Doing most of my communication through the written word, I often face the problem of people not realizing that dude, I’m being sarcastic.

Sarcasm, Inc are here to solve the problem, as they introduced the SarcMark, the “sarcasm punctation mark”.

The idea is brilliant, but the application is poor, so I do not think it will take off any time soon (if ever, in its current form). Visually, it is bordering on hideous: it looks like a man trying to keep away his sneeze by holding his nose. It looks even worse written down, like a heart gone wrong. Someone needs to suggest an already existing glyph in system fonts that isn’t often used, like this one: ±.

Cool idea anyway. [Via, Hattip: Eddie]

This:

(play music)
(Wait for media to load to play music)

This song in particular I quite love.

It stirs up strong emotions in me — something that music usually doesn’t do for someone who considers it mere “noise”. It makes me smell the woodsy fragrance of my teenage bedroom’s carpeted floor. It makes my heartbeats slow down and takes my mind ten years back, when life was different. It makes me 15 again: angry, passionate, rebellious, anxious to take action.

The thing is… I usually relate to lyrics, rather than sound. With this song, I could never relate to the lyrics at all, but it sounds so… beautiful.

(Here’s where my friends roll their eyes at how hopelessly nonexistant my taste in music is) :)

I don’t usually pick up movies at the DVD store, but I picked up “The Time Traveler’s Wife” because I enjoyed the book.

“Enjoyable” is the perfect way to describe the book. I couldn’t put it down — I read it in a couple of hours one long night, and never picked it up again afterward. It’s well-written, and I recall being smitten by the brilliance of the author, but not really good enough to leave an impression beyond the weekend. Of course, luckily for you, my feelings then were documented on this space, way back in 2006. How weird is it that almost every thing I ever gave enough thought is mentioned somewhere in these bits and bites of transparent data? Even weirder, the post (linked above) is somehow broken, everything in the page is jumbled up, just like the book :)

The movie, on the other hand, not quite as enjoyable. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t bad, it’s just so… slow. And this is coming from a person who often doesn’t mind slow. I made myself the rest-of-the-week’s morning sandwiches, had my dinner, browsed the internet, and even chatted on the phone a bit, and I didn’t miss a second. That slow.

The visuals are nice and warm. The acting is fantastic (is it just me or is this new Eric Bana guy or whatever his name is really good looking?). Rachel McAdams’ performance was impressive. Audrey Niffengger’s original idea is still brilliant. The make-up person’s ability to make the cast look 40-years-old and 18-years-old is unbelievable (are you digging the adjectives?).

But there’s no way in hell I’m watching that stuff again.
 

Check out the movie poster/DVD cover. I thought that Hammoudeh somehow Photoshopped the image out of its proper horizontal/vertical grace (they did that with my “New Moon” DVD). Apparently though, whoever this movies crazy graphic designer is thought that this was a brilliant idea. It’s not.

Okay, this post turned out to be more blabber than movie review, but come on, in the past six years of authoring this blog, I only have like, what, three movie reviews? And two of them are probably The Lord of the Rings (ahhh, now that is one amazing book/movie/et all).

Did you watch “The Time Traveler’s Wife”? What do you think?

It even has good music. I don’t even like music and I’m saying that.

Click on image to play Frst Person Tetris.

(Hattip: Yanone)

Hate Mondays. Bleh. I’m so doldrumed.

Okay, I’m going to give myself a heart attack soon because of my inability to follow every single good blog out there consistently. So much to read. So little time to read it all.

Anyway… this might not interest you, but I thought it was really cool, and so I had to bookmark it on my blog, since my browser and Protopage can’t take any more bookmarks. It’s basically about “Who is the Gen Y ‘Hipster?‘”. An excerpt:

“…Some brands, like Converse’s Chuck Taylor shoes, are cool because they’re grounded in the past. Others, like Apple and Nike are cool for the opposite reason: they embody change and constantly reach towards the future. But there is a third category of cool brands, those that appeal to Millennials’ inner nerd. Pop culture has celebrated the nerd/geek culture for many years. Millennials are not afraid to admit to a dorky side and they admire brands that can do the same. According to Outlaw, Trader Joe’s, Jet Blue and In N Out Burger have won the love of Millennial trendsetters simply by being their quirky selves, doing things they own way and never apologizing: “(Trader Joe’s employees) wear these tacky Hawaiian shirts and publish that ridiculous newsletter. But it’s their own style. And it’s so much more inviting than the normal rigid grocery store. In short, the very definition of ‘coolness’ seems to have shifted.”

(click image to enlarge)

The image above also illustrates the quick evolution of “hipsters.” Honestly, I’m not sure I can really agree that any of these characters were ever hip, but Amman is so monotonous in terms of that so I guess my opinion doesn’t really matter. It’s still a cool image anyway. I’m curious to see though if any of you guys find any truth in it.

Today I discovered that the phrase is not “3a rasi kozbara”, it’s actually “3a rassi kazdara.”

Which doesn’t make sense. I always explained the phrase to myself by equating kozbara to the color green to money to “Don’t worry about me helping you, I can afford it.”

Wow. My whole outlook on life has shifted now.