Thursday, June 14, 2012

The war won't stop for the love of god

My summer has thus far been entirely uneventful.  I've spent more time at work than I have at home, I drink more with my family than I do out at bars, and I've seen eight movies in theaters in the past month - eight, and not unique.  Regardless, I'm thankful I'm not in class for the time being - and yet, my summer already seems as though it's dwindling, mainly because I'm going to Florida for two weeks rolling into August, and I have about a week at home before I move back to commence my don training.  Despite my mundane few months being home and school free, I had a noteworthy weekend, and while it might seem like this post will take a turn for the worse, rest assured that it won't.

On Friday, I saw Prometheus, so allow me to offer a semi-review: whaaaat did I just see?  I initially wasn't looking forward to the movie at all, mainly because I've never considered myself a fan of the sort of science fiction that involves aliens.  I'll hand it to the marking, then, for winning me over and making it one of my must-sees this summer; that alarm noise from the commercials haunts my dreams, and the stellar (pun?) cast didn't hurt.  To prepare, I sped through the entire Alien series in three days, the first two being some of those movies that I always meant to see, the third, just good, and the fourth which I'll pretend doesn't even exist.  I fully understand how iconic the character of Ripley is now, and she's a badass.

Prometheus, I'd heard, is some sort of semi-prequel to the franchise, though now that I've seen it nothing extends past a handful of references here and there and a surprise appearance at the very end.  (was that a spoiler? Meh)  To be honest, I kept expecting the movie to shift into the formula that Alien itself followed, what with the discovery of a planet (check) with strange ruins and weird eggs (check) leading to the second half 'there's an alien on the loose!' horror that never actually happened in Prometheus; and therefore by the time the plot wrapped up I couldn't even believe it was already over.  What happened instead, though, was a sequence of events so bizarre and seemingly farfetched that it would sound even ludicrous to try to explain.  I will say that the movie has one of the most disgusting scenes I've ever witnessed - surgery, technology, aliens within - and I can't strike the images from my mind.  The special effects were astounding - I wish I'd seen it in 3D, so I guess I'll have to go see it again! - and the acting, especially Michael Fassbender, was rather good.  Fassbender was literally incredible as an android, but he's always incredible, so I'm not surprised.  I'd recommend the movie to anyone who's a fan of Alien or aliens or spaceships with chest-bursting aliens and androids and self-surgeries and goddamnit is Charlize Theron a robot or not?, but the gore and heavy-handed mythology might be too much for some.

On Sunday I went to Canada's Wonderland for the first time in a long time but the way in which things transpired was less than favourable: I've discovered that I'm not as used to rides as I used to be, and that, combined with sweltering heat and a neglecting of hydration, leads to one vomiting in one's mouth while on The Bat.  (too much information?) The obvious first stop of the day was the new roller coaster, Leviathan, which, after an hour and a half wait, was a blast, but it was hardly nice to my hair.  I felt it then, the light-headedness, but I'd remembered that almost all rides now make me dizzy once coming off of them and the long line-ups would provide enough time for me to recuperate before doing it all again.  And yet, apparently, riding Leviathan twice in a row wasn't beneficial to my dizziness, and as the day carried on the sun beat hotter and my shirt got progressively wetter from sweat.  When we got to The Bat, I knew something was off - it's worth mentioning that The Bat and rides like it usually get me queasy as it is, but I'm usually able to ride it anyways - and by the time the car climbed up the inversions backwards, whatever was in my stomach (nothing, as I stupidly didn't eat before I left) came up.  I blame The Bat and the sun for then ruining the rest of my day because I couldn't bring myself to ride many other rides; things like Top Gun (what the hell is it called now anyways) or Behemoth had to be skipped because I knew they'd do me in, and with every ride came about a half an hour's down time between them while chugging water to compensate for the dehydration I know I had.  I don't know if I'm really unable to ride amusement park rides anymore or if it's just because the day was so hot and I was mindless about drinking water, but you could imagine how much of a task riding something as tame as Windseeker would be.  Nevertheless I still had a good time.

On Monday I accompanied a friend to a free Metric concert in Toronto.  I guess I've always been a casual fan of Metric - I know their songs, I have a fair amount of them on my iTunes, but I've never been a die-hard, so I was initially resistant to going.  I've never actually gone to a legitimate outdoor concert before - truthfully, I actually haven't been to a concert aside from the three Lady Gaga outings I've gone to - so I was excited to an extent.  We got there around three, five hours before the concert was to start, and we were the third and fourth people there.  The sun was as hot as it was when I was in Wonderland but it didn't seem it considering I spent the entire day sitting down against the front barricades to ensure standing at the front of the crowd, but I came away from this weekend with a nice tan.  The rain came with the slow crowd of people forming around us, and come eight o'clock we were pressed against the very front of the stage by the hoard behind us.  I'd vowed to never do another general admission concert again after my horror story that was the first Gaga concert I went to - sweating and Latey Gaga (by three hours) and fistfights! - but, even in the sheets of rain and the water pouring down my back because of the umbrella held directly behind me, everything was worth it to be at the very front.  And Metric, they were fantastic.  The only played seven songs - I didn't expect much, as it was a free concert on a fairly small scale stage - but they're phenomenal live and the lead singer Emily Haines looking directly at me with crazy eyes while singing Monster Hospital has sent me into this crazy rabid fandom in the past few days where I'm now confident enough to say yeah, I'm a pretty big fan of them.  They played six songs from their new album Synthetica (which I 'studied' before going) as well as the aforementioned closing song, and I know now I crave a full length concert where I'd hear Stadium Love played live.

To be honest my proofread of this post completely bored me; either way I haven't posted in a short while and I'm not about to delete the past hour's worth of writing and, well, should you come to this sentence, bravo.  I should hope the past few days of excitement might be a precursor to more fun I'm to have this summer!

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