Instability is the Word of the Day

There seems to be a fair amount of general upheaval going on throughout the world right now. Perhaps now is a good time to talk of quagmires, defined as a difficult or precarious situation; a predicament. I'm sorry sir, I'd have to disagree. A predicament is when I eat too much chinese food and experience the ramifications of my actions. This, however, is somewhat beyond that definition. Typically I think that asserting a curse with another word would do a fair job of describing the situation, such as "shitstorm" or "clusterfuck," but in this situation the curses almost trivialize a situation of unexplainable severity.

At this point, it looks like Iraq as a country has passed up the crossroads of Civil War v. Stable Shithole and opted to just keep on keeping on toward the natural end of a country with three different ethnic groups who fundamentally hate each other (if shiites and sunnis can be considered opposing ethnic groups). If you aren't aware of what is going on there, I would suggest going to cnn.com or csmonitor.com or any news service at all because I'm certain that any article I might link to here would be long rendered inaccurate by the time you clicked the click.

I actually don't care about the "port flap" in any major way. It seems that the issue should be that no one was aware that it was taking place, not that we're handing our ports over to "the enemy." Democrats being upset is no surprise, but the fact that most Republicans are against the deal is a strange twist, especially because it's hard to find anything wrong with the deal besides a prejudice against Arab countries.

Britain had roughly $87 million stolen earlier in the week, and Yoweri Museveni has been reelected President of Uganda for a 3rd term after already being in power for more than 20 years.

If things continue, next week we should see Hamas declare war on Israel (officially), and China will declare Martial Law (officially) and execute several thousand peasants, continuing a long-standing tradition.

Should Be, Could Be, and Would Be Movies

I have to show you something. Actually, this is another one of those posts that is mostly about things other than me. But I have to show you something before any of that. Ladies and Gentlemen, the greatest Doctor/Crimefighter sinces Dr. Seuss, I give you Dr. McNinja.

I'm excited to say that I am working on two different screenplay projects right now, in a round robin fashion. I'm helping Katie with a project of hers and Talya is helping me with a project of mine (primarily in the form of constant encouragement, but soon critique as well). All that's left is for Katie to help Talya on a project and the circle will be complete. Or you could add more and more people to the circle and it would still be complete then. Anyway, I'm excited to share this with you all and I hope to be at that point soon (within the month, hopefully). And then the round robin will feel more like a dip where everyone puts the part they bit off back in. You know I don't even know what round robin means. Ok, now I know.

I use Wikipedia to find out a crazy variety of information. The other night I went from reading about a Polish officer in WWII and by the end of the night I had ended up at a Timeline of Fictional Historical Events, which started with references to The Fantastic Four and Futurama, and ended with the year 2004 and information on Napoleon Dynamite, Cadillac Beach, and ER. I wish I were kidding. A conglomerate of things that happened in fictitious worlds.

Anyway, over at Apple Trailers there are a bunch of movie trailers that I really like and wanted to share. You should definitely check out Nacho Libre, which stars Jack Black and comes from School of Rock writer and Napoleon Dynamite director. It's about a man and his dream to become a spanish wrestler (A Luchador?). Jack Black uses a hispanic accent through the whole movie.
Dave Chapelle's Block Party- Dave is back from Africa and put together a party in Brooklyn featuring Kanye, The Roots, a bunch of other bands and a Fugees reunion! It looks great and is directed by Eternal Sunshine man.
Friends with Money features Frances Mcdormand, Jennifer Aniston, Joan Cusack, and Catherine Keener. 'Nuff said.
I thought Why We Fight would be a reissue of the classic WWII propaganda film from Frank Capra, but it's actually an interesting looking documentary about the American military industrial complex.
Brick features the guy from 10 Things I Hate About You and 3rd Rock from the Sun in what looks to be a great thriller.
American Dreamz looks poised to mock the President, American Idol, and terrorists all in one movie. It looks great and full of good performances.
Click, a new Adam Sandler movie, is predictable before the trailer starts, but at least it'll probably be funny.
And Inside Man is the new movie from Spike Lee that simply looks outstanding. His movies always have more to them than you can understand at first, and this looks no different. Is Clive Owen getting sexier as he ages? Am I allowed to ask that?
Two that you don't have to see, but I'll mention are Miami Vice and Slither. Slither is a horror comedy that will probably suck, but it's got my man Nathan Fillion in it, so I have to give him props. Miami Vice has a lot of bad press because supposedly Jamie and Colin didn't get along. However, Michael Mann brought us Heat and Collateral, both of which are amazing. it also looks to have a great "COPS" feel to it, which is good for what it is.

Any movies looking good to you?

The Depression Prison

Thanks to the inspirational Jess Meyer, yesterday I began The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, the first book in a fantasy trilogy. And luckily, after 100 pages, I began to have an idea of what was going on. Several months ago, Jess' enthusiasm for the His Dark Materials trilogy made me promise myself that I would check it out. I am almost to the point (I assume) where I can share her delight for the panserbjørne that for now remain my distant imagination.

I made the switch away from Bury My Heart because I just couldn't bring myself to read things that could only get more depressing. Because lately, having no actual responsibility in Chicago, I have been having trouble finding a reason to get out of bed, and making the unconscious decision to simply sleep for far longer than necessary for no reason whatsoever. Some of the people around me think that it's depression, a chemical disorder in the brain. It certainly is likely, but I resisted, and continue to resist, because I hate the idea of giving up control to a drug, or even another person or Persons, if you understand me. So I find myself going from a self-congratulatory good day of getting up at 1pm, to a self-destructive bad day of finding no way out of bed before 3 or 4pm. It doesn't make much sense, my stubbornness. I am too stubborn to seek any sort of medical treatment for the sinkhole I'm in, but at the same time, I am too weak-willed to pull myself out of it on my own.
Part of it came from finding out that I wasn't even being considered for the only job in all my life that I've ever been really excited about. And when you can't get yourself out of bed till the afternoon on a consistent basis, you aren't able to get out there and get things done. And then, sadly, you begin to think that you simply can't get things done, and out comes a stream of self-pity that builds and builds and then the next day why get up at all if you're such a useless person?
But, with determination and patience, friends and family are good at pulling you out of such nonsense, and so you take a step up and realize that if you're not so useless, then you must be just incredibly lazy oh how shameful, but friends and family again, you can make something of yourself if you believe! You can do it!
So, step one begins where you try to make your day start better, in the hope that it will end better. And pretty soon, looking on the bright side, you turn your Starbucks application in to several locations and you get to speak to a manager, and how about that, she schedules an interview. Maybe you're not so useless after all.
And today was actually quite a nice day. And I assure you that it's not my intention to bring heaps of compliments and comforts upon myself, but just to examine and document how I've been feeling the past few days, to better understand the process. For me more than for you.

My dad gave me some nice words when he helped me realize that I wasn't in Chicago to get a job. If I needed a job, I could have stayed home. My real purpose in Chicago is to figure out what I want for myself, and I don't really know what that is, to be honest. But it made me feel better, because even though a job is very important right now, it isn't the ending of the story. And that's what makes the story so much better when we finally get there.

Valentine's Day

This is for Talya for Valentine's Day.


At one point when we were in Chicago, I'm pretty sure either one or both of us were mad about something or other, and Talya saw this street name and for some reason started laughing, which got me laughing, and when you say the name outloud, you can't help but laugh. I have no idea why, but it's funny and we saw and said it numerous times on the trip and each time it was still funny. Talya, Happy Valentine's Day. And another one:


And everyone else, whether single or coupled, I hope you have a Happy Valentine's Day too, because it's a day of love, no matter what kind.

The Animals in Unison

Right before I discovered Lyndsey's fascination with the occult, I stumbled upon some alarming rhetoric of the opposite. I cannot yet say if these are real, but I think they are. Pets in Uniform? And then what originated as a Craigslist post turned into something far more sinister. The video at the bottom is transcendent. The links at the bottom, however, may lead to greater horrors of which I dare not speak.

UPDATE: One more thing, which is not about animals or horror. I can't stand the thought of megachurches. I hate the idea of churches so big that people don't know each other or that they use a stadium as a congregation point. I started out reading this story full of irritation, especially because of the picture of the preacher and the enormous stained glass mural behind him. But I was actually quite impressed, although still wary.

Awww Yeah!

When you're rocking threads like this:


Doors open up all over the place.


Is it getting hot in here?


Aww, hells yeah.

Motorways and Tramlines

After returning to Chicago, I realized that leaving home for the second time was much harder than the first time, in part because my parents were there to see me off. But also because now I have no idea when I'll be back again. Before I had my birthday homecoming to look forward to, but now nothing in the near future will bring me back again. And it probably shouldn't. It's harder to get used to this place if I retreat back home as often as possible (Freshman year of college, anyone?). And still no job. Starbucks, am I on my way to you?

Cat has a really nice commercial to watch posted at her blog. I don't know what the commercial was for because I didn't get to see the end, but it was really nice in the 3/4th that I saw. And I was going to post a Lexus commercial that I really like, but I couldn't find it. It has a car and an SUV smash into each other and all the pieces of both cars fly out and they're all shiny and nice looking and then they collapse back together to create some SUV hybrid or something. It's really cool to see just because it looks so good, not because I love driving luxury cars.

In reading Bury My Heart (still working through it, less than 100 pages to go), I came across the trial of Standing Bear v. George Crook, which resulted in the first decision that an Indian was a person, and, therefore, a citizen born into the priviledges guaranteed by the Constitution, namely habeas corpus, the right of my lawyer friends to explain such matters. Or google. Anyway, it meant that Standing Bear, the Indian in question, earned citizenship under the law, and the opinion of Judge Elmer S. Dundy is supposed to be a great read. And for the curious: General George Crook was not a bad man. In fact, he organized the entire affair for Standing Bear's benefit, and was the first to congratulate him on the outcome.

Once, Bob posted a meme to take the book nearest you, turn to page 123 and post the fifth sentence here. But I will post the only sentence on page 123 of the book nearest me.
"And so was born 'The Fantastic Four!!' and from that moment on, the world would never be the same again!!"

Birthday Links

Well, I had a great weekend (5 days) at home. Thanks to everyone I saw for making it so wonderful. It was a great way to celebrate the birth of me. And I got some nice things. Dances with Wolves anyone? I'm on this Old West/American Indian kick and it doesn't seem to be leaving any time soon. And Band of Brothers with my dad. If there's anything a father and son should watch together, it's probably that. Or Frequency. Frequency is very father/son. Band of Brothers is just... historic. The hardest part is knowing that we aren't watching a movie, but something that is based on real history. And I'm willing to bet we're seeing the lighter side of the war. But anyway. My Old West thing has gone so far that I plan on renting The Magnificent Seven, a western adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (That's a great movie, Hoi!).

I don't have much else to update about, so here are some cool things I found around the internet, although Bob has some amazing links himself.

This is a fan site for Captain Picard. Please have the sound on.
And there's a cool site trying to compile old video game endings.
And here's a great Nintendo fan movie, that might have you in tears.
And then this is mainly for Catherine and Bob, and then anyone who has played Halo and seen The Lord of the Rings. It's nice.

And, read the articles that Bob links to, because they are always great to read.