So, remember when those Facebook surveys in "Notes" were like, the cooooolest thing ever? (And the biggest procrastinating tool, I might add) Well, I found one, and I am doing it, and taking it EXTREMELY seriously. ;)
1. Name: Jennifer Z
2. Age: 22
3. Best Friend/s: Everyone...but mostly Sydney Rae, Alaina, Mia, Mommy, and Daddy
4. Relationship Status: Single [and feeling like a loser every time I log onto Facebook and see ANOTHER person has gotten engaged, married, or had a baby.] But the joke's on you people, because while you are happily in love and sharing your life with someone, I have more wine to myself and never have to fight over which programs have priority in the dvr. HA!
5. Piercings You Have: Double Pierced Ears, but I used to have a pierced tragis, various cartilage piercings, and belly button
6. Piercings You Want: Absolutely none. I am rapidly approaching thirty.
7. Tattoos You Have: None
8. Tattoos You Want: Maybe a Harry Potter one, maybe none. It's a pretty permanent thing.
9. Favorite Blog: This one, DUH!
10. The Meaning Behind my URL: Um...all the other ones were taken?
11. Favorite Band at the Moment: Train. Favorite band of all time...not just the moment
12. Favorite Movie: Titanic, hands down. Also Varsity Blues, most of the Harry Potter Movies, A Few Good Men
13. A Fact About my Personality: It doesn't work unless you add coffee
14. What I Hate Most About Myself: Insomnia, hangnails, crooked left eyebrow (because I accidentally shaved part of it off in the second grade), big feet
15. What I Love Most About Myself: the freckle on my left hand, optimism, liberalism, tolerance, brown hair, the freckle on the underside of my nose, the little scar on my ankle I got from riding my scooter when I was 5
16. What I Want to Be When I'm Older: A princess, a writer, a lawyer, a wedding planner, Carrie Bradshaw, a woman like my mother
17. Idea of the Perfect Date: Spontaneously jumping into the car and driving to Kings Island (weather permitting), or ice skating, or sushi, or visiting a playground, or just getting Jimmy Johns and watching a movie in bed
18. Thing/s I Hate: Broken hearts, socks with holes in them, rain ruining your hair, Christmas lights that don't work, missing earring backs, losing the screw out of your glasses, being too full, having to use the bathroom at the most inopportune time, sleepovers without your favorite stuffed animal, being too cold or too hot, bagels without cream cheese, or vice versa, having no one to go to the hibachi grill with, a CD that skips, going to the gym.
19. Weaknesses: Oreos, cute soccer players, Starbucks, Vera Bradley, trashy reality shows, trashy gossip magazines, glittery nail polish, pajama pants, Victoria's Secret sweatpants, pens.
20. Phobias: Needles, being alone, getting breast cancer, car accidents.
21. What I Hate Most About School: That it isn't over yet.
22. Things I Find Attractive in Guys: Acceptance of who I am, loyalty, compassion, understanding, loves my friends, gets my sense of humor, supports me, readiness to take on my crazy adventures with me.
23. Biggest Turn-On: Boy smell, making me feel safe, reader of Harry Potter.
24. Biggest Turn-Off: Ignorance, not letting me in, not willing to try new things, being ashamed of who you are
25. A Random Fact I Know: The reason pigs are the villains on Angry Birds is because Swine Flu was in full swing when Angry Birds debuted.
26. A Quote I Live My Life On: A few: "God answers all prayers. It's just that sometimes, the answer is no." "One cannot petition the Lord with prayer." "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." "Do not pity the dead, Harry, pity the living, and above all, those who live without love." "In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there within me lay an invincible summer." "But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous." "I feel like I haven't done my best work yet. I feel like there's a world of possibilities out there."
27. Something/s I Need to Get Off My Chest: Trick, I wish I would have kissed you...I wish I could have beat her to the punch. Bob-o, I wish you wouldn't have broken my heart into a million trillion little pieces. Aqua Eyes, I wish I weren't jealous of how you feel about your girl. I don't want you, but I don't want jealousy, either. I wish I would have tried harder in school. I'm worried about my health.
28. Beauty Product/s I Can't Live Without: Vaseline, Queen Helene's Soy and Cocoa Butter, Caress bar soap, q-tips, Burts Bees lip balm, My Spots Are Concealed! concealer stick
29. Last Time I Cried and Why: I wrecked my beloved Jeep Jeep and he went to the great junkyard in the sky. He was my PIC for 6 years, and he took all the hits for me. RIP Jeep Jeep, you will be missed very greatly and Stormie has some big shoes to fill.
30. Sex and the City Character that I Am: Miranda, for sure. Type-A personality, walls of steel and a heart of glass. The least fashionable of the group, the one most comfortable in sweats, on the sofa in front of the TV. Also the biggest sports fan, and the least likely to have a child (even though she did). The most career-driven, Carrie's second banana, and the one obsessed with her blackberry.
Hope you know me a little better now :)
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
2011 Roundup: The [sort-of] Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
2011 was sort of a weird year. Nothing really happened, but it kind of did. My bestest bestie Sydney and I were discussing the weirdness that was 2011 in the car the other day. We agreed that while not outright bad, it was rather boring and pointless, much like Katherine Heigl's entire collected film works. It just wasn't an especially profound year. It was the year we became obsessed with a mannish British woman's ass who became famous for said ass and for carrying the train of her sister's wedding dress, the Royal Wedding that was attended by Pippa Middleton and her Ass (and her interloping sister and brother-in-law). We saw Kim Kardashian take the concept of marriage and take a massive, sloppy shit all over it with her 72-day marriage to mediocre New Jersey Nets player and complete idiot Kris Humphries. Gay Marriage was legalized in New York, which should have been the single most awesome thing to ever happen to that state, but it was completely overshadowed by a bunch of hippies who decided to be full-time assholes instead of just handing out flyers in the campus commons. We paid $581 million to see a movie we already saw in 2009, and the final installment of the Harry Potter franchise made everyone cream their underoos with wizardy happiness. A bunch of other stuff happened, too, but that's all I care about for the purpose of this article. So let's rip it all apart!
The Bad
The Bad
Occupy Wall Street
This was the year that we saw the bloody, graphic birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It's technically still in its' infant stage, so I suppose that's why it's annoying, needy, and whines all the time.
Let me make two things plain: 1. I am an extremely liberal person. 2. I HATE the Occupy movement with the hell-burning passion of thousand fiery suns.
To hate something, you must first understand the madness behind it. The Occupy Wall Street Movement began when the Canadian based group AdBusters Media Foundation called for a peaceful occupation of Wall Street. The idea was put on their email list and according to them "kind of snowballed from there." It was in part inspired by the Democracy Village set up in 2010 outside of the British Parliament. But what turned it into the current abortion of civilization that it now is was when notorious internet group Anonymous encouraged their followers to "flood lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and Occupy Wall Street."
If that name sounds familiar, then congratulations, you watch the news. If it sounds really familiar, then congratulations, you associate yourself with the absolute underbelly, the dirty, unwashed taint of the internet society world, 4chan. 4chan is where perverts' lips curl with disgust at the utter filth in the annals of their forums, where dreams go to die, and of course, where bronies congregate. Anonymous is a hacking group that encourages civil disobedience, which is a nice way of saying that they fuck shit up and get on the news for it. Wikileaks was just some angry dude releasing confidential government files until Anonymous came along and really started to fuck the whole shebang up. They hacked into PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard when the companies froze accounts associated with Wikileaks and collectively shut down the servers of all three. They called it "Operation Avenge Assange" when their first title "Operation Do Something Besides Masturbate Furiously in the Basement to Redtube" was vetoed. Anyways, what I'm saying is that Occupy Wall Street may have just been confined to a few dirty hipsters who got bored of loafing around outside Starbucks and decided to "protest", but instead the Anonymous stamp of approval and encouragement turned it into the many-headed abomination that it currently is.
If you've never had the displeasure to encounter one of these so-called protests, then let me tell you what you're missing. I had the misfortune to get caught up in the "Occupy Chicago" march when I was there last. It's not so much of a protest than it is a bunch of filthy, entitles hippies waving around signs and chanting about shit that they barely understand. "We are the 99!" they yell. That's their slogan. The best slogan they could come up with is a statistic that requires about as much common sense as a seven-year-old possesses? Fucking obviously people realize that not everyone has a million billion dollars like the bitches on the Real Housewives. But my biggest beef with this movement is that they really have no real aims or goals. Sure, there might be a few core people who really want this to achieve something, to really change, but the majority, the 99% if you will, really have no idea what they're supposedly fighting for. It's sort of like the people who generally oppose mainstream society finally found a more organized way to express their general distaste for America. It was like a magnate for the very fringes of society. Are these people really angry that only 1% of American society holds most of the nation's wealth, or did they need a really huge soapbox to stand on, and this was the perfect opportunity? But the really baffling thing about the Occupy movement is that they really think camping out in tents and waving around posters is going to do something. Like the stock brokers are going to snap their fingers and say, "thank god someone brought this to my attention! I've realized the error of my ways, and will now give all the money I make every day to these righteous hippies and spend the rest of my life serving soup to the homeless. Oh, and here are the keys to my Maserati."
I think the problem I really have with Occupy Wall Street is that it represents what's wrong with my generation. My parents graduated in 1976, and have been working ever since. That's what you did back then, you got a degree, got a job, and got the hell out of dodge. Nowadays, it's more like, get a degree, move back home with your parents, maybe get a job three years later. The problem with Occupy is that it's made it an acceptable form of existence to wipe your ass with your college degree and camp out in front of a building where people have legitimate jobs. Each generation has gotten progressively lazier, but ours really takes the cake. Instead of working for a living and earning a pension like normal people, filthy hipsters with unwashed hair wave signs around and demand they get a pension, just 'cuz. Our generation is so entitled that we feel simply existing requires us to get paid. What the hell have we come to? What, now people are going to want to get paid just to appear on TV and be themselves?
The Ugly
This was the year that we saw the bloody, graphic birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It's technically still in its' infant stage, so I suppose that's why it's annoying, needy, and whines all the time.
Let me make two things plain: 1. I am an extremely liberal person. 2. I HATE the Occupy movement with the hell-burning passion of thousand fiery suns.
To hate something, you must first understand the madness behind it. The Occupy Wall Street Movement began when the Canadian based group AdBusters Media Foundation called for a peaceful occupation of Wall Street. The idea was put on their email list and according to them "kind of snowballed from there." It was in part inspired by the Democracy Village set up in 2010 outside of the British Parliament. But what turned it into the current abortion of civilization that it now is was when notorious internet group Anonymous encouraged their followers to "flood lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and Occupy Wall Street."
If that name sounds familiar, then congratulations, you watch the news. If it sounds really familiar, then congratulations, you associate yourself with the absolute underbelly, the dirty, unwashed taint of the internet society world, 4chan. 4chan is where perverts' lips curl with disgust at the utter filth in the annals of their forums, where dreams go to die, and of course, where bronies congregate. Anonymous is a hacking group that encourages civil disobedience, which is a nice way of saying that they fuck shit up and get on the news for it. Wikileaks was just some angry dude releasing confidential government files until Anonymous came along and really started to fuck the whole shebang up. They hacked into PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard when the companies froze accounts associated with Wikileaks and collectively shut down the servers of all three. They called it "Operation Avenge Assange" when their first title "Operation Do Something Besides Masturbate Furiously in the Basement to Redtube" was vetoed. Anyways, what I'm saying is that Occupy Wall Street may have just been confined to a few dirty hipsters who got bored of loafing around outside Starbucks and decided to "protest", but instead the Anonymous stamp of approval and encouragement turned it into the many-headed abomination that it currently is.
If you've never had the displeasure to encounter one of these so-called protests, then let me tell you what you're missing. I had the misfortune to get caught up in the "Occupy Chicago" march when I was there last. It's not so much of a protest than it is a bunch of filthy, entitles hippies waving around signs and chanting about shit that they barely understand. "We are the 99!" they yell. That's their slogan. The best slogan they could come up with is a statistic that requires about as much common sense as a seven-year-old possesses? Fucking obviously people realize that not everyone has a million billion dollars like the bitches on the Real Housewives. But my biggest beef with this movement is that they really have no real aims or goals. Sure, there might be a few core people who really want this to achieve something, to really change, but the majority, the 99% if you will, really have no idea what they're supposedly fighting for. It's sort of like the people who generally oppose mainstream society finally found a more organized way to express their general distaste for America. It was like a magnate for the very fringes of society. Are these people really angry that only 1% of American society holds most of the nation's wealth, or did they need a really huge soapbox to stand on, and this was the perfect opportunity? But the really baffling thing about the Occupy movement is that they really think camping out in tents and waving around posters is going to do something. Like the stock brokers are going to snap their fingers and say, "thank god someone brought this to my attention! I've realized the error of my ways, and will now give all the money I make every day to these righteous hippies and spend the rest of my life serving soup to the homeless. Oh, and here are the keys to my Maserati."
I think the problem I really have with Occupy Wall Street is that it represents what's wrong with my generation. My parents graduated in 1976, and have been working ever since. That's what you did back then, you got a degree, got a job, and got the hell out of dodge. Nowadays, it's more like, get a degree, move back home with your parents, maybe get a job three years later. The problem with Occupy is that it's made it an acceptable form of existence to wipe your ass with your college degree and camp out in front of a building where people have legitimate jobs. Each generation has gotten progressively lazier, but ours really takes the cake. Instead of working for a living and earning a pension like normal people, filthy hipsters with unwashed hair wave signs around and demand they get a pension, just 'cuz. Our generation is so entitled that we feel simply existing requires us to get paid. What the hell have we come to? What, now people are going to want to get paid just to appear on TV and be themselves?
The Ugly
The Kardashians
Kimberley Noel Kardashian is an angel, the purest ray of sunshine that ever existed, sent to us by a higher being to grace the world with her supreme talents and divine existence. Kim and her equally uninteresting sisters are fascinating simply for the fact that they famous for being famous. That concept is so mind-blowing to me, like contemplating the existence of human life or trying to comprehend how big the universe is. They are literally famous for waking up in the morning and being themselves. To the tune of $65 million. Sure, you can say they have a clothes line, and a perfume line, and an everything else line, but the driving force behind all of that shit is the fact that the Kardashians are promoting it. I really hate Bill O'Reilly, but he has a point about the Kardashians: "I think the Kardashians represent all that's wrong with America. Here we have ladies who are making tons of money, who have no talent at all, they do nothing, they can't sing, they can't dance, they don't write, they can't act, all they do is sit around and whine. You can give them credit, being famous for whining, but why are we lionizing them? ...I don't think they set a good example, particularly for young American women. I think they're self-absorbed, I don't think they're working for a living, I mean...I know it's really tough to sit in a make-up chair for three hours...I'm not going to argue with the fact that they've become world famous for no reason."
I really...couldn't agree more. I hate that I'm agreeing with Bill-o, but it couldn't have been more on the nose. Kim Kardashian became famous for (badly) sucking Ray-J's dick. She let fucking Brandy's brother urinate on her. That is why she's famous. I know you're thinking that slogging out four years of classes and filling out resumes and getting a job was how you earned money, but it turns out that all you have to do is let a Z-list rapper piss on you and have a massive ass.
Have you ever watched an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians? Kim and her sisters, Kourtney and Khloe sit around and look pretty and say "like" a lot and complain about how much they have to "work". Kim pays people to do her hair and do her makeup and pick out her clothes. Her mother tells her what to do, where to do it, and what time to be there. She poses for pictures and picks fights with the sister she's jealous of. That's her life. Literally. That's all it consists of.
Perhaps the most mind-blowing part of Kim's life is that she got paid $17 million dollars to marry a man for 72 days. Let me restate that. She married a guy she had been casually dating in a lavish, over-the-top, beyond extravagant ceremony (that purportedly cost upwards of $10 million, most of which was comped) which she got paid SEVENTEEN MILLION DOLLARS and then filed for divorce seventy-two days later. It's not the wedding part that surprises me, nor the inevitable divorce. It's more the general fact that we live in a society where this kind of thing can happen. There's 9% unemployment, peoples' houses are being foreclosed on left and right and center, more people than we care to admit are struggling to put food on the table, and people, many people, came together collectively and agreed to pay Kim Kardashian $17 million to marry her rebound dude after Reggie Bush (sensibly) dumped her ass. I worked a wedding where a mom and dad tearfully admitted they had sold one of their cars to help their son pay for his wedding, and Vera Wang handed Kim Kardashian $65,000 worth of custom-made wedding dresses for free. Yeah, plural. She wore three.
We all knew Kim and Kris were going to get divorced. When Kim finds someone who she likes and can tolerate their presence more than herself, then she'll truly be happy. But Kim won't ever find that person, because they don't actually exist. Kim is in love with the idea of herself. She is obsessed with the idea that everyone else is obsessed with her. Her problem is that she believes her own hype. She drinks her own Kool-Aid. Khloe and Kourtney are only marginally better than Kim because you can tell that if the cameras turned off forever tomorrow, they'd be fine. They have kids and partners and a purpose besides hamming it up for the E! cameras. Kim, however, does not. Kim wouldn't be relevant if it weren't for her "career", therefore she'll never put her spouse first. Kim flat-out told Kris that she would never move to Minnesota because she couldn't have her career there. In the very next breath, she said the sole purpose of life was to settle down and have a family. I think she has confused "settle" with "settle down", because there's no way in hell Kris was truly the man she imagined herself to be with for the rest of her life. To say they were in love is sort of like saying Marilyn Monroe was a natural blonde. Barely tolerating each others' presence is more like it. Just a few minutes of Kim and Kourtney take New York showcases their barely concealed contempt for each other (and how utterly stupid the show is). Kris is an overgrown idiot who acts like a frat boy with a free keg, and Kim is a self-absorbed harpy-shrieking shrew. Kourtney's soul has long since died and left her body (perhaps it fell out of her bajingo when she pulled her own kid out of it), Scott is as smarmy as ever, and the only truly real person on the show is the person who doesn't comprehend the concept of cameras or exploitation.
I guess what pisses me off most about Kim and her wedding debaucle is the fact that she can get paid to get married to someone she probably can't name ten solid facts about, but happy gay couples who love each other very much and would be happy with just courtroom "I do's" cannot legally get married in most states in this country. Yeah that's right, I pulled the gay card.
The Sort-Of Good
Kimberley Noel Kardashian is an angel, the purest ray of sunshine that ever existed, sent to us by a higher being to grace the world with her supreme talents and divine existence. Kim and her equally uninteresting sisters are fascinating simply for the fact that they famous for being famous. That concept is so mind-blowing to me, like contemplating the existence of human life or trying to comprehend how big the universe is. They are literally famous for waking up in the morning and being themselves. To the tune of $65 million. Sure, you can say they have a clothes line, and a perfume line, and an everything else line, but the driving force behind all of that shit is the fact that the Kardashians are promoting it. I really hate Bill O'Reilly, but he has a point about the Kardashians: "I think the Kardashians represent all that's wrong with America. Here we have ladies who are making tons of money, who have no talent at all, they do nothing, they can't sing, they can't dance, they don't write, they can't act, all they do is sit around and whine. You can give them credit, being famous for whining, but why are we lionizing them? ...I don't think they set a good example, particularly for young American women. I think they're self-absorbed, I don't think they're working for a living, I mean...I know it's really tough to sit in a make-up chair for three hours...I'm not going to argue with the fact that they've become world famous for no reason."
I really...couldn't agree more. I hate that I'm agreeing with Bill-o, but it couldn't have been more on the nose. Kim Kardashian became famous for (badly) sucking Ray-J's dick. She let fucking Brandy's brother urinate on her. That is why she's famous. I know you're thinking that slogging out four years of classes and filling out resumes and getting a job was how you earned money, but it turns out that all you have to do is let a Z-list rapper piss on you and have a massive ass.
Have you ever watched an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians? Kim and her sisters, Kourtney and Khloe sit around and look pretty and say "like" a lot and complain about how much they have to "work". Kim pays people to do her hair and do her makeup and pick out her clothes. Her mother tells her what to do, where to do it, and what time to be there. She poses for pictures and picks fights with the sister she's jealous of. That's her life. Literally. That's all it consists of.
Perhaps the most mind-blowing part of Kim's life is that she got paid $17 million dollars to marry a man for 72 days. Let me restate that. She married a guy she had been casually dating in a lavish, over-the-top, beyond extravagant ceremony (that purportedly cost upwards of $10 million, most of which was comped) which she got paid SEVENTEEN MILLION DOLLARS and then filed for divorce seventy-two days later. It's not the wedding part that surprises me, nor the inevitable divorce. It's more the general fact that we live in a society where this kind of thing can happen. There's 9% unemployment, peoples' houses are being foreclosed on left and right and center, more people than we care to admit are struggling to put food on the table, and people, many people, came together collectively and agreed to pay Kim Kardashian $17 million to marry her rebound dude after Reggie Bush (sensibly) dumped her ass. I worked a wedding where a mom and dad tearfully admitted they had sold one of their cars to help their son pay for his wedding, and Vera Wang handed Kim Kardashian $65,000 worth of custom-made wedding dresses for free. Yeah, plural. She wore three.
We all knew Kim and Kris were going to get divorced. When Kim finds someone who she likes and can tolerate their presence more than herself, then she'll truly be happy. But Kim won't ever find that person, because they don't actually exist. Kim is in love with the idea of herself. She is obsessed with the idea that everyone else is obsessed with her. Her problem is that she believes her own hype. She drinks her own Kool-Aid. Khloe and Kourtney are only marginally better than Kim because you can tell that if the cameras turned off forever tomorrow, they'd be fine. They have kids and partners and a purpose besides hamming it up for the E! cameras. Kim, however, does not. Kim wouldn't be relevant if it weren't for her "career", therefore she'll never put her spouse first. Kim flat-out told Kris that she would never move to Minnesota because she couldn't have her career there. In the very next breath, she said the sole purpose of life was to settle down and have a family. I think she has confused "settle" with "settle down", because there's no way in hell Kris was truly the man she imagined herself to be with for the rest of her life. To say they were in love is sort of like saying Marilyn Monroe was a natural blonde. Barely tolerating each others' presence is more like it. Just a few minutes of Kim and Kourtney take New York showcases their barely concealed contempt for each other (and how utterly stupid the show is). Kris is an overgrown idiot who acts like a frat boy with a free keg, and Kim is a self-absorbed harpy-shrieking shrew. Kourtney's soul has long since died and left her body (perhaps it fell out of her bajingo when she pulled her own kid out of it), Scott is as smarmy as ever, and the only truly real person on the show is the person who doesn't comprehend the concept of cameras or exploitation.
I guess what pisses me off most about Kim and her wedding debaucle is the fact that she can get paid to get married to someone she probably can't name ten solid facts about, but happy gay couples who love each other very much and would be happy with just courtroom "I do's" cannot legally get married in most states in this country. Yeah that's right, I pulled the gay card.
The Sort-Of Good
All Kinds of Weddings!
Gay people were allowed to get married in New York, which is like, the biggest thing to happen to gay people since Ryan Murphy created Glee. But no, really, it's such a huge victory for gay marriage. New York City and the Stonewall Inn are the birthplace of the gay rights movement, and it was seen as a ridiculously huge victory. They gave the gays a ticker-tape parade and the governor declared it to be one of the biggest moments of his career. It was one of those super awesome moments in history that I know I'll look back on and realize it made me proud to be an American. I didn't even mind that Lady Gaga used it as a moment for self-promotion, just like she did for the entire concept of bullying and that one gay kid who killed himself.
Prince William announced that he was getting married to one Kate Middleton, a gasp! commoner he met in college. Upon this pronouncement, the entire world lost their shit. We all went collectively batshit crazy and our Royal Wedding fever was so high it broke the mercury. Everyone I know woke up at 4 AM to watch them get married. I was SO EXCITED. I really was. I watched it with my mom, who had woken up at 4 AM to watch Charles and Di get married in 1981 and I found myself hoping someday I'll wake up at 4 AM to watch another wedding special with my daughter someday. It was essentially the same as Kim K's stupid fake wedding (and I'm sure she fancies herself to be royalty) without all of the drama, free stuff they didn't deserve, and self-absorbedness. Kate and Will are genuinely in love, and they got married because that's generally what people in love do. That, and he is the heir to the throne of the United Kingdom and has an obligation to get married. Kate was a beautiful bride in a simple but gorgeous dress. She wore her hair down, and did her own make-up. My breath caught in my throat she was so beautiful. Not that she's a particularly beautiful woman (she's pretty, not gorgeous) but she simply radiated happiness. She glowed. She was beautiful because she was in love and happy she was getting married. I won't deny that Kim is a very pretty person, but I've never seen a more resigned-looking person on their wedding day. She looked like she was going to the OB-GYN, not down the aisle.
Yes, there were many kinds of weddings this year, most happy, and some not, but the two that consistently made the most headlines were simultaneously the one that made me the happiest and the one that made me frown and realize all that is wrong with our pop culture.
Sequels of Sequels
We paid a LOT, I mean a metric shit ton of money to see sequels this year. There were no fewer than twenty-seven sequels released this entire year, some even being third and fourth installments. Or eighth, in Harry Potter's case.
But Harry went out with a bang. After 10 years and 8 movies, Daniel Radcliffe and co. sent the Potter franchise out in style. The seventh book was split into two movies, and it was the best decision since white-chocolate dipped Oreos. There were a few complaints I had about the movie, but they were trivial in comparison to how awesome the movie was overall. I saw it in 3-D, which is perhaps the stupidest technological innovation of the last few years, but in this case it only enhanced the excellency of the movie. The acting has only gotten better as the years go on. The CGI was amazing, and it was extremely well-written and well directed. It managed to please both the non-readers and the fan-girls (and boys) like me. For people like me who had been entertaining a thirteen-year love affair with Harry, we couldn't have asked for a better goodbye.
This year also gave us The Hangover Part II. Ed Helms screams and freaks out a lot, Zach Galifinakis acts like a fat, bearded Rain Man, and Bradley Cooper learns the true meaning of friendship, and is an asshole. Wait, what? That's the plot of The Hangover. Just kidding. The producers took a leap of faith and decided to bank on the idea that Americans are so brain-dead that they'll see the same movie twice. That leap worked, to the tune of nearly SIX HUNDRED MILLION dollars. That's not a misprint. The writers decided they had a good idea, so they wrote a few new jokes, threw in a cute monkey in a vest, and changed the setting to Bangkok. Oh, and there was a chick with a dick. Which was supposedly more shocking than seeing Ken Jeong's Merkin. While the first time around, it was hailed as a hilariously funny, original comedy with a cool surprise ending. This time, the jokes were stale and the surprise ending that was, you know, not an actual surprise this time, was met with enthusiasm only because people were thankful the film was over so they could get home and bust out the brain bleach to get the image of a hot Thai chick with A PENIS out of their minds.
And on that note, time to crank up Auld Lang Syne and throw on your sparkly party hat. Because 2011's done, stick a fork in it.
And there you have it. So I guess 2011 wasn't exactly a banner year, but it wasn't so bad after all. Kim Kardashian and her ilk proved once and for all that they are the greasy brown stain on the underpants of humanity. She had a fake marriage to a big doofus and she got paid for it, and then wondered why everyone hated her for getting a divorce in a shorter amount of time than it takes to complete construction on a McDonalds. Kate Middleton got married and her face got emblazoned onto collectible china plates everywhere. She reminded us of the little girl in all of us who played dress-up when they were little and imagined they were princesses, too. Her sister became famous for not wearing panties under her dress, and the world continued their fascination with white girls who have big butts. Ron and Hermione FINALLY kissed after ten fucking years and it made even the manliest of men squee. The Hangover II proved we'll pay any amount for bullshit, and the Occupy Wall Street movement reminded us that the hippies are alive and well. We found out that a college degree is nothing more than a $100,000 piece of paper if you shack up in a tent outside of an office building and wave around a sign. We decided that "the 99%" was an appropriate title for everyone who doesn't own the keys to a Bugati and pay mortgages on seven vacation homes, and they finally let the queens actually get married instead of just fashionably plan the weddings.
Au Revoir, 2011. Make sure you send us a Christmas card and one of those annoyingly detailed newsletters updating us of your achievements next year!
Gay people were allowed to get married in New York, which is like, the biggest thing to happen to gay people since Ryan Murphy created Glee. But no, really, it's such a huge victory for gay marriage. New York City and the Stonewall Inn are the birthplace of the gay rights movement, and it was seen as a ridiculously huge victory. They gave the gays a ticker-tape parade and the governor declared it to be one of the biggest moments of his career. It was one of those super awesome moments in history that I know I'll look back on and realize it made me proud to be an American. I didn't even mind that Lady Gaga used it as a moment for self-promotion, just like she did for the entire concept of bullying and that one gay kid who killed himself.
Prince William announced that he was getting married to one Kate Middleton, a gasp! commoner he met in college. Upon this pronouncement, the entire world lost their shit. We all went collectively batshit crazy and our Royal Wedding fever was so high it broke the mercury. Everyone I know woke up at 4 AM to watch them get married. I was SO EXCITED. I really was. I watched it with my mom, who had woken up at 4 AM to watch Charles and Di get married in 1981 and I found myself hoping someday I'll wake up at 4 AM to watch another wedding special with my daughter someday. It was essentially the same as Kim K's stupid fake wedding (and I'm sure she fancies herself to be royalty) without all of the drama, free stuff they didn't deserve, and self-absorbedness. Kate and Will are genuinely in love, and they got married because that's generally what people in love do. That, and he is the heir to the throne of the United Kingdom and has an obligation to get married. Kate was a beautiful bride in a simple but gorgeous dress. She wore her hair down, and did her own make-up. My breath caught in my throat she was so beautiful. Not that she's a particularly beautiful woman (she's pretty, not gorgeous) but she simply radiated happiness. She glowed. She was beautiful because she was in love and happy she was getting married. I won't deny that Kim is a very pretty person, but I've never seen a more resigned-looking person on their wedding day. She looked like she was going to the OB-GYN, not down the aisle.
Yes, there were many kinds of weddings this year, most happy, and some not, but the two that consistently made the most headlines were simultaneously the one that made me the happiest and the one that made me frown and realize all that is wrong with our pop culture.
Sequels of Sequels
We paid a LOT, I mean a metric shit ton of money to see sequels this year. There were no fewer than twenty-seven sequels released this entire year, some even being third and fourth installments. Or eighth, in Harry Potter's case.
But Harry went out with a bang. After 10 years and 8 movies, Daniel Radcliffe and co. sent the Potter franchise out in style. The seventh book was split into two movies, and it was the best decision since white-chocolate dipped Oreos. There were a few complaints I had about the movie, but they were trivial in comparison to how awesome the movie was overall. I saw it in 3-D, which is perhaps the stupidest technological innovation of the last few years, but in this case it only enhanced the excellency of the movie. The acting has only gotten better as the years go on. The CGI was amazing, and it was extremely well-written and well directed. It managed to please both the non-readers and the fan-girls (and boys) like me. For people like me who had been entertaining a thirteen-year love affair with Harry, we couldn't have asked for a better goodbye.
This year also gave us The Hangover Part II. Ed Helms screams and freaks out a lot, Zach Galifinakis acts like a fat, bearded Rain Man, and Bradley Cooper learns the true meaning of friendship, and is an asshole. Wait, what? That's the plot of The Hangover. Just kidding. The producers took a leap of faith and decided to bank on the idea that Americans are so brain-dead that they'll see the same movie twice. That leap worked, to the tune of nearly SIX HUNDRED MILLION dollars. That's not a misprint. The writers decided they had a good idea, so they wrote a few new jokes, threw in a cute monkey in a vest, and changed the setting to Bangkok. Oh, and there was a chick with a dick. Which was supposedly more shocking than seeing Ken Jeong's Merkin. While the first time around, it was hailed as a hilariously funny, original comedy with a cool surprise ending. This time, the jokes were stale and the surprise ending that was, you know, not an actual surprise this time, was met with enthusiasm only because people were thankful the film was over so they could get home and bust out the brain bleach to get the image of a hot Thai chick with A PENIS out of their minds.
And on that note, time to crank up Auld Lang Syne and throw on your sparkly party hat. Because 2011's done, stick a fork in it.
And there you have it. So I guess 2011 wasn't exactly a banner year, but it wasn't so bad after all. Kim Kardashian and her ilk proved once and for all that they are the greasy brown stain on the underpants of humanity. She had a fake marriage to a big doofus and she got paid for it, and then wondered why everyone hated her for getting a divorce in a shorter amount of time than it takes to complete construction on a McDonalds. Kate Middleton got married and her face got emblazoned onto collectible china plates everywhere. She reminded us of the little girl in all of us who played dress-up when they were little and imagined they were princesses, too. Her sister became famous for not wearing panties under her dress, and the world continued their fascination with white girls who have big butts. Ron and Hermione FINALLY kissed after ten fucking years and it made even the manliest of men squee. The Hangover II proved we'll pay any amount for bullshit, and the Occupy Wall Street movement reminded us that the hippies are alive and well. We found out that a college degree is nothing more than a $100,000 piece of paper if you shack up in a tent outside of an office building and wave around a sign. We decided that "the 99%" was an appropriate title for everyone who doesn't own the keys to a Bugati and pay mortgages on seven vacation homes, and they finally let the queens actually get married instead of just fashionably plan the weddings.
Au Revoir, 2011. Make sure you send us a Christmas card and one of those annoyingly detailed newsletters updating us of your achievements next year!
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Wishes and Whiskey
Whiskey's flowing
The lights are bright
I'm out, feeling alright
You're on my mind,
Wish you weren't
Baby no matter how hard I've tried
You've never even left.
I want it all to go away
This pain I feel
The tattoo you've drawn in me
Can never come off.
I wish you knew
Just how hard
It is to let you go.
I try and pretend it's alright
But you know better
Like you always do
That I'm much too fragile
To handle.
I miss you
But I know it's just me
You don't have to tell me twice
That I never mattered at all.
This hurts
Everything hurts
And I'm just so tired.
The pain is deep
So I take it out on myself
And I'm the only one who can hurt me now.
I know you never meant
To carve such deep scars on my heart
And I'm so sorry
I ever chose you to love.
But in the dead of the night
When it's no one but me
I wish
That you could love me too.
A fool's dream
This I know
But still I wish upon stars.
I wish there was a warmth
For the ice that flows through my veins
I wish I could just let you be a memory and
I wish you knew
Just how hard
It is to let go.
I wish you could wipe away the tears that fall
Cure the heart that hurts
And hug the body that aches.
But you never will
And I need to know now
That I'm the only one who can take care of me.
I wish I could fight for myself
Take a stand for me.
It's so sad
That not even I'm on my side.
I feel so broken
So alone
And a part of me
Still wishes that what we had was real.
I'm trying so hard
To move on and let go
But it's not as easy as it sounds.
Tonight I'll go to bed
Drunk with the realization
That I'm fighting a losing battle and that
You....will never love me the way I loved you
And all the wishes and whiskey in the world
Will never make it come to be.
I've got myself
I've got my good health
And I guess that's all I need.
The lights are bright
I'm out, feeling alright
You're on my mind,
Wish you weren't
Baby no matter how hard I've tried
You've never even left.
I want it all to go away
This pain I feel
The tattoo you've drawn in me
Can never come off.
I wish you knew
Just how hard
It is to let you go.
I try and pretend it's alright
But you know better
Like you always do
That I'm much too fragile
To handle.
I miss you
But I know it's just me
You don't have to tell me twice
That I never mattered at all.
This hurts
Everything hurts
And I'm just so tired.
The pain is deep
So I take it out on myself
And I'm the only one who can hurt me now.
I know you never meant
To carve such deep scars on my heart
And I'm so sorry
I ever chose you to love.
But in the dead of the night
When it's no one but me
I wish
That you could love me too.
A fool's dream
This I know
But still I wish upon stars.
I wish there was a warmth
For the ice that flows through my veins
I wish I could just let you be a memory and
I wish you knew
Just how hard
It is to let go.
I wish you could wipe away the tears that fall
Cure the heart that hurts
And hug the body that aches.
But you never will
And I need to know now
That I'm the only one who can take care of me.
I wish I could fight for myself
Take a stand for me.
It's so sad
That not even I'm on my side.
I feel so broken
So alone
And a part of me
Still wishes that what we had was real.
I'm trying so hard
To move on and let go
But it's not as easy as it sounds.
Tonight I'll go to bed
Drunk with the realization
That I'm fighting a losing battle and that
You....will never love me the way I loved you
And all the wishes and whiskey in the world
Will never make it come to be.
I've got myself
I've got my good health
And I guess that's all I need.
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