The End of 2014

Posted on December 31, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

Holy buckets, Batman. 2014. This has easily been the most challenging year of my entire life, and I am 100% glad that this year is finally over.

Adventure Buddy, if you’re out there somewhere, thank you. There is no part of my life that hasn’t been made better because of you and your presence in my life. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I know I’ve said thank you a dozen different times in a dozen different ways, but you really are that awesome and amazing. Thank you.

I spent several months learning how to walk again. Between getting off of crutches and the months and months and months of physical therapy, the waking up in the middle of the night in pain, the lack of pain killers, the falling down the steps of my ladder to my loft, the countless days and nights crying in the corner, the working so hard to fix something I broke that I shattered the most important friendship of my life, and those in charge of me telling me that everything I’ve worked for in my career is over because I broke my ankle, it’s been a long year.

It’s been hard.

But it really hasn’t been all painful destruction.

As much as things in my life have sucked, I wouldn’t be who or where I am right now in life if everything hadn’t fallen apart.

I wouldn’t be who I am right now if it weren’t for the most intelligent, fun, smart, ethical, hilarious, and fantastic Adventure Buddy. Even though we haven’t been on speaking terms this entire year, there is no part of my life that hasn’t been made better because of Adventure Buddy’s presence in my life. I’m a better person because of you. Thank you.

I’ve rebuilt my life in the best possible ways. I had so many adventures in 2014. I went to Vermont and had a great time at a water park during a giant snowstorm. I visited California multiple times. I started work on my Master of Fine Arts degree and finished my first semester for that. I saw at least three musicals and participated in an adventure murder-mystery evening in a large city. I read fantastic books, watched different movies, reconnected with a lot of people I’ve missed, and made new buddies. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve learned a lot of lessons, and I’ve done what I can to help people and to make the world a better place.

All my time up until this year has been a study of my indomitable will. I have been successful in my life and throughout my career because of my tenacity. My refusal to quit has meant that I took a lot of actions that were best for the career of Adventure Buddy but that didn’t do very many good things for me as a person. I did what I believed was right professionally, even though the cost appears to have been the best, most important friendship of my entire life. This year has given me something more powerful than my thick skull and stubbornness.

This year has given me hope.

If I can get through 2014 and come out better, stronger, smarter, more caring, more generous, and more stable than I’ve ever been in my entire life, then that means I can survive anything. That means that I can do anything. It means that I really did spend a lot of time leveling up this year. I am absolutely ready to face the challenges of 2015, and I will face them with a heart filled with faith, hope, and love. The faith that everything happens for a reason and that things are the way they are meant to be. The hope for the future, that someone who means so much to me will give our friendship another chance. The love I have for all those I care about – the family, friends, and people who are close to me, as well as the people I know only through the internet, those that work with me, and the strangers I have never met. My definition of love has absolutely nothing to do with sex. If you want to know what love means to me, listen to Valerie’s letter in the movie V for Vendetta.

1) Read ONE book per week. As there are 52 weeks per year, and my goal was to read and write a review for at least one book per week, I absolutely succeeded in this goal because I posted 56 book reviews throughout 2014. I read everything from graphic novels to fantasy classics to haunted horror novels to science fiction space adventures to urban fantasy to young adult to children’s classics. It was a very eclectic year for my book reviews.

2) Write ONE movie review per week. Again, there are 52 weeks in a year and I successfully posted movie reviews of 52 movies during 2014. As it turns out, there’s a direct correlation between me reading more books and watching less movies.

3) Listen to TEN songs or ONE album per week and then organize my music correctly. I have so far organized 1,062 of the 2,348 songs I’ve been trying to go through and listen to and categorize. This is an absolute WIN in my view. Even if I don’t do any more with my music this year, this is much more than I actually anticipated getting through in the entire year. Especially the Homestuck music, which takes up 678 songs in my music library. Some of it was kind of painful to listen to, some of it was kind of fun, and there was a surprising amount of music that I actually really enjoyed. The other side of this is that three days ago, my laptop crashed and I lost everything. I’ve been trying to rebuild it all, but it’s slow going. And I haven’t even touched my music files yet. Still, I consider this a win because I did save at least some of the playlists and I remember the songs, if nothing else.

4) Revise Affinity. I have not worked on any revisions in any capacity. I know I should be working on it, I’m just trying to get too many other things done right now.

5) Participate and win NaNoWriMo in 2014. This didn’t happen for me at all. I didn’t even pretend to try because there was just too much going on in my life in November.

6) Draw and color at least ONE full size pattern. I have one pattern that I’ve been working on that is almost complete and another, much larger pattern that I’m also working on that I hope to be able to complete in the next couple months. Since progress is actively being made, I’m going to call this a success so far.

7) Run two miles in under 16 minutes. This is likely to never happen, as my orthopedic surgeon is pretty adamant that I’m never supposed to run again. I can walk as much as I want, but running is supposed to be strictly off the books. With that said, I’ll still have to run two miles every six months or so, and I’ve improved my run time by a minute this year. That’s actually really huge. So I’m going to call this a win.

8) Stop swearing. I have made significant progress in accomplishing this task. I will call it mostly a win.

9) Attend one cultural event or location per month. I absolutely achieved this goal. I also saw this as the adventuring that I did. I travelled to California and Vermont. I went and saw The Wizard of Oz musical at a 100 year-old theater and I participated in a motorcycle movie night. I went camping and rock climbing in North Carolina. I spent time at a waterpark in the middle of the winter when snow-covered everything in drifts taller than me. I helped work with a shelter that takes in abused horses. I’ve been to multiple gaming nights with over 30 people per night and learned about a fantastic role-playing game about Werewolves. This goal was designed to get me out and experiencing life again after everything that went so wrong in the last year.

10) Climb a 5.10 wall. I DID THIS!!! I went outdoor rock climbing for the first time in my life and had such an amazing time! We drove out a really amazing place in North Carolina and spent the day climbing real mountains and then we camped and then we went climbing again the next day. It was such an amazing trip and I can’t believe how high up and how fantastic that adventure was!

Overall, I’m going to call my year a success. I made huge amounts of progress in the categories I wanted to, and I learned a lot of very valuable lessons from this very challenging time during 2014. I’m even working on a new story right now and things are going fairly well. I’m more balanced now than I ever have been in my entire life. To all those who helped me along this path during 2014, thank you. I wouldn’t be where I’m at if it hadn’t been for you. If you want to help me out for 2015, I’d really appreciate your thoughts, your patience, and your ideas as I work towards the impossible-feeling task of convincing Adventure Buddy that I’m a fantastic and awesome friend and to give our friendship another chance.

2015 will potentially be filled with great change in my life. And I am filled with faith, hope, and love for that future. If I have only one wish for 2015, it’s that Adventure Buddy will give our friendship another chance. Because friends like us are unbelievably rare and throwing our friendship away is a very sad mistake. Because I’m fantastic and amazing and I deserve to have wonderful and awesome things and people in my life. And Adventure Buddy deserves to have a loyal, caring, hopeful friend like me.

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Book Review: Storm Front by Jim Butcher

Posted on December 31, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

Travelling during the holidays is always interesting, but this year things have been a little different. My laptop crashed and I finished reading the only two books I brought with me on the second day of my travels. Not having much else to do, I decided to reread the Dresden Files from the beginning of the series with Jim Butcher‘s Storm Front (Urban Fantasy 228 pages).

Rereading this book was actually very interesting because of how much the characters in this series have changed. Harry starts out in this book as a basic police consultant for the Special Investigations unit out of Chicago. The current head of the unit is Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, who has hired Harry several times to help with investigations that all contained something out of the ordinary. Throughout the entire book, Harry and Karrin’s relationship is purely professional. In fact, it actually seems at least a little bit like the two of them don’t get along so well. They’re very much coworkers and very much not friends. Though, Karrin helps Harry out every now and again, they don’t spend any time together on a social basis. They both want to help the actual people of Chicago and they do so in the ways they both feel are best, though they sometimes disagree as to what that means. Harry tries to prevent too much of his past or too much of the wizarding world to become public knowledge and Karrin doesn’t reveal information about the investigations that she doesn’t have to. It’s an interesting working relationship for the reader because the reader knows that both Harry and Karrin are withholding information that could help the other person and that by not sharing their information, instead of protecting each other and the people of Chicago, they’re actually increasing the danger.

The story also introduces Gentleman Johnny Marcone, the new criminal overlord of the underworld. Introducing Johnny is interesting because Harry and Johnny have a soul gaze and Johnny’s soul is described as being a tiger – predatory and unflinching. In fact, Harry seems to do a lot of soul-gazing in this book, which I’m not too sure I remember happening in many of the future books. Johnny attempts to manipulate Harry on multiple occasions and he’s seen as the bad guy, even though he’s really just trying to find out (and get revenge for) the deaths of some of his people. He doesn’t tolerate any disloyalty from the people who work for him and it seems like he might actually care about those around him, but he buries it under professional bravado.

I think this book is an excellent introduction to the world of the Dresden Files, providing enough supernatural elements to appeal to the paranormal crowd, as well as lots of popular fiction references to make the story feel like it takes place in a world just around the corner. This story is filled with random, tongue-in-cheek humor, fun characters, and an interesting murder-mystery detective story filled with action and a hero who gets himself into a ton of trouble and gets physically beat up throughout most of the book. Harry is sarcastic and spends a lot of the book being honest to himself as a character. He talks about his views on women, and as much as he really does appear to be rather chauvinist, he does so in such a way that he’s not a dick about it. He wants to open doors, not tell a woman what she can or can not do with her life. He’s polite and respectful, but still honestly admits his reactions to women and his motivations concerning them. He knows himself well enough to respect the women he encounters in the truest meaning of that word.

Overall, I think I would rate this book as a solid three to a high three on my rating scale. I’m not sure if I own this book or not, as I picked it up from the bookshelves that are technically located in “my” room at my parents’ house. So if I didn’t have a copy, I would certainly purchase one and am likely to reread the entire series again in the future.

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Movie Review: the Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies

Posted on December 31, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

I went to see the Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies with my family yesterday. I don’t think that this is going to be a very long review from me because I already addressed some of the things that I wasn’t too thrilled with in my last review from the Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug.

If I was annoyed and angry by Tauriel’s role in the Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug, then I was made ten times more so by the Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies, especially towards the end of the movie where Tauriel somehow loses her ability to be a kick-butt warrior and instead because a pathetic woman who does none of her neat, elvish acrobatic tricks when battling the final big bad guy. She gets swatted aside like a pestering bug and then she jumps on the bad guy’s back, just like anyone with zero combat training would do. She didn’t use any of her elvish abilities to be faster or find those key weaknesses, all so that she could become the damsel in distress and have one of the male characters defeat a bad guy that wasn’t even in the book.

Overall, this movie felt more like a game of Zelda to me, with puzzle obstacles and the whole ice battle at the end. I was actually amused by the final individual battle between Thorin and the main orc leader because it was fascinating to me to see an actual situation where the ball and chain from the Legend of Zelda: the Twilight Princess might actually find a use. That whole final battle was highly amusing to me, though I’m sure it was supposed to be more dramatic than amusing.

I’m not sure the movie did as good of a job as the book with showing how Thorin spent most of the book only being motivated by greed, but the movie did at least try and show how much Thorin changed after or during the war. And it didn’t show Thorin changing and admitting his changes to anyone other than Bilbo, and that made me sad because it was much more powerfully done in the book than in the movie because everyone saw Thorin, and everyone had seen how poorly Thorin treated Bilbo when Bilbo was trying to prevent the war. So when Thorin admitted in front of everyone on his death bed that Bilbo was right, it had more impact.

Overall, the movie was good for what it was, but I’m still only going to rate it as a midgrade two on my rating scale. There was stuff they just randomly added to the movie in order to tie it to the Lord of the Rings and that was fairly annoying. Maybe I would have appreciated these movies more if I hadn’t read the book? I don’t know.

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Movie Review: the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug

Posted on December 31, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

The day before yesterday, we watched the Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug in preparation for going to see the next Hobbit movie in the theater yesterday.

This movie annoyed me for one very strong reason. Having just read the Hobbit for one of my Readings in the Genre: Fantasy Classics assignments, watching the Hobbit movies has become an exercise in patience. I realize that books and movies are different things and I’m usually the main person who states that if books and movies share a title that they still must be treated as completely separate entities. With that said, I simply can not forgive this movie for introducing exactly one female character into the story only so she can be a romantic subplot.

Enter Tauriel. She’s absolutely fantastic as a fighter and totally kicks butt with her bow. She’s worried about the larger world outside the borders of Mirkwood and wants to do more than just keep the elves safe. She offers suggestions to Thranduil about how to get rid of the spiders of Mirkwood, but her ideas are rejected because it’s beneath the elves to do things for anyone other than themselves. Tauriel works well with Legolas and the two of them are both passionate for destroying the creatures of evil. It’s implied that Legolas has strong feelings for Tauriel, but that she doesn’t return those feelings. But then they capture the dwarves and Tauriel’s purpose in this movie becomes clear. She’s not in the movie to add humanity to the elves. She’s not in the movie to bring in a fantastic female role model who is completely capable of destroying all the forces of darkness. No, Tauriel is in the movie so that there can be a romantic subplot.

This made me so very, very annoyed and angry.

J.R.R. Tolkien had zero female characters in the Hobbit. So on some level, I partially understand why those making the movies wanted to add in some female characters. Not adding any female characters at all could be seen as sexist or alienating the female audience. I actually liked Tauriel as a character right up until it became blatantly obvious that she was only there to add in a romantic subplot to a story that was supposed to be about loyalty and friendship and the destructive power of greed and war. The book had absolutely zero romantic content and that is one of the key reasons why I enjoyed the book so much. The book clearly demonstrated that you could have an entire story written about adventure and friendship and not have anything to do with romance.

Don’t misunderstand me – I’m not against stories with romantic elements. I’m actually something of a hopeless romantic myself, but I am of the opinion that the romance should mean something. If there is going to be a romantic subplot or romantic elements in a story, those elements should serve the story, create reasonable conflict with the characters, or be true character development. Romantic subplots or romantic elements should not automatically occur just because there are stereotypical sex and gender roles in a movie. “Oh, look! We’ve got a female elf! Who should she fall in love with? I know! A dwarf!” Why can’t Tauriel be just like Legolas – a character with solid morals and great fighting skills? Why does there have to romance involved?

Anyway, I think I’ve expressed my annoyance on the topic of feminism enough for this movie review.

There were a lot of times when I thought this movie could have been a lot shorter. While the special effects and such were very nicely done, watching the Blu-Ray version of this movie was a little awkward because I could really see the CGI and the movie didn’t feel quite as real as the theater version. Until Bilbo meets Smaug, that is. It’s obvious that they spent a lot of time giving the audience a beautifully rendered dragon, which was rather fantastic. The whole ending sequence with Smaug was very well done and definitely appeased my desire to see a huge dragon on the screen. I’m not sure the movie really captures how fascinating Bilbo was to Smaug, or how much they both played riddle games, but the movie still captured at least a small portion of that feeling.

Overall, this movie is a midgrade two on my rating scale. I’ll watch it if someone else is already watching it, but I doubt that it’s a movie I’ll purchase for myself, or if I do purchase it, it will likely be in a severely discounted price as I buy the entire series in a box set. It’s not something I will go out of my way to buy and it’s not something I think I’ll pay full price for.

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Movie Review: Die Hard With a Vengeance

Posted on December 25, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

It appears to me as though someone at the television networks has the same idea about holiday movies as I do, as they are running a Die Hard marathon and it just happens that I turned it on right at the beginning of Die Hard With a Vengeance.

I think one of the things that sticks out the most with me about this movie is the soundtrack. It starts out with Summer in the City by the Lovin Spoonful and it sets the mood for the movie. You’ve got a hot summer day with the traffic flowing and then *boom* a giant bomb goes off. So it’s a nice, slow start to the movie and the action only continues from there.

It’s difficult to watch this movie and not have a look at racism in America, which this movie brings up rather intensely. John has to work with Zeus in order to solve multiple riddles throughout the movie to try to prevent bombs from exploding all over New York. While John is playing the first of Simon’s games by walking down the streets of Harlem with a very inappropriate sign, Zeus approaches him very politely and asks several questions about how he’s feeling and John has to explain to him that he’s got a headache and that he’s a cop. Zeus saves John because he stopped a white cop from getting killed in Harlem, which would only bring more white cops to that area.

John: “You don’t like me because I’m white. You’re a racist.”

Zeus: “I don’t like you because you’re going to get me killed.”

John and Zeus interact in a very amusing way and both of them are working to save as many people as they can, which is admirable. I like that Zeus has a very valid reason for knowing how to pick locks and hot wire cars – he’s a locksmith and an electrician and that’s a very difficult occupation. Zeus is the one who solves all of the riddles and he does it quickly and without errors and I thought that was great. The water fountain riddle still makes me confused about the math and I’m positive that someday, I will go through and actually learn the math that solved that riddle.

As with all of the Die Hard movies, this one also contained a fair share of excellent dialogue and one-liners. Even the bad guys had some really noteworthy comments, such as Simon near the end of the movie where he says, “Of course not. I’m a Soldier, not a monster. Though, sometimes I work for monsters.” And that is a remarkably true statement.

Overall, this is another three on my rating scale. I thought it was an excellent addition to the Die Hard movies and one I’m glad I own.

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Book Review: Sword Sisters by Tara Cardinal and Alex Bledsoe

Posted on December 24, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

I actually bought Sword Sisters (Fantasy 238 pages) by Tara Cardinal and Alex Bledsoe at the World Fantasy Convention in DC this year and hadn’t gotten around to reading it because of my really wonky schedule.

This book is fantastic.

“Cast aside by her mother, tormented (literally) by her father, feared by humans and despised by most of her own kind, Aella is determined not to care – not to care what they think, not to care if they like her, not to care about anything or anyone. Just so long as no one tries to touch her or imprison her again, Aella couldn’t care less. Until … he pulled an arrow from Aella’s back and kissed her cheek. Until … she carried Aella home and stood between her and a giant spider. And a rioting mob. Until … they came to Aella looking for help. Aella, daughter of demon and witch, must find herself once again, as she forges her own route to a destiny she doesn’t want to believe. At first a hero in name alone, Aella soon discovers she has the strength and the heart to control her demonic lineage and truly assume the mantle of hero. In her struggle, she also finds something even more valuable – friendship, as the youthful and spirited Amelia isn’t just a friend worth dying for – she’s Aella’s true “sword sister” and worth living for.”

This was one of only four books that I went out of my way to purchase at the World Fantasy Convention and I’m going to tell you a little bit about what motivated me to purchase this novel. I’ve found that I have very little patience for standard stories these days, with “normal” relationships and constant romantic subplots. If you’ve been reading my more personal entries on my website for the last year, I’m pretty sure you have a good idea as to why that is and why I have so many issues with “normal” relationships. So when I saw the cover art for Sword Sisters, I thought that it looked like a book that might not have a standard, romantic subplot. I’ve been deceived by these types of things before, so I read the back of the book. Then, I actually had the opportunity to ask the folks at the Ragnarok Publications booth if this book had any sort of romantic subplot or anything like that and they were kind enough to let me know that this book really didn’t have any romantic elements at all. I bought the book with the faith that this would be a novel about action, adventure, and friendship.

What the folks at the Ragnarok Publications table neglected to tell me was that I would spend the vast majority of this novel relating to and cheering for Aella and laughing loudly enough for the other travelers around me to give me that questioning look where you are skeptical of a person’s sanity and don’t want to be near them. (I mean, they’re not wrong – I do have sanity issues – but there really is something disturbing about someone like me laughing as much as I did while reading this book).

Now, to be honest, it took me a little bit to actually get engrossed in the book and the story. I think the main reason it took me a little bit to get into the story was because I wasn’t really expecting the story to start with a twelve year-old Aella, so that took my brain a little bit of internal readjustment to accept that this wasn’t going to start with adult characters. With that said, I will mention how realistic and amusing Aella’s view on the world is, and how much I related to her as a character. She’s sassy, stubborn, independent, and fiercely loyal. She’s also hilarious, but maybe that’s just me and my sense of humor.

I should have realized that this book was right up my alley on page 17: “But the Reapers who’d rescued me had not been inclined to coddle a Demon-haunted, Demon-trained girl who might or might not go into a psychopathic rage and destroy everything around her at any given moment.” I really liked the tone of the novel and sections like this, where the narrator is talking about being a girl who “might or might not go into a psychopathic rage and destroy everything around her” was hilarious to me on a lot of different levels. This was the first of many such incidents where I laughed loudly. Some of the sections I marked are only funny within the context of the story and some are much funnier because of the story, such as on page 89: “I looked up at Sela. ‘I’m very sorry for the mess I’m about to make. I will help clean it up.'” because Aella was just about to trash a bully and that was really fantastic to me. I’ve always liked stories where the main characters stand up for what’s right, as well as putting bullies in their place.

Aella and Amelia are both really great characters and I enjoyed their interaction and their friendship on every level. Aella rescues Amelia, Amelia rescues Aella, recycle and repeat. I think that’s one of the greatest draws for me of this book is that no one waits around to be rescued. Even when Amelia is being chained up, she’s still fighting to the best of her ability. They help each other, they trust each other, and they work together, each using their own strengths to help save the village, even though the odds might not be in their favor. Aella’s loyalty to Amelia and her family was inspirational to me and it was great to see character representation that made sense to me on every level. I even understood Aella’s confusion with physical intimacy!

The only issue I really had with this book is that it’s the first book in a series, and I don’t have any of the rest of the books. I don’t even know if there are any other books in this series yet. And that makes me kind of frustrated because I really want to read more about these characters and I really want to see more from this world.

Overall, this book is an easy four on my rating scale. It had everything I needed in my life right now – intense friendship and loyalty, really bad bad guys, humor, and a healthy dose of action and violence. I’m glad I own it and I’m certain to keep my eyes open for any future books in this series.

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Book Review: Skin Game by Jim Butcher

Posted on December 24, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

Yesterday, I started and finished Skin Game (Urban Fantasy 454 pages) by Jim Butcher, which is the next book in the Dresden Files series.

It’s been quite some time since I read the previous books in this series and it’s getting to the point where things are often referenced that I’m not entirely certain I remember. There were at least two characters or situations that were referenced that I didn’t remember at all. I’m thinking that I’m going to need to have a Dresden Files book marathon at some point where I just read all the books in the series in order as close together as possible. I’m not entirely certain when I’m likely to have time to do that, but I’m sure it will happen at some point.

As always with the Dresden Files, this book contained some very amusing moments and some very amusing dialogue. Unfortunately, this book is such that any of the amusing moments I might mention would ruin the story and provide far too many spoilers for people who haven’t read the novel and want to be surprised. Needless to say, they are there and quite amusing.

I’m happy to say that Harry does actually appear to be getting smarter in a lot of ways and he does the best he can with the limitations he’s always given. Harry is doing a lot better job in these books of showing that he might have actually learned some things and been paying attention to the way the people in power tend to conduct business, which makes me appreciate his character arch from the beginning of the series to now.

Overall, I’d say this book is a pretty solid three on my rating scale. I can’t really go into details about the best parts of the book and some of my overarching thoughts about the characters and storyline without giving away massive spoilers, and I’m not willing to do that at the current time.

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Movie Review: Love Actually

Posted on December 20, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

So I don’t actually own very many holiday movies and I didn’t feel like watching any more Die Hard movies, but I’m actually kicking myself in the shin for choosing Love Actually as my next movie to watch.

“Love Actually is the ultimate romantic comedy from the makers of Bridget Jones’s Diary and Notting Hill. Funny, irresistible and heartwarming, an all-star cast will take you on a breathtaking tour of love’s delightful twists and turns. Fall under the spell of Love Actually and share the laughs and charm again and again.”

I think watching this movie was probably a really bad idea for me and where I’m at right now. And I think this review is going to get a lot more personal than some of my reviews have been in the past and will likely have some spoilers. So if you don’t want me to ruin the movie or to listen to me be a pathetic sap, you might want to stop reading.

It’s a great movie because it shows all the aspects of love, and all the aspects of lust as well. A father’s love for his son, helping him learn how to play the drums so that he can be in a school musical and get the attention of a girl in school he has a crush on. The love between siblings as they support each other, even through the roughest of times. The movie also shows the different stages of lust. A husband who is distracted by a beautiful younger woman whose wife finds out and they still work together for the sake of the family. A guy who travels to America just to get laid. And so many people in the movie spend a lot of time judging people based off their appearance.

But the movie really is about love and how it can change your life and how it sometimes requires more work than most of the movies show. Mark shows up at Peter and Juliet’s flat and has a series of poster board cards he made.

“Say it’s carol singers.”
“With any luck, by next year I’ll be going out with one of these girls.”
“But for now let me say,”
“Without hope or agenda,”
“Just because it’s Christmas -”
“(And at Christmas you tell the truth)”
“To me, you are perfect.”
“And my wasted heart will love you”
“Until you look like this …”
“Merry Christmas.”

Only, the part the sappy movies never tell you is that when you’re honest on Christmas, if you’re me, it will actually make things worse. You’ll put your heart on a shiny, silver platter and you’ll offer it and everything you have and everything you are to someone you care about more than anyone in the world. You’ll take all the courage you have and you’ll offer the truth or simple lies and because the person you care about is worthy of your love, they will only want the truth. So you’ll be honest and say how you feel, but it’s too much. And then things fall apart and you spend a year not even on speaking terms.

But that’s only the beginning of the story. After the fall, after the crash, you rebuild a life a thousand times better than the one you destroyed. You realize that you’re not getting what you want out of your own life and that your current lifestyle is unhealthy for you. So you follow your dreams and things in your life change in massive ways. Things get better. Your days are spent on your own terms and you reclaim more of your life every day. You meet fantastic people and you have wonderful adventures. Things are good. You become a positive person and you share the thankfulness and joy in your life with everyone around you. As much as this year has been very difficult, I’m glad that things happened the way they did because of where I’m at in my life now.

Adventure Buddy, I miss you. I miss you each and every day. I am sorry if this last year has hurt you. I know it’s been the most challenging time of my life and I can’t even imagine what you’ve gone through. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you and I’m sorry things went so poorly between us. You don’t need me to tell you how intelligent, awesome, fantastic, smart, fun, amazing, and wonderful you are – you already know of all that. And I guess it could seem to you as though because I am loyal, caring, thoughtful, kind, and generous that how I feel about you is not different or special. You are the only person I have met in my life that is an equal partner to me in every way. There is no part of my life that hasn’t been made better because you. Thank you for helping me be who I’m supposed to be. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your life. I miss you.

So as much as this movie hit me pretty hard, it really is a good view on love in every aspect. And it has an equal balance of amusing parts and really heart-wrenching parts. As much as I feel like Mark, watching from the outside while the people around him are happy and his heart is torn apart, who still is supportive of his friends, I also feel the underlying messages of hope and love in this movie. The music is good and fits perfectly with each scene. And every character in this movie ends up in a mostly okay place.

Overall, I’d probably rate this movie as a high three on my rating scale. It’s worth watching and does have amusing moments and generally leaves you feeling hopeful.

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Movie Review: Die Hard 2

Posted on December 20, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

So continuing with my movie marathon today, I watched Die Hard 2 immediately following the conclusion of Die Hard.

“What is it about John McClane and the holidays? Here it is, Christmas Eve, and McClane is off-duty in the nation’s capital. But a team of terrorists, in town to rescue a drug lord from justice, has taken over a major international airport, holding thousands of travelers hostage. Amidst a blinding blizzard, McClane must race against time to defeat the terrorists and their murderous leader. And if that’s not a big enough lump of coal in his stocking, he’s also contending with an inept airport police chief, the stubborn head of the army’s anti-terrorist squad, and the knowledge that his wife is trapped in a plane desperately low on fuel, circling overhead!”

This is a much better Christmas movie than Die Hard was because this one actually happens in a place that might have snow during the holiday season. So this movie is supposed to take place in Washington, D.C., the week of Christmas and it’s during a huge series of storms, which make visibility an issue. But at least this movie has snow, which is one of the huge things that make it seem like Christmas to me.

The story for this addition to the Die Hard movies is a bit further fetched than the original, but I think that’s where it draws at least some of its entertainment value. There’s a lot more action, the fight scenes are bigger and there’s a lot more shooting. I’m not really sure what else to say about this movie other than it’s a good movie for when you just want lots of action and snow. He kills a guy with an ice pick through the eye. It’s festive 🙂

Overall, this is obviously another three on my rating scale. Sometimes, you just need a good action movie to help celebrate the holidays.

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Movie Review: Die Hard

Posted on December 20, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

I woke up this morning and felt the need to watch a holiday movie, potentially a holiday movie marathon. What says Christmas more than Die Hard?

“Detective John McClane is in Los Angeles to spend the holidays with his estranged wife Holly. But while McClane waits for office party to end, terrorists take control of the building. As their sinister leader, Hans Gruber, and his savage henchmen round up hostages, McClane gets ready to blast a few rounds of his own and launch a one-man war – as only McClane can!”

One of the things about this movie that amused me was when John takes out the first of the henchmen and then it’s almost just like in the video games where he went through all of the guy’s pockets and his backpack, looking for anything he could use, including shoes. I was reminded of my days playing Baldur’s Gate and how you would search the bodies of your enemies and find boots, cloaks, rings, weapons, and scrolls. Only, in this case, John gets a lighter, some weapons, and boots that don’t fit. It was an amusing correlation for me.

I like how things in this movie are a learning experience for everyone involved. These aren’t perfect heroes. John doesn’t really know what kind of explosion will happen when he dumps a computer monitor with C4 down the elevator shaft, so it’s a huge surprise to him when the giant fireball comes up the elevator shaft. But he is resourceful and pays attention to the situation, writing down the information about how many terrorists are there on his arm in permanent marker, which shows again that he is human. His memory isn’t perfect and flawless and he doesn’t automatically know everything about the situation.

I really liked how Holly dealt with everything. I mean, it’s Christmas, she’s at a party for work, and terrorists randomly take over. She tries to convince her boss, the head and owner of the corporation not to reveal himself, and then she stays cool, quiet, and collected as everything continued to escalate. She never lost her calm demeanor and was mentioned several times by her boss and coworkers as being exceptionally good at her job.

This movie also made me look a little bit at my thoughts concerning police training and procedures. How often do massive terrorist events like the one depicted in the movie actually happen? I know terrorist events happen but I wonder sometimes about the use of force, especially with the incidents of civilian deaths in the news lately. In Die Hard, one of the officers in the Los Angeles Police Department tells John that he has a desk job because he made a mistake and shot a kid when it was dark and the kid had a ray gun. Because of that, he didn’t feel comfortable ever drawing his weapon on anyone ever again. Based on what I’ve seen in the news about the civilian incidents here, I don’t know that the officers who have caused the deaths of civilians have the same level of guilt as the officer in this movie. I think our officers these days are trained and taught so extensively that they are filled with righteous purpose instead of being filled with humanity. I know that they have a difficult job and that there are a lot of really crappy people in the world who want to cause harm to others and that our police forces are designed to protect us from people who aren’t very good people. I’m not a police officer, so I don’t know what they go through, and I respect them greatly for their service. But there really is a part of me that believes that maybe we’re constantly using force to solve problems when maybe if we extended a hand to help first, the use of force wouldn’t have been necessary.

Meanwhile, back to Die Hard. This movie has a lot of great one-liners and several parts that amused me greatly. “Oh, look! The police have themselves an RV!” which was followed closely by, “And the quarterback is toast!” But I think the most satisfying part of the movie for me was when Holly punches the reporter because he bullied his way into her house, interviewed her kids, and endangered their lives.

Overall, this movie is a good thing to watch for the holidays or when you just want a good, classic action movie that actually had a pretty interesting storyline and plot, plus characters that are worth cheering for. It’s a solid three on my rating scale and I’m glad I own it and will continue to watch it repeatedly throughout the years.

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