Shallow Thoughts

So, haven't touched this thing in forever.  Reason for writing probably should be London and Paris trip, I don't know if I want to do that though.  We'll see, public forum like this are interesting to me.  I mean this should contain my own private thoughts and feelings to an extent but will forever be jaded in that there is some planned audience, I guess I could make it private but does then why write?  Just for me I guess but does writing for me do anything? 

Listening to a lot of Dashboard and Further Seems Forever, so 2001.  In a good way though I hope, at least I am really happy though the music in my head is hopelessly depressed, a funny contrast.  Other music choices these days are still The Killers mainly.  The group Palladium is really awesome in my mind if too new to have anything substantial to listen in the form of a catalog I like what I hear so far.  Old video game music in classical form most notably Final Fantasy VI.  Kanye's Graduation album is pretty awesome as well but not something I keep around too much, mostly work out with the Jay-Z / Linkin Park Collision Course CD. 

Photography is the hobby of choice these days, not that I am any good at it but I'm trying and learning a lot every time I go out, which isn't nearly enough, but I think I am getting some where with it all.  Long exposures are a big favorite and what it does to light but I really can't say I have gotten good at understanding or even isolating to a real level.  Some peoples pictures are still really impressive to me I just can't do that yet even with a lot of editing etc.  I will get there I hope but it will take a while.  Currently shooting with a K10D and a bunch of prime lenses (50mm, 31mm, 21mm).  I would like to have a 100mm macro and the two other FA limited lenses at some point but that is a lot of money that I don't have.  Maybe I can sell some of the London / Paris pictures (doubtful). 

School is alright, kind of a hassle which I wouldn't want to inflict on anyone.  I really enjoy some classes and going to it but not so much doing all the work but gotta do it.  I'm coming to the belief that I learn more outside of school than I ever did in it, but that is my own personal take on the issue.  Don Quixote is certainly more interesting than poetry class.  At least most of my classes are just more or less learning a skill (math) so therefor its nothing more than trade school of a very nerdy and pretty useless trade other than it pays well though I don't know how useful that is.

Movies I haven't seen anything I love recently Atonement was probably the last one but that could be the inclusion of Keira Knightley.  Have done some older movies that I like mostly foreign stuff.  Don Juan DeMarco was good I mean you can't really go wrong with Brando and Depp.  Motorcycle Diaries was good if somewhat predictable but the mythology of Che Guevara is always interesting and that just added another segment of that for me.  Y Tu Mama Tambien was one of the better ones I had seen talk about sexual tension and how it affects things.  Completely great in that was something I watched a couple of times and enjoyed. 

Rest of life, okay.  I really enjoy bars I don't know why I could go by myself and not talk to anyone and have a good time or talk to a bunch of people I don't know.  Its scary and exciting and different.  A completely eye-opening experience in that way, really putting yourself out there not necessarily with anyone to catch you when you fall but gotta fall a few times and thats okay just have to roll with that.  Its something different and if nothing else I will always enjoy a good drink, my parents ensured me of that.  London pubs are not so much my scenes and French clubs make Americans look silly.  The dancing and whole scene never mind the hired dancers and costumes, interiors are really amazing or at least so strongly fantasy based that you can't help to love them when you are sipping on champagne.  Just a really lovely intoxicating experience that you can't help but love.  I could live an expat life my whole life had I the funds to do it.  Nothing but cafes, red wines, late nights and photographs eventually of completely worthless things and people I didn't know or by then perhaps knew too well as long as they seemed beautiful right?  We should always capture pretty memories or really beautiful things to us some where, maybe thats my reason to write to put things I really like in one nice little package.   Pictures to come...I swear.  

Good stuff been happening lately, you know some heavy stuff but good stuff in general.  You know recently I've done my best to open up more about things you know and try to break down my own walls and experience more of what life has to offer in some ways.  Its really scary in some ways but its really what I need to do at the moment.  I mean its a time for change I guess and there will surely be more changes as the next couple years come on and I really choose to re-invent myself or become more truly what I am or however you want to word it.  Getting my selection of men's magazines was really fun and I really have just been thumbing through and reading articles before bed which really though filled with a lot of blatant advertisment I really like to buy into the imagery of those magazines.  Men's Health "Best Life" did a really great article with different advice from a variety of famous men whether something they wrote or how they handled a situation that really provided me with perspective which is just fantastic.  I think my favorite and probably something truly memorable was by Viktor Frankl who survivied a series of Nazi concentration camps in the hope of being reunited with his family and upon leaving found that all of them had died.  He went on to write Man's Search of Meaning where he included the advice, "Everything can be taken from a man except one thing, the last of human-freedoms - to choose one's attitudes to any given set of circumstances to choose one's way."  So no matter what things happen to you, you can choose how to view them and what to take away from your experiences.  I mean society will condition a certain level of feelings for you but in the end the choice is yours and what you choose to learn is yours as well.  It's just a really empowering thing to say and think. 

I just got a call today from the Levi's store in Providence Place and this may give me a chance to finally leave the terror that is CVS for good though I shall tell them up front of my need of black Friday off which is almost a sin in the retail community but what can you do?  I think it would be a really good opportunity and would free up a lot of time on nights and sleeping opportunities that I just haven't had until this point.  I already know that the discount alone would be a great reason to leave. So that is a really hopeful thing.  I am doing my best at catching up on work taht I should have done the weekend I spent cramming for my Finance test only to discover that I could take it on any date and I will e-mail that lady scheduling it conveniently for Halloween which will give me the weekend to look over all the important concepts and preparing ideas for an essay.  The rest of school is doing okay but its really catch up after midterms and I hate losing a weekend because I was so far ahead before then and now I am going to have to work harder than if I just had kept up with my little work each day formula which works really well.  If I do get this job though I'll be able to sleep and use some of my hours more effectively for sure. 

Other than that haven't been doing much interesting recently.  I just purchased my tickets to go see The Killers this Thursday which is really exciting to me and I have been listening to their music constantly as its the only music that I have on my MP3 player.  I think I am going to look at the new Sansa player or a digital camera for Christmas because other than my computer, most of my electronics are quite out of date which is sad for me because usually I am the most up to date person in my family as far as base electronics.  I have recently reduced my clothing choices to one pair of jeans (Levi's Vintage `947 501s Deadstock) and a variety of tee shirts which is rather college-y of me compared to my usual favorite of more dressed up clothing.  I am really enjoying the process of fading these jeans and breaking them in and softening them up which they needed a lot of.  They probably could have stood up on their own before their first wear and now they are pretty comfortable.  I will probably edit this in the future but for now I have to run to class so this will probably be the first of hopefully a prettier final draft.

Dreams of doing anything fun this weekend were permanently crushed at my letter from Bryant informing me of the two days I had to take my validation test for my Financial Management, the first which had already passed and the second one this Monday.  Now I haven't even touched Finance calculations, terms or knowledge in over a year and my university nicely provided me with one day to get the necessary forms signed to enable me to first take the test and then a whole weekend to prepare on a 600 page text filled with not just terms but after chapter 4 approximately page 150 is filled with needing to know how to do financial specific calculations which require me either breaking open the guide book to my Ti-86 or to my business specific calculator and probably in the next day doing you know two to three hundred financial problems so that I am more than adapt at doing bond valuation / stock valuation / time values of money and god knows what else is in store for me. 

Thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity Bryant to kick my own ass and deprive my self of sleep for the rest of the weekend.  Thank god there were technical difficulties with my legal studies exam allowing me to do that either Monday night or Tuesday night because I really can't forsee myself getting more than a few hours of nap time the rest of the weekend.  While I realize this itself is procrastinating against studying the fact that I have been reading since last friday night all the way to tonight with one three hour sleep break, I am just not really maintaining knowledge and I need to re read and note take much more feverishly these last two hours so in response to this I've decided to work out and shower and at least clean up for the day before I go back to work tonight.  Oh well sometimes life just doesn't turn out the way you hoped / planned it would. 

Last Nite went to go see the Strokes Concert with Jared at Lupos / Diesel and I had to say it was a really good time. 

South - Paint the Silence

Logo

First thing, which just has to be mentioned, Julian Casablancas is getting old.  Though he and the band rocked hard it definteily not at all what I had pictured him as but I guess my image of him clearly was like five / six years old and you just kinda lose that skinny rock and roll look after a while.  Just for comparisons sake:

I mean realistically just not what I pictured.  To say it had any measure of affect on the performance let me tell you it most certainly did not.  The Strokes really played a killer set putting out most of their hit songs namely, "Soma" "Last Nite" "Someday" "Reptalia" "Is This It" and "New York City Cops."  I mean after listening to their record you would expect them to just play everything rather cool and just like you know this song its awesome to listen to so just listen to it.  Instead it was completely blasting loud tons of energy which though unexpected was far from unpleasant.  

The pit area was just awesome and the crowd continued try to launch people crowd surfing which just didn't work as the people who initially lifted up the various people were about the only people strong enough to hold anyone up and it looked as if people were going to take a tumble most of the time.  It got really crowded and Jared chose to stand in the area where the crowd most frequently walked through which was a bit annoying as the show went on and you were getting into the music only to feel someone touching you to move to the side to clear a path that barely existed.  I wish people would just choose their seats and sit there because there really wasn't close to enough room to keep moving back and forth.  Eventually some older brits came and stood on the side and took away the metal platform I was leaning cooly against and though I could hardly understand what they said when they were talking they were fun to sing along with.  

The Strokes - Last Nite

Realistically though it was the two guitarists who owned the show.  Though most of the Strokes melodies are really memorable to try and understand what Juilan was saying half the time was pretty much impossible.  The guitar parts were instantly recognizable and the added solos were awesome.  They encored with three songs most notable being a cover of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" which they shoved a mean guitar solo in for apparently no other reason than it was excessive but so unbelievably worth hearing.  It was just really awesome considering the comparisons the Strokes used to get with Velvet Underground (Lou Reed's former band for those not in the know).  Overall a good show and an equally good excuse to go and see another concert tonight namely Flogging Molly with Zox as an opening act.  Pretty stoked for this show too hopefully it is just as good. 

The Departed

Went to go see Scorsese's The Departed tonight.  Coming in I knew it was going to be based off of Hong Kong classic Infernal Affairs which was just released in 2002, but realistically it was at the very best an Americanized version of it.  I really should have coming in expecting to see pretty much that, but the scope of how much of a direct rip off it was, was rather appalling.  Pretty much the same scenes and paralell dialogue, the only difference being a couple of plot twists which did nothing more than making Scorsese's version of the film just more burdensome to sit through. 

Starting off The Departed is about an extra fifty minutes longer which allow Scorsese to get some yardage out of the star studded cast that he assembled for this film.  I mean come on Academy and just give him the Best Picture, not that this deserves it, but when he has come to the level of doing not much more than copying an international award filming for an American audience and then changing some parts so it is more standard American fare makes me question what was the point of making or directing this film.  Be warned the rest of this may contain some plot spoilers of both movies so if you would like to see either I suggest just stop reading and when you do go see Infernal Affairs. 

Alright first area of critic actors and the characeters they play.  Both Hong Kong and Hollywood went all out on this one bringing their big name players to this.  The two leads in the US were Matt Damon and Leonardo Dicaprio and the Hong Kong leads were Andy Lau and Tony Leung.  Honestly Leung as both the oldest and most experienced actor of the group probably was the best.  Dicaprio is not convincing in this film as being tough, likable or a believable gangster to any extent.  Andy Lau compared to Matt Damon is a much tougher call both are young and on the upswing in their markets.  Damon may win alone by virtue of the fact that he is called on to play a role he was literally born and raised to play in some retrsopecs.  Damon really makes this character a jerk while you believe that Lau may truly have turned his life around by the end of the movie.  It's hard to say as both movies handle the outcome of theis character very differently.  If you had to give points out probably 1 squeaked out by HK

Nicholson in The Departed

Second area of to be critical of is minor actors.  Every other character in Infernal Affairs is realistically a minor character and while most of them are very similar ot their The Departed counterpart, the fact is the US gives each of these actors more screen time which most of them deserve though isn't really essential to the telling of the story.  Nicholson plays the crazied lunatic gangster probably better than anyone and in The Departed really does a great job.

Infernal Affairs

The other minor characters that of the psychiatrist, wife and the addition of Mark Whalberg cast as an extra character under Sheen (probably for his ties with South Boston as well), were at best a mixed bag.  Let's say everything makes a lot more sense in Infernal Affairs and the whole character of the psychiatrist, Madolyn, by Vera Farmiga was probably the worst tie in ever.  She manages to marry and go with Matt Damon, take Leonardo Dicaprio as a lover, not tell Matt Damon and then betray him to Whalberg at the end, while probably having Dicaprio's kid.   In the end, while you can understand some of her decisions, she is at best a reactional character put into a lot of bad situations. 

Record Store Scene

The rest of the movie just doesn't stack up.  With the addition of Alex Baldwin which seems to just be another great actor to attach to the project to earn it some more star billing.  In the end it is not shot as well or done as smoothly as Infernal Affairs.  The fact that there are too many big celebrities and most of them at times manage to outshine or mask the importance and nuances of the scenes they are in.  Infernal Affairs seems to convey a lot of information sometimes with very little dialogue while The Departed seems to want to drown you in dialogue most of it in a bad south Boston accent (save for Damon and Wahlberg) and most of it unnecessary swearing.  The scenes of connection between Dicaprio and Damon are nothing compared to those of Leung and Lau especially the record store scene (which was cut) but the rooftop scene is not as good nor is the scene of them together in the office.  You want to believe that Lau wants to be a good cop at the end, while you can never believe Damon wants to assume the role he so long has filled.  In the end I really would expect better from both American cinema which has much more money and from such a famed director as Scorsese. 

I picked up the new Killer's CD today.  I was a huge fan of their first CD, Hot Fuss, and this one is really different.  Its supposedly influenced by Springsteen's Born to Run but I can't really hear it in either either the music or in the lyrics.  Maybe you could say the first single "When You Were Young" is remotely Springsteen-esque as it features a rather catchy guitar hook and talks about love in that remote reminiscent way in which Springsteen always seems to address the topic.  You know it looked really good to begin with and we were going to be all odds because we would have had to, to even stand a chance, but in the end it failed for one reason or another.  "When You Were Young" isn't even close to as grandoise as anything on Born to Run but I guess I could at least see the comparison.

In their new exploration of eighties music, if that's what they want to call this, The Killers still use a lot of synths but are using a lot less than in Hot Fuss and they are now using more drums and guitars to drive the song forwards.  Its an interesting combination that I will either grow on me or distance me from them and only time will tell that one.  I can't say it draws me in the way I was after their first disc.  I mean there are some songs that I really enjoy on this CD and its worth listening to "Bones", "Read My Mind" and "My List".  Honestly I would have expected better from them and while some of the songs are really interesitng after a first listen I can't say this is the best stuff they could have turned out.  While I understand the need for a certain amount of artistic exploration and trying new sounds, I think at this point they should have either done more work on this or have stuck with what they did well which was the faux glam rock of their first cd.  Though after getting Hot Fuss it took me probably a good two months of listening to really get what I loved about The Killers and in the end I will probably listen to this for two months and honestly believe that they couldn't have done anything more interesting and innovating.  Though at this point I can't say I agree with Brandon Flower's assertion "One of the best CD's in the last 25 years." 

What's your favorite foreign accent?

Quebec flag

French Canadian.  Preferably spoken from someone from Montreal who looks down on you for not being able to either speak their weird breed of French or are just embarrassed by you not being able to speak perfect English.  Either way its an accent I hope when I get older I can assimilate.  I hope with such an accent I can also have a French Canadian wife and inherit their belief that they are better than the rest of Canada and deserve sovereignty. 

While this week at college has been a lot more useful than my first one.  Ruckus while not being a perfect music server still missing some great artists to download from (ie. Zeppellin, Radiohead), has managed to provide me with some various new artists which I'm having a really good time listening to as well as some old classics like the Rolling Stones whose CDs as seperate entities are worth listening to as much as their compilations that they occassionally release.  New artists I really like the song of include:

I have to learn how to insert a group of music like this so it is just centered but also across the page.  I am sure someone can manage to inform me of that trick at some point.  So if I only want to put two bands up there it will still look symmetrical in that big ugly box that Vox limits me to putting my music in.  There's also a song called "Vans" by The Pack which is just such a great hip hop song about Vans which I don't know any better subject for a hip hop song other than "Air Force Ones."  Either way here that is which if you read this you should take the time to listen to do this just for fun:

Vans (dc3629865)

2 comments

School has been going okay, Foundations for learning at least has some good journal questions that have given me different ways to think about how I should be taken advantage of my education.  The actual stuff we have to do for the class seems at best trying to make us involved in the university by at worst sending us to boring functions that no first year student or new bryant student would attend to actually get involved with university culture. 

Marketing and Legals are two classes that actually have subject matters and teachers that are worth listening to and that I may get something worth while out of by the end of the semester.  At least that is what I am hoping for out of them as general business courses.  I am guessing the management courses I have to take will be similar to that. 

The astronomy class is easily one of the stupidest classes I've taken in a while.  We learned that forces equals mass times acceleration last time which was really ground breaking and confusing to some people there and I don't know how it possibly could be.  We also just learned the Gravitational Constant.  The teacher seems like she would be better suited to teaching astrology but that may be because I just don't want to take the class and haven't really given her method of showing pretty pictures of stars much credit at this point. 

My Computer Science class isn't bad so far at least the freshman there are somewhat fun to talk to but pretty dorky in their young freshman like innocence.  I have a very difficult power point presentation when the books come in I think I will like the class more as I'll actually get to do some reading and not depend on his powerpoint presentations to present the material to me instead I can just read it and go off on my own.  My other class is basically a literary seminar for freshman where we are reading books about "crossing borders."  The first book by W.E.B DuBois wasn't that good and I think I was one of the only ones who read it.  My teacher got mad at me for arguing both a DuBois and  Booker T. Washington point of view during the same class, which I am pretty sure is her job more than mine. 

Honky (Vintage)

The last book we read was Honky by Dalton Conley. It was a short read like 200 pages or so  but a really good book about race / class  relationships in  New York City in the 1970s.  It was one of the first books that I read in one sitting before I went to bed one morning which wasn't too helpful for me being awake and alert the rest of the night at work.   I just really enjoyed his writing style and the subject though something I wasn't particularly interested in as the book started was something worth reading about as he presented it in a much easier to tolerate 21st century type of way than the  essay  style that DuBois made us trudge through.  The difference was that Conley made us see the difference of race / class through his experiences and a minor and occassional grown up sociologist look back, while DuBois wanted to provide commentary constantly  on very short and abrupt stories that are only interconnected by the fact that they happenned to DuBois.  He really limited himself to an observer while Conley was part of the relationship.   It was like if Conley had just gone to NYC to study relationships in various schools in New York rather than actually living through it a thing which DuBois never really had to do but he did visit the post civil war south when  he was older.

Conley's observations are ones that have a sense that you were there drawn into his life with him, while with DuBois you are always looking at it from a distance or to word in his own terms "looking through a veil."  I don't think he even grasped what life in the south was like during reconstruction and even afterwards because his writing just does not contain that element that he got what was going on or was even a part of it.  I hope if I write about something anyday I can capture it draw my reader into the experience with me.

Its so nice to have the connection to a real college environment again.  I mean the classes at Bryant aren't all too bad.  The other students are generally okay but the access to a college sponsored multi-media platform is even more worth it.  Bryant sponsors all students with a free Ruckus Community account which though not as big as iTunes has a pretty good collection of full records available for easy downloading.  I've already downloaded the new Outkast CD and completely switched directions to getting Everclear's So Much for the Afterglow.

Actual classes for school are okay though definitely aren't pushing the envelope of what my brain is really capable of on me.  I don't mind exploring new things but I wish they weren't always constricted to being available to the middle of the row student.  It just makes the whole thing go slow, which even though I am probably just an upper middle student at best, I definitely learn at a faster pace than any college believes they should push you at.  I have a two page legal brief, astronomy questions, W.E.B. DuBois reading (at this point re-reading for the third time) and CIS questions.  The worst part is I know I can finish all of that in roughly two - three hours time so there really is no rush on me to get it done as the only thing actually due tomorrow is astronomy.  Nevertheless I'll do my best to finish it all today to allow me to actually do some real reading and thinking. 

Confucius: The Analects

Currently I am having fun with Confucius' The Analects, one of the more popular Chinese philosophical texts and I believe one of the more read books in the world.  I was assigned this originally or at least exercepts from my last class at RIC, Heritage of Asian Philosophies.  The class was really poor at best though it did provide a really good survey of accompaning texts which allowed for some further exploration of the topics involved.   The Analects can just be taken and interpretted so many ways it really is mind-boggling.  The ability to really construe his words to be applied to a variety of situations, really shows why this became such a popular work. 

The introduction spends a lot of time delving into the possibilty of both multiple authors and trying to question or at least make sense of what little we actually have documented of Confucius' life.  I mean it really makes you question who so many people are taking their advice from may have been any number of people.  I still really enjoy it for the fact that it really does stress the important of education, learning and determing the worth of things around you.

I really hope as college goes on I am able to be challenged more and given such good material to read and explore both by someone who knows the material as well as being able to look into it or at least want to look into it more on my own time when I leave class and this semester the classes I have to take really aren't doing that for me.  So here's to a goo dfinaly two years of undergraduate education and hopefully learning and enjoying the rest of the "college experience"