Sunday, August 23, 2009

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Lombard Street = Candyland for a day

so sweet

Sunday, August 16, 2009

found some pictures of my gijoe collection from the late 80's while i was cleaning. obviously i need to scan these photos rather than just take a photo of the photos, but i don't have a scanner. either way, you get the idea...

Saturday, August 15, 2009

cleaning house is not as much fun as my mother always told me it was...

"I don't care how low they drive support for this with misinformation. The minute the president signs this bill, his approval will go up. Within a year, when the good things begin to happen, and the bad things they're saying will happen don't happen, approval will explode."

-- Bill Clinton, quoted by The Economist, on President Obama's health care reform effort.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Woohoo!
'G.I. Joe' Sequel Going Into Production Soon

Bring on the Sequels!!! I think a large chunk of the weekend's gross by the film was due to me, my many tickets, and the promotion I have done among my friends and family. hah. And my niece thinks i'm obsessed....

Sunday, August 09, 2009

greatest movie ever made

'G.I. Joe' commands box office with $56.2M debut

Saturday, August 08, 2009

august 7, 2009, g.i.joe day. saw it twice in one night. greatest movie ever made. it made me deliriously happy beyond words.

Friday, August 07, 2009

photo.jpg


photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Reeses World.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

welcome to my g.i.joe world

growing up, i never really played with toys. i know that's hard to imagine by the fact that i surround myself with toys now in my adult life, but as a child i never felt a real connection to children my age. and so i always wanted to get gifts that involved adult things, like board games to play with adults in the family. i avoided kids as much as i felt they were avoiding me. boys wanted to do crazy insane physically-painful manly things of which i had absolutely no interest. girls wanted to play with barbies, which i found very intriguing but i knew it was supposedly wrong for me to do so as a boy. so i shied away from it all and found things to do with adults. and this way i could use my brain, not my emotions, and connect with others.

then i found g.i.joe. it wasn't just toys. it was an entire story. characters rich in backgrounds, fantasies of saving the world or taking over the world or simply being important to others, devices that were filled with color, imagination, and small significant extras. this world suddenly opened up to me and it was neither for me to play with adults, nor did i play with other kids. this was my world. this was my fantasy. this was my time to imagine and play and enjoy and express and live.

and i lived this world wholly. once i journeyed into my g.i.joe world i fully embraced it. i was obsessed to the point where i had to have every single piece of the world. figures or vehicles or anything i had missed from the store, i would special order. for my birthday and christmas time, my family knew that the only thing, the ONLY thing i wanted was more and more g.i.joe. whenever i got the chance i would save up my money to buy more. and some of the most thrilling times in my life are the times when i would be taken to Children's Palace or Toys 'R Us or other toy outlets and find the g.i.joe aisle and just stare and read and want and desire and look for hours and hours. i never really cared about any of the other aisles. it was all i wanted right there. except for the intense desire to know what next year's crop of new figures and vehicles and such would be.

my younger brother would engage in the other toys, transformers, he-man, star wars, what have you. i would sometimes dabble a little into them and then quickly return to the only toys that mattered. g.i.joe wasn't just a toy for me. it was an opportunity to envision an alternate reality where an entire universe was happening and i could pull the strings and i could build the stories and i could create the land and sea. my room in my parents' basement was a complete series of staged actions and activities with the characters ripe in poised movement and entire scenes carefully orchestrated and visualized.

i even went further than the toys that came out of the store; i created some of my own. with hammer, nails and plywood and other materials, i fashioned my own versions of fantastical vehicles which i knew should also be part of the universe and which i longed to make real.

i certainly had my favorite characters, dusty and the baroness are two i could never put down, for complex and yet simple reasons and each is a long story for another time. but the reality is that the entire world of characters was my outlet into fantasy and imagination. the cartoon that went along with the toy production was simply the icing on the cake. i could never stop watching the shows and whenever it would come on television in the afternoons after school, i honestly felt like the television gods made that show just for me. it was my show. these were my toys. this was my world. sometimes i would let my brother or sister join in briefly, but this was my world and they were only entering where i lived.

i ponder all of this now at the time that there is a new live-action movie of the story that so enriched my childhood. of course as a child i would often daydream of a movie being made and who would play cobra commander and who would play the baroness and others. and i would consider what a fascinating movie it would have to be and how they might get it wrong or they might do it right, and how they had to have so-and-so cast and all the trappings of a young mind fantasizing about what could be if hollywood knew the world of g.i.joe the way that i did. now that i am about to watch that movie i often dreamed of some 25 years ago, i don't actually care if it's a good or bad movie or produces sequels or is popular or anything. of course i certainly don't want to walk out of the theater angry or depressed. but the reality is that the story of g.i.joe is really inside me. and watching it up on the screen is just a culmination of seeing my life now, with the toys all put away and g.i.joe so far back in my history and remembering my bedroom in the basement and the time has passed to where i'm leading a new and different life than i ever really imagined, and i feel a tug of a sense of self, of a time when i knew exactly how happy i could be from just being a part of this universe of imagination.

the movie itself is just hollywood's interpretation of my story and my world and it doesn't much matter how they do it. what matters to me is that it feels as if hollywood is doing this movie just for me. just for me. i'm a child who wanted this movie so bad and wanted everyone to share in this world so much, and they have finally decided to do it, just for me. it's my world and they're making an interpretation of it. it's a bit self-involved i know, but it's how it feels. my happiness in finding the world of g.i.joe as a child is now culminating in a big glossy movie on the big glossy screen and others may be going to see the movie too, but it's my world and others are simply entering it for a short while to see what all the fuss it about.

so welcome to my g.i.joe world everyone.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

my poor kitty has had a very rough day today. i took her to the kennel today and while it's a really nice place, she really hates being away from me. it's different when i'm not home; she's still in her home and surrounded by me and things she knows. and when i took her to my office she was actually pretty content because i was there with her. but yesterday when i left her in the kennel she was so obviously unhappy. and when i went to pick her up today, she barely could contain her displeasure. she just kept hissing and growling in the corner of the kennel. she wouldn't let anyone touch her. and even me she was upset with, although i was able to calm her down after many minutes of letting her smell me and talking sweetly to her and eventually calming her down, but she was so nervous and agitated and scared and sad and angry. poor Amaya. i felt so bad about her. she's been excited to be back home tonight and running around and playing, but still i can sense she's a little tense from her troubled day. she keeps meowing at me and wanting attention. and i'm trying to love her, as best as she'll let me. i love my cat so much. i wish i could keep her happy all the time, but i know i can only do what i can do as best as i can do for her.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Our friend Murray, Chapter 5

As our friend Murray-the-spider began collecting himself on the limb of the tree which had saved him from the water and the fish below him, he also began collecting his thoughts.

“What are you thinking, Murray?”

“Oh, I am pondering the natural order of life.”

“That is a mighty large issue to ponder.”

“Well, it is so I can consider my next steps.”

“And what next steps might those be?”

“Those are some of the thoughts of which I am collecting to ponder.”

“Any final certainty of thoughts and ponderings considered?”

“Well, yes, I am settled on settling down for the evening. It has been quite a day so far, and while I have traveled very far indeed, I know that I am home, home where I should be for today, and ready for the next steps on the next day tomorrow.”

“So you are going to stay here on this limb of this tree today?”

“Well, yes, I have decided I will do so. You see, the traveling, especially the latter splishing and splashing in the rough waters have left me rather tired from the experience.”

“I can imagine.”

“So I believe I shall stay here for the night, get some needed rest, nourish myself, and get to know my new home in this area of the forest.”

“Sounds like you have collected yourself and collected your thoughts and pondered a great deal and concluded on a sensible decision.”

“Why thank you. I do try to consider all the options and do what I believe is most natural.”

And with that, our friend Murray began to weave a small web of a new home on the limb of the tree which had saved him. The web was constructed through the silk in his body from the limb to a leaf to another limb to another leaf to the limb back again. Within our friend Murray’s new web he fashioned a sparkling array of geometrical circles and triangles and rectangles which all fashioned into a large sparkling home for use where he was on the limb of the tree from which he was saved from the waters below.

Now, after finalizing his new home, our friend Murray could rest, sit back in the corner of his home, think back to all that has happened, and breathe the life of the forest from which he lives.

The wind blew. The newly spun web tingled slightly by the strength of the wind. Our friend Murray continued to breathe and relax and enjoy his home, his new home, his home which was always with him, his home which was made by himself and was truly within himself physically and figuratively and metaphorically all the same. His home was his own.

Dusk was beginning to settle and our friend Murray knew that it was only a matter of time before he would have visitors in his home this night so he could entertain and feed and enjoy their company. And he also knew that upon his waking in the morning, he would have even more new friends to entertain and feed and enjoy.

Oh, how our friend Murray loved his home with-in home.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

just bought my tickets for g.i.joe this friday!!!! i can't believe the 25year wait for a live-action movie is nearly over. i don't really care what the movie ends up being like, i'm just so excited there is one. of course i hope it's great, but it doesn't much matter. oh, and i love the rating's warning: (PG-13), for strong sequences of action violence and mayhem throughout. i can't wait for constant mayhem. :-)

chicken pho


chicken pho, originally uploaded by Reeses World.