Borat

I saw the Borat movie tonight. I was pleasantly surprised.

Borat falls into the same category as Ali G, The Daily Show, Jackass, Crank Yankers, etc. The basic premise is the performer is acting strange to confuse the victim, and the audience finds it funny. The Daily Show does this perfectly several nights a week. Crank Yankers failed miserably for several seasons.

What it all boils down to is this: if the performer and the audience are both making fun of the victim, it's not funny, it's just mean. If the audience is laughing as much (if not more) at the performer than the victim, then it's done right and it's funny. Borat thankfully falls into the funny category. Very funny.

Sacha Baron Cohen (aka, Borat, Ali G and Bruno) does a pretty good job of being funny instead of annoying. I will admit the Ali G interview do get a bit repetitive after a while. I went into the movie praying the Borat movie was not the same. There are a few interviews in the beginning that had me worried: Borat interviews Feminists, Borat interviews a Humor Coach, but then it got better.

Borat, talking to Alan Keyes: "you are telling me the man who stuck rubber fist up my anus last night was a homosexual?"

The "Borat makes people confused or uncomfortable" jokes either got so surreal they became hilarious, or gave way to sheer lunacy. The Kazakh "Running of the Jew" stands out, as does the most memorable fight scene in movie history.

The plot? Borat falls in love with Pamela Anderson after seeing her on Baywatch, and heads to California to marry her in "the traditional Kazakh way" (hint: it involves a "wedding sack")

All in all I was very pleasantly surprised at how funny it was.

cough cough

Oh, I didn't have a cigarette at all yesterday...

Java

I'm working on my java homework.

I forgot how much I hated Java.

Java sucks.

this weeks magic pill

I've been taking Chantix for two weeks now. It's the new quit smoking drug. It supposedly works by bonding to the same bits of brain that nicotine does. This works two ways: First, your brain thinks it has nicotine in it, so you don't crave a cigarette. Second, when you do smoke, it's taking the places nicotine would go, so you don't get the nicotine buzz from smoking.

You start off with the "starter kit" for the first month. Week one you slowly increase the dose, and week two and on you take one in the morning and one in the evening. The most common side effects are nausea, altered sleep or dreaming and flatulence. The nausea happened the first time I took it, on a half-empty stomach. Since then I have taken it after eating and had no problems. Since it has started working, I have been sleeping a bit more restlessly. Lucky for me I have a bunch of sleeping pills to choose from. Finally, I've been trying to eat a lot more vegetables in my diet, so I'm already more gassy. :)

So does it work? Yes! It took about 10 days before I started to notice my cravings were going down. Today is the end of my second week on it and I've had one cigarette in the past 48 hours. Most times I have no desire for a cigarette. I will occasionally get smaller cravings. They are the "I want a cigarette, but I can spend the next 30 minutes doing this before I have one" cravings. No psychotic nicotine fits. I have noticed the cravings happen at the most frequent smoking times: leaving for work in the morning, leaving work in the evening, heading to/from the gym, walking to class, etc. I suspect they are at least 50% mental habit.

So things are looking good. If this keeps up, I will be on Chantix for at least two more weeks, possibly two months after that. I have yet to have a big drunken evening, so that's my last big hurdle. Even after I have been quit for months, after a few beers I get a mad craving for a smoke. We shall see...