End of Summer Postravaganza!

Well folks, here it is: the Sunday night before the first day of school. I think it's going to be a good semester, but before we talk about the future, let's talk about the past, ie what I did this summer. And since this is the internet, my reminiscing will take the form of lists!

Ok list 1:

You may remember this from my post from May 11 (probably not though). It's my list of things I wanted to accomplish this sumer. For those who don't remember I'll recap.

Goals for the summer:
1. Get another job (we've seen this one before)
2. Save money to pay for school in the fall (this one is more a corollary part 1)
3. Get a DVD player
4. Become a better guitar player (we've seen this one too!)
5. Run or Bike everyday or almost everyday
6. Eat better.
7. Sleep more.
8. Read books.
9. Punctuate more consistently

Ok, let's see how I did.
1. Check
2. Check (we'll see about this one)
3. Check (Yay birthday!)
4. Not really
5. Sort of. I did pretty well until I got the pesky second job. But I still went at least once a week.
6. No. Not at all. Lots of fast food. Bad Matt.
7. Nope. 2 jobs = less sleep.
8. I did read a few books. Two of the Otori books, Michael Ian Black's "My Custom Van", and one of Bruce Alexander's Sir John Fielding mysteries.
9. Yes... and no,

So not too bad on the goals. I'm satisfied. Ok, next list.

Favorite Things of this summer (in no particular order);

1. Starting and continuing Food Night at Droid's (Pizza night 1 was a flop but it's been great since then)
2. Writing a screenplay (sort of)
3. Riding part of The Tunnel Hill Trail with my dad
4. Spaced DVD's
5. Stella DVD's
6. Watching all of Wes Anderson's movies in successive weeks.
7. Getting a better job

Least Favorite things of the summer:

Obviously losing Buster was the worst thing that happened to me this summer. He was my first dog, and I miss him. That being said here's some other stuff that wasn't nearly as unpleasant as the death of my dog.

1. Summer Comedies. Forgetting Sarah Marshall was the best comedy I've seen all year in theaters. Every other comedy was just not that funny.
2. No concerts. There was once concert I wanted to see this summer, (Raconteurs) but I ended up not going.

That's all I can think of really. So I was going to quite Kohl's today, but I didn't really. I told them I couldn't do adset anymore, and I told them I could only work three days a week. I told them if they could use me those three days then I'll work those three days. The ball's in their court. There were several reasons that I didn't outright quit Kohl's the most important being that I like having money. I'll be working about 20 hours a week at Wal-mart and it would be nice to have a bit more money floating my way.

So that's all for now. I'll probably post about how much I hate/love my classes sometime later this week.

Better than Wall-E.

That's my review of Clone Wars, which is not a bad movie at all. Wall-E on the other hand... don't get me started on that piece of excrement (I have never, nor will I ever see Wall-E). Clone Wars wasn't perfect, the dialogue wasn't great, but the action was good and the plot wasn't terrible. Anakin is a completely different character than he is in either of the movies, which is ok with me, because I'll sacrifice continuity for not having a terrible, terrible performance any day of the week. My biggest problem with the movie was the overabundance with nicknames. I noticed that nicknames are a device used by writers to demonstrate characters familiarity with one another. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't work in Clone Wars. The little girl jedi appears onscreen and within 2 minutes she's already assigning people nicknames. Bad, unoriginal nicknames (Anakin, her Jedi master, whom she is supposed to obey implicitly and respect totally, becomes "Sky Guy").

On the plus side there are some actually funny moments in the movie, not a lot, but I did laugh out loud a couple of times. Also on the plus side is a character named Ziro the Hutt. I don't really want to say too much about him, but he's pretty awesome. Here's how I imagine the genesis of his character came about:

Clone Wars Writer1: I bet you can't make a character gayer then C-3PO.
Clone Wars Writer 2: Watch me.

Anyway... it's a decent film and it gives me hope that the TV show will be tolerable... they should let me write it.


In other news: There is no other news. All I do is sleep, eat and work. I'm going to do one of those things right now (hint: it's something I do with my eyes closed and not while I'm awake).

The Geekiest thing I've ever said

Brad Bohannon called me Friday afternoon. He had an extra ticket to the Cardinal's game and wanted to know if I wanted to go with him. I told him that I couldn't because I was DMing a session of Dungeons and Dragons that night. If Joe knew about this and was dead, he would be rolling around in his grave.

Speaking of DND *here begins the DnD rant, you've been warned*

It went pretty well I think. It took a little less than three hours, and we covered everything I had planned, storywise at least. The combat didn't really go as well as I would have liked. Especially the second encounter, when Jonathan destroyed pretty much all of the opponents in one attack. But I determined that I don't really like running combat. It's a lot to remember and a lot to coordinate. I do very much like the non-combat aspects of DMing though.

I think the biggest difference between me and Matthew when it comes to DMing is that I tend to see the role as more of a narrator, moving the plot forward and directing the action, and Matthew sees the role as more as a fascilitator ( I don't think that's how that word is spelled), he sort of allows us to do whatever we want and gives us hints every once in a while. Maybe as I get a little more experienced as a DM, I'll feel more comfortable letting the characters wander for a bit, but for this session I had a very clear idea of what needed to get accomplished and I wanted to make sure everything that needed to happen for the story happened. I'm pretty excited about what's in store for the next few sessions, it should be fun. I just need to get better at running combat.

*End DnD Rant*

News Shorts:

1. I'm thinking about re-reading book 7 (Harry Potter). I never re-read book 5 last summer when I was re-reading the whole series, I've tried to pick it up this summer, but it hasn't took. Anyway, that's something I'm considering.

2. The Bank Job is a pretty decent movie. The actual bank robbery part of the movie wasn't very good but the subsequent parts were pretty decent.

3. I read the Wanted graphic novel. I don't know what the movie was about, but I don't think it was about what the comic was about. I still kind of want to see it though.

4. Walmart is still pretty fun. I think we're going to be in the warehouse all the time from now on, which kind of blows because:
a. The warehouse isn't as fun as working at the store because
i. there are only the four of us there (as opposed to the 20 of us that work at the store)
ii. the work at the warehouse is kind of tedious
iii. the warehouse isn't airconditioned (which isn't a big deal for me because I'm a solja)
b. I don't get to hang out with Spants on my breaks
Working at the warehouse is kind of ok because
a. I can ride my bike to work (yeah right)
b. I can go home for lunch (or bring my lunch for that matter)
c. it's more convenient to go to lunch with any of my Cape friends (pretty much all of my friends)

5. I've been watching a lot of Spaced lately. It's so good, with 1.5 exceptions. (episode 2.1 and Daisy's story arch in the Battle Bots episode). Edgar Wright is kind of my hero.

THAT IS ALL.