All That You Can't Leave Behind

I had a really interesting dream last night.  It was one that was so vivid that I remember just about every detail, which hardly ever happens.

I was living in a hotel room with my cousin for a while because I was getting ready to move.  I woke up in my dream on the last day that I was supposed to be in the hotel.  I started packing up the essentials and then looked down at my watch, which strangely had a countdown timer on it.  The countdown (as weird as this sounds) was a self destruct timer that would blow up the room if I wasn't out in time.  I had a while at first so I just started packing clothes and such.  Then a little while later I looked down and had only 8 minutes.  For a second, I was a little panicked but then realized that 8 minutes was quite some time so I slowed back down.  After those 8 minutes, I had all my clothes packed and was just packing little things.  Then the alarm on the watch started going off to signal that it was going to blow up so me and my cousin started scrambling to get as much as we could.  I couldn't find my keys so we were throwing stuff all over the place trying to find them.  We found them with about a second left and got out of the room with my stuff just as it blew up.  All the while, we were not really that stressed about the magnitude of the explosion itself.  It was almost like it was a normal thing.  We got my stuff in the car when I realized that I forgot my DVDs and a few other things (I have a very substantial collection of DVDs).  I left my cousin downstairs in the parking lot to get them but I wasn't sure if they would actually be there after the bomb.  I got back to the room and it hadn't done a ton of damage which was good.  My DVDs were all there and intact.  I started to pack them up and take  them to the car.  When I got back down, my parents were there so we left.  A few minutes after we left, I realized that I had forgotten my cell phone in my room but my mom didn't want to go back and get it.  Somehow later my stepdad took me back to get it but I was worried that they had already cleaned out the room for the next person.  I got back to the hotel and as I was walking back to the front desk, I woke up from my dream.

It was really weird.  I think that dreams are thoughts and desires in picture form and most of the time  (not always) they mean something.  I feel like this dream was a lot about regret and the things I will leave behind if/when I move.  I remember that feeling we all get when we think we are forgetting something and for me to come back so much was almost like I didn't really want to go at all because of the things I would leave behind and couldn't take with me.  The bomb is the weird element in the dream.  It's almost as if I have to get out and that was the thing pushing me out.

Strange stuff...

Los Angeles - Peter Bradley Adams

Citizen Kane...THE BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME

...well at least thats what they say.

Last night, I finally sat down with a group of friends and watched the famous Citizen Kane.  I had recently seen a bit of it on TV a couple months prior but it was really late so I didn't stay up to watch it.  Being someone who studied Media Studies and Production, you would think I would have seen this movie a long time ago and even multiple times but for some reason, my professors were never really that excited about it so they never really showed it.  I don't really know why but they didn't.  You would think a film of this magnitude and clout would be shown in any and every film criticism class.  Alas, it was not. So that being said, I finally watched the movie last night.

I didn't come into the movie completely ignorant, I had read some stuff in school in textbooks and had read a couple things on IMDb and Wikipedia (the temple of all knowledge in the world) about the film.  I'm not going to go into all of the detail about what the movie was about and all that.  You can read that or go see it on your own.  I am simply here to give my opinion of it.

Finally, the moment you have all been waiting for...
So I came into the film with a lot of high expectations with all of the chatter about it, but walked away kinda feeling not all that impressed.  Maybe its due to the fact that this generation is no longer impressed by a lot of things anymore.  We have become so jaded by the numerous different special effects that every film employs to wow its audiences that we fail to see the gravity of the films that employed them for the first time in their first forms.  I guess when I watched the film that way, yes, I could see why it was so highly acclaimed but the story itself just didn't draw me in enough.  There were so many points of the film that were baseball-ish (I often go to baseball games not to watch the game but to have conversations because the game isn't the most exciting thing and there are a lot of starts and stops. So if I say that again, you will know what it means).  The thing that probably kept me intrigued the most was the mystery of "rosebud," Kane's dying word.  Much like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction, its something that is never figured out in the film and left to viewer interpretation.  Overall, I would give it a 3 out of 5.


P.S.  if I ever decide to just end this blog, I want my last post to be titled Rosebud.  Let's see if my current readers remember that if they are still reading when this thing ends.

P.P.S. please comment...it makes me feel like i actually have readers

Reviews and Such

2 reviews for this entry:

   Yesterday the new Switchfoot album, Hello Hurricane, came out after 2 years of anticipation.  A week ago, Switchfoot had the entire album streaming on their Myspace page so I was able to listen to it in its entirety...multiple times.  I absolutely love it.  In my opinion, its their best album yet, both lyrically and musically.  The title of the album concerns the proverbial hurricanes that  we all face on a daily basis and how we can overcome them with Love.  I really connected with this album and its lyrics.  In interviews with the band, they talk a lot about how the process of making the album was a very trying time for them.  They just recently went independent with their music so they could have more freedom.  In the past 2 years, they built their own studio and recorded 90 songs.  90 SONGS! Thats a lot of songs to choose from for one album.  I, of course, was not able to hear the other songs that were not chosen but I think they did a great job with the mix of hard hitting songs ("Mess of Me") with slower rock melodies ("Your Love is a Song").  The Deluxe album is on iTunes ($12.99) and Amazon MP3 ($10.99).
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Along with buying the new Switchfoot album, I also rented the newly released, Michael Bay directed, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  I was not able to see this this past summer because I was working camp.  I was really excited about but had heard nothing but bad reviews.  Much like all of Bay's other films, it was filled with explosions and special effects.  However, for some reason, Bay went with a much more humorous feel to this film.  I have to admit much the comments and jokes were funny but they almost seemed out of place in this film.  Because there were so many pauses in the action, the movie seemed to drag on at times.  Attempting to flush out the relationship between Sam (Labeouf) and Makayla (Fox), Bay turned half of the movie into a very teen angsty soap opera.  Overall, the visual effects and robots were stunning and a force to be reckoned with.  I would give it a 3 out of 5 stars.

Update On Crazy Soccer Girl

She was in fact suspended indefinitely.  Thank goodness.

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This is Madness

Thought this deserved a blog post.  Intense isn't even a good word for this.




I haven't even seen any news about her getting suspended or kicked off yet.  If she doesn't, I would question the coaching ethics.

Best Halloween Weekend Ever!

As the title of this post insinuates, I had the best Halloween weekend ever.  It was crazy eventful.  It started on Thursday when we had a party at work.  I didn't actually think that many people would dress up or if they did, I didn't think they would do a lot.  I was definitely wrong.  People came strong at this party.  We had a full Thriller crew and they did the dance and everything.  It was pretty awesome.  I would say a good 60 people dressed up.  I went as a Jabbawockee, which sadly only a very small number of people knew about.

Friday night, I went out to Raleigh to another party.  I was a Jabbowockee there as well for lack of another idea.  A few more of the people at this party knew who I was right off the bat, but many of them still thought I was Jason.  Strangely, people were really freaked out by the mask though (pictured below).  There were a lot of people there that I didn't know but there were some that I did know and I am a people person so I had no problem meeting people.  Little did I know, I would be seeing many of these same people very soon.  We played a game called Murder in the Dark.  I had never played before but it was a great time.  Also, concerning the picture, by this time in the party, most of the people had taken off their costumes so I was not the only one dressed up if thats what you were thinking.

Saturday was a crazy busy day but also a lot of fun. I was awakened by a text message from my friend Rachel Beth whom I had offered to get a discount at Apple on an iPod so we went.  After that, I went and ate lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, which is really good but really expensive, with my friend Melissa.  Just cause you have California in your name doesn't mean you actually have to be like California.  From there I went to Nicole and Alicia's (they said they felt special being mentioned before so I figured I would give them another shout out) apartment to watch the Florida vs. Georgia game.  Georgia got their butts kicked of course and Tebow broke an SEC rushing touchdown record so I would say it was a good day for the girls and UF.  (Texas also slaughtered OSU that night and regained the #2 spot in the BCS).  From their place, I went home to change into my costume.  I decided to be a little lazy for this one.  I was going to a murder mystery party later and my character was a detective so to keep from having to change in the middle of the parties, I went to Lauren and Kelly's party as a detective. I saw many of the same people that I saw the day before at this party so that was a nice refresher for names and faces and all that.  We played a murder mystery type game at this party too (whats with people wanting to kill everyone geez!).  Props to Kelly and Lauren for putting together a really good dance for the party.  Then, I went to my 4th and final party of the Halloween weekend.  This was the Murder Mystery Party that Laura Beth had been planning for quite some time.  We all got characters and had roles in an actual role playing game.  My character was named Detective Cool Whip (everyone had corny names).  It was a really great party.  There was a lot of random dancing (there was dancing at all of the parties I went to except for the office party), which I loved.

I stayed up past the time change so that didn't help me at all but come to think of it, I don't think I have been able to actually use the time change since I got out of high school.  Oh well.  It was a really great weekend.