Author: Teel

This is from Pretty Pistol, but it seemed like an awfully long comment to leave, so it’s a post, with my answers:

FIRSTS
First job: Prints Plus, unless you count helping my dad deliver newspapers
First screen name: Gonzo
First kiss: No idea; my sense of time and propriety hasn’t always been very good
First self purchased CD: I don’t remember what I bought first, but my first CD was R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, and well before I had a CD player
First funeral: My mother’s mother, I believe
First piercing/tattoo: None for me, thanks
First credit card: Desert Schools FCU Visa, still in my wallet
First true love: Must be Melissa Kress, though again, I’m not so good with timelines
First big trip: That I remember well? Probably San Francisco, Fall ’98
First concert: Woodstock ’99
First musician you remember hearing in your house: uhh… huh?

LASTS
Last big car ride: Not counting coming home to Pine, it must be Vegas
Last kiss: I don’t think I’ve kissed anyone in 2003, have I? Hmmm… I think I may have kissed Jen back in 2001… Wait, wait, I remember, there was a kiss or two with Melissa Richardson this summer… Yeah, that must be it.
Last library book checked out: I just renewed Prelude to Foundation today
Last movie seen: Four Weddings and a Funeral
Last beverage drank: Crystal Light Peach Tea
Last food consumed: White Fudge covered Oreo cookie
Last phone call: Grandpa needed one of his doctors’ phone numbers…
Last CD played: an actual CD? The Polyphonic Spree, I guess, though I’m listening to a mix of some thousands of songs on my iMac…
Last annoyance: Spending the last week in Phoenix and not seeing any of my friends
Last soda drank: Had some Diet Mountain Dew yesterday morning
Last ice cream eaten: Double Chocolate with Crunch bar, Brownie and Fudge
Last time scolded: I try to put things like that out of my mind ASAP
Last shirt worn: the red Realink shirt I’m wearing now, you mean?
Last website visited: I am currently (in other tabs) at Modern Evil, Pretty Pistol, Project Mouse, imdb, and LiquidMercurial, though I have been to several others as I have been working on this.

I
I am… cold
I want… love, companionship
I have… a messy room
I wish… my love were reciprocated
I hate… questionnaires like this
I fear… becoming the worst version of myself
I hear… music, a fan, my own sniffling
I search… for Amanda
I wonder… where she disappeared to
I regret… the mistakes I made
I love… and love, and love, and love, and am alone
I ache…
I always… seem to end up feeling this way
I am not… sure what to do about it
I dance… alone, dreaming of a partner
I sing… a lot when I am alone, and some regardless
I cry… myself to sleep
I am not always… sure why I should go on living
I write… and write, and write, but what’s the point?
I win… No. No, I don’t win.
I loose… loves, ideas, money, my footing…
I confuse… even myself sometimes
I get confused by… the twists of my own life
I need… love, returned

YES or NO:
Do you keep a diary: just this
Do you like to cook: yes
Have you a secret you haven’t shared with anyone else: no

DO YOU…?
Have a girlfriend: no
Want to get married: someday
Get motion sickness: sometimes if I’ve been in the water all day, I get land-sickness… does that count?
Think you’re a health freak: no
Get along with your parents: yes
Like thunderstorms: yes

FAVORITE:
Number: hmmmm…. Pi, or the square root of negative one…
Colour: Yellow, then a particular purple-like hue
Day: tomorrow, yesterday, Thursday, today (in that order)
Month: September
Songs: Needle In the Hay, Suede, E-Bow the Letter
Season: Salt
Drink: water

PREFERENCES:
Cuddle or make out: Man Oh Man, would I take either right now
Chocolate milk or hot chocolate: Chocolate Milk
Milk, dark or white chocolate: dark
Vanilla or chocolate: chocolate

IN THE LAST 24 HOURS, HAVE YOU…
Cried? no
Helped someone? yes
Bought something? no
Gone to the movies? no
Gone out to eat? no
Said ‘i love you’? not to anything but the empty room and a memory
Written a love letter: no
Talked to an ex? no
Missed an ex? yes
Written in a journal? yes, if this counts
Had a serious talk? yes
Missed someone? inevitably
Hugged someone? no
Fought with your parents? no
Fought with a friend? no

WOULD YOU EVER
1. Eat a bug? Depends on the circumstances, but yes
2. Bungee jump? sure
4. Kill someone? why not?
5. Kiss someone of the same sex? yes
6. Have sex with someone of the same sex? sure
7. Parachute from a plane? yes
8. Walk on hot coals? if it was done right
9. Go out with someone for their looks? no
11. Be a vegetarian? Sure, it worked okay last time…
12. Wear plaid with stripes? yep
13. IM a stranger? yes
14. Sing Karaoke? maybe
15. Get drunk off your Ass? hard to say
16. Shoplift? no
17. Run a red light? on foot or on my bike, but not in a car
18. Star in a porn video? only if they get desparate
19. Dye your hair blue? done it before, might do it again
20. Be on Survivor? why not?
21. Wear makeup in public? yes
22. Cheat on a test? what, like a blood test?
23. Make someone cry? Not on purpose, but almost inevitably, yes
24. Date someone more than 10 years older than you? yes
25. Stay up all night? yes

I guess that’s that.

Okay. I went through the list of 8378 Movies, Videos, Video Games, and TV shows listed in imdb‘s list of “movie titles only” from 2003, and made two lists. I only considered movies whose initial release was in theatres in 2003, so most of the titles were … annoying …. being non-movies. Anyway. One list was of movies of 2003 which I’ve seen, and the other list is of movies of 2003 which I haven’t seen yet, but want to.

Click here is you want to see these lists.

Now, if you saw a movie with me this year in a theatre that isn’t on either list, let me know. It’s possible I missed it while going through the 8378 titles. It’s also possible that the movie’s official initial release was in another year.

So why, you may wonder, did I do this? Well, in previous years I’ve wanted to do an end-of-the-year list of my favorite movies of the year, but I can never remember which movies I saw in which years, and I often forget many movies. This year, while I was cutting back on my movie watching overall, I still have opinions. And now, I have a way of safely limiting my lists to the movies of 2003. So here are the 15 movies I consider my favorites (after only a quick review; my opinions may change after multiple viewings of these films) among all the movies of 2003 which I actually saw:

15 Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
14 American Splendor
13 Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
12 Confidence
11 Cat in the Hat, The
10 Matchstick Men
9 Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, The
8 Head of State
7 Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
6 Matrix Revolutions, The
5 Peter Pan
4 Order, The
3 Kill Bill: Vol. 1
2 Matrix Reloaded, The
1 Elf

And here are the 10 movies I consider (again, after only a quick review in my mind) to be the worst movies of 2003 which I have seen:

10 Daredevil
9 Seabiscuit
8 Wrong Turn
7 Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
6 How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
5 Dreamcatcher
4 Guy Thing, A
3 Jeepers Creepers II
2 Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde
1 Absolon

Still, because of limited funds, there are many movies I did not get a chance to see this year (or that I plan simply to buy on DVD sight-unseen, knowing full well that they will be satisfying). So here are two quick lists, only 8 titles each, of the best and worst movies of 2003 which I haven’t seen, based on … what I think they’ll be like when I do see them:

Best:
8 Haunted Mansion, The
7 Bad Santa
6 Cooler, The
5 School of Rock, The
4 Love, Actually
3 Northfork
2 Girl With a Pearl Earring
1 Lost in Translation

Worst:
8 Pieces of April
7 Company, The
6 Uptown Girls
5 Basic
4 Dracula II: Ascension
3 Marci X
2 Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
1 Brown Bunny, The

Which brings an interesting thing to mind: despite the fact that I believe that those last 8 movies will be among the worst movies of 2003 that I will see, I still want to see them. Especially The Brown Bunny. Wow.

Anyway, I’d love to hear your feedback, and I’d certainly love to be reminded of films I’ve somehow left out. Of note to me are things like this: In America, which will probably get multiple Oscar nominations this year, had its theatrical debut in Canada in 2002. I haven’t seen it, but I plan to buy it, and if it was a 2003 movie, it would be on my Best list.

Wheeee!!

I just “stubbed” about a quarter of an inch off the smallest toe on my right foot, by walking into a pneumatic nailer.

The nailer is now thoroughly out of my walkway and under good lighting, lest it, like the croc, take a liking to the taste of my flesh and try for more. I may have to install an alarm clock.

Funny thing: My feet were so cold (You’ve heard that heat rises? Yeah. It feels like it’s still twenty degrees on the floor.) that I just thought I’d stubbed my toe, that the pain was a normal, reasonable level. In fact, due to the coldness, until a minute or three later when I crossed my legs and noticed it, I’m pretty sure my toe hadn’t quite worked out to bleed. Of course then I kept doing things like try to examine it, clean it, apply antibiotic ointment and bandaids and such and it warmed up and started bleeding pretty good.

Sigh.

I managed to somehow completely miss the large blister I’ve been growing there between Vegas walking and Christmas shopping and many, many, many walks to and from the local blockbuster to fill my weekend stuck in Phoenix. So now I have a chunk of toe gone, which is drawing attention to the “extra” toe that was already pretty painful.

Sigh.

Going back to Pine in the morning. Staying there … indefinitely.

My brother moves up on Thursday or Friday. My father … sometime a week or more after that, depending on how his boss deals with things. Shouldn’t be too long though, considering his replacement is already trained. And then … well, then I won’t have much call for coming to the valley.

I say “call”, but what I mean is more like “ability”. Theoretically I could “drive” to the valley once in a while, but … though I am licensed, I am not insured. And for longer than I can remember, the deal with my parents has been that I can drive as soon as I can pay for my own insurance. Which I can’t right now.

In fact, it’s not particularly a priority for me right now. When we start making money from furniture up there (very soon, I hope), the first priority after paying my pre-existing bills is for high speed internet access and saving for vacations and/or convention(s). Plus getting together the money to start up a screen printing business properly. Plus … who knows what else, but a car and insurance are not at the top of the list right now.

Well, if the furniture work becomes fantastically successful and I am able to pay off all my current debt and build up appropriate savings in record time, I certainly wouldn’t rule out getting a vehicle of my own, so we shall see. But I’m not laying in any bets on my success in 2004. If you’d asked me to bet on my success with selling my art this year, I would very likely have lost although I have certainly met my original goal of averaging one new painting a month. Unfortunately it was only that, I only completed 12 new paintings all year. Maybe I’ll do one more before Wednesday night is up, eh?

Anyhow, going back to Pine for an indefinite period of time. My new tracking information says there are an average of one thousand unique visitors to Modern Evil every day, and since I can only think of perhaps half a dozen people among you who might consider yourselves effected by my not being in Phoenix, perhaps it is not worth much mention. Realistically, High Speed Internet Access or not, I’ll keep posting. I’ll keep reading. I’ll keep trying to keep the site together.

Did I mention I have six cavities? Yep. At least four of them were there the last time I went to a dentist, three years ago this month. I can’t say for sure; they weren’t telling me about my cavities, they were telling me about my wisdom teeth, which I had out three years ago. I was supposed to go back in February 2001 and get my cavities looked at, but I never did. Actually, I’m certain that at least three of them were there when I was 17… around eight years ago. But that dentist was also vague, since he knew we couldn’t afford to have them filled. None of them (seem to) cause me pain and they don’t seem to be growing or infected (to me… and the dentists haven’t seemed too worried about them), and having them filled (at a discounted rate) will cost over $800, so … we’ll do that … later.

Maybe I should put together a BitPass donation link for getting my cavities filled.

Okay, here. Use this link to donate to my teeth. As a bonus, anyone who donates (at least two cents) gets free access to the first ~8minutes of the MP3 audio version of Lost and Not Found.

Anyhow.

What else? Grandmother is getting worse. I guess since I saw her a few days ago she basically became unable to breathe and is now in the hospital. She’s been on a nebulizer, taking medicine for her lung problems for .. I don’t know, a month? more? But she only seems to get worse. This new year may be much more difficult for all of us than the one coming to a close.

Did you hear the one about the Carrabbit? A cross between a carrot and a rabbit, it’s its own favorite food!

Well, that’s that. I’ve got to go to bed. Got to get up in the morning and go “home”. Shovel snow, do construction, electrical, plumbing, that rot.

So, as long as the other awake and online people are doing it, here goes, a list of what I did/got for Christmas.

Christmas eve, because my dad managed not to have a single Christmas decoration up, let alone a tree, and because my brother hadn’t even got the money he was supposed to Christmas shop with until that afternoon, after my father and sister went to bed (they do this early because they both have to wake up to deliver papers in the wee hours of the morning), my brother Heath and I went to the only open local store (other than convenience), a Fry’s Marketplace, to shop. We found that our budgets wouldn’t cover much, and that we had exactly one hour before they shut down the registers and went home, so we moved at a fairly quick pace through the non-food sections of the store, discussing what he wanted to get for the few people he was shopping for (all family). Found some good stuff: Floating candles for Angela, a LotR puzzle in a neat metal box for dad, a little stuffed cat that very closely resembles a cat April once had for April, and I paid for the bulk of it, but a very nice shower curtain for me (and him to share in our new bathroom in Pine) that’s all nice and rainbow-y. Except then we had fifteen minutes to get out of the store and no money left for wrapping paper or deocrations. So, err, we left. We actually got out with about four minutes to spare (there sure are long lines on Christmas Eve right before the last open store for miles around closes), and went straight home.

We wrapped up the presents in a week-old New York Times. I have been shopping for a while and had some presents for the same people to wrap and wrapped them in the most boring sections of the NYT. I saw that we had a sort-of respectable pile of gifts growing and Heath and I quietly (so as not to wake dad and Angela) discussed where we could put them, having no tree, no stockings, no chimney, no blinky lights. As I wrapped up some socks and underwear I had bought myself (labelling them “To Teel, From Santa”, so that there would be something from Santa for Christmas) in the movie ads from the NYT, Heath popped into the next room and drew a Christmas tree on a big sheet of paper. He taped it to a lamp in the living room and we stacked the presents under it. We just finished up and got into bed, mere minutes before the rest of the household began to rouse.

When we woke in the morning (around 9? I don’t recall) we exchanged gifts with Angela (who was not to be joining us at April’s party). She liked the floating candles and the Edge Calendar/CD I got her (she should, she drove me to Best Buy specifically to get it for her) and she gave Heath and I cards reminding us that she had given us our gifts months ago (Maverick on DVD, plus the Vegas vacation for me, and an MP3/CD player for Heath). Dad got Angela a medium-sized George Foreman grill so she won’t starve after the rest of us move out next week. Dad and Angela liked the Christmas “tree”, which was neat.

Anyway, we got outselves together (fairly ineffectively and slowly, and with one mid-drive turn-around to pick up forgotten things) and went over to April’s, arriving a little after 11AM. The power was out for at least a city block there (no traffic lights, no house lights, etc…), but everyone seemed to be having a good time anyway. We showed up right after breakfast, and we stayed until around 3, or right before lunch. The only people I knew there were April and her family, plus my family, whom I had arrived with. The rest were April’s husband’s family and … I don’t know who else. There was a vast unwrapping (there were at least 5 children there unwrapping, only one or two of which I recognized), and I opened my socks and underwear and also a neat Futurama metal sign from April that I shall do my best to find a place to hang in my room. Heath got a couple of “blank books” to write in from her, plus a really, really neat pen. It has three tips, a pen, a mechanical pencil, and a stylus (for a palm device or such), which in itself isn’t particularly neat. But the pen knows which way is up. No twisting to get it to change tips; there are little marks on the back of the pen, and you simply turn the entire pen and press the button on the end and whichever image is up determines which tip comes out. I may not be expressing how weird it is for a pen to know up from down. I also gave April a card with a gift certificate for a free Painting from my ‘gallery’ in Pine, of her choice, and she seemed to really like it.

Anyway, not knowing anyone at a party makes it kinda boring for me, so after a couple hours, Heath and I began playing the new Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition that April had got from Angela for Christmas. Other partiers wandered in and out over the next couple of hours, sometimes playing for a few rounds, but always giving up because they didn’t know a couple of questions. At around 3, dad finally seemed to get permission from April to leave, so we declared me a winner (I had five pie pieces and the next best was two pieces), packed up, said our goodbyes and left. The highlight of the party was the baccala, for me.

After that, Heath and I went to see Peter Pan, which was great, and the closest retelling to the truth of Peter Pan and Neverland that I’ve seen. Then we tried to go see Big Fish with Angela, but they were sold out, so we’re going this morning. So then Heath and I went to see Paycheck, which we liked overall. The biggest problem we had with Paycheck was every single advertisement for it, ever. See, it’s a slowly-unfolding suspense movie where you’re not supposed to know what he’s building or that he’s changed his personal items or that he has a relationship with Uma or a dozen other things that the commercials give away. Had we not seen a single ad for it, or if the ads had been more discrete, the experience would have been vastly better. But we still liked it. Action, Sci-Fi, Phillip K. Dick, it’s all good.

Anyway. All told, here’s what I got:

Journey to Wild Divine
Futurama Metal sign
White socks, white briefs, white boxer briefs, thermal underwear (I bought myself)
Maverick on DVD
A shower curtain (I bought most of)

Yep.

And there’s a traditional gift from Zoe of Harkins stuff, so that’ll probably happen. I have a little something for him, too. He should like it.

Anyway, now we’re off to see Big Fish.

Happy Boxing Day!