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).

I heart Liz Lemon

Thirty Rock is the best show on television. The American Office is ok too.
The finale (of the Office) was pretty good. It wasn't a cliff hanger in any way. It made me not hate Kevin as much (i hate Kevin by the way).

Highlights from Prince Caspian:

Peter: We're back in Narnia, but everything is different.
Lucy: We've already lived at least one lifetime, but I'm still precocious and no one ever listens to me!
Susan: Look, some grownups in a boat, and one of them's holding a dwarf! Let's murder them!
Dwarf: Thanks for saving me.
Peter: No problem. That's what kings and queens of Narnia do.
Dwarf: You're not kings and queens of Narnia.
Peter: Oh yeah? Well fight my brother, then we'll see who's a king of Narnia.
Edmund: Grrr!

Centaur: Welcome Kings and Queens of Narnia. It is time for you to meet the army we have assembled, but first you must RUN THE CENTAUR GAUNTLET!!!

Aslan: So it turns out all you bad guys are all from Sicily, if you walk through this tree vagina you can go back to Italy.
*no one comes forward*
General: Well I guess I'll go.
Aslan: Cool, since you decided to go first, you'll have a good life back in Sicily. The rest of you poor bastards won't be so lucky.


I didn't like the movie, if you can't tell. It kind of sucked.

My birthday was fun. I got a DVD player, so that's one thing off my list of things to do this summer. I also got the third season of House from Josh, which is pretty awesome (even if David Morse's story arc goes on for WAY too long. It does have Patrick Fugit in it, which is nice)

Also I work 4 days this week, which is pretty cool. It's some hours. I need hours.

Let's see... what else.... Um today I was a really useful person... for about three hours. I stopped being useful about 1. Tomorrow will be better though. I think. Anyway, I'm going to go to sleep and read some Ultimates comics (probably not in that order, but we'll see).

Quick one

I'm about to watch the season finale of the Office. I don't know what's going to happen but about 7 months ago I predicted that Jim was going to be leaving Dunder Mifflin by the end of the season. I still think that's a possibility. Obviously if Jim leaves, Pam is going to leave, and the last episode I watched pretty much said explicitly Pam is going to leave Dunder Mifflin. So yeah. Here I go.

Movies, The Office, Work and Summer Class? (Not necessarily in that order)

I saw Iron Man again today, it's still good. Forgetting Sara Marshall is good, Speed Racer is good. I'm going to go see Prince Caspian tomorrow, I hope it is good. (this paragraph brought to you by "Good": It's not comparative. It's not superlative. It's just good.)

I got a call yesterday morning from the communication department asking me if I still wanted to take a summer section of Comm Law. I said yes, so I'm taking that this summer and by this summer, I mean for the next four weeks. I have my first test tomorrow (technically I could take the test today, but I'm not going to because I'm not prepared, I've read the first of three chapters. It's pretty dense) Anyway this class is going to be crazy. Four weeks is not a lot of time for a class (it's an online class. I think I forgot to mention that).

So last night I worked till 2:30ish, I had today off and tomorrow I have to be at work at 6am for truck. Here's the problem with that. Since I worked so late last night,I slept till 11 this morning.To not be hella tired tomorrow I need to go to sleep by 11 at the latest (this didn't happen. It never happens). Working ad-set and truck completely sucks because it is hard to get a consistent sleeping pattern. Anyway, I work till 1 tomorrow and I have to take that test before midnight tomorrow, which shouldn't be a problem, but I need to make sure I have enough time to get through chapters 2 and 3.

Commence Office Talk:
For whatever reason I got back into the American Office (because I like the American Office and the season is almost over). I hadn't seen any episodes since they've been back from the writers strike
so I decided that I would catch up. So tonight I watched episodes 10 and 11 (9 wouldn't download but I saw part of it when it aired. I lied about not seeing any episodes since the strike). 10 wasn't great, there were a couple of sort of funny moments. It featured Kevin pretty prominently, which is something I don't really like in my episodes of the Office. It introduced some other members of the Scranton Business Park. Andy had some cartoon moments. All in all a pretty mediocre episode all around (except for Dwight, who continues to be the greatest person on television right....now). So on the original Office scale of goodness (which is a system I just now devised) I rate this episode a Big Keith.
This might seem like high praise, considering how funny Keith can be, but remember, the majority of the time, he is just kind of there. Plus when you think about every other member of the original British cast (except Dawn) everyone's awesome, so he's probably somewhere in the middle as far as awesomeness goes.

Episode 11:
This episode got a lot of work done plotwise that I assume would've taken place over several episodes if this season wasn't so short, but then again taking into account the American Office's complete lack of subtlety,probably not. It turns out Ryan is a coke-head and Jim and Pam are falling out of favor with the rest of the Office folk (which will factor in next season when they both leave the show to be on that Office Spin-off we've been hearing so nothing about). Dwight is still awesome. Michael is still really lame.
This episode gets a Roland.Whatever that means.

SLEEP!

End of the semester wrap-up

As of like 7:15 yesterday evening, I'm done with school for the Spring 2008 semester. This semester I made my first narrative shortfilm, my first real documentary, and my first "commercial". I'm pretty pleased with how all the projects turned out. I'm pretty sure I got all A's this semester... well I know I got A's in three of my classes, I don't know about my creative writing class yet, but I'm pretty sure I kicked its ass.

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


So Brian M called me tonight and he was like, "you want to do the 48 hour film festival?" And I was like, "Why the hell not?"
So Me, Brian, Shank, Nate and Rob D are probably going to do this film festival thing. The only problem I see with this group is that there is no defacto leader. We're all pretty much alpha dogs, lone wolves, tough as shit renegades who don't give a damn about anyone but ourselves. Not really though. I think Shank will probably end up directing. He has the most experience, we'll probably be using his camera and he fronted the money for the entry fee. Brian or I will write the script because we'll be the ones that complain the loudest if we don't get to. And everyone will probably act and be in the crew. It should be pretty exciting.

Also, in the good news category: I got a call from Pete Wiss the other day, and both he Steve have teaching jobs lined up for next fall (although Steven is still entertaining other offers), which is totally awesome. They finished college in 4 years and already have jobs, what a bunch of grown-ups. Speaking of grown-ups, Droib bought a house. It's true, I've seen it. It's pretty spiffy, except for the fact that it's in JACKSON!

Anyway, that's pretty much it for now.

Almost done with school!

Finals week is upon us. I had two finals, they were both one Monday. I got a 92 on one, I'll find out about the other one when I go talk to Jones tomorrow. I got my portfolio turned in today. Now all I have left is the documentary.

Oh, the Auteur film turned out really well. I had to reshoot everything I shot last Sunday, this Sunday because the audio was no good last Sunday. But the reshoot turned out really good, and the edit is pretty good too. It took all of my Monday to do. It was my first marathon Avid session. I'm sure there will be many more to come.

Also this song has been stuck in my head for the better part of a day. The first 20 seconds or so comprises the best intro in all of pop music (the rest is pretty good too). The video is pretty much amazing. With two semesters of film production classes under my belt, I could probably make something as good. It's pretty satisfying to know that even with thirty plus years of advances in video production technology, I'm still only about as good as a music video director circa 1977.

I need new shoes.

Good News and Bad News

Good News: My team won the trivia night at the UC on Thursday (it was about movies... yeah)
Bad News: My team lost the softball championship on Thursday (by the mercy rule in the 5th inning)

Good News: My documentary filming went really well today.
Bad News: My auteur project did not go well on Wednesday.

Skip this part if you don't like whining, or you just don't like my whining.

(And now I will interrupt the my "good news/bad news formula" for a little bit of rationalization/ranting/explanation {their's probably a better way to describe it but I've only had about 12 hours of sleep in the past two days, which is normal to some people, but I need at least 8 hours per night to function, usually nine though, so anyway, I'm not firing on all cylinders}

The big project for film history class this semester is a short film done in the style of an auteur. I've been looking forward to this project all semester, because my group (heavily influenced by me) picked Edgar Wright. Against my better, but well meaning, judgment I let Robert and Rob have creative control (which basically means, I let them submit ideas to me until they had one I didn't hate, I am such a dick). I let Rob write the script, I let Robert direct (again, here, my language here is demonstrating how much of a dick I am, as if in this group project, where we all have equal parts, I have the power to grant people the privilege {it took me one minute to spell that word correctly} of doing things that they want to do), I just sat back and shot down their ideas until they had one I liked.
My reasoning for letting them have creative control was that I had already the chance to write and direct a short film this semester, I got to write and direct one of the class project films in MC 352. I figured they would want the chance to do it. So anyway, I was just going to be the camera operator for the shoot and help with finding shots and maybe some blocking or something. The script Rob wrote was funny, but it wasn't an Edgar Wright script. I figured that would be ok; if we just focused on Edgar Wright's camera technique, we could still make it in his style. Long story short (and in this case, I'm not just using a cliche', we spent about 3.5 hours of our lives trying to make this movie) we shot the movie on Wednesday, it did not go well, it was by far the worst experience I've had making a movie since I started this major (an incredible 8 months ago).
I said I was going to edit it on Thursday, but I couldn't. I just couldn't make what we filmed into an Edgar Wright movie. I certainly couldn't make it into something I would be proud to show to other people (let along my fellow film majors). So Thursday I wrote a new script, a pretty good script if I do say so myself, and I told my group members that I was going to make a new auteur project movie. They were surprisingly ok with it (we're still on friendly...I think) and I was going to shoot it Friday and Sunday (since I already signed up to have a camera for shooting the documentary this weekend). I didn't get the camera till 5 on Friday (instead of 1, which is a long, obscenity-ridden story), and since my whole movie is shot out side, I had lost a lot of my daylight (also it just started raining when I got my camera).
Fortunately I was able to get some filming done on Friday, but I still have more than have of it to shoot tomorrow. Which leads me to (and you thought I'd forgotten about I)

End of Whining. Just kidding, there's more after this, but it's in small bite-size chunks.

Bad News: It's supposed to rain all afternoon tomorrow
Bad News: Spants (one of the two stars) told me that he was feeling sick tonight, and might be sick tomorrow
Bad News: Most of the people I was counting on as extras can't help tomorrow (which is all my fault, not theirs. For some reason, recently, Sundays have become the worst day for getting people to do stuff. Everyone {but me, apparently} is very busy on Sunday and can't play frisbee, or stickball, or be in my movie)

I can rewrite the scene, and film it so the extras thing isn't as much of a problem. There's nothing I can do about the Spaeth thing. He was going to bed early. A good night sleep always does wonders for me. The rain thing though. That's problematic. I was going to shoot the whole thing outside, at Grandma Essner's. If it's raining, that can't happen. So I need to find somewhere I can shoot inside. There's one place I can think of, but it's a bit of a stretch. First I don't have permission to shoot there, I could get it, but there's no reason to think that I would. Second I would have to do a lot of set dressing. Set dressing that I wouldn't have had to do at all if it didn't rain. Set dressing that I'm not prepared in any way to do. Also there would probably have to be some lighting. I don't have lights. I was supposed to film everything outside, where I don't need lights. I suppose I could get lights... but yeah... permission to film there. That's the thing. This is probably the longest post I've ever written. Even the hardest of the hardcore Matt Essner blog readers (I know you're out there somewhere {It also has the most parantheticals I've ever used too}) will have trouble getting though it all in one sitting, so I guess I should probably end it now befor

Some more Blagging

I have mixed feelings on whether or not today was a good or bad day. Regardless of its goodness or badness here is some shameless self-promotion (is there any other kind?)

We had a test in MC 352 today. I pretty much kicked it's ass, at least I think I did. Normally that kind of post-test confidence is a sure sign of failure (in my case anyway, mostly because of the "Rule of Irony", which is the most powerful guiding principle in my life), but there were only two or three questions that I wasn't one hundred percent sure about the answer.

Also I played on Brian's intermural softball team again tonight (I played once before, mediocrely). I played third base, which is fortunately the easiest position in the infield (at least in slow pitch softball, as most of these guys don't pull the ball much; Shortstop on the other hand is the danger zone), the ball was hit to me twice, one time I threw the guy out at second, the second time it just sort of rolled past me into left field. So defensively, not a great night, but not bad. On offense though, I was 6 for 6. Maybe 7 for 7. I don't even remember. Either way, my batting average for tonight was 1.00. I saw 7 (or 8) pitches and I sent 6(or 7) of them right up the gap in center field. Unfortunately every one of those hits was a single, and most of the time it was with no one on.

Actually, I think I only got one RBI, but it was a pretty important one: bottom of the seventh, two men on, tie ballgame, 2 outs. I belt one right over the shortstop into center and score the man on second, we win the game. It was pretty spectacular if I say so myself. I'm supposed to play in the championship game tomorrow night (this was the semi-final game) at 10:15. I have work the next day at 6am. Yikes.

Anyway, sorry for being so self indulgent, I'm sure the next post will be more self deprecating and misanthropic.

The title of this post is a tautology.

It really isn't though.

Walmart Bread is Delicious (not only was that the original title to this post, but it is an entirely true statement).

I'm getting tired of work. I don't like these long gaps between days that I work. For one thing, it means I get paid less because I work fewer days, but the lack of consistency is kind of annoying. Plus I don't really like working so late. I don't like work being the last thing I do on a day.

I read the first Hellboy trade. It's pretty super. Hellboy is a good comicbook.

Sorry this post is so boring, gang. I guess I could talk about sleep...

Here's an interesting fact. Sunday Night I was asleep by 10pm. I woke up on Monday at 8am. That's 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Way to go Matt.

Essner's Blog: Sleeping :: Matthew's Blog: KoL
(although I sleep more than I write about sleeping, I think Matthew writes about KoL more than he plays it. So it's not a perfect analogy)

Ok I'm going to eat some Mac and Cheese and read crappy poetry, then go to class then go to work!

Rudy's funeral

My great great uncle Rudy's funeral was yesterday. As far as funerals go, it was pretty good. I sang in the choir with some of my aunts and uncles and their cousins. Rudy and his wife, Bernice, never had any children, but they had a lot of nieces and nephews, and were very much a part of their lives.

Bernice is my grandma's aunt (although she's only about 7 year older than my grandma), she's the youngest daughter or my great great grandma and grandpa Burger, her brother was my great grandfather.

Bernice was married to Rudy for almost 66 years, which is approximately three times as many
years as I've been born. That's pretty amazing to me.

Anyway, when I was young enough to go trick or treating on Halloween, Bob and I would go trick or treating in the Woodland Hills neighborhood, where Rudy and Bernice live. So when we finished trick or treating, that's where we would end up. Rudy would always give me a lot more candy than I needed, especially since at that point in the evening I already had a pretty full bag of the stuff. While we waited for my mom to pick us up I would talk to Rudy and Bernice, pretty much nonstop (I was much more talkative as a youngster than I am now). I would babble on incessantly, not really saying anything and Rudy and Bernice would just listen and give me more candy. They seemed to genuinely interested in what I was saying (which was odd, because few other adults did, or should've from what I remember). When I got older I stopped trick or treating, but I'd try to go visit Rudy and Bernice on Halloween. Those Halloween nights still stick out in my mind as some of the best times I've ever had, and Rudy and Bernice had a lot to do with that. I think that probably has something to do with why Halloween is my favorite holiday. Halloween pretty much represents the best things about my childhood, maybe childhood in general, which I guess why I always try to make Halloween a big deal now.

Just in case you were wondering, Catholic funerals are about a quadrillion times better than Protestant funerals.

Also, I wasn't joking when I said Carolina Drama by the Raconteurs is the best track I've heard in the past two years.

My First Untitled Post

Have you heard the new Raconteurs album? It's pretty f*ing amazing. The last track is pretty much the best thing I've heard in the last year or so. They're coming to the Pageant sometime in June. June is also when the 48 hour film festival is. There is some talk of doing that. I would like to participate in both of those activities, but they both require money. I don't have money. I need another job. The Raconteurs tickets are $40. It's a bit more than most concerts I go to, but it's Jack White for Christ sake. The Wilco tickets were thirtyish. They're playing three shows in St. Louis May 15, 16 and 17. They are all sold out. Curse my slow metal body (that's supposed to be a Star Wars quote, but I don't really remember exactly what 3Po says. It's something like that, though, I assure you).

I have to go to bed now, because I need to wake up in 6 hours or so.

Night!

Posting twice in one week? What is this 2006?

Thing 1:
Monk is a terrible, terrible show. I borrowed the third season of it from Jonathon (I know he legally changed his name to Jonathan, but I think he should have kept it the other way) and have watched two episodes. They were both atrocious. The writing was sub Diagnosis Murder. The acting is questionable (other than Tony Shaloub and Ted Levine, although they are beleaguered by terrible plot/dialogue) and Monk is a really inconsistent character. Monk is a man with a crippling mental illness, he has difficulty doing things for himself. He has OCD and a bunch of phobias, but these really only manifest themselves when it's comedically expedient (although occasionally amusing, but frequently not, these bits don't really play with me because of their inconsistency with the rest of the character). Also the fact that Monk has pretty much any phobia the writers care to write about is a bit too convenient. I'm going to continue to watch it because it gives me something to hate and also it apparently gets better after the annoying sidekick girl leaves.

Thing 2:
I don't know why, but I have been reading a crazy amount of webcomics lately. Currently I'm reading one called Questionable Content. It's pretty darn (and by darn I mean damn) good, especially for being updated almost daily. I'm on strip 240 something of 1100 something, so it'll probably be a while before I'm caught up. But just to clue you in to how awesome the strip is, the main character has a poster of the cover of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on his bedroom wall.

Thing 3:
I have done nothing this week. I have a lot of stuff I need to do, but I haven't done any of it. Here are some things I need to do in the three (Three? Really?) weeks before school ends.

1. Read the 10 articles for my literature review, which hopefully won't be as boring as I thought it was going to be, and of course, write said review. (End of April sometime)
2. Film/edit my SE TV student profile (Tomorrow)
3. Figure out what I'm going to do my documentary about, film and edit my documentary (Finals Week)
4. Write, shoot and edit my Edgar Write Auteur project (End of April sometime)
5. Write research paper for Jone's class (Sunday?)
6. Write/shoot/edit/ intro video for film festival that I'm trying to start at SEMO (Two weeks from now?)
7. Script stuff for class project/edit class project (Monday)

I could keep going, but this is a pretty daunting list already.
I was going to write a thing 4, but that list took a lot out of me. Time to read some more QC.

Arkham Horror and other stuff

We played Arkham Horror on Friday. The game lasted over four hours and we ended up losing because we couldn't kill the elder god. It was all kinds of suck (the elder god, not the game. The game was pretty awesome despite the 4 hours of play time). So I've been trying to come up with ways to speed Arkham Horror up. I ran a few past Matthew and the one that he thinks would be the easiest to implement is being able to move if a monster attacks you. Usually if you start your turn with a monster on you, then you can't move for that turn. I think we could do away with that nonsense.

In other more interesting news, I had a dream in which Dennis Hopper was an unstoppable, deadly vampire/zombie and he was trying to kill me.


Brazil is not a fun movie to watch, but Michael Palin is amazing in it. I love Michael Palin. I think it goes without saying that he, and every non-Terry member of Monty Python, are superheroes. Terrys Gilliam and Jones are ok too.


shower.

Old Music

I'm listening to some "old music" right now. There's a lot of music on my computer that I've only listened to a couple of times, or haven't listened to for a couple of years or so. Music that I liked, but not liked enough to add to the random playlist that is the soundtrack of my life. Here's some examples of this "old music": Cake Bake Betty, The Lucksmiths, The Shins (for the most part), Page France, Boy Least Likely To, Danielson, Elliot Smith and the Pixies.

There are also a lot of songs on my computer by bands I never really got into. And when I say "never really got into" I mean haven't listened to, other than the tracks that I knew I like before acquiring the album. I have those albums on here because, someday, I intend to cultivate an appreciation of them. These albums include:"You Forget it In People", "Z", "Flying Club Cup", anything by the New Pornographers.

So on this lazy Thursday afternoon, before I go to work, I'm listening to "old music" and doing little else. This is going to be one of those days when I get home from work tonight and realize that I have done of use to anyone or myself all day. But in the interest of keeping the world abreast with the excitingness that is my life, here is a list of the things I've done today:

1. Woke up (around 9am, I went to bed about 12am)
2. Caught up on neglected webcomics (XKCD, which is amusing, if not funny most of the time, The Perry Bible Fellowship, which is clever if not amusing most of the time, and Penny Arcade, which is Penny Arcade for God's sake)
3. Read an interview with Simon Pegg on Aint it Cool.
4. Showered
5. FINALLY got to level 15 on FlyFF, which allowed me to pick a new job (Assist, apparently. You don't really get to shop around though, which I might talk about in a future post)
6. Watched Empire Strikes Back (Sort of. I was playing FlyFF and napping for parts of it. Which reminds me)
7. Nap (That happened around 1ish. The act of being awake for four hours straight is enough to wear me out)
8. At approximately 2:45 pm, I woke and decided I was hungry. So I ate the solid milk chocolate bunny I received for Easter. I covered it with peanut butter (because I can't really abide things that are chocolate and nothing else) and enjoyed a glass of milk simultaneously.
9. Now I'm blogging and listening to Guster? How did that happen.

Anyway, I need to find something to do that will justify my continued existence on this planet. Perhaps something outdoors? We'll see.

The Last Man

It's Good Friday. Only two more days of Lent. Actually, I think Lent ended last Sunday, because I think Holy Week is technically a different liturgical season, but 2 more days till I can drink Dr. Pepper again. Giving up soda is too easy. I really only craved it on one occasion. I don't really drink a lot of soda anymore anyway.

But that's not what this post is about. This post is about Y the Last Man, the best thing I've read in a long time. Y the Last Man is a comic book series about the last man on earth. His name is Yorrick Brown, and I hope the rumors about Shia LaBoeuf playing him in the movie adaptation are false. The series is great because it never stops being interesting. It has a definite beginning middle and end, and it doesn't waste time with adding needless peril just to extend the story line. Occasionally the book will shift it's focus and spend some time telling the story of a minor character or two, but even then, it's relevant and interesting. It's a great book, and it's a little sad. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried when *SPOILER* Ampersand dies (peacefully, of old age mind you). There's just something about pets dying that makes me sad. I don't really mind when human characters get offed, but I just can't handle pets dying (Hedwig is the exception. I felt no sadness Hedwig was killed. Actually I don't think I was affected by any of the poorly written deaths of any of the characters in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, other then Tonks' death. I felt much joy with her passing).

I've pretty much spent all day reading Y the Last Man and listening to Wilco albums, both activities I highly recommend. I also folded clothes and dyed Easter Eggs, but I feel like I need to be more productive, so I'm going to find something useful to do (probably napping).

Rainy Day

I realized at about 10:30 last night that I had nothing left to do that day, so I went to sleep, and I kept sleeping till about nine this morning. I'm pretty awesome like that.
I was going to fill out my fafsa stuff this morning, but that didn't happen. I got a call from my dad saying that my uncle Keith's basement was flooding do to the massive amounts of rain that we have received (it's been raining pretty steadily since 1 or 2 this morning) so I went over there and helped him a little. He doesn't have a lot of stuff in his basement, but we got what he did have out. Then I went over to help my aunt Jane. She lives a few houses down from Keith, and her basement was quite flooded too, unlike Keith, she has a whole lot of stuff in her basement. So we got out what we could and she and Wayne, her husband, took some stuff over to my grandma's house where they and their two daughters, my cousins Abigail and Hanna, will stay for the next night or two.

Arena park is pretty much underwater. The creek has taken over all of the baseball fields. It's almost up to the tennis courts, or at least it was when I was leaving Keith's. I wonder how this will effect Pancake day (which is tomorrow).

Speaking of food, since I've been helping people with water problems since about 10:30 this morning, I haven't eaten anything today. I'm pretty hungry, but since I have class at 6 and work immediately after, I have to wait till at least 5ish to eat anything (Because, since I go from class to work, and don't get off work till 1ish, it'll be pretty late before I have a chance to eat anything).

It's still raining.

Anyway, remind me to post about work sometime.

Some Long Overdue Blagging (Blog Bragging)

Three things I've done Scholastically that I'm proud of:

1. Got a 99/100 on my MC 352 test
2. Got a 147/150 on my MC 353 test
3. My script was one of the ones chosen to produce for my 352 class project

Two things domestically I've done lately that I'm proud of:

1. I rearranged my room. It's not entirely clean yet, but it's rearranged.
2. I cleaned up the back porch, rearranged it and got rid of a bunch of stuff.

I've been on Spring break since Wednesday. It's been nice. I'm still looking for another job.
Kohl's is nice, but I really need more hours.

That's all for now, because I'm watching the Godfather.

Writing Machine

I wrote two scripts today! One for the scene that I have to write for 352 and one for the newsreader in my scene that I have to write for 352. My script is 4 pages long. Two more than it's supposed to be, but it's a fast four pages.

Schedule for this week:

Monday: Craziness.Class, film, class, film/study, test, eat, finish short story, sleep
Tuesday: finish filming, edit, class, work
Wednesday: class, edit, class, work
Thursday: find job
Friday: find job, FISH FRY!!!!
Saturday: marrilacs moveables, find job, Work

I love working at the fish fry, by the way. I just like being around all those people. Not because I like being around a lot of people, but because I know so many of them, or know of them, and it's nice to be useful and it's nice to just buckle down and work.

Here's why I like working at the fish fry, but don't want to work at a restaurant, where I would be doing very similar work to what I do at the fish fry:

At the fish fry people appreciate what I do. I work hard, I don't really take breaks, I'm good finding stuff that needs to be done and doing it. People notice that at the fish fry. If I worked at a restaurant, people wouldn't notice and they wouldn't care, and it would make working at the fish fry not fun, because it would be like work.

I won a trivia night on Thursday, I had help. It wasn't just me. It was Brian from class and some of his friends. We kicked ass.

Goodnight.

Mostly about Travelouges

I had a test today in MC 301. All weekend I was like, "I should study for this test. I should do the study guide. I should really devote some time going over the stuff that's going to be on this test." But I didn't do any of that. Saturday I was a disgrace to humanity. I woke up. Did nothing. Ate lunch. Watched 30 Rock. Took a nap. Went to Fazzoli's with the lads. Went to Walmart to kill time before work. Saw Thomas there. Had a nice conversation with him. Went to work. Actually the last four things weren't all that disgraceful, but the rest of the day I was a useless human being. Sunday was slightly better. I went to Mass, did some homework, helped with lunch, watched some long way down, made some cookies and played some Pharaoh, but no studying. So this morning, I woke up early to get some studying down before class. I got to class half and hour early, studied briefly, and got a 96% on the test. Boo-yeah. I guess the moral of the story is, I'm awesome.

Speaking of Long Way Down, which I did briefly last paragraph, I enjoyed Long Way Down, which is the second travel documentary made by Charlie Boorman and Ewan MacGregor. If you recall, last year I watched Long Way Round, their first documentary. It was the story of Ewan and Charlie riding around the world on Motor cycles. In Long Way Down they ride from Scotland to South Africa on motorcycles. Long Way Round is a much better documentary series then Long Way Down, but that's not because Long Way Down is bad, it's because LWR is so incredibly awesome.

Now I'm going to talk about how I came to love travel documentaries:

Two words; Michael Palin. My mom got my dad the book "Pole to Pole: With Michael Palin" for fathers day or something one year, sometime after I graduated high school. I don't really know why; dad had never seen the series, nor expressed a great love for travel documentaries, nor Michael Palin for that matter (although, I think everyone's love for Michael Palin is the kind of love that needn't be spoken). Anyway he got this book, and it just so happened that they had that series at the library. So we rented and watched the series and it was very interesting. It was the story of Michael Palin traveling with a camera crew from the North Pole to the South Pole. He goes through a big chunk of Russia and through a lot of Africa. One of the most interesting things about that series is that he travels through Russia, and gets out like 2 weeks before communism falls. It's pretty neat to see the last weeks of communism through the eyes of a traveler.
They had another of Michael's travel series called "Hemingway Adventures" at the library. I watched that one too and loved it. Then I discovered that both of these series were sequels to Palin's wildly popular first series, around the world in 80 days, in which he follows Philieus Fogg's path around the globe using mostly the same sort of methods employed by Fogg. He does use cars at some point though I think. Anyway, I downloaded that one and watched it and was amazed. So yeah. I love travel documentaries.

Here is a list of my favorite travel documentaries:

1. Long Way Round
2. Around the World in 80 Days
3. Pole to Pole
4. Long Way Down

Anyway... I'm done being boring for the night... well at least writing boring things. I'm going to bed.
5. Sahara

More Icy Goodness

Hey, it's sleeting again and they closed SEMO again! It doesn't bother me so much this time, because I'm not actually missing class. I actually like class this semester.

Speaking of class: Yesterday in Intermediate Film Production we played with lighting. I hate lighting. I hate trying to set up lights in a shot. It's a crapshoot, it takes a long time, and the effect of multiple lights, although noticeable, becomes less so the more you add, and we had to set up a shot with four lights yesterday (which is about two more than were necessary for the shot, and one more than what's necessary for something called "three point lighting", which is a pretty basic lighting technique). Anyway lighting... yeah.... don't like it.

Job!
I have a job. I've worked one night so far (my second night is tonight). It wasn't too bad. The work isn't hard. It was fun to work with Matthew, although that's not going happen every night. I was just working with him while I was training. But he'll still be there, so that's cool. I really need to find a second job. That is something that needs to happen next week or sooner. I might apply at Food Giant if they are still hiring.

Is Semi-Pro rated R? I think it is, which is exciting. Everyone else in that group has been doing R rated comedies, I'm interested to see how Will Ferrell does without the restrictions of PG-13. It doesn't come out till next week though, so I have one more week to wait.

It's been a couple of months since I heard from Jimmy. I've e-mailed him a couple of times but have gotten no response. I think I might call him this weekend to see what he's up to.

Ok off to bathe.

Valentine's Day Math-acre?

What's up internet? Oh really? I'm sorry to hear that. (I'm pretty sure I've used this joke before)


Anyway. It's Valentine's day, which means absolutely nothing to me, nor should it to any sensible human being.

Were you aware that there was an apocalypse of Ice and Frozen Death earlier this week in Missouri? Because there was. There was a lot of Ice (proper noun) on the ground. It got here on Monday and some of it's still here. It made traveling pretty ridiculous. It made me not have class all week (which will make this an 11 day weekend by the time I have school again, Monday). So Matt, you ask, what have you done with these 11 days off you've had. Nothing. Well... that's not entirely true. I did some baking. I started writing Trivia Night questions for next year. I edited (badly) my B-roll project. I got a job. WHAT!? What's that you say? You have a job?

Yes. I have a job. I start at Kohl's tomorrow. I'm pretty sure I told you this, but I probably didn't know for certain at that point, well now I know for certain that I will be employed at Kohl's doing Ad Set with Matthew, and perhaps working on unloading trucks. Yippee!

What didn't I do over this extended break from school is homework. None of it. I really need to be writing a whole lot more than I am. Especially journal entries. I'm like 3 weeks behind in that department.

Anyhoo... I'm probably going to do a ridiculous amount of sleeping pretty soon, so I have to get ready for that.

Trivia night: Success!

The Notre Dame Trivia Night was last night. It went pretty well. My category was very well liked... by me anyway. I'm in charge of the questions for next year, which is exciting.

In other news, I think I have a job. If I pass that drug test I took on Friday, which is more than likely, then I'll be offered a job at Kohl's doing Ad Set with Matthew. It'll be fun to work with Matthew, but my concern with the job is getting enough hours. Matthew works 3 maybe 4 days a week, for like 5 or 6 hours at a time. I'd really like to work 30 or so hours a week, but any job is better than no job.

Also, I am really good at sleeping.

Sick and Tired

It's almost 2 in the morning, why am I not asleep? I'll tell you, because I'm awake, that's why.

I was a little sick earlier, but feel much better after taking a single aspirin. Medicine is magic.

I am still unemployed. This sucks. I really need a job. This is getting ridiculous.

In other news, Lent starts tomorrow, or today if I'm being accurate. This year I'm giving up soda and fast food... well fast food that's fried. It's sort of a vague resolution but I have a pretty clear idea of what I won't be eating for the next 40 days or so. In other news, I still don't have a job, and it still sucks (yes, I realize I just typed that like 4 lines up, but I'm restating it to emphasize the suckiness). Starting Friday I will officially be desperate for a job and will apply to restaurants. *shudder*.

Also John McCain is probably going to be the Republican candidate for president and Hilary Clinton is probably going to be the Democratic candidate. This makes me sad. I don't won't McCain to president, but I don't want Hilary to be president either.

This is becoming the most boring post ever written so I'm going to end it now before I start talking about something else that's really boring.

Extended White Chocolate Experience

The title to this post is something that Matthew Long used in casual conversation today. I thought it was amazing.

JOB UPDATE:

Did I tell you I applied at Ace Hardware and Bargain Hound? Cause I did, about a week ago. They aren't going to hire me.
Today I applied at Sears Grande and The Victorian Inn. I don't think Sears is going to hire me, but the Victorian Inn might, they had the least specific application I have ever seen. Sears had one of those horrendous personality tests that I keep failing. I don't think I come across well when reduced to a multiple choice personality test. Oh.... but seriously. I need a job. If I don't hear back from anyone in a week, I will officially be desperate for employment, at which point, I'll start applying to *shudder* restaurants.

Speaking of restaurants, one of the people in my Creative Writing Group, wrote an excellent essay about tipping and how it's bullshit, which it is. We were discussing the essay in class and a couple of people were really interested in it because they disagreed with him. They thought tipping is not bullshit. Ironically these people worked in the food service industries and were both frequent recipients of tips (presumably). Anyway, I found myself really itching to debate these people, but unfortunately debate did not happen. I was sad.

Good news everyone, the G string on my guitar just broke! The same thing happened around this time last year. I remember, because it happened on superbowl sunday, which is this coming Sunday if I'm not mistaken. Last time it took me a month to replace it. That's kind of weird though. Anyway... I'm kind of hungry so I'm going to do something about that.

Gloating

Here's a bit of trivia for you. Almost every time I try to come up with title for a blogpost, e-mail or journal entry the first title I come up with is "Da Business". It's almost never relevant to what I'm writing about at that particular moment, and when it is, I usually don't think of it first, but it is a phrase I really enjoy.

Here's another bit of trivia for you. My trivia night team kicks ass. We got second at the St. Joseph Trivia night in Scott city, which isn't bad if I do say so myself. The other team beat us by like 10 points. They knew the answers to questions like; "What state does Hunter McMuffin represent?" (fake question) and "On the television show Reba, what is Reba's ex-husband's job?"(real question) If the choice is between getting second place and watching Reba enough to know her ex-husband is a dentist, I'll stick with second place.

Oh speaking of bragging...this:That's right ladies, by getting three A's and a B last semester, I was put on the Dean's Honor List. I've always been on the Dean's List of People that Can and Probably Will EFF You Up, but this is the first time I've been on the Honor List... so gloat on you, the internet.

His cane makes me melt.

I love the show House. You probably didn't know that about me. I haven't talked about it much, especially since I haven't blogged much since I've started watching it. I describe it as a smarter CSI, which isn't really accurate. What would be more accurate is that it's a CSI for people smarter than the people that like CSI. I think CSI is kind of dumb. You probably did know that though.

Job update: I've applied for 2 different Pharmacy Technician jobs at St. Francis, and a job at Hollywood Video. I don't think I'll get any of those jobs, because I can't get jobs like those for some reason. By "jobs like those" I mean jobs that pay well or jobs I'd like to have. I am supposed to do inventory at Steve and Barry's on Sunday. It's not a permanent position, but it could lead to one once they start hiring again.

Heath Ledger died. That made me sad. I really like "A Knights Tale".

The Stakes are Raised

The title of this post means nothing.


School started yesterday. Hurrah!

I don't know how I'm going to feel about MC 301, but intermediate film production and film history are going to be fun. We watched City Lights in film history last night. It was pretty good for an old movie. A little long, but pretty good. Tonight I have creative writing. I'm pretty excited about that class.

Job update:
Still unemployed, I've applied at 2 more places, Hastings and Target. That brings the total applications up to 5.

Not my first post about Euchre

I went to a Euchre tournament tonight in New Hamburg. I did not do well. Neither did Dustin. Jody, on the other hand, cleaned up. I've been to three non-Dustin Glastetter initiated Euchre tournaments. One at Scott City, one at St. Augustine and this one. At all three of these tournaments I've felt very much like I didn't belong there, not just because I'm not from the places the tournaments are held, but like a greater sense of outsiderness. I feel like a tourist or something. It's not necessarily a bad feeling but it is kind of strange.

School starts tomorrow. I don't even know what to think about that. I'm excited. I guess that's what I think about school starting tomorrow. I think excited. I'm really looking forward to making more films and seeing some of my friends from last semester.

I've been unemployed for 2 days now. I don't like it much. Last time I was unemployed it was about a month till I got a job, although I don't remember looking too hard that time. We'll see how well I do this time. So just to keep you updated on my progress:

1. Staples: nothing
2. Hospital: nothing
3. Steve and Barry's: nothing

Awesome.

Almost Unemployed

Hello My Blog.
The reason I've decided to start blogging again is to chronicle my job search. I'm looking for a job because as the title suggests, I am almost unemployed. In about 10 hours I will have concluded my term of employment with Commercial Mail Services and will therefore be in need of a new job. Why, you ask, am I ending my nearly three years service at CMS? Well that is a long and painful story... just kidding. I have a couple of night classes this semester so I would only be able to work at CMS 3 days a week and one of those three days I wouldn't be able to come in till 5ish so I wouldn't be able to get enough hours. On a personal note, I'm decidedly not too sad about my eminent departure. I was sad when I quit John's, somewhat less sad when I quit N'Orleans, but I'm not really sad at all about quitting CMS. It's probably because unlike those other places I'll still be connected to my friends that work there through Jimmy.

So far I have applied three places for jobs:
1. Staples
2. Southeast Hospital
3. Steve and Berry's

None of them have contacted me yet, but I just applied for the last 2 yesterday. They are probably still marveling at gift they have been given, the gift of me offering to work for them. Truly a great prize to be sure.

Ok well I need to take a shower cause I'm all sick and gross. Anyway, I'll keep you posted!

Secret Wilco Confession

I don't know when it happened, but Wilco has sort of become my favorite band. I still love the Decemberists, but Wilco has sort of edged them out of their prime spot as of late. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to Kicking Television, but it's a lot... a lot of times.

NEWS FLASH!

I went downtown last night to a bar and had a good time. That's right, for the first time ever going to a bar didn't suck. I went down there with Bucket, Joe and some of Joe's friends and it was a fairly pleasant experience.

School is fun so far. I have a paper that's going to be kicking my ass later this week if I don't get on the ball. We'll see what happens. I am kind of bummed that I don't have my film class tomorrow cause we don't have school.

I can't move my arms

I lifted with Dustin Wednesday and Thursday and consequently, I can't comfortably move my arms.

I'm almost done with my first week of class of the semester. Here's a brief summary;

Intro to Film and TV production: My favorite class ever.
History of Mass Media: Could be worse, Dr. Baldwin seems like a lot of fun
EN 140: The jury is out on this one.
MC 155: I enjoy this class in the same way I enjoy bad movies. I love the fact that Bob hates it. It's very entertaining.

Speaking of bad movies, I've probably watched the Across the Universe trailer a dozen or so times. I really don't think it's going to be a good movie, but I already know I'm going to like it. I suppose there's a slim chance it will be good, but I'm not holding my breathe. Just from watching the trailer I can tell you that the girlfriend will probably die and her brother definitely will. Jude will end up alone either way and it will still be the 1960's. I hate the 1960's. It's a very smug decade. I just read that they're going to be releasing 2 soundtracks for the film though. A regular 16 track one and the super deluxe 31 track version. Guess which one I'll be buying.

I saw Superbad again tonight. I agree with Matthew, it's 2/3 of a good movie.

You'll be pleased to know that I'm not reading Order of the Phoenix now. You're probably tired of hearing my views on that particular English teenage wizard. That isn't to say I'm giving up on my complete reread, I'm just taking a break. I think I'll probably pick up the series again around fall break. I can't wait for fall. Several stores I've been to are already selling Halloween merch. It's not even September. It's more than 2 months till All Hallows Eve. Capitalism is awesome.

That's all for now. I need to go brush up on my complete world knowledge.

I thought YOU had class.

I've been going to the REC center this week instead of running for 2 reasons.
1. My MP3 player has stopped functioning in a satisfactory manner.
2. I haven't been getting up till 10, and it's just too f*ing hot to run that late in the morning
The nice thing about the REC center is that I can watch TV while I use their magical exercise machines and today I got to watch some classic first season Arrested Development, hence the title of this post.

Harry Potter talk commences:

I finished book 4 on Sunday, but since I had already posted once on Sunday I decided not to post my analysis that day because I didn't want to overload my audience (myself and perhaps the other Matts). So here are my thoughts on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:

It's still a good book. Pretty much everything Barty Jr. does as Moody is justified as either part of Voldemort's scheme or just part of his personality manifesting itself, but I still think he's a better teacher than he has any right to be especially since he's spent the last decade or so in prison of some sort. I'm pretty sure it says he went to Azkaban as a teenager, so being generous he was 19, two years out of Hogwarts (unless he was home schooled, which is possible given his father). Maybe he majored in Secondary ed at Hogwarts, or maybe he was just a gifted educator. As well as being a great educator he is apparently an amazingly talented actor, convincing everyone for the better part of a year that he was Mad Eye would be no easy feat. Also, something Matthew brought up was the Barty's polyjuice supply, once he got to Hogwarts, it wouldn't have been that hard to keep making more polyjuice potion, but where did Barty get his first month's supply? Doesn't it take a month or two to make it? Wouldn't he need a shitload of it? I suppose Peter could have made it but was there enough time? The Quidditch World Cup is a couple of days before the first day of school, it's also the night that Barty breaks free from his dad. So they have like 2 days to set this whole plan in motion. It seems a bit dodgey to me. Also Hermione Granger keeps Rita Skeeter trapped in a jar for at least 2 days. She is a horrible human being. I love Hermione Granger.
Anyway the movie handles the last task and the graveyard scene better than the book does, but other than that the book is far superior to the film. Now that I'm done with book 4 I have finished all of the High School Era Harry Potter books. I read the first through fourth books for the first time during high school, and I'm pretty sure I haven't read them since. Also, now that I'm done with book four, I'm done with Harry Potter being a sympathetic character. I won't like Harry Potter the person again until I get to the 3rd to last chapter of book 7. He's such a dick.

I was toying with the idea of giving the series a rest until the end of the semester, picking it up again when the fifth movie comes out on DVD. I've read part of 5 and all of 6 and 7 within the last couple of months, so I don't know if I'd be able to keep interested in them. Also I suppose I'll need to, you know, do homework and stuff starting in a week or so, so I probably won't have as much time for reading as I do now.

I still need to talk to Anna and Layne about book 7.

End Harry Potter Talk

The Lookout is ok. It doesn't have any kind of twist ending, so don't believe what the DVD box says.

Magical Supertime happy face!

Stardust is awesome.
Rush Hour 3 is horrendous.

I saw both of those movies yesterday, but more importantly I saw a metric assload of movie previews. Since I don't really watch TV, I don't really see a lot of movie previews. Most of the previews I see online are for movies I already know about and am probably going to see anyway. All the previews before Rush Hour 3 were for movies that looked to be as crappy if not more crappy than the feature presentation, except for American Gangster, which looks awesome. Most of the previews before Stardust were uninteresting except the one for Across the Universe . Across the Universe is a musical set in US during the 60's. It's about an English gent who comes to the states and falls in love with some chick and it uses exclusively Beatle's songs as the soundtrack. WOOT! It kind of looks and feel like Moulin Rouge, which is a movie I quite enjoy. So I'll probably end up seeing it and buying the soundtrack.

I'm not quite done with book four, so you'll have to wait for my next post for my insights into Harry Potter's fourth year at Hogwarts, sorry.

I hope we play frisbee tonight. It's been too long since I've participated in a good game of disc.

I promise this post won't be about work, Harry Potter or sleeping.

90.9 plays pretty good music between the hours of 10 pm and 12 am on Friday Night. It's the kind of music I wish the college station would play, the other college station, the one run by college students, the one that plays emo, screamo, nu metal and various other crap except for the 4 minutes a day when they play good songs. Really four minutes is a generous estimate. I don't think they play that much good music a day. I hear maybe two songs a week that I like on RAGE 103.7. It's pretty f*ing ridiculous. From what I understand 103.7 subscribes to some sort of crappy College Rock version of Now: That's what I call music. They get CD's of the "popular" "alternative" "songs" they rip the CD on their computer and then make a crappy playlist.

I think I'm going to see Stardust tomorrow with Pete and Steve. Rush Hour 3 also opened this weekend. So did Skinwalkers, which is a werewolf movie and I am therefore contractually obligated to see it. I'm probably not going to see it though.

I just e-mailed The Friday Night Music people telling them how much they rock.

night

Number 200!!! I think...

Brief work update (I promise) Jay hired some young guy named Jason to do route one. I'm really tired of work.

Not so brief Harry Potter update.
I realized a few days ago that this reread will probably be the last time I pick up any of the Harry Potter books for a long, long time. Unless she writes more books, which I think she might. Anyway I finished book 2 on Sunday... I think. I can't remember. Yeah, it must have been Sunday. Book 2 is really funny. It might be her best book... it's not, but if I were trying to defend her writing to someone, I would probably present Chamber of Secrets as exhibit A. Her best book is probably book 3, which I finished last night. I love book 3 so much, and it was a lot better rereading it with David Thewlis as the Lupin in my head. The big revelation scene in the Shrieking Shack has too much yelling and it seems like the situation could have been diffused a lot sooner if Lupin and Sirius would've been less vague about who they were intending to kill.

Black: I'm totally going to kill someone in this room that's a wizard!
Harry: No I won't let you!
Lupin: Stand back Harry, Sirius is going to murder someone who is in the Shrieking Shack and has spent a lot of time at Hogwarts recently!
Ron: No don't!
Black: Yes, the time has finally come to end the life someone in that particular corner. (Sirius points vaguely to the corner of the room where Harry, Ron and Hermione were standing)
etc...

I kept wanting Ron to put the moves on Hermione in book three. Hermione shows a lot of vulnerability in book three, she really needed someone to be there for her. Ron totally could have hit that.


I didn't go running today or Monday. I'm going tomorrow, I promise. I just need to get some good music on my MP3 player. I've been listening to a Hell of a lot of Wilco lately. I really like Wilco, but I need something different for running purposes. Something that's distracting, yet compelling. I could just put a mix on there, but that usually doesn't work out because I usually just ending up skipping to the tracks I really want to hear, I feel with a whole album on there I'm more likely to listen to the whole thing.

Ok, I'm going to start reading book 4 now.
Night.

Hello, hello.

The first paragraph is about work

Well the first of the month is over at CMS, pretty much. It usually takes 2 days for the mail to go back to normal and yesterday was the second day. I must say it's been a pretty interesting week so far. It started with Adam getting fired for leaving mail in his van, again. Tuesday was Vicki's last day, and Meredith's last day for that matter, and we've been swimming in handsort ever since. They hired Darrell on Friday, he's doing Adam/my old route, Ricky was doing route 1, Scott's old route (Scott's now doing route 5) but today was his last day so Jay hired some lady named Diane to take over route 1. She won't show up tomorrow. They never do. Girls will not do my job, they are perfectly capable, but they just don't like that kind of work. So tomorrow we'll be short-handed, but I might get to do a route since Diane won't be there. So the worst part of the whole driver swap 2007 is the route 6 and 7 combo that's brining mail that used to arrive at 5:45 and 6:30 respectively, anywhere between 7:30 and 8, which means I'm not even running it till 7:40 at the earliest which means we're not getting done with pass 1 till 8:15 at the earliest. This blows. And it's really frustrating because we can't keep anyone long enough for them to get good at what they do, so we'll never get out early again.


The Second paragraph is probably going to be about Harry Potter, although I'm not really sure, I haven't written it yet.

I finished the first Harry Potter book this morning. It took me about 3.5 hours to read. It is a quick read. There is no mucking about in book 1. Second to last chapter they go through the trap door. The last chapter is the confrontation with Quirrell and the wrap up. It's all business. While rereading the book I was trying to figure out why I liked this book so immediately. I couldn't, but I did notice some things that struck me as odd.
1. In the first chapter Dumbledore call Prof McGonagall, "Professor McGonagall", were they not yet on a first name basis? I wonder if I was confused by the fact that she was called Professor the first time through considering I had no point of reference for her being a professor.
2. How long was baby Harry alone in his ruined house? Hagrid brought him to the Dursley's the night after Voldemorte died. What was the immediate aftermath of James and Lily Potter's death? Did Bathilda take Harry? What was going on?
3. Where did the hats go? No one wears their wizard hats anymore. All the students have hats in the first book. Of course it could be that they are wearing them all the time, Rowling just takes it is as a given when describing a characters appearance that the person is wearing a silly wizard hat.
4. Harry used to be kind of a likeable kid. What the hell happened.
I'm going to try to read the second book tomorrow. We'll see what happens.

The third paragraph is me talking about sleep.

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

Finally Over My Post-Potter Funk

It only took 7 days! Well, 8 at this point. Anyway....

Have you seen the Iron Man Comicon footage?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVRQjCG8tn4

Robert Downey Jr. is amazing. I wonder if he's always been this good. I need to see Zodiac.

Only two more Carbondale runs at work. Quel dommage.

So I don't know about you, but I'm totally ready for school to start. It's been a long, unproductive summer. I need something constructive to do.

ok. that's all.

Welcome Back!

Hello blog. I'm back. At least for now.

I know it's been a while since I last blogged, and I'm sorry. Well not really. But I have some stuff I feel like I needed to get out of my system and I feel you are the best avenue to said system venting.

The primary reason I've come back to blog is because of a 17 year old English wizard that I have not and will never meet. Of course I'm talking about Harry Potter. I finished book 7 about four days ago, and I'll be honest, it's taken quite a toll on me. I haven't been sleeping well since I finished the book. I haven't been hungry since I finished the book. To put it succinctly I've been fairly depressed since I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
The book isn't terribly depressing in and of itself. A bunch of people die and it's kind of sad when they do, but this sadness is nothing compared to the intensely depressing realization that this is the last time I will get to visit Harry's world. Sure I can reread the books anytime I feel like it, but it will never be the same as it was the first time.
I really can't explain why I love the Harry Potter books so much. It could be the escapist element. I love the idea of being a student at Hogwarts. (I would be a Hufflepuff and I would think that the Gryffindors were all tools, but I'd be cool to Harry, even though he's totally a dick)
But then again, I've never really needed help from books to escape. I've always had a pretty vivid imagination. And really the fact that Harry Potter is so universally popular should make me hate it, because I'm something of a contrarian. But for some reason I love the books, even though there are admitedly bad at times (most of book 7). I sometimes wonder if I read the books for the first time now, as a 23 year old, instead of when I was 16 I would feel differently about them.
Anyway, I hope they make significant changes when they make a movie out of Deathly Hallows, like a lot less polyjuice potion. I hope they make Ron and Hermione's kiss something cool and significant. I hope they change the ending, the horrible, horrible ending.
So that's my first post in 4 months. Hopefully it won't be my last.

Bad days...

I was going to write a really long post about how shitty my day was today, but I'm not going to. I'm going to write a really short one about how shitty my day was.

I got called into work this morning to do a route because Cal died last night. Cal was a good guy and he will be missed. I worked until I had to go to class, then I went to my classes, both of which were pointless today, then back to work (after a brief stop to pick up a ticket for the 940 showing of 300). Work sucked. 300 was good, but completely unsuprising. I got out of the movie and my car wouldn't start. It's sitting in the parking lot at Cape West 14.

I think God is trying to tell me something, and I think that something is, "Hey, I don't like you."

I still haven't restrung my guitar

It's almost been a month since I broke the string on my dad's guitar. I miss playing it.

I watched Confetti. It was ok. I gave it a 6 on IMDB. Maybe a bit more than it deserves. I thought it was supposed to be a romantic mockumentary. It was pretty much just a romantumentary though. There wasn't a lot of humor. There were funny parts, most of them involved Jimmy Carr, suprise suprise. The first part of the movie was a lot funnier than the second part. It was better than "Thank You for Your Consideration" though, which isn't really saying much. Borat is funnier than TYFYC.

I have a test tomorrow in MC 201. I should be sleeping so I can get up a little early and study a little bit before the test. Obviously I'm not because I'm typing this.

Speaking of things I need to do; I need to write a concert report for that concert I went to in Paducah. Paducah is a pretty neat town. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, I went to Paducah last Saturday to see a symphony concert. It was pretty cool. What was really cool was that on the way back we listened to 91.3, which is Murray's college station, and they were playing a bunch of kicking music. Arcade Fire, Neko Case, Mountain Goats, Sufjan, Beirut. How awesome is it to be driving around and to have "Postcards From Italy" play on the radio? I'll tell you. Pretty f-ing awesome!!!

Shabazzle!

March!

I thought of a neat phrase: Sassy Curtains. It's a euphamism, I just don't know what for. It sounds really dirty though. I was playing with my sassy curtains. We were playing with our sassy curtains.
He/She/It was playing with his/her/its sassy curtains.

I haven't posted much lately because I haven't had much to say. I've been working, going to school, and playing various games. That's about it. I'll let you know when something interesting happens.

Ash Wednesday

It's Lent! Yay!

I've given on up on the LOTR mmo beta. I've downloaded it 3 times. Three different methods. Once using the torrent. Once with their download manager, and once with their little small bite size files. All three times there were errors and missing components when I tried to install. I searched through the boards trying to find people with similar problems, and the solution given to those people by the administrators was the smaller file downloads. I'm done with it. I've spent the last week trying to get this game to work and it's just not going to happen.

In other sort of gaming news, I bought heroscape. It's kind of like Heroquest, but cooler. Spants and I played it on Monday. He beat me twice because I couldn't roll the dice to save my life and his units had immense defense. It's a big game. It takes a lot of room.

Joe comes home tomorrow. He's bringing a girl with him. My mom is freaking out about the house being a mess, which it isn't really... I'm mean, not more than normal.

Anyway, I've been playing a lot of 12. It's great fun.

I haven't posted in a while.

I just got studying for a test...sort of. I read the study guide and feel like i have a pretty good grasp on the concepts.

Associational
Institutional
Nonassociational
Anomic

BAM! Those are the four types of interest groups.

Apparently I've been able to actually retain some knowledge in this class, even though it's my sleepiest one.

I ganked Spant's copy of 12. I think I'm going to start a new game. I have a save file from when I rented it. I'm like 11 hours in on that file... but that was around halloween which was like 4 months ago. I tried picking it up from there, but I had no connection to it. I'm going to start over.

Did you know SEMO isn't closed on president's day!?? What kind of bullshit is that!?

I'm dling another British TV series to district me while I play video games. It's called Jeeves and Wooster. It stars Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. It's fun.

Also, God of War 2 comes out next month and is supposedly the greatest action game ever.

I still have Christmas candy

Been listening to a lot of Arcade Fire recently. Funeral is one of my favorite albums of all time.

My dad and I are doing a trivia night tonight in Kelso with some of his brothers. As much useless knowledge as I have, I'm really not that much of an asset when it comes to trivia nights because the questions are either ridiculously easy so that everyone would know them, or unnecessarily hard. Not a lot of questions fall in the middle ground, where I feel I am the most useful. That's why I like the Notre Dame Trivia nights so much. Chris/Betsy/Ted/Kent work so hard at having a good mix of questions and they usually do an excellent job. The reality TV category is the one exception. That whole thing was bogus.

So school's going well. I enjoy all my classes, even though I tend to nod off in political science and I'm really adapting rather well to my early morning class.

The super bowl is tomorrow. I'll probably watch it, or at least have it on while I play Battle for Middle Earth 2.

ok I gots to go.

Euchre tournament looming.

I need to leave in five minutes or so, so I'll make this short.

The first full week of school is under my belt. It feels like it should have been longer than a week, but there you have it. School is going pretty well. I have homework I have to do tomorrow which is nice, I suppose.

I was really productive this morning, but I spent the last 3 hours or so playing Battle for Middle Earth 2. Middle Earth would be a fun place to visit, but I don't know if I would want to live there. If I did live there, I would definately want to live there around the end of the second age. Maybe in Rohan. Hang out at Helms Deep. Practive archery and fencing. It would lots of fun. Untill Sauron was defeated, after that there'd would just be a lot of sitting around and farming. There wouldn't be any showers or toilets or soap.

My Jesus playlist is only nine songs long. I thought it would be much longer by now.

Planar Chaos: The set that made me hate Magic

Competitive Magic is not fun. It is tedious and complicated. Usually after pre-releases I am super stoked about Magic, but after Planar Chaos, it'll be a long time before I play magic again.

Hey we didn't do 35 thousand pieces of mail last night! We only did 22,800! So what time did I get out of work you ask? 9:30! That's right kids, what would have been potentially our earliest night since December was destroyed when route 5 broke down, around 4:50, in Dexter. They didn't end up getting to CMS till about 7:30, 2 hours late. AND Pat is gone all week! YAY! Work sucked hard yesterday.

I'm hungry so I'm going to eat a sandwich. Then I'm going to watch some Boston Legal and maybe take a nap. Then... TO Work!

Secret Post Number 11

HEY BLOG!
Where have you been all week?
What? You've been here the entire time, and it is I who have neglected you?
Well I had my reasons. For instance, did you know school started this week? Cause it did. It was very exciting. The highlight of school so far would be the game we played in political science on Friday. It was a blast.

So if it doesn't snow like a demon tonight Matthew and I are going to the Magic Prerelease tomorrow, which means I should be going to bed nowish. I'm not particularly tired and, earlier this week I made the mistake of getting into yet another travel documentary series. This one featuring Ewan MacGregor and his friend Charlie Boorman going around the world on motorbikes. So I'm waiting on the next episode to finish downloading. It's about 95%. I just want to see how they get out of Mongolia. What should I do till that finishes downloading.... play some more Bookworm? Don't mind if I do.

Curse of the Flying Ninjas in the groovy House of Super Incest.

That's what I would've called Curse of the Golden Flower if I would have been in charge of naming it. I really enjoyed the movie though. I couldn't help thinking, while watching it, how awesome a Romance of the Three Kingdoms/Dynasty Warriors movie would be.

HEY!!! I don't have to work on Monday!!!!!!!!!

Dig it.

In other news class starts on Tuesday, but since I don't have any Tuesday classes, it starts for me on Wednesday. I'm somewhat excited about school starting... mostly because time seems to go by faster when school is in session.

I just took down the Christmas decorations, it was time. So now I feel that my household chore duties are done so I'm going to play some computer games for a while.

I dreamt that it was Saturday

Work has been the suck this week. I would tell you how much fucking mail we've ran this weekend, but the number is so obscene I'd lose my god damn PG rating. Let's just say that we've ran about 136 thousand pieces so far this week. Today is friday, fridays are always hellmouths of turmoil at CMS. We'll probably do another 35+ thousand pieces tonight. This blows.

In other news, today I was shocked after going to bed and one and then without even trying, waking up at 11:30 a full 10 and a half hours later. Wow!

So this weekend starts my semester of poverty. About $125 out of every paycheck from here till the end of the semester goes to semo. I also have 2 other bills that come monthly usually the second and third weeks, of 30 and fifty dollars respectively. The point is, I'll be spending a lot less money on stuff this semester.

Also, Rise of Legends rules. Sadly I can only play one mission at a time before the game chokes. Great game though.

The Sandman comes

I've been asleep for 22 out of the last 48 hours. How do I do it?


So here's a brief recount of one of the dreams I had last night.

I was at work, it was going to be an early night (unlike what we had last night: 30,000 on a Monday, Christ) but Jay and Jimmy were going to leave to go see a Semo basketball game. So Scott and I finished all the work and I clocked out and headed over to Spaeth's, who still had his Halloween decorations up by the way, so Spaeth's parents were haning out with my aunt Mary and Ian had all his friends over. It turns out Spaeth was with Matthew and Jonathan preparing to go to some sort of dance contest. I wasn't interested in a dance contest so I was just going to run home (that's something that happens a lot in my dreams, Me running) So I started down the hill and who should I encounter but Josh Lamouria. Josh was looking for his cat. It was a grey cat and I think her name was Charlie. So I helped him look for his cat in the woods around Spaeth's house and after finding 2 cats that weren't his, I found Charlie. We took Charlie back to Josh's house, which as it turned out was also located in the woods around Spaeth's house and there was a pool party going on at Josh's house (which as I understand it is also inhabited by Layne, Shad and Toph; not just in my dream but in real life. And technically in real life I think it's Layne and Shad's house) I didn't really want to stay for the pool party, but I stuck around and said hello to some people then Josh took me home. The End.

That was much more interesting than what really happened to me yesterday, trust me.

Quickly, before the pilgrims get here!

I haven't posted lately because I haven't done anything other than work the last week or two. I did go up to St. Louis for New Years eve. Terrence gave me the newest Fables trade.... It was sort of dissapointing considering that this was the Snow and Bigby story we've been waiting for for a year or so and they ended it in pretty much three issues. The story wasn't even all that good. I'm still going to pick up the trades when they come out... it'll probably start getting better again soon.

In other news... oh wait. There is no other news. Boston Legal is the shit by the way. I'd pick up season 2 now if I didn't have to get work Jimmy a birthday present.

Anyway. It's late.

Christmas wrap up

That about says it all.

Christmas was good. I scored some pretty sweet swag. Including but not limited to Battle for Middle Earth 2, Boston Legal: Season 1, Anchorman, Little Miss Sunshine... I can't remember what else. I found out that there is a new fables trade that I don't have yet so I gots to pick that up sometime before whenever we go to St. Louis.

Anyway I gots to go to bed cause I gots to get up early tomorrow cause I gots to do a morning route. Word.

Neighborhood 4!!!!!

I've been listening to Arcade Fire a lot lately. I'm sort of tired of Christmas songs, plus I refuse to believe Christmas is next week.

THIS HAS BEEN THE LONGEST WEEK EVER!!!!

One of the two meters at work have been broken since monday, which means we are fifty percent less efficient than we could be. Plus we're getting a shitload of mail. A SHITLOAD!!! It's very frustrating sitting around waiting for Pat and Renee to finish all the mail on one machine, almost as frustrating as being the one that has to run all the mail on one machine, which I did last night since Pat was gone, she'll also be gone tomorrow so that's nice. It's like driving to St. Louis going 35 miles per hour.

After work, Work Jimmy, Terrence and I went to go see Rocky Balboa. One of the previews was for a werewolf movie so I was immediately engaged, the movie looked pretty bad though and it appears that the people just turn into actual wolves which is always a dissapointment, the highlight though was when the announcer said the title of the film which was "Blood and Chocolate" the audience, including myself burst into laughter.

Rocky Balboa wasn't as good as I thought it would be. The ending seemed sort of anti-climactic and there was some sort of pep talk or inspirational heart to heart about every 2 minutes. The fight scene (singular) was sort of rushed, I felt that they could have strecthed it out about since it was the climax of the film. The best part of the movie was the part where Rocky totally made out with this chick while holding a picture of his dead wife. It was totally hot in a PG kind of way.

Children of Men is supposed to be amazing. I heard a story about it on NPR today, and it was on everyone's list of best movies of the year over at The Onion Av Club. I don't really know what to think about that though since almost everyone had Prarie Home Companion on there as well which seemed fairly unwatchable to me.


Post Script.

Oh, the minarets of Constantinople are plated gold, ivory and opal.

Just another post about sleeping

Well I'm done with about one eighth of my Christmas shopping. Hurray!!!!

I've gone out to eat entirely too many times this week. Seven times since Friday, and we're supposed to be going out tonight for the Christmas party thing. I've started running again in hopes of countering this ridiculous intake of food, I've also started limiting my soda intake. I've more or less been abstaining from soda between meals fairly consistantly for a while, but I've also been not drinking soda when I got out to eat recently. I really don't notice a difference when I don't drink soad, apart from being hungrier, but the evidence that soda is bad for me (and when I say "me" I mean people who drink it) is really too well documented for me to ignore.

NOTE: We're still working on the kitchen. We are still dog sitting Dutch. I asked Ben to take Dutch and Buster outside while I start painting. The dogs are still in their kennels and have been since about 10 pm last night. So what does Ben do, first thing, when he goes down stairs? Take a shower. Sure the dogs have been couped up for the past 13 hours, what's another 45 to 50 minutes going to hurt them! That's right 45 to 50 minutes is how long it takes Ben to get ready in the morning. EVERY MORNING.

I have to go paint now.

Post number 1,467,982

Jimmy and I went to go see Apocalypto tonight. It was better than I thought it would be. I had no desire to see it in the first place, and I probably won't ever see it again, but it was still a decent flick. A solid 6, with aspirations for a 7.

It's really hard for me to get in the Christmas mood when It's almost 70 degrees outside. I can't listen to Christmas music anymore, it mocks me so with its depiction of wintery scenes; snowy hillsides, warm winter coats and scarves, frosty windows... this blows.

THOUGHT!!!

You know what guitar hero needs desperately songwise? The Overture from Jesus Christ Superstar. That is a rocking guitar jam.

I've been listening to the Fruitbats this weekend, particularly "The Wind the Blew My Heart Away". I find that track particularly inspirational as it helped me come up with an ending to a story that's in my head that I will never write down because I suck at writing.

Night!

Is it really Saturday?

Josh is back in town. Joshwa, Matt B and I played some guitar Hero 2 tonight. I still would rather just play a guitar than that game.

We're working on painting our kitchen this weekend. I'd like for it to be completely done this weekend so I can help Jimmy with his film next week.

All the cookies are baked, at least the ones I help with. It seems like we got a lot of cookies made this year, which is nice. I still might make a batch of oatmeal cookies or something before Christmas... if I have time. This week is going to be super busy. Monday I need to get my oil changed and I'm going into work early, Tuesday is the Christmas party, Wednesday and Thursday are probably going to be big cleaning days because Dutch will be back with Terrence so Mac will be able to move downstairs and we can actually get stuff cleaned without him messing it up. Friday Joe comes into town. Saturday will be more cleaning and cooking. Sunday will be cooking cleaning and Christmas eve. I think I'm going to go to midnight mass or early morning Christmas day. Also I haven't done any Christmas shopping.

Anyway, I'm going to bed.

Sunday's blow.

My online final goes up at midnight. I'll probably take it tomorrow morning.

I did some cleaning on Saturday. Today I did nothing. I sat around all day. It was pretty ridiculous. I did go for a run before I went over to Matthew, out of protest.

We picked names for our annual Christmas gathering. I got Spants. I think I know what to get him.

While we were waiting for Droib to show up we were playing some Mario Tennis and since I'm not a big fan of video game music, I turned on Pandora. Since I tend to use Pandora more than Matthew, my account was the one that loaded up when I opened the page, we listened to a couple of my stations. I have my stations sorted by similar music, for example my Rufus station has Rufus and Andrew Bird, who I think are sort of similar musically. I have a station of the Bens (Folds, Kweller, Lee). Music I think that will overlap I put in the same station so there is not a lot of crossover. Anyway we were listening to my Sing Me Spanish Techno station and Cacth My Disease came on. I made a comment about how it was sort of weird that Ben Lee would be on a New Pornographer's station and Bucket said something to the effect of "that's because you don't like different types of music." I took offense to that for one thing it's patently untrue, but also I pride myself on my openness to different styles of music and it seems that too often do I have to defend my musical tastes to Matt Buchheit. There are certain types of music that I don't have a lot of patience for; Opera, Rap, Hip-hop, Nu Metal but other than that, I'm fairly open minded. There are some bands I like that have fairly similar sounds: Rogue Wave is sort of like a less talented the Shins, Mike Doughty, God bless him, is sort of generic accoustic pop rock, Andrew Bird is like a better version of Rufus, and the Bens all sort of cover the same ground sonically. A lot of the bands I like are pretty much in a league of their own. Wilco does noise rock like no other, Sufjan Stevens is better than anyone has any right to be, The White Stripes are pretty much the best thing that's happened to popular music in my lifetime, The Beatles are the greatest band of all time, Neko Case made me like country music, Nickel Creek introduced me to bluegrass, The Giants made me pay attention to music, The Decemberists are best people making music right now. This list isn't particularly diverse racially and probably not socio-economically either. You could probably count the number of tatoos possessed by the people on this list with 2 hands (if you don't include Chris Funk) But the musical landscape of these bands is quite varied.

Holy day of Obligation Batman!

Happy Birthday Droib!!!!!!!

As far as I can remember I have always gotten Droib terrible presents. I can't remember ever getting him something that he wanted or enjoyed. Here's some presents I seem to remember getting him.

1. Some sort of Illustrated Encyclopedia or history book or something... Yikes.
2. Shaft (Sam L. version) Not bad in and of itself, but still.
3. Soundtrack to American Gladiators. Wow, I'm a jackass.

So this year I'm going to try to find something that he'll actually like or use. I'm thinking maybe a crossbow.

Christ. http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1529799&sdm=web&qtw=480&qth=300

Next year there are some pretty awesome-looking movies coming out.

January brings us Pathfinder (and Smoking Aces, for what it's worth)

February:
Reno 911:Miami (February? Seriously? Ouch)
Ghost Rider (It IS a comic book movie...)
Black Snake Moan (Jimmy is really excited about this movie... I trust his judgment)

March:
300 and Hot Fuzz open the same day. I doubt I'll have time to see any other movies that month

Grindhouse in April, Spiderman and Pirates in May. Next year will be a good one for movies.

Lord of the Rings the Third Age is fun. I like console RPG's. Ok I'm going to bed.

No one is asleep at my house

It's almost 2 in the morning and no my dad is the only person in the house that is sleeping. I'm waiting for my family to go to sleep so I can put their St. Nick's day presents out.

I went to Popeyes with work Jimmy tonight after work. We waited for like half an hour for our food. To be fair the first fifteen minutes of the half-hour was spent waiting to order. My advice to you is to not eat at Popeyes. At least not yet. I'm not a huge fried chicken fan to begin with, but the food was ok, just not worth the wait.

JimmyK is mostly over his sickness and almost done editing his movie, which means we'll probably start work on our project pretty soon. I'm fairly stoked, though simultaneously worried. I'm not really good at being creative on demand, especially the kind of creative that's also supposed to be funny. We'll see.

The Proposition is a decent flick. I think I liked it more than I should've. It's not particularly good, it's just not bad. It doesn't do anything wrong but it isn't overflowing with rightness. The cast is really strong though. It was written by Nick Cave, if that means anything to you. Yes, that Nick Cave, I checked.

HOTT FUZZ!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7J_vYN5ZkY