Tuition Waivers

Rumor is SUNY might be cutting tuition waivers for grad students. Time to fill out those FAFSA and TAP forms...

This apparently ran after the Oscars last night.

Here is a quick preview of some of the big movies set to come out later this year.



...and I'm excited about approximately two of these. I'm not sure why it was necessary to remake The Taking of Pelhem 123 with John Travolta in the Robert Shaw role, but at least Public Enemies looks good. Its hard to go wrong with Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and Michael Mann.

Watchmen: Now with more punching

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. Here is this same sequence from the comic.



Thats it, thats the entire thing. The comic was violent certainly, but the violence wasn't stylized or glorified in the same way as it is in this clip. The more I see about the movie version, the less I like. I'm sure it'll make a kazillion dollars, but it really seems like the only good thing that'll come out of this is that more people are reading the comic.

Speaking of the comic; DC comics is promoting a group of comics as After Watchmen, comics to be read if you enjoyed Watchmen. Shockingly, I really like the majority of their picks. Saga of the Swamp Thing and Transmetropolitian are especially good. Transmetropolitian is a story of sci-fi gonzo journalism. Basically, update the politics of Watchmen, bring them to the forefront of the story, add the sci-fi stylings of writer Warren Ellis, and you have Transmetropolitian. Swamp Thing is Watchmen writer Alan Moore's first major American comic work. Its not a superhero book, but thematically its very similar to the type of subversive yet still engaging comic book story he later perfected in Watchmen. If you're interested, click through the links to (legally) download the first issue of both comics in pdf format.

Thats it for Watchmen until I actually see the movie. Hopefully all my ranting and raving hasn't discouraged anyone from reading the original. There is a reason why its the most celebrated "graphic novel" of all time and its definitely not gratuitous action sequences. Most of the clips I've seen of the movie make it look like it completely missed the point of the source material.But at the same time, asthetics aside, other scenes appear to replicate the comic faithfully. Maybe context will help the action sequences fit into the story better, maybe not. I guess I'll wait and see on the movie. Meanwhile I'm rereading the comic... even the sections about pirates and text interludes.

This is why I don't get free time...

5 haikus I made up while cleaning my apartment.

1.
No real food or drink.
No deserted habitat.
Life on Long Island.

2.
Cold air and water?
Need something major for warmth?
Godzilla attack!

3.
Stony Brook is broke.
Tiny stipends for us all
Bake sales everyday.

4.
A cauliflower?
Lots of phytochemicals.
Not a broccoli.

5.
I write cryptically.
Quite the mysterious end.
Refrigerator!

Excuse me if I bite your head off.

Just some random bullet points:

• Less than a week ago it was 50 degrees... now its snowing and raining at the same time.
• We just found out that graduate students in the Neuroscience department receive a stipend that is $10,000 more than in the psychology department. This despite the fact that they don't have to TA every semester and we do much of the same work.
• Stony Brook is planning to raise tuition to help with the financial issues. As usual, the undergrads are protesting this. The increase will be on the order of $600 dollars a year. According to our rough estimates, this won't cover the difficulties faced by a single department, nevermind the entire school (or state for that matter).
  
• Trying to find housing on Long Island is seemingly impossible. Basically everything available is either 9 million dollars or a spare room in someone's house.
  
• The cash strapped university is currently painting the stairwells of the psychology building. Nevermind the fact that they have stopped heating these same stairwells for cost reasons, but they are also painting the walls the same color they painted them over the summer.
  
• The class that I TA for, Drugs in the Brain, is much more challenging (and useful) than my required biopsych course this semester.

I'm not bitter or anything but between all this, people writing on the refrigerator, and random smokestacks, I'm starting to feel like I'm living in crazy land. Then again... it is Long Island, I'm not sure there's a difference.