Sunday, May 21, 2006

I Saw it in a Movie

So...I was watching this movie Keeping the Faith, with Ben Stiller, Edward Norton, and Gwynith Paltrow. The plot is quite interesting. Stiller plays a playboy Rabbi, Edward Norton plays a Catholic priest, and Paltrow a successfull workaholic. All of them were childhood friends. Paltrow left for fifteen years working and returned to work in New York and hang out with her rabbi and priest buddies. The movie starts with them picking her up at the airport where they quickly realize that while she was gone she grew up into this incredible bombshell of a lady. Then her and Jake fall in love but keep it secret, while Norton has also secretly fallen in love with her. In short the movie is full of great akward scenes.
There was a scene thought that jumped out at me. Norton, after very poorly confessing his love to the lady, is talking with his mentor priest about almost leaving the priesthood. the priest makes a cute little speech but drops the line that "some choices are not just singular choices that are long lasting. Sometimes a choice amounts to deciding to make the same choice for the rest of your life." He was saying that this applies to being a priest or being married.
Well this may be apparent to some of you but I've never really looked at anything that way. Come to think about it there are probably days in some married couples lives in which they spend the whole day not really being married, maybe even longer. I know that there have been days when I haven't been a good son, or brother, or friend; definitley never a good boyfriend. but I'm still a son, brother, and friend to many people by title. I can choose though to ignore the spirit of being anyone of those things. I've never been a good boyfriend because I've never decided to make decision to be on over and over again. The other decisions have come and gone and come again.
So there is an observation. I liked it so I thought that I would share it.

Monday, May 01, 2006

SUV's...Should They be Penalized?



Currently much of America is complaining about our gas prices. I'm complaining too, because it's alot more expensive now than it used to be. Compared to the rest of the world we're still pretty cheap on the gas, but we're america, we shouldn't have to pay what the rest of the world pays. We, being americans, also have a hideous fetish for waste. SUV's for example comprise the most gas guzzling automobiles on the road. I have an SUV myself. I paid 50 bucks last time I felt my 2000 Nissan Xterra up. I even get good gas mileage, about 22 mpg on the highway. I still end up paying alot for fuel because my gas mileage just isn't that good, and many SUV's are worse. Much is being said about how to solve this problem. Some have said we should decrease the speed limits. Some say we should have better fuel economy regulations on cars, mainly SUV's. I say we do both. I think we should have speed regulations on cars with certain fuel efficiencies. For instance if your car get's fifty miles per gallon, you can go the normative 70 mph that we all enjoy currently. However, if your car only get's fifteen miles per gallon you have to go no faster than fifty five miles per hour. This would conserve fuel, encourage the purchase of fuel efficient cars, encourage the production of more fuel efficient cars, increase city revenues by way of speeding ticket, and slow down those shit for brains machismos with their big ass trucks from running over everyone else on the road. It may also bring a little humility to those, who inspite of the looming oil shortage, insist on buying obnoxiously wasteful mammoth SUV's that are prevalent. Problem solved my friends. Thank you, I'll be here all week ;-).