Is this thing on?

Been a long time since I came to the comforts of the keyboard to get things off my chest. The start of video blogging pretty much destroyed the life of a blog blogger. But now that it’s been nearly a year since posting a video on my YouTube channel (more than a year since one I would be proud to call mine) I feel it’s time to come back to one of the mediums, and unfortunately, I just don’t feel that video is the one for me anymore, or at least not right now. But I digress.

SOOOO much has happened in the last year. I don’t even know where to begin.

Well, I know where to begin, but I don’t know where to go after that. So I’ll try…

Last I wrote, I was a local resident of Virginia, working on my associates degree, living above my uncle’s garage. NOW, I’m a local resident of Wisconsin for 13 months, graduated college with my A.S. in Business Administration, am delivering pizzas full time as I cannot find any other work and I am now living on my own.

I hate to sum everything up so quickly, but I’m working 6 days a week, and I’m coming to an end of my only day off, and still have a lot of things to do, so I think I’ll do my best to wrap it up.

Quick version goes, everything fell apart a few months ago, I’m months behind on all my bills/rent, a couple of my friendships are showing strain, my best friend is about to have a kid and I think that about to affect both of our lives more than he realizes.

Otherwise, everything is perfect.

I guess that’s it. I’m going to play some PS3.

~500 Words to end the silence.

A realization

The things I say and the things I do are often two different things. I’m constantly in reflection and changing my views. Not because I’m wishy washy, but because my grandpa died always wanting to be a better man than he had the will power to be. He didn’t want me to live with that conundrum. So I’m always trying to figure out who I want to be and then I start inching towards the slightly better me.

Losing it…

On the cusp of a mental breakdown, I turn to blogging.  After all, it is why I created this space in the first place.

So, where to start.  That’s hard.  To organize all the things that torment me.  It’s been a long time coming.  I could feel it’s grasp around my throat no matter how long and how hard I ran from the invisible hands that are responsible.

I guess, I’ll start with the straw that broke the camels back, what piled on top of that, and then work backwards.

This morning, while trying to point out to a friend that the world is an evil place, and many people believe and live by the saying ‘All is fair in love and war’, I was misunderstood.  And my friend returned with “Please Donny. U have no kids”.  As a lot of people know, or have seen through the cracks, my “Ok without a family or children” attitude that I’ve adopted is just an artificial shell I wear to try to hide the pain inside.  The pain caused by knowing that I have no kids, and if the history of my life has taught me anything, it’s that I probably won’t be afforded the opportunity to have them either.  Not in the way I want, and they deserve.  So, that broke my back,  and the flood of depression I had dammed off came bursting through with a violent wave.  I tried to move on with my day, to ignore it, but thing after thing just continued to go wrong.  Then, when I thought the day was over and nothing else could possibly make things worst, my brother announces that he’s going to get a few tattoos in a couple of weeks.  I know this statement in itself is perplexing, as to why it would upset me, but we had a pact.  A couple of years ago, we both got tattoos for his son.  Since then, we have gotten 3 more done together.  A pact to wait until we were both in the same location at the same time, to get tattooed together.  Now, I made an exception when his daughter was born, because I didn’t think it was fair to make him wait nearly a year, but apparently he took that as a voiding of our deal.  The worst part is that he’s been joking around about it like it’s no big deal and like it’s my fault I won’t be there when he gets his next in a couple of weeks.  Which, I’ll get to why that’s impossible soon.

Maybe no big deal to most, but it is a big deal to me.

The diabetes makes sure that I can’t turn to a bottle, to dull the depression.  This in itself makes me sick.  I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that I want to turn to the bottle, or the fact that I ever let that become an option to begin with.  Either way, it is no longer an option with my health.  On top of that, I haven’t been to the gym in 11 days, I don’t even know how that much time flew by already.

Underneath all of this, are other issues.  Like, I’m failing my math class.  Which means, if I do fail, that I cannot get my degree.  You are only allowed this class twice, and this is my 2nd try.  This means, with my pending move to Milwaukee in August, that I’ll be returning WITHOUT my degree, which means, basically, I’m fucked.  I don’t know one single person surviving on their own without some sort of assistance, whether it be a roommate, their parents, child support or some other government program I’m not eligible for.  I’m sure they exist, but no one I personally know is doing it.  Not with a H.S. degree only.  Especially since I will already be traveling there with hefty debt.  I’ve been stuck in Virginia because of the debt.  Despite my brother’s wild ideas, I cannot see it fathomable to live a non-stressed out life for anything below $13/hr @ 40 hours a week.  And those jobs are few and far between there.

I guess, it all comes down to being my own fault.  For ever thinking life could be enjoyed.  I should have accepted defeat 5 years ago and just stayed in Milwaukee.  Living a shitty existence at a shitty job.  I’d probably have 6 years in there by now.  And I would have never known a better life could exist.  “Think positive” a friend told me.  But, I can’t.  Thinking positive is what got me to where I am.  I survived a hard, shitty, fucked up life until I moved here by being realistic, and maybe a little pessimistic at times.  But I wasn’t down on life, because I just thought that’s how life went.   Moving here, my uncle showed me what was on the other side of the fence.  The place that I was never allowed to play.  And because he showed it to me, and let me live that life, I’ve gotten soft and I can no longer accept the reality of the sins of the father that I have to pay.

Which brings my next stress.  My parents.  Well, my mother.  My father, I owe nothing to in my opinion, besides my voice.  I’ll talk, I’ll be his friend, but financially, he’s a huge part of the reason I live the life I do.  But my mother.  She went above and beyond everyone’s expectations when both my father, and the father of my two younger sisters bailed.  She stepped up and filled a roll she never wanted to.  She became the mom and dad.  She both worked full-time, and made sure there was a warm, home cooked meal on our dinner table every night.  And never did she complain to us as kids.  It wasn’t until I was nearly an adult that I realized the toll it had taken.  The sacrifices she made for us.  But her earlier life with my father, and my sisters father, coupled with the bottle she turned to when life became too much for her, has taken a horrible toll on her body.  At 45 years old, she can barely walk because of degenerative hip and leg problems, her blood pressure is through the roof, and I suspect she’s hiding a couple more ailments from me.  She’s got a foot in the grave and not a dime in savings.  If she doesn’t find some way of fixing her health now, I’ll be taking care of her within the next few years, if even.  It’s getting so hard for her to work as it is.  She won’t be able to stay at the grocery store forever.  And my sister has been supported by her for years, along with my two nieces.  Which means, if my mom fails to be able to help them, as the eldest child, and brother and uncle, that too is on me.

And I haven’t even gotten to what may be the worst stresser of them all.  Finding a job in that barred wasteland.  I, am not a desirable employee.  I mean, ask any of my former managers, and they’d likely tell you, with the exception of Robert, that you’d be lucky to have me working for you.  I work as hard as I can at whatever the task is.  I grew up with the old school thought that your name means everything, and so I want my work to reflect well upon my name.  But, things like pre-screening questionnaires hurt me.  My last job, in Wisconsin, was at Blockbuster.  A job my brother, who worked there, got me.  Well, he got me the interview.  After I was hired, I found out that I was in 2! piles of rejected applicants who failed that thing.  Which would explain the year I spent looking for a job before that, and the 18 months I’ve spent looking for a job now.  I suspect my unwavering honesty actually hurts me on those things.  But, I don’t know the specifics as to why I failed.  So, I’m faced with moving back, with no money, no job and the unlikelihood of finding a job in a timely manner.  Oh.  And I forgot.  I suffer from Paruresis. This cost me a $20/hr job at a machine shop when I was 19.  That, would have changed my life.  But it didn’t.  And it showed me that I would never be able to get a job that required a urine test.  I begged and pleaded for them to let me pay for a blood test, to replace it, but they wouldn’t.  Sears did the same thing to me a short time later.  So, with all of these restrictions and everything stacked against me, my blood has been boiling.  I feel like I’m getting new grey hair each day.

I just don’t know what to do anymore…

I saw the Hunger Games and I liked it, sort of…

So, first of all, I want to apologize for my absence from this place.  In all honesty, I’ve just been doing well enough that I haven’t felt the need to vent in word form.  I’ve been spending all of my spare time on making videos or shooting photographs to work on my photography.  You can select either set of words to take you to the respective site.

Alright, now to the grit of it.  The Hunger Games.  Now, let me explain a couple things before walking into this review/recap/criticism.  1.  I have only read roughly 20 books in my entire life, so this includes a few books from grade school. (i.e. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, My Teach is an Alien)  2.  I’m not positive, but with the exception of Watchmen, this is the first time I read a book before seeing the movie.  Typically, my imagination is weak, and so I have a hard time imagining faces of characters.  So, if I don’t have a movie cast to base my imaginations on, it turns out poorly.  3.  I own over 6,000 movies, but that makes my opinion no more relevant than your own because we all like different aspects of movies, so don’t let this ruin it for you.  I believe as a movie, it was a good movie.

BEYOND THIS POINT, EXPECT SPOILERS (for the first book and movie only)

To my surprise, the book, The Hunger Games, grabbed hold of me and actually allowed me to complete it, which many books upon my shelf could not be bragged about the same.  As a veteran movie watcher, I knew changes were bound to happen.   But, it’s the amount of changes, especially in the details, that  bothered me.  I’m sure I’ll miss many, or make ones that aren’t important seem important but I’ll do my best.

The movie started out beautifully.  Starting with the game maker, which, I honestly don’t remember from the book, so I know that they put more effort into making him a character in the movie.  I’m guessing he’ll be dealt with in one of the next books.  (I do intend on reading them)  But then we jump into the  screaming of Prim and then the journey into the woods by Katniss, beautiful.  Then we fly into the time of the Reaping.

This scene was very well done, though it seemed a bit rushed and I’m left feeling, ‘where’s Haymitch?’  While some may claim this isn’t important, I believe that the face plant by Haymitch in the book goes a long way towards explaining his character that I think the movie misses out on.  The movie shows the anguish that Haymitch feels towards the games and the Capitol, but his alcoholism is only briefly touched.  I think that showing that he is a daily boozer goes a ways towards showing what winning the games cost him.  So, I was disappointed in the stripping of that, but my guess is that the PG-13 rating helped with removing alcohol scenes.

After the reaping, we are taken to the room where Katniss is allowed to see her family for the last time.  They were given 3 minutes.  I don’t know if the book says, but I pictured closer to 15 minutes when reading this, but 3 minutes seems more realistic to the nature of the games.  Here, the Mockingjay pin that we all know of, is given to Katniss by Madge Prim.  This change I’m mostly ok with.  I think that how Katniss gave Prim the pin, only to be given back to Katniss, kind of ruined the moment they could have had there.  Since little effort was used to show how much Katniss’ father meant to her,  I think a better story arc would have been for Prim to receive the pin from her father, and then for her to give it to Katniss, but that is nit-picking.  Otherwise, the exclusion of Madge does not bother me because both she and her father’s character seem of little importance to this book.

We finally meet up with Haymitch on the train to the Capitol, but this scene too feels very rushed.  What couldn’t have been more than 1-1.5 minutes, we see Katniss and Peeta uncomfortably attempt dialogue, Haymitch comes in drunk, there’s slight banter and very pessimistic talk from Haymitch and then the scene is done.  Peeta runs out after Haymitch to ‘talk’.

The arrival at the Capitol was done well, Peeta already waving and playing the crowd, Katniss stewing in her anger for the whole situation.  The preparation of Katniss goes as I would expect, with the exception of keeping her hair the way her mother had put it for the reaping.  A minor detail that doesn’t matter, but I remembered.   Here, we finally get our first glimpse at the other tributes.  I guess now is a better time than any to complain about casting.  My only real casting gripe is Cato.  Now, maybe because I grew up in the Midwest, and we breed ‘farm boys’ so I have a skewed bias, but these tributes were less than intimidating to me.  Especially, the number 1 badass of the book, Cato.  The actor they chose was WAY too small in my opinion.  I envisioned Cato being much beefier.  Like Clay Mathews in high school.  Not this scrawny guy.  On top of that, I felt his acting was sub-par and the character was robbed of development, but that is coming up.

Everything up until the games is rushed from here.  The training, the days, the conversations, everything.  Which, is fine.  I understand the need to cut time and this time in the book isn’t critical to understanding anything besides the fact that Peeta genuinely cares for Katniss.  I think that the apple in the pig’s mouth scene was better in my imagination than in the movie, because in the movie it didn’t seem as startling as it should have been.  I’m also confused as to why they let Katniss go before Peeta, but it’s a minor detail that doesn’t matter.  It just makes me wonder who decides to make these little switches when not switching would have cost nothing extra.  But Haymitch’s reaction to Katniss in the movie was far better than that of the book.

Alright, enough of all of that.  It’s time for the games.  Katniss is delivered here by a ship, that possibly had all of the same characteristics as the book, but without the ladder that freezes its holders while it is raised into the cabin.  Again, not a big change, but as a semi-sci-fi nerd, taking out extra tech like that kind of bums me out.  The lake and its surroundings are perfect.  The circle of tributes is perfect.  I think this scene is just well done, down to Katniss’s frustration at Peeta shaking his head no towards the bow.  The initial fight scene that takes out half of the tributes seems a little weak, but I assume that was a directorial decision based on the age range of the children, and again, trying to comply with the PG-13 rating.

12 down, 11 to go.  The girl from district 8 is killed after setting a fire at night.  The only change here is that Peeta did not have to double back to end the life of this girl.  This detail is unimportant and probably better suited that Peeta did not do this.  But it takes away the little bit of credibility he had with the careers to begin with.   From here, the Careers get Katniss stuck up a tree.  There were a few changes to this scene that I found puzzling.  One, Rue tells Katniss to drop the tracker jacker nest on the Careers, which I don’t remember her doing in the book.  I know she warned Katniss of the nest, but Katniss came up with the idea.  Two, in the book this happens at night which causes Katniss to wait for morning.  In the movie, the warning and action both happen in the dawn.  Again, nit-picky but why the change?  (Probably because Rue was easier to see in the trees during the day, honestly)

This brings us to the next set of changes.  Now, I understand, that being PG-13, the hallucination of skin and blood coming off on the bow and arrows from Glimmer, or having to break her fingers with a rock to release the bow, had to be cut.  But it’s another change.  Then, I don’t understand the absence of Cato and Peeta getting into it as Katniss runs for her life.  With the absence of that scene and never hearing Cato talk about cutting Peeta, Katniss has no idea what condition Peeta is in, or that the blood she trails would be his.  I just found this inconsistent if you haven’t first read the book, which A LOT of people won’t have.

The Katniss/Rue alliance comes about much differently in the movie.  Katniss is treated of her stings twice before she even wakes up and makes friends with Rue.  If you’ve read the book, you know that it happens slightly different.  But, not a change that bothers me.  The activities of the two girls are rushed for time’s sake.  We got no real back story on Rue, and I think the lack of character development between the two of them takes away from the death.  I can tell you by all the noise and subsequent yelling, that the people in the theater I went to, didn’t give two shits about Rue’s death.  It hit me even less on screen than in the book, even.  Also, and I know this is extremely nit-picky and I know it was done for the rating, but Katniss was supposed to shoot the boy from District 1 in the throat after he spears Rue, instead he got an arrow to the chest.  Equal result, but I think the neck was more fitting for the emotion that scene was supposed to convey.

Back to the alliance, we can talk about the lake scene where Katniss goes to rid the careers of their supplies.  The only problem I had with this scene was Cato and for two reasons. 1.  His size just again, puts no intimidation in me.  I found that guy snapping the neck of the small district 3 boy to be unlikely at best.  2. What upsets me most about this scene is that they took out what I found to be its greatest significance… That Cato isn’t ‘all there’.  In the book, he throws himself to the ground, pounding his fists and pulling his hair out.  The movie, we got virtually no emotion besides the snapped neck.  I think they pulled too far away on the development of this character in the movie, despite how short lived his roll is.

Now we’re back in the cave with a dying Peeta.  The days in the cave are turned into what only seems to be a night.  And we miss the part where Katniss tricks Peeta into drinking the stuff that makes him sleep for half-a-day so she can sneak out.

The next day, we have our lure to the cornucopia.  This scene was well done with a few exceptions in my mind.  1.  The wound on Katniss’ head was supposed to be far worse than what it was in the movie.  It is supposed to blind one eye because the blood is flowing so quickly.  Instead, they made it a slight gash.  2.  The Thresh/Katniss interaction felt much different, I attribute this to a lack of character development with Rue.  3.  Does Katniss go half deaf?  It obviously doesn’t matter with how fast the movie wraps up, but that mattered in the book.  Katniss makes it back to the cave and the two from District 12 treat their wounds with the medicine.

Somewhere throughout this mess, they show Prim and the mother.  It upset me to see them watching the games on a projected screen against the wall instead of the ‘old clunker tv’ that Katniss tells us about.  It takes away familiarity for me to a situation that while completely different, is not much different from my own growing up.  So, to make that tiny change just makes me wonder ‘why? were you being lazy?  trying to prove you could add another thing in post?’.

With the movie coming to an end, we fly through the rest of the book.  Within minutes, Foxface has eaten the berries that kill her.  Thresh is already dead, likely by the hands of Cato but we never know for sure.  Finally, we’re being chased by giant werewolves dogs?  In what I can only assume was a move to keep this movie separate from Twilight, the genetically engineered killer animals made from the former tributes have been replaced by giant genetically engineered dogs.  With no mention that they have any involvement with the former tributes.  Again, the sci-fi nerd in me is hurt.  And I wonder what happens in the next two books that make that an irrelevant event.  Now, we’re back to dumb animals who are just out to kill.  So, the Cato scene is much less gruesome.  Instead of him being torn to shreds inside the cornucopia for a length of time unknown, but enough time that it is noticeable, Cato is knocked off and Katniss puts him out of his misery almost immediately.  This also causes for no second injury to Peeta’s leg and this means that Peeta does not lose his leg.  I’ve been told this is insignificant, but I think they took enough away from him to make his love seem less real.  And as a guy who’s been in Peeta’s shoes, sort of, it upsets me.  Katniss is obviously playing the ‘like-us’ game, and confused about her true feelings, but in the book I never felt once that Peeta’s feelings waived for her.    And with the absence of Peeta’s imminent death, we are robbed of the ship scene where Katniss desperately looks on as Peeta is worked on.  Again, I feel the movie stripped a lot of the emotion away.

I think I’ll stop here.  This is way longer than I expected, 2 people will probably be able to get all the way through it AND I just don’t like criticizing movies.  I make videos for YouTube, but I am by no stretch a director.  I only know what I know and know how I feel and that is what I’ve shared here today.   I think as a movie, this stands up tall.  I think as a book-to-movie, this stands up well.  I just don’t like the creative differences between the two and so could not dub this ‘the best book-to-movie’ adaptation ever.  It’s worth a watch, but I’ll definitely wait until DVD to see this again.

Lastly, I have only read the book once and seen the movie once.  I may have overlooked something on either front, and if I did, correct me! I don’t like being upset over something that doesn’t exist.  I just wanted to provide the clearest response to how I felt about the movie and the changes made within.

Thanks for reading!  I hope to blog more often.  But, until next time, Don’t Forget To Be Awesome.

–Donny

And here’s a video I posted yesterday prompting this blog:

4/5/2012 UPDATE
I read Catching Fire, cover to cover in 1 day!  Here’s a video talking about it:

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