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| Thursday, September 30
1:31 PM : : fine whine.  at what age should people be expected to gain maturity? sure it's variable for all people and it depends on your environment and your genetic makeup, but there should be an age where maturity is a must. as an elder statesman now -- in the world of young adults -- i feel like maturity should be within striking distance by the age of twenty. anytime i meet anyone who's eighteen or nineteen, i feel like they have a right to be immature still. they are fresh out of high school, fresh into life, they get a few years. but by the magical age of twenty, you should be able to carry yourself as an adult. not all the time but when it counts.signs of immaturity? i can't really pinpoint this. immaturity is essentially "behaving like a child." using this as a definition, immaturity would be anything that includes excessive whining, complaining, inability to react properly in social situations, inability to handle basic responsibilities (although this is a slightly separate issue). for some reason, part of maturity for me, as it pertains to girls, is linked with giggling. the more they giggle, the more i feel a girl is immature. yes, this is a terrible assumption but hey, what can i do? excessive giggling triggers a middle school flashback for me. by the way, gossiping is not immature. giggling and gossiping can go hand in hand. but giggling for no reason is just atrocious. for guys, immaturity is linked directly to the amount of stupid things a guy will do or say. immaturity is throwing bottles out of a speeding car. immaturity is pantsing children at day care, when you are working for the day care. immaturity is also an inability to work well with others. or at least, to get along with others. there's a lot of leeway here, for people who are just people averse based on personality or mindset, but if you can't be trusted around others, then you're probably immature. if you can't be trusted to be next to me in public, due to your tendency for doing embarassing things, you're immature. if you like to walk into a room, fart, laugh, and leave, you're immature. ahem. if you make comments like "black people are so loud!" then you're either immature, stupid or racist. probably all the above. i think it's a problem when guys are subtly encouraged by society to be immature. as a little boy, it's okay to be mischievious and a little out of control. after all, wouldn't you be a little worried if your precocious male heir never got in some trouble? this carries on to into adolescence and adulthood. we brush off the immature acts of males as just "boys being boys." but think about it, if a girl acted the way a guy does at eighteen (oftentimes much older), they would get tossed into ms manners school, like that. snap snap. i would donate money to start a manners school for boys. we need this more than one for girls, don't you think? drinking is the ultimate excuse to exercise your immaturities. if you act like an idiot while you're drunk, you're showing your true colors as far as i'm concerned. i'm writing you off as a mature person, forever. there's a difference between having fun and being crazy and wild and being stupid. breaking things for no reason? immature. crapping (literal and not) in a foreign country's downtown area just because you can? immature. when i was in china, i watched so many americans get piss drunk and disrespectful just because they could. i wanted to kill them all. i'm not only pro death penalty but i don't really have problems being the one to enforce it. assault weapons are back right? anyway, the drunk people issue is a separate one, so i'll leave it. anyway, my point is, by the age of twenty, i expect maturity from you. even if it's in a raw unprocessed form. i figure that if you've shown no glimmers of maturity by twenty, you're a lost cause and will be doomed to be one of those middle aged people who act like they're in kindergarten. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Wednesday, September 29
1:45 AM : : self-knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Tuesday, September 28
3:38 PM : : that's the only thing i really learned in college... sometimes i get that not so fresh feeling.  really, what does one get out of college? aside from friends, unforgettable experiences and a certificate of achievement? education? bah, humbug. are people actually getting educated in college? i mean, undergrad college? the college experience with parties, late nights and more classes skipped than attended? i often think back on what i got out of my college experience and on that list, education would rank very low indeed.sure i learned some things, some facts and knowledge were picked up, haphazardly and unwillingly. and maybe that was the problem, i wasn't in college to learn, i was there to get through it. once you put a book with a deadline in front of me, i'm no longer absorbing. i object to the timeline of school. how can you learn when you are forced into writing papers every two weeks? i want to sit under an olive tree and ponder the meaning of each sentence, not skim a book for major themes and passages. what's the point of being able to say "i read that book" or "i took that class" when you can no longer remember anything three weeks later? someone who took school seriously, or at least studiously, tell me if you learned while in school. i know some people got a lot out of school (the successful people perhaps), but i think i speak for most people when i say "i didn't learn shit." does college education do "no more for american youth than supply them the satisfaction of a college degree?" i (and apparently, many employers) say, "yes." "professor epstein’s own guess is that not more than two percent of those who attend college are lit up, intellectually and culturally, by the experience. 'most people come away from college, happy souls, quite unscarred by what has gone on in the classroom. the education and culture they are presumably exposed to at college never lay a glove on them. this is the big dirty secret of higher education in america.' " i think i've said this before, that parts of me wishes that i had to gone to a liberal arts college. or at least a smaller college where the environment that was more focused on academics. michigan is a great school but it's too easy to get sucked into extracurriculars. people at cafes and libraries were more likely to be talking about the latest frat parties than the latest class assignments. at least that's the michigan i knew. and i was barely an outsider in the pursuit of hedonistic pleasure so it's not like i was socially swamped. i just mucked around college, avoiding the mass of people and ideas that are supposed to come when tossed into an "intellectually diverse" community. you have to work hard to achieve intellectual immersion, even when surrounded by students, professors, books and resources. rarely does it just happen. so who to blame? my choice of college? the punishing pace of classes? the inherent attraction of slacker-dom? the only thing i have to blame is myself. it's like i took a semester abroad and all i came back with was a working knowledge of local currency, public transportation, foreign mcdonalds, and a soon to be faded tan. and now i wish i had taken the time to learn things and be stimulated, instead of having to seek it out retroactively, making up for time wasted. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Monday, September 27
1:05 PM : : ding ding dong. ring-ga-ding ding ding dong  from october fourth to november eighth, i will be participating in an online book club. for what book you ask? the wonderful wicked by gregory maguire. i cannot tell you how much i love this book. i'm pretty much a sucker for anything wizard of oz but a book that re-imagines the classic tale from the wicked witch's side? i'm in. this free online course will allow readers to interact with the author and participate in discussions led by him. online book clubs are the greatest thing on earth. not to disparage brick and mortar book clubs of course but being able to interact with the writer of one of your favorite books is just so much easier on the net.and speaking of interaction, the wicked musical is about to lose some of its leads soon. so, i've made a plan (in my head) to fly over to new york to watch the play before january. that's when the originial elphaba -- played by idina menzel, an original rent cast member and wife of taye diggs -- leaves the cast. to pressure pack the situation even more, joey mcintyre of nkotb fame will also be leaving the cast in january. i cannot live without watching this musical at least once. i have friends who have already seen it, some of them twice, and they tell me that it's great. without even having seen the musical, i'm ready to elevate it to my top five list, just based on personal bias and predisposition. now i have to factor in the cost of flying to new york, buying a good seat in the house, and factoring that in to my life "budget." two hundred fifty dollars to fly to new york for a weekend. sixty bucks for a ticket. taxis and meals will cost a pretty penny. so in short, am i willing to spend close to four hundred dollars just to see a musical? strangely, i think the answer is yes. if i didn't have work until january, i could just go to new york for a week and incorporate the musical into my plans, instead of planning around the musical. but that would just be too cost effective and easy. a higher power has chosen to test me by putting idina and joey's leave date around the time our project for work rolls off. i see a test of faith and fortitude when i see one. i will be there wicked, just leave me a seat up front, thanks. if anyone would like to join me on my journey to the emerald city, speak up. or if four hundred dollars is too steep a price to pay, you can send me ten dollars and i'll write up a detailed review for you. for fifty i'll wear a black dress, paint my face green and act everything out. for one hundred i'll do all the above and throw in a "you got it (the right stuff)" cover. bonus. wizard of oz also led me straight to the discovery of jewel in 1995. she was dorothy in a "wizard of oz in concert" special, also co-starring jackson browne, natalie coleman and nathan lane as the cowardly lion. has anybody else besides me ever seen this? you would instantly become one of my favorite people if you have. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Sunday, September 26
3:25 PM : : we've been sold a bill of goods when we're told to "follow your passion, " or "do what you love and the money will follow." fact is, if you do what you love, you'll probably starve. in my update of "is doing what you love the best thing or what?" series, i've this to report. the answer is, no. doing what you love is not enough. i love video games but i do not love working in the video game industry. how can this be you ask?  what could be better than showing up at work casual, late, and not get a second glance? well, try staring at the same video game for seventy hours a week, then tell me how much you love it. and i think the same holds true for all my co-workers. first off, my co-workers are all about video games. they put my video game knowledge and passion to shame. the other day, people were calling all local (meaning southern californian) video game stores in search of a game about building giant balls of trash. people were psyched about a game that involved trash. this is unprecedented stuff here. i've been out-geeked and out-dorked, my whole self image is in tatters.the boys who work in the testing lab are cool too. they crack jokes, participate in derogatory photoshop wars, and keep the atmosphere loose and fun. but that's still not enough. nothing is that particularly exciting about racing the same cars around the same cities day after day. perhaps it's too early into my dream job to accurately assess my positio. but for now, i wouldn't mind leaving this job in six months or so. because this isn't what i want to do. i don't want to play video games all day. "blasphemy," you say. maybe my feelings would be different if i could design or review video games, but so far i've not come within sniffing distance of either task. am i hoping for too much? is the idea of insta-promotion out of vogue these days? i want to be elevated and promoted for my potential, not my damn qualifications. in the past month i've been at work six days out of the week -- for twelve hour every other day. i'm losing friends, alienating my home computer and copulating only with game controllers. and it's not even crunch time yet. i've heard that during crunchtime we work eighteen hour days and go home only to sleep. can i kick it? i don't know. but i will because i want to. despite a job that isn't one hundred percent desireable, i'm slowly coming to realize that nothing you ever do under the thumb of another man can be one hundred percent perfect. work is never "fun." even if i got to play basketball every day, i doubt it would be "fun." it's a job baby, as soon as you get a paycheck. the difference in mindset between a "hobby" and a "job" cannot be underestimated. this is how low i've sunk in my optimist-ideology. i no longer crave to have fun at work, i just want to have flexible and non-mandated breaks (at my last job we could only break at certain times. miss those times and you give up your break). eidolon ink told me, right before she left for africa, that her mom told her that the best thing to do is to not have your number one passion be your number one occupation. have your occupation be your second or third passion. this way you'll still have something care free to engage in outside of work. if you love cooking, getting into a culinary career might not be the best thing. you may come to hate potatoes and tomatoes after only six months of finger threatening chopping exercises. it's far better to be a brilliant amateur cook, rather than a sous chef at the local second rate restaurant. so, dream the little dream, but keep the big dreams on the back burner. i think there is something positive to be said for working at a job you hate for forty hours and then having the rest of your life to youself. if your boring job can support your other endeavours, why not stay there and just suck it up? what am i saying?!? this is crazy. i'm too young to think this way. someone get me out of here. it's a freaking football sunday and i'm nowhere near a tv. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Friday, September 24
5:57 PM : : there is no "god" in "team." or is there?  a debate has been raging (when is a debate never described as "raging?") about the choices an athlete might make in service to his team while being pulled in the other direction to follow a religious belief. this particular debate was sparked by the dodger's shawn green -- his team is fighting for a pennant and a playoff berth but his faith demands a day of rest. first, a definition of what yom kippur is."yom kippur is probably the most important holiday of the jewish year. many jews who do not observe any other jewish custom will refrain from work, fast and/or attend synagogue services on this day. yom kippur occurs on the 10th day of tishri. the holiday is instituted at leviticus 23:26 et seq.the dilemma? the dodgers have two games scheduled against their rivals, the giants, during yom kippur. what should shawn do? some say that mr green should be obligated to play for the dodgers because he is under contract to play any of the games that he is healthy to participate in. people also cite his responsibility to his teammates and the fans. if the dodgers don't make the playoffs, his teammates might not reach certain contract incentives. the dodger team has been working together all year towards a goal, and for one man to jeopardize that goal might be rightfully considered selfish. the fans are losing out too, they might be cheated out of seeing their team make a run for the championship. all this falling on the head of one player. sure, team sports are team games and no one player can make or break the game, but we know this isn't true. if shaq decided to take a day off during the finals, the lakers' (excuse me, the heat's) chances of winning drop dramatically. one man can make all the difference between a win and a loss. and apparently, shawn green is an important cog in the dodger machine. but on the flip side, isn't this all a game? who cares in fifty years who won what game? in eternity, nobody will care that you won a game in late september -- but presumably they will care if you missed a day of atonement. plus, jewish traditions are not to be messed with. there is a lot of importance placed on "action" and not just "belief." so, it has come to this, a showdown between sports and religion. i, for one, applaud mr green's strong faith and think that he should be justified in sitting out two games. but i'm not a dodger fan, nor am i his teammate. i can see why he might choose to play, after all, it is his job and he might not want to let down his organization. keep in mind, shawn green has taken off yom kippur before, and it's been no big deal. but back then, the dodgers maybe weren't tied into a divisional race. i feel like if an athlete needs to take a game off, or a practice off, to take care of family issues, religious issues, graduating from college, they should do it. and be spared the public vilification that is sure to follow from some corner of the sport's globe. in the end, mr green chose to pick god one day and his team the next. the right solution or the non-commital one? you decide. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Wednesday, September 22
1:35 PM : : hot n' fresh out the kitchen.  beautiful people get all the perks. not only are beautiful people getting into clubs for free, now they're getting paid to stand around and create "vibe." as reported by usa today, "party motivator" is a growing job function. a party motivator -- also known as eye candy, gallerinas, hot people -- must be beautiful and personable, and fun! now when you throw a bash you don't have to just plan for a DJ, decor and security, you need to import beautiful people too. "each event has a formula, and it's always important to make the right mix. sometimes it's models, athletes, entertainers, a-list celebrities. it all depends on what the people are looking for."everyone knows that beautiful people are more fun. even if nothing's going on, at the very least, beautiful people can sit around and stare at each other. as you can probably surmise, most party motivators are girls. with one notable exception being justin guarini, who got his start as a party motivator before moving on to movie star icon. so, what does it take to be a successful party motivator? looks, personality and talent. while many party motivators boast some degree of all three (and most people don't have any of the above), most tend to fall into a "type": eye candy. "you could say these young men and women are so beautiful that guests will do anything just to be near them." think halle berry. if in doubt, dress like a celebrity and try to gain entrance that way. "julian says he spotted at least three lenny kravitz look-alikes at parties over the mtv weekend... and more than a few britney spears wannabes wandered the recent blender magazine party at the shore club, adding a bit of a fellini-esque atmosphere to the festivities." the next big time club i hit up, i'm going as john cho. instant access and vip treatment. instant. according to the article, the main "problem" with hiring beautiful people to hang out at your party is that one is never sure which beautiful person is being paid to be there and which are just there waiting to be picked up. i mean, this is a huge problem for me. i don't want to waste my time handing lollipops to a girl that's not even interested in me -- the real me, the inside me, not the outside normal looking one. i mean, what if the girl i'm talking to is just talking to me because she's being paid to do a job? and she's not really into me at all? how could i tell the difference? i guess i just won't talk to beautiful people at all. good plan good plan. or one could go with this rule of thumb i like to live by: if i have to wonder why she's talking to me, and what a lucky bastard i am, she's probably getting paid. or doing mandatory community service. this "party motivator" phenomenon is spreading out from the swanky clubs and lounges into the real world. "party motivators also are showing up at bar mitzvahs from los angeles to long island, often scantily clad young women brought in to dance with the 13-year-old guest of honor, a trend that has upset more than a few rabbis." upset the rabbis? i can't imagine why. if religious communities would only open up and embrace the use of beautiful people as a means of ensuring attendance, i'd bet you'd get a hell of a lot more people into churches/temples/mosques. religions, always the last to adopt cutting edge marketing tactics. trust me, if every female penitent looked like monica bellucci, you bet your damn ass i'd be at church on sundays. praise the lord. "sign me up for the co-ed bible study please. i think i'll need an accountability partner too, i'll take the striking brunette in the third row, thanks." you wouldn't even have to pay the church motivators with real money, just promise them that they'll get to cut in line at st peter's pearly gates -- or do beautiful people already get a vip line there too? anyway, i see nothing logically wrong with this plan. so, how can you become a party motivator? just walk the streets man, and look beautiful. "jason says he finds most of his talent just walking city streets. and then we train them in the rudimentaries of how to flirt, dress sexy and dance. some people have it. they're like magnets. they attract attention and people. and some just have it but need to be molded a bit." if you already have the elusive "it" but are in need of some training, this might be the perfect life internship for you. learn to flirt, dress sexy and dance! what do you think girls have been doing since their teenage years stupid? i blame seventeen and ym. i would like to find a job that pays normal people good money to show up at clubs. this way the pretty people will feel even prettier when they stand, or get photographed, next to me. isn't this a great idea? my business card (and matching t-shirt) would read "ego booster - i make you look good." or maybe i can get hired to walk around during asian themed parties. "authenticity" would be emblazoned across my chest. well, "authen-" would be, "-icity" would probably wrap around my sides and back. i have a small chest okay? . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Monday, September 20
1:53 AM : : step into the cipher.  a female friend of mine recently sent me an email, begging me (over exaggeration) to decipher the meaning behind it. what does he want? what can you divine through his words? his paragraph breaks? what are his intentions? i told her she came to the right man, because i am the self proclaimed "master of the break-the-ice email." it's taken some trial and error and lots of practice but i'm now the man i've always wanted to be. in the email world anyway.lesson one of email cryptology is to check punctuation. is everything spelled right? how is the grammar? the word use? is he artificially stretching his vocabulary? is he using "ur" instead of "you're?" is he revealing too much? is he too formal? is he already too casual? these are all very important questions. most important perhaps, is how he signed off. there are many mistakes here. "sincerely" is way too formal. "hugs and kisses" too girly. "write me back soon" is too desperate. if his email asks for a confirmation receipt, that is an auto-fail, for sures. but this isn't what i'm here to talk about, maybe tomorrow we'll go into it more but for now, i'm here to comment on the construction of the all important first email. why is a first email so important? isn't an email just a throwaway piece of junk? certainly not. emails are archived for eternity, if you start off on the wrong foot, you're fucked forever. so what are the keys to a successful first email? rule number one is to stick to the ever useful k.i.s.s. -- keep it simple stupid. you aren't trying to wow anyone here, you're just establishing contact and contructing your email in such a manner that it cannot be ignored. you want to attract attention but not so much that it becomes a turn off. you want to be clear with your intentions (whatever they may be) and quick to the point. keep your email no longer than one paragraph. i'd say six sentences is a good goal. any more and they feel pressure to respond in kind, and a long email may be intimidating because it would take too much effort to respond. so keep it short. a long email can only lead to bad news. after all, why waste all this time and effort if you are going to get rejected or kept waiting for a response anyway? let me state here that my theories are based upon having already met a person, and having had a conversation or two with them. this is not a blind email. i don't have any advice, or insight, into that unpredictable world. the meat of your email will be responding to something that you talked about before, or something that was referenced in an earlier conversation. writing "it was so good to talk to you, let's keep it up" does not qualify as anything interesting. of course it was good to talk to them, of course you want to keep it up, you're emailing aren't you? i like to start right into mid-conversation status. this skips the whole awkward introduction thing and takes you right into friendship territory. you want to make them laugh, at least once. if you can keep the laughs coming, that might warrant a longer email. but remember, you are not a comedian. if you feel the need to flirt, flirt now. don't start that shit in the beginning. "hey baby, what's up?" has never succeeded for anyone. and is not acceptable as an ice breaker. trust me on this one. you might also, during this portion of the email, drop a few interests, things, "hooks" that will let them know something about you. tell them about the latest song, or a simple idea you had. something. try to keep it non-run of the mill okay? originality never hurt anyone. after you've dropped two or three carefully constructed lines, prepare to make your exit. yes, it's over and she probably didn't feel a thing. zip up, move on. remember to always ask a leading question as you exit. otherwise you run the risk of them receiving your email but then having nothing to respond to. don't ask, "do you like work?" or "how's school?" boooring. ask something a tad more exciting. "so when we went to the restaurant, didn't you find it interesting that there was no soap in the bathrooms?" choose your own adventure here. so what you end up with is one line of intro, two or three lines of meat, one line of leading question. that leaves the exit line. i've already told you how important this is. leave behind something that is open ended but with some sense of urgency. a simple "talk to you later" will do. add some flavor here, a bit of condiment if you will. put your personal stamp on your exit line. jazz hands, jazz hands. why so much effort into a simple email? because, if we can't obsess over the small things, what can we obsess over? an effective first email can set the mood and tempo for the rest of your friendship. i've liked people (not in that way) based purely on their first emails alone. first responses should also be drafted similarly to the first email, but in a response, there is the additional factor of matching the tone of their introductory email. the best reply email i've ever gotten from someone was "aight," in response to my email of "how goes it?" this one had none of the bells and whistles that i spoke of above but it was very fitting of my friend's personality. i loved the fact that there was no question or extra verbiage in her response. just an "aight." maybe you don't understand why i loved this so much. oh well. has my email writing credibility been lost by my choice of anecdote? screw you then. anyway. the email that my friend forwarded to me turned out to be anti-climatic. super boring, super useless. no divination possible. it had no intro, no hook and too open-ended of an exit. "call me when you're in town next time." that's not conducive to additional emailing. c'mon now! don't worry gentle reader, armed with my knowledge and my step by step process, you won't make the same mistake. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Sunday, September 19
11:15 PM : : got black to asian, and caucasian.  it is a well documented fact that on the white female's dating scale, asian men rank somewhere below australopithecus men. and australopithecus man has been extinct for more than a million years. and they're not even human! this is how low asian men are regarded on the desireability scale. for those of you who say, "no no, i would date an asian man. i would totally date bruce lee." bruce lee is awesome cool but tragically, he's also dead. and there is nobody else like him left on earth. plus, all anecdotal evidence supports the fact that the first men caucasian females reject are always the asians. no personal evidence supports this because i'm too chicken shit to research this irrefutable fact on my own. but that's another story.but now, asian men of the world, hope and help have finally arrived in the form of "how to date a white woman: a practical guide for asian men." i know, it's not quite as good as "date out of your league" but it's got similar themes i'm sure. the blurb for the book goes like this.
the weird capitalization of "Confident' and "White" are left intact from the site. apparently confidence and white are really important and deserve to be capitalized. "mr quan (the author) is an international business consultant. he has travelled and worked in many countries. for more than fifteen years, he has successfully dated women of many nationalities." is this not proof positive that this book will work for you? if not, read the reviews. surely the reviewers must be honest down-on-their-luck asians who have succeeded due to mr quan's words of wisdom.
the holy grail is in sight my ethnic brothers. let us reach out and grasp it. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Thursday, September 16
2:43 PM : : how many licks does it take?  question two. "(before sunrise) ended with a bittersweet parting and a promise of a reunion in vienna in six months. no letters, no phone calls, no contact, just an impulsive romantic vow and a charmingly naive faith in happy endings." jesse and celine want to see each other again but trust that they will meet on the exact same train platform in six months. it's romantic and hopeful and totally impossible. have you ever had the urge to not lose someone you just connected with? romantically or non-romantically? of course. you don't let that person out of your sight without some way of contacting them.how many of us have had the discipline to let it all go, and leave fate to the winds? not many of us. only in the movies do schemes like "i'll write my phone number on five dollar bill and give it to a hot dog vender. you write your name and phone number in book and sell it to a used book store. if we find either one, then it's fate and we're meant to be together" work out. we know this, that's why we exchange contact information. heck, half the time in life you're trying to dump contact information you never wanted in the first place. getting contact information shouldn't be the hard part, getting rid of it is. so, faced with a train schedule and the chance of never meeting again, would you let the fates decide? i know i wouldn't. i want to hear from somebody who would. anyone? now there are times when you would like to speak to someone further but you don't push for the contact information. usually it's because you know that you could reach them if you really wanted to. friends of friends, the web of life, friendster, whatever. times like these don't count. it has to be someone you meet whom you have almost no chance of finding again unless you ask for contact information. also, as a top ranked amateur internet sleuth, i believe that jesse could HAVE found celine. assuming google was around in those days. he knew her name, he knew where she went to school. presumably they talked about what she studied. with a little bit of internet research (name plus major plus school) and a phone call or two, i bet jesse could HAVE found celine. but that's just me talking. not everyone is a savvy internet stalker. i mean, sleuth. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Wednesday, September 15
8:34 PM : : how do they cram all that graham?  two questions. first, if at the end of your life, you die and go someplace eternal, and you had the choice to go with one person (the person you've been with the longest, say your husband) or to go alone and take your chances, which would you choose? this is a rip off of kundera's question in immortality. he puts the question better but i can't find the quote so you get this bastardized version. basically, would you choose to live the eternal afterlife with your husband/wife or would you go off and try to see what else is out there.so far, in my poll of the three people who have read the book (myself included), we all agree that just about everyone would take their chances. in the book, the heroine, agnes, wants to say "i go it alone" but she feels bad because her husband is in the room. so she hears herself saying "of course we want to stay together," while inside she's dying to fly solo. at the book club meeting the other night, two married women (with husbands not in attendance) said that they were hesitant to discuss this section of the book with their spouses. why? because inevitably they'd discuss it and one of them would ask "so, which would you choose?" and while that may be a fun "what if" for us single people, for married couples, the implications of the "wrong" answer could be much more powerful. however, we, the triumvirate of opinion, contend that everyone would choose to take a risk and wander the afterlife unattached. because the grass is always greener and no matter how much you love someone, you probably don't want to be chained to them for eternity. sure you'll say you do but deep down, do you really? after all, wedding vows traditionally contain "till death do us part." signifying that all bets are off when one party or the other croaks. so nobody should feel bad about answering to their spouses, "i'm taking my chances in the afterlife. it's been real. see ya later." . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Tuesday, September 14
1:07 PM : : man worships things over the supreme thing . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Monday, September 13
11:39 AM : : oh, we've been together but separate's always better when there's feelings involved.  finally saw before sunrise again today. it's the one movie that i've always wanted to re-watch because as i recall, i think we both kinda liked it -- but i can't really remember how good it actually was.despite my longing to re-watch this movie, i could never suggest it as a rental. because if the movie bombs then the guilt of two hours wasted times however many people are in the room falls upon my thin shoulders. that's a lot of guilt for one man to take. plus, it's kind of a girly movie and when people are clamoring for blood and guts and you offer up roses and candlelight, you might not survive the night unscathed. so, i've had to put before sunrise on my list of "i really want to watch this again but i don't know if it'll ever actually happen" movies. and then suddenly, years after i initially experienced the power of before sunrise, a sequel came out. the aptly titled before sunset was released this summer. take a moment and realize how rare this is. an indie movie that made no money and was mostly deemed a critical disappointment, got a sequel. somewhere someone must be paying attention. and it sure as hell wasn't hollywood. so, on the heels of this new release, interest for the first movie was stirred across the land -- as evinced by the fact that all nine total copies (at two blockbusters) were rented out when i went to go get it. there are few things more emasculating than asking the teenage blockbuster employee for "a copy of before sunrise please. you don't have it in stock? wait, can you check behind the counter? maybe someone just turned it in?" and then following up their negatory shake of a head with my sad shake of a head while stumbling out in a daze of confusion. "wait wait, how can this be? nobody has before sunrise? not even a vhs copy?" seppuku. but i finally got the movie, i watched it, i cringed throughout wondering if the movie could withstand the test of time. sadly, it could not. when i first watched before sunrise, it was a revelation. a movie about talking. a movie with only talking. just two people who meet on a train and then wander vienna all night long, conversing about religion, love, whatever. it was a movie that mirrored few life experiences i'd actually had at the time. so i enjoyed it. but now, years later, after having engaged in some all night conversations myself, i found most of the conversation to be trite and banal. that was redundant, "trite and banal," like the movie. i thought ethan hawke made his move too soon. the chemistry between jesse and celine was a bit forced. i couldn't stop noticing how stupid jesse seemed, or his stereotypical leather jacket (he is american after all), and how celine's face scrunched up into an orgasmic ball every time their lips touched. plus, i've lately been against all "deep" conversations about religion and love. despite all this, i still liked the movie. a lot. a half an hour into the movie i decided to toss away all my skepticism and analysis of the movie and just take it for what it was, a blast from the past. and not all the dialogue was as bad as i might make it sound. in fact, most if it was quite good. and some of the things they said still rang very true to me today. i would imagine that seeing this movie for the first time might evoke similar feelings to what i experienced the first time i saw it. but as they say, "once you pop the cherry, it's over." oh but it's not. because now, along comes before sunset and by all accounts, it's better than the first. so, the adventure continues. will luke beat darth? is neo the one? will sam and frodo finallly come out of the closet? will jesse and celine find immortal love? we shall find out. in the pantheon of conversation movies, which is what i've decided to dedicate the month of september to, melvin goes to dinner must rank very high. it's a tiny movie that we ended up renting by accident. it's a play adapted into a movie, starring the original cast. it's wonderful and amazing. next up, my dinner with andre and thirteen conversations about one thing. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Sunday, September 12
1:37 PM : : lend me some sugar, i am your neighbor.  so i've discovered the most entertaining website ever. for proof that we do live on a lonely planet, i present to you craigslist personals. i stumbled upon this web gem looking for spare surfboards and computer equipment, what i found was so much better. under the personals section, you have: strictly platonic, women seek women, women seeking men, men seeking women, men seeking men, misc romance, casual encounters (eg. one night stands), missed connections, rants and raves. my favorites are strictly platonic and missed connections. the platonic ones knock my socks off. people trying to pretend that all they really want to do is to be "platonic" and declaring "no sex or relationships." and then adding a smiley face to wink wink nudge nudge. does this really work? i mean, really? some of my favorites are the simple ones that are straight to the point, dripping with desperation and reveal oh so much about the poster."asian (male) looking for girls to hang out with. not much of a party person. like to do or try outdoor activities and more. clean good girls preferred if there is such a thing." are you not entertained? and then everyone insists on receiving pictures before they will bother replying to you. because you know, platonic friendships are based on attractiveness, as this girl knowingly points out. "hey everyone...i just moved here... 22/f... i know nobody!! i pride myself on being the most well-rounded person i know (other than my father)... i do everything... very athletic, musically inclined, sculptor, well traveled... i won't boast... but i had to say that about myself since in a short paragraph about myself, you needed to know that there is more to me than i can list here... sure she seems a bit full of herself but at least she's brutally honest right? this poor girl has been getting flamed on craigslist because of her somewhat insensitive remarks. okay okay, highly insensitive remarks. but isn't she basically putting into words what everyone is thinking when they say "send me a picture?" this guy is trying to work his "keep it real game." does it work? "let's get real. i'd love to post in platonic like everyone else: let's go play chess together, or walk. i just want to talk, get to know you. i want to discuss birds and flowers with you. we might cuddle by the third date, or even casually hold hands. but in all sincerity, the first thing i'm gonna ask you is for a picture, then your height, weight and you are gonna do the same. if we are each other's type, we might meet under the pretense of discussing the presidential candidates, we still will check out each other's butt and see if we can picture each other together, discussion other things. it's all about chemistry no matter where we all want to hide and we all have those desires, just need to know where to look. so tell me, why are we all playing these games?" and to finish off our tour of craigslist personals, a sample "missed connections." keep in mind all spelling errors have been left intact.
all this and it's not even my birthday. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Friday, September 10
8:09 PM : : tell your friends, to get with my friends and we can be friends.  "hi, this is my friend for the "no we shouldn'ts" the reasoning goes like this. in befriending you, i've already used a highly organized selection process to cull six billion other people; and now you want me to accept someone else based on your (possibly flawed) standards? in the immortal words of william sun, "aw hell no." i am quoting only william's favored verbal expression, not his individual thoughts on the matter. we forgive our friends for many things: bad taste in clothes, faulty opinions, horrific choices in people. plus, what a friend likes might not be what we like. said in a more straightforward way, just because a friend likes it doesn't mean you like it. this friendship principle 2a also extends to people. while it might make logical sense that if A likes B and B likes C, then A should also like C, it doesn't work that way. the way it works is that the chances of you liking a friend of a friend is about the same as you liking a totally random stranger. the bonds that tie you to a mutual friend make no difference and should have no impact on how you receive or perceive an individual. this is how the "no we shouldn'ts" think. and it is a very valid way of thinking. logical in premise and efficient in execution. some people are tards, should we be friends with them just because we share friends? aw hell no. now, the "yes we shoulds" consider a friend of a friend their friend already. at least in the beginning. if a "yes we should" meets a friend of a friend, they are immediately inviting with their langauge and action. their reasoning is simple. "i will extend my friendship and hospitality to everyone and everything that encompasses my friend, up to and including his/her friends." on a fundamental level, it makes a lot of sense. "if this person is important to my friend, i want to get to know them, or at the very least, try to be nice to them." this method of treating friends of friends is of course, in our altruistic society, preferable. but is it better? some would say that any friend who can't, or won't, treat a friend of a friend nicely is not a real friend at all. but this is simply not true. i personally prefer it if my friends would give the benefit of the doubt to my other friends, but i understand that this cannot always be so. i've actually gotten semi-upset or confrontational when faced with the prospect of friends disliking each other. i want to hear reasons, explanations. i want to see diagrams, evidence and testimony. i don't want to hear "i just don't like'em." why don't you like them? why why why? over time, i've come to understand that some people just don't really want to bother extending themselves until it occurs naturally. i can respect that. i guess. the way i handle friends meeting friends nowadays is that i don't expect certain people to be "friendly." i understand that specific people would rather just operate in their own space, and as much as i want all my friends to be friends with each other, it can't work out that way all the time. so now i just expose only certain friends to certain other friends. i go into situations trying to "even the odds" if you will. i know which of my friends are more likely to be more social and which are more likely to be anti-social. either is cool, i don't take it personally anymore, as long as everyone is civil. the weird thing about all this kind of stuff is that you never know who will get along and who won't. you think that two of your friends will really get along and then they totally don't. or i've had situations where one friend gets along best with the person i would of thought they had the least in common with. you never know. some people are reading this and thinking "who cares? this is stupid. just have everyone hang out. why are you even thinking about this?" i have to think about this because this is what hanging out entails. you can't just have everyone hanging out willy nilly at random. it has to be carefully pre-planned and thought out. otherwise you get social disaster. okay, maybe it ain't that deep. or is it? . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Thursday, September 9
5:31 PM : : stop it, just stop it.  serious pet peeve. when people use nicknames for any city but their home city. examples: hotlanta, the d, illadelph, frisco, daygo, saint looie, brick city, oaktown, skeeno, big apple...whatever. i'm way not cool enough to know any of the nicknames for other cities; as you've surmised, i'm not up on my transitory hip hop. but i'm sure there's a nickname for every city, even if your city is so off the map nobody knows what you're talking about. san bernard!!! i think it's only okay to use a city's nickname if you're actually from there. it's also passably okay if you're doing something deragatory with your statement. comma, period, end of story. i'm actually against anyone using certain nicknames for their city -- some nicknames are just stupid -- but whatever, i'll let it slide.while we're on the topic, i'm sort of against anyone who uses the term "peeps" to describe their friends. i know people who do this and it never fails to amuse me, and not in a good way. maybe "peeps" isn't even a "cool" thing to say anymore. i don't know. be safe, don't say "peeps." i might have to start a list of things that people should never say. or if you have to say them, say it in a psuedo-mockumentary, self deprecating manner, which is what i'm convinced i do. although my friends disagree. anyway, stupid friends. while we're on the topic of cities. this summer, when everyone was here for memorial day, i woke up to a rabid discussion about the use of the term "the d" for detroit. not whether "the d" should be applied to detroit but rather who could use it. i only walked in on the back end of the discussion so i missed most of it. but the point was that unless you lived within a certain acceptable distance of geographical detroit, you were not from "the d." where to set this imaginary line? no solid answer was provided. now, why would anyone want to associate themselves with a city that they lived thirty miles away from? ah, i see you've never visited the midwest. let me help you out. because of the vastness and relative obscurity of the midwest (no offense), it's usually much easier to say "i'm from detroit" instead of "i'm from troy." if you say "troy," you get a blank stare. it's easier to just pick the biggest most recognizable city and say that you're from there. this is perfectly acceptable. i may live thirty minutes away from downtown san diego but i'm from san diego if my mailing address says so. this should be the rule of thumb actually. you are from wherever your mailing address says you're from. it's simple, the us postal service has separated us out, why not listen to them? it's not like they're crazy or anything. the other, more despicable reason to say that you're from a particular city is for the social cachet it provides. unless you hail from bethlehem or smallville, chances are your little town ain't shit compared to the big one nearby. so the natural tendency is to associate yourself (at least nominally) with the big city. who wants to be from "a suburb of san jose" when they can be from "the bay." or in our aforementioned case, who wants to be from "a little town near detroit" when they can be from "the d." street cred baby, everyone needs some. now, the city that this "city cred" phenomenon most occurs with is new york city -- or more specifically, manhattan. manhattan is an epicenter of cool and cosmopolitan. because of this, i've heard people declaring their allegiance to new york city when they live ten hours away (within the state of new york) and have been to manhattan twice in their lives -- both times in middle school. hypocrisy. oh wait, but jon you say, didn't you used to declare "i live in new york," when clearly you lived not in new york but across the river, in the armpit of america, new jersey? do i suffer from this social malady too? did i feel the pressure to present myself as cool and cosmopolitan and say "new york" instead of "new jersey?" maybe yes, but i doubt it. i mean, technically i was half a mile away from wall street and the world trade center. i was closer in distance than any of the boroughs outlying manhattan. and if i had to, in a pinch, i could run to manhattan in fifteen minutes. which allows me to say manhattan right? but, as it was pointed out to me, technicalities cannot save the man. so, ever since i realized that i've been saying new york instead of new jersey, i go out of my way to declare that i actually lived in jersey city, not manhattan. because i wouldn't want to falsely lead someone on and bask in the glory of the city that never sleeps. am i not admirable in my honesty? yes, i was a new york poser okay? are you happy now?! . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Wednesday, September 8
6:25 PM : : studio 57.  i've been listening studiously to talk radio while i'm at work. to get the independent's perspective i listen to democracy now with amy goodman. to get the corporate side, i listen to everything else. right or left, i'm not sure which side makes less sense to me. sometimes i'll drive home while listening to the conservative station and get so worked up about what the host is saying about a certain issue that i'll get all agitated. but almost as often, i'll hear some liberal loony (not meant to be totally derogative) talking and rationalizing away and i'm thinking "they are just trying to create trouble." clearly i'm not sure which side i stand on, but some things about both angles just make no sense to me.for example, depending on what your sources were, last week between 300 to 1,000 people were arrested while protesting the republican national committee. everyone can protest, it's their god given right. but at a certain point, these "peaceful" demonstrations just get ridiculous. i understand that protesting is an important weapon and i'm sure it's very effective. however, if you're going to protest, how can you be surprised when you get arrested? i'm sure the police were a bit over zealous in their cattle roundup but i don't think you can expect the police to be overly patient in such a situation. innocent bystanders were taken? well duh. if you're going to stand close enough to the fire to feel the heat, don't be surprised if you get burnt -- even if you were just watching. a part of me thinks it's slightly wrong for the protestors to be there. part of some group's stated goal was to disrupt the convention and to harass the conventioners. that's wack man. everyone has a right to affiliate with whomever they want to, without having to fight through throngs of people throwing verbal tomatoes at them. i know there were protests at the DNC too but for the most part, the democrats got their chance to have a nice convention, why can't the republicans? to me, it's just disrespectful to take pride in the fact that you can slip past 10,000 security people and onto the convention floor. and then flash your underwear or start chants in an effort to embarass the speaker. have some respect man. sure you may not agree with what they're saying but there's a right way to protest and a wrong way. going on guerilla missions to get beat down by bodyguards is not heroic, it's idiotic. it's screaming for attention instead of earning it. and of course the police is going to hold the protestors as long as they can. what's the point of arresting people, slapping them on their wrist and then releasing them back into the wild again? that's not how it works man. think about it from the police's perspective. how are they gonna catch and immediately release, and then do it over and over again? from what i've heard, the conditions at pier 57 were nasty and that's kind of wrong but the point isn't for police to catch you, put you up in a hotel and then let you go. they don't want you to stir up trouble again so they're gonna do their best to dissuade you from doing things that will result in you re-visiting detention. isn't that what you would do if you had to hold up some disruptive folk? sure this is america and the land of the free but there are boundaries. once you start to infringe on other people's liberties and opinions, you should get restrained. everyone has the right to protest but they should also have the right to gather in peace too. everyone and their mother may want bush out of office but show it through your voting, not harassing folk who are supporting something they strongly believe in. i'm not saying the protestors deserved to get locked up but in a way, what did they expect? and when i say that there are "right" and "wrong" ways to protest, that's just my opinion. people make themselves heard in different ways and we should respect that too. some situations call for peaceful protest, some call for violent protest, whatever it is, just know that as soon as you put yourself out there to support something, people will be lining up to attack you, republicans or democrats alike. many of the protestors organized via cellphone and text messages. cool eh? do you think it adds credibility to a protestor/demonstrator if they've been arrested? like a rite of passage or a badge of honor? and do you think if a political (or any) organization didn't have the .org address it would be like "oh they ain't big time, they ain't even an .org." . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Tuesday, September 7
11:59 PM : :  of course, the immortality that goethe talks about has nothing in common with religious faith in an immortal soul. what is involved is the different, quite earthly immortality of those who after their death remain in the memory of posterity. everyone can achieve immortality to a smaller or greater degree, of shorter or longer duration, and this idea already starts occupying people's minds in early youth....naturally, when it comes to immortality people are not created equal. we have to distinguish between so-called minor immortality, the memory of a person in the minds of those who knew him, and great immortality, which means the memory of a person in the minds of people who never kenw him personally. there are certain paths in life that from the very beginning place a person face-to-face with such great immortality, uncertain, it is true, even improbable, yet undeniably possible: they are the paths of artist and statesmen. -immortality, milan kundera- . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Monday, September 6
11:28 AM : : king me.  sometimes when you're at work, you gotta go. it's not the ideal place to spell relief but sometimes, even if you've structured your diet and lifestyle accordingly, you just can't avoid the work place dump. this is not so bad if you work in an office with three or four people. i mean, at home you probably share the toilet with three or four people so you're used to a small number of exchanged germs. but what happens when you work in an environment with forty guys and one bathroom?to its credit, my office maintains a very clean bathroom by office standards. it's no sanitary delight but it's no gas station bathroom either. we all know the fear and technique that goes into going number two in a public place. you try not to touch anything, you squat a foot in the air, you throw in toilet paper for cushioning against the inevitable splash down, you wipe the seat, you pray for your bowels to release quick and dirty and not slow and squirty -- after all, a man can only squat for so long. this is basic information. but one specific situation is sometimes troubling. what happens when you are ready to go to the bathroom; you've mentally prepared yourself to go into the stall and do your business; you've waited till the absolute last minute to go; and then there's already somebody in there doing their thing. this is a difficult situation. you're stuck between a rock and a smelly place. you need to go real bad but you don't want to assume the position right after somebody else perched on the throne right? it would be ideal to wait five or ten minutes for the air to clear but in five or ten minutes you might explode. what do you do? i try to minimize the mental anguish of this situation by trying to make the guy going before me as anonymous as possible. once i see that someone is in the stall, with feet facing the "right" way, i turn around and leave the bathroom. i try not to remember what shoes they were wearing, what color their pants/belts were and i station myself far from the bathroom in order to not to see him exit. i figure that the less i know about the person whose ass was just hovering in the same position as mine is now, the better. and that is what comes out of working on labor day. a lot of crap with nowhere to go. by the way, this situation was related to me by a friend. i've like never gone through this personally. ever. ps. it's shocking how many people don't wash their hand after using the bathroom. especially if there's somebody already using the sink. patience people! we work at a video game company, we touch shared controllers/keyboards all the time. wash your hands! i feel like i should bring in my latex smoking gloves and wear them for protection. this is just way too unsanitary. pss. and i've seen some people actually take their food (on uncovered plates) into the bathroom, set it down somewhere, go take care of biz and then walk right back out and resume eating. what is this? what kind of a world do we live in? is there no hope? . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Saturday, September 4
10:57 AM : : uncanny, new, amazing, ultimate, x-treme, astonishing.  now that i'm on the verge of turning twenty six i need to really take stock of my life. have the x-men been turned into a movie? yes. have the x-men been turned into a videogame? are the x-men now cool? yes. have i found secret x-fans among my friends? yes. they made a street fighter-esque x-men videogame? yes. have the x-men been turned into itty bitty pixelated versions of themselves, complete with every single costume they've ever worn? amazingly, yes (and this site contains just about the most amazing things i've ever seen). have they created the technology for implanting fully functional adamantium claws? not yet, but in my lifetime i hope.sidenote: really, is this too much to ask for? people can get new breasts and butts and body organs and i can't get implanted claws? why is this? would surgeons not make a killing selling this service? do you know how many fanboys have been saving up for this life altering process? millions. maybe implanting metal knives into people's hands isn't the best idea right now, what with the stringent security measures that we've had to deal with recently, but what if they only allowed "heroic" people to have claws implanted? wouldn't that be a great idea? by the way, if the teenage mutant ninja turtles can be a musical, why not the x-men? the angst, the drama, the songs that could be written. and hugh jackman is already a broadway vet. might this be my calling in life? to pen the first x-men musical? actually, there is already a wolverine song based on one of jewel's work, and it's quite excellent so i'm not sure i could live up to the challenge. sample lyrics: cold shiny claws / pop out from my paws / to slay the evil mutants, / but they can’t stop / anti-mutant laws /which spread with such virulence. the mp3 is located here. i highly recommend that you download it. obviously, many of my life goals, or things i want to happen before i die, have already been achieved. and now, one more item can be added to that list. jubilee is a playable video game character. this is huge. jubilee has always been one of my favorite x-characters. i know, everyone says that. it's so trite, so banal, so cliche. god, i feel like such an epigone. but really, how could she not be one of my favorite characters? she's chinese for one, she's got great style for two. she chews gum all the time, she wears sunglasses indoors, she's wolvie's sidekick, she's got tons of attitude. she used to live in a mall. what is there not to like? well sure, she's not the most powerful superhero ever. and she's kind of annoying at times. she's somewhat insecure, irrational and pompous. she likes to say "when i was with the x-men..." way too much. but jubilee's got spunk and spunk a commodity in short supply. since the chance of finding the real life jubilation lee is somewhat slim, i'll have to settle for a video game version. for the record, three actresses have dared to assume the role of jubilee: heather mccomb, katrina florece and kea wong. note that only one has been asian. so far my favorite depiction of jubilee has been the job heather mccomb did in the short lived generation x series. then again, she's the only jubilee who had more than one line of dialogue so she kind of wins by default. but i think all these women, as talented as they are, will pale in comparison to video game jubilee. why? because jubilee is now starring (along with fourteen other x-men) in what could possibly be the greatest game of all time. the game in question is an "action rpg" game based on the x-men called x-men legends. it's part gauntlet, part diablo two. it's sure to be all amazing. things to get excited about aside from the presence of jubilee: the game looks terrific graphically and it sounds like it actually plays well -- fast furious action and some serious strategy too. you can multi-player this game with up to four people (i've already come up with my fantasy x-men legends video game fantasy team, based on my friends who are the most dedicated and experienced x-fans, you know who you are). you can aslo combine with other x-men teammates to do classic team up moves like colossus and wolverine's fastball special. i ask again, does this not sound like the greatest game ever? x-men legends drops on september twenty fourth, exactly seventeen days after my birthday. there must be some incredible numeric symbolism to that, i mean, seventeen has always held a special place in my heart for reasons unknown. maybe the magazine? possibly. anyway, i'm so geeked about this game i could cry. . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Wednesday, September 1
2:40 PM : : i like to mash snow. it gives me a tremendous sense of self-satisfaction.  so i finally watched garden state. and it was about what i expected. a few ups, a few downs, scenes that were great, scenes that were lacking. my biggest problem with the whole thing was how quickly some of the characters went from total strangers to the best of friends. there would be moments throughout the movie when i was thinking "wait, why are they doing this for each other?" i felt like i was being force fed the fact that the main characters were really really getting along. this is not a knock on the acting abilities of anyone, it was a script issue. the movie really held so much promise but i think it failed to deliver. i really want to watch it again however, if only to see if it appreciates with each viewing. i thought the best parts of the movie was when it went quirky and shied away from normal movie convention. but the quirkiness only lasted so long and by the end of the movie, it was all about revelations and kissing. i've decided that once kissing is used as an expression of revelation, that's it for me, i disconnect from the movie. using kissing or sex as the denouement just seems too easy. write around the kissing, not into it.i think lost in translation ruined me. the ending there was just too perfect. bob harris' inaudible whisper to charlotte was just the cherry on top. not knowing what was said allows your imagination to run free; without having to listen to some writer trying to put in words that are never up to the task of describing the moment. the characters' attachment to each other was also much more gradual in lost, and that made all the difference. they had a believable synergy, while garden seemed to thrust zach and natalie together. adding blatant romance to a movie relationship must be reallly hard. having nothing to mask emotions or feelings kind of inevitably drags your movie into cheesedom. it took me a good thirty minutes to get into the movie, as my mind couldn't quite let the eyes and ears roam free yet. i was analyzing everything and wondering if i liked this or that. but then at some point i just let myself go -- or the movie pulled me in -- and i stopped thinking. i did cringe heavily when natalie portman first appeared on-screen however. i didn't want her character to be annoying. i really wanted to love her in this movie. and luckily, she was fine. she was wonderful in fact. she was channeling her marty character of beautiful girls. but instead of intelligence and wit, her sam character relied mainly on personality quirks to make us love her. i prefer the wit of beautiful girls. but as marty said in beautiful, "i might grow to be five-ten. i'll be hot." and natalie portman has grown up and is indeed, hot. beautiful girls is so underrated as a movie. like criminally underrated. the dialogue is ridiculously good. christina shattered my world when she told me that the writer of beautiful girls, scott rosenberg, also wrote con air, gone in 60 seconds, kangaroo jack and spiderman 2. so lines like "put down the bunny" sprang from the same creative well as "you go to the penitentiary and i become the laughingstock of the brownies." how can this be? so much brilliance in one movie and then so much crap in all the others? i've cast mr rosenberg aside as having had just one inspired year and then just cashing in the rest of the way. he's like the nas of movie writing. "that's a one hot album every ten year average..." plus, the sparks between 30 year old willie and 13 year old marty was so much more evident, despite having very few scenes together and not being the central focus of the movie. so, in terms of a movie about two people finding it each, i'd say garden state ranks much lower than lost in translation, lower than beautiful girls, but still worth watching. i'll have to re-watch before sunrise again to see how that fits into the whole rubric. but i'm guessing garden state will rank higher than before sunrise. having said all that, garden state is probably still the best film i've seen all summer. not that that's saying much since i've seen nearly all duds for the past three months. "peace out, playa." . . . . . . . . . . . .
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