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| [HOME] Hey, gotta assert yourself sometimes, what can I say... Call this section what you will: opinions, rants, bitching, complaining, whatever.... I call it my own place to reflect... Stuff like current events, personal issues, or just.... Blah. |
| Dima's Voice |
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| HE WAS "HARDCORE" 02/03/03 Here's another interesting piece of news: Apparently a kid who thought it to be the coolest thing in the world to take a whole bunch of illegal and prescription drugs on a webcam to show off to the collectiong of watching retards how "hardcore" he was, is now dead after collapsing of an overdose.... What's worse is, his family is blaming the cyber audience for egging him on to ingest drug after drug.... oh boy, I see a few more McDonald's-esque lawsuits in the cards.... blame everyone but yourselves, hmmm..... Here's the links, credit to Phizz from the good ol' TabIt boards to bringing it to my attention...: News Story of the Incident Chat Transcript (kid's sn is "ripper") |
| 2/14/03 VALENTINES DAY (Pink in the spirit of the worthless season.) Now, I know a lot of people have problems with this holiday. They just don't like it. And one thing I've noticed is that 95% of the people who think this is a dumbass holiday do so pretty much simply because they don't have someone to be with and all the happy people giving each other flowers and kissing in public just reminds them of how alone they are. Well, hell.... I'm alone.... Me, myself, and I.... though that's hardly a reason to dislike this day. It's the same as some pseudo-intellectual girl ranting about how much she hates bimbo cheerleaders when she'd be singing a completely different tune had she had the choice of being as popular as one of them.... it's bullshit! So anyway, I don't hold anything personal on this day... Though I don't give it any real meaning, so it's a pretty worthless holiday to me. |
| 2/18/03 BUSH KNOWS BEST? President Bush laughs in the face of terrorists, evil, sometimes even evil terrorists.... though apparently, he also laughs in the faces of the millions of peace protesters all over the globe. Story Here. The gist of it is that Bush seems determined to continue his pursuit of war in Iraq despite the largest anti-war protests since Vietnam taking place all over the world. He declares that the choice is not his.... it is up to Iraq to destroy all its WMDs and thus avoid war themselves..... though when you have no real WMDs to destroy, that can get to be kind of hard..... His rebuttal basically says that the public is misinformed (because they're not swallowing his "truth") and that the kids better run along and play because daddy Bush knows best, and daddy's got work to do.... Well that makes perfect sense. After all, who does know better than Bush? I mean, sure, the guy thinks Africa is a country, has already made up enough of his own words to fill a dictionary and is a Texan redneck, but surely he is smarter than the average American, French, Russian, Chinese, etc. person, right?... I mean.... a C is an average grade, and he used to get..... slightly......higher grades than that....? Though it's not entirely fair to call the guy dumb.... after all, someone who manages to clinch the presidency despite losing the popular vote and barely getting through school can't be that much of an idiot..... well, what do you know. |
| 2/25/03 MY BEEF WITH AMELIE This segment actually comes by popular request.... It's really odd that out of all the things listed in my Jeers section, the one I got most crap from people for was that damn little French movie... I suppose it's because people understand why one would dislike jocks, Bush, the KKK, but how could I possibly hate that loveable little pixie who's such a dreamer and is sooooo romanitc??!! (If you don't see where I'm going by now, I doubt you'll get much more use from the rest of this article.) So anyway.... Upon recommendations from several people I know (all female), I decided to check out this movie from the library... it looked cool enough, and was up for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars, so I thought "wow, this is going to be really great!" And of course everyone agreed, saying shit like "This is such a great movie, one of the best ever, etc" So I sit down to watch it..... Halfway through, I'm wondering when that wonderfulness that everyone's raving about supposed to come in...... I wait a while longer.... some stuff happens..... then the movie ends. And I'm sitting there, thinking "where was that deeply wonderful part?" Maybe it was partly my fault. Maybe I watched the movie expecting to see what the people's hype made it out to be, and that's why I was disappointed. But that's not the only thing. |
| What's probably worst about this thing is a cheap trick to appeal to the lovable child in everyone. And, hell, I guess it worked. But it stiill follows a really annoying formula for making the perfect "lovable little ragamuffin" for everyone to adore. Wanna know the secret recipe? It's easy: 1. If you have to make her adult-ish, make her small and petite. 2. Have her be pretentiously shy as all hell. 3. Make sure you stress the fact that she's a "dreamer." 4. Do this by sticking her into a million of pathetic scenes which really have nothing to do with the movie except to stress how wonderufl she is. 5. Make her fall in love. 6. It helps if she walks around solving the world's problems. Is that it? I'm probably leaving something out... Frankly, I'm amazed they went ahead and kept her human instead of making her be a Sanrio puppy or something.... And by god, people bought it! That's what's kinda disheartening.... people really bought into it.... mostly girls, of course.... every girl I know is all "OMG OMG OMG!!! That movie is sooo sweet! Shutup, it's like the best movie!!" -gag- And if there's anything that the Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, and even "Titanic" have shown us, it's that almost nothing is easier to manipulate than a typical girl's emotions. Granted, not everyone's. But a lot are painfully predictable. Wanna make them go "Awww"? Show them an adorable puppy..... Wanna make them cry? Kill the puppy in front of them. Wanna have them hate you? Tell them it was you who did it. Now I'm not some heartless prick who gets off on killing puppies. In fact, I'd probably saw "aww" too.... but the difference is, I wouldn't be so taken by the cuteness factor that it would make everything else the puppy did meaningless. |
| So anyway, this relates to Amelie. All you gotta do to reach out to the millions of people (mostly girls) who will follow this movie to the ends of the earth is put on a little show. Yea, the visual part was good in itself, beautiful eye candy. Though that's what the rest of it was, too. Oh, she skips stones. Oh, she takes pictures of impossibly fake teddy bears in the clouds. Oh, she exacts Dennis the Menace/Home Alone-style revenge on the fruit shop clerk who was so mean to his helping hand (no pun intended). And yea, if you could live in a world of gum drop houses and lollipops and bunny rabbits, it would probably look a lot like the world of Amelie. Of course, what better place to set the story in than France, everyone's vision of the most dreamily romantic place on earth? (Granted, I know it's a French movie so that probably wasn't intentional.) But just because of all these wonderful things that happen in the movie, it doesn't mean that I'm going to buy into the "cute puppy factor" and be content with that. Just because of the gratuitous displays of adorable cuteness that leave this movie more full of sap than my morning waffles, I won't suddenly praise this as some milestone film. Where's the substance? And I know every film is different. Sometimes, you just have to turn off your brain to watch them. Like "Commando".... just a guys' night movie.... good stuff.... I know it's full of things that the typical guy would enjoy... I'll enjoy it too.. But the thing is, I will never call "Commando" anything groundbreaking.... I will never think it deserves an Oscar.... I will never consider it one of the finest movies ever made. And the difference between "Commando" and "Amelie" is, "Commando" acknowledges itself as a satire of itself, while "Amelie" seems to be something pretentiously serious (as far as romantic comedies go, anyway). And when you get right down to it, that's my only beef with the movie. If you can acknowledge the pathetically flagrant display of sap meant to suck up to people who would predictably fall for it, I'll sit down and watch it with you. What's more is, I'll probably enjoy it. (If I can stand the fake sweetness.) |
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| 3/11/03 THE GOP PLAYGROUND (Look at the idiot on the right------->) Now this just outright disgusted me.... Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast in the House Cafeteria! Apparently, because the French don't wanna play war, the big boy Republican congressmen have decided to teach them a lesson.... how? By renaming French fries and French toast to "Freedom fries" and "Freedom toast".... how OLD are these people??? 50 or 5?! Now so far it only applies to the House Cafe, but who the hell knows how far it will go.... maybe they'll start applying it to everything.... maybe soon couples will start going to movies and watch Freedom Stewart up on screen while they Freedom kiss each other in the back... meanwhile, there will be Freedom maids cleaning their hotel rooms and Freedom bread will be on sale at 99 cents each.... What do they expect the French to do? Get horribly offended? Start crying? Or get scared into supporting the American war? |
| And in true patriotic American fashion, the boycott applies to the name only, not the actual product itself. I guess it's kinda tough to make your point by actually giving up those delicious French fries (which don't even come from France anyway)... so simply changing the name is a better way to declare your point. Ooh, look at me, I'm using red white and blue in the colors for this rant! Am I being patriotic... or -gasp- sympathizing with the FRENCH?!!! Am I a communist witch??? |
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| CHECK OUT MY LOOK INTO THE ASTROLAND TOWER HISTORY & LEGEND! I did some snooping to find out what was the deal behind that Astroland tower and here's what I've discovered! |