The Big C

Chicago = amazing.

more to come...

Oh my.

I just had a sip of Coke and it was glorious.

Of course...

It would take Indiana Jones to make me feel homesick.   I know I didn't travel to the far and rounded corners of the earth in search of lost relics or proof of god's existence.  But, I did live a far more adventurous life in Indiantown.  I was accustomed to riding horses, dealing with dangerous wild-life (see: snakes and rabid mammals), driving a lot, driving fast and sometimes driving recklessly.  I could go outside and shoot at whatever I wanted to (okay so somethings are the same in the city).  I'm good with a gun, better with a bull whip and down right deadly behind the wheel or in the saddle. Watching the IJ trilogy has made me realize that there are very fun and amazing things that no city or building with a doorman will ever be able to offer.  

What can I say?  I'm an adrenaline junkie and I need more than the fear of used hypodermic needles and crazy homeless people to get my fix.  Half of me is completely content as a city dweller and the other half needs the adventure/lifestyle/fresh air that comes with the country. 

I guess the ideal is to be rich enough to afford both.

 

So...

Chuck Palahniuk totally stole the plot for Diary from The Wicker Man.  

Last 4th in Philly

Technically its the first and the last, but who cares right?  So I got the job in Chicago! Yay me!  I found an apartment and it's really awesome so I'm applying for it on Monday and hopefully I'll get it, but this weekend I'm gonna scope out other places just to make sure nothing better has popped up.  

I will hopefully be leaving here on the weekend of the 18th.  My mom is flying up on the 17th.  We will pack and then hopefully be out of here Saturday morning.  We'll stop off in Ohio to visit my dad and sleep and then to the windy city!  I'll hopefully start my new job on the 28th. 

So I got a new letter from Ant. He's doing well and says that boot camp is flying by so that's great. I still cant get used to writing to someone in the service.  Its so odd.  I talked to John Paul today. Man, I miss him.  He's headed to DC at the same time that I'm leaving Philly. Harbor is touring-ish, Chelsea is still up in the air, Eleanor and Tia are back to teaching in August I think, and Allie is in Fla until further notice.  I know that I should want the best for my friends, and I do. I just cant help that I think "the best" is hanging out with me.  I really do want Allie to come to Chicago.  I know, that with our powers combined, we can make it in the industry.   

I'm also worried about the economy and the depression.  I hope that I'm wrong, but I'm never wrong so... I'm just trying to focus on a new city and a new life and getting out of Philly for better or just slightly better.

Ps.  I really do think that things are falling into place and that Chicago will be where things really happen for me.

Zero Population Growth

Or ZPG as it is sometimes known, is a pretty sweet "dystopian future" film from the 70's.

The plot is that it is the future and, surprise surprise, there are too many people and not enough resources. The world's solution? Sterilization? Euthanasia? Nope. They decide to kill off a generation by passing a law that forbids any births for the next thirty years. The body of the film takes place 8 years after the law is put on the books and already people are baby crazy. A woman, surprise surprise, really wants a baby, so she has one and then her and her husband have to hide it from the rest of the world.

I really liked this movie (apart from the fact that it is one of my main philosophies in life) because I think it is really creative.

First of all, this movie is totally where Chuck Palahniuk got his idea for "daytimers and nighttimers" in his book Rant. It is also where "Children of Men" gets it's ending and gloomy "end of the world" feel. Asides from being ripped off, this movie is great because I really like the way that they showed the world.

There are no trees. There are no animals. You can't breathe the air and you can't see anything because the smog is out of control. The crime of birth is the highest crime and the sentence is death by suffocation for the mother, father and baby. They lower this dome over you and slowly suffocate you, giving you 12 hours to think about what you have done. There are these abortion machines in the bathroom that the women use after they have sex. People adopt the scariest My Buddy/Chuckie Doll robot things. The museums are really shitty and you pretty much only get to go once in your life. The museum is filled with shoddily taxidermied animals (mostly pets or livestock), some plants (about 5 square feet of them) and the museum's main focus. How people lived back in the day (the 70's). You can see what dentists did, how people used to pump gas and drive cars and how we use to shove our faces full of food! There are no books, no music, and you go to the library to watch videos. Old people live in their own designated area, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot, but it's pretty thorough in it's bleakness.

But this movie isn't perfect. It has all of the 70's future dystopian society standbys such as:

People eating "food" out of tubes that look like toothpaste

The always present and ever incessant "big brother" monitoring device in the sky

Everyone rocks a one piece uni-tard jumpsuit thing with a Nauru collar.

And my favorite part of all movies like this, the 1960's "futuristic" furniture that everyone owned back then. I also found the movie to be a bit lazy in the fact that everything from the museum was from the 70's. Like the world just went from "shag carpeting and bell bottoms" to "we cant breathe and there is no food". I think they could have been a little more creative and tried to fill in the gaps instead of stopping with what they already knew.

As I watched the movie all I was thinking "would a world without kids be so bad?".