I saw Planet of the Apes yesterday and just wanted to say that like Artificial Intelligence, the movie was good up until the ending...which sucked. Is it just me or this is really the first summer where I've seen movies that really sucked big time (Tomb Raider) or ended on a sucky note (see films above)? Oh well. It's next summer that I should be worried about--since next May is when I might see myself running in fear from the Green Goblin in the new Spider-Man movie...and Samuel L. Jackson's Mace Windu will be doing some major slicing-n-dicing with his lightsaber in Star Wars: Episode 2. That, and the next Matrix film comes out. Did I mention that Apes' actress Estella Warren is pretty hot, though? Also, one of my brothers saw Planet of the Apes last Saturday and said he expected the ending that the film had (he liked the film). I guess I must've been hangin' with an ignorant crowd last Friday if he liked the twist that was given to the conclusion of the Tim Burton remake. Oh well. The following was taken from an article on MSN.com:

Warning: Plot Holes is a column about narrative lapses in the movies. Today's entry gives away the twist at the end of Planet of the Apes.

A scene from Planet of the Apes
While Plot Holes usually delights in ridiculing movies that don't make sense, today it feels obliged to defend Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake. The movie's surprise ending has left some critics scratching their heads: The New York Times' Elvis Mitchell called the finale a "puzzler"; Slate's David Edelstein said it doesn't "make a lick of sense" and asked, "Has Burton lost his wits?"

"He hasn't—or at least, his Apes ending doesn't prove that he has. Yes, the shocker is wildly implausible, but it does hang together with a loopy sort of logic.

Here's the bit that's causing confusion (seriously, if you don't want to know the ending, please stop reading now). After a climactic battle on the apes' planet, astronaut Leo Davidson takes off in a spaceship and flies into an electromagnetic storm, with hopes of returning to Earth in the 21st century. While he's in the storm we see his chronometer spinning backward, and he does eventually crash-land on Earth—in Washington, D.C.'s Reflecting Pool, as a matter of fact. Only now, the Earth is ruled by apes too! In place of the Lincoln Memorial, there's a monument dedicated to Davidson's ape nemesis, Gen. Thade, for "saving the Earth for all apekind" or some such.

But Davidson has just traveled across the universe and time-warped centuries into the past. … So, how can Thade have already conquered Earth for the apes when he hasn't even been born on the ape planet yet?

Answer: Before Davidson leaves the ape planet, there's a quick shot of Limbo, the orangutan slave trader, rummaging through his spaceship and slyly pocketing something. Evidently whatever he pockets contains the secret to space travel. (Maybe it's a manual: "Space Travel So Easy, a Chimp Could Do It.") Thade, who's pointedly left alive at the end of the climactic battle, must have built a ship, flown into the time-warping electromagnetic storm, and landed on Earth at some point before Davidson returned. Then he led Earth's apes in a rebellion against humans, took over the Earth, and had the monument built for him.

Of course, back on their home planet, the apes don't even have simple motors yet. So, whatever Limbo takes from the spaceship allows them to, in Thade's lifetime, master physics, build computers, design spacesuits, test spacecraft, and send the general into space while he's still young enough to conquer the Earth. Remember, we didn't say it was plausible …"

-By Josh Daniel

I haven't written about the Lakers in a while. Anyways... A few days ago, Los Angeles got 3 new players and lost 3 to other teams. Tyronn Lue (or "Asian boy" as one of my friends call him) went to the (soon-to-be Michael Jordan-led?) Washington Wizards, while Horace Grant is joining fellow NBA fossil Patrick Ewing in the Orlando Magic. Rarely-used Greg Foster is now playing with the Milwaukee Bucks. Derek Fisher won't be back from his foot surgery till probably November or January, so he has newly-acquired Mitch Richmond and Lindsey Hunter to take his spot. Ex-Spur Samaki Walker may start as power forward next season, depending on how Zen-master Phil Jackson fills about this 1996 draft pick. In other parts of the NBA, Chris Webber is staying with the nut-SACramento Kings while the Philadelphia 76ers are basically intact from last season except for ex-owner / now-team consultant Pat Croce.

Anyways, that's it for now. I'll write more about the NBA when I feel like it. Back to Denise and how much my first clubbing experience was a debacle...err, sort of.

On Saturday, I went clubbin' with a couple of my friends at the KIIS Palace in Hollywood, and needless to say...unless you're a risk-taker, you need someone you're steady with to enjoy the experience. In other words, for a girl...get a boyfriend to get freaky with before she hangs at a club. For a guy...get a girlfriend to freak before he hangs at a club. 'Nuff said. By the way, I say "needless to say" and "by the way" a lot, don't I? Did I mention clubbin' sucks?

By the way, yesterday I saw Jurassic Park 3...and needless to say--I hate Tea Leoni's character. The Spider-Man trailer was dope though; although I already saw it on Entertainment Tonight a week ago. Velociraptors are cool.

My prediction came true. Just 3 days after I called her up...Denise decided to end the e-mailing thing. I'm not surprised--although checking my Hotmail account will once again be a boring routine of my Web-surfing ways. If Denise decides to check my site one more time and read if I wrote one more thing about her--here's an advice: NEXT TIME mention your f-ckin' boyfriend out of the blue so you won't give another guy the f-ckin' impression that he could get with you. I'm also this close to saying something truly mean about her--but I won't.


UPDATE: Apparently, she doesn't go to my website that often. Today is Friday, July 20...and I actually got an e-mail by Denise. Of course, she failed to bring up that phone call on Monday in her e-mail--and pretended everything is fine and handy-dandy between us. Oh well. I'll just go along with the phoniness--since I'm the one here with something to lose since she's already been with her boyfriend (a.k.a. fill in __________ with a derogatory name) for almost a year already. Of course, if she says anything mean, I'll probably go all out and finally put an end to this so-called acquaintance /faux-friendship / whatever.

UPDATE #2: Did I mention that she probably lied to me about a friend being at her house when I called?

UPDATE #3: Come to think of it...I'm gonna feel really bad if Denise does read these entries and e-mails me that she never wants to talk to me again (and actually says a lot of mean things). I'm taking an awful risk, Vader. This had better work! Oops sorry, I was quoting Grand Moff Tarkin from the original Star Wars.


UPDATE #4 Did I also mention that Denise ain't her real name?

FINAL UPDATE NOW, the only reason why I'm saying a lot of angry things about her is cuz I really like(d) her...otherwise, I could care less about her dissing me by not returning my phone call.

Well, nothing beats summing up the courage to call a girl that I like on the phone...only to realize I can't have an actual conversation with her. Yesterday, after two friends of mine (see the previous journal entry) convinced me that trying to call this girl up (what's her name? As usual, I'm talking about "Denise") was a prudent thing to do--since there was not one minute since last Fall that I couldn't stop thinking about her--I decided to find the piece of paper that had her cell phone number on it and dialed it up. So what happened?? Denise said she was in a dressing room trying on clothes at the time she picked up the phone. Already right there I'm tormented by the thought that I called up her when she might be, how should I say...wearing nothing but a bra or thong or possibly butt nekkid?? But that's beside the point. The first thing she said that showed I have no chance whatsoever of getting with her (despite her already having a bastard, er boyfriend...and me sounding like a horny ass just a few seconds ago) was her saying she knew "lots of Richards." Basing reference to a quote from Ben Affleck in Chasing Amy...there's an issue of "inadequacy" involved here:

"Hello?"
"'Denise?' Hi, this is Richard."
"Richard?..."
"Uh, Richard Par?"
"Oh hi! I know lots of Richards..."
And after that she mentioned the dressing room part. Lots of Richards, huh? Not only does that make me feel that I'm even less significant in her life that I think I already am...but it shows that I'll never, ever get with her cuz of the fact there are already SO MANY guys in her life. So how did the rest of the conversation go? Well, she told me to call back in an hour or so cuz she'd be done by then and already be home--so I did wait an hour. The time was 7:56 when I first called, and I'd have to wait till 9 to try a second time. Great memory, eh?

It was 9:00 when I finally picked up the cordless phone again to call her up. My heart was, uh, still beating fast but I didn't feel like I was hyperventilating like the first time (I CANNOT believe I'm actually mentioning this!!). Anyways, I called Denise up, and she said she was already home--but that a friend was with her. A stinkin' friend! So after less than a minute of meaningless chatter, Denise asked me for my phone number so she'd call me up after her friend left. Denise never called. So NOT ONLY are the e-mails between me and her going the way of the Dodo...but she now gave me a reason to finally get her out of my mind. YEA, THAT'S GONNA HAPPEN ANYTIME SOON! I called up the two friends from Sunday's hoop session for advice. The first friend was a REALIST and told me don't waste my time with Denise if she's not gonna call. The second friend is an OPTIMIST and told me to wait a couple of days and call her up again...or possibly to e-mail her. WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO?

Truthfully, I don't know what to do. Half an hour ago, I checked my Hotmail account thinking she might e-mail me and apologize for not returning my call. I only got a pair of e-mails by two of my high school friends...and a batch of junk mail. Looks like Denise either thinks I might not reply anyway since she didn't call me back--or she's been scared off by me calling her up and realizing the implications of what I was trying to do. Oh well. School starts in a little more than a month...and let's see if another girl will take my mind off of Denise. POSSIBLY NOT...since I was hoping that'd it happen in the Spring semester but only realizing I'd spent my whole day at school looking around campus and seeing if I'd run into her. I did run into her...in March--sh*tty ass encounter--and in May, where we resumed what will inevitably become a temporary bout of e-mailing. Anyways, this journal entry is WAY TOO LONG. I'll write more when I feel like it. All right then, later!!

Out like Denise.

On Sunday, a friend and I went to Long Beach State to watch the Summer Pro League games at the Pyramid. The first game that we saw was between Magic Johnson's All-Stars and Gracedale. MJAS sucked big time (and from this statement you can assume that they lost the game)!! The next game were the Lakers against the Houston Rockets. The Lakers' Mike Penberthy, Slava Medvendenko and Devean George played well at the beginning of the game...and at one point the Lakers were ahead, 21-9 against the Rockets. Of course, inevitably, Lakers lost. The next game was between the Sacramento Kings and the Los Angeles Clippers. At the Pyramid, we saw Laker legend Jerry West watching the games, and Terrell Owens of the San Francisco 49ers was also at the games.

After we left Long Beach, my friend and I played hoops with another homeboy of mine at the basketball court in my house's front yard. We then went to my friend's house (the one we met up with after returning from Long Beach to play b-ball) to watch the film Chasing Amy...which was pretty good considering I could relate to it (NOT the gay/lesbian part...but the friendship/relationships part ). I'll mention this in my next journal entry.

Yesterday, one of my friends and I watched Kiss of the Dragon. The movie was dope... Just like Bruce Lee, Jet Li beat the crap out of a dozen-plus inept karate students in one of the last fight scenes of the film, and made a guy bite the dust just by sticking an acupuncture (?) needle in the back of his neck! I wish I knew how to use another person's pressure points to my lethal advantage!! J/k. The next film I wanna see is Jurassic Park 3...which comes out next week.

First of all, I hate Netscape Navigator!!! This is the sh*ttiest Internet browser ever invented. I was writing a post about me watching Scary Movie 2 last week when I was trying to scroll down the text box to get to the last sentence of my post. The text box wouldn't scroll down, so I tried to move that gray bar separating the text box with the black bar that has the link to view the Blog webpage and the date I last published a post. So what happened? I move the gray bar, and all of a sudden what I wrote in the text box disappeared!! There was no way to bring back what I wrote. Damn, I'm ticked... Stupid Netscape. Oh well... I would use Internet Explorer instead of Crapscape Navigator, but I'm in the main library in Cal Poly, Pomona right now (the comp back at my house is broken) and they don't have I.E. on their computers!!!


Anyways, let's get to what I originally was gonna write. I saw Fast and the Furious and Scary Movie 2 for free last week...just like my second viewing of Pearl Harbor two months ago...'cause my friend who works at the local AMC theater was able to hook me up with free guest passes. I already talked about Fast in my last post. Scary (too lazy to type out the entire title) was expectedly lame, stupid, gross, perverted and funny. It is the type of movie that you'd enjoy just as long as you don't dish out $5 for it (which I didn't do). The next and last film I'll probably see for free is Jurassic Park 3...which comes out in a few weeks. After that my friend is quitting AMC (or so he said) and is gonna take a trip to New York next month. Looks like I'll have to pay my own ticket for the upcoming American Pie 2--but that film should be worth it. Tara Reid and Shannon Elizabeth are in it, for cryin' out loud!


One more thing: the keyboard I'm using right now is also pissing me off! Stupid unresponsive buttons...

Yesterday, I saw Artificial Intelligence and today Fast and the Furious at the theater. Ironically, A.I. had a piece of crap ending whereas Fast and the Furious was actually a pretty interesting movie...if you like the import car scene (which I do--but only for the lovely Francine Dee, Jasmin Alejandrino and Kyleah Belle...among other chicks =0). About A.I., it should have ended 30 minutes earlier than it did. The way Haley Joel Osment reached his goal at the end was kinda B.S. Oh well. Don't get me wrong though, A.I. was a good film--but it was the ending that to me was the serious flaw. Blame it on Steven Spielberg's sentimental approach to filmmaking.

Hope all of you have a happy Fourth of July this Wednesday!! I would write this exactly on Independence Day, but I dunno if Cal Poly (in Pomona) will be opened...since the computer at my house is broken right now. Oh well. Anyways, I heard that the film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is pretty good...so I wanna see that flick. Robert Ebert gave Fast and the Furious thumbs up--so I might see that piece of crap also. Anywho, that's it for now (I'm tired of writing anyways ). Later!!