Shout Out

Honestly, I had no concrete plans of returning to this blog before my wedding, but since I had a day off today on the exact same day that I got a formal request to update, I figured I may as well.

What’s really sad is that this wasn’t even the longest break I’ve ever taken from blog-writing. Longtime followers may recall that I would sometimes disappear for up to a half of a year at a time over at “Weather”, only to return for no reason other than that the people demand it.

Sometimes, the internet likes to demand silly things.

Actually, I had kind of a running idea in my head that I was gonna do a few posts which were wedding-related (Jesus, sorry, for those of you out of the loop I’m getting married on January 3rd), and then I decided to refine that idea into posts regarding by spectacular wedding reception music playlist that I’ve made. Those of you lucky enough to attend will be able to listen to the playlist live, with your own ears. But some of you may not be that lucky, and I’m taking the liberty of filling you in on the specs.

First off, it’s pretty much a collection of great music. That’s the easiest way to describe it, but naturally it’s much more complicated than that. The strict requirements that I had for song selection were practical if not naturally biased. The song would have to have personal significance for me, for Samantha, for both of us, would have to be either thematically relevant or thematically ironic, and also have to be among my long list of favorite songs of all time.

What I ended up with is 5.5hrs of music, spanning 85 songs and 40 unique artists. Today, I will share with you my abridged artists list  (minus a few surprises) for this event, in alphabetical order. Enjoy!

• Aimee Mann
• Angela Aki
• Artie Shaw & His Orchestra
  
• The Beatles
• Beck
• Bela Fleck
• Billie Holiday
• Bob Dylan
• Buddy Holly
• The Decemberists
• Dick Hyman
• Drive-By Truckers
• Eilen Jewell
• Elvis Presley
• Fred Astaire
• Golden Smog
• The Jayhawks
• Jonathan Coulton
• The Kaiser Chiefs
• Kathleen Edwards
• L’Arc~en~Ciel
• Michael Giacchino
• Nobuo Uematsu
• Old 97’s
• Patsy Cline
• Perry Como
• The Pogues
• Richard Buckner
• Ricky Nelson
• Rogue Wave
• Ryan Adams
• Sleeping at Last
• Steve Earle
• The Waterboys
• Wilco
• Yasunori Mitsuda
• Yoko Shimomura
  

You may guess at which songs from these artists appear on the final playlist (the album of which is entitled simply “The Reception”, by the by) but I may not immediately confirm your guesses. I’m expecting a lot of, “What, no [artist name] ??!!?!?!?!”, and that’s all well in good. In fact, I encourage it! Well, maybe not encourage it, but, support it.

 

You're welcome.

Talk to you guys later. OH, and happy belated Labor Day, Grandparents Day, Citizenship Day, Stepfamily Day, Columbus Day, Sweetest Day, Halloween, and Veteran’s Day.

 

The Current Standings

Hey everyone, long time no see.

I am currently enjoying the hot white sand beaches on an exclusive island resort, sipping from a oversized neon-yellow novelty straw in a large round glass that contains a curious mix of seven assorted alcoholic beverages, and taking breaks from my typing at this laptop to admire in pure awe the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. There is a mild easterly breeze that’s causing the sailboats off the coast to sway back and forth, and frankly the entire scene is causing me to lull into a peaceful, drowsy state of oneness.

Yes, vacation life is an amazing and devestating thing, and I am enjoying every minute of it.

SOMEONE named this island after their cabin... but WHO?

Apparently I’ve been so busy enjoying this vie de luxe that I haven’t even really been watching many movies lately. I did happen to see “District 9″, which is, you know, fine and all. I think I give it more credit than it deserves because there are aliens in it, and aliens are quite different from humans. Of course, if we were to replace the alien refugees with, let’s say, Rwandan refugees, then it’s kind of your basic formula refugee war movie that’s pretty far from original or Hotel Rwanda (which was good). But, it did have aliens, and that is unique, and the first half of the movie where they’re heavily splicing in documentary-style interviews with the drama is good. B-.

I also saw “Inglorious Basterds”. A. Obviously. Go fucking see it.

I'm not joking.

I did not, however, get a chance to see “G.I. Joe”, “The Time Traveler’s Wife”, “Julie & Julia”, “Shorts”, “The Goods”, “Post Grad”, or “X-Games THE MOVIE”, but I can assure you that I probably don’t need to (sorry Ed Helms). Just looking over the box office results from the past two weeks is kinda weird, because I guess “District 9″ was this bizarre runaway hit that’s now at  almost $77m, which is honestly not what I was expecting. Way to go, Blomkamp! Pretty damn good for a first-timer, if I might say so myself.

And for some reason this weekend is Halloween in August with both “Halloween II” and “The Final Destination” opening against each other, although FD will have the advantage of being released in IMAX 3D and having less than 10 prequels which it is following. I don’t know about you guys, but I tend to not even see modern stock-horror films in theaters even when they’re in season (like “Saw”, I guess), but something tells me that one of these two will end up topping the charts this weekend, which will sadly knock Tarantino down a peg or two. Shame on all of you.

See "The Final Destination" instead of "Inglorious Basterds" and this guy will personally kick your ass.

So yeah, I am technically still on vacation here, so you guys don’t have to regularly check back as what was once the practice. Although I’m still getting a steady stream of views, so I should at least be thankful for something.

So, I Guess “A Perfect Getaway Sucks”

You may have often asked yourself over the almost four months that I’ve been doing these posts, “why does he keep predicting the box office? He’s 1 for 14″.

BOX OFFICE RESULTS!

1. G.I. Joe: Rise of the Marketing (1)
2. Julie & Julia (2)
3. G-Force (5)
4. Harry Potter and the Stone Temple Pilots (3)
5. Funny People (x)

Obviously your guess is as good as mine (and in all actuality, probably better). For some reason I figured the combined forces of “Julie & Julia” and “A Perfect Getaway” would slide “Funny People” into the #6 spot, but I overestimated how much people want to pay to see “Swept Away” again, but this time with more hatchets being thrown in bullet-time. “A Perfect Getaway” opened with $5m at #7, and we’ll be sure to get in at least 14 copies for rent when it comes out on video. Some of those, no doubt, will be blu-ray copies.

Much closer was my prediction that “G.I. Joe” would do just over $50m, which it did, at $54m. See? I’m not all wrong all the time.

So, you guys know Trey Parker and Matt Stone? Sure you do. They did all that South Park stuff. WELL, I guess before they did all that South Park stuff (well, not all of it, just the television series) they were commissioned to make a promotional film for Universal City Studios in 1995, directly following Universal being bought out by Seagrams (yes, the guys that make those fancy wine coolers). I heard most of this second hand from my friend Andy, but apparently the fact that they were up-and-coming independent directors that were willing to work for pretty much free sold Universal in a heart beat, and what we end up with is an amazing film gem entitled “Your Studio and You”. Now, I’m sure many of you have already seen this, but your welcome for reminding you of it so you can see it again.

Part One:

Part Two:

Venture Industries

Boy, you know what’s a great show? Fuckin’ “Venture Brothers”. I’ve been catching up on it lately, and have now seen all of seasons 2 and 3, and some episodes from season 1. What’s weird about season 2, I think, is that about half way through it stops being an action sit-com where every episode is stand-alone and mostly unrelated to the others, to pretty much a “LOST” style action drama (that’s still funny). If you haven’t seen any of it, then you really probably should, and if you have seen it, then I hope you’ll enjoy this brief clip from an episode from season 3 that might be amongst the funniest scenes in the show’s history:

Also, I guess with all of my not-watching-movies-in-July, I forgot to post my July Movie Recap.So yeah, all seven movies:

106. Umberto D. (1952/Vittorio De Sica): A
107. Kung Fu Panda (2008/Mark Osborne): C-
108. The Hangover (2009/Todd Phillips): C-
109. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009/David Yates): C
110. Street Figheter: The Legend of Chun Li (2009/Andrzej Bartkowiak): D-
111. Tron (1982/Steven Lisberger): C
112. Quarantine (John Erick Dowdle): C

I guess you can see though why I wasn’t too thrilled about watching movies last month, when every one I watched seemed to be worst than the last. Um, except for “Umberto D”. Go buy that damn movie.

I'm still very, very good.

Also, BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS!

1. G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra
2. Julie & Julia
3. Harry Potter and the Sword in the Stone
4. A Perfect Getaway
5. G-Force

Unless by some miracle “G.I. Joe” is pulled from theaters nationwide, I don’t see anyway around it making over $50m this weekend. It’s been getting the same crazy hype that Transformers got, and this one has kung-fu. Also, we finally have a new romantic comedy date-movie thing about cooking or something, and a survival horror, so actually, this weekend is pretty well rounded in terms of suck. Check ‘em out! Check ‘em ALL OUT!

This is what happens when you have the perfect title for a movie. People will just keep making that movie with helicopters, fight scenes, and/or islands.

And It’s Not Even A Sunday

Not sure how to say “sorry, on vacation”, so…

Just replace "30 minutes" with like, a couple days. Man, I should really start my own business.

I will post Friday, as that is how my blog has always worked, with box office predictions at the very least.

And, just so you don’t leave feeling empty-handed, here’s a news story you might like:

It’s about Tom Hanks rejecting the role of “Harvey” in some sort of Steven Spielberg imagined remake of the classic “Harvey” originally starring Jimmy Stewart and now maybe starring Will Smith.

Tch.

Sorry I can’t do a normal post today guys, but this week (as it turns out!) is actually pretty damn busy for me. I’ll have to stick to the basics for a bit, here.

BOX OFFICE RESULTS:

1. Funny People
2. Harry Potter
3. G-Force
4. The Ugly Truth
5. Aliens in the Attic

So yeah, switch “Funny People” and “G-Force” around, and for some reason throw “Aliens” in there and that’s what happened with my predictions. I still don’t understand how there’s room in that top 5 for both “G-Force” and “Aliens”, but hey, people like to waste money I guess. Way to go, Tisdale!

Actually, pretty much everything in that top 5 kinda bombed at the box office this weekend, with #1 “Funny People” making only $22m, and “Aliens” grossing only $8m. But hey, next weekend we have “G.I. Joe: Revenge of the Fallen”, so, don’t worry about Hollywood too much.

Still Only Friday

Wow, must be a slow day out there if everyone’s already checked out my blog today for some reason. Sorry guys, I was kinda busy earlier with the people who will effectively be running my life for the next six months (no, sadly not the board of directors at E!). I am done with finals, though, so at least there’s that.

BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS!

1. G-Force
2. Funny People
3. Harry Potter & The Haunted Groove Machine
4. The Collector
5. The Ugly Truth

Lot of toss-ups there, but I’m pretty sure people want to see Judd Apatow’s new movie, and I’m pretty sure everyone already saw Harry Potter at that midnight release, so, yeah. Also, I’m betting that guinea pigs are still hilarious, and people love things that are hilarious. Of course, after last week’s guesses, I’m not really in a position to be predicting anything proper.

Sometimes I forget what movies are altogether.

You know what’s not gonna be number one, though? Fucking “Aliens in the Attic”. Jesus. Have you even seen anything about this movie? Apparently it opens this weekend to whatever crowd has actually heard of it, and it stars one Ashley Tisdale (of High School Musical fame), Carter Jenkins (of a single episode of “House” and single episode of “The 4400″ fame) and is directed by the guy who brought us “Like Mike” and “The Honeymooners” catastrophes. And it’s got a bunch of CGI things like G-Force, too. Man, this movie has it all! Judd Apatow really should’ve gotten on this bandwagon instead of the parallel “Seth Rogen Bandwagon” that he seems to be currently riding.

Somehow this is not supposed to be "G-Force". And for the record, "They Came From Upstairs" is going on that list of shittiest taglines ever.

All right. See you guys Monday.

Still… Only Wednesday

So, I’m about half-way done with finals here, which means I’m just that much closer to resuming a normal schedule (provided that the company that hired me doesn’t actually want me to work). I did get to finish the Simon Pegg brit-com series “Spaced” recently, and it’s pretty damn good. If you’ve never seen any Pegg before, obviously I’m just gonna suggest you rent “Shaun of the Dead” or “Hot Fuzz”, because they’re much easier to digest than the 14 episode series.

So, I’ll have to catch up more with you guys on Friday, but if you haven’t seen it, make sure to check out Jon Stewart’s interview with Bill Kristol (from Monday’s Daily Show). Pretty good stuff.

more about “Still… Only Wednesday“, posted with vodpod

Still Only Monday

Hey everyone, taking a break from homework here to get back to you on those box office results. Really, this whole finals week thing hurts me more than it hurts you. But nobody’s hurting as much as the people who paid to see “G-Force” this weekend.

1. G-Force (2)
2. Harry Potter (1)
3. The Ugly Truth (x)
4. Orphan (x)
5. Ice Age 3 (x)

Wow, I can honestly say that I’ve never done worse in predicting the results, although I’m tempted to blame the bad luck on the same celestial alignment that caused “G-Force” to come in #1 this weekend. $31 million, G-Force? Really? Fuck.

I mean, I saw “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li” this weekend, and that was very, very bad, but at least it didn’t have talking guinea pigs. Ugh. I’m so disappointed with you, universe! You better make it up to me with A’s on my finals. Or money. One of the two.

90 Day Review

Afternoon, everyone. How’s about a regular post for once? Let’s go with some box office predictions, followed by a harrowing tale.

BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS!

1. Harry Potter and the Well of Mystery
2. G-Force
3. Bruno
4. Transformers 2: Mr. Magoo
5. The Ugly Truth

Yes, with the unleashing of the government’s latest weapon of mass destruction (G-Force), I’m predicting that Ice Age will fall out of the top 5, or at least down to number five depending on how many people decide to waste their money on the new romantic comedy “The Ugly Truth”. “(500) Days of Summer” and “The Hurt Locker” remain in limited release, so naturally they won’t factor into the equation. So, all in all, you have HP and Bruno rounding out the probably-semi-decent movies, and three sure-failures, with “G-Force” releasing as the greatest insult to film since… well I guess only since “Transformers 2″, but still. EVERYBODY LOVES TALKING GUINEA PIGS!!!!!!!

Remember when "G Force" were the Guardians of Space?

Last Sunday I had the terrible misfortune of choosing to attend a Chicagoland “Wedding Expo” that was held at the Doubletree Hotel up in Oakbrook. I’ve been to expos before, and I know how they work. No matter how much interest you have in the type of expo, they will all inevitably be terrible times for a couple reasons. Even when I went to E3 (and, you know, I really like video games), it was ultimately ruined by: millions of people shouting loudly in your ear and stealing precious oxygen from your breathing room, idiotic and apathetic booth reps that cannot answer your questions but corner you and demand you ask them anyway, and the general lack of understanding on the part of both the companies and the establishment that the people who are attending are indeed people (however loud and obnoxious they may be), and should be accommodated for as such. This wedding expo was no different, except for that they decided to hold the entire thing in a couple hallways of a hotel which forced the thousands of unwed to crawl over each other as they attempted to survive.

I mean, like, you know those attractions at museums that pretty much just force you to walk as a group of people in a line along a path while some guy on a speaker educates you on the history of earthworms or the future of electronics or something? It was like that, but with the essence of chaos filling in for the guy on the speaker.

The brides-to-be were all forced to adorn stickers that read, "V.I.B". No effort was spared to completely demean and demoralize all in attendance.

Really, though, it’s not even that simple. Pretty much every one of the thousands of brides-to-be (and to be fair, the half dozen guys who decided to get roped in to going) were attending because they had absolutely no idea what a wedding was and figured that this was the place to be to find out. Also, they were attending to take part in the giant raffle to win a free trip to somewhere. It is very, very sad how wrong they all were for thinking that this was the place to be for either of those things. When you walk in, you’re given a card with the names of the 100 or so booths on the back, and a spot next to each name for the booth attendant to sign. You see, in order to enter into the raffle, you have to get 80% of the booth attendants’ signatures. This means that even though you don’t want to talk to some douchebag about how awesome a DJ he is, you have to otherwise he won’t sign your card.

This is a very real photograph of the DJ in the middle of his speech. Obviously I had to use my camera to prove that I had indeed endured this.

Sam and I wasted about an hour with this bullshit until we just walked the fuck out, disposing of the card and most of the pamphlets we were handed in the nearest receptacle. Seriously guys: if you are ever in the position where you are getting married and think that you might be able to find some sort of vendors or information at one of these wedding expos, BE FOREWARNED! You will not, and you will also lose large portions of your soul in the process.

This is the lobby of the hotel at which I'm getting married, by the by. Drinks will be served here free of charge for a FULL HOUR.

Next week is my last week of school before I am A) out of school for a month, and B) going to be starting work again. Unfortunately this means that I won’t really have a break to get back into the full swing of blogging for you guys, nor will I have much of a break to catch up on movies. Maybe though, just maybe, my new job will be horrible enough for me to be able to share some exciting stories with you. Cross your fingers!