This Side of Lost

Mari will be proud of us. For those of you who don't read her blog, the following post is an example of something she does all the time.

Lentil and Veggie Tostadas

The future is now, folks. Take a look at this CGI music video to see what MTV will be playing 24 hours a day soon. Man, I can just see it now... what's that? MTV doesn't play music videos anymore? You're kidding, right? Man, the future sucks. I bet we don't even have flying cars yet.

First things first: our belongings finally arrived. They even showed up a day before we thought they would (last Friday). Everything seems to be accounted for, and only one thing was destroyed (an ugly lampshade). So we are declaring a tentative victory. We even have lots of things out of boxes. And have cooked! See post below for evidence.

The place is feeling much more homey now. And I think we are also feeling more homey. We're still mostly broke, but only time will change that.

(More random: I'm having a mental block right now. I'm trying to think of a turn of phrase that goes "Time and the _____ _____" where the two blanks are some phrase that I can't for the life of me remember. I don't know where this turn of phrase is from, although something tells me a piece of choral music. I want to say it's "celestial ______" or "heavenly ______" but I'm not sure. Any ideas, internet?)

Samantha got the job she was interviewing for. This will also help with the money issue.

In other news:

• We signed up for Netflix. The way we rationalized it is this: we are indecisive people, and making a decision about a movie to watch while wandering around Blockbuster was impossible. Somehow making the same decision months and months ahead of time is easier. We'll see how this goes. We're hoping it will at least accelerate the pace of our AFI project.
• Netflicked so far: Platoon (look for a post soon), Raising Arizona and That Thing You Do. Thoroughly enjoyed the last two.
• On the demotion of Pluto: it's good science, people. It had so little in common with the other eight and so much in common with other objects we have found since that are definitely not planets. Get over it.
• The Minnesota Twins are walking the razor's edge between being a playoff-caliber team and being just bad enough to miss. The on-base guys (Castillo, Punto, Tyner, Bartlett) are just now starting to tank, and the guys on back end of the rotation weren't ever that great to begin with. And if they don't turn it on again really soon, it won't be enough. It's been such an exciting season so far, but I'd hate to see it end grasping at the finish line from a foot away...
• "How We Know We're in LA" moment of the week: Walking into the local Borders Books location and finding Anne McCaffrey doing a book signing.
• I still need to tell all y'all about our honeymoon plans. Remind me.

There may be one more big change before I start posting regularly again. Keep your Internet eye peeled.

Oliver Stone's 1986 film focuses on a platoon of soldiers in Vietnam -- chiefly a young recruit (Charlie Sheen) and his two sergeants, Barnes (Tom Berenger) and Elias (Willem Dafoe), who approach the war in very different ways. You can probably guess what else happens in the film.

Platoon fits in perfectly with the other morally ambiguous and non-entertaining films we've seen so far for this project (see Easy Rider, Goodfellas, Unforgiven). Non sympathetic main characters? Check. Senseless violence? Check. Samantha and Andrew didn't enjoy it? Check.

I'm trying to step back and see the film for what makes it great, besides chronicling one of the greatest American tragedies of the 20th century (which, near as I can tell, is criteria enough). I think part of why the movie is lauded is how it takes the setting and uses it to speak to a greater theme. War is hell, as they say, and it brings out the best and the worst in people. How one deals with that tells you a lot about their character.

Sheen's character tries desperately to hold to his naive conceptions about what his role should be. The difference between the two sergeants is stark and their inevitable conflict leads to tragedy in and of itself. Some find humor amidst the hellish situation. Additionally, the film does an excellent job of portraying the realism of war -- the confusion, the tension, the little nitty gritty details that separate "a rough time" with "absolute horror."

I'm not sure I needed to see this to know that Vietnam was awful. But now I have a better idea. And if this wasn't enough (it was, it was, please...), we get two more rounds soon. Ugh. I wonder if there will be as many films about Iraq.

(See this post if you're confused why I'm reviewing movies.)

Sometimes I think that if the Internet were not good for anything else, its existence would still be completely justified by the fact that it makes cross-genre song covers available for my consumption. I seriously thought that Nickel Creek covering Toxic was the best thing I've ever found, but this one's giving it a run for its money.

My life is full of music again. Tuesday nights finds Samantha and me rehearsing with the Angeles Chorale. They are currently directed by John Sutton, a self-proclaimed fan of the St. Olaf Choir and friend of Dr. A's. My audition was embarrassingly easy because of this. Thursday night I am at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran in West Hills singing with the choir there. Mark, the music dude there, scores film and television for his day job.

The jury is still out on both of these places, and consequently on choral music in LA as a whole. But I should give it a year or so before passing judgement. I will be auditioning for a chamber group within the Chorale tomorrow. Maybe this will help. Oh, what a choral nerd I am...

In other news: