Night and Day or The Ultimate Soul Crush

I've seen two movies in the past two days and they couldn't have been more different. One was soul crushingly bad while the other was super terrific! By giving you the titles of said films can you determine which one was which? Elektra and Sideways. Erin and I had a 2 for 1$ coupon for Cinema City and saw the uber-stinkfest that is Elektra. At 50 cents, admission was still way too high. The movie was so bad I was literally checking my watch every few seconds. Longest hour and a half of my life. Seriously, who in the hell thought that having ninjas turn into green smoke when killed, FOR NO DISCERNIBLE REASON, was a good idea? And what was with the way Jennifer Garner was swiveling her hips. It was super-exaggerated and seemed to be occupying her mind 100%. In conclusion, she is a terrible actress and looks like a man in Elektra.
Sideways, on the other hand, was great. Despite being essentially a high brow retelling of Swingers, it was funny and interesting. I even learned something about wine tasting, which should come in handy should I ever decide to like wine. It's too bad that Paul Giamatti was shut out of an Oscar nod, cuz he was great. Very nuanced and believable. If you haven't seen it yet, do so!

Treading Water or Nothing Much to Report

I haven't really been up to anything much this past week... just work, exercise, DVD watching, reading, and classic hockey game viewing. Mostly just non-constructive things. Some might call it relaxing and taking time off, but I'm looking at it as a symptom of a larger problem. That is the lack of real passion to move beyond step one. I mean I have a ton of ideas for things I'd like to eventually write/make (films and TV shows) but do not have the real drive to move beyond that stage. I need something that sparks a fire inside to get me off my, admittedly comfortable, ass and bust out some stuff that I could sell/get off the ground. I've done some casual looking at the production company resources that are available in Manitoba but nothing serious. Maybe if I just sit down and hardcore write I'll get inspired to forge ahead in the whole "career" stage of life. In my mind, I'm convinced all this would change if I were not living at home... The barrier is that I do not currently have a reliable enough job that I would feel comfortable taking that big of a step... despite REALLY wanting to get out of here.... I don't want to have to take a really shitty job just to move out in the hopes that it makes me more inspired to work on some media to sell and jump start a career...
Man, there I go again... rambling like a delusional senior citizen...

R.I.P Hunter S. Thompson 1937-2005 

Constantine is spelled B-L-A-H or Reverend Jim

Just got back from seeing "Constantine" with Stobes, Erin, Ashley, and Brad. Not having read "Hellblazer" before I was going in without any comic book bias. Even with that fact I was severely underwhelmed. Keanu was far too pretty and whitebread to be a grizzled exorcist suffering from lung cancer. He also dressed far too "hip." His acting, as always, leaves something to be desired but in this case, he wasn't called on for all that much in the way of emotional range. The movie didn't really have all that much action and was kind of slow and meandering in places. It wasn't a terrible waste of time or something that encourages the gouging out of one's eyes, but also wasn't some kind of magnum opus that warrants the spending of $8.75 to see. Thumbs pointed at an approximately 45 degree angle downward.
What does rock however, is the character of Reverend Jim on Taxi. Having only vague recollections of how hilarious Christopher Lloyd was on that show, it was quite refreshing to see it now and be cracked up. He was absolutely brilliant as the perma fried burnout.
Last night I was able to hang out with Tyler and Kari for a bit; doing such awesome things as watching "Krush Groove" again and ordering some tasty takeout from Santa Lucia. Any place that'll deliver at 2 am is fine by me! Especially when you can get pie!

So Funny or Holy Crap!

I want to buy Alan Cumming's fragrance and all of the anciliary products that go along with it.

Cumming: The Fragrance

We're Hardcore! or Spending too much money...

Seeing that I had to work Monday and that Erin was going to Ottawa early Tuesday, we decided to have Valentine's day early. Then again, neither one of us is really into the holiday or anything... I shocked and surprised her with some flowers then took her to a semi-fancy restaurant, the Mona Lisa. Not having been there for ages, I was dismayed to find that it is over-priced to the nines. For the amount of food we got, it was NOT worth the exorbitant amount of coin it cost. I did have a tasty chocolate-raspberry martini though... Afterwards, we rented "Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 3" and watched the WHOLE THING. Yes, we watched 5 hours of the show in one night. By the end, we were totally gone, as tiredness and eye-exhaustion were setting in. In retrospect, we didn't have to keep going, but we really wanted to see what would happen to crazy Larry David! The show is just that good! We can now be classified as "hardcore."
Lately I've been dropping a tad more cheddar than I'm comfortable with... but then again, it's my own damn fault! In the past few weeks I've bought: Cobra, Taxi Season 2, Night Court Season 1, and the greatest 2 for 40 deal I've ever seen, Dawn of the Dead/Shaun of the Dead AND the Back to the Future Trilogy! Seriously, despite sucking massive ass most of the time, occasionally HMV busts out some super sweet deals! In addition to all the DVD's I've had to spend money on computer related products, printer ink, gas, food... but those are not things that I could really put off... Then again, it's not like I'm going into debt or anything, I'm just spending a little bread while I can... Soon enough I'll have a whole new set of worries to cover and won't be able to frivolously waste money as often... Oh yeah, I've also now crossed the 300 mark in my DVD collection! Yikes! To see my whole collection click here:
Ian's Massive DVD Collection!

Yay! or Anyone Remember This Show?

As you can see below, I finally got around to figuring out how to post photos on the blog. Not that it was really hard or anything... I'm just lazy. Now that I know how to do it, I'm going to horribly abuse that fact and post stupid things galore! Be afraid!

Hey, I was trying to think of shows that AREN'T on DVD and the most prevalent one that came to mind was "The Hilarious House of Frightenstein" from the early 1970's. I don't remember a whole hell of a lot about it, as it was on in syndication when I was SUPER young, but I did manage to find an interesting website about it! Check it out: The Hilarious House of Frightenstein

Oh yeah, if you are interested in some good reading, check this out: Banality as Saviour. It's an academic essay about Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure! As someone who has written academic essays on things like Transformers the Movie and UHF, it's always nice to see someone else doing something serious on a "non-intellectual" movie.

Good luck, good buddy! 

I am not impressed that someone else is using my camera! 

Stobes, you're up! 

A cake to end all cakes! 

Matt is blinded by the amazing karaoke prowess of yours truly! 

Rob gets some cake which makes Jay and Tyler happy! 

The whole gang giving the devil's sign!

Rob and his cake 

2 Games Down, Countless More to Go or Sick, but not TOO Sick

Well, I've been a tad sick the past few days, with a minor cold thing happening. I felt the thing coming on Monday and was able to pre-emptively stop it with some meds and whatnot. It ended up only being a small nuisance. Yay me!
On the plus side, I was able to devote some extra time to the two games I'd been playing recently; The Punisher and Star Wars: KOTOR 2, and I finished them both. The Punisher was a decent little diversion, full of mindless and over the top gore while KOTOR was a great little yarn full of interesting gameplay concepts and cool little tweaks to the original formula. The only thing was, each of those games had shitty endings that left things open for sequels. I swear, practically EVERY game nowadays does that... I mean no one has the balls to fucking FINISH a story anymore... they all want to leave room for the eventual sequel... That is one of the major problems in the video game industry right now, so few original ideas. Companies just keep putting out sequels of stuff or rehashes of older ideas... Then again, that's the same problem Hollywood has.... hmmmmmmmmm. Before I forget, the endings of both of the games I was playing were super short! I mean didn't Final Fantasy 7 already establish precedent in the video game ending department with a lavish 10 minute CG movie? Why is it that an RPG that takes more than 30 hours to play (KOTOR 2) ends with a 45 second movie? If I devote that much of my life to something, I expect to get some sort of pay off. Credits DO NOT COUNT. Sheesh! In my opinion, no game has ever surpassed Final Fantasy 6's ending in terms of player satisfaction. That thing completely hit all the right notes and left, me at least, totally feeling like my 40 hours of gameplay was worth it and that I'd seen a full and finished story. I mean, I've replayed that game so many times and the ending still makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! If you look at an ending it pure "WOW" terms, then Final Fantasy 7 is the tops. No game had ever put so much effort into a CG video before. I still remember getting goosebumps the first time I saw that 10 minutes of digital orgasm. The only thing that kept it from topping the list was that it didn't fully resolve the story and left things open to make a sequel (which they are finally doing in CG movie form this year).
Well, I'm done for now...

Cobra or the Magic of Cloning

I finally got to watch the Stallone opus that is "Cobra" last night. I'd heard that it was a total 80's, action packed, tough as nails cop movie. With a tagline of "Crime is the disease, Meet the Cure" I knew it had to be hilarious! With a body count in the 100's, the main character named Lt. Cobretti who sported pearl handled revolvers, and a ton of seemingly random events it was definately something to behold. It's also really fun to say "Cobra."
Speaking of generic, how about that "American Dad?" I had no idea that they changed the spelling of Family Guy to a-m-e-r-i-c-a-n-d-a-d... Talk about rehash! It's the SAME EXACT THING. On the plus side, I think I heard the voice of Curtis Armstrong on the show... you know what that means... BOOGER is back baby!

Tears or Goodbye Rob

So I just got back from a night of tears and laughter. It was Rob's goodbye celebration at the Chocolate Shop Karaoke bar. There ended up being a huge contingent of people that came out to wish Rob off. Myself, Erin, Jon, Matt, Kostas, Erinn, Tyler, Jay, Ryan, Tina, Stobes, Brad, Brian, Lee, Dave, Sherri, and some of Rob's co-workers. It was a blast. I picked up a huge chocolate cake for the occasion that read "Good Luck at the Killbot Factory." Getting the right lettering was a chore in and of itself, as the Safeway ladies did not understand the message at all... My plan to get Rob a group photo ended up turning out pretty well. Matt's photoshopping of the thing was pretty good! I grabbed a frame from Wal-Mart to seal the deal.
I had written new lyrics to the song "New York, New York" to sing to Rob during the evening and despite a first time hiccup (where I botched the tune and yelled out "FUCK", much to the chagrin of some elderly people there) I think it went well. I sang Pat Benatar, Prince, Neil Diamond, and Tom Jones throughout the course of the evening. My lung emptying rendition of "I Am I Said" was kick ass, while my falsetto version of "When Doves Cry" is best left buried and forgotten. Everyone got up and sang something for Rob, even Jon! Photos exist to prove the fact!
There was drinking and merriment had by all, despite the fact that two waitresses didn't show up and left one lady to do everything herself! She did a bang up job considering the circumstances! With a great many photos taken and hugs given, the evening eventually had to end. This was definitely one of those moments that you wish could be avoided or slowed down. The final goodbyes. Rob did a bang up job of keeping his composure, and most of the guys just avoided things with little jokes. I think I was the only one to really break down. It's weird, because I never do stuff like that... when I was giving Rob the goodbye hug, I just lost it (not overly vocal or anything... just tears and whatnot...) He got a little choked up too... I know this isn't a forever goodbye or anything, but still... This is the effective death of the junior high/high school/university life. I've been good friends with Rob for the past 10 years and the "good old days" are now officially over. The thought of all those good times just made me really sad...
All the way home in the car with Erin, I couldn't say anything... I just had my 80's mix CD on super loud. Hall and Oates, New Order, Simple Minds... they comforted me more than any words could have... In fact, I'm super glad that Erin didn't say anything... it helped more. She said that seeing me so upset made her upset but that she didn't really know what to say to make it better... I think not saying anything was far more effective.
I'm still super sad and very near tears right now, but writing this has been cathardic. I don't know if this post will come across well or not, it's hard to get emotions that you don't normally express out... All I have to say is this: (in the tune of Modern English's Melt with You: "Being friends with you was never second best...")

Rob's New York, New York
(lyrics changed by me...)

Start spreading the news, Rob's leaving today
He's going to be a part of 'em, the armed for-ces
He's leaving behind, his friends such as Jay
To learn to use a gun - and fix some tanks

We're gonna miss him from the city that isn't steep
Because he's king of the hill, top of the heap

His Winnipeg blues, are melting away
He'll make a brand new start of it, in old Que-bec
Push ups, marching in line, Rob will do fine!
We'll sure miss you - Rob Ur-ban-ski

Make sure you write
Because you will be, in a city, so far away
Also you're a-number one, top of the list, king of the hill
a-number one

It won't be the same, with you not here
Without the happy stinky poo or the creepy por-no
We all sure wish you well, you're gonna make it anywhere

We'll sure miss you - Rob Ur-ban-ski

Good Luck

Hope that made you tear up, like it did me... :(

"Racism" or Hello, I'm Special

So a couple of days ago a native youth was shot by police when he lunged at them with a weapon, which turned out to be a screwdriver. Because of the fact that he was native, this has caused a lot of noise to be made by native groups crying "racism" and "police brutality." They are calling this another J.J. Harper situation. In my opinion, this is a load of crap. First of all the two situations are completely different. J.J. Harper was unfairly targeted by police as he was walking home. This boy was being apprehended for a mugging and was resisting arrest. He had been pepper sprayed multiple times and continued to ignore police warnings to put down his weapon. He lunged at an officer and was shot twice, which ended up killing him. While I acknowledge that his death is a tragedy of sorts, to hear the issue of racism brought up is annoying. Whenever a minority is killed it's always racism, even when circumstances point to another truth. In our country, the native community is quick to fight any perceived injustice, which is a good thing, but sometimes it goes too far and fights for the wrong reasons. In decrying this event as indicative of police racism they are completely ignoring certain key facts.
1) The youth was already a career criminal at 18, having been in and out of jails and youth centres for most of his life. He was not an innocent victim as portrayed.
2) The youth was told to put down his weapon multiple times, he did not. He advanced on an officer of the law in a threatening manner. Police procedure dictates a certain response.
3) The officer was a metis man, not a Caucasian. If there is any racism going on its of the self-hatred type.
4) The youth was shot in the chest because it is standard police procedure, not because the officer wanted to kill him. Some groups are complaining that the boy was not shot in the leg or arm. First of all, it's not that easy to hit such small targets when under pressure. Despite expert training in firearms, it is standard operating procedure to shoot at the largest area, in this case the torso.
5) The youth clearly had no respect for the rule of law or the police. When asked to show ID, he brandished a weapon. When told to comply with the officer's request, he lunged in a threatening manner.
Is there racism in the police force? I'm sure there are trace amounts, but not every case is indicative of a systematic dilemma. People should know better than to attack a cop and should comply with what they ask. When respect and fear for the rule of law is gone, then you've got anarchy. I'm not saying that the boy deserved what happened, but I'm saying that what happened to him was something that he should've feared and therefore done something to prevent.
There are definitely battles to fight and tragedies to avert, but some tragedies are not catastrophes. They are results of one person's poor choices and not some grand conspiracy against a minority group. Give the police enough credit to not go around shooting random natives out of spite. At this point in time, they know enough to follow procedure. No one is going to do something so blatantly racist because they know the consequences.
On a happier note, I finished reading "Hello, I'm special" today and it was an interesting book for the most part. Discussing the issue that individualism is effectively the new conformity and that to try to be special and unique is exactly what the system demands and only serves to make you even more of a conformist, the book had some interesting ideas. I disagreed with the author's view on backyard wrestling but the rest of it was pretty damn good stuff.
I have to go to work now... Ugh!

Million Dollar Baby or Group Photo

I checked out "Million Dollar Baby" tonight and was very impressed. It was beautifully shot and remarkably touching. Definitely not the route I was expecting the story to take, but a total pleasure to watch. Seeing the flick followed the attempts to take a group photo of the gang to give to Rob when he leaves. I say attempts because due to schedule problems and Matt's lack of effort, it was not possible to get all the people together that I'd wanted... In the end, it was just the "classic 4" of myself, Matt, Jon, and Jay. The pic turned out quite well, but Matt is going to also try to photoshop me into another picture he has of the rest of the guys AND Rob. Whichever one turns out better will be framed up and handed over to Rob so that he always remembers his buds from the 'Peg. I've been really sad about this whole Rob leaving thing over the past few days. It's hard to let go of something that meant a lot to you. Maybe I never really stopped to think about how much I value Rob's friendship before, but with him leaving I've come to realize just how much of an influence on my life he has been and how much fun I have with him. It seriously sucks that he's going to be gone for so long (perhaps indefinitely). The only comfort I can take is that he is going to be doing something that makes him happy and that is the most important thing. I mean if he were to remain in the city, work menial jobs and be unhappy just so that things didn't change and we could all keep our "high school" comfort zones then his life wouldn't be as rich as it could've been. Having him leave and live a more fulfilled life is much better, despite the fact that it's making me sad. I guess it's just that I never really thought things would change so drastically with all of us... Our lives have managed to avoid any serious displacements of valued group members for so long, that I just kinda expected things to always stay that way... It makes me wish that I'd made more of an effort to appreciate what times I did have... not that I didn't stop and think about how great things were, but I'm sure that I could've done more. That and tell Rob that he was such a good buddy... At least I can still do that... Man... now I feel like crying... If only I still had that ability...
Some advice to people reading, if you have a small bump somewhere on your face that you are convinced is a zit despite not being able to squeeze it out, it's probably not a good idea to start to jab at it with a sewing needle or gouge at it with nail clippers. That only causes more pain and some minor swelling... Luckily I never followed through with my brief inclination to take a razor blade to the thing... cuz I think that it might actually be a small cyst... Yeah... sometimes I can be a little mental... although it's mostly with small annoyances that I really want to be rid of but can't wait for the natural progressions to do so.