Tourney Report + Other Things

So, after a week of getting roughly 3.5 hours of sleep per night (that's from sunday - friday), I got about 4-5 hours of sleep on Friday night, then Randy, Seth, and I drove 2.5 hours to Ft Collins to compete in a Magic tourney. I got my ass kicked, quite simply. I played in 5 rounds and won a whopping one of them. On the plus side, the one match I won was against a guy whose rating towers above mine, which made the victory the highlight of my day. Woot. I was using a homebrew deck, actually a modified version of the deck I played at the last tourney. Didn't fare quite so well. Now the pressure is starting in regards to building a net deck, just because that kind of deck has good odds of winning. Humbug, I say. Winnng's not as much fun when it's not something that you earn yourself. And while a good chunk of Magic is play skill, it still feels like cheating to use a deck that somebody else built. Besides, when everybody's running the same deck, that's not really a lot of fun.

On an aside, if I WAS going to copy a deck, it's be yours, Randy. Way more fun to play than the other decks floating around the metagame. Plus it's got strategies against all the rest of them.

It was a fun day nonetheless, aside from the ride home. Much asshole-ish-ness on my part, apologies all the way around.

Anyway, I had a fascinating email conversation with a friend today about douchebaggy friends. It seems he's been going through much of the same BS that I have when it comes to friends. It's nice to find somebody who can sympathize, though I wouldn't wish the pain that comes with douchebaggery on very many people.

He said one of the more interesting things to me today during that conversation. to quote "never take friendships personal". I find it almost depressing that this phrase it at once oxymoronic and true. Friendships are supposed to be personal; that's the whole idea of having friends. But, considering that most people are in fact assholes, I'm learning that it is probably better only to take the really close friendships personally. Fortunately for both of us, we do have some true friends who are there for support. Another one of the things we chatted about today.

So, that's my story. Now it's time to go proofread. WOOT!!

Running Scared... Again!

Good evening! Well, morning might be a better description... it's 2am, and yes, you guessed it, I have to be up for work in 5 hours. Like I said before, sleep is overrated.

I just watched Running Scared again... I blogged about this movie a while ago (click here), and I think after watching it again, it gets better every time I see it. I just can't say enough good things about that movie. It's one of those movies where you watch it, then everything watch for the next month or so seems so worthless and cheap, because it can't compare to Running Scared.

For the record, Paul Walker is the shit! I believe I said something to that effect in the last blog I wrote about the movie, and I still think that's true. Cameron Bright is great too, I am a huge fan of his... but I haven't seen him around in a while. I have the sudden urge to watch Godsend. Hmmmm. I've got that around somewhere.... can we say 4am anybody?

Back on topic here, I went back and read my old post, and I don't think I did quite enough in the way of conveying my excitement about this movie. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. That doesn't quite cover it, but it is adequate. I have seen hundreds of movies (I might even go so far as to say thousands... and if you don't believe me, come see my movie collection), and I think it's a pretty big deal when a movie makes my "Top 5 Movies Ever" list, because, well, it's only 5 movies long. I'd say right at No. 3, right behind Requiem for a Dream (of course) and The Fountain.

Requiem makes number 1 for many many reasons. You know, the first time I saw that movie, I was really bummed about having to watch it. I thought it was one of those stuffy independent flicks, but was I wrong. There are few movie in my collection that I've watched more than that. In fact (funny story here), I watched it with my mother one night (one of those 'family night' things... anyway), and she was literally screaming for it to stop by the time the movie ended. I had to turn it off before we got to the credits. I'm not gonna lie, it's intense.

The Fountain... what can I say about this movie? I can go on and on about how absolutely brilliant it is, how I spent almost the entire movie wanting to cry; I can tout the symbolism and the acting and the soundtrack and the camera angles and the script... Yet, all this is lost on most everybody I know who has seen it. I'm going to make a bold statement here... and I don't really ever say this, but I think it holds true in this case... If you didn't like it, you probably didn't understand it. That's not just me being pretensious, that comes from the many conversations I've had with others who have seen the movie. "I didn't understand" is a common thing to hear. Then there are the people who claim to understand, but when I ask them about the symbolism and such, I get a blank stare.

Seriously, watching this movie is like reading Lord of the Flies in that everything, and I do mean everything, is symbolic. And therein lies Aronofsky's genius. And Clint Mansell's score is one of the most beautiful things ever. In general, he writes amazing scores (requiem being another shining example), but the score for The Fountain is just beautiful. And the acting is top notch. And it is the combination of all these things that elevates this movie to greatness. But the foundation of the movie is the symbolism, and if you miss that, you miss all the rest of the pieces too.

Anyway, tangents aside, that covers the top 2 in my list. Running Scared easily rounds out the top 3. Number 4 goes to Cloverfield. Again, I can't say enough about how stupendous that movie is. The number 5 spot goes to Prime. Say what you want about Uma, I think she's a great actress (Kill Bill anybody? That's definite top 10 material... Be Cool, The Producers, I could go on...). AND, as an added bonus, it also stars Bryan Greenberg, who, as I mentioned in my previous post, is also one of my favorite actors.

The rest of top 10 would include Noel (it makes me cry every time), Kill Bill (Tarantino is a genius, period), The Perfect Score (Chris Evans, Bryan Greenberg, and Scarlett Johansson? Come on, you know it's good!), House of Sand and Fog (see a Jennifer Connelly thing here?), and Batman Begins (though I daresay The Dark Knight will blow that squae out of the water).

There you have it, a top 10 list. Everybody likes lists, right? I mean, just look at how many surveys (aka lists of questions and answers) are posted on Myspace bulletins.

RIP George Carlin. He was one of the only comedians I've ever seen who was smart enough to include politics in his acts in a way that was both eye opening and funny as hell. He'll definitely be missed.

Good night.

Weekend and Such

What an odd weekend... Friday, I thought I was going drinking with the work crew, but nobody was there when I showed up. I instead toured the card shops here and found some really sweet deals. One woman in one store even sold me $68.50 worth of cards for about $20. The store owner, a fat, fat, slob of a man was very busy playing WoW, and never even acknowledges I was in there. His wife helped me, and I got a sweet deal. She apparently got into trouble, because a friend went their yesterday and paid full price for everything. He was still playing WoW, of course.

I don't much care for that game. It's... it's an abyss that just sucks people right in. It's kinda scary the number of times a friend has bought the game only to disappear forever.

Famous last words: "Look! I just bought WoW! I'm going to go play it!"

Is a video game really worth the broken marriages and lost friendships? That may sound extreme, but I've known more than my fair share of people to whom this has happened.

Saturday, there was a draft, at which I placed 2nd. Not bad, not bad. Got a nice card out of it too. Then BBQ at the Taslers', which was fun, if a little rowdy. You get a bunch of drunk adults in one space, chances are good that there will be some disagreement, and of that, there was plenty. There were arguments over who gets to grab whose ass, who gets dunked in the big icy pool, who gets to defend said icy pool victim, who gets which instrument on Rock Band, what are the kids going to do now, and on and on. As perhaps the only sober person in the room, this was all rather amusing. However, I doubt I'll ever understand the joy people get in being belligerently drunk, and that goes double for people who do that and are prone to hangovers. Because the way that I want to spend my weekend involves not remembering the first day at all and spending the second day bent over the toilet wishing I didn't remember that either. Bravo.

Sunday... cleaning... yay. Then up until 430 in the morning playing Magic with Mike. All right. Who needs sleep? That stuff's overrated.

There's a corporate leadership conference for all the managers in my company this week, and all said managers were in panic mode on Monday. They figure with one day left before they're all out of office for the rest of the week, it would be a grrrrrrreat time to push in some (and by some I mean lots) last minute, must-be-finished-before-we-leave-work work. So yesterday, running on 3 hours of sleep, I got to deal with people in panic mode. Get it doen get it done get it done, is it done yet, how about now, finish it now now now now. Management pulling hair out, running around like a group headless chicken. It would be amusing if I weren't the one cleaning up after it.

What is it with upper management types that they are so prone to the irrational desperation of panic? I mean, seriously. I know they've got their heads submerged in the ceaselessly changing world of intracompany politics, but is it too much to ask that they look at the real world with a bit of calm? When something comes up, anything really, we go into some sort of OMG mode. I mean, this isn't a rational "This is big, here's a solution", problem solving kind of mentality, no no. This is full-on bug-eyed, happy-footed, hands shaking in front of the mouth, peeing in the pants panic attack. There might even be some high-pitched screaming of the teenaged girl sees a spider sort. Aren't these people making double or triple my pay in part to keep a level head when something comes up? If they're incapable of that sort of thing, I will happily take over.

Change of subject in 3, 2, 1...

I'm in a bit of an introspective mood today... so here goes some deep self-analytical stuff.

Tolerance. That word seems to be coming up more often lately. Here's a story. If I was the same person I was 5 or 6 years ago in the same situations I am in today, I would have exactly one friend... and no, it's probably not who you're think of. My mindset was the following: If you were not as good a person to me as I was to you, you're gone. If you made me mad, you're gone. Stressed me out... gone. Annoyed me, didn't appreciate me for who I was... gone. Picky, huh? It was an interesting defense mechanism, and I was ruthless about it. I cut ties to all kinds of people and didn't look back. On one hand, I think that's the way to live. Example, my old old room mates, two other Brians, for the record, never, ever cleaned up after themselves. I don't talk to them any more. Just snipped all the ties, and they were gone forever.

So, what has changed? A lot, really, but mainly... I've become a more tolerant person. More forgiving. The old idea was to avoid pain by cutting out of my life the people who are most apt to cause it. Simple enough. The new idea... risk the pain in order to have more people in my life. Some might call it "lowering my standards", which I suppose is accurate from one point of view. "Broadening my horizons" is another take. In the end, though, it comes down to this: I love my friends. The ones I have now, collectively, are better than any other collective group of friends I've had. Individually, I have an amazing best friend in Randy, damn good friends in Jason and Jen and Joe and Justin (a lot of J's there) and Damon, and a whole cast of people too extensive to list here, who daily enrich the quality of my life (you should know who you are). And that, I believe is something worth the risk.

Psychoanalyzing myself in a public forum is also a new experience for me. :)

I once saw a show called October Road... just one episode, and not even a whole one at that. It looked to me to be a very interesting show, one that seemed to revolve around old friendship and the struggles inherent therein. Plus, it stars one of my all time favorite actors in Bryan Greenberg (secondary part in The Perfect Score, starred in Prime, among others). I bought it yesterday and plan on spending my night with some quesadillas (homemade and delicious), some Dew, and that show. There are only 6 episodes, though, which is sad.

Edit: totally didn't do any of that!!

I watched Stardust on Saturday on the recommendation of a friend. For a movie that could have come out smelling like a hokie, over-dramatized, hopelessly cheesey pile of dung, it was actually really really good. I am pleasantly surprised.

The one flaw, and it's not really a flaw, more of a personal thing, but the main character, Tristan, was so incredibly naive and... well, stupid. He's this starry-eyed dreamer that just oozes innocence. He spends the movie with two expressions: bug-eyed adoration or bug-eyed fear. Not really much else. Not a huge fan of this kind of character... it's kind of cliche and boring.

The rest of the movie however... that's where it gets good. All of it, from beginning to end, was fantastic and original. My favorite character, by far, was Lamia the witch. There was just something so fun about her evilness. Yes, she wanted to cut the star's heart out, but dammit all, I was rooting for it. Besides, Michelle Pfeiffer is hot and doesn't look a day older than 35 (actual age: 50!!!). And, for the record, Robert De Niro is makes for an amazing gay pirate (or "wootsie" as they refer to him). I almost peed my pants when he was "revealed",a and during the haircut, and the "pirate fight" scene with the Can Can music bouncing in the background... priceless!!!

Nevermind that the sons of the king are all named for their birth order (Primus, Secundus, Tertius, etc) and that they are all killing each other and their ghosts hang around for the duration of the movie.
"What do you see?"
"The kingdom! My kingdom?"
Push... screaming.

Brilliant! And then there's the part where Tristan runs head on into a moving carriage (his best acting in the whole movie!)... ah, I'm laughing even now. Very good movie.

Eh, anyway. Life moves on, and I've got to actually do some work today. Peace.

Stuff and stuffing

Well, yet another weekend gone. I have to be up for work in... aboooouuuut, 5 hours. w00t.

Let's set aside all my preconceptions about the wedding from my last post (which has seemingly disappeared... all well, good riddance) for just a moment. All the last minute-ness planning aside, the ceremony was really very beautiful, and the reception was a lot of fun. Congratulations, Greenwalts. Enjoy your honeymoon. :)

Um, so if there was one thing I'd have to pick as my least favorite thing about living with Randy, this would probably be it. There's a girl crying right outside my bedroom door. There are people shushing her because they think I'm asleep. There's loud techno pounding against the wall right behind my monitor. There's the smell of booze and AC in the air, and my window's open, which isn't helping matters much, there's pizza crust all over the floor, along with a generous smattering of Magic cards, there's a ridiculous collection of cans, both beer and soda, covering the tables, shot glasses and spilled liquids everywhere, various video game accessiories strewn about, trash all around th etrash can, but remarkably little actually in the trash can... and lots of drunk people. Yeek. I just cleaned this morning too.... All well. One of the girls at the party asked me if I am mad right now. Since everybody's under the impression that I'm trying to sleep, they figure it's polite to ask if I'm mad when I show my face. And, truth be told... no, not really. More truth be told, I might be out and about mingling with the crowd, so to speak, but my social quota for the weekend is spent, and after the "cool story" (see below), I'm just kinda mad in general... but not at the party.

More crying, sounds a bit like a cat getting f-d. That was terrible in a very mean sort of way. I've decided I don't like her (her being a nameless person for the purposes of this blog.. and also because I can't for the life of me remember her real name) a whole lot. No, wait, I think I decided that several weeks ago, while on vacation. That's another story. Earlier, they were all screaming into the Rock Band microphone. AAAAGOONNNNNYYYYYYYY. For those of you who can't read long spellings, that was AGONY. I should probably consider "losing" that microphone. We have already had one noise complaint against us since I moved in....

Le sigh. It's a really good thing I slept in today. I actually slept on the couch. It's very, very comfortable. My bed, well it has this crater in the middle of it that I kind of have to sleep around. Quite uncomfortable at times - time for a new matress. But, in the meantime, I have developed the habit of sleeping on the couch when my room mate stays elsewhere. It's a very comfortable couch.

She's crying again. The sound is no less agonizing then the one people make while screaming into the microphone, trying to activate the overdrive mode and marvelling at the echo effects. WOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!

I think she just hit her head on the wall.

So, back to the wedding. My face is bright red. I've been drowning it in aloe all day. It hurts sooooo much. I left the aloe out there, so it's been a while since I've used it. Sad state of affairs. Was it worth the sunburn? Absolutely. Was it worth standing out in the heat for what seemed like hours (but was actually 12 minutes or so) in a heavy black tux, watching Damon in front of me try not to pass out while trying not to pass out myself? Sure.

Cool story: Joe and Amy, bride and groom. Anyway, Amy's brothers were supposed to stick around after the ceremony to assist with cleanup, but they decided they had better things to be doing, apparently, as they both left. Sooooo, I stayed to help in their stead. Now, I rode to the wedding with a friend, who proceeded to ditch me so he could go drinking. So, I'm left rideless, because I'm trying to make sure Joe and Amy don't have to clean up by themselves. Lovely. Thankfully, another friend is there to hitch a ride with. But still.... That'll teach me to try to carpool.

I think they're putting her to sleep in the bathroom.... So much for a shower in the morning. Ummm, yeah, for the record, and again, this is going to sound really mean, but people as immature as this girl should not be drinking. I've known her for a short while (namely tonight), and my very first impression was "wow, immature". Not my "first impression in hindsight", mind you, but that's what I thought to myself when she shook my hand tonight. She's done nothing to change that (in the few hours I've been locked in my room playing Guild Wars with Brett (btw, thanks for the distraction, dude, you rock!!)). Anyway, I'm not sure, but I think she might be 21ish. She acts about 11... maybe. 10's getting closer. Especially when she's drunk. She sounds like the little girl who just stubbed her toe on the cabinet.

In all honesty, for a few minutes, I thought it was one of the other girls who was here, because I have even less respect for her, she's even less mature, and my thoughts jumped straight to her when the bawling started.

I think even Randy's locked himself away in his room. HA.

So, the reception was great. Much food, and music, and fun. Lots of hugs, some good PDA moments (without even any alcohol...(in the building anyway)). Very comfortable, easy atmosphere. One of Amy's sisters caught the bouquet. I caught the garter (gerter??? I dunno) strap and got to dance with her. It was fun. We slow danced to some country song (something about exes in Texas or something like that), because neither of us knew how to do country dances. So we spun in a circle and talked about the wedding. It turns out that I was duped... well, that might not be the word for it. Damon, Rob, and Steve, the only other eligible bachelors in the room all planned for me to receive it ahead of time. They made like they were going for it, but they never had any intention of grabbing it. Silly me. It was fun though. For the record, yes, I danced for Rob. No, I was not drunk. Yes, it was brief.

Sob. Sob. Cry, whine, bawl. It huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurts. Grow the fuck up. What I would give for the balls to actually say that. You know, there was a time... nevermind. And now.... passed out on the couch. Oh yeah. Quiet.

For the record, and again, no names here, but there are certain people who really, really, really for the sake of our friendship, need to stop thinking that everything I say is some veiled criticism. You know me better than that, if I was going to criticize, I'd be quite blunt about it. None of this silly dancing around the bush, double-entendre shit. I say things, as often as possible, as I see them. Statements of fact, not shrouded attempts to get you to fix them. If I wanted you to change, I'd ask. If I was annoyed or pissed, I'd tell you. So stop reading so much into what I say. Please. :)

On the positive side, Sexy Mike's here tonight. He's one of the coolest people I've met through Randy (I think there are 3 really cool people I've met in the last year). PLUS, he's not scared of me just because I'm quiet. Bonus points.

This may sound kind of corny, but what the hell, I'm rolling with it. Listening to Randy play the guitar is one of the most relaxing things to do around here. I prefer to watch rather than to listen through the wall (I mean, come on, it's like litening to Tool at a concert versus on CD. Both are good, but live... man, there's nothing else like it). It's just an acoustic guitar and some singing, but it's sooooooooooooog good (he'll prolly hit me just for writing this... ow ahead of time). I can sing along to almost all the lyrics from every song, and it's the only "band" one of my friends have ever been in that I actually like... sorry Joey, screamo still ain't my thing.

Anyway.....

I had a conversation with a friend at the wedding. Well, between the wedding and the rehearsal, really, but that's not relevant. We were talking about people who say they're friends but aren't really. Quite an interesting discussion, as I learned some interesting things about a fella who I thought was my friend over a double quarter pounder with cheese and a really nasty salad at mcdonalds (that would be my "McD moment" I suppose).... but anyway, he asked me how many friends, real friends I have. That's a hard question to answer. In my mind, there are two types of friends. There are "friends" and there are "good friends". Good friends being the people I feel comfortable talking to about personal stuffs. I have exactly 2 of them... they (better) know who they are. Plain old friends, though.... not sure. I seem to have a revolving door of "friends" at the moment, so it's really hard to say who means what to me. Call it trust issues. Call it "cool story" moments and "McD" moments that make me question those friendships.

Revisiting the earlier question, am I mad... nope. Still not. A couple of weeks ago, in this same situation, I probably would have been furious. Not today. I'm over the depression that came with my revolving door friendships. Thank Mark (and there is exactly one person on the planet, other than me, who knows what that means!!), and thanks Tool, of course.

Saturn comes back around to show you everything
Let's you choose what you will not see and then
Drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again
Spits you out like a child, light and innocent.

Saturn comes back around.
Lifts you up like a child or
Drags you down like a stone
To consume you till you choose to let this go.

Give away the stone.
Let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and fated anchor.
Give away the stone.
Let the waters kiss and transmutate these leaden grudges into gold.
Let go.

- Tool

Wow, It's 3. I've been writing this for an hour now. This is a loooooooooooong blog, so if you've made it this far, congratulations... you really have nothing better to do? Just kidding. I'm going to start thinking about sleeping right now. Hopefully it's quiet enough to where I can do that. Fingers crossed.

Before I go, I would like to say that it's nice to finally be out from under the veil of depression after several loooooong months of not knowing exactly where I was going or where I belonged. Thanks to the small group of people (I can count you on one hand) that were there for me, even though some of you didn't exactly know it. You guys rock! And such.

Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
Withering my intuition leaving all these opportunities behind.

Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace the random.
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.

I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm, to
feel connected enough to
step aside and weep like a widow to
feel inspired, to
fathom the power, to
witness the beauty, to
bathe in the fountain, to
swing on the spiral
of our divinity and still be a human.

With my feet upon the ground
I lose myself between the sounds
and open wide to suck it in,
I feel it move across my skin.
I'm reaching up and reaching out,
I'm reaching for the random or
whatever will bewilder me.

And following our will and wind
we may just go where no one's been.
We'll ride the spiral to the end
and may just go where no one's been.
Spiral out. Keep going, going...

- Tool, again!! :)

Blast drunk people drama... shut up, to certain overweight people at the party tonight. Not every discussion has to include you, so STOP CRYING. God, why is there so much bawling tonight?

Oh, and I almost forgot the important stuff; here are the 112ish wedding pictures I took both from the rehearsal and from the wedding itself.

Moving here...

Greetings to all. I've been maintaining 2 different blogs for quite some time, both this one and the one on my Myspace page. As of today, I am only going to be posting to this one. Yay for blogs named after Coheed albums.