a planner at best

after finally seeing some of the best 2007 had to offer and and re-watching a few others, i've settled upon the following list as the final ranking of my favorites. although, in reality, "final" probably is not the best word to use since my indecisive nature will undoubtedly cause me to neurotically rearrange this list a thousand times. aside from There Will Be Blood, none of these rankings are irrefutable or safe. anyway here's what i've got:

1. There Will Be Blood
2. The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
3. No Country For Old Men
4. Zodiac
5. Eastern Promises
6. I'm Not There
7. The Host
8. Sunshine
9. The Savages
10. Regular Lovers

the rest of the best:
    Hot Fuzz
    Control
    Ten Canoes
    12:08 East Of Bucharest
    Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
    The Assassination Of Jesse James
    Ratatouille
    Black Book
    Into Great Silence
    Dans Paris
    This Is England
    Persepolis

the bottom of the barrel:
    First Snow
    The Lookout
    Lust, Caution
    Margot At The Wedding

i had an interesting conversation with my friend mark recently concerning chinese food. or rather, american chinese food.

we were trying to determine the difference between chow mein and lo mein. neither of us really had any idea and even after consulting wikipedia i'm still not sure i completely understand how to differentiate the two, although it seems that chow mein is typically made with a slightly softer type of noodle. other than that they seem like pretty much the same thing.

anyway, i think i like the lo better.

1. Eastern Promises

2. No Country For Old Men
3. I'm Not There
4. The Host
5. Zodiac
6. Hot Fuzz
7. Control
8. Regular Lovers
9. Ten Canoes
10. The Savages

other notables:
    12:08 East Of Bucharest
    Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
    Ratatouille
    Black Book
    28 Weeks Later
    Into Great Silence
    Dans Paris
    Knocked Up
    Superbad
    This Is England
    The Darjeeling Limited

the decision for number one was a difficult one to make, but i think i have to be honest with myself and admit that Eastern Promises was in fact better than No Country.

even though 2007 has come and gone, i imagine that this list will go through several mutations before i'm done -- i still have quite a few of the year's films left to see.

so this weekend my local library has been purging its shelves of old books and selling them out front -- i guess they are the ones that no one has checked out in a long time or something -- and on sunday i took the short drive down there to rent some dvds. i often do this because it's free and this particular library has a movie collection that nearly rivals netflix.

on my way out i decided to take a look, just for the hell of it really, because for 50 cents they would give you a plastic bag and instruct you to fill that bag with as many books as it could hold, and i figured maybe i would find something there that was worth 50 cents. in reality, though, i wasn't all that hopeful since this sale had been going on for a couple of days already and if there had even been any good books there in the first place they would surely have been gone long before i got there.

but to my lasting astonishment, as i was skimming the names on the spines, i found lying there amongst all these unwanted books a copy of Cormac McCarthy's Outer Dark -- one of the more obscure books by my favorite writer, and one that i did not yet own! so, my expectations greatly exceeded, i snatched it up, along with a book about french poets, and gladly handed over 50 cents to the bearded man with the money box.

and then when i was home looking the book over and removing the plastic library covering i noticed on the copyright page that there was only one year listed and at the top of the page it said "First Printing." so, my curiosity aroused, i hopped on the internet to do a little investigating and this is what i found:

http://www.manhattanrarebooks-modernfirsts.com/mccarthy_outer_dark.htm

when i saw my book on that webpage my jaw dropped. and when i read the value of the book listed there, it actually came unhinged.

the library discard which i purchased for 50 cents -- actually 25 cents -- is a rare first edition worth probably something between five hundred and one thousand dollars.

goddamn.

stanley kubrick and his wonderful OCD

things are considerably different than they were last time i wrote anything here.

i don't live in new hampshire anymore. i ran out of houses to paint and didn't make it to wyoming, so now i'm back home with my parents in upstate new york. this should only last through the holidays, though, at most. if all goes according to plan, i'll be moving to los angeles within the next few months. i finally finally finally have a promising job opportunity and it really does seem to be promising this time. in short, i have a friend who wants to hire me and an interview next week and basically as long i find favor with the eccentric millionaire president i should be on my way.

in the meantime i've been desperately trying to find temporary work, and last week i was finally hired for a part-time job. i've been hired as holiday help at a Banana Republic store. so far i like the job pretty well, though it's not really 'my cup of tea'.

i have a lot of free time and i never really go anywhere, so i watch a lot of movies. i don't mind this though. i'm sure that even if i was living under more desirable circumstances i would still be spending an excessive amount of time sitting in front of movies. and that's just fine with me. a few recent ones i've seen that have really stayed with me have been:

• Days Of Heaven
• The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada
• Eastern Promises
• Being There

i was blown away by Eastern Promises. i think it will soon become a classic. Days Of Heaven was gorgeous and positively heartwrenching.

i've been trying to balance my time in front of movies with reading. Cormac McCarthy is my new favorite writer. he is all i've been reading and all i plan to read for the immediate future. right now i am working my way through The Border Trilogy.

and i think that the new Radiohead album could not be a more fitting theme for the fall and winter of 2007.
 
 
 
 
 
(i am your buddy and that is why they named me after you. i pray God rest your soul)

things have been pretty ok of late. my grandfather is currently in critical care at st. clare's hospital in schenectady, but i'm sure he's going to be ok. and most everything else is going well and smoothly so

all in all: i am happy.

for the time being i'm living with my aunt and uncle in new hampshire. this is because i've still been unable to obtain a real job, and my uncle got me a temporary job painting someone's house in St. Johnsbury, VT. this has been going quite well, though progress has been slow this last week thanks to thunderstorms and the threat of thunderstorms. i love living with my aunt and uncle. they are so unbelievably generous and fun, and they have this wonderful way of treating me like an adult (and even a semi-intelligent one at that). i wish i could live there forever. but unfortunately i'll have to leave in a couple of weeks or so when house-painting is finished. i did get a job offer, though, from my cousin (daughter of aforementioned aunt and uncle) who manages a law firm in wyoming. she says i can have a job there as a legal assistant whenever i want. i was really excited about this offer, for several reasons, a few of which will be outlined presently in the form of a numbered list:

1. wyoming! (read: mountains, yellowstone, adventures, etc.)
2. low cost of living (as opposed to a big metropolitan area) which means apartments can be rented, bills can be paid and money can be saved for things like trips to far-off lands
3. guaranteed job
4. good work experience
5. a new and exciting place

so i think i would like to go. the trick is going to be convincing my favorite person in the world that it's a good idea and that she should come along with me. i think maybe just maybe i can. i sure hope so.

and speaking of Favoriteperson: in less than 48 hours i will be boarding an airplane and i will take a frustratingly indirect route to chicago where i will finally see her again. i get to visit her for a whole week and do lots of fun chicago things and top it all off with the pitchfork music festival next weekend. it's gonna be great. it's gonna be great even if i have to do her lazy asshole landlord's household projects for him.

i'm not going into that now though. i'm going to bed. i'm tired from driving through mountains.

 

 

 

there is too much

 

 

 

so. i graduated from college.

and what, exactly, does this mean for me? i really don't know. this is something i still have yet to figure out. i know that i'm certainly happy about the fact that i'm completely free from all school-sorts of obligations for as long as i choose to be (most probably forever), but i don't really feel any of those emotions that i was sure i would feel (back when i was in school, suffering and looking forward to nothing more than graduating). maybe everyone's right - maybe it just hasn't "sunk in yet." i don't know though. i feel pretty indifferent ... even languid. i'm not complaining. like i said, i'm truly grateful to be done. it's just that i've gone from having things to do, having certain people nearby, having everything in its right place ... to nothing - disordered nothing. i'm living at home, i don't have a job, i have precious few dollars (so i can't really go out and do anything), all of my earthly possessions are in bags and boxes stuffed in my car and in various places in my parents' house ... and i'm just letting the days go by.

actually, that's not entirely true. i have in fact been making some productive efforts. today i spent the large majority of the day looking for and applying to jobs online - six in total. i feel that that's a pretty good day's work. they are all positions at companies located in the chicago area. because of intense negative feelings toward joyce-separation, i've targeted chicago as my most-desired-area-to-move-to. and actually, the more i look into it, the more appealing it becomes. it seems like a great area - lots to do, not terribly expensive (compared to other major metropolitan areas), lots of good bands play there. so i would be more than content to find a decent job in chicago.

i guess that's really all i have to say about graduation. finals went ... ok. some better than others i guess. in the end, i did manage to raise my cumulative GPA by 0.01 points. woohoo! the graduation ceremonies were pretty tedious. i'm glad that stuff's all over with. after commencement on saturday, my parents helped me with what cleaning and packing remained to be done in my apartment. this was quite a lot of work since my roommate totally screwed me by not helping AT ALL ... i could kill him. anyway, after that i drove to rochester for joyce's graduation party at her dad's house. this involved meeting a lot of new people, which is always awkward and never 100% enjoyable, but it was ok. sunday was better: joyce and i went to the Eastman House to see the ansel adams exhibit, which was absolutely incredible, and then we headed over to her sister holly's house to babysit, and that turned out to be a much more enjoyable time than i was expecting it to be. not that i don't enjoy babysitting ... it's just that i was really hoping to spend the day with joyce since she was leaving to go apartment-browsing in chicago on monday and i really didn't think that i was going to get another chance to see her before she moved out there for the summer. but i had such a great time playing with her nephews. and plus, we got pizza and wings out of the deal. what more could i ask for, right? then after that was a difficult parting and a miserable miserable drive back to schenectady and now here i am, just waiting for things to happen.

quick procrastination post:

currently i am studying for my very last exam. by 11:00 tomorrow i will be a free man. and yet for some reason this fact isn't providing me with much comfort or motivation right now. i still have approximately eight chapters of Global Business Today to go through before i will be sufficiently prepared for this test. it's sad to say, but for the last hour or so i've been seriously considering dropping everything, going to bed (because those five short hours of sleep last night are really draggin me down) and just winging this test tomorrow. i'm pretty sure i could pass it, and even if i didn't i'd certainly still pass the class. it's very tempting, but i keep telling myself that that is not how i want to end my college career. it would be sad to give up when the end is so near, and so i suppose i'll stick it out.

so studying agony compounded with not enough sleep and with the frustrations of still not knowing what my future holds, still having no job, still having no place to live ... this is all very overwhelming.

but tomorrow we're going to DC and i think it's gonna be pretty fun. and i'm excited.

also: i can't stop listening to ola podrida.

and now it's back to studying so i can get to bed and make this night go away faster.