This is not a good movie. Yes, one should expect one dimensional characters, but the lead was written with a lot of self-pity and sort of not really that likable at all - in that I was given absolutely no reason to like that particular character (TIP: if you're going to write a movie that's not popular girls vs. popular girls, you have to make the not popular girls do something besides be pissed off that they aren't popular and boys don't like them - typically this involves something selfless). I couldn't decide if it was good or bad that it didn't end with a teenage high school utopia where everyone gets along. The fact is that the teenage girls movies can actually be good. The other thing is that this movie had no style - the overall feel of the movie was very flat. A teenage girl movie should make me feel uplifted and sort of warm inside. It should go without saying that Sleepover did neither. The story isn't particularly interesting or engaging (and at times seems to come from a moral vacuum), but it would've been semi-okay if it had created a sense of visual interest and a set of cues that made it its own movie. Instead, it's a lot of really lousy sight gags, forced bleeding edge hip lingo and riding on the coattails of better teenage girl movies. And I have seen A LOT of better teenage girl movies. This is really about a C-/D+.
Now that I have firmly placed myself at the top of "creepy guy" list...
My aunt and uncle were in town. These people don't have kids. I don't want kids, but I'd rather have them if I'm otherwise going to end up like these people. Over brunch, my aunt regaled us with tales of great deals she got on items at Costco. However boring highlights of grocery shopping are, I think I prefer it to the Medical History Update that usually presents itself at family gatherings ("Well, I had hip surgery in March..."). I'm glad that one stayed at home. That one sucks.
I often research into things - sometimes it's for my own investigative purposes, othertimes I'm calling "bullshit!" on something I've read or heard. Lately my time has been consumed with when you ought to sell stock. I did this with simulated data (10,000 paths) and used a single fairly common "discipline" rule: sell the stock when it has a loss of X% off the highest price. And I stopped because I was having a problem reconciling something in my head: it's all dependent on the underlying security's return volatility, which is taken from an arbitrary measure of time. I mean, it could be over 1 day or 1 week or 1 month. The implied volatility will increase over the longer horizon. Hence, the returns it is calculated from need to be standardized to an annual value. In conclusion, I'm not smart.
Ninety degrees is retarded. It's way too hot. Let's protest hot weather. Or pass a law to against it. Or start taxing the shoes off of tourists so we can build a machine that harnesses clouds to keep it from getting hot.
