Month: August 2010

News broke out a while ago on facebook that California’s Proposition 8 (which says same sex marriages are illegal) was overturned.

I think that is a step forward.

The idea of arbitrarily restricting marriage to be between a man and a woman sounds incredibly barbarian and ignorant to me.

Homosexual people aren’t forcing us to be homosexual. Why are we forcing them to be straight?

From Wikipedia:

Proponents of the constitutional amendment [(meaning people saying gay marriage is wrong)] argued that exclusively heterosexual marriage was “an essential institution of society,” that leaving the constitution unchanged would “result in public schools teaching our kids that gay marriage is okay,” and that “gays … do not have the right to redefine marriage for everyone else.”

Is it just me or does that sound VERY wrong? Reading those arguments make me angry. And I am not even gay.

“an essential institution of society,”

So is slavery. How can we possibly live in a world without slaves?! Heck, we may even have to wash the dishes ourselves!

leaving the constitution unchanged would “result in public schools teaching our kids that gay marriage is okay,”

And it’s wrong because? you are not gay? Allowing black people to vote would result in public schools teaching our kids that black people are people, too. Why isn’t that banned already?

Imagine a world where homosexuality is the majority and heterosexuality is the minority. Imagine you are a straight person naturally attracted to girls (or guys if you are a girl). And some gay people jump in and say you can’t have that! even though it doesn’t affect him at all, because his random interpretation of some random God, or HIS idea of what the society SHOULD be like, that you couldn’t care less about, says heterosexuality is a SIN! and so they try to outlaw it. That would suck wouldn’t it.

I think the more fundamental issue is, marriage (or civil unions) should not be in the legal system at all. It’s a system based on people’s beliefs, and in this case, religion. And religion has no place in the legal system. Of course, culture will inevitably be part of the legal system, but we should aim to minimize that, to be a free country.

All major constitutions list “sexual orientation” as a protected property (along with gender, race, nationality, poo-ing interval, etc). This is a direct violation. Hypocrisy.

You can have your Ford Model T in any colour as long as it’s black?

Our legal system clearly favours heterosexual couples with couples benefits and things, over single people, then over homosexual people. This is discrimination. I guess all politicians are heterosexual and married?

I guess people only care when it concerns them?

I have to admit, I don’t particularly care about this issue since it doesn’t really concern me, and haven’t been really reading about it until now, but still, it disturbs me.

Another year.

Every year in the past I made a post recounting my summer vacation right before it ends.

I miss being able to do that :(. No more summer for 3 more years!

Now my only entertainment comes from Starcraft (only single player, no time for online). The campaign was a bit cheesy, but still very well done in my not so humble opinion. I “overheard” an artsy friend of mine pointing out that the way Jim Raynor walks is very feminine. I think it’s true, lol, if you watch it closely. Who needs girls when you have Starcraft?! (right? whitney? right? right? =P)

And Zeratul is so cool. Woo.

And I’m struggling to find time to finish my quadrocopter project.

That aside, plans for next year –
Life is canceled until further notice.

23 credits in one term!

I’m taking 2 more courses than I should – EECE 353 and CPSC 211, which, theoretically means my forth year will be easier… somehow I doubt that will happen =P. There are just so many interesting courses I want to take.

One interesting sidenote – the prof for the CPSC 211 course has an almost perfect score on ratemyprof. 4.9 average! Even Master Yoda doesn’t have a midichlorian count that high! And I’m sure it’s not (just) because “[she] is very cute!” lol.

When it comes to rating profs, everyone is a critic, especially those that failed the course. I wonder how good she has to be to get that 4.9. I’m actually excited :D. Even Mighty Jesus only got 4.3.

The course itself should be pretty easy. Sounds like just the Java version of CPSC 260. Sad that we have to take it again for many 300 level CPSC courses.

I also plan to be more involved in Thunderbots, starting in September. SO going to Istanbul next summer!!

Didn’t do much last year because I didn’t know much. Got to know people, ate lots of pizza, that’s about it. I think I know a little more now :D.

This is so cool.

I just realized, I’ve always been subconsciously imitating people’s voices/accents when I talk to them.

So if you have a deep scary voice, I’ll talk to you in deep scary voice. If you have squeaky girly voice, I’ll talk to you in squeaky girly voice (except in the case of hardware limitation).

Try it some time! Talk to me in Yoda-speak or something =D. Or grizzly bear voice. Or something.

That’s why I always find it weird to talk to someone in a new language if I’m used to talking to them in another. Because I don’t have a “voice profile” of them in that language.

Do you do that too? Or is it just me?

PS. On a totally unrelated sidenote, I’ve started documenting my quadrocopter project here –
http://cyberfish.wecheer.com/quadrocopter

Decided to not do it on my blog since most people would find it very boring.

Feel free to drop by!

My blog is quickly turning into a movie review blog =P

Just finished watching the whole Star Wars series (1-6). Took a whole week! Last time I watched it was when I was 5 or something, so this is effectively the first time, though I still remember some of the story.

And I still don’t know who Anakin’s father is.

Many people feel sorry for Anakin, but I think he is just a big baby. Sure, some bad things happened to him. Well, that tends to happen when you just go around killing people you don’t like.

On the other hand, I really like Padme. And not just because she is pretty!

We have seen way too many brainless females in films. Good to see her for a change.

She does have very questionable taste, though. I mean, Anakin? Really? She could do so much better! Get Jabba the Hutt or something.

On a slightly more serious note, it’s interesting to see how Star Wars has all the mighty females. Padme and Leia. Maybe they wanted to use that to balance the attention given to the Jedis? Girls do all the diplomatics, guys kill all the way. Sounds like a plan.

And the droids… I like R2D2. Silence is golden. Even better if you can shoot fire.

Trivias –
Padme has a REALLY large wardrobe! If you’ve only seen her scenes you’ll probably mistake it for Sex and the City. Apparently many of her costumes are based on traditional outfits of royalties around the world. Very cool!

The only place I’ve seen stormtroopers hit something that moves was at the beginning of ep4, when they boarded Princess Leia’s ship. They never hit anything ever since.

The only 2 characters that made it through the whole 6 episodes are Palpatine (senator, chancellor, then emperor) and Yoda. And R2D2 (although it was never confirmed whether it was the same R2D2). C3PO doesn’t count because he was killed and revived many times.