4Most Video - A Retrospect
Doesn’t anybody remember 4Most Video?
They kinda faded out of existence. I forgot they used to be there, on the corner of Green Lane and Ontario St, until I passed by one day. The sign’s still up. It’s just barren inside. The lights seem to operate on their own, as they’re on at night, but off during the day. There are the usual movie posters at the back, but they’re past outdated.
How did it end up like this? I recall my childhood revolving around 4Most. I can remember, after I got my Gamecube, going there everyday, forking out $5 for a one-day game rental. After a while, they lowered the price and increased how many days, so it was something like $3 for 5 days. I knew the owner, Wes. I knew the other workers, but I forget their names at the moment. Or was there only one? I don’t know.
They wouldn’t mind me staying upstairs, browsing through the games as I found one to try. I was their loyal customer. At their bi-annual sale, I’d line up in front of the store 3 hours early, just to get my hands on some decent games for $5. The first time I did this, it made no difference as I entered from the wrong door, making me last inside. It was also the winter sale, so I had near-frostbite by the time I got home.
Their bi-annual sales were probably the best part, though. In Beamsville, we have no game stores, so really, the only way we can get any games was to drive out to St. Catherines (15km away), or wait for the next sale. We usually swapped games amongst ourselves as well, to keep the experience fresh.
Yep, back in elementary school, life was about games. No girls, no class rank, no popularity index due to clothing. It was just about the video games, and how good you were. But that’s where 4Most came in, y’see! They enabled you to play as many games as you want, as long as you had the money! They were very considerate as well, as in more than one occasion I reserved a game for two days just by phoning in for it.
A few years ago, a Movie Gallery opened up just behind 4Most. As a young, loyal customer, Movie Gallery seemed like a threat. I offered to “spy” on the inventory of the store. Wes declined, though. It seemed like both 4Most and Movie Gallery got equal business.
At some point, within the last year, 4Most closed. They had their last, huge sale, that I failed to attend. I don’t even remember why anymore.
I miss it. I miss the days of gaming. I miss 4Most Video. If I knew myself now, going to Movie Gallery to get some DVDs, I don’t know what I’d do with myself. Finally condemned to the enemy’s store.
This is where we are today. I don’t own any new consoles.
Semester One - 50% Complete
Well, things have changed since ninth grade.
At this time last year, I was still wearing the same glasses constantly. I wore the “jock” sweatshirt, too. And in a few weeks, I would have my first infatuation. My life was all set to go downhill from, well, an already declining graph.
Allow me to draw that graph.
As you can see, by January I was chronically depressed. As time went on, I patched things up with Cathy. I don’t know how. Tensions just…ended. By summer school I could actually make eye contact. Weird, right?
Anyway, by last month I had a random idea to go out for pizza with a few friends. I pitched it to Rob first at lunch. He said not to invite Emily, and that he would be interested in going. I asked him who else we could invite. I forget why Chris wasn’t an option, but it’s likely he was sick or etc.
Anyway, the only people we came up with were Cathy and Christy. We called them later, and Rob ended up not being able to go. Instead, I went with them around the block walking their dogs. We visited Rob on the way.
Over the next week, I’d keep going over to their house and just talking for a while. By Thursday, Christy and their mom went to a photography class, so I ended up going over just to watch CSI with Cathy.
After that, it seemed Cathy and I went on walks constantly for a long, long time.
My memory sucks, so I forget what most of it was about. We once biked to Nadherneyville, and we once went out walking just to get extremely soaked. An aftereffect of this was that I started wearing my dad’s leather coat instead (prior to this, I was wearing a green greatcoat).
Lately, plans have become more prevalent with both of us, and the weather sucks in general, so it’s been a little while since the last walk. But the main point is that she has become more open to me, and this itself has an aftereffect.
What I knew getting over her, was that I was good unless she started showing positivity. And, well, that’s happening now. I don’t know if I want to get infatuated with her again; she doesn’t really like affection (she says that she’s afraid of awkward conversations and the rumours so she finds it easier to hide instead of talking to the person).
Meanwhile, Mary-Therese has missed school constantly for the past month or so. She says she’s basically given up on this semester (meaning she’ll graduate a year after everyone else if she reclaims all her credits). She’s supposed to see a specialist sometime this month, so we’ll see if she really is sick or not.
And finally, I’m reading the Indiana Jones trilogy novels. They’re a little weird; I doubt the movies were this slow-paced.
Weekiversary!
A week ago from today, I turned 15. People everywhere hugged and forgave each other for trespassing against each other. Use of the phrase “each other” was decreased. All was well.
In all seriousness, this year gave me a lot of stuff. $260 in cold cash, $40 in gift cards, and $3 in lottery tickets, not to mention an iPhone (worth $300) and a bike ($70). I spent the money on four albums, a bass guitar, and a patch cord. I still have around $70 lying around for use, but I don’t know just what I want to do with it yet. Part of me wants the rest of the Harry Potter series, while another part wants to put it away to gain interest over time until I find something awesome to purchase.
Getting to the point, today was maddening. I didn’t get that much sleep, to start the day off terribly. The coffee I drank to wake myself up reacted with my stomach in terrible, terrible ways.
In Math, we figured out equations for medians and altitudes of two vertices of a triangle. Each question for homework took about five minutes to do, but luckily we only had four questions. Tomorrow’s a quiz for the class, but the only formula I haven’t already memorized is luckily the most essential one. Length of a line segment.
Italian wasn’t that bad.
Science wasn’t that bad, either. We had a work period. Unfortunately, the test for the unit (Biology) is Friday, and I only know about 40-70% of the things for the unit completely. A lot of it is basic, common sense, but it’s still a test. I care about my overall average this year. I need that honour roll.
For lunch, Cyberquest kids took our lunch table, so we ended up sitting beside the music kids’ table in the top left of the cafeteria. I went to the Mac lab almost immediately after and created a website mockup for…well…the school website.
Afterwards, I visited the teacher that’s working with me on the new design.
Let me prep you on the site design before I go any further. The administration’s only requirement is that we need a “scrolling menu” for this website. I don’t know why. It seems like a gimmicky requirement, when we could tile out all the options and save a few hours of time. Furthermore, we need to use a frameset for the website for reasons I don’t really know, so our scrolling menu needs a really large frame to show all the scrolliness of it. I believe that this defeats the purpose of having a scrolling menu (providing a large amount of content that is easily accessible while not obscuring necessary space).
Anyhow, I presented the mockup design to him and he asked me how we would do this, and said while it looks nice, it doesn’t work (which I guess isn’t the point of a mockup). We continued pitching ideas back and forth for about a half hour (cutting into fifth period by quite a chunk) until he assigned me to create a banner and background colour ASAP. I’ve done that already.
Music! Well, I came in late but nobody seemed to care. We were watching Marsalis on Music, featuring Wynton Marsalis as a guy explaining different classical/jazz music forms to children from the 80s. I found the entire presentation really, really funny since his methods of explaining things involved a lot of similes. He compared the Sonata form to “purchasing a hamster, then having it escape the cage, running all over, until you caught him, down here*” (*he points to the bottom of a staircase). He compared the Blues form to “12 months in a year, 12 bars”. We had to take notes about this video, and since I’m an idiot, I wrote my notes about Blues form to be the following:
It’s like a giant ruler. There are 12 months in a year, so there are 12 bars. Y’see, kids, it’s like popsicles.
If Ms. Mac actually marks these notes, then I’d probably get it wrong or completely right, depending on her sense of humour. Probably the latter.
I arrived home, emptied the dishwasher, waited for my mom to come home, then biked up to the library to return The God Delusion. About two blocks in the trip, my bike chain fell off, so I put it back on, blackening most of my fingers. I shrugged it off.
The handlebars kept tilting to the left (even halfway through it slightly moved). My guess is that my tires are flat enough to make my handlebars move upon hopping onto the bike. Anyway, I returned the book. I wanted to take out the first three Harry Potter books for another runthrough, but they didn’t have the third book.
I exited the library and called up Chris. Turns out he doesn’t have them. I call up the Cahills (I’m working on seperating the two, but it’s just easier to group them together. It’s less redundant), and they have all of them, so I stop by and borrow the three books, feeling oddly nervous the entire time I was there. It was the “can’t make eye contact so I’m going to look at random things and talk about them” nervousness. I don’t know why I was nervous, aside from the possibility that I was in a corner the entire time…
I returned home and napped a little. Upon waking, I had dinner and used the computer for a little while before going to Tim Hortons with Chris.
And then I came home and practiced the bass guitar at 10pm, while everyone was sleeping. Fun stuff.
As an aside, today is one of those days that my self-esteem is at the other end of the pendulum. I feel inadequate in every possible way. I feel like my head is too big, my lips are a little bit too big, I’m fat, and even though lots of people look worse than me, it’s a different situation because it’s me, so I should feel especially ashamed. I don’t believe this. It’s forced on me, for some ungodly reason, and it seems to coincide with acne showing up. Correlation does not mean causation. It’s just a good indicator of when not to look in the mirror, I guess.
Two (Jerry the Bass Guitar!)
Today was exciting, I suppose. In Math, we started Analytic Geometry and that apparently warrants an hour and a half of homework (I really timed it).
Otherwise, my subjects were all simple today as well. To describe the picture, I was essentially alone on the bus ride home. Usually if Mary-Therese isn’t on (as in “if she’s sick”, and that’s often), Adam is on the bus. I think this is the first time that both weren’t there. But enough with this trivial factoid.
I purchased a bass guitar today. Chris’ dad said he was stopping into Burlington to browse for guitars, so he invited me to come along, as I said I was in the market for one. He drove up to my house by about 6:30pm, and from there we drove the distance, The Who blaring the entire way.
When we eventually got there, I stood in amazement. They had every guitar imaginable there, bass, acoustic and electric. They had the same alto sax I use at school (priced at $3650, yikes!), violins and trombones.
Unfortunately, the cheapest they sold a bass at the store was about $250, but Chris’ dad said they were much better quality than the no-name brand bass at the music store in Grimsby. Chris suggested the pawn shop, jokingly, but I took to it. We ended up driving just down the road to it.
The pawn shop was like the music store, except everything was second-hand and really affordable. The alto sax I saw at the other store was at the pawn shop as well, but marked as $326.
The first bass we saw was silver, lightweight, and apparently a good brand (I still forget the name). It was $149.99. Chris’ dad suggested picking it up, but first we plugged it into an amp and heard its sound. It was nice and clean. We eventually purchased it. It didn’t come with a case, but Chris’ dad basically said “What’s the best you can do?” and the clerk said he was too tired so “we can get the case for free”. That was nice.
Afterwards, we drove back to Chris’ house, I strummed some more, then brought home the guitar and borrowed Chris’ dad’s bass amp. I need to purchase a patch cord, but I can do that tomorrow.
Speaking of things to do tomorrow, I have to make a site outline for Mr. DiTomasso. I should probably stop writing now.
As an aside, I’m going to stop these daily updates. I’ve decided this blog is better off with 500+ word posts every once in a while instead of a 200 word post detailing how average the day is. I’ll still continue with the photography portion, though. Just look here.
One (It’s my birthday!)
To explain the “one” part of the title, I’ve decided to take on a self-imposed challenge. That is, I’m going to take one picture of anything everyday. That picture will represent that day. I will then write a blog entry about that picture every single day. I will continue this for a year, and hopefully my photography and my writing will improve as I march on.
To begin, this morning my sisters gave me the above (the cards). The money I got for my birthday party, and the book I’ve always had.
What I want to do this year is purchase a bass guitar. The actual guitar is $210 (best deal I’ve seen), and if I purchase an amp, a cord, a strap, and a bag with it I save 25%, so it’ll cost $342 altogether. I don’t have $342. I barely have $160. So right now, I’m going to hope I get some more money from friends (I haven’t had a “friends” birthday party yet, but it should be this Saturday. We’re going bowling!).
Why a bass guitar, you ask? A lot of the music I listen to (see Ben Folds Five) incorporate bass heavily, and it’s a lot simpler than learning the piano. It’s a personal interest.
Onwards, about today. I ended up going to mass twice (once during first period for the 10th grade mass, once during fifth period for the 11th grade mass since Ms. Mac had to go for that one as well, choir stuff, etc.). In every class but Music I was sung “Happy Birthday” to. It was nice.
Here’s hoping tomorrow’s more interesting! Enough to warrant a better picture, anyway.
iPhone
I got my birthday gift early this year.
It’s an iPhone 3G.
I really didn’t see it coming until last Friday, when UPS arrived at my door, wrote a note, then left. They didn’t even knock, but even still, the note’s comments left me intrigued.
Under the “notes” section, it read “cell phone”. My mom would’ve bragged if she upgraded, and my birthday was coming up, so I was pretty excited.
Unfortunately, the next time they would stop by would be Monday. I had two days to hype myself up for, and be disappointed by.
I had only asked for two phones in the past year: the iPhone first, and later, the MOTOROKR (since it was cheaper and cool-looking). I told my mom this when she arrived at home Friday, and she said “Well think about how much money I have”. I replied, “…none?”. She laughed. I was still confused.
Over Saturday and Sunday, I convinced myself it was an iPhone. I guess it was that my subconscious want for it was biasing my logical analysis of what my mom had said.
Monday came. School passed by slowly. Math, then Italian, then Science, Lunch and Music. The clock was ticking. That I knew. At what rate seemed to be another story.
I walked home, almost to the point of a run. I wanted to know. Did they come yet? Could I still claim that mysterious package?
They hadn’t arrived yet, it seems. “Yes!” I yelled. I performed a merry jig on my driveway.
Mary-Therese walked by at that point (she walks at least 1/3 the speed of any normal human being, as everyone else from the bus stop was halfway down the street by that time). I informed her of my good luck and she said to have fun opening it.
I went inside and watched Seinfeld. Watching Seinfeld while anticipating something is really unnerving.
It was about 40 minutes later that I saw the familiar UPS truck drive by. I approached the door before the delivery man even knocked. I signed for it, called my mom, and went upstairs to play World of Warcraft (which I haven’t in about a year).
Two hours later, my mom calls, and Adriana picks up. She walks in my room, takes the package and leaves. I don’t really care at the time, since I was told to wait until my mom was home to open it.
A minute later, Adriana tells me to pause the game. I can’t. She shows me anyway. It’s the iPhone.
Thrown off, all I could say was, “I was right! Yes!”. You’d think I’d thank them, but oh well.
So since yesterday, I’ve been playing around with it. It’s really neat, and the fact that I have a 6GB/month plan means that the Internet is never “not accessible” for me. The camera works very well (with adequate lighting, anyhow). The web browser renders pages quickly, the iPod is neat, et cetera et cetera. The only thing that turns me off is the battery life (seems to go down pretty fast), but apparently it’s getting increased in the 2.1 patch coming this Friday.
Thanks again, mom.
Continuing onto another topic. If this post seems to have a lot of one-line paragraphs, or changes from past to present tense (or vice versa) from paragraph to paragraph, I’m sorry. I’m getting the feeling that my writing’s hit the shitter again. It’s plausibly from the lack of an English class first semester.
Thursday, August 7th
I wrote this on the night of Thursday, August 7th, 2008. I was tired, and so, as you’ll notice, sometimes I switch from past to present tense and vice versa. It’s still completely readable, though. I was hesitant to post it here at first, for reasons that will become obvious as you read it.
I’m sure most people I know are familiar with the first time I ever fell in love. If not, check out here. It wasn’t very…good. I was depressed a lot of the time and it took a long time to get out of it.
So sorry if I say I’m getting déjà vu. I’m just very cautious.
Let me start at the beginning of the story I want to tell. Back when I fell for Cathy, I did most of my talking (to her or about her) with her best friend, Mary-Therese. This, essentially, was how we “met”. I mean, I knew her since fifth grade, but we never really talked.
Since then, she’s been in my music class since second semester. We played the same instrument. Therefore, we sat beside each other first thing in the morning for 5 months. It was a normal friendship, I suppose. I talked about the same stuff as I did with Chris or Rob.
About halfway through semester, something clicked in the class’ mind that made them think “Hey, they’re friends, let’s suggest they bump it up a notch!”. Yes, indeed, many a person suggested we go to the dance together or, quite simply, just go out together. We always said no at the same time. It was a mutual agreement between us.
Time went on, and eventually it started to hit summer, and it dawned on me. I wouldn’t see her until September. For some reason, I really hated the prospect. So the next time a friend of ours, Sarah, suggested something, I said “no”, like always, but just before I went to sleep, I thought about the suggestion some more, and it shocked me that I was starting to like the idea.
By now, exams were starting, and our music exam was after school. After playing, she offered to give me a ride, and quite obviously, I said “sure!”. This continued onwards for the rest of exams, this driving me home, until the last day, when they drove Karina instead. It was my suggestion. After all, Karina lived in Vineland, and they wanted to hang out before summer actually started.
I ended up telling Chris about it first. I didn’t like telling people of my love life anymore. It seemed to be the right choice, I mean, the first time I fell for someone I told everyone I knew about it, and that just screwed everything up. Plus, he had no track record of ever really revealing a serious secret.
We agreed that I wouldn’t ask her out, or make any gesture that implied wanting more than a friendship unless she gave a sign first. It seemed wise.
School was over by now, and it was two weeks until summer school began. Most of the days, me, Rob and/or Scott hung out with her, Christy and Cathy. I enjoyed the company. It gave me a reason to talk to her everyday.
One Saturday, I was about to leave towards Chris’ house to wake him up. Adriana gives me a box of chocolates, saying that’s my share. My immediate thought is “let’s stop by MT’s house”. I know, it doesn’t make sense. It would be hard to explain, etc.
I knocked on her door, and her dad answered. He asked me if the chocolates were for her. I said, “No, I just wanted to split ‘em. Want one?” He took one, said they were good, then left. 5 minutes later, she came outside and we talked. Then she invited me in. I was nervous now. It felt like I was taking a step into becoming better friends.
I went inside, yeah. Her brother came up and we talked for an hour, then played Rock Band a bit. Then they had to go somewhere and I visited Chris.
Another occasion, I stopped by with a pop from Chris’ dad’s house, asking her for her phone number, saying “I have an answer to stop Rob and I randomly visiting. If you put your number in my cell phone’s contact list, we can warn you before stopping by.” She gave me it.
Summer school began. Scott and I were placed in a different class than Rob, Christy, and Cathy. We all grouped together during break and talked about stuff. Occasionally, we would stop by MT’s house after school. Things were cool, yeah.
The only problem is that this was getting nowhere. The signs were all pointing to “eternal friendship”.
Then one night, Christy sends me a message on MSN. “do you like mt?” it inquired. I answered, “define like.” Then she said something along the lines of “want to go out with, etc.” To be frank, I said yes.
This quite possibly was my stupidest mistake. Both Cathy and Christy knew now, and they liked to invite me to events with her. It was really obvious that they were putting me into their collective plans to give me a reason to hang out with her.
During my days at summer school, I learned about careers and politics. After school, I did many small things. I bought her a Beatles poster from the mall. Every now and then I stopped by with a pop from Chris’ dad’s house. Every now and then I stopped by for no reason, just to talk. We talked on MSN constantly, since we both never really went off.
More hanging out occurred, until I read a passage in a book called Tuesdays with Morrie that inspired me. It basically said that hiding from our emotions only hurts us further, and that we should “turn on the faucet”, in a way. I thought, “You know what? Let’s just ask her out. If she says no, I’ll get over her, if she says yes, well yay.”
I told Chris and we planned a bit. It started out with me thinking of getting a dozen roses, then it shrank to one the next day when I suggested it to my mom and her saying it’s way too much. On Monday, a civic holiday, Chris and I planned to initiate the plan. We would bike to Tim Hortons, then go to a florist, pick a flower, then ask her out. He’d hang out at the park until I finished.
Monday came. I woke up at 10am, and we met at Tim Hortons by 12pm. The florist was closed. We decided to do it anyway, and we biked down to her house. I knocked and she had just gotten up. She was in her pyjamas and was dazed. We talked a bit, then I went back to the park. It just didn’t seem like the right time.
Chris and I went to my house and played some games. We ate dinner at my house, then biked to the park halfway through town. We swung, and talked. Then he had to leave, and I was alone with my thoughts. I decided that I should just do it.
I bike to her house. She answers, laptop in hand, explaining how happy she was that Cathy was back. We sit on the porch and talk a bit more. Suddenly, her internet connection drops. She opens the door to get better reception. I ask her what she’s doing tomorrow, and she says “Just a sec”. She waits for the connection to get back, but it doesn’t. She says “I want to talk to Cathy, so…goodbye!” I mutter something about missing my second chance, then bike home, frustrated.
Nobody’s home. I go to my room and listen to some music for an hour. I feel like biking again, so I bike to Chris’ house. Since we were both bored there, we decide to go biking. I ask if I could take some Jones soda for the road.
It was really dark now. It was getting close to 9pm. We bike down to her place, and he hangs out in the park again.
I knock, and give her the pop. We talk a little bit more.
“So what’s up for tomorrow?”
“I’m seeing Mamma Mia with Sara.”
“Oh. Cool, cool. Wednesday…that’s a day….right?”
“Nooooooo, that’s a place.”
“D’you feel like seeing WALL-E?”
“I’m already seeing it with my mom and brothers.”
I was thrown back a bit. Did I even just ask her out? If so, was this a rejection? It wasn’t very awkward. We were both laughing through most of the conversation. We talk a little more, then I say “I’m gonna go think for a bit…”
I meet up with Chris and we walk from there, discussing what had just occurred and what was to occur. I think that I should try to make the question more explicit, but we never reach a conclusion once his dad comes to pick him up.
The next few days, I grew bitter. I felt as if I did just get rejected. She didn’t come online at all. Was she trying to distance herself from me?
Her birthday party was that Thursday. I decided not to do anything else until then, to see how we act towards each other again.
She hung out with Cathy, Christy and Kennedy most of the time. I felt separated. I was with Chris and Rob most of the time, as well. I didn’t like the fact that I said 5 words to her between 5pm and 10pm. Were we starting to drift apart?
This is where the story ends, thus far. Today was that birthday party, and she still hasn’t been online, likely due to the sleepover they’re having. I hope you enjoy my love life, because it depresses the shit out of me.
To continue where we are today: I’m not that depressed. She really just isn’t online in general, not for any reasons towards me. She’s definitely oblivious. I’m waiting for the school year, really. Same bus, same route to walk home, but only one overlapping class, so the odds are 1/2 that we’ll share it.
Anyway, lately I’ve been working on a portfolio, y’know, to share my work. Photography, photoshop, writing, yada yada.
Politics - A Neverending Stigma
Since I completed Civics just yesterday, I’ve been thinking about politics as a possible career path. I’m still unsure. I mean, I enjoy debating, I found the terms and history of politics interesting…but there are so much stigma around it.
For example, I suggested it to some friends. Mary-Therese simply said, “Don’t go into politics” and shook her head. Scott said it’s an okay subject/career path. I ended up getting into a big debate with Chris about it. I talked about the salary, and he said that I’d basically be “a ridiculously overpaid and overprivileged loser who basically does nothing”. I talked a bit more about my other career choices, which pay a lot less. He said politicians are the “worst people in the world”, and went on about how they’re so corrupt and greedy.
I asked him if he believed everything the TV tells him. He said politicians are responsible for why the world sucks. I said the public is responsible, because they put those people in power. He continued, “because they’re fooled by false promises”.
I gave the Liberals’ “Green Shift” platform as an example. He basically claimed it was bollocks. I said that considering it’s essentially the biggest part of their platform, the public would notice and they’d be screwing themselves over for the next 20+ years.
He ended by saying he’d rip my legs off if I was corrupt about it. Aside from the threat of assault, I felt like I won this debacle.
The main point I wanted to make was the stigma around the field of politics. Most, if not all of the people I know either don’t vote or are bitter toward the subject. I also noticed that most of the MPs I see are pretty old people, which suggests that the last generation wasn’t that into politics.
When this generation is out of high school, will the trend continue? Will it get to the point where nobody votes? Will we just have no more politicians? Or will it reverse, with more voters and more politicians?
Just a thought.
The Dark Knight
Spoiler Warning!
I’m serious. I’m going to cover the entire plot. If you want to watch this movie with actual surprises(there’s a lot of them), don’t read this.
That said, wow. What a movie. I haven’t seen Batman Begins, but I feel as if I really should’ve. Although I did do a bit of reading on the Nolan series prior to watching, I didn’t really read much about the plot details in the movie.
The film begins with a bunch of thugs in clown masks robbing a bank. Things are going well, then as one thug is performing a task(I forget what the task is), another thug assisting him kills him. This continues, each thug doing a task to have the other kill them, until one remains–and it turns out that that thug is The Joker. He takes off with the money. This scene tells you right from the start that the Joker is clever, yet intimidating with his complete lack of empathy.
Later that evening, some kind of fight breaks out and at least 10 Batman copycats attempt to stop the crime. They’re idiots, y’see. Batman saves them, but figures he should lighten his suit.
This is where Dent comes in. Gordon and Batman see if they should invite Dent to help get rid of the mob, and later Bruce Wayne meets Dent, who is dating his love interest, Rachel Dawes. Yada yada, Wayne acts like an ass but Dent doesn’t notice.
The mob is planning with some Chinese guy to help hide their money. The Joker comes in, kills a guy via a pencil “magic trick”, then offers to kill Batman if they pay him. He leaves his card, then quickly takes off, as they’re all very hostile. Nobody bothers to look at the dead corpse.
Batman goes to China with Alfred, to get the Chinese guy and bring him to justice. I forget how he knows what the Chinese guy’s doing… The “reason” for going was that he was taking his current pal gal’s ballet troupe to vacation…yes, in China somehow. Anyway, through an elaborate and I must admit, clever plan (made with lots of assumptions), he takes off to Gotham City with the Chinese guy.
The mob hires the Joker. The Joker now scares the shit out of everyone in the audience and also Gotham by hanging a Batman copycat just outside the Mayor’s office (just as the mayor was looking out the window, too). He tells the town that he will continue to kill more people if Batman doesn’t reveal his true identity.
The police find DNA evidence on the card he left on the Batman copycat’s corpse. It’s from 3 people: Dent, a judge and the police commissioner. Later that evening, everyone locks them up to have them get killed anyway–Dent excluded, as Batman choked him to unconsciousness and put him into a closet to hide him from the Joker. The Judge dies from a car explosion and the police commissioner dies from a poisoned drink of whiskey.
Bruce Wayne decides he should turn himself in to stop the deaths. At the press confrence, which Dent introduces, Dent turns himself in as Batman to continue the crime-fighting.
Since The Joker was hired to kill Batman, he and his accomplices pursue the SWAT vehicle carrying Dent to his jail cell. What happens after is quite possibly the best car-chase-esque scene ever. Lots of explosions. In fact, the truck The Joker was in get flipped, complete 180, from the Batcycle (which is awesome, too!). The Joker fails to kill Dent, but almost removes Batman’s helmet, when all of a sudden Gordon puts a shotgun to The Joker’s neck (but unfortunately does not shoot).
Nobody sees that Dent doesn’t exactly go home. The Joker is locked up at the police station, while Batman roughs him up (a LOT. Near concussion-strength blows). The Joker says he knows where Rachel and Dent are, but he’ll have to pick one to save over the other. Both are in separate buildings across towns, both stuck in seats in a room full of oil drums attached to an explosive.
Batman tries to save Dent while Gordon tries to save Rachel. Dent falls over in the process, getting his face covered in oil. Rachel says “yes” to Dent’s marriage proposal, then Dent keeps screaming “WHY’D YOU SAVE ME” as Batman forcefully removes him from the building. Rachel’s last word is “something”, then the biggest explosion in the history of explosions occurs and she ‘apparently’ dies. There really isn’t a doubt.
The explosion of Dent’s building sets half his face on fire. In the hospital, he sees his lucky coin half-blackened and cries…
Anyway, The Joker plays a new trick–this guy on the TV has to die within an hour or he’ll blow up a hospital. He calls the television in the middle of a broadcast to say this. He saves Dent from the hospital, then he blows it up. Another big boom.
Dent goes around killing people responsible for Rachel’s death, using his lucky coin as a gimmick for choosing their fates. The Joker takes hold of the mob forcefully in the process.
Due to the bridges/tunnels being closed by another one of The Joker’s bomb threats and everyone trying to leave the town, the only choice is by boat. One boat has civilians, the other boat has convicts. The Joker has bombs on both, with each boat getting the detonator to the other boat. If neither boat explodes before midnight, he’ll blow them both up.
Batman subdues the Joker by midnight, and due to the convicts and civilians having actual morality neither boat explodes. The Joker almost dies, then Batman saves him and keeps him hanging above the town as The Joker tells him of what Dent’s about to do.
Dent has Gordon’s family and wants to exact how Rachel died–he wants Gordon to tell the one he loves most(his second son) that everything’s going to be alright, just before he dies. Batman pushes him off the building they’re on and Dent dies. In order to keep the image of Dent clean (and therefore keeping the streets from going into complete anarchy) they blame the murders of the people Dent killed on Batman. Gordon destroys the Bat-Signal on the police station and orders a manhunt on Batman, acknowledging that now he truly is “The Dark Knight”.
Now, my actual opinion…
It was a very explosive-heavy movie. Tons of huge explosions everywhere. Lots of people died, but the movie kept it somewhat tasteful by never showing the gory deaths of those killed, just implying it heavily with quick off-screen shots.
The film did an excellent job of showing what The Joker truly is–well…he’s insane. Completely and utterly insane. He isn’t motivated by greed or power, he just likes to murder people and cause chaos. He continues to do these things as he finds annoying the Batman “fun”.
I think the sequel of the movie has a good premise–Batman is a wanted man now, but he still feels the need to protect the town. I feel bad for The Joker’s successor, however. He has a lot to live up to.
All in all, an extremely good movie. I recommend anyone, anyone watch it.
Summer School
I am currently debating with myself whether or not taking summer school was worth it.
On one hand, I’m taking two half credits away that I really don’t need in tenth grade. On the other, I’m replacing them with a full credit course that doesn’t exactly benefit me. I’m getting up early again, the days feel long, and after this I’ll only have a full month of vacation time.
But isn’t a month a long time, though? I mean, it’s thirty-one days in which I get up late, do what I want, and enjoy myself. It’s plenty of time. Summer school is simply keeping my mind sharp for my fast-approaching return to school in tenth grade.
Summer school also allows me to see people I normally wouldn’t see very often, if at all, during summer. I end up being in a state of conciousness longer than usual (my average “awake” time is about 14 hours, with summer school it’s usually 15-16 hours), and the work isn’t hard at all.
That just makes me ask myself why some people want to drop out of summer school. Rob, for example. It’s the second day and he’s ready to just leave right now.
Then again, the days before summer school were fun. I could be doing that every day….but I’ll be doing that everyday in August anyway.
This debate will last a while.
