:: The Blurst of Times ::

:: 1.31.2004 ::

Here's a quick rundown:

Went to see SOJH in Lawrence. Rockin' good show. Good luck on your tour, boys!


Watched Lilo & Stitch. The Stitch parts were funny - everything else was not. It was not as good as Lost in Translation, which I saw later that night.

Just spent eight hours researching and databasing firms to seek jobs at. Whew.

I want to start mass recycling. I will be at the forefront of this revolution.

In great news: the Troll is leaving the studio.

"The time has come to say fair's fair. To pay the rent; to pay our share..."
:: Freddy F. at 10:40 PM [+] ::
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I cannot seem to get my sleeping schedule in line. Every night I tell myself I will go to bed between midnight and two, thus getting no more than eight and no less than six hours of sleep. But I inevitably lie in bed until three or later, then when the alarm goes off at eight, I convince myself it would be beneficial to sleep until I 'naturally wake up,' thus sleeping until nine or ten and throwing my sleep cycle even further off. I gotta snap this. Any suggestions for getting to sleep earlier - I've tried reading and music, even tunes that have been promised to aid in acieving sleep, muscle-relaxing techniques, and peaceful thoughts. Nothing's helping. Any advice?

"Sometimes I give myself the creeps. Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me. It all keeps adding up I think I'm cracking up..."
:: Freddy F. at 4:10 PM [+] ::
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Bad day for the Bush White House:

Bombs

Bills

&

Buffoonery

And maybe the tides are changing.

"It's funny how, nothin' seems much fun anymore to me now that I quit the drink..."
:: Freddy F. at 5:25 PM [+] ::
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Gettin' to the meat an' potatahs:

I saw Barry Lyndon. It was long. Not necessarily not entertaining, but I'll never get those three hours of my life back. It reminded me a lot of Voltaire's Candide - only instead of shit just happening to Barry Lyndon, like it did to Candide, Barry Lyndon is pretty much a sneak and fucks things up himself.

I saw Ginger Snaps. It was bloody. Really bloody. Dogs, people, werewolves, vaginas... they were all bleeding throughout the film. It was like Carrie meets Heathers meets American Werewolf in London. I'm sorry life is so hard ladies - I'm sorry that sometimes you have your periods, but this is not my fault and if there is anything I could do about it, I would, but I can't so don't act like all I care about is "laying you" in the back seat of a car.

I finished Uncle Tom's Cabin. Good points about blaming the North for slavery. I agree with the concept of "at least the south had the economic reasons to maintain a system of slavery, the north just turned a deaf ear." I think today that book says a lot more about how we treat other human beings (in general, not just race relations) than specifically about slavery. The last half of the book got a little preachy about the Christianity thing, but it worked. I'm very much a St. Clare.

Started The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It's looking good. This had better not turn out to be another The Corrections, because that one was just kind of a letdown. But the first fifty pages are good. First point of discussion for the book group: What is the meaning behind Kornblum saying "Don't worry about what you are escaping from - worry what you are escaping to."?

"And you're surrounded by the lives of those who found something to hold, so bringing everybody down is all you know..."

:: Freddy F. at 4:03 PM [+] ::
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Fuck you digital era! Fuck you machines! Fuck you DVD's! I fucking hate all of you.

Watching State & Main last night. It was a good movie - I enjoyed the whimsy and moral turbulance incurred by such a film. I am almost positive my DVD player skipped not one but two chapters on the DVD - and because I had never seen the movie before, I didn't know they were missing until I was left with questions at the end. And if you recall back, this happened to me with the Cowboy Bebop movie skipping the second to last chapter (and thus the climax of the film) and going straight to the resolution, showing me the outcome without any of the actual events.

So you're thinking: Okay, Fred, you are upset, and you may have a point since it has happened in two movies, but to blame the whole digital era? Is that really necessary? Aren't you really just intimidated by the fact that the digital era just has larger hands and feet and is a champ with the ladies, while you are so often left at the edge of the dance floor wondering whether the pretty girl in the blue dress would have danced with you but you were too afraid to ask her?

And I reply: No. I don't trust this digital thing any further than I could throw it. If I have a record that skips, I can manually take the lever and place it beyond the skip; if I have a tape that runs, I can manually rewind the tape and fix it to play what is screwing up; if a DVD or CD skips, the best I can do is press buttons and hope the machine is able to understand what is supposed to be happening and fix teh problem. Computers are the same way. If I create a huge drawing of a design (or, more likely, a whole bunch of drawings of a very thorough design) and print it all out and have hard copies, then I can take those copies and store them someplace safe and nothing will happen to them. I can protect them from fire, from water, from mice, from the sun, from thieves, from about everything as long as I take the proper precautions. If I take that same file and save it on my hard drive it may be there just fine when I get back. But there is also the possiblity that I may come back and that file will be no where to be found. I don't know what happens - maybe an electrical surge, maybe a magnet, maybe the thing just got dropped off a bad piece of the harddrive. In any case, I never believe that there is a garauntee that the data will be there when I want to see it again. This studio has seen enough files lost, hard drives fried, computers blitzed, and data zapped into limbo someplace to fill a warehouse and frankly, that is where my distrust of digital comes from.

I think the real problem is a lack of tangability. I can't touch it, I can't retrieve it, if my machine won't get that info for me, then it's lost. Maybe all fingers point back to me and say that I just don't know how to communicate to my machine well enough to tell it to fix teh problem properly. Maybe I am just a weakling who cannot embrace change because he feels threatened by it. Maybe that is all correct - or maybe we are just trying to come up with "better" and "faster" machines that do too many things without creating the safeguards necessary to make them as secure and reliable as their analogue counterparts. My entire future, career, and livelihood are relying upon the fact that people still have a need for contact, still have a need to relate to things they can see, not just things we trick their brains into thinking they see, not just optical illusions. Maybe my fear stems from the fact I could lose all of this if the world becomes convinced they would rather "virtually" walk through a building, than see a scale model of it. Maybe I am just afraid of things I don't understand. Maybe that makes me no better than, say, George Wallace. Maybe I am just a technology bigot.

I just know I don't trust them and when it all comes crashing down, I'll still be happy to build chipboard models by candlelight.

"I cross the desrt, past a lizard and a rattlesnake. I tip the bottle and bite the lime..."
:: Freddy F. at 4:04 PM [+] ::
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I've flipped through the whole thing, and there's nothin' on the Internet.

Boo.

"Calling on in transit, calling on in transit - Radio Free Europe..."
:: Freddy F. at 4:42 PM [+] ::
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Running? What the fuck is that? Answer: something I haven't done in a dog's-age. Maybe tomorrow.

I saw Boondock Saints. It wasn't what I thought - as I was expecting something with the gravity and violence of Reservior Dogs. But no, it was almost light-hearted to the extent of almost being whimsical with all the slow-mo action shots. Can't say I'm al about vigilante justice, though they make a good point and you just can't beat the religious Irish boozer - what a character. They killed the cat - fuckin hilarious.

You should never lead a discussion group - but it was very funny none-the-less. I will keep you posted on the progress.

As for the rest of you: the hair of the dog that bit'cha!

"Hook me up a new revolution, 'cause this one is a lie..."
:: Freddy F. at 6:47 PM [+] ::
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Got ripped up last night so I didn't run today. Won't run tomorrow. Probably won't run on Saturday as company is in town. Sunday's the day of rest. Looks like staying in shape may have to wait until Monday. Or maybe I can get a workout in on Saturday - gotta keep the eyes on the prize, you know what I'm sayin'?

Hey - I just read that someone is reading (will be reading) the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I too will be reading it soon. Is this a reason to begin a discuassion circle via weblogs? Is that just crazy?

News Flash: The President is an A-hole, and according to Ted "Massachusettes Fat" Kennedy, a memeber of a "breathtakingly arrogant" administration. [My favorite part of that last sentence is saying "a-hole" out loud.]

"What have we done with innocence? It disappeared with time, it never made much sense..."
:: Freddy F. at 3:57 PM [+] ::
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It's review time:

The Ring was scary in the same way the video for Closer to God is scary - it's just filters and lighting and makeup and music that make it scary, but that actual content is not terrifying because when I turn away from the screen, I'm not scared because I know it doesn't exist in reality. I've seen a couple "scary" movies in the last week and nothing is comparing to Event Horizon for precisly that reason - because when I see Sam Neill say "I'll show you Hell" and grab Lawrence Fishbourne and shows him Hell, I sleep with the lights on for the next two nights.

Then we watched Ordinary Decent Criminal, something that I couldn't remember why it was on my list - someone may have given it good reviews, I may have seen a good preview for it at sometime, something... [On a side note: When one of my roommates asked what the movie was about and when I told him I didn't know he just looked down and shook his head and chuckled to himself. This made me want to kick his ass more than I have wanted to beat someone for a long time. It's like that part in High Fidelity where the guy grabs the phone and smashes Tim Robbins right in the teeth, that's how I felt. But I didn't, thus upholding the goal of being nicer to people in 2004.] Anyway, the movie was very wry-ly funny and clever and good all around. I want to be as clever and arrogant as Kevin Spacey (and have two wives to boot).

And I did some math and it was fun.

And I did some meth and it was fun.

Just kidding about that last part.

"Today my future looked so bright, all it took was one red light, the sirens are close behind me, but my brain said fight or flight..."
:: Freddy F. at 1:43 PM [+] ::
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I spent $73.25 on groceries today. This will hopefully mean that I don't have to go to the store for the next three weeks. Two meals a day is 42 meals in that time. That's $1.74 per meal. I think that may be just about as good as it gets.

"And I play with fire to break the ice. And I play with a nuclear device. Is it something I'll regret, or do I want what I can't get, I wish it didn't have to be so bad..."
:: Freddy F. at 2:36 PM [+] ::
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Uncle Tom's Cabin is supposed to be a "timeless classic." (According to the back of the book) And yet, while the values may be important and the concept of equality may be timeless, I just can't get myself all riled up about slavery like I could a hundred and sixty years ago.

In other list related news - The Mothman Prophesies is not near as scary as some had made it out to be: true or not, Event Horizon still makes me have to sleep with the lights on. The movie Holes is good - the book Holes is better, though I will acknowledge that they are similar in story and character. I kind of want to recommend the book to those who enjoyed the movie, but let's face it, you already know the end and that was part of what made the book so damn good. The movie Zoolander was funny. I really thought it would have made a better skit, as the joke was pretty basic throughout. but the finale, where he shows everyone the "new look" was truly priceless and maybe the funniest thing I've seen all year.

Working out is going well - running everyday but sunday, but c'mon, that's a day of rest (and recouperation), right?

And while I am certainly showing my appreciation to some people, other people I am downright being an asshole to. Today, no matter whatelse I do, I am going to focus on not being a bitch at home and start treating people with a little respect. I know, the readers are not who I need to be telling this to, but if I write it and publish it, then that can only tighten my resolve to making it happen.

"So it shall be written, so it shall be done..."
:: Freddy F. at 2:09 PM [+] ::
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According to one roommate: Michael Moore is not as good an author as he is a writer/director.

According to another roommate: Michael Moore likely made up many of the statistics in "Bowling for Columbine" to slant the opinions of the viewers.

According to yet another roommate: President W. Bush has likely not told a single lie since entering office and no one in his administration has anything to gain (besides the "greater human good") from invading Iraq.

Solid.

"It's all about the money political power has taken, protecting the rich, denying the poor... how did the cat get so fat?"
:: Freddy F. at 2:41 PM [+] ::
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So some of you may have noticed that I seem to be back in this with a sort of vengance. Actually, I'm just bored. I finally have time on my hands and, frankly, I just don't know what to do with myself. We'll see how long it lasts.

I watched A.I. last night. It was acceptable, since I paid two bucks for it, but I just wasn't flowing with the movie. It seemed like it would have been aobut four or five full-length features, crammed into two and a half hours. Plus thw whole "fuzzy line between intellegence and the soul" is not a very interesting debate to me. I am not even sure why we want to create A.I. - there's a lot of people out there who don't even have real intellegence, let's worry about what to do with them first.

I need a weblog address for Bethany and Shannon. You know who you are, now just let me know where you are (web-aphorically speaking).

Here's the debate of the day: I currently have 10.3 G of my 34 G harddrive being taken up by music. Not a big deal, but it would be nice to have that space. Also, at the end of this year, I am chucking this behemoth of a machine and getting a nice little sleek I-Book. And since I'd like to be able to access my music through that as well, it would be nice to have some sort of means to transport the music over. All this is leading up to me either purchasing an external harddrive or a 30 G IPod. Give me your thoughts, as well as any pricing, lifetime value, and experience information you may have. Thanks.

In the meantime, my lip is bleeding profusely as I have a terrible habit of biting at my dry lips. Arg.

"My pants are falling down; The room is spinning around; My stomach is making funny sounds, I'm fallin' down..."
:: Freddy F. at 2:31 PM [+] ::
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This is not me [so further confusion is avoided].

I apologize for all lives lost because of this mix-up.

"Focus on what Ihear, listen to what I see, my thoughts are this alone, and it's becoming all too clear..."

:: Freddy F. at 3:10 PM [+] ::
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Well, it is the beginning of a new semester, the opportunity to look ahead at the upcoming four months and set some goals.

Maybe the reading community can help motivate me to keep these goals, so I will keep the abreast of my progress.

Goal 1: Workout daily (five to six times a week, realistically)

Goal 2: Read books on my list (no set limit or goal - just work on those books and not space it off for a long time)

Goal 3: Watch movies on my list (see above note)

Goal 4: Tell people around me what I admire most in them

Goal 5: Do not rely on insults as "the quick response" or as humor fodder

****************

So: how's it going, you ask. Well, pretty damn good, I respond. Here's exactly how it is going:

Goal 1: Ran yesterday and today (no more than a couple miles each time, but it's pretty cold and I'm pretty out of shape). Played basketball for a couple hours last night.

Goal 2: Finished The Simpsons & Philosophy - started Uncle Tom's Cabin

Goal 3: Watched The Matrix Reloaded (several steps below the original), watched Bowling for Columbine (again, not as good as the previous film by Moore, Roger and Me, seemed a little chaotic and random, made some good points, but if I wasn't already an advocate for gun control and against american journalistic styles I don't know if it would sway me), watched Citizen Kane (some of you film-folk may have to help me with this one - I thought it was good, but not best-movie-ever good)

So that's how it's goin'. How 'bout you?

"I could give you a star, you could give me one too, and that way we'd be even..."


:: Freddy F. at 2:41 PM [+] ::
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The superlatives:

Best Book of the New Year - The Simpsons & Philosophy

Best Movie to see in the New Year - Fight Club

Worst Timekeepers of the New Year -The guys at the Fiesta Bowl

Worst Roads Crew of the New Year - Nebraska DoT

"Somewhere in America, it's late at night. And you're far from home, but you know, it's gonna be alright..."
:: Freddy F. at 2:17 PM [+] ::
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In five, four, three, two...

And we're back live, here with the Flextimer. Question of the day: Should I start the new year off right with a fat post? Overwhelming answer: Do it, Buttmunch.

So, I'd like to wish the best to everyone who is making their way in a "New" city this new year. And I'd like to thank everyone who showed up last night to watch me not-puke for, like, several hours straight.

In a word, I'd say it was all very affibulating. There. I said it.

"I had a bad year - a lot I gone through. Been knocked-down, beat-down, black and blue..."
:: Freddy F. at 5:50 PM [+] ::
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