well, it's friday. i'm blogging at work. i think i'm going to cut out early today. it's been a long week and i want to get a start on the road trip to ocean city. i love road trips. they are the best way to spend a weekend or a week. depending on how much time you have off. top 5 road trips of my life:
1. Conclave last august. 5 guys. 1 dodge shadow. 30 hours. New Orleans. unbelievable.
2. DC to vist Artimus Prime. me, murph, mcD, and melnick (oooh! alliteration!) down to DC for a weekend of drunkness and shenanigans (sp?).
3. NYC last weekend. me, irish, melnick, and sassaman driving there and staying out all night to party and then coming home the next day. glorious.
4. montreal with the institute boys. freshmen year. me, mcD, shea, and artimus to montreal. drunkness and making fun of french people. good Lord, it doesn't get better than that.
5. megan's parents place in massena, ny after a party. 5AM. me, jeremy and megan to almost canada to see her parents and watch a dixie chicks cover band. excellent.
can this one knock off one of these? who knows? who cares?

question of the day: do you have a movie that takes control of your soul, heart, and emotions every single time you watch it? i do. it's Dead Poets Society. i could watch this film each day of my life and never get tired of it. with each of the protagonists i see a little bit of who i was, who i am and who--God willing--i can be. if you've never seen this movie, i vehemently request you rent it tonight and watch it. if you own it or know someone who does, watch it tonight. each character has a special draw to me. each one has a defining moment in the movie when i just say to myself, "that's me." for todd anderson, it's when he's being chased around the room by neil and all the other guys come in and screw around. he's been accepted. the outside kid that is frightened inside is a part of the group. with knox overstreet, it's when he's talking to chris outside the hall in the snow and he finds out that she likes him. he does it smoothly and coyly and damn! is he a stud right then and there. meeks, it's when him and pitts are making the radio in the study room and the old fart walks in and catches them. i don't know what it is, but i connect right then. with neil, it's the time he writes the letter to mr nolan pretending to be his father. no man will stand in his way of pursuing happiness. not even the man he fears the most. what could click inside of you that will allow you to do that? i want to find that switch. for charlie, it's when he convinces todd to be a part of the dead poets society. i like the way he "pushes" todd into doing something he'd enjoy. and i like how he goes all out for the dead poets society. pitts's, the tall dorky one (hmm...familiar?), moment comes right at the end. when todd and knox climb on the desks, they cut to pitts and show his face. you can see the turmoil of his inner dialogue. he's deciding to take that final step into becoming an independent, free man. if rebels here, the world will be opened up to him, cuz he'll know that he can follow his heart and believe. positively masterful. and robin william's character--mr keating. every second he is talking, i want to be him. i want to be that true about my convictions. i want to be that heartfelt and passionate about my life. i want to be able to win people's respect and admiration just because of the way i conduct myself in everyday life. who doesn't want to be what mr keating offers? i've seen other emotional powerful movies, but nothing like this. everytime, i feel the gut-check and i just want to be there with those guys living their lives, finding that powerful message. oh, i love it. i just need to be able to take these thoughts and emotions and manifest them in my own life. i need to find my switch.

at TKE, we have an email alias called "spam" that is basically anything we want to send out on it. jokes, political arguments, scathing sarcasm. you name it, it's on the spam list. the other day we were playing name that movie over the spam list. all of us that have desk jobs for the summer just reading spam, sending out movie quotes and seeing who could guess them first. we sent out over 100 emails that day. and it's like that almost every single day of the week. i fucking love it. we're acting the same way we do around each other, just through email. we take would be maybe a 2 hour conversation in real life and spread it over 9 hours through email. God bless Al Gore's internet.




i think you're smart, you sweet thing.