#225

Hello all.

I have slowly found myself in such a strange sleeping pattern. Even if I get up at a reasonable hour, I still cannot go to bed anywhere near a normal time. Let me put it this way, think about the latest hour you think I stay up until, then add two hours to that number. It is getting pretty ridiculous. Fortunately, I am using that time to catch up on Dexter (impossible to start an episode and not immediately follow it by watching two more episodes) and watching movies. I will probably wrap up Season 3 tomorrow or Wednesday and then move on to Season 4. Love that damn show.

Upset to say that there is still no news on Derek Lowe. There’s a good deal amount of speculation out there, but I would kill to hear some news before Christmas. It has been an incredibly fun baseball offseason thus far. Falcons pulled out a miracle victory in New York on Sunday, one down and two to go to rid our franchise of the curse of not having back-to-back winning seasons. That should not be too hard considering they are closing out the year with Buffalo at home and the dismal Buccaneers on the road. I am going to try and update this blog with my team’s standings from time-to-time, just because it a) helps me out to remember where all of my teams stand and b) let you guys in on what teams actually are my teams. All of the pictures are taken from ESPN.com

My Flyers and Thrashers

What do I even say about the Flyers? Losing four straight and they are not only the second worst team in the Conference but also the second worst team in the league. Thrashers have looked decent to good most of the year, I am excited to see how they do as the season progresses.

Atlanta Hawks

Hawks have looked great for most of the season, I hope to see some steady improvement but overall I could not be happier with the way they are playing.

Atlanta Falcons

Sitting right at .500. All I want is for them to reach 9 wins (suppose that’s all that I can hope for after Dallas’ victory in New Orleans on Saturday sealed our fate.

Holy hell, did I really not put my last.fm stats from this week up? I am so behind on everything.

I think I have officially given every album I wanted to consider for my end of the year lists a proper listen, so I will be working on that this week. I should have plenty of time seeing as how it has been impossible to find any shifts this week at work. My playlist for this week is very simple: Quadrophenia and Hey Mercedes discography. That’s it for now, I am going back to Dexter and hopefully to bed soon.

Thank you for reading.

#224

Hello all.

Sorry about the lack of updates, I have been sort of taking a “pre-vacation” vacation, meaning that I am not doing much leading up to my upcoming trip. We are so close to the end of the year it is crazy, with any luck, I will have my year end list for music done by Christmas and will post it here. I would not expect to have one done for films until around the second week of January and I want to have an attempt at a decade list sometime next year.

Surprisingly, after I finished with school (which is official now that I have my grades back!), I have been flying through films. I had a rough list of about thirty to thirty-five movies I wanted to try and watch by the start of January and I may actually knock out a good percentage of those. Most of these are from this year or from 2000 (for the other site’s project). I have had a blast so far being away from school, but come January when I am not going back for the first time I think I will begin to miss it.

I have been slowly working on a new budget for 2010. It will be a complete shift from the one I have been using for the last two years and I am actually having a good bit of fun with it. I am interested to see how well it holds up with the previous one.

That’s it for now, I will quit boring you all. I want to go see Avatar tonight or tomorrow but it isn’t looking good. Unfortunately, I am not dying to see it like others but I still think it’s a must-see (we owe it to Cameron and I want to see how “revolutionary” it really is). I haven’t posted my thoughts on a recent movie in awhile, I need to do that. The same goes for TV shows.

Thank you for reading.

#223

Hello all.

This should mark a long stretch of posts to come seeing that I am now officially done with school. The last two weeks were rough, but in hindsight, not nearly as bad as I expected and well worth it. I spent the weekend mostly working and taking it easy today. The Falcons lost a tough game today, but they hung in there with an undefeated team and gave a great showing. The sad news is that the Falcons now have to win out in order to have their first EVER back-to-back winning seasons. Thankfully those last three game are against the decent Jets followed by the terrible Bills and Bucs. Here’s hoping they make it happen.

It’s Sunday so here is my last.fm wrap up of the week (no picture, my laptop is in the other room and I honestly do not feel like getting up).

1 Murder by Death 65
2 The Good Life 44
2  The Dead Weather 44
4 The Who 43
5 Andrew Bird 38
6 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 36
7 The Mercury Program 34
8 Manchester Orchestra 18
9 Deerhunter 5
10 The Gaslight Anthem 4

Strange week music-wise but this week’s playlist will be even stranger because I am attempting to have a End of the Year List for music done by the time I leave for PA on Saturday. So this week’s playlist has a bunch of music that I have either a) been meaning to give a listen or b) albums from earlier in the year that are contending for one of the Top Five spots. I could not be more excited about the vacation and then I come home to my brother and sister being home and then Christmas. This will be a great month and I intend to close out the year in the best possible way.

I saw Up in the Air on Saturday and it was hands down the best movie I have seen this year. I would be exceptionally shocked if it does not ultimately end up as my favorite film of 2009. I am excited for the weeks to come film-wise with Avatar coming out this weekend and then coming home to a bounty of Christmas releases. Alright, enough rambling. Everyone have a good start to the week and thank you for reading!

#222

Hello all.

I have been sitting here for the last two hours slowly working my way back through my Computer Science book and I need a damn break. The other site was without an update today unfortunately. In my defense, it is not only finals week but it is also my final finals week. I will be working diligently throughout tonight and tomorrow night and I hope to catch a couple of breaks in-between to write a couple of solid posts. The year is gone. Today is 8th (damn near the 9th), before we know it, Christmas will be here and the New Year will soon follow. It is absolutely bizarre to think that this year is even close to being over.

I have been making some headway on my end of the year lists for music. I won’t even start thinking about my lists for movies until the first of the new year, if not later. I think I have a good rough list for top ten and I am thinking about expanding it to a top fifteen to take away honorable mentions. Last year, I only made a top five, which only means that a) this has been a much better year for music or b) I have been actively expanding my listening habits. I would most likely conclude that it’s a combination of the two.

After I get through Thursday, assuming I get through Thursday, I intend to sit down and write out some goals. I would like to set out where exactly I want to be in the near future. I have to start considering switching jobs/adding another job. There’s no way I can have that much idle time each week. I will miss school for reasons beyond learning about things that I care about (philosophy/film), I will also miss it because it has been a great use of time over the last few years. I have to find something to fill that void. We’ll see. For now, I am back to studying. I hope everyone is having a great week.

Thank you for reading.

#221

Hello all.

It’s Sunday, which means time for a good day full of football and hopefully some studying later on as to the fact that my finals start on Tuesday. I have had sort of an interesting week, probably the toughest I had throughout undergrad. I got through it, and have had a couple good days at work followed by yesterday’s decently entertaining day of football. I would have loved to see Nebraska pull it through, that Suh is one hell of a football player and he will be a great goddamn player at the pro level. Not to mention that both the Hawks and Thrashers won, and I am hoping that the Falcons can pull it through today. I will quit rambling.

I have been on such a huge Nick Cave kick after seeing The Road, absolutely wonderful stuff. This week’s playlist include his Let Love in, The Who’s Tommy, The Good Life’s Black Out, and The Dead Weather’s Horehound. That’s it for now, time to go take a shower and get ready for the game.

Thank you for reading!

#220

Hello all.

November

311. Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper, 1982)
312. 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)
313. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
314. Beau Travail (Claire Denis, 1999)
315. Year One (Harold Ramis, 2009)
316. The American Nightmare (Adam Simon, 2000)
317. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
318. Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer, 2009)
319. The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (Neal Brennan, 2009)
320. Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)
321.The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976)
322. Alice in Wonderland (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, & Hamilton Luske, 1951)
323. Don’t Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)
324. The Men Who Stare at Goats (Grant Heslov, 2009)
325. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
326. Cache (Michael Haneke, 2005)
327. Underground (Emir Kusturica, 1995)
328. Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)
329. Funny People (Judd Apatow, 2009)
330. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)
331. In the Mood for Love (Kar Wai Wong, 2000)
332. Up (Pete Docter, 2009)
333. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
334. Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)
335. My Name is Nobody (Tonino Valerii, 1973)
336. Roger Dodger (Dylan Kidd, 2002)
337. Up (Pete Docter, 2009)
338. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
339. Gamer (Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor, 2009)
340. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963)
341. The General (John Boorman, 1998)
342. Adaptation (Spike Jonze, 2002)
343. The Road (John Hillcoat, 2009)
344. The Brothers Solomon (Bob Odenkirk, 2007)

Thirty-four films this month, which means I am only twenty-one shy of my goal for the year. I could go crazy and make a serious push at hitting four hundred but I highly doubt it, especially now that I am starting in on a few new TV shows (Curb Your Enthusiasm and Breaking Bad). I have been writing numerous lists lately, ones on TV shows I’d like to watch, directors I’d like to explore (for the other site, Cherished Cinema), and upcoming playlists.

Just took a brutal exam and have a really rough two nights ahead of me. I am going to go eat lunch and write the final entry into the “Films That Made Me Love Film” project. I hope everyone is having a nice day. Thank you for reading!

p.s. I am running on no sleep so hopefully this makes sense.