List

Ok, so the summer is pretty much over, although because I'm not in school anymore, the changing of the seasons seems considerably less significant than it once did. Even so, I'm going to take this opportunity to enumerate my favorites things I did, saw, experienced this summer. I'm going to pick ten things, but as I write this sentence I really have no idea how many things I'm going to come up with, that number is subject to change. Also, these things may or may not be in some sort of qualitative order, because, as I said, I'm just coming up with this things as I go. So, without further ado, a list by me.

10. Race for the Galaxy

Matthew bought this game on a whim, and it quickly became our favorite game of the summer. Well it was my favorite game of the summer. It's super complicated when you're first learning to play, but tons of fun and with loads of replayability, it's a great little game.


9. The 48 Hour Film Festival
Although I haven't spoken about it much on here, I participated in the 48 Hour Film Project with some of my classmates from the film department. The movie we made sucked a lot, but it was a lot of fun to make, and it lead to me reconnecting with Brian Mayer, who graduated last year and was my greatest ally in the filmmaking process. I also worked with him briefly on his project Chester's Tales.

8. Reading. Lots.
I read more this summer than I probably did in the totality of my college career. Sadly, that is not much of an exaggeration. I read the last 3 Harry Potter Books (which I may have mentioned once or twice on this blog), 2 Chuck Klosterman Books, 2 Lev Grossman Books (more on this guy later), American Gods and a whole bunch of Trade Paperbacks (This isn't a pretentious way of saying comic book, by the way. A comic book would be a single issue, a trade paper is a collection of a run of issues in a single volume). Reading. It's not for breakfast any more.

7. Night Riding.
This is one of the few other things I've mentioned on this site before, but in case you missed it, usually Matt Buchheit and I take a leisurely bike ride around Cape Girardeau in the dead of night (which in case you didn't know, is between 8-10pm). There's just something about riding during the night that is more fun than riding during the daylight. Also riding with a friend is much more fun than riding solo. I recommend it.

6. Writing with Bobby Dianora.
Rob D and I wrote a spec script of the Office for a writing competition. It was fun writing with someone who is almost as competent a writer as I am (just kidding... not really though. But seriously, Rob's a good writer. But seriously, I'm better). It was also nice to know that I actually can write an entire episode of a TV show (with help), since that's kind of what I want to do for a living.

5. Buying an Electric Guitar.
I have an electric guitar. His name is Claude Teschreddes. Pete and Kaylen are his godparents. He is currently a very a quiet lad, because I have yet to buy an amp for him. One day he will find his voice and on that day, the world will be rocked.

4. Return of Food Night.
Toward the end of the summer, Food Night came back with a vengeance. We've been batting 1000 since we started cooking again, and by only having a food night every couple of weeks or so, we're not getting tired of them. Hopefully this trend continues.

3. The Magicians.
I read this book called the Magicians. It was amazing. It was like Harry Potter if Harry Potter wasn't for kids. Actually, I don't think that's really a fair assessment. Lev Grossman, the author of the Magicians, wrote a book about what would happen if magic existed in the real world. The world we live in. JK Rowling wrote books about what would happen if magic existed in a world where fantasy novels didn't exist. JK Rowling didn't have a lot of rules for her world, and those that she had, she usually ignored when convenient. Lev Grossman had rules in his world. He had real people in his world. People that had to face the burden and ethical implications of near omnipotence. It's an amazing book. Anyone who's a fan of fantasy or good books in general should read this book.

2. Movies.
I saw a lot of good movies this summer. To name a few; The Brother's Bloom, 500 Days of Summer, Away We Go, GI Joe (Yes, it was good. Deal with it) and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Every time I see a movie like this, it makes me realize how much I love making movies, and how much I miss that process.

1. St. Louis.
I spent a lot of time in St. Louis this summer. I am, by my own choosing, underemployed. For the majority of the summer I was working twice a week and since I had so much free time, I spent significant amounts of time hanging out with my friends and family in St. Louis. Specifically, hanging out with Pete, Kaylen, Steve, Mary and their friends was hella fun. St. Louis is a fun city to visit and has many restaurants that I would eat at all the time if I lived there. The City Museum is an incredible place to visit, as is the Zoo and the Brewery. Yup. St. Louis roolz.

So yeah. That's my list. If I forgot anything that was awesome that I did this summer, let me know.

5 Movies

I've seen 5 movies in the last 7 days. Not quite as impressive a feat as what my good friend Pete is trying to accomplish, but Pete is a far more ambitious, and let's face it, better, man than I.

Tuesday, August 4: "Five Hundred Days of Summer"

I was super excited to see this movie, mostly because of the leads; Mr. Jo Go Lev and Zooey "the Face Crusher" Deschanel. Ever since my first viewing of Brick (which was followed by what can only be described as the most epic running through an alleyway I've ever participated in), I've been securely nestled in the Joseph Gordon-Levitt camp. He is an incredibly gifted actor and can elevate the credibilty of a movie just by being in it (more on this later). Zooey Deschanel is pretty amazing too for the obvious reasons. Anyway, the movie... yeah. It was good. I imagine a lot of reviewers use the word quirky when describing this film, they would not be wrong. Long story short, I liked this movie, but not as much as I thought I would. It made me like Zooey Deschanel less, because her character is such a... I really don't know how to describe her. She's not evil. She's just sort of mean, but not on purpose, or not really maliciously. Anyway. Good flick.

Wednesday August 5: "Knocked Up"

People kept telling me to see this movie. They said it was Judd Apatow's best movie. That it was really good. After seeing it, I've decided that I don't really like Judd Apatow much. I really like Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd, so I enjoyed the movie, but I felt it was a case of putting funny people in front of a camera and hitting record.

Thursday August 6: "Funny People"

I was not bored during this movie because, again, Seth Rogen is a funny man, but this was a bloated, long, self-indulgent film that seemed more about name-dropping and showcasing the "dramatic range" of Adam Sandler than having a particularly interesting or entertaining story.

Sunday August 9: "GI JOE"

This movie was much better than it had any right to be. It was a really decent action movie. Do not believe the trailer. It is not about robot suits. It is about Jospeh Fucking-Gordon-Fucking-Levitt (-Fucking). That's right. Jo Go Lev is in GI Joe. You know who else is? Jonathan Price (that actually used to mean something at some point I'm sure, but now having J-Price in your movie is almost like having Jon Voight in your movie, but slightly better). Anyway, this movie is all about the bad guys. Sienna Miller is totally hot the entire time. Storm Shadow is totally a bad-ass the entire time and Christopher Eccleston is totally Scottish the entire time. They kind of steal this movie away from that Stockard Channing dude (who isn't that bad, even though he is totally a dude).

Tuesday August 11: "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"

This movie is still good. I've seen it three times. I really like watching this cast work. It is just a ridiculously talented group of people, and I'm super excited to see what Bill Nighy brings to the table in the next installment (Prediction: A whole heaping helping of kicking your ass in the face).

Potterwatch 2009

I finished book 7 last night. It was the second time I had read the book and there were a lot of things that I had forgotten from my initial read, which happened 2 years ago, in about 14 hours.

I was pretty hard on Deathly Hallows after I first read it. I was pretty angry at the ending, and the way Mrs. Rowling handled a lot of the exposition. I'm still not thrilled by either, but I didn't hate the book as much the second time. One thing that bothered me greatly was how passively the plot moves for the first half of the book. Until about halfway through the book, we are subjected to a plodding, slow moving slog of a plot. Everything that happens to Harry and co. is because of something they happened to overhear, or something they guessed about and got lucky enough to get right. It sort of feels like they are treading water until they are, inexplicably, tossed a bone by the writer, at which point the plot sort of ambles forward, then halts again. This kind of writing bothers me. I dont' think it's necessarily bad, I just don't care for it. I like my protagonists to know what's going on, and if they don't know, then they at least should have the good sense to be entertainingly flustered. That being said, there are a lot of really cool scenes in Deathly Hallows. I just wish they were as tautly paced at the beginning of the book as at the end.

I understand why it has to move slow, mind you. Voldemort's regime change, to have any sense of legitimacy, has to move slowly. So that's why they spend weeks in Grimmauld Place and months in the tent. This gives some crediblity to a secret coup that happens within the magical world.

The info dump at the end of the book is going to be somewhat problematic when it comes to adapting this book into a movie. There are pretty much three straight chapters of exposition at the end of the book, all fairly interesting exposition, some of which we've been waiting for since Sorceror's Stone, but yeah... that's going to be tough. Also, Harry's speech to Voldemort at the end is pretty much bull shit. The revelation that Draco Malfoy was the true "owner" of the Deathstick, pretty much completely diffuses the tension of the scene by making it a Scooby Doo moment. Really all of the wand nonsense in Book 7 is a bit troublesome. I suppose that wandlore is a fairly niche branch of magic and it probably wouldn't be covered much in Harry's previous magical education, but still, for a concept that is so important to the events of book 7, and is apparently a somewhat basic concept of wands, it seems like poor planning to have never mentioned it until this book.

I've said it before, and I shall probably continue to say it every time I talk about this book, but the fact that Aberforth is first introduced in book 7, even though he's apparently been in Hogsmeade for the duration of Harry's education is beyond ridiculous. Surely someone would've known of Aberforth's connection to Dumbledore and at least mentioned it at some point during Harry's 6 previous years at Hogwarts.

Anyway, I liked Deathly Hallows much more this time than my first time, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what Steve Kloves does with the source material.

Scenes I'm most looking forward to:

1. Graveyard in Godric's Hallow (They better not be polyjuiced during this sequence. This could be a real tearjerker of a scene if we get to see the kids, and not some actors we have no connection to).

2. Xeno's House (The desperation and sadness in Xeno's betrayal of Harry could be another extremely potent scene if handled with the kind of subtlety and emotion that these filmmakers demonstrated so ably in HBP).

3. Gringotts Break-in (Goblins! Dragons! Action! Burning Treasure!)

4. Battle of Hogwarts (No explanation necessary)

5. Dobby's death (Probably the most heartless killing in an entire book or heartless killing).


Things they need to change from the book for the movie not to suck:

1. The fact that Harry and Co. are either polyjuiced or under the invisibility cloak in every scene.

2. Ron and Hermione's kiss. ( I am of the opinion that Ron should sack up, and put the snog on Hermione and not the other way round).

3. Wand nonsense.

4. Harry's ridiculous speech to Voldemort.

Anyway, I'll try to go easy on the Potter posts for a while. I'm pretty sure when Deathly Hallows part 2 comes out, I'll re-read the whole series and have all kinds of new insights (but more likely, I'll just make the same observations I've made previously and act like they're new).

Night Riding

Bucket and I have been doing some night time bike riding lately. It's been fun. It kind of makes me want to do the moonlight ramble this year. I probably won't, but it would be fun.

I'm currently watching/listening to Kevin Smith's panel from Comic-Con. I may not enjoy his movies as much as I used to, but the man can work a crowd. He is a funny, funny man.

Ok, enough about things that aren't Harry Potter.

I'm reading Book 7 and am about halfway through it. I think the thing that I find so frustrating about this book is that there are a lot of good things in this book. There are a lot of really cool, really poignant scenes. Unfortunately, they are linked together by a lot of filler. One thing that occurred to me while reading is that the storyline of this book is the kind of thing that is usually covered in an entire series. The collection and destruction of four magical objects would usually take a multipart story cycle to accomplish. Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more to say about this when I'm done with the book.

Ending another post with again, again.

It's 1:25 in the morning and Albus Dumbledore is still dead.

I finished book 6 a few minutes ago and here are some things I noticed:

Book six IS mostly fluff. There isn't a lot happening. It's a book about treading water. So all you bitches who is like "The movie skips all the cool parts of book 6," need to shut the s up. They hit all the high points of the book (and hit them with more skill and subtlety than the book does), and then some. Ok, the Death Eaters fighting the Order as they run out of Hogwarts would've been pretty cool to see, but we got a lot of that in the last movie, and we're going to get a lot of that in the next two movies, so if David Yates wants to have a movie end without a big wizard throwdown, than I'll allow it.

The thing that struck me the most while reading this, is how much I like Dumbledore as a character. He is a little too lenient with Harry, but he does hush him up occasionally, and anyone who puts a hush on Harry Potter is ok in my book (that book being "Harry Potter Needs to Shut his Fucking Mouth: The Sass-Enders). Dumbledore is a great character with so much depth and nuance. I was sort of sad when he died again. I don't like his line about feeling safe around Harry Potter, who is, let's face it, a pretty horrible Wizard. I think the end of the book seems a little rushed, but really the whole book is fairly quick; about halfway through the book they're in March. The funeral lasts about 4 pages, and is fairly lame and even though it would be entirely appropriate to mention it, no one mentions that Dumbledore's brother is the owner of the Hogs Head (the two things that bother me most about the Harry Potter Books are the fact that Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of the whatever whatever has a little brother that runs a bar next to the school that Albus is headmaster of, and no one mentions this until book 7, and the fact that Harry has no grandparents. This lack of grandparents thing might seem trivial and nitpicky, but when you do the math on how old everyone was when Harry's parents croaked, something doesn't add up. I'll probably do this math again when I reread book 7 and share it with you then, I'm sure you can't wait).

I'm really not looking forward to reading Book 7. Mostly because I remember it being a terribly unsatisfying book, but also because it means saying goodbye to this world, as poorly written as it sometimes is, all over again. I still don't know why I love these books so much. I think the English Boarding school aspect might have something to do with it. I could take or leave the magic, as it seems sort of trivial and inconsistent, as well as not really that important to the plot. Anyway, I'll let you know when I finish book 7.

Harry Potter, again.

About 2 years ago, I read Harry Potter books 1,2,3,4,6 and 7. I read 7 because it had just came out and I read 6 so I would remember what happened right before book 7, then I read books 1-4 because I hadn't read them in a while. Now, because the 6th movie just came out and because it's summer (which is the season during which I read Harry Potter books, since I pretty much just keep living the same year of my life over and over again), I'm rereading books 5-7. I hadn't read 5 in a while, and for good reason. It is by far her worst book. For some reason, the first 200 or so pages seem incredibly familiar to me, as if I had read then dozens of times before. I'm not sure why this is, because I've probably only read book 5 four or five times. Anyway, book five is a slog until you get to about page 400 or something. Then it becomes interesting, sort of.

Most of the events of the book worth mentioning are handled much better in the film adaptation. I think this is because Steve Kloves realized that if he actually put the majority of the words JK Rowling put in the mouths of her teenagers on screen, the only people who would like these movies are the kinds of people who watch reruns of Full House and think they are watching the height of comedic writing. That being said, Rowling is capable of writing some transcendently funny bits of dialogue, but most of the time, her characters speak in mid 90's sitcom cliches (or chant and sing in large groups, which, as we all know, is typical teenager behavior).

Things I noticed upon rereading Book 5 (which I hadn't read since before Deathly Hallows came out mind you):

1. It is hinted at ever so slightly that Dumbledore's brother lives in Hogsmeade (the reference is made in passing and seems almost like a non sequiter).

2. Also hinted at: Harry's inexplicable love for Ginny Weasley. This is another reference that is buried under pages and pages of unrelated information, then all of a sudden Harry notices something about Ginny. Then completely ignores her for the rest of the book. (I seem to recall finding Ginny and Harry's relationship a bit forced, maybe when I reread book 6 it will seem more natural, but I doubt it).

3. Harry is still a complete jackass when it comes to Snape. After seeing his father torment Snape, and after Snape alerted the Order of the Phoenix to the trouble at the ministry, Harry still hates him, for no reason. At some point Harry even says (well the narrator tells us what Harry is thinking) that he will never ever forgive Snape for getting Sirius killed.

4. RETCON: Harry rides on the "horseless carraiges" at the end of book 4. He would've seen the thestrals then, as he had seen Cedric kick off a few days prior. Yet, when he sees them in book 5 he's totally like "What the shit is this shit? Dragon Horses? Cock that!".

5. Harry keeps talking about how Voldemort killed Cedric. The entire book he's like "Voldemort killed Cedric!" or "That reminds me of that one time when I was in a graveyard and VOLDEMORT KILLED CEDRIC!", but Voldemort didn't actually kill Cedric. Peter Pettigrew did. Granted he killed Cedric on Voldy's orders, but still, I think a disctinction should've been made.

6. Harry never blames himself enough for his Godfather's death. The reapprence of the two way mirror at the end of the book acts as a reminder of A. Harry Potter's need to act like a Hero at all times and B. JK Rowling inventing objects and plot devices and then forgetting about them until it's too late for characters to use them properly, then covering the slip up by having the character comment on the fact that they really could've used that item if only they would've remembered about it earlier, Oh well, how about those wands?

7. The lack of Slytherins in Dumbledore's Amry, and really the lack of any Slytherins with any redeeming qualities whatsoever just reinforce the important lesson that, some people are just evil and it's ok to judge people based on who they associate with. First impressions are almost always the most accurate.

8. The one character who actually calls Harry out on his douchebagginess is the portrait of Sirius's Great, Great, Grandfather. Of course we can't believe anything he says because he's a Slytherin, and they are all pig rapists and cow stabbers. So because he says Harry shouldn't be acting like such a douche, it means that Harry tottally should act like a douche. Fucking Slytherins. They should all be drowned in a sack. Every one of them.

So all and all, book five is probably the most frustrating read of all the Harry Potter books. It's long, tedious at times, and Harry is at his most angsty. Next stop, book six.

Watching Firefly Again

Joss Whedon makes me angry. I don't know when this started, but for some reason whenever I watch/read something that Joss Whedon wrote, I'm just irritated beyond words. I think my problem is, and I'm just guessing, is that it seems like he writes scenes that look cool or are funny, but don't really make a lot of sense in the context of the reality of the show. For example, in the first episode of Firefly, there's a scene where The Prostitute is giving herself a sponge bath, which is sort of hot, I guess, then Shepherd Book knocks on her door, and though still half naked, The Prostitute tells whoever is knocking on the door to come on in. Why would she do this? Because it's cool to have half naked women in your TV show and it's funny and awkward to have religious figures exposed to half naked women. Of course this doesn't really make sense from a character standpoint, but it makes sense from a "I want people to think this show is awesome" standpoint. He does this kind of thing constantly. The entire episode of Jaynestown is like this. Also, he thinks he can write good music, but he can't, at least not in the context of the songs in Firefly.

Also, happy Fourth of July. Make sure you looks at some fireworks or Uncle Same won't come to your house at midnight and leave you some freedom in your favorite pair of pants.

Let's not make this awkward.

Ok. I know it's been like three months since I posted anything, but you know what? I was busy. I'm not going to apologize for it, because frankly, I think I was spending a little too much time with you anyway. I think we needed the break. But I'm back, for now, so let's just move on and get with the blogging.

I did absolutely nothing useful this week (oh look it's Matt being hyperbolic again, how original {Oh look it's Matt being self-aware again, how new and refreshing}). I feel like if this week of my life never happened, the world would be exactly the same as it is as a result of this week happening. I didn't even get any good naps in this week. I did do some serious coughing, and a little bit of writing, but other than that, I was an entirely useless human being. I usually come to these sorts of revelations on Friday nights, when I need to go to bed early, but can't because I'm not tired because I know I haven't done anything to earn tiredness, which is what is happening right now.

Suggestions to make future weeks more productive:

1. Go to the rec center more
2. Eat at home more
3. Write more
4. Read more
5. Work more hours
6. Spend less time on the computer

Though these things might not seem to be productive in and of themselves, they will certainly make me feel better, which will in turn help me sleep better on Friday nights.

Cape Public Library is awesome, but there are a lot of very uncomfortable chairs there. Just so you know.

Hazardous

After several failed attempts at making it the whole way through the past two days, I finally listened to Hazards of Love in its entirety today. You know how you feel when you read a really good book for the first time? There's a sense of accomplishment and finality coupled with the slight feeling of sadness that you'll never be able to experience that story for the first time ever again. That's how I felt after listening to Hazards of Love. Hazards will probably be remembered as the least accessible album in the Decemberists catalog (at least until they start doing noise rock covers of Motley Crue songs), but it is without a doubt their greatest sonical achievement to date. I'll admit, I have a tendency to fall in love with every new Decemberists album after I hear it once, then, after a month or two realize that Picaresque is still their best album, but there is something special about Hazards of Love.

The narrative of the record (that's right, this album has a narrative thread) is probably the most melodramtic tale ever featured in a Decemberists album. It's fairly complicated and, frankly, I'm not entirely sure what happens, but I do know this, everybody dies (well, maybe not the Queen, but I could've missed something).

The music is incredibly moving. Since it is a rock opera, there are really only about 10 distinct musical themes that are repeated and reprised over the course of the 17 tracks on the album, but the way they work together is extraordinary. There are no stand out singles on this album. Really there are no songs that would work outside the context of the album (The Rake song is probably the most likely candidate, but it's a tough sell). This is an album that demands to be heard in its entirety. This is an album that demands your attention.

Steve and Mary's Wedding; or Pete Wissinger Almost Ruins Everything

Steve and Mary got married yesterday. The ceremony was small, intimate and very nice. The reception was tasteful and fun. All and all, it was almost a perfect wedding... except for one thing: Pete Wissinger. Whether or not it was a conscious decision, I will never know, but for some reason, Pete Wissinger seemed determined to ruin the magic of Steve and Mary's special day.

It all started with his suit, the coat of which, conspicuously did not match his vest. If that wasn't enough, Pete's coat continued to distract with the all buttons vs. one button fiasco, that raged up until the beginning of the ceremony. During the ceremony, Pete didn't cause too much of a problem, but not for want of trying. His constant standing next to Steve and beard having, was a desperate if not effective plea for attention, the audacity of which was matched only by his loud and vulgar slamming of the ring box during the presentation of the rings.

Having nearly ruined the magic of the wedding ceremony, one would think that Pete would be satisfied, but they would be thinking incorrectly. Pete's campaign to spoil what would otherwise be the happiest day of Steve and Mary's young life together was taken to the next level once the reception began. His "toast" was neither lengthy nor in verse form (unless you count blank, which I can safely say, I don't). Then, for the happy couple's first dance, Pete "couldn't get the sound system to work properly". Of course, Pete's selfish, petty behavior was topped off by his flagrant vest flaunting. Not only was his vest quite dapper, but it also had more buttons on it than Steve's entire ensemble for the evening, breaking the cardinal room of best man attire (that rule being: The best man should have fewer buttons on his person than the groom at all times {not just at the ceremony, but for the rest of their lives}). Of course, Steve took all of Pete's chicanery in stride, as he has for most of their lives together, and by the time I left the reception last night, the brothers were still on speaking terms.

In all seriousness though, it was a really great wedding. Also, in all seriousness, Pete Wissinger is kind of a dick.

Spaced and other things

So I'm watching the second series of Spaced right now, and I've come to a some conclusions.

Conclusion one: It is no where nearly as good as the first series. This is mostly do to the fact that is slightly more derivative than the first series. It relies heavily on first season callbacks and movie parodies (really just in the first and third episodes).

Conclusion two: At the age of 27, Edgar Wright had more talent as a director than most other directors do after an entire career in "the biz".

Conclusion three: Nick Frost is an incredibly gifted actor. Not that the rest of the cast isn't, but Spaced is the first thing he acted in, and he's brilliant.

Conclusion four: Although it isn't as good as the first series, Episode 5, the "Gunfight" episode is one of the best half hours of television ever produced (probably in the top ten).

Enough about Spaced. What did I do this week? I can't really remember, but there was a lot of editing involved. I spent a lot of time in Grauel this week. Next week is Spring Break. Woot? I guess. More importantly, next week is both Pancake Day and St. Patrick's Day. Word.

STEVE WISSINGER IS GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW! This blows my mind. Well not really. I think Steve is going to be good at being married.

Pain

Over the past week or so, I have collected a set of injuries that, for some reason, are localized to the left side of my body. My left arm hurts when I move it. My left leg hurts when I'm not standing, and my lower back, on the left side, hurts pretty much all the time. This makes sleeping and sitting pretty uncomfortable, but while walking around, running, carrying things (basically doing things work-related) I feel just fine.

I was inspired to start listening to Beulah again recently. I'd pretty much only heard their album "The Coast is Never Clear", until this Beulah kick started. After listening to their other stuff though, I'm pretty sure "The Coast is Never Clear" is their best album.

Watchmen was kind of boring. I don't think it was the movie's fault. The book is kind of boring. And now I'm going to take some Ibuprofen, then go to class then edit for a few hours. Yay(ish).

Sleep and other things (but mostly sleep)

I went to sleep around 10:30 last night. I didn't really want to, but I had nothing else to do. I woke up inexplicably and completely at 2:30 am and could not go back to sleep. So, I spent the next 3ish hours reading and working on a script. I finally fell asleep again at about 5:30, and woke up about five hours later. Why am I telling you all this? Because I'm boring, and have nothing to say. But also as a warning. Don't go to sleep before 11pm. Ever.

Have I mentioned how much I hate my classes this semester? Because I do hate them. Very much. And if I don't pass all of them, I don't graduate. Yay!


Bands that I like that have or will be putting out an album this year:

Franz Ferdinand (It's ok, no where near as good as their two previous efforts)
Neko Case (I listened to some of it streaming from NPR. Nothing jumped out at me, but that's not surprising.)
The Decemberists
Bishop Allen
Wilco
Boy Least Likely To
Arcade Fire (I think they're putting out something. It might just be a soundtrack to a movie or something)
Guster (Guster kind of counts as a band I like)
Cake

That's all I can think of. I'm a gonna go get ready for that class I hate going to. This is officially my worst post ever. You're welcome.

Lessons.

Ok, so let's say you've had a long, bad day. Let's say more went wrong than right with your day, and the stuff that went wrong went really wrong and you've decided to you've earned yourself a consolatory vanilla milkshake. So you go to Burger King and you notice that their large milk shake, which is a whopping 32 ounces of frozen dairy and milk product, is a mere $2.39. A pittance, a trifle, pocket change. So you decided to order the milkshake and you begin drinking it. When you first begin, you are really enjoying this milkshake. It's smooth and creamy, tastes like vanilla ice cream and smiles. Then as the drinking continues, you realize, that although the milkshake is good it doesn't seem to end. No matter how much you drink, there just seems to be more milkshake waiting for you in the cup. Sure, this seems like a wonderful thing, but after about 16 ounces of milkshake, you begin to think, maybe this is more milkshake than you can handle, but then you think of what happens if you can't finish it. You can't save a milkshake. Once it's shaken, it can't be reshook. If you try to freeze it, it just becomes a frozen block of vanilla flavored ice milk. If you throw it away you'll have essentially wasted $2.39. Two hundred and thirty-nine American cents! Why for that kind of money you could buy all kinds of things. Like two packs of gum, or 10 really crappy pens or 1 pretty decent one, or a large vanilla milk shake from Burger King. Not finishing this milk shake is not an option. There is only one course of action. You must drink this milk shake. So you down another few gulps, and another few, and some more until there is only one swallow left. When that final swallow goes down, it does not feel good. As it slides down your esophagus (high fiving all the bits of milk shake still making their way to your stomach along the way) you begin to feel sluggish and kind of nauseous. This feeling will not pass. Get used to it. So long story short, don't do what I just did.

Jai Ho!

Remember what I said last semester when I signed up for advanced video production about how I was afraid it would take up all my time and I wouldn't have time to get practicum stuff done? You probably don't remember that, because I didn't actually tell you, but I told myself, and some other people. Then Jones was like "You should totally take the class" and then I was like "You said the same thing about After Effects" and he was like "Yes I did. Mu ha ha ha ha ha." So on Jones's advice and some decision making based on my recent lameness, I signed up for the class, and it is completely taking up a lot of my time.

I'm supposed to be the tech crew for a one woman show that's being performed at SEMO on Tuesday. I will be doing the work of three people, and doing it pretty badly. My plan is to spend as much of the next 30 hours or so in the theater practicing cues and becoming some sort of lighting ninja. Fortunately, Droid is coming up to school tonight to help me do some focusing and programming of light boards, so maybe I'll just steal all of his magical gaffer powers. Wish me luck. Seriously (actually, if you are granted some wishes, and you didn't wish for me to be lucky while running lights and sound for this performance, I would totally not hold it against you).

The soundtrack to Slumdog Millionaire is my favorite album of the year so far (even though, it probably came out last year). Now I have to figure out what pants I'm going to wear today (probably the toughest decision I'll make all day).

Free Time.

It really only takes about 3 days in a row of me being really busy to get used to the idea of not having free time. So far, this is the only night this week I haven't been up at school till 9pm or later. I'm a little unsure of what to do with myself. I would go up to the REC center, but I can't find my ID so that's out. I could play video games, but that seems kind of lame. The part of me that thinks everything happens for a reason is telling me that I'm supposed to stay home and study, but that part of me is a total chump. I suppose I could read Scott Pilgrim again.

Scott Pilgrim Volume 3 later...

Ok. That's done. I guess I'll work on some scripts.

The Return of Captain Drowsy

I don't know if I mentioned this last week (nope, I didn't) I got a tremendous amount of sleep almost every day last week. We're talking like 9+ hours everyday. Due to various factors beyond my control, this week is not shaping out to be much like that. But, I'm more or less ok with that.

Uh-oh. Here comes a list.

Things I need to to do this week:
1. Edit River Tales piece
2. Study for test that is on Friday that I will completely fail if I don't study for
3. Meet with Jones
4. Meet with Brother David
5. Nap

To celebrate my reading of Scott Pilgrim 5, here's my bit about Scott Pilgrim (spoiler free!):

I hate Scott Pilgrim. I hate Scott Pilgrim because I am not Scott Pilgrim. I want to be Scott Pilgrim. If I knew Scott Pilgrim, I would want to punch him in his stupid face because he would be so much cooler than me. Not only would be cooler than me, he would in no way rub his coolness in my face or think he was better than me, because he would have no idea how cool he is. Also, I heart Kim Pines.

Announcements and Pronouncements

For those of you just getting here, I've been sort of a whiny, emo douchebag for the past couple of months. Probably not in any perceptible way, at least I hope not, but it's definitely informed a lot of my decisions and some of my writing. Anyway, after a lengthy discussion with my life coach/cheif comic book adviser, Pete Wissinger, I've decided to stop being such an idiot. Now I know you've heard this kind of thing before, but I'm for realsies this time. After laying it all out for another human being, I've been granted all kinds of perspective that I didn't have before. Well maybe I did have it, but I was choosing to ignore it. Either way, I see the situation with much more clarity than I once did, and as such my new, anti-douchebag position is stronger and more unasailable than ever before. As such, I'm lifting the veil (somewhat) as to what I was being all 13 year old girl about for the last few months (although I still feel completely lamepants for ever letting it get to this point).

Ladies and gentlemen (but, unless I'm greatly misinformed about the demographics of my readership, really just gentlemen), for the past few months I've been nursing a rather hopeless crush (except, I didn't really think it was that hopeless at the time, which is why it has lingered so). So there you have it folks. Sorry to dissapoint those of you that thought it was some sort of terminal disease. It was a girl the whole time. How incredibly dissapointing.

In other, equally lame, but a lot more normal news; I'm tired and am going to sleep.

Mr. Excitement.

Here are some things I'm pretty excited about.

1. Making my movie (which will start happening in the next couple of weeks or so, I swear).
2. The new Decemberists Album/Tour
3. The new Neko Case Album (I mean, look at the cover art!)
4. The new Bishop Allen Album (they're playing in Memphis in a couple of weeks, I probably won't go, but I'll think about going)
5. The new Scott Pilgrim Book (Hurry Matthew! Read quickly!)
6. The Watchmen Movie (I think it might not suck).
7. Going to Las Vegas (sort of... not really... although I am excited about seeing Joe out there)
8. Working on Notre Dame's promotional video


Here are some things that I'm not very excited about.

1. My Remedial Writing For English Majors Class (which is still not what the class is called, but it's still what it feels like)
2. Graduating (I know, I know, you're tired of hearing about this, but I already started the list, and totally fits on it, so deal)
3. Working on Notre Dame's promotional video ("But wait! You just said you were excited about it!? You are such a hypocrite!" Well, yes. I am a hypocrite, but the reason I'm not looking forward to it, is the massive amount of post production that is going to have to go into it. I like shooting. I like interviewing and lugging equipment around. I do not like editing so much. Well I like some editing, but not the kind of editing that's going to have to go into this piece. It's going to be monumental.)


That is all!

I believe in a thing called love, or at least I believe that The Darkness believes in a thing called love.

Why is The Darkness not represented in the game Rock Band? How did this horrible oversight happen? Rock Band is a game that consists of people pretending to be rock stars. The Darkness made a career (well really more of a summer job) of pretending to be rock stars (of course they eventually became rock stars in the process, but still). It seems like a perfect fit.

Notre Dame's trivia night went ok. I think they'll continue to let me write questions for it, which is good, I suppose.

School is school. Matthew and I are in the same writing group for Remedial Writing for Writing Majors and Minors, which is cool (Matthew being in my group, not the class. The class in kind of lame so far, and it's not really called remedial writing, but that's what it feels like sometimes). I like his stuff, and I don't really get to read a lot of it (although generally speaking, I prefer his fiction to his essays, and since this is an essay class that's mostly what I'll be reading, but whatevs, I'm not picky). Advanced video is going to be weird, for a number of reasons, and American Cultural Landscapes is really boring, but at the same time kind of interesting. It's just hard to pay attention in that class. So there you have it. My summary of my classes. A full four weeks late. Enjoy.

For those of you that are Pete Wissinger, where the hell is the new Decemberists album?

Blerg.

Do you ever get the feeling that you suck at everything and will be a complete failure for the rest of your life, and you will never do anything significant and no one really likes you, but just puts up with your inane ramblings because it's easier than telling you to just shut the hell up? Yeah... me neither. But wouldn't it suck if you did feel that way and you felt like you weren't creative or funny, and couldn't be if you tried, and the more you did try to be creative and funny the more you realized that you're just an uncreative, uninteresting bore that's just rehashing other people's good ideas in ways that are far less interesting than the original versions. That would totally suck and be totally cliche to feel like that. Especially around this time of year, which I seem to recall, is a time of year when pretty much every human is depressed. Maybe someday I'll blog about why I've been so emo lately. But frankly, I don't think the internet is ready for something so lame.

In other news (or newsb, as I would call it if I ended every word with a "B") I finally got trivia night done for the most part. Questions, Answer Sheets, Rules, everything. Everything but the answer keys, and I can do those on saturday. Yay for me. It is my opinion that having one person write an entire trvia night by his or herself is a bad idea (at least if that person is me). It is true that I know a lot of things about a lot of things, but I think if other people were involved in the writing of the questions there would be much greater variety of things that would be triviaed about. Granted, I didn't write all of these questions by myself. Ben wrote four or five of them and was a valuable sounding board for my ideas, but for the most part it's all me and I'm just not sure if there is enough variety to keep people entertained. I guess we'll find out Saturday.

I'm going to sleep now because that is what I do.

Update Go!

School started 2 weeks ago. I have accomplished very little and feel like I'm 3 weeks behind. I mostly blame the snow that we had last week that completely s'ed everything up. I haven't done anything with my practicum yet. Yikes.

The clutch on the Toyota has more or less ceased to work. I'm trying to decide whether or not it would be worth putting money into fixing that car. My gut says no, but my gut is also very hungry. We'll watch this one closely. So far, I've been able to get by without a car for my exclusive use pretty well.

I finished writing trivia night 2009 tonight, about 10 minutes ago. woo. All I have left is about 2 hours of formatting the questions correctly and making up answer sheets! Yippee.

I have recently purchased the following movies: The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, the Godfather Part 3, The Untouchables.

I have watched all the Godfather movies (again) and they conveniently came out in order from best to worst, so not much thought has to go into ranking them. The first is decidedly the best one (I will entertain dissenters, but I feel like they would have to bring a pretty substantial argument to the table, to convince me that The Godfather isn't the best movie ever made). The second one is very good and the third one is bad. It's not as much bad as it is incredibly boring, which the first two are markedly not. Also, I don't really want to beat a dead horse here, but Sofia Coppola's performance brings everyone else down in Godfather 3.

What else... what else... Assassin's Creed = Yay!

Second Thoughts

So I was bored today (how tired are you of hearing me say this?). I spent most of the day at home, which is something I don't really like doing, if I can avoid it. It's not that I don't like my house, but usually, if I'm here, it means I'm not being productive and apparently, productive is something I don't like not being. Anyway, to alleviate my boredom I went to participate in some good old fashioned capitalism (which is what I usually do in these sorts of situations), but instead of buying something ridiculous (like an X-box 360), I bought a couple of movies that I have enjoyed for a very long time, but have never owned. I bought The 13th Warrior and Grosse Point Blank, the latter of which I'm currently watching. Watching Grosse Point Blank has made me realize a couple of things: 1. Grosse Point Blank is probably my number 5 favorite movie of all time. It is such a great movie. 2. The script I was going to use for my practicum project is eerily similar to Grosse Point Blank. Not so much storywise (although, it kind of is that too), but as far as structure. It has me a bit concerned. I don't want to just make an inferior version of Grosse Point Blank. I'm thinking about writing something new. I have no idea what I'd write.

Small Reviews

Bioshock: Fun without being particularly hard

Star Wars TFU: Hard without being particularly fun (did you see what I did there, I'm so clever!)

Newest Episode of 30 Rock: Why isn't 30 Rock funny this season? Someone explain what's happening?

Newest Episode of The Office: The best parts of this season are the parts where Jim, Dwight and Michael are all in a room by themselves. Everything else is sort of the suck.

Ghost Town: Hilarious. Charming. Ricky Gervais for the win.

My New Pants: Delightful.

My cat: Sleepy.

My dog: Rambunctious.

Roger Moore's Autobiography: Incredibly interesting (and he isn't even James Bond yet!).

Me: More tired than I have any right to be, but other than that an ok human being every once in a while.

Me and DnD

So here's the thing. I think DnD is ok. It's a fairly well constructed game, and if I were to play a PnP RPG it would be DnD (acronyms, LOL!), but the thing is, I don't think I really like PnP RPG's. They're kind of like video games, but they're more time consuming and less satisfying, plus they're just so much to remeber. That being said, I enjoy playing DnD with my friends, but I would never play it outside of that group of people. We have fun playing DnD because we have fun playing games and we don't take it too seriously.

In other news, I'm working my first Monday at Wal-mart since the remodel. I'll let you know how that goes.

In Matt get's stuff done news I e-mailed all of the people I needed to e-mail concerning classes for next week, so I think that counts as something. Still need to apply for graduation.

Untitled 2

It's about 9 pm on Saturday night and I'm already in my jammies. You can pretend you are not jealous, but you would only be lying to yourself.

This week I've been BORED OUT OF MY MIND. Being bored is pretty much all I've been doing since last Sunday. Hopefully this week will be more interesting (note: It won't), but at least school starts a week from Tuesday. In case you haven't picked up on it, I can't wait for school to start again.

I've been playing a lot of Bioshock. It's very very good. Almost Half-Life 2 good, but not quite.

I would like to point out that the reason this post is so boring is because I've been up since 6 am and didn't get a lot of sleep last night so my brain isn't working too well. It's all like "Hey Matt, let's go to sleep", and I'm all like "Buttons". So... yeah.

I thought the major was a lady suffragette. JET!

How long have I been saying, "I should really listen to some Wings."? A really long time. I finally got a hold of The album Band on the Run, the first two tracks of which are a pretty potent combination (the title track and Jet!). The bad news is that version I downloaded is a vinyl rip and consists of one 41 minute track. Quel Dommage! Even though I think he's probably kind of a jerk, Paul is still my favorite Beatle.

Do not read the following paragraph, unless you want to be annoyed at Matt Essner's cloying for attention...

So you know that thing I alluded to in my first couple of posts back from my hiatus? The thing that I was being "really stupid" about? Well I'm still more or less being really stupid about it, but I've decided that I'm done with it for a while, so no longer will you have to suffer through vague description of vague concepts that may or may not be the cause of certain vague feelings. I know this whole paragraph seems like a ploy to illicit some curiosity or attention or something like that, but I assure you it's not. It's mostly a reminder for myself. In fact, let me go ahead and put a disclaimer before this paragraph to keep people that aren't me away (of course, it'll look like I typed that first because it'll come before this paragraph sequentially, but still). I don't know why I'm even bothering to be so mysterious about this. I know what I'm talking about, and the people that read this blog that aren't me, probably know me well enough to know that I'm talking (or, more accurately, not talking) about the one subject that I'm ever reticent to discuss with people that aren't myself. Anyway, the point is I've decided there's nothing I can do about it and thinking about it all the time certainly isn't helping. So yeah. No more thinking about it.

End of self-indulgence.


I have an X-Box 360 now. I got it about a week ago. I'm sorry I didn't bring it up earlier, but I haven't really played it much. Before tonight, if I didn't count New Years, I've probably spent about 2 hours on the console. Including New Years and today, probably 6 hours. As with most toys, before I got an X-Box, I thought I would use it all the time, but now that I have one, I'm glad I have it, but there's other stuff I'd rather do than play X-Box. I'm sure all of this will change when I get my hands on a copy of Dynasty Warriors 6 or some other such mindless hack and slash.

DnD tomorrow! Huzzah!

Expectations.

This post may or may not be improved by listening to the Belle and Sebastian song that shares a title with the title of this post.

It's 2009, in case you hadn't noticed. The next 5 months might be the busiest/most important of my life to date, and here is a list, conveniently itemized and number for ease of reading, of all the things I have to do before May 18, 2009.

1. Finish writing Notre Dame's trivia night.
2. Apply for a practicum.
3. Apply for graduation.
4. Sign up for CL004.
(actually these first four need to be done before Jan 20)
5. Cast, shoot and edit my practicum short film (this one needs to be done by April 26 and it's without a doubt the most ambitious project I've ever done).
6. Pass all of my classes this semester with a C or better.
7. Look for and find some sort of job for after graduation.
8. Attend Steve and Mary's wedding (this one should be pretty fun, but I do need to request off work for it though).
9. Figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.
10. Finish my screenplay(this one is for extra credit).
11. Work on one of two secret mystery projects that have to be done before graduation.

I've toyed around with the idea of quitting my job for the semester so I'll have more time to get stuff done, but I think we all know I would probably just squander said free time by playing x-box or hanging around on facebook. But I'll probably only be able to work 2 days a week anyway because of how jacked up my class schedule is.

In other movie related news, I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button today. If you're planning on watching it, save yourself some time and just watch Big Fish. You'll have a much better time, and you won't have to stare at Cate Blanchett for 3 hours (am I only one that finds her somewhat off-putting?).

Anyway, I'm going to pretend to go to bed, but I'm really just going to waste time on facebook.