So, after reading Sarthak’s Xanga, I decided it was about time I update mine as well.  I took a few moments to re-read my first two posts.  I secretly wonder if they are worth the time spent reading.  If you are now reading this, my third post then either you agree or perhaps you are just bored.  Either way, you’re doing this on your own accord, I’ll have you know.

Oh, and yes, I was extremely flattered by Sarthak’s “shout-out” to me in his xanga.  Call it nerdy, sad, pathetic, but remember… you’re reading this, when you could be out…curing cancer or winning a triathlon.

Movies.  I love to read movie reviews.  The other day I was contemplating whether I love watching movies more or simply reading about their reviews.  I think watching them won, but not by much.  Also, I enjoy watching my favorite movies quite frequently.  My roommates would trade the word “frequently” in the last sentence for “constantly”.  Here’s the part where I state my favorites: Good Will Hunting, A Few Good Men, The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Jerry McGuire, The Passion of the Christ, Ray, Remember the Titans, Enemy of the State, and Miracle (In Just that order.)  I would by more than happy to only watch the above listed movies every day for the rest of my life.  I wouldn’t get tired of them, either.  You could call that sad; I’d like to call it dedicated.  Movies seem to be the cornerstone in American entertainment.  With all other things consumed, the price of the theatre ticket has risen.  I think a non-matinee movie ticket should be included in every economist’s Market Basket, when retrieving the effects of inflation.  Ticket prices can be as much as $12 per person in some theatres and a theatre just down the street from me, one my family for years affectionately called “the Dollar theatre” raised its price from $1.00 to $1.25 to $2.25 and now to $3.00.  Can you believe it?  The three-dollar theatre…doesn’t have the same ring.

My roommates at school have constant battles about which movies are “good” and which aren’t.  While our arguments may derive from a variety of positions about new or old film, they basically ALWAYS can be boiled down to: “Brandon, Titanic is NOT a good movie, even though it made 300 million.”  Somewhere during the overly dramatic tirade I partake in I throw in some shameless blow at Pirates of the Caribbean, citing how I hate movies that have such large plot flaws that they cover it up with, “Characters that are neither alive nor dead and cannot be killed.”  But think, more honestly, Titanic and Leonard Part VI aside (there’s a story behind that), what makes a good movie?

Leonard Part VI is one of my roommate’s favorite movies, it involves Bill Cosby, an ostrige, ballerina slippers, and possibly some of the worst writing Hollywood never saw.  The movie was an unpleasant failure, and while Emile did find it on eBay, I would have rather spent my time watching paint peel.  IMD ranks Part VI as one of the 30 worst films of all time.  In on review the author said, “The only good part about Leonard Part VI is that there was no Leonard Parts I-V”.

I enjoy the movies that I do, because of a collage of great acting, moving cinematography, strong plot, and writing containing lines that I will recite until I cease to rant.  Good movies don’t always make you feel good.  Good movies don’t just make you laugh or cry.  You can’t forget a truly good movie.  It’s like eating at a great restaurant with large serving sizes.  You know you’re over eating and you should be packing the doggie bag, so that you can enjoy the great food tomorrow, but you just don’t care.  You look down at the last three bites of joy, knowing that your stomach could explode, but you preserve, thinking of the kids in Africa who are starving.  Convincing yourself that you are doing it all out of sacrifice.

So it’s the Christmas season, and I just gave you a gift, whether you noticed it or not.  Not the ten most intellectually stimulating, historically significant, or stylistically modern pieces of work, but I gave you my favorite 10 movies.  Watch all 10 of them and then come tell me that I have horrible taste.  And then I’ll tell you that you’ve got a horrible heart.

It’s almost a new year, and I’ve got lots of things to be thanking God for.

Merry Christmas to all.

Adaptability.

This trait is almost unteach-able.  The best professional sports teams and athletes in the world have one thing in common and that is they possess a very innate ability to adapt to the situation and respond based upon the circumstances.  From tennis stars changing their game based on the playing surface, the strength, speed, and fitness of their opponent, to the length of the tournament.  For Golf player where every hole may be unique, adaptability concerns taking the set of skills that you have and making them fit due to situational pressures.

There are other walks of life in which honing this often overlooked mindset can put one in great advantage.  In the job market my father has always stressed knowing what your company needs, what types of skills they value, which direction their progress is bound to take them, and knowing what is currently successful in the big scheme of things.  Businesses tend to be somewhat cyclical some having great highs others experiencing tougher lows, still over the course of 200 years few things remain fixed at the peak of their potential.

I think adaptability in a personal sense could lead to interactions that are a lot less uncomfortable or awkward.

Often wondering what would happen if all people confronted their fears; I tried to analyze mine the other day.  There’s the common fear many people have of things that aren’t really all that common.  Take heights for example.  Many people fear heights.  Why? Because it wouldn’t be very comfortable to fall eight stories to your death.  Consider this, how often do people actually fall to sudden death?  It doesn’t happen everyday; well I don’t hear about it that often at least.  But there is the possibility that since people are so afraid of heights that they respect the danger and thus lives are saved.  While this is possible fear can also be paralyzing, which in turn hampers productivity.  I would urge you to consider that I fear death by bullet, but I don’t often consciously act on this fear in any way, neither does it keep me from going anywhere at any time.  Perhaps I should be more afraid.

The fears I have most problems with are those that are not rational.  Who fears being struck by lightning?  Does this same person drive?  Or cross the street in an urban area?  The chances of getting struck by lightning are so incredibly low.  Also traveling in a plane.  Many people fear getting in a plane wreck, but there is a much higher chance you die in a car accident, yet people often pay no mind to jumping in a car and speeding off into the distance, now that my friends is unexplainable.  Well, car wrecks aren’t as bad as dying in an airplane, you say?  Well in a car it’s pretty easy to get maimed, and not be able to live a flexible and commonly enjoyed life, but in a plane wreck, if your number is called, you’re pretty much a goner.  From that standpoint, I’ll roll my dice and take the plane crash over a wheel chair.  But, on second thought there is life after basketball….

My real fears aren’t heights, planes (which when they crash it completely out of my control), and bullets to the head, they are public humiliation concerning my feelings toward someone of the opposite sex and not ever being happy with a job I land.  I do not fear loneliness or aging.  I don’t fear death, like I used to.  Until perhaps a few days ago, I feared losing my parents or grandparents.  But I can live on, without my parents, though I love them both dearly.  If it’s my time to die, I guess I’d just better go… I won’t ask you to put nickels on my eyes for the boatman.  I’m anxious to meet Cerberus.

On my summer job there was a guy, that one of my associates called on (meaning to go visit) who was fired.  He had been working there for several years and my colleague had grown fond of him.  The day he was let go because the “company was restructuring” he went home and blew his head off with a shotgun. Wow.  This happened last week, and I’ve been thinking it over.  One of the guys in my office commented on how selfish it was, the man having a child and wife left to survive him.  Part of me just feels genuinely bad for the guy.  Calling him selfish would almost make me seem angered at his action, when obviously his life was worse than mine has ever been.  I also don’t think many people imagine the effect they have on people’s lives.  I’m sure there are some people he came into contact with who said or did some things that took a toll on him.

To switch to a lighter topic.

I found some amusing pick-up lines the other day.

The one thing that gets me about these is that a normal guy who has any idea of how to interact with girls on a first-time basis knows that you don’t win the affection of an attractive girl by using some corny, rehearsed and reused line.  But they’re funny because they’re dumb.

-         When I saw you from across the room, I passed out cold and hit my head on the floor...so I'm going to need your name and number for insurance reasons.

-         You're ugly but you intrigue me.

-         If I told you your body was very attractive, would you hold it against me?

-         Hi, I make more money than you can spend.

-         Be unique and different, say yes.

-         Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?

-         You’re so hot, you made me forget my pick-up line.

A guy who can strike up a brilliant, funny and stimulating conversation with nearly any girl regardless of where she’s from or what she likes, and makes such an impact that she remembers him two weeks later…now that…is adaptability.

Completely unrelated quote of the day:

Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint.

                 -- Mark Twain

Xanga

Well, hello world...

I had a xanga post before, but I decided to discontinue it and start anew.

So, a little bit about my self.

These are my interests

Piano
Soccer
Basketball
Watching Sports Center
Writing Poetry and Fiction
Learning how to Screenwrite
Musical Interests: Classical, Gospel, Hip Hop, Blues, Jazz

My favorite thing to do at school with my friends is go to the HUB, eat lunch, and read the NY Times.  I also enjoy playing wiffleball and taking road trips.

I have a few very close friends at school, that I really appreciate.  I really enjoy playing intramural sports.  My roomate and I spend far too much time trying to figure out how we can make a strong intramural basketball team (The Vypers).  Something that I don't do as much as I did freshman year, that I'll probably always miss is visiting people.  Freshman year I lived in a lively dorm on campus, and I always visited people with my boys (J-5, there's a humorous story behind the name).  We'd go to random people's room as well.  It was actually quite a bit of fun.

Getting away from general descriptions...

I have to admire people who are willing to live outside of the greatest comforts of the average American dream/life.  Redifining their goals from the typical: go to college, get job, get wife, get minivan, benz, and house in suburbs, get vacation times, send kids to college, hope kids get wife, visit kids in suburbs, hope grandchildren go to college...and the rat race goes on.  A Benz isn't all that cheap, so that means you need to climb the company ladder as far as possible, as fast as possible so that you can complete "Get benz".  But for a second let's imagine that you dropped all of that.

I know a person, now I don't know her well, who went to a very strong residential high school for math and science, then she went to undergraduate, proceeded to get her MD and now lives in Bolivia working out in the middle of nowhere, going days a time without having any of the niceties that we've all grown accustomed to.  She's far underpaid, undervalued, and underappreciated, but she'll have stories to tell for the rest of time.  And not stories that EVERYBODY has at the local bar about the time the cashier at Walgreens gave them 13 cents instead of 5 cents for change for the same candy bar they buy every friday.

I'm not attempting to make a case against, "Get Benz" they are nice vehicles, but every cab in Germany is a Mercedes, so it can't be that nice.  Plus, how much does it actually COST to make a car of that type.  Sure, by the time it gets to my hands it's had all matter mark-up, but what's it really WORTH...

I want to get a Benz.  Hopefully I'll find my way into a job where every Monday I wake up and cruise over there with a smile in my face.  No, there isn't a perfect job, I realize that, but I mean a job that challenges me, pays well, needs me as much as I do it, and keeps me hooked.  I don't want to chase the promotions, but nobody really WANTS to be a rat in the enormous rat race, it just somehow happens.  Oh, to be 4 years old again, playing during the summers outdoors, where games were such a high priority that I skipped lunch daily.  Playing Dodgeball or kickball was way more fun that driving a compressor ever will be.

This summer I am working at my second internship, Rockwell Automation in Columbia, MD a suburb of Baltimore.  My mentor, perhaps one of the more inspiring people I've ever met, let the job recently to travel in Uganda with his girlfriend.  Every single person he told at our company and the others we interact with wanted to know every last detail about what his, presumably concrete plans were.  That's the thing, his plants were by no means concrete.  He is going to go back to school, study something, and try some new things.  It takes a lot to unplug yourself from the secure system that you've grown attached to all of your life.  You must admire that person who willingly and voluntarily makes a major decision for a reason other than money.  Now, love...well that doesn't make any choice "rationale" and I'm not advocating you jump in front of a car, because your "boo" dares you to.  I thought up and moving to Africa as a white male from West Virginia was admirable if given the reason, I want to enlarge my life experience.

I am 20 years old and at a turning point in my life.  I have great aspirations of what I want to do, and I thankfully I have all of the skills I need to be equipped with to pursue it.  I have figured out what I am good at and some well constructed ideas of what I can do, so that means...graduating from Penn State with an Engineering Degree and then studying Law.  I guess after you make an elaborate plan there comes a day when you have to start building.  Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius the second in 1508 to repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  He built his own scaffold then started plastering. The first layer moulded because of the excessive mositure.  Michelangelo removed the plaster and started again, using a new mixture called intonaco.  It's easy to forget the part of the process when Michelangelo had in detail conceptualized his plan, but hadn't started physical progress.  I'd better get started on my scaffold...

Quote of the day:

"Except the Lord build a house, he that labor on it do so in vain"

- Ps. 127:1a