Talk about a meh movie. It wasn't bad by any means, but it most definitely wasn't good. This is one of those movies that is extremely hard to talk about without mentioning spoilers (which, by the way, have been mentioned so much in this kind of context that any surprise is completely eradicated) so I won't say much.
Basically two things came to mind. One, I really miss having a dog. Two, Will Smith is still a mediocre at best actor. This movie was kind of doomed from the start I guess. I cannot think of a good action actor that could carry a plot completely on his own how this part asks. John Travolta would be the best bet. At least he pulls off the crazy-guy part well.
The-Pixar-movie-about-the-rat-chef (sorry, too lazy to figure out the spelling of the title right now) that I watched this morning, now THAT was quality film-making. I hate movies that make me feel like crap when I'm "walking out of the theatre" so to say (even though I haven't gone to a theatre on my own accord since, like, Talledega Nights). I Am Legend skated this fine line a little to close for my liking. Rat-chef, on the other hand, never got within two area codes of it.
Rat-chef FTW.
Fun Fact: google-imaging "rat chef" brings up almost exlusively images from said movie
Sit down and think for a second. Think about everything you have ever learned. All the way from birth to now, at this exact moment, sitting in front of your computer. I'm going to make a safe bet that if anyone reading my blog really really thought about it, the amount of stuff would be staggering. Shit, think of how much stuff you have probably forgotten even. Now of all that stuff, how much of these morsels of wisdom were discovered in your lifetime. I know for me that accounts for easily less than 5%.
In that little thought occured my "mini-Jolt" as I have come to call them. That is my term for those little thoughts (that for some reason I'm having a lot of lately) that make you go wow, we really are specks in time. We live 60, 70, 80 years for the fortunate ones. 100 is a miracle. There could even be a strong argument made that the first 19 years of my life (25% of it if I'm fortunate) have essentially been lived for me by the institutions that be. Not that I'm complaining, I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to figure out how to read or write on my own. And oh the things I have already learned (and forgotten). What I'm trying to get to here is, holy crap the train has been moving to that big brick wall for 19 years and I haven't ever given it a serious thought. Scary stuff.
Or exciting stuff. I was browsing the good-ole Sundance on Demand tonight and came across a great philosophy of the massively interesting broski Deepak Chopra," I start my day by saying to myself 'I hope today is even more uncertain than yesterday.'" Hear hear.
I have been in the state of mind that for the next month-ish I can in theory do whatever the hell I want. So far that has consisted of sleeping until 12, saving virtual worlds and winning virtual national championships, and surfing the 'tube. Pretty fun but rapidly losing excitement. That WILL change from here on out. Everyday I'm going to do something I didn't plan on doing waking up that morning (which, by the way, will be much, much earlier than 12). In the short term, that sounds like a great goal.
Long term though (since that is essentially what this post is about) what will this all mean? My best guess right now is that I will have beaten the system. Being a member of the rebellion at heart (had to get a Star Wars reference on meetnewschool eventually) beating systems is what I live for. I want to live more of a life than what my little speck was meant to live. I wonder if Mother Theresa, or Robin Williams, or even Hitler ever had this same thought. I wonder if Patches ever had this thought.
Early New Year Resolutions(cause its 365 days, why not have more than one friggin goal?)
Ah yes, nothing like HD goodness in life size form. And don't get me wrong, I love seeing every dimple on Stuart Scott's head and the cheeto residue on Steven A. Smith's fingers, but Sportscenter is just an hour long. And when you watch it from 11 to 4, it gets a little monotonous.
Instead, I now see bears twice as big as me, cockroaches hiss, and (right now) watch a wolverine chow down on what looks to be a deer carcass (PETA eat your heart out) all thanks to Discovery HD Theater. You don't wanna mess with one of these suckers.
This is starting to become a late-night ritual for me. Well, that or some super mario world (yes, on super nintendo) It almost makes me want to get off my butt, turn off the excellent programming, and actually do something radical like go outside or something. Creepy.
Theory: Quality TV should make you want to do something other than watching TV.
Food network is also great at this. I hate the Food network. It makes everything I eat seem stale and overdone. I try to avoid it but someone will inevitably flip to it and here I am, making a mental grocery list that only Mr. Jungle could possibly fill (and he may even have to make a few calls). //Small rant.
Then again, Lifetime and Hallmark channels also make me want to stop watching TV and do something else, so maybe this needs a little revision....
Semesters rock. Exams are over and now for a month I have the freedom to do whatever I want. I haven't quite grasped what that means yet, but I know it will involve a lot of sleeping and late-night Family Guy (i.e. right now). Oh... and finding sweet pictures as such:
So I leave you, my loyal reader, with these little nuggets:
Song Meanings - A music lyrics site with a little twist. There is a discussion after each set of lyrics for people to submit their theories or quotes from the artists about what each song "means." Sure, it can get a little youTube-y at times (THIS SONG SUCKS MORE THAN UR MOMZZ!!!!ONE!!) but its a great idea.
Digg - It ain't what it used to be, but still a nice collection of the best out there on the interwebz. The addition of a photo/video catagory has made the glory of what the site once was hard to see, but there is still some fun stuff occasionally. Which reminds me: The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses - And it doesn't even mention the Pulp Fiction one (Ezekiel 25:17)
How it feels to get shot - Hopefully the closest I'll ever have to be to feeling this. (I have a strange feeling I've mentioned this one before?)
New GTA IV trailer, O.EMM.GEE.
This is from Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat. Seriously, visually speaking, games in the newest generation have finally torn the "virtual" label off when it comes to virtual reality.
Eminem freestyle with (the now deceased) Proof from back in the day. Sick.
Play Five Degrees to Jesus - Just a fun little wikipedia game I discovered through interwebz boredom. Basically, click on the random article button on the left of the wikipedia main page, then you have to get to the Jesus Christ page in five steps or less (the page you start at being zero, so the first link you click is "1"). Good stuff.
Situation: I just finished a solid 10-hour calculus studying binge. It's 3AM, I wish I could sleep but dreaming about integrals and sums to infinity sucks big ones, so I turn to addictinggames for some lighthearted fun.
I fail miserably.
If you haven't played any tower defense type games then consider yourself lucky. Avoid them like the plauge. They redefine addictive. On this night I speak of I decide to play a little Shock Defense. Nothing special really stands out about this version of tower D. Some you completely create a path, while others are clearly geared towards a specific audience. Anyways, instead of being able to relax I proceed to open Excel and start a spreadsheet "analysis" of a game. A freaking mindless game.
My strategy basically is to only buy the land cannons and air towers and upgrade them to the max as soon as I get them (which, by the way, costs $51 and $62, respectively). If you are at all remotely intelligent as to where they are placed, and always purchase the income tribute, it is possible to get by without losing even one life. Oh, and after level 30 just sell all the air towers and max out on land canons because, well, you know what I'll just show you.
I don't claim to be some sushi king, but I know what my taste buds like and Kyoto Sushi Bar in the Mason/Montgomery area is amazing. Don't be scared away if raw fish isn't your thing. I've had the tempura chicken before when I was a big weenie like you and it was equally good. The resturant alone is also why I now have a stock of jasmine tea with me at school.
The price is a little on the costly side for a college kid ($10-20 and up for a full meal), but the sushi is about as cheap as you can find it for the quality. Call me crazy, but I'll pay the extra couple bucks instead of injesting cheap raw meat.
EDIT: This picture shows one reason why I love the new layout, I can actually post pictures. Not cell-phone sized clips in the middle with LOADS of "white" space on the sides. If I ever get in the mood, it will make photo-posts much easier.
After a thorough study I have come to decide that 73.5% of the time I can't stand ESPN. I have ESPN on for background noise at the very least, on average, 8 hours of my waking hours now. It's sickening, really.
Good news is that about 26.5% of the time they really do come up with something worth watching (interestingly, 15% of said time involves Chris Berman). Their support of the Jimmy V foundation kind of hits a soft spot for me. This may sound harsh, but I really have no idea why. I think a great deal of it has to do with how outstanding this speech at the ESPY's Jimmy made really is.
The message of the speech is so translatable through almost any struggle; medical, personal, or otherwise.
If you've never seen it, watch it. If you have, watch it again.
A couple things that stand out:
It's jolting how short "forever" can mean in some circumstances.
Maybe I'm playing a demented sort of "Monday morning Quarterback," but this looks like a guy speaking with both a message and nothing to lose. He speaks to an audience of a few thousand like they are just one collective person.
I hate audio delays on videos. Grr.
This is one of the few youtube pages in which not one comment bashes another. It's the little things in life that I notice...
The "30 seconds" comment had to probably be the most awkward feeling in that producer's life.
His three things really do make for a heck of a day. I know everybody has had at least one of those.
What can I say? It's cold, kinda rainy, and I have a research paper due. Can ya tell? I'm going with a fun theme for the ten random. It's going to come from my auto-playlist entitled "wtf is this?" For you playlist weirdos out there (I am thinking of one person in particular, but hey who knows everyone has their secrets...), it is limited to unrated songs (because I try to rate all the songs I at all care about, for better or worse) that have not been played in the past month (I tried 6 months, but the play dates got all screwed up when I moved all the music over to the portable hard drive for college) with a total play count of no more than 2. In other words, I'm thinking "wtf is this?" about every other song. So here goes:
So High So Low - Ben Harper; What a perfect song to start off with. The only thing that makes this sound at all like a Ben Harper song is his vocal part. Other than that it is about as rock-sounding as the latest Kid Rock single or something. Overall I would call it a horrible misuse of Harper's talents. 2/5
Silhouette - Thrice; I used to hate Thrice. Loathe entirely. I still hate to admit it (like how most people hate to admit that they <3 Linkin Park). 3/5
Stays in Mexico - Toby Keith; This one came when I legally aquired (actually, thats not even a stretch of the truth this time!) the entire Toby Keith Greatest Hits CD a while back. I never have been a major fan of the song, probably owing to the fact that I have no interest in (n)either visiting Mexico (n)or drinking tequila. If the resident english guru could help me out on that last sentence (AND THE LAST SENTENCE ALONE, PICKY) that'd be grrrreat. Also, I don't care if you are singing about such a tropical locale as Mexico, trumpets have no place in my country music. 2/10
Blue-Sky Research/What's Left - Taproot; This bad boy must have squeeked into the playlist under the "not played in the past 6 months" criteria. Not sure if Taproot is one of those bands you're not supposed to like or something (I've never really paid attention to that whole scene) but I have no idea why these guys never got huge. They had their moment in the sun, no doubt, but almost every one of their songs make you want to rip the head off of a puppy. In the screamo (heavy on the -emo) catagory that is like, triple mega diamond titanium usually. 4/5
Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper with Sarah McLachlan; Cyndi Lauper scares me. The Sarah McLachlan effect does wonders though. 4/5
Peace, Love, and Understanding - A Perfect Circle; I throw around a lot of hyperbole, its kinda my thing. I mean this one though!!: Emotive rocks. APC could take the Sesame Street song and make it sound like an apocolyptic funeral dirge. And I like it. 5/5
Open Eyes - Saliva; I can confidently say I do not remember ever hearing this song. First impression: Saliva could compete with Nickelback (greatest Canadian rock band of all time ever for eternity and beyond) in terms of songs sounding like identical twins. Sometimes thats a great thing (like Nickelback - the GCRBOATEFEAB). For Saliva that translates into a wealth of mediocrity. 3/5
Broken Heart - Dashboard Confessional; I don't listen to dashboard a whole heckuva lot, but if one of their CDs is <$10 at Target or something I'll grab it. It can get overwhelming in heavy doses. And I hate going to concerts only to listen to a crowd singing along to songs written by a band. 3/5
Still Running - Chevelle; see: Taproot. The critics will say Chevelle has gotten worse since their major debut album Wonder What's Next. I couldn't disagree more. This Type of Thinking (the home-album to this song) was a workout-staple-album for a solid year. 4/5
The Ides of March- Silverstein; I'm sure some people probably love Silverstein. These same people probably hate Nickeback and LP. I like all three, but I would put Silverstein in a distant third. Just a little too much teen-angst sounding. 3/5
First, the bad news: You didn't end up playing for the Celtics. Or any NBA team. Or any college team. In fact, you barely played in high school. I don't know what the hell happened. You peaked in the ninth grade. You were a bigger disappointment than the "Tron" movie.
