Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

In 2001, this was likely the hippest read for americans over 26. Have you heard the story of Amy Sedaris wearing a fat suit to visit the overbearing, fat-shaming dad? It's in this book, which was a fun read. David knew he was gay as far back as elementary school, where he underwent speech therapy to work on his lisp. Later in life, he got into crystal meth and performance art. After he got his act together, he lived in chicago, nyc, and then france. He smokes cigarettes, and hates when people eat and talk during movies, and has a good sense of humor. His stories aren't especially gripping, but they are more entertaining than most things you would otherwise read. I you find yourself wanting to read books, but failing, I highly recommend this one.

How Not to Write a Novel by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman

As you might know, I've been working on my third novel. It's been a fun time, but I do want it to be good. The greatest thing that slows my work is the trepidation with which I approach each session, knowing my work is going to suck. And I've been trying to build self-confidence in every way I can fine. How Not to Write a Novel has helped to some extent. I'd already deduced most of its advice by watching lectures, and reading other books on writing. Still, I really appreciate it's quick, strong, good advice. I highly recommend it to anyone in my shoes.

Zandalee (feat. Nicolas Cage)

In New Orleans, Thierry and Zandalee are having relationship problems, which can happen to even the sexiest of us. Thierry's dad died, and he decides to quit being a poet/professor in order to take over his dad's business. It's a sad time for Thierry, but with his new position, he's about to help Johnny get a job. Johnny, played by Cage, hasn't lost his passion. In fact, you might consider his singular verocity to be problematic as he forces himself between Thierry and Zandalee. You might wonder, 'what's the worst that could happen?', and find yourself surprised at how dark this film really gets. Cage also blesses us with a supreme freak-out, one of his best.

But was this a great film? I think it was pretty good. Instead of setting out to make a 'great' blockbuster, it seems like the creators went ahead and made exactly the kind of self-indulgent film they wanted. And it turned out pretty good, not perfect but pretty good. I enjoyed it.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Red Rock West
4. Adaptation
5. Birdy
6. Wild at Heart
7. Dog Eat Dog
8. Color Out of Space
9. Mom and Dad
10. Peggy Sue Got Married
11. Zandalee
12. City of Angels
13. Bangkok Dangerous
14. Drive Angry
15. Lord of War
16. Gone in 60 Seconds
17. Matchstick Men
18. Vampire's Kiss
19. Con Air
20. Face/Off
21. Honeymoon in Vegas
22. Amos and Andrew
23. Moonstruck
24. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
25. Bringing Out the Dead
26. The Family Man
27. It Could Happen to You
28. 8mm
29. Ghost Rider
30. The Humanity Bureau
31. Next
32. The Weather Man
33. 211
34. The Croods

Things That Will Pass for Pizza

There's something about being a kid that gives every adult license to talk about you as if you're not even there, at church, family get-togethers, school, everywhere. So I got a reputation for being a picky eater, rightfully earned. I was averse to the seasoned meat in tacos (it tends to smell like an arm pit). Also, I wasn't into pizza with pepperoni, or a sauce that likely will taste like spaghetti-os. So I never ate school cafeteria pizza, but I was always curious.

At my household, we like to go down to Odon Indiana, for their meat locker. In the freezer, they had a bag of these pizza-ish squares, and I had to try it. The dough tastes like a flour and water pancake, like I used to make when I was first living on my own and didn't know how to cook. The sauce is a little better than Spaghetti-os, but not better than Chef Boyardee. Neither sauce is as good as that in the Great Value brand spaghetti rings.

I love the little nerd-like, nugget-style sausage bits, but the ones on this pizza are not very good. They don't taste like much of anything, so it's more like eating rubber than sausage. Justine informed me this pizza isn't as good as that in school cafeterias. So maybe I missed out, but I didn't want to give into enjoying a cheap bastard version of pizza, not as a kid. I knew that if I pretended to like school pizza, then I'd have to eat it all the time, and eat less of the things I actually enjoyed. No thanks. I needed every freedom I could get.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

I think Ursula LeGuin recommended this classic in her Steering the Craft book on writing narratives. I wonder if people who take British Literature have to read Jane Eyre. Maybe I should find out. I think it was a good read, so far as I could tell. You might call her prose Aristocratic, and I think it was all somewhat goth. Perhaps the greatest aspect of it was in Brontë's incredible vocabulary.

Jane, modeled after her writer, went to a very strict school for girls, and came out very religious and disciplined, probably a better person for it all. Then comes the love story, which is fine as far as love stories go. It's hard to approve of Jane's choice of man, since her story takes place in a time when most men were probably worse for their disposition. But he was an extremely eloquent guy, nearly as verbose as Frankenstein's monster.

A World of Biscuits

I like that it is a world of biscuits, and not a biscuit shop, and within one town, there are multiple worlds. It makes me feel better, living in my own world, a world with biscuits but not of biscuits. If you haven't ever been to a Tudor's, I would highly recommend it. With mastery, they serve the most appalacian of foods, like baked beans, corn bread, fried chicken, and biscuits and gravy. Aside from the stares I received wandering the town of Grayson Kentucky, I couldn't help but affect a southern accent while ordering my biscuits and taters. If you need an opinion on the food, Bob Evan's has better gravy, but Tudor's biscuits are in a world of their own.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

My older sister had to read this over the summer, before her first semester of college. I went to the same school, but don't remember being assigned anything. They probably just forgot to tell me. Shelley's Frankenstein isn't the monster mashing romp I had expected it to be, though I did see the movie, so the book didn't throw me for a total loop.

The story mostly focuses on Victor, the man named Frankenstein. He hates his creation, because it is ugly, so ugly it is rejected by all society. If not for his appearances, you'd think the monster would be able to easily integrate himself into society. He's remarkably loquacious for a monster, with deep opinions about the popular books of his day, and is a master of watercraft. I won't spoil you with details over which blank characters get mashed in what order. You will probably forget, anyway.

Moonstruck (feat. Nicolas Cage)

Cher is pretty all right. It's hard not to like her. Though I think there must have been some favoritism going on, like the Academy thought they owed Cher a favor, because I don't know how this film won three Oscars. I don't think cheesey romance films are bad, but none of the characters in this film behave like real people tend to sometimes do. Characters in Moonstruck get engaged, fall in love at first sight, and change the trajectory of their lives based on momentary passions. Is that how all Italian Americans are? Are they all insane?

On insanity, Cage's character Ronny is an actual psycho, smashing things with his "fake-wooden hand", threatening to kill himself, and perpetually blaming his brother for an accident that was his own fault. Maybe that's just how all Italian-American bakers are, only wearing tank tops, never full shirts unless they're going to the Opera. They call this film a romantic comedy, but the comedy aspect is playing on a wheelchair of Italian stereotypes. Maybe if I considered myself more cultured, I'd feel obligated to think it's funny. Like, maybe the Academy thought it was funny because they are laughing at themselves, and they are in the know. Maybe it is considered a comedy in the traditional sense, leaving you wondering what the plot is before revealing it in the end.

What about the romance? Maybe it is the absence of rational motivation that makes this film romantic, because love is not rational. Love can make you deny the factual "bad luck" that might lead you to get engaged to a guy you have no reason to like, the way Cher's character (Loretta) did. Perhaps love is just it's own force, at odds with the world, yet moving the world at its own whim. So maybe my unwillingness to accept this principle is the reason why I didn't think this movie was amazing.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Red Rock West
4. Adaptation
5. Birdy
6. Wild at Heart
7. Dog Eat Dog
8. Color Out of Space
9. Mom and Dad
10. Peggy Sue Got Married
11. City of Angels
12. Bangkok Dangerous
13. Drive Angry
14. Lord of War
15. Gone in 60 Seconds
16. Matchstick Men
17. Vampire's Kiss
18. Con Air
19. Face/Off
20. Honeymoon in Vegas
21. Amos and Andrew
22. Moonstruck
23. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
24. Bringing Out the Dead
25. The Family Man
26. It Could Happen to You
27. 8mm
28. Ghost Rider
29. The Humanity Bureau
30. Next
31. The Weather Man
32. 211
33. The Croods

Pizza X of Bloomington Indiana

When it comes to ordering late night pizza, I don't normally go to Pizza X, even though they're very good. They just don't offer anything other than pizza and breadsticks, which are also exceptional. Pizza X pizza has a ratio of 2cr2ce2ch. Their CRUST gets a 2 out of 5. It tastes all right, is chewy, and folds well. However, it tends to be somewhat dry and rubbery, laborous to chew. Also, I gave it a mass of 2 out of 5, but the pizza gets progressively thicker toward its outer edge, leaving you with an excess of chewy bread to deal with when you'd rather be grabbing a new slice.

Their SAUCE gets a 4 out of 5. It's thick, delicious, and flavorful, great for dipping. A little bit goes a long way.

For STYLE, Pizza X gets a 3 out of 5. A big plus is that they give you reusable cups of soda when you order one of their deals. Also, they put candy in your pizza box, free dessert. However, there's nothing remarkable about their pizza. If they had a dine-in establishment, I'd love to do a fresh review.

For OVERALL QUALITY, Pizza X gets a (Bloomington) 5 out of 5. I think it's safe to say they care more about their reputation than the big chains. So their final score is 70%. Pizza X rules.

Mom and Dad (feat. Nicolas Cage)

I never knew Selma Blair was such a great actress since I've probably never seen anything with her, but she was great, starring alongside Cage in this fun, family violent horror movie. Cage plays the dad who always thought he was cool. Blair is the mom who needs her coffee, and plays on a very believable nurturing side in order to get her kids close enough for her to violently murder them.

You read that right. This film is about a day when all the human parents try to kill their brood. There's not much more to it, and that's okay. Reasonably unambitious, this film succeeds on about every front. Cage's violent freak-outs are a lot more effective when he's in dad mode.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Red Rock West
4. Adaptation
5. Birdy
6. Wild at Heart
7. Dog Eat Dog
8. Color Out of Space
9. Mom and Dad
10. Peggy Sue Got Married
11. City of Angels
12. Bangkok Dangerous
13. Drive Angry
14. Lord of War
15. Gone in 60 Seconds
16. Matchstick Men
17. Vampire's Kiss
18. Con Air
19. Face/Off
20. Honeymoon in Vegas
21. Amos and Andrew
22. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
23. Bringing Out the Dead
24. The Family Man
25. It Could Happen to You
26. 8mm
27. Ghost Rider
28. The Humanity Bureau
29. Next
30. The Weather Man
31. 211
32. The Croods

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

This one was pretty good, in the realm of self-help. I had at one time, delved into Dale Carnegie's 'How to Make Friends and Influence People', but I just didn't see myself ever being Dale's kind of guy. Covey denounces Carnegie's 'personality ethic' in favor of a character-focused self image. He explains the principles that make people truly valuable to one another.

I think self-help writers spend too much time telling stories of how their methods work, when one can never be too sure until they try it for themselves. Still I thought this book made a ton of good points. If you want to have constructive, synergistic, meaningful relationships with others, but don't know how, then I strongly recommend this book.

Damned by Chuck Palaniuk

I wonder if every Chuck Palaniuk novel forever will have "from the Author of Fight Club" on its cover. But Damned is every bit as gruesome and edgy, almost gratuitously so. It's about a preteen girl who goes to hell and becomes a telemarketer. People go to hell for not obeying Jesus, who is the top deity of our time, and all the old gods are demons. Hell is pretty bad, but not everyone there is so bad. The worst people are apparently the Hollywood narcissists, materialists, and modern day pharisees. I can get with that. Goodreads tells me Damned is part of a series, which has me wondering about Chuck and his agent. Really, I should read more of his work before deciding whether or not Damned is Chuck's second best book, and worthy of its own series. Either way, I don't think he's going to have another Fight Club, made legendary by its cool movie.

Not a Cereal Bar

Post Fruity Pebbles' Candy Bar immediately gripped me, in concept. Made with my favorite cereal, I had to try it, especially after the weirdness of the Fruity Pebbles' Coffee Creamer. I wanted something more appropriate from Fred and his delicious breakfast.

So this cereal candy bar is a lot like Hershey's Cookies and Cream, but with less cereal than the big guy's bar has cookie pieces. So what we get is a big slab of white coating with an unsatisfying scatter of cereal pieces. And somehow the whole thing makes me extremely thirsty, and like many forementioned junk foods, it made my mouth burn a little. Maybe the food to sugar to chemical ratio is off.

Dog Eat Dog (feat. Nicolas Cage)

In Dog Eat Dog, Cage brings back the edge, starring alongside superstar Willem Dafoe. Cage is Troy and Dafoe is Mad Dog. Their characters are racist, but they have a dark skinned partner named Diesel. He didn't make it onto the movie poster. Together they make a trio of drugged-out, sleazy ex-cons, ripping off other criminals. You might presume they're the worst of the worst.

You might also think with all the drugs, they'd be a little paranoid, especially Mad Dog, a reputable loose cannon. Troy is the smart, theoretical one, longing for someone to share his interests that are not drugs and crime. Diesel is the brooding hard ass, the cool one. It sounds like a fun life they have, doing a job and then partying until the next one. After all, they have a boss who finds them work. But let's face it, this motley crew isn't really the type to do every type of job. And what if they take an impossible to resist job which they are sure to fail?

Cage does some good acting in this film, and I'm not sure what it is that made him try so hard. Maybe he had some good directing. He even says one of my favorite phrases, "I heard that." Dafoe is, of course, amazing. In fact, all the acting is pretty all right.

With Dog Eat Dog, we are pitched with a heist-style story, with the odds low and the stakes high, all spelled out for the viewers. The thing about this trio of heroes, is we get a chance to sympathize with at least one of them enough to hope for their success. With such an obvious set-up, this film does more than surprise. Even I took a few shocks and felt some sad, not in the obvious "isn't your mind blown???" sense of many Cage films. Among the darkness and gun violence, I found this film to be fairly satisfying.

1. Raising Arizona
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Red Rock West
4. Adaptation
5. Birdy
6. Wild at Heart
7. Dog Eat Dog
8. Color Out of Space
9. Peggy Sue Got Married
10. City of Angels
11. Bangkok Dangerous
12. Drive Angry
13. Lord of War
14. Gone in 60 Seconds
15. Matchstick Men
16. Vampire's Kiss
17. Con Air
18. Face/Off
19. Honeymoon in Vegas
20. Amos and Andrew
21. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
22. Bringing Out the Dead
23. The Family Man
24. It Could Happen to You
25. 8mm
26. Ghost Rider
27. Next
28. The Weather Man
29. 211
30. The Croods

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

This is a pretty cool story for anyone who is into zombies, vampires, apocalypses, or all three. Out of the three, I might be more of an apocalypse kind of guy. I'm glad Mathis didn't try to make all of his vampires totally irresistible. Vampires sound sexy on paper, but it's hard not to imagine their cold, slimy, corpulent saliva on your warm, living human lips. Their eyes are always unsexy, too.

I Am Legend also gets philosophical, for all of you who prefer books that are super deep. Who hasn't felt like they were all alone in the world, or at the very least, the last of their kind? If you don't already feel that way, then you could probably try to fix it by drinking a lot of whiskey; exclusively whiskey, boarding up the windows of your heart.

Jokes aside, I thought I Am Legend was a good book. It starts at an interesting point in the story, and goes back in time when the past events become relevant. It doesn't wait until the last minute to tell you things that you deserved to know a hundred pages ago, and it doesn't tell you too much stuff that's not scary and not part of the story. I haven't yet seen the movie of it, but I bet it's pretty good.

How I Got My Shrunken Head by R.L. Stine

April is a month for thrillers, I decided since it's halfway to October. I also figured if I'm going to read a hundred books this year, then many of them can be Goosebumps. How I Got My Shrunken Head might be the only Goosebumps I read when I was a kid, likely finishing it one day in Mrs. Johnson's fifth grade classroom. There's a certain story about two kids who don't like each other, but become friends, and eventually get lice, which I enjoyed in those days, and I'm not sure what it is. It may be Eat Cheese and Barf by R.U. Slime. I though maybe this would have been what I was looking for. Either way, How I Got My Shrunken Head is fine, not as good as Stay Out of the Basement. However, jungles are cool and scary, probably more scary than basements.

Bangkok Dangerous (feat. Nicolas Cage)

I've discovered that so far, over 30% of Cages films are narrated by him. 95% of them have him in the lead role. Narrating Bangkok dangerous, he plays an international assassin who normally kills his partners. In this story, we learn what kind of people these victims are.

I really appreciate how instead of going for edgy, this film gave us an eye-opening experience, a glimpse at Bangkok. It may be a sensationalized Bangkok, but who knows? I have no immediate plan of going there, even though it would be nice, even if it is dangerous.

One might wonder what the deal is with Cage and playing guys who dye their hair. Maybe his character (curtly known as Joe) is supposed to be younger than his actor, but in this case it doesn't seem to make a difference. Her does look much older than he did in last year's Ghost Rider.

I don't know if being in Asia makes you want to make Asian-style films, but that's what we have here. It's highly cinematic, featuring a hero with an especially cool way of being. And it's such a breath of fresh air to watch a quiet, patient scene of maximum impact. It's not real like Lord of War, no. Instead of going for "wow" stunts and practical effects, the action scenes are fun, relying on actual action and choreography. All right, there are SOME stunts and practical effects. But it's cool to see bullets travel through the bottom of the boat and through the water underneath. You might not be surprised to hear there's a lot of good gun shooting in this film.

At times I felt like Cage was acting on autopilot, especially in the scenes that required real acting. But maybe I'm just used to him by now. Also, I wonder how much the film makers did sensationalize Bangkok and all the things that make it not American. There's also no part of the story that isn't predictable. As soon as you meet a character, you figure out who they're going to be and what's going to happen with them. So a lot of the watching is spent waiting for the end. Though I do like not being totally stressed out when trying to kick back and watch a vid.

It seems like half the time a film 'blows your mind', you're left groaning and wondering how you fell for that, wondering why they couldn't have done something more satisfying. Maybe I'm being generous with my rating, and maybe I was too generous in rating Lord of War. Or maybe I just like this kind of film.

1. Raising Arizona
   
2. Leaving Las Vegas
3. Red Rock West
4. Adaptation
5. Birdy
6. Wild at Heart
7. Color Out of Space
8. Peggy Sue Got Married
9. City of Angels
10. Bangkok Dangerous
11. Drive Angry
12. Lord of War
13. Gone in 60 Seconds
14. Matchstick Men
15. Vampire's Kiss
16. Con Air
17. Face/Off
18. Honeymoon in Vegas
19. Amos and Andrew
20. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
21. Bringing Out the Dead
22. The Family Man
23. It Could Happen to You
24. 8mm
25. Ghost Rider
26. Next
27. The Weather Man
28. 211
29. The Croods

ALSO! Lets talk about Saturn Films, Nicolas Cage's own company which I've failed to mention. It was They who rewrote the script for 2007's Next, which as you might remember, turned out horribly. Bangkok Dangerous and Lord of War were also made by Saturn Films. And Sorcerer's Apprentice was produced by them. In the future, I'll be sure to let you know which of these Cage films were done by Saturn.

a snack that burns

There's something to be said for a snack that burns your mouth, but isn't spicy. Not to be mistaken for Snyder of Berlin, Snyder of Hanover's Seasoned Pretzel Twists give you a familiar taste of butter concentrate with a myriad of savory flavors. I detect the onion and garlic powders, but there's not enough garlic to really set the whole thing off. Still, they're a tasty snack. But why the burn? Is there just so much MSG and sodium in this snack that it leaves one feeling harmed? Can it be the onion powder? It looks like we have a cozy mystery on our hands.

The Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

My buddy Evdog let me borrow this book, and I found it to be a pretty good thriller, published before there was so much hype about the creepiness of giant museums. The quotes on the cover keep referring to Jurassic Park, but I don't think the two stories have much in common. On the inside cover, you can see both writers (one a museum expert), both looking thoroughly spooked.

I like stories with short chapters that keep me wondering who's going to die next. This book was also made into a film, so I'll let you know how it turned out, maybe not better than Jurassic Park.

Call of the Wild by Jack London

This was a badass read, and I have to say, visions of dog abuse hit a lot harder than with human abuse. Dogs are born heroes.

Call of the Wild tells the rise and fall and rise of Buck, a legendarily badass dog. Jack London really knew how to grip his readers, and I'm looking forward to checking out the rest of his works. Maybe I'll learn more about the world that exists where dogs are used in the place of horses, and even cars. My boss at UPS told me some of our packages are delivered by dog sled. Maybe someday I'll get promoted to dog sled driver. (edit: that's not going to happen. I probably won't be returning to UPS).