Why I love Jason Schwartzman

Hokay. So. Jason Schwartzman. Can I just say I love him? He is a short little hairy man with a big nose who can sometimes be incredibly cute, but that doesn't even matter. (nor does the fact that I can sympathize with him and his oversized nose having one of my own). Jason has been in movies such as Rushmore, The Darjeeling Limites, Marie Antoinette, Slackers, I Heart Huckabees, as well as cameos in Walk Hard and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He's a great actor because he always brings this quirkiness to his roles. He's the sort of character that you might not necessarily like right away, but that makes you really think. All of his characters are odd in such an unusual way.

Anyway, I love him because not only is he an amazing actor, but he produces some of the best music ever. I'm not talking about his days in Phantom Planet, I'm talking about Coconut Records, one of the best 'bands' that ever existed ever.

He's got two albums out right now, Nighttiming and Davy and I love them both so much. I just purchased Davy and I'm already in love with it. The thing about Jason is, he doesn't have the best voice ever, but it's got this charming quality to it that fits absolutely perfectly with the rest of the music. He creates this music that's catchy, heartfelt, interesting and most of all great to listen to. He experiments with different instruments and samples different sounds and his slightly imperfect voice just makes it perfect.

I. Love. Jason. Schwarzman. I just had to tell everyone this because Coconut Records is so good.

-Technophobe-

And so it is...

I am rife with creative energy lately, but faced with inexplicable writer's block. The other day I spent five minutes staring at a blank word document before I decided that nothing was going to happen. I'm also continuously overly critical of my own work, which has led to a dead end in my only piece of work currently in progress, a story called VERSUS which is more or less about a world in shambles and a battle between angels and demons and how the forces of evil and good control the stability of the remaining world...more or less. It's not very long yet because well...I have the plot written out, but I don't want to write poorly in my so called 'filler' chapters.




But none of that is really here or there. After a three week hiatus from school, I've returned to Pittsburgh and I won't be home until March, which is when I'll probably be rounding up job applications and also getting a temporary mouth splint to help my teeth from separating post braces. I didn't really know what a mouth splint was or looked like, but thanks to google, I now know it looks like this. Which seems pretty similar to retainers. Hm.

I told you that would come back into play at some point in the future. I couldn't resist.

Meanwhile. I am currently enjoying the two hour break I have between German and statistics. Btw, it is my first day of classes this semester, but so far I've only had chemistry and German and German only ran about twenty or so minutes because we were in too small of a room and there were a lot of people. On the upside, it was one of the many nationality rooms featured in our cathedral of learning. I think it was the Lithuanian room. Anyway we're not meeting there on wednesday or ever again so it doesn't matter. The teacher seems nice and everything. I'm not too nervous because it sounded like some people spoke worse than me, though there was one girl who I swear was fluent. Don't get me started on people like that.

Oh and in case you were wondering how chemistry went, my teacher is a shriveled old British man who is nice enough in lecture, but is kind of grumpy and decrepid outside of class. I had him last semester. He is about four feet tall and wears a vest that swallows him. Also, he inexplicably puts a glove on his right hand (I think it's his right) every class. I thought maybe it was for chalk, but he holds chalk in both hands during class, so I can't figure it out. I have a feeling that class won't be much different than it's predecessor, so I'm not concerned.

Up next is stats and then bio at six in the evening. While this is extremely unpleasant, at least I only have it two days a week. A major bonus, in my opinion, especially considering my Fridays are pretty non-stop with classes.

I've resigned myself to actually reading my biology book this semester. Last semester I only read it for the first unit, which was my best unit consequentially. After that I was like pshaw, but upon receiving a Cish grade on the second test, I probably should have reverted back to reading it. It's not like I have a social life preventing me from doing better or spending time reading.

I'm hungry. I'm meeting Tess for Einstein's before stats because we have it together.

Blah blah, more on my uninteresting life. Why are you even still reading this?

I love F. Scott Fitzgerald, in other news. I think he is possibly one of the best authors ever. People who enjoy Stephenie Meyer should reevaluate their interests. Scratch that, it's okay to enjoy her, people who think she is a legitimately good author should reevaluate their literary interests. That being said, a story can be good without being well written.

I also love the Harry Potter books and after a few years of shunning the movie franchise (started after seeing the horribly redone set and style in the third movie) I am childishly excited for the new movie coming out this summer. Though, it wasn't my favorite book, it was better than the second one, which was probably my least favorite. I guess the fourth one was my favorite, or the third one. I do love Lupin.

I need to go find my life. I lost it somewhere.

-Technophobe-

Soon We'll Be Living in the Future

And might I say, thank God for that. I can only handle one more final, so it's good that's all I have. Let me tell you a little something. College secretly sucks. It is not keggers and parties and sluts and pimps and frat houses and nerds conquering jocks, though there are sprinklings of some of those things. College is some tough work. Of course I knew that going in, but nevertheless, UGH. (side note: my iTunes seems to have a developed a fondness for Taking Back Sunday, because it has been playing them constantly. What is the point of shuffle if it's not giving me any variety? Enough whiny emos from Long Island, play me some Brand New! ...ha) Anyway. I suppose my AP classes in high school were a good indication of what grades I would be making in college, since they were college level courses. (Bs and As if you were wondering). It looks like I'll have a B in every class except english, which I've succesfully managed to pull an A in.


Finals are stressing me out. It's my first experience with college finals and I'm having anxiety issues. I thought for sure I failed Bio Lab because I failed like half of the quizzes we had on the labs, but God was on my side I guess because I managed to get a B- thanks to my superb B+ and C+ on my practicals. Ugh, I never would have been happy with a C+ in high school. All I have left is my bio final, which I have about three days to study for, so I have plenty of time to review. Um, did I mention my bio final is on a SATURDAY. In fact, if I were to stay much later, they would have the police escort me out of my dorm. 'Legally' I have to be out of the dorms by noon Sunday, so the fact that my Bio final is at 4:00 PM on Saturday is upsetting.


Okay, let me tell you a little something about calculus. I hate it. I. Hate. It. And the problem is, it's really useful stuff. Integrating can get you different types of functions and blah blah. Like, it applies to physics and therefore applies to life. (I love physics). I thought I was so ready for my calc final: WRONG. It was 849762901 times harder than the second midterm and roughly equivalent in difficulty to the first midterm (on which I got a 58% which, with the curve was a B, does that not tell you something about my teacher's ability to teach?) I managed to pull a C on the final with the curve (57% without). I think I pulled a B in the course anyway. I hate calculus. I passed. I am so done with that shit.

Chemistry can die. I am so uninterested in chemistry. It's boring and understandable and I did really well on the practice finals, so it figures I missed seven problems on the actual final. Whatever. I'll get a B in that class, it's fine.

Bio, providing I do well on my final, will provide me with a B.

But I'm still stressed because my roommate is gone, I'm bored, I'm tired of studying, and I just want to go home. And I only get three weeks off while everyone else gets a month-a month and a half.

I need a break like you would not believe. Every sunday for the past three months has been spent on the phone with my dad figuring out calculus problems.

UGHHHIUDHDIOHQIOFHIOW.

On the plus side, I got to see a relatively homemade video of John Nolan playing the piano and singing, and it brightened up my day.

I think my next post might be a best of, but maybe not, as I've been out of the pop culture loop ever since I came to college. Whatever.

-Technophobe-

Alas, Poor Yorick or something....

Which always just makes me think of Iorek Byrnison from the Golden Compass. Now, I would have pronounced it literally "eye-or-eck", but the movie says no, so whatever. Hamelt and MacBeth are the only two Shakespeare plays I enjoyed and MacBeth was partially just because there was guy called MacDuff "OH YEAH". Did anyone else think it was weird when Hamlet made out with his mom in the Mel Gibson version. Too many creative liberties there WHOA.

But that really isn't the point of this post. By the way, when did this blog become a livejournal?

Oh right, when I started writing it. Remember that one time I tried to make it into a blog that reviewed stuff, what a funny day. And then it turned out I didn't even review a completely wonderful movie, but just an okay funny one.

I keep saying, I don't get to sleep before eleven thirty: ever. Inappropriate use of a colon alert! Anyway, it's true. I never get to sleep before eleven thirty and the plan was that tonight I would go to sleep at ten, but oh look it's past ten and I'm still awake and probably will be for another hour at least even though I have a chem lab at eight in the morning.
I hate being a freshman or, at the very least, living in an all freshman dormitory because GOSH (yes gosh). "7] You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name." Yes I did just quote one of the ten commandments, not that I've never said God before, but next time I say gosh, keep this in mind. By the way, you know what I wondered, who the hell translated the bible and how did they know that whatever it said in arabic translated to Deuteronomy? Really.

But I was talking about my housing situation. Our floor is not only extremely cliquey, but it's all freshmen in our dorm and I don't know maybe I'm not as mature as I think but I could do with less estrogen and immaturity and more co-ed dorms WOO CO-ED.

Anyway. I think my internal clock is set too far ahead because I could totally go for a marriage and maybe a few babies right now. Hold the fries though, they upset my stomach. Really though. I feel old sometimes. I think maybe it's just because I'm not that into partying and I worry more about getting caught at a party with alcohol and the whole 'knowingly present' rule than having fun or whatever... I need to get a job at some place interesting and meet people that way. I thought I could work the desk at the Andy Warhol Museum providing it isn't too far of a bus ride, but I wouldn't want to have to work late and take the bus back in the dark. I wouldn't feel safe.

So I'm resigned to finding something to do on campus until I can get a summer job somewhere interesting, except I'll probably just work somewhere not interesting. But I have to get a job this summer at any rate if I want to go to Melbourne, Australia spring semester of my sophomore year. Which I do.

And I want to be a Pitt Pathfinder next fall, we'll see.

I want to marry Jason Segel (replace teddy bear with me) also. I think he is ideal. He should really call me up. I'm talking to you Jason Segel. Look me up at Pitt. It'd be a swell idea.

Ho hum. I'm extremely excited about going home for Thanksgiving as it's been three entire months since I've seen my house or my dogs or Fairport and I'm homesick, not as bad as when I first moved in, but still, I can't wait to see the canal and the coffee shop and feel more homesick when I have to come back for two weeks and study my ass off for finals.

My first college finals experience oo yay!

In other news, I may have to have reconstructive surgery on my gums because they are still so swollen after the whole 'teeth straightening' process. I visit the orthodontist wednesday next week. Also, I'm not getting my hair cut until Saturday, because you cared.

Did you know that Jason Schwartzmann was originall cast to play Jake Gyllenhaal's role in Donnie Darko? Why do I care? You ask. Because:

Prepare to see this used a thousand more times for no reason and probably out of context because it cracks me up. I forgot to mention, I spent an hour reading the 'trivia' section of movies' IMDB pages which was spurred by my realization that all of Seth Rogen's friends in Knocked Up have the same names as the people who play them.

Long story short, I am a loser.

-Technophobe

College!

Greetings one and...well, let's not be too drastic and assume more than one person is ever reading this. I feel like a real college student now that I've been to a frat party. Halloween was exciting.

Let's see, I usually have good costumes but considering I am a cheap skate and I was lazy this year, I wore three polos with popped collars and wore a tipped hat and big sunglasses and went as a douche bag. I thought the subtlety and idiocy would be ironic but it turns out it wasn't. My roommate went as a rubik's cube, which was a big hit. It looked fantastic.

As you can see.

Anyway. We didn't know what we were going to do. We really didn't want to bum around the room on Halloween. NO WAY MAN! So found some girls on our floor and went to a frat house at Carnegie Mellon. It's a really short walk and anyway, one of the girls on our floor had a friend who goes there I guess? We never met her. The first frat house we tried to get into wouldn't let us in because we weren't from CMU so we were trying to decide if we should go back to Pitt and find a frat party there or go to some other frat houses at CMU when some kid dressed as Kevin Gnapoor from Mean Girls (we hope anyway because he was acting like him and uh...he looked awful if it wasn't a costume) comes up to us and touches my back and the girl next to me and is like "ladies, there's plenty of fun inside, we've got the power back on". My first thought was to step forward a little because some creepy Indian dude was touching my back. Anyway. Apparently their power had gone out and they were trying to get people back inside.

Actually we went to the door and there was a guy kind of, you know, guarding it. And he was like "Anyone have a CMU I.D.?" while he was ripping off the paper bracelets that let us get in and he was like "Anyone? Eh." and he just let us in, which was rad, I guess. Well I had this red plastic solo cup to go with the whole "i'm a douchebag whose going to get drunk and rape you" outfit, and he was like "Bringing your own cup in? That's ballsy."

ANYWAY. So we went to a real live frat party. That was exciting. I feel like a real college kid. It wasn't particularly exciting. This one dude kept trying to spin my roommate like she was actually a rubik's cube and at first it was funny but he did it like twenty times. She almost fell over a couple of times. It was actually still pretty funny the last time. Then three guys were grinding on her box and it was HILARIOUS.

But anyway, we just danced and there was beer on the floor and it stunk, but whatever. We went got pizza after that and then at 2am we were still awake so Tess and I decided to watch the Hills Have Eyes, which we rented but she fell asleep and I (stupidly) decided to do laundry at 2am and didn't finish until 4am. Then I got like four hours of sleep and then I took a nap from 3pm-7pm and flipped a shit because it was so dark out when I woke up and I thought it was like 10.

But anyway, frat party, cool deal. Especially considering I am like the world's biggest worrier and for 50% of our time in the frat house I was worried we were going to get busted for being in a building with alcohol underage. I am so pathetic.

By the way, Clive Owen should have been the new James Bond. Daniel Craig really isn't doing it for me. I think Clive Owen should play every leading man role. But, you know, just me.

-Technophobe-

Blathering about fictional love

I just felt like throwing this out there, I've decided on a favorite character (book and movie) of all time. Theo Faron from P.D. James' The Children of Men and Alfonso Cuarón's film Children of Men. While the movie is loosely based on the book, in that the same concept of infertility and a lack of children is used, they are pretty drastically different, but what doesn't really change is Theo.

Why do I love Theo? Well if you don't read books, then at least go see the movie, not only is it a fantastic movie full of powerful political meaning, but Clive Owen is damn sexy. So that may be the first reason to potentially love Theo, because Clive Owen portrayed him and...damn. Though, honestly I think Clive Owen was born to play that role. His moody appearance and demeanor (along with that sexy, sexy British accent actually the British accent has nothing to do with it, never mind) make him perfect for the role. Really, I don't know who could have done a better job, I really don't. I can't fully express how perfect he is for the role. But enough about Clive Owen, I'm talking about Theo Faron. Maybe I'll reserve a different blog post for my minor Clive Owen obsession. Right now it's irrelevant and a poor topic of conversation.

Damn

Theo Faron is very real and I think that's the main reason why he's so easy to like. Both in the novel and in the film, he's a man with a realistic point of view about the future who is fed up with the deteriorating world around him. You're also able to feel sympathy for him because he's been through a lot of shit in his life and at the point in the movie and novel where we meet him, he's pretty much alone in life. It's a bit easier to sympathize with movie Theo because his relationship was destroyed due to his child dying of a sickness whereas novel Theo accidentally ran over his child that he admits he really didn't love like his wife had. Theo is each of us, in some unique way. If we were faced with this world in which humans could no longer reproduce, I think that many of us would be Theo, living each day knowing that there really was no hope and nothing we could do. "I can't really remember when I last had any hope, and I certainly can't remember when anyone else did either. Because really, since women stopped being able to have babies, what's left to hope for?"-A quote from movie Theo. You have the sharp contrast of the Five Fishes, the only people who still think anything can be done and honestly, as ideal as it seems to say, 'well I'd help them, I wouldn't give up', most of us know that isn't true. But at the same time, there is that part of Theo that still hopes and most people have that, a glimmer of hope in the face of certain doom/despair/etc. Theo's choice to aid the Five Fishes embodies something in all of us, I think. Our desire to help, to actually do what we say we will instead of sitting idly by.

Apart from these basic human traits that make Theo Faron so much like us, he really is quite a heroic man. He goes from a lonely, tired, hopeless man to a man who is willing to kill and sacrifice his own life in order to help the mother of the first child on earth in decades. In the movie, we see Theo risk his life on multiple occassions to help Kee because he realizes that the situation is bigger than him. In the novel, we see him willing to kill his cousin and others in order to ensure that Julian can safely deliver her baby the way that she chooses to. Theo's bravery makes him a hero, and that in itself makes him a very likeable character.

I think it's rare to see a character so completely real. I really do. Because usually when a character his heroic and has flaws, they succumb to the flaws and when they're heroic and they don't have flaws it's overwhelmingly cheesy. Sure you could cite Batman as a hero with flaws who overcomes them without cheesing it up but the man has a grappling hook and a sonar system that summons bats. Not quite the same as a hero with nothing but a suit and a tie and a fed-up attitude. Theo Faron is a very raw character and at his very center lies a little bit of what everybody has in them.

With that in mind, I really do think Theo Faron is the most interesting and thoughtful hero that has ever been written on paper or put into film.

Thank you, imaginary reader, and Michael, for listening (reading) my long winded rant that was partially inspired my ridiculous english class that requires me to delve into the ideas of heroism.

-Technophobe-

SHUT THE F*** UP IT'S QUIET HOURS FOOL!

It's currently 1:48 AM on Monday, October 13th and there are anywhere from 3-7 people standing outside of my room having a loud conversation whilst waiting for the elevator. Did I mention I hate the location of my room? At least it's not right in front of the elevator so everyone sees it immediately if my door is open...though it is just one room over. Someone early was trying to get into my room. I think they were drunk and unsure of their location.

What puzzles me right now is the fact that up until this point the floor has been pretty quiet (excluding a 9:30-10:30 miniature party my RA and some friends were having. apparently there were only 3 of them but the noise carries). Now everyone seems to be up. There are people talking next door and directly outside of my room and I'm starting to believe they aren't waiting for the elevator.

I would punch them but I'm too apathetic.

I'm tired. I should go to sleep. Instead I'm updating a blog that only Mike Wandling reads.

I'm glad we're friends even though we have such differing religious views on facebook. I believe in God and Mike believes in...Photoshop and Britney Spears apparently. I love you Michael.

This has been a short post to bring you the information that I hate the location of my room. Also, I know like zero people across the tower. Weird.