Just had to get this out there as a rant. There’s this little neurotic bitch on this prelaw community who basically posted saying “I’m a freshman and I have a 4.0 and I’m really really smart and I want to go to Yale. I think I can get ’sick’ LSAT scores without prep. Time is passing me by so fast and applications are approaching so quickly! What should I do?”
What do you want people to do? Pat you on the back and tell you what a little genius you are? That is all.
Luckily I’ve been done with finals as of 9:40 this morning. I need to take care to register for classes so that my easiest class is my latest final. Because by that point in the week I really don’t care. Like today! As with all winter quarters I’ve gone through, this was a horrendous one. I look forward to the spring, but really I just want to graduate and start working already. Hope everyone has a fun spring break! Jaymie and I are off to San Francisco early tomorrow morning, so I’ll probably only post when we get back. Ta!
There is nothing certain in life except for loneliness and death.
I’ve been feeling very well acquainted with one and not all too afraid of the other. Some days I don’t know what the point is.
Heineken must have paid up the ass for that ad on Yahoo that’s been up consistently for at least two days straight now. Just cuz you green don’t mean you represent the holiday, boy!
Sam Adams leaves an amazing lacing on the glass as you drink it, but as I suspected from the first time I tried, the taste becomes a bit more metallic and sour as I go down the cup. It tastes best in a full glass through the head.
I absolutely abhor political correctness. There’s a difference between tolerance and anal adhesion to overly convoluted or “inoffensive” terminology. Some people get offended by everything nowadays. Oh noes, you said “GUYS” instead of “people”! Any freshpersons in college here? Gross.
It’s a little irritating to hear all undue criticisms of this film. To set the record straight, 300 is not supposed to be a History Channel documentary — those don’t bring in $70 million over the weekend. Alleged lack of historical accuracy seems to be one of people’s main complaints. Yet from what I know of history, the movie is fairly accurate sans its visual embellishments. There are only a few significant things missing, like the Thespians who fought alongside the Spartans and the Athenians who held off the Persian navy. But the battle wouldn’t seem as awesome or epic with several thousand more defenders. We would like to think that 300 people held of hundreds of thousands. The Spartans really did fight in a phalanx formation, they really did suffer little to no casualties the first two days of fighting, the Persian fighting elite was really a group called the Immortals, and they really had very little success against the Greeks because they were used to a different fighting environment. Not to mention the Greeks were fighting for a personal cause and not at the behest of some impersonal king who enslaved them not too long before the battle. (Eddy 1 - Critics 0).
This next issue is pretty sensitive. A lot of Iranians are offended by a “brutish” potrayal of the Persians. Unfortunately, someone has to be the antagonist. And let’s face it, Xerxes did have a childish vendetta against Greece because his daddy lost at Marathon. Who the fuck wants to be taken over and subject to a foreign ruler anyway? So are people pissed because the Persian military force was slaughtered by the Spartan soldiers? Persian fighters were lethally efficient on their own open terrain. What gave the Spartans a tactical advantage was the decision to stage the battle at a narrow mountain pass. A point hammered home several times during the film and apparent to anyone who knows about this battle. Besides, who cares if some guy decided to be an asshole 2,500 years ago? Does anyone here know personally know Xerxes? This is like French people being mad at Italians because the Romans subjugated the Gauls 2,000 years ago. Anyone who is worth your time will know that the Persian empire was sophisticated and far ahead of the Greeks technologically at the time. If a comic book adaptation convinces them otherwise, then their opinion shouldn’t even matter. (Eddy 2 - Critics 0).
A lot of people also think that the movie is ridiculously out of scale and exaggerated. It’s a fucking movie! It wouldn’t be as epic without the slow-mo fight scenes and admittedly corny-ass narration. It’s all part of the grandiose atmosphere of the story. I didn’t see it as raising a specific small group of people on a pedestal. Rather, I saw it as an inspiration for people to defend what they hold dear. It doesn’t glamorize death and destruction. It glamorizes bravery and an unfaltering loyalty to the values of home, family, and freedom. (Eddy 3 - Critics 0).
So to everyone who can’t live with 300, go watch the history channel, go read a few more books and quit being so anal. No, the Greeks weren’t perfect. Neither were the Persians. This is a fun movie with gory, but tastefully done action sequences. I don’t give a shit if the plot is sparse or if elements are a little bit embellished. All the better. It doesn’t claim to be a reenactment of history.
I love Professor Normore! As I’ve written about previously, I’ve been having no luck with classes, and he was the only one to get back to me and allow me to enroll with a PTE number! I’m thinking that if I can come up with a topic, I’ll ask him if he’d be willing to help me with an independent research project. It’s intimidating though, especially because I’m not only very self-conscious, but I’m also very conscious and worried about stepping on others’ toes or annoying them. I feel like I’d be wasting a professor’s time and so I’m always afraid to go to office hours and ask them favors and stuff. Sigh. I wish I weren’t so nice. I know I can be biting and sarcastic about others and be really negative, but really I can’t fathom hurting someone, unless something’s been done to me. Even then, I know have more restraint than a chastity belt, which I discovered earlier last year. The restraint part, not the chastity belt.
I’m listening to music from the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack right now. It’s amazing as always. On the topic of music (I totally have no attention span), I don’t like American Idol, but I’m glad I saw that one episode with Sean Michel. He’s really a cool guy and a quote of his is on the apartment chalkboard right now: “Everybody says I look like … a homeless bum, but really I think all of us are homeless when it comes down to it. All of us are really poor inside.” He sang an amazing rendition of Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” and if you go to his website or myspace page, there’s this really inspiring blurb about what his band’s music is all about. I don’t know what the point of this is. He’s a great guy and I just want to spread his music.