Jackson's Rambling

I saw 300 on Wednesday, and I was ... disappointed. I think I knew too much and expected too much going into the movie. Last year I read Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield and had a pretty good idea of the battle. I also had read (several years ago) Plutarch's biography of Lycurgus, the greatest king of Sparta, and I've also had a class in the history of law, in which we covered early Greek law and political processes (albeit most of it from the Athenian perspective). And, of course, I had read 300 by Frank Miller (and loved it).

The problem being is that the movie tried too hard. It didn't want to be 300, it wanted to be Lord of the Rings. Although it was based on 300 it was influenced more by LOTR than anything else. It dehumanized the Persians - literally turning them into monsters, which I think did a disservice to both sides. The Immortals were called the Immortals because their ranks always numbered 10,000. Losses were replaced overnight. They also left out my favorite part of the story: the part where the Spartans struck back and made a raid on Xerxes' tent, nearly killing him.

I also didn't like the scenes with Leonidas' wife. I thought that they slowed the movie down and interrupted the action. I don't remember any of that political playing in the graphic novel, but I could be wrong. What I wish they had shown was when Leonidas (I think) tells  someone how Spartan women are stronger than Spartan men - because they can willingly let husbands and sons go to die.

However, if I hadn't known as much about the history of Thermopylae, then I think I would have found this movie incredible. As it was, I saw more flaws than I wanted to. The music, however, was AWESOME. It rivals the Conan theme for sheer power (and may even be better).

It was good, but not great. On the other hand, I'd been up more than 24 hours at that point and it just might be my lack of sleep that made the movie so disappointing. Oh well. If anyone wants to get a really good idea of the battle, I seriously recommend Gates of Fire - it fills in all the empty spots and makes the tale so much more powerful and tragic than 300 (the movie) ever could.

Review OVER!

Ahhh ... wonderous spring break. And I'm at work. Not that I mind, it's gonna be easy money today. Nobody in their right mind is coming to the computer lab unless they have to. This week is going to be spent: 1) Sleeping, 2) Researching my paper, 3) Cleaning the apartment, 4) Writing said paper, 5) Catching up on my Blockbuster queue. I'm feeling pretty good at the moment - mainly because I've finally got a handle on my depression and my sources of stress (aka my thesis paper). I have an appointment with a psychiatrist to tweak my medication and until then my Prozac dosage got upped. I'm also happy to finally get a solid diagnosis. I have depression, and it's chemical in nature and it can be suppressed/handled/fixed with the proper medication. Excellent. I'm tired of feeling broken. I feel much better when solving problems. In fact, I love solving problems. Which, I suppose, is what got me to law school in the first place.

Hmmmm what else .... oh yes, regarding Westlaw v LexisNexis: Lexis, you suck. Customer service for the law school (not individual students, mind you, but for the school) has been consistently poor. I love the design of your web site, but it does me no good if the Lexis printer is down for three months. And where are your classes? I had a class with a Westlaw rep who was teaching how to avoid generating huge search fees and giving tips on keeping the cost of access down. For those of you who don't know, Westlaw and LexisNexis access is free to law students, but law firms can face some truly massive fees for access to the same information, especially if it's $25 per database hit and your associate's poorly thought-out seearch hits 50 state databases plus 11 or so federal databases .... well, it's expensive and you don't even have an answer yet. And Lexis, while we're at it, what is it with those incredibly phallic water bottles you keep handing out? Pink bullet-shaped bottles with a twist collar ... and it's not even subtle. Freud with have a field day with whoever designed it.

While we're talking about swag, Westlaw, stop distributing cheap crappy junk. You already won with great customer service (to students) and complimentary classes, so stop with the swag already. I don't need glow-in-the-dark pens that stop working after you look at them crosseyed, or "pleather" portfolios that feel like they're covered with a bizarre combination of grease and glue. I don't need cheap reading lamps, bizarre keychains, ice scrapers, or measuring tapes. All this junk (except for the measuring tape) breaks after the first use and it's incredibly wasteful. Cut your losses. Drop your prices on access for smaller firms or something. If you want to give something away, give out more copies of useful resource books & manuals. I still carry the neat compact book comprising the US Constitution / Federal Rules of Civil Procedure / Federal Rules of Evidence / + other neat stuff with me wherever I go - and I got that first year.

In other news, I realized that my favorite AT in City of Heroes is the Controller. Maybe I'll actually get somebody to lvl 50. Right now my current Controller is at 41. On City of Villains, it's always been the Mastermind. I mentioned this to my friend and he said something about "control freak lawyer types ..." HA!

Things are getting better ... well, probably not, but I'm in a good mood for once. Sugar, caffeine, prozac, and winning $7 in the lottery can do that. I'm running a D&D session on Sunday that has as players 3 law students and a practicing psychologist. I'm going to have to be REALLY devious to mess with their heads. Thankfully, I am. Devious and nasty when it comes to running games. Heh heh heh. They don't know what they're in for.

In other news: things I have to do:
Register to take the Bar.
Register/pay/get loan for BarBri bar course.
Finish powerpoint presentation for Lawyers in Society seminar.
Research on Westlaw for insider trading and stock options journals and cases. Delaware court of chancery FTW! (for some weird reason, I love business law).
Catch up on Heroes.

What else? Well, there's an International Legal Society meeting on Monday about getting a job in international business law. I like that idea. Free pizza, too. Can't go wrong there!

I've started exercising again, which may have a lot to do with my more positive attitude. OTOH, I'm done suffering - I have a counselor's appointment on the 16th and I'm going to see the doc about adjusting the dosage or getting on something else. Prozac isn't working as well as I'd like it to. Anything is better than sitting in front of the TV and whining to myself that life sucks.

I can't wait to see 300 next weekend. Maybe I'll take off from work. Hmmmmmm.

I had intended on posting something cogent and with a point, but I forgot what it was. Oh well.

It's been a pain-in-the ass year. I mean it sucked. Hard. I lost two more family members (cousins) over Christmas to cancer. God damn, I hate cancer. So I'm down. Very down. I can't even clean the freaking apartment, much less get up in the morning. I've stopped exercising. Hell, even the prozac seems to have stopped working.

The good news: I'm feeling a little better. This semi-anonymous public mental vent feels a little cathartic. I'm also interested in my classes, even if they are the most complex classes I've taken yet. Securities Regulation alone is dizzying in scope, covering primarily the 1933 Act, 1934 Act, and Sarbanes-Oxley, but I'm also taking Corporate & Partnership taxation, Secured Transactions, and Business Associations II, among other courses. I can't allow myself to be bored. I'm also writing a paper on stock options that I hope will occupy my mind. I've also got three novels that I've started that I need to work on. I may never finish them (although I did finish one a long time ago, but never got it sold), but it helps me relax to write them.

Ahhhh .... I'm feeling much better. Catharsis: effective.

I still can't watch Requiem for a Dream, though.

Ya know, I read Something Positive and keep thinking that nobody's life could be so harsh. I'm wrong. All our lives are that harsh - but sometimes looking at someone else's problems, we can forget our own.


This hasn't been a good couple of days. Well, it has, for me, but not for people close to me. I found out yesterday that my uncle has lung cancer. "Indolent" cancer, but cancer nonetheless. And the fucking doctors thought an inhaler would fix the problem. Here's a tip: if you get sick in Michigan, go to an out-of-state hospital! The ineptitude of the Michigan medical community killed one of my uncles and my grandmother, and turned my sister into a pincushion because they thought they had discovered a new disease (which they hadn't). And there have been other issues, as well. I have a large family, and I can't believe that they all caught bad breaks when going to the doctor ... there's something wrong with the doctors in Michigan. Thankfully, I think the medical profession in Oregon is the exact opposite of Michigan. I've got a great doctor here. My poor uncle, tho.

I hope the doctors in Washington are good. A good friend of mine suffered a massive coronary on July 4th and she's currently in intensive care ... and I can't help but think "How the hell did this happen?" Her husband is one of my oldest friends. I can't even conceive of what he's going through. I don't want to. I feel so helpless and useless. I want to fix this and make it right, but there's nothing I can do. I hate feeling helpless. How can I help? What can I say? I don't have money - if I did, they could have it. I live too far away to offer my apartment for shelter ...

Life is sometimes grossly unfair.

Two days before my birthday and I'm on Prozac. I'm thinking this is a good thing. I've got other blogs for specific purposes (and they're sitting fallow at the moment) but I'm just going to ramble on and babble here.

I've been up since 6:00AM. It's time to go take a Tylenol PM and try to sleep.