heavenly hell
When the nip in the air turns into downright frigidness in November, I don't mind so much because I know I can go home every night of the week and enjoy some damn good TV. No repeats. And even better than no repeats, it's sweeps, so the shows pull out all their stops. Guest stars. Plot twists.

And the best part? (Well, sometimes.) MOVIES OF THE WEEK! Or Movie Events. Whatever they're called.

I also have a bit of a fetish for natural disaster movies. A la Volcano, Bats, Dante's Peak. There's a long story there, but suffice it to say I make sure to watch every natural disaster movie that comes out. (Which, yes, has taken on a new slant ever since Katrina. And Wilma. But I digress.)

CBS has done me the lovely favor of merging the two in one. In a four hour extravaganza called Category 7. In actuality, it's a sequel to Category 6, which was one of the most god-awful movies ever, even in my twisted demented world where the cheesier the movie, the better. But somehow, the sequel, the spectre of laughing at inappropriate times, the cheese, the winds, the attempts at twanging my heartstrings ... oh I love November.

I am going to go home every night, turn on Barry White, light a few candles, pour me some Shiraz, and make sweet, sweet love to Tivo. Mmm, Tivo.

whys before doing more work ... or going to bed
* Why did it snow today (yesterday) and it's only October 29?
* Why do I eat when I get drunk?
* Why have I been getting drunk alone a lot?
* Why is drinking 1/2-1 bottle of wine starting to become a weekly occurrence?
* Why is wine so good?
* Why is the Elizabethtown soundtrack so wonderful?
* Why are boys so weird?
* Why do I always find weird boys?
* Why do our journal editors hate us so much by making our tech check and our five page note outline thingamabobber due on the same day?
* Why is spider solitaire so fun?
* WHY WHY WHY DID IT ALREADY SNOW?
* Why was I like the only idiot in the city who didn't know it was going to snow?

Ooh, I can stay up another hour b/c of daylight savings! Yeay!

* Why does everyone else in the world spell it "yay"?

dreaming of traveling
Someone yesterday asked me what I was going to do after I graduate from law school and take the bar exam. I recalled that some friends and I were going to explore Mexico. I also had an idea to go back to New Zealand. Dreaming of that makes me happy. Thinking about it and planning it, oh they bring much contentment to my belly and my heart and my head. Why my belly? I don't know.

But on that note, I go research and write for my journal note. My note which is about New Zealand. Yeay!

Remote Control Device 'Controls' Humans
- By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer
Wednesday, October 26, 2005

(10-26) 04:28 PDT ATSUGI, Japan (AP) --

We wield remote controls to turn things on and off, make them advance, make them halt. Ground-bound pilots use remotes to fly drone airplanes, soldiers to maneuver battlefield robots.

But manipulating humans?

Prepare to be remotely controlled. I was.

Just imagine being rendered the rough equivalent of a radio-controlled toy car.

Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japans top telephone company, says it is developing the technology to perhaps make video games more realistic. But more sinister applications also come to mind.

I can envision it being added to militaries' arsenals of so-called "non-lethal" weapons.

A special headset was placed on my cranium by my hosts during a recent demonstration at an NTT research center. It sent a very low voltage electric current from the back of my ears through my head — either from left to right or right to left, depending on which way the joystick on a remote-control was moved.

I found the experience unnerving and exhausting: I sought to step straight ahead but kept careening from side to side. Those alternating currents literally threw me off.

The technology is called galvanic vestibular stimulation — essentially, electricity messes with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance.

I felt a mysterious, irresistible urge to start walking to the right whenever the researcher turned the switch to the right. I was convinced — mistakenly — that this was the only way to maintain my balance.

The phenomenon is painless but dramatic. Your feet start to move before you know it. I could even remote-control myself by taking the switch into my own hands.

There's no proven-beyond-a-doubt explanation yet as to why people start veering when electricity hits their ear. But NTT researchers say they were able to make a person walk along a route in the shape of a giant pretzel using this technique.

It's a mesmerizing sensation similar to being drunk or melting into sleep under the influence of anesthesia. But it's more definitive, as though an invisible hand were reaching inside your brain.

NTT says the feature may be used in video games and amusement park rides, although there are no plans so far for a commercial product.

Some people really enjoy the experience, researchers said while acknowledging that others feel uncomfortable.

I watched a simple racing-car game demonstration on a large screen while wearing a device programmed to synchronize the curves with galvanic vestibular stimulation. It accentuated the swaying as an imaginary racing car zipped through a virtual course, making me wobbly.

Another program had the electric current timed to music. My head was pulsating against my will, getting jerked around on my neck. I became so dizzy I could barely stand. I had to turn it off.

NTT researchers suggested this may be a reflection of my lack of musical abilities. People in tune with freely expressing themselves love the sensation, they said.

"We call this a virtual dance experience although some people have mentioned it's more like a virtual drug experience," said Taro Maeda, senior research scientist at NTT. "I'm really hopeful Apple Computer will be interested in this technology to offer it in their iPod."

Research on using electricity to affect human balance has been going on around the world for some time.

James Collins, professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, has studied using the technology to prevent the elderly from falling and to help people with an impaired sense of balance. But he also believes the effect is suited for games and other entertainment.

"I suspect they'll probably get a kick out of the illusions that can be created to give them a more total immersion experience as part of virtual reality," Collins said.

The very low level of electricity required for the effect is unlikely to cause any health damage, Collins said. Still, NTT required me to sign a consent form, saying I was trying the device at my own risk.

And risk definitely comes to mind when playing around with this technology.

Timothy Hullar, assistant professor at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., believes finding the right way to deliver an electromagnetic field to the ear at a distance could turn the technology into a weapon for situations where "killing isn't the best solution."

"This would be the most logical situation for a nonlethal weapon that presumably would make your opponent dizzy," he said via e-mail. "If you find just the right frequency, energy, duration of application, you would hope to find something that doesn't permanently injure someone but would allow you to make someone temporarily off-balance."

Indeed, a small defense contractor in Texas, Invocon Inc., is exploring whether precisely tuned electromagnetic pulses could be safely fired into people's ears to temporarily subdue them.

NTT has friendlier uses in mind.

If the sensation of movement can be captured for playback, then people can better understand what a ballet dancer or an Olympian gymnast is doing, and that could come handy in teaching such skills.

And it may also help people dodge oncoming cars or direct a rescue worker in a dark tunnel, NTT researchers say. They maintain that the point is not to control people against their will.

If you're determined to fight the suggestive orders from the electric currents by clinging to a fence or just lying on your back, you simply won't move.

But from my experience, if the currents persist, you'd probably be persuaded to follow their orders. And I didn't like that sensation. At all.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/10/25/financial/f133702D73.DTL

drunk blogging, the new drunk txting
I feel so lame. I felt too swamped with work and didn't make it to my friend's show tonight. Turns out they didn't go on until 9pm and my friend put me +1 on the guest list. Darn. I really wish I had known. I told him I'd try and see their show when they return to the town across the river next month.

I feel badly about it. I think I'm feeling a lot of conflicting obligations in me and I'm not meeting any of them satisfactorily, and I just feel totally bummed. Like, our school is having a Halloween party on Thursday night and I told some friends I would go but now I'm not sure. I have so much work and so much blah blah blah blah. GAR!

I hope things will get better in November, but we'll see.

What a pathetic post. I shouldn't even hit publish.

2 IPAs, 2 tequila shots, and a very very large G&T
OH MY GOD. I ACTUALLY went out tonight. A friend met me at the bar across the street from school and we had drinks and we were going to go watch my friend's band play. But then about 45 minutes before they went on, who walked into the bar but the three skinniest men in show biz. Seriously. They are so skinny. Go to their website and buy some merch because these guys need a sandwich. Anyways, we shared a few drinks, a few laughs, and some convo, and then they realized they were going on in like 5 minutes so they ran away and then my friend and I followed b/c we wanted to see them play.

And then we saw them play. And then my friend gave me a very sweaty hug. And then I came home and watched Gilmore Girls and poured myself a very large G&T and then tried to do work but im'ed and talked on the phone and blogged instead.

And now we've come to the present and in the very near future, I'm going to brush my teeth and go to bed.

I really wish my hair was longer. I'm going to grow it out. I can now get it in a ponytail, which is more than I could say three weeks ago. Funny how that works.

Like that random comment? I'm drunk. I've been exhibiting some alcoholic tendencies recently, but I'm okay with that. I've also been spending way too much money on food. But I'm okay with that, too, because food is food and it gets me through stressful times.

Also, I really need to do laundry. It's so bad. I actually have more dirty clothes than clean. And that's a big deal for me. I've resorted to buying new pants instead of washing the ones I have. Bad. Also, I need to take out the garbage. My apartment smells funny.

Oh well.

By week's end, I have to trim my summer options by half. I don't like having to do it. I like being wanted, and I want to have them want me. Ahh well.

Tomorrow, I go visit a firm. This time, I'm in control. Nice.

Quickie: Wham, Bam
Blah. Blogger freaked out on me and deleted what I wrote. In short, I'm alive. It's 1 a.m., Monday morning (or Sunday night) and I have a draft of my paper. It will likely be the copy I turn in. Oh, mediocrity. I spent less than 12 hours studying for my final. It's hopeless. What I have learned about international law is this: it's vague and uncertain.

I almost freaked out today when my computer started acting up and wouldn't charge. After nearly crying while standing in the street, I huffed it over to the university computer lab and banged out the paper. (And taking about 500 steps in the process! I'm wearing a pedometer for a study.) Then I came home and found that if I string the cord up over the screen, it's ok. So I should be ok for the exam tomorrow.

Now I've eaten some french fries and am doing some work for Professor Summer Research. It's going faster than I expected.

Thank you, God, for letting me get through this weekend, even though you kept throwing crap in my way. I suppose I should hold off on the thanks until after I wake up in the morning. I feel an oversleep coming on.

Due Diligence
If you are good at it like I am, then you can find this blog. As a result, I have been toning down and editing out a lot of what I wouldn't have hesitated putting up in the past. I'm on the verge of accepting a job offer, and I'm starting to think more and more about what I say in case someone does find this. And suddenly I'm starting to be more private about my feelings and thoughts, on certain levels. I'm feeling like a loner this weekend. I keep thinking about going swimming, despite my pseudo bum knee, b/c I want to be alone in my head, in 8 feet of water, or however deep the pool is.

Yeah, my knee went pop yesterday during a volleyball game. Ouchie. It hurt like a bitch at first, and then it totally stopped hurting ... while the EMT was poking at it, of course. It's been kinda sore today, but I think it kinda ... popped back earlier today. So I'm optimistic that I can get a good swim in tonight, and maybe go climbing tomorrow. I know with swimming I can just use a pull buoy if it's bad. And the climbing ... I've gotten really used to Saturday climbing and will feel weird not going. So there. I feel confident that I can get my work done this weekend. If only I would stop blogging and surfing the internet.

Warning: griping, bitching, moaning and complaining follow.
I am going to take the next three minutes and spew out to the "world" all the crap I have to get done in the next few days. Hell week, now that it's Thursday, is in full effect.

Monday I have both a final for a class and a mid-term paper due for another class. My friends and I who are in a similar predicament petitioned for exam relief (available if we have two exams on the same day), but did not get good news.

I also just got out of a meeting with Prof. Summer Research. He has just piled some work on me as well. We are working on Week 8. The students will be discussing week 7 on Tuesday. See?

I do not think there are enough hours in the next several days, nor enough caffeine in the world, to make this all happen. But by the will of God, I will survive, and I will get it done, even if it has to be half assed. I'm already wired and jittery from the four cups of coffee I've had today and the 1L of Diet Pepsi I'm currently ingesting. And the Reese's PB Cups, minis. I am going to drop dead from a heart attack on Monday, but at least I will make it to Monday.

Ok, I'm done with the self-pity. Time to tackle the work. I will not breakdown. I am far too old and mature and wise and experienced for that. I will be efficient. So efficient, I will not even have typos so as to waste time hitting the backspace key. Oh well, too late for that.

If you love me, you will send me love. In any form at all. Even if it's comments. Cuz wow, comments make me really happy.

Is that manipulative? That's me!

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