New Year’s Resoultions

Yes, we all mmake them; we all break them.  But that doesn’t stop us from making new ones the next year.  Perhaps the only resolution we could guarantee we’d keep is to stop making resolutions.  But as we are a species that thrives on hope, we continue, as do I individually.  So here you go, this year’s list of attainable goals that I will still not likely attain.

One thing that I feel will help me in this quest for self-improvement is accountability, which is where you come in.  I am going to put down my list here (this is a rough start and more items may be added as time goes on).  Around the 1st of each month I will update you on my progress.  Hopefully I can shame myself into doing what I need to do.

The List (in no particular order):

1. Quit Smoking

2. Weigh 250 pounds (304 now)

3. Teach Trip to tie his shoes

4. Get job that lets me come home at night

5. Get Trip involved in sports

6. Coach Lauren in at least one sport

7. Go to gym every day while home from rigs

8. Exercise every day in some form while on rig

9. Finish Rian’s Song

10. Do at least one “special” thing each month for my wife

11. Read to Trip at least every other night while I’m home

12. Do one thing to bond with Lauren during every trip home longer than 24 hours

13. 100 movies

14. 50 books

So there it is, check back for updates to this list and the monthly accounting…good luck me!

Romeo and Juliet is NOT a love story…

This is a pet peeve of mine, and it’s been triggered a lot lateley.  Romeo and Juliet is NOT a love story.  It’s not.  There’s no love in it.  It’s a tragedy about the dangers of infatuation and young people making hasty decisions.

Allow me to sum up.  We start with a young man who is nearly suicidal because the “love of his life” is not interested in him.  Yes, poor Romeo got shot down by the hottest girl in school, and it’s ruining him.  We’ve all been there, but it’s not love.  Well, to cheer Rome up, his boys take him to a party.  At that party, he hooks up with a new chick (boy that love for Rosalyn lookin’ pretty cheap now).

Well, he finds out the girl is his enemy’s daughter, and it’s moping time again.  Meanwhile, he runs into her, but she’s cool with him being from the wrong side of the tracks.  So they decide to get hitched in secret.  (After having known each other for what?  four hours?  maybe 8?)

So that afternoon, they get married (still having not known each other for 24 hours).  Shortly after the wedding, Romeo kills his new wife’s cousin (what a way to get into the family!), and has to split town.  Does he take his new bride with him?  Nope, he just splits.  And she doesn’t really seem to want to go, being pissed that he killed her cousin.  Ahh, true love.

Well, eventually they get to thinking maybe they should get back to gether, so does Juliet pack up and move to Mantua?  Hell no!  She fakes her own death.  Well, Romeo doesn’t check his email that day and just gets the rumor that she’s dead.  So he goes and finds her, where he kills himself.  Then she wakes up to find her husband’s corpse holding her down, so she kills herself for real.  Ahhh, love is a beautiful thing.

No, no love here folks.  Infatuation at best.  Love develops over time and triumphs over all other concerns.  When you go from one girl to another in the same day, neither can be love.  When you marry someone the day after you meet them, that’s asking for tragedy.  There’s no love in Romeo and Juliet, just the infatuatuation that can feel so strong in your youth and can all too often lead to bad decisions.  Such as faking your own death…

New Author to Finish “Wheel of Time” Series

I don’t know how I feel about this.  First, the news story:

PROVO, Utah (AP) — Brandon Sanderson, author of the fantasy “Mistborn” series, will finish Robert Jordan’s final novel.

Jordan, whose real name was James Oliver Rigney Jr., died from a blood disease in September in South Carolina. He was working on the 12th book in his “Wheel of Time” fantasy series at the time of his death.

More than 44 million books in the “Wheel of Time” series have been sold worldwide, according to publisher Tor Books. The final book is titled “A Memory of Light.”

“To me, Robert Jordan is still kind of a mythological figure,” Sanderson told the Daily Herald of Provo. “I would have done this with no credit and no payment, to be perfectly honest.”

Sanderson, whose first novel, “Elantris,” was published in 2005, has four books in print.

Jordan’s widow and the book’s editor, Harriet Popham Rigney, said she was “absolutely delighted” that Sanderson agreed to finish it.

“He left copious notes and hours of audio recordings,” Rigney said in a statement on Tor Books’ Web site.

Jordan’s books tells of Rand al’Thor, who is destined to become the champion who will battle ultimate evil in a mythical land. The first title in the series, “The Eye of the World,” was published in 1990.

First off, I hadn’t gotten the news that RJ had died.  Moment of silence for a brilliant writer, please.  Thank you.

Secondly, in a rare moment, I don’t know how I feel about this plan.  Part of me is happy.  I want to finish the series.  I’ve been invested in it for almost ten years and would hate for that to be cut off.  On the other hand, I don’t know how I feel about another author finishing it (especially one with whom I’m not familiar).  Nobody else writes like Robert Jordan.  I’ve never seen anyone, including Tolkien who can get lost in a world like Jordan does.  At times the work is too big, too confused to keep track of, but he always pulls it back together.  When Beethoven died, nobody finished his unfinished symphony.  They just play it like he left it.  I’m not saying you should do that with a book, although it would be an interesting literary experiment.

I guess I’m wondering at Tor’s motivation here.  The Wheel of Time series is a huge seller with rabid fans.  Are they doing this to crank out one more book so they can reap the profits?  Or are they legitimately trying to satisfy those fans with closure to the story?

Maybe the most important tell on how I feel is that I still plan to buy the book.  So I can’t be that pissed about it, right?  And I guess if Mrs. Jordan is cool with it, I can be too.  But I’m wary. I will be going into this book when it releases with trepidation in my heart, and that’s not how I want to read the finale of the Wheel of Time series.

Movie Review: No Country for Old Men

This movie is a masterpiece of cinema.  It is the only movie I’ve ever watched that changed the way I will watch movies in the future.  The Coen brothers should win Best Director.  Tommy Lee Jones should win Best Actor.  Whatever you do, don’t go watch this movie.

What?

That’s right; I have fallen head over heels for this movie, but will not recommend it for anyone I know except two people (my brother Wes and co-writer Jen).  There are not two consecutive entertaining minutes in this film.  This is the least “commerial” movie I’ve ever been to.  If you want to go to a film to be entertained, don’t go to this movie.  If you want to be awed by the craft of directing and acting; then go.  If you’re a screenwriter (actual or hopeful), then go.  Otherwise, stay the hell away.  There are only a few people who should go to this movie.  You must meet a number of the following criteria:

1. You must be a fan of Stanley Kubrick films, to include (and maybe primarily) Eyes Wide Shut.
2. You must be able to comfortably spend hours at a time alone.  Partly because you have to see this movie alone to appreciate it.  Secondly, isolation is one of the themes of the movie.
3. It helps if you grew up somewhere with wide open spaces broken up only by small insignificant towns.  West Texas is a character in this movie.  If you don’t understand the openness of the American Southwest, you won’t get that.
4. You must appreciate the craft and art of making a film.

If you meet those qualifications, it’s still a stretch to go to this movie.  You can try; but I still wouldn’t suggest it.  It’s too different for most people.  Just watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly with the sound turned off.  You’re close now.  This movie breaks every rule of making a commercial movie.  *BEWARE  SPOILER ALERT*

1. There is no score.  No soundtrack.  No music of any kind.  In a world where movies are often two-hour long music videos, this is radical.
2. The “hero” gets killed, and in an unspectacular way.  Just when you’re really rooting for Josh Brolin to get away with the money, he gets slaughtered.  Not only that, it happens off camera..  You see him being flirted with whlie waiting for his wife.  The next time you see him, he’s floating upside down in a pool.
3. The badguy gets away.  When you think he’s gotten his due in a karmic (if unsatisfactory) manner, he gets up and walks off into the sunset.  Not unscathed, but obviously living to do evil again.
4. The movie doesn’t end.  It cuts off and starts rolling the credits.  Supposedly it ends just like teh book (which I haven’t read).  But this is a book ending, not a movie ending.  A book can afford an epilogue.  A movie should go out on a high note.  This movie goes out as flat as any movie I’ve ever seen.
5. The dialogue is direct and curt.  No fiery speeches.  No pithy lines.  The people in this movie talk the way people in West Texas really speak.  Short.  To the point.  Rarely interesting.
6. The really interesting parts of this movie happen in the characters’ heads.  It’s not visual.  It’s not auditory.  It’s cerebral and emotional, with a chast of characters who show neither deep thought or extreme emotion.
7. The outcome is never answered.  They are all after, in one way or another, the $2 million Josh Brolin finds at the site of a drug bust gone bad.  I still don’t know what happened to that money.

Both in spite of and for those reasons, this movie is a masterpiece.  The exectuion left me sitting in the theater in awe.  I couldn’t help but go over it again and again in my mind.  It is subversive in the most artistic sense of the word. 

The themes of this movie are isolation and courage.  The film centers around five people (Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Brolin’s wife, the badguy).  Each comes at these themes from their own angle, showing beautifully the diverse ways people reach the same trait.  Woody Harrelson suffers the isolation of being the only one who knows what the badguy is capable of.    Tommy Lee Jones suffers the isolation of being the only sane man in an insane situation, as well as that of being the only competent man in an incompetent world, and that of a traditionalist in a world that glorifies the new and modern.  Josh Brolin suffers the isolation of a man who can trust noone else.  Brolin’s wife suffers the isolation and uncertainty of the woman who has been left behind while her man goes to face an unspeakable danger.  Every military wife in the world can identify with her.  The bad guy suffers the isolation of the insane.  He lives in a world of his own and has an inability to connect with other people.

And now for the courage.  Woody comes to courage through cockiness.  Tommy Lee Jones comes to it as man who knows his likely fate, but accepts it in the true stoic manner.  Josh Brolin has the courage of a man who has relied on himself his entire life and fashioned everything he has through his own strength and determination.  The wife comes to courage through force.  Much like the military wife (again), she is forced into courage by her husband’s choice of actions.  And also repeating his source, the badguy has the courage of the insane.  He sees no outcome but the one he wants, and feels no fear from outside events which he seems to think are irrelevant in the big picture.

I loved this movie.  I want to go see it again.  I won’t be taking you though.  Because I don’t think you like it.  You’ll leave unsatisfied, unhappy, unentertained, and frustrated.  Skip this one.  Go see The Golden Compass or Fred Claus or something entertaining.  You’ll be happier.  Trust me.

Sexism, Racism and Presidential Politics

OK, I can’t take it any more.  This election is a nightmare.  See, I am the bane of all people – a middle class, white Protestant.  I am therefore considered suspicious at least by most, and down right evil by some.  Worse yet, I’m a Republican and work in the oil industry.  I should probably be shot.

 Meanwhile, as I try to find a candidate to support, the only thing I get to hear on the news about my party is what their religious background is and how that will have no effect on their governing.  No effect?  Thank you.  Next topic.  I don’t need to know what will have no effect, I need to know what will.  Even better, I need to know what effect it will have.

Now, what finally brought me back to my blog is reading an article this morning where a woman said she would vote for Hilary because she’d like to see a woman in office.  Sriously?  In 2007?  And here this all the time!  From all sorts of people!  This is sexism.  If I said, I wouldn’t vote for Hilary, because I wanted a man in office (or just didn’t want a woman and men are the only other option since Lassie refuses to run) I would be hunted down and set on fire as a sexist pig.  There’s no difference in what I said and what the women are saying.  The roles are reversed, but quantitatively these are the same statement.  Sexism should not decide our politics.

The same goes with race.  The next person that says they like Obama because he’s black should be keel hauled behind a moving train.  It’s no different.  Sorry, Oprah.  If I say I’m voting for Fred Thompson because he’s white, I’d sound retarded (although he is the whitest man on the planet with the possible exception of John McCain).  If I said I wouldn’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s black, I’d have to change my name and move to Fiji. 

While I hear that Fiji is gorgeous this time of year, I understand that making a decision on who runs our country based on sex, race, even religion is ridiculous.  It’s like choosing a car based on what tie the salesman is wearing.  Perspective is important.  Morality is important.  Race, sex, and religion play into these factors, but they are hardly the deciding or even the biggest factors in these qualities.

I want to know more about the candidates positions on the Middle East, spending, taxing, the economy, health care, you know – relevant topics.  I don’t care how they feel about abortion; that fight is in the courts.  I don’t care what god they pray to; I care what principles they stand for.  I don’t care about their spouse.  I don’t care how much they partied in college.  I want to know their political platforms, and how that reflects against their voting history.  Is that so much to ask?

I’m Back!

Hello all!  I’m sure most of you have disappeared in my long absence, but I’m back now.  I hate to go into excuses, b ut here’s a summary of why I’ve been gone:

Car Wreck, 2 Month Move; Broken Lap Top; AT&T Incompetence

All should be fixed now (except AT&T, which seems to be on the path to be perpetually incompetent).  So I should be back to blogging full time again.  So if you wander back, take hearrt!  I have wandered back as well, and will be catching up with my digital life as quickly as possible.

Transformers – part II

Just a couple more points to underline how awesome this movie was.

1) My family and I spent the next hour talking non stop about the movie, always a good sign.

2) My wife loved the movie and wants to go back.  She was both too old and too female to be into the cartoon as a kid, so it’s not just for fanboys.

3) My 4 year old son took a bathroom break during the movie.  Not necessarily an endorsement, except when you hear that he waited until he was about to pee his pants before getting up.  Then once he’d done his business was essentially sprinting back to the theater not to miss any more.

4) Driving home from the theater, we were all watching the cars around us with the eerie feeling that at any moment one of them would turn into a giant robot and start blowing stuff up.  Kind of freaky…

OK, that was more than a couple (technically a couple couple I believe).  You get the point though.  After all my bitching about movies and such on this blog, I’ve found one I loved.  Great writing, acting, sound, story, and special effects.  A must see for everyone.

Review: Transformers

Finally!  A summer blockbuster worthy of the billing!  Transformers was an excellent movie.  I went in with apprehension.  I was afraid it wouldn’t be true to the legacy.  I was also afraid it would be a special effects monster that forgot such subtleties as plot and character.  Both were proven unfounded.

 There were three things I was really worried about as a kid who made sure he was home every afternoon at 4 to see the movie.  1 was the sound.  The “transform” sound from my childhood was slightly cheezy and I knew wouldn’t fit in a mega movie like this.  That saddened me, as that sound could trigger memories of watching and trying to replecate it with my mouth when playing with my toys.  Yet the movie managed to work that sound in whole in the first transformation in the movie and mixed it in to the others seamlessly.  Awesome nod to the cartoon.

The second was the fact that Bumblebee was going to be a Camaro.  In the cartoon, he was a VW bug.  They made up for it by having a scene where he knocks the crap out of a bug in the movie.  Another excellent nod to the past.

The final were the voices.  Optimus Prime was the voice of justice and all that was good for my childhood.  His voice remained unchanged.  The other voice I was worried about was Jazz.  He was voiced by Scatman Carothers in the cartoon.  That’s a voice you simply can’t fake.  But I thought i t was a good nod to modernizing that they gave him a black, “hip-hop” voice. Updating while remaining true to the source.

As far as plot, it was outstanding.  The military parts were excellent, and I thought wonderfully correct.  The technology and tactics had none of the glaring erros you usually find in movies like this.  Also, a nice homage to Heartbreak Ridge in the “phone call” scene.  Classic.  The high school end of the story was fun and fresh.  All in all a good and entertaining story enhanced by seamless special effects and Oscar-worthy sound.  Well worth the price of admission, even in this inflated age.

And finally, I Now have a huge celebrity crush on Megan Fox.  Her body on a high school girl was probably the least believable part of the movie.  But believe me, I wasn’t complaining.

Go see this movie.  Go see it at the theater.  Buy some popcorn and enjoy yourself, this is the kind of movie that makes us all get excited about the summer season.  Find the biggest, best theater in your area, and be grateful for Michael Bay giving us this gift.

Something to watch…

USA Today is putting together a list of the Top 25 NFL Players of the past 25 years.  I’ll reserve most of my judgement for when they finish.  But I already know I think Aikman, Singletary, and Dickerson are going to be too low, Dickerson in particular.  I can only think of three backs since ’82 that I would put in front of him:  Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Walter Peyton.  They’ve already put two current running backs ahead of him.  With 15 to go, I’m scared for these people’s credibility.

Like I said though, I’ll save my complaints for when they finish sometime Mid-July.  But The link is now in my Blogroll and Sports sections if you want ot check it out and watch it grow.

iPhone

OK, I have to admit…I don’t get it.  I was driving down the highway last night at around 7, and the AT&T store had a line out the store and down the street, obviously people waiting to get an iPhone.  We’ve all seen the news reports about people sleeping in tents on the sidewalk overnight to get one of these things.  I understand the iPhone is a neat toy.  But these are grown people sleeping on concrete to be the first to get a toy, for themselves.  As a parent I could understand doing this in November to get “THE” Christmas present for your child.  I wouldn’t do it, but I’d understand.  But it’s midsummer.  And these are for adults.

The people buying this thing already have cell phones, probably already have iPods, and already have an internet connection.  So I understand wanting one, but I don’t understand the whole Cabbage Patch Kids freny over them.  Yesterday, I didn’t have an iPhone.  Don’t have one today.  Feel no lesser for it.  If I wanted an iPhone, and was willing to spend $600 bucks ot get one, I sure as Hell wasn’t going to do it yesterday with the mob scene.  I’m an adult.  I’m patient.  This is far from a necessity.  I wanted a PS3 really bad, but waited almost 6 months to buy one.

 So what gives?  Can you explain it to me?

A couple side questions, how many people in those line made fun of Star Wars people and their lines?  How many were the same people?  Have you ever done the camp overnight line thing?  For concert tickets?  A movie opening?  Something else?  I’d love to hear your story!