Things about work.

Most days, things here at the 'B run pretty similar. People call with routine problems, we contact people with routine problems, I get bored, read my book, play Free Cell on the computer, spend lots of time on the Noiseboard being bored, etc. etc.

But occasionally it gets "exciting". And by exciting I don't mean like CTU exciting, but different. Which tends to mean everything breaks at once.

A little history. We're currently in the process of phasing out our older, modem-based communications in lieu of more modern web-based communications. The project has been going on for a while and is slated to be finished by the end of calendar year 2006.

So, of course, these new and exciting problems almost always have to do with the new web-based services that are going to be our premiere services and where we're trying to push everyone to.

The latest round of fun consists of the fact that we're experiencing massive slow-downs for one of the products. (And of course, since they're linked, when one product is affected the other one can be as well.). It's been going down intermittently for the past few days, seemingly getting worse as it goes along. Not that the slow-downs get longer, but the extent of time they go on does.

So, here at the Help Desk, we get all the calls. "Are you having a problem?", "Why are we getting this error?", "When will the problem be fixed?" To which the answers are "Yes," "Because of issues on our end," and "I don't know."

It's that last one that scares me.

Honestly, if I was a member company, my cup of confidence wouldn't be half-full, quarter-full, or even dregs-full, at this point.

I assume there must be smart people working here to have set all this web stuff up, but I remember saying to my boss the last time this happened, "Did they test any of this before they rolled it out?"

Seems like we're getting sucker punched by problems all the time. Issues we never saw coming.
Amazing foresight, that.

Anyway, thought I'd just take a few minutes to bitch while the phones were quiet.

At least, if nothing else, it makes the day go by quicker.

Running diary for Monday, August 22nd.

1:11 am: What the fuck! Sounds like someone's trying to break the land speed record on their rice burner right outside my window.

5:58 am: Ugh. Hi, Pantera.

6:40 am: Ugh. Alarm. Snooze.

6:49 am: Ugh. Alarm. Snooze.

6:58 am: Ugh. Alarm. Guess I'd better get up.

7:03 am: Hm, email from Amazon. Wonder what that could be (sarcasm). Yep, refunded payment for 2nd LCD HD TV. Definitely a scam. Damn! I want a TV! Remember to check credit card statement online later to make sure all my money is where it should be.

7:04 am: Email from seller of second scam LCD TV. What do you mean you don't accept credit cards? No, I most certainly do not want to re-order. What the fuck is wrong with your grammar anyway?

7:12 am: Getting in the car. Why is everything that was in my glove compartment now on my front seat? Hm....yeah....OK. Someone broke into my car. Yep. Let's see. What's missing? CDs...nope they're here. Boxes of tapes? Still here. Stuff from glove compartment? Here. Speedpass? Here. Bitchin' shades? Here. Allison's lucky dollar? Surprisingly here. Did they really break into my car and not take anything? Oh wait....they stole $2 worth of quarters. Jackasses.

7:15 am: I can't believe it. Not even two months in Medford and my car is broken into.

7:22 am: Damn, I want that TV.

7:27 am: I mean, really. My car was parked right outside my window. And the window was open. You'd think I might have heard something. Guess I'd better start using my alarm.

7:30 am: You know what would have been cool? If I had woken up to hear or see someone breaking into my car. Then I could have yelled something cool like.....like....oh I know: "Hey, fucko! Get away from my car! I'm going to be down there in 30 seconds and if you're still there I'm going to polish the asphalt with your face!"

7:37 am: Maybe I should stop by Best Buy after work and see how much LCD HD TVs are going for there.

7:41 am: Or what have been REALLY cool. What if I had just happened to be outside when they were breaking into the car. With a baseball bat. How funny would that be? They'd be all rifling through my stuff, and next thing you know: WHAM! Baseball bat to the back of the knees. I could do some cold shit then! Be like: "Tell you what. Why don't you give me YOUR money, asshole!"

7:45 am: I knew it. I knew this would happen. I'm obsessed about the TV now. Wonder how much I could get for my Sony HD. It's too bad there's no place in the apartment that monster will fit. Could I get enough to pay off, or mostly pay off a comparably sized LCD? Remember to check CNET when you get to work. Start researching.

7:52 am: Wonderful I'm at work. Yeah, it's Monday.

...and twice on Sunday.

Wow, two posts from me today. Lucky you.

You know, I've noticed there are two things in abundance near my new place in Medford. When I'm walking around I see a lot of churches and dentists. When I figure out what this means, I'll let you know.
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Speaking of dentists. I can't imagine that anyone that does dental cleanings for a living would ever want to kiss another human being ever! I mean, I take decent care of my teeth. I could be better, I'm sure, but I sure as hell could be worse. But whenever I go to the dentist for my cleaning, they always manage to pull the foulest muck out of there. Honestly, if I had to see that day after day, I'd probably start thinking of abstinence. Or as a wise fictional man once said: "That's why I never kiss them on the mouth."
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About that TV situation mentioned in the post below.... I came back from the movies today, after ordering the TV, and had a mesage from Amazon sayinbg they couldn't complete the transaction with the seller, so it was voided. Huh? I went and checked and the two other TVs at that price were gone. No $400 Panasonic 32" LCD HD TV for me. It just sounds really sketchy. Of course that didn't stop me from instead buying a Olevia (never heard of them) 27" LCD HD TV for me. I'll give it one more shot. Why not.
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Did you say movie? you ask.

Yes, yes I did.

Does that mean there's a review? you wonder.

Why, yes. Yes there is.

At the end of Broken Flowers, the couple sitting next to me turned and asked me what I thought. I gave it a second and said: "I don't know."

She said: "I thought it was terrible."

This, of course, was not as funny as the time I saw Stargate, and as soon as the credits started rolling, the guy in front of me busted out with: "Well, that sucked!" But after some thought, I definitely saw this woman's point. And while I didn't find it terrible, I definitely found it lacking.

Actually, lacking is a good word for this film. Because it wasn't anything that the film had that was the problem, it's what it didn't.

Such as resolution. Context. Meaning.

Now I'm not such a stickler that I think allmovies should ahve these things. But Broken Flowers in particular I feel could have benefitted from some of these things.

Bill Murray plays Don Johnstone (and yes, that was mined for laughs a few times), an aging Don Juan who appears to have left in his trail a string of failed relationships. In fact, the film opens as his current lil' lady is leaving him. He recieves an unsigned letter from an old flame informing him that 20 years ago she gave birth to his son, but never told him, and that this son had left on a road trip trying to find his father. Johnstone, with the help of his mystery loving neighbor Winston, makes a list of 5 women that it could possibly be, and goes on a trip to visit them all to find out who the mother is.

Sounds like a decent enough plot, and Murray has been doing excellent work these past few years, so I was excited.

Unfortunately the film gets no better than that description. Murray visits four women, and the grave of a fifth, in his search. And while there's tons of meaning in these exchanges, unfortunately there so poorly developed, or perhaps SOOO subtly presented, that it's almost impossible to grasp that meaning. The problem here is one of context. We're never given any context as to what their relationships were like in the past, so the dynamics between the characters now is difficult, at best, to grasp. In meeting the real estate agent, Dora, (played by Frances Conroy who I just adore from Six Feet Under), we can tell there's a lot of tension in the room between them, but we have no idea why. The scenes with Laura (Sharon Stone), the recently widowed old flame, are much more comfortable. So much so that there's absolutely no surprise that they wake up in bed together the next morning. (The scenes with Laura's very young and very firtatous, and in one scene in particular very full frontally naked, are a lot less comfortable. The daughter's name: very aptly and very ridiculously: Lolita. For a film that was as subtle and minimalistic in every other facet, this was as subtle as a screwdriver to the face, and about as necessary.) In fact, only with one of the women, the white trash Penny (Tilda Swinton), do we get any glimpse of what their relationship had been like. And even that was only in the form of Murray saying" You left me." This being right before Penny's biker boyfriend starts knuckling down on Murray's face.

By the end of the film, Murray's search has yielded no answers. None of the women he visited appeared to be the mother of his child. Murray returns home, and here he encounters a young man, who just may be the son in question. In a scene outside a diner, where Murray had bought the lad some lunch, there's a conversation where Murray is trying to sound the boy out as to if it may be his son. It ends badly when Murray just out and says he knows the kid thinks he's his father. THe kid freaks and runs off, but we don't know whether it was because he didn't think that, and in fact was just a drifter, or if it was because he did indeed think that and couldn't deal.

Essentially, that's where the movie ended. No resolution whatsoever. Now I can be willing to forgive that---I like some ambiguity---IF there's something in place if it. Like, say, some noticeable growth in the character. Say, hypothetically, if the movie was supposed to be more about Murray's journey than the actual destination. However, that didn't seem the case. Murray's Johnstone, after minute 100 seemed to be the same Johnstone he was in minute 1.

And therein lay the problem. I left the movie with nothing to grasp on to. I feel like I was dropped into a couple of days of someone's life, and yes, life may not have definitive moments and marked instances of growth and such, but movies aren't life. If youre going to want to keep me coming back Mr. Jim Jamrusch, give me something that I can walk away with. Otherwise it's just 100 minutes of hot air and fluff, and I don't feel the need to buy that more than once.

Things that are good.

Back in November I made the decision to stop eating fast food. Maybe not everything. I still rock the occasional D'Angelos. But the big bads. The McDonalds. The Burger Kings. The Taco Bells and and KFCs and Wendys. All gone from the diet. (The recent exception being on my trip down to South Carolina where I let myself have Bojangles because....well, it's Bojangles.) The decision was made based upon a couple of factors all occuring in close proximity to each other. One was I read Fast Food Nation and watched Supersize Me in the span of a week. Then shortly afterwards, after coming home from a show, I stopped for the usual late night McSnack, which a few hours later I promptly McRegurgitated.

The next day I decide to cut all that junk out of my diet. I don't really miss it much. Occasionally I'll get a craving for something, but it goes away quickly when I ignore it.

So, the good....

I believe that's party the reason that my weight is down about 15 pounds from last year at this time. There are other factors at work, as well, I'm sure. I am exercising a bit more and trying to be a bit more responsible in general about what I eat. But I'm gueeing the lack of fast food probably has a lot to do with it.
...
A couple of years ago I made another conscious decision. To start whittling away at the mountain of debt I managed to acquire for myself in my....umm, less than judiciously spending 20s. I had credit card bills, a loan, car payments. Basically stuff I just didn't want to be spending money on. So, being that I was living with the folks at the time, and my rent was minimal, I made up some payment plans to start tackling the debt. First off, the loan. I doubled up payment on that and got it paid off a year early. That was a couple of years back. Next challenge the credit cards. Paid off the Discover first. I then called and asked if they'd be willing to lower my APR to a rate of my choosing. They declined, so I cancelled the card. One down. That left me with two. I started plugging away on the next one, and got it paid off by the time I moved to Medford in July. One to go. That balance wasn't too outrageous, so as of my payment this weekend, I'm down to approximately $200 total debt on my credit cards. Whee!

That's the good right there, let me tell you.

Of course, I promptly celebrated by putting $400 back on the card when I bought a TV off Amazon. You have to understand though that this is a 32 LCD flat-panel HD TV, that usually goes for about $2,000. A $2,000 TV for $400, you say? Yeah, I'm a bit skeptical, too. But I couldn't find any snags or tripwires or loopholes when I was researching it, (and I looked a lot), and the seller had a very good rating, so I decided to take the chance. And besides, Amazon appears to have good coverage if I'm being hoodwinked by the seller, so it's probably not that much of a risk at all. Hopefully. We'll find out soon. And as for that $400 on my credit card?....well if the TV is legit, I'll just sell my Sony HD I'm keeping at my folks house and that should cover it plus a little extra for me

So, hopefully that will also be added to the good, and I can get the apartment ready for proper football watching soon. Sorry, but that little 27 non-HD wenis of a TV we currently have just ain't gonna cut it when those magic, wonderful words caress my ears. "Are you ready for some football?!?!?"

Random Thursday Thoughts

I was walking down Mass. Ave. today, right outside of Porter Square, and saw a sign on the side of one of the buildings indicating there was a fallout shelter inside. Awesome! If the bombs are a comin', I'll come a runnin'.
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There's a woman at my work that looks like she's about 15 months pregnant. That can't be comfortable.
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OK, gas prices being what they are (currently $1,726.10 a gallon), there have been a glut of news stories covering how to conserve on gas. A couple realyl just aren't feasible for me. I can't really go out and buy a hybrid car. That's a little out of my price range and would cause more financial problems than it would solve. Carpooling to work also doesn't seem likely, as I don't know anyone in or near Medford that works at the same place as me. (Although if I find someone, it could be an option.) Public transportation? It could work. There is a commuter rail station a 10 minute walk up the street from my work, and Davis Square is a 15 minute walk from my apartment. However, the monthly T pass for that is $120. So, also a little financially hefty. I'm not sure the economics would necessarily work out in my favor.

There is, however, one thing that was mentioned that I've tried the past few days. Driving 55-60 MPH. Typically, I drive faster. But one of the tips was that is you drive a steady 55-60 MPH (on the highway), you could conceivably lower you consumption by 25-30%. So I'm giving it a shot, and let me tell you, it's not easy. Cars whipping by you in every lane. That right foot starting to feel heavier and heavier as the drive goes along. That god-awful feeling that you're not really getting anywhere. (Well, on the way to work that's not bad, but on the way home it's torture.) The one extra benefit I've noticed so far is that I feel a little calmer. Less road rage, less yelling "You.....fucking.......FUCKTARD!!!" at other drivers. So I guess that's good. We'll see how this little experiment pans out.
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So I saw Howl's Moving Castle last night. Very highly reccomended movie on all fronts. "Professional" reviews, casual fans (which is probably a bit of a misnomer, considering the type of movie it is). All seem to love it.

Unfortunately, I didn't.

First off, the tone. It was way too cutesy. OK, that's a choice made by either the director (Hayao Miyazaki, who also wrote the screenplay) or the author of the original novel (Diana Wynne Jones). I can accept that. It's not exactly my flavor, but it's an artistic choice I can respect.

The other problems I find with the film are a little less palatable to me. First off, let me explain something. I do like (some) Asian cinema. But I don't always understand it. It's obviously a differnet style of story-telling than what this gaijin is used to. Different histories, values, and most importantly different cultures. So, while the stories, underlying themes, and cultures obviously makes more sense to those who grew up in them, they often leave me a little befuddled. I'm aware of this. But for all that, there are certain aspects of different types of these films that I enjoy, primarily action/kung-fu films and anime (which I'm using a little all-encompassingly here to denote any Asian animated film.)

However, while this film's director is Japanese, the original author, Jones (Wynne Jones?), is British. I've never read the novel, but I'm going to hazard a guess that the underlying storytelling methods and culture in that case is one that I should be able to grasp a little better. And while there are definitely aspects of this film that feel decidedly "Japanese" to me, that does tend to bear out to some extent.

Where to begin. How about a brief (or as brief as I can make it) plot outliine.

Sophie works in a hat shop, run by her mother after her father died. While running an errand, she encounters Howl, a wizard. Howl is being chased by some blobs that are the henchmen of the Witch of the Waste. Apparently she's chasing Howl because she's in love with him. Anywho...the witch shows up at Sophie's hat-shop and casts a spell on Sophie turning her from a young girl to an elderly woman. Sophie leaves town, and takes up residence in Howl's castle. Which walks around from place to place, hence the name of the film. On the way she meets Turnip Head, an endearing scarecrow, Howl's young apprentice (who's name is escaping me), and Calcifer, a fire demon who powers Howl's castle. To stay in Howl's castle, she proclaims herself the housekeeper, and proceeds to start doing just that. Oh, and by the way, she's in love with Howl. At the same time, there is a war going on. The prince of a neighboring kingdom has gone missing, and that kingdom and the one Sophie belongs to are busy kicking the crap out of each other. As a wizard, Howl is supposed to report to the king and join the battle, but he doesn't want to.

That's my brief synopsis.

I had written a handful of long paragraphs already describing things I found problems with in this film, and had only scratched the surface. I could see where this was going. Novel-length movie review. So I went to my friend: Mr. Delete. Let's go the shorter route.

I thought the characterization was weak, two dimensional. There were too many overly unrealistic reactions to situations. I say "overly" because I realize this is a fantasy and some leeway needs to be given, but even recognizing that, too many things rang false. The dialouge was downright painful at times (but that could be translation, I'm sure.) The story attempted far too much, and didn't seem to do any one aspect too well. Sort of like the saying: "a jack of all trades, master of none." The ending was beyond hokey.

There was one point where it seemed they (either the author or the director---once again I don't know because I didn't read the original novel) seemed to be trying something interesting in that they seemed to be attempting to do what Stephen Donaldson in his Gap Cycle novels called (if I remember) swtiching the archtypes. In essence turning the villain into the victim, the victim into the hero, and the hero into the villain (or in the case of this film, into more of a rascal), but if that was the intention, it also didn't seem to work out too well, because in one case it wasn't a complete enough transformation, and in a second it was too ridiculous.

One thing I did like, however, was the look of the film. It looked great. I'm not surprised by this. From all accounts, Miyazaki is very renowned in the field for this. I've only seen one of his other films (Princess Mononoke---which I enjoyed immensely), so I'm not really the best judge of how this stands up to the rest of his body of work. But it looked damn good in its own right.

Anyway, enough of this. I should get back to work.

Road trip '05 - The hounds of Cha-Cheese!

Road tripping. That's been my thing recently. For the past two years at least. Drive somewhere, do something, drive home. Last year it was my mini Southern Hospitality tour to SC, Atlanta, Nashville, and Baltimore. This year was a little less ambituous, largely just being SC. Okatie, that is. That's where my folks have a house, and that's where I was for the past week.

I've been on a lot of vacations. My family used to take them a lot when I was younger, so I got used to the idea of going places every year. When I got older, I continued (and continue to) that as best I could/can on my income. So this summer, my thing was I wanted to be able to go somehwere and just relax, not have to worry about "doing" things. This was partly based upon my yearning for a chill vacation, and partly motivated by the fact that I'm recently in a new aparmtent and don't have a lot of cash.

So I packed up the car with some essentials: clothes, guitar and amp, nana's brownies, and a couple of friends and headed down to Okatie.

Brief description of Okatie, SC: Nowheresville. It's on the southern edge of SC. The nearest sizeable city is Savannah, about 40 minutes away. The nearest bastion of civilization? WalMart. About 15 minutes away.

But that's what I wanted, a getaway. So Sunday night we leave. About 13 hours later, Monday morning, we arrive in Cary, NC, where my sister lives. Spent the day there sleeping, eating, vegging out in front of the TV, and playing with my nephews. Games that included giving me plastic cars, and then taking them back, throwing things at my head, and stabbing me with "swords." Ahh, kids. After that short pit stop, the next morning we hop back into the car for the last 5 hours of the drive. Eventful of course, for the drenching downpours that slowed us down considerably, and for the check engine light that had come on, apparently for no reason, in the middle of the night.

But we make it to the folks house with no problems. What followed for the next few days went largely as such: drink, smoke (the Hybrid), grill, eat, get scared of the dark, sleep, play guitar, listen to music, watch TV, repeat.

That entails a lot of our time at the house. But not all.

Description of Chechesse (Cha-cheese!) road in Okatie, SC: That's a toughie. Quaint? Rural? There are only a dozen or so houses. Very close-knit community, if you can call it that. My folks were only able to buy the plot of land and build a house there because my dad has some sort of roots there. His uncle lives a 90 second walk down the road, and is known as the "Mayor of Chechesse". Also, my dad was born in the area, although he didn't live there very long before the family moved north. But without those small roots they would not have been able to build a house there, because they likely would not have been sold the land. Everyone knows everyone there. Of course, aside from WD and Doris (my dad's aunt and uncle) I didn't know anyone.

Further description: Dark. Woodsy. Perfect setting for a horror movie because it's plenty scary at night. Much fun was had under the influence of....well, influential things, creeping ourselves out at night. Sitting on the back porch, seeing the rabid rat peeking over the treeline. Any new sound above the cacaophony of night-time insects was a thing to wonder about. The constant heat lightning provided some good ambiance. And the walk we went on the first night? Well...

Walking down Chechesse, once you get past the houses and to the lane that takes you out to the main road, there's little but dark and woods. And woods that canopy over the road to negate any small light the stars might offer. At the edge of the houses lay a dark tunnel that looked like something out of a nightmare. We didn't make it past the edge of the houses before turning around and walking back. Which provided it's own frights. First off in the street lighting. Call it an overactive imagination, but the lighting on a certain part of the street looked quite a bit light the lighting in the scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street, when Freddy walks out at the end of the alley, and starts running down it with his supernaturally long arms scraping the sides. Considering how much that movied terrified me when I was younger, this made for a tense walk home.

But it gets better. My folks house has a motiondetector light on the front porch. We discovered it when we walked out. So to try and circumvent it, we were walking the long way around the driveway in the sort of psuedo-military operation you only find important while drinking or smoking. (Or both.) I was first in line ahead of the other two, halfway up the driveway to the door, when we first heard the hounds. A fierce big-dog barking, collar chaing jingling. I hear Matt say "Don't run!" as Brian boots it past me for the door. Then it gets funny. As he skids ont he welcome mat and slams chest first into the door, spilling his beer everywhere in the mad scramble to get the door open, which he does, and makes for the inside, muy pronto. I get to the door, go in. Matt follows me. We look outside. No dog. Well, there is a dog, the neighbor has one, but he's nowehere near us. In fact, we can't even see him.

That's not the end of the hounds story. For the next few days, we do see two dogs walking around the street, through our backyard, once even on the back porch. Not leashed. Big-ish dogs. Probably just ambling about, but there's a bit of a mystique to them now. Which culminates in Friday night. We get home from Savannah, it's maybe 2:30am. Matt's passed out on the back seat. Pull in the driveway, open the door. Dog's barking. It walks out into the streetlight in front of our driveway, and just looks at the car. I close the door, replaying scenes from Cujo in my head. The anticlimax here is that the dog, jsut turns and walks away, probably thinking: "God damn humans! This nice spot behind my ear is NOT going to scratch itself."

But whatever. It's dogs. It added some good atmosphere to the trip. Let me just say that my plan was to go whether or not no one else did. But I'm glad Matt and Brian did go, because that house gets creepy at night, and I'm sure had I gone alone, I very well might be dead from fright right now.

Other quick notes, as this is getting long:

Beaufort, SC: Quaint little cty. Not much to do there.

My car: Not exactly sure what the deal with the check engine light was---maybe something with the catalytic converter, but it had apparently fixed itself (???)--- owever the Beaufort Toyota dealership took care of it and gladly accepted my $75 to do so.

Savannah: Let's just say I want to go back. Ever see that movie Coyote Ugly? Well we basically lived that on Friday night at the bar we ended up at.

The drive home: Long. Had some good pizza in D.C. Left at 11am yesterday. Got home at 7am this morning. I'm tired. Looking forward to sleep.

That's all for now.

All about Gwyneth

So, last night, in the middle of the night, I woke up from a dream. Now, I've been known to have some strange ones, but this one was pretty basic. I was talking with a female friend of mine. Not an actual friend, but one of those dream mish-mash friends. You know, the kind that, in the dream, you know perfectly, but in real life, doesn't actually exist. We were having a conversation about our relationship. About how we were friends, and apparently had occasionally hooked up, yadda, yadda, yadda. Nothing really important.

But when I woke up from the dream, I was thinking about it, and realized that my "friend" in the dream was a mix between a real life friend and an actress. But for the life of me, I couldn't remember the actress's name. So, I'm lying there, trying to figure it out. I'm thinking to myself, "Yeah, that....what was her name....I remember....she was in that movie about the Jane Austen novel that I actually thought was decent, given my general dislike for Austen....oh, and she was in that movie where there were two of her and something about a train....who was she?.....I remember I used to think she was pretty hot......and she's married to that guy from Coldplay....and what is her frigging name?....His name is Chris Martin, I think....And she was in Shakespeare in Love, and that was just a good movie. Why can't I remember her name?!?!"

This went on for a while. Or what felt like a while. You know how time can get tricky in the middle of the night. And I'm worried, because my memory isn't the best at the best of times, and I'm wondering if the drinking and the smoking isn't killing off more brain cells than I can realistically afford anymore.

And I'm coming up with first names that might be right. I can't remember what they were, but in hindsight, they were so far from right as to be left.

So, finally, I realize, "Duh! Why don't I hop on IMDB and check. I know the movies."

So I hop out of bed, with that usual brief fear as I walk to my computer that, "I hope my roomate doesn't walk out into the living room, and see through this small crack in my door that I'm naked." Because, you know, she might want to come out and check her email on her computer in the next room at 2:45 in the morning. It's not a rational fear, I admit.

Hop on my computer...click on the IE icon....and.........and..........and..........

Nothing.

Internet's not working.

Now, I'm sure this has happened to everyone. You have that name, that place, that word right on the tip of your tongue. Your mind's dancing around it. You know you know it. But you just can't get it. Like that time I briefly forgot the word "spoon". I knew what a spoon was. I knew what a spoon was used for. But for the period of about 2 minutes, I had forgotten the word. (P.S. That was years ago, before the booze and drugs.) But you know how frustrating it can be. You brain just works at it and works at it, and the harder you push, the more it sticks. But you can't let it go.

Now imagine that, coupled with the certainty that I'd have the answer 30 seconds after sitting down at the keyboard, and having that thwarted by a shoddy internet connection.

I was pissed!

Repair the connection for my wireless internet...nothing. Reboot the computer....nothing. I'm ready to tear my hair out, but for the fact that the patchy-headed look isn't in this year. So I climb back into bed, telling myself to relax, think about something else, and it'll come to me. That works for about 2 minutes, before I hop back out of bed to try the computer again. Still nothing.

"This is silly," I tell myself. "Just go back to sleep. You have to work tomorrow."

"Maybe I should go check the router on my roomate's computer," I then tell myself. Maybe see if I can reboot it. I nix that quick, because as foolish as the idea of her accidentally seeing me naked in my own room , through the small crack as she's (not exactly) wandering the apartment at now about 3am, the idea of actually going to her computer to check the router has me certain that I will, without a doubt, be caught. Because, as important an issue as this seemed to me at the time, it still wasn't important enough to throw on a pair of pants for. And how do I explain that one away. Sitting naked at her computer, fiddling with the router in the dark of night. Something tells me that I'd be asked to move out a scant month after I just moved in. (For that matter, I hope she never sees this blog.)

Anywa, I don't recall if the internet ever started working, but at some point I did end up remembering that it was Gwyneth Paltrow I was thinking of. My dream friend was a mix of my friend Rachel and Gwyneth Platrow.

All in all, not a bad dream combination, but really...did I really waste about half an hour of my night on this? I need hobbies. Or sleeping pills.

God must have bowled a 300 last night

When I was younger, I always thought that thunder was God bowling in heaven. But then again, I always had weird ideas concerning a lot of things religous based. Like when I went to church, I used to think the candles were actually glasses of milk (because they were white), and that the confessionals were bathrooms. I always thought it cool---and a bit weird---that the priests all had bathrooms with their names on the door, while the bathrooms on either side offered privacy only in the form of a curtain however, with the only sign of it being occupado was a red light over the doorway.

Anyway, last night there was a fierce thunderstorm in the area. The biggest in quite a long while. It probably started up somewhere between 11:30 and midnight. Right about the time I was getting ready for bed with a little reading, which is ahrd to do when French Kiss---one of the cats---is insistently pushing her head into my hand for a little love.

See, she's strange like that. Most of the day she's hidden away---under the bed, the couch, or somewhere else I've yet to find. You hardly ever see her. And when you do, she skittishly runs off, like I'm Godzilla stomping on her little Tokyo. But the night time is apparently the right time, because once it gets dark, she comes out for some loving in full force, viking hat on and everything.

So we're lying there, and the storm starts. Now I love a good thunderstorm at night. It's great to go to sleep to. Or to wake up to in the middle of the night. The flashes, the distant rumble, the sound of rain on the window, knowing you're safetly protected behind wood and glass, comfortable under blankets. It's easy to sleepily appreciate this, at least for me.

Last night, however, was different. Those flashes of lightning were more like a pyrotechnics show that would put a Kiss concert to shame. And the thunder? Let's just say God was bowling a 300 last night. I can't remember the last time thunder actually made my bed shake. (And yes, you can take that any way you want.) Car alarms were going off at the rate of at least one per minute at the height of the storm. And when they weren't, distant sirens took up the call.

It very much sounded like the end of the world out there, in a very War of the Worlds sort of way. I figured if I looked out the window I might see some of those menacing tripods busily turning my neighbors into cremains. Not that I would have minded for a few of them. (You people that roar up the street in the middle of the night with your mufferless hot rods....I'm looking at you, dust bunnies!)

But it ended after a while, that spectacular light and sound show, and I managed to get off to sleep, only to face the real end of the world this morning, when the alarm went off. Truly there has been no more sadistic invention.

So, yeah....

Why not. I'll blog. I figure, if nothing else, it'll help me kill some time during the work day. And this way I can keep you updated on my very important thoughts on such things as.....

MOVIE REVIEWS!

OK, so yesteday, I saw two. First off, Wedding Crashers. As I was watching this movie, I found myself thinking of Animal House. Not because Wedding Crashers was even remotely on the same level, but specifically because it wasn't. Let me back up for a minute though, because I don't mean to lambast a movie because it's not Animal House. But what I found myself thinking about was how the nature of a type of movie changes as time passes. In this case: the comedy. Wedding Crashers is the latest in the current crop of a "raunchy" or "edgy" comedy. But when I compare it to the simialr vibed comedies I grew up with---a la an Animal House, Bachelor Party, Porky's---in the 80's, Wedding Crashers and the current ilk come off feeling kind of tame.

That's not to take away from the current batch of comedic fare---the Wedding Crashers, the Old Schools, the American Pies, the There's Something About Marys---because these movies definitely have merit of their own. But the difference is heart and balls. The comedies of nowadays, for all their raunch and swagger, invariably end up having heart. By the end of the movie, typically, the main character(s) have undergone some kind of journey, have grown as people, have become better people. Point in case, by the end of Wedding Crashers, the two main characters, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn (in full, overblown throwback to his breakthrough Trent from Swingers character) have gone from wedding crashing, skirt-chasing scoundrels to one (Vaughn) who's happily married himself (albiet grown from an attraction to some kinky sexual quirks, including some sweaty sock including midnight rape), and the other (Wilson) winning the girl of his dreams from her neanderthal boyfriend (an intensely over-the-top Bradley Cooper that I found especially amusing since I only really know him as the sensetive Will from Alias.) There's even an impassioned speech full of, you guessed it: heart.

But let's go back...back with VH1...back to the 80s for a moment. Back to my original example: Animal House. What wasthe journey this band of merry misfits undertook? What growth? The resolution to this classic was a trashing of a college parade that can only be described as epic. Sure, Bluto did get the girl, but he was dressed up as a pirate at the time and abducted her, driving off into the open road in a stolen convertible. This from a movie that also featured a devil and angel arguing over whether a character shoudl absically date-rape his passed out date, theft, cheating, destruction, horse-i-cide (yeah, I made that one up), revenge and the most memorable phallic big screen cucumber to date. And all without a glimmer of remorse or shame. That's balls.

But I digress. Wedding Crashers was an acceptable entry into the genre. It had it's laughs. It had all hallmarks of a modern comedy: including the obligatory Will Ferrel cameo and Christopher Walken. The cheap laughs in the form of the gutter mouth granny. Owen Wilson was Owen Wilson. Vince Vaughn was Vince Vaughn. Which is to say neither particularly good now particularly bad, just there. We're not taking any risks or challenging any boundaries here.

But let me tell you who did stand out for me. The women of this movie. In particular Rachel McAdams and Isla Fisher, playing two night and day sisters. First off, McAdams. She plays Owen Wilson's love interest, and plays it well. The quintessential girl next door type, if the girl next door was a super-model. She plays, largely, the aforementioned "heart" of the movie. In a realtionshop of 3+ years with a boyfriend she is unsure about, she meets Wilson at her older sister's wedding, which is being unknowingly crashed. She plays her uncertainty about her current relationship well as the movie progresses, and does a very good job of portraying affection for Wilson and the losing of her luster for her boyfriend, Sack Lodge (Cooper.) She's at times caring, funny, personable, vulnerable, and always beautiful. The type of girl you'd take home to mom.

Isla Fisher, who plays her younger sister in the movie? Well, let's just say mom might not be ready to meet her just yet. Never in my life did I want more to be Vince Vaughn as when he woke up in the middle of the night tied to his bed, being mounted by a naked Isla. Aside from the sweaty sock duct taped into his mouth, this sounds life a perfectly acceptable wake up call to me. Fisher gleefully plays the quite possibly insane and sexually adventerous sister, who's willing to get to it on the beach, in the bathroom, or at the dinner table, and who's idea of taking a relationship to the next level is to invite another girl into it. Basically the wet dream of Maxim's collective readership.

The dichotomy of the two sisters, although they share little to no screen time together, was probably the strongest part of the movie, but to say that would make it seem like I'm really thinking way too much about Wedding Crashers. Let's just dumb it down to: decent laughs, hot chicks.

A movie that does warrant a little more thought, (although it will get far less words, since this blog is getting very novel-esque in length), was the one I watched later at home. The Motorcycle Diaries. Based upon the journals of Che Guevara, the leader of the Cuban Revolution, it details the travels of himself and friend Alberto Granado, as young 20-somethings on a trip across South America for a medical residency at a leper colony.

Let me state for the record I know almost nothing about Ernesto "Che" Guevara other than I've seen the t-shirts. My knowledge of the Cuban Revolution is similarly in that "slim-to-none" range, leaning heavily towards none. In a summary written on IMDB, someone writes: The two best friends start off with the same goals and aspirations, but by the time the film is over, it's clear what each man's destiny has become. Here's where I disagree.

Granado, it is much clearer for him. He is to be a doctor. That is very clear by the end of the movie. Guevara, however, his future is not so clear. I didn't finish the movie thinking, "Oh, yeah, revolution is definitely in this man's future." Now, as I've stated, I know nothing about the Cuban Revolution, so I'm aware I'm forming my opinion from a position of ignorance. Not the most solid footing. However, Guevara (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) himself says near the end of the movie something along the lines of: "I have much that I need to think about for a long time."

What I did get from the movie was this. The two start upon their journey as two happy-go-lucky youngsters out to see the world (in a South America sense of the term), meet some girls, and have some good times in a motorcycle trip across the continent ont he way to their residency. It's very much a buddy movie for a decent amount of the time. What I get from doing a bit of reading about the movie, was that Guevera used this experience to form some opinions about inequality that led him to the man he became. However, I don't feel that the Motorcycle Diaries gets to that context until they reach the leper colony, at which point it's very noticeable, but also, it's at the end of the movie, which for me, means it didn't leave a strong enough impression.

Don't get the idea, however, that I'm down on the movie. In fact, quite the opposite. I thought it was an excellent film in many aspects. The cinematograph of South America was frequently breathtaking, and the relationship between Guevara and Granado was really the driving force of the film. For me, this film was very much about two lives running parallel for a while, which is what Guevara calls their journey at the end of the film. There lies the resonance of the Motorcycle Diaries for me.

OK, enough is enough. Way too long of a blog. There's no way in hell I'm going back and spell checking this.