Darren Aronofsky has gone and done it again. (Requiem for a Dream, Pi) This movie was absolutely breathtaking, and it’s one of the finest movies to come out of Hollywood in a really, really long time.  Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz made an exceptional career move when they snagged up their roles in this movie, despite the studio dropping it once before with no guarantee of continuing to the end. Running a mere 96 min, the movie flew by, and I wish there had been more to it- but the story was told well, and there was plenty of time in which to do so. I would also like to note that regardless of the beautiful graphics, only one scene was CG, the rest was done using micro-photography of chemical reactions on tiny petri dishes. Aronofsky wanted it to “stand the test of time”- and it will do just that. I would recommed this movie to anyone who enjoyed, “Everything is Illuminated”, “Requiem for a Dream”, and “Timeline”.

Someone delightful kindly added me as a friend on flickr, though I’m not really sure how they stumbled across my photos or why she chose to add me, but her photos are completely and utterly stunning. She’s my age, merely twenty years old, and her photography is breath-taking.  She’s studying photography at a university in Ohio, but they have her studying abroad in Rome right now- and just, go look. They are fabulous.  But because she added me, it looks like one of her friends added me as well- one from India and the other from Japan.  All the photos are really incredible- the one’s of Japan make me homesick and those of India make me hopeful of homes to come. Please take a moment to view some of them, as they truly are incredible.  

I’m constantly amazed at how often Jei and Rue play Unreal Tournament in the bedroom until three, four, sometimes even seven in the morning and I don’t even wake up at all.  I remember being a light sleeper, and I remember waking every night at three am on the dot, and now that all seems to be a lifetime ago.  I mean, we were talking about it today, and I’ve only known them for ten months, but it just seems like so much longer.

In other news, I worked on my livejournal a lot today, having made it friends only a few days ago- I spent a lot of time editing every permission on each post.  But overall, I’m happy with the effect, the images, the layout, etc.  I have the LJ Crosspost on, so those of you LJers that have been pestering me to update, now I update in one place and you get to see it too! : )

Also, I received my first official spam comment today:

“Art Education Theatre on November 21st, 2006

Dave… Interesting topic… I’m working in this industry myself and I don’t agree about this in 100%, but I added your page to my bookmarks and hope to see more interesting articles in the future…”

Oh boy, I guess it begins.

Jealousy is a despicable emotion; it turns even the most respectable of people into a repulsive, mangled, mess- shadows of who they were. It’s a poor medium to secure love but a secure medium to destroy one’s self-respect. Jealous people, like dope-fiends, stoop to the lowest level and in the end inspire only disgust and loathing. Now, the word “jealousy” is often used as if it were synonymous with envy; but I think there’s a distinction worth preserving: jealousy is predominantly concerned with the fear of loss of something one possesses, envy with the wish to own something another possesses. Or maybe jealousy is the fear that you do not have value, scanning for evidence to prove the point - that others will be preferred or rewarded more than you. There is only one alternative - self-value. If you cannot love yourself, you will not believe that you are loved, always mistaking it for luck. Take your eyes off others and turn the scanner within and find the seeds of your jealousy, clear the old voices and experiences, and put all the energy into building your personal and emotional security. Then you will be the one others envy, and you can remember the pain and reach out to them.

So I’m thinking that the Thanksgiving dinner plans will be Haricot casserole, mashed potatoes, carrots, and pumpkin pie. With Tyler being vegetarian we had all decided to make dinner as murder-free as possible, which is fine because cooking and stuffing a turkey is absolutely horrifying for me, and I’ve been pondering what entree would go best with mashed potatoes.  Because you can’t go without mashed potatoes. Period. So, with that said and done, it looks like the rest is gravy.

 PS. I would also like to thank everyone who commented in the last entry about what to do with my plaid wonderbaby, and it’s sort of turned into a really odd creative spawning.  I’ll leave the comments open for the next few days and see who can come up with the most creative way to use the plaid book of destiny. Good luck and thanks again!