Throughout the year I’ve been keeping track of the things I’ve read, watched, and the video games I’ve played (and finished). I’ve always claimed to watch a lot of movies and read a lot of books, but I want to see just how true that really is.
Guidelines: – I’m only counting movies. I don’t watch too many TV shows anyway, so no sense in included them in. This is a lie. I watched many TV shows in 2011, but never kept track.
- I won’t include movies that I’ve watched before, unless I’ve forgotten enough about the movie that it would seem new to me (basically movies I watched as a kid that I’m revisiting).
- I’ve actually tried to keep the list in chronological order. I’ll organize it by month, since it would be too much work to be exact.
Grand Totals
As of December 24th 2011, I have watched 115 new movies, read 15 books, and I have finished 11 different video games. My movie total should be a lot higher if you count all the movies I’ve rewatched. Books, would be higher as well if I actually finished the ones I started. More often than not I get bored and start another book. Same with video games, but there aren’t many stories in games that can hold me very long these days. In the end I don’t think I watch a lot of movies or read a lot of books. Maybe this year was a slow year for me. My movie total for December would be much higher, but I ended up re-watching a lot of movies this month. It’s my nostalgia month I guess.
Movies:
January
- Black Swan
- Salo
- Police Story 2
- Lost in Translation
- Four Lions
- Idiocracy
- Dark City
- Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan
- Inside
Month Total: 9
Running Total: 9
February
- Groundhog Day
- Easy A
- Children of Men
- The American
- Red
- Man of Vendetta
- Let Me In
- I Saw the Devil
Month Total: 8
Running Total: 17
March
- Amélie
- True Grit (1969)
- Adjustment Bureau
- Red Hill
- Stargate
- Fab Five Documentary
- The Next Three Days
- Bank Job
- Elizabethtown
Month Total: 9
Running Total: 26
April
- Your Highness
- Vertigo
- Hanna
- Kids in America
- Unstoppable
- Bloods and Crips: Made in America
- Rio
Month Total: 7
Running Total: 33
May
- The Parking Lot Movie
- Pleasantville
- Bad Boys (tempted to leave this off the list, but I haven’t watched it in 10 years).
- What Are Dreams?
- Catch Me If You Can
- Trigun: Badlands Rumble
- Men Suddenly in Black
- Tucker and Dale vs Evil
- 13
- Shaft (2000)
- The Illusionist (Director: Sylvain Chomet)
Month Total: 11
Running Total: 44
June
- The Fighter
- Kung Fu Panda 2
- Ramona and Beezus
- Whip It
- Primer
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
- The Iceman Tapes: Confessions of a Killer
- Animal Kingdom
- Paul
Month Total: 9
Running Total: 53
July
- Cedar Rapids
- Hall Pass
- True Legend
- Super 8
- Tangled
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon
- Rob Roy
- Rubber
- True Grit (2010)
- Be Kind, Rewind
- Kill the Irishman
- I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale
- The Man from Nowhere
- Source Code
Month Total: 14
Running Total: 67
August
- Barney’s Version
- Inside Job
- The Two Escobars
- Unknown
- Super
- Bitch Slap
- Rise of the Planet of the Apes
- Last Night
Month Total: 8
Running Total: 75
September
- Kingpin
- X-Men: First Class
- Heckler
- Martyrs
- Drive
- Thor
- Burn After Reading
- Bridesmaids
- Bangkok K.O.
Month Total: 9
Year Total: 84
October
- What’s Your Number?
- Hackers
- Fast Five
- Horrible Bosses
- Attack the Block
- Sucker Punch
- The Cube
- Observe and Report
- Lion King
- How to Train Your Dragon
- Monsters
- Eastern Promises
- Not Another ‘Not Another’ Movie
- Hangover 2 (exactly the same as the first movie)
- The River Murders
- Captain America: The First Avenger
Month Total: 16
Running Total: 100
November
- Strangers on a Train
- Point Break
- Clueless
- City of Life and Death
- Brazil
- Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
- Immortals
- Puss in Boots
- 30 Minutes or Less
- Dumb and Dumber
- Our Idiot Brother
- Layer Cake
Month Total: 12
Running Total: 112
December
- King of Chinatown
- Knuckle
- The Killing
- The Adventures of Tin Tin
Games:
January
- Mass Effect 1
- Mass Effect 2
- Black Ops
March
- Marvel vs Capcom 3
April
- Costume Quest
August
- Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes
September
- Gears of War 1
- Gears of War 2
October
- Gears of War 3 (I actually beat those 3 games in a week)
November
- Red Dead Redemption
- Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
Books:
January
- I Heard You Paint Houses – Charles Brandt
March
- CSC Volume 1 (it’s sad that amongst all my great history textbooks, this was the only textbook I finished cover-to-cover).
April
- Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling – Bret Hart
May
- A Storm of Swords – George R. R. Martin
- Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
- CSC Volume 2
June
- Snuff – Chuck Palahniuk
July
- The Maltese Falcon – Dashiel Hammett
August
- A Feast for Crows – George R. R. Martin
September
- A Dance with Dragons – George R. R. Martin
- A History of Violence (Graphic Novel) – John Wagner (Art by Vince Locke)
- The Bronx Kill (Graphic Novel) – Peter Milligan (Art by James Romberger)
- Shortcomings (Graphic Novel) – Adrian Tomine
November
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
- Vernon God Little – DBC Pierre
I’m gonna read all day tomorrow. So many books I gotta finish.
I’m going to do as many chin-ups as I can. Fuck yeah, rip that bar right off my door frame.
Better yet, I’m gonna go to the gym and pound out some sets.
Gotta start eating smaller meals too. More of them, and healthier.
Not going to sleep so late anymore. I’ll sleep 30 minutes earlier a day, until I get a normal sleep schedule.
Man, meditation seems pretty cool. Need to learn how to clear my mind.
My room’s pretty messy too, might as well clear that up as well. Mental and physical clutter gone.
Fuck, if only it wasn’t 3am, I’d do it all now.
It’s ok, tomorrow. I’ll start everything tomorrow.
Man, I’m so tired, why’d I sleep at 4am last night?
So hard trying to read, my eyes hurt. I’ll play some Black Ops instead.
Ok, I’ll go to the gym after lunch. Wow, this lunch is huge.
It’s 3 already? Ok, don’t want to deal with the after-school traffic.
I’m going to take a nap, I’ll go to the gym after.
What time is it now? Blah, gym is going to be packed, I’ll go tomorrow.
10pm already? Where’d my day go?
Alright, might as well clean my room.
Blah fuck it, I can find everything here anyway.
Alright, time to call it a day.
It’s ok, tomorrow. Got all day tomorrow.
I just got back from dim sum with my friends. We went to the bar for a few drinks. It was nice seeing everyone again, because I haven’t seen them since I stopped working at the parking lot. It’s been a while since I’ve actually posted here, so I’ll get you up to speed with what’s been going on.
Last Day of Work
I had several missed calls from work on a Monday in November. At first I thought someone called in sick and they wanted me to cover a shift. When they finally managed to reach me, my supervisor let out a long sigh on the phone before saying:
“Redford, do you have your student form signed?”
“Nope.”
“Are you going to get it signed?”
“I’m not, sorry.”
“I’m sorry to say, but we’ll have to terminate you by the end of the business day.”
“Fair enough, I knew it was coming.”
And that’s the end of that. Then two minutes later:
“Redford?”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“About your shift tonight…do you plan on coming in?”
“Do you need me to?”
“Yeah, we can’t find anyone to cover your shift.”
“hahahaah, alright man, I’ll see you later.”
They actually needed special clearance to get me to work that last shift, but I did it anyway. It was a quiet day. I didn’t do anything crazy during my last shift, and I kinda wish that I had quit with a little more style like this guy:
But I’ve worked too hard building that bridge to burn it down.
I had no idea this video existed until I looked for it. I love how I can type in almost anything into Google and get an answer. The other day I was watching Fellowship of the Ring again and couldn’t help but notice how Elijah Wood’s pained expressions looked absolutely perfect for a jizz in my pants remix. So I typed in “Lord of the Rings, Jizz in my pants” and this video showed up:
Isn’t the internet amazing? Think about that for a second. I just typed in “Lord of the Rings, Jizz in my Pants” and actually got some search results that were relevant.
Anyway, long tangent aside, I just got back from dim sum. We went to Perfect Chinese Restaurant at Midland/Sheppard, and it was really rowdy. We went in and shortly after, I saw a police car pull into the restaurant. The guy did not look happy to be there, but it didn’t seem like anything was going on that was too bad, just people having a loud, good time. I suspect the police were called to ensure that the rowdy crowds settled their bills properly.
The easiest part of my shift is when I’m outside helping out my customers. The hardest bit, contrary to what most people think, is when I’m in my booth with nothing to do, because that means the customers are out there fending for themselves. Like babies in the bathtub, you can’t leave customers unattended. Our machines aren’t the greatest, or the most efficient, but they’re definitely not complicated. The first step is usually to put the ticket into the machine. This is a step that most people get wrong. I’m not joking.
The tickets are small, credit-card sized, and have an arrow on the face of the ticket indicating which direction to put the ticket into the machine in. In case the arrow is ambiguous to anyone, there’s even a small blurb that says “insert this side up.” Several times today I had customers tell me their tickets weren’t working. When I ejected it out of the machine, the arrows were not facing up into the machine. To me, this is the equivalent to opening the door for someone and inviting them in, and having them promptly walk into the brick wall instead. Whenever I come across a situation like this I just take control and do everything for the customers, because there’s no real hope for you.
Much like how Dante’s Inferno has many layers of hell, so does my job. I have to at least give credit to the above customers, because they have the right ticket in their hand. Several customers today complained to me that their tickets weren’t working. When I got to the machine, I saw that they were trying to insert a receipt into the machine. Now, the receipt, much like the ticket, is credit-card sized. Sure, I’ll admit that you could possibly confuse the two, which is precisely why my company put “RECEIPT” in bright red capital letters on the face of the receipts. If this is somehow ambiguous, your credit card information and entrance and exit information is recorded on this stub as well.
A rather wealthy Asian man was getting fairly angry and frustrated because he wasn’t able to pay at the exit with his credit card. He had trouble at the entrance earlier, and I told him that he can pay right at the exit, like he normally does, only since he had to grab a ticket, he has to put the ticket in first. So here I am, three hours later, face to face with this customer. Accusations start flying:
“You told me the ticket would work at the exit.”
“They do, but that’s not the ticket.”
“Really? The one that says Toronto Parking Authority is not your ticket?”
“Well, not the one that says “receipt” on it. You don’t get receipts at the entrance.” (A real photo of me at that moment)
If this was a Yakuza thing, he would chop off the first knuckle of his pinky for that one.
I point this out because there’s no other parking lot or garage in the city that I’ve worked at that have this many people fail at the first step. Usually, they get tripped up when they have to put their credit card into the machine, or when they have to take the receipt out of the machine to open the gate. That I sympathize with much more because the instructions aren’t as clear. They’re there, but, there’s no arrows or anything to guide you. There’s absolutely no reason for you to screw up that first step. You’ve failed before you’ve begun, and that more or less sums up the Yorkville customers for you.
I was sick about two weeks ago and just about everyone in my family (well, just my mom’s side) recommended that I have boiled coke with lemon to help me out. I’m not unfamiliar with this drink, I’m sure I’ve had it before when I was younger, I’m more interested at how someone managed to:
a) Boil cola to drink. That’s pretty brave of them considering how it tastes like ass when it’s flat and warm.
b) Turn it medicinal (again). I know Coke started out as a cure-all elixir, but this must have been in the late 1800s, and during the era when those drinks were all the rage (and a huge scam too). It hasn’t really been thought of a medicine since.
I tried googling this but only came across food blogs with “recipes” on boiling coke. I saw sites that gave out pretty detailed instructions on how to make this. It’s not that complicated, you don’t need a step-by-step guide, unless you’re an unsupervised child. It also seems to be an Asian thing. I never really notice the quirks in my culture until someone else points it out. While I prefer my coke ice-cold (brain-freezing temperature please), I accept that there are people who enjoy it hot. It never really was that weird to me. I figured there was a cold/hot option for every drink (and cold costing $1 more most of the time for some odd reason). This was probably the craziest idea to my Italian coworker though and when he tried it at home, he came back thinking all Chinese people were complete geniuses.
“You guys have something for everything. He taught me the Ancient Chinese cold remedy by boiling coke and I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday.”
