The Goods....

Here's a list of things I got for Christmas.

DVD Player from Droib and Bucket
Hat, Gloves and Sled from my Godparents
Best Buy Gift Certificate from my cousin Ashley
Shaun of the Dead, Matrix Reloaded, and MP3 Player from my parents
Some interesting boxer shorts from joe
Stardust from Ben
Some magic and Pirate Boosters from terrence

That's all I can think of right now... it seems like there was more...
Anyway Christmas was great this year. Terrence was home and it wasn't too crazy.

I hope you all had similarly pleasant Christmas's.

Dirty Laundry With Rufus Wainwright

I had this dream last night. My father and I went to go see this play starring a certain R. Wainwright. The play was horrible but it ended with a Rufus song. The play took place at old Notre Dame. There were like 8 people there, one of which was David Kiblinger. We stayed after the play to talk to Rufus. We were nice to him, but he was rude to us. Later Rufus came over to my house to do laundry. He was nice when he was at my house. But he was rude after his shitty play. Go figure.

Christmas is coming up. I need to get presents for my brothers.

I'm listening to the Christmas podcast. I recommend it. I speak with a couple of amazing accents.
http://www.crappyasst.com
Dig it.

Why I didn't like King Kong.

Um... there are some spoilers ahead, or something.

The movie opens with the Great Depression... or maybe it's just a depression. People are living in shacks by the zoo, wading through muddy make-shift streets and alleys, standing in soup lines, stealing food, going to Vaudeville shows! HEY It's a fun time at the old Vaudeville theater! People are dancing, having a good time then BAM! Depression again. Vaudeville's closed. Naomi Watts and her amazing CGI juggling are out of a job, and her friend an elderly gentleman actor desides to move back Chicago, did he I mention he was sort of a father figure? Cause he is... trust us! (us meaning the screenwriters) Yup, life pretty much sucks for Ann Darrow. She can't get a job as a serious actor and has no choice but to work at a burlesque. She can't catch a break.

Enter Carl Denham, played by Jack Black. Is he comic relief? Is he a horrible person that exploits people for his own personal gain? Is he a visionary filmaker who refuses to give up on his dream? YOU DECIDE! We certainly won't tell, we'll just leave it in a sort of awkward middle ground. Carl picks up Ann and takes her aboard his ship leaving for skull island, where he's filming his latest picture.

On the boat we meet Jack Driscoll, played by Adrien Brody. Ann happens to be a fan of Driscoll, who is the screen writer for the movie Denham is making and a playwright of some note. There are some sparks between Driscoll and Ann. They kiss, then the movie is over. Well technically there are two more hours of monkey fighting left after the kiss but that's about it.

The last 2 hours of the movie... maybe even more than that are devoted to character development for Kong. I suppose Phillipa and Pete thought, well since he can't talk, there is no way people will understand that Kong is to be pitied unless we spend TWO HOURS MAKING HIM THE MOST PITIFUL CREATURE IN CINEMA HISTORY! Kong's life sucks. We get it. Aren't there other characters in this story that we could learning about, maybe see grow? "No no," say the screenwriters, " don't you see Kong HELPED Ann, he's a good guy. See, he's not a monster. He's just tortured relentlessly by the creatures of the island, and revered by the Skull island natives for some inexplicable reason... No no... you don't understand... he doesn't want to hurt people... he just wants his friend back! He's a kind creature at heart. It's not his fault that he was gassed and put onstage and exploited then goaded into a rage by the blinding flashes of camera bulbs... don't you see? Kong is the victim here!" REALLY!? You think?!

The thing that really bothers me about this film is the fact that I can't put my finger on why I don't like this movie. The 3 hour running time was a bit much... but I thought that Peter Jackson would make good use of that time. Make a better Kong story. Maybe tell parts of the story that the original left out. I don't know. The one thing that suprised me about this movie is how much I liked Adrien Brody. I really like him in this movie. I thought he was terrific. Naomi Watts was good. She did a lot of screaming. Jack Black was... I didn't like Jack Black in this movie. Why would you cast Jack Black in this movie. His performance was inconsistant... he was good at the parts where he was supposed to be funny... well not really. I don't know. This movie puzzles me.

Jiggity

What is probably the last ever new episode of Monster House was shown last night. It was a pitiful ending to what was a great television show. The show started with a story from Mr. Regis Philbin. The story had something to do with Dean Martin and a steak that was eaten by a dog. Anyway, Regis was congratulating Monster House for renovating the house they fixed up for this particular episode. I think he refered to it as a rest home... maybe he didn't, but he certainly made it seem like Steve and the crew were doing some sort of service project. It turns out that the house they fixed up was that of a former upper class hollywood family, that wasn't upper class any more. They were upper middle class, or maybe just middle upper middle class, but the point is Monster House fixed up the back yard and pool house, that's right a Pool House, of this Mansion for some 75 year old guy, who's dad interviewed Marilyn Monroe on the radio or something... I was insulted. Then the reveal, which will go down in history as the worst reveal ever, was seasoned with "look-alikes" of old movie stars. I put look-alikes in quotes because none of them really looked anything like the celebrity they were supposed to look like. Anyway it was cheesy and forced, and the guy who was supposed to be a young Ronal Reagan just stood on the diving board looking like a jack ass the entire time.

I just watched The Polar Express. It's ok. Some of the people I work with really want to see it. I kind of wanted to see it. I just rented it because my mother was with me at Hastings and she wanted to see it. Hey, those three sentences I wrote are dynamite. Read them out loud a couple times and you will see my literary brilliance. I am a master of words. Don't forget the true meaning of Christmas; Santa. And some presents. But seriously: Santa Claus.

Good jorb

I did nothing today. That is not entirely accurate. I went to mass, came home, played some spellforce, took a nap, bought Ian James a Christmas present, ate at Buckner's with my friends, played celebrity, podcasted. I did nothing constructive today. That's why I like working so much. When I work, I feel like I'm doing something. When I don't work, I feel like I'm wasting time.

Recently I've been thinking about societal concessions and unwritten rules. I tend to not question the written rules, like the ones that ban killing and stealing and stuff, but there's other rules... things that we sort of just take for granted, things like customs and manners. Like saying hello to people you pass that you don't know. Saying God Bless you when people sneeze. Stuff like that. I don't know what I think about that stuff, I've just been more aware of it recently.

There is something inherently dissapointing about Christmas Presents. There is no such thing as the perfect Christmas present. A wrapped one is as close as it gets. A wrapped present could be anything. It could be just what you always wanted, but never thought to ask for. An opened present is finite and flawed. I have my cousin Ian's name for my mom's family's gift exchange. His mom said he wanted some sort of X-Men transformer, so I bought him an X-men transformer. It looks pretty cool on the box, but the toy itself is less than pristine. It's not that I got a defective product, it's just that toy itself is sort of lackluster. I don't know what I'm trying to say here. I love Christmas, I love giving presents.

Um... school is over next week, officially.
Yup

Watching the Simpsons, thinking of food...

Man I'm hungry.

This weekend we, the Essner's, are painting our front room and just generally making it more liveable...livable... I don't know how to spell that word... We're also putting up our Christmas tree.
My goal this weekend is to get as many Christmas presents as possible... get as in purchase not receive...

Someone is trying to sell the second season of the Golden Girls for $40. I just saw an advertisement for it on television. What is this world coming to?

I know I've been tooting this horn a lot lately (tooting...tee hee) but seriously... Arrested Development is, by far, the best television show ever. It continues to make me laugh. Even when I watch episodes I've seen over and over again.

This weekend I need to see Narnia. I would also like to eat Domino's pizza, preferably deep dish... of the beef or bacon variety.

Ok, now I'm going to go to sleep or get something to eat... YOU DECIDE!!!

Christmas Shopping and Plastic Yoda

The title of this post has nothing to with the content. At least, I assume it won't, I haven't written it yet (it meaning the content, not the title). I haven't started my Christmas shopping yet. I'll prolly start on Saturday. Yeah. Saturday. Which reminds me... it reminds me of nothing.

Hey my cousin Nick Essner turns 30 years old this year. That's crazy. I flat out refuse to believe that any of my cousins is that old.

I have no idea what to get the people I have to get presents for. Well... I think I know what to get Ian james Wells. But other than that, I'm drawing a blank.

I'm tired. I'm going to sleep.

I bought some PJ's

Pants are awesome. For those of you not wearing pants now, congratulations.

Scholar bowl tournee tomorrow! I love reading at scholar bowl tournaments. It's so... nostalgic.
Speaking of nostalgia, today while I was driving my route I tried to name as many people from my high school graduating class as I could. I think I came up with about 60 people. Something like that. I was sort of impressed with how many I remembered. I was sort of dissapointed with myself for ones I didn't remember. Biggest moment of shame was Dustin Klipfel. I was in his class every year of grade school and he was like the 58 I remembered. I'm sorry Dustin. You're good people. Paul Tellow, you're also good people, you were number thirteenish, why haven't I seen you for 2 years?

Hey I need to wake up in 5 and a half hours.... Time to watch Arrested Development till I fall asleep!

I'm gonna be honest, I've been listening to a lot of Rufus today

I have no idea why. Rufus's stuff is just so listenable. Um... tomorrow is the first of the month. That means bad things for Commerical Mail services... namely mail and lots of it.

I've watched some of the first season of Arrested Development again. It's so good. The second season is good too, as is the third, but the first season is just ridiculously good. It saddens me that this show is likely to be cancelled. Who isn't watching it? Oh that's right, America.

I thought of an interesting concept for a game. I might propose it to Matthew as an activity for the annual Christmas get together. I rented a David Sedaris a Dave Barry book from the library. I can't really read Mr. Barry any more. I've been spoiled by more subtle humorists (D. Sedaris, Mike Nelson).

Ok. I'm off.

Greetings ladies, my name is Joseph and I just rolled into town.

I really want to play magic today.

So Thanksgiving was fun. I spent the whole day with the Wells's and it was relatively painless.

School is careening out of control and will soon be done for a while. I need to figure out what I'm going to do. I really don't want to go to semo anymore, or college in general really. I need to figure that out and convince my parents... yeah.

I bought Arrested Development Season 2 yesterday... TWICE! They were selling it for $16 a pop. I figure I'll give the second one to Jimmy at work for christmas. He digs the show. He's a cool guy. I also bought this game called spellforce. It's intruiging. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Me and the Bucket are gonna play some UT. Dig it.

Posting on a quiet tuesday afternoon.

I bought the first 2 seasons of News Radio. They are really good for being mid-nineties laugh track sit-coms, "they" meaning the first 2 seasons of News Radio. Of the 30 episodes 20 of them have commentary. I'm stoked. I'm a big commentary junkie.

ok in the news department... there is no news. I'm sorry. I'm a very boring person, not much happens to me.

In the sports department, there was no U-frisbee on Sunday. Bummer

um... I'm going to Stl tomorrow. Thursday I'ma going to Troy. Friday I'm coming home with ben. Hopefully at some point this weekend I'll meet up with Pete/Steve. That'd be coo.

I'm entirely too silly today. I'm sorry. Snoogans.

I just saw Goblet Of Fire

I need to see the movie again before I pass judgment on it but at first glance... it's pretty darn good... well goodish. I didn't like the amount of time they spent on the first task and the lack of time spent on the second task. But all in all, this movie is how a Harry Potter film should be. You can't cram all of a Harry Potter Book into 2 and a half hours, it would be foolish to try. The thing with book four, it's pretty obvious what needed to be in the movie, the tasks, the cup, the dance the end. This movie looked a lot different than it's predecessors. Lot's of interesting camera work, lots of fun spins and different kinds of shots. Lots of tight shots on faces... i don't know a lot about cinematography but I know I liked the cinematography of this film. I really liked how they shot this movie.

Anyway... what else have I done this week....
1. Purchased and beat Age of Empires 3
2. Watched Bewitched... it was ok.
Man... I haven't done anything worthwhile this week. I suck.

Ok I just cleaned the bathroom. It's almost 3am. I'm not tired so I decided to clean the bathroom... I'd have to do it tomorrow anyway. This is the worst post ever. Goodnight.

I'm listening to Pete and Steve's radio show... honest!

This weekend was awesome, as my weekends in St. Louis tend to be. I went to go see OKgo with my good friends peter and steven waslonger. Okgo rocked so hard. I was astounded. I like okgo a lot and I expected a good show, but they were amazing. The openers were mediocre... but you know... they were openers. The Giants always have good openers... except the one time when they didn't. Here's a list of Giants openers that rocked:
1. Tractenburg Slideshow Players
2. KORN MO
3. Atticus Fault
4. Okgo. nuff said.

Ones that didn't rock
1. Charlie Mars
2. Those two guys who opened for them the second time I saw them.

Holy Crap, I think Steve just made the VS warning call on the air. I hope he's ok.

Hey. I'm going to nap cause I'm playing fribee tonight.
Goo nigh

I just watched Cold Mountain, what did you do?

I don't watch movies like I used to. I mean that in every sense possible... well maybe not every sense. I don't watch movies in the volume that I used to. I used to watch 5 or six movies a week. Now I average about 1. I think I pay more attention when I watch movies now though. Anyway, I liked Cold Mountain. The cast was the stuff of legend. With the likes of Mr. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Brendan Gleeson, Jude Law, Donald Sutherland, and Jack White this film had a powerhouse of talent.

What else...um... gosh... I have nothing to say tonight.
I finished Neverwhere. It only took me two years to read it. I rule. I also don't have anything to read right now. That's ok. I suck at reading anyway. Mini-review of Neverwhere: Richard Mayhew is a better, more interesting Fat Charlie Nancy. Neverwhere is a great novel. The characters are interesting and fresh. Anansi Boyz still sucks balls, It's the worst book I've read this year. If you're a Neil Gaiman fan, don't bother. If you've never heard of Neil Gaiman, you'd probably like Inanzi Boys, cause you don't know any better.

PEACE

I'm no good to be around today.

I'm feeling contrary. I have this strange feeling that if I was around people, I know I would be an ass, so I'm avoiding human contact for the remainder of the day. Well except, I think I'm going to go to Hastings and maybe get something to eat, but other than that... Humans, stay away.

Hey, I saw an Underworld 2 preview when I went to see Doom (Yes, that doom). I want to see Underworld again. That's probably what I'm going to rent at Hastings.

I'm downloading the trial version of Flash right now. I have this delusion of making a web toon. I have a pretty good idea for the toon, I just don't have the means to bring it forth. So i'm going to try to learn flash, or some other animation program that is not $700. Either way, this web toon is something I think I can pull off, at least the writing part.

Ok, i'm off.

PS: It is too damn hot for November.

Also, my friend Layne needs a job, preferably in the food service industry, so if you can think of somewhere that wants to hire someone that is short, give Layne a call.

"In the Devil's Territory"; Sufjan Stevens

I don't like this convention for naming my blogposts. I'm not going to do it anymore.

I worked like a madman last week. To the tune of 38.7 hours. I used to get hours like that when I had a morning route. I'm a beast. I'm working tomorrow too. Here's the bummer. I don't work next friday, the 11. That means I don't get paid till Monday cause friday is normally payday.

Hey Matt, how did that history test you took today go? Well... I suppose it went ok. FOR AWESOME! But serioulsy I think I totally got a high C on this test I took today. Not bad for not reading the material or doing any sort of serious studying.

Hey Matt, what are you going to do after this semester. I have no idea. I'm sort of waiting to see what SEMO does to me. I'm guessing there will be some sort of acadmemic probation of something. If I stay, I'm definately swithing majors... maybe Mass Com? Maybe general studies? Who knows!?

I'm going to buy pants tomorrow. This is my solemn vow! At least three pairs of pants.
If this was a perfect world, tomorrow night, after dinner with the fam, me and the boys would get together, podcast, maybe watch a movie. Sunday I would work on that paper... *Ahem* and sunday night/afternoon, we would draft or something. I miss Magic.

"Pregnant For the Last Time", Colin Meloy

Wow, this song rocks.

Hey there. I'm not going to bitch about work, but it sucked.

I've had a couple of interesting ideas for stories the last couple days. One's a story I've been working on for a while. I need to write these things down. Ideas are shit. That's what Hemingway said. I have not done much this week. Sunday I went to St Louis to take Ben back. That was fun. I met up with Pete and Steve and we ate at a haunted Arby's (which was, haunted though it was, better than the one in Cape)
Halloween was, as usual, a bit of a letdown. I don't know what I expect from Halloween. Just something I suppose. I want it to be different from every other night. It wasn't... I had to work, for one thing... I didn't see any trick or treaters. The problem is that Halloween is too short. The actual Halloween-ness lasts from nightfall till about 9ish. Which is about 4-5 hours... depending. Halloween should be three nights long. That is my decree.

Ok. I don't know what else to say. Goodnight.

"The Infanta"; The Decemberists

So the game went well last night. It went better than I'd have hoped. Matt Buchhiet showed up a jaw-dropping two hours late, but it all worked out ok cause we didn't start on time anyway. I think everyone had fun. I certainly did. I don't think Matthew liked my stew, but I wasn't especially thrilled with it either. I had never made stew before. I think it turned out a little bland. But that bread! How about that.

So now that the game is over I have to do all those things I'd been putting off, like the two papers that I have to do. I wonder when I'll do those things. I can't tomorrow. Tuesday I'm at work. Oh well. I'll figure it out. I also need to figure out that other thing I need to figure out before the semester ends.

Hey! Halloween is tomorrow!!! I'm actually not too terribly excited about tomorrow as I won't be able to do any of the things I normally do on Halloween, namely visit family members and eat candy. Work is going to be a bitch tomorrow. Oh well. I had Halloween yesterday.

Well I think I gots to take Ben back to St. Louis now, so I'm outta here!

This post is dedicated to Shit Surgeon Brian. You will be missed.

"Jenny Says"; Cowboy Mouth

Um... what was I going to say... I don't remember now. I'm pretty much working on the Halloween game all the time now. It happens in three days or something. I haven't checked the weather report yet... I'm a bit concerned about the weather. I have a lot of stuff to do before the game... I don't really get stressed too often, but I'm sort of getting stressed now. Usually when I get stressed I just shrug off whatever is stressing me, and ignore it. I'm not going to do that with the Halloween game. I can't think of anything interesting to say. Sorry folks. I'm going to bed.

"Dr. Pyser"; BFF!

Here's a brief summary of what's been happening to me since last I blogged (Brief cause I got to get up in 6 hours or something...)

Saturday: Me and Bucket built some props for the game; Matthew and Ben rocked the house on some puzzles that needed some working out; Me, Matthew, Bucket, Droib, and Spants worked on some more props, watched Van Helsing. I like Van Helsing. It's an enjoyable movie. It is also an utterly terrible film.

Sunday: Napped. Watched Red vs Blue. Went to my Grandma's house for soup ( NINE DIFFERENT SOUPS! It was ridiculous). Smoked J-Long in the head with a frisbee (He was bleeding for a considerable amount of time) Tried to blog and failed.

Monday: Schooled, Worked, Played Magic. Came home. Found out that my Unlce Terrence's Caprice got stolen. Was shocked, but not suprised.

Observations:
My friends rock beyond belief. Everyone is totally kicking ass on this game. My friends are incredibly talented and creative people and it's awesome to have everyone putting their talents together in such a cool way.
The car thing sucks for Terrence. That is the second Caprice he's had stolen within the city of St. Louis. They might find the car, but it'll be stripped and destroyed. Terrence needs to get out of St. Louis, it's bad luck for him.
Matthew has to work on Halloween! That is total balls. I have to work on Halloween, but I'll be done by 9. He doesn't even start till 8. That totally sucks. For one thing, we can't draft, but aside from that... IT'S HALLOWEEN! Come on! No one should have to work on Halloween... at least they shouldn't have to work past 5 pm.
I don't know why I like Halloween so much. If you can figure it out let me know. I think I'm going to bed now... or am I? Yes. I am. Goodnight Blog.