Arriving in Italy

Argh, I wrote this entry originally on Works and then lost it.

Today I got up around 5:30am to fly to Italy. Ella was doing more cute mischief and puffed up her tail and fur when she saw me this morning. She also rubbed all over dad’s suitcase. Sooo cute.
The tax ride was smooth, and we had pre-paid the proper amount so we didn’t have to worry about getting ripped off. I like Heathrow’s check-in system, at least for this terminal, better than LAX’s by a long shot.

They’re starting to speak Italian on the plane and it’s, well, Greek to me.

The check-in went smoothly and quickly, except that my bag got isolated since I had forgotten the bottle of water in it from the last flight. The guy in front of us was trying to sneak rum and cologne on board the plane, so it took a while to sort him out. The TSA guy finally just got my bag over with quickly. He was nice, and handed back my shoes and sweater before searching it.

We then went into the stores, since our gate hadn’t opened yet. Marks and Spencer is still expensive. I got a look at the new mini-VAIO. I’m jealous of its size, but the processor is only 1.33ghz and I don’t see why they made a deal with Vista instead of Ubuntu. I honestly think the latter will affect the popularity of it. But it’s great to see a prototype of the future of netbooks.
The other netbooks were basically like mine or worse, and cost its equivalent in pounds. I LOVE my Acer, as practically everyone knows.
I’m also happy to learn that Packard Bell survived in Europe. We have computers from ‘88 and ‘98 made by them, which still haven’t broken. If they still make computers of that caliber, then I am so glad they survived here. Of course, their netbook has a 1.2 Ghz AMD processor., eheheheh.

I’ve realized that the fact that I am familiar with most of the movies/television here is more a comment on how LA and the internet are hubs of information than anything else. I’m also glad to see uniquely British movies in a generic store, though not the titles “Giant Shark vrs Octopus” and “Lesbian Vampire Killers”. I wanted to buy the first season of Little Britain and may when I get back. They also had Goodnight, Lenin in the store.

I’m sad to see a dearth of the healthy snacks I observed from my first times in England, which also has an obesity problem now. There are less bookstores and less Starbucks.

My uncle gave me a sandwich without telling me it had chicken in it(he does know I’m a vegetarian). I consequentially got a stomachache.

I slept on our flight here. Customs were almost too easy. My uncle’s suitcase got lost. We then took a large Mercedes Benz taxi with a very enthusiastic cab driver, who showed us half the monuments in the city and confirmed the stereotype of people being very enthusiastic with their hands. The architecture is amazing. More on that later. There seems to be a large proliferation of tagging on the beautiful Italian housing and trains. Our cab driver then didn’t know how to get to the hotel and shouted to people on the street for directions. We eventually got here. The elevator is old-fashioned and scary. I love the trees in the boulevards, which are flourishing in their natural habitat. The rooms are very clean and nice, though the outside is not much to look at. Thankfully there appears to be unfamiliar music, though Lady Gaga followed us here.

I hope that we adapt without incident to the Italian culture without incident. It’s very different from our task and time oriented culture.

Rebel, Rebel

This makes me wonder if people would have the same reaction here in America. Would we rally and rebel, or would we scream and cry in print while doing nothing at all? America is a huge country, and the state of all of that land in anarchy is a terrifying proposal. Would we storm the capital? Who would we put in charge? One could argue that the 2000 election was a very poor cover-up, as many have, but besides plunging the economy into the worst recession since the great depression and attacking individual, scientific, and women's rights, Bush wasn't that bad. Maybe we should have rioted...but the point is that even Bush in his eight years could not overturn the system of checks and balances besides in the things he kept absolutely secret from the public.
This whole thing kind of makes me want to hug Obama.

Warren Buffet is creating his own cartoon line to teach kids about business. The late and great Carl Sagan will also be in a different comic along the same lines. Whenever I see things like this it always stirs up suspicion in my mind, because why would the most successful financial people really want company? Better to activate the Pavlovian centers with a few tricks that are successful and a whole lot more that creates a "slightly above average average investor" at most. On "Kosmos", while the book is AWESOME and everyone should read it(I have it back if you want to borrow it), the original series failed to keep the attention of a classroom of middle schoolers. Then again, not much does, but Sagan exuded too much sexy 1970's man to keep myself and the couple of other astronomy buff's attention on the screen. The long out-of-style "K" at the beginning makes me doubly suspicious, since Sagan was an eloquent and extremely smart scientist whom everybody should read, not some jazzed-up-for-jaded-youth lame rap afficiando. Don't mess this up, AOL. Of course, this is AOL we're talking about.

Here is a huge collection of vintage television and movies.



This is a video of the Iranian police attacking a car, taken from Mousavi's Twitter feed. It's strange, because their streets look so much like our streets despite 5000 miles and a bunch of freaky armed GIs. The picture was taken from the flickr stream of a protest on the streets. Come on Iranians, I know you can win against this dictator.

Boom! Boom!

Source

So I just realized that I sound very cool, calm, and relaxed on my blog.

This is a lie. I am actually dying of stress, but complaining is not going to help that, and I'd rather not talk about it. Instead I will run around my studio like a crazy person and proceed to collapse on the bed, weezing from the fact that I have way too many obligations.

Help?


Via Boing Boing

Part of the reason I think old film is so fascinating is because of how delicate it seems in its shaky and silent monochrome. Even though the picture is factual the world it presents seems to be remote.


Gravy Stress may waste your time if you like looking at random funny images. I am not going to click on it anymore. If your name is Chris or Frosty you may wish to check this website out.

I wonder how ridiculous our commercials look to foreigners?

In any case, here is an awesome quote from BLDBLOG:

"If you'll excuse the rambling nature of this post, meanwhile, my wife and I are actually staying in Potts Point, and we're located basically right across the street from a Saturday morning farmers' market where we got into a conversation early on our first morning here with a man selling gourmet mushrooms that were grown, he said, inside repurposed railroad tunnels south of the city in Mittagong. I would love to visit those tunnels!
Cockatoo Island, in fact, is actually honeycombed with old tunnels dug directly out of the site's bedrock – so perhaps some strange form of subterranean myco-agriculture might pop up in a few student designs over the next two weeks. Mushroom farming in the underworld. Or perhaps even the high-tech cultivation of pharmaceutical biocompounds by UV light in what used to be a submarine-repair facility (the island also houses a former submarine-repair facility!)..."

Geoff's post "The Thirteenth Room" is also rather fun, as is Reburbia. Reburbia falls directly into my sphere of interests. If you like architecture or imagining the things I do, CHECK THESE OUT.

Here is a quote from Mr. Ellis:

"The next movie I write will be Jurassic Park 4: ADAMZOIC, in which a group of committed Creationists sneak onto a dinosaur-infested Island in an attempt to prove that humans and slavering proto-avian carnivores can live in harmony, as in Eden. The film will be 3 hours long; will feature multiple variations on the theme of Cute Naked People being disembowelled while trying to sing hymns; will include at least one incidence of punning, based on the words “pray” and “prey”; and will end when the sole survivor realises the error of her ways, embraces the Power Of Darwin, and spontaneously evolves a set of wings to escape."

Soil bacteria injections make mice happy. This may explain a lot. I've always said that dirt was good, though now and as a kid I refused to eat it.

Here is an interesting article about personal transformation in the internet age. I could comment on it right now, but I don't want to.
Damn, I may have to get this novel:

The Dorkiness is With Me

I want a Chapman Stick now. What is a Chapman stick?

An interesting article from Wired about scarcity vrs abundance planning.

"This is the power of waste. When scarce resources become abundant, smart people treat them differently, exploiting them rather than conserving them. It feels wrong, but done right it can change the world."

"The way to get from what the mathematicians call a local maximum to the global maximum is to explore a lot of fruitless minima along the way. It's wasteful, in a sense, but it can pay off in the end."

This feels like the correct way to treat waste vrs. what some American consumers has been doing. Of course, this would also require constantly monitoring trends and identifying the correct variables, though in any marketing projections the ability to model is kind of just a little bit central. What about perhaps literally applying these principals to trash?

Boing Boing columnist Cory Doctorow wrote a column.
I find it interesting that he mentions the fact that conspiracy theories are "pure gold for science fiction writers". Both conspiracy theorists and sci fi authors have the task of taking a fictional premise and making it sound convincingly real. The only true difference is the heading both are sold under. In fact, L. Ron Hubbard blurs this line significantly, though his creation is under the more general heading of religion.
The implication of this column is that ideas are the true genius in the world today. I disagree, as I think the fact that people have created so many DIY inventions is a testament to ingenuity on their parts. It's not necessarily some simple thing to create a fictional invention. Quite simply, it just shows that there are a lot of mechanically gifted people out there, but that is no reason to knock the talent.
This also makes me feel like building something, but I have work to do.

When I was a kid, I loved Star Wars. I didn't talk about the movies to my friends or engage in any fan activity besides imagining myself as a Jedi(don't you dare comment), but the concept of a universal "force" and the notion of peace through control were both extremely appealing to me. My dad and I had frank discussions about Buddhism, which I had only known about marginally before, and the rest is history. A lot of discussion can be had comparing East and West literature/theology and the societies that produced them.

But this is not what I am going to talk about.

During this period I suddenly acquired a taste for tunics. A recent article in io9 which I am too lazy to find discussed how fashion has started borrowing from science fiction. Thanks to recent shifts in fashion it is now becoming easier and easier to dress like a Jedi or Cyber Goth without having everyone around you suddenly converge into a mob of beating-the-passerby.
How long before we start actually looking like a mashup of science fiction characters?

I've always wanted to wear a cloak because I read one too many fantasy novels as a kid. The problem with cloaks is that since the invention of the jacket, they are much less functionally useful. That has never stopped fashion, though. Cloaks are awesome. Imagine one with a ton of useless contemporary buckles. Don't add any fake pockets, though, because those enrage me.

Of course, I'll most likely stick to my "uniform" of khaki pants and wifebeaters/tshirts. But still, you should listen to me fashion industry!

Filming

"Art does not speak...it is overheard..."
-Foucault

Thoughts about "The Reader":
1.) It reminds me very much of the starkness of German culture that Anthony elaborated to me, though the film reveals the passion and humanity underneath it.
2.) Kate Winslet is an excellent actress. Her eyes, her gestures, her manner are all perfect for her role. I am not surprised she won the Oscar.
3.) I wish people still went on cycling holidays. Though, of course, I don't know how to ride a bike..

There is joy in being loved, but there is also so much joy in loving someone else and seeing it light up their life.

4.)It's interesting how the Nazis have no effect on Micheal's life in the upper class.

5) It's powerful, incredibly powerful. Not as powerful as Slumdog, but it deserved to win some awards. I won't go into the details because that would entail spoilers, but you should watch it.

It's strange that Dora may soon be totally blonde.

You know what play is excellent? The Cherry Orchard by Chekov. I just read one of his (very) short stories, so I am thinking about his work.

I really wish that "Milk" didn't have wife-beater Sean Penn as its main actor because now I'm torn between borrowing it from someone or Blockbuster. The same holds for "The Wrestler".

Thoughts on Frost/Nixon:
1.) It was AMAZING. And I don't know how to say any more than that without spoilers. But seriously, go watch it.

I did a lot of stuff today, but little of it was physics related, which annoys me.

Cute(Edited 6:44 pm)

From left to right: Spot, The Brave One, Socks, and Dasha

"Mongol" is well worth seeing, though it contained some historical inaccuracies. The style of the editing felt very Mongolian from my little reading of The Secret History, and the movie had a certain poetry to it. The fight scenes are portrayed with adrenaline and brutality; the fighting is exciting but not glorified. The Mongols themselves are portrayed as "uncivilized"(insert long diatribe about civilization and our enculturation here) but living with their own code. I especially like the portrayal of Mongolian women and wish there were a few more American heroines like them. We have few records of The Great Khan's early life, which makes it strange upon speculation that it is not the topic of more imaginings. Also, I would like to mention something that Ilya said a long time ago, which is that Mongolian ponies are short and fat. The horses in this movie are big Hollywood studs.

Snuggles is becoming blinder every day. Also, he was going to pee on the mat when I picked him up and put him in the litter box, getting some on my foot in the process.

Yesterday my mom took me to the mall. Tired from all the shopping this week neither of us lasted long, and I soon escaped to the bookstore. I met a former physics major working as an engineer in the mathematics section.

At home we watched the aforementioned "Mongol" and "Mamma Mia", the latter thanks to my aunt Brenda who had recommended it to my mom. I promised to watch "Mamma Mia" with my mom if she watched "Mongol". The movie turned out to be exactly what I expected: a light, fluffy romantic comedy with lots of singing. The songs were integrated well into the plot. Also, things stopped making sense somewhere towards the end and the tone was slightly unfemenistic. All of a sudden the independent woman realizes that she's needed a man this entire time? Perhaps the best thing that happened was that after seeing Meryl Streep in "Doubt" my parents were very impressed with her acting range and are now fans. They are also starting to borrow good movies instead of sappy Bollywood flicks. My mom bought another Meryl Streep movie and is renting "The Reader". I did too, in fact, so I'll probably be writing about that later today. My parents actually had an argument about the conclusion of "Doubt" in the car.

I keep having dreams where I'm Buffy. Also in last night's dream was Chris, and it was a pleasant dream. I'm not implying something euphemistically there. It was just a nice dream, except for the werewolves and demon slaying.

So I'm going to keep up with summer vow #1, read real news. Stay tuned for more updates.

Edit 6:44pm:

The last entry brings up a point some people have nitpicked on. Do I consider myself beautiful? Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, because how I look throughout the day can vary considerably. I don't necessarily consider myself beautiful in the way I want to be all the time, either. What I am sure about is that other people can find me attractive.

It's nice to be in La Jolla, since most of the harassment I experienced in LA has stopped. I have heard many a time stories about how beautiful women bemoaned the cat-calls after they were gone, but it's nice to be surrounded by so many other pretty girls. That way if someone takes a special interest in me, it probably has more to do with me than my face.

I fell down the stairs this morning after my mom told me to come quietly. The kittens were curled up on the lawn chair and I took the above picture of them. Clingy was with Gaiylee on the lawn. We bought a bunch of books in the UCSD student store and ate at the Indian place. Now I'm going to clean and watch "The Reader".

Body of Issues

"Run Fatboy, Run" was good, but did not live up to my expectations. A parody of the romantic comedy genre, it ends up simply being another movie in the genre instead of satirizing the films it sets out to. Part of the problem lies in the Rom-com itself since as the films become more and more ridiculous the greatest exaggerations would not seem out of place in a "serious" film.

One of my issues with makeup is the fact that if anyone complemented my beauty they would be commenting on the illusion I created and not my actual face. Makeup, Spanx, and other such products are supposed to be beneficial to self-esteem, but how can that be if the finished product is not the actual woman? The complement is towards an imaginary creation, not to the real person. Is it healthy to think that someone needs all those products to be beautiful? What about when a significant other realizes who is under them, someone not the person initially presented? I personally prefer to present myself. Pretty or ugly, take me or leave me, at least it's me who is being judged with my acne-scarred face. Speaking of judgment, I'm not passing any who do use those products. I'm just genuinely puzzled. I have some artistic tendencies which sometimes manifest themselves in the way I dress and, sometimes, eyeshadow, which apparently can require an amount of creativity. But for those who feel they have to put on makeup every day, I don't understand the reasoning. I could apply the blanket statements enculutration and low self-esteem, but I don't feel as if that's fair.

"You have such perfect skin", my first boyfriend crooned. I was shocked at the compliment because I really don't, especially from an objective standpoint. My face has acne scarring and the skin on my calves is cracked. I also have a huge scar down the middle of my chest, though he didn't know that. I could go on, but I don't want to; the point is that I'm not perfect myself. An interesting note is that he was not the last to repeat that compliment, and none of these people were trying to get in my pants.

I guessed what this means is that the right partners don't notice our physical imperfections nearly as much as we do.

When someone tells a man he is not pretty, it is a comment on his appearance. If someone tells a woman that she is ugly it is seemingly taken as a comment on her whole being, as though the person is invalidating her. This is dumb, and I refuse to buy into the latter.

Contradictions

My family and I just finished watching "Doubt". The film's cinematography is gorgeous and made me feel as though we were looking at a moving painting. The editing and camera angles used were also well thought out. The story itself is great, portraying a battle between the stern, unchanging church and the "new" church. The actual answer to the question is left extremely ambiguous. Though I thought the movie was very well done, it was not as good as "Slumdog Millionaire".

As I said before, I'm not generally a fan of writing reviews.

Today I lazed around a lot and then had to go shopping with my mom in Kohl's and Ross. I couldn't finagle my way out of the trip as I had promised her I would go. Things went alright, and I got a new top and dress. I wish there were online discounts as good as the ones in Ross so that I never had to go into that store again. Also, considering all the time that the fashion industry spends marketing to thin women it would make sense to actually create clothing for them, but it can be very difficult to find any.

We spent about half an hour searching for a good handbag for me but got bored and gave up. Who knew that purses were this complicated? In Kohl's I found the perfect one, but it was made of genuine leather and I couldn't simply put my principles aside for a tote. Considering how long we spent searching and the fact that it was originally $115(Half off only today with extra 30% coupon on top), it was sort of a low blow.

My mom also wanted to buy me new shoes, but due to my aversion for heels that turned out to be a failure. In my opinion, heels are the new footbinding.

I spent a lot of time looking at Gaiylee and the kittens, who are becoming braver and bolder by the day. We have named the one my mom secretly wants to keep Dasha. There is the brave one, who is the least afraid of us and the biggest in the litter, the clingy one who is constantly attached to Gaiylee, and Socks who is adorable because between his socks, the little stripe of white on his face, and his huge ears he somehow becomes really cute. The last grey and white kitten has not don anything distinguishing him or herself from the rest of the kittens. How do you describe kittens pouncing, prancing, catching each other and their tails, climbing up the chairs on the patio and voraciously eating while their mother watches intently, only to fall asleep on the lawn? Words don't do justice to the show in our backyard.

I have some ideas bouncing around in my head right now, but I don't particularly feel like writing them down at the moment.

WhenI come home I sometimes re-read my children's and teenager books. They are extremely quick to go through and contain piles of nostalgia. Many generic writers targeting adults try extremely hard and fail while peppering their books with the content that places them in the adult category. The teenage novels are so refreshingly innocent. Anyways, nostalgia and reminding me of things I learned when I first read through the book, some concepts being entirely new at the time, are why I do this. It feels sort of silly to do this as a huge snob, but we read for many different reasons, eh?

I hope you all are having a great night. PS, Sorry about that Alex....

Wired Up

Today I went to a really interesting, fun place.

Was it Disneyland?
Was it Huntington Gardens?

It was THE DENTIST! I have to have my wisdom teeth pulled out at the end of the summer.

Watching kittens play in the sun while creating a thousand Hallmark moments is extremely relaxing.

I know that I should be calling my friends and telling them that I'm back in town, but I'm honestly having fun vegetating and feel too tired to set anything up. I will have another month to catch up with everyone, so I hope I can be forgiven.

One aspect of why I love working with living things is that there is no predicting exactly how the finished product will look or grow to be. The materials used in a project can be restricted within a certain aesthetic range, but the finished product will never be the exact replica of a mental picture. This is part of what I find so addictive about designing aquariums: even with a previous plan in mind the outcome is unknown.

Apparently, part of the book dedicated to Orpheus survives. I will attempt to find it online.*
*sentence serves as a reminder to me

I am extremely glad for the existence of 911.

Today I bought "Slumdog Millionaire" for my mom and rented "Doubt", which we will probably watch tomorrow. "Volver" was an interestingly portrayed window into the life of the lower class in Spain.

So I made a vow on this blog to re-start following "real" news over the summer quarter. The first news aggregate I'm going to catch up on is Wired. Right now I'm reading its culture section; let's see how long this takes. This article on 5 Toys from the 80's(It..has tons of global significance!) reminds me of all the playthings I wanted but could never have. This was a valuable lesson in consumerism and materialism, as I was perfectly fine without these products in the long run. Still, learning a programming language or playing with electronics is something that I would have loved to do as a kid, though I did learn BASIC as a child and it is BASICally useless. If you love Legoes, you probably want to click on the article and read about Erector sets. PS: maybe I'm still five, but that's a horrible name choice.

Also, this article on Googleconomics is really interesting. It's far too long for me to post all the relevant quotes in it, but it references some interesting ideas, a man who started doing formal mathematics when he was thirteen, and a highly successful business concept. The problem is that this makes me not want to read news and instead go off and do lots of math and physics.

If we were introduced to the concepts earlier I'm sure that most of us could have been doing formal mathematics by the time we were thirteen. So don't get too caught up in that.

This was posted a while ago, but anyone want to share their thoughts on the article entitled The New Socialism? I only started it, but while the premise is something that's been discussed since middle school I have a feeling that the article still sparked a lot of debate. For some reason this reminds me of high school when (world)news posted the day before was considered old happenings. Maybe it's because I was thinking of Jane when I wrote the first sentence in this paragraph.

Also, wetpaint may come in handy.

Friender Gender

I will wait to see Terminator on DVD as it only got 33% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I saw "Volver" today. It was not what I expected, though fans of Amadovar's previous work will probably recognize his style. I enjoyed it.

Friends of friends are people who 's lives, stories, and histories you constantly hear about. Sometimes when adding someone on Facebook or Blogger these people are present and active on your friend's page and these individuals have a Blog or Facebook of their own.

But, since technically these people are strangers, it is awkward to friend or talk to them. What if the individual hasn't heard about you?

Friending someone on Facebook isn't a big deal and in fact is probably a good way to start at least an acquaintance ship accompanied by a note such as "Hey, I'm so-and-so's friend and I've heard some cool stories about you!(Don't worry, none of it's gossip.) ". Commenting on someone's blog is much more personal since it implies that a stranger is reading that person's thoughts, which is why I also tend to avoid stranger's personal blogs. While that's the risk taken when posting things on the internet it's creepy to have that fear directly confirmed.

While getting to know someone generally is done on a person-by-person basis, what to you do in situations like this? I have let go several potential friendships myself out of a fear of seeming awkward or strange.

In other news, it's sort of interesting how "them" is becoming the third person singular instead of "he or she". I'm a big believer in there being a third gender and in fact identify greatly with the notion. Should I be putting that on the internet? Probably not.

Weekending

Welcome back, self! I'm so glad to see that you're alright. Where were you all weekend?

This Saturday I woke up when my parents came to my door. After doing a little extra cleaning and sorting a few things out we left San Diego. A small break at home was followed by indulging in my mom's favorite activity: shopping. I actually got a lot of new clothing, even though I was hopelessly bored by the end of the trip. Big Five also did not have a good punching bag for me. I read a little, then drifted off to sleep.

I spent yesterday mostly sitting around looking at kittens and talking with my parents. Chris and I exchanged our previously borrowed belongings. I went to see "Star Trek" with Christopher, which was great but didn't match up to my very high expectations. Also, a sun exploding would destroy a solar system, not a galaxy, and the Beastie Boys are apparently going to be popular for a reallllly long time on Earth? I want to see "Terminator" and "Up" in theatres.

Waking up the Girl

I MUST HAVE THESE. Black Panthers used to be my favorite animal and still hold a competitive place.

I also want to see this film.
"In the film, a man's blow-up sex doll comes to life one day (as Bae Doo-na, the Korean actress, whom genre film fans will recognize from The Host and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.) She steps out, discovers the world, gets a job, and starts dating a video store clerk."

Here is a cool article written by a stay at home dad.

"As we step, or are forced, into the new roles that are presented to us, perhaps we should not lament, or vainly grasp at the responsibilities we feel we should have, but instead sack up and embrace the ones that are right in front of us.

At least that’s what I try to remind myself before I clean the bathroom and change the diaper genie."

In last night's dream I was in a play which turned into "reality". At first I was accused of being Anti-American because I said something criticizing an action of the US government. I remember coming home from rehearsals and talking to my next-door neighbor about how uncomfortable a dog playground our downstairs neighbor had bought made me feel because my window was now easily accessible from the ground for anyone somewhat agile. My neighbor, with whom I am in real life and in the dream on good terms with, snapped back that she thought I was being extremely rude, and I resolved to speak with my downstairs neighbors myself. Anyways, the play involved being in some sort of military project. The officer in charge, who's rank was never stated, despised me even though I was instrumental in the efforts of the troop. What I remember involved my being targeted as the culprit in some acts of vandalism to a brick terrace among other places, but though the rest of the troop objected to my conviction I was resolved to be thrown into disciplinary action and then jail to meet some rebels for unclear reasons. The troop, meanwhile, was captured by some rebels, but then a twist took place which made the officer-in-charge the actual villain. The troop actually sort of reminds me of the infantry in "Starship Troopers", come to think of it.

The next dream I had included my mom, dad, and imaginary relatives, one of whom was a female cousin whom I was excited to see. We went scuba-diving in a huge aquarium which reminded me of Mandalay Bay's exhibit and included a huge mechanical puffer and sting ray. For some reason I kept changing clothes, and I had a really dirty frilly blue undershirt and long, brown peasant skirt on with a knitted blue sweater. One of the imaginary male cousins criticized me for reasons I can't remember, but had something to do with changing clothes. Then the dream switched to a portrayal of an Iron-man type scientist who interacts with an undefined blob and gains the ability to transform into a blob himself. His assistant and best friend fears for his sanity, and finally finds him when he causes some bacteria to photophloresce(not sure if that's a word). I remember doubting the scientific validity of this plot point in the dream. The scientist is known as a brilliant but childish. He could, however, still conquer the city. He eventually accepts his assistant's help, and I end up at UCSD somehow, where there are a lot of parties taking place.

Title is a pun on Garbage-"Breaking up the Girl". Nope, has nothing to do with this entry.