My notes from the past couple of weeks:
So Bad Boys 2 was fantastic. Great action scenes. Lots of fun moments, great lines, and unbelievable chemistry between Mr. Smith and Mr. Lawrence. It was painful to watch the Ferrari get shot up though (even though it was only a little).
I'm getting an iMac G4--one of the ones with the flat-screen monitor that they advertised as mimicing the guys actions through the window (and when he stuck out his tongue, it stuck out its super-drive). Should be a nice piece of machinery to work with. It'll provide me with something to properly play my media files and best edit media and graphic files.
I've been travelling so much in the past few years. I realized a few things. First of all, I've perfected the haggard and harried businessman look. Second of all, I have quite possibly been flown for more miles than I have driven since I got my driver's license. Third of all, I'm getting sick of them making you take off your shoes at security checkpoints, especially when they don't have any metallic pieces. Finally, it's really tiring. I don't know how I feel about flying anymore. It used to be fun. It takes you to far-away places. But it's a giant pain. United Airlines sucks too. They flew me through Chicago to get from Nashville to New York. While O'Hare was cool enough (I'd never been to Chicago before and I really should go back) and gave me a chance to call a few people, it added about 4 hours to my trip. I think the bottomline is that I prefer driving.
It was interesting on my flight between Nashville and Chicago. I was filling out Visa forms for Lebanon and Egypt and I had one of those guys next to me that loves to look at everything you're doing and peer out the window very obviously, even though I had the window seat. He got really suspicious and uncomfortable about me when he saw the forms I was filling out. Everytime I moved, he looked at me very intently with a little fear in his eyes. I'm sorry to anyone who has suffered discrimination since September 11th because of mistrust for Arabs.
I have to say that you guys all have impeccable timing. Everyone calls me to hang out when I'm out of town. Never when I'm around. Never when I'm sititng around trying to get ahold of a few people to get out of the same four walls. But when I'm out of town. Meagan wants to go to the beach, Liz wants to hang, Jeremy wants to chill, Rohny wants to go to Korea, Em-tarkanderundergunderson wants a drunk dial, Ardrey wants a gelato stand...where were you two weeks ago? It's frustrating. I'm just kidding.
So Nashville wanted to become the "Athens of the South" at some point. The name never stuck, but they kept the full-scale model of The Parthenon that they built to try toget the name. In just the right lighting, when the sun is mostly set and the lights are just turning on, it looks a little like it might be made out of marble with a little imagination. I couldn't bring myself to go in.
On Friday night, my brother and I went to the Havana Lounge. What amused me was that there were only about 5-10 places I'd ever be caught in and this was one of the better ones. My brother knew the name, but not where it was. Anyway, no one could dance, they played In Da Club at least three times, two ungrateful whores didn't even thank me for paying for their drinks. But the bartenders were fantastic and the prices were even better. The scenery was amazing. So many HOT women. And a lot of beautiful women too.
I need to draw a semantic distinction between measures of beauty--and note that these distinctions aren't hard and fast, but serve as a general guide.
Cute- It's something ou say about a girl when she's not unattractive and has enough personality in her appearance or the way she carries herself to make herself more attractive than she might normally be. You also call a girl cute when she appeals to you even though she's not something your buddies would necessarily be into.
Pretty- It's something you say of a girl you would consider dating (but aren't).
Beautiful- Something you call your girlfriend or a woman you wouldn't mind marrying.
Gorgeous- Something you call a girl when she surprises you by making herself up.
Sexy- Something you say about a girl who really turns you on (not necessarily with her physical attributes).
Hot- Something you say about a girl who's dressed for the club, showing off T&A and attractive (independent of whether or not she's pretty or beautiful).
Lovely- Something you call a girl when you pick her up for a date.
Charming- Something you say of a girl whose personality's fantastic.
Stunning- Something you say of a girl in an evening gown.
Attractive- The basic level of physical beauty.
The All-Star Game was interesting. I'm stoked that the AL got the home field advantage though. I still think it's bull. It was a great game, but I think everyone would have played just as hard regardless of what was on the line.
So all this time, visting my brother, I noticed a few things about him. He's gotta calm down when he's driving. He makes me look really tame and it's only a matter of time before he runs into another driver as dangerous as him. I hope he figures it out before it happens. And it's so weird considering he's seen what happens in car crashes. Not to mention that he drives his 4 cylinder Jetta, like a V8 Diablo. The other interesting things were his attempts to bottle up his potty mouth and hide his subscription to Maxim. I found it hilarious. But he's still the same stubborn and uptight guy that I love. He's actually gotten better about it though.
And I got to meet my brother's girlfriend, Krissy. She lives in Oak Ridge, TN, goes to school at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She's half-German, half-Japanese. Her parents are moving to Hawaii. She's 19. She's a sweet girl and she and my brother get along really well. She's a very simple person, and I really appreciatde that (it would drive me nuts, but then again she and I aren't dating).
My final word on Nashville: I'd go back until I was 30 to rock it out. I'd go back after to get a guitar.
So I've been reading The Stone Raft by Jose Saramago. The Iberian peninsula breaks off of mainland Europe. Fantastic prose. I love his style. One of the best incorporations of dialogue and gentle mockery of modern society I've ever read. No wonder he won a Nobel Prize in Literature.
My parents watched BET for about 15 minutes. I died of laughter.
Lines like "it's not you, it's me" are wrong. "Right person, wrong time" is bullshit too, unless one of you is dying. Just admit there was something wrong. If nothing was, don't blame the fact that it wasn't convenient. Maybe you hold convenience at more of a premium than having someone in your life--in that case, thanks for clueing the other person in.
The City Hall shooting seems rather bizarre. I don't understand why security can't be a cut-and-dry thing. Just search everyone (not to the point of ridiculous), spot check with more detailed searches and everyone can deal with it. I've been in the Blue Room before and it's crazy to think they had the shoot-out at the OK Corral there. What's wrong with people?
We went to The Wild Boar while in Nashville. It's probably the most expensive restaurant in that town. Very much like Rialto in the Charles Hotel in its style. They try really hard to have the most novel tastes in town, but they don't really taste that great. They do have a very fine touch though in their cooking and I certainly appreciated that. They also helped us to a fantastic wine. And their signature dish, the wild boar, was really incredible. First time I ever had boar.
Latitudes was the hotel restaurant where my folks were staying. We had a wine with "Ribbit" on the cork. And it was a fantastic white wine.
I think the White House is a funny looking building--just the facade. It looks like something you could get a shapes lesson from. The roof's too flat. It just looks flat.
Atlantis on Paradise Island in the Bahamas is a family friendly Vegas. Kinda sucks without a crew, but the beach is off the hook and the casino and the food aren't bad. It's kind of like a low-end Disney resort. It possibly has the worst mattresses I've ever slept on. Almost every chick here is a trophy wife, or daddy's little girl. It's repulsive. But they're fantastic to look at.
Qusay and Uday killed. The headline: "Aces in the Hole." The Aces of Clubs and Hearts? So did the troops knock down a royal flush yet? A pair of Aces isn't that good, but it's not bad either. Enough joking, but a 6 hour gun-fight with only 4 deaths? Were they all just firing for 5 minutes and chilling over a cigarette break for the next 5 hours and 55 minutes? 30 Million Dollars for the informer and the Life of Riley. I doubt he or she will ever see it. And there are still what, 18 cards of the deck of 54 left?
Troops are dying daily. If we stay in there for a year, we're guaranteed close to 1,000 dead Americans. That is 1,000 lives.
CNN: "Kansas is not as flat as a pancake; it is, in fact, flatter."
The Jessica Lynch story. I don't get the hype. People are captured in the rest of the world, locked up and forgotten about. What about the boys and girls dying in Iraq? What about the other lives (not Americans)?
"A great day for the Iraqi people." Makes me want to vomit.
Eiffel Tower burning? What's to burn? Weird.
Turbulence is a reminder that we weren't made to fly.
So on the flight from Chicago to New York I was surrounded by HOTTNESS and by gayness (not surprising given the flight route). The frustrating thing was that the gay dudes were around me in every direction and sitting next to all of them were the 5 or 6 hotties on the flight. Of course, they weren't moving on them, so it was just frustrating coz I was boxed out. Oh well.
I went jetskiing down here a couple of times. It was a fantastic experience. Cruising around 40 mph, leaping off the top of waves, weaving over other people's wakes, pulling 180s, almost flipping the thing at every possible opportunity, the ocean spray burning my lips and nature churning by. I loved it. A half hour passed in no time and I couldn't wait to do it again.
I also tried the water slides here. There were 3 that were worthwhile. The "Leap of Faith" had a 60-foot drop where you actually come off of the slide for a half-second or so and then you jet through a tube going through a lagoon of sharks, rays and other friendly fish. It reminded me of the big slide at Splish Splash. The "Challenger" had a nice little hump. Then there was this other one that you rode a tube down. And it went really quickly to begin and then slowed down as you passed through the same lagoon in a separate tube. So you actually had a chance to look at all the wildlife. It was cool.
Telling age differences in girls here is ridiculous. Does she look 20, but is only 14? Does she look 14, but is actually 20? This really hit home today. I started talking to a couple of chicks who looked at least 20-something on the beach and it came up: "So where do you go to school?" "I'm gonna be a senior?" "Oh, where at?" "In high school" (George breathes deep, politely ends the conversation and moves on). I mean, it's dangerous. This group of three girls came up behind me after dinner and one of them grabbed my ass. Now, I know my ass doesn't look so good that they couldn't help it, but these girls were 16 at the oldest. So I turned around and realized this and asked them how old they thought I was (this was after I had my wine glass pulled at dinner by an overly-protective waiter). One of them said 18. I told them I'm graduating college next year and they just giggled and started saying to each other, why'd you grab his ass? I just turned around and kept walking. Shook my head. Geez. Why can't hot 20-year-olds grab my ass?
I also gambled down here. Lost 40 bucks in about 20 minutes and wished I'd spent it on alcohol. Ask me to choose one vice over another and I'll take shoes.
The term homophobia is a very interesting one. While it has come to mean an intolerance for homosexuals, it semantically states "an irrational fear of homosexuals". If you ask me, most "homophobes" don't have a fear of homosexuals, but they don't accept their lifestyle as a natural one. Furthermore, a phobia implies that there's something wrong with the phobe. I just think its interesting to note the semiotic value of the word as compared to its linguistic derivation. I also think it's ridiculous that the New York City Board of Education is opening a high school strictly for BGLTS students. They're undoing Brown v. Board of Ed and spent 3.5 million of the underfunded school system's money on renovating the building for it. Next thing you know we'll have two other new schools opening: one for fat kids that get picked on and one for the bullies. Definitely a school for the bullies. It's completely illegal and it segregates gays.
So I'll finally let go on the Music Industry. This is something I want to go into so I have some very strong sentiments about it. Here goes:
The Internet:
is the greatest thing to happen to the music industry.
File-sharing:
is the greatest thing to happen for artists. It provides them with maximum exposure and it can help take "making it big" out of the hands of major record labels.
Lost profits:
will encourage a novel approach to a stagnant industry.
The RIAA:
is fighting a losing battle and is gonna look like a bunch of idiots when they nab someone like me that owns 280+ CDs and has fair use rights to the other files in his/her collection. Or tags the wrong IP address and subpoenas someone without an internet connection.
Napster/Kazaa/etc.:
created a market where it was limited anyway. College students don't have a ton of money to blow on CDs and so it introduced them to many different styles of music very rapidly. This has a balloon effect for the industry building a fan base where there wasn't one before.
Live shows:
are increasingly important--AS THEY SHOULD BE. These people aren't just artists, because if they can only do it in the studio, it's the producer that should be credited and not the band (you should see the stuff they can do with pitch correction, digital arrangements, mixing, etc.). They are performers, and emphasis fell off of that with music videos. With falling profits for mid-range bands
Indie rockers:
have followings that will buy their records. They are building new followings too and it's encouraging their sales.
Chicks:
still aren't producing as much music as they should be and I really hope they start soon.
Platinum records:
Records are still going platinum (and stronger than other platinum records), but people aren't buying albums for one song anymore. This helps weed out artists that don't produce quality records.
All in all, I think this is a fantastic time for the industry and they just need to open up to creativity and to realize where they can make money from.
And finally, a question for anyone that might know:
Who owns the rights to any given remix? Besides P. Diddy.
So Bad Boys 2 was fantastic. Great action scenes. Lots of fun moments, great lines, and unbelievable chemistry between Mr. Smith and Mr. Lawrence. It was painful to watch the Ferrari get shot up though (even though it was only a little).
I'm getting an iMac G4--one of the ones with the flat-screen monitor that they advertised as mimicing the guys actions through the window (and when he stuck out his tongue, it stuck out its super-drive). Should be a nice piece of machinery to work with. It'll provide me with something to properly play my media files and best edit media and graphic files.
I've been travelling so much in the past few years. I realized a few things. First of all, I've perfected the haggard and harried businessman look. Second of all, I have quite possibly been flown for more miles than I have driven since I got my driver's license. Third of all, I'm getting sick of them making you take off your shoes at security checkpoints, especially when they don't have any metallic pieces. Finally, it's really tiring. I don't know how I feel about flying anymore. It used to be fun. It takes you to far-away places. But it's a giant pain. United Airlines sucks too. They flew me through Chicago to get from Nashville to New York. While O'Hare was cool enough (I'd never been to Chicago before and I really should go back) and gave me a chance to call a few people, it added about 4 hours to my trip. I think the bottomline is that I prefer driving.
It was interesting on my flight between Nashville and Chicago. I was filling out Visa forms for Lebanon and Egypt and I had one of those guys next to me that loves to look at everything you're doing and peer out the window very obviously, even though I had the window seat. He got really suspicious and uncomfortable about me when he saw the forms I was filling out. Everytime I moved, he looked at me very intently with a little fear in his eyes. I'm sorry to anyone who has suffered discrimination since September 11th because of mistrust for Arabs.
I have to say that you guys all have impeccable timing. Everyone calls me to hang out when I'm out of town. Never when I'm around. Never when I'm sititng around trying to get ahold of a few people to get out of the same four walls. But when I'm out of town. Meagan wants to go to the beach, Liz wants to hang, Jeremy wants to chill, Rohny wants to go to Korea, Em-tarkanderundergunderson wants a drunk dial, Ardrey wants a gelato stand...where were you two weeks ago? It's frustrating. I'm just kidding.
So Nashville wanted to become the "Athens of the South" at some point. The name never stuck, but they kept the full-scale model of The Parthenon that they built to try toget the name. In just the right lighting, when the sun is mostly set and the lights are just turning on, it looks a little like it might be made out of marble with a little imagination. I couldn't bring myself to go in.
On Friday night, my brother and I went to the Havana Lounge. What amused me was that there were only about 5-10 places I'd ever be caught in and this was one of the better ones. My brother knew the name, but not where it was. Anyway, no one could dance, they played In Da Club at least three times, two ungrateful whores didn't even thank me for paying for their drinks. But the bartenders were fantastic and the prices were even better. The scenery was amazing. So many HOT women. And a lot of beautiful women too.
I need to draw a semantic distinction between measures of beauty--and note that these distinctions aren't hard and fast, but serve as a general guide.
Cute- It's something ou say about a girl when she's not unattractive and has enough personality in her appearance or the way she carries herself to make herself more attractive than she might normally be. You also call a girl cute when she appeals to you even though she's not something your buddies would necessarily be into.
Pretty- It's something you say of a girl you would consider dating (but aren't).
Beautiful- Something you call your girlfriend or a woman you wouldn't mind marrying.
Gorgeous- Something you call a girl when she surprises you by making herself up.
Sexy- Something you say about a girl who really turns you on (not necessarily with her physical attributes).
Hot- Something you say about a girl who's dressed for the club, showing off T&A and attractive (independent of whether or not she's pretty or beautiful).
Lovely- Something you call a girl when you pick her up for a date.
Charming- Something you say of a girl whose personality's fantastic.
Stunning- Something you say of a girl in an evening gown.
Attractive- The basic level of physical beauty.
The All-Star Game was interesting. I'm stoked that the AL got the home field advantage though. I still think it's bull. It was a great game, but I think everyone would have played just as hard regardless of what was on the line.
So all this time, visting my brother, I noticed a few things about him. He's gotta calm down when he's driving. He makes me look really tame and it's only a matter of time before he runs into another driver as dangerous as him. I hope he figures it out before it happens. And it's so weird considering he's seen what happens in car crashes. Not to mention that he drives his 4 cylinder Jetta, like a V8 Diablo. The other interesting things were his attempts to bottle up his potty mouth and hide his subscription to Maxim. I found it hilarious. But he's still the same stubborn and uptight guy that I love. He's actually gotten better about it though.
And I got to meet my brother's girlfriend, Krissy. She lives in Oak Ridge, TN, goes to school at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She's half-German, half-Japanese. Her parents are moving to Hawaii. She's 19. She's a sweet girl and she and my brother get along really well. She's a very simple person, and I really appreciatde that (it would drive me nuts, but then again she and I aren't dating).
My final word on Nashville: I'd go back until I was 30 to rock it out. I'd go back after to get a guitar.
So I've been reading The Stone Raft by Jose Saramago. The Iberian peninsula breaks off of mainland Europe. Fantastic prose. I love his style. One of the best incorporations of dialogue and gentle mockery of modern society I've ever read. No wonder he won a Nobel Prize in Literature.
My parents watched BET for about 15 minutes. I died of laughter.
Lines like "it's not you, it's me" are wrong. "Right person, wrong time" is bullshit too, unless one of you is dying. Just admit there was something wrong. If nothing was, don't blame the fact that it wasn't convenient. Maybe you hold convenience at more of a premium than having someone in your life--in that case, thanks for clueing the other person in.
The City Hall shooting seems rather bizarre. I don't understand why security can't be a cut-and-dry thing. Just search everyone (not to the point of ridiculous), spot check with more detailed searches and everyone can deal with it. I've been in the Blue Room before and it's crazy to think they had the shoot-out at the OK Corral there. What's wrong with people?
We went to The Wild Boar while in Nashville. It's probably the most expensive restaurant in that town. Very much like Rialto in the Charles Hotel in its style. They try really hard to have the most novel tastes in town, but they don't really taste that great. They do have a very fine touch though in their cooking and I certainly appreciated that. They also helped us to a fantastic wine. And their signature dish, the wild boar, was really incredible. First time I ever had boar.
Latitudes was the hotel restaurant where my folks were staying. We had a wine with "Ribbit" on the cork. And it was a fantastic white wine.
I think the White House is a funny looking building--just the facade. It looks like something you could get a shapes lesson from. The roof's too flat. It just looks flat.
Atlantis on Paradise Island in the Bahamas is a family friendly Vegas. Kinda sucks without a crew, but the beach is off the hook and the casino and the food aren't bad. It's kind of like a low-end Disney resort. It possibly has the worst mattresses I've ever slept on. Almost every chick here is a trophy wife, or daddy's little girl. It's repulsive. But they're fantastic to look at.
Qusay and Uday killed. The headline: "Aces in the Hole." The Aces of Clubs and Hearts? So did the troops knock down a royal flush yet? A pair of Aces isn't that good, but it's not bad either. Enough joking, but a 6 hour gun-fight with only 4 deaths? Were they all just firing for 5 minutes and chilling over a cigarette break for the next 5 hours and 55 minutes? 30 Million Dollars for the informer and the Life of Riley. I doubt he or she will ever see it. And there are still what, 18 cards of the deck of 54 left?
Troops are dying daily. If we stay in there for a year, we're guaranteed close to 1,000 dead Americans. That is 1,000 lives.
CNN: "Kansas is not as flat as a pancake; it is, in fact, flatter."
The Jessica Lynch story. I don't get the hype. People are captured in the rest of the world, locked up and forgotten about. What about the boys and girls dying in Iraq? What about the other lives (not Americans)?
"A great day for the Iraqi people." Makes me want to vomit.
Eiffel Tower burning? What's to burn? Weird.
Turbulence is a reminder that we weren't made to fly.
So on the flight from Chicago to New York I was surrounded by HOTTNESS and by gayness (not surprising given the flight route). The frustrating thing was that the gay dudes were around me in every direction and sitting next to all of them were the 5 or 6 hotties on the flight. Of course, they weren't moving on them, so it was just frustrating coz I was boxed out. Oh well.
I went jetskiing down here a couple of times. It was a fantastic experience. Cruising around 40 mph, leaping off the top of waves, weaving over other people's wakes, pulling 180s, almost flipping the thing at every possible opportunity, the ocean spray burning my lips and nature churning by. I loved it. A half hour passed in no time and I couldn't wait to do it again.
I also tried the water slides here. There were 3 that were worthwhile. The "Leap of Faith" had a 60-foot drop where you actually come off of the slide for a half-second or so and then you jet through a tube going through a lagoon of sharks, rays and other friendly fish. It reminded me of the big slide at Splish Splash. The "Challenger" had a nice little hump. Then there was this other one that you rode a tube down. And it went really quickly to begin and then slowed down as you passed through the same lagoon in a separate tube. So you actually had a chance to look at all the wildlife. It was cool.
Telling age differences in girls here is ridiculous. Does she look 20, but is only 14? Does she look 14, but is actually 20? This really hit home today. I started talking to a couple of chicks who looked at least 20-something on the beach and it came up: "So where do you go to school?" "I'm gonna be a senior?" "Oh, where at?" "In high school" (George breathes deep, politely ends the conversation and moves on). I mean, it's dangerous. This group of three girls came up behind me after dinner and one of them grabbed my ass. Now, I know my ass doesn't look so good that they couldn't help it, but these girls were 16 at the oldest. So I turned around and realized this and asked them how old they thought I was (this was after I had my wine glass pulled at dinner by an overly-protective waiter). One of them said 18. I told them I'm graduating college next year and they just giggled and started saying to each other, why'd you grab his ass? I just turned around and kept walking. Shook my head. Geez. Why can't hot 20-year-olds grab my ass?
I also gambled down here. Lost 40 bucks in about 20 minutes and wished I'd spent it on alcohol. Ask me to choose one vice over another and I'll take shoes.
The term homophobia is a very interesting one. While it has come to mean an intolerance for homosexuals, it semantically states "an irrational fear of homosexuals". If you ask me, most "homophobes" don't have a fear of homosexuals, but they don't accept their lifestyle as a natural one. Furthermore, a phobia implies that there's something wrong with the phobe. I just think its interesting to note the semiotic value of the word as compared to its linguistic derivation. I also think it's ridiculous that the New York City Board of Education is opening a high school strictly for BGLTS students. They're undoing Brown v. Board of Ed and spent 3.5 million of the underfunded school system's money on renovating the building for it. Next thing you know we'll have two other new schools opening: one for fat kids that get picked on and one for the bullies. Definitely a school for the bullies. It's completely illegal and it segregates gays.
So I'll finally let go on the Music Industry. This is something I want to go into so I have some very strong sentiments about it. Here goes:
The Internet:
is the greatest thing to happen to the music industry.
File-sharing:
is the greatest thing to happen for artists. It provides them with maximum exposure and it can help take "making it big" out of the hands of major record labels.
Lost profits:
will encourage a novel approach to a stagnant industry.
The RIAA:
is fighting a losing battle and is gonna look like a bunch of idiots when they nab someone like me that owns 280+ CDs and has fair use rights to the other files in his/her collection. Or tags the wrong IP address and subpoenas someone without an internet connection.
Napster/Kazaa/etc.:
created a market where it was limited anyway. College students don't have a ton of money to blow on CDs and so it introduced them to many different styles of music very rapidly. This has a balloon effect for the industry building a fan base where there wasn't one before.
Live shows:
are increasingly important--AS THEY SHOULD BE. These people aren't just artists, because if they can only do it in the studio, it's the producer that should be credited and not the band (you should see the stuff they can do with pitch correction, digital arrangements, mixing, etc.). They are performers, and emphasis fell off of that with music videos. With falling profits for mid-range bands
Indie rockers:
have followings that will buy their records. They are building new followings too and it's encouraging their sales.
Chicks:
still aren't producing as much music as they should be and I really hope they start soon.
Platinum records:
Records are still going platinum (and stronger than other platinum records), but people aren't buying albums for one song anymore. This helps weed out artists that don't produce quality records.
All in all, I think this is a fantastic time for the industry and they just need to open up to creativity and to realize where they can make money from.
And finally, a question for anyone that might know:
Who owns the rights to any given remix? Besides P. Diddy.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home