16 Days and counting

A glass of coca cola, a few chocolate chip cookies, an empty apartment and Radiohead playing in the background. I'm ready to write this baby!

Most importantly, here are the pictures from Brussels, Maastricht and Amsterdam. There aren't many pictures with me in them, they are mostly pictures of sights and what not, but I still think they are pretty cool. Check them out:

Set I: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2057588&l=c66ad&id=29904207

Set II: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2057591&l=8406a&id=29904207

I just spent the past few hours catching up on things back home. Movies, sports, news. I feel pretty refreshed, having been out of the loop for a little while doing so much traveling. Some thoughts:

Movies:

I am extrmeley excited for the new movies coming out this summer. I thought last year was amazing, but I seriously think this year could top even last year. Here are some of the movies I am super stoked about:

-Indiana Jones IV! How can you not be excited for this? I mean seriously. Spielberg, Lucas and Harrison Ford all working on the same picture? This can't go wrong. I read that they went through about 22 different scripts before they decided on the one that they wanted to use. And Cate Blanchett and Shia Labeouf joining the cast? I am there opening night!

-The Dark Knight If I saw nothing but Indiana Jones and this movie all summer, I would be okay with that. The cast for this movie is absolutely incredible. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and of course, Heath Ledger. Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite Directors working today which gets me even more excited for this. I thought Batman Begins was amazing, and was so much more than a "comic book movie". I think this one will be even better, and would not be surprised if Heath Ledger got an oscar nod for his performance. Seriously, I think people are going to be blown away by it. I think I'll have to see this one on DVD unfortunately, but that's okay, since I'll be in AFRICA when it comes out!

-WALL-E With the exception of "Cars", Pixar really doesn't fail. This looks like another strong hit from Pixar. Is there any studio out there that pumps out great movies on a more consistent basis? Finding Nemo, Monster's Inc, and Ratatouille especially were all amazing movies. I think Wall-E is going to continue the trend.

-Tropic Thunder This is probably the only one on this list you haven't heard of. Ben Stiller Directing and starring might make some people groan, but please, watch the trailer first before you bash it. It also has Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. playing a white guy who gets an operation to become a black guy! This movies looks downright hilarious and I think will be the funniest Stiller movie since Zoolander. This comes out at the end of the summer, and I'm betting it's really going to surprise a lot of people. Apparently, Stiller has been working on this movie for about 10 years, on and off, so he's put a lot of time into the script.

-Prince Caspian- Any story that C.S. Lewis writes turns to gold instantly in my mind. I think the first Narnia movie was actually very well done and told the story extremely well. I'm really looking forward as to how they are going to tackle the sequel and some of the remaining movies in the series. This is an epic saga and has some of the best symbolism out of all the "fantasy" movies being made today.

Other movies I'm excited about:

-Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark? Looks legit to me.)
-Get Smart (Steve Carell in a spy-action-comedy? I'm in!)
-The Incredible Hulk (Edward Norton is going to make this franchise so legit it's not even funny. And Liv Tyler is one of the most beautiful and talented actresses out there. I think she's underrated and needs to start doing more serious roles. Watch "Reign Over Me" for a good performance by her, Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle.)
-Speed Racer- Now, I'm not super excited about this, but the main reason I'll go see it is because of the Director's: The Wachowski Brothers. These guys created my favorite movie of all time, The Matrix, so I will now forever watch whatever films they create. And so far, I don't think they have messed up too bad.

Some films I have watched recently that I thoroughly enjoyed:

When I was in Dublin, I saw In Bruges with Colin Farrell, Brandon Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes. I had heard that this movie was suprisngly good, but I had my doubts, going in. I mean Colin Farrell? Really? But, I have to hand it to him, he actually was pretty good in this little dramatic comedy. Check this movie out, it's well written and kind of goes along the same theme as "Snatch" although not British and not as crazy. Made me think, made me laugh.

Yesterday I watched Gone Baby Gone Directed by Jannifer Garner's Husband and starring Casey Affleck, Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris. I wanted to see this movie for a few reasons. One, I wanted to see Jennifer Garner's Husband (I refuse to acknowledge him as "Ben Affleck" solely because he stole Jennifer from me, but that's a whole 'nother story) direct his first movie. Also, the cast was pretty strong and I had heard great things about the film. This is a great movie, with a great script. This is one of those "thinker" films that you probably are going to need to go back and watch again so you can catch everything.

Other than that, all I've seen are some of the new Scrubs episodes (pretty good) and the new Lost episode (one of the best of the season).

Sports:

Since I don't follow baseball, this is usually a pretty lame part of the year for me, except for...THE NBA PLAYOFFS! Which somehow, I seem to miss a huge chunk of every year. From what I've seen online, this was one of the most anticipated playoffs in the last 15 years. I was happy to see the Maverick's get knocked out, but sad to see the Sun's go. I really want Steve Nash (my favorite NBA player) to get a ring before he retires, be it doesn't look like its going to happen. I'm not happy to see the Lakers doing so well, but you have to hand it to Kobe and the whole franchise, they know how to keep the team good. I think a Lakers/Celtics Finals would be epic, just like the old days of Bird and Magic battling it out. Of course the Spurs are still around in the playoffs, and I think it would be amazing to watch the Lakers and Spurs in a series, which looks like it is going to happen. That's really all my thoughts on the playoffs so far, and I think I'm goin to root for the Celtics, just because I think KG, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce all need a ring. They play their butts off everynight and have been for years, its really their time to win. If only they didn't have an incompetent coach in Doc Rivers. But hey, he can't be that bad if they won 66 games in the regular season...

News:

The only thing I'm really following in the News right now is the election coverage. How about these primaries eh? Things are just getting a little ridiculous. I just want Hilary out of this race. It's terrible. She would have been gone if she had beat Obama by anything less than 10 points. What did she beat him by? 10 points exactly! It's like this is scripted! I mean this is good writing! So now the battle continues. My roommate Jared had an idea that I'm sure many people have thought of, but I thought was pretty smart: Why doesn't Obama run independent? (Obviously only if he doesn't get the Democratic nomination.) He's perfect for it! A black man who is talking about change? Who better to run on the independent ticket! You want good "writing"? Ron Paul should run with Obama on the independent ticket and they would come back to beat McCain and Clinton in the general election this fall! That would be incredible! The thing that really makes me angry is that this whole thing might come down the Super Delegates. Basically, the way the system is set up, the popular vote really doesn't matter that much. It's like the deomcratic people humors the people of the U.S. by letting them vote, then at the end, they say "Okay we'll take your guys' vote's into consideration, but in the end, our "super" votes have more of a say and we'll be choosing the candidate that is more "electable!" What kind of corrupt crap is that? This system is terrible! We already had one candidate (Al Gore) get the most amount of popular votes and lose an election! If this happens again with Obama (who would easily destroy McCain in the general election in my opinion) there should be riots in the streets. Just my two cents. Go Obama. Yes We Can!

Okay, down off of my soap box.

Onto another completely differnet subject. I discovered a project that Zach Braff is starting up with artist Jay Clifford. Just watch the video:

Zach Braff Making the Video


I would really love to do this with people when I get back if anyone is interested. Let me know. I think this sounds really fun and is a really cool idea for a music video. If you don't know who this guy is, check him out and his band Jump! Little Children, who are quite good, by the way.

I can't believe I've written this much and still haven't talked about Ireland or The Netherlands. I really ramble don't I? Oh well. I'll save that blog for later, or else this play would be about 26 pages long.

I come home in 16 days! So crazy to think about home. The first thing I want to do when I arrive on May 16th at about 8:30pm? I'm going to straight to In-n-out. It needs to be done. Until then, I have a surprise-birthday-toga-party to attend tomorrow (could that be more "college"?), a Prague film to finish with Jared, 4 more classes to attend, and a massive cleaning project of our Apartment to start. My parents, who just arrive in Europe today in Munich, will be in Prague on tuesday, and I plan on going out to eat with them every day while they are here. I'm tired of eating all my meals off of my George Foreman grill!

Okay, this has been suuuuper long, but I need to get out and go enjoy Prague! Actually, for those of you who know him, I'm about to go and have dinner with Charlie Hunt! How crazy is that?

On the flip side...