from spacesick

A series of illustrations of book covers for fictional novelizations of movies.

This is really quite old, but every once in a while I’ll come across something on the internet that makes mention of this video and I absolutely love it. So I thought that I’d share it with you (if you haven’t already seen it).

I wonder why YouTube’s embed feature doesn’t give you the widescreen version by default.

This isn’t really anything in particular. This is just kind of a way to keep track of the movies that I want to see in the future. These are usually somewhat based on the trailers that I’ve seen whilst at movies.

• The Spirit — I want to see this mostly because of the stylish presentation.
• The Wrestler — I am a fan of Darren Arnofsky’s work and I’m kind of excited to see how he worked with Mickey Rourke.
• The Soloist — Robert Downey Jr. is back on the scene and Jamie Foxx once again shows his range as an actor.
• Gran Torino — I have a soft spot for grumpy old men.

Thanks to the Soloist trailer, I’ve learned that I absolutely love Yo Yo Ma’s renditions of Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major.

I still get kids’ diseases.

I’m currently suffering through what appears to be an ear infection. At least that’s what the doctors tell me, and frankly I’m more than happy to take that diagnosis at face value. While I was clasping my face in pain earlier this week I was checking around on various medical sites for reasons for my discomfort and one of the things that I came up with that seemingly fit my problems (but I know better than to self-diagnose) was Temporomandibular Disorder. This is a condition where the temporomandibular muscles or the temporomandibular joint become inflamed causing swelling in the ear canal and the inability to fully open one’s jaw. In severe case the mouth can actually be locked shut. There isn’t any “cure” for it since it’s a disorder and mostly managing it through pain management until it goes away on it’s own. Lets just say, I don’t like disorders and I would be seriously sad panda if that were the case. But the pain seems to be subsiding now, and I’m nearly finished my antibiotics so I’m going to go with that it was an ear infection and just leave it at that.

Apparently someone thought that it’d be nice to go through my mail and steal the DVDs I received from Netflix.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving.

I’ve been having a ton of issues with my web host the last few weeks and I’ve had enough. I pay way too much a year to have to deal with this BS so that’s it. I’m done.

If you have any suggestions for decent web -hosts, please drop me a line.

Apparently, I must have pissed someone off or something. This morning I came out side to find out that my car had been keyed along the drivers side read panel and door.

I haven’t even had the car long enough to scratch it up myself. I would think that I had earned the right to beat up my own car before some asshole comes along and does it for me.

On a side note, I’ve officially reached adulthood — I’ve filed my first police report. Ugh.

I’ve noticed that during this campaign quite a few self-identified republicans have spewed quite a bit of invective at democrats and Senator Obama. I don’t quite understand why it is they can never seem to at least be somewhat reasoned or least less frothy. Had it been the case that Senator McCain would have won the election, I wouldn’t be on message boards shouting from the rafters about my hate for the man (because I don’t hate him). It’s commonly known that the conservative base is primarily composed of evangelicals so I would think they’d at least try and live by the guidelines set out by the book that they proclaim to love. As an example, here are some examples of the posts from a video on Facebook posted by The New York Times:

A lot of these responses were phrased as an answer to the question: What is the first thing that President Obama should do when he gets into office? Note: I am printing the names of the owners of these statements. If you say it, you should be willing to stand by it.

Matt of West Boylston Junior High School wrote: kill himself
How very mature?

Numerous people wrote:

Resign.

Quite a few included, that he should resign and appoint McCain as President. Article Two of the Constitution doesn’t really allow that.

Kevin of Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX wrote:

The first thing obama should do is admit he is a racist and resign

Racist in what way? Is he racist against white people? If so, then he must harbor some pretty intense identity issues.

Zach of Logan, UT wrote: what he is a murder and a liar and now i can officailly say that i hate the president of the united States and not feel bad about it…
Keeping it classy, Utah.

Melissa of Wallace Community College wrote:

hes the worst candidate for the job and the beautiful nation that we know now will ceased to exist

It’s pretty hard for one man to completely destroy a Government. That takes an act of Congress.

And so on and so forth. It kind of makes me a bit ill.

I bought Operation Doomsday by MF Doom yesterday while at Newbury Comics. I was taken aback seeing it in the store, because the album hadn’t been pressed in a few years because of legal problems. The album uses clips from the Fantastic 4 cartoon during the skits so Marvel had sent Doom a Cease & Desist (or they got an injunction) or something that prevented them from selling the album for quite a while.

So by finding the album, I was certain I had struck gold. I was debating playing the lottery while I was out.Though, after doing a bit more research it appears that they’re repressing the album again. So now I’ve got a $150 vinyl pressing of Operation Doomsday that I feel a whole lot less special about.

This has been a fairly uneventful week. I watched a few movies and contracted a cold.

Movies:
Burn After Reading - A comedy written by Joel and Ethan Coen of No Country for Old Men and The Ladykillers fame. A rather entertaining offering from the brothers which definitely draws from several of their past works and well as some of the works of others, like The Departed. I’m hardly a movie reviewer (plus it’s been a week since I’ve seen the movie and I didn’t exactly take notes … It’d have been kind of weird since I wasn’t alone) so I’m not going to try and write too much about it. Overall, if you like thrillers (and this one is definitely thrilling whilst fun) you should give it a viewing.

The Getaway - I recently signed up for Netflix and the first two months or so was watching seasons 1 through 4 of Entourage since I never had the opportunity to watch it when they were on television since I don’t have any desire to pay for HBO. I’ve gone through and added a bunch of movies that are related either to actors I like, or directors I like, or franchises that I like. I’ll probably chronicle what I watch as I go. Part of my motivation for doing this is that I would like to make a hobby/part-time career out of video production and I want to soak up as much great directing/acting/production as I can. I’d like to think of my self as a semi-cinephile in that I’m not an obsessive devotee to the art. I’m planning on getting a Panasonic DVX100 at some point, but that probably won’t be until next year at best.

Anyway, back to the movie, The Getaway (1972) staring Steve McQueen as ‘Doc’ McCoy and Ali McGraw as Carol McCoy, chronicles the adventures of Doc and Carol as they escape a crime boss, who gets Doc out of prison and tasks him with robbing a bank, a backstabbing cohort, and the law. An excellent flick all around. One of the things that I like the movie is that overall there is relatively little dialogue, but you don’t ever feel underwhelmed by it because there is generally always something going on when the characters aren’t directly relating to each other.

Toastmasters:
I was supposed to give a speech this past Wednesday, but I have had a hard time coming to grips with a topic that I really want to speak on.

Aside from that, I’ve mostly just been going to work and slowly putting my stuff away. I’ll be glad to get some kind of order to my apartment.