The Istari -- Myers-Briggs Rationals

Hey y'all.  So I was reading Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey, and apparently the rational person (whoever is a NT in Myers-Briggs typology) aspires to be a wizard -- a scientific or philosophic savant with great understanding.

Let me quote the book:
"Because Rationals value the strategic intellect so highly, the tend to take as their idol the technological wizard, especially the scientific genius.  After all, a wizard is the ultimate scientist, with what seems an almost magical power over nature, and in single-minded pursuit of the four aims of science: the prediction and control of events, and the understanding and explanation of their contexts."

Yeah, that.  Granted, a rational person might not be strictly scientific, but only "scientific" in the humblest of senses: observation.  See, that's what science is at its base point.  It's looking, observing, and making conclusions based on what one has observed.  It is not a tall man in a white coat staring at beakers of colored liquid.  It's not a giant jellyfish of knowledge that will punish you for saying or doing something "unscientific".  Human understanding is limited, and thus we must with the most childlike, humble observation go forward in science, allowing our old notions to be wrong if experience shows that to be the case.  So, a child playing with a faucet is science, because the child is observing and coming to conclusions about a small piece of the world: a sink where he is taking a bath.

But beyond that, Istari!

Top Ten Favorite Movies

Hey y'all.  So I just realized that in the realm of movies, I hate everything.  Not quite literally, but almost.  Working at a used book/movie/music store has brought me into a lot of contact with a lot of stuff I just can't stand.  Comedy these days seems like nothing more than get-togethers between famous people who do stupid stuff while someone films them.  Don't even get me started on chick flicks.  Dramas are pretentious playgrounds of ideas, and actions films are simply things blowing up.

I like none of those things.  In one sense, it's an unfair criticism of Hollywood, as my tastes range in appreciating nature, spiritual truth, and learning the secrets of history -- none of which are popular topics in film these days.  Then again, in another sense, this is showing that Hollywood isn't going after what people really want in films, but simply putting up whatever they want to say.  Or I'm just too picky.

Either way, I do actually like some movies.  My basis for whether or not a movie is good is by how it makes me feel when I'm done watching it.  If I feel good or refreshed in some way, it's a good film.  That's why I find digital effects so unimportant in the long run.  Very rarely will someone's digital creation produce emotions in me.  Good story on the other hand?  Heck yeah.

Keep in mind that this isn't a list of best movies, necessarily, but simply ones I like best.  Basically, the standard by which I will list these is by how they make me feel, and to a lesser degree, how they're produced.  Now, without further ado...

---- My Top Ten Favorite Movies ----

10. Robocop

Rational Love

Hey y'all.  This is just a poem I wrote, sort of in the tradition of the Irish storytelling narrative in songs and such.  Many of the songs that passed down in Irish song tradition are true to life stories, and this poem is true in the sense that it...well, I'll let you figure out the meaning.  That's always more fun in poetry.


You're the man I never met
Oh maybe I saw you once or twice
How would we know if I've seen you yet?
I never said hello

Walking a straight path on crooked roads
Doesn't lend itself much to love
Every adventure sorted out alone
Should I have looked to the left or right?

Every scene more beautiful than words
With colors in their place they tell
The loveliest story we've ever heard
Yet I never saw your place in it.

Paths among trees stretch for miles
Or suddenly end two feet ahead
The end has been there all the while
I didn't tell it to stop

I looked for you when I left
Expecting you, I saw you in my mind
I saw things worth seeing again and again
But you I didn't find

We were so beautiful
We held hands on hard roads
It would be devastating to learn
You're as imaginary as I am

We were so beautiful
There in my mind
And you were my love
In my imagination

Chances are I never saw you
And if you exist, you never saw me
I thought I died first
But maybe, perhaps, you beat me

Tea of the Day: Lemon Fight and a Mystery

Hey y'all.  So I managed to get Dad to participate in another tea contest.  Yeah, we had some tea and watched Star Trek '09.   Thing about Dad is that you have to trick him into trying new things, because he's the sort of guy that distrusts anything in his food or drink that is different.  However, if you get him to eat or drink it before he knows what it is, he might find out he'll like it. 

In that spirit, I tried to trick Dad by making the first two flavors of tea lemon, so that he'd think the third was lemon also.  Nope, it's ginger peach, one of my favorite flavors of all time.  So let's see how he liked it all, shall we?

Competitor #1: Bentley's Lemon Green Tea

Ingredients: Premium Chinese green tea, lemon flavor.

Updates, Jan 16

Hey y'all.  Just wanted to let you know what's going on.  Thing is, I've started school, so my updates here aren't going to be as fast as I would like.   And then my internet at my house went kaput, so now I have the wonderful joy of trying to figure out how to make it come back.  I hope the internet company doesn't think I'm going to pay their next bill until they fix this.

So yeah, stuff.  However, here are the things I'm working on:

- Mortal Kombat blog.  This is my favorite movie of all time, and I feel like going over why it is.  About....40% done at this point.

- Star Trek '09 review.  This may end up being a multi-parter.  I don't want to do a top-ten list on it, as I really want to go into detail of my feelings on this movie.  I've taken full notes, so it's just a matter of turning the notes into rant.

- Questions for normal people blog.  This will probably end up being a series, as I have a lot of things I wonder about that exist in the world today, and I'll think of more in the future.

- Me and Aldaris.  To be honest, there are things I need to write that are more important than this, and this story isn't exactly my best work.  It's just stream of consciousness, and I feel I've made bad plot choices from time to time.  However, I'm still inspired, and I think I can finish it eventually.  Probably what will happen is that it'll pop up in small posts, and we'll go from there.

Me and Aldaris (p27): Charlie Said a Naughty Word

Aldaris didn't want to leave his study.  It was nice to simply sit and draw with someone, even if it was a little human dwarfed by his table like a child interfering with the business of adults -- and Aldaris liked no children, much less the interfering ones.  Still, this particular "child" couldn't talk back.  Aldaris missed intelligent conversation very badly, but at least he wouldn't have to put up with any human nonsense.  Still, it was nice to at least have someone to look at his drawings and enjoy them, even if she didn't quite understand what they were.  Cheonha had given up on drawing the face of that woman, and was now trying to copy his summer home drawing.  Aldaris grudgingly admitted to himself that he wanted to see how the copy turned out.

Most of all he didn't want to leave Cheonha in his ship by herself.  Even if the worst she did was look through the rest of his sketches, he didn't want her fingerprints all over everything.  Who knows what that human had already touched with her greasy little fingers?  At least Cheonha was so fearfully polite that she probably wouldn't roam about the ship at will.  Aldaris didn't trust any of the other three even slightly.

No, Aldaris had to risk letting the human have free reign on his ship.  The power loss of the recall unit couldn't be ignored forever.  Aldaris rose from the table and gathered his papers on the far side of the table from where Cheonha sat, leaving behind an ominous emotion so Cheonha wouldn't be tempted.

With that, he vanished from the room, hurrying down the halls.  This ship was his only survival, his only sanctuary from the humans.  And that was assuming that if something went fatally wrong, he could make his way to Earth first.  Neither option appealed to him, and that meant keeping this hunk of metal in orbit.  He passed in a grumpy haze to the main bridge, where he poked about on the controls with impatience.

Aldaris blinked.  Had he been too impatient?  There didn't seem to be any indication of a power leakage at all.  All indicators were at nominal levels, other than the power level still recharging after the massive recall wave.  It was nearing half of its standby power, and still going forward.  At least the solar power conveyer was still operational.

"To recall Cheonha does not require more than half of the recall unit's power."

Aldaris tapped on the screen.  An image of a spherical mechanism appeared, with pipes jutting out at regular intervals.  At each joint where pipe met the sphere the lights shone green: nominal.  Out of a sneaking suspicion, Aldaris very reluctantly checked the recall records.  He saw exactly what he did not want to see: three more recall signatures, each matching the records of previous recalls.  All four humans had not only recalled, but been recalled at different coordinates.

"Venetaris bh'alla iinhuman," Aldaris growled as he slammed the innocent controls.  "Ma'cah irendeenia!"

Tea of the day: Battle of the Earl Greys

Hey y'all.  So I found out that there are three flavors of earl grey tea at my house, so I'll be doing another battle of the teas.  Once more, Dad will be joining me.  Again, he'll be drinking his with some fake sugar, and I'll be drinking mine black.

Earl grey might be the tea of choice for Starfleet's best captain (judging purely by efficiency, of course), but it's not my favorite.  I don't really care for the flavor of it, as it's too "dark-ish" for my taste.  Which is weird to complain about, considering that I drink my coffee black.  In any case, it's still better than brown rice green tea.

Dad likes it, but he's gone off his earl grey kick and is sort of in a slump about it.  I'm not looking forward to what Dad's comments will be, as he tends to realize he hates things when he takes the time to taste them. The best way to get Dad's opinion about any food or drink is to make him visit someone's house and have to eat it to be polite.

On looking at the ingredients, they all seem pretty similar.  I guess it comes down to quality of tea, then.  And what the frig is oil of bergamot?  My spell checker doesn't even consider that a word.

Onto the competition!