An Example of Why Scientists May Never Figure Out the Human Brain

Out of completely fucking NOWHERE, the Friends theme song popped into my head and wouldn’t GET THE FUCK OUT. Yes, the Friends theme song. You know what I’m talking about. In fact, I hope you hear it in your head right now.

I’ll be there for youuuuuu
When the rain starts to fall
I’ll be there for youuuuuu
Cause you’re there for me tooooooooooooo

That will take at least 15 minutes to shake off. I hope you suffer like I did. Only thing is, I had no impetus, absolutely no reason, to have such a horrible thing happen to me. I was minding my own business, taking a dip in the pool after doing some honest hard work, and my brain was apparently pissed.

I can’t even remember the last time I heard the song, yet in my head I could hear it loud and clear, as if I had been watching Friends re-runs for the past 10 years every day, when the reality is the complete opposite. I know a commercial for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia spoofed that water fountain crap, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t use the song. So where did the song come from? What could possibly trigger such an occurrence?

How the brain is wired is one of the biggest questions in science nowadays, and something like this serves to illuminate why. How could such a random thing be quanitified? Jumping into cold water –> Friends theme song? Maybe because they’re both kinda painful? That’s the only possible connection I can think of. It’s incomprehensible stuff like this that no A.I. program will be able to duplicate — at least not for a long, long time.

On a side and final note, I’ve heard numerous people say how the American version The Office is basically Friends all over again. Now, I think Season 2 of The Office is one of the best seasons of television I’ve seen, so it’s hard for me to accept the comparison, no matter how shitty it gets and how much relationship drama they come up with. But I did watch Friends when I was a pre-teen, and I remembered *gasp* liking it. I am tempted to watch the first couple of seasons just for research purposes to see if it’s actually good. Purely scientific, I swear.

Damn it, why did that song have to pop into my head uninvited? Look at what I just wrote.

REAL TALK - 6/25/08

Keeping up the motivation for blogging is pretty tough. Especially since I don’t have delusions of ever writing anything for money.

Let’s get this out of the way now: Starcraft II looks like shit.

Staying on that topic, Valve has surpassed Blizzard as ultimate PC developer. The former’s awesome constant updates to TF2 have confirmed this fact. Blizzard spending the majority of their time on WoW left the door open.

I think today might have the first time I actually worked for the majority of an 8-hour workday. So far at my new job, this has been more appropriate:

On a related note, I can’t read Deadspin at work. I absolutely lose it sometimes. For example, I couldn’t stop laughing for at least 15 minutes after reading these comments (WARNING: Only funny if you have grown up listening to the Mike and the Mad Dog radio program). For the rest of the day, I kept hearing Chris Russo yelling, “I said anchovies, you cocksucker! What? You don’t fuck with me– I’m The Mad Dog!!”

This is a tip for the ladies. If you don’t talk, then 1) if you dress conservatively = quiet girl 2) if you don’t = stuck-up bitch. This is how we men think — please don’t kill the messenger.

Redheads are either hideous or gorgeous. There is no middle ground. I can’t even come up with a punchline for that. Now you can kill the messenger.

Wimbledon 2008. If Federer wins: He’s still got it, greatest player ever, Sampras am fucked. If Federer loses: His reign at the top is over, he might never break Sampras’ record, Nadal owns his soul. I’m going with the latter.

The kid in this GIF is how I feel whenever I watch the Mets:

Speaking of feeling, I think I have schizophrenia of some sort coming on, as I had some of the weirdest dreams I’ve ever had a few nights ago (one involving mock Nazi rallies and one where I got shot in the face multiple times), and then the following day I didn’t recognize my handwriting as my own at one point. Soon enough, I’ll start waking up not knowing how I got there. Oh wait, crap. Damn you, alcohol.

The Dark Knight has to be the most anticipated movie among my friends since The Matrix Reloaded. Another parallel: I plan on making The Dark Knight the second film I see in IMAX, after The Matrix Reloaded. Let’s hope the similarities end there. Oh shit, the actress who played the Oracle died before Reloaded came out…

This is one of my favorite NeoGAF posts in a while:

So did i. Though as a reminder of just how awesome Weathers is

Carl Weathers should run against Arnold in California so they can greet each other at debates this way

Imagining that provides me with immense joy.

Brillant Seinfeld Parody (Tribute?) Comic

Courtesy of F@NB0Y$ via NeoGAF. That link to the site contains the full-size image if you can’t read this.

I promise I will really update tomorrow.

Daft Punk Alive 2007 Fan Videos

So we all know who Daft Punk is, right? They’re the electronic band everyone seems to love in some capacity. Their most recent release is a live album called Alive 2007. It’s pretty freaking awesome, and I honestly don’t even like any of their studio stuff.

Now, the Alive 2007 tour has been regarded as one of the best ever by many, a spectacle with no equal. So it’s fairly puzzling as to why Daft Punk never released a DVD of it. To fill this gaping void, one fan started to compile fan videos to create a fan DVD of Alive 2007. He uploaded a song at a time, and he said when he was done, he would create a DVD of it and release it to the public.

…but then he decided not to, disappointing fans across the world. Fortunately, one NeoGAF poster took it upon himself to take all the separate videos and put them in a .RAR file and throw it up on Mininova.

Here’s the torrent.

Please seed it as well after you’re done downloading (which probably won’t be for a while). Don’t be a worthless leech. I only wish my upload speed was better.

And if anyone uses Digg, please digg this. The more people, the better.

Dragonforce - Through the Fire and the Flames: 100% FC

FC = Full Combo, or NO MISTAKES WHATSOEVER. Sound is a bit lagged.

There are no words.

Dumb Game Show Contestants

Self-explanatory title. These people make fools of themselves on national TV. You probably have seen a couple of these already, but whatever.

And so I don’t seem racist, here’s a white person:

Running is Pretty Much the Most Painful Thing Ever

More painful than being one of those cyclists in my last post. Than getting tortured via ball-slamming Casino Royale-style. Than fighting Kimbo Slice. Than kicking your shins up against a tree over and over Kickboxer-style. Than falling 30 feet off a halfpipe.

I don’t know what a “runner’s high” is. I’ve never experienced it. I’ve only experienced regret as I realized I have run over a mile away from my house. It seems a person needs to be a special type of masochist to enjoy running. Heck, I’m an emotional masochist myself, but not physical. I rather play an actual sport than just RUN. It’s so goddamn boring. I tried going for a run yesterday and was winded 7 minutes in. I tried listening to LCD Soundsystem - 45:33 while I ran, but I was already back home by the time it started reaching its climax. Failure.

Running just sucks. I will never get it.

Soccer is Fundamentally Flawed

I assume I have your attention now. No, this is not a “soccer is boring” post. This is about PKs (Penalty Kicks to most Americans), and how it is ridiculous that championship soccer matches come down to them.

Like ending a baseball game with a home run derby, like ending a football game with a field goal contest, like ending a basketball game with a free throw shooting contest (oh wait, that happens a lot). Those are the analogies most people throw out there, and it’s understandable. Soccer fans of course would argue that they aren’t the same thing at all, and they’re probably right, but I still think PKs are extremely dumb.

No matter how you slice it, PKs are a mini-game. Championship soccer games often come down to a mini-game. I’ve used the argument about hockey games going on as long as they need to go, but I concede the point that it is definitely harder for a soccer team to score a goal. My friend Chris also said that teams would just play defensively, and that the soccer players are much more fatigued than the hockey players: continuing to play indefinitely is just not realistic. Fine, I’ll take that premise to be true, even if many Canadians would argue. I played soccer up until high school and I know that I was winded like the entire time, and I’ve never played hockey.

So how about taking a player or two off the field? Would that make it easier to score? How about making the field smaller? Of course, neither of these things is going to happen, as soccer seems very grounded in tradition, like baseball. But if the basic format of soccer doesn’t realistically result in a winner all of the time, and has to resort to a mini-game, doesn’t that mean the sport is flawed? It needs to be easier to score, goddamn it!

I’ve heard fans on both sides of the argument when it comes to PKs, but I can imagine that the players hate them almost to a man — especially goalies. PKs are ridiculously close to the goal, it’s just insane. But this whole post was pointless. Nothing is going to change. Americans like myself will continue ridiculing soccer, and the rest of the world — and Americans who want to live in the rest of the world — will continue rioting at soccer matches.

PS3 Owners: Please Don’t Subscribe to Qore

You have free online. Don’t throw it away.

If you haven’t heard of Qore, it’s a new gaming show that will be available only on PSN, and a subscription to it will include exclusive content like themes, demos, and betas. And it’s hosted by Veronica Belmont. Here’s a link about it. The fact that it’s hosted by her and I still think it’s garbage should be a warning sign.

It’s $2.99 a show or $24.99 for a year (13 episodes) subscription. Yes, it’s not really that much, but this is only the first step. Yes, it’s half the price of a year subscription to Xbox Live, but the latter is REQUIRED for a 360 owner to play online. You can already play PS3 games online for free. 360 owners are powerless once they own the console. Live is what makes the 360 worth it, but I always hoped free online on the PS3 would help drive the price down, or make MS truly pump up the features of Live somehow (dedicated servers anyone?). Unfortunately, PSN and PS3 haven’t exactly lit up the gaming world, and MS is able to get away with charging $50 a year because Live is vastly superior.

If you subscribe to Qore, you are throwing away your free online forever. Sony will make sure to come up with more online features to put a price tag on. It’s DLC all over again. The only DLC I bought was the COD4 map pack, and I wholeheartedly regret it. Especially now that PC gamers are getting them for free. Learn from my mistake. Do not spend money on Qore. There is plenty of videogame-related content on the internet readily available for free. You can live without those demos and betas. Tell Sony to shove their sly scheme up their ass. All console gamers would reap the benefits. Except Wii-only owners. But they don’t count anyway.

I’m Going to Watch Baseball All Night

The Yankee game, then the Met game. Joba, then Pedro. These are two big starts — not as big as some might think — but they could set the tone until each pitcher’s next start.

A bad start from Joba will have Yankee fans calling into WFAN for the rest of the week talking about how dumb a decision it was to move Joba out of his 8th inning slot. Hell, whenever Farnsworth blows an 8th inning, there’s going to be outcry as well. It’s going to be unbearable. And if he does well, then Hank Steinbrenner will say what a genius he is. Whoever wins, we lose.

A bad start from Pedro won’t create as big a spectacle, but it definitely wouldn’t help. Especially coming off another godawful start by Oliver Perez, a.k.a. the most frustrating and infuriating pitcher I have ever seen. Five or six decent innings out of Pedro is all I’m asking for. Three or four runs. That’s not even decent, but he’s coming off an injury, and it should be better than whatever Barry Zito manages. The Mets better light his hippie ass up.

So excuse me while I sit my sick self on the couch for the next 6 hours or so.