Lights

I wrote this poem years ago (back when I thought it was cool to write poetry). For some reason I just felt like posting it...

I see clearly through the darkness an image in my mind
It radiates the brightness of the light that makes me blind
I take a step towards it but something holds me back
I remain engulfed in the presence of this awful black
The light I strive to reach seems intent on keeping apart
the white of it's pure essence and the blackness of my heart
My eyes despise the darkness, but seem content therein
where the blinding light can't penetrate the blackness of my sin
But deep down in the darkness I then see another light
it's not as bright and not as clear but still maintains my sight
As I struggle to move towards it, I notice the darkness less
and so towards this obtainable goal I know I must progress
closer I get, it's easier now to see the dark terrain
the brighter light I barely see as the darkness begins to gain
The second light has reached me now and an amazing thing takes place
I now can see the image of your beautiful smiling face
Together we float as the darkness flees for miles all around
I look toward my feet and see the light upon the ground
Then I glance up and hope to see that pure and precious light
I look around amazed to see it's now within my sight
We're gaining now, I look to you, I know we'll reach our goal
it's all because the light we share deep within our souls

Image copyright Amaury Olivier Laporte, 2006

Untitled

I don't know what this post is about yet. I just decided I wanted/needed to post something, so here I go... It's amazing, the empty white space is already receding, yet I still have no inspiration. The last line made me think of hair loss, which is a concern of mine, you would understand if you have met any man on my dad's side of the family. However, hair loss is hardly blog-worthy. Unless, of course, I combined the subject of a certain man in my family and hair loss. Sadly, I believe most of the content that discussion would be based on was told to me in confidence, which I cannot betray. It seems I've gotten to know a lot of people a lot better over the past few months, many with a new light shone upon them, a couple with shadows... And speaking of shadows... Hey, who turned out the lights? I certainly hope I never run across any Vashta Nerada in a dark alley... or a light alley. Which reminds me, I need to have David, Karl, Reggie and Sean over for another Rock Band Saturday soon. I'll grill some Beddar Cheddar brats and we'll rock into the wee hours of the night and talk about many nerdly subjects. I'm sure Portal will come up. I can't believe I still haven't played it. If I weren't broke right now, I'd go buy Orange Box for the 360. Maybe once I catch up on my finances... which at this rate probably won't happen until I get my tax return. Although, I should be getting a significant raise early next month. Today my boss asked me to send him 3 goals for next year. I hate doing that. What I really want to put is

1) be less lazy.
2) be less lazy.
3) be less lazy.

I did put "Be more motivated" for one of them. It's just been so hard to stay motivated lately. I thought as all my friends left it would become easier to take more initiative, but it really hasn't changed much. I guess I spend less time chatting and wondering around, but it doesn't really feel like I'm getting any more done. In fairness, we really haven't had a lot of work to do. It seems we've had lots of emergencies and catastrophies, but day-to-day work has been rather slow. I have a couple things that I probably should have done weeks ago, but in all honesty if I did them now, I'd literally have nothing to do... until the next disaster. I rather like disasters. I guess they make me feel validated for not working hard the rest of the time. Sometimes I want to just pull an Office Space and go get a construction job. There's nothing like the feeling of accomplishment after a day of hard work. I rarely get that feeling. Work life just blurs into home life. Another seat. Another monitor. Another flashing cursor or flickering image.

Basically...


I think I need a girlfriend.

I Am Legend... Not

So yesterday was the first chance I've had to chillax for an entire day in what felt like months. I took the opportunity to sit on my butt and watch a few movies. I watched Aeon Flux, which I ended up liking. At first, I thought it was the worst written movie I have ever seen, but then once the plot was revealed it (mostly) redeemed itself. I watched Witless Protection (You know, Larry The Cable Guy?). If you watched it for what it was, it was a good movie and rather funny. I watched I Am Legend. There were a few things in this movie that made me angry, but overall I really enjoyed it. Will Smith is always brilliant (including the Fresh Prince days).

So now on to the reason for this post... The Last Man On Earth is a film released in 1964 that starred Vincent Price and was based on the novel, "I Am Legend". I like comparing old movies (The old version of the Andromeda Strain is MUCH better than the new) so I had to give this movie a try after watching I Am Legend. Quite simply put, The Last Man On Earth is probably the worst hour and a half of film I have ever watched. From the crappy narration (done by Vincent Price), past the uninspired "vampire" version of the zombies, through to the horrible, horrible ending, this movie just oozes crap. The real clincher for me was when the zompires started talking... "Moooorgaaaaan, can you hear me?" as they all wield their identical stick of wood (who knows where they got it from) beating it on the side of his house, "I'm going to kill you Moooorgaaaan". At least there's no risk of misunderstanding their intent I guess...

Seriously, I'd like to tell you that the movie is worth watching for a laugh or two, but it's really not. The filmography is total crap too. My (least) favorite scene is when Morgan (Price) is coming out of the church after mourning his dead wife (whom he had buried elsewhere and she later came back to visit him, "leeet meee iinnnn") and the camera cuts to an outside view and you see two zompires hiding behind the railing. As Price walks by they jump out and attack him. The only scene worse than this one is when he is loading a couple dead zompires into the back of his station wagon and you can clearly see the actress move to get out of the way of the new body he is putting in.

Oh, and then you have the gratuitous scene where the military takes his dead 10 year old daughter's body and throws it into a giant burning pit. Awesome. I won't even put up with that in a good movie.

In short, thank you Will Smith.