stand. Sure, Ricky Martin may have acted like a sex symbol and Limp Bizkit may have pretended to rock harder than Zeppelin, but deep down, they all seemed to view themselves with a sense of humor. The music business is ludicrous to begin with, and most don’t take themselves too seriously. But Creed, or at least the lead singer that people barely knew, always had a smug aura to his personality. That transient quality seems to be conveyed through every song or photo every created by the band.

So by the time I entered high school, and left my nineties prepubescence in the past, I was thankful that bands were generally mundane and tolerable. Sure I didn’t like everything I heard, but the general public felt the same way, and there didn’t seem to be much pressure. The sea of music was calm, albeit full of whale feces as usual.

But than something amazing happened. Although U2 had been big for decades, I started to realize that these guys made Creed seem no as bad as before. It seemed like every time I heard someone mention U2, it had little to do with their music and more to do with some sort of public initiative.

So whats my hang-up with U2? Bono.

Bono makes his fame by making every American feel like shit for not donating their life saving for some green charity. Bono wants you to feel like crap for not going more for the environment or poverty or whatever cause hes representing today. Bono is a disgrace to all of the cool Irish people I’ve ever met. Lets review some of my favorite Bono quotes:

“I’m very secure with the fact that I’m not black. I’m white, pink and rosy. But I’ve got soul.”

“Freedom has a scent like the top of a newborn baby’s head.”

“As a rock star, I have two instincts, I want to have fun, and I want to change the world. I have a chance to do both.”

So I’m watching TV today and the commercials start running. Mundane stuff, penile enlargment, chemical depression treatments, the usual. But then I hear U2 music. Cringing, I look up to see a beautifully edited commercial showing U2 in front of an audience. Odd. You certainly don’t see advertisements for concerts very often. To my horror, U2 is now showing a movie thats nothing more than one of their concerts. But wait, theres more, its finally in 3D!!!!! Yes, thats right ladies and gentleman, a 3D U2 Concert coming to a 3D theater near you.

85 minutes of U2’s music. Now, let me also note that I don’t dislike U2’s music. It’s delightfully average. But I find a huge contingency with respect to their attitude. This film doesn’t just feature one encore, it features three. Interesting side note, this film is actually sponsored by National Geographic.

So overall, as you can see, I find this concept really appalling. Only a band as pompous and righteous as U2 would film an exclusively 3D movie starring themselves, and present it to the world as some greater world cause, even though 0% of the film’s gross goes to any charities. Bono, please stop doing what your doing. You make American’s feel like crap, and you actively try to be this biggest douche bag possible. Certainly, you are an embarrassment for any country thats had to put up with your terrible attitude.

Title: Jumper
Rating: PG-13
Mystery Tricycle Grade: D+
Synopsis (courtesy of RottenTomatoes.com): Doug Liman (MR. AND MRS. SMITH) directs this adaptation of Steven Gould’s novels about people called “jumpers” who can transport themselves through space and time. This science-fiction adventure stars Jamie Bell (KING KONG), Hayden Christensen (STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH), and Samuel L. Jackson (SNAKES ON A PLANE).

“This movie was little more than a broken, patchy plot with below-average action sequences and speckled with decent special effects. There was a time in cinema history that a movie could be successful with an average plot, so long as it had incredible special effects to redeem itself, however that time has long since passed. There is little that cinematographers cannot do on screen anymore with newer render engines, hardware and artists, and while it still opens your eyes to see a great special effect sequence, the glimmer and stardust fades a few seconds later. Remember Titanic?

That being said, the movie Jumper must have been fun to make, because I’m sure most of the movie’s budget went to shooting in locations all over the world. After that money was spend, maybe some was sent to a 3D studio and the rest was blown on catering on the set, because certainly writers for Jumper were paid in chickens and milk.

The great part about the movie is the introspection the viewer has for the first few minutes when they consider what they would do with an incredible teleportation power, but this reaction is a product of themselves and not the movie. Of course, thats the novelty. Thats what we expect as an audience, but usually in super-hero-esque movies like this, we are given a solid hour or so of the main character discovering new ways to use his abilities, inner conflict, all that good stuff.

But with Jumper, in a brief 15 minutes, you are hurled into the terribly predictable plot. ‘….Oh… Samuel L. Jackson works for… somebody, who wants so called Jumpers eliminated’. Thats about all you learn of this conflict, however it is the antagonist situation throughout the entire movie.

The sequence repeated infinitely:

• Main character finds something cool to do with his powers
• Somehow, main enemy finds main character.
• Cheesy battle ensues.
• Main character teleports away.
• Main character has sex with somebody.

The movie seems to not address any of the running conflicts. Not justice or closure is offered. The main enemy doesn’t die or anything, he just gets… stranded. The Irish-sidekick just gets… stranded. The hot chick doesn’t marry anybody. Maybe the worst part is that the main character is portrayed to be kind of a enemy himself. He lies, cheats, steal, and never suffers and moral backlash. You’d think that you’d see a teenager rising to power, have fun until there becomes some sort of personal conflict, blah blah, happy ending. No. In the end, the main character gets away with being a immoral idiot, and it seems like not justice is served at any point in the movie. I left feeling like I had read a book that had every other page torn out.

So, while I’d never recommend this for an Oscar, it was an $8 escape to spend 15 minutes imagining what I’d do with cool powers. Then a boring sex scene, a lame plot, and little closure. I’m going to give this movie a D+.

My blog posts rarely get very deep. In fact, the average post on this blog boils down to blah blah blah, crew is good, blah blah, school sucks…. blah.

But tonight, I’m in a little more of a contemplative, if not pensive mood. I had a little run in with karma today that got the cogs turning, so here is a little bit of an analysis.

First of all, for the purposes of the following, lets together assume that karma is a very real thing. Please identify the disconnect from the figment of karma and personal religious beliefs. One can believe in one without believing in the other, or both simultaneously. Karma means different things to many people.

To some, those that are more conservative on the topic of unworldly things, karma may just be a fundamental application of the golden rule. People tend to get what they deserve, treat others as they want to be treated, or some other syllogism related to indefinite but distinct retribution. This doesn’t imply that a divine force is continually measuring and punishing the masses, but more or less, a certain enthalpy applies, a certain natural order of cause and effect is present. To others, the idea of karma is divinely driven, an intelligent, non-passive means of metering the behavior of those around us as well as ourselves, and actively balancing some divine scale towards a median.

No matter what school of thought you attest to is irrelevant. Either way, we see karma all around us. We see’ good’ people getting merit for their actions, and ‘bad’ people experiencing some form of punishment for their actions. However, the biggest problem with adhering to karma, or at least it’s inherent belief, is that it is flawed. We see the best of people falling on hard times, and we see he worst of people thriving in out society. In all social tiers, in all walks of life, we see these grand exceptions, these frustrating examples of a flawed system, or even evidence of the lack of that very system.

What I am here to suggest is that it is these examples that prove not only karma’s existence, but maybe it’s worth as well. I think that no matter how karma manifests itself, if it was a perfect system, the system would have no meaning, no worth in our lives. Allow me to give you an example:

Tonight, on the way home from a school event, I passed a car with an elderly couple inside. They were in a parking spot, but stuck in the snow. I kindly offered and proceeded to apply that rowing-crew-brute-strength into pushing the nice couple out of their spot. First of all, opportunities for positive karma don’t present themselves in such a nice package often. I passed their car exactly at the right time, had I been 10 seconds off, I wouldn’t have seen this couple. Now, I like to think that the average human would have done the same thing in my position, and I am certainly trying not to boast. This event lasted maybe 30 seconds, and didn’t incur much effort on my part, but it was enough to be very helpful to this couple.

Analyzing this situation, initially you would say that this was a classic example of a positive karma event, and you’d be right. But, a ‘karma payment’ is not guaranteed. This is the beauty. Karma isn’t a bank account, it isn’t guaranteed, and this uncertainty serves a real purpose. Had I had some contractual guarantee that this event was going to get paid back to me, the action would no longer have been an act of good will or service. There would be no way to generate positive karma because every positive action would have an ulterior motive involved.

Now, I’m probably never going to see this couple again, and I doubt that I’ll see any exact repayment of karma. That being said, this simple statement is what gives karma, if not life, a certain meaning. I think that if karma was certain, it couldn’t exist. This is a rare quality for something, intangible or otherwise. Its uncertainty proves itself. Maybe you could apply similar theologies to religion or history.

But briefly, let me address the converse. Certainly all things that are uncertain don’t exist. That would imply a continuity of imagination and reality, and certainly this is impossible. So why must karma exist? I think karma must exist because when we see a contradiction, it is an infuriating anomaly. We know from the human experience that its an abnormality. When we see a murderer go free or Britney Spears get publicity for being a bad mother, we recognize that the situation is unjust and irregular. On the whole, most people get what is coming to them.

So to sum up what I’m saying: Karma must exist because you cannot guarantee it’s existence, however everything about the human experience tells you that it should be guaranteed. Even if karma is nothing more than a human response to situational existence, it is still a very real thing.

Take advantage of this is and let karma work for you.

Not to indicate that things are going poorly… in fact, I’m getting this daily life cycle down to a science.

Among everything else, the most enjoyable but time-consuming thing on my plate is rowing crew. I’ve recently been voted to publicity chair/webmaster and it’s really exciting to be diving in so deep. I had a race last weekend and it was really cool, so I’m going to tell you a little bit about that.

An erg race consists of a bunch of ergometers, which are rowing simulators (pictured here), lined up in a few rows in a gym somewhere. These machines are really accurate in telling how fast and hard you can row. The machines at an erg race are connected through a computer hub that synchronizes the machines and measures how you perform on them. Behind the rowers, there is a large screen that show a tiny boat representative of everyone who is racing at the time. The screen shows your name, your split speed (500m), and a picture of where you stand in the virtual water race. It’s a really unique experience. As for myself, I did really well. I managed to pull my 2k in 6:53.6, and I was shooting for a sub-7, so woo for that! This weekend, I have another erg race, this time it’s at home at CMU.

Besides that, life is life, academics are academics, and time marches on. I’m really getting pumped up for spring break, when me and the rowing crew go to South Carolina for a training camp. What that means is that most of my friends from home won’t see me until the summer, but when they do finally see me, I’ll already be tan, ha ha.

Anyways, back to the salt mines for me.