Nine: Her mission is destruction

I should make this quick but I should also make it thorough. I don't update as often as I like lately to because between having recently discovered F*** My Life, Sporcle.com and continuing my quest to finish off the backlog of Questionable Content (I have stalled in the mid-800's) I have enough boredom killers on my plate. Also I'm supposed to be doing school or whatever.

When I was a kid I used to be a geography buff. Particularly political geography - when I was in grade 5, Matt Fairley, Matty Oh and I won the Geography Challenge (I think it was Matty Oh - it was definitely Matt Fairley.) This later blossomed into my overall aptitude for trivia but for a while it was geography. Dad always points out how I learned to read from the illustrated atlas (as in, for kids. Lots of fun descriptions of faraway places, neglecting to mention the political turmoil that is everywhere.) My latest fascination has rekindled this - on the aforementioned Sporcle, they have a game where you attempt to name all 195 countries of the world in 15 minutes. My first try, I got 110, which is respectable. I've been able to expand this to about 170 through reinforcement (after all, they tell you all the ones you missed afterward.) The toughest area is Africa, with island areas like the Pacific and Caribbean also proving tricky, and until you get them memorized, the former USSR and Yugoslavia (after all, my illustrated atlas was circa 1991.)

A friend was recently telling me about his life and the various romantic possibilities that lay before him. There was a number of girls who seemed to be making overtures, but he suspected ultimately that he would hesitate and vacillate until all his possibilities dried up and he was left, like before, with nothing. I asked him then if he'd ever read QC, because frankly his life was starting to uncannily resemble it (so much more if you know who I'm talking about.) He said no, but apparently I had intrigued him to the point where he checked it out. And then I'm pretty sure that's all he ended up doing all weekend, and has by now likely surpassed my bookmark.

For my part, I spent the weekend quietly reading Maus for history. I've read it two or three times before, but it's a good read. Had to buy it at Comic Connections because it was out at the library (I sometimes suspect, in cases like these, that someone else in Oakville has a similar curriculum to me and is visiting the same libraries.) I also watched Empire Records at Amanda's behest. She was eager to know what I thought. It was okay, had some funny moments and some nice characters. But seeing it for the first time in 2009 is not the same as 1995.

Monday I woke up and got back to school. I was inexplicably pissed off all day (perhaps stemming from the fact that I'd enjoyed my vacation so much.) A lot of little things that aren't supposed to bother me were really grating my nerves. I'm starting to lose tolerance for other peoples' conversations. At first I was thinking I was just jealous because they had someone to talk to and I almost never do, but then I decided, equally or more likely, I just think other people are generally assholes. This person was going off on "pity awards" from the Oscars, like Heath Ledger, and why he was glad Mickey Rourke didn't win. He (or was it she? Can't remember now) failed to impress me with this attitude. Invoked in me a sense of sadness from lack of priorities.

I've long since ceased to feel any true investment in the Oscars - which I had even when, like today, I haven't seen most or any of the nominated films. I haven't seen either Milk or the Wrestler. I only know the performances from the trailers. From what I can tell, Penn gave a really weak, Queeny, Jewey, faggy, stereotypical performance, whether Harvey Milk was like that or not. Rourke gave a decent, if very by-type, performance as a tough guy on the brink of emotional exhaustion. Or something. This is just from the trailers though - let those who actually saw both be the judges (and they were.)

About Heath Ledger though... come on. Best Supporting Actor is hardly the place to be making a stand about the integrity of the Oscars. It's a variety award. You get it for playing a comic relief or a crazy villain - your Javier Bardems, Antohny Hopkins, Chris Coopers, Cuba Gooding Jrs... Joe Pesci, Kevin Kline. It was a perfect role for this sort of thing, a place to establish an interesting, unusual, spellbinding character on the edge of a larger story. Would he have won the award if he were still alive? Does it matter? Who gives a fuck? He's not. And frankly, I think he probably would have, since they went ahead and nominated Robert Downey Jr. for his crazy-ass blackface comedy role.

But like I said. I have long since passed my fascination with such matters into a mere passing curiosity. I don't root for particular pictures much, I just observe with curiosity who does win. The fact that someone sitting behind me in my Film History class felt the need to go off like that underscores how different I am from so many of these people. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and all.

I ran into my old TA Adam (he often buzzes around Innis, my homebase, and the homebase of Cinema Studies) and we talked a while on the Oscars, he opined lowly of Danny Boyle, and then another classmate came by and they talked at length about films I have not seen. Thanks guys. My own fault I guess.

Tuesday I slept in. Felt half-decent all day, though. Go figure.

Tomorrow I have a History Midterm and I am not happy about it. Half multiple choice, half essay. G-Ulp.

Maybe I should've cracked the books harder over the break, but I was sick and easily distracted. After tomorrow I'll be considerably de-stressed and hopefully motivated to write some papers.

Hopefully.

Oh, Lord.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott