The Bible, Money, Crime, and Mormons

C'mon, you're not gonna see a better title than that and still have it be honest.

I had to cite The Bible tonight for a speech I'm doing, and I'd never had to cite The Bible before, and I'm still using NoodleTools because I never really bothered to learn formatting for a bibliography, and where it says "Original publication year" I was so tempted to write 0. Of course, it wasn't published 'til a long time after that...and even then it was hand-written...I wonder if that counts as published?

Excellent...besides that tid-bit I had nothing to discuss, and then I look in my e-mail box and find the following e-mail from my Dad.

SUBJECT: Dude

"Hey

Flying back from Thailand -

Got stuck and had a Visa problem - 'borrowed' $$ from your account - will be back in your account tomorrow when I stop in Hong Kong or SFO .. Sorry to surprise you, but again was stuck.

I'll call on Wed / Thurs

dad"

This rates up there with one of the better e-mails my dad's sent me. Awesome.

And that's really all I got. Thanks for mentioning the bit about the episodes of Studio 60 NBC ordered, Ian, I can't believe I forgot to mention that (did I really, or am I just covering my tracks and appearing well-informed?).

Oh, that's NOT all I got...Portland is the 249th safest city in America! This based on FBI figures released in June. While this does put us ahead of such desireable destinations as St. Louis, Detroit, Flint, and Compton (which make up the Top 4 on the dangerous end), we are only one away from Los Angeles, Gresham is actually safer, and Beaverton came it at 66! And somehow Salt Lake City IS safer...I've been to Salt Lake City, and while I guess I never really felt threatened, I did feel...unclean.

Speaking of Salt Lake City, the governor of Massachusetts recently visited Salt Lake City to consult with Mormom leaders to gain their approval when he runs for President in '08. And he might be running on the ticket with none other than Jeb Bush. While that should be more terrifying than anything, it's actually pretty damn funny too.

And with that, I leave you in whatever sort of peace you can find for yourself.

Holy Hell Do I Hate Halloween

I'm currently having my thirst greatly quenched by Sprite. I wanted Sierra Mist, but sometimes 7-11 being out of your favorite drink can be a blessing in disguise. I don't drink Sprite enough, which is strange because (believe it or not) it was once my favorite soda. Yeah, of all things. I think it was because Grant Hill endorsed it and I was obsessed with Grant Hill circa about third grade (I bought his shoes and everything...those were some pretty f-ing sweet shoes).

For the first time in my life I forgot it was daylight savings. I knew it was happening, and I was prepared, but it got to be 3:00 today (or 4, according to my watch), and I finally found out thanks to my computer. Luckily the cell phone switches all by itself so I woke up in time for brunch...without even knowing it.

I've been reading Live From New York (when I'm not reading The Cider House Rules, which is on hold until my Thanksgiving train ride, or 102 Minutes). It's the complete history of Saturday Night Live that's told almost entirely by the cast, producers, and writers of the show, and beyond being a freaking terrific book (if you have any interest in the show or in television in general I HIGHLY recommend it), it's also really obvious they got a lot of the ideas of storylines and themes for Studio 60 right from it. There's not really a point to this story, I just thought it was interesting...

Speaking of Studio 60, it's not on this week, so you're off the hook. They're giving it a rest and testing out Friday Night Lights in its place. This is fueling the rumors that Studio 60's due to be cancelled, but there's no factual basis to back it up.

And speaking of SNL, last night's was funny enough (it's getting back on track, I can feel it) that I pulled up last year's Jack Black episode that includes "Lazy Sunday" (a.k.a. the Chronicles of Narnia rap), and it's been stuck in my head all day. Including right now.

Blogger's screwing with me, so I saw none of the comments of the last post until today, leading me to believe I've been missing out a lot of other comments too, but thanks to those who commented, it meant a lot.

It's Incredible, Really

I was having, by all accounts, a fairly poor week. Some private matters from back home, I didn't have a lot going on socially, classes couldn't have been more draining (not in the sense that I had a lot of work...just being there couldn't have felt more pointless and exhausting), and I've been having some pretty big questions about whether or not I wanna stick with the whole film thing...I dunno, but by the time it reached Thursday night and I sat through a play a few of my friends had been working on, I was spent, and even a little depressed (it happens).

But I was walking down the hall back towards my room, looked in at the common room, and what do they have on the TV? Hook. Hook is a movie that gets criticized a lot for reasons I don't really understand, and while it's not a perfect film, its heart is in the right place and I grew up watching it a LOT.

And by the end, my worries subsided for the time being. I put on Finding Neverland to keep the mood, and that's all it took. Of course, everything's not better. All the crap is still the same, but not for tonight, and I can hope tomorrow it will merely be easier to deal with.

I doubt I can keep it up like the old days, but at least for tonight...fish can drown.

Childhood Continues to Evaporate

I was watching 30 Rock, and they had a Toys R' Us commercial that advertised for new Legos, Fisher Price...and Bratz. The kids are lost to me.

Nobody's Watching

I'm sure I'm close to the end of people discovering this, but I'm sure there are others, so stick with me.

The other week, I was sitting around watching Scrubs (the funniest show on television), when this dude Sean comes in. I don't know Sean terribly well, but we're both huge Studio 60 fans and I recently tuned him into Veronica Mars. Basically, our entire relationship is based on TV. So he comes in, sees I'm watching Scrubs, and asks if I've seen the pilot for this new show from the guy who created Scrubs and some guys who wrote for Family Guy. I say no. He says to check it out, and it's called Nobody's Watching. Well, I forget about it and then finally remember it last night, and pulled it up on YouTube.

Pretty damn good, as it turns out.

So check it out HERE.

It's a fun show to try to explain, but just give it a look instead of reading me yammering about it. It's definitely the smartest concept for TV to come along in a long while, but I do wonder if it would have the legs to stand up week after week.

Anyway, NBC is apparently looking to pick it up, but nothing's certain yet. Meantime, give it a look and spread the love.

Television, Reading, and Skynet

Studio 60 is only getting better, which to some might be an indication that if you wait long enough, you'll catch it when it's just mind-numbingly good and only stick around for the best of the best. And while that's a sound enough philosophy in spite of its total lameness, you'd be missing out on some damn fine entertainment in its own right. And that's your weekly plea.

I really have done so relatively little of this speech reading. So little. And it's not that I'm lazy (that's true), I really don't mind having a lot of work. I mind having a lot of reading. There's no mindset I could ever be in in which I could ever find textbook reading compelling, or ever truly be able to get it done. I can write essays all night (and have), because at least then I can talk back at all the reading required for it, but I can't focus on regular, cut-and-dry reading for more than...I dunno, five minutes if I'm REALLY trying (some doctors could probably diagnose me with ADD, and I could probably score some ritalin). And yet reading for fun has come so easy to me lately. One of the great mysteries of faith I suppose.

I just saw that commercial for that car that parallel parks itself. Never mind the number of hours I watch TV on a weekly, if not nightly, basis, and how this commercial has eluded me until now, but doesn't it seem like there's something fundamentally wrong with that? It's all Skynet man, I'm tellin' ya. I like parallel parking on my own. There's a sense of accomplishment, and showing off the spots you've gotten into, and proving everyone wrong when they say you can't fit into a spot. I even listed that as one of my skills in my Expository Writing class two semesters back. And now some machine seeks to steal it from me. Bah!

P.S. My speech book put "mulching the garden" on a list of mundane activities one might be engaged in. Keeping in mind this is a book written specifically for college kids.

Some Assorted Thoughts

I know, that makes it so different from most posts.

Wow...so I'm watching the World Series tonight, and the guy singing "God Bless America" is an ex-marine who was on American Idol and is now a country music sensation. Now that's a resume.

When does college basketball start? I know it's a retarded question, and there's a thousand resources I'll look into, but I was watching the game tonight and realized I miss watching college ball.

I saw Marie Antoinette, The Prestige, and Little Children over the weekend, and I highly recommend them all (Little Children is pretty dense, difficult stuff to get through, but it's really damn good...The Prestige is just plain awesome).

So I set my alarm for 12 today, and woke up at 2 with my phone in my hand (meaning I probably turned it off in my sleep...well played, self). So I was like, "oh well, late start to homework." Hopped on over to the Emerson bookstore to grab the book I need to study for my midterm on Tuesday, and found out it was closed. So I have a solid 60 pages to read about speech tomorrow night. I am, to say the least, totally pumped. And it's a Monday, which means Studio 60, which isn't as crowded as Wednesdays, but since it's from 10-11 it does interrupt prime study time.

So basically I accomplished none of the homework I had this weekend. Not even the fun pre-work for my animated short. I think I'll start that now.

Broken Elevators

Missed a screening of The Fountain last night, about the only movie I would crawl across hot coals right now to see (how much damage could they do?)

Today wasn't so much a bust. Although I was stopped by a Emerson security guy who told me not to stop the elevators from closing. You know how when they're about to close and you shove your arm in for a last-second save? Yeah, he said it'll "break the elevators." My only response was "are you serious?"

The Office was beyond fantastic tonight. Any show that can make us all double-over laughing and still have the girls in near-tears in the span of 22 minutes is gold.

Tomorrow (today for most of you reading, except maybe you West Coast folk who are burning the midnight oil), I'm seeing The Prestige and Marie Antoinette, and Little Children on Saturday, so it'll be a solid weekend. Oh right, except for the inexplicably massive amount of homework I gotta do, including the early stages of a short animated film I'm doing (yes, eventually we all have to work) and...what the hell else am I doing? Oh, right, I gotta find an issue I'm a social advocate for, which is a problem because as some of you may have realized about me, although I have a vast interest in the world around me, love reading about current affairs and generally try to keep well informed about politics and pop culture, I actually don't care about much of anything. I tried explaining this to my speech teacher, but she only responded with "why are you in school?" which I found a tad insulting and besides the point, but she also doesn't believe in true objectivity, so what'll you do.

As a final note, the title of today's post is free for any Emo band who wishes to use it for a record or song title. Or Hell, just use it as your band name if you're really that uncreative.

Ramblin'

Tomorrow's one of those days when I wish I had a time machine so I could go through a few hours, then go back in time and relive those hours but do something totally different. To explain...the creative geniuses behind the TV show Home Movies (which was on Cartoon Network for awhile, but probably no longer is) are coming to campus to talk and show some of the shows and such. At the same time, I have tickets to free screenings of both Marie Antoinette and Flags of Our Fathers (both of which come out the next day, so not a huge loss but still, free movies). And the Green Arrow will be on Smallville, a show that's apparently good again. Anyway, I'll be going to the Home Movies thing, but it means I gotta see Antoinette and The Prestige on Friday, working in Flags of Our Fathers God-knows-when since it's not a movie I'm especially excited by (but it's directed by Clint Eastwood, whose last two films, Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, were overhyped but nonetheless incredible pieces of filmmaking).

Sadly, that's about as exciting as my life gets. My buddy Adam asked me to be his assistant (read: coffee boy) on some film shoots he's doing in mid-November, which'll be nice 'cause I never do any shoots. Meanwhile, my buddy Mike wants to do a TV series, which I definitely wanna be a part of because writing television shows sounds like about as exciting as writing could ever be.

I still have to work on (start) that science paper, which I'm writing on Mt. St. Helen's (we just have to pick a disaster and research the shit out of it), a project that's only made complicated by the fact that I like to watch Scrubs from 7-8 and LOST is on at 9, and then of course South Park (which was brilliant last week) at 10 or midnight or whenever the crap we end up watching it (it being Wednesday, I think the girls have dibs on the TV for Project Runway or some crap). Yeah, it's a little unfortunate that I structure my entire week's activities based on what movies are out or what shows are on TV, but I care far more about what Cartman has to say about the world than anything that has to do with Mt. St. Helen's (except it being in the Great Northwest).

WHY?

I have a massive headache, I'm exhausted, and I still have a surprising amount of work to do (by "surprising," I mean "it exists"), but Studio 60 just had its best episode since the pilot and I know there are those of you out there who, for reasons that escape any rational mind, still refuse to watch it. I can kinda let it go when ya'll ignore much of the other quality stuff that's on the airwaves or in the theater, but seriously, you're REALLY doing yourselves a disservice here. If you miss it on Mondays, NBC briefly offers it for free (FREE!) on their web site, and you can always buy the episodes for $2 a pop on iTunes.

Oh, and the Boston Globe has robots working for them. I swear to God.

7 Minutes Left

There's probably nothing that upsets me more than people who stop walking in the middle of a crowded walkway, be it a street or a hallway or anywhere when I am right behind them. But a close second is misjudging my laundry time. Because you figure, hey, I'm 20 years old, I should be able to generally tell time and figure out when my laundry will be finished based on when I started it. But you're never right, you know? Usually it's four minutes or so, but tonight it was a full seven. Now, I'll knock some points off because I was on the phone when I started it, but essentially it is an issue wherein I am completely unable to tell time and cannot, to any great extent, figure out addition and subtraction. I'm still basically a child.

Well that took up like...four minutes. Tomorrow I'm seeing Fast Food Nation a full month early, and the director (Richard Linklater, one of my all-time faces) will be there. I know I already mentioned this a mere two posts ago and it's sort of an ass thing to bring it up again, but I'm low on topics here. I'll do a review and we can call it the only advance review the Gravy has ever run, which should give us some street cred. Problem is everytime I say I'm gonna do a review, I never do, but this time I mean it! Don't I?

Hey, laundry's ready! I hope...otherwise my time-telling skills are in really are in the crapper.

EDIT: Laundry was done, but unfortunately I left some piece of paper in one of my pockets, so tiny shreds of wet paper were all over my clothes. I just hope it wasn't important like that one time it ended up being my paycheck.

SECOND EDIT: How many people think the name "crapper" really did come from the inventor of the flush toilet, Thomas Crapper? And if so, is his name where we get the word "crap" from?

THIRD EDIT: A quick wikipedia check proved all the information in the second edit to be false.

Someone Just Got Busted

Saturday nights around the dorms are usually pretty quiet, as everyone who wishes to is out getting loaded and I can be left in peace to do my laundry. Guess tonight wasn't a usual night.

Went apple picking today! There are an excessive number of pictures on Facebook given that we were only there for an hour, but it was just nice to get out of the city. You can feel trapped in here sometimes. Never mind the great withdrawal I have from not driving...I didn't get to drive today either, but I'll take a ride as a sort of lesser fix. And I got to climb trees, which you know just butters my bread like none other.

That's about all I had to say. I'm pretty tired from the lack of sleep and all the apples (carrying them was a bitch), but it feels fundamentally wrong to go to bed before 2 on a Saturday. Tomorrow I gotta go see this guy speak who's running for governor (finally found that political speech I was looking for), and I guess I should consider getting a jump on the homework for the week. And holy crap, I almost forgot I'm visiting the Boston Globe on Monday. Gotta remember to be there.

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to mention this since it's been rocking my world since I heard it, but they're releasing the complete, unedited first season of Saturday Night Live on DVD on December 5th. All 24 episodes. Every sketch. Every musical act. It's like boxed gold.

What A Cool Week

And it's only half over!

Lesse...

I have the whole floor's love for donating TiVo.

I'm going apple picking on Saturday.

I just came off a five-day weekend in which I accomplished next to nothing.

Julie got me a free pass to Fast Food Nation, which includes a Q&A with director Richard Linklater (who is easily in my top five favorite directors).

It was lamb night at the dining hall, which is one of the two nights I look forward to more than just about anything (London broil is the other...basically the two nights when they load massive quantities of meat onto my plate).

I came up with a kickass idea for my video project (which isn't for another two months or so, sadly).

And I totally blew off my speech assignment.

It Didn't Come IN?

First, Ben, yeah, in a roundabout way it's a Dandy Warhol reference. That song is the theme for Veronica Mars, and that post dealt extensively with the show, so...yeah. By the way, the second episode of the third season was on tonight, and the show still rocks.

I jetted over to Newbury Comics today to pick up A Prairie Home Companion on DVD (a movie that's just about as perfect as they come), only to find out it hadn't come in. So now I have the unappealing choice of calling them again and again to see if it's come in or walking out there time and time again. I live such a fulfilling life. I ended up buying Thank You For Smoking to make it seem like I didn't totally waste my time. Admittedly, my financial management skills could use some work, but I'm not broke yet.

I have to find a politician speaking somewhere about something in the next week. Right now, it looks like I might be in trouble, but if anyone has any good resources for these sorts of things, I'd appreciate it. Right now it's looking like busting into a high school in Quincy to hope this Deval Patrick thing isn't just a meet-and-greet. Because my other option, the much more amusing Christy Mihos (responsible for the ad I posted a week or so ago), is an impossible trip according to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

I wish my Production prof would e-mail me back telling me he figured out that my website actually works...because as it stands it's gonna be counted late, which would be, in a word, lame. Especially since I rushed back from The Departed and risked starvation to finish it. Really, I pretty hungry. I only had like, a sandwich for dinner. Trust me, the starving kids in Africa really are feeling for me.

P.S. Did you watch Studio 60 last night? Ha! Thought I'd forget, didja? No luck.

Second Post

What'll you do, I've pretty much just laid around all day.

So High Fidelity: The Musical was a disappointment. Now, I've never read the book, but High Fidelity is one of my favorite movies of all time, and if I had to make an all-time, desert island top 5, it would be on it. The guys who put it together clearly really liked the movie/book, but had no idea why, so they just put some of the stuff they could copy up there and dumped all the stuff that made the story matter. Some would argue musicals work best when they go for comedy as much as possible, but honestly I think musicals have the capacity to handle drama and comedy better than any other medium. There were some highlights, though - they adapted the Rob/Ian confrontation really well, and they had a pretty fantastic Bruce Springsteen moment (though I might've been alone in digging it).

Anyway...I had something else to talk about that just happened, but I can't remember what. Guess I'll just watch the rest of Super Troopers (which is kicking ass so far).

In the Middle of Weekend Heaven

So this is day 3 of my five-day weekend, followed by a two-day week, then the usual three-day weekend. Still haven't really started on any homework yet, but I've thought about it real hard!

Took Ken's suggestion and used the fifty bucks to buy new headphones. Unfortunately, the headphones suck ass so I repackaged them and will attempt to get a refund (I don't think they qualify as defective, it's just that they were intended to function poorly). What to do with the money now?

I'm seeing High Fidelity: The Musical tonight, which I am excessively pumped for. "Live and in stereo!" Ha. Fantastic.

Sometimes God Smiles Down On You...

And gives you fifty bucks. My mom found a card from my Aunt Laura that contained within it a check for the sum of fifty American dollars. The only question now is how to spend it, because everyone knows what you do with found money, and it isn't save or invest it in any way.

Chester's Back

Annnnnd that's about it. It was a very strange process, but I took it to these guys on Monday, and got it back today (Wednesday), and it was all under warranty, so I'm a happy man. Runs like a dream, but reinstalling all my software was ass. Good news is iTunes 7 works wonderfully, although I gotta recreate all my playlists and I lost a little bit of music that wasn't backed up (David Bowie, you'll be missed, but I can't express how glad I was that I backed up the stuff I did, because iPod Rip was total crap).

Anyone watch Veronica Mars last night? One of the new characters is from Beaverton. Major props. Docked points, though, for categorizing it as a place where everyone knows everyone's name and you can leave your car unlocked and feel safe. "A chicken in every pot"? I think not. But other than that, it was a pretty fantastic start to the season. I clearly missed a lot by not watching the second season, but it's pretty easy to pick up on. Once again, can't recommend it highly enough. Unless it's between that and Studio 60.

LOST premiered tonight, and as much as I enjoyed it, the show is suffering in my opinion because I now expect anything to be possible. There are surprises, but none are terribly shocking. They could all end up being werewolves and it'd still fall pretty much in line with what I would have expected. Still, it's a pretty damn entertaining show, and far better than a lotta stuff on TV.

Oh, and I bought the new Weird Al Yankovic album, Straight Outta Lynwood. Listening to it right now (I bought it yesterday, and then realized I had no methods to play it with my computer gone), and it's pretty fantastic. If you grew up on Weird Al, and are still man (or woman) enough to admit that he kicks ass, I doubt you'd be disappointed. There's a new polkarama song and a parody of "Trapped in the Closet" called "Trapped in the Drive-Thru."

Oh...I saw an advance screening of The Departed. I guarantee there'll be a review for this (I was excited enough to write most of it on notebook paper), but to put it simply it's fucking amazing. And I don't swear a lot to express how good stuff is. But it's fucking amazing.

Come On Now, Sugar

Did you watch Studio 60? Well, did you? You know I'm just gonna bug you until you do. Might as well start. It's probably the only drama show out there that hooks you into watching it wee after week purely because it's well-written and performed by a talented cast, rather than relying on cliffhangers. I'm as big a fan of LOST as the next person (assuming the next person isn't Ken Parry, who was identified last year by many as being "that guy who watches LOST"), but I'll admit that it is a pretty cheap gimmick to get people to tune in every week.

I took Chester in today, the saga of which will make for a post unto itself, but we'll wait until I'm not hurridly typing on a computer in the Emerson lobby.

For now, I rushed down here to be sure I posted to let you guys know to watch the 3rd season premiere Veronica Mars tomorrow at 9/8c on the CW (which is what became of the WB and UPN...check local listings). I know, it sounds like kind of a chick show (mostly because it stars a chick), but I just finished the first season DVD and I really fell for it. It's basically a girl in high school (this year she goes to college) who solves mysteries, and thankfully it's more along the lines of Phillip Marlowe than Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys. It became a little formulaic in the middle, and you do have to forgive it for some of the pitfalls of a high school show (but if you ever watched Smallville, that had FAR more teen drama than Mars). But it did have probably the best season finale of any show I've ever seen, mainly in that it actually TIED UP THE PLOT in a way that was at once surprising, but also made perfect sense and was as emotionally-charged as you'll get from a TV show (speaking in terms of real, genuine emotion). As great as the season finales of The West Wing were, it was one of the few times that show ever used the cliffhanger gimmick. And even in its formulaic episodes, Mars still rocks. It's geniunely fun to watch, which is something you don't see in a lot of dramas (except Studio 60). TIME Magazine called it one of the six best dramas on television the year it debuted, putting it alongside LOST, The Shield, and House.

I'll shut up now.

P.S. I changed the little caption under my blog title after Ben and Mike pointed out my continued failure with the English language.

P.P.S. Just finished Chuck Klosterman's book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, which kicked ass.

The Day Has Come

I finished a book. Yeah. What now? Stardust by Neil Gaiman. Yeah. What up? Now I'm reading another one. The Cider House Rules. Who knows what sort of vast knowledge I'll acquire and wield, and to what end? As a note, how much cooler would the title be if it was The Cider House RULES! It'd probably be about a frat though.

"Dude, did you hit up the party at the Cider House?"

"Yeah, it RULED!"

I'd read it.

The time has also come for my computer to break completely. It looks like there'll be nothing to stop it this time, so I'm sending Chester in. Who knows when I'll get it back. This post comes to you courtesy of Emerson Campus Computers, which are slow as crap and took me about twelve minutes just to log onto the network to type this. So no AIM for awhile, a little Facebook here and there, and I'll keep on top of the e-mail as I can. Who knows how often I'll post here, either, especially if it takes me twelve minutes to log in. But patience is a virtue, and stay tune, and I'll be back for sure.