My thoughts…on stuff

Tired of the same old Earth? Want a bigger, better Earth, with new frontiers to explore? Well wait no longer! Introducing Earth 2.0, now with pop-up blocker! It’s been the biggest news story since Virginia Tech. A new earth like planet, Gliese 581 C, has been located outside the solar stystem, in the constellation Libra. It is 50% larger than Earth, may have a rocky surface like Earth’s and may have liquid water on its surface. Screw Al Gore and his global warming talk! We’ve got a backup world now, so when this one is destroyed, (which is almost certain due to corporate greed and public indifference) we can take the nearest starship to that one and begin its destruction!

But curb your enthusiasm for a minute. All this excitement over this new world, yet no one has considered the fact that there may be aliens over there. There may be giant killer bugs there like in Starship Troopers, big headed Martianesque aliens like in Mars Attacks!, or Orion slave girls like in Star Trek…with killer STDs, dozens of times more potent than what Paris Hilton’s got festering in her crotch right now! It’s 20.5 light years away, so were not gonna be visiting there any time soon. In fact, there’s a very strong possibility that our descendants will explore that strange new world, that is, unless humanity destroys itself first. Let’s hope we develop warp drive before we’re forced to evolve gills.

And another thing, Gliese 581 C orbits its sun every 13 days, so in a standard Earth year, you’d be 28 years older! Gonna be awkward for people living on that planet. The kids won’t mind, as they’ll have a birthday every fortnight. Plus it’s scientists’ job to dish out theories, probabilities and other impractical junk just to justify the massive budgets they get. I’ve heard tons of exciting news about possible scientific breakthroughs, but I’ve rarely seen any of them become reality. So until I set foot on that planet (which I probably won’t), I’ll file this in the “What if?” section.

Amsterdam, the stoner and john capital of the world (no wonder the Dutch are such a mellow people). You’d think that it couldn’t get any more liberal…until now. Amsterdam’s Red Light District now features a statue in honor of prostitutes, sculpted by a former prostitute. Guess it takes one to sculpt one. The statue is meant to show respect to the ladies of the night. Yeah, good luck with that. I don’t think prostitute will rank up there with doctor, lawyer, accountant or other notable professions. I can see it now. “Mommy, Daddy. I wanna be a prostitute when I grow up. It’s something I enjoy and it’s something I’m really good at.”

The statue, named Belle, features a full-breasted woman (what else?) feet apart and standing at a doorway, undoubtedly waiting for her next customer. And it stands in front of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam’s oldest church. Makes sense, because Christianity and whoredom obviously mix. Belle is fortified with steel to prevent humping vandalism, and perched on a pedestal to prevent jacking off peeing. Hours before its unveiling, an old woman attacked Mariska Majoor, the woman that commissioned its design because she was unhappy about it being so close to her home. Guess she was affraid that people would come knocking asking to borrow some brown sugar, and no, not the one that fits in a cup. One question: Are they friggin’ high? No. wait…

I’m a big Heroes fan. Ever since the show began, I’ve been faithfully keeping track of our favourite superpowered team of misfits, watching them slowly master their powers, become a team, encounter their first threat and discover their destiny. That is, until the first break. Then I got used to the show’s absence, and watching Heroes became lower and lower on my list of priorities, until I stopped watching it altogether. Star Trek: Enterprise mondays on Sci-Fi din’t make things better either. But now Heroes is back, and I can finally catch up with the series. I know I’ve missed them saving the cheerleader (shouldn’t have been too hard given the fact that she’s indestructible and all), but now I get to see them save the world.

Hopefully there’ll be more action, as they’ve passed through the awkward phase of superty, and perhaps the question I’ve had since the show aired will be answered: tights or no tights? That question wasn’t answered in last night’s episode, but that didn’t make it any less interesting. The plot has advanced a lot. I can barely keep up, but that’s nothing an hour or two on YouTube can’t fix. Issac fell by the hand of Sylar, Peter’s saved by Claire, Hiro and his sidekick visit 5 years in the future and Niki and D.L. are still arguing over Micah, making it an episode more thrilling than most. As usual, they end with a cliffhanger, raising questions about what would happen should the heroes fail. One thing’s for certain, I’m back on the Heroes train. Sorry Enterprise. Besides, you’re cancelled anyway.

Do you realize that just about everyone’s swearing nowadays? From the old to the young, everyone’s mouth needs to be washed out with soap. It used to be that people used to swear when they were in pain or something went terribly wrong. Then people started swearing to bring their point across. To heck with constructing a convincing argument. There’s no time for that in today’s fast-paced world. Just throw in a “f%$king” and people know you mean business. Nowadays people just swear for the heck of it. I mean why not? Like the great philosopher Eric Cartman said, “it don’t hurt nobody.” Plus everyone wants to prove that they’ve got edge and attitude, and there’s no better way to do that than sound like a drunken sailor with Tourette’s syndrome. I experience it a lot at university. Students, armed with their newfound freedom and bent on proving their “maturity,” belt out badwords for absolutely no reason, and I have to deal with it every day.

I for one don’t swear (not regularly anyway). Not saying I never told someone off, but I can can’t remember the last time I swore. That’s how infrequently I do it. That’s how I was raised. My parents put great restraint on their tongues and so do I, especially my dad. Not like I’m totally against swearing. I welcome them when they’re used creatively. But I fucking hate it when people swear just because they can. It’s rather inconsiderate. Oh shit! Now I’m doing it! Aaah! While we’re on the topic of swearing, here are some interesting curses. You have bomboclaat, which is indigenous to Jamaica. F-you in Spanish is “corijo tu,” in French it’s “baise-toi.” If you’re Jewish, it’s “fegg di” in German. And, in these times of terrorism, you can say “aneekak” in Arabic, so you can say “Hi Mom” while you’re the star of Al-Qaeda’s next video, starring as the soon-to-be-executed infidel.

A long time ago, a young man from Trinidad decided to ty his hand at cricketing. And try he did. Eventually he made quite a name for himself, earning many awards, accolades, and undoubtedly women. And for a while, all seemed well. Then came Cricket World Cup 2007, where his home team sucked beyond mortal comprehension performed poorly, failing an entire region. He and his teamates are now demonized, where they were once beloved. That’s when he decided enough was enough. So Brian Charles Lara offically announced his retirement from cricket. Initially he announced he would retire from Test cricket, but I guess this wasn’t enough to appease the wrath of his fellow West Indians. So he threw in the towel fully. I can’t understand why he’d want to end his career on 299 matches. Why not round it out at 300? I guess he couldn’t wait.

I wonder what’s going to happen to the West Indies team. Lara was the superstar of the team, drawing crowds and cheers. But now that he’s announced his retirement, and given the massive failure of the Windies, will anyone watch them play now? Surely you’ll have your die hard fans, but the majority of west Indians would rather tune in to championship curling than watch the Windies play. Their fault anyway. Incompetence breeds indifference. Still, despite his failures, he was undeniably a great batsman, and the sport won’t be the same without him. Goodbye Brian. The flight to Cancun should be leaving shortly.

The biggest news to hit the airwaves in the past couple days is the Virginia Tech Massacre, in which 32 college students and faculty members fell at the hands of a madman. Columbine ain’t got nothing on this, and when it is mentioned, it will be in comparison to Viginia Tech. Such random and meaningless loss of life is always saddening, worse when you read the victims’ profiles and discover the people behind the photos. It hits closer to home for me as I am a university student.

The perpetrator, Cho Seung-Hui, denied families of the deceased the pleasure of seeing him brought to justice when he killed himself. I guess that’s why all these wacko killers smoke themselves, or maybe they’re just afraid of the consequences of their actions. Learning about him makes you discover just how truly disturbed he was. His plays “Mr. Brownstone” and “Richard McBeef” give you a clear view inside his twisted mind. They feature language, use of weapons and violence that would shock even the most hardened soul. He rarely spoke in class, he stalked women, especially Emily Hilscher who rejected him and, not surprisingly, became his first victim.

People are now pointing fingers to the powers that be as to why he wasn’t given any help, what motivated him to do something so evil, why the university didn’t act sooner to alert students, etc. I don’t really pay attention to all that, because its easy to speculate after such an event, as hindsight is after 20/20 after all. Right now everyone sees Cho as evil incarnate, but I see him as a young man with a hard life, one with very little, if any, happiness in it. He was angry and frustrated, mainly because of the rich kids that teased him for being so quiet, and had no positive means to relase that anger. He didn’t connect emotionally with other people, and the one time he tried, he was shot down. Emily probably rejected him for some fickle reason, as college girls often do. Little did she know what damage that would do to him.

Perhaps you are wondering how I can empathize with such a monster. But we must not forget that he was also a human being, and if we can gain a bit of insight as to what motivated him, maybe we can stop future Virginia Tech Massacres from happening. This incident has also caused me to think about my own life. Most of the victims’ profiles are around a paragraph long, but you have a few one-liners. Which makes me wonder what my profile would be like? It certainly wouldn’t be a one-liner, I can tell you. But it has motivated me further to live a life worth remembering, as you never know when it can be taken.

Old hotness: W.W.J.D. bracelets. New hotness: Jesus Christ…action figures? Yes Fishermen Inc. plans to take advantage of people’s most sacred beliefs, I mean, give a modern interpretation to this most recognizable of figures by releasing their line of “I Am” action figures. Well, they’re actually figurines, but I’m calling them action figures, as figurines are only to keep little old ladies company to fill the void of their children deserting them. Forget miracles, great teachings and founding the world’s largest religion. You know you’ve achieved true greatness when you’ve been turned into an action figure.

The “I Am” figurines feature modern interpretations of our Lord and Saviour. “I Am Freedom” features Jesus wearing jeans on a chopper. You can’t make this stuff up. “I Am Victory” has him doing a bicycle kick in a soccer uniform. “I Am Peace” shows Jesus in military gear, holding a dove in one hand. “I Am Hope” has Jesus dressed as a homeless man carrying a “Will Work 4 Food sign.” “I Am Strength” has him riding a bucking bull with a cowboy hat in his hand. “I Am Faith” features Jesus scrambling with a football. (Couldn’t Jesus just be himself for this one?) “I Am Spirit” has Jesus surfing, shooting a curl. “I Am Youth” is a skateboarding Jesus and finally you have “I Am Life,” showing a rock-climbing Jesus hanging from a cliff. There have been requests for a rock-star Jesus, but I don’t think a “I Am Debauchery” would fit in with the character’s image. Blasphemous or brilliant? You decide. Each comes with a Darwin action figure, with faith-crushing action! Ok you got me. But you gotta admit, it would be cool if they did.

Spiderman 3 is opening May 4th, and the hype is so overwhelming you can almost taste it. Well actually you can taste it, thanks to the masive merchandising blitz surrounding the movie. I’d try to name a few the Spidey themed products, but that would need a post by itself. You have cable. You know what I’m talking about. Nearly everything imaginable has been “spidified.” I’m surprised the game hasn’t come out yet, but they’ll probably want to package the game and the movie, as comic book movies do a lot nowadays. Sony built up the hype rather cleverly. Ever since news of the movie’s production came out, they’ve been giving us little bits of information, constantly teasing us like we were hungry dogs with their black, slime covered steak. And we took the bait. We speculated about which villains would be in the movie, who would play who, what would the plot be like. All the while blogging, making YouTube videos, IMing, chatting with our friends, unknowingly powering the hype. My friends and I were chatting about it the other day (same thing) and some of them said that they weren’t gonna watch it as Jake Gyllenhaal (of Brokeback Mountain fame) was going to play Spidey. The rest of us had to correct them. I think that’s quite immature. They’re called actors for a reason, and just because they play one role that might not agree with you doesn’t mean that should have any impact on any of their other roles.

The reason I think the Spiderman movie franchise has become so successful, apart from Kirsten Dunst’s wet bosom, is the fact that he’s a superhero that’s just like us, which was the draw of the comic as well. He gets bullied, tries to get the attention of the girl next door, goes through money problems, etc. It also us that there are consequences for a superhero’s actions, shattering the illusion that a superhero’s life is just about colorful tights, public adoration and saving the girl. That why Spidey 3’s box office haul should overshadow that of those giant robots and that teen wizard. Makes you wonder why Toby Maguire would want to leave such a lucrative franchise. Guess he doesn’t want to be typecast as the webslinger. Most movies overhyped like this collapse under the weight of their own hype, ending up like a black hole (for the movie studio’s pockets anyway). I don’t think that this will be the case with Spiderman 3. The supervillain trifecta is the biggest draw for me, but I don’t sense any more depth to the plot besides Peter’s brush with the dark side. Hopefully I’m wrong. Spiderman seems to be the only Marvel franchise able to keep up with DC’s Superman and Batman movies in terms of longevity. But before we speculate, let’s see if it can run the third lap successfully.

Hey folks. As you all know by now, yesterday was Friday the 13th, and no that wasn’t the reason why I didn’t post yesterday. Its not like I was afraid that my computer would blow up in my face or something. I just didn’t want to sit around a computer yesterday, save for entertainment, as I had two assignments to complete, one of which kept me up ’til 4 in the morning. So my mind was obviously on other things. I’ve now decided to dedicate this post to that most special of days - Friday the 13th.

When I was little, Friday the 13th used to fill me with dread. I would check the calendar and mark off those days and make sure that I did as little risk taking as possible on those days. I’d be afraid of everything, especially crossing the street. The only thing I’d look forward to was all the scary movies they’d show that night. I’d watch ’til morning, mainly because I’d be too afraid to sleep. Now, several Jason and Chucky reruns later, I realize that there is no such thing as luck, only chance and opportunity. Still I wish people good luck on exams (It’s the thought that counts). Here’s an interesting fact: Did you know that the fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia? You can find more interesting facts on its Wikipedia page, which are sure to keep you trembling in fear underneath your bedsheets even longer.

But why should you be? Why should any rational person fear the random occurrence of the thirteen day falling on a Friday? I went through the day unscathed. The only thing close to an “unlucky” event was a grey cat crossing my path. Grey, not black. Wait a minute. Something unfortunate did happen yesterday. My group partner submitted one of my two final assignments late, two hours after the office closed, on the final day of school! Still, she wanted to handle the bulk of the work. If I did it, it would’ve been sent in long before. Simply incompetence, not bad luck. I also lost my glasses this morning, and up ’til now I haven’t found them. A friend of mine said that since it was a grey cat that crossed my path, the effect of the bad luck was probably delayed. Could it be? Nah! Just co-incidence. Right?

P.S. I got blogspotted for the first time on Tuesday. An old high school friend said he read my blog. I’m getting noticed. Yay!

I never expected them to win the World Cup. Besides all of their talk about “psychological pressure,” they weren’t able to do what any World Cup qualifying team should be able to do, play a decent game. They played as if they were half asleep. Makes sense, as I’ve heard that they spend their free time partying at night clubs, while other teams are busy in their hotel rooms practicing their catches. Their team consisted of too many rookies, too many “force-ripe pickney” sent to play at the highest level possible in cricket. I never expected them to win. And they didn’t. Big surprise. It didn’t take a psychic to figure that out. After their loss to Sri Lanka, it would take a miracle and a half to get them to the next round. Apparently God isn’t a Windies fan. And neither are many former West Indies supporters. I predicted that if they f*@ked up this time, this would be the final nail in the West Indies coffin. Excuse my French. Just have to find some way to vent this rage. And it seems I was right. People who once “rallied roun’ the West Indies” now don’t even want to hear the word cricket. In general, people just want to forget it, as if it were a bad dream.

Still they want to see some accountability. They want to see some heads roll, and if they have their way, either Lara’s or the coach’s will be on the chopping block. Lara sensed this, and instead of suffering the indignity of being fired, he simply chooses to retire from one-day cricket. But I don’t think that will be enough, because if people are as angry as they seem, his life and the lives of the other team members might be in danger if they even set foot in the Caribbean islands right now. They’d better chill out elsewhere first. But as Lara said, the West Indies will not give up, and they will fight to the bitter end, essentially playing for pride. Well I for one am tired of us playing for pride, just to prove that we’re of some worth.Here’s an idea: See the way you play catch-up? Why not play that way all the time? Still I wonder why I even bother. As detached as I try to be, I suppose as West Indians, cricket is in our blood. That why I still have a soft heart for these guys, not matter how many times they fail me.