A key gave up.

A key on my computer just stopped working. Just straight gave up. Why? Did I spi   something? Nope. This dude, this  azy ass key just stopped coming to work.
"Yo, we NEED you, man. You know how many words we can't spe   when you aren't here?  ook! Right there! That sentence is messed up because of you. Get to work!"
"... Naw, man. I don't think I've been getting the respect I deserve. I'm out! And I'm not going to  et you spe  etter,  ove, spi  , a tercation, none of those! How does that fee ? Huh? How does that FEE !?"

Yep. That's the key. The key forme y known as here. The  key. I'm going to keep writing without it because I have to. It gave up at a great time. I need to have three b ogs done before this month is done. He knows this. We've been doing it for a most three years now. Myse f and the man himse f, the  key. This has made me think of something that's being going through my head for awhi e now.

I make things as hard as possib e on myse f. What do I mean? I mean this computer is over six years o d. Can I get another one? Yep. I cou d, but for whatever reason I just dea with things. I have an iPhone 3gs. Is it amazing? Of course it. The fact that this techno ogy was made in the first p ace is amazing. Has app e started to make phones that are faster? That work better? Yes. Cou d I get one? Yep. But, I make things hard for the sake of it. Now I'm not saying that that means to run out and buy every sing e new thing that app e puts out. But, it's not a ways the best idea to just dea with things. Sometimes it gets you here. No damn  key.

Another examp e of making things hard? Recent y my mom bought me a  uggage set. With whee s. Put my  uggage in a bag with whee s for the first time. It was insane! I'm whee ing around the airport, just ki  ing it! Why was this so insane? Because before this I was using a duff e bag. Duff e bag with no whee s. I was carrying my  uggage through airports, for YEARS, as if this was 1979.
"Can I see your boarding pass, sir?"
"Is 'My Sharona' by The Knack the number one song of the year?"
"... That a joke?"
"... What year is this!?"
Whee s comp ete y b ew my mind! I'm ro  ing a   over the p ace, just  osing my mind!
"Why in the he   did I not have these before?! Why have I been CARRYING a bag a   this time! I don't have to do this?! I NEVER had to. I'm wa king through the airport  ike a wrest er from the 80's.  ove those guys, but MAN."
I cou d have gotten  uggage. I shou d have. I trave  enough to have whee s. Whee s! But why didn't I have them? I kept saying that I cou dn't afford  uggage, or that I didn't need whee s. Now, you don't NEED whee s, but man! Makes things much simp er in the airport. I can now whee  my bag through security. I used to put my duff e bag on the ground, and kick it through. Used to just boot it out in front of me. Kicking a damn bag in front of other humans. KICKING my things across an airport f oor.
"Step forward, p ease."
(Soccer kicks be ongings forward.)
"Woooooo! I'm rea  y  iving, here! Kicking my stuff! How you guys,  iving? Kicking my stuff!"

Even on- ine I make things hard. I refused to get twitter for the first coup e of years. I don't rea  y have a great reason as to why. Just refused. Makes it hard to stay in touch with peop e after shows and such. It's va uab e. Instagram? I signed up for it two days ago! Peop e have had it for years. Te  ing me that I shou d have it. Wou dn't. And now that I have it, I  ike it more than twitter! The videos on it are just fun to make. Peop e have come up to me after shows and asked if I had it. Didn't. Did they fo  ow me? How cou d they! Another way to just make things harder and fight things that make existence a bit easier.

I make things hard as we   by thinking that everything is going wrong. I usua  y  ive with that perspective of what I'm doing. Terrib e thing to do that just impedes progress. I don't rea  y take any credit for where I've gotten. I'm getting better with it, though. I'm going to get fixing this button. The whee s have inspired me. The next b og wi   have every  etter in it, and  ife wi   be a  itt e easier.

Twitter @nathanmacintosh

Talking to my younger self.

I hear people every once in awhile say hat they would say to their younger self if they could. Most times it has to do with going to college, or buying some stock in a super rich company, or telling themselves that algebra is useless. I thought about it, and here are a couple things I'd tell my younger self.

- Playing all this Goldeneye is WORTH IT. Its a great game, great times, and it goes down as one of the best games ever. Every once in awhile someone will bring it up in conversation.
"Man, Goldeneye was great! What a great game!"
You will be apart of that conversation. Skip school, put that difficulty on 00 agent, and remember, grade six and seven aren't really important. You ain't missing nothing. Nobody will EVER ask you if you remember the cheat codes for grade six. Or if you got passed that level in grade seven. I'm dead serious. NEVER.

"Oh, buddy. You're gonna regret me not going to school today."

- Keeping with the theme of video games, you're never going to forget the 'big cheat' code for Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. No, I'm serious. You're going to forget your moms birthday at some point, a girlfriends, but the big cheat? NTHGTHDGDCRTDTRK. Never going anywhere. You'll be in front of the internet one day and not use it to find this! For whatever reason, this damn thing stays with you. You'll even remember what it means. 'On The Eighth Day God Created Turok.' Why the hell does this stay with you?! I don't know, tiny Nathan, but it does.

"I really should have worn a shirt. It looks like it's going to rain crayons."

- Everyone who is a decent human being will one day LOVE your red hair. And better yet, you will. Yes, right now, in grade two, it sucks. These people are dummies and need ANYTHING at all to tear apart. That, my tiny six year old friend, is you. But one day, those same people will think it's cool that you have different hair than the disgusting brown and black hair that they have. They'll realize that EVERYONE has brown and black hair. That sucks, yo! But by that time, who cares! Because you like it. People will actually DYE their hair red! Can you believe it? People hated it so much, then tried to get it. And when that happens, when a girl walks up and says, 'I have red hair too!', and it's this bright, radioactive type red, you get to say, 'that ain't red hair!'

"I was in a chemical explosion in a candy factory. My superpower? Having a hair colour that makes no sense at all. I call it 'Wet Box of NeRdS. Look it up. It's how Mr. Wonka spells it."

- 'Talking back' to teachers, (their terminology), is a goddamn good thing. These people are not Czars. They are not above questioning. They are teachers and should be ASKED QUESTIONS. They use the term 'talking back' when they simply DO NOT want to deal with you. If you are a student they like, or they can answer your question with ease, then you are not 'talking back'. You are just being a student. If they don't like you, or don't want to deal with your question? YOU, sir, are 'talking back'. 'Talking back' gets you sent to the office, suspended, expelled, and one day, one of the most favourite things you will own is an expulsion letter written with nothing but lies. Talk back, son!

"You. Ask me again why I'm holding this tiny satellite thing one more time, and I'm going to beat you with it. Clear? Now shut up and learn."

- Hey, five year old Nathan, don't go into that tree house! You fall out of it, land on a ladder directly on your business, have the worst pain you've ever felt and then pass out. When you wake up, you're naked from the waist down with your mom and a doctor staring at you. The doctor says something about you may not being able to have kids in the future, then makes you run from wall to wall in the room naked to show your mom you'll be fine. Can you have kids? I don't know! Older you hasn't checked that out yet. STAY OUTTA THAT TREEHOUSE!

"Can he have kids? I don't know. Will he forget me making him run naked? Never!"

- The best job you'll have is the job you wanted the least. Working at a fast food restaurant. You'll look back on that place twelve years later and go, 'boom! Great job! All the people there were great! WAY better than working at that call center. Now THAT was trash.' So, don't think you're above the job. Just take it and enjoy. It was a sweet one.

This is the actual A&W that I worked at when I was 16. I stole a bunch of chicken from this place.

- Working at that call center will be TRASH. You're going to work there for two months, call in sick four of the five shifts you have a week, and fake sick on that fifth day. BUT, you're going to walk out one day with a friend of yours. You're going to hang up on people and send them to spanish care. It's a sweet day that you need to experience. TAKE THAT TRASH JOB!

"Hey! Nobody working in a call center smiles like this. If you see someone doing it, it's because they're about to kill themselves, or quit! I'm a paid actor. YOU WILL NOT HAVE FUN HERE!"

twitter @nathanmacintosh

Godzilla.

I waited for awhile to see this movie. The first few trailers made it look like it was going to be a serious take on Godzilla. I avoided all trailers after that. I didn't want to see what Godzilla looked like before I saw it. A couple days before the release, Youtube made that hard, running a banner on their homepage that had Godzilla screaming in your face. Okay, well, it's just his face. Go to see the movie. Sitting there, before the previews, there is a Fiat commercial. And who is the celebrity they get to sell this thing? You guessed it. Godzilla himself. In full form! He eats a Fiat, chokes on it, dies, and the car drives out of his face. So before the movie, right before it, Godzilla is no longer a surprise because he's selling me a Fiat. I don't even understand that marketing.
"Looking for a new car. Something that is tiny enough to fit in a monsters mouth, but wide enough to get stuck in his throat and kill him, then small enough to drive out of his mouth when he dies."
"Have you heard of the ... Fiat?"
"I have. I thought that was just for Italy. Or clowns. Or Italians clowns."
"Nope. It's for ANYONE who wishes their cubicle had wheels."
"... Did you just call the Fiat a cubicle with wheels?"
"Did I just knock two hundred dollars off the sticker price?"
"I'll take it!"

The movie starts. Here comes Bryan Cranston. Love this man. For most of this movie he looks like Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire before he becomes Mrs. Doubtfire. That's what I kept thinking, anyway.
"Maybe when Godzilla shows up, he'll dress up as a nanny to stop him. WHEN Godzilla shows up. Wait a minute, where the hell is Godzilla?"
Godzilla, as only the King of the Monsters can, shows up later. A bunch later. Like a whole episode of The Wire later. What comes before him? Some other monsters. Which I thought was great! A thing you think is going to be Godzilla, turns out to be another monster that is here to murder. Pretty cool. One strange thing to me is that the trailers were sort of misleading in that regard. Godzilla was the prominent one in the trailers. I had no idea there were other monsters. Which is cool. I suppose the studio wanted to keep that a secret, but it's a little sad when you want to see some Godzilla smashing and hurting things.

Why is it sad? Because Godzilla ain't here to destroy. Godzilla is here to protect. Even thought years ago the United States dropped nukes on him and tried to kill him, Godzilla waits in the earths core until another monster appears, then he wakes up and smashes that monster. He's a detective in a way. He's a giant, underwater Batman here to restore order.
"Swear to me!"
"What did you just say, Godzilla?"
"... Rooooaaaarrr!"
And what's sort of strange, is that even though Godzilla comes out of the ocean to protect earth, to stop these monsters because he is the only one that can, the United States Army is STILL trying to kill him! They are shooting him, throwing missiles at him. Tanks are unloading in his face. Friendly fire, guys. Just because he's not wearing an American flag does not mean he's against you. Godzilla's got a lot to deal with. Two monsters that want him dead, and the American military that know he's there to help but still want to fire their guns. I'm sure at points Godzilla wishes he could speak english.
"Jesus, can you not see I'm fighting two giant beats that feed on nuclear energy? Do you REALLY think it helps me when you shoot me with that AR-15? I'm too big to even feel it! It's just annoying. Do you WANT to have an earth anymore? I can go back in the ocean and pretend I didn't hear these monsters. Is that what you want? Huh? Then stop shooting me!"
"Sir! Sorry, Godzilla, sir! You're just big and scary and I have an automatic weapon, sir!"
"Hey, man. I get it. You think it's easy for me in this body? There's NOTHING for me to have sex with. Let's just work together here, okay?"
I do like this movie. It was fun for what it is. I do have a couple of thoughts, though.

I think movies have to find a better motivator for a man than his wife dying. We get it. At one point in time, your wife dying was the worst thing that could happen. But now? The divorce rate is fifty percent. There's no way that men can still be driven to such things when they're wife dies. Bryan Cranston in this movie spends fifteen years trying to figure out exactly what happened to his wife. Fifteen years! And he's still passionate about it! I can believe in Godzilla more than I can that. Had his wife not have died in the movie, stats say they might have gotten a divorce on screen anyway.
"Woa, honey. Look at the news. There's a monster coming out of the ocean!"
"Look at the news? Look at the garbage! I asked you to take this out two days ago!"
"God dammit. Again with this garbage nonsense? There's a earth beast coming to eat us!"
"I'll tell you what it won't be eating. Dinner. In this house. Because there's no point in making it! Not if there's no place to throw out the leftovers."
"What in the hell does THAT mean?"
"It means the garbage is full, and you NEVER finish what I make anyway, so I'll have to throw it out, but where? Where 'radiation master' of Japan? Tell me that!"
"You've always resented that I got this job in Japan. Well tough fortune cookies, honey. It puts food on the table!"
"I don't even think these people are japanese! They speak english better than we do with very minimal japanese accents."
"DON'T TALK ABOUT MY CO-WORKERS LIKE THAT! They are strong, hard working people who I can speak fluent english with in their native country and then throw in some japanese words whenever I want!"
"I want a strong, hard working divorce!"
"Fine!"
In the movies, you kill a mans wife, he'll go to the ends of the earth to find you. In real life, you kill a mans wife, good chance he's remarried or at least moved on within three years.

I also like that there's a scene where Godzilla is fighting a monster, and you can clearly see people in an office working. That's how rough these office jobs are. Whole city has been evacuated, and the President of some company won't let his employees leave.
"We have to evacuate!"
"Evacuate my bag. We have to finish this merger."
"There's monsters outside!"
"Outside? There's monsters at the ground level that want my job! I didn't get to this position by running away every time a little 'state of emergency' was issued. Get accounting on the phone. And order chinese! We're gonna be here as long as it takes."

Also, why do monsters in monster movies always want to have kids? There can't just be monsters that want to destroy? It happens in horror movies. Jason Vorhees isn't trying to have kids. Michael Myers will just kill a kid. In movies dedicated to monsters though, that's usually the reason. Reason can't just be that they are monsters? We gotta give them a human element? Most humans in North America now don't even want to have kids. The movie should be people trying to convince the monsters why that's a bad idea.
"Kids? Are you giant things serious? Think about all the free time you'll lose. You won't just be able to fly from here to Japan anymore if you have kids to worry about. And you can FORGET having a social life. Just forget it. Right now I can literally do whatever I want. Why? No kids! Think about it. And please don't eat or kill me."
Or maybe that was the point of the movie. To show that people who want to have lots of kids are monsters.

Again, I had fun with this movie. It's not as serious as the first trailers let on I don't think, but if you see it in the theatre you'll have a good time. I wish it had had some more Godzilla, but hey, I'm still doing alright.

Twitter @nathanmacintosh