• 21:47 @gretajams Bill Simmons BS Report podcast on iTunes; 6/29 and 10/21 podcasts; 4 interviews with Klosterman. You're welcome. #
• 22:00 "Cat in the wall, huh?" --Charlie ALWAYS SUNNY!!!! WOO HOO!!! #
• 22:30 @scubastevie Mine is worth $5. Ridiculous. My wit is worth at least $7. I'm hilarious...and have many leather bound books. #
• 22:38 Maker's Mark and Coke. Mexican food. Office. Always Sunny. A Dingus to my left and a hilarious cat to my right. Good times. #
• 23:10 Dear Indiana Pacers, you rep
  resent Indiana basketball while IU gets back on its feet. Please be relevant again. Go Pacers! #
• 23:14 Onto Chapelle Show DVDs. Great night to make up for a shitty day! #
• 23:30 @gretajams So how are things? When are you coming back to visit? #
• 00:10 @gretajams So an Obama-vacay to Wisconsin? I would love to visit Wisconsin. Never been there. Especially if I could get the crew back. #
• 00:11 @gretajams NY, huh? Interesting. I'm sure Greta would have have plenty of stories in NY. I better at least see
  tons of pictures. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 09:16 Hey, it actually feels like fall today. #
• 11:40 Plus: Free bagels at work today! Minus: No sharp knives to cut them and no toaster to make them toasty. #
• 11:43 Awkward Conversations at Work: Me (in smalltalk mode): Hey, how are you? Person: My partner's mom is in Hospice. #
• 12:22 @acroninj Chili. It's a good night for chili. Go get some beans and onion, sip on some whiskey, clean the gun, and revel in being a guy. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 09:32 Big thanks to all of the vets out there every day, but especially today. #
• 09:36 "The only way to learn is to be unafraid to fail." --Thomas Keller #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 13:02 @lisamendyk @acroninj I still find a million things I want online. Damn these American Consumer tendencies! #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 14:40 Got back from Austin late Saturday. Sunday was chores. Monday, I'm tired and trying to concentrate. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 20:16 Cleaned quite a bit while listening to Dan Carlin. The man is a genius. #
• 20:18 "The years passed, mankind became stupider at a frightening rate." --Idiocracy #
• 23:19 "I've got the ocean blue. I've got a picture of you." --My Morning Jacket #
• 23:20 It's never easy. #
• 12:17 Some guy was in stall in the office bathroom. He was blaring hip-hop from his iPod while doing his business. Whatever floats your boat... #
• 12:17 ...or floats something else. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 09:46 Tired. Not a lot of sleep. But lots of work to do before the business trip to Austin on Wed. Work, work, work. #
• 11:21 SOTM: "Picture of You" by My Morning Jacket: Sounds raw, both production-wise and emotionally, just like heartbreak. Wonderful song. #
• 11:30 SOTM: "The Littlest Birds" by Be Good Tanyas: Miranda Reilly sent this to me. Reminds me of Colorado. Great, bluegrassy song. #
• 15:40 @prinzessjp It's a nation-wide phenomena. #
• 15:41 @prinzessjp People who comment on any site's
  articles are either a) being intentional assholes or b) really, really, really dumb. #
• 15:42 @prinzessjp It's like "Letters to the Editor" without the time or effort needed to form coherent sentences...or thoughts. :) #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 14:10 The Fifth Element is on HBO. Awesome. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 21:15 Rowdy Roddy Piper on Always Sunny? Wonderful. #
• 11:39 SOTM: "When You Sleep" by Cake: Dirty little ditty from one of my favorite bands. Let them eat Cake, indeed. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 08:34 Some kid that runs every morning to his job at McDonald's totally beat me on foot today over a 1/2 mile stretch. Stupid traffic. #
• 11:36 SOTM: "Simple Gifts" by Alison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma: I've loved this song since second grade and it still profoundly affects me. Great cover. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 10:36 SOTM: "Playground Love" by Air: Mellow, enchanting instrumental with a perverted sounding title. #
• 13:35 @gretajams Big Ups! Fingers crossed. #
• 13:36 @acroninj That motherfucker is playing hooky. I can feel it. Wanna go burn his house down on Devils Night? #
• 14:14 SOTM: "Hotel" by Broken Social Scene: It's a pretty sexy tune. Very breathy. #
• 14:28 Business card for "The Food Company" in the break room. I wonder what industry they're in. Probably dry cleaning. #
• 14:48 "If you don't know where you're going, how are you going to know when you get there?" --Yogi Berra #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 09:19 @gretajams Congrats, Greta! Knock 'em dead! #
• 09:20 SOTM: "Knot Comes Loose" --My Morning Jacket: Mellow and haunting. Perfect for a rainy Tuesday morning. #
• 11:06 Did you know: if you have gel inserts in your shoes, airport security will take them away from you? Now you do. Terrorists are gellin'. #
• 11:59 SOTM: "Blame It on the Tetons" by Modest Mouse. One of my favorite Modest Mouse (and all-time) songs. "Everyone's a building burning..." #
• 13:05 SOTM: "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" by Vampire Weekend: A bounc
  y, energetic, sugary sweet song filling my sails with a second wind. #
• 15:23 SOTM: "Like Eating Glass" by Bloc Party: This whole album reminds me of driving around Old Louisville on fall day when the sun is setting. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 20:49 @gretajams No. There is nothing shiny about rural Mississippi. Paul Simon was wrong. Actually, it looks like rural Indiana and Kansas and... #
• 11:18 @prinzessjp Funny. I was thinking the exact same thing about my Monday and week ahead. #
• 12:19 SOTM: "Impossible Germany" by Wilco: This song just chills my nerves to a hush, which is a usual workday necessity. #
• 18:00 Watching one of those car chase shows and saw one in Sellersburg! #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter a>

• 18:51 Back safe and sound from the Mississippi Delta. Good times. #
• 18:53 "When you're a kid, you want to save the world, but then you grow up and realize you're lucky if you can save yourself." --Karissa Dingus #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 09:04 Hoping it stops raining before tonight's drive to Mississippi, but looking forward to the wedding! #
• 14:12 "The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare." --Bob Knight #
• 14:19 @lisamendyk Someone always has to pick the scab. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 21:40 Whiskey and Coke. Awesomely hilarious episodes of Ghost Hunters. Reruns of How I Met Your Mother. I'm gonna smoke a cigar. Awesome. #
• 21:43 "When I watch the Karate Kid, I root for the Karate Kid, Johnny from the Cobra Kai dojo. Get your head out of your ass, Lilly." --Barney #
• 22:45 @acroninj Good man. Did I tell you we went to the Jack Daniel's distillery? It's a good thing you didn't try to pull that off on your own. #
• 22:52 @acroninj No worries. Good tour, but it's a dry county. No samples. No samples at all. #</l>
• 22:52 @acroninj Besides, it's free. I'll go back. #
• 23:11 @gretajams No review of Ghost Hunters? Lame. #
• 00:01 @gretajams There isn't enough time. On my driver's license, I look like a drug dealer. My passport photo will get me "randomly" stopped. #
• 08:59 @lisamendyk Amen. Getting cut off is almost a part of my daily routine. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 23:43 Application for part-time blogger position complete. Fingers crossed. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 07:29 @gretajams They stink. #
• 07:30 I believe the musical equivalent of "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" is listening to Pantera on the drive to work. #
• 09:57 I've had Van Halen's "Dance the Night Away" stuck in my head for two days. And now so do you. You're welcome. #
• 11:05 @acroninj Storage shelves for food in the basement? Are you canning? Storing up for 2012 or the zombie apocalypse? #
• 17:37 Watching crazy ghost shows on A&E. Why do I love this stuff so much? #
• 18:31 What's tonight? Baked potato bar night! Yum. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

When I first saw that Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers were adapting “Where the Wild Things Are” into a feature-length film, one question kept coming up: how do you turn a nine sentence children’s book into a movie? Unfortunately, after seeing it, the question remains.

My initial reaction was that I felt dazed. Part of this reaction was derived from the awe of seeing top-notch, jaw-dropping CGI and puppetry bring the illustrations from Maurice Sendak's 1963 children’s book to life. Another part was the appreciation of the fabulous voice acting of James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Dano, Lauren Ambrose, and Michael Berry, Jr., which added depth (and names) to monsters that never spoke in Sendak’s book. However, the overriding reason for feeling dazed is that the viewer is unfortunately beaten over the head with heavy-handed metaphors for the duration of Max’s (Max Records) time on the island.

It takes the viewer little time to figure out the role each monster plays in Max’s psyche. Carol (Gandolfini) is mostly Max and represents his wildly-swinging emotions, switching from happiness to destructive anger to crushing depression with little warning, while Douglas (Cooper) is Carol’s safety blanket and represents the same for Max; a friend who is nearly always obedient and agreeable. In Max’s real life, we never see this person, so perhaps Douglas is an imaginary friend in Max’s waking hours. At least, we can only hope he’s imaginary after seeing how Carol treats Douglas.

K.W. (Ambrose) is Max’s sister, Claire, not only emotionally—both characters keep leaving the “family” to hang out with cooler friends, breeding jealousy in Carol as Claire does to Max—but also physically, as both the puppet and actress (Pepita Emmerichs) have shaggy brown hair, a slow smile, and that all-too-detached teenage voice. Alexander (Dano) is Max’s fear and insecurity. Physically Alexander is smaller than the rest of the monsters, which is a nice detail for a character that always feels ignored and attention-starved.

While the main conflict lies between Carol and K.W., the two most telling monsters are Judith (O’Hara) and Ira (Whitaker). These represent Max’s parents. When Max stormed out of his house to begin his adventure, it was rage towards his mother that served as the catalyst, which even manifested itself in Max biting her shoulder. It’s no wonder then that Judith displays all the things Max dislikes about his mother: she is the one that doubts him, questions his motives, and generally ruins his good times. If Max had stormed off into the woods after the opening sequence involving Claire’s friends destroying his igloo, it would have been K.W. that played this role, while Judith would have been the reassuring, yet distant character.

Ira is most definitely Max’s father, who is never shown in the film, but doesn’t have to be. Max obviously longs for him and shows nothing but jealousy and anger towards his mother’s new boyfriend. The most obvious clue is that Judith and Ira are the only couple on the island. Ira is a pleasant, lovable character, which is how Max would idealize his father if he was mad at his mother. Furthermore, Ira is the monster that Max goes out of his way compliment—a bit of a role-reversal from father-to-son, now king-to-subject—and Ira is the only monster that Max hugs when he departs.

It’s an interesting concept, turning a children’s book into Freud 101, but is seems dark and oppressive. I realize Sendak’s book was visually dark, but emotionally is was vibrant and happy, much like the melody to “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire that was used in the trailer. Unfortunately, this film desperately fails to be vibrant and happy, and for a movie based on a children’s book that many parents will take their children to see, it’s a major flaw.

July 6, 2009, monday

12:24 am

I should be asleep, but that would be the closing period on a weekend I’m reluctant to let slip away.  I was home, wandering around Louisville and Southern Indiana, surrounded by family and friends, by smiles and laughter and joy.  Now I stand on the mental precipice of jumping into tomorrow among the jagged rocks of Development.  I’ve set my mind, though.  This will end.  I will have a new job soon, and while I prefer one at home, I know that a new one anywhere is necessary.  It is a requirement for sustained, stable mental health.  I’m gearing up for another weekly round, a five day affray of shattered communication and lack of cooperation.

But my mental snapshots will keep me strong: sitting on the deck with my parents, my aunts and uncle, and Karissa, eating Arni’s pizza, enjoying the perfect summer weather; enjoying the Barret Bar with AJ, Todd, Karissa, Melissa, Christal, Rick, Erica, Caleb, Amy, and Matt; going to the Oxmoor Center with Karissa and then driving around Louisville and the Knobs in a gentle rain; chowing down on a perfect home cooked meal of steaks, potatoes, slaw, and corn with the family; playing pool with Jeremy and Karissa at the Mag Bar; and searching through ear X-tacy’s CDs with Todd and Karissa before eating lunch at the Onion Tea House.  Even the nap with Cake’s “Where Would I Be?” playing in my ears.