Legal Plagiarism, or Hollywood Sucks

I watched "Hide & Seek" (I swear, I wasn't even there when the maternal body picked it up, else I'd have suggested saving the dollar for something better). It was totally a cross between "The Ring" and "Secret Window"--spooky kid haunted (possessed?) by a diabolical game-playing monster; split-personality that's crazy or nice and is eventually completely taken over into evil--which can even be traced further back to the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

WTF? Hollywood has really lost it. I mean, the directing and the actors were good at their roles, but it's not like the movie itself was anything special. This entire production needed the actors to save its pathetic little clichéd ass. And half the movies in Hollywood are like this nowadays, which makes one wonder if there's even such a thing as an original movie plot anymore.

Hell, I might as well go ahead and write a book--it's got a better chance of becoming a movie than a script, and I could make money off of both ventures that way....


Here is my sexy poem. It is so sexy that I use it to beat people with.

The void that we’ve made
Between Time and our fate
Leaves us much to expect

And even more of a wait

It's a poem, not freaking Michaelangelo, dipshits. I hope the morons out there are searching this for meaning.

4 Hours of Entertainment: $19.29

Yah...new Harry Potter book. I will review it for my own amusement.

Actually, Rowling has gotten far better at creating serious situations with actual meaning--and the surprising thing is that she isn't too trite about it, like many writers and all of Disney. Sadly for me, I couldn't make fun of the characters because they were fairly intelligent--and mature! --in this one. Even Harry, who seems to have burned out his Potteritis (commonly known as PMS) and idiocy with women (damn...). The only complaint I have about this is that it gets angsty at points; I mean, there are only so many times one can reasonably mention the word 'blood' and make references to it in a chapter of tragedy. Well, it is getting increasingly serious; not a bad thing, personally, since Harry's becoming less of a Mary-Sue (he now makes mistakes!). And the useless details are totally filtering out, save for the little sideplot love stories, which I personally think are only in to appease fanwhores.

So, anyway, it's interesting to read. I don't think it's really worth $30.00 (which it probably never will be anyway--but even $20 is too much), but that's probably because of me predicting 4.5 to 5 hours of reading from this and getting only 3.75.

Okay, so Maybe They Are Masterminds

It's interesting to hear people say that people say that Al-Qaeda is a bunch of smelly guys with no intelligence, because the perspective I have always had of them--perhaps due to the classes I took and the groups I was involved in--was of cunning stratagems. And it has proven true: while everyone freaks about the fact that London was damaged (which, by the way, perturbs me since these people managed to get bombs on a subway system when their leader is associated with America and is aware of American security breaches), it is necessary to consider that Al-Qaeda timed the attack perfectly.

As the New York Times says: "Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, as the host, had set an agenda that was intended in part to shift the attention away from his support for the war in Iraq and his partnership with Mr. Bush. But even before the first working session started, it was apparent that the tone and substance this meeting of the Group of 8 leaders had been violently reshaped."

Is that not clever?! These guys managed to turn the entire G8 to a point where they might actually be willing to consider some sort of serious compromise with Al-Qaeda simply because they were so concerned about the future of their countries.

So really, there had better be editorials like this in tomorrow's paper (not by the dipshits who write in, by the paid people), otherwise I'm really going to start loathing the Chicago Tribune.

Independence Day My Arse

Today is not, as many seem to believe, the day of independence for the United States of America.

It is the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, ratified two days earlier by Congress. And, in fact, its contemporaries viewed it as little more than a justification for war against Britain, a list of grievances against King George, one not even distributed to the last state until two months later.

And yet Americans celebrate this day with fireworks, frenzied consumerism, bingeing--all those things that make America so wonderful.

It is interesting to consider the values that have led to a celebration upon the Fourth of July instead of, one would think, far more significant dates such as the ratification of the Constitution of the United States, or even the signing of the peace treaty between America and Britain that actually turned the English Civil War into the American Revolution (and at this point, it is unnecessary to note that the Revolution was not really a revolution...).

To Americans, the Declaration of Independence is significant, justifying Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War, and many demonstrations and expressions of freedom (that are beginning to lose their importance to generations unaware of even their First Amendment rights). The Declaration is a very regional document; outside of the U.S., it has changed nothing (and surely Britain would insist upon this!). The Constitution, however, has influenced the creation of many other documents and even whole governments across the world; but it seems to be taken for granted.

In short, Americans should not be blamed for their lack of concern with the rest of the globe. It seems to be a mere continuation of a trend that the government, with its lack of activity to increase awareness of other probably more relevant dates and events, has done nothing to curb.

(I do, however, admit to a bit of prejudice against Thomas Jefferson, who authored that still respectable and very faded document.)

In Which Stuff Happens

So there was a dance after the final caucus meeting, during which the DJ was an ass and didn't play "Smack My Bitch Up". It was fun.

Afterwards, I committed the great crime of the century by going up to the room and, after rinsing off, of course, turning on HBO. Well, the ending of "Carrie", which I wanted to see, was on....

3 a.m. Bedtime; I requested my roommate, who was originally going to stay up all night, to wake up up.

6:35 a.m. I wake up. I look at the time, swear a lot, and then wake everyone else up, gathering up my possessions because...well....

I was supposed to be on a 6 a.m. shuttle.

By some bizarre stroke of luck, my other roommate also had to go to Dulles on the 6 a.m., and was horribly nice, paying for the $50 taxi ride there.

And the flight back was perfectly fine.

Thus ended the Washington, D.C. trip: being attacked by the sibling; and also discovering that we were on our way to Gurnee Mills for some shopping (and, as it so happens, finally getting that second ear piercing).

Why I Loathe Humans II

First, the paper presentation. (We had a current issues project designed merely to take up free time, which it did not do very well, especially since like 5 people worked on it.) Me, I felt guilty about only reading one article and underlining the important stuff, so I was one of the three speakers--it could have gone better, but who gives a shit?

We went to the Jefferson Memorial (ugh...no Hamilton Memorial...) and to the FDR memorial (which is one of the coolest things I have seen, half because we wanted to run under the waterfalls and because it was so parklike; though I was surprised that they had a statue of FDR in a wheelchair--he would have disapproved).... Then we went to Arlington Cemetery (TB and I had to run half the way up, which was uncomfortable) to watch the changing of the guard and the laying of wreaths (one from PC, another from some middle school). I won't be too detailed about it because it is something you have to experience--all I want to say is that every grave marker should be the same to emphasize the effect, they should have separate sections for killed in action and died later (I guess the relatives would still be buried nearby, of course), and that JD & I agreed that all politicians should be left alone in the cemetery for a day before they had the ability to decide to enter any war.

Anyway, the view from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is amazing--it is being renovated, so I didn't see much (not to mention the lack of time). Now for the reason I loathe humans (a warning to virgin eyes at this point):

The motherfucking sons of bitches were talking during Taps. Those shitbaskets seriously need to show some goddamn respect when they're at a fucking TOMB during a fucking RITUAL.

Okay, that was a toned-down version of what I would like to say.

Afterwards: packing, which took around ten minutes (and we had two hours), final caucus meeting (the surprising thing about this was, after I whooped, people had not heard me that loud--...oh, and I left for a bit to wish E "B" A a happy birthday for the obvious reason that it was her birthday), and the banquet.

The banquet was pretty awesome; besides the Old Guard drumline stuff, the student talents were awesome. B- did this amazing rap she'd written about PC, and JD had a great song because she has an amazing voice. W00t.

Oh, and we ate food. It was actually pretty good--spinach sauce is pretty good. Mmm. Oh, and cake--mine looked like it was screaming, which was kind of amusing because there was this really strong cherry syrup under it that made it look like it was bleeding. If I'd had a camera at that point, I would have taken a photo.

Mission: Stupidity Made it Impossible

Back at Capitol Hill, ran around with JD looking at stuff (haha, she was mad at me for "making" her walk around Capitol Hill 3 times--but then, I was the one wearing the non-regulation comfortable shoes). Before that, though, we went to the National Archives (which is why I did not get to meet my senators--cry cry), where I was lucky enough to be one of probably less than 100 people out of our group that got to see the original copies of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, etc. They really need restoration. I mean, legacy nothwithstanding, there's nothing heroic about looking at something that looks as if it were used as toilet paper at some point. The ink's nearly faded, bugs have been munching on them.... Not cool. :( Anyway, not much after that--the Instructor Panel was only interesting because I got to learn more about D(tM)F, haha, and blah blah. Mleh.

(The Box of DSL--holy sacred object, &c., &c.



So maybe I'm a little obsessed right now....)