May 2005

5-31-05 (23:01)

saw star wars with melanie tonight. what a piece of crap.

meryl is in the bay area tonight. i miss her. i think she's good for me. we're either complete opposites or exactly alike. it's kinda cool.

on occasion i'll get just the right perspective on life - i'll realize that nothing really matters in the long run, but that the good stuff is fun in the meantime. that perspective generally lasts for under 30 seconds, but during that time anything bad that's happening is viewed with an ultra-long view and anything that's good is infinitely good and all encompassing. it's an almost surreal feeling. too bad those moments never last more than 30 seconds.

black bush is the best chappelle skit i've ever seen. mos def is in another one of my favorites - the racial draft. mos def is pretty cool all-around.

added two new sections (actors & worst of) to the best of movies page. that page is always under construction.

after work i went to woodstock's and watched the first half of the pistons game. they looked pretty strong tonight. they have so many guys who are really committed to defense and i respect that. lindsay hunter is a quick little fucker defensively, we could use a guy like that on the kings. oh yeah, we had one and we traded him. i forgot. you know what amazes me though? shaq has lowered the bar so far that his 8/12 performance from the charity stripe on sunday garnered high praise. 67% that's not good. sure it's better than his season average, but it's not good in the absolute sense. you know what else is not good? five rebounds in 25 minutes. eddie jones got twice that many. shaq fucking sucks these days, there's just no way around it. he has good games, but he's not a good player anymore. when you're the biggest (height and weight-wise) guy on the court and you're the fifth leading rebounder (and seventh leading scorer) in the game then you suck; it's just that simple. it's not that he's playing outside - ben wallace doesn't have an outside shot and neither does shaq - so there just isn't any excuse. you know who is a good center? ben wallace. he's a beast. or how about alonzo mourning? he's a fucking g. a kidney transplant couldn't stop that guy from getting four more blocks than shaq in nine fewer minutes. fuck fucking shaq's lame ass. you know why detroit is going to win this series? because they don't respect shaq enough to double team him the way every other team does. that's how they won last year and that's how they'll beat him this year. fuck fucking shaq. spurs and pistons, baby. defense wins championships. stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

there are two cars on my block with the same first four characters in their license plate. i've never seen that before. both start with 5FTJ. one is 5FTJ5.. and one is 5FTJ8.. i can't remember the final two digits, but i know that they're different cars. wacky.

5-30-05 (21:41)

"Tom Cruise has declared a public war on psychiatrists because he fears the "pseudo-science" has led to a drug-fuelled crisis for today's children. The movie hunk was diagnosed as dyslexic when he was just seven, and doctors suggested he should take drugs to control his learning problems. Memories of that part of his childhood fueled Cruise to seek alternative ways of overcoming his dyslexia - a problem that led him to the Church of Scientology's educational programs. Becoming a scientologist in 1984 made the actor look closely at the controversial religion's anti-psychiatry stance, and he has since become a firm believer that the science and the medicating of children is wrong. Speaking exclusively to US news show Access Hollywood as part of a week-long special about his scientology beliefs, the movie hunk declares, "I'm going right after psychiatry and these false labels and this pseudo-science. I was diagnosed as dyslexic; I had a lot of energy as a child. They wanted to put me on drugs... Never did; my mother said no, absolutely not, no way and I'm thankful. Had I been put on those drugs, I never would be here today... I never would have had the career that I'm having. Am I making people aware of it by discussing it openly and saying what a fraud psychiatry is? You bet I am. I feel a responsibility because I care..." The actor also maintains that poor results in education in America can be blamed on mind-altering drugs that are given to children. He adds, "SAT (exam) scores have gone right down the toilet. The parents are blaming the teachers, the teachers are blaming the parents and the psychs are putting everyone on drugs.""

watched some golf yesterday. pate choked big time. he made the right decision to lay up, but then he three-putted from about 20 feet away. what a loser. reid seems like a great guy so i guess the better man won.

played some basketball today with john. that was a fun time. we normally just shoot around, but today a guy and girl came up to us and asked if we wanted to play. so we played some two on two. john and i are in awful shape, but we won because we played better as a team and had more height. the guy was a cornerback at davis (i'm pretty sure) and the girl was pretty athletic so it was an even match in that respect. i actually wanted to learn more about the guy because he seemed pretty cool. he just graduated from davis and is going back to school to get a teaching credential so he seemed alright in my book.

went to john's the other night with meryl. his girlfriend was having some friends from her program over and he invited me. i was thinking about not going because i don't generally enjoy social engagements like that...i prefer it when i know everyone. but we went and had a pretty good time. i think it was good for john, too, because it meant his girlfriend's friends couldn't just talk about agricultural econonmics all night long.

it was the first time meryl and i went out to any social engagement together. i think it was good.

i haven't been watching as many movies, or updating the wepage as often, as i'd like. clearly it's because my time is spent either hanging out with meryl or being at work.

5-28-05 (19:03)

saw a shirt today that said "YRUU" i think it's a great question, one that everyone should ask themselves from time to time.

eddie albert died the other day, he was pretty great.

got a jury summons the other day and just realized that i was supposed to go in on the 25th. oops. i hope i don't go to jail for this.

5-27-05 (18:29)

updated movies list.

deepspace 5 have an album called "unique, just like everyone else." i once wrote a short story called "different like everyone else."

5-26-05 (21:07)

wyclef jean has been a disappointment for me. after his first two solo records i called him one of the best contemporary producers in mainstream hip-hop, since then he's fallen off big time. that said, when i revisit his early work i stand by my statement. stuff like gone til november and street jeopardy show his moments of genius and his impact on modern beats. stripped down, electronic/keyboard type beats that you hear from eminem, 50 cent, dr. dre. outkast are probably the best producers in mainstream hip-hop right now.

5-24-05 (21:23)

forgot to mention my track record for concerts. a list of the concerts i've paid for: hella, rage against the machine, blackalicious, beastie boys and autechre. not sure if i paid for baaba maal or if that was melanie. my point is that all the concerts i've paid for have either been great shows or among my favorite current artists. i'm pretty happy about that.

also forgot to mention that i have high hopes for the usa olympic/world championship basketball teams. jerry colangelo is going to be in charge and they've given him complete control. after hearing his philosophy on how the team should be assembled i think we're going to have a return to international greatness.

also meant to remark on the spurs/suns game. it was a pretty fun game to watch, but i felt that it would be unlikely to see the spurs win another game if it got over the 105 point mark. tonight i was proven incorrect. they took two on the road and look poised to go into the championship.

chris rock mentioned that steve nash was great, but that his old team actually got better (record-wise) after his departure, while shaq's got significantly worse. a good point, however it overlooks the fact that the lakers lost three other hall-of-famers (payton, malone and jackson) at the end of last year. while dallas lost nash (14.5 ppg, 3 rpg, 8.8 apg, and 1 spg) they also gained jerry stackhouse (15 ppg, 3.5 rpg, and 4 apg), jason terry (17 ppg, 4 rpg, 5.4 apg, and 1.5 spg) and keith van horn (10 ppg and 5 rpg). so, chris rock should stick to comedy which he does fairly well.

updated movies list.

5-23-05 (19:41)

melanie seems like such a different person now. i know that if i hung out with her she'd more or less be the melanie i know, but it seems that there's so much more going on with her that i don't know about. stuff that she may have kept under wraps when she was with me, or stuff that the breakup let out. after the breakup we were actually very close to each other and it was sort of similar to how things were when we were first getting together. everything was intense and it made me feel like the relationship we had was real and it sort of validated the last four years...not that it needed to be validated, but it was reassuring to know that even when things were over we still cared about each other.

now, though, it seems like that's gone. we've been so out of touch with each other and it seems, from my perspective anyway, that she's transformed so much that we've grown apart very quickly. it's amazing what people are capable of and how quickly we can adapt. it sort of makes you question the nature and resilience of all relationships. the whole thing is rather discouraging. feeling like you're replaceable is one of the worst feelings a person can have. the truth is that i am replaceable in most ways. you can never replace memories, but a person can always find someone else to have fun with.

i wonder why i care how i will be remembered. ultimately it doesn't really matter, but i still care about it as if my universal image is being distorted or something retarded like that.

phil used to be my best friend in the world and i thought that we'd never lose touch. somehow, though, we grew apart and became different people and stopped talking with each other. i knew the guy like 10 years and then we just couldn't relate anymore. i've always felt shitty about it, as if i did something wrong. i know that to a certain extent i did, but that the larger problem is that we just grew in different directions. when i was first with melanie i was sure that we'd be together forever. i wouldn't really admit it aloud, but i wanted to be with her forever and actually felt like it could happen. but within five years we've gotten to the point where i'm starting to wonder if i'll know her in a year. you start to wonder if it's a personal failure or if that's just the way life is or what.

it's such a sad thing that people move and lose touch with friends. the non-family person i've kept in touch with for the longest is probably james chai, who i've known since 10th grade or so. but even with him i haven't really kept in touch on a really regular basis. i'm pretty sure that if i lived still in la that i'd hang with him, but because of geography, we almost never see each other. the same is true for jon, johnny and vern who i've known for about 8 years now. i consider them all friends, but i've spent more time with meryl in the last month than those guys in the last year. i guess if i had my priorities straight i'd move to berkeley and live with johnny and i'd be able to visit jon and vern more regularly. but inertia, liking davis more than the berkeley, and the security of knowing i have a livable salary keeps me here. of course i also regret not being able to be around my mom, dad, sister and grandparents. i don't really like la, but if i lived there it would be nice to drop in every other week or so to watch a film with my grandpa. i don't know where in my life personal relationships became so important, but they're definitely more important than they used to be. maybe because i realize that they're the only thing in life that matters and which i have an active role in creating. it's fun to be able to deconstruct and reduce, but it's more fulfilling to create.

perhaps i'm too good at finding contentness in life; and too willing to be fine with that.

5-22-05 (12:55)

updated movies list.

autechre show was pretty much what i expected. they didn't go on until 12:30 so we had dinner and walked around the city a bit beforehand. they were done by 2am and i got home at about 4:30 because there was a major delay getting on the bridge.

i feel very lazy right now.

5-19-05 (19:06)

life has been unusually busy lately.

have an autechre concert to attend tomorrow. it's in SF and it's going from 9p-3a so i'm going to be screwed come saturday morning when i have to open the store at 9am. oh well. they only come around once every few years so i have to go.

detroit/indiana game is on right now. the playoffs always screw with my movie watching schedule. i hope the pacers win.

went to berkeley/albany with meryl on tuesday night and most of wednesday. went to johnny's, shopped around telegraph and visited her family.

updated movies i own list.

updated cds i own list.

updated recommendations.

cinderella man looks like a piece of crap film.

chris miller is on jeopardy again. go chris.

updated my movie site a bit. i think it's pretty locked in at this point.

5-16-05 (21:12)

"A bipartisan coalition of 132 U.S. mayors -- led by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels (D), and recently joined by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) -- has issued a high-profile rebuke of Bush administration inaction on climate change. The leaders have committed to reducing their municipalities' greenhouse-gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, in line with Kyoto treaty targets. While the Bush team says Kyoto would devastate the economy, many mayors are signing on precisely for economic reasons. Nickels was jarred by a series of dry winters, threatening Seattle's drinking water and hydropower sources. The mayor of Bellevue, Neb., is worried about the effects of droughts on farms. The mayor of New Orleans is concerned about the effects of rising sea levels on, uh, "the very existence of New Orleans" (economic enough for ya?). And so on. Says Republican Alan Arakawa, mayor of Maui County, Hawaii, "I'm hoping it sends a message [Bush administration officials] really need to start looking at what's really happening in the real world.""

worked today instead of taking the day off. will work tomorrow and then have wednesday off. will work thursday, friday and saturday and then see what happens after that. i wanted to try splitting up my off days for a couple weeks so that i could spend time with meryl on wednesdays and see how that works out.

melanie and i haven't seen each other in quite some time. that situation is pretty lame right now.

having intermittent problems with e-mail. fucking mercury in retrograde.

my movie watching habits have been downright pathetic lately.

fixed a minor problem in my all movies sorted alphabetically tab, which found on the movies listed page.

5-15-05 (09:26)

had to get a new isp and i'm having trouble sending email to certain accounts. fucking obnoxious.

jon - autechre is coming to the mezzanine in SF, friday 5/20, $18. one of only two shows in california. wanna go?

5-14-05 (18:39)

updated movies list.

so hot in my place that i don't feel like writing reviews or anything.

going to watch hitchhiker's guide tonight.

5-13-05 (18:15)

in a lot of ways i have the worst self-confidence of all the people i know, but in other ways my self-confidence is rather strong. i've pretty much always refused to compromise my values for others and i've settled very infrequently. it's odd that i can think i'm bad at all sorts of things and that i'm not worthy of affection, but i can stand up for myself, and my values, when it comes to peer pressure and such. when it comes to my career, i think i've definitely settled and rationalized that decision, but i'm pretty okay with it.

this sucks. i always thought chappelle to be a very stable, sane person.

"Yokohama, Japan, a city of 3.5 million, recently sent its citizens a 27-page instruction book on how to sort trash for recycling into 10 different categories, detailing how to dispose of more than 500 separate items, from used lipstick tubes to old socks. The city aims to slash the amount of waste being sent to incinerators by 30 percent by 2010. Kamikatsu, a small town of 2,200 residents, has set its goal even higher -- no garbage thrown out at all by 2020. To achieve this lofty aim, the town requires citizens to sort their waste into a growing number of recycling categories -- now standing at 44. Of course, some residents grumble that the sorting is too complicated for mere mortals, but despite complaints, in the last four years, Kamikatsu's recycling rate has hovered around 80 percent. Intense social pressure helps, with volunteer garbage guardians across Japan inspecting their neighbors' sorting efforts and pestering laggards to get with the program."

5-10-05 (19:42)

i don't like drugs, but i do wish that aerosmith still did them because they were much better when they were high. oh well.

well, hoop dreams came out on dvd today. that means i'm almost a complete person. that documentary is so boss.

bought some great films today. updated movies i own list.

apparently the new weezer album sucks chode.

updated movies list.

5-9-05 (19:53)

updated movies list.

just got an email from melanie that said she doesn't want to hang out with me for a while. i generally construct my life to avoid drama, but this time in my life seems to be the exception to that.

melanie had a drunken rant on her webpage where she told me to fuck off and go to hell. the whole thing is so contrary to the majority of my life. it sounded like she genuinely hated me for moving on and for holding her to a high standard (with regard to drinking and drugs) while i was with her. i know that it's mostly the alcohol and grief speaking, but it still hurts. i guess i can only wait to see how things will settle. my overriding feeling right now about the whole thing is worry because i don't want her to do anything that will hurt her in the long run.

i'd definitely consider myself more of a democrat than a republican, but i think that people should be held to high standards, rather than simply forgiving them for all their transgressions and screw-ups. forgiveness is certainly important and more powerful than vengeance, but i think that too often it is the response of liberals to forgive without expressing disappointment and the expectation of better behavior. with everything, though, it's about balance and flexibility.

i always felt that melanie needed to have high expectations with a foundation of love and understanding and i always tried to convey that to her, but i apparently failed.

i also failed to relay my feelings about her here. not that that changed the outcome of us, but i suppose it was a mistake.

i met meryl's mom, stepdad and brother on saturday. i was extremely nervous beforehand, but at ease once we sat down to eat.

blackalicious are great.

i was thinking about marriage the other day and that one reason i don't like the idea of it is that it seeks permanence in an impermanent, ever-changing, chaotic world. in that sense nietzsche might call it life-denying. i think, though, that that's the most romantic part of it for many people. then again, marriage doesn't mean much these days anyway.

www.millersmovies.com

the nba playoffs are shaping up to be quite boring.

didn't do shit today.

5-8-05 (12:03)

i don't think seattle has a chance against the spurs. defense wins championships and the spurs have very good defense and more experience.

i never once considered shaq an mvp candidate. he's good and he's made a difference, but wade is more important to that team. nash was the clear winner to me so i don't understand the controversy.

george lucas is such a whore and a wannabe spielberg, it's rather pathetic. watching yoda trying to steal some guy's diet pepsi was the low point of my day yesterday. i'm just waiting for the end of "revenge of the sith" when yoda kicks some ass and then opens a bag of reese's pieces (ala E.T) to celebrate.

alonzo mourning is a good guy and all, but i hope he realizes that he was able to survive his kidney problems more because of the great healthcare he received as a millionaire, than because god wanted him to live longer.

having the day off is pretty nice. actually i have to work an hour today because someone called in sick, but i'm really enjoying time to just sit around and watch basketball and eat a leisurely meal.

5-6-05 (18:19)

"The Bush administration yesterday gave the heave-ho to the sweeping Clinton administration roadless rule, which put some 58.5 million acres of national forests off-limits to development. In its place, a new rule will put 34.3 million acres of that land back into play, at the discretion of governors, who will have 18 months to petition the feds either to open national-forest land in their states to development or keep it protected. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey claimed that "the way [the Clinton rule] was done developed a substantial amount of ill will." As more than 90 percent of the public comments on the Clinton rule were positive, while more than 95 percent (nearly 1.8 million) on the Bush rule were negative, said "ill will" likely came primarily from the oil, gas, logging, mining, and road-building industries. Said a spokesflack for the Independent Petroleum Association of America, "We have to find ways and work with local communities to evaluate these lands and see if they are best for oil and gas activities, recreation, whatever." Whatever, please."

updated movies list.

5-5-05 (19:48)

updated movies list.

watched one of the worst films of all-time last night. god it was awful.

got my tax return the other day and made a big payment to my credit card. i have a good amount of debt to go, but it's all 0% apr so i'm in pretty good shape right now.

5-4-05 (22:07)

updated movies i own list.

updated movies list.

5-2-05 (18:38)

needless to say i'm very disappointed by the kings' loss yesterday. i'm not going to count them out because i know better than that, but it's not likely. the playoffs this year have been boring.

ray allen single-handedly beat us. it should be clear to anyone who follows the kings that we lost yesterday's game because we didn't have doug christie. mobley is a good player and very good offensively, but doug christie would have turned a 45 point day into a 30 point day. it's too bad, too, because peja had his best effort of the series wasted. that said, he didn't score any points in the fourth quarter. we need to trade him.

it's pretty warm right now.

worked on getting a search tool for the webpage today, but it's going very slowly. i found one that's good, but it takes all sorts of configuring and i don't know anything about perl so i'm having trouble working everything out.

guess i'll go watch another movie or two.

5-1-05 (11:50)

i think allen iverson is great. whatever you may say about his personality i think he's a great player and a real warrior on the court. he plays every minute, makes his teammates better and has an amazing amount of talent for his (or any) size.

i've had a lot going on lately. today will be a good day to clear my mind. watch some basketball and just hang out. going to the kings game tonight. it's pretty nice to be able to go to so many kings games. i wish i had espn right now so i could watch webber.

cut my hair today.

13:17

as soon as i saw that the game went into ot i biked over to woodstock's to catch the ot period. needless to say i was very disappointed by the result.

i wonder if shaq has ever gone an entire half without scoring.

bill walton is just a shaq apologist. i wish they'd just fuck each other already.

i have 60 days of music now.

updated movies i own list.

updated cd list.

updated movies list.