Look At Me As I Sit In a Coffee Shop And Update A Blog

Posted on June 12, 2010 by epthnation

Delurking to say:  The problem is, I haven’t posted in so long that I have like 1000 things to say.  Kids, don’t blog.  It’s just a thankless hassle.

I’m just kidding.  But here’s a bulleted list.  I wish I could make this a mulleted list by giving the dots little mullets, but I just can’t.

  • Since we last talked, I shaved all the hairs (more than you might think) from my head.  I’m going with the shaved head look for a while, so you better get used to it.  Thankfully, it doesn’t really affect you, my blog readers.
  • The World Cup is here.  I think I wrote the definitive piece on the World Cup and American’s reaction to it four years ago.  Here’s a link to it.  Yesterday, France played to a tie with Ecuador.  I’m a big believer in the Monroe Doctrine as it pertains to soccer, and so I’m very happy that big bad France got tied by the swarthy Ecuadorians.  That’s a good first day.  Also, I always root for the African teams, except of course for South Africa.  We will not forget, South Africa.  We will not forget.
  • ESPN has come out with something called “ESPN3.”  We’re moving ever closer to “The Ocho” becoming a reality.
  • Man, Milwaukee is Brewer-crazy.  I had forgotten what it’s like to live in a real sports town.  And the Brewers aren’t even good!  I don’t care about the team at all*, and yet I know all about their players and their hopes and dreams and contracts and failures and Steakhouses.  For example, did you know the Brewers have a guy named Corey Hart who’s a total hillbilly?  Also, he’s stick-thin and has an absurd Amish beard.  Also, he totally sucked last year but is currently leading the NL in home runs.  These are some of the things I know, for no dang good reason.
  • I’ve developed a lot of theories about God and Life and The Universe and Everything, but I’m not quite willing to share them.  Perhaps if someone were to get me drunk, that would unloose my tongue.  These theories have helped me a lot, actually, in my day-to-day life.  I still hate talking to people, but I’m not as burdened about it now.  And it’s not like my theories are some sort of secret, a la The Secret — they’re right there in the Bible, and other places.  Perhaps I’ll just start a cult and have done with it.  Can you have a cult with no followers?  Isn’t a cult with no followers just a crazy person?
  • With regard to camping/hiking, I have purchased:  1) A cool tent, 2) a Wal-Mart brand (technically “Ozark Trail) camping pad, 3) a tarp, 4) a point-and-shoot camera, 5)  a sleeping bag.  Now, if I could only purchase something that stops it from raining.  Any evil geniuses out there with a weather machine I could borrow?
  • I like coffee shops.
  • The USA plays the England in soccer today in what some people are calling “The Dixie Chicks Revenge Game.”  C’mon USA, think about how much Natalie Maines will hate it if you win!
  • What the heck — Nebraska in the Big Ten?  Colorado going to the Pac-10, which might soon be the “Pac-16?”  The Big 12 becoming the “Big Five?”  Nobody wants Rock Chalk Jayhawk anymore?  Things like this are why the NCAA needs a commissioner who manages which teams are in which conference.  They need me to be that commissioner, actually.  I’ll set them straight.  My first edict?  Notre Dame is disbanded for being snooty.
  • I’m not delivering pizzas right now, which is weird.  My real job has become a real job, and that means real busy.  You would not believe how busy I am all the time.  That’s ok though, I like it.  It gives me something to do during the day.
  • Oh, and LOST ended.  I don’t have time to deal with my feelings on that right now, I got too much to do.

That’s all I got.  Sorry.

*obvs, that’s not completely true.  But it’s baseball, and baseball doesn’t care about me, so why should I care about it?  I’ve been less and less passionate about sports lately, because it all seems so silly.  Also, the Yankees, the Lakers, and the Blue Devils keep winning championships, we might have to disband the whole sport world and start over.  Thank God for the Saints, right?  Literally.

Posted in Apologies, Jesus, Sports, This Insane World, Work | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

My Name Is Michael And I’m An Introvert

Posted on May 22, 2010 by epthnation

You can tell she's introverted because she's looking down.

Maybe it was all those Meyers-Briggs personality evaluations that said the exact same thing.  Maybe it was my overwhelming sadness when I’m around lots of people.  Maybe it was my new favorite blog, Introverted Church.  Whatever it was, I have come to realize a very important fact:  There is a word for what I am, and it’s not a disorder.  It’s just introversion.  Lots of people are this way.  Who knew?

Seriously, our culture seems to place a much higher value on extroversion right now.  If there is a problem people have in their life, the answer we’re given is almost always something extroverted.  Don’t like your job?  Go out and find a new one — it’s up to you!  That job not making enough money for you?  Get a second one!  Need more attention?  Sell yourself!  Don’t like your marriage?  Communicate more!  Life is boring?  Find something you’re passionate about and do it!  Follow your heart and don’t care about what other people say!  Need something?  Don’t take no for an answer!  In a funk?  Do something and think about it later!  Live a better story, for Pete’s sake!

See what I mean?  I’m oversimplifying here, as always, but that’s totally what we hear every day, right?  Is there any other way to make it in this world besides constantly “putting yourself out there”?  Is it even a worthwhile question?  Isn’t introversion just another word for not taking responsibility for things?

No.  I wrote a while back, I think as a Facebook status message, that I’m learning the valuable lesson that not everything in life is my responsibility.  In fact, as I go through life, I’m quite surprised at what my actual responsibilities are, in comparison to what I’ve been led to believe.  It doesn’t help that people are fighting to hold me responsible for things every day — at my job, in my interactions with people, and in ads for some worthwhile cause.  It’s easy to make a case that something is important, and nearly impossible (not to mention socially suicidal) to prove that case wrong.  Take, for example, the current BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.  If we didn’t drive cars, none of this would have happened.  It’s our responsibility, therefore, to clean it up.  Just because we drove cars.  I cant think of a way to defeat this argument without taking some sort of political stand against government involvement in private business, something that seems beside the point right now.  So…

Wait.  I’m not really responsible for that, and me contemplating doing something about it is wasted thought.  You know what isn’t wasted thought?  Thinking about the implications of drilling in the ocean, and whether or not the risks are worth it.  Is it time to all get electric cars?  How about mopeds?  Introverts can solve these problems if allowed enough time to themselves, but we’re making them Do Something rather than Do What They Do Best.

I’m just discovering what it means to be introverted, and others have waxed far more eloquently on the subject.  But I would remind you that it’s not a disorder or even a way of looking at the world — it’s a personality type.    Let me chill out in my own way, ok?  Jesus went away by himself all the time.  Look it up.

I’ve also figured out an important truth from the Bible that really does sound insane, but is nonetheless true.  But that’s for another post.  How’s that for a tease?

Posted in Apologies, Jesus, This Insane World | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

No Pegasus

Posted on May 10, 2010 by epthnation

I wrote this.  Not sure what it is, but it’s short:

Creatures of unbridled energy, like horses nobody could tame, they ran wild and free and without stopping, even for a second, because they thought that there was a race, but there wasn’t, and all those who followed them they viewed as competitors, and they were all alone, and as leader and follower passed and repassed each other and traded places repeatedly all either could think of was the upcoming cliff and how they might want to slow down, but since they had no mechanism to express that to each other, the race went on and ended as one might predict, and they fell covered in sweat and mud to whatever was below, and that’s a chance they took and wish they had back, but still, they were all alone but ultimately ok, despite passing by all possible points for an unwinnable race, but don’t tell them that, because they think they won. No, seriously. Don’t bother.

Posted in Stories | Tagged , | Leave a comment

My Life Has Changed.

Posted on May 7, 2010 by epthnation

Because everyone loves lists, I will now list the ways my life has changed over the past couple of months.  I apologize for being so absent, but you’ll understand after you read the list.

1) I got a job.  As someone once said, I now get up early like a birdie.  “A job” doesn’t really cover it, because I now technically have two (2) jobs.  This might not last forever (I’ve been torn on whether or not to quit delivering pizzas), but for now it’s lucrative and time-consuming.  This is ok.  The only way is ISN’T ok is this: I don’t have time to post blogs anymore.  I only have time right now because I have the day off.  I’m barely even twittering these days, it’s gotten so bad.  It just goes to show you that I’ll stop being social the moment I get an excuse to stop.

Fortunately, this also means I have benefits, something I haven’t had for a long, long time.  My bosses are all great Americans and I love them.  There’s also a chance they might be reading this.

2) I’ve been doing other writing.  That’s the other reason this blog lays silent as a turtle in a box made of sound-absorbent tile.  I just wrote an insane Anti-Oprah short story for the Online Apologetics Conference.  Writing takes a lot of time when you’re as scatterbrained as me.  Seriously, my brain is always melting in 20 different directions for no reason.  I’ll write something, then look back on it and wonder what kind of alien would have written that.  I may just have a split-personality, actually.

3) I’ve decided that life is pretty much meaningless.  “Vanity” and “Doesn’t matter” are also applicable terms.  Yes, I’m ok.  No, I’m not insane.  This is a good thing.  I said “pretty much,” not “completely.”

4) I attended a funeral in Northern Wisconsin and reacquainted myself with church potlucks.

5) I upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04, which is nice but a lot like 9.10.  Also, there were two really dumb things the developers did that hurt my first impression of the OS:  They got rid of the volume control in the panel (you have to re-enable it in order to see it) and  they put the minimize-maximize-close window buttons on the left side of the windows.  Seriously?  Even if you think have “big plans” for the right side, you should resist the urge to execute them.  I could hack GNOME to put them back on the correct side, but what’s the point?  They’d just end up on the left every time I change the theme or upgrade something.

Other than that, though, it’s fine.  Not revolutionary, but fine.

6)  Lala.com is closing, having been purchased and destroyed by Apple (or at least it’ll be gone on May 31).  Steve Jobs just bought them so he could take their engineers and technology and use it for evil.  But hey, I get credit in the iTunes store!  Whoopee!  This is like having a Tolltag account and Hitler buying the highway system, closing all the tollbooths, and giving you credit in his Nazi paraphernalia shop.  I stand behind this analogy.  It’s exactly like that.

7) The Milwaukee Bucks made us all Fear the Deer, then backed away like, well, a real live deer.  At least we now have a “The Pack is Back”-style slogan to use to beat people down.

Yeah, duty calls.  Story of my life.  See ya later.

Posted in Apologies, Sports, Stories, This Insane World, Work | Leave a comment

Netflix Diary: The King of Kong

Posted on April 24, 2010 by epthnation

There's nothing about this photo that isn't awesome

First of all, I don’t believe this movie accurately portrays much of anything outside of Steve Wiebe’s home life, which should probably be considered a problem for a documentary.  There’s probably a lot of truth in Steve and his family’s struggle with the culture of competitive old-school gaming, though.  As a one-man character study, it provides a little insight into an interesting time in the life of the Wiebe family.  As a total documentary, it gets a little sketchy…

And that’s what makes it great.

Billy Mitchell is an amazing cinematic creation.  Whether he’s real or not doesn’t really matter — every word that comes out of his overbearded mouth sounds like it came from a Hollywood script.  He’s a classic villain, a situation made even better by the fact that he seems to think that he’s the hero.  Everything about him is manufactured to almost Lady Gaga-esque levels — the long hair, the beard, the glamorous wife, the impeccable casual clothes, the rock-star status, the army of henchmen who seem to worship him, the svengali-like hold he seems to have on gaming authorities, his successful wing sauce business — but since it’s manufactured in the world of competitive video game playing, everything is a bit off.  His look is ridiculous enough to qualify as a potential halloween costume; his wife is a trophy, but not particularly pretty; his henchmen all seem unaware of any life outside of nerdy pursuits; his main achievements, the video game records, mean absolutely nothing to anyone outside the Gaming Inner Circle; and nobody has ever heard of his apparently regionally popular wing sauce.  To put it bluntly, he’s a zilch, and this makes his willingness to spout Donald Trump-y life lessons and platitudes endlessly hilarious.   What’s more funny is that he’s somehow acquired these henchmen, who think this larger-than-life gaming persona of Billy’s is something to be admired.

But like I said, I don’t know how much of Billy Mitchell, his henchmen, the video game judges, and the situations depicted in The King of Kong are real.  If any of it outside of Steve Wiebe weren’t staged, then the filmmaker stumbled into a truly amazing true story.  Either way, Mr. Wiebe’s quest against the evil scheming monolith that is Billy Mitchell has lots of exciting twists and turns and a cast of unforgettable characters.  And that’s all you can ask for in this era of The Hills and Survivor, isn’t it?

Four out of five overpriced popcorns, because while it felt a little fake, I’ll never forget Billy Mitchell and his well-conditioned hair.

P.S. — Don’t think I didn’t notice that one of Billy’s blonde-haired henchmen was named Steve Sanders.  Man, there’s so much great stuff in this movie.  I didn’t even mention Mitchell’s old “nemesis,” a man who recorded (what seemed to be) self-help dating videos as “Mr. Awesome.”  The big dispute they had was  over Mr. Awesome’s record score on the crappy 80′s game “Missile Command,” of all things.  You can’t make this stuff up — or can you?

Edited to provide this link from the Onion’s awesome AV Club, wherein Billy Mitchell calls them to set the record straight.  Then the AV Club followed up with the filmmakers about Mitchell’s accusations.  This movie/story keeps getting more awesome.

Posted in Netflix Diaries | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Netflix Diary: Drag Me To Heckbuckets

Posted on April 20, 2010 by epthnation
This was taken right before evil punches her in the face

About to be hit in the face by evil

Ok, so Sam Raimi made another horror movie — finally!  He’s the only Leprechaun out there who can turn standard horror B.S. into a magically hillarious gore-tacular.  We remember the deliciously over-the-top Evil Dead, and its evil rubber chicken of a sequel/remake, Evil Dead II.  Then there’s Army of Darkness, which streamlined the mayhem and made it larger.  So Drag Me to Hell has a heck of a lot to live up to, is what I’m saying.  Does it?  Well…yeah, I suppose, if you’re into that sort of thing.

What sort of thing is that?  Well, how about a toothless old gypsy gumming up poor Alison Lohman’s face, not once but twice?  How about multiple scenes of people being hit with unseen punches and everyday household objects?  How about people being, as the title suggests, dragged to hell?  How about evil forces screwing with people in ways that can only be described as hilarious and super-disgusting?

Why does Sam Raimi waste his time with things like directing Spider-Man or producing Xena: Warrior Princess when he has the power to do something this unique and cool whenever he wants?  Sure, Spider-Man II remains the greatest superhero movie of all time, and Xena had quite the following, but what about this scene from Evil Dead II:

And there are 20 scenes in ED II that are just as good.  Now, nothing in Drag Me to Hell is quite that inspired, but it’s still a good effort from the only man in the world capable of such lunacy.  3.5 out of 5 overpriced popcorns, but that’s only because parts of it were a little boring.  Specifically, most of the parts with the guy from the Apple ads.

Posted in Netflix Diaries | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Movies Ahoy: Kick-buttocks

Posted on April 18, 2010 by epthnation

I know that’s not the movie’s name, but my mom reads this.  Hi, mom.

"His name should be A** Kicked"

"His name should be A** Kicked"

Well, that was interesting.  I’m one of the people who saw this movie on its opening weekend, which is weird because I a) never see things on their opening weekend, and b) wasn’t that excited to begin with.  But weirdness aside, the best way I can describe “Kick Buttocks” is this: It’s not a total waste of two hours.

The main problem with the movie is it can’t decide what it is.  Is it a violent satire of Spider-Man?  A violent Kung-Fu movie with teenage superheros?  A violent black comedy with an indie comic sensibility?

So we can see that whatever this movie can be said to be, we know it is violent with a capital V.

“Kick-Buttocks” suffers from what I’ll call “indie comic hyperstylization complex,” which means that while an 11-year-old girl in a mask taking out scores of drug dealers with a variety of cool weapons might look good in a comic book, it’s really disturbing when played out in a live-action movie.  I’m not saying it wasn’t really cool, mind you, but any emotional resonance the story might have had went out the window when legs started being chopped off.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Kick-Buttocks is about a normal kid who decides that he’s going to try to be a superhero even though he has no powers.  It starts out with a positive message about doing something about all the crime up in here, but turns into something different when this non-hero gets put in the hospital, comes back to “crimefighting,” names himself “Kick Buttocks,” becomes a Youtube superstar, meets a real Batman-esque vigilante (played by Nicolas Cage) and his deadly 11-year-old daughter, runs afoul of the mob, and tangles with McLovin’.  Yes, that McLovin.

Some parts of it work.  The whole Nic Cage and daughter thing is great, and every time they show up the movie gets appreciably better.  The mob scenes, when played for laughs, are pretty good.  But it all ends up being fluff, and the central message of “one normal guy can make a difference” quickly degenerates into “one normal guy in a costume can get chicks he never could have gotten otherwise.” When McLovin dons a costume he’s supposed to be funny; we know this because it’s McLovin, and he’s dressed like a gay japanese pop idol.  But he’s decidedly not funny, and he ends up being the crux of all the dark and violent places the movie eventually goes.  This may have worked in the comic book, but in a live-action movie, it’s just annoying.

The kid who plays Kick-Buttocks himself was fine, but he needed to be awesome.  He has two friends in the movie that are kinda funny, but they needed to steal scenes.  The only two characters that lived up to their roles were Big Daddy and Hit Girl.  Maybe the film should have been about them instead.

2 1/2 out of 5 overpriced popcorns, because while a little girl taking out 50 mobsters is undeniably kick-buttocks, abruptly introduced teenage sex in an alley definitely isn’t.

Posted in Netflix Diaries | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fun Conversations

Posted on April 15, 2010 by epthnation

From my dreams this morning:

(I’m in some sort of employee review situation)

Generic blonde woman: Now let’s talk about clothing.

Me:  Ok.

GBW:  Would you say you’re a good dresser?

Me: Um…I don’t know…

GBW: (shaking her head) No, you are not a good dresser.

In the hallway, just now:

Engineer: And I’m telling you that it depends on the size and complexity of the (data set).  Getting the data from it could take 5 minutes, or it could take 16 hours.  If Armstrong were here he’d be going ballistic.

Boss: It could take that long, but it shouldn’t.

Engineer:  Oh, right.  (dismissively walks away).

—————————————————

My day started out well with 5 blades, but quickly took a turn as I spilled coffee all over my tax return and blackberry.  I blame the generic blonde lady.

Posted in This Insane World, Work | Leave a comment

A Real Resolution

Posted on April 14, 2010 by epthnation

WHEREAS, It has been well-established that watching movies makes me healthy, happy, and empathetic toward other humans, which makes me a better person and follower of Jesus;

and WHEREAS, I have set as my goal the quite daunting 500 as the number of movies I need to watch to be a self-actualized human being;

and EVEN THOUGH that 500 number is completely arbitrary;

and WHEREAS, I don’t care;

and WHEREAS, I have a heretofore unnecessary subscription to Netflix that I barely use;

and WHEREAS, I have the skill to make a spreadsheet;

then be it RESOLVED, God willing, that I come up with a schedule of five (5) movies a week until I either: a) go crazy, b) pass away, or c) fail to watch five movies.

Wish me luck.  That is all.

Posted in Apologies, Epth Blog Network, Netflix Diaries | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Netflix Diary: The Fall

Posted on April 11, 2010 by epthnation

WARNING:  This Netflix Diary contains spoilers that will spoil you like sour cream that’s been sitting in the sun.  Only read if you don’t care about this.

The Fall is so unique and crazy that it defies normal movie reviews.  Director Tarsem Singh has created a visual and emotional feast whose effectiveness depends entirely on one’s answer to two questions:  1) Do you like huge, spectacular natural sets and over-the-top visual artistry? and, 2) Does the relationship between the main characters — a suicidal stuntman and a 5-year-old girl — resonate with you emotionally?  In my case, the answer to both questions is a resounding “yes,” but then again, I like weird stuff.

Some people have compared The Fall to The Princess Bride, but the only thing the two movies share is a framing device.  In Bride, we don’t care about Peter Falk or that stupid kid; we just want to find out if the Dred Pirate Roberts gets the girl.  In The Fall, the story is imaginative, but clearly being made up on the spot by the stuntman and imagined onscreen by both him and the little girl.  It looks super-cool (and without it, this movie would admittedly be a depressing 45-minute dirge that would have no reason to exist), but as Homer Simpson would say, “There is no moral.  It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened.”  This is probably what makes The Fall so divisive.  People want the fantasy story part of it to have the amazing ending that’s promised by its epic scale, and the film turns out to be just about a suicidal guy telling a story to a girl so she’ll bring him pills.  Although it eeks out some good feelings at the very end, the vast majority of both narratives is unrelentingly bleak.  So you can see why I like it.

Another potential point of divisiveness is the performance of the little girl, a foreign non-actor who mumbles and does all sorts of other things that broadcast the fact that she’s a real girl and not really acting.  I’m going to submit that this dose of reality helps the film a ton, because it turns it from a standard manufactured Hollywood drama into something unlike any other movie before it.  She’s such a real presence that she forces all the other actors to play “real” with her.  This makes the whole thing kind of charming — but also really strange.  And when the end comes and she figures out that he wants to kill himself and that the epic tale he’s spinning from his own life is going to end in tragedy, her tears and protests are too unskilled to feel trite.  I can see how someone who’s really happy would still find the story boring and lame, but don’t listen to them.  About anything.

P.S. — The woman who looks like a Bond girl that plays the nurse/princess has a really weird voice.  I have nothing besides that to say about her.  Also, one can tell this film was made by the same guy who made The Cell.  Tarsem really likes horned helmets and giant Martian-looking outdoor locations.

Posted in Netflix Diaries | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment