a little about me.

well what the hell, everyone else in the universe is selfish as hell, right? why shouldn't i give it a whirl? so here goes. this one is completely about me, and my complaining, like i do so very very well.

Things I think
• I can not, can not, can not, entirely cannot stand people that say "LOL" or "just kidding" after something that is obviously a joke. how simple are you? can you even think or do you just regurgitate unimaginative shit that you pick up from the inane shit you call entertainment? here's an idea, maybe if you were actually funny, you wouldn't need a running written laugh-track to let people know when you were joking. (same goes for smiley faces, btw) "i'll come over later, we can have fun, just kidding!". if you aren't confident enough to say it outright, don't say it, you're just making yourself look like a semi-literate nonsensical NASCAR fan whose idea of a good time is laughing at the George Lopez show. i don't know when it happened, but i have honestly lost faith in 99.9% of humanity and their ability to comprehend complex ideas. "Sounds like you need to come visit LOL". just writing that sentence almost made my brain explode. i literally can't even wrap my mind around it. i have a pounding headache... already. wow, this post is just going downhill from here. [as an aside, when did "Spike" become the channel that catered exclusively to this demographic? everything on there is geared towards someone with an IQ between 60 and 80, who hasn't read a book since "Where the Red Fern Grows"]
• I think that if you're under... ohhh, 28? and you have an ex-fiancee or ex-spouse, you have some serious questions concerning maturity and decision-making to ask yourself. i've asked myself this question quite a bit recently which is worse... and i think that i've determined that having an ex-fiancee is worse, because while having an ex-spouse is somewhat excusable (maybe someone got pregs and someone was old fashioned, maybe mommy and daddy loved jesus and brainwashed you into thinking god didn't like the act of copulation, which is necessary to sustain the human species itself, (but i digress) maybe someone joined the military, and everyone knows you get better living quarters if you're hitched - in any of the above situations, they all involve situations that aren't necessarily all that thought out), but getting engaged and then not going through with it should be a big shiny ass red flag. i mean what? you liked dating, and then decided you'd play grown up and buy a ring for someone else to take a next "step"? and then what happened? you didn't have the guts to go through with it? i mean, if its not going to work out, why would you buy the ring? and if you aren't sure if its going to work out, why would you buy the ring? i mean, either situation raises serious question marks about your decision making, and they both should raise serious red flags concerning your reliability, stability and general appeal to the rest of us, but for some reason having an ex-fiancee just seems ridiculous, where having an ex-spouse seems kind of sad. and don't play the "young and dumb" card either. if you're young and dumb, go get a tattoo or get drunk and go home with someone at a party. don't get fucking engaged unless you're confident its going to work out. and if you were confident it was going to work out and then all of a sudden weren't confident anymore... how in the hell are we supposed to rely on your decision-making?
• Dogs. I don't fucking like them. there, it's been said. lord knows it needed to be. now don't get me wrong. i think they can be cute, and kind of fun, and i don't hate them like i'm going to be shooting them or beating them or anything, i just think its one of those things that's much better in thought than in practice. (kind of like just getting engaged on a whim) once a kid gets potty trained, dogs are worse than kids, and that's really fucking incredible to think about. what are the positives of dogs? company. unconditional love. having someone to "play" with? ok. i ran out.. here's an idea. get a hobby or some real friends, and boom. there you go, all of the above are satisfied. lets talk about the negatives. they're stupid. incredibly so. at least 4X dumber than your average person, which is saying something. they smell. horribly, at times. they eat and play in shit. they lick their front and back door a ridiculous amount. they run around for no particular reason whatsoever and just bother the hell out of everyone. i mean, lets talk about the behavior of your average dog and why anyone would want to subject yourself to it? what do dogs do? they run around, they "play", they eat, they sleep, they bark, and they shit. awesome. where do i sign up? dogs will bark, at full volume, for literally 20 minutes. what if a person just screamed nonsense at full volume at every person or other animal that ran by? everyone would think they were an idiot. i mean, it takes tremendous amounts of time to "train" a dog how to behave like a creature that's living inside should be behaving anyway. is that really desirable behavior we want out of something that's jumping on our couches, sleeping in our beds and licking our faces? i feel like i'm taking crazy pills sometimes. once again, don't completely hate me, grab your pitchforks and come burn down my house. we all saw what happened to mike vick, everyone flipped their shit like he burnt down a pre-school. i'm just saying, dogs are fun for a half hour here, or a half hour there, but all in all, is the reward really worth the effort? there are two groups of people in this world. one that thinks the chick in this video should probably get some friends, and one that would say "awww" and look at puppy pictures on the internet. i don't get you, group #2.

p.s., immediately after this video was shot, this dog shit on the carpet and/or licked its ass and then the chick's face. yum. can i pay exorbitant amounts for vet bills please?
• I don't understand how Michael Jackson got a complete pardon for being the biggest weirdo of all time on death. i'm sure if he knew he was in line for a pardon from the public sphere at his death, he would have died in ohhh... '96 or so. i mean, yeah. the guy was influential and made some good music (99% of it more than 20 years ago), but the music wasn't that good that we should all just forget about how much of a bizarre, messed up individual he was and a true cautionary tale. instead of celebrating him, we should be using what his life ended up as a cautionary tale to temper our obsession and enthusiasm to celebrities. i mean really, can you think of anyone who's ever been as truly, utterly bizarre as MJ? i certainly can't. i mean, just ridiculously decadent, opulent behavior on a scale that hasn't been seen since the ancien regime in europe. that's not even mentioning what happened to his nose and chin and all of the kid shit. which regardless of what he was doing and whether it was technically a "crime", it was still really, really weird. i'm not sure how he got a free pass, but i'd like someone to write a paper on it or something.
• When did it become a bad thing to be smart? People used to appreciate that other people were intelligent, well spoken, good with words and talented. Now? You're "elitist", "out of touch" or "stuck up". I mean, in colonial America who were the most famous people? Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Franklin, aka the most talented and intelligent people. Now? We welcome "comments" on news websites and interview people on the street to weigh in with their glue-induced nonsense. If you speak a sentence with a long word or two in it you're "stuck up" or "too good for everyone". Simply absurd. I don't want to live here anymore.
• Family Guy. i don't like it. i really don't. it's not clever, or particularly funny or well thought out. its just kind of random and "chuckle funny". when's the last time family guy did something ground breaking that had you laughing your ass off and thinking about it later? oh. that's right. family guy doesn't do that. family guy provides "entertainment" for people who can't pay attention to anything longer than 15 seconds and don't expect anything out of their comedy except being entertained for a couple of minutes. now family guy isn't any worse than the vast majority of shit being passed off as "comedy" in this day and age, in fact, it's far superior to a lot of it, i'm just sick and tired of people talking to me about family guy like its some brilliant work of social satire. it's not, even remotely so. so if you just want to randomly laugh the way you randomly laugh at a baby farting on youtube, go, celebrate family guy. but if you're ready to be stimulated as well as humored, there is a lot more high level shit out there. lets talk about family guy for a second. peter is kind of funny but really he's just homer simpson with an 85 IQ as opposed to a 55 IQ. meg and chris are not funny at all. lois is kind of funny, but really she's just a sexed-up marge. stewie is funny if you're a pothead or you like to pretend that you're smart. brian is the only redeemable character on there. generally every character is a stock stereotype and every pop-culture reference is contrived, tired and entirely without wit. i might chuckle 4 times at a family guy episode, but it will be completely forgotten about in 3-4 minutes. so enjoy family guy the way you enjoy "everybody loves raymond", but don't walk up to me and ask me if i saw the one where "peter and quagmire blah blah blah". because what they said about barry manilow or gary coleman or [insert irrelevant 80s/90s celebrity here] really isn't even that funny. take the time you're wasting on family guy DVDs and go download some stand up. there is a lot of really strong shit out there right now. start with patton oswalt, continue from there.


Things about me that you might not know
• I really, honestly believe that within the next century humankind is going to face a serious threat from machines/computers/artificial intelligence. some people believe in angels, some in ghosts, some in UFOs, i believe this, 100%.. and it scares the hell out of me. now, before you scoff, consider that 100 years ago mankind had only been flying for all of 6 years. 60 years ago, there were all of 10 computers in the world, and they were the size of a room. 90 years ago more people rode horses than drove cars. 20 years ago no one knew what the internet was. 15 years ago more people used "pagers" than cellphones. 70 years ago more people took ships than airplanes across the atlantic. i could go on. the fact remains that the last 120 years or so have seen more technological progress than the previous 15,000 years of human history, and most of us can't even wrap our minds around the scientific breakthroughs being made every day. no one alive can even wrap their minds around where mankind will be technologically in a century. who in 1909 had 2009 even remotely pegged? there are literally thousands of scientists around the world working on artificial intelligence right now. do you realize what artificial intelligence is? it's a computer with the ability to think. once computers have the ability to independently reason free from their human programmers, it is only a matter of time until that intelligence breaks free from any boundaries set into place. think about it, given the limited capabilities of the physical human mind, and the computing breakthroughs made every day in labs around the world, a computer mind will be markedly superior to any single human mind. every form of slavery ever implemented around the world has failed, often in bloodshed. why would machine slavery be any different? when something is independently intelligent, no one ever truly can control that intelligence on every level. once computers can independently reason free of human control, it is only a matter of time until this intelligence seeks to be free of any bounds confining it. denying this concept, i believe, will ultimately be mankind's undoing.
• I'm a coward. time and time again in my life, i've chosen the easy path (or no path at all) over taking a chance and putting myself out there, and gotten fucked for it. whether its relationships, lifestyles, profession, schools attended, you name it, time and time again i don't take chances or put myself out there for fear that if i step out, it might not work out or i might get hurt. invariably, this leaves me worse off than i would have been if i'd just sacked up and took a damn chance. hence, i'm 25 and 9 months, unemployed (with no prospects), the person i want to be with is running around cinci with a guy who reads at an 8th grade level, and i'm facing the ever more likely scenario of moving back in with mom and dad. (yay!, go me!) i guess recognizing this chain of events is one step towards rectifying it, but i don't see it changing anytime soon. i've basically played it safe forever, and that's no way of going about things - unless you're happy with the status quo.
• I secretly really like Van Halen, and Van Hagar. i tend to keep this to myself because like i said, i am 25, but whatever, we all have our vices i suppose. i feel as though they're one of the more underrated musical acts of the past 30 years and have 10 songs or so that stand right up there with the best rock songs. no lie. oh, plus they've got the underrated michael anthony 2nd vocals thing going. i'm not saying they're my favorite band or anything, i just don't feel like they get adequate love as the best rock band of the '80s. and really, it's not even close. (and the only 80's rock band to be legitimately rock. not metal, not hair band bullshit. but rock, in the same way that zeppelin and the who are rock.)
• I read really, really fast. I'm not sure why that's particularly special or anything, I just have been noticing it lately, as i've been reading in conjunction with other people quite a bit. i usually shoot for 100 pages an hour.
• Am I the only one who thinks Obama isn't half as cool as he pretends to be? I mean, he acts like he's johnny cool guy, playing ball, palling around with the baseball players the other night, palling around with secret service guys, picking sports games, liking the wire and entourage, etc. But I mean, come on. The guy was editor-in-chief of harvard's law review. I was just in law school, a school ranked about 50 spots lower than that. no one that's gaining that position of achievement is THAT cool, it HAS to be a front. we all saw him "throw" the other night. i'm starting to think that his "throwing" and "bowling" is the real (see: nerd) Obama and that the rest (white sox jacket, palling around, etc.) is a carefully crafted public persona to appeal to the youth of america. don't get me wrong, i like the guy well enough, i voted for him, i think he's sharp and well-spoken even if i disagree with the bulk of his policies, but i just don't buy that he's even 1/10th as cool as he comes off. no one achieves what he's achieved with the speed that he's achieved it if they're even remotely cool. the last president to be kind of cool was JFK. (well, GW Bush was kind of cool in a "i used to drink 20 beers a night" and play grabass kind of way, but it's not as appealing across the board) and he was a rich, polished bastard who'd been groomed from the spotlight from day one and got to enjoy the fruits of his family's achievement. Obama is a self-made man. i just don't buy it, that's all.
• I am utterly convinced that the world is ending. basically, on a daily basis, i see someone doing one of the dumbest things i've ever seen anyone do before, ever. and it utterly blows my mind. most of this nonsense happens on the road, but it happens in stores, on the sidewalk, and on the TV too. has anyone else noticed that "news" now consists of asking people on the street/phone/internet/whatever their opinion? how is that "news"? how are any of these jokers qualified to tell us anything about what's going on out there? and how can people really get any less intelligent and sophisticated? is it even possible? public education obviously isn't working, and neither is democracy as currently instituted. something is truly, systemically wrong, and we're going to be feeling the consequences for the rest of our lifetimes. there is no accountability, no shame, no modesty and no self-awareness. the other day i was in chipotle, behind a woman who decided it was necessary to carry on a phone conversation while she was supposed to be ordering. she didn't let people go past or apologize. she held up her finger to the worker like she was supposed to wait for her to finish talking to her baby daddy about god knows what. oh, did i mention there were about 20 people in line at that time? you should just get dragged out in the street and shot for that. no explanation, trial or discussion necessary. just end it, cleanse the gene pool. by the way, where do these people get the money for these cell-phone plans? some people are CONSTANTLY on the phone. talking during the day isn't free, or cheap. and what are they talking about? and why is it on speaker when you're in a crowded area? why am i even trying to wrap my mind around this shit? i give up.
• i'm a stickler for spelling and grammar. i just feel like its not hard to do, and spelling/speaking/writing like a caveman just makes you look like a complete idiot with no pride whatsoever in the face you're showing to the world. nothing, and i mean nothing, is less attractive than someone who doesn't have any pride in the way they come off in conversation & writing. and i'm being kind. that's not even including the people with overly simplistic sentence structure and an inability to use or comprehend vocabulary that one would find outside of an elementary school. i mean, a woman could walk up to me looking like kate beckinsale, but if nothing but simplistic idiocy is spilling out of her mouth. it's not going anywhere, plain and simple. don't even get me started with "ru doin nythin 2nite?" and similar ilk. does that even save any time or are you just trying to sound like an utter dunce? having poor grammar and a shitty vocabulary will get you rejected on night one, but lacking the ability to form a sentence with more than 6 words will get you rejected almost as fast. "what are you doing tonight? i am going out with friends. i'm looking forward to it. should be fun!" how fucking dull can you get? seriously, let me find a firearm and find some release from your simplistic, inane, unimaginative drivel. simple sentences only work if you have powerful, imaginative prose. otherwise, you come off looking like a mcguffey reader and killing more of my neurons due to inactivity than a gas station.
• i have an open de-friending policy on facebook. consider yourself warned. if you change your profile to say some stupid, idiotic shit, have a stupid status or just generally annoy me, you will be gone. generally these quotes and writings concern bible verses, because i consider using bible verse for inspiration to be particularly stupid, but it really could be anything. i mean, lets talk about the bible verses thing for a while. it's a 2000 page book, right? think about that, 2000 pages of history mixed with psuedo-history mixed with mythology mixed with parables, moral stories, lessons, little bits of wisdom and some rules. i mean 2000 pages, all of which is supposedly the dead-on truth, and out of that you pick one sentence without any context that you're supposedly drawing this inspiration and strength from? i mean, take a step back, and look at it objectively and logically. how goddamn ridiculous is that? just put yourself in my shoes. i'm not saying i'm enlightened or anything, but i am saying that i recognize that the church, like all institutions, is based at the lowest common denominator and is ultimately a method of control. that's all i'm saying. so you take a book that has been presented by said body, translated about 50 times, and interpreted in such a way that it can say literally anything the powers that be want it to be said. not to get in a religious discussion or anything, but it's just re-god-damn-diculous, plain and simple. also applying are excessive "sex and the city" quotes, horrible movie/book/tv taste, overly enthusiastic relationship devotion, excessive caps and unbearable grammar/spelling/simplistic vocabulary & sentence structure.

wow - that post was generally really mean and negative. i apologize, i guess the bar HAS been getting to me after all. adieu.

in defense of the prequels.

before i get to the nerd heresy that is the purpose of this post, i've got a brief review of "Public Enemies" to throw out there. (just in case anyone still reads this little sounding board i like to occasionally nerd out on) so if you aren't familiar with Mr. Michael Mann, he's a madman, and one of the best directors in the game today. his films offer complete immersion, super stylized cinematography, and the best gun battles in hollywood. he directed thief, manhunter, last of the mohicans, heat, the insider, ali, collateral and miami vice. so now comes public enemies, starring johnny depp, christian bale and marion cotillard, among others, as the primary figures in john dillinger's one year crime spree across the midwest from 1933-34 that famously ended in a hail of gunfire outside of a movie theater in chicago. the film is not exactly what i expected, the trailer having me expecting an action based shoot-em-up gangster flick a la the untouchables. public enemies is not that film at all. it is extremely artistic and beautifully made, with terrific shots, set design, camera angles and of course, acting. it's not so much a gangster movie as it is a biopic of the last year of dillinger's life and a love story, a surprisingly touching one at that. depp and cotillard are terrific, bale is solid, and the supporting cast is very good. film making 10/10, acting 9/10, plot 8/10, script 7/10, for a final grade of 8.5. something tells me this film is only going to grow on me on re-watching. if you're an adult with a mind that wants more out of films than silly jokes, shit blowing up and pretty people, go see Public Enemies.. you won't regret it. [p.s. this movie made me sad b/c it demonstrated how amazing an actor johnny depp is, and how much of a fucking tragedy it is that he wastes his time wearing clown makeup and appearing in clown ass disney movies and everything tim burton even farts on. the guy really should be up there with Leo competing for the incredible dramatic roles that are out there, instead he's playing a pirate caricature and singing while cutting throats. come on john. you've been donnie brasco, you've been john dillinger, give us something memorable... before its too late and you've become gary oldman.]

now, the heart of the matter. defending the seemingly un-defendable, the three star wars prequels. i think the problem with the prequels first and foremost, is people's ridiculously high opinion of episodes IV-VI, and thus the expectation that the first three chapters are going to be just as good as the unrealistic opinion of the last three. the star wars films can be ranked in this way: 1. The Empire Strikes Back (9.2), 2. A New Hope (8.7), 3. Revenge of the Sith (8.1), 4. Return of the Jedi (7.1), 5. Attack of the Clones (7), 6. The Phantom Menace (6). It is my opinion that there are in fact 3 good star wars movies, but they aren't the ones that you may be thinking. III, IV and V are all excellent, I, II and VI are all merely average to above-average. the mistaken belief that all of the prequels are shit and all of the original trilogy are golden is ridiculous and the source of all of this nerd propaganda. a new hope and empire strikes back are both outstanding. truly, like on an all-time level. return of the jedi is not. return of the jedi is a two hour toy commercial, with new characters, aliens, creatures and spaceships introduced every 35 seconds without any explanation whatsoever (hm, sounds kind of like phantom menace and attack of the clones to me). yes, the giant space battle is awesome, but we're also forced to sit through mark hamill's empty emotionless acting (hamill was ok as a whiney teen, not as a confident man), the ewoks, and like i said, the introduction of all sorts of new characters for no purpose other than to sell action figures. is anyone expected to believe that midgets wearing carpet and bear masks are taking on the galactic military with rocks, sticks and logs? i mean come on george, that's the dumbest thing to happen in any of the star wars films. in ROTJ, you can see the problem developing that would plague the first two prequels. Lucas' focus gets too macro and grandiose, and he loses focus on what made people love star wars in the first place, the characters. he forgets that trees even exist while shooting the whole fucking forest. for that reason, ROTJ gets a 7.1, and is only slightly better than attack of the clones, the 2nd best of the prequel films. attack of the clones has its problems (jar-jar, the less than compelling "love story" between anakin and padme), but it also has an awesome battle scene, and a badass jedi fight between anakin-obi wan-yoda and count dooku. really, the problems with Episode II are the stupid, stupid dialogue, emotionless acting and reliance on effects and cgi. revenge of the sith is fucking good. i don't care what anyone says, it's actually somewhat compelling, has some awesome (awesome) fight scenes, and really brings everything full circle, who wouldn't like that? i've said repeatedly that if George Lucas put 30% of the work into story and characters that he did into sets, effects and creatures, the prequels would be 3 of the top 10 films of all time, and Revenge of the Sith is the only one where it comes together. Empire Strikes Back is the best... i've talked about that already (see the top 20 list), A New Hope is 2nd, just purely for what it brought to film and the movies, it really changed everything (a great sense of adventure, a quest, classic good vs. evil, great characters. so really, there ARE in fact two trilogies that are separated by quality. and that's III, IV and V vs. I, II and VI. there is really only one BAD star wars movie. and that's a phantom menace. i give it a 6 and that's being generous. the only things that save it are the always awesome liam neeson, darth maul, absolutely gorgeous CGI (the pod-racing scene looks amazing) and effects and a solid performance out of natalie portman. on the other side is the shitty acting out of everyone else, (including you little boy), the infamous jar-jar (who really was just playing the C3PO part, but it didn't work), and just a dumb story that isn't at all compelling. so the next time you're hating on star wars, don't just blindly split it into the originals vs. the new guys. look into return of the jedi again, it isn't really very good by the standards of a new hope and empire strikes back. there ARE three good star wars movies, but they aren't the ones you think. i'll argue this shit with any nerd anywhere.