steroids, candy, such things.

it's interesting to have someone over the holidays this year, definitely a dramatic shift from years past. (speaking of definitely, why can no one spell it? you take definite, and then you throw an -ly on the end. it's pretty basic, there's no "A" sound involved whatsoever. i think more people spell it incorrectly than properly, and it irks me. definite+ly. not "definately", i'm not even sure where you got that from, where does the "a" sound fit in? it's definitely and ridiculous, ri, from "ridicule". come on now people.) i'll report back on how this holiday stuff goes. i've always kind of been the lone wolf who was keeping people on the side (conveniently being single for the holidays) and being in closer relationships with my friends than with any female, so to have something that i'd consider to be real for once is a surprisingly welcome, change. along that same line, the weirdest thing about dating someone new when you're 23/24 is the history. like, both of us reference exes a little too often for the other's liking, but it's honestly hard not to. it's just odd that we're only 24, i can't even imagine what its like for people with kids and ex spouses and such things, that's got to be effing crazy and involving some serious lowering of standards. it's just interesting to ponder is all.

so the much hyped "Mitchell Report" was released the other day. was anyone surprised by a single name that they provided us with? honestly, does the fact that Roger "Grizzly Bear" Clemens may have used steroids surprise anyone? if it does, you're either blind or retarded. i'll give you three tell-tale signs as to how you figure out if someone was on steroids or not. 1.) they put on more than 10 pounds of muscle in one off-season. it's just not possible to bulk up in a few months, have you ever tried to lift and put on muscle? it takes like years, and complete dedication. you don't just work out in the offseason and add 25 pounds of raw muscle. 2.) they get dramatically better in one year. i.e. brady anderson, sammy sosa, luis gonzalez. they go from 20 homers to 50, i mean, this is obvious. 3.) they improve after their early 30s. you don't just "get better" at age 36. i mean, if no one can remember properly, Clemens' ass was washed up 10 years ago and Boston let him walk. all of a sudden he's winning Cy Youngs in 2 out of 3 seasons in Toronto and New York? yeah. that makes sense, that's not suspicious at all. at least barry stayed good the whole time and just changed his game. what's Clemens' excuse? basically every name that was released was walking around like a comic book character throughout the late 90's/early 2000s. can you remember how ripped people like Benito Santiago, Gary Sheffield, Pudge Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire got seemingly overnight? you don't just put on 20 pounds of muscle in an offseason and then somehow remain completely swoll in september after 140 games, it's not possible unless you're somehow finding time to work out 3 hours a day. oh, that's right, steroids make you recover faster. but honestly, going back and adding astericks and punishing this person or that person makes zero sense. none whatsoever. if you take away Bonds' and Clemens' achievements, whose are considered legitimate? is Kevin Brown's cy young legitimate? are Frank Thomas and Albert Belle's stats legitimate? i say the fix is to just label the era from 1990-2005 the "steroid era" and just call it that. there's no way to decisively prove who was doing this or that, so just label it a historical anomaly and let bygones be bygones. its not like everyone is going to just up and forget. i mean, we all know that babe ruth was fat and that ty cobb was a racist prick, and that happened before tv and the internet, so how are people just going to forget that bonds and clemens were on roids? hitters were doing it and hitting more homeruns, but they were doing it off of pitchers that were juicing to get a few extra MPH on their fastball, so who's the bigger cheater? who can know these things. a witchhunt isn't doing anything of purpose, so let it slide. it's not like people aren't going to remember that McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Clemens, whoever were on roids. people played in the "dead ball era" before Ruth, and they played in the "steroid era", and that's that. people played against only white players, and people played in an integrated game, and people played in the international game like today. sounds simple enough to me, everyone just gets to move on. besides, i'm still not sure how steroids gives you a competitive advantage if everyone's doing it? once again, i'm going to rant and rave about the true competitive disadvantage in baseball, the differences in spending between the teams that is somehow allowed. doesn't anyone else think it's bullshit that whenever a big name comes up the same teams are always in the discussion? it's always Boston, NY, NY, LA, LA and the Cubs. great, really fair system. that's how it should be. you've got 30 teams, 25 of which actually have to develop talent, and 5 of which can buy whatever they want. really fair (oh, the yankees use steroids too). we should probably all be after some guys who used the juice to hit bombs but never won anything rather than the blatant fact that Boston bought the 2007 world series by having the 2nd highest payroll in baseball. look at the teams that made the AL (real league) playoffs this year. Yankees, Red Sox, Angels. (3 highest payrolls in the league) and the Indians, who have the best GM in baseball and the deepest farm system, i.e. one actual team, and 3 that have the opportunity to sign whoever they want. investigate that shit Selig, it has a much more drastic impact on the competitive state of the game itself, if you disagree, you probably have a double digit IQ.

so apple managed to keep another customer, they made me pretty effing happy this week. well, my hard drive crashed, AGAIN, which of course, given that it was exam week at the time, utterly infuriated me. but, the dude fixed my shit for free, despite the fact that i'm not on warranty, upgraded my hard drive, and replaced my top cover and keyboard for the price of on the house. it's awesome when big corporations actually treat you like a human being. nice job apple, i'm sticking with you and completely ignoring the fact that i've fried two hard drives in 19 months, as apples gracious behavior has put a positive gloss on the whole situation.

isn't "getting old" weird? i feel like seriously, in the span of a few months, i got old. like, i honestly almost don't enjoy going out anymore and getting shitfaced. 1.) it's expensive. 2.) i feel like absolute ass the next day and 3.) it really isn't as much fun as it used to be. i don't know, something about undergrad and the captive audience of thousands really added a lot to the experience, i feel like I'm over it, it's like work to scrounge people up to booze with, b/c if you have fun by yourself when you're drinking then, well, you've got a problem my friend. its no fun when you aren't going out w/ people. i'd rather talk to/chill with jules than go to a bar and try to force it, winding up out a weeks' worth of lunches b/c you decided it was a good idea to buy a round of cherrybombs. i mean granted, for a special occasion, you can still count me in, but where it was once a law that i was boozing every friday/saturday no matter what, i feel like lately, I'm boozing once a week tops, and raging only on rare occasions. i need a crowd people.

maybe this is hypocritical in light of the last paragraph, but i love new years. (well, maybe not, since you know there's a crowd involved in new years) new years is my #1 favorite party day of the year. i feel like it's important, hell, necessary to ring in the new year with a bang, and i love doing it. new years requires shots, in large quantities, and general revelry of the highest sort. my goal, every year, is to not remember the ball drop but somehow be up until 4. the new years when i cannot rage to ring it in is the new years that i don't want to be a part of. so, here's hoping that new years 2008 is a fun one.

ah, yes, candy. why does 94% of the candy that exists exist? like, who keeps making it? i feel like out of candy that i know about/see people eat, there are like 4 or 5 popular choices, snickers, m&ms, skittles, kit kats, reeses cups and starbursts. but how many shitty candybars exist? and who buys them? like, for instance, the UC alumni association put candy in our mailboxes at school with a little "good luck with finals" note, and provided us with butterfingers and milky way. what the fuck? who's eating butterfingers OR milky way, let alone both? a butterfinger somehow combines peanut butter, crunch, and chocolate, things i'm find of, and makes it taste like shitty orange chalk. nice job, you should probably still be in business for making that quality product. and what's up with a milky way? it's like they forgot the best part of the snickers and decided to try and pull a fast one on us and sell it anyway, it's even in the same color wrapper. i even opened my milky way and took a bite, thinking it was a snickers b/c i didn't look that closely, having (wrongly) concluded that a candy bar of that shape in a brown wrapper would actually be good. and those are just 2 of the gamut of shitty candy bars that are out there, hoping to trick unsuspecting gas station customers into wasting a buck. 3 Musketeers? what's in that? shitty dried pudding? good job, genius. baby ruth? great, it looks like a turd and is really, really hard. what the hell, give me a snickers already. nutrageous, heath, whatchamacallit? whatchamaretarded? there are people that are actually trying to peddle these things to the masses. nestle crunch bars, hershey bars, they have places, in baking items/as part of other desserts, but no one is just buying a hershey bar and snacking on that shit. at least no one that doesn't have a subscription to collier's. i don't know if the powers that be don't know how shitty these products are or if they don't care, but something has to be done.

but ok kiddos, have a merry christmas, all presents can be sent directly to me, inquire for mailing address.

Things that I don't just understand

(How sweet is that poster? that basically sums it all up. when kids are shooting up malls to "become famous" and when the shit that you can see on "Prison Nation" is a reality, that poster speaks for itself.) So I saw "No Country For Old Men" the other day. and well, it's really, really fucking sweet. you know i love cold blooded bastards, and this one's got the best (worst?) one of all (or at least since Bill the Butcher). longtime Spanish actor Javier Bardem is a revelation as murderous psycho Anton and Josh Brolin is having himself quite a little 2007, first as the smarmy dirty cop in American Gangster and now this turn as the opportunistic, headstrong blue collar Llewelyn (sp?) Moss. i like what he has going on. plus, i love the 'stache. the flick was tense as hell, i bit like all of my nails down to 'nubs, and honestly had no idea what was coming next, which is a rarity for me. tommy lee jones is perfect as the worldweary sheriff who's troubled by what he sees. i've heard lots of people exclaim that its the Coen brothers' first serious movie, but i disagree. i don't really think it's that serious. i mean, woody harrelson is doing nothing but being a clown, and basically all of the assorted Texans throughout the film are providing nothing but comic relief. besides, bardem is too outrageous to be legitimate, he does his character in an almost farcical manner. great pace, beautiful scenery, it succeeds on many levels for me. is it a western? not really. is it a crime drama? sort of, but it's so much more. a morality play of the highest sort. at any rate, beautiful cinematography, it all works. i dig it and i'm pissed i waited so long to see it. 9.5/10, best movie i've seen in 2007.

on that note: best movies i've seen in 2007 (sadly, missing the Darjeeling Limited, Rescue Dawn, Grindhouse, Michael Clayton and the Bourne Ultimatum, all of which i somehow managed to miss when they were in theaters... where does all the time go?)

1. No Country For Old Men
2. Superbad
3. 3:10 to Yuma
4. American Gangster
5. Eastern Promises

we've got finals here coming up... which is completely garbage. the whole law school philosophy is completely off-target and doesn't serve its intended purpose in any way shape or form. so lets get this straight. you're supposed to read legal nonsense all semester, sit in class, and then you're supposed to prove your proficiency for an entire class over the course of one 4 hour exam that's graded on a curve? great, great idea. throw in open book exams, unequal distribution of students between classes, and yeah. i'm glad that my future financial well-being is hinged to my success on these random tests that may or may not be tied to anything that was actually learned in class, but probably wasn't. that's great. it's probably fair to give out people that go to your office answers to your test. oh, btw, anyone with a fake "learning disability" like ADD gets double time, as well as adderall. how is that fair? you're telling me that just b/c they actually went and got diagnosed with a fake disease that was made up by drug companies that everyone has, you get 1.) a quiet, isolated room, 2.) double time, and 3.) adderrall. wtf? what world is this? give me any one of those three advantages and my class rank would be at least 20 spots higher. hell, give me one hour and adderall and i'd be at the very least the same, but probably better. that shit is like the "magic do schoolwork pill".

today is Pearl Harbor day, which i think is underappreciated as a day in general. pearl harbor was, i will argue, the most important/significant day in American History, a day which forever altered America's place in the world and her approach to global affairs. if there's any wonder as to why the US spends so much on her military, look at Pearl Harbor. why do we protect Taiwan, Kuwait, Israel and all the little pissant countries that we protect? Pearl Harbor. sorry Ron Paul, but America will never again be isolationalist, and that's b/c of pearl harbor, directly. history has a way of punishing those that don't learn from their mistakes.

so my life is about to fundamentally change, in a big way. which... is completely crazy, kind of terrifying, but in a completely good way. like, you've got to grow up someday, and i guess that's kind of what's going on... and i like it. so 2008 figures to be a big year with the g/f moving down here and all. nothings going to be the same, that's for sure.. and i think thats a good thing.

This is going to be just a general rant, b/c well, hell, who doesn't like one of those every now and again? I know I do. So there are many things in this world that just don't compute, like, I'll sit and think about them, but they won't make any sense, whatsoever... I'm going to start talking about them, and wherever I end up, well... that's where I end up.

why do people rave about Bill Parcell's proficiency as a coach and Brett Favre's proficiency as a quarterback? you've got one ring each. one. nice job. news flash, if you play/coach forever, chances are you're probably going to win the big one, at least once. Ben Roethlisberger has the same number of rings as Brett Favre. Brian Billick has the same number of rings as Bill Parcells. Roethlisberger is not in danger of being considered a QB guru any time this century, same (as far as coaching is concerned) for Billick. so why the hoopla? what is it about these two gentlemen that causes sportswriters to flip the fuck out like they're in the presence of all time greats? who knows, personality probably. after all, Parcells does give a great press conference and Favre is liable to do some shit that will make sportscenter, either b/c its an amazing throw... or the worst throw/punt you've ever seen. favre (besides being the longest lasting public mispronunciation in recent memory) has great career numbers, sure, but that has more to do with the fact that the dude always plays recklessly at best and had the good fortune to never get seriously injured. is he a warrior? absolutely. is he a gunslinger? sure. but is Favre in the top 5 QBs of who i'd want to win a big game for me if my life was on the line? hell no, he's just as liable to have a 4 INT game as a 4 TD game. sure, he'll go out and have a monster 29-38, 383 & 4 game, but he's just as likely to have a 19-31, 233, 1 & 4 game, throw 3 punts and basically lose the game for his team. when we talk about all time greats, we shouldn't be talking about guys that make rookie mistakes as a 38 year old future hall of famer. i mean, how many times this year have you heard announcers exclaim "Brett has finally started to play within himself, stopped forcing the deep ball and taken what the defense gives him"... um, isn't that the kind of shit we should be saying about Jay Cutler or Phil Rivers? Not someone who has been in the league since i was in elementary school and is being crowned GOAT before our very eyes. whatever, it makes me feel like i'm taking crazy pills. and what about Parcells? all he did was screw over team after team by leaving prematurely and being a general ass to everyone. he won one title in NY and then ran roughshod over the rest of the league b/c he has (for some unknown reason) a ridiculously good reputation as a "winner". yeah bill, it looks like it, since Wade "music city miracle" Phillips is coaching the team you compiled to their best ever record. good thing you're a consensus all time great coach. that would almost make sense if there was any evidence to back it up. people talk about how Favre "would have won more" if the 49ers and Cowboys weren't in his way in the 90s. um. news flash, the great ones overcome that shit. all that means is that Favre wasn't good enough to be crowned GOAT. if he were really the best of all time don't you think that he'd have a win at Dallas in his career? oh, that's right. he got lucky to never tear an ACL, plays at Lambeau (the Packers have a great homefield advantage), and has had a decent career. nice job Brett. way to be sportsman of the year for having an actual ok season. "good job Brett, congrats on not leading the league in INTs this year". should you really be sportsman of the year for actually having a decent season? that's when you know you aren't really good. when you have a season that matches how you SHOULD be playing, given your supposed all-time great status, and its so much of a surprise to everyone that you get mentioned in the same breath as Brady for MVP and somehow win "sportsman of the year". Favre is leading the "most likely to be in a viagra commercial in 10 years" poll by a landslide. don't think you're getting off the hook Bill. 1st, you've got a FUPA (fat upper pussy area) and the most fat old-lady esque body this side of Charlie Weis. 2nd, your former "disciple" Bellicek, has proven to be 10X the coach you ever were or could ever be. you're an idiot Bill. sure, you can get to the playoffs, nice work. this just in, half the NFL goes to the playoffs, it doesn't make you good, it makes you average. nice super bowl ring Bill. you can't claim Tony Romo either, he only played b/c your "boy" aka shitfest Bledsoe didn't work out. you're a joker.

why do so many young people get random ass tattoos? like, granted, i can understand getting a tattoo if it's meaningful or you think of something really fucking cool to get. don't get me wrong, i'm not opposed to tattoos in the least, i'd have one if i could think of anything significant enough / not gay enough to be worth permanently etching onto my skin... but, i mean, why do chicks have random trampstamps and why do guys have random bands on the bicep? to look cool? great. good call, permanent body modification is probably the route to go to attempt to achieve "coolness", brilliant. you know what i did last night b/c i was tired of being so ordinary? i cut off my pinky. fuck it, i'm an individual. probably the worst thing is when you talk to someone about their tattoo and they're like "oh, i don't know, i was drunk/high/hungover/whatever and it just seemed like a good idea at the time". call me crazy, but i've been pretty fucking drunk in my day, and "lets go to the tattoo parlor and make some horrible decisions that can permanently be etched into my tissue" never seemed to be an option. i mean really, i'm sure your initials/last name/that butterfly/that tribal/that star (what is it with the star tattoos? did i miss the care bear reunion memo or what?) seemed like a terrific idea at the time, but why don't you just go and grab a funky tshirt or something? b/c really, look at what people looked like in the 90s. just google "dishwalla" or something and look at how horrific the 90s were. and that's only 10 years ago! just consider how horrible that tat is going to look in 20 years? why would you get anything permanently etched onto yourself that you didn't have a great fucking reason for doing so? just a word of advice: if you've seen a tattoo on say, a celebrity, or someone around, and you think it looks cool, don't get it yourself, b/c chances are some other plastic-minded tool is plotting the same thing right now. wearing the same shirt as someone else sucks. just think when you're at the beach with the same chinese character tats for "honor" and "faith" as half the tools in attendance dudebro. who knows. maybe i don't watch enough MTV or hang out with the UFC/band crowd to understand the whole "casual permanent body modification" thing.

why do hot chicks do porn? I never have and never will understand this. Like, granted, I know that sex sells, obviously. I just don't get why anyone would subject themselves to the kind of shit that is going on in the commercial sex industry. Some of the stuff that is going on is, well.. ridiculous. Like, to think that this chick started out quasi normal (granted, i'm sure that some/most of them were probably sexually abused as children or seduced by some smooth talking dirtbag as teenagers, but that can't possibly explain all of them given the pure volume of porn in existence) and she ended up wearing ridiculous heels and fishnets with the trashiest possible makeup, tattoos and worst hair dye-job of all time getting railed by a 6'4 hairless German bodybuilder dude with acne and a baby's arm holding an apple swinging between his legs. like, honestly, there has to be a better way. some of these women are legitimately very attractive, like, on a completely objective standard. couldn't they land themselves a low level celebrity, professional athlete or other rich douchebag to provide themselves with the same comfort level without all of the embarrassment? (don't even give me that women's lib nonsense, pretending that the porn industry does anything but chew people up and spit them out when they're done is ridiculous.) sure, porn pays pretty well, i'm sure, but you're also plastering yourself all over the internet and robbing yourself of the opportunity of having any normal relationship at any point in the future. (i mean, for me, no matter how attractive and otherwise appealing a woman is, if a porn history comes out, i'm hitting the door, no discussion, no nothing, just not acceptable) no doubt drugs and alcohol has a lot to do with the obviously horrible decision that banging a dude on camera for $5,000 is, but still, it just doesn't compute. like, couldn't you turn high class tricks for the same price and a shit load more anonymity? i just cannot understand and will never understand why a legitimately attractive girl would have sex on camera for money with the knowledge that it's going to be sold for money, it makes no sense whatsoever.

how is there a "crisis" with the subprime mortgage thing? um, national news media (who all somehow have college degrees), if someone gets themselves into a jam, it's not the government's job to bail them out. it's called personal responsibility and its pretty much the basis of a successful society. if you're enough of an idiot to assume that the housing prices were going to continue to raise indefinitely and that interest rates would remain low enough to enable you to afford your house that you paid entirely too much for, in what way does that concern the government? the answer is, of course, that it doesn't. if someone defaults on their loan because they made a horrible decision in agreeing to the loan in the first place, that's their own fault. plain and simple. what's next? the federal government planning to help gambling addicts who lost $15,000 in a weekend at blackjack? you gambled, you lost. tough luck. i simply cannot understand the logic behind the thinking that predominates now that every problem concerns the government and therefore the government should get involved in /is the solution to every single societal wrong. you do realize that the government can't do anything right, don't you? this is the same government that brought you Vietnam, the Warren Commission, the Iraq War, Welfare, Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, Hurricane Katrina relief and the Veterans Administration (you know, Walter Reed military hospital?). yeah, great call, we should probably put them in charge of everyone's health care too. that's just what we need. the soviet union failed for a reason, and that is plain and simply that the government has no incentive to succeed/no consequences in the case of failure. congress passes a shitty law and what happens? maybe it gets repealed, more likely the courts just neuter it, and 90% + of the congressmen responsible for it keep their plush jobs b/c running for congress costs too much money if you want to unseat an incumbent, so most of the seats go without being seriously contested in nearly every election. meanwhile, businessmen make a shitty decision and what happens? oh, they lose their jobs and/or go out of business, b/c the private sector has actual consequences for things. the less shit the government can get involved in, the better.

why do people that are older than 17 still say "i can't drink beer, i don't like the taste of it"? um, newsflash. no one likes the taste of beer at first, it's an acquired taste.. it's not like every 15-16 year old kid cracks open a natty and is like "damn, this is better than a pop-ice". quite the opposite, you just man up, and learn how to drink it, b/c beer is far and away the most fun kind of booze. this individual is quite possibly the most obnoxious partygoer, b/c you're acting like you're special. you aren't special, you're just ignorant and missed the memo. many a high school night are spent by kids bitching about/chugging beer b/c it tastes like shit. you, however, are always female, and for some reason, never went through this stage. it will take you a month, tops, and then you won't have to be annoying anymore. go, buy some beer, and sit and drink it. dont complain about how it "tastes bad", of course it tastes bad, its fucking beer. if you want taste, go grab some kool aid or something... put down your vodka cranberry and actually turn into a fun person.

that's all i've got for today. i'll post more often. i promise, this "once a month" shit just isn't cutting it.

Theories on Actors; Arguing.

so i saw American Gangster on Saturday. good, solid film, although really, there wasn't any way it couldn't be. i mean, you've got Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, they aren't going to combine for a shitfest. it's really interesting, in that Denzel and Russ are each the leads, like, it's not a cop movie, it's not a gangster movie, it's basically a character study of two extraordinary men and the determination they bring to what they do. good stuff, flawed? absolutely. but still very, very solid. i give it an 8.5/10. my primary criticism is that the film is actually too short. like, it's 2:37 as it is, but i want to know more about the two main characters and what makes them tick. we're given hints, but it's not enough. maybe it should have been two movies, like the first one being focused on Frank Lucas' rise as a kingpin and the second focused on Roberts' investigation and bringing Lucas down, that would have been sweet. two sweet and drastically different movies, with the same cast, like, the last 30 minutes of both movies would have been the same. i don't know if anyone other than me would have liked it, but i would have fucking loved it. i'm sure the director's cut will be around 4 hours long, it is Ridley Scott after all, so hopefully we'll get more of that, my fingers are crossed.

p.s. i can't wait to see No Country For Old Men. it's official.

i hate movies that are rated PG or PG-13. there's no reason for any movie that's geared towards people older than 8 to not be rated R. life is rated R, honestly. grow up and grow a pair, watch a movie that reflects reality.

so if you didn't already know, i'm basically obsessed with movies, and probably the most important aspect of movies are the actors that make the shit you're seeing on screen believable. so on that note, i'm going to give you my favorite actors, and my least favorite actors, and some problems that i have with actors that are otherwise popular. without further ado, here goes.

first, the Favorites (i'm listing as my favorites younger actors, in order to give other people a chance, if i included everyone, it'd obviously be Al Pacino, DeNiro, Jack, Sir Anthony Hopkins, et al):

1. Russell Crowe: my main man, he brings intensity and believability to his varied roles. i'll see anything he's in, and probably love it. my only criticism is that he can't really pull off a contemporary American accent, but that doesn't really matter. highlights include: Gladiator (obviously), L.A. Confidential, The Insider, Cinderella Man, 3:10 to Yuma, A Beautiful Mind and American Gangster.

2. Daniel Day-Lewis: unbelievable. if he worked more often he'd be widely hailed as the best actor in Hollywood. go youtube "there will be blood", if you aren't immediately excited for that film, you probably should stop reading. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml2Ae2SIXac&feature=related) highlights: Last of the Mohicans, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Boxer, Gangs of New York, In The Name of the Father.

3. Christian Bale: he's exploded onto the scene in the past few years, which is definitely a very good thing. highlights: Rescue Dawn (i'm just assuming b/c i haven't seen it yet), Batman Begins (far and away the best Batman), Equilibrium (if you haven't seen this movie, check it, it's like the Matrix + 1984), The Prestige, 3:10 to Yuma, American Psycho, The Machinist, Harsh Times, The New World. basically, every movie i've seen of his. oh, including Empire of the Sun, when he's like 6.

4. Leonardo DiCaprio. it took me a long while to come around on this dude, due to his whole "teen heart throb" thing he had going on there for a while, but let's be honest, the dude can act. he's our DeNiro. there, i said it. highlights: The Departed, Blood Diamond, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Catch Me if you Can, The Man in the Iron Mask, What's Eating Gilbert Grape

5a. Clive Owen highlights: Children of Men, Sin City, King Arthur
5b. Liam Neeson highlights: Rob Roy, Michael Collins, Kinsey, Schindler's List
i couldn't choose between these dudes, so i chose both.

other favorites: Chris Cooper, Matt Damon, Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell, Val Kilmer, Forrest Whitaker, Eric Bana, Tom Hanks.

the second group are the fundamentally flawed actors, i.e., those that i can't quite bring myself to love and/or they get on my nerves because there is just something wrong with them:

Denzel Washington. he always plays the SAME character. how does no one else realize/notice this? he's always angry as hell and intense/fiery as hell. seriously, he does it all the time. his best roles are the films where his anger/intensity doesn't matter, b/c it's part of the character - Man On Fire, Training Day, American Gangster. but he seriously makes the same faces in every single film he's in and does the exact same things.

Owen Wilson. same deal. he does the same things and plays the same person in every movie. he doesn't actually act, he just is Owen on camera, and people love it b/c he's cute/aloof. sure, you changed your accent for the Royal Tenenbaums and the Life Aquatic, but you aren't fooling anyone any longer.

Johnny Depp. i know, i should love him. people that like movies like i do usually do. buuut, you're just a little too weird for me john. your schtick isn't working. oh, and you had to go and do all three "pirates" like a fuck. you're good John, you're just too weird. oh, and people that do $100 million disney movies aren't friends of mine. i'll always love Donnie Brasco though.

now, the worst of the worst. the "hated" group.

1. Nic Cage. what a hack. i hate nic cage with all of my being, i hate what he stands for, i hate what he's all about, and i hate how he got famous/why he is famous. nicolas cage's real name is nicolas coppolla. he's francis "godfather/apocalypse now" coppolla's nephew. i hate hate HATE nepotism. and i hate you for having no talent, but being a multimillionaire nonetheless. he took his stage name b/c he was a huge fan of the marvel comics character "Luke Cage", who is basically a blacksploitation muscleman. great nic. way to continue to be a fuck. will i always love the rock? absolutely, the rock suceeds despite of nic's douchebaggery, but in general, cut it out. you've got ticks up the waz, and you're a spaz. please, just go away. everytime a nicolas cage movie makes $100 million 1 million third world children come down with HIV. it's true, i read it on wikipedia.

i was going to rant about Ben Stiller, but then i realized i already have on this blog. but anyway 1.) you're a LITTLE too ripped to be an "everyman" ben, oh, and you're a spaz who gets cheap laughs off of toilet humor in literally every movie. grow up and learn how to actually be funny. what a talentless hack.

3. Paul Walker. why are you famous? oh, you're good looking... and that's it. great job paul. why do i even know your name? why are you a millionaire? why are people in hollywood refusing to let you go be a waiter and bang chicks b/c you used to be in movies?

4. Martin Lawrence. who in the hell keeps giving you work? you aren't even kind of funny. there are like 15 TOO many martin lawrence movies, and that's offensive to me. i can't think of a single time when Martin lawrence made me laugh. i like bad boys and bad boys II despite of his ass, and that's saying a lot. i once watched "Black knight", and i kind of threw up in my mouth. (by "kind of", i mean "a lot")

honorable mentions: Keanu Reeves (only saved because of Point Break), Kevin Costner

phew. ok, now onto the arguing.

now, for those of you that don't know, i'm in law school. which means, people like to argue. now, don't get me wrong, i like to argue as much as anybody, but, there are certain things that should just not be argued about, b/c they cannot possibly be resolved. so therefore, i'm going to lay out a couple of ground rules for healthy debate and set some limits on what can and cannot be debated under these ground rules. first: don't do the "i know someone" thing, b/c that can go on forever and isn't really an argument. like, if you're arguing in favor of welfare, don't say "my aunt was on welfare and she needed it to get back on her feet". you cannot justify an entire social program by highlighting one emotional story. that's what the mass media does, and that's why the mass media is garbage. the fact remains that anyone can trot out one individual to make any point they want to make, b/c people are infinitely varied. i could probably go out and find individuals that fall on both sides of every issue b/c of their experiences, that doesn't make either one right in and of themselves. you have to think of what is best for the largest group of people, b/c every decision helps and hurts some people some of the time. focus on the macro, not the micro, unless you're writing literature. if you're arguing public policy, you have to think of the big picture, not of the one kid you met. in general, stay away from emotion. emotion is the opposite of logic. so you don't think it's "right" that people in Africa are starving. explain to me some way in which the idea that you're presenting is going to work in real time. use "facts" and "logic", i know both aren't even taught anymore b/c the world is so wishy-washy, but that's what actually helps you make a point, if anyone even cares about such a thing anymore. stay clear of insults and broad overgeneralizations. avoid demonizing the person you're arguing with, it's childish, dramatic, and over emotional. you know what i'm talking about. it's the main reason why people in the United States no longer enjoy freedom of speech, b/c so much of our society overreacts to everything. everyone should be able to state any opinion they want to without people freaking out and causing that individual to lose their livlihood. no one has any authority other than what the listener assigns to the speaker, so why the hoopla over shit that non-authority figures say you ask? simple. because it allows the individual oppossed to the statement made by the now villified speaker to avoid the statement entirely by dismissing the speaker. that statement is never confronted with logic or fact, but rather with emotion. i believe this unfortunate fact of american life explains in large part the decline of american society. there are large swaths of american life that simply cannot be fully and rationally discussed because doing so is "racist" or "homophobic" or "anti-immigration" or [insert verbal hyperbole here]. the freemasons had it right, with their "no politics, no religion" rule for discussion, b/c really, you aren't converting anyone on either one of those points, especially in today's day and age, when politics are indistinguishable from religion. George W. Bush is vilified to an extent that no political figure ever should be in the public sphere, as was Bill Clinton, as will the next president. that's just the name of the game in a world where logic and reason have taken a back seat to name calling, emotion, overgeneralization/simplification and hyperbole. i mean spare us the verbal hyperbole and acrobatics. anyone who leads the world's most powerful military and economy is going to make some bad decisions, which are of course amplified by the stakes at issue as well as the sheer resources involved. that doesn't make them a moron, it doesn't make them evil, it makes them human. and the fact of the matter is that everyone would get along a lot better if we stopped approaching every issue as a matter of dogma, and approached it rationally, with real world solutions and remedies readily at hand. i'll give you 2 issues as an example. 1.) israel/palestine. 2.) immigration. what's the point of "debating" these issues? does it ever end in anything other than a shouting match? it's impossible to "debate" something that isn't broken down in rational terms for either party involved, but is rather an emotional issue to be approached as a matter of utmost importance. someone that's pro-israel sees it as israel's right to exist as a country, someone that's pro-palestine, as the palestinian's right to have a country amid the injustices that they've incurred. neither side gives two shits about the other. now where's the resolution there? clearly the jews aren't just going to leave, and clearly there's no where else for the palestinians to go. ergo, the solution requires them to work together, which they are unable to do b/c of the sheer emotion involved. so what's the point in debating it? you aren't debating anything, you're invoking emotional pleas concerning who suffered more and who deserves more. that's so removed from reality to be comical, so what's the point? if an issue can't be approached logically, why talk about it? immigration, same deal. for those that are anti-immigration, it's about maintaining the status quo, about keeping law and order, about securing the borders, about saving jobs. for those that are pro-immigration, it's about rights and "this is a nation of immigrants" and equality and so on. once again. apples and oranges. so why debate? unless something can be framed in the same parlance, there's no point, b/c no agreement or compromise can possibly be reached. unfortunately, we have the sensationalist media to thank for this. in order to make every news story sound as tantalizing as possible, every issue is broken down to emotional absolutes, so that's how the public understands everything. illegal immigrants are "criminals" for one side and "victims" for the other, rather than something to be discussed and understood. no one wants to understand anything, they want to be right. and seriously, when was the last time that someone's poorly informed initial opinion turned out to be correct? i'll give you a hint, it starts with an "n" and rhymes with "clever". i'll argue "Goodfellas" vs. "the Godfather" all day, or something else that can be framed as an actual discussion, but you can keep the abortion debate to yourself, b/c it cannot possibly be approached in a logical and responsible manner. this is 2007, and the United States of America has been reduced to squabbling children.

Some Shit.

I'm back from fall break. fall break is maybe the worst idea ever as far as law students' academic careers are concerned, it's just a gigantic tease. sure, in undergrad there is fake fall break, aka fall "long weekend", but in law school they give us a whole week off... and it's a horrible idea. i am the opposite of motivated. i mean, don't get me wrong, it was sweet to see the g/f every day, but one week breaks from reality aren't conducive to me being a productive student, that's all i'm saying.

something that should absolutely be illegal? commercials with the "alarm clock" sound in them. that sound originates from the depths of hell... i get a horrible cringe up my spine every time one of those fucking commercials comes on. don't advertisers realize that basically everyone has been conditioned to hate that fucking noise?

There is shit going on around here that I'm not in favor of and in no way condone. I just got back from the "campus recreation center" here at UC, and we need to lay some ground rules for that place, b/c there is all types of douchebaggery going on up there. first: the outfits. what in god's name are you people thinking with some of this shit that you've got going on? in what world is wearing a wife beater in public in any way acceptable? perhaps the worst part is that it's never the undershirt wifebeater, it's a wifebeater of the gray/black variety. come on now, that's just absurd, on so many levels. put some fucking clothes on. at least 40% of the guys that are up at the rec don't actually partake in any physical activity, they just walk around while wearing inappropriate outfits, you aren't a fucking peacock, go strut your shit elsewhere. perhaps even worse than the wife beater is the ridiculous cut-off. you know what i'm talking about, the shirts that are so cut off that the only connecting fabric on the sides consists of a 1.5 inch strip, dude, come on, no one wants to see your fucking nipple. another interesting outfit phenomenon at the rec is the exact opposite, the "fully clothed" look. typically found among individuals of... what's the term? "foreign" descent, the "fully clothed look" is simply ridiculous. there is no way you can partake in any physical activity wearing a sweater and tight, tapered jeans right out of a Chris Isaac video. what are you even thinking dude? like what, you just got out of church so you decided to head straight up to the rec, get some reps in? i wish i could read people's minds, i just want to know what the hell is going on. (i'm not even going to speak on those unfortunate souls that "grunt", b/c i'm sure you know how i feel on that point.) another weird thing are the people that go to the rec and do pushups... is that really neccessary? can't you do pushups anywhere? it perplexes me, utterly. the other thing that just needs to cease completely while i'm around is "lesson time", you know, the people that don't really know what they're doing, so they're just up there fucking around and taking up space. if you're going to fuck around, go get a basketball and throw up half court shots, i've got better shit to do than watch you make a fool of yourself, get off of things that people might actually want to use. same deal for the people that bring their girlfriends/people they're trying to fuck up to the rec and screw around with them. really? you really have to use a piece of equipment to flirt with some chick? really? get some balls and hit the dorm room kid, you're in college, if you can't get laid w/o the rec just give up.

ok, you know what else is crazy? wild animals. they're fucking bizarre, in many ways. first, isn't it crazy how strong animals are? like, it makes you wonder how strong people could be if we weren't taught from an early age to hold back. and then you realize how people like Manny Ramirez and Mike Tyson became dominant athletes, they don't have the mental capacity to absord any sort of socialization on that point, ergo, they never lost their feral, wild animal strength. like, if a dog/cat is pissed at you, they can be hard to handle. imagine a monkey/puma, much less a moose/bear. basically, all animals have extreme retard strength, and so does Manny Ramirez. that's not even really what i wanted to talk about as far as wild animals go, what's really crazy is how some animals have "jobs", and how intensely into these jobs they are. like a beaver. how into making their dams are beavers? what if any person anywhere was as into doing ANYTHING as beavers are into making their dams? if i had "beaver drive" i would have like 3 PhDs already and be on my third million. i mean, read about these fuckers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver
. ok, it's official, after reading that article, i'm afraid of beavers and their intensity level. i mean, you wreck a beaver dam, and they don't sulk, they don't do anything except rebuild it EXACTLY HOW IT WAS. wtf? that is crazy, and that's why wild animals are sweet. i mean, what if you just spent weeks building a sweet house, and then someone came and wrecked it. i guarantee there would be some intermediate step between finding your house destroyed and you starting to build house #2. not so with a beaver, they're just like "well, fuck it" and they go off to work. it blows my mind. basically, if a person was a beaver, they'd do their job for 17-18 hours a day, sleep 4 hours, and eat for 2 hours. just all business. what if someone kept that schedule? you'd be a billionaire by age 25. and it's not just beavers, groundhogs do the same shit, so do lots of birds. did you know that groundhog/gopher burrows extend for like hundreds of yards? what do you think they spend ALL of their time doing? you guessed it, fucking digging. what do you think the first thing they do if some goofball wrecks their burrow is? build burrow #2. wild animals are just too intense for me, like on every level. i'm not a fan of their intensity level. i don't trust anyone/thing that can't relax. beavers, gophers, nesting birds, spiders, bees, ants, squirrels? not relaxing. just all intensity, all the time. basically, if a beaver had a motto, it would be "get busy living or get busy dying", and if they were a person, they'd drive a Chevy Silverado and wear "Wolverine" boots, telling stories about how they started their business while they made "business calls" on their fucking nokia. i think that's why i like bears. are bears terrifying? absolutely, a bear will fuck you up. but they aren't all business all the time, they've got other shit going on. if you sent a cameraman out to follow around a bear, who knows what he's getting into, fucking with people's trash, rolling around in the grass, trying to catch some fish, i mean, the bear's got a pretty solid day. if i was raised in the wild and didn't know anything about human society, i like to think i'd be down with the bear life. beavers? i can't relate. too intense. blue-collar even. the beaver is a blue-collar ass animal, they call him the workin' man. penguins screw around too, as well as most primates, i'm down with that. otters are pretty sweet too, count me in on the otter lifestyle. animals that are jittery as shit are completely obnoxious too. squirrels, deer? what are you so scared of? just take it easy, you're hanging out on campus, what's the worse that's going to happen to you? if you can't outrun a UC student/dog, then just hang it up as a wild animal, you've got retard strength, just relax. the weirdest thing about deer to me is how they're scared of everything EXCEPT cars. like what, you're scared of a kid on a bike and someone's annoying ass golden retriever, but not a 1,500 lb. metal killing machine hurtling down the road at 60 mph? good call, let's be overly cautious around everything except the one thing that means certain death. you're a waste of space, deer. but yeah, generally, when you just sit around and think about what wild animals are up to, it will blow your mind, b/c there's no rhyme or reason to it.

(a note on Manny Ramirez, the announcers just made a point to mention that he's "as dangerous a hitter as there is in the big leagues with two strikes, he can strike like a cobra in a basket", isn't it to the point now where we can just up and say it? wonder why he's so good with two strikes? he's obviously mentally retarded. he has no idea what the count is, what the score is. manny doesn't know if it's 0-2, 3-0, he doesn't fucking care. the guy is a running punch line for the nation. can't we just go out and say it now? look into Manny's eyes. there are no lights on upstairs. he's like a squirrel. very little to no higher cognitive function. is he functional? absolutely, the dude can clearly play baseball. he's like rainman, for baseball. rainman to math = manny to baseball. an idiot fucking savant. the dude is going to end up in a one bedroom somewhere in brooklyn, with millions in the bank but no idea how to access/use it. i mean, he GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL in the united states, and still is borderline unintelligible. he's like the Forrest Gump of baseball. "hit manny, hit". an idiot savant, Manny Ramirez.)

i'm sure you want me to talk about the Indians. well, i don't really want to, i'm bitter. 2nd most bitter experience of my adult sports-fan life, following only the 2007 BCS championship debacle by my beloved OSU buckeyes. that made me consider not liking sports any longer for at least a month, this one just really pissed me off. there's something about watching your favorite team just piss down their leg that is really, really upsetting. it makes you feel like you've got more invested in it than the players do. really, the only positive out of the whole playoff experience was that you got to see some young guys step up and make a real impact. b/c when you think about it, Sizemore, Sabathia and Hafner had a shitty postseason. and going in to the playoffs, if someone said "name the indians 3 best players", those 3 would get 90% of the votes, along with Victor. and when you consider that the Tribe beat the Yankees with their infinity payroll and took the BoSox to 7 with their 3 best players pissing down their collective legs, it's pretty remarkable really. that's the worst part about it, is the guys that should be stepping up, Sabathia and Hafner, are the guys that blew it for the tribe, that just sucks ass. your two franchise cornerstones are blowing donkey dick in the biggest moments of their professional lives thus far... it just makes you wonder. when you're fighting the champ, a heavily favored team, and you've got them on the ropes, you have to knock them out. you don't let boston go to games 6 & 7 at home. you knock them out as soon as you can. when you've got your best pitcher on the mound at home, you HAVE to win, there are no options. game 5 was the worst day of my life, after they lost that, i knew it was over, and it's completely on Hafner, Sabathia, and Wedge. 1.) hafner ground into that double play in the first, completely letting beckett of the hook after he'd given up 2 singles to lead off the game. 2.) sabathia took a shit again, nice job you fat fuck. let someone else pay your out of shape ass $25 million a year, b/c all you do is disappoint at moments when you should be stepping up. Carmona is allowed to have a shitty game, he's 23 years old and this is his first season as a big league starter. what's your excuse CC? go play guard/tackle for the browns you fat shit 3.) why in the fuck did Wedge bring CC back out for the 7th? everyone watching the game knew he was donzos, he was up around 100 pitches. fuck fuck fuck. i know 3 things. 1.) i'm never forgiving travis hafner for the giant shit he took in the ALCS. get back on the juice trav. 2.) until CC gets his fat ass into shape, he's never going to be a dominant pitcher for the entire season. if he lost 35-40 pounds and got down to 280-290 where he needs to be, no one knows how could he could be. he could be one of the greatest pitchers of the modern era. i hope he realizes that before its too late 3.) the indians have a ridiculously talented young core with a lot of players that are locked up for a long time. they'd better get at least one title out of these guys. and that's all i'm saying about it. i just wish the tribe would have gotten a shot at the Rockies, everyone knows the national league sucks ass.

halloween is coming up, which is pretty sweet. i didn't used to appreciate halloween as a holiday/event, but i'm coming around. it's just another excuse to have fun, a la cinco de mayo/st. pattys. count me in, even if i am getting too old to "rage" on a regular basis nowadays. happy halloween kiddies, i'm out.

Being 24, Dane Cook, The Tribe.

I'm going to start this out with a quick statement, fuck Ben Stiller, fuck Dane Cook, fuck Nic Cage. those are my three most hated "famous people", bar none. Ben Stiller i'm pretty sure set out with the express intent to ruin my birthday weekend, by having his new fuckfest open up. really funny Ben, act like a spaz and resort to sophomoric physical slapstick. nice job bud. let me guess, your movie is going to involve bit actors falling down/getting injured, a solid amount of poo/toilet "humor", probably a rash/disease with obvious physical symptoms of some sort, and just the general feeling of everything going against the "normal" guy, good old Ben, who is just experiencing all of this general mayhem. good thing you make millions to act like a douche and get cheap laughs off of people with low IQs. i like to explain it this way: everyone has a favorite character on two moments of comedic genius: Anchorman and Seinfeld. there is the "obviously funny" character, who they put in to appease people. on Seinfeld, it's Kramer, on Anchorman, it's Brick. in real life, it's Ben Stiller. is Zoolander good? absolutely, but that's the exception rather than the rule. his whole shtick actually works, even though there is still all the stupid physical comedy. screw you Ben Stiller, i'm not letting you ruin my birthday weekend any further by giving you the satisfaction of even talking about you. why is Dane Cook doing ads on TBS for the baseball playoffs? how is he qualified to do that? everyone knows the only reason he's famous is because he's good looking. you act like a fuck Dane, go get a worldview and something to say and then call me back. if Dane Cook looked like me, or any normal, "nonattractive" male, he'd be fucking creeping out his fellow employees as a busboy at some shit ass Crapplebees in Asshatville. i dare you to reenact a Dane Cook bit without screaming, gyrating, or acting like a general freak, and get anyone to laugh at it. it's not possible. you could speak in tongues while screaming and writhing about like a heroin addict and people would laugh, just b/c you're fucking embarrassing yourself. i legitimately know people that are more humorous than dane cook. and that is pathetic, that douche is a borderline household name. what does he do that's funny? he just freaks out, he's like a curiousity more than anything. i'm pretty sure i acted exactly that way for at least 3 years of my life from 11 PM-4 AM on every Friday and Saturday night, and no one paid me a damn dime for it, they usually just walked away in disgust and/or stopped talking to me.

So I turned 24 yesterday, pretty fucking crazy. i mean sure, age is just a number, whatever, but 24 is getting fucking old. well, not actually, but old enough. by most measures i should be considered an "adult" by this point in time and, well, i'm not. like, for instance, if i was your teams' first round draft pick and i was 24 years old, you'd be thinking that i was old as hell, "shit, is he mormon or something?", but if I was running for mayor everyone would basically act like i was 11. i'm not putting any value judgment on that fact, just making an observation. i've got a new theory on age. i used to be of the opinion that once you're 25 you're old, no questions asked, i've since changed my tune. i now go by the "baseball" rule. like, listen to how announcers/commentators talk about baseball players. if a baseball player was 25, they'd call him young, "up and coming", a "prospect". however, if a baseball player was 28, they'd call him "a journeyman", "veteran", "in their prime" or "project". so by that logic, you're now old when you're 27-28, according to my new rule on age. (HOLY FUCK JAKE WESTBROOK SUCKS INCREDIBLE AMOUNTS OF COCK - written immediately after his douchey ass gave up a 3 run bomb to captain caveman) so that gives me a few more years here to act like a clown before i have to worry about behaving in a manner that would be considered "acceptable" by most generic measures. but the way i figure, my life is more or less 1/3rd over. if i do make it to 72, i don't want to make it too much farther than that. i'm not sure what 72 year olds are up to, but it probably isn't anything sweet. and since i'm not much of a sweater or gardening guy myself, i'm just going to go out on a limb and say that 72 is the farthest i'm going to make it. that is, of course, assuming that there is no revolutionary advance in medical technology that would allow me to unnaturally prolong my youth in defiance of god's will. however, given that the best case scenario as of right now puts me in the middle class rather than the "filthy, disgustingly rich" category, i wouldn't be able to take advantage of these miraculous procedures at any rate, so we'll just call it a day and say that my life is 1/3rd over. i'm not sure if that's good or bad. i don't think it's all bad, i don't have too many regrets at this point, so as long as that continues, i guess i can't really complain.

at any rate, the fucking media is ridiculous. the fallout from the whole "insect" thing in game 2 is the most absurd "story" i've ever encountered. everyone acted like the swarm of "midges" or whatever the fuck they are were on the Indians' team. like what, they're from Cleveland so they must practice in the midst of millions of insects in preparation for unleashing them on the poor, disadvantaged yankees? i mean come the fuck on, if you don't think that's absurd, hit the small "X" at the top of your browser window. bugs are indiscriminately annoying. what, they don't have bugs in new york? fuck off, grow up, stop making excuses for why you suck ass. i'm going to leave you with a Ryan Garko quote: "The other guys on the Yankees were acting like there were bullets flying around their heads, not gnats," Cleveland first baseman Ryan Garko added. "I mean ... this is the big leagues."

why is the fucking insect thing a bigger story than the fact that the Indians' highest paid player (Trot Nixon), doesn't even play? or the little fact that the Indians' payroll ($61 million) is less than what ARod, Giambi and Jeter make in a season ($71 million). source:http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/salaries?team=nyy - and that number doesn't even include whatever exhorbitant amount they're paying Clemens' old ass. i mean, why is there a huge stink over steroids (which have not been proven to aid or improve performance in baseball at any point in time) when there is one clear, open, and easily discernible obstacle to fair competition in professional baseball, and that is the situation where one team's payroll is $197 million while their opponent's is $63 million, and we're pretending that's fair? who's the bigger bad guy and threat to baseball here? Barry Bonds or George Steinbrenner? it's supposedly a huge fucking deal when people cheat and "compromise the integrity of the game of baseball", what the fuck? how is paying whatever amount you can afford preserving the integrity of baseball? what's worse for the sport of baseball? Pete Rose betting on his team to win, or George Steinbrenner and Theo Epstein buying whoever they want while most of the other teams have to actually develop talent. what's the bigger story? some fucking bugs, or the fact that a team whose payroll is 3X that of their opponent is down 2 games to none to a team that pays their entire team less than you pay 3 of your 4 infielders? if that doesn't irk your basic conception of "fairness" and "sportsmanship", then you probably like it when top 10 college football teams put up 70 points on I-AA schools, that is to say, you're probably a fuck.

speaking of college football, how is OSU not getting more #1 votes? you can't honestly say you've seen a team look more impressive this season. Ohio State has given up 43 points this season, 40 fucking 3. and that includes the TD purdue scored with :58 remaining of a blowout, the TD Washington scored in the last minute blowout, a safety and a kickoff return TD. in meaningful minutes of the game against the defense therefore, opposing teams have scored 20 points. 20 fucking points against Ohio State's defense. in 6 games. what other team can say that? it doesn't matter who you're playing, every other team in the country has given up 20 points in a single game at least once. if you watch Ohio State you cannot legitimately say that they don't have the best Defense in the country. there are at least 4 NFL 1st day picks on that defense. book them for the national championship game, where anything can happen since they won't be 2 TD favorites this year.

oh, so something odd/funny happened today. so i'm sitting down in the living room fucking around, checking the menu to see what's on TV, and i see that on one of the generic HBO channels, Fievel Goes West is playing. so i'm like, sweet, i love(d) Fievel goes West, i'm going to watch the shit out of it. i watch probably the first 20 minutes, and i realize, wow, this movie is fucking horrible, i'm not 8 anymore, what the hell. and that's a weird thing, how some things you love when you're a little kid hold up, and some dont. like, if i watched "The Sandlot" today, i'd fucking love it. but, if i watched "the land before time", i would throw up in my mouth. someone should write a paper on why this is, i want to read it. i think there's something to be said for writing quality programming that is intended for children and that can hold up if you're older than 10. Free Willy? Shit. The Lion King? Sweet. and don't even talk about Shrek, i just know that half of the people that just read the above paragraph thought "oh, like Shrek". No, not like Shrek, Shrek is obnoxious in the same way that Family Guy is, it's too full of itself. it's just like so random and smug that i can't stand it. ok, great, you're the pop culture wizard, amaze us with your knowledge of obscure celebrities, ability to quote dated movies and dazzle us with your capability for complete randomness. oh wait, it's not funny, at all. it's random, and retarded. "What if Jack Nicholson was a blabbity bloo", oh wait, no one cares. What's Shrek and Family Guy's point of view? they don't have one. they have no opinions on anything besides the fact that they'll make you chuckle b/c of their general randomness. i demand more. beware of people that try to hard to be clever, i'm skeptical of them.

ok, that's all i've got to say about this. i'll post more regularly from here on out, i promise, shit got crazy there for a while.

Come in for the real thing.

look at these fucking jokers. random mom: "hey, i'm too lazy to walk but too corny to care that i look like a fucking moron". i hate every single person that is in this picture, and their fucking smug sensibilities. i bet at least $200 that every person in that picture thinks it's not ok to make a joke about 9/11 and speaks in a really really politically correct manner. (that's my litmus test for "cool": whether or not you get offended by lame fucking shit. why would you get offended by something meaningless that someone says? they're just a person and it's not like they're handing down edicts from on high, they aren't fucking Zues)

so in a follow up to the last post, the University of Cincinnati "Police" were hanging out around the law school lawn party last night - and one of them had a fucking Segway. what bullshit. (for those of you that don't know what a Segway is, i wish i was you, and here: http://www.segway.com/) the segway is basically the worst invention of all time, (or at least since the laserdisc) it's a giant, hulking metal fucking scooter that you lean to drive. basically, it's a shittier, slower bike. (not that bikes aren't retard, bikes are like the queens of the lame transportation community, Segways are just the overlord, unquestioned Caesar of the lame transportation realm). but beyond how shitty they are is the ridiculous price. they run like $5 grand. straight up, and they're worthless. anyone under 70 can outrun a Segway, what the fuck is a cop going to use it for? to look at people and take up too much of the sidewalk with a massive slow moving monstrosity? yeah, really non-conspicuous there. the Dodge Chargers are bad enough, the Segway is offensive. basically the UC police decided "fuck it, let's buy a $5,000 shitty electric bike so our officer can move around slower than he could by any other form of vehicular transportation". fuck you UC. i don't care if i end up as the next John Grisham,i'm not giving you a dime for your offensive use of university funds. half of the chairs in the big lecture rooms are broken but you're more concerned about purchasing overpriced and useless techno gadgetry. a pox on you. (i think that's a really shitty thing to say to someone, like, a lot worse than "fuck you", b/c what does that even mean? but wishing "a pox" on someone? that's like an act of bioterrorism if it works out, talk about hardcore.)

so law school has these events where they basically say "hey, you've been paying to get drunk your entire life, here, go get fucked up for the price of, on the house" and really, i don't know how to react or behave. maybe, if i was actually mature or had learned how to drink without just taking beers to the face that would be ok, but me + free drinks = trouble. last night was rage city. (if you don't know, "raging" is the act of, as some would say "kicking it". like, more or less, rage = blacked out, it's kind of like swimming with the dolphins) we partied that fucker down. the ramifications will be felt for weeks, i don't even want to know how many bridges i burned (i hope its in the single digits). there was a period of approx. 1 hour where all i did was walk around and say "come in for the real thing" and give people hugs. guys, girls, pets, children, whoever. they just needed a hug evidently. throw that in with the screaming rendition of Eddie Money's "Take me Home Tonight" (let's find the key and turn this engine on) and you've got a lesson in douchebaggery. i drank probably 10 drinks containing redbull, and that shit will mess you up. i'm staying out of the redbull game for at least all of this week. my heart was pounding, i was up until 5:15, i lost my debit card, couldn't find my car, all kinds of fun and exciting shit. not only did i go to sleep at 5:15, i was up before 11. redbull is like speed, a few weeks of that shit and your hair will fall out. oh, and that's without even considering thursday "double tequilla shots" night. lets just sum up thursday with a few words, 1.) i sang Night Moves karaoke (evidently it was good according to other drunk people) but don't really remember it, 2.) my friend who was driving (and drunk) got pulled over on the way home, which i do not remember, at all, usually the fuzz can kill a good buzz faster than a crazy significant other and 3.) i've been talking to this girl, who said she'd call thursday night, and the next morning i texted her with "i thought you were going to call later", having no recollection of having talked to her for a half hour at 2 AM. awesome alert. needless to say, class on friday went well. i was the model of academic focus and success. i didn't even attempt to make eye contact w/ the prof throughout the class.

next lets talk about losing personal possessions, which i did quite a bit of yesterday. first, aforementioned girl calls me friday, and like 2 seconds after we get off the phone, the screen looks like a bad horror movie, it's doing nothing but flashing white and gray. so i'm thinking... uhhh, ok, take out the battery, and after putting it back in, nothing. phone is just non-responsive. so i'm thinking great, by this time it's 4 PM, free beer starts at 5, and missing free beer is kind of like naming your son "Todd" or "Brad", that is, retarded. i head over to the verizon store, where dude is like "yeah, your phone died, it happens" and proceeds to tell me that basically i lost my contacts and everything b/c it can't be accessed on the now defunct piece of plastic. "yaaay". but, at least it was free. i guess it could be worse. later in the evening, i decide that free alcohol isn't enough for me, i've got to have the shit that you pay actual money for, and it damn well better have redbull in it. so needless to say i open tabs at several establishments, and the 'ol debit card gets lost somewhere along the way. i called around this morning to no avail, it's gone, probably in the hands of "Lieutenant Dan with legs" who frequents the front stoop of Chipotle begging for burritos and "change", who is probably planning the best way to spend the heartbreakingly small balance of my checking account. so, i cancel my card, and they're sending me another one, right? wrong. evidently since i opened up my account in fotown, they've got to send it to my Fostoria address. thanks 5/3rd. great work. way to look out for your customers. i mean, i understand the concern, but you made me answer 85 fucking security questions when i called, i don't think you mailing my card to the house that i live in is an outlandish request. so anyway, we've got to go through more than one mailing session before i have a card. which is great. nice job 5/3rd. something tells me that if i'd made a fucking scene about it they would have made it happen, but i've never been good at that kind of shit, it's just embarrassing. i should have freaked out at verizon and got a better phone b/c it's their fucking fault my old one broke, and i should have freaked out at the 5/3rd douche b/c it's incredibly inconvienient for me to not have a debit card, but nope. AB = pussy. dads and grandpas will freak the fuck out on service employees and get free shit. i just say "thanks" for shit they're supposed to do and get screwed over because of it.

what else? i've been listening the shit out of Beck lately. good times. i'm currently obsessed with "Grandma's Boy", "Superbad", "40 Year Old Virgin" and "Beerfest", and quoting them accordingly. is every single one of those movies retarded? absolutely, but if you can't laugh at stupid shit then go read someone else's blog. Kanye's new shit dropped this week. i'm a big fan of Kanye West productions, he's easily a top 2 producer in hip hop/rap (the other is Just Blaze if you're keeping track at home). if you're interested in shit kanye has produced for other people, check out the "ITunes Essentials Kanye West Productions". the album is solid, not his best, but it has it's moments. i say it's better than "College Dropout" but worse than "Late Registration". but it's 'Ye, so you know it's fun. "Good Life" is easily the most listened to song of the last week. every song is like polished and an actual song on the album, which is a complaint for me, since some of my favorite kanye songs are the screw around ones that will never see the radio, "Home", "Out the Game", "Late". at any rate, he's outselling the shit out of 50, which is awesome, since 50 is fucking horrible, on every level. other than "in the club" which everyone liked back in like '03, there are maybe 2 50 songs i can even stand. he's fucking obnoxious. it's too bad he won't really retire. he needs to go back under whatever fucking rock he crawled out from under and bounce. in the famous words of "Biff" in Back to the Future: "Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here".

oh. go tribe and go bucks, they're easily the best team in the Big 10 right now (unless you count Penn State giving up 24 points to Buffalo and Wisconsin giving up 30 to the fucking CITADEL as signs of a quality team). mark my words, no Pac-10 team not named USC will beat Washington as bad as Ohio state did this season. i wish i could go to an indians game, the stretch run would be great to see.

ok kids, we're coming up on 9 PM, time try to find some boozing to get into. no worries, i have self-imposed limits in place tonight... i'm not surpassing 8 on the 10 point drunk scale. thursday and friday were like 11s. ciao.

Cars on Campus and Friends.

know what is a good time? sand volleyball, i shit you not. it's been... ohh, 4 years-ish since i've partaken prior to last saturday, and i had an absolute blast. the only drawback is the sand that somehow got all over my bedroom.

saw 3:10 to Yuma the other day. and.. loved it. well first, as a prequel, Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are easily 2 of my top 5 actors, and they did not disappoint. in a character-driven film, they both show up and perform immaculately. neither is getting oscar of course, but they still turn in the kind of performances that make me go back to the movies. now, you know i love a good western, and this has a little more to offer than your typical cowboy shoot-em up. there's moral ambiguity (strange territory for a western) here, with Russell Crowe turning in a nuanced performance as a rotten outlaw who has a little bit more to him than your average criminal. a soul, if not neccessarily a conscience. Russ gives his career a much-needed shot in the arm and sets himself up for a big fall (American Gangster drops in November) and you all know i love villains that are definitely 100% rotten but still, you can't quite hate them. (see: Bill the Butcher, Frank Costello) Christian Bale is (as always) great as a rancher with something to prove to his family and himself. and the two starkly different men (Bale's Evans is a family man, quiet and brooding while Crowe's Wade is charming and nihilistic) develop a bond and mutual respect, if not quite a friendship. i thoroughly enjoyed it. just enough action to keep this one exciting, but enough characterization to make this more than your run of the mill western. the film leaves you wanting more and unable to guess what's next. Six Feet Under's Ben Foster is outstanding as Crowe's ultraviolent right-hand man with a crush on his boss, and the acting pulls a slightly above average script into a quality film. definitely work a watch. grade: A-

so i went to the rec today (new thing: don't be fat, i have a new rule, and that is if i'm just sitting around reading away messages and i read an away message that says: "working out", "lifting", "running", or something else of the like, i have to get up and do it. it should work out since i can see the rec from my fucking bedroom window. so here's hoping i turn back the 5 year tide of fatness) and i had to dodge multiple "campus" vehicles, and i realized, wait, this happens like every fucking day. this is a sidewalk, like, pedestrian oriented, why're you driving your fucking white "UC" ford ranger up on me and looking pissed when i don't notice b/c i've got the ipod going? are there not roads all the way around campus? there are just these random campus vehicles running roughshod over all paved surfaces, and it's pretty damn ridiculous. it's sort of like the bicycle concept (you know, don't fucking ride your bike on a sidewalk where people are walking) only times 45. like, if you're alone in a truck, and you want to get from one end of campus to the other, TAKE THE FUCKING ROAD. holy shit, i feel like i'm taking crazy pills. speaking of UC's campus, i've got two other beefs, since i now walk all the way across it on a daily basis. 1.) it's kind of nice when the undergrads aren't there. those little turdburglers fuck everything up with their bumbling about. unfortunately the empty campus only continues until next tuesday, and they'll be sure to make dodging cars even more difficult just by being retarded. that's without even mentioning the bars, aggravating, not that the scenery doesn't improve with the influx of thousands of 18-22 year old women, just that any positive that may arise from the females is offset by the negative effect that vast numbers of 1.) douchebag or 2.)"white but act black" guys have on everything, they generally don't heighten my enjoyment of anything in particular. oh, not to mention that these legions of turdburglers make dodging the "sidewalk highway" exceedingly more difficult, just by pure virtue of their being in the way. 2.) the campus fucking police. they are all over the sidewalks and pedestrian paths of campus as much as any other middle aged campus employee who's only their for the benefits, but they're also glorified security guards who get to stomp around like they own the place. we understand that the school is getting us all in the ass on tuition, but is it really neccessary to shove it in our face with the unneccessarily nice campus police vehicles? everyone knows that cops drive Ford Crown Victorias. not fucking $30,000 Dodge Chargers. that is absurd, offensive, and ridiculous. this is a longstanding beef of mine that dates back to Miami University's use of fucking Chrysler Pacificas(!) for their joke ass "police department". great job guys, you definitely need top of the line vehicles for busting all those drunk kids. what happens when a real crime occurs? nothing, they tell you to call the city police. i had a playstation 2 stolen out of my dorm room way back when, and what did they do? fucking nothing. "you know who might have done this?" - no, i fucking don't, that's why i called you, if i know who did it i'd have it fucking back already. jesus christ. go work at a mall or something and stop acting official. "campus police". psh. i wish they'd all get in an action movie-style 30 car explosive pileup and destroy all of their lavish vehicles. oh wait, that'd never happen b/c they DON'T SOLVE REAL CRIMES. yaaay for efficient use of university funds.

oh, so on friends. i've been thinking about friends lately, how someone you don't know one day can become like a family member in the not-so-distant future. it's fascinating really. and it made me think, who're my friends? like really, how'd i meet them and how'd we come to be close? and it made me realize, like every friend i have is someone i was forced into a close situation with. i either 1.) went to high/middle school with them, 2.) lived in the dorm/house with them, 3.) partied with them, 4.) worked with them, or 5.) had a bunch of law school classes together. so i mean, you can't pick who does any of that shit with you really, they're for the most part random assignments. especially shit like dorms, high school, whatever. which leads me to the conclusion that anyone can be friends with anyone if they're just together all the time. i mean, if that is the case, then why does everyone make such a big fucking deal out of making themselves fit into some cubbyholed definition of who they are and what they're all about? sure, i share some interests with most of my friends, but i don't really share all of my interests with any of them. (i have friends that i talk to about movies, friends that i talk to about sports, friends that i just shoot the shit with, i mean, it's all over the place) it more just goes down to who's fun to talk to and hang out with. and it doesn't matter what you wear, who you hang out with, what band/movies you like or what your "type" is. what matters is if you get along with the other person. but who knows. maybe other people don't agree with me and i'm just lucky in that regard. but it seems like random pairings of people almost always result in longlasting friendships, and i think that's a good thing for humanity as a whole. call me lame if you want. if i'd lived in a different dorm freshman year i would have ended up with a completely different group of friends throughout college. if i'd been assigned to a different law school section and had classes with different people, i'd have a completely different group of friends now at law school. if i'd not played football in HS i'd have a completely different group of friends from High School. it just seems that what really matters as far as who you get along with/count as a friend is not some preconceived notion of who you are, but common experiences. and sure, you can pick people out from a crowd that you think MIGHT have common experiences with you, but that's not much better than just a shot in the dark. so i guess what i'm saying is, fuck cliques, give people a chance, you never know. i really believe that a solid % of people are at least somewhat passably cool. if i had a $ for everytime that i had a conversation with someone that i thought "oh shit, here comes so and so" but then realized that they're actually kind of cool, i'd have enough money to buy something maybe kind of nice, ha.

maybe stranger than the process of gaining friends is the process of losing friends. that's always seemed really strange to me. i will say this, i've never personally stopped being friends with someone b/c of a fight/argument. people have done so with me, but really, what's the point of taking something meaningless so seriously? the people that just drop people over a stupid argument that they were formally close with blows my mind. so i'm not talking about that. i'm talking about the gradual process that starts with the "i'm busy, i'll call him back later" involves into "damn, i wonder what he's been up to" and culminates in an awkward greeting the next time you run into them and a realization that you really aren't friends anymore. it's sad and strange to me how something that wasn't intentional to start with can completely end a friendship that maybe was once important to you. hm. i wonder.

well, that's all i've got for tonight folks. i don't think that post was very good. but oh well, it worked for me. sorry if it didn't make sense.

Songs.

i just realized how much i love the black background on this site. that kicks ass, white screens are killer on my eyes. i want my word page to be black w/ white font.

so i just deleted everything on my ipod and decided to start over. it's pretty fun, i try to do it rather regularly (i've got the 2 gig nano which is now of course completely obsolete but it only holds like 400 songs, so i've got to basically delete songs when i want to put new ones on and sometimes just start all over.) and in looking at the 17 gigs of music on this poor, abused computer (somehow i've had the same desktop since i started college, which is like a miracle in and of itself, it's got the same status as some old guy's '71 ford truck at this point, if it was a car, it'd have like 170,000 miles on it.) and trying to whittle it down to the 400 or so songs that i want to have available to me on my daily walks to and from the law school and during work outs, however rare they may happen to be. (that is a separate though equally fascinating topic, how it came to be that i cannot work out without my ipod, last week i came home from school with the intention of changing and going to the Rec, but found that my ipod had been playing in my bookbag all day and thus was out of battery. needless to say, i did not go to the Rec. it's odd. i've only had the thing for like 3 years and it's a severe addiction.) so basically for the last hour or so i've just been scrolling down my list of music and adding whatever suits my fancy. some new shit, some old shit, some corny shit, whatever. which got me thinking... what are my favorite songs of all time? like, if i could listen to a small group of songs exclusively for the rest of forever, what would they be? so i'm going to give you a list. i'll title it "AB's 10 desert island songs", the 10 songs i would listen to if they were the only things i could listen to if i was isolated in complete seclusion. it's going to be a grab bag, so prepare yourself.

"AB's 10 desert island songs", in no particular order of preference, since i prefer random/shuffle (even though random is never actually that random) anyway.

1. "Narcolepsy", Third Eye Blind.
I have a strange love for corny 90's music. the 90's were almost worse than the 80's in a lot of ways, particularly in how serious everyone was taking themselves. like, duran duran was gay, but i'm at least 70% sure they were fucking around. what's limp bizkit's excuse? Anyway, I've probably listened to "Narcolepsy" at least 500 times, and i still fucking love it. if any karaoke place actually had it, i'd jam the shit out of it. I just started listening to it again, and it's like an old friend, i fucking love it. I can totally feel this narcolepsy slide into another nightmare. no shit, and i mean, i do read dead russian authors volumes at a time, and there is a bone in my hand that connects to a drink in a crowded room where the glasses clink. so how' you like to be alone and drowning? i fucking wouldn't. but i'd def. see third eye blind if i could get like 2 or 3 fun people to go with me, and enjoy the shit out of it.

2. "Let's Stay Together", the Reverend Al Green.
My love for this song started when i started loving Pulp Fiction (you know, it's playing in the nightclub when Marcellus is telling Butch about pride: "that's pride fuckin' wit chu... pride never helps. it only hurts") in ohh... 2000 or so. like... Let's Stay Together is just a fucking jam. and i don't know, forgive me for sounding completely lame, but that's what love is to me. "Let's Stay Together", whether times are good or bad, happy or sad. i hope someday i've got someone that i actually, legitimately feel that way about - "being around you is all i see". i'll rock the shit out of this one karaoke too. and there's a sight, a fat hairy white guy jamming to the reverend. "you make me feel so brand new", that's such a fucking great line. damn Al, i want someone to make me feel brand new. i could put this shit on repeat and probably tear up a little bit.

3. "Gimme Shelter", the Rolling Stones.
This is, in my opinion, the greatest song ever written. what a fucking jam. i've never heard anything even in the same genre. i've loved this song since the first time i heard it, and then after it was the theme to the opening montage of "The Departed"? "I don't want to be a product of my environment... I want my environment to be a product of me". holy shit. i get the chills. "rape, murder, it's just a shot away". what does that mean? no one knows. but it's fucking sweet. "love sister, it's just a kiss away", and isn't that the truth. i close my eyes, put this on, and i'm taken somewhere else.

4. "Night Moves", Bob Seger.
Maybe my favorite song of all time. i love every single thing about this song, it's so poignant. this song just gets the nostalgia going. and i'm a sucker for nostalgia. i feel like it represents quintissential Americana. "ain't it funny how the night moves when you just don't seem to have as much to lose? strange how the night moves with autumn closin' in."
i could be in the fucking himalayas and i'd hear "night moves" and it'd take me back to a case of natty, an awkward girl, a friend's basement and a backseat in good old Fostoria Ohio (or the surrounding country roads, but who's keeping track). we were workin. workin and practicin.

5. "#41", The Dave Matthews Band.
There was a point in my life when i was a monster fucking DMB fan , i think i've seen them 14 times, either 13 or 14, and i dunno, Dave and i have had a falling out. but i still love those first 4 albums (Remember Two Things, Under the Table and Dreaming, Crash and Before These Crowded Streets) and i'd hope that i'll love them for the rest of my life. this has been my favorite dave matthews band song since i bought "Crash" from the fucking BMG cd club in like '97 and you just can't turn that off. who knows how many times i've listened to any one of a myriad of versions, live, acoustic, whatever, and a particularly good version will tear me right up (the best version is on Listener Supported Disc 1). be gentle with it. is it long? hell yes. but worth every minute. i don't think i've ever fast forwarded through that 6 minute instrumental at the end of the Listener Supported version, and that's saying something. "I will go in this way and find my own way out I won't tell you to stay but I'm coming to much more me all at once the ghosts come back reeling in you now what if they came down crushing remember when I used to play for all of the loneliness that nobody notices now I'm begging slow I'm coming here only waiting I wanted to stay I wanted to play, I wanted to love you." i'll always have #41.

ok, let's switch directions some.
6. "Notorious Thugs" - The Notorios B.I.G. and Bone Thugs & Harmony.
Is and has been my favorite rap song of all time. Is it hard? absolutely. i just love Biggie's verse. who knows, I played football at Fostoria after all. this is my jam and has been for a long time. Biggie's verse is the greatest moment in rap history. i really believe that. "armed and dangerous, ain't too many can bang with us, straight up weed no angeldust, label us, notorious"
awesome alert. straight up. this song reminds me of sitting either A.) in the filthy fucking locker room at fostoria memorial stadium or B.) in Haman/AG's house playing asshole and acting like drunk assholes ("asshole, fuck you for making me drink last game, drink 34" "Brenner, drink 40, don't be a dick" -- soon to be followed by a near physical altercation over the excessive number of drinks that are being handed out and probably some driving). good times either way. those memories alone would get me through a solid month.

7. "Year of tha Boomerang" - Rage Against the Machine.
If you weren't into Evil Empire in 8th grade/high school and you're between 20-25 years old, you're probably a chick. I've been a huge Rage fan since i got into music in junior high, and really i could have picked any of 6 or 7 Rage songs that would have fit the bill. but "Year of tha Boomerang" just fucking rocks. "Swimming in half truths, makes me wanna spit" "Now it's upon you". on second thought, maybe this song isn't the best idea for a desert island, but i still effing love it. written in response to the writings of Franz Fanton, an Algerian revolutionary, who claimed the "year of the boomerang" would be the day when the former colonies of the west would come to dominate the globe. who knows about all of that, but the song captures that pretty well. plus, i mean, tom morello is the shit. i still resent Mike D of the douchebag Beastie Boys for getting hit by a car while riding his bike like he's fucking 6 and causing the June 2000 show at the Polaris ampetheater and joint tour to be indefinitely postponed and subsequently cancelled when rage broke up in the interim. so sadly, mr. brenner never got to see rage, hopefully this little reunion turns into a new album and national tour. lord knows we need rage now more than ever.

8. "In the Evening" - Led Zeppelin.
In college i was a huge fucking Led Zeppelin fan (i've got the poster when Robert Plant is doing his best Senator Craig impression and looking for some random guy ass, see here: http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?startat=/getposter.asp&APNum=1107482&CID=21B14F75B3AC4DBE99B956767667978D&PPID=1&search=led%20zeppelin&f=c&FindID=13946&P=1&PP=3&sortby=PD&cname=Led+Zeppelin&SearchID=), and this has been my favorite Led Zep song since i purchased the DVD set back in High School and saw how effing badass Jimmy is on this fucking song. i think it's my favorite riff/solo in classic rock history. In the Evening, In Through the Out Door. check it, if you're disappointed, go read someone else's blog.

9. "If I had $1,000,000" - The Barenaked Ladies.
My all time karaoke favorite. only if a certain Mr. Alex Grine is there to hold down the lower part though of course, it is a duet after all. there's not really anything deep or meaningful to this track, it's just a fun, silly, cute little track and it's a lot of fun to sing, honestly. plus, memories of good times.

10. "Jessica" - Graham Colton
The acoustic version of this song kicks ass as well. I suppose the real reason I love this song is that i dated a girl named jessica for oh... a long fucking time. and basically 50% of that time was us either breaking up, being broken up, or me wanting to break up with her. so i mean, a song about getting over a girl named jessica who liked to play games sure as hell worked for me. it doesn't hurt that it's a decent little song either. well, anyway, i love this song. "so you've got all the answers to the questions your heart asks, what you won't say won't hurt you, now it's coming on to fast, you're the one i can't figure out, and i'm the one you can't forget, and do you think love's the reason that i'm still spinning in your head?" that's a great fucking lyric. and it really got me through some tough times. "starting over without you, you're the first thing in my past" -- "jessica, your world's not worth saving, if you don't finish what you start, it's the hardest thing to let you go, but i'm leaving tonight, you're just someone i used to know, goodbye". wow, i'm tearing up a little just listening to it again. yeah, i love this song, i could listen to it forever. it just seems so damn relevent to my life, then, and now.

Honorable Mentions: "Takeover" - Jay-Z, "Babylon II" - David Gray, "Crush" - DMB, "Heart of Gold" - Neil Young, "The First Cut is the Deepest" - Cat Stevens, "I Found a Reason" - Cat Power, "Thunderstruck" - AC/DC, "Panic In Detroit" and "Queen Bitch" - David Bowie, "Now We Are Free" - Gladiator score, "Comfortably Numb" - Pink Floyd, "Bargain" - The Who, "Bullet the Blue Sky" - U2, "Out The Game" - Kanye West, "Mr. November" - The National (seriously).

so that's all i've got. don't hate, participate. wow, i've been doing this for way too fucking long. enjoy.

Daddy's back in the blog game.

whore. she tried to ruin 2 of the better recent films with her horrible over acting, and fucked billy bob thornton. a lot. that instantly drops you 3 points in the 10 point scale, i heavily favor consideration of prior sexual partners in determination of your outright physical attractiveness.

looks really cool in a really cool fucking movie. haters, back away.

(preface: i'm in a really, really weird mood tonight, so i apologize if this blog appears to have been written by Miss Teen South Carolina, who is hopefully in the hospital getting her stomach pumped tonight after servicing Clemson's entire football team as punishment from the fates)

so here i am. i've been talking about starting a new blog for months, i figured tonight's as good a time as any, so here goes. i haven't posted on a blog of any sort in months, so forgive me if i seem a little rusty. i'm probably not in the best mood to be posting at any rate, but you know what i always say, no guts no glory (to hell with it if that phrase usually proceeds a shot of tequilla, it's generally applicable). i have a goal for this blog, and that's to not capitalize anything or divide the posts up into paragraphs, so only dedicated readers can delineate what the shit is going on. (sub-topic: i am here advocating the replacement of "what the fuck" with "what the shit", i feel like "what the shit" is more effective at conveying what needs to be said because of the lack of meaning assigned to the word "fuck" anymore, it's the most commonly used word in many an individual's vocabulary, "shit" has almost become more dirty and taboo just by virtue of it's relative non-use) why would someone purposefully alienate the majority of their readership? call it an adventure in obnoxiousness, a term that i feel like most high school teachers would circle in red pen were it used, although its use should be encouraged, "being obnoxious" is far inferior as a means of conveying what i'm actually attempting to accomplish. what's new with me you ask? well, another school year is upon us. what is this now? number 18? 12 + 4 +2, it would be number 18 indeed. pretty overwhelming when you think of it that way... i'll be 24 in a month, and 75% of my time on this earth has been spent either in school or ready to return to school. was it well spent? i hope so, but who really knows at this point. i kind of feel like a waste of space, all i'm really doing is ensuring that i'll be broke for a few more years (and that's completely ignoring the thousands of dollars in debt that i've accumulated over the last year plus). do i want to be a lawyer? maybe. probably, why not. if someone asked me "if you had all the money in the world what job would you do" i'd choose: Eric from entourage (i know more about movies than he does and i'm at least 48X LESS of a gigantic douche, and have you seen how hot the chicks he gets with are? the dude is 5'3 135), jacques cousteau/steve zissou and an astronaut, but that's neither here nor there. being a lawyer probably isn't so bad, if you can keep your soul and not completely sell out to the relentless machine that is american consumerism. i still really think i want to be an astronaut, but i think it's a little late for that career path, unless i pull a Christa McAuliffe and get a sympathy bid i suppose, although that didn't end too well for her, so maybe we'll just scratch that proposal. the nfl starts thursday, which i am unbelieveably stoked about, even if the Bills are going to suck ass this year, i've become a fan of the entire nfl in my old age... like, if it was socially acceptable for me to do so, i would wear one of those jackets with all the teams on it, i just feel like i wouldn't be able to get away with it, kind of like how i couldn't rock a Bob Sanders/Bart Scott jersey no batter how badly i want to. so you know what would be an awesome song if it wasn't irretrievably and forever linked with chevy trucks? "like a rock" by none other than bobby rock. if you can listen to it and not be subconsciously overwhelmed with images of tight kmart bought wrangler jeans and tacky cowboy hats while generic underwear models moonlighting as "cowboys" carry on stereotypically "country" activities like throwing hay into the cab and hauling rocks, activities which i'm sure chevy trucks accomplish to a much greater degree than its immediate competitors, you'll find a pretty awesome fucking song, right up there with his other midwest jams. the midwest springsteen, that bobby rock, generally extremely underrated and underappreciated as an artist, a sad state of affairs, i've got 2 or 3 bobby rock jams that i feel like i could bust out if i was ever in a "superbad"-esque jam and forced to sing on threat of death by angry cokeheads. so i'm 23, fat, and single. which is unfortunate, b/c to be honest, i'm in the mood for a steady-esque (at least somewhat regular) bed companion, and there was a period of time in the not so distant past when i thought maybe that was going to be a definite possibility, but like so much in this life, it was not meant to be. now here i am. back to square one so to speak. to be completely cheesy and quote one of my favorite shitty 90's bands: "i've never felt so alone, and i've... never felt so alive". but here's my conondrum folks, let me tell you, 23, fat, and single is no way to be. which gives me several options, either transport myself into the universe that sustains the movie "superbad" so that i can hook up with gorgeous chicks despite my obvious weight problem (which, i must say, is much less obvious than mr. jonah hill's) there's jonah's sexy face right up there. another option is to lose weight, which honestly, i'm not sure if i'm up for at this point. that's a lot of work without the aid of FDA-prohibited diet supplements and honestly, i'm enjoying the solid 5,000 calorie/day diet i've been cruising on for the past several years. so what else? get a girlfriend you say? easier said than done my friend. i've managed to basically burn all bridges to my past, so my options are more or less limited, and very much so (date a law school girl you say? psh, i'll post about law school goggles at a later date). also, law school isn't exactly conducive to healthy relationship building, you tend to get busy at inoportune times and cranky for no reason in particular, in addition, shit you think is hilarious your partner will more likely than not have no idea what the shit you're talking about. so i'm not sure what the remedy is, if you've got a plan, let me know, i'm all about advise. oh, and if one girl comments and says "you aren't fat", i don't want to fucking hear it. i know i get exceedingly less ass than i did approx. 3-4 years ago when i weighed approx. 40-50 lbs less than i do today, so cut the shit. i think if i had telepathy i wouldn't have such bad luck with women. like, if they could hear what i'm thinking instead of saying, it'd work out much more to my advantage. but you know what they say, money and women are the two things that when you've got 'em you've got too much but when you don't have them you can't get them for the life of you, well here i am, with no women and no money... yowza. daddy's not in good shape. so the "back to the future" trilogy has been on hbo pretty steadily here as of late, and just let me say, for a set of movies that is 1.) as widely beloved and 2.) as highly regarded as the "back to the future" trilogy, there are a lot of huge fucking holes in what they're trying to accomplish there. 1.) doc is always talking about threatening the space time continuum and not wanting to know about his future but he's talking to someone who came from 1985 in 1955, doesn't doc's knowledge that his pursuit of the time machine technology will be successful push up the date of its completion? why does 1985 doc have no knowledge of seeing marty in 1955 before the first time marty goes back into the past, and if he doesn't have it b/c the space time continuum is changed once marty gets back to 1955, whats the big fucking deal? it's already screwed up. also, in bttf 2, marty watches marty playing the guitar. that's not fucking possible, all time machine discussion aside. also, if marty got his parents together in 1955 and they presumably name their child after this helpful stranger, why do they name their third child marty? wouldn't you think that if that name was considered suitable for a child, it'd be the first born given marty's important role in their marriage? finally, what the fuck is that colored coal that doc puts in the locomotive in the third installment and how is it supposed to make a 1885 train reach 88 miles per hour? i'm pretty sure that they make coal powered train engines today that could reach 88. the problem isn't how hot/fast coal burns, coal burns pretty fucking fast, it's how efficiently the engine transfers the power into motion. and in 1885 they weren't very good at it. if you're still reading i'm impressed. so ok, i'm going to finish with a list of my underappreciated movies. films that i love that just don't get that much love from society at large, which is upsetting to say the least: 1.) "Any Given Sunday", in my opinion the best football movie of all time, due in large part to its cast, is it over the top? of course. but it still accurately conveys locker-room dynamics and a basic knowledge of sport, which many more cartoony football adaptations fail to do. (i'm talking about you "the Program" and "Varsity Blues"). 2. "Grandma's Boy", Grandma's boy is every bit as funny as the more widely critically acclaimed comedies of mr. apatow, but it's guilty of association with Mr. Sandler, who of course is held in much less acclaim than anyone associated with Judd "Freaks and Geeks" Apatow, the current wunderkid of critics and elitists alike. don't get me wrong, i love Anchorman, 40 year old virgin, knocked up and superbad as much as the next guy, but Grandma's Boy is funnier than knocked up and in the same class as all of the rest. this is despite Paul Rudd's DeNiro impression, which is immaculate. shit, i capitalized a bunch of shit back there, oh well, it was a worthy effort and i'm just on a roll now. 3. Alexander. ok, ok, i know i'm defending a movie that 90% of the people that saw it hated, but seriously, give it another chance. watch the director's cut or the revisited version, you won't be disappointed. (is Angelina Jolie obnoxious? of course, she overacts the shit out of every role she's ever had, and damn near ruins "The Good Shepperd" but let's not hold it against Alexander that Angelina chose to use the same accent as Rodrigo "Paulo"/"the brazillian tom cruise" Santoro's Xerxes) what's the major complaint about Alexander? that Oliver Stone had the gall to depict him as having homosexual tendencies? i mean come on, if we know for certain that any historical figure was at least bisexual (which isn't fair given that the greeks had no concept of homo and hetero sexuality, kind of like American women in 2007), that figure is Alexander. the contemporary quotations are nearly proof-positive. macedonian nobles about court called phillip the one eye's young son alexander the "princess of macedonia", and a contemporary stated "the only foe to ever conquer alexander was hephastion's thighs". his effeminate demeanor and penchant for homosexual relations were so well known as to be common knowledge, it in no way demeans his stature as a warrior, general or a historical figure. the movie is great. give it another chance. 4. Miami Vice... do i have a man crush on Colin Farrel you ask? not really, but he does look really fucking cool in Miami Vice, you can't deny that. plus miami vice is a really cool looking, really smooth, adult movie. they don't make too many films whose target audience is older than 25 that don't star diane lane. kudos to Michael Mann, one of my favorite filmmakers (and he's producing the Kingdom, which not only stars Jamie Foxx and uses the best U2 song of all time in the trailer (bullet the blue sky if you're keeping track at home) but also releases in 3 weeks). anyway, miami vice didn't get a lot of love, but i've watched it like 4 times and i love it every time. also, the entourage finale was fucking retarded. this season was pretty weak. drama did awesome shit, which i love, since drama is my hero, but it just gets more and more ridiculous weekly, season 1 and 2 of entourage it doesn't get any better than... but i feel like it's on a slow, regrettable and perhaps inevitable decline. c'est la vie. no good thing lasts they say. well, that's it for tonight folks. if you actually read the whole thing... you're awesome as a person. feel free to comment. i'm back, i'll try and post at least once a week. if you know me you know i'm always interested in finding effective methods of procrastination. i bid you adieu. 3:10 to Yuma drops on friday, go see it if you know what's good for you, Christian Bale + Russell Crowe (as the bad guy!) + R-rated Western = cannot fail, or come see it with me, what the hell.

AB