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      Script Frenzy

      Friday
      Jul022010

      What Excites Me

      Earlier this week somebody asked me what excited me (other than movies and music, which obviously is quite exclusionary for me) and I couldn't just think of an answer off the top of my head. Which was frustrating to no end, because honestly, who doesn't know what excites them? So after putting in some thought this is the list that I've come up with.

      Getting Mail:

      I'm sure that most people grow out of the mail excitement, but for me it just never gets old. There are truly few things that get me more excited than getting a package, but even a letter will do.

      New Shoes or Socks:

      It probably has something to do with having ridiculously large feet (size 16) but every time I get new shoes I just feel like a little kid on Christmas morning. Socks, especially ones with crazy colors, or that border on the knee high are just as exciting. Yesterday I got new socks in the mail (combining two exciting things) and it was freaking fantastic.

      Anytime the Red Sox beat the Yankees:

      This one is fairly obvious. There are very few things that I hate more than the Yankees, and like more than the Red Sox.

      Voting:

      I still get quite the buzz off of going and voting. So much so that I'm the person who'll go vote any chance I can get. Even if it's just a single ballot initiative that has absolutely no effect on me I'll be there voting away. And the "I voted" stickers basically fill me with quasi-orgasmic delight.

      Crossing state and international borders:

      Even just crossing from Utah into Idaho or Wyoming feels like an adventure. Kind of a lame adventure, but an adventure nonetheless. So if you want to excite me, take me on an edventure.

      Packaging:

      This is probably the strangest item on this list of things that excite me, but I get very worked up over packaging. Great packaging, whether it's because of an interesting, or functional, shape, the art attached to it, or anything else, can suck me in every time. And if something has absolutely terrible packaging, then you can pretty much assume that I'll complain about it beyond the point of reason. So if anyone involved in creating any type of packaging is reading this, please try harder.

      The number 9:

      It's a magic number.

      Various food items:

      Basically anything I like a lot but seldom see. For example: Vietnamese sandwiches, Red Cream Fanta, Bounty candy bars (I'd probably kill a man for the ice cream version of this), dohsa, Phil's Deli pastrami sandwiches, Fenway Franks, asian pears and many others. If they weren't a little rare maybe they wouldn't be so exciting.

      Getting a phone call/text/twitter @reply:

      Just the fact that someone would make the effort, even if it isn't much effort, to get a hold of me still kind of excites me to the point where I don't know what to say sometimes, particularly on the phone. It's kind of ridiculous.

      Crowds of people:

      I'm moderately terrified of smaller groups of people, but I just love crowds (with the exception of at the movies 90% of the time). There's just an energy that can't be duplicated by anything else. Plus I enjoy moving through a nice crowd.

      So there you go, there's a few things that generally excite me. I also have more specific, individualized items that apply only to specific people (list supplied on request). What excites you?

      Wednesday
      May262010

      Yangshuo

      After traveling through the heat soaked insanity that is Hong Kong and Macau, I don't think I can say enough about how great it is to spend a few days in the gorgeousness that is Yangshuo. It's probably one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Pictures and words can't possibly do it justice.

      Yangshuo is extremely touristy (chock full of visiting westerners and Chinese) including having things like a KFC and McDonald's, but it still manages to have the charm of a small, idyllic wonderland.

      Between the float down the Li River, and taking in a class at the Yangshuo Cooking School (which is freaking amazing, and our teachers were hilariously fun), this has been the highlight of the trip so far. You should all come here.

      Wednesday
      May122010

      A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

      It's a common trope of the horror genre, and especially the slasher sub-genre, for the antagonist/monster/killer to function as a metaphor for some sort of deep seeded fear. A werewolf plays as the manifestation of buried primal urges, the creature in The Thing as confronting the fear that others are not who they appear to be, including yourself. It's such a standard that even something which only flirts with the fringes of the genre, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer embraces the horror as metaphor concept with its assertion that "high school is hell."

      But one of the best examples of horror as metaphor is the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Freddy Kruger, even in his most over the top and campy iterations, has always been as much about childhood trauma revisited in the subconsciousness of dreams as he's been a dream bound killer. But the key word in that sentence is subtext. When the childhood trauma comes to the forefront it transforms a franchise which has rarely been great, but has usually been fun into something which is neither.

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      Friday
      Feb052010

      In Which I Rediscover the Whimsical Nature of My Brainpan

      Sometimes in the middle of the night I have sudden bursts of manic energy for no apparent reason. Instead of using this energy for something important, or productive, I use it for complete waste of time flights of fancy. Here's a few examples:

      Sometimes I just get walking around the house with my headphones on. Which inevitably leads to dancing. Which looks something like this:

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      Tuesday
      Jan122010

      Alone in Airworld: I Wish I Was Up in the Air

      In director Jason Reitman's new film, Up in the Airthe character of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) has embraced a lifestyle which minimizes any potential personal interaction. He spends over three hundred and twenty of the days each year away from "home," flying from place to place firing people. He spends his life in a world of airline seats, business hotels, and indistinct offices that the novel dubs, "'Airworld." He's perfectly content in Airworld, secure in the routine of travel, and the anonymity of crowds of strangers. His only goals are to reach an epic ten million frequent flyer miles (getting the perks that come with that milestone) and keeping his life in Airworld going as long as possible.

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      Wednesday
      Jan062010

      My Favorite Films of the '00s (1-4)

      As far as I'm concerned these are the greatest films of the decade. Rewatchable, groundbreaking, entertaining and just plain genius. You can't go wrong by putting in any one of these.

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      Monday
      Jan042010

      My Favorite Films of the '00s (5-10)

      This is where you start to see the films that I really love from the decade. Every one of these has an insane degree of rewatchability, and has had at least some impact on film making since its release.

       5-10

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      Sunday
      Jan032010

      My Favorite Films of the '00s (11-20)

      It was an exhaustive process to narrow down my initial list of hundreds of possible candidates to the hundred films that ultimately made my list, but even harder was getting down to a stack ranked top twenty. I can't say that this is an  absolute ranking of the films, just how I felt about them at the time.

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      Saturday
      Jan022010

      My Favorite Films of the '00s (21-50)

      Continuing my list of my favorite films of the past decade, this is where we get into the films that really mattered to me. A full ten percent of the films in this group were made by Pixar. There's the film (Garden State) that makes me remember that even though the manic pixie dream girl is unrealistic, and kind of silly, that I still love it. Three of the best, and my favorite, documentaries (Man on Wire, Murderball, and Spellbound) of the decade. Sci-fi (Serenity, Minority Report), fantasy (Pan's Labyrinth) and horror (28 Days Later) are all represented here, as is one of my favorite genres, the breakup comedy ((500) Days of Summer, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall). It's been a good decade.

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      Friday
      Jan012010

      My Favorite Films of the '00s (51-100)

      It was in this past decade where I really discovered and embraced my love of film, expanding my tastes beyond the predictible blockbuster fare. It was also, in my opinion, a great decade for film, seeing some of my all time favorites released. I've made a list of my favorite 100 films from the decade, the first half of which is presented here in alphabetical order.

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