Ironically I sat down today with an idea in mind of what to write about and its funny how things tie in together on occasion. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m currently engaged to be married next year, but that it’s a long distance engagement. Anyone can also know that it sucks. A lot. As I’m writing this, I’m currently on a flight out of the Salt Lake City airport on route back home. This weekend was the end of my near month long journey around the country on various job hunts, visiting family, and just clearing my head in general. My final stop was to visit my fiancé out here, as she made a trip down from Idaho to visit me this weekend.
Relationships in general are very hard work and it only seems natural that distance makes it even harder. A greater responsibility of trust is placed on your shoulders in order to keep the relationship strong and unwavering. There are many temptations, if you allow them, that happen in long distance relationships but I’m not really writing about that. They can happen to anybody as the thought tends to wander when your significant other isn’t anywhere near you or wont before long amounts of time. That’s where secrets and problems can develop again if you let them, but again I’m not talking about that.
What makes it hard obviously while you are apart is communication or lack there of, physical contact, as well as visual contact. You can re-create the first and third there, but physical contact well, you can’t do anything about that. When I say that however I don’t necessarily mean of an intimate kind, but that is included. Anything from just touching their shoulder, holding their hand, or even a small hug. These things are a pretty important part of any relationship, but thankfully it’s not the most important part. My theory that has been tested and tried throughout the years and various relationships of many kinds is that communication and honesty is the key to making anything work. In long distance relationships the third ingredient: drive or desire. The more you want that relationship to work, the stronger your drive is, the harder you’ll try to keep it together. Lucky for us in this day and age we can communicate long distances with people in a way that is practically the same as being right there with them. You just have to use all the tools at your disposal to communicate and communicate often. Not just on important stuff, but the little things as well. Even just a small note saying hello through a text or a random I love you at some point goes a long way.
The single most difficult part in my opinion is that because you are far away you get lonely. Yes being able to text, chat, call, or video chat makes it like you are there but the sad fact is that you aren’t and life tends to be a little sour. Something that is useful is knowing of or having a date when you’ll be together again in the near or distant future and focusing your attention on it. You can make little in-between goals of dates and times of things to do in between them or even things that mark midway or partial way points to that time. In my case the real issue isn’t so much the countdown of when we’ll see each other again, it’s the countdown of when we’ll see each other again and not part again. Perhaps that’s the worst long distance relationship, being engaged. However as I wait for next April to roll around, with this past weekend, Christmas, and a possible and hopeful date in February to break up the time a little bit I go back to my first comment and that is that I’m on a plane flying from Salt Lake City. A flight roughly half full of missionaries.
It’s not uncommon to see missionaries for the LDS church when you’re either flying to or from Salt Lake. These gentlemen, and sometimes ladies, aren’t doing the weekend mission trip type deal or even the week long summer vacation to fix people’s homes or anything; they go for the long haul of two years. Two years away from their families, homes, friends, tv, music, and just about every convenience that fills our normal lives. They do this to avoid distractions from what they set out to do and to be able to better focus on the task at hand, untainted from the ever changing world around them. Its part focus, part running blind, but really who needs to keep up with pop culture or politics these days? Its honestly a waste of time, especially if you’re headed to another country like these gentlemen are. The funny thing is the major dejavu I’m having at the moment. I’m looking at myself seven long years ago as I sat in their position on my way to Mexico City. A frightened 19 year old with only two months intensive gospel and Spanish training only to be dumped off with other missionaries in a semi structured, semi have at it world of a missionary in a country that I’ve never been to before.
I’ve long since forgotten what its like to have that anxiety to be doing something I believe to be right, yet be quite afraid of the new feeling of it all, not to mention being separated from everyone I know and love for two long years. It was extremely hard to do and extremely difficult on a daily basis and you’d better believe that I kept quite the countdown of the day that I’d get to return. In that mindset of remembering what it’s like to have to wait to see those I love for two years, suddenly six months doesn’t seem so bad.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Everything tends to happen for a reason
Let me lay something all out there I’m not a believer in fate. I don’t believe that there is a destined finale to everything that has been decided since your existence. I believe in a long term plan that has been laid out and that enables one specific end but I don’t believe that everything, every step, every moment, every occurrence has been set from the beginning and that there is no other way around it. To believe in a higher existence that knows what you’re going to do and puts things in your way to mold your life and existence is a whole other story that I’m not going into right now.
I’m just talking about something I base a vast majority of things in my life, that being that I believe that everything happens for a reason. This is a very optimistic sort of view and I agree and while it may not be the right one for everybody but it works for me and I believe it. Perhaps its just a way of validating for both the good and bad that happens in your life but I dunno, it just seems to make sense. For me the whole process from beginning to end of my band The Throbbing Testicles is a prime example to me.
First I look at the very fact that the band shouldn’t have happened. Think about it, why in the right mind would a tiny side project between two completely non-musically inclined people calling themselves The Throbbing Testicles grow to anything at all? It’s funny to see that we created a tiny little amount of crappy music that attracted friends with real talent and eventually started to play live shows and attract an audience out to have a good time. When I started the project things were going pretty good in my life. I had bailed on school sure, but I had a good job with people, who I got along with and eventually became some of my best friends, not long after that I got into a pretty decent relationship and really all was going well for the first time in awhile in my life. The band kept growing and kept getting bigger. It became a sort of escape as well as something to fill the empty space of not knowing what I was going to do with my life.
Eventually all those good times started to plummet as both that job and relationship ended and the decision to go back to school occurred but was still shadowed in caution. T3 became more and more something I fell back onto and the more I did the happier I became and lets get something straight: at that time in my life I was NOT happy, but somehow the band did that. I learned little skills that I have ended up applying to various other things in life as well as boosting my confidence and many other things. When I finally went back to school it was because of this band that I met my future wife. To me however it seems like all of this with the band has run its course. It has been well worth the ride and honestly I have nothing to be disappointed in. Now whether the decision to let it go has come yet or not it feels like it anyway.
So I may not be elegant enough with my words to be able to honestly write out a good enough reason but maybe it’s just a reminder to me at a time when reminders are something I could sure use just a little more often. T3 FTW.
I’m just talking about something I base a vast majority of things in my life, that being that I believe that everything happens for a reason. This is a very optimistic sort of view and I agree and while it may not be the right one for everybody but it works for me and I believe it. Perhaps its just a way of validating for both the good and bad that happens in your life but I dunno, it just seems to make sense. For me the whole process from beginning to end of my band The Throbbing Testicles is a prime example to me.
First I look at the very fact that the band shouldn’t have happened. Think about it, why in the right mind would a tiny side project between two completely non-musically inclined people calling themselves The Throbbing Testicles grow to anything at all? It’s funny to see that we created a tiny little amount of crappy music that attracted friends with real talent and eventually started to play live shows and attract an audience out to have a good time. When I started the project things were going pretty good in my life. I had bailed on school sure, but I had a good job with people, who I got along with and eventually became some of my best friends, not long after that I got into a pretty decent relationship and really all was going well for the first time in awhile in my life. The band kept growing and kept getting bigger. It became a sort of escape as well as something to fill the empty space of not knowing what I was going to do with my life.
Eventually all those good times started to plummet as both that job and relationship ended and the decision to go back to school occurred but was still shadowed in caution. T3 became more and more something I fell back onto and the more I did the happier I became and lets get something straight: at that time in my life I was NOT happy, but somehow the band did that. I learned little skills that I have ended up applying to various other things in life as well as boosting my confidence and many other things. When I finally went back to school it was because of this band that I met my future wife. To me however it seems like all of this with the band has run its course. It has been well worth the ride and honestly I have nothing to be disappointed in. Now whether the decision to let it go has come yet or not it feels like it anyway.
So I may not be elegant enough with my words to be able to honestly write out a good enough reason but maybe it’s just a reminder to me at a time when reminders are something I could sure use just a little more often. T3 FTW.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Its been a long month
I’m not much of a travel person to be honest. I don’t get overwhelmed looking at amazing looking sights be they natural or man made. I’m usually content with looking at them for a second then moving on. I don’t have really great ambitions of traveling far and wide and seeing the world. I enjoy seeing and experiencing new things, but I don’t live for it. That being said, I sure do travel a lot for some reason.
This past month alone I’ve made numerous trips all across the country and am rounding out what will hopefully be my last one for awhile right now. I’m currently sitting in Regan International in DC but that’s only the midst of my travels. I started out by driving close to nine hours heading to my sisters home in southern Illinois. From there I zipped across the middle of Missouri through St. Louis and jumping south of Colombia to head to Osage Beach for some business meeting type things. Then the long drive home for a few days before hopping a flight through Atlanta, GA to get here to DC. And now I’m flying out to Dallas on my way to Salt Lake City. Typing it all out it doesn’t seem like much, but it sure has felt that way. Why the travel? A little bit of job hunting, a little bit of visiting family, a lot of trying to figure a lot of problems out. All in all, not a good selection for getting good sleep that’s for sure.
It does make me think about all the travel in general I’ve done throughout my life and am kind of amazed by it. I’ve been to nearly every state in the United States and while international travel isn’t high on my list I have been out of the country, if only to Mexico. But not tourist resort Mexico, but real life heart of Mexico. I am still amazed to see people having never left their home state. I know for some people it’s a money issue, for others it’s a “I’m ok with just hanging out here” and I get that, because I feel it too sometimes. Its just that we live in a very diverse country here and visiting even other sides of it bring forth new culture, language, and lots of interesting things. We’re a melting pot of race, class, smell, color, and habit. It’s fascinating. Anyone who says America is for Americans is dumb, that’s what I say. If we didn’t have such an amalgamation of culture, we wouldn’t nearly be as interesting. But honestly that’s a topic for another day. In the meantime, go travel somewhere. It’s good for you.
This past month alone I’ve made numerous trips all across the country and am rounding out what will hopefully be my last one for awhile right now. I’m currently sitting in Regan International in DC but that’s only the midst of my travels. I started out by driving close to nine hours heading to my sisters home in southern Illinois. From there I zipped across the middle of Missouri through St. Louis and jumping south of Colombia to head to Osage Beach for some business meeting type things. Then the long drive home for a few days before hopping a flight through Atlanta, GA to get here to DC. And now I’m flying out to Dallas on my way to Salt Lake City. Typing it all out it doesn’t seem like much, but it sure has felt that way. Why the travel? A little bit of job hunting, a little bit of visiting family, a lot of trying to figure a lot of problems out. All in all, not a good selection for getting good sleep that’s for sure.
It does make me think about all the travel in general I’ve done throughout my life and am kind of amazed by it. I’ve been to nearly every state in the United States and while international travel isn’t high on my list I have been out of the country, if only to Mexico. But not tourist resort Mexico, but real life heart of Mexico. I am still amazed to see people having never left their home state. I know for some people it’s a money issue, for others it’s a “I’m ok with just hanging out here” and I get that, because I feel it too sometimes. Its just that we live in a very diverse country here and visiting even other sides of it bring forth new culture, language, and lots of interesting things. We’re a melting pot of race, class, smell, color, and habit. It’s fascinating. Anyone who says America is for Americans is dumb, that’s what I say. If we didn’t have such an amalgamation of culture, we wouldn’t nearly be as interesting. But honestly that’s a topic for another day. In the meantime, go travel somewhere. It’s good for you.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Irony is the least you could say
I follow that last post up with remembering the past few years tonight I met with an old friend from high school for the first time in a number of years. Its interesting to see how things can change for the people around you. He was a good friend in high school but as we all, have our things to grow from and to grow into. I was happy to see that after all of life’s challenges and struggles how far he’s come and how happy he is now, even after only a few years of not seeing him.
On the other hand I also saw an old friend whom I had known a much shorter time with his wife and son a few times this week. It felt like just the opposite sadly. Well, not in terms of success, or probable happiness from the two of them, it just felt differently, almost jerkish. I dunno, I guess its just a matter of character and really who you are. I’ve known the first friend since early on in high school and the latter only about five years or so and its obvious who I’m closer to and respect more even with our far different backgrounds and identities.
I guess there really isn’t much to say on this subject I just wanted to capture the feeling of contrast I’ve felt today and how sometimes in life, the measure of success is different for everyone and when it comes is different for people. Some it comes easy and nothing bad ever seems to happen and as for the rest of us life is hard but it pays off if we just stick with it. Life is complicated like that sometimes.
On the other hand I also saw an old friend whom I had known a much shorter time with his wife and son a few times this week. It felt like just the opposite sadly. Well, not in terms of success, or probable happiness from the two of them, it just felt differently, almost jerkish. I dunno, I guess its just a matter of character and really who you are. I’ve known the first friend since early on in high school and the latter only about five years or so and its obvious who I’m closer to and respect more even with our far different backgrounds and identities.
I guess there really isn’t much to say on this subject I just wanted to capture the feeling of contrast I’ve felt today and how sometimes in life, the measure of success is different for everyone and when it comes is different for people. Some it comes easy and nothing bad ever seems to happen and as for the rest of us life is hard but it pays off if we just stick with it. Life is complicated like that sometimes.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Life is continuous; succes is not
I follow that last post up with remembering the past few years tonight I met with an old friend from high school for the first time in a number of years. Its interesting to see how things can change for the people around you. He was a good friend in high school but as we all, have our things to grow from and to grow into. I was happy to see that after all of life’s challenges and struggles how far he’s come and how happy he is now, even after only a few years of not seeing him.
On the other hand I also saw an old friend whom I had known a much shorter time with his wife and son a few times this week. It felt like just the opposite sadly. Well, not in terms of success, or probable happiness from the two of them, it just felt differently, almost jerkish. I dunno, I guess its just a matter of character and really who you are. I’ve known the first friend since early on in high school and the latter only about five years or so and its obvious who I’m closer to and respect more even with our far different backgrounds and identities.
I guess there really isn’t much to say on this subject I just wanted to capture the feeling of contrast I’ve felt today and how sometimes in life, the measure of success is different for everyone and when it comes is different for people. Some it comes easy and nothing bad ever seems to happen and as for the rest of us life is hard but it pays off if we just stick with it. Life is complicated like that sometimes.
On the other hand I also saw an old friend whom I had known a much shorter time with his wife and son a few times this week. It felt like just the opposite sadly. Well, not in terms of success, or probable happiness from the two of them, it just felt differently, almost jerkish. I dunno, I guess its just a matter of character and really who you are. I’ve known the first friend since early on in high school and the latter only about five years or so and its obvious who I’m closer to and respect more even with our far different backgrounds and identities.
I guess there really isn’t much to say on this subject I just wanted to capture the feeling of contrast I’ve felt today and how sometimes in life, the measure of success is different for everyone and when it comes is different for people. Some it comes easy and nothing bad ever seems to happen and as for the rest of us life is hard but it pays off if we just stick with it. Life is complicated like that sometimes.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Ten years is a long time yet no time at all
I overheard a conversation from somebody the other day about how their ten year high school reunion is next year and they wanted to have something to show for it. They wanted to show up and be able to say “hey ten years have passed and I’ve accomplished this and this”, to be able to show off some sort of accomplishment. This made me sit and reflect on the fact that my ten year reunion is coming up as well in another year (Class of 2002 here) and made me think if I had accomplished anything. Do I measure up to what everyone else deems as important to a symbol of status these days? Am I what people now a days consider successful? I don’t really know what to measure these days, but lets look at what is supposed to happen according to that all knowing, all seeing, status symbol we know as pop culture and television.
The norm of said things is to graduate from high school having had a plethora of your firsts and be ready to descend onto the world of college ready to get drunk every day, party all night, and yet still emerge and adult in four years with a degree that will magically get you some sort of high paying job and provide for a future family. Well lets see here according to my clock that would make that “according to plan” I should have graduated in 2006 and be about four years out in the real world pulling in money and doing whatever it is people consider important for a living. I would own a house by now or at very least a nice apartment in some city where business casual is my normal attire and business being the name of the game I make calls often to do so, well depending on whatever it is my career is I suppose.
Career, now that’s in interesting point in question. By now I should be in a job, either the job or job field, that odds are I’ll be spending the rest of my life doing as well as know automatically what choices to make. Again, this according to what society tells me. Not to mention closing in on thirty I should have indeed have begun to set my sights on “settling down” or in other words have met that girl I’ve settled with being with and begun my decent into living a lackluster life from here on out. Is that everything? Did I leave everything out? If anyone fits that mold well then you probably haven’t really lived at all. That’s all utter crap.
There is no mold, there Is no structure, nor certain path. That’s what I’ve learned in the near ten years since high school. I’m sure most people at this point have so its not news to you, but it makes me think and remember that if I try to compare to anything else which is another lesson all in itself: don’t compare yourself to anybody. Everyone leads their own life and hey what they do may or may not work for you. What works for you, works for you, if that makes sense. I dunno, it sounds good in my head.
After graduation I packed up and moved to Idaho about a month after graduation. I went to school for the rest of the year and moved back home now with roughly 24ish credits under my belt. All of the early to mid part of 2003 I worked in various jobs and saved money. I got my first cell phone, which is funny to me seeing that teenagers are practically born with one these days, but remember we had those free brick sized ones that we thought were practical seeing as we were comparing them to the literal brick sized ones of the late 80s. In November I moved to Provo, UT to live in a dormitory as a missionary to prepare to move to Mexico where I spent January of 2004 until November of 2005. There I learned the culture, the language, the way of life, and did some old fashion learning, growing, teaching, helping, serving, and everything that comes with the life of being a missionary. It was fantastic. It had its ups and downs and so many things learned that I couldn’t even begin to explain here, maybe I will at some point, but to me that experience almost trumps anything else I’ve done in the last ten years hands down on its own.
Returning home was a horrible horrible adjustment trying to get re-acquainted with not only the English language, but American culture, and well my own life. Trying to get used to doing things for myself for once. Not fun at all. I worked petty jobs until summer of 2006 where I went back to school until the end of the year and finding that to be frustrating and hey maybe college isn’t for me moved back home before Christmas and set up shop in Conway once again. There I worked more odd jobs and lived and learned lots of things and grew as an individual. I started a band, it was a fun distraction, I went to school off and on at UCA, and then in January of 2009 I returned to the great white north of Idaho to give it one last shot. Surprisingly all the confusion of what to do, where to go, and what should I do with my life slowly started to make sense. Sure there are times when I wish some of that surety would come floating back in, but in the meantime I’m ok with knowing that at least some point I’ve been on the right track. Case in point that year of school I figured out what direction I want to go to for a career, started taking classes in my major that I started to like, got confidence in my Spanish again from not speaking it in so long, and best of all met the girl whom I’m going to spend the rest of my life in. Life has been going pretty much the same since then with little things here and there, but it’s a start anyway.
This all finally started to come together what? Seven years after high school? Had I been going to the “normal social plan” and gone straight through school I’m pretty sure I’d still be sitting on my butt at home trying to figure out what to do with my life. Well yeah I’m kind of doing that now, but what an experience it’s been since then. I’ve learned, understood, and experienced life and I say that’s quite alright. I don’t really remember the point of what I started writing now, but to me that just feels like a validation to myself and anyone else who didn’t quite “fit the norm” and did it their own way. Life works itself out.
The norm of said things is to graduate from high school having had a plethora of your firsts and be ready to descend onto the world of college ready to get drunk every day, party all night, and yet still emerge and adult in four years with a degree that will magically get you some sort of high paying job and provide for a future family. Well lets see here according to my clock that would make that “according to plan” I should have graduated in 2006 and be about four years out in the real world pulling in money and doing whatever it is people consider important for a living. I would own a house by now or at very least a nice apartment in some city where business casual is my normal attire and business being the name of the game I make calls often to do so, well depending on whatever it is my career is I suppose.
Career, now that’s in interesting point in question. By now I should be in a job, either the job or job field, that odds are I’ll be spending the rest of my life doing as well as know automatically what choices to make. Again, this according to what society tells me. Not to mention closing in on thirty I should have indeed have begun to set my sights on “settling down” or in other words have met that girl I’ve settled with being with and begun my decent into living a lackluster life from here on out. Is that everything? Did I leave everything out? If anyone fits that mold well then you probably haven’t really lived at all. That’s all utter crap.
There is no mold, there Is no structure, nor certain path. That’s what I’ve learned in the near ten years since high school. I’m sure most people at this point have so its not news to you, but it makes me think and remember that if I try to compare to anything else which is another lesson all in itself: don’t compare yourself to anybody. Everyone leads their own life and hey what they do may or may not work for you. What works for you, works for you, if that makes sense. I dunno, it sounds good in my head.
After graduation I packed up and moved to Idaho about a month after graduation. I went to school for the rest of the year and moved back home now with roughly 24ish credits under my belt. All of the early to mid part of 2003 I worked in various jobs and saved money. I got my first cell phone, which is funny to me seeing that teenagers are practically born with one these days, but remember we had those free brick sized ones that we thought were practical seeing as we were comparing them to the literal brick sized ones of the late 80s. In November I moved to Provo, UT to live in a dormitory as a missionary to prepare to move to Mexico where I spent January of 2004 until November of 2005. There I learned the culture, the language, the way of life, and did some old fashion learning, growing, teaching, helping, serving, and everything that comes with the life of being a missionary. It was fantastic. It had its ups and downs and so many things learned that I couldn’t even begin to explain here, maybe I will at some point, but to me that experience almost trumps anything else I’ve done in the last ten years hands down on its own.
Returning home was a horrible horrible adjustment trying to get re-acquainted with not only the English language, but American culture, and well my own life. Trying to get used to doing things for myself for once. Not fun at all. I worked petty jobs until summer of 2006 where I went back to school until the end of the year and finding that to be frustrating and hey maybe college isn’t for me moved back home before Christmas and set up shop in Conway once again. There I worked more odd jobs and lived and learned lots of things and grew as an individual. I started a band, it was a fun distraction, I went to school off and on at UCA, and then in January of 2009 I returned to the great white north of Idaho to give it one last shot. Surprisingly all the confusion of what to do, where to go, and what should I do with my life slowly started to make sense. Sure there are times when I wish some of that surety would come floating back in, but in the meantime I’m ok with knowing that at least some point I’ve been on the right track. Case in point that year of school I figured out what direction I want to go to for a career, started taking classes in my major that I started to like, got confidence in my Spanish again from not speaking it in so long, and best of all met the girl whom I’m going to spend the rest of my life in. Life has been going pretty much the same since then with little things here and there, but it’s a start anyway.
This all finally started to come together what? Seven years after high school? Had I been going to the “normal social plan” and gone straight through school I’m pretty sure I’d still be sitting on my butt at home trying to figure out what to do with my life. Well yeah I’m kind of doing that now, but what an experience it’s been since then. I’ve learned, understood, and experienced life and I say that’s quite alright. I don’t really remember the point of what I started writing now, but to me that just feels like a validation to myself and anyone else who didn’t quite “fit the norm” and did it their own way. Life works itself out.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Where else is it normal to pay ten dollars to sit in a dark room with other people and watch people do things?
As I sat down the other day to think back on the few things I’ve been up to lately I made a startling discovery, at least to me anyway, I’ve seen quite a few movies in theaters this year and a lot of them I didn’t hate. I don’t believe I’ve actually forked out the money to go see this many movies in the theater in a long time and not felt disappointed by it or let alone do it at all. If anyone knows me they know I’m a big fan of movies and editing and the whole big deal. I’m a stickler for things that are different and how I feel, well, worth paying nearly ten dollars to go see it. Now maybe I’ve just become bitter over time or maybe my tastes have matured but I go by a small list of rules before I’ll actually see something in the theater, these include but are not limited to:
- The trailer has to blow me away, make me laugh until I pee or in general impress me.
- Its part of a franchise that I actively follow or keep up with in some medium
- I can’t predict the movie from start to finish just from the prevue’s
-I know its going to be horrible going into and that’s usually the point of me seeing it
-It’s a zombie movie. I’m a sucker for these cookie cutter pieces of crap : /
And some other crap I can’t quite think of at the moment, but these are the big ones
Honestly my biggest gripe in movies these days extend mostly from plot. There have been thousands of movies that have been around since the dawn of cinema and contrary to popular belief they haven’t all been made yet. I don’t honestly see the need to do a bunch of remakes or reboot a franchise or anything like that very often. There are a few exceptions, but not often. Other than that there is no reason not to be original. Don’t follow that same tired old plot: open on a good hearty time with friends, main character leads a certain lifestyle that is either terrible or carefree but life is good. Something is given to main character to “make their life better” and works for a bit but slowly it consumes them to become something unlikable or a jerk to their friends, big fight, then time of reflection, and main character returns to save the day in the end, all is forgiven, happy ending. Give or take a few details here and there adding or subtracting love interests this pretty much sums up nearly all movies out there today. Now don’t get me wrong this CAN be done well, but usually it isn’t. Take Adam Sandler movies for example. I like Adam Sandler and think he can be pretty funny, but that really describes about all of his movies. There has got to be a better way of doing things and throwing special effects in the way of good writing or plot points isn’t an ok substitute (Star Wars, Avatar……)
Being able to predict the ending is always a downer for me too. I always assumed that I was just super astute at being able to do so many times before, but as I grow older I guess its more that these endings to movies are just forced way too many times instead. I do however like to claim some of that astute-ness however, but just because I like to feel proud sometimes. If I go into a movie and a mystery is presented and I can’t figure it out I’m much more prone to enjoy the movie whereas I generally don’t if I have it solved in the first fifteen minutes. This also goes for brainless action movies that replace anything resembling a plot with explosions, sex, and swearing a bunch. Don’t get me wrong, I like a dumb action flick every once in awhile, but they just aren’t my cup of tea to be honest.
Now this year is been interesting to me. I’ve seen at least ten or so movies in theaters this year, some even more than once and I only left the theater feeling disappointed once or twice. That’s remarkable to me. Is it possible that the past few years were just the results of lack of good writing from the writer’s strike a few years back that they had warned about?
Some people might read this and say “Well you’re just being picky and can’t just turn off your brain and enjoy it.” Well yeah that’s the point. I don’t want to turn my brain off most of the time. I want to use it while enjoying a movie. I want to be taken on a journey of sight and sound and be able to suspend my disbelief and be whisked away into a story for an hour or so. If I’m going to pay nine dollars to sit in a chair and watch something that a rather large crew has slaved over for a number of months of production to play for me, shouldn’t I deserve something worthwhile? Or am I just asking for too much?
- The trailer has to blow me away, make me laugh until I pee or in general impress me.
- Its part of a franchise that I actively follow or keep up with in some medium
- I can’t predict the movie from start to finish just from the prevue’s
-I know its going to be horrible going into and that’s usually the point of me seeing it
-It’s a zombie movie. I’m a sucker for these cookie cutter pieces of crap : /
And some other crap I can’t quite think of at the moment, but these are the big ones
Honestly my biggest gripe in movies these days extend mostly from plot. There have been thousands of movies that have been around since the dawn of cinema and contrary to popular belief they haven’t all been made yet. I don’t honestly see the need to do a bunch of remakes or reboot a franchise or anything like that very often. There are a few exceptions, but not often. Other than that there is no reason not to be original. Don’t follow that same tired old plot: open on a good hearty time with friends, main character leads a certain lifestyle that is either terrible or carefree but life is good. Something is given to main character to “make their life better” and works for a bit but slowly it consumes them to become something unlikable or a jerk to their friends, big fight, then time of reflection, and main character returns to save the day in the end, all is forgiven, happy ending. Give or take a few details here and there adding or subtracting love interests this pretty much sums up nearly all movies out there today. Now don’t get me wrong this CAN be done well, but usually it isn’t. Take Adam Sandler movies for example. I like Adam Sandler and think he can be pretty funny, but that really describes about all of his movies. There has got to be a better way of doing things and throwing special effects in the way of good writing or plot points isn’t an ok substitute (Star Wars, Avatar……)
Being able to predict the ending is always a downer for me too. I always assumed that I was just super astute at being able to do so many times before, but as I grow older I guess its more that these endings to movies are just forced way too many times instead. I do however like to claim some of that astute-ness however, but just because I like to feel proud sometimes. If I go into a movie and a mystery is presented and I can’t figure it out I’m much more prone to enjoy the movie whereas I generally don’t if I have it solved in the first fifteen minutes. This also goes for brainless action movies that replace anything resembling a plot with explosions, sex, and swearing a bunch. Don’t get me wrong, I like a dumb action flick every once in awhile, but they just aren’t my cup of tea to be honest.
Now this year is been interesting to me. I’ve seen at least ten or so movies in theaters this year, some even more than once and I only left the theater feeling disappointed once or twice. That’s remarkable to me. Is it possible that the past few years were just the results of lack of good writing from the writer’s strike a few years back that they had warned about?
Some people might read this and say “Well you’re just being picky and can’t just turn off your brain and enjoy it.” Well yeah that’s the point. I don’t want to turn my brain off most of the time. I want to use it while enjoying a movie. I want to be taken on a journey of sight and sound and be able to suspend my disbelief and be whisked away into a story for an hour or so. If I’m going to pay nine dollars to sit in a chair and watch something that a rather large crew has slaved over for a number of months of production to play for me, shouldn’t I deserve something worthwhile? Or am I just asking for too much?
Monday, October 11, 2010
I didn't learn to read from a rainbow, but it helped
When I was a kid my favorite past time was to read. I love love loved to read all the time all day long. That is, until I was introduced to the original Nintendo, then it wasn’t too long before it was goodbye reading and improving my brain and hello to angry child rage when you play those impossible moving platform stages in Mega Man.
No, the real sad truth is one I’ve only recently come to a conclusion of: that I didn’t mature my books as I got older. When you’re a kid you read kid books. Like those golden books that have a huge picture on them and a sentence or two of text per page. Then you move onto very tiny novels of about a hundred pages or less in them. From there you should be moving onto real books and other stories that don’t involve kid dectives, aliens, or some wacky school that has 13 stories build on top of each other with one room. For the life of me I can’t remember what that book is called, but I want to find it and re-add it to my book collection. Again, guy who didn’t mature his reading here.
My problem is that I simply couldn’t find another series of books that I enjoyed as I got older. When I was a kid, and still can mind you, I had an impressive reading ability and would just demolish those short kids books in hours. I was a big fan of the Goosebumps books as well as the Animorph series when I was in grade and middle school, but the problem was they weren’t long enough. Around that age is when your parents are starting to teach you some responsibility and have you start paying for things on your own. Well to a kid $5 is a lot of money. Waiting a month for the next book to come out to throw your $5 into is a long long time. Especially when you have roughly a quarter of the book read before you even get home from the store. That just sucks. Even then it just didn’t seem worth it to do so. I loved the stories don’t get me wrong, but it was starting to look like a waste of money even for me, and that says a lot. So sadly I wasn’t interested in any of the more mature books that I got my hands on and I didn’t feel like reading these mini-novels were worth my time so reading just took a back burner for the longest time. Sure I’d find a good book every now and again but it just didn’t turn out that much.
About a year or two ago thankfully that started to change and I’ve begun to re-grow a collection of books. Although a little small at the moment, it;s growing and I’m pretty happy about that. Sadly for anyone other than me, my choice of collection of books probably isn’t the greatest or the most appealing. But I don’t really care. I like what I read and I’m ok with that.
So whats in that tiny collection? Well lets see here, two books by Tucker Max, they are semi-autobiographical but mostly about his stories of drinking, debauchery, and random hook ups all well written and although pretty ranchy, very funny. There are three zombie books in there because apparently I’ve become infatuated with zombies over the last few years. If there is one world ending scenario based off of movies and tv that I do not want to happen, its zombie apocalypse. Honestly I could write all day about how much that would suck and I probably will, but let’s just say there is no reason in the world that I would ever condone myself committing suicide EXCEPT for the zombie apocalypse. I’m pretty sure that’s pretty justifiable. There are a small collect of Spanish short stories and poem books and novels that I’ve accumulated in my Spanish literature classes over the years. I’ll be honest, the only reason they’re in there is that once upon a time I enjoyed a story or two that I had to read in class and the bookstore was only going to give me a dollar or two at most for them when I paid ten. Yeah, they’re there for class. But I could still go back and read them one day right? Yeah, probably not.
Then you get to the more realistic books that I’m not so ashamed of. I started reading the Life of Pi, but never finished it. It’s a struggle when the first hundred or so pages of this Robinson Caruso style book with tigers is just mindless filler and backstory that I doubt will be very relevant when the kid is stranded away from his family on an island with a tiger. Honestly, knowing about the guy who taught him how to live life accordingly and how to swim isn’t going to matter much after that. I do have high hopes for one day finishing it tho.
The Time Travelers Wife. Yes it is a chick novel in the most elaborate of ways. It is a tear jerker and it is a very very very sad book, but I like it. I first heard about it from my sister a few years back and when I finally got around to reading it I was enthralled with it. Some parts were hard to wrap my brain around but others were just so fascinating that I couldn’t stop reading it Sadly enough after I finished it and was emotionally drained from a fantastic experience of such a good book, I was left wanting to stab myself in the eye with a toothpick after watching the movie adaptation. Awful crap. If you’ve ever seen the movie but not read the book: pretend you didn’t and read the book. If you’ve read the book and not seen the movie: just don’t. And if you’ve done both like me, well you know which one is good and which one smells like my Armenian friend from a previous flight.
Another good one that you won’t find on any national best sellers list I would imagine, is In The Eye of the Storm by John Groeburg. Yeah it’s a religious kinda book, but its part adventure tale too. It’s the real experiences of the author when in his 20s he ventured to the Tongan islands to serve three years as a missionary. I read this book while serving as a missionary myself in Mexico a number of years back so I had that much in common, but to anyone else its also a pretty good read. It’s a very interesting look at a number of things that aren’t even related to religion. For example, he’s very good at describing Tongan culture and how different things are done down there and how much he had to adapt and adjust to people there just to be accepted. It’s neat to see how differently things are done for missionaries now as opposed to then, especially in countries that weren’t quite as developed at the time. For me, I was watched over, kept in contact with people, and met frequently with leaders and people all the time. While yes a scary new experience in a country that I didn’t speak the language very well at, at least people knew where I was. For John, it was pretty much, take a boat out there and see you in three years. Sure he had communication with people from time to time, but it might as well be months at a time.
On top of all that yes he puts his two cents in quite often about life lessons as well as things he learns from reading scriptures and things that reminded him of why he was there, but it never gets to overly preachy nor conversion based. You could easily read it as a well rounded nice guy, who is learning about himself and the people around and learning to love them. Or if you want to be lazy you could watch the movie version The Other Side of Heaven, but it’s really watered down Hollywood movie stereotypical poop. Well, as compared to the book. Stand alone as a movie it was pretty good.
There are more books in this so called mini collection of mine, but I don’t remember them all right now, nor do I feel like writing about them. That’s the way I am sometimes, passionate about something until I have to write about it, then it becomes a chore and I say nuts to that, which brings me to one quick side note while I’m thinking about it. The only time I really get a lot of reading in these days is while I’m flying, but the crappiest thing about that is that you always finish your book not at the end of your flight, but usually near the beginning. I’m on my second flight of the day with another hour to go and quite a few subsequent flights over the next week and I finished my book while on the runway. I hate you order of liftoff operations.
No, the real sad truth is one I’ve only recently come to a conclusion of: that I didn’t mature my books as I got older. When you’re a kid you read kid books. Like those golden books that have a huge picture on them and a sentence or two of text per page. Then you move onto very tiny novels of about a hundred pages or less in them. From there you should be moving onto real books and other stories that don’t involve kid dectives, aliens, or some wacky school that has 13 stories build on top of each other with one room. For the life of me I can’t remember what that book is called, but I want to find it and re-add it to my book collection. Again, guy who didn’t mature his reading here.
My problem is that I simply couldn’t find another series of books that I enjoyed as I got older. When I was a kid, and still can mind you, I had an impressive reading ability and would just demolish those short kids books in hours. I was a big fan of the Goosebumps books as well as the Animorph series when I was in grade and middle school, but the problem was they weren’t long enough. Around that age is when your parents are starting to teach you some responsibility and have you start paying for things on your own. Well to a kid $5 is a lot of money. Waiting a month for the next book to come out to throw your $5 into is a long long time. Especially when you have roughly a quarter of the book read before you even get home from the store. That just sucks. Even then it just didn’t seem worth it to do so. I loved the stories don’t get me wrong, but it was starting to look like a waste of money even for me, and that says a lot. So sadly I wasn’t interested in any of the more mature books that I got my hands on and I didn’t feel like reading these mini-novels were worth my time so reading just took a back burner for the longest time. Sure I’d find a good book every now and again but it just didn’t turn out that much.
About a year or two ago thankfully that started to change and I’ve begun to re-grow a collection of books. Although a little small at the moment, it;s growing and I’m pretty happy about that. Sadly for anyone other than me, my choice of collection of books probably isn’t the greatest or the most appealing. But I don’t really care. I like what I read and I’m ok with that.
So whats in that tiny collection? Well lets see here, two books by Tucker Max, they are semi-autobiographical but mostly about his stories of drinking, debauchery, and random hook ups all well written and although pretty ranchy, very funny. There are three zombie books in there because apparently I’ve become infatuated with zombies over the last few years. If there is one world ending scenario based off of movies and tv that I do not want to happen, its zombie apocalypse. Honestly I could write all day about how much that would suck and I probably will, but let’s just say there is no reason in the world that I would ever condone myself committing suicide EXCEPT for the zombie apocalypse. I’m pretty sure that’s pretty justifiable. There are a small collect of Spanish short stories and poem books and novels that I’ve accumulated in my Spanish literature classes over the years. I’ll be honest, the only reason they’re in there is that once upon a time I enjoyed a story or two that I had to read in class and the bookstore was only going to give me a dollar or two at most for them when I paid ten. Yeah, they’re there for class. But I could still go back and read them one day right? Yeah, probably not.
Then you get to the more realistic books that I’m not so ashamed of. I started reading the Life of Pi, but never finished it. It’s a struggle when the first hundred or so pages of this Robinson Caruso style book with tigers is just mindless filler and backstory that I doubt will be very relevant when the kid is stranded away from his family on an island with a tiger. Honestly, knowing about the guy who taught him how to live life accordingly and how to swim isn’t going to matter much after that. I do have high hopes for one day finishing it tho.
The Time Travelers Wife. Yes it is a chick novel in the most elaborate of ways. It is a tear jerker and it is a very very very sad book, but I like it. I first heard about it from my sister a few years back and when I finally got around to reading it I was enthralled with it. Some parts were hard to wrap my brain around but others were just so fascinating that I couldn’t stop reading it Sadly enough after I finished it and was emotionally drained from a fantastic experience of such a good book, I was left wanting to stab myself in the eye with a toothpick after watching the movie adaptation. Awful crap. If you’ve ever seen the movie but not read the book: pretend you didn’t and read the book. If you’ve read the book and not seen the movie: just don’t. And if you’ve done both like me, well you know which one is good and which one smells like my Armenian friend from a previous flight.
Another good one that you won’t find on any national best sellers list I would imagine, is In The Eye of the Storm by John Groeburg. Yeah it’s a religious kinda book, but its part adventure tale too. It’s the real experiences of the author when in his 20s he ventured to the Tongan islands to serve three years as a missionary. I read this book while serving as a missionary myself in Mexico a number of years back so I had that much in common, but to anyone else its also a pretty good read. It’s a very interesting look at a number of things that aren’t even related to religion. For example, he’s very good at describing Tongan culture and how different things are done down there and how much he had to adapt and adjust to people there just to be accepted. It’s neat to see how differently things are done for missionaries now as opposed to then, especially in countries that weren’t quite as developed at the time. For me, I was watched over, kept in contact with people, and met frequently with leaders and people all the time. While yes a scary new experience in a country that I didn’t speak the language very well at, at least people knew where I was. For John, it was pretty much, take a boat out there and see you in three years. Sure he had communication with people from time to time, but it might as well be months at a time.
On top of all that yes he puts his two cents in quite often about life lessons as well as things he learns from reading scriptures and things that reminded him of why he was there, but it never gets to overly preachy nor conversion based. You could easily read it as a well rounded nice guy, who is learning about himself and the people around and learning to love them. Or if you want to be lazy you could watch the movie version The Other Side of Heaven, but it’s really watered down Hollywood movie stereotypical poop. Well, as compared to the book. Stand alone as a movie it was pretty good.
There are more books in this so called mini collection of mine, but I don’t remember them all right now, nor do I feel like writing about them. That’s the way I am sometimes, passionate about something until I have to write about it, then it becomes a chore and I say nuts to that, which brings me to one quick side note while I’m thinking about it. The only time I really get a lot of reading in these days is while I’m flying, but the crappiest thing about that is that you always finish your book not at the end of your flight, but usually near the beginning. I’m on my second flight of the day with another hour to go and quite a few subsequent flights over the next week and I finished my book while on the runway. I hate you order of liftoff operations.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The dread feeling of flying
I don’t know when this will go up, but I’m penning it from the Atlanta Airport.
There is something to be said about growing older and how things that used to excite you as a kid gradually become more cumbersome and uncomfortable the older you get. One of those things for me as I’ve gotten older is flying. Ironic that this only comes up in my brain when I’m mid flight as much like going to the dentist or to a doctor where you’re forced to get some awful shot, you think to yourself “this time will be better”. For me its not so much the crampt feeling of being inside the plane smashed up between complete strangers for hours at a time, although that is a concern. I often do wonder how the luck of the draw is for me that I’m often in a middle or window seat with people on both sides of me being larger than life passengers who generally take up a seat and a quarter of mine. When I get my boarding pass is there a key on the keyboard that says “skinny dude who would fit between two fatties?” I’m thinking so because it tends to happen every flight. The one I just got off of is a good example. It was however more pleasant than the last flight I was one and was smashed up against the window by a very large and very smelly Armenian gentlemen. The problem wasn’t being Armenian, but the fact that he smelled like eggs and onions and probably hadn’t showered in a good week or so. Let’s just overlook the snoring factor.
No, my real problem with flying these days is heights and shaking. Turbulence. As a kid that’s all fun and games. Kind of like a fun ride on an already awesome plane ride that you don’t get to do every day. You can see the world from a completely new perspective and no matter how many times you see it, its always fascinating to see the world like some small scale model laid out underneath you. For me however, it has become a feeling of pure terror at 10,000 feet. I have age and television to blame for that. Getting older means understanding how the real world works and realizing the frailty of how life really is. For example, unless you see something devastating in person you probably don’t have a real fear of it. Take car wrecks for example. Sure they look pretty terrible on tv and everything but if you haven’t experienced one they may worry you a bit in the back of your mind, but you don’t tend to think about them that much. That is, until you have one. I got in a pretty nasty wreck, all things considered not that bad but worse then anything I’ve ever experienced before, that left me pretty shaken up and to this day still freaks me out sometimes while I’m driving. Even though I was driving that day I have real issues not being in control of the car if I’m not driving. The same goes for planes. I’ve never experienced a problem on a flight, but the older I get the more I realize it could happen. Now how often does it? Not much really, but more often than you’d think. But if I already am afraid of heights and being shaken around makes me want to piss myself, put the two together in a “hey it’s the safest way to travel but if something goes wrong you’re going to die” kinda way, far be it from me to not get a little nervous when the plane starts shaking miles and miles in the air.
The real kicker comes from some of my favorite shows. TV rarely catches my interest these days, but specific shows do. Like a lot of other people I was pretty hooked on LOST, but anyone who knows about that show knows its about a bunch of people stranded on an island. Stranded because their plane went down. Horribly. I’ve never seen something so frightening in my entire life and anytime I get on a plane that’s the first place my brain goes to. Ironically now I’m typing from the plane itself and on this particular flight I’m on the tail end which would mean I’m going to break in half right in front of me and if I’m not immediately sucked out from the hole in the plane, I might drown in the ocean or just be beaten to death by a large African man who doesn’t put up with anybody’s shit, not even polar bears.
Being fearful of airplanes is slowly becoming a trend for me, yet I still travel on them. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment. Either that or I just can’t take all that many long road trips like I used to. The only embarrassment is when you are in a dead sleep and due to turbulence you wake up with a start, pulse racing and hands gripped onto the armrests like you own that bitch. The last time I flew on a plane I was sitting between my older sister and my fiancée. They both laughed at me. Damn you Lost. Damn you to hell.
There is something to be said about growing older and how things that used to excite you as a kid gradually become more cumbersome and uncomfortable the older you get. One of those things for me as I’ve gotten older is flying. Ironic that this only comes up in my brain when I’m mid flight as much like going to the dentist or to a doctor where you’re forced to get some awful shot, you think to yourself “this time will be better”. For me its not so much the crampt feeling of being inside the plane smashed up between complete strangers for hours at a time, although that is a concern. I often do wonder how the luck of the draw is for me that I’m often in a middle or window seat with people on both sides of me being larger than life passengers who generally take up a seat and a quarter of mine. When I get my boarding pass is there a key on the keyboard that says “skinny dude who would fit between two fatties?” I’m thinking so because it tends to happen every flight. The one I just got off of is a good example. It was however more pleasant than the last flight I was one and was smashed up against the window by a very large and very smelly Armenian gentlemen. The problem wasn’t being Armenian, but the fact that he smelled like eggs and onions and probably hadn’t showered in a good week or so. Let’s just overlook the snoring factor.
No, my real problem with flying these days is heights and shaking. Turbulence. As a kid that’s all fun and games. Kind of like a fun ride on an already awesome plane ride that you don’t get to do every day. You can see the world from a completely new perspective and no matter how many times you see it, its always fascinating to see the world like some small scale model laid out underneath you. For me however, it has become a feeling of pure terror at 10,000 feet. I have age and television to blame for that. Getting older means understanding how the real world works and realizing the frailty of how life really is. For example, unless you see something devastating in person you probably don’t have a real fear of it. Take car wrecks for example. Sure they look pretty terrible on tv and everything but if you haven’t experienced one they may worry you a bit in the back of your mind, but you don’t tend to think about them that much. That is, until you have one. I got in a pretty nasty wreck, all things considered not that bad but worse then anything I’ve ever experienced before, that left me pretty shaken up and to this day still freaks me out sometimes while I’m driving. Even though I was driving that day I have real issues not being in control of the car if I’m not driving. The same goes for planes. I’ve never experienced a problem on a flight, but the older I get the more I realize it could happen. Now how often does it? Not much really, but more often than you’d think. But if I already am afraid of heights and being shaken around makes me want to piss myself, put the two together in a “hey it’s the safest way to travel but if something goes wrong you’re going to die” kinda way, far be it from me to not get a little nervous when the plane starts shaking miles and miles in the air.
The real kicker comes from some of my favorite shows. TV rarely catches my interest these days, but specific shows do. Like a lot of other people I was pretty hooked on LOST, but anyone who knows about that show knows its about a bunch of people stranded on an island. Stranded because their plane went down. Horribly. I’ve never seen something so frightening in my entire life and anytime I get on a plane that’s the first place my brain goes to. Ironically now I’m typing from the plane itself and on this particular flight I’m on the tail end which would mean I’m going to break in half right in front of me and if I’m not immediately sucked out from the hole in the plane, I might drown in the ocean or just be beaten to death by a large African man who doesn’t put up with anybody’s shit, not even polar bears.
Being fearful of airplanes is slowly becoming a trend for me, yet I still travel on them. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment. Either that or I just can’t take all that many long road trips like I used to. The only embarrassment is when you are in a dead sleep and due to turbulence you wake up with a start, pulse racing and hands gripped onto the armrests like you own that bitch. The last time I flew on a plane I was sitting between my older sister and my fiancée. They both laughed at me. Damn you Lost. Damn you to hell.
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