Gripe of the Day... I am sick to death of all those damned e-mails that people send out that say "if you send this to seven people, you will see a little dancing Taco Bell dog run across your screen". Or it could be some segment of South Park that no one has ever seen before. Or some other bullshit like that. Don't people know that these do not work? I actually fell for it and tried it. It's a load of shit!!! People, get a life and don't forward these anymore. People are just trying to see how many people will actually receive this e-mail before it's returned to them. They're losers with nothing better to do. Show the world that you are not a loser and don't forward it!!

I don't know how you could possibly not know what happened yesterday in Littleton, Colorado. At least two gunmen (three suspected) walked into a high school and started opening fire and setting off homemade bombs. Jesus, what is it with kids these days? I know life is tough but is it really so tough that they have to take out their aggressions on everyone else with a gun. This is the fifth shooting at a school in the last 18 months. What really made it hit home is that two of my friend's cousins go to Columbine H.S. where this occurred. Christ almighty.

[editor's note: again, the "friend" was Katie and both her cousins survived. We were at the wedding for one of them when we were in Colorado in May 2013.]

I really hate it when Hollywood works in themes. 1986 = Top Gun and Iron Eagle. 1987 = Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Hamburger Hill. The 1990s disaster rage = Twister, Tornado, Dante's Peak, Volcano, Deep Water (title?), Armageddon, Deep Impact, etc. Now, they're releasing two flicks about Joan of Arc. One is a made-for-TV flick starring Leilei Sobieski of Never Been Kissed fame and the second is a high-budget flick directed by Luc Besson (The Professional) and starring his girlfriend Milla Jovovich (He Got Game). Granted, I'm more than likely going to see both of them, it still irks me that Hollywood can't be a little more creative than this.

Have you guys ever been on a website and you just can't figure out how the hell you got there? I found one site that scared the shit out of me. It's about the Blair Witch Project which was a student film project back in October, 1994. Well, the Blair Witch is a local legend in Burkittsville, Maryland about two hours north of D.C. Three students from a nearby university wanted to make a documentary about it, however, they never returned. Police found the car of one of them and anthropology students from the University of Maryland found the audio/video tapes and personal journal of one of the students a year later buried under a 100 year old cabin. Now the footage has been edited by an independent company and will be released this summer. I'm gonna be there. Weird thing about this site is that they worked so hard to make it seem real, and it's not! Completely floored me when I found this out.

Well, it has been a helluva long time since I've done anything here now hasn't it? Well... what I've got to say tonight ain't all that great so I apologize. In my Scorsese class tonight, we watched his remake of Cape Fear. Last week, we watched the 1962 version starring Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck. Afterwards, we had a debate about which Max Cady was better: Robert DeNiro or Robert Mitchum? I'm just curious which scares you more--an obviously messed-in-the-head, scary-to-look-at, beast of a human being like DeNiro's Cady or the cool, collected, I'm-scared-but-I-can't-figure-out-why stalker like Mitchum's Cady? Personally, in a world of fucked-up psychopaths that we are living in now, I'm personally more frightened by the more collected psycho like Mitchum. what do you think?

Well this should be no surprise... I'm thinking of changing the topic of my term paper in my Scorsese class yet again. If you recall, I started out wanting to talk about the influence of his independent films. Next, I was going to examine the benefits of long-term actor/director collaborative teams (Scorsese/DeNiro). Now I think I'm going to examine the effects of filmic techniques employed by Scorsese in his films Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and The Age of Innocence. In these films, he uses some cinematic techniques that have never been attempted before and they are truly incredible. I really want to see just what kind of effect they had on the audiences and the critics. What do you think?

Update: Good!! One of the two guys who killed Matthew Shepard has pled guilty and was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Russell Henderson was accused (along with Aaron McKinney) of luring Shepard from a bar by pretending he was gay. Then both of them tied Shepard up, pistol-whipped him, and tied him to a fence in the cold. Shepard died five days later. Pretty sick and twisted, eh? They should just do the same to him.

Happy Day-After-April-Fools-Day!! Yesterday was interesting. A couple other staff members keyed into my apartment and tried to see if they could get away with some of my stuff. I'm so anal retentive that I knew everything that was gone. Sad, eh? Then they gave it all to me as gifts at our staff meeting. Talk about getting something you know you want, huh?