Great Expectations Or How I was Disappointed by Hollywood . . . again

I feel like this should become a regular feature on my blog.

Last night I went and saw the new Muppet Movie. While I have a soft spot in my heart for the Muppets, this movie was pretty disappointing. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an almost unbelievably high rating. sad.

It was cute, there were certain things that touched my heart and made me feel like we were back in a golden age of muppets, but it fell short in so many ways that I actually wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Problem 1. the movie is WAY too aware of its own insignificance. this movie points out, probably a dozen times- that the muppets have become irrelevant, and that no one wants to watch them anymore. This wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't also for the fact that they kept hinting at a muppet revival. I understand that it was just a cute way to carry the story, but there were enough cameo appearances to really make one wonder if they were going to bring back the Muppet TV show. They probably won't, so it was just a whole lot of empty promises and whining about how no one loves the muppets anymore.

Problem 2. They tried to fill the movie with too much. obviously, less is more. more is not more. The muppets are a musical tradition, but when you can only perform one verse of a song because you have to move on in order to get to each of the other songs that you're going to only sing one verse to, well it makes it a little hard to do anything justice.

Redeeming quality

Well it did have a very touching lesson, in fact there were several touching lessons that I took from the movie, but they were hard to articulate, especially when I'm so disappointed with the work as a whole.

Parking

I've been fortunate enough to drive quite a bit. Growing up in Utah I learned to drive at the age of 14 on a dirt road up to our ranch. At 19 I went to Germany and had the great fortune of driving on the Autobahn. at 23 I drove cross country twice. then at 27 I drove back east. After thousands of miles I like to think that I'm an aficionado when it comes to driving. People like to claim that Utahns are terrible drivers. they might have their flaws, but they're not. Californians are. at the very least the Californians who leave the state and invade others are the worst drivers, but even with that said Americans really struggle with the idea of the fast lane. Ideally you should always stay to the right-most lane, unless you are passing, but once you've passed then you are supposed to get right back over.

Now that you've all learned how to drive, lets talk about parking. Omahanians take the place for worst parkers on earth. I'm not sure what it is about those lines in parking lots but these people seem to be under the impression that these lines are mistakes--perhaps left by migrant workers during the initial paving of the are. As a result they park in whatever helter-skelter formation they see fit. How hard is it, and I'm asking this in all honest, to pull a car into a parking stall with adequate room on either side of the car to allow passengers to load and unload? for some people it must be impossible. Perhaps they're color blind and the yellow lines are indistinguishable from the black asphalt. Perhaps asphalt is a new invention here. I've noticed plenty of roads that aren't paved, so maybe the idea of asphalt covered lots where cars spend their idle time, is so new or foreign that they see these lines and are filled with the same apprehension I get when looking at texts in Mandarin Chinese. While all of these are possibilities, I'm much more inclined to think that it is just because they aren't paying attention when they park, which means that they probably won't notice if I were to write mean things with my keys into the body of their vehicle, maybe they wouldn't notice if someone sliced through the tubes with the brake fluid in them. I'm not admitting anything, and I'm certainly not condoning it, but lets get real. people who park their cars terrible deserve to have just a little somethin-somethin.

Did she really just say that?

I’m in need of some good ol’ cathartic ranting. Pop your vicodin people, because this could hurt.

Today, as I was getting ready to play some flag football with some friends, I sat down to talk to one girl—who was obviously not dressed for an athletic event, wearing knee high boots and jeans. She and I began talking about our academic careers. She now works in some aspect of law. Who can remember exactly what she does? I’ve decided to forget that detail.

Anyway, It turned out that this girl also had taken several literature classes.

As our conversation progressed we had a few laughs, and she—in her giddy joy of having someone talk to her—exclaimed “Seriously? How did the guy ask her out, I mean he was in the English Class” She implied that men who study English are undatable.

Well I’m glad that someone who is educated and well read is unable to be appealing to women. Obviously her taste in men has worked out well because she’s…oh wait, she isn’t in a relationship. When a girl shows up 30 minutes before an event –alone—she obviously doesn’t have a boyfriend. Not that this is a problem though. I’m sure it is part of everyone’s life goal to grow old and alone…after all, that is why God invented cats.

Good luck law lady. I hope you enjoy living alone—with cats—for the rest of your life. I originally thought you were appealing, but your little outburst proved that you couldn’t be interested at all.

I really should be asleep...

...but I just had a thought from the day. During my jog my Ipod suddenly stopped working. despite my efforts to reboot it just wouldn't do anything. Jogging without music is THE WORST. Anyway, once I got it fixed I was going through my Ipod and I rediscovered a ton of great music that I haven't listened to in forever. I'll see if I can find some videos of them over the next few days, and maybe I'll even find some of their songs. the problem is that I have this strange addiction for European Music/groups. I sort of enjoy listening to stuff that i know no one else will recognize or know. I hate having music get over-played. A lot of times when I get music from an American band I'll play it through a few times before I realize that it basically sounds like everything else they've been able to push through a mold.

Oh well. I keep looking, and I'm not finding anything I feel like posting, or that I feel would make anyone like my music. I'll try again tomorrow

narcissus.

Mythology is super cool! I don't know if anyone has had a chance to look through some of the stories, but they are full of great life lessons. Lets start with this one.

Narcissus was a young hunter. Apparently he was also super good looking, and was so good looking, in fact, that he didn't need anyone else. He cast aside all those that loved him, because when you are hot it is okay to be a jerk to people. Nemesis, the divine being of retribution (seriously how cool is this religion? they have a god for everything) decided that she was sick to crap of his pathetic attitude, so while he was off hunting in the woods she presented him with a pond. This pond was crystal clear and allowed him to see his own reflection, which as we know is super hot, and he became entranced by it. Minutes turned into hours turned into days, and pretty soon he died--because even good looking people need food, and his beautiful reflection was just not enough to keep him alive.

The lesson here is don't piss off Nemesis. HAHA I'm just kidding. The actual lesson has to do with the prophecy by some old man who said that Narcissus would live a long and fruitful life as long as he never knew himself. So the lesson is that Narcissus would have lived a great life, full of valuable relationships, if he had just been nice instead of vain.

I could ramble on and on about the linguistic and actual similarities between gyms, the male gender and hunting and animals. In an effort to be "more manly" we spend hours in gyms, mostly because our modern sedentary lifestyle doesn't allow us to obtain physical activity in any normal fashion. I bring up Narcissus only because there is a huge mirror along one whole wall of the gym. It is often helpful to look at yourself in the mirror if only to motivate you through a workout. I'll admit it. I totally stare into my own eyes to try and intimidate myself into working harder. Usually that is all. I honestly give it my best effort to not flex in front of the mirror and stare at myself.

I just think it is so funny how often people will stand in front of these mirrors--for really long times--and just stare at themselves flexing. not lifting weights. not in the middle of a workout. just flexing. I get that some of them have worked really hard for their bodies, more of them have probably just injected themselves with--what we'll call--sugar water. Meanwhile their relationships are languishing by the wayside.

One would think, based on our academic setting that more people would know the story of narcissus, but I guess I'm just being altruistic.

why has it been so long since my last post?

Honestly. I can't answer that question. One would think that being sick, and spending my days at home would have given me the time to write something. Alas, being sick also left me debilitatingly tired. I think I slept like 10 hours a day, and that didn't include the naps. The good news is that the fevers have subsided. The body aches are gone. I'm still sleeping a ton (which I love, and thank heavens for the whole -daylights savings time which gave me an extra hour of sleep last night). The only bad news is that my rose is running like one of those Marathon runners that flies all over the world just running. Alright, that was a terrible analogy, but my rose is running like crazy. How does my nose make so much snot? you know that terrible raw feeling your nose gets when you've used too many tissues? I'm totally feeling that.

I'm sure I could take some medication, but really I have a thing with medication. No I'm not one of those crazy people, but my experience living in Germany has taught me that sometimes you just need Tea and sleep.

This reminds me of another story about drug use.

I had a surgery a few years ago. The doctor needed to put me under, and he said that he was going to use the strongest sedative they had. I explained that I didn't need that. If the nurse would be nice enough to simply shake the bottle in front of my face I would pass out for the rest of the day. Well the doctor didn't believe me, and he used a huge sedative and I ended up sleeping for like 5 hours longer than what they had planned.

Long story short I don't have a great tolerance for meds, which knock me out. That is probably the reason that I didn't write anything last week was because I was strung out on cold meds

Enjoy the upcoming week.