Ramblings and Musings

With a bunch of random thoughts spinning around my head, I have no real topic that I feel compelled to write about, yet I have this huge desire to pen something.

Anything.

I'm sitting here on Freehold with LU and Weeg, both of whom seem to be idling, or dead - only time will tell when they start talking again. I miss the times when this place used to be jumping. I looked forward to talking to my friend, EllisDee, when I got home from work (God rest his soul). We'd spend hours upon hours talking about everything and nothing at all. Movie quotes, singing along with our favorite tunes, trading MP3's back and forth, or even flirting with a few of the other female spodders.

Good times.

Happy times.

Now, all I'm left with are the fleeting memories, soon to be vague whispers and shadows of my mind. I'll do what I can to hang onto them for as long as I can, but it doesn't look good. I seem to be at a point in my life when all the friends I've had are moving on, moving out, drifting away or dying off. I'm not angry or mad. Quite the contrary. I think if I had to associate a feeling with it, I'd say I was afraid. Not of my mortality... Just being alone.

Well, now that I've painted myself into a bit of a melancholy funk, I think I'll try to take my mind off of it somehow. I dunno, maybe read for a bit or listen to some music.

Oh, one last thing, I don't know how I should tell a certain somebody that I've had a crush on them for a while now. Maybe I'll dwell on this for a while before I write anymore about it. More to come.

Who writes this stuff??

As promised, I'm following up last week's posting with my review of X-Men: The Last Stand. Being a fan of the comics back in the early 90's, I was mortified at the outcome of several key players, especially the ones who were among the most powerful mutants. I don't want to give away anymore spoilers (well, anymore than I already have), but this movie had the appearance of a first attempt effort to launch a franchise rather than a third movie in a highly successful series. The acting was sub-par, with notable exceptions (Ian McKellan, as always, does a wonderful job as Magneto, but towards the end of the film, the acting coach must have taken a nap because he started to seem like a feeble old man, rather than the powerful leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants; Halle Berry, although her reprise of Storm was a bit more strong character-wise than her earlier version, she still played an almost a minor role rather than the newly appointed leader of the X-Men should have; and Hugh Jackman - it's almost like he was born to play Wolverine. From his one liners to his almost ferral ferociousness when slicing and dicing with the ol' Adamantium claws, he once again shows why he should have his own line of Wolverine movies). There was hardly any musical score to set the tempo, the editing was poor and the script was poorly written.

On the plus side, it did have a large amount of classic hack and slash combat that you'd expect from this franchise. I've heard rumors that this is the last film for the X-Men, but with the amount of questions still left to be answered, it's hopeful that someone will pick up the ball and run with this. Anyway, the DVD will find itself on my shelf when it's released. Who can break up a series? It'd be like buying a complete encyclopedia set and not getting books R, S & T!

That being said, this is my brief review of X-Men 3. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a 5. Not great (not by a long shot), but not as bad as the rest of the critics say it is. I'm glad I paid matinee prices and not full.

Summer is just around the corner...

...and you know what that means. Another crop of "blockbusters" to hit the big screen. Okay, okay, so I know that I haven't written anything in the past four months, but, lately, I haven't been in the mood to post my life, let alone, not really have much to write about. Anyway, who cares? This is going to be more of a movie review than a tidbit of my life thus far.

Last night, I went to see The DaVinci Code with my friends, Matt and Fawn. Having read the book (several times), and loving it each time, I waited for the better part of a year to see it after reading the announcement that a movie was being made. It was a (pretty) faithful adaptation of the book, with only a handful of discrepancies throughout. The movie didn't keep me in suspense as much as the book did, and Tom Hanks was certainly miscast as Robert Langdon (I have to agree with the critics on this one - I don't know, I kind of pictured the character different, that's all). Ian McKellan was good as good as Teabing, but I thought Audrey Tautou was great as Sophie (not to mention gorgeous!). I know that in the course of a 2 and a half hour movie, there's not much room for character development, but the roles of Fauche, Silas and Bishop Aringarosa were almost non-existent. But, if you're like me, and re-read the book before going to see the movie, the subtle nuances of the characters that Ron Howard left in were picked up by keen observation. All in all, I'd give it a 3 and a half to 4 out of 5. Not great, but certainly not the dud that the critics are panning it as. I'll certainly pick up the DVD when it comes out and, hopefully, a bunch of extra features will be included.

Next week, more of Sir Ian McKellan in my review of X-Men 3 (and maybe a post about me as well).

The past 48 (or so)

Thursday, I spent the day in bed with a potpourri of symptoms ranging from fever, nausea, lethargy, muscle aches, double vision and general blah (can that even be considered a symptom??). I don't think I was out of bed for more than a total of 3 hours, and that was to visit the bathroom frequently (frequently, hell, it seemed like I was up more than I was down). Anyway, come Friday, I was like a new man. I had not a single symptom left over from the day before.

Work was uneventful, which is surprising, considering the crap that's been going on for the past couple of months. But, I can feel things coming to a head.

I finally "backed up" my first DVD. Only took me two attempts and three hours, too! Yippee! Actually, the first attempt failed because the program I was using didn't support the drive. Turns out, I needed the newest version, so, after I downloaded it, installed it and tried again (with a time out for dinner), I had my first copy in my hands. To add insult to injury, when I put the disc in my player, the machine kept saying 'No Disc Loaded' and made a painful grinding sound. I tried the disc out on my PC, as well as various other DVD players throughout the house, and it played flawlessly. So, now I get to dump more cash into a new DVD player (I have an S-video cable connected to my TV from the PC's video card, but the picture quality is about the same as watching a video tape that's 10 years old - horrible). Needless to say, guess what I'll be doing this afternoon?

Anyway, that's about it. Maybe I'll write more this evening, but most likely, not.

Blah blah blah

Okay, so a couple of days have passed and nothing new has been happening. I did, however, get my new NEC DVD+R/RW dual layer drive this afternoon, so I spent the evening putting it into my Dell. It took some finessing, what with having to remove the front accent piece (the drive slides out from the front and the plastic molding just barely covers the edges of the drives), so rather than use brute force, I had to play around for a while. After a little while, I got it in, got all the cables connected and away I went. It works pretty nice, too. Fast open/close and speed up time was really quick. Not bad for $50 on Amazon. Now all I need to do is wait for the dual layer discs to get here and I'll be set (on the down side, the order was sent to two different vendors, so the delivery times didn't sync up).

If it seems like I'm rambling, I've got a serious cramp in my neck, so I took a couple of oxycotins to help ease my suffering. Monday and Tuesday I was painting the kitchen and it took me that long to put several coats on the textured ceiling (who in their right mind puts a textured ceiling up in the kitchen, let alone anywhere anymore?!?). So, with all the looking up, my neck is not quite right.

I think I'll pop in a movie and call it a night.

Say what?!?

Whatd'ya mean it's 2006 already?!? Holy crap! I've really been fucking off and not posting. Sorry folks (okay, folk...actually, just Jamie, who recently said that I really need to update this).

So life's been extremely hectic as of late. It's hard being a single parent, what with the schooling and feeding and clothing the little rugrat. Fucking laws... When I was a kid, I was lucky to have a bit of string and some used bubble gum for clothing and food, but not necessarily in that order. Holy shit! Nowadays, especially in Jersey, you get dragged out into the street, drawn, quartered and the pieces parts burned to a charred crisp if you so much as raise your voice to your own kid! What the fuck?!?

Anywho, I figured I'd post this really horrible picture of me with a nifty shirt that Jamie sent to me, seeings as how I was down in the dumps these past few months. So, now's your chance. If you're squeamish or faint of heart, close your browser, hit the "Back" button, run for the hills or whatever you need to do to keep from hurling the remains of your lunch across your screen (as a footnote, publisher and author are not responsible for subsequent damage to your computer equipment - you've been warned!)




And, before you ask, yes, I'm wearing jammies. Fuck you, they're comfortable.

Besides raising my son, I've also been running ragged at work. Stress sucks. I just can't wait until they shitcan that fucktard they call a manager. God, what a fuck up. Can't file paperwork worth a damn, can't remember shit, has absolutely ZERO people skills. Rumor has it that it's only a matter of time before he's gone (and maybe his wife will quit as well, or, with any luck, she'll get fired, too). That means there's only one direction for me, and no, it's not down, Mark, so fuck you. Just kidding.

Anyway, I think I'm going to kill me some Nazis on my son's Xbox. Well, not *real* Nazis. Just the ones in Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (holy fuck and a half, what a kick ass game!!). Hopefully, I'll get back to posting on a quasi-regular schedule again. Wish me luck!

Up to speed

Okay, okay...Before I start hearing all the complaints (well, at least one or two) about me not posting for a long time, let me explain why I've been pretty scarce.

It started out in the middle of June. I finally got my copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from Amazon.com. Needless to say, I spent almost every waking moment with it. It was my closest friend. Well, that's not true. I did play it a lot, though. A couple of days later, my son, Ryan, came down to stay with me for a couple of months for the summer. That was cool.

About halfway through the summer, after constant begging by Ryan to his mother, she finally relented and gave her okay for him to come live with me (at least for the school year - longer if he really liked it and wanted to stay). I was stoked!

A few weeks later, I started seeing my current girlfriend, but with her raising two kids and working a job with horrendous hours, we didn't spend as much time together as we did when we first started dating. It was cool, though, because her older son and Ryan seem to get along pretty good together. I talk to her infrequently (like once or twice a week for a few minutes here and there) and see her even less. I'm not sure if I want to dump her or not. I like her enough, but I think I want to be with someone who wants to spend time with me, not call and say 'Oh, it's been a while since I'd talked to you." I'll mull this over a bit more.

So now we're up to a few weeks ago. Ryan went back to his mother's for a week to pack his clothes and toys and such while I went back and forth to the school to get him registered in class, get his bus schedule, etc...

School started on the 6th and it was quite a system shock for me to get up at six o'clock in the morning to get Ryan up and ready for the day. He definitely likes this school better than the one he went to last year while he was with his mother. Surprisingly, he's told me that he likes the food here better, too. Go figure.

Anyway, that's pretty much the condensed version of how things are going with me, or otherwise known as: How I spent my summer (non) vacation. More good things to come (I hope!).