Not so Shocking

Along with the rest of the MTV generation I watched the VMAs tonight and I was reminded of how they used to close the show with a performance by Marilyn Manson. They did this at least two years in a row, right around the time that I started really watching MTV. I never particularly liked his music and I'm not sure that there were a whole lot of Gen Y-ers that did, but he had HUGE shock factor. Shock factor is really what MTV was built upon (oh and a bit of music). But it's really hard to shock us these days.

What is MTV to do now?

I bring this up b/c it makes me wonder if the world will spin back around and people will start pulling their inhibitions back in. It's probably more likely that there is something out there that will shock the hell out of me and I just don't know it yet. Which is pretty scary when you think about it.

Do I know you?

Sometimes I feel like I've met the same person a hundred times. Everyone reminds me a bit of someone else. It's kind of like--no two snowflakes are the same, but don't they all look pretty much alike when you look at them. It's good b/c maybe you can take a little bit about what you like in a lot of people and find it all in one person. It's bad b/c what if you find yourself liking someone for who they remind you of, but then they aren't that person.

Worse, sometimes I feel like I have been and am at least ten different people. Some people want a person that I'm not anymore, and that sucks because they won't get it. Some people want someone else's Girl Friday and they won't get that either.

It takes a very long time to see the whole of anyone but, in the end, that's what sets sets them apart from the pieces of everyone else.

The Brotherly Man-Love

Girls love the brotherly man-love. We love brothers who love each other. Almost all the shows I watch regularly have brotherly affection as one of the main elements. One Tree Hill, The OC, Supernatural, and Prison Break...there is nothing better than a pair of hot and sexy brothers who get all choked up over how much they love each other. Prison Break is the king of this. I just finished watching the first season on DVD so I could be caught up for the Season Premiere and this show makes me say "awwww" for the brotherly love like no other. What makes it above the cut is that it has the bad boy brotherly love. Girls love us some hard asses that get all smushy over their brother. Now Supernatural is second in this b/c Dean is a pretty big hardass, but the problem with that show's "awwww" factor is that all the lovely man-love takes place in the middle of a little something called the corn factor of killing demons, ghosts and monsters. Doesn't keep my mom from asking me if that show with the hot brothers is coming back on this fall. Mom, watch out I'm coming for you over Christmas Break with the Prison Break Season One DVD. Now One Tree Hill and The OC come in distantly behind these two b/c they have the "new" brothers. New brothers are sweet, but they just don't love each other like the ones who hunted monsters together thier whole life. They don't have that break your brother out of prison love. I don't know what is about two beautiful brothers running across the prison quad during a violent riot, covered in blood and bruises, to embrace each other that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, but I'll take it.

Is Jesus hiding?

So Lance Armstrong doesn't believe in God. That's a really sad thing for religion. When someone who has had such a positive effect on so many people finds religion to be a negative influence...well, it's a problem. A truth of the times that the church doesn't acknowledge is that, in the eyes of many, it does not have a corner on goodness and morality. If anyone thinks that's a result of changes in society, they are dead wrong. It's the church's fault, as it continues to isolate more people with its message of judgement.

Christianity has strayed far from it's core of love and acceptance. The church is a fortress to keep out the homosexuals, abortionists, the promiscuous youth and those that believe they can make their own decisions. How recognizable is modern Christianity from from the Bible? Since when does the Bible pick and choose sin and condone persecution on that basis? I feel that we have strayed. Faith is personal and the church is making it paint by numbers.

I saw a t-shirt the other day. It said: If I have to find Jesus does that mean he's hiding? The church would have us believe they have him under lock and key. He's in the closet next to the drawer labeled morals. The truth is that belief in God has never been about being a good person. That's why you can't get into heaven with good deeds. So here we are back to faith, something you have to find in yourself, not hiding inside the walls of a church.

It's not you, its myspace...

I did a speech in undergraduate about how leaving your cell phone at home is the psychological equivalent of forgetting to put on your pants. You just feel naked without it. You also feel like you are missing everything. These days it's more like having your hand actually cut off, because you will literally try to use it a million times and always forget you don't have it. But this entry isn't about cell phones. It's about myspace.

Nowadays not being able to check myspace is like not watching 90210 was in third grade. You feel like you missed everything, and everyone keeps saying stuff about myspace that you haven't seen yet. Myspace is making us all attention whores. We need instant feedback about everything. People actually send out bulletins about how they need picture comments or they updated their page. Should I really care that you have a new background on your page? Do you really need me to tell you that you look hot in that pic to feel good about yourself? I think we may be too connected if that is the case. I may need a chance to miss you.

My grandparent's literally can't comprehend the internet, but if they could they would probably think it was intrusive. Which it sort of is, I mean, what's the point of knowing everything about someone or what they are doing every single second of the day? I mean I have a blog, a facebook, a myspace, email, AIM and my cell phone rings countless times a day. Aren't I just at your beck and call? I think we need some space. No not MYspace just SPACE. Thanks.

Go Guard!

Why does an itunes download seem so much more valuable than an actual dollar? I got a card for a free itunes download last time I went to the movies, and I just spent like 10 minutes on the National Guard website redeeming it. Now if they would have told me they were going to send me a dollar for reading all this crap about the National Guard there is no way in hell I would have done it. So either I'm just an idiot, or itunes should be charging more than a dollar per song.

I have two more cards, but you can't redeem more than one in a 24 hour period. I guess we'll soon see how far the rabbit hole goes. Oddly enough I've never read Alice in Wonderland. I believe I just thought it was wierd when I was a kid. Which for adults it's obviously a satire, but for kids it's just supposed to be so crazy wierd it's fun. I never got that stuff when I was a kid. I guess I've always been hard to impress (except when it comes to itunes music downloads).

One thing I love is when kids movies can appeal to kids on one level and adults on a totally different level. To this day I LOVE Mary Poppins, but of course it's not even close to the same movie it was when I was a kid. It's wierd how your perception of something you've loved when you were young can change as you grow older. It doesn't really even have to be that drastic of a period of time. The first time I read Gone With the Wind in high school I was all about Ashley, now I love Rhett Butler. It makes me wonder how I would have felt about stuff as a kid that I didn't discover until I was an adult. Like Harry Potter. Would I have loved those books when I was ten? When I was ten I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne of Green Gables, and I still love both of those.

Did this entry start out about the National Guard? Sometimes I scare myself a bit. When I was a kid we had a picture window in our front room. I could sit in front of that window and stare out at the street thinking for much longer than I should have been able to. I wonder what would have become of me if I didn't have such a practical streak to pull my head out of the clouds?

The Victimization of America

Hold onto your butts people, I'm going to attempt to write something worthwhile.

America repeat after me, "It is my fault. The choices I make, dictate the life I will have."

Trust me I'm in law school and I know all about EXCEPTIONS. I'm sure a few exist, but quit being difficult.

There is an episode of 'Friends' where Joey bets Pheobe that there is no such thing as a truly charitable act. By the end of the episode she isn't able to find one. In the same way, nothing will ever happen to YOU in YOUR life that YOU have no ownership in. Even if you walk out the front door and get hit by an asteroid, YOU chose to walk out the front door. You controlled that action, if not the consequences. Now that doesn't make being hit by an asteroid your fault, yet it also doesn't mean that you are WITHOUT fault in the act of being hit by an asteroid.

Working in the law field you learn that people love to be VICTIMS and hate to be RESPONSIBLE. I got fired because I'm a woman, I got carpal tunnel from the repetative movement at my job, and your reckless driving caused my whiplash. Which fine, I'm going to be a lawyer, I believe people deserve to be compensated for a legitimate injury. The problem is that people don't want to be COMPENSATED they want to PROFIT. They are not participants in the acts of their life, they are VICTIMS.

Law practice cultivated the beginnings of the victimization of America, but in the way of Dr. Frankenstien it has created a monster. A VICTIM with a sense of entitlement not only to be COMPENSATED, but to be MADE WHOLE. The man who's life path led him to a job that involves manual labor, can expect to be compensated for an injury sustained within the course of that job, but cannot be made whole for what that job has taken away from him. This man CHOSE to perform this work that is extremely hard on a person physically and emotionally. If a box wrongfully falls on his head then he can be compensated for that, but his employer CANNOT give him back the years of emotional and physical wear and tear that the job has caused.

We see this victimization and sense of entitlement seeping into all parts of society. Some Americans now believe that they DESERVE certain things such as a job, a home, or free healthcare. Yet all Americans have ever really been guarenteed is the FREEDOM to PURSUE these things. If mechanisms are put into place that allow all Americans to have these things, it is not because they are ENTITLED to them, but because society has been able to advance itself to the point that it provides for those that do not provide for themselves.

Make no mistake, there is no such thing as a VICTIM. What we term a victim is just someone who's choices have lead them to an undesireable outcome. A person who turned to the wrong page in the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book.

Lady in the What?er

An M. Night Shyamalan movie is like a situation comedy in that it's always easy to spot where a good idea went wrong. Mr. Shyamalan needs to get together with the guy that adapted the screenplay for Chronicles of Narnia and learn the meaning of subtlety. He also needs to learn that a good idea, a movie does not make. I've noticed that Mr. Shyamalan has really good ideas that he a) doesn't develop enough b) develops too much in the wrong places. Lady in the Water was all over the place in every wrong way possible, but based on a really cool concept. The thing I've also noticed about his movies (which are, in case you don't know,: The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village) are that they are all based on really simple popular concepts. First ghosts, then comics, then aliens (his "Oh wow, now I get it." movies) and most recently escaping and or fixing the defects of modern society. Lady in the Water is based on a movie you've seen a million times. Someone is going to change the world and doesn't know it. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things. We all love it. So, Mr. Shymalan, therein lies your story. You were the most important character in the movie and you didn't even know it.

Incidently Mr. Shyamalan is a pretty darn good actor.

On an unrelated note, I discovered Zach Braff's blog and it has done nothing to curb my obsession with him. It's a very good thing that Orlando Bloom doesn't have a blog also.

Thoughts

The best way to fool others is to fool yourself first.

Maybe everyone thinks they are smarter than most people. Maybe that doesn't mean I'm not.

If karma is for real then a lot of people owe me a lot of Saturday afternoons.

Introspection is a bitch, but people who can't acknowlege thier own faults should have their own island to live on. That way they can drive each other crazy, not me.

I probably shouldn't read What to Expect When You Are Expecting when I'm pregnant. I'm too much of a hypochondriac. Then again, I wonder if anyone has ever had all the symptoms possible before.

Am I the only one who finds the term 'Chick-Lit' demeaning?

I think there should at least be 'Dick-Lit' also. We all know women aren't keeping Tom Clancy in business.

If I decided to live in a cave for the next year could I avoid Harry Potter spoilers?

Does everybody feel like they were meant to do something important, or is it just me?

If someone believes thier own bull-shit is it still bull-shit?

Toes are wierd.