Comings and Goings and Other Happenings
Last night, I went with a friend of mine to see this band that she is good friends with (it's that bloody Othello connection, I guess). The first two bands playing just plain sucked. And I do mean sucked. The first guys were just these high-school punk-asses spouting off about the love of Jesus, as if this was somehow able to compensate for the fact that they sounded like a parking lot full of dying whales. The audience just stood there staring in shock that people could suck this much. Granted, I am no musical virtuoso myself, but it doesn't take a good musician to recognize a bad one. The next act was this ridiculously overwrought group trying to preach to the crowd the whole time. They sucked as well, though not as bad as their predecessors, though that's not saying much. They basically took all these stereotypical band archetypes and combine them for studied mediocrity. They had the incoherent front-man, the stoned lead guitarist, the fat drummer, and the token barely-there bassist. All in all, it was god-aweful. These two bands sucked so much that they didn't even bother to give their names. Given their performances, though, that may have been a good thing for them. The third band, Amber Avenue, ROCKED a LOT! They played for their dinner last night, and it was well worth it. Screaming vocals, complex guitar riffs and harmonies, and skilled drumming made it all worth it. They played a long set, and whipped the crowd into a good frenzy. The final band I saw, War by the Day, was really awesome as well. These guys are friends of my friend, so I suppose I might be a bit biased here. The only drawback from their set was the fact that the vocals were totally incomprehensible (the sound equipment was sorely lacking). They managed to inject speed, skill, and noise into an effective set that went off like a powder-keg in the little club we were at. The drumming was top-notch, the guy practically flying all over the drums. I left with my ears ringing and my nose running, and a smile on my face.

In contrast, today has pretty much been boring. I have had no social interaction with anybody outside of my room-mate, and have done nothing but watch Family Guy episodes in the room. I guess that's about all there is to say.

Oh, as my friend Matt Hecht informed me, the Eagles are coming to Seattle. That's pretty cool! It's the Eagles!

More Doldrums
Well, I am sad to report that I have been sick for the past three days. It's been like a killer case of the sniffles. It sucks sooooo bad. If only my nose would blow. I took some Sudafed for it last night, and was just totally zonked. I spent the entire evening crashed in the loft staring at the ceiling, listening to the soundtrack from Trainspotting at inordinately loud volumes. Phlegm sucks ass.

Doldrums
Nothing much has really happened today. I just kinda' hung out after my incredibly boring class got over with, and did homework. This seems almost like undue diligence, but really, what else is there to do in the world? Funny how that works, huh? I've been feeling a bit under the weather recently, which hasn't helped much, but there is very little I can do about that except think happy thoughts.

I slept today, which was really nice. I also decided that the next big project for me is to successfully adapt H.P. Lovecraft's immortal Call of Cthulu to film, a feat that has never been achieved. Many film scholars will note that all attempts to adapt Lovecraftian material, especially that related to the Cthulu Mythos, to the screen has failed on a consistent basis, and gotten away from Lovecraft's ideas, concepts, and themes. I would like to do a faithful job of it, doing justice to the source material. And no friggin' "Cthulu for the new millenium" crap, either. I hate these films that are nothing more than "updates" of old movies, but change the feel and mood of the source material. I say, if they're going to do a re-make, keep the source material in there and change as little as possible. Sure, you sometimes need artistic licence, but that's different from totally changing the original meaning or feel of the source material. Plus, most updates don't work because the ideas expressed in the original do not fit with the "modern" setting. Examples: Godzilla (the lame Matthew Broderick one), Clueless (not that Jane Austen wasn't annoying to begin with), "Shakespeare's" Romeo + Juliet (as if they couldn't use a simple 'and' like the rest of us) and Treasure Planet (come on, pirates are so much cooler when they aren't cuddly robots) to name a few. One notable exception would be "O", based on Shakespeare's Othello. My point? If you are going to bother trying to re-make a movie, make it at least faithful to the original (unless the original sucks, as in the case of "Highlander". In that case, change it all you want.)

Well, this weekend has started to look better after hitting rock-bottom on Friday. Saturday, I went and visited my friend who was recovering from surgery, and it really made her day. Just knowing she was okay made my day, so I'd say it was a productive outing. Her parents were out, so I got to meet them. They are really nice people with a lot of interesting stories and such. Furthermore, they seemed to like me, which is always a relief. I hate being hated, as, I suspect, does the rest of the world. At any rate, I could tell that my friend was happy to see me. My old room-mate had this to say: When you make other people feel better, you feel better. I think he's right on this case, because just making her happier made me feel a lot better about myself and my day. I felt as though I could make a difference in somebody else's life, and that is something I often forget. It really reassured me of my value in the world to experience that. Somebody once told me that the best friends are the ones that inspire us to be better people, and my friend definitely fits into this category.