November 25th

One month until Christmas! yeeeehawww! As the democratic race heats up, Clark is getting desperate. Anyway, I went on that debate trip. I came in second place (with Jake), which meant losing in finals. We got a bulky trophy which was a joy to bring back on the plane. (random person in airport or plane: ohhh wow, what's that? me: well its a trophy (duh) person: that's great, just great. you must be so proud.)

But the cool part about the trip was that we were in a hotel and actually had free time, which is an unusual concept on debate trips. In fact, because there were no policy debate teams, the whole group was done at like 2:00 on sunday. And we were flying back the next day at 2:00. That night, we went and saw the world-renowned (almost) Second City, which is a comedy theater - improvisation type show. And that doesn't sound that great on its own, but some awesome people started in that very Chicago theater, from Alan Alda in the sixties to John Belushi, Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, and even Mike Myers. So maybe the people we saw will be famous someday. And even if they won't be, they were hilarious. But I have a heart, so I'm not gonna just repeat all their jokes here. Seriously, if you're ever in Chicago (or Toronto, Detroit, Las Vegas, LA, or Cleveland), you need to see this. It wasn't too expensive either.

What else happened... well, even though Boston is on average windier than this supposed "Windy City," Chicago did not disappoint us with some blowing snow and nasty wind chills.
Oh, and, I was watching daytime ESPN there and saw this event called the US Open for martial arts or something along those lines. But they would have gotten more viewers if it had a more truthful name, like fat guys breaking concrete with their bare hands and screaming. Because that's what it was. Suwheeet. Let me advise you: if you're ever an overweight 40-year old man from florida, take up martial arts and be on TV. At the least, that's what I'm gonna do.

My mom's family's coming for thanksgiving, which guarantees that I'll have some fun but not much. Whatever. And on december 12 (unless I have a debate), I'm getting my license. Fun times. Now i just need to either get myself a car, or make sure chris gets his own, so we can each have one. Sharing sucks.

Have a good thanksgiving. And check out Jones Turkey Soda.

November 20th

Holy sh*% it's been 11 days. Well, I get to go debate in Chicago this weekend. Fun times. Well, my inspiration is running low today, so I'll just steal other peoples' inspiration!
And that means some links. If you haven't seen it yet, i recommend the End of the World as interpreted by... someone. No authors there, huh. sucks to be whoever made it. And don't miss some new Strong Bad Action.

Hey, Timeline comes out soonish. The book rocked, I just hope Paul friggin Walker doesn't ruin it.

Anyway, I'm a tad pissed off today. This week has sucked a$$. I stayed up til midnight doing homework last night, which wouldn't be scary except that I started it at five. But on wednesday I went on a field trip to the MIT library and the one at Tufts. That's a nice college. MIT kind of weirded me out though. whatever, I don't have to worry about college quite yet. But back to the week sucking. My english teacher laughed at how much homework she was giving us.

Also this week, I learned that the legendarily stable Windows XP (well, maybe) actually has a blue screen of death, almost reminiscent of those glory windows 95 days. On a similar note, my dad ordered a copy of windows XP, the cheapest one he could find online. It was actually shipped from Russia, through France, with all kinds of whacko Russian letters on it. (You know, like upside-down N's, backward Y's, etc.) who knew?

Enough. Hope you're happy.

Still November 9th

Special Matrix issue! Well, despite the critics picking it apart like starved vultures or hyenas preying on a dying, washed up blue whale; I went and saw l'Matrix Revolutienne, as the french might say. And I felt bad for that whale. It didn't quite deserve to be washed up on that beach, in my opinion. Yes, I am going to need to see that again. I may try to download it, but probably, I'll see it this week in the theaters again. Because regardless of how good a flick this is, it's the third in a trilogy that has been innovative, unique, and part of our culture. It even makes its way into murderers' minds.

But that doesn't mean I loved it. In my opinion, the initial genius of the Wachowski Brothers has been corrupted by both Hollywood's dramatization and by the rush of being a celebrity. Part of what drew the teen or 20's-30's crew of geeky guys to see this movie was the techno, which was completely gone. Or if it was there, it was so significantly replaced during the interesting uses of it in the last two movies that it was hard to notice. In its place stood a Carmina Burana-(is that how you spell that)-esque chorus of concerned singers with dramatic classical music. Where's Rob D.? Or even Linkin Park or Rage Against the Machine, or even less preferable Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie?

Music wasn't the only problem, either. Who didn't like the Merovingian or Penelope, whose characters were deep enough (albeit unusual) to have played a crucial, or at the least, significant role in the development of Revolutions. And the whole Neo=Christ thing was taken a little too far. Granted, it was an interesting idea to pursue, but if I wanted Gospel I'd go to church, not the Matrix.

It's late, and I'm tired. I could go on longer, but I won't. I have one important idea. I propose, no I challenge any aspiring moviemaker or mere brilliant mind to aspire to improve the Matrix re{volutions, loaded}, and make them the movies that the innovative 1999 Matrix deserves to be associated with. Give the viewers more of that intellectual, violent beauty we saw in the lobby scene, when we saw the cold truth of the real world, or when there was no spoon. Give us what we only glimpsed in the sequels: the train station or view of the sky in revolutions or the endless hallways and architect's cave of reloaded. Just don't subject us to more of the peforated sex with random gyrational dancing that perverted Reloaded. And I don't care about Link and Zee. Sorry. I care about the vision of the original Matrix.

Thank you, and goodnight.

November 9th

Hey people whats up. It's been a while. I ended up not having to get a tooth removed on Halloween, and I got my braces off. Yay.
So let's see. I was running today, for some reason thinking about open-source projects. (weird0!!!) I was thinking, what if someone made an open source map, where you could go on and add pictures or data about your neigborhood. Then I realized that this could easily become something of a big brother project, or at the very least, enable stalkers to be much more successful. So as cool as it might be to go online and find out about the who lived in your friend's new neighborhood and what they were like and what the place looked like and what about the neighbors pissed off the people, it's not a good idea.
So that wouldn't happen.

This weekend I went to Newburgh NY and judged some novice debaters. Wow, some of them really sucked. But i didn't have to be housed with other debaters at some whacko's house this time; I got to go to the Courtyard Marriot where the senior members of our debate team stayed. And this opens up an interesting debate. There were two beds; three guys. One was a senior, so he got a bed. And the other was my brother, and he was debating, so he got a bed. The though never crossed my mind that I could share a bed with my brother. I just assumed I'd be sleeping on the floor (luckily with a sleeping bag). Talking to the debate coach about this on the way home in a mini school van that kept dying on us, he pointed out that in the 70's when the debate program started, it was fine and common for guys to share beds; even for debaters to share rooms with coaches. What is it about our society that bars us from even considering sleeping in the same bed? Whatever it is, I guess I'm glad of it, and I got some sleep anyway. The bus trip home is another story altogether, but I won't go into it.

I have one other topic for today. November, and the cold. And the moon going crazy last night. I was standing outside in the cold wind, looking up at the moon. I couldn't wait for it to snow. I've lost that little-kid love for snow, now that I know skiing in Maine is unrelated to the snow we get here. But, inexplicably, I really wanted it to snow. It does something to the sky at night that can only be captured by poetry. I'm not a poet, so I won't try. It just seems magical thinking about the cold sky filled with moon-glistening tiny sparkles, bringing winter. There's one thing I know for sure: I don't buy that common hatred of snow. I love it.

Wow, looking back at what I just wrote. That was pretty deep. Enough philosophy for one day, I'm worn out.