Time change

I hope you didn't forget to turn back your clock! Don't worry, this guy will remind you:

Scatter-brained

Why am I so tired? Maybe it's just one of those days. I blame it on the rain. Again. Anyway, it's too early for bed and I can't focus on much of anything, so I'm just going to dump some random thoughts here:

• Paranormal Activity was a pretty good movie. I basically gave up on scary movies for years because I was more grossed out than scared by any of them, but this one genuinely creeped me out and even made me jump several times. Maybe my love and knowledge of ghost stories made it more real to me, although of course the movie embellished the reports. (General reports of ghost and demon experiences, I mean.) It's refreshing to see a scary movie that successfully exploits my imagination (with suggestions) and not my gag reflex (with gore), though. I thought the days of Alfred Hitchcock-style horror were gone, but this proves that it can still exist and become popular. That reminds me, I wish there was a Hitchcock marathon on tv this year! Some network used to do that on Halloween, I think.

• I'm not exactly a grammar nazi (although I'm a stickler for spelling), but there is a Harrah's billboard on 2-70 that drives me crazy! I pass it on the way home from work. It says "1 in 5 win!" Win refers to 1, though, which means it should be plural--1 wins, 5 (don't) win. It took me just a couple seconds to notice, yet no one caught that during editing, revisions, or printing? I understand that a fresh pair of eyes on a project can help, but seriously, there are only about 8 words on the whole sign. Sometimes as a designer, "creative license" allows you to give up punctuation and things like that (using numerals instead of spelling a small number), but not that kind of grammar. For the record, though, deleting punctuation at the end of a sentence because it's a headline makes me cringe a little, but even the writer at my old job suggested it sometimes.

• I am spending too much money on health insurance and barely using any of it. I'm thankful that I haven't had to use it, but I'm also frustrated that I've been paying for it, anyway. I can't get it through my work yet, since I'm not full time, so the outside insurance takes a significant chunk of a paycheck once a month. It's starting to show. Hopefully, my company will hire me full time next month and it will take care of itself. They've been telling me October/November should be the hiring time (because of next year's budget) since April.

• I love cake, especially icing, and I have a friend that decorates cakes for fun. She has all the equipment and invited me over to see how it was done last weekend; however, she does not like cake. It's pretty cool, but it could be a potentially dangerous hobby for me. On the one hand, I would probably be forced to eat all of my mistakes so that they wouldn't go to waste. On the other hand, I would be putting so much time into them that I might not want to even eat the finished product...okay, that last part is probably crazy talk. I'm still considering taking a class at Michael's or something.

• No sign of that tiny brown beret at any regular store, which means I'll just get the authentic brownie beanie and "make it work." In my quest, though, I did find When Harry Met Sally for just $5 at Target! It's such a cute movie, one of my favorite chick flicks, and I can't believe I didn't own it before now. Joel will be thrilled, too, I'm sure. ;)
  

• I found this list of things you should do in Japan, and the only things I had no real interest in doing and did not attempt to do were sumo (eh) and the love hotel (obviously). I went into a pachinko place (SO LOUD) but couldn't figure it out, and I was going to climb Mt. Fuji until it was supposed to rain and we decided not to do that much additional walking. I can check everything else off the list, though! Awesome.

Okay, time for bed. Good night!

Real musical torture

I didn't know musical torture was considered an effective tactic, but apparently, it was used at Guantanamo Bay. A suspect would be put in a room and certain songs or songs would be blasted at ear-splitting levels for long periods of time. They just released the list of artists and it's rather amusing. A few hours of a couple of them might not be so bad, but I'm pretty positive I would begin confessing to things I didn't even do after a few hours (or minutes) of, say, The Bee Gees or the meow mix jingle! They left out Lambchop's "Song That Doesn't End" and "Blue (Da Ba Di)" somehow, though. It's still a solid list:
-- AC/DC
-- Aerosmith
-- Barney theme song (By Bob Singleton)
-- The Bee Gees
-- Britney Spears
-- Bruce Springsteen
-- Christina Aguilera
-- David Gray
-- Deicide
-- Don McClean
-- Dope
-- Dr. Dre
-- Drowning Pool
-- Eminem
-- Hed P.E.
-- James Taylor
-- Limp Bizkit
-- Marilyn Manson
-- Matchbox Twenty
-- Meatloaf
-- Meow mix jingle
-- Metallica
-- Neil Diamond
-- Nine Inch Nails
-- Pink
-- Prince
-- Queen
-- Rage against the Machine
-- Red Hot Chili Peppers
-- Redman
-- Saliva
-- Sesame street theme music (By Christopher Cerf)
-- Stanley Brothers
-- The Star Spangled Banner
-- Tupac Shakur

Halloween fun!

I have most of my Halloween decorations up (inside) and as of today, most of my Halloween costume figured out. I'm going to be a girl scout! A brownie, to be exact. I already had a brown skirt and blouse, but I grew out of my old sash. Luckily, I found a girl scout store less than 10 minutes away! I bought an extra long sash and some patches that suit me--composing art/music/writing, dance, smart cookie (cookies alone are great, but smart cookies are even better), "World Thinking Day" (why can't it be all year?!), and "people are talking" (I don't know why that's a patch, but it's amusing). I'm going to add the official "Girl Scouts U.S.A." patch from my old sash, too. I would even consider adding the patch that I designed, if I knew where it was and I got over the idea of displaying my work in public. Now I just need knee highs and some kind of hat. The girl scout store won't get a shipment of large brownie beanies until either Friday or Monday (Monday's too late), and I'm not sure that will fit, anyway. I do want a tiny hat, but I also want it to fit on my head, which is why I might go with a beret instead. Do they sell those for children? That would be an awesome find. Anyway, I'm kind of excited about the whole idea. I'm going to a costume party on Friday and Saturday.

I even remember the Girl Scout Promise, somehow. Hold up three fingers (right next to each other) and recite it with me: "On my honor, I will try to serve God and my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout Law." I don't even know what the Girl Scout Law is, but I'll work on it....yes I'm a dork, but you know you love it. ;)

I consider Halloween a season, kind of like Christmas. This year I was planning on going on a ghost tour of Alton, but they sold out the day before I could make a reservation! I'm disappointed, but maybe I'll go when they start up again in the spring. At some point, I also want to spend a night at a haunted mansion, I think, either Lemp or some place in Alton. In the meantime, a scary movie like Paranormal Activity and maybe a corn maze should suffice. For some reason, I'm afraid of mazes because I have an irrational fear of not being able to find my way out. Maybe I should check out the Central West End again this year, too. Oh, I just had a flashback to last year. Ha.

I think I'll skip the fake haunted houses this year, though...ooh, flashback to a third date that never should have happened last year. On second thought, I might just skip all of Soulard. :) See, this time last year I decided to be open to "other opportunities," ie. dates, and sure enough, they came along. I cringe a little when I think about it, but I don't regret it, either. What a weird time in my life, though. I wonder how I'll remember this moment in time next year. I guess I should work on making memories first, which means I have to get off the computer. Until next time...

The future?

This was a weekend of contrasts. Two of my closest friends are going through completely different things and I was there for both of them. I spent the first couple days in southern Illinois with my roommate from college, trying on Maid of Honor dresses. I got to play dress up on Saturday because the bridesmaid samples were mostly in my size. We all agreed on a beautiful dress that looks good on all of us. The next couple days I drove to and from Kansas City with a friend that I've known forever, who is going through a significant breakup. We went to visit her roommate from college, who happened to be in town from Israel.

I am somewhere in between those situations, I guess. It has sure given me a lot think about, and we all know that I already think too much. Mainly, it reminds me that maybe I should start thinking about the future again. In some ways, since my layoff and everything else last year, I had given up on planning too much of anything. After all, almost nothing in my life right now has turned out as I "planned," and I'm still pretty happy. Maybe I'm afraid to trust those things again, after they fell apart.

I guess I can't expect to float along like this forever, though. I'm just not sure how it's possible to really plan a future--things happen, people change, circumstances change. It's not that I don't have goals, it's just that I don't put too much stock into them. Maybe at some point you decide that not knowing what will happen is worth the risk of planning it anyway? It's just like everything, though, if you wait to do it until you are sure that it's right, you probably won't do much of anything.

So what do I want from life, exactly? Well, it's hard to say. I have to admit, I don't even like guessing where I will be 5 years from now, much less "forever." I should have some guidelines, and I suppose I do, but they're pretty vague. For some reason, I don't think I have ever really imagined myself with the husband, dog, 2.5 kids, and nice house with a white picket fence by the time I'm 30. It seems I have always been more interested in seeing the world, advancing my career, and pursuing my interests than rushing to the altar and starting a family; however, those two lifestyles are not mutually exclusive, necessarily. I'm just saying that while I always assumed that someday I would get married and possibly have a child, if there's time, it has never been the ultimate, final goal of my life. As much as I love (other people's) kids, too, I'm not even completely sure that having one is a requirement. If I decide that I desperately want one and am too old, there's always adoption. I don't know how life will play itself out, but somehow I know I'll be okay--hopefully better than okay.

My life is pretty balanced now, so I have plenty of hobbies and people to fall back on if one area falls apart. I have learned not to pin my hopes and dreams on one particular thing for two main reasons: 1. I miss out on everything else that I should be enjoying, and 2. If that particular thing goes away, it is devastating. I would like to say "all things in moderation" is my motto, but it's probably closer to "go big or go home." Instead of putting all my energy into one area, though, I spread it around to many areas so that I am running on all cylinders. Of course, that can lead to burnout, but I'd rather burn out from living too much than working too much (which used to be the case).

I think it comes down to this: opportunities are rare, good friends are rare, love is rare, so grab them when they come by and don't think about what happens when they end; whenever anything ends, something new begins. Who knows? Whatever comes next might even be better than before.

Super toll!

And I thought japanese TV was weird...

Where The Wild Things Are

I am exhausted and should be sleeping right now, but instead I will give you my impression of Where The Wild Things Are, because I just saw it. Yeah, my mom won tickets to the sneak preview and she's typically the only one in our family that never wins anything. (It's been a year since I've won anything, though!) Anyway, my overall impression of the movie was that...well, it was weird and I am glad I didn't pay to get in. Now, maybe I am a bad judge of these things, because although you might say I am inherently kind of weird, I don't like my movies that way. The Never Ending Story, for example? Don't get it. I only have a vague recollection of that movie, anyway, but my impression is that it lived up to it's title. The book Where The Wild Things Are is also a distant memory, so maybe that adds to my confusion.

It's not even that I didn't understand it, per se, it's more like the movie just never fully came together. It was visually appealing but not dramatically satisfying. I appreciated the aesthetics, the music, and certain themes, but the dialogue seemed overly basic and rather poorly written. It often felt like I was listening to and watching 8-year-olds (monsters) express mature emotions that were beyond their understanding or maturity level. (I just looked it up out of curiosity, and Max is, in fact, 8.) I would say that the monsters and my camp children sometimes spontaneously reacted in similar ways, but the way that the monsters discussed them came across as an adult projecting those ideas onto them and imagining what a child might say. That might be lost on some people, but I handled groups of 8-year-olds at camp for six years, after all. I know it's supposed to be an adventure from the boy's perspective, so maybe I'm also projecting, but I'm pretty sure that kids won't quite get the message, either. The rudimentary adult language and fundamental intellect of the monsters just never quite grasped the principles behind their feelings. It's like a movie about childhood made for adults, only...too emotionally simplistic (?) for my taste. The emotions themselves were deep, sure, but the expressions seemed incomplete and childish. The whole movie was like, "Why are we so sad? Max, you are our king, make us happy." Most of the movie was melancholy with dramatic splashes of emotion, and it made me feel generally uncomfortable. Maybe it did the job, then, because growing up is often relatively uncomfortable. It seems like the critics who are calling it a "masterpiece" are embellishing the narrative, though. (Update: RFT's review said "For me, it seemed like group therapy with the Muppets." Haha, agreed.) In any case, I think it's already way over-hyped, but fantasy movies were never my thing, anyway.