Feeling Red

O'er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave

2010-03-28T23:06:00.003-05:00

Book23: "1776" by David McCullough

Disclaimer: This review was written in a USO in Kuwait during my redeployment back to the US from Afghanistan. It may not be a good one.

"1776" by David McCullough is a historical book written about the year 1776 during the American Revolution. The book focuses on the military aspects of the revolution during that year, the battles at Dorchester Heights, Long Island, and Trenton, as well as the military chain of command for both the Continental and British Army. McCullough does delve a little bit into politics of the American Revolution, but those areas are mostly left in the background (i.e. Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence).

The best thing about the book is that McCullough delivers the history as a story. Most Americans know about the history and the situations of the American Revolution (hopefully), and therefore, it could have been very easy to bore someone who doesn't have a vast interest in history with the material, but McCullough doesn't fall into that trap. I didn't find the "story telling" dry at all as I have experienced with other historical books; he was able to keep the book moving through each event and battle without dragging it down with uninteresting facts. Another reason I thought the book moved well was because of the inclusion of the personal histories of the men in charge of each military. People familiar with the American Revolution (or just America in general) know about George Washington, and some may even be familiar with General Cornwallis of the British. McCullough does place emphasis on Washington, but the entire book does not revolve around Washington. The reader is given a significant dose of the other commanders who were heavily involved including General Howe, Nathanael Green, Henry Knox, and others. McCullough provides the reader with a history for each man, allowing the reader to see where each came from and how he arrived at his station, so that we may better understand their motivations and rationale as they moved through the war.

Another positive aspect of the book is that I didn't think it was biased towards either side. I always think of the quote, "History is written by the winners," but I think McCullough fairly portrayed both sides of the war. He didn't cast Washington as a better and more competent field general than Howe; in fact, he recalled a number of times when Washington's indecisiveness cost the Continental Army. McCullough showed where the American forces were brilliant, where they were lucky, and where they were terrible examples of human beings, and he did the same for the British/Hessian army (i.e. both sides ransacked towns that they inhabited). The only time I felt biased while reading the book was when McCullough painted the American army as the rough, ragged, grass roots under dog army in comparison to the more refined and well-trained British army. It's not a fault of McCullough; the American army really was the heavy under dog when compared to the British army, who was the greatest military force (Army and Navy) during that time. I just think that (maybe because OF the American Revolution) Americans are biased towards liking the under dogs. We always seem to cheer for the guy who wasn't given everything, but perseveres against the odds because of his craftiness, his will power, and/or his luck. Maybe it's inherent in our patriotism because our nation was founded under that pretense.

While I do enjoy history, particularly military history, I do not read a lot of history books because I find most of the writing bland and dull. In "1776" (and possibly his other books?), David McCullough is able to break that mold and take the history and the facts and present it so that the book reads less like history and more like a good story, making the book a great read.

All You Need Is Love (Baad daadaa daadaa!)

2010-03-19T11:09:00.004-05:00

Book22: "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel

To be honest, “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel took me for a spin. It came as a recommendation from a friend, who said it would make me think, but that it was also an easy read. I registered the latter statement; I moved through and followed the story with ease because much of it was plot driven story telling. I don’t think I was listening to his former statement, however, as I am still left pondering about what conclusions I’ve drawn from the book.

In its most simple form, “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel is the story of a young Indian boy named Piscine Molitor Patel (aka “Pi”) and his Royal Bengal Tiger, Richard Parker. Pi hails from Pondicherry, India where his family owns and runs the local zoo. Due to economical and political changes in India, Pi’s father decides to sell the zoo, sell most of the animals to other zoos around the world, and relocate his family in Canada. They set off on a Japanese oiler with a number of the animals in tow and are met with disaster. Due to unexplained reasons, the ship sinks, and Pi finds himself the lone human survivor. His only company is Richard Parker (they were joined by an injured zebra, an orangutan, and a hyena, but nature takes its course and the other animals are eaten). For 227 days, Pi battles the odds of his trans-Pacific voyage, sharing a life boat with limited supplies and tools with a Bengal tiger.

That’s the easy part.

The book is actually divided into three sections. The first section is an adult Pi reminiscing about his childhood. He recounts how he was named after a French swimming pool, the name calling he encountered in grade school and how he overcame it, and how he decided that he wanted to practice Hinduism, Christianity (Catholicism), and Muslim all at the same time. The second section is the story of how Pi survived the sinking, the Pacific Ocean, and living with Richard Parker. The third section focuses on two Japanese men, representatives of the Maritime Department in the Japanese Ministry of Transport investigating the sinking of the Japanese oiler, who visit Pi once he washes on shore and asks for the facts of his survival. The second section makes up the bulk of the novel, but all parts are equally important in delivering Yann Martel’s point.

I don’t think I’ve completely grasped the point. It feels a bit like the first time I wrapped my head around “The Matrix” (at the tender age of 14), or when I found the answer to “Who is Keyser Soze” after watching “The Usual Suspects”. It’s difficult, but I’ll try to sound it out (more for myself than you, the reader).

The part of Section 1 that piqued my interest was when Pi joined and began practicing three religions all at one time. In each case, he’s attracted to the loving nature of the religion introduced to him by a kind patriarch of the religion. In all three religions, he finds peace in their holy texts and their ritualistic praying. The three religious men discover that Pi is practicing the other two religions and they confront Pi together in order to have him choose one. When faced with the ultimatum, Pi disengages the religious men by saying, “I just want to love God.” I concluded two thoughts from these events. The first is that all three religions preach love; love of God, love of man, and love of self (I guess The Beatles were right?). None of the religious men delve into the restrictions of or the violent events resulting from his religion. They preach that their religions are about love. The second thing I noted was part of what attracted Pi to each religion: the stories. This is where all the religions seem to sprout from; stories, scriptures, readings, texts - whatever you want to call them - that tell the “history” of God/gods. Each religion tells a different story with different endings and different deities/God/gods/prophets, but they are all still stories, and it’s up to a person to believe in and put faith into one set of these stories (the religion), or none at all. I think this is what Yann Martel might have been getting at, and it becomes evident in Section 3 of the novel.

Pi, resting in a Mexican hospital after washing up on shore, tells the story of his survival to the two Japanese men. They do not believe him and demand the true story. Pi retells his story, this time replacing the animals (the zebra, orangutan, hyena, and tiger) with humans instead (a young sailor, his mother, a vicious cook, and himself). The men realize the similarities in the stories and that they must take Pi’s word for it in either case since neither can be confirmed as true. Pi asks them, since they have to take his word and it makes no factual difference which they believe, which story they think is better. Both agree the story with the animals is better and Pi responds, “And so it goes with God.”

Based on the writing alone, “Life of Pi” is a great read. Yann Martel is an excellent story teller who gripped me with descriptions of desperation and fear and the rise and fall of faith in self and God when faced with surviving against the worst odds (take it from my experience; the middle of nowhere Ocean is a daunting, fearsome, and beautiful landscape), but the concluding point about story telling took it to another level for me. As I said, I don’t think I fully grasp Martel’s point, but the fact that I don’t and I’m still racking my brain thinking about it made a good novel great for me.

I'm Only a Man, Looking For a Dream...

2010-03-13T11:55:00.003-06:00

Book21: "The Natural" by Bernard Malamud

In 1923, at the tender age of 19, Roy Hobbs just may be the best player in baseball. Hobbs just struck out Walter "The Whammer" Wambold, the league's FORMER best, in three pitches, and is now on his way to try out for the (cursed) Cubs.

Unfortunately, due to mitigating circumstances, Hobbs never arrives for his try out.

It takes another sixteen years for Hobbs to show up to the big show, but he does show up, on the door steps New York Knights. The Knights boast the current best player in baseball, Bump Bailey, but thanks to poor team morale and ownership, they also boast a sorry record. All of that is about to change though, when Hobbs proves to be a monster on the field driven by the goal of breaking every major league record and the natural ability to do so.

Bernard Malamud's "The Natural" is lauded as the best novel written about baseball, and though I am not well-versed in novels written about baseball, I can see why critics say so. For his first book, Malamud's story telling is fantastic. He doesn't waste a word or paragraph; the story always moves forward without lagging. The characters are believable and Malamud spends no more time than is necessary to show you the heart of each character. Best of all, the characters are human. You can't peg any one character as the good guy or the bad guy; you can't pigeonhole them into a cliche or stereotype. Every character is motivated by his or her own reasons, same as we all are.

At the center of all of it, of course, is Roy Hobbs, The Natural. Hobbs plays the part of the great sports hero. He catches every ball that comes his way; he hits every ball out of the park no matter what the pitcher throws at him. Just like the great sports men in real life (Jordan, Ali, Tiger, etc.), Hobbs was put on this Earth to play the game; his game. He has that focus, that non-stop competitive drive, that singular hunger for greatness that is the sole purpose of his being. But also like those great sports me in real life, Hobbs is still human. He can't hit a game-winning homer to fulfill a dying boy's wish on a whim. He resents the fans and the press when they turn on him and he isn't afraid to show it. He gambles and chases a pretty skirt. Despite all the great and seemingly miraculous feats he accomplishes on the field, Roy Hobbs is still only a man; and the great joy of the novel is watching Hobbs, who should be more than mere mortal, be nothing more than that.

Before I knew about the book, I knew there was the movie, equally respected and revered as possibly the best sports movie ever made. All I knew about the movie, other than the fact that it was about baseball, was that it starred the immaculate Robert Redford, and for that, I must see it as soon as I redeploy home. Not necessarily because it stars Robert Redford, but because I'm interested to see if Redford can pull off a convincing Roy Hobbs as Bernard Malamud had created him. For me, Redford embodies that perfect greatness, that legendary sports hero who is a Hercules of a man (which is a funny metaphor since Hercules had his own fair share of "human" problems and fallacies), but that is not Roy Hobbs. Bernard Malamud's "The Natural" isn't the story of the great sports hero of legend; it's the story of the human man behind the legend.

He Opens His Mouth, But the Words Wont Come Out

2010-03-11T11:41:00.004-06:00

Book20: "On Writing" by Stephen King

It seems like the number one question fans and the aspiring always ask writers (novelists, lyricists, etc.) is how they achieved their success. Not their success as in their fame and/or fortune, but their creative success; the work that brought them that fame and fortune. It's a fair question. I think lots of people are looking for that million dollar idea that will give them this gift, but as I read more responses from the writers, it doesn't seem like there is any one answer.

I've never attended a writing workshop, but I imagine "On Writing" by Stephen King is what one might be like if the author wasn't limited by time constraints and got to say everything he/she wanted to say to the participants. "On Writing" is essentially two things: King's semi-autobiography, and the tips and tricks King suggests for writing.

In the first half of the book, King recounts memories he had growing up: how his mother raised him and his brother after their dad skipped out when he was a toddler; how he first fell in love with reading and writing by discovering "trashy" horror and sci-fi magazines; how he would constantly get in trouble in grade school for things he wrote while developing his talent; how he met his wife and how they started a family; and how he got his first break in the publishing business. It's a great way for him to start off the book. King feeds you the origin story of how he became the successful writer he is now, and introduces you to the people and the experiences that served as inspiration for his books (i.e. cleaning a girl's locker room as a janitor led to "Carrie"; working in an old mill led to "The Graveyard Shift"). While it doesn't point you to the one defining moment where King "made it", it does offer a view of the road he took to get there.

The second half is King's tips and tricks and habits for successful writing (READING AND WRITING...A LOT). He goes over what he thinks every aspiring writer needs to consider when they approach their craft (READING AND WRITING...A LOT). He offers suggestions like removing yourself from distractions when you write, setting a goal for writing (i.e. 1000 words every day) and having the discipline to achieve that goal no matter the writer's block you face, what to consider when editing and revising drafts, and READING AND WRITING...A LOT. King offers a lot more tips and examples, but that's more detail than necessary for this review. One thing that definitely caught my attention is King's suggestion of using Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" as a foundation for good writing habits. I cant argue with that. It's been a while since I peeked into my copy of Strunk & White, but it wouldn't hurt to take a second, post-grad look at it once I return from deployment...just for curiosity's sake.

I remember reading an interview or article about Rivers Cuomo and his infamous notebook of songs. Cuomo was asked how he wrote his catchy, hit songs, and answered with something along the lines of he studied a bunch of popular songs (I think Nirvana was one of the artists he studied), found similarities in their song structure, and with that discovery/analysis, crafted a sort of "formula" (not sure if that's the actual word he used) that he followed to write well over eight hundred songs. This probably spurred a lot of aspiring musicians to try to discover this formula themselves so that they could get a record deal and what not, but that's not how it works. All these successful writers didn't follow the same formula or read the same "How-To" book. They each followed their own path to their success, and no two paths are the same.

I don't think King tried to answer the question of how to achieve success with "On Writing". It's not intended to be a manual on how YOU can achieve literary success. It's just the story of how Stephen King achieved HIS literary success.

He Doesnt Look a Thing Like Jesus, But He Talks Like a Gentleman

2010-03-08T11:27:00.004-06:00

Book19: "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce

I dont know what drove me to pick this book up. I think I was probably watching something like "Finding Forrester" and saw Jamal reading it or something and thought "Hey, that might be worth a look." However, just as Jamal is probably an infinitely better writer, student, and basketball player than I am, he probably understood the intricacies of this book much better than I.

"A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce is the story of a boy named Stephen Dedalus, growing up in Ireland during the late 1800s. The story follows Stephen as he attends catholic school as a young lad, and then into high school where he begins growing into a man and into his religious faith, and finally into college when Stephen begins analyzing all that's he's known and read and begins thinking his own thoughts and coming to his own conclusions about life and religion and faith.

From what I read on Wikipedia, "Portrait" is a semi-autobiographical story of Joyce himself. The struggles that Stephen encounters, predominantly the rigors and standards of Irish citizenship and the weight and play that the Roman Catholic religion has on the Irish people, were presumably the same or similar encounters Joyce had to face growing up. Knowing that there is some truth in the accounts of the story, to me, gives it more weight and substance. The fact that it was real makes it legitimate and important. However, despite all that, I still had a very tough time enjoying the story and, at times, understanding the story.

The biggest problem I had with the book deals mainly with the middle portion of the book. This is when Stephen is in high school and is coming to grips with his Catholic faith and what part religion plays in his life. Early on, he lived the life of sin, but after a vigorous speech from one of the Fathers or Brothers, he's inspired to be completely devout in order to turn his life around. My main quarrel with this area is the heavy preaching used. I am a Catholic, but I'm pretty picky about the priest I listen to. I do not subscribe at all to the heavy, burdening guilt of Catholicism or to the whole vengeful wrath of God or the terrors of Hell and Satan, and that's predominantly what this area involves. Granted, you have to take it with a grain of salt considering the times, but I was heavily turned off by all this preaching of Hell and fires and repenting and what not. It's not that I disagree or am trying to be naive about my religion; I just believe that there are more positive ways to preach this word. Call me a fan of "positive reinforcement" over "negative reinforcement".

The other gripe I had with "Portrait" was the narrating style and language used. I'm not blaming Joyce or anything and, again, considering when and where it was written, I should take it with a grain of salt, but I was honestly confused and had to re-read a number of passages. Joyce uses a third person narrative, but he's not very specific when he's talking about characters. Joyce uses a lot of pronouns which becomes confusing since he introduces, say, three male characters at one time and uses "he" over and over without indicating outright which "he" he is referring to. The second part to this is obviously the language. Call me slow or thick skulled or literarily obtuse, but I was missing a lot of it. Of course it's the language of the culture and the times, but between the Latin and manner of speech, as I said before, I had to re-read more than a couple of passages to decipher the message.

All in all, it was probably just me and lack of understanding or perhaps willingness to do so, but "Portrait" was a terrible experience. I basically had to drag myself through it, enjoyed or at least was at peace with so few sections of the book, and just had dreadful time. My struggle is a bit disappointing considering that the book is ranked the third greatest novel of the 20th century by Modern Library and of course I want to be blown away by such a highly ranked novel, but what can I say? I am what I am and I like what I like.

You May Say That I'm a Dreamer, But I'm Not the Only One

2010-02-28T00:10:00.003-06:00

Book18: "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" by Michael Chabon

My first experience with Michael Chabon was the magnificent work, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay". I had never heard of Chabon, and instead picked up the suggested word as a comic book fan who revels in the behind-the-scenes of making comics and its storied history. It easily became a favorite, and is widely considered Chabon's "magnum opus". Having never heard of Chabon before "Kavalier", I was surprised to learn it was, in fact, his third novel. Possessed by the incredible quality of "Kavalier", I found myself wondering about his first book, which served as his thesis in grad school, and the vehicle between hist status as an amateur student-writer and praised professional. And now, I've finally come to the beginning.

"The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" is a story about the summer after college graduation for Art Bechstein. It's that odd time between the fairy tale of youth without responsibility and stepping into the real world and the person you will be for nearly the rest of your life. It was meant to be an easy going time, a lazy time, but it quickly turns into a summer of loss and gain and learning for Art. By August, Art is changed by the questions he had never tried to answer, thoughts and discussions he's avoided, and people he had shielded himself from.

In terms of writing, Chabon accomplishes what he continues to accomplish in his later work: a balance between detailed narrative and interesting dialogue. I'm typically a fan of character dialogue; it can tell you more about a character personally, and if done well, helps you empathize with those characters more easily and wholly than a narrative. It makes the characters seem less fictional. With Chabon, I think he actually is able to achieve this equally through both narrative and dialogue. His narratives are so telling; Chabon picks exactly the right details to tell you about a person, he tells just the right story, the right fictional anecdote, that you feel as though you know exactly who this person is without having to hear his/her entire life history. When you read the dialogue and speech of the characters, it reinforces these personalities, these likes and dislikes and quirks, and makes the characters real. You don't feel like you're reading a work of fiction, that you're reading invented characters. Chabon's story telling makes every character seem like a real person, someone you might meet out in the street, at work, or at school.

Perhaps it's Chabon's gift for characterization that makes Art Bechstein and his story worthy of standing beside characters like Tom Sawyer and Holden Caufield, and novels like "On the Road" and "Catcher in the Rye" (as some literary critics have put it). After reading "Bright Lights, Big City", I touched on the similarities and differences in character I saw between Holden Caufield and the Unnamed Protagonist of "Bright Lights". Holden had a way of thinking and speaking, but he seemed cynical of the "real" world and unable to grow and adapt or prepare himself for it. Unnamed Protagonist was similar in his quirks of thought and speech, but he was on a road of redemption; having tasted and experienced the lower levels of "Hell", he realized and strove for personal growth. Art Bechstein is faced with this "coming of age" point in his life, but he neither refuses it like Holden or embraces it (at the end) like Unnamed Protagonist. He kind of just lives it. He has no agenda, no plans for this life. Art just seems to react and live through the moments and the people who enter his world, and I think it's that quality that makes him easy to relate to, and easy to believe. The strings attached from story teller and story are not easily visible, therefore, "Mysteries" feels like a story you might have seen before, in yourself or in someone you know.

In that sense, the pieces seem to fit. Chabon wrote "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" as he was graduating from grad school. Even though the events and characters are fictional, since Chabon was in a similar time in his life, he was able to wonderfully narrate the emotions and thoughts of that time in Art Bechstein's life. The last few pages seem a bit cliche and rehearsed, with Art recounting the memories of that summer in the way that still-young people look back and reminisce about even younger times from which they grew. But it's fitting. There is no one better to tell the nostalgia of so-called glory days of youth than a youth himself.

They're Not Gonna Get Us

2010-02-24T10:21:00.004-06:00

Book17: "The Illustrated Man" by Ray Bradbury

I have a hard time trying to figure out how I feel about short stories. I tried to liken the situation to whether or not I'm a television episode person or if I'm a movie person. A few of my friends can clearly classify themselves one or the other, but I can't do it. Do I prefer a long narrative/story...or would I rather have a shorter, smaller glimpse? I don't think I can classify myself as preferring one or the other, and I guess I'm the same way when it comes to short stories. I feel like some longer stories just sort of drag on and get specific on areas I don't care about; and some short stories don't make good use of the short "time" they're given, and thus just don't tell a good story altogether. I think perhaps more than any other art form, the written story is one where the audience can clearly say whether the words are wasted or not.

"The Illustrated Man" by Ray Bradbury is a collection of eighteen stories Bradbury wrote and published during the late 1940s and early 1950s. As with other Bradbury works, most of the stories involve a dystopian future and space travel and aliens. Stories about dystopian futures are totally boss, but the big focus on space travel and aliens kind of put me off. Of course, I have to take into consideration when the stories were written, but I still felt like the material was sorely outdated. Bradbury's final frontier is obviously space, a universe where Pluto is still a planet (see how outdated all this is?!?), and there is much mention of martians and rockets and "rocket men". Those words alone made the material feel dated.

As I said, there are eighteen different short stories collected in this book, and they all have varying ranges of quality. They all examine the human condition and affects there on due to the science fiction (whether it be space flight or time machines or martians or whatever), but some stories definitely do a better job of examination through narration. My favorite of the stories actually involved time travel, and perhaps that's due to the times. I already mentioned how space felt like an outdated final frontier, and I guess for my age and generation, time travel seems like a more modern final frontier. Regardless of the science fiction, the best stories were the ones that actually ended very morbid and bleak. These were the stories where the humans were pushed to their worst, and lived the dark consequences of their actions. It's a bit depressing, but I guess that's what made those stories a better read.

All in all, "The Illustrated Man" is a decent collection of Bradbury tales. The only other Bradbury work I've read is "Fahrenheit 451", and in comparison, I thought that book was much better than any of the other short stories I read. Perhaps Bradbury's work suits me better as a "movie" instead of a "tv show".

Gun Kata is a Bad Mutha-shutyomouth

2010-02-20T22:05:00.004-06:00

The thing I don't get about "Equilibrium" is Taye Diggs. Prozium is supposed to suppress ALL feelings; happiness, anger, sadness, etc. Preston was capable of feelings, but they only started truly surfacing when he stopped taking his doses (by the way, I think Christian Bale was perfect for this role seeing as how all he had to feel was first nothing, then anger/rage. Keanu Reeves would have been perfect...but only in the first half, that robot). So everyone, including Clerics, were supposedly suppressing ALL emotion by Prozium injections.

Then why does Taye Diggs always seem either happy or angry throughout the whole movie? He's smiling because he triumphed, or when he is challenged is clearly enjoying the challenge. He's also yelling and screaming, angry and showing it when things do not go his way.

If you ask me, someone ELSE wasn't taking his Prozium.

I Smell Sex and Candy Here..

2010-02-20T06:36:00.005-06:00

Book16: "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl

My earliest memory of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is a two-parter: 1) checking out the book every week straight for about a month and a half in the 4th grade, and 2) sitting on the toilet for something like forty minutes just reading the book, page after page. Why didn't I get off the pot when I was done and go read in my room or in the kitchen or on the couch or something? I do not know, but that memory alone solidies the book as nostalgic goodness since it combined two of my most favorite activities at such a young age. Who knew that I'd grow up to be the boy that I already was?

For people who did not get to experience a wonderfully book-filled childhood, Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" revolves around a little lad named Charlie Bucket. Charlie Bucket lives an extremely impoverished life with his parents and all his grandparents in a little cottage on the outskirts of town. In his life, there is only one thing Charlie craves: chocolate. Unfortunately, due to being crazy poor, Charlie's chocolate consumption is regulated to a single candy bar a year, given to him on his birthday. But Charlie's luck is about to change. The wildly reclusive (and with good reason) king of candy, Mr. Willy Wonka, is coming out of hiding and opening his chocolate factory for ONE DAY and ONE DAY ALONE to five children who find a golden ticket in a Wonka candy bar. Charlie happens to be one of the these children. He, along with four other children and their parents, step into the world of Willy Wonka, and their lives are forever changed.

It's a different experience reading a children's classic years later as a grown adult. Back then in the 4th grade, I loved the book for its innocent fun: the childish, crazy language, the crazy events and characters, and all the crazy candy ideas Willy Wonka conjured up. It was all crazy, but it all seemed so innocent and fantastical. Now, all my jadedness (however much that may be) and cynicism skew my after thoughts of the story a tad. The after thoughts don't seem to adulterate my childish enjoyment of the book, but they do arise.

One thing I found myself pondering about were Wonka's inventions and ideas for candy. As a child, it was all just fantastic candy, but as an adult, with all the advances in science and technology, I find myself wondering about the plausibility of some of these candies either now or in the near future. For example, Wonka invented a stick of gum that tasted like a three course meal. Now, he took it a step further by making it feel as though you were eating the actual meal rather than tasting it, but wouldn't it be somewhat plausible to create a stick of gum that, at different times, tasted like three different flavors? I feel like with some sort of time release mixed with some chemicals or drugs, this could actually happen. Or what about Wonka's square candies that look round? They're basically sugar cubes with faces painted on them that focus on people as they move around the room. Can't we just paint pictures on them (as the Oompa-Loompas do) so that the eyes follow you around the room like those portraits of Jesus? Or insert some sort of advanced nanotechnology and detects movements in the room and shifts the pictures accordingly? There's also some easy ones like marshmallow pillows and lickable wallpaper for nursery rooms, but doesn't this stuff seem possible? I guess it would all be impractical to make, considering how much some of this science and technology would cost, but it seems possible, doesn't it? Or am I just being as crazy as Willy Wonka?

The other subject I found myself thinking about heavily is the man himself, Mr. Willy Wonka. As a child, he just seemed like a crazy old grandpa or inventor or something that wanted to give kids their ultimate dream, but now, he seems like a little more than that. For one thing, he seems to take all of the accidents that occur too well in stride. Yes, he did warn each of the victims in the most serious of tones, but he seems to shrug the after effects too easily. It isn't just a matter of him knowing that no serious harm would come to the victims. Most of them are permanently, physically scarred for life at the end of novel, yet he just comes up with excuses and basically gets that dirt off his shoulder. Whether they win or not, I would think there would be lawsuits involved somewhere. The other part about him that got me was how he basically...

[SPOILER]

...used the tour as his own sick version of "Survivor" (yes, "Survivor" came after "Chocolate Factory", and of course the concept of "survival of the fittest" has been around since the dawn of time). As they travel through the factory's odd rooms and stations, the children are picked off one by one, falling due to their own childish disobedience. As I stated, yes, Wonka warned them, but I can't help but feel that he only did so to cover himself legally, and actually WANTED the harm to befall the children. After all, how else would they be weeded out? He was probably secretly cheering to himself every time someone was eliminated. The Oompa-Loompas certainly were.

[END SPOILER]

As strangely sadistic as Willy Wonka might have seemed in my adult eyes, in the end, and probably for Roald Dahl's intentions, he's just an old man who wants to make wishes come true (no Michael Jackson comments please). Beyond that, Wonka wants his legacy to continue on in the best way possible. He believes in the innocence and heartfelt truth of the young who don't sully that innocence with business proposals and profits and gains and competition and other factors of the "adult" world. And despite whatever my adult self might think up, when push comes to shove, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" should be read the same way.

There We'll Find Our Hearts, Our Souls, Our Dreams (WE WANT THE STREETS!)

2010-02-17T03:01:00.012-06:00

Book15: "Bright Lights, Big City" by Jay McInerney

“Bright Lights, Big City” by Jay McInerney is a story about a character living in New York City during the mid-1980s. His wife, who he “rescued” from Nowhere, Middle America, has left him after her career as a model takes off in Paris; he works as a fact checker for a prestigious magazine when he’d rather be writing fiction; and he lives a life of cocaine and other drugs with his wild, partying friend, Tad.

What jumped out to me most was the point of view used to narrate the book. I don’t know what the POV is called, but the story is narrated as if you are the main character (i.e. “You are not the kind of guy who would…”). For some people, this might make them feel more connected to the story, and therefore become more invested since it’s them living the fictional life, not some character. It didn’t work that way with me. In fact, it actually bothered me some. It might be my lack of imagination or my lack of empathy, but I couldn’t connect and see myself as this character. I also didn’t like the fact that I felt like the book was telling me how I felt or what I did as if I had no control, a result of the POV used. It might be a little insane, but I wasn’t digging it. After a while, I just blurred out “you” in my mind, and replaced it with “he”, so that the story wasn’t about me; it was about some character who’s name I don’t know.

As far as I’ve been told or could read about “Bright Lights”, it seems to be a book touted in a similar light to that of “The Catcher in the Rye”. It’s somewhat of a coming-of-age story (the main character is in his twenties, but probably less mature than that) starring a main character that experiences a series of crazy events while living (Holden going back to his parents’ house) in New York City. In that respect, yeah, I can see the similarities. Both Holden and the main character are dealing with bad times in their lives, and cope with that in their own way, which isn’t necessarily helpful. The differences came in the “redemption” aspects of the characters. I haven’t read “Catcher” in a while (being deployed, I didn’t have a chance to read it when Salinger died), so I might be wrong, but with Holden, I didn’t really feel like he learned a lesson or came to some realization about the problems in his life that would help him grow and mature as a person. By the end of “Bright Lights”, I thought the main character was starting to grow past the pains and problems of his life. He tried to find release in drugs, in revenge, and he literally ran away from a problem, but by the end, you felt like there was hope from him (trying not to spoil too much). And who doesn’t appreciate that? Most of us are suckers for hope and redemption and (potentially) happy endings, and “Bright Lights” gives just enough of that at the end for you to believe in.

All in all, “Bright Lights, Big City” is a pretty good book. Excluding my distaste for the “you” POV, McInerney does a great job of expressing the mood of the protagonist without blatantly stating it out right, and telling an interesting story in which the protagonist grows and changes. I know that Michael J. Fox starred in an adaptation of the film that seemed to do alright (I’ve never seen it), but if given the proper director and the right starring actor (isn’t that true for all movies??), this story could be made into a great (remade) movie.

For some reason, while I was reading the book, I kept hearing Tears for Fears "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". Hm. Cant explain it.

At Last, My Love Has Come Along...

2010-02-14T07:53:00.006-06:00

Book14: "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I'll be honest: with how little I am in touch with distinguished "classics" of any kind, the only thoughts I previously had regarding "Love in the Time of Cholera" was that it was the random book Sara wrote her name and number in for Jonathan to find if they were to ever meet again in the motion picture Serendipity. As such, I developed an association for the book; mainly, that it represented that once-in-a-lifetime spark of pure love that both parties would chase despite being (arguably) content with where life had led them without it. Of course, prior to reading the damn thing, I had no idea what the book was about, but I think my original association came pretty close.

"Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is about love during the days that cholera was rampant. The setting is a town in Columbia during the late 1800s/early 1900s, and revolves around two main characters, Florentino Ariza (a man) and Fermina Daza (a woman). Due to influences both in and out of their control, the two young lovers cannot be together and go their own separate ways. Florentino, being the hopelessly in love romantic he is, accepts the realities of their situation but resolves to prepare for a time when he can again attempt to woo back his first love, and he finally gets his chance fifty years later.

For me, the book was a roller coaster of "I cant put it down" and "I cant wait to get to my mark so I can put this down and do something else". Generally speaking, I more often enjoy stories told through dialogue or from a first person narrative. I just find the way people talk to one another or listening to a person tell their side of a story through their own words more interesting than a third person narrative, and as you can guess, "Cholera" was mostly all third person narrative. Now, as I said, there were portions of the narrative where I could not put the book down. Marquez's story telling is so descriptive that it's incredibly easy to visualize the setting, the mood, and the characters within my head, as if I was watching it on screen or as if I was there myself. It makes me wonder if 1) that's actually what a Columbian town might have looked like during the late 1800s/early 1900s, and 2) how Marquez could describe it so well since "Cholera" was published sometime during the mid-1980s (assuming that his descriptions of the time and place are accurate). The other edge of that sword, though, is that during portions of the novel, scenes and pages and pages seemed to drag due to the heavy weight of all that narration. It felt like every single minute detail had to be stated, and at times, I didn't care for all of that.

Now, the main point of the story is unrelenting love, and in that, I felt like the story was both romanticized and somewhat realistic at the same time. It was romanticized in how sure Florentino was of his "love at first sight" that he spent fifty years waiting for another chance to express his love, but at the same time it was realistic in how both Florentino and Fermina went on living the rest of their lives, dealing with their love lost in his/her own way. Florentino, becoming a "player" of sorts, trying to suppress or replace his longing for Fermina by sleeping with a host of other women (I think six hundred sixty two was the finally tally?). In the mean time, Fermina marries a man who she could get by in life with, both realizing that they were not in love and they were not happy persay, but they could survive well enough in each other's company, and perhaps from that, love would come to be. The reality is that I'm sure there are a number of those out there who often wonder if they "settled" (though I hate to term it in so few words), and perhaps there was a greater love out there for them, but the circumstances of life did not permit them to find it and/or embrace it. At the same time, that same "what if" questioning is romantic in itself, of course taken with a grain of salt (I'm not trying to condone divorces or home wrecking here..).

All in all, "Love in the Time of Cholera" is a diligently told story of (true) love, a genre I can say I am not overly familiar with (at least not without a certain level of cheesiness). But the book won a Nobel Prize, for God's sakes; and who am I to argue with that?

Can You Tell Me How To Get, How To Get To..

2010-02-02T04:00:00.003-06:00

Book13: "Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street" by Michael Davis

Today, parents are bombarded with a million television programs aimed at their younger children at home. You have your Blue’s Clues, your Dora the Explorer, your Wiggles, and a host of other educational shows, but back in 1969, none of that existed. Those days, there were few children’s programs that attempted to teach the very young, and it wasn’t until Sesame Street that millions around the world realized that you could effectively use television to teach pre-school children valuable knowledge with the help of a little green frog and a very big bird.

Michael Davis’ “Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street” is exactly what it says. The book chronicles the ins and outs of the show’s entire history, from the very beginning where the original question of “Could television be used to educate children” was asked and lit that first fire needed to bring Sesame Street into existence, all the way to the hype of Tickle-Me-Elmo during the Christmas season of 1996 and today, where Sesame Street is no longer a mere show, but an educational and media institution.

What I appreciate most about “Street Gang” are the rich background stories of all the people involved behind the Muppets, the scenes, and the very creation and idea of the show. I know all about Cookie Monster and Big Bird and Grover and Elmo and I know who Jim Henson is (thanks mostly to The Muppets and Fraggle Rock), but I had no clue and gave no second thought to the others behind Sesame Street. There is Joan Ganz Cooney, the small time producer who, without which, this show would never have aired; Joe Raposo, the musician and composer and genius behind a number of those catchy tunes that with us as children; Carroll Spinney, Frank Oz, and Kevin Clash, who brought Big Bird and Cookie Monster and Elmo to life the a way that no other puppeteers could; and Jon Stone, the head writer and producer, who was the mind and soul behind the program for so many years. In this book, Michael Davis is able to tell all of their stories, where they came from, how the show biz bug bit each one of them, and how they each traveled the road that eventually brought them all together at just the right time. Sesame Street was truly a team effort. Without any one of those people or the dozens of others involved with the show over the years, Sesame Street would be undoubtedly different from what it is today, and in fact, may have never been brought to fruition.

Last November, Sesame Street celebrated its 40th anniversary. Though the show was booked for one hundred thirty shows for its first season, the cast and creators behind Sesame Street never could have imagined that the incredibly noble yet seemingly impossible task that they all sacrificed for would last beyond that first season, let alone another forty. Growing past the age of five, I had written Sesame Street off as nothing more than a kids’ show, but now, thanks to “Street Gang”, I see the err of my viewpoint. Sesame Street is a historical achievement, one where the wants of the children (enjoyable television) and the wants of the parents (an education for their kids) were so joyously and successfully joined.

And yes, this review was brought you by the letter ‘M’ and by the number 4.

A Generation of Players, Not Suitors

2010-01-29T01:03:00.004-06:00

boy does not meet girl. that's not what i see anyway. people dont meet by happenstance. they are not total strangers across a crowded room or on a bus or walking down the street, innocent and sincere. the boy does not muster up the goofy yet endearing courage to introduce himself POLITELY to a girl to ask her on a date. there is no naivety in the courtship. there IS no courtship.

we hook up. we meet in bars and clubs. we dress cool and smooth and suave and walk with bravado. we throw lines and spit game at the cute girl in the short dress who we definitely want to bang, but we're not sure if we'd bring her home to mom. we're not even thinking about a girl we want to bring home to mom. we talk like two sentences ago.

in the only profession that demands a man be a gentleman in addition to his position, i find myself hard pressed to find uncommitted examples. we are arrogant and brash and outlandish and vulgar. we have faux class.

we make the times, and are victims of it. i am as guilty as my kinsmen in this. today is the day of unrestricted personal opinions and of pushing the limit.

perhaps the present has always been like this, and those that have come before us were just as vulgar, but are now protected by history and the past.

it does not matter if we think ourselves great men today. it matters if others think us to be great men fifty years from now.

Hip Hop, Marmalade, Spic and Span..... wait, what?

2010-01-25T00:35:00.003-06:00

Book12: "White Noise" by Don Delillo

Disclaimer: The following is a poorly written review with an absolute disregard for research, insight, professionalism, and just plain old good manners. Reading the review is likely to fill readers with the incessant need to bitch and moan like an juvenile snob. I take no responsibility for causing such actions, or any responsibilty for this review in general.

“White Noise” by Don Delillo came as another recommendation for a friend, but only came as that; no expectations of greatness or prestige other than the cover telling me it is one of Penguin Books’ great books of the 20th century. As stated, no research was done prior to reading. I jumped in head first.

The story centers on Jack Gladney, a professor at a Midwestern college who teaches and is the the department head of Hitler studies. Jack is around 50 years of age, has been divorced five times from four different women, and is currently married to Babette, a slightly overweight cheery middle aged house wife who has brought two of her own children from previous marriages to match Jack. Together the couple and their four children/step-children live in the outskirts of a town called Iron City. Jack has a preoccupation with death, and his strong fear of it becomes the focal point of his life after his town has a brush with a potentially lethal chemical cloud.

The book is divided into three “acts”, if you will: Waves and Radiation, The Airborne Toxic Event, and Dylarama. The first act is somewhat disjointed. The chapters arent told as a continuous narrative story, but instead separate events involving the characters, serving as a background of sorts for the characters, introducing who they are. The second act introduces what I consider the “start” of the story; the city is exposed to a black chemical cloud that infects those exposed with a chemical called Nyodene D. The final act, and the meatiest of them all, narrates the aftermath of the exposure, and how it affected the lives of Jack Gladney and his family.

To be honest, I was pretty lost for something like the first two hundred pages of the book. I, more or less, struggled through the first fifty pages of the book, and could not keep myself awake to read THREE pages without falling asleep (after working thirteen hour work days, six days out of the week). It probably had a lot to do with the fact the first part of the book, as I said, did not have a continuously flowing story, but was a series of episodes (in the form of chapters) providing background information on the characters. Call me a juvenile reader, but in order to get hooked to a literary story, I need a story I can immerse myself in; a plot I can attach myself to. Obviously, in the later parts and chapters, a story emerges and I’m able to finish the book, but even then, I am still not one hundred percent there. A couple main themes jumped out to me, but I don’t think I fully grasped those ideas, though I will try to put them into words.

The first of the themes that seemed to jump out was the oddity of the culture. Firstly, Jack is the department head for Hitler studies, which was created because Jack suggested it to the school’s dean. I understand that there might be classes dedicated solely to the study of Hitler, but an entire department? And from the book, it seemed like it wasn’t an outrageous or eccentric thing. The classes were well attended; as a professor, Jack was highly respected by the students and staff. They even hold a conference to be attended by Hitler scholars from around the world. It’s as if the Department of Hitler Studies is legitimized just because Professor Gladney proposed it, and that was more than enough for others around the world to give it credibility. The same thing can be seen in Jack’s colleague, Murray, who was formerly a sports writer from New York City, but came to the school to teach pop culture, particularly the studies of Elvis Presley. The Pop Culture Department had already been established, but Murray achieves respect for himself as a professor and for his subject with the help of Jack, who pops into one of Murray’s classes for a scholarly debate/discussion. And the students/faculty accept it! I realize it’s a fictional story therefore anything can basically happen, but it’s just shocking to see trivial things like pop culture and Elvis held in the same regard as applied mathematics or English literature. Don’t get me wrong; I freaking love pop culture, but I still consider it fluff compared to more intellectual topics. Though, in today’s world, with things like TMZ.com and Twitter and other magazines and websites dedicated to gossip and pop culture and the celebrities who inhabit those worlds, maybe Delillo wasn’t that far off when he wrote the book during the mid-1980s. Perhaps in other ten or twenty years, students WILL be able to get a bachelor’s in pop culture, etc.

Another theme that seems to drift through the book is man’s relationship with technology. Technology is seen here and there through the book, but every time it is, those passages jumped out to me as if Delillo was trying to get his point across to me. There’s a seen where Jack checks his bank account balance at an ATM, and by the way Jack narrates the transaction and the feelings that wave over him as a result, it seems almost like the ATM is a living person. Jack gets some sort of validation or acceptance of himself from the machine. Murray has a similar “relationship” with television. It fits Murray’s character since he is a pop culture professor, but he’s mesmerized by television that makes it seem like he idolizes the thing. It’s like a supreme being, feeding him knowledge and information, and Murray is entranced by this. Between these two characters, I think Delillo was trying to say something about our emotional and psychological relationship with technology.

The final, and probably most important, theme that I pulled from the book was that of death. As I stated, Jack is fearfully obsessed with death, as is his wife, Babette. They have serious conversations about how they prefer to die before the other, because they couldn’t live on. Death comes to a head for Jack after an encounter with the black chemical cloud, and it makes death a greater focus in his mind than before. It’s difficult to write about the ideas without giving too much of the plot away, but in a later chapter, Jack and Murray have a candid discussion about death, and how man deals with it and the results of it. During the talk, Jack basically throws out all the romantic and optimistic notions of death and instead approaches the subject with a cynical and literal point of view.

Overall, the book seemed like a jumble of a number of different themes and ideas that Delillo was trying to push out to the reader, and in the end, it left me a bit fuzzy and muddled. It’s the same way I felt reading dialogue between the characters, who always seemed to conversate in a disjointed, tangential way, as if they weren’t having a conversation with each other, but rather talking with themselves and only speaking in statements rather than responses. And maybe that was the point of the book and it’s title, “White Noise”. All these individual thoughts and fears and actions we have are just white noise that fill our own lives, but ultimately they lead to the same point: that we all are going to die.

I Was Alone, This Bird Had Flown...

2010-01-06T11:08:00.002-06:00

Book11: "Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami

“Norwegian Wood” by Haruki Murakami is a first-person narrative centering on the life and experiences of Toru Watanabe. Watanabe is an eighteen year old freshman from Kobe who lives in a boy’s dormitory while attending college in Tokyo in 1969. He lives a normal, ordinary life with few friends, but the few that he has lead him through a number of growing pains. These include Naoko, the former girlfriend of Watanabe’s best friend who committed suicide right before they graduated high school, Midori, a spunky, outgoing girl from Watanabe’s drama class, and Nagasawa, an intelligent, self-centered ladies man who shares Watanabe’s fondness for American novels.

I had never heard of Haruki Murakami before this book, which was sent to me by a friend who was a fan. Despite my ignorance of Murakami’s works, “optimistic curiosity” was my initial reaction before I even turned one page, due to the fact that the author is Japanese and the main characters are Japanese students. Having lived a number of my formative years in Japan, I have a deep fondness for the country, the people, and the culture, a fondness that reaches deep enough for me to consider Japan (Yokosuka) my hometown. Reading “Norwegian Wood” re-woke all those nostalgic feelings I have for Japan. Between the detailed descriptions of the landscape and cities (some areas I’ve been to; i.e. Shinjuku), the food (GOD, I miss the food), and little tidbits of the culture/way of life (the morning calisthenics on the radio/television, the street soda machines that sell liquor, the various rail systems), I felt as though I was living that life once again. Even the dialogue and manners of speech of the characters were dead on (duh, no surprise), which ranged from quiet politeness to exaggerated, almost cartoon-like exclamations, but all of which were always spoken in proper (non-slang) English.

Murakami’s writing style overall was very surprising to me. Granted, I’ve never read a “modern” novel by a Japanese writer, and it has been years since I’ve read any Japanese literary works (mangas not included), but I was surprised by Murakami’s writing voice. I’m not sure I can label it “Western” or “American”, but I thought it had some similarities to other writers like Vonnegut or Salinger. Every scene was described in great detail. The story telling was aggressive, but it maintained a quiet, nearly unaffected outlook that defines the protagonist/narrator, Watanabe.

Watanabe’s personality was what I enjoyed most about the novel. Lately, I had been thinking that there are so few stories (at least in my limited reading experience) that centered on ordinary, mediocre people. I find that stories are on interesting characters, those with personality flaws or who have lived through some extraordinary experience, which makes perfect sense. Who wants to read stories about typical people? But that’s exactly who Watanabe is. Throughout the book, he constantly described himself as “normal” and “ordinary”, and the way he moved through his life and reacted to others around him maintained those self-prescribed descriptions.* It was the other supporting characters who added those interesting quirks to the story. The personalities of the other characters range from quiet and depressed to outgoing and vibrant to determined and self-confident. Despite their differences, they all feel a personal connection to the ordinary and normal Watanabe, a connection that they say they do not share with others. And it’s these relationships and interactions between Watanabe and his small group of friends that provide the movement and interest in the story.

This being my first outing with Murakami, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the story. Of course I attribute some of that enjoyment to the nostalgia I felt from reading stories of Japanese life, but most of my enjoyment came from Murakami’s writing. His ability to move the story along through the normalcy and plainness of life was inspiring and captivating to the point that I could hardly put the book down and seemed to fly through pages at a time. “Norwegian Wood” just gained Murakami another devoted fan to add to the throngs he already has.

* After a few chapters in, I began thinking that Watanabe reminded me somewhat of a less abrassive Holden Caufield, which was pretty funny because a few chapters after that, Midori, when first meeting Watanabe, commented that he had an interesting way to speaking and asked if he was trying to be like that guy from “Catcher in the Rye”.

When He Traveled Time, For The Future of Mankind

2010-01-02T04:52:00.003-06:00

Book10: "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

I always find it a difficult situation when a friend suggests something for me to enjoy because they so thoroughly enjoyed it themselves. It pressures me want to like it in exactly the same way they do, though that is highly improbable. That is the case I find myself in with Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five". It was on my to-read list due to Vonnegut's acclaim alone, but my good buddy sent it to me as a care package. In the book, he wrote, "Enjoy this masterpiece." Masterpiece. That is a lot of pressure.

The meat of "Slaughterhouse-Five" follows the eventful life of an American soldier named Billy Pilgrim. Billy Pilgrim is captured during World War II and ends up surviving the Dresden bombings and later goes on to become an optometrist, marry a fat woman named Valencia, survives a plane crash, and is kidnapped by aliens called Tralfamadorians. And somewhere in all of this, he has become unstuck in time. As such, he unexpectedly moves through each of these events in his life at random, giving the story a non-linear chronology.

While it may seem that this would make the story confusing and convoluted, it actually worked really well. Every scene feels like a small window of Billy's life. You are not listening to a biography of man, but rather listening to the man tell you his stories (but it's a third person narrative). He tells you what parts he wants whenever he feels like they need to be said, with no regard for a consistent time line. It's an ironic twist because Vonnegut actually has characters in the story who live on that idea: the alien Tralfamadorians. As it's explained, the Tralfamadorians are aliens who can see in the fourth dimension. This ability causes some misunderstandings between Billy and his captors, but the Tralfamadorians explain their view to Billy. As humans, our lives seem to be a series of choices, a cause and the following effect, and at the end of life, a person ceases to exist. For Tralfamadorians, because they can see in the fourth dimension and therefore see all moments at exactly the same time, there is essentially no choice in life; everything is predestined. Everything has already happened, has always happened that way, and will always happen that way. Therefore beings do not cease to exist to the Tralfamadorians; they are still alive because they continue to exist in other moments, the moments we consider the past. As we follow Billy through his jumps to different points of his life, we see that the narrator references this logic more and more since Billy has already seen what comes next (i.e. Edgar Derby's death, Billy's own death). This logic also seems to be the backbone of Vonnegut's most famous phrase, "So it goes."

"So it goes" is a phrase used heavily throughout the book, always following any discussion or any sort of mentioning of death (or rather, the end of life). It's a bit like "That's what she said" (I realize "Slaughterhouse-Five" pre-dates "The Office (US)" by something like forty years) in that the statement provides a bit of humor to the text. However, while "TWSS" offers an obvious, semi-toilet humor to "The Office", "So it goes" is a more subtle and dark humor for "Slaughterhouse". Death is heavily mentioned in "Slaughterhouse", but instead of being the typically morbid, solemn, melancholy affair it is in real life, Vonnegut gives it a tongue-in-cheek quality by following every mention of death with "So it goes." It's difficult to explain, but it's like someone shrugging both shoulders with a smirk and saying, "Oh well! That's that!" It's a tone used throughout the novel, even without mention of death or Vonnegut's phrase.

I'm wary to apply the "masterpiece" designation of the book, but it is incredibly well-written (call that an understatement if you like). Though I have trouble explaining the dark yet humorous tone of the book, it's what I enjoyed most. It smacks of a small hint of Shakespeare; tragedies laced with ironic humor. It's a different kind of subtle humor that I don't think I see much of anymore. But alas.

...So it goes. (I had to say it.)

Tis The Season, It's Always The Real Thing (Holidays Are Coming...)

2009-12-22T06:04:00.004-06:00

Book09: "The Christmas List" by Richard Paul Evans

Trust me when I say that being away from family and friends during the big, family-oriented holidays blows. This perpetual suckness is worsened when you spend it 1) in a war zone, and 2) in a Muslim country where the mere mentioning of Christ and his yearly birthday party are equal to spitting in someone’s face (just joking; nationals are mostly indifferent). Since I cannot be serenaded 24/7 by Christmas jams on the radio or in the mall, and I dont have the option of watching “Bad Santa” on FX or spending twenty four straight hours watching “The Christmas Story” on TBS, I decided I needed to fill myself with the Christmas cheer in a more accessible-to-Afghanistan media form: bookage. As such, I found author Richard Paul Evans. For something like the last ten years, Mr. Evans has written a Christmas-oriented book, all of which seem to have positive reviews from online readers. After sifting through Evans’ catalog of written Christmas works, I settled on this year’s work: “The Christmas List”.

“The Christmas List” by Richard Paul Evans is, for all intents and purposes, a modern day re-imagining of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. The story revolves around James Kier, a wealthy business man from Utah who has been a very bad boy, particularly to those closest to him and other business associates/partners (stop me if you’ve heard this one before…well, except for the Utah part). As with most Christmas stories, this is a tale of redemption, and Mr. Kier is in need of it this holiday season. However, unlike other retellings of Dickens’ classic (i.e. “Scrooged”), “The Christmas List” focuses less on the attempt to make Kier see the error of his ways and more on his actual path to redemption, which, unlike the other works, takes longer than one magical night.

Despite desperately wanting to enjoy this book, I did not. I was looking for something to get me into the holiday spirit, even if it was cheesy as hell, but this book did not do it for me (and that’s coming from someone who enjoys the Governator and Sinbad in “Jingle All the Way”). Each scene was given its own chapter, a number of which were short, some spanning no more than four pages. This gave the book a very screenplay-like feel, and not a good one. The characters were also very bland. I thought they were one-dimensional with no depth or believable self-conflict, and when (some) of them do change their outlook at the end of the book, it’s unconvincing. And no character is more guilty of this than the protagonist, James Kier.

This being the story of James Kier’s redemption during the Christmas season, he does change, but as I said of the other characters, it’s unconvincing. The first hinting of Kier is through his obituary (I wont explain now), and then through other characters’ discussion of him. Both paint Kier as a ruthless business man with no remorse for fair play or the outcomes of others; his only focus is gaining more money for himself. That works. It’s what I expected. However, when we meet Kier, he doesn’t fully embody the evil business man persona others have painted him as. In some early scenes, he seems downright reluctant to be that evil (his lawyer seems more heartless than he does). While this is a hinting at the “he wasn’t always this evil/there’s still a good man in there” play, I would have preferred for him to be an absolutely disgusting human being, which would have made the change even more significant.

Additionally, his reason for change was also entirely unconvincing. Thought to be dead by the public, Kier reads his obituary online as well as the comments section of the article. Suffice it to say, most every poster was left searching for something positive to say about Kier, and this is what convinced him to try to change his ways. Now, just like the “there’s still a good man in there” play I mentioned earlier, I believe this was Evans’ attempt to show the reader that redemption and change from bad to good does not just happen overnight, and may even happen for the wrong reason. It’s a gradual process that takes time to fully realize, and that’s true. I just don’t think Evans was able to express that metamorphosis well.

Small note: I was also a bit disappointed that there weren’t any supernatural elements to the story. “A Christmas Carol” and most retellings of the story involved the Ghosts of Christmas Past/Present/Future in some capacity, and I think that supernatural/metaphoric representation was part of the fun of the story. That element was missing from “The Christmas List”, and my enjoyment suffered for it.

Evans’ latest Christmas novel, though recommended by other readers, did not fill me with Christmas cheer. The writing was elementary, the characters uninteresting, and the dialogue bland. The only enjoyable passages were Evans’ description of Christmas atmosphere, but these were few and far between, and ultimately not able to save this book. I can’t speak for his other books, but after reading “The Christmas List”, I’m wary of trying Evans’ other books. I’d have a better time finding my holiday cheer in a movie, perhaps one where Zooey Deschanel sings a Christmas classic with Will Ferrell. In fact, I think I’ll do that now. Merry Christmas.

This Is All So Crazy, Everybody Seems So Famous...

2009-12-19T06:25:00.004-06:00

Book08: "Eating the Dinosaur" by Chuck Klosterman

I love Chuck Klosterman, but at this point, I’m not sure if I love him because I agree with what he writes, or I agree with what he writes because I love him. I’ve been following Klosterman’s work for around four years now, and it all started on a whim. I randomly picked up “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto” and became enamored with how he could take (what seemed to be) the shallowest parts of pop culture, pick it apart so insightfully, and in the end tie it all back up and deliver commentary that seemed to speak hidden truths about our society. Klosterman returns to form in “Eating the Dinosaur”.

“Eating the Dinosaur” is Chuck Klosterman’s sixth published book, and harkens back to the format of “Sex, Drugs…” as a collection of unpublished essays. As such, the chapters of “Eating” do not exactly flow together like other BOOKS. In fact, every chapter focuses on a different subject entirely. In the first chapter, Klosterman comments on the nature of celebrity interviews, tangentially mentioning Jennifer Aniston and her “Friends” and Prince’s image-marketing prowess during the 80’s and 90’s; in the second, he jumps to a comparison and contrast of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana’s album “In Utero” to David Koresh and his Waco Branch Davidians. Reading the chapters (or even the smaller sectioned essays within the chapters) as lone entities unto themselves leaves them just as they are: separate essays and ideas and thoughts that Klosterman wrote, perhaps, over an expanse of time, independent of each other. That alone would make them interesting enough. After all, who wouldn’t be interested in the relationship between Rivers Cuomo, Ralph Nader, and “Friday Night Lights”? However, I think Klosterman’s writing has reason beyond that, and it may in fact define the purpose (if I can call it that) of pop culture commentary.

At its foundation, Klosterman’s ideas (whether it be why sports enthusiasts have a particular distaste over the bust of Ralph Sampson’s career or why the Wildcat formation is the current flavor of the week for football teams at every level) are an explanation of pop culture’s relationship with us, society. In every example, it seemed like Klosterman was defining the relationship between society and pop culture (whether it be ABBA or laugh tracks), and then looking at how each party’s intent and reactions shaped each other. His formula seems to be 1) pick a subject, 2) talk about what society typically thinks about subject, 3) delve into what subject really meant to be or wanted to be or actually was, 4) talk about why that did/didn’t happen because of how society reacted to subject, and 5) conclude. Now, that outline is simple and in no way does justice to the work or incredible insight Klosterman has on our society, but I think it simply explains why we (maybe just me) care about pop culture. We care about that relationship we have with pop culture. Fads and celebrity and fame don’t come about out of thin air, on a whim, or solely as a result of the work/intent/will of the subject. We are in a give-and-take, symbiotic relationship with pop culture. We shape it and define it, and in return, it does the same of us. And Chuck Klosterman draws out and discusses that relationship better than most anyone else I know.

“Eating the Dinosaur” is essentially more of what I love about Chuck Klosterman’s writing. Pop culture is somewhat of a guilty pleasure where “Top Gun” and “Lost” and Miley Cyrus are not (OF COURSE) considered with the same weight as other, more intellectual works. But that’s what I love about Klosterman’s work. His writing gives me the guilty pleasure of shallow, useless pop culture (in fact, he seems to roll around in it as much, if not more so, than I do), but presents it and discusses it in an intelligent and insightful manner that makes me less guilty over my infatuation and, sometimes, makes me feel smarter for reading it.

And if I incorrectly used words (i.e. “novel”), then FCK YOURSELF.

There's gotta be a way to sing "Zombie Nation"...

2009-12-13T07:56:00.003-06:00

Book07: "World War Z" by Max Brooks

Though I thoroughly enjoy the subject matter, my "experience" with zombies is pretty limited. As young as I am, it's mostly based around "Resident Evil" and other similar video games, "28 Days Later", "Shaun of the Dead" (an absolute favorite), and the most recent "Zombieland". When I saw the cover of "World War Z"by Max Brooks, it got me thinking. It was dark and a bit desolate, hinting at the rough side of war, the grittiness of it, and there was blood and the word "zombie". It was enough for my imagination to sell the book to me. Unfortunately, my imagination was far more exciting than anything the book had to offer.

The idea of the origin of zombies in "WWZ" wasn't dull. It centered around zombie-ism being a disease of some sort, rather than being born of the sci-fi/supernatural. Of course, it isn't the first time this notion of zombies was pushed out (i.e. Resident Evil, 28 Days Later), and I always found the concept interesting (same with vampirism being a sort of disease). The dull part was the delivery. The story is told through a series of interviews with various people from around the world who experienced WWZ. The characters ranged from doctors and scientists to politicians to members of different forms of military to regular civilians. The interviews were divided into eight "chapters", each chronicling a different time frame or area in the war: Warnings (pre-war), Blame, The Great Panic (when everyone started freaking), Turning The Tide, Home Front USA, Around The World And Above, Total War, and Good-Byes.

Each interview was bland. The characters were not interesting at all. Every chapter, (nearly) every anecdote was like a history lesson of the war, and not the good kind. It was like I was in AP Government again, but instead of watching news documentaries about Vietnam or the Gulf War, it was a fictional count of a war with zombies. I wasn't around for Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, so I cant personally say how effective that "realistic" approach to a sci-fi idea went, but Max Brooks did not have it. The characters were uninteresting; they had no personal voice. Every account sounded like the same person just stating a different view. Brooks' characters had no depth, no emotions or reactions you could believe. Nearly every character's interview sounded staged, like they were reading lines from a play or a really bad monologue. On top of that, they would all say cliche things like, "Who could have been ready for this?" or "Those cries will be with me for the rest of my life." Honestly, it was like a high schooler wrote the dialogue; an unimaginative high schooler. It was like that scene in "X-Men" when Storm was fighting the Toad and delivered the worst line in the movie. The dialogue made "WWZ" feel campy. And for a book using anecdotal interviews as a vehicle for narrating the story, that's the one thing you cannot get wrong.

Another aspect of the book that bothered me had to do with some of the people who were interviewed. It makes sense to interview politicians who ran departments in charge of solving and containing the threat, or the military men and women who had to face the threat head on as part of their duties, but Brooks went a bit off the deep end. Why do I care about an interview with a guy who was scuba diving for zombies? Or a guy who became a dog handler during war because he stopped a couple of random dudes on the side of the street from eating a dog? It was like a slow news day. It was like the Interviewer ran out of good people to get stories from, but he was three thousand words short of a complete story, so he just threw those guys in to meet the criteria. I'll let it be known now: if our world does in fact go into a war with zombies, I do not want to see the news running stories and interviews about guys who went undersea diving for zombies or a guy who became a dog handler during the war.

The only chapter that I did enjoy and felt some emotions with was the final chapter, "Good-Byes". It's basically an epilogue for the story, the interviewer coming back to characters introduced earlier in the book, and their accounts of life after liberation. I think it was by far the shortest chapter, with most interviews lasting no more than a page or so long. I dont know if it was the brevity of the pieces, but Brooks really got to the emotions of the characters, and it wasnt campy or corny; it was real. Maybe it was the hope thanks to survival or the desperation and disgust due to what was lost, but for the first time in the book, the characters felt like real people telling sharing their real feelings.

Despite being a novel approach to telling a story, Brooks wasn't able to hook me and pull me deep into the story. I think a lot of the plot and the events that were described sounded like what would happen to our world if we ever found ourselves battling zombies, but the lack of believable characters and story telling made it all sound like no more than political ponderings rather than a story. That hint of realism may have worked in his "How To" guide due to being a bit ironic and tongue-in-cheek, but it didnt carry over into "WWZ". If you allow me to be equally campy, "World War Z" was a lot like the zombies in the book.....dead! (Right?? Right??? Because the book was boring, and boring things make you seem like you're dead...! And zombies are dead...!)

There Goes My Hero, He's Ordinary...

2009-12-01T06:11:00.004-06:00

Book06: "Friday Night Lights" by H. G. Bissinger

“Friday Night Lights” by Harry Gerard Bissinger is the story of the 1988 Permian Panther High School football team from Odessa, Texas. In order to write the novel, Bissinger quit his sports writing job in Philadelphia to move to Odessa so that he could accurately follow the Permian Panthers throughout their season as they strove for the highest honor of all: winning the state championship.

Being a sports writer, it comes as no surprise that Bissinger perfectly chronicles the highlights and the edge-of-your-seat plays throughout each of Permian’s games. However, “Friday Night Lights” is much more than a simple book about a great high school football team. The true strength of Bissinger’s novel is how he perfectly captures the relationship between Odessa and the Permian football team. The town of Odessa, once a gold rush of oil fields but lately a community in the dumps, rests its every last hope, its every happiness in life, and the town’s entire identity on the Permian Panthers. Since its inception in 1959, the Permian Panther varsity football team has always been a force to be reckoned with in the arena of Texas high school football. Over the years, they’ve won a number of district, regional, and state championships, and as such, the people of Odessa have come to expect no less than a championship team every year. Living in a town riddled with poverty, crime, and no way out of their abysmal lives, there literally is nothing else the people can take pride in other than this team. As such, the town gives everything to these young “gods”. The starters get a free pass in class, whether it’s in attendance or a passing grade, alcohol and drugs are provided to them like candy, and they are absolved of any and every transgression. The players happily accept their status above the rules, and many live for it. It is a fair trade when all they need to do is provide the town a championship team. However, when games result in losses and winning a championship becomes questionable, the town easily turns on their heroes. The pressure of this highest of highs and lowest of lows relationship with the town takes its toll on the players.

Bissinger closely covers the top starters of the Permian Panthers team: Boobie Miles, the senior star fullback who is more than ready to accept his role in the spotlight; Mike Winchell, the under-sized QB1 who must lead this team to a championship despite his own insecurities; Ivory Christian, the middle linebacker and probably best player on the team, who fights a love-hate battle over football within himself; Don Billingsley, a halfback, known more for causing trouble in town than playing on the field as his father had done twenty years ago, a former star of the Permian Panthers; and Brian Chavez, an outlier in Odessa who dreams of attending Harvard after graduation. From day one, these players, along with all others on the team, sacrifice every part of their being for the sake of football, whether it be playing through injuries and refusing medical treatment so that they can continue to play, or the emotional and psychological stress that comes with feeling the weight of an entire town on your shoulders. Despite all these unrelenting troubles, and the treatment they receive when things take a turn for the worse, these teenagers press on all for one reason: this is what they’ve wanted to do since they were mere children who could barely understand the game of football. Their entire lives have been tailored so that they could one day be the heroes of this broken town, and they will not give it up. It’s not just a dream; it’s their sole reason for being. The relationship with football is intoxicating, a drug with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, one that the players refuse to give up, and one the town will ride with them hand-in-hand.

“Friday Night Lights” completely captures the culture of Odessa, a culture that can no doubt be found in various other small towns across the country. There’s both good and bad in the culture of these towns. On one hand, it’s a time capsule of old America, where people left their doors unlocked in case a neighbor needs to use their stove, where kids waved American flags, where the townspeople prayed in church together on Sundays, and where the people believed in hard work. On the other hand, it has the worst aspects, where the word “nigger” is openly used without hesitation, where people vandalize the head coach’s car and home just because they lost, and where you were useless and less than nothing if you could not perform for the team. “Friday Night Lights” is a great story of hope and struggle and determination and, for good or bad, believing wholeheartedly in something as small and as big as high school football.

I Saw The Sign. And It Opened Up My Eyes. I Saw The Sign.

2009-11-27T05:09:00.004-06:00

Book05: "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" by Thomas C. Foster

For my fifth book, I chose to go with “How to Read Literature Like a Professor” by Thomas C. Foster. It was one of five books that I bought in preparation for my deployment to Afghanistan. It caught my eye in passing, stacked on one of those random desks that Barnes and Noble has strewn throughout the store with section titles like “Summer Reads” or “Best Selling Paperback”. The summary on the back cover grabbed me though, proclaiming a guide to deeper and more insightful reading and analysis of literature and novels. Being a former student of AP English 11 (I did pretty well) and someone who’s always hungry for the “true meaning” behind the words, whether it be a story, a speech, or a song lyric, I was hooked and had to have the secrets. However, by the end of the reading, the book had humbled me and my ability to read into the deeper meaning of writing.

The author, Thomas C. Foster, is a professor of English at Michigan, and one who’s class and lectures I probably would have enjoyed and listened to intently, instead of falling asleep or just deciding to not show up. Foster’s writing reads exactly like lectures in his college classes, however, he wasn’t difficult to read. He wasn’t condescending and his ideas weren’t difficult to decipher; he brought every one of his points down to a level even basic readers could understand. His tone and voice were conversational, but still informative; a mark of a man who truly knows about what he speaks, and who really wants people to understand and be able to see as he sees (or reads, rather). And the book is exactly as its title proclaims: a guide for insightful reading.

Every chapter (26-ish, I believe) focused on one specific symbol, and how writers throughout the years used these symbols to express similar ideas and themes over and over again, granted, in their own way. It was like someone opening your eyes to a new point of view, like you finally saw the sailboat hidden in the Magic Eye. Each chapter I read opened my mind up to this new “vision” for reading. I thought I was finally catching on and that I had finally broken through the wall of face value, but I quickly found out that I wasn’t in the final chapter. The final chapter contains a five to six page excerpt from a short story, and at the end, Foster poses a couple of questions to the reader regarding what the story signifies and how it signifies. Afterwards, Foster cites three different answers to those questions, from three different students who have varying degrees of experience with Foster’s guidance. The writing shows that as each student has spent more time under Foster’s tutelage, the more insightful the student’s analysis became. Sad to say…I was at level one (college freshman).

In no way is this book the keys to the kingdom. This isn’t the answer sheet to a final exam. Rather, it’s a fast and loose guide by which a reader can build a foundation on for the future, thus, the reason I decided to tackle this book before getting deep into my Cannonball Read Deuce reading. As Foster states early on in his book, as with most skills, it will take a lot of practice to develop and cultivate the ability to “read literature like a professor”, but it’s a start. And hopefully the next forty-seven books will offer enough practice for me to regain some of my literary pride.

But It'd Be So Empty Without Me...

2009-11-17T10:40:00.003-06:00

Book04: "The Jordan Rules" by Sam Smith

This past summer, Michael Jordan was accepted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Definitely a no brainer. The surprising part of that day was Jordan's "acceptance" speech, if you want to call it that. During his "speech" (more like rant), he seemed to be releasing about 30 years worth of ill feelings that he may or may not have held back from everyone who's entered his life since he first started playing basketball. Gone was my vision of a heroic icon who was a decent man who just hungered for the game, and in his place stood a bitter, vengeful player who held a grudge and a chip on his shoulder for way too long. It was the first time I actually saw Michael Jordan in this light, but, as I'd come to find out, it was not the first time the world was introduced to this "true" Michael Jordan.

"The Jordan Rules" is centered around the 1990-1991 NBA season, the first of six times Michael Jordan would win the NBA Championship with the Chicago Bulls. The author, Sam Smith, was working as a sports journalist in the Chicago area at the time, and decided that he would chronicle the ins and outs of this season with the Bulls. The title references both a supposed set of "rules" the Detroit Pistons had developed in order to shut down Jordan during games as well as the special treatment Jordan received by a number of people for being the star that he is. The outside cover reads "The Inside Story of One Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls". And it is completely right.

Smith digs deep into the core of what the Bulls were that year: a superstar who believed he deserved more credit than he was given and didnt think anyone else could do the job but him, eleven other team members griping over minutes, chances to score while in the shadow of Jordan, and their contracts, and the new head coach (Phil Jackson) who would have to figure out a way to make this all work. Of course, in the end, I knew the Bulls would win the championship, but after reading page after page of how the other players resented Michael Jordan and how Jordan was an egotistical jerk who's addiction with his star status was basically the crux of all the malcontent within the organization, it truly is a surprise that they got one championship at all.

Jordan was basically as I stated: a player who had become a huge superstar, but thought he deserved more. Not only did he believe he was deserving of the treatment he was receiving (which, to be fair, he did); he believed he deserved MUCH more. The truly surprising part for me was how terrible of a teammate Jordan was until the Bulls entered the playoffs. Jordan had no faith in his teammates and ridiculed and debased them for every mistake they made, while the Jordan Rules protected him from criticism even during games in which he played poorly. Growing up, I always imagined Jordan being a great person, a figurehead who lead his team into battle and was beloved by all. To me, it was if he was Captain America. Come of to find out, Jordan was NOT Captain America. Many people term him as "hungry" and "the fiercest of competitors", but come on. That does not excuse him from being an atrocious teammate, which he was. You can be hungry and a fierce competitor without belittling your teammates. But Jordan was not a leader, and he was no hero. In fact, the only hero in the book was the first year coach, Phil Jackson. It was interesting to hear about a Phil Jackson outside of basketball. In fact, it seemed like Phil Jackson barely defined himself by the game of basketball. He was somewhat of a "hippie", and preferred to read the news and discuss politics and world affairs over anything sports-related, and he had a degree in psychology. Amazingly, he'd often use this to shape and to mold his players into a team. Jackson would often read into what each player wanted and how each responded to the world around him; he'd couple that with his basketball and coaching knowledge. The end result was a team that won a championship by surviving each other.

The power behind "The Jordan Rules" is that it really examines the truth of who these players are. Smith shows us that these sports superstars, these idols of children and so many more, are just as human as the rest of us. They have the same tendencies and fallacies and make all the same mistakes and commit the same vices. Michael Jordan was not a god amongst men in terms of being a human being, but I guess for me today, he doesnt have to be. Despite my displeasure over who Jordan was, it doesnt change the fact that I, along with so many others, are still enamored with him. He was the most incredible basketball player who ever lived, and in the end, that's who he'll remain.

(How do I enter the "Eye of the Tiger" guitar riff here without the lyrics? The lyrics suck.)

2009-11-15T06:15:00.003-06:00

Just finished watching my second episode of "The League", the new comedy on FX, and I love this show. Why do I love this show? I love this show because it is centered nearly completely around fantasy football. About 90% of my love for this show is based on the simple truth that it centers around fantasy football. And you know what? This is only my second season playing fantasy football! How am I so crazy already??? I know! I can't explain it! It's like I got the Awesome Disease really late!

Fantasy football is both a godsend and a fckn disaster. Last season: godsend. In some bizarre way, I ended up 2nd in my league of superfriends. This season I am dead last with 1 win to my name. LT, I love you, but you goddamn ruined my season. The only way you can repay me is by destroying the Broncos at Mile High in one week, and then ripping their dreams of winning the division out of their fckn skulls. I know; I know. I should be talking to Philip Rivers right now, but I'm still hanging on the naive notion that LT can find a way out of his funk, and help the Chargers get into the playoffs, teeth gritted the whole way through.

There are a couple of completely unrealistic things that happen in "The League", of course. Every show has this, but I dont know; it just seems so much more obvious to me watching "The League". First off, the wives are all hot. ALL hot... or at least cute. Completely unrealistic. Really? They fell for these guys? These guys? And they still get to play fantasy football and act like children, and these hot wives are in love with them? I vote "unrealistic". Secondly, in the second episode, in order to prevent his wife from hearing about his new source of masturbation stimulant, Ruxin trades Peyton Manning for Fred Taylor and Torry Holt to Jenny/Kevin.

.....

WHAT?!?

That is an impossible trade! I dont care what you might be getting black mailed for! You CANNOT make that trade! For shame!!! FOR SHAME!!!!!

I told you there were unrealistic things in this show.

Now onto other shows.... I've fallen behind.

PS: So far, all that I've learned from "The Jordan Rules" by Sam Smith (I learned this in the first 5 pages; I'm on page 173 now) is that the Michael Jordan you saw during his acceptance speech for the NBA Hall of Fame is EXACTLY right. Don't believe the Wheaties box or the Nike commercials or the Hanes commercials! That petty asshole with a chip on his shoulder is exactly who he is. Whatever the reason may be (the "drive", the "competitiveness", etc.), Michael Jordan is a douche. But I still like him.

2015 Riverside, It's Time To Say Goodbye...

2009-11-12T12:55:00.002-06:00

Book03: "Shadow of the Giant" by Orson Scott Card

"Giant" picks up where "Puppets" left off (of course): multiple powers in the world are in disarray because their leadership and heads of state decided to ignore the warnings of their Battle School military geniuses and instead play into the hands of the twisted Achilles, who received a deserving death at the hands of Bean. With Achilles no longer a threat, the most ambitious of the Battle School graduates take grasp of true positions of power, and play against each other with ruling the world being the top prize. All the graduates happily "compete" (through military strategy and war, of course), except for two. Bean and Petra have only one mission in mind: the retrieval of all their stolen children. Graff offers to help them find their offspring, if Bean will help Peter Wiggin achieve his goal of peacefully uniting all the world's people under his hegemony. Now Bean is faced of a multitude of choices, and must make his move quickly, before he dies.

Whew. Going through all those plot lines is like going through a freaking soap opera. Except that "Giant" deals with war, military strategy, and the shaping of the world at the hand of military and political geniuses. Of course, with as many players as Card has, and the world quite literally being the stage, it's completely necessary for Card to guide us through each subplot, as if we were watching an entire season of "Lost" in 367 pages. But as he's done in the past, Card weaves his story beautifully, with each subplot and each character playing it's part until the very end where all merge for the grand finale, and you finally see the big picture when all is revealed.

"Giant" plays like Act III of a Shakespearean play (..and IV, and V..), when all the players are in place, and all that's left is the climax (that's what she said). After three books of showing us how brilliant these children (now "adults" in their late teens/early twenties) are, they have finally reached the stage where they answer to no one (sort of) and it all rests upon their shoulders. And what do they do? They become human. Card shows the fears and worries and vulnerabilities of each character, exposing them as fallible despite their genius. It's a bit ironic that now that so much responsibility rests solely on Alai and Virlomi and Hot Soup and Peter's shoulders, that they suddenly fall prey to humanity, whether it be frustration with an impossible task, blind arrogance, realizing what's necessary for your people, or going facing your demons and becoming the man you need to be. Bean and Petra already showed some of their "human side" in "Puppets", but it becomes even more apparent with their parenthood, and all the emotions and difficult decisions they must now make for the sake of their family. The praised genius children of the world have now grown up, and have inherited the Earth, good and bad.

In the end, the world does what it always does: grows old, and the players with it. I know that Card is working on the final book of the his "Ender" series which is supposed to tie the "Shadow" strand and the "Ender" strand together once again, but "Giant" does the job already. Without trying to say too much, "Giant" puts a great little bow on this great futuristic epic that Card has created, as if it were the end of an era.

(Fox NFL Sunday theme song has no lyrics)

2009-11-08T10:56:00.005-06:00

Wow, what a great time.

For those that don't know, the Fox NFL Sunday Pre-game show came to Bagram AF this past weekend for a special taping in honor of Veteran's Day (11NOV, this upcoming Wednesday). Lucky for me, they were staying on the compound I work on, so I heard IMMEDIATELY when they arrived, and got to do a special photo op and a quick autograph session before they started going out on the FOB to do more Meet & Greets and other events.

On Saturday and Sunday, they had the actual taping in the MWR gym. Unfortunately, I work on Saturdays, so I was only able to go to the Sunday taping, but it was really cool.

All those guys are freaking awesome, and it was way badass for them to come out all the way over here and do this for us. They kept saying THEY'RE thankful to us for all that we do, but getting to experience something like this when just about everything else in your regular life back home is taken away from you is just a great, great thing.

Thanks again, guys!

Everybody Have Fun Tonight. Everybody Wang Chung Tonight.

2009-11-07T12:36:00.006-06:00

Paranormal Activity

THIS OPINIONATED REVIEW IS FULL OF SPOILERS. I HOPE IT RUINS THE MOVIE FOR YOU.

First of all for my excuses, I did not watch this movie in the atmosphere that the film makers probably thought it should be watched in. I was at my office desk in the middle of the day after lunch, trying hard to listen closely to every little sound that would occur over the noise of people walking around and talking everywhere (aka working).

Second of all, OF COURSE this movie is compared heavily to "The Blair Witch Project", the movie that was released 10 years earlier, under SIMILAR pretenses and filming styles. I was not scared of "The Blair Witch Project", not even a little bit. I am much more scared of the stories of the "White Lady" and stuff told between friends and the such.

I didn't think this movie was scary. I know everyone is going to say that it's because I didn't watch it right, and if I had seen it at night, and had to go home and think about it at the end of the night, I'd be scared of it. I'm pretty sure that would have happened. Lots of times, just randomly, I think of these things anyway. I don't need a movie to make the Boogey (does that spelling make anyone else think of "boogers"?) Man come out and night... at least in my mind. Movies like this just make it seem as if my imagination is true to life, because it's happened to people. REALLY IT DID. Maybe the thing that really scared me the most is the fact that they claim the paranormal activity is a demon. Dude. I'm Catholic. I'm not devout, but I believe on the basis of faith. That means I believe that God exists, Jesus exists, Satan exists, and all the other "paranormal" beings that inhabit my faith and religion (angels, demons, etc.). If I really thought about it though, if Satan is the Fallen Angel, Lucifer...aren't all the demons and what not who do the bidding of the Lord of the Flies just fallen angels who thought they were going to rule Heaven? I guess in the end though, that has nothing to do with the power they MAY have over mere human mortals.

After thinking about my lack of fear and going back and taking another look at a couple of scenes, I have come up with the following list of things that helped me not be as scared as I should have been.

MICAH

This will be my biggest complaint here. The dude started out promising. He went and got a camera to document the creepy, unexplained things happening around his house. He continued this mind set, documenting EVERYTHING on the basis that it NEEDED to be documented or else people wouldn't believe it. I applaud that logic whole heartedly. He's right. If later in the movie, they tried to prove it to someone who didn't believe, they'd be thinking, "Darn! Why didn't we think to record any of this stuff?" Micah beat it to the punch. However, he quickly became a douche.

I get the whole "tough guy" act that he put on. For one thing, his girlfriend was honestly scared of whatever demonic forces were at work here, believing that it's followed her around since she was a young girl. You have to put on the tough guy act in order to put her at ease and, as much as possible, make her feel like you could protect her. For another thing, maybe Micah was a little bit scared also, but didn't want to believe it or show it. Thus he puts on the charade of being a tough guy to show his woman he's not scared, and to show himself as well. BUT...he took it too far. He didn't want to ask for help. He taunted the demon into pushing them farther (I think he even said this one time, plus other phrases like "come and get it", etc.). This is not an episode of The Simpsons Tree House of Horror where Bart taunts "The Shining" House into making it bleed blood on his command because he owns the house (I love that episode. What a perfect argument against the unholy terrors in the night.). I don't care if it's YOUR house, big man. Who cares? You think the demon cares that your name is on the deed to the property? Is the demon saying to himself, "Well, shit, he's paying the mortgage and he has all these official documents. He MUST be able to protect the house against my powers. I guess I should stop." Yeah, basically, he took the act too far and made himself a wholly unbelievable character as the movie went on. Even if I liked his baby powder idea (but what was the point of that? To prove it was really there to themselves? They didn't believe it already?).

Near the end, once Katie is starting to lose will power and control of herself, what was Micah's deal with the cross? Katie was catatonic and had a cross in her hand, and her hand was bloody. Micah freaks and takes the cross and cleans Katie up, exclaiming that he has had enough. So what is his defiant step to show he's had enough? He takes the cross.... And throws it into the fire place. Right. That's going to help. The cross is a symbol of evil, demonic forces, and Katie didn't pick it up because she was trying to protect herself from the evil; the evil possessed her and made her pick it up because crosses just make the demon feel at home. Dude. Why would you throw a cross into a fire? I don't care if you're Christian or not; you know what a cross symbolizes, and it's not evil, demonic forces.

SAW THE FORESHADOWING; GUESSED THE ENDING

I did. I often do this to myself. I'm sitting there enjoying a movie, but then something happens to my subconscious mind. I catch something in the movie, something small and trivial. Maybe I was meant to catch it, maybe I wasn't. But as soon as it moved from my subconscious to my conscious mind, I developed a hypothesis to what would occur later in the movie, and I was right 100% of the time. I'm not saying I'm super perceptive or more so than everyone else; there are plenty of other people who caught these things in the movie also and came to the same conclusions. I'm just saying, whenever this happens to me, it always ruins the movie and its ending, and I end up not liking the movie as much as I thought I should have.

One of the earlier nights, Katie, seemingly sleep walking (or something...), gets up out of bed, turns around, and stares at Micah. The video is shown to be fast forwarded, though still showing the scene captured, 3-ish hours ahead, and she's still standing there, looking at Micah. Then she goes downstairs. Micah finally wakes up, and chases her, finds her outside (I originally thought maybe she drowned in the pool, but why would you kill half of your characters 40 minutes into the movie?) catatonic, and then in the morning, she doesn't remember a single thing. HYPOTHESIS: Katie is being possessed by the demon already. In the future, she will be possessed more severely, and will do something bad to Micah (and not in the kinky, sexual way). CONCLUSION: Mike, you were right.

The knife scene. Yeah, it happened all of 3 minutes into the movie, and that's a bit early to call it foreshadowing (or is it?), but there's just something about seeing a knife in a movie of this genre (a large, shiny, pointy knife..) that automatically makes me think, "Someone is going to get stabbed with that knife." It didn't help that the person holding it was Micah (keeping the knife waving in my subconscious mind, then later realizing that I hate Micah equals I think subconsciously think Micah SHOULD be stabbed with a knife) and he was waving it around so carefree and recklessly. HYPOTHESIS (sort of): I wish Micah would be stabbed by that knife because I hate him so much of the person that he chooses to be. CONCLUSION: Mike, you were right. Micah, you get shanked.

Like all dudes (myself included), Micah associates all things paranormal with the Parker Bros. marketing masterpiece, the Ouijia board. "Man, there's some crazy spirits stuff going on here. Hey, maybe they want to talk to us. Let's talk to them! How do we do that? Hey, there's a Ouijia board at Wal-Mart for $20! The Ghostbusters had it all wrong. All you needed was $20 worth of cardboard and plastic." But when he mentions it to Katie, she automatically rejects the idea, just as I thought a woman would. And then she does ANOTHER thing that I knew a woman would do in this case: she makes him promise that he will not buy a Ouijia board. But! Aha! What does Micah do??? Thinks like a dude. He does promise that he will not BUY Ouijia board. What does he do? He BORROWS one. No, Katie, he did not disobey you! He took you at your word! Thinks like a dude. HYPOTHESIS: Micah will borrow or find or rent a Ouijia board from someone/somewhere, and bad things will happen. CONCLUSION: Ouijia board gets set on fire, and tells you about a girl who killed herself through demonic possession. Things are not looking well for yall two.

This one is my favorite. The couple starts fighting more and more as the movie progresses! Yeah, it's just like a couple to do that, and yeah, they're dealing with a stressful situation therefore they are entitled to arguments, but do not forget that this is still a movie. More often than not, in movies, when couples start arguing more and more and more, and the situation doesn't change, and they don't change how they perceive and react the unchanging situation, this is going to end in some bad way where they will not be together anymore. And the fact that Katie is the one who is being possessed by forces superior to those of mere men doesn't make me feel too confident in Micah winning the eventual, point-of-no-return fight. HYPOTHESIS: Katie is going to win this fight. CONCLUSION: Micah is dead; Katie is alive, albeit, possessed and guilty of murder. I still call that a win.

All in all, I'm sure the writers and producers and director of the movie added these foreshadowing events on purpose, EXACTLY for that purpose, but it's not always a guarantee that the audience will pick up on it the first time they see the movie, and come to their own conclusions before they're proven right. Most of the time, hindsight is 20/20. Also, the audience wasn't helped into the suspense other than the fact that it became night and past midnight (the witching hour). There were no ominous tones (Peter Brenner obviously wasn't tapped to compose the score), so it was a teensy, little bit harder to be subconsciously alerted that bad juju was about to take place.

I wouldn't say the movie was bad, and as I said before, I don't think I watched the movie under the proper circumstances, but hey, what can you do? I'm in a 3rd world, war-torn country defending freedom (to a degree), and my berthing is made of plywood. I think I'm a little more worried about a mortar attack than demonic activity in a Muslim nation. I'm sure under the right circumstances, I would have been more scared of this movie, similar to my initial feelings of "The Ring". They say that the beauty and masterpiece that makes this movie so scary is the fact that they don't "show the monster", and leave it up to your mind's wildest imagination to scare you, most of which is done once you're back home in the dark, listening to the bumps in the night. However, that's exactly what prevented me from getting to place. My mind just wasn't able to trick itself into fear this time around. And listening for explosions and gunfire is a little more scary and real than wondering what that "bump" in my B-Hut was (it was probably a soldier trying to quietly masturbate in his room).

Don't Even Bang Unless You Plan To Hit Somethang

2009-11-05T11:33:00.007-06:00

Book02: "Shadow Puppets" by Orson Scott Card

As you can imagine, "Shadow Puppets" continues the story left off by "Shadow of the Hegemon". In this fictional future of our planet, China has invaded and conquered India and Southeast Asia, led by the insane antagonist, Achilles (aH-Sheel). Bean, Petra, Suriyawong, and the Hegemon, Peter Wiggin, have all moved to Brazil with their families in an attempt to establish the office of the Hegemon and to do whatever good they can for the world. Of course, this new life is not one of "happily ever afters", and they all find themselves on the run and fearing their lives as Achilles rises to power yet again. It will take everything they have in their power to maneuver through this world broiled in political and military turmoil to survive and hopefully come out on top.

Yet again, Card brings a superb story wrapped in military and political suspense to the masses who have been eagerly awaiting new novels since "Ender's Game" first hit the shelves some 25 years ago. However, Card takes a different spin on his characters in "Puppets". These Battle School graduates, now teenagers, were born and bred geniuses. They are the cream of the crop in military strategists and leaders. But they are still human, and that's what Card explores in "Puppets". Bean, thought by his peers to be cold and detached, examines his human emotions, and finds himself in new HUMAN relationships that he had never experienced before, or had previously denied himself. Peter Wiggin, trying to make a name for himself to get out from under Ender's shadow, has to face the truth that he does make mistakes, and must answer for them to his parents like a rebellious teenager, despite holding one of the most respected and powerful (though maybe only in title) political positions in the world, proving yet again that "Mother (and Father) knows best". Card also re-introduces secondary characters from Battle School, who have risen to positions of power in their countries, and must deal with the religious, political, military, and personal ethics that engulf those new positions.

Reading the Acknowledgments section in the back of the book, I saw that Card mentioned one of the problems he ran into while writing "Puppets" was that he wrote it during the war in Afghanistan between the United States and its allies against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces ("Puppets" was published in 2002). Card states that since he was writing about the future state of relations between the Muslim world and the Western world, he had to "predict" how our world's current situation would be resolved. Being a military service member currently serving in Afghanistan, this afterthought intrigued me. In the novel, war was delivered between countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. It didn't surprise me that the war took place between these nations. Looking at the major "hot spots" for potential or current military conflict in the world today, you'll find that they are the same regions Card uses for war in his story. What DID surprise me was the fact that the United States and Western Europe were not involved with Card's war, and in fact, were barely mentioned in the story. How were we able to keep ourselves out of the rest of the world's business??? I received no answers from Card's book (not that I was looking for one), but it was an interesting take on the world's future.

Even before reading the Acknowledgments portion of the book, I already felt an eerie parallel between this chapter in the Ender saga and the way our world is today, and the way it's been for a long time now. I suppose it's the fact that the story takes place on Earth versus space, and that the countries and religions and ideas poked at by Card are the very ones that seem to be on the forefront of news today that make the story real, but the main theme that I reached from "Puppets" and from seeing the world around me is that you can't please everyone.

And I'm Proud to be an American...

2009-11-02T10:52:00.005-06:00

and so begins the great quest to prove literary endurance and prowess...

Book 01: "Shadow of the Hegemon" by Orson Scott Card

Hegemon continues the "Ender's Shadow" series, following Ender's right hand man, Bean, and the rest of Ender's jeesh as they return to Earth and must now deal with their new status as historical/military celebrities, as well as potential weapons.

If you didn't understand more than 1/3 of what I just wrote, I suggest you read "Ender's Game" first (also by Orson Scott Card). Trust me. You will NOT be disappointed.

In Hegemon, Card continues to do what he did so well in his first two Ender novels, which are creating and narrating deep, vivid characters with rich back stories, and keeping the anticipation and tension high throughout the entire story. However, that's not what I enjoyed most about Hegemon. The thing that interested me most was the heavy use of national identity throughout the book. The Battle School children came from around various countries around the world, training and uniting to defeat a common, non-human enemy that threatened Earth. However, upon returning back to Earth and to their respective homes, they are no longer just heroes of Earth. They're Thai or Indian or Belgian or Russian or Greek. They are national heroes and representatives of their home country, and most of them accept and believe in that identity.

Card amplifies these identities through a war between nations, with the children becoming military leaders, and so their national pride becomes a very important factor. It's that national pride that really struck home with me. Being a military service member currently serving overseas, of course there is some semblance of national pride within in me, and I'm even more conscious of it by being in a foreign country and surrounded by military men and women from a variety of other countries. We each wear our country's uniform and its colors, and that's great over here, but I know for certain that pride is not as easily seen back home (at least, I dont see it), and I think that's a little bit sad.

Card uses countries like India and Thailand and Pakistan and Russia and China, and all the characters from those countries are so proud of who they are and where they came from, which I admired, but I didn't get the same feeling when Card wrote about the United States. Basically, the United States was described as a country with no strong national identity, who's leaders were more concerned with economic ties and keeping the gravy train flowing than being a world presence. It felt like America was written off as being full of people who were more interested in their personal gain/wealth than what could be accomplished as a whole nation. Now, I don't think Card was on a soap box or anything like that (I usually steer clear of works like that; yes, Green Day, I'm talking about your last 2 albums), but I couldn't help but feel some truth in his fictional account of the United States. Gone are the days of apple pie and baseball and pride in the American flag and pride in each other (yes, all these things are here today, but only as themselves; not symbols of national unity); now it seems as if we're all just in it for ourselves. I mean, that IS the American way; personal freedom so that you can be who you want to be and voice whatever opinion you want to voice. I just wish the stereotype of our national identity today was more than just being ignorant, boastful consumers.

Overall, Hegemon plays with the ideas of nationalism and military history and military strategy very well, which has always been a strong point in Card's stories. Anyone with an ounce of interest in those subjects will obviously enjoy Hegemon. It's a well-written fictional story, and while I don't think Card necessarily meant to say anything specific with his allusions to the real world, I'm glad that the story did make me consider my own patriotism.

Next up: "Shadow Puppets" by Orson Scott Card

(YES, there are currently 2 more books in the series, and YES, I intend to finish this story)

I'm Working So I Wont Have To Try So Hard..

2009-10-18T12:09:00.003-05:00

There was an anecdote in "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell about a retired Army officer who participated in a simulated war game for the U.S. government, acting as the leader of the opposition. While the U.S.-led military collected and pined over heaps and heaps of intelligence and information, the opposition decided against that strategy and instead decided to simply act on what little they knew. The opposition won by a landslide.

In this world, there are too many ways to say what you mean.

On the other hand, there are only so many good ways to say it.

We've Only Just Begun...To Live.

2009-10-14T12:19:00.003-05:00

I'M DOING IT. LET THE GAMES BEGIN.

Pajiba Cannonball Read DEUX

Well...let them begin on 01NOV.

Whilst I was training to switch from Navy Blue/Gold to Army Green at Fort Jackson, I was reading 300+pg books at a pace of 1 a week, resulting in 4 books read. Let's see if I can keep up my literary prowess whilst stationed out here in Afghanistan and beyond.

Books read in those 4 weeks:

1) "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer
2) "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card
3) "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell
4) "Ender's Shadow" by Orson Scott Card

The books I plan to start 01NOV and hope to finish by 30NOV:

1) "Shadow of the Hegemon" by Orson Scott Card
2) "Shadow Puppets" by Orson Scott Card
3) "Shadow of the Giant" by Orson Scott Card
(So I want to fckn see how Bean ends this shit. Sue me.)
4) "The Jordan Rules" by Sam Smith

Wish me luck as I quest to tackle 52 books in as many weeks.

Jesus Walks With Them

2009-08-18T20:17:00.004-05:00

Lt. j.g. Bradshaw was bug-eyed, staring straight ahead. He wasn't keeping his excellent military bearing; he wasn't utilizing his Thousand Yard stare. Lt. j.g. Bradshaw had spaced out. He had been up for God knows how long, being run here and there. He was dragged just about everywhere on base in a hurry, and then told to wait. And wait. And wait. And hydrate. And wait.

"God, when will this be over?!" Bradshaw thought to himself. He was frustrated inside, but it only lasted a few moments, and he didn't dare let it slip out and manifest. He had to keep his military bearing; as much of it as he could anyway. Be the rock; be strong. Don't be a prissy brat. Don't show you can't take it, especially not in front of the enlisted. Do NOT be that guy.

In all honesty, he just wanted to hurry up and get to the desert. He had been dreading being shipped overseas and being, quite literally, the Tip of the Spear. It wasn't at all what he had signed up for; they signed him up for this. Thank you, all. But after spending four days in this training environment, he was tired. Lt. j.g. Bradshaw just wanted to hurry up and get to the desert and do his job. He hated having to go there in the first place, but he was going to do his job and do it well. Then he was going to go back home and pray he never had to do it again. The training environment was the real annoyance. He'd get over the desert in time, once he settled in and found his battle rhythm. It would be HIS rhythm. HE would dictate it, as much as possible. Here they told him where to go and what to do and what time to be there. And they told him to wait.

He didn't want to wait anymore.

The Devil and God Rage Inside of Me

2009-08-15T20:25:00.006-05:00

I've settled into my new digs here at Ft. McCrady, the Army-trains-the-Navy command. It's not bad; it harkens to Marine Week during CORTRAMID, so in that regard, it's not anything I havent been through before. I dont think I'm the most junior officer here (because of LDOs), but I think I'm the most junior PERSON by far. I know the Army doesnt pay much attention to rank, but I really do feel like a youngin' out here with all these people.

It's a funny thing, these feelings that I'm constantly battling with. Of course, I dont want to be here and if I had my choice, I'd choose to be suffering a lack of QoL (Quality of Life) on the #1 ship in the Fleet, but there are definitely some benefits to this IA. The only reservation is that my soul is struggling between dealing with the pros and cons of this deployment now that it has become reality.

For one thing, I'm proud to be here. I will literally be on the tip of the spear. In my career, I've been dealing with feelings of "inadequacy" due to not having achieved anything substantial in my 2 year career so far. This literally puts me in the fight, and is something few sailors (at least back in the day) will ever get to say. Along with feeling like I'm actually doing something in my career, I feel like I'll be learning/doing something BADASS in my career. The Army/Marine Corps are DEFINITELY not a life I'd want to live, but you have to admit, they are badass. This is due to a number of things, but on that list are 1) carrying/using weapons, and 2) badassery missions (things like recon and land nav). What am I doing here? Learning/Being a badass.

Obviously the other side of the feelings that my soul is struggling with is just not wanting to be here. I dont want to do this training. I dont want to be away from my family and my friends and my home and Laurie. I dont want to travel to Afghanistan and I dont want to be in the line of fire and I dont want to be in a war zone where I have to stay alert at all times in order to best be prepared to save my ass if shit hits the fan. That's NOT what I signed onto the Navy to do.

But it's something I have to deal with now.

I can 0nly hope that it's "first day" jitters and that as time goes on and my training continues, I will be more focused and determined to do my mission in the time frame I've been given, then get the FCK out of here and go back home. Or I'll just be more distracted. I've already decided I dont want to deploy with Wasp next year (meaning I will not earn my warfare pin) because Quality of Life is more important to me than rank or awards or accomplishments. I can live without something that will all be just a matter of pride for me.

So stick by me as I battle my own heartaches and emotional shortcomings. I plan to make it out of this all the better.

Being Grown Up...

2009-08-15T19:00:00.004-05:00

Mr. Holson gripped the wooden handle of his umbrella in his left hand as he stepped around a puddle. The sidewalk was wet. It had briefly rained earlier that morning, and Mr. Holson had waited for the rain to stop before stepping outside. The rain drops were small and light, but Mr. Holson didn’t want to risk getting wet. It would be a bother to him the rest of the day if he came home wet.

In his right hand, gripped snuggly between his arm and his body, Mr. Holson carried a newspaper. He did not want it to get wet. The rain had stopped, but you could never tell when it might start again. Also, the trees dripped tiny droplets of rain water. Mr. Holson felt the quiet patter of the droplets fall from the trees onto his umbrella and pulled his newspaper more closely to his body.

The newspaper had cost Mr. Holson seventy-five cents. He picked it up every morning from the grocery store that was just down the street from his home, at the corner of his block. Mr. Holson’s son once offered to get Mr. Holson a newspaper subscription. His son told him it would be delivered to his front door every morning before Mr. Holson had even woken up, and it’d save him time because he wouldn’t have to walk down the street for his paper anymore. Mr. Holson refused. He had nothing but time, he told his son. Besides, Mr. Holson liked walking to the grocery store at the corner of his block every morning. He liked that he knew it took exactly fifty-seven steps from the bottom of his front steps to get to the corner store. He liked the wooden, green grocery door that had a little bell attached to it that rang every time he slowly opened the door. He liked how Mr. Curry, a young man in his mid-forties who owned the corner grocery store, greeted him every morning from behind the counter with a big wave and a big smile. He liked the smells of donuts and sugars and fresh apples and coffee that mixed together all at once inside the store. He liked picking up his newspaper from the very top of the stack, the first copy Mr. Curry sold every morning. And Mr. Holson liked walking the fifty-seven steps back to his home, gripping the newspaper under his right arm, the same way he had every morning for the last ten years.

As Mr. Holson took his forty-ninth step from the corner, he turned his gaze from the wet sidewalk below him to the tall building in front of him. The building was old. Blue shudders encased every window, but the paint was faded and peeling. Many of the bricks that lined the front of the building were chipped and eroded. The rails that lined the front stoop up to the door were rusty and creaked whenever you grabbed hold of them.

Mr. Holson looked up at the old building as he reached his fifty-seventh step and arrived at the base of his front stoop. He did not think about how old the building was or how he had lived in it for over twenty-five years. He didn’t think about all the hot summers where he had to prop every window open in order to get some air to blow through his home. He didn’t think about his wife or the music that would flow through the walls and the windows every time she put her favorite record on. He didn’t think about how lonely he had been for the past eight years after his wife passed away. Most of all, he didn’t think about the letter he received four months ago from the city, telling him that he would have to move from his home and take residence up somewhere else.

Mr. Holson did not think of any of these things. He only stood at the bottom of his stoop and stared at the old building, still clutching the newspaper snuggly in his right arm. Mr. Holson stared at the building and sighed a heavy breath of air from his mouth. He looked down at the stoop and began climbing the steps towards the front door.

Blue Skies, Broken Hearts...Next 12 Exits

2009-08-12T10:37:00.001-05:00

"Did you notice how blue the sky is today?"
Up above, the sky was a bright and vivid blue. There were only a few clouds in the sky, wispy and long, as if someone had stretched them across the sky, trying to cover the endless blue color. It was one of those days where someone would look out their window and decide to go for a slow bike ride with a friend or read a book under the shade of an oak tree or go for a quiet walk in the park; not because they wanted to, but because it would seem like a waste of a beautiful day if they didn’t do something outdoors.
"The temperature is pretty good today too. Not too hot, there's a slight breeze blowing every now then. It's just the right amount of warm."
"Jon, will you take a look at this? I'm having a hard time deciding…what shade of blue the dresses should be…"
Jon didn’t say a word to Kathy and pretended that he didn’t hear her. She wouldn’t notice he had ignored her. She was occupied, looking at pictures of bridesmaid dresses, muttering opinions and thoughts to herself under her breath. Jon knew Kathy was just thinking out loud and she didn’t really want his opinion on bridesmaid dresses. "Wedding details are for the bride anyway," John thought to himself. He refocused his eyes on the sky above him.
"I don’t know why we don’t come out here more often. What's the point of having a patio and a grassy lawn if you don’t come outside and enjoy it as often as you can? I think I want to start coming outside more often."
"Blue and silver? Maybe not a really metallic silver, but something more subdued…almost like a gray…Or maybe white would look nicer? I don’t know. Everything just goes with blue."
"Maybe after the wedding, I'll get a better grill and we can come out here and grill. We can grill steaks, fish, chicken...I heard it's healthier for you anyway; grilling."
"Oh yeah, Jon, did you call your groomsmen? We need to get them fitted this weekend for the tuxes. I know I said they could send their sizes in, but I'd prefer if we just got all of them fitted at one time, order all the tuxes together, and just be done with it."
Jon imagined what his yard might look like a year from now. The patio was a good size, but maybe new patio furniture would be good. If he was going to get a grill, he should get new furniture so everyone could sit outside while he cooked. His wife and their guests would look out at the grass and admire how well he kept his lawn. They'd comment on how perfect the weather was; how it wasn’t too warm and how great the breeze felt, blowing across the yard every now and then. Then they'd all look up and just stare blankly at the few wispy clouds that seemed to be stretched across the blue sky.
"Honey, look at that cloud."
"Hmm?"
Kathy looked up, following Jon's finger to a puff of cloud. She didn’t think it looked like anything. She looked at all the other clouds, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight, trying to see if maybe there was another cloud Jon was pointing to that looked like an animal or a car or a dragon or something. Then Kathy just stared at the sky.
"Wow."
"What?"
"Did you notice how blue the sky is today?"

ACrossover the Universe

2009-07-28T14:33:00.003-05:00

Comic books used to be the very indicator of the kind of person I was, at my core. Back in the day, if you were to define me in the way that people in high school like to stereotype and generalize a person's majority trait and make that their singular trait, I would have happily accepted "comic book guy". I would have also accepted "punk music guy", but in my heart of hearts, comic books always dominated the music.

I've fallen off the band wagon. It was not one defining moment. It began right after high school. I had steadily fallen off the band wagon as I steadily grew during college. Money for my precious comic books soon became money for my precious beer (nine times out of ten, probably worth it). And then I graduated and moved to Pensacola. With little else better to do and all this new money that they apparently give to you after you graduate college at this place called a "job", I resumed my love of comic books. I attempted to get back into the "scene", and started reading 10 or so different titles, and tried to stay up to date on all the news and "haps". It was a blissful existence, but it only last a short year and half. Then real work started and basically destroyed everything, as it often does. But this so-called "growing up" cannot be held fully responsible. No, I must cast some of the blame on the comic book industry.

My first reason is simple and not a thing can be done about it. There are a handful of writers that I truly, truly enjoy; Grant Morrison, Brian Michael Bendis, J. Michael Straczynski, and Mark Millar are a some of these few. Whenever they jump to a new project, I always follow one or two issues, and if I like the mix, then I'll continue following their run. The mix is a very delicate thing, though. I've already established that I like those writers, but I also have to like the character(s) their writing as an established entity (like I like Batman, but I dont like Aquaman so much; I'm more willing to follow one of these writers on "Batman" than on "Aquaman"), I have to like THEIR interpretation of the character(s) (I almost always do), and I have to be accepting of the art (out of their control). I'm picky, so the mix weighs heavily on me.
So I may follow forty-ish issues of a writer (i.e. Grant Morrison's run on JLA), but the inevitable happens. The writer leaves the series. Of course this is going to happen; it ALWAYS happens. The same guy cant write the same comic his entire career. For one thing, in all likelihood, he'll run out of ways to be interesting with the characters and the stories. Fck, he's been doing it for the last five years (or whatever length). For another thing, he himself has probably grown tired of the characters and telling these stories. I mean, these are highly creative people, but what do you when you've worn out your muse over fifty issues? You have to move on. And so they move on. I mean, you wouldnt want to see an actor play the same role his entire career, would you?

Another thing has been the PLAGUE of the comic book story for years and years, but it feels like it's gotten a lot worse the last five years or so. I HATE all of these new crossovers. Period. I hate crossovers. Crossovers used to be cool because you got to see characters interact with each other when they normally wouldnt, but like I said, lately, it's been absolutely DREADFUL. Lately, it seems like the characters dont only crossover, but the books do as well, and when you have a set of characters (say the X-Men) who have no less than seven titles related to their history (seven sounds right for the X-Men, but I bet I forgot a few) and you're forced to have to follow all SEVEN books to get the entire crossover story in its entirety for three to five months (if not longer), it becomes a complete pain in the ass. I dont even like all the books! I like, maybe, two of the books, but to get the whole story, I have to read the other five as well. It's a pain in the ass! One solution might have been to suck it up and continue on with gaps in the story. Mostly these gaps are filled in the issues by characters back-tracking and relaying what happened in some issue last month anyway, but that just seems phony and filler to me. I blame my pickiness, but I have to read the entire story as it happened. I hate when stories have these back logging fillers. It's all a con; an easy way out. It seems so cheap.

Truth be told, these are all things that comic book enthusiasts always realize and always complain and always live with despite our incessant nagging and cynicism. The love for the material and the characters is too great. I'm sure it's the same for any person with a hobby their passionate about, whether it be NFL, NBA, or any other sports enthusiast or a cinephile or really anything and anybody. The people who live for the material will always find all these little things to complain about, but it's just proof that they really know what they're talking about. It's proof that they really love this stuff. You always fall off the wagon, but it's never too late for you to jump back on. You're never too far behind.

The Final Frontier

2009-05-27T20:53:00.004-05:00

Adrian Veidt Probably Forwards All His Chain Letters

2009-03-11T14:20:00.003-05:00

After taking a lot of time to think deeply about "Watchmen" so that I could write a competent review of the movie, I found another part of the movie that bothered me, and it occurs in the comic book as well.

Adrian Veidt is supposedly the world's smartest man in the "Watchmen" universe. He tricked, more or less, the whole world into not killing themselves. Like his idol, Alexander of Macedonia, Veidt excelled at thinking outside of the box, thus allowing him to "solve" great riddles and problems (like stopping nuclear holocaust). I mean, all the proof is in the comic to back that Veidt could've quite possibly have been the smartest man in the world, or at least he was really REALLY intelligent.

What bothers me the most is that Veidt, for all his intelligence, was not able to stop Nite Owl II and Rorschach from hacking into his computer files, which did not become his downfall, but did lead to a confrontation and the forced revealing of his dasterdly plot. Why was Adrian Veidt not able to stop Nite Owl II and Rorschach? BECAUSE HE MADE A REALLY REALLLY REEAALLLYYY EASY AND OBVIOUS COMPUTER PASSWORD.

Sorry, it might just be me, but seriously? That's it? "Ramses II"? How did he think no one was going to figure out his password? I mean for God's sakes, it's the other name for his superhero name! Did he really sit as his office desk pondering what he should lock his computer, which held all his secret files and plans for world survival despite ethical issues, and then go, "Aha! I have it! How about the alternate name for my superhero identity?! No one will figure that one out!"

Computer security might be difficult if you're dealing with world-reknowned or experienced hackers, etc., but it should never be as easy as that. He didn't even use a number (not a real number). The "II" was achieved by typing 2 upper case 'I's. If had made it "Ramses2", it would've been a better password than the one he choose. Fck man. The password to log into my online home water bills website is harder than that; and I'm not even mentioning UVA's computing account passwords or my Navy NKO password. You'd think Adrian Veidt, world's smartest man, would be a bit more versed in computer security.

In his defense though (as I learned in AP English 11, you have to present counter argument), he probably never thought that someone would make it into his office unnoticed. Or maybe he had already completely retired his business (since the building looked deserted upon Rorschach and Nite Owl II's arrival, as indicated by Dreiberg) and didn't really care about the information in his computer anymore. But then again, that sounds stupid. Even if you're not going to use the information or office anymore, you'd destroy records and files of highly confidential material.

Maybe he was so sure of his success that he just didn't give a damn?

Still, that's stupid.

Adrian Veidt was stupid. I'd probably be able to hack into his facebook account and change his status to "Adrian Veidt is the stupidest man in the world".

NO! MY FACE!! GIVE IT BACK!!! PART DEUX!!!

2009-03-10T15:41:00.005-05:00

Another point that I saw that MIGHT be attributed to the fast pace of the script was actor's mailing in their lines. There were a few scenes/actors that just seemed... amateur. Like I was watching a high school audition for the spring show. It just seemed as though lines were spoken just to be spoken; because that's what they say in the comic and that's what they need to say to move the story along. It's as if I didn't believe they were acting at all; I didn't believe that they were their character. It's like the director told them, "Here's your line. You're angry. Action!" and so they said the line "angrily". You didn't see an angry character that was part of this story. You saw a person make a statement. "Angrily". The most blatant examples of this were the Jupiters, both Sally and Laurel. Everyone else was good (The Comedian, Rorschach, Nite Owl II, Dr. Manhattan to a degree).

Which now brings me to my one complaint about a casting. MALIN AKERMAN. Smoking hot, but a terrible actress. I was already skeptical when I heard the announcement that she was going to be Silk Spectre II, and she proved it. Seriously though, the only times I was convinced by her "acting" was when she was filming her multiple sex scenes. I believed her then, BOTH times. Her first scene (Rorschach pays a visit to Rockefeller) just cemented it for me. UGH. I hoped that the following scenes would just get better, but every time she "acted" in a scene, one thought kept popping into my head: Jessica Alba, the Invisble Woman. I think it's safe to say that Jessica Alba is a TERRIBLE actress, particularly as the Invisble Woman, and Malin Akerman's portrayl of Silk Spectre II was right in line with Alba. THANK GOD she got naked (though it wasnt the first time she's done it; "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" and "The Heartbreak Kid") because that was her only redeeming part in the movie.

Something stupid was your acting in this movie. Though I don't know who I thought would've fit the bill...

The music. The music, the music, the music. HOLY CRAP. I understand that it's a "period piece" so to speak, and they kept true to that by playing pop songs from the 70s and 80s, but GEEZ was the timing off. It seemed like they played up-beat, up-lifting songs in what I thought would be some of the most gloomy and solemn scenes. It totally ruined the mood of the scenes for me and just had me thinking, "Why the hell would you play this???" Even Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyries" playing during the Vietnam scene where Doc Manhattan is 50 ft. tall and exploes a bunch of VC seemed a bit overdone in a very campy way. Gotta say, not impressed with the score of the movie, in terms of where they used pop songs. But kudos to Peter Bretter or whoever was in charge of creating the "ominous tones"; they at least seemed in line with the mood of the scenes.

This one goes out to Dayday because I remembered commenting on this to Laurie in the theater, but forgot to write it down in my notes. It refers to the scene Dayday mentioned was missing. I'm sure you all caught indications of the scene though, right? The bar scene where Rorschach and Nite Owl II go shakedown to figure out who put out the hit on Veidt? Whilst Rorschach takes care of business, you see Dreiberg turn around and survey the bar, and low and behold, a knot top is sitting at the table in front of him, back turned to the masks, drinking his sorry drink. To me, it seemed as though perhaps the Hollis Mason scene/aspect of the movie was removed due to time constraints or maybe budgetary constraints, but seeing that scene definitely made me think that Snyder originally planned to have the Hollis Mason scene in the movie. Of course, it could've just been Snyder paying the utmost detail to the scenes in the book and translating them as such on the big screen, but I think they had to take Hollis Mason's grand finale out of the final cut.

So I went out and bought Wizard magazine with Rorschach on the cover about 2 weeks before the movie came out, and almost shit myself (well, not really because when I was reading this particular article, I already was taking a shit. With my pants off. On a toilet.) when I read that the ending would be changed. I remember seeing "Wanted" for the first time, and witnessing the major revisions done to the movie that altered the original comic book story. It basically COMPLETELY changed the movie, making it almost nearly no longer synonymous with the comic. It wasn't a bad movie, but it was no longer the comic book story. I feared the same for the "Watchmen", but I actually received the alterations in "Watchmen" much better. It seemed to make some sense (maybe not... wouldn't the rest of the world just blame the U.S. for all of it? Maybe I'm just cynical and pessimistic about human nature and compassion in a fictional 1985) and cleaned up the ending nicely without being an all-out farce of the comic book ending. I can't really say much without spoiling directly, but I ACCEPT the altered ending to the movie.

Another point for Dayday: the "action". When I read what you wrote on Gian's blog about the guys sitting behind you, I thought, "What the fck are those guys talking about???" You're probably correct in your assessment of their "Watchmen" knowledge. I assumed "action" meant "fight scenes", and if I'm correct in my assumptions, there was a WHOLE LOT more action in the movie than in the comic book. And I must say, I was pretty impressed with the fight scenes. They seemed well choreographed and gave you just enough to really enjoy them. Not like watching the fight scenes in the "X-Men" movie trilogy. That might not be fair since all the characters in "Watchmen" sans Dr. Manhattan have no powers and thus must fight solely using punches, kicks, etc. while the X-Men are just about REQUIRED to use their powers in a fight, thus constrained by the movie-making technology of the time to visualize that... but still, I think I make a point. I thought the fight scenes in "Watchmen" the movie were great. The one area the movie can be given a higher grade than the comic, though again, perhaps unfair due to being different story telling mediums.

I was semi-bothered by this. The part where Laurie Jupiter is remembering her childhood growing up and her mom and "father" are fighting, Sally Jupiter goes, "It was one time!" The really struck a chord with me. For one thing, THAT ISN'T HER LINE! For another thing, the delivery of the line seemed to lack... the "correct" emotion... which I think is the way the line was delivered in the comic. Again I say, I'm a slight comic book purist. So sue me.

I was also semi-bothered by the crowd during Rorschach's infamous "None of you get it..." line. I preface that with it's my favorite line in the whole comic book, so to hear it on screen and feel what I felt when I read the comic distracted by the laughter of the rest of the movie-viewing audience, I was a little heartbroken. Stop laughing at the wrong parts, people!

Final note: Holy crap, I couldn't believe how many parents took children that were NOT teenagers to this movie. Simply knowing what this story was, I was gasping when I saw parents leading their elementary school-aged children into the movie theater, probably thinking they were just going to see another "comic book" movie. Then I checked the rating of the movie. IT WAS RATED R. WHO BRINGS AN 8 YEAR OLD CHILD TO AN R-RATED MOVIE. I hope your children grow up with an unusual fear of superhuman blue weiners.

Also, small complaint that I'm too tired to really flesh out: the reveal of the Comedian's lineage by Dr. Manhattan to Silk Spectre II on the moon was COMPLETELY RETARDED. It sucked, plain and simple. It was overly blatant and that whole scene was terrible and devoid of the raw and real emotions the scene contained in the comic book. I know they couldn't and didn't want to (maybe) be as cryptic with that reveal as the comic book was (I mean, people reading the comic for the first time asked me to confirm what was hinted at by the scene in the comic book), but it still could have been done much better. Boo you, Zack Snyder and crew for that scene.

These are the things that Laurie was upset with in the movie. She read the book before she watched it, so she was well-informed (especially with me filling in whatever gaps or questions she might have had, heh heh..) and enjoyed the movie except for the following:

-Rorschach and Nite Owl II had to walk on foot to Karnak after Archie crashed because of a lack of HOVER BIKES. Honestly though, hoverbikes might've been her favorite part of the whole comic. I think the first thing she mentioned to me when she finished the story was that she wanted a hoverbike.

-She was also bothered by the fact that they didn't show Veidt's lush garden in the middle of Antarctica. Laurie really likes tropical places and was upset they didn't have it in the movie.

That's it, that's my review, complete with all the little points I wanted to call attention to. I tried my best not to put in any spoilers for those that haven't seen the movie yet. But if you haven't seen the movie yet and anything I said was a spoiler for you, you probably didn't read the comic book and probably, maybe are confused by or unsure of the points I made in this review. So what's the solution? GO READ THE COMIC BOOK.

I Looked Down and Whispered "No..".... Spelled 'Y-E-S'

2009-03-09T13:54:00.005-05:00

As predicted, I went and watched "Watchmen" on Saturday morning before my NoVAsion. I'll tell you, that Friday was a tough day to get through. I got home from class at around 1300, 1400 maybe, and it took all my power to not just up and go to the theater then, but I wanted to wait for Laurie to watch it. Why didn't we go on Friday night when she got off work? Because it was too important. I couldn't let the experience of watching this movie be tarnished by rude teenagers et. al. who had nothing better to do on a Friday evening than hang out in the theaters (and by hang out, I mean talk to their friends, make noise, text, talk on cell phones, etc.; basically completely disrupt the movie). It really was that important to go when I knew there'd be the most minimal of distractions. I am a fanboy.

I suppose the movie is as good as it could've been. By that, I mean that I did enjoy the movie (high B, maybe a low A), but with all the advances in technology particularly in movie making, I wouldn't know if this movie could've been better made. Plus, I had a couple issues with casting and the such, which I will get to shortly.

As a fanboy, you're ALWAYS excited to see any comic story you love brought to life on the big screen. It's an unconditional excitement (note: this does not include movies such as "Daredevil", "Elektra", "Catwoman", "Ghost Rider", etc. ). But as a PURIST fanboy (which I find myself leaning more closely to versus "doesn't care what liberties Hollywood takes with the character/story"), you fear what Hollywood might do to make the story more appealing to the mainstream (instead of the original fans) and/or NEED to do to make the story work on the big screen, a much different medium from a comic book. Just ask Alan Moore when he was consulted about drafting a "Watchmen" screenplay back in 1986. In regards to Moore's opinion about "Watchmen" jumping into a different medium than it's original, I tend to agree though that didn't stop me from enjoying the movie.

Ugh. Gag me with a spoon, Nick Cage. You suck.

I skip the overall view (this review isn't for non-fanboys who don't know and perhaps have never read/heard of the comic "Watchmen") in favor of the specific points I wanted to discuss after leaving the theater.

When I first heard the movie was 2 hours and 40-ish minutes long, I thought, "That seems practical, seeing how the original story went into such great depth and detail." My girlfriend didn't seem as "accepting" of the running time as I did. After seeing the movie though, I feel as though the movie was rushed. Essentially, the movie just ran from scene to scene to scene, without a pause or a break for the audience to swallow and fully digest the motives, thoughts, themes, and emotions each scene was meant to invoke. I can't help but think that a person who has no prior experience/knowledge of "Watchmen" before watching the movie would feel lost during the viewing. I think I was able to fully grasp and feel every scene despite it rushing through the scenes because I have a previous relationship with the story. I know how the original is supposed to flow; I know the emotions associated with each scene, and their importance, therefore, I am able to fill in the story gaps and fill in the emotions that the movie seemed to completely rush past. The lack of minor characters and their contributions to the story and it's mood, though a necessity for the movie, contributed to this.

An example would be the impending nuclear holocaust thanks to the tensions of the Cold War. Yes, the movie mentions it over and over again, putting focus on it, but did you really feel the weight of that plot? Did you feel doomed whenever a character asked another, "Do you really think we're going to nuclear war?" Did you experience an escalation of fear every time a newspaper or news channel in the movie gave you a piece of the puzzle, foreshadowing WWIII (ie: Russia invading Afghanistan)? I do every time I read the comic, but I didn't during the movie, and that's coming from a "background" in "Watchmen". What more if I was a non-fan who was just taking in a new movie?

I suppose my major concern with that is because the movie leaves me empty and devoid of these emotions and their weight, I believe the non-fan will feel the same or even more apathetic, and that apathy will diminish the magnitude of "Watchmen". For fanboys, "Watchmen" is the Holy Grail. We all know it; we all know it's significance and treasure it as such because we've felt the immensity of the story. Make a "Watchmen" movie without those feelings, and people who don't know it will leave the theater asking themselves, "That was it? So why is this comic so important again? Why was everyone making such a big deal out of this story/movie?" And that would be a travesty.

Thank YOU, Alan Moore for this comic book Holy Grail.

More to come in the second installment, including: actors mailing in their lines, Malin Akerman IS Jessica Alba, the musical score, Niteowl II and the knot top, change of the ending, action/fight scenes, bringing children to "Watchmen", and crowd laughing at my favorite line.

Words I'd Like To Hear In A Rap Song

2009-02-26T17:17:00.002-06:00

Hemoglobin

Definition: an iron-containing respiratory pigment of vertebrate red blood cells that consists of a globin composed of four subunits each of which is linked to a heme molecule, that functions in oxygen transport to the tissues after conversion to oxygenated form in the gills or lungs, and that assists in carbon dioxide transport back to the gills or lungs after surrender of its oxygen.

Rap Definition: Weiner

Allegory

Definition: the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence.

Rap Definition: Big, fat, ghetto booty

Correlation

Definition: a relation existing between phenomena or things or between mathematical or statistical variables which tend to vary, be associated, or occur together in a way not expected on the basis of chance alone.

Rap Definition: Putting your weiner into a big, fat, ghetto booty

Antioxidant

Definition: a substance (as beta-carotene or vitamin C) that inhibits oxidation or reactions promoted by oxygen, peroxides, or free radicals.

Rap Definition: Weiner

I Usually Watch Myself

2009-02-26T16:29:00.002-06:00

One more week to go. I hope this movie makes me cry. Tears of joy.

Free Boat Ride for 3.... THOUSAND

2009-02-22T08:13:00.002-06:00

This song isn't just funny, but it's also true. At least for me it is.

So I've been busy on my new boat for the past month. That's all there really is to it. What do we do? We train and train and maintain and maintain so that when the time comes (it's coming soon) and we're called to act, we don't die defending freedom and democracy around the world. And then you repeat when you get back for the NEXT time the time comes.

I don't know why SWOs get so much shit; they probably have the toughest lives of anyone in the Navy. I guess you could defend that supposedly anyone could do this job (commissioned Naval officers, that is), but there's something to be said of the endlessly, tiring days and work that just never seem to go away, even when you're not on the boat. It's kind of a bitch to put up with so much.

It probably could have been put more eloquently, but I think blunt words are far more effective and true with the lives of SWOs and other sea warriors.

God. Some days, I'm not even sure if the sun woke up and did it's job for the day.

This post is all filler, no killer.

I Listen to the Wind of My Soul

2009-02-04T16:29:00.003-06:00

Writing a blog isn't easy. Ok, maybe it is. Writing it well ISN'T.

I always thought I wanted to be a columnist or someone who wrote for a living. And I don't mean just any writing. I mean writing creatively or expressing my opinions; putting myself into the work. And not just about one subject. I want(ed) to write about topics and subjects that change; write about anything.

Thanks, blogs. Thanks to you, everyone is a columnist. Though that's always been around since angelfire websites and xanga.

But now I find it difficult to continually find new and refreshing things to write about. I don't want to fall into one of those "cliche" blogs:

1) Your life on a daily/weekly/monthly basis
2) Things you find online
3) "Dear Diary..."

I'm sure I'd be able to list at least one or two more "cliche" blogs if I sat and thought about it, but God knows I'm just trying to keep afloat and churn this one out. Anyway, the point is that I didn't want my blog to have a focus or run on a template, like you'd be able to predict and expect something from me everyone I made a new entry (though, I guess there is something to be said for consistency.. but that's something I've thought about long enough to write about).

The only consistent thing I wanted in my blog was my writing. My voice. My opinion. The way I "speak".

That's why I have a bunch of different forms of writing and topics in my blog. I'm continuously trying to keep myself fresh; dabble in different ways of speaking for myself on different things.

Maybe that's why I keep trying to write music. Changing the melody and changing the words gives just enough variety in writing, while still providing you the opportunity to make sure it's told your way, and that people know it's yours.

So take it from me: the best way to stay fresh is to just say the most blatantly outrageous shit anyone's ever heard. The only thing consistent about that is that they don't know what you'll say next.

Predictably unpredictable.

In honor of the Super Bowl, and all those who DTC:

The Same Ol' Never-Ending Story

2009-01-31T14:45:00.005-06:00

"It's a little bit funny", he said with that smile she was beginning to detest.
"What is? Please tell me what's so funny about lies from an absolute stranger who's a breath away from crossing the line into being a creepy jerk."
"Well, nothing about that, I suppose. But maybe the core; the fundamentals of our situation here. That might be a little bit funny, don't you think?"
"Fine. I'll stupidly bite. What are the "fundamentals" of our situation?"
"Well, just that you were sitting here by yourself, and something about you caught me for more than a mere glance. You can call it your looks, and by no means am I trying to say you're not an attractive girl. You are very pretty. But it takes more than that. Your "aura". Your being. There are a lot of beautiful people in the world, but not everyone has that way about them that you can't describe beyond saying 'I was attracted to you'."
She sat, digesting his words. She tried to tell herself that he was just throwing more game, spouting more "sweet nothings", and so she tried to find any clue, any hint that would prove her fears and cynicism correct. "The eyes. Look at his eyes. You can always tell a person is lying from their eyes. They ARE the window to the soul for a reason." But he wouldn't look at her. He spent all this time up to now, meeting her dead straight in her own eyes, but now he wouldn't take one look at any part of her, let alone meet her eyes.
"Obviously, it was enough for me to try to lie to a complete stranger. Why would I lie? You know nothing about me. You don't know my faults and vices and errors. As long as I didn't tell you any of them, there'd be nothing for you to dislike me for. So why lie? What have I to lose?"

We Won, Oh, We Won

2009-01-28T18:48:00.003-06:00

"You should care more about Canada."
"What do you mean? I think I care a fair amount about Canada. In fact, I'd argue that I care MORE about Canada than the average person. At least slightly. Like at least 10% more."
"That might be so, but I still think you can do better. You should try."
"Maybe I will try. But before that, I think you should try to list the good things that might come about if I were to care about Canada more."
"Maple syrup intake."
"What? What does that even mean?"
"Your maple syrup intake would probably increase. I hear that's a perk for supporting the great nation known as Canada."
"And that's a good thing?"
"Of course it is. You like maple syrup, don't you?"
"I do. But let us not forget: all things in moderation. This includes maple syrup. And probably care for Canadia as well."
"Did you just say 'Canadia'?"
"No."
"You just said, 'Canadia'. You did."
"Ok, yes, I did."
"Well, what the hell is 'Canadia'? Or did you just misspeak?"
"Absolutely not. I don't misspeak. It just isn't written into my DNA. I am genetically incapable of misspeaking."
"What the fck are you talking about??"
"Whoa, pump the breaks. There's no need to be vulgar. Please. Think of the children."
"What children?"
"Well, there aren't any physically here right now, but think about the children of the world. Like the little Canadian children. Think of them."
"You're right. Pardon my language, children of Canadia. Dammit!"
"What the Orville Redenbacher, mate?!?"
"You see what you just did? YOU did this."
"The only thing that I see is that you obviously don't care as much about Canada as you lead others, like myself, to believe. Perhaps now is a good time to take a step down from your Canadian soap box."
"I didn't lead anyone on. If you thought I cared a great deal for Canada just because I told you that you should care more about Canada, you are mistaken. And I forgive you for that."
"What's to forgive?"
"Truth. I think we've just achieved the fabled 'Win-Win-WIN' compromise."
"Agreed. I think we just may have. Congratulations to us both."
"Thank you. And thank you."
"And now we kiss."
"And so we shall."
"Kudos."
"Amen."
*KISS*

No, I'm not insane.

Why, It's Almost Like Being... LINE!!!

2008-12-11T09:35:00.003-06:00

*Disclaimer: This article began as a draft so many weeks ago, which I forgot about, and am now only returning to today, 13 Jan 09. I'm pretty sure what I wrote about has nothing to do with what I originally intended to write about, hence the title is a bit off topic with the rest of the entry, and that bothers me a bit because I do enjoy synching good titles with the material of the entry, but alas, we'll leave it and cite it as "laziness".

"Ahh, to be a young naval officer.... with nothing to do whilst you wait for training. Why, it's like I don't even know what the Navy is really like. And there's nothing wrong with that!"

Ahh, to be young and foolish.

Granted, I still havent experienced what a full, adult "work day" is like (especially for those serving in the Armed Forces), I am no longer full of nothing to do. And I can tell you. Grad school is going to be mighty difficult for me. I can't yet say I prefer to just work a regular full, adult "work day", but I CAN say that I HATE studying and I HATE homework and I HATE coming home from sitting in class all day only to return back to the books and back to work once I get home (after fighting through work traffic). I don't understand how I'm going to get my Master's. The only thing keeping my drive towards that particular life goal is knowing that I totally fckn rocked-killed the EKMS Managers course. A-HOLLA.

I'm not sure I like the new judge on American Idol; Kara-whatever her name is. She's younger and fiestier than Paula, and I guess that's a dynamic the producers of the show were looking to add/inject into American Idol, but I'm not sure I like it.

What I DO know I like from last night's first episode is: 1) That one kid who offered to sing "God Save The Queen" only to reveal quickly that he was being sarcastic towards Simon and in fact did not know the lyrics (who the fck does?). I love innocently brutal sarcasm. It's lovely. And he said he'd be popular in Canada! CANADA! That makes me the 2nd person in the world who cares for Canada.

I also liked bikini chick. She should show up to Hollywood naked. And they should NOT put American Idol censors all over her butt.

Also, my friend/roommate pointed out that the "A" in "American Idol" is a star. She, in fact (and I pointed this out to her), is wrong. It is not a complete star. There is one stroke missing to make it a star (That's What She Said = TWSS). It's almost a star. So what does that mean? You're almost a star. That's right, you American Idols. You're almost stars. Almost.

RED DRIVE

2008-12-09T13:25:00.002-06:00

What kind of color is Red?

Red is a warning, a declaration; a color that says "I'm ready to do what it takes".

Red is focused and driven because Red doesn't like second place.

So what kind of color is Red?

His kind.

Red Drive.

.........

....

... A crisp blend of cherry and citrus flavors inspired by Tiger. It's in Tiger Woods. Is it in you?

(ok, so I stole it from a Gatorade bottle... FREAKIN LAY OFF!)

You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You

2008-11-27T10:41:00.002-06:00

What an odd and unexpected change of circumstances Fate has bestowed upon us. Fate? Or something much more personal? Perhaps something that has been festering and swelling unknown, ignored for quite some time now? Don't dare tempt it. Don't tempt Fate.

I've been pressed on this for some time now. If you dont believe me, see the video below:

Yes, that IS a McDonald's McRib commercial. ..which led me to this..

"...such a silly game we play.." (video embedding disabled)

And my continued search for the song that I think has the same or similar melody... which so far, has been FAIL! after FAIL!...

Things to be thankful for this past year:

-All I care for are healthy and happy (want for nothing!!!)

-New career-direction that I am happy about

-Friends who don't forget me

-Old family friends who treat me like family when I can't be with my own

-Leaving Pensacola and returning home in 5 days

-Being a better person than I was a year ago

You Dont Gotta Go Home, But You Gotta Get the FCK Outta Here (I Think I'll Do Both)

2008-11-25T08:33:00.002-06:00

On the road back to VA. So far, it has major uber (that's German!) sucked being back in Pensacola, but I think it's mostly because I've been given that taste of home, and started to get used to be being back last month. It was everything I thought it would be (basically me drinking the weekends away... I should slow down..), and it'll only get better when all my things are moved into my sweetass, new house (codename: 'SWEETASSNESS'). The countdown is coming to a close.... 7 days to go.

So today I'll officially have nothing left in my apartment. I wont have TV or much anything else. I'll be sleeping on the floor, wrapped in a blanket for 7 nights. Here's a roll call of things I'll have with me after this afternoon:

-Laptop

-Comforter

-Pillow x 2

-Some Clothes

-"World War Z" (I should take this time to read)

-Les Paul

-Uniforms

-Lots of old food/condiments/spices/sauces that I'm just gonna end up throwing away on Sunday

So what the hell am I gonna do with my time? Well... what I've already been doing with my time (see below).

My New Song

Chocolate Rain

Old School FOB Acoustic

Ill Thoughts Cause Illness

2008-09-16T06:54:00.003-05:00

I thought I had purged myself.
I can't keep doing this or else I'm liable to drive myself crazy.
I can't keep letting this hang over my head.
I may be in trouble here.
I've fallen ill, both in mind and body.

Fat Body!!!

2008-09-12T16:59:00.004-05:00

Man. I am entirely too lazy and unmotivated to get into shape, even though I sorely need to. I gotzta trim the fat, but I'm always sleepy and always hungry so I'd much rather fill those needs rather than fill the need to trim. Well, except for sleeping during the day. I don't nap. It just doesn't work like that. And it's hard giving stuff up. My diet should be ok, but man... giving up drinking beer for a couple months to cut out those calories??? I don't think I can do it.... no, I can't. I'll have to make up those calories somewhere else.

I wish there was like a league or intramurals or a track coach or something that I could join so they could force me to work out, because the one thing I don't like to do is to let others down. I usually don't mind letting myself down; I can get over it. But when it comes to other people, particularly people who don't know me too well, I don't want to create a bad image of myself. So I hustle.

And what a crazy week for football. Ups and Downs for me.

Brady out for the year?!? HOLY CRAP! The Chargers now have a REALLY good chance of going to the Super Bowl!!! Like 95%!!!!

MERRIMAN IS OUT FOR THE YEAR?!? OH CRAP!!! Don't get me wrong. I was completely for him getting the surgery before the season even began. But now that it's confirmed, and after watching the Chargers D just disintergrate in the last 30 seconds of last Sunday's game... I'm scared.

Other things to be scared about in the AFC:

Jay Cutler and his new favorite toy, Eddie Royal

Steelers. Shit.

You can never be too sure... stupid, Brett Favre.

Whoop Dat Trick!

2008-09-10T22:46:00.004-05:00

The story of my life. Not many people realize it, or maybe even know it, but it's hard out here for a pimp.

Choices of the Vagine

2008-09-08T22:06:00.001-05:00

me: yo dude

me: "made of honor" comes out on dvd next tuesday

me: you should pick that up

Miguel: fuck you

Miguel: hahahaha

me: hahaha

No One Likes Traveling II

2008-08-13T16:30:00.002-05:00

"I work here."

"Huh?" Felice asked, frowning with confusion.

"Yeah, I work here."

"What, like you're a pilot... Or a stewardess... Or a security guard...?"

Jeff shook off Felice's rambling questions. He wasn't sure if she was joking or if she really was that clueless. He hoped she was joking. Jeff hated clueless girls. Unless they were incredibly good looking. Jeff was unsure about Felice and hoped she was joking.

"No, no, no. I work over there." Jeff pointed towards the little airport store, filled with travel items, cheap last minute souvenirs, and dozens of magazines and books. One woman was reading Us Weekly. Two young boys were sitting on the floor, flipping through video game magazines.

"Oh, I see," Felice said, thumbing through her book, looking for the page she had left off. Her interest in the conversation seemed to disappear. Jeff watched Felice's face, looking at her eyes, waiting for any expression. Felice, who seemed to be fully immersed in her novel again, looked up at Jeff with a lost look in her eyes.

"What?"

Jeff couldn't believe the nerve of this girl.

"What??" Jeff asked with a bit of disbelief.

"Yeah. What?" Felice asked again with an innocent ignorance.

"So that's it? The conversation is over?"

"Well, you answered my question. You revealed the solution to my puzzle. So that's done."

Jeff nodded his head in agreement. He looked around at the new people walking into the seating area.

"For another thing, you lied about flying back into town and coming off of a flight, and since I don't know much about you, it pretty much means that I think you're a liar. And I don't like liars."

"You don't?"

"No."

"Not even a little bit?"

"Not at all. Why would I?"

Jeff started realizing that maybe Felice had a bit more know-how than he gave her credit for. His previous tricks crashed and burned, and now this girl might even dislike him. "Hopefully my boyish charm gets me out of this one," Jeff thought to himself.

"Well what was I supposed to say?"

Felice ignored his question. She wasn't done yet.

"And another thing: your opening line was lame. And you followed that up by insulting my clothes and then instigating that I was an idiot because of what I'm wearing..."

"Hey, I said you WEREN'T like the other girls! Remember? The book you were-"

Felice held up her book. She couldn't believe a guy she just met was trying to weasel his way out of his own mess.

"You mean this book? Have you even READ this book? Or was that a lie too?"

Jeff froze in place. Now he knew his back was against the wall. He smiled widely.

"Heh. Um..."

"Yeah. That's what I thought."

Its Always Darkest Inside Your Mom

2008-07-18T20:45:00.002-05:00

All three actors PERFECTLY portrayed their characters.

I absolutely KNEW this movie was going to kill. After all the hype and leaks of "Batman Begins", how good that movie was (especially in resurrecting the Batman franchise after the late 90's failure of Joel Shumacher), and official word that the exact same team that brought us "...Begins" was coming back for at least one more sequel, there was no way in HELL I thought this movie was going to disappoint me in any way.

The picture that sold me on Ledger as the Joker. I knew at this moment it was gonna be incredible.

However, I must admit, even I didn't believe from the very VERY beginning that Heath Ledger was going to pull off the Joker that I know to be the TRUE Joker (for anyone that doesn't read comics and therefore may not know what I mean, read the trade paperbacks, "Batman: The Killing Joke" by Alan Moore or "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller). After all, the meat of Ledger's work that I had seen comprised of multiple viewings of "10 Things I Hate About You" and "A Knight's Tale". But once I saw the first image of Ledger in his Joker make-up/wardrobe and heard his laugh in the sneak sneak trailer of "The Dark Knight" (the one where it's just the Batman symbol emerging from blue flames), I KNEW and believed that this was gonna be one crazy and DOWN TO THE CORE OF THE CHARACTER portrayal of the Joker.

I doubt I need to stress the point any further; GO SEE THIS MOVIE. Prior to today, as far as comic book movies went, I ranked "Batman Begins" and "Spider-man 2" tied at 1st place, followed in a close 3rd place by "Iron Man". However, after today, the ranking has evolved into "The Dark Knight" in 1st place, and perhaps a three-way tie between "Batman Begins", "Spider-man 2", and "Iron Man".

Oh, and the other best part of "The Dark Knight" that comic book geeks might not know about: the trailer for next year's "The Watchmen". If you don't understand where I'm coming from, go read the graphic novel "The Watchmen" by Alan Moore before the movie hits theaters next year. It'll totally redefine what comics can be for you.

The Rain Aint Over Yet

2008-07-14T17:29:00.002-05:00

I'm still tickin', so don't think that I've gone anywhere. The real world is slowly calling me back, so I've been busy getting ready for that. It's ok; I've been gathering my thoughts up as well. But in the mean time, a sweet sweet video for a sweet sweet song from a sweet sweet band.

Make it so.

Inspiration

2008-06-16T23:42:00.002-05:00

this aint as easy as it looks.

Information Professional

2008-06-11T18:13:00.001-05:00

it do what it do

Drink To The Foam

2008-05-19T19:00:00.002-05:00

19 May. Today marks exactly one year since I was commissioned into the world's finest navy. What have I done since then?

DRINK TO THE FOAM.

The Strong Will Never Fall

2008-05-17T20:28:00.003-05:00

I find it incredibly dissatisfying to have so little true motivation, inspiration, in my life. All that push me further into life seem so superficial, so short term in their ability to keep my spirits afloat, yet they seem to be the basis of modern life as we know it. We want the best for ourselves and our kin, and the chance to provide the best seems to be rooted in the best opportunities that will provide you the best money. The saying goes, "Money can't buy you happiness"; maybe it cannot, but maybe money can afford you a greater number of chances to attain your happiness, like buying as many bingo cards as you can afford to win that jackpot.

Perhaps I'm being too much of a romantic, a "bohemian", for life today, ignorant and blind to the goodness in my life and the other good I will acquire and achieve, but I envy those around me who seem to have their motivation intact, and abundant at that. I hear them speak with excitement and fervor, bright eyed and propelled to do good for themselves. It fills me with their same feelings, but soon it wears off; it is only temporary. My joy was built, but there is no foundation. I do not have a foundation, as they do, so my joy crumbles. Maybe it's not as easy as I write it to seem, for those around me who I perceive as motivated. Maybe their eyes are simply open to the goodness around us that I cannot seem to see but for a few moments. Maybe their souls are just stronger than my own, able to wrestle and pin their desperate and untamed spirits. But I hope that's not the case. I want to be ignorant in my bliss, ignorant in my belief that everyone does find that inspiration, that muse, that pushes them to excel beyond their own limitations; pushes them to that promised land where they find their true life's happiness. I want to remain blindly optimistic that mine is out there, and if only I search a little further for it, I'll have it.

This isn't a cry for hopeful encouragement, or a need for words of faith from others, friends and family, who want the best for me. This is a question without a ready-and-waiting answer. This is a thirst for greatness. This is fear of a possible mid-life crisis, before the crisis. This is me worrying about my life before I've even begun to live it.

Define "arrogant"

2008-05-11T11:57:00.003-05:00

Have you ever sat around and told yourself that you're really NOT that interesting? And then you think about it, and turn and say, "You know what? You're right!" All of a sudden, you start brainstorming ways to make yourself more interesting; hobbies you should take up, music and movies you should listen to and watch, books you should read, trips and/or adventures you should take... but at the end of it, you're just spouting off things that interest you, and you stop when you realize you've just walked in a big circle, because if you're not interesting and your plan to become more interesting is to do things that interest you, aren't you just furthering your un-interesting-ness since you're not interesting to begin with?

Yeah, that sucks. Good thing it never happens to me.

My Shitblog #2

2008-05-06T18:33:00.004-05:00

My buddy, Mark Pando, has given me his great idea to make a weekly "2 times Tuesdays" blog, with one of my blogs being my shitblog. So... going with that, I take the first step in properly and CLEVERLY naming my weekly shitblog.

Watch the video and let me know what you think. Honestly, I can't say I'll listen to any of you who might leave something and that I won't just go off and pick which name I want to use, but what the hey; it's worth a shot.

Happy Birthday, Jersey Muscle!

2008-05-06T14:50:00.005-05:00

And since you so graciously bestowed a limerick for me on my special day, so too shall I bestow a group of lines (a song) for you!

Little voice inside my ear
It's pitch too high for me to hear
No, I think it's something from
Down in New Jersey
Sticks, they magically appear
Always use your muscles here
Yes, a birthday for the
One, ymizlinzy
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, don't make me take another shot
Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood, I think I'm gonna throw up
Happy Birthday!

I'm not sure this is the same melody I envisioned earlier, when I first wrote the song, but we'll go with it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JERSEY MUSCLE (sorry I can't carry a note)!

Ever Hear of the "SUPER WHIP"???

2008-05-05T16:41:00.004-05:00

me: dang man
me: iron man made over 100mil this past weekend
migwel: i didnt see it
migwel: i saw made of honor instead

since I watched "The 40 Year Old Virgin" last night... a few excerpts that fit this situation:

David (Migwel): Did you just flick me in the balls?
Cal (Me): No. I flicked you in the fleshy patch where your balls used to be.

Cal: You know how I know YOU'RE gay?

YOU WENT TO WATCH "MADE OF HONOR" INSTEAD OF "IRON MAN".

WHAT. THE. FCK.

Tired of These Muthafckn Iron Men On This Muthafckn Plane

2008-05-02T21:14:00.004-05:00

This totally made me jizz and crap my pants simultaneously. If you're an uber-comic geek like me, and especially if you've read "The Ultimates", created by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch, STAY AFTER THE CREDITS TO GET THIS LITTLE EASTER EGG. YOU WILL END UP THE SAME AS ME: AN ECSTATIC MESS (in your pants).

And as a side reference, if you were interested in looking up the lyrics to Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", then prepare to be mind-fcked by the story behind the song. I totally think that should be turned into some sort of sci-fi novel/short story/TPB or something. Maybe an episode of the "Twilight Zone". It's got that creepy ironic ending to it, same as "Planet of the Apes".

UPDATE: As of today, 11 May 2008, I've seen the movie 3 times in movie theaters.

My Shitblog

2008-05-01T10:03:00.003-05:00

Before Ruben Medalla can steal my idea and become an internet demi-god due to it, I'm posting this intro video to make it official.

Shitblog #1

Best Knock Knock Joke EVARRR

2008-05-01T09:29:00.001-05:00

Gonzo (9:22:58 AM): knock knock
Me (9:23:11 AM): who's thurr
Gonzo (9:23:15 AM): smell mop
Me (9:23:28 AM): smell my poo who?
Gonzo (9:23:36 AM): you suck
Gonzo (9:23:38 AM): geez
Me (9:23:41 AM): what?
Me (9:23:45 AM): is that the punchline?
Me (9:23:49 AM): cause i dont get it

Out from Behind the Looking Glass

2008-04-29T17:15:00.004-05:00

After 5 years of taking the best opportunities granted to me because they were the best (I'm not sure how to describe the scale used to quantify the "best"; perhaps some sort of weight scale or criteria should be written up), I'm finally realizing that I should be taking the opportunities that make me happy. It doesn't matter if it's not the coolest, the most prestigious, the most financially rewarding, or the most respected/decorated path; it's the path that will make me happy regardless, and in the end, that's all I want out of life.

What makes me happy is being around the people I love.

*This is a good enough start, but I'm not finished with you yet.

Boy, You Should Know That...

2008-04-11T08:09:00.006-05:00

OYFA's turning 20 years old this year! Congrats to the organization that's made my last 5 years as good as any years of my life could've been! After all the torture of 3 years of board, the blood, sweat, and tears, the late late nights and less than average scores on exams/homework assignments/projects/etc., and the unbelievably memorable and good times...you're still the one I run to, the one that I belong to... alright, enough Shania.

Barrio Fiesta is tomorrow evening (which I will not be attending, as much as that breaks my heart, thank you, United States Navy), so in honor I will do two things: 1) Get really wasted either tonight or tomorrow night, depending on my flight schedule, and 2) Post my favorite Barrio picture from the last 4 Barrio's (or choose from the ones I have available to me), all of which I've loved like my children.

Barrio 2004: Sa Simula

The one that started it all. Who has ever heard of writing a script, learning and rehearsing all aspects of it, and coordinating the show performances in less than 7 days?!? All to just use a shameless plug to sell more OYFA '04 t-shirts! But that ending; it's still one we haven't been able to top in my opinion. We couldn't have scripted a better ending.

Barrio 2005: Nasaan Tayo

Haha, round two in terms of script writing. I don't remember what the crap me and Matt were on when we imagined this "dream sequence" that we thought would look as good on stage as it did in our heads, but it remains my favorite part of this Barrio. Those lyrics were too good! And also, maybe the best "Night Before Barrio" practice time ever: Gian coming back just in time to pick up the spirits of the weak and weary... All I hear are rain drops...

Barrio 2006: Balikbayan

Man, now we're starting to get serious...I don't think any of us had any idea just how intense our show was going to turn out that year, but hell, good for us. I had a hard time finding pictures for this one, so I just put a video instead, which basically chronicles that picture I would have put; a huge group picture of OYFA wearing my favorite OYFA t-shirt (sound is off on the video for some reason)!

And finally...

Barrio 2007: Mga Kapasiyahan

Oh, 4th year, how I loved you so. It was at this exact moment that I realized my time was up, and the year was over. For the entire part of the night leading up to this moment, it was all execution, the timing of the show, not messing up, etc., but at this point, more or less, I realized 4th year was over and I'd miss all of this.

Sorry I couldn't make it this year, guys. I really REALLY tried hard to come out, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. Hopefully, I'll be back home for a weekend or something before the school year is over and what not. But have fun tonight, and tomorrow! And when you hear that bass line hit and you know Ghost Town DJ's "My Boo" is about to strike... know I'm there in spirit and chant EXTRA hard for me!

PS: Look out for the alumni vids!

Really Want You In My World

2008-04-08T11:45:00.002-05:00

THIS WAS TOO GOOD NOT TO POST UP.

I thank my good friend, Mike "Buddha" Hilarz, for continuously providing me with free music and for this freakin' gem!

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK ARE BACK!!!!

And in honor of their resurgence, here is a youtube link of my favorite song!!!

Damn right, step by step...

Things Are Shaping Up to Be Pretty Odd

2008-04-07T16:36:00.003-05:00

23 is the loneliest number...

...OK, that's not how the song goes, but it was the only way I could introduce my "requisite" birthday blog/post/message/thank you for this year, chronicling my 23rd year of birth last Friday. There is absolutely nothing special about your 23rd birthday, as a friend has told me. He's resulted to calling 23 the "Michael Jordan" year and 24 the "24" year. There is so little to associate with and/or celebrate these years for that we have to associate them with other cultural references associated with them (Jim Carey's "The Number 23" didn't make the cut; maybe next year). That makes me very excited for my birthday.

23: Be like Mike. Shouldn't be too hard for me..

The only thing I can comment on in regards to my birthday is that it's probably the first year that I felt like I've actually grown from the previous year. Not only have I left home and the parents, but I've left nearly all my social networks, I've left the "hometown/home state", and every form of someone really watching over me. I've also left my dependency on my parents... with my parents. Truth, they're still there for me in terms of parental support/counseling/recommendations/experience to share/sometimes home-cooked food sealed and sent express to me/filing my taxes for me, but other than those minute things, I'm on my own! I live in my own place that I pay for completely, I buy all my own groceries with all my own money, I handle/pay all my own bills and insurance; my car is in my name and I handle all of matters concerning it; I own furniture that is all mine! That's probably the biggest thing: picking out my own living room setting. I've got my retirement funds and savings accounts going, funded every 2 weeks by my own real-life paycheck! I sure am making my way through this world!

I also think I've grown up as a person from who I was a year ago. I know, I know, you people out there who talk to me online and read my crap and my jokes and comments, it probably doesn't really seem like it. I still make all the same stupid jokes, etc., but I actually think I've grown as a person, however small that growth has been. Learning to let go of things, learning how petty I can be, how some of the things I used to get irritated with or things I hated about people were pretty stupid grudges to hold on to. I've learned there are a lot more important things in life to concentrate on, a lot more problems that would be better uses of my time and focus, in comparison to some of the stuff that I used to get myself wrapped up in. And it's not to belittle the people who think those things are important; it very much is a matter of where you are in life. I don't want to sound holier-than-thou, but lots of the little things that used to mean the world to you when you were in school and living that life really do become insignificant in the big picture of life grown up. I wouldn't say I'm completely there, but I'm learning.

10 years later, it's still good

Alright, enough of that introspective, "what does it all mean", examination of life as I know it BS! People don't need to read yet another mopey blog (though most everyone's blogs are cliche in some way...)! So I got exactly what you want right HIZZUR in the form of a beautifully crafted limerick of sorts in honor of me and my 23rd birthday from a girl who's muscles are as big as they are Jersey!!!

Magic sticks is his name, in my heart he'll always stay!
Keeping me laughing all the way, especially missing you since last May =(
OOOOOO WACHA SAYYYY (I can't rhyme anymore) <----- GREAT reference to Summer 07!
Really great at writing, doing the fourth year dance you were my favorite
OYFA isn't the same without you, nobody can make sticks appear like you =(
Enjoy your lovely birthday dear, hope you're flying likeee
Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooom <----- Onomatopoeia! I LOVE IT! (and I thank Mr. Robert Stovall, 8th grade English, Kinnick Middle School, Yokosuka, Japan, for teaching me what that was)

And just cause the song happened to jump up on my playlist, here's a video from one of my faves, SAVES THE DAY!!!

(The song is "Sell My Old Clothes, I'm Off to Heaven")

Cant Stop Wont Stop Eh-uh Eh-uh

2008-03-31T08:24:00.004-05:00

I think I'm beginning to realize that I walk a fine line between a so-called "iron will" and just being stubborn. Especially over the last few years, there were a couple BIG decisions where I maybe should have quit what I was doing and tried something else, but I wouldn't let myself quit. It's not simply the fact that times got rough or difficult, but that they became so because it probably wasn't the best match or the best decision for me; that I could've been a lot happier and more successful doing something else.

Courage, Determination, and Triumph, you say??

I've pined over it again and again, but my most prime example would be my major, Systems Engineering. Man, that first semester of college was a rough one. You can ask my parents, but it was a bit of a blow to them what with my high school track record and all, and they honestly asked me if I want to major in something else, and that if that's what I wanted to do, that I should do so. No more of this switching your major before you submit your application stuff; my parents honestly thought that I was unhappy with engineering and maybe if I switched to something I enjoyed, I'd perform better (I do not know whether that hypothesis is statistically proven, but I'll assume so). At first, I thought, "Finally! My way out to do what I want to do!" The only problem was... at the time, I didn't know what I wanted to do. On top of that, I had been given a glimmer of hope from a professor who thought there was somewhere I could fit in (Systems Engineering, thank you, Ms. Beck) and that if I could just get selected for it, I'd find my place. Well, I got in, and I started performing a little better, but definitely not at the academic level I previously was once at. And of course, part of that can be credited to my not giving it 100% and studying and working academically as hard as I could have been (due to laziness, a desire to have fun, AND extra curricular activities), but I also was never passionate about my major or the work I was doing, and for whatever amount of my "non-success" I can credit to that, I do.

NROTC. Oh boy, there's another one. Another item that I was nearly 100% sure I didn't want to participate in, but my parents insisted that I "try it out". And so I did. And just as I felt with engineering, it didn't kill me, but I wasn't passionate about it. I mean, I'm happy with where I am now. I'm glad to see and be a part of the bigger picture, something bigger than myself; being a part of something that's idealistic and rooted in morals and principles. I'm glad that my job is more than just a paycheck. It's more than just trying to make as much money as I can. But NROTC, I seriously wonder if it was for me. I think I can say that I performed more competently in NROTC than I did in my major, but the passion wasn't there either. I know there are lots of MIDN/former MIDN who were very passionate and gung-ho about what they were doing and their jobs and stuff, and I congratulate them on that, but I can honestly say that wasn't me. While I'm satisfied with where that path has taken me, it just leaves a small shadow on me for doing something that I wasn't REALLY passionate about. Why did I do that? Because I didn't want to quit.

$77 per month?! SNAP SIGN ME UP!

So why don't I quit when it seems so obvious that these paths are not for me? I just don't want to be looked at as a quitter, as someone who couldn't "hack it". As vain and stubborn as that may sound, it's the truth. I don't want to have to come home and have people ask how my job/work/whatever is going, and then tell them I'm not doing that anymore because it wasn't for me. And THAT'S where the line between toughing my way through it and just being stubborn comes in. Am I really a "quitter" if I try something, find that it isn't for me or that it really isn't something I want to do, and thus stop pursuing it? Am I just being stubborn when I don't want to quit something because I'll be embarrassed to tell people I quit something, even if I don't completely enjoy what I do? I don't know, though I've asked myself those questions many times over. You really do have to fail me and kick me out because I will not quit no matter how marginal I am. Kind of like you'll have to stick me with a needle and draw my blood because I can't do it to myself (does that metaphor work??).

(No quips for this one)

So in the end, I guess I don't know what to write it off as. Am I "tough" because I just refuse to quit no matter how bad the times get? Or am I a stubborn idiot who keeps subjecting himself to self-inflicted trials and tribulations? I think it's healthy that I bring the question up within myself as a way to learn more about who I am, but I guess I'll just never figure this one out. At least until I figure out what it is I really want from this life.

Be Prepared: Scout's Honor

2008-03-22T21:43:00.002-05:00

The unpredictability of life is both comforting and a pain in the ass. I suppose which one it's going to be at any given time is based on whether life gives you sour grapes or..... good grapes. And it feels like people tend to become more narcissistic (sp?) when they're given sour grapes. They say things like, "life sucks" and "oh, woe is me." They really are engulfed at how much crap they're being handed at that moment. I don't people focus as heavily on the fortunes when they're good ones. They may say things like, "life is good right now", but they never ask why it's happening to them or what they did to deserve it. And the only time you can really see this sort of thing is in the places in between. What are those places in between? It's you living your life as it's meant to be: unpredictably.

That freakin' fox and his freakin' grapes

2008 has already fed me my share of good and sour grapes, and I've swallowed every single one (that's what she said). Most recently, I've been trying to give myself an optimistic kick start despite my recent negative outcomes, but it's only in these moments at night or early in the morning or during the still deadness of mid-day that I really just remove myself from the smallness of my point of view and I'm able to see the vast, wide void that is an unfinished life. There are so many things that could happen to me from this moment on; there are so many places I can go, so many people I could meet. There are people who could re-enter my life who I never thought I'd hear from again (though I guess not as hard nowadays what with so many online social networks going on all at one time). And when thinking in these moments, you really can't see life with negative or positive light. You just have to see it as the middle of the road, non-biased life you lead. Regardless of what's happened to you or what may happen to you, you can throw it all nonchalantly over your shoulder with a shrug and say, "such is life" (Licenmo, for you). And I think that's how you move on.

People may argue, "Well if you're moving on with life, why don't you just look at it with a positive outlook?"* But it brings to mind the great sports figure, Peter Le Fleur, who said, "I found that if you have a goal, you might not reach it. But if you don't have one, then you are never disappointed." It's not that I'm saying don't strive for things, don't look for the bright sides of life, the silver linings; it's more that you have to realize that both good and bad things will occur in life, for no better reason than that's the way life goes (ALMOST a Janet Jackson reference, but I think she was talking about "love"), and getting wrapped up in either one of these things will leave you stuck.

Peter Le Fleur vs....

...Janet Jackson. Let's dodge ball.

I agree that living life is feeling the emotions and feelings that accompany these events in life. Without being able to tell the difference, without being able to realize both, can you say you're really LIVING life? But I also think that being human means we potentially have the tendency to get stuck on those feelings, and focusing on nothing but those feelings, which, frankly, leaves me feeling unprepared and unready to face whatever life has coming at me next. I'd like to be able to emotionally be prepared for ANYTHING to happen to me next. Anticipating the unpredictable. I think that brings me back to life's unpredictability being both comforting and a pain in the ass.

I guess I'm just looking for what's next in my life. Yeah, I'm on this flight curriculum; I'm on this path, but that's only one part of my life (and even THAT isn't set in stone). I want to keep moving towards the next big thing, the next thing that'll warrant heavy emotional response. The only thing is I don't know when that'll be.

*Example of the bad being a bigger focus than the good: when you "move on" with life, you move on from the bad, never from the good, despite the fact that life is neither bad nor good. It just is.

Think A Thought And Scribble It Down

2008-03-17T12:29:00.004-05:00

This won't be a real post, as in it will have no form other than a random checklist of song lyrics, quotes, one-liners, and quips. You can interpret their subject matter, meaning, and importance for yourself. It's all free for the taking.

"To love is to be brave.
Or stupid.
Or both."

For a lack of better
Words to say
All I said was goodnight
Once again
In self-defense I wont sleep a wink
To prevent dreaming of you
You can sleep on your own bed tonight
Sleep away a silent pain
Screaming out my name
You can sleep in your own bed tonight
I hope for your sake you dont wake up as broken as I am

I'm too busy to write anything,
But if you want to know,
Just ask my heart.

I wanna know
Who's making you smile nowadays?
Because you look so good when you look so happy
I really do wish it was me.

"My heart breaks every night before I go to sleep.
And every time that I dream.
And when I wake up again."

Look into your heart and you'll find love love love
Listen to the music of the moment maybe sing with me
Ah, la peaceful melodys
It's your God-forsaken right to be loved love loved love love

Looks like I'm starting all over again
The last three years were just pretend and I say
Goodbye to you
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew

It’s really over
You made your stand
You got me crying
As was your plan
But when my loneliness is through
I’m gonna find another you

I'm holding out and
I'm holding on to every letter and every grudge.
I pulled myself out of the day we ever had to meet.
Are you through with me?
So
And when it all goes to hell
will you be able to tell me
you're sorry with a straight face?

*I'm still in flight school, IFS. It's going well despite what's going on inside. It's time to concentrate on me and make all of this worth something on that day that I'm OK again. But some days, some hours, some moments you just have to purge.

Why It's Almost Like Being In Love

2008-02-19T19:54:00.002-06:00

I received the link to this website from a friend, and nearly immediately I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to agree with her when she described what awaited me in the link with nothing more than "real cute". I had a bad night, my schweet dreams having been heavily infiltrated by my own personal, potentially real-life nightmare, and to remedy this emotional downfall, I thought it would be a VERY good idea to watch the movie that I thought closely resembled my situation in that exact nightmarish moment. So I watched "High Fidelity".

My Favorite John Cusack. Fck, Lloyd Dobler.

My moment was basically that part where Rob (John Cusack) cant sleep at night because he's having the most terrible, viciously awful dream (nightmare) any person in his position could be having. Rob wakes up, bed "torn to shreds" so to speak, eyes red and shot, eyes watered but not yet flowing a stream of tears, slightly quivering perhaps, and just generally a huge mess with no salvation in sight. And I thought, "Man, if I could see this happen to someone else, some character in a fictional movie, maybe I'd feel better that there's others out there like me who understand it all." You know what I'm talking about. How the stereotype for girls to get over heartbreak is to stay in, watch sappy love movies or whatever movies they want, and pigging out. I thought maybe the notion would translate to me, but then I figured something out about 1 hour and 20 minutes into the movie: THIS IS A MOVIE!!! ROB/JOHN CUSACK WINS AT THE END!!! HIS GIRL COMES BACK TO HIM!!! Why??? BECAUSE IT'S A MOVIE!

Let it be known that real life does NOT mimic the lives of fictional characters on the silver screen, especially when it comes to relationships (except maybe "The Break-Up").

Man, these kids. These freakin' kids.

So anyway, I went to the website, already being a skeptic and cynical towards these childish responses to questions about love, and it didn't get any better as I read through all of these responses from kids, including the second page. There was only one question-answer that really appeared cute to me:

How can two people make love endure?
"Don't forget your wife's name. That will mess up the love." — Erin, age 8

How can two people make love endure? DAMN, that's a tough question to ask anyone, much less to an eight year old kid. If that's all it would take, I think I'd be in a pretty good spot right now.

Love. "Like a fella once said, 'Ain't that a kick in the head?'" You got that right, Dino.

Dean Martin. 'Nuff said.

In other news, I FINALLY classed up to IFS, and on top of that, I get to go to the air school I wanted to train at for the next month, so I was feeling pretty good earlier today. And then that adrenaline wore off, and I remembered how I felt this morning. And that's how I feel now (no pictures of airplanes for you; not until I feel better).

I Wanna Rock n' Roll All Night

2008-02-04T10:23:00.000-06:00

This'll be a short post about my recent purchase, which I have deemed the greatest purchase for myself EVER, and which could remain the greatest purchase I've ever made for the rest of my life. And that is the purchase of a Gibson Les Paul Studio Electric Guitar (this is about the time the clouds part, revealing blue skies and a bask of golden rays that seem to beam from Heaven above... and the angels sing "aahhhhh" in a very pleasing tone).

"Aaahhhhh....."

Those who are not well-versed or particularly keen on rock music (such as my roommate, Ruben) cannot fathom spending $1,200 on a guitar, but let me tell you something: this thing was freaking MAGICAL, just as I knew it would be. Since I've been back from the winter break, I've been passed for classing up to IFS twice, and thus, have had my free time. I've been filling that free time with two things: reading books (4 books finished in 3 weeks), and playing guitar. I brought my bass guitar and acoustic guitar to Pensacola, but the acoustic just wasnt cutting it. For one thing, it's an entry-level dreadnought that was actually my very, very first guitar (Ol' Faithful). On another hand, while it does allow me to remain musical, it didnt provide in the direction that I wanted to explore, mainly blues guitar and riff-ing/solo-ing. What was the obvious solution? Buy a new electric guitar.

Now, as I stated, I wanted to explore playing blues guitar, so I had been listening and watching videos of, and reading about blues guitarists. This is a wide range of people, but I mainly concentrated on B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Jonny Lang, John Mayer (recently, though he's always been a great guitarist, particularly a session guitarist), and the great Stevie Ray Vaughn*. Of course these are the benchmarks to reach, so I'd want my gear to resemble their gear as closely as possible. From my "research" (maybe "observations" is a more appropriate word), the main guitar the majority of these musicians use is the Fender Stratocaster. I had always wanted one, but since I played mostly bass guitar through high school, I never needed a highly-regarded electric guitar. After some reading and what not, I decided I wanted the Fender American Special Mahogany HSS Strat. This decision is broken down into two reasons: 1) I wanted a higher end Strat because I had read the $300-400 Strats, which were made in Mexico, did not produce as good a sound, and 2) I wanted a humbucker pickup in case I ever wanted to rock out and crunch it (this comes from watching Rivers Cuomo and Weezer).

Rivers and his Fender Stratocaster

Trying to get a feel for what people around me were thinking, I informed my brother I was in the market to get a new electric guitar and that I was thinking about getting that particular Strat model. My brother has been playing guitar for maybe the last 4 or 5 years, and I would say could offer somewhat of a valid opinion, and he does. He tells me to get the Gibson Les Paul. I ask him what's his reasoning for thinking this was a better guitar, and he provided me with none, except for saying he simply preferred it. And thus I came to the age-old debate between guitarists: Fender or Gibson?

After doing more research online regarding the debate, I decided that the only way I was going to solve this was by getting my hands on each. And so I did. I went to the Guitar Center here in Pensacola, informed the guitar guy on hand about my dilemma**, and he sat me down and let me test out my two choices. I sat there for no less than 2 hours, getting a feel for each guitar. I played chords, folk-y songs, what little blues riffs and progressions I knew, basically every song I knew, and then just general rocking-out shredding. I tested each guitar every way I knew how. And.... well, you know what I picked. Despite wanting that nice and distinct, twangy sound that the Fenders produce when you riff-it-up, the overall warm, deep tone of the Les Paul sold me. The sound just filled my soul with warmth and well-being. And I was sold. He ended up receiving a shipment of the color I wanted (wine red with gold trimmings) that day, so it was fresh, never opened, never touched. I was the first person after placing it in the case to ever touch the guitar. AMAZING. I also coupled it with a Vox 50watt amp, since I didnt really need that much power, what with not being in a band and all. Needless to say, the entire purchase, sound, experience, all of it blows my mind. It's delicious.

Oh yeah, I also bought a Quarter Pounder with cheese value meal from the McDonald's that was in the same shopping center. So that was good too.

Bliss. Straight up bliss.

*I've also begun listening to and watching a lot of The Beatles. I think is probably due to Gian telling me he wanted to be a mix of The Beatles with Ne-yo, so it kind of sparked the craze.

**His first reaction was to try to sell me the new American Standard Stratocaster by Fender. I was not duped or swayed.

Ozymandias Watches From 1 Million Screens*

2008-01-25T13:42:00.000-06:00

I have never been a big fan of the news, and for a while, I attributed that to youth and how the news was "boring" and unnecessary for someone as young as I was at the time. But now I feel as I have somewhat of a point of argument versus just blaming my lack of age, and that argument is the over abundance of news. Once in a while, I'll get curious or attempt to better myself, and visit a news site (say www.cnn.com), thinking that reading about world issues and what's going on outside of my immediate life will make me "better". But once I get there, I'll probably be lucky to read 3 whole news stories that arent about some new fangled technology, or advice on how to invest my money. THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH INFORMATION.

Seriously. Go to any of those websites right now and just look at how many different links and how many different news stories there are to choose from (www.usatoday.com does somewhat of a better job; as in less links from the home page). Do you not feel overwhelmed? Where do you begin? Obviously, there are headlines: the one main one that's usually accompanied by a picture, but then next to it, maybe 10 other headlines that they deem more important than the rest. For me, it's simply too much for my senses to take at one time. How do I "test the waters" of reading on current events? It's as if they unleashed a CIWS** of information on my ass (over 3000 rounds per minute). I've reached the point of no return.

Similar, no?

What I've concluded from this (but have yet to prove) is that the good ol' fashioned newspaper is still the best way to receive the news. Of course, there are the factors of regionalized news (for example, I currently live in Pensacola, FL, but the happenings of the state of Virginia would probably interest me more) and whether or not you think the newspaper as an entity is more conservative or more liberal (I can never tell, really), but overall, I THINK I'd prefer reading the newspaper rather than going to the SAME newspaper's website. The reason? It's much neater. Obviously, the newspaper is bound by the limitations of physical paper. It isn't online, letting the company stuff as much information as they want on the page, but on the flip side, I think that forces the paper and it's editorial staff to pick and choose what is important enough to print. And THAT is what I want to read (again, yet to be proven). Reading from a physical newspaper is like quadruple distilled vodka. Only the cleanest and most filtered of news stories.

That's right. They know what's up.

On top of that, the newspaper is physically divided into sections! As I'm sure everyone knows, there's the current/world news section, finance/business section, the ever-popular and pertinent sports section, the comic section, the lifestyle section, and the media section (sometimes these last three are actually in the same section). And all of these sections, while grouped together to form the paper was a whole, are independent of each other! You can ignore the first 2 and just go straight for sports if you want! In fact, you could THROW AWAY all the other sections and ONLY read, say, the comic section! I know, I know, most of the websites for these news companies are ALSO grouped and archived based on the same headings (current/world news, finance/business, sports, etc.), BUT (and this is a picky "but"), even as you click one of those specific headings, the rest of the headings remain available to you; right there, in your face. And as I say "out of sight, out of mind". I guess I could also speculate, that though you are in a specific heading, there are no less news stories reported than if you were just on the home page, but this remains another point that will go unproven (I wish I had a facts checker working for me).

Now, there are websites like www.digg.com and what not that list even MORE headlines, since they take their stories (not just news; sometimes online media a.k.a. videos like that on youtube) from other online sources (some of which are the other major news companies I've previously mentioned). But despite all that, they are able to condense their information beyond simple headings. For example, Digg allows their readers to rate whether or not they are "digging" the article. If so, they can click they digg it, so that the next time a person navigates to the Digg home page, they can see "Oh hey look, 300,000 people digg this news story" and think to him/herself, "oh I'm sort of interested in that news title, and 300k people thought it was a relevant article, I guess I'll read it." You might think this might help me enjoy my online news, and you'd be wrong. Because the stories come from so many different sources, and sometimes they're not even NEWS stories (videos about what some dude did in his off time do not count; unless he discovered cold fusion or cured AIDS/cancer), I do not count sites like Digg as credible sources to receive news. It may be a fickle matter, but it matters to me.

In the end, I feel that I may never grow interested in current news. I know, it's a crying shame that I care so little about what's going on around me (especially since I am an active military member), but I doubt I'm the only one who feels this way. If I had to wager, I might say that I may be in the majority. And that may say something about society today, but I don't know what that argument might be nor do I want to get into it. All I know is that on those days I have to go to the dentist or the doctor, or maybe sometimes in a library or when I wake up to have breakfast in an eatery of sorts (McDonald's, Waffle House, take your pick), there's nothing like picking up a good ol' fashioned newspaper (until you realize I'm just reading Calvin and Hobbes; right before I move onto the Best Buy ad).

*A reference to Alan Moore's "The Watchmen" (http://www.agrifonte.com/sonrisa/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/watchmen10.jpg). Don't know what it is? GO CHECK IT OUT BEFORE THE MOVIE COMES OUT.

** Wikipedia on the CIWS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS

Get On Up (stay on the scene, like a sex machine)

2008-01-18T10:26:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I was feeling pretty good about myself, having jumped in the pool to swim (re-preparing for API since I have hopes that I'll start IFS before the month ends, and thus wont have any time to work on my water survival besides the time I have now) and also getting a bit of the AH-NOLD workout via Summer '07 back into the groove. It must've been the endorphins or something, but I felt like I needed to continue this trend of goodness in the day by watching what has quickly risen to become one of my favorite movies ever: "Almost Famous".

I had seen it once before when it was first released and garnering acclaim from all the critics and people who nominate movies for all the classy awards (who I don't typically buy stock into, seeing as I'm not them; I'm a "user critic" if I could borrow the term from rottentomates.com), and for some reason, it didn't really stick with me all that well. However, despite that first opinion on it some 5-6 years ago, I decided to pick it up when the local Hollywood Video was having a going-out-of-business sale (they actually DID close, not like all those other stores that fake it), and to my surprise, I LOVED the movie*. I didn't just like it; I LOVED it. The movie follows a 15 year old boy, William, who wants to be a rock journalist, and gets to follow one of his favorite bands on the road, observing what it's really like on the inside of rock stardom (circa 1973). The story is semi-autobiographical of the director, Cameron Crowe, and his experiences during the 1960s-1970s, when he was writing for The Rolling Stone**.

I think my newfound love for "Almost Famous" has something to do with my growing up and living more life and thus experiencing more things. I know myself better than I did 5 years ago. After having gone through high school and college, and now having a "real job" and living out in the "real world", I have a better idea of the things I like, the things that make me happy, what I wish I did/knew before, and what I want for myself now.

Just today, literally, about an hour ago, I had a talk with my friend, who basically served as my wingman throughout my college classes career. We were talking about our work ethic and basically "reaping what you sow" while we dragged our feet through the Department of Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia. We brought up the point that in our Espionage class (the ONLY class at UVA that I took and really wanted to take), we were able to achieve A's versus the B/C/D's we were accustomed to in the E-School because the method of learning was we were good at (rote memorization). This sparked my old line of thinking that I had I been in the College instead of the E-School, I would've enjoyed myself more and would have graduated with a much higher GPA. My friend begged to differ, leaving me surprised and intrigued. He said I would have been more miserable taking those College classes than I was taking my E-School classes because I would've been bored. While thinking of a response to refute his claim, he continued on saying, "I think you would have had to do something analytic: comm school, econ; but I couldn't see you doing the other stuff." I assumed that the "other stuff" were things like history, IR, any type of science, English, Sociology, Psychology, etc. And it was weird because it was like he re-opened something that I had heard before. Like hearing a song you used to love 10 years ago, and remembering how that felt. This wasn't the first time I have heard this; a few teachers and professors along the way recognized this analytical side of me that I hadn't really thought about before, but realized as soon as they said it. Like it had always been there and I knew it was there, but it took someone saying it out loud for it to become real.

After my eyes were opened, I agreed with my friend, telling him that if I could rewind the last 4 years and re-do college, I'd probably want to major in Commerce with a side of creative writing. He agreed, and we joked that I could then write humorous articles about finance, basically like a Bill Simmons for Wall Street. It was in jest, but I really thought about it. Is that something I could do? Of course I wouldn't be able to do it for maybe another 10 years or so, but it might be a career I could have, right? That'd make me about 32, 33 years old. For some reason, I keep thinking that's really late in life, but maybe it isn't. Maybe that's the perfect mix of what I see as two different parts of me constantly at war with one another over how my life should go. Like I said, it won't even be relevant for at least another 8 years or so, what with me being in Flight School and all, but I must say that the idea fills me with a small hope and excitement that I may actually become happy in this life because of something that really does make ME happy, rather than being happy just because of life. And that's a feeling that I've been missing recently.

*Favorite scene in the movie: The band just picked up Russell from a house party where he tripped out on acid, and as the band drives along in silence on their tour bus, the bassist starts singing Elton John's "Tiny Dancer". Soon after, everyone just sort of "gets it" and they all sing together happily. I have heard the song before, but this time I really listened to the words, and the scene that it was used in was just mind-blowing. Then William says "I have to go home", and Penny Lane does her weird hand-to-the-face thing and says "You are home", and I was just done after that. PERFECT.

**After reading about this, it sparked memory of John Cusack's character, Rob Gordon, from "High Fidelity" (a movie I have seen and love, a book I might get to eventually), who has "writing for The Rolling Stone during the 1960s, 1970s" listed as one of his top 5 professions. Other reference, in Entourage's third season, episode "One Day In The Valley", Vinnie Chase goes up on the roof drunk at a party a bunch of high school kids are throwing during the summer. Quite similar to the scene in "Almost Famous" where Russell goes on the roof of a high school kid throwing a party, tripping on acid, and proclaims "I am a golden god.... I'm on drugs!"

Busy As A Bee Cant Come Soon Enough

2008-01-09T18:42:00.000-06:00

I've been out of sight, and now I'm sure I'm out of mind. I'm open to the best and worst feelings one might feel. And I'd crawl on my knees for it all back despite Logic telling me what's painfully obvious.

10 Jan 2008, 0550: couldnt sleep again. when will i get a full night's rest?

"Losing all hope is freedom." - Fight Club

Maybe it is all my fault. Not that it's no one's fault and that there's no blame and sometimes people just fall out of love, but that maybe it is all my fault. She's just not vindictive about it. She's just.. done with it all. Like when you've just come out of a movie that had some enjoyable points, but overall, you just thought it was ok. You probably would've just rented it at Blockbuster on a night you didnt have anything better to do.

14 Jan 2008, 0428: woke up again and couldnt get back to sleep for a while. dreams... i wont call them bad, but maybe for me.

15 Jan 2008, 0430: man, what a crazy yet interesting dream. my subconscious is fcked up or something. but i guess it wasnt so bad..

strangely enough, i'm beginning to enjoy tomatoes in a variety of dishes... still a big no to pickles though.

mm.. i guess the sliver of hope wasnt anything more than an itch. further evidence to not get your hopes up in life, kids. or maybe it's just "busy as a bee". back to the grind. i dont know

"never give up on what makes you smile."

she said "i didnt mean it. you just made me mad."

lots of times i wish i could just rewind the last 3 months, but that's life i guess.

would i be a fool to wait for something that may never happen?

i wonder who this "and you :)" is that she "loooove"s...

22 Jan 2008: I knew it'd be a bad idea to look at profiles right before bed.... but man, if only dreams could come true, it'd all be so easy...

23 Jan 2008: It happened again. And all was well, better than well, and then I woke up. I no longer stay up thinking about it; it comes in my dreams.

No One Likes Traveling

2007-11-30T11:40:00.000-06:00

It was nearly seven-thirty and the plane would begin boarding in half an hour. Felice had been there since six-thirty. She didnt care; she liked to be early. She packed her bags five days in advance, and with no other preparations to be made, kept herself occupied for the remaining five days with her new-found hobby of reading.

Joan, a friend, had told Felice about a book club she had just joined to "try something new", and suggested that Felice join as well. Felice thought that taking up reading might be a good activity to pick up instead of sitting around channel surfing all day, but she didnt feel comfortable with joining a book club. She joked with Joan that she wasnt ready for that level of commitment yet, but the truth was that she just didnt want to feel like she was in a high school English class with a bunch of mopey, romantic middle-aged women. Instead, Felice offered to read the books that Joan and the book club were also reading.

The current selection, "Nicholas' Walk He Remembered", kept Felice company as she waited for her flight. She loved romantic stories, as long as there wasnt a love triangle, and this story seemed to be devoid of any triangles, so Felice read on.

"Is this seat taken?"

Startled, Felice looked up to find a man standing before her, pointing at the seat to her left. Felice decided he looked like a younger Tom Hanks, and laughed at her Forrest Gump reference.

"Oh, no. Not at all."
"Thanks."

Felice quietly returned to her reading when a few minutes later, she felt the man looking at her. "Yes?" Felice asked.

"Oh, nothing. Sorry. I was just admiring your footwear," the man said with a grin. Felice looked down at her feet and realized the man was making fun of her Ugg boots. She scowled at the man and replied with a harsh "thanks". The man laughed to himself.

"I'm sorry, I didnt mean to be rude. I've just seen the type of girls who wear those boots and they are idiots."

Felice couldnt believe the man's rudeness and was left speechless. She began quickly gathering her things.

"Wait! No, I'm sorry. That came out wrong. I was going to add that I was wrong because obviously you're not one of those girls. That book you're reading." The man pointed to the book in Felice's hand. "Nicholas' Walk He Remembered. It's genius. One of my favorites."

Suddenly, Felice forgot her distaste for the man, replacing it with a cat-like curiosity.

"You've read this book?"
"Yes, I have."
"Huh. What's your name?"
"Sorry. I'm Jeff."
"Felice."

They shook hands.

"So, Felice, where are you flying off to?"
"I"m going home for my mother's funeral, " Felice said, with a hint of caution in her voice. "Coupeville. Washington."
"Oh, yeah? I'm sorry to hear about your mother; that's terrible."
"Thanks."

They both paused for a moment.

"You know, I actually just came from that area."
"Coupeville? Really? What were you doing there?"
"Nothing, really. Just visiting. I was actually in Seattle, and just decided to drive out."

Felice nodded with understanding. "Well, I dont know why anyone would want to visit Coupeville," she thought to herself. "There isnt much there. That's why I left."

Neither of the two knew what to say next, so they let the uncomfortable silence hang in the air. Felice flipped through her book; Jeff looked at this watch, then surveyed the rest of the terminal.

"So why are you sitting here?"
"Hmm?"

Felice paused for a moment, working out the question in her head. "If you're here returning from Seattle, and this flight at this gate is going to Seattle, why are you sitting here instead of getting to your connecting flight or collecting your luggage or catching a ride home?"

Jeff smiled and let out a small laugh. Felice didnt move. She just kept looking at Jeff, pressing the question with her unflinching stare.

(first draft, unfinished)

He Said He's Trying To Get Her Back

2007-11-29T13:32:00.000-06:00

good luck, buddy. let me know how it goes.

It's Always Colder in the Morning. Especially in Florida.

2007-11-27T05:19:00.000-06:00

As much as I hate letting it happen, I had a bad dream, spent a second too long thinking about it, trying to analyze it, and then I couldnt force myself back to sleep. This always happens to me; a lot more often recently. "Oh? And why would that be, Mike?" "Oh, I dont know. I guess no real reason at all." "But you'll be fine; you're in the Navy. You dont need that much sleep!" "Yeah, I guess you're right, Michael. But I dont know. Do you really think so?"

Bad dreams. What I consider a bad dream has changed in some ways since I was a kid. I no longer fear the boogie man or the dark of night fall or any type of zombiatic beast. Now they're real; real things to feel bad about. Maybe it's another sign of growing up. The things you fear the most shift from creatures of the imagination to real-life situations. They become knock-on-wood situations, except that's not going to help me. It's already happened. The Nightmare Man has found me.

I know I said it up there, but now that I think about it again, I dont spend too much time analyzing it; at least not this one. What's there to analyze? It's not an imaginary situation, this is real. Maybe I analyzed to determine if it was real or not. And then I woke up and realized that, yes, this is my life. And it'll be great to lay here in bed thinking about what that is now. It'll be great to just lay here with the most lethal of your thoughts and replay everything back again, wondering that if you had tried something else, things would be different. You tell yourself that because in the end you know for a fact that you did nothing wrong, and you cant accept that fact that it happened anyway despite it. So maybe if I did something wrong instead of right, or maybe if I did something MORE right instead of wrong, then it would have been alright, right? No, it wouldnt have. And all the rest of these days and nights that you're not on top of your game will be spent realizing that fact. It wouldnt have been alright. Your own medicine is always the most bitter.

This place has been catching a lot of heat. Never did I think it'd be so wildly spread, and even spawn a tiny degree of speculation and rumor. Haha, at least I know people are reading, so that's always welcome. What I write here is what goes on in my head. It may have happened, it may not have happened. These are simply the thoughts and ideas and words that I tell myself, for whatever reason, and I just needed to get them out on paper. Lots of it is dramatic, maybe overly metaphorical, or maybe more harsh than expected ("Really? Is it THAT bad???"), but that's how I like to put it down. And NO ONE will tell me to do otherwise, NO MATTER WHAT.

Home is Where Hearts Love Me

2007-11-22T22:38:00.000-06:00

It's really good to be home. Hanging out with all my old friends and people being happy to see you again fills me with a great joy that's been missing from my life. I think my mom was really happy to see me. The way she welcomed me home makes me think she was worried about me, like I'd break down or something dumb like that. Even though I think my mom should know I would never do that, it feels good to see my mom look out for me like I was a little kid.

There are two more ideas out there for short stories for me to write, so you might be able to get your grubby hands on those in the future. I'm still only half way done with the original one that I started to get myself through this mess, but thanks to the little ading from the PI that i never had, I've gotten a couple more ideas that I want to explore. Maybe something good will come out of it. Maybe something GREAT. Who knows?

Late night writing; it's time for round 2 on the Thanksgiving eats.

I'm thankful to be home with the people that care.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Back in Top Form

2007-11-18T00:20:00.000-06:00

Well, I've got that fuel again. Lots of fuel for the fire. There's so much to put down, so much to say, but I dont feel like letting it out. I think I'll just hold on to this for a little while longer. Thanks a lot.

Old Times Arent So Old

2007-11-15T21:26:00.000-06:00

Haha. So, for some random reason I dont even remember, I decided to go back and check out my xanga. I think I've had a xanga since September 2003 or something like that, and I read every single entry up to that first one. And geez, it was a trip.

Reading all that stuff that was written not too long ago, it was really funny. For one thing, I think a lot of those posts had to do with messy relationship stuff. The ups and downs of being human made for a lot of gas to fuel the flames, and I mean A LOT of gas. Like enough to freakin burn the building down. So there was that. But then, just reading the way I wrote my thoughts down was crazy. It's like I wrote the way the words came in my head, and I didnt stop to think about what I was writing, I just went for it, and it just flowed for me. I couldnt help but feel rushed even though I was reading each entry really slow (to try to "pull the meaning" out of all those old entries). My words just came out fast with tons of energy. The words were blunt and sometimes harsh (I think) and it was just rapid fire. I dont know how everyone else responded to that, but it kind of gave me a rush. I excited myself. That sounds a little... *cough*, but it's right. I think about what I write, how I write to myself now, and it feels so plain. In comparison, I've definitely cooled with what I type out in my opens forums and blogs. One whiff of the crap I write in the OYFA '07 thread, and I'd say I was crazy, but I definitely feel like I've lost an edge of who I used to be.

Maybe it's the "growing up", or the realization that I really am at that point of growing up, and college wasnt really anything but the best of youthful years. I'm beyond using the scene and emo and punk bands and their music and words to help get me through tough times or to get through life; to define my life. I still listen and I still enjoy, but it doesnt define anything for me. I'm not sitting here going "yes! you said exactly what I'm feeling!" Am I supposed to get dull when I grow up? I hope not. Once again, I blame it on not doing anything all day. Maybe if I fill my day with something, then I'll have something to discuss. I'm running out of thoughts in my head. No stimulation. Zombiieeeee.

Bright Lights, Big City... but only when you want to

2007-11-15T16:06:00.000-06:00

Another day of nothing. Last night, I stuck around long enough to watch Alston miss the 3 pointer that would've tied up the game at the buzzer. As a result, the Rockets lose to the Lakers. And as a result of that, I woke up tired again today, but I was able to drag myself out of bed and head to the NASC pool in order to practice treading water. In the end, I was happy I did it and didnt give in to my lack of energy and laziness because I was actually able to tread water in my flight suit and boots. So that's one thing that I've accomplished while I've been here. I also got to jump off the high dive tower, which is mad fun. Unfortunately, I was wearing contacts since I didnt plan on jumping off the tower, so I wasnt able to complete the under water swim. All in all, a good day of effort.

Now I've really realized how little I did today, so I'm drawing blanks about what to say. Is this what happens? When your days and nights are essentially filled with nothing substantial or taxing, your mind draws and blank and you've got nothing to produce? I really dont think so, but I've been proven wrong pretty much ever since I've gotten down to Pensacola.

I thought about letting out my thoughts and feelings on that NYC thing, but I dont really feel up to it right now. Maybe I'll feel better about writing on the topic when I finish "On the Road" or when I start "The Great Gatsby". Basically the gist of it is that I believe that most people see NYC as this big bustling city with lots to do and lots of lights and excitement. "The city that never sleeps". Bright lights, big city. And that's what people dig about it. The pace of life is fast, you're doing everything fast. You're eating food fast. You're waiting for rides fast. You're watching your movies in fast forward. It's just the ultimate idea of "the big city" and that's what draws people in; to be able to live there is to be able to say you live in the most exciting city in the world. That's not why I want to live there. Watch that The Strokes music video I posted up down there. You see all their buddies hanging out in a bar, just talking, not really doing anything, just getting drunk and smoking? That's the experience I'm looking for. The NYC life I want to live is that kind of crappy apartment in a pretty old building, in just another neighborhood where you wont find the tourists. You know the people around you, you can walk up and down the street without the hassle of Broadway and Times Square. You've got your local spots, whether they be morning cafes/bakeries/food carts, or happy hour bars/pubs/etc. It just kind of has that feel to it. I cant really describe it. It's fire escapes, and hanging out on building rooftops, and walking home from bars, and knowing where to go to get your donuts or bagels or coffee or whatever you eat in the morning. In any other town, it would be a terribly boring life, but the fact that you're in NYC makes it more appealing (not exciting) than it really is. It might just be a case of the greener grass since I've always lived in relatively small towns, suburbia, etc and never in a big city, but maybe not. Maybe what I'm describing is that perfect balance for me, where you have access to the big city and it's bright lights and all of that hustle and bustle that comes with it, but only if you want to. Only if you want to venture into that part of town. Otherwise, it's sedated, it's relaxed, it's a lazy life. I am a huge fan of the chill life (the reason I wasnt dying of boredom while waiting down here for flight school, and thus I havent started flight school), but I also like to have my options about me. I'm all about leaving those options open so I can go off and satisfy my spontaneous urges whenever they may arise.

Well, I guess I went ahead and basically spit out everything about the NYC thing I want, so I can check that off of my to-do list.

But with this whole Navy, flight school thing, I feel like I've already written off the good part of my life. The part that's supposed to be used for exploring and living life before you settle down. I'll have great experiences and a great life, I'm sure; but I'm also pretty sure that it's not the experiences and life that I want.

On The Road to finishing this book

2007-11-13T14:22:00.000-06:00

I had another gym watch this morning, which freaking sucked. These new people totally screwed the system. You're supposed to earn your way to pool watches by working gym watches, but now it's all equal and crap, so even though I spent 2 months only doing gym watches, I'm still doing them. The only pros about this situation is 1) i get to lift/work out a lot since I have to be there anyway, and 2) without the need for taking temperatures, I have even more time on my hand during watch, which I fill with reading my books.

I went to Barnes & Noble and bought some books about a month ago. This was during my time of inspiration where I decided I was going to take it upon myself to read more and write more because I keep hearing over and over again from professional writers that the only way to become a better writer is to read and write. But anyway, so I bought "Catcher in the Rye", "On the Road", "The Great Gatsby", and this book of short stories written by J.D. Salinger. I read "Catcher" pretty fast, it being my favorite book and all since the 9th grade, and I read J.D. Salinger's book of short stories, which proved to me that Salinger really had nothing real to say at all, but he just liked telling stories (kind of the way I see Quentin Tarantino). So I start on "On the Road".

My buddy RVD tells me good things about this book, and of course I read great things about this book online through reviews, professional and personal, which is why I picked it up. But then I start reading it in my free time at home (which I have a lot of). I get bored with the book. I'm trying to get in the mind set, channel all the words people used to describe the book, but I just cant do it. This crap is boring me. So I put it down, never really got back to it. Then I start getting scheduled with these freaking gym watches and have like 2 extra hours to kill, so I start reading the book again (I didnt want it to go to waste. It cost $14). Now, it starts to make sense to me.

I read something like 150 pages today during watch, and I just kind of rolled with it. The way you're supposed to roll with a book that is, at the very least, somewhat interesting to you. I start making connections between myself and Sal, the protagonist, with him struggling between wanting to go on the adventure and wanting to settle down in life, and his best friends arent making it easy for him to settle. I kind of feel the same way, except, unlike Sal, I dont go on the adventures. I took the other road. I always take the other road. I settle down, I choose the steady life; I'm not rip-roaring all through the country, living these experiences that leave you poor and miserable, but fills your being with a smile for having lived life. There's a lot of supporting characters throughout the book who deal with this theme, and I guess in the end, maybe that's what the Beat Generation was all about. I actually dont know anything about the Beat Generation except that they were at their height right after WWII and that Jack Kerouac was their hero and gave them a voice with this very book. But maybe it has something to do with the struggle I mentioned before. If that's the case, then times have not changed for me. I still have that struggle within myself, except like I said, I choose a different path; and I think I'll probably just keep going through life choosing this path because I cant deal with the low moments of the other path that ultimately also make the path worthwhile. So until I can muster the courage to do so, the beat will have to just go on (pun entirely intended since I spent like 3 minutes trying to figure out how to end the entry like that).

PS: Sal is from NYC, and it got me thinking about wanting to live in NYC again. And THAT led me to thinking that the experience from NYC that I want is maybe not the stereotypical experience from NYC that everyone else usually thinks of, but I'll save that for another time. Just remind me to get back to it, or else I never will.

The Return to the Same

2007-11-12T11:38:00.000-06:00

Wow it's been a month since I've entered anything into this spot that no one I know knows, or reads from. What can I say I've done with my time that pulled me away from this attempt to really get back into my grind? Ha, nothing. I havent classed up; I'm still going about doing the usual which isnt much. It's enough... for now.

Creativity is a funny thing. So often, I feel uncreative and the problem with that is that, in my mind, I used to be more creative. I used to write, to draw, make my own comic strips, make music, etc. For whatever they were worth, however good or bad they might have been, I was able to just put something done and get it out there. Now I just feel like I'm doing the day-to-day, following the track, and doing what I'm supposed to. It's like I locked that part of me up since it's supposedly time to grow up and do something legitimate instead of chasing dreams of "you know what would be cool?" The thing about it is that I wish I could be one of those lucky people who were able to take their creative "talents" and make something of it. They're able to get through all the little things that make life bothersome because they get to do something they enjoy.

Maybe that's what the problem was with me. Going to college is one of those one-time shots. Sure you can always go back and get whatever degree you want, but it's not the same. You're not 18 years old, let out into the world without responsibilities but without a watchful eye over your shoulder. You can do what you like, particularly with your classes. You can become what you want. I didnt take that option though. I went to school for what would be a good job when I graduate. I tell myself I dealt with it then and that I can deal with it now, but inside, I just really wish I could go back and do something else. I wouldnt call it regret....but now I just think I might have reconsidered some things when I was at school.

All I can do is just these little things to feel like I still have some connection to the creative person I always thought I'd grow up to become. Writing here, which no one I know can read anyway. Playing someone else's song on guitar/bass. I dont really draw anymore, but then I dont really feel the need to jump into it either.... Ugh. I need to get my head in the game. But which game?

That Guy

2007-10-05T11:23:00.000-05:00

Man, I've been trying too hard. Living in the past and forcing myself to go back there, thinking that it'll put me where I want.

And I usually hate people who try too hard. You may have the best of intentions and you may not be harming anyone, but there's something about trying too hard that's really annoying and makes me wish something bad would happen to you. Nothing DRASTIC, mind you, just something slightly unfortunate. Like you lose your car keys. Or a finger. It's even worse if you're trying hard and faking at life. But that's another can of worms.

The first key to writing is to write, not to think.

You really just have to let it all flow out. Dont think about what's going on, just go for it. I dont even LIKE doing drafts or editing work, so what's been my deal? I dont know. I'm getting too wrapped up in my head.

I think that I need to step away from all the technology. "Ayo, I'm tired of using technology." The computer, the television...it all just breaks my concentration from my own thoughts. I'm reactive to what I'm fed. I'm slowly losing the joy of making my own thoughts. Using my imagination. Speaking my mind.

Dont think about where this is going. Just do it in it's purest form. Unadulterated, ad lib. The way life is.

Tuesday TV: 02 Oct 2007

2007-10-02T21:01:00.000-05:00

Cavemen:

Didnt really like it; the show didnt really interest and hook me, though those Geico commercials are by far my favorite TV commercials. One plus: I enjoy the "stick-it-to-you" banter that the cavemen argue back and forth with.

Carpoolers:

Once again, not impressed again. The story was boring, actors werent great or really funny, and I felt that the "carpool" wasnt used to its full potential. One plus: Jerry O'Connell. For some reason, something about him is funny. Maybe I'm channeling my weird liking for "Joe's Apartment", but I thought he was the only CLOSE to funny part of the show.

All in all, a bad showing for what I suspect ABC was trying to make THEIR comedy prime time night, meant to perhaps compete with NBC's Thursday Comedy night, though they are obviously on different nights.

So who is the Tuesday night prime time winner (based on what I watched)? HOUSE!!!

Last season, House fired Chase, Foreman and Cameron quit, and now he's testing a bunch of doctors who are competing to fill the three spots???? It's like Amazing Race, Survivor, and House all rolled into one! And I already love House! Man, that guy. Annnddd.... Wilson and Cuddy remain favorites, as always..

Oh, Someday...

2007-10-02T19:55:00.000-05:00

Man, sometimes you just gotta go back to what made you feel good...

The Strokes - "Someday"

"I'm working so I wont have to try so hard
Tables they turn sometimes, oh someday..."

Zombies Moan A Lot

2007-09-28T16:01:00.000-05:00

I’m thinking that I should get into writing about zombies and stuff. The reason is that I’ve been told that my writing is, essentially, uninvolved. What that really said to me is that, for better or worse, I don’t reek of emotion in my writing. And that made me think of zombies and other dreary subjects. It’s not the first time it’s been pointed out to me that I have some sort of lack of emotion. My voice has been characterized as crazily monotone, which may be the reason why I love Napoleon Dynamite so much (as some people say).

The truth is that I actually really like that “lack of emotion”. I kind of tend to live life that way. I don’t like getting caught up in emotions and the feelings, dealing with all of the deep-down-in-your-soul subjects. It may make me seem a little cold, kind of like Ryan Howard working the Dunder-Mifflin Scranton office, but I feel like all that stuff weighs me down. I like to focus on what’s in front of me, the goal, the plan, and just life in general. Now I feel like my outlook is kind of apathetic, actually. I sum everything up to being “life”. Bad things happen, good things happen; all of it is just life happening though. Some people brood and celebrate and constantly wrap their minds around the events that happen to them, asking “why me?!” or being thankful for their blessings/good luck, but I just like to roll with the punches. Just like zombies.

Zombies have no emotions. They’re purely primal, animalistic. They have one thing on their minds: eating brains and any other body parts of living beings they can get their decomposing hands on. They don’t eat you because they’re angry, or that it makes them emotionally happy. It’s all about survival. How crazy would it be to write a story from the perspective of a zombie?!? As far as I know, it hasn’t been done before, but you find out it has, let me know and I’ll quickly throw this idea in the garbage.