Shape, shift, and trick

Warning: Scott Pilgrim related song overanalysis

I think I just found out why I enjoy Brie Larson's version of Black Sheep, originally played by Metric, and I'm going to explain it to you because why else are you here for? Seriously, what are you doing here?

Anyway, the reasoning behind my preference towards the movie version instead of the original is mostly based on the singers. Now I absolutely have no problem whatsoever with Emily Haines. She is successful for a reason, and she's attractive as well.

But Brie Larson's portrayal as Envy Adams on stage was just spot on (the acting is a different story I'll get into some other time). Her singing, in comparison to Emily Haines', sounds and feels a bit more seductive and provocative, which perfectly embodies Envy Adams as a character. She's supposed to be the sexy superstar everybody admires and wants to be. She's a perfect ten on the scale of fives, and she knows it. On the other hand, Emily Haines has a smoother voice layered with probably the smallest amount of autotune. It sounds great, but it's not Envy.

The other thing I will applaud Brie Larson for is her performance on stage. She wasn't over-the-top crazy, but she had fun and was presentable. The only live performance I ever saw of Metric was when they performed Black Sheep in Comicon (I think) where Emily Haines was seemingly drunk, head-banging to a beat that didn't exist.

Once again, I'll say that this post is by no means a dig on Metric. From the other songs I've heard from them, I can confidently say that they're talented and I owe them my firstborn for creating a song as good as Black Sheep. I'll even admit that their version is probably superior music-wise. But, in terms of trying to emulate Envy and the Clash at Demonhead, that's when Brie Larson and the others have the advantage.

[Will probably tear this whole tangent off and articulate more on it in a new blog post]
Admittedly, this whole post is incredibly biased. I love the movie, and I had very many sexy encounters with the books. I obviously would gravitate towards the song that represents more of what I am interested in. It's also good to note that Envy is one of my favorite secondary characters in the comics (Infinite Sadness was my favorite one of the series). Her rise to fame was simultaneous to her "fall from grace" in Scott's perspective, leading to the breakup of their relationship and the band itself. Her introduction brought a kind of "reality" into the whole story. It wasn't the cookie cutter comedic hijinks that Bryan Lee O'Malley could've easily went with. Rather, he was bold enough to infuse this complicated storyline while being able to create some humor and action into the book, balancing all of them with perfect precision. It's not just boy meets girl while people laugh. It's much, much more than that.
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Holy shit I need a life.

Hello again!: The Sequel

I have about seven saved drafts in here that I can maybe post right now, but screw all of that.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is on TV right now, and holy shit it just cannot be overstated how much I love this movie.

DAMN. THIS MOVIE IS SO GREAT. I WANT TO PUNCH THE MOON.

We got a long ways to go

I have been figuratively swamped with work lately. It's hard to juggle track practice, school, alien hunting, and procrastination into one day, so I really haven't had time to touch a computer that isn't for typing a fucking eleven page trigonometry project for five fucking hours. But enough about that.

I want to talk about 50/50 and, Jesus Christ, what can I say? I'm sorry Drive, but you have been supplanted as my favorite movie of 2011. It's not a masterpiece or a classic, but it sure is a hell of a movie.

The premise is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets hit by cancer out of nowhere. The movie follows him trying to deal with the sudden illness along with his best friend Seth Rogen, his girlfriend, his cancer buddies, his smothering mother, his sick dad, and his therapist Anna Kendrick (who played Stacey Pilgrim in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World!).

I can't recommend this movie enough. They have successfully made the film funny without resorting to low brow cancer related jokes. It's genuinely hilarious, but that doesn't mean that it's lacking it the drama. The fifteen to twenty minutes were just absolutely heartbreaking, and that comes the part in where you won't be able to take a break from crying in the last scene since the next scene drops a bigger bombshell than the last.

People absolutely need to watch this. It's superbly done, well acted, and filmed greatly. Even the score was spectacular. Just a very good movie to watch. I'll give it four crappy paintings out of five.

Hello again!

Been busy for awhile. Track, school play, preparation for the AP test, getting sick, and a social life does not mix very well, especially in a span of a week and a half.

But, that's not very interesting. I'm just here to seek an artist who can use his wizardry to conjure me a magical wallpaper for this very blog. I don't care if it's sunshine and rainbows or a puppy drinking itself out of its misery. As long as it's good, I'll take it.

I repay in sexual favors. Good luck!

If you like serious crap, you'll love this!

Back in the day, I used to wish to become a soldier. They were considered as heroes by thousands, and they were commended by strangers on the street for their selfless acts on the front lines. Plus, I get to shoot people without any consequences! It was like a zombie apocalypse, without all the survival and emotional ties towards the people you're against.

My dad always pushed for it. He himself dreamed of being enlisted as a soldier to continue his father's legacy in his time during World War II. But, due to lack of sufficient money, my dad never got past a high school diploma, erasing his chances of becoming a soldier.

I always thought that his proudest moment of me was when I announced to the family back then that I wanted to become part of the military. He wanted to fulfill his sole dream through me, so he pushed and pushed me to become his ideal soldier. He signed me up for multiple sports activities such as basketball and football. He also tried to get me into boot camp, despite being deep in debt at the time.

Since I was still young and fully ignorant at the time, I didn't mind his enthusiasm. I would have loved to be part of the military to finally get him to be proud of me for something, anything. But, two things recently occurred that transformed my entire perspective and made me doubt my previous decision:

Cracked.com is a comedy website that's filled with obscure facts and little known stories. They excel in destroying previously known beliefs through the use of scientific facts and jokes about their penises. They also have a group of full time columnists whose job is to make at least one column per week about any subject they wish.

During the end of 2011, eight of the columnists constructed a 64 item list about eight subjects in which they told something about their top pick and why. David Wong, the chief editor, picked Portal 2 as his game of the year (which I absolutely agree with and will probably be something I will talk about some other time). He opened up his reasoning by explaining that trying to reach for better graphics is completely superfluous today:

"Hey, video game industry, what are you going to do when you can't make any more meaningful advances in graphics? I've been asking you this for like seven years now, because we're pretty much there. The next generation of game hardware will be all about taking us through that last 1 percent of photorealism, and I have to tell you, it's a gap that's not worth filling.

Remember, you need to keep at least a little bit of uncanny valley in your video games. I need to still feel good about shooting these dudes on the screen. I want the enemy soldiers to look like real video game people, not real people people. I don't want to look into the face of a victim and see their hopes and dreams die, the light going out of their eyes as they realize they will never again hug their wife and kids on Christmas. So, yeah, you can pretty much stop where you are."

I recommend reading the rest of the article here.

While I enjoyed a good laugh out of it, the last paragraph in particular stuck to me. Even though I enjoyed barbarically murdering people in video games, I never thought of translating it to real life. For some reason, I thought that playing hundreds hours of Battlefield and Call of Duty would be enough for me to gauge the brutality of warfare.

I never tried to imagine what I would do in a situation where I face a man pleading for his life in the midst of battle when before he ran out of ammo, he was shooting at everybody in sight. I never tried to imagine if I would end this man's life or let him continue on, opening up the entirely plausible scenario of him stabbing me in the back once I turned around. I never tried to imagine if I even had the guts to take away somebody's life while erasing any possibility of letting him continue his future plans of proposing to a girl he loved, visiting a sickly mother, or going on a trip around the world with his best friend.

That was when I decided that I could bring myself to be part of the military.

Ahaha

Hahahaha, oh man. Remember when I said I was going to do this for thirty days straight? Good times. Just speaks about my dedication on things. Anyway, I'm still not giving up. I'll just make it all up by making three blog posts today four the next day as much as I can for the next few days.

This doesn't count as one, by the way, so don't fret Google [Bot]! You can still count on this blog to skim through for keywords on search engines. I won't fail you.

That time of the year

It's that time of the year again: the time when guys and gals in sweet embrace clog the hallways to us lonely weirdos that have to get to class. I can't say I dislike the 14th; it's a time when I see a lot of people at their happiest at the same time. Giving gifts and exchanging cards like it's a Christmas song, they profess to their dearest their affection through a shower of overpriced chocolate and cheesy Hallmark cards.

I also can't say that I'm not jealous of them either. I mean, unless you absolutely despise the thought of human comfort, it's only natural to feel envious of people that have the luxury of sharing it with somebody. I have two friends who had been going out for approximately six years. While meritorious in itself, it's even more commendable to their commitment that their parents are strictly opposed to them being together. "Star-crossed lovers", as Shakespeare described their dilemma. 

I've helped them get through their troubles by trying to figure out ways on how to quell the tension between the conflicted parties, distract their parents as they try to meet each other for a few seconds, and even acting as a look out for passersby that have a chance of catching them together. I wouldn't hesitate to help who I consider my two best friends again if the moment presents itself. I can feel the joy they get by just seeing each other face to face for mere moments instead of the cloak-and-dagger practices they employ to continue communication. It's almost addicting, yet the feeling of sorrow is always present. Their happiness always stings, as if it was a mockery of something I couldn't have.

Then I met somebody around eight months ago (I counted to make sure). From the moment her and I talked, it was easy. I didn't feel the usual insecurities I felt when talking to somebody I never met before. It was just a go ahead swing from the batter's box (what a terrible metaphor). Since we were both strangers that didn't even think about the possibility of hooking up, we were free to be truthful to each other. I readily told her my stories as a part time bodybuilder, ninja, and fresco artist while she captivated me with stories about her occasional werewolf hunting on the weekends.

As time went on by, the relationship then started to tread into serious levels, finally reaching marriage. Granted, it was in a MMORPG I barely played, but it was very symbolic, mind you.

But then, misunderstandings started to plague us. During a tough episode in my life, my behavior started to change for the worse. Irrational envy began to grow in me, which led to some petty misgivings on completely innocent people. Then, events took a turn for the worse that eventually led to me practically shutting out everybody that tried to communicate, including her. In hindsight, this was objectively one of the worst decisions I could have possibly made. I entirely acted on emotional impulse and did not think of the ramifications that could develop from my illogical move.

The whole point of this entry is to express my sincerest apology for being an irrational dick out of nowhere. It wasn't right of me to shut you out because of matters that didn't even affect you. It isn't justifiable for me to claim to be "compromised by emotions". It's a terribly lazy excuse to even be thought of.

Now I hardly think that it'll be that easy for me to get back to the way things were before. I'm a realist, and I hope that at the very least that we can still be friends. I'd hate to actually lose who I'd consider to be my closest confidant for the past several months.

So yeah. I remember promising you a sign way back then, and I inexcusably never got to make one. So, for the past two to three days, I've been practicing my sketches so I can finally transcend the "stick figure" level and actually make a somewhat barely comprehensible sign:

I know you said it wasn't your thing to be all emotional and stuff, so I'm sorry for that one as well. I just hope you take the time to consider my apology. Good night and Happy Valentines day, you.