They are who we thought they were, continued

On this blog, I'm still going to be as ranty as ever, so fear not. In fact, the first thing I must do is finish something from my last blog that I started here . To summarize, gender roles seem to be a shitty construct that is outdated.

To me, the idea of gender as anything outside of being based on primary and secondary sex characteristics seems pretty dumb. I know this is hypocritical of someone who has said "Girls love llamas" and refers to a video game character as a she because they wear a purple costume, but I've been working on trying to avoid those things. It is really ironic, because I find myself mad when other people do the same things that I do.

With this premise, I find a bunch of stuff that we do, makes no sense in this context. Why do we have bathrooms for different genders? Why is this current event an issue at all? And this thing too Why do we report gender at so many different places? Why can't people just make immature anatomy jokes without it being sexist? Why is it that Gawker has a blog for women, but none that say they are targeted at men?

In conclusion, a lot of shit doesn't make sense to me because I think their premise is stupid. I also look forward to the day when I feel fine getting bright purple rain boots, without feeling like I am judged by men and women alike.

I ran out of steam, but I'm sure when I'm mad I'll keep going. Now, I'm just hungry.

Edit: http://acko.net/blog/storms-and-teacups/ is similar to what I was trying to say. Except for the part about being a gay guy.

Hemingway + Bucket Lists

I tend to have a lot of love for Hemingway, especially for The Sun Also Rises. Maybe its that I sympathize with the lost generation, or that I appreciate the bluntness of his writing. His characters seem like real people, in that they are all flawed. Maybe I just like The Sun Also Rises because it captures the idea that you can't run away from your problems or solve them by drinking. Or that I enjoy his antiquated romantic notions of love. Or his directive to go out and enjoy life before you get too old.

"Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?" - Cohn in The Sun Also Rises

The real point of this post was to talk about getting stuff done while you have time. I'm going to steal some stuff from an article I saw in the Sun (http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/bal-100-foodies-pg1202,0,5822554.photogallery), but here are 20 things I want to do this year.

Foodie:
- Have a jumbo lump crab cake from Faidley's on a Saltine. (Got calamari from The Daily Catch instead)
- Corned beef on rye at Attman's. (Crab Omlette at Little Havana instead)
- Have dinner at Brewer's Art again
- Try some of the special flavors from Taharka Bros. (formerly Sylvan Beach) ice cream and Pitango Gelato.
- Smith Island Cake (Sugarbakers)

Expanding my horizons:
- Go into the city (Six hours of madness)
- Go out somewhere into the country/mountains
- Go to a big city driving distance away
- Go out of the state
- Go out of the country

Movies/Reading:
- Watch all the old Batman movies
- Finish the Hunger Games
- Watch the Best Pictures from the past 5 years
- Read Atlas Shrugged
- Read all of Abbott's reports

Doing stuff I should have done:
- See live music
- Get back down to 230
- Go to speed dating
- Finish "Perspective"
- Get on LinkedIn

Classic Overthinking

Sometimes I find it funny that to some I'm labeled as impulsive. I have always been the type of person who would think too much before they make a decision that they care about. I think its related to how I listen to songs by focusing on the lyrics. I enjoy having lots of information and feeling like I'm thinking critically. I could see my habit of making fast decisions for things coming out of the fact that if I thought about every choice as much as I wanted to I would never get anything done.

To some extent, I'm glad that I evolved that habit. In group projects, people generally respond well to having a shot caller. Also, in the whole, the consequences of the bad decisions I have made have been minimal (at least they seem so now). Its amusing that how long I spend thinking making a decision also kind of correlates now with how much something matters to me.

That explains why I took two days to decide that I wanted to buy RPG maker and the sale period ran out, right?

Ah well, there is always next Steam sale.

Lyric of the Day: Drake - Marvin's Room
I think I’m addicted to naked pictures
And sittin talkin’ ’bout bitches that we almost had.
I don’t think I’m concious of making monsters
Outta the women that I sponsor til it all goes bad

But shit it’s all good

Tokens of the Past

One thing I do is I collect things that remind me of parts of my life that I'm afraid of forgetting. I've been packing up the stuff that I have in storage and I've come across many things that I kept. The two things I have in storage are boxes of memories and the books for my future library.

Things I found last trip:
- SWAT badge from karate when I was in middle school
- A picture from our High School robotics trip, where I have past-shoulder-length hair
- The lanyard from my first Otakon
- The box that came with the ring I got for my 16th birthday
- The swag bag from the year I took my little brother with me to Otakon
- The Playbill from when I was in Macbeth in HS
- The folder from my freshman college orientation (with the school map)
- A receipt from my first trip to Balducci's
- My ticket to Iron Man (the first one)
- The invitation for the wedding of the first of my friends to get married

I also remembered that younger me enjoyed leaving Magic: The Gathering cards as bookmarks in books that I had completed or at passages that I particularly liked. There were two that I noticed I had marked on my last trip.

From Hemingway's Fiesta (aka The Sun Also Rises):
“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
Oddly appropriate as it relates to some of my recent posts. Plus the story itself relates to the title of this blog.

From Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby:
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Totally used this on my essay for AP English in 11th grade. Still remains a universal truth.

Lyric of the Day: Miike Snow - Animal

I change shapes just to hide in this place
But I'm still I'm still an animal
Nobody knows it but me when I slip, yeah I slip
I'm still an animal

Planning something big

So I've been spending this past week getting ready for upcoming things. My international trip. My research presentation. My east coast trip. Seeing JT on tour. Being a groomsman. Having something to do this summer.

So many things to get ready for. So little time.

Lyric of the day: Paramore - Misery Business (I like the acoustic version)

Whoa, i never meant to brag.
But I got him where I want him now.
Whoa, it was never my intention to brag
To steal it all away from you now.
But God does it feel so good,
Cause I got him where I want him now.
And if you could then you know you would.
'Cause God it just feels so...
It just feels so good.

When I listen to the chorus, I always think of Lex Luthor saying these lines to Louis while he tortures Supes...that's normal, right?

Rants: Oscar's 2013

So I planned to spend this post talking about how amazing Adele doing Skyfall was amazing, how adorable JLaur is, how Daniel Day Lewis is to Oscar movies is what Will Smith is to Blockbusters, or how the winners matched my online 'Oscar Ballot' (except for Ang Lee, I gave it to Spielberg). Instead, I'm going to rant about Seth MacFarlane. Not that the Oscars showed why he was a writer and not a comedian. Not that he is like is like a strictly worse Ricky Gervais (less cutting sarcasm, more dick jokes). But instead that people are either over-reacting to his hosting, or in some cases purposefully misconstruing what he said.

I'll start with the first thing I saw on Facebook about the Oscars. This Buzzfeed post that would serve as my first introduction to the 'horrors' that occurred last night. My reactions are below.

1. I thought it was horrible when I heard about it. But seeing the video, J Laur's fist pump made me go from cringing to laughing. The fact  that he got the gay men's chorus made it seem like he was trying not to make it crudely sexual, but just humorous, because everyone, gay men and women included, like boobs.

2. To me this was just funny. The first part about Jennifer Laurence being "old" was great, and in the second half was a pretty funny jab at Clooney. In my head, the first thing when I think of dating isn't sex, so I didn't see it as sexualizing her. I guess that's why I'm a terrible date :P

3. He made a dig at Chris Brown and people are mad at him? I can't wait until Chris Brown posts a mad tweet and people don't know whether to hate on MacFarlane or Brown.

4. I enjoyed the intentional vagueness of this joke. It was something that you could use to trick one of your friends. I thought it was just funny. Its a style of joke that I think is clever.

5. If you've never read about what happens before Fashion week, this seems like a bad generalization. But this was actually his most Gervais-esque criticism of the audience.

6. Once again, this is just a style of joke that plays on tropes. I personally enjoy them and there is a forum game based on them. What is the movie about an old widower kidnapping a young boy and taking him to South America? (Hint: "My name is Doug, and I love you!")

7.  No comment. All I know about the Kardashians is Lamar Odom and Kris Humpries dated them?

8. I could totally believe this was just a coincidence. Nicholson is a goddamn superstar and revels in it (He interrupted JLaur's post Oscar interview) If it was intentional, this is a phenomenal jab at the Academy and Seth has brass balls. They gave an accused rapist a Best Director award, which is what he is referencing.

9. The person who included this in the list must be an idiot, because they don't realize that Javier Bardem is a dude. He is making fun of foreigners, not women.

With this premise, I assumed that most people who were angry at MacFarlane were wrong. I admit that the man couldn't deliver worth shit, and that some of his jokes were bad (like the beard one), but I've seen people decrying him as a misogynist. Did he make jokes at the expense of women? Yes. But, he poked fun at men at the same time. Channing Tatum was the actual stripper. Clooney ditches women when they get old. Jack Nicholson is your creepy uncle that would host an Oscar's orgy. I will admit, I have yet to watch all of the Oscars, but I will when I get the chance (just to see Adele perform again).

The other thing that people threw hissyfits over was the Onion tweeting “Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a c--t, right? #Oscars2013”. When I heard about it, I was amused. Facebook last night was people gushing over this girl. Talking about how cute, amazing, or inspiraqtional she was. The Onion cleverly attacked all of this hero worship by juxtaposing all the nice things people were saying with something terrible. The joke was successful, because what the Onion was saying saw so absurd, it must be satire (I hate when the Onion does that "subtle satire" bullshit). People say that this (like MacFarlane's joke) sexualizes the little girl. I know that people use cunt as a synonym for bitch. Its on Wikipedia, for crying out loud. I was told that this was different, because it was talking about a specific girl, not an idea. Tell me that you felt that way about Bristol Palin.

I'm getting tired. Rant over.


Lyric of the Day: Three Doors Down - Love Me When I'm Gone

I'll never let you down
Even if I could
I'd give up everything
If only for your good
So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone

Don't Stay

This is a poem(?) idea that I have had for a while, and since I had a good time writing the last one (which I still have to revise), I figured I would write another. Enjoy!

If you don't, it really doesn't matter. I write this because I'm terrified that one day I will forget it all.

This took me like a month to put together. But in the end I rushed to publish it because I couldn't stand at looking at it any longer.

Don't Stay
-----------

Don't stay in the same state that you went to for high school when you go to college.
You need to take this chance to explore somewhere new.


Don't stay at the same place for grad school where you did your undergrad.
People won't respect your degree as much.

I always thought that these ideas were bullshit.
Not the message to move on, but the premises they provided.

"This is my one chance to explore somewhere new?", I would scoff.
Bitch please, I can study abroad on the other side of the world if I want to.
I can take road trips across state lines, yelling out the name of each new place I visit.
And so I did. Out of defiance, rather than desire.

"Why the hell would I want to go anywhere else?"
Sure our city is number one in drug-related violence,
But MD is great for education and we legalized gay marriage.
Hell, our Governor could be the next president.

"They will respect my work, not my resume"
Though in this one I will concede defeat.
Because my vision is based on some idealist world,
where a man is judged not on the color of his skin, but the content of his works.

The real reason not to stay is because of overwhelming nostalgia.

Seeing familiar places brings back memories.

Tennis courts where I should have gone every week,
Coffee shops where I wasn't there for the coffee,
Lecture halls where sleeping students got higher grades,
Living rooms where we talked like philosopher kings,
Entire buildings devoted to missed opportunities.
I could build a bridge to Hawaii with the amount of sentimentality I feel sometimes.

But even if I leave, these places will still be a part of me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Lyric of the Day: Coheed and Cambria - Here We Are Juggernaut

Keep your secrets in the dark
Nothing matters anymore
Body's breaking, drive me crazy
This is not your place
No, this is not your playground it's my heart
We were stupid, we got caught
But nothing matters anymore
So what? Here we are Juggernaut