Crystal’s Neighborhood

Nerdgasm: Watchmen Trailer Hits Web a Day Early

http://gizmodo.com/5026434/nerdgasm-w...

Here it is, my friends: the first trailer for one of the most highly-anticipated comic book film adaptations ever. Yep, it's the trailer for Watchmen that's debuting before The Dark Knight. Directed by Zack Snyder of 300 fame, it's sure to be the biggest fanboy magnet of the decade. The trailer is due to hit the web tomorrow, but Empire put it up early by accident before quickly pulling it down. Not quickly enough! So, what say you? Does it meet your excruciatingly-high expectations so far, or do you already think it's ruined the greatest graphic novel EVAR? It looks pretty badass from where I'm sitting; hit the jump to judge for yourself.

so.friggin.excited.

nuff said.

Masa loves reading odd stories about Japanese happenings: there are lots of things that are never translated and certainly never make news outlets outside of Japan.

Several times during the day, he'll pop into where I'm working, and without any preface:

"Forty years old man. Three years ago...he tries to steal a dog. Corgi dog..."

So the guy is arrested and sent to jail for 18 months (?!! seems kind of harsh, but I've long ago given up trying to line up Japan with logical conclusions); finally, after doing his time in the choky, he is released and almost immediately returns to the same apartment and attempts to steal the same dog!

The dog is now "missing." When asked, the guy reported that he was lonely and thought the dog was really really cute. I imagine him pining away for all those 18 months, planning his attack. Obviously, he didn't think it through very carefully...

So now he's back in prison.

A sad, desperate, and wicked world we live in.

Corgi. Or: 36 months up the river

Show us a bird native to your habitat.

Well, there were finches, waxwings, cardinals and sparrows.  But my neighbor's bird feeder fell to the ground a couple of days ago and I haven't seen them around my balcony since then.

bird feeder down!

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God, the news is so depressing lately. I am tempted to just tune out and cocoon myself in books and DVDs, banish news sites from my "Favorites" menu:...rising gas prices, falling home prices, vanishing sea turtles, banks doing belly flops, terrorism, disease, war...where does it all end?

And it's easy to say that "greed" is the cause of all this (and that's the consensus among most journalists, it seems) but it's so much more complicated than that: was it wrong of people with bad credit to want to own their own homes? Was it wrong to think that they could pay those enormous mortgages some day in a vague future? Maybe they made poor financial choices, but these were working people buying their first home. That doesn't seem like greed to me. I don't know: it's an urge I only half sympathize with (buying a home), but it's not like these were 2nd or 3rd homes in Cabo or Hawaii.

I guess big US companies got greedy, but that's kind of how our system works, isn't it. I mean, when you have shareholders demanding not just that you make a profit, but that your profit increase each year, there are bound to be decisions made which are short-sighted and self-serving.

Journalists use phrases like "Changing times" and "Hard times" and I suppose that things are changing and have changed. Gas will never be cheap again. That in and of itself might change North America, but in Europe, gas has been expensive for a long time, very expensive. They managed to survive. And even thrive. True, we have more land and population density is less, but that is easily altered over a couple of generations if living and driving in rural America and Canada just gets too expensive. Anyway, why can't "rural" just mean something different than living 100 miles from your nearest neighbor? Anyway, there are people who live in rural Europe, too, who drive cars. They just drive less.  

It will change "car culture" hopefully, something I've never really "gotten." Remember when people would drive beater cars, old crappy rust buckets, because they couldn't afford anything else? Even people who could afford something else often did that. Now we have this idea that your car is some of extension of yourself, that it reflects who you are, which is just stupid. If you have a shitty old car that costs $2,500 this means somehow that you "failed" in your life. That is such an idiotic way of looking at it, but surprisingly common.

This "wealthy European" on some dumb TV show I was breezing past the other night was talking about his $500,000 car and I was reminded of that adage: "That's $500,000 that guy doesn't have."

The same goes for the phone. Or the apartment. Or the brand of shoes you wear.

I think that celebrity culture is so apparent and hard to escape from that we all secretly try to live like we're celebrities. We all want to live like the wealthy, whether or not we have money, because everything around us tells us that wealthy people are somehow better people: they have better hair, they have more fun when they go out, they have better friends, they travel to better places, they drive better cars, etc. So we buy things we can't afford, we go into debt for the things that our peasly little salaries won't allow.

But the fact of the matter is that only a tiny fraction of our population can live like wealthy celebrities. The rest of us have to slog through with our beater cars, crappy old mobile phones, $3,500 second-hand sedans, long hours at work...the more things change... 

I guess we have to try and rebel against the system en masse: companies are always going to want us to spend more money than we can afford: they make billions off of our very debt. All we can do is tune out the entreaties, re-establish that line between need and want which has become blurred.

Hopefully, this mess won't all just clear up in the next 18 months and everyone will go back to where they were...

I should have upped the serving size because I'm still snacky. 

cinnamon banana yogurt

Not much to say these days. Really busy with work: slightly stressed, in fact. But still managed to squeeze in a few Fantasia films, a full night of babysitting, a birthday party, and a few other social events.

So different this year when compared to last summer: we had so many visitors last year! We haven't had a repeat of that this year: R is out of vacation time because of our long trip in BA; C wasn't invited back to perform at the Jazz Festival (they rarely ask people to come two years in a row); M quit his job and is looking for a new one but not very urgently. A couple of people we know said they are coming to town, but no one we know well.

Doctor Brodie's Report (Modern Classics)

Jorge Luis Borges

And still can't leave Canada because of Masa's immigration process, so no major trips until the end of this year at the earliest. God, I hope it won't be much longer than that: we really want to go someplace warm during winter (January to late March): Vietnam, Greece, maybe Latin America again. Mmm. Anyway, the point is, we can't plan anything because we have no idea when all the paperwork will be completed. I'm really getting antsy and ready for a big trip, though it's only been 8 months since we got back from Argentina. Stupid to be so impatient.

House hunting is stalled. Bank told me that because I'm self-employed, they have a different set of "rules" for me blah blah blah. Point is, we need a bit more of a downpayment if we want a manageable mortgage payment, but that's highly doable if we wait one more year. If we haven't changed our minds, that is. Every day I have a different opinion about it: our place now is small but fine for us and rent control means that it's cheap and will remain cheap. So saving isn't hard, especially with all the projects I've got going on that will take me well into the fall. Anyway, waiting another year or so to buy might be a good thing because housing is predicted to dip down for the next 18 months in the Canada market. And if we decide to keep renting, c'est la vie. 

Reading a collection of Borges short stories: good "straightforward" stories (as he calls them), and still working through The Savage Detectives (it's nearly 700 pages long!), which is excellent. The structure of it is really unusual but it's not all "post-modern-y" and hard to follow.

And that's it. Quiet days.

Random things...

Still haven't found a replacement camera since Elph stopped working.

My camera phone sucks.  I used it at the Warped Tour last week and snagged clips of 3oh!3, Angels & Airwaves, Cobra Starship, Gym Class Heroes, Say Anything, Shwayze, Story of the Year, and The Dillinger Escape Plan.  But I have nothing to show for it.

Dreaming with my eyes half open is freaky.  After the Warped Tour and dinner that night, I came home and fell asleep on the couch.  The strangler was back, and this time it had a face, something like a charcoal drawing.  I could feel its presence as if it was sitting on the couch next to me, and then I saw its face above mine, moving in and out of view.  I was terrified, couldn't move and screamed through closed lips.  Poa Poa heard me and I heard her come running from the bedroom into the living room.  At that point all I could see was the ceiling but kept screaming until I saw Poa Poa and heard her whimpering as she licked my face.  I slowly realized it was just a dream, sat up on the couch and thanked her for waking me up.  I'd only been asleep for half an hour, but it felt like I'd been dreaming all night.

So the new orchid I brought home two weeks ago isn't doing so well.  A few of the buds dropped last week and I found a couple of flowers on the table this past Sunday.  Kinda bummed about that.

new addition

And now It's time for lunch and I have a hankerin' for noodle soup.

Songs in Red are songs that I got a chance to play when I went to Harmonix for play testing.

AC/DC - "Let There Be Rock"
AFI - "Girl’s Gone Grey"
Alanis Morissette - "You Oughta Know"
Alice in Chains - "Man in the Box"
Allman Brothers - "Ramblin’ Man"
Avenged Sevenfold - "Almost Easy "
Bad Company - "Shooting Star"
Beastie Boys - "So Whatcha Want"
Beck - "E-Pro "
Bikini Kill - "Rebel Girl"
Billy Idol - "White Wedding Pt. I"
Blondie - "One Way or Another"
Bob Dylan - "Tangled Up in Blue"
Bon Jovi - "Livin’ on a Prayer"
Cheap Trick - "Hello There"
Devo - "Uncontrollable Urge"
Dinosaur Jr. - "Feel the Pain"
Disturbed - "Down with the Sickness"
Dream Theater - "Panic Attack"
Duran Duran - "Hungry Like the Wolf"
Elvis Costello - "Pump It Up"
Fleetwood Mac - "Go Your Own Way"
Foo Fighters - "Everlong"
Guns N’ Roses - "Shackler’s Revenge"
Interpol - "PDA"
Jane’s Addiction - "Mountain Song"
Jethro Tull - "Aqualung"
Jimmy Eat World - "The Middle"
Joan Jett - "Bad Reputation"
Journey - "Anyway You Want It"
Judas Priest - "Painkiller"
Kansas - "Carry On Wayward Son"
L7 - "Pretend We’re Dead"
Lacuna Coil - "Our Truth"
Linkin Park - "One Step Closer"
Lit - "My Own Worst Enemy"
Lush - "De-Luxe"
Mastodon - "Colony of Birchmen"
Megadeth - "Peace Sells"
Metallica - "Battery"
Mighty Mighty Bosstones - "Where’d You Go"
Modest Mouse - "Float On"
Motorhead - "Ace of Spades"
Nirvana - "Drain You"
Norman Greenbaum - "Spirit in the Sky"
Panic at the Disco - "Nine in the Afternoon"
Paramore - "That’s What You Get"
Pearl Jam - "Alive"
Presidents of the USA - "Lump"
Rage Against the Machine - "Testify"
Ratt - "Round & Round"
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Give it Away"
Rise Against - "Give it All"
Rush - "The Trees"
Silversun Pickups - "Lazy Eye"
Smashing Pumpkins - "Today"
Social Distortion - "I Was Wrong"
Sonic Youth - "Teenage Riot"
Soundgarden - "Spoonman"
Squeeze - "Cool for Cats"
Steely Dan - "Bodhitsattya"
Steve Miller Band - "Rock’n Me"
Survivor - "Eye of the Tiger"
System of a Down - "Chop Suey"
Talking Heads "Psycho Killer"
Tenacious D - "Master Exploder"
Testament - "Souls of Black"
The Donnas - "New Kid in School"
The Go-Go’s - "We Got the Beat"
The Grateful Dead - "Alabama Getaway"
The Guess Who - "American Woman"
The Muffs - "Kids in America"
The Offspring - "Come Out & Play (Keep ‘em Separated)"
The Replacements - "Alex Chilton"
The Who – "Pinball Wizard"