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Mar. 25th, 2002 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jchrisobrienI stayed up too late last night, drawn in by the Academy Awards spectacle. I didn't expect to be watching it; I'm not a big fan of awards shows. Lots of people patting each other on the back, mouthing the same platitudes over and over. But there I was, watching luminaries like Sydney Poitier receive awards, and was impressed. Halle Berry was especially touching to watch, her utter shock and surprise, as she made history. My personal favorite (LOTR) took home 4 Oscars, and I'm sure they will get some more honors when the whole series is complete. But even if they won nothing, they would still exist, and I'd be that much happier for having seen them. I'll have to break down and see some of these films. (Monster Ball, A Beautiful Mind, Training Day). Perhaps a return to the tradition of tracking down movies once a week and viewing them. I need a little variety in my hobbies.
I wrapped up my involvement in the Warhammer league with a loss and a win. I really lost my cool in one of the games, as I was getting screwed by other people's interpretations of the rules. I maintain that I was right, each time. My opponent was a bit frustrating too... and I realize that I'm still concerned about winning, perhaps too much so. My second game was brutal too, but a little more fun, since I pulled out a win. It was a close thing though... winning is becoming very important to me, more so than it used to. Even in venues where "winning" isn't usually an option, like role playing games or LARPs. It's becoming "which player can outsmart the other", as players try to prove how clever they are. It's fast becoming irritating, and my enthusiasms for it has plummeted. The desire to paint is still there, perhaps that will become the focus for now.
CouplingChaos and I watched Resident Evil on Sunday. It was a good movie for what it was: a homage to zombie flicks of old. The music was creepy (at least the non nu-rock parts), the general atmosphere was scary and slick, the acting was ... exactly what you'd expect. It was nice to see Michelle Rodriguez on the screen again, as well as Milla Jovanovich. I had to sleep with the light on to fend off zombie dreams. The downside of a fertile imagination is having vivid dreams, and it was likely they'd show up in my subconscious. The film was shot well enough that I expected the zombies to enter my dreams, and I didn't want to deal with that. Hell, it was bad enough having waking dreams of seeing Freddy Kreuger looking in my window when I was younger. Now that was creepy.
I still have moments of panic when I leave the basement, seeing hobgoblins out of the corner of my eye. Our basement is large and has many partitioned rooms, it's very similar to the one in "Silence of the Lambs" except there is no pit. This makes for a very creepy moment as you climb the stairs, because I always see a flash of something out of the corner of my eye. A Giger-esque alien, or a zombie, or your generic knife wielding serial killer. The steps out of the basement are steep and high, and it takes a long time to travel them, all the while thoughts of something lurking just behind me to pull me down into the darkness. It's real enough that my mind starts inserting sounds as I walk. Rather than turn around and face my phantom stalker, I've taken to fighting fiction with fiction: I imagine an aura of power that springs to life around me. Nothing can penetrate it, and anything that tries is incinerated in a back lash of energy. I usually turn at the top of the stairs to turn out the light, and look back finally at the dusty steps. I tell myself that the dust is all that remains of the zombies, the monsters, and that all is well. I pull the light switch, close the door, and walk back into reality.
Having a strong imagination can be a tool for good, too.
I wrapped up my involvement in the Warhammer league with a loss and a win. I really lost my cool in one of the games, as I was getting screwed by other people's interpretations of the rules. I maintain that I was right, each time. My opponent was a bit frustrating too... and I realize that I'm still concerned about winning, perhaps too much so. My second game was brutal too, but a little more fun, since I pulled out a win. It was a close thing though... winning is becoming very important to me, more so than it used to. Even in venues where "winning" isn't usually an option, like role playing games or LARPs. It's becoming "which player can outsmart the other", as players try to prove how clever they are. It's fast becoming irritating, and my enthusiasms for it has plummeted. The desire to paint is still there, perhaps that will become the focus for now.
CouplingChaos and I watched Resident Evil on Sunday. It was a good movie for what it was: a homage to zombie flicks of old. The music was creepy (at least the non nu-rock parts), the general atmosphere was scary and slick, the acting was ... exactly what you'd expect. It was nice to see Michelle Rodriguez on the screen again, as well as Milla Jovanovich. I had to sleep with the light on to fend off zombie dreams. The downside of a fertile imagination is having vivid dreams, and it was likely they'd show up in my subconscious. The film was shot well enough that I expected the zombies to enter my dreams, and I didn't want to deal with that. Hell, it was bad enough having waking dreams of seeing Freddy Kreuger looking in my window when I was younger. Now that was creepy.
I still have moments of panic when I leave the basement, seeing hobgoblins out of the corner of my eye. Our basement is large and has many partitioned rooms, it's very similar to the one in "Silence of the Lambs" except there is no pit. This makes for a very creepy moment as you climb the stairs, because I always see a flash of something out of the corner of my eye. A Giger-esque alien, or a zombie, or your generic knife wielding serial killer. The steps out of the basement are steep and high, and it takes a long time to travel them, all the while thoughts of something lurking just behind me to pull me down into the darkness. It's real enough that my mind starts inserting sounds as I walk. Rather than turn around and face my phantom stalker, I've taken to fighting fiction with fiction: I imagine an aura of power that springs to life around me. Nothing can penetrate it, and anything that tries is incinerated in a back lash of energy. I usually turn at the top of the stairs to turn out the light, and look back finally at the dusty steps. I tell myself that the dust is all that remains of the zombies, the monsters, and that all is well. I pull the light switch, close the door, and walk back into reality.
Having a strong imagination can be a tool for good, too.
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Date: 2002-03-25 08:42 am (UTC)Oscars = TOO DAMN LONG!!! I wanted to shoot Whoopi! She's not funny. Can we just start a Steve Martin/Billy Crystal/Nathan Lane rotation and then I can be happy?
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Re:
Date: 2002-03-25 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-03-25 09:23 am (UTC)Like Sidney Portier is the fucking man. He's just cool regardless of color. Denzel too. I hear Halle Berry gave a hell of a performance as well... And here's Whoopi making jokes about why there aren't Black Hobbits and Black Schizos in these movies. It's like they were trying to hard.
And was it just me or did Samuel L Jackson look pissed? He was the only notable black man not in the Portier homage. So either he got left out and was pissed or my theory, he was pissed that they only got black people to pay him respect.
Re:
Date: 2002-03-25 09:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-03-25 09:25 am (UTC)