Best line ever :P

I was reading an article Love makes "Brokeback" Oscar favorite and it had to have one of the most hilarious lines I'v ever read in a movie review.

"All of the awards haven't hurt either. "Brokeback's" got so much buzz it's
vibrating, and women have never shied away from things that vibrate."

Feel free to read the whole article as well. Its a very good read on why Brokeback is doing so well.

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Brokeback Mountain

I saw Brokeback Mountain the other night with some friends and it was incredible. I know one of the main complaints of the movie was its slow pace but that was a large part of what the movie was about. The sadness that aside from monthly fishing trips the relationship between the two men was really going nowhere. I think the movie was well done and well paced for the story. For anyone who is worried about the sex scenes, don't be. The sex scene (there was only one) was brief and almost entirely clothed. There's more male skin showing in most heterosexual love scenes. The most explicit same-sex interactions were the kisses which again, aren't all that much to deal with.

I think as a culture we are far too expecting of instant gratification, so that if there's no action in this movie, no fast pace, everyone is bored. I think the movie could likely have been cut down by about 20 minutes and it would have sped up the movie considerably, but I also think it would have lost some of the strength of the message and the feeling of time passing. You have to remember this movie spans about 20 years.

In my opinion this story is a quintessential love story at its core, regardless of what gender the charaters were. This movie deserves every award it gets.

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Almost better

So I stayed home again today. The extra rest I think is working because I don't feel as bad as I have the rest of the week, plus I make sure I don't get anyone else sick. By Monday I should be good as new and back in the office.

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Good News/Bad News

Well I got a call from the realtor for the condo today who said that closings have been pushed back to on or before 3/31/06. This is bad news because I want this to be done and I want to get into my unit. This is good news because I have no viable roomates for the period of time from whenever I close until about 6/1. Almost everyone I could possibly think of having as a roommate is getting out of their leases on 6/1. This is also good news because I get another month, possibly 2 to set aside money for things that I need in the condo such as new washer and dryer. As long as we don't stretch into April I will be mostly fine with this change.

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Still Sick

Well I went to work yesterday because I was feeling better. Apparently that cost me because today I feel almost as bad as Monday. I guess I need to make sure I truly rest and get better. Thankfully I can do SOME work from home so I can be at least partially productive.

The good news is that I got an e-mail from the lawyers for Wells Fargo (my mortgage company) and they are doing all the title work now so its getting closer and closer to closing. WOOHOO. Theoretically I should close in 21 days.

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Sick :(

Well it had to happen sooner or later. I'm sick. My voice is cracking a bit and it sounds like I'm a hair's breadth away from having laryngitis. My throat feels like its packed in gauze and I'm achey. Like clockwork its almost February. My body tends to fight the good fight most of the year but almost annually I get sick towards the beginning of February. Well time for sleep, R&R and tea.

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Conclave Concluded

Well, today was better. Exhausting, but better. There was no feeling of closetness or anything, just a feeling of being part of a larger entity within the brotherhood of Alpha Chi Rho.

I had a constructive day today starting with waking up at 7am after about 6 hours of sleep. I began the day with a meeting of the Educational Foundation and then after lunch I got to chat with a few other advisors. There were only 3 of us plus the speaker so we got to throw the agenda out the window and just chat about the issues we each face and talk about how to best fix those issues and to compare notes on how we all deal with things. I also got to give some input on how our graduate chapter works so that other groups that are trying to build graduate chapters can do the same.

The drive back took about 5.5 hours so I was back in Worcester by 11 pm which was a nice surprise.

Time to pass out...

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Thanks :)

Thank you to everyone who commented, e-mailed or called me to make sure I was doing ok. For those just reading this now, I am doing fine. :) It was quite cathartic to vent via the blog, its one of the benefits of doing this. I had a really good day today and was in one of the better moods I've been in for a while so it all balances.

As for this evening I drove for 6.5 hours starting at 3:30 PM to get to Plymouth Meeting, PA. The reason for this arduous trek across the northeast? The 2006 Alpha Chi Rho national Winter Conclave. This is a time for all chapters to send delegates to talk about how to best move the fraternity as a whole forward, and this year they added a track of sessions for Advisors. As a result I have been put up in a very nice suite with a king size bed and a nice little living room area in the front. Even better it has 24 hrs of complimentary internet access - JOY! The fraternity is paying for my lodging and food so I elected to stay Friday and Saturday night. The events end on Saturday at 5 so I figured I could relax and have a mini-vacation out of this. Well that went out the window when we got here and found out that the undergrads who carpooled with me are only registered for tonight which means I have to get back into my car at about 5:30 once we are fully settled (not to mention move all of my bags to my car by 11 am) and drive for 6 hours back up to Worcester, drop off the undergrads and then drive BACK to webster. I should be able to get to bed by 12:30 or 1 am. So much for the mini-vacation. *sigh* It even had a heated pool. :(

As for the fraternity conclave we ended up missing the chartering of the new chapter. For those not greek, a chartering is when you take a group of people who have formed what is known as a Colony (an interest group who wants to be a member of your national) and after several years of running themselves as if they were a full chapter, we officially recognize them and initiate all of its members. I've been to one of these before and it is really a great ceremony especially since it is performed by the National Ritual officers. As for the schedule of things they REALLY shouldn't have the fun/important stuff on Friday evening. If they only want to have people here for one night they should do a Saturday - Sunday event instead of Friday - Saturday. Some of us have work/school that we still have to do.

On another note I have to say its a bit intimidating to be here. I've never been to a full national event. I've been to the one chartering before but that was different. This has guys here from just about every chapter we have, and there are about 3-5 members per chapter some with even more. The odd thing is I find myself watching what I do and how I act. When I bought a drink to nurse for the evening it actually went through my mind that I should not get wine or a cosmo and get something a little less gay. WTF?? Where did that come from?

I haven't felt this closeted in a long long time. Now don't get me wrong, I love my fraternity, and I'm VERY comfortable with all of my brothers in my chapter but Fraternities in general aren't exactly well known for their tolerance (let alone acceptance) of homosexuals. At the same time if I was ever asked point blank if I was gay I'd say I was and fuck them if they had an issue.

On yet another (and non-fraternity related) note, I got a free t-shirt in the campus center today. Its social awareness month at the college and they had free t-shirts that said "gay? fine by me." on it. I thought they were cool so took one. Its forest green and fits nicely. I'm wearing it now, so it'll be interesting if anyone knocks on my door. :)

Ok, I think that's enough for tonight and it should relieve anyone who may have read my previous post.

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What is going on lately?

I have no idea what's goign on lately. It seems my temper has been on a hair trigger lately and tonight on the way home I randomly felt like I was going to cry, in between feeling pissed off. The odd thing is that there's nothing really that should be causing this to happen. I don't know if this is cumulative stress or the moon or what. I think part of it is that I really really really need to have the whole condo thing done. 2 years of planning and working for this is begginning to wear. I also think I really really need a vacation. I plan to take 2 weeks off after the closing to move in and to relax and enjoy my new home.

I worry about my stress level sometimes. I wonder if I bottle things up sometimes. Its funny, all my friends consider me this rock of a person that is always the calm one, the one who carefully considers everything and doesn't make rash judgements. They think I have it all figured out and that I can handle anything. One friend, in a drunken rant, even called me perfect. Damn, its been months now and that throwaway remark still bothers me....

I know I'm certainly not perfect and I'm certainly no rock. I sometimes fear for the person who truly gets me to let my anger fly. The level of rage I tend to keep in check when it blossoms would surpise those who think i am the incarnation of calm. I simply learned very early in life how to be strong enough to be the anchor for those around me and to keep my head held high and walk through any situation.

Ugh, I don't know what's going on. My emotions haven't been this much of a mess in a very long time and my level of control of them has never been this tenuous. I don't mean for this to sound like I'm going to snap into Mr. Hyde at any moment but its just a little odd to have these unexpected mood swings and to have actual emotions spike so easily. *sigh* I'm sure some sleep and then my vacation next month will balance things out.

Well that's enough of a rant for one day.

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A few more updates

Well today has been a big day for updates. I've changed a few settings on my page. For one thing I increased the width of the content area, and I've also turned on "back links". "Back links" are used when someone links to your post and they in turn link their post back to your post that they linked to.

Also I have a question, who reads this? I have a bit of an idea of who reads the blog but it would be nice to know what my audience is like. Feel free to drop a comment in or you can e-mail me at criostal at gmail nospam com. Of course just change the at to the symbol and replace nospam with a period to get the actual e-mail address.

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I have succumbed to MySpace

After chatting with Patrick about it today while at work I was convinced to start a MySpace profile. Yes folks I've joined yet-another-profile-community. For those of you who have MySpace accounts my URL is: http://www.myspace.com/celticcriostal.

I'm a member of Friendster, Orkut (the google one), and now MySpace. I have my blog on Blogger as well as an account on LiveJournal so I can browse my friends' posts there. I refuse to join Facebook though. You have to draw the line somewhere and I draw it there. There's somethign about Facebook that is just more wrong than the rest I think. Its just the vibe I get.

This should be interesting.

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iPod: Day 2

Well, yesterday I got my black iPod Nano (4GB) and all associated gadgets to it.

First impressions:
- the iPod is incredible sleek and cool looking.
- it is very light
- it is VERY easy to scratch - I had to immediately go to http://www.theinvisibleshield.com/ and buy the invisible shield wrapper for the nano. The demos looked really good and the reviews at several different sites were overwhelmingly good. I bought one for me and one for my brother as a birthday present since he has a new 2GB nano for Christmas from his fiancee.

From there I set out to plug it in and connect it up. I found it very easy to just dump songs from iTunes into the iPod manually. Once I went home I set it up to automatically update based on playlists I have with one playlist just being a filler for general ipod music.

I threw a bunch of music in and then found out that I had 2 GB still free. Well lets do something about that. I didn't necessarily want more music so I took a swing over to the iTunes Music Store and went to the podcasting section. From there I was able to download segments from NPR, including some of my favorite segments like "On the Media" and "On Point With Tom Ashbrook". At home I set it up to also automatically update all the podcasts I had selected whenever I synchronized. I also set iTunes to update podcasts every hour. What's cool is that I have it set up to grab the 7am NPR News Briefs so that I can listen to it on the way to work.

I played with the pictures portion of the syncing and I'm going to put the pictures of my condo on there just for fun. Its mostly for amusement value as the screen is very very tiny.

Upon getting home I realized I had left the iPod software CD at the office, but thankfully I was able to download a copy off of Apple's site. With that problem done I realized another problem. My computer only has USB 1.1 ports, and the iPod works best with USB 2.0 (which is about 40 times faster for data transfer). Well from there a quick trip to Pricewatch.com to get an $11 four port USB 2.0 PCI card for my system. Thanfully the company is a NY company and shipping was free. I should be getting that any day now, and USB 1.1 actually works fairly well, it just takes longer.

I've also found that I can easily rate songs that I have on my iPod. Another neat feature is that if I listen to part of a podcast on iTunes and then transfer it to my iPod it remembers where I was when I stopped. Apparently you can set this feature on any iTunes file but its most useful for books and podcasts.

Overall the thing that surprised me the most is how much I enjoy podcasts. Its almost like TiVo for news and discussion. I can download these segments and play them in the car or while I'm working and its a nice relaxing way to take in information. Previously I had kinda dismissed the whole podcast thing as a fad but it is really really useful and interesting.

Well, that's all for now. I'll post more of my experience with the new iPod later.

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