Never mind, I’m getting completely off the topic of what I was intending to do. Which is to explain, for posterity, why I’ve closed my typepad blog and revised this former movie review site.

I think it was all too fragmented. All too much over the place. Now I’m going to just try and stick everything here in one place. Furthermore, I’m trying to capture automatically all of the things that I’m doing elsewhere anyway. posting pictures on flickr, bookmarking delicious, google reader shared items.

Why do you care? You probably don’t.

I’ve gone through my old posts, deleted all the dumb shit that said “Oh, hey, I haven’t posted for ten years, and I’m not going here. Just here to say hey.” Links to reviews elsewhere have also  been deleted. You know, that kind of thing. So what exists here is a record of the kinds of posts that I enjoyed writing over the past seven years or so (YIKES).

A few things, I’ve noticed in reviewing the 1200+ posts that I filtered through, edited and deleted. (Which incidentally took probably 30 hours of work. It was an unbelievable amount of time to go through that much writing and decide what was worth saving.)

1. I, among many others I’m guessing, was doing a “proto-twitter” kind of thing where I would write one line as a blog. I’ve kept a handful of these in the archives, but deleted some.
2. I was sorry to delete some of the more lively comments. This was because the posts that invoked said comments were lame.
3. I was stupid. Jeez, some of the posts I did were very dumb, especially early on. I’ve kept these.

There will be more to come. More writing, more fun. Maybe a new movie review here and there. A personal post about being a new parent. You know, that kind of thing.

We were trying to sell our old desk, and appropriately so, had to clean it out in order to put it on Craigslist. We had purchased a minimal, replacement desk from our favorite new home store, IKEA. So my wife cleaned it and threw down an armful of journals. Some completed, most less than a page full. I was most proud of the one that was completely filled to the brim with tiny scrawl detailing every awful moment covering a short time in my life post-college and pre-marriage. I don’t know that I want anyone to read that thing, come to think of it.

I’ve often wondered what my grandchildren will say when they look at those journals after I’m long in the grave. I don’t think that it’s something that I want to hide. Will they think me some kind of deviant creep, or will they think what I think I would think: Hey, he wasn’t just a grandpa, he was a person like us too.

Maudlin, isn’t it? And I guess it’s a long way to say that I’ve gone and done it again. I’ve gotten a new mode of writing and another way to waste my time filling up something with bits of writing.

Off Ebay I grabbed an AlphaSmart 3000. It’s a word processor meant for school children, but like the moleskine (which I still use, surprisingly enough) has something of a geek-chic resurgence among the writing set. People call it “distraction free” writing. And I get that. It’s a keyboard (full sized and nice and snappy by the way) with a four line LED. And that’s it. It stores the text, and then puts it in your text file when you connect it via USB.

So much easier than trying to write on a Blackberry. And I can’t get over how easy it is to fire up and get going without having to check your email, surf the web and answer incoming IM messages. Of course, best of all is that it runs on three AA batteries. Always available, light, and friendly. And here I am going on and on and on about this thing, blogging on a long forgotten site long hijacked by spam commenters and jackasses saying jackass things.

Wow. No one said that having a stream of consciousness note-taking device would always be a good thing.

That’s enough for now. I think I should go off and finally do some real writing. Is this the way for me to do that? Or is this just another brief detour only to distract myself from the actual task of sitting down to write?

My mental cheerleader is urging me on.

If you could write like one fiction author, who would it be?
Submitted by Marilyn.

I'm inclined to say Chuck Palahniuk, because I'm such a fan of everything that he does. Not only is he an Oregon native, bounding around some of the same places that I tread, but his stripped down minimalism brings such joy to readers used to overly ornate language that means nothing.

But I don't know that writing like him would be the best thing I could accomplish. There are already plenty of people trying to unsuccessfully ape his style. Nope, instead I wish that I had the emotional touch of Philip Pullman, who has such a richness to his writing that you're held spellbound by every turn of golden phrase. Honestly, when I read "The Golden Compass" I was astounded that Pullman, as highly praised as he is, hasn't been more celebrated on the level of Hemmingway and the like.

I hope that in retrospect he gains the respect that he so obviously has earned.

Originally posted on lightsoutfilms.vox.com

Couch St. (pronounced ‘kooch’)
Willamette River / Valley (pronounced ‘Will-aahhh-met’)
Lovejoy St.
Terwilliger
Pettygrove
Stumptown
Beaverton
Jiggles
Oregon Beavers
Goose Hollow
Skidmore
Yamhill

And the relationship is definitely an inverse one, as can be seen in the following graph.

The gray arrows are creativity. The more miserable you are, the more creative output you have (See countless references in history: Poe, Hemmingway, Van Gogh, Pollack and nearly every other celebrated literary and artistic star). Of course, this loneliness and misery could also be substituted by a syphilitic brain infection, but your mileage may vary.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I have yet to learn how to harness emotions that aren’t negative and turn them into creative output. But when you’re happy in your personal life, there’s just so much to do. You don’t want to be stuck with your nose in some journal or tapping away at the computer; you want to be out frolicking in the fields, picking flowers and drinking beer.

I envy those that manage high creative output with happiness. Of course, I don’t know any of these souless automatons, but in a way, I wish that I was more like them.

Back then, the internet was just coming into its own and if there was a place to get connected, it was the educational instituion. Most of America wasn’t connecting, and if they were, it was their kids at home dialing into AOL via 14.4 modem. Incidentally, I’m also old enough to remember the pre-AOL days, when dialing into the local BBS was the cool thing to do. If you could get in.

In college, one dorm had a high speed connection to the internet. We weren’t at that dorm. We had to dial into the campus network via 14.4 modem. This was the rise of MP3. Napster had yet to hit the scene, and finding a single MP3 was a long, involved and idiotic process. Nonetheless, we downloaded away, sometime tying up the phone line for over an hour to get a shitty P-Diddy song recorded at a horrible compression rate.

Incidentally, we also lived in a really run down dorm. One of the worst on campus (I say so lovingly, of course) that looked more like a Motel Six than actual student housing. Of course, looking back, I wouldn’t have it any other way. But, being the hellions that we were, we decided to do what we knew best. That is, of course, to complain in a funny, loud and obnoxious manner.

We created a site (called Emerson Hell) and then proceeded to fill it with tales of disgust and anger at the people around us. All in a tongue and cheek way, after all. Searching the university website, we were also able to find completely spammable distribution lists for nearly every student on campus. In these wonderful, pre-spam days, we were able to email out our Emerson Hell web address and rant to most students on campus.

Internet Pioneers, I say.

Professors would write back, angry at our misuse of the campus email system, but given our advanced technical skills (read: Hotmail.com), they were unable to trace us. I would laugh and giggle with glee at the haughty and presumptuous academic tone.

My only regret is that we lacked the foresight to save the site, the emails and gather them for all time. It was swiftly deleted a month or two after the experiment started. Still, I keep those rebel internet-nerd memories gathered in my head. I was there. I was causing trouble on the internet way back then. Maybe I should have learned my lesson then.

This was our logo. I’m not kidding. I just found it on the internet, after remembering that it was an evil clown picture.

It’s no surprise to anyone that knows me that I loves me some food. I relish in taste and texture. One day, should god smile upon me, I shall travel to the hallowed den of the French Laundry, Per Se, or Le Cirque and really get to know the master chefs and their wonderful ways. For now, all I have is snack items.

Like these Hawaiian Kettle Style Potato Chips, Luau BBQ treats. So the breakdown: they’re kettle chips, so that’s a good thing. Really crunchy, not too greasy. Then, there’s the taste of BBQ. It’s your standard taste and again, a good thing. Then the sweetness comes, which is almost out of place for chips. Then the kicker — these things are actually rather spicy.

It’s a nice little combo that makes me buy an extra large bag and completely forgo the running and "healthy eating" nonsense.

Why mention such a thing? I really have no reason. Maybe it’s to remind myself that the next time I’m in the grocery store, I’ll go and visit the snack isle and stuff a few dozen of these bags into the cart when my girlfriend isn’t looking.

“That bowl haircut certainly compliments your rather craggy
face.”

“Don’t lecture ME on the law, Piggy the Cop!”

“Hey! It’s The Falcon!” (I really did say this aloud and I shouldn’t
have. I’ll tell you about it sometime.)

I don’t want to say that I’m at a crossroads (so cliche) but it’s exactly there that I find myself. It feels as though I’m positioned exactly on the edge of a precipice, ready to step off or back away in whimpering fear. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with website, I’m not entirely (though I have a slight idea) about what I’m going to do with my life. I’m not saying this hoping for pity, but it’s a real, serious time for drunken contemplation.

Sometimes you felt yourself being drawn into art and music without any conscious reason why. For instance, I have no idea why I felt the overwhelming urge to view, absorb “Apocalypse Now” today. The feeling was so strong that while driving to work on the 15 at 7:30am, I wanted to turn around and get lost in the madness.

This isn’t the mojitos talking, though I’m sure that it has a little bit to do with it.

After seeing that blowhard Fred Durst screwing around and acting a fool, I feel a lot better about myself. Not that it matters to anyone out there, I’m just sayin’. And suing Gawker.com?!? C’mon friend. Though the word about your small penis has spread through the world like the Avian Flu, there’s no reason to get all litigious about it. Suck it up, stop taking cameraphone vids of you f-ing some groupie and live with it. Either that or actually make music that will sell records. God knows that won’t happens, you no talent hack. At this point, Fred is subsisting primarily on the fumes of two white teenagers’ anger in Tupelo. So sad.

So this post hasn’t been the emotional revelation that I wanted it to be. So what? That’s life. It’s scary and weird here on the edge of a new life. I’m about to embark on a new adventure and I’m not really sure which way is up. All I know: I love a girl, I’m currently too drunk to drive (or write apparently) and about to step into something very big and important.

I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I do have your real name, even where you live, though for the decency and protection of all involved, I will not be releasing it to the public. I just have one or two hints for you:

1) When selling your phone, you might want to make sure that you delete all your contacts . There’s no reason we need, or should have, access to all the people that you know.

2) It’d probably be prudent to delete your gallery of pictures with all your dogs’ names. I’m curious about who’s finger that was that got sawed in half by something sharp though. How many stitches did that need?

and most importantly,

3) Make sure that you delete the little cameraphone video of your wife. You know the one. She’s a pretty gal, and I mean that truly. And it must have been on a special day, because she’s in a nice silk and lace teddy. I’d go so far as to say that your wife looks really hot. You’re a lucky man. Especially when she flashes the matching panties. But that doesn’t match the coup de grace. The flash of the naked breast is really what makes it special.

OK, so it’s not porn and the video is the size of a postage stamp – but it’s not exactly the kind of thing that you want floating around out there.

Even more importantly, you want to make sure that no one takes that video, downloads it to their new mac via Bluetooth, and keeps it for posting use on his blog at a future date.
Yeah, you want to make sure that doesn’t happen.