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Not A Bad Start
When did iTunes start listing the influences of bands in the bio section? When did iTunes continue to get even cooler?
Hats Off To Seuss
Hats off to Dr. Seuss says the SF Gate. It's a fun read
The Beat Of Your Heart
Drum Machine
I can't really call it anything else, aside from incredibly cool.
Don't Shine On Me, Butterfingers
Had a double post. I didn't post it twice. I looked at my blog, and said, "Damn. I really typed a lot. Oh wait."
Going over to A's tonight for dinner and baby ogling. The baby ogling is more for my mother and sister. I'm a horrible person for my lack of baby attraction I'm sure, but my job has hardened me. I'm a husk, unable to differentiate between babies. Send 'em my way when they have personalities. That's when it gets fun.
Rest of the weekend will probably involve movie watching. I hope it's nice out. Part of me wants to hop a train to Chicago and get a museum in this weekend. I haven't been to a museum in a VERY long time. We'll see. I heard there's snow afoot. Mother nature shouldn't taunt me so.
More TV Thoughts
My brain is once again working over time, and instead of being crippled into doing nothing, I'm trying to type everything out.
With that sounding as serious as it does, I have more television thoughts.
First. Angel was boring as sin. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the episode could have been done in a 10 minute first act segment, and we'd still be where we were by the end of the episode. There were three things I loved about it, four if you count new blue sexy Fred (complete with nakedness!). I liked the big moral speech, followed by Wes shooting Knox. I liked the INCREDIBLY suicide-inducing end. "We have hope, love...etc." "Is that enough?" Ouch. And I liked that they seem to be going with a "those who don't remember their history are doomed to repeat it" vibe. I think it's an interesting idea, and one that hasn't really been used before. Oh, and the musical montage at the end made it seem more like One Tree Hill than Angel.
Mad Mad House, was like Big Brother meets Survivor meets Real World meets some bad actors. The show wouldn't have been so bad had the vampire and voodoo priestess not been involved, or at least toned down their act a bit. Especially the vampire. Man. You could almost tell that he knew this was his chance to make it in Hollywood, and he better give it his all. Otherwise, it all seemed like a cheap ALDI version of a real reality show. And you know you're in trouble if you have to get two people from Illinois to be on the show. The English witch was very cute however.
Kingdom Hospital is slow. Molasses. But, as I was about to say how much I hated the speed of it, I realized I was criticized for liking the speed of Carnivale. So, I'll give it more of a chance. It won't be on at the same time as Angel and O.C. so that means I can watch all three easily again. With that being said, my biggest problem with it, aside from it seeming like it was trying to be weird for the sake of weird, was the parking lot scene. It seemed superfluous and pointless, and far too long. I think the premier episode could have been trimmed down to 60 minutes easily, and nothing would have been missed. You can't tell me the car accident wouldn't have been more shocking if it didn't repeatdly cut between the two for 5 minutes. It should have just happened. That's how those things work. I hated the animal voiceovers. They seemed silly instead of creepy. And someone pointed out that they allowed this show to go on, while the king of nonsensical quirk, David Lynch, was never allowed to do Mulholland Drive? That makes very little sense. Hopefully it'll pick up in the second episode, otherwise, I'm off to watching repeats of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Stop In The Name Of Love
I am a refugee of the dating scene. I'm not one of those people who enjoys dating for dating, and looks towards it more like an anomoly in the world. "Why the hell do people put themselves through it?" I ask myself every time I hear someone complain about their signicant other.
"Men. Can't live with them. Can't shoot them." I had a coworker say that repeatedly yesterday. I lost track of how many times though. Some where between once and once too often. She's married with several children. Of course. It's one of the many questions that makes me wonder why people who say such things get married then.
I can only assume it's because they enjoy eternal suffering. What other reason is there? "I hate marriage! I can't wait to get home and see my spouse!" Huh?
Maybe I just haven't found the person that makes me want to apparently "love them until death do us part, because I may kill them if they annoy me in ten years."
I also realize that I miss the emotional ties that come with a relationship. I think that's why I occasionally, very occasionally, seek them out. I don't look to relationships for the sex. I look to them for the conversation and the closeness. I may be in the male minority there, but it's true.
I didn't mean to sound so cynical. But watching all these people around me in relationships constantly complain about being in relationships, and needing space, and "insert random relationship complaint here" has completely jaded me to the entire experience. I welcome my solitude. I don't want to necessarily deal with the stress I see other people in. I have enough of it.
And maybe, typing all this out, I discovered why people bounce back and forth between the two emotions. And maybe, I realize that I'm more upset with how they put their feelings into words. Not all men suck. Not all women suck. All men and women are crazy however. There's no arguing that.
To think this all started as a way to write out my conflicted feelings with giving the teacher my phone number, or the once a year "you should date S, because you're perfect for each other" rantings, and I never brought it up.
Hopefully, I can write about those this weekend but to sum up:
a) I'm conflicted about giving an older woman my phone number, because I feel like a loser for living with my parents and don't think I can bring anything to the table that she'd be interested in. And I don't mean OLDER, she's only 32.
b) S and I have had to deal with the "you're perfect together" notions since we became friends. And we even discussed the "getting married by 35 if we're still single" plan. She's one of my closest friends. She's a catch.
She's also probably reading this.
Hopefully, the teacher is not. Like I need two people yelling at me in the same day.
You Can't Ground Me
The narration in Kingdom Hospital, especially the second time it appears, makes me feel like I'm riding Haunted Mansion at Disney World. And the talking animals? Goofy as hell.
Type It Out
While I just remembered that A told me Digital Kitchen (who her husband now works for, which makes me ever so jealous) did the credits for Kingdom Hospital I was able to recognize their work through the fonts they use. Does that make me a lost cause?
An Ancient Evil Has Returned
Timbuk2 -- Custom Messenger Bags
I don't have 100 bucks for a messenger bag of any sort, but a custom bag sure isn't a bad way to go.
Fairness Comes To Those With Plates
Slow day at work. It's rainy, and I think I have a cold. At least the constant runny nose has convinced me of such.
Phase one of, Mike makes a fool of himself is now over. We have safely entered phase two, where the teacher has my phone number, but may not yet realize she has my phone number. Phase three will be, whether she calls that number or not. And phase four involves crawling into a fetal ball of some sort.
Whether I just don't like my comfort zone tampered with, I don't know, but this whole attempting to date thing really throws off my joy of being single and alone. Yet, I also want a person like that in my life. If we can just have separate rooms when we're married, that would be great.
Little TV Newsbits
Far from turning this place into a television review site, there was an overwhelming feeling I had watching some of the television I tend to watch this past week.
First, I must apologize to Lauren Graham, because I ended up falling asleep for the first half of Gilmore Girls. I was tired baby. I know I promised I would never do something like that, but it was a long day at work, and my back hurt from helping the kids the day before. I just meant to relax. How about we go to dinner to make up for it? No. You pick. It's your day.
And, The O.C. and One Tree Hill are slowly being taken over by incredibly stupid characters. If it wasn't for Seth and Sandy, I can't say I'd even bother watching the show at this point. Ryan, what with his machismo chest pounding ways in full display whenever Oliver is in the picture, just goes out and decided to start playing very nice with an engaged woman. What's the difference between him and Oliver now? None. Ryan just got farther than Oliver did. So, my time is now being spent watching someone who knows what he's doing is wrong, but the power of his crotch overwhelms him? No thanks.
And One Tree Hill? How about you make your main character even LESS likeable. I can't even imagine the writing sessions for this show. "So. We'll start him out as the good guy, trying to overcome the problems set before him, for like 5 or 6 episodes. THEN, he'll convert his enemies girlfriend, and HER best friend to his way of thinking. He'll try dating one, and get nowhere, so he dates the slutty one instead. BUT, and here's the fun part, at the first sign the other girl is interested, he'll cheat with her. Now, we have the slutty one find out, and in effect strike down BOTH relationships, but don't worry, we'll give him a slutty bar wench to do it with in this episode."
Yeah. No thanks. A moderately interesting character has turned into a man-whore. I don't need that.
The End Of Innocence In Your Eyes
Today is the day that flirty teacher comes in. At least, everyone assumes she's being flirty. But, in a monumentous leap of faith on my part, I included my cell phone number in the birthday card I made for her. Her birthday is Tuesday, and it seemed odd she was offering up all this information to a group of strangers. So, I'm moving forward at a snail's pace, because I'm bad at stuff like this. I'm bad at dating and asking people out. I don't like putting myself out there for rejection. I can deal with rejection, just not at such a personal level. Because, in essence, they are saying, "We looked at your file, and there's nothing here that qualifies you to be a person."
So, we'll see.
c r i t t e r b o x
c r i t t e r b o x
It's a link cavalcade tonight. These Uglydoll toys look real fun. I prefer them over the stuffed toys honestly.
'He died for your sins'
WorldNetDaily: Pig billboard: 'He died for your sins'
As often as not that PETA pisses me off, even with me being a vegetarian, I find this new "faith based" ad funny. Can you tell I'm just not religious?
stonemirror: Leap Day!
stonemirror: Leap Day!
Here's a little bit of The Passion humor that's being passed around for a LiveJournal type.
Sitting For A Depose
It's 60 degrees out and storming. It's beautiful. I'm laying under my window, my back thrown out, groggy from vicodin, and I can't think of a more perfect day that's crossed my path in months. At least weather wise. I could go without the horrible back pain.
But I'm sleepy from the rain (and probably the vicodin).
Holy hell is it storming.
Through The Door, So It Seems
With the purchase of the laptop, I officially gave myself eye strain from typing so much. If it wasn't long overdue e-mails, it was my novel, or incredibly long blog posts. But, for whatever reason, typing on my bed, or outside is so much easier to me than sitting in my room. It makes me wish I bought a more powerful system to do all my work on instead of just writing.
On a different note, I just learned that McSweeney's has a magazine called Believer. I picked it up at B&N Saturday night. I really enjoy it, but I won't be purchasing it often, as it's 8 bucks and issue, or 65 dollars for a subscription. That's crazy. Magazines are getting far too expensive.
It Is Unbelievable
Sean Penn? What? Really? It looked like a typical melodramatic performance to me. If not Bill Murray, it should have been Johnny Depp.
And I'm sorry. Return Of The King wasn't the best picture of the year. Nor was it the best of the trilogy.
It's just typical. You know?
Something To Think About
I was watching Before Sunrise and the thought crossed my mind that people memorizing poetry and Shakespeare and passages of novels has been replaced with Star Wars quotes and Simpsons references. It almost makes me sad.
Book Review: Party Of One
I just finished reading the book "party of one: the loner's manifesto" by anneli rufus. The book is just what it claims to be, a manifesto for why it's okay to be alone in the world. Why you can enjoy life without the constant clutter of dealing with other people.
Hell. Last night, I chose to go off on my own, wandering through a bookstore, instead of going with my friends Nikki and John to a coffee house to see John's friend perform. I was at first interested in going until he mentioned not just crowded, but over crowded. I didn't need that. I don't feel good in large crowds. So, instead, I took my leave from dinner (which was a bad idea on my part, eating as much as I did. I didn't need the milkshake to go along with the vegetarian pepper corn burger.) and decided that walking downtown Naperville by myself was a much more enjoyable pasttime.
But, I'm off track. "party of one" started out fun enough. Each chapter dedicated to a part of the loner's mentality: community, pop culture, art, friendship. My favorite section being the one that points out the dichotomy of popular culture, using Spider-Man and Batman as examples of the loner that nonloner culture wishes they could be. Pointing out that the group mentality of the stereotypical jocks in high school, those that make fun of and tease the artist geek, or loner, were also looking up to Peter Parker, the epitome of loner geek as a hero. It really does show just how confusing our society can be.
As the book went on though, it started losing me. I ended up skipping the chapter about religion, because, the book started to rely on using it's own extremes to prove its point. That, and I just wasn't interested in reading about nuns who self-imposed jail on themselves. It wasn't until the crime chapter that I just didn't want to continue reading. The author seems to go out of her way to make sure you know that none of the serial killers and bombers were loners, but were instead lonely people who were seeking revenge on society for shunning them. It seemed that through the writing, loners were an exclusive club, and just as much as mass society didn't want to take claim for the serial killers, neither does the loner camp.
And maybe I just feel that this version of the loner being portrayed isn't how I am as a person. I enjoy my quiet time. I enjoy not dealing with people, and have really started to enjoy seeing movies on my own. But I still enjoy being around certain people. I get lonely. Does that instantly disqualify me as a loner? That's almost what the book seemed to be saying. "If you get lonely, you can't be a loner, because loners don't get lonely."
Maybe, if the book wasn't required to be a certain number of pages, the ideas could have hit harder. But, towards the end, the examples of why people filed under loner were indeed nonloners, became more rampant the ideas presented in the first half of the book.
More than anything else though, it made me realize that reading a book about loners, more than makes me a nonloner, because I wanted to be part of that group, and there lies the biggest problem with the book. It's telling you it's okay to fit into "this" group, while telling you groups aren't necessary.
5/10, since I really did enjoy the first half.
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