Volkditty
Shocked gasp!
Joe vs the Volcano
It’s the first movie I remember going to see (at a drive-in theater when I was 7). It was kind of a flop when it came out, but it’s achieved a certain cult status for its surprisingly deep philosophy on fear, self-realization, and facing mortality.
In the last month, have gone to the theater for…
Twisters - exactly what you expect it to be.
Deadpool & Wolverine - aggressively boring, walked out in the final half hour. I don’t fully blame the movie, I was in a bad mood to begin with…but it did nothing to charm me.
It Ends with Us - ridiculous movie with a strange take on domestic violence
Alien:Romulus - entertaining, if you can get past the “it’s a dystopian corpo hellscape grinding these dirt poor miners into dust, but also they’re all in their early 20s and sexy with perfect hair.” I’m not a huge Alien lore purist, so I didn’t have the same reaction that more hardcore fans probably had.
My wife wants to see Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice but has not seen original Beetlejuice, so we’re planning to stream that tonight or tomorrow. I haven’t seen it since it came out and barely remember it.
It’s #14.
Also, I know these trash lists either include or exclude things specifically to be controversial and generate conversation, but seriously…The Lives of Others isn’t on a list of ‘best movies involving surveillance?’ Really?
93 is a pretty good run. Good for him.
The last time a question like this was asked, I said it was when I enlisted in the US Army on Sept 5th, 2001 instead of Sept 12th, 2001. But in reality I probably would’ve enlisted either way (I was drinking the kool-aid back then) and when I enlisted it was on something called the Delayed Entry Program; I still had to finish my senior year of high school and didn’t leave for Basic Training until June 2002.
The actual life-changing moment that came out of that was taking advantage of the Hometown Recruiting Assistance Program right after I completed AIT. It’s essentially a 2 week temporary duty to go back home wearing your fancy new uniform to convince all your old high school buddies to sign up and be cool like you. I took it, did a couple recruitment events, signed up no one, and just enjoyed some free vacation time. This was March 2003, just a couple days before we invaded Iraq.
When I graduated AIT (your actual job training after basic training) I got orders to report to Ft Hood. Another guy, Watt, got the same orders. We had gone through Basic and AIT together, had the exact same MOS. I took HRAP, he did not. At the time, there were 2 major units on Ft Hood: the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division. Watt showed up at Ft Hood and was assigned to 4th ID. I showed up a couple weeks later and was told that 4th ID was all filled up, so I went to 1st Cav instead.
4th ID deployed to Iraq in 2003, 1st Cav didn’t deploy until 2004. Because units were basically on a “1 year deployed, 1 year back home, 1 year deployed, 1 year back home…” rhythm this meant I ended up getting stop-lossed instead of getting out of the Army in 2006 when my original 4 year enlistment was up. While I was extended, I was selected to receive retraining on newer, modern equipment instead of the old crap designed to fight the Soviets I was originally trained on. This new training, and some contacts I made while on my second deployment, led to me getting a job with a defense contractor doing the exact same thing after I eventually got out. That job was overseas, where I happened to meet my future wife. And even though I’m in a slightly different field of work now, I can still draw a straight line between getting that experience and contacts and how I ended up where I am now.
The alternative, if I hadn’t taken 2 weeks vacation in 2003, is that I most likely would have gotten out of the Army as scheduled in 2006 but without any training that was directly applicable to a civilian job and without the networking contacts to land an overseas contractor gig.
Want to make a “firing range” pun, but nothing’s coming to me…leaving this as a placeholder in case inspiration strikes later.
