This Should Work

Last night I sat on my couch and watched the director’s cut of Donnie Darko. It’s… well…um…okay, I guess.

It’s the type of movie that had I seen it five years ago when it was released, I may have said it was one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. But now that I’m older, I can appreciate Teen Angst/the-world-doesn’t-understand, but no longer relate to it. I guess I really am old.

If you haven’t seen Donnie Darko, this is Richard Kelly’s directorial debut film about a teenager, Donnie, who is visited be six-foot, demonic-looking rabbit in his sleep. This rabbit tells Donnie that the world will end in 28 days. It may sound stupid, but it gets more interesting: the plot also revolves around the ideas of time travel and tangent universes.

Yes, a time-travelling six-foot rabbit from a tangent universe sounds like the stuff that classic cult movie are carved from, which is exactly where this movie will end up (it may be there already). It has a lot of interesting ideas but fails to pull them together in the end. Did Donnie travel back in time? Did he go through a worm hole? Was he in a tangent universe for the entire movie? I think the director meant it to be open-ended, but it’s a little too open for me.

I read an article on wikipedia about Donnie Darko that has the best explanation of the plot; it explains why Donnie can travel to the fourth dimension and the significance of certain artifacts and people in the movie. It’s the best one I found on the net for this movie.

But for all the talk about this movie being about time-travel and tangent universes, I’m pretty sure that Donnie’s ultimate goal is not to figure out why he keeps seeing this strange rabbit or how he travels through time, rather he’s just trying to get laid before the world ends in 28 days (which is where the teen angst/frustration comes in).

Also, through the last half of the movie I’m thinking to myself ‘Donnie Darko, DD. He can travel through and talks to rabbits. Darren Daulton, DD. The ex-baseball player says he can travel through time and talks to lizards.’

Many believe the movie warrants a second viewing because it’s too complex to understand the first time around, they’re probably right. And while this movie does have it’s good points- excellent performances by Jake Gyllenhaal as the brooding Donnie, Patrick Swayze as motivational speaker Jim Cunningham, and a great soundtrack that includes INXS, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Joy Division- the story was just not interesting enough for me to warrant sitting through it again.

image from pixelsurgeon.com

[tags]Donnie Darko, Darren Daulton, Movies, Time-Travel[/tags]

I like I was stating earlier, I had a great weekend filled with bird watching, dining with celebrities, and betting on horses.

Makin’ a new home
Saturday morning I noticed a bird repeatedly landing on our tree, each time it had twig in its mouth. I watched this bird (I think it’s a sparrow) build part of it’s next in our tree. My wife’s a little worried about nest because of the crazy squirrels that climb our tree and eat out of the bird feeder. It’s possible that all the bouncing around the squirrels do could knock the nest out of the tree, but I’m guessing the bird knows what it’s doing. Having a nest in my tree reminds of when I was young- I once found a bird’s nest at the top of an apple tree in our backyard (there’s more to that story, but I’ll save that for later).

Hangin’ with Ms. Vowell
Most of my Saturday afternoon and evening was spent at The Kentucky Women Writers Conference. I went to a panel of Graphic novelists including Phoebe Glockner and Amy Kim Ganter, both of whom have amazing work. The discussion was pretty interesting, but unfortunately the panel was in held in a gymnasium type place and there was no stage. I spent most of the panel leaning left and right trying to see past the people in front of me to figure out who was speaking.

My wife, who is on the Writers board, was fortunate enough to be the liasion for the Key Note speaker of the conference, Sarah Vowell. I’ve been a big fan of Sarah’s work for a while so I was thrilled to be able to help my wife out her duties by delivering dinner for her and Ms. Vowell. They decided on Billy’s BBQ (which in my opinion is the best in town) so I picked up the food and we all sat outside on a picnic bench for dinner. I wasn’t sure what to expect from meeting her (I’ve read her work so I thought I had an idea about what she might be like, but that could also just be a public persona). She turns out to be a really cool person. We talked about where we grew up, theories on the TV show Lost, and food. At one point she said “So this is what it’s like to hangout with me. Rad, isn’t it?” Actually it was. I was nice to hang out with someone who is as famous as Sarah Vowell and find out that she is also a regular person, and that she’s willing to show that side of her. Sarah enjoyed the food; I enjoyed the good company of her and my wife.

On a side note, at Sarah Vowell’s book signing I was standing in line waiting to get my book signed when I decided to buy another book from the merchandise table. The woman at the table asked me “Are you Dr. Schoenfeld’s husband?”

I paused for a moment and thought ‘do I know a Dr. Schoenfeld? . . . Oh yeah! That’s my wife!”

I replied “Yeah, I am. It took me a moment to think about that because I never call her that.”

“That’s okay,” she replied “I was in her class last year and I think she’s great! We’re so lucky to have her here!”

Go Dr. Schoenfeld!

Bettin’ on the ponies
Sunday, my friend Chad invited me to go to the Keeneland Race Tracks here in town. It was my first trip to the tracks, so I was surprised (and somewhat disturbed) to see a sign that read “Parking-Gate 1. Drive Thru Betting-Gate 2.” I went through Gate 1.

Once inside, I spent a few minutes looking at the horses for the next race. There’s a tradition of “walking up” the horses in an area where the public can view the horses up and close. I was close enough to these horses that I could see the veins in their legs.

After playing cell-phone tag with my friend for a while we finally found each other by the Bloody Mary stand and went to find watch the race. He asked if I wanted to bet on this race, he had a few bucks on a horse called Rusty Trawler, but I told him I’d sit this one out. I should have gone in because Rusty Trawler, an 8-1 favorite, finished second. Chad had Rusty Trawler to place (finish in the top two) and won some money.

He told me “Don’t try and over think this whole betting thing, just put a couple of bucks on the horse has the best name.” We later decided that it’s similar to picking a winner in football by their uniform colors- it has nothing to do with skill or athleticism and everything to do with style.

So I got in on the next race I went to the ticket counter and placed my first bet on a track. It was a little nerve racking. There are signs every stating exactly what you need to tell the ticket agent and in what order. It goes like this:

• Say race number, then
• Say the amount to bet, then
• Say what type of bet (Win, Place, Show, Trifecta, etc), then
• Say the number of horse in the race.

I had to practice over and over in my head how to say it so I wouldn’t mess up. I got wrong. I ended up placing one bet on a 30-1 horse (Oxford Wedding) to show (make it in the top three) and one bet on 10-1 horse (Sheba’s Gold). Meant to place a bet on a 5-1 horse (Cryptoquip) but for whatever reason I said the number of the Oxford Wedding instead of Cryptoquip. Niether Sheba’s Gold nor Oxford Wedding finished in the top three (Oxford Wedding finished dead last) I ended up losing the first time out. No problem, I bet a total of $3.00 on the two horses.

The next race I had to make a decision between betting on the race or getting a beer (the lines were long at both the betting and concession window). I looked at the names of the horses for the next race, the only one that stood out to me a 6-1 horse called Rasta Farian. I chose the beer, but I should have spent the money on the race. They only serve Bud Light and Rasta Farian won the race.

I placed money on a 5-1 horse named Aristocrat (mainly because of the movie) to show (place in the top three). Aristocrat came in second and I won!

I felt like luck was on my side so I put some money down on the next to last race. I wanted to put my money on a horse named Aunt Henny, but it scratched so I moved my bet to another horse named Lady of Venice (8-1 odds) to place. The horse won the race and I won again!

I thought about putting all my winnings on the last race, but decided against it. It was ther right call because the horse that I would have placed money on, Close Secret (3-1 odds) came in fourth.

Keeneland sometimes feels more like an amusement park than a race track with all the cotton candy and souvenirs, but the horse racing will keep me coming back. Not the betting (which is fun), but the feel of being so close to the action. At one point I was leaning on the railings with the horses racing right by. There is nothing like the thrill of having these magnificent creates running so close that you can feel rumbling in the ground.

Click the photo below to see a few more pictures from Keeneland.

I had a great weekend (one which I’ll write about later), but here’s a look some of the stuff that happened:

Like I said, I’ll write about this weekend later

I’m tired. I’ve hit Starbucks three times today to help me stay awake but it’s barely working. Thank god there’s only two hours left in the workday, I’m ready for a nap.

I noticed something different at Starbucks today: an eclectic mix of music. Jeff Buckley, Black Eyed Peas, Elvis Costello- trust me, it beats The Rolling Stones hands down (and while they’re no longer promoting the Stones, they are shoving Akeelah and the bee down my throat).

But the mix of music (while not extremely diverse) reminded me of my old high school job at Caffinos. There were three of us who, for whatever reason, got stuck with the Friday night late shift (3:30-10pm). The three of us were very different people who had different tastes in music:

• Angela drove an old green Volvo and blasted sixties music like the Greatful Dead. She was a free spirit who liked to remind us that her parents named was “Angela Noel because it means Christmas Angel.”
• CJ drove a black Nissan Stanza with tinted windows that you could hear playing Dj Quik from a block away. Slicked back black and a goatee made him look intimidating, but it was all looks. And the man loved his rims
• I too drove a Nissan stanza, just one that was 7 years older with a faded paint and a stereo system as long as the dashboard (it also had a machete in the trunk. Don’t ask). The floor boards were usually covered with mix tapes of the latest alternative music.

There was always a struggle over what would be played on the stereo, most of the time someone change the station when the others were either in the bathroom or helping customers or call dibs on the next CD or tape that would be played. Some nights the music would go from Too Short, to The Dead Milkmen, to Donovan- now that’s eclectic!

My appreciation for music grew during that time. Today my music collection includes artists like Mos Def and Arlo Guthrie partially because I was forced to work in a 14×7 box with them. I remember the time fondly and thank them for adding some diversity to my music collection.

This morning I was talking with my office mate about bad breakfast food. It start off with a discussion about how bad McDonald’s McGriddle sandwiches are for our hearts (mine feels like it’s about to stop after eating one).

We then started talking about sausage-gravy-a thick white gravywith lot of pork sausage and black pepper- which is a Kentucky breakfast staple. Then she asked if I’ve ever had a Hot Brown. I told her I’d never heard of a Hot Brown and her jaw just about dropped.

She says there everywhere (at least she seen them on menus outside of the state of Kentucky-California to be exact) and couldn’t believe I’d never heard of them. A couple other folks came in to join the conversation and I learned all about the variations of the Hot Brown.

The original Hot Brown comes from a Louisville Hotel and is basically an open-face turkey sandwich with a white sauce that’s placed under a broiler for a few moments and topped with bacon. But here are the couple of variations:

• Country Hot Brown- Traditional Hot Brown, but with both Turkey and Country Ham covered in a white sauce topped with tomatoes.
• White-trash Hot Brown-Toast, Country Ham, a fried egg, sausage-gravy, covered with cheese, placed under a broiler, then topped with bacon.

I’ve been strongly encouraged to go try one this weekend because they are sooo good. I’ve also been told that the best place to get a Hot Brown are at any local, hole-in-the-wall type diner.

We celebrated someones birthday today with cake and ice cream. When my office mate asked what type of cake we were having some replied with “Whyatt Cake and icing.” Now I’ve never had a Whyatt cake, so I asked
“What is it? What does it taste like?”

“You’ve never had Whyatt cake?!” she replied, “You know W-H-I-T-E Cake”

When it came time for the cake cutting I said “so it’s White Cake, right?”

“No,” she said, “You gotta say it like you’re from the country-Why…t Cake”

“Spell it for me, phonetically.”

“W-H-I-I-I-I… I don’t know. Alright, say the word ‘Why’”

“Why”

“Ok, now at a ‘t’ to the end”

“Why…t”

“There you go.”

Now I couldn’t do it a second time without someone saying it with me; something about not drawing out my vowel long enough. But most of the folks gathered around the cake thought it would be a good idea to teach me some other country/southern/Kentucky words and phrases. Here’s a few that I learned today:

• “Je’et?”= “Did you eat?”
• “ool” = “oil”
• “you’ins” = “y’all” = “you all”
• “warsh” = “wash”

There were a few others that I learned, most of which I will probably never hear again because I don’t travel into the country parts of the Commonwealth State. Still it was an education.

And the cake was good too. It was Why..t cake with icing.

Just now, a squirrel tried to jump off a branch and through our window into our house. Needlessto say he didn’t make it into the house and fell to ground. The squirrel seems alright though, he’s back up in the tree and running away.

The dogs however are somewhat curious as to what just happened and are currently staring out the window. I’ve seen birds try to fly through our window, but this it the first squirrel.

During my high school/early college years most of my weekends went something like this:

• Peruse my CD collection for stuff I didn’t want, set them by the door.
• Pile into a Chevy Suburban with a bunch of friends and said CDs, then drive to Berkeley, CA; park in the Durant St. Parking garage
• Grab a slice of pizza and a Coke from Fat Slice Pizza
• Walk down the street to Rasputin Records or Amoeba Records where I would trade in 8 CDs for about $15 strore credit. Spend the credit and then some for a new stack of CDs (and sometimes LPs)
• Listen to my new purchases, and realize that some were utter crap. Set those aside for the next trip to Berkeley.

For me, the upside of the buy and trade system is that I could take risks in my music purchases because buying used CDs are relatively inexpensive plus the store credit made it even cheaper; the downside is that I’d never get my money’s worth when trading-the house always won.

Currently, I’ve abandoned the CD purchasing in favor of the iTunes Music Store. iTunes+iPod allows me to purchase new music, download it to my computer, and carry my entire music collection in one small device. The downside of the iTunes model is that one can only purchase new music- there is no Used Music section in iTunes. I can’t trade in my DRM’d music for iTunes credit towards another purchase.

But recently I’ve found a website that encourages perusing my CD collection once more-lala.com.

Lala is a CD trading website similar to peerflix.com where you create a “Want List” and a “Have List;” every time you send something from your “Have List” you’ll receive something from your “Want List” (if available). It’s $1.50 per trade, and 20% of the money goes to the artist.

This is even better than trading in stuff for store credit at Rasputin or Amoeba becuase it’s a one-for-one system. Next week I’m sending out three CD’s I haven’t listened to in over five years (Clinic’s Walking the Thee, A John Frusciante solo album, and Groove Armada’s Goodbye Country, Hello Nightclub) and in return I’ll receive three albums I’ve wanted to buy (Pavement’s Crooked Rain Crooked Rain, Cody Chestnutt’s Headphone Masterpiece, and Wilco’s Yakee Hotel Foxtrot).

I am once again trying new music and re-discovering the stuff I own.

[tags] la la, music, CDs, Trading, Karma [/tags]

One of the reasons I upgraded the cable service was for the DVR- which would allow me to remove that old VCR we’ve been using since college. No more finding of space on a tape to record a program, better quality picture, it seemed like a no-brainer.

But last week I’ve noticed one thing about the DVR which annoys me to no end: Fast-forward speed degrades as the DVR fills up with shows.

At first I thought the fast forward speed was only effected on the HD programs I’d record, but I found out that this was not the case, regular cable TV programs that I’ve recorded also experienced a slow-down as well. I conducted a short experiment last night by recording a bunch random television to fill up the DVR to just above 50%. This morning I tried to fast-forward through some of the content and found that it was advancing about 33% above normal speed.

Once I deleted some of the programs and brought the used space down to 33% content advanced about 45% above normal speed. I’m pretty sure that when we first got the DVR we could fast-forward at speeds about 200% faster. I don’t know if it’s a problem with the particular model of DVR (we have a Motorolo DCT 6412 series 3) or if all DVR-like equipment have similar issues (like Tivo or Myth TV), but it’s frustrating enough to consider bringing the VCR back from the basement.

[tags]DVR, Fast-forward, VCR[/tags]

Last week, for the first time in over a month, I made it to the gym three-times and worked out for an hour. Now we’ll see if I can repeat my success this week.