T-Shirts and Broomsticks

I have approximately 50 or so t-shirts. I only wear about 15 on a regular basis, this means I have a surplus of about 35 t-shirts. I want to get rid of the extras, but I kind of feel like there are more than enough T-shirts in circulation, so I don't really think I could give them away. For some reason I have this incredible compulsion to burn them. Is this an acceptable method of disposing of unwanted t-shirts? I think it is, but I'm willing to debate the matter.

I've been stuck on the same boss in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia for approximately 2 months. It is the hardest boss in the game (so far) and I just don't feel like grinding up a couple of levels is going to give me the edge I need to beat it (also, grinding in Castlevania is fairly tedious, as far as grinding goes). So I suppose I'm done playing that game. Wait, an idea just came to me. I bet Jonathan could beat that boss. He's kind of a ninja. Maybe I'll let him try it. Good talk.

Cultist Behavior (or Behaviour, if you prefer)

So this morning, at about 9:45, I joined Facebook. I've resisted joining any social network for as long as I could (except for that one time I joined Myspace to talk to Marcus Legrand), but I realized with my impending graduation and graduation of some my friends this semester, I needed some means of keeping in contact with people I won't ever see again. So there you have it. I've sold out.

In other news, Christmas is over. Who knew? I got Mermaid Avenue volumes 1 and 2. I've become completely enamored with the song Hoodoo Voodoo by Wilco.

Twas the night before the night before a week before New Year's Day...

So I'm still in my end of the semester funk (not that that really means anything. Me depressed is really just like regular me, only a little more sleepy and slightly more introverted). I think I've figured out why this pseudo depression has lingered as much as it has, but I'm not going to go into it, because it's pretty stupid. If the cause is what I think it is (which it is, obviously) than it's probably not going to go away for a while. Anyway it's not really that big of a deal.

I'm finally done Christmas shopping! I finished at like 3pm this afternoon, and it feels good to be done. I spent a lot more money this year than I have in the past and I'm afraid to look at my bank account, so I probably won't until I get another paycheck or two in there.

In music I'm not really that impressed by news, I listened to that Fleet Foxes album everyone has been ranting and raving about and frankly, I'm not that impressed. It's the kind of music I would put on to have in the background while I'm cleaning my room (which happens to be exactly how I finally ended up listening to the album). The lead singer still sounds exactly like Jim James from My Morning Jacket. Also, I'm listening to Wolf Parade's newest album at the moment. It's not that good either. The best album I've heard all year is Vampire Weekend. I don't care what anyone says, that album is gold.

End of the Semester Blues

Today was the last day of the busiest and best semester of my college life. I worked harder and better, on more things than I have ever done in my entire life. I started the semester with two jobs and fifteen hours worth of classes. I ended it with one job and still fifteen hours, but it was probably the best fifteen hours of classes I've ever taken.

This semester I wrote three really good short stories, three fairly good three minute short films, one really good (if I do say so myself) fifteen minute short, 37 pages of a feature film screenplay, twelve boring, but well written essays about my musical taste. I made two documentaries that I'm really proud of, and one that I'm sort of proud of even though it is terrible, one short film that is the best thing I've ever shot/directed/edited, I acted decently in a really good short film, I learned how to use After Effects (sort of), I submitted a screenplay to a writing competition, a short story to a literary magazine and I read that same short story at a public literary reading (albeit to a crowd of about 12 people, but still, a big step for me). Most importantly, this semester I made some friends.

The end of this semester means the end of what was, without a doubt, the most productive four months of my life. It also means the end of my film classes, and the end of my classes with Jones, who is the best teacher I've ever had on a lot of levels. It's the end of working with Jim, Katie, David and Brandon (who graduated), with Nate and Joe (unless they're taking Adv Video, which I think they are not) and it's probably the last time I'll see my friend Hao (who graduated and is moving back home to China). Hao's been in every film class I've ever taken and she was always a joy to be in class with. She was fun to work with, she was a really good filmmaker and she was a genuinely really sweet person. She was in my first real movie. She had to lay on ground for an hour or so, pretending to be asleep in the middle of November. She never complained. She was very patient and always kept her sense of humor. I'm sad to see her go.

Of course the biggest reason I'm sad to see the end of this semester is because it means in five months, I'll (hopefully) be done with college. In five months I'll be saying goodbye to even more friends. I'll be looking for (or going to) a real job, where I don't have Matt Shead or Jeanie around to talk to or fix my problems. I won't have the convienent excuse of class to see my friends all the time. I'll have to become a grown-up (or partially a grown-up, at least). The next five months are probably going to be just as busy as the previous four and a lot scarier, and I'm not sure I'm up for it.

At least there's Christmas coming up to take my mind of those kind of things. Anyway, I need some sleep.

Hiatus

So did October happen already? Where have I been? What have I been doing?
I'll tell you.

Not much really. I've been functioning at about 65% of normal awesomeness levels since the middle of September, and I'm not really sure why. I have a lot of shit to get done before the end of the semester and I just don't feel like doing it. I have to finish the screenplay for my short film (the second draft anyway), I need to do my multimodal project for advanced comp, I need to work on my writing journal for Advanced Creative Writing, as well as the revisions for the end of semester portfolio. I need to be keeping up to date with my after effects lessons, I need to figure out what I'm doing my discover Cape project on. I really don't know where my time goes. I certainly don't have anything to show for it.

So starting this tomorrow, I'm going to buckle down and spend at least an hour every night working on one of my many ridiculously huge projects that is due by the end of the semester.
Also, at least one day this week I vow not to go out to eat at all.

In other news, the last two episodes of the Office haven't pissed me off that much. Ok, that's not entirely true. I was pissed off a couple of times with Thursday night's episode. My newest thing to hate about the Office is the cold open, which for those of you who don't listen to DVD commentaries is the two minute or so segment before the title of a show. The cold open is usually a bit not related to the rest of the episode, it's usually a stand alone piece.

Anyway the reason I hate the cold open on the office is because it accentuates the jokes before plot strategy of the American Office. The show is 22 minutes long (21 after the theme song), and they spend 2 or more minutes setting up and executing a joke (or a series of jokes) that serve no purpose to the narrative thread of the episode. I don't know why this bothers me, because the "drama" of the show has been pretty lame this season (except the Dwight v. Andy stuff that's been going on). One of the reaons I liked the original series, and the first couple of seasons of the American show, is because it was a comedy, but it was a comedy with realistic characters with realistic problems. It sounds cliche, but I liked it because it had heart.

The conflicts this season (the multi-episode, seasonal conflicts) have been pretty lame. Pam moved to another city and has fun with her new friends, while Jim stays at work. Is that a realistic conflict? Yes. Is it being presented in an overly dramatic way? Yes.

I'm getting off topic. Why I am pissed about Thursday night's episode: Their cold open was Halloween. Their Halloween episode was a two minute bit about three people in the office dressing up as the joker. It was a great joke. A great premise for an episode, and they spent two minutes on it. I'm mostly irritated by this because I love Halloween and I wish more shows would devote entire episodes to it. Every show has a Christmas episode every year. But Halloween always gets the shaft. Also, if that really is the end of the Michael/Holly story arch I will be much angried.

God, I talk about the Office a lot.

30 Rock is the bes show on television. Why aren't you watching it?

A few weeks later...

I'm watching Jimmy Kimmel Live right now. I don't know why. So there's this band on there called Buck Cherry. They are incredibly terrible. That is all.

I'm in a creative writing class this semester, it's essentially a short story writing class and I got my first short story back from being work shopped this week. Most people were fairly complimentary with their comments. Although one person wrote "Not really sure what the point was... Okay I guess". They also didn't sign their name. It was incredible. Someone had the exact same opinion of my short story as I did, and they didn't sign their name.

In other news I'm tired, what else is new. I'll try to blog more later.

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.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

The Good:
Dark Knight isn't as good upon the second viewing! Why is this a good thing? Because it means there's room for improvement. Don't get me wrong, Dark Knight is still an amazing movie, but it has problems and almost all of them are either Batman or logic related. The good parts of the movie are still good. The Joker continues to be the most interesting film character since Jack Sparrow, the action is still loads better than Batman Begins, etc. etc. But there are a few times where the viewers disbelief is suspended to nearly the breaking point (cell phone, bullet building/fingerprint finding computer, Batman's miraculous immunity to falling off buildings). I could go into more detail, but the chances are that if you see me in person, I'll will probably list all the flaws of the Dark Knight without you asking me to.

The Bad:
Step Brothers is bad. It was a lazy movie. There was pretty much no plot to speak of (which isn't inherently a bad thing in my book). It was pretty much a riff-fest, with a point the camera at the funny style of shooting. This film did no one any favors.

The Ugly:
They showed this preview before Step Brothers.

Pushing Daisies Update

Ok, so last night I put Pushing Daisies on my list of three things that are awesome. I just watched the second episode and am a little unsure of my prior pronouncement.

Problem 1: Chi McBride. He played the tough as nails principle on Boston Common (and on an episode of Boston Legal). He played the tough as nails millionaire benefactor on the first season of House. And he's playing the tough as nails private investigator on Pushing Daisies. Anyway, it doesn't really matter who he is playing, I don't really like him. I know I'm being a little hard on him, as I've only seen him in two episodes, but I don't really see him being much different from the characters I have seen him play historically. I don't really see him doing anything interesting with the character.

Problem 2: The show appears to be a murder mystery show. But the mysteries so far have been of Monk-like caliber where you more or less have them figured out by the time they introduce the first suspect. Again, I've only seen two episodes, but I kind of have a feeling that this is going to be representative for the rest of the series because I'm kind of a genius.

I'm going to watch the third episode before I go on. Wait a second.

Ok I watched the third episode, and it's not that the mysteries themselves are dumb (the one in the second episode was though) it's that they wrap them up in sort of lame flashbacks.

Problem 3: Everything and everyone in the show is a little too adorable.

The show is like Murder She Wrote if it was directed by Tim Burton, but not Sleepy Hollow Tim Burton, Big Fish Tim Burton (which isn't really a good comparison, because Big Fish Tim Burton has only made one movie, Big Fish, whereas Sleepy Hollow Tim Burton is responsible for every other movie in Tim Burton's career). The point is I can't really figure this show out. It's quirky, but without rules to it's quirkyness. Wonderfalls was quirky, but it had rules. Pushing Daisies doesn't have a lot of hard and fast rules, except for the three that have been stated at the beginning of every episode so far (one touch brings them back, a second touch kills them again, and if something is brought back for more than a minute something else has to die). Other than that... not so much. It's a world where a body that bad been dead in the ocean for a while, suffered little to no sign of decomposition, then it goes to a mortuary and isn't preserved in any way noticeable, because when the love interest is brought back from the dead, she shows no signs of being worse for wear, she doesn't complain of having all of her organs sucked out. I mean, I understand that would sort of make it a bit more disgusting for her and the main character to have a physical relationship, but they never even address these points in the show.

All the dialogue on the show is quick and witty, but the stories for the murder mystery parts of the show seem kind of forced and dumb. Aesthetically the show seems to be geared toward women, but then every female character wears extremely low cut shirts (which, I assume, is for the male viewers). I guess it's a case of trying to be everything for everyone. Overall I like the show, but it perplexes me.

I just read that the girl who plays Chuck on the show is David Thewlis's (Professer RJ Lupin) ladyfriend. Way to go Mr. Thewlis. Anyway, I'm going to bed because I'm tired and it's past my bed time.

Three Things that Are Awesome

1. The Dark Knight. Believe the hype. This is the best movie I've seen all year. It is an intense and exhausting movie, but well worth it. It isn't a perfect film, but it's not far from it. As with Batman Begins, Christian Bale's Batman is the weakest part of the film. The way he speaks as Batman is just ridiculous. His delivery makes some pretty good dialogue seem laughable. There is also some gadget nonsense that is really unnecessary (the cell phone thing, if you've seen it). The movie would've been just fine without that, I don't know why they put it in their. But yeah. The Dark Knight is what a Batman movie should be.

2. Walcott by Vampire Weekend. I've been listening to this album a lot lately. Mostly just this song actually, but the whole album is pretty good. Really.

3. Pushing Daisies. I've only seen the first episode, so I might be jumping the gun a bit by declaring it awesome. But I really like the first episode and I needed a third thing for my "three things that are awesome post". I suppose I could have included "My Custom Van" by Michael Ian Black, but I'm still not sure about that one yet.

Anyway there's your update on things that are awesome. Deal with it.

Batman ate my neighbors

Dark Knight opens tomorrow. I have every reason to believe it will be as good as it should be. Bob said that it's 2 and a half hours long, which is nice. There are supposed to be trailers for Harry Potter and The Watchmen in front of it. I saw the Watchmen trailer. It concerned me, but only a little.

In other news Hellboy 2 was not a good movie. Hellboy is a good movie. Believe it.

So I'm off this weekend. I don't really know what I'm doing yet, but it's nice to have to not have plans.

Also I finished the script for the short film I'm working on, but I think I decided it will be a three part film, so... yeah. That'll be fun to write.

Anyway, I'm hella tired and partly distracted by Batman Begins, so I'm going to end this post now.

A Post about Dogs.

My dog Buster died Monday at about 1 in the morning. His kidneys had been failing and he had developed a heart murmur. He had been deteriorating pretty quickly these past couple of weeks, and late Sunday night he got to the point where he was in a lot of discomfort. My mom's friend Karen, who is a veterinarian, came over and administered something to help with the pain and he died not long after.
It's been fairly well documented that I get pretty emotional about the death of pets, and Buster's passing was particularly hard for me. Buster was a very misunderstood dog, and it was pretty much all Geoff Seyer's fault. A couple of days after my mom brought Buster home from the humane society I had a few friends over, and as they were coming in the house Buster was getting pretty excited, he was barking playfully and scampering around my friends as they came in. Then Geoff came in and responding to Buster's barking by kicking at him and making his own barking kind of noises, not maliciously, he wasn't actually trying to kick Buster, regardless, ever since that day Buster treated all people that came into the house as enemy combatants (with a few exceptions).

On Thursday my mom brought a puppy from the humane society. His name is Tobias (Toby).
He's the one that's not a shoe.

My Keyboard is on the Fritz

The $3 keyboard I bought with my computer 6 years ago quit working last week, so I am using the old keyboard from my mothers keyboard. It will not let me type apostrophes or quotation marks, so you will have to deal with my incorrect spellings and punctuations.

We played DnD tonight. It was fun. I rolled a Warlock and kicked major quantities of rat and zombie ass. At first I was a little worried that the guys were not going to take it serious enough, but once we started combat it was all business, the business of blowing up rat swarms.

On another note, Katy Segal almost single handedly ruins the fourth season of Futurama, by being involved in it.

Um... not much else to report.

Update!

Sorry it's been a while blog, I've been busy.

Busy doing what?

Working mostly. I started working for (but not at) the Jackson Walmart 2 weeks ago. I work in a warehouse. It is a lot more fun than I thought it'd be. I get to drive a forklift occasionally, which is a lot of fun. Kohl's is not so fun. They don't schedule us much, and it takes us a lot longer than it should to get done with adset.

Other things that happened since last I posted:

I spent last weekend in St. Louis, hanging out with Pete and Steve on their birthday and going to the City Museum (which is the coolest thing ever).

Terrence is home from Iraq (which is a good place to be home from).

I bought a pair of new shoes.

Blizzard announced Diablo 3.

I watched Life Aquatic several more times.

Pretty boring actually. Hopefully I'll have some more interesting posts later this week, but I kind of doubt it. Anyway, I think I'm going down to Brad's.

Happy Birthday, Matt B, by the way.

Not Particularly Bloggy.

I watched Rushmore last night. It's such an amazing movie. It has inspired me to do two things. Write down my idea for a shortfilm and make a list of some of my favorite uses of pop music in movies. The former is pretty much for my eyes only, but the latter will be today's blog post, so without further ado:

Matt Essner's Top Five Pop Music in Movie Moments:

First I feel like I must explain what I mean by "Pop Music in Movie Moments". What I mean is this, scenes in movies that are underscored by pop music instead of music composed for the movie. So although the appearence of the Executor accompanied by the Imperial March is an amazing bit of music and film, it doesn't count because it was composed for the film. This list will represent what I think to the finest marriages pop music and filmaking (at least as many as I can remember).

1. Rushmore Finale
This is what inspired me to make. Although there are some great musical moments in this movie (and pretty much all of Wes Anderson's movies) this one tops the list. It is a great ending to a great film.

2. A Knight's Tale: Golden Years
This movie is awesome and if you don't like it (like the movie or like the fact that it is an awesome movie) you deserve to go to prison. The same prison where all the people that shout "FREE BIRD" at concerts deserve to go. The kind of prison where they show reruns of Friends all day every day. Anyway this scene is great because of the way it seamlessly blends the chamber music into a David Bowie song. The best part is at about 1:46, when you hear Mr. Bowie sing "Angel". It's at that point you know that some seriously funk rock is about to be dropped on this here madrigal society.

3. Donnie Darko: Head Over Heels
I don't think this movie is as good as I remember it being when I watched the summer after my senior year of high school, but this scene still does it for me. The first shot of the school bus is still pretty cool. Also the in frame camera speed changes are pretty nifty, even though they've been done to death at this point (300, anyone?). Also Tears for Fears rocks your mom's face. My favorite part is when the girls are doing the celebration after they finish their dance and they're all trying to high five and miss and be like "this is totally normal, we are very self congratulatory people"

4. American Beauty: Baba O'Reilly
This one is kind of cheating but I'm going to allow it because I'm running out of ideas. This is technically the trailer, but it's still pretty awesome use of music. There's actually some pretty good songs elsewhere in the film, like the cover of "Because" at the end.

5. Big Fish: Let's Work Together
I couldn't find a clip of this one, but you'll just have to believe that if I had it would be pretty much just as awesome as the video I did link. It's been a while since I've seen this movie, but as I remember it Ewan MacGregor's character, Edward Bloom, is at a bank and he notices the man in front of him, Steve Buscemi playing himself, is an old friend of his. They start up a conversation then when Steve gets to the front of the line he pulls out a gun and robs the bank. Steve and Edward high tail it out of their in Ed's suped up Camero. The cops give chase and they end up evading them till dusk, at which point a full moon comes out and Steve Buscemi and all the cops turn into werewolves and fight a bloody, lupine battle all over the state of New Mexico. Ewan MacGregor enters the fray only when it looks like the cops might get the upper hand. He pulls out his silver broadsword and goes to town on the werewolf cops like a wombat (I'm not going to qualify this simile). Anyway, at some point during all that Canned Heat's "Let's Work Together" plays and it's pretty nifty.

This list is in no way exhaustive nor is it necessarily in any sort of order as far as quality goes. It seems like there should probably be something from a Scorcese movie on here (probably Goodfellas) , but there isn't. That's mostly my fault, but I think Marty is not without some blame blame. I could've also put about 10 more Wes Anderson scenes on here, but I didn't because I'm too lazy. You'll also notice a complete lack of scenes from Almost Famous. In your face Cameron Crowe. Even though I love the movie, it's a bit pretentious at times and it was trying a bit too hard at times to get on this list, especially the "Tiny Dancer" scene. The same goes for School of Rock (although I don't really love that movie).

Honorable mention goes to:
1. Shanghai Noon: The training montage that uses the Kid Rock song. (Kept off the list for obvious, Kid Rock related reason)
2. The entire movie Stranger than Fiction (Even though the soundtrack is pretty much all Spoon songs, I think some of them might have been written for the movie, or maybe not, either way no dice Stranger than Fiction)
3. Any movie before the 1998. Nice try older movies, but I couldn't remember any of you when I was making this list.

So yeah. That was fun.

Sunday and Sunburns

I was outside a lot yesterday. My arms are hella sunburned. Dig it.

I finally caught up with QC. It's only taken me like 2 months to do it. I was reading the archives, I hit next comic, and then nothing happened. It took me a second to realize that there wasn't a next comic yet.

NAP UPDATE: Sunday June 8.

I have taken 2 naps today. I woke up at 7 this morning to practice for this week (I have to be at Wal-mart at 7am Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week). I went to mass at 7:30, bought some donuts, then when I came home I didn't really have anything to do. So I took a little nap. I woke up, ate some lunch. Read for a while, then took another nap. Naps= awesome.

I saw Kung Fu Panda last night. It was incredibly unspectacular. It wasn't a bad movie. There was nothing wrong with it. The fight scenes were actually pretty awesome. There just wasn't anything else particularly good about the movie. It wasn't very funny. The "five masters" that are all over the previews aren't really in the movie much (I'm pretty sure they could have just gotten all of Jackie Chan's dialogue from other movies, he had like five lines and they were pretty generic). The thing about the movie that impressed me the most was a complete lack of fart jokes, which, it seems like are mandatory for all non Disney/Pixar animated films, and which are my least favorite brand of bodily function humor (my favorite type is vomit; see Mafia and Team America).

I'm going to try to get off work on Thursday to go see the Raconteurs. We'll see how that goes. We're supposed to ask off weeks in advance at Kohls, but the way I see it is since when people take off on adset they don't schedule people to work for them, the result would be the same if I asked off tomorrow as if I had asked off a month ago. Besides we have three new people now, so if I'm off we're still up 2 compared to the last month or so. Although Crystal's probably off on Thursday too, because she doesn't work Thursdays, Wednesdays, some Saturdays, an occasional Monday, and every other Friday.

Anyway, I'm going to try to convince myself to go for a bikeride.

Bottle Rocket and other things

I saw Bottle Rocket last night. It is definitely my least favorite Wes Anderson movie, and I'm going to go ahead and say it's his worst film. It is amazing how much better Rushmore is than Bottle Rocket. It's also amazing that James Caan is in Bottle Rocket, and how unsuited to a Wes Anderson movie he is.

So I called Brian to talk about the 48 hour film festival yesterday and he told me that we are on the waiting list to be in the festival. He doesn't really know what the means, but he doesn't think we're going to get in, which kind of blows.

In other sleep related news, I'm kind of tired.

Plan for today:
Go to Library
Go to interview at Target (probably not take the job if they offer me one, unless it's ridiculously good)
Eat lunch
Come home
Nap/run
Read
Eat
Work
Come home
Sleep

So.... TO THE LIBRARY!

Been a long time

It's been a while since I've posted. I blame the government. Actually I blame work, cause I've been doing a lot of that lately. Sort of. Anyway, it looks like I'm going to get a job at Wal-mart (pending a drug test). It'll be about 40 hours a week, which I like, but it's not permanent, which I'm not too thrilled about, but the guy who interviewed me, this really cool guy named Tim, said that if I work hard etc, when a permanent job opens up I have a better chance of getting it as a temp employee than a non employee. So yeah. New job and new DVD player that's two things off the list.

Sorry, this is going to be a short post. I've got to got work on number 5 on the list, followed by some number 6, and maybe a little 8 later this afternoon. (7 is pretty much a given. It's going to happen at some point, whether I want it to or not).