Monday, June 27, 2005

Stuff I have to do

Here is a list of things I have to do.

1. Mow the Lawn
2. Fill out my fafsa thing
3. Get my class E drivers license (I can't spell that word)
4. Get the Caprice's belts checked out
5. Get Bucket's birthday present

Here is a list of things I'd like to do

1. Fix up that old electric guitar
2. Get new glasses


This weekend was pretty spiffy. I hung out with Pete and Steve Friday night/saturday. I really like Cairo. It's nifty. I got to hang out with my brothers. Joe is a tool, but that's how it goes... I have a lot of fun when my brothers are around. Wow... I'm writing like a 7 grader. I'm not going to bitch about how much work is going to suck this week, cause if you're reading this, then chances are that you're one of the people i would've already complained about how much work is going to suck this week to.

Anyway, I think I'm going to read some Order of the Phoenix now.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Matt Essner: Comic Book Geek

So I totally geeked out today, not once but twice. One: I bought the Ultimates trade, which is something Pete and Steve have been suggesting for a long time, and I saw the midnight show of Batman Begins. Actually it sort of happened the other way around... kind of... So I knew I was going to see Batman tonight, I decided at like 1045 I was going to go, but no one could/wanted to come with me to the show. So I was at Hastings and I was thinking, "you know If I'm going to be sitting in a movie theater for 30+ minutes with no one to talk to, I'm going to be bored. Hey look Ultimates 1 is on sale (by one sale I mean it was available for purchase), Perhaps I should buy Ultimates to read while I wait." and I did.

The End


Not really, but it is the end if you haven't seen Batman Begins. If you haven't seen the movie, stop what you're doing. No go and see it. For those of you that have seen it, here are some of my reactions.


SWEET FUCKING FUCK!
That movie was amazing. FUCK! I'm speechless. Better than the other Batman movies, definately, best superhero movie, without a doubt, best comic book movie, very probably. This movie beat the crap out of X2 and Sin City. Ok let's break it down. The cast. Damn. Fuck. Damn.
I'm reduced to curse words.
Ok I'll start with the weak points. The costume isn't all that great. It seems bulky and difficult to move in, but you wouldn't know it from the action sequences. To some extent, the movie isn't as good when Batman is on screen. Actually a better way to say it is Christian Bale is much better at playing Bruce Wayne than Batman. He plays both roles, however, better than anyone else who's tried before him. Why do super hero movies always have to turn into lessons in ethics. remedial ethics, with superheroes as the teachers. There might be more, but after one viewing....
ok the good stuff. They decided to make Gotham a place. It's not just a series of banks, warehouses, Arkham and the police station. It's a real city.
The cast is amazing. It's good on paper, it's mindblowing on film. Liam Neeson is as Liam Neeson always is, his performance always lends so much credibilty and realism to whatever he is in. Morgan Freeman is one of the finest actors of his generation. He makes movies better by being involved. He can do Kevin Costner movies and still be one of the most respected actors in Hollywood. Micheal Caine plays Alfred as well as he's played any role he's ever played. Ken Watanabe's performance is subtle, and entirely appropriate for his role. Cillian Murphy is the best actor I've never seen before. Christian Bale delivers. Gary Oldman should be in every movie (especially ones of a pornographic nature) he's that good.
I really liked this movie because it's everything a Batman movie should be. People who go to this movie expecting something other than a Batman movie, are going to be dissapointed.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

So I watched Dr. Strangelove...

It was pretty good. I didn't laugh. I don't think it was funny "ha ha, ha, snicker snicker ha" kind of way. More in a "wow George C. Scott is da bomb diggy" kind of way. It really makes you appreciate that generation of actors, what they did, how they did it. Peter Sellers is very good. The thing about they movie is that something like that could happen. I guess that's why they made it a comedy, so it would be less freaky? I don't know... but it was genuinely suspenseful, even though I knew what was going to happen, as the image of Captain Kong riding the bomb to it's target is a pretty inconic peice of pop culture. It was loads more realistic than the latest clancy movie... I forget what it's called... it's got Afleck... screw it.

What else, what else. I'm going to see Batman Begins tomorrow. Woo hoo? It's the comic book movie for the summer. I remember a time where there was a comic book movie that came out like once every two years maybe. Nowadays we've got at least one a season. That's not necessarily good, in fact it's usually bad, but every once in a while you get a gem like Sin City. Hopefully Batman Begins will be good. Fantastic Four is going to blow.

Monday, June 13, 2005

WHY!?

So I was thinking... a lot of times in movies and TV and stuff, something bad will happen, and a character will look up to the sky and scream "WHY!? GOD, WHY!". It's usually raining when this happens, and usually someone has just died. But, if you think about it, and I usually do, this sort of reaction is never inapropriate (If you can't spell the word correctly, don't spell it at all) this sort of reaction is never. The assumption is that when something bad happens, it is God's fault. But, if God is the creator of everything, shouldn't every occurence be God's fault. Indeed it should. Also, if one was to say that they were completely knowledgeable of God's motivation for something, they would either be lying or God. Therefore, to ask God about God's reasoning for an event occuring would usually be a valid question, as you would never really know the answer. Though I suppose in the case of the person screaming "Why God, why" in the rain, the question is merely rhetorical. Also I don't really think God should be held accountable in the strictest sense, for everything that happens. I mean, yes, it was God that set up this great stack of dominos, but he knocked the first one down years ago, God comes to check on it from time to time, moves some stuff around a little bit, but for the most part, other than for moral support and intangible feelings of somethingness, all we have in this world are the other dominos. So be nice to the other blocks. Wow... I didn't mean for this to get all preachy. Sorry kids, don't do drugs... stay in school... hibbity jibbit.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Not just another entry about work and stuff

I would just like to warn all who read this that this blog has some actual content. This is not me just posting for the sake of posting. I apologize in advance to any that came here looking for that.

Ok here's some interesting facts about me. Some people have internal monolouges, wherein they examine things in a rherotical, intenal way. Although I have those sometimes, I am more prone to external dialouges. When I want to examine a line of thought I have, I speak out loud, to myself. I don't just say something, then reply though, not at all. I will say something, propose an idea or theory, then reply in a scottish accent. That way I appear twice as crazy. Actually I don't know why I do that. I discussed that with myself last night. The weird thing is, is that the Scottish me doesn't always play the same part in the dicussion, like sometimes I be the pro and scottish me will be the con, than halfway through the argument we switch posisitions. Anyway I usually only do this when I'm commuting somewhere, like last night, when I was riding my bike home from work.
During the course of said ride I determined that I have a crush on someone. This is a rather infrequent occurence for the sole reason that I do my best to prevent such situations from arising. I suppose that is a foolish thing attempt to do, because in my experience a crush is something that occurs without any sort of warning. It just sort of happens. Trying to prevent a crush is like trying to prevent the wind. You can go places where you can't feel it, but it's still there. Maybe that was a bad analogy. Maybe it wasn't, that's not for me to say. Anyway, I spent the majority of my ride home discussing the nature of crushes. Is it rational to have a crush? I decided that it is not inherently irrational to have a crush (but I think mine is somewhat irrational), just like no emotion is inherently irrational...well actually that's not true. Love is irrational...probably hate as well...but most emotions are rational or not irrational by their very nature. What is a crush? This one I never answered to my, or my scottish accented self's satisfaction. We both agreed on things that a crush is not, but had a hard time defining what a crush is. By the time I got home I was too tired to care, but I brought it up again on the way to work this afternoon. My scottish voice brought his irish and english friends and they also had no idea, nor did the australian voice that sometimes makes an appearence in these conversations. None of them showed up on the way home from work. I think we'll just agree that "a crush" is something that is best defined without words, and leave it at that. Ok, so now I'm going to tell you who I have a crush on, but you have to promise to not make fun of me. Zooey Deschanel. Yes, that Zooey Deschanel. This is why I think my crush is somewhat irrational. I have never met Zooey Deschanel, I will probably never meet Zooey Deschanel, I have only seen her in movies, and yet I find she enters my thoughts without me requesting access to any Zooey Deschanel information, which is why someone would normally enter my thoughts (that last part was implicit, but I seem to have a problem with explicit vs implicit meanings). I will be contemplating something or thinking of a story, and all of a sudden I am presented with a situation where I run into Zooey Deschanel at a book store or a gorcery store or a record store (why is retail always involved... that is a question for another time) and I must come up with something witty and charming, yet sincere and earnest to say in order to impress Zooey Deschanel. In order to demonstrate the dillusional qualities of this feeling I have, before I comitted Zooey Deschanel's name to my blog, I looked it up on IMDB to make sure I spelled it correctly, because I believe there is a chance that Zooey Deschanel could be reading this. She could google her name or something and find my blog, read this post and e-mail a polite note saying hello. Also, several sentences ago I said " I will probably never meet Zooey Deschanel" that was going to read "I will never meet Zooey Deschanel" but I didn't have the heart to type it. Surely this is some sort of madness.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Fanfiction

The 1 year anniversary of the fanfiction competition is coming up. We're thinking about having some sort of party, but we don't know when or where or what or who. There will probably be some fanfiction reading... maybe a lot of fanfiction reading... I'm not really sure. I've never been to a fanfiction party, so I don't know what to expect... well I expect it to be awesome.

Tomorrow night is the reading for the latest competition. The topic is "Firefly". I've started mine, I know what I want it to be about, I just haven't sat down to finish it yet. I'm not a very good or dilligent writer.

I saw episode 3 for the third time today. It's a fun movie, and it's a good excuse to hang out with Bob. I remember when Bob and I first watched a Star Wars movie. I think we watched Return of the Jedi first. That used to be my favorite of the Original Trilogy, was I ever that young? Anyway, Bob and I have devoted a sizable portion of our lives to Star Wars, we used to have Star Wars campaigns with our action figures, we'd play the Star Wars video games, read Star Wars books. We really like Star Wars. Recently though, we've been reinvisioning the entire series. Tonight we worked up an outline for what the movies would be like if we made them. We came up with a mythology/theology/origin for the Star Wars Galaxy. It's pretty cool. Our Star Wars movies would not have cheesy blind wipes, in fact there would be no Powerpoint editing at all in our movies. There would be nine of them, and they'd all rule.

Oh yeah, work was a bitch last week. My machine died, and Pat is on vacation. Other Pat is kind of slow, so I'm picking up a little bit of slack. Not much, cause I suck at running Pat's machine. It's a piece. My machine ran anything. It was a real trooper. Pat's machine is a total bitch and I hate it. The End.