Confessions of a Reasonably Dangerous Mind Let's call this one, punch-drunk blog...I have no idea what you should all expect...I haven't a clue myself. All I can say for sure, is that procrastination is a wonderful thing.
Friday, October 31, 2003
All Is Well In Land of The Blog
Thanks to Sue for helping me figure out the proper place to post the comment section now and for being able to add links! Huzzah! Watch for more changes soon...pictures, perhaps?
This week has been fairly decent, with some very good times, and some not so good, or more accurate, mediocre ones. Of course that last part is mainly dealing with the fact that this weekend is not going to be fun in any sense of the word. Except for all that halloween candy my parents foolishly bought thinking that there's going to be a storm of kids at our door tomorrow night. The thing is, my neighborhood has been seeing a quick decline in trick-or-treaters in the past few years...pretty much every family that lives around here has already lived here for a while and their children are all grown up and off to university and whatnot. Where this leaves me on Halloween, though, is that while it's sorta depressing not to see hordes of kids dressed up and excited to be recieving copius amounts of free candy, i get to bask in the splendor of large boxes of snickers and mars bars that have gone untended to. *Insert evil laughter here* And i keep on constantly look at that large box of candy that i just know will go uneaten..and yet my parents refuse me to go even near it. They keep on saying they don't want the house to get egged if we don't have enough candy. They can be funny like that sometimes...but damn if that box isn't tempting me...
Hmm, that tangent lasted longer than i thought it would, though. Ah well...BUT there was some good news i wanted to get to in here, ah yes here it is: Through my research of so-called emo music for my online feature i am so-called working on (which i really should do something about...but it's waaay at the bottom of the list right now...) i've started listening to some actually pretty good bands, but i would have to say one of the best i've come across is the emo-punk-rock outfit, and former Warped Tour performers, Story of the Year, and as coincidences go, they've announced a concert at the El Mocambo for Dec. 1!! Huzzah! Sooo....if anyone is at all interested in seeing this most excellent up-and-coming band, just let me know...and if anyone's interested in getting to know their music, some great and key tracks are: "Anthem For Our Dying Day", "In Her Bedroom", "And the Hero Will Drown", and "So Far So Good". With such a small venue, it promises to be a good show!
Annd, i actually have a lot more to talk about, including a very fun, though not *too* too scary, ghost tour (with some great taffy!), the first episode of what looks like another kick-so-much-ass-it's-bordering-on-insanity season of "24", my ever-increasing desire to move to Japan, and the start of another play which, if it's as half as fun as last year's, promises to be another great time. But i think i should probably go now...this "to-do" list on my desk is starting to look worse and worse..
Soundtrack for the Essay-Filled Night: A Little Old, A Little New (Nothing Borrowed or Blue, though)
Steppenwolf - Monster
The Distillers - City of Angels
Iggy Pop - Little Know It All
Story of the Year - And the Hero Will Drown
Neil Young - Down By the River
Dashboard Confessional - Hands Down
The Strokes - 12:51
David Bowie - Slow Burn
Homegrown - Last Night Regrets
Sleater-Kinney - Words and Guitars
Van Morrison - Everyone
I don't really know why that word popped into my head last night, as i watched 1 am come and go and then come again. But it just kind of got into my mind somehow when i was thinking of words that i really like. It's a really great word if you think about it, very unique and interesting. I used to think of words that i really liked all the time, just odd words that don't get the recognition or usage they really deserve now and then. Peculiar words or words that the more times you pronounced them would lose thier entire meaning yet somehow retain a special significance of some sort. I haven't done that in a little bit, but often one time or another i'll think of a couple and just for a couple moments appreciate their uniqueness. I used to love the word jabberwocky. Great word. I think Terry Gilliam made a movie called Jabberwocky, i'm pretty sure it was very strange. A couple other ones: concave, deficit, ostensibly, ridiculous, tenacious, kooky, spoon. I dunno, they just are sort of neat words, they all have these curves and edges and things. Maybe i spend a little too much time thinking about words, or not enough. Somebody should invent a board game named "Balderdash", though, if there isn't one already...(i think there might be)
As a side note, MTV Canada is evil...Toronto 1, the channel that seems to serve no purpose whatsoever, started to air programs from the station late on saturday nights now, and what was supposed to be a half hour homework break turned into an hour and a half of me addicted to their reality-like shows...damn manipulative-editing..
Last Indiana Jones Post For A While, I Promise (Well, I Can't Entirely Promise...)
The verdict is in: "Temple of Doom" is by far the weaker of the three. Anything with the line "Hold on to your potatoes" has got to get some automatic deficit points. That, and I'm not a big fan of monkey brains.
I feel i have to vent for a brief moment: i hate my job. Hate it. So expletive much. Once again this weekend i recieve no shifts, despite the fact i left practically the whole weekend open (which in itself wasn't the greatest idea since i have roughly six billion things to do), but where are ye ol' shifts? Nadda. So I give up a call to ye ol' (i'm going to stop using those words as of now, i think) manager/asshole/jerkiest jerks of all jerks to query him on where my hours have gone. And he starts into this whole rant and rave about how they can't accomodate people who only leave open weekend shifts and where does that leave everyone else and yadda yadda yadda. When I tell him i've been working for the bloody company for something like 4 and half years, still no sympathy. He says employment length can't be factored in. That's when a fuse in my head almost blew up. Essentially, i needed a shovel to get out of the conversation with him there was so much bs. And then he hung up. And i'm not quite sure what to do. Just angry, i guess. Argh. Argh squared.
If I didn't, I'm pretty sure my hand would have fallen off, and i wouldn't be able to post all of this. Though my fingers still ache quite a bit...ah, well. Today's profile/interview with Rob Salem went much better than expected, and from now on i will be forced to refer to him as "THE FUCKING MAN!" (exclamation mark included) because he was just that cool. Really, really great guy. What i had originally planned to be a maybe 2-hour interview and some "hanging out" as the Gillis says (who will now be known as the G-man...wait, that's cooler than "the fucking man!", i should probably change those then), lasted about 4 1/2 hours on everything from Futurama to Bruce Campbell to "24" to "The Brain That Wouldn't Die". And, though we were stuck in his office today (and as the G-man says, i really need to change that name, always be on the lookout for some interesting scenes), hopefully *hopefully* we may go visit some set next week. Maybe. Possibly. Don't hold my breath, said TFM. Well, at least half my worries about that assignment are gone. Now there's the actual writing of the bloody thing, which is something i can save being nervous about for another day. I think I'm in a "Last Crusade" type of mood right now...and my fingers are starting to hurt again, so i should probably stop typing. Sounds like a good idea.
- Tuesdays, I've come to realize, are far too exhausting
- Broadcast was interesting today, if only for the embarassment of watching my on-camera read-through...
- Riding the bus is depressing for some reason...even more so when it's dark outside...and speaking of which, darkness before 7:00 pm is also not such a great feeling...
- I'm properly terrified/extremely nervous for my profile tomorrow...and i can't seem to find those dang little mini-tapes for my recorder anywhere...
- The new "Rolling Stone" has articles on both Sleater-Kinney AND Quentin Tarantino, which slightly off-sets my nervousness for tomorrow
- "Donnie Darko" is set for re-release with a directors cut and tons of stuff not featured on the dvd! Which is odd, since the dvd is actually pretty packed with deleted scenes
- You can always tell when Don's first-year reporting class is out on assignment, i think i encountered at least three people wondering if they could ask some questions about music sharing/the globe and mail report card on universities/etc
- Definitely the highlight of it all: Dr. Jones, I presume? INDIANA JONES TRIOLOGY is sitting right next to me...I want to watch "Raiders" so badly, but must start/finish my interview plan for tomorrow...ugh, tomorrow...
- Tonight's combo of "Alias" and "Six Feet Under" continues to impress
- HBO just announced the release (finally) of the first season box set dvd of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" for...and this is the only bad part...January, sometime, maybe...damn HBO and their vagueness..
- Listening to Little Steven's "Underground Garage" on good ol' Q right now...i'll say it before and i'll say it again, Sunday night is the best night for radio (too bad it conflicts with "Alias", though)
- The new issue of the New Yorker is the "all-about-film" edition, and comes with a great little article about Quentin (aka genius who will never cease to amaze me) Tarantino
- And, uhm, there was one more thing i wanted to mention...i sorta forget what it was...oh, right: INDIANA JONES TRIOLOGY DVD HITS THIS TUESDAY!!!
Procrastination, as I believe it says on that little slogan above, is a wonderful thing (speaking of which, i should really change that slogan, but i still do like that "punch-drunk blog" blurb there, even if i have no idea what it means...). Story of the Year's most excellent rock-slightly-emo opus "In Her Bedroom" is on loop right now while I'm struggling to get through this insanely boring history book and the excellently written, but intensely depressing, "Bell Jar", but this little thing right here is driving me to distraction...and I'm almost a little hesitant giving out the link knowing it has the power to literally suck hours of one's life away into some sort of flash-game vortex of doom. Oh my...gotta shake this "Bell Jar" sense of dread off of me...
Uhm, yeah, but here's a fun little random bit of randomness:
- Going to The Honest Lawyer with friends for a drink or two is very fun indeed
- Standing in the freezing cold for almost 40 minutes in a line resembling an elitist dictatorship to get into said bar, uhm, not so much fun..
I have sort of kinda maybe committed most of this weekend to be officially now be known as "the weekend of homework". Though that's admitedly a really un-catchy title. And dull. And more likely than not, untrue. But it's worth a shot...here's a sampling of what needs to be done before "hell week" (aka the first week of november...hmm, i'm officially naming a lot of days here...i need to get around to naming when "ice cream and dvd week" will begin):
- Profile background research and such
- Online feature
- Online breaking news take-home assignment thing
- Scour the internet for more tracks from The 5.6.7.8's
- Society essay (which involves renting "High Noon"...uhm, if anyone out there has a copy that they're willing to lend..)
- Politics paper
- History essay (though this was mercifully moved down a week)
- Figuring out this "Rolling Stone" subscription nonsense
- Figuring out if i really need a subscription to "Spin" magazine (I think i do...)
- Finish "The Bell Jar" and journal (if I don't become seriously depressed from reading it first and just scrap everything..)
- Finish reading that interview book for Magazine
- Make "Soundtrack for the Day" to help the whole work process accelerate/procrastinate
Hmm...I can do that "Soundtrack for the Day" right now...most excellent:
Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
Rufio - In My Eyes
Sleater-Kinney - Oh!
The Lawrence Arms - Chicago Is Burning
Story of the Year - So Far So Good
The Early November - Sunday Drive
Pilate - Into Your Hideout
Ozma - Turtleneck Coverup
Coldplay - The Scientist
The Radiohead concert tonight was an all around great show, despite, uhm, Eli's opinion to the contrary. Though, I do have to admit they relied heavily on "Hail to the Thief", but I really like that album, so it all worked out very nicely. And two awesome versions of "Karma Police" and "Paranoid Android"...though, Eli once again does have a point that hearing "Creep" would've been really cool too.
But...i wanted to write a little more about it (including their great performances of "Myxamotosis" and "2+2 = 5", my two favourite tracks from "Thief") but I'm once again feeling my eyelids slowly dropping to the ground...and i still sort of want to get some work done...this should be interesting..
Well, maybe "filled" isn't the greatest word to use, but there were an unusually large amount of escalators that i've encountered today that were in a state of significant disrepair. First, the ones at Finch, then the ones at Ryerson (which is absolutely no shock at all), but then the ones at the Eglinton subway station too. It was most peculiar. And annoying. But mainly weird. Was there some sort of escalator short-circuit that went off in the world today? Come to think of it, those were all of the escalators i encountered today, and thus using my flawed reasoning (though it helps make this entry slightly more amusing), ALL the escalators in the world have failed today. Some sort of strike, I guess. Or maybe a vast conspiracy formed by the elevator-company head honchos. Or maybe I'm wrong. Probably that option.
Nonetheless, despite pretty all-around crappy weather on the way home and broken escalators galore (and a tv field report today that was threatening to drive me to claustrophobia with those tiny, sealed editing suites), there is good news tucked away in there...and that, of course, is that I now have THE MATRIX RELOADED dvd in my possession...*insert evil laughter here*...And i desperately want to watch it right now...but there's this pile of profile/feature/history/politics/english/society stuff here that's giving me the evil eye. Dang...but once i finish it all, Matrix here we come. Which I guess would mean I'll get around to it sometime in late December. Another dang.
Uhm, pretty much just that...comments are finally up! yay!
And, incidentally, sneaking McDonalds into a Tim Horton's at 2 AM is quite fun...and my new favourite band is Sleater-Kinney, but it's currently tied with The 5,6,7,8's....
A Good Night's Sleep...and Tim Burton's Latest Magnificence (I think that might be a word...)
I literally passed out yesterday while eating my pizza pops for a very-late dinner...but before i made my way up to bed i got distracted by this right here, which I really wanted to post briefly about before I fell asleep, but i couldn't fight the urge to just lay down, just for a second. And then I woke up about eleven hours later. Yeah...but, I completely forgot about this new Burton movie coming out, and now I can't wait. Surprises like that are always nice.
On the "not fun" half of the equation today:
- Pretty much all of today...especially those 5 hours or so at synagogue...ugh...
- This headache i've been nursing for the past day or so, which seems to only compound in annoyance with time
- How every other time i open internet explorer some proxy home page has set itself up and i get bombarded with spam that doesn't seem to even be targeted at one key demographic...is there anyone out there who must have not only a cell phone, some miracle cream that prevents aging, and free dvds but also apparently barely legal coeds who want to talk now, an online discount pharmacy (which sounds sketchy enough on its own) and lower insurance rates on their house and car? Though, that miracle cream does sound interesting...
Now, the much better "fun" half:
- This has apparently been going on for a while, but i just found out that if you type in "Weapons of mass destruction" in google and hit the "i feel lucky" button, well, i don't want to ruin it...but funny stuff
- The latest Charlie Kaufman scripted movie, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" trailer just came out and it's suitably very strange and bizarre, and of course extremely cool...with a great ELO song "Mr. Blue Sky" in the background, just in case it wasn't weird enough...
- I've managed to get that old modeled version of the "Howl" poem I wrote a while ago on my computer..now it's just a matter if i work up the courage to actually post it...
- "Tenacious D" is set to release a dvd box-set of all thier music videos/HBO shorts/SNL skits/etc sometime in early November...
- "Alias" once again proved to up the quotient of thier ass-kicking limits in this week's episode...at least now they've told us where Sark is...
I really do. I just tend to slame them, and without really thinking about the consequences or who's hand may be gripping the space in between as a hold to get out of their seat. And then...well, then much pain and much, profuse, blabbering apology from me ensue. And frantic runs to get ice. Or, in this case, a frozen package of chicken. Yeah....so, I'm really really really really keep adding the "really"'s sorry. I can be prettty stupid sometimes. Well, a good deal of the time. But this time especially.
Some other things i've realized tonight/today:
- "Futurama" is, far and away and without question, the greatest show ever...at least to deal with robots...and lobster-doctors...and have a character named Zap Brannigan...
- I'm not really one to go in for the whole hip-hop-rap scene (despite my sometimes-moniker of B-Diddy) but the new Outkast song "Hey Ya" is just a really, insanely catchy and fun song...
- I had no idea "SNL" was even new tonight...but i was quite glad i managed to catch the last John Mayer performance..
- Work is constantly getting more and morepeculair...first they tell me i'm not working this weekend, then they call me up at 1 this afternoon wondering where i was. And then the fourth reel of "School of Rock" was apparently put on backwards, of all things, and they of course wanted me to fix it...and the brain wrap on "Mambo Italiano"...and the trailers on "Out of Time"....good times...
- My anticipation for "Kill Bill" is literally growing by the day...
- But not as much as my anticipation for "The Matrix Revolutions", which apparently will be released now world-wide at the exact same time, which means we'll get it here on the east coast at 9 am...which of course means: Matrix AND John Mayer on the same day!! Most definitely a cause for celebration.
Last night I rented the lastest Neil LaBute movie "The Shape of Things" for some reason or another, I forget exactly why. I seem to keep on forgetting that LaBute films, which are almost always translated from his stage plays (except for "Nurse Betty", which was a movie that just didn't click for me) always seem to frustrate me incredibly. "Shape" was no different. While on one hand it's extremely well acted, shot, and (to a certain extent) written, the core premise behind it was just so brutal and disturbing that it left me feeling lost and disgusted. This isn't to say that is such a bad thing, since i suppose that movies should always try and provoke passionate responses from the audience. It's just that the response "Shape" left for me was of total and utter dismay and a little bit of shock at just how brutal the world can be at times. In all, definitely not a feel-good movie, but one to watch when you really want to take a critical look at the world, the concepts we hold of art, human nature, and reality. That all kinda sounded really far-reaching and everything, but it's just that sort of film which completely spun my mind around five times or so, leading up to a conclusion that, when looking back was kind of expected, just left me floored. It'd be pretty interesting to see how it played on a stage, though, especially with a full audience.
Brand New - Mix Tape
Ozma - Shooting Stars
Ben Folds - One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces
Dashboard Confessional - Hands Down
Jane's Addiction - Just Because (Acoustic version)
Story of the Year - Anthem of Our Dying Day
Tomoyasu Hotei - Battle Without Honor or Humanity (from "Kill Bill" soundtrack, of course...)
Billy Talent - This is How it Goes
Taking Back Sunday - Timberwolves of New Jersey
Neil Young - Be the Rain
Well....yeah, i ended up actually sleeping in. But still, bloody freezing. Supposedly the furnace guy is coming later tonight, but i don't know, i'm sort of skeptical. Right now I'm starting to leave every electrical device in my room on just to hopefully drum up some heat to insulate the room. Now, if i could just one of those heating lamps like they have in restaurants...
But, back to the sleeping in part...I awoke around 12 from my almost-frozen-carbonite-Han-Solo-esque night and thought quitely to myself under an army of blankets that i didn't have to get up for at least another hour...since i could leave the house at 1:30 and easily have enough time to vote and make it down for class at 2. I figured this would give me more than enough time to shower, eat, etc. Then, my brain must have defrosted and i actually did the math. And i jumped immediately out of bed faster than the tories will (hopefully) be booted out of office. In all the kerfuffle that was going on (i think kerfuffle is a word...if not, it should be), i forgot to shave (something which would cause me a lot of irritation later in the day since i already *forgot* (re: lazy) to shave the past 2 days as well...and i just realized i used brackets inside of a brackets, which is a little odd), skipped the meal and headed on down to the local school around the corner where the voting station was set up.
And of course here's where i almost screwed up my vote. Since i had never voted for anything before, except for those imaginary polls i make in my head of which movie franchise characters would be the coolest to combine (for the record, the winner would be "Evil Dead"s Ash with "Star Wars'" Boba Fett...and, uhm, now i really wish i hadn't admitted that), i had no idea what to do with the little black and white sheet of folded paper the man gave me. I was about to take out a pen of my own to mark a check mark or a circle or something when suddenly the people at the voting stand almost collectively had a heart attack and screamed "No! Vote over at the booth behind there with a pencil!" I trodded off, quite embarassed, and x-marked my candidate of choice. And with that, i walked out with whatever dignity i had left...that was until another one of the volunteers called out to tell me the back of my knapsack was unzipped and pens and highlighters were falling out all over.
