Road trip

First off, the blog for the trip is: matt-moore.blogspot.com. I sent out an email this morning to people only to discover that apparently I have not updated my email for a while since there were about five or six people that I had old addresses for. So if you are reading this here and didn't get a message I probably need your email address.

I'm leaving tomorrow for the trip. I was thinking about leaving today but I still have too many things to do to get out of here before this afternoon and I'd rather start off earlier than that.

I totally kicked ass at Risk last night. Only I didn't really, but we stopped playing, and I had the most places. Even though I had already executed game plan Alpha 14 - Wandering Hordes. It's damn near unbeatable. Sort of.

I'm not really sure what else I have to say right now. I've been in a strange mood all week. I think it's the anticipation of leaving, mixed with the anticipation of graduation, mixed with a general feeling of anticipation. Also I'm a bit anxious, and I'm a little anticipatory about that.

The movie "Next" with Nic Cage is actually, and completely surprisingly, a pretty decent movie. There are some bad scenes in it, and some of the acting is a little flat. And Jullian Moore's character gets a lot of build up for not much pay out, but I actually really enjoyed it. The special effects worked for the most part, and in the important parts. The bad hair was a bit annoying but it worked with the character. The ending was a bit of a cop out. I'm not saying this movie is a masterpiece, but it's not nearly as bad as people would have you believe.

I watched the movie "Jawbreaker" on demand last week and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's an older movie now. It has Rose McGowen and the chick who played Kitty on Arrested Development. And some other less important people. The thing about this movie is that it is total camp. Snakes on a Plane camp. The critics fucking hated it, I looked it up later, but I think that if they went back round to it today after camp has started making its way back mainstream they'd have something better to say about it. The movie is full of all these cliches and stereotype characters and just really dumb characters, but if you believe, as I do, that the movie makers knew what they were doing, then the movie takes on a level of satire of all high school movies. In that way its like "Not Another Teen Movie" only its more subtle. You kind of have to accept that the movie is self-mocking in order to see it, I think, as JJ watched most of it with me and didn't think it was being self-mocking at all. But it was, I tell you! It was. It's really funny if you let it be funny, but you have to look deeper than the surface.

Also, while I'm on the subject, 12 Angry Men and Hollywoodland are both very good movies that I would suggest. 12 Angry Men seems almost trite in its subject matter and how the facts are presented in our modern 4 CSI, 3 Law and Order, 10 to the 10th power other criminal procedure shows. But as a film this is great. It keeps you in the jury room the entire time of the movie and really pushes you into the situation and into the spot. The reason I say it might be appear trite is because some of the things they discover about the case seem like they'd be pretty obvious. But I suppose it could be speaking to a lot of things why such obvious things as they discover aren't figured out by the lawyer. I won't go much more into it than that, but its a good movie. Hollywoodland isn't fantastic. It's good. And its fun, and its leaves you with a strange sense of wonder at the way of the world. But it doesn't work on a lot of levels. One level of which is Ben Affleck, who I am usually a fan of, but not so much here. I think the real problem, though, is that they treat the suicide/murder with more weight then they are actually able to get it to carry. Its just that the whole movie is starting at that point at leading back up to that point and figuring it out, but I guess I just never really got to a point were I cared how it happened or who was responsible. The weight of it is really only seen in the way the children react, and they fall short in that department because they don't seem to really want to deal with kids in the movie at all. This movie would have been great if they had said fuck the flashbacks and just started at the death and moved forward in a straight line instead of giving us all the Affleck scenes. They felt so forced, and they didn't always lead anywhere, which kind of makes the person watching the movie feel like maybe they are being tricked but in the end the only trick revealed is that the film makers are kind of jerks. And I don't even know if thats a trick, per se. But I do recommend seeing it, especially if you like detective fiction and noir film. It isn't noir, and it isn't detective fiction in the standard sense, but that makes for an interesting compination in the film. A sort of new American noir, maybe. I don't know. If you go in expecting to see a lot of intregue but know you aren't going to walk away with any clear answers it would be a fine movie for you to see.

Okay, I don't really know why I spent so much time doing film reviews right now, but whatever, there they are.

And I'm off.

For Official Use Only

Well, it is official. I graduated, so I suppose thats some sort of an achievment. Not only did I show up for the ceremony but I alos passed all of my classes. And my worst grade on the semester was a B-, which, figuring in that I wasn't sure I was going to pass that class, is pretty good.

Kaiser Chiefs, I will mention since I posted a video, have become my favorite band in the last seven days or so. I had heard a song of theirs on the radio ("Ruby") a couple of times and really dug it and so I got their albums and started watching the videos and interviews and whatever I could find. It took me a bit to get into some of their songs, but once I was in I was hooked. My ears have been ringing non-stop for three days now. My car stereo is probably begging for reprieve as I've been blasting it at top volume every where I go. And I'll be going pretty far in my car pretty soon.

I'm going on a road trip (nice segway, eh?). I have it written, in pen, on my calender that I'm leaving on the 30th of this month. I'm planning three and a half to four weeks of travel. That could change, and probably will one direction or the other. All I know for sure right now is that I want to see Montana and I want to see Maine. My uncle suggested going through Canada on my way to Maine, but I think I'm going to make this an American journey. I'll take my passport just in case I change my mind, but I've always had this romantisized image of the all-american road trip that I could take when I had some time. And I have some time, and a little money, so its a perfect time to go and I'm going to take advantage of it. I was going back and forth for a while if I was actually going, but now I'm sure I am. The 30th could change, I don't think I'll leave before the 28th, though. And unless something major comes up in the next week I won't be leaving any later than the 31st.

This isn't a pure vacation, though. It is also partially research. I'm going to be looking for a place to live while I'm on the road. Not just like an apartment, but a part of the country, a state, a city or town. I've told myself that I wasn't staying in Reno for a day longer than I really needed to to get out of college and I don't want to go back to fallon so I'm going to have to find somewhere to live. I don't know where yet. Part of the reason I want to go to Montana, however, is because I've always thought that would be a cool place to live for a while. But I've never actually been there. But I know its fucking beautiful. So, yeah, I'll be checking that out for sure.

I really don't know what I'm going to do with my life right now. I want to go to grad school. That is kind of my only solid goal right now. I have no idea what I'm going to be doing in the meantime (other then this trip), so I guess I'll just have to wait and see what comes up. I want to keep my options as open as possible for the time being. The only thing I know for sure is that I'm starting to go stir crazy in this town. In this state. It is just driving me mad. I've got a wandering soul I think, and I've left it in a relatively small area for 22 years, and its pulling me away.

This probably won't be my last blog here before I leave. I'm going to set up a travel blog (as I don't really want my parents and other family to go through all of these posts on this blog) and I'll throw a link up to it on this site. If anyone has any suggestions on places I might want to check out while I'm driving around, then let me know. I'm going to be on a pretty loose schedual, so I'll have room to check stuff out.

Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God

Blockbustering

I just watched spider-man 3. A pirated version, on my computer. By now the movies made well over a $150 million dollars. That always makes me angry when movies make that amount of money. A year or two from now when most of the DVD and rental money has finished rolling in they will probably have cleared somewhere between $400-500 million. Maybe more, depending on how much more money it makes in the theater. Fuck, its just annoying to be reminded how much money is really being made by hollywood. I know most of that money would be going into other consumer goods if it wasn't being spent on the movie, but it still bugs me. How many problems could be solved this year if we were throwing that kind of money at them? We could have virtually every homeless person sleeping in some sort of shelter, with enough food, maybe some treatment for their mental problems or addictions or whatever it is thats gotten them to a point where they are living on the streets. Or we could have enough teachers to actually teach all the students. Or we could hire people to go into the prisons and rehabilitate people so they don't just keep coming back in after doing the same shit that got them there in the first place. There are a lot more things we could do with the money to help society. The point is, I know its not going to be going into these things if people aren't spending it on movies. Hell, I know my money isn't going into those programs if I don't go pay to see a movie. But I guess it still just bothers me. It feels like there is a lot of wasted money going into entertainment. I guess we need entertainment, but not as much as people need places to live and food to eat. I'm not trying to say everyone should stop seeing movies and give the money their saving on that to charity. I'm just saying that seeing things like how much money movies are making reminds me of how much our society values these things, and it reminds me how little we value other things.

I've got to go to school five more times before I graduate. Three times this week, twice next week, then I'm done. This semester feels like its barely gotten started and yet its so close to be over. Last semester seemed to drag on forever. I mean, I feel like there is a part of me somewhere out there that is still trapped in the blackhole that was last semester. Like I never made it out, that I only think I've made it almost all the way through this semester. God, if I wake up tommorow and find out that I've only dreamt this semester I wouldn't be surprised. Pissed off, but not surprised.


Shit, I have to figure out what I'm going to do when school gets out. I've been stressed out this whole year, knowing that I was going to graduate this semester seems to have taken its toll on me. I know everyone says that its stressful. I guess what I'm saying isn't anything new, really. But it is new. Since now its happening to me, as before it was happening to other people. I think what worries me the most is that I won't be able to find a job, or I'll get one and hate it and quite, and just not be able to get myself to be motivated to do anything for a few weeks and just kind of tumble in on myself, just sit and stare at a computer screen and maybe occasionally write and mostly just watch tv and feel sorry for myself.

I've been going to school for the vast majority of my life. I think I can honestly say that I'm scared shitless of the idea of not being in school anymore. No matter how badly I hated it, no matter how badly I wanted out throughout the years, its always been part of the landscape for me. I mean, I took a "semester" off once, but really I just dropped my classes a few days before the last day you could drop them, and so instead of taking a semester off I took half of a semester off, and I was working full time the whole time I was out of classes. It was really only about five months between dropping out and going back in, and that was because the summer was in there. Right now my school career feels like a bad relationship. Its falling apart, but, hey, we've had some good times? And we still love each other, I suppose. Its just that we are two very different people now. Fuck. I wanted out of school for so long and now that I'm less then two weeks from being done with it all I want to do is to cling to it. I have a plan to go back to school in the fall of 08. But thats kind of a long time from now. And I've got to get into a school in the meantime. But I have like a year and a half of free time coming up. The ultimate long weekend. And I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself.

It is late at night and I have a lot of homework due within the next two days. A lot of homework I haven't done yet. This is how I know I'm going to miss school, though. Because instead of being really stressed out about stuff thats due in about thirteen hours that I haven't even started I'm already kind of missing that feeling. That last minute scramble to put shit together and get it in and roll the dice of fate a little and see what sort of grade you can get out of it. Usually I'd be freaking out and trying to get shit done like mad right now. Instead I'm just soaking in that combination of fear and pressure and quiet optimism that I'll get it done in time that always rolls up on me when I have a lot of work to do in a very small amount of time.

banana phone

This has not been an especially great week for me. I could go into why it hasn't, but I won't. Suffice to say that I have been trying to deal with my life and that can be a giant pain in the ass. Really, the last few weeks have been like this.

Life isn't easy, so they say. I want it to be easy. I want all the pain and suffering to belong to characters in books and movies and be on tv and never interfer with my life. Unfortunately that isn't how it works. So that leaves me here. Trying to stave off sleep long enough to finish this. Not because I want to get it done, but because I feel like I should at least try and get something written in this blog. Even if it is just me being upset at myself. At least having something up here gives myself and others a sort of snapshot of my life at any given moment. A quick over view with various parts omitted for space and time and other restraints. But a realistic view of myself. And putting it online gets it away from me a little, if only for a while, and sometimes thats all I need.

I'm just disappointed in myself. And I think that maybe in a few weeks or months or years I'll be able to look back at myself at this time in my life and laugh and say 'man, those were some crazy times.' Only I'll probably say it like "craa-zy!" or something.

I'm sick of talking about myself. Really, really sick of it. I'm tired of thinking about myself, too. Though the only way to stop that is to turn on the tv. Since I can't even read right now without getting caught up in the tidal wave of crap inside my head. Do you ever read a novel thats written in first person and think "how can this person talk so much about there self?" I mean, the character, not the author. Anyway, I get to thinking about it sometimes and realize that thats all I do most of the time I'm thinking. Maybe its what most people do, just over think themselves. Maybe its not, I don't know, I can't speak for anyone else. All I know is that this constant refering back to myself makes me feel like I'm in the middle of a story and I'm reading it thinking "I wish this guy would just shut up and get on with it." Unfortunately if the character shuts up there isn't anyone left to tell the story anymore. So I guess thats why you have to take the good with the bad in those stories. and why I always write everything in third person.

I'm tired, and I'm anxious and I'm a little stressed out. I need to get up tommorow and go and take care of some things. And then I need to figure out what the hell I am supposed to do with myself from here on out. Hopefully I've hit the lowest point I'm going to hit. But I do tend to find a way to keep sinking lower. I'm struggling up out of a pit of mud right now, and everytime I get a handhold I lose my footing. But I think maybe the mud is caking to the walls, and it isn't as far down as I thought. Though that doesn't sound very optimistic, perhaps, it is the most optimistic I've been for a couple of days, so let me have that moment.