insurance and greasy food

As you may or may not know, I've been taking a life/health insurance prelicensing class all week. Yes, 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. I had a wonderful teacher, a funny lady who made sarcastic comments about insurance policies and laws. I swear it was her who made the subject actually mildly interesting. In fact, I was so interested that I went around asking to read my family members' insurance policies. Sure, part of my job will be to explain insurance contracts to clients, but it's kind of like figuring out puzzles, reading those contracts.

A side bonus of taking this class was that I ran across a British restaurant called Brit's Fish and Chips. I passed by it while walking from the office where my class took place to Pasadena City College. The sign outside said "best fish and chips outside Liverpool," and, having been to Liverpool (tho not having had fish and chips there), I hoped, rather than believed, it would be authentic. The following Friday I went back there, taking Marianne with me as she lives close by (it turned out that her fav Italian restaurant is next door). We ordered fish and chips and a Cornish pastie, and THEY WERE GOOD. As in, I-could've-been-in-England GOOD. The fried fish was made of whole pieces of fish filet dipped in beer batter rather than fish patties US restaurants usually serve. That, if nothing else, was very impressive. I also had a glass of Blackthorn cider, which I last had in Brighton, for nostalgia's sake. They ran out of apple pie, but we had treacle pudding with custard. Mmm....custard. So if you're looking for good, authentic British food, I heartily recommend this place (on Colorado half a block east of PCC). Next time, I'm having bangers and mash.

an improvement

Today's insurance class was definitely better than yesterday's. We learned about different types of life insurances policies and the components of an insurance contract. WOOHOOO!!!!!! No, really. I was way more engaged than I was yesterday when we dealt mostly with definitions and words like "principal" and "consideration" which had meanings no normal person uses. I even participated more in class than I ever did in my English classes. I wonder what that means...

And...tomorrow I drive my dad's manual Nissan Sentra to class. Considering how many times I stalled the car tonight...wish me luck. And expect a post about learning to drive stick, too.

Today I sat in a classroom all day and learned about insurance. Yay.
I may write more on it later. Right now I feel like shit. 9-hour days suck.

ludology

Apparently the academic study of gaming is finally becoming mainstream. I say it's about time. This article linked from Games Slashdot talks about critical study of gaming that is cropping up around universities. I would so have studied this if USC had offered it a few years ago. Somebody named the study of games "ludology," which part of me hopes doesn't catch on because it sounds so damned silly.

www.ludology.org
www.ludonauts.com/

final fantasy in concert!

From Games Slashdot today: "Square Enix has officially announced the first U.S.-based Final Fantasy Concert. Entitled 'Dear Friends', it will take place in Los Angeles at the Walt Disney Concert Hall this May 10th, and will feature melodies from the entire series composed and arranged by Nobuo Uematsu." According to the announcement on Square Enix's page, the concert will kick off its presence at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and will be performed by the L.A. Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. I am so going to be there!!

journaling

I admit that I'm not the best journaler in the world. I have trouble keeping a daily routine in something that's not a necessity, though to be honest I haven't really pushed myself to do so. I do have pen-and-paper journal at the moment, and I jot down something in it every once in a while when something important happens and I suddenly remember to. Even then my entries are rather short and don't usually contain all my thoughts on a subject/event. This is mostly because a) I write slow and b) I journal at night when I'm already tired. So my paper journaling tends to be sporatic at best. I think I'd started journaling in Word once, but for some reason I just keep forgetting to return to it. Too lazy to open up Word, maybe. However, since I've started watching Oprah recently, I went poking around on her website and discovered an online journal section. It offers about four or five different types of journals (e.g. daily, gratitude, health, create-your-own, etc), the purpose of which is to provide direction and helps you reflect on different parts of your life. It's already working pretty well for me because a) I type way faster than I write, b) I put a link to it on my Mozilla toolbar and it's the most natural thing to go there while I'm online, and c) the guidelines give me something to write even when I don't think I have something to write about. AND it's searchable. Yay! Thank you, Oprah.

I suppose some people might be worrying about the privacy issues of journaling online. No, the journal section is not on a secure site and any hacker with a little diligence might be able to hack it. But...what for? Sure, the stuff I write isn't something I'd let other people read, mostly because it's where I work out my thought processes and feelings. If someone I know were to read it (since I don't know why someone I don't know would even bother or care), I wouldn't be that embarassed about it either because it's nothing I wouldn't tell people if they had asked. As Dr. Phil said (I think it was him), "People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing."

more of the rings

So I finished Fellowship of the Rings today, and it was...okay. There was a bit of trudging through here and there, but not too bad. The movie didn't do a bad job of following the storyline, all things considered, though the book did fill in some of the plot holes for me (like why Gimli didn't know all the dwarves in Moria died). And I must say, while there are some discrepancies between the book and movie voices of certain characters (i.e. the way they talk, words they use, etc), which are understandable aftereffects of adapting book to film, the characters of Sam and Gollum are just SPOT ON. I had no trouble placing the movie voices into the book characters at all, whereas I did with other characters. This probably has more to do with the way the dialogue is adapted than with the strength of the actors though.

I just looked up John Rhys-Davies on IMDB. I KNEW I've heard that name somewhere. He played Professor Arturo on Sliders and Leonardo Da Vinci in a few episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. I loved his portrayal of both characters, but I didn't recognize him the entire time I watched the trilogy. Probably because he's normally twice as tall.

this is why i hate television

Since I have a lot of free time these days, I've started watching TV again, mostly specific shows like Dr. Phil, Oprah, CSI, Gilmore Girls, and Pokemon. Even then, I still get residual crap through commercials for the local news and Entertainment Tonight and other shows about people I don't care about. I'm sure you've all heard about the Janet Jackson "exposure" (whether you'd like to or not), and it even made it onto today's Megatokyo. I apologize for bringing it up yet again, but I'd just like to say that if it's a publicity issue, then it could be resolved by NOT banging the topic over people's heads over and over again (hello? who's giving them publicity?). If it's a breast issue, well, I hate to break it to them, but half the world's population has breasts. Get over it.