C'est Non Un Blog

Day – 1 (Friday, July 25)

One more mix tape:

Side 1

Fantastic Plastic Machine – Todos Os Desejos
Weezer – My Name is Jonas
Prodigy – Smack My Bitch Up
Coldplay – Clocks
Saint Etienne – Cool Kids of Death
Rolling Stones – The Last Time
Zero 7 – In the Waiting Line
Call and Response – When the Lights Are Out
Junior Senior – Shake Your Coconuts
Felix da Housecat – Glitz Rock

Side 2

Soul Coughing – Soft Serve
Blue States – Heroes’ Elegy
Bent – Private Road
Royksopp – Remind Me
Guster – Backyard
Kylie Minogue – Love at First Sight
Beth Orton – Daybreaker
PJ Harvey – One Line
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Venice Queen
Ivy – Never Do That Again
The Cardigans – Please Sister

Well, this is it. I’m off to Cape May in just a few short hours. We leave at 2AM. Fun. More on why we do that when I get back next Saturday. Hopefully with lots of fun stories from this trip, and trips of the past.

Sorry, no new posts for a week. I’ll try to make it up to you when I get back, however, with the Cape May Journal. I’m going to try to write so much that you will all collectively groan when you see it, but then again, I’m not making any promises. The laptop is going with me though, so we’ll see. A good time should be had by all.

Today was the fun of packing, although nothing interesting to tell. Maybe later. I made another mix tape, but I’m too lazy to type up the track listing right now, so you’ll have to wait. Actually I’m quite tired now, and will be even more so later on, so I’m off for now. I will hear from all of you wonderful people when I get back. Try not to spam the hell out of my inbox while I’m gone.

I’m out!

—Kick someone in the head, like, say, Agent Smith (a computer program) in The Matrix: Reloaded, MPAA gives your movie an R rating.

—Stab an orc through the thigh, run him through with a long sword, chop off his arm AND his head in LOTRs: The Fellowship of the Ring, MPAA gives your movie a PG-13 rating.

—My new laptop takes like five seconds to turn on, but forever to turn off.

—My old desktop takes five years to turn on, but no time at all to turn off.

—As nasty and annoy as Angelina Jolie gets, I still think she is the hottest creature to grace this planet.

—The nastier Maggie Gyllenhaal gets, the more I think she is the hottest creature to ever grace this planet.

Ok, I’ve been really wanting to see 28 Days Later for a while now. My friend Harry couldn’t see it last weekend so we were going to see it today. I call Harry, we are both really eager to go, we both hang up the phone and take a shower, and then he calls me up and says the following:

“Ben, I’m really sorry to do this to you but my mom and family are going to Niagra Falls today, but my mom forgot her wallet so I have to take it to her in Utica.”

“Why does she need her wallet? Doesn’t your step-dad have a wallet?”

“Well she needs it to go on the Canadian side on the falls.”

Well don’t that suck. Yet another time Canada and Harry’s mom have screwed me over. (Not really, but still, doesn’t that blow? I can’t go to the movies with my friend because his mom is so dumb as to forget her wallet. Grr.)

After almost two whole months, I finally got my Enter the Matrix game in the mail today from Ross. As most of you know, I brought the game over for Josh to play before graduation, and he forgot to take it out of the playstation that night when Ross packed it up and put it in his car. Ross then went down to NYC and then lost his car keys, stranding my game at the train station. Then, after doing about nothing to get it back to me for a month, he finally (he says) put it in the mail, but he got the address wrong so they returned to sender. At last, after all of the problems, he got the address right, and the game now sits at my feet. Thank god.

After playing Playstation hockey with my cousin when he came up, I think I got the bug again. Today I made my own custom Rangers with such players as myself, Tetsuo, and Doctor Roy, and we are rocking our way up the ladder to the Stanley Cup. Hockey baby, yeah! There’s nothing quite like watching yourself slapshot a puck over 120 miles per hour, even if it is just a video game.

Today I made my first “real” dinner after I got sick of just barbequeing every night for my mom and not really learning anything. We had spaghetti with clams with a nice wine, lemon and garlic sause, plus some Tuscan flat bread, all of which was really good. I actually still smell it on my fingers. Oh well. That garlic does know how to stick around.

Stupid internet cut off without warning and wouldn’t come back on. Bitch.

A movie you should all see: Secretary (2002). I’m not completely sure why, but I am in total love with this movie. Perhaps it is the quirky subject matter, or the way it is handled so gracefully, or perhaps it is because Maggie Gyllenhaal is a goddess–I don’t know. (Probably all of the above, with a healthy dose of the latter) Anyway, I loved this movie so much that I bought it right after I saw it the first time, and I suggest you see it too.

This post will be kind of long because on Monday we had a thunderstorm that took out the power for a couple hours. When the power came back on a few hours later, we unfortunately still had no phone so I haven’t been able to post for a while.

Monday the log guy came and deposited all of my dad’s firewood on the lawn outside of my window. It was pretty interesting to watch. The truck has this small crane thing with a giant metal claw at the end, which he uses to move the logs around like they ain’t no thing. It was more interesting watching the two men though. One was this skinny stereotypical white trash guy wearing a dirty backwards baseball cap with his mullet sticking out below it, a cheesy 70’s porn mustache, and an unlit cigarette that was stuck to his bottom lip the entire time he worked. After he was done, he threw out the old cigarette, got a new one and lit that one up. Meanwhile his fat partner watched, bored, until they were done and then drove the truck away.

Tuesday was a New CD Day; this time I got Global Underground’s new Danny Howell’s 24:7. It’s a damn good mix, but what was more interesting was the packaging. It was plastic like a normal jewel case, but it was an inch taller and the corners were rounded. It has this weird latch you have to press in to open it, and instead of having part of the jewel case that you can flip up to get at the second CD, the two CDs lay on top of each other on an extra large hub thing. It’s pretty crazy.

Anyway, on Saturday I will be going to Cape May for a week, so you won’t see any of my cheerful posts for a while. I do, however, plan on keeping a journal of my trip, which I will in turn post here for all to read. To give you a little taste of that, may I present to you:

——The Cape May Journal——

Cape May, for those who don’t know, is a small tourist town on the coastline at the southern most tip of New Jersey (the nice part of New Jersey!). Instead of nuclear waste dumps like the rest of Jersey, Cape May is surrounded by lots of unpoluted wildlife preserves. My family has been going there for vacation the last week of July for about 10+ years now. Although the first two years we went we actually spent in Cape May itself, since then we now rent a house in Cape May Point, which is a more residential family oriented area as opposed to the more commercial Cape May, which is filled with hotels, bed and breakfasts, and lots of tourist trap businesses and restaurants. We rented a different house each year until my mom found the one we’ve been going to for about the past three years, which is right on Lighthouse Drive and has a great view from the deck of both the lighthouse and a pond filled with birds that is part of a wildlife preserve across the road from us.

This journal is going to record my thoughts on our latest trip down to Jersey.

Day – 5 (Monday, July 21st)

(The Mix Tape)

Before any road trip, the first thing you need to do is create a mix tape. From my house to the south of Jersey it takes about six hours, so you are definitely going to need some good tunes for the road. I’ve been doing this for years for various different road trips and it never gets any easier to create a mix tape that everyone will love. Not only do I have to deal with the problem of my musical tastes being pretty different from everyone else’s and the normal problems involved in making a good mix tape, but also you have to deal with road noise from outside of the car, because sometimes the rumble of the roadway can really mess with how the sound on your tape turns out. So I’ve decided to write down some road mix tape guidelines to help you from making a dud of a mix tape.

Know your audience. When picking out songs for the mix tape, remember that everyone else in the car has to like your mix tape as much as you, or else after one listen no one is going to want to put it back into the car stereo. Be aware of the tastes of everyone you will be traveling with, and without giving up your own vision for the tape, try to cater to everyone’s favorite styles. How do you do this…?

Variety is the spice of life. It helps a lot if the person making the mix tape appreciates a wide variety of styles of music. If you only like one or two different genres, not only is your mix going to start sounding boring after a while, but you are going to alienate at least part of your listening audience. Try to pick out lots of different sounds for your mix tape, and then tie them together with a common theme. Make sure you don’t have too many quiet songs in a row without a couple fast ones thrown in for good measure. Use as many different bands as you have access to. Make sure the mix keeps moving and your audience keeps guessing what you’ll throw on next.

Be aware of how it will sound. Remember that you aren’t making this mix for someone wearing some headphones, but for a car on the highway. Keep real quiet songs to a minimum. Witness this blunder of mine: In making a Beatles mix tape a few years ago I added in Julia because it is my mom’s favorite song, and hell, pretty much everyone else’s too. The problem is that that song is extremely quiet. So much so that when it came on in the car no one could hear it over the sounds of the highway. If you pump up the volume to hear it, well then you have the problem that as soon as the next song comes on you are going to blow everyone out of their seats. Make sure everything is at the same volume level, unless you are the kind of person who likes to turn the volume up and down every other song.

Subtle doesn’t work. Usually the cooler you think you are being, the lamer your mix tape will sound. Long intros—got to go. Subtle shifts in melody—no one will hear them. Repetitive structures will bore your audience to tears. Keep everyone guessing but more importantly, keep the mix moving. Make sure the songs you select are short unless the melody in them changes often.

When in doubt, throw it out. Take a second to think before you throw on that new weird song you like. Try to think if it is a song that will be universally enjoyed. Try to imagine if it will sound good the tenth time that you’ve heard it on an already boring road trip. The last thing you need is for everyone to start moaning when that song comes on. Don’t try to be clever.

Keep it fun. This is the most important rule. Remember that after a while everyone is going to get really bored and want out of the car. Don’t make the trip any worse for them. Have fun making your mix, and make sure that everyone will HAVE fun listening to your mix, because the music is going to be what makes a lame road trip bearable.

Day – 4 (Tuesday, July 22nd)

Yesterday I made the following mix tape:

Side 1
Fantastic Plastic Machine – L’aventure Fantastique
Groove Armada – Groove is On
Rolling Stones – Miss You
Moloko – Familiar Feeling (Martin Buttrich Mix)
Jakatta – It Will Be
Ian Brown – F.E.A.R.
Junior Senior – Rhythm Bandits
Daft Punk – Digital Love
Beck – Nicotine & Gravy
Radiohead – Paranoid Android
Bent – So Long Without You

Side 2
Weezer – Tired of Sex
The Cardigans – For What it’s Worth
Mint Royale – Princess
Deftones – Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)
Rage Against the Machine – Sleep Now in the Fire
Felix da Housecat – Madame Hollywood
Layo & Bushwacka! – Sleepy Language
Koop – Modal Mile
The Chemical Brothers – Out of Control
The Polyphonic Spree – Hanging Around
The Beatles – Hey Bulldog

Today I made this one:

Side 1

DJ Shadow – You Can’t Go Home Again
Guster – Amsterdam
Junior Senior – Chicks and Dicks
The Strokes – Is This It
Soul Coughing – Mr. Bitterness
Rolling Stones – Under My Thumb
Groove Armada – Easy
Moby –In My Heart
Bent – Beautiful Otherness
The Free Association – (I Wish I Had A) Wooden Heart
The Cardigans – Live and Learn

Side 2

The Seatbelts – Don’t Bother None
Sex Mob – You Only Live Twice
Propellerheads – Spybreak!
Pearl Jam – In My Tree
Mint Royale – Dancehall Places
Ivy – Blame it on Yourself
Radiohead – Everything in its Right Place
The Beatles – And I Love Her
Gorillaz – 19-2000
The White Stripes – Fell in Love with a Girl
Weezer – Buddy Holly
The Seatbelts – The Singing Sea

Hopefully they’ll go over well with everyone.

Have you all seen this yet? You must…it is absolutely hilarious. I will try to sum up the best part of tonight’s show as best I can:

On one part of the show they had a Princess Di doll paranormal investigator. Did you get all of that? They had this big doll of Princess Di, who could tell you stuff you wanted to know from beyond the grave. How you find stuff out is by tossing her out of a hot air balloon into a field divide in half (yes/no) while she floats down in a parachute to the correct answer.

What question did they ask Lady Di?

Has young Harry Potter actor Daneil Radcliff (or however you spell his name) yet “Done it proper with a lady?”

If the Princess Di doll that can predict things didn’t have me rolling on the floor, what she was going to find out did. Imagine this whole thing being described by a crazy Japanese man screaming at you from the TV, and you will start to understand why.

The best part was that when he dropped the doll out of the hot air balloon it immediately flew to the No side, which kind of sucked, but then at the very last minute a wind came and blew it into the Yes side of the field, only to have an excited Japanese man start to yell out “HARRY POTTER HAS DONE IT PROPER!!!” while “DONE IT PROPER!” flashed on the screen in big block letters. I don’t know if the concept of this show can stay fresh forever, but damn, right now this is about the funniest thing ever. Watch now!

Ah, no post yesterday. First time that happened since the old live journal got started up. That’s because my aunt and cousin were up and I was otherwise occupied eating and playing video games with Matthew this weekend. But now that they are gone, on to what you really want, a crappy movie review!

——Bad Boys II——

Wow. Fuck. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much action in one movie before. Although a lot isn’t done right in this film, because there is SO much going on in this movie it is worth seeing. This is probably the most fun action movie of the summer. It is also one of the worst written, but we’ll let that slide for the meantime.

Do you like car chases? Good, because there is no less than 3 of them in this movie. God, I think the main characters spend more time in their cars in this movie than all of the characters in the Italian Job do.

Do you like gun fights? Good, because there are a shit load of those too. Not to mention countless shots of bullets hitting people in the forehead. There are enough firearms in this movie to take over a small country.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are great, if only for their uncanny ability to make you forget how lame everything they are saying is. The movie works because you can really feel that these two characters have had it up to here with each other’s antics. They are also quite amusing from time to time.

Micheal Bay’s direction (surprise, surprise) is shoddy at best. Would it hurt you really to pull out on a shot or stop moving the camera for once Micheal? God, I felt like I was on a boat, the camera swung around so much. Still, the sheer mass of this movie helps move things along to Bay’s occasional good idea (case in point: the amazing shot of the bomb falling from the Zero in the otherwise crap Pearl Harbor). I think Bay’s camera work does help in a way though, in that it keeps us uneasy enough to not notice that the screenwriters are morons.

Witness the lame way that the drug lord gets away at the end of the movie just so Micheal Bay can blow up a mansion. Witness the way that while we know that the bodies of fat men are being used to ship drugs, in the morgue there is a single attractive, large breasted naked woman so that they can have a bunch of lame breast jokes. Notice the homophobia and racism of the writers (and white writers at that, as each joke can be seen as obviously crafted from a out of touch with minorities rich white guy). Witness the stereotypical drug lords, and the odd way that Martin Lawrence’s sister is not only going out with Will Smith, but also happens to belong with the DEA in New York, who are doing undercover work in Miami. The writers should be ashamed of the drivel that they came up with.

And yet the action is so over the top, and there is so much of it, that you can’t help but love this as a perfect mindless summer action movie. I mean, no one is going to walk out of the theater and go: “You know, I really wish there would have been some more action in that movie to make it better.” If someone did say that, I think they need their head examined. If anything the movie is just a wet dream for all of those guys who want MORE action in their action movies, who love to watch shit blow up. I’m one of those guys, and so despite the fact that at the basic level it is a horrible movie, I’m still going to give it a B for fun.

——My Cousin, and Bad Boys II——

As I noted two posts ago, we took my cousin with us. And there was no problem whatsoever with him seeing an R rated movie. He really liked it. And I think in a way that is because the whole should little kids see R rated movies question has a lot to do with what IS actually in the movie. Bad Boys II was just a regular action movie (which my cousin has seen before) with more action, and more swearing (which he has also heard before [mostly from my father]). There was no sex, and no nudity other than the titties of the dead girl. There was nothing particularlly scary about the movie either, so it was perfectly fine with him. I don’t think I would take him to see, say Silence of the Lambs, just yet, but R-rated action movies are fine.

And now for some local news:

I got a haircut today. It stands somewhere between looking really good, and making me look like a total putz. Only time will tell how this situation develops.

Also, after going to the supermarket I realized that I have no idea how one goes about picking up a women in a supermarket. This must change drastically in the near future.