14 February 2009

a place for my stuff

"If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little."
Year-old news, but the rents and I just caught a re-run of the Mark Twain Award for American Humor to George Carlin from 08. I'm in the same boat as all the comedians and friends who came out to tell their Carlin stories and intro their favorite clips, speechless. The world lost a whole lotta finely-tuned funny as well as a critical mind with his death and it's a shame. Both Carlin and Twain were geniuses, comically and linguistically.

Did you get all that? from NYC at his sprightly age of 68. I don't think there's anyone to match his way with words and expansive vocabulary, a pioneer in comedy i.e. his Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV.

Hopefully you've been able to come across some of Carlin's brilliance. He truly made you think about things subconsciously while you were consciously laughing. All our comic favorites today (Maher, Black, Colbert, Leary, Cho, Stewart...) were influenced by him as he was by some of the greats before and during his time--Richard Pryor, Danny Kaye, Lenny Bruce among others. If you have the chance, his books are some of the best reads.


Hats off to you, Mr. Carlin.

would you expect anything else?

It's Valentine's Day! Mother is playing online Tetris*, father sits beside me watching online tv, I write this post while setting reminders on all the chick flicks coming up tonight. YEAH! Would you believe me if I said that I have three blind dates lined up for after dinner? No? Okay, I wouldn't either. I'm just happy to be home--it's refreshing to get away from school for a few days.

*A note on mom's mad Tetris skills: her highest level is twenty freakin two! She gets to 15 easy now. When we used to play on our old Nintendo, yup this classic,she almost beat it...got up to level 19 (out of 20), got distracted, and in a millisecond, death. In her disbelief and anger, she threw away the remote. Unfortunately, old Nintendo iz broke now, duck hunt gun and all =(

Tomorrow I'll be working on something rather new to me. We are to somehow bring to life three scenes from a movie based on the script. Wha? Of course, this is what I signed up for when I enrolled in Film and TV directing, but it's definitely foreign ground. Just selecting the script has been a painstaking task so I've narrowed it down to either THE APARTMENT or AUTUMN IN NEW YORK. I have not seen either. Regardless of the poor reviews for AUTUMN, it might be slightly easier to take this on rather than an extremely well-known, high-intensity action or drama since I have no idea what I'm doing. Eek!

I'll also be starting some T.S. Eliot, Morrison's BELOVED, and Woolf's MRS. DALLOWAY (one of my favs). Luckily, I've been wanting to read the first two as well, so that should make it less homework-y and more enjoyable.
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Last night's dineLA outing was an eventual success. Aside from L.A. traffic being miserable, downtown L.A. is miserably confusing. Missed the 4th/3rd exit--which is combined under the 6th/5th sign only to separate to 4th/5th? or something like that. Finally had to whip out Mr. Garmin GPS who gave a series of "Keep left, then keep left, then keep right, then left..." To my utter disappointment, changing the voice to British-English actually ended up being more obnoxious. Darn.

Finally! We got to Wolfgang Puck's Bistro on 6th, drove around about ten minutes to find the cheapest lot possible ($3). Honestly, the bistro was tastier to me than Grace--again, I'm only making judgments based on the dineLA tasting, but sometimes a good ol' steak or burger and fries does the job. Plus, it's decently cheap so I just ordered from the regular menu: Tuna tartare appetizer (yum!), tortilla soup (so-so), and the bistro burger + fries (NOM!!!), which altogether ended up $2 less than the dineLA price. Of course, the set dinner and desserts were also delish, especially the steak au poivre. My only criticism is that everything was a tad too salty--that tends to be the flaw in a majority of American cuisine, too rich or over-seasoned.

The drive home at midnight was GLORIOUS! No traffic, but also not deserted--perfect driving conditions. Mom is paranoid about those cases where people pretending to be cops pull women over at late hours and dot, dot, dot. "You don't ever have to get out of your car. You have the right to ask for I.D. Don't get out of your car." "Okay, okay mom!" My foolproof plan if anything should happen: act crazy. Chances are, my attacker-kidnapper-___er won't want to deal with a troubled person.

Once home, I went straight for HBO On Demand to see what I'd missed the past how many weeks. Watched DEFINITELY, MAYBE, cried (duh, when Isla Fisher cries at the book and Abigail Breslin cries to Reynolds at the end), then fell asleep. Sigh.

Annnnd, dad just revealed a newly bought RATATOUILLE DVD! I'm all smiles!
Good night to you!

11 February 2009

Uhm...

Sharing is caring? Beyonce gives to Jay-Z gives to Rihanna gives to Chris? I only begin with Ms. Knowles because Z must've gotten his from somebody, which leaves me pondering where B got hers from...

Anywho, mother stork dropped off a much safer and more noteworthy gift on my cousin's doorstep. Welcome to the world Mackayla Ann Morreale!
CUTECUTECUTE! Mom and Dad are Korean-Irish and Italian, so you can expect a gorgeous happa lady later on...she's so lucky!

THE INTERNATIONAL sucked ballz, minus some beautiful cinematography of Lyon, Manila, the Guggenheim, and a most useless rooftop scene. Clive Owen (token eye candy with an accent) was being all Clive-y and shootin' guns, that's right, he SHOOT EM UP--another ridonkulous film but with a little more flavor. Imagine him holding above Mackayla Ann, then taking out a bajillion people using a variety of guns. I'd be making the same face. Oh, Naomi Watts is pretty and also in the Int'l. Yep.

DineLA restaurant week
has been extended. *Dies.* I'm so tempted to just swipety-swipe that VISA until February 28th, then worry about paying up later. Note to self: get money.

09 February 2009

please donate to the Megan-wants-to-splurge-on-music-festivals fund

Coachella 3-day pass: $285 plus a 30 min. drive to buy it cash up front OR $308 via Tmaster--curse your fees!
Coachella 3 days of food (at least three roasted corns a day) + useless stuff I want from vendor tents + overpriced festival tee: $100 in my dreams.
Round trip flight to Florida: ++/-$200.
Ultra (UMF) 2-day ticket: $180.
Housing, assuming I don't have an insider connection or a hook-me-up + foodstuffs + my black hole stomach + souvenir crap: $???
Grand spankin' total of $$$,$$$,$$$.$$ ...priceless? I think not.

Did I mention that I'd also like to buy a season pass to the Pantages for this year, see Andrew Bird, go to the LA Zoo, the Aquarium of the Pacific (though the $26 zoo/aquarium combo is great), Getty, Lacma, eat at Katsuya, Spago...

Let's take a poll, shall we?
[ ] Win the lottery
[ ] Find a sugar daddie.
[ ] Sell favors and adult videos underneath 555 in neon red light district
[ ] Sell favors at the corner of Hollywood and Vine
[ ] Try sitting by schizophrenic hobo in front of Starbuck's with a cup
[ ] Stand on Bruinwalk in a sandwich board and hold out a cup
[ ] Become my role model, Britney *crosses fingers* or
[ ] Equal the success of the next best thing, Britney Houston
[ ] Steal
[ ] Work for it. ROFLMAO.
[ ]


If only I had patented the darn Snuggie 14 years ago...now I just look like a bitter biter (alliteration intended) when I wear my robe backwards.

08 February 2009

Pop Musik and gangsta rap

Sometimes those just get the studying going.
Tuned into the Grammy's about ten minutes ago to catch Sam Jackson intro T.I. and his "buddy Justin Timberlake!" Crude observation of the day: T.I.'s beanie looked like a form of protection against baby makin' sitting atop his head. Sorry, just saying.

Not quite motivated to finish these WWI and feminist poems OMGZ NEIL DIAMOND IS SINGING SWEET CAROLINE...
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Raising Sand ftw, one of the most unexpected but most intriguing musical pairings I've come across. I bought the album immediately after it came out, passed it on to dad, and we've been huge fans of the duo and each individually, of course. Plant may have calmed down since the Zeppelin years, but his voice still has that amazing sharpness that harmonizes so well with Alison's ethereal sound. Given all that, it's won already and is probably old news since last Grammy's, so Radiohead was more deserving.

I've been procrastinating by blogging, but no more. Sylvia Plath, here I come...