Narrow Escapes

Yes, once in a while miracles do happen. I won't elaborate on the circumstances of 'how', but I will say that the super-hard exams I sat for earlier this month ended up not too badly. I didn't fail, at least, but that's what I constantly aim for anyway. I'll alert you if I get another one of those random bursts of inspiration to be all that I can be and get merits. Or well, I could just lie down until it goes away, or drown it out with power-chords from 80s rock songs which somehow always change my priorities from whatever I'm doing at the moment to lying down in bed and think about sex.

Okay, you didn't need to know that.

But I still at least enjoy the clinical skills part of my course. Went in a bit too hyper for a venesection revision session the other day, and I think I freaked out the Dem who watched me draw blood from Shahrin when I, while looking for a good vein to draw blood from in his cubital fossa, began talking to the vein to coax it out of hiding. 'Who's a good vein? WHO'S A GOOD VEIN? You are! YES YOU! C'mere little Satchamo!'

Mmm... blood.

So anyway, I've been getting back into reading gear. I'm almost done with 'Catcher in the Rye'. Yes, I'm surprised it took me this long to get to it too. What with its cult status and all. Frankly said, I'm only reading 'Catcher in the Rye' to find MY Catcher in the Rye, or at least, the great novel in my collection that I would find more suitable to compare to it. Well, at least now I have won the right to use 'Holden Caufield' in my pop-culture references whenever I mock Shahrin for skipping class or wearing that leather jacket of his.


Meanwhile, my recently reawakened obsession with Native Americans has inspired me to acquire 'Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee', an Emmy-award winning HBO TV movie that has Anna Pacquin and Eric Schweig in it. No those names probably don't mean much to you. But Eric Schweig was in Last of the Mohicans, Mr Fellender's favorite movie if I recall correctly. Awesome score. And if I feel overly dramatic I can always re-enact Daniel Day-Lewis' 'I WIlL FIND YOU' scene when my friends head off for lunch and I skip on home to cook, abusing the powers of having a house in close proximity.

Anyway. Westerns. With Deadwood done, I really am just aching for a good fix. I even gave Tombstone a watch. If anyone knows any other good ones to recommend, please toss 'em this way. I will be eternally grateful. Anything to keep my mind off my Patient Study and Student Selected Component assignments due this semester.

Comicbook price hikes have inspired me to drop some titles, recently. Oh well, writing for most of them was beginning to get poor anyway. Still it is cause for a moderate amount of misery. If only because people on my warez site tend to upload the titles I want to read most last every time.

Life continues to sail by. I want to write, watch Othello or any other stage production at our local theatre, go to a party, meet new people, and conquer the world. But with the weather the way it is and my mood in a place that would make trenchcoat-era David Boreanaz look like a clown who's had way too much coffee, fat chance of that happening anytime soon.


Oh, in the meantime, it's good to know at least that the new president of the US is a fan of Spider-Man. Gives me a sense of where I could be. If I ever get inspired to go political, my one and true goal would seriously just be to appear in an issue of Spider-Man. Regardless of how horrible the writing for that issue may be.

I leave you with a list of some of the movies I have watched over the past few weeks:

1) Outpost - Promised me Nazi-zombies. Had that Titus Pullo dude from Rome in it. Eventually turned out to only have Nazi GHOSTS, which, sorry, doesn't do as much for me.


2) Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist- You start to wonder if Michael Cera (Juno, Superbad) can do anything else. But hey, this is a pretty good movie if your expectations aren't too high. Simple romance in an over-the-top 'It happened in one night' kind of story. Some of the songs aren't too bad either. Not Juno's 'Moldy Peaches' level, but okay nonetheless.

3) In The Land of Women- Adrian Brody, Meg Ryan and that Twilight chick. Adrian Brody as a soft-core porn writer after a bad breakup moving into a new neighborhood then hooking up with both a mom (Meg Ryan) and the daughter (Twilight chick person). Not as raunchy or pointless as you'd imagine. Comes across more thoughtful and melancholic, which is always good in my book.

4) Merchant of Venice- Not a Pacino fan. But Jeremy Irons is always good. Never really studied the play, but it makes me want to.

5) Australia - A three hour tourism commercial. Okay, it had a pretty good 'feel-good-adventure' thing going for it during the first two hours, in which the main journey was actually completed. The movie then goes on to add an unnescessary one hour of story which feels really like mixing a good movie with its vastly inferior sequel to create a grotesque hybrid that no one will care to remember like the Alien/Human in Alien Resurrection.

6) Role Models - LARPing has never looked so much fun before. Too bad it's not as awesome in real life.

7) Revolutionary Road - The Titanic couple (Winslet and diCaprio) reunited as a dysfunctional couple in 1950s suburbia. Done by the creator of American Beauty, but not nearly as compelling. Good in its own right, but is just downright depressing from the beginning till the end with nothing else in between. A bit too flat for its own good.

Movies I WANT to watch soon are The Escapist, The Wrestler, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Leon the Professional and The Postman. Wish me luck. And time.