Ranting for the Sake of Ranting

Two unrelated and almost purposely obtuse rants on things that annoy me today:

• Okay, how many times in the past week have I seen (usually in reality TV show interviews) someone say "Well, I know I did my best, so I feel fine," immediately after losing/getting kicked off/being rejected/etc? Approximately 1,000,000 times by my count. How is this comforting to people? "I did my absolute best and I totally got smoked! Score!" That is not something to be proud of, that your best was not good enough. That is crushing! Vow to get better. Make up an excuse, blame a judge, the media, or God. Heck, freak out in the middle of the interview all mad-scientist/Bond villain and declare that You'll Destroy Them All and One Day You'll See, You'll All See Mwha Ha ha. But whatever you do, please don't accept your mediocrity in front of a TV viewing audience. It makes me sad.

• Yes, I got a haircut. I'm glad that you can see that, I'm crazy narcissistic like that. But here's the thing - coming up to me and saying "Hey, you got a haircut!" drives me insane. Tell me you like it, tell me you hate it, tell me it makes my forehead look a mile long and my head like a half-crushed walnut, whatever, just don't stop with the declarative. I see what you're doing, don't think I'm stupid. You're trying to gauge what I think of it so that you can respond in kind. If I say "Yeah, I love it," you can paste a fake smile on your face and go right along. Or if I say "Eh, yeah, what can you do?" you're free to give in to your baser urges and comfort "oh, it'll grow out, it's not that bad."
  
  No No No! Quit hedging to see what I think, just grow a pair and tell me. As it stands right now, you remember that line in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where Ford came up with a theory that people keep stating the obvious because they have to constantly talk to keep their brain functioning? That's what I'm thinking when you're* all "Your hair is different today! And will you look at that sky? It's blue!"

*(PS - By you, I mean all those other people. Not you. You know I love you. Always and forever. You complete me, baby.)

There's No Shame on the Internet

As last night was a Monday night after an exhausting day of working on what was technically a holiday, I was not exactly inclined to do much of anything. Basically I walked through the door, stripped out of my work clothes and changed into my pajamas. Threw something into the oven for dinner, then collapsed on the couch. Again, being Monday, there's not even a damn thing on television to watch, so me and Roommate Frank opted to watch M. Night Shyamalan's The Village, because he had never seen it before, and I love me that horrible movie.

Seriously, yeah I'll admit straight up that the movie is horrible. Sucktastic. L-to-the-izz-ame, as it were. But I can't get enough Bryce Dallas Howard and Joaquin Phoenix's character is just so damn cute. And yeah, okay, the movie does still freak me out a bit, despite the fact that I know exactly what happens. Sue me, I'm a little girl like that.

So we start watching the movie and it is sufficiently creepy. Made moreso by the fact that it's really windy outside, so there are these really loud noises coming from our patio, as all my sundry chairs and plants outside roll around in the wind. We pause the movie for a moment to lock the sliding glass door and for Roommate Frank to double-check the lock on the front door. Because we are awesome.

Movie continues, as do the sounds from outside. Roommate Frank becomes convinced that M. Night Shyamalan is out on our patio trying to make the movie scarier than it actually is. I do not technically disagree with him.

Movie ends, Frank bemoans how horrible the entire thing was. Again, I do not disagree. But sadly, to tell the truth, I am still a little on edge from the whole thing. That shit is scary, yo. What?! Don't judge me! Yet.

There's another loud noise from the patio.

Frank: [lying on the couch] Jason! Make M. Night Shyamalan go away!
Jason: [in as patronizing a tone as possible] Now Frank, you know full well that M. Night Shyamalan is just a make-believe story that people tell to scare little kids. See?
[Jason goes to pull the curtain aside to show that there is no one on the patio. He pulls it open, and SEES SOMEONE STANDING RIGHT THERE LOOKING AT HIM!]
Jason: GAHHHH! [Bounds backwards three feet while screaming like a little girl.]
Frank: What?!
Jason's Brain: Calm down you fool! You realize that was just your reflection in the glass door, right? Way to freak-the-fuck-out over what is practically your own shadow. You are the lamest lame who ever lamed. Frank officially thinks you've lost your mind. But maybe you can still pull this out.
Jason: Ha. Ha. Good one, right? Had you going there! Heh. [pause] Heh. Aren't I a good actor?
Frank: [Inquisitive head tilt] Huh?
Jason: Okay, yeah, I just freaked out over my own reflection.
Frank: Ha ha. 'Mo.
Jason: Hate Crime!

This week shall hereunto be referred to as Jason's Mondo Week of Embarrassing Scenarios.

All Signs Point to Haircut

Okay, so my hair is crazy long. Well, not by any normal standards, but by Jason's Hair Standards it's running as long as it's ever been in the past 5 years or so. This means it is not quite in my eyes, but if I try I can actually see the beginnings of the hair in my field of vision. I cannot handle long hair, as anyone who knew me in high school knows. I look like a really unfortunate sheepdog when my hair gets long. An ugly sheepdog.

I keep meaning to go to the barber/salon/Supercuts and let them do the same damage they always do, but I am easily distracted by things like movies, or video games, or lying on the couch insulting my roommate for being lazy (while I'm watching an infomercial because the remote control is just out of my reach). With such a super busy schedule things have just spiraled out of control, hair-wise.

Problem is, I absolutely cannot stand long hair. On my forehead or in my eyes, it drives me nuts. Thus, in my state of long-haired-ness I have devised a system to keep my hair out of the way when I'm at home. It involves my red SMU ear warming headband (given to me by the lovely Devon) carefully placed just above my hairline with all the hair collected inside its elasticity, effectively freeing me from any potential hair distractions while I'm slowing vegetating away to nothing on the couch.

Its the perfect solution, except with my hair being as long as it is now, my hair actually spills out over the top of the headband. So it sort of flops out, giving off a look not unsimilar to a stalk of broccoli or a particularly poofy fern, perched on the top of my head. Which my roommate is exceedingly quick to mock. But whatever, if I listened to things that Frank told me, I would have died long ago, probably of alcohol-poisoning or in a gay orchestra riot.

So last night I am watching Grey's Anatomy and Red Eye with Devon and getting my laundry done, basically your normal, very productive Sunday night. I am of course wearing the headband, because it is what I do when I am at home and also because I think it only polite to show people how much you appreciate any gifts they give you by using them as much as possible. Even if you're using them in ways not necessarily intended by God or man.

Not really thinking of much of anything, I run out to the laundry room to retrieve all the clothes from the dryer (aside: for once this is not a story of pain in the laundry room; actually the laundry room has been very good to me lately) on a commercial break. With record pace, I collect my clothes and head on back home. As I hit my hallway I pass by two very nice girls who are having a discussion.

Girl One: [holding a garbage bag] So where, again?
Girl Two: I'm not sure. We've got to get to that dumpster. [Notices Jason. Surprised eyes at the hair. Recovers nicely.] Oh hi. Excuse me. I'm your new neighbor. Any idea how we take the trash out? [Another discreet glance at his hair. Seriously, she's got some remarkable poise in the face of someone who looks completely out of their damn mind.]
Jason: [awkward (that goes without saying, right?)] Oh. Right. Yes. You have to go down to that gate and walk all the way around, unless you want to drive. They stopped picking up at the door last week.
Girl Two: Right I heard that. Drag. Well, cool, thanks, I'm your new next door neighbor, [yeah like I can remember her name through my embarrassment]. Nice to meet you.
Jason: Hi, Jason. [tries to point to himself, but fails, as he is holding a giant tub full of clothes. Almost drops it, but recovers.] Me. I mean, I'm Jason. My name. It's. Jason.
Jason's Brain: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!
Jason: Nice to meet you too. [awkward pause]
Girl Two: [Another glance at the hair, which has taken on a whole new look, after the near drop of the tub. There are random strands of hair now in Jason's face, along with the whole vegetable top look.] Cool. Well. Later.

[She goes to shake his hand, but thinks better of it when he attempts to shift the tub again and almost bites it. Girls One & Two ride off into the night, Jason runs back into his apartment, where Devon proceeds to point and laugh at him for 15 minutes straight. Which he entirely deserves.]

Anyways, with that final spurring from God, I will be going to get my hair cut this afternoon. Rock on.

Wherein I Become a Seething Pile of Emotion

I was going to go back and update that damn mile long list of movies that I saw in 2005 to include the last few days of the year, which were a flurry of cinema (my final tally was 56 movies, up from 53), as there was not much else to do during the break.

I'm not, though, because I realized that I would have a new #1 movie, which would necessitate changing every single number in the post, which is just not on.

So Brokeback Mountain gets a whole (ginormous) entry to itself.

-----------------

Okay first off, the movie itself is excellent. It's beautifully shot and paced. The intro is a bit long, but right. They expanded on the short story perfectly, adding some things that I really dug (Ennis's relationship with his daughter is a good example) without dragging the movie out. The acting is freaking ridiculous - Michelle Williams's performance makes up for every single bad movie ever made by a member of Dawson's Creek, up to and including Varsity Blues, which is saying possibly too much. Heath Ledger (from a goddamn Knight's Tale all jousting to Queen) made me cry. The ending was so completely perfect that it broke me. Each and every one of Anne Hathaway's wigs deserved an acting nomination for how perfectly Texas each one was. I cannot come up with enough good things to say about this movie.

I only have two annoyances. 1) Some of the later scenes were either shot in horrible light or the makeup was completely off, because Jake Gyllenhall looked like his face was melting off. I get that they were trying to age him, but come on people. If I can see the foundation, you know something is off. 2) I love that scene late in the movie where Michelle Williams confronts Heath Ledger about all his fishing trips and her little ploy to prove that he never actually fished (one of the best scenes and almost verbatim from the short story). But in the movie she has seen him and Jake hardcore making out in front of their house. I'm thinking that's a little better evidence than your clever ruse involving fishing lures, watching two guys trying to consume each other's faces on the front yard. But maybe that's just me. As Frank said "Maybe they were just really happy to see their good buddy." Because you know that's how I greet my old cowboy friends.

Anyways, I've gone on way too much about the faults.

There is something more about the story that gets to me, a way that some of the scenes were done that just lodges right inside me. I've already gushed at length about the movie itself, but I'm talking about how they work up the relationship between Jack and Ennis, heck how they show them individually too.

It's a matter that I claim some expertise in - growing up gay (in the South) with the religious stuff drilled in to your DNA that it's all a sin. To say that I feel where Jack and Ennis are coming from is an internet understatement of massive proportions. Ennis particularly - quiet, reserved, focused on the job, morally conflicted, etc.

But it's not even the same thing. When you add in the time period that they're in, it's magnified a million times - I don't deal with 1% of the stigma they're talking about in the 60's. The whole thing is almost too much for me to wrap my head around.

I'm rambling, so we'll cut to the scenes I want to talk about:

• Ennis's nervous waiting when Jack comes to meet him for the first time. Drinking beers, staring out the window all day with that jumpy anticipation. That whole - 'Jack's not that kind of guy, probably just go out to a bar' thing. The whole build up telegraphs his feelings so well that I could feel myself physically tightening up in response. And then the payoff when they actually meet on the steps - when I say the movie broke me, seriously. That much repressed emotion and hotness in one big burst. Ow.
• Jack's short little cruising scene after that first rodeo. So incidental to the rest of the movie, but exactly what it needed to be. Subtle in action, showing everything we need to know about him (overly brash despite his intentions - you get a shot of those guys from across the room and the ending of the movie is practically already laid out in my mind) and his differences from Ennis. He is louder, more physical, miles more direct in his intentions. There is this intense sadness where you know this is not going to work.
• And in that same vein, the corny (yet utterly delicious and perfect and already overused by me) "I wish I knew how to quit you" scene, where Jack is entirely angry at Ennis for ruining what could be perfect (in his mind, at least), but you know it would never work because of how Ennis has been raised and who he is and you feel completely for both of them but it doesn't matter because it's not going to be real and man look at me go on. Repeat after me: This is just a movie.
• We're not even going to get into the ending scenes with Jack's parents and the shirts and the breaking of my poor dorky heart, but it's ridiculous how affecting this whole thing is to me.

So yeah, that was a little uncomfortable, all that emotional spewing all over the internet, but I felt like I should say something, because it did mess with me in a way very few things can these days.

Best movie of the year. Even better than Serenity.

British-isms

Edit: You know, normally when someone writes one of these blowing-off-steam essays, once they've recovered they go back and delete them. Me? I go back, edit for punctuation and grammar, and then leave it up. I should be studied.

Today I have the worst (non-feline related) headache I have had in at least two years. It comes completely out of the blue with no apparent cause and it is ruining my life.

So much so that I missed the first hour of work today because I could literally not compel myself to stand up for more than 5 seconds without feeling violently ill. Thus I flailed at my alarm clock at least 5 times, each time hitting the snooze, completely unable to make the connection that I needed to actually turn the damn thing off.

I did manage to get into work around 9:30, though, because I need me some money and I can't be all slacking off just because my brain is trying to escape my skull by burrowing directly out from between my eyes.

The pain is now at least manageable, the problem now becomes that the things in a normal day which are everyday annoying now become brain-meltingly frustrating, to the point where one more stupid comment is liable to send me snapping into a crazy rage in all colors of the rainbow.

Boss creates a computer problem? Happens basically everyday. Only mildly annoying. Is moreso today with the aforementioned skull pounding, but manageable. The constant chatter and exhortation that I must fix said problem when there is no available solution? Intolerable. Telling me that "there must be something [I] can do" when there totally is not helps no one, especially not my rage.

And then when we get the IT email that indeed it is a corporate-wide server issue and cannot be fixed individually, one should not use the phrase 'well at least someone knows what they're doing around here' unless one wants one's assistant to quit in a blind rage, possibly after deleting every file in the entire office.

Don't tempt me, I'm so on the verge right now.

----------------------

Heh, anyways, aside from that, my stock response for dealing with everyone today has been to respond to any and all attempts at communication with me by tilting my head to the side and saying (in the most British way possible) : "Is that so? Is it really?" and then staring until they go away. Sometimes I rub the bridge of my nose just so, or at least did until my pen leaked blue ink all over my fingers, and I left a huge blue streak across my nose.

Which was even more effective at getting people to leave me alone.

All in all, quite an awesome day. If you will excuse me, I'm going to go lie down in the dark for several days until the pain dissipates, and the blue on my face is no longer noticeable.

Exfoliation

Or How I Officially Became a Gay Man

So Roommate Frank's not so subtle hint that I am turning into a crazy and weather-beaten old man was a Christmas gift of an exfoliation kit that promises to "return [my] skin to a youthful and healthy glow."

Just to be clear, my skin has never been youthful, healthy, or glowing. Unless you're speaking of some time before puberty, which I'm thinking is not exactly what they meant there. But in any case, the allure of nice skin is pretty tempting to someone as pizza-faced as me, so I went ahead with the whole regimen, figuring it is my duty as a proper homosexual to have multiple "products" and "treatments" applied to my "face" in order to "futilely chase my fleeting youth."

The thing is, what they don't tell you on the box, is that exfoliation is just a fancy word for "let's sandpaper your face." Seriously. Only instead of actual sandpaper, they helpfully provide this tube of cream which contains, I swear to God, little grains of aluminum that you're supposed to rub all over your face for "90 to 120 seconds, never staying in one place for too long." Presumably they include that last part because if you did, you would rub straight down to the bone.

Once your face is consistently scoured of all remains of actual skin, they give you the best part of the procedure, a moisturizing lotion which I assume is made from kittens or bunnies or something equally cute and fuzzy, because dear lord it is divine and soft and almost but not quite makes up for the steel wool portion of the day's procedure.

The whole process is like a voluntary torture regimen. "Rip all the skin off my face? Don't mind if I do!" The part that really gets to me is that this is an accepted practice across the globe. People do this all the time. I am mind-boggled over the entire thing, although I suppose I should not be. Diets, high heels, and lifting really heavy things over and over again for no good reason all exist for an exactly similar purpose. I guess I'm just a little behind the times catching up on my masochism-for-beauty events.

And unfortunately? It totally works. I've been using this stuff for nigh onto 11 days now and I literally do have nicer, more glowing skin. Not counting today, where I somehow sprouted a zit of teenage epic proportion just below my lower lip and it looks like I have herpes, but whatever. The rest of my skin around said 'herpes' is absolutely glowing.

2005 Movie Round Up

(Shamelessly borrowed/stolen from Montykins, because I'm unoriginal like that.)

For the love of God, I watch too many movies. Going off this delicious list, I pulled together every newly released movie in 2005 that I've seen. Which is not to say that this is all the movies I've seen this year. No, it's just the ones that were officially released in the 2005 calendar year. Also, I'm including anything I've seen in the theatre or on video, just to make things simpler.

Anyways, y'all, I have seen 53 new movies this year. 53. For those of you uninitiated into our calendar system, that's better than one new movie a week. It is obviously a sickness that I have, this need to be continually entertained by bright flashing pictures of people I do not know.

But we can't let this achievement go to waste now, so I present a round-up of all the movies I saw this year, working backwards from most horrible to best. We will divide them up into 5 distinct categories: Movies that I Actively Hate, Movies that I Only Dislike, Movies I Don't Care About, Movies That Were Good, and Movies That Were Excellent.

Within the categories, there is some room for leeway on their order. And also, these judgments are made as of today in my mind, so movies that I may have liked earlier in the year might have gotten bumped down and vice versa. I am a very fickle person, you should know that by now.

Onwards!

Movies I Actively Hated
53. The Fog (otherwise entitled - 'Wasting 8 dollars on the words "Tom Welling/Maggie Grace"')
52. White Noise
51. Dukes of Hazard
50. The Wedding Date
49. Guess Who
48. Madagascar
47. Brother's Grimm (why is it that I've only seen this "gay Heath Ledger" movie this year?)

Movies I Disliked
46. Hide & Seek
45. War of the Worlds
44. Ring 2
43. Fantastic Four
42. Miss Congeniality 2
41. House of Wax
40. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (shut up, tragic yet brave dying girl)
39. Undiscovered (never thought I would ever say this, but - not enough Ashlee Simpson)
38. The Family Stone (because of that one scene)

Movies I Don't Care About
37. Be Cool
36. The Longest Yard
35. Cry_Wolf
34. Ice Princess
33. Chronicles of Narnia (this movie is forever ruined for me by things that are not its fault)
32. Pulse
31. Sky High (harsh, I know)
30. Sahara

Movies That Were Good
29. Rent
28. Stay (I am being mean to this movie unnecessarily)
27. Broken Flowers (I think this only made the good list because I was drunk when I saw it)
26. Hostage
25. Crash
24. Rize
23. Kingdom of Heaven
22. Exorcism of Emily Rose
21. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
20. Greatest Game Ever Played
19. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
18. Skeleton Key
17. Batman Begins
16. Jarhead
15. The Interpreter
14. Constantine
13. Red Eye
12. Flightplan
11. Shopgirl (oh Claire Danes. I wish I knew how to quit you)
10. The Island (best pure action movie in ages)
9. Sin City

Movies That Were Excellent
8. Proof (who knew Gwyneth could act?)
7. Constant Gardener (seriously, you should go see this)
6. Star Wars: Episode III (oh shut up, I'm allowed one vice)
5. Kung Fu Hustle
4. King Kong
3. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2. Howl's Moving Castle (I know it didn't make any sense and I don't care. Love.)
1. Serenity (like you didn't see that coming)

I'm glad that more than half (29) of the movies I at least liked. And I was sort of extra mean to a few others, so I think it was a good year, movie-wise. I'm especially pleased with that top 5, each of which I really liked for entirely different reasons.

And since there is still time left in the year this will probably have to be updated, because I've still got Brokeback Mountain to see tomorrow, and either Capote or Munich on Saturday.

But seriously, I need to back off the movies a little bit, methinks. That's quite the investment on my part, time and money-wise.

....

Oh whatever, you all know that 2006 is the year I'll finally break 60.

Zombification

First off, I want to stress that by the title of this post I am in no way lessening the seriousness of zombie attacks and the need for zombie awareness in the world at large. It is a very serious problem, and I maintain my status on the forefront of zombie defense and am a staunch supporter of early zombie preparedness. We cannot let those filthy brain-eaters gain even the smallest toehold in society.

Ahem.

Anyways, so this whole holiday thing has thrown me so far off my normal schedule, I don't know whether I'm coming or going lately. My family tends to operate on something of a sleepless schedule whenever we congregate in the same house. Which means we never go to bed until after 2:00AM, after an unending night of jokes and cookies and as many other foods as you can name. And then we are up by 7:00AM for extended merriment and loud noises that make me curl up into a tiny ball and question our group sanity.

Which means when I get home, days seem really quiet and surreal, like a waking dream. This is further enhanced by the fact that all I do these days is watch movies in the dark. (Complete aside - this whole unlimited movies thing is going to be the death of me. There are a lot of movies in the world, and I apparently am going to 'catch them all,' like a set of Pokemon or what have you. I have watched at least two movies every day for the last 9 consecutive days. And one of those was a 6 hour mini-series. That aint healthy, y'all.)

So now that I'm back at work, I have to do something to keep me alive during the mornings. Because I do not do mornings. At all. My alarm will go off at least five times before I am compelled out from under the covers. And once I'm into the office, at bare minimum 90 minutes must pass before I am remotely productive. My latest stop-gap method of staying awake in the office is the creation of the most potent brew known to man - Hot Chocolate/Coffee. Which is a cup of my office's coffee, which is more like caffeine in sludge form, combined with several tablespoons of hot cocoa mix and stirred until mostly incorporated. It combines sugar, caffeine, more caffeine in the form of chocolate, and every preservative on the planet, in one tiny cup, which I gulp down like a man at an oasis after a week in the desert.

It's also like rocket fuel for my brain, and sends me into a flurry of nervous energy, all twitches and tics, for the 10 o'clock hour, which is usually the time when I crash the hardest, and it gets me all the way to lunch. Where I am free to crash as much as I want since, y'know, free time.

My machinations, they are awesome. And if I fall into a sugar coma, well we all knew I would end up that way eventually, right? Better now than later.

A Million Tiny Monkeys. In my Lungs.

I am allergic to cats. This is not a revelation to most, it's usually pretty plain to anyone who has seen me come into contact with a feline. Only, there is a scale of allergic-ity that I have which makes things more interesting.

On one extreme, we have long haired cats which provoke an immediate and very alarming physical reaction. This may entail but is not limited to: sneezing, crying, running at the nose, vomiting, intense physical pain directly behind the eyes and swelling of the throat. And that's just being in the same room as the cat. People can attest, it's sort of creepy.

On the other end, I am perfectly fine around certain species of the domesticates, I just slowly but surely build up to a low grade allergy attack - stuffed nose, watery eyes, sinus headache, etc. It's just a cumulative effect, but nothing serious and I can go for days at a time with them around.

My sister's beautiful, wonderful cat Ishbu is a member of the second column. So whenever I go home, I am slowly subjected to his ministrations. Which I do not mind, since I actively love him and have to restrain myself from going all crazy cat person around him, talking in that creepy babble talk that people get. But when I go back to my own humble abode, my body has to return to its natural equilibrium, which means that my head begins to drain southward into the rest of my body. Which does not bode well for the day immediately following my return.

Right now, my lungs feel roughly half full of some sort of very thick liquid, and I have a worse runny nose than pretty much any 5 year-old in the world. This near pneumoniatic level of my lungs was brought to the fore especially well today when I decided to read some David Sedaris over lunch. You know what is the only thing that you can't do in this lung-filled state? Laugh heartily. Because it will send you into crazy wracking coughing fits wherein people openly discuss whether or not you may die before you can gain control of your breathing again.

And when David Sedaris is involved, you get to read about 4 lines at which point something tickles your fancy and you fall into one of the fits. 2 minutes later you have regained control of yourself, scared everyone else in the restaurant half to death, pop open the book again and read two more lines, and go right back into the spasms of laughter/coughing.

After about 20 minutes of this, the woman sitting next to me came over, grabbed the book from my hand and said "Maybe you should stop reading that book, dear. I think it's overstimulating you."

At which point everyone around us nodded.

Also, at that point, I decided that it was best if I leave. And never return.

(Do I need to mention that I was in Wendy's? No, of course not. Because if something embarrassing happens to me in a restaurant, you can just assume it was a Wendy's and always be right. Sigh.)

In which I admit I'm a lazy bastard

It's the holiday's y'all. And while I'm not exactly brimming with good cheer and well-wishes for the common man, I am not actively depressed, which is good in its own right.

So in any case, in lieu of an actual entry, allow me to ramble on in lazy bullet point fashion:

• On heavy persuasion from Frank, I picked up the unlimited monthly movie membership to Blockbuster. I can already tell this was the best idea in the history of time and I've only been using it for three days. You're allowed to freely indulge in any weird movie taste that might strike you whenever you want. And there's no guilt for bad movies, because heck, you can just go trade it in for a new one - the store is like 0.5 miles away. This is akin to giving me a key to the biggest candy store in the world, and then attaching it to my house. I'm gonna be on this sugar high for weeks.
• As usual, I'm a little slow to the bandwagon, but this Sudoku thing is just crazy addictive. It's like crossword puzzles, except it's math. And math that I can do. Can you count to 9? Then you can play this game. I am all about that. Still takes me ages to get through a Hard one, though.
• I am actually writing again. And it's something that isn't fanfiction and isn't a lame blog entry. Do you understand how long it has been? Probably not, but seriously this makes me ridiculously happy. Even if it is total shite, it's written words that I made up. I feel all important and crap.
• I still have no soul, and my art still sucks, but that's not gonna stop me from completing my final Christmas gift to my Mom, who has requested homemade art, and by God, that's what she's going to get. Even if it is uglier than anything else in the world.
• Serenity is even better on DVD.

And that's all I got. Tune in tomorrow, when I ramble on and on and on about all the movies I've watched in the past 4 days. Because there have been a lot of them.

Mmm...Apple

This is a little late in coming, but I feel compelled to discuss the new Fiona Apple CD, Extraordinary Machine.

First off, I need to do my Fiona Apple caveat. The only way I can think to phrase it is that I'm weirdly, intensely protective of her. Like, when someone tells me that they don't like her music, I am immediately suspicious of them - much like if someone admitted to being a Communist, or Canadian.

Because how can you not love Fiona Apple?

Anyways, the new stuff is excellent. Back in the early days of yore with that whole dust-up about the CD not being released and the whole internet leakage and whatnot, I managed to procure me a pretty complete set of the music. And I did it without my normal crushing guilt over the illegalities of it all, since there was a possibility they would never see the light of day.

And it was fantastic. Delicious lyrics, some very nice rhythms, and some completely off the wall Jon Brion magic (In the form of Extraordinary Machine, which is my favorite song of the bunch by far). The final produced CD, (which I actually bought from a store with physical money) is just as good, but in different ways. Actually I think it's even better, because it has some cohesion, and like the changes or not, it feels very complete. The only thing I can confidently bring out of this whole experience is that having two versions of every song is an awesome way to go about it.

Some of the songs I greatly prefer off of the unreleased stuff (Window is a million times better with the less synthesized back-up horns, Get Him Back has a better edge on the earlier version), others absolutely kill in their CD form (O' Sailor, Not About Love, and Parting Gift all stand out for different reasons).

It's just an excellent CD. As always, the lyrics are ridiculously impressive, and the rhyming just ends me (if you know me in person, I've harped on this to you already no doubt, but "Take all the things that I've said that you've stole / Put 'em in a sack, swing 'em over your shoulder" might be my favoritest strange rhyme in the history of the world. It's all about the emphasis.).

So yeah, I love me some Fiona Apple.

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Pointless aside - Serenity is out on DVD today. You have no idea how awesome I find that, but I sort of need a graphing calculator to properly express my feelings right now. God, do I love me some Firefly.

Yay for purchases!

I am Sarah Jessica Parker, and Other Embarrassing Tales

So I went to log in to blogger this morning to post something, and my cache had expired. This is officially the longest I've gone without posting in over a year. (Those of you scoring along at home: 11 days. This is what you would call an obsession, apparently.) That's weird. Anyways, I refuse to apologize. I am my own man, and I post when I want. So there.

Also, it's slightly disconcerting when people call to inquire about your welfare because "you haven't blogged in a while." That, my friends, is a little very weird. But also, awesome, in the sense that people care.

Back to the business at hand.

Went to see The Family Stone over the weekend. I am Sarah Jessica Parker. Or, at least her character in the movie. Live and in person. Do you understand exactly how horrible that is? Probably only if you've seen the movie, but I'm going to go on and on about it anyways, because seriously, this has me at my wit's end.

SJP's character is almost utterly irredeemable. She is overly formal, has annoying mannerisms, talks inappropriately and for long periods of time, can be counted on to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time, and has a tendency to act as her own little physical comedy routine. Each of these things taken one at a time are not necessarily damning, but by the end of the movie, more than likely, you physically loathe her character. Or at least I did.

And then we are five miles from the theatre when it hits me: I am the complete embodiment of her character. It's so mind-meltingly accurate that the realization almost took my breath away. Cast a boy with a bad haircut in the role and it would be like looking in a damnable mirror. The entire movie turned out to be a concentrated exercise in self loathing. Seriously, if you know me, go see it. It will blow your mind.

In any case, it depresses the hell out of me. Because damn. She was, like, the villain, practically.

Also, that dinner scene at the halfway point is literally, hands-down, flat-out and every other cliched term possible, the most embarrassing and uncomfortable moment I have ever had watching a movie. For perspective's sake, I have watched the first-gay-experience moment in A Home at the End of the World with my parents and I wasn't as uncomfortable as I was on Saturday. Seriously, I almost had to leave the theatre. Maybe I was just overly high-strung that night or something.

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Okay, so that was worth waiting 11 days, right?

See you again in a couple of weeks!

Embarrassment (Part 875 in a series)

You know those days where something feels off? Like, you're getting ready to head out the door and everything is in place, but you feel like you're forgetting something? Today was that day for me. I had braced myself for the ridiculously freezing weather (by adding a scarf to my normal ensemble). I had my lunch, a book, my phone, my keys, and my contacts were in place. What could be off?

Belt - in place.
Hair - looking ridiculous (per usual), but brushed.
Lights - turned off.

No big things I needed to be worrying about, nothing pressing for the day.

Eventually I chalk it up to being a humongus dork (something which, of late, I am intimately accustomed to) and decide to go on with my day.

Which I do, without incident, for the majority of the day. Blah, blah, cold, blah, work, blah, oh dear lord there are people in my office and they are talking and why won't they just leave me alone, blah.

We make it all the way deep into the afternoon. Suddenly I am very very tired. I'm helping the new guy with some computer things in his office, when I'm struck by the intense need to yawn and stretch. Because it is late, and I have no shame, I go ahead and stretch to my hearts content.

New Coworker: "Uh, what's that?"
Jason: "What's what?"
New Coworker: "That. On your side?"

I realize that there is this huge bulge on my side, where my shirt tucks into my pants.

Jason's Mind: "Hmm, that's odd."

Now, a rational person would have just brushed it off and investigated at a later time, when they were alone and not in someone else's office. Maybe we haven't covered this today, but Jason, he's not exactly the most rational of beings.

Jason: (Because I'm brilliant.) "I don't know. Let's find out."

So I go rooting my shirt out of my pants, and digging through there to find the offense: somehow during my morning ritual, I managed to put on all my clothes without realizing that there were several socks statically attached to the inside of my shirt.

And by several, I mean 4 socks (all different kinds), and one paired set of socks, all lining my waist like some sort of deranged insulation.

It is somewhere around the reveal of sock #3 that I start to realize that, hey I'm not alone here, and this guy has only known me for roughly 6 hours, and I'm standing in front of him systematically pulling out socks from under my shirt, in the way a magician does with a multicolored handkerchief. But I couldn't really stop, the damage was already done.

And there not a lot you can say at that point - you've just revealed yourself as completely insane on the new guy's first day of work. Because let's face it, there are no rational explanations for why you have 6 socks attached to your body all day long and don't realize it. What?! I was cold and my clothes are really loose! I've lost a lot of weight recently! Leave me alone!

In any case, do I make AWESOME first impressions or what?

Old People are Awesome

I don't really have anything to add to this, but seriously, whatever ESPN writer came up with this title officially owns my heart:

Elderly Woman's Birthday Wish: Touch Smyth's Mullet

Oh, also:

"It was my wish to see Smitty," Hosking told the newspaper. "I can't believe he's here. I love to watch him skate up and down the ice and bang in goals. And I love his hair. I hope he never cuts it."

There is nothing about this story that does not completely rule.

Waxing Non-Eloquently About Pain

Lately I have been absolutely methodical in my never ending efforts not to bite my nails. This had been greatly facilitated by the fact that a dentist has spent most of last month drilling around amongst my teeth, thus necessitating a brief respite from anything resembling enough jaw power to cut through soft bread, let alone pure cuticle.

But now that my mouth is whole again, I find myself losing the battle yet again. Just now I was lax and not practicing constant vigilance against my subconscious, and thus began gnawing away at my thumbnail, like some sort of misanthropic beaver. And somehow I managed to split the thumbnail vertically along the quick in such a way as to cause the most pain possible, per pure acreage of painful area. And as such, the pain can only be described as. . . exquisite. It's a level of pain that I've discussed before at length, something that is just beyond the grasp of mortal words to explain, yet close enough that you feel compelled to try.

But it is wholly distilled, pain concentrated and strained carefully by Tibetan monks at high altitudes to preserve only the most painful parts, carefully passed down across the centuries and generations, each adding their own knowledge to the sum total wisdom of pain extraction until near perfection is reached, and then delivered down unto you in just such a way as to make you doubt your own sanity and purpose in life. Right there in the palm of your hand, or more specifically, on the back of your thumb.

Thus: OW. Fucking OW.

Self-Flagellation

I am a great believer in the cataloguing of all my flaws. Because (1) I'm not just a little crazy and (2) for the most part, I can live with them and enumerating them lets me feel like I have some control over how they effect me. So without further ado:

I am unbelievably clumsy, I make horrible jokes, I cannot cook to save my life, I have scary deep-set eyes. I play too many video games, I'm horribly shy, and as such am a ridiculously bad conversationalist. I'm cheap, I read too many books, I'm crazy pale. I use too many big words and can be a grammar freak. I can't make a decision to save my life. I make terrible first impressions and am very off-putting to a lot of people. I'm a huge dork. I tell long and meandering and boring stories with little-to-no relevance to anything in the actual world. I'm way lazy and watch too much TV and never exercise. I have bad fashion sense and usually look like I was dressed by a colorblind person with no concept of style. I have a very oddly shaped head, with multiple points where there should be none. My hair looks like a ski-slope.

This is me, carefully and considerably condensed into bite-sized chunks. And I'm mostly cool with that. Some of the things I am able to mask through the magic of pretending to act normal (I can maintain a facade in public, wherein I don't use any big words, correct peoples grammar, or talk excessively about TV), other things I embrace as little quirks that are naturally a part of me (basically anything physical, primarily because I'm way too cheap to get any sort of corrective surgery). Other things I actively hate, but can seem to do nothing about, no matter how hard I try (see: shyness, conversation skills, decision making, and fixing my goddamn hair into something other than a freakin' ski-slope configuration).

Aaaanyways, (I swear I was going somewhere with this) this is to give you some manner of a guide to what is constantly going on in my head when I meet new people. Because in normal everyday life around people I know, the list is just sort of the background noise that is my brain. Only when I do something hideously dorky amongst friends does my brain assert itself ("Wow! Stupid!" it says to me). But even then, these people know what to expect since, by God, they've been around this long it should be expected by now.

But with new people it's like one huge ticker-tape marquee loop in my brain: "Why aren't you talking?! You're too quiet! Say something! But nothing dorky! No stories! Quit looking so shifty! I swear to God, I'll go on strike if you mention anything about TV or grammar! Don't knock that thing over! Don't trip..." And on and on, forever.

Which I'm pretty sure should probably require some form of therapy, because, come on. Although mostly this just resolves into me looking incredibly shy, because my brain can't complain too much if I don't say anything. It just gets stuck on "Why aren't you saying anything?! Why aren't you saying anything?!" and I can totally handle that. Sometimes I even say very innocuous things.

And now that I've gone through all of that, let me just say: Oh my God, why am I so awkward? For serious, people. I should be studied.

(This exercise in self-hating has been brought to you by Jason's total lack of common social skills. And the letter Q.)

Totally Smart, Stupid

Do you have any idea how boring today has been? I might physically collapse due to the lack of interest.

To give you just a taste, I actually took one of those damnable blog quizzes.

AND I'm posting the results.

It's quite the low point around here, in terms of actual content. But it's that level boring today.

Anyways, I'm totally smart! I have evidence.



Of course, the quiz didn't ask me about yesterday when I tried to add 5 + 6 and ended up with 14. But maybe they aren't measuring that type of smart.

It's Christmas Time, Y'all

Seriously, I did miss a memo somewhere? I guess I knew empirically that we were getting there, but shit, yo. Twenty-four days out? I literally have the (awesome, glowing, fiber-optic) Christmas tree up and decorated in my house, and yet it didn't quite sink in that, y'know, I might need to do a little Christmas planning.

There are no presents bought.

I have not organized my Christmas music playlist.

We haven't even started planning gingerbread house making night yet.

All the Christmas lights are still sitting in the closet.

And I still don't know how to make egg nog.

I'm slacking off on my favorite time of the year and I didn't even realize it. What can I say, I've been ridiculously distracted as of late. (Insert goofy smile here.)

I'm going to try to make some inroads this weekend, get the house in order, maybe do a little shopping on Saturday, get a time set for the gingerbread-fest, and all that jazz. But man. It's the most wonderful time of the year and I'm totally missing out! Lame.

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Oh, and in general round-up news:

• Only one final tooth thing next week and I will be finished until the new year. Huzzah for no more dentist. This gaping hole in my mouth is out to drive me insane, though.
• Contacts continue to rule my world, even if I do blink a whole lot more nowadays. I'm like a deranged owl, but I can see for miles.
• I'm finally getting a new phone, to replace my at-least-14 year old one. I'm wicked excited, and not just because it will end all those "Is that your giant, ancient cell phone in your pocket or are you just happy to see me" comments.
• How good has TV been lately? Apprentice, ANTM, Lost, Survivor, Grey's Anatomy all being awesome at once? It almost makes up for The Amazing Race sucking so hard. Almost. *Sniff*

Spiffy is a nice word for it, if wildly inaccurate

Well that was refreshing, no?

It was a Thanksgiving of epic proportions, with at least 3 kinds of stuffing, 5 kinds of pie, and more random bits of pure deliciousness than I can properly count. And as much as it pains me to say it, I very well may have been singularly responsible for the decimation of literally (actual literally, not fake 'literally') 2.5 of those 5 pies. And all of one of the kinds of stuffing. How I am not some sort of beached whale after my shenanigans this weekend is a mystery for the ages.

I went over to my parent's house on Thursday morning, because Dallas traffic on Wednesday night was like a scene out of War of the Worlds, only without all the laser beams and less creepy Dakota Fanning. I made it by noon and we proceeded to take the path of greatest resistance - putting up all the Christmas lights during the day, while we waited for our ginormous turkey to properly roast itself. This led to me dangling off the side of their house on a 20 foot ladder with a hammer in one hand, a screwdriver in the other, a hook clenched in my teeth, and a string of multi-color lights wrapped around my arm.

Despite this virtual recipe for disaster, I came out of the entire thing unscathed, except for an incredibly sore back from when I insisted on raking the front lawn. Because apparently I have some weird sort of latent OCD when it comes to leaves. I also managed to get the bejesus freaked out of me, when it turned out that the wire-light-up reindeer that my dad installed in the front lawn was animatronic. There was a mad crazy moment there when I was all The-Shining-topiary-animals-out-for-revenge bugging out, because I was just standing there minding my own business, admiring our handiwork on the house, when the supposedly inanimate glowing reindeer turned its head and looked at me. Do you have any idea what that can do to a man's psyche? For one thing, it makes one scream like a little girl.

This was luckily witnessed by very few people, all of which I have enough dirt on to purchase their silence for life. Except when it's just our family at the dinner table, where they are free to mock me forever, and I them. We're very warm to each other, you understand.

In any case, the lighting of the house was followed by the Thanksgiving dinner from the gods, discussed earlier, followed by a mass exodus of all our family to the various parts of the state. With the exception of lazy me, who sat around and planned on loafing about for at least another couple of days. Because really, who needs a mortgage the day after Thanksgiving? No one I need to associate with.

Friday I was left to my solitary devices as even the people who lived in the house decided to make a run for the border or what have you. They invited me along, but as this run entailed at least 7 hours on a yellow school bus, I naturally declined. Family bonds only take you so far, you understand. Instead I stayed at home and managed to basically eat everything that ever was and potentially ever will be again. This was where those additional pies disappeared. Along with the majority of the dark meat from our prodigious turkey and all the broccoli casserole and that jar of olives. What can I say? It was Thanksgiving, it's practically required.

Saturday was pretty self-contained, as my family made our yearly pilgrimage to the Thanksgiving sales, only a day later than usual. There was precious little actual present shopping to be had, but I managed to pretty much double my wardrobe of 'Things that are acceptable to wear in a public setting' in just one, really thorough trip to Old Navy, otherwise known as My Mothership.

So yeah, flawless good times, good family, good thanks, and a lack of injuries.

Pretty spiffy, I'd say.

What was that, again?

There is a wicked long post just itching to spew forth, about my latest dentistry exploits, my inability to talk like a normal person, and my tendency to get caught doing really embarrassing things.

But my mood is a too insanely good right now for such things. Who would have thought a thing was even possible? If you've never seen my stupidly goofy smile, now's the time. It's a pretty rare thing, in general.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Back with more stories next week.