Saturday, August 30, 2008

Sweded

To anyone that's seen Be Kind Rewind, it apparently has taken off in the real world. Here's a couple pretty sweet examples.

Star Wars


Jurassic Park


The Princess Bride

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The Desolation of...


Alright man, here's the freakin deal.

I'm thinking of getting a tattoo. I told some friend's this and one of my friends said, "Oh yeah, death eaters, you and me buddy!" He meant something like this, I'm assuming. Sans the binary.

That's a little too geeky for me. Or let me correct. A little too obviously geeky.

So I've spent a good few hours checking out online what people have. And my god there are some really dumb tattoos. Here are my ideas, really, 2. One is to have something in Gaelic. You know, to honor my Irish heritage and give grandma Irish something to gloat about at the next book-cover-ripper's convention.

But then, there's this:
It's actually a sketch by JRR Tolkien for a possible cover or image on the cover of The Hobbit. It's Smaug.

So this means something to me. Tolkien was kind of a big part of my life growing up. Plus since I'm sort of Chinesey, I could probably pass it off as something along those lines...but...really...it's pretty freaking nerdy. I just don't know man.

I'm looking to get it on the inside of a forearm.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The Slope


There are two things on my mind. One's good, and one's sad. Both are about life.

The first is a movie I watched called Cash Back. It's British and has Oliver Wood from Harry Potter as the main character.

There's a lot of nudity in it. It's about beauty though, and claiming the moment. It's pretty Bohemian, but it's definitely an inspiring movie - inspiring in the way I like it to be. Not in the Seabiscuit or Radio way, where they might as well put it in the "inspiring" genre, but something that lulls you in and makes you care about the characters, and then tells a human story.

I had to put that one first, because the second makes it seem trite. Someone that was a good friend of mine in high school, I just found out, was diagnosed with colon cancer in June. Apparently he has a fairly high chance of survival, but it's just so strange. Anyone past some certain point in life, I would think, would sympathize with this sentiment - but it is not quite scary and not quite sad to me...but just an altogether wordless feeling, to be confronted with death in such a real and immediate way.

I don't know if I've written this before, I may have, but it's worth repeating. It's both horribly tragic and terribly interesting that we should grow to know that we are - and to build relationships with people, to have love, and to have things we build, and accomplish, and overcome - and die. If we live long enough we will see everyone we love die, and die ourselves. And this is certain. That we would pass thru life like a blip on a radar screen, like a vapor, and we know, we know that everything will end. That we could understand this, and still slip toward it completely unable to stop it. Humanity is actually a tragedy.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

To Embellish


I suppose it's high time for a post about my life, mainly for my mother and my sister - my mother, who I haven't called in a while, and my sister likewise. The thing about this job is you can only say so much, and then that sort of bleeds in to the rest of your life, like mud spreads. And all of the sudden your life is a gray mesh of classified information.

This is where I am.

I moved to a new squadron. So far I've been made to go on to a shift that's nights...which is awesome...but that includes a 4 hour shift on Saturday - which is decidedly not so. And I was volentold to do some duty at 6 am on a saturday. And I took part in a squadron-wide piss test in order to root our columbian drug lords or some other such nonsense. Welcome!

I hate it.

I'm trying to not be so negative. I remembered, from some previous "I can't talk about this" sort of training, that I had a nervous smile. I don't think I have that anymore. I have a nervous frown, and a calm frown, and a happy frown. Let's not go that far, but we're getting there. I tend to complain. I tend to whine. I should stop that, but then I'm looking for something really good - really good in my life. There are plenty of things I just have to grab hold of and shake and squirm like one of those tube blob things you can't really get a hold of. I'd rather not explain.

Otherwise...not much.

I read less, I write less. Here is a hilight. I'm taking drum lessons and practicing a lot. I've wanted to do this since I was young, but then, we always had guitars around. I play my electronic set and I do drills and etc. It's not ideal, but it's a light, for sure.

Side note. I remember when I used to go to church, in high school, in youth group...we were trying to come up with a new name for the youth group, rather that YOTM - Youth on the Move. My suggestion was B.U.T.T.E.R - Bound Undeniably To The Everlasting Rock. The one that ended up getting voted in to power was Luce or Luchay. The Italian word for light. Pronounced Loo-chay. It wasn't universally accepted. So a few of us painted the podium to say stuff about butter, and had verses about butter, etc. I really enjoyed that time.

Butter.

I'm trying to spend time with people, and I'm getting back in to creativity - being interesting - transcending. There are definitely bright points in my world.