The Calm Before the Storm
You know what I'm talking about. It's that feeling right before a really big storm. The sky's crowded with grey clouds but the wind isn't howling, the rain isn't pelting, and all is quiet on the Western front. It's hard to describe. It must be some instinct leftover from our cavemen days.

It's like that right now at school. It's not too busy. Labs are just starting. Midterms aren't for another two weeks. But they're coming. And they're coming fast.

*cue creepy music from Lost*
It's a polar bear! That was a weird line. I'm unwilling to believe that there are Americans stupid enough to believe that polar bears live in the South Pacific. But I could be wrong. And there was this line in the second ep where Sayid was answering Hurley's question on whether he was Navy, or Army, or Air Force when he fought in the Gulf War version 1.0. Sayid answered "The Republican Guard". I bet there were a lot of people in the audience scratching their heads.

Lost is a pretty scary show. It's not scary as in things jump out at you scary. But it creeps the hell out of you. Primal fear must be the new fad. Look at all those Japanese horror flicks Hollywood is remaking.

Below: Matt Long from Jack and Bobby. He's cute. Good show too, considering it's from the WB. Note to WB execs: this doesn't redeem you from cancelling Angel. WTF were you thinking? Oh right, can't think if you were behind the door when they handed out brains.

My Mythlogical Form

You are Form 3, Unicorn: The Innocent. "And The Unicorn knew she wasn't meant to
go into the Dark Wood. Disregarding the advice
given to her by the spirits, Unicorn went
inside and bled silver blood.. For her
misdeed, the world knew evil." Some examples of the Unicorn Form are Eve
(Christian) and Pandora (Greek). The Unicorn is associated with the concept of
innocence, the number 3, and the element of
water. Her sign is the twilight sun. As a member of Form 3, you are a curious
individual. You are drawn to new things and
become fascinated with ideas you've never come
in contact with before. Some people may say
you are too nosey, but it's only because you
like getting to the bottom of things and
solving them. Unicorns are the best friends to
have because they are inquisitive.

Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I'm innocent.. hahahahha. I guess it's kinda accurate.

Drowning in Others' Sorrows
What is it with people and starting school this year? Yeah, I know that school sucks shit and you hate your profs and your classes and everyone in your classes. But that's a pretty weak excuse for being in a constant state of emotion stupor and unhappiness; an absolute hatred for all your best qualities; and ceaseless evaluation of everything in your life that coulda, woulda, shoulda.

One year after graduation and we're all depressed as hell. Who would've thunk it? We started first year thinking we would still be keeping in touch with all our friends from high school. Heartwarming, but realistically impossible. People change. People's priorities change. It happens a lot, really. You get bumped off the invite list or you think that your friends were all brainwashed by creepy government scientists at Area 51 and it tears your heart in more ways that you could've imagined.

My fav line from Collateral: "Darwin. Shit happens. I Ching. Gotta ROLL with it." It's kinda lame. But it's true. You can't just re-live your childhood or your best days in high school over and over again just because it makes you feel great. Well, you can, but lying to yourself is so much worse than lying to others.

People who complain that no one cares about them or no one understands them is doing just that: complaining. It's not that they're categorically depressed or do they want sympathy. They just want the uncertainty to go away. I get that. But I don't think we can expect adulthood to be a crystal clear picture either.

In the end, this is just a desparate plea on my part to tell people to stop adding fuel to the effing bonfire. Is school not depressing enough for people that they have to go and deliberately overanalyze every thing that's wrong with their life and create their own depression?

Films on the Whim
Collateral: This was one of the best movies I've seen all summer. It's slick, smart, and makes no apologies about its holier-than-thou dialogue. I admit Tom Cruise looks off-putting with gray hair and a shark suit, especially in the TV spots and the trailer. But I think that's part of why the movie works. Five minutes into the movie, you forget this is the Tom Cruise playing the suave, bad guy. Same with Jamie Foxx. His glasses make him look like a vulnerable, cheapskate cabbie and not some tough black guy who can kick ass. Mark Ruffalo is completely unrecognizable as the LAPD cop. Really. I wouldn't know it was him unless I looked at the cast list.

The best parts of the movie are where Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx just sit in the cab and psychoanalyze each other while Foxx drives through the empty LA streets at 3 am. They talk only to kill time, but they have such surprising insight into the other person's deepest desires. As the night goes on, the relationship gets more complicated because they start to depend on each other. They're both in deep shit. But they know they absolutely need the other guy to get out of it. So by the end of the night, on some subconscious leve, they care about what happens to the each other. It's like a variation of the Stockholm syndrome.

Man, I wish Tom Cruise played the quiet, cold-blooded bad guy more. He's quite convincing. You can tell he concentrated on his acting more than just looking good and getting the cool lines right. Kudos to Michael Mann. He had the Cruise/Foxx chemistry tweaked just right and shooting the whole thing couldn't have been easy. And there are a lot of funny parts to break up the gravitas of it all. The ending bothered me a bit, because it was so awkward and faked. But whatever. It's a wrinkle I can gloss over.

Princess Diairies 2 Okay, this was like the icing on the cake. It was funny, I guess. But it was mostly physical comedy that kids and teenyboppers love. Lyso was laughing her ass off. It wasn't even like Shrek, where the adults understood all the inside jokes. To be frank, I was a little bored because the movie was pretty cliched and mundane. I blame it on Collateral. It was a tough act to follow.

The Summer of Jez
In a Seinfeld episode, George vows to turn over a new leaf and make all these changes with his life. He called it "The Summer of George!". In the end, with nothing changed and lying in a hospital bed, he laments "This was supposed to be the Summer of George..."

This wasn't The Summer of Jez. Far from it. Okay, I did some constructive stuff. But I can't believe my job is so draining. At best, it's boring. At worst, the kids are fighting and I have to pull them apart and make sure no one cries. I know kids are supposed to be stupid. But not this dumb. Last week, this kid going to Gr. 2 can't even spell his own last name that had like 9 letters. Okay, I admit it's long. But it's your own bloody name. Let's just say that the generation behind us will bring peace and prosperity. Because the population would be too dumb to know how to start a nuclear war.

Saw a lot of movies this summer. The projects were cool. I like getting my money's worth at the theatre. I can't believe I used to go to STC and pay like $10 per movie and not feel the sting in the wallet. There must be something about university that automatically makes people become the ultimate cheapskates.

The Hellmouth will open in 3 weeks. Man. I don't know if I'm looking forward to it or not. I mean, I'd rather not have human contact for weeks than see and talk with people that make me gag. And what's with people hooking up this year that would, otherwise, never get a member of the opposite sex to look twice at them? I know I sound jealous. But I can't help but feel that something's up the creek here. I'm talking weird with a beard.

Bandwagons I hopped on:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Air America Radio
Impressionism
Nip/Tuck (the acting is surprisingly good)
Stephen Booth novels
The Amazing Race (I like the exotic locales)

Stuff I'm kinda looking forward to:
Season 16 of The Simpsons (late Oct. 2004)
Ocean's Twelve (Dec. 2004)
Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera (Dec. 2004)
Season 4 of Alias (Jan. 2005)
Elektra (Jan. 2005)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Dec. 2005)

My cousin in HK just told me he scored 5 As, 3 Bs, and 1 C on his "wui how". Dude.

Coming soon: summer 2005 - The Summer of Jez! Haha.

Project Testosterone
It was quite successful. Pulled the 3 person scam and pulled in 3 blockbusters for the price of 1. We'll disregard the fact that in the middle of the project, Cat's like "I gotta go at 5."

The Village: I thought it was pretty creepy. Until the "twist ending" became apparent and cheapened the whole premise of the movie. Dammit, Night, can't you make a normal scary movie and not write yourself a cameo? And you completely wasted Adrien Brody's talents.

The Bourne Supremacy: Nowhere near as good as "The Bourne Identity". Why? Because: 1) We don't see Matt Damon's sizable biceps as much. 2) Not enough Houdini escapes. 3) Not enough hand-to-hand combat. 4) Too much Julia Stiles. 5) The car chase scene was too long. Although the use of the Russian taxi was cool. 6) The screenwriters should've stuck closer to the books. It would've made an even better "spy thriller". 7) Jason Bourne doesn't seem as vulnerable or human like he did in the first one. Alas, no sympathy from the audience. 8) Bourne should've been in HK and parts of China in this movie.
Well, they have "The Bourne Ultimatum" to redeem themselves. Here's hoping they won't screw up.

I, Robot: Much better than I anticipated. Will Smith can still make semi-funny lines into really funny lines. (*sneeze* Sorry, I'm allergic to bullshit.) Although why does Det. Spooner sleep with a bandana? And like any other blockbuster, this plot had huge holes. If Viki can control millions of robots, why didn't it know that Dr. Lanning was building Sonny? And why wouldn't it know that Sonny has free will? Sonny was pretty cool. He's like the king of the robots now because of his ability to not obey the 3 laws.

Matt Damon really should've been cast as Tony Leung in "The Departed". He doesn't look as much like a frat boy as Leo does. I wonder who will play the inspector or the mob boss. I was listening to the radio the other day and the DJ was like "If anyone out there saw Gigli or Jersey Girl, it makes you think who really wrote Good Will Hunting." HAHA.

Finally, A Break
I don't have work this week because of the long weekend. I'm looking forward to sleeping in every single day.

I can't believe I'm burned out already. I work like 20-25 hours a week and I've only been working for 2 weeks. When I signed up, I thought it would be a cinch and a pretty relaxing job-- I never thought it would be so exhausting. Babysitting kids and trying not to lose any Lego pieces in the process is hard work, man. At least the kids seem to like me. Some are better than others, though.

What I find the funniest thing is in the morning, the parents can't wait to drop their kids off. And then when they come back to pick them up, they look so relaxed and upbeat, like they just went to a 3 hour spa treatment. Hahaha.

I've only got 2 more weeks of work. Thank goodness because I don't think I can keep doing this. And there's always one day in the week, usually near the end of the camp, where the kids just start fighting and bickering. I don't know what causes it. Then I have to take the middle ground and play referee. It's a lot harder than it sounds because you literally have to please everybody.

I think that kids are dumber nowadays compared to when we were growing up. These kids going into Gr. 3 or 4 can barely write a full sentence without asking me how to spell "gear" or "second" or "people". What the hell? Dude, I remember writing 3 sentence paragraphs in Gr. 3 in response to the short stories in those crazy readers.

Summer's almost over. After the book shopping, the onslaught will begin.

First Day @ Lego Camp
It went well, I suppose. No one choked on anything. I only had 7 kids to look after and most of them aren't bratty. They're like 6-9 year olds, and I expected a lot worse. Except this one white kid whose has an average attention span of 0.000005 seconds. Man.

My boss is nice and surprisingly supportive. Which is rare. Only he's really unorganized and last-minute, and that makes me run around with my head cut off as well. He used to work at IBM and made this funny, if cliched joke:
"There are only two threads that hold IBM employees together.
1. Their cubicle farm.
2. Their hatred for Microsoft."

My salary is like crap. But at least the work isn't too bad. And I kinda feel good about getting this job cuz my boss said they got something like 800 applicants and interviewed about 60-70 of them. And they needed only 20 people or so.

I downloaded "13 Going on 30" and watched it. It's so run-of-the-mill but at least the plot's more discernible than "Daredevil". Mark Ruffalo isn't a bad actor, but got stuck with boring lines and an undefined character. So Jennifer Garner stole the whole show. It's nice to see her smile whole-heartedly though.

My Cocktail

How to make a jez

Ingredients: 3 parts competetiveness 5 parts crazyiness 1 part instinct

Method: Stir together in a glass tumbler with a salted rim. Add a little sadness if desired!