well, I've finished one whole week at my new job, and I've gotta say, I'm loving it. It's amazing how quickly the day passes sitting in front of a computer doing something you enjoy. the most difficult thing has been trying to join a project in progress while figuring out how they do things. the biggest plus has been that I've already gotten a paycheck, after only having worked there one week (lucked out on the pay cycle), and that I got my first paycheck from my new job the same day I got my last paycheck from my old one, oh, and that my paycheck for one week at the new job was almost as much as my paycheck for two weeks at the old job. 'course, rent is due, and the landlords are charging us an extra hundred dollars since brian moved in, so rent alone almost took the sum total of both paychecks. once again, I'll be struggling the next two weeks to buy food, gas, and cigarettes.

so, my life looks to be shaping up somewhat, finally getting to the point I've wanted to reach for a long time now. but things are never perfect are they?

now that I've got a great job, that it looks like I'll actually enjoy, and that pays well–now that I don't have to worry about what I'm "doing with my life," and seem to actually be in a position to achieve happiness, at least on a professional level, I can now devote myself to other unsatisfactory aspects of my life. only once in my life have I glimpsed perfection, there was a time, over a year ago, when I had a great job, was making decent money, had a wonderful live-in girlfriend, and was very very happy. things obviously didn't work out, through a combination of internal and external influences, I pretty much lost it all. with this new job I'm starting to build that back. now I can get depressed over the failure of past relationships again. 'bout time.

I've finally started my new job at Corvus, been there for three days now actually, and I'm liking it so far. damn well ought to be, I've been trying to land a "real" job for, oh, almost six years now…

funny thing is that the new job is almost like the two months I spent off work–sitting around on the computer, making web pages. surprisingly low pressure so far, but they're probably taking it easy on me…

can't think of anything else to talk about…

not much to report the past couple days, been workin', my sixth and final week at Kinko's. on monday I start my new real job at Corvus. I'm going to be struggling the next few days to readjust my schedule from third shift to first shift… why can't life ever just be easy? why can't we just sleep when the hell we feel like it, wake up when we can't sleep another minute, do the things we need or want to do, and just be happy? if someone could tell me the secret to this, I'd be indebted to them for the rest of my peaceful, happy life.

to retouch on something from my last post, I have finally read a couple reviews of the x-men movie, and so far it's fifty-fifty (I've only read two–one good, one bad.) The reviewer for Entertainment Weakly–that snot rag of an entertainment magazine, which, ironically enough, put X-Men on their cover–spewed a mouthful of bullshit all over one of their pages. I often wonder if these movie reviewers even go watch the movies they're reviewing, but since he actually pointed out a few scenes that weren't in the trailers, he must have, or at least he talked to someone who had. It amazes me that this dumbfuck actually saw the same movie I did, but then I think about how reality is all perception based anyway, so in truth, he didn't see the same movie I did, he saw the movie his brain made him think he saw, and damn where the hell am I going with this?
      anyway, the guy has no clue.

now, the guy who reviewed the movie for the LEO (Louisville's Eccentric Observer, for you out of towners) obviously didn't have his head up his ass when he walked into the theater. at least he got it. he understood the message, the theme, the really great thing the movie was, as well as the little, but ultimately forgivable, problems. all in all, he gave it a fair, honest, thoughtful review.

EW guy, on the other hand, apparently walked in expecting some totally fanciful kids movie that he was going to hate, and was pissed off when the real-world issues made him think too hard.
      not to throw myself into too-heavily geek infested waters, but this is the same bullshit Star Trek gets on occasion, when people dis it because it actually tries to deal with important social issues. Admittedly, some of the acting on Star Trek isn't the greatest, and there have been some horrible episodes (of all the series), but Star Trek isn't about the actors, the characters, or the ships, it's about theme, emotion, hope, and all that other good shit that makes good literature good.
      which conversely, is what the X-Men movie is all about too. It isn't about the characters, the costumes, the funky powers; it's about the struggle of the outcast members of our human society trying to fit in and live normal lives, and not being able to do so because of prejudice, fear, and an unwillingness or inability to learn, understand, accept, and welcome differences.

and all this is very real, very now. perhaps EW guy looked into Magneto or the Senator's face and saw himself, prejudiced, afraid, ignorant, and got pissed because the movie called him out. or maybe he just didn't get it.

bittersweet news. starbucks has opened their first store here in louisville. true, we enjoyed starbucks coffee in their cafes in barnes and noble, but this is the first stand alone store. let me tell you…i love them frappucinos. i really do. but after talking to the girl at the counter about how many starbucks thereare in chicago, she looked at me and said "it'll be that way here, too, by september." i said "oh really?" and her reply was "that's the plan." at that point she actually made a little wink like expression…like she was letting me in on the plan for world domination. i'm kinda scared about this. what does this mean for some of the smaller coffeehouses in my neighborhood? will starbucks invade the highlands (my neighborhood) with guns a'blazin'? truly something to think about…

adam updated kempa.com with a few interesting links. okay…not a few. one. one interesting link. and then a link he stole from his site he linked to.

us|against|them has some interesting links. including one to dan from sunny day making fun of nate mendel and the foo fighters. as a side note, i just noticed that us|against|them is hosted by hypermart. i'm not really gonna comment on that at this time. but i will comment on the fact that mark over there has some good taste in 70's hanna barbera icons. i'm very pissed off that i couldn't find a good god damn hong kong fuey site to link to…

i think i'll just shut the fuck up for now.

okay…i promise this is probably the last word i'll have on the x-men movie for a while…

but after seeing it for the 4th(!) time last night, i think i'll point out some of the minute details. some i was seriously impressed with, others…well…

here goes:
the complete (as far as i saw it) run down of cameos in the film were:
the trucker that gave rogue a ride is the guy that did the voice for the beast in the x-men animated series, and stan lee is on the beach.

kids at the academy were:
jubilee, kitty pryde, danielle moonstar, james proudstar (thunderbird), colossus (he's only there for a split second as the camera pans to the boy running across the water), iceman, pyro, sam guthrie (cannonball), and then there's the kid reading on the bad when the jet takes off…i'm voting that that's a young henry mccoy (beast)…but others might disagree.

gripes i had:
the (previously mentioned by matt) screws in wolverine's claws. the nazi soldier wearing what appeared to be a nylon windbreaker in 1944, and wolverine's wounds opening back up when rogue absorbs his powers at the end. why would that happen if his powers already healed the wounds?

anyway, it was a great fucking movie, and i think i've now said my piece on it.

adam updated kempa.com. there's a few funny links in there, so it's worth checking out.

beef time pt. 2: i have a sreious problem with one aspect of kerroo: she apparantly wrote some skunky ass javascript that makes ie 5 choke on it wanting to debug her page. it's been this way for a couple of weeks now, so maybe she just doesn't know about it…

cool shit i found while searching around aimlessly: the complete text of william gibson's novel neuromancer. in a handy text file. this site also has a the script for a neuromancer movie that never got made.

back to the boredom of waiting for 20 seperate oversize prints to finish printing.

ok.

I've not updated in a couple days, and have seen the new X-Men movie three times since then. and I say I'm not a fanboy…

I'm pretty sure that those of you who care have already read at least 25 or 30 different reports/reviews/commentaries on the movie, so I'll spare the long-winded shit. overall, I thought the movie was great (obviously, since I've seen it three times), probably the best comic adaptation ever done. The opening scene sets the mood and theme in a very powerful, recognizable way, and the movie doesn't stray from that feeling too far at any point. From a philosophical standpoint, this movie definitely has something to say. I really hope people are taking it seriously. (I've not read any reviews of it at this point, mainly because every time I've read reviews in the past, the reviewers inevitably are either out-of-touch morons who don't get the point, or potentially intelligent people who went in with strong preconceptions that colored their experience).
      from a comic geek standpoint, I'd have to say they pretty much hit the nail on the head. I'm not that up on the X-Men and their history, but Paul and brian could probably tell you the name of Iceman's first girlfriend, what issue she appeared in, and who the creative team was that worked on that particular issue–and they said that pretty much everything was pretty close, with a few acceptable (considering the circumstances) shortcuts or omissions here or there.
      I thought the various "powers" were done well, with the exception of some of the flying/floating/jumping stuff (which I understand is difficult to fake with wires & harnesses). and I loved Magneto's "I don't think I can stop them all, Charles." (though why the guy didn't just get out of the way of the bullet when it was stopped, I don't know.)
      my two biggest gripes about the movie are 1) the bodies flying straight back when hit (Wolvie didn't do this when smacked with the tree, which was good), and 2) screws in Wolvie's claws (on the train…)
      the weakest characters were Storm and Sabretooth, the weakest acting by those two actors and the guy that played Cyclops. Jackman was perfect as Wolverine, probably the best performance of the whole cast, including the always brilliant Patrick Stewart.

to make a long story short, if you haven't seen the movie yet, what the fuck are you waiting for? quit reading and get your ass to the theater!

well it looks like x-men exceeded everyone's expecetations. taking in the third highest opening day ever (just below the phantom menace and the lost world) at around $27 million.

i'm doing retarded and repetitive work, which requires a lot of waiting, so i'm sitting on my ass looking at sites i haven't seen in a while.

linux is too damn big to download. even while i'm here at work.

kerroo is the winner of the "only weblog that updated over the past couple of days award." she's nothing if not punctual. seems like she's been down lately, so maybe we should try to cheer her up.

interesting new site. hopefully it pans out to look as nice as the "coming soon" page.

as the apple turns has posted their new design for everyone to enjoy. it's a lighter look at the mac world, so we can all indulge our apple fetish. hopefully everyone won't slag them for having the same content under a shiny new covering…

that's it for now, i guess.

well…i've seen the x-men twice now. paul got us tickets for an advance screening thursday night, so we got to sit head deep in fanboys and see it on one of the biggest screens in town. that was awesome. but i think it was even more enjoyable the second time around. the reaction by people who have no knowledge of the x-men prior to the film was entertaining. paul's favorite audience quote (on the way out): "damn dawg. that shit was tight." i think that that may very well be a positive reaction… the theatre was packed last night, as well, meaning the movie may very well be a box office success. something marvel has never had (minus blade, but that doesn't count…). i share matt's opinion that after seeing the x-men brought to life in such a cool way, my enthusiasm for a spiderman movie has just been amped by about 1000.

in other x-men hoo-haa: behind the scenes clips to download.

adam has updated kempa.com. he's definitely where i am on this whole x-men issue. and i totaly agree that the movie seemed a bit short.

sebastian hasn't updated signal drench in a few days, and i haven't talked to him in over a week…i guess he's dead.

harry from ain't it cool news has posted a cool article about his recent visit to the set of from hell, yet another comic property getting turned into a movie. if you can get past his witless ramblings, there's actually a good idea of how this film will look and feel.

enough about comics and movies already…

well, today's x-men day. I must say, though I myself never read any of the x-men books, I'm pretty excited about the new movie. perhaps it's an illness I've caught from brian (jerk boy, over there yesterday with Paul who'd weaseled his way into a preview pass somehow, and invited brian rather than me because he actually reads x-men or something. man, the nerve of some people).

anyway, it's gotten some decent reviews, and it'll hopefully bring comic movies back up to the level of the first Keaton Batman movie. also, there's hope that if this movie is a success, someone will actually get around to finishing that damned Spider-Man movie they've been promising for almost more than 5 years now.

oh yeah, and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is… pretty much… naked. why the hell would I not watch this movie?

a follow-up to yesterday's "vanity insanity"

damned interesting. after waking up last night and checking my e-mail, I was very surprised to see, in the latest glassdog MEMO, a brief entry discussing the same subject as my own post earlier that morning.
    the entry was about egosurf.com, a site that makes vain pursuits such as mine much easier, and which even includes an option for e-mail updates from a continuous search. ** update 12/17/2004** egosurf.com is no more. just use google. for the "e-mail update" feature, just use google alerts.

what a relief, now I don't have to waste two hours wading through links that end up not having anything to do with me.