marv

so my stitches came out last monday. it looks like it's completely healed superficially. you can barely tell that it was gaping hole a week ago. there's still a giant lump on the inside and i cant feel the left side of my lip (i'm guessing i severed a ton of nerve endings?) but nevertheless, no infections, clean heal. i'm very thankful.

i haven't been able to go down and pick up live rock off of the reef yet so i just bit the bullet and picked up some live plants and a few critters for my fish tank from petsmart. one was a little red wag fish i named Pam. the other is a little red crab i named Marv. I say 'was' and 'is' because Pam swam around for about 10 minutes and croaked. I felt horrible. Like, for a day or two afterwards and everything. It's hard work. I thought I had the levels and everything where they should be. I guess I need to read more. Ol' Marv is just fine though. I bought a little pagoda looking house for him and he loves it. when i get home from work i hide a freeze dried brine shrimp behind a plant or a shell for him. he pokes his little eyes out of the window of his pagoda to see if the coast is clear and then he'll come out and snack. shrimpie time for Marv is becoming my favorite time of day. it's hilarious.

Call of Duty 3: Modern Warfare
for XBOX360
I'm no good at videogames. At least in comparison to people like Adam. I think over 80 percent of the videogames I've ever played since NES I never even got close to beating. Computer animated bad guys shoot at you, the screen flashes red, your health depletes, the controller shakes, it just a little too much anxiety for me. I bought an xbox360 because I wanted to play online with Adam and talk to him over the headsets since we live farther away. I guess this review is about how far videogame technology has come since the days of playing Duck Hunt in our grandparent's den.

Adam told me to pick this game up. He said it was it was super fun. It's also won almost every videogame award and has been dubbed "game of the year" and the most "photo-realistic game ever created". Most videogames you run around, shoot stuff, run around some more, and then it's over and I think that gets pretty old. Normally I only play one until I die and then I say "forget it" and go do something else, never worrying about getting shot at again. I was surprised that when I started playing COD4 I had to force myself to turn it off and go to sleep. It's that addictive and that engrossing.

It's split between playing two different soldiers. You play as a Marine fighting street combat in a depiction of the battle for Baghdad. The second you play as a British SAS soldier fighting along different fronts in Russia. The missions range from defending a tank while fighting insurgents from the streets of a fictionalized Baghdad to sneaking through abandoned apartments and alleyways of radioactive Chernobyl.

I cant get over how much detail and attention to realism they put into games now. Coupled with how powerful the xbox360 console is, it's as close as you can get to being in a firefight than actually being in one. I think? I've never been in a gunfight. And that's where this game shines for me, the amount of detail to realism. When a grenade goes off next to your soldier, the sound dims to near nothing and all you hear is the whistling of your ear drums. When you aim down your sights, the background blurs respectively in your peripherals. Your squad yells out for cover fire when they need it. Insurgents flank you in the alleyways. Even in terms of gameplay, it's not completely running and shooting between levels. Some levels are intermissions of the sort. Like during the scene when a nuclear bomb goes off and knocks your helicopter out of the air. You can look around from the back of it while it crashes and then walk around the burning streets for a few moments until your character dies. Your vision is all red and you can hear your character coughing. The screen lurches back and forth and you even have to press a button to get him back on his feet after he falls from the pain. It's all part of the story and it really draws you in. To some, that's just interference between running and shooting, but for me, it made the game really interesting and kept me playing. And it's full of little things like these.

Probably the sweetest thing I found in the game is that they incorporated my truck, the 1991 Toyota crew cab 4wd pickup truck into it. Perfectly modeled into the game. You can find them all over the streets of Baghdad. I spent about five minutes looking in and around it when I found one. Even the center console and the seats are like mine. And then I shot out the windows and tires and lobbed a grenade into the back of it and watched it explode. It was so awesome blowing up my own truck in videogame form.

So if you happen to be at Best Buy and they have a TV hooked up with this game running, take a minute and play it, or at least watch someone play it. I think it's the most advanced videogame ever made.

Here are a few videos of it.

Street fighting on the Baghdad level


nuclear explosion level (pause at 1:10 to see my truck :) )


Trailer

stitches

Yesterday, I went surfing down at San Onofre for the morning. It was the last time I was going to go out for the next week or so, in order to get ready for school and save some tip money for textbooks and stuff. We had a decent sized swell come in over the weekend and yesterday was supposed to be the end of it. I was having a pretty good time, catching waves here and there but I kept noticing that at that area of the beach, the waves were "closing-out". if you're not familiar with the term, closing-out is where a wave breaks in two different spots. it usually occurs at beach breaks with sandbars that are constantly shifting, causing the water to become deeper or shallower at different sections. What results for surfers is nothing short of getting trapped. If you're surfing on a waist or leg-high wave, its usually pretty easy to jump over the curl of the wave out behind it. But yesterday the waves were about head-high. If you get caught in close-out on a head-high, you're going to get rocked.
So I took one on the chest yesterday and it knocked me off my board toward the beach. As I was in the whitewater getting tumbled, my board hit me in the face, right under the left side of my mouth. The force was so strong that my lower teeth sliced through my cheek completely. My initial thought was that i had lost my teeth since my mouth was so numb. but thankfully I didn't. I grabbed my board and road the whitewater to shore (considering I was about 100 yards out). what bummed me was that while i was worrying about my mouth, i ran my board into a rock and dinged the rail. My neighbor told me he will fix it, but i've had this board for a while and haven't dinged it yet. Bummer. Some guys on the shore helped me bandage my face up to stop the bleeding. Then I drove to St. Judes in Fullerton in a ton of traffic. I thought it was funny that i was admitted to the same room they took me to after that accident way back in 2001. My PA-C was really nice, she got me numbed up and sutured everything. It was hard not to laugh while she was working on me, she was pretty funny. Twenty stitches on the outside and inside of my lip. The RNs that helped work on me all complimented me on what a "nice set of smiles i had." i have a picture of me before they worked on me, but i decided that you can let me know if you want to see it, its pretty gnarly. in fact, it still kind of makes me dizzy looking at it.
Some residual carnage.


thank you guys for the texts/emails/calls/prayers. i really appreciate them. sorry i havent been answering, i pretty much slept all day.

prayer

I've never thought of myself as particularly good at prayer. I've also had a hard time understanding how one carries on continual prayer and conversation with the Lord daily. If conversation is what you call it. Since I stopped going to church, reading the Bible and actively pursuing learning what Christ taught, it's been getting harder and harder to apply myself towards a life centered around what God definitely has in store for me. Duh. I could go on about this or that but what I really want to write about right now is prayer and what prayer is like in regards to myself.

Prayer is hard. The times when I do pray its usually over something that's going wrong (or seems to be at least) in my life. "I need this taken care of. This hurts, fix it. Do this, do that. I feel guilty. Etc." And that feels wrong to me. To shut out the Lord when things are good and only pray when it's convenient for myself or I feel I need help. When I pray, it all feels jumbled. It's hard to concentrate. Like you're searching for a radio station and keep missing the frequency. It's no surprise why I don't pray often. I don't understand it very well and the less you do it, the easier it is to not do it. I think.

So this is what I've doing. There are a ton of things about my life that need change. A lot of things I'm comfortable with and a lot that I'm uncomfortable with. Most of which though, is probably not in the Lord's big picture. So for the last two months or so, I've focused all of my strength on drinking. Something I've been doing a lot of for the last three years. It's not something I'm proud of and something that the Lord has been telling me needs to stop. It became a problem a long time ago. From the friends I made after Lindsay left. With touring and the bands. And now especially within the Applebees environment.

Every morning I go surfing, I say a prayer. Right on the shore before the sun starts coming out. I'm usually one of the only few out and I say it while I'm putting my leash on. I say it then because I'm so excited about surfing and happy to be there it's hard to think about anything else besides jumping into the water, thus I have to concentrate really hard and force everything out of my mind. I ask the Lord to watch over Mom and Bill and Adam and Zoe in Vegas. I ask him to watch over the two of you. I thank him for another day of health and the gift of being able to enjoy the things He has created. I ask him for strength to change things in my life that seem almost impossible to do anything about by myself. I ask him to work through me for the rest of the day. I tell him I want to be a role model to the people I am around and that I want to be an inspiration to those who are looking for one. And then soon enough I've finished paddling out past the breaks to the ocean and then I surf and it's nice.

I have a long ways to go on a road I know I'll never find the end to. But I've given up alcohol for good and everyone knows it. You guys, my coworkers, the Lord, Dad, everyone. It gives me the same apprehension I felt before ever telling anyone I had begun to write a novel. If I can't follow through, then everyone knows it. And that's a scary feeling.

But it's been about four weeks since I've stopped. It's getting easier. I'm noticing things about life I couldn't enjoy before. I feel a sense of confidence. The buzz around Applebee's is that I've given it up for good. Managers have asked me why, coworkers have asked why (some with their noses up) and I tell them because I just cant afford it. And it's true. In more ways than one. But I feel its best just to say it that way so I don't put anyone on the defensive or single anything out. It hasn't been easy sitting out on going out with friends, but then again, it hasn't been too hard either. If that makes sense. But you know what I heard last night? My coworker Jenn text me saying she was having a beer at Applebees and that she felt left out. When I asked her why she said "everyone gave it up."

That sense of apprehension, the pressure of following through. I think that's what I'll be giving to the Lord in the mornings before I paddle out.


Stage two of my fish tank is up and operational. Water is in it, the filters and pumps are working. The substrate is settling at the bottom. I've been working on getting the salinity just right and testing the pH levels and for nitrites and so forth. Lots of work. I can't believe how well it's been going though. Saltwater tanks seem so fragile, like they need meticulous care. I'm sure they do but I thought I'd for sure screw something up by now. We'll see how well it goes once we get some hermit crabs and stuff in. I hope my tank is habitable.

you can see the substrate at the bottom of it. Next step is looking for live rock off of the reef down at San Onofre.






The protein skimmer. This sucker cost a chunk out of my tips but is essential for a saltwater aquarium. It sucks water from the tank through a little pump (black thing inside the corner of the tank) and then creates a vortex of water within the large tube hanging on the side. It pumps these bubbles back into the water, catching the waste particles in the top chamber. The bubbles then catch more protein wastes within the tank and provide plenty of oxygen. It's neat to look at it. Kind of looks like something from the OOZE factory in teenage mutant ninja turtles.

It's been a year since my first fix of 24. I picked up season 2 last weekend and have been gratuitously enjoying it since. In this one, terrorists have armed a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles and Jack Bauer is trying to find it. Totally beefy. I'm about 6 hours into, meaning 6 episodes. I'm probably going to have Homeland Security knocking on my door tomorrow for the third sentence in this paragraph, just realized.


i found an acoustic version of an old Rufio song online right now. Reminds me of sophomore year. Has it already been six years? man...

Saltwater Aquariums by Animal Planet
B+
Great to read if you're interested in starting up a saltwater aquarium. If you're not, then it probably isn't. It's pretty adamant that you follow what the book instructs and nothing of what other people tell you. They quote a lot of things as "myths" so I found that kind of odd. But Animal Planet is a pretty distinguished publishing company so I guess they can't be too far off from right. I've got my tank pretty set up from reading it. This book is only for beginners, there is nothing of value for those interested in the chemistry of ocean water or the specifics of certain species of fish and invertebrates.

How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers
C
A collection of passages about various people. Some chapters are only a page or two long, while others may be fifty. I don't quite understand what connection they all have with each other, if they have any. Some don't even seem to have any significance. Like the one about a father building a tree house for his daughter and how he had to have at least three walls up before she came home. Others consist of a woman learning how to surf down in Costa Rica while falling in love with a friend. Another is of a man riding a horse across Egypt. A woman who climbs Kilimanjaro. I enjoy Eggers' work, but I don't believe the profanity is necessary towards creating believable dialogue. I'm beginning to think he's a great writer but that he hasn't honed his skills towards creating a polished novel accessible towards a larger percentage of readers. Like a diamond in the rough I guess.



Hope you guys feel better soon!

a little update just before daybreak

it's been raining a LOT down here for the last week or so. I normally love rain and completely revel in it once it comes. But lots of rain also means no surfing. Especially afterwards since runoff is so bad. Especially with all of the residue left from the fires now running off into the ocean, it's just not a good idea. It's been almost two weeks of no surfing for me and I'm about to break. So I'm going this morning. But I thought I would post a quick update.

I uploaded two new recordings to my personal music myspace. The first is an acoustic version of the old Code Brown song "Kids". It was my favorite song we wrote and I'm still sometimes shocked by how well it was composed for our age and inexperience in music. The lyrics were probably the strongest and closest to paralleling what we were going through at the time (drinking, drugs, high school, etc.) I've been bugging Alex and Devin to take the time to go re-record it somewhere and polish it up with everything we didn't know how to add when we were younger (harmonies, lead parts, etc) but they've never really been too into it. So I just recorded it on my own with an acoustic guitar. Sure enough, as soon as they heard they both called me about when a good time to jam would be haha.

The second is a song I wrote a couple months ago called "They're Coming to Get You, Barbara". It's kind of a metal song/punk song. The lyrics and title were completely inspired by the movie Night of the Living Dead. I thought it would be neat to write a song completely around a dramatic situation and see how it turned out. So I wrote about a guy holding back a front door with a horde of zombies trying to break in. He's telling his wife/girlfriend/whatever to hide in the attic and that if he becomes one, to basically put him down. I think it came out pretty well. It took forever creating the synthetic drums on a program but they sound decent, albeit totally on-time and unbelievable. So as a change from the acoustic songs on my page, there is a nifty little metal one up. Devin's new band liked it so much they want me to sing for them. Hmmmm...

www.myspace.com/atransientlight

I picked up my new fish tank two days ago with dad. He bought me a cabinet you would use above a stove from Lowes to use as a stand. I bought a twenty gallon with a filter. I have a TON of other stuff I need to buy before I actually even begin to start putting substrate and live rock in, but it's starting. I'm totally stoked about it and well it's coming so far.











I have a few reviews but I'm running totally behind right now. I'll post more later.




p.s. whatever happened to Doritos 3D chips? they were so much better in the third dimension.

dang it!

They finally got it! sawed my catalytic converter out from the bottom of my truck. i knew it was coming. and sure enough. its funny (well not really funny) but one of the cooks i work with at applebees, he got his 4 runner stolen two weeks ago and they found it missing its cat. now i have to go to Valley Muffler and pay a hundred bucks to have them weld one (probably mine) back on. What a burn. It pretty much comes down to having to take it off and lock it in the back of my truck everytime i have to leave it somewhere. Thats the ONLY way i can think of stopping them. I stripped the heads off of the bolts so they couldn't unbolt it, so they sawed them off instead. the exhaust pipes are too long and crooked to fabricate a thicker "shield" or harness to cover the piping. They steal them in broad daylight and in crowded parking lots and can get them off in less than 60 seconds and the primary targets are toyota tacomas, 4 runners and tundras. Any thoughts? I'm thinking of only using two bolts, one on each end like i had been doing. it allows a little bit of exhaust to leak out but two bolts are better than one when taking it off.

Everythings Gone Green
C

I've been anticipating seeing this movie for almost a year. It's an indie film and I didn't really look for any theaters that were playing it so I just waited for the DVD to be released. The reason I've wanted to see it is because it's the first story my favorite author, Douglas Coupland, has written for a movie (I think). It's set in the vancouver area and follows a young slacker who finds a new job working for a sweepstakes. Involved are his pot-farming parents, a young asian girl who works on movie sets and her sleazy boyfriend. I found it funny because I found a number of different themes and ideas within the movie that were taken almost verbatim from his different novels. Like a giant hodge-podge of his work. I enjoyed watching the different symbolism they used with colors. Almost everything green in the movie is tinted BRIGHT green. It was interesting to see how his novels actually look from his perspective, but even then, I've decided that they are better left as novels. Movies tend to need a little more substance than what his novels can get away with. You might find this movie bland, I would have if I wasn't thinking about some of my favorite reads the whole time. It's definitely worth a rent though if you enjoy Coupland's novels. [The "play movie" button on the title screen of my DVD doesnt work. All it does is play the title screen again after a minute of Production logos. It took me about fifteen tries before I realized it wasn't going to work. If you encounter the same problem, start the movie from chapter 1 from the chapter selection. Cheap indie films.]

Cloverfield
B+

I've heard all sorts of mixed reviews about this movie: The ending was bad. The plot was thin. The camera angles caused motion sickness. The others argue in favor of it's "viral marketing, it's raw and semi-innovative attempt at capturing terror through a video camera and that the ones who enjoy the movie are the people who have been looking for clues within the movies spin-off websites and such."
I'm going to side with those in favor of Cloverfield. The first preview I saw was the teaser they released at the beginning of Transformers. It had no title, it was just the clip of the party and the head of the statue of liberty crashing into it. Viral Marketing. Everyone wanted to know what it was or what it was about. Then they created fake myspace pages for each of the seven main characters. Not corny advertisement pages littered with references to the movie. They were legitimately run, with elaborate histories and conversations between the characters on their pages referencing normal things they had been up to for the following months before the movie's release. Each character's last registered login date is 1/18/08, the day the movie was released and the date of the attack, i think. I noticed a picture of the character Beth hanging onto the side of her surfboard on a mantle at the beginning of the movie. Her myspace page talks about how much she loves surfing but sucks at it. Other websites were created to further the backstory behind the monster and instances when it surfaced (which little is still known about, in fact you barely even see it in the movie). I'm under the impression that the websites were all constructed very carefully and made to be very authentic. It's these minute details that has people going nuts for this movie. They touched on the same things that the Blair Witch did. Make people think it's really happening, even if they know it isn't. It creates a personal bond between the viewer and the character when they perceive them as real people. And it was this bond for me, plus the raw and seamless camcorder footage, that made it hard to watch different characters get picked off. One character's was pretty gruesome, and without the normal Hollywood editing and different camera angles, it really felt like you were there.
So yes, if you got sick during the Blair Witch Project, you'll probably get sick during Cloverfield. It's another experimental attempt at creating a new type of cinematography. It is supposed to be raw and unedited. You aren't supposed to know whats happening any more than the characters who are in the middle of it. It's not a feel-good movie, it's one you watch for it's environments. How they close they can get blending CGI special effects with a shaky, hand-held recording. If you just go into it expecting little, you'll get a lot more from this movie.

quick update

I've been surfing a lot more the last couple of weeks. I decided around Christmas that I was going to cut alcohol completely out of my diet for the new year. Not even occasional drinks with coworkers or wherever. It's an expensive habit and there really isn't anything good that comes from it. Just headaches and acting goofy. So with all of this extra money I've saved from not going to bars and being able to wake up really early in the morning has allowed me to go surfing more and more. It's really showing in my performance. I stopped surfing around senior year and it's only been about a year that I've been surfing with my neighbors consistently. But more and more I notice that I'm catching more waves than the people surfing around me. It used to be intimidating surfing with a dozen other people around you in the water (everybody in a wetsuit looks like a better surfer than you) but I've been carving the waves around them and it's a great feeling to see yourself getting better at something you really enjoy.

I was surfing with Brad down at Carlsbad on friday morning. While we were out we noticed dolphins jumping through the swells out in front of us. That's pretty normal, to see dolphins out there. But I turned around to paddle on a wave and right before I stood up, two dolphins jumped out of the water in front of my board, literally a foot or two away from it. It startled me so badly I almost fell. They sure are pretty animals, but there's nothing more unsettling than sitting in the water and seeing dark gray fins coming from the water in front of you. Ick...

Speaking of sealife. I was at San Onofre on Saturday morning and we had a really low-tide that afternoon. After I finished surfing I was poking around the exposed reef because the water was so low. I found little fish and brittle starfish and hermit crabs and stuff. I also found a baby octopus about the size of my hand. I picked it up and when I went to put it back inside the kelp it inked everywhere :-) Anyways it got me wanting a saltwater fish tank. It would be neat to have a tank to maintain and keep some of the neat things I find down at the beach. Like algae or fish and stuff. I've been reading up on them, I want to know as much about what kind of lighting and ways of maintaining pH levels before I actually buy one or put anything alive into it.

I got some bad news a couple of days ago from a coworker. At first I thought it was just a rumor. Then I asked my neighbor when I got home from work who is a regular at Barros and he confirmed it. Then just yesterday, I randomly saw an old coworker from Barros outside of Applebees and he confirmed it as well. Lim, the owner who bought the restaraunt last year, shot his wife and daughter and then himself. They had a foreign exchange student living with them who hid in the closet during the entire ordeal. The sheriffs arrived and the daughter was still alive, albeit shot in the head. The wife had already passed. Daniel, the son who I had worked with the most, is still running the restaurant. I don't know why he wasn't involved in the incident. I cant imagine what going through losing your family to those circumstances is like, nor do I want to. It gives me the creeps just thinking about it and makes me incredibly sad.


Sorry. No reviews this week.

when i've lost my way i'll stumble back to lost and found

I want to thank mom and Bill for having me come out last weekend. It was really great to see them. I pigged out so hard. We ate at New York, New York and I ate snow crab for the first time. We also went up to the mountains on my last day out and went sledding and listened to Jack Johnson on the drive up. Mom bought me a really cool jacket, I've been wearing it ever since I walked out of the store with it. Zoe gave me a neat journal, with a big wave on the front of it that will be perfect to use once the one I'm using now is full. Adam got me a Jimi Hendrix DVD, but he opened it to watch it first before I even came out hahaha. The only snag was when I got to the airport to fly home, i realized my flight home was for the 26th, not the 6th. Luckily I got on standby and made my flight. Except the guy next to me was bombed out of his skull. I was preparing to get barfed on the whole flight back. It was great to see everyone. It was definitely needed after the monotony of going to work and coming home and then going to work again. However, I miss them all so much already.

How was everyone's New Years? Mine was great. This year, as part of my resolutions, I opted not for going out and getting hammered with friends or what have you. So instead I went camping with Brad and Junior down at San Mateo. We surfed San Onofre beach all afternoon on New Year's Eve and it was ridiculously packed with surfers. We made a giant fire at our campsite and grubbed on burritos. Then I read all night in the back of my truck, farting up a storm in my sleeping bag. The next morning we walked down to Trestles Beach, a world-famous beach that I don't usually go to because it's so crowded. However, at 5am on New Years Day all of the other surfers had hangovers, leaving the beach completely to us :) I got a lot of good runs in and it was a great way to start off the New Year.

With some of my Christmas money Dad gave me, I bought a condenser microphone to record with. What's neat about it is that it connects directly to my computer with a USB cable. There is no need for an expensive interface. It's not the best for recording but its perfect for what I do; recording acoustic songs in my bedroom. I've even been thinking about podcasting. But I don't even know what podcasting is so I'll have to check that out as soon as I get a chance.
I've finished two songs so far this week. One is an acoustic cover of an old song by Over It i used to listen to a lot in high school. It's called Blackball. The lyrics really relate to a lot of things that have changed in my life this last year. Leaving tiefighter, turning away from old friends and habits I don't agree with. And especially how much I enjoy surfing. A beach is blackballed when the current gets too strong to surf safely in. I guess you could say the same about different aspects of my life as well.

Despite the din the only thing
I hear is a screaming thought spun in my mind
The need to tell you that
A voice I left behind is following, growing, calling me back.
Just once I wish that some great wave would spray and sweep me off these feet
The cribs got cracks and they all think i'm slipping
Sometimes we fall, sometimes its safe
to hide behind a false face,
This time I've got no faith to hide
Just perfect hindsight.
Cast me out if you can
And if it's unfair, well life's not fair.
So much for pipe dreams,
You label me, I'll level you.
Equipped for this in full; if you've got threats
Come on take your best shot
When I've lost my way I'll stumble back to the lost and found.

The other is an original song I wrote a few years ago after Lindsay and I broke up. It's called A Grand Occasion and it was originally supposed to be the title track to the Code Brown Revival EP. However that EP never happened. The original lyrics to this song were pretty boo-hoo and sappy. Eddie (the chubby baby-faced singer of tiefighter) and I recorded it in his bedroom in 2004. I gave it to her and she gave it back saying she didn't care to hear it. But everyone else thought it was a good song so I decided to re-record it, only now it has slightly different lyrics. The lyrics are up on the myspace. Both of them are available to listen to at myspace.com/atransientlight

Now, for a whopping five whole reviews...

On A Wire by The Get Up Kids
C-
The Get Up Kid's 2000 breakthrough album, Something To Write Home About, has kind of become the anthem to my life. I'm not sure why it has (besides it being a really really good album) but it's followed me, year to year since I was in junior high. Maybe it was the shirt I bought when I was 14, the black one with the Godfather font across the front. The one I still wear despite all of the holes, deodorant pit stains and age. Maybe it's because I can listen to the album over and over and not get tired of it, the epic snare rolls, crescendos and conviction of the opening track "Holiday" to the soft ballads like "I'll Catch You". Whatever it is, I'm confident that when I'm forty years old, if I listen to Something To Write Home About, I'll remember every single person I've met in the last eight years. So how does a band or an artist live up to standards set by their listeners? They cant. On A Wire came out in 2002 and I almost totally forgot that it was ever released until two weeks ago when I found their Myspace page. There are two standout songs on it, the opening track "Overdue" and "Walking On A Wire", both of which are decent but nothing to write home about.

Hope This Finds You Well by Further Seems Forever
B
This is a compilation album of Further Seems Forever's three albums. All three had different singers. The first, the singer from Dashboard Confessional, was more upbeat with infectious choruses. The second, some guy who I don't really care for that sounds like every other emo singer. The third being the best, in my opinion, with just a little more character to his voice. They were big while I was in high school but I never really got into them. But now I enjoy the songs I've accumulated from cds Lindsay gave me and various Tooth and Nail compilations. I didn't know which album to buy so this one worked well. There are covers of NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" and Weezer's "Say It Aint So" which are interesting for a listen and my favorite songs of the band's career are "Pictures of Shorelines" and "New Year's Project", both of which play very well over my stereo on cold mornings driving down to the beach to go surfing. Itunes labels them as Religious and Gospel and they are/were signed to Tooth and Nail but they still sound pretty secular for the most part. Songs that can be interpreted different ways. Except for the song "Light Up Ahead" which is beautifully composed with a sincere and straightforward chorus. I have been switching between the album version and acoustic version nonstop in my car all week. Its an amazing song. You can hear it (if you haven't already) at myspace.com/fsf or I can burn it for you and mail it you.

16 Blocks starring Bruce Willis, Mos Def, David Morse
B
Bruce Willis stars as an alcoholic NYPD detective assigned to transport a convict (Mos Def) to a courthouse 16 blocks away from the station. However, Mos Def is a witness set to testify against the misconduct of Willis' detective colleagues (David Morse) who will stop at nothing to make sure Mos Def stays quiet. What ensues is the choice Willis must make between staying loyal to his corrupt friends or saving an innocent life, all within the short distance of 16 blocks. It's a good movie, definitely worth a rent. We watched it at mom's house. However, Mos Def's accent super annoying.

Superbad starring a fat kid, a skinny kid and the nerdy kid who plays Mclovin
C-
For like two months, I'd hear this question at least twenty times a day: "Hey, have you seen SUPERBAD yet?" Seriously. Every day. I didn't think the 40 year old virgin was very funny, with all of the profanity and cheap sex jokes, Steve Carrell's (sp?) acting kept the movie afloat. I didn't even bother with Knocked Up. But Superbad looked different and I guess for the first half of the movie, it was. The cheap sex jokes and profanity were there, but it still made me laugh. Actually, the scene in the science lab made me laugh really hard. But somewhere near the climax of the movie, it gets extremely boring and the plot seems to fall apart. Kind of shame. Hopefully we'll start to see the "I am McLovin!" one-liners die off. I was sick of them before I even saw the movie.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius written by Dave Eggers
B+
AHWOSG is a memoir of the author's life in his twenties. His parents die off within a few months of each other and force him and his siblings into moving away from Michigan to the Berkeley/San Francisco areas. He faces the daunting task of taking care of his eight year old brother, maintaining relationships, mourning the loss of his parents, starting his own magazine and keeping his sanity. It is written with a few different creative elements. Character's whose dialogue falls out of character by the author's own imagination, run on sentences, little diagrams within the context and so forth.
I am a fan of memoirs, or faux-memoirs. Any book that can take something boring like working at Staples or throwing a frisbee on a beach and make it interesting probably has great commentary, dialogue or creative writing styles. That's why I'm such a fan of Douglas Coupland, and why my novel resembles these sort of memoirs. I think Douglas Coupland is a better writer than Dave Eggers but at the same time, my novel closely resembled AHWOSG even before I read it, I think it would be optimal to check out some of Egger's other works for inspiration. Because it didn't read like a novel written by an accomplished novelist, it read like a plea from just another twenty-something-year-old. One who is certain their boring life (albeit, punctuated from time to time by moments of tragedy or pure joy) is something that other bored twenty-something-year-olds will benefit from. Much like my own.


Sorry it's taken so long. It was good to see you all on Christmas. I hope you had a great New Years as well. I miss you and I love you.