KABLAMMO!

Matt: The Legendary Journeys

2006-10-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

Those who have lived with me most likely will remember the fact that there are times when I hear about something and I decide that I really want it. Not only do I really want it, but I want it right at that particular moment. Because of this, I’m not content to just order it online and wait for it to arrive, rather I will go on an epic quest to retrieve the object of my desire. I went on such an epic quest last night, and it took me to a place I never thought I’d go again.

My friend Amanda had recently offered to help me find out if there was Thai food that I liked. She is a big fan, and I figured that going to a restaurant with a big fan would be the best way to figure out that sort of thing. Were I to judge by this last visit, I would have to say that no, Thai food just isn’t really my thing. The more important thing to come from this social occasion, though, was the information Amanda gave me about how Target currently carries pajama pants which feature some of the classic Universal monsters. Since discovering that, for years, I had been wearing clothing that was too big for me, I had wanted to start replacing everything in my wardrobe. Sleepwear was at the bottom of the list, since it’s not really anything I wear out in public, but recognizing that these particular garments are most likely seasonal, I decided it was high time to pick up some new PJs.

My initial plan had been to run out to the Target a few miles from my place on Saturday, but I decided instead to use Saturday as a day to do absolutely nothing. I watched Lucky Number Slevin—which was okay—and a couple episodes of Veronica Mars—still a great show. I was able to keep from feeling completely anti-social by chatting with my friend Laura on IM, who was using her Saturday in similar fashion. All in all, it was a nice way to pass the weekend, especially considering as how I have plans for the next couple.

On Sunday, I, Darcy and Darcy’s friend Steve—who was in town for a wedding—went to Target, and after looking in their menswear section, I found none of the pajama pants for which I was looking. Later that day, after dropping Steve off at the airport, I went to another Target, which was slightly farther away from my house. Once again, I searched to no avail. Since it was already turning dark, I decided to call it a day.

After work on Monday, I decided to drive out to one of the Targets I knew Amanda was most likely to shop at. Having once lived in the same part of town as her, I knew that the closest Target was the one in Rocky River. (Or is it Fairview Park? That area is kind of confusing as to where the borders are.) After looking in their menswear section, I found a rack of them, thereby proving that Amanda was not a dirty, filthy liar. Unfortunately, the only variety they carried in my size was the Dracula design, and the Dracula design kind of put me off. It wasn’t a picture of Bela Lugosi but a weird gargoyle-type head that was featured on one of the posters. But after looking at them a bit, I decided they were still pretty neat, so I bought them. The only other design they had was Frankenstein, which also put me off a bit, due to the fact that it featured Lon Chaney Jr. as the Monster, and not Karloff. (Or maybe it’s Glenn Strange; it’s hard to tell. Either way, it should be Karloff. I was also a bit disappointed that they didn't have matching shirts to go along with the pants.)

After a quick pit stop at Qdoba for a chicken mole burrito—I love those things—and one at Half Price Books to visit my friend Tim, I went out to the North Olmsted store. They actually had all four designs, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Unfortunately, the only one they had in my size was the Mummy. I asked if they might have any more in the back, which they didn’t. They did say, however, that they could check at the customer service desk to see if any of the other Target stores in the area had them. I was told by the lady that my best bet would be the Elyria store.

To those of you who don’t know, Elyria is west. Way west. It’s really not even part of Cleveland; it’s just sort of near it. I’d been there a couple times before to pick some stuff up for work, but I’d hoped to never go back. Aside from being really far out, it’s also kind of a dumpy area. But I was on a quest, and I wasn’t about something like driving to Elyria deter me in my quest for awesome pajama pants! So I asked the lady for directions.

The directions she gave me were actually fairly incorrect. She forgot to mention that I needed to take I-80 west, rather she led me to believe that I could get to OH-57 from I-480 west. To make things worse, she told me the wrong direction to travel on OH-57. I ended up calling the store, and the directions on their recorded message were kind of unclear. Between the two, though, I managed to make it there after turning around twice.

The Elyria store did indeed have the other two designs in my size, so I paid for them and was on my merry way. Unfortunately, my merry way was all the way back to South Euclid. It took me about forty minutes to get home.

I can’t quite explain it. I mean, not very many people will ever get to see them, but there’s still something about having fun pajama pants that makes me happy. Taken alongside the fact that I really like the Hello Kitty Pop Tarts, I wonder if perhaps I’m part girl.

Well, crap...

2006-10-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

Another dream destroyed.

CNN Headline—Scarlett Johansson: 'I'm Not Promiscuous'

Sure, I'll weigh in...

2006-10-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that my Republican friend will just accuse me of taking delight in the misfortune of the country and/or wanting America to fail, but dammit, this is just too hilarious. I mean, the idea that the self-proclaimed party of family values has been caught trying to cover for a sexual predator—from their own party, naturally—just amuses me to no end. And now that they have been caught, they go on the defensive and try to blame the Democrats. (Fox News went so far as to "accidentally" say that Foley is a Democrat himself in the captions that appeared during the news stories. If I'm not mistaken, Bill O'Reilly even "accidentally" referred to him as a Democrat on his show.)

What it comes down to is that the party that claims to be the party of the everyday, old fashioned, working class person is more interested in protecting their own power than protecting the teens who look up to them and work with them as Congressional pages. I think this might have an adverse effect on the support from the "Security Moms" they supposedly gained in the previous election. I tell you, if the Republicans keep their Congressional majority after November, then the people of the United States will deserve every shitty thing that happens to them in the next several years.

Make sure to check out these Foley-related videos made by a comedy troup named Invisible Engine. The first is a dramatization of an IM session between Foley and an unidentified ex-page. The second is...kind of bizarre, but it sort of goes through the past, present and future of the Foley scandal.

How in God's name...?

2006-09-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I just read something over at Ain't It Cool News that has me filled with a strange mix of anticipation and dread. Apparently, someone has made a film of Jack Ketchum's novel The Girl Next Door. (This can be confirmed on the Internet Movie Database.) To those of you who are unaware, Girl... is the most disturbing book I have ever read in my entire life. After finishing it, I decided I didn't want to be alone in the profound trauma that it had wrought upon me, and I passed it to my friend/then-roommate Mike. I'm not sure he's ever forgiven me for it.

The story centers on a young boy in the 1950s who witnesses firsthand the brutal torture of a teenage girl by her mentally unbalanced godmother. Given the extreme nature of the events in the book, I was quite certain it was completely unfilmable. I suppose I have just been proven wrong. It remains to be seen just how graphically it will be depicted, but it sounds at this point that most of it will be implied and not shown. I still can't imagine it will be anything approaching pleasant to watch, and yet I find myself interested in seeing it. I mean, I always find myself wanting to see the films based on books I've read, but viewing this one just seems like it would be an exercise in masochism. I don't know how to feel about it.

What I did this past week

2006-09-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

To those of you who didn’t know, I found myself sick this past week. It started Monday as a sore throat and a general feeling of crappiness. I could have forced myself to go to work, but I figured that I should maybe just take it easy for a day or so so it wouldn’t turn into anything worse. I spent the day finishing the third season of Arrested Development. (It’s pretty great, by the way. Why that show gets cancelled while Family Guy and American Dad continue to pollute the airwaves, I’ll never know.)

My resting didn’t seem to matter as I felt worse on Tuesday, so I stayed home once again. Luckily for me, my copy of season 2.5 of Battlestar Galactica arrived that afternoon, so I didn’t have to worry about what I was going to do. (On top of that, Darcy didn’t have to work that day, so we watched some Doctor Who.) As a matter of fact, it kept me occupied through the next day, when I felt better yet still about as crappy as I had on Monday. That night, however, I was blindsided by a full-on cold, so it appeared that my resting only seemed to forestall the inevitable. I woke up Thursday feeling absolutely awful, going through almost an entire box of Kleenex. Since I finished Galactica that night, I then turned to the stuff I’d had out from Netflix on Friday, getting through The Man Who Laughs (very cool) and Daleks Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (okay, but it just doesn’t compare to the series).

Still recuperating on Saturday, I went out and rented a couple DVDs from Hollywood Video. The first was District B13, which is more or less a French rip-off of Escape From New York. The big difference is that the leads are real-life practitioners of Parkour. (Rather than try to explain it, I’ll just direct you to a few videos on You Tube which feature Parkour in action, here, here and here.) This makes for some pretty nifty action sequences. The fact that the screenplay was written by Luc Besson doesn’t hurt either.

The other video I rented was a low budget adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s Beyond the Wall of Sleep. Quite seriously, I couldn’t make it past the first ten minutes. For a horror movie, the only thing that was scary about it was the terrifying hairpiece the lead actor wears. (I skipped ahead and confirmed my suspicion that the actor shaved his head for when the character had to be bald, and they shot those scenes out of sequence.) And I suppose I should put the word “actor” in quotes, because he was very bad. In fact, almost everyone in the movie was bad, with the exception of William Sanderson. (I suppose I can cut Tom Savini some slack. After all, it’s hard to make a character who is supposed to live during the 1910s believable when all his dialogue sounds like early 21st century vernacular.) I had been suckered in by the well-designed website (which no longer appears to be active). If only I’d read some reviews of it beforehand…well, I probably would have just rented it from Netflix instead, but at least I wouldn’t have spent as much.

My Sunday has been pretty damn boring. All I watched today was an episode of Wonderfalls. (See my above comment regarding the cancellation of Arrested Development.) However, I did catch up with my friend Stephanie, with whom I haven’t spoken in a few years, via phone today, so that helped make the day more worthwhile. (She’s doing very well, I’m glad to report.)

Well, it appears I’ll be going back to work tomorrow. Not really looking forward to that, but I suppose it was a nice vacation while it lasted.

Except for the whole being sick thing.

One last thing, I’ve found myself listening to Rufus Wainwright a lot lately. Does that mean I’m turning gay?

Boston photos!

2006-08-28T14:44:00.000-07:00

As promised before, here is a link for the photos I took in Boston. Some of them are kind of blurry, given the fact that I was testing out my new camera's ability to take photos without the flash in low light situations. (I hate flash photography. It just ruins the atmosphere.) Some of them turned out surprisingly well, some didn't. It's just difficult to judge how good something looks when it's just on a tiny LCD screen. Anyway...

My Photo Album

Vacation!

2006-08-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

I had opted out of WizardWorld Chicago this year because I had wanted to save money, but after moving, I decided that I did need to get the hell out of Ohio for a bit. Despite the fact that I’d taken four days off to move, anyone who’s done so knows that that is nothing approaching a vacation. I looked at my options, and given the fact that it was summer, I decided to postpone going out west. Instead, I turned my attention to Boston, home of my dear friend Jeanine.

I’ve known Jeanine since my junior year of college, where we met in an acting class. (She’s exceptional, by the way. The world is really missing out because of her desire to stick to a more academic profession rather than an artistic one.) After that, we were also both in a class about British sitcoms, and we’ve pretty much kept in touch since then. Unfortunately, I moved to the Northeast Ohio area right when she moved away from it to attend grad school in Boston. That’s where she’s been ever since, except for whenever she comes back to visit family and friends during the holidays.

This past Thursday marked the first time I’d been on an airplane in over a decade. The last time was when I went to Florida with my high school’s band and choir. Surprisingly enough, I wasn’t freaked out about it or anything. I remembered not having a problem the first time around, so I figured it couldn’t be that different. Obviously, there are the heightened threats of terrorism and all, but I just comforted myself with the thought that Cleveland, Philadelphia (where I had to get a connecting flight) and Boston probably weren’t top priority for anyone wanting to blow up airplanes.

Paul graciously dropped me off at the airport about two hours early. The line for security was actually fairly quick. After confirming that I wasn’t carrying any explosives or other weapons, security allowed me into the main area so I could look for my terminal. Since I had some time to kill, I decided to grab a sandwich at The Great American Bagel. The guy who prepared my food kind of freaked me out a little. He had a low, mumbly voice and a blank stare much like the guy who was just arrested for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. I got the feeling that he probably thought of the knife he used to cut my sandwich as his friend.

Both flights went just fine, and I finished the Doctor Who novel I’d bought especially for the trip. (Luckily, I had another book with me for the return.) I arrived in Boston around midnight of Thursday (technically Friday) and met up with Jeanine at the baggage claim. She’s all fit and stuff now, since she’s been jogging for several months. I’m rather jealous. Fucking Achilles tendon…

There weren’t any extra bedrooms at her apartment, but the couch was just fine. The only unfortunate thing about sleeping in the living room was the fact that I was kept company by her roommate Lisa’s two cats. I like cats, but as mentioned before, I’m not crazy about the hair. Also, cats tend to jump on you while you’re trying to sleep. Luckily, I remembered to bring earplugs with me, so that allowed me to get a lot more sleep than I normally would have under those circumstances. (Seriously, guys, I know there are a lot of you who don’t think you could sleep with earplugs, but they work wonders.)

On Friday, Jeanine took a half day from work, and I met her at Harvard Square. (I took the T, Boston’s rapid transit train, which seems fairly similar but superior to Cleveland’s Rapid.) We visited the Fogg Art Museum, the Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, and the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Of the three, I enjoyed the latter the most, what with their extensive collection of taxidermied animals. (Unfortunately, they didn’t have the squirrel dressed as Robin Hood that I’d seen at the Allen County fairgrounds when I was a kid.)

On Saturday, she took me downtown, and we pretty much just walked around so I could see all the buildings. Boston is definitely a beautiful city. The amount of old structures that remains really gives you a great sense of the history the place has. It’s sometimes easy to forget that people lived in that area before the 20th century, let alone before 1776.

Saturday was also when actually began what I surprisingly found to be the most fun part of the trip, clothes shopping. I didn’t used to enjoy it. I’m not what one would think of as a very fashionable person, and whenever I’d gone out to shop for clothing in the past, I’d always gotten frustrated and given up fairly quickly. Recently, though, I started to realize that the same old things I’d been wearing for the last several years just weren’t working. (See the blog entry entitled “Fashionably Late?”) I decided that what would be best would be to get one of my female friends to help me pick stuff out. After all, females are whom I would ultimately want to impress, so it’s best to go directly to the source, right? I mentioned this to Jeanine before I finalized my plans to visit, and she said she’d be more than happy to assist. She began to keep an eye out in the men’s departments whenever she went shopping for herself, and she already had some ideas by the time I got there.

The first amazing discovery that I made when we began our epic shopping journey was the fact that I’ve been wearing clothes that are too big for me for at least the last couple years. I was wearing an extra large T-shirt that day, and she informed me that it was way too big. She grabbed a large T-shirt and had me try it on. As I looked in the mirror, I thought to myself, “Hey, this looks pretty good!” But feeling it was still too large, she handed me a medium. “Are you sure?” I asked, to which she replied that she was. So I tried it on, and I then found myself thinking, “Hey, this looks even better! I can wear medium-sized T-shirts!!! Who’d’ve thought???? "

As if that weren’t enough, I also discovered that I can wear pants and jeans with a 34” waist. When in God’s name did that happen? It wasn’t that long ago that I had to wear loose fit jeans with a 36” waist! And corduroy! Apparently, I look good in corduroy! And I’m not just talking about the pants! Jeanine had me try on an outfit that consisted of a pair of brown pants, a blue collared shirt and a dark blue corduroy blazer. As I looked in the mirror, I thought, “Wow! I would totally make out with myself!” (I suppose it was a less vulgar version of what Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs was saying to himself in the mirror whilst preparing to do his tucked-in dance to “Goodbye Horses” by Q. Lazzarus.)

All told, I bought four button-down shirts, six T-shirts, two pairs of jeans, two pairs of pants (one brown, one beige corduroy), and two pairs of shoes (both Skechers). Unfortunately, this just isn’t enough. I really need to start totally phasing out all of the clothing in my collection (save underwear and socks, although I’ll need more colored socks to go along with the new shoes). (I suppose I’ll have to ask my friend Anna if she’d like to hit up some outlet stores in the near future.)

Sunday evening was rounded out with dinner at the Cambridge Brewing Company and a showing of Little Miss Sunshine. I got the pan-seared swordfish at the CBC, which was very good. It marked the first time I’d tried swordfish, and I imagine coastal cities are probably the best places in which to eat seafood. The movie was very pleasant and enjoyable. The acting was great all around, and it managed to be sweet and endearing without being too saccharine or cloying.

I left on Monday morning. I had to make room in my baggage for the new clothes, so I took some out to donate to the Goodwill near the train station. This was still not enough, so Jeanine let me borrow one of her duffel bags. (This turned out to be just barely enough room.) Taking the train to the airport was somewhat of a nightmare, due to the fact that everything I was carrying was extremely heavy. (My shoulder is still pretty sore from where the strap of my bag had dug into it.) Also, the combination of expending such effort and the amount of people in the train made me start to sweat uncontrollably. It was quite disgusting. Thankfully, I had applied a goodly amount of deodorant that morning.

The flight back was uneventful, and I spent the entire time reading James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia. (So far, it’s pretty awesome. Can’t wait for the movie.) The time in between the first flight and the connecting flight was a little shorter than I’d expected, so I didn’t get to finish the bottle of water I’d purchased. Of course, I totally could have taken it on board the plane with me. It’s not like they’ve added a security check in front of the terminals or anything.

So now I’m back in Cleveland and actually a little bummed about it. I think it’s just another sign that I’m not really meant to live in Ohio. Doesn’t mean I’m meant to live in Boston, but I certainly wouldn’t be adverse to that.

Pictures to come. I’ll post a link as a separate entry.

The move

2006-08-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

This is a little late in coming, but I just kind of kept forgetting to come back to it. Anyway, here is the story of my move from Lakewood to South Euclid.

At the end of July, I left the upstairs of the house on Lincoln Avenue in Lakewood and have taken up residence in South Euclid. It was kind of a sad occasion, as my roommates (Mike and John) and I all went our separate ways. Mike went most separate of all and is now in North Carolina to attend grad school. John and I both decided that it was perhaps time to get places of our own. I had a change of heart, however, when I realized that I wanted to start saving as much money as I possibly could. At that point, I wasn’t sure exactly what to do, since I didn’t really know anyone who was looking for a roommate, but then my friend Darcy came to the rescue. She currently rents the basement in her friend Paul’s house, and she suggested to him that I could rent one of the bedrooms. He quoted me a price that I couldn’t quite pass up.

So that was all set, then. I had a place to live. The problem then became finding a way to get my stuff there. I’d amassed a great deal of belongings over the three years in which I’d lived in Lakewood in addition to the things I’d already had before moving to the Cleveland area. Having lived in furnished apartments whilst going to school, I hadn’t previously had need of a bed or dresser of my own. Apart from those, I had also bought a large amount of books, DVDs and comics. I decided to sell off a large chunk of those before the move, but it still probably wasn’t enough. (I didn’t actually sell any of the comics. Those are pretty difficult to unload.)

The last time I visited my family in Lima, I decided to switch cars with my parents. They had my grandpa’s old station wagon, in which I could fit far more stuff than my tiny ‘93 Honda Civic. (Sure, it wouldn’t make me a hit with the ladies, but it would only be for a limited time.) I also couldn’t resist letting my dad know that he was always welcome to help me move. After all, I certainly couldn’t lift a lot of that stuff by myself, and when I thought about it, I couldn’t think of too many people who’d be able to help. To my delight, my parents accepted the offer, and they decided that our dog Macy would “help” as well. (To those of you who are unaware, Macy is one of the best dogs ever.)

To facilitate the moving of the large, heavy items, we decided it would be best to rent a U-Haul truck. I picked it up on Friday afternoon, and the first thing I noticed was that it looked like it was at least ten years old. Aside from that, none of the advertised amenities actually came with the vehicle. The air conditioner didn’t work; the tuning button on the radio was broken; the suspension seemed shot, thereby making the promised “gentle ride” false advertising. But as long as it got to where I needed it to go, I could put up with it.

Loading the truck was slightly easier than I expected. (We had a bit of trouble getting the box spring around the tight corners in the house, but once that part was over, it was easy from there.) After we had it as full as we could get it, we proceeded to drive it along the highway. It was at that point that the truck began to make a loud knocking sound. The hood also began to rattle as though it would pop open at any moment. About a mile from the exit we were to take, there was the unmistakable sound of something breaking, and black smoke began to rise from under the hood. We pulled the truck onto the shoulder, and let it sit for a moment. We then tried to restart it, but to no avail.

I called U-Haul’s roadside assistance and tried to listen to the operator. The passing traffic made it difficult to hear the woman who mumbled to begin with. She said she would call back in about thirty minutes to inform me of how soon they could get a tow truck to the area. She kept her promise, but for some reason, she was unable to hear me. (I actually heard her better during that conversation, ironically.) I tried yelling as loud as I could during the call, but she still couldn’t make anything out. Instead, she just told me that there would be a truck there in about an hour and a half.

We called Mom to come get us just so we wouldn’t have to stand out on the side of the interstate. Not being used to it, she can’t totally handle city traffic like what Cleveland has to offer, so she was understandably jittery by the time she got there. We waited around, and the truck actually arrived fifteen minutes earlier than the operator had predicted. The driver looked to be in a fairly precarious position every time he had to hitch up anything on the driver’s side. I don’t know how one gets used to that sort of thing, but I would have totally been in fear for my life.

He towed us to the house, since we were pretty close, stopping partway to turn the U-Haul truck around. (Apparently, it’s preferable to tow it from the rear.) After getting us to our destination, I slipped him a twenty and thanked him for his service. The unloading went quickly, but seeing as how the tow truck didn’t arrive until a quarter after eight o’clock, I knew there would be no way of getting the U-Haul back to the rental office by the 8:30 deadline they’d given me. I called the hotline back to make sure that I was all squared away, and they told me that I would be. They also told me that it would take about two and a half hours to get another truck to haul it to a repair shop, so I left the key in the glove box and left with my parents and my brother, who had arrived later.

The next day, I dropped by the rental office to request a refund, and that was when I discovered that they had no idea that the truck was no longer in my possession. (I found out later that they’d called me earlier and left a voicemail message to inform me that I was late returning the truck and that it was supposed to go out that day to someone else.) The guy pretty much told me that, unless I wanted to fight it out directly with the U-Haul Corporation, he could drop a ton of charges and make my final bill about $27. I figured I could live with that, since ultimately it sort of did what I needed it to do.

After my parents left, I began the process of cleaning the old place and ruthlessly trashing everything I didn’t need. This took a long, long time, and thanks to the weather, I was exhausted by the end of the day. This, of course, was only the first of the three evenings it would take. The second was by far the worst, as I didn’t have a chance to shower the entire day. (Okay, technically, I did, but I was so tired that I opted not to.) The third was more tolerable, although I still had a lot of cleaning to do. Plus, I needed to get rid of the couch. (Neither John nor I wanted it.) Apparently, the Salvation Army couldn’t be bothered to pick it up until sometime in September, so I tried a local second-hand furniture place. Someone from the store came by to look at it, but she said she couldn’t use it. Therefore, the couch got tossed.

The funny thing about the removal of the couch was the fact that, in doing so, we broke a segment of the stairway window. The whole time we lived in the house, we never broke a window. Hell, I don’t think we broke much of anything that actually belonged to the house. (The lone exception would have been a part of the balcony railing, which had been rotting long before we moved in.) Somehow, our landlord Norm decided it wasn’t a big deal, and he gave the full deposit back to both me and John.

So now I’ve been living there for about three weeks, and it seems to be going fairly well so far. The house gets a bit crowded at times. Aside from Paul, Darcy and me, there are also a few occasional occupants: Paul’s fiancée Maggie and Paul’s daughters Rachel and Rebecca. There are also animals, Darcy’s cat Sabrina and occasionally, Paul’s dogs Bosko and Peppy. (He shares custody of the dogs with his ex.) Pretty much, I keep my bedroom door closed at all times. As much as I love animals, I don’t like the hair, so I figure that if I cut them off completely from the room, it should keep hair to a minimum.

Also, I’ve gotten Darcy into Doctor Who. Slowly but surely, I’m spreading the gospel.

Fashionably Late?

2006-07-20T13:11:00.000-07:00

Our female intern—whom I suppose is a part of Generation Z, if I am in Gen-Y—was flipping through a copy of Wired Magazine that arrived in our office yesterday and she mentioned to me that there was an article about geek fashion. I asked to see the article, joking that I might be “behind the times.” She replied, “Yeah, I suppose yours is more ‘90s.” It honestly stopped me dead, although I tried not to show it outwardly. I know she didn’t mean any offense by it—then again, maybe she did; it’s hard to tell with these kids today—but it still made me suddenly paranoid that everyone who sees me dismisses me in the same way I dismiss a certain local actor whose hairstyle and manner of dress were most popular in, say, 1989.

People who know me understand that I’m not one of those people who keeps up on fashion trends. I still have shirts that I wore in high school, and they’re mainly striped or plaid button-down shirts (some flannel) that I alternate with colored T-shirts underneath. (Hell, I didn’t even start wearing anything other than white T-shirts until about a year ago.) I had gotten the impression that they were safely non-era-specific, but after this, I’m afraid that I was mistaken.

A large part of the problem is that I just hate shopping for clothes. I would honestly guess that it’s been about a year since I’ve done so. I have absolutely no idea what does and doesn’t look good. To be truthful, I don’t think there’s a whole lot that looks good on me. (I especially have to make sure that any shirts I wear extend past the waistline, otherwise I look like I have child-bearin’ hips. If I have to wear a suit, you can be dead certain I won’t be wearing it without the jacket unless no one else is around.) I become easily frustrated with the whole endeavor and just end up maybe buying another pair of jeans and a button-down shirt.

I think what would help immeasurably is if I actually went out shopping with one of my female friends. Well, at least one whom I think seems to have a good fashion sense. That way, it cuts down on the absolute boredom of shopping by oneself, plus there would actually be someone to say, “No, you can’t pull that off,” or, “Yes, that flatters you,” or whatever. Unfortunately, most of my female friends (especially the ones whose opinions I would really trust) live several hours away, so calling them up for a Saturday afternoon trip to the outlet stores is kind of out of the question.

Apart from that, I really need to look into getting a cheap elliptical machine, since I can’t jog anymore. (My achilles tendon hates me.) Perhaps if I lose some weight, I’ll have a more suitable frame from which to hang my clothing.

Superman Returns review!!!

2006-06-29T12:05:00.000-07:00

I’ll admit that Superman is not my absolute favorite superhero; that would be Batman. He’s not even my second favorite, since Spider-Man holds that honor, but I would have to say that he is probably the first superhero I was aware of. Much of this is no doubt thanks to the classic movie which was released the year before I was born. Richard Donner’s Superman proved that superhero movies could be made and could be played seriously. Sure, there were scenes of comedy relief and the tone throughout was light and fun, but it wasn’t camp and it wasn’t a parody. It was Superman, plain and simple.

Last night, I went to see the pseudo-midnight showing¹ of Superman Returns, Warner Brothers’ and DC’s newest attempt to restart the franchise. What did I think? The quick version is that it’s not by any means a perfect movie, but there’s a whole hell of a lot to love. Throughout much of its running time, I found myself grinning from ear to ear and chuckling over just how cool the things I was seeing were.

Now I’ll get into some SPOILERS!!!! INVISO-TEXT ON!!! (Highlight text to read.)

I was surprised that I wasn’t resistant to the story concept when I first heard about it. The idea of Superman leaving for five years and coming back to find out how much things have changed sounds like one of those things that would make fanboys like myself bristle. After all, we don’t want to see things change in a comic book series that runs for decade after decade, let alone in a movie series that runs for less than a day if you combined the running times of each film. (I hope this reasoning makes sense to readers, since I can’t think of a better way to phrase it.) Maybe it was because I knew that the makers of X2² were the ones who would be responsible that I just thought, “Hey, that sounds interesting. Let’s see what they do with it.”

What they do with it is give us the most melancholy Superman we’ve ever seen. He’s always felt like an outsider on Earth, and now he’s just confirmed for himself that there is no one else like him in the universe, since he’s visited the remains of Krypton. Now that he’s back, he discovers that Lois has moved on, gaining a son and a fiancé during his five-year absence. (She’s even won a Pulitzer for her bitterness-fueled article “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.”) Now the poor guy is even further alienated from his adopted planet, but that doesn’t stop him from doing what he feels is right.

The scene where he makes his return to the public eye is one of the most thrilling sequences I’ve seen in a movie all year. Superman rescues an airplane that has experienced engine failure, imperiling the lives of all its crew and passengers, Lois being one of them. The fact that Superman has to really work for it makes the sequence all the more thrilling. Obviously, he’s going to save everyone, but it isn’t made easy for him. (For example, in trying to straighten out the plane, he rips the wing off, making it even more difficult.)

After safely landing the plane, he goes aboard to make sure everyone is alright, and his words cemented something that I had already noticed, Brandon Routh sounds exactly like Christopher Reeve. He may not look much like him—some of his facial expressions are reminiscent of Reeve’s, but he just looks different—but his voice is dead on. More or less, it just made me think right away, “This guy is Superman!”

I know that there was some controversy amongst fans about the differences in the costume design. I know that they were a small minority, but since one of them is a good friend of mine, I just thought I’d take this opportunity to address it. The costume looks great. The muted colors serve the tone and color palette of the movie very well. I really couldn’t possibly give a rat’s ass if the neckline is higher, or if the chest shield is smaller, or if the cape doesn’t have a yellow shield on the back. Those, to me, are trivial details. After all, it’s not like they put nipples on the damn thing. Besides, Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace both got the costume “right,” and that sure didn’t keep them from sucking unholy amounts of ass. In fact, if minor changes in the costume keep someone from enjoying the movie, that person should be forced to watch nothing but the abovementioned sequels for the rest of his/her life.

Anyway, the acting is all uniformly great, even Kate Bosworth. I was worried I’d feel similarly about her as I did Katie Holmes in Batman Begins, but she really won me over. I still think she looks too young, but she manages to pull off a maturity of character I didn’t think possible in someone her age. (Plus, let’s not forget that she is actually quite beautiful.) I was glad that they gave her more to do than just be a damsel in distress. At two points in the movie, she actually gets to save Superman for a change, a very bold move on the part of the filmmakers and a very empowering one on the part of the character.

James Marsden’s role could have been quite thankless, but his character actually comes out quite well. We certainly don’t root against him as Superman’s roadblock to Lois’s heart because he’s just a darned decent guy. He’s a good romantic partner to Lois, a good father to Jason, and he’s probably good to his underlings at the Daily Planet, despite being the boss’s nephew. He also gets to play Superman at one point, flying out (in a plane) to rescue his fiancée and their son.

Speaking of Jason, his was a role was one about which I was most worried. It seems extremely difficult to pull off kid roles in movies these days—hell, Spielberg can’t even seem to do it anymore ³ —but Tristan Lake Leabu is actually very endearing from the first time we meet him. It helps that he doesn’t have a great deal of dialogue, and the dialogue he does have isn’t of that overly precocious smartass variety we’re so used to seeing these days. At no point does he say anything to Lex Luthor like, “My dad’s going to kick your ass!”

Oh, yeah, so Jason, it turns out, is the son of Kal-El. Since Superman Returns is kind of a sequel to Superman II, that means that, during the time he’d given up his powers to be with Lois, she got all knocked up and stuff. I have to admit, though, that as much as I saw it coming, the scene where it is revealed that he has his father’s super strength—but, we find out, apparently not his weakness—is still a very effective scene. Also, we luckily don’t get to see him do anything super throughout the rest of the movie. I imagine it just might have looked ridiculous.

Now for the negatives:

First and foremost is the fact that many of the Lex Luthor elements are so similar to the 1978 film. His diabolical plan is once again a real estate scheme, only this time it’s much, much bigger. It also makes much, much less sense if you think about it critically. Aside from that, Parker Posey’s character just feels a bit too much like Miss Tecshmacher, right down to her betrayal due to her disgust with Luthor’s disregard for human life. I think the story would have been much stronger if the makers had made Luthor more like the comic book version, the evil billionaire industrialist.⁴ After all, it’s always frightening to think about the fact that those who wield large amounts of power and influence don’t have the welfare of the people in mind.

I also felt that the climax and resolution of the movie dragged a bit too much. I understand that Singer and crew were really going for something epic, but the action sequences toward the end were a tad bit tiresome after a point. Also, the late subplot about his life hanging in the balance didn’t really have a great emotional effect because we all knew he’d live. It’s the first entry of what Warner Brothers hopes is a long-running franchise; there’s no way they’d kill him off. I think it could have been trimmed a bit and then the extra running time could have been devoted to some more character development at earlier points of the film.

To make a long story short, though, if you want to go see a good Superman movie, you’re in luck. Not only does it feature several scenes of Superman being Superman—the foiling of the bank robbery is great, especially the part where the bullet crumples and ricochets off his eye—but it also contains some good, heartfelt emotion. This is a movie made with absolute love for the character, and I can’t wait for the sequel, Superman’s Still Here or Superman Hasn’t Gone Away This Time or whatever they end up calling it. (Superman Forever, maybe?)

There’s a whole lot more I could write about, but this thing is pretty damn long. To anyone who’s read it all the way through, congratulations. You get a No Prize.

Oh, wait, wrong company…

1. The showing was at 10:00 PM, but it was more or less like a midnight screening. It was certainly still playing at midnight. Back

2. For those of you who aren’t aware, I consider X2 the be-all-end-all of superhero movies. Oh, how I wish 20th Century Fox hadn’t decided to continue the series without Singer & Co. X-Men: The Last Stand may not have been a terrible movie, but the fact that it was just okay, that it actually contained some decent elements but not enough to put it in the same league as the first two, makes it even a little more frustrating. Back

3. Watch E.T. to see how well he used to be able to handle child actors/characters and then check out War of the Worlds. I hated the teenage son in the latter. Back

4. They could always just explain that, after his release from prison, he claimed that he’d been reformed, and he put his brilliant mind to good use by inventing something beneficial to mankind that made him impossibly rich and powerful. Back

eBay Part 3: “There must be some misunderstanding (woo-oo-oo-ooooh!)”

2006-05-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

Well, Trevor has pointed out that perhaps the situation wasn’t quite what I thought it was. He writes:

According to your first email... she wanted you to "refund the difference in the amount that I paid and the actual face value"... as in... 100-$70 = $30... Am I wrong on this one?

Upon reading this, I just about smacked my forehead. (I think it would have been clearer to me had she written, “The difference between the amount that I paid and the actual face value…” but I suppose I should have thought to ask first before immediately assuming she wanted the entire amount back.) I opted not to send the email I’d written up and posted into my previous entry but immediately wrote the following to her:

I do have a question. Are you just asking for a refund of the difference? The way it was worded, I thought you were asking for a full refund (the difference and the face value), and that's why I became suspicious. If this isn't the case, I will gladly refund the difference to you; it's only if you were trying to get the item for free that I would have a problem.

She wrote back and confirmed that she was indeed just asking for the difference, so I apologized for the misunderstanding and issued the ~$30 refund.

Despite this, though, I did discover something else. Out of curiosity, since the email address she’s been using to correspond with me is different than the one associated with her eBay account, I checked to see if there was an eBay account registered under that particular address. It turns out that there is one, but since I hadn’t done business with that particular account, it wouldn’t give me the user name. Still, it put me on the right track, and I decided to try an eBay user search using the first part of the email address (i.e., everything before the @). Sure enough, I found an account under that name with a location of Michigan that was no longer active. The last pieces of feedback for this member were mostly negative, as well, which leads me to believe that the account was suspended.

I contacted the people who left the feedback to see if they still had the email address associated with that account. I haven’t heard back from them yet, but I’d say that I’m 99% certain that it is her. This means she has a history of being dishonest, and I infer from that that this whole thing was planned all along. (After all, she wasn’t able to explain away the whole Minnesota thing.) I theorize that she knew she wouldn’t be able to find tickets for the show that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg, so she played dumb and then exploited Michigan law to get the tickets for face value.

While I’m still miffed at her for being shady, it’s not as bad as I had previously thought it was. After all, it only means that I’d be out maybe a couple bucks for the service charge (since it wasn’t listed on the ticket and therefore not part of the face value). The extra $30 would just have been profit.

All this does make me wonder how I got a decent score on the reading comprehension portion of the ACT, though.

P.S.—Extra special thanks to Trevor for helping me out so much on this one.

eBay Part 2

2006-05-19T05:53:00.000-07:00

So I received this response from Courtney last night:

First and foremost, how did I "tell ebay" that I was from Minnesota? I believe that My Michigan addy is clearly stated on my account with ebay.

2nd, all of my feedback IS from tool tickets, yes. No, I did not get 5 ticks for MYSELF, there were 9 of us that went together. The tickets I bought were for myself, my boyfriend, another couple, and my older sister.

3rd I DID in fact pay for the ticks through Vivid, I did recieve them, and I did use them, and I DID recieve feedback from them.

4th, the ticket i purchased from nealruffner, was a FAKE TICKET!!!! it was a ticketfast ticket (which means a computer print out on regular paper, not a hard ticket). Upon showing up to the venue, the usher scanning the tickets confinscated the ticket b/c it had already been USED. so he either sold me a COPY of his ticket, or he gave it to someone else to use, who got to the show b4 we did. either way, my friend could not be admitted with it, and we had to buy another one from someone off the street. i am extremely NOT HAPPY about that. he and i have both been in contact with ticketmaster, AND the fox theatre to try to figure out when and how the original ticket was used. i have also brought THIS to the attention of ebay, and im sure he has been in contact with them as well.

5th, both of the sellers, nealruffner and apefercttool listed the face value at almost DOUBLE what the actual face value was. this meaning, i bid on items that were listed falsely.

6th, my address with paypal and ebay are both my CURRENT address, which is in michigan, you knew this b/c you SHIPPED the ticket to my michigan address. where you get off saying that i have a minnesota address is beyond me....

7th, my boyfriend that went to the show with me, is a police officer. he is the one who became irate when he saw the actual face value of the tickets, and what was actually paid for them.

Before you start making accusations, you should do your research.

Taken from the paypal page you listed...
"Sellers must restrict the sale of event tickets to residents in the state or province of the regulated event to the amounts described below ..... As a ticket seller, you are responsible for ensuring that your particular transaction does not violate any applicable law or the terms on the ticket."

This is the response I have worked up so far:

If you look below at your very first question, you'll see, where it says "Location," the abbreviation says "MN" and not "MI." I did not alter this in any way, and it appeared that way right up until you made your complaint. Had your account actually been registered as Michigan, eBay would not have allowed you to even bid on the ticket. I know this because I received messages from a few Michigan residents who wanted me to end the auction early and sell it to them privately.

Question about Item -- Respond Now
eBay sent this message on behalf of an eBay member via My Messages. Responses sent using email will not reach the eBay member. Use the Respond Now button below to respond to this message.
Question from courtney97799779
courtney97799779( 1)
Positive Feedback:
100%
Member Since:
Apr-30-06
Location:
MN, United States
Registered On:
www.ebay.com
Item: Tool Tickets 5/15/06 (Detroit) (6627895444)
This message was sent while the listing was active.
courtney97799779 is a potential buyer.
decided what you want to do yet? auction ends in like an hour....
Respond to this question in My Messages.

Item Details
Item name:
Tool Tickets 5/15/06 (Detroit)
Item number:
6627895444
End date:
May-09-06 13:47:33 PDT
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As for Vivid Seats, according to the auction, you bid well over face value for those tickets as well. Also, I called them, and according to the person to which I spoke, you did not pay for the tickets, rather they were sold to a ticket broker.

I hope you can forgive me for being suspicious, but A) I don't know you, and B) this all seems rather fishy. Admit it, if you sold something to someone and they then asked you for a full refund —not just the difference, mind you, but a full refund—on an item that was non-returnable, you'd be a little incredulous as well.

Out of curiosity, who actually used the ticket I sold to you?

I haven't sent this yet, and I'd like to know if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions they would like to make as to how I continue to handle this.

The Perils of eBay

2006-05-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so if any of you buy or sell stuff on eBay, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to be careful, because there are a lot of dishonest people out there. Take, for instance, a young lady I will refer to as Courtney. I’m not sure if that’s her real name, but it’s the name she’s been using, so that’s what I’ll call her.

A few weeks ago, I scored tickets for the Tool show in Detroit on Monday, May 15. It was originally supposed to be me, my friend Brian and his friend Nadine, but she had to back out. That left me with a third ticket to unload, and since it wasn’t eligible for Ticketmaster’s resale program, I put it up on eBay. When doing so, I was notified that, due to Michigan state law, resale of tickets was regulated so that Michigan residents could neither sell nor pay for tickets for a price higher than face value.

Everything seemed all fine and good. I received an email from Courtney, who, according to the header in the eBay message, was from Minnesota. (That’s the state with the abbreviation MN, right?) She asked me if I would consider ending the auction early and selling the ticket to her at an agreed-upon price. I decided not to so I could wait and see what I could get for the ticket. I received other offers like this from people from Michigan, because eBay would not allow them to bid on the item due to the state regulation. (The face value was $66.66, but I put it up for $70 to take the service charge into account. Plus it’s just easier to deal with whole, round numbers.)

When the auction ended, Courtney from Minnesota was the winner, and she ended up bidding about $100 for the ticket. Her boyfriend ended up being the one to pay for the ticket; she told me that there’d been some kind of internet outage in her neighborhood. The shipping address sort of set off a red flag, though, as it was in Lansing, MI. Since it was so close to the date of the concert, though, I decided to ignore it and send it to her anyway. Nice guy that I am, I had brought the ticket to work so I could run to the post office on my lunch break and send it out via Priority Mail. (I had originally planned to send it Express, but she said she’d rather pay a lower price, even if it meant it might take longer to arrive.)

I went to the concert, expecting her to be seated next to me, but instead, there was a guy in that spot. I couldn’t ascertain if his seat corresponded to the ticket I’d sold to Courtney, since A) everyone was standing, and B) the concert had already started by the time I got there, so I couldn’t really ask him. Anyway, the concert was great, even if we were a bit farther back than I would have liked and despite the fact that they didn’t play the song “The Pot.” (It’s probably my favorite song from the new album.)

The evening after the concert Courtney sent me the following message:

I have been informed that you selling this ticket for over face value (which was 66.66) was an illegal move on your part, and also against ebay policy. Therefore, I have been instructed to request that you refund the difference in the amount that I paid and the actual face value. If a refund is issued, then there is no harm done on either side of the deal. If there is no refund, I have to fill out the report I was given. This will most likely suspend your activity on ebay, ticketmaster, and possibly involve charges from your local law enforcement. In turn, it may also affect MY buying priveliges [sic] on ticketmaster. Please get back with me when you have a moment. Thank you. Courtney

At first, I panicked. After all, I didn’t want to get into any trouble, but at the same time, I didn’t want to get screwed over, and this certainly seemed suspicious. I asked her to forward the report to me, to which she said she’d be unable to do until she was able to scan it at a friend’s house. She also offered to have a friend fax it to me directly from the police department.

The next morning, I contacted a couple people I know who live in Michigan. My friend Trevor was most helpful in this, as he sent me these two links, http://pages.ebay.com/buyselltickets/rules.html and https://www.paypal.com/au/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/use/index_frame-outside&ed=event_tickets. As I read them, it appeared to me that I had done nothing wrong and that any responsibility should have been on her to make sure she wasn’t violating the law.

It was then that I thought that I should check her feedback rating and see what other sellers had said about her. It turned out that the other auctions for which she had feedback were all for tickets for the exact same event. At that point, I contacted the other sellers and asked them if they were experiencing the same problem. Of the three, two wrote back and confirmed that Courtney had contacted them for a refund. (I ended up calling the third and discovered that, even though she’d won the auction, she never paid for the tickets and therefore didn’t receive them.) Taken with the fact that her eBay account was only a few weeks old, it seemed to me that she was definitely trying to scam us.

I wrote to eBay and gave them all the details I had and decided to wait for a reply from them before telling Courtney that the jig was up. In the meantime, she forwarded the message she’d received from eBay’s Fraud Protection Group, since she’d apparently already contacted them about this. In turn, I forwarded it to eBay to ascertain that it was genuine, and once again, I gave all the details about her that I had. (I still have yet to hear back from this particular message.)

eBay’s response wasn’t extremely helpful. They more or less just told me to go through their normal dispute settlement procedures, which didn’t really apply to this situation. It wasn’t quite the slam-dunk I was hoping for, but it still seems to me that eBay would have told me if I’d done something wrong. So I decided to go ahead and write her to let her know that I knew what was going on. The message reads as follows:

After having read these pages: http://pages.ebay.com/buyselltickets/rules.html and https://www.paypal.com/au/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/use/index_frame-outside&ed=event_tickets, it appears that I am not in violation of any laws or policies, and it is up to the buyer to make sure they themselves are not violating them. Being an Ohio resident, I am allowed to sell for a higher price, but since you are a Michigan resident, it was unlawful for you to bid on them for any more than face value.

Strangely enough, other Michigan residents who tried to bid on the tickets wrote to tell me that eBay wouldn't even allow them to place a bid. You were able to do so, however, since you told eBay that you were from Minnesota, rather than Michigan. Aside from that, the only auctions for which you have feedback are all for the exact same event, and I doubt that you somehow managed to go to the same concert at least five times. (Oops! Wait, make that three, since you never actually paid for and therefore never received the tickets you won from [seller’s name omitted].) Plus, I contacted eBay sellers [name omitted] and [name omitted], and they have both confirmed that you contacted them for refunds after the transactions had been completed.

I have made sure to bring all this information to the attention of eBay and have encouraged the other sellers to do the same.

Have a nice day. :)

I made sure to keep the email free of any accusations, as I didn’t want her to come back with some sort of harassment charge, saying I was libeling her or something. Instead, I just let the facts do the talking. As of now, I’m waiting for a reply from her. I’m not sure just how dedicated she’ll be to trying to turn a larger profit on this scheme, but I refuse to be screwed over.

I’ll keep you guys up to date.

Check this comic out!

2006-04-19T19:27:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to post a link to a preview of a comic that I really enjoy called Athena Voltaire. It's a good, old-fashioned, pulpy throwback to the adventure serials of the 1930s and '40s starring a tough-as-nails aviatrix who pits her skills against various threats, including Nazis, vampires and gill men. (Okay, the last one isn't true. That was just for Gabe.) I met artist/co-creator Steve Bryant at the 2003 WizardWorld Chicago convention (the first I attended) and found him to be an incredibly nice guy. Since it was still just a web comic at the time, I was unable to really check it out until after the convention was over, but I decided I enjoyed the concept enough to purchase a couple prints (which Steve was nice enough to sign). (Both images can be seen here, the left and center pictures.)

Creators Steve Bryant and Paul Daly launched the print version of the series back in February at Speakeasy Comics. The company folded within the same month, but they finally found a new home for their heroine at Ape Entertainment. The following preview is the entire contents of the first issue released by Speakeasy. The first issue published by Ape will be 48 pages consisting of what would have been issues one and two of Speakeasy's version.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PREVIEW OF ATHENA VOLTAIRE: FLIGHT OF THE FALCON #1

Cartoon War

2006-04-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

From last week's South Park:

CARTMAN: Do you have any idea what it's like?! Everywhere I go, "Hey Cartman, you must like Family Guy, right?" "Hey, your sense of humor reminds me of Family Guy, Cartman." I am NOTHING like Family Guy! When I make jokes, they are inherent to a story! Deep, situational and emotional jokes based on what is relevant and has a POINT! Not just one interchangeable joke after another!!

Amen, Cartman. Amen.

I am a Suppressive Person

2006-03-14T07:33:00.000-08:00

I just read that Isaac Hayes has asked to be released from his South Park contract, citing the series's religious discrimination. Apparently, he feels that it has tipped over into bigotry. Strangely enough, he didn't seem to mind back when they did their episode about the Catholic church child abuse scandal or when they did their scathing critique of Mormonism. No, instead, it comes soon after their lampooning of Scientology, a "religion" of which Hayes is a follower. (The Mormons are probably relieved that there is a group out there with beliefs even whackier than their own.) I suppose Hayes was considered a "Potential Trouble Source" because he was associating with the "Suppressive Persons" who write and produce South Park. What an efficient cult they are.

For more info on the Church of Scientology, I recommend reading this Rolling Stone article. It is quite in-depth and completely fascinating. What I can't get over is how people get suckered into this thing, anyway. I mean, the man who invented it made his living by making stuff up. Even the whole backstory sounds like a shitty sci-fi novel. It boggles the mind that people can be so gullible and don't see through this hogwash. I suppose some of you might think I'm behaving like a bigot, and in a way, you are correct. I am prejudiced against all kinds of rampant stupidity and the people who engage in it.

UltraViolet movie review

2006-03-10T09:04:00.000-08:00

Before I get on with this review, I will ask a few multiple choice questions:

If you wanted to protect a building, what type of weapon would you give to your security detail?

Automatic firearms
Semi-automatic firearms
Swords or some other hand-to-hand combat weapon

Supposing you’re a guard armed with a machine gun and a lone hostile intruder enters a room, how would you proceed to attack them?

Stand where you are, take precise aim, and fire.
Seek cover, take precise aim, and fire.
Run at the attacker, throwing off your aim and placing yourself in danger.

How do you light a sword on fire?

Douse the blade with a flammable substance and use a Zippo to ignite
I’m too lazy to come up with a second choice.
Just scrape it along the floor to shoot up some sparks, because the metal is flammable in and of itself.

If you answered C to all of these questions, chances are, you’re Kurt Wimmer, the writer and director of UltraViolet. The trailer for this movie should have featured Mr. Voice’s rumbling basso voice saying, “In a world…where people do things because they look cool and not because they make a lick of sense…” That would have summed this whole thing up quite nicely.

Kurt Wimmer’s previous film was a little-seen gem known as Equilibrium, which wasn’t good because of how it was written. Its plot was basically a rehash of every futuristic dystopian sci-fi story you’ve ever heard mixed with a healthy dose of John Woo’s The Killer. What made it stand apart were two things, 1) the stellar cast (including Christian Bale, Emily Watson, Taye Diggs, Angus McFayden, and Sean Bean) and 2) the unbelievably cool gunfights which used a technique I’d never seen before. This technique, called gun-kata, was a mix of martial arts and…well…guns ¹. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people just saw it as more or less a Matrix wannabe, and dismissed it outright. It’s too bad, since, as derivative as the story was, at least it was making the effort to be about something².

UltraViolet unfortunately doesn’t make that attempt. In fact, I’m not even sure it had a plot. There was some background material laid down in a rushed and confusing manner that I think was intended to be plot, but it was hard to tell. Apparently, Milla Jovovich plays a woman who was infected by some kind of virus that was developed by the government(?) to make people into super-soldiers. While it increased the subjects’ strength and agility, it also turned them into vampires…sort of. The virus became extremely contagious and began infecting large portions of the population, and the government tried to exterminate them all. Naturally, the “hemophages” (as they’re referred to) didn’t like this idea, so they decided to fight back.

I’m not entirely certain why the government decides that the hemophages are so dangerous. While there is one reference to the hemophages drinking blood, there is no other indication given that they ever do this. None of the hemophage characters ever feed, nor do they talk about it, so it really doesn’t seem like being a hemophage is all that bad. After all, they don’t seem to be susceptible to sunlight, plus there’s the aforementioned strength and agility augmentation. The only problem I really saw is that their canine teeth became a bit bigger, but I would imagine you’d get over that. So why should people be so concerned if they’re becoming infected? But I digress.

Violet (Jovovich) poses as a courier to infiltrate a lab where a bio-weapon has been developed that will kill all hemophages. After she is discovered, she must fight her way out of the facility. This doesn’t seem to be too difficult, as the guards there are mostly armed with electrified batons and have body armor that is made out of brittle plastic that shatters like glass. Even the guards who have guns behave as though they’re armed with melee weapons as they (as implied above) constantly run towards Violet rather than keep a safe distance and shoot at her. The whole thing culminates with an incredibly silly chase where Violet uses a device that enables her motorcycle to drive up the sides of buildings. It might have been kind of neat to watch if the special effects hadn’t been so bad. Plus, the fact that Violet’s hair and leather outfit keep changing color for no discernable reason is distracting.

Although Violet has been expressly forbidden to open the case she stole, she does so anyway. Inside, she finds a sleeping boy, portrayed by Cameron Bright (Godsend, Birth), whose career will probably end when he’s too old to play creepy kids. Her conscience gets the best of her, and rather than let her hemophage clients kill the kid, she runs off with him. (Wimmer probably felt this motivation could be explained by revealing in the prologue that she’d been pregnant before being infected. It doesn’t.) This means that both the hemophages and the government³ are after her, and the rest of the movie is a series of tiresome action sequences punctuated by people telling Violet that what she’s doing is suicide.

If the action sequences had at least been as entertaining as those in Equilibrium I might have been able to at least say the movie was okay. Unfortunately, most of them are mind-numbingly stupid. One of the most memorable is a scene where Violet is surrounded by a couple dozen armed Yakuza-esque hemophages with pistols. Her way of getting out of the situation is by ducking, weaving and occasionally hitting them so that they shoot each other. This is all captured with overly gimmicky shots where the camera will zoom in on the reflection in a person’s sunglasses and then zoom in on the reflection within the reflection and so on.

By the end, Wimmer decides to spare the audience a lot of watching Violet wade through countless henchmen and just shows the aftermath of these fights. In the meantime, though, we still get a lot of this, and it just gets more and more ridiculous. As discussed above, many of Violet’s attackers are armed with swords. I kept trying to come up with some kind of explanation as to why anyone would arm guards with swords when A) machine guns are readily available, and B) the person they are attacking has machine guns. That said, why would Violet oblige them by putting her guns away and using her own sword on them? Am I to believe that she is so honorable that she’d want to make it a more fair fight? Well, I suppose I’m trying to apply logic to something it can’t be applied to.

The final showdown between Violet and the main bad guy Draxus⁴ defies logic with such audacity that I thought for a second I’d fallen asleep and was dreaming that part of the movie⁵. Draxus reveals that he is indeed a hemophage himself, which begs the question as to why he has spent the movie wearing latex gloves, using guns that have been sterilized and sealed in plastic bags, and breathing through nasal filters that look like a couple thimbles shoved into his nostrils. Also, unlike Violet, his infection gave him the ability to see in the dark, so he cuts out all the light in the room. To address the third question in my multiple choice quiz, this is where Violet demonstrates the innate flammability of the sword she carries by scraping it on the ground and igniting the blade with the sparks it throws up. And this sword is completely on fire. Flames billow from this thing for the next minute or so with no sign of it possibly going out in the near future⁶. She uses it to chop Draxus in half lengthwise, and that’s more or less the end of the movie.

I realize that I have just written about three pages (in Microsoft Word) about this movie, and it’s far more than it deserves, but I just had to record this movie’s badness. (True, the movie itself is a far stronger document, but I imagine reading this takes far shorter than the 85 minutes it takes to watch the movie.) This is the worst movie I’ve seen this year and it’s definitely worse than anything I saw in 2005. (Yes, it’s even worse than Doom.) I can only hope that this is some sort of bizarre fluke for Kurt Wimmer, and that he can give us something as entertaining as Equilibrium as his next film. If not, then he will have used up the last ounce of good will I have for him, and I will be forced to start asking for bloody retribution.

In short, don’t watch UltraViolet.

1. It could be argued that it was just something that looked cool and was impractical in the real world, but there was a quick explanation about how it made the user more difficult to hit. It may not stand up to much scrutiny, but I could buy it for 105 minutes. Back

2. Its message that all emotions are worth having, even the negative ones, is pretty trite, I know, but we live in an age where movies don’t even seem to want to put that much thought into what they say. Besides, having a trite message didn’t keep Crash from winning any fewer Oscars. Back

3. Once again, I’m not entirely sure I’m getting that right. They actually look to be some kind of biotech corporation, but they also behave as though they govern the country. Back

4. Anyone who names their child this must dream that they’ll one day grow up to become a supervillain. Back

5. I actually came very close to falling asleep through most of the last hour of the movie, so that’s why it wasn’t that hard to believe that I had. Back

6. I imagine Wimmer imagined this would be a way to one-up the opening gunfight of Equilibrium, which was lit entirely by muzzle flares. The difference is that the former was cool; this was decidedly not. Back

Support the troops? Part II

2006-03-07T07:14:00.000-08:00

What is the world coming to when you can't even count on the right-wing nutjobs to support the men and women risking their lives in Iraq? I've just come upon this article on CNN's website about a family of fundamentalist Christian protestors who picket the funerals of American soldiers because "the soldiers are fighting for an army that represents a country that accepts homosexuality." You know, I'd really like to live in this fantasy version of the USA they seem to think exists. After all, I live in a state that voted to make gay marriage illegal. Yep, nothing says acceptance more than trying to outlaw someone's lifestyle. Hell, even the notoriously liberal Hollywood played it safe and opted not to give Brokeback Mountain the Academy Award for Best Picture.*

Another favorite passage of mine is where the patriarch of this clan of wackos, Baptist minister Fred Phelps, says of his preaching style, "You can't preach the Bible without preaching the hatred of God." I must admit, I'm not the most well-versed in theology, but I'd always gotten the impression that Christianity was almost like the hippie religion with its constant talk of peace and love. (Okay, maybe calling it a "hippie religion" is a bit over the top, but I'm just trying to make a point.) Could a real Bible scholar please help me out and let me know if Jesus at any point ever said that any group of people should be hated?

I can't get over what a leap in logic this whole endeavor is, either. As despicable as it is, I can at least see how protesting the funerals of homosexuals would make sense to the twisted minds of the hatemongers. I imagine this is more about trying to stir up controversy than anything else. In this way, they're not just offending the sensibilities of liberals and left-leaning moderates, but also a lot of the right-wing psychos who would normally be on their side. This way, their message is brought to the attention of far more people than it would have otherwise. Obviously, it's not going to work. I can only hope that this will also cause some of the less insane homophobes to evaluate their own beliefs and realize just how ridiculously they've behaved over the years.

Oh, yeah, and what these assholes also seem to be forgetting is that these soldiers gave their lives in service to a country that gives people the right to publically express their opinions, even if those opinions are completely stupid and wrong. If there is a Hell, I wonder if Fred Phelps is going there.

*Not that it necessarily deserved it. It was certainly better than Crash, and I wouldn't have minded if it had won, but I think Good Night, and Good Luck. and Munich were the two best nominees. Back

Good thing I didn't have plans this weekend.

2006-03-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

The last time I had vomited was almost six years ago. I had gotten food poisoning from something or other, and it first came on like a bad case of acid reflux. I went to work anyway but soon found myself hanging onto the toilet for dear life. Thankfully, my co-worker Andrea stepped up to the plate and covered for the rest of my shift. I then spent the next few days in the hospital. Since then, I’d been on yet another streak. That was until my roommate John went and got himself a viral infection he passed on to me.

Friday started like any other day. I woke up, jogged, showered, left for work. I went through much of the day, feeling just fine. It wasn’t until I was halfway through my Stouffer’s dinner of fettuccini alfredo with chicken that my stomach started acting up. Of course, my first thought was, “Oh, no! John gave me his sickness!” but I tried to deny it for as long as I could. Somehow, I managed to go through the rest of the day, but the feeling kept getting worse. I even ran to the newsstand in the building and picked up a bottle of Pepto Bismol in a vain attempt to quell the madness.

I left slightly early and drove home on one flat tire. (I wasn’t actually aware that that was the problem at the time, but I knew something was wrong.) I was dreadfully afraid that I wouldn’t make it home in time, either because my stomach would decide that it was just time or my car would become undriveable and then my stomach would decide that it was just time. But my will power held, and as soon as I made it into the house, I went to the bathroom and evacuated my stomach of my undigested lunch, the Pepto Bismol and most of the water I’d drunk since about one o’clock that afternoon.

I felt better at first, but that didn’t last long as the fever set in fairly quickly. And the achiness which I’m sure was a result of the dehydration. I struggled into the bedroom, changed into some sweats, and covered up in a heavy quilt. I was shivering like crazy and couldn’t really move due to the aches. This made drinking water a bit difficult. Moving hurt, and I didn’t want to take my arm out from under the covers. Eventually, though, at around 10:00 PM, I realized that I could use some medical attention.

Since no one else was home, I drove myself to Lakewood Hospital’s Express Care Center. (This is only a couple blocks away from my house, so I wasn’t endangering other drivers for more than a few minutes. Oh, and this was still on a flat tire.) I seemed to have lucked out, as there wasn’t anyone else in the waiting room except for a group of people who were there for a family member or friend. I was seen by a doctor in next to no time, and he started me on an IV drip of saline solution to rehydrate me. (They had done the same thing when I had food poisoning, and it had worked wonders, so I was pulling for him to recommend it.) My heart was also racing, so they figured that would probably help to lower its rate.

The last time I was in the hospital, I had a couple songs that cycled ruthlessly through my head. The first was “Down Once More…/Track Down This Murderer” from The Phantom of the Opera. The next day, Comedy Central was showing Arthur, so Christopher Cross’s “Arthur’s Theme (The Best That You Can Do)” was stuck in my brain. Last night, it was Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” and “I Missed Again” by Phil Collins. (The reason for the latter was because I had just gotten over a cold earlier this week, so I was sick again. I then started singing to myself, “Or am I sick again?/I think I’m sick again./Uh-hu-uh./Oh-oh, I’m sick again, uh-uh-uh-huh…” and so on. Not really sure where "Gold Digger" came from.)

The doctor came back at one point and told me that the blood test they had taken showed a high white cell count. He then said the words I had been dreading hearing; “Would you mind if I took a throat culture?”

“Yes, I really would,” I replied. He looked a little shocked by this reply, as though no one had dared resist this idea before. “Throat cultures are one of my least favorite things in the world,” I went on to explain. But of course, I knew that it had to be done. “How many do you have to take?” I asked, since it appeared as though he had brought more than one swab.

“Two.”

“Shit.”

I opened my mouth as wide as I could and said, “Aaaahhh…” but as soon as that thing hit my esophagus, I began to gag and close up. He didn’t get the culture, so I had to do it again. That time, he kind of got it, but wasn’t entirely sure. He took the second, which seemed to go better, but still had the same traumatic effect. I was feeling charitable, though, so I asked him if he wanted to take a third just to be sure he got it. Like a champ, I let him jam the swab down my throat. To those of you who can take a throat culture without gagging, I salute you. (And to those of you who can take a throat culture without gagging and are women, let me give you my phone number…¹)

The throat culture came back negative, so I guess it didn’t need to be done. Assholes.

I drifted in and out of sleep for the next couple hours, being awakened both by a shrilly crying baby and a guy in the next room who was snoring like my dad². At one point, a nurse came in to give me two Tylenol tablets for the fever and aches, which I’m sure will cost about $5 per pill. Later on, she gave me Motrin, which probably added another $10. She had me take it with some ginger ale. (Probably about $3, and it was just one of those single serving thingies.)³

Roundabouts two o’clock in the AM, the nurse came in to give me a flu test. I’m not precisely sure why that hadn't been the first order of business instead of the strep test, since I didn’t have a sore throat and the doctor hadn’t seen any signs when he looked at my tonsils. Nevertheless, it was the second choice, and I was just relieved that they didn’t have to take another throat culture. Instead, she jammed the swab up my nose farther than anything should ever go. In case you’re wondering, it hurt. A lot. It also caused my eyes to water like a leaky faucet and my mucus production to increase one-hundred-fold.

After about ninety minutes, I discovered that this test’s results also turned out to be negative. So I apparently had some kind of miscellaneous viral infection, which meant that they couldn’t really do too much for me. Thankfully, the IV bags and pain relievers had managed to make me feel much, much better. My heart rate had also finally started to slow, so they assured me that I’d be allowed to leave soon. In the meantime, I watched Mr. Show and Bravo’s Ultimate Superheroes countdown show⁴ (narrated by Adam West; love that guy).

I ended up being discharged around four o’clock that morning. I drove home, called my parents to let them know I was alright⁵, and crashed into bed.

I feel pretty good now. My stomach is still kind of blecch-y, but at least I can hold stuff down. Oh, and I got my car fixed today. Bless those folks at Lucas Auto Center on Madison who keep such great hours.

1. I wish to apologize to any readers I have offended with this comment, but I thought it was pretty damn funny. Back

2. To those of you who have never heard my dad snore, he’s really loud. Back

3. I hope to God those figures are truly just humorous exaggerations (or just exaggerations, if you didn’t find them all that funny). Back

4. I swear, Bravo and VH1 should team up and form a station called The List Show Channel. They’re fun and all, but man, isn’t there other programming they can devote their time to?Back

5. I had already called them earlier before I left for the hospital, so they were expecting a call from me.Back

The Left Lane Is For Passing!!!

2006-03-01T12:37:00.000-08:00

Ever since I moved to the Northeast Ohio area about two-and-a-half years ago, I noticed a strange and somewhat disturbing trend. Now, I don’t know if it’s like this all over Ohio and I somehow just managed not to notice it, but I definitely notice it now, and it sticks in my craw.*

This morning, I was driving to work, and I took the Shoreway (aka OH-2), as I normally do. I tend to accelerate faster than other folk, although many times, I’ll make myself top out at a slower speed than those who were behind me. In this case, there was a white van in back of me, the driver of which very obviously wanted to go faster than I. For some reason, however, despite the fact that the left lane was perfectly clear—with no sign of any approaching traffic, no less—the driver decided to keep following me semi-close. (By this, I mean far enough away so as not to be tailgating, but still fairly close.) After continuing on this way for about two miles, I pulled into the left lane, at which point the white van proceeded to pass me.

But that’s not the end of the story. I stay in the left lane, and about a mile later, there’s another car that is traveling at an even slower rate than mine. The white van pulls into the righthand lane to pass this slower car, despite the fact that, once again, the left lane was perfectly clear. (He would have had a good several seconds to slip into the lane before I would have caught up with him.) Had I not lived in Cleveland for as long as I have, this would have astounded me, but I’ve noticed this over the last two-and-a-half years that I’ve been here.

Why is it that Northeast Ohioans have an aversion to passing people by using the lefthand lane? This lane is often called the “passing lane” by many, so I would imagine that it is mostly used for that purpose. Instead, drivers will follow behind, as if to see whether the person in front of them will speed up. At first, I thought that perhaps it was some sort of gesture of courtesy, but that was immediately nixed when I noticed the whole passing-on-the-right thing. Are people here just taught different rules when they attend driver’s ed?

So, to anyone who reads this, the next time you’re in the right or middle lane, and you get behind someone who is going slower than you, put on your turn signal and get into the lane immediately to the left (providing, of course, there aren’t any other cars in your way). This way, you get to maintain your speed, the driver in front of you isn’t wondering why you don’t just pass him/her and have done with it, and both of you go on about your way merrily.

*I believe the craw is located in a bodily region near your druthers, but don’t quote me on that. Back

Down with the sickness

2006-02-24T19:29:00.000-08:00

I hate being sick. No, really. I do. I mean, I don’t mind the occasional day off work for feeling slightly under the weather, but this has been lasting way too long. I only went in to the office one day this week, and that turned out to be a huge mistake. I woke up feeling worse and called off yet again. To make things worse, I’m in the massive drainage part of the illness and I ran out of Kleenex early this afternoon. That, of course, meant that I would have to actually leave the house and pick up some more. I did so and also got some vitamin supplements, namely Echinacea and Vitamin C. It might have helped a bit more had I started taking them on Sunday evening when I felt this thing coming on, but I’m bound and determined to be done with this thing by next Monday.

I know I shouldn’t be feeling sorry for myself, though, because my grandfather is in the hospital. He just underwent surgery on his hip the other day and he isn’t doing so well right now. Being 86 years old, any kind of surgery can be hard on him, and he hasn’t quite been able to recover as well as he would have a few years ago. On Friday, he had an allergic reaction to an attempted blood transfusion. The doctors and nurses managed to stabilize him, but it was fairly serious, and he almost died.

So the conclusion of this half-baked entry is that illness of every type sucks. I guess that’s really all I have.

Is it just me...

2006-02-15T08:08:00.000-08:00

Or is Howie Mandel really looking like David Draiman these days?

I don't know. Maybe it's just the lack of hair.

2006-02-14T19:50:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

525,600 Muuuutants!

2006-02-10T19:40:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't get the reference

Neato trailers

2006-02-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple trailers I've seen in recent days that look really cool. It seems rare these days that I find myself really anticipating small, independent arthouse fare, but the concepts behind these are incredibly intriguing.

This first one is for a movie called Hard Candy, sure to make perverts think twice before meeting up with underage girls they meet in internet chat rooms (providing those underage girls aren't just actually guys pretending to be underage girls).

The second is for Brick. Three words: high school noir. It looks brilliant. Ironically, I saw this trailer on the DVD for Doom. That movie was far from brilliant.

Doom movie review

2006-02-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

With the exception of people running through dark, metallic hallways, shooting stuff, the movie had about fuck-all to do with the game. The sad thing about it is that it seems like it would have taken so little to make it at least passable. I mean, I doubt fans of the game would be overly critical about stuff like lack of character or story, but when you tinker around with the essential elements of what sets Doom apart from all the other video games, that's when people start to become annoyed.

People who are familiar with Doom know it as the first-person shooter where you run around and kill demons from Hell. Not aliens. Not bioengineered monsters. Demons from Hell. So why on God's green earth did the makers of the movie decide to change the nature of the threat to genetically altered humans who turn into monsters? We've seen that before. The Resident Evil films covered that territory. (Sure, I don't think they did an altogether good job of it, but apparently enough people thought so.)

As I said before, most people won't quibble about things like lack of character development; that's not the point of the whole thing. But the filmmakers sought to give the characters identifiable traits of some sort as a substitute for development. This turned out to be truly unfortunate, as it made them unlikeable. The two that stick out most are the sleazy/horny guy (played by Joe Chill from Batman Begins) and the religious guy who quotes bible passages and cuts crosses into his flesh every time he sins or takes the lord's name in vain or whatever. You know, this latter character might have been right at home had the movie actually dealt with a literal interpretation of Hell, but it didn't, so he's just some guy with an annoyingly quirky trait.

The only point at which the movie becomes truly entertaining is during the much talked about first-person sequence. This scene basically turns into the video game, and we look through the eyes of one of the characters as he wanders through dark corridors, blowing away monsters and even using a chainsaw on one. Unfortunately, nothing before or after it is worthy of its presence.

In short, they might as well have just titled this movie Generic Aliens Rip-Off #237 and had done with it. Sure, it wouldn't have had the name recognition that would have brought more ticket buyers in, but I'm sure the money they would have saved by not paying the licensing fee for the title would have been comparable.

I mean, would it have killed them to throw in some horns, cloven hooves and pentagrams?

Touching strangers

2006-01-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

An odd thing happened to me today. I was in the food court of the building in which I worked getting lunch (as one might normally do at a food court). I left the Sbarro with my Bag of Hurt (so named because I'm sure it's the effect it will have on my system at some point in the future), and when I was halfway out of the food court, I realized that I'd forgotten to grab a fork. I turned around to head back, trying to navigate through the lines that had formed at the more popular installments, and started to walk past a pillar in front of the McDonald's. At that point, a young lady (who looked to be about my age) who was walking the opposite direction directly in front of me stopped to say hello to one of the McDonald's employees. I stopped as well, since there wasn't enough room between the pillar and the person in the line between the McDonald's and the pillar, and I stood there for a second or two until the lady turned back to face my direction. Noticing me, she said, "I'm sorry," and moved so that we could pass each other. Now, as she walked past me, she lightly grabbed onto my arm and kept hold of it until she was completely past. I didn't say anything, but I found it rather strange. This woman had never met me before, yet she touched me for a prolonged period. (It was maybe three seconds at most, but when you're touching a total stranger, one second could be considered a prolonged period.)

When I got back to the office, I told my coworker Greg about it, and as I related the anecdote, it suddenly dawned on me that I should check my pockets and make sure everything was still there. Nothing was missing, so that left me still rather confused. I would never dream of touching someone I didn't know, even on a relatively non-private area such as the forearm. I mean, I can't imagine most people feel comfortable in such a situation. If it had been the other way around, and I'd done that to a woman, I'm sure I'd be facing a harrassment suit right now. Luckily for her, I didn't really mind that much. (Why didn't I mind? Logic would say that it was because she was attractive, but I honestly can't remember what she looked like. Maybe I just really need a hug after that awful dream I had the other night, and I figured that was close enough.) And luckily for me, I wasn't on an episode of Dead Like Me, and she wasn't a Reaper removing my soul before a horrible (yet wacky) death ensued.

In other news, I just picked up Sunny Day Real Estate's last album, The Rising Tide. Some of their stuff has popped up on my Yahoo! radio, and I had found it very awesome. The album is all kinds of kick-ass. I might add them to my list of bands on My Space on a provisional basis. (Or maybe I'll just wait and see how I like How It Feels To Be Something On, their second-to-last album, before making any decisions.)

Brokeback Mountain

2006-01-21T08:54:00.000-08:00

I went to see Brokeback Moutain last night. It was quite excellent (although Batman Begins is still, in my opinion, the best movie of the year). Surprisingly enough, it somehow managed not to be as homoerotic as Top Gun. Still, my friend Tim and I were very disappointed that at no point during the movie did the main characters eat pudding.

The following is a list of random updates about what I've been up to lately:

2006-01-17T21:09:00.000-08:00

My Christmas and New Year's were pretty great. I spent time with my family for Xmas (which I discovered is not actually an anti-Christian way to refer to the holiday, as the X stands for Christ). I got to visit some of my friends over the holiday, such as Brian, Shaun, Jeanine, and Anna.

I got Brian the Batman special edition DVD for old time's sake. Back in the early '90s, we used to get together every weekend and watch it until we had the entire thing memorized. I could still probably recite the dialogue along with the damn thing. I may enjoy Batman Begins more nowadays, but Batman just has so damn much nostalgic value thanks to all the fun times I spent with Brian. Enjoy, pal.

I hadn't seen Shaun in almost a year, and the birth of his second child, Max, was definitely a good reason to make the trip to Van Buren. The last time I'd actually gone to visit him specifically was just after the birth of his daughter Ivy. Ivy has turned out to be a supernaturally adorable baby. I congratulate Shaun and Erin on their new family.

When I went to visit Jeanine, the initial plan was that we'd hang out for a bit and then she'd go with her mom and dad to a relative's house. Well, her parents ended up inviting me along, and I got to meet a whole ton of her family. They were all very nice people, and her uncle's girlfriend is extremely hot. So the trip that I'd initially thought would last about seven hours turned into over twelve, and I didn't get home till about 4am.

I hung out at Anna's place for New Year's Eve, which would be the first time I've actually done something for New Year's Eve in several years. (Unless you count the previous year's trying to sleep whilst hearing my downstairs neighbor and her boyfriend argue and then have sex as doing something. Unfortunately, I did not have a pair of earplugs at the time.) It was rather low-key, with a lot of board game playing going on, just how I would prefer a New Year's Eve gathering to be.

A couple weeks ago, I had a little tenderness in my Achilles tendon, so I went to the doctor. He diagnosed me with tendonitis (which can apparently also be spelled tendinitis) and put me on some anti-inflammatories. Thus far, they seem to be working. Basically, I'm just glad that I should be able to start jogging again soon. I haven't gone in a week and a half.

It's becoming more and more evident that the lady I have a huge crush on just isn't interested. She seems to like me as a person, but I'm not sensing anything else there. I think she filed me under the "just a friend" category a long time ago, and since I don't get a chance to talk to her that often, I really haven't been able to present any evidence that would cause her to reopen the case. (Then again, I don't know if women ever reopen said case files. I get the impression that, once it's down in the books, it's down to stay.) I've thought I might just go for broke and try asking her out, but at this rate, I can guess with 90% accuracy what her response would be. (Actually, I could use some cash; would anyone care to take that wager? To tell you the truth, it'd be a win-win situation for me.)

My friend Matt, whom I haven't actually seen for about five-to-six years, came to visit today. It was great to catch up with him. He seems to be doing rather well. It's just a shame he couldn't have stuck around longer, as he was subpoenaed (tee-hee) to be a witness in a trial.

Doctor Who will be premiering on the Sci-Fi Channel in March. Watch it. Really. I'm not kidding.

Support Our Troops?

2005-11-20T07:27:00.000-08:00

Not so much a blog entry as a random observation. So, apparently, conservatives feel that we liberals do not support the troops because of our anti-war stance. I, however, pose this question to them. What kind of support is it to approve of sending people into harm's way? I mean, we are trying to bring them home with minimal loss of life, whereas the proponents of the war (and supposed supporters of the troops) want them to be sent overseas where they can possibly die. Their logic astounds me.

A Beautiful Weekend

2005-11-14T20:46:00.000-08:00

For the second time in my life, I was actually more than just a spectator at someone's wedding. The first was when I was probably about five years old. I was a ring bearer at the wedding of some relative I don't even remember. The second was this past weekend at the wedding of my friends Trevor and Rebecca. This time, I was a groomsman along with my friends Tim and Gabe.

I first met Trevor during my sophomore year of college. By this time, he and Tim were already friends, and Tim and I had just started talking to each other. Soon, my friend Gabe, whom I knew through his roommate Shaun, a friend of mine from high school, started hanging out with us and we formed a powerful superhero team that saved the world countless times. (Actually, we just played Mario Kart 64 a lot, but the other thing sounded more exciting.)

Gabe was first to leave us, being claimed by graduation. Immediately after, he married Jill at one of the nicest weddings I've been to thus far. Tim, Trevor and our ex-friend Joe were there as well, and we all had a blast at what we termed the "kids' table." We found ourselved quite amused by the fact that the rest of the guests were most likely looking at us wondering just who the hell we were and why we couldn't stop laughing. Hopefully, our joviality was controlled during the ceremony itself, but something about the pastor's "Gabe, love Jill. Jill, love Gabe," just about made us pee our pants.

Tim, Trevor and I went on to share an apartment for two years, and when Tim graduated, Trevor and I shared a place for an additional year. During this time, I met Becca at the video store at which I worked. She would come in occasionally, and since she rented cool stuff, I would chat with her. When I found out that she was a computer art major like Trevor, I asked her if she knew him. Soon after, they began talking. In the year after Tim left, Trevor and Becca began seeing a lot more of each other, and it wasn't too difficult to see what was going on. (Since I also began dating that year, Trevor and I joked that Tim had been the element that had held us back. Of course, my relationship dissolved without Tim's presence, so I suppose that disproves that theory.) By December, they were full-force together, and thankfully, they weren't one of those couples that made you sick to see but rather very inspirational. It made you happy to see that two people could find each other and compliment each other so excellently.

After graduation, Tim, Trevor, Gabe and I all stayed in contact and would get together for several weekends throughout the year. During one of those weekends, Trevor gave us the happy news that he and Becca had gotten engaged. This wasn't a normal engagement, though. It was actually somewhat of a dual engagement. Becca is a rather willful and forward-thinking woman, so it came as no surprise to us that she was actually the first of the couple to ask for the other's hand in marriage. Trevor, of course, accepted and decided to return the favor. (His story is slightly more memorable due to the fact that he somehow managed to time it just about perfectly with Chicago's Fourth of July fireworks.)

Tim and Trevor (and I, to a lesser extent) were fairly excited about the initial date of the wedding, November 5, 2005. According to Back to the Future, it would be the 50th anniversary of the invention of time travel. Something didn't quite work out with that date, though, so instead it became November 12, 2005. This still worked just fine as it was the 50th anniversary of the Enchantment Under the Sea dance and the first kiss of George McFly and Lorraine Baines. Man, we're dorks.

Several months ago, I received a phone call from Trevor where he asked me to be a member of his wedding party. Needless to say, I was quite honored, and as I'd figured, he also asked Tim and Gabe to do the same. At that moment, I already knew that it would be a great occasion, and I found myself looking forward to it very much.

I took the day off on Friday, November 11, and Tim (who also lives in Cleveland) and I drove down to Dayton for the rehearsal. The wedding was to be held in the Gothic Cloister of the Dayton Art Institute, which looks like it was built specifically to host weddings. (So does the Italian Cloister, but it's open to the air, not the most ideal setting for a Fall wedding.) We arrived about an hour early and grabbed some fast food, since we figured we wouldn't get to eat otherwise before the rehearsal dinner. Adding a cheeseburger and fries to the Sausage McMuffin with Egg I'd had for breakfast, I could almost hear the sinister strains of a soundtrack foreshadowing something, but I ignored it.

Tim, Gabe and I met Jeff, the co-best man along with Trevor's brother Jared, for the first time at the rehearsal. Jeff has been Trevor's best friend since childhood, and we'd heard some epic tales about this man. The way I would always describe him to those who may know Trevor but not him was to say that he was like Trevor if he'd been born without a conscience. He's someone who thrives on making jokes that are designed to make others feel uncomfortable. In fact, the first time he met Becca, the very first thing he said to her was, "I hope you don't mind, but I took Trevor's virginity." During the rehearsal, when each of us was introducing ourselves, he said, "Hi, my name is Jeff, and I used to date Becca." We were all very amused.

To be honest, I was almost afraid that Jeff would just attack us on sight, but that turned out not to be the case. He was very nice and quite funny (which makes sense, considering that Trevor is one of if not the funniest person I've ever known) Despite the fact that you could occasionally see a slightly off kind of look in his eyes, Trevor told us that Jeff had mellowed out quite a bit since meeting his girlfriend Allison (whom Tim and I could swear we've seen someone who looks exactly like her).

After the rehearsal, the five of us (Trevor, Jeff, Gabe, Tim and myself) went to pick up our tuxedos. I was impressed at the outfit, especially the fact that they came with neckties rather than the traditional bowties. Having worn a couple tuxes before, I also got to feel a little smarter than a couple of my fellow groomsmen, since I could instruct them on some of their finer points, such as how to wear the cufflinks and how to put the slacks back on the hanger.

The rehearsal dinner was at one of my favorite restaurants, the Spaghetti Warehouse. Tim and I sat across from Trevor's sister Becky and her boyfriend Cody, both of whom were very easy to talk to. I also sat next to the pastor and his wife who are very nice people. During the dinner, Trevor handed us our groomsmen gifts, which turned out to be $50 gift cards to Best Buy. Easily the best groomsman gift I'll probably ever receive. Also included were a pair of black socks. Very fortuitous, since I didn't think to bring any.

We all retired to the hotel afterwards (except for Gabe, who was staying with relatives in Cincinnati), which was obvioulsy newly built and very nice. Trevor came by to visit with me and Tim before he went to bed and it was during this conversation that we discovered that he and Becca had payed for the wedding almost entirely themselves. Out of politeness, I won't disclose the amount, but it is more than half my current salary. Practically the only things they didn't pay for were the wedding party's outfits and the hotel rooms. To tell you the truth, though, I think that this is definitely the way to go. I often get the impression that a lot of parents try to hijack their children's weddings and impose what they want rather than what the couple wants. By making all arrangements themselves, they ensured that it was truly a reflection of their personalities and that it was entirely about them, as it should have been.

The following morning, the groomsmen (sans Gabe) went to breakfast at Bob Evans, where I added a ham and cheese omelette into my digestive system. Jared brought his nigh-two-year-old son Landon along with him, since his wife Lisa was in the wedding party and was getting ready with the rest of the bridesmaids. Like any two-year-old, Landon was full of energy and wouldn't sit still. The only time Jared got to eat was when Jeff gave his cell phone to Landon for him to play with. I picked up Trevor's check, thinking that would put us at about even and we headed back to the hotel.

Since Tim and I wouldn't be staying in Dayton that night, we checked out at 11:00 AM and changed into our tuxes in Cody and Trevor's room. Soon after, Jeff dropped by to give us a ride and mentioned that Trevor was starting to get a little antsy about people being on time, as he'd called Jeff's cell phone a few times in the hour in between. Aside from that, the ladies were taking much longer at their hair appointments than had been anticipated, so he wanted to be sure the other photographs could be completed on time.

My friend Anna had hung out with our group on several occasions, and Tim had planned to invite his friend Candace to come along, so I figured I'd ask Anna to be my guest. Well, it turned out that Candace couldn't make it after all, but Anna still wanted to go, so she did. She arrived rather early, so I found myself a bit concerned that she would be frightfully bored, seeing as how I wouldn't be able to hang out with her very much.

The photographs went more or less smoothly; the photographer seemed to know what he was doing. Tim and I found ourselves quite taken with his assistant (Tim more so than I), but she had unfortunately already had her own wedding day. Either that or she wears a couple rings to avoid being hit on by single groomsmen at weddings. No matter the truth, I felt secure in the fact that I wouldn't be charming her that night.

The ceremony started around 2:30 or so. We each filed in with our respective partners, mine being Jared's wife Lisa. We walked slower than what I thought was necessary and then stood in our places for what would seem like hours. When Becca had finally taken her place at Trevor's side, the pastor began his sermon. (Unfortunately, at no point did he say, "Trevor, love Becca. Becca, love Trevor." Not that it works as well with bisyllabic names; it just would have been funny as hell.) As he continued, I began to notice just how uncomfortable my shoes were and also how painful it was not to slouch. In fact, I'd say my back still hurts from that, except that would be lying.

Before the ceremony, Landon had begun to go through separation anxiety due to both his parents' participation in the wedding party. Trevor had already said that if this were to occur that he should just be allowed to join them rather than spend the whole time in the audience crying his eyes out. So partway through, Lisa turned and motioned for Trevor's mom to let Landon walk over to her. From then on, all was well.

Trevor and Becca had memorized their vows. Trevor recited them flawlessly. Becca had to stop at one point because she was crying. It was at that point that I was very overcome with emotion myself and I felt my eyes welling up. This is the first time I can ever recall being brought to tears by a wedding. This was probably the first wedding that had been on this personal a level for me. Two of my friends had gotten married previously, but it probably made the difference that I had been there to see Trevor and Becca's relationship develop from the beginning and in a decent amount of detail. And it also probably helped that I was more than just an observer. I was part of this thing. I was helping these two people become one. These two people who were so in love, and you could see it in their faces.

I told myself to stop being such a wuss, and this allowed me to maintain my composure, but just barely. This feeling continued until we came around to file in for the reception (which was held in the same venue). At this point, things had become a little more celebratory. In order to keep with the above mentioned nerdy theme, the wedding party entered to Alan Silvestri's theme to Back to the Future. We walked in in the same order we'd entered earlier and sat at the table.

The dinner was just as nice as the rest of the wedding had been, and it was interrupted only a few times. The first time was for Jared's best man speech. The second time was for Trevor and Becca's first dance. For their song, they had picked Sarah McLachlan's rendition of "The Rainbow Connection," which I'd never heard before. Those who have would probably have no problem understanding why I once again had to wage war with my tear ducts. Everything about that moment was beautiful.

Not so beautiful was the other war I would wage and lose that night. During dinner, a woman from Becca's family introduced herself to myself and Tim and began talking. I have to admit, I really didn't feel like talking to her that much, but I didn't want to be rude, nor did I want her to think she'd driven me away. It became hard to fight that urge, however, as my digestive system decided to revolt on me. After she left, I made a mad dash to the restroom. I emerged later with a serious stomach cramp, making me unable to even contemplate trying any of the wedding cake. Instead, I could only listen to people tell me just how great it was. Bastards.

Before the night was over, some chucklehead requested Garth Brooks's "Friends In Low Places." Now, I had already been slightly distressed at the presence of a couple Jimmy Buffett songs, but this was just crossing the line. To add insult to injury, whoever had done it also demanded that the wedding party gather on the dance floor and sing it to the newlyweds. Almost none of the groomsmen (except maybe Jared) knew the words to this song, so my singing was something to the effect of, "Well, I've got friends in low places/hrrmmrrr ssssmmmmrrrr/fffffmmmmmmmrrrrrr ffffllllllllll/OOOOOOASIS!" The final insult occurred directly afterwards when the DJ played Gwen fucking Stefani's "Hollaback Girl." Luckily, none of these things (my digestive system included) could ruin the evening for me.

The reception ended at 6:00 PM, and Tim and I caught a ride back to the hotel with Jeff and Allison. We changed back into our street clothes and handed our tuxes off to Jared. We then waited around in the lobby for Trevor and Becca to come down so we could say our goodbyes. They arrived looking incredibly tired but also incredibly happy, and I congratulated them for what must have been the tenth time that night. And as Tim and I left, I found myself a little disappointed that the whole thing was over.

This weekend will always remain one of my favorite memories. Thank you, Trevor and Rebecca, for allowing me to be a part of it. I know you two will be together forever and I feel honored to have seen it from the beginning.

More ranting.

2005-11-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

So some folks have been telling me about the fact that I haven't updated lately. All I can say in my defense is that I've actually been busy at work lately, and after spending 8+ hours in front of a computer, I usually don't feel much like sitting in front of my home computer very much when I get home. As you can see, my blog entries tend to be a little long-winded, taking up to a couple hours to finish. That can be a little daunting. Anyway, onto the subject of today's rant.

Right-wingers piss me off. There's really no other way for me to put it. Because I like to make myself angry, I often find myself reading right-wing trash on the internet. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I read Rush Limbaugh's website. I suppose, in a way, I feel as though I need to know just what the other side thinks. While reading once, I came upon this article about supposedly anti-American movies coming out in the near future. Of course, in reading this article, you understand that the author, like the rest of us, has not seen any of the films in question (especially seeing as how I don't think any of them had even been completed by the time the article was published) or read their screenplays or the source material upon which they're based. Were that so, would he still have picked on V For Vendetta? After all, it's far more an anti-fictitious-futuristic-fascist-England story than an anti-America story. He describes Natalie Portman's character as a "skinhead" and the prison camp in which the main character was formerly held as "Guantanamo-style." Had he done the slightest bit of research, he would have realized that both of those elements are direct references to Nazi concentration camps. Evey (Natalie Portman) does not shave her head by choice, rather it is shaved by force when she is imprisoned. We never find out entirely why V is imprisoned in the concentration camp, but it is obvious that there is a perceived difference between him and those in power. So if the author is going to say that depicting either one of these things as being bad is wrong, it's no wonder people often compare Republicans to Nazis.

And how about his opinion on Jarhead? He attacks it for "[dealing] with the 'dehumanization' of Marine trainees prior to and during the 1991 Gulf War." Dear God! Someone is suggesting that war can possibly have negative effects on people? They must be silenced at once! Similar to this is his reaction to the premise of Spielberg's upcoming Munich, which "focuses on the crisis of conscience undergone by Israeli commandos tasked with killing PLO terrorists - rather than on the barbarity of the terrorists themselves." You know, because people sent to do state-sanctioned murder never question the morality of it, even when it seems justified. And let's not forget that most normal people would find killing to be a rather distasteful action. As much as I'm sure most people would like to think that, as long as it's bad people they're killing, they'd feel more or less okay about it, I would question the sanity of anyone who actually didn't go through some kind of post-traumatic stress after taking another life.

This whole entry started because I found myself on Amazon.com reading reviews of Al Franken's new book The Truth (with jokes). For some odd reason, I always find myself more drawn to the negative reviews than the positive ones, and as you can imagine, all the negative reviews are by angry Republicans. (Funny. Limbaugh always claims that Liberals are the ones who are always angry and unhappy. I mean, we certainly have a right to be, but I think the Conservatives have more than demonstrated that we're not the only ones.) One quote in particular from a review caught my attention and, in turn, made me angry. "Above all, those on the left hate America and hate everything about what this nation stands for." This seems to be the mantra of the right-wing. Anytime anyone criticizes or questions the actions or beliefs of those in power, they are immediately attacked as being anti-American. "If you're not with us, you're against us," they say, as though the world can be painted entirely in shades of black and white. It is precisely this infantile way of thinking that is ripping this country—and this world—apart.

We have to stop them from questioning our love for our country. The best way I can think to do so is to make sure that we regain a system of checks and balances when the next election rolls around. They control the executive and legislative branches right now, and it seems like they may soon gain control of the judicial branch as well. I find this to be concrete proof of their disdain for the principles this country was founded upon. In fact, perhaps we should be turning their accusations around on them.

And I wish someone could make contact with the spirits of the Founding Fathers so they can tell Rush Limbaugh that he doesn't speak for them as he has deluded himself into thinking.

Supergirl

2005-09-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

On another note, I've decided that I will be dropping DC's new Supergirl series after reading a third of the second issue. I'm sure not many people are curious as to why, but I'll tell you anyway. Pure and simple, the Supergirl series doesn't seem to be about Supergirl. Yes, she shows up, but she does so alongside just about every other character in the DC universe. The first issue had her watching the JSA fight somebody and then getting into a protracted and pointlessly stupid fight with Power Girl. What a great way to introduce a new series; have the first issue feature characters with in-depth backgrounds and continuity and act as though the reader should know who they are.

And the logic (or lack thereof) behind the fight is completely asinine. Apparently, since Supergirl and Power Girl are so similar, and the same matter can't occupy the same space at the same time, contact with Supergirl causes Power Girl to go crazy and try to kill her. Hold on a sec. If the same matter can't occupy the same space at the same time, shouldn't they repel each other? Fighting would bring them into much closer proximity. No, someone at DC editorial probably just said, "We need us a chick fight in the new Supergirl comic. Dudes like those. And dudes love Power Girl because her boobies hang out. Let's get those two in a brawl right away!"

Issue two doesn't fare much better. This time, rather than the JSA, the Teen Titans show up for an extended guest shot. After yet another pointless fight, this time against Superboy, the rest of the Teen Titans appear and begin to fight with Superboy about something that I can only imagine occurred in the pages of the Teen Titans comic. Once again, yet another great way to continue the introductory story arc; bring in characters with their own continuity and expect the reader to know what's going on. "But, Matt," I hear some fanboys whine, "[writer] Jeph Loeb gives you all the information you need to piece together what's going on!" That's really beside the point. I bought a comic book called Supergirl because I expected to read about Supergirl doing super-hero stuff. Instead, I've gotten nothing but other super-hero guest stars and Supergirl fighting them. What, doesn't she have a rogue's gallery? Well, Mr. Loeb, you're a writer. Make some up!

The problem is, I feel that there are two Jeph Loebs, the Good Jeph Loeb and the Evil Jeph Loeb. The Good Jeph Loeb has given us some of the best super-hero comics ever written, in my opinion. The Long Halloween is my second favorite Batman story just after Year One. That's right, I place it above the sacred cow that is The Dark Knight Returns. (Not that far above. Dark Knight is my third favorite Batman story.) Superman for All Seasons is a beautifully written, iconic take on the Man of Steel. The majority of Hush was also written by the Good Jeph Loeb. The Evil Jeph Loeb is writing the current arc in Superman/Batman, which features oh-so "clever" takes on Marvel's The Avengers. And I can't for the life of me figure out just what he's trying to say with these parody versions. At least, he's not saying anything that wasn't already said in Mark Millar's first arc on The Authority.

His reason for doing this seems to be similar to his reason for resurrecting Supergirl; because he can. Loeb doesn't seem to really have any good idea as to what to do with the Girl of Steel and it shows. I imagine he's probably justifying his cavalcade of guest stars by saying something to the effect of it being about her quest to find her place in the DC universe. Yeah, that's all fine and good, but why does she need to interact with every other super-hero? It's almost as though someone doesn't have faith in this revival and feels that she needs to be sent out with training wheels. Unfortunately, all this just serves to undermine the main character of the series.

If someone ever decides to make a series about Supergirl, I might pick it up.

Friends?

2005-09-22T19:47:00.000-07:00

I remembered the other things I was going to talk about. The first is something that's been occuring over the past couple days. As many of you can see, I have a profile on My Space. Now, for some odd reason, several people of whom I have never heard before have been inviting me to be friends. I'm a little perplexed by this. What exactly makes them think I would make a good friend? Because we both happen to like one or two of the same bands? (To be quite honest, I can't stand a lot of the fans of the music I like. I often say that Tool was very prescient in naming themselves, understanding that many of the people who would listen to them would be aptly attired when wearing shirts that have the word "Tool" written on them in big letters.) They don't even know me. For all they know, I could be a complete asshole. (And I'm sure there are some people who think I am.)

Basically, I decided a while ago that in order to be added to my friends list, the person must be someone that I have at least met in person. While this may be defeating the intended purpose of an online networking database, something just feels dishonest to me about saying someone you hardly know is your friend. I make allowances for the fact that having an "acquaintance list" just wouldn't sound right, but when you've maybe only exchanged a couple messages with someone, are they even an acquaintance? They'd be even less so if you haven't even made any sort of contact with the person when you invite them. I suspect that many of the people who do this are basically just trying to collect people. They invite anyone and everyone so they can pad their list. Is it to make themselves seem more important? I have no idea.

All I'm really trying to say here is that, if you've never had the slightest contact with me, you can be damn sure your friend request will be denied. Just remember, it's nothing personal. Your friend request doesn't even seem personal, so how can my denial?

Construction, CDs and Mamet

2005-09-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

Today's post will be a bit of a collection of things. None of them were really enough to warrant giving any of them their own post, so I'll just kind of mention them all briefly. (Of course, I find that when I attempt brief, it usually ends up not being that.)

Last night, I went to a meeting for Cleveland-area bloggers with my new friend Jaclyn (introduced to me by friend/former coworker Gail; Jaclyn's blog is linked in the righthand column of other people's blogs). The meeting itself was fairly informative, and the people there seem very nice. I'm not sure if I'll be instituting many of the techniques talked about during the meeting, since I'm fairly lazy and only at a novice level when it comes to tech stuff. (I would like to get a site meter, though. I'm always curious as to who's actually reading my site.) I hope no one found it too terribly rude that I decided not to join the rest of the group at the after-meeting gathering, but to be quite honest, I'm just not into bars. Aside from that, I hadn't eaten dinner yet and Taco Bell was calling my name. (I know it was a bad idea to get Taco Bell after having had half a can of Pringles and four cookies for lunch that day. Perhaps if the Healthy Choice dinner had been either A) filling or B) good, I wouldn't have had to resort to heavy snacking. But someone had mentioned Taco Bell the other day, and I was in the mood for it.)

As I tried to find my way back to I-90, I went back more or less the way I had come. The street I had taken to get there from I-90, West 41st, was one-way, so I knew I would have to take West 44th to get back. A block away from the I-90 westbound entrance, I saw a sign for a detour of some sort. Unfortunately, I saw it a little too late and went straight through the intersection. I soon found out that the detour sign was not put up just for the hell of it, as the entrance for 90 west was completely closed for construction. It took me several minutes to get back to where the detour sign had told me to go, thanks to all the stupid one-way streets. (I mean, really, what's the point of those?) I eventually got back on track and began to follow the signs which were presumably leading me to another entrance to I-90. And as I reached the entrance ramp the signs were leading me to, what did I find? Another closed entrance with a detour sign that seemed to be directing me to go back the way I came. I began to wonder if perhaps it was some cruel joke being played on less intelligent drivers. They would follow these detour signs and go in circles all day and all night, wondering why they couldn't get onto the interstate. Well, damn their game! thought I. I got onto 90 eastbound, got off on West 25th St. and immediately got back on in the opposite direction.

And then I had me a double decker taco and a Cheesy Gordita Crunch. Man, that was tasty.

Lucky for me that, during this whole thing, I had the new Coheed and Cambria album to keep me company. To those who haven't heard the title yet, allow me to educate you. It's called Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume I: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness. In case you couldn't tell, Coheed and Cambria is a progressive rock band. But they're not just any kind of progressive rock band; they're a progressive emo band. Normally, I'm not that into emo. I've enjoyed stuff by Thursday and At the Drive-In, but it's a subgenre in which I find myself more or less disinterested. In fact, it was this element, exemplified by songs like "Blood Red Summer" and "Three Evils (Embodied in Love and Shadow)," that initially turned me off to C&C (no, not Clivilles and Cole). What brought me back were the extended epic songs like "In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3" and "The Crowing." (The latter of the two has a really great use of counter-melody at the end of the song. I'm always a sucker for a well-executed counter-melody.) After a while, I even learned to like the more emo-sounding material. (Maybe it's the fact that a title like the above-mentioned "Three Evils..." is so prog it's not even funny.)

I had been afraid that their new album would be a disappointment, not because of anything I'd heard from it. On the contrary, both "The Suffering" and especially "Welcome Home" sounded like the band at the top of their game. Instead, it was because there had been two albums released this year that I had been anticipating highly that had both been big disappointments.

The first of these was Mudvayne's Lost and Found. The math metal quartet played it safe on that album, eschewing complex rhythms and challenging lyrics for more radio-friendly tunes that featured angsty, whiny lyrics. Any successful band that still complains about how much their lives suck just comes across to me as a bunch of guys play-acting at being miserable.

The second actually came out the same day as Good Apollo..., and that was the new Disturbed album, Ten Thousand Fists. Had Fists come out in between The Sickness and Believe, I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. Instead, it just sounded like a major step back from the previous album. Believe showed a band that was trying to evolve, incorporating more melodic and even progressive influences into their songs. (In short, there was more music in their music.*) I was hoping for a similar evolution on the new album, and "Stricken," the first single, while still not up to the level of "Prayer," didn't seem to contradict this hypothesis. Unfortunately, the rest of the album did. Many of these songs are very simple and don't contain a lot of variation. It's especially maddening in the lyric department, as several songs consist only of one verse that is repeated two or three times. Others follow the third-verse-same-as-the-first pattern. (There are a couple songs like that on Believe, but for some reason, I don't find them as grating.) Okay, maybe I should give lead singer and lyric writer David Draiman the benefit of the doubt. After all, I'm sure there are only so many synonyms for "pissed off," but I guess that's maybe a sign that one should start varying the content of his songs. Angry lyrics seem to have become just as trite as those for your average pop radio love song. And his over-reliance on the grunting noises? I dont' feel as though I really need to go into that.

This isn't to say the album is without merit. The title track is one of the best songs they've recorded, as is "Stricken." On top of that, I think their cover of Genesis's "Land of Confusion" is as good as if not better than their cover of Tears For Fears's "Shout" ("Shout 2000" from The Sickness). (Of course, I'm a bit biased. The classic lineup of Genesis is my all-time favorite band, and I even love a lot of the post-Gabriel music as well.) It's just that the rest of the tracks sound like filler material. In short, it's just another Disturbed album. It certainly won't be staying in my car stereo for months to come the way Believe did.

That said, Good Apollo... is probably my second favorite album to be released this year, right after Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta. It builds on the incredibly dorky mythology of the previous albums, Second Stage Turbine Blade and In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3. A lot of the emo influences have been better incorporated with the prog influences. (On In Keeping Secrets..., you could go song by song and say, "This is an emo song. This is a prog song." It's not quite as cut and dry on this one.) It even features a song that, had I heard it completely out of context (and without knowing what the band's music normally sounds like), I would have thought of as the crappiest pop tune this side of Savage Garden. Somehow, it works. (It makes me wonder, would I have liked "I Knew I Loved You" had Savage Garden not been a shitty, shitty band?)

Is Good Apollo... a better album than In Keeping Secrets...? That will probably take some more listens to figure out. At this point, I'd say it's just as good, but the best way to discover that sort of thing is to wait until the newness wears off. All I know is that I'm relieved that it didn't turn out to be a disappointment, since people always say that bad things come in threes. (Not that the other two albums are bad; the fact that they're disappointments is bad.) Unfortunately, it makes me fear that Tool might release a new album soon and that it will suck.

In other news, I read David Mamet's op-ed piece from the L.A. Times, and I have to say I find it to be more or less on target. Mamet is a very insightful writer, and that makes me very eager to see his upcoming TV series The Unit. (I'm sure conservative commentators have already started calling the show Anti-American propaganda.) I must admit, though, that this is in spite of the fact that I've heard rumors that Amy Acker was fired from the show. Dammit, you don't do that! Not to Ms. Acker and not to those of us who have liked her since she became a regular on Angel! But it's Mamet (and Shield creator/former Angel producer Shawn Ryan), so I have to watch it.

So I'm thinking that there was something else I had planned to write about, but I find myself at a loss to think of what it could have been. I guess I'll just have to make it a separate post if I remember what was so damned important.

*That phrase was inspired by a line from Say Anything..., when Joan Cusack's character scolds her brother (John Cusack) on his eating habits, saying, "There's no food in your food." Back

How do you make two grown men scream like girls?

2005-09-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

Why, introduce a flying rodent into their domicile, of course.

So, I'm sitting at my computer, checking my e-mail or browsing through the IMDb or looking at pictures of hot chicks or whatever the hell I do when I'm on the computer when I notice some movement out of the corner of my eye. The movement originated from the darkened living room, which is more or less a common area with the "dining room" (which is in quotes because we never actually eat there), and at first, my thought was, "Man, that was a huge moth." I stand up to get a better look, when I realize that it wasn't a moth at all. John, who was sitting in the same room and playing Kingdom Hearts, jerked his head around as I said, "Holy shit!" and sees what I see, a winged creature of some sort fluttering around the living room. We take off like a collective shot into the kitchen, away from whatever it is. "That's a bat!" I cry.

John, however, is in total denial. "That's not a bat; that's a bird." Whatever it is, John recommends grabbing a broom and trying to shoo it out the door to the balcony, as it's the only door in our apartment that leads directly to the outside (and not to a stairway). So he grabs a broom and we proceed to creep back into the dining room so as to get a better look into the living room. It's not visible at first. Then I look at the couch and see it crawling around on the floor.

"Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch!" I exclaim, pointing. As we stand there, unsure what to do, it takes wing yet again and comes towards us. John bravely swings at it with the broom, causing it to turn and head back out into the living room. At that point we lose it, until I think I see a shape on the door. I turn on the light and, sure enough, there's our little friend clinging to the top latch. It has become a standoff as John and I stare at the tiny invader.

I get the idea to go out through the back door and around to the front to open the door and shut it quickly in order to cause it to take flight. John agrees that this is a decent idea, so I go out the back and down the stairs. On the way out, I bump into Mike, who is sitting on the back steps, chilling out. I quickly inform him of our situation just before I go around and up the stairs.

As I get to the door, I yell to John, "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," he replies. So I open the door and immediately slam it shut. I hear John react, and I ask him what's going on. Soon, I hear him say, "He's down!" I walk in and come to find it laying on the dining room floor. John tells me that he bopped it one with the broom. He didn't think it was hard enough to hurt it, but he apparently doesn't know his own strength. At this point, however, we still don't know what to do. Neither of us has any desire to kill the poor thing. After all, this particular bat is kind of cute.

I run to the bathroom and grab the small wastepaper basket we use to store magazines for toilet reading (or littérature de toilette as the French call it) and go back out to the dining room, where it still lies on the floor. I put the overturned basket over the creature and ask John to grab a record album to slide underneath. As I do this, Mike comes in to watch me attempt this daring feat. During my first try, I hear the poor thing freak out as the dust jacket comes into contact with him. (I don't know. Maybe he just doesn't like The Moody Blues. I haven't listened to Long Distance Voyager, the album in queston, all the way through but it's got to be better than The Other Side of Life.) On my second try, I raise the trash can up a little bit and, in doing so, start to push the bat out from underneath the trash can. I freak out and run away like the coward I am.

Mike, like a man, decides to take the initiative and scoops it into the wastepaper basket and then proceeds to walk out onto the balcony and dump it onto the railing. John and I marvel over how Mike does this without seeming even slightly uncomfortable. Then, we watch the bat on the railing, looking as though it's not going to move for quite some time. In fact, it's still there as I type this. It's moved a little since then, but not too much.

The worst part about the whole thing is the fact that we can't say for certain how it even got into our apartment. It's quite possible that it came in through the fireplace, as the flue was open a crack. But of course, my imagination tells me it somehow got in through my bedroom, and its family will soon be following.

At no point during this whole ordeal did I feel inspired to put on a costume and fight crime.

2005-08-31T14:37:00.000-07:00

Michael Sheard
1940-2005
He has failed us for the last time.

Have I made it?

2005-08-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

I just discovered that I actually have a listing on the Internet Movie Database. Now, one would think that this would be immediate cause to jump for joy, however there is a fairly big problem with this; the only project for which I'm credited is...well...something I plan to keep off my resume when I gain more experience. Aside from that, it's not entirely difficult to get one of those things. I could just totally make up a movie that doesn't even exist and throw it on the database. It wouldn't surprise me if there are people out there who have done precisely that. I can, however, confirm that this is not the case. The project listed under my name does exist (unfortunately) and I did indeed edit it. It feels like a minor accomplishment of sorts. I'll feel better, though, when I have something good to add to the filmography.

Sore...so sore...

2005-08-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

I got my hair cut on Saturday, and when I got home, I looked at myself in the mirror. First of all, I must admit that my mother is right; I do look better with longer hair. Unfortunately, it's not as easy to maintain. I like the convenience of just being able to dry it with a towel and not having to brush it if I don't feel like it. Plus, it's impervious to bedhead and hat hair. So the way I figure it is that I can get my hair cut really short and then let it grow out for, like, a month and a half or so. That way, I get the best of both worlds, plus it cuts down on the expense. Haircuts are expensive these days.

Second, as I looked at myself in the mirror, I noticed that my face seemed a little fuller than it usually does. "This won't do," I thought to myself. "How will the ladies like me if I'm not at my svelte best?" So on Sunday morning, I made a monumental decision; I decided to go jogging.

Now, I haven't jogged in literally a couple years (almost two and a half, in fact). Before that, I did jog for two summers in a row, however when I did so, I never actually noticed any difference in my physique. Hell, I barely noticed an improvement in my ability to be physically active. After a while, I would get less sore, but I still felt like I was going to die after each twenty-minute session. I kept it up for three months straight (three times a week), but it never seemed to make an impact. Even though I didn't alter my diet, the fact that I was altering the amount of activity I got should have done something. No matter; as soon as class started again, I just couldn't keep up with it.

I had lost some weight since I'd started working at Half Price Books. For one thing, I was making sure to drink at least 64 oz. of water per day. For another, that job requires the employee to be up and about for about seven hours straight. Since I stopped working at the bookstore, I've taken up an office job that doesn't give me much more to do aside from sitting at a computer for a good chunk of the day. I started taking walks almost everyday because of that, but the damnable heat kept me from continuing to do so. You see, I'm one of those people who hates temperatures that get much higher than 70°. On top of that, I also have the inability to tan, so if I'm out in the sun for about five minutes, I will receive third degree burns on any exposed part of my body. Unfortunately, I don't have a head that's made for hats, so while I went out wearing one, I looked completely ridiculous in ways no one should.

I woke up Sunday with the strange compulsion to go jogging. This time, I figured I had a secret weapon, Mike's mini MP3 player. Beforehand, one of the things that made jogging completely unbearable was the fact that I didn't have a personal stereo of any kind. I would try humming to myself, but you can only do that for so long until you need to stop in favor of breathing. So I uploaded some get-pumped metal onto the thing, stretched for a few minutes, and then went about my merry way. Soon, I was reminded why it had been years since I'd done this.

Before the first song was over, I felt the icy hand of death upon my shoulder. But I was determined to soldier on. I kept jogging for the next five minutes or so, but soon, I couldn't keep it up. I started walking. For the next ten minutes, I would alter between jogging and walking, but I stuck with the latter more than I wanted to.

It was all I could do to keep from collapsing on the floor when I got home. I stretched out and showered afterwards, but it didn't seem to help all that much. When I woke up this morning, I was more sore than I think I've ever been in my entire life. My legs screamed with pain every time I moved, but I still got out of bed and, more unbelievable even to myself, I went jogging again. This time, helped by the lower temperature this morning, I was actually able to jog for twenty minutes straight. I don't know how I accomplished this, but somehow I did. Of course, now, my soreness has reached proportions that make even the tiniest movements unbearable.

So the question is, will I be able to do it tomorrow? I don't know. Should my misery subside enough, perhaps. But if you were to ask me to go right now, I would most likely beat you savagely with a piece of wood. I guess only time will tell.