Why I am Michael Cera in every movie ever

I've written and rewritten this post many times, for fear of revealing to much or not revealing enough about my personal life and opinions.  But doing so has basically left me emotionally drained, so I've decided to just tell it like it is without any of the supplementary information that my subconscious has tied to this whole situation. 

Long story short: I got turned down to go to my school's prom, and then I realized that I didn't actually want to go to prom - just to go with the girl that I asked.

My inner 1930s-schoolboy is weeping.

"Why the hell are you bitching about this?  Usually your posts are usually so culturally relevant and interesting to read!" (For the record, the last books I've read were written in 1995 and 2002)

I honestly don't know, person-whose-contribution-to-the-message-of-this-post-is-not-relevant-but-nonetheless-provides-some-degree-of-self-deprecating-humor-and-okay-i'll-stop-now... maybe because I feel like it's important or something?  This is the long-hinted-at Girl A who's flung me up and down a roller coaster of limerent joy and despair for three years.  I decided earlier this year that the getting-over-you phase is both futile and cowardly.  Prior to last year, I hadn't known anybody else with the sort of long-standing attraction that had characterized my high school years, but now I know plenty of those people, so I don't feel alone in that respect.  Since this is my last year of knowing her, as well, I realized that I had nothing to lose - that otherwise I'd spend who-knows-how-long in college regretting not having done anything to win her.

Conveniently for me, as the time for going, "Oh shit, school's almost out, what do I do now?" approached, so did prom.  I put two and two together, and made four.  After that, I realized that I could ask girl A to prom.  Then I smacked myself for not realizing it soon enough.  Anyway, I made several failed attempts to ask her, and after my third, I consulted some friends on finding a way to ask her in a way that she can't ignore, but isn't ridiculously over-the-top (because I was fairly confident that I would be rejected).  Then the idea came to me: macaroni art.  This is the result:

Pretty good, eh?  Suddenly I was confident that she would say yes - you would, wouldn't you (assuming you are feminine in nature)?  So I made a last minute check with her friend to see if she had a date, which I didn't think she did.  Her friend said that she didn't know for sure, and mentioned another guy who might be interested.  But I wasn't worried.  Anyway, I asked her the next morning and she said "no" because she was going with somebody else.  I did get brownie points for asking her so fantastically though.

I followed up by asking her who she was going with, and suddenly became (in my opinion, understandably) paranoid when she refused to tell me.  There are only two reasons that I can think of as to why she would do this. 

1. Bitch is lyin'.
2. She ain't lyin', but she doesn't want to hurt my feelings.  Which means she thinks I'm a gigantic pussy.

I doubt one, which means two is probably true.  Anyway, the rest of my day was spent moping and half-heartedly trying to figure out who she was going with.  Then - surprises abound!  A girl told me that she heard some kid who I shall call Choch talking the previous day about how I was planning on asking her.  But here's the thing: I haven't talked to Choch since 8th grade, and between the time when I asked my friends for advice on asking her and actually asking her, I didn't return to that school at all.  Word had clearly gotten out that I was planning on asking her, and the only explanation is that she had figured it out beforehand (which wouldn't have been that hard, since I tried to ask her and gotten blown off multiple times before finally figuring out the "master plan").  This also meant that whoever asked her did just before I did, and probably did so knowing that they were screwing me over.  Which I suppose is the work of my bad karma from trying to screw over the guy her friend knew about.

So yeah, that's confusing.  If you weren't there for it, don't worry about it - the short story is that I got paranoid over who was taking her.  Why should I blog that in great detail?  Because later, I realized the pointlessness of worrying over such tripe, and carried my worry over into finding another prom date.  I hastily asked another girl, and was again rejected because it was shitty and because this other girl also had a date.  That's around the time that I realized that I didn't want to go to prom all that much anymore.

The Promenade has become such a heavily romanticized night of possibilities and success stories that my hopelessly romantic teenage brain latched onto it as the ultimate opportunity to finally accomplish my goal of "getting the girl."  But because I had spent so long both doting over girl A and fantasizing about how my night with her would go, nothing else would have met my expectations.  Sure, I could go on a date with a friend and just have a good time, but that makes me question whether spending so much goddamn money on one night is justifiable when I've got nothing at stake.  So ultimately, I decided that it was in my best interest to not go to prom.  Oh, and don't worry - I realize that I look like a tremendous loser by doing so.

Simultaneously, I realized that oh god I still have ridiculously strong feelings for Girl A.  What do I do now?  Well, hopefully I can try to scrounge up a few dates and (my expectations are way too high, once again) potentially even coax her into coming with me and a few other mutual friends to a concert in Chi-town at the end of April.  But, as I mentioned in the beginning, thinking about it has made me totally apathetic.  I really could go on for days, but I figure that anything other than what I've said here is subject to change at the whim of my emotional state.

Gee Bill, how come your mom lets you eat TWO weiners?

A not-so-brief summary of my trip to Indianapolis with my high school band that took place before the events of my last post:

Each year our band performs at a high school in Indianapolis for a panel of judges consisting of university music professors and such.  We then get critiqued for about an hour and then leave.  The real purpose of this trip is to have a trip, though, so there is a lot of shopping.  First we go to downtown Indianapolis and then to our hotel, where we usually don't sleep and take advantage of their pool/exercise equipment.  Then, in the morning, we get up, immediately go to the symposium and unload our equipment, play for approximately 5 people sitting in the audience, get critiqued, and leave for yet another mall that is incredibly overpriced.  This was my third year attending the symposium with the band, and this year was definitely the best of the three.  The first year was plagued by not knowing anyone and meandering about the various malls by myself, and the second year was better with the exception that I was placed in the room full of (too many) people that nobody liked.

However, this year was surprisingly awesome.  I only had to play two pieces ("The Dream of Oenghus" by Rolf Rudin and "The Gum-Suckers March" by Percy Aldridge Grainger), and managed to avoid playing during the critique for the third year in a row.  Which is excellent.  On the 4-ish hour trip there, we watched Season 2 of "The Big Bang Theory" and me and T-Rad watched "I Love You, Man" on my computer, which inspired us to nickname each other "Tycho Brohe" (which was in the film) and "Brohannes Kepler" (which was my own idea [so that one is me {and the other one is him (clearly)}]). At the first mall I bought a sweet hat and ate dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory with some sweet people.  I also got to try out one of those gigantic jawbreakers, which actually sucked and was not worth my fifty cents.  After that, I taught various folks in the band the amazingness and splendor of getting your head rubbed for long periods of time, which is the only sensation that is better than orgasm.  I even managed to make one girl fall asleep, which was more cute than creepy as I realize it sounds in a textual format.  I felt good about that.  The hotel part of the trip was not that great, but definitely better than the year before.  Usually I work out until we are forced to go back to our rooms, but since I have a stress fracture in my foot, I could only use the elliptical for about 20 minutes, and I'm too self-conscious about lifting weights to have done so.  Afterward, I went through a girl's /b/ folder which made me lol, and went back to the room for the rest of the night.  We tried to go on chat roulette, but the internet was too slow there to use it very well.  I can't even remember what we did until 2:00 am, but it must have been good, because we stayed up until 2:00 am doing it.  The next day after the symposium, we went to the highly overpriced mall, where I immediately went to a Border's nearby only to discover that they too were overpriced.  Shit.  So instead we meandered about the mall until we found a Brookstone, sat in the massage chairs for a really long time, and then went to the Cheesecake Factory, where I ate until I died.  The ride home was mostly head massages (this time I managed to fall asleep while getting one) and then dying because the air conditioning was not working and the bus was about 90 degrees. It was pretty fun.

That story was a cool friend.

"Ranger Brad, I'm a scientist. I don't believe in anything."

The most anticipated weekend of the year so far - the 8th Annual Science Fiction Film Festival.  Basically, a bunch of students at my school gather inside of our Presentation Center and watch a bunch of (usually very bad) sci-fi movies for about 20 hours and cap off the festivities with a sci fi movie that is actually good.

Armageddon - Michael Bay tends to make terrible movies, and this is not an exception.  The fact that Billy-Bob Thornton is in this movie doesn't help either, because I hate him in every movie.  Even the ones that you can argue are "good."  The first movie is always when the crowd is at its largest, so this one was fun to watch anyway.  Especially since the term "space dementia," which appeared in this movie, became a meme for the rest of the night.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra - This is, quite simply, the most amazing movie ever made.  Ever.  I thought at first that it was a real movie, but it is actually a more recent film lampooning the extremely-low-budget B-movies of the 1950s, and it does it extremely well.  It's also the most quotable movie of the night. (see: title)  There is a plot, but it is so ridiculous that there is no point in me trying to describe it to you.  This is in line with Ralph Bakshi's Wizards as far as non-quality epic filmmaking goes. 

Frequency - Dennis Quaid was in it, but I didn't watch this one for the most part.

Starship Troopers - This movie I had already seen, and appreciated it about as much as I had the first time.  From the weirdly unnecessary goriness and excessive death (which made for lots of applause) to Neil Patrick Harris dressed up as a Nazi, this was another awesomely campy film that would contrast the snooze-fest of the next two movies.

Virtuality - This movie was apparently a super-long pilot for a TV-series that Fox never picked up for good reasons.  It takes place inside of a spaceship headed for another star system, looking for a new planet hospitable for humankind.  Unfortunately, there are complications, such as a HAL 9000-like being inside of their computer which takes control of their airlock and kills the captain (this was actually a somewhat clever plot twist).  The title comes from the fact that they rely on a virtual-reality program that starts running crazy - in one of the most hilarious moments in the film, Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl gets raped inside of her dream world by this creeper guy (who I guess is the evil computer manifestation) that shoots other people inside of their dream world.  Many jokes about "space rape" and "space AIDS" ensued.

Lost in Space - This movie is a remake of the TV show.  It was so bad that it wasn't even funny, and not worth talking about.  I slept through this one for a little bit.

The Black Hole - Judd Nelson is a physicist plagued by the fact that his ex-wife stole his daughter from him who has to stop the Earth from being sucked into a black hole created in the basement of a particle accelerator laboratory where he works.  Co-starring is a semi-attractive blonde coworker who wears fake glasses in an attempt to look intelligent, and an alien-like being made of electricity that kills everybody by punching them in the face on a mission to gobble up all the energy from the St. Louis power grid (which makes the black hole get bigger!).  This movie features the most rigid acting I think I've ever seen in a movie.  Watch for the predictable kiss between Judd Nelson and quasi-hot blonde that was both bad and out-of-place.  Also, there is a brief moment of comic relief in which he forgets how to start a car.  Har har.

Explorers - Starring Ethan Hawke as a 5 year old and River Phoenix as a 5 year old who still has drug problems and another random kid who never got famous as another 5 year old.  This movie is bad.  Bad bad bad.  These kids find a magic bubble that takes them into space where they befriend what could potentially be the most unintentionally creepy aliens in cinematic history.  Along the way, they learn lessons such as "don't talk to strangers unless they are creepy aliens" and "It's okay to talk to your crush on the phone while you sit outside her bedroom... as long as you're in a giant bubble."

Jumper - This movie you've probably already seen - it came out pretty recently.  Basically, this kid can "jump" anywhere on Earth he wishes in the blink of an eye.  Starring Hayden Christensen as the good guy and Samuel L. Jackson as the bad guy, it's basically just Mace Windu getting fucked by Anakin all over again.

Moon - A very recent, and very good film.  Sam Rockwell is basically the only person in this movie - he's nearing the end of his 3-year tour-of-duty on the Moon in which he harvests the Helium-3 on the moon's surface that is a fantastic fusion fuel (I know this!  This is not a contrived plot point!).  There is no way to describe this plot without spoiling something, since the film is basically twist-after-twist goodness.  It's also very sad toward the end.  This movie was actually better than District 9, so now I'm sort of upset that this film didn't get the nomination for Best Picture while District 9 did.  Because it is actually that good.  Better than the Blind Side, especially.

This is the bunch of nerds who stayed for every single movie.

This year had a record turnout, too, which is worth mentioning.  This is my third year of attendance, and my second year of staying for the entire series of movies.  Weekend well spent.

Damage Control

So my initial expectations for yesterday's concert were exceeded in some way, and fell short in others.  The weird stage provided some issues with balance (I kept being told to play much louder than I had in rehearsals, because the conductor couldn't hear me, even though I was actually quite loud to the audience) and Legends, despite again showcasing something that was far from complete, wasn't really that bad.  I think if we get a little more motivated (despite how dejected I sound about everything, I really do want this to fly), we might be able to put on a show that is not embarrassing.

Otherwise, I don't really have much to say, so I'll just talk about the second book that I've read for pleasure in almost a year (this is incredibly sad).  "Everything is Illuminated" is sort of a dual-narrative, one of which documents the birth and death of a small town in Ukraine called Trachimbrod - it reminds me strongly of Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," the way it's written.  The other takes place in the present, following the American "hero" who shares the author's name (Jonathan Safran Foer) as he travels through Ukraine looking for a woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis.  Also in his entourage are Alex, a somewhat inept translator (who hilariously narrates this part of the novel in broken English), his blind grandfather, who drives for them, and his "seeing-eye bitch," Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior.  At first I was very impressed at how it could shift from being incredibly witty and funny to very sad, but toward the end the humor sort of vaporized, even when Alex was narrating.  That made the ending feel a bit off from the rest of the book, even though the last one hundred pages or so are supposed to be very sad when taking into account the subject matter.  Aside from that, the book is written with written with so much charisma and energy that I had trouble putting it down, and that's what we all look for in books, right?  Apparently, this is a movie as well.  I'll see it soon, hopefully.

Inactivity = Inactivity. Or: Bitterness

Confrontation.  Reconciliation.  Agitation.  Aggravation.

Life is like a down escalator that you're trying to run up.  And the escalator is crammed with people.

Let's face it: every time that we think that things might be settling down (especially when we want it to), the harsh mistress of Life decides to throw us some fastballs.  So first, let me explain the situation that went down after the fateful "Two Weeks", while trying to remain objective.  As I had I suspected, I was being misled; just not by the person I had initially - worriedly - suspected.  This came about as I confronted Red Shirt's ex - if only for sole purpose of figuring out who was telling the truth - and in turn, revealed that I had been wrongly  suspicious of her.  That didn't go over so well.  Murphy's Law came into effect, and I feared the unnecessary loss of two friendships at the same time.  After a brief period of profuse lying and incredibly needed repentance, things have appeared to work themselves out.  The pain of potentially losing one of your closest friends - abruptly - is something I'd not experienced, and to which I did not react well.  For example, I kicked a door frame in a fit of frustration in the wee hours of the morning - now I think I have actually legitimately injured my foot.  For the sake of keeping record of the many life lessons that have been thrown at me lately, I'd say that you only truly know how much you love something until it's gone.  Fucking Cinderella.

That morbid shit belongs on LJ.  Now I'm going to talk about some other inane shit that happened in my recent history.  I continued my KH spree - now, I've beaten/replayed every game in the series, with the exception of Chain of Memories, for which I'm going to find the 3D grafficks'd version on the PS2.  I finished reading "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer, which was quite good.  Perhaps a review post is called for?  I gave my IB French HL Oral Exam, which basically consisted of talking about kids without jobs for a few minutes and then delving into topics in which I have no interest.  That went fairly well.  I watched the Academy Awards and predicted the winners of all the major categories pretty accurately, although I was definitely hoping for an upset by Inglourious Basterds.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen - but with the Hurt Locker being the lowest-grossing Best Picture winner, indie film is likely going to get a boost (and I assure you that that is already happening aplenty, thanks to Netflix).   Also, Ben Stiller FTW.

However, my musical life has once again sagged even deeper into shit.  As the deadline for joining drum corps again creeps by, I'm being preyed upon to join, which I feel even more inclined to do after losing the job opportunity I had been banking on as a legitimate (and desirable) excuse not to do drum corps.  However, I'm out of money, college is bearing down on me, I have to tie up a bunch of loose ends with high school and college, and, most importantly, Winter Legends is... sucking.  I was initially not even going to do it out of fear that this year would be a repeat of the season previous, but I eventually gave into my obligations.  And now, I'm looking at something even worse.  The music, while superior to previous years, is being played by people who, quite simply, do not care.  It sounds bad.  Rehearsals are not fun.  Nobody practices.  New members don't like it.  Old members like me?  I guess we just don't recognize the fact that something that was once great is no longer great.

One of my greatest concerns coming into this season was that it would be identical to the last, so I was incredibly wary of joining and asked my instructors about the future they had in store for more.  When I expressed my distaste for last season (distaste is an understatement) - specifically using the phrase "Afterward, I was ashamed to be on stage..." - I was told, quite bluntly and honestly, that I do not think that.  The truth is, I do.  (Who tells people things like that, anyway?)  And the fact that I am currently prepared to experience that again is the worst thing in the world to me.  I am exasperated.  That's really probably the main reason I'm avoiding being recruited for another summer.

But life goes on.  I promise this will stop turning into a whine-fest.