Dead Squirrels and Shadow People

Just saw "The Spanish Prisoner." It had some very clever plot twists, and though I certainly figured out a few of them well in advance, it surprised me throughout. Overall however it was a little bland. I love movies of this type, and this one WAS pretty clever, but it somehow never engaged me. It was like eating seafood pasta with medicore sauce--it SHOULD still be pretty good, and yet it doesn't quite work.

In other Fish news, the time of year has come where I feel like Elmer Fudd. In the early summer months the ground squirrels always come out and start to raid our birdseed, dog food, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. It's up to me to set out a trap filled with various bits of bait. I then catch the ground squirrels and cart them off to release them somewhere more hospitable (and farther away from our home). Lately I've caught a HELL of a lot of baby squirrels, which are very cute, naive, and easily fooled. I always feel bad when the little guys get caught, but little squirrels become big squrrels, and they've got to go. However the two larger squirrels I have seen have constantly eluded me over the past few weeks, springing the trap multiple times and somehow escaping. I feel like yelling "oooo you wascally squirrewl!!!" time and time again.

However, TODAY I finally caught one of the big guys, and yet I am filled with remorse. The poor guy rattled aroun inside the cage, trying to get out, but I had him. I planned to release him after work since I was running late beforehand, and so I left him in the cage for the afternoon--no biggie, I've done this before.

Unfortunately when I returned home, my sister asked, "Why is the cage overturned?" It was true, the cage was flipped over in the grass. My sister then gasped and started crying. Lying on the lawn was the dead squirrel. Poor guy. He has been my nemesis, but I never wanted to hurt him. The neighbor's dogs (not our dog Penny, she shows no interest in the squirrels when we catch them) must have come down during the afternoon and got ahold of him (or her).

I never feel bad about this sort of thing when it happens "naturally." Occasionally Sunny (when he was alive) or Penny might kill a mole or gopher, but they always did so "in the wild" (for lack of a better term). In such cases, the mole or gopher COULD have escaped, and they stood a fighting chance.

Here though, I can just imagine the poor squirrel trying to escape the cage with no way out. I had trapped him, terrified him, and condemned him to a horrific death, and I really feel kinda awful about it. I had intended to let him go somewhere else, where he probably would have had a better squirrel life (ground squirrels are suited for open fields, not the mountains where I live). Instead, through an act that was certainly partially my fault, he died horribly without a fighting chance. I'm sorry, squirrel...

In other unrelated stuff, my co-worker, Allison (NOT of the Adamovic variety), has managed to scare the shit out of me. I work with this Allison at the museum's front desk, where we always get to chat. I didn't really know her very well until today. Earlier I assumed she was just your average 30ish woman making a few extra bucks at a non-stressful job, probably with some interest in natural history. And this is true--to a point.

Somehow, as we talked today, she asked me whether or not I believe in ghosts, aliens, and other paranormal stuff. I've never really given it too much thought, but I've always entertained the idea as something fun and interesting (especially aliens), so I said "sure." She then spent the rest of the work day (when visitors weren't around) telling me REALLY spooky stories about Mothmen, black-eyed children, and, worst of all, Shadow People. Supposedly she saw Shadow People once when she was little, and she showed me all these websites with "real" pictures of them. Who knows how much of this is accurate, but it certainly gave me the chills. I've been looking over my shoulder constantly since work today, and I am worrying about what sort of sleep I am going to get tonight. Brrrrrr.....

Sweet dreams!

CARS!!!

I got together with some old friends this evening. For a while I had to convince the two of them NOT to see "The Omen," since I really wasn't excited about seeing a shot-for-shot remake (if you're going to remake something, do so CREATIVELY). Finally, I got them to go see "Cars."

What a fun movie!!! Not Pixar's best (that's still reserved for the two "Toy Storys" and "Nemo"), but a worthy addition to their collection. Go see it...best movie I've seen in theaters this year.

Afterwards we walked down State Street. Maybe it's just me, but was Downtown SB ALWAYS such a party zone? I don't remember it being so crazy back in high school. It makes me worry that even my semi-quiet hometown is in transition to becoming noisy and crazy. Some things don't last forever, but just realizing I might have MEMORIES about Santa Barbara and how it used to be makes me feel old.

While cruising down the street, I also ran into LOTS of friends of mine whom I haven't seen in ages. You know, those people you kind of don't expect to really see again, but you always wind up running into? In some cases it was great to play catch-up, and in other cases it wasn't. In one instance, a former female friend freaked out and turned the other direction, avoiding me--it's nice to know that with at least some people I carry that sort of embarassing power...

"Now let's here you call Boris Karloff a cocksucker!"

Bill Murray steals every scene he's in in "Ed Wood." And Martin Landau does a great and ultimately touching performance as Bella Lugosi. Not Tim Burton's all-time best, but certainly very good and lots of fun.

"Ed Wood" reminded me (again) just how many people out there want to make movies, and how in many cases really shitty directors will nevertheless get to follow their dreams. So much for the Protestant work ethic...

On a completely unrelated note, I've got to remember what my old buddy Topher told me in 9th grade: "Don't smother, Dan. Don't smother." Of course I followed his advice then and nothing happened with THAT one, but it still seems like sage advice. And it's EASY advice for a coward.

Of course, Topher does remind me of my current buddy Dalton, and Dalton has given me tips that go in the complete opposite direction. Hmmm...I guess I'll just wait and see. Maybe I'll surprise myself. Or not.

Here goes nuthin'...

So it's begun. For years now, I have debated with myself over whether or not to start my own blog, livejournal, or whatever. Journals, after all, are for private thoughts, and do I really want my private thoughts avaliable for everyone? God knows everyone reads these things, and many people who DO write in these online things wind up withholding very strong personal feelings and information from others (understadably). So what's the point?
Still, I have written my thoughts down often in the past for myself, stored in secret files on my computer, but I always wound up losing track of them. This way, I won't lose track, and if people actually CARE enough about me to read this thing, then great. Welcome to the party!
Let's be honest...who really looks at these things? This blog will probably just be used for me to look back on myself and my life and how foolish I was, even though I will probably continue to do foolish things as long as I exist.

The other reason I created this blog was to stave off summer boredom--not that I've been bored so far this summer. Far from it. Things are piling up quicker than I could imagine, and most of them are things I am looking forward to. I guess I really just decided to create this thing in some weird hope of holding on to the world of college...don't ask me why, because it doesn't make sense. How does writing on a computer let you retain that other tornado of a world I live in? I suppose it's just a way for me to cry out and try to hold on to people I am missing like hell already. Since I'm too shy or non-confrontational to talk to these people, I guess writing this thing is a sub-conscious way of doing so.
It's strange, being torn between two places. Santa Barbara, especially the MOUNTAINS of Santa Barbara, will always feel like my physical and spiritual home, but the emotional core of myself at the moment now only rings true when I am with all those people I met during freshman year (and some others...sure). And even then, I sometimes worry those relationships are on shaky ground. I've always suffered from an inferiority complex, even when I know it's been unjustified.
But enough warped self-pity. I know that if I wrote every time I FELT like it, this would seem like an online "feel sorry for Fish" notebook. And I don't want that. I'm a pretty cheerful guy. TOO cheerful, sometimes.

I've decided that, in order to keep things fair and balanced, I will only write every time I watch a movie. That happens often enough, and randomly enough, to keep everything on a level playing ground. Plus it lets me comment on movies, and if I don't have anything else to say, I can always write about that. And movies make good springboards for other topics...
This past week I saw a load of stuff, all of which was good, and much of which wasn't in my preferred genre(s). I re-watched "Edward Scissorhands," and fell in love with it again, but I don't want to talk about that.
I saw "Love, Actually" again, and got sentimental. Great movie, but it makes you overly emotional. Someday I'll watch that one with the woman I love. It's easy to find movies like this...the list goes on and on. It's harder to find the woman...
I also watched "Witness," having not seen it in a long while. What a terrific movie! I remembered it was good, but man! Touched on some great issues, and great acting by all. Also got me a little sentimental during the "Harisson Ford sweeps pretty Amish girl off her feet when the car radio plays" scene. The movie also showcases what MAY be the manliest moment EVER in a movie. It was Viggo Mortensen (yes, the ARAGORN Viggo Mortensen's) first role, and he plays one of the Amish guys (he appears many times in the barn-raising scene, and also in the scene when Harisson beats the snot out of the tourists). At one point, Viggo and Harisson shake hands before going to raise the barn...does it GET more manly than that? The screen OOZED testosterone! Also, "Witness" shares some eerie paralells with another favorite of mine, "Blade Runner." Both feature music by Vangelis, both star Harisson Ford, and in both movies Harisson is in love with a girl who is forbidden from him named Rachel! Craaaazy...
I also saw "Capote" with my parents. Pretty good movie. Stellar acting by Philip Seymour Hoffman (hence the Oscar...duh!), and pretty unsettling. I'm not sure what I was supposed to take from the film (if anything) but it certainly had me thinking and feeling as I went to bed.
Last night, my dad and I watched "Jerry Maguire," and it really made me miss the old Tom Cruise. The Tom Cruise you could enjoy, watch, and be entertained by. Not the crazy one who won't get his face out of the papers right now. Rene Zelleweger, whom I usually can't stand, also did a nice job, and it also had that nerdy nervous-looking guy from "High Fidelity." Bonus! I really liked the movie, though it made me sentimental again. Too many well-made (not shitty) rom-coms can be unhealthy to your well-being, especially over the summer.
Speaking of which, today I watched "While You Were Sleeping," expecting it to be a joke of a movie, but it was pretty good too. And Sandra Bullock was cute. Still is...

I usually HATE romantic comedies because they are often executed poorly, but maybe that's just the case of movies coming out today (the "Break-Up" wasn't supposed to be very good was it?). There WERE a lot of pretty good ones that came out before I was old enough to appreciate them.
Yet all this watching of movies makes me remember something. Something from one of my new favorite books, "High Fidelity..." In the book Hornby (or "Rob" I suppose, since it IS a first-person narrative) states how unhealthy an unhappy it can be to be someone who likes the arts...in his case music and movies...because so much of the arts deals with heartbreak. It makes us more emotional people.
Amen to that, Rob.

Anyways, hopefully I'll be able to keep these entries shorter in the future. Believe it or not, I have a hard time talking to people when I need to, and when stuff it bothering me and I write like this, it all comes out in a whirlwind of anxiety. Rats. Tootles.