Alright, sorry kids. Put down the pitchforks, torches, and hostage kittens. I had been doing so well updating this thing with consistency every 3-4 days, and then I go and so something brash like not updating it in a week. Apologies. Apologies all around.

I came home-home on Monday and, to be quite honest, I do so love coming home. I don’t really do anything other than just hang around with my family, watch TV at night, and then retreat to the room that I spent so many hours in while growing up once the rest of the family goes to sleep at an oh-so-early hour. It’s just, primarily, the fact that I’m home that’s so comforting and super fantastic. I have a bunch of the pictures of the house, something that I never had thought about getting before, on my lovely little digital camera. These shall get uploaded and displayed for all to see when I get back to Ann Arbor on Sunday and get the cord that my camera just begs and pleads to have in order to fulfill its function. I also got to play basketball outside on our little cement slab in front of our garage today and yesterday, which is another thing I’ve missed being able to do just whenever.

As much as I love being home though, I’m actually kinda looking forward to getting back to Ann Arbor for my summer “vacation.” And, by vacation, I mean spring and summer classes which will take all but three or four weeks of my actual summer vacation up. Spring term, in particular, will be quite the little bitch as I’m taking a class which contains the word “Intensive” in its title. Now, spring/summer classes in general are pretty rough in that they have to get an entire curriculum done in half the time that a normal term class has to. In spring, I’m taking Intensive Second-Year Spanish. What this means is that not only am I taking a Spanish class at twice the speed of a normal term of classes, but I’m taking a class that is twice the speed of a normal Spanish class during the regular school semester. So, let’s do the math: one class at about four times the speed that it could normally be taken. Honestly, though, the only thing that really irks me about this whole setup isn’t the four of class four days a week, but rather than the damn thing starts at 8:30am every day. I haven’t had to wake up before 8:00am as a routine since my junior year of High School. This makes me, a person with admittedly trying sleeping issues, a very, very sadpanda. Oh well; it’s only six-seven weeks of this thing. I can do it.

Plus, and this is just what I’m hearing from a little birdie who heard it from grape vine, I think this summer is going to be one of the bestest ever. My reasons are super-secret — and to follow the old cliché: if I told you, I’d have to kill you — but let’s just trust me on this. I think it’ll be pretty spectacular.

Oh, and hey, a friend urged me in the direction of GameDev.net’s Image of the Day (IOTD) saying that the queue for the future was feeling a bit lonely, so I went ahead and submitted my last known project as a programmer to the thing. Check it out if you feel so inclined.

I started up work on the third chapter for Paradise a couple of days ago, and while I was talking to one of my friends I had the whole chapter appear before my eyes in a startling flash of revelationary light. This chapter is the point in which the real plotline of the book begins to take form. It’s also the point in which I inject some romance by finally fleshing out the relationship between the main character and his, presumably, dead wife. The first three page draft I wrote for the chapter’s flashback was, at the time, decent… But when I looked back at the thing I was simply revolted by how bad it was. I’m keeping the same general structure of the flashback, but I think the newly rewritten draft is most definitely superior to the bastard first draft. I’m stuck on a very crucial paragraph of said flashback at the moment, but as soon as that’s done I think the rest of the sequence will come together very nicely. I’ll post snippets and such at the appropriate temporal juncture.

Since I have a tendency to give my one-sentence movie reviews after I’ve watched a large amount of movies in a fairly short time I might as well make it more of a habit. So here are all the movie-viewing occasions which I have partaken in over the last two-three weeks. There’s a lot and in roughly the order in which I watched them. eXistenZ was positively captivating which left my mind reeling by the time its ninety-seven minutes of film had come to a conclusion. Videodrome was, uh, well it was a weird damn movie; I’m not really sure what else to say. Do not watch Spider unless you like watching Ralph Fiennes mumble and stumble for almost one-hundred minutes — I truly believe that the script for the movie was, at most, four pages long. Silent Hill was bad, long, but very enjoyable for me. Jacob’s Ladder is a fantastic movie along the lines of The Sixth Sense, but which remains far more interesting throughout while ending with a bit of a whimper whereas Shyamalan’s movie is very slow-developed buildup which ends with a bang. Hostel was less “revolting” than I had been lead to believe, but a far more enjoyable movie at the same time. The Grudge was a very faithful recreating of its Ju-on, which I, overall, enjoyed more than the Japanese original. And, to end this very long paragraph, Love, Actually was the single most fun movie I’ve seen in a very long time.

Alright, next time I’m just going to do these one-sentence reviews as I see the movies, rather than letting a large-ass list slowly build and build until it nears its breaking point. Unfortunately, I’m now at the end of the very long list of movies that I’d been waiting to see for such a long time. I think Blue Velvet is one of the few remaining titles that I have but have not yet seen. And I don’t care how batshit crazy Tom Cruise may be, I’m still looking forward to seeing Mission Impossible III on Friday.

I’d also like to point that, while I still have yet to get a grade for the last of my four classes, I’m currently sitting at a 3.554 GPA for the last semester. I was an absolutely horrible student for my first three semesters here at the University of Michigan, but I’m very slowly starting to come around. This will be the best semester I’ve had yet with two A-’s and a B+. I’ll update this paragraph as soon as I get the last grade to see if I’ve set a new academic record for my time at U of M.

Okay, at this point in time I’ve resolved to finish up that damn Top Ten list on Thursday and Friday night later this week. I simply don’t have the time to do it any of the other nights this week, and currently I just don’t have the desire to do it. Though, you do have my promise, barring any sort of illness which prevents me from standing, or simply a better way to spend my time, that list will have its penultimate posted Thursday night/Friday morning and the finale will be posted on Friday night/Saturday morning. So, there you go. How’s that for stone-cold resolve?

Over the weekend, I finally indulged some lingering urges by watching Blade, Cube, and Lost Highway (with Blue Velvet being on queue for tomorrow night). Of the trio, I was surprised that I had a kind of seething hatred for Blade as I watched it. I had seen the second movie in theaters back in my junior or senior year of High School, so maybe that ruined the suspense in the movie for me, but I just overall did not enjoy it. And here I thought that a completely pointless violent film was just was I after, but the lack of suspense and surprise just ruined it for me. Anyway, both Cube and Lost Highway were immensely entertaining, and my brain now feels all sorts of squishy and raw from the severe beating it received from these two movies.

Now, first let me mention that if you’ve ever read and enjoyed 1984, then you should most likely read We. I have yet to finish it, but I can already tell these were two books written for each other and separated at birth — so there’s that. And now let me say that as I was going to Amazon to get some links for the previous books, I ended up buying The Crying of Lot 49 and White Noise. Son of a bitch.

I’m sorry. Daddy didn’t mean to yell at you; it’s not even your fault. Daddy is just angry. Here, honey, enjoy my special Valentine’s Day Card just for you. I love you.

Over the course of this weekend, namely Saturday and Sunday afternoon, I wrote the first six pages of what will most likely result in the first chapter of Paradise. These pages turned out far better than I think I could’ve ever even hoped for, and that’s just about all I can say. Anyway, here are my linkies for the first six pages of the first chapter (it’s not completed yet): DOC and PDF. Word on the street is that it isn’t all that terrible. As per the norm, if you’d like to make any comments about it, I’d prefer that you e-mail me, but leaving a comment to this entry is also perfectly acceptable.

I think that pretty much covers it.

I do apologize for my continued procrastination on that silly top-ten list. Honestly, I’ll get around to finishing it eventually but as for now I’m on this relaxation kick where I want to get back from class, go running for a while, maybe lift a few ridiculously miniscule weights, come back, do some necessary homework, and then… Relax. You’d think the idea that there are only two more game articles for me to flesh out would make the idea of finishing it a lot more appealing, but these are the top two; an article of such epic proportions deserves more than an aggressive “let me finally frickin’ finish it” hand taken to it. So, yeah, word up to that.

One thing I want to bring up right now is to say just how amazed I am at how well the American version of The Office has turned out. The first episode of the American version was pretty much a joke-for-joke retelling of the British first episode, and it bombed, but every episode after that has gotten continually better. It has actually gotten to the point now where I actually prefer the American version of the show to the British one; partially because the awkward humor has gotten to the point where it’s actually painful to witness the scenes take place, and then partially simply because the relationship between Jim and Pam is simply fantastic. Every episode advanced their romantic relationship (or takes it a step back) by such small steps that it’s one of the most “believable” TV relationships that I’ve ever seen. Plus, and this is primarily a personal reason, but the way Jim handles his relationship with Pam is almost creepy in how I handle pretty much every relationship. Yeah, okay, Akamu — we know. I’m a “wuss.” “Just ask the girl out.” Yadda, yadda, yadda, so on and so forth into eternity. Go to Hell.

Now a repost of the story from yesterday: Paradise - Introduction (DOC or PDF). Once again I’ll say that it’s got some “graphic content” and PG-13 level swearing, so if you’re little or squeamish of any sort, best stay away. I really like the direction this story is going in my head, even if the introduction isn’t really any kind of indication as to what I have in mind, and I can’t wait to start fleshing it out a bit more in text. I finished up a few sketches of some stuff tonight, namely the Paradise itself, which as of right now is a 2×1 mile fallout shelter “community” complete with all the necessities to get a fairly large number of families (I’m aiming for the size to be enough for 6,000 people, no idea how many “main” characters there will be yet) up and running in this well thought-out and constructed post-nuclear shelter world. I’d be smart to research some basic information on city planning and civic concerns, but I think I’ll just write what I have in mind and let the violent outrages of angry readers correct my wrongdoing when the time comes.

Overall the book/novella is a very ambitious project, and I don’t have the best record for actually finishing this kind of stuff (then again, maybe I do), but I have to write a decent amount of material for my Creative Writing class this semester, and I have a fairly open summer, so who knows. We’ll find out together, I suppose.

In other news, The Hills Have Eyes and Slither are both coming out in March, so if you’re dying for a place to take me for my birthday on March 11 (or you want to postpone it until later in March, I guess it’s your call), there you go. And being that I’m turning 21 this year, I’m already taking names for a string of “bar partners” with whom I will go into a bar with, order a beer, drink and be merry, and then be on my way with. Now, obviously, such an undertaking can only be done once a day, so as of now I’ll probably be hitting the bars once a day in this fashion for a solid couple of weeks to fulfill all my promises. I’ll also need to out-do myself on St. Patrick’s Day this year, just to keep with tradition. Yeah, Mike, I’m looking at you.

Another thing I just came in contact with just as I was writing this is the website for Keith Schofield, who apparently uses old video games as a basis for shooting some music videos (the E.T. one in particular). While the music may not be your thing, the videos themselves are pretty damn cool. Definitely something well above the independent aura I had been expecting. And, yeah, that E.T. Atari game was terrible beyond comprehension. Absolutely. Terrible.

While I’m on the run of posting links, I might as well mention the Fear of Girls a short indie film about the ridiculously dedicated nerds who play custom-written RPG’s. One involves a palace of whores, or something. There are also such memorable quotes as “Dougdoug is pretty much to be dropped right into the fiery pit of hell!” and “MERCY? YOU WANTED MERCY? I’M CHAOTIC NEUTRAL. GAAAAAAAAAAH.” Truly hilarious whether or not you have any idea what the real-life basis for it is. I think I’ve had friends in the past that actually bared a not-so-minor resemblance to the guys the short. This… Makes me all sorts of sad.

Now that my dreaded Tuesday has come to a close (more than an hour ago, actually), I can safely live out the rest of the week with a certain kind of peacefulness that can only be achieved once beating down the opposition that is the colossus of a weekly schedule. It’s a good feeling, to be honest. I’m sure, if no one else, that Atlas can share the pain of this particular burden.

To understand this little story I’m about to tell, I need to fill you in on a little fact that will make this story far more understandable for you, as the reader. You see, my life is really boring — kay, consider yourself ready. Anyway, for Halloween I had this really grand scheme for what my friends and I should have done. And, by “grand scheme,” I mean that I wanted to go see Saw II, an absolutely terrible “horror” movie, at some kind of theater late at night. This plan failed like a flying penguin when we got all ready to go see an 11:00pm or some similarly timed showing and then realized that all the local theaters ended their last movie showings at 10:00pm. So instead I watched Land of the Dead and had myself a jolly ol’ time watching a ridiculously awesome and unnecessarily gory movie.

While I’m on the topic: I probably would have enjoyed DOOM a lot more had it had more action and gore and less pseudo-plot. I think the entire movie was just a build-up for The Rock to say “Semper fi, motherfucker.” Which, to be honest, is a scene well worth ninety minutes of build-up.

I don’t know which makes me more excited: the prospect of finally having my copy of Civilization IV show up on my doorstep in an absolutely ginormous box so that I may, at last, peruse through the two hundred page instruction manual in an effort to find out exactly what I’m doing in the game or the fact that there’s another upcoming IM football game on Friday night. The nerd in me screams “The Former! The Former!” while the big, hulking, beast of a man in me screams “Shut the hell up, twerp, gimme some pigskin lovin’!” At which point a series of loud thuds occur and the Civilization camp becomes all the more silent.

As luck may have it, neither of those two personalities has any inkling about how to approach a cute girl and ask her out to some kind of meeting that the two parties could partake in. This makes me a sad panda.

On the exercise front, I’m up to running a mile and a half a day, at a fairly mediocre rate. The weight-lifting that occurs flip-flops from day to day from curls with weights that could be described, at best, as pequeño to bench pressing weights that couldn’t even usher lunch money from previously stated pequeño ones. Yes, it’s a sad, sad sight, but thankfully I can be in-and-out of that general vicinity within fifteen — maybe twenty — minutes at max. So, after running a mile and a half, then lifting for about a half-hour-ish, then I just proceed to play basketball (ie. more running up and down court. Up and down. Up and down. Up an — dammit, I tripped, ow — and down) for another hour and a half or so. I tell you, I’m fit. Fit like a seal.

It was at this point in the entry where I realized a perfect tagline for the site would be: “Polycat.net - A Tribute to the Literacy of Trent Polack.” Sorry; had to let this revelation run its course or I’d be up all night trying to make it all fancy and flowery. Not really. Sometimes I just write — and, really, talk — just to make noise. It’s a habit more than anything. One that’s probably angered way more people than any kind of gauntlet thrown to the ground or burning of a flag.

I just realized at this very moment that the current necklace I’m wearing, and no, it’s not some kind of girly necklace or anything of the like — more just a typical frat boy/Abercrombie and Fitch spawned piece of “jewelry” that I’ve grown attached to (it’s the dark colors more than anything) has actually been around for a good three or four years now. Take a moment to consider that nothing I own lasts that long. It either gets absolutely owned by a giant house-fire back in second grade, some kind of wild dog energy streak that ends up in the destruction of a great many unrelated pieces of physical property, or just a sister on a warpath. Whatever the case may be, I don’t generally have things like that are still in some kind of usable of wearable state for very long. This is a true testament to my maturity as a human being — or, probably a far more accurate statement, something I occasionally find tucked away in a drawer somewhere, sleeping all safe-and-sound-like and take out to show a good time. Yeah, that last bit is probably way truer. I’m sorry to have let this necklace down though; the good times be hard to come by. It’ll have to settle for mediocre and fairly amusing times. Them be times aplenty.

I think that about does it for the nightlyish ramblings. Here’s a picture that is best left unexplained but that some may find some subtle hilarity in.

In what is quite possibly the worst “piece” I’ve ever written, here are my thoughts on Serenity. Hopefully I’ll get the gusto to spice it up a bit (yes, I did just say that and no, I don’t ever plan to again) sometime when I’m a bit more conscious tomorrow. This was primarily written as a reply to this crap review from this thing I call a school.

I’ll admit it from the get-go: I’m a big fan of Firefly, and have been since the day my friend thrust a DVD in my hands and said “Watch it, or die.” Being of the living and intending to stay that way, I did as I was told. I thank my friend to this day for it. The TV series was refreshingly intelligent in its writing, incredible chemistry between the nine central characters, and special effects well above the typical bar for TV. The formula was a bit trite, with each of the series’ fourteen episodes following a fairly similar equation, but the rest of the show more than made up for this.

I went into Serenity with fairly large expectations. I’d watched each episode a couple times over the course of a couple years, so I’d grown a bit attached to the characters over time. The trailer for the movie, also, filled me with a less-than-spectacular feel for the movie. It all stunk of a “Haven’t we seen this before when it was called Star Wars?” kind of emotion.

Then I went and saw the movie with my mom and sister (who I had forced to watch the series, much to their delight), and we left the theater giddy with excitement, yet still in shock from a few of the more jolting events in the movie. I’m not going to lie: It’s a pretty intense movie. By far one of the most violent PG-13 movies I have ever seen. After I had a bit of time to digest everything in the movie, though, I simply came away thinking that Serenity was the Star Wars for a new generation; because, let’s face it, Lucas’ prequel trilogy left MUCH to be desired. Serenity flies in a few months after the final chapter in that abysmal trilogy with memorable characters (even if only two of them possess any kind of development arc), great writing, stellar action, and a universe that defies its science-fiction roots.

Serenity most certainly isn’t a movie for everybody — that much is certain. I would argue that it is a fairly accessible movie, even for people completely unacquainted with the Firefly universe. It’s a movie which is strongly rooted in its moral values and a movie which is filled with more heart than any other theatrical release I’ve seen in the last couple years. It’s a genre-crossing adventure with a cast of actors who, other than Alan “Steve the Pirate” Tudyk, are not overly familiar with the silver screen but still manage to deliver very believable and strong performances. And it’s the kind of movie that really needs to be experienced with an open-mind. For people willing to give the movie a shot though, Serenity is a sure fire winner.

If you’re still unsure about Serenity, the first nine-minutes of the movie can be seen here: http://video.vividas.com/CDN1/3929_Serenity/web/index.html. I would’ve preferred that they show the scene directly after these introductory nine minutes, but that’s just me. Still a good glimpse into a fantastic movie.