I'm a Motorcycle Chick!

*Painstakingly screenshot by the amazing, brilliant, handsome, and talented Sebastian.*

Even though I've been living here for almost a year, I only just got my Hawaii driver's license this week. Shame on me. I guess as a student I can say I'm still legally living with my parents. Well anyway, my old license was about to expire, so I went through the delightful process of Hawaii's out-of-state license transfer. This involved filling out an application, waiting in line six or seven times (they kept pointing, "OK, now wait in that line there," "Now wait in that line," "Now go back to that line"), and passing a written test: 30 pretty easy multiple choice questions, 6 or fewer wrong counting as a pass--actually harder than the test I took in my home state which allowed 6 wrong out of a total of 20 (!) questions. Two hours later, I emerged from the Driver License Location with my hard-earned prize.

I was disappointed to find that they've changed the appearance of the Hawaii license since the days of Superbad, so it doesn't look like McLovin's license. Still, it's nice to have the Hawaii license. I feel more like a local, even though my student ID already qualified me for kama'aina rates. And my old license was still a sideways "Under 21 License", so people would have to search for the "under 21 until" date before letting me into clubs or allowing me to buy a drink (you know, the four times that has happened).

Today, I was looking at my license more closely. My picture on the license isn't great (the flash caught me a really bad way somehow), but then again, it could have been worse. After frowning at my photo for a while, I noticed something rather curious. On the back of the license, under "CLASS", it says "MOTOR SCOOTERS & MOTORCYCLES".



That's weird. I've never ridden a motorcycle in my life. I don't think I've ever so much as touched the handlebars of a moped. Why would my license say "motorcycles" on it? Hmm, let's look at the front (heavily censored to protect the guilty; the birthday can stay because anyone who can subtract can already figure it out from this blog).



See that "9. Cl: 2"? It's funny, because I vaguely remember the guy I turned the application form into putting a "3" in the "Class" box on the application. What do these numbers mean, anyway? This is what the different classes qualify the driver to drive, according to a State of Hawaii Driver License Requirements document:
1 - Motor scooters 5 HP or less.
2 - Motorcycles over 5 HP and motor scooters.
3 - Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 15,000 pounds or less and vehicles designed to transport 15 or fewer passengers, including the driver.

Huh. That last one sounds more like what I would have expected. But my license shows that I am instead qualified to drive motorcycles over 5 HP as well as motor scooters! Harley-Davidson, here I come! Wheeee!

Looks like someone oopsied. I don't know if they couldn't read the writing on the application or just hit the wrong key on the keyboard, but I just got a license for something that I am wholly unqualified to drive. And the times I've been driving my car in the past three days? Technically not legal. Not that a police officer who happened to ask to see my license wouldn't understand the mix up, right? Right?

Anyway, I will be calling the driver license people next week (they're not open on the weekend) and will have to go in for a new one. Hopefully they have the proper records so I don't need to go through the whole process again. But in the meantime... maybe I should take this opportunity to go out for a fun ride while I'm arguably legal? It's a nice weekend... My parents even are in town visiting. I'm sure they'd love a nice motorcycle ride along the coast.

Photo at the top, for those who don't recognize it, is from Dollhouse. I even have the socks already. It's just meant to be!

2010 Primetime Emmy Nominations

The 2010 Primetime Emmy nominees were announced this morning. Let's see how "my shows" fared.

Glee was one of the big winners of the morning, with a total of 19 nominations, including one for Outstanding Comedy Series. Apparently there are some Gleeks in the Academy. Matthew Morrison (Will Schuester) and Lea Michele (Rachel Berry) received nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor and Actress in a Comedy Series, and Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester) and Chris Colfer (Kurt Hummel) got nods for Outstanding Supporting Actress and Actor in a Comedy. A few guest stars also got recognized, with Outstanding Guest Actor/Actress nominations for Mike O'Malley (Kurt's dad Burt) in the episode "Wheels" (where he argues for Kurt's right to audition for "Defying Gravity"), Kristin Chenoweth (April Rhodes) in "The Rhodes Not Taken" (the first episode she was in where April joins the glee club), and Neil Patrick Harris (Bryan Ryan) for "Dream On". Glee also got nominations for writing in the pilot episode, and directing in the pilot episode and the episode "Wheels". If you're interested in the other nine nominations Glee got, they were for casting, art direction, interactive media, costumes, sound mixing, and two noms each for hairstyling and makeup. All very well deserved.

Lost got some nice recognition for its epic final season. It was nominated for Outstanding Drama Series for the fourth time in its six-season run (it has only won the award once, for its first season). Matthew Fox (Jack) finally got his nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and, as they have before, Michael Emerson (Ben Linus) and Terry O'Quinn ("Locke") were nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama. Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet) got an Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series nomination for her role in final episode "The End". Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof were nominated for Outstanding Writing for a Drama for "The End", which also received nominations for directing, editing, sound editing, sound mixing, and music composition. Lost also got an art direction nod for episode "Ab Aeterno".

OK, now that I have the big ones out of the way, I'm just going to do a quick overview of the rest.

Big Bang Theory got a nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy for Jim Parsons (Sheldon Cooper). It also got an Outstanding Guest Actress nom for Christine Baranski as Leonard's mom in episode "The Maternal Congruence".

How I Met Your Mother earned Neil Patrick Harris yet another supporting actor nomination for his role as Barney Stinson. But the show also got a nomination for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for "Nothing Suits Me Like a Suit" in the episode "Girls vs. Suits". Classic.

Canceled FlashForward got a tiny bit of recognition with a cinematography nod for episode "No More Good Days", as well as nods for stunts and music composition. My dear Fringe had to make due with a single sound editing nomination. A shame. Chuck also got one measly little nom, for stunt coordination.

Lastly, So You Think You Can Dance got two nominations for Outstanding Choreography: Stacey Tookey for her "Fear" dance, and Mia Michaels for "Gravity/Addiction", "Koop Island Blues" (aka "the butt dance"), and "One" (a group dance I had largely forgotten). The addiction dance gives me chills every time I rewatch it (which is a lot), so I hope she wins. No nomination for Sonya Tayeh, though--maybe next year. SYTYCD's Adam Shankman received a nomination for Choreography as well, for his work on the Academy Awards show.

Well those were the highlights of the nominations for me. I know there are lots of shows I should be watching that are also celebrating today (True Blood? 30 Rock? Modern Family? etc.). You can find all the nominees here, or a list of just the major category nominees here.

Winners will be announced in the awards ceremony on Sunday, August 29, hosted by Jimmy Fallon. Congratulations to all nominees!

The LXD

Today marks the debut of "The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers", a new web series about a mysterious group of amazing dancers who are, uh, at some point going to rise up and change the world for good. Yeah. So the premise is a little weird, and watching the show doesn't exactly help it make any more sense, but who cares, the dancers are awesome! I love dancing, I used to be a dancer myself, and I love superhero stories, and this is kind of a cross between the two. Dancers can do seemingly super-human things. Hey--DANCERS ARE LIKE SUPERHEROES! Yes, I can support that.

The first two episodes are currently available on Hulu. Even if the concept itself is not, the plots so far are a bit cliche, but the dancing is entertaining, and I'm actually quite curious where this is all going. The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (LXD) is recruiting new members, but this other dark and brooding dancer seems to have his own plans. I want to know what he's all about. It would also be nice to know in what way exactly the LXD is supposed to use its super dance powers to help the world for good. And who is that guy narrating at the beginning?

I'm particularly looking forward to seeing Harry Shum Jr. (Mike, aka "Other Asian", from "Glee") when he pops up in the show. I saw a tiny snippet of him in the LXD trailer and the Gleek in me, well, Gleeked out. He's a really awesome dancer and needs to be used more in "Glee". I wonder who else we'll see recruited to the team (maybe a token female or two?). It's hard to tell from the two short webisodes we've seen so far, but hopefully the show is going in an interesting direction, and things will be made clearer in the near future. I'll certainly be tuning in to find out.

The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers can be found on Hulu here:
http://www.hulu.com/the-lxd

Summer research, or lack thereof

The whole school year I was looking forward to summer, when classes would be out, I wouldn't have homework and studying to do, and I could just concentrate on getting research done. Now, almost two months into summer, I'm missing classes. Strangely, I felt like I was getting more done then.

Some of you may remember my dilemma in choosing which advisor to work with here in Hawaii. Professor A was a new but up-and-coming professor, with a solely computer modeling project for me to work on. Professor B was a well-established full professor with numerous successfully mentored students under his belt, who offered a project involving scuba diving around coral reefs as well as modeling. After much agonizing, I chose Professor B.

Well, I still haven't even taken a beginning scuba class to get open water certified, much less gone through the grueling scientific diving course required before I do diving for my research. It will come, I promise, but it keeps getting pushed back. Meanwhile, I've spent the last month and a half trying to get various models to work on my computer and failing. One of the models is one that Professor A actually works with extensively, but Professor B has never touched. Cue my awkward afternoon: An hour and a half standing in Professor A's office, him trying to get a program to work on my computer, and Professor B sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, watching and listening, quiet and clueless. I couldn't help but imagine Professor A thinking, See you should have worked with me!

I'm interested in computer modeling, but I'm also interested in field work, because it's something I haven't done before and it sounds exciting. I mean, who wouldn't want to be able to scuba around pristine coral reefs and get paid for it? But it turns out that Professor B doesn't do modeling. He does computer coding, data analysis, and maybe statistical models, but he definitely does not do numerical modeling and would not be considered a "modeler". I don't think I knew this last year when I started. Considering my current task of setting up some models, it seems that it would be a lot easier if I were working with Professor A.

I don't regret my decision. Not yet, at least. But I am not happy with the progress of my research so far this summer. If it counts as research. I have basically been installing programs on my computer for a month and a half. Downloading packages, toolboxes, zipped files, installing applications, setting paths, ./configure, make check install, blah blah blah. And still, nothing specific to my study areas is even remotely close to running.

For the record, the problem that Professor A was trying to fix on my computer remained unsolved after the hour and a half of awkwardness. We're both convinced that my computer has everything it needs to run the stupid Matlab script, but it just won't. Not sure where to go from there. It's a bit miserable.

OK, whining over.

Getting to know YOU (me) Sunday

Happy Fourth of July to those of you in the U.S.! Happy belated Canada Day for the Canadians! And to the rest... Happy Sunday, or happy July--whichever makes you happier (or both if you like :)

Today I thought I'd try out taking part in Keely's Getting to Know YOU Sunday. Nothing better to do at the moment, so let's see how it goes...



1. What do you look forward to the most on the 4th of July?
Fireworks! Ooooh, aaaah, so pretty.

2. Are you a hugger?
I hug my boyfriend and my brothers all the time, but other people... I don't normally touch.

3. What is your favorite BBQ'd food?
Hmm, most things barbecued are pretty yummy. But there was this barbecue restaurant my parents would take me to when I was little, and I would always order the barbecued brisket. So there's that.

4. Do you like to watch parades?
Depends on the parade, I guess. The Fourth of July parade in my home town was always too loud when the fire engines went by. But sometimes people in the floats would throw us candy! I like to get candy.

5. Who has stinkier farts, boys or girls?
Uh, I think it depends on the person, and probably what they've been eating and stuff. Moving on...

6. Vampires or Werewolves?
Depends which mythology you're going with. Many mythologies make being a vampire seem pretty sweet, as long as you can get around the urge to feed on human blood. But in the cases where vampires are simply undead, soulless, evil killers, regardless of the nature of the humans they were before turning, while werewolves are in control of themselves (Forgotten Realms fits this, to the best of my knowledge), then I'd obviously go with werewolf.

7. Do you read your horoscope?
No. Though the Onion horoscopes are pretty great.

8. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
I generally consider it to be mocha. But I had this coconut ice cream with fudge chunks last time I went to Bubbies, and it was heavenly.

Well, that wasn't so hard, was it? I have a bit of excitement in the coming week, as my advisor is out of town for two weeks, my parents are flying out this Thursday to visit me and my grandparents in Honolulu, and my birthday is in just over a week. Hopefully there are fun summer times ahead.

Can't wait for Star Wars: The Old Republic

So two weeks ago I gushed about how much I want a Kinect, and how cool Felicia Day was trying it out at E3. But really, the thing at E3 that I am truly most excited about is BioWare's upcoming massively multiplayer online game (MMO), Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR).

As a fan of BioWare's own Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR) and Obsidian's KotOR 2, I was disappointed when it was announced that instead of a straight follow-up sequel, BioWare was doing an MMO sequel set three hundred years after the previous games. I'm still a little sad that they didn't tie up the plots set in motion in KotOR 1 and 2 with a KotOR 3 game featuring all of our favorite characters from the previous games. But based on what I've heard so far about The Old Republic, I think I can smother that disappointment with the awesomeness that will be BioWare's first MMO.

For those unfamiliar with these things, BioWare (creator of Baldur's Gate I and II, Neverwinter Nights, KotOR, and Mass Effect 1 and 2) is known for games with complex stories, strong writing, and plenty of player choices affecting the outcome of the story; a variety of interesting non-player characters (NPCs); and branching conversations, where player dialogue choices can steer conversations in different directions. That's why I love BioWare games so much. When I play a game, I want to feel immersed in an exciting story and world where I feel like I'm doing interesting and relevant things. However, these are traits that MMOs are not necessarily known for. After all, how could you possibly make a game for millions of players that includes all of those things? I can't speak for all of them, but I generally think of MMOs as games with straightforward stories that the individual players can't influence; a focus on other players which takes away the need for interesting NPCs; and largely one-sided conversations where NPCs just tell you to do things for them.

SWTOR is an MMO, but BioWare isn't skimping on any of the...BioWare-ness. That makes it one of the most ambitious video games ever made. Each of the eight classes that players can choose from has its own complex, engaging storyline where the player will get to make a variety of tough choices. Each class will have its own selection of NPCs to recruit. And, somehow, the game will allow branching conversation choices, even when multiple player characters (PCs) are present in the conversation. Furthermore, all dialogue will be fully voiced. Every possible line spoken by every NPC and every PC will be read by a voice actor in a recording studio so that the audio world of the game is complete. That is a LOT of dialogue (BioWare's Director of Audio described it as 10 KotORs back to back).

About the character classes. Players will get to choose between two allegiances: the Sith Empire, or the Galactic Republic. Those siding with the Republic choose from the Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight, and Jedi Consular classes. Those siding with the Sith choose from the Bounty Hunter, Imperial Agent, Sith Warrior, and Sith Inquisitor classes. Now, I almost always like to play "good" characters in games (in this case, that would generally mean the Republic). When I first learned what all the classes were, I decided that I would probably want to play as a Jedi Consular or a Jedi Knight. I mean, who wouldn't want to be a Force user? After watching a few more videos and thinking about it a little more, I decided that a Smuggler might be fun too (Han Solo is the man, after all). And out of curiosity I might consider trying a Sith Warrior or Inquisitor in order to see some of the Dark Side story, since BioWare has said that we will see no story overlap between the two allegiances. But I dismissed the idea of playing as a Trooper or Bounty Hunter, and the Imperial Agent sounded totally lame. UNTIL I read the developer blogs. Each of the eight classes has a post written by one of the writers working on its story, giving readers an idea of what the class's story is like, how it feels to play that class, and what choices the player will have to make as that class. And somehow, these blogs made each class sound awesome! Even the Imperial Agent sounds cool, sort of like a galactic CIA operative, holding her own amongst people with greater firepower because she holds the invaluable secrets, working behind the scenes not for glory but because everything would fall apart without her. Now I want to play them all! I really don't know where to start.

Another awesome thing in SWTOR that we learned at E3: Each player gets his or her own spaceship. I am so excited about it. A place that you can relax in between missions, talk to your NPC teammates, and customize as you see fit (I hope there's a good amount of customization!). And, even better, you can invite other players to visit, so you can show off your digs. (That was one of my sadnesses with Morrowind: I had the coolest stronghold that I spent a considerable amount of time decorating very thoughtfully, but no one ever got to see it).

There are so many cool things we already know about SWTOR, and probably many more that haven't been announced yet. I can hardly wait for its release. I'm all signed up for testing...along with everyone in the world. But, please, please pick me! I'm in Hawaii, so there can't be many people in my time zone! I'm a girl, plus I'm very meticulous, so I can help a lot! Really! Please? Oh well, chances are I'll have to wait until next spring to play it with everyone else. But I have faith that it'll be worth the wait (and the price). So, come spring 2011, you'll find me in a galaxy far, far away playing a Jedi Knight. No--Imperial Agent. No--Sith Warrior. No--Smuggler. Gaaah!

Here's the awesome trailer from E3:


See it on the SWTOR website here:
http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/hope-cinematic-trailer
(I would have embedded that one, but it played automatically, which is annoying.)