Thoughts for the evening...

[missroserose]

--Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is an extremely enjoyable movie. Not exactly "great cinema", but entertaining, well done, and just plain fun. There seem to have been a shortage of good old-fashioned adventure movies since Raiders of the Lost Ark...Props to Kerry Conran for it. I was pretty impressed with the film in general; they managed to get the whole 1940's serial style pretty accurately without seeming overdone or hokey. The soft-focus filter did a good job of imitating the Vaseline-on-the-lens trick that was popular at the time, and while the backgrounds *do* seem a little obviously computer-generated at times (especially in scenes involving a lot of people), the actors more than bridge the gap. And here's a little tidbit I found for those who have seen it already... "Totenkopf", the name of the bad guy, is apparently German for "Dead head. =D"

--I was looking in the mirror today while washing my hands, and I noticed something - I'm a pretty attractive person. Physically, anyway. So, theoretically, it must take work for me to be as reclusive as I am. But by the same token, my personality does tend to turn people off - for one thing, I'm very outspoken and forceful at times, and for another, my social skills, while passable, aren't as good as they could be. I do have a tendency to either ramble and hog the spotlight or else hide in a corner, depending on my mood at the time. I don't know why this particular subject was in my head today, other than perhaps that I've been wondering why it is that I have a hard time making friends. But then, another possibility is that my definition of "friend" is on a slightly higher level than most folks'; I've got a few of the "go hang out and watch movie" sort of friends, which to me seem more like acquaintances. But I have very few of the "people you can pour your heart out to; people who understand you and the way you think and don't judge you" type of friends. (Actually, at this point, it's arguable that I don't have any here in person.) And when I do find someone that I click with, I usually end up sleeping with them, which is great at first, but if the relationship goes sour, it tends to ruin it. No wonder I've been trying to convince Brian to come to college here...

--On the off chance that anyone's heard of A Series of Unfortunate Events...if you like satire, and if you're at all familiar with the Victorian melodramatic poor-unfortunates novels (i.e. Oliver Twist), it's pretty hilarious reading. A bit overdone in places, and obviously written for a grade or two below Harry Potter, but amusing nonetheless. Great if you have an Addams Family-esque sense of humor, like I do. And here's the really fun part: There's a movie coming out. Saw the preview tonight, and I was sold on the costumes and the sets alone. (It almost made up for the preview of the Spongebob Squarepants movie that preceded it. *shudder* Probably the only thing I've ever seen in a movie theater that made me curl up into a whimpering ball and hide my eyes.) I just hope they don't dumb it down and make it into another insulting-kids'-intelligence flick...Actually, in general, I hope the moviemakers/book writers take a page from the HP series and realize that if you treat kids like they're smart, they'll respond in kind.

--I'm getting a car, I'm getting a car, I'm getting a car! =D=D=D Here are pictures of the one I want to get...everybody keep your fingers crossed that they haven't sold it and that it passes the mechanic's check and everything.

Comments

Well...

[eventhewaves.livejournal.com]

1) I'll probably see "Sky Captain" on Sunday. I sorta meant to do it last weekend, but -- as previously indicated -- it was a really lazy, shameful waste of two days.

2) You're very beautiful. As per usual, I also think you're selling your personality a bit short, but I'll get more into that privately and at a slightly later date, because -- y'know -- that's me. As for the friends thing, well... I think the true friends are harder to come by than the people you just do little with; it's easier to find people to just rap casually with than it is to find somebody you can talk about deep loves and hates with, and get into the serious business of who you are and why and whatnot without having any real concerns about what the other person's going to think...

And what does it say about me, that I'd already kinda, sorta guessed this is one of the reasons why you've been so... interested... in getting me to go to school in Juneau? Which you're doing a damn fine job of, incidentally -- here it is, end of September, and I'm already working on getting that into gear. =)

3) I've heard of the books, but never read them. I've also seen the preview. I'm not sure what to think right now -- it has promise, but it's also from the director of "Casper" and "City of Angels," so... You never know.

Interesting side note: Jude Law, who plays Sky Captain, is also serving as narrator of "A Series of Unfortunate Events." He's having an extremely busy year -- he's in at least two other movies of interest coming out this fall.

4) Nice-looking car. Hope you get it. *Knocks on desk*

--Brian

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

With that definition, yeah, my opinion is that it's going to be hard to make friends. I think I have three or four people like that, and most of them live in another state. And according to the people around me, I'm a huge social nexus and I'm friends with everybody.

And PS: Yay car!

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

I actually think that one of the reasons we're so screwed up as a society (high prevalence of depression and other mental disorders, etc.) has to do with the fact that we've devalued authentic human contact and put all our effort into the shallow "hey how's it going" type of interaction. (It always surprises people, incidentally, when I try and answer that question honestly...) I mean, it's no wonder people get depressed; if we feel like we're not allowed to be emotionally intimate with people, we're going to suffer the emotional consequences of constantly feeling alone...

Bah. It's early (for me). I'll think about this more when I'm awake. ;)

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

One of the things I find most lacking in my social life (Well. Aside from sex.) is 'petting'. Simple physical contact with other people. It makes me glad my housemate has cats, because I can usually convince one of them to hang out with me for short periods of time.
But yeah, I think there's a replacement of intimacy (physical/social/emotional) with 'lots of stuff to do'--a big heap of 'leisure' activities.

For what it's worth, you strike me as somebody who'd be worth dealing with in order to get to know. You seem to be forthright and up front/honest with people, which I admire.

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

You know, I read an article a while back that dealt with how people actually produce certain neurochemicals or something from physical contact with other people - basically, chemicals that are essential to balance out moods and whatnot. I'm sure you've seen the picture (http://www.snopes.com/glurge/hug.htm) of the twin babies that's been circulating online - one of the twins had unstable vital signs and wasn't expected to live until the other one managed to put its arm around the first, whose signs stabilized shortly thereafter. Physical contact is important to both physical and mental health.

Unfortunately, our society is so scared of anything that can be construed as sexual that we've managed to criminalize even innocent touching. (There was a case mentioned in Playboy a year or two ago where a law professor lightly touched a female student on the shoulder as an example of how something "as simple as this" could be turned into a hundred-thousand dollar lawsuit - and six months later, the dude was in court because that one touch had supposedly "triggered memories of abuse as a child" and all sorts of BS like that.) No wonder people are going skin-hungry all the time. I hate how we're all programmed to think sex (and therefore touching of almost any sort) is bad and evil and shouldn't be done and yadda yadda...

Wow, I sort of went on for a while. I guess this is kind of a sore subject with me. :s But thank you for the compliment, nonetheless. I do try to be honest with people, though I've found that, as a general rule, it's not other people I have trouble being honest with; it's myself. ;)

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

I do try to be honest with people, though I've found that, as a general rule, it's not other people I have trouble being honest with; it's myself. ;)

I'm honest with myself most of the time, I'm just not very nice about it.

[vernonhardapple.livejournal.com]

What are you going to do when you move back up to Barrow?

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

Don't think I'm going back up there. It was pure luck that I got the job I did last summer, and my mother's recently moved into a smaller house, which means I'd have to find a place to rent (which sort of negates the advantages of living there). However, now that I'm getting a car, I've got a couple of prospects for living quarters over the summer lined up...it was just a matter of transportation, originally.