Quirrell, Defender of Earth

I hope you all appreciate that I spent hours making this video instead of packing for my two-week trip where I around 5 countries armed with nothing but a passport, a backpack, and a couple of phrase sheets for the four foreign languages that I'll need to know but have never learned.  Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, London.  It's going to be awesome!  I mean, my hostel in Berlin is a boat run by a hippie!  What could possibly be better?

P.S. If you find either of my really lame jokes funny, please do not hesitate to tell me.  If you didn't, I regret to inform you that the comments section is broken right now.

P.P.S.  Part of me is just waiting for someone to say, "But [insert Harry Potter fan here] already said all this!"  Yeah, well I didn't see it.  The problem with the Harry Potter fandom is that there's really nothing new to say.  Everyone's already talked it to death. 

OH MY GOD LONDON

As most of you are aware, I went to London last weekend for a YouTube gathering (which was totally awesome, but can best be summarized by this video:

).  

I just put a video in a parenthetical remark.  How weird is that?

It just so happened that the night I got in, 3/4 of the band formerly known as Sons of Admirals (according to Michael Aranda, it's complicated) did a gig 5 minutes from my hostel.  It was awesome, and I managed to get video footage of it all (if you aren't interested, just scroll down.  There's more blog after the videos, though the concert was quite good and you should be watching all three performers on YouTube - they are really awesome).  The gig in order is as follows:

I managed to talk to Alex Day and Eddplant after the show, and they were really nice, as is typical of big name YouTubers (this is why the YouTube community is awesome, guys).  I was also fortunate enough to meet up with some YouTubers named Ali (RogueBlueJay) and Austin (outofthedark) before the concert, and we hung out with Michael Aranda for a few minutes afterward.  Most of you might not understand why you should care about these random people named Alex Day, Eddplant, and Michael Aranda, but just know that they are really respected and admired within the YouTube community.

So Saturday was the YouTube gathering, as I mentioned before, which was fun, but mostly just involved a bunch of YouTubers hanging out, playing with iPads in a Mac Store, and making lip-sync videos with less than 20 minutes prep time (see above).  

Sunday I went on a walking tour of London in the morning and then I went to the Science Museum in the afternoon with some YouTubers before catching the train home in the evening.  Here's a picture of the museum gang:

Remember that Michael Aranda fellow I mentioned before?  Yeah, he was there, and I was really impressed that over the course of the three hours I spent with the group he didn't demonstrate any signs of an over-inflated ego or act in any way like he was better than us. Austin and Ali were also there, along with several other great people who I was simply too lazy to tag in Paint.  Sorry.  :(

The Science Museum was great.  Michael and Ali and I worked on solving a "build a bridge out of blocks" puzzle for about 20 minutes, with occasional assistance from Austin.  A girl who was maybe 8 years old joined in to help about 10 minutes in.  She then solved it within a minute (maybe two) of the rest of us giving up.  That hurt.  

Well, that's probably enough information for now.  Needless to say, that was one of the best weekends of my life.  VidCon 2010 was better, but I plan on having the very best weekend of my life in 4.5 months at VidCon 2011!  I've booked all the tickets and everything.  And this time I'll actually know people there!  :D

Here is the important conclusion: Between my loving family, my awesome (non-YouTube) friends, my incredible summer job researching HIV in Seattle, my amazing opportunity to study and travel abroad, and the fantastic YouTube community, I have the best life in the world.  Bar none. 

Ali: http://www.youtube.com/user/RogueBlueJay

Austin: http://www.youtube.com/user/outofthedark

Michael Aranda: http://www.youtube.com/user/michaelaranda

The Concert Peformers:

Eddplant: http://www.youtube.com/user/eddplant

Alex Day: http://www.youtube.com/user/nerimon

Tom Milsom: http://www.youtube.com/user/hexachordal

Charlie McDonnell and the Where's Waldo Button

I've been working on this thing for a week. Definitely the most technically complicated video so far (particularly without my good editing software). And so much footage to dig through and so many things I changed after I shot the footage!  Oh well, 'tis done now, and good thing, too, for I've been wanting to make this video for months. Time to sleep.

Loch'd in Translation

Ye gods!  A video!

I need to acknowledge that I stole the word "Loch'd" straight from the title of Katie's blog, as I am not witty enough to have come up with it first.  

In related news, I'm going to Loch Lomond all day tomorrow!  I'm really excited.  :D

The Birthday Paradox

In forty minutes, I turn 21.  Or maybe it's 8 hours and 40 minutes.  Birthdays are profoundly disorienting when you're an ocean and a continent away from the time zone you were born and (mostly) raised in.  Hell, I wasn't actually born until about 5:17 AM (or thereabouts), so maybe I'm not really 21 until it's 1:17 PM here.  I never really had to deal much with that question back home, having been born at an ungodly hour before most people even consider waking up.

All I know is that for some reason, this really matters to me.  Maybe it's because turning 21 is a really important birthday in the U.S.  Maybe it's because it's the last birthday where you gain privileges rather than simply get one year closer to the grave.  It doesn't really matter here, though.  I bought a beer around two weeks ago just for the hell of it (and to try and train myself to hate the taste less), and it was all perfectly legal.  Mostly, though,  I think I just miss my family and friends from back home.  Here I don't have anyone I know well enough to celebrate the midnight turnover with.

I think my 20th year has been a good one, and probably one of my most interesting so far.  I built a hammer, discovered the vlogging community on YouTube (yay Charlie McDonnell), found the true potential of blogs (Hyperbole and a Half) watched a Doctor Who season as it aired for the first time, started blogging, moved three times, had a summer job making faces at crayfish, went to VidCon, started vlogging, made friends and got subscribers on YouTube, found out how to use a Hamiltonian in quantum chemistry, learned the entire mechanism for digesting glucose (then promptly forgot it), learned genetics, learned Linear Algebra, wrote a paper on yeast and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, discovered some awesome hammocks, beat Mass Effect 2, went to a California beach for the first time, woke up early to watch the World Cup, discovered a Very Potter Musical, beat the first boss on Ninja Gaiden, got most of the way through Jade Empire, lived in a house for the first time, made friends with my housemates, drank alcohol for the first time (peach beer is disgusting, yo), left the country to study in Scotland, met people from all over the world, and wrote an essay on The Irish Question, which I turned in today.

You know what?  I've just confirmed something that I've believed for a long time.  See, before I started writing that list, I hadn't even thought about most of those items, including VidCon.  Frakking VidCon, THE highlight of my life so far (no joke).  The only reason I thought I'd had a really interesting year was Scotland.  But looking back, I lived this year.  That's the thing.  We live more than we think we do, more than our memories let us remember right off the bat.  At least it's true for me.  For example, I always think about how much time I wasted as a child playing video games and watching TV.  But then I find myself talking about all these really obscure things I did or learned or saw or thought growing up, and I realize that my life happens.  I don't know how to explain it better than that.  I have wasted a lot of time, but I have also accomplished a ton of things and seen and felt a lot.

You know what?  I think I'm ready to turn 21 now.  I wasn't before.  I still feel a bit sad, because if homesickness is going to kick in when you're abroad, it's going to be on your birthday.  But I'm okay.  When I started this year, I was a Washingtonian.  However, my homesickness tells me that I am now Californian as well.  And if my regret at the semester moving too fast is any indication, I have a home here in Scotland too.  I can't help but feel lucky that wherever I go, I now have the option of being homesick for three different places.

Now if you'll excuse me, I turn 21 in five minutes.  And then again in 8 hours and five minutes, and then one more time in 13 hours and 21 minutes.  How many people are fortunate enough to turn 21 three times in one day?

Cake or death?

A point to all of you who know the origin of the title.  Double points if you have the whole speech memorized, and fifty points to any of you who thought, "Oh ho!  That whole sketch was about the Church of England, therefore this post is going to be about religion!"  If any of you did earn those fifty points, please turn off your computer and your television and go outside for a while, because you are more plugged in and crazy than I am and that's saying something. 

As most or all of you know, I'm agnostic.  Now, to clear up any terminology issues, when I say agnostic I mean that I don't believe in God and don't believe there isn't a God - I quite simply don't know one way or the other.  I was raised in a household without much exposure to religion and a great deal of exposure to the scientific method, so the latter trumps the former.  But since I can't disprove God's existence just as much as I can't prove it, I'm stuck floating in between somewhere.

Do I lean one way or the other?  Depends on what day it is, honestly.  Days when I'm feeling especially down-to-earth rational, I lean against belief.  Days when I can't handle the idea of neuroscience because the whole human consciousness could not possibly be created from one single brain filled with so few neurons?  Those are the days I almost believe in a soul.  And yes, I was a neuroscience major until I hit that wall.  I couldn't handle progressing in a field with such an important, potentially unanswerable question. 

I guess the point that I want to make here - something that I didn't realize until this very sentence - is that agnosticism is not the same as apathy.  For evidence, please see the last post where I couldn't concentrate on homework for nearly three hours because I was compelled to break down Tron: Legacy into its bite-sized Catholic symbolism components.

The thing is, I love religion.  I've written a whole post on why religious studies classes are so important.  Most of the people of the world are religious, and when you understand the ideas of the major world religions, you understand people.  Many wars, stories, and actions only really make sense in the context of religion.  That's why the three books that will never leave my dorm room are the Bible, the English Translation of the Meaning of the Qur'an, and the Book of Mormon.  If anyone feels like giving me a copy of the Talmud or the Ramayana, I'll gladly add it to that collection.

The problem is that collecting religion is not the same as being part of one, but I fear that it is too late for me.  If you want to try and convert me, go ahead - it makes me feel happy that someone cares about my immortal soul (just don't be sneaky or manipulative about it, because that kind of behavior severely pisses me off).  But if you try, know that many others have come before you.  Hell, I've tried to convert me to something, and it's always failed.

It's always seemed like being part of a religion would make life better.  Not easier, mind you, because from what I understand, if you do it right, being part of a religion takes a lot of time and searching and doubt.  But religion gives you a special community and a certain fulfillment when you live and comfort when you die.  But like I said, I think it's too late for me.  It's something I've learned to live with.

But sometimes, just in case someone is listening, I pray.  And when I do pray, I pray for the things I think God would want to answer, because if there is something that observation has taught me, I don't think God directly intervenes with cancer removal or test scores.  I mean, if all the Unitarian Universalists suddenly started winning the lottery and getting miraculously cured of their AIDS through intensive prayer, we'd have heard about it by now.  So I pray for things that aren't tangible, things that don't require massive changes in the cause-and-effect of the world.  Like if you're out there, help me find you and help make my work ethic better or  make me a kinder person or help my friend through her illness.  Because if every once in a while I offer a well-intentioned prayer to make myself a better person instead of to have the world bend itself to my needs, just maybe, maybe, someone might answer.

In the name of the Father and of the Tron...

As pretty much all of you who read this know, I saw TRON: Legacy last weekend.  For reasons even I don’t fully understand, I loved it.  A big part of it was due to the fact that I actually liked the story and it made sense to me, unlike the many critics who just couldn’t follow it or didn’t like what they did understand.  Looking back at the story, I can see two main reasons why.

1) I have watched the original TRON within the last 4 months

2) I attended a Catholic high school.

Weren’t expecting that second one, were you?  But as it happens, TRON: Legacy is filled with crazy-tons of religious symbolism and biblical stories all piled together in one mish-mash of awesome, something which my years of Bible study and comparative religion have allowed me to appreciate.  Now I am by far not the first person to point out the obvious religious symbolism in the movie, but I’d like to put my own take on some of the details.  Here’s a pretty spoiler free-one - the opening narration that sets the tone for the movie:

The grid.

A digital frontier.

I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer.

What did they look like?

Ships?  Motorcycles?

Were the circuits like freeways?

I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see.

And then, one day,

I got in.

What I love about this is the way it’s spoken.  At least on the soundtrack, the whole thing has the feeling of a religious story or an old fairy tale.  In a strange way, it almost feels like someone reciting the words of a prophet’s story written in the Bible.  Here, take a look at what happens when just a few nouns are swapped out:

Heaven.

A spiritual frontier.

I tried to picture clusters of souls as they moved through the realm.

What did they look like?

Ghosts?  People?

Were the angels like humans?

I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see.

And then, one day,

I got in.

This is what really got me thinking about the religious symbolism of the movie, and what I found is really interesting.  But for those of you who haven’t watched the movie yet, please don’t continue reading until you have.  The movie is worth seeing all theatrical-like and in 3D without spoilers (just make sure that you watch the original movie first or else the story will be harder to understand and much less fun).  If you need, here’s the original movie all in one go on YouTube: 

HERE THAR BE SPOILERS.

Right-o.  So in TRON: Legacy, we have Kevin Flynn, a User and the father of Sam Flynn, who is trapped in a world in which he has god-like powers and which he has, in part or in whole, created.  Many cycles ago, Flynn created a program named Clu in his own image.  Flynn’s command to Clu was simple: help create a perfect world.  Flynn and Clu worked together in harmony to perfect the digital world until a new kind of program appeared.  These programs were called ISOs, and they were unique for appearing spontaneously without having been programmed and for having the ability to evolve and learn, almost like they had souls.  Kevin Flynn (the Father) sees these new creations as wonderful miracles with great potential to shape the future, and they become his favored children in The Grid.  Clucifer (sorry, couldn’t resist) sees these programs (humans) as flaws in a perfect system, seeks to destroy all of them, and rebels against the Father to usurp him and take over The Grid.  

In what is possibly the best metaphorical answer to the question “If God exists, where is he now and why isn’t he doing anything about all these wars” that I’ve ever seen, Flynn ends up hiding from Clu outside of the Grid proper in a home where he mostly sits around and meditates on nature of the universe while looking exactly like Michelangelo’s interpretation of God:

Seriously, the hair, the beard, the robes, the weird thing(s) on his back…

The reason given for him not leaving and, say, doing something in either of his worlds is that if he does, Clucifer will instantly find him, grab his info disc, and hitch it up to his digital Tower of Babel so that he and his army of fallen angels humans programs can walk amongst the Users and cause an Apocalypse by taking over the world.  Clu’s rebel programs have two possible origins: either they turned to serve him willingly (Castor, for instance) or they were brainwashed and corrupted into serving him instead of the Users.

Flynn’s only company is Quarra, the last remaining ISO, a young woman who is naïve and pure and innocent and completely loyal to him, making her possibly the first time that the Virgin Mary has been so clearly realized as a digital character. 

Ultimately, the restoration of the balance in the world only comes about when Sam Flynn, Kevin Flynn’s approximately thirty year old Son who shares the same substance as his Father (flesh, blood, and DNA as opposed to zeroes and ones) becomes data incarnate.  His mission: rescuing his father to get him (and by extension his father’s corporate message of generosity and good will) back to the physical world, which will in turn save his father’s company (his father’s people) from its path of selfishness and corruption.  In doing so, he also helps his father to purify the Grid of Clu’s evil influence and saves the last of the ISOs (humanity) before both he and the Virgin Mary stand-in are assumed, body and soul, back into heaven/reality.

Clearly there are problems with this analysis, what with things like the programs standing in for both humans and angels as necessary and the Son falling in love with the Virgin Mary.  But hey, I never claimed that this movie was an exact Biblical retelling, just that there's a lot of religious symbolism in this movie.  I think I've proven my point.  I hope at least one person cares about this, because I've just blown about 2.5 hours of quality homework time getting this out of my system.