Look what I found on a random flash drive.

As the title says, look what I found on a random flash drive filled with assignments from freshmen year. I must have not known yet that I could email things to myself. Anyways, as loud, obnoxious, and rhythmless as I am, you should really be watching Rick Frazel in this video. He has no idea what's going on. As I recall, he has no memory of this.

Old Moon (aka The Road)

Well, I just watched the film "The Road" and have some very mixed feelings about it, so I'm going to write a review here. For those who don't know, The Road just came out in theaters on Thanksgiving and stars Viggo Mortensen as an unnamed man. There are small appearances by Robert DuVall, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, and Michael K. Williams (from The Wire). It tells the story of a man and his son as they struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic world after an unspecified disaster.

It's very difficult to not give spoilers, but I'll try. The reason for my difficulty assessing The Road is that its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: its too real...

Okay, I'm done using the BK template for my review. Especially since I didn't specifically pay attention to the music or cinematography. One thing I can say however, is that the acting is incredible. You always get what you pay for with Viggo. Another thing I can say is that the film really reminded me of Fallout 3. Except there weren't any mutants or other fucked up looking people. And there also wasn't any form of organized government. BUT, there were plenty of Raider-like people. The movie was actually kind of an emotional rollercoaster. Especially if that rollercoaster consisted of two emotions: fear and sadness. Yes, I was scared for their lives, and yes I was crying like a bitch. The worst part about the movie was that it was depressing as shit. In a good way though. It has some nice messages about how there is hope for humanity...or at least human nature (1) (2) (3).

Overall, I'd give this movie a 3.5 out of 5, but I can see others giving it a 4.5. I attribute this to the fact that I had no idea that the movie was going to be so sad. To be honest, the worst part about this movie is that the trailers sucked. I guess that's what you get when you go to a movie that wins a shitload of awards at film festivals.

Also, while I'm writing a review, I should mention something. The show Bored to Death that I recommended a while back isn't that great. The episodes I reviewed, the first and second, were a lot better than the rest. On the other hand, the show Dexter is AMAZING. It's a showtime original series and you can watch it all on the web. I've only seen season 2 and I loved it. I've heard season 1 is better. The show is on its 4th season now. This show is about a serial killer who works for the police department and only kills murderers. The story is actually more complicated. I love this show. Honestly, I'd say its right up there with the Sopranos. Its hard for me to think of a better show. To put it into perspective for you, I'd choose Dexter over Jurassic Park.

New Moon

Well, I just watched the film "New Moon," and have some very mixed feelings about it, so I'm gonna write a review here. For those who don't know, New Moon just came out in theaters as the sequel to Twilight and the prequel to Eclipse. The film stars the incredibly attractive Kristen Stewart, the incredibly muscular Taylor Lautner, and the incredibly handsome Robert Pattinson, and is the sixth directoral project of fashion designer and novelist John Weitz' son, Chris Weitz. It tells the story of Bella, the resident of Forks, WA who is in love with a vampire named Edward Cullen. After an unspecified amount of time being in a relationship with Bella, Edward is forced to move away from Forks when his brother attempts to eat Bella's blood as a result of her getting a paper cut while opening a gift from the Cullen family on her birthday.

It's very difficult to not give spoilers, but I'll try. The reason for my difficulty assessing New Moon is that its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: New Moon is vampire film. The vampire theme resonates strongly (but not too strongly) throughout this film - the mark of an intelligent and tasteful vampire-film-maker. However, the plot delves into the same questions that were asked by the vampire films of old (Twilight included), but does not shed any new light on where we have progressed since then. The beginning and end of the film are masterfully crafted; the story subtly creates the tension of true love (thanks largely to the unbelievable job that Robert Pattinson does in this film, I never knew he could act so well) and is intriguing. However, once the cat is out of the bag and the big "twist" is revealed, the film just trudges along in a predictable path to its conclusion. The film does feature a different take on the interaction between man and vampire within the film; I think this is one of the few times in vampire film history that the vampire isn't the bad guy. The cinematography is gorgeous and the music is by Thom Yorke (Twilight, Radiohead).

So, do I recommend the film? Absolutely. I'm definitely too picky about my vampire flicks, but at the same time the conclusion of the film felt very empty. The questions that the film raises are not only left unanswered, they are unacknowledged. This could be due, in part, to the fact that the film has a sequel and the saga has yet to be concluded! I don't mind when a film raises questions and in the end they can't be answered, but New Moon's plot diverges from those issues and does not address them (I see vampires and humans as a metaphor for broader race relations in our society, but the film doesn't explicitly acknowledge this). The deeper issues are lost; at the conclusion the plot controls the film rather than the themes, and this diverged from the feel of the beginning and the middle. All in all, 4 out of 5 stars, and I'm looking forward to Eclipse, the final film in the Twilight Saga.

Moon

Well, I just watched the film "Moon," and have some very mixed feelings about it, so I'm gonna write a review here. For those who don't know, Moon came out this year, stars Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey, and is the directoral debut of David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones. It tells the story of Sam Bell, the lone resident of a lunar mining colony who is finishing up his 3 year contract. After 3 years of complete isolation from humanity, Sam begins hallucinating and has an accident while gathering samples to send back to Earth.

It's very difficult to not give spoilers, but I'll try. The reason for my difficulty assessing Moon is that its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: Moon quotes nearly every great scifi film ever made. Alien, Blade Runner, and 2001 resonate strongly throughout this film, which is the mark of an intelligent and tasteful filmmaker. However, the plot delves into the same questions that were asked by Blade Runner 27 years ago, but does not shed any new light on where we have progressed since then. The beginning and middle of the film are masterfully crafted; it subtly creates tension (thanks largely to the unbelievable job that Sam Rockwell does in this film, I never knew he could act so well) and is intriguing. However, once the cat is out of the bag and the big "twist" is revealed, the film just trudges along in a predictable path to its conclusion. The film does feature a different take on the interaction between man and AI within the film; I think this is one of the few times in film history that the computer isn't the bad guy. The cinematography is gorgeous and the music is by Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain).

So, do I recommend the film? Absolutely. I'm definitely too picky about my scifi, but at the same time the conclusion of the film felt very empty. The questions that the film raises are not only left unanswered, they are unacknowledged. I don't mind when a film raises questions and in the end they can't be answered, but Moon's plot diverges from those issues and does not address them. The deeper issues are lost; at the conclusion the plot controls the film rather than the themes, and this diverged from the feel of the beginning and the middle. All in all, 4 out of 5 stars, and I'm looking forward to the next film from this director.

Just what the world needs right now

Whenever I don't want to do work, I watch movie trailers. Boy oh boy did I find a movie trailer this time. The movie is called Bitch Slap. After watching the trailer I have no idea what the movie is about. All I know is, I want to watch it.

I would like to point out a few parts of Apple's summary.
a) one of them might not be human
b) the movie runs backwards, like Memento
c) "the fate of the world hangs in the balance"

What kind of movie is this!? It comes out January 8 and I insist that the Men's team sees this.

A Dowist Perspective

So the term is over and for a few of us (sorry non-Carleton folks), winter break has started.

First, a few updates:

I think where I left off last was when the men’s team Tasted the Rainbow on Halloween. I said I was gonna write a whole post on it. But now I feel as if too late. I could probably write a whole novel on the night, although not from my perspective, which is missing completely… I’ll just say this: We started at 8 and I don’t remember anything after 9:45pm. 12 shots in an hour and a half is NOT a good idea, but hell I knew what I was getting into. We went through the rainbow, then did primary colors, then did our favorites. Allegedly, people were trying to make me drink water as early as 10:30 and I was two people I don’t know tried to take me home and put me to bed. I also know that I woke up at 5am in Davis 304 (Sjoberg’s current room) not knowing where I was, how I got there, or what was going on. I also felt great. But that is because of the massive purging that occurred around midnight…

So clearly the rainbow was a success.

On the last day of classes we had a flippy cup swim party at Dow. It started out with just the swim team, and then a jewgressive when through my house because of one of my housemates (the swimmers challenged them to a few rounds of flippy cup), and then all hell broke loose. The place blew up. It reminded me of that one party we had in the winter of last year in Stadium when the hall director came. Not only was it packed to the brink insider, there were probably about 100 people outside. The RAs kept wandering outside asking people, “Does anyone know who lives here?!” And supposedly the hall director came and was ignored by everyone she talked to. Security eventually came at 12:47 exactly and shut it all down. If you want to hear really funny stories, talk to Alfredo about this evening - you won't be disappointed.

Finals came and went. They sucked. Much of my time was spent on papers. But to give myself a pick me up in the middle of writing them, I would watch the video that Nonberg acted in for his friend’s project. Nonberg, your zombie walk made me laugh out loud so hard that some girl in the library asked me to keep it down or move to the 4^th floor. I recommend everyone watches it. It was so good that Mia and I thought we’d send it to btin.

Overall, I’d say this was my worst term at Carleton. But I won’t bore you about that. It mostly was because of my classes - very hard they were. But I think the fact that I had the best term of my life in the spring made this one seem worse than it really was. I do think that the living situation played a part as well. Living with swimmers is just so much easier. I think its the fact that everyone is on the same page and all. I’m very much looking forward to the break though, which is going to be much different than winter breaks past, mostly because of the difference in the training trip.

For those of you that don’t know, the team is doing something different in terms of winter break training this year.

Starting Monday of next week, the whole team (I think except for one or two people) is meeting back at Carleton to train. We are going to train twice a day for a week. Practices are 8-10 or 10-12 and 2-4 or 4-6. Morning practices are lift/swim (four days a week for sprinter and 2 days a week for distance) or all swim, and the swim is mostly technique based (filming, experimental stuff, etc). Afternoons are, as Andy put it to me one day when we were teaching SwimFit, “We are really gonna hammer you guys.”

OH! And practices are all gendered, which will be a fairly new experience for the team. It should be fun, since we don’t get that opportunity much during the normal season. But it also will be weird because we probably won’t see the women’s team during meals either, because we are cooking our own meals in the floor kitchens (because Bone Ape Tit isn’t open during the break).

So yeah, we are cooking our own meals. And because our room/board over the Northfield part of the training trip is covered by some fund from the Athletic Dept, we don’t have to pay for our food. The original plan was to have us buy all of our food and then give the business office receipts. Turns out, they are just gonna put the money ($22 a day!!!) directly in our checking accounts. And if we don’t spend it all, we get to keep it… Obviously, this part is awesome because I’m a thrifty/stingy asshole. We had a good chuckle about how if Jared was here, he’d be eating PB sandwhiches for the whole trip.

We also are going to go a Macalester Invite on the 5^th of Dec, which I’m glad about, because I have not been doing so well at meets this year and I want another opportunity before January.

Then we head to Puerto Rico! Group flight, which should be awesomely chaotic. In PR, we are practicing from 6-8 and then 3-5 and we gotta drive to the pool. The hotel we are staying at is a different one from when the team went before. This one doesn’t have kitchenetts – only a microwave and a minifridge (which should be interesting). But we do get like an amazing continental breakfast (with like omelets and stuff).

Then we all head back to campus and train like hell for 3 or 4 days until the 18^th, when we all go home for the rest of the break. Andy said those three days are gonna be the hardest of the whole time.

Should be a pretty cool time!

We’ll that’s all I really gotta say. I’ll leave ya with this.

Fall Term: A Reflection

Holy shit, I haven't posted in forever. I've sat down to start to write several times, but most of those times I was a little closer to Pluto than I should have been and ended up just listening to music and playing Mario Kart.
This is the laziest term I've ever had, and quite frankly I can't repeat it. I've set a new standard of laziness for myself, but at the same time I very much enjoyed Fall 2009. The defining factor of this term was Hill House. Although my Hill House triple cannot compare to the size and epicness of Stadium 110, Hill House as a whole has proven to be as historical and adventure-worthy as Stadium. Filled with winding staircases, hidden closets, ping pong tables, abandoned drum sets, and the ghetto Cave of Wonders (the room that controls who gets cable tv and internet), we took full advantage of every aspect of Hill House. Beer pong in the basement is perhaps my fondest memory, even though one night we were shut down at 11 and I cussed out the RA (oops). However, said RA was not the Hill House RA, who is by far the coolest RA I have ever had ("You guys shouldn't smoke on the porch. But if you do smoke on the porch, smoke on the right side"). The 3rd floor fire escape was also an oft-visited location, typically by Granger and I. Hill House has one of the best groups of people anywhere at Carleton. While Andrew, Ken, and I are the people you probably know, the presence of Granger, Aaron, Darian, and Sam made "quiet" nights in Hill House fairly raucous.
In Stadium, much of our time was dominated by COD4, Little Big Planet, and TA. This year, our room has a Wii, and we play Mario Kart nearly constantly (I'm the best). We also play lots of Laser Hockey (which some of you experienced during Alumni Weekend). I beat Metroid Prime 3 in the first 2 weeks, and I've been working on beating Resident Evil 4 for the last few weeks.
In terms of music, I've been listening to a lot of new stuff that I'm pretty confident you guys will enjoy. On the electronic scene, I've been listening to Crystal Castles, The Knife, Digitalism, Nosaj Thing, and of course, lots of Aphex Twin. I've found a lot of good hip hop in the past months, and would suggest that you all check out Buck 65, a Canadian artist who has been called the Tom Waits of hip hop (intrigued yet?). Get his album, "This Right Here is Buck 65" first because it's a good intro, mostly because his early albums sound like they were recorded in a basement... which they were. Also, check out the new Tech N9ne album, K.O.D., because it's awesome (Tech featuring Three 6 Mafia and rapping backwards=awesome). I've really gotten into Brother Ali recently as well, plus Cunninlynguists and Sage Francis. I saw Atmosphere live in Wichita over the summer, which was disappointingly uncrowded but one of the best shows I've ever been to. Minneapolis has the best hip hop scene of any city in the US. Period.
The main sad news from this term is the passing of Beelzebub, aka Mephistopheles. He was an excellent companion, be it morning, afternoon, or night, Monday or Sunday, and it didn't matter if it was just him and me or if there was a big group of people. Beelzebub was loved by all who knew him, and will be sorely missed. One day a new companion will be found, and it is my hope that you will all meet him someday.
So now I'm living in Davis 104 with Mering, KEG, and 2 international students over break. We dragged the TV and Wii with us, so Andrew is playing Mario Kart while I'm writing. We cooked brats outside and had some brews, so all in all this "Thanksgiving at Carleton" thing is going pretty well.
Nonberg, Elliot, Ted, Tim, and Toto: I miss you guys a lot. This place just isn't the same without you, and I've enjoyed reading your post-grad posts. I haven't been doing my job to keep the blog alive, but I'm going to try harder.

Rick Frazel: Fall From Grace

You guys voted for it, so I'm going to make it....well a trailer that is. With winter break coming up I think I may be able to whip something up. Should be fun

Also,

Let me leave you with this. Above is a picture of our rainbow night with none other than soco. Yeah that's right, Southern Comfort. We not only tasted the rainbow, we expanded the color spectrum.

I've been moved to write.

It's been a while since I last wrote. I wish I could say that I've been extremely busy and unable to find the minutes to do a quick blog post, but in reality that's just not true. I'd be lying to you... and I wouldn't lie to my friends.

Anyway, what's moved me to write this post is the latest story involving Chad Ochocinco, the Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver. Beloved Chad was fined $20,000 by the NFL for jokingly flashing a one dollar bill at a referee when a play that involved Chad himself was being reviewed. Clearly, the idea of the stunt was to pretend to bribe the official. Also, rather clearly, he was kidding.

I recognize the sanctity of sports, and their rules, and all that. I also realize that gambling, betting, bribing, etc should not be tolerated by the NFL or any other professional sports league because of the obvious implications. But let's be honest here, the guy was very clearly joking. The league hates him - he's been fined for plenty of other things before. But he's just a dude that wants to have fun, and all of his previous stunts (and there have been many) are all in an attempt to lighten things up a little bit. I mean really, the man officially changed his last name to "Ochocinco".

In other news, I'm finally up in Minneapolis in my new digs. Through a stroke of luck I got a fully furnished one bedroom apartment in the southern part of Uptown for pretty cheap. I'd put up pics but I can't find the cable for my camera. So anyway, I'm living by myself and trying to find a job. The job search hasn't been the most fruitful but I've been keeping myself entertained. I usually run by Lake Calhoun each afternoon and every time I do I realize that despite being funemployed I really do enjoy this city because that lake is gorgeous.

Beyond running, I've been playing a lot of Bouncing Balls on Facebook, going to a local coffee shop, etc. I've chilled with Liz and Caitlin and Anna some - Liz and her housemates had a party last night from which I now sit here recovering (don't dangle your prepositions). We spent the whole night playing Cornhole/Bags in the basement - pretty good fun.

Since I lack a job, I'm headed home from Nov. 25 until Jan. 5 (yes, I doing winter break and I no longer go to Carleton). This is an attempt to preserve both finances and sanity. While I've been decently entertained and not too bored, sitting in my apartment in December without a job and no real prospects (since nobody hires in December) is not my idea of fun. If any of you east coasters want to find a cheap way to chill during this period, I'd be up for it.

That's all folks.

Maddie the Baby doesn't want a public option

Congressmen Shadegg (R-AZ 3rd) brings his staffer's baby onto the House floor to tell the Congress what she thinks about health care reform. She has an incredibly precocious, well-formed opinion.



Is it just me or is she actually trying to keep congressman Shadegg from speaking into the microphone?

I wonder how she'll feel fifteen years from now when she learns she debated health care on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives when she was 7 months old. I think I'd feel a little bit humbled and incredibly weirded out.