Thursday, November 9th, 2006

I expect all BBX-ers to follow suit

Which BBX-er will be visiting me come this December?

That's right - the bouncing Melon herself! I'm not entirely sure what we'll be up to, but it will definitely be nice to see a familiar face again. Truth be told, she's actually gonna visit her friends in Madison (people I know as well who were in the program). Usually when she goes to Madison, she has to connect in Minneapolis, so what she'll do is just prolong her stay here and then I'll take her down to Madison. Then, it's only a hop, skip and a jump to Erinn's place in Milwaukee. So, I'll be a bit busy that weekend, but I'll at least get to see BOTH of my female friends.

In other news, I think I've gotten over that nasty cold I had, though I guess I can't be quite sure since this one sort of creeped up from behind me and didn't last half as long as the one I had back in early October. This sucks, man. I used to be able to make it through an entire winter without getting sick. The only time that I would sneeze would be in the early fall/late summer when my allergies kicked in but then, this January I got majorly sick and in October again, and then a mini cold in November. Maybe I will move to Arizona.

This week is rather uneventful, I think. I have a group paper to do, which involves reading through eight articles (ugh) and coming up with some sort of crappy paper that will pass for acceptable. The good part is that it's a group paper, so, hello social loafing! Nah, I'll do my best to contribute with my piece. Which means I should probably get off this thing and start reading ridiculous papers on touch.

Later,

FS

Sunday, November 19th, 2006

Casino Royale Spoilers!

So, now that everyone has been able to wash out that horrible aftertaste of Die Another Day after four long years, it's time to strap ourselves back in and watch another Bond movie.

So, everyone has been talking about how gritty and awesome or how stupid this movie is (although, the only people I've heard complain are really the only ones who claim that this movie sucks because it has Daniel Craig in it without giving him a shot and for very little else). Truth be told this movie is actually pretty... mediocre. It's not amazing, it's not horrible. It's just... meh. Let's break it down.

So, we start out with a really strange black and white intro with very little fun, all business, which has to be the least Bond-like opening sequence ever, but whatever, it's short enough. Then we have the opening credits, which are pretty cool, I must admit. One key thing that I didn't realize until after they ended was that they didn't feature any bond girls, it was just Bond silhouettes with Card suits left and right. While I do enjoy seeing the female form as art on those things, I really didn't mind this different settup. The song itself was only so-so, done by some Chris Cornell guy. If there was anthing negative about it it's that it was a bit too fast to be a bond song, but you know, I'll take that over Die Another Day, 99 times out of 100.

I won't go through the movie scene by scene, but I will break it down into four parts: Africa, Miami, Montenegro, and After the Poker Game.

"Africa" starts out at an exciting pace and doesn't let up for the entire duration. It's almost as though this should have been the intro, but it just went too long. What' missing is David Arnold's usual "I'm James Bond and I'm the coolest Spy in the world" music in the background - again, I can forgive it- and instead we have pretty average "I'm chasing a bad guy" music, but for Arnold, it's better than most other guys could have come up with.

"Miami" has just as much excitement and pulsepounding chase sequences which don't - repeat DON'T - involve evaporating cars as I had predicted after DAD. Pretty standard issue here. There was nothing that made me say something like "oh, man, that's different. I haven't seen them do THAT before" like I did in almost every action scene in Tomorrow Never Dies. Regardless, it's still fun.

"Poker Game" and "After the Poker Game" Here is where the movie begins to suffer big time. This piece is just long. Way too long. They play poker, and I will admit that the director does a decent job of making it somewhat exciting, but you can't forget the fact that it's a poker game. Luckily there are breaks in between with a whole bunch of stuff going on that in retrospect I'm not sure I like (not because it wasn't fun to watch, but only because it was kind of random. After four hours of playing poker, they take a one hour break, and then there's a swordfight! And then it's back to four more hours of Poker).

Once the game ends, you think, "all right, now we're in for some awesome action!" But sadly, the movies seems to drag on for at least thrity more minutes. The villain meets his end in the most anti-climactic way you could imagine, and it's not even Bond that kills him. I would say that all of the "After Poker Game" snail-paced goings-on build to something, but the payoff- as interesting as it is or tries to be- just isn't worth it. And anyone with half a brain will be able to see it coming not only because it's so obvious, but because it's been done before in the last two bond movies (though each one I guess has it's own unique spin on it).

There are three ways that I can describe this movie compared to other ones that I have seen, and none of them are all that great. The first is to think of this as On Her Majesty's Secret Service Part 2 - This time, without any stupidity. However, that is not to say that this version is light on the mind-numbingly boring aspects of OHMSS. I mean, a card game- seriously! At one point after the game, when nothing continued to happen, I just wanted to scream out, SOMETHING HAPPEN! That reminded me of OHMSS when Funk fell asleep due to the fact that absolutely nothing happened for a good 30 minutes... or more.

The other way that I can describe this movie as like "Die Another Day- only in the exact opposite direction." Remember how everyone and their sister told the Producers what a horrible job they had done with Die Another Day after it came out? Well, it's no surprise that they got really scared of being all campy and decided to compete with all the other gritty spy movies out there by starting all over. But I think that in order to compensate, they went too far to the other side of the spectrum. This takes itself too seriously, and ultimately isn't very fun (which may be the biggest attack a Bond Movie can suffer). No gadgets, no Q, no cool original bad Bond Girl, no new car chases, though I understand a lot of people are getting tired of those in movies, but i just blame that on a lack of originality. The locations are as stellar as always, and the character development is top notch, but when you spend a good chunk of the movie in a casino, you know that you haven't balanced things out that well.

The final and what is perhaps the most unfair way that I could describe this movie is "like a ritzy version of the Bourne movies." What I like about the Bourne movies that I don't get in the Bond movies is that theyre grittier- no fancy cars, no glamorous girls, no government on the other line waiting to take his calls. And I think producers of the Bond movies tried to compete with that with this movie, but they really can't. Mostly because as dark as Bond is, he's still really priviledged. You can't really forget that or it seems out of place. Like way back in the late '80s with Dalton's License to Kill, which was an okay movie, but not the most bond-esque because of the same reasons- producers changing the formula too much in hopes of trying to compete with what was out there.

Now, as for Daniel Craig as Bond. I never understood why some people didn't like Brosnan or said that he coulnd't hold a candle to Connery. I thought, "what does it matter, right? I mean, Bond is Bond, whoever plays him is immaterial." I am now officially in the "I don't think Daniel Craig is a good Bond" club. I'm sure he's a fine actor, but he just seems awkward as the spy. Granted the material he had to work with, as described above, wasn't the most bond-like, but still, it felt like I was watching some other kind of movie at times when I looked at Craig in the lead. I'll give him another shot for the next one that comes out, but for now, I'm sticking to "Brosnan did an incredibly better job with Goldeneye" belief.

So, my conclusion: Thank God, Die Another Day has come and gone. Casino Royale is only so so. Looking at my rankings, I will tentatively place it in the 8-9-10 area with other movies that were more serious but suffered from kinda boring scenes.

Later!

Thursday, November 30th, 2006

Maybe if I wasn't such a G-D spoiled little S---, I could just move on...

There's too much to mention here. I haven't voiced my fears and complaints this entire semester, partly because no one has asked but it probably has more to do with the fact that, like most other things within the last four months, I just don't care. Grab a beverage, relax and read on.

I'll start this simply. I hate Dumbface. Now, if you happen to forget who Dumbface is, well she's just one of my three professors I got assigned to to Assist in her research for 8 hours a week. I hate her research interests, I hate her "do things my way attitude" I hate her bossiness, I hate her addle brained demeanor, her insensitivity, her presence which seems to just surround you without escape, her need to always know what's going on... I could go on, but I think I've made myself clear enough. It's such a pain to have to work with her just because she's not a very pleasant person to be around. I think I've mentioned at least a few ways in which she behaves like a five year old, the ways in which she has this "me-me-me" attitude, without giving a crap for others. I am truly amazed at how much she expects, and how dimwitted she is. Apparently in the Dumbface universe, there are only 4 million people living in the United States.

But anyway, back to what's really burning my ass. So, on tuesday she and I were supposed to meet so that I could go to a middle school (not the transition school in Maple Grove) in the ghetto for another project. I told her that I coulnd't meet until noon because of class and then only until one. So, when she called me in class - TWICE- that morning, I was more than just a little irritated. I let that go, since a small part of me realized that she can't really be forced to remember my schedule. But whatever. so when we meet after my class is over, she tells me that she got a hold of the teacher we've been trying to meet with for over a month. Our original plan of just going there at noon has to be changed to correspond with this new development. The teacher's break is from 12:30 to 2:00, so that's when we'll be there.

I do not like the implications of all of this. I can only tolerate so much of Dumbface at once, and I have other stuff to do, stuff I planned to do at one, so naturally, I say, "well, I can't."

She looks befuddled. "Why? It's the time we agreed on." She flips through her planner and says, "oh, until one. Well, we'll just have to be speedy."

So her husband is there and we have to go to Burger King's Dirve through for some lunch. I want nothing. They, on the other hand... wow. This is what the workers there have to put up with:

Mr. Dumbface a good half a minute after we get there: "Okay, so I want a large fry with no salt and a whopper Junior. [Dumbface], do you want anything?"  [Dumbface says what she wants] "Okay so I want two whoppers, one with cheese and a fry. And can you make one of the whoppers a meal with a diet pepsi - does [the teacher we're visiting] like diet?" [Dumbface answers. and says that she wants a meal too.]. Yeah okay. Well, better make both of those a meal but I don't want the fries anymore.

Attendant: So... you don't want fries?

Mr Dumbface: "No, I do, but I ordered fries that I don't want."

Honestly, I'm impressed that it all came out somewhat accurate. But lord, it just sounded bad. The rest of the afternoon is crap, but nothing interesting happens, so we will move forward to our meeting on Wednesday morning.

I show up and she wants me to find ACT's number. I look for it online and when I find it, she motions to the phone telling me to call them.

Nando: "Uhm, so what am I calling them about?"
Dumbface: "Ask them if we have to pay for the assessment every time the student logs in or if it's all covered and they can come back to it and finish it later."
Nando: Oh, well, no. The stuff that they give us is good for a whole year, we don't have to pay extra.
Dumbface: According to who?
Nando: Them.
D: are you sure?
N: Yes.
D: you didn't know that yesterday. [i've told her this three or four times by this point] have you been in contact with them since yesterday?
N: No. but that's what they told me when I called them a while back. I remember because he clarified for me, telling me that a year meant twelve months not nine like an academic school year.

Then we proceed to find dates that she and I can go to the ghetto middle school to conduct her stupid ass research. So, we start next week. She can't do anything on Mondays. Mondays are blocked up completely. so we find times on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then I tell her that I'm "out of town" on Thursday and Friday because Melanie is coming and I don't want to be at Dumbface's disposal. Oh, she's not happy about that. Then we get to finals week and I tell her I leave for vacation, and she gets so huffy, telling me that I'm supposed to be working for her during break and blah blah blah. Here is where I admit that I made a HUGE error. I honestly did think that my appointment was for two sememsters, not for the entire nine months. She then takes me up to the office so that I can look at the contract I signed, which is really disheartening, because this is a woman who will not hesitate to take more than she's supposed to. On the way back down, she tells me that I have a choice to make and some other ridiculous bullshit.

Why is this bullshit? Because, I know of no other teaching assistant who has to work all of his or her hours with the professor. If it were like that, of course no work would ever get done! If Dumbface just gave me work I could do independently, I would have no problem getting it done, but since we HAVE to meet, and our schedules conflict, of course it's gonna be hard to find eight hours to get together, and then she complains about it like a little five year old. I've done three projects for another professor of mine, I think we've met for at total of lie 20 minutes, but the work I've done for her has taken a good chunk. So she starts telling me that maybe I should keep a time sheet to keep track of my hours. It's at that point that I really want to slap myself for ever having come to this retarded program.

I feign humility and affibility for the duration of our meeting and just spend the next three hours feeling like a huge loser who will never amount to anything because of his mental and financial limitations. My eyes periodically water throughout class. And by the end, I realize that I do, indeed, have a decision to make.

Like I said, I have not been the most open when it comes to my personal life recently. But I guess i should document it now. I am sick of counseling. Especially if it involves getting a degree from this program. With that in mind, I decided long ago, to take the next semester off, in a way. I would take a break from counseling and just take some literature courses in hopes of 1) getting a better perspective once I was away from counseling 2) seeing if I could enjoy school again and 3) it would at least satisfy the 12 credits I need to take outside of the department. My hope actually is that if I do enjoy it somewhat, that maybe I'll apply to grad school in English Lit for the fall 2008 academic year. But you never know, maybe I would feel better about counseling after the brief hiatus.

I signed up for four courses on Tuesday, after my paperwork finally went through. This university is so ridiculous, with all the forms and sheets you have to fill out that no one tells you about. But now, I'm thinking of just dropping school altogether and seeing if there's anything out there I could do to earn some money. I'm trying to figure out how to go about things because i am pretty pumped about the literature courses, but staying would mean having to pay student fees and even more importantly working more with Dumbface, and at this point, I just so fed up with her, that dumping her ass in the middle of this project seems like a fitting way to end things. Let's see who she'll get to deal with her BS after I'm gone. So, I have a few weeks to figure out how I want to proceed.

I sent my cohortians notice of this issue just because in the past I would have just let the time run out and not bothered to think of how it would have impacted them if one day I just wasn't there anymore, because either way, no matter what happens, I won't be in class with them in January, and December may be the last time I see them at all. So, who knows what the future holds. We shall see.