Whatever

2006-02-24T10:59:00.000-08:00

Ok so you know something is wrong with the universe when Hagadone is pestering you to get into internet fads. But, what the hell I haven't written on here in a while...

Four Jobs I've had:
Well I've had a lot more than four, but I'll categorize them into non specific job types...
Bookseller
Food Service
Banker
Technician

Four Movies I can watch over and over:
-Godfather
-Lawrence of Arabia
-Fight Club
-Ridicule

Four places I have lived:
-Tahoe City, California
-Boise, Idaho
-Roskilde, Denmark
-Portland, Oregon

Four TV show's I love:
(Well I don't really watch TV but I do rent TV DVDs. But unfortunately this means my favorite TV shows are probably cancelled right now as marked).
-Dead Like Me (Cancelled; excellent show starring Mandy Patenkin who was Inigo Mantoya)
-Firefly (Cancelled;Never thought I'd like anything Joss Whedon did. Buffy still sucks)
-Dave Chappelle (Cancelled)
-Daily Show

Four Places I've vacationed:
-Austria
-Czech Republic
-Germany
-Poland

Four of my favorite dishes:
-Sushi Maguro Crab Rolls etc.
-Medium Rare Rib-eye steak with garlic mashed potatoes and corn on the cob.
-Veal Wiener-shnitzel with potato pancakes and good german beer.
-Beef Wellington with a side of sauerbraten sauce for dipping, with steamed green beans, buttered asparagus, and roasted white onions.
(Damn I'm hungry now!)

Four sites I visit daily:
-Nytimes.com
-Google
-Websters.com
-Yeah that's about it.

Four places I'd rather be right now:
-Australia
-Greek Isles
-Italy
-Scotland

2005-11-10T14:55:00.000-08:00

Blending in with Stupid. Politics at your McJob.

I recently pointed out to a friend that since college I have worked a string of jobs where contact with intellectuals was non-existant. To me this is my in depth field research into stupidity. This lack of contact with people as educated as I am or generally more intelligent than myself can be confusing, and take some getting used to. First of all you have to dumb down your conversations. I cannot tell you how many times I have ostricized myself at work by talking about history or philosophy with the average co-worker. I suppose in their eyes I'm a nerd (ask hagadone about the technical definition), but to me I'm just a desperately educated man praying that someone will come back at me with another tidbit in retaliation. So in this post I will attempt to give my fellow compatriots who find themselves underpaid and over-educated some tips for dealing with people in the real world.

1st- People want to think of themselves as smart even if they are not. Tell people you think they are smart (when in fact they are probably working with a sixth grade education). Even if it is a lie it will make it so much easier to get along with them. "Hey that nerd thinks I'm smart! Wow, he's cool."

2nd- Petty Tyrants; the workplace is filled with them and they will try to exert their wills over yours. Now you don't want to be bullied by stupid people (this can be incredibly humiliating and frustrating) so tell these people that you respect them (deliberately lie yeah you heard me). By stroking their insignificant ego's just a tiny bit you destroy the rampage they were about to unleash on you. I find that most petty tyrants do not get enough respect because of their attitudes at work, they must become self-esteem predators taking respect by force if necessary! But, if you lie and say you respect them they leave you alone, in fact they tend to say nice stuff about you to other people (always a bonus).

3rd- Loyal followers. This is the most important thing to have in a middle ranking management position. You want to be a voice of reason to people no one listens to, so that they come to you for help and not the manager they are supposed to come to. Now this is a double edged sword. While it makes you look good to upper management and to the workers, it causes jealousy from other middle management, to deal with this jealously see the above paragraph on stroking ego's.

Now this may sound like I'm turning into a phony telling people what they want to hear instead of telling them the truth of the matter but I've realized after being in the entertainment industry most people do not want the truth. They want a fantasy land where they can feel good. This method is just how to roughly survive being surrounded by unreasonable idiots.

Moral of the story: Most of the people I work with are good people. They may not be educated very well. They may not have the same moral flexibility I have. They may even have no morals at all. But, in the end they are people and while I cannot control their lives and persuade them to behave in a particular fashion I can still make them feel good about themselves. And making people feel good about themselves is the best way to manipulate them into doing what I want Muwahahahahahaha!

Yes Jenny I know there is a special place in hell reserved just for me :o(

2005-11-07T02:21:00.000-08:00

Jarhead
Origin: Based on events of an actual Marine in the first gulf war.
Starring: Jamie Foxx and Jake Gyllenhaal
Synopsis: This movie chronicles the life of a marine, played by Jake Gyllenhaal and his journey through boot camp and then service in operation Desert Shield.
Rating: **

Jarhead is not a typical war movie. In fact it has so little action in it that most viewers will feel disappointed by it. However the film is an accurate portrayal of the Marine ground forces contribution to Operation Desert Storm. This contribution ironically is pretty much nothing according to the movie. The film directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty & Road to Perdition) fails to achieve the fluid grace and artistic novelty his earlier two films exemplified. The movie leaves one grasping for something completely unfinished. In the words of my colleague "It was like having sex without the orgasm." It is similar to Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket only less exciting. Although there were some slightly humorous moments Jarhead lacks the profound depth it attempts to instill.

2005-11-02T11:53:00.000-08:00

Movie Review Legend of Zorro & North Country

Legend of Zorro
Starring: Antonio Banderras & Catherine Zeta Jones
Premise: Zorro must prevent evil people from blowing up the United States & helps ratify California as the 31st state to join the Union.
Rating: * out of *****
Origin: Sequal to the Mask of Zorro that was made about ten years ago.

In this sequal to a movie made over ten years ago, Zorro must save the United States from a french terrorist attempting to blow up the country with nitro glycerin. Problems arise with the movie at the very beginning when it describes that California is an impoverished area in the year 1850. The only problem with that statement is that the California gold rush started in 1849 where any stream seemed to hold chunks of gold for anyone to pick up. The destruction of historical facts continue from this point on. Not only history is butchered in an act of barbaric stupidity, but science as well. Apparently nitro glycerin is made purely from soap. The action scenes are mediocre at best and the acting even less enthralling. Kids may enjoy this movie, but adults may have problems appreciating its naivete.

Things to make this movie more enjoyable:
Frontal labotomy

North Country
Starring: Charlize Theron, Sean Bean, Francis McDormand, Woody Harrelson & Sissy Spacek
Origin: Loosely based on a true story
Synopsis: Charlize Theron goes to work for a mine where sexual harrassment is an incredible bad issue that no one seems to care about at all. After taking too much Theron's character decides to make the first class action sexual harrasment lawsuit in American history.
Rating: ***

The acting in this movie is wonderfully done. For once Sean Bean is playing a decent guy and Francis McDormand does an excellent job as well. Some of the scenes in this movie are uncomfortable at best. While some of the harrassment scenes seem to be slightly exaggerated they still tend to inspire outrage in the viewer. The "C" word is said more than once, there is a rape scene, and every form of masogynistic slur imaginable is uttered in this movie. It is unadvisable to make this a date movie, it will make most women angry at men. Of course anger towards the cruelty of men against women is thematic throughout the film. Definitely worth seeing if not on the big screen at least on DVD.

2005-10-25T03:48:00.000-07:00

Movie Reviews: Elizabethtown & Good Night and Good Luck

Elizabethtown
Directed by Cameron Crowe
Starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst
Premise: Orlando Bloom is a failed shoe designer/executive for a company called Mercury (Translation: Greek for Nike) having designed a shoe so badly he decides to take his own life, but gets distracted by the news his father has just died. He travels back to Elizabethtown Kentucky to retrieve the body. Along the way he meets slutty and annoyingly bad southern accented flight attendent played by Kirsten Dunst who proceeds to cheer him up and open his eyes to a new and more powerful reality! Whoa that was deep.
Origin: Script found when Mr. Crowe was digging around the dumpster outside MTV studios.
Rating: * out of *****
Final Verdict: This movie SUCKS
Review: Cameron Crowe in his latest attempt to draw twenty to thirty something year old women into theatres is a complete and horrid failure. I found myself wondering how anyone after reading the script would front the money to produce it until I saw that the recently gone insane Tom Cruise was one of the principle producers. In concise outline the movie is thus: Man works at boring job, goes to funeral in small southern town, meets really annoying family members including high pitched screaming toddlers, attends funeral, talks on cell phone, drives car. My principle failure to concieve that this movie should have been made is due to the fact that all the above mentioned activities are the most annoying and horrifically boring subjects to watch someone else do. Orlando Bloom was such a whiney little sissie that several times during the movie I wanted to find him personally and smack him around until he agreed to start acting like a man. Kirsten Dunst plays a street corner philosopher/hooker type flight attendant. You can tell her character is not completely sane yet Cameron Crowe keeps attempting to push her on the audience as some kind of wise woman guide into the wonder that is life. If I took a shot of Wild Turkey every time she made some half assed ignorant attempt to sound profoundly deep and insightful I would have thrown up by the end of the movie (not that alcohol was needed for me to accomplish this the acting was enough to make me puke). The soundtrack had some good songs in it, but the problem is that it sounded like Crowe just randomly put his favorite Ipod list on the soundtrack. The music was random and really had no basis or theme to go along with the movie. Overall Crowe was attempting to follow the same formula that made his former movie Jerry Maguire successful in the box office. If the formula were a cooking recipe it would read as follows: Start with one high paid executive. Slice, dice and stir well, add one slutty and crazy female. Crack her and seperate her abilities as an actress with what she'll be showing on screen. Add one cute kid, some hit songs that smell of nostolgia, put in oven for two and a half frickin hours and wait for the audience to commit suicide.
Recommended ways to make this movie less painful to watch:
Sianide Capsules
Chloroform
Ether
Gasoline and one match.
Or if you're not a self destructive or violent person you could always retire to the bathroom with a good book.

Good Night and Good Luck
Directed by George Clooney
Starring: George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr. & David Strathairn
Origin: Actual Events at CBS news and in the United States Senate
Premise: Edward R Murrow of CBS news takes the bold step to oppose the "Red Scare" tactics of Senator McCarthy in this drama co-written and directed by George Clooney.
Rating: **** out of *****
Verdict: This movie doesn't suck.
Review: This movie is rather short for a drama being only about and hour and forty minutes long, yet seems quite sufficiently thorough to cover the subject matter. The movie itself is all in black and white and shows authentic news casts of Senator McCarthy giving speeches. While those who are unfamilier with 1950's American history may find this movie long and boring it still remains for those that have studied or witnessed such events stimulating. The monologues in this movie are beautifully written and are in such an educated vernacular that it seems poetic in comparison to the writing in modern day journalism (my own writing included). The soundtrack is low key with occaisional jazz, there are no special effects, the camera work was well done and the directing as well, but neither were anything fancy. This movie survived alone on the writing and the acting. Both of which make it truly worth seeing on the big screen.
Things to make this movie more enjoyable:
Brush up on your history of McCarthy and the "Red Scare" Witch Hunts of the 1950's.
Listen to the song "Exhuming McCarthy" by R.E.M. to get reved up in a leftist mood.

Fred G. Smith is a projectionist and technician for Century Theatres in Portland Oregon.

2005-10-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

My Job:

I have had many jobs since graduating college. In each one I often thought that if I hadn't gone to college I'd probably be making more money. This observation comes from working with highschool grads who started working four years ago in the position I'm in right now, they have seniority and thus getting paid more than me. All I have is debt from college loans exponentially collecting interest. To clarify the many jobs I've held in the last few years I will compile a concise list:

Banker
Bussboy
Waiter
Bookstore Manager
Furniture Mover
Bartender
Dishwasher
Freelance Journalist
Satellite Systems Technician
Projectionist & Theatre Technician

I think that about covers it, now it has only been three years since graduation and somehow I'm getting lower and lower starting salary with each new job. This is frustrating mind you and makes me want to join the army. At least I can kill people when I get frustrated in the army. My current job has to be one of the more enjoyable jobs I have ever had. It's laid back, I'm left in a autonomous environment where if I do my job correctly I can do whatever I want during the downtime. Free soda, Free Coffee, and I get paid to screen movies for bad film or soundtracks etc. However there is a downside. I get paid crap, work irregular hours, have to kiss ass in order to keep from getting hours cut off my schedule, no overtime pay for overtime worked and no health benefits. I guess I have to stick to something though. From here I can go to work for companies like THX or Dolby Digital.

From now on though I will be posting my movie reviews of brand new releases and perhaps the reviews may be of some benefit to my friends.

Todays movie review: DOOM starring The Rock
Concise story: In the future humans will uncover a 24th chromosome in an alien humanoid found on mars. They apply it to humans for testing and they all turn into zombie monsters that kill everything they see. The Rock and his band of space marines must hunt down the monsters and kill them.
Origin: From a PC game of the same name by Id Software
Review: ** out of five
First the acting is horrible the dialogue even worse. But if you love big budget B movies this will be a thrill. The special effects and set designs were very well done, however there are some important things you must know before seeing this movie. First shut your brain off while in the theatre the movie requires no thinking and definitely no logic whatsoever. Secondly be prepared for Id software's contribution to the movie at the end where it goes into first person shooter mode just as if you were playing the bloody video game, however this was surprisingly done well and was overall very amusing. Secondly a way to get through the movie is to guess which Marine is going to die next. Just like most mystery thrillers the movies follows the one character killed off at a time till there's only one left. The movie is very dark deliberately to make it more spooky and there are some pretty freaky parts in the movie that are likely to make the squeemish jump. As for gore, there is more gore in this movie than other movies of its class such as Resident Evil. From Zombie Scientists taking bites out of live rats to body parts getting crushed in pressurized doorways, if you toss your cookies when it comes to images of pain and blood bring a barf bag to the theatre. Overall I'd say that for a video game movie this is one of the best, but that's like being the smartest kid with down-syndrome. Not an oscar winner and not a chick flick so it's not half bad ;)
Fred Smith

2005-10-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

How to misbehave in Europe:

Step 1: Come up with a unique form of souvenirs. Spoons, Beersteins, Stds... but get one from each country you go to. Remember that boring things like flags and such will not impress anyone. For me I picked up dvd porn from each country I went to. First of all porn is really cheap in europe and secondly though the countries are small they all have extremely different cultures and it shows in their porn. French porn = artistic historical timesetting and classical music in the background. German porn = probably the funniest porn I have ever seen, set in a military camp, there is literally no foreplay and let's just say in some cases they blitzkrieg their way into anal right off the bat. Danish porn = I've never seen a woman so bored in my life. And etc etc etc
(To those of you who just recently became delicate flower like Christians... my aplogies on the obviously mature or lack of mature nature on this post).

Step 2: Fun things to do at museums. Ok Europe has done some interesting things to historical landmarks. Mozart's house in Salzburg is now a t-shirt shop and one little room has some of mozart's stuff in it. So I took a picture of the stuff and got thrown out. Apparently pictures even without a flash are prohibited because they want you to buy the picture on the t-shirt downstairs. So this gave me an idea how can I get thrown out of famous places in Europe in harmless and rather cute ways. Here are some examples:
Beethoven's grave Vienna Austria: Sing Fidelio arias out of tune so that it annoys everyone at the grave. You can pass it off as devotion to the deceased.
Sigmund Freud's Apartment Vienna Austria: Play scratch and sniff with the picture of medicinal cocaine on the wall of his office, complain that it doesn't work to a security guard. Yell I love my mother from the 3rd floor window so everyone in the street below can hear you.
Edvard Munsch Museum Oslo Norway: Ask a security guard if the paintings really are free and if you can take one home too.

Step 3: European Racism! This the most entertaining sport in all of Europe; making fun of people from other countries. European nations seem to have rivalries like high school football teams. For instance the Swedes are very screwed up. I talked to two Swedish girls while in Prague. I told them I have an apartment in Denmark. Then they proceeded to rip on Denmark. This made me wonder if they hate all their neighbors. They hate Finland more than Denmark (which is funny to me there's nothing about Finland that is remotely interesting enough to feel passionate enough to hate), but for some reason they love Norway. Now knowing some Norwegians I decided to educate these lovely racist ladies a little bit. You see Norway hates Sweden they always have (oddly enough they looked surprised) and then they asked why. Ummm Hitler invasion of Norway... Ring any bells? They shook their heads... Sweden was allied with them and declared immediate neutrality? At this point they actually looked ashamed feeling satisfied I left and sat down with some Australians. So here is a guide to who hates who in Europe:
French hate Everyone
English hate the French
Danish hate anyone from the middle east (long story).
Swedes hate everyone by the Norwegians
Norwegians only hate the Swedes
Germans hate Austrians (this one confused even me).
Non European nationals who hate other countries I met while in Europe:
Australians and Kiwis (a.k.a. people from New Zealand) dislike each other and call each other sheep fuckers
Canadians hate Americans
British women hate British men (this was an interesting situation to witness at a hostel).
Now some of the places I went to I interacted a little more than others. I can't tell you who the Polish hate, my guess would be Russia, but I never found out from any Poles. The Czech's probably hate Russia too but again something I never found out for sure. The other instances were all direct observations by me so it must be true!

Departing wisdom: "I have never allowed my schooling to interfere with my education." -Mark Twain

2005-10-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

Ok for people I have lost contact with this is my updated life so far:

Status: Single and very happily so. I think I've come to epitomize W.C. Fields when he said: "Women are like elephants to me. They're interesting to look at, but I wouldn't want to own one."

Job: Right now I have the best friggin job I have ever had in my life. I run a projection booth for a brand new 16 screen movie theatre. I get paid to watch movies all day. Woohoo! Benefits of job include getting to watch star wars episode III 24 hours before it is released by myself in a theatre equipped with 1.2 million dollars worth of thx certified equipment. Then getting to go outside to all the people camping in the middle of the night and tell them how much the movie sucked.

Disclaimer: I can't believe I'm friggin blogging. Goddamn trendy internet bullshit pisses me off. But since no one emails I guess I'll just have to get down and dirty.

Recent History: Ok been here in Portland Oregon for about a year. But let's go back a couple years.... (enter dream sequence fade out here)...

Stage 1: 2 years ago, Living in Boise idaho, got fed up with girlfriend (again), and job (again). At this time I was doing tech support for directv sattellite systems. Phone center jobs remind me of Ben Hur. "Row well number 42 and live." At this time I was hanging out with the "one armed beer bandit," Lefty and my other friend "live in my parents house till they die," Dave. Drinking dollar pabst every sunday was great but I just got fed up with it so I moved on to stage two.

Stage 2: This involved quitting my job, bugging out on my apartment lease, selling everything I own but what could fit in a large backpack, maxing out my credit cards and taking off for Europe. Ah yes Europe good times, good beer and hot australian tourists. One thing worth mentioning, Canadians are gay. You can spot a Canadian travelling in Europe very easily they all have the maple leaf patch on their packs. This works great as an ice breaker when meeting new people at hostels, just make fun of the Canadians. There was much debauchery, much drunkeness and smoking. I will elaborate more on my travels in later blogs. Muwahahaha.

Stage 3: Moving back to the U.S. When I got home I had 50 cents in my pocket out of the 10 grand I took over with me to Europe! It's interesting coming home with nothing in your belly or your pocket and having to see your family (I was actually glad to see them). So I looked at a map and threw a dart at it. Portland it was. I live with two kick ass roommates.
Maverick Pfel a tattooed and peirced rocker who is a cook at a local comedy club. You must understand Maverick is a formidable sight siv foot seven 300 pounds long ass hair and a goattee about foot long hanging from his chin. He looks like your average german barbarian leader fighting against ancient roman legions or something.
My other roommate is a mexican albino (I'm not making this shit up!) Dave Diaz is legally blind so he lives off of Social Security he's a computer genius which means he has really weird social skills, but he's cool just the same.

Hangouts: Ok so I'm in west Portland, I work in Beaverton where the evil Nike Headquarters is and I live in what used to be military housing in the fifties I think. Basically townhomes designed military housing style I'll have pictures later. My roommates love shiny blinking things like eyeball xmas lights (xmas lights shaped like human eyeballs in case that needed further explaining) and other weird shit. Across the street has the three necessities. Pizza, Strippers, & tobacco/liquor store. Main hangout is a strip club across the way. My roommates and I are the regulars. Most often it's just 3 of us in the entire club, but they have cheap beer and cheap but good food and cause it's oregon full nudity, so how could I refuse to make it my local hangout.

Departing Wisdom: "It was a woman who drove me to drink, and I never had the decency to thank her for it." -W.C. Fields