Ham Donut

been a while

2006-10-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

Haven't blogged in a while...mainly out of laziness. I think I'm gonna try to start posting something about once a week, on my nights off.

Anyway, the books I read since I last posted:

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway is not a favorite author of mine, by a long shot, but I tried to read this book in high school, and wasn't able to finish it, so I gave it another shot. It wasn't too bad, though I doubt I'll ever read it again.

The Blackboard Jungle by Evan Hunter. Hunter is Ed McBain's real name, which he reserved for his serious literary writing. I love McBain, so it really isn't surprising that I enjoyed this novel immensely.

The Man From St. Petersberg by Ken Follett. Follett is kinda the king of the dumb commercial potboiler with just enough of a dash of actual historical background to keep it from being completely brain atrophying. This was fast paced enough, but completely disposable.

CainX3. An omnibus collection of James M. Cain's three most famous novels. The Postman Always Rings Twice was more quaint than anything else. Of course, my appreciation of it is probably decreased by the extant to which every plot point has been endlessly recycled by hack crime movies and novels for 70 years now.

Mildred Pierce was interesting, though not all that enjoyable. The first half of it struck me as being something like an earthier, less sentimental variation on Imitation of Life...it picked up a bit in the second half, after Veda turned into Darth Bitch. I definately didn't see that last twist coming, and that's impressive.

Double Indemnity was the best of the three.

The Stupidest Angel, by Christopher Moore. Moore is, by far, one of the funniest novelists writing today. He's good enough that he actually manages to make the obligatory Christmas novel that most mainstream writers seem compelled to produce actually worth reading.

Fat Ollie's Book by Ed McBain. Another 87th Precint novel. Fat Ollie is my favorite of the regular characters in this series, and it was nice to have a novel mostly focused on him...unfortunately, McBain chose to dedicate way too much space to Ollie's horribly written novel. The first couple paragraphs of deliberately bad writing were funny, but it became tedious after a couple pages.

Why Darwin Matters by Michael Shermer. Yet another defense of evolutionary theory against the ID wingnuts. This stuff is serious preaching to the converted, for me, but I still enjoy it.

The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie. I found this novel on the library shelf completely by accident. I glanced at it, and wondered if this is the same Hugh Laurie from Blackadder and House. Turns out it is. The novel is a fantastic parody of commercial spy thrillers...though the jacket refers a lot to James Bond, it really reads more like a Robert Ludlum novel, only with a distinct awareness of it's own absurdity. Definately worth the read.

That's really all I have for right now...next week, I might write a bit about my annoying co-workers.

rock star liveblogging, final installment

2006-09-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

Time for the last Rock Star of the year...

Magni is performing first: He's doing his Vegasy version of Fire first...

Toby is next, doing White Wedding, and his karaoke worthy Billy Idol impersonation...

They sent Magni home...much like Storm, he is actually more talented and polished than the actual members of Supernova, so that makes sense.

The Lukas 'highlight' real...someone please shoot me...

It is either going to be Lukas or Dilana...Dilana should win, based on merit...based on what Supernova deserves, it should be Lukas.

Lukas is now boring me with Bittersweet Symphony.

Dilana is doing Zombie again...I don't particularly like this song, and her performance doesn't really make me re-evaluate my opinion.

Toby is doing Somebody Told Me, which is the least annoying song by pre-eminently annoying retro-New Wave fuckwads The Killers. Of all the performers, Toby sounds most consistently like a professional karaoke singer...

I was right, they just sent Toby home.

They just picked Lukas. Fucking morons.

books, jury duty, and rock star liveblogging

2006-09-12T17:52:00.000-07:00

Well, over the weekend, I read:

1. The Guns of Heaven by Pete Hamill. This is the latest book from Hard Case Crime. It is an absolutely fantastic reprint from 1983, dealing with the IRA. I've never read anything else by Hamill, but he is apparently a journalist of some repute. Overall, the book was very similar in tone to the work of Andrew Vachss, one of my favorite writers.

2. Money, Money, Money by Ed McBain. Another 87th Precinct novel. The best one since Mischief. Particularly interesting, in that it is a pre-9/11 novel, featuring Al Qaeda operatives as bad guys...

On Monday, I reported for Jury Duty. There isn't really much interesting to say about it. I sat in a big room for 4 and a half hours, than they gave me $17 and sent me home. I didn't even get to experience a voir dire, which I was kinda looking forward to. I drank some bad cofee, ate some english muffins, and alternately dozed and read bits of For Whome the Bell Tolls.

Now for Rock Star...they brought back Ryan for a special encore, which is boring me to tears...I think it's an original song, but it sounds so much like everything else on the radio right now that I'm not certain...they gave him a car.

Season recap...boring...

they are doing the two songs, one cover, one original thing again...Toby is up first, starting with Karma Police by Radiohead. I hate Radiohead with a fervor equal to that of my hatred for Coldplay, on whom I wished cancer. I wish cancer on Radiohead, too. He's doing the same stupid frat rock song he did last week...only this time Magni is joining him on guitar, isn't that sweet.

Well, this is craptacular. Lukas is doing Fix You by Coldplay. Did I mention I hate Coldplay, and want them to die, as painfully as possible? I did? Good. And his original song is more insufferable emo crap, in ballad form. Oh, it's that Head Spin song...I guess it sounded familiar when he did it on the results show last week, cause it's the same original song he played on the previous episode, and now he's doing it again...do none of these people have more than one original song?

Dilana is starting out with Roxanne...I have to admit, I really liked that...and she actually made good use of the other contestants, singing harmony...her original song, Supersoul, isn't too bad, either...overall, the best performance from Dilana for the last 3 or 4 weeks...

Magni starts with Hush by Deep Purple...not one of my favorite songs...the perfomance is pretty good, though. He's doing the same original he did last week...

Tomorrow is the last show. My vote goes to Dilana. Well, it would if I were to bother voting.

yet another book

2006-09-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

I just finished Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis last night...I wouldn't have thought a novel about an automobile designer going on a European vacation with his annoying twit of a wife would be particularly compelling, but Lewis was such a brilliant writer, he made it genuinely fascinating.

In other news, I will be reporting for Jury Duty in the Washtenaw County Court on Monday morning...that should provide interesting things to write about...

Rock Star Liveblogging, volume 6

2006-09-06T16:54:00.000-07:00

Magni is singing the original Supernova song this week...another power-ballady type thing...instantly forgettable...

Oh, and just so y'all know, the new 'Fruity Cheerios'...absolutely disgusting...I had to dump half the bowl down the toilet...

Whoever sings the encore wins a Honda...And it goes to Toby, for his vomit inducing original song...which he dedicates to Steve Irwen.

Storm, who gave last night's best performance, is in the bottom three. She's doing Wish You Were Here, by far my favorite Floyd song...better not fuck it up...this is underwhelming...too American Idoly by half...

Dilana is next...she's doing a lame punk version of I Want You To Want Me...bad punk covers of non-punk songs is one trend that I really wish would go away...I mean, Social Distortion did a great job with Ring of Fire, but most punk bands aren't nearly as cool as them, so cut it the fuck out.

Lukas is the last in the bottom three...hopefully, they kick has ass off, finally. But, between now and than, 3-5 minutes of suck. He's doing some song I don't know called Head Spin. This might be a good song, but I'd never be able to tell from Lukas' lame as usual performance. Actually, now that he's done the chorus, I seem to recall hearing this on the radio at some point...it must have just washed over me like most craptacular modern rock does...

The fucking morons got rid of Storm.

I hate titles

2006-09-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

So, I've read three more novels since the last time I bothered writing anything.

The Last Dance, by Ed Mcbain, is the 50th novel in his 87th Precinct series. It was nothing spectacular, but was nicely paced, and I got through it in one sitting.

The Island of Dr. Moreau, by H.G. Wells. This is one of those books I should have probably read years ago, but never got around to. I honestly wasn't that impresses, though how much that has to do with the actual quality of the writing, and how much with the fact that I pretty much already knew the entire story from the various knock-offs and film adaptations I've encountered over the years, I can't really say. I found it to be slow paced, and rather ponderous.

The Dirty Dozen, by E. M. Nathanson. I wonder how many people in the last 30 years or so have actually read this book? Pretty much everyone has seen the movie, of course...and the book is significantly different. It has a much more somber, sad mood than the film. It is also pretty much completely about the training, with the mission covered, seemingly almost as an afterthought, only in the last 20 pages or so...

Anyway, time for more Rock Star Live Blogging! Woohoo!

They apparently made each of the 'rockers' write an original song with Gilby, and they have to play it in a set with their other song selection.

Dilana starts out, making something utterly boring out of Behind Blue Eyes. I mean, that was just dead in the water. Her original song has no hooks, no real melody, is just kinda sludgy and pointless...maybe she's getting lazy, maybe she just is showing her limitations...

Well, Magni is giving his usual Vegas cabaret treatment to Back in the USSR...Magi's original song actually has some life to it...I wouldn't buy this on cd, or waste time downloading it, but I wouldn't turn away from it in disgust if I came across it on the radio...

Storm is doing Suffragette City, with Navarro on guitar...not impressing me at all...so far, Storm's original song is the best original piece of music that any of the contestants have done this season...

next up, Lukas brings the suck hardcore, yet again.

Lukas is totally ruining Living on a Prayer...he's turning it into a fucking emo-ass dirge...this is new depths of suck...a true personal worst for Lukas, and that's sayin something...and now, oh joy, Lukas' original song...it's about his mom...how sweet...more emo-bullshit.

Toby is singing Mr. Brightside...and he is doing another karaoke-esque imitation of the singer who did the original version...of course, this song sucks to begin with, so at least he can't ruin it...and his original song is tuneless frat-rock bullshit...

Well, Storm would get my vote tonight, if I were to bother voting, which I won't.

Rock Star liveblogging, volume 4

2006-08-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

well, recaps and happy talk are done...time for Lukas to bring the suck yet again on a Supernova song. Oh joy, a power ballad. This is so bad that words fail me. It'll probably be a huge hit on modern rock radio stations nation wide...ya know, if Lukas shaved off his weird facial hair, he'd look like Thom Yorke would after a sex change...

I just noticed that Dilana is wearing a Viking Helmet. Between her, and Flava Flav, maybe this stands a chance of becoming a true fashion trend...

Toby is doing an encore of his bad Billy Idol impression...I'll ignore it, and take this opportunity to write about something else...

Last night, I read All the Flowers Are Dying, by Lawrence Block. This is the 16th and most recent volume of his Matthew Scudder novels, and, frankly, it would be the perfect last novel in the series. It brings a pretty near perfect emotional resolution for both Matthew and Elaine, and it was probably the best book in a consistently excellent series. It would be nice to see it retired in top form, instead of going through the slow slide to mediocrity seen in many long running series...

Actually, Dilana isn't wearing a full Viking Helmet...just a pair of horns on a plastic band...lame...

Ryan is the first of the bottom three this week...he'll be ruining Baba O'Reilly tonight. He's already making it sound emo, less than 30 seconds in. He starts out emo, and segues into this constipated pseudo-Fogerty kinda thing, and goes back to emo on the bridge...I think he might actually be drunk...

Storm is next. I love the fact that she is actually enthusiastic about being in the bottom three...she's doing Helter Skelter...I think everyone's drunk tonight...this is just really sloppy and all over the place...

Dilana is the last one in the bottom three. She's doing Psycho Killer...this will be either awesome, or horrible...I'm liking this a lot...not that fond of the weird yodelling stuff, and she seems to not know any of the french lyrics for the bridge...otherwise, pretty damn good.

They should get rid of Ryan. In fact, I'm 99% certain that Ryan is who they will get rid of.

Tommy is a genius 'Ryan, after nine weeks, you are probably the only cat who'se come the farthest.' True eloquence.

Anyway, they got rid of Ryan. wheee

Rock Star liveblogging, volume 3

2006-08-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

Well, time for another Rock Star. Woot.

Dilana is apparently all stressed over being the front-runner. Boo-hoo.

Apparently, there was some kind of online vote to determine what songs they perform this week...I missed out.,..ah well.

Lukas is about to fuck over Lithium. This is the worst arrangement I've ever heard of this song...that piano just does not work. Lukas still sounds like the lead singer from Buck Cherry with a bad sinus infection...

Navarro did another of his compliment fake-outs...where he starts out sounding like he's about to slam the performance, and than he says it was 'awesome'...

Magni is doing I Alone by Live...I'm totally indifferent to this song...and to the performance.

Ryan is doing Clocks by Coldplay. I hate Coldplay. I wish they would die, preferably by some kind of horrible disease, like bowel cancer or chronic rickets, and that all their songs would be destroyed and forgotten. Needless to say, this sucks beyond all measure.

Storm is doing Bring Me To Life by Evanescence...another band I hate, though not with the same passion as Coldplay...She's actually improving this song...kinda polishing a turd, but at least I don't completely hate it...

Toby is doing Rebel Yell...good song...the performance would be better if he weren't doing a bad Billy Idol impression...just sing the damn thing like yourself...as it is, this is just bad karaoke.

Apparently, to Gilby, a bad Billy Idol impression takes it 'to a new level'...

Dilana is doing Mother, Mother...a truly annoying song...good performance, but the song still leaves me cold...

Well, if I were going to bother to vote tonight, it would be for Storm.

the books I read this weekend

2006-08-28T18:09:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend, I read three books.

1. The Big Bad City by Ed McBain...the 49th of his 54 87th Precinct novels. I started reading this series last summer, and now I only have 5 more of them left. This particular one was just average for the series. In fact, it was so average, I can't even think of much of anything to say about it...

2. Six Easy Pieces by Walter Mosley. Strangely enough, this book contains 7 short stories, all featuring Easy Rollins. The stories were all solid, but I do have a minor problem with the return of Mouse. Now, I knew from having read reviews that Mouse returned to the series, despite having been apparently killed at the end of A Little Yellow Dog. I was curious to see if Mosley came up with an eplanation for Mouse's survival that didn't come across as 'I brought him back cause the fans were pissed that he died.' Unfortunately, Mosley did not succeed, at least for me, in avoiding the appearance of pandering.

3. From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne. Much better than I thought it would be. The extreme exuberance, shared by most early science fiction, was more charming than annoying for some reason(this same exuberance made E. E. Doc Smith's Lensmen series almost unreadable...)

I than attempted to watch the Joseph Cotton adaptation of From the Earth to the Moon, which I had dvr'd, but it was so horrible I had to stop after 10 minutes.

Yesterday, I watched Wait Until Dark. Audrey Hepburn chewed the scenery, her husband was a dick, that little girl annoyed the fuck out of me, and Alan Arkin was a truly mesmerizing psychopath...

another book, and more movies

2006-08-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights by David S. Reynolds. I've always been fascinated by Brown, and I found this book to be a great read.

Reynolds makes the argument, quite convincingly, that Brown was just as important a figure in the story of American liberty as George Washington. Admittedly, I've always believed this, so he was somewhat preaching to the choir.

One of the more interesting sections of the book dealt with the Southern culture of violence, and I was struck by how similar the Antebellum Southern vendettas and feuds were to the thug and gangsta blustering of modern hip-hop culture.
...

I have also been long convinced that the most contemptible of all modern political movements are the Neo-Confederates, who I consider to be essentially the same as Holocaust deniers, in the way they re-write history our of one side of their mouths, whilst glorifying the very things they claim were exagerated or fabricated out of the other.
...

Anyway, some more movies I've watched:

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein: Maybe I'm missing something, but Abbott and Costello really aren't that funny. This movie bored me to tears, and I actually feel sorry for Bela Lugosi.

My Man Godfrey: It seems that the plot of quite a few of the old screwball comedies involved psychotic stalker women intimidating or brow-beating hapless men into marrying them. Though this movie had a couple funny moments, overall I found it rather reprehensible.

Ninotchka: Greta Garbo gives one of the funniest performances in the history of film, at least for her first 15 minutes or so of screen time...once she starts being transformed from the monotonal hyper-commie into the doe-eyed romantic ninny, the movie loses quite a bit of steam...though the story was interesting enough to hold my attention, at least.

The Lavender Hill Mob: Quite a nifty little heist film. Not much substance to it, but Alec Guinness is as fantastic as he always is, and the movie keeps a brisk pace.

Charade: A pretty damn near perfect suspense film...every single twist actually surprised me. I don't think I'll bother watching Jonathan Demme's remake, The Truth About Charley, cause who wants to watch Mark Wahlberg trying to match Cary Grant?

Anyway, that's all for now.

Rock Star live blogging, volume 2

2006-08-23T16:53:00.000-07:00

recap of last night...boring...

after the performances, all the guys apparently whined about how much more talented Dilana is than they are...

I wonder if the Supernova song tonight is gonna be as lame as last week...

Toby is performing with them tonight...well, this is derivative...the music sounds like Queens of the Stone Age...this is really horrible, actually...Toby sounds like he doesn't even care...he probably knows it sucks...

Turns out Dilana hates Lukas, too...I knew she was my kinda girl.

Now everyone's bagging on Dilana...

no encore tonight

Magni is the first bottom 3 performer...he is doing Fire by Jimi Hendrix...this is completely unremarkable...like some kindof Vegas rock cabaret type thing...perfectly competent, but not a hell of a lot more...

Patrice is next, oh boy. She's doing her own arrangement of Middle of the Road...and it sucks. big time. well, I guess I should be thankful she isn't ruining Brass in Pocket, my favorite Pretenders song...

Meanwhile, I just upgraded my DirecTV service...ordered their guide magazine, upgraded to the 190 channel program, added the Playboy channel...

Last bottom 3 performer is Toby. He will be doing Plush...another song I hate...so, this will be painful. Now this is just bad karaoke.

They could get rid of any of these three, or all of them, for all I care. I just wish Lukas were in the bottom 3, so I could actually cheer for someone to lose...ok, that drum solo thing was just weird.

Patrice is gone. ah well.

That's all I have to say.

two more dvr comments, and Rock Star Supernova liveblogging, volume 1

2006-08-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

First, stuff I dvr'd, and watched:

Soylent Green: Of course, we all know that in 2020, the Soylent corporation solves the dual problems of overpopulation and dwindling resources by converting people into tasty snack crackers...but, personally, I found the apparent scarcity of primary colors far more disturbing...only rich people seem to have anything bright red or blue in abundance...

The Third Man: I can't really think of much to say about this. Brilliant film. If you haven't seen, you should correct that as quickly as possible.

Anyways, onwards to Rock Star: Supernova...in which Gilby Clark, Jason Newsted and Tommy Lee attempt to find a new lead singer for their crap-ass band, Supernova. I'm addicted to this show. I'm not entirely certain why.

It's about halfway through the season, and I'm only starting to blog about it now because in the previous house, my computer was no where near my tv. Anyways, as of this moment, it's about 15 minutes until the show starts, so I'll let this sit...

That commercial for The Class is the lamest thing ever...

Rehash of the reality show episode(which is only broadcast online)...who gives a shit...

Gilby brought his dog...Dave Navarro actually said 'what up, dog' to it...Tommy should have cock-whipped him for that...

Patrice, who has never made much of an impression on me, is doing an original song...which, true to form, is making no impression on me. It's called 'Beautiful Thing', and is just so completely middle of the road...that was totally underwhelming. I've thought from the beginning that this show really needs a Simon Cowell...everyone is just much nicer than the performances generally warrant...

oh, fuck, they're doing another Nirvana song after the commercial...

Magni is doing Smells Like Teen Spirit...if this doesn't suck, I'll be stunned...As is always the case with Nirvana, he's oversinging it...his little tapping his heart gesture and pointing at the other contestants during the 'our little group has always been and always will until the end' line was truly annoying...smarmy and false.

Ryan is doing an original song...this guy has annoyed me from day one...he's the most emo of the group, and his original song is just driving that home...it's better than Patrice's song, but still not good by any reasonable standard...dude, I think his voice broke on that last note...

The way I see it, at this point, the serious competition is only between Storm and Dilana...Storm is next doing a song I hate, Crying by Aerosmith...

It's hard to evaluate performances of songs I actively dislike...I guess Storm is doing a good job on Crying, but I just hate the song so much...Storm just called Navarro a bitch...that endears her to me tremendously.

Dilana is doing Every Breath You Take...a song I love...that was kinda weird...not bad, not all that great, just weird...I think she was channeling Zaiyra(not at all certain if that was spelled right...)

Toby is turning Layla into an emo song...someone shoot him, please. The world did not need to know what it would sound like if Fall Out Boy did a Clapton song...this is just horrendous...

Lukas is up last...and, as usual, I expect him to bring the suck hardcore...

He is doing All These Things by The Killers...perfect pairing of a song that sucks with a singer who sucks even harder...That was appaling on more levels than I can enumerate...

Usually, there are one or two performances on any given episode that I really like...not tonight, though...

Come back tomorrow for my commentary on the results show...

some review type thingies.

2006-08-20T19:25:00.000-07:00

Anyways, yesterday I read Mask Market by Andrew Vachss(I'd link this, but I have a shitty dial up connection for the moment, and it's too much of a pain in the ass.) Vachss is one of my favorite novelists, and this book was a solid entry in the Burke series. Not as brilliant as Safe House or Dead and Gone, but far from False Allegations(the series low point, imho).

My one real complaint...the character of Loyal. This woman is the most annoying Burke babe since Nadine in Choice of Evil. I kepth hoping Vachss would send her to a similar fate to that so unjustly sufferred by Crystal Beth...but no such luck...though at least she presumably won't be back in the next book, thank FSM.

On another front, I now have DirectTV(Comcast can take their $40 for 60 some channels and go fuck themselves) and I've been DVRing the hell out of Turner Classic Movies.

some quick observations:

THX 1138: Apparently, people (i.e., George Lucas) used to think that consumerism would lead to everyone eventually having shaved heads, identical jumpsuits, and lots of psych meds...well, one out of three ain't bad...

Bringing Up Baby: Damn, Katherine Hepburn was hot in her day...though, personally, I think a protection order might have been a more rational response on Cary Grant's part...

The Bad News Bears: I know it was the '70's, but wouldn't someone have objected more strenously to the coach giving a bunch of 10 year olds beers to celebrate the big win?

The Magnificent Ambersons: Wow. Just fucking wow. I think that Orson Welles would have been completely justified in murdering pretty much everyone involved in butchering this film...It makes me wish that I weren't an atheist, so that I could believe that certain studio executives were burning in hell for an eternity.

F For Fake: A genius bit of mindfuckery, also from Orson Welles...I think that this(his last movie as a director), and Citizen Kane, may be his only two movies that weren't compromised in some way by either studio interference, or the chronic lack of budget he suffered on his Shakespearian movies...

Well, I'm spent.

been a while...

2006-08-20T18:51:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been over a month since my last post.

The only thing really new is that I'm now in my own apartment. I have my own bathroom and kitchen for the first time in over 3 years. I am positively bursting with joy.

I can't really think of much to write about just at the moment, other than this:

The other day, a co-worker asked to buy me breakfast. I didn't particularly want to eat breakfast with this co-worker. He is a grown man who cries in front of other grown men when his hours are cut down due to some rather stupid things he did one morning. I can deal with people yelling at me, swearing at me, etc...but a grown man crying in front of me just leaves me speechless...

Anyway, I agreed to go because he just seems so sad and lonely, and, besides, he was paying.

We went to a place called the City Diner. It was ok, but not great, diner food. The striking thing about the restaurant, though, was that the waitress and I were the only two people there who appeared to weigh less than 350 pounds.

Now, I'm not a small guy. I'm about 50 pounds heavier than I should be(though I have lost about 15 lbs in the 2 weeks since I moved into the new place...probably cause I'm actually using my own kitchen most days, instead of eating massive amounts of fast food) but jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick, this place was disturbing. One woman who walked by me had an ass in one cheek of which you could have fit two of me. I happened to notice that the waitress, who looked to be 135 lb. at most, was in pretty much constant motion...obviously out of abject terror that if she stopped for a moment, she might be swallowed whole.

Anyway, that's all for now.

gastrointestinal freakout

2006-07-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

A couple mornings ago, after taking a dump, I totally freaked out when I glanced in the toilet, and saw that my leavings were bright red. I was like, 'holy shit, I need to call an ambulance!' And than I remembered I'd eaten three slices of the red velvet cake that someone had left in the refrigerator at work that night, and calmed down.

That's all.

Becoming Corky

2006-06-26T17:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog, this has been the best day ever!

Well, this morning at work I discovered I had a food allergy of which I was previously unaware...

At about 3:30am, I went up to the break room to get a snack from the vending machine. They did not bother refilling the vending machine this week, which they usually do every Wednesday. Not this week, however. Which means that the stock had been depleted to the gum that no one ever buys, Cheez-Its, Trail-Mix and Jolly Ranchers. I got a bag of Cheez-Its, and chose the Trail Mix over the Jolly Ranchers, which came in a pack of 9, as I wanted a quick snack, not something that would last me until September.

This was bad. Apparently, my body does not like something in the trail mix, as, about 5 minutes after I finished it, my lips began swelling up, I got throbbing pains in my upper respiratory system, and I started itching all over. This was not fun.

I sat there, in growing discomfort, trying to figure out what caused this. I immediately discounted the peanuts, raisins and almonds, as I have had all of those things in the very recent past, with no ill effects. This leaves sunflower seeds and these weird, chocolate chip shaped yogurt thingies. I do not think I'll be doing a trial and error, though...I think I'll just avoid both those things for the rest of my life.

Anyway, I was going to tough this out until my shift ended at 7:30am, but than I discovered at 4:30 that the balooning of my lips had transformed my enunciation into that of Corky, the lovable mongoloid from Life Goes On. This, in a job which requires me to speak to people for the last 50 minutes or so, is not good. So, I called the site supervisor, who, fortunately, was able to come in and relieve me 2 and a half hours early. I went home, stole some of my room-mates allergy medicine, and laid down.

When I got up, around 10:30, my lips had deflated enough for me to talk normal, and I was no longer all itchy, but my eylids were still swollen half shut.

Now, as of 9:00pm, everything seems to be back to normal.

Wow, that sucked.

The landlady, conveniently, was engaged in the rear...

2006-06-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I've just got a couple random things today...

-First of all, the title of this post is a line of narration that appears on page 209 of Madison Smartt Bell's Straight Cut, the most recent publication from the magnificent Hard Case Crime imprint. This is a rather dour, slow paced, and very serious piece of crime literature. But that line pretty much broke my immersion in the story. I had to take a moment.

-Last night, I watched to film adaption of John Godey's novel The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. The novel was quite good, and the movie was an almost impeccable adaptation. There was one glaring change, though. The Transit Cop played by Walter Mathau in the movie was black in the book. I can't help but wonder if the film-makers sat down at some point in pre-production and said something like 'hmm...unfortunately, Sidney Poitier, James Earl Jones and Yaphet Koto are all busy...hey, how about Walter Mathau?' I mean, WTF?

I was going to write about something else, too, but a minor crisis with Zombie's children has caused me to completely forget what.

sitemeter mystery

2006-05-25T19:43:00.000-07:00

Well, according to my sitemeter, I have my first repeat reader, other than my room-mate. Someone from Ypsilanti, the same town I live in, has viewed my blog twice. The first time, on a search for 'stalker coworker', the second time, just a half an hour ago, on a search for Ham Donut.

After the first instance, I assumed the one co-worker I had told about my blog had passed the information onto the other co-worker knows as The Stalker. Turns out this isn't the case.

So, if my Ypsilanti reader could satisfy my curiosity, and let me know how he/she ended up searching 'stalker coworker' this past monday, and what about my blog brought them back tonight, I'd appreciate it. I'm all about customer service and demographics, and shit.

Another Interesting Coworker...This One With a Dragon Fetish

2006-05-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

The Stalker, written about in a previous post, is not the only, um, interesting, individual we've had come through our ranks.

Today, I will tell you of a true giant among men, a hero for our times, a man with a glorious destiny, and a really lame looking cloak(which management told him not to wear, cause it made him look like a hobbit. Well, actually, I told him it made him look like a hobbit, not management, but they still made him stop wearing it.) The Dragon Elf Lord.

The Dragon Elf Lord, or DEL from now on, did not call himself that. He did, however, tell me that he was part Dragon and part Elf. Hence, Dragon Elf Lord. The DEF was obssessed with all things military, played live action roll playing games, was a self described Gorean, and believed that he and a select group of his friends, whom he called Guardians, were the chosen ones who would prevent the coming appocalypse.

The DEL, like the Stalker, also saw ghosts on a regular basis. Unlike the Stalker, however, who'se ghosts are the unobstrusive, causing flowery smells, leaving messages on mirrors, types, the DEL's ghosts were the Poltergeisty, throwing people across rooms, type.

Also, unlike The Stalker, who goes on about ghosts to anyone and everyone at the site, The DEL limited his tale of epic destiny to a select audience. Specifically, me. Because I mentioned early in his employment that I used to be into Aleister Crowley. Apparently, this made me more receptive in his eyes to his tales of magick and mayhem in Michigan. Never mind the fact that most of the so-called magick he described bore no resemblance whatsoever to either the classic grimoires, or the modern ceremonial tradition, and quite a bit of resemblance to Dungeons and Dragons, of which I only know what other geeks have gone on at length to me about. All the other employees just got earfuls about military technology and Buffy fanfic.

Anyway, he hasn't been with us for about two years now, but here's a summary of his wordview, the best I can recall it. In the beginning, a bunch of dragons got together with the Biblical God, and created the Earth. There has been a battle between good and evil ever since. Today, the battle is coming to a head, and a select group of people, called Guardians, will save the world from the coming demon invasion, by positioning themselves around 'hellgates'(at least a dozen of which are located right here in Michigan), and killing the demons as they come out.

There was a lot more to it, of course, but that's a good skeletal outline.

He also claimed to possess a collar, which he had made, which would turn anyone who wears it into his sexual slave.

He was eventually fired because no one could read his handwriting.

Dragon Elf Lord, we hardly knew ye.

some thoughts on the subject of love

2006-05-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

A person I care about very deeply is currently going through quite an ordeal, and I think that a large part of it has to do with some very sick ideas about love that way too many people seem to hold. I'm going to try to keep this post as general as possible, so as not to make it another part of the 'Art of War for Retards', as I myself called it, over on the talkbacks of another blog.

This is going to be a bit disorganized, and somewhat sloppy. I'm muddling through here a bit.

I think possibly the most dangerous commonly held idea about love is that if you love someone,(or, at least, think that you love someone) that person somehow owes you an emotional debt, regardless of their own feelings. Unrequited love is painful, but other people are not the custodians of our feelings.

The notion of 'love' as some freefloating thing that needs to be acknowledged and returned is also dangerous, in that it makes it easier for the person who claims to be in love to behave in very unloving ways, and feel justified because of the intensity of their emotions. Not only does it justify so many decidedly unpleasant behaviors, if the 'love' is not returned, it gives them the further feeling of being a martyr.

People need to own their own feelings. This means acknowledging that what you to other people is pretty much completely irrelevant to how they feel, or should feel, about you. The only standard that another person has for judging what you feel towards them is how you behave. If you feel love, but act in a hateful manner, than the object of your 'love' is perfectly justified in seeing you as a monster.

Anyway, I don't know if this is just a bunch of pretentious bullshit, or something someone might be interested in, but there it is.

Tales of the Stalker

2006-05-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

Well, I decided not to go see The Da Vinci Code. So, I can't blog about it. I know that the 3 random people who came across this on searches for Jennifer Garner or Peter Jackson will be oh so disappointed, but that's the way it goes.

Instead, I want to tell you about The Stalker. The Stalker is one of my co-workers. The Stalker is not a name I made up. It's what he calls himself, and insists that others call him.

The first time I met The Stalker, about 3 months ago, he came in a 45 minutes early for his shift, and made me a captive audience for his stories about his experiences as a ghost-hunter. Within 20 minutes, he summed up about 50 tales of haunted trailer-parks which he had exorcised or something...he never really makes it clear what he does with ghosts once he finds them, though it is apparent that he can't go anywhere at all without stumbling over 10 ghosts.

He eventually got around to asking my views on ghosts...the following is a more or less accurate transcript of the exchange that followed:

Me: Well, I don't actually believe in ghosts. In fact, I forget who said it, but I've always liked the quote 'There are no haunted places, only haunted people.'

The Stalker: What!?! Well, where do you think you go when you die?

Me: I think we pretty much just cease to exist.

The Stalker: Don't you believe in God?

Me: No. In fact, I don't believe in anything supernatural.

The Stalker: Not even Jesus?

Me: No. Not even Jesus.

The Stalker: Well, than I guess there's no point in continuing this conversation. So, I had this girlfriend once who was hearing strange noises from the back of her van, and I looked into it, and found out that the previous owner had killed himself in the back, and so...blah, blah, blah.

The man is incapable of not talking. And 99% of what he says is abject bullshit, even when he isn't going on about ghosts.

One morning, he was telling me and another co-worker about a buddy of his who was in prison at some point.(He never calls his buddies 'buddies' or 'friends', like a normal person, btw...they're all 'partners in crime.) He said that this friend had killed 8 people while in prison. He than informed us that if you kill someone in prison, they add a year to your sentence. The other co-worker, who is a former parole offices, was visibly supressing laughter, while I pointed out that if you kill someone in prison, they actually have to give you another trial, just like if you kill someone on the outside, before they can add any more time to the sentence. The Stalker said something resembling 'mrpmh, um, which zone do you want me to start in?'

The Stalker also claims to be owed $20,000 by some local hooker, once informed me that ghosts smell like roses or jasmine, and we are all pretty certain that he's the one who left the huge spray of diarhea(that I came 3 inches short of sitting in) over the back of the porta john in one of the lots we guard.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Tom Cruise Is Jennifer Garner...

2006-05-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I just saw Mission Impossible: III. I'm not really going to bother writing a review, other than to say that if you want to see stuff getting blown up, framed within a script that isn't as egregiously insulting to the intelligence as the Miami Vice remake looks like it will be, than this is the movie for you.

I do have a few observations, though:

There are two major action set pieces that bothered me. One is in Berlin, the other in Shanghai. Neither of these are cities in which the locals would exactly take in stride major gun battles erupting on their streets. Admittedly, the Berlin sequence is on the outskirts of town, in an abandoned factory, but, still, someone would notice. The Shanghai sequence involves a gun battle and car chase right in the middle of their downtown. Why wasn't there a single police car? The Chinese has plenty of police. If they had managed to even include the sound of a siren somewhere in the surround mix, my suspension of disbelief would have remained undisturbed. But, no, not a single police vehicle in evidence.

It's nice to see that Laurence Fishburne is no longer channeling William Shatner.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman fucking rocks. He owned the screen in all of his scenes...especially when kicking Cruise's ass all over the place.

I think it was a mistake for J. J. Abrams to make this his first motion picture. As respectable a film as it was, it was still an Alias episode with a different cast.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll write about The Da Vinci Code next week, and probably some other shit between now and than.

Greenaway!

2006-05-09T18:26:00.000-07:00

One of my Netflix DVDs this week was the recently released early Peter Greenaway film The Falls. For those of you who haven't seen this, and that probably includes pretty much all of hald dozen people who've actually seen this blog so far, this film is a 3 and a quarter hour long pseudo-documentary about something called the VUE, or Violent Unknown Event. This Event has something to do with birds, and caused many thousands of people to mutate in weird and unpredictable ways, become convinced that they can fly(and, in at least a few cases, actually acquire the ability to do so) and begin speaking in new, previously unknown languages. The film is structured as a collection of case studies, 92 in all, of VUE victims with names that begin with the letters f a l l.

The film is sometimes tedious, sometimes seems like an especially drawn out and dry Monty Python sketch, and pretty much always obssessively odd. It took me three sitting to get through the entire film, and, though I'll probably never watch it again, it was worth seeing. I'd only really recommend it to Greenaway completists(which if you are in America, is a difficult thing to be, considering how many of his major works have never been released here...I want The Baby of Macon and The Tulse Luper Suitcases, dammit. FSM only knows if Nightwatching will get an American release...)

The disk also includes Vertical Features Remake, a short film, also a pseudo-documentary, about an attempt by a group of academic film-scholars to reconstruct a lost avant-garde film by the fictional artist, Tulse Luper. Very, very odd. It plays almost like a pedantically arty ancestor to Peter Jackson's Forgotten Silver.

books, books, books, plus, two things I learned from Hostel

2006-05-08T16:29:00.000-07:00

I read. I read a lot. I have a job which, for the most part, facilitates this. I sit in a lot where one of the major car companies keeps the vehicles they give out to their excutives as percs. I sit there, and by my presence, repel would be car thieves. While doing this, I read. Every now and than, a delivery of new cars arrives, and I have to do actual work. That part of the job sucks.

I have a tendancy to glut on specific genres for long periods of time. A couple years ago, I read nothing but science fiction for almost a year. There was a spy fiction period, and a horror period, and, most recently, a hard boiled crime/police procedural period. When I realize that there has been not much variety in my reading for a while, instead of just starting to read other stuff, I tend to come up with weird courses and plans to break the pattern. Most recently, I have partnered my love of movies with my love of books by deciding to watch, through Netflix, every best picture nominated movie available on dvd. I will also be reading any novel or short story from which one of these movies was adapted before viewing the movie(except, of course, where I simply can't find a copy of the book anywhere...as was the case with the novel that 42nd Street was adapted from. Bookfinder couldn't even locate a copy.

Anyways, I've made it almost through 1934. I've discovered a couple authors I quite like (Sinclair Lewis, Edna Ferber), I've learned that Hemmingway is just as annoying now that I'm 30 as he was when I was 16, and I actually forced myself to read Little Women. I can conclusively say that I am not in Ms. Alcott's primary demographic. In fact, the movie of that novel is one of only two that I wasn't able to watch all the way through. The other one, The Front Page, I had to give up on because the sound transfer was so horrible I couldn't understand a single line of dialogue. Little Women, however, was beautifully tranferred in all ways. It just had me begging for a bullet through my head at about the half hour mark...

Other things I've been reading lately: Just started Cathedral by Nelson DeMille. I only discovered DeMille within the last year. The guy is pretty damn amazing. Cathedral may be one of the most perfect suspense thrillers ever written.

I'm also devouring everything published by Hard Case Crime, a publisher dedicated to reviving old school type pulp crime fiction. I've got all 20 of the novels they've put out so far, and with the exception of Donald Hamilton's Night Walker, which sucked major ass, they are all well worth reading.

Also, just a few minutes ago, Zombie and I watched Eli Roth's Hostel, the touching story of a group of friends on vacation in a quaint Eastern European town, where they all get either killed or mutilated in various ways. I learned two things from this movie: 1. Europeans are creepy. 2. When trying to escape from said creepy Europeans, it might not be the best idea to drag along the shocked out Japanese chick with one eye.

That's all for now.

Greetings, and The Promise

2006-05-07T16:59:00.000-07:00

Hi. This is my new blog. It will be mostly about movies I've seen and books I've read.

Anyways, right to the point. Last night, I saw The Promise. This was a beautiful, but incomprehensible, martial arts movie. Here's the setup: a grubby little girl steals a pastry from the hand of a dead soldier on a battlefield. A little boy, the son of the general who commanded these dead troups, captures her, and says he will let her keep the pastry, if she promises to be his slave. She promises, but than hits him over the head and runs. At this point, a floaty haired goddess appears to the little girl, and says that she can have all the beauty and riches in the world in exchange for never experiencing a lasting love. The girl agrees. Floaty haired goddess tells her that her destiny is now set, and cannot be changed unless time flows backwards, the dead rise, etc.

Flash forward twenty years...

At this point, saying any more would spoil the story, such as it is. Suffice to say that there is much fighting, political intrigue, mistaken identity, dudes who can run really fricking fast, apparently because they are from 'The Land of Snow', a chick being flown like a kite, and the floaty haired goddess makes a couple more equally cryptic appearances.

If you can get past the 'wtf' iducing plot, it's easy to appreciate the fact that every 2-5 minutes you'll see something simply jaw droppingly beautiful. I would recommend this movie, but only to people who can appreciate style-over-substance film-making.

Well, that's all for now. I'll do some book-blogging tomorrow, I think.