Tag Archive for 'movies'

Page 3 of 4

listening party?

Published on November 2, 2006 in Music and Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , .

I got the 5.1 speakers hooked up to my TV earlier this year, and have been pleasantly surprised by the occasional movie or TV show that makes really good use of the surround sound. Even when it’s not used well, like that weird Wal-mart commercial I was watching, where all the sound suddenly shifted to the back speakers for no apparent reason, it’s still kinda cool. It creeps me out for a second, and then I remember that there’s speakers back there and it’s intriguing. Sometimes I just think about the guy who mixed the sound, and what was going through his head while he was putting sound back there.

Today, I listened to two old albums in a very different way. A few years ago, a bunch of us tried to get the necessary CD players and coordination to play the Flaming Lips four disc album the way it was meant to be played… but it proved a bit too difficult to really experience it as intended. So I was thrilled to find out that it wasn’t just a fluke or a phase for them, and that they’ve re-released a couple albums in 5.1 surround sound. Not only that, but the liner notes include these big long explanations of the entire concept and the mindset and the steps that led to this style of recording. They also included maps explaining what kind of stuff got mixed where and a little bit of why and how. It’s a lot of fun, and it makes me want to tweak my speaker set-up so that it’s just right.

So, does anyone want to come over and listen to this stuff? It’ll motivate me to clean and pack faster if I know company is coming, I think. It’ll be a listening party… I’m not sure when I might have time, but lemme know if you’re interested.

coming home soon

Published on June 24, 2006 in Family & Friends. Closed Tags: , , , .

More strange hotel-ness this morning, when my key suddenly stopped working… as did all the maids keys and the managers cool keycard reset device. Somehow they got it working, after a little while where we were all hanging out outside my door. I’m glad this room wasn’t some big embarrassing mess, or I would’ve felt a little weird.

I haven’t been into Chicago, itself. I’ve stayed in the suburbs. The closest I got was the zoo. The zoo was excellent… everything has been excellent. Some might say I could go out to eat, or the movies, or a zoo, or play mini-golf, or play video games or go to the drive-in and watch more movies or not watch more movies, back at home. And that might be true, but I wouldn’t have such awesome company the whole time. This is essentially my last day here, tomorrow is reserved for driving, and I’m already a little sad about not being able to pick up the phone, give Sarah a wake up call and make some plans.

Rain in the windy city

Published on June 22, 2006 in Family & Friends. Closed Tags: , , , , .

I made it and I don’t think I forgot anything important. I’ve spent a couple days here, now, and the rain has been either looming overhead or happening almost the whole time. Making fun outdoor plans has been difficult because of this, but it’s been a great time, so far, regardless. I get the feeling Sarah may not think so, but she’s a great hostess/guide. I really enjoyed our dinner & a movie thing the first night. And sitting around and watching movies all day yesterday was a good way to avoid potential rain. I had dinner with her family last night, too. It was really entertaining, and very tasty. Hopefully we’ll get some pictures today, if the rain ever stops, definitely tomorrow, though, as that’s our planned adventure to downtown. They just moved me from one room to another at my hotel because of a leaky toilet. It was pretty bizarre, but otherwise the hotel has been everything I expected it to be, and the frickin’ huge bed is way more than I expected it to be. It’s really nice to have this break, not thinking about work, and knowing that when I do get back, things will be in totally different gears, as we start summer camp. Trying not to think about the fact that I only have a few more days here…

weird dreams

Published on April 7, 2006 in Family & Friends and Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I was on a roll when it comes to remembering dreams last night/this morning. I never remember the whole thing, but the bits and pieces that stuck with me this morning were pretty amusing.

The last one simply proved that I watch too much sci-fi; Something about sneaking onto the an alien planet on the back of one of their ships. I remember that when I was on the back bumper, or whatever, of the ship, I was talking to someone, and looking at some sort of computer monitor mounted back there. Then I saw some little compartments and asked whoever I was talking to if the driver might see some kind of “Trunk Ajar” warning. I opened one of the little ones, and it was pressurized, and then the computer monitor went out. We flew into a hangar with a giant pool of water instead of a floor and I jumped off the ship into the water. I guess I managed to hide down there and avoid a couple close calls. I don’t remember how, but I got out and into the main building. There were aliens and humans there, but the humans seemed to be slaves or pets or something. The aliens did almost everything by telepathy or telekinesis, but it wasn’t a special skill of theirs because I immediately started developing telepathic abilities as soon as I started talking with people. I also used these new and developing abilities to learn the language on their computer consoles. Then came the funny part. I was reading about the schematics for the planned Alien version of the iPod. The main changes were the user interface being changed from the click wheel thing to some sort of telekinetic thing. I think I was either planning on using the iPod to somehow destroy them or somehow use the information about the conversion process from click-wheel to telepathic interface. I dunno, ’cause i woke up.

Before that one, I had a sorta funny one about death, or some sort of Beetlejuice-like waiting room… except cleaner and sort of like a bank. We were under the impression that getting out the door would mean that we were alive again… and there was some hints about getting out of the waiting room during some past encounter. This time around, we apparently hadn’t really died anyway. We had just gone there to try and convince someone to let our superhero friend come back to life. Our idea was that since he had died in costume, we could just leave the costume and the superhero dead and let the secret identity live. I dunno how that one that one ended either.

The first time I woke up, I remembered a dream unlike any I’ve had lately. It was a very strange dream that I don’t remember much from, but the two or three pieces of information I retained were weird. The first is that my Dad was dead. My dad’s been alive in a lot of my dreams, lately. Usually having something to do with cars. But this time it was him dead, or dying, and it had something to do with a car accident (which is probably how we all expected him to die someday). The only other thing I remember is some other woman being very angry that we occupied a surgeon for him when whoever she was there for needed one.

Waking up three times during the morning and remembering dreams probably isn’t the sign of the best sleep cycle ever. I didn’t happen to check the clock after any of them.

lazy

Published on December 10, 2005 in Photo and Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , .

Days off aren’t a rare thing anymore, this season seems to have quite a few of them. But today was the first day where I really did nothing, in a long while. It’s not that I didn’t have any places I could go, there were a couple options, but I just didn’t feel up to it, again. Reached out to a couple semi-local people for some support/a kick in the ass, but didn’t get it. I thought a lot about my trip out to Warwick, last night. It was the first time I’d gone somewhere, besides work and Mom’s, in a long time, especially alone. I suppose that’s progress from a month ago, as weird and lonely as going to a movie alone seems. I definitely wouldn’t have gone through with it, then… I probably wouldn’t have even gone to Warwick.

The weather looks decent tomorrow, I think I’m going to try and get out and take some pictures. My cheap/free fallback hobby… hopefully it happens. Maybe I’ll get in touch with someone at The Call this week about shooting for them again. If for no other reason, than motivation to get out of the house more often.

This long day of nothing has me tired, so it’s off to bed with me.

winter adventure

Published on December 9, 2005 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , , .

I did head down to Warwick to pick up my drive. RI is a little lacking in road signs like street signs and such, so it took a little longer than expected. And I expected it to take a long time, since the roads were covered in packed down ice and snow and slush… but it wasn’t that hard, I was only a block past the correct street when I pulled into the Shell station and the nice girl behind the counter pointed to the lights I should’ve turned at. After getting the package, I realized I hadn’t eaten since before work, so I headed back to the shopping area I had passed on the way, hoping for, at least, some food court food.

As I was pulling into the mall plaza, I saw the marquee for the movie theater and Narnia was up there. I couldn’t resist the call, so I went in and found a showing about a half hour away, got a ticket and then headed over to the food court to get some food.

A little backstory is necessary here. When I was … um … somewhere between the age of 9 and 11 … I was looking through the weird stuff we had on shelves and in boxes in our basement and found a box set of three books. I could tell that they were old by the cover art, and well-read by the creases and folds and worn down corners. I believe they were The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I was not a reader. I was young, but I didn’t have any unnatural love for books, by any means. The cover art alone, though, intrigued me, so I started reading them. Being the hyperfocused little kid that i was, I read all three that day. I really enjoyed them. In my memory, this was the first book(s) I had ever picked up on my own, of my own free will, and read. I don’t think I ever read any of the other books in the series.

On going into the theater, what I remembered from the story came more from some animated version that I saw sometime between reading them and now… but it was a very moving and well done movie, regardless. I would say that I enjoyed it as much as the first time I read the book. I’m torn on whether or not I should re-read the books. The first website I found said that the series should be re-read several times… so maybe I should.

I give up

Published on November 19, 2005 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

I don’t feel like putting in the effort anymore, so I’m going to have to be content with not having a life. I’m not going to try and make plans with people anymore, because it seems that those plans just aren’t going to ever happen. So instead of making plans and having them fall through and then sitting around and wondering whether it’s all because people don’t want to hang out with me. I’ll only go out to do things I feel comfortable doing alone, which isn’t that much, unfortunately. I am not going to try to plan anything anymore, I am not good at dealing with the letdown and rejection. I won’t turn down offers and invitations, but I just can’t make any of my own. I’ve been thinking about it for a few days, but it really hit me, for some reason, while I was leaving Dudley. I took the route through Webster, which I usually don’t do, because I really hate that town and sometimes it makes me physically ill. As I was getting out of downtown and then a couple more times on the way home, I got images in my head of me escaping some sort of zombie town, right out of a Romero movie. And I didn’t fall asleep watching zombie movies last night, either.

I drove by a movie theater earlier today and started thinking about the act of going to see a movie more than once. Right now, I could never forgive myself, financially, for doing such a thing. Thankfully, I’m not the type who enjoys watching most things more than once. The exceptions, though, I can watch a hundred times in a row and never grow tired of them. I guess this is why my DVD collection is so small and most of the TV episodes I download disappear to the recycle bin shortly after viewing them. The sci-fi channel stuff that I enjoy, I simply can’t get enough of, but, as blasphemous as it is, I don’t like watching the Star Wars movies again. I must’ve watched the first season of Weeds three times, and I would still watch it again. And then there’s my collection of favorite “dead” shows; I can watch Dead Like Me, the Dead Zone and Six Feet Under as a marathon that spans multiple days. Sean Callery and I are related somehow (2nd cousins, maybe?), and he does all the music for the show 24. I definitely enjoyed the first season, when we were all very excited for him and watched every episode on the night it came out. I’ve really wanted to go back and watch them again, so I can really listen to the music this time around, and maybe watch some of the other three seasons that came out, too, but I guess I’m just not as into the show enough to actually do it. So far, I haven’t found a film that Robert Rodriguez is involved in that I can’t watch over and over. I’m sure I could think of more examples of stuff I can watch again if I really tried, but I can’t think of anything else right now. I guess my music listening habits are similar; when I find something I like, I can (and do) play it over and over and over again… sometimes leaving the same CD in the car, or the same playlist on winamp, for months and months.

Speaking of months and months… I started doing the dishes today; It was way overdue. There wasn’t enough room to rinse, so I started taking dishes out of the sink to make room. I quickly filled up the entire counter, but there still wasn’t enough room, so I moved on to the floor. It was pretty ridiculous. I got a whole drying rack’s worth done though, and I plan to do another rack’s worth after putting the currently washed dishes away. I had to stop at one rack’s worth, because I was out of hot water… and the rack was full, duh. By the time I get done with this entry, the hot water will probably be fully replenished. I don’t know, though, I might not be able to resist dirtying a dish or two before I make my next bit of progress.

Looking forward to two big family meals this week. Thursday out at Plymouth… first time seeing Dad’s side of the family since the funeral, I think. And then Mom is having her brothers and whoever tags along down to Dudley on Saturday night. I could probably fast all of Friday, if I didn’t have to work at the teen center.

stolen stuff sucks

Published on November 10, 2005 in Work. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Two times in the past couple months, the teen center that I work at has been broken into and stuff has been stolen. This saddens me. What’s most disturbing about it is that the doors are always locked when we show up, and we don’t notice things are missing until we go to use them. It could be one of the kids who managed to get themselves a key somehow. That’s even more disturbing, since this place is essentially free for them and they obviouly don’t all appreciate it and everything it is.

Last time we lost a movie and an Xbox with one game and one controller (owned by a staff member). This time we’re missing our DVD player and most of our DVDs, as well as all the mice from the computers, some snacks we bought yesterday and a jar full of change that was being collected for donations for a sponsorship through Save The Children.

We’re weighing our options now on how to prevent this/catch the culprits. I’ve offered my help in setting up a Webcam-security system with one of the computers I’m still in the process of rebuilding.

My fault or a justified pet peeve?

Published on November 5, 2005 in Family & Friends and Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , , .

I don’t hear back from people anymore. Was it something I said? Am I an asshole? Am I saying the wrong things? Do these people read all my blog entries and think that because they might be one of the people I don’t feel like hanging out with anymore that they shouldn’t respond to me when I ask them questions? It was matters of trust that made me feel that way in the first place – not communicating doesn’t help matters. Am I just impatient? Do people not take electronic communication as seriously as I do? I’ve always felt more comfortable writing as opposed to verbal communication, so perhaps I put too much faith in eMails, text messages and IMs. Do these people only read and respond to eMails and such once a week? The wonders of today’s technology let me know that some of these people have been online or are online now, but still no response… this leads me back to my first assumption. They just don’t want to talk to me. I’ve been trying to deal with a lot of loneliness lately and this is really starting to freak me out. It’s crushing my hopes of being able to deal with any of these feelings that I don’t have a lot of experience and practice with.

I used to be completely alright with going places alone. I’d even hit movies alone, if I was bored and wanted to see one. Tonight, there’s a CD release party that I’d like to go to, but I don’t feel up to going without someone to go with… but still no responses to the offers I’ve put out there. Fortunately I made a back-up plan, so I don’t just have to go home after work and sit there, potentially alone (since Sara seems to occupied with packing for her Vegas trip) on a night where I just really don’t want to be alone.

as an aside: tried the smartmedia card in my camera again today and it still doesn’t work. Works fine in the card reader… no luck in the camera. So no pictures until I figure that out or get a new card or camera… yeah, like I have money for anything like that.

reuniting

Published on April 24, 2005 in Family & Friends. Closed Tags: , , .

so I had a couple friends from high school over here last night and they stayed over and hung out most of the morning… and a good part of the afternoon, as well. Needless to say, we had a great time. we all laughed quite a bit, told stories and caught up, looked at pictures from my closet, ate some pizza, played scrabble, played Apples to Apples, watched a movie, turned the movie off because it was boring, sat around in the dark, took some pictures, slept, went out to breakfast, wandered in the park down the street, sat on the swings, laid on the benches… and then they went home.

Of course, I feel like a total pimp because they paired off with each of my roommates overnight. That’s ok, though. It was adorable. I guess a more normal person might’ve been jealous or something, but I was perfectly happy to curl up in my bed alone, knowing that everyone else was happy. Apparently, according to everyone I’ve talked to, that makes me extremely weird. I already knew that, though. That doesn’t change the fact that I feel like a pimp, though. I don’t know why they say “pimpin’ ain’t easy.” All I did was give the girls my address and some directions and provide some food and some scrabble… my roommates really did the rest :)

(Disclaimer: it was totally by chance that I invited these girls over and they ended up not sleeping with me. There was no discussion about staying over or pimping before-hand and there was no money exchanged, except to the pizza guy. I did not try to “set up” my roommates and would’ve been perfectly happy to cuddle up to one of these lovely ladies myself, but that’s not the way things went.)

woot