Peter Gabriel - s/t (1980)
Nirvana - In Utero
R.E.M. - Murmur
I saw DRUGSTORE COWBOY shortly before or shortly after I graduated high school in 2002 (spring/summer). I had seen SINGLES (1992) also starring Matt Dillon, so I always mentally link those films together and DRUGSTORE COWBOY with the arrival of Nirvana's BLEACH (both 1989). A cursory look at the photos in the dlx ed of BLEACH really brings it home. DRUGSTORE COWBOY and the photo(s) I remember seeing on the booklet of BLEACH both have that cloudy day haze atmosphere. I keep thinking of buying DRUGSTORE COWBOY, then I think SINGLES! Thankfully SINGLES is (finally) being re-issued, not in a keepcase DVD but a full fledged blu ray, which is fair enough. I still find it odd that of all the movies Warner Home Video converted from snap case to keep case that SINGLES wasn't one of them.
And then I think about re-buying BLEACH by Nirvana. And everyone knows that BLEACH is Nirvana's least impressive album. IN UTERO is their magnum opus as most serious music aficionados would agree. So I have IN UTERO, BLEACH and DRUGSTORE COWBOY in my Amazon dot com shopping cart. Now that SINGLES is coming to blu ray, albeit not 'til April, I can keep it that way and have SINGLES on pre-order.
In other news, there's a ULTIMATE VISUAL HISTORY of GHOSTBUSTERS and its related stuff coming in Sept, '15. Cool!!! It's supposedly only 160 pgs and it's $37 with an MSRP of $50. Huh? I don't care. I'm in. I was IthiscloseI to buying the TOTAL CONTAINMENT omnibus but decided not to b/c I need to put more attn. on God, and quit wasting my time and money (borderline[?]) worshipping Ghostbusters. I doubt I'd read TC anyway and if I did, would I really enjoy it? the UVH on the other hand is the visuality of GHOSTBUSTERS w/ no electricity required. When the power goes out and never comes back on b/c the economy tanks and the taxpayers are no longer willing to support the "welfare" of welfare check recipients, I won't need a DVD or Blu ray or internet streaming device to see and behold the wondrous images contained in GHOSTBUSTERS and GHOSTBUSTERS II. If nothing else, a photograph of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man will be included (oh, my beloved crème...)
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Friday, December 19, 2014
My Sears dot com shopping cart hasn't abandoned me --- does anybody care?
I actually started writing this yesterday b/c Sears sent me this poor put upon sounding email b/c I left the website w/o buying anything.
If I ever have any desire to keep what I buy instead of pawning it off, I'll need to get a TV stand and some kind of shelf/media tower/rack to hold my media - CDs, DVDs, books etc...the table that holds my TV is WAYY too wide for its own good. My DVDs and books are lined up horizontally so I'm almost out of room to hold anymore despite a total of 6 books and 3 DVDs + 1 Blu ray combo pack. My CDs are in a small rack that maybe holds 40 CDs and I've cleared out the rack at least a couple times due to not having enough room to fit more.
If I ever have any desire to keep what I buy instead of pawning it off, I'll need to get a TV stand and some kind of shelf/media tower/rack to hold my media - CDs, DVDs, books etc...the table that holds my TV is WAYY too wide for its own good. My DVDs and books are lined up horizontally so I'm almost out of room to hold anymore despite a total of 6 books and 3 DVDs + 1 Blu ray combo pack. My CDs are in a small rack that maybe holds 40 CDs and I've cleared out the rack at least a couple times due to not having enough room to fit more.
What's in it...
It occurred to me that Hell exists as a mirror of Satan himself. As for Satan's existence, the angels existed before Adam. Perhaps he's more human than people say he is; it's possible that God didn't choose his supernatural powers. God gave the angels superpowers and Satan and his former-angel followers have used them to ruin mankind's relationship with God. People always say that God's plan will not be foiled, and to some extent that may be true, but I don't think God's plan was for so much of the planet he created to burn in Hell. He calls the Israelites a "stiff necked people". The choice Adam made to eat the apple did not come from the forbidden tree. Did the Israelites' stiff-neckedness stem from the forbidden fruit? Mankind IS made in God's image. So, minus the God-status of mankind and the superpowers that certainly do not belong in mankind's possession, we are quite like God. And God certainly does a lot of "shameless self promotion" proving a commitment to himself that raises a red flag of egocentrism. And while it may be easy to call that hypocrisy, the fact remains that our happiness, pure and complete, will not be found outside of our Father's presence. We can connect with our father or be orphans. Obviously, the rift between man & God is very strong. But, to the best of mankind's frail abilities, it's important to reach out, and try to touch his hand. Selfishness and bitterness I find are the two things that get in the way of acknowledging God. Why is this? I don't know and I cannot say for sure that God knows either. That may be the same as asking "why is water wet?" Is there an answer to that question other than "It just is"? I don't think when we get to Heaven, it's going to be fruitful to ask God "How did you get here?" He'll probably say just that: "I didn't. I just am"
God is perfect as far as perfection is relevant. Mankind is at home with the Lord. It is not at home anywhere else. In the eyes of a man with sin extracted from his being, God IS perfect. He provides everything we need. He provides everything we want. Entertainment, art, hobbies, food, everything that mankind wants on this Earth is a means to make do with the sin that exists in us. Like the earth itself, and those who do not realize this, it will all crumble and lose its shape and form and no longer will be able to make do with our sin.
God is perfect as far as perfection is relevant. Mankind is at home with the Lord. It is not at home anywhere else. In the eyes of a man with sin extracted from his being, God IS perfect. He provides everything we need. He provides everything we want. Entertainment, art, hobbies, food, everything that mankind wants on this Earth is a means to make do with the sin that exists in us. Like the earth itself, and those who do not realize this, it will all crumble and lose its shape and form and no longer will be able to make do with our sin.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Names w/o Faces - who the heck is RTM Distributors?
I'm really starting to become annoyed with Amazon's marketplace. Electronics items by the zillion are offered as "brand new" when they are not in fact BRAND NEW, but rather NEW. If you're going to use a word, it should mean something. BRAND NEW should mean it's hot off the press or as much so as humanly possible. If you buy a CD or a DVD from somebody claiming it's BRAND NEW and the fact of the matter is that person and/or business is just selling some item that they bought from some other retailer and never got around to opening, then the seller you bought it from is a fraud. With CDs and DVDs, I get called an uptight guy whose wasting my time and emotional energy when I bring out these points. With electronics items, you're in the dark until you buy one and even after that, it's anybody's guess when the item will fail on you. Without a VALID warranty, the fact that it's un-used and comes in a bright shiny box is completely irrelevant. Granted, a lot of warranties leave you wondering why to bother; the maker of my ex- tablet - Lightahead - required me to send a $20 money order and pay return postage. That was almost half what I paid for the item. The makers of those Ninja blender thingies have a similar policy. And those Ninjas are not especially cheap, although I guess blenders aren't generally cheap anyhow and Ninjas are not your run of the mill blender......I still think that coffee press that me and my mother were using before we got rid of it would have been a much better experience had we not used that $20 Burr grinder from Target but instead shelled out what looked to be the more normal price for a Burr grinder (a cursory search on Amazon gave me the impression that Burr grinders of low quality are generally $60 and a good one is closer to $200 & up).
Eh. People suck. I guess I should get used to it....
Eh. People suck. I guess I should get used to it....
Sunday, December 14, 2014
GOODFELLAS - exempt from classifcation...
During jr high and high school - 1997-2002 - it was largely considered uncool to watch anything with a positive vibe or message. So aside from WARRIORS OF VIRTUE (1997) and a handful of PG-13 comedies, it was violence upon more violence. It wasn't until after 9/11 that more kid and family friendly options started becoming available...neverminding that little to anything of any artistic value has made its way to theaters this past decade and a half or that R rated movies are more violent and sex-filled than anything that could have come out in the 1980s or 1990s.
But anyway; when I first saw GOODFELLAS in 2001 or 2002 I didn't know why I'd spent 2.5 hrs of my life watching it. My mom seemed to get it - she said if even half the disregard for one's fellow man depicted in that film is accurate, it's still a chilling truth, or something to that effect. I rolled my eyes and a few times later found myself racking my brain going "WHAT???!!!!"
I don't know if GOODFELLAS serves any actual reason for existing. Did the film benefit society at all? Was there really ever any controversy over the FBI's take down of the Italian mafia groups? If there was, I can see how the film has neutralized such controversy, as you rarely hear any badmouthing of the FBI's anti-mafia efforts. I can't pretend to know anything about it, because until less than 10 years ago, when I was in my mid-20s, I didn't realize that the mafia was a real threat to people in many big cities in the USA. The idea of "the mafia" always struck me as a cartoon of sorts. I knew it was real, but it never had anything to do with any facet of my life that I was aware of.
But anyway; the idea that kids could get their hands on it and be warped for life doesn't apply in this case. You have to be the polar opposite of a child in order to understand and appreciate the movie. It IS very slow paced and it's a long movie regardless of that fact. It's not fast paced and colorful like Oliver Stone's NATURAL BORN KILLERS or many of the action films that Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in from 1984's THE TERMINATOR up 'til his unsuccessful attempt at regaining mainstream and critical acclaim (1999's END OF DAYS) after wowing audiences with his participation in the epically awful BATMAN & ROBIN (1997). And if you have kids sleeping in the next room, you could consider using headphones, although a lot of name brand TVS don't have a headphone jack (My Seiki 22" LCD does, hehe).
Aside from the fact that GOODFELLAS is "so boring that your kids will fall asleep before they become de-sensitized and its' rallying cry against "the" mafia, the film does have some other positives, but if you haven't the patience to sit through it, you probably won't notice them as they are quite subtle.
But anyway; when I first saw GOODFELLAS in 2001 or 2002 I didn't know why I'd spent 2.5 hrs of my life watching it. My mom seemed to get it - she said if even half the disregard for one's fellow man depicted in that film is accurate, it's still a chilling truth, or something to that effect. I rolled my eyes and a few times later found myself racking my brain going "WHAT???!!!!"
I don't know if GOODFELLAS serves any actual reason for existing. Did the film benefit society at all? Was there really ever any controversy over the FBI's take down of the Italian mafia groups? If there was, I can see how the film has neutralized such controversy, as you rarely hear any badmouthing of the FBI's anti-mafia efforts. I can't pretend to know anything about it, because until less than 10 years ago, when I was in my mid-20s, I didn't realize that the mafia was a real threat to people in many big cities in the USA. The idea of "the mafia" always struck me as a cartoon of sorts. I knew it was real, but it never had anything to do with any facet of my life that I was aware of.
But anyway; the idea that kids could get their hands on it and be warped for life doesn't apply in this case. You have to be the polar opposite of a child in order to understand and appreciate the movie. It IS very slow paced and it's a long movie regardless of that fact. It's not fast paced and colorful like Oliver Stone's NATURAL BORN KILLERS or many of the action films that Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in from 1984's THE TERMINATOR up 'til his unsuccessful attempt at regaining mainstream and critical acclaim (1999's END OF DAYS) after wowing audiences with his participation in the epically awful BATMAN & ROBIN (1997). And if you have kids sleeping in the next room, you could consider using headphones, although a lot of name brand TVS don't have a headphone jack (My Seiki 22" LCD does, hehe).
Aside from the fact that GOODFELLAS is "so boring that your kids will fall asleep before they become de-sensitized and its' rallying cry against "the" mafia, the film does have some other positives, but if you haven't the patience to sit through it, you probably won't notice them as they are quite subtle.
The reality missing from your window w/ style!
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This is How to remind me...
...but I'm drawing a blank right now. Pastor said some stuff that got my mind going in a positive direction, but now I've totally forgotten the street names...as far as what the Pastor said, I'm not good at quoting people and I don't think the specific sentiment he was speaking was necessarily what I was picking up...I'm new to this Christianity, most of the other congregation members are not, so a lot of what he says is lost on me...
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Sowing Season "I'm not your friend, I'm not your lover, I'm not your friend/yeah yeah yeah"
Wow. Some friend I am. I've spent roughly $3.50 on Amazon.com in the past 30 days, all in digital orders. Everything else I paid for on Amazon was with gift cards from Swagbucks, mostly from free trials for stuff I had very little interest in to start with and searching the internet for stuff I already know how to access w/o Swagbucks Search engine.
INSERT gangly hunchback emerging from street alley in 1848 France, with a gruff voice: "Amazon doesn't want your friendship. They just want your money. Move along, rat. You ain't gonna find what you need here. All you'll find is hurt"/EXIT into the shadowy night....
INSERT gangly hunchback emerging from street alley in 1848 France, with a gruff voice: "Amazon doesn't want your friendship. They just want your money. Move along, rat. You ain't gonna find what you need here. All you'll find is hurt"/EXIT into the shadowy night....
Thursday, December 11, 2014
This Is Not A Bleachers Song
I feel better now. I guess I ate too much earlier and, after typing three posts of despair, decided I needed to do what needed done and I read 3 or 4 pages of Proverbs and 7 pages of Exodus. I may or may not read some of The Story before I go to bed.
I was this close...
...to not turning the computer back on. Then I did. It's like me and the household's desktop computer are joined at the hip.......rrrg. Now I'm bored. Sick of all this!!
CRASH by J.G. Ballard
I feel like reading. By " reading " I mean fiction. Does that count as "chasing dreams"?
A loss of unthinkable proprotions...
The Bible talks rather poorly of people who chase dreams and sleep during harvest time...I feel like schit. The flesh surrounding my head feels hot, my brain is sore (headache?), my stomach is shot...my legs feel useless...I may have the flu, I know I've eaten way too much today and many of the previous days of recent and I also haven't walked in a couple days...the ache in the head is probably from thinking too much...maybe I've been listening to my music too loudly...maybe...idk...I know I should read The Bible and get caught up on The Story. I also know I should take a shower and go to work/earn my keep etc....it all sounds so big yet in the moment it's so small...it's one small particle that needs to be constantly replicated. It's depressing and exhausting just to think about. What the hell is wrong with me!!![?]
the 1975 - appearances can be deceiving..
...I assumed The 1975 was one of those Rolling Stones/G'N'R beer-stained-toilet revival bands, glorifying "The good ole' days" when rock & roll had nothing to contribute to society except ugliness in every shape and form. Turns out, they're a great band, full of emotion and melody! Their lyrics are questionable, "If you wanna find love, you know where the city is". Is that an unabashed misuse of the word "love"? Anyone who knows what REAL LOVE is knows the city has nothing more than whatever dinky little town in question has. Unless of course you're looking for your soul mate and "the universe" has pulled a Tower Of Babel on you & (s)he...and in that case, there's no telling which city your soulmate is in, because A) said person is not necessarily in ANY city (why not a suburb or a midsize town or a Population 30 ghost town?) B) It's disgustingly pessimistic to assume God would do something like that to a person. Yes, I know a lot of people don't find their soul mate at birth. Yes, often times they're not in the same city/town/ghost as you, but when you need them, you'll probably have moved two or three times and if they're still not in the same city as you, A) there's the internet for those who are inclined to use it for dating and B) you ever heard of a tourist?
Ok, so enough of that. It's obvious with any honest logic that The 1975 are using "love" as a euphemism for sex. However, weather or not that's their personal outlook is not clear, at least not to me. I don't understand half the lyrics of the verses, and I don't care that much anyway. I'll get tired of the album soon enough. And I only paid $5.99 for the mp3 version at Amazon.
I was seriously gunning for the physical copy (CD), but A) I'm poor and B) it's the music that matters. The farther humans get from this tangled up obsession with packaging (cover art, box graphics, etc.) the better it will be for all forms of music. Not to mention, the extinction of cover-art is inevitable. If it's not, let the filthy rich do their part in keeping it alive. As for me, I'm still low on groceries.
Ok, so enough of that. It's obvious with any honest logic that The 1975 are using "love" as a euphemism for sex. However, weather or not that's their personal outlook is not clear, at least not to me. I don't understand half the lyrics of the verses, and I don't care that much anyway. I'll get tired of the album soon enough. And I only paid $5.99 for the mp3 version at Amazon.
I was seriously gunning for the physical copy (CD), but A) I'm poor and B) it's the music that matters. The farther humans get from this tangled up obsession with packaging (cover art, box graphics, etc.) the better it will be for all forms of music. Not to mention, the extinction of cover-art is inevitable. If it's not, let the filthy rich do their part in keeping it alive. As for me, I'm still low on groceries.
Target Gift Cards
Since Target hasn't posted anything on THEIR website stating this, I should warn my fellow shoppers that shipment of Target gift cards bought on Target.com are being delayed. If you need it before Christmas, you're better off going to the store and buying it/them.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Harry Adam Knight's CARNOSAUR
Starburst Magazine heralded Harry Adam Knight as being "The New Stephen King"...interesting how John Brosnan worked for Starburst Magazine and Harry Adam Knight is a pen name for John Brosnan...the cover for CARNOSAUR (ISBN: 978-1557850836), the 1989 re-print, doesn't say who of the employees of Starburst Magazine wrote that quote, but it wouldn't be surprising if it was indeed John Brosnan himself, trying to raise sales for Harry Adam Knight's books...
I remember watching the movie back in 1998 or so, and being confused as all get out by the ending. I understood it was horrifying, but not understanding it kinda made it more so.
Also, I remember watching the 1986 musical re-make of THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS back around 1991 or so, and almost cowered to bed when the mean green mother from outer space started wreaking havoc on the plant shop, and my mom told me it would be less scary if I stayed and watched to the end. Little did my mom know, if Frank Oz had had the final say, watching to the very end of that movie would have kept me up all freakin' night. For, you see, there is this little thing called a "director's cut", which as, AT LAST(!), been released to DVD (and blu ray). It's probably not fair to call Frank Oz's decision to take a lite-horror/horror-comedy/horror-comedy-musical and tack on an ending that defies all expectations one would have of the movie a precursor to George Lucas' decision to ruin the STAR WARS trilogy, but you can kinda see some parallels there nonetheless...the movie goer should be satisfied. SATISFY ME PLEASE, GEORGE LUCAS!!! (Yes, satisfy us all!)
I remember watching the movie back in 1998 or so, and being confused as all get out by the ending. I understood it was horrifying, but not understanding it kinda made it more so.
Also, I remember watching the 1986 musical re-make of THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS back around 1991 or so, and almost cowered to bed when the mean green mother from outer space started wreaking havoc on the plant shop, and my mom told me it would be less scary if I stayed and watched to the end. Little did my mom know, if Frank Oz had had the final say, watching to the very end of that movie would have kept me up all freakin' night. For, you see, there is this little thing called a "director's cut", which as, AT LAST(!), been released to DVD (and blu ray). It's probably not fair to call Frank Oz's decision to take a lite-horror/horror-comedy/horror-comedy-musical and tack on an ending that defies all expectations one would have of the movie a precursor to George Lucas' decision to ruin the STAR WARS trilogy, but you can kinda see some parallels there nonetheless...the movie goer should be satisfied. SATISFY ME PLEASE, GEORGE LUCAS!!! (Yes, satisfy us all!)
Friday, December 5, 2014
CS
Target.com is bogged down in customer communing. They sent out an email specifically stating this after two days of waiting for a response. Two days? What's the freakin' hold up?
Any store of any caliber - that isn't run by greedy hooligans - will anticipate this kind of situation to be occurring no later than Dec.1. The security breach issue of earlier this year seems likely to be caused by the same greed that limits the number of jobs avail. at Target customer service desks.
I guess Target is still a leader in dealing with people. They always make sure to open lines when there's a slight back up. It was a little hectic this past Monday (Dec 1), but A) it was midday B) it was Monday) and C) it's Officially the Holiday Season. Maybe the lax security and the long winded wait times are unrelated. Maybe the lax security that contributed to the hackers' success at gaining access to Target customers' information was just Target being stupid?
Oh well.
Any store of any caliber - that isn't run by greedy hooligans - will anticipate this kind of situation to be occurring no later than Dec.1. The security breach issue of earlier this year seems likely to be caused by the same greed that limits the number of jobs avail. at Target customer service desks.
I guess Target is still a leader in dealing with people. They always make sure to open lines when there's a slight back up. It was a little hectic this past Monday (Dec 1), but A) it was midday B) it was Monday) and C) it's Officially the Holiday Season. Maybe the lax security and the long winded wait times are unrelated. Maybe the lax security that contributed to the hackers' success at gaining access to Target customers' information was just Target being stupid?
Oh well.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
NO JACKET REQUIRED (1985)
Listening to "Sussudio" by Phil Collins, kickstart track from his Grammy winning album NO JACKET REQUIRED (1985, Atlantic). Not exactly a powerhouse of emotion or anything remotely similar, actually wears very thin after the first minute or two. On minute 2 second 39, and counting and I've been feeling sickly empty for the past minute(?). Stupid song. Great sound effects, lots of flashy synthy drumNbass. I rarely find the kind of empty mindedness necessary to appreciate this dumb song. The album picks up from there, slowly, from track 2 ("Only You Know And I Know"), but none of the tracks really pierce the heart or mind unless you can wrap your mind around the simple joy of "Sussudio". The last three songs on the album are probably my favorites, but, like the opening track, are more style than substance. Guess it's a matter of preference. A lot of people might hear a track like "Inside Out" and "We Said Hello Goodbye" and think of them as filler. The filling track in between those two cookies, track 10, was a radio hogger ("Take Me Home"), so I doubt most have any problem with it. Maybe some of the younger generation might....folks who were raised on Limp Bizkit and/or Lady Gaga...I've read several comments on Amazon customer submitted reviews from parents noting their kids found fault with the production quality of a lot of '80's music. When my high school chum from 1999 and I were reflecting on 80's music, he noted the technology was obviously lacking in a lot of it. I only really notice it when on Pandora, shuffling through various songs from various decades. You hear 1985 Phil Collins, then 2000(Y2K) Vertical Horizon and then 2010 One Republic and so on it kinda becomes obvious the amount of tape hiss or whatever present in those 80's songs.
Anyway, I've gotten distracted from the CD typing this. I've heard this CD about half a million times, so it's not like I'm missing out on anything. I don't even know why I tried listening to this. I always do this!!!!
Anyway, I've gotten distracted from the CD typing this. I've heard this CD about half a million times, so it's not like I'm missing out on anything. I don't even know why I tried listening to this. I always do this!!!!
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
HISTORY: PAST PRESENT & FUTURE BOOK I (2CD)
I turned 12 on Nov.20th 1995. So I was 11 when Michael Jackson's not-a-comeback album (after such high hopes...) HISTORY: PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE BOOK I was released and I didn't begin listening to it until my absentee father bought it for me late in the year or sometime in 1996. I was attending school at a remote area that agreed to facilitate a place of education for seriously emotionally disturbed (S.E.D.) youth. So I spent my days around crazy people, basically. And my mother was also crazy, and my sister was also slowly losing her mind, thankfully it never went off the deep end, she's kind of the glue that holds my family together to this day. But anyway; I knew of MJs alleged child abuse, so the explosively emotional content in Disc 2 made sense to me. Oddly enough, a couple of years before this album came out, I was involved in a conspiracy to steal pornography. The store owner was "kind" enough not to prosecute me. Is he a child abuser for putting magazines containing pornography in a section of the store where kids can not only reach them, but reach inside and see what's in them??? I'd love to see him try and press charges. :/) Anyway, I still sometimes listen to it, on sites like Rhapsody/Spotify. Putting "Billie Jean" at the beginning was a smart move. I never cared a whole lot for "Wanna Be Startin' Something", so i rarely listen to THRILLER. I might put up with "WBTS" the same way I put up with "She's Out Of My Life" during playback of this album if it weren't at the very beginning. On the downside, you miss all but 4 songs from the magnificent BAD, which, btw, is NOT out of print(winkwink). Everyone seems to favor THRILLER and some favor OFF THE WALL, though the only song from OFF THE WALL I like is "Rock With You", thankfully included here. OTW was a transitional album though if my 31 year old white male self is perceiving the pre-me past accurately. I mean, he was a solo artist b4 OFF THE WALL, but, to me anyway, his solo stuff gets confused with his Jackson 5 material. OFF THE WALL was the beginning of the end of that. Disc 2 starts off with "Scream", the hit duet with his sister Janet and picks up from there with the smoldering intensity of "They Don't Care About Us", which has since been censored b/c of MJ's use of a certain antisemetic word [deleted]...I'm not sure the use of that word can be aptly apologized for to the people who are offended by it, being as the Jewish people have suffered the largest mass offense to humanity ever carried out and I don't blame them for being a wee bit touchy about it. I'm sure MJ felt the same way I did when I first heard about it, something along the lines of "Me, racist? But I'm not a racist!" I mean, the holocaust was unthinkable. I, at least, cannot wrap my head around how such a movement took place. I don't get how similar yet scaled down (mostly) behavior toward kidnapped Africans became accepted in North America. It's not logical, despite certain people's half brained attempts to justify it. Anyway, as far as the other 13 tracks, most of them are good to great. "Tabloid Junkie" is basically just MJ saying "please quit reading the tabloids". I don't like tabloids, they're tasteless, almost comical, and not anymore entertaining than real news or, better yet, a novel or a movie. [Names and places have been changed so that Michael Jackson doesn't sue us for talking trash about him even though me may be aware that it's him we're talking about...oh did we strike a nerve, Michael? THE OFFICAL RESPONSE FROM MICHAEL JACKSON'S ATTORNEY: "Since the writer claims to have written a work of fiction and this story does not mirror the actions or mind of Michael Jackson, there is nothing for Michael or his family to say in regards to rumors circulating about it"]
Monday, November 24, 2014
"something from my childhood...something that could never possibly destroy us"
The Right Lefts released a punk-comedy record titled BAD CHOICES MADE EASY. If that wasn't noteworthy in itself, how 'bout that Cap'n Crunch ripoff? OOOH!
Friday, November 21, 2014
Unsung Burn
My uncle Eddie, I found this afternoon, has decided to wash his hands of Best Buy. I don't communicate with him often, but I asked my Gramma what to get him for Christmas and if he still shops at Best Buy, and she said he'd been stung a couple times so he's done w/ 'em or something like that...
I told Gramma of all the horror stories on the web regarding Best Buy. She seemed unfased by all of it and I take it she didn't bother to tell Eddie about it. I think I might have tried to tell Eddie about the whole web of sludge surrounding their name outside of their shiny conglomerated namesake, but I don't think it helped him. Best Buy will continue to rake in money with no regard for its customers - loyal or otherwise - unless/until the ppl take a stand and quit shopping there. People seem to think they are trustworthy because of the fact that every city has one and everyone knows their name. People often forget that a recognizable name and face has no value. People vote for their elected officials in the same manner often times; ignorant of voting records, just voting for whoever is the most charming or handsome.
RRg.
I told Gramma of all the horror stories on the web regarding Best Buy. She seemed unfased by all of it and I take it she didn't bother to tell Eddie about it. I think I might have tried to tell Eddie about the whole web of sludge surrounding their name outside of their shiny conglomerated namesake, but I don't think it helped him. Best Buy will continue to rake in money with no regard for its customers - loyal or otherwise - unless/until the ppl take a stand and quit shopping there. People seem to think they are trustworthy because of the fact that every city has one and everyone knows their name. People often forget that a recognizable name and face has no value. People vote for their elected officials in the same manner often times; ignorant of voting records, just voting for whoever is the most charming or handsome.
RRg.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
"Are you eating it or is it eating you?"
"There's a piece of me in that machine; and a piece of it in me" - that crazy guy from Tobe Hooper's The Mangler.I've read how many authors of the 40s-60s were deadset against technology. Words like "dehumanizing" and such often were used to describe it. I think some of that was just a bittersweet nostalgia - bitter about the present and sweet on the past. But I wonder sometimes if they were truly onto something. The Buggles THE AGE OF PLASTIC, according to an Amazon customer review, contained a song about how technology stifles creativity. I don't really know if that's true, since even preppy schoolboy rockers Genesis were largely appreciated by people who chose to use illegal drugs. It's hard to say if rock as we knew it from 1965-1979 would have even happened had the young folk not succumbed to every bad habit their parents tried to protect them from. So, yeah, Taking Back Sunday and Nickelback aren't re-inventing the wheel. Nobody except people who are stuck in a relatively small area of music history are demanding they even try to re-invent the wheel. People don't want spacey headtrips being played on the radio. Stuff like that causes one to ignore everything around them, which is counterproductive if one is trying to shop and is downright hazerdous when one is driving. Emotional powerpunches like "Livin' On A Prayer" by Bon Jovi or "Someday" by Nickelback are about as creative as music needs to be for most people. You can shop to the beat of the song once you've heard it a couple times and are familiar with its rhythm and enough of the lyrics to sing along with (part of/most of) the chorus...and driving, that just depends on how sucky of a driver you are. I don't have a driver's license bc I'd have to have the radio OFF to keep from ramming into somebody and even then I might get lost in my thoughts and do that anyway.
And I concur with my Grandma Della and her dearly departed sister my Great Aunt Marie that the days of yore were no walk in the park. Labor was indeed more difficult. But, as they say, you reap what you sew. What benefits does one reap just sitting at a chair all day under fake light? Working the fields you easily see the benefits of your labor, even if it indeed becomes nearly impossible to continue as one gets in their typical old age. That's where the idea of retirement came from, I'd imagine. Sitting at a desk all day, what's the point of retirement? Does one get too old to sit on their ass and push buttons? Of course, everyone has family or at the very least (as would be in my case, if I had a job to retire from at any point...) hobbies to enjoy a larger qty of. But the truth is if you have kids or a wife, they need you now AND later. If they can survive you out of the picture 8-12 hrs daily these days, they can probably get along just fine later. Kids grow up and the less they see of their parent(s), the more they don't care. Making up for lost time doesn't happen with children; despite whatever stigma they've earned in your eyes, they're not children by the time you retire. Unless you pave your own way to retirement and get out of the workforce by the age of 35 or something...and if you had your kids when you were early-mid 20s, they're already drifting away from you by the time you're 35-40. Kids at the age of 14 are just starting to "get real" in respect to life and what it's "all about". They're developing and discovering aptitude and trying to figure out their role in the world. It's a confusing time for them and you bugging them demanding to make up for time you didn't spend with them when they were a baby and/or toddler is a distraction they don't need. I was 17 when my Mom converted to Christianity and it took over 10 years for me to get over the sudden change in rhetoric I was hearing in her. The ideas of individuality and personal freedom of expression and supposedly sharp observations of hypocrisy being the Christian way, etc. etc., was suddenly replaced by Bible quotes, talk of forgiveness and how freedom of personal expression had limits and suddenly those limits were not the point in which logic fell short but rather the point in which it became sinful. And then the household in which just about nobody ever visited became almost a zoo of people. Visitors were stopping by left and right it seemed. I was very uncomfortable with all the change that was going on and one of the worst things about it all was that it wasn't bad change and it actually made perfect sense. However, I couldn't stand the idea that I was being led into it. I always thought of myself as being rather bright, albeit staggeringly uneducated because of how behind I got in school by not sitting down and listening like a good little boy. My sister was doing long division in 4th grade. I didn't know what division was until at least 5th grade and the formula for triple digit division I could not wrap my head around well enough to execute until 8th grade and in 9th grade I had to re-learn it because I had forgotten over the summer break. Even in high school despite my ability to remember a great deal of what the teacher had lectured without writing and/or going over any notes, I still got Cs and Ds on tests in history class because they insisted I needed to learn geography as if I needed to know how to navigate the Earth in order to understand the events and conditions that led to those events...seems like since aviation practice/skill is not high school, i.e.: general knowledge, material, but they thought it would be very important to have the globe memorized just in case aviation became an interest to 4 or 5 of the 400 students at my high school, they could sneak that into Earth Science. Because I admit it's a valid theory that what happens in different parts of the world at various points in time is effected by the climate. But one needs to understand how the climate effects the people within it, and that I did not learn in any of the three science classes I took once I got out of baby school aka Seriously Emotionally Disturbed (SED) class(es), which I had to ride on a bus for over an hour to get to because the school was located in the boonies and the students that went to it lived wherever they damn well felt like, which is all good and well since the citizens of the town that held the school were all farmers and the landlords didn't want crazy kids' parents living there just for convenience..."this isn't the WalMart drive thru serving Burger King anywayUwantit, ya know. This is a land of hard working people and this community takes pride in what we do! Your petty problems are just that - PETTY! Go away and quit bugging me and my colleagues!" Uh...got way off topic trying to explain why I'd seem like an idiot even though I' m really not, I promise... yeah... Anyway,
But yeah, I would chew on the ideas that my mom would present to me and ultimately I would convince myself that it's "just" a book and it could very well be fiction for all anyone really knows. The more information I was given, the more hard that was to really put stock in and eventually I was torn between pride and stupidity. The hard part was answering anything my mom might ask if she found out I was no longer anti-Christian. She might ask "Have you decided to quit pouting and join us?" or, "Are you a Christian now?" Neither of those I would feel comfortable answering, especially a year ago before I really started reading The Bible. Now I'm doing a Bible Study of this thing called THE STORY, which is a condensed version of The Bible that reads less like a textbook and more like a novel. It's also supposedly easier to read, even though much of it is the NIV slightly re-worded. I still don't know if I'm a Christian. My pastor and my mother talk as if I need to go on a missions trip or volunteer at the Salvation Army. My pastor said "He IS calling you to do something". The part about something isn't so troublesome except for the "is" part, which implies every waking moment of every living day I'm being told by God to do something. And since I spend most of my days and nights either asleep, watching TV, listening to music, or (window)shopping, it would seem to me like I'm not getting the message. And if I were to get the message and act upon it, it would never be over. I'd be spending my entire life on it. So Mission trip or Salvation Army soldier is the only two options I can think of. I'm too thickskinned as some might say to even consider trying my hand at pastor.. Even the Baptist and Church of Christ churches can probably do better than me. If God ever forces my mouth open and pushes words out of it, I might change my mind. And then there's my constant struggle with lust, which I often give into, in my awkward nobody wants me/DIY sort of way...ugh...hopefully Google doesn't censor this...darrg...
But anyway. Just kinda thought it was interesting, the thought that by typing this and shopping on Amazon like I was 1/4(?) of the day that just ended 1 hr 17 mins ago (and counting....) that I am being "eaten", so to speak, by the actions I am choosing. Like the sands of the hourglass...
Sunday, November 9, 2014
The Unsinkable ship - of fellow(s)!!!
Realistically speaking, I don't think I'll be stimulated much by the upcoming dose of Church that is scheduled for 10:30am today.
But between all this free time I still have left (almost 1 hr and 20 mins as I write this and counting - down...) and all this good music and great remembrances of art and money that I will soon have to buy it and the music I have already stored on my Amazon cloud music thingy - that I am presently listening to - I am only pumped up to brush up for this brighter future that God promises His people.
HEre I come Church!
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Well, if you're counting that as evidence...
Ok, so whatshisface dino digger finds dino bones resting beside human bones. Carbon dating confirms they are from the same time period. Of course, mainstream scientists sweep this under the rug because it doesn't fit their anti-God agenda.
Scientists insist that evolution is true b/c there's all kinds of bones found all over of animals that resemble but are not identical to animals alive & well in today's ecosystem. People say that this is evidence of natural selection but not evolution.
Ok, here's the problem. Dino digger's "anti-science" discovery makes no sense unless you adjust common scientific theory to allow for the possibility that most human bones from the dinosaur days are nothing more than dust by now and that the dinosaur bones have survived as long as they have because there was more bone that has since disintegrated. Otherwise, where's all the other human bones that carbon date with dino days? Going under that logic, natural selection doesn't explain these bones that look like space zebras et al. If you consider "all life was created at the same time", then you have the puzzle: 1) what killed these animals? They couldn't have lasted very long if they weren't fit for survival to begin with. Some other animal either killed them off all too easily or they were a weakly designed species that couldn't take the heat. Which brings 2) If the average human bones are dead and gone (disintegrated), then why are these relatively small creatures' bones being found? The Bible says the earth was created in 7 days. If you want a "pro-science" alignment of this fact, watch THE GENESIS CODE. It's a movie, not sure if anyone famous was in it. One of the characters, a scientist, in the movie explains rather convincingly and articulately that from God's viewpoint, the events described in the first verses of The Bible probably took what seemed like 7 days to him because, for all intensive purposes, he was in "outer space", and time is measured differently from Earth than it is in space -- any details beyond that, you'll have to watch the movie or look it up and find an excerpt, 'cause I only vaugely understood what the dude was saying and I don't remember all the details because, like I said, I only vagugely understood all of it........but as I was saying, if the events in the first few passages of The Bible are to be taken with that interpretation, it makes perfect sense to think that the complicated process of evolution had time to hammer out. As the Pope of now said, paraphrasing, The Big Bang Theory doesn't disprove the existence of God, but, to the contrary, requires it. I'd say the same thing about the idea of evolution. People say that the odds of the big bang being a reality are zero to none. And in Ben Stein's documentary that i don't remember the name of he was making fun of this one scientist for saying something like it's possible that the process of evolution began from the backs of crystals. I'm probably way off in my memory of what the guy said, he was answering rhetorical questions from Ben Stein -- I say rhetorical b/c Ben Stein made it clear in the narration of the documentary that he thinks the idea of evolution is absurd and no answer from anybody would be sound enough to satisfy Mr. Stein. Obviously the majority if not all the pro-evolution scientists Mr. Stein spoke to refuse to acknowledge the possibility of intelligent design. To me, that's what's really mind boggling -- that so many people think the universe just happened and continues to roll on like an undying death. As post-rock gurus Explosions In The Sky once declared: THE EARTH IS NOT A COLD DEAD PLACE!
clock & dagger
The clock is my enemy;
here it is, 4 o' clock sharp and my veins are on fire
life is good
but for how long?
Where the hand lands nobody knows
The ticking is winding down
Very very slowly
I feel tired
Just a tad
I'm having a good time
But I should be in bed
Fearing the future of daybreak when I need to wake up but can't
Because I'm not in bed now
Maybe I should have bought some tranquilizers
Can you get those without prescription?
I usually don't have this problem
I never want to sleep
But there's times when my brain is about to shut down and I go to bed
Something about sleep begs comfort
Tradition perhaps?
Can't fight it
I need my blanket, I need my bed!
I'm not tired though, so why bother?
I'm getting there, but it's almost daybreak
It'll be noon before I awaken again
And then I'll go back to bed even later!
Whatever will I do?
I have no life, no schedule
With the exception of Sunday morning and Sunday evening
Maybe this insanity will wind itself around to normal by then
I worry too much
here it is, 4 o' clock sharp and my veins are on fire
life is good
but for how long?
Where the hand lands nobody knows
The ticking is winding down
Very very slowly
I feel tired
Just a tad
I'm having a good time
But I should be in bed
Fearing the future of daybreak when I need to wake up but can't
Because I'm not in bed now
Maybe I should have bought some tranquilizers
Can you get those without prescription?
I usually don't have this problem
I never want to sleep
But there's times when my brain is about to shut down and I go to bed
Something about sleep begs comfort
Tradition perhaps?
Can't fight it
I need my blanket, I need my bed!
I'm not tired though, so why bother?
I'm getting there, but it's almost daybreak
It'll be noon before I awaken again
And then I'll go back to bed even later!
Whatever will I do?
I have no life, no schedule
With the exception of Sunday morning and Sunday evening
Maybe this insanity will wind itself around to normal by then
I worry too much
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
They like me, they really like me!
They didn't specifically address the problem, but I got more than I hoped for and possibly more, since there's that chance the "team in charge" might take my complaint into consideration...
This is the response from my grievances detailed in my most recent (previous) post:
|
Are you smarter than the average Swaggernaut?
Swagbucks.com.
I just sent an email to Swagbucks support b/c whoever designed their NOSO (no obligation special offers) page has pissed me off. I was listening to Phil Collins' ...BUT SERIOUSLY (1989, Atlantic Records) on Rdio (which cost me $4.99), and while my ears were listening, my eyes were navigating the NOSO section of Swagbucks, and when I got to the end of it, they asked me to click on some stupid mini-screen to "reveal the code" that I was supposed to enter in order to receive the two (2) Swagbucks that completing the NOSO entitles me to. So: after I click the mini-screen-thingy Flo from Progressive starts yacking and it's loud, so Phil Collins' voice is only half audible to me and the passion and intensity of "Hang In Long Enough" (track #1, thankfully; if I'd gotten "into" the CD, this whole thing would be like a demon demolishing the NYC skyscrapers and scraping them against the bodies of the Swagbucks CEO......bloodtheblood...bloooooooooooooooood....) is drowned out by the saints of commercialism. And despite what Oasis and their goons have to say, Phil Collins does not stand for commercialism. He stands for music. It just so happens that the average person likes his music. I seriously cannot comprehend people that think because an artist or band is popular that they're fake. This one guy was saying it's "brainwashing". No, actually it isn't. If you aren't exposed to certain types of music frequently at a young age, you tend to gravitate away from them. The opposite is equally true. So if you're a natural-born socially-awkward anarchist and your parents are perfectly content folks who believe in law & order, then you probably won't care much for Nirvana's IN UTERO or Dinosaur Jr.'s BUG. My mom was a "square". She didn't listen to Led Zeppelin and all that noisy shi*. She listened to CS&N's DAYLIGHT AGAIN (1982 Atlantic), MJ's THRILLER (1982 Epic), Paul Simon's GRACELAND (1986 Warner Bros.), Genesis' INVISIBLE TOUCH (1986 Atlantic), Chicago's GREATEST HITS 1982-1989 (1989 Reprise) etc......while my dad was still "The man of the house", we had VH1 available for viewing on the TV. Via that I saw Tom Petty & The Heartbreaker's music video for "Don't Come Around Here No More", George Harrison's "I Got My Mind Set On You", The Escape Club's "Wild Wild West" and Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy". I also remember seeing Weird Al's music video for his Michael Jackson "Bad" parody, "Fat". I also remember my dad playing Weird Al's EVEN WORSE and seeing the album cover, thinking "that isn't Michael Jackson..."
So anyway. Phil Collins stands for world peace, whereas Led Zeppelin and Nirvana have not done a damn thing for the cause. There, I said it.
And Phil Collins' music deserves some respect. Swagbucks did me and Phil Collins a deeply unnerving disservice by taking up Flo to my browser and blasting her yacking...if I didn't have headphones on, I don't think my neighbors would have been too pleased either. Phil Collins' "Hang In Long Enough" may not be their cup of tea per se (although I really don't know for sure, I don't talk to them a lot), I'm sure they'd take Phil Collins over Flo. The only reason people put up with her on TV is because she pays for the TV shows so they don't have to. I mean, for TWO FREAKIN' swAGBUCKS!!????! I realize there's people that make a life out of Swagbucks, people called Swaggernauts. Sorry, Swagbucks is a way to earn extra money for me. Not a lifelong gaming ground. Two or three Swagbucks accrued is nothing when it takes 450 of them to earn a $5 gift card. Tell me with a st8 face that Swagbucks isn't getting AT LEAST $5 on avg for every time someone watches Flo doing her thang. Yeah, and I only get 2/450th of that. Not a respectable commission for someone who had their afternoon ruined by obnoxiousness. It's one thing to try and listen to a CD that is obnoxious with no knowledge of what's on the CD before listening, but it's a totally different thing when peace & quiet w/ a dash of Phil Collins is going on and, without any reasonable warning, you get some obnoxious noise coming through the headphones.
Ok, well anyway.
Here's the email I sent to them. I really doubt they'll respond in any intelligible manner. They might get stupid and close my account.......
"Is multi-tasking prohibited while using your site? No Well, then quit f***ing up my internet radio experience by blasting stupid advertising noise at random spots!!! I clicked "play video to reveal code" like I often do and this is one of the few times I've had to deal with audio w/ the video. I'm sick of you and all these companies that are too thickheaded to catch on the concept that people on the internet typically have lives outside of the WWW...and even those who don't surely don't have an undying passion to hear Progressive Insurance ads intertwined with professional musicians performing music. Heck, I probably would have missed the punchline if I'd been listening to a stand up comedian. Seriously, it's a good thing I had just started listening to the song I was on, otherwise I would have gotten all caught up in it and the puncturing of the experience would have been that much more upsetting. I mean, for 2 freakin' Swagbucks! How pathetic do you think your average user is, to be going around the Swagbucks-phere, picking up every crumb they can find, unable to listen to music or do anything else that requires their ears just so they can earn every little particle of Swag so that some day they can get a $5 or $10 gift card -- redeemable for what? More Swagbucks? Sorry, if I have to be a fool to be on your site, then just tell me and I'll go quietly."
I just sent an email to Swagbucks support b/c whoever designed their NOSO (no obligation special offers) page has pissed me off. I was listening to Phil Collins' ...BUT SERIOUSLY (1989, Atlantic Records) on Rdio (which cost me $4.99), and while my ears were listening, my eyes were navigating the NOSO section of Swagbucks, and when I got to the end of it, they asked me to click on some stupid mini-screen to "reveal the code" that I was supposed to enter in order to receive the two (2) Swagbucks that completing the NOSO entitles me to. So: after I click the mini-screen-thingy Flo from Progressive starts yacking and it's loud, so Phil Collins' voice is only half audible to me and the passion and intensity of "Hang In Long Enough" (track #1, thankfully; if I'd gotten "into" the CD, this whole thing would be like a demon demolishing the NYC skyscrapers and scraping them against the bodies of the Swagbucks CEO......bloodtheblood...bloooooooooooooooood....) is drowned out by the saints of commercialism. And despite what Oasis and their goons have to say, Phil Collins does not stand for commercialism. He stands for music. It just so happens that the average person likes his music. I seriously cannot comprehend people that think because an artist or band is popular that they're fake. This one guy was saying it's "brainwashing". No, actually it isn't. If you aren't exposed to certain types of music frequently at a young age, you tend to gravitate away from them. The opposite is equally true. So if you're a natural-born socially-awkward anarchist and your parents are perfectly content folks who believe in law & order, then you probably won't care much for Nirvana's IN UTERO or Dinosaur Jr.'s BUG. My mom was a "square". She didn't listen to Led Zeppelin and all that noisy shi*. She listened to CS&N's DAYLIGHT AGAIN (1982 Atlantic), MJ's THRILLER (1982 Epic), Paul Simon's GRACELAND (1986 Warner Bros.), Genesis' INVISIBLE TOUCH (1986 Atlantic), Chicago's GREATEST HITS 1982-1989 (1989 Reprise) etc......while my dad was still "The man of the house", we had VH1 available for viewing on the TV. Via that I saw Tom Petty & The Heartbreaker's music video for "Don't Come Around Here No More", George Harrison's "I Got My Mind Set On You", The Escape Club's "Wild Wild West" and Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy". I also remember seeing Weird Al's music video for his Michael Jackson "Bad" parody, "Fat". I also remember my dad playing Weird Al's EVEN WORSE and seeing the album cover, thinking "that isn't Michael Jackson..."
So anyway. Phil Collins stands for world peace, whereas Led Zeppelin and Nirvana have not done a damn thing for the cause. There, I said it.
And Phil Collins' music deserves some respect. Swagbucks did me and Phil Collins a deeply unnerving disservice by taking up Flo to my browser and blasting her yacking...if I didn't have headphones on, I don't think my neighbors would have been too pleased either. Phil Collins' "Hang In Long Enough" may not be their cup of tea per se (although I really don't know for sure, I don't talk to them a lot), I'm sure they'd take Phil Collins over Flo. The only reason people put up with her on TV is because she pays for the TV shows so they don't have to. I mean, for TWO FREAKIN' swAGBUCKS!!????! I realize there's people that make a life out of Swagbucks, people called Swaggernauts. Sorry, Swagbucks is a way to earn extra money for me. Not a lifelong gaming ground. Two or three Swagbucks accrued is nothing when it takes 450 of them to earn a $5 gift card. Tell me with a st8 face that Swagbucks isn't getting AT LEAST $5 on avg for every time someone watches Flo doing her thang. Yeah, and I only get 2/450th of that. Not a respectable commission for someone who had their afternoon ruined by obnoxiousness. It's one thing to try and listen to a CD that is obnoxious with no knowledge of what's on the CD before listening, but it's a totally different thing when peace & quiet w/ a dash of Phil Collins is going on and, without any reasonable warning, you get some obnoxious noise coming through the headphones.
Ok, well anyway.
Here's the email I sent to them. I really doubt they'll respond in any intelligible manner. They might get stupid and close my account.......
"Is multi-tasking prohibited while using your site? No Well, then quit f***ing up my internet radio experience by blasting stupid advertising noise at random spots!!! I clicked "play video to reveal code" like I often do and this is one of the few times I've had to deal with audio w/ the video. I'm sick of you and all these companies that are too thickheaded to catch on the concept that people on the internet typically have lives outside of the WWW...and even those who don't surely don't have an undying passion to hear Progressive Insurance ads intertwined with professional musicians performing music. Heck, I probably would have missed the punchline if I'd been listening to a stand up comedian. Seriously, it's a good thing I had just started listening to the song I was on, otherwise I would have gotten all caught up in it and the puncturing of the experience would have been that much more upsetting. I mean, for 2 freakin' Swagbucks! How pathetic do you think your average user is, to be going around the Swagbucks-phere, picking up every crumb they can find, unable to listen to music or do anything else that requires their ears just so they can earn every little particle of Swag so that some day they can get a $5 or $10 gift card -- redeemable for what? More Swagbucks? Sorry, if I have to be a fool to be on your site, then just tell me and I'll go quietly."
Sunday, November 2, 2014
broke, not broken...
I have $28 to spend on groceries and wayward desires for the rest of November, which just started two days ago (gasp!). $20 of that is guaranteed to go to RX and groceries I haven't yet bought but know I will need. So $8 for Amazon. And I haven't given any of my $720/mo to God. I suppose that isn't automatic disqualification from Heaven if I died this month.......(......), since I'm "stealing" that money any way by not "turning my dis-ability into an ability"...which I suppose is something I could, in theory, do, but...I don't want to(?)...which is more or less the story of my disability, although scientifically it's much more complicated than that, as is everything else when you get to the bone of it...
I skipped church today. I felt like an idiot half an hour after my ride left. I ran out of things to do, but I did sleep from about 11am to 2pm, so I guess it wasn't a total waste. I should have slept at night, but for some reason I only got three hours of sleep during the dark hours of the day aka the night...
Not sure when I'll get my next big stretch of sleep. I have small group tomorrow at 7pm as opposed to having just got home from it a couple hours ago b/c of schedule conflicts with the pastor who leads the group typically. I don't remember when I last slept. It's been off again on again since 11/2 @ 3 or 4 AM. I thought I was going to bed an hour ago. This computer screen makes me sleepy. Arg. Maybe if I hadn't had my Pandora station based on All Time Low playing Cartel's closing track for their debut lp CHROMA I would have slept...but it's not as if any one can say now is it? Well, God could, but I don't know of anyone who can actually hear God's voice, even though he does speak to people in alternative methods...however, I don't think such trivialities as "what would have happened had I done it differently" is something God is going to waste his talents on communicating. Heck, I don't even know why I waste my emotional storage on such stupidity. I don't know!
Anyway. Small group is late in the day, tomorrow, so I'll probably get enough sleep by then to at least stay awake during my ride's arrival and the session itself, which usually takes about 2 hours or so. I might also sleep sometime after I return. I sure hope so...
Listening to Brand X's MASQUES. Not very impressed with it. I guess I can scratch that off my budget, heh. I added it to my wish list @ Amazon, b/c I sorta liked the first song and part of track #2. Maybe I'd feel differently about it if I was paying undivided attention to it. I don't know how people can afford to listen to music like I do. People on Amazon forums talk about music like it's some entity you're supposed to honor and respect. They talk about giving it 3 or 4 listens before forming an opinion. I don't understand how that makes any sense. The music is the same regardless of how many times you hear it. If you don't like it, then you don't like it. Just because it's not something you're familiar with doesn't mean you're going to miss something by not listening to it multiple times. In fact, it shouldn't be something you're familiar with, ideally. If you're into music that's original as opposed to pop music, then you should be enough used to new things to not get pre-conceived ideas about an album before listening to it. Although with bands that have been around awhile, it's hard not to do, I suppose.
Dang it. Now i'm tired again. And I only have $8 that isn't set on anything. I'm counting on wanting to walk to Kidd's and get a convenience store-style capoccino(sp??). That's $1.15. If I do it twice it's $2.30, leaving me with $5.70. Aaagh!
I hate the way a lot of the good ol' movies are being packaged nowadays. Many of them come in ridiculously flimsy plastic cases, not much better than the all-dreaded snapcases that Warner Bros. used to insist on packaging their DVDs with. I still have GREMLINS in snapcase, the one I talked about a week(?) ago....I returned HOME ALONE tho b/c the case was weather worn...did I already mention that in one of my more recent posts? idk...anyway; I'm already running out of room on my space where i put my DVDs so I set GREMLINS and END OF DAYS in my closet. I'll watch them when I damn well please, OK?!!
I have a ton of VHS tapes. I don't really know why. Some of them I went out of my way to buy b/c the cover-art was so iconic I felt like displaying them. Some of them I bought at Teen Challenge thrift store for lack of anything else to buy and willingness to support their drug abuse recovery program. I probably should give them back to T.C. But I keep wondering "does anybody want them anyway?" I guess they do b/c any smart business - non profit or otherwise - would have enough sense to get rid of something that just sits still taking up space for a year. You can burn 'em if all else fails. Or throw them in the trash and let the city dump figure out what to do with it. Maybe there's a recycling program for audio and video tapes and photographs etc....? Probably not one that's easy to access from this moderately small town.
I skipped church today. I felt like an idiot half an hour after my ride left. I ran out of things to do, but I did sleep from about 11am to 2pm, so I guess it wasn't a total waste. I should have slept at night, but for some reason I only got three hours of sleep during the dark hours of the day aka the night...
Not sure when I'll get my next big stretch of sleep. I have small group tomorrow at 7pm as opposed to having just got home from it a couple hours ago b/c of schedule conflicts with the pastor who leads the group typically. I don't remember when I last slept. It's been off again on again since 11/2 @ 3 or 4 AM. I thought I was going to bed an hour ago. This computer screen makes me sleepy. Arg. Maybe if I hadn't had my Pandora station based on All Time Low playing Cartel's closing track for their debut lp CHROMA I would have slept...but it's not as if any one can say now is it? Well, God could, but I don't know of anyone who can actually hear God's voice, even though he does speak to people in alternative methods...however, I don't think such trivialities as "what would have happened had I done it differently" is something God is going to waste his talents on communicating. Heck, I don't even know why I waste my emotional storage on such stupidity. I don't know!
Anyway. Small group is late in the day, tomorrow, so I'll probably get enough sleep by then to at least stay awake during my ride's arrival and the session itself, which usually takes about 2 hours or so. I might also sleep sometime after I return. I sure hope so...
Listening to Brand X's MASQUES. Not very impressed with it. I guess I can scratch that off my budget, heh. I added it to my wish list @ Amazon, b/c I sorta liked the first song and part of track #2. Maybe I'd feel differently about it if I was paying undivided attention to it. I don't know how people can afford to listen to music like I do. People on Amazon forums talk about music like it's some entity you're supposed to honor and respect. They talk about giving it 3 or 4 listens before forming an opinion. I don't understand how that makes any sense. The music is the same regardless of how many times you hear it. If you don't like it, then you don't like it. Just because it's not something you're familiar with doesn't mean you're going to miss something by not listening to it multiple times. In fact, it shouldn't be something you're familiar with, ideally. If you're into music that's original as opposed to pop music, then you should be enough used to new things to not get pre-conceived ideas about an album before listening to it. Although with bands that have been around awhile, it's hard not to do, I suppose.
Dang it. Now i'm tired again. And I only have $8 that isn't set on anything. I'm counting on wanting to walk to Kidd's and get a convenience store-style capoccino(sp??). That's $1.15. If I do it twice it's $2.30, leaving me with $5.70. Aaagh!
I hate the way a lot of the good ol' movies are being packaged nowadays. Many of them come in ridiculously flimsy plastic cases, not much better than the all-dreaded snapcases that Warner Bros. used to insist on packaging their DVDs with. I still have GREMLINS in snapcase, the one I talked about a week(?) ago....I returned HOME ALONE tho b/c the case was weather worn...did I already mention that in one of my more recent posts? idk...anyway; I'm already running out of room on my space where i put my DVDs so I set GREMLINS and END OF DAYS in my closet. I'll watch them when I damn well please, OK?!!
I have a ton of VHS tapes. I don't really know why. Some of them I went out of my way to buy b/c the cover-art was so iconic I felt like displaying them. Some of them I bought at Teen Challenge thrift store for lack of anything else to buy and willingness to support their drug abuse recovery program. I probably should give them back to T.C. But I keep wondering "does anybody want them anyway?" I guess they do b/c any smart business - non profit or otherwise - would have enough sense to get rid of something that just sits still taking up space for a year. You can burn 'em if all else fails. Or throw them in the trash and let the city dump figure out what to do with it. Maybe there's a recycling program for audio and video tapes and photographs etc....? Probably not one that's easy to access from this moderately small town.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Amazon LLC, do you recognize what I've done for you??!!!
My sister "didn't understand a word" of this scenario
Autorip - for those that don't shop for music on Amazon, autorip is Amazon's term for a CD or vinyl album that comes with a "free" mp3. As you would expect, if you cancel the CD order that comes with a free mp3, you'll be charged for the mp3. I had a $5 gift card that could have covered the $5 cost of THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY by Genesis, which I had pre-ordered the CD of in the form of a November 17th, 2014 re-issue. Anyway, I cancelled the CD pre-order edition, and had already downloaded the songs. I was expecting to be charged per Amazon's rules, but had ordered an in-stock CD along with the Genesis pre-order, and accidentally did not cancel the in-stock CD w/ the rest of the order. So: the gift card that could have/would have/should have (wawawa) paid for the mp3 download conversion of the autorip was occupied by the instock CD, and I didn't have time to fix the mistake b/c the order for the autorip conversion was instantaneous.
This explains the most recent non-sufficient funds fee I owe my bank. The other one I owe my bank is because this Target.com withdrawal was taking forever and late at night and after a mini-rush of adrenaline I temporarily forgot that Target charge was slated to come out. So I bought some songs on mp3 @ Amazon, and bam! I have a 3rd one I owe the bank b/c I figured "hey, why not?" and ordered something else from Target b/c Netflix nor my local video store had it for rent/streaming and I really wanted to see it or so I thought. Some stupid arthouse erotica, which I was disappointed in anyway, so WTFFFFFF!!!!! I know, I know - I bring this unto myself!!
But it's weird. I was thinking these past few days that I've been disloyal or something to Amazon. But I've purchased a gift for my mom w/ my sis' assistance and an $11 + S&H blu ray from their "marketplace" AND THE TWO MP3 ORDERS that have devastated me financially for the month of November, since I still have not been capable of paying the $56++ I owe the bank. I get my welfare hit on Halloween, since November 1st is a Saturday and the office workers who peddle the welfare offices don't work on weekends.
So - if you - Amazon.com - have some beef with me, come on, bring it! For the time being, I'm going to have to assume it's all in my head and if it turns out I'm wrong, boy will I be pi**ed.
Autorip - for those that don't shop for music on Amazon, autorip is Amazon's term for a CD or vinyl album that comes with a "free" mp3. As you would expect, if you cancel the CD order that comes with a free mp3, you'll be charged for the mp3. I had a $5 gift card that could have covered the $5 cost of THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY by Genesis, which I had pre-ordered the CD of in the form of a November 17th, 2014 re-issue. Anyway, I cancelled the CD pre-order edition, and had already downloaded the songs. I was expecting to be charged per Amazon's rules, but had ordered an in-stock CD along with the Genesis pre-order, and accidentally did not cancel the in-stock CD w/ the rest of the order. So: the gift card that could have/would have/should have (wawawa) paid for the mp3 download conversion of the autorip was occupied by the instock CD, and I didn't have time to fix the mistake b/c the order for the autorip conversion was instantaneous.
This explains the most recent non-sufficient funds fee I owe my bank. The other one I owe my bank is because this Target.com withdrawal was taking forever and late at night and after a mini-rush of adrenaline I temporarily forgot that Target charge was slated to come out. So I bought some songs on mp3 @ Amazon, and bam! I have a 3rd one I owe the bank b/c I figured "hey, why not?" and ordered something else from Target b/c Netflix nor my local video store had it for rent/streaming and I really wanted to see it or so I thought. Some stupid arthouse erotica, which I was disappointed in anyway, so WTFFFFFF!!!!! I know, I know - I bring this unto myself!!
But it's weird. I was thinking these past few days that I've been disloyal or something to Amazon. But I've purchased a gift for my mom w/ my sis' assistance and an $11 + S&H blu ray from their "marketplace" AND THE TWO MP3 ORDERS that have devastated me financially for the month of November, since I still have not been capable of paying the $56++ I owe the bank. I get my welfare hit on Halloween, since November 1st is a Saturday and the office workers who peddle the welfare offices don't work on weekends.
So - if you - Amazon.com - have some beef with me, come on, bring it! For the time being, I'm going to have to assume it's all in my head and if it turns out I'm wrong, boy will I be pi**ed.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Santa Vs. Jesus - 12 wishes........
'net was down earlier today, wrote this on Microsoft Word apprx 2 hours before time stamp...
1Stay puft man bank @ Hastings $25 (DST 2011)
2Ghostbusters Fearsome Flush Kenner 1986
--That time me and one of my parents were racing out of a side exit of the Salinas, California mall to get in the car where my other parent was waiting for our presence.
3Palemaris (sp?) the wonder land…
4My dad’s pipe, Mom’s oil lamps, their ice cream maker, the noise-less dice roller primarily used for Yatzi(sp??)…shapes of things that move in my head…
5My cat Napoleon – from the age of 15 to the age of 30, I owned and mostly cherished his presence. He was a one of a kind.
6The bliss of ignorance.
7Heaven, the absence of the sin that makes me feel so uncomfortable in my own skin when I’m around people.
8Satisfaction when I find the knowledge I seek – “when all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed”
9Honesty that overpowers everything untrue
10The satisfaction I used to find in being sad
11Apologies that make pain I’ve caused disappear.
12The battle between nostalgia and the Hope that Christ has brought ending on a high note.
2Ghostbusters Fearsome Flush Kenner 1986
--That time me and one of my parents were racing out of a side exit of the Salinas, California mall to get in the car where my other parent was waiting for our presence.
3Palemaris (sp?) the wonder land…
4My dad’s pipe, Mom’s oil lamps, their ice cream maker, the noise-less dice roller primarily used for Yatzi(sp??)…shapes of things that move in my head…
5My cat Napoleon – from the age of 15 to the age of 30, I owned and mostly cherished his presence. He was a one of a kind.
6The bliss of ignorance.
7Heaven, the absence of the sin that makes me feel so uncomfortable in my own skin when I’m around people.
8Satisfaction when I find the knowledge I seek – “when all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed”
9Honesty that overpowers everything untrue
10The satisfaction I used to find in being sad
11Apologies that make pain I’ve caused disappear.
12The battle between nostalgia and the Hope that Christ has brought ending on a high note.
February's the Big one!
FEBRUARY - THE BIG ONE
$50 groceries/health
$20 God
$20 DVS
$30 Ice Cubes
$60 Amazon Prime
-----
$180Wow. To think the entire month of February can be surmised into five things (basically - groceries are several things, and health is actually a different category, although toothpaste etc. often gets lumped in to "Groceries"...and FYI, if you didn't know already, I get food stamps. Oh, yes, the simulated horror....)Amazon Prime might be less than $120 by time Feb '15 comes around. I'm banking on them raising the price. My mother suggested splitting the cost in half. So *if* it stays $99. I guess I'll have $10.50 more than otherwise, which is $0. Actually, I'm not entirely sure about that. I'm not sure what my monthly disposable income amount will look like. Right now I'm getting $720, $174 of which can be spent on things I want rather than things I need (groceries don't necessarily need to cost $50, but I have a very hard time controlling my food intake...) and the welfare deposit I get is going up $12. So in theory, I'd get $186 - $180...but I don't know if my bills are slated to increase. For some reason, me & Mom are only $27 ahead per the last bill we got from the gas/electric co (we're on budget billing). I don't know if we've been using more... electricity than I realized or if they raised the rates *A LOT* sometime real recent...
Anyway. Those Ice Cubes (which is a type of candy, FYI...) are dirt cheap and taste great but aren't being sold locally. A gas station/convenience store named Kidd's used to have 'em but they stopped carrying them. This Kidd's is on Broadway, easy to get to from my house. The Kidd's on Kingshighway is "within walking distance", but KHW is a busy street with no sidewalk. In any case, I don't know when the last time I went in there was, and it's a possibility they might have Ice Cubes. I guess I should go look sometime one of these days...the $30 pack on Amazon has one hundred in it. You'd think 100 Ice Cubes would last a long time, at least two months, but...............
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
So much b.s.
On the heels of "the right to farm" (huh?), we have legislators trying to further f*** things up, with Amendment 6, seemingly a hastily put together bill, and Amendment 3, which sounds ideal, but since it's all centered around standardized testing, that the students have no input in, I think its success or failure ultimately depends on the content of the tests. I don't know if that info has been published, but I'm not bothering to find out. There are good schools and bad schools. It depends on the leadership ultimately. SCHOOL CHOICE is the only solution for bad teachers. I remember there was this teacher that was unilaterally hated for what sounded like crimes against humanity (my words, exaggerated, if not already clear...). I never had her, and I suspect it's because the school board only put students in the class that are limited in their credibility. I had credibility. I wasn't a straight A or A & B student, but I showed up to class and did what was asked of me. Those "rules are meant to be broken" hellion students had to suffer the consequences of this hellion teacher being given tenure. The non-brainDead kids, like myself, were kept away from this she-beast. Overall, Cape Girardeau High probably was a mediocre school. My sis was a bright kid and she was bored out of her mind through most of jr and sr high school because school meant worksheets and more worksheets. I hated those, too...worksheets and "take notes!". Why take notes? If you aren't rambling on about nothing, chances are I will remember what you say. The same could not be said of my classmates, but most of them were sick and fed up to HERE! of school long before they were old enough to drop out. The fact that it's considered remarkable for a former student to remember 10% of what they "learn" in high school when they go to their 10th High School Memorial (aka "high school reunion") is proof that school is largely a waste of time and the new standards proposed in Amendment 3 will not have much of an impact on anything important. I think it would be a more valuable use of taxpayer dollars to find a way, if one exists, to maximize students' intake of knowledge.
Amendment 6 will cost $2MIL to implement. Or is to $2BIL? Can't remember, I get the two confused, despite the fact that there is a astronomical difference between 1 million and 1 billion. And according to Jason Kandor, whose name I recognize from where I do not know, it's not a very wisely constructed bill.
Neither of those compare to the Right To Farm fiasco. Which really isn't anywhere near as big of a deal as it sounds. You'd think Chinese Military was about to storm in and take some misc.# of people in some rural land under martial law. Yeah, I don't have the law memorized, never read it, but I don't think that's even mentioned in the RTF. The real problem lies in commercial farmers not doing their job correctly, not rotating the land that crops are harvested on. We keep this crap up, we'll end up like those starving villages in Africa.
UPS Dispatch!
Jonathan, you have a package coming tomorrow.
So begins the confidential email I got from UPS My Choice, in regards to the stuff that Amazon didn't mail until the wee hours of this morning.
CAN YOU FREAKIN' BELIEVE IT???
And it's not UPS Next Day Air, either. It's UPS Ground, which is like the UPS equivalent of a USPS postage stamp. ONE MO***RF***IN DAY, MAN!!!!
Stupid that I'm this excited about it, given I probably won't watch the movies 'til heck freezes over.......
Rented GODZILLA last night courtesy of a freebie coupon code from Redbox. Didn't care for it. Might've made more sense the further along I could have got into it. I don't like puzzles. My mom's watching it now. I'm in here listening to "6th Avenue Heartache" by The Wallflowers. I've been marveling over the oddness of the '90's lately. So many bands with so many hits, most of them forgotten. Somebody on Rdio posted a 300 song playlist of 90's hits and despite a few repeats,it was mostly jam packed. I remember this song "Groove Is In The Heart". I can't remember who wrote/performed it, but I don't think whoever it was is still makin' hits. And then "6 Underground" by the Sneaker Pimps. That song was used in that movie THE WATCHER with Keanu Reeves and I was thinking "I know that song! What's it called?" And then eventually somehow someway - don't remember... - I found out the name of the song and band. I'd heard the name Sneaker Pimps but was not aware of their claim to fame.
So begins the confidential email I got from UPS My Choice, in regards to the stuff that Amazon didn't mail until the wee hours of this morning.
CAN YOU FREAKIN' BELIEVE IT???
And it's not UPS Next Day Air, either. It's UPS Ground, which is like the UPS equivalent of a USPS postage stamp. ONE MO***RF***IN DAY, MAN!!!!
Stupid that I'm this excited about it, given I probably won't watch the movies 'til heck freezes over.......
Rented GODZILLA last night courtesy of a freebie coupon code from Redbox. Didn't care for it. Might've made more sense the further along I could have got into it. I don't like puzzles. My mom's watching it now. I'm in here listening to "6th Avenue Heartache" by The Wallflowers. I've been marveling over the oddness of the '90's lately. So many bands with so many hits, most of them forgotten. Somebody on Rdio posted a 300 song playlist of 90's hits and despite a few repeats,it was mostly jam packed. I remember this song "Groove Is In The Heart". I can't remember who wrote/performed it, but I don't think whoever it was is still makin' hits. And then "6 Underground" by the Sneaker Pimps. That song was used in that movie THE WATCHER with Keanu Reeves and I was thinking "I know that song! What's it called?" And then eventually somehow someway - don't remember... - I found out the name of the song and band. I'd heard the name Sneaker Pimps but was not aware of their claim to fame.
Monday, October 27, 2014
I ordered HOME ALONE. What? I AM Home Alone!!!
Here I am, having just ordered HOME ALONE (1990) on DVD, since, as if Swagbucks heard my pleas from within my heart, they awarded me the aforementioned Amazon gift card I needed to pay for it...all the while, I've been home alone myself unless you count a few cats (pffft) and two dogs that aren't yours <> as company, as my mom is visiting her terminally ill biological brother Joe. The docs said he has 3 days minimum (which have already passed) all the way up to three months at max.
So my threeeeeee Christmas mo-vies are now all lined up, ready to shoot!
So my threeeeeee Christmas mo-vies are now all lined up, ready to shoot!
threeee christmas mo-vies!
I signed up for an Amazon Prime 30 days free trial a few days ago.
Ordered SHORT CIRCUIT and THE LAST UNICORN last week the day I signed up. Got 'em two days later as I was promised (Saturday via FedEx). Got refunded on SHORT CIRCUIT, since, like the time I ordered it from Sears.com a few+ months ago, the cover-art is NOT what it once was but, again, the stupid looking one @ Amazon still has the glorious original on their site to represent what it is customers would/will order...Amazon LLC did not require me to send it back, so I guess I'll keep it...it's not horrendous, just disappointing...and for free? Heck, why not? I do like watching the movie once in a while...which was mainly why I bought it...
Just ordered GREMLINS on DVD. It's from the Amazon FBA program, it's used..."very good" condiiton...I'll see how "very" good it looks sitting on my shelf. It's the old 1999 DVD, so it's a snapcase, since Warner Bros. didn't put their stuff in keepcases until the mid-2000s. What I like about the 1999 snapcase is it has the original horror-y cover-art featuring a GREMLIN (as opposed to a mogwaii, which is what is shown on all the newer pressings of the DVD). However, being a snapcase, I'm going to have to trust that the people who put together the DVD case knew what they were doing...I always used to be like "what?!! It's made out of cardboard! The weight of the keepcases surrounding it will crush it!!!!!!!!!!" But if that's a problem, I can always buy the newer pressing and just deal. Or better yet, use one of my blank/replacement cases and just stuff the disc in there.
Also just ordered END OF DAYS, the Ahnold movie from 1999 that people all across the USA didn't see because they got doped up on something or other and ended up seeing only God knows what during playback...it's not a Christmas movie, the bulk of the movie takes place a couple or so days after Christmas, but it does have a chilly day in NYC feel to it, with rich people wearing expensive comfortable coats.... which is really what the Holidays are all about, am I right? Well, some people insist Christmas is all about Jesus, and for those that feel that way, whatever. I'd like to think I'm doing the right thing, but if being consumed by Jesus and his ways is the meaning of life and doing otherwise mans I'm going to Hell, so be it. I feel much more alive looking at NYC in END OF DAYS than I do singing songs in Church. Yes, that's my fault. I don't pray enough. My priorities aren't straight. The same can be said about 95% of the world. Christmas is, for most people, all about big shiny boxes with big shiny things inside them + snow. Yes, I realize those big shininings will not mean anything when the economy collapses and the less economically fortunate (i.e.: me) have no electricity...and when the Antichrist takes over, I will need to be aware and remember to say "no" when it comes time for Satan's helpers to implant his mark on the public. Otherwise there's no hope of anything good coming out of my future.
I should be getting a $5 Amazon gift card courtesy of Swagbucks anytime within 7 days from today. With that, if my shopping cart contents don't get bought by someone else, I will buy HOME ALONE on DVD. Almost everytime it gets to be late fall, I think of that movie. That movie also has a distinctly Christmas feel to it.
Someone wrote a list of movies you might forget take place during Christmas. On that list, they put GREMLINS on there. I was like "WHAT????!!!!!!!!!" How dumb can a person be to FORGET that Gremlins takes place during Christmas? I mean, I can see someone who hasn't seen the movie in 30 years, or 20, but if you forgot the movie takes place during Christmas, you probably don't remember much if anything of the movie....
Monday, October 20, 2014
moves coming soon...the only ones...left...
Have I seen every GREAT movie ever made that isn't made for people who aren't me? Hmm....that depends if FARGO is for me or not. I tried watching it. I didn't "give it my all", but I did try. Didn't like it. Didn't like RAISING ARIZONA either. I'm not sure if I've seen any other Coehn Brothers movies...unless you count the agonizingly unintelligible few minutes of BLOOD SIMPLE that I tried watching.....
So, for the future, since I can't hop over to my local Cineplex and watch ANY of these movies, here it is:
THE JUDGE - looks worth a peek.
GONE GIRL - Almost certain I'll at least enjoy this movie. It probably isn't mind-blowing this-is-what-I've-been-waiting-for-all-my-life material, just like Fincher's re-make of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO wasn't either, and neither was FIGHT CLUB or SE7EN...all of which were good movies, outrageously stylized and full of an almost breathing presence...
IF I STAY - haven't read the book, rarely do, although I did start reading it on Amazon's "look inside" feature, not terribly boring, should improve as it goes on, a lot of books don't, at least not quickly enough for my liking. I don't read very fast. It takes like 30 minutes for me to read 5 pages of THE BIBLE. For an ordinary fiction book of modern day style, it takes me probably 10 minutes to read that many/that few pages....Either way, the subject matter does show potential. And no, I'm not a teen girl. I'm a 30 year old male. But I'm part Irish, so I'm prone to melancholy. Don't judge me!!
JURASSIC WORLD - The Park is OPEN. THIS is the BIG movie I'm so looking forward to. Too bad it isn't anywhere NEAR June 2015!!!
Freakin' crimany is that all? I thought I have more on there...guess I'll revise it if needed...hmmm......
So, for the future, since I can't hop over to my local Cineplex and watch ANY of these movies, here it is:
THE JUDGE - looks worth a peek.
GONE GIRL - Almost certain I'll at least enjoy this movie. It probably isn't mind-blowing this-is-what-I've-been-waiting-for-all-my-life material, just like Fincher's re-make of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO wasn't either, and neither was FIGHT CLUB or SE7EN...all of which were good movies, outrageously stylized and full of an almost breathing presence...
IF I STAY - haven't read the book, rarely do, although I did start reading it on Amazon's "look inside" feature, not terribly boring, should improve as it goes on, a lot of books don't, at least not quickly enough for my liking. I don't read very fast. It takes like 30 minutes for me to read 5 pages of THE BIBLE. For an ordinary fiction book of modern day style, it takes me probably 10 minutes to read that many/that few pages....Either way, the subject matter does show potential. And no, I'm not a teen girl. I'm a 30 year old male. But I'm part Irish, so I'm prone to melancholy. Don't judge me!!
JURASSIC WORLD - The Park is OPEN. THIS is the BIG movie I'm so looking forward to. Too bad it isn't anywhere NEAR June 2015!!!
Freakin' crimany is that all? I thought I have more on there...guess I'll revise it if needed...hmmm......
Saturday, October 18, 2014
PEPSI True - not so true....
Pepsi True has 27 grams of sugar in one 12 oz can, whereas regular Pepsi has 41. An improvement, but to what end? 27 grams is still a lot of sugar!
Wait...Seriously??? [foreign aid...]
What strikes me about the oft neglected debate regarding foreign aid from the USA is that the USA isn't paying for it. We will pay for it. But only when there's no other choice. If that doesn't sound right, when will it be paid for? Anyone with a reasonable answer would you please stand up! I mean, c'mon. We keep borrowing money with no intention to stop borrowing. We keep paying interest and a little smidgeon on the principal, with no plan on how to pay more on the principal. How is this going to continue to work?
Yet this country, the United States of America, thinks it is RESPONSIBLE for spending boatloads of money on foreign issues. Welfare is one thing, although I admit the USA's love for its fellow American is rather small in general, so if a vote came to toss out welfare, I wouldn't be surprised; the people of this nation are so concerned with our individual accomplishments and struggles there's only a vague shadow of patriotism for many of us. What's worse, a lot of people really don't struggle to accomplish anything. So they feel like all that matters is the payoff. What is the payoff? Hedonism and fornication etc. for the most part. Love comes from God. God is increasingly being relegated to Sundays at best, often times denounced altogether. As this trend continues, I'm sure welfare will be cut off. I'd give it another 20 years. Certainly no reason for folks like me to worry just yet, but that's what I do best, so who cares if I don't have a reason? Do I NEED a reason? I wish that was a joke...
Anyway, still not sure why Obama insists upon running this country into the ground by using Air Force One every chance he can. Thank God for the ebola virus, or there's no telling where the hell Obama would be sneaking off to now.
Here's one mathematical riddle: The federal deficit has tripled since Obama took office. How is this George W. Bush's fault?
Next I'm sure I'll be written off as another mindless Bush "patriot". No. I don't support Bush. He may be a "good guy", I don't care. He was a terrible president. If he wasn't responsible for all the terrible things he did, then you still have a story of a bad leader. From the extensive use of torture to the pardoning of Scooter Libby and a million small things that nobody talks about because nobody cares about, the guy is a disgrace to this country. It's sad that as hated as he was in 2004 even, he still won because of that dimwit John Kerry who ran his campaign as if it were a school yard. "You're wrong". "No, YOUR'E wrong!". "Hey, you take that back". "No. You're wrong". "Well, you're more wrong than I am". "No, you're wrong x infinity!". "Yeah, well I know you are. What am I?". The guy thought he could win on the strength of how wrong everybody knew George Bush was. That's mistake #1. Mistake #2 was all his damn back peddling.
I'm tempted to say we haven't had a good president since Ronald Reagan. But if he's so wholesome, why the heck did he choose George H.W. Bush as his running mate? That guy was the leader of the CIA in the '60's. The news didn't hammer this and related info into the public's brain, so most of the people my mom's age don't know or don't remember. They cleaned up the CIA after he left, supposedly. Of course, cleaning up wouldn't have necessarily meant a floor to ceiling bright shining clean, from the little my mom has told me...
Yet this country, the United States of America, thinks it is RESPONSIBLE for spending boatloads of money on foreign issues. Welfare is one thing, although I admit the USA's love for its fellow American is rather small in general, so if a vote came to toss out welfare, I wouldn't be surprised; the people of this nation are so concerned with our individual accomplishments and struggles there's only a vague shadow of patriotism for many of us. What's worse, a lot of people really don't struggle to accomplish anything. So they feel like all that matters is the payoff. What is the payoff? Hedonism and fornication etc. for the most part. Love comes from God. God is increasingly being relegated to Sundays at best, often times denounced altogether. As this trend continues, I'm sure welfare will be cut off. I'd give it another 20 years. Certainly no reason for folks like me to worry just yet, but that's what I do best, so who cares if I don't have a reason? Do I NEED a reason? I wish that was a joke...
Anyway, still not sure why Obama insists upon running this country into the ground by using Air Force One every chance he can. Thank God for the ebola virus, or there's no telling where the hell Obama would be sneaking off to now.
Here's one mathematical riddle: The federal deficit has tripled since Obama took office. How is this George W. Bush's fault?
Next I'm sure I'll be written off as another mindless Bush "patriot". No. I don't support Bush. He may be a "good guy", I don't care. He was a terrible president. If he wasn't responsible for all the terrible things he did, then you still have a story of a bad leader. From the extensive use of torture to the pardoning of Scooter Libby and a million small things that nobody talks about because nobody cares about, the guy is a disgrace to this country. It's sad that as hated as he was in 2004 even, he still won because of that dimwit John Kerry who ran his campaign as if it were a school yard. "You're wrong". "No, YOUR'E wrong!". "Hey, you take that back". "No. You're wrong". "Well, you're more wrong than I am". "No, you're wrong x infinity!". "Yeah, well I know you are. What am I?". The guy thought he could win on the strength of how wrong everybody knew George Bush was. That's mistake #1. Mistake #2 was all his damn back peddling.
I'm tempted to say we haven't had a good president since Ronald Reagan. But if he's so wholesome, why the heck did he choose George H.W. Bush as his running mate? That guy was the leader of the CIA in the '60's. The news didn't hammer this and related info into the public's brain, so most of the people my mom's age don't know or don't remember. They cleaned up the CIA after he left, supposedly. Of course, cleaning up wouldn't have necessarily meant a floor to ceiling bright shining clean, from the little my mom has told me...
Friday, October 10, 2014
"Health care isn't a right!"
I don't know, I doubt if, I will ever lose enough weight to be considered healthy. That sounds tragic, on one note, but also, why should I be so concentrated on these efforts? What is it going to gain me by living healthy? I waste so much of my time listening to songs I'd rather not hear because I can't find something new and refreshing...(Pandora hasn't quite figured out what I like, it seems...).
But then what? I go to the doctor and find some way to "manage" or "treat" a "disease" that I, for all intensive purposes, created by my own freedom of choice. And someone else pays for it. I don't have insurance, at least none that I pay for. I'm on welfare. So what's the point? If I'm unwilling to do what it takes to be healthy, what can a doctor do for me except extend my life by another excruciating 20-40 years? Death should not be so vilified. Death = eternal life. Or, in the case of people who scoff at that, it equals eternal damnation.
Not sure I will actually abide by these words when the time comes. I might find myself pressured into it by my family and acquaintances, and gravitating to it based on my sloth-y ways and mindset that I sometimes refer to as "comfortable living"...I sit in a chair most of the day and surf the web. How much easier could life be? Life isn't supposed to be easy. Enjoyable, ideally, yes, but not easy. Intensity - good and bad - is hard on the heart. I'd rather die at 40 because I lived life to the fullest, not because I sat down in a chair daily eating candy bars and baked goods...
byby
But then what? I go to the doctor and find some way to "manage" or "treat" a "disease" that I, for all intensive purposes, created by my own freedom of choice. And someone else pays for it. I don't have insurance, at least none that I pay for. I'm on welfare. So what's the point? If I'm unwilling to do what it takes to be healthy, what can a doctor do for me except extend my life by another excruciating 20-40 years? Death should not be so vilified. Death = eternal life. Or, in the case of people who scoff at that, it equals eternal damnation.
Not sure I will actually abide by these words when the time comes. I might find myself pressured into it by my family and acquaintances, and gravitating to it based on my sloth-y ways and mindset that I sometimes refer to as "comfortable living"...I sit in a chair most of the day and surf the web. How much easier could life be? Life isn't supposed to be easy. Enjoyable, ideally, yes, but not easy. Intensity - good and bad - is hard on the heart. I'd rather die at 40 because I lived life to the fullest, not because I sat down in a chair daily eating candy bars and baked goods...
byby
Thursday, October 9, 2014
"I don't know about you, but I feel empowered" / Dude, did you just say that?
I bought GHOSTBUSTERS 1 & 2 on Blu ray digibook on Sept 30th.
I watched about 26 minutes of it last night. Very gorgeous transfer, very clear and detailed. Yes, there's film grain, but it's not like the whole screen is covered in snow or anything remotely close to that. I don't know how close to presenting the film as the director envisioned the film the disc comes, but, IMO, it's just a gorgeous transfer.
It's also cool to own. Looks good on my shelf. Feels right(!)
I also own FORREST GUMP on blu ray. I had bought THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 40th Anniversary Edition on blu, used at Amazon's Marketplace, but sold it yesterday for $8.50 Hastings store credit. FG I bought brand new at Target for $9.90 w/ tax and a 5% REDcard discount. Now the price has gone down to $8.00 + tax - $5%...dang it!
I listed 'GUMP on Amazon for sale. Thinking about removing it...idk...if it sells, what would I really lose?
Hmm...
Spike Lee's adaption of Richard Price's CLOCKERS, from 1995, is probably a close second favorite behind Martin Scorsese's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1999). I can sorta see why, seeing as Martin Scorsese was originally slated to direct it, staying on as executive producer if I remember correctly. The look and feel of that movie just captures so many moods, as does the soundtrack. I just got rid of the movie a few months back after owning it for 3 or 4 months, so I don't know what the point of owning/buying that (again) would be. Same deal w/ FORREST GUMP. It's a great movie, probably one of my favorites, but I used to own it on VHS, bought it on DVD at WalMart eons ago, and now I bought it on Blu ray. do I really need to keep it? If Robert Zemekis and his crew are hard up for money, they need to manage it better next time they create a box office hit. The crew is probably fine, they don't make anywhere near the kind of money that big name director's like Zemekis do. Zemekis and Hanks probably ate up most of the profit the movie made as well, although I don't know if Tom Hanks was being paid Big$$$ prior to the release of FORREST GUMP like he eventually did...when THE GREEN MILE came out, the poster had an image of Tom Hanks and nothing more. The basic DVD edition has that same image. Part of that is because Tom Hanks was the only heavyweight name in the movie, part of that was also probably the intricate yet kind of simple story the film presented. How do you capture the spirit of such a movie in a poster without neglecting to make it known that the great & powerful Tom Hanks IS IN it??
Anyway. So I guess my movie collection, on disc anyway, is down to BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, GHOSTBUSTERS, GHOSTBUSTERS 2 and Gregg Araki's NOWHERE. And if you count GENESIS - LIVE AT WEMBLEY STADIUM as a "movie", count that in too if you will. I certainly don't count it as an album. Albums don't have FBI warnings and "Main Menus" with music of their own to plow through before enjoying them. Also, thanks to the video portion of that disc, the first two minutes of "Mama" (the opening song) are not utterly annoying. Seeing the band make its progress from off to on the stage and getting ready to being ready to play makes the extended drum machine intro a little easier to stomach. Musically, it's monotonous and the crowd noise doesn't help...
As far as CDs go, music as it is experienced by people who "actually like" music is a multi-faceted thing and can almost change definition depending on who you talk to. I prefer emotionally stimulating music. I also like nostalgic music, much of which was passed from my father to me by osmosis, but does not awaken any emotions. I also like owning CDs with absolutely stunning album covers. After all these years, SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET: THE BEST OF OINGO BOINGO still is a striking album cover. And I can almost fall back into my early childhood (1987-1989) when seeing the album cover for Genesis' INVISIBLE TOUCH. When I first heard "Say It's Alright Joe" on Yahoo!'s Launchcast customized radio (before it went defunct) from Genesis' ...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE..., I almost woke up on that hillside depicted on Crosby Stills & Nash's DAYLIGHT AGAIN. I suspect my father played a lot of Genesis records when I was a baby/toddler. I had kind of a blind flashback when I heard this one series of notes in "The Battle Of Epping Forrest" on SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND. It was like I'd heard it before, but since it sure as heck wasn't on the radio, where could I have heard it?
But anyway...music - especially music that brings out the past - is a long and twisted collection. On one hand, there's my teenage years, when I was 14 and 15, then there's my high school grad years, when I was 17-19, and then there was my still-youthful existentialist wannabe college kid when I was 21-25, and the winds of change during 2006 and 2007 when many emo bands were trying to expand their sound so they wouldn't be spat on by happyhappy "chin up kid" arrogance in the flesh...it's almost like it became a trend to hate emo. Stupid. Yeah, it's not for everyone. Yeah, a lot of people joined the pre-hate-emo emo trend for reasons that don't make any sense. Those people should be cowering in the corner awaiting discovery of their fraudulent behavior. But for people who really do just like sad songs and don't want to listen to R.E.M. every hour of every day, the emo movement was a friend indeed.
My book "collection" is hopeless. Basically there's The Bible and Elliot Perlman's SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY which I STILL have not finished reading (!!!).
So that's the story of my life presently. Trying to make my stuff more meaningful and less meaningless. Not that it matters. I could have a dead body in my room and nobody would know. Except whoever shipped it...unless UPS opened the package...ANYway...And of course, it's just inanimate materials that will outlive me by at least 50 years and become obsolete in 25 years when blu ray is like VHS is today. And what difference does it all make? My happiness and lack thereof is fleeting. Yes, I know all of this. That's why I'm hoping God overlooks all of my weakness and sin, and lets me into His kingdom. As I expressed last night tho, it seems like there's something I need to be doing to "earn my keep" as they might say(?), but I don't know what that is and if it's just prayer, I don't know if I can do it. I tried praying this morning for God to give me strength and guide me in the right direction. That direction has not become apparent. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow?.
...
I watched about 26 minutes of it last night. Very gorgeous transfer, very clear and detailed. Yes, there's film grain, but it's not like the whole screen is covered in snow or anything remotely close to that. I don't know how close to presenting the film as the director envisioned the film the disc comes, but, IMO, it's just a gorgeous transfer.
It's also cool to own. Looks good on my shelf. Feels right(!)
I also own FORREST GUMP on blu ray. I had bought THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 40th Anniversary Edition on blu, used at Amazon's Marketplace, but sold it yesterday for $8.50 Hastings store credit. FG I bought brand new at Target for $9.90 w/ tax and a 5% REDcard discount. Now the price has gone down to $8.00 + tax - $5%...dang it!
I listed 'GUMP on Amazon for sale. Thinking about removing it...idk...if it sells, what would I really lose?
Hmm...
Spike Lee's adaption of Richard Price's CLOCKERS, from 1995, is probably a close second favorite behind Martin Scorsese's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1999). I can sorta see why, seeing as Martin Scorsese was originally slated to direct it, staying on as executive producer if I remember correctly. The look and feel of that movie just captures so many moods, as does the soundtrack. I just got rid of the movie a few months back after owning it for 3 or 4 months, so I don't know what the point of owning/buying that (again) would be. Same deal w/ FORREST GUMP. It's a great movie, probably one of my favorites, but I used to own it on VHS, bought it on DVD at WalMart eons ago, and now I bought it on Blu ray. do I really need to keep it? If Robert Zemekis and his crew are hard up for money, they need to manage it better next time they create a box office hit. The crew is probably fine, they don't make anywhere near the kind of money that big name director's like Zemekis do. Zemekis and Hanks probably ate up most of the profit the movie made as well, although I don't know if Tom Hanks was being paid Big$$$ prior to the release of FORREST GUMP like he eventually did...when THE GREEN MILE came out, the poster had an image of Tom Hanks and nothing more. The basic DVD edition has that same image. Part of that is because Tom Hanks was the only heavyweight name in the movie, part of that was also probably the intricate yet kind of simple story the film presented. How do you capture the spirit of such a movie in a poster without neglecting to make it known that the great & powerful Tom Hanks IS IN it??
Anyway. So I guess my movie collection, on disc anyway, is down to BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, GHOSTBUSTERS, GHOSTBUSTERS 2 and Gregg Araki's NOWHERE. And if you count GENESIS - LIVE AT WEMBLEY STADIUM as a "movie", count that in too if you will. I certainly don't count it as an album. Albums don't have FBI warnings and "Main Menus" with music of their own to plow through before enjoying them. Also, thanks to the video portion of that disc, the first two minutes of "Mama" (the opening song) are not utterly annoying. Seeing the band make its progress from off to on the stage and getting ready to being ready to play makes the extended drum machine intro a little easier to stomach. Musically, it's monotonous and the crowd noise doesn't help...
As far as CDs go, music as it is experienced by people who "actually like" music is a multi-faceted thing and can almost change definition depending on who you talk to. I prefer emotionally stimulating music. I also like nostalgic music, much of which was passed from my father to me by osmosis, but does not awaken any emotions. I also like owning CDs with absolutely stunning album covers. After all these years, SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET: THE BEST OF OINGO BOINGO still is a striking album cover. And I can almost fall back into my early childhood (1987-1989) when seeing the album cover for Genesis' INVISIBLE TOUCH. When I first heard "Say It's Alright Joe" on Yahoo!'s Launchcast customized radio (before it went defunct) from Genesis' ...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE..., I almost woke up on that hillside depicted on Crosby Stills & Nash's DAYLIGHT AGAIN. I suspect my father played a lot of Genesis records when I was a baby/toddler. I had kind of a blind flashback when I heard this one series of notes in "The Battle Of Epping Forrest" on SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND. It was like I'd heard it before, but since it sure as heck wasn't on the radio, where could I have heard it?
But anyway...music - especially music that brings out the past - is a long and twisted collection. On one hand, there's my teenage years, when I was 14 and 15, then there's my high school grad years, when I was 17-19, and then there was my still-youthful existentialist wannabe college kid when I was 21-25, and the winds of change during 2006 and 2007 when many emo bands were trying to expand their sound so they wouldn't be spat on by happyhappy "chin up kid" arrogance in the flesh...it's almost like it became a trend to hate emo. Stupid. Yeah, it's not for everyone. Yeah, a lot of people joined the pre-hate-emo emo trend for reasons that don't make any sense. Those people should be cowering in the corner awaiting discovery of their fraudulent behavior. But for people who really do just like sad songs and don't want to listen to R.E.M. every hour of every day, the emo movement was a friend indeed.
My book "collection" is hopeless. Basically there's The Bible and Elliot Perlman's SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY which I STILL have not finished reading (!!!).
So that's the story of my life presently. Trying to make my stuff more meaningful and less meaningless. Not that it matters. I could have a dead body in my room and nobody would know. Except whoever shipped it...unless UPS opened the package...ANYway...And of course, it's just inanimate materials that will outlive me by at least 50 years and become obsolete in 25 years when blu ray is like VHS is today. And what difference does it all make? My happiness and lack thereof is fleeting. Yes, I know all of this. That's why I'm hoping God overlooks all of my weakness and sin, and lets me into His kingdom. As I expressed last night tho, it seems like there's something I need to be doing to "earn my keep" as they might say(?), but I don't know what that is and if it's just prayer, I don't know if I can do it. I tried praying this morning for God to give me strength and guide me in the right direction. That direction has not become apparent. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow?.
...
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
oh shoot I pi**ed off Kevin Sorbo...
I rented GOD'S NOT DEAD (2014), finally. I wasn't expecting anything out of it. I don't like Kevin Sorbo. I don't know if he's been on any "day time soaps", but if he hasn't, I don't know why. They are not beneath his acting chops. The story itself I'd already heard from my mom, and it sounded intense and edge of your seat awesome. The opening credits were drenched in simplicity. The people who made that movie failed on so many levels. Did they even hire a cinematographer? Or was the sun-soaked day seen in the opening credits just filmed and presented as-is? Set designing was also not a strong suit of the film. The tone and atmosphere were non existent. The song played during the opening credits was randomly chosen, it seemed. Storywise, it would have been better as a book. And I would not have read it, because I'm still (very very slowly) going through The Bible. I actually haven't picked it up in over a week. (rats!). I keep thinking I'm not getting anything out of it. I need to pray more. I don't know if I know how though. I can think. I can talk. I can believe God is listening. But if God started talking back, and I was aware of it, what would it be like? It seems like it'd be like falling out of a helicopter and landing in the ocean and then continuing to fall until I hit the other side of Earth...in other words, scary as all get out...much like death itself, which, if I would actually put my instinctual fear aside and just do it, wouldn't be such a bad thing. If God intends to remove the sin from my soul at some point (probably during or after entering Heaven), it would probably be enjoyable to spend time with God and all his people. For some reason I can't figure out, I don't like spending time with people, just hanging out and talking about things that don't matter. Even talking about things that matter makes me sick to my stomach eventually. Talking about politics, for example, it doesn't do any good. It just establishes common ground between you and the person you're speaking with. And then once you establish that common ground, then what? You sit around watching 60 Minutes and getting ticked off about how politicians are running this country into the ground? And when the "way of the world" becomes obsolete - politics, commerce, etc. - what important things are there to talk about? "How was your day?" "Oh, I had a lovely time walking in the garden with God" "Oh! That's great"...I suppose Heaven might not be all God all the time...I don't think people become omnipotent when they enter Heaven, so if I were to have any friends...well...maybe God will be a part of every conversation, since He IS omnipotent...which if the case, every day would be the same. But maybe the craving for variety is a symptom of our sin curse?
Anyway, watching GOD'S NOT DEAD is not required viewing for Christians as it speaks what Christians ought to already know.
And I would not recommend it to agnostics or atheists except maybe the ones that don't have functioning eyes.
I also rented THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. Also a new release. I thought the chances of it being a good film were pretty good, given the pretty good (500) DAYS OF SUMMER and the almost great THE SPECTACULAR NOW were written by the same people and so was THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. Well, third time broke the charm. It's a very shallow film. The dire situation of a 17 year old dying of cancer was not well expressed, thusly the aggravation she felt toward her parents for being her parents and all that entails did not compute fully, and then practically two minutes after all of this is being explained, she meets the man of her dreams, who tries to get her attention by staring at her and smiling at her. Also, I know I'm watching a movie when I'm watching a movie. I'm not one of those people who just forgets about the outer parameters of the screen. When a character talks about her fictitious life "not being like the movies", that makes it that much harder to swallow the fiction that is presented.
Well, I tried. Twice in one day. Failed both. That's $7 apprx down the drain. Fuuu.
I will return both of them tomorrow if the rain can hold off 'til noon or so, and get $3.50 rental account credit from Hastings, which is enough to rent 3 old release movies and if I return just one of them the day after renting it(?), that'll leave me enough to rent a 4th movie. If I return all of them early, that's enough to rent 6 or 7 movies...dang, I'm tired.
I wanted to rent GODZILLA. I'm sick of every good movie being an adaptation of some classic iconic idea. X-MEN, BATMAN, GHOSTBUSTERS, GODZILLA, PLANET OF THE APES...GONE GIRL looks very promising. I was so looking forward to the sequel to THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO, but I'm starting to think it's never going to happen. Although I wasn't impressed with THE SOCIAL NETWORK, kind of confused as to why so many highly regarded critics were going ga-ga over it. Same deal with THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON... GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn has been a high ranking bestseller since it came out though, and I think given the apparent strength of the material the scribes had to work with, and David Fincher's penchant for the grandiose (i.e.: FIGHT CLUB), the film probably won't disappoint. I thought about seeing it in theaters sometime soon. I'm pretty much out of money though. Maybe in November tho, if it's still playing then...
It does feel like the world is falling apart. On one hand, the world has always overall rejected God. Noah was the only one out of an entire planet who was deemed worthy to survive the flood and that was probably several thousand years ago. I think the end is probably more distant than anyone thinks. It's so easy to see the prophecies unfolding though. Ebola could very well spread throughout this entire nation and kill a large segment of the U.S. population. And given our political situation, what with congress not doing anything and our national debt mounting and then some, and all the anti-American Jihadist movements taking place throughout the middle east, the situation in Russia...also, whereas Christianity once held prominence in most of the world, it now is being scrutinized and rejected by much of it. The USA was founded on the ideas present in The Bible, but much of the USA has forgone those principles. The first and second amendment are being stripped away very slowly, but surely. USA Soldiers aren't allowed to carry The Bible on them. But every pornographic thought and image is fought tooth and nail with victory after victory. Not that I think porn should be illegal. Outlawing immorality is pointless. If society did its job, it wouldn't be an issue. The few oddballs who engage in beastiality etc are not hurting anyone except maybe God. And God will do what he needs to do when he's good and ready.
Anyway, I just mentioned that b/c I often wonder what the point of commerce is. I bought a $1.99 clearance rental copy of THE SPECTACULAR NOW. Yeah, my $1.99 didn't go directly to the filmmakers. Yeah, it's only $1.99, the video store probably doesn't care. BUT: if I hadn't bought it, someone else would have. As things stand, with me having bought it, someone else who would have bought it had I not, being unable to buy it used, may very well buy it brand spankin' new. I wouldn't. But not everyone is living on a $720/mo income. Actually, I probably buy a lot more movies and CDs compared to most people in my income bracket...largely because I've been blessed with a fixed rent via my sister who owns this house I presently live in, and I've never succumbed to nicotine or alchohal(sp???what the heck spell check, get with it!!) addiction...
Ug. I need to get to bed so I can walk to Hastings tomorrow morning before the rain starts falling all around us.....not sure if I'll succeed. But here's to hoping......
Anyway, watching GOD'S NOT DEAD is not required viewing for Christians as it speaks what Christians ought to already know.
And I would not recommend it to agnostics or atheists except maybe the ones that don't have functioning eyes.
I also rented THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. Also a new release. I thought the chances of it being a good film were pretty good, given the pretty good (500) DAYS OF SUMMER and the almost great THE SPECTACULAR NOW were written by the same people and so was THE FAULT IN OUR STARS. Well, third time broke the charm. It's a very shallow film. The dire situation of a 17 year old dying of cancer was not well expressed, thusly the aggravation she felt toward her parents for being her parents and all that entails did not compute fully, and then practically two minutes after all of this is being explained, she meets the man of her dreams, who tries to get her attention by staring at her and smiling at her. Also, I know I'm watching a movie when I'm watching a movie. I'm not one of those people who just forgets about the outer parameters of the screen. When a character talks about her fictitious life "not being like the movies", that makes it that much harder to swallow the fiction that is presented.
Well, I tried. Twice in one day. Failed both. That's $7 apprx down the drain. Fuuu.
I will return both of them tomorrow if the rain can hold off 'til noon or so, and get $3.50 rental account credit from Hastings, which is enough to rent 3 old release movies and if I return just one of them the day after renting it(?), that'll leave me enough to rent a 4th movie. If I return all of them early, that's enough to rent 6 or 7 movies...dang, I'm tired.
I wanted to rent GODZILLA. I'm sick of every good movie being an adaptation of some classic iconic idea. X-MEN, BATMAN, GHOSTBUSTERS, GODZILLA, PLANET OF THE APES...GONE GIRL looks very promising. I was so looking forward to the sequel to THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO, but I'm starting to think it's never going to happen. Although I wasn't impressed with THE SOCIAL NETWORK, kind of confused as to why so many highly regarded critics were going ga-ga over it. Same deal with THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON... GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn has been a high ranking bestseller since it came out though, and I think given the apparent strength of the material the scribes had to work with, and David Fincher's penchant for the grandiose (i.e.: FIGHT CLUB), the film probably won't disappoint. I thought about seeing it in theaters sometime soon. I'm pretty much out of money though. Maybe in November tho, if it's still playing then...
It does feel like the world is falling apart. On one hand, the world has always overall rejected God. Noah was the only one out of an entire planet who was deemed worthy to survive the flood and that was probably several thousand years ago. I think the end is probably more distant than anyone thinks. It's so easy to see the prophecies unfolding though. Ebola could very well spread throughout this entire nation and kill a large segment of the U.S. population. And given our political situation, what with congress not doing anything and our national debt mounting and then some, and all the anti-American Jihadist movements taking place throughout the middle east, the situation in Russia...also, whereas Christianity once held prominence in most of the world, it now is being scrutinized and rejected by much of it. The USA was founded on the ideas present in The Bible, but much of the USA has forgone those principles. The first and second amendment are being stripped away very slowly, but surely. USA Soldiers aren't allowed to carry The Bible on them. But every pornographic thought and image is fought tooth and nail with victory after victory. Not that I think porn should be illegal. Outlawing immorality is pointless. If society did its job, it wouldn't be an issue. The few oddballs who engage in beastiality etc are not hurting anyone except maybe God. And God will do what he needs to do when he's good and ready.
Anyway, I just mentioned that b/c I often wonder what the point of commerce is. I bought a $1.99 clearance rental copy of THE SPECTACULAR NOW. Yeah, my $1.99 didn't go directly to the filmmakers. Yeah, it's only $1.99, the video store probably doesn't care. BUT: if I hadn't bought it, someone else would have. As things stand, with me having bought it, someone else who would have bought it had I not, being unable to buy it used, may very well buy it brand spankin' new. I wouldn't. But not everyone is living on a $720/mo income. Actually, I probably buy a lot more movies and CDs compared to most people in my income bracket...largely because I've been blessed with a fixed rent via my sister who owns this house I presently live in, and I've never succumbed to nicotine or alchohal(sp???what the heck spell check, get with it!!) addiction...
Ug. I need to get to bed so I can walk to Hastings tomorrow morning before the rain starts falling all around us.....not sure if I'll succeed. But here's to hoping......
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