March 7, 2003:
The telephone rings. Joel picks up the receiver and says, "Hello, thank you for calling 'Video Diego.' How can I help you?"
"Hi. I'm sorry," the caller says and hangs up.
The telephone rings again. Joel picks up the receiver and says, "Hello, thank you for calling 'Video Diego.' How can I help you?"
"Hi. I'm sorry," the caller says and hangs up.
Joel thinks that the caller must be truly repentant to call and announce it twice.
March 7, 2003:
I've just read a review of Charlie Kaufman's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" script. Two lame people with screwed up lives hook up, break up, and then have each other's memories of the relationship erased. While the lame guy undergoes the memory erasure, he decides that he still loves his ex-girlfriend. He tries to hide his memories of her in other memories so that he will be able to remember her.
By the end of the screenplay, the two lame people with freshly cleaned minds run into each other. Maybe they'll get back together. Maybe they're soul mates. Now that they've forgotten the bad parts of their relationship, they can love each other again.
Perhaps the whole ordeal was idiotic from the start. Two people who are attracted to each other don't necessarily belong together. If they cause each other pure misery, the physical attraction probably isn't worth while. Therefore, people need their painful memories of bad relationships to remind them to not have a relationship with the same person again. Like that "Memento" movie says: you can't learn without memory.
And you can't shallowly philosophize without cinema.
March 3, 2003:
When I was in 11th grade, I became trapped in a depressingly redundent English class for reasons that are too long and frustrating to go into. One of my fellow prisoners was so cool. She had dyed black hair, dressed between goth and punk, and always spouted free-thinking, witty remarks. We spoke a bit since we sat right next to each other and had physics together as well. I remained too intimidated by her indie coolness to make proper friends, though. (Plus, I was only at that school for one semester, and being shy I make friends slowly.)
At some point, the inevitable standarized testing made it to our classroom. I can't recall what the reading passage in the test was, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, as did my ever-cool classmate. She quickly whispered something about the test passage being like "Brave New World," and I nodded in agreement before the teacher noticed our chatter. Of course, I couldn't say much anyway, as I'd never read "Brave New World."
I was sure to visit the library at the earliest convenience to find a copy of Huxley's classic novel. Having already gotten into Orwell and Vonnegut in the 9th and 10th grades, I took to Huxley immediately. Upon completing "Brave New World" (instead of my homework, naturally), I grabbed the only other Huxley book in the high school library: "Island." It reminded me of Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle," which I love (although not as much as "The Sirens of Titan," but I'll stop digressing now).
I kept "Island" on me whereever I went, reading through a few pages here and there, time permitting. While waiting for my Mom at a doctor's office, a gentleman walking past me asked what I was reading. I did my standard dull smile with a flash of the bookcover in his direction (Note: This is good for avoiding people who are just trying to make annoying small talk on public transit. A fair number of such people are unfortunately illiterate, and such tactics stop them cold.). The gentleman at the doctor's office said something about my being too young to read that sort of thing; that it was for college age people or some such nonsense. I said something along the lines of "Huh," and smiled politely until he left. I hate ageism.
Huxley's books, of course, are wonderful in their way. They make me wonder why people do such terrible things every day. Are they unaware of their transgressions, without moral compass, or just plain happy to be causing trouble? It might be the fact that the few people who read regularly only pick up quick novels about lawyers whose young assistants have great legs, or rich women with great legs who screw their legal representatives.
March 3, 2003:
Like everyone alive, I despise telemarketers and Spam e-mailers and such for interrupting my viewing of the sweeps episode of "Buffy" and clogging my inbox. I hate them, though, for their basic ideological presumption. I know how to buy things. Really, trust me on this one. Having been raised in the USA, I am highly aware of how to exchange my cash for goods or services. Should I need to purchase storm windows, I can find a storm window retailer in the yellowpages, through 411, online, or just by asking around. My response to a telemarketer attempting to sell me storm windows will never, EVER be "Wow! I've been trying to buy storm windows for years, but I never knew where to find them. Thank you!" I am not that stupid. Further, the fact that they assume that I have bad credit and need to lose weight only offends me. I don't even have a penis to enlarge!