Review: The Notebook

Hi people I don't think anyone is here anymore. But seriously this is the most romantic film every conceived? I just finished it and am quite honestly appalled at the premise and morals that this monstrosity stood for. Here are my thoughts. Obviously there will be spoilers, but this movie is so bad I don't think I would even call this spoiling. I don't think I'm a martyr but I think I would be at least salvaging it a bit.

This movie is recycled bullshit
So as we begin with every story, inconceivably dashing boy meets impossibly hot girl. They flirt and they get together. But as with all stories there will be a conflict. Conveniently, we rehash the eternal theme of feuding family, as first invented by Mr. Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, if not literally than in ideals. Here we find a hint of originality: instead of the Montagut and Capsicum families being both really rich and feuding over some old unsettled score about where their grandfather chose to shit upon, the hot girl in The Notebook is richer than God himself and Ryan Gosling is poor as shit. Which is quite surprising really, because with his charm and good looks he would have easily earned some measure of respect and subsequently, wealth. Or he can be an actor, which I guess he is. Yet instead he chooses to be a manly ass lumberjack. Maybe he is Wolverine, nobody knows. Or he can choose to marry rich, which I guess he set out for in this movie and the only plot point that made sense. If that were his true purpose then boy did he commit to it. By the way, I have to say that I forgot the name of Juliet's family. I initially thought it was Capricorn, but I know that's a horoscope. Googling for the real name makes me accurate, which isn't the point of my writings. So I settled on Capsicum, because the fruit/vegetable(who cares?) is supple, glaringly colorful, but yet it tastes like a spicy bitch, very much what Juliet is about ultimately.

Where was I?

Yes. Boy meets girl. Summer fling. What seemed to be promised ecstasy meets the conflict of disapproving parents. What do you expect them to do now? Resolve it like civil people right? Noo. Rachel McAdams decides to be a prissy little bitch to everyone within viewing distance, including Ryan Gosling himself. Which reminds of the scene where she shoves and slaps him unceremoniously against his rather stylish pick-up truck. And he responds by slapping himself furiously. It's like if two countries wage war and the other goes okay and nukes itself. Hilarious. So, rather than solving the conflict right there and then, they have to drag shit out for a decade or so, raising several glaring points of moral failures in the process.

The girl is a whore
She goes out of town to college, meets new sweetheart, is engaged to marry. New dude is rich, charming, and is exactly who her parents want her to marry. And to top it all off, he is as handsome as James Marsden. Heck, he is James Marsden. Simple enough. But she chooses to go back to the hometown on a whim and sees Ryan Gosling, all handsome and shit again. In the glory of the downpour and the increased pheromones of a countryside boat ride, says she, "It wasn't over for me!". Says he, "It wasn't over. It still isn't over." They relinquish lost love and fuck like rabbits. WOW TRUE LOVE 4EVA. No fuck you. That is infidelity. You don't go out on a limb and have sex with your first love just because you are horny, especially not when you are engaged to marry. I'm not on a misogynistic witchhunt, because I'm moving on with my next point.

The guy is a manwhore
He serves in WW2, and most probably saw fellow men lost. Yet when he comes back in his lovelorn state he decides to have sex regularly with this war widow, treating her no more than a sperm receptacle. So when his bottom bitch that is Rachel McAdams decides to come back, he allows the two ladies meet. War widow proceeds to weep and note that this is true love she now seeks to achieve. Well thanks for nothing, Ryan Gosling. And seriously I cannot fathom how much dumber can that widow get. If he had more swagger he could have convinced her that he was Buddha Jesus and Megatron all in one.

Headless and tailless
In the wisdom of our Hokkien forefathers and their philosophy of pragmatism, this film fails on several notes and would have been burned at a stake for its lack of head and tail. The final scene depicts the couple, old as shit but not quite old enough to die. She has been suffering from Alzheimer's but his recounting of their story somehow magically heals her bitchy brain and allows her to remember once again. If true love were this potent doctors should have sex all the time and harvest administer-able doses of love instead of finding cures for HIV and cancer. So she remembers their bullshit story again, and in the final act of completely ill-conceived storyboarding they die together. The end.

Which begets the question. What is the meaning of it all? I would feel sympathy for their relationship if not for their complete douchebaggery and lack of moral code. I would feel happy that they died together if I ignored how glaringly mismatched they are. Given that the entire basis of their relationship was their hotness and the hormones that kept them from controlling the urge to rip out their clothes every waking minute, how did they handle the despair that followed when they turned old and not as hot? In this aspect I guess the Alzheimer's helped with the delusion. I think my point is that I am mostly angry that this poor series of emotional manipulations is considered one of the greatest romances ever told. I'm not saying that the Holocaust is better, but at least people knew they were being murdered rather than being led on foolishly like how this stupid movie does.

This shit sucks. I rather watch paint dry. Or waste my time writing a rant about it. Oh hey I just did.

Why some TV shows make it

For illustration purposes.

Why is Barney Stinson so popular? Why do people religiously follow the romantic conquests of Ted Mosby and bask in the bliss that surrounds Marshall and Lily, week after week when every sane person knows that the eponymous Mother will never be revealed in the foreseeable future? Just like how people lost interest when they broke out in Prison Break, or when the plot started to feel strained when villains took centrestage in Heroes, viewership for HIMYM should have been lost long ago, since nothing in the show has any real impact on how the asshole Ted meets the kids' mom. Also noteworthy is how Ted's kids never say anything and always fidget in the same way in their cutscenes. Don't be surprised when at the end of it all 50 year old Ted Mosby comes out and says "FOOLED YA NEVER GOT MARRIED!" before proceeding to disconnect the two robots sitting on that couch. In fact, I'm pretty sure they are robots, they sat there for about 6 years already without having the need to take a shit.

Back to the main discussion. These ardent followers of the series, often go as far as to incorporate lingo picked up from the episodes into everyday conversation. Exhibit A. "Did you see that? That was LEGEND-wait for it-". No fuck you, it wasn't legendary. Neither was it awesome, statistically speaking.

Brings me to my main thesis. People watch HIMYM because it projects an ethereal image of what they wish their friendships and relationships were. Who are you trying to kid? Your conversations aren't as quick-witted and humorous. Even if they were, they probably happened online, or worse, with yourself. Also, your friends and yourself aren't nearly as hot as the actors with impeccable complexion and boob to ass ratios. Not that it is a problem. Just that it is one of the reasons why people watch the show. I know it is for me.

In essence, shows such as this are the Disney of television. It is an escapist's dream, promising 22 minutes of quick relief  from the terrible drone that is your sad life. However, Disney does have a channel on television that screens re-runs of Mr Bean, to the best of my knowledge. That snippet of information has no relevance whatsoever.

With that, I conclude my critical analysis of plaguing social trends that threaten to corrupt our cores. Join us next week as our special agents continue to answer life's bigger questions. The monikers 'wayne' and 'RJ' brought up in the preceding post are in fact code names and bear no resemblance to anybody who ever lived.

hello this is soley!

(hello good morning how'd you do? what makes your rising sun so new? i could use a fresh beginning too, all of something something new.)

today at work, i realised most people dont understand that temp staff do not know anything at all about how the whole machine functions, and when you ask me for help i will just take a minute to act like im doing something knowledgable while you're watching and then take a long drawn out melodramatic sigh to show you that ive-tried-yet-resigned-myself-to-the-sad-fate-that-this-problem-is-WAYYYY-too-complicated, and must hence ask the higher up boss lady to come fix it. which she does, by plugging in the plug into the plughole. embarassing moment right there.

also, it is quite sad that people at work call me boy-boy / ah-boy. like wtf dude im an adult now! and i pretty much tower over you how the hell am i an ah boy. makes me feel like a 5 year old again. not that i wouldnt mind being 5 again, avoid the whole nonsensical adult life nonsense thing that i have to undergo.

5 is a good number, i always liked it when doing math, cause very easy to manipulate. like 5x8=40! like i did that really fast, i got the answer before i wrote it. im smart.


RJ says (10:01 PM):
penis
wayne says (10:01 PM):
PENIUS
genius penis

My Hero

All too often this simple weblog has kept consistent with its aim of dissolving and trying to answer Man's greater mysteries. That being said, it is forgiveable for the author to discuss some of the topics that strike closer to home. This can not be necessarily construed as narcissism, unlike the narcoleptic who deals narcotics under the narcissus plant.

I would continue to refer to myself in third-person as 'the author', but my lack of commitment hinders its success. Just take it as my attempt to level with the audience and not appear pretentious. But now, you are trapped in a conundrum. How do you know I am not pretending to be unpretentious? You don't.

As mentioned, I will talk about something that strikes close to home. I live near the airport and the plane I was on struck the tarmac upon landing, so I deem it appropriate for me to discuss the concept of flying.

Humans aren't meant to fly. The ear popping sensations are actually slaps from a higher being telling us that we have breached the boundaries of the human playing area and crashed into the angels' casino. See there? I circumvented offending any existing religions by creating a quasi-religion where angels are allowed to gamble. I also achieve this by making references to religious figures as vaguely as possible. For example if I say I'm going to draw the prophet, tensions will rise only up till the point where they look at my drawing and realise that I drew the Spartan prophets on the mountains from 300.

Turbulence sucks too. Not to be confused with turbans, although turbans do cause turbulence in some cases. This phenomena is best exemplified by the following historical video from India.

Without going into further details, my hero is Superman.

Peace out, assholes.

The case for prom

My prom date

In the midst of post exam activities, I can't help but find the whole prom hoo-ha the most frivolous of activities for anyone of this frivolous age to partake in. And that speaks volume, because my post exam activities are as facetious as frivolity gets. Sometimes nothing goes on my mind for hours. For example, I left off the last sentence five hours ago and now it's 1 AM.

In our mindless pursuits to capture moments in time of our Sunday bests on a Monday with equally or more attractive members of the opposite sex, we often fail to recognise the equally or more subtractive effects on our wallets. As enticing as the stimulation of the economy sounds, I don't give a shit because there is little trickle-down effect. Always the rich people trickling the poor's money and the poor getting trickled. And call me a cheapskate if you want, because we live in a democratic country and that comment does not constitute slander. But my feelings will be hurt, and I will probably talk to you less in future. More importantly, screw you; it's not your money you're spending.

Then I have to justify the spending and the formality to my mother. So I tell her it's for prom. Then she asks me why am I dressing up for a simple fare of seafood. So I said ma, prom not prawn; it's short for promenade. Then she asks me why am I wearing a suit for a fruit. So I said no ma that's a pomegranate.

Okay i ran out of juice.

Nah, not really.

WTF? THIS POST SUCKS!

Mindblown

From here:

The way your family trees severely collapses when you look back a reasonable (<50) number of generations. I hope this explanation is clear:

You have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on. In general, if you look n generations back, there are 2^(n+2) people who are your (n-great)-grandparents.

Let's generously say a generation is 30 years. If you look back 40 generations, to around the year 800 C.E., you have 2^42 (40-great)-grandparents. That's well over four trillion people, more people than were alive in 800 C.E. by several orders of magnitude. More people than have ever been alive.

The reason this is possible: If you looked at a list of your 2^42 40-great-grandparents, you'd see duplicates. In fact, each name would show up around 10,000 times, possibly even more. So your (mom's mom's dad's mom's ... dad) is the same as your (dad's mom's dad's dad's ... dad), and in fact your can trace your ancestry to that guy in about 10,000 different ways.

 I have nothing funny to add. Sorry.

I know I should be studying,

But lately I have been occupied by very random thoughts.

Eating seedless fruits one day, I found the whole process of evolution counterintuitive. Darwin would probably flip in his grave. You see, the whole point of having seeds in the first place is for the fruit to ensure its long term viability as a species, so technically, a fruit full of seed is a fruitful plant. However it seems as though the only purpose for the existence of fruits nowadays is to appease human gluttony, and our lazy asses have made us spiteful of the presence of seeds. So we breed the seedless varieties. Seedless oranges, seedless grapes, and props to anyone who successfully creates the seedless durian. So seedlessness is now a virtue, not a bane to a species' continued survival. Which on another note, is absolutely confounding as to how they even reproduce now. I tried burying a seedless grape three months ago but the plot is still bare.

I guess my point is, evolution is ultimately influenced by irrational human wants, but even then this still does not explain why fat people are still around.