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| i'm coming to a slow realization here that might offend some of you. i realize this is a sensitive topic, especially for the women here, and i'm most likely treading on sacred ground, but i'm going to say it anyway. i think johnny depp is an overrated actor, especially lately. there, i said it.
actually i always have, and still do, respect him, ever since 21 Jump Street. (for all you infant fuckers that don't know what 21 Jump Street is go get an education!) this guy could have lit up and burned out completely while erasing every ounce of personal dignity in the process. The Machine was oiled up and ready to consume him as a hearththrob product, and he dutifully rebeled (some might say raged) against it and came out with a pretty respectable career.
but if you're talking about acting ability... you know, stuff like nuance, depth, feeling real. i don't see it anymore. the roles he's played over like the last 10-15 years have all been caricatures for the most part, all one-dimensional, all circus act, never real. well you could say that those are the roles he plays: willy wonka, captain jack sparrow, sweeney todd, etc. true. but why does he almost exclusively pick those roles? it can't just be for the money.
also, i would argue that he has chosen roles in the past that did allow for, and maybe require, some depth of true humanness, like his role in Blow, the character that was supposed to be this drug dealer doing well in a violent subculture that usually thrives on violence. that should have been a meaty role, but he turned it into a dopey smiley face role. (then again Blow is a biopic and all biopics end up one-dimensional.) what else is there... Donnie Brasco. he was actually not bad there. there's one. what else... Finding Neverland was a good movie, but i am kind of remembering his character being caricaturish there too.
quite frankly, i'm not sure he's played a real human being since What's Eating Gilbert Grape in 1993, but he was overshadowed there by a young, up-and-coming Leo Dicaprio, in the performance of his career. actually think about that for a second. that one overlooked and nearly forgotten movie is possibly the talent peak of not one but two superstar acting careers, Depp's and Leo's. interesting... so Gilbert Grape and Donnie Brasco over a celebrated twenty year acting career. that's not much real acting.
anyway, of course this doesn't mean that i think Depp is a bad actor. sometimes balls to the wall, extreme acting works well like Heath Ledger as The Joker and Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood. but to be considered a really good actor, an actor's lifelong resume has to offer a little more than clown paint and distracting accents.
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| iPhone - Day 6pulled the trigger and got myself a new iphone.
right away i look back at my hesitation and have to laugh at one of the two points that held me back for so long: the call coverage. i haven't been on the phone that much so i can't really tell how much worse AT&T is but however bad it is, it's almost moot because, like some of you mentioned (rather painfully), i am never on the phone! i got a call last night, day 5, and was like "what's that sound? it's weird. is someone in my apartment?" of course, it was my new ring tone. i'm sure i'll get a better feel for the difference in coverage later on as i use the phone more, but right now... what a silly thing to get hung up on. especially because...
the iphone really does seem that fun/convenient/dazzling/______ so far. as a bona fide internet junkie, having the web constantly at my fingertips is amazing. i had to mail a package yesterday but forgot to write down the address. normally i would be walking my ass back to my office to look it up, but not anymore! just walked straight to the post office, whipped out the iphone, looked up the address and wrote it down on the package, all while standing in line. i didn't lose a step!
and all these fun applications to download! and the map thing? you can push a button and instantly locate your exact position on a google map. that's pretty fucking cool, if you ask me. what are the cool apps i should be downloading? i think i have so far... facebook, Now Playing, wikipanion, shazam, urbanspoon, lux touch, tap defense. what else should i get?
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| if you have an iphone, what do you think of AT&T coverage? do you always have bars? are your calls ever dropped? do you get voicemails and texts as soon as they are sent? "can you hear me now?"
i am a verizon dude, and am VERY reluctant to switch out since, in my experience, VZ has been pretty reliable as a call carrier. and to me, if the coverage isn't solid, there's just no point at all. i used to have Sprint and AT&T and both carriers had spotty coverage, but then again that was like eons years ago and who knows what they might have improved on since then. actually, as a company, i feel like Sprint is just crap and i have little faith in the prospect of them improving, but AT&T on the other hand might have come up with the resources and the motivation to improve themselves.
this is all an issue now because of the stupid stupid shiny pretty iPhone. all of a sudden i need an internet ready smartphone with a giant screen. it's like my soul needs fixing or something. i need access to information. i need to see it in big colors on a big screen. i need it all in a package that i can easily fit in my jeans pocket.
i'm really not hot on the idea of a touchsceen keypad, though. i like to feel the nipple-like protrusions of buttons on a keypad. (you're welcome.) there's something to be said for the confidence and comfort a little tactile feedback can offer. i hardly talk on the phone so the whole verizon in-network thing (calls between verizon customers don't count against minutes) isn't really an issue, but something as small as a qwerty keypad is.
the iphone has all these cool applications that come along with it, but people say the WebOS system that Palm runs on is much easier to develop for and should invite a flood of apps once the Palm Pre has been out for a short while. the iphone is up to its third generation now. the Palm Pre, if/when it debuts on VZ will be first generation, and buying the first generation is a big no-no for me. the pride of owning the newest toy is worthless if it's all buggy and rudimentary.
should i just suck it up and switch to the iphone for two years until the Palm Pre matures or some other iphone killer appears for Verizon? the palm pre maturation might take a long while, maybe two years?, and the prospect of a phone with the potential to compete against the iphone on verizon's network is slim considering verizon's history of having the crappiest, most dull phones on the planet. i'd consider the switch if AT&T's coverage is ok. so, again, if you have an iphone, how is the coverage?
(BBerry Storm is not an option after several friends had major problems and complaints with theirs.)
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| Yet More Evidence of the Superiority of American Ingenuity
The Bacone!!!
what you're looking at is a cone of bacon filled with eggs, hash browns, cheese, country gravy and topped with a biscuit. you can't make me not want to die by eating too much of that.
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| i am, like many of you, very conscious of the fact that xanga activity in my sphere of existence has dwindled down, and i'm pretty sure it has to do with this fundamental cause: you suck.
we suck, rather, since i'm no fountain of xangamania either. i don't know what your excuse is, but me, i made a conscious decision to try not to post anything politically partisan from work, which just happens to be where i xanga from 95% of the time. i decided that for work reasons that i won't get into, not really personal reasons. it had to be done. what i didn't realize at the time was how much of my recent xanga activity has been centered around political issues.
i don't really have any drunk stories to tell you. i haven't really dated at all so i have no annoying girl stories. work has gotten marginally better so i am less prone to whine about my shitty ass career or lack thereof. all i have is shit that i'm fed by my addiction to news and media. movies and politics. cut out politics and that doesn't leave very much else. anything more and i would sound even more redundant than i already do considering how long i've had this xanga for.
everything is redundant and not worth writing about until i realized this: people that walk with no apparent control of their wildly flapping arms freak me out. seriously. it's such a bizarre sight. i'm not talking about people that are stomping briskly while walking down a steep hill. body control is all out of wack in that scenario. i'm talking about the straight line, flat plane walker whose torso is perfectly straight but his elbows and wrists are flopping all over from his waist to his shoulders. it's weird and worth mentioning.
on another note, i saw the travelling cast of RENT recently for the first time. i never saw it while it was playing off-Broadway. i have to say. it's the only musical besides Les Mis that i actually enjoyed. Beauty and the Beast, Miss Saigon and Chicago were all pretty damn boring to me, but Rent was at least entertaining at parts, though, i wouldn't dare say that it's "great" by any means. it does have a few great moments though. in any case, other thoughts...
*** spoilers below ***
is it me or do i detect some attempts to rip-off Les Miserables? there's a song in Rent called something like Life Without You which in essence is a very inferior rip of On My Own. listen to the words. the medley chorus in Another Day is reminiscent of One Day More. the return of Angel is similar to the return of Fantine and Eponine. coincidence or intentional?
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True
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