The God Question

Once I started writing this blog, I came up with many, many ideas on things that I wanted to write about and discuss on my blog. I’ve touched on a few things but there are a lot of subjects I want to write about that I just haven’t sat down and done because they’re going to take a decent amount of time and effort. One of these sets of ideas I dubbed the “Offensive Trilogy” – a set of three subjects that I have opinions on that I feel are most likely to either offend people or start arguments. I’ve been hesitant to write these posts because I’m not an argumentative person by nature – I’m very laid back and don’t particularly care to push my viewpoints on certain subjects onto other people. I go by the philosophy that I have my views and you have yours, and we might disagree but as long as you aren’t hurting anyone and I’m not hurting anyone, we can agree to disagree and let’s move on and be chums.

I’ve decided that today’s a good enough day as any to breach one of these subjects, so today’s blog post is going to be what I consider my least offensive viewpoint out of my most likely to offend viewpoints. And that topic is religion. Right now you’re probably saying to yourself “His least offensive viewpoint is about religion, one of the most heated subjects to discuss in all sort of social situations? What the hell are the other two topics?!” Well, we’ll get to that in later posts, I’m sure. Let’s focus on the now.

I decided to start with this subject because I recently had a conversation about it with a friend and it’s sort of fresh in my mind and easy to articulate. So what’s my opinion on religion? Well, I can sum it up pretty easily: I believe in God, but I don’t believe in religion.

I could go into a long backstory about the religion I was raised up in but that doesn’t really apply to why I settled on my views now. The simplest explanation for my views is basically through following a short logical leap. Taking a quote from Wikipedia: “In monotheism and henotheism, God is conceived of as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith. The concept of God as described by theologians commonly includes the attributes of omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.”

In essence, the general belief is that God is perfect. The idea then goes that God created man in their own image. Except man was imperfect by design (whether intentionally or through original sin, or whatever mechanism the religion itself believes in). So we have God – a perfect being – and man – an imperfect being. Now, what is religion? Religion is what man created to worship God. So what follows logically is that religion is imperfect.

Now, dependent on your religion, there are lots of origin stories, different prophets, people that were spoken to by God, etc. But all of these stories are written down by man – passed on by man. The Bible is sometimes referred to as the word of God – except the Bible has been translated and retranslated many, many times over the centuries. Interpretations of religious texts vary wildly between religions – and a lot of times within religions. The fact of the matter is – if we follow the idea that God is perfect and man is not, no religion can be the one perfect, true religion because man created and runs all religions, therefore man has made religion imperfect through their own existence.

(This argument is, of course, centered around the monothiestic God and what-not – I’ve taken a few classes centered around Eastern religions but have not dived into them enough to make a cohesive statement or belief about them.)

On top of that, it is my personal opinion that if there is an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent God – that God would know what is in your brain and is in your heart. Therefore, true belief should not be dependent on a set of rules created by man but rather what you believe in your own self. If a person is good, truly good – God will know it. Why would that God get bogged down in the minutiae of everyday life choices? Why would God care who you marry, or what restroom you want to use, or whether you sat in a church last Sunday, or whether you masturbated last Tuesday?

There is a quote that I remember seeing once that was attributed to Neil Degrasse Tyson, but I can’t find it so I’m not sure if it was actually by him. Nor can I remember the quote exactly, but it was something along the lines of “How arrogant can man be to think that they are the center of the created universe, when the universe is so vast and infinite.” I may be completely misremembering but I swear I saw something along those lines somewhere by somebody. (I’m great at bibliographies.) My counter-argument to that (possibly made up quote I made up myself) is – the universe is so vast and infinite, that in my opinion it makes no sense for there not to be a God or God-like being out there somewhere. There is so much we don’t know about the universe and what is out there. The cosmos are so vast that it gives me the willies thinking about how insignificant this chunk of rock is that is hurtling through space.

And yet I’ve still felt that peaceful, calm feeling within myself that makes me certain there’s more to life than just this. I’ve never really felt that sitting in a church pew on a Sunday, unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess, depending on your viewpoint) but I have had it. Sometimes at a concert when I feel one with the music and one with the universe. Or those small moments when everything just seems right and you know that this is your place and where you’re supposed to be.

I choose to believe in God, but I also choose to believe in God in my own way. I don’t need a book or a preacher or a guy on the sidewalk to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, and what my own morality should be. But I also choose to respect all religions as well. Just because I don’t believe in organized religion myself doesn’t mean I don’t see how it benefits other people. Like I said at the beginning, I’m a fairly laid-back person – as long as you aren’t harming anybody you can believe whatever you want to belive. I’m aware all religions have fanatic nutjobs, but there are plenty of fanatic nutjobs with no religion, too. I choose to judge each individual person on their nutjobbery, thank you very much.

If you believe strongly in a higher power and choose to use that belief to promote bigotry, racism, sexism, and prejudice in the idea that you know what God thinks about that particular subject, remember this: the God you believe in is omniscient. Which means they know what you’re thinking. And you’re not omniscient. Which means you don’t know what God is thinking. Which means God probably thinks you’re an asshole.

I’m going to end this particular post with one of my favorite quotes by Albert Einstein: “A man’s ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.”

That’s my opinion, at any rate. Hopefully I don’t offend too many people.

Untitled Rambling

I tried to go to bed last night and was having trouble falling asleep. So after rolling around in bed for a while I reached over to my nightstand to grab my glass of water for a drink. Unfortunately, my depth perception is shit without my glasses (okay, to be fair, my vision as a whole is shit without my glasses) and me being the clumsy idiot I am, I knocked the glass over – spilling water all over my lamp, the book I was reading, my phone, and the floor.

I smelled burning so I quickly unplugged the lamp and used a cloth to wipe up the water around the electrical cords near my nightstand, then tended to my phone and book (which luckily still had its plastic cover around it so damage was minimal.

Needless to say, after this auspicious start (and continuing to struggle with sleeping) I expected today to be a pretty miserable day.

But it wasn’t! Nothing particularly good happened, but for some reason over the course of the day my mood just got better and better. I’m pretty happy today. But being happy means I can’t really think of anything in particular to write about. So I have a problem because while I have a lot of topics I plan on covering, none of them strike me as something I’m in the mood to write about right now.

Since I’m in a good mood and need to write something, I guess I’ll just ramble about a few things I’m excited about. Like the final season of Person of Interest is premiering tonight! It’s sad that it’s the last season, but not many shows get five seasons of content – and those that get more usually wear out their welcome. So I’m glad we’re getting a finale that’s planned and not cancelled out of the blue. And if you haven’t seen any episodes, please watch a few episodes on Netflix. It’s good, trust me, you’ll be hooked by the fourth episode I promise.

You know what else is this week? Fucking Captain America. Winter Soldier is my favorite MCU movie and high up there on my list of must-watch movies, so I’m super stoked for Civil War. I realize it’s more of an Avengers movie than a Captain America movie – but the Russos are amazing directors and I can’t wait to see what they do with a full superhero cast. Suicide Squad is the only other movie coming out this year that I’m nearly as excited for. Well, Independence Day: Resurgence. And Magnificent Seven. Okay, you know what – I like movies and I’m really psyched for Civil War and let’s just leave it at that.

(#TeamCap)

I’m excited that I get to see my favorite comedian around the time of my birthday. I’m excited that Blink-182’s album is coming out at the beginning of July and that’s going to be awesome. I’m excited that I’m going to be visiting two new cities over the summer (maybe three?) and will most likely be seeing Blink-182 live in concert.

And next Tuesday I’m going to get my hands on Uncharted 4 – which I can’t wait to play. Of course, that means I have less than a week to finish Dark Souls 3 (but I can do it – maybe). Oh, and Dishonored 2 was announced as releasing in November so hell yeah I’m all over that shit, too. Oh, and what caps off June? The conclusion of the Zero Escape trilogy – fuck yes. I love video games.

I have a lot to be excited about – maybe I’m in such a good mood because I’m letting all the good things in today and not letting the negative energy get to me. Or maybe somebody spiked my coffee this morning. Whatever, this has been a random rambling train of thought as that’s all I can put out right now. Whee!

Addictive Gaming

One of my hobbies is playing video games, and I will defend playing games until my dying day. For a long time games have had a stigma – once upon a time, they were only something “nerds” did. Then later there was the long running argument that video games cause violence in real life. Even now, there’s still the “You play games? Why aren’t you doing something important like frolicking with birds or hitting a small ball with a bat?” mentality. Which is dumb.

Like anything, video games are great in moderation. The big problem is that most video games are designed to be addicting. From XP bars that slowly tick up to the generous amount of goals and checkpoints to unimaginable amounts of side quests to trophies and achievements to seeing that 100% completion screen – all these things tick the reward/pleasure center of your brain. Lots of games push the “just a few more minutes” or “just one more level” mentality to get players to keep playing, especially with multiplayer rewards and unlocks.

A story I like to recount is from a while ago when I played Fallout 2. I sat down at my computer at around 10 in the morning and started up a game, figuring I’ll play for a few hours and then do something else. Next thing I knew, it was 10 at night – I hadn’t moved from my chair all day, hadn’t eaten, hadn’t talked to anybody, hadn’t done anything except Fallout 2. And that’s the thing that’s kind of dangerous – after all, there have been deaths from people who played video games for too long in a row. (Also, for the record – despite all my playtime with Fallout 2, I never beat it nor do I remember a ton about the game itself. Scary.) This kind of gameplay, to me, is dangerous – which is why I try to stay away from these types of marathon sessions now (or at least consciously get up and get food/do other things to break it up).

Yesterday I spent my Sunday afternoon playing Minecraft with a bunch of my friends. We started up a server and all of us spent most of the afternoon and evening having fun playing the ridiculously addictive yet simple game. While the game is addictive, it’s addictive in a different way – unlike most games that give you an artificial structure to complete, Minecraft is completely freeform and lets you do basically whatever you want. On top of that, since you can share worlds with friends and hang out together it makes it a much more social and fun experience.

I, personally, see a difference between being huddled in front of my monitor playing a game by myself and not interacting with the outside world at all for a whole day and spending a good chunk of my day chatting with friends while we create a world together. One is social (to a degree) while the other is isolating. While I love playing single-player games due to growing up as an only child and having to find my own ways to entertain myself, more often than not I like to share my gameplay experiences either by streaming or playing co-op or having friends over. Not because playing games by yourself is a bad thing – but because for my own sake I don’t want to accidentally dive head over heels into a Skinner box simulation and wake up at the end of the day wondering where my time went.

But the issue of gaming addiction is something that is showing up more frequently as modern gaming progresses. It’s similar to gambling addiction in a way – but unlike gambling addiction, which is fueled by the “I just need to spend a little more to hit it big and win a bunch of money”, gaming addiction is often fueled by “I just need to spend a little more to hit it big and win a bunch of [insert virtual gaming reward here].” And the danger is that it’s not always just your time that you spend – with the increasing use of microtransactions and the use of real money getting you in-game money, often times people can spend thousands of dollars to get the reward they’re looking for in a video game.

These microtransaction games are basically designed to draw in “whales” – in 2014 .15% of mobile gamers brought in 50% of the revenue. These whales are people who have addictive personalities, and mobile game designers are looking to exploit that personality to get money. And it works. Games like Game of War and Clash of Clans rake in millions of dollars a day.

It’s why I avoid mobile games like the plague. I buy a lot of games – and have purchased a few on my cell phone, of course. But everything I buy, I buy because once I’ve bought it I don’t need to spend any more money if I don’t want to. Now, there are free-to-play games which you can play for free without using money – but the games are essentially designed around the microtransactions. They make it so you can only progress so much without paying anything – sometimes even hindering your progress to annoy you to the point where you spend money so you can progress more.

So what’s the point of this blog post? The point is educating yourself. I’ve played games a ton – I know the ins and outs of the systems and I can recite video game trivia that would put a lot of people to sleep. I know when a game is designed to target my wallet instead of my brain. There’s nothing inherently wrong with spending money on microtransactions if you know what you’re getting into. If you get joy out of spending $5 to play Candy Crush a little while longer, go ahead and have fun. But keep it in the back of your mind that not all games are designed this way – there are legitimately fun titles like Minecraft that bring in addicting gameplay but don’t tug at your paycheck. And some of these games aren’t fun at all – they just prey on addictive personalities for a quick cash grab.

Now, if you want advice on how to manage your time, well I can’t help you there. I’m about to log back on to Minecraft and build some more. See ya.

Blog!: The Musical

To make myself focus on writing more, I’ve decided to start an initiative this month. And I’m calling this initiative “Blog Post a Day in May.” It’s pretty self-explanatory – I’m going to make myself write up a blog post every single day this month, regardless of how busy I am or how tired I’m feeling. Of course, this could end up with me posting some very short posts or posts that don’t make a lot of sense. But it’ll be worth it in the end to get me in the habit of writing every day whether I want to or not.

So today’s post is going to revolve around music. Music is one of those things that everybody enjoys – now granted, there are lots of different types and genres, so music tastes may differ. But I’ve never met a person so surly and angry that they hate all kinds of music. Like, is that even possible? Being so grumpy and hipster that you just don’t enjoy any kind of music at all?

Music means a lot to me – almost anything I could classify as a “religious experience” revolves around music. Either being at a concert, or hearing a song for the first time and immediately feeling a connection to the deepest parts of my brain and soul. As such, I really like recommending music and getting music recommendations from other people. This post is almost assuredly going to end up as a bunch of links to songs on YouTube that are some of my favorites.

Now one of things my brain likes to do is categorize things. And I’m aware a lot of people probably do this but I do them in weird ways. To give you an example, I used to classify food as either “hot” or “cold.” And it wasn’t necessarily by temperature, but rather how my mouth felt after eating them. Things like chips, crackers, sandwiches, pizza – all those would be hot foods. While things like granola bars, cookies, cake, ice cream, anything minty – all those are cold foods. Essentially my brain decided “cold” foods were things I liked to finish my meal with because it didn’t leave my mouth tasting funny.

I only recently discovered that the rest of the world calls these differences “sweet” and “savory” and I’m an idiot.

I bring this up because regarding music I’ve classified songs into three distinct “types.” Specifically, these three types of music are what make up songs I enjoy listening to. This isn’t to say every song in the world falls into one of these three categories, but rather any song I enjoy listening to will almost definitely fall into one of these three categories.

So with that being said I’ll go ahead and talk about each category.

The first type of music I enjoy falls under what I call Performance music. Now this is probably the broadest category and encompasses a large portion of the music I listen to. Essentially it’s the music you listen to that makes you want to sing in the car or dance in your room. The kind of music you want to see performed at a concert so you can sing along and get swept away in the sound. The kind of music you want to sing at karaoke, or play in Rock Band, or anything else involving just letting go.

For a lot of people, these types of songs are the radio singles – the popular songs that are played a bunch and everybody knows the lyrics to. Sometimes those songs coincide with this category for me – and sometimes I just get sick of them and don’t enjoy them or want to hear them (Radioactive, I’m looking at you – if I’m listening to Imagine Dragons I’d much rather hear Friction or Roots). A lot of times I’ll listen to an album and one or two songs will stick out to me and I’ll just listen to those specific songs over and over until I know all the lyrics and the specific beats. Of course, this does me no good at karaoke when 80% of the songs I enjoy are not listed because what bar is going to have Pleasure and Pain by Bullet for my Valentine as an option? This is also why I’m partial to playing Rock Band over most karaoke because there is a better chance of the songs I enjoy being included through their large as hell music library.

You want some examples? Sure, I can do that. Do Me a Favour, by Arctic Monkeys is currently one of my favorites of these types of songs. Guns for Hands, by Twenty One Pilots. Welcome Home, by Heaven’s Basement or The Best of Me, by A Day to Remember. Short Fuse Burning, by Less Than Jake. Pieces of the People We Love, by The Rapture and To the Top by Twin Shadow (both of which I got from Tales of the Borderlands, a great game). Say Fuck It, by Buckcherry – which happens to be a weird-ass cover of I Love It by Icona Pop, another song I enjoy. Or if you’re looking for some older stuff, how about Stranger Eyes by The Cars. Or maybe in a different genre – songs like Honey I’m Good, by Andy Grammer (also the cutest music video ever) or The Bomb, by Pigeon John.

Most of my favorite bands fall under this category. The Offspring is probably my favorite band of all-time, followed closed by Blink-182. Here’s a few of my favorites by The Offspring, and here’s a few from Blink-182 including their newest. Another one of my favorite bands is Electric Six – I’ve seen them live at least six or seven times by now and love a lot of their songs. And then there’s The Faint, who are probably my favorite “dance” band and are just terrific. And finally Volbeat, who I want everybody to listen to because their sound is so unique – I like to describe them as what would happen if a bunch of Wild West cowboys were brought to the present, made to listen to heavy metal, and then were told to replicate it as best they could. They’re fantastic.

There is a sub-set to the Performance category in my brain, and that’s any humor-related songs. Artists/comedians like Tim Minchin are wonderful to me – If I Didn’t Have You is amazing. Or any song from The Book of Mormon (Spooky Mormon Hell Dream is my personal favorite). Songs like I Fell Asleep on my Arm by The Aquabats, or Detachable Penis by King Missile. Or anything by Weird Al, really. All those fit under the Performance umbrella to me.

Alright, so I’ve talked enough about Performance – let’s go to the second category of music which I’ve dubbed Action. Action music has a very specific connotation for me. I’m a writer and one of the things that comes with being a writer is having an active imagination. Action music more often than not inspires a scene snippet in my head which eventually translates to a full scene which eventually translates into an idea for a full story. I kid you not, I’ve often times listened to a song over and over until a whole story plot from start to finish shows up in my head – usually starting with a single idea for an action sequence the song gave me an idea for.

A lot of Action songs are from movie scores. I listened to Going Down/The Bunker from The World Is Not Enough soundtrack on repeat as a teenager growing up (and still have the scene from one of my stories emblazoned into my brain that I associate with it). More recently, Fury from Captain America: Winter Soldier and Brothers in Arms from Mad Max: Fury Road have inspired new ideas from me. And of course there’s The Cross Hands from The World’s End, which accompanies one of my favorite action sequences of all-time (and I’ll definitely be doing a post about it sometime this month).

Of course, not all Action songs are simply from movie scores. Regular songs from regular bands have often inspired ideas for scenes in me as well. Like Adrenaline by Shinedown (car chase sequence) or Roadblox by The Prodigy (superhero fighting off killer robots in a highway chase sequence – what? It makes sense in context.). The song Digital World by Amaranthe gave me an idea for a subplot for a book series of mine involved a secondary character. Unlimited Alchemist by Blood Stain Child is associated with my idea for a horror/action movie set in a space station. The Devil Within by Digital Daggers and Take It Off by Ke$ha (yes I listen to Ke$ha) are both associated with a Battle Royale fan project I have in my head. And let’s not forget one of my guilty pleasure bands Turmion Katilot – Finnish death metal – who have produced a number of songs that I consider part of the soundtrack to many of my stories.

Video game remixes also usually fall under the Action song moniker. This remix of a Yoshi’s Island song by my favorite remixer DJ the S is also associated with the aforementioned space station movie but a different sequence. And then there are these two remixes which are some of my favorite songs to listen to while I’m working, which I don’t associate anything specific with yet, but there are sparks.

Alright, so we’ve covered Performance and Action songs. The final category is the slimmest and also the strangest. Well, maybe strange isn’t the correct word. Anyway. The third category of songs I like to call Wedding songs. Now if (when) I ever get married, my significant other is probably going to have full reign over the wedding plans. I don’t really have a strong opinion on venue, big/small, indoor/outdoor – all that stuff is secondary to the most important part – what songs are going to be played/what kind of DJ we’re going to have.

I will be lobbying hard to not have an Electric Slide at my wedding.

Wedding songs are songs that inspire some sort of emotional reaction in me. Whether it’s because I associate them with a time of my life, or a specific person, or whatever. They aren’t songs that I particularly want played at my wedding, per se, but I consider a future wedding to be one of the most important events of my life (as such the music will have to be perfect) and these songs invoke that type of emotional feeling. Songs that are important to me, not just on a “I like the tune” level but on the level of the soul.

Probably the first song that ever envoked that reaction out of me is the song Enthused, by Blink-182. At the time I associated it with my high school crush but now it invokes the nostalgia of the good times of high school. Auf Achse by Franz Ferdinand and All These Things That I’ve Done by The Killers are songs that invoke memories of college. Ghost on the Dance Floor, also by Blink-182 (see why they’re one of my favorite bands) is also associated with a specific person that I couldn’t get over – even if that’s not exactly what the song’s about. Between Angels and Insects will always be my favorite Papa Roach song due to the fact that the first time I heard it, I already felt like I knew the song and I felt it was a part of me in a way I can’t describe in words. There’s more recent songs like Wake Me, by Bleachers and Avalanche, by Walk the Moon that invoke an emotional response out of me. Actually now that I think about it, Walk the Moon is becoming one of my favorite bands to listen to because of how strong I feel about some of their songs – Anna Sun is another song of theirs that falls into this category for sure.

Now, there can be cross-pollination between the three categories. There are some Action songs that are also great Performance songs – Du Hast, by Rammstein is a great example. Wedding songs can often mix with Perfomance songs – hearing Rise Against perform Satellite and Muse perform Map of the Problematique live were two of the highlights of my life because of how strong my emotional resonance is with those two particular songs. But both of those songs mean a lot more to me than simply “I like hearing them live.” And there are even some cases (although rare) that Action songs and Wedding songs mix – usually in the form of video game music. Battle Against a True Hero, The Guardian Battle and Maiden Astraea’s theme are a few good examples of this.

So there you have it. A long diatribe that dives a little bit into my taste in music and trying to make sense out of my brain. If you’ve read to the end of this, you may or may not have clicked on any (or all) of the links to music I’ve included in this post – feel free to send me recommendations, and I hope maybe I’ve given you a new artist or song or something to add to your own music library.

And if you need just one more song recommendation – well, I’ll part with this last one:

ˁ˚ᴥ˚ˀ

The Perks of Not Caring

I’m not a perfect person; I have a lot of flaws, some of which I’m aware of and some of which I’m oblivious. There’s one in particular I’m going to talk about right now. The main and most obvious flaw I have (to me, at any rate) is an unhealthy obsession with having people like me. I’m obsessed with my self-image; not to the point of how I look physically but rather how people perceive me. Regardless of what I think about a person, I want them to view me as neutral at worst and I’d much prefer it if they liked me.

This flaw goes hand-in-hand with my other big flaw, which is I cannot handle embarrassment or shame in the slightest. Every time I’ve embarrassed myself in public (or had somebody else embarrass me) is ingrained in my memory. I end up reliving all those moments at two in the morning when I can’t sleep and my ceiling has somehow become the most interesting thing in my life because my brain won’t turn off. It’s why I can’t make myself dance, sing, or do stupid shit in public because a little part of my brain is saying “somebody is watching this and is thinking you’re an idiot.”

And I really don’t want anybody to think I’m an idiot.

I can trace this need of having people like me and disliking public shame to a singular incident. When I was in second grade the girl I had a crush on found out I liked her. So she and her friend proceeded to find me and laugh in my face for a good while (because, you know, that’s what seven year olds do). And in true Pavlovian fashion I ascertained that females discovering you like them equals public shame and humiliation, therefore nobody can know you like them. EVER. And this led to my hatred of public embarassment and me striving to do anything I could to avoid it. Which then led to me perfecting my self-image and making sure everybody liked me so therefore I would never ever be humiliated in public again.

Of course, all men have the greatest of intentions, and because of my intentions I ended up becoming a very teasable person. Teasing is not the same as humiliation, which I am always thankful for, but I try so hard to make sure I never look like an idiot. And that means some of my friends like to make it their life mission to make me look like an idiot. Which I manage to do a lot on my own anyway – a suave, sophisticated person I am not. I’m less Bond, James Bond and more Paul Blart, Mall Cop. Example: I nearly hurt one of my friends in a class I was taking last semester because I sat in my desk wrong and sent the whole thing tumbling over and nearly pinned her arm underneath it. I’ll say it again in case you missed it: I managed to sit in a desk wrong. There isn’t really anything more I can say.

My perfect, sculpted appearance led to some unintended consequences which I started noticing a few years ago. I had been suppressing my own interests simply due to the fact that I didn’t want to “look like an idiot.” I.E. Like things that would get me made fun of. I didn’t go to the gym (even though I wanted to) because I was afraid people who seriously worked out would look at me and go “wow, what a chump” and laugh. I pretended video games were only a “casual” hobby of mine because, pfft, video games are for NERRRRDDDDSSS. I would only go to social events my friends invited me to because I was deathly afraid of expressing interest in doing something and then nobody else being interested and me planning an event nobody would come to. And I didn’t attempt dating anyone because I didn’t want that humiliating laughing in my face ever.

So once I realized the state I was in (with a good bout of depression to help me realize how fucked I was) I started changing my attitude. The main thing was I started accepting myself. My interests, what I enjoyed, how stupid I could be sometimes – all those things made me who I was. And I remembered that old adage: “Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” I started doing what I wanted to, and I started realizing that the me I had been suppressing was the me that people actually enjoyed being around.

But more importantly, I started becoming more like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive. AKA:

Or more like Fall Out Boy, if you prefer.

When you’re obsessed with people liking you, you become sort of a “yes man.” You’re always agreeing with people and never sharing your opinions, you’re always saying yes to social events and never taking time to yourself. You become kind of a doormat. You also never take risks or try new things, because that puts you in awkward social situations where you could, you know, look awkward. (audible gasp)

It’s very freeing to find your words and be able to say “no.” Or, more accurately as pictured above, “I don’t care.” When somebody invites you to do something and you don’t want to go – you don’t feel pressured to say yes just because you might hurt their feelings and they might not like you as much if you say no to them. And yes, I realize that this is pretty simple logic to grown adults, but as a person who faced crippling social anxiety for a good chunk of his life (I haven’t even told the story of when I realized just how fucked I was socially – that comes at another time) the fact that I was suddenly able to control myself without worrying about the opinions of others was a major breakthrough.

Now I’ve changed into a more complete person. I organize events and do things with friends when I want to – but when my friends aren’t interested I do things by myself because I can have a good time on my own and meet new people that way. I go on dates (when I want to) and have reduced my fear of rejection quite a bit (although it still crops up here and there). I accept my hobbies and who I am and embrace what I enjoy instead of pushing it away. I still don’t go to the gym, though, but that’s purely out of laziness over a fear of looking weird when I go.

I’m not perfect. I still occasionally get that neurotic urge to make people like me no matter what, and I still have that huge fear of public humiliation bubbling underneath the surface. On the other hand, I’ve sung karaoke, goddammit, and that’s something.

But for the last time, don’t ask me to dance. I don’t dance.

Political Pressure

I’m not a big fan of discussing politics for a number of reasons. The main reason is that usually when you’re having a political discussion, either you have the same viewpoints and everything’s hunky-dory or you don’t have the same viewpoints and end up arguing. And the argument ends up with everybody going home unhappy because political beliefs are something that people get weirdly entrenched upon. If a pro-choice and pro-life person start talking about abortion, it is highly unlikely that the pro-life person is suddenly going to go “Oh, you raise a great point that makes me question my whole world view, why yes I’m pro-choice now!” Or vice versa. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but most political debates I’ve seen are fruitless.

This could also spawn from the fact that I’m not an argumentative person by nature in the first place. I’m very laid-back and don’t really care for debating the finer points of, well, anything. The only time I’ll step into an argument is if one of the opinions being held is harmful in nature – as far as I’m concerned if you have an opinion and that opinion isn’t hurting anyone, more power to you. But if your opinion is, for example, women don’t deserve the right to choose what to do with their own bodies – I’ll be ready to get into an argument about that. However, there’s only so many times I’ll beat my head against a brick wall before I give up – after all, you can’t save all people from bigotry no matter how badly you want to.

I’m getting a little off-topic. Back to the point: Super Tuesday just passed, and while I’m not big on politics this is the first year I was galvanized into voting in the presidential primary. So I figure now is a good time as ever to briefly wade into political discourse about the upcoming 2016 presidential election.

Brief history – I consider myself an independent. I believe there’s a two party system for a reason – shifting too heavy leaning one way or the other goes into radicalism and radicals are annoying. My presidential voting track record is Dubya/Obama/Obama. (I’m 3 for 3!) In 2004, I felt John Kerry was too wishy-washy and didn’t have a firm stance on anything and didn’t trust him to be a good president. In 2008, I felt McCain was too much of a continuation of Bush, and after 8 years of W I believed the country needed a Democratic president to balance things out. In 2012, I felt if Romney was elected we would reverse on a lot of the social policies Obama had instated (and I agreed with) and in general was happy with how Obama was running things and didn’t see the need for a change in party leadership.

In 2016, I’m going to be voting Democrat for certain – primarily for the reason that I don’t feel like rewarding Republican politicians for their absurd obstructionist behavior over the past eight years. The goal of the Republican party since Obama took office has been “stop Obama from getting anything done at all costs.” Bipartisanship has gone out the window, to the point that it was a “scandal” for Chris Christie to hug Obama when the President visited New Jersey amid a crisis. Ted Cruz’s campaign’s idea of burying Rubio? They photoshopped a picture of Rubio shaking hands with Obama – because Lord knows being cordial with the President of the United States isn’t something people should be allowed to do without being reprimanded.

The House and Senate wasted their time passing a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a bill they knew would be vetoed by the President, just to “prove a point.” They put the government into shutdown instead of passing proper funding. This insane idea of not letting Obama pick a replacement for Scalia and stalling for a whole YEAR is off the deep end. And most of the Republicans are running on the idea of “fixing” what Obama has done to the country. I don’t want to go backward as a country. Show me a Republican who accepts Obama’s tenure as President and puts forth new ideas for moving the country forward instead of running on a platform of “I’ll undo anything Obama has done!” and I’ll consider that person as a potential President.

It’s a testament to just how fucked up the Republican party has gotten when they’re literally considering obstructing their own voter base to get what they want – as the idea is apparently being floated to simply not let Trump get the majority of delegates so they can block him out at the Convention and get who they want into the nomination. Do they not understand how democracy works? The country got to the point where a large portion of people want to elect a reality TV host who files for bankrupcy once a year into the most important office in the United States. And yet all the people with money and talking points on their teleprompters want to act like they can just usurp what the people want. Except then you’re literally spitting into the face of democracy.

I hate Trump. I think we’re in for a world of hurt if he gets elected. But if the Republican base has gotten so radicalized and so racist that Trumpmania puts him as the primary candidate for electing? That’s what the people want. That’s the point of these primaries. If a group of people with lots of money shuck the will of the people and throw the person they want in charge into the fray – that’s not democracy. That’s a captialist oligarchy.

My biggest worry (outside of Drumpf winning the general election) is that the obstructionist policies are going to continue into the next presidency if a Democrat is elected. I mean, fuck. If a bunch of old white dudes threw this kind of fit when the first black President was in office, just think what they’ll do when the first woman President is there. Some of the men in the House/Senate probably haven’t taken orders from a woman in their entire life. How many temper tantrums are going to be thrown if Hilary pushes a pro-women health care bill through Congress that is pro-choice and gives women mandatory paid maternity leave (like a good chunk of the rest of the world already has)? Are we going to see Republicans filibustering the idea of equal pay between the sexes? How far could it go?

2016 has been a hell of a year so far in the political world. Every time Trump does something stupid and yet still retains his popularity I scratch my head and wonder how. A guy who has been blatantly racist and sexist, who is purposefully inflammatory and either dismisses or insults everyone who criticizes him, is somehow is a frontrunner to run the country. To negotiate with other countries about important shit like nuclear disarmament.

And yet I’m not surprised. In a world where social media is king, where news reports have to update you every five minutes on nothing or risk not being the first media outlet to report about nothing, where internet trolling is commonplace and unpunished – it makes sense that Trump is winning. He’s touched a base that felt like the establishment was ignoring them and then used knowledge of the post-internet world to gain power. But even Cruz and Rubio aren’t great alternatives either – one’s just a big a sleazeball as Trump and the other’s a malfunctioning robot.

No, I’m voting Democrat this year for certain. And if Trump wins, well…I hear Vancouver’s nice.

Dating Whoa

I have a love/hate relationship with online dating. I love going on dates, especially first dates. Meeting a new person, having interesting conversation and learning what they like and dislike, hearing fun stories and ultimately seeing if there’s a mutual attraction. It’s fun – when you get to go on one. But at the same time, I hate how much work dating has become as I’ve gotten older. If you want to be successful at it, you almost have to treat it like a second job. You have to put lots of effort into finding people you’re compatible with, and even if you’re successful circumstances may arise that disrupt your chances.

Dating, at its base level, is about finding out two things about the person you’re with. First, you’re seeing if you have enough in common that you want to spend a lot of your time hanging out with them. Second, you’re seeing if you have enough attraction to them that you want to see them naked. That’s it – that’s what a date is trying to determine. If you’re only looking for the first option, you’re probably on Meetup. If you’re only looking for the second option, you’re probably on Tinder. If you’re looking for both at the same time, you’re probably on a date.

In high school (and college to a degree – pun intended) that’s all that matters. You’re not worried about things like financial troubles or job opportunities or alimony payments or scary relatives. If you like hanging out and you want to have lots of sex, you end up dating – pimples and all. Pretty easy.

People that fall into serious relationships during this time are extraordinarily lucky, because as you go from teenagehood to adulthood, you get to grow together as a couple. You sort through all those difficult problems that arise, like “Holy shit, I have to pay how much to keep the water going?!” But you’re doing it as a unit and it bonds you. By the time serious problems develop (Crippling student loan debt, job opportunities in weird-ass places, serious health issues, and having a kid are all good examples) you’ve bonded and gone through things together and know that the person you’re with is worth the trouble. Or these problems break you apart, and then you end up back in the dating pool AFTER the honeymoon period of school and the infinite possibilities of sex are over.

Because as you get older, you start to weigh more things in your evaluations of potential partners. Having a lot in common and wanting to see them naked is still the base desire, but life starts creeping in and making your tastes a lot more discerning. At sixteen, a young woman likes the same movies as this cute guy, they develop interest and start dating seriously. At thirty, the same woman may think the guy is cute and they may enjoy the same movies, but she’s also worried about that ex-wife of his that’s sort of looney tunes, and the fact that he still seriously thinks his garage band’s going to make it big, and oh by the way can he borrow $100 for gas money for a road trip to Vegas.

So these serious problems that were bonding moments between couples that got started earlier end up being “baggage” for people on the dating scene later. You have crippling student loans? Well, I have good credit so us dating may not work out. You have a kid? Well, I am allergic to kids so bye. Not actually my opinion – I love kids. But I hope you get my point.

It’s especially difficult in the online age because you have a glut of information about the people you’re looking at, especially on some dating websites. I would routinely find people that seemed interesting at first glance, but two minutes with their dating profile and I would find at least one thing that made me go “Nope.” Now some things I found were actually good of me to know ahead of time, for example casual racism. I didn’t want to go out on dates with racists! That’s nice to find out about before making the mistake of messaging them. But a decent number were just me being too damn picky and finding reasons NOT to be interested.

And that’s a big issue that’s crept up, at least for me personally. See in this day and age, you can get exactly what you want pretty much whenever you want it. Do you want sushi delivered to your door? There’s an app for that. You want a guy to dress up in a ketchup bottle and dance for an hour? There’s probably an app for that too…somewhere. The point is, people in the modern age are teaching themselves more and more that they should get exactly 100% what they want. And it seeps into dating – if you find that one flaw in a person, it’s not charming and it isn’t something to work through as partners. Instead it’s a reason to try a new profile and see if you can find a better “match.”

A few weeks ago I decided to delete/discontinue all my dating apps/profiles/whatever online because I was just so damn tired. It was exhausting trying to discern who I wanted to send messages to, trying to come up with witticisms that made me seem more interesting than I actually am after swiping right, doing all that stuff. I wasn’t doing it because I wanted to anymore, I was simply doing it out of reflex because I felt like I should be doing it. And since I’ve removed myself from that particular dating pool I haven’t regretted it at all. It’s good to be free of that insane pickiness I found myself having about any possible date.

Maybe love is just around the corner for me. But in more likelihood, it probably isn’t. For now I’m just going to enjoy my life and stop trying to hunt down the perfect partner. And I’m okay with that.

Just Say Fuck It

So last night at 8:30 I found myself at the grocery store because my tooth was hurting me something awful and I was out of ibuprofen. And because of that, I found myself standing in front of a shelf full of Goldfish cracker packages that were on sale for 3/$4.98. As I stood in front of the Goldfish, three things crossed my mind. First – doing math in my head trying to figure out how much I would save if I bought said crackers versus their normal price. Second – wondering if my grade school math teachers knew all along this would be the extent of how I used math in my adult life. Third – wondering who the fuck thought it was a good idea to make the sale price 3/$4.98. Not even 3/$5? Seriously? What is WRONG with you?

After about thirty seconds of staring (which is approximately 29 seconds to long to stare at Goldfish crackers) I decided “fuck it” and threw the package into my basket without completing the math. And thus began my “fuck it” grocery run, where I just walked through all the junk food aisles and anything that I wanted and was on sale, I threw into the basket because “fuck it.” No “well I should get something healthy” or “should I really get this, it’s bad for me.” Just “fuck it” and into the basket.

And I realized that everybody needs to say Fuck It every once in a while. It’s liberating and let’s you stop worrying and overthinking about all your problems. Squash the Little Idiot inside of you and just go with the flow.

Now first, I’m aware my language is coarse. I was raised Mormon, where I learned that cursing was bad and evil and against God. I’m not always foul-mouthed. I’m polite around people I don’t know very well, I don’t curse around my parents or relatives, I try not to curse at work or around other people’s children that I don’t know. But cursing is not a bad thing. Sometimes you just need to throw in a fuck for emphasis and sometimes the word itself brings a different connotation.

Like if somebody says “Hey, let’s have sex” versus “Hey, let’s fuck.” There’s a different meaning there. Or “Let’s get out of here” (we’re done with dinner, let’s go to the movie now) versus “Let’s get the fuck out of here” (holy shit there’s a t-rex running down the street, move your ass).

Language is a beautiful thing – why artificially restrict yourself based on a nebulous definition of “bad” word?

So when I say everyone needs to say Fuck It, I don’t mean everyone needs to say “screw it.” No, dammit, your internal monologue has to be “fuck it.” If you’ve been a good vegetarian for three months and you say Screw It, you put bacon bits on the salad you’re having for dinner. If you’ve been a good vegetarian for three months and you say Fuck It, you order a meat lover’s pizza and devour the whole thing while watching Netflix in your sweatpants. If you say Screw It, you casually ask the cute person at the bar if you can buy them a drink. If you say Fuck It, you walk into the middle of the dance floor and start busting out every dance move in your repertoire while giving sexy eyes to the hottest person out there.

I’m not saying Fuck It is always good though. Going full Fuck It is not always going to bring you happiness, and in fact it’ll probably bring failure. In my case, saying Fuck It at the grocery store probably increased my BMI by a few points. In Mike Tyson’s case, he said Fuck It and bit Evander Holyfield’s ear off – that didn’t turn out so great. In Japan’s case, during World War II they said Fuck It and bombed Pearl Harbor. Also not a great decision.

Saying “fuck it” is not always going to work. But the best part of “fuck it” is that you’re likely going to have a story afterwards. You might even learn something about yourself. Like I learned I can, in fact, eat a whole bag of Doritos in one sitting and not get sick. (Just kidding, I already knew that.)

Normally at this point, I’d try to wrap things up with a summary paragraph and maybe a more concrete lesson. You know, typical writing behavior.

But eh, fuck it.

My Brain is Legos

I read/heard two things recently that basically got me wanting to write up a new blog post. The first I saw on the internet somewhere this weekend, and while I don’t remember the exact content it was motivational and went something like this: “Just because you don’t think people will read it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still write it. Just because you don’t think people will listen doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say it. You are not the reactions of other people to you.” And that’s something I’ve always struggled with as a writer – after all, what’s the point of creating if nobody consumes what you’ve created? No feedback at all is worse than negative feedback – throwing your creations into a vaccuum sometimes feels like shouting into a hurricane. I created this blog as a place to share my thoughts and opinions, and the times since my last post where I sat down at the computer and thought about making a blog post, but my brain managed to talk myself out of it through the logic of “Well, nobody is going to read this anyway regardless of your opinion, also in a hundred years you and everyone you know will be dead so what’s the point?”

My brain takes tangential, existential leaps to the oblivion on a regular basis.

Reading this got me to start thinking. And I realized that part of why I could never sit down and write a blog post is because I wanted every post I made to be a “big deal.” As in I wanted everything I wrote to be calculated and rigid, planned out to the utmost degree so I had opinions backed with facts and people would read what I say and go “ooh” and “aah” and “he Knows what he’s talking about, with a capital K.” I wanted every post I made to matter. I wanted to plan things out meticulously.

I am not good at that.

That is not me.

And that’s why I haven’t written about anything in two weeks. Because I’d get all amped about talking about whatever the latest news was that got my attention, and then I’d sit down and think to myself “God, it’s going to take a lot of work to get this together and make it good. It’s going to take hours, I might not even finish it tonight. Also, the sun will probably explode in 5.5 billion years annihilating everything in our solar system, so what’s the point? I’m going to go heat up some pizza and play video games.”

So I’m going to stop that, because that is not how my brain works. If you were to wander into my brain, it would look like a Lego store. But not a put together, organized Lego store. No, it’s more of a Lego store after a horde of eight-year olds has run through opening every fucking package without parental supervision. There would be ten Lego Death Stars started, except each one would have about five pieces stuck together and the rest spread out over the floor, and Lego Grand Moff Tarkin would be trapped inside a half-finished Lego X-Wing, and Lego Cinderella would be riding on a Lego dragon while some amalgamation of stray Legos that looks more like a Lovecraftian horror than anything of this Earth is pursuing a half Lego Iron Man, half Lego Indiana Jones conjoined twin.

Don’t walk barefoot in my brain.

I feel like I may have lost people in this metaphor, so let me give you an example. Earlier this evening, while I was fighting off both a sinus-related toothache (don’t ask) and a wave of nausea (won’t tell) I had a brilliant idea. I decided I was going to start a podcast! Wouldn’t that be fun? Yeah! I could get all my friends together, we could have a weekly sit down where we discuss shit that’s happened during the week and tell stories and then I’ll edit it and post it online. Five people will listen to it, it’ll be great! I even started looking up “how to start a podcast” on my phone and researching proper recording equipment before I stopped and thought about what the fuck I was doing. More importantly, the Little Asshole that resides on my shoulder rapped me on the forehead and yelled “You Idiot! You have a blog you haven’t touched in weeks! Don’t you think you should do one thing on a fucking schedule that you can ACTUALLY do before you try to do something you have NO experience in?!”

Which brings me to thing #2. Ah, I bet you forgot that there were two things that inspired this post! In writing speak, we call that foreshadowing. (Little Asshole: “That’s not foreshadowing at all, you Idiot.”) So. Thing #2. I was listening to Kyle Kinane’s stand-up comedy at work (he’s absolutely hysterical and you should give him a listen if you like comedy) and one of his tracks started with a great quote that I immediately knew I had to share:

“I’m lucky I’m a comedian because otherwise my life would be a series of undocumented low points.”

And that quote also got me thinking. I don’t document my life enough. I’m hesitant to draw from and share my life experiences because they’re personal. Also I’m bad at punch lines and telling stories. Not writing stories, but telling them. You know if you’re good or bad at telling stories, because about halfway through the story your audience’s eyes glaze over. Or you’re starting to laugh but everyone else is giving you that weird look and saying “Okay…” and you know you’ve lost them because you can hear the ellipsis in their speech. That’s me. I can’t share stories for the life of me. I don’t have that je ne sais quoi (look at me I can Google French) that it takes to really get a chuckle out of a funny event. At least in person. But I like to think I’m not terrible at writing.

So I sat down and really, really thought about what I wanted to write about and put on this blog. And I realized my life is one long string of stories about me going “Ooh shiny!” because I have no fucking focus. When you’re six years old, you want to do everything. You want to be a fireman, an action hero, a pretty princess, an actor, a writer, a dancer, a prancer, a vixen…well, you get the idea. When you’re six, on Monday you see a guy walk on the moon and want to be an astronaut. You want astronaut themed pillows, asteroids hanging from your ceiling, posters of space on your walls and little space shuttle action figures. On Tuesday, you see a guy drive a really big truck and he blows the horn for you and now you want to be a truck driver and have trucks on your wall and big Mack truck die-cast metal figures displayed on your dresser. And your parents just smile and nod.

Then you grow up. You go to school, you go to college and take a few classes while you’re not getting drunk and somewhere along the way you figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life. You gain some focus, you specialize and put effort and time into what you want to do and then BAM! You’re it. I have friends who are lawyers, doctors, engineers – they spent years of their lives dedicated to one pursuit so they would be good at it and now they are. They have a focus, they’re doing something they enjoy and have a set plan for a good chunk of their life.

My brain never grew up.

I still want to be a fucking astronaut.

And a race car driver.

And a stand-up comedian.

I still, while I’m by myself, pretend I can actually sing and think I’ll make it big on American Idol.

I’m a lunatic.

Which, as you can imagine, has led to a few interesting failures along the way. Like the time I thought I could learn parkour, and ended up getting schooled by a little 50-year old lady who was better at it than I was. I learned that day that, while I know I’m not fat, I’m also not built Ford tough. I’m not a honed weapon that can slice through a man’s spine. I’m the cosmetic sword that sits on the shelf from Ikea and if you put either through anything strenuous the entire set-up falls apart.

There is a point to all of this. That point is I’m going to stop trying to pretend this blog can be organized. Because my life is haphazard, so there’s no way this blog can be anything but. I’m also going to put more of me into what I post. My stories, my failures. Yes, I’m still going to write movie reviews and throw out my opinions, but I’m going to stop treating this blog like some holy bastion of amazing shit. I’m going to write less conclusively and more obtrusively. Instead of having to have a 3000 word treatise on anything I want to post about, I’ll just post thought blurbs about things as they come to me, or share things that I enjoy.

Or maybe there’s no point to this at all. Maybe I just rambled for however many words this is about things that are only slightly connected because my brain is fucking nuts and I can’t commit to anything but want to commit to everything all at the same time. At this point, I honestly can’t tell anymore.

So, who wants to start a podcast?

Movies in Review #1

It’s been 2016 for two weeks now, which means I’ve seen movies. As formerly explained, I like making lists – as such I’ve decided to try and keep a tally of all the (new) movies I watch over the course of the year. I’m going to try and keep a similar tally for books and I may even try and top myself and keep a list of my favorite songs every week as well. Who knows how far my OCD will go?

But back to movies: I’ve watched four new movies to me so far, so I’m just going to take a minute here and review each of them shortly. Enjoy?

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Fun movie, very 60s stylish. Henry Cavill’s posh American accent is almost distracting by itself, but it works for the character. Armie Hammer (who I always have a soft spot for whenever he shows up in movies) is great as the Russian second-half of the CIA/KGB buddy cop duo, and I found he delivered the humor better than Cavill did. And Alicia Vikander is my new Hollywood crush because she’s absolutely adorable and also great playing the stereotypical role of “whose side is she really on?”

The plot is serviceable, enemy spy organization, former Nazis trying to take over the world, yadda yadda yadda. The biggest problem I had with this film is that the movie is at its best when Cavill’s Solo (not to be confused with Harrison Ford’s Solo or Kirk Hammett’s solo) and Hammer’s Kuryakin are together and trying to one-up each other. But the movie keeps inventing ways to split them up, which…gah, why. The best scene in the movie is when the duo infiltrates the enemy’s base and they both spend the entire time bitterly wisecracking while trying to prove who is the better spy. Why not more of that?

The cinematography is also pretty great – while I can’t say this is the best movie Guy Ritchie has ever directed, the way scenes are shot make you really feel like this was a movie made in the 60s with really, really good effects. Overall, after watching it I felt like there was a classic movie in there somewhere, it just was slightly off kilter. Recommended if you like the spy genre sprinkled with period-ish movies, but don’t expect anything too fantabulous.

Dear White People (2014)

This movie I wanted to see from first seeing the trailer, and I just got around to finally watching it on New Year’s weekend. As expected this was a hilarious satire of all sorts of movements, beliefs, and ideals while pushing a very strong message. Tessa Thompson brings a ton of character as Sam, the outspoken in-your-face girl whose “Dear White People” talk show is what the movie is named after. Tyler James Williams is perfect as introverted Lionel just trying to find his place in college. And Kyle Gallner is absolutely fantastic as the idiot Kurt who you laugh at, at first, and then realize wait I know people like that.

The movie jumps right in and you have to pay close attention from the get go, because no time is wasted throwing you into the plots of the ensemble cast – it’s one of those movies that has several plot threads that don’t seem like they’re going to collide. Except then they do and they do so explosively. There is sarcastic, biting humor throughout and if you’re a person that can’t laugh at yourself, you’re probably not going to enjoy this movie. It might make some people uncomfortable but that’s the point – the movie has a message even under all the layers of (excellently written) humor.

One of the opening lines near the start of the movie (and the opening line of the trailer) is “Dear white people, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two. Sorry, but your weed man Tyrone does not count.” That’s about where this movie starts. Just imagine where it goes. It’s so, so great.

Static (2012)

So this movie showed up on my “Things You Might Like” list on Amazon Prime. I looked at reviews of it, and the reviews seem to agree that it was a medicore movie with a surprising twist that made the last part of the movie amazing. Several of the reviews said they were people who could normally see twists coming and did not see this one coming at all. Intrigued, bored, and having some Amazon credit so I could watch the movie for free, I went ahead and watched it to see what all the fuss was about.

I think all the reviews were shills.

The twist (to me) was obvious from about the first five minutes (and that’s being generous). And when I wasn’t messing around on my iPad instead of watching the movie as it dripped along, I was contemplating “well, if I think the twist is so obvious, maybe it’s going in another direction because everyone was so surprised.” No. It goes exactly in the direction you’d expect it to go.

The movie is by the numbers horror/thriller fare after the first half hour of long, tedious set-up, and comes complete with pointless shot of ‘young woman in underwear.’ I like Milo Ventimiglia and Sarah Shahi, but neither had anything to work with here and it shows. The only good part of the movie was the design of the antagonists in masks – they looked suitably creepy, but that’s all the movie had going for it. Thankfully, the movie clocks in at around 80 minutes long, so I didn’t have to be bored to death for a great length of time. I don’t recommend this unless you’re a masochist.

Priest (2011)

Every now and then there’s an actor/actress who always attracts your attention as the lead of the film and elevates your interest in the film simply by being in it, regardless of the content. To me, two of those actors are Paul Bettany and Karl Urban – so it’s no surprise that I was interested in this movie since they play the lead protagonist and antagonist, respectively. Unlike my previous review, I went into this one expecting it to be a bad movie and just wanted some enjoyable vampire killing action and some scene chewing by the leads.

I don’t know how Paul Bettany ended up with “stoic” as his character archetype, but that’s what his character is in this – in fact, his titular priest has almost the exact same range of emotion as his character Michael in Legion (This is another movie I’ll admit is horrible but I enjoy dearly, not in part because it’s what my friends like to call a “T-Man Movie” from top to bottom. I’ll explain what that kind of movie is in another blog post, probably.). Karl Urban gets a little more range to chew scenery and is pretty fun when he gets the chance to act, but unfortunately the movie doesn’t stray far enough from the grimdark line to get a true campy performance out of him.

The action is serviceable with the climax being the best (both in what happens and how it is filmed) and the special effects are neat-o but pretty standard Hollywood CGI action. Maggie Q is pretty wasted in her role. I was really hoping this would end up as one of my “awesomely terrible” movies that I put in when I need mindless action and fun dialogue (see: ConAir, Face/Off, The Rock, and a whole host of other 90s action movies) but unfortunately it doesn’t get mindless enough to be enjoyable. There are certainly worse movies made, but there are definitely better ones to watch if you’re in the mood for nonsense.

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So there you have it. I don’t have anything else to say or anything clever to tie the reviews up with, so we’re done here. So, uh, bye I guess.