hypocrisy now!

Post'd

2007-10-27T17:14:25Z

So yesterday went to see Darjeeling Ltd., not a bad movie (not an incredible movie either, Anderson's form doesn't improve content), but Oliver Platt was there. In Concord NH, watching Darjeeling Ltd. at the new theater on South Main street. He was in front of me in line for tickets & then refreshments, maybe a foot away. It's a weird celebrity to get excited about, but kind of cool as it was like he was a secret celebrity - nobody but us recognized him out of everyone at the theater. Awesome.

Spiderman 3

2007-05-06T04:47:32Z

Dear reviewers who are pulling Spiderman 3's Metascore down to a 60: wtf? I hate to tell you, but it was as good as Spiderman 2, which you've apparently decided is the greatest movie ever. Three is actually closer to the feel of a comic book. I don't care that the plot is ridiculous. Have you not read Spiderman comics? The source material isn't Gaiman, it's Lee. Get over it!

Heroes

2007-04-24T12:06:23Z

WTF. Weren't they supposed to resolve SOMETHING this week?

Sick

2007-04-22T03:19:29Z

I'm sick. It sucks. Because it's nice out.

Saw Yonatan & Carol in B-town last night, went out to Grasshopper for the first time in a long time. Saw a bad band briefly in Great Scott.

Tax Day

2007-04-18T04:58:15Z

Dear Massachusetts: fuck your stupid tax forms.

Dear Quentin Tarantino & Robert Rodriguez: that film was three hours long, but it was okay because it was the awesomest.

Gloomy Sunday

2007-04-15T23:14:04Z

Friday:

Picked up Super Paper Mario for Jess. It's pretty good, like Paper Mario meets Super Mario DS with some Kirby Canvas Curse visuals. Went to the Barristers' Ball, aka law school junior prom. The experience was made more bearable by Frank & Mandy from work coming. There was some guy there who was exactly like Dwight from the Office. It was ridiculous. Due to limited selection I was drinking Coronas all night - oh yeah, the booze was free. Best part.

Saturday:

Bought GHII and spent about two and a half hours playing it with Frank. Saw Aquateen, which I liked a lot even though it wasn't as awesome as it might have been. Too much plot. ** Spoiler ** The dancing snack intro was the best part of the movie. That was awesome.**/Spoiler**

Today:

Rain not snow, which means I probably have work tomorrow. Lame.

Oh yeah, and now I have a myspace, after years of denunciation. Hypocrite!

post!

2007-04-09T22:43:18Z

If I don't start with a little post today, I will never start again. So, uh...

This past weekend was pretty cool. Went to Frank's show at "Uptown Tavern" dive bar in ManchVegas Friday. Jess says calling it ManchVegas means I want to live in NH forever. Whatever. Saturday the mom and sibling showed after Jess got her macabook healed up in Salem. Gave the little sis a booze 101 Saturday night with the leastdrinking game of Kings in the past century. Sunday breakfast with Dad & Jenny in-house wasn't too torturous, the sibling back to the Hudson River Valley and proceeded to watch half the Battlestar Galactica 3rd season straight. Note to self: stop being such a nerd. Work today okay, had my first review, didn't get fired, all in all not to bad. Tomorrow night team building + booze = awesome.

Friday

2007-03-02T21:27:40Z

Snow = awesome.
Snow day from work = awesomer.
Getting paid for snow day home from work = awesomest.
Still having to work Saturday morning = still a WTF moment, even if it is time and a half.

ATHF UNITE

2007-02-01T03:02:15Z

The Aquateens just took down Boston.

Yesterday

2007-01-31T14:12:44Z

Yesterday I officially became an agent of the man. I had my first day of my new job. For which I have to wear a suit. A suit. And I have an office. Looking at myself in the mirror, I felt a little piece of myself die.

week past

2006-11-27T16:23:30Z

Turkey day was kinda crazy, but it went well, all considered. It was weird because Jess & I were hosting it - and my parents, sister, and Dad's British girlfriend (who doesn't really celebrate Thanksgiving) were the attendees. It felt kinda strangely grown up, but much more satisfying because I didn't have to do dishes. The kid-adult reversal was made even weirder by the fact that while we were cooking in the kitchen, the elder generation was occupied playing video games. My parents - my totally-anti-videogame mother in particular - were practically obsessed with the Wii. My sister left the living room to help cook because my MOM was being too competitive at video game golf.

Saw Asaff & Igor yesterday, good to see them both. Kept trying to watch Casino Royale, but the only copies we could find were in French. Seems like the French we-hate-everything-corporate-and-establishment wackiness pays off in screener rips if nothing else.

Currently listening to the new Brand New Album God and the Devil are Raging Inside Me for the sixth time since yesterday. It's an odd thing to say, but Brand New, Jude-Law-and-a-Semester-Abroad Brand New, has written the album of the year so far for me, surpassing Thursday's and MCR's efforts by leagues. Tracks 4 through 6 are constantly getting stuck in my head. Yes, you can tell what band Brand New is channeling for every track, but it doesn't matter because the whole album ends up cohesive and just so damn tough that you can't fault them for it.

w.i.i.

2006-11-20T05:24:15Z

Stood in line for literally 24 hours in sub-freezing temperatures, but now we have a Nintendo wii. And it's awesome.

electioneered!

2006-11-08T14:48:34Z

Voted yesterday. Didn't think I was going to, but then it turned out I could register at the polling station, so I did that. Jess got to vote as well.

Then we drove down to IKEA and got a steal with two giant (literally, they're six foot by six foot) cube-array storage pieces in the as-is section. One of them should solve the horrible mess that our office is now. The other is an entertainment center: finally something that will properly hold all the systems that we have.

Of course, we had to disassemble both of them right there in IKEA, which took a hella long time and left us with two giant stacks of boards. Everything just barely fit into the Civic. Both Jess and I had our knees squashed against the dash, and the six foot boards made a direct line of death from the rear end of the car to the backs of our necks.

After IKEA had dinner with Yoni in Waltham. I haven't eaten in Waltham in god knows how long, but there was no way I was driving into Allston with all those pieces ready to decapitate me at any second. It was good to see Yoni, if only for a little while.

Today is for IKEA reconstruction.

Borat

2006-11-05T14:58:49Z

This moviefilm most humoring. I suggest for all peoples of the U. S. and Ay. Maybe you not need see naked men fight for five whole minutes, but it very important "up yours" to ratings system of M. P. Ay Ay.

Wah wah we wah!

update'd

2006-10-29T18:19:37Z

For those who might not have heard yet:

Jobless again! Why? I'm stupid in many ways, but at least this partly wasn't my fault this time. Days are occupied looking for work and watching every episode of Lost ever with Jess when she's not doing schoolwork.

Went to NJ last weekend for awesome party @ Beth & Mike's w/ Jess & Greg. The drive was a bit of a bear, but I finally had White Castle and became reaquainted with Mr. Bacardi after a long estrangement. The combination of all these factors killed my immune system and I was out of comission for the first half of the week.

Made a sweet H-ween mask, will have pictures up as soon as I find the cable to my camera.

Connect'd!

2006-08-09T22:26:22Z

At last, the interweb returns. Updates to come.

I miss the interweb

2006-08-04T00:45:00Z

So New Hampshire. Yeah. Hour commute, no internet for another week or so (except for here at Panera via Jess' comp), hot as balls. All moved in, in the sense that everything is now in the apartment. Thanks to everyone who helped us move, especially interimismine, who was as usual everyone's personal Jesus.

Once we get internet fo reezy, there will be pictures.

This was a short post!

Just a little FYI

2006-07-23T02:42:25Z

Things you should know, pop-media related:

1. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the funniest (live action) show on television. New episodes air Thursday at ten on FX. That's right. Nip/Tuck, Shield, Thief FX has an original comedy series. And it's hilarious.

2. There are new trailers out for two of possibly the best movies of this year: the Prestige and the Fountain. The first is a period piece/magic/scifi/thriller with Michael Caine, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Scarlett Johannsen, directed by the director of Memento. The second is a three-timeline scifi/fantasy epic starring Hugh Jackman (again) and Rachel Weisz, directed by the director of Pi and Requiem for a Dream.

3. Do not watch the trailers for the new Charlotte's Web or TMNT. It will just distress you how they are systematically destroying the icons of childhood.

4. The Boondocks is out on dvd, but do not attempt to find it in a store. It is all sold out.

5. Psych (USA network's third oddball-detective series) has cute leads but doesn't live up to its potential. They went for a more Monk -ish comedy angle: safe, cute, bright-colored romping with low, low stakes and plenty of campiness. I would have liked to have seen a show with more bite, more risk, and more interesting/complicated mysteries. As it is, they're the same kind of Clue-whodunit that make Monk so boring. Why can't they take the intensity of L&O shows and apply an interesting concept to it like a fake/real psychic detective without making it a SciFi Channel dud? No offense to SciFi, but they fall into their own convention traps far too often to put out serious shows.

I have been tagged.

2006-07-18T22:58:54Z

Once you've been tagged, you have to write a blog entry with five complete lies about yourself. That is, five things about you that are completely not true. Not even slightly. Then tag up to five people you want to turn into compulsive liars too.

1. I couldn't tell you the detailed explanations of more than ten different kinds of UPS shipping.
2. I love driving in the state of MA.
3. I own a fabulous racing car.
4. I am better at Nintendo games than my girlfriend is.
5. I have no trouble at all focusing on a creative venture for an extended period of time.

I hereby tag - c0sgr0vef0akley, even though he has just, sadly, declared his resignation from the lj scene; monkz; iamthechimera; interimismine; jhonnandrhea.

oh right

2006-07-03T14:59:11Z

... the reason that entry was called "i almost just passed out" was because I just got blood taken at the doctor and while standing in line directly after came so close to passing out that I couldn't see anything with my eyes wide open and had to sit down for almost five minutes.

i just almost passed out

2006-07-03T14:56:55Z

Saturday night the vegan dinner thing went well. Everything was really good (I'm assuming Yoni's dish was good, but I passed as I'm not a fan of mushrooms). Jess made risotto, which I'm probably going to be crucified for misspelling. We still have about two tons left over. Yoni made stuffed mushroom caps. J&R put together a sausage/chickpea dish that was really good, as well as making a olive spread that actually made me like olives(!). I cooked for around eight hours, and the outcome was pretty good. "Lamb" in lemon "cream" sauce, and tofu molasses peanutbutter chocolate-chip cookies. The "lamb" was ok, but I made the mistake of letting it sit in the sauce for about an hour, causing the flavor of the "meat" and sauce to mingle too much. I dunno... even though it migh not have been as good as I was hoping, I was still proud of having made the seitan from scratch. The cookies tasted really good but were still too soft. A third tray which finished too late to bring over was more solid and real-cookielike.

Stayed up until 5 watching the Faculty Saturday night, then went Sunday to a laser tag place w/Yoni/Igor/Asaff to get our collective asses kicked by little kids. Yoni bought a DS Lite. They're really cute and pretty damn fun.

Long time since last entry... again

2006-06-29T23:14:51Z

So what's been happening.

We're moving to Concord (NH) at the start of August, which is exciting. The place is awesome (the other half of Art's house, which is kinda cool/weird).

I got a "promotion" to working in shipping/receiving, so now I do more work for slightly more pay. However, it all works out because the little extra I get paid will hopefully cover the extra gas cost required to commute from New Hampshire in a month. Also, I work 7 (yes, 7 AM) to 3, which is terrible now, but in a month I'll be missing rush hour.

As usual I'm disgusted about politics, and I could post a million, bajillion things about that here, but I won't. To summarize, war is gross, our representatives are morons/sadists/mobsters, and I'm coming to accept the fact that the world is going to go to environmental/political shit and I can't do anything about it except move farther north a little bit at a time.

I've got a four-day weekend coming up. Things will be good. Asaff is visiting and it's his birthday(!). We're doing a vegan dinner party type thing with Jhonn & Rhea & Yoni & possibly AJ/Alison... I've discovered that not only can one make seitan (a kind of fake meat, for the uninitiated) for a fifth of the price of buying it in the store, but that it's really easy. I'm going to be making a faux lamb dish with Greek style lemon "cream" sauce. It may not end up too accurate, but it should taste good nonetheless.

Today experimented with vegan tofu cookies. Not good, not bad. AJ had the good idea of adding peanut butter, so I'm going to do that and tinker with ingredients/amounts and hope they come out well for the dinner thing.

I've seen a few movies since the last post: The Omen(***), An Inconvenient Truth(***), X Men III(*), Silent Hill(***), A Scanner Darkly(**), Lucky Number Slevin(****), Inside Man(*). All scores out of four *s. Long time since I talked about movies here. I know what you're thinking. One star for X3 and a Spike Lee movie? What's going on? What's going on is they sucked. The Omen wasn't as good as the original, but it was a very good, if pointless, remake. Truth was depressing but needed. Silent Hill was pretty hot looking and had one earnestly horrifying scene. I guess I just didn't like the story or execution in Scanner Darkly. And Slevin was a little overwraught in the end, but it was really quite good - Lucy Liu acts!

DVD pick of the week that you should see because it's actually a good movie that everybody missed in the theaters:

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

...and I'm out.

call your senator

2006-04-09T02:55:29Z

So Jess and I were driving to FPLC this morning, and despite her objections we were listening to NPR. The talk inevitably turned to the upcoming protests over immigration. That got us started talking about how to solve the whole immigration policy problem. And what do you know, we up and solved it.

Businesses want cheap, available labor. Immigrants want to come to this country to work without risking their lives and without prohibitively difficult paper messes or wait. Americans want secure borders and an end to a system of human trafficing. A lot of people, especially immigrants, want working immigrants to avoid being abused by the american companies that hire them. The government wants to be able to keep track of where immigrants are and what they're doing. All of this needs to be accomplished without creating an overburdoned immigration system.

So here's what you do: first, you establish a revised visa system that lets immigrants enter the country quickly and easily, but requires that they get employed within the first month of their residence in the country. That way there won't be an incentive for aliens to enter the country illegally. Secondly, you set up regular raids of businesses to check whether their employees have proper papers. The ones who don't are kicked out of the country, and the business that was harboring the illegals gets a gigantic fine. That way there's incentive for the immigrant to get documents, and for businesses to make sure their workers are legit. The result: legal entry of documented workers and the collapse of the human traffic system, without putting undue strain on the US government. Businesses can't abuse workers who aren't afraid of getting kicked out of the country.

The only obstacle to getting something like this passed is that businesses who like abusing their illegal workers will lobby against it. Which means that it would never get through congress. Oh well.

...and we finally cleaned our room. Whoo!

qsamurai @ 2006-03-26T18:04:00

2006-03-26T23:21:09Z

Saw V for Vendetta last night. It was pretty good. Relative to the other Alan Moore graphic novel that's been put to screen (From Hell), the V adaptation was much better. Most of the fears that I had about this film weren't realized: the Matrix Bros. dialogue was not horrible (perhaps because they had such good source material), they didn't skip any real major plot points, the narrative structure was mostly intact, and it didn't resemble either of the latter two Matrix films. The part that was pulled off the worst was perhaps the pacing, which is understandable. There is so much material in the V novel that I could have seen it filling up over six hours of film easily. The most clumsy sequence is the one where Evey is supposed to be imprisoned and tortured for the better part of a year - it feels more like she's only locked up for a week. All in all, it was impressively faithful, well filmed, well acted, and enjoyable. Most people will have a problem with V for its politics. Some people have taken the stance that politics shouldn't be a part of film in general... but then again no one complains about neofascist movies like Batman Begins being political (I enjoyed that movie very much also).

qsamurai @ 2006-03-16T23:58:00

2006-03-17T05:03:00Z

Not all news is bad news. Nobody seemed to care besides me & the libertarians when the Supreme Court ruled that local governments can seize private property and sell it to businesses (those people you probably didn’t vote for can take your house away from you against your will, knock it down, and sell the land to McDonald’s if they want to). But apparently there are some bankers who have souls (unlike any of the
branches of government, apparently), and are refusing to give loans to businesses who acquire government-seized private property. If I lived in North Carolina, I’d totally switch to BB&T Bank. The CEO of BB&T said, "One of the most basic rights of every citizen is to keep what they own." You might think that’s obvious, but apparently the Supreme Court thinks differently.

Most news is bad news. You remember mad cow disease? How it was this big deal? I do too. I thought, we’re OK, they’re testing the cows now to make sure we’re all safe. Sure, Japan refuses to buy our beef but whatever, they’re probably just being way too anal about things. Sure enough, just the other day they found the third case of mad cow in the US. Proof, you would think, that the system is working. So in response to
finding more mad cow disease, the government is... reducing the amount of mad cow testing they do. That’s right – they found out that there’s more of this disease that can cross over to humans giving them brains like swiss cheese, so they’re testing cows less. You might think, fine, so they started testing every single cow and they’re rolling it back to 85% of cows. Myself, I’m a pessimist so I figured that they were testing 10% or so of cows for the disease. One out of ten seems like a nice low number to check to make sure that groups of cattle aren’t infected. Turns out even I was highballing it – they were actually testing less than 1% of all cows being fed to people. And now they want to test even fewer cows! Apparently we aren’t even using the good test for mad cow – the one they use in Europe and Japan is much more likely to detect the disease than the American test. It gets even better: the state of Montana wanted to test Canadian cows coming through its borders to make sure they didn’t bring in mad cow disease, and the USDA opposed the Montana testing. A string of farms in Kansas wanted to test all of its cattle, but the USDA is blocking them from doing so. I was already abstaining from poultry in preparation for bird flu. Now it looks like I can’t eat American beef anymore either. Sorry pigs, but it’s just you and me now.

You know how Iraq is supposed to be getting better? Safer? Etc? Whoo democracy? There were over two hundred people killed in the capital city alone since Sunday. That’s over forty people a day. The first 46 were killed in a car bombing, and the 160 or so that have been found so far since have been tortured and shot. The Iraqi parliament, meeting for the very first time, could only meet for half an hour. All other ideological problems aside, how is it democracy when forty people are assassinated a day?

A pandemic is when a bunch of people get sick. An epidemic is the disease which causes the pandemic.