So for those of you who know me, I like to comment or "troll" as they say on LU Crushes. It's just something I started by tagging my friend and referencing a meme to myself, which somehow turned into just messing around on all the other posts. Well assuming that the post has something that a joke can be made out of.
Anyhow, the other night someone made a post saying how they liked Kanye West's new album, or at least somehow mentioned it. All I said was that I hadn't listened to any of the album except for the one song called "Closed on Sunday" in which I merely stated I thought it was funny. It's literally a song about Chick-fil-A being closed on Sunday.
Then enter someone who is an acquaintance of sorts, and she goes off saying how "Closed on Sunday" is by far the worst song on the album. I replied with "all I mentioned was that it was funny" and then I said that I didn't care whether or not the song is the best or worst. She replies saying how I'm being rude and that all she was trying to do was start a conversation.
Riddle me this, how is it that you think you're going to catch up or start a conversation with someone you don't really talk to anymore by effectively nullifying their comment. I mean sure I never mentioned whether or not "Closed on Sunday" was good, but to just come in and tell me that the one song I listened to was the worst, and not say anything else? Then to get mad AT ME for being "rude"? Did you even read your own comment before telling me that I am the rude one?
Sure I'm overreacting to this all, but come on, this wasn't fair to say that I'm being rude when I mentioned one thing and then you just trash my opinion. And then you have the nerve to expect pleasantries from me? I don't even really know you. There's nothing that we've bonded over, and then you expect me to just be all goody two shoes for you. I'm not about that life.
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Monday, October 28, 2019
Update: "The Joker"
So I guess I made some hasty assumptions yet again, or at least thought of how things were, without actually giving a chance to a different reason for certain actions.
If you read my post titled "The Joker", you'd know that I had assumed that the guy who put on a Joker costume and everything didn't return my text messages. But I was wrong in assuming he cut me out or decided to give me to cold shoulder, because I sent a compliment to him from the "message" option on the Instagram story, and he actually responded with messages that indicate a certain warmness, so to speak. He was friendly and actually returned my messages. I'm not sure if that's only because I had complimented him or whatnot, but the point is that I should just give people the benefit of the doubt.
That I need to be less judgmental or slower to jump to conclusions/assumptions if I don't know every detail of the situation. I think there is hope for even a casual friendship to come from this, and all I need to do is pray about it and just be intentional whenever he does return messages or texts. I just gotta be the best that I can be, and let God do the rest and not worry about trying to carry everything on my own.
If you read my post titled "The Joker", you'd know that I had assumed that the guy who put on a Joker costume and everything didn't return my text messages. But I was wrong in assuming he cut me out or decided to give me to cold shoulder, because I sent a compliment to him from the "message" option on the Instagram story, and he actually responded with messages that indicate a certain warmness, so to speak. He was friendly and actually returned my messages. I'm not sure if that's only because I had complimented him or whatnot, but the point is that I should just give people the benefit of the doubt.
That I need to be less judgmental or slower to jump to conclusions/assumptions if I don't know every detail of the situation. I think there is hope for even a casual friendship to come from this, and all I need to do is pray about it and just be intentional whenever he does return messages or texts. I just gotta be the best that I can be, and let God do the rest and not worry about trying to carry everything on my own.
The Thrill of the Kill
DISCLAIMER: I did not actually kill anyone, before anyone gets upset or decides to file a police report.
I mean come on, did you think I'd be dumb enough to actually write a blog post and post it on the internet for all to see and read if I were to actually kill someone?
Anyhow, for context and explanation, my hall is playing the game Assassins, with our 2 sister dorms, or at least with whoever from each of the 3 halls wants to play. For those who don't know about Assassins, basically everyone is assigned a target out of all the eligible players. It's a last man standing sort of game, and when you kill your target, you get your target's target, and so on and so forth. The game ends when 1 person is left, and you've eliminated the competition. There is a person hunting you down, so be careful with how much you tell to other people. Means of "killing" are a Nerf gun (pretty obvious what it resembles) and a ball of socks as a "grenade". This time around it's only those 2 methods. Sometimes you can use hot sauce to "poison" food, or sharpie/marker as a "knife" or "hidden blade".
Enough explanation, if you don't understand the game by now, it's not really that important. I forgot how much adrenaline goes into a game like this. I mean sure it's all for fun and games and nothing super serious. I don't even know if there's a prize this time around for most kills or last one standing, or if it's just for the bragging rights of winning. But it is fun to stay "alive" and kill your targets.
I've managed to act like I haven't been playing the game so that no one suspects me. My target happened to be on my hall, so I struck up a conversation with him today to just catch up. He told me his day's plans, and naturally I took advantage of it all and just waited for him to leave the dorm (you can't kill on the dorms). He got to the laundry room, and was hidden from the door behind a pillar (for structural support I'd reckon), and he didn't see me enter the building. So I whipped around the corner, and took my shot.
It was a clean kill, and debatable as to whether or not it was sooner than my last kill when I played this game last semester. I explained my steps in playing his death, and now I've got one kill under my belt for this game. I've got my new target, and I'm not sure how I'll pull it off, but I'm just glad I managed to get the 1. Obviously, I want to try to be the last one standing, but I'll settle for getting some kills.
I mean come on, did you think I'd be dumb enough to actually write a blog post and post it on the internet for all to see and read if I were to actually kill someone?
Anyhow, for context and explanation, my hall is playing the game Assassins, with our 2 sister dorms, or at least with whoever from each of the 3 halls wants to play. For those who don't know about Assassins, basically everyone is assigned a target out of all the eligible players. It's a last man standing sort of game, and when you kill your target, you get your target's target, and so on and so forth. The game ends when 1 person is left, and you've eliminated the competition. There is a person hunting you down, so be careful with how much you tell to other people. Means of "killing" are a Nerf gun (pretty obvious what it resembles) and a ball of socks as a "grenade". This time around it's only those 2 methods. Sometimes you can use hot sauce to "poison" food, or sharpie/marker as a "knife" or "hidden blade".
Enough explanation, if you don't understand the game by now, it's not really that important. I forgot how much adrenaline goes into a game like this. I mean sure it's all for fun and games and nothing super serious. I don't even know if there's a prize this time around for most kills or last one standing, or if it's just for the bragging rights of winning. But it is fun to stay "alive" and kill your targets.
I've managed to act like I haven't been playing the game so that no one suspects me. My target happened to be on my hall, so I struck up a conversation with him today to just catch up. He told me his day's plans, and naturally I took advantage of it all and just waited for him to leave the dorm (you can't kill on the dorms). He got to the laundry room, and was hidden from the door behind a pillar (for structural support I'd reckon), and he didn't see me enter the building. So I whipped around the corner, and took my shot.
It was a clean kill, and debatable as to whether or not it was sooner than my last kill when I played this game last semester. I explained my steps in playing his death, and now I've got one kill under my belt for this game. I've got my new target, and I'm not sure how I'll pull it off, but I'm just glad I managed to get the 1. Obviously, I want to try to be the last one standing, but I'll settle for getting some kills.
The Joker
So this is.... curious to say the least. Someone who once reached out to me first to try to meet me since we had once both trolled/commented on LU Crushes, has expressed his affinity towards the character of the Joker. And as his costume/clothing would suggest, Heath Ledger's Joker from Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.
The clothing is quite accurate if I say so myself, and there are honestly some parts that scare me just a little bit. This guy actually dyed his hair green, and he managed to copy some of the mannerisms that Heath Ledger had done, almost to the letter. The voice is very close, at least to how this audio quality came out, and just the way he acts and smiles in the video.
I mean this is kinda creepy how accurate this is. Credit owed where credit is due for that, but at the same time, something about it made me feel like I wanted to jump into my own Batsuit and whatever. Maybe that's just my response to it because I've got this false idea in my head that I am the Batman. But dang. It's impressive to say the least.
Now I'm not sure why, but this guy, at least the guy who's underneath the costume and makeup, just doesn't respond to any of my texts. I don't have an explanation for it, but I just hope that whatever it is he thought was going to happen by reaching out to me, or whatever it is he wanted that he'll figure out how to be a bit more intentional with the friendships he actually wants. Not to say that I'll be unfriendly to him, just that I'm not going to be as warm until he makes an effort to at the least respond or whatever.
Perhaps I scared him off with how much I like Batman, but I figured that given his dedication and effort he put into the Joker that there would be common ground to speak about. I've even tried texting about other things that are unrelated to the Batman and related more to something he does (photo shoots, photography, the sort). I guess we'll see if in the future he decides to warm up to me once again, and if he does, then by all means I'll be as good of a friend that I can be. But until that day comes, I guess only time will tell what happens.
Side note, he does know I assumed the mantle of the Batman, so there's that. That's because I accidentally started following his Instagram with the Batman account because I didn't bother to check which account I was logged into at the time.
The clothing is quite accurate if I say so myself, and there are honestly some parts that scare me just a little bit. This guy actually dyed his hair green, and he managed to copy some of the mannerisms that Heath Ledger had done, almost to the letter. The voice is very close, at least to how this audio quality came out, and just the way he acts and smiles in the video.
I mean this is kinda creepy how accurate this is. Credit owed where credit is due for that, but at the same time, something about it made me feel like I wanted to jump into my own Batsuit and whatever. Maybe that's just my response to it because I've got this false idea in my head that I am the Batman. But dang. It's impressive to say the least.
Now I'm not sure why, but this guy, at least the guy who's underneath the costume and makeup, just doesn't respond to any of my texts. I don't have an explanation for it, but I just hope that whatever it is he thought was going to happen by reaching out to me, or whatever it is he wanted that he'll figure out how to be a bit more intentional with the friendships he actually wants. Not to say that I'll be unfriendly to him, just that I'm not going to be as warm until he makes an effort to at the least respond or whatever.
Perhaps I scared him off with how much I like Batman, but I figured that given his dedication and effort he put into the Joker that there would be common ground to speak about. I've even tried texting about other things that are unrelated to the Batman and related more to something he does (photo shoots, photography, the sort). I guess we'll see if in the future he decides to warm up to me once again, and if he does, then by all means I'll be as good of a friend that I can be. But until that day comes, I guess only time will tell what happens.
Side note, he does know I assumed the mantle of the Batman, so there's that. That's because I accidentally started following his Instagram with the Batman account because I didn't bother to check which account I was logged into at the time.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Wearing A Mask
You know, sometimes I wonder if I take the whole Batman thing a little too far. Sometimes, I feel like I'm him, and not just in the "I want to be a superhero/Batman" kind of way. More in the "I'm realizing there are parallels in the character and the personality of the character that I am emulating". And no I don't just emulate the character to feel more like Batman. It's just something I do, and something I'm realizing is the same thing Bruce Wayne does as Batman.
Here's what I'm talking about. In Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, there's a scene in which Commissioner Gordon is incapacitated in the hospital, and an officer by the name of Blake goes to Wayne Manor to talk to Bruce. He explains how he knows that Bruce is the Batman and that's because for them as orphans, they had to learn to put on a metaphorical mask. To smile and appear happy and like all is well, when on the inside, nothing could be further from the truth. This scene parallels to the end of Batman Begins when Rachel Dawes is talking about how Bruce's face is no longer Bruce Wayne, but of Batman, and that Bruce Wayne is an act, for appearances sake.
Anyhow, without over-explaining the movies, the way this ties in to me is that I've realized I've hidden away my problems, my shortcomings, and everything that I perceive to not be worthy of having light shown on it. I've pretended to friends, family, acquaintances, hallmates, classmates, etc. that all is well and that I am content with everything in my life. I realize that my hiding away does nothing to deal with the problem, and that eventually it can and will sneak its way out from under the mask and bring out inexplicable emotions that aren't necessarily warranted.
I don't know why I do this. I don't know why I just don't open up more often to people so that I don't have to hide my shame and doubts under a metaphorical mask. I suppose bullying in my past years affected the level of trust I can build with people, and it truly takes a miracle to build the trust enough to allow people to the inside. That I don't have to be a lone wolf, that I am not alone. That I don't have to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders and have no one to help me. I'm no superhero, and I'm not really Batman any more than just my affinity to the Dark Knight, and my knowledge what little or lot there may be of the character. Sure I try my best to be what other people deserve or what they need, and maybe that's all it takes to be like Batman. But I gotta realize that just because I want to be like my favorite superhero doesn't mean I can't get help from anyone.
I suppose I need to learn to take off my mask sometimes. That I don't even need to put one on. That I can be open, honest, and even vulnerable. That even though the world says men are tough and strong and are not of emotions, that I can contradict what the stereotypes are. I don't always have to be resilient to everything, to just tank hits and not react or show weakness. Because I believe that true strength comes from being open with someone. Now my only question is who?
Monday, October 21, 2019
Perhaps I Was Too Harsh
Okay so I'm still watching Batwoman, despite how my last post about that show really looked like the nail in the coffin and the end of me watching that show. But honestly episode 3 wasn't that bad. I mean there were some cringey aspects, but I guess now that my expectations are set so low, it's not super hard to impress me.
There's still a lot of stuff that needs to be worked on and improved in order for this season to go well for those who might also have been rather harsh, but then again they have a lot of slack to pick up on given how terrible episode 2 was.
Part of me still wants to watch it because Dark Knight related, and whatever. And the fact that Kevin Conroy is confirmed for the CW crossover as an old Bruce Wayne, and that's going to be sick. So there's something for my troubles..... maybe.
CW step up your game and maybe you can get a season 2 with better ratings from the audience than your current standing with season 1
There's still a lot of stuff that needs to be worked on and improved in order for this season to go well for those who might also have been rather harsh, but then again they have a lot of slack to pick up on given how terrible episode 2 was.
Part of me still wants to watch it because Dark Knight related, and whatever. And the fact that Kevin Conroy is confirmed for the CW crossover as an old Bruce Wayne, and that's going to be sick. So there's something for my troubles..... maybe.
CW step up your game and maybe you can get a season 2 with better ratings from the audience than your current standing with season 1
Breaking Point
At what point should it get to that jokes are borderline funny/teasing and become something that is claimed to not have been what it appears to be? Confused? Okay, so what point is something not clearly what one intended it to be? Not to mention over text, so there's no emotion that can be read as easily, no voice inflection, and no faces to watch to see if a grin cracks and is a clear indication that whatever was just said was a joke?
At what point do I have to just take it and not be allowed to express how I truly feel about the situation, or the message, or whatever it may be? That roasts, jokes, and the like were supposed to be lighthearted, but don't exactly come off that way when it'a delivered through text.
But when I break, it's "just a joke, Geoff" or "we're just messing with you, Geoff" or "we're only teasing, no need to get angry, Geoff". What do you want me to do? Just be all "haha, good joke guys"? It's a rhetorical question.
All I was trying to do was finalize some plans we were considering awhile back, and now that the date is coming up, I figured to get the details down, or at least mostly down so that we all know what to expect, when to meet, where to meet, etc. If you don't have a legitimate response to my questions of "when do you want to meet" or "what did you guys want to do exactly", then just tell me! How hard is it to do that?! Just say, "I'm not sure" or something like "do you have any suggestions" or literally anything that is more than a low effort "joke" of "idc". And then you expect me to think that saying "idc" is a joke and not what the initialism (yes that's a word, it's similar to acronym, but acronym's have a pronunciation like a word such as NASA) stands for? How else am I supposed to interpret "I don't care"? I can understand if maybe 1 person doesn't care to be super involved in the planning process, but then 2 people start going with "idc". Sure it's my fault for not understanding the joke. Okay yeah.
All I really want to say is that at some point, there's gotta be some sort of limit. That I've got my limits. That there is indeed a breaking point. I mean I can only imagine that that is where this all stems from. And perhaps I do need to learn better ways of dealing with things when I reach my breaking point, but it's not entirely my fault, is it? I mean I need to be responsible for my actions and my reactions, but you can't have a reaction without a stimulus first.
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Finding Purpose
I really really want to be able to just be an aikido instructor for my career. But there are several issues with that desire/dream/whatever label you want to put on it. First off, I haven't been the most proactive in getting people to take me up on free training. So I've not quite yet found the courage to seek after people and give them the encouragement to try it out. Next, I've been losing steam in trying to start up this aikido club that I had great aspirations and plans for. Liberty doesn't have an aikido club yet, but they do have a jiu jitsu club. Perhaps I haven't been putting in enough effort, and I don't have any excuse for not trying harder. I should've expected there to be resistance in trying to start something new. Not that aikido is a bad thing and it's going to force people against their morals to train with me, but just that I'm not being proactive enough to remind people, and that I'm not exactly doing the best at trying.
Part of me wants to believe that this is what I'm supposed to do. That there is a way that I can fulfill God's Great Commission and glorify His name and His kingdom through martial arts. I mean if my sensei can lead a Buddhist practice in the same place as his dojo and lead it sometimes right after or right before an aikido class, then why can't I eventually have my own school/dojo and lead something like a Bible study before or after the classes?
Now I know that starting something like this is always going to be tough. And I should fight the tough obstacles because if I truly want to do this, I need to be getting out there more. I can't let the unavailability of other busy people hinder my shot and make me become apathetic towards all of this, especially not with my academics being a far cry from stellar. If I truly want to rely on the passion I have recently found for the martial art, then I need to be doing more.
An idea had popped up into my mind not too long ago that perhaps instead of just trying to brute force my way into starting a club by just reaching out to people who express interest, that I need to just join whatever martial arts clubs already exist on campus. Perhaps I need to just attend the jiu jitsu club on a semi-regular basis. And if on the off chance there are jiu jitsu moves or techniques that come relatively easily to me because of my background in aikido, and if on another off chance people ask me how I can understand the ideas well given the fact that I have no jiu jitsu training whatsoever, then perhaps I can begin to bring up aikido and work from there. That was an incredibly long winded and debatable run on sentence, but basically I should probably just go to the jiu jitsu club and work my way from there. Or at least see what I can do. If nothing else, at least I learn or start learning another martial art and then I can try to incorporate what I learn to strengthen my repertoire and perhaps enhance my aikido abilities.
I guess I really and absolutely need to be praying about this. A lot. And way more than the occasional prayer and more than just stating it on this blog that barely anyone checks. God only knows where I've gone, where I am, and where I'm going. I need to trust Him and learn where He wants to take me. To learn if this is truly the path that I'm supposed to be on.
It's time for me to stop being apathetic with my life and my future career, and it's time for me to find my purpose.
Part of me wants to believe that this is what I'm supposed to do. That there is a way that I can fulfill God's Great Commission and glorify His name and His kingdom through martial arts. I mean if my sensei can lead a Buddhist practice in the same place as his dojo and lead it sometimes right after or right before an aikido class, then why can't I eventually have my own school/dojo and lead something like a Bible study before or after the classes?
Now I know that starting something like this is always going to be tough. And I should fight the tough obstacles because if I truly want to do this, I need to be getting out there more. I can't let the unavailability of other busy people hinder my shot and make me become apathetic towards all of this, especially not with my academics being a far cry from stellar. If I truly want to rely on the passion I have recently found for the martial art, then I need to be doing more.
An idea had popped up into my mind not too long ago that perhaps instead of just trying to brute force my way into starting a club by just reaching out to people who express interest, that I need to just join whatever martial arts clubs already exist on campus. Perhaps I need to just attend the jiu jitsu club on a semi-regular basis. And if on the off chance there are jiu jitsu moves or techniques that come relatively easily to me because of my background in aikido, and if on another off chance people ask me how I can understand the ideas well given the fact that I have no jiu jitsu training whatsoever, then perhaps I can begin to bring up aikido and work from there. That was an incredibly long winded and debatable run on sentence, but basically I should probably just go to the jiu jitsu club and work my way from there. Or at least see what I can do. If nothing else, at least I learn or start learning another martial art and then I can try to incorporate what I learn to strengthen my repertoire and perhaps enhance my aikido abilities.
I guess I really and absolutely need to be praying about this. A lot. And way more than the occasional prayer and more than just stating it on this blog that barely anyone checks. God only knows where I've gone, where I am, and where I'm going. I need to trust Him and learn where He wants to take me. To learn if this is truly the path that I'm supposed to be on.
It's time for me to stop being apathetic with my life and my future career, and it's time for me to find my purpose.
Benchmarked
After approximately 6.5 months of working out rigorously (4 times a week), I've gotten some noticeable strength and muscular hypertrophy gains. I'm stronger and in better shape than I ever was before, and I could totally take my past self who once claimed I was in the best shape of my life, in a fight. Okay, sure I was only 16 at the time, and I did mostly just cardio to lose a ton of weight. Like 30 pounds. I was pretty gaunt by the end of it, so I was probably doing something rather unhealthily. But I live to tell the tale. And yes, taking myself on in a fight, at least my past self, is an unfair fight. Back then I was a first kyu in aikido, with just enough motivation to do aikido for physical exercise (with some proficiency in the art), and I was 160 pounds. Now, I can max 190 on bench, and leg press 400 pounds, so I can do way more physical feats than my past self. And I'm also a shodan in aikido, with a better understanding of things and a newfound passion for the discipline. That and I've started teaching myself how to box. Sure I'm not good at it, nowhere close as I've only got maybe an hour under my belt, but only 15 minutes of guided training? Anyways, I digress.
8 months ago, in February 2019, my best friend had challenged me to an arm wrestling match. He had beat our other roommate, and was curious if he was the strongest in the room. I gave it my best, but ultimately lost in say 30 seconds? Not too bad I suppose. I'm not even sure if it was that long, so maybe between 15-30 seconds I'll say.
Since I've been working out, I wanted to rematch him. Spoiler alert: I lost the match. But it was truly a valiant effort. I held out for a solid 1-2 minutes? Again, I'm unsure of how long it went because my perception of time seemed to have slowed down for the entire match, but I did last way longer than 8 months ago. I also had more progress than ever before.
So now I have my benchmark in where my strength has gone. I will eventually seek out another rematch so that I can beat him and taste victory. But he might be working out more, so I'll just have to push myself harder than he pushes himself. Lots of weight lifting and lots of boxing should get me into shape. Boxing will strengthen me and give me muscular endurance. Weight lifting will give me the brute force I'll need to take him down. But it's nice to know where I'm at and where I need to go in order to finally win. Perhaps I'll try again in 5-6 months, after it's been a full year of me working out. Plus in that time frame, I'll have been able to improve my boxing skills and endurance.
8 months ago, in February 2019, my best friend had challenged me to an arm wrestling match. He had beat our other roommate, and was curious if he was the strongest in the room. I gave it my best, but ultimately lost in say 30 seconds? Not too bad I suppose. I'm not even sure if it was that long, so maybe between 15-30 seconds I'll say.
Since I've been working out, I wanted to rematch him. Spoiler alert: I lost the match. But it was truly a valiant effort. I held out for a solid 1-2 minutes? Again, I'm unsure of how long it went because my perception of time seemed to have slowed down for the entire match, but I did last way longer than 8 months ago. I also had more progress than ever before.
So now I have my benchmark in where my strength has gone. I will eventually seek out another rematch so that I can beat him and taste victory. But he might be working out more, so I'll just have to push myself harder than he pushes himself. Lots of weight lifting and lots of boxing should get me into shape. Boxing will strengthen me and give me muscular endurance. Weight lifting will give me the brute force I'll need to take him down. But it's nice to know where I'm at and where I need to go in order to finally win. Perhaps I'll try again in 5-6 months, after it's been a full year of me working out. Plus in that time frame, I'll have been able to improve my boxing skills and endurance.
Friday, October 18, 2019
It's Tougher Than Imagined
I should've expected that learning a new skill, much less a new fighting skill, was going to be tough. But if I commit myself to improving and practicing, I can develop this skill at a solid rate.
ICYMI, I started trying my hand (pun intended) at boxing. It's pretty fun. For awhile I wanted to learn a more aggressive martial art/fighting style. Not to say that I'm unsure of my skill and abilities in Aikido, but I also want to have options. And that's also not to say that once I get proficient at throwing punches that I'll start to pick fights or anything. No, I just want more skills under my belt so to speak. Plus if it comes down to it, I mean God forbid it does, but if I have to engage an aggressor, while yes in theory my Aikido should and would suffice, not everyone is going to be striking me in ways that I am comfortable or know how to deal with. Sure I can always just wait for the right attack that would position me to do what I know, but at the same time, it's better to end any fight as fast as it started. Obviously it's best if I never have to fight, but alas the world is a fallen world and people can get overly aggressive for no reason.
Anyways, I learned a newfound respect for boxers in all the physical conditioning they have to go through. Strength and endurance is a huge factor, as well as the technique. Then they also have to be able to tank hits as well as dish them out just as efficiently as if they weren't getting hit. I don't know if I'll ever spar anyone or if I'll ever learn how to tank a hit, but man, so much respect. I think I shouldn't worry about taking hits for now and just learn to get the technique and ideas down before I even think about sparring.
It's going to be many hours spent in front of the punching bag, and many calories burned as well as muscular fatigue. But given that it's a total body sport, I think I can use this to my advantage. Upper and lower body gets engaged, so it'll round out all my physical training, as well as give me a fun way to do cardio while also learning how to defend myself in more than just the defensive.
ICYMI, I started trying my hand (pun intended) at boxing. It's pretty fun. For awhile I wanted to learn a more aggressive martial art/fighting style. Not to say that I'm unsure of my skill and abilities in Aikido, but I also want to have options. And that's also not to say that once I get proficient at throwing punches that I'll start to pick fights or anything. No, I just want more skills under my belt so to speak. Plus if it comes down to it, I mean God forbid it does, but if I have to engage an aggressor, while yes in theory my Aikido should and would suffice, not everyone is going to be striking me in ways that I am comfortable or know how to deal with. Sure I can always just wait for the right attack that would position me to do what I know, but at the same time, it's better to end any fight as fast as it started. Obviously it's best if I never have to fight, but alas the world is a fallen world and people can get overly aggressive for no reason.
Anyways, I learned a newfound respect for boxers in all the physical conditioning they have to go through. Strength and endurance is a huge factor, as well as the technique. Then they also have to be able to tank hits as well as dish them out just as efficiently as if they weren't getting hit. I don't know if I'll ever spar anyone or if I'll ever learn how to tank a hit, but man, so much respect. I think I shouldn't worry about taking hits for now and just learn to get the technique and ideas down before I even think about sparring.
It's going to be many hours spent in front of the punching bag, and many calories burned as well as muscular fatigue. But given that it's a total body sport, I think I can use this to my advantage. Upper and lower body gets engaged, so it'll round out all my physical training, as well as give me a fun way to do cardio while also learning how to defend myself in more than just the defensive.
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Getting In Over My Head
Sometimes for some reason I end up thinking way too much about the future and about things that I need not worry about at all just yet or if ever because they are hypothetical thinking on things that either haven't happened, won't happen, or are up in the air to decide which way it's going to fall.
I don't know why I worry so much and why I start getting ahead of myself anyways, but it's a tendency I have had, and it's making me wonder if some of the choices that I am making now that would ultimately affect the later choices I'm worrying about, are the right choices I need to be making. Maybe that doesn't make sense, so let me try to explain that better.
Basically, I'm wondering if what I'm doing now is the right thing to be doing. It ultimately will affect the things I'm worrying about in the future because those future things are affected on whatever happens now. And maybe I'm being too hopeful or something but, I'm also not sure if I should even be this hopeful. Maybe it's just the fact that I can't take a hint or anything like that. Maybe I'm making the wrong decisions and not realizing it because I want something. I don't even know why I want what I want, but then again this isn't something that's exactly new for me.
I need time to refocus and make sure that what I'm going for, whatever the decision may be at the end of the day, is if it's what's the best course of action. I don't know how else I'm going to come across the decision, or even the insight to know which way to go, but it's something that I'll have to go in prayer most likely about.
I don't know why I worry so much and why I start getting ahead of myself anyways, but it's a tendency I have had, and it's making me wonder if some of the choices that I am making now that would ultimately affect the later choices I'm worrying about, are the right choices I need to be making. Maybe that doesn't make sense, so let me try to explain that better.
Basically, I'm wondering if what I'm doing now is the right thing to be doing. It ultimately will affect the things I'm worrying about in the future because those future things are affected on whatever happens now. And maybe I'm being too hopeful or something but, I'm also not sure if I should even be this hopeful. Maybe it's just the fact that I can't take a hint or anything like that. Maybe I'm making the wrong decisions and not realizing it because I want something. I don't even know why I want what I want, but then again this isn't something that's exactly new for me.
I need time to refocus and make sure that what I'm going for, whatever the decision may be at the end of the day, is if it's what's the best course of action. I don't know how else I'm going to come across the decision, or even the insight to know which way to go, but it's something that I'll have to go in prayer most likely about.
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Reevaluation
So I have a lot of prayer to do and a lot of thinking of what I'm going to do with my life. Yeah, we're getting deep tonight. And no, that's not what she said.
I was talking with my best friend, asking him what he thinks I should do with my life, given the fact that I just don't really apply myself all that much into my academics like I should be. I've not done well in high school and I'm not exactly doing well enough here in college to graduate on time, in 2021, like originally planned and projected to. I'd most likely have to stay a 5th year in order to finish my degree.
I suppose there's nothing exactly wrong with finishing my degree in 5 years as opposed to 4, but I haven't exactly told my parents yet, and I owe it to them since they're paying for my college. It's their money and they deserve to know what I've been doing with it, or I guess technically what I've not been doing with it.
Sometimes I wonder if academics was really a part of the plan for my life. Then I also counter that argument with the possibility that I'm just being lazy and not doing the work that I technically signed up to do. I agreed to be a student, no one really forced me to go to college. I mean sure I was highly encouraged to do so by my parents, but technically I'm not forced to come here. Technically I could just take my high school diploma and work some low level job for the rest of my life and just fight for every scrap on the table.
But going back to align with the idea that maybe academics isn't for me, then perhaps I'm supposed to just grow as a man in both mentality, maturity, and spiritually. To get stronger in my faith and to learn how to be an adult so that I can properly fulfill whatever calling God has on my life. I wonder sometimes that is Aikido the calling on my life? To be an instructor and somehow find a way to fulfill the Great Commission? I mean how is it that after 13 years of training that only in the past couple months that I found such a love for Aikido; such a passion for it? Sure maybe it was because I was training hard for my black belt test, but in reality, my skill doesn't change or instantly get better because the color of my belt changes from white (technically blue stained, but that's unimportant) to black. Then there were also the hundreds upon hundreds of hours spent at the gym, training hard to become stronger and in better shape to make sure I can fulfill the physical aspect of the test.
I'd absolutely love it to be an Aikido instructor. It would be an amazing job, but how can I start it all up? I mean sure I can trust in God, but is my faith strong enough? Will I actually wait on His timing and not try to force anything on my timing? Because that wouldn't work. It never does.
Do I finish my degree, or do I admit my failures to my parents, seek a part time or even full time job, and train my butt off at Aikido until I can get to the point of becoming an instructor? What am I supposed to be doing?
I guess like I said, a lot of prayer is necessary here. If you read this, could you help pray for me? I mean I know I should be the one praying about it and I shouldn't be relying on others to pray on my behalf, but any and all extra prayer could be handy.
It's time to reevaluate what I'm doing in my life and how I am pursuing after the Lord and His plan.
I was talking with my best friend, asking him what he thinks I should do with my life, given the fact that I just don't really apply myself all that much into my academics like I should be. I've not done well in high school and I'm not exactly doing well enough here in college to graduate on time, in 2021, like originally planned and projected to. I'd most likely have to stay a 5th year in order to finish my degree.
I suppose there's nothing exactly wrong with finishing my degree in 5 years as opposed to 4, but I haven't exactly told my parents yet, and I owe it to them since they're paying for my college. It's their money and they deserve to know what I've been doing with it, or I guess technically what I've not been doing with it.
Sometimes I wonder if academics was really a part of the plan for my life. Then I also counter that argument with the possibility that I'm just being lazy and not doing the work that I technically signed up to do. I agreed to be a student, no one really forced me to go to college. I mean sure I was highly encouraged to do so by my parents, but technically I'm not forced to come here. Technically I could just take my high school diploma and work some low level job for the rest of my life and just fight for every scrap on the table.
But going back to align with the idea that maybe academics isn't for me, then perhaps I'm supposed to just grow as a man in both mentality, maturity, and spiritually. To get stronger in my faith and to learn how to be an adult so that I can properly fulfill whatever calling God has on my life. I wonder sometimes that is Aikido the calling on my life? To be an instructor and somehow find a way to fulfill the Great Commission? I mean how is it that after 13 years of training that only in the past couple months that I found such a love for Aikido; such a passion for it? Sure maybe it was because I was training hard for my black belt test, but in reality, my skill doesn't change or instantly get better because the color of my belt changes from white (technically blue stained, but that's unimportant) to black. Then there were also the hundreds upon hundreds of hours spent at the gym, training hard to become stronger and in better shape to make sure I can fulfill the physical aspect of the test.
I'd absolutely love it to be an Aikido instructor. It would be an amazing job, but how can I start it all up? I mean sure I can trust in God, but is my faith strong enough? Will I actually wait on His timing and not try to force anything on my timing? Because that wouldn't work. It never does.
Do I finish my degree, or do I admit my failures to my parents, seek a part time or even full time job, and train my butt off at Aikido until I can get to the point of becoming an instructor? What am I supposed to be doing?
I guess like I said, a lot of prayer is necessary here. If you read this, could you help pray for me? I mean I know I should be the one praying about it and I shouldn't be relying on others to pray on my behalf, but any and all extra prayer could be handy.
It's time to reevaluate what I'm doing in my life and how I am pursuing after the Lord and His plan.
Monday, October 14, 2019
Common Courtesy
You'd figure that perhaps the room is dark for a reason. That perhaps you shouldn't just walk in, leave the door wide open so light floods in, and then just turn on the light by the sink as if the light won't bother anyone. Perhaps that the roommate who's still awake and on his phone probably turned the lights off for a reason.
I mean I try my best to be courteous to my roommates. But come on, at what point will one of the other's realize that some things are done for a reason? That's there's no reason for him to just stand in front of the mirror and just leave the light on? Get a desk lamp, my guy. Don't turn on the room lights, especially if the third guy is asleep or trying to sleep. That also goes for when I try to sleep.
Like I get it, maybe you don't like darker rooms, but you also seem okay to not need lights when you're lying in bed on your iPad or your phone just looking at whatever it is, memes, YouTube, it doesn't matter.
All I want to say is to be more courteous and understanding of why there is so much darkness in the room.
Not just darkness, but noise levels too. Sure I can get loud myself if I'm playing videogames with friends, but I usually try to limit my noise by the time midnight strikes, assuming I'm even still playing by then. Don't use voice communications past midnight, like bro. Or if one roommate is trying to sleep and the other returns, don't greet the other with daytime volumes for speech. I mean I don't want to force you to whisper, but again common courtesy.
Had A Chance And You Blew It
So it's been a hot sec since I've written a blog. For better or for worse. Anyhow, I just watched the second episode of Batwoman that aired last night and here's my thoughts (as if the title didn't give it away):
The CW botched the show. They had so much potential. But after watching this second episode, all of the lazy writing, convenient ex machina's, and poor acting just came through. I guess you can only bluff for so long until someone catches on. Perhaps like the Gothamites in the show, I held out hope for no reason.
Of course there's conveniently a bomb on the bridge that the police transport was going to go on, so the lead villain doesn't get captured already by episode 2. Of course the step-mom is actually evil. Of course the father will let his "care" for his daughter make him disobey GCPD orders to shoot on sight. So much was wrong with this one episode. Oh and I can't forget all the name dropping like Bruce Wayne, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Lucius Fox to remind us why this show and its story is supposed to be interesting, relevant, cool, etc. You tried so hard to make this a standalone, but then messed up by using so many name drops at once to remind the viewers of your relevance.
Next, apparently the batsuit is a $10.8 million suit? And it looks like that poor thing I have screenshots of in the previous post? And it just happens that the GCPD that was searching for a body of the villain move at a snail's pace despite their K9 unit discovering something and barking at it, for long enough that a convenient, built-in AED shocks Kate Kane back to consciousness so she doesn't get discovered and/or arrested as the Batman (since everyone still thinks it's Batman mostly because Batwoman was not established yet).
Overall, I can understand now why the Rotten Tomatoes audience score is a 12%. I'm actually going to try to see how I can add my own scoring to it.
CW, you screwed up.
The CW botched the show. They had so much potential. But after watching this second episode, all of the lazy writing, convenient ex machina's, and poor acting just came through. I guess you can only bluff for so long until someone catches on. Perhaps like the Gothamites in the show, I held out hope for no reason.
Of course there's conveniently a bomb on the bridge that the police transport was going to go on, so the lead villain doesn't get captured already by episode 2. Of course the step-mom is actually evil. Of course the father will let his "care" for his daughter make him disobey GCPD orders to shoot on sight. So much was wrong with this one episode. Oh and I can't forget all the name dropping like Bruce Wayne, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Lucius Fox to remind us why this show and its story is supposed to be interesting, relevant, cool, etc. You tried so hard to make this a standalone, but then messed up by using so many name drops at once to remind the viewers of your relevance.
Next, apparently the batsuit is a $10.8 million suit? And it looks like that poor thing I have screenshots of in the previous post? And it just happens that the GCPD that was searching for a body of the villain move at a snail's pace despite their K9 unit discovering something and barking at it, for long enough that a convenient, built-in AED shocks Kate Kane back to consciousness so she doesn't get discovered and/or arrested as the Batman (since everyone still thinks it's Batman mostly because Batwoman was not established yet).
Overall, I can understand now why the Rotten Tomatoes audience score is a 12%. I'm actually going to try to see how I can add my own scoring to it.
CW, you screwed up.
Monday, October 7, 2019
Batwoman Pilot
This is probably going to be a long post, so get some popcorn, a drink or two, and get comfy for a solid read. Or maybe you'll be reading just me venting my thoughts, but here we go!
Overall, I think the Batwoman show has potential. There are a lot of flaws that I will be incredibly nit-picky about and that I will highly criticize because of my favor towards the Dark Knight (I mean what with becoming the Liberty Batman and everything? If I didn't like Batman, I think we'd have a problem here/something would be way off if I were to still be the Batman).
First things first, they are so far doing well on not shoving a more liberal agenda down the viewer's throats. And I don't say that as if I would like it if they were to shove a more conservative agenda down the viewer's throat either (ICYMI, I am more right-winged/conservative when it comes to politics). They do include some open gay-ness so to speak. I mean it's fine though because in the comics, Kate Kane is a lesbian. So of course they had to address that. What with being politically correct. It did give me a bit of chuckle though when the other character, Sophie, denied the relationship and then again when they revealed that she has a husband.
The biggest point of criticism that I will be focusing on is the details and the locations. Let's start with location.
As they say, "location, location, location", because everything is all about the place you are in physically, at least as far as businesses go. So riddle me this: why is the batcave underneath Wayne Tower? How could there even be a cave system in the middle of Gotham City that somehow no one has discovered? I mean it's an urban city, so someone must've been doing some underground work, whether it's the subway, or plumbing, or electrical, or any other civil engineering task that you could think of. I guess it's way deep underground, but still that's odd that a whole city was built over a cave.
Now the details: First off they have a scene of Kate Kane and her sister Beth running around Bruce Wayne's office when they were children, say maybe 8 or 9 by my estimations. No more than that, possibly younger. IF the head office belongs to Bruce Wayne, then how much older is Bruce Wayne supposed to be over Kate Kane? I know that they are cousins, but Bruce was a grown man and was the Dark Knight in the time that Kate was of that young age. Side note: it has already been confirmed that Kevin Conroy, voice of many animated Batman series and the voice of Batman in the Arkham video game trilogy, is supposed to make an appearance for this year's CW crossover as an older, retired Bruce Wayne. Still age is a big question, because I'm sure they can bring some weird voodoo magic guy like they did for Elseworlds and shift the time period.
Second detail, the CW typically has great costume design. I mean the Green Arrow has an incredible suit, the Flash is pretty solid, and even the side characters have some good suits. So riddle me this when the famous Dark Knight was apparently wearing this garbage:
And then we get to my least favorite line that had me skeptical since promotional material came out of: "I need you to fix his suit." "Why it's literal perfection?" "It will be when it fits a woman." Like I get it, the show is about Batwoman but come on, the batsuit was Batman's first. There was in no instance a spot where Batwoman was supposed to be the primary wearer of the suit. Also side note, a nod to Lucius Fox by putting Lucius' kid in, Luke Fox. That leaves the question as to whether or not we will see a Batwing in the future, or if Batwoman will be the only member of the Batfamily in this CW show. Only time will tell.
Thirdly, I know that Batwoman will eventually get a different suit as the suit she wears in this first episode looks nothing like the suit that all of the promotional material had her in, but this looks like the dumbest thing ever. It looks worse than the batsuit that they had for the 30 seconds for Bruce to wear at the end of FOX's Gotham series. It looks even worse than going to Party City for a Batman suit that would cost you maybe $20. This is supposed to be a professional TV series, and you're telling me that similar people who must've worked on the costumes for other shows on the same network, or at least the people who know what kind of costumes they want, can't get someone to design something better? I mean just look at how Kate Kane looks in this ugly thing:
It's really dumb and it's really ugly. I can't wait for them to actually get to the final suit/whatever suit they were teasing in promotional images/trailers.
Finally, there were a lot of cliche things that happened. Childhood memory sparks an interest towards an object that will further the plot, i.e. the recognition of Martha Wayne's pearl necklace that's oddly sitting in Wayne Tower that when turned opens the bookcase to the batcave. Or when she walks into the batcave, turns on the power, then bats swarm the new person who enters (Might I add that the SFX for this show is beyond awful? The bat swarm was low quality, and even the one bit where they show Kate gliding away looked super cheesy). Then you also had the "save the damsel" sort of scene with Sophie falling from the construction site and then the hero catches and saves the damsel. Although, do explain to me how the cape can slow the fall when the backside is facing the ground, a.k.a. the opposite way it normally would be if Batman were gliding around. Or even the ending where surprise surprise, the reason the World's Greatest Detective could never find the body of the sister after an acclaimed miscalculation with the grapple hook on a crashed car, was because the sister survived and is the villain, Alice. (How does someone of Batman's skill not account for everything? Supposedly he accounted for all the weight so he used 2 grapple hooks, but didn't account for the poor engineering of the vehicle so the frame broke and the grapple hooks couldn't hold the car as it went over the edge of the bridge? And sure Batman would go to save as many lives as possible, since the school bus that hit the car apparently had 38 other lives to save and was being driven or somehow involved with the Joker. They gave so much credit to Batman, but then also backhanded him in same 30 seconds. A peculiar way to go, but alas it's what we're going to have to settle with).
All in all, I'm probably just being super critical and harsh on this show. I mean it's got my interest, I'll keep watching it for the next few weeks and see if any new developments happen that make the show fulfill it's potential that I can see in it. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to finally have something of the Dark Knight on the CW, but they better do this right because if not just for me, but I'm sure a lot of other fans of the Batman out there are wanting something good, and Batman is a way more popular hero than the Green Arrow, the Flash, Supergirl, or any of the Legends of Tomorrow.
CW, do this right, and you'll have your cash cow for a solid couple of seasons. Butcher the Dark Knight/the Batfamily, and you'll regret it.
Overall, I think the Batwoman show has potential. There are a lot of flaws that I will be incredibly nit-picky about and that I will highly criticize because of my favor towards the Dark Knight (I mean what with becoming the Liberty Batman and everything? If I didn't like Batman, I think we'd have a problem here/something would be way off if I were to still be the Batman).
First things first, they are so far doing well on not shoving a more liberal agenda down the viewer's throats. And I don't say that as if I would like it if they were to shove a more conservative agenda down the viewer's throat either (ICYMI, I am more right-winged/conservative when it comes to politics). They do include some open gay-ness so to speak. I mean it's fine though because in the comics, Kate Kane is a lesbian. So of course they had to address that. What with being politically correct. It did give me a bit of chuckle though when the other character, Sophie, denied the relationship and then again when they revealed that she has a husband.
The biggest point of criticism that I will be focusing on is the details and the locations. Let's start with location.
As they say, "location, location, location", because everything is all about the place you are in physically, at least as far as businesses go. So riddle me this: why is the batcave underneath Wayne Tower? How could there even be a cave system in the middle of Gotham City that somehow no one has discovered? I mean it's an urban city, so someone must've been doing some underground work, whether it's the subway, or plumbing, or electrical, or any other civil engineering task that you could think of. I guess it's way deep underground, but still that's odd that a whole city was built over a cave.
Now the details: First off they have a scene of Kate Kane and her sister Beth running around Bruce Wayne's office when they were children, say maybe 8 or 9 by my estimations. No more than that, possibly younger. IF the head office belongs to Bruce Wayne, then how much older is Bruce Wayne supposed to be over Kate Kane? I know that they are cousins, but Bruce was a grown man and was the Dark Knight in the time that Kate was of that young age. Side note: it has already been confirmed that Kevin Conroy, voice of many animated Batman series and the voice of Batman in the Arkham video game trilogy, is supposed to make an appearance for this year's CW crossover as an older, retired Bruce Wayne. Still age is a big question, because I'm sure they can bring some weird voodoo magic guy like they did for Elseworlds and shift the time period.
Second detail, the CW typically has great costume design. I mean the Green Arrow has an incredible suit, the Flash is pretty solid, and even the side characters have some good suits. So riddle me this when the famous Dark Knight was apparently wearing this garbage:
Thirdly, I know that Batwoman will eventually get a different suit as the suit she wears in this first episode looks nothing like the suit that all of the promotional material had her in, but this looks like the dumbest thing ever. It looks worse than the batsuit that they had for the 30 seconds for Bruce to wear at the end of FOX's Gotham series. It looks even worse than going to Party City for a Batman suit that would cost you maybe $20. This is supposed to be a professional TV series, and you're telling me that similar people who must've worked on the costumes for other shows on the same network, or at least the people who know what kind of costumes they want, can't get someone to design something better? I mean just look at how Kate Kane looks in this ugly thing:
Finally, there were a lot of cliche things that happened. Childhood memory sparks an interest towards an object that will further the plot, i.e. the recognition of Martha Wayne's pearl necklace that's oddly sitting in Wayne Tower that when turned opens the bookcase to the batcave. Or when she walks into the batcave, turns on the power, then bats swarm the new person who enters (Might I add that the SFX for this show is beyond awful? The bat swarm was low quality, and even the one bit where they show Kate gliding away looked super cheesy). Then you also had the "save the damsel" sort of scene with Sophie falling from the construction site and then the hero catches and saves the damsel. Although, do explain to me how the cape can slow the fall when the backside is facing the ground, a.k.a. the opposite way it normally would be if Batman were gliding around. Or even the ending where surprise surprise, the reason the World's Greatest Detective could never find the body of the sister after an acclaimed miscalculation with the grapple hook on a crashed car, was because the sister survived and is the villain, Alice. (How does someone of Batman's skill not account for everything? Supposedly he accounted for all the weight so he used 2 grapple hooks, but didn't account for the poor engineering of the vehicle so the frame broke and the grapple hooks couldn't hold the car as it went over the edge of the bridge? And sure Batman would go to save as many lives as possible, since the school bus that hit the car apparently had 38 other lives to save and was being driven or somehow involved with the Joker. They gave so much credit to Batman, but then also backhanded him in same 30 seconds. A peculiar way to go, but alas it's what we're going to have to settle with).
All in all, I'm probably just being super critical and harsh on this show. I mean it's got my interest, I'll keep watching it for the next few weeks and see if any new developments happen that make the show fulfill it's potential that I can see in it. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to finally have something of the Dark Knight on the CW, but they better do this right because if not just for me, but I'm sure a lot of other fans of the Batman out there are wanting something good, and Batman is a way more popular hero than the Green Arrow, the Flash, Supergirl, or any of the Legends of Tomorrow.
CW, do this right, and you'll have your cash cow for a solid couple of seasons. Butcher the Dark Knight/the Batfamily, and you'll regret it.
Legacy Of The Batman
The question is always asked: What is your legacy? Or what will be your legacy? What will people remember of you when you pass on from this Earth and there's nothing more than just what you've done and the memory of your life being passed on?
So what will my legacy be?
Side note: This blog will sound a bit morbid or whatever because it's talking about my legacy, which usually doesn't need to be worried about until I die, but it was on my mind so here we go
I titled this as "Legacy Of The Batman" because I know that while I may not actually be like the Dark Knight in the comics or in the movies, being a real superhero and saving lives and fighting crime, but just the symbol of itself is something that I would hope achieves something more.
In comics and in movies, the Batman was created to be a symbol of hope. And also the idea that anyone could be the Batman. See quotes in Batman Begins and in Dark Knight Rises, when Bruce Wayne is talking to Alfred and when he's talking to Detective Blake respectively. What I hope to achieve by having fun and taking on this mantle, regardless of how serious I take this role, is that anyone can be more than what society tells them they can or cannot be.
People said to me in the months leading up to the creation of the Liberty Batman that I'd have to hit these strength goals to be Batman. I mean sure that was used to encourage me to work harder at the gym to train harder and push me further. But then people also said things to me that were attempts to demean me, to be condescending. That I was nothing more than just an emotional wreck.
The Batman has been, for me, a way to show others that I can push myself beyond the limits they set on me. To be something greater than myself, to be someone anyone can come to. Whether they need a friend or just some encouraging messages.
I hope that if I ever stop pretending to be or being (again depending on how serious I get with this) the Batman, is that whoever is out there to be demeaning or condescending, that their limits are not the true limits of oneself. That there is more to someone and that all you have to do is strive for those goals. To be more than what they say you could be. To be something greater. To transcend your own seemingly basic or average human abilities. Not to say that you'll ever be godlike or be God, because that's impossible. But to say that there's potential in everyone to be a hero. To become something bigger and greater than themselves. All you have to do is reach out and rise.
We fall so that we can learn to pick ourselves back up. How far will you climb? Just to the point where you were before? Or to something further and higher than you were at before?
Seek your own mantle of greatness. Do it all for God's glory, and when the day comes for you to go home to the Lord, everyone will remember your legacy.
These are my goals for being the Batman. To be what people deserve, and maybe someday to be what the need. I live to serve.
So what will my legacy be?
Side note: This blog will sound a bit morbid or whatever because it's talking about my legacy, which usually doesn't need to be worried about until I die, but it was on my mind so here we go
I titled this as "Legacy Of The Batman" because I know that while I may not actually be like the Dark Knight in the comics or in the movies, being a real superhero and saving lives and fighting crime, but just the symbol of itself is something that I would hope achieves something more.
In comics and in movies, the Batman was created to be a symbol of hope. And also the idea that anyone could be the Batman. See quotes in Batman Begins and in Dark Knight Rises, when Bruce Wayne is talking to Alfred and when he's talking to Detective Blake respectively. What I hope to achieve by having fun and taking on this mantle, regardless of how serious I take this role, is that anyone can be more than what society tells them they can or cannot be.
People said to me in the months leading up to the creation of the Liberty Batman that I'd have to hit these strength goals to be Batman. I mean sure that was used to encourage me to work harder at the gym to train harder and push me further. But then people also said things to me that were attempts to demean me, to be condescending. That I was nothing more than just an emotional wreck.
The Batman has been, for me, a way to show others that I can push myself beyond the limits they set on me. To be something greater than myself, to be someone anyone can come to. Whether they need a friend or just some encouraging messages.
I hope that if I ever stop pretending to be or being (again depending on how serious I get with this) the Batman, is that whoever is out there to be demeaning or condescending, that their limits are not the true limits of oneself. That there is more to someone and that all you have to do is strive for those goals. To be more than what they say you could be. To be something greater. To transcend your own seemingly basic or average human abilities. Not to say that you'll ever be godlike or be God, because that's impossible. But to say that there's potential in everyone to be a hero. To become something bigger and greater than themselves. All you have to do is reach out and rise.
We fall so that we can learn to pick ourselves back up. How far will you climb? Just to the point where you were before? Or to something further and higher than you were at before?
Seek your own mantle of greatness. Do it all for God's glory, and when the day comes for you to go home to the Lord, everyone will remember your legacy.
These are my goals for being the Batman. To be what people deserve, and maybe someday to be what the need. I live to serve.
Tick Tock Goes The Clock
Soooooooooo
I broke.
I got TikTok
Even though I thought I'd never get it
And now my time is melting faster than ice cream on a hot summer's day
Halp
It's just too amusing to just keep scrolling and scrolling.
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Escalation
To quote one Lieutenant James Gordon, "we carry semi-automatic, they buy automatic weapons. We start wearing kevlar, they start using armor-piercing rounds... You're wearing a mask and jumping off of rooftops".
Why do I quote Lt. Gordon? Well because, apparently my taking on of the mantle of the Dark Knight has inspired some... shall we say familiar jokes to arise?
There is now a Liberty Joker. And he's here to be my on campus rival. Let the games begin. It's time for me to step up to the challenge ;)
Why do I quote Lt. Gordon? Well because, apparently my taking on of the mantle of the Dark Knight has inspired some... shall we say familiar jokes to arise?
There is now a Liberty Joker. And he's here to be my on campus rival. Let the games begin. It's time for me to step up to the challenge ;)
Arbitrary Goals?
I'm not entirely sure where I got the idea, but I guess because I didn't get into as good of a shape as I had originally planned to be in by my 20th birthday. I mean then again, what was I expecting to happen when I was walking for a significantly less amount of time and distance and frequency during the summer that my plan was going to work after 4 months of rigorous training?
So my new goal, which kinda seems a bit arbitrary but is still a semi-good goal, is to be in shape by my 21st. Why 21? Good question. I suppose because then I become fully legal. Not like I'm going to be in shape so I can drink or whatever. I mean alcohol is a waste of calories in my opinion. I just don't fancy it.
Disclaimer: I have consumed alcohol before, but in locations in which I was of age. Example being in Greece where the drinking age is 18. Or St. Thomas where the drinking age is also 18. I never was drunk, never drank more than 1 drink, and mostly was consuming cocktails if anything at all. By no means did I break any laws for underage drinking, nor have I gotten stupidly drunk.
A potential reason for the goal to be at age 21 is because by then, assuming I keep consistent with my workout regimen, it would have been a solid 16 months of working out (I started March 23rd, 2019). I plan to post something comparing side by side pictures of before starting, and after 1 year of working out. While at the time of posting, it will be 4 months left to get to whatever shape I have in mind, I still want to show whoever follows me that just putting in some effort now can make a huge difference in as little as 1 year. I mean sure 1 year is a long time, especially if you're just getting started, but it'll be the beginning of something beautiful.
I don't mean to say that if you're out of shape or have no desire to go the gym, that you're ugly and not worthy of whatever, but I just am a strong advocate for working out and taking care of your physical self as much as taking care of your mental self as many people would tell you. If not for looking good or being in shape or fit or whatever fitness term suits you, why not just do it for the physical benefits as well as the overall health benefits? You'll decrease your chances of Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and will be in a better state of mind by giving a way to release stress through weight lifting or even just cardio, or both if you're feeling bold.
If it's any encouragement, I'll leave my comparison pictures from when I started to pictures I took around the 6 month mark. I did have a number of weeks here and there that I slacked off, but the progress is still evident, and if I can get back on track, it would be even better.
So if you don't want to commit 1 year of training, try something smaller like 6 months. Or even 3 months. I'd even say that 1 month of true dedication to working out will work wonders and show you changes you might have thought to be impossible before. Give it a shot, and if you really don't like it, then quit. But at least give it a solid 1 month's effort before saying it's too much. Besides, you might find that you're having too much fun to stop.
Front, side, and back view. I was flexing in the pictures on the right side, but it does show progress. As far as the numbers go, I'm not entirely sure how much body fat I had at the start, nor how much I exactly lost since during my 3.5 month summer break, I hovered at the same 190 pounds, most likely because I'm pretty new at weight lifting and working out at the gym, so I'm getting the "newbie gains" in which it's very easy to pack on muscle while losing fat simultaneously. Currently, I am 184.6 pounds, which from starting is a 15.4 pound loss. I intend to lose more fat, say maybe drop another 4.6 pounds to get me down to 180 or so, and then I'm going to try hard to pack on 20 pounds of muscle. So in reality, I'll be the same weight as when I started (200 pounds), but I'll have a much better physique and body composition than before.
Have fun, if you decide to start your own fitness journey!
So my new goal, which kinda seems a bit arbitrary but is still a semi-good goal, is to be in shape by my 21st. Why 21? Good question. I suppose because then I become fully legal. Not like I'm going to be in shape so I can drink or whatever. I mean alcohol is a waste of calories in my opinion. I just don't fancy it.
Disclaimer: I have consumed alcohol before, but in locations in which I was of age. Example being in Greece where the drinking age is 18. Or St. Thomas where the drinking age is also 18. I never was drunk, never drank more than 1 drink, and mostly was consuming cocktails if anything at all. By no means did I break any laws for underage drinking, nor have I gotten stupidly drunk.
A potential reason for the goal to be at age 21 is because by then, assuming I keep consistent with my workout regimen, it would have been a solid 16 months of working out (I started March 23rd, 2019). I plan to post something comparing side by side pictures of before starting, and after 1 year of working out. While at the time of posting, it will be 4 months left to get to whatever shape I have in mind, I still want to show whoever follows me that just putting in some effort now can make a huge difference in as little as 1 year. I mean sure 1 year is a long time, especially if you're just getting started, but it'll be the beginning of something beautiful.
I don't mean to say that if you're out of shape or have no desire to go the gym, that you're ugly and not worthy of whatever, but I just am a strong advocate for working out and taking care of your physical self as much as taking care of your mental self as many people would tell you. If not for looking good or being in shape or fit or whatever fitness term suits you, why not just do it for the physical benefits as well as the overall health benefits? You'll decrease your chances of Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and will be in a better state of mind by giving a way to release stress through weight lifting or even just cardio, or both if you're feeling bold.
If it's any encouragement, I'll leave my comparison pictures from when I started to pictures I took around the 6 month mark. I did have a number of weeks here and there that I slacked off, but the progress is still evident, and if I can get back on track, it would be even better.
So if you don't want to commit 1 year of training, try something smaller like 6 months. Or even 3 months. I'd even say that 1 month of true dedication to working out will work wonders and show you changes you might have thought to be impossible before. Give it a shot, and if you really don't like it, then quit. But at least give it a solid 1 month's effort before saying it's too much. Besides, you might find that you're having too much fun to stop.
Front, side, and back view. I was flexing in the pictures on the right side, but it does show progress. As far as the numbers go, I'm not entirely sure how much body fat I had at the start, nor how much I exactly lost since during my 3.5 month summer break, I hovered at the same 190 pounds, most likely because I'm pretty new at weight lifting and working out at the gym, so I'm getting the "newbie gains" in which it's very easy to pack on muscle while losing fat simultaneously. Currently, I am 184.6 pounds, which from starting is a 15.4 pound loss. I intend to lose more fat, say maybe drop another 4.6 pounds to get me down to 180 or so, and then I'm going to try hard to pack on 20 pounds of muscle. So in reality, I'll be the same weight as when I started (200 pounds), but I'll have a much better physique and body composition than before.
Have fun, if you decide to start your own fitness journey!
Friday, October 4, 2019
League of Shadows
So. Tonight was pretty fun.
I took my batsuit out for a spin. First time in full suit, even though technically I have already posted about the suit on the Instagram page. But at the time of that picture, I didn't have the boots, which didn't matter because the shot was from my knees up.
So why title this post as "League of Shadows"? Well...
...here's the shadow I cast in suit. Now it's not the best picture of my shadow as it was a spur of the moment thing and I tried to take it while walking. But if you squint or just look at it carefully, you can see the cape flowing and the point ears of the cowl. I don't know why, but it made me feel cool.
I guess because for the longest time, I've always only seen the shadow of the Batman in animated series, and if anything else maybe video games, but the Arkham games don't really show you the shadow, so mostly animated tv shows or movies. Or I guess even live action movies. Just the shadow of the Batman is so cool. The cape and the cowl. Oh man, I love it.
Now of course my own suit will need to face some upgrades. It's v1.0 after all. I need a better cape, pants, cowl, chest piece, belt, the list goes on and on with what I can improve and eventually will improve.
This is the start of something that I will find a lot of fun in, and I think will make me feel good that I can be like the hero I look up to. Also, some random guy complimented me, and stuck his hand out to shake my hand. Another guy stopped the person who helped take pictures because he knew her. I shook his hand and I used my best impression of Christian Bale's Dark Knight voice to mask my own voice.
Anyways, here's a shot from behind, as I stand atop the balcony/patio area of Liberty's Freedom Tower, gazing over campus and being LU's silent guardian and watchful protector.
P.S. I probably should try to find some relatively cheap face paint or something to paint around my eyes so as to not have some weird holes that show too much of my skin. I mean yes, technically my skin would still be showing, but every Batman has painted around the eyes to allow for the best visibility as well as create that intimidating dark creature, whose eyes you can just barely make out.
I took my batsuit out for a spin. First time in full suit, even though technically I have already posted about the suit on the Instagram page. But at the time of that picture, I didn't have the boots, which didn't matter because the shot was from my knees up.
So why title this post as "League of Shadows"? Well...
...here's the shadow I cast in suit. Now it's not the best picture of my shadow as it was a spur of the moment thing and I tried to take it while walking. But if you squint or just look at it carefully, you can see the cape flowing and the point ears of the cowl. I don't know why, but it made me feel cool.
I guess because for the longest time, I've always only seen the shadow of the Batman in animated series, and if anything else maybe video games, but the Arkham games don't really show you the shadow, so mostly animated tv shows or movies. Or I guess even live action movies. Just the shadow of the Batman is so cool. The cape and the cowl. Oh man, I love it.
Now of course my own suit will need to face some upgrades. It's v1.0 after all. I need a better cape, pants, cowl, chest piece, belt, the list goes on and on with what I can improve and eventually will improve.
This is the start of something that I will find a lot of fun in, and I think will make me feel good that I can be like the hero I look up to. Also, some random guy complimented me, and stuck his hand out to shake my hand. Another guy stopped the person who helped take pictures because he knew her. I shook his hand and I used my best impression of Christian Bale's Dark Knight voice to mask my own voice.
Anyways, here's a shot from behind, as I stand atop the balcony/patio area of Liberty's Freedom Tower, gazing over campus and being LU's silent guardian and watchful protector.
P.S. I probably should try to find some relatively cheap face paint or something to paint around my eyes so as to not have some weird holes that show too much of my skin. I mean yes, technically my skin would still be showing, but every Batman has painted around the eyes to allow for the best visibility as well as create that intimidating dark creature, whose eyes you can just barely make out.
What Am I Hiding?
Every person has an inner being of who they view themselves to be. In a ways, each person has a mask of how they portray themselves, and sometimes this mask is different from the person they believe themselves to be. Bruce Wayne perceived himself to still be the kid that knew innocence, that played with Rachel Dawes in the gardens of Wayne Manor. Yet his exterior has him as billionaire playboy. He also has his external mask of the Batman. To use that to leverage his darkness, his aggression, his guilt into something more. To transcend his humanity, to become a symbol of hope for others. A symbol or at least an ideal that I want to be. I want to be someone's protector. I want to be the protector. Do I have an unknown desire to be a hero? To have the heroics associated with my being? But even if I did something heroic, would I even allow myself to be known as my true self? Or would I too have a suit and a mask that conceals my identity? To make a symbol that it doesn't matter who the man is underneath. That there can be hope generated from anyone or anything.
In an Instagram post that I made a good while ago, say several months ago at this point (@dragonpupps for those who are interested), I posted a picture of my 24 oz Tervis LU insulated water bottle. In between the plastic layers, there's a LU patch, and then all across the exterior I have stickers of all shapes and sizes, of various things that I like. It started with just labels of my name on it, just so I never lost the bottle and someone thought it was theirs since it's a common item you could get from the bookstore. At some point, my bottle hit the ground and the external plastic layer got cracked. It still functions just fine, but in the Instagram post, I related the bottle in its entirety to myself. As a vessel that can be filled time and time again with water to quench my thirst. But unless I sought after the Living Water of God, I will always thirst once again. That on the outside it has all of the stickers of YouTubers that I watch, video games that I've played, or any cool sticker that I liked or just got for free because why not add more stickers since it adds to the uniqueness and decreases the likelihood of someone having the exact same water bottle.
Then on the Liberty Batman Instagram (@thelibertybatman), I posted a picture of 15 custom vinyl stickers that had the custom bat symbol my sister drew for me, since I wanted my own symbol and not something that I just took from already existing symbols. I mean I guess it wouldn't matter since the bat symbol is almost indefinitely copyrighted, but I still wanted my own take on it. Does that mean that DC or Warner Bros owns the Liberty Bat Symbol? Or do they not because it's just based off of their material and then the artwork of someone who is not associated nor affiliated with DC or Warner Bros?
For a good while, I didn't know what I wanted to do with all the stickers. You might be wondering why I bought them. Well it was because I saw an Instagram ad that advertised you can get 10 custom vinyl stickers for $1. That included the shipping, so I literally only paid $1. I'm not sure if it's because they couldn't count or if because my bat symbol sticker used less material than the 3" x 3" stickers you could've gotten and maybe they just had to use the entire sheet or whatever of vinyl, but I got 15 stickers.
So as you can see, I placed a sticker onto my water bottle. Mostly because I got a sticker from something I ordered and also found some random sticker that was free, so I stuck those on. So I figured that if I was adding more stickers, might as well throw a Batman one on there.
You can't really tell from the picture, but I did indeed place the bat symbol over the cracked exterior layer. You might be wondering what significance that has. In reality, absolutely no significance except for maybe the fact that it might help keep the rest of the bottle together since it kind of crosses over, I mean then again the crack hasn't widened, so I'd imagine the crack isn't going to increase or lead to further structural damage.
But linking back to my original post that I made for the water bottle, I stated that the crack could symbolize my brokenness. That I am a broken person, and that I could only seek and find fulfillment through Jesus Christ. I mean, great it's true, I can only find healing through my Lord and Savior. But if it also represents my brokenness and I put my version of the Dark Knight over the crack, am I making a mask out of the Batman? Is there something that I'm trying to hide under my belief or false ideas that I am actually the Batman? Do I believe that I'm the Batman, or is it just something I'm excited about and something I have a lot of fun managing on Instagram and Facebook. I mean going back to how I have an inner desire to be a protector, does this feed a dangerous cycle of believing I am Batman and fulfilling that desire to be a protector and a hero?
I suppose I should tread carefully, but what's going to stop me? The ball is rolling slowly, but is there a downhill that will cause for rapid acceleration?
Only time will tell what I actually do with something I started for fun on April 11th, 2019.
In an Instagram post that I made a good while ago, say several months ago at this point (@dragonpupps for those who are interested), I posted a picture of my 24 oz Tervis LU insulated water bottle. In between the plastic layers, there's a LU patch, and then all across the exterior I have stickers of all shapes and sizes, of various things that I like. It started with just labels of my name on it, just so I never lost the bottle and someone thought it was theirs since it's a common item you could get from the bookstore. At some point, my bottle hit the ground and the external plastic layer got cracked. It still functions just fine, but in the Instagram post, I related the bottle in its entirety to myself. As a vessel that can be filled time and time again with water to quench my thirst. But unless I sought after the Living Water of God, I will always thirst once again. That on the outside it has all of the stickers of YouTubers that I watch, video games that I've played, or any cool sticker that I liked or just got for free because why not add more stickers since it adds to the uniqueness and decreases the likelihood of someone having the exact same water bottle.
Then on the Liberty Batman Instagram (@thelibertybatman), I posted a picture of 15 custom vinyl stickers that had the custom bat symbol my sister drew for me, since I wanted my own symbol and not something that I just took from already existing symbols. I mean I guess it wouldn't matter since the bat symbol is almost indefinitely copyrighted, but I still wanted my own take on it. Does that mean that DC or Warner Bros owns the Liberty Bat Symbol? Or do they not because it's just based off of their material and then the artwork of someone who is not associated nor affiliated with DC or Warner Bros?
For a good while, I didn't know what I wanted to do with all the stickers. You might be wondering why I bought them. Well it was because I saw an Instagram ad that advertised you can get 10 custom vinyl stickers for $1. That included the shipping, so I literally only paid $1. I'm not sure if it's because they couldn't count or if because my bat symbol sticker used less material than the 3" x 3" stickers you could've gotten and maybe they just had to use the entire sheet or whatever of vinyl, but I got 15 stickers.
So as you can see, I placed a sticker onto my water bottle. Mostly because I got a sticker from something I ordered and also found some random sticker that was free, so I stuck those on. So I figured that if I was adding more stickers, might as well throw a Batman one on there.
You can't really tell from the picture, but I did indeed place the bat symbol over the cracked exterior layer. You might be wondering what significance that has. In reality, absolutely no significance except for maybe the fact that it might help keep the rest of the bottle together since it kind of crosses over, I mean then again the crack hasn't widened, so I'd imagine the crack isn't going to increase or lead to further structural damage.
But linking back to my original post that I made for the water bottle, I stated that the crack could symbolize my brokenness. That I am a broken person, and that I could only seek and find fulfillment through Jesus Christ. I mean, great it's true, I can only find healing through my Lord and Savior. But if it also represents my brokenness and I put my version of the Dark Knight over the crack, am I making a mask out of the Batman? Is there something that I'm trying to hide under my belief or false ideas that I am actually the Batman? Do I believe that I'm the Batman, or is it just something I'm excited about and something I have a lot of fun managing on Instagram and Facebook. I mean going back to how I have an inner desire to be a protector, does this feed a dangerous cycle of believing I am Batman and fulfilling that desire to be a protector and a hero?
I suppose I should tread carefully, but what's going to stop me? The ball is rolling slowly, but is there a downhill that will cause for rapid acceleration?
Only time will tell what I actually do with something I started for fun on April 11th, 2019.
Joker
Warning: The following blog post can and will contain spoilers for Todd Phillip's Joker movie. If you have not seen the movie yet and wish to be kept spoiler free, scroll past now or leave this blog for the time being.
With that being said, let's get the ball rolling.
I'll be discussing and describing some scenes of the movie and talking about my thoughts about it all. So partially this is a plot analysis, and partly a review, and partly a I don't even know. Enjoy the ride.
Gotham's clown prince of evil. The physical embodiment of the element of chaos. The Batman's archnemesis for years and years, who plagues Gotham with death, destruction, and craziness.
DC, my oh my, you've given yourself a chance to make it big in the movie industry. Your past several films, while I appreciate them because the Dark Knight holds a special place in my heart, for the most part have not been viewed in the best ways in the public eye. Sure Wonder Woman was a smash hit, and Shazam and Aquaman seem to have done well. But Justice League is highly frowned upon. You made Superman too powerful. I know he's supposed to be a godlike alien who has powers that can match other extraterrestrials. But to say that the Justice League pretty much had no effect on Steppenwolf until Superman showed up is saying something about your power distribution. Batman V Superman showed that Superman is not nearly as tough as he's supposed to be, what with Doomsday killing him. But then you overshot it with his abilities in Justice League. His speed is just as fast, if not faster, than the Flash, he's strong enough to withstand Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and Aquaman all at once, and still react to the Flash.
Anyways, this isn't about the Justice League. This is about Joker.
From the look of things, it seems pretty clear that Joker is not a part of the current DCU where Ben Affleck is Batman and you have the Justice League. I mean perhaps it can rewrite the timelines to fit in with the Batfleck, but I think there's a better shot to take a new angle. I do like the Batfleck, so if Ben were to reprise his role as the Batman in some future movie, that would be great. In the movie, it is established that this is early in the superhero history as Thomas Wayne is very much alive and well and is actually running to be Mayor of Gotham. They do portray Thomas Wayne as a darker person and not as good as previous films have established the Wayne's to be. For example, in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, Thomas Wayne was a good guy who wouldn't want harm to come to anyone's way if he could help it. They also state in Batman Begins that Thomas nearly bankrupted Wayne Enterprises to help fight poverty in Gotham during Gotham's depression. So it's definitely a shocker to see that Thomas Wayne is a brute force in Gotham and would refer to the corrupt or impoverished people of Gotham as "clowns".
The main plot of Joker focuses on the day to day life of Arthur Fleck. Arthur is a disturbed individual who clearly has some sort of psychological deficiency, and has a mental disorder that you are led to believe makes him have uncontrollable laughter fits, despite his emotions not aligning with the laughter to warrant it. He could be sad or angry but still be laughing. The movie will never explicitly show anything that would state that he was diagnosed with a condition for that laughter. Or maybe it did and I missed it while trying to absorb all the information that I could.
Throughout the movie, Penny Fleck, Arthur's mother, is constantly trying to contact Thomas Wayne to try to get financial help as they are both living in an apartment, and she cannot go to work because of her condition and has become fully dependent on her son. At one point in the movie, Penny had a letter she had written to try to send to Thomas once again, and Arthur would open and read the letter. She begs for Thomas to help as she states that Arthur is Thomas and her son. That Thomas had left them. It would later be proved that he isn't related to the Wayne's and that it was just part of a delusion.
This part threw the audience for a loop as you are led to believe, at least at that point in the movie, that Penny Fleck is not lying and that Arthur is truly Thomas Wayne's son. There would later be an interaction with a young Bruce Wayne, presumably 8 years old (and if you're wondering how I can estimate his age, I'll get to that later) in which a younger Alfred shows up to dismiss Arthur from the gates of Wayne Manor.
Arthur is clearly not someone that anyone of any major significance in Gotham would care about. He's a clown for a job. He does whatever gigs his agency can get him. He does small things, and things that are clearly not super lucrative, hence his poor living status with his mother. You watch several times as people of all ages and all background come to beat up on the psychologically different/deranged or the presumably lesser people. It ranges from teenagers and kids beating up on Arthur, to people who work for Wayne Enterprises on Wall Street. They see themselves as better and pick on the seemingly smaller guy who would most likely not do anything in retaliation.
But Arthur is an exception. He breaks and kills 3 Wayne employees, while wearing his clown makeup. It would be the start of a major build up to the climax of the movie. Clowns are begun to be hailed as heroes among the darker underworld of Gotham. The murder of those 3 men are mourned by the rich and higher class, while the lower class celebrate the murderer.
While Arthur suffers physical beatings, he also suffers mental beatings. He plays out some idea that he is going to be a great comedian, yet all of his jokes are too dark or are not taken to be funny by any means. He gets ridiculed by talk show hosts, and he would be laughed at rather than laughed with. Any man can only take so much beating before reaching a breaking point. Even more so for someone who clearly shows a need for psychological help.
The climax of the movie gets to where there is a demonstration of politics where many of the lower class would paint up or wear masks similar to the design of Arthur's makeup. Clowns everywhere. There is chaos. There are burning cars. Riots up and down every street of Gotham. Arthur in the middle of it all, but from the back of a police cruiser because he openly murdered the talk show host he once hailed as a hero but then twisted his image of him because of the ridicule he received.
In all of the chaos. one family, a husband, a wife, and young child, are trying to run for safety as Gotham is tearing itself apart from the inside, escape a theater and run down an alleyway. This family was not just some common Gotham family. Not even just some random family within the upper class of Gotham. It was the pinnacle of the upper class. The crown jewel of Gotham's top end. Gotham royalty basically. Thomas, Martha, and Bruce Wayne. And in the chaos and in the demonstrations of violence and chaos and craziness, one clown follows them down the alleyway and calls out to Thomas Wayne. "Wayne, you're going to get what you [redacted] deserve!" (I censored the language). 2 loud gunshots are heard. The flying pieces of a broken pearl necklace fly everywhere. Thomas and Martha Wayne lie dead on the ground in that alleyway. Leaving a young (presumably) 8 year old Bruce Wayne to stand there in shock as he looks at his murdered parents lying lifeless. His entire world thrown upside down. His innocence lost. Bruce Wayne's journey into becoming vengeance begins.
The movie ends with Arthur being evaluated in a psychiatric ward. It's not too far to assume it's Arkham Asylum. Or I suppose Arkham State Hospital as they call it.
Powerful scene. The effects of what one man can have. They always say "never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers". Not to say that the less fortunate of Gotham (or any society) are instantly stupid, but that even stupid people in large numbers can cause ripples beyond themselves. Madness is like gravity, all it takes is a single push.
So why do I describe various scenes in the movie. Well, partially is so that I can relive the movie. I am trying to refresh myself on what I watched and how I can better absorb the information. Some things are out of order here, but you can now go into the movie with some understanding and have a chance to analyze various parts that I may or may not have missed.
Back to the main point I mentioned in the beginning. DC has an excellent shot at making it big in the movie industry. Joker was incredibly messed up and beyond dark. Darker than anything I've ever seen before, but perhaps that's because I don't watch any dark movies for the most part unless there's an aspect that catches my interest. It shows the true embodiment of chaos that Joker is supposed to be. The dark and twisted ways of a man who feels no happiness and who has had enough of the world beating up on him.
With the ending showing and reminding the audience yet again of Bruce Wayne's tragic moment, this could definitely lead into something greater that DC could leverage and gain a solid following with. If they focus on their story building and not focus on just rushing movies out to match Marvel's pace, they could build something. Marvel, in my opinion, is on the decline for now as they finished their Infinity Saga. The hype train has died down, but you'll have your diehards who will watch every movie that is associated with Marvel. I'm sure the MCU is not down for the count as new fans will join up and perhaps some old ones will fall back in.
DC's heroes have been known to be on the darker side. Darker than the MCU. Ironman and Captain America do have their character flaws and tragic moments in history, but they aren't dark heroes. Batman and Superman are dark heroes. They are built on a whole lot of darkness. Superman lost his entire world and all his people and he just has to protect Earth from outside invasions so that Earth doesn't become another Krypton. Batman loses his parent's early in his childhood and has to live with grief and aggression to fight the injustices of his city and of the world. These characters are not bright and colorful and happy all the time. Sure you can't make them 100% dark and somber, because people would become disinterested. But a darker take on Batman is a take that I believe can tie in very nicely with this new Joker.
There have been rumors that Robert Pattinson's Batman that will be featured in 2021 in The Batman will be in the same universe as this Joker. It would be interesting to see what they plan to do. Joker in this movie was already in his 30's, while Bruce is just an 8 year old boy. If we follow the timeline of the Dark Knight from Christopher Nolan's trilogy, Bruce won't be Batman until he's 30-31 (I've tried calculating the time. He was 8 at the murder of his parents, then 14 years later Joe Chill is up for early release, and then he goes away for 7 years, but I'm unsure if those 7 years are counting however long his training with the League of Shadows was, but then he comes back to Gotham and has a birthday, so he would be about 30 I guess). If you go off of my calculations, it would be 22 years until Bruce puts on the cowl, and by then if Arthur is still the Joker, then he should be about 52 years old. He might actually be older since the patient files in Arkham State Hospital are 30 years old, and Arthur's mom (who actually adopted Arthur) was charged for negligence, so Arthur is older than 30. Such an age difference does not make sense how Arthur can be the Joker when Bruce is old enough to be the Batman. Unless they change the timelines and at which point Bruce becomes Gotham's Dark Knight, I can't see how a 30 year old would have a struggle against a 50+ year old crazed psychopath.
Perhaps I'm overthinking it, but yes, here it is. Various, nonchronologically placed events of Joker as well as my mumbled and jumbled thoughts. It's 1:40 a.m., and I have no idea why I stayed up so late to author this. I actually started this a long while ago. It's been maybe 40 minutes of my writing this one post. I'm going to go to bed, and maybe when I wake up and when my mind is clear, I can have more coherent thoughts or new perspectives, but honestly, most likely not. Good night everyone.
With that being said, let's get the ball rolling.
I'll be discussing and describing some scenes of the movie and talking about my thoughts about it all. So partially this is a plot analysis, and partly a review, and partly a I don't even know. Enjoy the ride.
Gotham's clown prince of evil. The physical embodiment of the element of chaos. The Batman's archnemesis for years and years, who plagues Gotham with death, destruction, and craziness.
DC, my oh my, you've given yourself a chance to make it big in the movie industry. Your past several films, while I appreciate them because the Dark Knight holds a special place in my heart, for the most part have not been viewed in the best ways in the public eye. Sure Wonder Woman was a smash hit, and Shazam and Aquaman seem to have done well. But Justice League is highly frowned upon. You made Superman too powerful. I know he's supposed to be a godlike alien who has powers that can match other extraterrestrials. But to say that the Justice League pretty much had no effect on Steppenwolf until Superman showed up is saying something about your power distribution. Batman V Superman showed that Superman is not nearly as tough as he's supposed to be, what with Doomsday killing him. But then you overshot it with his abilities in Justice League. His speed is just as fast, if not faster, than the Flash, he's strong enough to withstand Wonder Woman, Cyborg, and Aquaman all at once, and still react to the Flash.
Anyways, this isn't about the Justice League. This is about Joker.
From the look of things, it seems pretty clear that Joker is not a part of the current DCU where Ben Affleck is Batman and you have the Justice League. I mean perhaps it can rewrite the timelines to fit in with the Batfleck, but I think there's a better shot to take a new angle. I do like the Batfleck, so if Ben were to reprise his role as the Batman in some future movie, that would be great. In the movie, it is established that this is early in the superhero history as Thomas Wayne is very much alive and well and is actually running to be Mayor of Gotham. They do portray Thomas Wayne as a darker person and not as good as previous films have established the Wayne's to be. For example, in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, Thomas Wayne was a good guy who wouldn't want harm to come to anyone's way if he could help it. They also state in Batman Begins that Thomas nearly bankrupted Wayne Enterprises to help fight poverty in Gotham during Gotham's depression. So it's definitely a shocker to see that Thomas Wayne is a brute force in Gotham and would refer to the corrupt or impoverished people of Gotham as "clowns".
The main plot of Joker focuses on the day to day life of Arthur Fleck. Arthur is a disturbed individual who clearly has some sort of psychological deficiency, and has a mental disorder that you are led to believe makes him have uncontrollable laughter fits, despite his emotions not aligning with the laughter to warrant it. He could be sad or angry but still be laughing. The movie will never explicitly show anything that would state that he was diagnosed with a condition for that laughter. Or maybe it did and I missed it while trying to absorb all the information that I could.
Throughout the movie, Penny Fleck, Arthur's mother, is constantly trying to contact Thomas Wayne to try to get financial help as they are both living in an apartment, and she cannot go to work because of her condition and has become fully dependent on her son. At one point in the movie, Penny had a letter she had written to try to send to Thomas once again, and Arthur would open and read the letter. She begs for Thomas to help as she states that Arthur is Thomas and her son. That Thomas had left them. It would later be proved that he isn't related to the Wayne's and that it was just part of a delusion.
This part threw the audience for a loop as you are led to believe, at least at that point in the movie, that Penny Fleck is not lying and that Arthur is truly Thomas Wayne's son. There would later be an interaction with a young Bruce Wayne, presumably 8 years old (and if you're wondering how I can estimate his age, I'll get to that later) in which a younger Alfred shows up to dismiss Arthur from the gates of Wayne Manor.
Arthur is clearly not someone that anyone of any major significance in Gotham would care about. He's a clown for a job. He does whatever gigs his agency can get him. He does small things, and things that are clearly not super lucrative, hence his poor living status with his mother. You watch several times as people of all ages and all background come to beat up on the psychologically different/deranged or the presumably lesser people. It ranges from teenagers and kids beating up on Arthur, to people who work for Wayne Enterprises on Wall Street. They see themselves as better and pick on the seemingly smaller guy who would most likely not do anything in retaliation.
But Arthur is an exception. He breaks and kills 3 Wayne employees, while wearing his clown makeup. It would be the start of a major build up to the climax of the movie. Clowns are begun to be hailed as heroes among the darker underworld of Gotham. The murder of those 3 men are mourned by the rich and higher class, while the lower class celebrate the murderer.
While Arthur suffers physical beatings, he also suffers mental beatings. He plays out some idea that he is going to be a great comedian, yet all of his jokes are too dark or are not taken to be funny by any means. He gets ridiculed by talk show hosts, and he would be laughed at rather than laughed with. Any man can only take so much beating before reaching a breaking point. Even more so for someone who clearly shows a need for psychological help.
The climax of the movie gets to where there is a demonstration of politics where many of the lower class would paint up or wear masks similar to the design of Arthur's makeup. Clowns everywhere. There is chaos. There are burning cars. Riots up and down every street of Gotham. Arthur in the middle of it all, but from the back of a police cruiser because he openly murdered the talk show host he once hailed as a hero but then twisted his image of him because of the ridicule he received.
In all of the chaos. one family, a husband, a wife, and young child, are trying to run for safety as Gotham is tearing itself apart from the inside, escape a theater and run down an alleyway. This family was not just some common Gotham family. Not even just some random family within the upper class of Gotham. It was the pinnacle of the upper class. The crown jewel of Gotham's top end. Gotham royalty basically. Thomas, Martha, and Bruce Wayne. And in the chaos and in the demonstrations of violence and chaos and craziness, one clown follows them down the alleyway and calls out to Thomas Wayne. "Wayne, you're going to get what you [redacted] deserve!" (I censored the language). 2 loud gunshots are heard. The flying pieces of a broken pearl necklace fly everywhere. Thomas and Martha Wayne lie dead on the ground in that alleyway. Leaving a young (presumably) 8 year old Bruce Wayne to stand there in shock as he looks at his murdered parents lying lifeless. His entire world thrown upside down. His innocence lost. Bruce Wayne's journey into becoming vengeance begins.
The movie ends with Arthur being evaluated in a psychiatric ward. It's not too far to assume it's Arkham Asylum. Or I suppose Arkham State Hospital as they call it.
Powerful scene. The effects of what one man can have. They always say "never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers". Not to say that the less fortunate of Gotham (or any society) are instantly stupid, but that even stupid people in large numbers can cause ripples beyond themselves. Madness is like gravity, all it takes is a single push.
So why do I describe various scenes in the movie. Well, partially is so that I can relive the movie. I am trying to refresh myself on what I watched and how I can better absorb the information. Some things are out of order here, but you can now go into the movie with some understanding and have a chance to analyze various parts that I may or may not have missed.
Back to the main point I mentioned in the beginning. DC has an excellent shot at making it big in the movie industry. Joker was incredibly messed up and beyond dark. Darker than anything I've ever seen before, but perhaps that's because I don't watch any dark movies for the most part unless there's an aspect that catches my interest. It shows the true embodiment of chaos that Joker is supposed to be. The dark and twisted ways of a man who feels no happiness and who has had enough of the world beating up on him.
With the ending showing and reminding the audience yet again of Bruce Wayne's tragic moment, this could definitely lead into something greater that DC could leverage and gain a solid following with. If they focus on their story building and not focus on just rushing movies out to match Marvel's pace, they could build something. Marvel, in my opinion, is on the decline for now as they finished their Infinity Saga. The hype train has died down, but you'll have your diehards who will watch every movie that is associated with Marvel. I'm sure the MCU is not down for the count as new fans will join up and perhaps some old ones will fall back in.
DC's heroes have been known to be on the darker side. Darker than the MCU. Ironman and Captain America do have their character flaws and tragic moments in history, but they aren't dark heroes. Batman and Superman are dark heroes. They are built on a whole lot of darkness. Superman lost his entire world and all his people and he just has to protect Earth from outside invasions so that Earth doesn't become another Krypton. Batman loses his parent's early in his childhood and has to live with grief and aggression to fight the injustices of his city and of the world. These characters are not bright and colorful and happy all the time. Sure you can't make them 100% dark and somber, because people would become disinterested. But a darker take on Batman is a take that I believe can tie in very nicely with this new Joker.
There have been rumors that Robert Pattinson's Batman that will be featured in 2021 in The Batman will be in the same universe as this Joker. It would be interesting to see what they plan to do. Joker in this movie was already in his 30's, while Bruce is just an 8 year old boy. If we follow the timeline of the Dark Knight from Christopher Nolan's trilogy, Bruce won't be Batman until he's 30-31 (I've tried calculating the time. He was 8 at the murder of his parents, then 14 years later Joe Chill is up for early release, and then he goes away for 7 years, but I'm unsure if those 7 years are counting however long his training with the League of Shadows was, but then he comes back to Gotham and has a birthday, so he would be about 30 I guess). If you go off of my calculations, it would be 22 years until Bruce puts on the cowl, and by then if Arthur is still the Joker, then he should be about 52 years old. He might actually be older since the patient files in Arkham State Hospital are 30 years old, and Arthur's mom (who actually adopted Arthur) was charged for negligence, so Arthur is older than 30. Such an age difference does not make sense how Arthur can be the Joker when Bruce is old enough to be the Batman. Unless they change the timelines and at which point Bruce becomes Gotham's Dark Knight, I can't see how a 30 year old would have a struggle against a 50+ year old crazed psychopath.
Perhaps I'm overthinking it, but yes, here it is. Various, nonchronologically placed events of Joker as well as my mumbled and jumbled thoughts. It's 1:40 a.m., and I have no idea why I stayed up so late to author this. I actually started this a long while ago. It's been maybe 40 minutes of my writing this one post. I'm going to go to bed, and maybe when I wake up and when my mind is clear, I can have more coherent thoughts or new perspectives, but honestly, most likely not. Good night everyone.
Wednesday, October 2, 2019
How to Break the Batman
I suppose all you need to do is to get his hopes up and then play with his feelings. Shouldn't Batman be tougher than the average man? That's why he's a superhero. I mean sure maybe I'm not Batman like the comics, where I witness my parents' murder at age 8, then at 22 consider killing the murderer in cold blood, then disappearing for 7 years or so, to just wear the projects of R&D of my parent's company to fight crime and injustice in a city.
And sure I'm not as skilled nor as intelligent nor even as strong as the Batman physically. But if that's the alterego I intend to take on, and if that's the mantle I will put on, then I should be tougher. I need to be tougher. I can't let heartbreak stop me. But then again, it did stop Bruce.
Am I too breakable? Am I not strong enough for the role I want to take? How can I strengthen myself to be stronger than the blows? How can I learn to take the punch and still fight just as hard as before?
Will I ever achieve this level of strength? Will I ever transcend the average man? Will I ever be like Batman like I claim to be and how I want to be?
Do I even deserve to call myself vengeance or the night?
Am I worthy?
Tuesday, October 1, 2019
One Jumpy Boi
Trust me, the title is fitting because I'm almost definitely jumping to conclusions, but hear me out.
So as the post "It Went Well" would mention, I met up with a cute girl who initiated first, and we all had a good time. I sent a thank you message after all was said and done, and we eventually scheduled another hang out sort of deal that was originally for tomorrow, Wednesday, October 2nd, to go bowling at the bowling alley in the Montview Student Union at 7 pm.
Then today, as I'm just chilling in the dorm, I get a message from the girl saying that she can't make for bowling tomorrow and that she's got "so much going on rn". I'm honestly not sure how to interpret that, but to me it sounds like she just canceled on me. I mean she didn't explicitly say that, but then again she also didn't suggest to do it some other time.
I don't really know what happened. I don't if it's fair of me to be making this conclusion. But I'm upset. I know I shouldn't really let it get to me because it wasn't like it was a date or anything or anything more than a friend sort of deal to try to test the waters to see if there could be anything more than a friendship, but it just got to me. I thought I finally had the break from the usual. From the constant rejections and denials. From the 15 crushed hopes. That I could finally begin a new phase in my life. To begin searching for someone who could be a potential wife and eventually mother to children I wish to have some day. To finally be in a spot where I'm not faced with the fear of rejection.
A whole lot of conclusion jumping probably took place. Enough to almost make it an Olympic event. But seriously, this stung a bit. I'll be okay. Eventually.
After all, "why do we fall, Bruce?"
So as the post "It Went Well" would mention, I met up with a cute girl who initiated first, and we all had a good time. I sent a thank you message after all was said and done, and we eventually scheduled another hang out sort of deal that was originally for tomorrow, Wednesday, October 2nd, to go bowling at the bowling alley in the Montview Student Union at 7 pm.
Then today, as I'm just chilling in the dorm, I get a message from the girl saying that she can't make for bowling tomorrow and that she's got "so much going on rn". I'm honestly not sure how to interpret that, but to me it sounds like she just canceled on me. I mean she didn't explicitly say that, but then again she also didn't suggest to do it some other time.
I don't really know what happened. I don't if it's fair of me to be making this conclusion. But I'm upset. I know I shouldn't really let it get to me because it wasn't like it was a date or anything or anything more than a friend sort of deal to try to test the waters to see if there could be anything more than a friendship, but it just got to me. I thought I finally had the break from the usual. From the constant rejections and denials. From the 15 crushed hopes. That I could finally begin a new phase in my life. To begin searching for someone who could be a potential wife and eventually mother to children I wish to have some day. To finally be in a spot where I'm not faced with the fear of rejection.
A whole lot of conclusion jumping probably took place. Enough to almost make it an Olympic event. But seriously, this stung a bit. I'll be okay. Eventually.
After all, "why do we fall, Bruce?"
10
It feels like it was just yesterday that I wrote the post titled "9" (not to be confused with Title IX).
In that post, I mentioned how time is slipping by, and it's just going faster and faster and there's nothing I can do to stop it. It's now October of 2019. At some point, it's going to be the end of the 2010's. 3 more months (since October is just beginning), and there won't be a 1 in the ten's place for the year for another 100 years. I mean sure, that's how counting works. But it's odd.
If not just since the start of this blog back in February, but just the idea that a whole 'nother decade has gone by. I've lived through 2 decades of my own life, and 2 full decades from start to finish from the calendar (2000's and soon 2010's). It's weird to think that 2010 is the start of this decade. It feels like a lifetime ago. To think that 9 years ago, I was pretty much just starting my 6th grade year. That I was just starting my 3 years of middle school. That back then I thought life was good and simple and easy. But middle school would prove otherwise. That's another story for another time.
But man, the 2010's have been filled with many ups and downs, and I'm ready to finish this year and this decade as strong as possible. Here's the final few months before the whole world shifts into a new decade. Not that the change of the year really makes a difference, but here's to preparing for the future, and seeking out advances in technology, knowledge, wisdom, relationships whether platonic or romantic, and just seeking out glorification of God's Kingdom.
Here's to the time I've been blessed with on this Earth. 20 years, while short in comparison to many, is a sizable chunk of time. Everyone's days are numbered, and we'll never know where our number will tick to the end. So seek to make the most of your day. Each day should not and should never be taken for granted. Seek positivity and the Lord. The world needs it. Heck, even I need it.
October, here's to a wild ride of whatever you've got in store for me. I'm ready to take you on. Will you take on me?
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