Saturday, April 30, 2005

Saw It

Saw the much anticipated (by me anyway) Hitchhikers Guide last night. Have to say it is bloody brilliant. Apparently I'm going again tomorrow with the Family. Smashing good movie though.
I'm feeling very British today. Apart from seeing the movie, which is very British in many ways, I just finished reading Bridget Jones' Diary. The book is a bit better than the movie. I wouldn't recommend reading it. I thought it might be interesting. It wasn't really. Now I have a hankering to re-read Pride and Prejudice. It's the same story after all and Austen has a much better grasp of literary everything.
That was a bit of a digression, I was just trying to explain my odd British mood. So pip pip cheerio, fancy a spot of tea, right. Bloody hell.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

This is American Music Take One

Last night I went to a free Violent Femmes concert at the U. The festivities started at 5:30 with a decent opening band that played for an hour or so. The next "band" was a guy in a pink shirt with a guitar. I didn't like him much, but he didn't play too long so.... Then it was the Femmes. I have to say they kicked. One of the best concerts I've been to. I was up close in the part of the crowd that jumps around and runs into eachother and really gets into the music. I'm black and blue this morning and a bit sore- always a sign of a good concert. The atmosphere was great, the crowd just the right size and the weather was perfect (it was all outdoors).
There are a few things, though, that I feel need to be banned from concerts. Or at least from the kinetic part of the crowd. I don't care what happens back where people just stand there nodding thier heads. First is synthetic fibers. When you're jumping around and sweating and having a raucus good time, the last thing you want is to get thrown against someone wearing scratchy polyester. Second is small children. Arrakis was right up by the stage and she said there were a bunch of 12 year olds* up by her who didn't know the music of the VF at all and were constantly in danger of being squished. I was a bit farther back where people were bouncing and kicking and flailing and there were these four prepubescent girls with braces who maybe weighed 200 lbs between the four of them. They did not know the music either and got pushed down every two minutes. According to concert etiquite when someone falls, you stop kicking and help them up, so these little girls disrupted the violence quite often and threw off the groove a bit. Finally, long hair should be pulled up. When you're jumping around coating in sweat (yours and eveyone elses) the last thing you want is to bump into some chick with waist length hair and get it all stuck to your arm.
It really was a good show though. I had a rockin' time and when you're really into the music and the crowd, those little above-mentioned annoyances don't really matter much.

*by 12 year old I mean a kid shorter than my shoulderblade who could be just about any age under 17.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Geekin' Out

It is well known that only 10 % of the human mind is used to process visual information. Less well known, but equally true, is that the remaining 90% is used for storing penguines.

www.thefilmfactory.co.uk/hitchhikers/global/index.html

hitchhikers.movies.go.com

I'm so bloody excited about this movie, it's not even funny. Friday!

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Word of the Week

Today I have a word stuck in my head. Just like you get songs stuck in your head and they just keep repeating themselves, today I have a word. I can't figure out for the life of me when I last heard it, but it's a very lovely word. Not the most useful word in the dictionary but it's less obscure than Megalomaniacal. Anyway, the word is Histrionic. Isn't it pretty? It basically means melodramatic.

Sunday, April 17, 2005

He Started It

Do you suppose spending too much time in a childish place (read: toy store) causes people to act more childish? Or maybe those people are just childish to begin with and the environment brings it out in them. I'm talking about Clint - who I work with at toyland. Yesterday we both worked the all day Saturday 9:30-6:30 shift (although he didn't show until 10:15). In that time he pulled my hair, threatened to cut my hair off with the scissors we use for wrapping, threw several balls at my head, thunked me with a package of clay, threw not a few art kits at me, and scribbled on my arms with a giant pen. All this on top of the usual bantering and bickering that we always seem to get caught up in (much to the amusement of Lucy). Near closing, Allison (the manager) walked out of her office, looked at my arms and looked at Clint and laughed. Derek has often referred to this kindergarted kind of flirting as our "romantic moments." Somehow I get the feeling that Clint and I are a favorite topic of 'office gossip' (in as much as the toystore is an office). As for me, I think it's fun, but it's not like I like the kid. And he has a girlfriend who he claims to be rather in love with.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Blustery Day

I have mountains in my front yard. They're not really mountains but more foothills. Anyway, near the top of one of these hills there is a big rock that Highland High School has painted with an H. We call it the H rock (very original). Anyway, earlier today I decided to treck up to the H rock (quite a walk up a very steep hill). When I got up there I sat on a smaller rock and looked down at my house and out at the valley. It is really windy today and I was getting very windblown. When I decided to leave I realized that I had four choices. I could walk into the wind, with the wind, just sit there and be blown but not go anywhere or walk perpendicular to the wind and end up in a ravine or someone's back yard. What a metaphor huh? Obviously the last option is a bad one. If I walk with the wind, it's easier. There is no resistance but I have to go pretty far out of my way and probably take a good half hour longer to get home. If I walk against the wind it's harder but more direct and possibly more fun. If I just sit there, it's boring and nothing gets done. And eventually the wind turns cold and I feeze to the rock and never get anywhere ever. Any way you look at it I end up with sexy wind-blown hair though. Of course, some people think there's the fifth option of changing the direction of the wind. Seems like a good idea, but it's a lot harder than you might think. And if you're thinking straight then you're going to think that it's pretty damn hard so if it's harder than you think it's gotta be DAMN hard. I decided to walk into the wind.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

ah the trends

What's so great about MYSPACE anyway? For some reason it kinda bugs me. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's too trendy, but that didn't stop me from buying and i-pod (mini, green, I love it) or from jumping on the blog bandwagon (obviously). And Myspace, if I try to justify it, is a great way to pretend to communicate (since that's what we do on this internet thing). I mean, I could blog, e-mail, IM, everything I would ever want to do. I just don't like it. And for me, it wouldn't really be all that usefull because none of my friends are on it. Exept Arrakis, but that's new. I know many of my friends would have nothing to do with it anyway, most of them don't know about it and if they did, they wouldn't use it. So what's the point? I have this little blog to dispence my random drivel to anyone who wants to hear it, I have two e-mail adresses that people can use to e-mail me, and I have Trillian which means I have Yahoo! AIM and MSN all in one messenger. MYSPACE would be over kill. Besides that, I don't especially like the people I know who are on Myspace (Arrakis excepted). That may just be coincidence. Besides, I've heard rumors that it turns people emo.

Monday, April 11, 2005

Alice in Wonderland

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

What a tragic poem that is. I suppose in the end it's the oysters own fault they got eaten. Silly little things. It wasn't very nice of the Walrus and the Carpenter to lure them out of the Ocean though. I like the Carpenter a bit more he's just really quite stupid whereas the Walrus is more malicious. Of course, I don't condone stupidity either. If you would like to read the whole poem, go here: http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Walkin on Sunshine

Tuesday was a really good day. It was one of those days that stay with you and make subsequent days good. Yesterday was a good day too, though nothing special happened. Today is not bad even though I had to work this morning and I dislike working mornings. But Tuesday was prime. We should all have more days like Tuesday. Nothing bad happened and a few exceptionally wonderful things did happen. I just thought I would share that.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Attempted Noir

I saw Sin City this weekend. I really didn't like it much. Now, before you go and say that I don't appreciate such stylized films, let me defend myself. I actually really liked the style and I thought it had tremendous potential that it didn't quite reach. The black and white with the highlighting was really neat and well done. The things that they chose to highlight were well chosen and added to the film. What I didn't like was the rediculous dialogue that sounded like it was taken straight out of the comic book and slapped into the script. Now, I have nothing against comic books, but you need to do a little bit of revising before you try to put it on screen. I also thought it dragged on a little too long. It was just over two hours and throughout the last half-hour/45 minutes I found myself checking my watch every 5 minutes. If they had cut out the pedifile bit with Bruce Willis (I have nothing against Willis, I just was very disturbed by the 19/71 age ratio, not to mention the yellow guy, that was yucky) it would have been much better. Basically it was trying too hard to be sort of classic Film Noir but fail pretty much after the first scene. Plus the blood looked like bird shit half the time. That just was odd to me.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

DED

The Pope died. What was he, 100? It was going to happen pretty darn soon anyway, wasn't it. For some reason, this has spurned quite a bit of conversation amongst my friends, none of whom are Catholic and all of whom are sarcastic. One reffered to his death (along with the Florida lady) as a big plublicity stunt. A few contemplated a fashion trend of pope hats and robes. The theory was that he would lose significance but then I pointed out the whole spiritual devine appointment sort of thing (how do you get to be pope anyway?). Some of the more political ones cynically wondered who G.W. would appoint as the new pope. Personally, I don't care all that much. He was old, we all shuffle off this mortal coil at some point. So move on. The pope is dead, long live the pope. (Ok, that's just for kings isn't it? Oh well, it doesn't make any sense anyway. How can anyone (pope or king) live long if he's dead?)

P.S. Sorry if I offended anyone. Take solice in the thought that I am going to burn anyway so I might as well blaspheme a bit on my way.

Friday, April 01, 2005

To Be Taken with Absolute Seriousness

I have a confession. This has been weighing on my concience for a while and I need to get it off my chest. I am not really human. Nor am I a super-intelligent alien from Planet Zoorg of the Kerbity System. I am in fact.... A Goldfish!!!

April Fool!!!
Ha ha you totally fell for it.
My Amazon.com Wish List

2007 Banned Books Week: Ahoy! Treasure Your Freedom to Read and Get Hooked on a Banned Book