Let's go crazy!
Well, it figures that I have three papers due this week, and I choose to write a journal entry instead. I sure have my priorities in the right place. However, once we've started, full steam ahead, damn the torpedos, and put the tray tables in their locked and upright position! Here we go...
- Mean Girls might be the funniest movie I've seen this year. Tina Fey just got even better in my book (and considering that she's pretty much carried SNL on her back for a few years now, it wasn't the easiest thing to do). The writing was just straight-up HILARIOUS. Probably the best-written movie of its kind I've ever seen, and I highly recommend it. All the SNL people in it (Fey, Amy Poehler, and especially Tim Meadows) were hilarious, and Lohan gave a perfectly solid performance. It's coming out on DVD this Tuesday (I'm leaning towards buying it), and I recommend that everyone hit up Blockbuster or Netflix to check it out.
- Another movie that I saw this weekend that did NOT impress me was Jackie Brown, the forgotten (and crappy) Tarantino movie. I wanted to see it just so I could see if it was as bad as it was supposed to be. It had its moments (DeNiro gave the best performance of everyone in the movie, and I enjoyed most of his stuff), but the general Tarantino zip that the dialouge in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction had just wasn't there in this one. There was about 30 minutes of excellent material in the 150 minute movie, and if they even cut it down by 30 minutes, then it would have been a pretty good, but not great, movie. As it was, it was mediocre and far too long, which makes it sound more like a Michael Bay movie (can everyone say 'Pearl Harbor' with me?) than Tarantino's general brillance. Hopefully his next couple projects (which apparently includes a movie set in WWII called "Inglorious Bastards") goes back to his previous brilliance. Kill Bill quality would be acceptable, as they were extremely good, but not on the level of Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs.
- My computer is quickly approaching 3,000 songs on it, thanks to myTunes (all college students should have this program; download it at http://www.cowpimp.com) and stealing tons of CD's from my friends. This is also allowing me to start listening to more artists that I really didn't much of a chance before. Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Radiohead, Zeppelin, Prince, and Local H. A nice mixture of music, and I might need to invest in some more of their music if I can't find it for free. For those guys, it'd be worth it.
- Lueger is so desperate to find people for his play project that I've become his ultra-backup plan. That, in and of itself, is a horrible sign.
- Greg's been gone all weekend (Michaela dragged him along to a Maroon 5 concert at UNH), so I've had the room to myself. Well, Gagne and Moore crashed here last night, but it's still been nice having the room quiet. I've gotten very little work done, of course (we can blame the disappointing Red Sox and the Patriots, who NEVER disappoint, for that one), but I'm liking the next week. Sure, I have a ton of work due, including the three papers, but I'm looking forward to doing the writing assignment. The professor gives excellent assignments, which makes the course a lot more fun. The first week's assignment was to write the story of my life............in two pages or less............using no sentences longer than 3 words. It made the assignment into more of a poem than an essay, but it was a real challenge, and I enjoyed it a lot. Last week's assignment was to take a topic, a rather broad one, and freewrite on it for 30 minutes each day for 5 days. I chose religion, and covered my leaving Christianity, Christmas, Catholic education, religion in art, and my views on the afterlife. Now my assignment is to turn those freewrites into a cohesive 5-page essay (I have ten pages of material), and it's a difficult task. I'm enjoying it a lot, though. Hopefully the class stays this interesting.
- One other thing: Read David Sedaris. We read one of his essays in the writing class (it detailed his stint working at Macy's as an elf during Christmas), and it alternated between being one of the funniest things I've ever read and one of the saddest. He does a spectacular job of hooking the reader with humor, emotionally investing you in the story, and then hitting you with his points when he knows that he's got you. Spectacular writing overall. Kyle Murphy, Writing God recommended I pick up one of his collections, entitled "Me Talk Pretty One Day" (which I remember hearing a ton about when it came out), so I am planning on getting it when I finish off the current book I'm working on for pleasure (a collection of Ralph Nader's work from the past 40 years, which is truly enlightening stuff). Pick it up as well, since you'll laugh your ass off and learn a lot about the craft of writing at the same time.
- I'm kinda pumped for that British zombie movie that's coming out, Shaun Of The Dead. It looks like it has a lot of potential. You don't see enough comedies about zombies and monsters and so forth, and the word-of-mouth on this one is very good (I believe it's been out in England for months now). Hopefully it measures up.
- Halo 2 is only 50 days away. But until then, I have my eye on Star Wars: Battlefront. It's essentially Battlefield 1942 (a game where you fight on land, on the sea, and through the air in massive online multiplayer games - it was 2002 Game of the Year on the PC) set in the Star Wars universe, and it's on Xbox. 24 people can play online and control TIE fighters, X-Wings, AT-AT's, and all that good Star Wars shit in massive online Xbox Live battles. I want this game badly, and it'll be a nice surrogate for Halo 2 until the granddaddy itself hits. But until I get Battlefront, I still have to beat Ninja Gaiden (I'm on the Level 12 boss, who's fairly hard), and I have lots of old-skool NES and SNES gaming to get around to. Greg bought Super Metroid the other day, so I might have to get better acquainted with that game. It gets a lot of "Best Game Ever" press, so it seems like it might just be worth a try.
- To a certain Kevin Mullaney: Sorry that I insulted you. Please forgive me so that I might one day be crowned Nice Guy of the Week, and be seperated from the flood of tools that exists at this school. If you need further proof of my sadness, I shall commence a hunger strike that will last until my emaciated body is too weak to move (or until I get tired of it and go back to Kimball...probably about 10 hours, including the time I'm gonna sleep).
- You know what I want? A Matrix poster that is nothing but the green Matrix code running down a black background. But it doesn't exist. The closest thing there is consists of essentially that, but with a couple lines of text and the date 11.05 on it, which is for the Matrix Revolutions in theaters. I don't understand why this poster doesn't exist. It'd look better than all the crappy ones they put out, and the minimalist style would be BADASS. But no, they just wanna piss me off. Well, fuck 'em.
- If anyone wants to sell me Kirby's Dream Course, Turtles In Time, or Super Mario Kart (all of them are for SNES), lemme know. We need these games. We need them BAD.
That's enough for now. Enjoy the beefy, content-loving entry and comment until your fingers fall off (or just read it and leave. It's all good). Peace out, bitches.
- Mean Girls might be the funniest movie I've seen this year. Tina Fey just got even better in my book (and considering that she's pretty much carried SNL on her back for a few years now, it wasn't the easiest thing to do). The writing was just straight-up HILARIOUS. Probably the best-written movie of its kind I've ever seen, and I highly recommend it. All the SNL people in it (Fey, Amy Poehler, and especially Tim Meadows) were hilarious, and Lohan gave a perfectly solid performance. It's coming out on DVD this Tuesday (I'm leaning towards buying it), and I recommend that everyone hit up Blockbuster or Netflix to check it out.
- Another movie that I saw this weekend that did NOT impress me was Jackie Brown, the forgotten (and crappy) Tarantino movie. I wanted to see it just so I could see if it was as bad as it was supposed to be. It had its moments (DeNiro gave the best performance of everyone in the movie, and I enjoyed most of his stuff), but the general Tarantino zip that the dialouge in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction had just wasn't there in this one. There was about 30 minutes of excellent material in the 150 minute movie, and if they even cut it down by 30 minutes, then it would have been a pretty good, but not great, movie. As it was, it was mediocre and far too long, which makes it sound more like a Michael Bay movie (can everyone say 'Pearl Harbor' with me?) than Tarantino's general brillance. Hopefully his next couple projects (which apparently includes a movie set in WWII called "Inglorious Bastards") goes back to his previous brilliance. Kill Bill quality would be acceptable, as they were extremely good, but not on the level of Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs.
- My computer is quickly approaching 3,000 songs on it, thanks to myTunes (all college students should have this program; download it at http://www.cowpimp.com) and stealing tons of CD's from my friends. This is also allowing me to start listening to more artists that I really didn't much of a chance before. Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Radiohead, Zeppelin, Prince, and Local H. A nice mixture of music, and I might need to invest in some more of their music if I can't find it for free. For those guys, it'd be worth it.
- Lueger is so desperate to find people for his play project that I've become his ultra-backup plan. That, in and of itself, is a horrible sign.
- Greg's been gone all weekend (Michaela dragged him along to a Maroon 5 concert at UNH), so I've had the room to myself. Well, Gagne and Moore crashed here last night, but it's still been nice having the room quiet. I've gotten very little work done, of course (we can blame the disappointing Red Sox and the Patriots, who NEVER disappoint, for that one), but I'm liking the next week. Sure, I have a ton of work due, including the three papers, but I'm looking forward to doing the writing assignment. The professor gives excellent assignments, which makes the course a lot more fun. The first week's assignment was to write the story of my life............in two pages or less............using no sentences longer than 3 words. It made the assignment into more of a poem than an essay, but it was a real challenge, and I enjoyed it a lot. Last week's assignment was to take a topic, a rather broad one, and freewrite on it for 30 minutes each day for 5 days. I chose religion, and covered my leaving Christianity, Christmas, Catholic education, religion in art, and my views on the afterlife. Now my assignment is to turn those freewrites into a cohesive 5-page essay (I have ten pages of material), and it's a difficult task. I'm enjoying it a lot, though. Hopefully the class stays this interesting.
- One other thing: Read David Sedaris. We read one of his essays in the writing class (it detailed his stint working at Macy's as an elf during Christmas), and it alternated between being one of the funniest things I've ever read and one of the saddest. He does a spectacular job of hooking the reader with humor, emotionally investing you in the story, and then hitting you with his points when he knows that he's got you. Spectacular writing overall. Kyle Murphy, Writing God recommended I pick up one of his collections, entitled "Me Talk Pretty One Day" (which I remember hearing a ton about when it came out), so I am planning on getting it when I finish off the current book I'm working on for pleasure (a collection of Ralph Nader's work from the past 40 years, which is truly enlightening stuff). Pick it up as well, since you'll laugh your ass off and learn a lot about the craft of writing at the same time.
- I'm kinda pumped for that British zombie movie that's coming out, Shaun Of The Dead. It looks like it has a lot of potential. You don't see enough comedies about zombies and monsters and so forth, and the word-of-mouth on this one is very good (I believe it's been out in England for months now). Hopefully it measures up.
- Halo 2 is only 50 days away. But until then, I have my eye on Star Wars: Battlefront. It's essentially Battlefield 1942 (a game where you fight on land, on the sea, and through the air in massive online multiplayer games - it was 2002 Game of the Year on the PC) set in the Star Wars universe, and it's on Xbox. 24 people can play online and control TIE fighters, X-Wings, AT-AT's, and all that good Star Wars shit in massive online Xbox Live battles. I want this game badly, and it'll be a nice surrogate for Halo 2 until the granddaddy itself hits. But until I get Battlefront, I still have to beat Ninja Gaiden (I'm on the Level 12 boss, who's fairly hard), and I have lots of old-skool NES and SNES gaming to get around to. Greg bought Super Metroid the other day, so I might have to get better acquainted with that game. It gets a lot of "Best Game Ever" press, so it seems like it might just be worth a try.
- To a certain Kevin Mullaney: Sorry that I insulted you. Please forgive me so that I might one day be crowned Nice Guy of the Week, and be seperated from the flood of tools that exists at this school. If you need further proof of my sadness, I shall commence a hunger strike that will last until my emaciated body is too weak to move (or until I get tired of it and go back to Kimball...probably about 10 hours, including the time I'm gonna sleep).
- You know what I want? A Matrix poster that is nothing but the green Matrix code running down a black background. But it doesn't exist. The closest thing there is consists of essentially that, but with a couple lines of text and the date 11.05 on it, which is for the Matrix Revolutions in theaters. I don't understand why this poster doesn't exist. It'd look better than all the crappy ones they put out, and the minimalist style would be BADASS. But no, they just wanna piss me off. Well, fuck 'em.
- If anyone wants to sell me Kirby's Dream Course, Turtles In Time, or Super Mario Kart (all of them are for SNES), lemme know. We need these games. We need them BAD.
That's enough for now. Enjoy the beefy, content-loving entry and comment until your fingers fall off (or just read it and leave. It's all good). Peace out, bitches.