Mind Meanderings

Greetings blogoverse and handful of readers. It's been awhile but I don't really have lots of time usually to sit and write one since I don't have internet at home. It's lame i know. So I'm attempting to write this while I'm on the radio.

Basically what it boils down to is the settings in my landlady's router are wrong and nobody who's normally in the house is an expert on it and knows how to get it to work. We've fiddled around with settings but bumpkiss. I can connect to her network I just don't have internet access.

What else has been goin on? Everything and nothing really. Nothing new particularly. I got a laptop before christmas which will come in handy, more so in the future probly since my desktop comp that I've had for like 6 years sounds like it's gonna die in a relatively near time frame. The thing's louder than a prepubescent girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. The most annoying thing I've found so far with the laptop is the keyboard. The majority of the buttons have about 6 symbols on them and I don't have a clue how to use half of them. There's a function button that goes along with them I guess and I haven't really figured it out. Most annoying about it is the small shift key on the right and when you hit some buttons it just gives you letters with slashes above them. Literally takes twice the amount of time to type something as it would on a normal keyboard.

School is starting to wind down which is a little freaky. I don't feel as though I'm good enough to get a job. I'm not that interesting on-air or creative enough to do a production job making commercials and so forth. Also perhaps it's just me but I don't really feel as if the instructors think I have much of a future in the industry. They're really much chummier with other people. I suppose everyone feels like this when it comes time to be moving on from a university or college course but I've found that how I feel is similar but different and extended to what other people do on average. It's mostly about confidence likability and how you sound. I unfortunately don't ingratiate myself to people well and I hate how I sound. It sort of goes back to my issues with making and keeping healthy friendships since I don't like boring people, which I often end up doing, since I usually feel as I don't have anything interesting to include in discussions.

At least that's all I've thought of. I've seen/met many people similar to me who are much more successful in different aspects of things such as relationships and work and so forth and I haven't in so far as yet determined what the difference is.

You may ask well maybe you should've made some new years resolutions then to change. Well I don't believe in new years resolutions since they don't change anything and people don't follow them anyway. This may seem rather negative but that's how I see things. I don't really have too much to complain about honestly. I have a few friends, I hang out and do stuff with them and they invite me to stuff. Work is alright, school is fine, it's not like I'm failing or anything. I just always want things to be better than they are and constantly think about things that bother me even tho there's no need for me to. I'm very envious. Messed up, I know. Welcome to my world in 2010.

Moving on from that, which isn't really what I intended to get into on this blog, however I figured I would put it out there. Another guy I know wrote a similar sort of blog about the same kinda things. Only his he explained and talked about much better.

Stealing from Hammelltime and with the new year in mind, here's a list of some of the best movies I saw in 2009 in no particular order:

Drag Me To Hell: This was tense, creepy, scary, gross, everything you could want in a horror movie. Sam Raimi showed the world what you can do with horror and just how good it can be. Horror is kind of a mocked and looked down upon genre however like metal music, it produces wonderous, beautiful things sometimes and I'll take a good horror movie over Avatar or any other stupid mass loved crap any day.

Other amazing horror titles: Let the Right One In, REC, Trick R Treat, Zombieland, many others I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Movies I'm surprised I liked so much: Adventureland and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. These aren't the sort of movies I usually watch but I incredibly enjoyed them. Their funny and charming and just cute, touching stories at the base of them. Adventureland really feels like an 80s movie and like it's from that time period. The acting is great, the music is awesome and just that unquantifiable quality some movies have. Nick and Norah's has that odd sense of humour about it that speaks to me.

I kinda got a brain freeze at the moment and cant think of others but its time to go anyway as my time on the radio is over. I shall see you around.

You ever wonder whether it's you or the world that has the problem?

Damn School

So I didn't really feeling like doin it tonight. Sitting here at school in the room built to house the radio station CJ 106 doin my show, i do feel a little better than i do earlier and its certainly goin better this week than last week. My friend bailed on coming along again for the 2nd week in a row, which is lame. I kinda feel like talking to her about something but it would seem kinda stupid and not something i should be bothering to worry or think about it too much.

I think it annoyed me more b/c i was looking forward to hangin out and was in a bad mood already. From school. School is annoying me highly right now. Kinda feel like I'm just wasting my time and money. Of course let me preface that. Even if I hadn't come back to the school this year, there's a very high likelyhood that I'd still be wasting my time and money anyway. Just be wasting it on something else. So it was pretty confirmed today that the program is moving more towards a tv production sort of realm now rather than news like before. It's really important to them now to show us how to create a tv show idea and pitch it correctly. So we have to come up with a cooking or food related show and do all this synopsis, treatment, whatever crap. I'd have rather done a profile video. This project so far has highly irritated me. I'm not gonna be doing tv show creation and pitches for a living, I'm not creative enough; I'm barely creative enough to even be in this course.

I don't remember if there was anything else I was gonna write, so I'll just end it there. Do check out the new nightmare on elm street trailer, looks kinda badass. Also, new Alice in Chains out tomorrow, fuck yeah.

self-help

This isn’t so much a news blog. I don’t discuss current events or debate politics really with people but I thought I would mention a few things. Is now really the best time for the republicans to be coming up with stupid ideas to try and trash Obama with the in the condition it is? They got the birthers making a fuss about how Obama shouldn’t be president because he wasn’t born in America and then you got a guy claiming Obama is racist. Now I’m not saying minorities can’t be racist but it seems like a stretch purely for the sake of publicity and creating a buzz. Do they really think that things would be different if McCain had won? Obama took over the presidency during a shitstorm and they claim he’s been a failure so far since he’s not fixing things fast enough? The one thing about these claims is at least they’re attempting to have some credibility. What the hell was the guy thinking that made a piss out of what condiments Obama puts on his fucking burger?

Now, I’ve been pondering self-help and trying to fix some issues I have for awhile. Perhaps that’s why I’ve been more down and depressed at times the last several months. I’m getting older (24 next month) and I’m not getting anywhere trying to improve myself (of course, I’m not actually doing anything, so that would likely help.) The thing I keep going back to is the idea that going for therapy to a psychiatrist or psychologist would help, which I’m not sure if it actually would or not. I’m sure he’d be able to give me good advice and find out the source of it and whatever but I have a problem with actually incorporating advice and the such. Psychiatrists you need to get a doctor referral first so you need to talk to them and go through a checkover first before possibly getting a creepy old guy. Psychologists you don’t need a referral but it’s not entirely covered under healthcare. Clearly I could use some help but how do you tell if you really need to go to this level though? My attempts the last few years have not been very fruitful. I can get along with most people but after living in Brandon for 2 years, I’ve only got 2 people I’d say I’m friends with.

Just for example. I was at a wedding in St. Ambroise this weekend. My friend Carissa, who lives in Portage, asked if I would be her date for her cousin’s wedding. Seems like a great situation for me eh? Travelling out in the boonies and being surrounded by people I don’t know, talking and socializing for long periods of time. We spent most of the day with her friend Shelby, and while I could’ve done better, I think I did ok just trying to be friendly and inviting, talking about whatever ya know; movies, her boyfriend, job, university. She didn’t hate me at least I don’t think. The reception got a little boring after a few hours. They were kinda drunk and tired and out polka dancing and what not with other people they knew. Wasn’t my crowd ya know, didn’t feel comfortable in there with them. So I watched the band play and sat by myself. Yes, pathetic I know.

So a bunch of people from the wedding and us were staying at this hunting lodge that’s this famous landmark or something and has been visited by lots of actors and wrestlers and famous people. It was kinda cool actually. Anyway, there was an after party there after the reception. I felt very awkward at this thing, like I said not my crowd of people. Kind of weird and slightly red neckish. Then the drama started, her friend was smashed and going on about needing to stay away from one guy there b/c he was so hot she couldn’t control herself (he's all popular, I think i'm cool type, not as hot as she thinks though.) Got a little hectic yes. All in All I think it went ok.

Another part of the self-help thing I’ve been trying to get into is connected with school. Since I’m taking communications for some reason in the fall, I wanted to do some voice practice and training. Now most self-help plans I have I usually never get around to doing (like when I was gonna start writing down at night 3 good things that happened during the day after reading an article in Reader’s Digest. I was thinking about what kind of stuff I could write down and kinda figured it would end up being the same things all the time. Perhaps that defeats the purpose or point of the exercise, maybe not.) I got an old script from the news show so I was gonna get one of those mini voice recorders and practice reading the script. Anyone know any other vocal things? I talked with Diane before about stuff I could do and she also mentioned about working on moving where I talk out of. Like shifting it more down farther in my diaphragm or whatever.

Now this is rather long but it’s not a blog of mine without some movie reviews.

Lucky Number Slevin: Loved it, very good crime thriller. Check it out.

Smokin’ Aces: If you like action movies, you need to see this adrenaline-infused flick. There is tons going on in it and it’s just a great entertaining movie with fantastic performances especially from Ryan Reynolds and Jeremy Piven. Now it’s strange to say about a movie with a bunch of assassins trying to kill a guy but it was actually a lot more violent and bloody than I expected it to be.

Labyrinth: This is one of those movies that you should see just to be able to say you saw it. 12-year-old Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie as the most ambiguous, metro-sexual, 80’s hair metal looking villain you have ever seen in a Disney movie. It’s an excellent retro movie, so I recommend seeing it if you’re into those.

Alice in Wonderland

This is one of the strangest damn movies I've ever seen.

This isn't an in depth review, not that any of mine are, but nevertheless we shall soldier on.

Despite the fact that I didn't have a hot clue what the hell was going on in the movie I highly recommend it. You aren't gonna see an interpretation like this of Alice in Wonderland ever again. It's oddly interesting.

The movie is black and white and from 1966 which isn't hard to see. Just the way the story weaves and plays out makes you think, on more than one occasion, jonathon millar and those involved in making it were likely out of their tree when filming it and thusly you should probly be the same way when watching it.

The acting is well done, in an understated way for the most part except for the performances of Peter Sellers and Peter Cook of course. The use of sound is a high point of the film both music and background noise as well as the dialogue and voice over providing a complete experience.

I don't imagine you would find it in stores and it's a little bit of a search online to find it since there's so many versions of Alice in Wonderland but if you're interested it's worth the time.

sad irony

Ever get the feeling you don't do anything important? Like you have absolutely no impact on anything?

You just sit around, no one listens or thinks of you.

hello? anyone listening???

oh, right... forgot.

Here lies an assortment of man

So I got moved to a different place. Got everything mainly put away and set up. I like being able to walk home from the bar, one of the bars at least. more convenient than cab's. It's an unfortunate end to my TV streak. None of the places I've lived the last few years since moving out of my parents house (and then in again and then out again) have I had to pay for TV, the landlord did it. Not here tho, part of the rent, sat tv on an old as the hills television. Not set up right though. The channels only randomly work, you gotta fight with it a little and use work arounds to get them to work. I suppose it's good it works at all at least and I've got a good assortment of channels. I haven't got internet set up yet, they have wireless and there's an issue with the router upstairs so if i didn't have tv I don't know what I would do.

Still workin at the practicum, got like 3 weeks left. It's an odd life, I, literally, watch TV all day. Did get to go on some news shoots at least. Went around to an accident site, looked like a fairly nasty bash. As well as covering a sad guilt trip story at the samaritan house about the amount of food they brought in from an event they had over the weekend and it was all we got this much in but this much is needed. So many people use this service and it was depressing lol. I don't know how that sort of thing really works but I do worry about working and getting a job, providing for myself. It's weird seeing the few people from class that are still here at things like these or around work. People are pretty friendly though, striking up conversations and asking how things are going.

Is it weird going to a 18th birthday thing for a high school girl that I used to work with at zellers but haven't talked to in 6 months? I got an invite on fb but, ya know, it's one of those things where like she's just inviting everyone on her friend list now matter where their from or how old they are. The whole thing overall seems a mite strange too. It's at houstons on a wednesday night, starting early at like 6, seemingly being on by her parents. I'm not sure whether I'm interesting in goin or not or if it'd be too awkward since I would know maybe 2 people there, one of which I don't particularly get along with well.

Moving on to this editions movie, I could do more than one as I usually do but I don't really remember what I've seen lately so I'll just talk a bit about a movie I finally got around to seeing last night which I had been anticipating:

Put quite simply, this movie didn't disappoint. I had been reading a lot about it on bloody-disgusting.com and there was a lot of positive buzz around it. Ellen Page was originally scheduled to star in this but then decided the role wasn't for her and dropped out. Alison Lohman is great in the role of Christine but it's interesting to think of how it would of been with Kitty Pryde/Juno.

This movie is pretty damn scary. Like geniunely scary. Not just cats jumping on screen all of a sudden or sharp loud noises like in lame teen horror movies. Don't get me wrong, sound is an integral part of this effect of this movie but it's used very effectively in addition to other things. It starts out, you're thinking oh there was a noise, something's coming. oh more noise, it's getting louder, something's going to happen, and it keeps building and building and its getting louder and piling on more and more. k something's really happening here, ah the suspense, there's crazy shit going on on screen. then it finally happens, and yeh, it's all very well done. crazy scary and unsettling. Which is due in large part to the directing and editing. Sam Raimi is a fantastic director and Bob Murowski does an amazing job of editing. I highly recommend this movie.

Also check out: Marilyn Manson's new album "The High End of Low", it's different from a lot of stuff he's done, has a very glam rock sort of feel to it.

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/16380 As well as, this unbelievable new trailer for REC 2, the sequel to the mind-blowing Spanish zombie type movie REC from a few years ago.

Figure this out though: The American remake of REC, Quarantine, was released last year. There already talking and working on a sequel to it. However, it's going to be an original idea separate from what the sequel to the original is about. WTF??