Soundtrack To My Life
I feel like an old man lately, going to sleep early, waking up early, seeing high school kids wherever I go. And it doesn't help that when I listen to the radio these days, I hear stuff like "Killer B Flashbacks" or "Q101 Nineties Nooner" and it's all the stuff I used to listen to.
When I was a little kid, I thought my mom and dad were old cause they listened to stuff like Carpenters, Crystal Gale, Bee Gees, and J Lo. But now, kids probably think I'm old for liking Mariah Carey (pre-ho days), Stone Temple Pilots (pre-sucky days), and Boyz II Men (when they were actually Boyz).
Oh well, since I like to reminisce, why not make a list of songs that remind me of certain times in my life. These weren't all necessarily released in the exact time I list them in, they're just the songs I was listening to at the time. They're not all songs that I like either, but most of them are.
*The Year I Lived In Taiwan - Freshman in HS*
Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do
4PM - Sukyaki
All 4 One - I Swear
Boyz II Men - I'll Make Love To You
Mariah Carey - Without You, Anytime You Need A Friend
I think I woke up to Sheryl Crow on my clock radio at least half the days I was living in Taiwan. There's one English radio station that you can hear there (ICRT) and they always played like the top 5 hits on the pop chart over and over. So if it wasn't Sheryl Crow, it was Sukyaki. Back then I didn't really know anything about alternative music or hip hop stuff.
*Sophomore Year of HS*
Seal - Kiss From A Rose
Blues Traveler - Runaround
Ace of Base - The Sign, Don't Turn Around, All that She Wants
TLC - Waterfalls
U2 - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
Real McCoy - Come And Get Your Love, Another Night, Runaway
Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise
This was when I got my own walkman (Sony WM-470, I saved up like 30 bucks for it which is a lot of money), and I started buying tapes. Either me or my sister own most of these tapes, but I don't know where they are anymore. Anyways, back at that time, we were just moving back from Taiwan so we had to stay with a friend's family for a few months. Even though they were very cool for letting us live there, it was one of the toughest times for me. I still kind of hung out with my old friends, but after a year out of the country, it wasn't the same.
Kind of sad, but my only close friend was my walkman. I would just listen to it all day whenever I could, and it was like an escape from the outside world. Maybe that is why music means so much to me today, cause it's all I had for a while.
*Junior Year of HS*
Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song, Big Empty, Lady Picture Show, Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart
Smashing Pumpkins - 1979, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Today, Tonight Tonight, Thirty-three
Green Day - Brain Stew, Basket Case
311 - Down
No Doubt - Happy Now?, Don't Speak, Just A Girl
The first CD I ever bought was Purple by STP. I still listen to it all the time, it's one of my favorite albums ever. Anyways, if you can't tell by the list, I pretty much had Q101 on all the time. I remember coming home from school every day, watching TV, then doing my homework to the Top 5 at 5.
Another thing that sticks in my mind from back then is when I was at the arcade at Yorktown, they were showing the video for "Don't Speak". For some reason, I was enthralled with the video, even if it was just pretty much the band playing in the garage. And even though I distinctly remember not thinking Gwen Stefani was hot in any way. Weird, but when I watch the video now, I think it is one of Gwen's best looking moments.
*Senior Year of HS*
Puff Daddy - I'll Be Missing You, Can't Nobody Hold Me Down, All About the Benjamins, Mo' Money Mo' Problems, Senorita
Backstreet Boys - Quit Playing Games, As Long As You Love Me
Allure f. 112 - All Cried Out
Babyface - Everytime I Close My Eyes
Usher - U Make Me Wanna, Nice & Slow
Sarah MacLachlan - I Will Remember You
Green Day - Time Of Your Life
Freak Nasty - Da Dip
I started listening to less Q101 and more B96 starting around the summer before senior year. Half of these songs stick out in my head because of all the stuff that goes on when you're about to graduate, like the Senior Video and Prom. I hated that Green Day song with a passion.
Also, I had no idea who the Backstreet Boys were, but when I finally saw one of their videos, it was one of the more shocking moments in my life. I don't know why, it's not like I expected them to look a certain way. But I could've done without seeing the Boys soaking in the rain.
*Freshman Year College*
N Sync - God Must've Spent A Little More Time, I Drive Myself Crazy
Paperboy - Ditty
Notorious B.I.G. & Bone - Notorious Thugs
Turbo - December, Goodbye Yesterday
Jinusean - Celebrate, Marl Hae Cho, How Deep Is Your Love
DJ Doc - Biguk Biguk, Docdance'
H.O.T. - We Are The Future, Candy
Kai - Without You
Fin.K.L - Blue Rain
Bone Thugs & Harmony - Crossroads, Mo Murda, 1st of Tha Month
DMX - Ruff Ryder's Anthem, How's It Goin' Down
Warren G - Regulate
Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
Britney Spears - Baby One More Time, Sometimes
Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
Big Pun - Still Not A Playa
Master P - Make 'Em Say UHHHH
Boyz II Men - Human II
One of the first things me and Andy did when we moved into our dorm room at FAR was to download mp3s onto my comp. I don't know why I'm admitting this, but our first mp3 ever was "God Must've Spent A Little More Time...", back before Napster or Kazaa. We had to use AOL chatrooms, and eventually Scour.net to find songs. For a couple weeks, I think that was the only song we had, which is kind of flaming now that I think about it.
There's so many memories of this year and the music that goes along with it, this was probably one of the most musically-rich times of my life. The best moment of the year was the following story: Me Chras and Anuj up late playing Goldeneye or something one night at IT, and after we were done we were just watching MTV and one of those "Spanking New Video" or "Buzzworthy Artist" things came on. The video was none other than "Baby One More Time," little did we know how big that would explode.
For about half the video, the 3 of us were just silently watching, thinking like "what the hell is this?". Because there really wasn't much teeny pop music at the time at all and we were used to all hip-hop or alternative kinds of videos. Then near the end of the video (about when she's in the pink top doing cartwheels, then in the yellow with the basketball), Anuj was like "she's hot." Me and Chras agreed, and we went online to look up more information on who this Britney Spears girl was.
Believe it or not, there was ONE site returned from the search engine (remember Altavista?), and I think it was made by one of her relatives or something. Today, if you search for Britney Spears on Google, you probably have to sort through a sea of fake-celebrity porn sites just to find one that's actually on Britney.
Anyways, that was our first encounter with Miss Spears and I have been all about Britney Spears ever since. Except now, I hear she is seeing Fred Durst. Not that I liked Justin, but Fred Durst, I'm sorry, that's just freaking poor. If it's true, I must say I have lost a lot of respect (of whatever's left) for Britney.
Also, I am NOT Korean. Me, Andy, and Will were all Chinese, but we had a ton of Korean influences around and they got us listening to all the K-pop stuff that year. We even set my computer wallpaper to a picture of Hyori from Fin.K.L. And H.O.T.'s "Candy" is one song that I think every single Asian person our age knows, whether they are Korean or not.
*Sophomore Year of College*
Britney Spears - You Drive Me Crazy, From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart
Backstreet Boys - Larger Than Life, All I Have To Give, Show Me The Meaning, The One
Limp Bizkit - Nookie
Mo Thugs - Ghetto Cowboy
2Pac - (everything)
Rage Against The Machine - Guerilla Radio, Bulls On Parade
311 - Come Original
Smashing Pumpkins - (everything, but especially Machina songs)
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Around the World, Otherside
Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly, Next Year
Yuki Hsu & Yoo Seung Jun - Deng Bu Ji
Mariah Carey & Brian McKnight - Whenever You Call
TLC - No Scrubs, Unpretty, Silly Ho
Ah... the thing I remember most from this year was the Craft & TRL tradition that me and P carried on almost every day. After class we played Starcraft almost every day, and in the background I always had MTV on. So I associate a lot of the Britney and Backstreet songs with this year. That was the life, playing Starcraft and listening to music.
Then there were the MarioKart battles in my room when we (all male college students) would be belting out the high notes of "Whenever You Call" at the top of our lungs. Good times.
Another thing to note was the concerts we went to - 311, Foo Fighters/Chili Peppers, and Pumpkins (actually that was the next fall for me). Not to mention Britney in the summer at Wisconsin. I think I already wrote about these concerts before so I won't write any more here.
And these were the days when I kept track of what songs were on my Rio on my .plan (remember those, the precursor to blogs). I was just going through some of those that I saved and I forgot how huge of a song "You Drive Me Crazy" was. That's still my favorite Britney Spears song and video of all time.
*Since Then*
I guess junior year of college and beyond is still too recent to really reminisce about, so I'll cut this list off there. Man, that was a lot of writing and thinking. Hopefully one day I'll look back on this blog and be glad that I wrote all of this down.
Saturday, January 18, 2003
Thursday, January 16, 2003
First Post From Work
Hopefully I don't make a habit of this, but I'm not that busy this morning yet, so why not write a blog.
My excitement is building with every day we get closer to baseball and Opening Day. Since I don't really care who wins the Superbowl, I need the baseball season to start right now. Till then I guess the Illini will have to tide me over.
Speaking of the Illini, man was that a frustrating game to watch yesterday. Losing to that queer-looking bunch of Iowa Hawkeyes is not cool. But at least that queen fairy of them all Puke Retcher isn't on that team anymore. We'll be fine, it's just one loss, but our defense on the road doesn't look so impressive. Especially Stick Smith, he's just terrrrrible.
One thing that doesn't excite me that much is the Sox getting Bartolo Colon. Somehow I think he's just gonna continue the tradition of offseason free agent pitcher acquisitions that come here and don't do jack once the season starts. David Wells started it, then Todd Ritchie continued it and took it to another level of sucking. Have I ever mentioned how much Kenny Williams blows goats? If not, maybe I will have to write a whole blog on that. Maybe when the season starts.
Just got my first Performance Appraisal System (PAS) report done with my supervisor. My score came out to be 3.54, somewhere between "Met Objectives Completely" and "Met and Exceeded Objectives". And apparently I "demonstrate a conscientious attitude" towards my work. Nice. Hopefully next year I can raise my PAS score to the 3.6 level or above?
One thing about my supervisor, he's one of the nicest people you will ever meet. I think he's great, but I have to say it's hilarious to watch him type. He's been here 35 years, is well respected and when he talks at meetings, everyone shuts up and listens. But he still uses the "two index finger poke" system to type on the keyboard. Seriously, it took him like 5 minutes to finish 1 sentence, looking for each letter individually, pressing the button, then looking for the next letter, screwing up, then looking for the backspace button. A little hard for me to avoid snickering in that situation, but I was strong.
Haha that reminds me of when I was trying to teach someone how to play Tekken Tag Tournament. I will protect her identity, but it was a girl and that probably explains the difficulty right there. I think girls just aren't born with the ability to tap buttons quickly on a controller. So that basically rules out pretty much all of the combos and special moves you can do in Tekken. I was like, "OK, tap Circle-Circle-X fast" but no matter how hard she tried, couldn't do it. Now this girl is not stupid, when we took classes together at school, she almost always beat me on the tests. But she just can't tap for the life of her, when to me and most of my boys, it's a way of life.
"Just tap it in... tap it in... tap tap taparoo" - Happy Gilmore
Someone just paged "Frank Thomas" here on the PA system. Once in a while "Jerry Rice" gets paged too. I wonder if those are real guys who work here, or it's just a joke. But those are pretty common names I guess. And I don't think people here would joke around on the PA, cause Security is nothing to mess around with at this place.
Hopefully I don't make a habit of this, but I'm not that busy this morning yet, so why not write a blog.
My excitement is building with every day we get closer to baseball and Opening Day. Since I don't really care who wins the Superbowl, I need the baseball season to start right now. Till then I guess the Illini will have to tide me over.
Speaking of the Illini, man was that a frustrating game to watch yesterday. Losing to that queer-looking bunch of Iowa Hawkeyes is not cool. But at least that queen fairy of them all Puke Retcher isn't on that team anymore. We'll be fine, it's just one loss, but our defense on the road doesn't look so impressive. Especially Stick Smith, he's just terrrrrible.
One thing that doesn't excite me that much is the Sox getting Bartolo Colon. Somehow I think he's just gonna continue the tradition of offseason free agent pitcher acquisitions that come here and don't do jack once the season starts. David Wells started it, then Todd Ritchie continued it and took it to another level of sucking. Have I ever mentioned how much Kenny Williams blows goats? If not, maybe I will have to write a whole blog on that. Maybe when the season starts.
Just got my first Performance Appraisal System (PAS) report done with my supervisor. My score came out to be 3.54, somewhere between "Met Objectives Completely" and "Met and Exceeded Objectives". And apparently I "demonstrate a conscientious attitude" towards my work. Nice. Hopefully next year I can raise my PAS score to the 3.6 level or above?
One thing about my supervisor, he's one of the nicest people you will ever meet. I think he's great, but I have to say it's hilarious to watch him type. He's been here 35 years, is well respected and when he talks at meetings, everyone shuts up and listens. But he still uses the "two index finger poke" system to type on the keyboard. Seriously, it took him like 5 minutes to finish 1 sentence, looking for each letter individually, pressing the button, then looking for the next letter, screwing up, then looking for the backspace button. A little hard for me to avoid snickering in that situation, but I was strong.
Haha that reminds me of when I was trying to teach someone how to play Tekken Tag Tournament. I will protect her identity, but it was a girl and that probably explains the difficulty right there. I think girls just aren't born with the ability to tap buttons quickly on a controller. So that basically rules out pretty much all of the combos and special moves you can do in Tekken. I was like, "OK, tap Circle-Circle-X fast" but no matter how hard she tried, couldn't do it. Now this girl is not stupid, when we took classes together at school, she almost always beat me on the tests. But she just can't tap for the life of her, when to me and most of my boys, it's a way of life.
"Just tap it in... tap it in... tap tap taparoo" - Happy Gilmore
Someone just paged "Frank Thomas" here on the PA system. Once in a while "Jerry Rice" gets paged too. I wonder if those are real guys who work here, or it's just a joke. But those are pretty common names I guess. And I don't think people here would joke around on the PA, cause Security is nothing to mess around with at this place.
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Tuesday Thoughts
Last night I went to sleep early (9:30-ish) and today I woke up feeling very refreshed, quite swell, and maybe even a bit spicy, you might say. I wish I could do that every night, but I can't. It's really rather amazing how much difference what an hour's worth of sleep can do for your day.
Anyways, that put me in a good mood to start the day, which was surprisingly not dampened by the 1 hour and 20 minutes spent on the road in the morning commute alone. I didn't even curse the gapers for causing delays.
So we had the first department meeting of the year today, and everyone had to introduce themselves, mostly for the sake of the newer people (like me). There's a couple people there that are around my age, but the rest of them are older. It's weird hearing all these guys saying "I've been working here for 25 years" or "I've been here 35 years" when I haven't even lived that long myself.
I don't know if that will be me in 30 years - managing, supervising, and holla-ing back at the young'ns, and then going home to play with my grandchildren. They all seem pretty happy with where they're at in life though. I wonder if they had any idea they'd be at the same company for so long when they first started out. As for me, I can barely picture where I'll be in 5 years, let alone 20 or 30. One day at a time, I guess.
Something I noticed in the parking lot is that I probably have a more expensive car than all but about 1% of the cars in the lot. While the fact is, I have been at this company and probably make less than about 99% of the people there. Maybe engineers don't care what they drive. One of my managers has a early '90s Buick, and another one drives an old Camry. But what about the corporate people? I'm guessing they just choose to drive the crappier car to work, with the snow and all, while saving the M5 or Porsche for the weekend pimping. Well, for me it's either the G or the minivan.
Or I could take the Skyline:
It's kind of small though, and the driver's seat is on the right. Too bad.
I just realized that I missed watching High School Reunion on Sunday. I guess I am just not very easily hooked on those kinds of shows. It's too much trouble to remember when everything is on, that's why I prefer Real World cause MTV shows those marathons all the time and I can catch up on all the episodes at once.
Oh, and I went to Cub Foods the other day to pick up some stuff for making my lunch, and I looked for Squeeze-its. But I'm sorry to say, they were nowhere to be found. I will have to look at Dominicks or Jewel, the more high-class supermarkets.
Hey by the way, there is a sale this week at Dominicks starting Thursday, 5 for $10 Jack's Frozen Pizza. That's right, for a mere $2 each, you too can own up to 5 of these delightful creations. All it takes is a little bit of preheating and 12 minutes in the oven, and it's ready to eat. Then you could be like Kevin McAllister and say, "A lovely cheese pizza, just for me."
Last night I went to sleep early (9:30-ish) and today I woke up feeling very refreshed, quite swell, and maybe even a bit spicy, you might say. I wish I could do that every night, but I can't. It's really rather amazing how much difference what an hour's worth of sleep can do for your day.
Anyways, that put me in a good mood to start the day, which was surprisingly not dampened by the 1 hour and 20 minutes spent on the road in the morning commute alone. I didn't even curse the gapers for causing delays.
So we had the first department meeting of the year today, and everyone had to introduce themselves, mostly for the sake of the newer people (like me). There's a couple people there that are around my age, but the rest of them are older. It's weird hearing all these guys saying "I've been working here for 25 years" or "I've been here 35 years" when I haven't even lived that long myself.
I don't know if that will be me in 30 years - managing, supervising, and holla-ing back at the young'ns, and then going home to play with my grandchildren. They all seem pretty happy with where they're at in life though. I wonder if they had any idea they'd be at the same company for so long when they first started out. As for me, I can barely picture where I'll be in 5 years, let alone 20 or 30. One day at a time, I guess.
Something I noticed in the parking lot is that I probably have a more expensive car than all but about 1% of the cars in the lot. While the fact is, I have been at this company and probably make less than about 99% of the people there. Maybe engineers don't care what they drive. One of my managers has a early '90s Buick, and another one drives an old Camry. But what about the corporate people? I'm guessing they just choose to drive the crappier car to work, with the snow and all, while saving the M5 or Porsche for the weekend pimping. Well, for me it's either the G or the minivan.
Or I could take the Skyline:
It's kind of small though, and the driver's seat is on the right. Too bad.
I just realized that I missed watching High School Reunion on Sunday. I guess I am just not very easily hooked on those kinds of shows. It's too much trouble to remember when everything is on, that's why I prefer Real World cause MTV shows those marathons all the time and I can catch up on all the episodes at once.
Oh, and I went to Cub Foods the other day to pick up some stuff for making my lunch, and I looked for Squeeze-its. But I'm sorry to say, they were nowhere to be found. I will have to look at Dominicks or Jewel, the more high-class supermarkets.
Hey by the way, there is a sale this week at Dominicks starting Thursday, 5 for $10 Jack's Frozen Pizza. That's right, for a mere $2 each, you too can own up to 5 of these delightful creations. All it takes is a little bit of preheating and 12 minutes in the oven, and it's ready to eat. Then you could be like Kevin McAllister and say, "A lovely cheese pizza, just for me."
Sunday, January 12, 2003
At the Movies
It seems like I have been watching a lot more movies the past couple years than before. Watching movies is almost like a way of life now, that I wonder what people used to do before movies were so popular, when there were no AMC 30 screen theaters, no student discounts, and when high school kids still spent their time studying and doing homework.
Well on the news the other day, they were talking about how the movie industry set another record high in revenue for 2002, breaking the record set in 2001 by a big margin. So I guess I am not the only one who has been watching more movies lately.
One thing I wonder though: is it just me, or do movie previews seem much lamer these days? Almost all of the previews I have seen lately kind of really suck. They don't give me much to look forward to. Except maybe for the movie with DMX and Jet Li. That preview was so good that I don't even remember the name of the movie. But I do know it comes out Feb. 28th. Hopefully DMX is in this movie more than he was in Romeo Must Die. When he got shot in that movie, it was one of the all time biggest "WTF" moments I have ever experienced in any movie.
Anyways, my plan for this blog was to give some reviews on the movies I've watched most recently, within a couple weeks. I'm not a professional critic but here is my take on the following flicks:
About Schmidt
A lot of people haven't heard anything at all about this movie, including myself, up until 2 weeks ago. It's nice to go into a theater and not know what to expect of what you are about to watch, unless of course the movie ends up sucking really bad regardless of expectations. But this one was pretty good. It's basically about an old guy dealing with life after retirement and after his wife dies. Played by Jack Nicholson, who is hilarious. I have a renewed sense of respect for his acting abilities after watching this movie.
There was one really unfortunate part of the movie, which was the scene involving the mom from the Waterboy and the hot tub.
Other than that, it was a good movie to make you think, kind of like the stuff I wrote on life a while ago in this blog. I learned two major lessons from this film:
1. It doesn't matter if you are a 60 year old guy who can retire comfortably after a long career in the insurance industry, or a 6 year old orphan boy in Africa who is malnourished and probably suffering from a load of diseases. Everyone has problems, "it's-all-relative". So in the end, it's how you deal with your problems that actually makes one life different from another.
2. The world waits for no one. Sometimes I think life would be great if you could freeze time and have nothing ever change. But this is impossible. People change, situations change, very few things stay the same over time. With this in mind, we shouldn't be wasting time trying to control our surroundings, we should learn to take things as they come without putting too much stock in the future.
Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers
Finally I got to watch these movies, the first on DVD and the second at the theater. One thing I've always wondered is, what was it like 20-25 years ago when the original Star Wars movies were coming out? I don't think LOTR is quite as huge, but it has to be pretty close, in terms of the excitement and hype generated.
And surprisingly, these movies actually live up to the hype. The story is good, of course, but more than that, I don't know if I have ever been so impressed with the visuals of a movie as in LOTR. Maybe it wasn't the most technologically advanced special effects, but watching the movie in the theater is one of those experiences you will probably have to see for yourself to understand what I'm saying. Watching it reminds me of some of the parts in Crouching Tiger, when the music, the scenery and the plot all fit together seamlessly and it really feels like it's more than just another movie on the big screen.
25th Hour
"A Spike Lee Joint" Why does he call it that anyways? Do people actually think that's cool? How many good Spike Lee Joints can you think of? I'm sure there's probably a couple, but when I hear his name, the first thing I usually think of isn't awesome movies. It's those old Nike commercials with Jordan and Mars Blackman.
Well, I didn't really see this movie cause it was directed by Spike Lee. More because I respect Edward Norton's abilities, and also because Nina and Vira said it was supposed to be good. So, in spite of Anna Paquin's skankiness, I had pretty high expectations for this movie going in, and I came out only partly satisfied.
It was one of those movies that is supposed to make you think, which is good. Basically, it's about Edward Norton's last day before he has to go to jail for dealing drugs. After the movie, I thought it was funny that P and Greg said "it's just kind of like how you feel the day before you have to go back to work, after a vacation or something, except worse." Yeah, worse in that you would have to worry about being raped by 300 pound criminals, not just having to wake up earlier.
Philip Seymour Hoffman is also in the movie. I can't think of what other movies I have seen him in, but all I gotta say is, he just plain looks like a pedophile. I mean, maybe he is the most normal guy around, but if I had a daughter, I'd make sure to keep her away from that man.
Overall, not a bad movie. Could've been better, could've been worse. I still like Edward Norton, he is one of my favorite actors/actresses of all time, up there with Harrison Ford, Macaulay Culkin, Gwyneth, and Britney Spears.
It seems like I have been watching a lot more movies the past couple years than before. Watching movies is almost like a way of life now, that I wonder what people used to do before movies were so popular, when there were no AMC 30 screen theaters, no student discounts, and when high school kids still spent their time studying and doing homework.
Well on the news the other day, they were talking about how the movie industry set another record high in revenue for 2002, breaking the record set in 2001 by a big margin. So I guess I am not the only one who has been watching more movies lately.
One thing I wonder though: is it just me, or do movie previews seem much lamer these days? Almost all of the previews I have seen lately kind of really suck. They don't give me much to look forward to. Except maybe for the movie with DMX and Jet Li. That preview was so good that I don't even remember the name of the movie. But I do know it comes out Feb. 28th. Hopefully DMX is in this movie more than he was in Romeo Must Die. When he got shot in that movie, it was one of the all time biggest "WTF" moments I have ever experienced in any movie.
Anyways, my plan for this blog was to give some reviews on the movies I've watched most recently, within a couple weeks. I'm not a professional critic but here is my take on the following flicks:
About Schmidt
A lot of people haven't heard anything at all about this movie, including myself, up until 2 weeks ago. It's nice to go into a theater and not know what to expect of what you are about to watch, unless of course the movie ends up sucking really bad regardless of expectations. But this one was pretty good. It's basically about an old guy dealing with life after retirement and after his wife dies. Played by Jack Nicholson, who is hilarious. I have a renewed sense of respect for his acting abilities after watching this movie.
There was one really unfortunate part of the movie, which was the scene involving the mom from the Waterboy and the hot tub.
Other than that, it was a good movie to make you think, kind of like the stuff I wrote on life a while ago in this blog. I learned two major lessons from this film:
1. It doesn't matter if you are a 60 year old guy who can retire comfortably after a long career in the insurance industry, or a 6 year old orphan boy in Africa who is malnourished and probably suffering from a load of diseases. Everyone has problems, "it's-all-relative". So in the end, it's how you deal with your problems that actually makes one life different from another.
2. The world waits for no one. Sometimes I think life would be great if you could freeze time and have nothing ever change. But this is impossible. People change, situations change, very few things stay the same over time. With this in mind, we shouldn't be wasting time trying to control our surroundings, we should learn to take things as they come without putting too much stock in the future.
Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers
Finally I got to watch these movies, the first on DVD and the second at the theater. One thing I've always wondered is, what was it like 20-25 years ago when the original Star Wars movies were coming out? I don't think LOTR is quite as huge, but it has to be pretty close, in terms of the excitement and hype generated.
And surprisingly, these movies actually live up to the hype. The story is good, of course, but more than that, I don't know if I have ever been so impressed with the visuals of a movie as in LOTR. Maybe it wasn't the most technologically advanced special effects, but watching the movie in the theater is one of those experiences you will probably have to see for yourself to understand what I'm saying. Watching it reminds me of some of the parts in Crouching Tiger, when the music, the scenery and the plot all fit together seamlessly and it really feels like it's more than just another movie on the big screen.
25th Hour
"A Spike Lee Joint" Why does he call it that anyways? Do people actually think that's cool? How many good Spike Lee Joints can you think of? I'm sure there's probably a couple, but when I hear his name, the first thing I usually think of isn't awesome movies. It's those old Nike commercials with Jordan and Mars Blackman.
Well, I didn't really see this movie cause it was directed by Spike Lee. More because I respect Edward Norton's abilities, and also because Nina and Vira said it was supposed to be good. So, in spite of Anna Paquin's skankiness, I had pretty high expectations for this movie going in, and I came out only partly satisfied.
It was one of those movies that is supposed to make you think, which is good. Basically, it's about Edward Norton's last day before he has to go to jail for dealing drugs. After the movie, I thought it was funny that P and Greg said "it's just kind of like how you feel the day before you have to go back to work, after a vacation or something, except worse." Yeah, worse in that you would have to worry about being raped by 300 pound criminals, not just having to wake up earlier.
Philip Seymour Hoffman is also in the movie. I can't think of what other movies I have seen him in, but all I gotta say is, he just plain looks like a pedophile. I mean, maybe he is the most normal guy around, but if I had a daughter, I'd make sure to keep her away from that man.
Overall, not a bad movie. Could've been better, could've been worse. I still like Edward Norton, he is one of my favorite actors/actresses of all time, up there with Harrison Ford, Macaulay Culkin, Gwyneth, and Britney Spears.
Thursday, January 09, 2003
A Day In The Life
Work - Today was pretty much like any other day at work, except I got my clearance from the Department of Defense. Now I can officially authorize and handle "Secret" material. It's a weird feeling, kind of like an angel getting his wings, except it's me getting my 2 stars, and also I didn't do anything to earn them. Other than not joining a terrorist organization or plotting the violent overthrow of the United States government.
Woodfield - I had to stop by Woodfield to exchange/return a scarf and gloves for my sister. The stuff was from J. Crew, but for some reason my sister put it in a Express bag. So since I wasn't really paying attention, I just went straight to Express. I was supposed to look to see if there were any of that style of gloves to exchange (cause the ones she got had a hole in them), and if not, I was instructed to return them.
Of course, I am almost never in Express, and when I am, it's usually with a girl. I knew it would feel weird to be walking around that store by myself, but I seriously felt like I was sticking out like a sore thumb, like I was naked or something. And as I had no idea where the gloves might be located, I decided to ask one of the chicks working there. She pointed to the back left corner and said "go all the way to the wall, then they will be on your right. I looked at the back left corner, and noted that it was all underwear. "Hmmm...." I thought to myself, is she trying to make me look dumb by sending me to bra and thongs section?
But I went anyways, and the gloves ended up being kind of where she pointed, but not exactly. I was kind of pissed at that chick because it's hard to be looking around an area surrounded by bras and stuff without feeling weird. Maybe I am just immature, but still.
Anyways, I didn't find the same pair of gloves so I got in line to return the ones I brought. I waited for at least 10 minutes in line, and when I finally got to the counter and gave the girl the gloves and receipt, she looked at it for a second, then looked at me funny, and said "uhh these are from J. Crew." Sweet, didn't I look like a dumbass. And no wonder they didn't have that pair of gloves. I was in the thong section feeling red for nothing. So I was like "my bad" and scurried out of that store as fast as I could to head to J. Crew.
Finally I went to J. Crew. They didn't have the gloves either, so I returned them and put it back on my sister's J. Crew card. One stupid thing I noticed is that I still had to sign, and that she briefly glanced at my sister's signature on the card and compared it to my signature before giving it back to me. Since I signed my own name, there's no way the two signatures could have even remotely matched, but I guess she was already in the motion of giving me back my card so who cares. Why should I have to sign anyways, I'm putting the credit back on that freaking card anyways, it's not like it's going to me.
Dave & Busters - A friend from church is moving to Cali for a job, so we had a little dinner and party for her at D&B's. I used to think it was annoying that they were strict about people being 21 and over, or escorted and whatnot. But, now I think it is nice to not be surrounded by punk high school kids whenever I go somewhere. I swear, every place I go there are these loud annoying high schoolers, whether it's the movie theater, mall, Streets of Woodfield, Great America, EVERY DAMN PLACE.
I have to wonder, were we this obnoxious 5 or 6 years ago? I think the answer is a clear and emphatic no. In high school:
1) I was always doing homework
2) I didn't have a car until senior year
3) I didn't have money to burn
Now you see all these kids putting turbo kits on their Acura RSX's and racing around town till 2 in the morning. WHAT THE FLUX IS GOING ON.
Another nice thing about D&B's (in Addison) is that it has Daytona USA, the original. That is one of the best arcade games ever made, without question in my mind. Not many places still carry Daytona.
Home - Came home, my mom and dad were watching Lord of the Rings which me and Olivia rented last Sunday but havent returned yet. I thought that was funny, my mom and dad watching Lord of the Rings. That really doesn't seem like their type of movie.
Read some blogs before writing this one. Since Stork was writing about entropy, that reminds me of something that I was thinking about once. The concept of entropy basically says that things always move from a state of order to disorder, never the opposite unless energy is added to the system. The most common example to illustrate this is the order of your bedroom, it only gets messier and messier, not cleaner and cleaner, unless you expend energy to clean it.
This is one of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics (I forget which one exactly), which all scientists pretty much agree on. Modern science also subscribes to the theory of evolution as the origin of life, over the concept of divine creation. Now, if you think about it, the concept of entropy really should dispel the idea that out of nothing (or a pool of "life soup"), came bacteria, then multi-celled organisms, then plants and animals and eventually humans, all by the process of evolution alone.
Instead, one would have to think that some outside force must have been working and putting energy into the process of evolution to make it work. Remember, the laws of entropy require that disorderly states do not become orderly without energy being put in to the system.
My conclusion: scientists and supposed scholars contradict themselves when trying to disprove the existence of God by "scientific logic." I believe in the validity of evolution as a process, but I do not believe it means life came out of nowhere. Look at how complex human beings are, not only physically but also mentally. And even more complex and intriguing is the spiritual side, which I have no doubt exists in all of us. Can a series of random events, uncontrolled mutations of DNA really result in what we are today, even after billions or trillions of years? No, there must be some force acting that has driven us to become the highly developed species walking around right now. Basic thermodynamic laws tell us this much.
Hopefully, I didn't lose anyone there in my logic. It makes sense to me, but maybe only because I am dead tired.
Work - Today was pretty much like any other day at work, except I got my clearance from the Department of Defense. Now I can officially authorize and handle "Secret" material. It's a weird feeling, kind of like an angel getting his wings, except it's me getting my 2 stars, and also I didn't do anything to earn them. Other than not joining a terrorist organization or plotting the violent overthrow of the United States government.
Woodfield - I had to stop by Woodfield to exchange/return a scarf and gloves for my sister. The stuff was from J. Crew, but for some reason my sister put it in a Express bag. So since I wasn't really paying attention, I just went straight to Express. I was supposed to look to see if there were any of that style of gloves to exchange (cause the ones she got had a hole in them), and if not, I was instructed to return them.
Of course, I am almost never in Express, and when I am, it's usually with a girl. I knew it would feel weird to be walking around that store by myself, but I seriously felt like I was sticking out like a sore thumb, like I was naked or something. And as I had no idea where the gloves might be located, I decided to ask one of the chicks working there. She pointed to the back left corner and said "go all the way to the wall, then they will be on your right. I looked at the back left corner, and noted that it was all underwear. "Hmmm...." I thought to myself, is she trying to make me look dumb by sending me to bra and thongs section?
But I went anyways, and the gloves ended up being kind of where she pointed, but not exactly. I was kind of pissed at that chick because it's hard to be looking around an area surrounded by bras and stuff without feeling weird. Maybe I am just immature, but still.
Anyways, I didn't find the same pair of gloves so I got in line to return the ones I brought. I waited for at least 10 minutes in line, and when I finally got to the counter and gave the girl the gloves and receipt, she looked at it for a second, then looked at me funny, and said "uhh these are from J. Crew." Sweet, didn't I look like a dumbass. And no wonder they didn't have that pair of gloves. I was in the thong section feeling red for nothing. So I was like "my bad" and scurried out of that store as fast as I could to head to J. Crew.
Finally I went to J. Crew. They didn't have the gloves either, so I returned them and put it back on my sister's J. Crew card. One stupid thing I noticed is that I still had to sign, and that she briefly glanced at my sister's signature on the card and compared it to my signature before giving it back to me. Since I signed my own name, there's no way the two signatures could have even remotely matched, but I guess she was already in the motion of giving me back my card so who cares. Why should I have to sign anyways, I'm putting the credit back on that freaking card anyways, it's not like it's going to me.
Dave & Busters - A friend from church is moving to Cali for a job, so we had a little dinner and party for her at D&B's. I used to think it was annoying that they were strict about people being 21 and over, or escorted and whatnot. But, now I think it is nice to not be surrounded by punk high school kids whenever I go somewhere. I swear, every place I go there are these loud annoying high schoolers, whether it's the movie theater, mall, Streets of Woodfield, Great America, EVERY DAMN PLACE.
I have to wonder, were we this obnoxious 5 or 6 years ago? I think the answer is a clear and emphatic no. In high school:
1) I was always doing homework
2) I didn't have a car until senior year
3) I didn't have money to burn
Now you see all these kids putting turbo kits on their Acura RSX's and racing around town till 2 in the morning. WHAT THE FLUX IS GOING ON.
Another nice thing about D&B's (in Addison) is that it has Daytona USA, the original. That is one of the best arcade games ever made, without question in my mind. Not many places still carry Daytona.
Home - Came home, my mom and dad were watching Lord of the Rings which me and Olivia rented last Sunday but havent returned yet. I thought that was funny, my mom and dad watching Lord of the Rings. That really doesn't seem like their type of movie.
Read some blogs before writing this one. Since Stork was writing about entropy, that reminds me of something that I was thinking about once. The concept of entropy basically says that things always move from a state of order to disorder, never the opposite unless energy is added to the system. The most common example to illustrate this is the order of your bedroom, it only gets messier and messier, not cleaner and cleaner, unless you expend energy to clean it.
This is one of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics (I forget which one exactly), which all scientists pretty much agree on. Modern science also subscribes to the theory of evolution as the origin of life, over the concept of divine creation. Now, if you think about it, the concept of entropy really should dispel the idea that out of nothing (or a pool of "life soup"), came bacteria, then multi-celled organisms, then plants and animals and eventually humans, all by the process of evolution alone.
Instead, one would have to think that some outside force must have been working and putting energy into the process of evolution to make it work. Remember, the laws of entropy require that disorderly states do not become orderly without energy being put in to the system.
My conclusion: scientists and supposed scholars contradict themselves when trying to disprove the existence of God by "scientific logic." I believe in the validity of evolution as a process, but I do not believe it means life came out of nowhere. Look at how complex human beings are, not only physically but also mentally. And even more complex and intriguing is the spiritual side, which I have no doubt exists in all of us. Can a series of random events, uncontrolled mutations of DNA really result in what we are today, even after billions or trillions of years? No, there must be some force acting that has driven us to become the highly developed species walking around right now. Basic thermodynamic laws tell us this much.
Hopefully, I didn't lose anyone there in my logic. It makes sense to me, but maybe only because I am dead tired.
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