A Monster Among Us

A year without your smile. A year without your laugh. A year without your warmth. A year without your love. A year without my brother. A year without my friend.

A year.
I cant even think about it; how much I miss you. What I wouldn’t give just to have one last conversation with you, just to hear the sound of your voice. I just want to hear you laugh again, and I want you to know that I love you. You made a horrible mistake and it cost you your life. I can’t even begin to describe my anger and frustration, but above all that is a numbing emptiness. I feel like a shell, a husk. I’m empty. Lost in a crowd of strangers.

Maybe I wasn’t always there for you. Maybe I tried to push you away because we believed in different things. Maybe I wasn’t a good big brother. But I always loved you. You were always the person I wanted to see at the end of the day. You were my little brother. You were my best friend.

What I wouldn’t give to switch places with you. You had so much going for you. You had so much potential. And it is gone. You had so much more to give. Not a day goes by that I wish it was me, that you are still here.

It’s been a rough year without you.

I just hope that where ever you are, you are happy and you are loved.

Evan

All’s quiet, except for this song.
So maybe while I’m not together I can feel like I’m not alone.
And somewhere off in the distance, rapidly advancing, is an onslaught of sorts.
Young sirens wail in a skewed sense of glory.
And the lions in the cages roar at the memory of fight.

And there’s a joy, a joy in all I can see.
A joy, in every possibility.

And all around us is a great, great failing.
American rockets red-glare in a most
disgusting triumph.
And in passing I am asked “Do you believe in a God?”,
I shrug off the answer, continue to get high
in this terror of no explanation.
I am looking for a faith.
My panic is an only reason.

There’s a joy, a joy in all I can see.
A joy, in every possibility.

Warming you up on a gloomy Monday morning.

The 6 Best Dresses At The Golden Globes

Shout out to The Onion for reminding us that there are more important things to be worried about than what celebrities are wearing.

(via carnahan)

I’m too spooky. I only talked a total of maybe 200 words today. And the day before. And the day before that. I’m too spooky to talk to.

Curse these chains. I’m riding trains. Spooky scary skeleton filled trains. On my computer.

So last night before bed I chugged a liter of chocolaty goodness. Worst. Decision. Ever. I had possibly the most garish nightmares I’ve ever experienced. Lucid nightmares. Believable nightmares. One pretty much made me cry in my sleep, I woke up with tears in my eyes.

I had dreamed that my best friend and I were walking around campus in between classes, and mid-sentence she just dropped dead. She had an aneurysm. Of course, having gone through a string of incidences recently, I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming. It felt so real. Ever detail, every person who would be there was there. Everything from dropping flowers at her house, talking with her parents and talking with my other friends. It was real. What was even weirder was that when I woke up, I wasn’t in my bed and I was wearing different pajamas than I was when I went to be yesterday. That freaked my right the fuck out. I must have been sleep walking (something I’ve never done before- I am usually a log when I sleep), and done all that while asleep. Who does that? I purposely fucked with my own mind. I was terrified when I woke up. Oh man.

Short post: My favourite movies this past year. NOT ones that I felt were the most amazing, jaw-dropping, or life-changing moments in cinema; but rather just the movies that I found highly enjoyable- myfavourites

1) DREDD

It’s awesome okay?

2) The Cabin in The Woods

Possibly the smartest thing since… well, I have no analogy because nothing matches it. If you are a fan of horror (specifically 80s to mid 90s), this is the thing for you.

3) Django Unchained

Tarantino. Blood. Guns. Acting. Writing.

4) MoonriseKingdom/ Safety Not Guaranteed

Wes Anderson. No one else makes a movie like he does. Delightful.

Just, go see it. okay? You’ll see why.

5) Silver Linings Playbook

Good acting. Good script. Just a fun movie.

6) CloudAtlas

It took a lot of criticism because many thought it was bloated and some of the acting was maybe too much. But I fond the movie amazing. Refreshing. Although independently made (the most expensive indie movie ever made), it still shows that some form of hollywood was willing to take a chance and try something new. And for the most part it works out amazingly well. It is at one moment grand and over arching, and at the next small and personal. My personal segment was theLetters from Zedelghem part. Really worth the 3 hour investment.

7) Frankenweenie / The Raid: REDEMPTION


Tim Burton makes maybe his best film to date in this stop motion tale of a boy and his dog. Charming, poignant and very Burton, Frankenweenie gave me all sorts of feels.

The raid is just friggin awesome. It’s Dredd plus martial arts beat-downs.

8) ParaNorman

Maybe not quite as amazing as Coraline, but ParaNorman is yet another example that not all animated moves need to be for little kids and that not all adult movies need be political thrillers. ParaNorman is made with such fine detail that multiple viewings are required just to fully appreciate everything within it. And above all else, it is FUN.

9)The Avengers

Team-up movie done right. It never forgot itself in being too serious, it never tried to be anything it wasn’t. It was fun. It had the HULK SMASHING SHIT! HOLY BALLS NERD BONERS WERE EVERYWHERE.

10) The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Well acted. Heartfelt. Touching. Awesome soundtrack.

Others that I thoroughly enjoyed but m too lazy to order in anyway:

- Skyfall (the least Bondy-Bond film while still trying to be a bond film. Still kicked ass)
- The Hunger Games. AKA the twilight slayer. AKA young reader books that are good.
- Lincoln. SOMEONE INVENTED A TIME MACHINE AND YANKED ABE LINCOLN OUT OF THE PAST. Seriously, Daniel Day Lewis is the man. But the last 10 minutes depicting his death were unneeded and it was a rather slow moving picture (as most historical biopics are).
- Wreck-it Ralph. Nerdy video game goodness that just fell short with going into typical cliché kids movie for the last bit.
- Rise of the Guardians. Fun animated adventure, great detail, lots of fun. Brought out the kiddy good vibes from deep within this hallowed man-child.
-Argo. Really well-made movie, but more of the same political intrigue and real life stuff. I get that it is a harrowing depiction of real events, but I have just seen enough.
- Pitch Perfect. Imagine if the tv show GLEE were actually good. And funny. And Anna Kendrick was in it. Yeah. Awesome right?
- Life of Pi. The visuals were amazing. The story is good, but better left on page for the simple reason that a lot of the subtext allusions and morals didn’t transition as well onto the screen.
- Pirates! Band of Misfits. Goddamn Aardman. So detailed, so good, so much fun.
-Chronicle. Doing the “Found Footage” genre proud. A surprising February release for such a well-crafted flick.
- The Grey. Liam Neeson vs Wolves. ut really a tale of survival and courage. Very very very well crafted.
- Looper. The prosthetics. Creepy; but well acted and well made.

THE MOVIES THAT SOME PEOPLE LOVED AND THOUGHT WERE THE GREATEST SHIT EVER BUT I COULD CARELESS ABOUT AND AM ASHAMED I PAYED MONEY TO SEE THEM

1) THE DARK KNIGHT RISES- I laughed. I laughed when I shouldn’t have. Bane was sick, but the stupidity of some parts was just… like wtf. Take the bags of their heads before you get on the plane, see who they are. How did Bruce Wayne get back to Gotham? He’s one of the most famous people ever, wouldn’t someone have seen him in his transport from the pit of 100 trials to Gotham? Wasn’t Gotham in lock-down? Don’t give me shit about “OMG who cares, he’s Bruce Wayen, he does what he wants,” because that shit don’t work. Does he need to talk in that voice when there is no one around? Really? Why did they send ALL THE POLICE INTO THE TUNNELS? WHO IS THAT DUMB? HOW DID BRUCE WAYNE RECOVER FROM BREAKING HIS BACK IN DAYS? FUCK ME. It took itself way too seriously and when you think about it, it is a pretty silly movie (in my opinion).

2) THE MOTHER EFFING HOBBIT- Feeling more like an extended edition of the Lord Of the Rings, the Hobbit’s pacing issues made it almost unwatchable. This is a bit unfair. I saw it twice, two nights in a row. The first time I saw it, I was confused, there was no way it was like this. The second time I was just kind of frustrated. It had a very jaunty pace, explosive action followed by long segments of nothing. That, or Peter Jackson took every chance he got to tell people that this leads into the Lord of The Rings. Needless things that were just thrown in the say, “HEY GUYS! I MADE THE LORD OF THE RINGS. YOU LIKED THOSE. REMEMBER? WELL THIS COMES BEFORE THE LORD OF THE RINGS BUT WERE ARE MAKING IT AFTER SO YOU WILL KNOW WHAT ALL THIS STUFF I’M THROWING AT YOU REMINDS YOU OF.” Or something like that. And THREE MOVIES? From a book the same size as each of the Lord of the Rings? You could tell they were really trying to stretch it out. At almost 3 hours long, the movie certainly slows to a snail’s pace on more than one occasion (see any parts with elves; oh god the elves). Oh, and the awkward longingly homo-erotic looks Gandalf gives Bilbo. I know that Ian McKellen is homosexual, and that’s fine by me, but Gandalf wasn’t as far as I know and it just looked… awkward…

Rant/Review time

So, as you may or may not know, last Tuesday was Christmas. And in the tradition of Christmas, or so I understand it, we buy material gifts for one an other in hopes of either staying in each other’s good-graces or actually expressing some form of likeness toward someone but can’t outwardly say it because we suck at talking. And because everybody likes having new stuff.

Wait, what?

Anyway, one of the many amazing gifts I got this year was Paper Mario Sticker Star. Now, I must say, I am a huge Paper Mario fan. I’ve logged so many hours on the N64 when it first came out and I literally wore-out my first GameCube simply by playing The Thousand Year Door so much. I was immersed in the hilarious spot-on, cheeky writing, the delightful and colourful characters and environments, and the amazing turn-based rpg-style combat. One of the best parts about the Paper Mario series were the delightfully fun and rewarding battles. The Thousand Year Door had the whole battle play out like Mario were on a grand stage, playing before a crazed mushroom kingdom audience.

And then Super Paper Mario came and just kind of… meh. The game itself was alright. The controls were tight, the writing was witty and gleefully funny as any of the past installments… but it just wasn’t nearly as fun. The partner “pixls” were pretty lame. Lacking the imaginative designs and fun personalities of the previous two titles. They had their one-liners as they came out of their chests but because they were just tools used in a paltformer, they lost all the personality within the game because they were not used in any battles.

Being that there were no battles means that there were no collecting badges. That’s one of the things I really enjoyed about Paper Mario and TTYD; the feeling of scouring every world looking for that special badge that could make you into an unstoppable power-house. It just was more fun than a linear-game. If I wanted that I could just pick up any of my hand-held Mario titles and buzz through some levels. It was severely lacking in replay value- there was no point because you couldn’t try different level schemes or badge combinations.Instead of having your partners and upgrading your boots and hammers, you were able to switch between Mario, Bowser, Peach and Luigi. That was alright, I mean, Peach wasn’t completely useless as she usually is in other Mario Titles (although, some of here missions in the previous Paper Mario titles were pretty fun and she wasn’t useless in those titles; one thing that was such a welcome change from regular Mario Titles). Yet it still wasn’t as rewarding as finding new boots and hammer to use in your adventure. Bowser was ridiculously overpowered. Peach was even more useless because you never really had to use her. It was just… why bother?

And that comes to Paper Mario Sticker Star.

It is just… I can’t even.

Like almost any Mario title, it is still a pretty good game. But it just seems… so bleh. It tries to bring back the turn-based system by use of it’s main gimmick- you guessed it- stickers. Stickers replace your partners, your badges and any upgrades to your hammer of your boots. In returning to turn-based gameplay; Nintendo took out what was the most fun of the turn-based style of play. No rewards for the battle, no experience gained, no level-ups, no anything really. Maybe the odd sticker afterward? It’s like, why re-instate the turn-based system but just put it in for the hell of it? Just to frustrate you? You waste all your stickers fighting some dude, and that’s it. Nothing gained. I like the turn-based system, it still pretty fun, but it is just pointless. True, some of the battles in the previous Paper Mario titles could start to feel repetitive after a while- say when you aren’t getting any star-points - but this just seemed repetitive very quickly.

 And one of the other main gripes I have is that there is just no direction. It is very unclear as to what you are supposed to do at many points in the game. So you are supposed to use a goat to eat some trash? What? You need to get this Thing from one level, turn it into a sticker someplace else, then go to another level, and figure out where to use it with little to no direction. It just fails so hard on directing players into what it wants it to do. Its fine if there is problem solving in a game, but there needs to be direction for the problem to even get started. I found myself on numerous occasions just wandering around between levels trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do. You have some crown sticker partner thing named Kersti who is supposed to offer advice, but often times it just makes things worse or she just doesn’t tell you anything. Some boss battles require that you have specific Thing Stickers to beat them (or that they make the fight that much easier), but it is never really hinted at that you are supposed to use that Thing you just picked up (you have to leave the level, turn the Thing into the sticker, go back, restart the level). It is just dumb and annoying. I was often more frustrated than happy while playing the game.

This dumb piece of expletives.

Nintendo, seriously, I appreciate the fact that you are trying something new, that you are testing the waters and not making the same shooter over and over… Yet those shooters are no only some of the highest selling games, they also get some pretty high reviews. True, they pretty much release the same game every year, and people bemoan the fact that they are as such. But people still buy them. People still love them. Fanboys is a thing. 

Don’t stop innovation, but I am just getting frustrated that they are tinkering in some of the things that made the series special. What if Call of Duty took away their on-line multiplayer? Only allowed one perk ever? One gun? What would happen? It just seems that it would be wrong, wouldn’t it?

Sigh,

Incoherent rant… yup. Saturday nights, amiright???

Although Shy Guy Mariachi is best.