Work
So I've been here less than a month and today it hit me: I'm jaded. The corporateness and everyday sameness has finally gotten to me. I'm slowly becoming one of those people that can no longer be polite or nice or say hello how are you without sounding robotic.

And it only took less than a month...part time

More Schiavo
Why is her feeding tube being removed? I mean, if she wants to die, supposedly, why starve her to death? That doesn't sound humane at all. If she wants to die, let her get an injection or something, but starving to death?

I guess it's a legal thing but jeez, starving to death doesn't sound like fun.

Alfie
I just saw this movie last night and I feel compelled to get a few things off my chest about it.

Before I go online and compare my thoughts and analysis I'll post this so that it doesn't taint my opinion. This movie surprised me. I didn't think I would be thinking about it the next day. I thought it was going to be a standard "feel-good" movie. Forgettable. It was and it wasn't.

It seems to me that the movie was written by a loser. Not a loser. An anti-Alfie. A guy who rides a scooter because he's got no money and thinks he knows what guys like Alfie would say to women. Which doesn't bode well. Case in point: the scene where Alfie is in the club trying to pick up the two lesbians. If you pay attention to what he's saying, it's something along the vein of "I really don't think it's fair for women to be treated so unfairly, I mean, if you two, say, for example, wanted to kiss, I don't think that should be a problem..." This is NOT smooth, I'm sorry to say. It's something that would NOT work unless you look like this guy looks (which I was reminded constantly - he's HOT). But that dialogue didn't ring true. Neither did his infatuation with Susan Sarandon. After that model chick he goes out with he wants to settle down with Susan Sarandon because she's "like him"? COme on, that makes no sense at all.

Also, this Alfie character is a player right? Smooth, gets the girl, fast talker? He knows about wine and high fashion, right? And he doesn't know what Absynthe is? Please. Some of these details make him out to be this dumb jock who doesn't play sports but only has his looks and a limited amount of information about clothing and the awareness of how attractive he is to women. And if that was what the writer was going for than this movie is a waste of time.

Then the ending. I'm glad it didn't end the way stories end - it wasn't nicely wrapped in a bow. It doesn't really end or tell you what "will happen in the end." Which I like. I like that. But the phrase that kept popping into my head the whole time was "mental masturbation" as the movie finished. What was the point of taking us through 105 minutes of film? For what? The guy is right back where he started. It's kind of like Memento without all the cool memory shit. What's the deal? So he's screwed, he'll never find someone, why didn't I care? Umm, because he was a jerk? If I'm not sympathetic to this guy then this kind of ending really doesn't do much for me.

OK, also, Marissa Tomei. So he just screws her, but he says how her kid is "irresistible.?
And everyone goes, ?awww.? Turns out this guy might have a redeeming quality after all. But not really. He hugs the kid once and weeks later asks if he?s ok and for her to say ?hi? to him. He screwed his best friend?s girlfriend and got her pregnant! This guy isn?t a very good guy.

Yet it seems that his so-called ?smooth? personal should make us care about him. As for women, I guess the good looks get them to care about him along with his ?sensitive? side.

It just doesn?t fit together.

Then there?s the model chick. We don?t care about her either. She?s hot, that?s it. But suddenly we?re supposed to feel sorry for her because the magic word (medication) is uttered? I don?t think so. All we know of her is that she?s hot, she?s schizophrenic, and the two montages we get of her is of living like a supermodel, then trashing his place and being overall crazy. Why would I care about this character? I don?t. Bad job, writer.

Ok why do I have so much to say about this movie? No idea. It got me irked pretty good though. And it?s not that I disliked it all that much, it?s not that.

Who knows.

Oh and the wordplay, I liked that part. Especially at the beginning with his vocabulary calendar, if you pay close attention to the word for the next day after the one he takes and talks about, it's "doom".

Hate
Don't you hate it when have something typed up and then lose it? I do. I end up not re-typing it.

I was going to discuss George Saunders and Gunner Palace. Screw it.

Terri Schiavo
This is really getting out of hand. Another PR opportunity for politicians a la the steroid controversy. The courts had already decided, appellate courts had already decided, but hey, this is death we're talking about, so shouldn't all options be exhausted? Yes. Should new options be created to later be exhausted? I don't know. All I know is that if that woman can communicate in any way then sure, let her go to congress and blink twice if she wants to die. Once if she doesn't. That simple. Let her pick.

For the pro-lifers: shut up.
For the other side: shut up.

If this woman wants to die and isn't allowed to, then it will be a sad day in the world. Fucking politicians and ideologues.

Coppola on Guatemala
Nice to see.

Steroids
I've been listening to the Dan Patrick show on the radio after work recently and he makes a good point regarding these hearings that went down yesterday: what't the purpose? If it's not a witch hunt, as they claim, what are the politicians expecting? THey won't give Canseco immunity, so he won't talk. So what's the point? Tell the players you aren't after them and protect them, maybe they'll talk.

As for McGuire, a lot of people are disappointed or whatever. I don't care. It's in the past. Maybe it's just because he's such a "good" guy and everyone always like him (I would have Sheffield castrated), but really, who cares. THe idea is to fix the problem. That's priority number one. Move forward, you can't change the past. It's about the parents who were there talking about their dead son. Right? The new testing system still blows and doesn't even fiddle with growth hormones, so it really doesn't do much. But I feel like the wrong questions are being asked. Shouldn't there be some sort of information or education campaign to try and get the TRUTH of steroids out there? I don't mean a mis-information campaign like they do for drugs and terrorism where they just exaggerate and try to scare the pants off kids, but facts and stuff.

Congress is just putting up a show.

Fucking politicians...I wonder if I would turn into one of them if I went into politics. You never know

Tobacco and Credit cards
So some new law was just passed making it illegal for you to buy tobacco online with a credit card. This is so that people can't circumvent paying tax when they buy their smokes. Which I find ridiculous and is very telling of how politicans have to bend to the whim of businessmen, i.e. money. But that's neither here nor there, check out this quote I found on the subject:

"ATF investigations show that millions of dollars each year in illegal sales of cigarettes are diverted to fund terrorists and criminal organizations," said Michael Bouchard, ATF assistant director for field operations. "Through today's initiative, we are addressing the problem of illegal sales across multiple jurisdictions with tremendous support from the country's largest credit card companies. We welcome the help."

OH COME ON NOW! Why you gotta go and say something like that?

Next thing you know we'll be hearing about how terrorists used steroids to hijack the 9-11 planes and so that's why we must zero in on them.

Corporate life
Last week I put together these nice books for a big presentation and there was a lot of stress surrounding the things. And today I'm shredding a ton of paper. As a joke, I ask if I'll get in trouble for shredding documents, haha, of course not, it's just the books from last week. THat I put together. That were SO important. I felt like god, bring them to life and them feed them to the shredder. Dust to dust.

This is corporate life.

The Youkilis-Mitre debate
I'm calling it this out of pure memory-related stuff (so I don't forget) but you could include a ton of other players in here: Ryan Howard, John Buck, and so on. Basically it's about minor leaguers who are ready for the bigs, or for a shot anyway. There has been a lot of talk in the past about there not being enough talent in the bigs, well I disagree. The thing is, it's all concentrated in certain places. The Red SOx have a guy in Youkilis who is ready to play everyday NOW. Will he? No. He said in an interview that it's ok, he just doesn't want to go back to the minors - even if it means playing everyday compared to almost no time at all in the big club. Which is interesting but has nothing to do with my argument. Sergio Mitre for the Cubs should be starting somewhere else, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, somewhere where he's needed. Instead he's toiling in AAA, bouncing up and down with the Cubs.

My point is that the talent is there, tons of it, maybe too much, it just isn't spread around evenly. WHich sucks for those players that could be playing in the major leagues everyday, developing, getting PAID, but won't, will stagnate and end up never having "made" it. All thanks to GMs and owners who want to hoard the talent and have guys on the bench "just in case."