Another day another twist of events.

Ever had one of those days when suddenly everything that you look forward to has suddenly changed; possibly to be replaced by something far better and possibly to be replaced by a horrible lifetime of unpleasantries? You haven't? Oh....neither have I.

At any rate- History exam is tomorrow, I'm not studying for it because I have better things to do with my time (such as sleep and scribble). I'll trust my hand to fate as per usual, fate tends to take care of me so I'll see how things go.

For some reason I have had the song "Red and Black" stuck in my head for most of today....

(Marius enters)
Marius, you're late.
JOLY
What's wrong today?
You look as if you've seen a ghost.

GRANTAIRE
Some wine and say what's going on!

MARIUS
A ghost you say... a ghost maybe
She was just like a ghost to me
One minute there, and she was gone!

GRANTAIRE
I am agog!
I am aghast!
Is Marius in love at last?
I've never heard him `ooh' and `aah'
You talk of battles to be won
And here he comes like Don Ju-an
It's better than an o-per-a!

ENJOLRAS
It is time for us all
To decide who we are
Do we fight for the right
To a night at the opera now?
Have you asked of yourselves
What's the price you might pay?
Is it simply a game
For rich young boys to play?
The color of the world
Is changing day by day...
Red - the blood of angry men!
Black - the dark of ages past!
Red - a world about to dawn!
Black - the night that ends at last!

MARIUS
Had you been there tonight
You might know how it feels
To be struck to the bone
In a moment of breathless delight!
Had you been there tonight
You might also have known
How the world may be changed
In just one burst of light!
And what was right seems wrong
And what was wrong seems right!

GRANTAIRE
Red...

MARIUS
I feel my soul on fire!

GRANTAIRE
Black...

MARIUS
My world if she's not there!

ALL
Red...

MARIUS
The color of desire!

ALL
Black...

MARIUS
The color of despair!


Cheers

Thought of the day

Bloody 'ell... I'm still alive.

Twenty Eight Minutes and Eleven Seconds

Today has been an excellent day; I got to history late, it was absurdly cold out, my clothes were still damp when they got out of the dryer, I ran out of gel this morning and wound up smelling like a poof because of the stuff I had to use and I have a massive history assignment due...but a small portion of it went exceptionally well so I'm in a great mood. Nights like this call for good food and good music; I'm going to go cook something up and toss on an old record.

Cheers!

Good Readings

10:38Pm, I watched Casablanca again today; fell asleep but it's still a good movie. Tomorrow will be a rather big day for me- so obviously I'm going to talk about the old books on my shelves instead of anything even remotely related to tomorrow.

Les Misérables - My favourite edition that I have is a two volume set of green hardcovers; the ribbon for page marking is coming loose and I've been meaning to replace it for months now, I doubt I'll ever get around to it despite having already bought new ribbon. The book itself is a rather long, old french novel with a dozen different sub-plots. I've read it through completely twice now and whenever I'm in a certain mood I'll read a different section of it just for fun. It's my favourite novel and I recommend it to anyone with some time to read.

Cyrano de Bergerac - Alright, so really this is a play but I'm not picky. It's in a hardcover collection of various plays which I picked up from a used book store for 8 bucks. It's another old french story; this time with just one plot. It's about a guy called Cyrano who is a master of words and poetry, but also a leader of men and a brave soldier. He has a grotesque nose which has left him completely without love his entire life (something had to balance him out). It's a comedy, with elements of romance and adventure, sort of an early french drama version of Princess Bride.

Alice in Wonderland - Still reading this very strange book - I advise against reading this shortly before bed unless you want very odd dreams. The inside cover is marked "To Anne, from your Aunt Cissy, 1907" so I suppose it's been kicking around my family for a while.

Paul's Case - The story of a guy who spends his youth pretending to be a 'somebody' when really his family is rather poor. The ending is a downer, which is alright because life tends to be that way. My copy is just a print-out from the internet, I haven't seen it around anywhere except for school but I don't mind my "looseleaf" edition.

Various books of poetry - Wow, there is a lot of really bad poetry out there. It's still worth reading though, usually from the agony of a bad book of poetry there is enough to scrap together a few decent lines of prose. I have a book of Shakespeare's sonnets that was given to me at Christmas which I keep in my jacket pocket; I flip through it whenever I have a few moments and I look for the good bits.

*warning, stream of conciousness writting to follow*

After reading and re-reading a book of love poetry I finally started to understand why it is that much of it is so terrible. Without context, without feeling, without love, the poems are meaningless rubbish; but when they were written and (hopefully) first given to those who the author cared about - they were an expression of the moment. Words as simple as "I love you" when read of an unknown author speaking to an unknown sweetheart mean nothing; those exact same words when spoken directly from one's heart to another's holds a completely different effect. While seeing a rose in a shop may be relatively nice; the same stem and petals could bring the same person tears when presented properly; this is the case with flowers just as this is the case with words.


Cheers,

Movies

By chance I wound up seeing a lot of movies this weekend, here's the breakdown.

Casablanca (DVD) - One of the greatest movies of all time, I refrain from describing it because either you've already seen it then you need to see it. I think I've actually watched this movie about as many times as Amélie now.

American History X (DVD)- Alright movie, graphic at times and onyl slightly excessive. If you're not squeemish then it's a decent film about racism and the 'unpleasantries' of prison life; if you have a shred of human decency though it's pretty graphic.

In Good Company (Theatre) - Alright film about white-collar office politics and complicated love. I strongly recommend against arriving at the theatre slightly later than planned and wind up sitting front and dead-centre; regardless as to how good the company is that you're going with.

Butterfly Effect (VHS) - If I had any sort of expectations I would say that this movie was a letdown; luckily I had none so this movie was simply dull. Interesting ending though- I can't think of many films where love does not win out in the end so this movie at least gets points for originality.

Great Gatsby (DVD) - Unless you are being forced to read this book in English class (as was my case) I advise strongly against this film. The dialogue lifted poorly from the novel leading to a very 'forced' feeling in many scenes. Maybe it was just the fact that I couldn't get the "Charleston" song out of my head during a lot of the serious scenes, but I didn't like this movie at all. On the plus side though a lot of the clothes are so hideous that they are somewhat amusing; 70's bad fashion doing 20's odd fashion is just a bad idea.

Well, that's the non-classified summation of my weekend; as per usual though, if you're curious about anything then ask; I'll be more than happy to give you vague, uninformative responses.

Cheers

First Post

Well, I suppose it's about time that I join the masses and create some sort of 'blog'. Expect nothing too personal, any secrets or anything deep for that matter; I'm not so foolish as to hide what I'm thinking when I speak and then post it all onto the internet.

Cheers