The Sexy Scientist

Who doesn't love a good sexy scientist character? Even straight chicks can't deny the awesomeness of a well written sexy scientist type character. That being said, the sexy scientist has to actually, well, be a scientist not just boobs in a lab coat.

I spent last weekend as any self respecting nerdy film student would. That is working on a film set. I was production designer which was awesome because it was a science fiction shoot and I got to build some really awesome props and put together some awesome costumes. I seriously did more sewing and even some ironing than any person should do because seriously I was the only person that knew how. (The damn director didn't even know what was needed to work an iron.) It was a lot of work, but I enjoy making props and costumes a lot so I was fine with it.

The original script I liked a lot. It was a first draft so it probably needed a couple tweaks, but was over all pretty awesome! One of the main characters was a female scientist. Yes, she was the signature sexy scientist, but you could tell that she actually had the brain power to do science and I quite liked her character. So, starting out, I was pretty damn excited to work on the shoot. All the cool stuff I got to design and build as well as the cool characters made it a dream job.

Things only started to get iffy when the director decided to rewrite the script. It wasn't originally the director's script. A friend of ours wrote it and if it needed revisions, for all intensive purposes, it should have been the writer to make them, but the director opted to do it himself. The script suddenly ended up being twice as long (mostly because he pumped up the dialog), it made the assassin a guy who apparently doesn't know how to unfurl his eyebrows (this one at least worked), and stripped our friend the sexy scientist of a brain. Instead of the smart, but sexy scientist we all know and love, she has now become a woman who got the job apparently because she has boobs (which to be fair might know more about science than the actual scientist). The character felt a fair amount like a stripper doing a sexy doctor strip tease.

I must give kudos to the actress who played our doctor, however. Somehow when we started out filming and before the director gave her the instructions of "act slutty" she somehow managed to make the line "I left my makeup in the car. I wanted to touch up before the surprise party!" sound like it was coming from an intelligent woman and wasn't just written by some guy who apparently never talks to girls. That line physically made me cringe everytime I heard it. I had to fight the urge to either 1. Walk out the door and take all my props with me or 2. Confront the director and beg him to change that line to something someone might actually. Even the most stereotypical of woman don't say shit like that.

It was frustrating, very damn frustrating and I wasn't the only one who left that shoot more than a little annoyed. The guy who was the director really is a great guy, but there are two things he needs to do. 1. Learn how the hell time management works. (There was way to much waiting around for him.) And 2. Maybe just ask and actual woman how her brain functions. And possibly 3. Stop watching so much porn. (It's starting to show in your work, dude.)

Like I said I'm all for a sexy scientist, but can you please keep them as actual scientists. This director isn't the only one to do it. It's all over Hollywood movies. There's the sexy scientist that doesn't actually seem to know what science is, or in at least a couple cases, she knows, but is to preoccupied with love interests. (*cough* Suzanne Storm *cough*)

Come on filmmakers. Is it really too much to ask for a sexy scientist that actually knows and cares about her work. Sorry to burst your guy bubbles people, but we don't just get jobs with our boobs and there isn't a special branch of science where woman are chosen as scientists by the quality of said boobs under a lab coat.

An Amazingly Comfortable Shirt

I have a shirt that is so endlessly comfortable, it beats out the feeling of new socks ten fold. And no matter how many times I wear it, it still feels that comfortable. It clings to my body in just the right fashion using static cling to it's advantage. Then, throughout the day, the cloud like material stretches out perfectly. Upon washing it, the fabric contracts back to where it was when the day began. It is even so comfortable, I can't even feel itchy.

I kid you not, this shirt is like snuggling with a kitten on the inside of a new sock! It is just that comfortable. I don't even know what the hell it's made out of. (I could check, but that would involve taking off the shirt and I'm pretty sure the label is worn off anyways.) I just feel so cozy and relaxed like all is right with the world when I wear this shirt. Seriously if you want world peace, give everyone one of these shirts. (You have to try to want to blow something or someone up while wearing something this comfortable.) I'm pretty sure people aren't promised shirts this comfortable in heaven.

Just to demonstrate the power of this shirt, let me tell you a little story. This morning I woke up like an hour earlier than usual, so I had an extra hour to bum around before going to school. This of course ment that I spent the time reading Cracked.com. Somehow, I stumbled upon a website called Conservapedia. (I only suggest you click that link if you feel the need to induce forehead swelling via face palms.) Anyways, after browsing for a bit I  was feeling more than a little bit sad for the human race. I decided to get up and ready for school before I reached a point where I wanted to slap the dumb out of people so much I actually tried it. I then found this shirt on the top of the hamper and in no time I forgot all about the stupidity of people. Even one of my lead actors being an hour late didn't bother me. It's just hard to be pissed off when you're this comfortable.

While my shirt is so wonderfully comfortable, it really isn't a shirt for wearing in public. It started out as one of those long sleeved under shirts you wear to keep your arms warm and give you a schnazzy look when it decides to snow in May. (I'm talking to you Colorado!) It was never designed to be worn alone in public, but really just to make you feel wonderfully cozy underneath that T-shirt. Over time and due to lots of use, it lost the sleeves about half way down the arm giving it a bizarre cut off t-shirt look. So now when I wear it I just have these areas at the bottom of my sleaves where it's splayed out all funky. In other words I just look strange.

While before I put on the shirt I may contemplate how bizarre I will look, as soon as that shirt is on, I am so confortable, I don't care if I look like a homeless person. (Something my siblings accused me of for most of middle school. That is looking like a homeless person not actually being one.) I've always preferred comfort to looks, but this shirt just adds to the weirdness of my day to day appearance. (At least my hair no longer makes me look like a Muppet.)

The saddest thought, though, is that eventually this shirt will completely die. The already holey wonderous material, will eventually fall so far apart that I will be forced to do away with this shirt. I feel like a shirt this spectacular deserves it's own funeral. So if a few year down the road I invite you to it's funeral please just sit politely in the back giving me "what the hell" looks while I deliver the eulogy. (Also maybe call the nut house.)

Laughable

For years, my best friend has been laughing at my family when they argue. I've always found humor in my family's arguments, but I never got how absolutely hilarious they were until I got to listen to one objectively.

Normally, when my family argues, I'm right in the middle of it, so it's near impossible to laugh at until much later (usually when I write about it on my blog). But this weekend, when I visited them, I got to hear an argument I had no participation in. And damn it was funny!

Of all the absurd things they were arguing about bird seed. Not even about something like what type of bird seed to get or how much to use, but where to put it for feeding the birds. Apparently, she had put it in the wrong place. For a good twenty minutes at least my mom and sister were arguing like this.

My mom's argument:
The birds are used to it being on the picnic table. You should have put it where we normally put it.

My sister's argument: They're wild birds they'll find the food.

My mom's argument: You were just being too lazy to walk to the picnic table and back to the shed.

My sister's argument: That if you spread out the bird seed more birds could eat it without fighting with other birds.

Then the arguments just looped for twenty minutes. To be fair, my sister was probably just being lazy. (I spent all of high school and probably middle school doing the same things.) Also, i really doubt the birds give a crap where the free food is. (College students don't.)

While I have always found our family arguments ridiculous, I never realized how hilarious they were until I wasn't participating. I get it, Holly, my family truly is hilarious.

My Music Collection

I love music. It's just one of those things that is awesome and everyone loves in some form or other. I just happen to be slightly crazy when it comes to my music collection.

I have so much music on my computer that I could push play and it would continue for ten days straight without stopping and without repeating a song. And that's just the music on my computer. I'm always finding new music I love and adding to my already insane collection. I expect that by the time I get old (assuming I survive my inability to do anything without injury) I will have enough music to play for at least a month straight.

Now my music collection appears as quite random to a lot of people and often leads to many very notable "what the hell" looks from friends when I have it on shuffle (which is almost always). I will start off playing something like A.F.I. and then the song will change to Let's Go Sailing (since you probably don't know who that is, I assure that is a drastic change). Then some Rasputina, followed by Phineas and Ferb (I really have a bit too much of this). Then it's likely to leap to Jet and then onto some Patsy Cline. After some good old Patsy, there's Jimmy Hendricks, which will change to Demi Lovato (my sisters never stop giving me crap about this one). Next up some Beyonce followed by some Scooby-Doo chase music. And to top it all off some Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. (This list could go on for pages, but ain't nobody got time for that.)

Like I said, I love music. I really don't care the genre (except dubstep. I have no idea what the hell that is!), as long as it's good music. There are only a handful of artists that I absolutely can't stand listening to for even a moment in time. One of those is Serg Tankian. (I like his lyrics and meaning, but I prefer nails on a chalkboard to his voice.) Another would be Nicki Minaj because seriously that's not music. (My friend insists on playing this when I ride in her car and I have on occasion debated just opening the door and leaping to freedom.) Just about everything else I can stand even if I don't enjoy it. But Nicki Minaj and Serg Tankian are so invasive it physically hurts. (I am convinced if I listen to them for too long, I will end up like the aliens from Mars Attacks.)

The most prominent part of my music collection is oldies. I'm always jamming to oldies. Seriously, if I could only listen to one artist for the rest of my life it would be Ella Fitzgerald (and if you don't know who that is drop everything you are currently doing and Google her. Also that's just sad, dude). She has one of the greatest voices ever! (When an episode of Code Name Kids Next Door made a joke about a disease called Salmonella Fitzgerald that made you scat sing, it made my day. (Then it made me sad because I realized how few children would actually get it.) My favorite song is her version of It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing. (I listen to that no less than twice a week.)

While no one would ever dare mock someone for a love of classic jazz and swing, my love of doo-wop is often called into question. Of all my musical obsessions doo-wop is the most random. Seriously, like no one likes doo-wop. Even in my music appreciation class last year, the teacher (who was supposed to be teaching us all the great things about music) kept calling doo-wop "terrible music." I felt so awkward sitting there actually enjoying the doo-wop, while everyone, including the teacher, was treating it as a boring required part of the class. Seriously is doo-wop that bad?

A random side note of awesome: While listening to my music on shuffle, one of my best guy friends (who happens to be my sister's boyfriend) didn't bat an eyelash at The Platters (doo-wop in case you were wondering), but seriously questioned my sanity when Cohead and Cambria began to play. (For the record they have an awesome drummer.)

I love my music and am not afraid to show it. Life's just too damn short to not be singing I Feel Pretty while riding your bike to school (something I do daily, although the song changes). I love my music collection and am damn proud of it. Also I can out nerd even the nerdiest people with it. (Nothing can beat the Japanese Spiderman theme song.) And just so everyone knows, I will likely be the only old lady of this generation who will be playing the music of her grandma's generation. (A lot of Bing Crosby I'm afraid.)

Door to Door

Living in an apartment is drastically different from the house in the middle of nowhere I used to live. When I moved out, I actually had some idea that this would be the case and even adapted to it quite nicely. There are some things I've experienced, however, that wouldn't have even crossed my mind as something that could happen before it did.

My first couple days into the apartment living experience, I was awoken at 4:00 am by mariachi music. This, while annoying, wasn't really something surprising. A month after moving in, it rained in my bathroom (the day before my birthday no less). Again annoying, but not really something I hadn't heard of happening. (It raining while I was watching Singing In The Rain, however...)

A couple months in and the Jehovah's Witnesses had figured out at what times I would answer. There were ones who even managed to find the house in the middle of nowhere, so to be honest I was actually surprised at how long it took them.

A few months ago, I started running into a guy at the Chinese place who was always trying to sell me pirated DVDs. Again still nothing surprising. Then about two months ago a chick and some guy would come by knocking on the door asking if I'd buy movies. None of these events really surprised me. They may have annoyed me (or in the case of the third bathroom rainstorm made me ask "seriously?"), but none of it was something I wouldn't have thought of. Well that is until yesterday.

Yesterday, I was chilling and pretending that at some point I might actually do my homework when there was a knock on the door. I expected either someone with pirated DVDs or a Jehovah's Witness. What happened instead was so endlessly random, I had to double check that it wasn't just some weird dream. The two people who normally try to sell DVDs, had a giant basket full of donuts they were trying to sell. Seriously, donuts. Of all the things people have asked me to buy (one being a vacuum cleaner), the door to door donuts salesmen were by far the strangest.

A Moment of Evil Genius From My Childhood

A friend of mine at film school, said that she thought I was probably the perfect child growing up. I found that hilarious. Even if by some fluke I actually appeared to be a perfect child, I was in fact not. I was, to be honest, a little bit evil.

Some summer when I was little, (I think like six maybe) me, my older sister, and my dad all stayed with my aunt while my dad was getting some training or something. I don't remember much of it, but I do remember my evil scheme.

Back then, like now, I enjoyed staying up until God awful hours of the night reading. When staying with my aunt, I didn't have as much of an opportunity for this because she had us turn off the lights. She would tell us good night and would leave me in the dark with no light to read by. This was a problem for me and it needed to be remedied.

Somewhere in my tiny little mind, I came up with a wonderful awful idea. After my aunt would tell us goodnight and go upstairs, I'd wait a moment or two. Then, I'd start screaming bloody murder "because of the dark." My aunt would come down to see what the hell all the screaming was about and after awhile she started leaving a night light on. I would then read until I decided to sleep. It was an effective plan and I was never actually caught for my crimes against eardrums. (Now I'm confessing because it is very difficult to try an adult for childhood crimes.)

It was a lively subject of discussion that summer as well. My much older cousin make jokes about it and at one point, I think I explained to my older sister that it was because I had read Goosebumps earlier in the day. It should be noted, I have never in my life actually read Goosebumps.

That friend I mentioned earlier said that she'd like her daughter to be like me because of my incessant need to read all the time. She, however, should be aware that incessant reading was the motivation for my most evil plan to date. I was really just a budding evil little nerd and likely still am.

Offensive?

There's this political cartoon going around Facebook. It features a fellow walking down the street past lingerie ads, violent movie posters, and a porn shop, but stops to call the nativity set offensive. The point is obvious, but my question is: Has anyone ever actually been offended by something like that?

I've seen my aunt get offended because a commercial said, "Happy Holidays." But I have never actually seen a person get angry about someone saying "Merry Christmas." I've heard people say things like, "Well actually I celebrate Hanukkah, but thank you." And stuff like that, but never in my life have I heard someone say, "You can't say that. The term is 'Happy Holidays!'"

I'm not convinced it's ever actually happened. The fact that someone's spending a second of their life to even say "Happy/Merry anything" should be taken as a compliment. Seriously, how many people pass you who don't say anything compaired to the ones that actually talk to you. It's their time. They don't have to be polite. The fact is, you're really not important.

I feel like people just like to be offended. I really doubt anyone's declaring war on your religion simply because they choose not to include it in their holiday greeting. Nor are they declaring war by including their own religion in a holiday greeting.

I personally don't care if come the holidays you decorate you house with Santa, Jesus, or a giant lizard. It really doesn't affect me. And if you happen to be nice enough to say "Happy Purple Monkey Day!" I may be confused, but I'll still be happy you decided to be nice and notice my existence.

I'm sick of everyone trying to play the victim. Sure some people actually are attacking and people are victims, but I have a feeling a lot of it's bullshit. Maybe it's because I grew up in ChristianVille, USA, but someone please tell me if anyone has ever actually been offended by your Jesus/Cross/Giant Purple Monkey display. Because I'm not convinced it's actually happened.