Crack one open and enjoy!

There are many of you right now that if I were to crack open your fridge I might find beer. If there were to be beer I would most likely find a Budweiser, Miller or Coors brand of beer. I get it. It's like everything in America. The CONSTANT advertising has overwhelmed our brains. It's just like everything else corporate America has convinced us we need to buy. (Another post altogether) Most of you think this tastes good. Another large part of you think it's cheap. You might say, "I can't afford all that microbrew shit." There is also a small part of you, which in my opinion drives me nuts, that say you "Like" beer when you hold a  Bud Light but when asked about a Sam Adams Boston Lager or any other such microbrew you crinkle your nose and say "Eww. But not that stuff." Here's the thing folks. I get it people all have different tastes. Hey different strokes for different folks right?! But here's the thing...there are THOUSANDS of other beers from all over the world that are in the same classification as any of the "Big Three" of beers. There are all kinds of beer out there by MANY different breweries that are along the lines as these commercial beers that are made with much better quality ingredients.

I have to laugh at this time of year. Statistically, most people reading this will make a New Year's resolution that they will not keep. It's true. Right now, people are deciding about what resolution they should make, often because they feel they are supposed to, not because they have some issue in their life that is compelling them to change. Why make a half-ass commitment to changing your life simply because it's a certain time of the year? I love seeing all the people buying gym memberships or expensive exercise equipment in December or January, only to have that equipment turn into a nice place to hang clothes. The time changes last is when they are a change in lifestyle. Get dedicated to the process, not the outcome. Make it something fun, and don't just see the outcome.
I challenge each of you to not make a resolution based on what others want you to do or based on the best idea you could come up with in the first 3 minutes of thinking about it. CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Show true commitment and do something that will better your life. Give yourself a real gift. There is no hurdle you can't overcome if you just stop believing your own bullshit excuses.

Merry Christmas

Just a quick post here to wish all of you a Merry Christmas. Remember it's not about the shit you buy people or the gifts you receive, it's about the people you love and the moments you're lucky enough to share with them. So Cheers and Merry Christmas!
-Directorial Genius

Mindgasm

For someone that has rounded up a few of his closest and most opinionated friends and convinced them to join a blog and then to wait 8 months in between posts I should be a little disappointed in myself. Should be... However...I'm not.

Play it Loud!

If you are looking for a blog entry that sets up a series of arguments or that expresses a clear thought or point, this is not for you.

Stupid Fucking Ghosts

What the fuck is it about Halloween that makes people stupid? Don't get me wrong, I love the annual excuse for women to dress as a slutty nurse, slutty superhero, slutty slut...any of those things, really. I'm not huge on the candy part - too many calories and too much sugar for me. The part I just hate is that we suddenly have all these shows on tv about 'real ghost stories'. Fuck you, there is no such thing as a 'real' ghost. It doesn't fucking exist. The people that eat this shit up are the same ones that think psychics are real. I want to punch the idiots that pay money to see a psychic, but I want to skull fuck the psychics for capitalizing on the vulnerability of some poor schmuck whose loved one just died. Ok, i'm getting off track again.

Reasons Why Massachusetts Sucks

1) Worst. Drivers. Ever.

2) Everything is too expensive.

3) People generally lack any sort of courtesy.

4) Most of the employees at any given store treat you the same way that the burnt-out-on-life cashiers at Walmart treat you.

5) Everybody is in a hurry everywhere, all of the time, and throws a child-like fit if they are slowed down for more than 2 seconds.

6) 90% of the people in Mass. are inconsiderate assholes with bad attitudes, and it is highly contagious.

     - Please let it be noted that there are still some very nice people who live in Mass. In fact, some of the nicest people I have ever met live in Mass., and have decided to stay there for one God-forsaken reason or another.  By the end of my 4 years there, I had definitely started turning into a miserable, impatient, inconsiderate person due to the constant stress and negativity around me all the time. While living there, transforming yourself into a Masshole is necessary to complete day-to-day activities, such as going to the grocery store or really any task that requires leaving the house. If you don't, and dare to show human decency, you will never get anywhere and it will take forever to accomplish anything. It is like a "survival of the douchiest" situation.

7) It has pointless laws and regulations that make paperwork way more difficult, burdensome, and expensive than it needs to be.

        - Case in point: To register your car and convert your out-of state license, you need to present a MA-based insurance card, a dated, signed and stamped letter from your insurance company, your old registration, your old license, the title of your car, a special RMV-1 Form, an insurance waiver form, three separate documents that show a proof of residency, a proof of signature, and a proof of date of birth, and it can only be done at select DMV locations that are surely at least 15 inconvenient and traffic-heavy miles from your home.

8) Taxes are way too high and you don't seem to ever see the reasons why.

      - I am not sure where the money is going, but there certainly was not enough focus on things that matter like schools, infrastructure, and the environment. After teaching a 6th grade science class as part of my curriculum for grad school, I can confidently say that the money is definitely not going to public schools as much as it should.

9) You have to pay money to recycle, which doesn't seem very progressive for a progressive state.

10) The roads are under construction all of the time with absolutely no progress to be seen for years at a time.

     - Case in point: A short stretch of road in Worcester was under construction when I started pharmacy school in 2009 and was still going on and in even worse condition when I left the state in 2012

11) The road system seems like it was set up by drunk people with no foresight.

      - Case in point: You have to drive 8 miles to get to a place that is right across the street because of the over-abundance of concrete separations and one-way roads (Sorry, just can't get over how bad the roads are and it probably warrants more ranting, but I'll stop...)

12) I felt like I aged 5 years after being there for 1 due to the increased stress level

13) After living there for 4 years in 3 different regions, I cannot imagine why anybody would want to live there for their entire life (or at all) if they didn't have to.

14) The motto on the Massachusetts license plate is "The Spirit Of America" so it does a great job of representing the entire country with all of the fantastic qualities above...

More (very) random thoughts on religion.

Only sheep need a shepherd. Maybe some people’s lives suck so badly, and maybe they just have such a lack of self-esteem and belief in themselves that they need to put their fate in the hands of something ‘greater’. How else could you possibly explain people believing in something as foolish as a man in the sky, who has nothing better to do than intervene in the mundane lives of humans (and in that case he would clearly be doing a shitty job, looking at the state of the world today). Believing that must make you ‘special’, huh? Well, we all do want to be special. We want to think that even though our dog or goldfish doesn’t have a soul that will go to heaven, we do. I’m still not sure if that idea shows an incredible sense of egotism, or just means someone is that afraid of not existing anymore. I can say without a doubt that I’m not afraid of being dead. Hell, I was dead for millions of years before I was alive. Dying? Well, that process could potentially suck in a very big way.

Life at 30

Everyone who is older than me has successfully done it. It’s just a number. So, why does turning 30 have such an effect on people? Suddenly, questions arise about where you are or should be in life. Should I be making more money by now? Am I too old to have this messy hairdo? What about my earrings – should I take those out now? How about my big-buckled watch? Is that too juvenile? Lots of people keep asking how it feels to be 30, as if I should feel different. It seems like everyone views it as one of the many milestones of adulthood.

R.I.P. Peter Steele

For those of you that follow the band Type O Negative, you may or may not have heard that the lead singer and bassist Peter Steele died of heart failure on April 14th. I just only found out today and I have to say I'm a bit heart broken. I have always been a very big Type O Negative fan and will always be. It's kind of lame that we only talk about many different things until after they're gone/dead/whatever but I had to mention this one. So I lift my glass in your memory Pete. I have many, MANY memories that involve the music you've made and I thank you for contributing to my life and memories.

Sacrifice, and pride.

So what's on my mind today? I dunno... let's talk about sacrifice... and pride...

The unbelievable, incredible, amazing personal sacrifices that adults must make when they have children. Most, well some, anyway, adults, when having children, come to the realization, that their life now has meaning, but has no meaning...

Confused?

Good.

Damn those kids and their remakes!

I’m a movie buff. No, that’s not right…I’m more of a movie snob. I like what I like, and if you don’t like it, you are wrong. Period. I would like to consider my taste in movies to be varied, but I think that those who know me best would probably argue that point to the death. I have a huge selection of DVDs, and even though Director Genius probably has a few more ‘Special Edition’ versions than myself, I think most people are impressed when they see the collection. Throughout the titles, you will only find a few movies of mine that have subtitles – I can’t freakin’ stand subtitles. I want to watch a movie, not read. Dubbing the English words over the foreign language is suitable, so long as the timing is somewhat accurate. High Tension is a great example of this, because there is little dialogue – it’s mostly just ass-kicking wonderfulness. In the case of Inglorious Basterds, I’m willing to turn a blind eye because the movie just plain kicks ass. I don’t like chick flicks as a rule, but have made a few exceptions when there is real substance and not just a reason for girls to cry (as a side note, I’ve never understood the idea that ladies sometimes want to watch a sad movie so they can have a ‘good cry’…WTF, seriously?). Don’t even think about having John Leguizamo in your movie – I won’t even rent it, let alone buy it. Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts bore me to death – they are exactly the same in every role they play. Highly overrated.

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My take on Paranormal Activity

Well, I finally broke down and watched the movie Paranormal activity recently, and thought it was well done, except for the finish. It was finally a new idea, and suspenseful enough, and creepy enough to keep my attention throughout. I mean what was weirder than the girl standing, motionless, staring at her fiance for hours on end as he slept.

I did however notice several inconsistencies that bothered me throughout the movie. Often times the footage shot with their camera had a date/time stamp, yet other times, did not. There was no obvious reason to have omitted it... maybe they just forgot. Anyway, it was noticeable, and annoying. I also picked up on, again what was supposed to be footage shot from an unmanned camera on a tripod, several panned shots, zooms, and close ups... Again this was from a camera that was supposedly on a tripod while the couple slept. It certainly played to the audience, building suspense, but, THIS WAS SUPPOSEDLY FROM A CAMERA MOUNTED ON A TRIPOD WHILE THEY WERE SLEEPING! C'mon now, there are people in the audience that will notice things like this.

Is 30 the new 20?

So I've been on a bit of a weight loss quest now for about 5 years. When I started it took me 8 months to lose almost 100 pounds. Then I gained about 30 of it back and then I see-sawed a bit for a few years. Then something bad happened...DUN DUN DUN. I started working at a pizza place. Which was alright except, like almost everyone, I love pizza. So right before I moved here to NY last July I was up to 240 again. Well I lost a bunch of it to get back down around 220 or so. But there's been a lot of weight lifting involved so I don't really pay attention to my weight. I'm still a bit from my lowest at 205 but I'm in WAY better shape now than I was at 205.

America's Pastime is Upon Us

The birds are chirping. The sun is out. The grass is green. Yup it's my favorite time of year...BASEBALL SEASON! I'm a die hard Red Sox fan. If you boo this is, bugger off and go read some Yankee blog about sodomy and payroll or something. I have to say though, I love baseball in general. Not just the Sox. There are players all over the league I love. Guys like Pujols and Mauer. Verlander and Griffey (I'll always love Griff). That's why I really like fantasy baseball. I get to follow everyone around baseball and I pay attention to everyone, not just my favorite team.

Bruce Willis is the MAN!

I'm sitting here watching "Live Free or Die Hard" and thinking to myself how badass Bruce Willis is. I don't always like his acting and he isn't even particularly great in this movie. But damn he's kicking some serious ass at the age of, almost, 55. He'll be 55 in a couple days according to IMDb.

Why I love Quentin Tarantino

Those of you that know me, know my relative obsession with Quentin Tarantino. I've been a fan since the first time Reservoir Dogs blew my brain off. Being around 12 at the time, this movie scared the shit out of me, confused me and kept me enthralled all at the same time. It's what any Tarantino fan watches his movies for in the first place. He does what he does and NO ONE else is like him. Many, and I unfortunately mean many, have tried to do what he does.

So... I flew to Florida on Wednesday, to visit with my Mom who was having major abdominal surgery. The flight was uneventful, if a little rough. I left Bangor at 45 deg, and clear skies, beautiful, sunny day. I arrived in Orlando (Sanford Airport) in the midst of major thunderstorms which have not yet stopped (36 hours later). So much for Sunny Florida... I picked up a rental, a Kia Rio, at Alamo, who knew ANYONE still made manual crank-up windows! In hindsight, I should have paid the extra $30.00/day for the Camaro... but whatever, I didn't come here to review cars...

Life + Dying

I hate, but can't help myself from reading the obituaries in the local paper. I can't help myself because I am intrigued by what I read, intrigued by the choices made by the surviving family chosen to highlight the deceased individual's life. The very finality of our obituaries can, appropriately, or inappropriately speak so much of our very short life on this earth. No matter what we do, no matter who we are, we ALL end up as a simple paragraph or two in the paper. I find it incredibly depressing, yet irresistible to peruse the local obits on a (an all too) regular basis What can be said about us when we die? Face it, we're all going to die. Like it or not, it is an un-fucking-shakable truth! It really is the only thing in life we can be sure of.