hip hop horray

so last week i was talking to my friend garret, a fellow law student, and somehow it came up that he used to be a personal trainer. he mentioned that he doesnt do any training right now because of school, but he still teaches a class once a week. i asked him what class and he responded, 'hip hop.' to which i of course responded: 'can i come?' he said of course and that he could get anyone in for free. so i rallied together 15 friends and we crashed his hip hop party. thats not entirely true. i did find a friend though and we went. and it was fantastic. seriously a good time. not the most tiring workout, but a workout of sorts. i consider myself a rhythm-less wonder, so i found the class challenging, but really a lot of fun and im definitely planning on going back. here is a video of a class that he taught. this isnt what he taught us. he taught us a dance to a justin timberlake song. garret is the instructor at the front. he moves a little better than i do. he's pretty fluid. im not so sure he has bones in his body. he also dominates when it comes to mock trial. a really good public speaker. a multi-talented law student. who knew? we're not all law geeks. anyways, go hip hop. its a blast. and good for the soul.

FIRE!!

so there are many terrible fires going on right now all over southern california. im sure everyone is well aware of this. i woke up sunday morning and heard about a malibu fire that happened because of some felled power lines. i didnt think much of it. later that afternoon i went to my friend joe seymour's wedding. two quick things about the wedding:

1. it was peppered with 'beatles' songs. the prelude music was 'all you need is love.' the processional was 'something' and the recessional was 'two of us.' which is a beatles song that i wasnt familiar with, but its a great one. later, their first dance was to 'here, there and everywhere.' just outstanding. i think she chose the music. if it was up to joe, he probably would have picked their first dance to be 'bow down' by 'westside connection.' anyways, i would much rather get married in the temple for obvious reasons, but i think that a 'beatles' wedding is a close second (can i say that? i was going to say acceptable second, but i dont think that would be the best way to phrase it. hopefully my readers understand me here.)

2. i need to give a shout out to my date. though i wont say her name. she was great. i later told her that she should become a professional date(r) but i think that that job exists and its called a female escort. which isnt a job with the greatest reputation, so i dont recommend it. anyways, i dont know if all women enjoy weddings and would have had a good time, but from a guy's point of view, if someone asked me on a date and then took me to a wedding id be visibly upset about it and she and i would be one and done. plus on top of that, its an event where i knew people from high school, but she didnt know anyone. she made great conversation with strangers and i never felt bad or nervous leaving her so that i could talk to people i know or just 'escape' for a bit because i knew she could and would hold her own. anyways, i felt bad asking anyone to come with me, but she acted the part well made the evening a great time. sorry, this has been a long shout out. i need to stop before i get even more family comments than im already going to get.

so, back to the fire. the wedding was up in dove canyon in orange county and on the way home the freeways we took to get to the wedding were both closed because huge fires had started. the evacuation of the area had just begun and we sat on the side of the road with hundreds of other people and watched as these huge fires started to crawl over the hills. we stood next to one lady whose house was at the bottom of the hill where the fire was. it was rather awe inspiring watching these huge fires in the late of the night. i hate to say it, but at the time it was really cool to witness. things arent so cool now that they are out of control with no sign of anything getting better while the winds continue. it appears that the winds might be dying down. one can only hope.

so i asked my friends on monday if they had heard how the fires had started and they had heard it was because of arson. of course some fires began because of the initial ones that started. so they all werent arson, but even if they were, it got me thinking about arson. or arsonists.

first of all, how do they do it? like with these brush fires. are they just driving along the highway and they throw some fireball outside their car? i would think it too risky, to drive off the side of the road, get out, light some brush on fire, then get back in your car and drive away. i guess its more plausible than the fireball, but it still sounds like there is a large risk of someone seeing you. granted, i realize we are dealing with someone that enjoys lighting large areas on fire and doesnt feel remorse or sorrow about all the damage, so their brain might not be able to calculate risks associated with lighting the brush on fire.

the other thing is just how its such a strange crime. i think a lot of crimes are committed out of desperation or necessity, like robbing a store to feed a drug addiction. those crimes are terrible, but sort of make sense at least. or crimes of passion. also terrible. very terrible. but again, i sort of understand. not that i justify any of them. or find any of them acceptable. but arson? unless the person is trying to burn down their home because they need the insurance money, there isnt desperation. passion? not really. its just for kicks. which makes it one of the worst crimes. in that, i think any crime that is committed because someone gets a kick out of is the worst motive and the person is seriously sick and messed up in the head.

anyways, i need to end this post. i dont think im conveying my thoughts very well. its never a good sign when i cant even really understand myself. i just had some random thoughts about how this all began. i guess i cant even confirm that they were started by arson, but if they were, i just dont understand it.

quick plug for 'crash'

so 'fx' is acting like a typical cable station and repeatedly showing a movie five or six times a day for a few weeks. right now it happens to be the movie 'crash.' it is a heavy movie but i loved it and i highly recommend it. when i first saw it i had a 'gattica' moment. a gattica moment is where i sit down to watch a movie, but im really tired or not in the mood for a movie, but the movie immediately sucks me in and keeps me alert and attentive throughout. crash was that type of movie. i was only planning on starting it and watching the first part; 2 hours later i was still staring at the screen at highly moved and impressed. cant guarantee youll have the same experience, but if you have a soul, you probably will.

weekend warrior

so i want to become a weekend warrior (but not like this guy. he's just one of the first pictures that came up on a 'google' search). or perhaps a weekend rogue warrior. or maybe a weekend renegade warrior. i'd like to be a renegade. it just sounds cool. so ive been having the traveling itch or just wanting to get out and do stuff itch. now i realize i do get out and 'do stuff.' this past week i went to yet another concert. i went with my brother and saw morrissey. ill quickly digress and say that it was fantastic. morrissey sweats more than any other human i have ever seen. in his roughly 2 hour show, he changed his shirt three times. his music is really good though. im not too familiar with his stuff, i actually only knew three songs going to the concert, only one of which he played. so i couldnt really sing along to the music, but ive gone home and downloaded some songs because i really enjoyed them.

anyways, so i have been quite the concert go-er lately. which is just grand. i also do get out and 'do stuff.' my weekends usually are filled with stuff. and thats just fine and dandy. but ive been having the desire to go places. and not necessarily far away places, but some nice weekend excursions (although roundtrip flights to costa rica right now are going for $259 on TACA international airlines. thats a deal. im not quite sure what taca airlines is. ive never heard of them. i dont know if you fly with people, chickens or cocaine. but for $259?! ill happily smuggle in some 'goods' if it means i can fly there for about as much as it costs to fly to utah).

here's the siutation: right now i have no classes on friday. i have a three day weekend every weekend. its my third year of law school. its really my last opportunity to have such a flexible and open schedule until i make millions and retire by 40. but after this year, i probably wont have such an nice schedule for at least 10 years and maybe even more. so i need to live it up. ive talked to numerous law school graduates that talked about their third year. one guy bought a jet ski. another guy got his pilots license during his third year. george had his summer. why cant i have my year? (of course, i may not want to use that analogy, because, as im sure we all recall, george slips on some invitations shortly after his summer starts and his summer is ruined due to an injury). i dont really want a jet ski or to learn how to fly, although those would be cool. i just want some weekend excursions. i dont think that is too much to ask or too difficult to make happen. there is plenty i can do that can be pulled off in a weekend. surfing in baja. snowboarding in mammoth. vegas. i have family there and i never go there, but i should. santa barbara. san francisco. austin. cabo. san juan. you know, simple trips.

anyways, if you have any other suggestions or ideas of excursions, please let me know. if you are against me being a renegade, i suppose you can let me know as well. i do realize that a renegade refers to a fallen christian or a soldier or knight without allegiance. so i guess technically i dont want to be a renegade in the midevil sense of the term. rather, the gen x/me generation renegade that spends all his time roaming and avoiding responsibility and looking out for number 1 - himself. if you are against that renegade, then you can let me know and ill at least pretend to take your objections into consideration (but not really of course since they are coming from a source other than number 1).

movie recap

so at the beginning of the summer i did a summer movie preview, well another thing i have been meaning to post is a little recap of the movies i actually did see. not that i think anyone cares, but i still thought i would post my thoughts. so in the end, i didnt end up seeing too many movies. but ill just rank the ones that i did see.

evan almighty: didnt actually see it. this is why it took me so long to make this post. in the original preview post i put this as a movie i was going to see, so i was going to do this recap post after i saw it. but i never did. i planned on it, but then i heard it just wasnt that good. im really not one to pay attention to critics, but occasionally ill check the site rottentomatoes.com. i like this site because it just compiles reviews from many different critics and tell you what percent of them gave the movie a positive review and how many gave it a negative review. again, i dont really care about what critics say, but if an overwhelming amount give it a negative review, it does make me question whether or not i want to spend money on the movie. so when only 23% of the 175 critics gave evan almighty a positive review, i felt that i could probably wait until this movie came out on dvd. or tv. or just wait for my roommate to illegally download it.

7. resurrecting the champ: randomly saw this one with a group one friday night. um, no complaints. one of those neutral movies. i wasnt upset by any means that i saw it. wasnt blown away or it didnt change my life or anything. not that a movie has to. i would and do recommend it, but until i sat down to write this post, i had forgotten that i had even seen the movie this summer.

6. ocean's 13: this was actually a great show. just the other ones were better. i already mentioned this one in the yosemite post. i saw this the evening after climbing half dome. it was outstanding. a fun show. much better than the second. the first was just so good, i dont think any sequel could ever beat it. that said, i do hope they make a fourth(teenth?)

5. ratatouille: do you know what rotten tomatoes number 1 movie of the first 6 months of 2007 was? ratatouille. pixar is incredible. they really are. i have loved other pixar movies more than this one, but the key word there is love. im always pleased with everything they do (except maybe cars. i was bored in that one). seriously though, you cant go wrong with a pixar movie. maybe wont be the best movie youll ever see, but it dont think you can walk out of a pixar movie feeling disappointed.

4. spiderman 3: i also blogged about this one in the first movie post. many people were disappointed with this one. i really enjoyed it. people didnt like the whole peter parker going emo thing. but i was thoroughly entertained. they needed to show that he was 'different' and i thought making him a cool emo guy to show he was different than his typical nerd self was outstanding. the villains were good. good story again. harry dies. what more could we want? well, perhaps for mary jane to lose her voice and quit screaming.

3. transformers: saw this one at a midnight showing on opening night. great show. my roommate zach has seen it a few times in the theatres, including in imax last week and he says it gets better each time. ive only seen it once, but i could easily see it being one of those movies. i really enjoyed it. the effects were good. story wasnt too amazing, but they were trying to make a movie out of action figures, so they deserve some credit. also, i believe that there is now talk of a GI Joe movie. not sure if the success of transformers has inspired that, but the chance that it might have, secures them in the number 3 spot.

2. bourne ultimatum: oh how i wish this wasnt the end. this movie was so good. im going to spoil it because it was released over a month ago, so if you havnt seen it, skip this part. the movie was great, but it became excellent for me right at the very end when he was floating in the water and then suddenly the moby song kicked in and he started twitching and showed that he was alive. something about that ending just made it a fantastic movie and perfectly tied it all together and concluded everything. and im not quite sure why. it might be because i didnt really know if he was alive. he could have died and i would have been fine with it. sad. but this is the end of the trilogy and i thought it could have been a sad, but fitting end to the story. so i honestly wasnt sure if it was just going to fade to black with him in the water and leave us wondering. but then the music, the twitch, i got some goosebumps and just sat there thinking that i had just seen an excellent, and highly entertaining movie. jason bourne is rad by they way. my feelings were reconfirmed that if i could be any superhero, i might just be jason bourne. he's fierce.

1. live free or die hard: yep. you read that correctly. the best movie of the summer. i think because it was a quintessential summer movie. and probably because i had low expectations going into the show. bruce willis was good. the supporting character, the apple guy, was outstanding. if it was just bruce willis making his cheezy comments, i would have gotten sick of him, but he was contrasted by the apple guy and his highly entertaining character. there was a great storyline. something that was actually believable. they put thought into it. which i always appreciate. they didnt just go with the big name + sequel + lots of special effects = breaking even at the box office so who cares about a plot. there was a great storyline that made you think. now, it was a die hard, so bruce willis does do some pretty ridiculous things, like take on and destroy a military jet with his bare hands. which is a little unbelievable ill admit. not many people could pull that off. most of us would just get shot or blown away by one of the many missiles. but there are some people that are capable of jumping onto the jet while it is flying and causing it to crash into a freeway overpass. its fortunate that bruce willis is one of those people because he had to do that in the movie. anyways, it barely beats out jason bourne. both were really good. i think die hard gets the edge just because i didnt anticipate for it to be good at all, and because its the only movie i saw twice in the theaters this summer.