"The Odyssey of 2011"

So I've made a life-changing decision. I have decided to watch the entirety of Firefly, the new Dr. Who, and the remainder of Dexter Season 4 in the next two weeks. I'm not entirely sure why I'm going to do so at this juncture. BUT REASON BE DAMNED! See you on the other side...

That is if I can even find a way to get Netflix to work...........................or if I have eyes left.......

"Free Write of Random Thoughts"

There I was. I was seated in the school computer lab beside my friend and his girl. What did I decide to do but to write about nothing in particular? It’s been some time since I’ve free written and I suppose this doesn’t even have to make sense. I like pancakes. See, nobody came to stop me from expressing myself. Nobody, I say! So here’s the quandary. In ten days I will be twenty-one years of age. I do not drink. I do not intend on drinking. I wonder why bother. Who invented alcohol anyway? I should check Wikipedia, unreliable as is. Speaking of unreliable, my poor friend waited over an hour for a delivery of chicken wings because the poor bastard’s car broke down on the other side of campus. Now how does one’s car break down and he not call his employer to inform him of the situation? This is why my state of unemployment infuriates me. People like this stranger who break their car and don’t call their boss to give a heads up keep their job. I can’t even get my foot in the door. Everyone wants experience, but nobody is willing to give it. It’s a catch twenty-two, which happens to be one more than how many years I’ve spent on this plane of existence mulling over nonsense like this. I just took a moment to correct the last sentence because I created a fragment accidentally. I only corrected it because that stupid green line annoys the shit out of me. Ah, so I was talking about nonsense. Oddly I feel as if I’m more insane in my sanity than I ever was when I was insane. That sounds insane right? Last year when I was morbidly depressed, at least the things I thought about made some degree of sense. Just tonight I fantasized about dressing up as a computer virus and taking a sledgehammer to every computer in the lab. That doesn’t really sound like something a sane person would do. Matter of fact, I’m going to amend the first sentence so that it doesn’t say the name of where I am. It might be incriminating, or some such noise. There, now they can’t trace me. Although I suppose they could if they really wanted to. I’m not especially worried though. After all they can barely fix a computer let alone track a sociopath. I always rather liked that word, sociopath. It doesn’t in the least bit sound as menacing as it should. It just sounds like “society” and “path” got together, fell in love, and had a baby whose meaning denotes a path on which people socialize. It doesn’t sound like a word that would describe someone with something inherently askew in their head. Then again, what do I know? All my learning has taught me one thing. I don’t know anything. I pretend to know. I act as if I know. Sometimes I even convince myself that I know. But what is knowing beyond an illusion anyway? Oh right, that movie with Nicholas Cage. Was that Nicholas Cage? I can’t remember. I don’t really care either way, I didn’t go see it. I rarely see movies. I often buy DVDs though. Counterintuitive when you think about it. On the other hand I tend to buy on impulse from time to time. It can’t be helped. Speaking of helping, a girl I was interested in seemed, from her posts on AIM, to be in distress. I offer to help and she stops talking to me. What? That doesn’t make sense? Good, it didn’t to me either. Women never made sense. They still don’t. I’ve decided I don’t like how many contractions I’m using. I used three in that sentence alone. It’s not really a problem, I just find it funny. Poor Data in Star Trek can’t even use contractions. That would be a funny way of teasing him I think. Just use tons of contractions for no reason. Mess with him a little bit. Maybe Geordi has already done it a few times. I think that’s how he spells his name…I should check Wikipedia for that too. What a strange site Wikipedia is. It bases its whole existence on others. I just put in a contraction in the wrong place, my first typo of the evening. Pretty good considering I was at over seven hundred words before I did the four in this one sentence and the previous one. It is ten o’ clock though. Maybe I’m tired. It’s certainly possible. I was up at seven, no I thought about setting my alarm to seven and set it to eight thirty instead. My memory is planning tricks on me. Meanwhile spellcheck has decided that not only is it not a word, but apparently the previous sentence has a grammatical error. I wish I cared. Presently I’m content recording nonsense. Next to me, they were playing a game in which they infect the entire globe with some disease they create. I find it rather cheerful. That was sarcasm. I consider myself a sarcasm savant. I use it as a coping mechanism in times of strife. I even use it for entertainment when I’m not playing video games or cards or chatting or doing other things that constitute general nerdiness, dorkiness, or geekiness. And fuck you spellcheck, those are words. I think. However I don’t care. So sue me. Originally I typed “eat me” there and I found that to be a little graphic for something one would type to a computer. I find it very disturbing that I’m concerned about the computer’s feelings. Maybe I am insane. I’m pretty sure I am. They say the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results. That rather describes my luck with women. I’ve had two girlfriends. Both left me to date friends of mine. Isn’t that some sort of unwritten rule or something? Never mind the countless rejections. I actually just realized that for the first time, I can’t remember them all. How sad is that? Actually, that’s probably not sad, just normal. Hey I eclipsed one thousand words! This is much easier than writing a Civ paper and I’m not correcting that computer, get over it. Geez, this thing is like a nag or something. Not that it’s a horse but you know what I mean. Well, I’ve grown bored of this. I’m just going to save it, e-mail it to myself and then send it to some of my friends for a laugh or two. It’s been fun.

"Sucker Punch" or "The State of Mindless Filmmaking"

So I saw this movie. Missed the first few minutes because it started at 1:30 p.m. and we left at 1:30 p.m. Yeah, no time management skills. So the movie was just what I needed. No thinking really. Just slow-mo action sequences against gigantic mechanical samurai, clockwork German soldiers, and iRobot ripoffs. I didn't expect an intellectual stimulation. I just wanted to see a movie that would satisfy my thirst for simplicity. "Sucker Punch" filled this need.

It also provided a bit of a twist, which I found interesting, but not mind-boggling. The back of my mind saw the twist coming, but I was more interested in the diversion provided by the slow-mo sequences. Really, I couldn't care less that the story was basically an amalgamation of four or five different movies (i.e. Kill Bill, Burlesque, and others). Now, I'm not comparing these films, just pointing out obvious parallels that are few and far between. Such as a blonde wielding a katana, a la Kill Bill. The films are in no way similar beyond that.

Overall, I got a cheap chuckle here and there and sufficiently entertained myself for an hour or so on an otherwise boring afternoon. No it wasn't film history or great storytelling or anything that makes great movies great. It was just a nice change of pace, and a nice distraction from schoolwork.

"Truth and Emotions: The Irreconcilable"

So, I was going to go see Sucker Punch tonight. That plan failed. So instead this:

Maybe I'm crazy, ok I am crazy, but the current social circles frown upon truth in regards to emotion. For instance, a person may be particularly annoyed at a roommate but to air the grievance is taboo. Leave things be is the gospel of the day and that just doesn't make sense, at least not to my partially addled brain. Furthermore, any sort of anger in response to a perceived slight is, we are taught, better off repressed and saved for later. The Internet age provides avenues for blind rantings to relieve pressure but this is simply avoiding the problem of the culture. Gone are the days of calling a spade a spade. Truth is not acceptable in matters of emotion. If something makes a person sad, angry, happy, it can never be said. This is especially true for guys, I think. I don't really know because I am not a female. Imagine that.

So when one meets someone who is a funny person and generally fun to hang out with (and do not take this the wrong way or I will anonymously rant on various other websites), one cannot simply say, "Hey, you're fun! Let's hang out more." Things get awkward. No matter what gender is involved. Maybe I'm just socially inept (a distinct possibility).

So given that even open expression of true friendship is dicey at best, what is a person to do when faced with actual amorous attraction (haha alliteration)? I myself have been shot down many times, trying many different angles, strategies, ploys and the like. HOW THE FUCK DOES ONE WIN THIS GAME?! One doesn't simply walk up to a girl and say, "Hey there, you're smart, funny, and I'd like to get to know you better, here's my phone number." THAT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK!! I call this the "We Should Hang Out" rule or "WSHO" for short. WSHO invariably goes nowhere. It's a falsehood enabled by the qualifier "should." "Should" defuses obligation (not that anyone is obligated, I'm speaking purely from a linguistic standpoint) and therefore this doesn't work either. Again, I'm probably just inept.

So truth and emotion are parallel and separate ideals. One can't tell the truth about emotion openly without compromising some social standing. It's a little screwy. At least I think so.

"Rebecca Black" OR "A Depressing First Blog"

This past Friday I had the extreme personal misfortune to be exposed to the latest super-meme. I was shown the meme "Rebecca Black: Friday." This may have been the most painful musical experience of my life. The lyrics were unimaginative, flat, and emotionless. Now, Ms. Black is thirteen years young and was provided with the lyrics to this song by Ark Music Factory. She was also given a budget with which to produce a video.

The video was an atrocity all itself. It began with her waking up singing about eating cereal. She then proceeded to wait for the bus, at which point her friends drove up in a convertible. Not only were they not wearing seat-belts, but they were also sitting on the trunk of the car. The lyrics began to muse about which seat she would take. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! WHAT SEAT DOES SHE TAKE? She's not sure if she should sit in front, apparently in the lap of the girl who is already sitting there, or the back. Really. I'm not making this up. But the most egregious offense has yet to be mentioned. How exactly does a thirteen year-old have a license yet alone a convertible?

God help me for blogging about this...The singing, oh the singing. I have no idea if she is a good singer or not because the prevalence of the auto-tuner completely overrides any sound that can be construed as the natural human voice. Additionally, Ms. Black apparently has no knowledge of the dreaded diphthong. "Fry-ee-day" is the way she pronounces "Friday."

And here's where things get strange. In the third verse of the song (he called it generously), a rapper appears driving his car, rapping about being behind the school bus and how excited he is that it is Friday. Who is this mysterious stranger? More importantly...WHAT SCHOOL BUS?! SHE WAS WAITING FOR THE SCHOOL BUS BUT SHE HOPPED IN WITH HER THIRTEEN YEAR-OLD FRIEND WHO APPARENTLY HAS A LICENSE AND A CONVERTIBLE! WHERE IS THE BUS?!

Ahem, I've calmed down a bit. However, the lyrics make reference to "partyin', partyin', YEAH!" and I cannot conceive of a universe in which a just and loving God would allow an 8th grader to sing about partying all weekend. To paraphrase Lewis Black (no relation), we only use a small percentage of our brain. When we hear or see something outrageously stupid, our brain yells "LET'S FIGURE IT OUT!" The next morning you wake up dead in your bathroom from the aneurysm caused by the coincidental experience of a happenstance so outrageously stupid that it behooves me to find more hyperbolic language with which to describe it. Sadly, I cannot. Words fail in the face of this...meme. This meme has over thirty millions views, almost two-hundred thousand comments, numerous spoofs and parodies and my brain can't take it. I watched the video. Twice. It did not age well.

May God have mercy on my soul.