Talking to my younger self.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

twitter @nathanmacintosh

Holding yourself back.

I believe a lot of us are guilty of this. I am. I almost stop myself from writing and putting out these blogs every time. Would it really matter if I did? Yes and no. The world itself wouldn't mind too much. That's not a sad statement, just is. But I would be upset with myself. Because I stopped myself from putting out something that I wanted to put out. I stopped myself from creating something because of what others would think, not think, what's been done before. So on and so on. It would matter to me if I didn't, because it would hurt knowing that I held myself back from doing it for whatever reason.

A lot of people want to create something. A lot do, but even more stop themselves. Why? One reason, fear that it won't be any good. That one doesn't make too much sense, because the thing you're doing probably won't be good right away. That is just a given. It's supposed to be bad. But should you not do it for that reason? No. If everyone did that, we'd have nothing. We probably wouldn't even have chairs.
"I'm thinking of building this thing for people to sit on. I don't know, though. It might not work."
"Yeah. don't even bother."
"You're right. I don't want to make something that breaks. Or worse, something that NO ONE uses. Let's go do nothing ever and not try."
People who create things have doubts about it as well, but they still put in the effort to do it.

Some people stop themselves out of fear about how what they are creating will be perceived. Just put out what you want to put out. At some point I'm sure people told George Lucas that Star Wars sounded like an awful idea. There might have even been a point where it sounded dumb to him.
"What the hell was that thought I just had? A guy with a microwave on his chest is the father of some other wiener? And there's a big ape thing, and some weird robots that have a very strange relationship to each other? Am I going crazy?! People are not gonna want to see this! Well, I'll write it anyway and see what happens."
You just do it. You just start doing it. The people you've created in your head who may or may not like this probably don't exist. Who are they? Who are these people that are waiting for you to create something that they can destroy? You're probably making them up!
"People are going to hate this thing I want to make."
"What people? Where?"
"The people! The people out there! The people that also have doubts about their own lives! They're gonna hate me!"

Seems to be the difference between people who create and people who don't is trying. Just trying and doing. The difference between an author and someone who wants to write a book, is that the author did. That's really it. They started and kept writing. Were the first things they wrote good? Probably not. But they kept doing it, and now they have a book or books. They tried. If you are someone who wants to write books and doesn't, are the people who do some sort of mystic creatures who have a power to churn out a book without thinking about it? Could be true. More realistically they work at it a ton. Either way, no matter how they do what they do, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't do what you want to do.

People also hold themselves back by comparing themselves to others. By looking at what another human has, wanting it, and for some reason thinking that person is either more deserving, or because they have it you can never have it or do it or be it.
"Ah, god. Look. That person has exactly what I want with my life. And they have it NOW. I'll never have it."
"Why not?"
"Um, duh. Because THEY have it. How can TWO people both be video game developers in that company at the same time?"
"They have hundreds of developers."
"Geez, way to make me feel worse!"
It doesn't matter what other people are doing. Other people being successful does not mean that you can't be. Thinking that's true is just holding yourself back.

There are many ways one can hold themselves back. Not thinking they're worthy. Not thinking they are talented/beautiful/smart enough. Whatever the case may be. But you have to fight that.
"I can't do what? Suck me, brain! I'm doing it!"
'Suck me, brain!' is not for everybody. You can come up with your own phrase. May I suggest 'blow me, bud'? Or, 'Yo, go down on me, frontal lobe!'? Whichever one you feel comfortable with. Don't hold yourself back!

Godzilla.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Twitter @nathanmacintosh