Choke

It starts off like you would expect a Palahniuk story to, with sex, only this time it's in a support group about sex, which in turn leads to the act at hand. Victor can't seem to escape his inner demons, only truly revealed in the book, so he uses sex as his vice to keep himself numb. Numb from dropping out of medical school, numb from working at a colonial reenactment facility, numb from choking at restaurants and asking the people who save him for money, numb from his mother suffering from dementia, numb from paying off the bills for her stay at St. Anthony's, numb from confessing to all the complaints of the residents there. You get the idea, his life sucks so he buries himself in the one thing that can make him forget all the problems in his life.
He even admits that smelling a rose will never compare to having an orgasm, and to him that is all too true. But this all comes to a halt when he first sees Dr. Marshall and doesn't picture her naked, unlike all the other women in the film up to this point.
What she gives him is a chance to break free from the void, a life before all these problems, and before his childhood growing up with a sociopath and foster parents. But when he finally gets the chance to do what he wants, literally, he can't get it up with her and this provides the structure for the film. It is supposively to save his mother's life, which he doesn't want to do, but he contunues to try.
All in all I thought it was as fun as a movie about a Palahniuk story can be, yet missing a key piece to keep his readers interested. Don't get me wrong, the book is great, but the movie digreses from the restaurant scenes and doesn't really hit on the true character that is Vincent. It lacked the modesty and details that make the overall story complete, but the twist is killer and bound to make the whole thing worthwhile. However, be advised that the witty comments are only half as good spoken from Sam Rockwell, he embodies this character but there are twice as many in the real medium.

writer's bloq?

Why has writing become such a tedious and overbearing task in life. I took a few months off to prepare for the move to New York so I am out of practice, but I am at a loss for work. All I can do is jot down ideas, and they have grown to become more than I can bear, no longer are they comprehendable as individual stories, I view them as part of a greater story that resembles somewhat of a masterpiece. Only I can't seem to get that project going either, now my focus is drawn to those details and how I need more of them before the project can get underway.
It is exhausting, and it wasn't what I wanted to get involved in. My idea was that the little thoughts would each be a story in their own which I could elaborate on in the future. So I am trying to make the future seem present, and in doing so I lose focus on my original thought to make it a grander idea.
Even this post was intended to be a long drawn out entry on how I have lost my interest in writing, yet I feel as if the point has been made. My whole adult life I wanted to express myself with words and here I am selling myself short once again. I hope this turns around soon.

The Killer Within

Don't read too much into the title, I know its been a while and people would probably jump to conclusions since the move to New York. And after this entry you will probably think 'he has really lost it.' But I assure you, it is still just me and this is all a coincidence.
I finally watched 'American Psycho' after many requests from friends and it captivated me. I really was sucked into the premise and the Patrick (Christian Bale) character for a number of reasons. One - he has everything he will ever need in life, so naturally his mind will crave more than he can get. Two - he plots the murders out with extreme detail, yet doesn't care about the bodies being found/discovered because in a way he actually wants to get caught. Three - Playing off the last, getting caught is the added adventure for him because not only is he craving more but he is now planning his schedule to evade people like the police or his finace to avoid getting caught, yet he continually finds himself with them and keeps finding a way out of things at the last second.
I really enjoyed it for the effectiveness of its motifs, the obsessions with a musician's background or the lyrics to a song, and how they played on each of the victims. In a way, I haven't felt this way about a movie since I saw 'Mr. Brooks', which is essentially a more modern version of this film, which I saw again by chance a few days back so it was fresh in my mind. This one is more of a William Hurt show than a movie, but I think it was the most underestimated movie of the year.
There is just something about them that sets them apart from the rest, it is poetry with weapons. Nobody claims they loved 'Silence of the Lambs', but they enjoy watching it because of the drama behind it all. How sadistic can someone be, what is going through their head that makes them act this way, why do they have to kill to function? These are the questions we ask when we see movies like this, and we watch them to distract ourselves from the world around us and the people we share it with.
Think of the new found obsession with the books or the media about fighting and death, its not that we are a part of it or want to be a part of it, but we want to know about it because we know it exists. Only now, people are getting into it deeper and deeper and the bar has been rasied because of this obsession, how much will be too much? I guess what I am getting at is that the world is a confused place, people are loving and fighting with each other every other second for the sake of closure. We want to know what is happening and see the light at the end of the tunnel, we want to get what we want in the quickest way possible, and we want to tell other people about and voice our minds when we don't get what we want or see the light. So that void grows, shifts, changes, morphs into the novels, articles, shows, movies we read and watch and it gets filled, only the more we read/watch the bigger the void gets so the bar is raised.
That is why I liked 'American Pyscho' and why I continue to like 'Mr. Brooks'

Sorry about that, but my computer was having issues loading this. Hope you enjoy

news and the like

Updates are in order, but to start I thought I could take a stab at what is happening in the world once again.
Baseball is among us again, and what fun it brings to us all. Fans rejoice over their team's offseason aquisitions and signings, yet every year this seems much more dramatic at the time than it ends up becoming. For me, I always wonder what the Twin have in store, but by the trade deadline during the season I have a pretty good idea how they will end up, and in the past decade all of the opening day hype has been forgotten by that point which uually means the Twins have mustered a mediocre eason at best. This year looks like another one for the books, with almost an entirely new lineup and pitching staff. Thats not to say they won't compete, it just means that the team will take 1/3 of the season to adjust to each other, and the last 2/3's to make up for this. Look at the Timberwolves, they did that this season, they had the worst record in the league thirty games in and now they are lucky if they get a top five draft pick in the first round next season.
All this and the Vikes still have yet to impress me with their scouting skills. Sure, they have a few prospects and the names they did sign don't really carry much of a load behind them. In all honesty, if they sign Gus Ferrott from the Bears why not give Tarvaris Jackson half a season on the sidelines so he can build up his confidence level rather than start him with hopes of the best like they did last year.
And as some of you may know, I am going to China from May 18 through June 6 with my sister to study abroad, but the main focus in the news as of late has been China's connection to Tibet and the protests/riots that have ensued because of this. One thing I would like to know is what started these incidents? Is it the culmination of the Olympics, did the Dali Lama tell his followers to be active in their beliefs, were thee people provocked in some way and they want to be heard on a national scale now? Any way it is sliced, this trip could turn out to be much more adventerous than originally planned, but at the very least I will get to see the pre-game setups which will be quite amazing.
With that all behind me now, I have to say I don't think I have ever been quite as buy as I am now. The wedding planning is quite extreme, but that comes in spurts so I can't really weigh it down too much. Classes are going well, but the workload is picking up as finals appraoch for the end of April. Work is going well, I average three mornings per week and the occasional Saturday. The move out from our place into my parent's house went pretty well, not too much planning for this unfortunately but it went over without too many hitches. And the move to New York is setting itself up well, we are going there this coming weekend to look around and set our sights on the places we will frequent when we get there.
Thats about all that is on my plate right now, looking at it as a paragraph makes it seem quite small to me, but I don't think writing it down really conveys the message properly. Needless, you get the idea, so if I seem out of the loop for the next month you can refer to one of those listings as my excuse because I may not have the time to get back to you in an orderly fashion.
I did feel like there was more to say, but when I just write what I think the little things seem to slip away. I think that is a good thing, because after a while they can add up. I leave you this time with a photo I took at night in Tortola, the camera was on a banister but when I pushed the shutter button down the whole camera tilted with it and then napped back up which caused this image to appear the way it is.

Thoughts on the Caribbean

Almost a week here and I can't stop thinking about the rain or the wind. It nearly ruined our arrival and could possibly delay our departure if it keeps up this way. Nothing extreme, but no warnings and the constant flow that keeps the beach closed and us inside. I am so glad that March Madness is hapening or there would be nothing to do, books only bring you so far.
While here I have been pondering the differances of living here verses traveling here and think it is setup for travelers much better than residents. My reasoning comes from how many people talk about how great it is here, yet they seem so miserable when trying to describe the hardships that their land endures. Whereas travelers just show up for a week or less, spend their money, and leave. Without one the other wouldn't exist, yet the resident is more depndent on the traveler because there would be no income for those living and working here without travel.
Ok, I worded that oddly, but the idea is that people who live on an island have many things to worry about, such as bad weather and the storm seasons which will ruin their business if they don't plan for it properly. However, the traveler can just come and go as they please. They may get frustrated with the rising prices or bad phone reception, but they know they will be back in their element soon enough to catch themselves up on what they may have missed.
One of the things that struck me as odd is when we arrived here by plane and were walking towards baggage claim there were only two carousels which were completly surrounded from all angles. Is this how their airport does business or is it just really busy at the time we arrived? Either way, anyone could have walked into this area and taken any bag they wanted without any hesitation, which I think may have happened to Suzanne's brother who is still missing his bag and we are leaving tomorrow. Our bags were delayed as well though, well one was there but the rest aparently didn't make it to our plane when we took off so the airline sent them on the next flight and the airport put them on the ferry to Tortola for us which was nice but took a lot of work to track them down.
The Ferry is how people get from island to island here, I think there are a couple of bridges from one to the other but it seems rare because it would interupt the views, plus the waves would cause a hazzard in some parts. All the ferry's run on a set schedule, commonly known as island time, and they depart within the half hour of their designated posting. When we actually arrived at our destination our passports were stamped and we got a cab to our villa? Not sure what it is called, but this seems like a good fit for where we stayed.
The trps back and forth on the island are rough though. It is full of hills, I think this island is a volcano, and the roads follow the hills up and down the sleep slopes with narrow turns and rough terrain. In some areas people designing the roads probably thought it would be bad if some car just lost control and kept going down the road in the same direction, so turns of 180 degrees happen on these hills to prevent any major accidents.
But in the end, after all the heartache and bad moods mixed with the spontaneous weather I think things went well for me here. I really needed a break from school and work, which is what this place was designed for in my mind, and even though we the tough times were hard all I focused on was just sit back and relax, which is the second reason this place was invented. And what better thing to do when in the caribbean.

who am I

The timing of things has been quite off as of late. It seems like I am thinking of doing something well in advance, yet when the time comes I can't remember what I was going to do, or worse, I choose not to. From watching movies to reading articles for class, I don't seem to have the interest to keep up with my head anymore. That is a problem for me because my whole life I always thought of that as my weapon of choice. I could resort to other mroe agressive means, but my head always kept me afloat and on the go. It organizes my day, acts as an alarm clock, gives me reminders for specific dates/times, and never failed me when I needed it. Only now I can't seem to use it in the same context, or maybe it is just more advanced than my body.
I guess I don't know which applies here, but for the last two months I have felt in over my head on a number of occasions and the only thing that keeps me sane is the same thing that always did, movies.
Something new can remedy any situation I feel like I need to get out of, and the classics can bring me back to a time when I didn't need to worry about what I would be doing the next day. There is something about them that just gets inside of me and makes me forget all that was worriesome. I can't explain it, but if you have ever watched a movie with me you should know that I only talk when there are very funny play-on-words and the movie isn't put together well, and I never pause it to go to the bathroom because any interuptions bring me out of that state and I can't get back into it when I return.
Is that normal, does anyone else feel a connection to films that they can't explain aside from the desire to watch more. If I could I would watch movies all day and night just to register a directory for everything ever made. This is what I attempted in High School and that knowledge still resides in the back of my head. You can hear about it if you name a movie but can't remember the actor or the name of the character they played, or maybe you want to know other films that a director has made. That is the sort of stuff that I could rely on, but now my head has done something new and it is hard to adjust to this. I can't remember things without writing them down and I plan ahead for things yet forget about them or change my mind at the last minute.
Maybe I just don't understand how it works anymore, and maybe I just have been sick or had a recurring cold that won't die. Either way, by the end of this weekend this is all that I could think of.

I leave you with the lyrics by the Pipettes from the song "I love you"

There use to be a lot of things that I didn't know
And although they still exist I try not to let them show
But I think that now you see me for my true colors
Sure you recognize I'm more stupid than the others
But I love you, and I love you, and I really love you,
Till the day I die there will never be a time when we have to say goodbye
I seen you try to laugh at all of my bad jokes
And I've cooked you seven meals, six of them on which you choked
But it has taken me a while to get use to this good feeling
When I woke up with a smile how I nearly started screaming
That I love you, and I love you, and I really love you,
Till the day I die there will never be a time when we have to say goodbye because I love you