My thoughts…on stuff

Before I start, just let me say that I FINALLY GOT THE INTERNET! Yesterday evening in fact. Now I can post even more than before! So expect a lot more activity on this blog (if I can manage to wrestle control of my PC from the rest of my family).

Springfield’s royal family has finally hit the big screen, and there has been a lot of publicity surrounding it, strangest of all a picture of Homer drawn in a field holding a doughnut next to a nude Australian fertility symbol. Maybe Homer wanted to play ring toss with it. Despite all this, I don’t think that this movie will be the blockbuster its hyped to be. Why? Sit back and I’ll tell you why.

The Simpsons is the both the longest running American sitcom and animated series, with over 400 episodes. With so many episodes behind its belt, it will be a miracle if the creators can come up with more material. Plus the series feels a bit tired to me. It doesn’t make me laugh nearly as much as when I was little. Perhaps its because I’ve watched so much TV that I can now see the punchline a mile away, or because I’ve grown up, and therefore become more serious, but the jokes aren’t as smart as they used to be. It has become just plain stupid.

And I’m not feeling the fanbuzz on the Net. For most big movies, especially big screen versions of beloved old school shows, there is a monstrous wave of fan-powered hype. Blogs, chat rooms, websites, forums, etc. But I feel there’d be way more hype if it was a Family Guy movie. Still, with its large fanbase, this movie cannot possibly be a flop. Not like I want it to be, as I’m a diehard fan. But if it was released 15 years ago, when it was first envisioned, (yes, it’s been in the pipeline that long!) it would’ve gotten a much better reception. Though I hear rumours that the movie has returned the franchise to its roots. I surely hope so, if I’m gonna spend money to see this movie, it had better be the Simpsons I fell in love with as a child, not the shadow of its former self.

Before I start, I guess I should explain my absence. My monitor was giving some colour trouble, and I had to send it to the shop for a full 7 days (not counting Saturday and Sunday). Now it’s back, and showing better than ever. For the past few days I’ve been watching CNBC and I’ve been hearing all about the net worth of social networking sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook and so on, and the debates as to which will become the next Google, if any. Why are these sites so hot? My guess is because these sites feed people’s egos. And how can we talk about social networking sites without talking about MySpace, where unpopular kids and narcissistic brats can both play high school popularity contest online, posting their best ever photos on their profiles just to get comments from horny strangers of the opposite sex, or see who can get the most “friends.” I mean how can someone have over 1,000 friends?

Oh and let’s not forget the movies, bands and events that have profiles, exploiting MySpace’s audience of teens, the only demographic with 100% disposable income, a marketer’s wet dream. And all of these social networking sites have profiles that look like the land that HTML forgot. We’re advanciong towards XHTML, but these profiles feature those damn glittery GIFs and colour combinations that would make your eyes bleed. I have a MySpace profile which I am totally inactive on. How inactive? I just signed on, then decided a couple minutes later that it was a complete waste of time. I have no friends, save the omnipresent Tom, no doubt there to prevent you from realizing the harsh reality that no one really does love you. Yet still I’ve gotten two friend requests! What the hell? To date I haven’t responded. I don’t have time to waste by adding to someone’s friend count. One of their profiles was deleted. Why? I shudder to think.

That’s why Hi5 and Facebook are more my style. Clean interface, more grownups and less sex offenders, though Hi5 has made some changes in order to keep up with MySpace. Personally, I use social networking sites to link to…wait for it … ACTUAL FRIENDS. Sure, I may not have a rockstar’s amount of friends. In fact I have barely have over 100 friends, but that’s OK with me. Less crap in my inbox. So is social networking the revolution it was envisioned to be? Nope. In fact I don’t know how sitting alone at your computer checking your profile every half hour for comments helps your social skills, but it sure is profitable. I guess if I want to become a millionaire, I need to create a site where countless people can waste their time, interact with others, feeling as if they’re adding something to their lives. Funny. My blog hasn’t made me a cent to this day.

Videogames. They defined my childhood as much as Power Rangers and stuck ‘n’ pull (tag for the Americans out there). So naturally E3 couldn’t miss me. But this year’s E3 was much different from the ones before it. It was a greatly scaled down version. And when I say scaled down, I mean scaled down. The entire event could hold in last year’s Sony booth. No shwag (geek lingo for free promotional stuff), no booth babes (damnit!), no noise, no big displays and no big crowds, as it was invitation only. It was basically a press conference for games. Normally I’d watch E3 non-stop, my eyes glued to the screen. But this year I could barely muster the interest to watch it for 15 minutes straight. They just took the fun out of it. As much of a gamer as I am, I can watch people talk about cellshading, realistic lighting, enhanced AI and using these minor improvements to justify the ridiculous price of their games.

Oh, and did I fail to mention the lack of new release info? Game companies are releasing less and less information about games and making their demos shorter and shorter, using that old carrot on a stick approrach, trying to create hype for their games. Many hardcore games are falling for it, making blog posts about these demos, each in their own way powering the hype, but I don’t know how someone can publish a post about a 3 minute clip of Halo 3. Think that’s why E3’s now a snoozefest. Sure there are financial reasons, but gaming now makes more money than movies (that is until someone figures out how to burn CDs). And with fans fueling the hype amongst themselves, all the extravagance of past years is not longer neccessary. Don’t think I’ll be watching next year. I’m still ticked about the booth babes. They’re the closest many of these socially inept gamers will come to being with a hot girl. But of any of you out-of-work booth babes need a job, I have several positions for you.

If you’ve been paying attention to my blog, you’ll realize that I’m sporting a brand new button in my sidebar, the Thinking Blogger Award. I was granted this award by Ricardo of UNLOADED. His take on my blog: “Let Leon share with you his humorous insights on the hot topics of the day. If it’s a big event unfolding in the world of pop culture, he’s got his always unique take on it. Lots of fun.” Nice dude. I could’ve taken the gold one, ’cause I love gooold, but silver has a certain understated elegance to it. I’m happy to have won this award, ’cause I’ve had my eye on it for quite a while, mainly because it’s an award granted to you by your peers. Kinda like the Oscars, but without the pomp, pagentry or fake gratitude. Now I’ve got it, a testament to my mastery in the art of not sucking. As the rules of the award state, you must grant the award to five bloggers that make you think. So here they are. P.S. These aren’t the only ones that make me think, so don’t feel any way

The Madbull’s Blog - Chronicles the adventures of the Mad Bull, a Jamaican expat in Cayman.
And Still I Rise - A blog with intelligent, thoughtful posts that anyone can relate to.
CrankyPutz - An indian chick whose posts are always hilarious.
She’s Royal - A new favourite for me. Always has interesting points of view on the seemingly mundane.

And the most deserving of this award (drumroll please)…
Cruel Virgin - A woman who always provides some seriously thought provoking posts.

There you go guys! Enjoy your new sidebar bling!

If you didn’t realize it, (if so you we’re probably living in a cave. If so, welcome to civilization!), Saturday was the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the new millennium. I heard that some couples were rushing to get married on that day so that their marriages would be prosperous and long. Riiight. I don’t think the “luck” of 7-7-7 can stand against an affair with a secretary or a poolboy. The only place 777 means something is in Vegas. And to think, 6-6-6 was just last year. The sky didn’t turn blood red then, so I didn’t have much reason to believe that Saturday would’ve been lucky. Besides, I don’t believe in luck. I’m too much of a realist for that. I believe in chance though, but I don’t believe that anything we do, like throwing salt over your shoulder, throwing a penny in a fountain or wearing horseshoes in your drawers will allow us to control chance. I consider myself fortunate to have witnessed these events in my lifetime. Nothing lucky happened to me on Saturday. Same old, same old. Well,maybe something did happen, but I was too busy studying to notice. Anything good happen to you?

Over the years, pizza companies have been trying to find various ways to get you to buy their pie. Breadsticks, brownies, cinna-stix, free drinks, free pizzas, free pizza upgrades, special deals on special days, etc. But a new pizza restaurant in Canada just may have the thing to trump them all…

Porn.

You heard me. Porno Pizza hides pornographic pictures at the bottom of every box of their pizza, which is slowly revealed as you eat each slice. A photo ID is required to enter the establishment of course. Many are offended by the distasteful gimmick, especially child advocacy groups. Owner Corey Wildeman is unfazed, saying “you’ll never go broke appealing to the lowest common denominator. Everyone knows: sex sells.” (At least he’s honest.) I’m thinking that Mr. Wildeman is a young adult, because this is something a frat boy would think up. He came up with the idea after he and his buds were joking around about lonely women who were visited by strapping, young delivery boys, and made a delivery of a different sort. And given the fact that 75% of their customers are women (who says that women aren’t into porn?), they were right.

I think this is rather a shameless and lewd way to start a business. Sure this marketing stunt will amuse people for a while, and sure, it will enjoy some limited prosperity, but after a while, people will get tired of it. No one will want to associated with such sleaze. People won’t want to walk out of a pizza store wearing a raincoat or a wig like they do at adult video stores. Not like I’d know or anything. But as long as there are horny young men with limited social skills ready to gawk at naked hotties, they will always have customers. And it is indeed a success! Big surprise. So much so that there are plans to open franchises all over Canada. So there may just be a Porno Pizza near you soon. So next time you stop over at a buddy’s house and grab a slice of his pizza, be careful. That sticky stuff on the crust, may not be cheese.

Why are people so obsessed with celebrities? Really? I started wondering about this after the whole Paris Hilton media frenzy the other day, which I wanted to post about, but changed my mind in protest to the ridiculous amount of attention she was getting. I mean her release was even covered on Bloomberg! Bloomberg! I know what Paris ate, where she stayed, what she wore, etc after she came out, but I don’t know the names of the terrorists involved in the recent attack on London! Whew! Just had to get that out of my system. What good is a blog if you cant use it to rant, huh? And no Madbull, I am not a fan of Paris Hilton. I am the anti-fan. But back to the post? Why do people waste so much time following up of the lives of celebrities? Buying their merchandise, watching their crappy reality shows, watching E!, reading US Weekly, logging on to TMZ.com and other celebrity media sources.

Isn’t it enough that they have good looks, money, fame, and power. Do they really need your admiration too? Plus nowadays celebrities aren’t celebrities anymore. They don’t have to accomplish anything to gain a following. In the days of Marilyn Munroe, you had to be something special to be called a celebrity. You had to earn it. I wouldn’t have minded celebrity obsession back then. As such, there were about a dozen real celebrities at that time. Nowadays, all you need to do is make a single movie, be on a reality show, or be a rich, young party girl (preferably blonde), and you’re in. The media makes celebrities nowadays, not Hollywood. I believe that people keep up with celebrities in order to forget, if even for a moment, the pathetic monotony of their so-called lives. They want to get near the glitz and the glamour of the beautiful people, the people everyone wants to be like, the people whose every move makes headlines, the people who can spend your entire year’s salary without an afterthought. Doesn’t matter that the vast majority of these people aren’t worth emulating, and would be shunned if they didn’t have any money. As long as your name is on enough people’s lips long enough, people can’t get enough of you.

People are so obsessed with celebrities that it has even become a disease. Actually, it’s one of those fake ones, like “Phantom Ring Syndrome” or “Restless Leg Syndrome.” It’s called CWS, or “Celebrity Worship Syndrome”, and it causes depression, addiction and self-image problems. I’ve discovered a medication to deal with this disorder. It’s called Ghetalyphe, and is sold anywhere people socialize. Others have cashed in on people’s obsession. The most obvious example are the paparazzi. As for me, this obsession is more of an annoyance than anything else. I’m watching CNN exepcting to hear about some war overseas and I hear about who’s the new it-couple. People, here’s a thought. If you spent a fraction of the time you now spend keeping up with celebs and actually worked on improving your lot in life, maybe you would some glitz and glamour of your own, instead of hoping that some of Jessica Alba or whichever celeb you shamelessly follow will rub off on you. And one other thing, many of these celebrities are not really happy. don’t let their on-camera smiles fool you. Most are dying inside. Why do you think many of them use drugs? I guess we all need a little escape huh?

P.S. Happy Fourth of July to all my American readers! Now pig out on hot dogs and get even fatter!