Suggestions for Not-So-Well-Known Movies

If you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firestarter, or anything else Joss Whedon, I would suggest Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. Bonus points if you like musicals, because... well, it is one. Neil Patrick Harris (that's right- Doogie Howser) plays the titular character, Dr. Horrible, in his attempt to become a successful super villain, take over the world, and get the girl! Really, it's a good movie. Only problem is you probably either have to watch it on YouTube, order it online, or special order it from Movie Stop in Prattville. It's also available for an iPod download, but I don't know how that all works.
It's got an interesting story behind its creation. Pretty much, it was done during the Writer's Strike in like, 2008 or 2009 or whenever, to somehow prove a point that it doesn't take huge budgets to make something totally awesome. All cast and crew did the musical under the contract that they only get a percentage of the profit. Further decreasing their pay, it was originally released for free on iPod. Of course, it caught on well, and now they reap the benefits from merchandise as well as the few people who now buy the movie (including me!)
Another neat thing about the DVD is that there are two sets of commentary. There is the standard commentary with the director and cast. Then, there is "Commentary! The Musical", in which the entire cast and crew sing about the making of the film. It was a pretty innovative way to get people to buy the DVD, as Commentary! The Musical is not available otherwise.


Next movie!!

Suicide Club
An independent Japanese film that gained a small cult following. It has a very strange take on Japanese society, loosely based around a real-life temporary extreme increase in suicides that plagued the country for a few months. A lot is lost in translation, but it's still a good watch. It actually has the most sadistic character I have ever seen in any media, in that he is realistically sadistic. He is not a genuis, although he fancies himself as one. (Real sociopaths are not Hannibal Lecter- they are Buffalo Bill. Hannibal is more interesting due to his intelligance, but usually the part of the brain that controls right from wrong also helps govern one's rational thought).
It's something you'll really have to see to decide whether or not you like it, because the plot turns from typical mystery to extremely surreal very fast.

The next one is not a movie, but a 12 Episode Anime series.

Elfen Lied
First off, be forewarned. Blood, nudity, torture. The first five episodes are meant to draw in every typical anime-loving nerd with its sex appeal and gore. However, it begins to gain plot halfway through, and becomes VERY good.
Be further forewarned. It turns from gorey to pretty damned depressing. After I watched this series, I decided to go to bed for the rest of the day. After talking to other people who have seen it, I was not the only one.
Apparently, the director did this on purpose. He found a bloody, gorey Japanese comic book, and intentionally drew people in. He then twisted the plot take drive his audience to tears. D=

Others will come~! Class is over.

Young People!

I know 24 is far from old (but not far enough! D=)

But in any case, I got annoyed working with some younger people last week.

Starting from the beginning, and being as vague as possible so no one gets offended.

I was cast in a local play that's JUST far enough to drain my gas-guzzler of 3 gallons a round trip.

I've been getting hammered by papers.

I've got a brain block. One second....

Okay, yeah. Pretty much, I'm down in the dumps and busy and have to save money. So, I dropped out of the play.

Aside from this, there was one thing that was bugging me about the play. With the exception of two people, all of the cast members were a few years younger than me... and even with a few years, there was a LOT of behaivoral difference. With the exception of one of the younger people (who happens to be an AUM theater student, so he knows better), most of the cast was running around like chickens with their head cut off, making immature jokes about everything, and being generally unprofessional. I mean, I'm annoying sometimes, but I swear I saw the director have an annuerism at one point, and he's usually a pretty mellow guy.

Anyway, I've discovered I don't like working with a lot of people younger than me. I don't even like working with people that are my age! Something I guess I'll have to get used to it, because as I get older, there are gonna be more people younger than me.

ARGH!

I just checked my e-mail, and realized that I missed an important theater meeting yesterday at AUM. ARGH. Oh well. I wouldn't have had anything to contribute, anyway. I don't really have good ideas. Hell, even if I did, I'm just a freshman- why would they listen to my ideas? They have been doing this longer and know what they are talking about.

Besides, I'm so out of the loop from the theater now that it's not even funny! I have no clue what's been going on. And I'm pretty sure that I annoy most of them, anyway. Yeah, I annoy them on PURPOSE ( it's kinda funny when they give me that "I don't know if you're kidding us or not" look), but still. Annoying is annoying. Kind of like Annoying Orange. Ooh, you should search for Annoying Orange on YouTube. I think it's hillarious. Most of my friends think that it's just plain annoying, though, so that's funny, too.

Anyway, I digress~! Like usual~! I need need need to get better organized so I don't keep missing things like this. I also need to start exercising more. Like, I'm rocking back and forth in my chair right now, and each time my stomach touches the desk, there's more of a squish involved than there should be. I ran like three days ago, but that was the first time in a month. Chin ups are a good idea, too. I mean, I DID buy that chin up bar and all!

Hopefully I won't miss the next meeting.

You know that feeling?

You know that feeling you get when you see someone you instinctively don't like? The sight of their face fills you with hate, the sound of their voice makes you wann hurl.
There's a guy in this class I feel this way about. In fact, he's on all three of my classes today. And I don't have to worry about him reading this because only one person reads this blog! He keeps running his mouth, even now, and it sounds like he's bragging with every word he says. God, I hate his face.
Now, I'm not wishing this upon him at all. I'm just saying I wouldn't MIND if he got mangled in a car accident.

Of course, knowing my luck, his face would be left intact.

Uuugggghhhh...

I didn't sleep last night. Didn't want to. Couldn't really. Too much to do. FINALLY figured out my thesis for a Sociology 1010 paper due three days ago. I swear, all my other 1010 classes are doing papers on ideas that already exist. This one is more along the lines of mixing alot of old ideas to create completely new ones. Isn't that like, 1020 material? Ugh.
I don't have any excuses. I'm just three steps behind on everything. Trying to figure out how to fill the rest of my journals in a week in a way that doesn't just make useless posts. I don't think useless posts are the point behind this.

I think I ticked off my girlfriend by staying up. Of course, I've stayed up the last few nights as well. Probably screwing her sleep up just as much as mine.

This blog is slowly turning from "Sarcastic Optimist" to "Depressed Soul-draining Guy".

Emperor Joker? D=

So, the way blogs are supposed to work, the blogger (me) researches all sorts of information on relevant subject material, and the bloggee (you) goes "Oooooh, Ahhhhh! Thanks for the information, omniscient blogger!"
Unfortunately, I'm finding slim to no information on what I want to talk about. Yes, I manage to suck at Google.

Apparently, Batman: Brave and the Bold is going to do a story arc of the Emperor Joker storyline. From what I've heard, Bat-mite will be in the episode. I'm not sure if he will be replacing Mtsl... Mytzy... Mjhasjkflghfkgsd. That GUY that bugs Superman all the time, or if he'll just happen to be in the episode for another plot point.

First: Information! I can't find much. Will it be an animated film? A one episode plot, maybe a two-parter? I wanna know!

Second: Speculation! Emperor Joker is not my favorite story arc. Far from it. There were a few witty one-liners, but otherwise the entire concept was slaughtered with bad writing and inconsistent artwork. If this plot were taken seriously for an animated adaptation, it would likely suck horribly.
FORTUNATELY, it's Brave and the Bold we're talking about here. It has the zanney-ness of the 1960's show, with a few dark Batman aspects thrown in. If anything could make this story fun to watch, it's BATB. Here's hoping it's good!

Falling Apart

I don't think I planned well enough for this semester. Last semester came so easily that I think I underestimated how difficult things can become if you let just one aspect begin to slip. The difference was that last semester was my first semester, and I was expecting college to be a billion times harder than it was, so I had prepared for the worst.
I did well enough until this point, but now things are falling apart at the most crucial part of the year. I don't have anything organized to write halfway decent papers. I've lost most of my class syllabuses, and I don't even know most of my professor's names, much less their e-mail addresses.
It just goes to show that I am going to have to go into each semester with a game plan, and prepare for the worst. I may have been bored last semester, but there are worse things to be than bored. My GPA will probably drop to like a 3.2. It will take a lot of work to get it back up.

Can our society continue to sustain itself?

Okay, I may do a really bad job of explaining what I mean. Also, in order to understand what I mean, you MUST think about thinks on a very broad basis, completely ignoring seperate companies as seperate entities for the sake of this thought. Yes, some businesses will do well while others fail.

Here's the thing. In order for our semi-capatalist (we do, though some would not like to admit it, have some strong socialist concepts governing the way our lives are led)society to work, the majority of the people in such society must be consumers. In order for people to be consumers, they must have an income. Even those that are dependant upon others (such as family) have an income provided by someone.

So, let's think of this in three entities.
-Government: A pretty simple concept- the entity which governs and watches over our lives.
-Companies: In order to understand the argument I am trying to make, we must think of the companies as a single entity, "the companies", rather than each individual successful or unsuccessful company.
-Consumers: For this to work, consumers must have an income. Thus, most consumers are employees of companies, or dependants of employees of companies. There are, of course, consumers that are dependant on support from government as well, but we will focus more on those that depend upon income from companies.

Let's say that companies, in general, recieve money from consumers for their goods or services. While I realize that this is a very low amount, but let's say, for the sake of example, all companies recieve $100 from their consumers. Scaling the operation down will let me explain this better.

In order to make a profit, the companies can NOT give their employees anywhere near the amount of money they recieved from consumers. Across six employees, they pay $60, giving each employee $10.

These employees become consumers. In order to live a "successful" life, they cannot spend nearly as much as they made. Thus, each consumer spends $4, putting it back into the economy and saving the rest.

$4 x 6 employees = $24.

$24 has just been put back into the economy, or the companies, in comparison to the $100 they received before. Even with the $40 profit the companies made before, that is only $64, and they must now pay the employees- the consumers- out of that amount. This does not even begin to compute taxes that affect and reduce the amount of money involved in each transaction.

Even if we scale these amounts to trillions of dollars and millions of employees, the concept of how our society works remains the same. Consumers cannot put nearly the amount they make back into the economy. Thus, the economy would normally be under a constant and heavy decline.

So, how does our society sustain itself? From what little research I've done, as far as I can tell, it has a lot to do with banks. Banks can actually loan more money than actually exists. Of course, there are legally-enforced guidelines on exactly how much they can loan out. As long as our society accepts such loans as real money, our society can continue to work. The legal guidelines to how much a bank can loan actually help to prevent a severe depression. These guidelines were developed after the Great Depression, shortly after the U.S. Governments was forced to seive all gold.

For now, these loans should help to sustain our society, but how long will this last? How long until banks can stop giving such loans due to poor economy?

Sticking with it?

Would I stick with my career field after researching it? Well, given that I had already given a lot of research into acting, yes. That is not to say I have not learned anything. I understand how difficult (and essential) it is to become an equity actor in order to have a decent career as an actor.

Post-crazy!

So, we've got like a week and a half left of school, and I have a little more than forty blogs posted here. I will try and fill these slots with worthwhile posts and such.

Here's my critique for the whole "writing across the curriculum" program:
I believe it is a good, helpful program that will help students become used to writing. This is especially useful to students such as myself that have been out of high school for years. It re-acclimates us to writing again.
I do, however, believe that 70 entries is a bit much. I'm not just saying this because I haven't yet met this requirement. While it is nice to get so much practice writing, it shouldn't interfere with the already-busy schedule of students. I believe that making worthwhile entries(rather than filling the journal/ blog with crap) should involve some thought. I think 55-60 entries would suffice. It would show that effort has been put into the entries, without flooding students with yet more work.

Rewards for Reading

I feel that the concept of rewarding children for reading more than the required amount or scoring above and beyond the average is a great idea. While some argue that it is a bribe for children to do what they should anyway, I feel that it reflects the adult world quite well.
In life, those who excel in their field are given rewards, are they not? From raises to promotions, hard work in the right direction pays off. What better direction is there than reading? Reading is a skill that children will need for every class they take, and without that basic building block, everything else fails.

Cosplay!

I'll be planning on attending Dragon Con this September. It will be my first convention, and I'm pretty excited to go. Going with me will be my girlfriend, Nicole, and a few friends. Naturally, one of my costumes will be my Joker. Another will likely be Johnny Depp's version of Willy Wonka, mostly due to already having the costume. Since I already have two costumes, this gives me spending money for my third.
My girlfriend suggested Brooklyn from Disney's Gargoyles.

She's been doing most of the work. This is more due to her biting my hand if I dare touch her baby, rather than me being lazy or busy. And honestly, I'm glad she's doing it; it looks friggin' awesome!


It has yet to be painted. It's carved from high-density foam (which happens to be EXPENSIVE x.x) Anyway, it has a working bottom jaw (as in I open my mouth, the mask's mouth opens). We have to make some finishing touches, as well as find a wig, and then we can move on. Since Nicole has already decided how the digitigrade legs will work, and probably won't let me touch the ideas for the wings, this only gives me one real freedom- do I want body dye, or a skin-tight jumpsuit? I personally think dye would look better, but it presents many problems. No matter how secure the make up is, after hours it WILL begin to come off, and the fact that application onto my body could take hours would make it difficult.
The suit, on the other hand, would be easier to slip on, and would only need to be made once, rather than applied every single time.

Overload!!

Well, I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I have papers due, I need to start looking for a summer job, read a book I borrowed, and what did my dumb butt do? Audition for another play. Now I've got four rehearsals a week in Prattville. I have to spend extra time and gas driving. x_x That was smart of me, huh? Oh well.
Currently finishing up a rough draft for a report of information on Non-Equity acting tours. It took me forever (and a few e-mails to actual professionals) to figure out what I was gonna write this paper on. Honestly, this paper is serving one of its purposes. The research I've done for this topic has let me know what I'm going to need to do to hope to be successful as an actor.
Now, if I could only figure out how to re-word all this. Honestly, this paper is crap. Oh well, good thing it's a first draft. I guess my professor will give me guidance on how to fix how screwed-up it is, and then I can rewrite it all NON-sucky.

Discipline

I used to think that spanking was the most effective form of punishment, due to the way I've seen parents that don't use this form of discipline treat their children in public. Countless times have I seen a child running around a restaurant, shoving past people as he or she laughed loudly, and countless times have I seen the parents react to this by... counting. "One... Two..." The child still laughs, still cuts up. Why? Because they know three isn't coming, and even if it does, nothing will happen to them anyway.

However... while I hate to be influenced so heavily by one simple telivision show,having watched a few episodes of "Super Nanny" has changed my feelings on spanking a little. I still see nothing wrong with it (in controlled amounts), but if discipline and good behaivior could be taught without it... why not? I think the most important thing I've learned with the show is to get the child's attention. Bring yourself down face-to-face with them, look them in the eyes, and tell them straight-forward that you mean business.

Of course, I've also noticed a trend in this show. The worst of the children have parents that simply do not pay attention. From the mom that won't stop watching soap operas long enough to tend to her children, to the father that does nothing but get online all day, to the parents that go on business trips and don't even care to call their family, it seems the worst of behavior problems are due to parents not giving their children parents.

When analyzing the situation at Oxford High School in Decatur, Alabama, one needs to forego emotional responses about the absurdity of the punishment when deciding whether or not the concept and enforcement of the dress code is fair. (Yes, I do know that was a terribly long sentence with way too many preopositional phrases, but I'm feeling too lazy to fix it.) While it was the form of punishment that garnered the national attention of this particular case, it should have no effect upon arguments on whether the dress code should have been placed. It is my argument that the dress code in itself was perfectly acceptable. It was the students' and parents' responsibility to maintain this dress code. Such dress codes are set to protect students, not to stiffle their rights.
To begin with, this dress code had to have been announced and news had to have been spread quite easily. If this were not the case, it would be likely that much more than eighteen out of the two-hundred-something students would have been in violation of this dress code. It is the responsibility of the students and the parents to ensure that the clothing they wear is well within school policies.

I WAS totally gonna write a whole argumentative paragraph here about keeping students safe about dress codes, but I'm out of time and I know I'm not gonna come back and re-write it.

So...err.... insert conclusion here!! \o/

Prom Paddling Predicament!

So,recently, in good ole Alabama, 18 students got in trouble for wearing too-reavling prom dresses. While this may be a tad bit conservative for a public school, that doesn't sound TOO odd. Only just a little ridiculous.

But HERE'S the good part. The choice in punishment was 3 days suspension... or PADDLING. Given, these are juniors and seniors we are talking about: Far too old for paddling punishment, for sure. That's not what disturbed me. What disturbs me is the fact that somewhere along the line, someone thought it would be appropriate to spank 17 year old girls that the school had already deemed as "under-dressed". Really? Did anyone THINK about how that would look? Creeeepyyy. Well, that aside, 17 of the 18 girls prefered paddling to suspension. For some reason, I get the mental image of some eager middle-aged man carrying out the sentence, but hey. I don't know that for sure, so I can't judge, right?
Honestly, I don't know what else to say about this. I don't do well with talking about recent events. There were things. These things happened. I wasn't involved, so aside from the creepy mental images of said spankings that I can't get out of my head, what else is there for me to really have an opinion about?

Uhhh...

I came in late for class today, so I only caught a little bit of what the blog's supposed to be about. Apparently, some girl killed herself due to severe bullying, and criminal charges were filed against the bullies.

What can I say about this, really? I don't think anyone's gone without being bullied or picked on. Sure, I had to deal with it a lot growing up. It led to many, many fights, and I didn't always win. Sometimes, I got in trouble for it, despite the fact that I had been defending myself.

Bullies are and always will be an issue. It can get rough some times. It can get physical, and on rare occasions, it can get dangerous. That's when you file charges, not kill yourself. Yes, I do believe those who harrassed her should be criminally punished. However, this should have happened long before she decided to take her own life. It may seem easier said than done, but it's got to be easier than taking one's own life.

I don't really know what else to say. People die every day, and I'm not really moved by one more person's death.