Oh Cristmas Tree

Most people do the whole Christmas tree and decorations thing. My family is no different we just do so in the manner of all things Robinson. That is in the most round about manner possible.

On Sunday my family wanted to go chop down a tree. This usually involves arguing for a few hours about getting ready, bundling up, hiking into the backwoods (on our land so it is legal), then picking a tree we like. After we find the tree we like, we travel all over the backwoods in hopes that there's a better tree. We then trek back to the original tree we liked. We hand off my Dad's axe, usually between me and my siblings (occasionally cousins or friends who got suckered into accompanying us). We then drag the tree back to the car (usually done by me and my siblings) and take it back to the house.

Once the tree is back to the house, my dad saws off a bunch of the branches at the bottom and part of the trunk because the tree is too tall. (This year was the only year in history the tree was not too tall.) We then put it in the stand and spend twenty or so minutes telling each other that the tree is crooked.

If we're lucky enough to agree that the tree is straight we then argue about where to put said tree. Should it go  in the corner by the plants? (Trick question there are plants in every corner.) Should it go by the window? Should we remove the coffee table and stick it there? Should we put it by the corner cabinet? Should we stuff in the space between the side table, couch, and china cabinet? (God, there's a lot of furniture in that living room.) Eventually we decide to just shove it in the corner between the couch, side table, and china cabinet. The one corner in the entire room that makes decorating the tree an acrobatic sport.

Once the tree has been properly placed, we discover that it's crooked and spend another ten minutes telling each other this. Then three days later we actually straighten it out.

After we've informed everyone that the tree is crooked, we argue for about an hour on who's going to bring up the giant box of Christmas decorations. This argument involves lots of just a minutes, hold ons, and hurry ups. Eventually I end up caring it up with either the help of my mom or the help of my younger sister. Usually after my dad yells at me to hurry up, then lays down to nap in the middle of the living room floor making the task more difficult.

We then usually end up turning on A Charlie Brown Christmas while we do the decorating. It's usually my mom and younger sister who actually bother to unearth the ornaments. My sister(s) in an attempt to make the tree look "beautiful" usually chastise my ornament placement and selection so I flee to the sofa, where I watch the cartoon, what's going on around me, and generally just be in the way for when they need to stand on something. My dad's usually not in the room and asleep somewhere, or laying in the living room floor and sleeping. My grandma sits in her rocking chair and informs us of how nice the tree is looking. Then, the peanut gallery of whatever relatives happen to be visiting cram into the living room and ask where we got each and every ornament. Eventually however the tree is decorated with minimal yelling. Then we have to clean up all the ornament boxes, paper clips, ornaments not used, tinsle,  and whatever else escaped our giant red Christmas box.

We've finally picked up the stuff then the argument as to who's taking the box down ensues. It's the same argument as before and eventually me and my younger sister end up hauling it down.

Once the tree is up there are a couple scenarios.

1. My dad may or may not set up the train around it. (It depends on whether or not he's fixed it from the previous year.)

2. The dog(s) will claim it as their new sleeping area.

3. We'll finally stick some presents under there, once we actually go and buy them at the last minute. Or we'll just inform each other how we got each other something, but it hasn't come in the mail yet.

4. The cat will either try to climb the tree or, on one occasion, the table runner on top of the china cabinet that the nativity set was stationed on.

5. We'll get around to sticking candy canes on the tree, usually after Christmas when my mom or grandma remembers that they bought some.
Then the candy canes will all be eaten by two or three of the same people leaving everyone else to complain how they didn't get any.
When we finally take down the tree (usually mid February) we discover that there are actually a bunch of them on the back side. Then the same two or three people will eat those.

Everyone's got their family traditions. In my family the traditions that are consistent from year to year are usually the ones making people yell, pout, or in general just be grumpy. Though, we do do a spectacular job of spreading that Christmas cheer to people we're not related to.

What the Hell?

While my family is notorious for ridiculous arguments, the ones that involve my wallet chain usually top the cake. Last night I had been at my parent's (well technically my Grandma's) house for less then twenty-four hours when there was a blow up.

We were getting ready to leave for a dinner/choir event my younger sister was participating in at the high school. We were literally moments away from leaving. I grabbed my wallet like people do when they go places. I put barely any thought into it. It's habit for me when I have my wallet I have my chain.

I had just put it on when my dad informed me that I was not wearing my chain. I said that I was an adult and I would dress how I pleased. My dad shut up for a moment after that statement. I continued about my business. Then my dad realized he could make a big deal about it. He threw a tantrum.

As I've noted (see Problem Solving), arguments in my family suffer from shear ridiculousness. They are very rarely actually about anything important. My dad's tantrum consisted of this. He started off just being pissed off and yelling. He then stormed upstairs and started to change out of his dress clothes. He wasn't going to go if I wore my chain. While he was throwing his tantrum my family took up the cause as well.

My mom told me that I was barely dressed up as is. (Note: When we actually got to the dinner, I was actually complimented on the niceness of my sweater and it took every muscle in my face to avoid being a smart ass.) Then my dad came down without his jacket and yelled at me some more. Then he headed back upstairs. Then my aunt took up the cause. She informed me that my dad was embarrassed by my chain. My dad then came back downstairs with his shirt unbuttoned and without a tie to yell at me some more. He then went back upstairs. my younger sister joined my cause and said that my dad just didn't want to go. My dad came back downstairs with normal clothes on and yelled some more. He then went back upstairs. Then the guilt trips were laid on my grandma was talking about how she never would have disobeyed her father. Then my aunt said that they make my cousins take off their chains as well. Then my mom started arguing about with my dad telling him to get dressed again.

It went on like that for twenty minutes. There was various levels of arguing, guilt tripping, and yelling. As well as my dad going up in down the stairs in various levels of clothing. It was beyond all else ridiculous. Eventually I did just take off the chain. It was more for the reason that my sister was going to be late than any other reason. I would have been perfectly fine having not gone and would have out stubborned my father had it not been for my sister needing to be on time. (It would be nice if my dad didn't always get his way.) Growing up I was late to all manner of things because of arguments, so I knew where she was coming from.

I'm not saying that I reacted in the best way possible or even that I wasn't just being a stubborn jackass, but there are a few things said I call total bullshit on.

1. That my dad was embarrassed.  If my dad is so embarrassed by a strip of metal that he won't be seen in public with me, that's just shit. Sorry, but honestly I'm the one with the jingly ass. It really doesn't affect you.

2. That my wearing the chain was disrespectful. Sorry, but no it's not. My chain doesn't attack or damage anything. (Not counting the occasional chair that get's scratched. Sorry chair.) It doesn't say or do anything offensive. To be honest, it's more disrespectful for you refuse to go to something based on the way a person is dressed.

3. That my wearing a chain was the equivalent of me wearing too much make-up or a skimpy bikini. Once I'd removed the chain and we were waiting for my dad to put his clothes back on, I got the lectures. My grandma informed me that when she was a teenager and she'd go out, her father would inform her to wipe off lipstick if there was too much on. My aunt lectured me about how she once bought a bikini and her father refused to let her wear it. A chain is for the purpose of my not loosing my wallet (plus I like jingling). It actually has a practical purpose. It's not for the sake of looking sexy or pretty and I'm not trying to impress anyone by wearing it. I'm also not showing any part of my body off. (And what's the big deal about a bikini anyways?)

4. My father wanted to be proud of me. I would just like to know how my clothing in anyway shape or form should affect how proud someone is of me. 

I think the most absurd thing is what happened next. After the lectures and the redressing, we finally all crammed into the car. This of course means my dad sat in the trunk because he was too cheep to spend the gas on driving two cars so everyone had a seat belt. (It should be noted my family does this a lot.) While we were all packed into the vehicle, my aunt decided to get all worked up about how my dad would die if we got into an accident. (By this point an accident actually didn't sound so bad.)

Somehow though we got past all the whining and praying for a meteorite to smash into the car and actually were having a legitimate conversation about religion. Religion. We can't diplomatically decide whether or not  I should wear a wallet chain, but we can discuss religion and no one was even grumpy. What the hell?

Even Jesus found this funny.

You Might Be A Film Student

Over the last few months I've discovered things that are very much characteristics of film students. Here are a few.

• If you have the IMDb app on your phone.
• If porn bothers you because of bad lighting
• If you hate a movie's story, but watch it anyways because the production design is beautiful

Exhibit A

• If you just don't eat because there's no food aloud in the lab
• If you you can't sleep because you can't remember where you've seen the actor playing that minor character before.
• If you randomly spout off information about how to set up a scene
• If you actually watch the DVD extras
• If you hate the Star Wars prequels
• If you willing stand in the snow for hours for snack foods
• If you willingly stand in the rain for hours because it looks cool on film.
• If you bring three umbrellas and none of them are for you.
• If you don't jay walk because you are concerned about the film equipment you are carrying and how much it would cost to replace it if a car hit you.
• If you see giant chickens in the hallway and think little of it
• If Halloween is the most bad ass day of the year.
• If you have forgotten what sleep is

 

To be fair you might just be a college student.

• If you get that one obscure reference in that one movie that no one has ever seen
• If you get that one obscure reference to a film no one's ever seen in a movie everyone's scene.
• If you spend any free time you have watching movies.
• If you think in film clips.
• If someone says, "The new trailer for The Lone Ranger came out," and the entire class crowds around their laptop. 

 

These is the looks we had when we watched the trailer for Twilight

• If you can recognize films you've never seen by name.
• If you can recognize where a movies from based on the cinematography style.
• If dubs on live action moves are unbearable.
• If you changed your original story because the acting wasn't good enough to fit the original script.
• If you have had debates about special effects.
• If you appreciate even the worst movie because you know how much effort it takes to make them.
• If you can recognize the difference between bad acting and bad writing.

 

 

 

This is bad acting.

This is bad writing.

• If you are annoyingly good at figuring out what happens next.
• If you've been bludgeoned, beaten, or harmed in anyway for your annoying ability to predict what happens next.
• If you have punched, thrown, or kicked things, because you predicted the big twist.

Bitch, shut up! I want the movie to tell me Bruce Willis is a ghost!

I'm sure that there are more, but for now these are all the ones I can think of. I'll post more later if I think of them.

A Message From The UWA

In the future, women get so fed up with men and their macho additudes that they take complete control of the USA. The United States of America is renamed the United Women of America (UWA). The national anthem is replaced with I Am Woman by Helen Reddy. A Matriach takes the place of the President.

Men are discovered to be inferior to women. Men are 70% more likely to die in a car accident than women. Married men live longer than single men, so it's determined that men need women to survive. Whereas single women live longer than married women.

For their protection, men's driver's licenses are revoked and they are confined to the protection of their women family members. A man can't travel without the consent of their wife, mother, or elder sister. They take to staying at home. They take care of their screaming children, do dishes, and make sandwiches for their wives. Eventually head coverings and dresses become standard wear in their society.

Since the founding of The UWA, there has been no participation in war. Conflicts have been resolved with diplomacy. It is determined that men shouldn't serve in the military because they are too likely to cause conflict. The military's budget has been cut drastically and the remaining budget has been better spread to benifit veterans and serving members of the armed forces.

Health care has been socialized and covers contraception as well as abortion and midol. Sex education in schools is actually informative as to the actual effects of having sex. Maternity leave is rarely an issue in any buisness field. Research in the medical field has increased and many different diseases have been cured.

Education has improved. The UWA is a world leader in education. College has become more affordable and more jobs are available upon graduation.

Scientific research has helped to find cleaner fuels and develop less waste. Polution in North America hasn't been this so low since before Europeans stuck their nose in its business. Most everything comes from a renewable resource. Products are once again built to last. Technologies have been built to improve efficiency and productivity. The economy rises until The UWA is in fact the best country in the world to live.

This has been a message from The United Women of America.

This was the idea behind a utopian/distopian society me and my friends created for our English class my senior year. We actually researched all sorts of statistics in order to create effective propaganda. We started our presentation by playing our national anthem. Then I, the Matriarch gave a speach. There was then a news cast filled with propaganda (and a reference to the Hunger Games because the other girl in the group would not let it go). Then we finished with the two guys dressed in skirts and head covering explain the basic life of a male in our society. The goal was to be as sexist as possible and some of the statistics we found helped a lot with that.

Now that I think about, it sounds a bit like the premise of a bad 1950's horror film.

In The Name of Education

People do all sorts of things in order to get a good education. In America people do all sorts of things to bs their way around a good education.

Everyone remembers those projects in school that seemed so endlessly boring until you and your friends came up with a creative way to get credit while doing very little actual work or doing plenty of work, but designing it solely for the purpose of pissing off the teacher (or in my case to piss off that one kid in the back of the room).

My older sister's boyfriend once put together a business plan for a Baby Farm. I'm talking in the style of A Modest Proposal. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, your English classes sucked or you were asleep.) That's right him and his friends put together a legitimate project on selling babies for food. They had to get full points for doing the project, but completely pissed off the teacher.

My freshman year of high school I had science class with two of my best guys friends. We had a truly pathetic teacher. He was one of those teachers that was there for coaching and nothing else. We spent the entire year having doodle battles in his class, we were responsible for his aversion to the term "blast off", and we turned in the same assignment for every one due and still got full points. I actually once answered the question "Where does lightning come from?" with "God doesn't like people so he shoots lightning at them." When it asked me to draw a diagram of this, I drew a picture off God zapping people with lightning. I still got full points. This teacher hated us a lot. Our sophmore year when some of our freshman friends had the same teacher we'd bother them before class started. We actually got physically banned from ever entering his classroom again.

My sophmore year of high school I took world history with a couple of my friends. I actually liked this class, but was no less lazy because of this fact. When the teacher would give us layered curriculum, I'd do enough of the super simple D and C projects so I would pass no matter what. Then me and my friends would make a video for the A level. We'd then turn it in without doing any B projects and still get an A because the teacher couldn't figure out how to calculate it. Also she was never quite sure if she just lost the project I did.
A Side Note: these videos were really bad yet historically accurate as far as the facts. They weren't so historically accurate as far as the portrayal of modern teenagers playing entire countries, potatoes, mold, continents, plagues, and just about anything that could lead to us tackling my friend, Veg.

My junior year of high school for psychology class me and my friend had to conduct a study. We decided to see how people might react to a survey taker based on how they were dressed. After standing in front of Wal-Mart all day wearing camo, a pirate costume, and regular clothes, we discovered that people don't want to take surveys period. If you're dressed funny they are likely to just runaway (literally). We were supposed to do several days of this, but since we are lazy and procrastinators we waited until the last minute and did it only once. We then just shoved everything together to resemble data and then did a presentation where we just described some of the better reactions we received.

My senior year of high school while we were reading 1984 in English class we had to come up with a distopian society that relates to the one in 1984. Me and my pals did a matriarchy. We actually got quite into this one and ended up doing way more research and work than was necessary. It turned out totally awesome and we even got the teacher to try and convince the class to argue for it being a Utopia (The Fish as we called him was quite awesome). Also we managed to piss off that one kid in the back.

Now that I'm in college I still bs projects. (Mostly English essays which I still get A's on.) I, however am far more dedicated to most of my classes than I was in high school. Yesterday I was an actor in one of my classmate's short films. Since it was a mock mad scientist horror movie I played the experiment. I spent three hours duct taped to a bench that was ripped out of the back of a van, in the basement of an old church. My friends (the crew) of course couldn't pass up the opportunity to torture me once I had no way to evade their attacks or fight back. My feet were slapped repeatedly. While, I got to lay there and do nothing for most of the shoot it wasn't exactly comfortable. (Seriously, try it sometime.) I felt very much like I was abducted, by jerry-rigging aliens. I had people standing over me holding boom mikes, cameras, and tripods (not to mention their constant poking) My forehead was dabbed repeatedly with a mysterious smelling cloth that was dipped in a bowl of teeth filled water. I'm either going to die from some mysterious disease or gain immortality. (Result are pending.) If I wasn't a film student I would not be doing this. If I wasn't dedicated to this I also would not be doing this.

The things we do in the name of and education. Or rather the things I do for an education.

If I Were a Villian

Authors often base characters off of themselves, or rather a more interesting and exciting version of themselves. However, when doing so they are either the good guys, the sidekicks, or the comic relief background characters.

I thought it would be interesting to write a villain based off of myself rather than the good guy. This brought about me thinking as to what type of villain I'd be. Which brought about the realization that I'd make a horrible villain. It's not even because my morals aren't fluid enough, or because I can't think up bad ass schemes. It is because I am lazy as all hell.

I personally am not that interested in ruling the world. If say due to some strange cartoon/movie back story I am expected to try and rule the world, I would half ass it. That is if I even bothered to try.

Like This Fellow Here

I'm not much of one for trying to please my family. In fact, as I'm sure I've stated multiple times on this blog, most of them annoy the crap out of me and I couldn't care less what their expectations are.

Let's say I was actually super dedicated to ruling the world. The only way that would happen is if I came across the idea on my own and was really into the idea. I would need some sort of motivation and it would need to be something that would be incredibly fun to accomplish.

Revenge would not be much of a motivator for me. If someone were to jack up my face so that I looked like two face, I would probably be quite forgiving. Actually chances are I'd have caused it in the first place.

One scooter ride to school gone terribly wrong.

But if someone were to mess up one of my friends or close relatives, there would be hell to pay.

Drop a house on my sister and steal her shoes?! You better hope they're magical!

Now let's explore the different types of villain I would be.

1. The World Dominator
If I was actually driven to be a villain, I'd do it very much in the world domination sense.

Blowing stuff up is for amateurs.

I would go all out in my attempts. I would do everything I could think of to take over and I would succeed. The world would be one awesome place for me to control. I would seriously be one badass world dominating villain. Hell there's even a chance that due to my clumsiness I will end up with the nasty facial scars as well.

The blue skin is optional.

2. Dude With The Vendetta

I shall win your freedom from the first villain I am.

I would only be a villain to the bad guys that screwed me over previously. Which ironically enough would probably make me the good guy with loose morals. Not above killing people or stealing if it's from the bad guys.

Did Robin Hood ever kill anyone?

You can pretty much scratch the idea of me becoming a villain based on revenge. A freedom fighter or anti-hero maybe.

3. The Villains Sidekick
This is the most likely version of a villain I would be. Actually there's a pretty good chance I would be exactly like Shego from Kim Possible.

Totally not this ninja though.

More like this ninja.

Shego is one of Kim Possible's villains that actually kicks ass. She doesn't have the motivation to actually come up with a plan for world domination. She's pretty much just there watching all of Drakken's attempts ready to seize power if the opportunity arrises. And mock him with sarcastic comments. (Something I am very good at.)

Who didn't love this show?

 Even her backstory seems quite fitting as to how I could end up on the villain side of things. She has an obnoxious family that fights crime. Well, the obnoxious family part is pretty familiar at least.

Unless this is what my 84 year old grandmother does in her free time.

She turns to villainy.

Presumably because Rainbow Bright was no longer their leader.

Honestly if I had to fight crime with my siblings, I'd go crazy. While I love them dearly, I would much rather be the sidekick to a subpar villain. As I learned in the years growing up as a middle child (also like Shego), I really had no say in things. The standard order of things is eldest bosses around middle and youngest, middle bosses around youngest, youngest sucks it up. In my family, that's not the case. My older sister bossed me around and my younger sister bossed me around as well. (or at least she attempted to, then slapped me when it didn't work.)

If I were to fight crime with them, my older sister would likely choose to be the leader and my younger sister would pick second in command. I would no doubt drive my siblings insane by my not worrying about it until it happens. My older sister would drive me insane by bickering about how I didn't care enough about my job, worrying about when our nemesis will attack again, and over doing the practice. And my younger sister would likely drive us all insane when she'd get tired and hungry after a fight.

Depicted: Me (left) arguing with my older sister, but I'm actually taller than her.

There'd be constant bickering over who got to drive the Robinson Mobile (or whatever the hell we decided to creatively name it) and who got to sit shot gun. Living in a tower together would often lead to us using our assumedly badass powers on each other and as a result destroying the tower.

The Robinson Mobile
It's actually not that badass inside either.

My siblings and I are super close, but boy do we make a bad team. We couldn't even team up to fight a sink of dirty dishes.

Our Arch-nemesis.

So those are the basic ways in which I could/would become a villain. But seeing as I have very little motivation to build a doomsday device or enslave an entire population, it's not gonna happen anytime soon. More than likely I would just end up being friends with someone who either has the motivation to save the world or dominate it and would by default end up being the clumsy comic relief sidekick.

This guy with less screaming and complaining.

And taking into account my overall luck and my cloaking device, I would likely end up accidentally saving it and then going completely unnoticed for it.

You know like these people with less motivation.

Black Friday

Everyone knows Black Friday as the day when people voluntarily fight to the death over crap they don't need because it's cheep. People often have horror stories how they had to fight someone off their x-box or how somebody got trampled. Usually they are fine however and they got their cheep crap. Yesterday was black Friday and boy was it interesting.

My family and I walked arround Old Town in Fort Collins for a bit. We only went into a book store and a restaraunt so it wasn't that intense. We then headed home.

My mom drove me to my apartment where we dropped my younger sister so she could nap while my mother took me to get groceries. Now buying groceries is a very simple task. Well most days at least.

Right as we were driving our cart to check out we passed a family who looked terrified and told us to not go that way. There was then some angry yelling and I saw a guy in a black leather jacket and black pants booking it out the front door.

My mom and me ducked behind an aisle then made a break for the backdoor. We waited out behind the door until police shuffled us off to McDonald's where waited and filled out a police report.

We went into the store at 6ish and finally got to leave McDonald's at 8ish. Since I needed toilet paper and cat food  we then went over to King Soopers to get the stuff I needed.

It is of course just my luck that I happened to go to the one store where some dude tried to rob the pharmacy. But no one was hurt, so it's all good. Nerve racking yes, but who cares if everyone's okay.

I, McClellan, solemly vow that I will never go shopping on Black Friday ever again. No matter how bad I need toilet paper and cat food.

Here's the news report if you care to read it.

My Favorite Disney Princess and Why

As a small child, I had quite the obsession with Jasmine (yes, the Disney princess). While I always hated the notion of being a princess due to years and years of Princess Smothering (something I'll explain at another time), I always have and still do love Disney movies. I have it on good authority (my mother) that any chance I had to wear my Jasmine costume I would. Aladdin has always been my favorite Disney movie.

At the age of small child, I never really thought much as to why Jasmine was so awesome. All my small child mind could think was that Jasmine was awesome because well Jasmine is awesome.

Eventually, sometime when I got older I actually thought about why I liked Jasmine so much at age small child. It was very obviously because she was the only princess that wore pants. Plain and simple fact.

She is also notably one of the least dressed Disney princesses. (This has less to do with why I liked her, than it is an observation (although some of my friends might argue otherwise).) Ariel is quite naked for a good deal of The Little Mermaid. That is true, but unlike Jasmine, she eventually ends up in the more traditional princess outfit of an obnoxiously large hoop skirt, presumably five petticoats, a corset, and a dress that could pass for a Narnian tent. Jasmine however never dawns any such attire. It's pants and an exsposed midriff all the way. Well, she does where a dress at her wedding, but there are no hoop skirts, petticoats, or corsets involved.

When I was a child I actually got to be quite familiar with hoop skirts due to my dad's reenactment (or as I like to call it Historically Accurate LARPing) obsession. I knew the hoop skirt as the tent my mom wore when we were told to wear old  fashioned underwear and use chamberpots. I personally never and still don't have any desire to wear a hoop skirt.

Now back to Jasmine. Now as an adult there are more legitimate reasons why I like her so much. (Though the wearing pants thing is still quite cool.)

5. She doesn't wish for a more rich filled life. She wishes to experience the real world. (Though, she may have second guessed this when she almost lost a hand.)

4. Unlike the other princesses she doesn't fall for a prince. (I'm talking about the ones I grew up with. 2D ones not based loosely on real people, so Brave and Pocahontas* are not part of this conversation, nor is Tangled.) Through dialogue we learn that she has had many cocky bastard princes after her hand in marriage. She says "screw you" (presumably in arabic with more tiger bites) to them all.

3. She doesn't hold a pointless grudge. When it's found out Aladdin was only a prince by magic and dumb luck, she doesn't waste a moment getting all pissy about it. (I've seen that in movies and it's annoying and ridiculous.)

2. She hands Aladdin his ass a couple of times. She does this when he's acting like a cocky prince trying to convince the sultan he can woo Jasmine. She shocks him by pole vulting over the gap on the way to Aladdin's pad. She also very easily discovers who he is (this might be because it wasn't much of a disguise to begin with) and tricks him into admitting it.

1. Jasmine has imperfect morals. She doesn't really have a sense of right and wrong in the black and white sense. She doesn't even shrug at the fact Aladdin was/is a thief. She thoroughly enjoys duping the guards of Agraba. She's willing to flirt with a creepy ugly scrawny old dude as a distraction. (That takes guts and skills my friends.) "Your beard it's so...twisted." is one of the best lines ever (just saying). She sicks a tiger on a cocky prince and doesn't give a shit. This is something many woman would do if they a) had a tiger and b) wouldn't get arrested for it. (There are some perks to being a princess, I guess.)

*As a child I never actually got to watch Pocahontas much do to my dad's LARPing...hhmmmhhmmm...excuse me reenacting obsession. My dad spent so much time criticizing it when I did watch it, it wasn't worth it. We never even owned a copy of it until I was in high school and my mom brought it home from work because the library was getting rid of their VHS collection.

Sleeping

I am notorious for being a heavy sleeper. It's a skill that was born out of necessity.

While I am a notorious heavy sleeper, my family is notoriously loud. I have developed an amazing power to sleep through all sorts of noises over the years because of this.

Since I am a night owl, I stay up late and then sleep in in the mornings. My family is the complete opossite they go to bed early and get up early. As such, their day had usually already involved breakfast, a petty argument or two, and a yelling match by the time I'd get up. There are many times I have woken up idly and comfortably in my bed while they are all screaming at each other downstairs. That's when I either read or go back to sleep. Another skill I've learned is don't get out of bed if there's yelling or screeming in progress. It never ends well.

There have been occasions when the argument downstairs actually led to my mom either yelling at me to get up or, more commonly, yelling at my sister to go wake me up. These were usually dark days.

There are many important arguments and happenings I have slept through that had an impact on future situations. i.e. When I was little my sisters spilt a bottle of nail pollish on the carpet. This is the reason nail pollish was banned in the house and has been contraband ever since. I slept through all of this to wake up and investigate the arguing. For a kid who had no participation or interest in nail pollish, I received a fair amount of yelling that day. For years if my dad caught any of us with nail pollish he'd go berserk and throw it quite violently up into the rocks. This proved very problematic when my older sister was going through her punk phase in middle school and insisted on wearing black nail pollish. (She spent a lot of money on wasted nail pollish that year.)

In the summers when all the relatives (ones I refer to as the crazies) would come and visit for the entire summer, my sleeping powers would serve me well. When I was little and still shared a bed with my younger sister, I would wake up many times to a normal seeming house, then hear all about the crazy rampage MAM had gone on. When I got older and claimed the guest room as my sleeping quarters (see Sleeping Arrangements), I would spend the summer sleeping on the couch.

While for years when my cousin was the couch master, my family attempted to understand the importance of quiet when he was the one on the couch, when I was couch master they seemed to forget I was a person. They would bang around the kitchen (okay they did this when my cousin had the couch as well). They'd blast music. (To be fair my sisters did this normally anyways. It was usually Flogging Molly and it was usually in a half assed attempt to wake me up.) And of course, since I was sleeping in the only room with a tv, they'd watch tv. I swear to god I watched an entire episode of Pushing Daisies in my dreams once. They'd of course have arguments, if not right in the livingroom, in the kitchen right next door. It takes roughly a half hour of constant noise to wake me up in these situations.

Due to years of this training, I have developed an ability to sleep through cannon fire (useful and actually done at reenactments), yelling/screaming matches (useful when marriachi lady cheats on her boyfriend), and loud music (useful when marriachi lady does anything). The only thing I have not managed to sleep through is police raids. Marriachi lady had her door busted down by the police at five am (see Neighbors)  and the police were banging on the door the other day because her and her boyfriend's screaming were heard all the way across the complex. Give me a few more months and I'll probably be able to sleep through those as well. At least if Mariachi lady keeps it up.

Apathy

Apathy is an interesting thing. Throughout my life I've been apathetic to many many things. Usually things that I've either done so many times they've grown boring, things that are just uninteresting, or things that I have no say in.

The last item on that list included voting until quite recently. Things that remain uninteresting are anything the cast of Jersey Shore is doing or what Twilight's about. Things I've done so many times they've grown boring usually included algebra class, or history class. However that has now expanded to include calling the maintenance guys because it's raining in my bathroom.

Yes once again water is dripping from my ceiling. Or rather the gaping hole in my ceiling from the last time they fixed it. I discovered when I called maintenance that I was pretty apathetic about it. I heard the dripping and almost thought "shit" then just stopped caring. I just walked into my bathroom saw the dripping and walked over to my phone where I called the leasing office and discovered I even had the number for going directly to "maintenance emergency" memorized. (I didn't even stop making my peanut butter sandwich while I did so.)

Apathy's just one of those things everyone has about certain things. Something like free indoor rainstorms is probably not the best thing to be apathetic about. This make the fourth time it's happened. I was quite frantic the first couple times, but now just could care less.

Giving Up

There's a statement that is constantly circulating and people always reference. That statement is "never give up." While by all means it's a good statement, I thoroughly believe in the power of giving up.

There becomes a point when no matter how hard you try you are not going to win or if you do it was hardly worth the effort. Certain tasks are just not designed for your winning. (Like slots for example.)

I don't care how many times you try. Winning isn't even an option in some cases. The saddest part about these is that you're fully aware of the fact you can't win when you start and remain dumbly optomistic.

My family used to have a dvd player that straight up decided it was retired. It would only accept disks to play at random or after you put them in several times. I once put a disk in 30+ times before it would play. This was by no means a successful victory. Sure, I out stubborned the hunk of plastic, but by the time I did I was no longer that interested in watching what I was going to. I should have just given up and read a book. (I was the only one in my family who could get it to work because I was the only one stubborn enough to try.)

My grandpa (on my mom's side) once told me that it was the guys who kept asking who would win the girl. I had to strongly disagree. There are many cases that no matter how many times you ask and no matter how creatively you do so, you will not get a yes.

In regards to any person you ask out do so only three times. Keeping asking won't get you anywhere. You might have a chance later on, but let them ask you after that. You just seem creepy if you keep asking.

A friend of mine had a crush on a girl. He's nice guy by all means, but doesn't obey the above statement. This particular girl was questioned so much by my friend that she straight up admitted to him she was a lesbian. Instead of giving up like any normal fellow would he kept asking. Even if the statement was just an excuse to get him to leave her alone, that's a pretty big sign she's not interested. Once the lesbian card is played, there is no hope so back off. Saddly I'm pretty sure he still thinks he might someday have a chance.

By all means a person should follow their dreams and not give up on an idea in general. In the above examples: One should not give up on the idea of having a working dvd player, but should give up on that particular dvd player and buy a new one. One shouldn't give up on the idea of love, but should give up on dating those particular people. Give up on details, just don't give up on ideas. Requiring to many specifics will always screw you.

(More on this can be read here.)

How Film School Has Murdered My Hatred of Bad Movies

Since I started attending film school, it is impossible for me to hate a film. I still dislike films because the story sucks and have no desire to watch the film again, but I can't completely hate them anymore.

After participating in the film making process and seeing how much time it takes to do every little thing, I can't hate bad films anymore. While in the past I have had a deep seeded loathing for films such as Team America or Hellraiser, if I were to have seen them for the first time now I would have a greater apreciation for them. (But, seriously, I still never want to see them again.)

Every shot takes time. A god aweful amount of time to be exact. For each different shot in a film, the lights have to be rearranged and the camera moved. Plus you have to make sure your actors do things as close to the same way as possible each time. (And they do it a lot people.) It truely is an insane process.

When you have a bare bones crew of say three or four people, including cast, it's difficult to organize everyone in the way you need. But the larger the crew gets the harder it is to control. Extras are goofing off, crew members will get distracted, people just straight up disapear. It's insanity.

We did an in class shoot of a dialog scene yesterday. It was hellacious. At any given moment only a handful of people would be doing anything helpful. To make matters worse, we tried switching crew duties at intervals throughout the shoot. The only people I can think of that had the same job for the entire shoot was me, the DP, and the lead actors. Everyone else kept changing roles. We had actors who were so nervous they couldn't remember lines. Then we'd take a break to transfer footage. People would switch roles. Script supervisors would become directors. Directors would become boom opperators and sound recordists. Sound recordists would become assistant directors. Assistant directors would become extras. Extras would dissapear. Actors would disapear. Extras would make loud noises requiring us to do another take. We'd have people talking in the hall we filmed in. Actors would fall asleep somewhere and no one could find them. I'm talking complete insanity. It's like war zone where only a handful of people are aware their asses could get blown up at any moment.

While organizing five people is hard enough, organizing more could quite possibly lead to the mass murder of your entire crew. Even the shittiest movies have a some respect in my eyes. Maybe not as stories, but visually I apreciate them. (As long as they actually bothered to try and make it decent.)

A Letter To My Neighbor

Dear Madame Mariachi Lady,

10:00pm constitutes twilight hours. That means that your music should not be heard by every surrounding flat. They invented the button(s)/nob(s) that are labled "volume" so your neighbors don't have to hear your music (if that's what it can be called).

They also invented something called headphones that allow you to listen to your music as loud as you want without involving the neighbors. You are not at a rock concert (or a concert for whatever type of music you play).

Some people enjoy sleep or at least the ability to watch a movie without fighting over the volume. (That's reserved for when someone's vaccuming.)

If you still insist on playing loud music could you throw in some variety. Mariachi is getting a bit monotanous and everyone else blasts rap. There are other genres to explore, so please do so.

                      Please and Thank You,
                             Your Neighbor

If You're Gonna Write About It...

If you're going to write about something you have to at least know what the heck it is. If you don't know what you're talking about all you're going to do is piss people off.

In my short script analysis class, we read scripts then give the author feed back. We recently read one about a woman who's goal it was to sleep with a man from every state in the country. If done properly you could actually have an interesting story.

Sort of a female Barney from How I Met Your Mother

Problem was it wasn't done properly. The lead character was a dumbass. She says several times throughout the script that she is doing so in order to write a book about it or to get on television. She's sort of like a slightly more charismatic (and less orange) version of Snooki.

Somewhere in between these two pictures.

If she wants to get on television sex is the way to go. The part that's annoying is that the chick is trying to pass it off as some big political statement about how women should be able to act like douchey men. It's very clear that the chick doesn't know shit about what she's talking about. She sort of ends up looking and sounding like this.

But you know about Feminism

The scripts author kept trying to say that she was supposed to be a bookworm studious type. There was a lot of biting of tongues from the woman in the class. One of the guys in the class said that he didn't sense that the script was trying to be feminist. Well that's because it  wasn't. I think it was actually one of the more sexist stories I've ever read.

Sort of like if the creator of this poster

wrote this movie.

Oh No! More Election Talk!

Today signals my first presidential election as a voter. It's pretty cool being able to vote. It's even cooler to realize that the swarm of people who have been bombarding my apartment door asking about who I'm voting for will no longer be waking me up or making me late. And I will no longer have my mailbox packed full of political ads. (Just regular old other ads.)

No matter who you voted for you've got to be glad that we will now be seeing commercials for beef jerkey and burgers again rather than just "Romney/Obama is the devil" ads. If that alone isn't a reason to be thankful what is? Although now we get a wonderful amount of time where everyone bitches about the elected.

Facebook alone counts for many of the stupid comments. I have already seen posts that say, "You happy Obama won? I will defriend you." (Defriending the ultimate punishment for being a liberal. Aparently.) And "I guess all the Obama supporters will partying all night seeing as they don't have a job to go to in the morning." (Both of those were posted by the same guy.) One last gem: "I hate stupid people. If you voted for Obama you must need his hand outs. Well maybe yiu should get off ur lazy ass and get a job. Grrrrr x-(" (It's becoming increasingly difficult to remember why I'm friends with this person in the first place. Also alls those typos are from the actual post.)

By all means, respect their political opinions, but if they're not going to respect yours then screw them. Life's to short to argue with idiots (especially online).

During the whole campain process everyone had something along the lines of "I'm moving to Canada if (insert canidates name here) wins." Of course very few people actually meen it. As I have been informed many times by my parents (usually when I mention moving to Canada) "They have more gun control there." Well that rules out most of my home town moving away. (Drat!) A simple fact of all election results very few people, if any, are moving to Canada and America will NOT be detroyed. (We survived Nixon didn't we?)

As of right now, I'm just glad I'm no longer living at home. Last time Obama was elected, my dad bought chickens and cows. I'm not quite sure what he'll buy this time. (Pigs? Geese? Goats? Ducks? Sheep?)

The Wizard of Oz: The Book

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Not a lot of people have actually read the book. It's a good book, but a far sight more disturbing than the movie. Throughout the entire course of the book there are 128 deaths. That's an unequaled death toll for any other novel I've read. All of the deaths are caused by Dorothy and her friends. Not a single other character in the book kills anyone.

There are many differences between the book and the movie.

1. The shoes are silver in the book. MGM made them ruby in order to show off their new color technology.

2. The Good Witch of the North and Glinda aren't the same person. At the beginning the Good Witch of the North is an old lady. She gives Dorothy the shoes without really knowing what they do and she gives Dorothy a protective kiss on the forehead that keeps her from being killed by flying monkeys. Glinda's the good witch of the south. She doesn't do anything, but tell Dorothy that she has shoes that can take her home.

3. The Wicked Witch of the West isn't the sister of the Wicked Witch of the East (or if she is they aren't very close). In fact, she could care less that the other wicked witch is dead. The only thing that slightly interests her is when she has the chance to get the shoes from Dorothy.

4. The Emerald City is a cheep trick. The Emeral City is in fact just a city. The Wizard made it emerald by telling everyone that they would go blind from the sight of it if they didn't wear special glasses. These glasses are green tinted and just make everything look green.

5. Oz wasn't just a dream. In fact Dorothy return was later after Aunt Em and Uncle Henry had built another farm house.

6. The Wizard actually gives them what they want without the heartfelt speach. He fills the Scarecrows head with pins, needles, and bran. That is the new brain. He gives the Tinman a silk heart filled with sawdust. He gives the Lion a liquid to drink and says it's courage.

7. Dorothy gets to control the flying monkeys. (Who doesn't want to do that?) There's a magic cap with an enchantment (specifically made to make you look like and idiot if you perform it) that summons the monkeys.

That's enough of the differences I could go on, but those are the main ones.

Now to discuss the death toll. With 128 creatures killed by Dorothy and Company it's bit insane. They basically go on a murdering rampage only it's written off as insignificant which is scary since all creatures in the book are fully concious and equals to the others.

The Tinman
The Tinman kills the most. He is responsible for the deaths of 85 creatures. That's more than half. He kills 40 wolves, 40 bees, 2 kalidahs, 1 wildcat, 1 concious tree, and 1 beatle. The beatle was accidently stepped on and all the others were attacking them except the wildcat. I can see the reason for everyone of these deaths except the wildcat. The book explains how the Tinman does his best to look out for every creature because he doesn't have a heart. The a wildcat runs by chasing a field mouse and he decides it's wrong for the cat the hunt the mouse. So what does he do? He chops the head off the wildcat.

The Scarecrow
The Scarecrow kills 40 creatures all of which are crows. The Wicked Witch send them after Dorothy and Friends so he twists off all their heads.

Dorothy
Dorothy kills two witches. One inadvertantly with a house. The other she throws a bucket of water on when the Witch makes her angry. You'd think that someone as allergic to water as that would make sure not to leave a bucket of water laying around.

The Lion
The Lion kills one giant spider who was terrorizing a forest of animals.

While most of the killings can be justified, there is an insane amount of them. No other children's story has that many deaths. Heck most horror movies don't. The only book I can think of with more is the bible.

The Wizard of Oz The Movie (and a brief mention of the play)

Just about anyone alive has seen the classic 1939 Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. (If you haven't pretty much this entire blog will be a spoiler.) It's a well loved family classic. Of course, as such, the rumours of non family friendly things going on in the film must be spread.

These of course are things like "in the background of one of the scenes with Dorothy, The Tinman, and The Scarecrow, you can see one of the munchkins hanging himself." I have seen the scene in question and it is very clearly an oversized bird doing bird things. No suicides, hangings, or even the mauling of cast members. On the surface (and even the backgrounds) it is truly a family friendly film. Until you start to think about it.

There are some very screwed up things about that film. Let's start at the beginning. Well at least the beginning of the Technicolor. When Dorothy first arrives in Oz she discovers she's inadvertantly dropped a house on someone. She starts to think about how horrible that is, but before you know it a sparkling witch in a bubble shows up and tells her it's no big. Then a bunch of Munchkins show up and dance and sing about how happy they are this house fell on this lady. While in this movie it's not so terrifying, when my high school did the play with little children singing this song it was honestly very disturbing.

We never actually hear what this lady did that was so evil, but have it on what we assume is good authority (a glowing lady in a bubble) that she was in fact wicked. As soon as Dorothy is reassured that it was okay for her to drop her house on someone, that someone's sister shows up. As one would imagine, she's quite pissed. (Honestly, have someone drop a house on your sister and see how chipper you are.) This green lady threatens Dorothy because she DROPPED A HOUSE ON HER SISTER and we're still convinced the witch is the bad guy. (Probably because she threatened the dog. Threaten a person it's all good. Bring the dog into it, bitch, you better run.) To add insult to injury bubble lady insists on giving Dorothy the shoes of the person she dropped the house on. Not her next of kin. she does this right in front of the next of kin as well.

Dorothy then gets sent off down a path with directions as vague as, "Follow the yellow brick road. It will lead you straight to the Emerald City." Glinda of course doesn't mention the fact that there's a fork in the road. (Honestly, Glinda's a bit sadistic.) At this fork in the road Dorothy meets a brainless scarecrow who she sets free. They then after a musical number involving math and geography skip off down the path (assuming that they chose the right direction).

A little ways down the path Dorothy gets hungry. (Aparently, she ate up the giant lollipops that the Lollipop Guild gave her.) She plucks an apple of a tree. The tree then gets pissed and asks her how she'd like it if someone plucked something off of her. Once again Dorothy starts to apologize when the Scarecrow steps in and says, "I'll get you your apples, Dorothy." The Scarecrow then taunts the trees until they throw their apples at him. The tree had every right to be pissed in my opinion. Like it said wouldn't you be. No one in the movie gives Dorothy a chance to feel sorry about her misdeeds. Everyone just cheers her on.

They then oil a well rusted Tinman who in a matter of moments is able to dance and skip off along the road with them. They go off into the forest where they reform a bully of a lion into a nice fellow. He joins their crew in order to get courage (the one thing bullies lack).

They make it to Emerald City where they get all cleaned and dressed up. Then our friend the Wicked Witch of the West shows up and does some terrifying sky writing. Everyone in Emerald City freaks out and Dorothy and her pals are allowed to see the Wizard. The Wizard, who appears to be a giant floating head, tells them he'll give them what they want if they bring back the Wicked Witch's broomstick.

Now wait just a moment. The "Wicked" Witch has only threatened Dorothy up to this point. While that's not a nice thing to do, it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do to the person who intentionally or unintentionally killed your sister. Especcially if that person hasn't even appologized. The Wizard is telling a young girl to go and still an assumedly powerful witch's broomstick. (Glinda's not the only one who's sadistic.)

The Tinman, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, and Dorothy all head off to the Wicked Witch's Forest. This is the only time the Wicked Witch attacks anyone. Anyone who lives in Colorado knows about the make my day law. (I don't feel like explaining it so if you don't know what I'm talking about look it up.) She has a group of people heading for her house with the intention of stealing basically the equivalent of her car. (Granted, a broomstick's a lot cooler.) I'd sick my legion of flying monkey's on them too.

The Wicked Witch kidnaps Dorothy. She wants her sister's shoes. That's really the only thing the Witch asks for. It's when Dorothy (at the advice of Glinda) refuses to give them to her that things get nasty. Once again the Witch threatens her life. She uses a giant a hour glass and says she'll be dead when it runs out. There is in fact no proof that this is actually the case. (I'm thinking with a decent prosecution, Dorothy and her companions might just end up in jail.)

Tinman, Scarecrow, and Lion show up and rescue her. The Witch gets angry and launches a couple fire balls at then. She hits the Scarecrow and Dorothy dumps a bucket of water on the Scarecrow and the Witch who promptly melts. Dorothy once again starts to appologize for her actions when the Winkies all start celebrating that the Witch is dead. (Presumably they did a reprise of Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead, but Dorothy and friends left before they had to listen to it.)

Dorothy and Company return to the Wizard and show him the Witch's broom. He laughs (in all his big headed glory), "pulled the old bucket of water trick did you?" (It should be noted that all quotes are highly paraphrased.) If he knew water would make her melt, you'd think he could of told them that before sending them to their possible doom.

Toto our fury little friend then pulls a curtain and reveals that the Wizard is a fake. (Or at least the giant head is.) While, they're angry at first, the Wizard talks his way out of it. He gives them random objects (which presumably are rejects from his latest garage sale) and heartfelt feel good speaches. All is forgiven. He even says he'll take Dorothy home in his happy little hot air balloon.

The people of Emerald City (who don't seem all that surprised to discover that their Wizard is a short tubby little man) are all set to send the Wizard off. Dorothy says goodbye to friends. It's all warmhearts and the fuzzy yet sad feeling of goodbye, until the balloon acidentally gets launched without Dorothy. Dorothy starts to cry and so does the audience (admit the first time you saw it you cried. Granted you were probably five). Then Glinda floats in on her magic bubble all chipper and happy asking, "why are you so sad?"

She then explainns to Dorothy that she's wearing magical shoes that can take her home at any moment. She acts as though this is common knowledge then gives some bs speach about how Dorothy had to really want to go home before she could use them. I'm pretty sure Dorothy really wanted to go home when she found out a she dropped a house on someone. And I'm almost possitive she really really wanted to go home after the first death threat. Glinda could have told Dorothy about these magical little shoes. Dorothy could've gone home when she really wanted to when Dorothy decided she really wanted to.

Then it's all of course described as a dream that was brought on by a hunk of wood that could easily get a degree in psychology.

In the play that my high school put on a couple years back, there are two mildly disturbing things. One was just watching little children sing happily about someone's death. Another was at the very end instead of just having the Witches in Dorothy's dream killed off she awakens and is told that the mean lady at the beginning of the play had a telephone pole dropped on her and she's now dead. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't said with such nonchalance. They may not of liked her, but I doubt anyone would talk about how they're glad she's dead.

I still love the story, but it's got issues. (Actually, I might like it more because it does.)

A Note On Impatience

I am a horribly impatient person. Waiting drives me absolutely insane. I can think of nothing more torturous (not counting actual torture) than waiting. Honestly, it's just painful. I hate sitting still if there's not something for my mind to focus on. Waiting is the worst. Even if I have a book, yoyo, or pen to amuse my self with the waiting sits at the back of my mind and nags.

My mind is realling with thoughts. Not necesarily paranoid thoughts about what happened to the person I'm waiting for, but more along the lines of, "hurry up, damn it!" Or "since they're probably not showing up anytime soon I'll count ceiling tiles." I have a different thought roughly every second while I'm waiting.

Waiting for something to happen soon is the worst. I'm talking about being picked up, having visitors, etc. Then there's waiting for a plan like going to a concert, hanging out with friends you haven't seen in awhile, etc. After that there's waiting for stuff in the mail. That one's just annoying. It's not really that bothersome, but just nagging enough to cause an itch in the back of my thoughts.

Apparently, I look completely calm and collected to everyone else. While in my mind I'm going completely insane, to everyone else I look like I'm just chilling. As if I'm like, "whatever, if my dad forgets me it's no big deal."

A friend of mine cited an example. When we were hanging out at the high school last year for the Beginning Drama Plays. We ordered a pizza from Domino's.

First, the jackass delivery guy didn't actually enter the building so we didn't know he was there and he left. Then we called Domino's wondering about our pizza and were informed this. So we reordered our pizza, told them to go inside this time, and waited out front anyways just for safe measure. We waited and no one showed up, so we called again. They informed us that they thought it was a prank, so we ordered again. Finally an hour and a half after our original order the delivery guy showed up with our pizza. Domino's gave a free box of cinammon bread in an attempt to make up for it, but I wasn't a very generous tipper. (This story is one of two the main reason I haven't eaten from Domino's since. The second main reason is that I'm allergic to tomatos and when people order pizza they forget this fact.) By all logical reason I should have been flipping the heck out.

When I am hungry I tend to get hyperactive and twitchy. (Sort of a weird biological thing where instead of it saying, "I'm gonna shut down now." It says, "Dude, I'm hungry! Let's go kill something! I think I saw a rabbit over there!" (Not neccesarily that dramatic.) Basically I become the equivalent of a less cute nonleash trained puppy. On this occassion involving Domino's, I should have looked just as insane as I felt. According to my friend though I still remained calm.

There are a few reason's as to why I probably didn't look like I was two steps away from having a seizure and neither had anything to do with my normally calm appearance.
1. While we were waiting inside I was watching another friend of mine draw boobs in my yearbook and a vagina with teeth in another friend's yearbook (honestly high school can get weird when people are bored). I was thoroughly entertained by this. When this ended, we called Domino's.
2. While waiting outside there was god aweful amounts of sand left over from the senior prank so I got to play with that. When I got bored we called Domino's
3. The person I liked came out to hang out with us (and likely bum pizza). I spent the rest of the time flirting with them and having a dandelion war with them, so I wasn't really that worried about pizza anymore.
4. By the pizza actually showed up I was covered dandelion seeds, in a good mood, and so far past the point of being hungry that I was no longer Twitchy Gonzales (the less well known relative of Speedy).

Pulled Over

Over the weekend, I traveled home to the middle of nowhere. I saw some friends, hung out with my little sister, and discovered the one thing I missed about Teller County. (Not counting friends and family.)

While, where I live now I here sirens often it's usually for a good reason. Especially if two cops are pulling over one vehicle. In Teller County, that's not necessarily the case.

I was hanging out with a pal of mine and we were driving over to the high school for the haunted house. We pulled into the parking lot and a cop pulled us over. Then another cop drove up behind him. The cop came up to the window and started his speach. "I'm officer blah blah blah from Teller County Police Department. I'm pulling you over because (pause) you have a tail light out." I spent this entire time in the passenger seat trying not to lauhg.

I get the being pulled over for a tail light, but two cops for one tail light? Come on. It's because there's nothing much going on in Teller. They're bored. Nothing that interesting happens, so flashing lights of any sort is exciting. Doesn't matter if it's a tail light, speeding, etc.

Once the cop was done we pulled forward ten feet into a parking space. When we entered the school two guys we went to high school with had seen us get pulled over and were already laughing about it.

I really have missed the hillarity of two cops for a tail light. As well as the fact that people already know about it before you're even done laughing at it yourself.

Again?

So, once again I have water pouring from my ceiling. I'm starting to get used to it by now. This is the second time this week and the third time since I moved in. It's starting to loose it's excitement.

Tomorrow, the maitenance crew will come and tear out my ceiling in hopes that it will actually fix the problem this time. Really all I can do is sit chill put a bucket under the water and wait for morning.

Honestly it'd be nice to remain dry. I'm starting to develop a hatred of water in any form other than to drinking. I got soaked yesterday on my walk home in a snow storm, it rained in my bathroom before that.
I'm starting to develop an automatic response to the sounds of running water. It barely even started pouring before I heard it, lept up, put a bucket under it, and called maitenance.

Pfft

At a  ratio of one bathroom rainstorm per month, college life has yet to be dull. Seriously, how the heck does the universe manage? Aren't there other college kids with bathrooms that can be flooded? Oh well, that's life. Well, at least mine.

A little over a month ago, the day before my nineteen birthday, it rained in my bathroom. (See Water) Today, I came home from classes and it had done the same. I just wasn't here for this one. I came in at the end when my floor had already been mopped with dirty bath water.

I really do have impeccable luck. With my breaking my nose yesterday (see My Nose) and it raining in my bathroom today, it's like I've got the kid's coin from Luck of the irish. (The fake one he get's when the gold one is stolen.) While I think that I have good luck, the universe has been trying to diprove that theory for years. It has yet succeed, but might just do so if it keeps it up.

My Nose

Roughly two years ago, my nose was broken by a friends elbow during a game of lap tag being held outside at night. Since then my nose has been a glutton for punishment (what's wrong with a cliche or two?).

Nine months after the original impact (no I didn't give birth), my nose was broken by the fist of a friend which was shoved into my face by another friend. Conveniently, this led to the straightening of my nose.

Since then a friend at an end of the school year party backed into me and cracked my nose again. (One of the things that bothers me about being short.) My nose just loves to take hits.

Today while riding my scooter (an old school foot powered one) to school to work on editing, I went of the curb and turned to quickly scraping the corner of my scooter on the ground and sending me face first into the asphalt. A mother and her hoard of four children (or maybe two children. I wasn't paying a lot of attention) asked me if I was alright. I replied that I was and continued on my way. As it turns out I scraped a little skin on my forehead, broke my nose again (now shifted more to the left), bent my glasses, scraped my knee, and got asphalt black all over my face.

It really didn't hurt that bad at the moment. That's probably a sign that I get hurt to much, but whatever. I walked into the school looking a bit like a crazy person. (Not that anybody noticed 'cause there were only a handful of people there.) It didn't even start to hurt all that much until I was sitting in the lab trying to sound mix. Which isn't easy to begin with, but it is miraculously hard to concentrate on when your nose feels like it stretching (yeah swelling).

I'm not sure if I've always gotten hit in the face this much or if my friends elbow planted some sort of homing device for objects to use (probably the first one).

Actually it's totally the first one. My freshman year my jaw got sprained playing kick ball (an elbow not a ball). My sophmore year another friend of mine managed to hit me in the face with every piece of equipment we used in gym class (not kidding basketballs were her specialty). So yeah, my face is totally just magnetic to objects. (Unless the kid who plowed me over freshman year planted the homing device). It probably has been since birth.

Stubborn

Ever had one of those wars with someone where they ask you to do something, but you won't? There's really no reason why you can't do what they ask or they can't do what you ask. You just don't want the satisfaction of them winning. I have one of these wars going on with my cat.

I am the only person on the planet who can out stubborn my cat. I give her some canned food twice a day in order to give her her medicine. She of course thinks she needs it more than that. She has dry food everyday all day long, but won't eat it if I'm around. She refuses to give me the satisfaction of her eating her food. I refuse to give her extra canned food. She only eats it if I'm asleep or not home.

Like these things often do, the war has esculated. My cat has taken serious action. When I am asleep and wake up just enough to roll over and reposistion myself my cat is one me. I roll over, get comfortable, am almost asleep, then BAM! She's in there. She starts nibbling on my elbows. She bites them just enough that it hurts, but doesn't leave marks. The next wave of warfare has begun.

I have tried shutting my door. It doesn't latch properly so she body slams it until it opens. I've tried petting her when she lays down next to me to launch her attack. Her attack just includes my hands and the rest of my arms. The only solution I've discovered is blanket reconesence. If I cover all available skin with a blanket or clothing she can't bite it.

This more dificult than you'd think. My apartment gets horribly hot most of the time. Coverin my self entirely with a blanket is farely torturous. I have two options roast or be bitten. Getting up and feeding the cat canned food is not an option. I can and will continue to out stubborn my cat.

Mary Sunshine

My mother has recited the following poem to me so many times, it'd be like trying to count how many times in my life I've sneezed.

Good morning, Mary Sunshine
How did you wake so soon?
You woke up all the little birds
And scared a way the moon.

It is usually recited when one doesn't get out of bed until like noon. In my production class I created this short film. It is inspired by true events. (Not necessarily for me, but for really the the population of people who just don't like getting up.)

Anything Helps

I, recently in my production class, finished a couple of shorts. The first one we did for the class was a script that was given to us. I personally don't like the story behind it. (Here's the video if you care to watch.)

While I think visually it turned out well, I just don't like the story. I feel like enough people are ignorant enough about homelessness that movies like these don't help. (See Homelessness) People already supect that this is what goes on when you give a homeless person money. I'm sure that it's happened, but I doubt that it happens that often. People have a hard enough time asking strangers where the bathroom is yet alone for money.

Remembering Names

Admit it, you suck at remembering peoples names. When you first meet someone you don't store that name info unless you think you might actually need it at some point. Then you still don't store it because you got distracted by the chips, a shiny thing, etc. You hear the name then almost instantly something wipes it from your mind.

People will admit that this happens, but never to the person who's name they forgot. They play games instead. They wait for someone else to say the name. They ask how the name is spelled (usually results in you looking like a dumbass). They don't want to seem like a jerk. (Not that I know a person who actually gets mad when you ask.)

While it's innocent to forget the name of someone you don't know very well, it's pretty bad when it's someone you've met many times. There comes a point that if you don't already know their names it's a problem. You can't ask without seeming like (and being) a total jerk.

My dad is notoriously bad with names. He, however, at least has the excuse of hearing issues. From a few years he just refered to one of my friends as, "That Campbell Kid." Finally my sister dated his older brother and my dad actually remembered their names. On a trip to Wyoming with friends, my dad kept botching the name of one of my friends (see Hearing Aid Please). This still isn't as bad as some of the name forgetting I've participated in.

Back in sixth grade, I hung out with one of my friends and he had a friend that hang out with us as well. I don't think that we were introduced when I met him and I didn't ask his name. This proved problematic later on. A couple months in, I discovered that I didn't know his name. At that point I couldn't ask what it was. So, I did the listening and hope someone says it thing. Someone would say it and I'd make a note to remember it, but was thwarted by my lack of an attention span. I could never remember it. I hung out with him for an entire school year and managed to not know or use his name. (I want to say it was JT or maybe TJ or was it Theodore?)

There's another incident that occurred back in eighth grade where I couldn't remember someone's name, but I wasn't alone in this. My two best guy friends participated as well. In fact one of them actually dated this girl. We couldn't remember her name at all. (Actually, I don't think the one who dated her knew her name while dating her.) I remember her face and that she had red hair, but not her name. Since we couldn't remember her name we reffered to her as, "Whatserface." (We didn't actually say this to her face.) It was pretty bad, but then she moved so we didn't have to worry about it. Then she came back and one of my friends (not the one that dated her) asked her her name. We then proptly forgot it. (Was it Taylor? I think it started with a T. Maybe I just think of T's when I don't remember a person's name.)

My friend, the one who didn't date Whatserface, came up with a system to remember one girls name. It went like this, "Morgotha, Duck, Mallard, Mallory!" He would say that everytime he saw this girl that our friend, the one who dated Whatserface, liked.

It's not inhuman to forget a persons name, but try to learn it before the first few meetings are up. Otherwise, you'll end up dating someone who's name you don't know and being unable to ask for it. Basically, just don't do any of the stupid things me and my friends did in middle school.

Women in Film

Even today there is a lack of strong female characters in film. It's getting better with movies like Brave and the Hunger Games coming out, but still most films are male dominated. If you look at the cast list for a movie there's a good chance that more male actors will be needed to fill the roles. Nowadays, it's not nearly as uncommon for us to see films with strong female characters as it was in say the 1950s. Back then so much sexism existed, it was near impossible to find shows that weren't he same way. Just Check out some of these actual ads from the era.

Totally What I Want For Christmas.

Fifty Bucks Says He Lost It Himself

That Means Get Off Your Ass and Help

*Gasp Spasm*

Yes! Especially Not Over Your Ugly Tie!

Alcoholic Anyone?

Wasn't the 1950s such a wonderful time? Everyone was friendly, children were well brought up, families spent quality time together, and let's not forget

Despite all this there is actually a film from the era that is dominated by a female cast. The film Swamp Women (1955) is almost entirely composed of a female ensemble. When it first starts out, you are almost dreading watching this film. You start out seeing an incredibly stupid and obnoxious, gold digging woman kissing a handsome and rich man. (The only thought that went through my mind was, "She better die.") I was groaning and even debating shutting off the film until we actually meet the protagonist, a young police woman. In the first couple moments on screen, we see her basically hand a drunk idiot back his ass. (She does it with wit and intelligence, how unthinkable!) 

The premise of the story is that this police woman is to go undercover in a prison and help three diamond thieves escape and find the jewels, so that the police can recover them. In the entire film there are only a handful of men. The women in this film are tenacious, cunning, intelligent, and can kick some serious ass. The main character jumps in to rescue the dumb chick from the beginning and a guy they're holding hostage jumps in to help her, but there is none of that helpless "Oh No! This situation was completely avoidable and I need a man to save me!" that goes on in so many films even today. 

The women can kick just about anyone's ass and actually fight each other. Not in the whining, screeching, slapping, cat fight type way we see on TV, but in the punching "I will kill you!" type way that's we see in male dominated films. The women in this movie save their own asses. They don't wait around to be saved. They come up with their own plans. They kill each other (and best of all the film didn't waist time on pointless gore scenes). They even have their own distinctive personalities. 

This classic old film is awesome and should be known by more people. Even by todays standards, it's surprisingly female dominated.