August 2004 Archives

Notes of interest:

Just got back from The Manchurian Candidate. Pretty suprisingly good. I really liked it. Tyler and I were debating between that and Garden State, but supposedly Marc was not at liberty to see Garden State without a certain other someone, so we went with the remake of the old school conspiracy theory. Again, I really liked it. I figured it would be pretty good, so I'd probably rent it when it came out, but since we needed something to do I went in with moderate expectations. But it was definitely good.

I got a new cable modem today. Old one was doing some weird oscillating bandwidth thing. Sinusoidal, perhaps. It'd been doing it all summer, so let's hope it is fixed now.

Everyone is leaving. Tragic. No, but really, I am dissapointed. I don't want to go back, but that's really just because enough people are still here. Once everyone goes back, then I'll be like "Damn, why I am I still here, why can't I go back."

It is going to be exciting to get a co-op job, but at the same time I am pretty sure it will mean I will have little opportunity to come home next summer. And the summer after. And when everyone graduates, I'll still be co-oping ... but the summer after!

It'll all work out in the end. Always does.

Johnny.

Everyone from Louisville/duPont Manual and what not, Joanna put up a post here about putting all our college email addy's, aim screen names, birthdays, cell phones, and the works on her website, so kick on over there and check it out.

Things have been a bit crazy this past week, I meant to get an entry in last weekend but I've been really busy since then. I feel like today ended all that craziness/business.

So, with that, movies I've seen lately:

Big fish
Good flick, I enjoyed it a lot. People said they cried at the end, my two brothers included, and I realized I was more in a happy mood at the end. Also, I watch too many movies with my laptop at my side. I'm always having to rewind parts because I'm not paying attention, so perhaps I didn't pay close enough attention on this one (even though I really liked it).

The Last Samurai
Surprisingly good. Tom Cruise gets a B+/A- while the badass samurai asians get themselves A/A+'s. Movie overall gets an A-, cause it pulled through in the end. I was very impressed it didn't suck. I'd recommend it. Some good action in that movie, too.

Starsky & Hutch
Vince Vaughn is my hero. He does another great speech in this one, just like his incredible "true love is blind" speech in Old School. This movie was nice and light hearted, it is everyone from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Old School, and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story only in that they all have random cameo's in each other's movies. Even Snoop Dogg is back from Old School as Huggy Bear in Starsky & Hutch. It is pretty funny how they're doing that these days.

Anyway, gotta go running before my cousin gets married tonight in Cincinnati. Good times had by all.

john.

I'm very useless at work. I've sorta slowed down on this project of mine and really only work on it 10% of the time I'm there. I feel bad, but i have a hard time focusing on it because it's the most drone work I've ever known. Instead, I've been working on all my various websites in making them better. I even started up my fraternity chapter's website.

I've been trying to get them all to visit a certain page to register themselves into the database, but it is hard to get them all to do it. Either they don't check their email over the summer or they're very lazy. But those are just theories anyway. I also feel like they do what I probably would do. They read the email, they say "ok, i'll do it now" and they click the link and maybe they start filling it out and get to a point where say they don't remember a value to a certain question and they stop. Or maybe they never start filling it out. And then they say "I'll do it later." And then forget about it. I wish I could send out daily reminders but I know they'd only hate me more for it.

I've been doing my best to keep with the running. Overall it has proved of little effect to my physical shape. But I think as I run more (not only in frequency but distance) it'll pick up. I'm also working on eating better.

It is hard to believe it is August already. It seems like last summer this month was so dreaded because everyone left but us quarter kids. Now it just seems like it came so fast and I realize that so many are taking off in a week or two. I guess I haven't noticed because I've done a lot less hanging out then I expect I would. Last summer it was all the time, but this summer it's work then sleep. I only go out on the weekends really.

I had trouble sleeping this week. That's another thing. I get these jolts of energy around midnight and had been staying up till 1 or 2. Mostly 2. I even did a 4AM'er. It was horrible. And consequently for the first time in my life I think I was oversleeping my alarm clock. I'm not quite sure yet on the details, because the clock might be broken. And I've basically two theories. One, I'm just that tired. Two, it only started happening after I went to Indianapolis, left the alarm on, and my sister's boyfriend stayed in my room (ew). So maybe it went off, and in his trying to turn it off he broke it. Thing is that I know the alarm works, I don't know that the snooze works anymore.

So Thursday night Marc, Paul, my brother Jimmmy, and I played Halo till 1AM. Then I went straight to bed worried about oversleeping. 9:07 I woke up. I try to get to work by 8:30. It was the WEIRDEST thing ever. Just like every morning before where I'd just wake up at 7:30, 7:40, 7:50 (yes, it kept getting later) I never remembered the alarm going off. This time ... 9:07. It was horrible, I got to work by 10:00 and thankfully it was thus a short day, but I just can't explain it yet ... I only have theories. hmpf.

Anyway, that's that.

I have no reason to be up this late. Bah.

Turns out Eric Bana will not be playing James Bond, in fact, he has not even been approached about it. OH WELL, vote anyway!

So yesterday I threw on down 400 dollars plus tax for a 40GB iPod including a 4-year best buy service plan that covered the battery. Cha-ching. Normally it is 400 without the 40 dollar service plan, but thanks to my BB credit card, I received a 10% off coupon in the mail this weekend. I've only loaded up a few albums, I'm working on tag&rename'ing all my mp3's first. I guess ripping all my cd's to mp3 last summer actually pays off once you get one of them high capacity music players. Sweet.

I also bought the new Badly Drawn Boy album, One Plus One is One, which as far as I can tell so far is pretty good musically, and the jury (me) is still out on vocally. A few lines seem cheesy, but some are pretty good. Also, it seems like he's doing a bit more whaling, like he's not hitting notes on the dot or something. Slightly cacophonic or something like that. At first I couldn't tell if I liked that aspect of it, but I think I do. Heh. Either way, this album is not nearly as dissapointing as Have you Fed the Fish? was for me. I think Iain liked that album, so did Christine ... I dunno why I hated it. But yeah, 1+1=1, I'm only a quarter or a half through it as of coming into work day, and I'm very pleased.

I also bought the new Wilco album, A Ghost is Born, but have yet to open it/listen to it. Somebody told me it was good though. And I feel like I trusted that person, whomever they were. Eli? Maybe. Can't recall.

Time to do some work at work.

J

Hopefully Joanna doesn't mind, but I just did the popup deal to her site too. There's an ability to turn it off on a particular post, so there ought not to be a problem. We'll see.

Either way, this is a prime example of me never sleeping. Jeez.

John.

So I'm back from Indianapolis. Good times at the Hyatt Regency. Good times with fellow Lambda Chi's not only from Northwestern but all over North America (that's right, we're international, bitches).

Tomorrow (being technically today) I go back to work (ugh).

On a lighter note, I picked right back up with my running today after my four day break (I was gone longer, but I ran the day I left). That felt good, especially considering I was quite close to just eating junk food because we had nothing available for dinner (all but jimmy are out of the state for the week). So in the nick of time, I decided "no, don't just eat scraps that never satisfy and pile to large quantities, but instead go running, and on the way back pick up some dinner." So I grabbed some pre-made chicken tenders and some lunch meat for lunches this week and a few other necessities, including some frozen beef stir fry thing to make tomorrow for jimmy and I. mmmm.

Also, I watched two movies today. The first, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, my favorite movie of this year and possibly ever. If not, it's up there. I can't believe how well thought this movie is, and it's fantastic to see Jim Carrey in a drama role (and performing well) that isn't The Majestic. Also nice to see Kate Winslet in something since Titanic (I know she's done stuff, but surprisingly I've seen none of it). I can't WAIT to buy this movie on DVD when it comes out. Mmmm...

The second movie was Bad Santa. I thought it was pretty much useless as a movie. I was pretty bored through it. I think I laughed at first but it got old fast. It had its moments. I'm not going to give it crap though, I know people liked it.

With that, I'm pretty tired, it's midnight and some change, I feel like I'm still on CST but know that work comes int he morning on EST, so I best be off to bed. Peace love and hairgrease, John.

Oh, and while both spellings are correct, it seems Whiskey is more popular.