ain't nobody dope as me, i'm dressed so fresh so clean...
weblog
thursday, december 20
simply put: lord of the rings rocked my world. i went knowing it would be good, of course, but did not read any reviews. i had questions about the wisdom of some of the casting choices such as sean astin (white water summer), vigo mortensen (the perfect murder) and liv tyler (who the hell doesn't know who liv tyler is?). but none of these actors disappointed, nor did any of the others. i would not say that it's possible to spoil the movie, but i will leave out any of the intriguing, awe-inspiring, or even surprising parts. let me sum up by saying that once again i am caught up in that harry potter/ star wars/ matrix limbo of anticipation for their future installments.
oh... and the spider-man trailer looks much better in the theater. much drooliness.
wednesday, december 19
i used to go to the movies with my dad.
i like starting my stories with positive statements, to show that the situation *could* have been positive. but in most cases, when i am discussing my father, it is never a positive situation.
we used to go to the movies together. a lot. i need to qualify "together" and i need to qualify "a lot." when we first started going, we would go to the same movie. as i got older, adolescence mandated that i spend as little time visible with my father as possible, so i increasingly went to different movies than my father. we would go every friday when new movies came out. that is one of several tidbits of trivia i have picked up about my life as a slave to consumerism. new movies come out on fridays. special releases come out on wednesdays. some movie companies release movies on christmas, no matter what day of the week it is. my wife tells me that christmas is the biggest movie day of the year. books, dvd's and music come out on tuesdays.
alas, i digress. my dad and i used to go to the movies. when i say that we went a lot, in addition to friday nights we would sometimes go to the movies on tuesdays. and if there were a lot of new releases in a week, we would also go on saturdays. so in any given week, we might go to the movies three out of seven nights. at a minimum, this equates to 52 movies per year. i lived with my father for almost six years, from june 1982 to march 1988. i'm rounding here, so 50 movies a year times six years is 300 movies. while i lived with my father in california, i probably saw more than 300 movies. that's alotta damn movies.
since then, my cinematic endeavors have decreased dramatically. i view movie releases with a much more critical eye now. not because of lack of funding, but that it is easier to spot movies that will obviously be horrible or that i can wait to see on dvd. every once in a while, i will see a new movie release that i get excited about because i like the story line or am familiar with the story. in this case, i would want to go on opening night. my wife, unfortunately, does not like to go to the theater on opening night. truthfully, she doesn't like to go to the theater at all. so getting her to go on opening night is nigh impossible. if i remember correctly, the last movie i got her to see on opening night was the phantom menace. and she thought it sucked. granted, the acting was far from stellar. but the special effects blew me away. again, i digress.
i think i will start going to the movies again. if my wife doesn't want to come, i'll ask one of my friends. tonight, i'll be watching lord of the rings with one of my friends. and if i can't find a friend, i'll go by myself. because it's something that i want to do.
tuesday, december 18
my shopping trips have recently acquired themes. i was in food lion the other day buying my wife milk and cookies (she likes the toll house cookies with the fudge in the middle), but en route between the milk and the register i picked up six notebooks and three packs of pens. i am now on a crusade to make notebooks and pens ubiquitous in my environment. i put one on my nightstand, one in the living room, one at my desk at work, and one in each car. if i am struck by a thought, i should be no more than ten feet from the nearest writing opportunity. that's a quote i had a while ago: "don't miss the point of opportunity." who the hell knows if i made it up or not. if i wait a couple hours to write something down, it turns into a puddle of baby shit in my head. in other words, useless.
on another trip, this time to target, we had to replace a couple bulbs that blew out. i swear we bought about ten light bulbs, only it wasn't bulk purchase but four or five packs of different-sized bulbs. this helps support my habit of turning on every single illuminatory device in my abode and leaving it on.
grades update: two A's and a something. the something could be a B, or it could be a C. thing is, if i get a C in my MA program then they put me on academic probation. and the class is with the director of the program, so i'm kinda walking a tight wire here. feelin' dizzy, think i'm gonna hurl.
there was this thing that we used to do as kids. assuming that childhood experience is universal among all children, i assumed that all kids did this. whenever anyone would ask us "guess what?", our reply would invariably be "chicken butt." this is normal, right? didn't all kids do this?
i don't do many things in the way of recommendations. but this bok i would certainly recommend. anything that bridges that gap between two different and sometimes opposing worlds deserves my praise. in the fashion of understanding comics by scott mccloud, einstein's dreams by alan lightman is a fictional interpretation of albert einstein's theories on time and space. as the amazon review states, and i fervently agree, the stories are lyrical in their crafting but also informative in their relation of einstein's theories. the author is (or was, not sure) a professor of physics and writing at mit.
slightly unrelated, i have always had a fascination with books that bring the main character out of his or her surroundings and into a foreign land. quick examples of this are the thomas covenant chronicles by stephen r. donaldson, the adept series by piers anthony, and the magician series by raymond feist. there are many others, but those capture the essence of the conflict between a character's comfortable (or at least familiar) surroundings and the jolt into a realm so completely foreign in every way. do these books speak on the duality of man? and possibly the duality of the reader drawn to these books? speculation abounds.
boy, i really screwed myself by taking a break. my referral logs are empty except for a couple people i know already. patience, grasshopper.
what's funny today?
i was watching office space for the umpteenth time last night, and uncovered a new nugget of humor in the movie. as the main character, peter gibbons, is driving into his apartment complex, you see the sign advertising the name of the apartment community: MORNINGWOOD apartments. and i've thought of the perfect slogan: "wouldn't you like to come home to morningwood?" hah!
