Before Sunset
Just saw this sequel to one of the very few movies I really really like and it caused much the same feelings in me as the first one. The ending to the first one was maddening, so how do you top it? By giving a more or less ambiguous yet perfect ending to the sequel. At first I thought it was really tacky how the conversation just seemed to flow after years - I didn't like it and thought the movie was headed towards a dead end. But then later it all gets put together and makes sense.

Plus it all takes place in Paris this time and starts out at her "favorite bookstore in Paris" Shakespeare's and Co. So that was a pleasant treat. The themes running through the movie are of getting jaded with age and of second chances. Fate maybe.

It really makes you feel good to see a movie that is dialogue based be this good. No special effects or million dollar budgets. Paris, two characters, and talking. Oh and the cat.

Wish there were more out there like it.

Three and a half peanuts.

Oh and one thing she said that happened to her in Warsaw, she said that she didn't buy anything, didn't watch tv, just wrote and read and that it felt so liberating, so great. Even though it sounded boring to her telling the story. If you see the movie, that's what happened to me in Paris.

The Blind Swordsman
I went to see The Blind Swordsman the other day and here is my review of it:

A mixture of Crouching Tiger Hidden dragon (good), Stomp (hmmm, entertaining), and a cheesy kung fu movie (funny).

Weird mix I know, but it was still good.

Job Applications
After reading Nickel and Dimed, I figured that certain questions were asked to emplyers only at a specific socio-economic level. Yet after completing "Unicru tests" for Borders and Best Buy Applications I find the tests bizarre and have no idea what they could possibly tell potential employers about me.

Things like

- You don't like to take orders

How do you think I'm going to answer this? Strongly Agree? I don't think so. The problem with these tests is that they ask you (or attempt to find out) what kind of PERSON you are. Which is to imply that you are the same person when you are at work than when you aren't. Which is bullshit because that's not the way it works. If someone says something stupid or is being an asshole, I'm going to ignore them. If I'm working at Borders and a customer is being an ass well all I can do is be docile and try to help him or her as best I can. Why? Cause that's my job. I get paid to be a drone for 8 hours a day. That's the kind of job it is. To be a servant. You check all attitude and belief at the door. It sounds awful but that's the way I feel. Now, if it's a job where I am in a position of leadership and have a say in how the company or store is run, well that's different. But if you are going to work at the bottom rung of a corporation, then you have to realize that all you are is a simple servant...for 8 hours a day and that it has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on who you are for the other 16 hours.

I think this is why so many waitresses, flight attendants, and cashiers have such an attitude. They think that because I'm telling them what I want and expect them to do it that I believe them, as people, as who they really are, to be servants. Which I don't think, but when they are working - well yes I do believe that. you are getting paid to do it. Don't like it? Get another job, there are tons out there. But most of them probably involve the system that I'm talking about anyway.

Depressing
Just finished Nickel and Dimed (check out the Readings section) along with Fast Food Nation and I can't help but feel so depressed. Not just because of the guilt of "hey wow how can I complain when these people have it so bad", but also because I root for the underdog. I hate big companies that will squeeze every last bit out of their workers so that they can have a .000000001% increase in revenue. Once you have a ton of money, why do you need more and more?

It's really sad that this is the world we've built for ourselves. The system is broken and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Today I thought to myself, "why don't you get this worked up about poverty in guatemala, it's much worse that here."

Well yeah, but it isn't the poverty so much as the stubborness of people here to accept that millions of people are really going through hell everyday. That's it's not just "a bunch of lazy drunks" begging for change. The American Dream was just that guys, a DREAM, it doesn't exist. THe whole idea of "if you work hard you'll make it" is bullshit. WAKE UP

In Guatemala we know we're fucked up, we know it's all a big mess, we know it and don't try to deny the obvious.

But people that are well off here don't care.

Sad I tells ya

Etymology or Terror
I realized,as I was laying on the bare floor of my apartment, that terror, terrorist, and terrific, are all similar words. SO I figured someone should research their origins and find out what the deal is.

So wow I got off my ass and did it:

terrific - 1667, "frightening," from L. terrificus "causing terror or fear," from terrere "fill with fear" + root of facere "to make." Weakened sensed of "very great, severe" (terrific headache) appeared 1809; colloquial sense of "excellent" began 1888.

terrify - 1575, from L. terrificare "to frighten," from terrificus "causing terror" (see terrific).

terror - c.1375 "great fear," from O.Fr. terreur, from L. terror "great fear, dread," from terrere "fill with fear, frighten," from PIE base *tre- "shake."

"If the basis of a popular government in peacetime is virtue, its basis in a time of revolution is virtue and terror -- virtue, without which terror would be barbaric; and terror, without which virtue would be impotent." [Robespierre, speech in Fr. National Convention, 1794]

Terrorism is first attested 1795, "government intimidation during the Reign of Terror" (1793-July 1794) after the Fr. Revolution, from Fr. terrorisme. General sense of "systematic use of terror as a policy" is first recorded in Eng. 1798. Terrorize "coerce or deter by terror" first recorded 1823. Terrorist in the modern sense dates to 1947, especially in reference to Jewish tactics against the British in Palestine -- earlier it was used of extremist revolutionaries in Russia (1866); and Jacobins during the French Revolution (1795) -- from Fr. terroriste.

"colloquial sense of "excellent" began 1888." Now someone should find out what happened in 1888. Sorry not me, I've lost interest.

Stabilized
OK things are finally stabilizing a bit. My apartment is coming along, I need to get the bed though, that's the big thing that I can't do without. Still with Matt and Dana for now.

I was watching some video of something called "Democracy Now" and it was so creepy. They were interviewing regular people as they left the Rep convention. To the question "what is the most important issue for you?" one woman who looked like an OK person goes "morals, like truth telling."

And I was like, huh? Are you for real? Morals? And she kept on talking like it was the most normal thing in the world. THen an older woman says that of course there was a link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, he "had terrorists going through his country all the time, look what he did to his own people>" Which I assume was about the "gassings" we hear so much about. You know, "he's gassed his own people." And for whatever reason it brought up the image of Abraham Lincoln. He killed some of his own people didn't he? And then I thought of the reaction to that idea, someone would say "Lincoln is like Saddam? Come on!!!" And it would be thrown out with a chuckle. BUt think about it.

Alas, today marks a historic day in history. Yes you heard right. Me, I, Carlos, I have a cellphone. I have been defeated. Now here's my explanation:

I'm going to spend 40 bucks a month on a phone anyway, why not get a mobile one? I got the phone for free. It's convenient....

Which is all BS, the real reason was that I went to meet Andrew downtown and I waited and waited...and waited. And I never saw him. It's happened to me too often since Paris, and I hate it. A cellphone would have saved me the trouble. So the next day I got one. Such is life in the tropics, as Guille used to say. I wonder what he's up to in life?

My desk is built and now I have to go catch up on my emails. I'm late

Metallica
Just saw "Some Kind of Monster".

I wish I was a rockstar. These kinds of things always get me jazzed up. Love it.

I may be able to move into my new place on Thursday. Finally.

Catching up
OK so I finally caught up in the Readings department. Next step: About Me.

Then I have to redo the site because it's starting to break down after alternating between Dreamweaver, then manually, then using Mozilla, now Dreamweaver again.

Plus I have Fireworks and all those goodies. So I should really redo the whole thing.

Lots of work though.

You lack discipline
So why is it that it's so much easy to fore yourself into physical regiments than it is for intellectual ones? I mean, I can force myself to get up and go to the gym every day - no problem. But to force myself to put away an hour a day to write...that's just not gonna happen. I like to tell myself it's because writing needs some form of inspiration and that you can't just sit down and write and expect good stuff to come out. It's a very desperate thing.

But why is it so easy to do the physical things? Well, for one thing, it's guaranteed. I know that if I get up and go every day that it's only a matter of time before I get results. I will start to look different, feel different (a direct correlation of how different I look, plus excercise feels good), and so on. Guaranteed it will work. No doubt. I know this as fact. Just get out there and get on the machines, lift the weights, etc. It'll happen.

With writing, it's not that cut and dry. I really am struggling to find a way to draw the parallel between practicing baseball (or guitar, or french, or anything else you want to learn to improve in life) to writing - but something keeps blocking me. I think it may be straight up laziness. Maybe it's something else. It sounds perfectly logical that if I take one hour per day and write (and I mean real writing, dedicated, really into it, not just "oh my hour is done let's go") that it will improve. It's improved leaps and bounds since I started writing things out along with the website early this year. So that should encourage me.

"Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be so hard..."

- Coldplay

Grad School
Today the young grad student went to his appointment with much anticipation. He had his questions ready and expected a great welcoming. Instead he was greeted with a quizzical look that said "Why is he asking me this stuff?"

Then she said to him, as she chuckled, "You won't even have time for readings..."

Which left him troubled and a little hesitant to start his classes, which was oh so excited about only minutes earlier.