How proud of myself am I right now?
First off, a million changes were made to the website, and although you can see almost no difference, everything is much better, at least in my computer science mind. If I ever decide to finish the upgrade, it will be a breeze, now that all the links and colors and boxes are properly set up and not just cobbled together from Imaginary CSS for Dummies.
Also, I finally got all the old website entries from 2004 transferred over to the archives here. I am so badass. No more scrounging for the old address, or having to look at the hideous pink and yellow design that I had been rocking.
I'm still looking at completely overhauling the design to my more favored traditional format, but I fear change. And I totally let my domain name expire forever ago, so I would have to find a new one and then get hosting, and blah blah blah. I really favor the path of least resistance on these sort of things.
----------------------------
So nothing new today, I've got things to do and embarrassments to be had. Go look at the new old archives and leave me be. Shoo! Damn punk kids always walking on my lawn, like they own the place...
Friday, April 29, 2005
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
It's Not Even Funny Anymore. Just Sad.
Dear Lord, how I wish I was making this up.
------------------------
The Amazing Race is on, which means that I'm physically incapable of doing anything short of pacing my living room and yelling at the television. This is a tough time for me, because tonight there are many things that need doing: kitchen cleaning, dinner cooking, parents calling, and most importantly laundry switching.
Because the clothes have already gone through the washer and are just sitting in their own washing machine juices. Because I timed it badly and the cycle didn't end until after the show had started. And you can't just leave the clothes sitting there, so many bad things can happen in that room, from rust, to theft, to funky smells. Thus, I am antsy, but I don't want to leave.
So I compromise.
I grab my iPod from the table where it's been since its double-duty as my car stereo and get it prepped. I put on some sandals to complete my hippie outfit (I was determined to wash everything today, so I changed into my extra pair of pajamas and an old ripped workout shirt before the washing began.). I'm in that doped-out-drug-user looking phase that I sometimes (often) get: ratty clothes, disheveled hair, lack of shaving, pale/skinny look. Add to that my extreme bouncy nervousness that is inherent with my Amazing Race watching, and I'm practically method acting as a speed freak.
At the first sign of commercial, I head out to the laundry room, mindful of my many past pitfalls, determined to have none of that. When I get there, the guy from over in Building 4, with whom I am passingly acquainted, is sorting his laundry. We nod to each other. I pop open my washers to transfer the clothes, when I realize that I'm totally wearing my iPod, but I haven't hit play yet. Play.
BAM!
You see, in order for my iPod to substitute as my car radio, one has to turn the volume up really loud for the tape transfer to pick it up properly. Usually I am good about fixing the volume before I go inside. Today, not so much.
I have this full body spasming seizure in response to the loud noise, managing to somehow slam my big toe on the left foot into a washer and crack my right knee on the underside of the countertop at the same time, all while frantically hitting the volume down button. Guy to the side sort of cocks a glance my way, but is very restrained on the whole, considering the level of freak out I just performed.
Highly, highly embarrassed, I try to grab the clothes as quickly as possible and head over to the dryer and get the hell out of here. Both top dryers are full. I lean down to go for the bottom one and completely, utterly, all consumingly and with all the force in the world, slam the upper portion of my forehead into the change slot.
It makes the most impressive clunk sound.
It seriously disorients me so much that I sort of slump forward and drop the entire armful of soaking wet clothes on ground and fall over. It hurt soooo much. I would need a pie chart and several trained monkeys to accurately describe my pain at this particular moment.
Fellow from Building 4 has finished his clothes, but is very concerned and checks to make sure I'm not about to die on his watch, as he comes over and literally picks me up off the ground. After assuring himself that I still retain the power of speech and am not any more retarded than when I walked in, he heads off. I manage to get all the clothes into the dryers and everything started, though the throbbing pain.
As I'm heading out of the room of death and embarrassment, I get to the doorway and go to hit the lights when I feel this really weird breeze, in an area where one should not feel a breeze while in public. Apparently either during the fall, or for the duration of my entire time outdoors, the fly on my pajamas has been completely open, and ridiculously noticeable, based on how these particular pants are set up.
So not only did I spaz out, completely embarrass and injury myself in front one of the few people I know in the complex, I probably also flashed him to all hell and back.
-----------------------
We've now officially moved from "My life is a sitcom," to "My life is a bad, repetitive, and clichéd sitcom."
Kill me now.
------------------------
The Amazing Race is on, which means that I'm physically incapable of doing anything short of pacing my living room and yelling at the television. This is a tough time for me, because tonight there are many things that need doing: kitchen cleaning, dinner cooking, parents calling, and most importantly laundry switching.
Because the clothes have already gone through the washer and are just sitting in their own washing machine juices. Because I timed it badly and the cycle didn't end until after the show had started. And you can't just leave the clothes sitting there, so many bad things can happen in that room, from rust, to theft, to funky smells. Thus, I am antsy, but I don't want to leave.
So I compromise.
I grab my iPod from the table where it's been since its double-duty as my car stereo and get it prepped. I put on some sandals to complete my hippie outfit (I was determined to wash everything today, so I changed into my extra pair of pajamas and an old ripped workout shirt before the washing began.). I'm in that doped-out-drug-user looking phase that I sometimes (often) get: ratty clothes, disheveled hair, lack of shaving, pale/skinny look. Add to that my extreme bouncy nervousness that is inherent with my Amazing Race watching, and I'm practically method acting as a speed freak.
At the first sign of commercial, I head out to the laundry room, mindful of my many past pitfalls, determined to have none of that. When I get there, the guy from over in Building 4, with whom I am passingly acquainted, is sorting his laundry. We nod to each other. I pop open my washers to transfer the clothes, when I realize that I'm totally wearing my iPod, but I haven't hit play yet. Play.
BAM!
You see, in order for my iPod to substitute as my car radio, one has to turn the volume up really loud for the tape transfer to pick it up properly. Usually I am good about fixing the volume before I go inside. Today, not so much.
I have this full body spasming seizure in response to the loud noise, managing to somehow slam my big toe on the left foot into a washer and crack my right knee on the underside of the countertop at the same time, all while frantically hitting the volume down button. Guy to the side sort of cocks a glance my way, but is very restrained on the whole, considering the level of freak out I just performed.
Highly, highly embarrassed, I try to grab the clothes as quickly as possible and head over to the dryer and get the hell out of here. Both top dryers are full. I lean down to go for the bottom one and completely, utterly, all consumingly and with all the force in the world, slam the upper portion of my forehead into the change slot.
It makes the most impressive clunk sound.
It seriously disorients me so much that I sort of slump forward and drop the entire armful of soaking wet clothes on ground and fall over. It hurt soooo much. I would need a pie chart and several trained monkeys to accurately describe my pain at this particular moment.
Fellow from Building 4 has finished his clothes, but is very concerned and checks to make sure I'm not about to die on his watch, as he comes over and literally picks me up off the ground. After assuring himself that I still retain the power of speech and am not any more retarded than when I walked in, he heads off. I manage to get all the clothes into the dryers and everything started, though the throbbing pain.
As I'm heading out of the room of death and embarrassment, I get to the doorway and go to hit the lights when I feel this really weird breeze, in an area where one should not feel a breeze while in public. Apparently either during the fall, or for the duration of my entire time outdoors, the fly on my pajamas has been completely open, and ridiculously noticeable, based on how these particular pants are set up.
So not only did I spaz out, completely embarrass and injury myself in front one of the few people I know in the complex, I probably also flashed him to all hell and back.
-----------------------
We've now officially moved from "My life is a sitcom," to "My life is a bad, repetitive, and clichéd sitcom."
Kill me now.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Interpret This, Tool!
It's Monday and thus time to discuss Jason's forays into the outside world, which invariably means a movie review, since I never actually leave the house anymore, lest it be to the movie theatre or a place that sells food.
The subject this week? The Interpreter.
I require some background ramblings. In theory, I believe that you shouldn't let the actors/actresses in a movie change your expectations of said movie. There should be a level of removal and purity about movies, in that they should be able to stand alone and not need a big name to influence you one way or another.
In practice, more and more my feelings are very directly tied to the actors that a movie bills. Some cases so much so that I'll:
The subject this week? The Interpreter.
I require some background ramblings. In theory, I believe that you shouldn't let the actors/actresses in a movie change your expectations of said movie. There should be a level of removal and purity about movies, in that they should be able to stand alone and not need a big name to influence you one way or another.
In practice, more and more my feelings are very directly tied to the actors that a movie bills. Some cases so much so that I'll:
- A) go to a movie that I'm almost sure will suck, but I support the actor enough that I want them to keep doing their thing so I spend my money anyway (See: Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Completely Unfunny) or
- B) avoid a movie that theoretically looks like it could be good, but my ire for the actor makes the entire enterprise seem like work (i.e. The Aviator (DiCaprio, blech) or Fever Pitch (goddamn Jimmy Fallon. Note: you are not 12. Jim. Or James. Grow up and get a real name. Also: stop sucking.)
This long ramble is just here to show (besides my many psychoses) that the concept of famous people has been influencing my movie choices to an unfortunate degree. And with The Interpreter, there is the added problem that the preview was seriously shown in front of every single movie I've seen at the theatre in the last 4 months. Which is an insane level of promotion and makes me even less inclined to see it. But the marketing worked, apparently, and off I went.
Now, the expectations were very low due to many of these factors: I felt vaguely coerced into seeing it by the trailers, I have an intrinsic and unreasonable dislike of Sean Penn (I've seen him in, what, two movies? And yet, ugh. I think it is wrapped up in the Oscars/public persona, vibe, but it is completely unwarranted, and totally real.), and I have been burned by Nicole Kidman in the past, despite my general love for her.
But it was really good. Like, almost excellent for what it was. Compelling and well acted and very authentic. And yes, Sean Penn bugged a little, but Nicole was remarkable. The storyline was a little overdrawn, contrivedly paced (every 15 minutes on the dot a new piece of information was given, to slowly fill in all the pieces) and the final scene was one scene too much, but on the whole, I was very impressed.
And since I came in with such low expectations, I was totally blown away. There was just no frame of reference to scale it to, y'know? Like, we're building to the climax and I'm totally bouncing in my seat nervously, actually invested in this movie. I mean, what's up with that?
So. Yeah. Completely approve of this movie.
Wow. That was way more talking than needed to be done.
Tune in next week when we find out if my ever expanding unease for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy turns out to be completely warranted or just another sign of my growing paranoia.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Home Maintenance and the Common Man
I like to think that I keep my apartment in pretty good shape. The living room is always relatively clean, the dishes are never in the sink longer than 3 days and the kitchen has its weekly date with the bleach.
I'm now on my second lease and I've never had any homeowner problems, bodily invading ants excluded. Then last week my roommate, La Sister, tells me that the ceiling above her shower is leaking. This happened once before during my first month and it was fixed pretty quickly, so I didn't think about it very much at all, not realizing that it was the first precursor of housing doom.
Three days later, I'm doing the dishes and I turn on the garbage disposal. It goes, "Uh, whir," and then refuses to ever work again. This is quickly followed by: the blowing out of two wall sockets, a near complete loss of water pressure in the bathroom and then kitchen sinks, and the sporadic disconnection of my phone service.
Suddenly I'm living all hand to mouth like some sort of savage, with almost no water, no way to dispose of food and limited access to electricity and phones. I mean, I had to plug my glowing picture of the Madonna in an entirely different place! And don't even get me started on shaving with sub-par water pressure. When did it become the 19th century around here?
-------------------------------------
All that being said, so I get back from grocery shopping today, and begin the whole kitchen cleaning and unpacking process. This is always a fun time because I get the grocery shopping buyer's remorse that only I can get, I mean seriously, what exactly did I buy all that rice and chicken for? You know I'm gonna get home, take one look in the fridge and then either A) call for pizza or B) run down the street to Taco Bell. Complicated cooking and defrosting? I have one skillet and one 1 quart pot. Why am I so idealistic when I go shopping?
Ugh. So everything is packed away, the dishes are at least marginally done, in that they may not all be completely clean, but in their current state they can remain for at least 48 more hours without serious injury to any party nor threat of emergent intelligence developing within the sink in my absence. I collect all the empty plastic bags that are slowing rolling throughout my apartment like so many tumbleweeds and head over to the trash room to dispose of them properly (read: put them in the big A&F shopping bag with the countless thousands of other ones, part of the strange collecting empty plastic grocery bags behavior that I picked up from my parents. I have no idea why I do it, but I can't stop.)
I open the door to the trash room...and it's like a scene from, a horror movie.
----------------------------------------
Two summers ago, I took a summer job as an office assistant at a summer camp. (And the award for most use of the word 'summer' in a single sentence goes to me. I'd like to thank all the little people.) It was seriously the most interesting job I've ever had and made me appreciate so many of the little things in the world, like sleeping in a bed that is not 80% outdoors and entirely free of scorpions.
My home for the summer was in a cabin as a defacto counselor to the 17 year old boys who were counselors-in-training. It was one of the nicer setups, in that I got a real bed and there was a shower/bathroom attached to my cabin. Practical luxury in that place. The only thing was, in the bathroom there was a medicine cabinet.
And if you opened that medicine cabinet, you exposed the Doorway to Hell. It was full of rotten wood, mold, mildew, ants, and demon spawn, just to name a few of the horrors that awaited the hapless campgoer that dared to look inside. Picture that scene from the first Ghostbusters in Sigourney Weaver's fridge, only scary. It was enough to terrify me away from the bathroom for the rest of the summer, preferring the communal one across the camp that was always full of spiders, in comparison.
That was absolutely nothing.
--------------------------------------------
I drop the empty grocery bags in horror. The trash room is normally home to: my ironing board, the trashcan, and any bags of trash, empty pizza boxes etc, that have built up over the week. Instead, I find a huge pile of broken plywood, plaster, particle board and lord knows what else. And it is...I don't know. I joked earlier that I was staving off intelligence in my dirty dishes. I would not put it past the mold cultures on that blackened, soggy plywood to already be a published author somewhere. I mean, it was advanced.
Apparently, the water heater (which also lives in the trash room) has slowly been leaking, oh since The Dawn of Time, and has saturated the ledge that it lives on. While the actual platform remains intact, the lower particle board/plywood combo that was the underpinning decided that while I was out getting groceries was the best time to collapse in spectacular fashion and allow its Mold Developed Overlords access to the outside world.
While at mostly a loss, I manage to douse the entire room in bleach and antibacterial whatnots, ignoring the tiny shrill shrieks of "I'm meeelting, meeeeeeeltinggggg," coming from said Overlords and get the larger pieces into a trashbag. But I have to keep the pieces until the maintenance guy gets here tomorrow so that he can do some exploration and comparison to make sure the process is not far more insidious than I imagine and that none of the cultures survived and are now hiding in the wallspace, authoring the next National Book Award winner.
Because, damn it, I do not need the competition.
I'm now on my second lease and I've never had any homeowner problems, bodily invading ants excluded. Then last week my roommate, La Sister, tells me that the ceiling above her shower is leaking. This happened once before during my first month and it was fixed pretty quickly, so I didn't think about it very much at all, not realizing that it was the first precursor of housing doom.
Three days later, I'm doing the dishes and I turn on the garbage disposal. It goes, "Uh, whir," and then refuses to ever work again. This is quickly followed by: the blowing out of two wall sockets, a near complete loss of water pressure in the bathroom and then kitchen sinks, and the sporadic disconnection of my phone service.
Suddenly I'm living all hand to mouth like some sort of savage, with almost no water, no way to dispose of food and limited access to electricity and phones. I mean, I had to plug my glowing picture of the Madonna in an entirely different place! And don't even get me started on shaving with sub-par water pressure. When did it become the 19th century around here?
-------------------------------------
All that being said, so I get back from grocery shopping today, and begin the whole kitchen cleaning and unpacking process. This is always a fun time because I get the grocery shopping buyer's remorse that only I can get, I mean seriously, what exactly did I buy all that rice and chicken for? You know I'm gonna get home, take one look in the fridge and then either A) call for pizza or B) run down the street to Taco Bell. Complicated cooking and defrosting? I have one skillet and one 1 quart pot. Why am I so idealistic when I go shopping?
Ugh. So everything is packed away, the dishes are at least marginally done, in that they may not all be completely clean, but in their current state they can remain for at least 48 more hours without serious injury to any party nor threat of emergent intelligence developing within the sink in my absence. I collect all the empty plastic bags that are slowing rolling throughout my apartment like so many tumbleweeds and head over to the trash room to dispose of them properly (read: put them in the big A&F shopping bag with the countless thousands of other ones, part of the strange collecting empty plastic grocery bags behavior that I picked up from my parents. I have no idea why I do it, but I can't stop.)
I open the door to the trash room...and it's like a scene from, a horror movie.
----------------------------------------
Two summers ago, I took a summer job as an office assistant at a summer camp. (And the award for most use of the word 'summer' in a single sentence goes to me. I'd like to thank all the little people.) It was seriously the most interesting job I've ever had and made me appreciate so many of the little things in the world, like sleeping in a bed that is not 80% outdoors and entirely free of scorpions.
My home for the summer was in a cabin as a defacto counselor to the 17 year old boys who were counselors-in-training. It was one of the nicer setups, in that I got a real bed and there was a shower/bathroom attached to my cabin. Practical luxury in that place. The only thing was, in the bathroom there was a medicine cabinet.
And if you opened that medicine cabinet, you exposed the Doorway to Hell. It was full of rotten wood, mold, mildew, ants, and demon spawn, just to name a few of the horrors that awaited the hapless campgoer that dared to look inside. Picture that scene from the first Ghostbusters in Sigourney Weaver's fridge, only scary. It was enough to terrify me away from the bathroom for the rest of the summer, preferring the communal one across the camp that was always full of spiders, in comparison.
That was absolutely nothing.
--------------------------------------------
I drop the empty grocery bags in horror. The trash room is normally home to: my ironing board, the trashcan, and any bags of trash, empty pizza boxes etc, that have built up over the week. Instead, I find a huge pile of broken plywood, plaster, particle board and lord knows what else. And it is...I don't know. I joked earlier that I was staving off intelligence in my dirty dishes. I would not put it past the mold cultures on that blackened, soggy plywood to already be a published author somewhere. I mean, it was advanced.
Apparently, the water heater (which also lives in the trash room) has slowly been leaking, oh since The Dawn of Time, and has saturated the ledge that it lives on. While the actual platform remains intact, the lower particle board/plywood combo that was the underpinning decided that while I was out getting groceries was the best time to collapse in spectacular fashion and allow its Mold Developed Overlords access to the outside world.
While at mostly a loss, I manage to douse the entire room in bleach and antibacterial whatnots, ignoring the tiny shrill shrieks of "I'm meeelting, meeeeeeeltinggggg," coming from said Overlords and get the larger pieces into a trashbag. But I have to keep the pieces until the maintenance guy gets here tomorrow so that he can do some exploration and comparison to make sure the process is not far more insidious than I imagine and that none of the cultures survived and are now hiding in the wallspace, authoring the next National Book Award winner.
Because, damn it, I do not need the competition.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Oops
Hi.
So I was messing around with my template, right? Because I was sick of being like everyone else.
And then some bad things happened, and nothing was ever good again.
But I salvaged something that I don't think is completely hideous. (Only, it sort of is, but I love primary colors. It's so very Mondrian, if Mondrian were a lazy blog author. And used orange. And excessive black. And no whitespace. Okay, it's nothing like Mondrian. Shut up, I'm traumatized. )
And there's a new banner courtesy of my arch-nemesis Frank. Thanks, Frank! I love it because it contains a picture of me, and I am nothing if not a narcissistic prick.
So that's that.
Maybe some day I'll even add some new content. Wouldn't that be awesome?
So I was messing around with my template, right? Because I was sick of being like everyone else.
And then some bad things happened, and nothing was ever good again.
But I salvaged something that I don't think is completely hideous. (Only, it sort of is, but I love primary colors. It's so very Mondrian, if Mondrian were a lazy blog author. And used orange. And excessive black. And no whitespace. Okay, it's nothing like Mondrian. Shut up, I'm traumatized. )
And there's a new banner courtesy of my arch-nemesis Frank. Thanks, Frank! I love it because it contains a picture of me, and I am nothing if not a narcissistic prick.
So that's that.
Maybe some day I'll even add some new content. Wouldn't that be awesome?
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
My Feral Arch-Nemesis
On the way into work this morning, I rode the elevator with an older lady who was wearing one of the most hideous ensembles I have ever seen in person. There was a lime green shawl, a pleated purple skirt, and something off-white and full of ruffles everywhere else. She also was carrying what I swear was a Hello Kitty purse. It hurt just to look in her general direction.
But, oh, she got back at me for my silent condemnation of her outfit, believe you me. Because she owns a cat. I know this due to the delightful fact that through the course of two elevator rides and two trips down the hallway that combine to form my walk into the office, she never once stopped talking to me about it. (Newsflash: cat does not like tuna! Film at 11:00!) I also know this because just being in the general proximity of her was enough to set off an allergic reaction, the likes of which I haven't seen in years.
See, I am allergic to cats. But with each cat, it has a variable degree of allergicity. My sister's cat ranks somewhere around a 2 on a scale from 1 to 10, in that I can play with it all day and it can attack me by pouncing on my head in the middle of the night and all I have to show for it, besides a general feeling of dislike for tiny mammals that interrupt my precious sleep, is a mild headache the next day (Level 2: Cat of Annoyance). In opposition, one of my friends owns a cat that will make me violently ill just by being in the same room with it for more than 5 minutes at a time (Level 10: Armageddon Cat). I'm talking serious issues of pain and destruction for everyone in the general vicinity if the cat and I cross paths.
(I had a DEFCON 5/ DEFCAT 5 joke in mind here but it's really stretching things and I'm not really in a good headspace for such things, but I wanted you to know about it anyways, because I feel that it could have been funny, if properly handled. And I just saw that Wargames movie on TV last weekend and it's still bouncing around in my head. How about a nice game of chess, Matthew Broderick, indeed.)
The cat this woman owned had to have ranked somewhere around level 40,000 (Level 40,000: Anathema Cat), because just being in the presence of its owner was sending me into fits of sneezing, nausea, and dizziness. And now, the day has passed and I'm still feeling it, the headache all tightly coiled around my brain like an evil snake, the watery/swelled eye look, the tendency for excessive sneezes. I would give my right index finger for a syringe of high powered Benadryl right about now. I look a mess, to put it bluntly.
In any case, my war with the feline continues unabated. Damn all the cats, unless they are very cute and/or playful. Then, awwwwww.
But, oh, she got back at me for my silent condemnation of her outfit, believe you me. Because she owns a cat. I know this due to the delightful fact that through the course of two elevator rides and two trips down the hallway that combine to form my walk into the office, she never once stopped talking to me about it. (Newsflash: cat does not like tuna! Film at 11:00!) I also know this because just being in the general proximity of her was enough to set off an allergic reaction, the likes of which I haven't seen in years.
See, I am allergic to cats. But with each cat, it has a variable degree of allergicity. My sister's cat ranks somewhere around a 2 on a scale from 1 to 10, in that I can play with it all day and it can attack me by pouncing on my head in the middle of the night and all I have to show for it, besides a general feeling of dislike for tiny mammals that interrupt my precious sleep, is a mild headache the next day (Level 2: Cat of Annoyance). In opposition, one of my friends owns a cat that will make me violently ill just by being in the same room with it for more than 5 minutes at a time (Level 10: Armageddon Cat). I'm talking serious issues of pain and destruction for everyone in the general vicinity if the cat and I cross paths.
(I had a DEFCON 5/ DEFCAT 5 joke in mind here but it's really stretching things and I'm not really in a good headspace for such things, but I wanted you to know about it anyways, because I feel that it could have been funny, if properly handled. And I just saw that Wargames movie on TV last weekend and it's still bouncing around in my head. How about a nice game of chess, Matthew Broderick, indeed.)
The cat this woman owned had to have ranked somewhere around level 40,000 (Level 40,000: Anathema Cat), because just being in the presence of its owner was sending me into fits of sneezing, nausea, and dizziness. And now, the day has passed and I'm still feeling it, the headache all tightly coiled around my brain like an evil snake, the watery/swelled eye look, the tendency for excessive sneezes. I would give my right index finger for a syringe of high powered Benadryl right about now. I look a mess, to put it bluntly.
In any case, my war with the feline continues unabated. Damn all the cats, unless they are very cute and/or playful. Then, awwwwww.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Because You Care
Yet another inarticulate movie review.
I'm really not sure about Sahara. It feels like a movie that I should like, in that it's inoffensive and full of gratuitous action sequences, buried treasure, and shirtless Matthew McConaughey, but yeah, not so much.
I mean, it had funny parts, Steve Zahn continues to be awesome, the soundtrack was hilariously sweet and James-Bond-ripoff-y, and there was indeed a lot of shirtless Matthew McConaughey, but there was also:
I'm really not sure about Sahara. It feels like a movie that I should like, in that it's inoffensive and full of gratuitous action sequences, buried treasure, and shirtless Matthew McConaughey, but yeah, not so much.
I mean, it had funny parts, Steve Zahn continues to be awesome, the soundtrack was hilariously sweet and James-Bond-ripoff-y, and there was indeed a lot of shirtless Matthew McConaughey, but there was also:
- Peneope Cruz, who, I'm sorry, registers no human emotion with me. She is the most placeholder of a female lead that I have ever witnessed. Virtually any other actress I will have at least some comment. Her? Umm, yeah seriously, nothing. Nothing to say against/for her acting, her personality, or her hotness. It's like she exists outside my available realm of interest.
- A B-plot that was just like Outbreak only, a) there was no cool monkey, and b) no hilariously over-acting Dustin Hoffman. Way to make me not care, movie that was supposed to be about Civil War gold in the Saharan desert.
- A C-plot (because an action movie needs a C-plot, of course) about, what, nuclear waste and the destruction of all life on Earth? Hmm, yes. While throwing together 14 random action sequences that no one should come remotely close to surviving is a staple of my action movie love, do we seriously need to keep piling on pointless story after pointless story? Because I'm pretty sure there is also along the way, another thread about the CIA and shirtless Matthew McConaughey's boss, and one about a civil war in an African nation, and....yeah.
So, I feel like this movie should have grabbed one story, stuck to it and threw all the action sequences in anyway, shoehorning them in, each more ridiculously contrived than the last. I thought it was a bad sign when 4 authors were listed under the Written By line, and I was totally spot on. Generally any movie that with shirtless Matthew McConaughey gets my thumbs up, and yet, here we are. Poor form, writers.
Um, yeah. So I am impossible to please. My name is Jason and I disapprove of this movie.
Friday, April 08, 2005
No. No, Really
I'm a moron.
I understand this. I do stupid things constantly. I fall down, I tear my clothes, I drop an entire taco salad on my lap in crowded restaurants (that might have happened today). But sometimes, I really don't know.
So last night I do laundry, because I've put it off 5 days longer than normal and am now forced to move straight from work clothes to pajamas every day. Short on laundry is what I'm saying.
I'm kinda in a hurry, because Lost is on and I don't want to miss any of it (sidebar: how hardcore is it that they killed off Boone? Just take a hatchet to all the pretty boys on the island, why don't you. But...I loved him. You will be missed, creepy incest boy. We'll always have Young Americans.) so I just toss all the clothes in a basket and literally run over to the laundry room, barefoot and cutting my toe on a rock mind you, and succeed in getting everything sorted, the soap in the machines, the change in the slots, the washers started, and back in the house before the long mid-hour commercial break.
I think I am so awesome.
Boone dies, and it is time to switch over to the dryer. I perform the switch, and I notice something of an odd smell. Nothing overpowering or coming from any one place, just a general weird smell. I don't really place it, but it's not horrible, so I get the dryer going and put an extra dryer sheet in there for good-smelling measure.
The hour of drying time ends, and I tear myself from the video games long enough to wander out to retrieve them, making special effort to put shoes on this time. I open the dryer door, and...it's difficult to describe.
---
From the ages of 13 to 15 my family used to take trips to the northern Arkansas border up in these tiny-ish mountains and get a house on the river and have a good old summer vacation for one week a year, with our cousins. One of the big attractions in the nearby town were some local caves, famous for their rock formations. There were huge guided tours all the time. At one point in the tour, you pass by an area that had been the tail end a sulfur mine, back in the early 1900's. (That was how these particular caves were found, while mining the sulfur.) However, the vein had run out very shortly after discovery of the caves. Yet, you could still smell the overpowering stench of sulfur for about 30 feet along the cave, until you got to the breezeway in the cave proper. It was a pretty cool place, but man that smell would stay with you.
---
This story seems very out of place. It is not, however, because the smell emanating from the dryer was nearly identical to that of those caves. Apparently, I had left a book of matches in my pants pocket from my bar expedition on the weekend. But these were no ordinary bar matches, these were something straight from the bowls of Hell itself, judging from the smell. I mean, it was on everything and it was overwhelming. Enough sulfur to kill a small woodland mammal.
I sort of just counted myself lucky that the book hadn't ignited in the heat of the dryer and incinerated all my clothes. I was naive.
Because I ran everything through the washer again to get rid of the smell (this time minus the matches, natch) and again through the dryer, and it doesn't matter. The smell is totally still there. Everytime I get into an elevator today, I hear "what is that smell?" Or just a bunch of loud sniffing.
"Yes, that smell is me. I'm the one that smells like a minion of Satan. All of my work slacks now smell of brimstone. (And half my work shirts, and all of my house-lounging wear). Is that what you want to hear? Do you?!" I feel the urge to say, but I do not, because I am not a crazy person.
I just smell like one.
I understand this. I do stupid things constantly. I fall down, I tear my clothes, I drop an entire taco salad on my lap in crowded restaurants (that might have happened today). But sometimes, I really don't know.
So last night I do laundry, because I've put it off 5 days longer than normal and am now forced to move straight from work clothes to pajamas every day. Short on laundry is what I'm saying.
I'm kinda in a hurry, because Lost is on and I don't want to miss any of it (sidebar: how hardcore is it that they killed off Boone? Just take a hatchet to all the pretty boys on the island, why don't you. But...I loved him. You will be missed, creepy incest boy. We'll always have Young Americans.) so I just toss all the clothes in a basket and literally run over to the laundry room, barefoot and cutting my toe on a rock mind you, and succeed in getting everything sorted, the soap in the machines, the change in the slots, the washers started, and back in the house before the long mid-hour commercial break.
I think I am so awesome.
Boone dies, and it is time to switch over to the dryer. I perform the switch, and I notice something of an odd smell. Nothing overpowering or coming from any one place, just a general weird smell. I don't really place it, but it's not horrible, so I get the dryer going and put an extra dryer sheet in there for good-smelling measure.
The hour of drying time ends, and I tear myself from the video games long enough to wander out to retrieve them, making special effort to put shoes on this time. I open the dryer door, and...it's difficult to describe.
---
From the ages of 13 to 15 my family used to take trips to the northern Arkansas border up in these tiny-ish mountains and get a house on the river and have a good old summer vacation for one week a year, with our cousins. One of the big attractions in the nearby town were some local caves, famous for their rock formations. There were huge guided tours all the time. At one point in the tour, you pass by an area that had been the tail end a sulfur mine, back in the early 1900's. (That was how these particular caves were found, while mining the sulfur.) However, the vein had run out very shortly after discovery of the caves. Yet, you could still smell the overpowering stench of sulfur for about 30 feet along the cave, until you got to the breezeway in the cave proper. It was a pretty cool place, but man that smell would stay with you.
---
This story seems very out of place. It is not, however, because the smell emanating from the dryer was nearly identical to that of those caves. Apparently, I had left a book of matches in my pants pocket from my bar expedition on the weekend. But these were no ordinary bar matches, these were something straight from the bowls of Hell itself, judging from the smell. I mean, it was on everything and it was overwhelming. Enough sulfur to kill a small woodland mammal.
I sort of just counted myself lucky that the book hadn't ignited in the heat of the dryer and incinerated all my clothes. I was naive.
Because I ran everything through the washer again to get rid of the smell (this time minus the matches, natch) and again through the dryer, and it doesn't matter. The smell is totally still there. Everytime I get into an elevator today, I hear "what is that smell?" Or just a bunch of loud sniffing.
"Yes, that smell is me. I'm the one that smells like a minion of Satan. All of my work slacks now smell of brimstone. (And half my work shirts, and all of my house-lounging wear). Is that what you want to hear? Do you?!" I feel the urge to say, but I do not, because I am not a crazy person.
I just smell like one.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Won't Someone Think of the Goddamn Children?
I fear for the future of our country.
I....what?
No, seriously. What. The. Fuck?
First off I thought we were finally letting go of this no carbs thing, or at least we were inundated enough that I no longer had to consciously hear about it anymore. Like I see the signs that say "1/3 less carbs" and whatnot, but they don't have any impact anymore. I mean people aren't still doing this, right?
Apparently yes.
But second? She a goddamn child. Maybe what, 7 years old? She freakin' stuck her tongue out as part of the statement, so as to fully convey how yucky carbs were. I....words....there are none.
And the mom encourages this? Actually buys these meals and pats her on the head? I wanted to physically grab the child and run from the store straight to some sort of deprogramming center where they would give her ice cream and funnel cakes until she blissed out on an insane sugar high and forgot all of her horrible past.
Judging from the look the cashier gave the mom, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this feeling, especially considering the look she gave me after they had wandered off with their food, which was the clearest non-vocal communication I have ever received ("Bitch be crazy," said the cashier's cocked eyebrow).
Ugh. People. I hate people.
Or to be more specific, I hate people who hate carbs. And hop on every fad diet train.
And then have children and pass their 'wisdom' on to the next generation.
People suck.
At lunch today, in the fast food line:
Chick In Front of Me With Little Girl in Tow: A #7 with an
iced tea, and a cheeseburger kid's meal, with no bun.
Cashier (befuddled): Kid's meal with no bun?
Chick: Yes.
Little Girl In Tow: Yeah! Carbs are gross! (sticks tongue out)
Chick: That's right sweetie. (pat on head)
I....what?
No, seriously. What. The. Fuck?
First off I thought we were finally letting go of this no carbs thing, or at least we were inundated enough that I no longer had to consciously hear about it anymore. Like I see the signs that say "1/3 less carbs" and whatnot, but they don't have any impact anymore. I mean people aren't still doing this, right?
Apparently yes.
But second? She a goddamn child. Maybe what, 7 years old? She freakin' stuck her tongue out as part of the statement, so as to fully convey how yucky carbs were. I....words....there are none.
And the mom encourages this? Actually buys these meals and pats her on the head? I wanted to physically grab the child and run from the store straight to some sort of deprogramming center where they would give her ice cream and funnel cakes until she blissed out on an insane sugar high and forgot all of her horrible past.
Judging from the look the cashier gave the mom, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this feeling, especially considering the look she gave me after they had wandered off with their food, which was the clearest non-vocal communication I have ever received ("Bitch be crazy," said the cashier's cocked eyebrow).
Ugh. People. I hate people.
Or to be more specific, I hate people who hate carbs. And hop on every fad diet train.
And then have children and pass their 'wisdom' on to the next generation.
People suck.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Jason and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Something Something.
It seemed like the day would never end. Jason looked up at the clock.
"Only 3:00? Will I never get to go home?" Jason was very sad.
Suddenly Jason's boss gave him a bonus assignment. "Go to the bank!" she said.
Jason bounded out of his office, happy to have something to do that involved movement. And he could listen to his iPod. Life was suddenly good.
Things took a turn for the worse, as Jason found that at 3:00 all the small children were getting out of school, which meant many many school crossing zones. But Jason was not deterred! Creeping along with the music blasting, Jason carefully picked his way towards the bank.
It was a nice day, not too sunny or warm, so Jason's spirits were steadily rising, and when George Michael's Faith came on, he knew today was going to be a good day. He made it to the bank without incident and got his business done in record time.
"What a swell day," he said.
Jason stepped out into the sun and disaster struck.
"The sun is out!"
And indeed it was. Lots of sun, and it was very hot in his Truck of Malfunction. And being a Truck of Malfunction, it lacked an air conditioning unit.
"I am resourceful and today is a good day. I will be fine." And with that, Jason rolled down his window and continued on his journey.
At the first stoplight, Jason looked out beside his Truck of Malfunction. "Look at those beautiful flowers! Today is a great day."
Suddenly, the sprinklers that water the flowers came on. Unfortunately for Jason, the sprinklers were aimed not at the flowers, but instead at his open window. Jason was soaked.
"Oh no! I must roll up the window!" So roll he did. Until it broke halfway up. Truck of Malfunction indeed. By the end of the light, Jason was very wet.
"I may be wet, but things will be fine. Today is a good day."
Jason got on the highway and headed back towards work. He went ahead and rolled the window down all the way, figuring that perhaps the rushing wind might dry him off a bit.
Two miles down the highway Jason saw a huge gust of wind up ahead -- a bunch of leaves blew across the road all swirling-like. "Yay for gusts of wind. Dry me off!" Jason was happy.
Even more suddenly than the last sudden thing, a huge piece of newspaper blew off of the highway and into Jason's driver's side window.
"This shouldn't be physically possible!" Jason exclaimed as he batted away the paper from his field of vision. He pushed the paper out of his face and down to the floorboards. At this point he noticed that his hands were sticky due to some unknown substance on the paper and there were several tiny chicken feathers in the cab.
He looked down at his sticky hands, and the chicken feathers, and his wet clothes.
"Today is still an okay day, on the whole," Jason sighed.
Then he looked down at his clock. 3:50. He still had over an hour and a half of work left.
"Well Shit," he said.
--The End--
"Only 3:00? Will I never get to go home?" Jason was very sad.
Suddenly Jason's boss gave him a bonus assignment. "Go to the bank!" she said.
Jason bounded out of his office, happy to have something to do that involved movement. And he could listen to his iPod. Life was suddenly good.
Things took a turn for the worse, as Jason found that at 3:00 all the small children were getting out of school, which meant many many school crossing zones. But Jason was not deterred! Creeping along with the music blasting, Jason carefully picked his way towards the bank.
It was a nice day, not too sunny or warm, so Jason's spirits were steadily rising, and when George Michael's Faith came on, he knew today was going to be a good day. He made it to the bank without incident and got his business done in record time.
"What a swell day," he said.
Jason stepped out into the sun and disaster struck.
"The sun is out!"
And indeed it was. Lots of sun, and it was very hot in his Truck of Malfunction. And being a Truck of Malfunction, it lacked an air conditioning unit.
"I am resourceful and today is a good day. I will be fine." And with that, Jason rolled down his window and continued on his journey.
At the first stoplight, Jason looked out beside his Truck of Malfunction. "Look at those beautiful flowers! Today is a great day."
Suddenly, the sprinklers that water the flowers came on. Unfortunately for Jason, the sprinklers were aimed not at the flowers, but instead at his open window. Jason was soaked.
"Oh no! I must roll up the window!" So roll he did. Until it broke halfway up. Truck of Malfunction indeed. By the end of the light, Jason was very wet.
"I may be wet, but things will be fine. Today is a good day."
Jason got on the highway and headed back towards work. He went ahead and rolled the window down all the way, figuring that perhaps the rushing wind might dry him off a bit.
Two miles down the highway Jason saw a huge gust of wind up ahead -- a bunch of leaves blew across the road all swirling-like. "Yay for gusts of wind. Dry me off!" Jason was happy.
Even more suddenly than the last sudden thing, a huge piece of newspaper blew off of the highway and into Jason's driver's side window.
"This shouldn't be physically possible!" Jason exclaimed as he batted away the paper from his field of vision. He pushed the paper out of his face and down to the floorboards. At this point he noticed that his hands were sticky due to some unknown substance on the paper and there were several tiny chicken feathers in the cab.
He looked down at his sticky hands, and the chicken feathers, and his wet clothes.
"Today is still an okay day, on the whole," Jason sighed.
Then he looked down at his clock. 3:50. He still had over an hour and a half of work left.
"Well Shit," he said.
--The End--
Monday, April 04, 2005
Huh?
I feel like I should write something about this weekend, but I have the most intense case of writer's block in recent memory, so I'm just gonna babble on at the fingers and stop when I get tired, or carpal tunnel, whichever comes first.
I went out on Friday night for the first time in forever. It was fun, but I am insanely socially awkward, which meant things were awkward, and then I felt ridiculously sick just from the smell of the bar, which depressed me in ways that are difficult to explain. There is an overarching sense of elderly-ness that I seem to give off these days. What with my 12 hour sleeping stints and my delicate constitution. Oh what a world.
I saw Sin City also, and if I thought combining words to make sentences about Friday was hard, there's just no comparison that does this inability-to-write justice. In that I seriously cannot find words that explain my feelings about this movie. I need some other sort of medium, like finger paints or interpretive dance, to get across the exact message. And even then it would just be a lot of frantic gestures and streaks of red. I will say that it was completely exhausting to watch, and that I was alternatingly drawn forward and compelled back constantly throughout the movie. As someone wise said "If ever anything was hardcore, that was it."
Oh, and Clive Owen and Rosario Dawson are so ridiculously hot that their combined screen presence is almost enough to take out the entire theatre.
But yeah, I liked it enough.
So I've been reading a lot of books lately as my stint of sheer video gaming insanity seems to be slowly tapering off into something more healthy and less myopia-inducing and it has come to my attention that my patience with popular fiction has reached an all time low. In that, normally I will push through any given book to the end, provided there are printed words and they form at least a coherent sentence once per page, but now I get completely fed up with shoddy writing within 30 pages and will literally throw down a book that annoys me, and then won't pick it up again. Until lately the only book I have ever stopped reading due to my own personal taste was The Sound and the Fury, a book that I still truly believe is a huge joke perpetrated on literary minds everywhere. Now, I will totally give up on a book for, say, using the word 'impetus' twice in a two page span. I don't know if this means I've become a snob, or just really picky about how I spend my time. Probably neither, considering I still manage to finish a ton of books, the latest of which (All Tomorrow's Parties, William Gibson) I found to be a complete sucking void of a waste, once it was done. Isn't it nice how this long a rant can end up with no rational conclusion?
Yeah, so. Other stories can wait. The carpal tunnel is coming on, I can feel its cold, sweet embrace. Later.
I went out on Friday night for the first time in forever. It was fun, but I am insanely socially awkward, which meant things were awkward, and then I felt ridiculously sick just from the smell of the bar, which depressed me in ways that are difficult to explain. There is an overarching sense of elderly-ness that I seem to give off these days. What with my 12 hour sleeping stints and my delicate constitution. Oh what a world.
I saw Sin City also, and if I thought combining words to make sentences about Friday was hard, there's just no comparison that does this inability-to-write justice. In that I seriously cannot find words that explain my feelings about this movie. I need some other sort of medium, like finger paints or interpretive dance, to get across the exact message. And even then it would just be a lot of frantic gestures and streaks of red. I will say that it was completely exhausting to watch, and that I was alternatingly drawn forward and compelled back constantly throughout the movie. As someone wise said "If ever anything was hardcore, that was it."
Oh, and Clive Owen and Rosario Dawson are so ridiculously hot that their combined screen presence is almost enough to take out the entire theatre.
But yeah, I liked it enough.
So I've been reading a lot of books lately as my stint of sheer video gaming insanity seems to be slowly tapering off into something more healthy and less myopia-inducing and it has come to my attention that my patience with popular fiction has reached an all time low. In that, normally I will push through any given book to the end, provided there are printed words and they form at least a coherent sentence once per page, but now I get completely fed up with shoddy writing within 30 pages and will literally throw down a book that annoys me, and then won't pick it up again. Until lately the only book I have ever stopped reading due to my own personal taste was The Sound and the Fury, a book that I still truly believe is a huge joke perpetrated on literary minds everywhere. Now, I will totally give up on a book for, say, using the word 'impetus' twice in a two page span. I don't know if this means I've become a snob, or just really picky about how I spend my time. Probably neither, considering I still manage to finish a ton of books, the latest of which (All Tomorrow's Parties, William Gibson) I found to be a complete sucking void of a waste, once it was done. Isn't it nice how this long a rant can end up with no rational conclusion?
Yeah, so. Other stories can wait. The carpal tunnel is coming on, I can feel its cold, sweet embrace. Later.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Rambling Fridays
My love affair with Coke with Lime has officially ended. It was pretty much the shortest love affair in the history of soft drinks, managing to burn out by my fourth serving of the drink. My first taste was bold and exciting, from a 20 oz. bottle and full of mystery and illicitness. Wanting to have that feeling all the time, I picked up a 12 pack the next day expecting nothing short of brilliance. By the third can, the luster was gone. So artificial. And it managed to dampen the ever so sweet burning sensation that you get from real Coca Cola.
RIP Coke with Lime, we'll always have that one day in mid-March. Good times, right?
--------------------------------------------
Already twice today I've been the prop in an April Fool's Day joke. And I do mean prop - people have centered entire jokes around my personality. Apparently the fact that I never call in sick and always get work done quickly is staple enough around here to work up elaborate schemes of hilarity over.
Which is hard to know how to take properly. A commendation? An insult? Are people calling me boring, or just, y'know, efficient? This is why I hate people. Mixed signals, man.
---------------------------------------------
Last night I went to sleep at 7:00PM and didn't get up longer than 2 minutes until 7:00 in the AM. That is easily the earliest I have gone to bed in over 3 years. It was supposed to just be a little nap that spiraled completely out of all control. I'm not really sure what brought it on, something to do with late nights, lots of work, running around, and the warmth inside my apartment. But damn if it was not sweet.
Yeah, I got nothing accomplished, but boy do I feel good today. Sleep is totally the best invention ever.
---------------------------------------------
I never have anything to say on Fridays, yo. Umm... Oh. I am physically drooling over Sin City, which opens today and am making mad planz to make sure I get to see it as soon as humanly possible. Short of a movie starring Hobbits or Harry Potter, I haven't been this excited about going to the theatre ever. I mean, look at it...
Wow. I seriously have nothing. Enjoy your weekend, I know I'll enjoy mine.
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