Some favourites to share:

Around when I mentioned The First $20 Million a while back, I thought I'd take some time to think about some favourites I have in the filmographic world. I finally got around to finishing that.
Maybe we have similar taste. Or maybe you just need something to watch and figure my suggestions are as good as any. In any case, here's a list, in no particular order:

Matilda

Based on a Roald Dhal young adult novel, this is the story of Matilda, a telekinetic 6 1/2 year old whose life kinda sucks. How it sucks and what makes it better is, of course, your choice to pursue.

The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest

A young man quits his job as he finds it unfulfilling and goes to school at MIT hoping to make the world better or some such thing. The "coach" of the robotics team doesn't like him, so saddles him with the trashcan project of the PC $99. The young man and a trio of other.... less than desirable guys tries to make this happen, and save it in turn.

What Dreams May Come

A Robin Williams film. The man loses his children, and then dies. As he tries to navigate heaven he learns some unpleasant things about his wife's fate, and tries to rescue her. This film is visually stunning, and makes you want to believe in an afterlife.

Memento

A questionable choice, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is one of the only films I've seen that pulled off the backwards narration thing. A piecemeal film to say the least.

The main guy has amnesia that resets as soon as he is distracted from a thought. He is trying to figure things out and find the murderer of his late wife.

My Neighbor Totoro

An animated movie from Japan, written by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, pretty much every anime movie that became popular over here). A father moves with his two girls to the country side, I think to spare them some of the grief of their mother being ill (cancer?) and probably for cost. The girls meet some forest spirits (Totoro) and have fun with them while exploring the area around their house and school.

Silence of the Lambs

Anthony Hopkins is in this, which immediately makes it watchable for me.

Serial killers, FBI agents, psycho thriller. Yup, my kind of movie.

Surveillance

FBI agents, serial killers, psycho thriller. Did I mention this is my kind of movie? Some FBI agents were called in to help with a brutal murder that happened in the country side. No one is telling the truth, and the murderers are pretty twisted. (But in the way I can relate to, if that doesn't scare you) It also helps that I guessed the killers in the first ten minutes, which made it surprisingly more enjoyable.

Avatar

You've probably seen this, or at least heard of it a half-dozen times.

An alien world is being mined to the degeneration of the locals, big fight, romance blahblahblah.

I wnet into this movie thinking the story would suck, but it would be visually amazing, and maybe I'd hear a bit of professional conlanging.

I was pleasantly surprised, not disappointed and thoroughly disappointed respectively.

An okay story, very good visuals, but not enough dealing with the conworld/lang.

Minority Report

Future-y sci-fi-y. The police figured out a way to catch criminals before they commit a crime (which seems great for emotional attacks like the first one shown. Can you imagine living with that sort of guilt?) Tom Cruise then has to prove his future-innocence.

Lucky Number Slevin

Very neat with lots of twists and retribution. Good if you like figuring out who did what when.

Set in sorta present (kinda past) maybe '99-2000? With some set in the '70s. Some dude is trying to live his life, borrowing his friend's apartment, when he gets caught in a gang war. Then things just get loopy.

Shutter Island

Another one with lots of twists. Some police officer is on a creepy island that houses an asylum for the criminally insane, back in the '50s. He slowly works out more and more odd things about the hospital, conspiracies and plots. His life might be in danger.

The SAW series

It is gory, yeah. But it is less of a horror movie than some. Some guy is trying to mete out justice in the most violent ways possible. But the why and the who keep changing. So lots of twists there too. Eight movies that got compressed into seven (including SAW 3D). Everything is very well planned out, obviously from the beginning. the last few seem a bit rushed.

Rango

Bit different tone here =P

Animated.

This lizard (chameleon, Johnny Depp) finds himself suddenly in the middle of desertville, nowhere. As he finds a place to stay, he also finds trouble and plots and hilarity. It is a kid's movie after all.

Surprisingly enjoyable.

Sucker Punch

The most recent thing I've seen in theaters. About a girl pressed into an asylum by her abusive father, who presses for a lobotomy to keep her quiet.

Lots of good music, though the movie itself is a bit ridiculous. Has a very good ending though.

The Queen's Experience

So as some/all/many/none of you know, I work at Queen's University through the summer. It is the first real job I've had. This summer, as well as last summer.

As you may also know, I am not a student there.
So what I see from work is the view I get of this university.

Which would be great if everything ran smoothly. Of course, it doesn't. But it's not my place to talk badly of my employers, so I leave that there.

No, what I wanted to say is about what I've seen there, and some of the things I've learned from working there.

So, here is a taste of what I call my "Queen's Experience":

1. Humans are packrats. I should know this through personal experience, but somehow coming into the room of someone who is staying for a weekend and seeing the sheer amount of stuff they bring, really drives it home.
2. Humans are vain. Similar to above, how many body washes/soaps/cleansers/deodorants does a person need? I'd say about one of each, not six.
3. People value odd things. They story of a person who called front desk because they had lost 13 cents and thought housekeeping had taken it makes this point for me.
4. People have a hard time recognizing value. Much like above. The number of times things get thrown out as they look like junk, then are called for by students who left and forgot is amazing.
5. People are forgetful when they are in a hurry. Ties once again with above. It seems to me that if you are an international student and you are taking a plane back home in 3 1/2 hours and need to get to Ottawa for that time, the first thing you would check is that you have your passport, ID, health card, and wallet and that they aren't in a drawer or under your mattress.
6. Students are scary. Find one bullet under a bed and it strikes fear in you, lemme tell ya.
7. Students are stupid. Why, why, why is there a traffic sign in the drop ceiling? With 40 pounds of concrete attached?
8. People think they are important. Is it really necessary to sign your name, year and course indelibly into the drawers?
9. Students are crazy. The "hat trick of hat tricks" (three weekends of drinking until blackout each day) is not something you need to write in your desk drawer. Worse is the guy who says he did it every night.
10. Students are awesome. The number of closets with instructions to Narnia...
11. Always ask directions from two different people. What is a simple "down this street, to the left" from one person is "First you take the east doors to, do you know where the east doors are?, okay, take the east doors, wait is it the south door?, well you take the doors and you'll see a statue of a monkey, though it could be a lion, I'm never quite sure... there's a statue, anyway, and..." from another. Learn these people. Avoid.
12. Colour coding is your friend. If one door is Pink, you'll always know where you are. Except when the other three are near-identical shades of blue.
13. Proper signage is a good choice. "A-wing is left. No, right, no, uhm... Directly across?"
14. Elevators will break. I hope you weren't planning on getting work done today, because eleven floors is a lot to climb with a mop and pail.
15. Even signage will fail in the view of stupidity. What is so hard to read about "Shower out of order, please use next shower" written in 2 inch letters? Especially when the only thing in that room is a shower?
16. Transportation is a beautiful thing. Three people, three jobs and one car is not.
17. People are mean. It is hard to know what will tick someone off, and it doesn't help when they over-react.
18. People are kind. Sometimes you'll find a person who will just make your day over and over and over. Cherish them.
19. Being the favourite sucks. Watching people getting put down and and told to do the worst jobs while you are favourited makes you feel squicky.
20. Not being the favourite sucks more. Being put down and getting the worst jobs isn't fun.
21. Getting demoted from favourite to not is the worst. People remember when you held that high seat, and aren't always forgiving.
22. Scheduling's a bitch. 9-1, Monday to Friday is nice, 9-1, 8-4, 9-4, 10-2, 9-1 is not. Not even counting weekend work.
23. Sometimes life is just a calamity of errors. "I won't be in as I am: sick, stressed, rescheduled without prior knowledge, helping with construction, the heat/humidity is too bad, sick, car was being fixed, parents were sick, other people need to work, no way to get home..."
24. Five day weekends aren't that great. I'd rather a two-day weekend where I actually did anything, to a five-day one where I sleep.

So, yes. These are things working at Queen's has taught me. There are other things, I am sure, but this list is long enough, ne?

Here's a question for those of you who have/have had jobs:

What's the most important thing you've learned from them?

Housekeeping!

No, I'm not referring to my job, I'm referring to a scary thing called web presence. Specifically, mine.

For a while there if you searched my name on the Googles, I was result number one. Numero uno. Now I'm back to number two, alas.

Now, I'm not sure if I want to be number one, it feels like a lot of responsibility. But what I do want is for my internet self to be well organized.

I'm a member of a lot of sites on the internets, and recently I've been trying to pull them all together into an interconnected web of stuff.

So I thought I'd make a running list. If you can think of a place you've seen me, or want to see me, comment and I'll add it to the list!

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Blogger
• Google
• Ravelry
• Flickr
• Tumblr
• StumbleUpon
• Youtube
• DeviantArt
• ConceptArt
• Kongregate
• Gaia Online
• Goodreads
• VisualizeUs
• We Heart It (Eclipsed by VisulizeUs)
• Pintrest
• Imageshack
• Etsy
• eBay
• Formspring

Those are the main ones that come to mind, but there are literally hundreds of them. Those that I can connect to my Google or Facebook accounts, I do, however.

I'm not sure just how to bring all these thing together, I'm not even sure it is possible.

But you can expect to see some links in the sidebar ---> in the future, giving you access to some of these places. I'm nothing if not a transparent web persona.

So enjoy. And remember, take a look for ekobor on your site of preference, if there is one, say hi. Chances are to betting that it's me, and I'd love to hear from you!

Booklist

So Esquire (You know, that men's magazine?) made a list of books that all men should read.

Some of them are very good books, others just seem like an interesting change of pace.

Call of the wild by Jack London,

Invisible man by Ralph Ellison,

Deliverance by James Dickey,

Even the Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) made it on there. (Sure, it's listed as being 'all about the titty', but it's still there)

Take a look, how many have you read?

Esquire's "The 75 Books Every Man Should Read"