iTunes U

This is the best: check out the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) and in the upper left hand nav box you'll see a link for iTunes U at the bottom. This takes you to the iTunes U central area where a dozen or so universities have started putting college courses, lectures, and other podcasts online for the public to download for free.

Psychology, business, technology, art history, quantum physics, social sciences, language, literature, stuff on how-to like teach and write - there's months and months worth of stuff to listen to and learn. Pretty cool!

Some of the universities are a little on the slim side as far as content goes. Stanford and Berkeley were my two favorite spots for downloads, having not only the most total but also the most in liberal arts and social studies, though there are some goodies in some other places (Seattle Pacific, which seems to be Christian, has some interesting stuff on the Lord of the Rings as a Defence of Western Civilization). Stanford has a few lectures by the Dali Lama in both the Philosophy and Spirituality sections. Berkeley had a neat section for the study of sex and sexuality in history.

And most of these are pretty hefty - many weighing in close to two hours apiece. I downloaded a whole bunch to pick through while I'm at work. I've got a lot of spare mental time on my hands doing thoughtless work and these are perfect for keeping my brain busy instead of drifting off into thoughts that can often lead in a depressing direction. ;)

Anyway, thought I'd spread the fun news. For those of you still in college this may be depressing news but for me, I miss the charge my brain would get after a good day's learning at school. ;)

What the Bleep Do We Know?

I tried watching this once before but it's such a deep documentary/movie you really have to concentrate on it - if you're not into it, you'll fall asleep. And this time I was able to and I think I got a lot out of it.

The beginning is a bit too broad, I think, so it takes a little while before it starts to get specific enough to pull you in. It starts on the universal level, talking about quantum physics and how matter works and then eventually gets to how that relates to us as humans and how quantum physics shows how we as ENERGY and MATTER can affect everything around us, even with thoughts. And very importantly, how we affect OURSELVES with our thoughts. Very heavy stuff but it really hit home there at the end with all this re-wiring of my brain I've been going through and gave me new ways of doing that.

"Down the Rabbit Hole" is the extended version (not sure what they added) and it comes on 3 or 4 DVD's, double sided so that you can watch the whole thing as-is, you can watch JUST the scientific interviews, JUST the story elements that paralell what the scientists are talking about, etc. You can also watch it in a random order each time if you like. Kind of cool. Also fun for me is that nearly the entire thing is filmed in Portland, Oregon: tons of shots on or near the MAX, the zoo tunnel, Goose Hollow, Pioneer Square, and just various points throughout the city that I don't know the streets to but recognize it all and have been there. :D Fun!

Since I watched this, I've been finding books and talks and podcasts galore that all connect over the same things - the quantum physics of how everything is energy and anything is thus possible... It has all helped to change my thoughts toward positive thinking for the better. Amazing.

American Doll Posse

I've listened to this album once and 2/3rds through so far. For me, Tori's music can be chopped into three sections: Early: LE, UTP, BFP; Transition: FTCH, TV&B, SLGs; and Modern/Epic: SW, Beekeeper, and now ADP. Although, "classic" Tori for me includes the first FOUR albums. Before I get going, let it be known that I prefer oldschool Tori, those first four albums. But I've found things to be liked in her later stuff, too - I just don't find nearly as much of it as moving as her earlier stuff.

Folks on Amazon.com said that if you liked The Beekeeper, which was pretty mellow, organ-inspired, that you'd maybe not like ADP. Good thing I really disliked The Beekeeper (I only listened to it once, sorta kinda). ADP is definitely still "Modern" Tori, as it were - her vocals still aren't as pretty or coherent as anything from her earlier stuff and still not near as angry as anything from BFP (which I think is her angriest as it seems the most true from her heart of all her albums for me). But this album definetly comes from an angry place. What's so different about it is that it's so heavily political. Odd that I FIND it odd, coming from Tori. R.E.M. or Indigo Girls, sure, but Tori? It *should* be expected of her, really, so I am unsure why I find it odd.

Whenever I listen to anything of hers (ever since "To Venus & Back") I try to pretend I've never heard anything from her before TV&B. It makes it easier. For "Modern" Tori, the album is pretty good, albeit very long at 23 songs. On first listen, if I am patient, there is something interesting and dynamic about nearly all of the songs so I do look forward to getting to know them better. I kind of wish she'd enunciate better - I mean, Tori has never been one to really enunciate lyrics but most fans kind of get the hang of her off-kilter pronunciations of things. But I think even the most talented Tori-translator will be put to the test with this album. Good thing it comes with lyrics in the liner notes. :D

Definitely an aggressive album - she's seriously using the whole band and it's fun to hear her do that, to let everybody really rock out. She's channeling the Beatles White Album and other '68 era artists in rolling style rock and she's not pulling punches in her political accusations while doing it, too. Oddly, some of my favorite bits from this album so far are the little "intermission" songs, the little 1-minute ditties. They're not the bubbly oddities of "Mr.Zebra" but they allow for little bursts of "we don't quite fit in like a normal song" that are delicious enough to make you wish they WERE longer, much like good ol' "Mr.Zebra". My favorite song off ADP so far is in fact one of these songs, "Devils and Gods", which is a mandolin piece - another oddity, Tori singing to a solo instrument that is not played with keys. A beautiful song with VERY poignant lyrics:

Devils and Gods, now that's an idea
But if we believe that it's They who decide
That's the ultimate detractor of crimes
'Cause devils and gods
They are you and I
Devils and gods,
They are you and I.
Devils and gods,
Safe and inside.

So I'll be giving this album a good, heavy listen and we'll see how it holds up later on.

The Practice of Happiness

I read this chapter about trust in a book called The Practice of Happiness by John Kehoe - the dude who wrote "Mind Power". I don't care what you think about positive thinking and books about it. All I know is that I've been good at negative thinking and it hasn't gotten me squat other than depressed. And I'm tired of it. So what do I have to lose from trying to think positively? Sounds funny when I say it that way.

This book has been pretty helpful in getting me through some rough patches this summer. It makes some good arguments for positive thinking - I mean, what do we have to lose by trying to be happy? Particularly when things seem like they can't get any worse?

"The Practice of Happiness" is a very short, quotable book - good for reading in chapter-by-chapter spurts. It's more of an inspirational read than a "how-to" read, like Kehoe's other book Mind Power in the 21st Century.

MySpace

Yet more reasons to hate MySpace:

1 • There's SPAM! Can you believe it? People can't really go around auto-spamming LJ. Far as I know it's too complex to really do that. Well, that and there's no LJ e-mail, but still. If I wanted SPAM I'd use a Yahoo email account.

2 • Regular users randomly message you with L337 hatemail! What the hell? I mean, it can be easy enough to be flamed here on LJ but it's MUCH easier to get such folks banned from LJ. Myspace doesn't give a shit about people's blog-well-being.

3 • interface? what interface?

4 • design? what design?

I could go on. Ugh, I HATE how every one or two click steps there are in LJ take 3 or 5 clicks in MS. Literally. I am not making this up. It's like Windows Vista asking you to apporove some inane action and then letting you know you did it okay. So:

1) click to initiate action (do the action)
2) click to approve the action (click)
3) Does this look good? (click)
4) action approved (click to get to an actual menu)

That's just to POST. In LJ you:
1) click create post (do the post)
2) click to post it. (click)
3) window rerouting you to chosen journal view (click to choose)

So one less but it somehow feels like 2 less clicks.

Then there's the general quality of blogging there. Which is next to nil. But then again, of the 7 people who have me friended on MS, only two of them actively seem to blog. No, correction, one of them doesn't blog, she only writes those Bulletin things, most of which are memes (ugh!) and the other mostly writes things I cannot read. So there really isn't ever anything for me to read. So in the end, this whole excercize is just one overblown, annoying e-mail wannabe program. I should stick to my guns and only use real email to contact people and LiveJournal to blog about personal things. Ugh.
~==~

In other MS news, I did find a CSS hack to force MS to look halfway decent. You have to be logged in and over 18 to see it - [I hated MySpace so much I deleted my account - couldn't stand it]

Also, if you have Firefox, you can install Greasemonkey, which then allows you to install user scripts that do nifty things. Like block all the ads in MS. Block the "cool new people", "cool new videos", New authors, books, comedy, etc. There is a script that, and this is the BEST, removes ALL customizations, forcing all profiles to appear like basic MS profiles. Does wonders for legibility, should you be forced to spend much time in MS. Haven't quite found a script that makes actual blog spaces legible, though.

But all that hassle... Does nothing but make me appreciate LJ that much more. :D

Pan's Labyrinth

We saw Pan's Labyrinth this weekend. In short, with no spoilers:
• DARK and very violent. Had to cover my eyes for many many parts.
• In Spanish (which enriches the film so much) so subtitle-haters beware
• Ofelia's fantasy plot may seem unconnected to the violent Spanish war setting but when the two are combined at the end create a much larger metaphor for innocence and war. Watch it and think about it.

In conclusion, though I hate violence and bugs, the textures and mood were very well done - I didn't know much of ANYTHING before going into this film so it was very exciting. Kind of a positive-sad movie in some ways. I really liked the fantasy side of it a LOT and the larger metaphor has really stuck with me. A very heavy film, I don't know if I'll rewatch it anytime soon but definetly worth a watch.

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

Today I bought Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow for my DS. It is way cool.

I've only ever played "Symphony of Night" before so I don't know how Castlevania games are across the board. The graphics on this game are great - detailed, rich, and crisp, even on such small screens. The character movement is just like Alucard in "SoN", or at least very close to it. (Re-reading the above article, this probably due to the fact that they used a lot of sprites from "SoN", which explains a lot.)

Apparently with most Castlevania games you are one of the Belmonts and you only ever have one weapon throughout the entire game for the most part. "SoN" was a bit different because you were a Dracula descendant and you could choose between hundreds of types of weapons you got off dead enemies. You can do that, too, in DoS. Yay! So the equptment works the same.

One thing that is pretty neat is your ability to capture souls. Most, if not all, creatures in the game have souls that they "drop" every once in awhile that you automatically absorb, giving you a new ability. The more of each kind of soul you absorb (say, bat souls) the more powerful that ability becomes. This kind of replaces Alucard's four abilities in "SoN". There are four categories of souls and you can have one of each type of category equipped at a time. Familiars are back, too, but they are a type of soul you can equipt -- same with the various weapons of Castlevania fame (dagger, holy water, cross, axe, diamond...) - those are replaced by soul weapons. I haven't gone very far in the game and already I really like this new soul system - it's highly customizeable for different players. Say, by killing bats you can obtain the bat familiar. By killing Wargs you obtain a kind of warg fang bite thing that does a lot of damage. Using souls uses MP, which is the only thing you ever use MP on - well, that and special weapon attacks. You aren't casting spells like "Soul Steal" all the time like in "SoN".

Another interesting thing is that boss enemies can't just be killed - they have to be sealed. You must take them down to zero HP, which causes a Magic Seal thing to appear on your screen with the pattern of seal you must now 'cast'. You use the stylus on the touch screen to quickly draw the pattern you just saw in order to seal the boss permanently. Failure to draw the symbol correctly means the boss regains some HP and you have to take it back down to zero before you can attempt to seal the enemy again. You learn seals BEFORE hand and have the ability to practice them at any time you like. And they're pretty simple in the beginning so it's not that freaky. In comparison, the non-mandatory spells from "SoN" were WAY more difficult due to the directional pad not always doing what you thought it should of done. ;)

I also really like having the two screens on the DS. While you run about the castle, the map is constantly displayed on the upper screen. VERY handy. And apparently this is the largest castle of any Castlevania game made yet. I am so very excited.