Summer 2008
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Thursday, 14 August 2008
Submitted
4:45pm EDT
After many revisions, and many migraines, I finally submitted my very first paper to the Astrophysical Journal earlier today (though I won't be sending it to astro-ph just yet). It feels like a huge relief, even though it's temporary and really just an illusion because the mere act of submitting a paper does not in any way mean that I'm done with research :-P Now it's time to move along and work on some more physically-driven models of black hole mergers.
But still. I submitted my paper, woo-hoo!!! :-)
Monday, 28 July 2008
Avatar Series Finale
10:30pm EDT
The epic four-part series finale of the show Avatar: The Last Airbender aired a little over a week ago, on Saturday night July 19th. I hadn't gotten a chance to post something here about it because I've been in the process of writing a paper, but now that I'm done with that, I can geek out over the amazingness of the Avatar finale (note that this entry will make no sense at all if you do not watch the show; you've been warned). First of all, take a look at this trailer that aired on Nickelodeon for a few days before the finale was broadcast:
While that trailer is indeed awesome, it still does not do the finale justice. Those four episodes were amazing. The animation was fluid and flawless. The music was brilliantly composed and orchestrated -- in particular, the music that played during Zuko and Azula's last Agni Kai was quite poignant. You'd expect that for such a high-caliber fight the music would be pumping, but instead they went with a soft, subdued string composition. It's sad and melancholic, and it almost hints "one of these two will die today", and though neither of them died, it was still a sad moment, that the evil ways of the Fire Nation royalty had come down to this, a fight for the throne between brother and sister. The fight was amazing in every way (check out this two-minute clip of the fight so you can see for yourself; here's an alternate link in case Youtube removes the other video), from the moment Azula throws the first blow, through all the freaky red and blue firebending, Azula's cheating by throwing lightning at Katara, Zuko's sacrifice, and ending with Katara's defeat of Azula by sneaky and ingenious ways. The voice acting was top-notch as well. The actress that voices Azula deserves an Emmy for her performance. Azula's slow descent into madness through the four episodes was creepy and quite believable. Azula was always the perfect villain, and her breakdown actually makes you feel sorry for her. Amazing acting, indeed.
Though my favorite fight in the finale was the Agni Kai I mentioned above, every other fight was amazing as well. The way that Suki, Sokka and Toph took over the airship fleet was amazing (and that sequence had some really wicked kickass CG), not to mention Iron Toph! Toph's metalbending was amazing (check out this clip of it, though keep in mind that whoever made that video changed the music that played during that scene to another type of music; the video, however, was left unchanged). The White Lotus's takeback of Ba Sing Se, while brief, was really cool too. I mean honestly, Iroh fireblasting through the walls of the city? Jeong Jeong fire-flying and creating moving firewalls of doom? Pakku and Piandao disarming the soldiers? Bumi taking care of half a dozen tanks all on his own? Amazing. And then, of course, there's THE battle, Aang versus Ozai, who is no longer "Firelord" but rather "Phoenix King". That fight was insane. Ozai's comet-enhanced firebending was CRAZY. He was standing his own against a tetrabending Avatar. Even after Aang went into the Avatar State and started throwing Ozai around like a ragdoll, Ozai was still fighting back, which is quite impressive. Though I'm a slightly bit disappointed that Aang didn't kill Ozai at the end, I'm more than satisfied with the way the fight ended. Taking away Ozai's firebending is probably a fate worse than death for him, so yeah, go Aang!
The finale had many moving (i.e. 'tearbending') moments as well. The long-awaited reunion between Zuko and Uncle Iroh was beautiful. My eyes teared-up when they hugged. The coronation of Firelord Zuko was great too, as well as the hug between Aang and Zuko (it's about time that happened!). The 'shippy' (romantic) moments were cute too, starting with Sokka and Suki being all couply during the beach party, on through Mai and Zuko's hug before the coronation, and of course finalizing with the final kiss between Aang and Katara.
There were some questions that were left unanswered after the finale, such as the whereabouts of Zuko's mother (I smell spin-off!), and Azula's fate after the Agni Kai -- though the official website says that she was sent to an asylum, I would have liked that to be addressed on-camera. Oh, and how could I forget about the giant talking lion-turtle island? That was weird, but not entirely out of place. I wish they would have gotten someone else to do the voice though. Maybe if they had gotten James Earl Jones, whose voice is already deep, they wouldn't have needed to deepen it and add echo effects and its words would have been more easily understood. Meh, in any case it looked cool.
Though I'm sad that Avatar is now over, I'm glad it went out while on top. Better to go out on top than to overstay your welcome and jump the shark, huh? Though I have the first two seasons on DVD, and as soon as the third season comes out I'll get those DVDs as well, so for me Avatar will never end (kinda like with Futurama, though I have yet to buy all four seasons of that show on DVD). In any case, the Avatar series finale, "Sozin's Comet" was an amazing work of animation and cinematography. It has gotten many good reviews (like this one on IGN), and I'm sure it will get more praise as more people watch it and re-watch it. I only hope the upcoming live-action adaptations don't butcher this magnificent story too much...
Sunday, 13 July 2008
Parents and "Avatar"
3:20pm EDT
So last week my parents came to visit me. It's the very first time they've come to visit me in the five years I've been living in the States, so it was quite a big deal for them to come. They rarely ever travel, so my dad was quite scared during the flight over here. And the near-constant turbulence didn't help. But they arrived safely and they enjoyed their time here. They saw our house, our neighborhood, we took them to Goddard to see where John and I work, they met our kitties, we went to DC to see the monuments and stuff, etc. In all, it was a good week. Except for the many migraines I got, which I suspect have something to do with me having to be in the back seat of the car while we drove around all week (John driving, my dad in the front passenger seat, me and my mom in the back). They got here on July 4th and left on July 10th, so it was a short visit, but I'm hoping that this has encouraged them to travel more often and come visit me again in the future.
And in a completely different matter, starting tomorrow is "Avatar Week" for me. Nickelodeon has finally deigned to air the second half of Season 3 of the magnificent show Avatar: The Last Airbender, and starting tomorrow night at 8pm they will show every episode that's left in the series (one per day I assume, but my FiOS cable box says there's going to be more than one episode per day for some reason... reruns maybe?), with the explosive two-hour Series Finale airing next Saturday the 19th, at 8pm. I can't wait. Take a look at this commercial:
Can't you just feel the epicness? And if you think that was epic, take a look at these (three edited together) character spots commercials (one for Aang, one for Katara, and one for Zuko and Azula):
This is gonna be awesome :-)
Wednesday, 18 June 2008
Three Cubed
7:13pm EDT
Today, at 7:13pm AST (which happens to be the same as EDT, so I don't have to worry about timezone differences), I turned 27 years old. My age now makes a mathematical funny, which is always appreciated. But now I'm officially in my "late 20s", which makes me feel just a little bit old. Ah well, John will always be older than me, so it's no biggie :-P So yeah, happy birthday to me!
In other news, John and I went to see the Sex and the City movie last night. It was a great movie. I laughed, I cried, simply amazing. Though there were a few WTF-inducing moments, like when Anthony and Stanford ended up kissing each other on New Years. They hated each other in the show, how in the hell are they a couple now? Meh, doesn't matter. In general, overall, the movie was great, so I'm happy :-)
Friday, 6 June 2008
Greetings from Montreal
5:00pm EDT
This is just a quick little post to let everyone know what's going on in my life now. I'm in Montreal with John and his family, since we're going to the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend. Today was the practice session, and the most interesting moment (at least from my non-F1-fan perspective) was when a groundhog ran into the middle of the track while five cars were coming towards it at like 100mph and trying to do a hairpin turn. Yeah, that groundhog was either incredibly brave, or unbelievably stupid and suicidal, hehe. Nothing bad happened though. The drivers swerved skillfully and avoided the groundhog, who ran away from the track still alive but quite visibly shaken.
