DUFF (The)

Watching The Duff. DUFF stands for "Designated Ugly Fat Friend".

I can relate, except I was never that popular. I'm like the DUFF's DUFF.

Watching Insurgent

I watched Divergent last weekend (Saturday, according my Watch Diary). It was pretty good.

Enter: Insurgent.

I never liked Jeanine. I understand her role in the story, but that doesn't mean I have to like her. I haven't finished the movie at the time of writing, but from the beginning of the movie, why would I trust Jeanine?

If she succeeds in opening the box, is she really going to abide by what the box says? If it requires a Divergent to open it, why would the box/Founders then say that Divergents are the problem? No, Jeanine would twist whatever it says to suit her needs.

If that's even the purpose of the box.
---
Finished the movie. As I expected....

Watching Insurgent

I watched Divergent last weekend (Saturday, according my Watch Diary). It was pretty good.

Enter: Insurgent.

I never liked Jeanine. I understand her role in the story, but that doesn't mean I have to like her. I haven't finished the movie at the time of writing, but from the beginning of the movie, why would I trust Jeanine?

If she succeeds in opening the box, is she really going to abide by what the box says? If it requires a Divergent to open it, why would the box/Founders then say that Divergents are the problem? No, Jeanine would twist whatever it says to suit her needs.

If that's even the purpose of the box.
---
Finished the movie. As I expected....

L.A. Story (1991)

I watched L.A. Story tonight. I love this movie. One of hundreds in my top 10, if you know what I mean. I'm watching Deleted Scenes on the 15th Anniversary DVD release right now.

I laugh and laugh. And then the scene where the weather changes Harris' life for the second time and Enya is playing. Gets me every time.

As you were.

I Am Lunatic

I am a writer.

That's what I'm supposed to tell myself if I feel the writing urge. I fear there is a book in me, one that I did not eat. I am consumed with story ideas, some good, some bad. I'm positive my brain coughed up some of these things like a smoker's hack.

Vivid scenes have played through my mind for years now, all without the aid of hallucinogens or pizza before bed.

The whisper of God to write has largely been ignored, yet He still whispers, sometimes strongly.

I have an artistic temperament without the artistic ability. Never satisfied with much of what I do, I also understand much of what I've done is quite rubbish. A few sketches I've done are okay. While I have a highly-negative weighted view of anything I do (on a good day, I have a 1.5% approval rating of myself), if I say something I've done is okay, that's generally a fairly realistic assessment: just okay.

I entered Jeff Goins 500 words a day challenge a two or three years ago. I got 100 words the first day, 25 words the second day, and blocked completely.

The only thing I do that I consider myself good at is programming. I've done some amazing things. I wrote a program once to build a ladder in a 3D model by selecting three points. Not such a big deal now, but 25 years ago, that was amazing.

I've done some VBA programming to extract PDFs from servers based on links in system-generated emails, saving and renaming them in seconds rather than minutes. The first person I did this for estimates she saved nine hours every two weeks. I'm extremely proud of this.

Abrupt conclusion: I'm good at some things. I wish I were better at some other things. Practice, patience, persistence, presence -- all these things play a part. Pessimism and petulance do not.

Resolutions Meh-solutions

I don't make resolutions because I never keep resolutions. My life hasn't been so great of late, so I decided to make a resolution this year. Two, actually. I'm taking action by the horns!

1. I need to do something creative every day. I have so many ideas of things, but I never act on them. It's never going to just happen, so I want to do something about it.
1. I've already broken this resolution.
2. I'll have to modify this one because I have this deep seated yearning to do something, but maybe every day might be a tad audacious. Given my schedule of needing sleep, 3 times a week might be more acceptable, more if possible.
2. "Lose weight." The most ridiculous resolution ever because it has no meaning in and of itself. It needs something specific. So, more specifically, I want to lose 20 pounds of fat by my birthday at the end of May.
1. I say 20 pounds of fat because I don't believe my weight is a problem in and of itself, but I have fat to spare, a good 40+ pounds.
2. 20 pounds is very aggressive, or 4 pounds a month, roughly 1 pound a week. That's very aggressive, and given my physical condition (bad knees, ankles), I'm not sure I could keep up that pace. Ten pounds is a better attainable goal. Ten pounds it is.

Look, Ma, I wrote a blog post!

Look, much alive

So long since I've been here. Never forgotten, but never motivated to write anything worthwhile, or worth reading.

I like movies. I've mentioned this once or twice. For the year of 2014, I really didn't go see that many movies in the theater. I saw Muppets: Most Wanted, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Guardians of the Galaxy, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. There were lots more movies I wanted to see.

This morning, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. Which is when I normally wake up during the week, so don't go feeling too sorry for me. But I did go to bed at 3:30. P.M., that is. Stupid sinus attacks.

Anyway, I popped in Whisper of the Heart, a Studio Ghibli film. This is usually a good sign. It was less so for this movie. It wasn't bad, but it just didn't grab me. 6/10 Stars so Bright.

Then I watched The Maiden Heist, a movie about museum security guards who decide to steal their favorite art pieces. That description is normally more than enough to entice me, which it did. But for some reason, it just did not hold my interest. Sad, considering it had Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken (closet), and William H. Macy. 6/10 Aways in a Maiden

Then, I watched The April Fools, starring Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve. They fall in love and leave (or attempt to leave) their respective spouses. That's the whole story. Didn't really like it. 6/10 Bah humbugs.

I'm now watching Justice League: War. So far, I'm pretty sure this will be much higher than 6/10 somethings.

I Wonder

Two months until I turn 50... I don't have much to show for my life...

I wonder what it's like to truly be in love (the Romantic kind). To have someone I want to spend every moment with, someone whose very being is knit together with mine. Someone who is not going to run away or abandon me when my inevitable flaws expose themselves — and me — for the outrageous fraud that I am. Someone who is not disgusted by my mere presence and might actually welcome and look forward to it. Someone who can champion what little virtually nothing I have to offer. Someone who is not caught up in taking but accepting what little there is of me to give.

And I can't even talk about kids, the great regret in my life (but probably much better off for never having been)...

Man of Steel

I've been anticipating this new Superman movie ever since it was originally announced that Christopher Nolan would be the director. I liked what he did for Batman, and I believed he would bring greatness to Superman, that he would do right by him.

But I don't hold on to these things too hard. I have no control over it, and to get upset that things change and hold it as some sort of personal affront against me is just not how I'm wired. I was sad when Nolan was "just" going to be the producer. But with him, that's still a huge deal, and I believed he would not let Mr. Snyder stray too far. Whatever else one might think of Mr. Snyder's movies, he makes visually stunning movies.

And time passed. And images and ideas slipped out here and there: Zod; the massive safe door; the odd Superman shield (that has grown on me); the handcuffs (ha!). And trailer after trailer. My heart grew in anticipation, hoping that my desire for this movie to be fantastic would be even remotely fulfilled.

I did not see anything that made me think this would be a bad movie, but I wasn't sure it would be fantastic.

Aside 1: I have loved Superman since I was boy and am unabashed in my admiration for the hero and my desire to be like him. Now, at the grand age of 49, I have not changed my mind about Superman (though I stopped reading the comics in DC's New 52; they're just missing something). He is still the hero I look up to and admire and want to be more like him, in particular in the desire to do what's right. Him being an archetype of Christ doesn't hurt matters for me.

Aside 2: When I went to see The Dark Knight, I had great anticipation for it, too. Sitting in the theater waiting for it to start, my gooses were bumping, and my heart was pounding. And I felt a prompt from God, "You're going to see something special today." And I did. The Dark Knight is the greatest movie I have ever seen to date.

Aside 3: I went to see Iron Man 3 on a Thursday. I saw a trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness and got gooses to bumping yet again. (It lived up to my expectations.) Then a trailer for Man of Steel ran. My reaction was different, not the bumping of the fowl, but a deeper satisfaction. I had seen the trailer before, but in a little video screen on my laptop doesn't begin to compare with the huge screen in the theater.

Unaside.

Everything I know of Man of Steel right now tells me that I will not be disappointed. It will have action beyond what I expect. The relationships will be rich. And the story will be more than sufficient to engage, entertain, and involve.

And I have a hint, the same as before The Dark Knight, that this will be something special.

Brett Dennan

Some cool music I found via Wes Molebash, a cool cartoonist dude I've known for a couple of years. He's doing a cartoon series now called [IMG] INSERT IMAGE. Check it out here.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it.

Watch "Brett Dennen - Sydney I'll come Running (Full Studio Version)" on YouTube

[Note: edited to change name of cartoon and add link.]