Dark Knight Anyone?

So for all you losers who don’t care to follow films, The Dark Knight came out overnight.  Its apparently the second coming of christ.  I probably won’t get the opportunity to check it out until Sunday so for anyone who sees it let me know what you think.

Also make sure you’re in time for the previews, theres a trippy trailer for Watchmen (a graphic novel I know nothing about) on there…. or you can just watch it here:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/watchmen/hd/

It looks pretty ridiculous and is that song awesomely haunting or what.  Its apparently The Beginning is the End is the Beginning by Smashing Pumpkins.  Though I downloaded it and the version I got sounds much different, could be a remix or whatever.  If anyone knows let me know so I can listen to it over and over again until I get sick of it.

I’m heading to Boston tonight to get in touch with some of the coolest people in the world, deaf people.

Tomorrow is Manic’s grad party which should be silly fun.

The Pro Gamer’s Lounge

I decided to make this “funny strip” using MLG personalities.  I’ve been meaning to put something together for awhile but just hadn’t gotten around to it.  This particular one is more of a practice round, I have no idea if anyone will consider this humorous at all.  I can guarantee that if you aren’t a fan of or at least familiar with MLG, you probably won’t find this interesting at all.  I plan to make more of these as the season progresses especially if there’s any kind of decent reception to them.  I don’t know if I’ll continue posting them here or move them to a different location though, we’ll see what happens.

Also I’d like to point out that even though this makes fun of MLG and it’s professional players, I have nothing but the utmost respect for the organization as both a fan and a gamer.  Making fun of them is the only option I have since if I ever played with any of them I would get pwn’d.  Anyways, click the thumbnailed image below to see the whole thing:

Design Stuff

A lot of my time recently has been devoted towards webwork.  Obviously you can see I’ve changed the look of the site, opting for a darker format.  The ultimate color scheme I go with will depend on what I choose for my personal site that I plan to get online within the next couple of weeks.  I’ve also finally added some links which you can see to the right —-> ovar thar.

I’ll try to remember to post the interesting and funny things I find around online, speaking of which I just found this sillyness: Click for Funny

I feel over burdened at the moment, theres just so much I need to be doing, should be doing and want to be doing.  There’s not enough minutes in the day for all of it.  Doesn’t it just drive you nuts when there aren’t enough minutes.

That being said I’d like to propose a more abstract concept of time for us all to live by.  Where a day can’t run out of minutes because it won’t be over until you say it’s over.  Instead of feeling the pressure of time we’ll be able to focus easier on what we’re doing.  Of course as soon as you begin to imagine the concept you realize just how much it wouldn’t be practical.  But you have to take into account that that’s the whole point.  Organizations would crumble, some people wouldn’t be able to handle it, some would.  The point is that it’d be something different and whos to say it wouldn’t work.  Sure it wouldn’t be for everyone, but maybe neither is the system we have now.

Family Meeting

We had a family meeting tonight.  I don’t know what it is but I can’t help but laugh every time my father starts talking in that authorative manner.  I’ve always been able to laugh easily and see the humor in things or the bright side of others.  Maintaining a positive outlook is pretty important these days.  This I really can’t explain though.  Oh well, not much to say tonight anyways, I just wanted to share this picture.

A Long Awaited Update

It’s been a busy week, I’ll start this off by recounting the Maine trip…

About 10 minutes after my previous post, as you’ll recall I had been sucking down my mixture of rum, gatorade and red bull for about an hour when I run into my Mom.

Mom: “Are you drinking?”

Me: “Pshh…no.”

Mom: “Good because I want you to drive tonight.”

Me: “………..”

Mom: “Your brother just called and said there are tons of cops out.”

It really wasn’t that bad but this whole thing certainly put a damper on my get drunk as quick as possible scheme.  The drive was a bore and over quickly because my Dad kept telling me to go 55 to get better gas mileage.

Once we arrived I broke out the good stuff once again and continued my quest of inebriation.  My brother and I immediately began playing ping pong.  Somehow I stole the first game of the set before he turned things up and demolished me for the 18th million time.  It’s not that I’m bad at the game, I think I’m a fairly skilled player, it’s more that he’s my older brother and losing to me is not really an option.  Whatever, I’m drinking, happy and mouthing off to everyone.  My dad begins to lecture me and telling me to calm down.  I claim that I am calm and that my brother who is physically assaulting me is the one who needs to calm down.  He does not seem to process this in any fashion whatsoever and continues to shake his head at me.  I tell him to calm down and maybe it is past his bedtime.

Everyone begins to go to sleep, eventually I give in as well.  Actually I just went to my room and laid there, the red bull in my life juice is not helping me at all.  Hours pass, at some point I manage to go down for the count.

A new day, I begin drinking at 10 am again, however much to my displeasure I run out of alcohol from my camelbak about 30 minutes later.  I saunter into the kitchen and am confronted by Debbie from whom I demand more liquor.  She claims it is too early to drink.  I claim that because it is our nation’s birthday there is no such thing as too early.  I call her a traitor and unpatriotic and leave the room.  There is beer in the refridgerator downstairs, this will do.

Outside its a beautiful day, warm, sunny and the lake is gorgeous.  A good day to get drunk and a good day to turn…um 2008 – 1776 = 232.  A good day to turn 232 indeed.  Soon enough we begin to play that game I was telling you all about, Polish Horseshoes, and my brother joins me in drinking.

Fast forward fast forward by the way my brother beat me 1 on 1 in polish horseshoes but it doesn’t matter because its a two player game fast forward.

Yay for fireworks, all the neighbors got together and we set them off right on one of the docks off our beach.  I’m going to attempt to describe this scene because it really was something beautiful.

I’m sitting in front of a campfire on a sandy beach, theres a slight chill in the air nicely offset by the flames at my feet.  The lake lies 20 feet away, the water is still and reflecting a sky full of color.  It was that time just as the sun begins setting behind the opposite coastline creating a blend of oranges, yellows and reds that seam into the purplish, blues and black of a starry night.  The fireworks begin in front of us, but don’t stop there.  The beauty of a lake like this one is that we aren’t the only people celebrating.  One by one they start showing up from different areas around the lake until I counted at one time seven different sources of fireworks at once.  Some of them reflect on the surface of the water, creating long streams of color that are more attractive than their counterparts in the sky.  There’s so much to look at I wish I could have frozen time and hopped on that jet ski and cruised around the lake taking in every detail.  It’s overwhelming when you get a glimpse of how much there truly is in just one moment, whether from a massive event such as this or something so small as a shared glance between two.  Life is an amazing thing, don’t forget to stop and appreciate it every now and then.

/emo moment

Right after the fireworks something has hit me, not quite physically but internally.  I decide to shower and then after I lie down and pass out.

I wake up to the worst feeling I’ve ever had in my stomach.  It feels like heart burn, indigestion and queasiness rolled into one.  I drank alot yesterday but not that much, at no point was I absolutely smashed.  This is going to be a bad day I decided before getting out of bed.  Upstairs in the kitchen I ask for some pepto bismol and Debbie brings out a slew of medicines that include pepto bismol tablets.  I decide to take one of those and seconds after putting it in my mouth….uh oh…it’s coming.  I made it to the bathroom and threw up four times.

We go fishing, by we I mean myself my brother, nephew and Willie.  Willie is a fisherman for a living.  I catch the first fish of the day 15 minutes later.  Five minutes later Willie catches the second fish.  We decided to drop off Isaac since he’s getting antsy.  After we disembark again I proceed to lay down and nap for the rest of the trip, there would be no more fish caught this day by anyone.  I do not regret my decision.  Immediately after the trip I go inside take 3 ibuprofen and pass the hell out.

Two hours later I wake up feeling decent, they’re getting ready to take the boat out….with the death trap.  The death trap is a big thing, a raft like thing that you use like a tube.  Only it’s more dangerous and less fun.  Against my better judgment I hop on, it was really fun whenever we weren’t hitting waves and crashing on my stomach. After that we went to the rope swing.  My first swing is an awkward half flip that lands me right on the side of my torso, ouch burn baby burn.  The second one goes much better, no one else with me managed to even swing out.  With this rope if you weren’t high enough you just hit the water and dragged there, they were all girls and scared to do anything fun.  Lame.  As we began to leave I looked back and these three chicks had pulled up to the island the swing was one.  One looks ridiculously hot and tan in a bright yellow bathing suit.  I want to go back.  After we had enough of the death trap we returned home and I passed back out.

Around dinnertime I saunter upstairs and manage to eat half a piece of chicken before….uh oh…it’s coming, faster this time.  Moving very slowly I have to get up and go around the table, I’m not going to make it, it’s coming now, gross.  I had my back to the table but in a futile attempt tried to physically hold the stuff in my mouth with my hand, it never works.  I don’t know why anyone ever tries that, you just end up with dirty hands.  Anyways because I did that some of the puke bounced off my hand and got in Debbie’s hair, she screamed.  I felt a little better after that though.

I do not go out that night, this sucks, I am missing fun and drinking, though I am sure that if I put anything into my stomache it would come out 2 minutes later.  I can barely get down glasses of water.

I have a theory about my sickness.  You see camelbaks, they’re wonderful things but require very proper maintenance.  If you don’t clean them out properly after every use and hang them up and leave them open to dry then you’re allowing bacteria to grow in there.  I can’t remember when I used mine last but I am willing to bet I didn’t clean it properly after I did.

I was doomed before we ever left for Maine.

I’ve since bleached the fucker to be sure to get every last bit of bacteria.  My stomache still shows slight signs of that sickness a week later.

What The Fuck

Two hours have past, we’re still waiting for my dad.  I’ve been sucking down a mixture of half a bottle of rum, gatorade and red bull for the past hour and read nearly the entire Tucker Max book that I was planning on reading on the ride up.  I guess I’ll have to read Think and Grow Rich, I was gonna post this great section of the book that goes on and on about Love and whatnot.  Seriously its about the last thing you’d expect from a book of its title. Sage advice indeed.  Oh theres my dad’s car, time to get down and dirty.

Peace out kids.

By the way I’m obsessed with the songs from Across the Universe, who knew the Beatles were actually good.  Or maybe they just sound better when they’re not sung by a group of drug addled britian preps.  These are the best 5 songs in my superior opinion:

1. Hold me Tight
2. Dear Prudence
3. It Won’t Be Long
4. I Wanna Hold Your Hand
5. Come Together

They’re really good and no I’m not lovesick the damn movie just happens to be another love story like every other musical I like.

Time For The Maine Trip

It’s an annual tradition, my family gets together with the Violas up in Maine, which was where I was born.  We go to this pimp house on a pimp lake and have a pimping good time.  The beauty of it is that every year has it’s own stories.  There are rarely two that aren’t distinctly different.  We’re leaving in about an hour and I need to pack but first I have to run to the store and buy gatorade and a red bull to put in my camel bak along with a liter of rum.  That ought to get the weekend started on the right note, plus I need to be drunk so that I can create a level playing field for Polish Horse Shoes.  If I’m not drunk there will be just too much rape and the cops may show up and spoil all the fun.  Oh wait my brother in law is a cop and he’s real fun, maybe we’ll just have a big gay cop bash and everyone can grow moustaches and start batting like the yankees after a stern lecture from Hanky Panky Steinbrenner.

And thats my cue for a drink, I’ll be back on Sunday with a thorough description of the weekend accompanied by exclusive pictures of course.

I Found It Fun but WANTED More!!!!!!

I finally saw ‘Wanted’ yesterday and as the title of the post implies I was slightly let down.  That’s not to say I didn’t thoroughly enjoy the film, don’t get me wrong there were several sequences that I just loved.  But as a whole the film just wasn’t what I wanted it to be.  If I had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 I’d give it a six, and here’s why.

Pacing, the start of the movie feels perfectly paced as Wesley barely contains his pulsing rage and teeters on the edge of losing all control.  From the moment he joins the Fraternity the film flips into high gear and doesn’t take a second to stop and let the viewer enjoy what they’re seeing.  It went too fast and packed in too much in too little time.

Spoiler here, skip this if you want to be surprised by the ending. The story itself, at least the way it played out, any film that leaves every single character except for the main character dead is tough to pull off.  I just found myself really disappointed by this but maybe that’s just me being upset that Fox dies.

Casting, I honestly feel like they got this all wrong.  Now before I go further I should note that I have never read the source material so I have no idea what kind of characters these were in the comic.  With that said, as much as I love McAvoy, I feel like he was all wrong for the part.  He’s the kind of actor who shines when he’s holding things in, emotion, rage, love etc… The moment the part demands that he lets these things out is when he started not to work for me.  Actually let me take that back, the moment where we’re supposed to believe he becomes the greatest assassin ever over the course of what, a month?  Is where the film lost me, he just doesn’t look like he fits the part.  I also have a problem with Morgan Freeman, I just didn’t like him as Sloan.

Lastly, I didn’t like that this movie just felt like a joyride instead of getting deeper into it’s stories and characters.  When you’ve got two main actors like McAvoy and Freeman you really should take advantage of what they have to offer rather than just glazing the surface of their acting skills and riding out their names.

Take one point off for each bullet there and you’ll see how I came to 6 out of 10.  The movie got a huge bonus point for a shot of Angelina’s pristine ass which stands as my third favorite scene.  My top two are when Wesley returns to his apartment to retrieve his father’s gun, the chemistry between him and Jolie is electric.  And the number one scene in the film is when Wesley finally lets out the wolf in him, best use of a keyboard prop ever and the best delivered line in the film…

“I’m the Man”

It’s Been Awhile

So….sorry, it’s been awhile I know.

What happened in the past week?  A rather disappointing trip to Boston over the weekend, don’t get me wrong it was great to see friends from Rochester but when you mix that with a jilted bitchy ex it leaves a sour taste.

Did more kayaking and fishing with Manic on Monday.  Oh I also started reading “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell” by Tucker Max and he does this thing where he just gives all his friends nicknames and refers to them as so in all his writing.  I’m doing the same, that friend is Manic because he’s the kind of guy who refuses to be bored for any period of time.  For the record now that I’ve started reading Tucker’s book that makes it four books I’m reading at one time now.  Oh and also I started reading the book because one of my friends who came to Boston, we’ll call him Voyeur because he loves underage girls, he bought the book and I started reading it Sunday morning since everyone else slept in like they were on a crack binge the night before.  So once he left I was like awww I can’t read it but recalled that I bought it for my brother in law a couple years ago who I saw today and borrowed it from.  And just for the record it looks like he never read it, whatever his loss cause shit is funny and you should check it out just google him for some good stuff.

Over the next couple days I put a ridiculous amount of time into some website work for my brother and I can safely say it’s shaping up to be the most impressive piece of web work I’ve ever created.

I watched The Diving Bell and The Butterfly the other day, it was strangely entrancing and I’ll have a review out shortly.

This weekend is the annual DuPaul/Viola weekend which I am greatly looking forward to.  It looks like everyone except for Wild Child will be there this year.  We also have this sweet new game to play, Polish Horse Shoes.  I’ll go into detail about the rules later but lets just say it involves beer bottles, two wooden sticks and a frisbee….a recipe for fun if I ever saw one.

Okay peace I’m going to see Wanted.

Atonement

I got this film a short while ago and found myself sitting down to watch it today.  My main reason for doing so was because I wanted to see James McAvoy in action before checking out Wanted this weekend.  It’s a movie that has been very well recieved by audiences and critics alike.  Based off of Ian McEwan’s novel of the same name, Atonement is quite the captivating film.  Two aspects of this film stood out to me, the first and most important is the performances the film gets out of it’s three lead actors.  Keira Knightly and McAvoy both turn in powerful performances, McAvoy most notably.  He performs with such passion that it becomes evident in every expression on his face, thats where most of his acting is in any case.  I said three lead actors because there’s another character who drives the story, the role is split between two actresses (well three if you count the last two minutes of the movie.)  The actress who plays the young girl totally nails it, when we see her five years later I wasn’t so sold on that actress who steps in the part.  That’s not to say the older actress does a bad job, it’s easy to think so in the company of such great performances.  So the second aspect of this film is its cinematography.  There are sequences that are amazingly done to capture the vibe of moments, that rush of emotion that surrounds regret, excitement or love.  It’s a tough thing to do with a camera which makes it all the more enjoyable when someone gets it right.

Speaking of camerawork, before I mentioned I was watching Atonement because I wanted to see McAvoy before checking him out in Wanted, which comes out this weekend.  You should all go see Wanted, for a number of reasons.

1. After seeing Atonement I’m sold on McAvoy, anyone who can express so much without saying a word deserves the benefit of the doubt.  I have no doubt his performance in Wanted will rock, as long as it’s in the hands of capable people…which brings me to point two.
2. Timur Bekmambetov, Russia’s greatest export since…well vodka or something I don’t know.  This guy can handle actors, he gets great performances and he can structure his films very well.  He also can produce stunning visual sequences that will make your jaw drop.
3. Angelina Jolie, come on….those tattoos are friggen hot.

I’m banking alot of my credibility as a critic on this movie delievering.  In all fairness though, Wanted won’t be for everyone.  However if you’re the kind of person who approaches films with an open mind, I doubt you’d walk away from it disappointed.

I finally updated my about page and expect a change in this design soon.

**Also, I meant to mention that McAvoy is rumored to be playing Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit.  It fits, he can do fantasy characters, the only role I knew him in was in the first Chronicles of Narnia, he played the Faun…which for some reason makes me lol all ovar.