26th Year

Ever since I first saw the trailer for Scott Pilgrim vs The World, I have wanted to see the movie. Last Monday, I was invited by a friend to attend a screening of the movie that Thursday at one of the local theaters. I jumped at the opportunity to see the movie eight days before it officially came out. And I went in with huge expectations. I am a big fan of Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno, Superbad), Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore, Bored To Death on HBO, the band Phantom Planet) and Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), and when I saw that they were all involved in the same movie, I expected nothing less than awesome.

I was surprised when I arrived about an hour and a half early that the line was unusually short. After attending many of these screenings over the past year and a half or so, I was used to longer lines. And who wouldn’t want to see Scott Pilgrim? As we finally got into the theater about 30 minutes before the movie, I was even more shocked to see how empty the theater was and how the pace of attendees entering slowly dwindled, ultimately ending with a half-empty theater.

Now, remember those expectations? The huge ones? Totally exceeded. Blown away even. I loved every moment of the viewing experience. I have certainly laughed harder and louder at other movies, but none of those provided the full experience like Scott Pilgrim did.

So what was the first thing I did when I got off of work on Friday? I drove to comic book store down the road and grabbed a copy of Bryan Lee O’Malley‘s first two volumes of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series, Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life and Scott Pilgrim vs The World. By the end of the night, I had read the first and was halfway through the second. So while I was out, I stopped by Borders and saw that they had the other 4 in the series (Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Scott Pilgrim vs The Universe, and Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour). Yesterday, I finished the series, and I probably enjoyed it even more than the movie, which is saying a lot. It was interesting to see where the movie kept with the story (which had to be difficult considering the final book was not released until 3 weeks ago) and where it took some creative liberties to fight the story into 2 hours or so. Where the books take place over a year or so of time, the movie is a few weeks. I plan to see the movie again this weekend to get a new view on it having now read the source material. (As a brief aside, Edgar Wright just posted this really awesome adaptation of the trailer using the graphic novel.)

With the movie and the books done, where else to take a story so musically driven than to the soundtrack? Which is exactly what I am listening to now. It has songs performed by 2 of the bands in the movie: Sex Bob-omb (with the actual actors plus Beck) and Crash and the Boys (basically Broken Social Scene). Bryan has a good story (that Edgar Wright briefly mentions in the liner notes) about how many of these songs came to be on the CD. And from Bryan’s site, I just found out about the digital release of the score, which includes some work with Dan The Automator; I’ll need to pick that up.

There’s also a funny story from earlier as I left work to head out to grab the CD. I had a voicemail from my dad saying to call home. So I called home and my dad told me that my parents had gotten me the soundtrack on vinyl for my birthday. He also said that he tried to get it signed by Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman at Criminal Records, but he got there late and they apparently took off early, so no signed copy, but it was nice of him to try. So I now have an overload of Scott Pilgrim memorabilia, all in the matter of a week. But go see the movie!

I think this picture says a lot. Namely, I have not cut my hair in a long time. I do not even remember the last time I got my hair cut. Maybe late May/early June. I don’t know when I’ll cut it again; for now, I’m letting it grow.

It’s been a slow progression, but over the last few years, my hairline has slowly begun receding. I know it’s inevitable that in the next 10-15 years, it will be apparent to all. And when that day comes, I’m shaving it all off. So while I still have hair, why not let it grow out? I’ve never had long hair. This is probably the longest it has ever been, by about a month.

And that’s where the problem comes in. This morning, my hair officially passed critical mass. When you’ve had the same haircut and generally the same hair length for 20 or so years, you get used to the exact amount of shampoo you need. You can make that perfect little circle without even looking or thinking about what you’re doing. And for the past few weeks, that has still worked. But not anymore. My hair has forced me into a new level of shampoo. I’m now going to run through shampoo 25% quicker.

The next milestone: when the hair passes my ears. I can lay it flat on the side of my head now, and while it reaches past my ears, most of it is left tickling the insides. Maybe one day I’ll have a beautiful mane of hair like Mr. Brock Aun. Or at least learn how to tame what I do have.

I thought about getting into it now, but I’ll hold off. Unless something exciting happens tomorrow, it’s all about Scott Pilgrim.

In approximately 3 weeks (23 days to be exact), I turn 26. After very little thought and possibly even less work, I have decided to document each day of the journey from 26 to 27, plus the days that remain between of 25. Every day, a new picture and a new blog.

That is about as far out as I have thought this plan. It will probably change over the next 13 months (if I somehow manage to not give up in the next 3 days), but there’s no real plan for the blogs. Some will probably cover what happened that day, others will just cover the random thoughts in my head. Maybe something really awesome will happen over the next year and this will document the awesomeness. Maybe I will be famous in 10 years and I can put all of this together and sell a million copies. But even if none of that happens, at least I will have 388 snapshots of what it was like to be me.

I tried something like this in college, though it wasn’t intended for quite the same purpose; it was a bit more organic. But it was intended to serve a similar purpose: ensure I could always look back and know what it was like to be me on any given day. I have always had a pretty good memory, but there are parts of my life that, for whatever reason, the memories are all a bit foggy. Freshman year of high school. Random parts of my sophomore and junior years of college. And while there’s really nothing special or particularly interesting about 26, why not start now?