Cleaning Cubed

I started cleaning. I ripped everything out of my truck yesterday and spent this morning blowing everything around my appartment like a huge storm of vacuuming and organizational skills. Too bad I really don't have the time to finish any of it today, I'm writing the rough draft to my now infamous Animorphs paper and working today. I also spend quality time with Kyle and such. But it doesn't really matter if everything in my apartment is completely wrecked (seriously, everything is pretty much blown apart right now), my roommate is still out of town!

Things in life remind me of a Rubics Cube. You have to carefully mess everything up before you can put it back together better than before!

Strength

I think Thanksgiving may be one of my favorite holidays. I just like the tone. Thanksgiving isn't a tv/radio advertisement guilt trip to make the general public feel obligated to go down a falate superstores and malls across the country. Thanksgiving is nothing but simple dinners with family. You just can't sex that up like you can Valentines day or Christmas. Thanksgiving is nice; being more thankful just feels so introspective and cleansing (and inexpensive).

I have a lot to be thankful for, but the things that I focus on have changed over the years. For years I used to say I was thankful for my house and having my own room and food and having a family and being able to drive myself places.. etc. My list has been changing a little over the past few years in particular though (a lot of things have). Last year was a year I really realized just how strong my family members are. My mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa have all lead full and successful lives that I had never really thought about collectively before. I can tell that a lot of that has passed onto my sister too. This year opened the scope even more. I've met and grown closer to people outside my family with a steady radiating glow of personal fortitude. It's not always obvious at first, but over time you can really see the hope, drive, love and success of people with less innate talent and less than perfect circumstances. You can't help but feel a little bit inspired. Having people like this willingly include me in their lives by choice is what I'm most thankful for this year.

The Fame Monster

Where The Fame was very 'sparkely' in it's lyrical themes, The Fame Monster is little darker. Gaga makes a lot of references to people in 'the business' acting less than nice to each other. According to Wikipedia(theallknowing).org she wrote these during her tours and promotions of The Fame... so maybe it does fit after all. I was a little disappointed, just because Bad Romance was released in full force first. The rest of the album is good, better than most electronic/dance cds anyways, but Bad Romance is definitely the strongest track. Just because it's Gaga, I was expecting a little more distinction than beep-beep-dance-pop.

She has a strong voice that makes for very energetic music, but it tends to overpower instruments and electronic effects unless they're reined in tight. Most of the tracks have weak moments because of this, her voice is bringing the energy up and the back music just can't seem to keep up with her. Teeth and Bad Romance are the two exceptions to this. Alejandro is fun, if a little bit of a flash back to Ace of Base (it's not a bad thing). Monster and Dance in the Dark are all serviceable, the second or third time I listened to them I was able to overlook the random awkward slow parts. I didn't care for Telephone because the lyrics are unbelievably dumb; it's a collaboration song with Beyonce though, so I'm guessing the radio is going to bludgeon everyone with it regardless. So Happy I Could Die is almost as good as Dance in the Dark but just kind of fizzles out flat. Speechless is a variety inducing ballad. It's not what I typically go to Gaga to hear, but it's decent. There's also a Bad Romance remix by Starship; the original was so good, I wish they had remixed one of the tier 2 tracks instead.

The album is very short. It's practically an EP and I think it was misleading to try to hype it as a completely new album. Still, it's not priced as a full album and the tracks it does have mostly range from average to above average.

I give it 3.5/5.0 Ra Ra Ras.

Eyes

Cold weather makes me think. It’s good thinking weather. Maybe it’s because you can pretend that a storm is blowing in; prepare for the harsh elements on the way! Survival is key! November is the awesome month. This year, November is full of nothing but great event happening every single week. For whatever reason though, today a little bit of October slipped back in. Now I’m being all ‘contemplative’, particularly about what kind of outlook I should have. Despite what people will tell you, it’s not always best to have a entirely sunny and positive outlook on life; there’s no perfect way to view the world that’ll work magic. For instance, changing to more exhaustive outlooks is impractical if there are insufficient returns. All you’ll accomplish is burning yourself out, trust me I know. But there’s also a downside to just vomiting tar, it makes moments where you feel peaceful and happy a little sad because you know you’re pushing people away. I guess everything is a balance! The key is always remember why you choose a certain outlook in the first place. Finding a way to view the world is a means to an end, not an end to some means.

Artifact

I walked into my old room in San Antonio on Saturday night, home for the Sunday and tried to go to sleep. At 11:40 I heard a light beeping sound. It's been in my room for as long as I could remember, I've always thought it was a watch I lost somewhere with an alarm set. I went through several watches in high school in particular and I was big into setting alarms; I figured I set it for 11:40 am and the AM/PM thing got switched.. Anyway, I could never find it because of the way the beep echoes, it's impossible to tell which corner of the room it's coming from, and my room isn't even messy or anything!

By some weird coincidence I was able to tell where it was coming from that night. Turns out it wasn't a watch at all (which may be why I had trouble finding to start with). It was a really (really really) cheap PDA I got from sending in Cocoa Pebbles proof of purchases through the mail. I think I remember I ordered sent off for it because it was free and I just liked getting stuff in the mail back then (It was a lot of fun to have free junk delivered... I should start doing that again). I think I played with it for 30 minutes, obviously set an alarm, and then dropped it in a junk drawer. That was almost 10 years ago! This thing has been setting off that soft phantom watch beep alarm every night at exactly 11:40 pm since then!

I thought about how such an insignificant whim could just keep going and going on, as endless as needless. There aren't many things I took up in early high school that still keep going; blogs, stories, movies, books, ideas, ideals, dreams, plans for the future... most of those have undergone radical changes or been outright abandoned. This dumb thing though just kept enduring on for no reason. It made me think about what we really leave behind..

13

In a moment of weakness and poor judgement, I decided I should sign up for a half marathon in San Antonio this weekend. Have I been training to run 13 miles straight? Nope. Since signing up have I gone running? Not once! Do I think I have ample amounts of free time to pick up another side track event? Probably not. But you know what? November is the month of fucking adventure! Bring it on!

The Fourth Kind: Movie Review

Life is full of natural wonders. Like a campfire sunrise after a night in wilderness or large roving flocks of birds, somethings just beg you to sit down and enjoy the moment. For reasons I cannot fathom, watching Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil, Fifth Element) act is a similar experience for me. While her movies never end in radical introspection that make me reevaluate the meaning of life, I can't help but enjoy myself. Maybe its because she's a stunning beauty with above average acting and a low set, sensuous voice (it's like sex with chocolate pudding) and maybe its because the movies she does do are fast paced and fun, but I can't help but love any movie she stars in. When I saw trailers for her new movie, an alien abduction thriller, I was shaking with excitment. Enough of my woman crush though, how was the movie?

We'll get there, first I want to say that one thing you have to understand is how hard alien abduction movies are to make. Abductions are complete misunderstandings or hoaxes at worst and infrequent enigmas at best, not much is really compiled. Even details of 'sightings' aren't congruent with each other. The Fourth Kind takes a bold stance, juxtaposing 'dramatizations' with 'archived footage' from a Blair Witch series of audio and video recordings taken from the researcher who is the focal point of the movie.

The Fourth Kind tries to be completely factual, something that not possible for vampire or other equally fantastical movies. That's a pretty difficult job, but it pretty much delivers! Now you can go to this movie and take it apart; it's a freaking alien movie that tries to use archive footage for crying out loud! It's like someone built a house of cards where you're pretty sure one of them is imaginary. But it starts with a bang and does an excellent job of keeping tension. This is a movie that is fast paced and at the same time keeps itself from spinning excessively out of perspective. The camera work, lighting, sound, and direction are tight; it's a classic case of what it takes to make people stay engaged, the very definition of a thriller. It has some components that seem overdone or cheesy, but then it blankets them over with the irrationality and mystery that usually accompanies a god complex; it more or less covers its bases. I have only one small minute criticism for this movie: the exact detail (of the dramatization) of the ending, going off of the archived footage, could have been made more ambiguous.

This movie is a good suspense ride, appropriately punctuated with action and clearly manged with tight direction. The few parts that I thought were overdone while watching the movie were actually the ones that stuck with me when I went home later that night. Don't watch this as a movie trying to convince you of research. Suspend your common sense a little and pretend you're watching Life Time documentary and this will be a fun movie that is the very definition of a thriller! I rate this movie 3.5 out of 5 late night bedroom encounters.

Vista to 7

Holy cow! To everyone whose computer is infected with Windows Vista (any of the various strains), for the love of God go and upgrade to Windows 7! I made the swtich today and the difference on my little laptop is HUGE! I can see animations! The screen saver actually works! It doesn't take 15 minutes for my computer to start up!

Is Windows 7 better than Leopard? Hells NO! But unlike Vista, it will actually run on a computer! I'm so excited! Running this is like getting a brand new computer that isn't a piece of junk! It feels like a brand new computer! The operating system change is that huge!

[why the hell did they even bother releasing Vista again?]