| Night at the Museum: Smithsonian = grade D |
[07 Jun 2009|08:39am] |
Night at the Museum: Something Something Smithsonian.
The fat kid from Superbad playing a zealous Smithsonian security guard was the best thing about this movie.
I'm not kidding, that was the best part, the only really good part. It lasted only a few minutes, if that, and it was early on in the movie. The rest of the ride is a drag. Amy Adams plays Amelia Earhart, and she's awfully cute, but the real Amelia was anti-cute. The character was annoying, especially with Amy's pseudo-Hepburn 1930s accent. She wears skin tight pants, which shows off her ass really nice, and that's her only redeeming value in this movie.
A lot of running around trying to escape from bad guys. A lot of fighting. Too much fighting. The good guys and the bad guys clashing and making a mess of the museum, too much loud music, and I guess you know already who is going to win? The comedy was lacking. The first movie was better. And like I said, the best thing was the fat security guard. Which is a great compliment to Johan Hill, who plays that character, but a sad indicator for the movie as a whole.
Grade: D.
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| Star Trek (2009) = grade C+ |
[06 Jun 2009|04:21pm] |
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Huh. Was surprised by how much I was "eh" about the new Star Trek movie. From all the good reviews and the neat preview, I thought it was going to be super-fantastic-awesome-fun. It was okay though, but it didn't blow me away. It was fairly fast-paced, had lots of action and explosions and other lights and noises and stuff like that. But overall I thought it was a bit shallow, nothing that grabbed my innards. I liked it. I'd give it a grade C+.
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| hard to sleep deep |
[01 Jun 2009|11:04am] |
Not my usual type of thing, but it was fun to paint.
Finally finished watching every episode of The Highlander series from Hulu, all six seaons of it. I loved it, and now I feel all emotional about it being over. It was my escapist relaxation for months, and now I feel a tad lost without it. Must replace it with someone else. Hulu is pretty awesome. Have to find a new addiction from there.
So anyway, it's hot around here lately. Hard to get any deep sleep. Waking up hours after laying down, weird dreams, tossing and turning. Seems this happens every summer, but it's hitting me hard this time around. And it's not even full-blown summer yet! Seems I can only have a good deep sleep when I feel cold. Then I can cover myself good and just snoooooze.
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| children's choir, NYC public school |
[29 May 2009|03:29am] |
I sometimes get very pessimistic about the future for children, but seeing a video like this shows me it's not all as bad as I think. Expressiveness, creativity, joy, cooperation, life-affirming. This is the sort of stuff I'd rather see taught and encouraged in schools, even though I know math and other boring shit must also be taught. But positive expression should be part of classes everywhere, especially with kids working together for a common greater goal. I don't want kids, at least none of my own, not on purpose. I've told this many times on my journal, that the world is filled enough with unwanted kids as it is, and why make more kids while so many are left over that can be taken care of instead? Why have your dog have puppies when you can adopt ones that already need homes, etc...?
Not that I want to adopt, either. But if I ever did want to have kids, that's the most likely scenario. At least that's the position of my past, and as of today. Who knows about the future.
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| at least there's that |
[05 May 2009|09:00am] |
I can't sleep!
My cats can sleep. They can always sleep. I don't think animals get insomnia. I don't get insomnia, but tonight/today I can't sleep. I finally did get some charcoal for drawing and I realized soon after that I forgot how to draw. Anything I do with a charcoal stick now sucks the poop.
Okay, I wasn't that enthused or maybe I was just "eh" about the new Star Trek movie coming out. But I've seen clips and now I'm all OMG WTF LOL, because I have to see it. Good marketing. Speaking of that, I've kinda been into that show "The Big Bang Theory." I've seen only about three episodes, but I really like it. So now I have to rent all I can from Netflix.
I've been addicted to South Park on Netflix, the instant viewing. I can pick and choose and get to have all the fun. The best episode they ever made is the World of Warcraft spoof.
I'm not getting any sleepier. Damn it.
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| oh, one of those dreams again |
[03 May 2009|08:32pm] |
Not that this has anything to do with my painting, and certainly not with the woman in the painting, but last night I had another dream (I've had them since youth) where I tried to have sex with a girl, but her vagina was too tight to fit into. In the dream I actually felt the pain in my dick when I tried so hard to push myself in. When I woke up I could have sworn I felt a tad bit achy, but maybe it was my imagination. In the dream I was a teenager, and so was the girl, someone I knew from long ago, someone I never did have sex with. Huh.
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| what a waste |
[02 May 2009|02:16am] |
Jackson Pollock. Ruth Kligman, who is writing this, was his girlfriend. Edith Metzger is Ruth's young friend. After reading this, I realize poor Edith was pretty much murdered by Pollock and "peer pressure." I feel terribly sad for Edith, since I had felt like her many times while my dad drove drunk, or friends I had whose dad drove us around drunk. But it's hard to say, "Let me out!" when it's your own dad.
"We drove toward East Hampton. Jackson drove fine, then suddenly started driving very slowly, then slower and slower. Finally he came to a full stop in the fork of the road.
'What's the matter, Jackson? Are you all right?'
'I'm fine. I just want to stop for a moment.'
Just then a police car pulled up. An officer walked over. He recognized Jackson and the car. They knew each other.
'Good evening, Mr. Pollock. Is there anything the matter?'
'Hello there,' Jackson alerted, 'nothing's wrong, we were just talking. How are you?'
'I'm fine. How are you? Do you need any help?'
'No, thank you. We're visiting friends in East Hampton.'
Edith and I were as still as mice, not knowing what to do or say, I realized he was drunk.
Edith whispered to me, 'Ruth, he's drunk. Let's go home.'
'Take it easy. He knows what he's doing. Don't worry.'
... After the cop left we started again on our way to East Hampton. Again he couldn't make it. Again he started to fall asleep. He drove about twenty miles per hour, his great head falling, his eyes glassy, moaning incoherently. I wished to God I knew how to drive.
'Jackson, please let's go home'... We got him to stop. He turned around in front of the Cottage Inn, a roadhouse bar, a dancing place frequented by Negroes. It was Saturday night; there were a lot of cars around.
Edith quickly got out of the car. 'I'm going to call for help or call a cab; I must do something.' She was panicked. She was right, but I called her back.
Jackson got furious. 'She can't go in there, get her back.' Then he mumbled drunkenly, something about involvement with Negroes, some disapproving puritanical remark.
'Edith, get back in the car. Come on! Don't go in there!'
'But Ruth, he's drunk. I don't want to drive with him. I'm afraid.'
'No, he's not, he's fine, I promise you, we're going home. Come on! Get In!'
... I finally coaxed Edith to get back in. We started on our way home. Jackson was fully awake, fully conscious. He was angry, annoyed at us, and began to speed.
Edith started screaming, 'Stop the car, let me out!' She was pleading with him. Again she screamed, 'Let me out, please stop the car! Ruth, do something. I'm scared!'
He put his foot all the way to the floor. He was speeding wildly.
'Jackson, slow down! Edith, stop making a fuss. He's fine. Take it easy. Please. Jackson, stop! Jackson don't do this.' I couldn't reach either of them.
Her arms were waving. She was trying to get out of the car.
He started to laugh hysterically.
One curve too fast. The second curve came too quickly. Her screaming. His insane laughter. His eyes lost.
We swerved, skidded to the left out of control - the car lunged into the trees.
We crashed."
Pollock and Edith were killed in the crash, and Ruth was badly injured, but survived.
I've seen pictures of Pollock and Ruth, but I can't find any pictures of Edith. I sure wish I could see her face.
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| abortion polls |
[01 May 2009|11:25pm] |
This is interesting. Why the sudden upturn in the public favoring abortion rights? Did I miss something in the news about abortion stuff? But it's also weird to see how the graph goes all over the place since Roe v. Wade. The public makes no sense!
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| The Tudors - a dose of reality |
[30 Apr 2009|05:45am] |
I watch The Tudors, which is in its third season, and it's a damn good show. I just hate that they miscast the actor for King Henry. I know it's just a show, I know it's just for entertainment. But c'mon.
Below is the actor playing Henry for season 3, which so far deals with the northern rebellion and the birth of his son, Edward. This took place in 1536 and 1537. The actual Henry is the second picture, which was painted in 1536. He was about 44 or 45 years old. The real Henry is fat and looks his age, maybe even older. The actor playing him looks thin and seems to be around 30. He's 31 in real life. Eh, whatever.
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| grah! |
[18 Apr 2009|12:08am] |
My niece.
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| stagnation |
[06 Apr 2009|10:52pm] |
Why is music so boring and drab these days? What this country needs is another European Invasion, like they had in the 1960s and then in the 1980s. Something needs to be shaken and stirred around here because I can't stand it, man. I had Rhapsody for several months and there's just a bunch of shit that's coming out. I feel sorry for the teenagers of this era. I was in high school from 1982 to 1986, and those years kicked ass for music. I'm not saying it's the best, because maybe the emergence of rock in the 50s was better, or maybe the British Invasion of the mid-60s was better, but anything beats today's fucking music scene. Jesus. Serious stagnation...
An answer to a statement before someone says it to me:
And I'm still pissed that the ratings are down for my favorite show, The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Season Finale will probably be SERIES finale, and I'm going to get mad as hell and yell out my window that I "won't take it anymore!" Isn't there any good shows out there that isn't about cops, lawyers or doctors? Why is America fascinated with that crap? The last thing I want to deal with in life are A) Cops, B) Lawyers, and especially C) Doctors. So why would I want to spend my time watching them on TV?!
American public, you're a bunch of douches. And you have no taste. But being a douche implies that already, so whatever...
Anyway, in my favorite show, there's a neat old sad Scottish song that's sung together by a terminator and a little girl. The song was stuck in my head a long time since hearing it, and now I just listened again, so it'll buzz around in my head for the rest of the night. Here, I dare you to listen and not have it stuck in your head afterwards:
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| old man |
[04 Apr 2009|01:36pm] |
My ever-changing ways of trying to paint came up with this old man. It was a struggle and not very fun to paint, but it was good for learning. I've reverted back to the water-mixable oil paints, which I used to hate, but now I'm all for them.
I haven't had a chance to do much drawing because I can't find my vine charcoal. I have willow charcoal, but that stuff is too soft.
I planted a small pine tree out front. He is so small and lonely looking. I should take a picture of it, maybe at dusk. The stark sunshine is never fun for photographing.
I'm thinking of signing up for Twitter. Most of the things I really want to say are short anyway. A lot of the time I think of something I want to get out of my brain, but then I don't do anything because I always associate LJ with more of a drawn-out entry. I don't like Facebook.
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| half-bark sound? |
[18 Mar 2009|11:51am] |
I don't know...seems like it'd be fun right now to sit under the shade of a large tree (or trees). But there are no trees like that around here. And then I'd read a book under that tree. Or I'd get tired and take a nap. Hopefully no bugs would crawl on me.
I have to give up on the idea of moving somewhere "more my style" like the UK. Seems practically impossible to get in those countries and actually live there permanently, at least from what I read about it lately.
Seems LJ is in a weird "dying slowly" stage, huh? LJ is like an old dog that doesn't play as much as it used to, but just lays there looking neglected, mostly because the kids in the house are more amused by the new puppies that Dad brought home. And besides, the old LJ dog is kinda mangy or worn out, and when you pet him, the hair feels tangled and gross, and his breath is bad. I don't know, it's not like he's in pain, so there's no sense in putting him to sleep, so he's okay over there in his little hair-ridden bed, sleeping away. He's got his bowl of food and water, and he still does that weird half-bark sound when he dreams. Haha, what?
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| i'm venting, fuck! |
[12 Mar 2009|07:55pm] |
Anyone who knows me already knows I hate the American health care system. Melissa had severe pains there were making her throw up, so she goes to the ER and they do a scan, give her pain meds, give her fluids, and then off she goes home. She had kidney stones. They said she'd just have to take the meds and wait for the stones to pass. More severe pain and throwing up a day or so later, back to the ER to get more powerful drugs. More fluids. After that, back home.
Now the bill comes. Two ER visits, which I consider rather simple, and the cost is almost what we earn in a whole year.
What the fuck is wrong with this country?!
You know those IV fluid things they give you when you go the hospital. One bag of that cost us over 700 dollars.
ONE BAG OF FLUIDS!
I have those exact same bags of fluids here at home to give to cats that are sick. They're cheap.
700 fucking dollars. I just mention that bag as an example, not to mention all the other expenses for the doctor to see her, or the drugs.
And right, we have no health insurance. No one I know does anyway. No one can afford it, and most jobs don't seem to offer it, unless it's also too expensive. And even if we did have health insurance, most of the time they cover only 80 percent of the cost, plus you have to pay a huge deductable. God, I'm getting angrier and angrier as I write this!
I want to call my congressman and complain, lol. But what the fuck good is that, he's a Republican anyway.
I hate Republicans, and I hate the way the American government works. Mostly because of Republicans.
Yes, I'm a socialist.
Sure, let's spend billions sending probes into space to see if life is on far away planets, like I give two shits about that. Make the taxpayers spend for that. But try to improve the health and education of people here on earth? No, let those who can afford it have it, fuck everyone else.
I don't know why I mentioned the space thing. Just one of many stupid things that piss me off.
Sometimes I like America, but mostly I hate it. For many reasons.
Then again, at least I don't live in Darfur or something?
I was such the typical All-American kid. How did I grow up to hate America so much?
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| pause play |
[09 Mar 2009|10:38pm] |
The McRib is back! I had two of them today. Mmmm, good stuff, whatever the hell it's made of. It might have been back for awhile, I don't know, since I only caught a commercial for it the other night. I rarely watch commercials because I DVR practically everything. DishNetwork DVRs have a 30 second skip function, so you don't see anything. I remember the DirecTV DVR had nothing like that - you just fast-forwarded through everything, but you could still see what the commercials were about.
I watched "Witchboard" (1986) for the first time the other night, and I liked it. I can't believe there are still 80s horror movies out there that I haven't seen yet. The 1980s was the golden age for horror movies, the fun kind of horror movies, the type you would call entertainment. The 70s horror flicks were too gloomy and down, and that sort of thing is what's "in" now. The last fun horror movie that I can think of was 2004's "Dawn of the Dead."
Right now I'm hunting. I'm trying to find more 80s horror gems I've overlooked or never got around to. Unlike most, I don't consider realistic slasher movies "horror," but more in the category of "suspense" or "thriller." It has to have an element of "this can't happen in real life" for it to be true horror. So the "Friday the 13th" movies are out. So is the first Halloween movie, though I actually kinda liked that one. As a thriller. :)
I probably talked about this before. I don't care.
Did I mention the McRib? Oh right, I did.
Now I just wish Jack in the Box would come back with the gyros. Those were great.
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| it's nice out, at least right now |
[04 Mar 2009|06:06pm] |
I think this is kinda cool:
Okay, who else here was kinda hoping that huge meteor thing would have hit earth? C'mon, it was in the news, it just passed us by really close, and if it hit it would have been extremely awesome and explosive. Sadly, it wouldn't have destroyed earth.
I guess people might think that's awful of me, to want the world to die in a big explosion or something. A huge comet just crashing into the world, breaking everything into a gazillion pieces. Or maybe the Death Star could zap us into oblivion like in Star Wars.
Alderaan!
It'd be fast and clean. Mmmm.
But oh noes, everyone would die? So, we're all going to die anyway, and having the world destroyed would just end future sufferings for future generations. Earth is one big ball of living things that didn't ask to be there, wouldn't want to be there if they had a choice in the matter, and tons of suffering and pain. Yeah, sometimes joy. Mostly suffering. A huge cosmic mistake.
I have it pretty easy on earth. I can take it or leave it, and there's tons of living things doing just as good or much better than me. But 99 percent of other living things are struggling for life, being eaten by others, always hungry, or just... Oh I don't know, I'm going to go make a sandwich.
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| I watch too much TV |
[02 Mar 2009|08:22pm] |
I'm still painting when I get the chance.
I watched a few episodes of "True Blood" on HBO the other day. It's about vampires in The South. But only barely - mostly it's about a bunch of unlikeable low-life redneck characters with those unbearable southern accents. The vampire stuff is almost a sideline to all of this. I watched about three episodes and decided it wasn't for me at all.
My favorite show, which I've mentioned before, is The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which apparently no one else in the country likes. The ratings are horrible and I'm sure this will be it's last season. Shame. Sadness for me.
I watched Hancock last night. I didn't like it.
I'm happy to report that 1984 can now be viewed on Netflix as "Instant View." An awesome movie. If you have Netflix, you should watch it. If you have taste in good movies, that is.
It's getting hot around here. Today it was nearly 90 degrees. And while I suffer in that, I hear it's snowing in Atlanta friggin' Georgia. Life is no fair. I used to sometimes wander outside in the late afternoon with my camera and see what I could find. Today it was too hot. I slept a lot because my sleeping schedule is screwed. It will get harder to sleep as the summer drives closer.
You know what pisses me off? I was watching Big Love (good show) and they killed off a character I really liked. Kathy. Or was it Cathy? I'm still miffed at that.
On Battlestar Galactica they are killing of characters right and left, but the show is grinding to an end, so I guess that makes sense. I'm glad the show is ending. You can only go on so long before their objective is achieved.
As much as I love LOST, I'm disappointed that they're going to stretch the show out longer than they intended. I read they had a five year plan, and right now they're clearly going to go past that. Bad ratings kills shows, good ratings makes them drag on into mediocrity.
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| about all I've done |
[09 Feb 2009|06:22am] |
I think maybe I'll have a bowl of cereal. That's the plan, the kind of plan I'll stick to while I walk to the kitchen, but I won't know if that plan will stick once I get to the kitchen. I'll turn on the lights there and look in the fridge, or the pantry, which is something I always do, even if I have a plan to eat something specific. And maybe I'll think, "Oh, I'd rather have that." Could be a can of refried beans. It won't be. It can't be. Who'd ever just open a can of refried beans and eat that? I can imagine doing it if I was super hungry, like if I was rummaging around a deserted house after a nuclear war, and I was starving, and the world was all messed up, and I came across a can of refried beans. I'd eat it right there. But refried beans never have those tabs on the top for easy opening. It's 2009 and I can't believe that all cans don't have those easy open lids. No, you still need a can opener for some cans.
But basically I plan on having a bowl of cereal after writing this.
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| increased behaviors |
[02 Feb 2009|09:21pm] |
These little ground squirrels are everywhere out here in the desert. For weeks now I was hearing a tweeting sound that I thought was this one type of bird. I never saw the bird. Now I know why - it's the tweeting of ground squirrels!
Here's a picture of one I took. He didn't see me peeking over the fence at him with my camera. I gotchoo, little guy, I gotchoo on candid cameruh!
I watched a little of the Super Bowl. I was kinda hoping for cool fun commercials. They were boring this year. Saw a little of the Puppy Bowl. Not much going on in the world of me.
I still haven't been able to find any information about the claymation version of The Little Match Girl, and that annoys me.
I watched WALL-E the other night. Haha, that was pretty good. I had fun. It was cutesy, more cutesy that I would have made it. But it's aimed at kids, I guess. The parody of fat people was pretty awesome. And a bit too realistic, so much so that people's feelings probably got hurt while watching it. Soon after watching that, I saw a commercial on TV that said 1 in 3 kids are overweight. Which seems fucked up. When I was a kid, there was maybe one or two fat kids in the whole class. I can't imagine 1/3 of the class being fat. And people think WALL-E was off base? That's set hundres of years in the future! And here in the past 30 years we've gone from maybe 2 fat kids in a class to a whole 1/3?
Here's what one person said about WALL-E: "I’m fat. I don’t want to see this movie anymore. I don’t want to walk out crying."
Hahaha....
I'm sorry, but that's just awesomely funny.
I have nothing against fat people. I just love it better when a fat person has a sense of humor and can laugh about shit like this. Skinny people don't walk out of theaters crying because all the villains in most movies are super thin and tall (and they almost always are, and I can't think of a fat villain right now, except for maybe Jabba from Star Wars - and even he was made fun of, in a sense, for being a sloppy glutton, haha).
Even funnier is the complaint from some people with eating disorders (or ED, whatever):
"We saw WALL-E as a family yesterday. In my opinion, this is one to avoid if your child has anorexia. Obesity is one of the major themes of the movie…. I didn’t think for a second that a movie about a little robot could have anything to do with weight. My son keeps making comments about ‘all of those fat, lazy people just sitting around doing nothing.’ We’ve seen a significant increase in his anorexic behaviors since we saw the movie yesterday."
Haha, whaaaa? I wonder if this "increase in his anorexic behaviors" is him trying to some fucking weight because he's fat? If it's not that, then that's a bummer, but stop blaming your problems on movies. Jesus. Can you imagine if movies were forced to comply and be careful of every person's fears, problems, diseases, or compulsions? We'd have to leave out fires for the pyromaniacs, guns left out because it might "increase his suicidal tendencies," or even belts or ropes because it might upset someone who recently had a friend who hung himself. And so on and so on. Whiners, stop complaining. If you don't like the movie, or if you're offended, just don't watch it again. I'm offended by hundreds of movies, because they bored me. It increased my "who the fuck wrote this piece of shit" behaviors.
Anyway, I've been watching The Highlander pretty constantly for free on Hulu, which is amazing. Thank you, technology. Also, I've yet to see a fat immortal on the show. They probably wouldn't be very good at sword fighting and would get their heads cut off too easily, so I guess that's to be expected. At least they have women immortals. They've even had a few over-the-hill immortals (in shape, of course).
On Netflix's "watch instantly" option, I've been watching an episode or two of "As Time Goes By" each night for the past week or so. I wanted to watch those, since the tidbits I'd seen on PBS always looked soothing and charismatic, but didn't like the idea of renting them. So when I saw them on "watch instantly," I was all "Hoooorayyy for meeeeee!"
Applause.
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| feeling down? |
[31 Jan 2009|04:14pm] |
It's the perfect gift for yourself if you're feeling down. We all need a little encouragement, right?
I was having some recent doubts about my awesomeness. But now I'm back on track because of this!
The end of it. See it. Wait for it. You won't regret it.
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