Twitter Pictures

Best Picture
Why Avatar shouldn't win best picture. Because he stole the story, and the story has too many lose ends. It is a B movie not an A movie. Yes he spent years making it, yes he spent millions of dollars, yes there was massive coordinated collaboration. But it was incomplete on many levels, and having seen The Hurt Locker, and none of the other nominee worthy movies out there. I'm shocked anyone would pick Avatar as the completely better movie, when clearly it lacked the very essence of movie making, telling stories.

Twitter
I'm experimenting with Twitter. At first I would just check individuals twitter pages, started with Sockington, which lets face it takes a freaking long time. So I gave in and created an account. In a way I'm intrigued by the vernacular tweets of people I have no connection to. I am following Johnny Weir a figure skater who's on the US Olympic team this winter. He's known for being a little outrageous, and sort of has a style all his own, which resulted in a reality show on Sundance, which I'm going to watch tonight. But today he was tweeting about being delayed in the airport after the exhibition performance last night in Spokane. Wow he's a real human being, who has real problems, and can talk, and doesn't just spin around all pretty on ice skates.

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Fiction & Glass

Fiction
If only I didn't get stuck after two sentences, maybe I could be a writer. I can't write fiction without becoming disgusted and bored with any idea. I have a problem with characters, I feel like they are never believable and are one dimensional. Would this person say "okay" here? Or would they say "yes". Those small things ruin writing fiction for me. Plus my sentences are as boring as what I write on my blog. There's no color, everything is rudimentary building sentences, with no flow.

The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw (SPOILER ALERT)
This has been on my reading list, since I read about it on Callan's blog. When it was released January 5th I went in search of it at the bookstore around the corner, but it was only being sold in Santa Monica, so I waited till this past Monday, when I wasn't working to make the trek. I read the book in the better part of a day. A quick read. There are a lot of things I like about the book, specifically the writing itself. The parts I liked the most were anytime magic was happening or being discussed, anytime the island was being described, or the creatures within. How he approached marrying traditional fairytale themes with modern day human 'problems' I really admired. But I found I wanted the plot to go a certain way that it didn't, and for some reason it annoyed me, which is completely ridiculous. I thought there were parts that could have been excluded, (it's already a short book) and so when you came to the point of realizing what was going to happen in the end, it was frustrating getting there. I love what he created, the imagination, but the story and many of the characters didn't really appeal to me I guess is the only way I can describe it. I'm really interested in his next novel, whatever it maybe, based solely on his writing.

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Phishing

Do you know what Phishing is? When you have been looking, applying for mid level, or entry positions for as long as I have, you become a master of selecting jobs that aren't scams. And let me tell you when you do that, you are left with 1 or 2.

Phishing: "In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication." Phishing is vast, and includes many different fraudulent techniques, google it. In the world of job search, often times, and what I run into most, are scammers who list jobs without stating their companies name, location, and if they respond to you in email, they will ask you for personal information to preform 'background checks'.

One job I applied to last week, a $16 administrative office assistant position, selected me to be in the 'final reviewing process'. These people even had a fake website made. But it was very simplistic, and offered no real contact information whatsoever. I also googled the name of the company, of which there were no search results. Now how on earth could a company doing 'major bank investing' have no google search results? FAKE. They asked me to preform a credit check, which they would use as a background check and sent me to an un-secure credit check website. Even though I knew that they wouldn't respond, I sent a nasty email back to the fake email response, stating the evidence that clearly made them suspect, and told them to fuck off.

If you are shooting out resumes, I highly suggest the only personal information you list is your email, and maybe your telephone number, depending on whether you think it is possibly a real job. Also only write "references upon request', protect those people too. If they are a real company you will find out in their return email or phone call, and can give them further information that way. It's safer to protect yourself.

Scammers have been phishing in various ways since the dawn of the internet. And I have found that in the past year there has been an exponential increase, and I've even seen some on the most trustworthy job hunting sites plagued. 'Craigslist' is where I have had the most luck in the past with housing, jobs, and other things, but these days it is 99% phishers. 'Indeed' rarely has jobs I am qualified for, same with 'Kijiji', 'Juju', 'yahoo jobs', and others. And even on those more secure sites, you can see some of the most skilled Phishers, "sign up for this class in medical billing, and you can jump start a career".

I know there has been a huge social backlash and if you google, scam, phishing, or something related, there are hundreds of anti websites, even some trying to take legal action. But in the mean time, when people ask me, "how are there no jobs, look at this big list", I have to explain to them, most of those are fake. Literally there are maybe 2 or 3 jobs a week I could possibly be qualified for and that I apply to. I'm still holding out for the higher paid ones too.

I swear if they recruited all these scammers, who must spend more then a full time work week phishing, those people could be employed in real life jobs, doing real life good things. If you're skilled enough to trick other people, you're probably skilled enough to preform actual job functions at real jobs. They could set up an entirely new corporation of former phishers doing something amazing! Like I don't know...but something damnit. It's like a waste of energy. Yes they have to get your personal information, which can be easy when people are so desperate for work, and when people are unaware of what phishing is, but then they have to steal your identity and hope to not get caught.

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Clear

Rain. Tea. Soup. Life keeps going.

Being at home, alone, when it's pouring is one of the most calming forms of relaxation. And although life is sad for more reasons then the obvious, I'm feeling a lot more like myself. It's weird that I can think clearer on cloudy days then sunny transparent ones.

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DC

I'm not really sure how to write about death, especially of someone so close, someone I liked. It feel selfish what I have written here. I won't pretend to know Daniel Cooper. Yes I saw him many nights at Thirsty Tuesday during 2009, but in no way is the shock I feel even remotely close to those people who are his dear friends. I am heartbroken for them, and every fiber of my being is sending comfort to them all.

When I heard, I immediately burst into tears. My heart sort of dropped. I was hysterical for a few minutes. All you can really do is cry, the overwhelming emotion of shock and pain was the only thing I could feel. How could this be true? It just can't be true. After a couple of minutes, my thoughts went directly to Olga and Jack. The closest people to me, who were close to Daniel. I left them a hysterical message, which in retrospect was a horrible way to let them know, but I had no idea how to react. I just needed to know that they knew. After that I spent a terrible hour wondering what to say to them. When Olga called and I could hear the distance and flat deflation in her voice, it was clear she knew obviously, we exchanged a few short words. All I wanted then was to tell her I loved her. But grieving, and mourning are wordless emotions. Words are empty when you say them. We hung up.

Like I said, I didn't know Daniel Cooper beyond our exchanges in social gatherings since the time of middle school. From a distant perspective its hard to write in words anything about him. How can you possibly describe a whole being? what I do have to say, probably seems generic, but it is true. From what I can tell he made his friends lives full. Whenever I saw him, he was engaged positively in whatever conversation was flowing in the dim lights of Father's Office. He never moped around depressed or moody. Intelligent and kind, polite and fun, behind a sometimes seemingly nervous exterior. It's not fair, to anyone. The loss of someone who contributes so much to the people around him. The potential of an intelligent, hard working, happy person, isn't fair to end. It's a crushing loss. This week has experienced human catastrophe on monstrous levels, but why did Daniel have to leave too?

The next morning, I woke up stiff and sore, and I knew I had had dozens of dreams about the people around Daniel, things I will not write about here. But it was clear to me that reaching out to anyone who needs support is the only thing someone like me can do. I've kind of been in a weird non present feeling since. Thoughts pop up, and I'm silent, still and shocked all over again. It's a sudden realization that he's gone, even though he was not a large part of my life. He's gone to those who love him, and they'll be empty forever. You don't get over it, you learn to live with it over vast expanse of time. Keeping him safe in memories, I'll not forget him.

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Tidbits

Tidbits from my notebook over the past month

-I can't tell if the burning sensation is the urge to flee or to pee.
-I haven't felt this useless in ages.
-I am still unable to give it up for what I want.
-In the past two months I felt more positive then I think I have ever felt, but Jesus turned that upside down.
-2010 could be the real deal breaker for me.
-I can't devote.
-Natural talent.
-It's hard to see other people all around me, who have found their shadows and glued them to their feet.
-Going to Santa Barbara was more painful this time.

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2010

I think my life revolves around a center, like an elliptical rubber band. Sometimes I am stretched till I'm discolored with straining, and other times I am crumpled and twisted into an ugly knot. And I don't think I can ever find the perfect circle wrap around. Maybe I'm just crazy, and I use so many rubber bands at work that I can't think of any other analogy. It might make more sense to say my life goes in phases. Fall was an extremely good phase, even though things toppled down a couple times. When my sisters came, everything was turned completely upside down, my routine was disrupted and now I can't get it back. When the cat moved in, Simi life turned around too. I'm not really sure where or what the heck is going on. 2010 hasn't really started out too fantastically for me, but I keep going.

-The bad, I applied for a gazillion jobs, and gazillion of them are scams.
-The good, I got more hours at work, and volunteered for the Green Team which will look good on my resume.
-The bad, I'm spending all my money on paying off medical bills.
-The good, life could be a lot worse.

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Alien Elephants

Beware Spoilers galore!!

Water for Elephants

As always I left purchasing a gift for my sister's last birthday till the very last minute. At the bookstore I quickly skimmed through Water of Elephants and decided what the hell...grabbed it and sent it. Luckily she loved it, in fact shes read it twice and insists it's her favorite book. This Christmas she brought it back, and forced me to read it in the time she was here. Sadly I don't share her passion for it. In fact, I didn't really care for it much.

The book speeds through the story, and it's not that I became lost, but I found it difficult to digest, like eating too fast. But I mean that's the story style. It's problematic, I think mostly in the characters. I never really got a sense of who anyone was, they were just talking names to me. The main character I found to be too immature for a 23 year old Veterinarian. Yes he's a virgin whatever, but he either just plain annoyed me, or really didn't say or do anything. As far as the other characters are concerned I didn't really care about any of them. I found all the women to be horrendously stereotypical, and many of the instances with them. The plot would have been boring had it not been injected with the circus. But frankly it was still unbelievable, even when Gruen used old terms, and showed off her research into this creepy world. The animals all seemed ridiculously too tame, and from what I could tell too subdued to be real. Yes you can beat that into an animal, but some turn more vicious and from what I can every animal in the book was pacified. Anyway as you can see I can really rip into the parts of the story that bugged me, which is what I do when I don't really like something all that much.

Avatar

Yes yes yes...this movie is brilliant, but is it good? I have to say I agree mostly with the Rotten Tomatoes average 85% for this movie. I saw in 3D, and clearly it's stunning. Although it took me 30 minutes to adjust to watching 3D. And it is a very long movie, although I'm not sure how they could make it shorter. Maybe if I didn't feel like some scenes were inserted to say "hey look what we can do" I wouldn't have found myself tapping my fingers once or twice.

After the movie, an eerily familiar feeling swept over me. I swear 90% of the planet was stolen from the 60-70 levels in WoW from Zangarmashes mushroom neon sparkly swamp forest, to Nagrand's floating chunks of land with waterfalls and sky scape, to the animals themselves, heck the aliens looked like the love children of night elves and draenei. I felt like I'd just participated in a 6 hours World of Warcraft raid. Sitting there so focused on the screen, I'd stiffened up, my brains were mush and I generally felt exhausted. Except in WoW raids I focused on not killing myself or others, and in during Avatar I tried desperately hard not to get nauseous all over again.

As far as the story is concerned. It's Fern Gully, meets Dances With Wolves, meets Pocahontas. Way to fall back on a like-able and easy to follow plot. I also had difficulty with the enormous plot holes and lack of character development. Like: Why Avatars in the first place? We all know that missionaries don't need to dress up to go into the jungles of the Amazon and convert everyone to Christians. That one I supposed I could let go of, since yes being in an Alien's body is easier then a humans in that environment. But since when is there alien life on Pandora, a moon we can clearly see today? Which brings me to planet Earth, Why do we need the metal so badly? Who are the people in charge of this company? Who the fuck is Jake Sully, and why do we care? He had no qualms, no conflicts, his choice was entirely too simple. 'Duh! save the aliens!', why is this driving the plot line? Maybe I missed all these answers during my time figuring out to adjust. I'd like to say that if Zoe Saldana hadn't played the lead alien the movie would have sucked. She was stunning and they need to invent an award for best actress who plays something 3D.

Okay anyway, yes it's worth it to see for a grade B generic plot you're sure to like because you already did in the past. But it is 100% stunning, it's beautiful, the aliens are pretty and hot. Although I'm terrified for movies in the future. I happen to still be impressed with normal action movies at the moment, well most of them, I don't need to have things pop out at me, well not until they can figure out someway to subdue the barfing sensations and migraines that occur.

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