Slowly Learning...

'Cause if you're gonna throw you're life away he better have a motorcycle!

So as I sit here at 4 in the morning watching Eddie Izzard's HBO special (which is freaking hilarious) I've come to the very frightening conclusion. I work with a kid who reminds me physically, and in some ways personality-wise, of Eddie. Of course he doesn't wear makeup or women's clothing (that I know of), and he isn't quite as funny, but there is still this disturbing semi-resemblance. But of course this means little to any of you out there as I'm sure few of you even know of Eddie Izzard (other than the old roommates that Cross tried to convert) and even fewer of you know the dude at work. Of course this is a great lead-in to once again invite you all to our party on June 12th (see the previous entry) and possiblly meet this Eddie wannabe.

At this point though I really should be in bed. It is 4.30, and I do have to get up and ride in a car to NYC (being a passenger is very tiring work) for the reunion/wedding going on there. That is of course why I am missing other festivities that are happening all around. And I do appologize for that, but seeing so many old friends in one place and celebrating Steinbergs marriage seemed to just trump those other happenings. Next time though. And with that I leave you all for the weekend. I'll be sure to post any good stories from the NYC trip, although Dan will more than likely beat me to the punch (and with more literary flair), and most of you who actually check in on me will probably have been there as well... Either way my life is pretty boring right now so I'm just scraping the bottom of the barrel in an attempt to keep busy (i.e. posting about pointless crap like right now).

Oh and bonus points to anyone who can guess the quote.

Posted by Thom at 4:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Date: Sat. June 12th
Time: 2:00 pm - Whenever
Place: 109 Summerhill Plaza #6, Ithaca, NY

So I've talked about it, I've hinted at it, and now I'm finally doing it (with the help of my roommates of course). That's right folks: Time to celebrate the end of the Cornell Exidous! Come July the last 3 of us from the Quarry House (Cross, Em, and myself) will be gone from the Ithaca area. Granted I may only be moving 20 miles North to Dryden, but it's still not Ithaca (but I guess it's also not nearly as impressive as treking down to Nashville, oh well). So to celebrate this grand moving we've decided to have a party on June 12th at our townhouse in Ithaca. And of course what would a party be without guests? So we've decided to invite everyone we know, have known, and will ever know! (the last one may be a bit tricky, but I'm down for the challenge) And naturally all of you out there are invited to join us in the festivities! Be you just the casual reader or the long time friend (I have a feeling that about 99% of you fall into the later) you fit the required prerequistes to join us.

Now many of you have heard of, or been lucky enough to have attended one of you famous Brandon Circle Clam Bakes, which were always lots of fun. Saddly however those days are over now that the house has been sold and most of the other neighbors have moved away. But I'll do my best to continue that tradition here in Ithaca. Granted this year we won't be having clams (for I am just a poor college student) but we will attempt to have the other festivities including sun, grilling, boce, friends, etc. If there is a big enough outcry I can also see what we can do about getting some other recreational activities going like Volleyball.

As for the details... We'll have the grill going to help feed all of you. Requests are welcome for items to grill, and we'll try to do what we can there. So far the plans are probably along the lines of burgers and hotdogs and such. We'll supply some beverages as well, but our liquer supply (and cash) are low so alcohol will have to be on a byob basis (although there is a store right next door so we can do a alcohol run if people chip in). Other food/drink donations are also welcome. I have already gotten an offer from my mom for some desserts, which are always a big hit. Feel free to email me any requests about that and I'll try to pass them along to her.

The party is scheduled to start at about 2 in the afternoon (I hopefully should be awake by then) and go on till wheneve the last person calls it quits (keep in mind that will have to be before the 30th, because our lease does end eventually). I also realize that just about everyone that I know doesn't live in Ithaca, so it may take some traveling, and I understand if you're not up to that, but I hope you don't let that deter you. We do have room to house people that are coming from out of town (or even for townies that just don't feel like going home). And of course if our hospitality is not quite up to your standards there is also a hotel in our back yard.

I will be sending out email invitations as well to anyone I can think of. If by chance you don't get one I appologize, that doesn't mean we don't want you or have forgotten about you. It probably just means that I don't have your email anymore. So if that's the case, or if you just really want an email from me, just leave me a comment with your email address and I'll send you one as well so you won't feel left out. And of course you can always keep up to date with the details on my blog. I'll be sure to post any changes that may arise.

The main concern though is that this won't work without all you. Parties just aren't parties if there aren't any people there. So please do join us. And bring along a friend or two or twenty. The more the merrier!

Posted by Thom at 3:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

So in my efforts to keep more up to date with my movie viewing posts I give you my latest feature. I got knocked out of poker early tonight, so I had a chance to round up my last $6 and catch the late showing of Good Bye Lenin! (Yes that '!' is actually in the title) It was pretty much what I expected. The story revolves around a East German family who's mother goes into a coma only to awake 8 months later, completely missing the fall of comunmism and the fall of the wall. In her weak condition doctors worry that any shock might trigger another heart attack, so her son attempts to shield his mother from all that has happened while she was asleep. Of course hijinx ensue as he tries to explain away certain things that manage to creep into her life (appearance of Coke posters, foreign cars, etc). I guess from the previews I was expecting something more comically centered, but insted it focused a lot more on the family aspect of the story, giving it a more touching feel. That's not to say there wasn't plenty to laugh about too. That still made it into the movie. The whole story was rather reasonable and well done, considering the difficulty of covering something like that up. The film also came through in the one area that a lot (i.e. MOST) movies fail, and that was the ending. The movie ended perfectly in my mind. Not a really a happy ending, not really a sad ending, couple things left for the viewer to wonder about, but no loose ends left untied. It ended much like the entire movie progressed. It wasn't great or spectacular or overly unique, but rather it was just solidly done. It's not something that I have to have for my collection or that I'd rush out and see again, but it's still a movie that I'm glad I did see (and not jsut so I can say that I've seen every movie at Cinemapolis/Fall Creek, which I hope to wrap up next week with Super Size Me, Bon Voyage, and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring). So if you do have the time I'd recommend catching this one. And who knows, if you see it in Ithaca you just might catch me back there again.

RATING: Worth a Full Price Ticket, Worth a Rental

Posted by Thom at 3:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh my god. I was excepting something a little crazy, but this movie went well beyond that. To get a feeling of what this movie is like think Dragonball Z crossed with Mighty Ducks (except of course on a soccer field insted of an hockey rink). I'd have to say that about one third of the movie was CG, which I would normally hate, but it came off perfectly. Nothing in this movie is all that deep and the film never takes itself too seriously at all. It's just an action packed comedy that just never seems to quite in it's pursuit of being completely out there. The final showdown (against who else but Team Evil, real subtle huh?) is less a soccer match and more a chest thumping brawl. The end is rather predictable as Team Shaolin wins, the hero of the day gets the girl, etc. But the end isn't the destination isn't what this movie is about. This movie is all about the journey, and how to make it even more unbelievable and hillarious. Add to all this the fact that Ithacans can see both Shaolin Soccer and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind back to back, in the same theatre (until Thursday when Shaolin moves to Fall Creek), and you have the chance of a lifetime for one hell of an evening of off the wall movies.

RATING: Worth the 2 Full Priced Tickets, Worth a Purchase.

Posted by Thom at 1:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I've already written this once. And it was long and detailed and good. But then I lost it due to a stupid internet bump. I don't really have the motivation to write out the whole long review again so I'll just sort of summarize...

Nosey Parker is sort of a semi-documentary/semi-mocumentary about 2 "outsiders" moving to rural Vermont. I label it as a documentary cause it has that feel to it with scenic shots, voice over, close up views of townspeople chatting, handheld camera work, etc. And most of the cast is the natives from Turnbridge (the setting of the film). The exceptions to this being the 2 outsiders. Now you may ask, "Well what is the documentary about?" And I'd have to say, nothing. It's not really trying to get a message across to the audience and it doesn't really have any major conflict/climax. It just sort of is. It's a real look at real life (I refrained from using the bad pun of "reel" life). So you may ask what the appeal of this could possibly be, and I don't really know. It's just something about the unscripted (the plot was sketched out by the writer and then the cast was just sort of told to wing it) look at life. Without having a set script you really felt like you were watching the progression of the townspeople's lives.

Now while everyone did a fine job, and the "couple" did a great job of portraying their outsider role, the show really belonged to George Lyford. This weathered old farmer was the heart of the movie. He reminded me of Uncle Bill from American Movie. They both have that certain something that just makes them the center of the show, even if that wasn't fully intended.

So if you want a down to earth look at real life, go watch this movie. It's not the most exciting or dramatic film I've seen, but it's still enthralling.

RATING: Worth a Full Price Ticket, Worth a Rental

Posted by Thom at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh how times have changed. Just about everyone G4 interviewed at E3 couldn't pick a favorite booth babe...because they were married! I guess the days when a booth babe was the closest a gamer ever got to a woman are gone.

P.S. - I wish I was at E3 and/or rich so I could check out all the new gaming stuffs, and then buy them. Any suggestions to solve either of these problems are welcome.

Posted by Thom at 1:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So let's keep this one short, cause Gilmore is on TV...

The story was interesting, at first.
Greg Kinnear was good, all the wawy through.
Robert De Niro was decent, and fell off at the end.
The movie as a whole was ok, then really died at the end, if you can call that an end...

RATING: Eh, See it if it's at Movies 10 (i.e. $1), otherwise skip it.

Posted by Thom at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So Hollywood has decided to give us yet another historical epic film, much like Gladiator. This time, however, they failed. I'm not saying it's a bad movie, but it's not good. Entertaining maybe, but not good. So my first problem is the writing. The writing sort of sums the movie up nicely. It was terrible writing or dialogue, but it didn't fit. If you're gonna make a movie that tries to be true to the original story, write dialogue for that original story. The writing we get in this movie is more fitting for some modern conflict, not a story set thousands of years ago. Add to this poor performances by a number of the actors (most noteablly Eric Bana) and the dialogue is just crap. There were come good performances too, that tried to make the dialogue seem plausible, but it's hard with writing like this.

Second problem, the camera work. The shots were so unispired, and at times cliche, that I just got frustrated. If you're gonna have us sit through epic battles and beautiful scenes at least present them to us in a good way. Some of the shots were taken straight out of low-budget Chinese actions flicks, which aren't exactly known for their cinematography.

All was not lost though. There are plenty of saving graces in the movie. The apathetic attitude of Achilles portrayed by Brad Pitt was great. As well as the nice job done by Brian Cox (two of my favorite actors). The battles were also very nicely down. It really gave the whole story an epic feel to it. I must say though, the conflict between Achilles and Hector (Bana) did seem like it would fit better in say Soul Calibur, but that made it all the more enjoyable. I mean by that point I had lost faith in finding a respectable, historical movie. At that point I was just looking for entertainment, and I did get it.

Looking for something entertaining, go see it. Looking for something more substantial, try something else.

RATING: Worth a Cheap Ticket, Worth a Rental (if there're DVD Extras)

Posted by Thom at 7:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So as I listen to the new Air CD I can't help but think of how Air is like college life. Stick with me on this one and it'll all be made clear.

So first up comes your freshman year (i.e. Moon Safari). This first experience is new and exciting. You're full of great new ideas and ready to learn and grow. During this first year you work your ass off and are still concerned with the whole GPA thing. The first year is so full of new experiences that it seems to go on forever, but in a good way. It's a great time for all and memorable.

Next we move into the sophmore phase (i.e. Premiers Symptomes). Here you still have some of that energy and spunk from freshman year, but without quite the extreme work ethic as before. Hence you're left with a shorter version of everything. There's a drop in the creativitty and originality as you begin to fall into the college lifestyle. It's still a good time, but not quite as unique as the first year.

Then come junior year (i.e. The Virgin Suicides Soundtrack) you decide that you need a change, so you fool around with your major. Or better yet you head off for a semester/year abroad. You experience new things, new places, new people, and sort of relive your youthful freshman days, but with a slightly different view of it all.

Finally we come around the bend to senior year (i.e. 10,000 Hz Legend). This is your final year, so you're either bunrt out or just don't really care anymore. You're already looking ahead to the places you'll go and looking back at the times you've had. You're looking just about everywhere except towards your classes. Sure you still get by, but it's not quite up to par with the first couple years. In some cases you get so lax that you even need an extra semester or two to make up for the work you've missed (i.e. Everbody Hurtz). Finally you do get through it all though, and man does it feel good to be finished. But then you get a little ways down the road and...

Grad school! That's right! A couple years out in the real world and you begin to see what things are really like and you long for those innnocent college days, plus you realize you need more schooling or better direction, so you head back for some post graduate work (i.e. Talkie Walkie). Here in grad school you're re-energized and ready to work hard. But grad school isn't just about class like normal college. No, in grad school you do research and experiment. You're rekindled love of learning brings you to new depths of knowledge and maturity. Maybe it's not quite as amazing as your freshman year, but there's something about the colaboration of aquired knowledge, life experiences, and a renewed vigor for education that leads you to something that's almost better.

So there you have it. Air can very easily be paralelled with the college system. And I think we can all learn a very important lesson from all of this: The new Air CD is quite good (almost as good as Moon Safari) so you should go out and give it a listen. Oh, and try not to slack off senior year, those extra semesters can be killer on the wallet. Insted just go off and find some grad school to pay you to learn more. I mean it seems to have worked for my roommates.

Posted by Thom at 3:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two entries in one night?!? I know, it's nutty. This one is more of a random thought post though, as opposed to the random thought rant. To differentiate the two I've decided to numerically list my points in this one.

1 - Very few things can make me as happy as now being able to watch Gilmore Girls anytime I want. True it's only the first season, and they were still working out the characters, but it's still great. They still have the trio of attractive women, the quirkily clever writing, and everything else that makes the show so great.

2 - Another thing that makes me happy would have to be logging on to find that I have non-spam comments, from real people! It's nice to know that someone out there actually checks in on my pointless rantings from time to time. It's even weirder and cooler when it happens to be someone I haven't heard from in years (oh, and if you're reading this Sue I am gonna check out your reccommendations, thanks!).

3 - I've found that a lot of things in life are a multiple of 3. All around things just seem to pop in in 3's or 6's or even 9's. It's knid of creepy. Or maybe I'm just failing into the mathematicians trap of becoming a numerologist.

4 - I've really run out of thoughts by this point, but since I went to the trouble of numbering my ideas I figured I might as well have more than 2 or 3 of them. But now that I've had time to ponder here are some more random thoughts...

5 - I've decided to stick with Cingular for my wireless needs I think. They just seem to give me less hassle with having to worry about roaming and all. (I know you all were really worried about that one).

6 - I find it very humorous and odd that the class that I spent by far the most time on (Photo, where I spent countless hours in that darkroom) is so far my worst grade of the semester with a B+, while the class that I did the least work for (Applied Mathematics, where I spent maybe an hour total studying this semester) is my best grade of the semester with an A+. It just proves that I should never do any work at all. Then I'd end up with a 4.3 GPA!

So there you go for now. There'll be more to come tomorrow when I plan on discussing the connection between Air's progression of albums and the structure of university life.

Posted by Thom at 3:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I was thinking tonight... I know that can be a dangerous thing, but bear with me for a few. So anyway, I was brushing my teeth and I looked down at my feet and thought to myself, "hmmm, I have pretty normal toes." I mean they don't seem stubby or too long, or chubby or too skinny. But then I got to thinking, are my feet really normal? Or is this just something that I've come to believe cause I'm used to my feet? Do people with really long skinny toes think that their feet are normal, while eveyone else just seems to have short stubby toes? It's like the old question, "does a crazy person know he's crazy?" But I think that if I did have skinny toes, or stubby toes I'd realize it just through comparison. I mean although it is a little more obvious than comparing feet I know that I'm short. So naturally I should have a pretty clear understanding of where my feet fall in the scope of things, as do most others (excluding those overly self concious people that find fault with any and every part of their bodies). So for all you curious parties out there, yes, I do have realtively normal sized feet, as well as most other parts of my body. Except of course for my head. I've been told numerous times that I have a big head. But over all I'm rather proportionally balanced.

Posted by Thom at 3:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I realize that I've been a bit lazy in the posting department lately, and I wish I could blame this on something like school and/or work, but I really can't. I've only been working 2 days a week and although finals are coming up (Tues and Wed and then I'm done) I certainly haven't been studying for them. I am proud to report that I am officially done with 2 of my classes already though, and I've managed to get my grade back in one of them. So I finally have a GPA at Cortland, and it's holding very nicely at 4.0. We'll see if that drops after the other 4 courses, but I'm not too worried about it falling too far. Of course that one course that I've gotten an A in so far was my Composition course, which further proves how retarded it is that I had to take it at all. I mean I only took two writing seminars, a creative writing course, two writing intensive philosophy courses, and a technical writing course at Cornell, so of course they couldn't trust that I knew anything about how to write an essay.

So anyways, summer is coming quickly, which means I'll be picking up four days a week at Wegmans (hopefully, because I could really use the money). On top of that my roommates will be heading off to Nashville and all my other friend(s) will be heading home for the summer, which will leave me rather bored and alone. On the bright side this means I'll probably get the chance to see a lot more movies, both in the theatres and at home. I'm even thinking of signing up for a netflix account just to keep me busy. So if anyone out there has an suggestions of movies that I need to rent let me know, I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to watch them all. Also, if anyone knows of any good books let me know about those. I'm running low on new things to read.

So what other news do I have? Well...pretty much nothing. I did manage to rent Double Dash a week ago, which Cross and I managed to fly through, unlocking just about everything (I wish I could take more credit, but it was mostly Cross) and I also have managed to log about 25 hours on my quest through Final Fantasy X, which I picked up cheap in order to hold me over till Xenosaga II comes out (which will still be quite a while I'm sure). Oh and to kick it out skool style I dusted off my copy of the original Zelda and beat that the other day too. I must say, old games may be short, but they're a hell of a lot more challenging than most new games.

In more recent non-geek news, my mom came up on Saturday to celebrate Mother's Day. And what better way to celebrate than for her to cook me, Cross, and Em dinner! But before you start yelling at me it was her idea. I offered to take her out to dinner, but she insisted on cooking insted. She also managed to play in our poker game later in the night, and she was leading for a while too. Unfortunatly her luck didn't hold out and she got knocked out. But on a happier note I did end up taking first, racking my poker tournement totals for the week up to 3 firsts, 2 seconds, 2 thirds, and only 1 time not in the money. Not too bad for a week of cards, even if it was mostly low limit home and online games.

Taking about a weeks step back I also managed to catch the student directed plays at Cortland last weekend with Sabra. It took a little nudging (i.e. couple days of pestering) to get her to agree to come, but in the end my powers of persuation prevailed! It was 2 single act plays, one comedic in nature, the other a bit more serious, but both very well done. I personally enjoyed the first, comedic one better, mainly because it's hard to develop a meaningful dramic scene that really gets the audience into it and thinking in such a short window. Also I may have been swayed by the fact that Ashley (friend from Cortland) was in the first play. The two plays (or even either one of them taken alone) were much better than the musical that the school had earlier (see my eariler post on "The Mystery Of Edwin Drood"), and I wish that I knew of some more performances like these. Unfortunatly in an area like Cortland I may just be limited to musicals. Oh well, I guess I just have to take what's given to me, and then complain about it. But all in all the student plays were fun. A good time was had by all. All being me and Sabra, and possiblly the other audience memebers, and possiblly the cast.

So enough rambling about my recent goings on. And for anyone who has managed to make it this far I applaud you, and I also wonder how bored (or dedicated to my life) you must be to read through all that. In any case I hope to post a little more often now that summer is coming around. And hopefully I'll be abel to come up with something a little more interesting to post about too, but I wouldn't hold your breathe about that one. So I leave you with a quote that some spamming commentor left on my blog, which unfortunatly is where about 90% of my comments seem to come from, but this one seems to apply from time to time...

"There's a fine line between genious and insanity. I have erased this line."

Posted by Thom at 4:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So to say this movie was bad is an understatement. This movie blew. It may only be May, but I can honestly say that this is and will be the worst movie I've seen all year. And of course once again Ebert has decided to give this movie a good rating. At least this time he hasn't deemed the worst movie of the year the best (like Minority Report) and this time I have backup from fellow movie goers who also thought it sucked.

Now I don't quite know where to start with the problems. Should I start with the vampires that constantly come out in the middle of the day? Or the Rock'em Sock'em Robots version of Frankenstien's Monster? Or the fact that there's a full moon ever other day in Transilvania? Well there was all that. And then there was also the terrible (and I mean Episode II kind of terrible) writing. You can't really balme the actors for their bad performances with the script they were given to work with, but I still do. Hugh Jackman's style may fly in modern portrayals of characters like Wolverine, but it doesn't fly in a movie set in the 1800's. Also the work done by Richard Roxburgh, as Dracula, was far from his best. In fact it sucked. But then again you have to blame a lot of this on the writers. Boy did they suck. The movie was filled with stupid little comments that had absolutely no place in the movie. It was like watching Hellboy, but without the comic book background to excuse the lame lines.

So let's look at another major fault of the movie. One may think maybe the action would perk up the film, no. The CG was respectable, but the writing and inconsistancies kill that notion. So lets look at the worst one of all. Frankenstien's Monster swings along a rope form a bridge into a window, then the female lead takes the same rope and swings down, to the same bridge. Hmmm, not quite sure how that works. Also not quite sure how this bridge stays standing with no supports and the middle missing. Oh and my personal favorite: Van is riding on a stagecoach, wolfman jumps at them and scraps along the top of the coach...and it lights on fire...ummm, yeah. What? Exactly.

So I could go on and on about how this movie employs just about every overused cliche in the film industry (and it does) and how completely terrible the writing and story is (and it is really that bad) and how there is no saving grace to the film (and there really isn't), but I don't want to go on and on for too long here. If you want more details, or to try and debate the qualities of the film with me go ahead and IM me or email me, but I think I've said enough for now.

RATING: Burn any and all copies of this film that you come in contact with. You'll be doing a great service to humanity.

Posted by Thom at 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You know that you've been playing too much poker when you open up a game of 1-suited spider solitare and the first thoughts through your head are "Shit man, I have one hell of a straight flush!"

Posted by Thom at 1:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)