And She's Stone Cold!

That would describe Mother Nature right now. It's freakin' freezing out there right now, and I can't bring myself to actually go outside for any length of time. Vices is going okay, here's a few of the movies we've watched so far, with a brief review:

1. The Fountainhead. As many of you may or may not know, I despise Ayn Rand (the idiotic Pollyanna atheist and founder of the objectivist school of thought). I find her ideas insipid and ridiculously optimistic, indeed, groundlessly so. She goes on about how there is no God, but that there is an objective truth about human nature. While she borrows some elements of the Nietzschean master morality (i.e., emphasis on pride), she is unwilling to look at the inherent contradictions in her logic. I believe she had an insufficient experience of human depravity. For instance, she believes that all things should be done for their own sake, as intellectual exercises and such. Indeed, she blames all the horrors of the world on people conforming to the herd. While many horrors have resulted from such actions, she forgets such things as the Manhattan Project scientists, who engaged in the creation of the atomic bomb as just the sort of intellectual exercise she says is always blameless.
Philosophical beefs aside, I found the movie to be poorly written, with shoddy dialogue and wooden acting all around. While Rand attatches her name to the production as a screenwriter and producer, this is clearly not something to be proud of. Characters do not so much interact with one another as pontificate in long-winded disertations bearing little resemblance to normal human conversation. While such speech would be appropriate amongst fellows of a philosophical circle, they do not fit well when spoken by architects, heiresses, and media moguls in normal everyday discourse.

2. Dangerous Liasons. This movie reminded me of nothing so much as John Lovitt's old SNL "Tales of Ribaldry" sketches. An otherwise stellar cast was unfortunately marred by the presence of Keanu Reeves, who sticks out like a sore thumb. Seriously, he talks in the exact same way as he did in "Bill and Ted." It really ruins a moment when you could insert the phrase "Dude" at the end of dialogue intended to take place in seventeenth-century France. Other than that, it consisted of French aristocracy engaging in all sorts of sexual intrigue and the like. If this is all they ever did, no wonder the French Revolution was so popular. After seeing this movie, I had to fight the strange urge to head over to the guillotine myself and decapitate a few aristo's of my own. Or maybe just castrate them. The endless incest and anti-intellectualism just got on my nerves, really.

Back from Break, and it's about damned time

Well, it's been a nice break, and I'm now back at school. I guess I'll begin by giving a brief narrative of my time off, and then go do something fun.

Break began in a somewhat ignominious manner, as my attempt to drive home was delayed by the untimely closure of Snoqualmie Pass before I could get through it. This meant being stuck in the gods-forsaken town of Easton for about five or six hours with nothing to do. At any rate, I eventually made it home and happiness was spread all 'round. Then, on the 17th, I went to go see The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King with Kaley, a friend from my high school days. Needless to say, the movie rocked. A lot. I think that it was in fact the best installment in the trilogy. There were moments in which I cried, it was so awesome. I won't spoil it too much, as I think this is one of those cases where I've said all there is to say. Then, that Friday, my family and I left to go on a cruise in the Caribbean. This was quite enjoyable, as it provided an opportunity to escape the doldrums of western Washington in the winter. In my opinion, the only thing missing from this trip was a lovely lady. While there were quite a few attractive young women on board the ship, none of them expressed even the most remote interest in me, which does not help one's self-esteem, let me tell you. While I did meet a girl from Woodinville who went to UW, she turned out to be this incredibly shallow sorority girl who could think of nothing more interesting to talk about than alcohol, and had an unhealthy dislike of philosophical discourse. Thus, in that arena, it was most unsatisfying. However, I did manage to see some really cool sights and do some fun things. On our way back, I came down with a nasty cough. I've still not gotten completely over it, but it's better than it was. For New Years, I went to see ROTK again, this time with my family at the Cinerama, and liked it even more the second time through. After that, I went over to my friend Ethan's house, where he, Blake, Noel, his childhood friend Adam, and I hung out for some time. When all were gathered, we went over to the Guild 45 to see Big Fish, Tim Burton's most recent film. I must say, it was quite enjoyable and highly recommend it to all. It had moments of wonderful humor, and also touching drama. And, as it was a Tim Burton film, there were more than a few incredibly fantastic visual images. I swear, that guy's a genius. After the movie, we hung out for a bit back at the house, debating what to do. We finally decided to walk the three miles to the U-District, where we watched the fireworks and ensuing smoke-cloud around the Space Needle from a convenient freeway overpass. We then walked back, as Blake fell into a hypoglycemic state. Sometimes, I think he's most entertaining when he's on the verge of death. He was fine after ingesting some cake and apple juice, thankfully, so we made it back without further incident. We then spent the rest of the night watching cartoons. In the morning, we woke up late and had a nice hot breakfast cooked by Ethan's mom, who is a damn fine cook. After breakfast, Ethan and Adam got it into their heads that it would be really fun to go polar bearing in Lake Washington. I didn't have anything to do, so I went with them and watched them spend time in the cold water. Then we went back and sipped hot chocolate while reading funny books and watching funny things on the internet. By the end of the day, we were bushed. I got back home, and hit the sack, as I was still coughing quite wretchedly. It snowed for the rest of break, and it was bone-chillingly cold when I left to go back to school yesterday. However, as we crossed the mountains, it was clear that it was only getting colder. Indeed, yesterday in Spokane, it was about -2 in the evening, and it got down to about -5 in the morning. It was at this point that I decided that the phrase "ass cold" needed to be stricken from the cultural lexicon. After all, a healthy ass is a toasty 98.9 degrees farenheit, and can therefore not be used to accurately discuss cold. Cold and ass have nothing to do with one another.