It's been a while since I wrote one of my crappy movie reviews, but I'm pretty you never really forget; sure it's just like riding a horse. No wait, that's if I fall, I'm supposed to get right back in the saddle. It's a bike that you never forget out to ride. I certainly wouldn't forget; my first bike riding experience ended with 4 stitches in my bottom lip and a couple of freaked out nurses wondering where a small kid can summon such strength trying to escape the man with the needle and thread.

I had been hearing some chatter about this movie Brick, which was said to be a novel take on the classic American detective story. I've read most of everything Dashielle Hammet ever wrote, and Raymond Chandler ain't too shabby, either, so this sounded right up my alley. Some of the best movies of the 40's, hell, of all time, were detective movies. I've watched The Maltese Falcon almost as many times as I've watched the Millennium Falcon. Han Solo wishes he was as bad ass and cold hearted as Sam Spade. Spouting lines like "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it"and "People lose teeth talking like that. If you want to hang around, you'll be polite," you know he doesn't give a crap. The cynical tough guy with reflexes almost as quick as his witty banter are a staple in these types of movies, and when done right, are a joy to watch. The only problem is, the era of a fedora wearing gumshoe with a bottle of bourbon in his desk are as dead and buried as the WWII generation. You're much more likely to see a fuzzed face, doe eyed, male model that needs a huge shot of testosterone up on the movie screen than you are to see a man that actually looks and acts like a man. With this being the facts of the new millennium, a change of scenery seems fairly appropriate for a modern day detective story.

Brick is your standard murder mystery set within the dark, underbelly of a world infested with violence and drugs. However, in what is actually a fairly clever twist, the world is an average high school. The hero is a cagey loner, who makes it is personal mission to solve the murder of the ex-girlfriend that he still pines for, but had entered a different, more dangerous, high school clique. The setting works for the story; just glancing at the headlines, you can tell high schools are far more dangerous than past generations. With children losing their innocence much earlier and a society that tries to pretend they're little adults, it's certainly believable.

What isn't believable and where the movie makes a serious error, is transporting the machine gun patter and slang of the 40s and putting it into the mouths of these high school kids. Everyone in this film talks and acts as though they're actually in some film noir, black and white drama instead of standing around the parking lot of a generic, suburban, grocery store. Had the screenplay done an actual updating, such as was done with Jane Austen's Emma and placing it in a modern day high school in the film Clueless, this one feels as though the writer originally wrote a standard 40's detective yarn after reading The Long Goodbye, but as an experiment decided to just shoehorn it into the mouths of teens instead. While the dialogue is actually quite good, it feels completely wrong in the setting. This was the same reaction I had to the remake of Romeo and Juliet with DiCaprio where they kept the original Shakespearean dialogue in modern day Miami. It's gimmicky and it makes you aware of it the entire time you're watching. I can't lose myself in the fantasy of a movie if it's always yelling at me, "Look how clever I am!"

It might have worked better if it was more tongue in cheek like Clueless, but the movie seems to be played straight. This sometimes leads to absurd dialogue like when our hardboiled detective senior says to his principal, "No more of these informal chats! If you have a disciplinary issue with me, write me up or suspend me and I'll see you at the Parent-Teacher conference."

The protagonist, Brendan Frye, played by the long haired kid from the obnoxious sitcom Third Rock from the Sun, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is well cast in the movie. He still looks young enough to be a teenager, but he's got enough acting chops to pull off the type of ridiculous dialogue they have him spouting off in every scene. In fact, his performance is the one thing that keeps this movie from completely falling apart from it's own inherent silliness.

This movie is reminiscent of another experiment at film noir detective stories made a few years ago, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, starring Robert Downey, Jr. That one attempted to transport the whole gumshoe concept into the modern day, but with far more self awareness. That movie fell apart once it stopped taking it self seriously at all and devolved into a surreal parody where they gave up even trying to make sense. These two movies are at two different ends of the spectrum; one took itself way too seriously, the other, not seriously enough. While both were entertaining, they're both failures as far as producing a good movie. Still, you have to appreciate when a movie tries to tell a unique story. I can only watch so many movies about superhero origins or workaholic beautiful women who haven't met the right guy with hilarity ensuing.

Unless you're a fan of detective films, I wouldn't recommend Brick. But, as I am a fan, I have to say I was entertained. I just spent too much of the movie thinking of ways to change it than actually enjoying the story.

6.5/10

*Easy there, big boy. I'm not that kind of girl...*


It's all fun and games until someone gets eaten. A trainer was killed by a a killer whale at the Florida Sea World today. I'm always morbidly amused when people are shocked, shocked to discover wild animals are actually wild and will kill you if they feel like it. I mean, it IS called a killer whale; you sort of expect shit like this, don't you? Circle of life, man...*takes bong rip* Still, imagine being at that killer whale show? Timmy's going to have a lot of questions afterwards.

While sitting around at my friend's place last night, he wielded the remote like the ADD suffering, attention span of chihuahua goof that he is. We were able to watch highlights of the NBA, two different Olympic channels, and American Idol all in the matter of a few minutes. Not being in command of the remote is an emasculating experience; that's why I never let anyone play with my television. In much the way that riding shotgun can make you queasy from all the unexpected movement that you're not controlling, watching someone flick through channels made me want to stop the tv and get off.

Unfortunately, there was no curling on. To call this a sport is insulting to actual sports; you may as well call darts and bowling a sport...or golf. I think a good sign that your "sport" may not qualify for that title is when you can still compete at an olympic level while 5 months pregnant. Still, it's an exciting, engrossing event that, like a car accident, I can't stop watching. Because there's lots of time to plan out their rock sliding moves and sweeper strategies, people have time to psych themselves out. In fact, the man who was mainly responsible for the success of the U.S. team last Olympics, John Shuster, managed to self destruct even worse than Nick Anderson at the free throw line.

We did get to see several different events that I didn't even know existed. I can't blame the Winter Olympics from doing so, what with all the lame events that they're known for, i.e. aforementioned curling, biathalon, nordic combined, etc. The biathalon, which involves cross country skiing and shooting, of all things, is so strange that even Seinfeld once did a whole bit on how bizarre it is. Frankly, the Winter Olympics is the retard little brother of the Summer Olympics, and even that is bankrupting countries that host it. I can't imagine countries will want to foot the outrageous costs of these national pride fests when the world economy goes into the toilet in the next year or so. I doubt they will disappear; just be on a smaller scale. Of course, to really make the Olympics relevant again, Russia needs to turn into the evil Soviet Union again so we have someone to root against. Frankly, China just isn't cutting it.

*Go ahead....pull my finger!*


I'm taking a look at whether or not most of Scorsese's movies live up to his reputation as a great director as well as being films that I'd want to watch again. We'll take a brief look at my experiences with his oeuvre. (Oeuvre used correctly in a sentence? 100 points!)

Taxi Driver (1976): A haunting performance by Robert DeNiro playing a mental case who feels like an outsider to the world he hates and his grasp on reality is tenuous at best. It's a good movie with ambiguous ending perfect for film students to endlessly debate until you want to punch them in the mouth, but the mind of Travis Bickle is definitely not something you want to revisit. You might find yourself start to agree with him.

Raging Bull (1980): Robert DeNiro again playing a paranoid mental case, this time a championship boxer, that cannot adjust to the world and slowly destroys his family and friends until he's alone. DeNiro is a repulsive character whose only redeeming quality is his drive to win. Definitely not something I want to experience again; an ugly movie full of ugly people. Pass.

King of Comedy (1982): Robert DeNiro (Jeez, doesn't he know anybody else?) plays an obsessive mental case, this time an aspiring stand-up comedian, who will do anything to succeed and not be the loser he currently is in a life he hates. Incidentally, it also has an ambiguous ending that may be a paranoid fantasy of the main character, just like Taxi Driver. Wow...anyone seeing a pattern here? The movie was...okay. I think I'd rather rewatch Taxi Driver, and I really, really don't want to see that again.

After Hours (1985): Griffin Dunne, who is best known for not being Robert DeNiro (Well, he really didn't do much, unless you count An American Werewolf in London), a relatively normal office worker, experiences a bunch of random, Kafkaesque encounters over the course of one night. Our protagonist isn't the insane one this time; it's the world he inhabits that's completely crazy. This one is actually quite fun; rather light fare compared to the previous movies. I would watch it again. I mean, Cheech and Chong are in it. Sold!

Color of Money (1986): This one's interesting; it's a needless sequel to a great film, The Hustler, picking up years after the first one. The main character from the first, Paul Newman as fast Eddie Felson, a great pool player, acts as a mentor to a ridiculous, overacting caricature played by Tom Cruise. People love this movie and I'm not sure why, other than the fact that Paul Newman is awesome and could make a commercial about life insurance entertaining. It's your standard old man getting his mojo back through working with a youthful mirror of himself story; somehow, there isn't any real insanity, other than Tom Cruise being Tom Cruise. It's rewatchable, but in my opinion, unnecessary in the first place. I think the writer needed the money.

Bad (1987): Okay, this isn't a movie, but it's easily the funniest thing Scorsese ever made, featuring Michael Jackson as a bad ass gangster. I could watch this on loop forever; some of the finest unintentional comedy ever made. I'm not sure if Scorsese was being straight here, or has a better sense of humor than I usually give him credit for.

Last Temptation of Christ (1988): Story of Jesus' last moments on the cross, showing him to be a paranoid mental case who believes the world is out to get him, and I suppose if anyone deserves to feel that, it's him. Now we're back in crazytown; the only thing missing is DeNiro. Despite the fact this is supposed to be taking place in Judea 2,000 years ago, have the characters have a New York accent. You couldn't pay me to see this again.

Goodfellas (1990): Here is Scorsese's masterpiece on life in the mafia through the eyes of a low level gangster. This is right up there with the Godfather as greatest mafia film, and depending on the day you ask me, the best. Do we have paranoid mental cases? Check. Do we have self destructive characters that can't exist in the real world? Check. Do we have DeNiro smirking his way through the film? Double check. The only thing we're missing is a dream sequence/fantasy ending, although I suppose you could make a case for it if you're desperate. Rewatchable? Hell, I'm watching it right now.

Cape Fear (1991): A remake of a fun little thriller made more, uh, Scorsese-like and 100 percent more Robert DeNiro. I think he directed this while he was counting the money that they paid him to do this commercial thriller. It's certainly one of the laziest films he's made, with unnecessary plot holes. Although, I'll give DeNiro props; even playing a paranoid mental case murderer for the umpteenth time in a Scorsese film doesn't cause him to mail in his performance. Yet, at least. I wouldn't want to watch this again. I'd rather watch the original with Gregory Peck and my favorite pothead, Robert Mitchum, or better yet, the Simpson's spoof with Sideshow Bob.

Age of Innocence (1993): Haha...just kidding. I haven't gotten around to seeing this period piece, and well, it's not even on my Netflix queue. It does have Daniel Day Lewis in it, so I'll put it on the maybe list.

Casino (1995): I liked it better when it was in New York and called Goodfellas. Ummm...on the plus side, it has DeNiro in it. Yeah...it's on my no rewatch list.

Kundun (1997): I think he must have lost a bet or something...most likely after someone got him rip roaring drunk. A movie about the Dalai Lama? Really? I haven't seen it, no intention of seeing it, hope to forget it was ever made right after this. Unless Robert DeNiro plays old Dalai Lama...Nope, no such luck.

Bringing out the Dead (1999): Unfortunately, it's not related to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Instead, it's about Nicholas Cage and Nick Cage's giant forehead, who plays an ambulance driver with insomnia slowly turning into a mental case who can't adjust to the world and all it's evil and violence. This movie sucks donkey balls, but I'll admit I'm a little biased. I turned off the Monday Night Football game of Dolphins-Jets since the Dolphins were up big going into the second half. Little did I know it was about to become a legendary overtime comeback from Mr. Greenballs, himself. Screw you, Cage! Pop a goddamn Ambien and take a nap! You work at a fucking hospital! How hard is this? Seriously?

Gangs of New York (2002): This is the beginning of the Leo connection with Scorsese, where he takes the place of DeNiro in pretty much all his films. It's not a very good start. This is a revenge tale set mostly during the Civil War in New York (big shocker there, I know) about a young man out to avenge his father's murder at the hands of a criminal boss called Bill the Butcher, played by Daniel Day Lewis. The story is pretty much by the numbers and is only saved from being a total turkey with Lewis' hilariously over the top performance and nifty mustache. Seriously, his mustache is awesome. It's performance might be even more impressive than the man it's attached to. No crazies or hallucinations in this one; just one seriously tweeked out criminal and Leo playing an angsty tough with daddy issues. I wanted to walk out of this in the theater; no way in hell I'm sitting through the whole thing again. I can be talked into watching scenes starring Lewis' mustache, though.

The Aviator (2004): Starring Leo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, the delusional mental case/richest man in the world, it's a pretty straight forward biopic. The insanity of Hughes is mostly seen from without as opposed to letting the audience experience the madness as is Scorsese's usual style. It's not a bad movie, but aside from the great costumes and Cate Blanchett's perfect impersonation of Katherine Hepburn, it's largely forgettable. Leo once again looks like a high school kid dressing up like his dad for much of the movie, but his performance is decent. I wouldn't actively watch it again, but if it was on cable, I might leave it on in the background.

The Departed (2006): I absolutely loathe this movie and cannot understand how anyone even liked it, let alone how it won the Academy Award for best picture. Based on a Hong Kong crime flick, Infernal Affairs, it stars Leo as an undercover cop infiltrating the worst disguised criminal organization ever put on film. Jack Nicholson mugs his way through the movie in a way that makes me think the drug dealers in New York had a very good year during the filming of this movie. With plot holes you could fly a 747 through, logical inconsistencies that are laughable at first but quickly become angering, this film is just plain bad. Much like the Matrix and the Star wars sequels, I like to pretend this movie never happened. Let's move on.

I've probably left out a couple of things, but this is most of what he's known for. Let's tally them up and see what we find. Well, 11 out of 16 of his movies I wouldn't want to watch again with 2 being a maybe. That means he's only made 3 movies that I would happily sit through today. That's a pretty poor showing on the re watchable scale. However, 9 of these 16 movies I would rate as good-great. For me, it seems that most of his movies fit into the category of try once for the experience, but never go back, like traveling to India.

This brings us back to Shutter Island. I can't imagine it being great like Goodfellas, but I doubt it'll be as terrible as the Departed. I'm betting it'll fit somewhere between The Aviator and King of Comedy.

Verdict? Wait for the dvd.

I've been bombarded with advertisements for that new Scorsese movie, Shutter Island, all month long. It might be the shows I watch and the fact that I'm lazy with the fast forward button on my DVR, but it's also because I'm utterly fascinated by Leonardo DiCaprio's goofy Bawston accent, fleshy yet youthful face, and 50s getup complete with fedora that makes him look like a high school kid playing dress up for a school play. Don't get me wrong; I like Leo in most everything I've seen him in. I just think people overrate his abilities to pull off certain roles, such as any role that requires you to take him seriously as an adult. He always pulls me out of the illusion of the movie's world with his adolescent face and his overly intense stares. Well, that and his generally questionable accents, i.e. Blood Diamond, the Departed... I suppose he's starting to age into his face; but much like Robert Downey, Jr., he needs to really wait until he's around 40 before I'll ever take him seriously as a lead hero type.

This new movie, Shutter Island, looks like a generic mind-fuck thriller set in the 50s because, well, the outfits were cool. Just from watching the previews, I can tell the movie is going to either end in a massive conspiracy outed, or Leo's character is crazy and hallucinated everything. Since I already know the only two possible outcomes, will the movie still be enjoyable? If you love movies, you know that is a resounding yes. Movies are enjoyable because they have unique cinematography, contain entertaining performances, and are well written; usually in that order. There are plenty of mindless movies with wooden performances and stilted dialogue that remain fun and entertaining the watch; most of Schwarzenegger's movies of the 80s come to mind. Still, if a movie contains those three elements, it is generally going to be a great movie that you can watch over and over again.

While those three elements will make a great movie, they do not make a rewatchable movie. Often, this is where the theme of the movie comes into play. For example, the recent George Clooney film, Up in the Air, contained all three of those elements. The framing of the scenes added much to the feel and success to the audience's investment in the story, Clooney is better than he's probably ever been in anything, not to mention Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick's amazing performances, and the script is at turns, funny, sad, and poignant. I would say it's one of the better movies I saw this year, but I have no desire to ever watch it again. Why, you ask? Okay, I asked myself, but I enjoy talking to myself. Bear with me. The theme of the movie was extraordinarily depressing, and the main character was a shallow, failure of a man. Much of the movie revolves around people being fired and having their entire lives upended and potentially destroyed. Unless you have an acute case of schadenfreude, I can't imagine wanting to see this again. Great tragedies are usually warning calls to not get caught up in hubris and arrogance and are demonstrated using interesting, deep, and powerful characters who have something to lose. Clooney's character is lacking all these things. Hence, he has nothing to lose. In fact, every other character in the movie is far more interesting, which I suppose was the point the director was trying to make. It's probably why Clooney was so good at pulling off a shallow existence; it seems to mirror his own. While the film was entirely successful at getting across what it wanted, it was in no way an experience people would want to revisit.

What does this have to do with Leo and his Shuttah Ahhhland movie? I'm wondering if it's worth it. Scorsese has a history of making movies in that fashion I've described. Well filmed, great performances by outstanding actors, tight scripting and dialogue, as well as being a movie you'd rather do most anything else than sit through again. While I'm hardly a Scorsese expert, I've seen a good chunk of movies that he's made. I'll go through them tomorrow and see which ones were good to greatas well as which ones are rewatchable, and we'll see if my theory matches the reality of my experiences with his movies.

It was a nice weekend getting out of the house for the first time in two weeks. The crazy cold from the bowels of hell that incapacitated me with racking coughs and buckets of phlegm seems to have taken a break until next cold season allowing me to face the world once again. There was the dinner at Kushi Shabu, a hot pot-cook-your own-all-you-can-eat Japanese spot that was expensive and highly overrated. All you can eat? Well, when it tastes like bland, generic meat, I suddenly find I don't end up wanting too much of it. To make the matters worse, the thin strips of meat that they do give you to cook begin to pollute the water in the most disgusting fashion. Eventually, you have this brownish gunk floating on the surface; a sort of meat puke, if you will. Hoo boy, nothing like scraping dark snot off your dinner. I know I'm still hungry! I'm already morally opposed to having to cook my own dinner at a restaurant anyways. I have plenty of friends who live this crap, but I'll say what I always say; if I wanted to cook, I would stay at home and microwave a burrito. You should at least get a discount, what with having to do most of the labor.

I'd mention the club and the goofy, drunken shenanigans, but they weren't as interesting as when we were in our twenties. Now it's just sad. Anytime you have a friend who ends up suffering from gout like symptoms from drinking, it might be time to think about laying off the binge drinking. I will say the place we went to was a sort of hybrid bar/club where it basically represented the worst of both. It was way too loud to talk to someone, but their dance floor was away from the main area and tiny. I think you should either go all out with the club, or try and make it into a fun bar atmosphere. But, what do I know? The place was crowded enough as is. Plus, I didn't have to pay a cover, so that almost made up for the deafening music and the 12 dollar drinks.

Now that I'm able to walk two steps without coughing violently, I was able to play in the adult league basketball game this Sunday. It's no secret that my game resembles Brian Scalabrine more than Paul Pierce. I'm fairly terrible, for the most part. I'm there to rebound, box out, and play physical defense. As far as scoring is concerned, I'm the 7th option on a team with 7 players. Well, make that 6th option; Newjen is even less involved than I am in a given game. This was our third game of the season, and coming off two dominating performances against our last two opponents, we were feeling pretty confident. Well, our good players were, anyways. I was just hoping to not to pass out from being physically weakened from my sickness. With our last two victories being over 20 points, we've had good reason to be confident. Our opponent was supposed to be one of the good teams in our league, but they were either replaced with pod people, or aliens stole their basketball talents. With 5 minutes left in the half, we were up by 30-6. Needless to say, they began to get frustrated and one of their players, this chubby short white guy who thought he was Lebron, started to get chippy.

With the frustration mounting, our opponents went to the usual outlet; blame the refs. However, the refs weren't really having it that night. It might be because we were putting down an epic ass whoopin' on them and they had no idea why they would be complaining about calls. In fact, at one point, one of the refs actually asked white Lebron, "You're down 29 points. What exactly do you want? This game was over 15 minutes ago!" The result wasn't surprising; at least 4 technical fouls on their team for stupid decisions and loudly cursing. They've decided to crack down on the profanity in our league recently, but they only enforce it sparingly, usually to keep a situation from escalating. I think they're hoping to keep people from threatening to knife someone in the parking lot after the game, as a former teammate once did. (True story)

My favorite exchange between the refs and white Lebron was when he went barreling into one of our best players, Josh, and had his shot casually swatted away. He continued his forward progress crashing into Josh and tumbling onto his back in proper melodramatic fashion, then leaped up yelling at the ref, wondering where his foul call was. The ref dismissively looked down at him, clapped his hands and said, "Hear that? That was the sound of the ball getting cleanly smacked out of your possession. Just because you run into someone out of control doesn't mean you get a call. Now play ball." I started to feel bad for the other team and they even began to get embarrassed for the performance of their most outspoken teammate. When the game mercifully ended (which resulted in the one ref rolling her eyes and yelling out, "Finally! Thank god!") with a 30 point victory, we all did the usual sportsmanlike shaking of hands and wishing each other good luck in our next games. Because White Lebron is a complete dick, he couldn't even just silently nod his head and decided to try and pick a fight with Josh after the game. With his award winning unsportsmanlike attitude, I guess he is similar to Lebron after all. His actions were so shameful that one of the guys from the team actually walked over to us after the game to apologize for his teammate. All I can say is, we'll probably see them in the playoffs. That'll be interesting, to say the least. I just hope nobody gets thrown out.

Holy crap...it's sure been a long time since I've posted on my blog. Would you believe 4 years? I can't hardly believe I've been super lazy for that long. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm far lazier than that. Still, I need this writing practice to hone my communication skillz...and to make sure I stop using a z in place of an s subconsciously.

So, what's happened in my life since my last posting? I've continued my goal of traveling the world, but doing so in bite sized blocks as opposed to staying in one location and learning how real people live in their neck of the woods. I mean, there's not that big a difference between people's wants and desires in any part of the world. Everybody eats, shits, and fucks pretty much the same wherever you go...well, except maybe in Amsterdam. I know many travelers are interested in living like a local and learning the idiosyncrasies of alien societies, but frankly, I'm not that interested for one good reason; the continuing homogenization of the world culture. Do you know what's right across the street from the magnificent Sphinx and the great pyramid? A fucking KFC and a Pizza hut. Do you know what the most popular spot I noticed in Spain on a summer day? McDonald's and their cheap, tasty, softserve icecream cones. What do you think was on television when I drifted off to sleep a stone's throw away from the Petra national park in Jordan? Reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the A-team. I'm sure once upon a time, you could go to another country and escape the influence of the American popular culture, but unless you're smack in the middle of the Ghobi desert, you're going to see someone walk by yakking on a cell phone wearing Nike's and talking about last night's episode of CSI: Miami.

This isn't to say there aren't cultural differences in the countries I've been to; obviously, there are huge gulfs in understanding on a whole range of cultural, political, and philosophical issues. Still, trying to escape the web of American television and product placement is a losing battle that I no longer have any interest in. I'm not even sure it's that bad of a thing; I like being able to access the internet when I'm in other countries. I like grabbing a Big Mac every once in a while to remind myself of terribly unhealthy home food. And frankly, I happen to like reruns of Friends. In fact, I'd go further and suggest that the world should take yet another page out of American and start actually refrigerating their damn drinks and maybe, just maybe, get with the 20th century and use fucking ice cubes.

As I've told my friends, I travel for a selfish reason; I want to see historical sights and locations I've read about with my own eyes. I want to gaze on the plains of Zama in present day Tunisia, because world history was completely altered forever at that sight. I want to climb the pyramids of the ancient Maya, stand in the ruined palace of the ancient Minoans, and crawl through the Cu Chi tunnels to see how the Viet Kong survived in wartime. These things I do to expand my imagination of times ancient or recently past. Perhaps it's the romantic in me that wants to keep these experiences separate from everyday, mundane crap that people do to stay alive. Just in Los Angeles alone, there are hundreds of interesting historical sights and museums. I've probably only experienced a fraction of them. Why? Because this is the city I spend the dull, uninteresting moments of my life. This place is home and familiar to the point that I'm mentally discouraged from caring about it on that level anymore.

I should work on that; start broadening my horizons as far as my own hometown is concerned, but everywhere I look reminds me of my normal life. When I leave to places I've only read about, it's fresh and unspoiled in my mind. Think about your life and your memories. What do you remember of your neighborhood? It's familiar, kind of like an old comfortable pair of shoes. You spend so much time there, however, that you start not even seeing it. It just is, imprinted on your brain like background noise.

My mind is hungry for unique and original sights; not for shopping at the supermarket or eating at a generic cafe. I think the longer you stay anywhere, the less interesting it becomes. I have no problem with this and it's effect on Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, but I don't want this to happen to the amazing places I've seen. I watched a wedding party take photos in front of Angkor Wat, completely oblivious to the incredible view. They lived there. It wasn't that interesting anymore. I stare at the Disney concert hall every morning walking into the office. I don't even notice it anymore and wonder where all the goofy tourists in sandals and ugly hats clutching their cameras and guidebooks are rushing off to. Granted, the Disney concert hall is no Angkor Wat, but the point remains. Much like relationships, the longer you spend with someone, the less mysterious and interesting they become. I would never want that to happen to the places I've seen on my trips. It would be like murdering my memories.