two.points.collapsing

i got my visual culture midterm back today, and i went up to the teacher and said, “hey, this problem is misgraded, can i have the two points back?” so she looks at it and says something like, “well what you have circled is sort of right, but he [foucault] also says that . . .” which i interrupt by lifting my book up and pointing out the exact passage, underlined, from which the question it a direct quote, and saying, “no, that’s not right, hermeneutics is (yadda yadda), and what you’re talking about is semiology. it says right here.” so she looked at me bitterly and said, “oh. i guess i must have ‘mismarked’ the answer key. well i’ll give you the two points then.”

so at least a quarter of the class got two extra points because i’m a good reader. nice. i am the smartest man alive!

my mom sent me oatmeal cookies in the mail. i’m eating them right now and damn are they tasty. my mom is cool.

oh, and in networthy news (lame, i know), send your “worst songs ever” ideas to liz. don’t delay. this should be good.

and another thing!

i feel like changing the song of the week again. it’d be too easy to put up some hey mercedes, and besides, everyone should already own that and be listening to it anyway. so i’ll put up what was in my head all day tuesday before the mail came, which is this song. the problem is, dianogah songs don’t have any words, usually, so i’m walking around just humming bass lines. not that the not-having-words is really a problem, because i like these songs a lot. it just gave me nothing to sing to myself. you know what i’m getting at. just download “what is your landmass?” and you’ll know even better.

this is some funky, laid-back-but-still-rocking, smooth and sexy music. i dig it a lot. so take that and just try not to nod your head to this.

despite the fact that batman has been ruling my life for a couple days, i did manage to finish about a boy tonight. what a swell book. i think you should read it, if you’re into the whole reading thing (and if you’re not, think about what you’re doing right now, you hypocrite).

on to barrel fever, which i’m sure will be great. and more batman — i’m addicted, it’s true, but i’ve got to find out who’s behind the latest scourge of gotham! see what happens when you don’t have a girlfriend? you play video games so you don’t have to think about it, then end up not caring one way or another because you’ve got a playstation 2. yikes.

also, i’m convinced that our weekend starts on wednesday is the catchiest rock song of the year.

get out of my head!

my mistake, apparently, was assuming that when my roommates said we didn’t get any mail today that they had actually checked to see if that was the case. as in opened the mailbox. the solution was waiting for another roommate to get home from his evening class and habitually check the mail on his way up, and bring me my brand new hey mercedes cd. victory!

it’s good. it’s really good. so good it was hard to read while i was listening to it, because i wanted much more to just sit back and let the sound wash over me. i’m not even going to give any sort of review — my only qualm was the addition of some weird sounds on let’s go blue which i don’t even think i mind and will probably grow to love soon enough. it’s just good. the end.

and i’m so glad it’s finally here.

i don’t read any blogs or write anything for only about a day and a half and i feel like i’ve been slacking off.

i’m not pathetic, i’m dedicated.

i got a package from amazon (no link for them, i prefer books from real stores — this was a special case) yesterday with fun stuff in it. so i’ve been playing batman the video game for playstation 2 since then. i should be finishing about a boy so i can start the david sedaris book i’ve been waiting a while to read, which is sitting on my bookshelf telling me to hurry up and read those last 60 pages of hornby. homework should fit in there somewhere too, but i’m far too busy doing interesting things for that. ha.

i ordered the new shiner and d-plan from desoto by mail sometime last week or before, hoping they’d get here early (before the 23rd), and i ordered hey mercedes from cheap-cds sunday hoping it might get here today. these things are necessary because i don’t have a car to drive to good record stores, nor are there any nearby. of course, none of them are here yet, so i have to wait a few extra days while everyone else talks about how good they are.

it’s okay, really. i can wait . . . right?

it’s strange to me that in late october i already have to plan for next semester’s classes, but i guess if you have 60 thousand students to register you have to get things taken care of with plenty of time for processing. so it turns out that i already have my schedule for the spring mapped out, assuming i get all the sessions i’m looking at. 20 units won’t be fun though. ugh. why do i have to take so many classes to be a business major, so many that i can’t even do a minor without having to take one semester of overloaded classes?

what a dumb thing to complain about, i know. even with that many classes, though, i might end up not starting until 2pm two days out of the week, with no classes before 10am all week. that i can definitely deal with.

obviously i am the king of all that is interesting today. maybe some new cds will show up today or tomorrow, and i can repeatedly listen to and subsequently discuss them instead of talking about scheduling spring classes. let’s all hope.

today turned out pretty well. i procured the key component of my costume for next weekend’s big halloween costume party spectacular, which excites me. wait til you see pictures of this business.

and this evening, my pal dominic showed us his finally completed short film. it turned out really well, and i liked it. you can order your own copy if you want, straight from him. it’s called rapid eye movement and it’s pretty cool for a 12 minute amateur filmmaking project. i was proud to be a part of it as well as watch it (yes, i’m the one on the right through the peephole. i’m a movie star!)

he also made us all waffles afterwards. some of them were “pumpkin spice” waffles. yum yum yum. dominic gets thumbs up for waffles and movies tonight. and . . . hooch?

i’m sorry, but i just thought it was hilarious.

tonight (saturday night), mike’s parents took us out to dinner. mmm, good food. and it was them, his sister, he and i, dom and dustin. fun times to go along with the good food. no movie tonight though, ending my very movie weekend. although i’ve been thinking about waking life all day and how much i liked it.

the uncontested quote of the day, today, though (which may not necessarily be as funny written down, but must be preserved somehow for my own memories):

(while the table is on the topic of how dog food is edible by humans) dominic: “you know, like in turner and hooch; with tom hanks and . . . . hooch.”

oh man, that had me going.

before a few of the more independent films i’ve seen lately, i’ve caught a trailer for this strange, dreamy, animated-but-not-cartoon movie called waking life. it looked really interesting and i wanted to check it out pretty badly.

well, it came out today in limited release (only one theatre in the whole los angeles area, as far as i know), and my roommate and i went to see it. i wasn’t sure how the story was going to work based on the trailer, so i wasn’t sure what to expect besides something new and cool. now i’m going to try to tell you what i ended up getting in my little review for waking life:

the first and most accurate thing i can tell you about this movie would be a jaw-dropped and eyes-widened “wow”. this could very well be the best movie i’ve seen in over a year. maybe that’s not saying much, and i know that’s not saying enough, but none of the adjectives i know quite reach the level of enthusiasm i have for this film right after seeing it. i can say, though, that this movie did everything for me i could have wanted a film to do. it’s beautiful (and oddly but wonderfully animated, so that it’s not just fun to watch, it’s simply fun to be looking at), it’s inspiring, it’s thought-provoking, it’s funny, it’s moving, it has a bit of mystery about it, it’s incredibly smart, it’s well-written (and well-read, judging by the abundant references) . . . it’s just amazing. i can’t say enough about this movie. nor can i tell you enough to do whatever you must to get a chance to see this movie. visit your friend in the city as an excuse to find a theater that’s showing it. drive the extra hour. 9 dollars for this film, to me, was nothing. i would have paid twenty.

i’m going to stop raving so i don’t scare you off, but i just had to recommend this so that the joy of this film may reach as many as possible. maybe then, more things this perfect will be made.

oh, and as a bonus — as if i wasn’t satisfied enough with the experience — there were free mini-posters and six free promotional postcards with movie scenes on them to take home as souveneirs. i got all six cards and two posters (an extra for roommate mike who had missed them), so now i have to put them up as a shrine.

and at the moment i’m sitting here, writing this, in a weird sort of post-movie contentment that only happens once in a great while, not sure what to do with myself and this positive energy. maybe i’ll just listen to good music and reflect. if i were you, i’d check out that trailer i linked above, and hunt down this movie if you can.

how long until it makes dvd, do you think?

if you’re looking for a hilarious and endlessly rewatchable comedy in serendipity, you’d be disappointed. if you’re looking for a farfetched but cute movie with some very offbeat, funny moments, jeremy piven at probably the funniest i’ve ever seen him, and kate beckinsale as the prettiest and most charming female lead i’ve ever seen (my opinion here is tainted by my crush on her as of the start of the movie last night), then you’d like serendipity. and you can’t go too wrong with john cusack, can you. of course you can’t. he and jeremy piven, together, always have me rolling and this was no different. could have done without molly shannon (but can’t i always), and eugene levy was pretty odd in this film, but overall i enjoyed the film. there, i’ve said it.