Notebooks

Tonight I was in the grocery store and looking at the books and magazines. In particular, the knitting magazines, but the 4 or so they had all cost at least $7 which I didn't feel like spending on a knitting magazine. I can find knitting ideas/patterns online if I so desire. In this aisle there is also a small selection of notebooks/notepads/journals/whatever you want to call them. I saw one which was small and the cover had pink and white stripes. It was your general little spiral notepad except the spiral was at the top, which maybe isn't the most common position as most journals/notebooks are bound at the side. 

On one matter, I completely prefer spiral notebooks over composition ones. For some reason. I just like how the pages turn on the metal spiral coil, I guess. This applies to regular sized notebooks for school as well as small notebooks/journals that I mostly just write random lists and stuff in for personal use. For personal use notebooks/journals, the paper has to be the right kind (a little nicer than the texture/kind of paper found in your standard spiral notebook for school) and the ruling has to be the right size. If the lines are too close together I won't get it even if I particularly like the design on the cover or whatever. I'm rather particular about these things. 

On a slightly different matter, I was watching Law and Order SVU today and in this show the detectives can be seen taking notes occasionally in little notepads they carry in their jacket pockets. These notepads are always the top spiral kind which is... interesting, in a way. Why top spiral? Why not side bound? Is there some reason? And if so, what reason is it? These little notepads, as far as I've noticed, usually have plain colored covers. I guess perhaps the style of notepads (fictional, for this matter, although perhaps also real ones since Law and Order is sort of realistic? as realistic as a tv show can be, I guess. Any tv show will have some degree of unrealisticness, some more than others. And I've felt that the Law and Order shows have erred more on the side of more realistic than not, but again, it's a tv show, and even if it's more realistic than other shows, it still can be unrealistic to some degree compared to real life) detectives use is regulation? Do they buy their own notepads or are they provided by the police department? Big questions. If I were theoretically a detective, I think I would use a snazzier looking notepad. With a job like that, you've gotta add a little bit of... color and whimsy where you can. It would be ever so slightly in the vein of Penelope Garcia of Criminal Minds. I wonder if my theoretical detective colleagues would frown upon also taking the notes in colorful pen inks (think purple! or a sparkly gel pen color!) aside from your usual black or maybe blue. I think it's very possible they might. And/or just not take me seriously. Again, all theoretical. But wouldn't that be an interesting job? (read: I have been watching way too much Law and Order. Speaking of which, in a couple of months it'll be my 'one year anniversary' since starting to watch the show,or rather, the CI variation.. is that something maybe I should celebrate? [probably not. I think you should get a life, maybe. Just a suggestion.])  And my theoretical detective note taking notepad would probably be side bound, unless, upon becoming a detective I learn that there's some justifiable reason they use top bound ones.

Again, too much Law and Order. I think I might also really enjoy being a set decorator. Although to my knowledge the aforementioned notepads count as props and therefore would be under the responsibility of the props person/department and not the set decorator. Although maybe set decorators and props departments work closely together? Depending on the show, costuming could be interesting too. Guess I'd better start studying movie/tv production or something along those lines.

You would think that I've gotten my day's serving of true and fictional crime (via watching some episodes of SVU and reading posts on /r/unresolvedmysteries) but at the time of writing this, around 10 pm, I think I could still be up for more. More episodes of SVU or some other Law and Order. Maybe not Unresolved Mysteries. Those can get a little unnerving to read late at night sometimes. Although I recently read a bit on a serial killer case that (surprisingly?) I was not familiar with. And I'm at least sort of familiar with a number of serial killer cases. (let me seduce you with my knowledge of serial killers!)

And with that, we'll end this post. Although... come to think of it! The requisite Vincent D'Onofrio related content. So today, I 1) read an article about the Marines that was quite reminiscent of the events in the first portion of the movie Full Metal Jacket, which Vincent was in way back in the 80s and 2) watched a video that was a short analysis of the new western movie he is in. Watching this video solidified my decision to not see said western movie featuring Vincent D'Onofrio. From the scenes/clips shown in the analysis video, the movie seemed to me to be rather cheesy, as I guess western movies tend to be? I wouldn't really know as I don't watch western movies. Although then later after I had watched this video and was thinking about western movies, I realized/remembered that a couple years ago or so I did watch this one western/scifi movie. Which was because it had Daniel Craig in it and I admire his performances as James Bond. For some reason, a number of the times I've watched something "because it had (insert actor here) in it" it has not ended up with me watching a movie I enjoyed. Well, actually, the only two examples that come straight to mind are Full Metal Jacket and this scifi western movie with Daniel Craig, so I guess I can't say that whenever I watch something because it has a certain actor in it it always turns out in me watching some movie I end up thinking wasn't that good, because a number of movies that I've watched because they have some actor that I like in them have actually turned out to be movies I enjoyed. But a couple of them have been ones that I didn't particularly love. Although I didn't particularly love Full Metal Jacket, it does seem to have stuck with me. Mostly the topics of the Vietnam War and the Marines evoke memories of the movie Full Metal Jacket in my mind. Although then I feel the need to remind myself that there's more to the Vietnam War/the Marines than just what was portrayed in Full Metal Jacket. (Also Apocalypse Now. Although I would say that movie was less a movie about the Vietnam War than a movie based on Heart of Darkness that just happened to be set during the Vietnam War.) And by the way. Heart of Darkness was not a book I enjoyed. I read it because it was for English class. I watched Apocalypse Now in the hope that it would give me some enlightenment regarding Heart of Darkness, but alas, it did not. And I wasted like three hours watching that movie. And for some reason it's a classic famous movie. Which I will have to say, I don't really understand. What do/did people see in it? I would assume obviously they got more out of watching it than I did. After seeing both Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now, I decided that I would not watch any more war movies in the future. Except maybe Saving Private Ryan since that one is supposed to be really good. It has Tom Hanks in it. 

In retrospect, this post should probably be titled "Notebooks (and a long aside about Vincent D'Onofrio which goes on tangentially from there) 

For reference, here is the article about the Marines I read. If you are familiar with the movie Full Metal Jacket, I'm sure you'll see the similarities.