Joel M.

It has been a weekend and now I am done with it. I worked a lot during this weekend. Hup. Well there is little more to tell and I’m sure I could serenade you guys for a long long time… but I’m not going to.

I am tired and going to bed… and I smell like stinking smoke ‘cuz all of THOSE guys were having at it with the ciggies… my cough is no better either. Ah well, at least they all know that smoking is bad and want to quit, they just can’t ‘cuz they’re addicted. Cold turkey, my friends, cold turkey. Geez, my clothes smell. G’night.

wow I am pooped, but now there is less than a week before the Notwist concert! Woo hoo! Anyway, I have to get offline and go to the U. to do some Plutarch and then some VCT. Late y’all.

Holy Crap. I just came home from having a little mini-date with Heidi on the town. I came back in, locked the door, turned off the lights and whatnot and all that jazz. Now, here’s the freaking awesome part. You may or may not know that I was a CHARTER member of the Official Lord of The Rings Movie Fanclub. I ordered stuff from them, like the Extended Edition of FOTR and whatnot. Well, don’t ask me how, but they must have already begun recieving the prototype DVDs for The Two Towers. Because, freak it, I came home and there’s a note on my door that says a package came for me. When I saw that it was from the fanclub I went “oh crap” because they sent me some things that I DIDN’T order before and overdrafted my account. Anyways, it was TTT on DVD! I think they might overdraft my account again or something, but, I don’t really care. I’m keeping this baby! I am so darn lucky! And if you’ve been lead on this far I feel really sorry for you because this is all a lie. April Fools!

Well today I am feeling much better, and like Mike said, I’m sure you all are quite ‘ill’ of seeing me write about being ‘ill’. Yes I mean ‘ill’ in the hip-hop sense of the word. So you da illest, alright alright, you da dopest, okay okay, you da flyest- man why you tellin’ me this? In one ear and out the next all I keep on hearing is: blah blah blah….

That’s enough of John Reuben.

Well, in other news I just picked up the U.S. version of The Notwist: Neon Golden, and for those of you who have ever heard of this amazing band from Germany, you’ll be happy to hear that there are 3 bonus tracks on this non-import version of the disc which are all instrumental and amazing. I also picked up Further Seems Forever: How To Start A Fire on a whim today. It was cheap. Fantastically so. I haven’t listened to it yet, but The Moon is Down was a very nice album. Tooth and Nail is so awesome, though, not only did I get the CD for dirt cheap, but it came with a free sampler of some nice music. Andrew, if you’re reading this you’ll be happy to know that one of the songs is from Twothirtyeight, it’s called Modern Day Prayer. Anyhow, back to The Notwist, which (Neon Golden) deservedly was listed as one of the year’s top ten albums by the New York Times. I’m going to be going to their concert at The Majestic in Detroit on April 9th! Wooooo! I’ve been planning to bring a roll of dough so I can pick up their earlier CDs at the show hopefully. They started out as a metal band, but hey, I’m open to anything. Plus that and their earlier stuff was compared by one reviewer to the sound of Dinosaur Jr., which is just dandy. I’ve heard some sound bytes of their earliest release, and it still sounds like a sweet album.

I had to film a Coke commercial for my video class, which was fun. I have to say, it’s amazing how hilarious smashing cans on the ground and pouring pop down the front of your shirt or drinking too much and shooting it through your nose can be. This is going to be a nice commercial.

Chance is a world void of sense; nothing can exist without a cause.

-Voltaire

Well now I’m ready to write some more for you all. Following Wednesday I continued my sad decline into being sick for longer, and I still am as miserable as I was back then. But I have some news to report.

I went to see Adaptation on Thursday afternoon, which was quite a nice experience. There were some excellent lines from that film, and I confess that Nicholas Cage did his best non-Nicholas Cage performance EVER. Meryl Streep turned in a great performance as the despairing writer of The Orchid Thief, the book that Cage’s character is struggling to adapt for film. The Orchid Theif concerns the life of one John Laroche, a colorful individual from Florida who specializes in orchid cultivation (and thievery). This is a Spike Jonze picture, who did the acclaimed Being John Malkovich and the less-than-acclaimed Human Nature. “Every orchid looks like the insect that pollinates it… once you see your flower you can’t let anything get in the way.” These were some good quotes from good ‘ol John Laroche. At any rate, I’ll let those few of you who haven’t seen it go and see it if you are inclined to do so. Right now I have business elsewhere.

Elsewhere is right here, two lines below my previous paragraph. This paragraph is devoted to raving about Spirited Away, which I had the privilege of seeing in the company of Josiah Shepard and Mike Edwards, who are both sick just like me. In a word: WOW. This film gives you a type of welcome fatigue, because it is so consitently fresh, beautiful and stunning. And the fact that it manages to continue to wow you for its entire 2 hours is amazing. That and it has one of the most unique and creative stories I have experienced in a great deal of time. Go and see it now, or wait for a few weeks and then rent it and watch it and after that buy it and give it to me.

Yeah, my room is rug-doctored now. Cool, huh?

It’s now Wednesday and I’m very illl and I’m about to go and attend History class. Whoooo! My van is still incapacitated and the mechanic who was supposed to work on it got Pneumonia, which is a sucky illness that can kill you. Well, anyways, I’ve gotta make something special right now for someone else who is also coincidentally, special in her own right.

Bye now.

OK, my previous posting got all boogered up for some dumb reason and now I’ve finally ascertained the problem and fixed it. As for my previous posting, Blogger is so goofed up that I couldn’t even EDIT the durn thing, so I’ve re-written it out here for your reading pleasure (or whatever you get out of reading what I spew onto this blog). I expect you to appreciate the level of effort that went into it, and also to think of how many children could be fed by that crust of bread the next time you go to throw it away because you “don’t want it anymore”. Here ya’are:

Today’s song of the day happens to be a worship song that we sang at church this morning. It was in swahili, and the main line goes something like this: Yesu ni wangu, wa uzizi wa milele. Something like that. Also, my other song of the day is “Freestyle” by good ‘ol P.O.D.

Well, over the past couple of days I’ve been able to do some cool stuff and see two great films. One of which outshines the other by a billion gigawatts. On Thurs. night, I joined the ranks of Justin and Michael (and now also Dr.) Edwards in seeing City of God. Also, I’ve now seen the critically-acclaimed, and ten-times Oscar nominated Gangs of New York.

Let me begin by saying that all that Justin said about City of God is true. And let me end then by saying, ’nuff said. If I had to compare it to anything, I might say that it’s kind of like a cross between Snatch and Amores Perros, except set in Rio De Jinero in the ’60s-’70s. And much, much bloodier and more disturbing, and also, interestingly enough, much much more humorous.

Gangs was less-impressive (I saw it Fri. night), especially after just seeing the aforementioned film above. But I still enjoyed this film immensely. It had a freaking awesome cast, which surprised me by including, besides Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis; John C. Reilly, Liam Neeson, Jim Broadbent and Brendan Gleeson. I thoroughly HATED Cameron Diaz in the movie, and also all of the scenes with naked people. It sucks that good films have to be tainted by that sort of jazz. I can actually appreciate a thing like that if it’s represented tastefully and artistically, and not in a gratuitous way. I mean this in the sense of how God intended it. Anyhow, I’m going to stop talking about that right now.

Hup.

I just got back from seeing Vinegar Tom at BGSU, and came away with a sense of sadness, upset resignation and feeling that I was made to waste a good $5 just to fulfill a class requirement. It was too feministic, too cynical and sarcastic to really make me happy. As a matter of fact, I don’t think the play was meant to make me happy. Alright. Done with that.

Now I’m going to add the part where I rave about the Oscars.

Nicole Kidman won Best Actress (see! I TOLD YOU SO) and not undeservingly, because she really blew the audiences away with her poignant display of a prosthetic nose. Chicago won Best Picture (see! I TOLD YOU SO AGAIN) and I just threw my hands up in the air and said “gazzaawwll!” Surprisingly enough, The Pianist became the dark horse of the event by raking in several awards, not the least of which being Best Actor for Adrien Brody, and Best Director for Roman Polanski. Ha ha ha, Roman can’t pick up his Oscar ‘cuz they’ll arrest him! Eminem won for best song… yeah, well, I KIND OF found “Lose Yourself” to be catchy and rhythmic and it tugged at my heart strings and I JUST HAD to sing along with it at a hundred billion decibels-ANYHOW. Spirited Away kicked off the event by winning Best Animated Picture which totally was a false start to set us up for an awesome Oscar show, because while it winning was awesome, the rest of the show sucked. Oh, I thought that Mickey did a nice job presenting, and it was cool, I just don’t know WHY they had him present with that Alias girl… what’s-her-name. Steve Martin did a freaking awesome job of hosting a not-so-awesome show. LOTR: The Two Towers only came away with 2 awards… that was sucky- but, LOOK OUT WORLD! This is the Year of the King and just you wait and see what ROTK rakes in this time next year, it’ll get its dues or The Academy will get theirs! Anyhow, that’s all for now!

Gangs was less-impressive (I saw it Fri. night), especially after just seeing the aforementioned film above. But I still enjoyed this film immensely. It had a freaking awesome cast, which surprised me by including, besides Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis, John C. Reilly, Liam Neeson, Jim Broadbent and Brendan Gleeson. I thoroughly HATED Cameron Diaz in the movie, and also all of the scenes with naked people. It sucks that good films have to be tainted by that sort of jazz. I can actually appreciate a thing like that if it’s represented tastefully and artistically, and not in a gratuitous way. I mean this in the sense of how God intended it. Anyhow, I’m going to stop talking about that right now.

Hup.

I just got back from seeing Vinegar Tom at BGSU, and came away with a sense of sadness, upset resignation and feeling that I was made to waste a good $5 just to fulfill a class requirement. It was too femenist, too cynical and sarcastic to really make me happy. As a matter of fact, I don’t think the play was meant to make me happy. Alright. Done with that.