The Most Anticipated Movie of 2008

Here is a recently-leaked image from the best movie of 2008. Looks awesome.

Lovely

Well, after a being gone for a week or so on a "family outing" (it doesn't count as a vacation when you travel with little kids and you visit relatives along the way) I am back with a book review of sorts. Since school ended a little over a week ago, I have been reading like crazy. I started reading three books at once, including "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold, "The World of Karl Pilkington" by Karl Pilkington, and "It Must've Been Something I Ate" by Jeffrey Steingaren. I've finished the first two and am now working on the Steingarten book (which is an incredible book).

Anyway, "The Lovely Bones" was a book that I had been meaning to read for quite a while, but since I don't buy books, I had to wait until it wasn't popular at the library anymore so I could check it out (I'm also in the same situation with "Atonement" by Ian McEwan, not a church book, by the way). I've also heard a rumor that Peter Jackson bought the rights to TLB, wrote a script, and is going to direct a movie version of the book. I can honestly say that I don't think I will be seeing the movie. Too often I am disappointed by the movie and it sort of ruins the book for me. The best example of this was "The Bourne Identity." I loved the three books, and went and saw the movie on opening day only to be sorely disappointed since it really didn't follow the book at at all, aside from there being a character named Jason Bourne who suffers from amnesia. However "The Bourne Supremacy" was easier to swallow because I knew ahead of time it wasn't going to follow the books. Actually, I thought it was a great movie, even with the overacting on the part of the main female character and my strong dislike of Julia Stiles.

Back to TLB...when I was living in Utah a few years ago, it seemed like child kidnapping/murders were in vogue in the news. At that time, Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped (by the way she now looks like Elisha Cuthbert) and it seemed like every few weeks or so another little girl was being kidnapped or found murdered. Sadly, it happens all the time, but it seemed like at that particular time it was being covered more frequently than it is now.

There are a lot of things in this world that I find disturbing, but child abductions/murders/rape tops the list, probably even more so now that I have children of my own. I just can't seem to grasp what could ever make someone do something harmful to a child. I bought a cd a few years ago, and as I always do with new cds, I read the lyrics along the first time I listen to it. In this particular cd, the singer who had written the lyrics included his thoughts about each song and what made him write the song. Anyway, the song he had written that stuck out the most to me was about the recent "wave" of child abductions and it included lyrics that have always stuck out in my mind. Normally, I don't post lyrics or poems or anything like that, but here's what stuck out:

And as the day fades, no one investigates.
Nobody answers when she calls their names.
Another victim somewhere in a shallow grave.
I want to hold her and tell her: "It's not your fault."

So, keeping this in mind, I started reading TLB, which is a story about a 14-year old girl who is kidnapped, raped, and murdered. This all happens in the first chapter, and the rest of the story is her narration from heaven of what follows, i.e. her family's, friends' and even the killer's response to what happened.

Since I would like any of you who read this (which I think is only person) I won't go into detail about the plot, but just know that it is an excellent book. Some of the parts dealing with her family's reaction is hard to read because I could see how that would easily happen to any family. I've often wondered how couples can stay together after the loss of a child. When my wife miscarried at about 19 weeks, it was a terrible experience and this was a child that we hadn't even met yet.

If you do read the book, there is one chapter at the end that is totally unnecessary. I wish I would've known ahead of time and just skipped it (I think it's chapter 22, or the next to last chapter). Anyway, if you feel like reading a semi-depressing story, this is one that I would highly recommend.

After reading TLB, it was definitely nice to read "The World of Karl Pilkington" which I will discuss in another entry.

A tribute

Worst Headline Ever

"TV network cancels cult hit Veronica Mars"

Bummer

What do you get when you cross "Batman Forever" with "The Phantom Menace?" Answer: Spiderman 3. What a disappointing movie, especially after how good the first two were. There was one major highlight though: Bryce Howard. I had only seen her in two other movies, both of which weren't very good (well, "Lady in the Water" was the worst movie I have seen in the past five years at least), and neither time did I think she was attractive. I'm not sure if it was the red hair or what, but she wasn't really doing anything for me. That being said, she looked great in this movie. I was pretty surprised by what a difference hair color makes (and a lot of makeup and camerawork). Either way, I don't think I'll ever watch Spiderman 3 again, but I'll definitely check out the next movie that Bryce Howard is in (unless it's another M. Night Shymalanananan bomb).

5 Year Reunion

Today marks the Mrs. and I's five year anniversary. I'm fatter now, have less hair, and have two kids. They day we got married was pretty interesting. The night before I was pretty nervous, so I had a really hard time falling asleep. Once I did, the phone in our hotel room rang at like 1:30 in the morning and when I answered it, no one was there. I thought it was my wife bailing on the wedding, which made me not sleep the rest of the night. Anyway, I got up, took a shower, and then we headed to Denny's for breakfast (I ordered the "eggs over my hammy" and a chocolate shake. Denny's is underrated) and then back to the hotel where I left a present in the shower for my brother and my buddy who were also staying in the room.

Well, we got married and then some funny stuff happened afterwards which I can't share here, or anywhere else for that matter. Let's just say I've always felt bad for my buddy who slept the bed I had slept in the night before.

We had a great honeymoon, but the picture above is what the place looks like now. I wonder if it's a bad sign that the place we took our honeymoon is burning to the ground on our five year anniversary?

I also didn't sleep well last night, but neither did my wife. The reason? Both kids kept waking up. And we aren't really celebrating today because I had a final yesterday and one tomorrow, so I have to spend the day studying. We are heading up to Utah next week, so maybe we'll celebrate by going to our favorite Italian restaurant up there. We'll see.

Anyway, Happy Anniversary to us.

I want my TMZ

Let me first point out to you that I don't like celebrities. I don't care what they do, where they eat, what causes/sports teams they are bandwagoning. Actually, I should clarify one point: a "celebrity" to me is a person with no discernible talent. Anyone else can be classified as an actor, musician, etc, but a "celebrity" is truly a worthless human being. Also, most celebrities are women, 5'2"-5'6" tall, way too skinny, dress poorly, and for some odd reason, they all wear enormous sunglasses. I realize that fashion trends change and for some cruel joke women who wear tights under an ugly skirt are "fashionable," but the huge sunglasses kill me. Why not just duct tape two ashtrays to your face? And let's not even talk about white-rimmed sunglasses...

That being said, one of my favorite websites is tmz.com. I check it three times a day on average. I don't even know why I look at it. I used to be a huge fan of perezhilton.com, but that started getting a little too vulgar for me, so I switched over to the milder tmz.com. On the front page right now, you can find stories on Lance Bass, Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, Ellen, Nick Lachey, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and of course comedian Don Rickles (no joke). What do all of these people have in common? They are famous for being talentless...and I know exactly what they are doing everyday.

By the way, not one person I know thinks Paris Hilton is attractive. I'm pretty sure that the only men that do think she is attractive are the ones who have seen her sex tape. It's like that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine left the dirty message on the phone and pretty soon all of the guys were attracted to her just because they had heard her talk "dirty." When I was in 10th grade, there was a girl who sat next to me that wasn't attractive at all. One day we were sitting in Spanish class and she was leaning over to get some pretzels out of her backpack when out came her entire boob (the guy sitting behind me was nice enough to point it out). In fact, every time she reached for a pretzel, out it came. After seeing this about 10 times in a 40 minute span, I started thinking to myself "Man, this chick is pretty hot."

So the moral of the story is this: sometimes you look at certain websites for no reason, and if you see someone naked, they will almost always start being more attractive to you.

Hatchets

I received an email a couple weeks ago from an old companion. Here's an excerpt:

"Hey -----, I know we had a rough companionship. Our personalities are pretty different, but honestly, I'm so glad we were companions. I didn't realize it until the end of my mission when I was in president's office. He handed me the card with my companions and in looking at those names it hit me pretty hard that the Lord had put me with people to prepare me and make me a better person and a better missionary. I'm sorry for being difficult at times. I know I didn't handle a lot of those situations well. I had a lot to learn. Thanks for suffering through it."

I was pretty surprised to get this and I felt pretty bad when I read it. We were companions for a very short period of time (for which I was extremely grateful) and he was the only companion I didn't get a long with (and the only companion I had that actually started crying one time because he was so mad at me). Anyway, I wrote back and told him it was no big deal and that I was sorry for not being more understanding.

That's two "hatchets" I have buried within the past few months. It's really not such a bad feeling. I still have a few more "hatchets" out there, so I should probably take care of them at some point. Speaking of hatchets, "Hatchet" by Gary Paulson was an awesome book.

Con law kills me

I just took my con law exam on Saturday and one of the main topics was freedom of speech. The court has held that sexually explicit material is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. However, obscene material is not covered. I mean, is there really a difference? Aren't they one and the same?

This was probably the class I was most excited to take in law school because I believed that it would involve good discussions of American history. I was wrong. It is also one of the most confusing subjects in law school because, unlike every other field of law, the court's rulings are not based on the principle of stare decisis. The rulings are based on the political makeup of the court. As of right now, that is probably a good thing since the Court at this point in time leans more to the right than it does to the left. That being said, rules that I have just learned which supposedly should be the same as rules handed down two hundred years ago, might magically change tomorrow just because the Court doesn't like them.

Anyway, at least the class is over. Time to study for business organizations, which is infinitely more boring, but at least the rules have been the same for decades and will not change simply because the Court does not agree with them.

Ricardo Arjona

This is the video for my favorite spanish song (or should I say "song in spanish?"). I remember hearing it in Guatemala for the first time. We were knocking doors at night this family let us in. They were watching novelas and this was the theme song to one of them. I found out a few months later who sang it and so I went out and bought the tape. Anyway, this guy is actually LDS (not active, if you couldn't tell by the video) and is also Guatemalan. I had never seen the video up until a couple of days ago, and it is pretty spicy, so I recommend opening another window and just listening instead of watching it. Enjoy.