mojo's blog...stardate 23.9, rounded off to the nearest decimal point...

12:23pm: our 6 year anniversary
was an event in itself, and as events go it was eventful. because my lazy ass couldn't manage to post until now, and our anniversary was in may i can't properly give a play-by-play of the events. but a couple stick out in my mind.

first, the bad - the barn on howard's cove is a quaint little inn on howard's cove just outside of annapolis, MD. it's nice enough and in a pretty sweet location on the cove. but when you walk into the room it is peppered with post-it notes all over. "please turn off the light when not in use" is the type of message you would see on a cute little lamp on a dresser. "wipe the water from around the sink when finished" is another type that you might see on the bathroom mirror. now just 1 or 2 would not be a problem, but i kid you not the room looks as if you won the publisher's clearing house post-it sweepstakes. there's just about not a square foot in that room that doesn't have a note on it of some sort. it's like you're a kid that needs to be reminded of your chores, and your anal-retentive parent made sure to not leave anything to chance.

oh, but that's not all. the innkeeper was as if old mother hubbard went to the cupboard and all she could find was prunes. she didn't really greet us at the door when we got there, but when she saw us thru the screen door she motioned for us to go upstairs via the outside steps. she let us in and walked us thru the place with the short intro - "here's the bathroom, here's the shower, here's the bed, here's outside," with a few tidbits that you can read from the post-its. i couldn't even manage to get in a word to introduce christina (i like the personal touch thing).

we were hungry, so we asked her where a good place to eat would be. we got there a little late, so we had to put down our stuff and head right out.

the real problem came the next day when we wanted to take the boat out in the cove. you see, we stayed at the neighboring inn last year for our anniversary (with OMH's nicer daughter) and were able to go out in a canoe, so this year we thought we'd take out a kayak. well, mother hubbard's prunes got the best of her, and she advised us that we "should have gotten up earlier" and we could have taken a boat out. but we're not early risers by nature, and seeing as how we were paying her to stay there we figured we should be able to go for a row. but she had "other plans" that made it so that we had to leave in a timely fashion. so our anniversary getaway was a night's stay at an bed and breakfast which may as well have been a motel 6.

in her defense, we had planned to stay 2 nights and ended up staying 1 night (my fault - i didn't plan properly with christina so she didn't know which nights we were staying). but i still figure that we were paying her, therefore we were the ones that should be accommodated. silly me.

that weekend was saved by our stay in washington dc. i hadn't been there since i was a kid, so it was interesting to see the sights. we saw the capitol building and had a tour that told us the history of how it came to be and who built and painted what. we saw the national archives, including the magna carta, declaration of independence, bill of rights, constitution, and other documents.

we also went to annapolis and visited the academy. we saw john paul jone's tomb, one of the apollo mission capsules, and went on a tour of the base. we learned a lot about naval history, which was interesting to me as my father was in the navy.

the drive back was even interesting. we had dinner at an english place in delaware. english as in from england. i don't remember what i had, but it was pretty good and i've thought about going again. i mean, i've had italian food, german food, mexican food, indian food, chinese food, japanese food...but never english. not that i know of.

well, that was our anniversary. i had to start there because so much has happened since and i didn't want to tell the more current without telling the more important. but i'll have to post on that later. hopefully a sooner later

12:17pm: Writer's Block: Top of the Charts
yeah yeah yeahs - zero

i'm pretty sure i'm one

1:21pm: "eat my dust"
if household dust is approximately 80% dead skin, what's a person suggesting when they say "eat my dust?"

4:39pm: american express does things faster
...including canceling accounts for little or no reason.

i can understand being cautious about things. especially in this economy. i can understand seeing activity that is questionable and pausing accounts. even canceling accounts. but if the person is found to not have had a problem, then the cancellation shouldn't really be a thing, right?

we live in an automatic society. you buy things on your credit card, it shows up on your credit report. you pay your bills, it shows up on your credit report. you buy gas, it automatically generates a bill that gets sent to you in the mail. you pay bills online, and it automatically shows up as paid on your account.

you don't pay a bill, it shows up automatically on your credit report.

ok, that's the easy part. pay your bills (if you can - if not that's another discussion), and you're ok. but what if you don't know you owe money?

i've actually heard of this happening in different ways. someone can steal your identity, and you have to clean up after them. you can have fees added to an old bill that you don't look at and it would just be an oversight. you can forget about a parking ticket and the court could debit the fee from your bank, and then you could bounce a check.

these are reasons one would want to keep an eye on their credit report.

without blathering on about general stuff, i'll be more specific.

i had a bill that was transferred out of my name an into my company's name. i had a balance on my account that i didn't know about because when i changed it over, i specifically asked a customer service rep if i had one and she indicated that i did not. because the bill was in my company's name, i could no longer see the online statement. and because i thought i did not have a balance, i did not open all the bills that came to my house. i opened a couple and they just had my company info, so i thought nothing of it.

a few months went by and then my american express card was canceled. in a very embarrassing way, i might add. christina went to buy gas, and the card was declined. this happened twice, and then she let me know.

luckily she's reasonable when it comes to this. she didn't think anything ill of me as a result.

so i called amex to find out why my card was canceled. basically, with no notification. they told me i had been delinquent in payments. i pointed out that i was *never* late with a payment with them, and the said that they knew and that the delinquent payment was on my credit report.

ok, so i figured this would be no big deal. i'd straighten it out, and everything would be back to normal. right?

so i checked my credit report, and found the issue. i called the company that i had the issue with, and got it straightened right out. alll-riiiighhht. they even sent me a letter of apology, which should clear up any misunderstandings in the meantime.

unfortunately, before i called the company to get this worked out but after i checked the credit report to let them know i saw the problem. i explained the problem to them and how i knew i could get it fixed. the lady said that it didn't really matter if it got fixed, because my card would not be reinstated. however, after this embarrassing event, i could apply for another card. i advised her that i should not have to apply for a card which should never have been canceled.

in the course of this discussion, she told me that she worked for the responsible lending department or something like that, and that amex only wanted responsible customers. i said that i *am* responsible, and she immediately shot back with "it's not responsible to not pay your bills."

um, excuse me? after all my story of how it happened, i am not responsible? ok, maybe you're jaded and you hear this kind of story 100 times a day. but could you at least tone it down a bit with words like "allegedly" or "it was so reported" or something? no, i guess not. you're american express.

so why should i apply for another american express? my other card has better interest. my other card just increased my limit because - get this - i always pay on time and they consider me a "good customer." or so they say. but what do i care if they're sincere or not? they give me a little respect and don't spit in my face.

funny thing is that i did a search for such a thing happening and it seems to happen with them. maybe it happens with other companies too. i dunno, i didn't look.

maybe american express doesn't need the money they were making on my interest payments. i guess someone with a good credit rating is too risky.

oh, but i forgot about that this all happened automatically. especially the part about me getting pissed. when i am called a deadbeat, i'm automatically pissed. go figure.

6:35pm: move over, pandora
as i posted a few months ago, pandora is a nifty little service that you put in a song you like or a band you like, and it generates a playlist of songs that you might like based on that. it does this thanks to the music genome project, which has a database of similar music. supposedly (sometimes it would play something and i'd be all...wtf).

well, lately for me the preference has been seeqpod. seeqpod is similar in that it generates a playlist. but it's more like you generate the list and it plays specifically what you want. if you're on a johnny cash kick, you put in "johnny cash" and it looks for his music online and reports back hits. you add those hits to your playlist and it plays exactly what you want. you can have a huge cash playlist, or you can mix and match.

unlike pandora (or another thing unlike pandora) is that you don't have to wade thru stuff you don't like and wait for stuff you do like. it's targeted however you wish. if you want to add a particular song, you can. if you want to add a different version, so be it. thanks to seeqpod, i found the peel version of "y control" by the yeah yeah yeahs.

it also comes back with video hits. so if you wanna catch the carter family doing "wildwood flower," it's there.

one of my favorite songs is "turn into," which i heard on seeqpod. for valentine's day, christina got me the yeah yeah yeahs' "show your bones." i already knew a few songs on it, but i was stoked to see this song on there. i already liked half the album before i even got it. nice :D

there's a benefit to pandora giving you tips on new music. so i can't totally cast it aside. i also like the xm radio online portal. but i think for now, seeqpod is the thing for online work rockin'.

8:14pm: ain't no plans with no man
i keep hearing guys quote this. i wonder if it means that if something happened "just by chance" with a man that they'd be ok with it.

8:10pm: Writer's Block: Last Twenty Bucks

practical: a series of phone calls to family. to beg.

frivolous: flowers for the girlfriend.

my choice: pizza.

5:15pm: cool kids, they belong together
well, it's already february. that's how i spell it, but i don't pronounce the first "r." january went so fast.

christina and i brought the year in by going to see a band play in jersey. we first saw them open for the stylistics a few years back. then, go figure, i met the trumpet player at my work. double funny because christina works with someone who is married to one of the guys in the stylistics. small world... but anyhow, we went to see the show for new year at a nice place called "blue eyes." they call themselves a "latin soul" band. cintronband.com if you wanna check it out. i like their versions of "suavecito" and "expressway to your heart," to mention a couple songs.

we saw "cloverfield" earlier this year. great film, i thought. some people didn't like the camera shaking bit. but i think it kinda puts you "in" the movie, so to speak. for me it was more of an enhancement, and an interesting perspective. people compared it to "the blair witch project," which i could see kinda i guess because of the shaky camera thing. but i think it was quite different overall because you didn't have to use your imagination as to what the monster was, as opposed to the blair witch, which you basically never saw. and i'm pretty sure she wasn't heather donahue.

it's interesting to note how some movies you can find online, and some you just can't. do a search for the "national treasure, book of secrets" screener and you probably won't find it. christina says that they're saving us from it :P (she didn't like it so much when we saw it in the theater). same with the "cloverfield" screener, or anything of quality you'd want to watch. but if you look for "i am legend" you have a good chance of finding it. i guess security of some releases is greater than that of others.

i can see that they don't want people to download the movie rather than go see it in the theater. if i made a movie, i'd want people to see it in the theater too. but at the same time, with ticket prices nearing $10 these days, i can also see how some people just can't afford to go anymore. one day it was $8 for a ticket, the next it was $8.50. i pay it, because i like to go to the movies. but what if someone is the stereotypical college student, or someone has a big family they need to support and wants to be able to take them out...taking out a family of 5 like my father had to when i was growing up for dinner and movies can become more of an issue. if people can't afford to buy tickets at $8, increasing prices isn't going to sell more tickets.

so what they do sometimes is fill the download bins with spammy stuff, like they do with music. they put in fake files to waste your time, and i guess hope you get frustrated. it becomes an actual effort, because it takes hours to download each one sometimes, or days, and you go to open it up and then it's fake. but i don't think people typically give up. they just download more of them, which increases bandwidth usage overall. since it takes as long to download 2 fake files as it takes to download 1, you they just queue them up and let them run. over a broadband connection, you don't even notice it. so it's more of an inconvenience than anything.

interesting to note that "i am legend" and "cloverfield" both did pretty well at the box office. it seems like people still go to the movies, despite the downloading thing. people like to get out and do stuff overall.

happy february.

8:30pm: happy new year
i know. it's been a while. all work and no play make mojo something something.

not much of an update here. just like a "tag, you're it" kinda thing.

oh well, at least i managed to get over my delusions of adequacy.

1:32am: happy halloween!
this year we went on a hayride again. it was pretty fun. it's like a tradition now. well, i looked forward to it like one. my favorite part is where i put my arms around christina and she leans on me :D

we saw jason voorhees, michael meyers, samarra, and a few other ghouls. the first ghoul had dreadlocks, and i wasn't quite sure if that was the scary part. there was a real-smelling chainsaw that seemed suspicious. people running alongside the truck, and then some rock show at the end, with dancing clowns and some weird girl with a microphone.

over the weekend, we went to see the new saw. same movie, different...no, same movie. it's not really horror. you jump a little, you wince a little. you hope that bad things don't happen to that one person. a few twists and turns, and you're surprised at the end. of course there's lots of gore, but iirc none of it was really shown explicitly. more like implied. but if you're really impressionable, it's enough to make you think of how stuff might feel :\

this one had a backstory to it. it showed how jigsaw first became jigsaw. one of those bits where they add the human element to the monster.

the weekend before last, we saw 30 days of night. lots of vampires, running around, trying to talk over the people in the theater. i'm not sure what they said half the time, but it sounded very old. and it was dark the whole time, because i guess that's what happens to parts of alaska for like a month out of the year. for vampires, i can see the attraction.

i'd like to see that one again. something about people talking during over half of the movie makes it like that. i don't get how those people can pay to talk over stuff like that. just stay home and talk over the damned tv. like you did with your 10th grade teacher. that's why you got held back twice. morons.

ok, well it's time to hit the hay. until next time...happy halloween. if you like candy...it's your ghoul-den opportunity :P

11:16am: thought of the day
purell kills 99.99% of most common germs. the other 0.01% are the real bastards i'm worried about.

8:06pm: my political party is superior to yours
i can't believe the cad you voted for. you voted for a loser, i assure you of that. given the superior qualities of my political candidate vs the qualities of your political candidate, i cannot see how you made such a choice.

my candidate has the superior intellect. why, your candidate can hardly spell the word "president", let alone act in all of the ways that one should act in order to be a president. my political candidate, however, is the epitome of what a president ought to be. he exhibits such strength and grandeur.

i remember the time that your political candidate met with the commodore of another country. he could hardly muster courage to speak! nay, he trembled under the guise of being one who is able to be an ambassador of our country. had my candidate been there, the commodore would have been heartily greeted by such a strong embrace that our countries would have come together on many political viewpoints. any country would want to take the side of our country with a candidate such as mine at the helm.

when my candidate was in college, all of the university professors vied to have him in their classes. indeed, they wished that they could partake in his writings, and assist him in the learning process. in turn, they would learn much as well. for my political candidate has such a superior intellect. your political candidate barely finished 4 years of college, and at an inferior university as well. (i heard that their rowing team took 2nd to that of my candidate in many seasons)

your insistence on voting for your political candidate makes me question if you have even been paying attention to the news for the last 4 years. it's quite possible that you're not able to read. or perhaps you have friends that brief you on the news, and conclude what it is you are to think.

10:16pm: mia katherine zapata was born
mia katherine zapata was born august 25, 1965. now, i'm not much of a biographer, so i'll leave that kind of research up to whoever is interested. i became interested in her music when i heard that 7 year bitch was influenced by them (like i was interested in eddie cochran when i found out that brian setzer was influenced by him). anyhow, as i liked 7 year bitch, i thought i'd give it a whirl.

now, i knew that mia zapata was raped and killed in '93 (july 7th, 1993). but when you hear of something like that happening it doesn't always sink in. but then i recently started to listen to the music, and the energy behind it started to take on a new meaning. punk rock could tend to have that edge that could lean almost toward anger. it can also be playful and in self-parody. but her music was more toward life and had a realism to it that i can often relate to.

i'm not saying i'm angry. but sometimes life treats you like a baby treats a diaper. and when words can't express it, there's music.

after mia's death, the band called joan jett to see if she would be interested in playing a benefit concert to fund the account to be used to privately investigate her murder. at the time the murderer was still at large. songs were written, albums were named for, and self-defense groups were founded, inspired by her story.

the murder actually went unsolved until 2004.

what really gets me is the energy that mia had in performing. and then the energy that joan put into performing mia's music. i'm not trying to compare the two. just noting that it seemed to be a good fit for joan. i heard joan's music a little bit over the years, and sometimes christina and i would mention it. but i guess i haven't really given it a good listen. at least, not like what i'm about to show you...

first of all, here's the original one. it's a song that gets stuck in my head from time to time, "second skin".





now that was good enough to get stuck in my head. lots of energy and emotion. i was really surprised to hear this one, of evil stig (i heard it before i realized it was joan).





it's good to see people taking up a cause. of course, this particular one is very sad in many ways. but at least she left her mark in the world. oh, and at least they got that rat bastard murderer >:(

2:22pm: i dunno about pandora's box, but
i have to admit, i been liking pandora quite a bit lately. pandora as in pandora.com, that is. basically it's an online music service that allows you to create your own "stations".

what you do is you go to the site and you input a song that you like or a band you like, and it creates a "station" of stuff that's similar to what you picked. so if i type "garbage", it will play a few songs by garbage, along with other bands that they determine to be similar in style and sound to garbage.

of course, i don't always agree with the other songs being like what i put in. sometimes i'll be listening to something like "the no doubt station" and the cure will come on. or i'll be listening to the gits station, and aerosmith will come up. luckily, if something comes on that you don't like or don't agree with, you can impeach it by giving it a "thumbs down" thing. you click on the "thumb down" button, and it goes to the next song in your playlist. or you can just hit the "next" arrow button and it will skip that song without rating it for you.

the down side is that you can only skip so many songs in an hour. something about their license. but oh well...it's not like i'm paying for it. i can just select another radio station and keep going.

pandora seems to be an ad-driven site. so there are ads that you have on the page. i don't know a whole lot about that, because i always have it buried under other tabs on firefox. so it's not like it's intrusive or anything.

what really impressed me about pandora is that it will play a lot of stuff that i can't find anywhere else. when i first heard about it, i was like "yeah, right...it won't have this" and entered "the gits". then the gits started playing....

but right now it doesn't have classical. oh well, nobody's perfect. it still has a good selection. even if it does play "bush" in my "no doubt" station.

ok, well that's my story and i'm sticking to it.

9:31am: birds in this town
seem to all know which car is mine. i'm not sure how they do it :(

at least it rained last night and took care of most of it...

2:06am: 4 yrs and seven score ago
ok, so not that long. but yeah, it's been 4 years.

so last saturday, christina and i went to cambridge, maryland for our 4 year anniversary. i thought it would be nice to get away for a bit, so we went to a nice little bed and breakfast called the "mill street inn". i had seen bed and breakfasts in the movies a few times and thought they were all cool and romantic, and i wanted to partake in such romantic stuff.

when we got to town, the first thing we did was scope out the place. it was just like in the movies...a large house in a rustic setting on a quiet street. not in the woods or way out yonder like some, but still nice. then after we were sure it was an ok place, we went down to a small town called vienna, as they were having this whole shindig for capt john smith. i wanted to take christina on a boat ride, so that was kinda the priority. when we got there we had about a 2 hr wait for our boat appointment, so we went around this little town thing and learned about the captain.

well, for me it was interesting, because i didn't know any of that stuff. christina seemed to know a good deal about it, so maybe it wasn't so enlightening for her. but we did get a load of this replica boat that was there, and she took some pictures of it. who knew that this person who did all this founding-father type stuff did his exploring in a tiny boat that could hold barely 14 people? i mean, i'm sure a lot of people know it, but i sure as hell was surprised. i have a whole new respect for such a pioneer, going around on such a small vessel. but christina explained to me some of the controversy, so i guess as far as the truth goes i'm pretty much still in the dark about a lot. but it was still fun.

then we went out on this boat which was just a 45-minute tour. we saw an osprey nest and got to do some relaxing boating, then we headed back.

when we got to the inn, we were beat. christina hadn't slept much the night before, and neither had i really so we took a nap for like 3 hr. when we got up, we went to dinner at this place called the snapper or something like that. it was basically a decent place right on the water. they had good food and some good atmosphere about it. after that, we went to denny's to get some ice cream.

we went for a walk around the neighborhood. we went to the marina, then down the street where we read some stuff about the history of the town regarding slavery and stuff like that. harriet tubman was from there, so there was some of that underground railroad stuff to read about. we discussed some of that history (or she told me stuff and i listened), and then we headed back. but first she had to check out this cemetery where there were people buried 200 yrs ago.

the next day, we had the breakfast part of our bed and breakfast. apparently it has some sort of name, which i don't remember. but it was good. eggs benedict, some fruit, and a bunch of other stuff. they could have stood to have given us more coffee per cup, but we made up for that by refilling more.

after breakfast, we went to visit some mill that did something with grain. i'm not sure, but it was like a windmill on stilts. or on a stand. but the good part was when we went to this eagle sanctuary called blackwater refuge. at first we saw some osprey again. then we saw what was probably turkey vultures. but then we saw some eagles...and i can tell you that that was worth the whole day right there. those things are huge! of course in the distance they looked to me like just some birds. but then when you put the binoculars to your eyes and then see them relative to the trees where they're perched...you can then appreciate their actual size. we saw like 4 or more of them. then we drove slowly thru the rest of the 3-mile drive to see what else we could see. then we headed home.

our return to philly had us eating at dave and buster's. back to life, back to reality. i like dave and buster's stuff lately, especially their shrimp. but nothing like getting back from getting away.

but that was our anniversary. 4 years. heck, i haven't even known most people i know for that long. but some things are just cool like that.

11:47am: i could have sworn
i updated my journal more recently. like at least since the first. but alas, i have not. arrgh...

ok, well on my bday, we wanted to go to see the king tut exhibit. but king tut's not there. so it didn't exactly sound so impressive. so we spent a very nice day together. then later on christina took me to dinner at smokey bones and then we went to see tmnt. fun movie. but getting to spend the day with her really meant a lot to me.

christina got me 2 pairs of shoes, of which i was to pick a pair to keep. and she got me a nice shirt. which was good, because i been wanting a new black shirt. and it's getting warm out, so i needed a short sleeve one. and the shoes i selected were a style i been wanting for many years, so that worked out as well.

what brings me to post today is that i been thinking lately about how things have been. i have been really glad that christina's in my life. i told her that the other day, and i hope she knows. it's hard to explain. but i just think about when we were together on sunday, and the time up before then. relationships have their ups and downs, but overall it's been good. i just wanna kiss her face thinking about it :P

i'm trying to go over this while i'm at work, so it's hard to come up with words for it. i better get back now. i feel like i'm babbling anyhow...

2:07pm: mr and mrs pat benatar
a week ago last friday, christina and i went to see pat benatar. pretty amazing how she sounds like she did over 20 yrs ago. she can't hit all the same notes, but that's to be expected. however, for the most part the rest of her singing sounds the same, and she can really belt out some rock and roll :D

the crowd was pretty diverse. there were people in their twenties there, on up to their forties or what have you. and a lot of them must have been real fans, because they knew a good number of her songs. hell, we went and we hadn't heard half of those songs before.

before the show, i read a review of another show she did about 5 yrs ago. the review talked about how well she sang, and then went on to describe how much her husband, neil giraldo, hammed it up. we observed this as well, as he went on to play every damned instrument on the stage. wouldn't have been so bad, but it didn't seem to be the kind of show where one wants all that virtuoso stuff. and in moderation it would have been better, but he made it a point to do all this, as if to say "look how good i am". now i'm not saying he wasn't good. he sure as hell is a lot better at that stuff than i. but it wasn't his show, so it kinda detracted from the overall performance.

now pat, being the lovey-dovey wife that she is, supported her husband in his endeavor. she watched him play, and seemed to enjoy it and applauded him. but you can't really fault her for that. the alternative would have been her telling her husband not to do that stuff because the people were there to see her. and then of course she would come off like an egotist of some sort. she even let him have his name on the playbill (christina joked that it should have said mr and mrs pat benatar :P ). everyone there was obviously there to see her. hell, the only people that knew who the hell he was to begin with were people who were fans of hers.

aside from the albatross prancing around the stage, over all it was a good show. pat showed that she could really rock the house. and of course her tear-jerker songs made the moment. when you sit thru a show like hers, you realize after hearing hit after hit how much influence someone like that has had on modern music.

christina said she enjoyed it, and i was really glad. i enjoyed it a lot, too. it was a really good time. afterward we went to the hard rock and had some dinner and drove home slowly in the snow. that was a nice winter's night :)

2:03pm: black snake moan. no chlo-diac
last night we went to see one of them thar sneak previews of black snake moan. which is good, because we didn't get in on the one for zodiac 2 nights ago. i would have preferred to see zodiac, but as it turns out black snake moan was pretty good, so it worked out still.

this movie was actually quite a bit better than i thought it would be. going by just the name, it doesn't sound like someone i'd normally enjoy. and to be honest i'm not even sure what it means. i know that sam jackson sang a song that mentioned the black snake moan, but that didn't help me a lot. christina told me that he learned how to play the guitar for the movie, tho...so props to him.

the first few seconds of the movie, i felt like i was watching "kids". it started out with justin timberlake making out (among other things) with christina ricci. then it develops to where he seems like a ball of nerves packing up to go off in the service. immediately after he leaves, ms ricci shows signs of her illness...which is namely the need to have sex like a whole lot. she was writhing on the grass for a bit, then it cuts to her doing things with other guys. as the film progressed, you could really tell how disturbed this girl's life was.

sam jackson had his own set of issues. between love problems, and family problems, the time was right that just about anything that came along could have tempted him. so of course christina ricci landed right in his lap (after taking turns with everyone else's laps).

this movie had some good music in it, and plenty of room for drama. i haven't seen justin timberlake act before, but he did pretty good. if i didn't know who he was, i'd think he was normally an actor. sam jackson had the salt and pepper hair thing going on, which i guess was a little different. and he didn't swear in every other sentence, which was definitely different. christina ricci lost like 120 lb that she couldn't afford to lose, so hopefully she got enough from doing this movie so she can get herself a decent dinner.

in all i'd say it was a good time. sure, the people next to us wouldn't shut up for most of the movie...but honestly i think most movies have that. really, why is it that people feel the need to disrupt others just so they can say their "damn!" or "oh no he didn't!" stuff. but that's a topic for another time.

2:10am: happy valentine's day
well, belated. for you, that is. i would have said something about it sooner, but i didn't wanna tell just part of the story, as the whole thing wasn't over until sunday. we had kind of a 12 days of valentine's. or 5.

valentine's day valentine's day brought us to dinner at maggiano's. nice little place in king of prussia. christina got the chicken marsala, which she enjoyed. i got the shrimp...well, some pasta that was apparently so good that i forgot what it's called. it had a nice atmosphere, and the food was good. we'll be going there again sometime, i'm sure.

christina got me some pillow cases with her name and mine on them so we can tell which one's which. pretty cute, and a really good idea. i sent her some flowers, and got us some tickets for justin timberlake's concert in buffalo. vip tickets...because i knew she wanted to go, and this was supposed to be a really good show.


sunday came and we rented a car for the drive to buffalo. but that wasn't the fun part. not bad, but not the fun part. that pretty much started when we got there and realized how close we were to the stage. just one row separated us, which was the vip barstool area. there were a few people in front of us, but we could move forward if we tried.

pink opened the show. she's quite a performer! i never really heard a lot of her music, but she kinda rocks. thing is, she kept going back and forth on the stage and not coming forward (toward us). the way the stage was shaped, that kept her up at a riser level above the immediate stage, so we only got to see her close a couple of times. but she did this one bit where she went up on these streamer things and twirled above the crowd...pretty cool.

justin came out and showed why he was the headliner. he did that dance thing he does, but he also played some instruments. his band was really funky and tight. and i'm not exactly sure how one goes about making all those people dance alike. they did a few themes, did some love songs, and by the end of the show you could tell why he's a top seller.

this normally isn't my type of music, but i found the show very enjoyable. i liked when he came out and walked on the edge by the barstool seats and got close to those in vip. christina got some good pictures and video footage. and i got to treat my girlfriend to a nice show :)

one thing i do gotta say tho...justin: wth makes you think that your audience wants to listen to that dj while you take a 20 minute break? i mean, ok, you wanna take a break. i get it. but that dj thing...we got the point after 5 minutes. a few people started dancing, but i dunno how into it they really were. it seemed more like they gave up on you coming out after 10 minutes and wanted to make the best of it. but to be honest, if they wanted to dance to that, they'd go to a club. they went to see you...so shorten it up a bit. or use a regular dj (the stuff they play before the opening act).

but in all it was a good night which we will both remember for years to come. happy valentine's day, christina! :)

2:05pm: saturday
a couple weeks ago we went to see "the messengers." this is another story that kind of reminded me of "the grudge" in that it dealt with ghosts of people that were wrongfully killed and inhabited a place with a sort of vengeance toward anyone that they encountered. at first, this girl and her little brother heard noises and things that go bump in the night. nobody believed the girl, and the little brother couldn't talk because of earlier trauma (that was actually the fault of the sister, which was part of why people didn't believe her). so basically it looked a bit like she was just wacko the whole time. then, at the end it all came to light as some guy that looked like a cross between ryan reynolds and jeff bridges became all spooky and had a little more knowledge about the house than he let on.


last week we saw "hannibal rising". this was a pretty anticipated movie for myself, and christina seemed to want to see it as well. if you know hannibal like i know hannibal, then you'd know why...

ok, i don't know hannibal.

hannibal showed his face in the first "silence of the lambs" movie. he was a psychologist who they used to get clues into the lives of murderers and predators, as he was one himself. but he also had a tendency toward cannibalism, which made him particularly sought out and prized as a subject of psychologists himself. this movie gives insight into how he has long been able to read people and their motives, and also gives insight into his background that lead him to cannibalism.

what i didn't know is that hannibal was french. i guess that would explain why he liked eating weird stuff. what it doesn't explain is how he was able to get the better of others. his girlfriend/aunt in the movie pretty much taught him how to fight, and some acts of reverence which probably played a part in how he treated others. he also came from a good background, and kept his lofty countenance as part of his "classiness" as a killer.

this is probably one of the better movies i've seen in recent times. it doesn't really capture his full personality as much as silence of the lambs...which unfortunately didn't really feature more of him. but it didn't have anthony hopkins in it, so i guess that's expected.

4:27pm: more cowbell...
we went to see apocalypto recently. with all the hubbub in the media about gibson, it was interesting to see. not to mention that it was pretty interesting itself.

this movie was very different in that it wasn't in english and involved the mayan culture. the portrayal wasn't particularly accurate, so i hear (i'm not historian or authority on the mayans). but it was packed full of action and drama no less.

our hero is a tribal sort. they show bonding between the people of the tribe, then there's foreshadowing of trouble when they encounter another tribe in transition, looking for "a new beginning". things go on and life is good, until the invasion.

that's part of how it's not supposed to be accurate. this implies that mayans were vicious toward other mayans. which may have been true sometimes, but it wasn't what defined them.

so our tribe was invaded and then our hero was taken to be a sacrifice. you see how the interaction between the captives was all caring, and how our hero longed for his family who waited for his return. then more drama ensued as he awaited his fate and tried so hard to get back to his family.

other things that were inaccurate apparently were that they showed different time lines simultaneously. of course i found the whole thing to be enjoyable because i knew nothing before that, and so i came out still knowing nothing.

for drama and stuff, the movie was pretty good. i found it to be well written and didn't see it as a political statement or anything. sure, analogies could be drawn and stuff, and if i analysed it more than necessary i could have enjoyed it less. but i prefer to have enjoyed it.


we also saw the departed. there were a lot of big name stars in this one. marky mark, goodwill hunting, leo dicaprio...lots of them. this movie was about a non-italian mob, headed by jack nicholson, and their relationship with the cops and the community.

leo was a cop flunky who could be a cop if he infiltrated this group. however, there was a cop on the take as well which thickened the plot. marky mark played a cop with a foul mouth and a whole lot of creative things to say. martin sheen estevez apparently played his apologist and a father figure to a few. alec baldwin is a high-strung captain type that has less things to say than marky mark, but will say so with his fists. matt damon played a cop that's overly friendly with the mob boss, who was sort of a father figure to him near the beginning of the movie.

this movie had a sort of removed love story involved, as well as plenty of drama and action to go around. everyone was a psychologist to a degree, not to mention the actual psychiatrist in the pic. and everyone was trying to trick someone. with all the twists and turns and trying to keep it all sorted, it was a pretty good movie.


primeval was another one that was full of action. christina didn't like it so much, as she was expecting something else altogether. i didn't know what to expect...so i think i enjoyed it more.

this thing was about an alligator. or was it a crocodile? well, whatever it was, this thing was huge. and it made news, apparently all over the place. so of course this one reporter was assigned to try to trap it, king kong style, and bring it back as a trophy.

but this time king kong didn't want to go down so easily. they spent the whole movie trying to trap this thing, while they were one by one picked off by the beast. another plot point was that the local government was corrupt, and so they had to try to dodge that as well.

the ending wasn't as surprising, but still i'll let you see it for yourself. while i liked it more than christina did, i wouldn't say i liked it a whole lot. it was good for a night out, but i'm sure there are better movies out there. but this one is supposed to be based on a true story, so that could be a plus point if you're into that sort of thing.

ok, well, back to the drawring board. until next time...

1:24pm: merry xtinamas!
this christmas found me going to christina's family's get-together. i've met some of her family here and there over the years, but this time was different. this was a larger gathering, with food and activities. i got to see a few that i've met before, which was pretty nice. plus i got to see some that apparently had been wondering about me. i hope i made a decent impression.

of course i was nervous and all. but after 3 years of seeing the same person, i think it was time for me to get over that kind of thing and get on with just doing stuff. and i personally think it paid off.

my family is a little different in that it's a little more fragmented. we have some in sandy eggo, some in LA and long beach, and then some in michigan and other states. so getting everyone together at once is difficult. so i liked seeing a family all together at once on that level. it warmed my heart and made me smile. plus i feel closer to christina overall.

i also got to put some faces to some of the names i've heard in stories over time. not that i'm the best with faces and relating them to names, but it's a start.

oh, and the food was good.

my favorite part was when christina's aunt recruited a bunch of people for a play, and the rest of us watched. christina was the blessed mother (i always knew something was different about her!). it was really neat and creative. i've never seen something like that done in a family atmosphere.

before that and after, we exchanged gifts (christina and i). i got her a bunch of stuff and managed to only get her one thing she could really use. but that one was the main one, so that's good. she got me a nice jacket, some nice shirts and a nice tie, and one of those bluetooth ear things so i don't get pulled over for talking on the phone while driving. in all i'd say it was a good gift giving and getting season.

well, that about wraps up (no pun intended) the events this week. stay tuned...

6:01am: well i never
i never seem to update my journal as things happen. that's one thing.

i also never been in a limo before. not a stretch limo at least. the first time i was in a "limo" was when i took a taxi ride to the airport one time. that taxi was like a cadi or lincoln or something, and therefore was classified as a limo according to the driver. but this time was for christina's birthday. personally, i liked it. it came and drove us to a nice dinner at the chart house, then we went back and picked up her mother and took a drive around town.

this happened later than her actual bday, because she wasn't feeling well the night of. so it had to happen a couple nights later. and as a person who gets nervous as a date approaches...well, it wasn't easy. i know she's my girlfriend and all, but i still get nervous.

being in a limo is like having someone drive you in a car, but better. also, it's like being in a nice car, but also better. you get both, plus it being a stretch you get to feel the specialness of the occasion. like, you know it's important. and she's always been very important to me...so there it is.

pix from that night are on christina's blog. personally i thought it was very nice. i hope it made for a memorable 21st bday for her, because you only get one of those.

since then, we've gone to see the movie "deja vu". wow, what a piece of crap movie that turned out to be. i'm now pretty convinced that denzel washington doesn't particularly care about the quality of cinema he appears in these days. we didn't like "man on fire", and we didn't like this one.

incidentally, deja vu is also a strip club i have heard of before. maybe they're related. at least plot-wise.

the movie started out kind of flimsy. but we were already watching it, so i tried to give it the benefit of a doubt. well, that's one doubt benefit that was wasted, as i watched as the storyline became increasingly worse as time went on. then all of a sudden, all of the possibilities for redemption were sucked out of it all at once as it went from being a movie about observing the past to being in the past- like denzel's career.

i'm now convinced that when a movie is good and has denzel in it, the latter is incidental.

thanksgiving came and went this year. it was good that i got to spend it with christina and her mother. but we went to cracker barrel, and that may not have been the best idea. still, i enjoyed the feeling of being together, and i was thankful.

oh, and finally i got another car to replace that death trap known as the sundance. as everyone knows, driving that car made me physically ill. now i have a thunderbird. not a new one...it's a 95. but it's young in miles, and it drives well. i feel a lot better having a reasonably safe car to get me and christina around in.

well, that looks like about it for now. i could actually go on about deja vu for a while, but who needs that kind of negativity in their life?

9:25pm: just an observation...
i've had a few desktops in my time. i've had the different characters from the incredibles, amy lee, stevie ray vaughan, jimi hendrix, robert johnson, mozart, different scenes from eastern state penitentiary, and some pics of me with various celebrities. i've had some people ask me about the amy lee pic, because they said it was creepy. however, most people seem to stop and gawk at gwen stefani. both guys as well as girls.

i've asked and it's invariably because they like her for one reason or another. once i even had one of gwen with shirley manson, and all i got from that was a "who's that with gwen?" kinda thing. one person even asked if that was my girlfriend with gwen. um, no...my girlfriend is hotter ;)

but i digress. what i'm noting is that gwen obviously has an unfair advantage over the others. me with gwen on my desktop gets "hey, i love that pic of gwen!" or "nice pic of gwen" or "i liked her (some song or something)". sometimes even lyrics. but anyone else...nada. as a test i put chloe sevigny up to see what would happen. one guy said how she's hot...but then he started talking about how hot gwen stefani is too and asked about the gwen pics i had.

yeah, i like gwen too. but really, there are other people out there.