Musical opinions

Here are some opinions for you. They are regarding David Bowie, who was a famous singer and is dead. He died sort of recently. In any case, I watched a movie that he had provided the soundtrack to although it was hard to really discern the music in the movie. So later, I decided to listen to some various songs of his. The short of it: they were weird. I am not quite sure why he got so famous. He seems like him as a person and also his music was weird. Michael Jackson could also be described as such although there are a couple songs of his that I think are actually halfway decent and not horrible weird. 

If anyone would like to convince me that David Bowie is worth my time to listen to more, I welcome you to try. As it stands, I don't have a particularly interested impression of him. Also, I think he was kind of creepy looking, in a bad way. This could also apply to Michael Jackson post-plastic surgeries. Still, a song like Man in the Mirror is actually fairly decent and makes me feel like dancing even though I don't really know many songs of Michael Jackson. On the other hand, the songs that I listened to of David Bowie just made me think that they were weird. 

So, for the time being, my opinion is that David Bowie is overrated and he looked strange and his music is/was weird. It doesn't exactly fit with a genre that I can easily discern, but maybe that was the point of it? Who knows. I think I may have read somewhere that Muse have been influenced by him, but I might be misremembering and even if I'm not, it doesn't show that much in their music which is a good thing. Sure they have a number of songs about apocalyptic subject matters but at least those songs are enjoyable to listen to. 

For the final thing in this post, I will mention that one of the models I like had a picture taken of him (I think for a magazine or something) where he was made up to look like David Bowie. I wonder what he (the model) thinks of David Bowie. 

3 weeks later

(approximately; it is actually slightly less than three weeks)

3 weeks later, that encounter that I wrote a post about (which is how I know it was around 3 weeks ago) is still apparently making an impression on me. So much so that I have decided to write a handwritten note on a card regarding said incident. Incident seems like it has a bit of a negative connotation, so maybe the word 'event' or 'occasion' or 'encounter' is more apt. This note is a compliment and I am going to mail it and hopefully it will reach its intended recipient. The compliment is about the occasion (covered in the previously mentioned post) when I was walking outside of a store and a police officer walked by in the opposite direction and I looked at him and he smiled at me. And I was very pleased by that and I still am quite pleased by that even weeks after the event. So I figured that I might as well attempt to compliment this officer. A few days ago I looked at the county website for when you want to complain about the bus service, for one thing, or otherwise find out about county related things like recycling bins, for example. However it was down for maintenance so I had to wait a few days and only now did I get back to that. For bus service complaints, you can submit them via an online form and I thought that it would be the same for police officer compliments. However, it is not and apparently the way to send in a compliment must be done via the mail. There are addresses provided to mail the compliment to and that's what I'm doing. Apparently, after they received my complimentary letter I am supposed to get a letter notifying me of that. So I think that will be interesting, theoretically. Again, hopefully the compliment gets to who it's supposed to get to and hopefully he is pleased because he got a complimentary letter and perhaps it will encourage him to continue to smile at random people and perhaps those other people will also feel compelled to write in complimentary letters and so on. I think the last part is the least likely to happen because I feel like other people probably do not feel compelled to write in complimentary letters to police officers because they got smiled at by one. However that event made my day and could even possibly make my month of February, which seems quite likely, considering this post. Thankfully I made a note of this police officer's name from his name tag when I was looking at him as I walked by him. That way the compliment has a higher chance of getting to the right person instead of it being directed to some nameless police officer who happened to be at Walmart a few weeks ago. 

mtt dmns tth

Try to decipher the title!
Here is a post about (un)important issues like:

"Teeth

Roberts: He does have nice teeth.

Kimmel: I mean, they can't be real, right? They're so perfect. They're obviously something that some Hollywood witch doctor put into his head somewhere along the line, possibly on one of his jaunts to China where he disappears for six months and suddenly has a whole new look. One day he's Jason Bourne. The next day he's Liberace's fiancé.

Damon: True.

Larry Rosenthal, D.D.S., declined to respond to multiple requests for comment."

-GQ

Like a previous post on a different body part, I don't think it's a mystery why this one would be interesting to me. I decided to look up about Matt Damon and this came up. It is from a story in GQ. I just wanted to put that out there. Matt Damon I don't have a negative opinion of like I do of George Clooney, but I haven't watched as many movies of his as I have of Leonardo DiCaprio. In my hierarchy of actors I like/dislike, he's probably somewhere a little bit above Brad Pitt. Definitely above Johnny Depp because he doesn't look creepy like Johnny Depp does. And it goes without saying that he's above George Clooney.

tell ee vision

To preface this, I should begin with the fact that I watched the Super Bowl and it was interesting, which was actually somewhat interesting and that kind of surprised me because I would not consider myself to be interested in football. However, I think that watching the Super Bowl is one of those American things to do, and I would feel like I was missing out if I didn't watch it. So I watched it and I thought that Tom Brady looked like Matt Damon and also that he had nice teeth. From what I saw of him, he seems like a nice person. Something about just.. his manner or something. I don't know. Maybe if I were more familiar with him it oculd turn out that he's actually an idiot. Like I said, I don't know. 

Anywyas, after the Super Bowl there was a premiere of some show. I odn't know if it's a completely new show or if it's just a new season of an already existing show. It started with some violence and murder, so obviously I was intrigued. It continued with some scenes being un-violent and mundane interspersed with others that were violent and suspenseful. The show made use of various split screen shots throughout the episode, which was kind of interesting as that's not commonly used in the shows I've watched. Apparently Requiem for a Dream is notable for its use of split screen shots as well, so there's that little tidbit to consider. From what I gathered, this show is about politics/government/terrorists. I don't think I could watch a show completely about politics in this current day and age, but this show seems to be kind of a mix and not purely a drama/soap opera like Grey's Anatomy. I would consider it to be in the genre of action, somewhat. It reminded me of a combination of James Bond movies (although those are somewhat lighter, to be honest) and a show I watched... the first season of, at least, a couple of years ago, called The Following which was about a serial killer/murderous cult, at least as far as I remember. That show had a decent amount of implausibilities, which also was somewhat prevalent in this show as well. 

And now, on to the little details that I like to focus on so much. Being about politics/government/terrorism, the show is set in/around DC, an area with which I am decently familiar. As such, there were some scenes involving a Metrobus. Said Metrobus was apparently a route 13 and the destination sign said "Wisconsin Avenue." Naturally, I wanted to see if this was an actual route, in addition to looking up designs of Metrobuses because the one in the show did not look like the ones I've seen in my current daily life. It seemed like it was an older model. According to my research so far, there is no such thing nor has there been a route 13, so this was a fictional invention. Many Metrobus routes are named with a number/letter combination, such as "J2." I'm not sure what the letters are supposed to signify, if anything, but I guess it just allows them to have more combinations for route names. From what I can tell, I think the model of buses shown in the show may still be in use somewhere in the Metrobus service area, although around here they have all been replaced by newer models.

 I'm not sure if it's too much to ask that tv shows get all the little local details right. Perhaps there's a position for "local details consultant" that I could fill. It makes me wonder about the show NCIS, which is also set in the DC area. As far as I'm aware, it is not filmed on location in DC. I haven't watched it enough to notice how wrong/right that show gets the little local details. However, it brings to mind an episode (don't remmeber which one) of the show Criminal Minds which I no longer watch because I became bored with it. In any case, said episode had a scene that supposedly took place in a Metro station, yet clearly the station it was filmed at for the show was not a Metro station. I know that show is filmed in LA so I guess they just used a station around there. One of the nice things about the Law and Order shows is that they all were (are in the case of SVU) filmed on location in NYC which lends them an extra little bit of authenticity regarding local details. You know the subway station is going to be a real NYC subway station. I don't know off the top of my head any shows that have taken place in and were filmed in DC. I know the West Wing took place in DC but I don't know where they filmed it. Come to think of it, the new-ish show that Dick Wolf created called Chicago PD is a thing. I wonder where that is filmed. 

Anyways, so far this new show seems to be decently interesting (honestly, it was the violence that drew me in) so I might watch the future episodes if I have time. 

More observations

(in particular, those involving county police officers)

Today I was out and about. Here are some observations that I had today. One observation was when I was on the bus, there was a lady also there who had white colored hair but didn't look that old. It was kind of like Anderson but this lady wasn't good looking like Anderson is. Also, this lady's teeth looked kind of like they weren't securely in her mouth very well. For some reason that's just how I feel like they looked. They didn't quite look right. 

Also, I have taken issue with some people in some of my classes. I am annoyed by the fact that they come across to me as know it alls. Which perhaps is hypocritical of me because I think that in other classes I may have come across that way to other people, but still. Also, it annoys me that the one middle aged man in one of my classes can't type properly. It just gets on my nerves. It can't be that hard to learn how to type properly. If I were the professor, I would mention to this man that he should learn how to type properly. For some reason the fact that he can't annoys me a decent amount. A decent amount, enough so that I have ended up writing about it on here. 

Now, on to a positive observation. Today, I was walking in front of a store and there was a police officer walking in the other direction carrying a bag of stuff he bought. I looked at him and maybe I looked at him a little too long or maybe it was just his natural reaction to passing people on the sidewalk in public, but he smiled at me a little bit and I was pleased and I attempted to smile back at him once I noticed that he had done that. I was quite pleased. I wonder if he usually smiles at people when he's out and about or if he only did it because I was looking at him. It was kind of like the time when I was on vacation and in the hotel getting breakfast and there was a guy who looked like the guy with the eyelashes and because of that I was looking at him and I guess I was looking at him too much and he noticed and he smiled at me. In any case, recently I had been thinking about how there are police officers out there who are bad apples and hopefully I don't have the misfortune to have an unpleasant encounter with one of those officers. The fact that the one I saw today smiled at me gives me the impression/assumption that he's not a bad apple, but who knows. I was pleased about that occurrence. I was looking at his name on his uniform and he had the initials of a singer that I like as well as a different last name. I guess the initials are there to differentiate him from other officers who have the same last name? I'm not sure. I have a little bit of a fascination with law enforcement stuff (probably something to do with the murder/Law and Order/etc interests) so I keep a bit of a mental remembering of the encounters/observations of the county police officers that I have. So far, here is a little list:

• the school police officer from middle school (so long ago!), Officer Larson (Larsen??) I'm not sure if he's still at that school or if he has gotten a different assignment.
• the school police officer at the high school I went to, who is still there (and left handed) as I mentioned in a previous post. Also, when I went to school there one day I asked him about all the equipment that he had. 
• a police officer I encountered directing traffic while I was at a shopping center, whose name I did not see because he had a reflective vest on which covered his name tag, but he was tall and had long legs and gray eyes and I asked him about how he felt about directing traffic (a question I have asked other police officers too in the past, but not in this county). He said that for work sometimes you have to do things that aren't the most enjoyable but you're still getting paid the same, so.. that was the general idea of his answer.
• a police officer I saw in Chipotle who had a nice figure. He was kind of short but he had a nice figure. I did not see his name. 
• another police officer I saw in Chipotle who was eating by himself. His name was Officer Berry which I read off of his name tag. I did not talk to him, but I wondered if he was related to another person I knew of with the same last name.
• other assorted police officers I saw in the same Chipotle, but do not remember specifically - it happens to be right near the police station so it's not surprising to see them there.
• the police officer from today who smiled at me.
• police officers I saw at Walmart near the doors during the holiday season. The year before last, when I saw them, the following night I had an unpleasant dream where police officers grabbed me. They were not county police however because the uniforms weren't right.

Those are all the ones that come to mind at the moment. It's probably weird that I keep a mental list of these things, but I do. Also, I think the officer who smiled at me today was a nice contrast to that one time in Ocean City when a police officer on a bike was riding down the street as we were putting things in the car (it was a neighborhood street without a lot of traffic) and he didn't even say hi or wave or anything. I think he should have done something friendly like that for the sake of maintaining a positive relationship/impression with the general public. Regardless. Ooh. I just had a thought. I may in the future be going to NYC. And perhaps then I will see some real life NYPD officers. That would be kind of cool. Apparently some may pose for pictures, because I remember last year my psychology teacher showed us a picture of her with some NYPD officers. It was when she was explaining some concept... attribution theory, I think. Interesting memory, right?? At least to me it is.

Observation

I write this as I am waiting for a class to begin and it is about some recent observations. Yesterday, in a different class, there was a man in said class who had some very gross looking fingernails, and also apparently has children and two businesses. He was middle aged and I have no idea exactly why he is taking that class, but whatever. In any case his fingernails were repulsive and next time I think I will try to sit farther away from him so that I don't have to see the fingernails so closely. Yuck. They were very off-putting. In addition, this man could not type very well at all. He used only one or two fingers and poked at the keys on the keyboard. Which I guess maybe could be expected seeing as he seemed to be at least 50 years old, but still, my mother is probably in his same generation and she knows how to type. I think he may have some issues due to his ineptitude with typing seeing as in the class we will probably be using computers and typing a decent amount. 

In other matters, a more positive and pleasing observation. Just earlier, I had to deliver something to be delivered to someone. It was at the local high school which I graduated from last year. So I went into the main office and there was a woman there who presumably was the secretary. There was also the school police officer whose car I saw parked out front as I was entering. I talked to the secretary lady who basically referred me to the police officer and he wrote something down. I did not know that he served as an assistant secretary, but apparently at least today that's what he was doing. And on to the prime observation here. As he wrote, I noticed that he was left handed. I had seen and even talked with him occasionally in the past when I was a student there, but I had never seen him writing anything. In addition, he wrote in all capitals which is a thing that some other men I have known do. Apparently, it supposedly means that the person is trying to hide/obscure something (about their personality, which supposedly can be revealed by handwriting). Which happened to bring to mind a particular teacher that I had had who is also left handed and writes in all capitals. In any case, this of course goes back to the one and only character of Goren from Law and Order. As I would hope people would be aware, I think he is a very interesting character and all that. He (meaning Vincent who played said character) is also left handed although I don't think there are any really decent samples of his handwriting on the show. I wonder what it looks like. I think I'll conclude this post here, because from this point I would just be going on about how law enforcement and crime stuff is interesting to me, which is something I've certainly been over in the past, I believe. 

As an aside, there are no interesting movies on Netflix that I feel like watching which is a shame and they apparently removed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which I had wanted to watch but didn't get a chance to before it was gone. Alas. 

Critiquing SNL

This post isn't exactly the most serious of things, but regardless.. I happened to be watching videos on YouTube and one came up in the recommendations that was a skit from a recent SNL. In general, I don't watch SNL but sometimes the skits that make it onto YouTube happen to be rather amusing. Although lots of other times the show is just kind of downright weird. I think you have to be very aware of all the pop culture related news that happened that week in order to completely get a full episode of SNL.

In any case, this particular skit was about a guy who disliked a movie that many people enjoyed, so he gets attacked for that in the form of getting arrested and interrogated. By some officers (as they are called by a character in the skit), or rather probably detectives as these characters semi resembled the characters of Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson from the long running show Law and Order SVU. Semi resembled in that their style of dress was reminiscent of Elliot and Olivia respectively (although not Elliot’s hairstyle, or rather, lack of hair; however the female character in the skit had a hairstyle reminiscent of, say, season 4 (this is off the top of my head, I may be wrong) Olivia) in that the guy had rolled up sleeves and the woman was wearing the kind of jacket that Olivia has worn on the show. However, the personalities of the skit characters were a little off - the guy did do some of the intimidating that Elliot has done but in other occasions in the skit, the guy acted too mellow while the woman was shoutier than Olivia tends to be. The skit also happened to include a part where the female character throws a chair through/at the mirrored glass which then breaks, which was sort of amusing in that I know a similar thing happened in a CI episode although in this skit again, it was a little off. In the Law and Order episode, it was the criminal who did the glass breaking although it wasn't with a chair, he smashed it with his fists and the final scene was of the detectives seen through the shattered glass. I think maybe something like that has happened in SVU but I don't remember the specifics.

Anyways, that was my pointless little critique of a recent SNL skit. I suppose it's not that surprising coming from a Law and Order fiend like myself.