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.
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