Bleeding Fiction

It's snowing here in Seattle, right at the opening of December. It's still a bit warm out, though, so the snowing turning straight to water on the roads and to slush on the sidewalks. Everything else, though, like lawns and rooftops, is getting a nice dusting of white. Very nice looking. I imagine that this bodes well for the rest of the winter.

I felt better yesterday than I did on Tuesday, but felt a bit cruddy again today - enough so that I slept in and skipped Japanese class. I'm feeling generally okay now, though; I'll have some tea in a bit and hope for the best. I think skipping class today is the death knell for Japanese, though; I was pretty pissed, being there yesterday, all for stupid reasons, and I was happy not to go today. I'm pretty much done with that class, now.

Yesterday, I spoke with the Admissions guy for the Evans School and how I want into their Public Affairs program (and out of the Japan Studies program I'm currently in. I mentioned this idea at the beginning of the month. The outlook is optimistic, to say the least. They don't guarantee my admission, but my odds are beyond good. Further, I'll get credit for basically every class I've taken so far that's relevant to Public Affairs. Since part of the program is an area focus... yeah. They'll honor most of my credits, in other words. Now I just need to figure out which classes to take. This is unabashedly good.

My plans for the evening fell through on me sort of at the last minute, so I found myself unattached and without anything to do. There's a different quality to an evening like that; even if having nothing to do is a regular occurance, when it comes out of the blue you have found time.

I took my found time and had a small John Cusack Marathon. I began with Better Off Dead, moved on to Grosse Pointe Blanc, then High Fidelity and I ended with Say Anything.

I can't remember exactly how long it's been since I'd last watched Say Anything. More than a decade, at least. Long enough that the only thing I remembered was the scene with the boombox. I'd forgotten everything important about the movie. Not that the boombox scene isn't great, isn't powerful, but...

There's a scene in the middle of the movie and Lloyd's shaking, shivering. Diane wraps their blanket around him and asks if he's cold. He says no, so she asks why he's shaking. Lloyd says, "I don't know. I think I'm happy."

Yeah.

I like this movie. I like that it's about two people who are just, right from the beginning, stupid for each other. The girl doesn't spend the movie trying to win the guy over, the guy doesn't compete with some other guy for the girl's affections, they don't suddenly realize, at the end, that they're in love; they're crazy for each other from the start. The movie follows from there.

I'm not really sure how I could've forgotten about Say Anything; just in watching it tonight, it may well be my favorite (non-Better Off Dead, obviously) John Cusack movie. I just wish it didn't end with that stupid "ding."

I bought the promised John Hodgman book last week and I've been reading it in fits and stops since then. It's funny, really very funny, in a dead-pan, wry sort of way. It elicits snickers and chuckles at every turn, but (so far) stops short of a full-fledged guffaw. Odd thing about it is that there's a lot of little things in the book that, in another context, would be creepy, surreal fiction stuff.

For example, to find Warren Buffet's house in Robin Hood Hills, stand on any street corner in the town and put a quarter on its side; the quarter will then roll straight there. Or the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale which, on its rooftop, has a miniature model of the entire city of New Haven, the Sterling Memorial Library and its rooftop model included. By the third itteration, the library is small enough to contain only one book, which it does, containing "within its pages the fate of the United States, in great detail, to the year 3000."

How cool is that shit?

Meanwhile, I spotted these thirty facts about Vin Diesel. Go and read, for I would not want to ruin it for you by my commentary.

Now, my commentary: I was in tears. I laughed so hard that I actually became dizzy, but I haven't eaten anything yet today and that probably had a little to do with it.

Next up, Lore Sjoberg, owner of the late, great Brunching Shuttlecocks humor site commented a week ago on his blog that, while he likes to write funny things, he runs into problems when he picks a project and sets a schedule for it. He always falls through on the schedule and feels bad about it and abandons the project. His new take is to just update as the spirit moves him. For most people this would mean that they get nothing done. Lore, on the other hand, has seen a dramatic explosion in his comedic output; he's had three Lore Brand Comics and one Rating up in the past week, as well as general commentary on whatever he finds out in the world. check it out.

Finally, I'm slowly, slowly working my way through the fourth volume of the Complete Peanuts. It's tempting to tear through the book, but Peanuts is so good that I'd rather take the time to savor it, especially as it's going to be six months until the next volume comes out. So far in this volume I've read the introduction of Charlie Brown's baseball team and the brick wall. It's just amazing that something that contains characters so cynical, so casually cruel, who are so constantly the subject of scorn and abuse, can be so life-affirming. I loves me some Peanuts.

March 21st, 2006 is going to be an interesting day. A very interesting day.

Of course January 10th won't exactly be bad, either, and February 7th has a certain something going for it, too.

I was tired yesterday, but for some reason couldn't fall asleep until 4am. So, despite the alarm, I didn't wake up until 1pm today. I didn't miss anything other than being productive, but that's annoying enough. Plus now my sleep schedule's all messed up, which is why I'm doing a blog post at half-past two in the morning.

I saw The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe last night. I remembered the basic set up from when I saw the BBC version in the school library as a kid. I think I read the book around then, too. I also think I didn't read the book around then, so who knows. Either way, the movie was good. Wonderful cinematography and the kids were all good actors, as was Liam Neeson (duh) who voiced Aslan. The special effects were mostly great. The movements and looks on the animals were top notch, but the monsters (and the White Witch) seemed slightly unreal. I'm guessing this was intentional, given that the folks doing the sfx were the same folks as did for Lord of the Rings.

Tonight I went out to hear my local friend Joe's a capella group do their holiday concert. They were delightful and funny, though their show was, I'd say, 15 minutes too short. Also, they could've used another singer in the bass, if only for issues of volume.

Also, I've finished the John Hodgman book. There were many, many times reading the second half of the book where I laughed loudly. I highly recommend it.

Cairo, Egypt

This is at once both one of the most awesome things I have ever seen and all sorts of wrong. Check it out.

Done with classes. Civil Society ended pretty well; Japanese, not so much. Best to put it behind me and move on.

On to New Jersey, for which I fly tomorrow. I'm going to make it a special point of calling and getting together with Doug, because otherwise I'd suck. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else, too. Especially The Ogre™ and Sarah Who Is Awesome.

E-mail access will be spotty. Blog posting will be a non-starter. I'll return not long after New Year's.

To keep you busy while I'm away, a thought:

Pulp Fiction as played by the Muppets. Played straight, mind you, with all of the actual dialogue intact. Either done with the Muppets' voices or with the original voice tracks; jury's still out on that.

And now a question:

How would you cast this cinematic masterpiece? Who gets the role of Vincent? Who gets Jules? Etc.

Please, discuss.