I have heard many people talk about the game Guitar Hero, but I had never actually played it until last week - so. much. fun. Seriously, I have to get this and have all my friends over to play.
One of my co-workers brought their WII into the office for happy hour and I gave Guitar Hero a try - the music selection is very limited, but it's just so much fun rocking out and watching the crowds reaction (both in the game and in the room). We followed it up with some boxing, which was actually a serious workout. I was sweating and laughing hysterically - good times.
Also, I want to recommend a new show on right before Lost on Thursday nights called Miss Guided. I caught the pilot last week and it was really funny and well-written. It's about a guidance counselor at a high school - in the first episode it is established that she is jealous of the hot cheerleading coach teacher and totally in love with the Spanish teacher. The interesting thing is what a dope the Spanish teacher guy is - he is good looking, but a terrible teacher and completely clueless about her. I'm curious to see where they go with this show - it's not completely formulaic. We'll see how the rest of the season plays out.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Child of God
I just finished Child of God by Cormac McCarthy - it's a pretty slim book, almost more of a novella.
It was actually written in 1973, I'm not sure exactly where that fits into the overall timeline of McCarthy's writing, but its obviously early. It's not as clear of a narrative, like No Country, it's kind of like watching a train wreck in slow motion. The feeling of dread that builds throughout the book is excruciating - similar to the way I felt about Chigurh.
The writing style is very sparse - the descriptions of nature are poetic, in contrast to the ugliness of some of the action. I don't want to say too much about what happens, but it is truly shocking. The story starts out with the town auctioning off Lester Ballard's property - he has defaulted on payment and the whole town has come out to see it sold, like a carnival. The town is excited and are basically eating up the entertainment of the auctioneer while this man's livelihood is being taken away and he is now homeless.
The bottomless pit of loneliness that this man, Ballard, lives in is deeply sad and hopeless. His desperate attempts to have some kind of connection with other human beings ultimately drives him insane. The cruelty displayed toward him is thoughtless, and you can actually see what drives him to do what he does.
There are some amusing asides that remind me of the stories that the sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones character) tells in No Country - little nuggets of life in a nothing little town - that are great.
Overall, I think this is a great book - it made me feel an immense amount of compassion for this man - some might think he is a monster, but you see how everything played out, you see what was driving him to that point in his life.
It was actually written in 1973, I'm not sure exactly where that fits into the overall timeline of McCarthy's writing, but its obviously early. It's not as clear of a narrative, like No Country, it's kind of like watching a train wreck in slow motion. The feeling of dread that builds throughout the book is excruciating - similar to the way I felt about Chigurh.
The writing style is very sparse - the descriptions of nature are poetic, in contrast to the ugliness of some of the action. I don't want to say too much about what happens, but it is truly shocking. The story starts out with the town auctioning off Lester Ballard's property - he has defaulted on payment and the whole town has come out to see it sold, like a carnival. The town is excited and are basically eating up the entertainment of the auctioneer while this man's livelihood is being taken away and he is now homeless.
The bottomless pit of loneliness that this man, Ballard, lives in is deeply sad and hopeless. His desperate attempts to have some kind of connection with other human beings ultimately drives him insane. The cruelty displayed toward him is thoughtless, and you can actually see what drives him to do what he does.
There are some amusing asides that remind me of the stories that the sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones character) tells in No Country - little nuggets of life in a nothing little town - that are great.
Overall, I think this is a great book - it made me feel an immense amount of compassion for this man - some might think he is a monster, but you see how everything played out, you see what was driving him to that point in his life.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
I Heart Nick Andopolis
I have finally experienced the awesomeness of Freaks and Geeks - I have 2 dvd's left in the 6 disc series of the show and I am so sad that it is almost over. I have heard for years (the show originally aired 1999-2000) that this was a great little gem of a show, but I didn't want to set my expectations too high going into it.
The first two episodes started a little slow - just getting to know the characters a little bit and setting the scenes for the Freaks and the Geeks. The heartthrob of the show, played by James Franco, is named Daniel and he is obviously the guy that Lindsay (the main character - good girl starting to hang out with the freak crowd) is after in the beginning, but he gets back together with his girlfriend.
And then comes Nick Andopolis, played by Jason Segel (also on How I Met Your Mother), and I am completely falling in love with him. His character is just so goofy and sweet - he's so EARNEST. I love the way that he takes the time to give Lindsay little compliments and even though he is a "Freak" (poor grades, pothead) he is so proud of her accomplishments. My favorite scene so far - he and Lindsay have just started to be boyfriend and girlfriend and Nick is lording it over Daniel:
"I heard your girlfriend got an A on her Western Civilization test - oh wait, that was MY girlfriend...and did you hear my girlfriend has detention for flipping off the gym teacher, oh WAIT, that was YOUR girlfriend!"
Also, I checked out the Wikipedia site for Jason Segel - and now I think I heart him too. My three favorite facts:
1. He was dumped by his girlfriend for gaining 20 pounds and being too fat for her. Seriously, read the article and tell me you don't love him:
http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2006/02/17/linda_cardellini_broke_up_with_ex_becaus
2. He love musicals! Check out this video excerpt from an interview he did where he busts out a song from Les Miserables with Neil Patrick Harris(!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhXsJjVdj1E
3. He's going to direct the next Muppets movie.
Seriously, I can barely stand it.
The first two episodes started a little slow - just getting to know the characters a little bit and setting the scenes for the Freaks and the Geeks. The heartthrob of the show, played by James Franco, is named Daniel and he is obviously the guy that Lindsay (the main character - good girl starting to hang out with the freak crowd) is after in the beginning, but he gets back together with his girlfriend.
And then comes Nick Andopolis, played by Jason Segel (also on How I Met Your Mother), and I am completely falling in love with him. His character is just so goofy and sweet - he's so EARNEST. I love the way that he takes the time to give Lindsay little compliments and even though he is a "Freak" (poor grades, pothead) he is so proud of her accomplishments. My favorite scene so far - he and Lindsay have just started to be boyfriend and girlfriend and Nick is lording it over Daniel:
"I heard your girlfriend got an A on her Western Civilization test - oh wait, that was MY girlfriend...and did you hear my girlfriend has detention for flipping off the gym teacher, oh WAIT, that was YOUR girlfriend!"
Also, I checked out the Wikipedia site for Jason Segel - and now I think I heart him too. My three favorite facts:
1. He was dumped by his girlfriend for gaining 20 pounds and being too fat for her. Seriously, read the article and tell me you don't love him:
http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2006/02/17/linda_cardellini_broke_up_with_ex_becaus
2. He love musicals! Check out this video excerpt from an interview he did where he busts out a song from Les Miserables with Neil Patrick Harris(!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhXsJjVdj1E
3. He's going to direct the next Muppets movie.
Seriously, I can barely stand it.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Elephants and Rabbits
I just finished two very different books, but funnily enough each had a fairly main character that was an animal.
Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen was a great story with a lot of action and interesting information about train circuses back in the 20s and 30s, but frankly, the animal abuse, sometimes implied, sometimes described in detail, was just too much for me. I won't belabor the point because I know I've talked to all my friends about it already, but this book made me just ache with injustice. If the characters had been real, I think I would have actually hurt the main animal abuser, August. I am so conflicted about circuses and even zoos sometimes. I understand that a lot of these situations keep the animals in caring environments and I like being able to see and learn about wild animals up close. But for some reason, human beings are just too easily cruel in these situations and it absolutely drives me crazy. In short, the book is a good read with some interesting thoughts on growing old, but ultimately made me very glum and I felt like I couldn't read anything for several days afterward.
I did finally pick something else up that I thought was going to be a bit more cheerful (I was wrong), called The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett. I have read other books by Ann and really liked them, she is a great writer and I will continue to read more by her. The main character in this book is a woman who has been in love with a gay man, the magician to her magician's assistant, for over 20 years. The man and his lover have just died of AIDS and she is left behind in the house the three of them had shared. She is a bit of a pathetic creature, I had to really work sometimes to respect her, even though I think she is intelligent and grieving. I found it sad that she wasn't able to own more of her own life, that she lived so vicariously through her "husband" Parsifal (they got married shortly before he died so she could inherit everything) and his lover Phan. The main character in the book was really Parsifal and you just learn everything about him through her, but she really doesn't have a voice of her own - until maybe the very end. I definitely liked this book, but I feel like if she was my friend I would get very annoyed with her as a person.
I'm not really doing this book justice, there are some interesting twists and turns as she learns about Parsifal's life and she ends up travelling from LA to Nebraska to stay with his estranged family. The things about this book that I love is that all of the characters are very fully formed - from the physical descriptions to the consistency of their internal motivations. These are complicated people who have made mistakes in their lives and need each other to get through to something better.
Oh, and she has an awesome pet Rabbit, named Rabbit, who used to be in the magic show. She loved him and I appreciated what a central character he was to her life and how the people around her loved him too. He reminded me of my little buddy.
Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen was a great story with a lot of action and interesting information about train circuses back in the 20s and 30s, but frankly, the animal abuse, sometimes implied, sometimes described in detail, was just too much for me. I won't belabor the point because I know I've talked to all my friends about it already, but this book made me just ache with injustice. If the characters had been real, I think I would have actually hurt the main animal abuser, August. I am so conflicted about circuses and even zoos sometimes. I understand that a lot of these situations keep the animals in caring environments and I like being able to see and learn about wild animals up close. But for some reason, human beings are just too easily cruel in these situations and it absolutely drives me crazy. In short, the book is a good read with some interesting thoughts on growing old, but ultimately made me very glum and I felt like I couldn't read anything for several days afterward.
I did finally pick something else up that I thought was going to be a bit more cheerful (I was wrong), called The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett. I have read other books by Ann and really liked them, she is a great writer and I will continue to read more by her. The main character in this book is a woman who has been in love with a gay man, the magician to her magician's assistant, for over 20 years. The man and his lover have just died of AIDS and she is left behind in the house the three of them had shared. She is a bit of a pathetic creature, I had to really work sometimes to respect her, even though I think she is intelligent and grieving. I found it sad that she wasn't able to own more of her own life, that she lived so vicariously through her "husband" Parsifal (they got married shortly before he died so she could inherit everything) and his lover Phan. The main character in the book was really Parsifal and you just learn everything about him through her, but she really doesn't have a voice of her own - until maybe the very end. I definitely liked this book, but I feel like if she was my friend I would get very annoyed with her as a person.
I'm not really doing this book justice, there are some interesting twists and turns as she learns about Parsifal's life and she ends up travelling from LA to Nebraska to stay with his estranged family. The things about this book that I love is that all of the characters are very fully formed - from the physical descriptions to the consistency of their internal motivations. These are complicated people who have made mistakes in their lives and need each other to get through to something better.
Oh, and she has an awesome pet Rabbit, named Rabbit, who used to be in the magic show. She loved him and I appreciated what a central character he was to her life and how the people around her loved him too. He reminded me of my little buddy.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Indonesian Yum Fest
Day by Day created a spectacular meal of Indonesian food. Unfortunately, I can't remember what anything was called. We had beautiful cabbage salads with polenta cakes, spicy beef dishes, coconut crusted shrimp and ginger infused rice wrapped in bannana leaves. Some dressed up for the festivity and they looked gorgeous. Dinner conversation included new job prospects, weird dreams where a 7 month old baby recites commercials for prescription drugs and oral sex techniques. That didn't sound right...I mean the adults talked about oral sex, not the baby.
Next dinner party will be Tapas. When I was in my early 20's, I would sometimes wear a black spanish sun dress that was my mother's, put on the song "Tiawana Taxi" by Herb Alpert and dance on tables. Yes, I danced on tables. I have changed quite a bit through the years. Apparently, these memories are surfacing as I think about eating little spanish dishes. Perhaps if I had enough Margaritas, I would dance again.
Tom, O, Tom
If you have never listened much to Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, particularly circa 1979-1982, you are really, really missing something great. I hadn't and then I started watching this DVD of their videos while working out, and I was blown away. My favorite songs are, Insider, The Waiting, Change of Heart, A Woman in Love (it's not me), and Here Comes My Girl. The Insider had a great video of Tom Petty singing with Stevie Nicks, but they've removed it. Bummer. But of course there are so many more. Here are a couple of youtube links so you can make up your own mind!
The Waiting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLCJEYLIBQY
Here Comes My Girl:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=800KU4VtJws
Change Of Heart:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSps-f343I4
Warning: these songs can become addictive!
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