Why they shouldn't ever be "Found"

So, last night (or early this morning, depending on your definition), I had an impulse to go buy the first season of Lost on DVD. I remember thinking the pilot was really good, and I watched most of the season, which was good for the most part. Plus, I'd missed a few episodes, so there was some new material in it for me.
I just finished watching the third episode, and I realized, for the most part, none of these characters can go home.
Take Kate, for example. Jack knew about Kate's background by the end of this episode, but he said that everyone deserves a fresh start. Unfortunately, if Kate gets rescued, the US government will not give her a fresh start. She'll end up in a federal prison somewhere for God knows how long.
Jin, as I remember, was doing some illegal dealings for his father-in-law. Odds are, he doesn't want to go back to that life, especially with Sun being pregnant.
Rose is convinced she'll die and Locke is worried he'll lose the use of his legs if they leave the island.
Hurley has loads of money to go back to, but, since the money's cursed, he doesn't want it.
God only knows what's going through Michael's head these days, but there's not much for him to go back to on the mainland.
Jack's a failure at life. 'Nuff said.
Eko's a legend in his own country, but he's trying to be the penitant man nowadays, so he's pretty happy on Lostland.
I understand that no one really cares about the characters on this show. It's the mystery of the island that brings up back week after week. But, really, if these people ever actually get off the island, they're basically screwed.

Aw, Christ.

I forgot my one-year anniversary on Blogger. Crap. Well, I'm a guy; at least I fit the stereotype.
Life's sucked hard since my last post. Really, all I want to do is go somewhere and yell, "Fuck!!!" as loud as I possibly can.
I was talking to one of my classes today about Beowulf and showed them a bit in Old English. They were amazed at how different it was. Someone pondered what English might be like in 600 years and stated it would contain a lot of text message speak (i.e., people would actually say "brb" instead of "I'll be right back"). I shudder at the thought.

The last, best hope...

Read the whole damn thing. Not half, not the first few lines. The whole fucking thing. It's that important (well, maybe not the Kenny Rogers stuff).
So, it's been a very politcal past 24 hours. I saw V for Vendetta, which I'll describe in a bit. I also saw Jarhead last night. Some of the views put forth in the movies were good and relevant, particularly given what today is. It's the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Three fucking years. Shit, man.
So, my boy woke me up at 4:45 and wouldn't let me go back to sleep, so I'm running on two hours of sleep; as people who've ever run on that amount of sleep knows, I'm fairly grouchy.
I tuned in to CBS Sunday Morning, which is a pretty good morning news magazine show, covering a range of topics, including an interview with Anne Rice and something on Kenny Rogers in a bit (damn, Kenny's released 63 albums. Damn, and he's on his fifth wife. Heh, and they showed some footage of Kenny and the First Edition singing "What Condition My Condition Was In"). However, it led with a piece on Iraq, as should be expected in this day and age.
First, it ran down exactly what three years has brought us, and them, too. For us, 2300 soldiers dead, 17,000 soldiers wounded, $230 billion gone (6.4 billion a month. Imagine what good that would do actually in America, or, specifically, in Katrina Land), and 70% of Americans think Iraq's been handled wrong. Fun numbers. For them, the bad is 30,000 dead, untold wounded, oil production (which was thought to be able to sustain them and rebuild them) is way down, electricity in Baghdad is on for eight hours a day. On the good side, millions have phones (cell phones, to be exact. Yay, Nokia.), a load of new schools have opened up, kids are getting vaccinated, the rest of Iraq is getting about 12 hours of electricity (which is way up from before the war started), and some of Saddam's horrific SOPs are no longer being carried out. So, yeah, some good news, some bad news for the Iraqis, pretty much all bad for the ole U.S. of A.
That's not what got me.
This is.
They then had pre-taped statements first from Dem. Rep. John Murtha and then from former drug czar and Sec. of Education William Bennett. Murtha went through the long list of bad stuff we know about Iraq. Fairly good, fairly strong (actually, he said a fact I hadn't heard before: the first-ever survey of troops in Iraq found that (approx.) 74% of soldiers felt America should leave Iraq within a year), but the man said nothing to write a blog post about.
Then Bennett started up. God damn.
First, some background. Dwainker, read this and understand why the job is so fucked up. Bennett believed in the following things and backed them while working for Ronny Reagan:
# Competency testing for teachers
# Opening the teaching profession to knowledgeable individuals who have not graduated from "schools of education"
# Performance-based pay
# Holding educators accountable for how much children learn
# An end to tenure
# A national examination to find out exactly how much our children know
# Parental choice of schools
That actually comes from his book De-Valuing of America, published in 1992. Anyway, that was just a personal aside. In my opinion, the man's a fucktard. He graduated with a philosophy degree (which, behind business, is the field you go into if you've no fucking clue what to do with your life. English is third). He then got a law degree from Harvard. I can find no record of his ever having been a teacher, or in education at any level. He worked for Reagan as chairman for the National Endowment for the Humanities for term one, and then as Sec.Ed. for term two-the sequel. Never a teacher, just a thundercunt (that's a shout out to my homey De-Wain. Yo yo yo).
So, anyway, back to my bitch session. There's Bennett on Sunday Morning, giving stats on how fast people died in WWII (dude, I did that months ago) and blah blah blah. He ended with the following:
"You know, it's true that [America is] the last, best hope for Earth."
"You know, it's true that [America is] the last, best hope for Earth."
I heard that and my stomach seized. I had to fight back vomit. This isn't just some trite little statement. This is too fucking far.
"Last, best hope?" First, that's from fucking Babylon 5. Don't fucking steal a line from fucking science fiction. Reagan tried naming his space defence initiative Star Wars and it got laughed out of Congress. Don't fucking try that, dumbass.
Second, don't you think we need to get our fucking act together before you say that?
Third, for a political figure, even a former one, to say that, that's fucking Nationalism, man. That's not being part of a world community. That's not even being the world's policeman. That's fucking elitism. That's fucking national purity. That's fucking Nazism, man. You fucking started a speech talking about defeating Nazis, and then you end it by basically becoming one yourself. Dumbass motherfucker.
This past week, Bush started ramping up the rhetoric about Iran, stating that parts for the roadside bombs are coming from Iraq's friendly neighbor to the north. Sure. So? Parts of those fucking things are from fucking US! US! Do you honestly think that they're not taking technology we sold them and are currently giving them and using it against us? Goddamn it.
i just want to scream all day
i cant take it anymore
There was a line in V for Vendetta that struck a chord with me. I'd actually been considering leaving the country and not coming back for a few years. Seriously, it's gotten to that point for me. There's Canada (seriously, what big, bad issue is Canada facing) or Great Britain to start with ('cause they speak my current lingo) and then figure out where from there. The last week has made me seriously consider it.
So, today, I'm watching V and Portman's character is talking about her parents and that her mom wanted to leave the country at one point (which wasn't an option in the book). The dad tells the mom that they can't do that, because then the government would win. The decision eventually leads to the parents' death.
That's right. That's why I can't leave. Even if it costs me my life (which I doubt it will), something needs to happen. It needs to fucking change. People are way too laid back about this fucking situation. Iraq, Iran, torture, wiretaps, Patriot Act, hurricane relief, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney shooting somebody, No Child, gay rights, immigration, socail security, energy and oil. The list goes on and fucking on. You can fucking poll people all day to find out their opinions on this or that, but that doesn't change jack-fucking-shit. Vote in the damned midterm elections. Vote every fucking Representative out of the House. Replace the whole damn lot. Do the same with the senators up for election this year. Change the system by using the system. Get career politicians out who vote along party lines and accept golf trips to the Bahamas from lobbyists. Get rid of fucking assholes who threaten to use the "nuclear solution" against the party that's just fucking doing their jobs. The two parties are supposed to fight and differ on issues and filibuster if they fucking feel it needs to be done. That's why it's fucking possible. Eliminate lobbyists. The system needs to change. The system needs to change.

Heh. This is perfect for #50

So, look, I'm not really politically correct or uptight on this blog, so I must share this bit.
I've got Wheel of Fortune on in the background (it's on after the news and I'm too lazy to switch the channel), and Pat's introducing the contestants. The first is a burly guy who I don't care about. Next is a little Asian woman who is one of the most odd people I've ever seen. She's a major Wheelaholic, speaks somewhat broken English, and is extremely excitable. That's not why I'm writing this, either.
The final contestant's a woman in her late 30s, maybe early 40s. Pat introduces her as Tina Slutzky, and it's pronounced just as one would expect. I'm sure they talked, but I, unfortunately, could do nothing but laugh for a minute afterward.
Now that's a reason to post a 50th blog entry.

Heh. Suck on that, Brokeback

Sorry, but it just seemed appropriate.
Also, I have to say I'm glad that Crash won solely because it's a film that came out in May of last year and bucked the tradition of waiting until the last few weeks of December to come out to be "fresh" in the Academy's mind. Look, if a film deserves to win Best Picture, it's going to stick because it's that damn good. Million Dollar Baby came out in limited release on December 15, 2004. It didn't open wide until January 28, 2005. Yet it won BP for 2004. Seriously, that's stupid. Crash was at a film festival in late 2004, opened in limited release in April of 2005, and then wide in May. That's how a BP should be, not like Million Dollar Baby, Return of the King (December 17, 2003, although it was following the trend the other LotR movies had), Chicago (December 27, 2002), or Beautiful Mind (December 21, 2001). Gladiator came out in May of 2000, but did anyone really expect that to get BP? I mean, really? It was supposed to be Traffic's year, which premiered in, can you guess? December 27, 2000.
Speaking of Oscar winners and such, I found myself watching Shakespeare in Love today. I only caught the last half-hour or so, but I actually enjoyed the production of Romeo and Juliet in the film. Also, Judi Dench fucking ruled as Elizabeth. The woman was in the film for six minutes and totally deserved the Oscar she won. I'd also forgotten how many great actors were in the film, including Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. I'm debating on whether or not to watch the film entirely or not. I mean, the end part was good, but I vaguely remember the other hour and thirty-three minutes sucking hard.

Oops...

Wow, I know Feb.'s a short month, but I didn't realize that I'd neglected this for almost a month. So, again, oops.
I just had to post this, because it's absolutely classic and absolutely correct:
"Women, learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down."
Now, the other thing I wanted to say was that tonight's SNL was absolutely great. The past couple of seasons have been shit, but tonight's with Natalie Portman was friggin' great. The intro with Bush was fairly good, except the segue to "Live from New York" was weak. The monologue with Portman answering Star Wars questions was magnificent. Just perfect. The Jamba Juice sketch was alright at first, but awesome when the woman didn't want a boost and everything just froze. The Needlers sketch was shit. Yeah, that one sucked hard. Speaking of, the bit with Dennis Haysbert and Black History Animated Moments was fucking awesome. Wrong on so many levels, but great, still. Wow. The Larry King segment was meh. I missed most of Weekend Update. However, the Natalie Portman rap was brilliant. I mean, that was just bam--out of left field. The last bit, an infomercial for fire alarms that played 80s music instead of beeps was pretty funny, too. Overall, it was as close to an old school Will Ferrell episode as you're going to get there days. Definitely one to catch in reruns in you missed it this time.

Two quick things and then I'm shit-faced

Well, three. First, is it shitfaced, or shit-faced? That might be handy to know, actually.
Second, a student was complaining about scheduling the other day and I overheard her tell a friend, "Why do they want me to learn to speak Spanish? I can barely speak English." I kept a straight face, but that's probably my favorite line from teaching thus far.
Third, so, I bought Elizabethtown on DVD today and popped it in the ol' player. There's this one great bit where Alec Baldwin is describing an event in the movie as "shit hitting the fan, globally." I had forgotten to turn off the captions on my TV, so it was quite funny that when Baldwin made the sound of shit hitting the fan, the captions literally said, "Imitating shit splattering." I laughed a few seconds before my sore throat caused me to cough for about a minute. Ah, it's the little things sometimes, right?

I weep for the future. Well, not really.

America is doomed. We're fucked. It's been sliding downhill for a time now, but I think we're gonna hit "game over" in the next decade or so.
The main problem is that we are so focused on crap. A probe was shot off to Pluto today. Fifty years ago, that would have gotten a lot of attention and captivated the general public. Today, nothing. Instead, the big issues I see online are either the new Bin Laden single (understandable, but it doesn't really have a beat you can dance to) and that Reese Witherspoon wore the same dress as Kirsten Dunst did a few years ago. So? I mean, really, so? No, that's actually all I can say, so? Why's it matter?
We're so focused on the everyday adventures of Brad and Angelina (I can't bring myself to use the popular conflation [or portmanteau, depending on how French you want to be. By the way, portmanteau is not an oddity to Blogger's spellcheck, but fucked is.]) that we neglect focusing on important issues. Escapism has become the focus of our culture. I'll admit, I know a lot about movies, tv, and music. I also like to stay current on events in the world, politics, medicine, etc. About the only thing I don't give a damn about is sports, the world's most ancient form of escapism. However, a majority of people like to focus on their little corner and nothing else. In their spare time, they seek escape. Most people don't give a damn about terrorists as long as they don't attack their little corner. Really, I don't remember any public outcry over the London bombings last July, or over the Spanish train incident in 2004, or the constant violence in the Middle East other than, "Can it happen here?" Nothing along the lines of "How dare they," or "How can we help." No, just our little corner. Sometimes Americans forget that the British, French, Spanish, Palestinians, Ugandans, Chinese, Russians, and Saudi Arabians are people, too. They feel pain, worry about their own safety, have hopes, dreams, motives, and the like. If we prick them, they do bleed. Instead, we're so focused on ourselves that we miss that. That's going to end up costing us.
New Year's Eve, I ended up having a discussion with my father about the Roman Republic/Empire. It's a facet of history I've been fascinated with for a time now. The discussion was more of a lecture, me giving my dad long diatribes about Julius Caesar, the Republic-to-Empire debate, and the endgame. There came a point near the end where the Empire was too big, impossible to properly govern because there were too many issues for one central government to try and manage, and the borders were weak. There came a point where the Empire began buying off some of the barbarian tribes to protect the borders for them from worse hordes (such a nice word, hordes. No evil connotations there, huh?). Eventually, it all broke down, with the hordes who were in charge of those outer regions setting up shop in the areas where the Empire had asked them to protect. The Empire created its own replacement.
Anyway, it was that night that it really clicked for me that America is the new Roman Empire. We've a government that has no real focus other than snipping at the "other side" (if I prick a conservative, will he or she bleed less than a liberal?). We're trying to run the world to protect our interests. Honestly, isn't "freedom" a euphemism for "the way America does things?" We're spreading ourselves thin. Finally, we've been buying off the world for over fifty years now, trying first to keep nations from falling to communism, then just to keep us on their good or neutral side. Looking at this chart from a US report on its foreign aid spending, it's fascinating to see not only how well we've bought off the world, but how it's changed over the years. We've started putting a little more into China, which makes since. We're starting to buy off our replacement, which we kind of helped create, anyway.
See, if people were more interested in the world around them and what happened to get us here, they might notice. So many people are afraid of the US losing its superiority, of what might happen if we lose our dominance in the world. It's happening right now. Day by day, the old US is going downhill. Welcome to the bad days, the all-or-nothing days. There's no choice left. America needs to reinvent itself, find something that we can focus on that will unite the nation, get rid of partisan bickering, create jobs, etc. We need either a real war or a new Moon. The war would have to be against a real army not some puny-ass war against an army who can't hold a candle to us but can kick the snot out of us in some insurgency. [cough]Iraq[cough]. By the way, it's important for people to remember that this country was founded using the exact same tactics the Iraqis are using. Now, look, I don't really want to be in an all-out war. I'm just saying it's one of the few options that are on the plate. War's nasty, brutal, and takes more lives than what it's really worth. As for a new Moon to shoot for, there's Mars. It would take a total revamp of everything to get there, but it might be worth it. We'd have to do it by ourselves, no international effort.
Otherwise, unless there's some massive devastation that ruins China's economy, or we find out that Alaska actually has the largest oil reservoir on the planet, we're screwed. God, don't the future just seem grand?

Stupid talk show hosts should not be allowed to breed

So, the Dwainker pointed me to a video of Bill O'Reilly and David Letterman having a discussion on Letterman's show the other night and all I can say is "Oy." Letterman was trying to nail O'Reilly without any real footing. O'Reilly was just a fucking prick. I mean, come on! The man used to host an entertainment show himself. How can he really be seen as a serious news man. He's the Rush Limbaugh of Fox News. He has no real experience in political news. He's just a prick that a certain politically-aligned part of the country listens to. Okay, my favorite flub of the interview had to be on O'Reilly's part, when he referred to the British Intelligence agency as "M-1-6," which is actually the rifle made by Colt that's been used by the majority of our soldiers have used for the past 30 years, the M-16." He meant MI6, which pretty much anyone who's seen a James Bond movie could tell you. How can you host a polically-minded talk show that is bound to have talked about MI6 once in the past couple of years (due to their involvement in the Iraq Intelligence fiasco) and not know the correct name for it? If Letterman got it wrong, I'd say he was a moron, but that he doesn't really need to ever talk about MI6, so whatever. But O'Reilly? Dumbass who I think Letterman was pretty close about on the percentage of crap in O'Reilly's show. Sixty percent sounds pretty close, but I can only watch about five minutes before I have to puke, so it's difficult to say for certain. Whatever.
Also, I saw The Producers last week and really liked it. However, before the movie, there were trailers for two movies that I really want to see. The first was Thank You for Smoking, which has so many name actors in it that I'm surprised I haven't heard about it before. It looks really funny in that black comedy way. One part that really stuck with me was when the cigarette company representative defended his company to a mother who claimed that their product was killing her son. The line was something along the lines of, "It doesn't make sense for us to poison your son. We want him to live as long as possible so he can continue using our products." Beautiful.
The other movie was American Dreamz, which looks to be a satire of American Idol, George W, and terrorism. With Hugh Grant as the Simon Cowell part and Dennis Quaid as W, it looks really funny.
Well, time for sleep. I could go on, but it's going to be a long 48 hours once I get up in the morning, so I'd better rest up. Yay!

King Kong Sucked

Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush on this one: Kong sucked ass. It sucked way too long, and way too hard. I went in with low expectations because it was King Kong, a story I'd never really cared for. I figured with low expectations, the movie would easily surpass them. Wrong. No, it sucked.
Let me start from the beginning. Yesterday, my roommate asked if I was interested in seeing the midnight showing of Kong. Sure, why not. I had a free ticket due to a recent DVD purchase, so it wasn't really going to cost me anything. And I'm a midnight movie kind of guy, so I was alright with it.
So, we get there, get seats in a theater that ended up being only about half-full, and I proceeded to get popcorn and a drink. Now, I'm going to rant about the food a bit later, but let's continue with the story.
Previews come on and they're pretty so-so. X-Men 3 looked cool, yet another "Coach comes in and unites a team of players to get into the big game" movie is on the horizon with Josh Lucas starring this time around, and The Da Vinci Code's new trailer was shown (which, incidentally, caused me to do nothing more than groan).
Then the movie started. Naomi Watts is a vaudeville performer and she's kind of cute with it. Then Jack Black comes in. People in the audience found every fucking thing he did hilarious. I can't fucking stand the fucker. I've never liked him. Not in High Fidelity, not in School of Rock, I hate Tenacious D, I just hate the man. This movie did nothing to redeem him in my eyes. In fact, every frame of the movie with him in it gave me ADD; I started looking at everything but the screen while he was on it.
Kong showed up about an hour into the movie. Worthless. Later, at about 1:45, I was ready to claw my eyes out. At least the original had the decency to stop at the hour and a half mark.
The movie was three fucking hours long. It felt like six, but I was assured that it was only three.
Some people like to think that Peter Jackson is a directing god. The dwainker has always stated otherwise, and I've always known that he wasn't a god, but he was pretty damn good. I felt he deserved the Oscar for Return of the King because of the effort that went into not just that film, but the whole LotR trilogy. It was a whole long process that showed dedication, thought, and, well, balls. He made some mistakes, sure, but who hasn't? I mean, even Spielberg's record isn't perfect (from 1941 to War of the Worlds, he's slipped every now and then). So, Jackson could at least take on the story of Kong and make it look good, right?
No. There was so much soft focus in the damn movie that I'll be seeing blurs for the rest of the month. Naomi Watts looked cute and kinda sexy, but meh. The effects in the movie didn't really blend with the real stuff all that well, either.
There was also this sequence that was cut out of the original version, the spider pit. Several of the heroes fall down into this pit and are devoured by several different kinds of giant insects and spiders. It was completely, absolutely pointless. It only existed to gross out the audience, which it did. It didn't do anything for the plot except kill of characters who didn't need to die. Fucking worthless.
So, yeah, Kong sucked to me. Everyone will have a different take on the damn movie, that was mine. It sucked. It was worthless.
Now, here's my take on why movie theaters are going to go out of business sometime soon:
1. Prices are ridiculous. The tickets normally cost $8.50. Now, for twice that amount, you can buy the DVD when it comes out and watch it however many times you want. If you're on a date, you're going to pay that same amount anyway for two tickets, so you're not really losing anything.
2. Prices are ridiculous, part two. So, I bought popcorn and a drink. I looked at the prices and then saw they had a medium popcorn and medium drink combo. No price was listed for the combo, but I decided to go ahead and get it. It was $9.50, which, coincidentally, is the exact same price as ordering the same size popcorn and drink separately, so the combo had no value. About 50 minutes into the movie, I was out of popcorn and almost out of drink, so I decided to get a refill. The girl behind the counter said that they normally don't do refills on those sizes. Look, if I pay $9.50 for popcorn and a drink, how can they justify not refilling that at least once. Seriously, it's like 50 cents worth of stuff. The fuck? The girl went ahead and refilled it anyway since it was late and she really didn't care, but still, what the fuck? It wasn't posted anywhere, and the standard over the past several years has been free refills. They honestly can't justify that insane price anymore. Viva le revolution!
3. Prices are ridiculous, part three. This actually deals with movie making prices, which in turn affects ticket prices. Movies are made with insanely high budgets anymore, making it harder and harder for them to earn the money back. So, I watched The Island today, which also totally sucked ass. Here's the situation: The Island was made for roughly $122 million. Movie theaters have to pay a certain fee to show those movies. In order to recoup some of the money immediately, the studio charges some extra fee money. The cinema theater then raises its ticket prices regularly to cover those extra fees. So, some poor sap paid, what, $8 to see The Island and then ended up seeing a crappy movie. Then, because The Island only ended up making about $36 million dollars, the studio had to increase what it charged the theaters for their next movies to cover some of the losses it suffered from the crappy business of The Island. The theater then turns around and increases what it charges. Thus, the insane amount of money to make shitty movies affects everyone.
4. Stop with the damn special effects already. Look, stop making it so that you're constantly "pushing the envelope" with visual effects. They look nice, but I'm so damn tired of them. After Episode III, I really stopped giving a damn about visual effects. Make a damn film without using a damn computer sometime. Damn. I seriously hope that everyone out there comes around to the idea that a story and actual acting is more important than digital images, but I kind of doubt it. This is a problem affecting the entire film world, but probably isn't going to cause any theaters soon.
5. The home sound system has taken over, we don't have to do to a theater anymore to get "awesome" sound.
6. Other people in the theater are obnoxious, loud, and annoying. Here, at my place, I don't have to listen to people laugh at Jack Black's every move.
7. There are no new technologies on the horizon that will improve the theater experience. Theatre evolved when cinemas came about. Unfortunately, cinemas aren't evolving to react to DVDs and home theater systems.
So, yeah, those're my thoughts on the death of the cinema. Maybe it'll happen, maybe not.

Ah, randomness

So, today, I watched an episode of The Simpsons from last year. I missed most of last season, but the ones I did catch weren't that great. However, this one, oh my God. Hilarious. Some co-eds move into the Flanders house and set up a web-cam operation. Just awesome.
The best line has to be Bart cutting off some guy's pony tail and later playing with it, going, "Ooo, look at me, I'm a graduate student. I'm smart. I'm thirty and I can't find a job," to which Marge replies, "Bart, don't make fun of graduate students. They just made a terrible life choice." Just precious.

While my Funny Bone Gently Weeps

So, I've got to say that the not-quite cancellation of Arrested Development has seriously bummed me out. No more thinking-man's humor, just more drudgery from the likes of Charlie Sheen and Michael Rapaport. I will admit that, oddly enough, when I watch Charlie Sheen's show, I don't feel dirty afterward, just dumber. I cannot say the same for Mr. Rapaport's shitfest, The War at Home. The show is just trash. Subjects covered in it thus far have included the parents' occasional marijuana use, oral sex, and the fifteen-year-old daughter wanting breast implants. It is The Jerry Springer Show in sitcom form. Well, maybe there are less fights, I don't know.
So, last night, I was at Wal-Mart at about 1:30 AM and tried to find something, anything really, good out on DVD. All the movies were crap. Most of the TV box sets were too expensive. Then I found Frasier's 7th season for $30. I already have season 1 and 2 and really enjoyed them, so I didn't even look to see what the main arc of season 7 was. I just bought it and went home. It turns out it's the season where Daphne and Niles finally get together in the end, after she ducks out of her wedding and runs off with Niles. Thinking back, it's probably the best season of the show. I'm really glad I got it.
As I was watching it, though, it struck me just how funny the show was to me on an intellectual level. It wasn't sight gags or low-brow humor, but it was really smart at times. Jokes that I didn't get 5 years ago now make perfect sense because of how much I've learned over those years. The show is damn funny. Sure, it has a laugh-track, which is currently the bane of my existence, but I can get past that. There was a joke that cracked me up just a few minutes ago (yes, I'm watching this at work). Frasier, Niles, and Martin, the dad, are in the Winnebago and Niles wants to drive. Martin says, "Son, you don't handle big cars very well. I remember when I tried to teach you to drive my Le Sabre, you kept pulling the emergency brake." Niles deftly responds, "Well, that's because those mailboxes weren't slowing my down at all." God. The final season of the show may have been a bit much, but I still think that Frasier was one of the better shows that has graced the television screen.

If one more person comes up to my desk asking for "help," I swear I'm gonna...

Stupid library patrons.
So, I'm sitting here, wasting time that should be used for some of the multiple projects coming up, and I'm doing nothing. I looked up a lot of wikipedia articles that did nothing but rot my brain, and now I'm watching Episode III. Ah, capitalism and its wonderful incentives to do work. Pshah (trying a little onomatopeia there).
You know, I wanted to strangle myself during the scene with Anakin and Padme on the veranda or whatever. God, horrible dialogue. Portman looks horrible in the shot, with this emaciated, sunken eyes, "on the verge of death" look like someone who experienced the Holocaust for about a month. I really don't get why she looks so god-awful in that scene. And then Anakin says something along the lines of "You're so beautiful" and I almost shouted (in the middle of the library, mind you),"No, you fucking moron, she doesn't. I've seen shots where she looked beautiful. This, you dumbass, isn't one of them." I mean, seriously, Lucas, you'll digitally fuck with every other fucking thing in the movie, why not give her some complexion in this one damn scene. If you're going to say how beautiful someone looks and not have it be a pity compliment (like saying to a burn victim, "No, you're still beautiful, honey"), at least make me understand it. Of course, the scene also has this line, "So, love has made you blind?" which I suppose makes her look make some sense if you want to stretch like a poodle across a couch, but that ain't how it's meant to be.
I guess I'll do a running commentary like I did with War at Home.
So, I really liked Ewan McGregor in this one. See, in the other two, he wasn't Ben Kenobi. He was a shade of Old Ben, but he wasn't there yet. I'm not sure if he slowly adjust to be more like the Ben of the original trilogy or if the writing changed for the character each time. I understand the idea behind having a young Obi-Wan who was by-the-book and very strict in his ideals and then have him change over time to be a more adaptive and resilient Jedi, but it just didn't really work for me. It wasn't until this one where he really seems to be a younger version of the Obi-Wan we see in the original trilogy. There's a balance of humor and serenity, of friend and mentor, of duty and drive. That's the Ben I see in the original movies, that's the Ben I see in Episode III. Rock on, Ewan.
"This war represents a failure to listen." There's something about that line that works in the current contexts of our world, but I'm not really sure how it works in the Star Wars universe, or at least with the Clone Wars. It wasn't a failure to listen that led to the wars, it was (at least on the surface, Sith influence not withstanding) a corrupt bureaucracy that was bogged down in tradition and petty squables that led to the vast majority of systems leaving the Republic. Ultimately, I think it's that line that really, for me, drives home Lucas' attempt to make a statement with the film.
"Good is a point of view, Anakin." Man, how true is that line. See, that's why Palpatine steals the film. He gets all the best lines and spouts a philosophy that one can almost understand why Anakin falls for it. True, it's portrayed as evil from the film's point of view, but it's all relative.
"I know [the Jedi] don't trust you." "Or the Senate, or the Republic, or democracy for that matter." Look, let's cover a few things. First, as I have preached so many damn times, a republic is not a democracy. There might be democratic elements to a republic, but for a republic to exist, true democracy does not. Second, why the hell should the Jedi trust Palps? His term had expired, he's trying to manipulate the Jedi Council by putting Anakin on it, and he won't say that he'll give up his post once the war is finished. To me, that's not a leader that should be trusted. Plus, dude's so friggin' evil, man. Come on!
I've got to say, I read the novelization of this and it was absolutely awesome. I generally dislike novelizations of anything, but the one for Episode III had a cool style and system behind it, analyzing the characters in a really cool way. One of the things that it did was explain why Anakin was so pissed off about not being made a Jedi Master. The Jedi Temple had a bunch of texts that were only accessible to Masters, and some of those texts dealt with prolonging life and bringing people back from death. So, with those texts, Anakin might have been able to save Padme without Palp's help (bunch of good that did him, anyway). At least that concept made it seem more like Anakin actually gave a damn about someone else and not just himself.
"There's no war here, unless you brought it with you." I really like that line. There's this inner war idea that it invokes, that war exists only in the hearts of those whose wage it and that is how war gets transmitted, through contact with those not involved in it, almost like a virus. There's also this sense that war follows you wherever you go. You can see this sense in some veterans, that the war will constantly follow them, no matter where they go.
"Hello there." See, that's something I can totally see old Ben Kenobi doing, analyzing a situation, dropping right in the middle of it, and just totally kicking ass. When I first watched this scene, it was out of context. The video game had the part where he looks down and just drops into the middle of all these droids and says, "Hello there," then instantly pulls out his saber and it switches over to gameplay. To me, it seemed like Ben was just being stupid. Now, I completely understand what he was going for.
"Oh, I don't think so!" There's just this closeup shot of Grievous and Ben's eyes that's totally awesome. The CG of Grievous' face, complete with alien skin and eyes and cracks and scratches in the mask, is really well done. It really lends an intimate feel to the battle between the two characters, too.
"I get the feeling that I'm being excluded from the Council." Gee, you dumbass, could it be that you're not supposed to be on it anyway? It's like gays in scouts. If you force a gay child or leader to be part of a troop, the others are going to exclude them because they're being forced upon them without true acceptance.
There's this moment where Ben kicks Grievous and then yells out in pain, because, well, he's kicking solid metal. As stupid as it seems, it's a totally human moment. When humans are desperate to defend themselves, they'll hit, kick, scratch, do whatever they can. So, to me, Ben's kick, while stupid, is a real human moment for the character, which is something that's often criticized about these films.
Oh, God, it's the horrible scene where Anakin and Padme look at each other while they're several miles apart. Talk about a scene that just drags and adds nothing. We know that Anakin's going to turn because of her, we really don't need this scene. Look, I started typing this paragraph about fifteen seconds into the scene and it's still going on. God, so long.
Finally, cool shit with a bad motherfucker taking on just an evil motherfucker.
I get this sense that Palpatine is really digging the fight, just enjoying the hell out of it. Think about it, he's been this politician in public for roughly twenty years, when's the last chance he's had to kill some Jedi?
"The treason of the Sith will never return." When Mace says this line, we're just supposed to buy it, and I can because I know about "the treason of the Sith" from thousands of years before the movies begin. But what about the fans who haven't a clue? The background of the Sith isn't set up that well in these movies, causing the whole arc concerning the Sith to be somewhat confusing.
"A powerful Sith you will become." Why does Palpy have a Yoda line? Hmmm... Never caught that before.
Gotta tell you, those yellow, glowing eyes on Palpy freak me the fuck out. They freaked me out in Return when I was five, they freak me out now that I'm in my twenties.
"Commander Cody, the time has come." So, you're telling me that the leader of the Republic/Empire has the time to learn the names of every clone commander of every army on every planet, and then to contact them individually. Shouldn't it have just been a broad order to every clone? Palpy's got some serious free time on his hands.
Well, that's it for now. I'm going off to lunch, and then I'll enjoy the live episode of West Wing. God, I hope Alda totally forgets his lines and says something extremely dumb, like the Social Security can be saved. Somebody's gotta slip up or else it just won't be any fun.

Another worthless Friday...Yay!

So, I was supposed to go to the racetrack today with friends, but it got cancelled due to a lot of people dropping out and the fact that I felt like shit when I got up today.
So, with no real plans, I decided to do what I do best: sit around and waste time. I had some errands to run, which basically consisted of returning a rented DVD to one place, picking up some new movies to watch, getting a bunch of Cokes (5 for $5 at Kroger, whoo!), and um, seems like there was something else, but it doesn't really matter. So, at the cheap rental place, I decided to pick up a lot of films I'd either heard were good or had seen chunks of and wanted to see more, as well as one that caught my attention at the store. I picked up the original Longest Yard, Comic Book Villains, The War at Home, How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog, Playing Mona Lisa, and the first Superman. So far, I've watched The Longest Yard, which was really overrated and not that funny (which says something about the recent remake, since I hear it is almost the same word for word), and Comic Book Villains, which wasn't that great. It was in the Comedy section, and it really belongs in Drama, because it's funny for about five minutes and then it becomes this tense, twisting drama that's not only unfunny, but just mean, like the director/writer wanted to take the viewer into the human soul to show just how caught up we can get in things that should be worthless, that life needs to be interaction in this world and not living vicariously through the actions of superheroes with super-hot girls and awesome powers who save the world month after month, and that it is even more wrong to horde comics for the purpose of selling them to collectors, because that can lead men to do stupid things in the pursuit of money and fame, that in the end it all spirals out of control and the realities of life crash into these men, yet, in the end, evil gets what it deserves and the good guy can come out on top, that the intention behind an action can be the ultimate deciding factor in where the person performing that action ends up, but also that the semi-bad guy, the one whose key moment provides the rising action of the story, can also end up successful for a different reason, that it is possible for good and evil to triumph in their own ways (sorry, I decided at some point to make a Faulkner sentence just to see if I could. It's ain't pretty, that's for sure). So, yeah, not that good. Right now, I'm watching The War at Home, which is a film about a Vietnam vet, played by Emilio Estevez, who returns home and is still kind of disoriented by his experiences in the war. His father is this Southern patriarch who fought in WWII and is played by, of course, Martin Sheen. There's this barrier between the father and son. Oh, god, so far, it's been alright, but it seriously just bought into the cliche of using Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" in a movie that concerns 'Nam. Bah. Anyway, the barrier between father and son reminds me of this story by Tim O'Brien (whose stories always concern Vietnam and which I'm always moved by for one reason or another). The story was about this kid who returns home from two years in 'Nam and is struggling to reconnect. He's driving around the lake on July 4th, just circling it seven or eight times, taking it slow, trying to work through his issues. His father fought in WWII and never talks about it. The kid, Paul Berlin (who was a standard in O'Brien's stories and is considered his Mary Sue), has no one to talk to about the horrors that occurred there, like when a friend of his started to crawl into a Viet Cong tunnel, got shot in the neck, and the guy's legs just spasmed, the wretched spasm that is somehow so vivid in my skull without having actually seen it myself. The kid's driving around and just imagining that his father is in the truck with him, talking to him about it all. I think this has an impact on me because I see the same issue with my father and grandfather, both of which were in the military, fought in their own wars, but never talk about it, not to each other, not to anyone. I think they try and forget what they saw, but you can look at them and tell that they can't, and bottling it up is hard on them. Anyway, it's kind of funny, because while I wrote that last bit, in the movie, the daughter said to Martin Sheen that someone needs to talk to Emilio about his issues, and the father replied, "That may be, but it's not anybody in this family." Heh. Anyway, so far, except for the cliche, it's not that bad of a film. It's definitely the standard "Vietnam Vet has troubles adjusting" film, but at least I can be sure that it won't turn into a Rambo film with Emilio flipping out and killing dozens of people. The film reminded me of Cadence, which had Martin Sheen as the commander of a military prison and Charlie Sheen as a new prisoner (not playing father and son). I remember liking it when I was younger, but can't remember much about it now. It's now on my list of rentals for next weekend.
Bah, the boys were acting up and I had to go attend to them. Silly mutts. I'll probably be like the dwainker and start posting pictures of them on here soon. The problem is that they don't stay still enough to snap photos of.
Anyway, right now, I've still got about half of War at Home to watch, as well as Supes (which I'm not sure I've ever seen all the way through, and if I have, it's been a while), How to Kill You Neighbor's Dog (I've seen about half of it, and I find Branagh hilarious, so here's hoping), and Playing Mona Lisa (not to be confused with Mona Lisa's Smile, this is about a piano prodigy and her decision whether or not to attend Juliard, I think. I've seen maybe a third of it and liked it, so I figured what the heck). For my next rental cycle, I think I'll get Frailty (the movie with Matt MacConaughey and Bill Paxton, which tries to be suspenseful but which is totally given away by the promotional material, since the poster makes Matt look as evil as possible, yet the story tries to make him out to be a good guy), Liberty Stands Still (yeah, it has Wesley Snipes in it, but it has Oliver Platt in a serious role, which is usually a plus. The premise of the film is kind of like Phone Booth, but it looks to be about ten times better), Beat (about the major beatniks and their lives), Vulgar (it has most of the cast of Clerks in it and is about a run-of-the-mill party clown who saves the day and hits it big. Kind of like Death to Smoochy, but it doesn't look as cheesy, so here's hoping), Red Dawn (an anti-commie film about All-American kids who form a resistance group when Soviets invade their town. It has an interesting smattering of actors who became famous around the time of the film and then pretty much disappeared, including Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, and Lea Thompson), and now Cadence.
Heh, Kathy Bates just had a great line: "War doesn't make you rude to your parents."
I was watching I Love the 80s: 3D earlier, which is VH1's attempt to pull as much money out of a concept as possible. (Oh, my God, Kathy Bates is a total bitch. She's all about that "keeping up appearances" thing that the Brits and the Southerners are into. She's talking to her mother on the phone and then gives the phone to Emilio. He tells her that he's thinking about moving to California and she basically rips the phone away from him, telling her mother that the boy's just kidding. She then covers the receiver on the phone and calls Emilio a "vagrant." Bitch) Anyway, they were talking about mousse on ILt80s and how you were supposed to use it with discretion. Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Gos had this great quote: "You were supposed to use it with discretion, but a lot of us in the 80s didn't have discretion because we were on drugs!"
I've been paying attention to this movie for the most part, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to rewatch it. I think my main problem is that I like it and I haven't a real clue why. It's a cliche movie, yet it seems really good. Of course, in a way, Elizabethtown is a cliche movie that I think is damn good, so I guess anything is possible.
Martin Sheen's character is a lot like Bartlet. He's the kind of patriarch who's trying to keep everything together, giving everyone commands and expecting them to follow them, but it's just not working. In fact, Emilio just told him to "fuck off," which is kind of awesome. The family is completely breaking apart right now and it feels natural, and it's kind of heartbreaking. Yeah, seriously rewatching this at some point soon.
Anyway, that's all for now. I'll probably post another one tomorrow about the other films.

I fucking hate work

I'd much rather be home playing X-Men Legends for 8 hours straight while listening to our fucking dogs bark constantly than sit here and do the equivalent of absolutely nothing for the same amount of time. I'm about ready to just plain quit. I think I actually lose money by being here. The sadest part is that my time left here isn't even half over. Six Sundays down, the majority of one left today, and eight more to go. Fuck.

Everyone is less mysterious than they think they are

This morning, I saw Elizabethtown. I've been looking forward to this movie for about two years, I guess. See, I love Almost Famous. I loved the original version that Cameron Crowe put out. It was a great film to me. Then I watched Untitled, the director's cut of AF. Most director's cuts add about 10-15 minutes to the film. Untitled was 40 minutes longer than Almost Famous. It was ten times better for me. Almost all of the extra footage added to the plot, the pacing was excellent, the film was a masterpiece. Crowe said that the studio wouldn't let him put out the nearly three-hour version in theaters, but DVD gave him a lot of extra freedom to do what he wanted with the film. The DVD set of Untitled (which was what Crowe originally wanted Almost Famous called, but the studio wouldn't let him do that either) includes both the AF original cut and the director's cut. I tried watching the theatrical version one day and couldn't. The film is so much richer because of those extra 40 minutes.
Anyway, so, I was looking forward to Elizabethtown. I didn't watch Vanilla Sky because the film looked a bit odd, I'm not a huge Tom Cruise fan, and it was based off of a Hispanic film, which meant that the majority of the film really wouldn't be from Crowe's heart and past, which is where AF and Say Anything were from. So, I skipped it. I watched the first trailer and was okay with it. Nothing great, but trailers are often formulaic and don't really get to the heart of the movie. I watched the internet trailer on apple.com and was really moved. I don't know if it was Elton John's song "My Father's Gun" that played over the majority of the trailer (which featured very little dialogue, as the dialogue was mostly muted while the song played, which was kind of odd) or just what I could derive from the scenes from expressions and not dialogue, but it was simply great.
I watched everything that came out about the movie. Trailers, the internet trailer, even the music selection trailer on Apple's site. I devoured it all. I was expecting a really good movie.
So, I went to the first screening today. I went a little late because last time I'd gone to a movie at that time of day on a Friday, the theater had been practically empty (of course, that's when I went to see Serenity, so there you go). The place was packed. I went into the theater and it was almost full. See, I live near Elizabethtown, so a lot of people wanted to see the movie because it's based in a city near where they live (not why I was there). Then I remembered that it's Fall Break time for the kids around here, so a lot of youth groups were there (heh, they said "fuck" twice in the movie and I heard a lot of gasps. I loved that). I found a seat that was a single, next to the handicapped area at the back. That was nice.
Until a manager came in and said that there was a woman there with her handicapped daughter and they wanted to sit together. I was having a nice day and said I'd move. I got up and looked around. I don't like to sit next to strangers in a theater. I'm not wild about sitting next to anyone in the theater unless I'm close to them in some way (really good friend, hot girl, etc.). So, the only seats that worked into that criteria were in the front row. Alright, fine, how bad could it be to sit in the front row?
I basically had to scootch down as far as possible to see the entire screen. Shit. This movie had better be fucking good. Fucking youth groups and fucking old people taking up all the fucking seats. It'd better be fucking good.
It was.
It was so damn good.
It was the best movie I've seen this year. I love Star Wars and really liked Episode 3. This was better. Critics fell all over themselves for Batman Begins and Serenity. I thought they were both mediocre. I liked Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. A History of Violence was good. War of the Worlds and Mr. & Mrs. Smith were okay, but forgettable. Sin City was gritty and harsh, but good. Saraha wasn't as bad as I expected, but wasn't all that good.
But Elizabethtown was abso-fucking-lutely great. It easily was better than all of those movies from the past 10 months. I can't even recall a movie from 2004 that was that good.
I hate Orlando Bloom. He was really good in this, even great at times.
I used to dislike Kirsten Dunst. Something changed that about 6 months ago and I can't put my finger on it why. In this, she was really good (the Southern accent that they tried to work in for her was the only nitpick I had, and I'm not sure if it grated on me for a specific reason or if it was just that I'm used to her normal accent that she uses in every other movie I've seen her in).
The soundtrack was great and I'm thinking about heading to Wal-Mart to buy it right now. In fact, I think I will. Meh, probably not. I don't know.
I was worried it would be Garden State all over again. It's not. It's better than Garden State, and I really liked Garden State.
It made me realize things about myself that scare the hell out of me. I'm not ready for my father to die. I fear that I really don't know him that well. I worry about what my mother might be like after my father dies. I fear that I might fail at my chosen profession and have lost five years of my life when I could have done something else. I then wonder what I'd do after I failed. I saw myself in Bloom's shoes and I wonder if my dark appointment with destiny is coming, too.
I'll admit, there wasn't a lot of hilarious dialogue that I could endlessly quote. There little bits of the score were very reminiscent of the AF score. There's set-up for a sub-plot or two that you see scenes of in the trailer but are missing from the film. To me, it doesn't matter.
Critics are trying to rip this a new one. I haven't agreed with critics much this year (look up the review for Batman or Serenity and see how close they are to mine). I love this movie. I was seriously considering sneaking out at the end and then back in before the next showing to see it again, but the next showing had people lined up waiting once we got out of our showing. It was a little ridiculous.
I want this movie. If there'd been a stand outside the theater offering a DVD of the movie (as some studios have considered doing), I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Money is tight now, and I'd still do it.
Don't let my opinion buff up your expectations of the film, though. This film meant a lot to me because of how it related to my life and how I saw the film (figuratively, not literally, but I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't have a crick in my neck at the end). Nearly every part of this film worked for me, and at the end I was satisfied. I walked out of the theater without a real complaint. I just wish I could see more movies like this.

Lookin' into their eyes, I see they're runnin' too

     Wow, it's actually been a week since I last wrote one of these. Look, it's just the second sentence and I know this is going to be a long one. It's been brewing in my mind for the last couple of days, and it's a mighty strong brew, so I'll try to put in a couple of stopping points for those without the time or the inclination to read extremely long posts.
     Friday night, I was out at a friend's house just to hang out. About a half hour after getting there, my dad calls and says that a guy was at their house asking for me. It turned out that is was Calvin, who was my best friend through junior high and high school. We were pretty inseparable, taking a lot of the same classes, hating the same teachers, and we were totally devoted to the Yearbook program. Sometime near the middle of our junior year, Calvin got a girlfriend, it became serious, and she ended up getting pregnant. Calvin tried to "do the right thing" by asking her to marry him, but her parents wouldn't let it happen. The kid was born the July between our junior and senior years. Calvin stuck with school pretty regularly until the spring of our senior year, and then he started missing school. A lot. When Spring Break rolled around, he dropped out, although the girl stuck with it until she graduated. Calvin took care of the kid, she went to school. I didn't talk to him much that summer, but the next summer, we got together and hung out for the day. He'd gotten married to the girl in a small courthouse ceremony the previous September, which I wasn't told about and was honestly a little hurt that he hadn't invited me or informed me in some manner (After all, my e-mail address hasn't changed in seven years, and he could obviously find where I lived today, so it seems he could at least drop me a line). For some reason, we went car shopping for him that day, and he bought new car (Calvin was really, really into cars in high school. When I say that, I mean that he had maybe five cars he was working on at one point in time. Some people collect stamps, Calvin collected crappy "classic" cars that really needed work). He bought that car three years ago. We hadn't talked since. He worked for Grandy's pretty steadily after the girl became pregnant and he was some kind of manager when I last saw him, so two years ago, I went to Grandy's to try and find him, but he had left by that point. I think I tried calling the phone number that he gave me, but I didn't get in touch with him. Even the e-mail address bounced back. He was essentially gone.
     So, three years after I last saw him, I get that call from my dad. As it turns out, I was home that weekend, so it was amazingly lucky that Calvin caught me when he did. We talked for a few minutes on the phone, during which time I gently probed for information. He and the wife had separated sometime last year after she'd had a second kid with him, she'd joined the National Guard and shipped off in January and came back in April, at which time she asked him for a divorce. So, the wife is now the ex-wife. He was now driving a truck for a junkyard, going on a big, circular path through several neighboring states five days a week. He was renting a house from an old English teacher of ours. There was this tone in his voice that made him sound hollow, that joy really didn't exist for him except where his kids were concerned. I told him where I was and told him to swing by, I was going to ditch my friends for the night to hang out with him. (Potty break if you need it)
     So, Calvin picked me up and we just went. Our hometown is now essentially a suburb of a big town across the river, so we naturally headed in that direction, since our town is dying a very slow death (the local theater went out of business, so now we have to travel about 30 miles to a theater in neighboring towns. It sucks). Anyway, so we talked about where I was, where old friends were, and he talked about regrets. He was so pissed at himself for not having stuck with high school and then gone to college. He was one of the smartest kids in the school. He scored a distinguished on his portfolio, and he was one of only 15 kids in my senior class to do that (unfortunately, they couldn't count his scores toward the final tally because he dropped out). Now, when he drives his truck, five times a week, he passes the university where he had planned to go. We ended up going to a pizza place/bar and then back to his place to continue to catch up. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to catch up on. It ended up being a lot like Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days," where people who knew each other in high school end up talking about high school. Calvin and I weren't really trying to get back to our "glory days," we just really didn't have anything else to talk about. That was kind of fun, but it was also sad. At the end of the night, I gave him my e-mail address and phone number, and told him that if he ever gets a chance to visit, I've got a couch with his name on it. I really want to build a friendship with him again, but I'm wondering how to.
     The thing that makes me sad the most is that despite how close we were, there's not the much there now. I told him things about my life that very few people know, but it has no real impact on him like it does on my current circle of friends. Where I currently am, I have friends who are like siblings to me, that I share just about everything with and enjoy hanging out with for hours on end. Yet, in a few years, when we move away for jobs or just to wander the Earth, when I get together with them, will we have anything in common, or will we just talk about our "glory days?" I seriously don't want that to happen. I'm sad to find out it happened to Calvin and me, but it scares me that it might happen to me and some of my current friends. I hope it doesn't happen, I really do. I have a hard time imagining what my life would be like without talking to these people once a week; I can't fathom not doing so for months or years at a time.
     Catching up with Calvin also taught me a lesson about, well, me. The past few years, I've felt like I've done nothing with my life. Yeah, I've got a degree, but I really didn't do anything to get it. I took classes that seemed like they'd be fun, some of which were. I took classes that were "required" and did the least amount of work possible, passing them all with relative ease. I've paid a lot of money to get a degree that was really just a way to get into a grad program, which I'm actually learning from and doing stuff in. Except for social growth, I feel like I've lost four years. I'm unmotivated. I'm tired of the bureaucratic bullshit that I've been going through. I've questioned how the hell I got to where I am, and tried to find exactly what figurative roads brought me here. I think I have friends here who are the same way, but I've been with most of them for the past four years, so we ended up questioning it all together. Calvin taught me that he's done the same thing. He was on a very different path, yet we're all starting to feel the same way. There's a line from Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty" which I took a chunk of as the title of this post:

"Lookin' out at the road rushin' under my wheels,
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels.
I look around at the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through.
Lookin' into their eyes, I see they're runnin' too."

From what Calvin told me about where several people from high school currently are, we're all runnin' on empty. That's sad, but comforting, too.
     He also brings another Jackson Browne lyric to mind which would make an awesome SotP, but this seems more appropriate. Calvin's graduated with his GED last year (valedictorian, actually, scoring extremely high without having studied any of it since high school), doesn't have the financial structure to go to school, has two kids that are weighing heavily on him since their mother really doesn't want them because they interrupt her new partying lifestyle, a job he doesn't like and with no real chances to move up the ladder, a friend's wife who is falling in love with him and he feels wrong about it, and no real friends around, only asshole cousins who grab his ex-wife's ass in front of him to tick him off and who take and deal drugs but say that "it's okay, we're working undercover for the cops." Essentially, Calvin is surrounded by shit, and he knows that he's to blame for a good chunk of it. That's why "These Days" comes to mind, and the lines

"These days I sit on cornerstones,
And pass the time in quarter-tones to ten, my friend.
Don't confront me with my failures;
I have not forgotten them."

It was oddly prophetic that I put that on a CD to drive home to Thursday morning. It saddens me to know that Calvin is in that situation, and it saddens me even more that I can't really do anything about it other than drop him a line every now and then so he has someone to talk to it about.
     Well, that's about it. It was a long, sweeping narrative epic that I'm sure had you enthralled. Hope you took advantage of the pee break and, if you didn't, I hope your bladder didn't explode. However, if that was the case, your dedication is appreciated.

So there I was...mother of God, there I am!

Yeah, so, I found myself considering today how I've been fighting stupidity and empty words with intelligence, yet still empty words. I've been in this debate with a dumbass over Christian ideals, yet the only real source of ammo is the Bible. The problem with that is that the Bible is not really a good source of Christian ideals. See, it contradicts itself, and it was put together not by God, but by a group of men who were wanting to run things their way, also known as the Catholic Church. See, the Bible was not sent down from on high directly to a publisher. In fact, the books of the New Testament were just testaments and letters and memoirs of various people from 2000 years ago (give or take several hundred). The Catholic Church took these and decided which ones should be taught and which ones should not. The ones that worked for their needs became the Catholic Bible. The ones that went against their idea of how the Church should be became the Apocrypha. Some of these texts were even written by saints of the Catholic Church, such as Bartholomew, one of the forgotten 12 apostles. While the dwainker might point out how much the Catholic Church and Christianity were influenced by Peter, it's important to remember that the Bible was put together several generations after Peter died. Several of the gospels and works in the apocrypha are very different versions of the stories you'd find in your Bible today, yet they were written around the same time by men who spent just as much time with Jesus. In that sense, it's hard not to look at the Bible and realize that some information has been kept from you, all in the name of creating a certain face for Christianity. In some stories, Eve didn't eat the fruit off the tree, she had sex with Satan, and that's why man fell. So, if you're trying to find a version of the story to tell your kids and create a kind and gentle face for your religion (which is all about abstinence and monogamy), which one are you going to pick? Christianity is really just like politics: you put spin on everything to make it look good for the little people who support you. I'm not saying that you should just throw out the Bible, but I wish that somehow Christianity could be a little more honest with itself and understand its history instead of just blindly going along with what the Bible says. Some may argue that the men who put the Bible together were divinely influenced, but that doesn't jive with the huge (and well-documented) debate behind whether or not to include Revelations in the Bible. If these guys were led by God, wouldn't it have been a fast and easy decision instead of a long and draw out battle?
The idea of Christianity's past led me to wonder about its future. Have you ever considered what will replace Christianity? It only makes sense that something will. That's how it's worked in the past. For example, there were the Greeks and their gods. Zeus was on high and Hera was a bitch, and all was well. Then the Romans came and said, "Hey, we like a lot of this religious stuff. Let's use it for ourselves." And so they did, only using new names for the same shit. Then came the Christians, who were persecuted until Constantine said, "Hey, let's give this a try." And so they did, and Christians went all over the world saying, "We know better than you. Let's civilize you and save your soul." So, the question is, what will come and take Christianity's place? Science seems a bit obvious, since it's a religion in itself (much like Greek mythology, where everything had an explanation to it, and a particular god assigned to it, science does the same thing, and just has a theory name assigned to it instead). I don't know. Maybe Oprahism will do it. Man, have you seen women on that show when she comes out? Had Christ gotten half that reception, I'm pretty sure the Catholic Church would use an old man in bed as their symbol instead of a depressing old crucifix.
It also makes total sense to me why Christianity is the more or less official religion of America. Look at what Americans did: Native Americans lived happily with their way of life, then the Americans came in and said, "We know better than you. Let's civilize you." And so they did, with smallpox and gunpowder and glass beads. Look, I like where I am now, but I know that blood has been spilled over this spot time and again, and that makes me look at it all a little differently than most Americans. It also makes me wonder what will come in and take the United States' place someday.

Never thought this would happen

Yeah, so, two posts in 24 hours time. It's an amazing world after all.
I just finished watching Extras, the new comedy series by Ricky Gervais, the guy behind The Office. I loved The Office and so I was a little apprehensive about Extras. Wow. The first two shows weren't that great, but, oh man, the last four just killed me. Kate Winslet's episode was so funny that I nearly had a stroke. The next two were really funny, too, and the last one, with Patrick Stewart, was so funny I had tears in my eyes. Wow.
The first two episodes reminded me of The Office because of that "painful" feeling you get watching it, but later episodes mixed that and just straight-out humor. Just amazingly good stuff.

Serenity = Okay

Yeah, so, I went and saw Serenity today. I gave in. And it was, as you can see above, okay. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. It ranks about where Batman Begins did.
I loved the dialogue, and picked up a few new terms, including the expletive "God's Balls." Yeah, that one's getting used tonight. But...
Wash and Book died, and they were two characters that I really liked. Also, I liked Mal in the show, but there was just something...odd about him in the movie. Inara was included simply to "get the band back together." Simon and Kaylee getting together was nice, but it didn't feel like a real payoff. Wash's death was quick and mean, something you don't see much in films, but completely unnecessary. Book's death was appropriate, I'll give you that, but I do want to know his backstory, which was hinted at so much without payoff so far. Jayne was just there to deliver funny lines and as an enforcer. I'll give you the fact that he was that in the show, but it was just one-note to me. It reminded me of the X-Files movie, where everything that happened there could happen on the show proper. True, Firefly was cancelled, but this would have worked just as well as a mini-series in the vein of Farscape's The Peacekeeper Wars. It was all payoff for what happened on the show, felt a little less rushed, and still told a sweeping storyline that could stand on its own. With Serenity, there was so much catch-up for the one new guy in the theater (who probably wandered in by mistake) that it hindered the movie a bit. To me, the movie needs a viewing of the show to really understand a lot of what's going on. Luckily, I did that. What about the people who didn't.
Oh, and how can Mal have received an honor for valor at the Battle of Serenity Valley? It was the final, crushing battle in the war, so are you telling me that the Browncoats had a meeting to give out awards and then disbanded? That's like a Confederate getting an award for being at the Battle of Palmito Ranch (the last actual land battle of the American Civil War. The winner? The Rebels. Heh).
Anyway, I thought the movie was alright. I went in with mediocre expectations. I got roughly what I expected.
Other than that, I guess there isn't much to say.