warning: wierd, quasi-poetic stuff. i am not a poet, so you probably should not read this. it was just raining, and well, i had to do SOMETHING.

tonight reminded me why i am sad to leave oregon.
as i write this, my wet footprints are drying on the concrete basement floor where i walked to the shoe dryer. periodically, drops of water condese on the back of my head, and drip onto my neck. outside the rain, my glorious, beautiful rain, is pelting down in what can only be described as sheets. if i look out the door, i can see streamers of water dance across harrison boulevard, and the streets are nearly empty. the are only a few people out, and they are on their way to or from cars or apartments. even the cars hesitate to break the sanctitude of my farewell storm. i'm sure that's only becasue most intelligent people don't want to drive in weather like this - and rightly so, as it can be dangerous - but that doesn't stop me from believing that, just for a moment, i have this wet, stormy corvallis all to myself, forever and always, till death do we part. i'm leaving tomarrow, to go back to southern california. not a place i enjoy, but complaints are for another time. right now is for me to enjoy the weather and the place that i love. i can think of few things more fantastic and heart-wrenchingly beautiful than what i walked in tonight: the rain that stung as it hit my face; the wind so strong, it forced me to close my eyes, and walk blindly; the puddles that formed in the dips in the sidewalk. of all the nights to be my last in corvallis, i do not think that i could have picked a better one than this.

magical transformation sequence

so i was talking to mr. watson a few mintues ago, and he provided me with the following images. although he didn't request it, i certianly felt that our lot, as well as the internet as a whole, could benefit from seeing these. the first one bears, i feel, a certian resemblance to a mr. diesel, except for the fact that vin is RIPPED and has, in fact, breasts. but maybe that's just me. the second one just looks like...shaft, or something. only white. and skinny. i donno. anyway, congratulation him on his new "do." i think i did. if not, congrats, zach! i wish i was there to rub it!





one further thing. the astute among you will notice that address leads to the dreaded STEAK AND CHEESE. i can assure you, however, that it contains none of the elements common to the Site That Must Not Be Named, such as penises, shit, animals, death, and so on. it is perfectly clean, probably because consists chiefly of several young asian college men who are second only to mormons in terms of cleanliness and godliness.

warning: do not read, stupid post follows.

so today, as i do on wednesdays, i was reading penny arcade. there was this link, on the front page, to a little film called the lost skeleton of cadavra. made is the classic style of good old b-grade horror/sci-fi films of "back in the day," this film features a massive alien mutant pet, aliens, a "lost skeleton," aparently bent on ruleing the world, a mad scientist, and a cat girl. obviously, it bears watching. after all, as the preview points out, it's from the came company that brought you lawrence of arabia. also, it is presented in trademark "skeletorama."
as i was perusing the cast and crew list, i discovered that the director/writer/star larry balmire also directed a film called "steam wars," described as an "epic retro sci-fi project." with my penchant for things retro as well as things sci-fi, i decided to try and find this movie. various searches, however, yielded no results, although a search for steam wars on imdb DID turn up, of course, Star Wars. this, in turn, lead me to the dreaded Star Wars Holiday Special, which is described thus: "luke skywalker and han solo battle evil Imperial forces to help chewbacca reach his imperiled family on the wookie planet - in time for Life Day, their most important day of the year!" if that doesn't just make you quiver in your pants with fear, i honestly don't know how you can consider yourself human. nonetheless, in a half-hearted attempt, spured by a badly-typed post on the IMDB star wars holiday special message board, i went to a site claiming to have the holiday shit-storm avalible for download. it did, but i was unable to bring myself to download and watch it. what i DID watch, were screen tests for some of the principal actors in the series; carrie fisher, mark hammil etc. this, in turn, lead me to yet ANOTHER site, with even MORE screen tests, screen tests with the likes of kurt russell and yes, william katt. william katt, the star of the TV show that probably no one my age (including me) has ever seen, called the greatest american hero, about a schoolteacher who gains superpowers when aliens give him a spandex suit. yes. it takes an uncommon mind to think of genius like this. nonetheless, i personally thought mr. katt, despite his freakishly misspelled last name, did a delightful job as luke "crop duster" skyewalker. his reading partner, mr. russell, was, as far as i was concerned, somewhat lackluster as han "black vest" solo, but that's OK because he got to col. jack o'neil. although, now that i think about it, he got upstaged by macguyver later, in the tv series. poor kurt. anyway, if you're a dork like me, and want to see these screen tests, you can go here, as well as here. marjor dork bonus points if you know why that first site is called "blue harvest." as for me, it's almost two in the afternoon by this point, so i think it's high time i had breakfast.

hot, as the sun is hot.

yeah, so there's a new design. it doesn't go any farther than the front page, so don't bother looking. doubt you would anyway, but shoot, just thought i'd say something. anyway, i was getting pretty fucking tired of the old one, so here is a new, probably somewhat temporary, one. obviously it's got a few flaws, such as i would rather not have the navigation bit on the left scroll with the rest of the page, and that's something that can easiely be fixed using frames, but i'm too lazy to do it now, and i've gotten to be a pussy, and want dreamweaver when i do the html editing. gone, sadly, are the days when i could do everything in notepad. nonetheless, although somewhat spartan this design is at least something new. and for those of you who still want to see those SILLY pictures, here they are:
ubertopher
brodie
lunchbox
sometime in the future, perhaps not until summer, i am planning on doing a COMPLETE REDSIGN of the entire site, which will include adding some content (well, sort of), and putting chiaman up on the net for everyone to download. i am sure no one cares about this except me, but i am going to stroke my ego and pretend that you do. anyway, all done now.

thanks to anne

these are, to my mind, the "cream of the crop," as it were. that first one...i just about piss laughing every time i see it. anyway, if you want more, just go to something awful.

fuck beans

i wasn't acutally going to post anything today, i was going to try not to even come down here and use this machine, but i read something in the paper that i felt required me to express my outrage in a suitably public fashion. what was this atrocity? Amish in the CIty. a new reality show wherein several amish youngsters are ploped down in, say, new york, or something, and faced with temptation and the like. what network would show something like this? yes, you guessed it: UPN. anyway, although i did look around and apparently it's traditional for amish youngsters to go out at a certian age to see if they want to be baptised into adults, i still think it's pretty fucking sick to take advantage of that. anyway, done with that now. i really need to go take a shower so i can go boot shopping.

film at eleven

ok, there's a few things i need to address here.
first of all - and i meant to do this a bit ago - thanks to all of you that came to my party. i had fun, hope you did, etc. thanks
secondly, what with being bored this morning, i started looking around on the internet to see if i could find anything juicy about the return of the king extended DVD, which i will, of course, be buying when it comes out. there was precious little to be found, excpt for the the fact - it's been corraborated in several places, thus, to me, removing it from the realm of "rumor" - that the extended edition will likely be over FIVE HOURS LONG. this, to me at least, is good news, so long as they stick the new bits in the middle, and don't add on another four or so endings. nonetheless, i just thought i'd share that with all of you.
ok, guess i only had the two things to say. well, and that i am now NINETEEN, and thus old enough to drink in canada. wohoo. yeah, nineteen is kind of a bitch age. nothing really happens.

the red planet

you are looking at the surface of another planet, a view that is, for all intents and purposes, current. just think about that for a minute. it's really kind of mind-blowing.

of films and, incidentally, the irish

ok, so, in america.
having served them up with some potatoes, i find my words to be quite tasty. let me elaborate.
i went to this movie mostly to spend time with my family, who i spend little time with since i'm usually busy doing, uh, other stuff. i donno. whatever the case, i was certianly not on the "edge of my seat," as it were, in anticipation, despite the fact that every review i'd heard ranged from spectacular to glowing. from what i'd gathered from previews, people talking, and plot summaries, i kind of assumed it was more or less a run-of-the-mill tear jerker. imagine my surprise when my mom cried at EVERYTHING. no, i'm just kidding. i wasn't watching mom cry over anything, because i was too busy watching the movie. much as it irks me to admit it, this was a very good movie. the cinematography wasn't much to shout about, but it was unquestionably at least a little able average, with a few scenes standing out. i speak specifically of the sequences wherein johnny and sarah rip of one another's clothes for a steamy evening of rumpy-pumpy, whilest tortured artiste mateo kind of, well, rips things, and bleeds (i think) on some canvas. although really, they're closer to "making love" than they are to rumpy-pumpy, but i get nervous when people talk about making love. it makes me think of romance novels which, while fun to read, make me feel kind of like i do when i've eaten two wendy's quater-pound deluze double-stack bugers in one sitting: fat, disgusting, and ashamed. back to the movie. this scene in particular stuck out to me, and not just because it featured people having sex. sex is cool and all, but what endeared this scene to me was how all the elements - sound fx, music, picture, sound, color - were woven together in a sare i say masterful way. unlike sex scenes in most movies, the director choose here not to make it your standard, steamy, my-pants-are-getting-tigher, these-actors-are-so-attractive-i-wish-it-was-like-this-when-i-had-sex-if-i-ever-had-sex. instead, the suddenly and choppy nature of the cuts, intersperesed with the violence of mateo slicing his paintings and the thunderous storm outside, as well as the music which, sadly, i can't quite remeber how to describe, imbued the sequence with a depth and complexity of feeling that many films seems to foregoe in the interest of making the audience cream their pants. i mentioned mateo's appartment a bit ago, in the context of that particular scene, but i'd like to return to it, becuase it represented something that, in respose, i recall about this film: an attention to color, especially in the interiors. when we first are intoduced to his character, and are given small glimpses into his life and, consequently, his appartment, it is a rich dark place, full of reds, blacks and earth tones; a sort of "dark continent," if you will, inside the appartment building. when the girls finally meet him, drawing him out of seclusion for trick or treat, the apartment opens up. it is not a mignola-esque abode shrouded in darkness, but relatively normal apartment, albeit strewn with the art supplies of a tourtured man. there is, in fact, light there, something we had previously not been privy to in this area of the world. you've probably already seen the connection here, but i'll spell it out, just cause i feel like it: the darkness and rich sense of color in his appartment before we are formaly introduced builds an image of mateo as mysterious, withdrawn, perhaps threatening, but certianly deep, with many layers; much like a parfait or onion. when light is forced into his life, and he opens up to the irish family living above him, the mysterious and threatening image is washed away, but some of it, along with the richness of character, linger, much like an afterimage when the lights are suddenly turned off. yes, i realize that's kind of opposite, but fuck you, it makes sense.
anyway, i'm going to talk more about this movie later on, but i think i'm going to let it stew for a while, and go out and paint the town purple (it was a joint descision) with kit. something to think about while i'm gone, if you happen to read this:
this morning the shower (ew), i realized something: y tu mama tambian is kind of like a mexican chasing amy. but while chasing amy has character and a radical concept called "characterization," your mama just has, well, fucking. anyway, think about it.
toodles.

today on MSN.com

so i happened to surf across msn.com today, and right under the "cameron won't marry justin" headline, i saw this frightening bit of news: TED NUGENT IN CHAIN-SAW ACCIDENT. truely, these are the times that try men's souls.

a little something else, although not from MSN. i suggest you only read that if you are, like me, a complete and total DORK. i must admit, i laughed out loud at aragorn crying "mazeltov!" whilst ghimli lept in the air exclaiming "OOMPAH!" and at gollum telling sam "he's mine ho! back off my man!"
anyway, now that you know i not only enjoyed, but also LINKED to this atrocity, i'll understand if none of you want to come to my party.

and lest i forget, dad and i went and listened to some jazz at the illustrious bombs away cafe, where i ran into the one-and-only emily greenspan (not, as far as i know, related to alan). in case you are curious, she continutes to rule everything capable to any exent of being ruled, and may, in fact, be comming to my birthday party, thus continuing a fine tradition that will be, uh, two years running if she shows. i am sorry i keep mentiong The Party, but the fact of the matter is that it gets boring and lonely in this house with just me, the compuer, and the sewing machine, and i have precious little to look foreward to, aside from The Party and my own sweet death, which may be my only release from this torment.

i swear, this is the last time

BIRTHDAY!
ok, now we have TIMES. and the date, if you forgot, or didn't know: saturday (this coming one), the 17th. the time is about 3:30 is when you should be here, my house. we've got the MU booked from four to six, two pool tables and a bowling lane, so come, and help us fill that stuff up. after the MU, we'll be coming back here to watch movies or what-have-you, possibly going to see big fish, or something, at ninth street. you'd all have to pay for yourselves, sadly, if we went to the theatre (the MU is paid for), but it's still a possibility. as i mentioned before, i know you're all broke (except for pike), and so i don't want any presents, but if you insist, i've really got a hankering for a panasonic ag-dvx100. hope you can all come, and please tell the people who don't come here often what the dealy-o is.

i am not in school

speaking of which, here's a poem i just wrote, using college-themed online magnetic poetry:
mean less spring
no ace dance
drink naked, cry
give easy pizza so he has a roomate

excitement! and chicken!

OK! we've got several things to talk about. i'll start with the important ones: namely, a party celebrating the day of my birth. i know it's been mentioned before, but i dredge it up becasue if have finish my hemming, as well as my hawing, and have decided i AM having a party, but it will probably be on saturday (the 17th) and not sunday (the 18th) and i had originally said. if you would like to come and this time does not work for you, PLEASE let me know. you can either e-mail me, or just post comments, but since this ho-down will be happening this comming weekend, these things must be resolved quickly. i don't have a deffinite time yet, but i should soon, and i'll post it here when i do, as well as try to get in contact with those of you who might not come here too often. some specifics: i've pretty much decided i'll do what i did last year, since it seemed to work pretty well. that is, we'll go hang out at the MU for a while, then come back to my pad to do...whatever. topher suggesting going to see big fish, and idea that i am certianly not averse to, and thus this could certianly be a possible post-MU acitivity. anyway, i guess that's about all i have to say at this time. you're all invited, of course, except for galen, because he smells funny, and i hope that you can come. also, i'd like you to all know tha arielle is a BITCH. she knows perfectly well why.

secondly, i've made up for not watching many movies in the past several weeks by watching...well, ALOT of movies in the past week. they are, in no particular order, the seven samurai, it's prodigy, the magnificent seven, down with love, Y tu mamá también, minority report, and, of course, jesus christ: vampire hunter. i'll start with the two "seven" movies.

the seven samurai, is, as many of you may know, a film by legendary japanese film god, akira kurosawa. like the last samurai, this movie would have been cool simply because it involves samurai. but akira was not content to let this ultimately badass warriors carry the entire film, and so he ends up with something that's, well, kickass. in some way, samurai is a character driven film: by far the most enjoyable part of this movie was meeting the characters, and seeing them interact with one another and the villiagers. from the world-wearing, but always half-smiling leader, to the guy who laughs all the fucking time and carries his sword funny, to the seriously fruity young man who chases after both idols and poontang, they are, bar none, the best part of this film. i also personally enjoyed watching this film for the glimpse it offered into medieval japan, especially since it was through the eyes of a natvie, not an american, as with last samruai, or magnificent seven, which i will get to in a moment. the class separtation between the samurai and the farmers was extreemely apparent, but not blatent; it was done with a subtlety rarely seen. instead of having character simply state what the relationships meant, they were richly illustrated by both the script and the actors. they way the samurai behaved around one another, and around the farmers...it is difficult to accurately depict and the complexities of this relationship, but suffice it to say i found it very well done. which brings up to the magificent seven.

although based - rather closely, i might add - on seven samurai, the magnificent seven is a very americanized movie. while a strange relationship of rank existed between the samurai and the famers, the relationship between the gunmen and the farmers is quite different, and not as subtlely recognized. for instance, magnificent seven really only plays homage to the fear the farmers has for hte samurai in seven samurai; although the mexican peasents don't come out to greet the gunmen (a scene directly from samurai), and hide their daughter that are of an age to be having sex (also straight from samurai), the continuing fear and mild distrust apparent in the japanese film seems to dissappear. magnificent seven also focuses a great deal more of the deeds of the gunmen in particular, not on the achievements of the villiage people. this, i think, reflects that idea that american is a far more individualistic country than japan. maybe i'm just reading too much into it, though. a specific scene at the end, however, is the largest departure from the source material, and is probably the most blatant display of americanization in the film. but that's enough with the comparing. on to the film itself. i enjoyed the magnificent seven, admitedly largely because it had people shooing at one another, and being badass. i'm afraid i'm doing to dip back into comparison here for a minute, but there was something i just really wanted to mention: in samurai, the invading bandits are more of a horde of some sort - basically faceless agressors. although there is a leader, he never really developes a character. in maginificent seven, on the other hand, the villian has a very deffinite character, and even a somewhat sympathetic one. he is a robber and a bandit, yet, but times are very hard for him, and he's not stealing from the villiage because he's greedy, he's doing it becuase his men have run out of food. i felt at least a little sorry for him. anyway, to wrap up, these were both cool movies, and i suggest you watch them. it's especially fun to watch one soon after the other, so you can compare them.

down with love. to be honest, i totally loved this movie. i was told i would, but i try to sceptical when people tell me what i like. nonetheless, it was just...well, so much fun. as many of you know, i love stuff from the fifties and sixties, and this movie painstaking recreates that era, down to the smallest details. the costumes and sets are wonderfuly period peices, and the whole film just feels...fun. mcgregor and zellweger are great. if i was a girl, or gay, i would TOTALLY want to bone that man. plus, when he puts on the glasses, i swear he looks EXACTLY like peter parker. david hyde pierce is also hilarious, if a little bit typecast. however, the thing i loved best about this movie was the enormous amout of silly jokes, ridiculous sexual innuendo, and generally fast and funny dialogue. not to mention i would mind have an appartment like catcher block's, for about ten minutes. speaking of which, any movie with a character named "catcher block" in it, can't possibly be THAT bad. so, go rent it. although it is a bit of chick flick, i imagine guys would probably enjoy it too. i mean, i enjoyed it, and i am ALL MAN.

y tu mam? tambi?n was pretty much mexican softcore porn. softcore in that you didn't seen any penetration, per se, but it was pretty damn obvious what was happening. my two biggest hangups were that i hated the two main characters, and not just because they were better looking than me, but because they were, more or less, total dicks, and that the female lead kind of had a face like a horse. not that all women have to be attractive in order to be any good in a movie, but i just didn't buy the fact that they were so desperate to bone her when both of their girlfriends were far hotter. especially the short-haired one. holy mother of crap. anyway, although this movie had some interesting bits - i liked the narration, although it was very amelie-esque - this really isn't a movie i would ever bother to see again.

i'd already seen minority report before, but it was still cool. i think tom deserves an oscar more for it that for the last samurai. as cool as samurai may be.

we are finally to the best movie on this entire roster: jesus christ: vampire hunter. the best way to describe this movie, is that it's what chiaman might have been, had we had a budget that wasn't just bumming money off my mom. it was totally b-grade, but zach and i laughed ALMOST until we pissed outselves. if you don't like stupid, silly, generally bad movies made by canadians with nothing better to do, you probably should see this movie. on the other hand, if you actually liked chiaman, and didn't just say so to make us feel like we were a total waste of space, you'll probably like it. speaking of which, zach and i came up with a great idea: we're thinking that after we're all out of college, we should move up to canada for a bit, and make some movies using canadian government money, since topher can get it for us because he's a citizen. we think it's GREAT. anyway. movie = funny. zach and i both have plans to buy it for ourselves. anyway, if you like really, really hot women, and priests with enormous pink spiked hair, bullet belts, and leather jackets, this movie is for you.

OK, sorry those aren't the most interesting reviews, but zach and i were up until about 5 last night because of the last two. anyway, i'm off to the shower now. talk to you all later.

oh, by the way. the chicken! reffers to the fact that i got a chicken burrito at la conga last night, and finished it up this morning for breakfast. it was HELLA TASTY.

yeeeeaaaaaah.

i didn't really want to shove topher's thunder on down the page quite so early, but this was just too good for me to pass up. now, as you all know, i'm far too much of a pussy to acutally prank call anyone myself, but i hope that at least some of you out there have the balls that i lack, and will put this to good use.

you know it

i have the coolest sister ever, becasue she is making me biscuits and gravy. those of you with sisters can only dream of one this cool, and those of you without sisters wish you had one.

edit: not to continue bragging, but in addition to a badass sister, my family now has a set of fly new wheels. yes, you saw right. that's a toyota corolla. they won't let me drive her (the car) until tomarrow, when it's light out, but i can assure that i will drive the shit out of that car - in a careful and cautious way, of course - and that the bass, such as it is, will be BUMPING.

topic of, perhaps, less interest

first off, i just thought i'd point out that it's no longer snowing; we've now got that delightful precipitation known as FREEZING RAIN. still, that means no school, which means mara and i can spend twenty minutes trying to figure out how to make biscuits and gravy. it is, apparently, not as easy as one might think. i am picky about my gravy.
also, i got up at SEVEN today. that is seven IN THE MORNING. i didn't acutally plan to get up and stay up - merely to get up and PEE - but i was compeled to stay. up. anyway, this is probably the earliest i've gotten up in...almost half a year, if not more. not counting, of course, the matrix revolutions debacle, where i STAYED UP, basically, all night.
thirdly, i am considering, for only the THIRD TIME since i have moved to corvallis, having a birthday party. if you have been given a cupcake, you can, for obviously reasons, attend. if you have NOT been given a cupcake, you still can. attend. anyway, i'm putting this up HERE because the most likely date for this orgy of joy would be january 18th, a mere two days before the actual day of my birth. those of you who are out of, um, town (i.e., in college) are the people whom i am most directly addressing. in other words, let me know if you can come, because i don't want to go to the trouble of trying to plan a party that no one will come to. it would break my cold, black heart. also, i'm not really the best a planning parties that don't involve primarily watching movies, so any suggestions as to activies on this day of remembrance would also be appreciated. and excepting sex with people a little under eighteen, you can forget about anything illegal, since this party will be being hosted by my parents who, cool as they might be, probably don't want people smoking pot and getting drunk in their house. and in case anybody was wondering, should you decide to come, i will not have any expectations present-wise, since i assume you are all as broke as me. except for pike, of course, who had better get me something nice, and he knows damn well why.
toodles.

cautious taco

well, i don't know about the REST of you, but i had a GREAT new years. SO great, in fact, that i feel kind of like someone kicked me in the head. so it's time for a shower now. a shower ALONE, you SONS OF BITCHES.

also, you owe it to yourselves to take equal ganders at this, and this. you will laugh until you PEE. i did. but then, i pee alot.