Movie Review: Snow White and the Huntsman (No spoilers, just an abnormal amount of cleverness and sarcasm)

In celebration of my recent 19^th birthday, following a delicious and elegant birthday dinner, my parents took Addy and I to the drive-in to see Snow White and the Huntsman. I thoroughly enjoyed both the movie and the atmosphere (although I had to restrain myself from verbally abusing Mr. Nipple Piercings, his side kick, Manorexic Man, and their merry band of ridiculous Giggle-A-Lots. However, that is another story entirely.)

The movie, being a dark fairy tale, was right up my alley. The special effects were absolutely phenomenal, the cinematography was brilliant, and of course, who doesn’t enjoy watching a Helmsworth brother traipse around a forest for a couple hours? Now the evil queen, she was my favorite. She was bad to the very core, and I can respect that. If you’re going to be evil, you have to commit, none of that secret hard of gold crap. No. You have to be a full blown, eating dead birds with your fingernails, heartless, graceless being. (This is obviously why God only blessed me with limited power over other people.)

Now, I know you all are really here to read my feelings on the epileptic hummingbird (AKA Kristin Stewart). I will begin with the positives. For starters, the only reason she got the role is because the part of Snow White consisted of approximately fifteen lines and one monologue throughout the entire movie, the rest of the time was spent running about and looking confused, which can easily be substituted by sheer expressionlessness, Kristin’s specialty. It failed to ruin the movie for me only because Chris Helmsworth’s sheer gorgeousness managed to somewhat compensate for the failed attempt at acting by Stewart. My only complaint against that fine, fine looking man is the one slow motion exclamation of “WILLIAM!!!” Which actually came out “WHALE-YAM” Go ahead. Read that slow motion with a Scottish accent.

As for the negatives: (please keep in mind while reading this that a similar stream of criticism was running constantly in my head throughout the entire movie, and most of my life in general, for that matter, and always in a British accent. I stopped trying to explain it to myself long ago.)

First off, ever since discovering that Kristin was chosen to play the role of Snow White, it has completely dumbfounded me that they apparently couldn’t find someone else in Hollywood that was prettier and better at acting to agree to get paid an ungodly amount of money to run around with a Helmsworth brother for a considerable amount of time. Not that Kristin Stewart isn’t pretty, but all I’m saying is that for the “fairest in the land” she sure went cross eyed a lot. Perhaps that’s just my ethnocentric attitude speaking. I’m sure that many other cultures find stuttering, compulsive blinking, and cross-eyedness the epitome of attractiveness.

There were several close-ups of her face as she rode a horse that about brought me to tears. The look of utter confusion and sheer terror confirmed my suspicion that she was, indeed, scared of horses. That, or she had hemorrhoids, in which case I will eagerly retract my criticism on the scene.  However, that theory is made unlikely by the fact that she exhibited the exact same face in the first Twilight as Edward fought to stop drinking her blood, which actually appeared to be a long struggle with a very thick milkshake.

It took me a while to decide if she was speaking in a poorly done British accent, or if she was having an allergic reaction to something she had at breakfast that morning. Perhaps some sort of melon or nut? Anyways, what finally confirmed my suspicion that she was, indeed, in medical distress was the constant manly grunting which took place anytime she ran or exerted herself in any manner whatsoever. Poor thing! The life of an actress is so terrible that they wouldn’t give her ten minutes to administer an allergy shot. But alas, the show must go on.

My next complaint is on an issue that is not unique to this movie in particular. In fact, it’s quite common really. Why on earth would two people kiss when obviously neither of them have bathed or brushed their teeth in a disgustingly long period of time. That my friends, is not okay. Romanticism officially ends with excessive mouth bacteria.

Don’t even get me started on kissing dead people.

Now, I sincerely have nothing against Kristin Stewart. She seems to be a nice young woman. I simply feel that others, such as myself, would be a much better actress. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

In conclusion, I recommend the movie with no hesitation despite everything written above. It really was fabulous.

The Root of All Incompetence: Vampire Novels

I believe there is one core cause of the demise of society, one issue leading to the very degradation of all we know of as fundamentally good and moral, one factor which has broken down our values to a disproportional teetering mass of social issues balanced on a thread of sanity: Poorly written vampire novels. Now you may think I’m joking, but sadly, I am not, and I have good, solid evidence to back up this purely scientific theory.

The decline of society is something blaringly obvious to anyone that can be defined as sane and competent (therefore, radical liberals don’t count), and can be traced back to a mass change in reading patterns worldwide. A hundred and fifty years ago, by the time one would reach their teenage years, young men would be entering, or even graduating from prestigious universities, such as Harvard, and young women were writing epic novels under pennames between chimney cleanings and performing nursing duties. They could recite each and every passage of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets to their sweethearts and practiced the great discipline of daily journaling.  

Now-a-days, anyone between the ages of 10 and 30 can be found sitting in their mom’s basement playing mindless video games and thinking that a synonym is a kind of meth. Instead of writing long, elaborate letters in artistic calligraphy, they text their companions, “I is gonna go 2 party. Is U?” These, ladies and gentlemen are the leaders of tomorrow, and quite frankly, the leaders of today.

So what happened to the competence of mankind you might ask?

Vampire novels.

Books have been the cornerstone of a society for as long as they have been around.  Les Miserable, A Tale of Two Cities, and Pride and Prejudice have exalted wit and intelligence. Utopia, The Republic, and Two Treatise of Government have shaped the thinking of our Founding Fathers and even the very Constitution that governs our nation. These used to be the books commonly read by both children and adults. Now however, even grow women, and yes, the occasional grown man (if that’s what you want to call him) curl up at night with a paper-back copy of Fangs of Love, reading about an ignorant heroine and her two lovers, a sparkling vampire that she met when he tried to eat her Chihuahua and a werewolf that smells like puppy love and man sweat.

This ladies and gentlemen, is the future of our nation: Chihuahuas and shirtless man sweat.

Imagine if all the Founding Fathers had read were poorly written vampire novels. We would live in a nation where it would be perfectly legal for people to call dibs on drinking the blood of those on death row, all politicians would wear capes and lipstick, and Native Americans would be forced to wear dog collars and be kept as the occasional family pet. Not to mention our Constitution would be worded “Ya, so all us people up in here want to not fight no more so we’s gonna make us some rules to follow so the vampires don’t suck us dry.” Endearing, isn’t it?

Let’s face it; no one wants to live in a world of repetitive sentence structure.

While William Shakespeare had a working vocabulary of 50,000 words, Americans today have a working vocabulary of 3,000 (although I like to think I use at least 1,000 more than most). Communication skills have obviously backslidden. This, I believe the aftermath of corny literature written by idiots who choose to make a few bucks off copy-cat writing.

Therefore, I suggest that we perform a public book burning of all plot-repetitive, ignorance-saturated vampire novels which are the very cause of all society’s issues. If you haven’t put two and two together yet, I’m equating vampire novels with the root of all stupidity. If you are one of the people who enjoy these little booklets of evil, there is hope for you yet. Real literature and competent story plots are only a library trip away, just don’t be tempted by the four aisles of crap books covered in pale shirtless men with wonky nipples

Altitude Deficiency and the Consequences Thereof.

        Fun sized. Vertically challenged. Munchkin. Pipsqueak. Half Pint. Lilliputian. These are just a few of the many names I have been called due to my lack of height. My new favorite, thanks to Weast who used it when my shortness became an issue with blocking, is "altitude deficient" (hence the title).
        Now, I'm 5'2'' (almost) but at times people act like I'm a midget, when in reality I could be a very tall Guatemalan or ancient Egyptian.  Being short is something I have learned to embrace over the years, so here is a rather condensed account of the trials and triumphs of a "altitude deficient" person.
        To begin with, being short does have its positive side. For instance, unless I fall in love with a manorexic horse jockey (which is highly unlikely. Horse stench is highly unattractive) I most likely won't have to worry about being taller than my date. Also, at prom, I could wear six inch heels and still be slightly shorter than my date of an average height.
        However, it seems almost inevitable that the very thing I need at the grocery store is on the top shelf. I realize that the most obvious solution to this problem is to track down a tall person and use my womanly charm to persuade them to assist. However, asking for help is the one thing I hate more than Kristen Steward and her cross-eyed-humming-bird-blinking kissing scenes and I'm not much of the damsel in distress type. So instead, I use my mad rock climbing skills (wilderness camp has proved useful in many ways) to climb up the shelves. This is one of my main motivations to not gain weight: the fear of shelves full of merchandise falling on top of me in a public place.
        Also, there is the problem of buying suitable clothing. It's obvious that pants would be hard to buy, but you must remember that as a general role, short legs also mean short arms. So pretty much, all clothing is designed to make short people look like hobos with saggy sleeves and pant legs. Thank goodness rolling one's jeans has come back in to style. Unfortunately, rolling dress pants is never attractive or socially acceptable, meaning that I have to wear heels to work for nine hours every day. And don't get me wrong, I love a fabulous pair of shoes, but not on my feet for nine hours. To be quite honest, I take them off at my desk until I hear someone coming. The lady who gave the "Professional Attire and Etiquette Course" would crap her not-too-flashy-and-ironed-to-a-crisp slacks if she knew.
          Being a curvy short girl presents a whole new clothing dilemma. I always end up having to venture in the black girl clothing stores to find jeans, you know the ones I'm talking about...dimly lit, slightly shady, playing hip-hop music so loud your IQ drops a whole point and you start compulsively rhyming.  I walk through timidly, heading directly for the jeans (built specifically for short girls with child-bearing hips) meanwhile trying to ignore the fact that I'm being eyed by the hordes of not-so-shy black girls muttering "Giiiiiiirl, whachyoo doin in heee?" I'm always tempted to answer with something like "yo homie skillet biscuit," however I would be brutally out-numbered in a fight and I feel as though they would not take kindly to a battle of the wit (ah the loss of cleverness in the world). Once I finally have my jeans of choice in hand (usually named something like "jucy playa'") I make my way to the checkout counter where I avoid making eye contact with the sales person who has fingernails longer than my face and a bump-it that scrapes the ceiling and asking me questions I can't understand like "Fitty tirty-two is yo total. You sure you don't want no ice wit dat?"   So yes. I do have a ghetto booty (in the least racial slurrish way possible)
         In addition to clothing predicaments, being altitude deficient has been all but detrimental to my future acting career. I have always wanted to play the bad guy, the devious witch, the evil queen, the sinister step-mother, but unfortunately, no matter how good you are at imitating the very essence of the ultimate antagonist, if your short, you always end up looking like an angry oompa-loompa. So I will forever be playing the child and/or munchkin like characters.
       Although it has not always been opportune, I wouldn't trade my altitude deficiency for anything, I embrace every quirk that makes my life more interesting.
       And yes. A "Ghetto Slang Dictionary" was used in the composure of this blog.)
       

Confessions of a College Freshman

As my second semester of finals rolls by and my first year of college comes to a close, I have been reminded of the many lessons that the college experience has taught me. They are much more than principles of algebra or history dates (because, let's face it, I knew all those anyways), but rather, they are the true reflection of the very heart and soul of what college is about. After all, are not the lessons of life worth abundantly more than any knowledge a professor can teach? So here is my newly learned list of life's statutes and principles:
1. When taking notes, it is impossible for one to appropriately abbreviate the word "assassin." I have tried to dissect the word every possible way only to find that no matter what you do, it always ends up being PG-13.
2. Before walking into a room in your underwear, one should make sure that the person who lives there is not on skype. This will save you from a majorly awkward situation in which a random guy asks you to join his band. And if a random guy should ask you to join his band, say yes and then promptly continue to sing as loud and off key as humanly possible while dancing like Richard Simmons.
3. If you choose to wear flip flops to class, make sure you are one of the last ones to leave the classroom, that way if you happen to trip and fall down the stairs, you're entire class won't witness it.
4. Fish can, and will, shelter the spirits of evil historical figures such as Hitler, Genghis Kahn, or Nero. If this happens, you are screwed and they will haunt you forever and possibly turn you into a vampire when you die.
5. Football players (not all of them, just the Big Uglies) think that you wearing makeup and you not wearing makeup are two different people. When this happens, go with it. First rule of improv, never deny anything! You can convince them of an entire alter-ego and they will never know the difference.
6. Never ever, under any circumstances whatsoever, no matter what, without hesitation, ever, give cafeteria food the benefit of the doubt. If it looks like it's moving, it's not your imagination, it probably is. If it appears to be a questionable color, it's not the lighting or your contacts or the shadow of the Big Ugly hovering hungrily behind you, it really is actually the color of space matter. If this happens to you, DO NOT EAT IT! Dispose of it immediately, or try to pawn in off on the group of creepers loitering outside of the building.
7. Always check under your bed before you go to sleep. There could be a suitemate under there.
8. When struggling to write an essay to a certain specified length requirement, fill it with words such as "henceforth," "alas," "indeed," "whomsoever," ect. Not only will such elaborately lovely language tack on quite a bit of length to your paper, but it will also make you seem twice as intelligent as the paper would lead one to believe otherwise. This also works on essay questions presented in exams because by the time the professor has sifted through your paragraph about "the many recompenses of capitalism, alas, there are far too great a number to name them each in the reasonable amount of time awarded me on this inquiry," they won't even remember what the question was in the first place. But they do know however that they didn't understand a third of what you wrote but it sounded exceedingly intelligent and in an attempt to not, in turn, seem more ignorant than a student, award you with a marvelous grade although neither of you really knew what you were talking about in the first place.
9. When feeling threatened, by Big Uglies in particular, the best thing to do is make yourself as unattractive as possible in a short amount of time. This can be accomplished the quickest by drooling, making a stink face, or hunching over and dragging your back foot. In case of an emergency, act as if you have seen a bear, meaning put your jacket and/or backpack above your head to make them think you are bigger than you actually are. Then make as much noise as possible (whale speak works best) and charge at the suspicious figures. They will indeed, in that moment, be far more scared of you than you are of them.
10. Avoid making 48 cupcakes in your room with the intent of being friendly and passing them around to fellow dorm-livers. Apparently that's creepy and not only will you be forever shunned by a fourth of the student body, but you will also be stuck with 48 cupcakes taking over your dorm room. I mean, do I look like the type to poison someone with a delicious baby-sized desert made of love and chocolate? (Don't answer that)

In conclusion, college can be safe and fun if you will simply follow these 10 easy guidelines. Some of us had to learn these things the hard way.

How to Write a Passive-Aggressive Letter

There are times in life when a situation requires a passive-aggressive letter. I, personally, have experienced several of these dilemmas since I moved into the dorms. Passive-aggressive letters are appropriate and necessary for a number of situations, usually involving slight annoyances and a desire to minimize drama and offense and maximize the chances that you can resist murdering anyone.  Now, because brilliant sarcasm does not always come naturally, I have written for you a basic guide to writing your very own passive aggressive letter. Please note the first example below.

Step 1.      The intro.  When addressing the target party, be sure to make an extremely general address (even though everyone will know who it is talking about) This allows you to feign ignorance if called out.  You can also begin with something to the effect of "To whoever is leaving socks that reek like the pit of Hell on the floor" (insert your own particular crime or annoyance).  This introduces a bit of humor to begin with and could allow you to express your true feelings on the matter without being too terribly offensive.

Step 2.      The body.  Obviously, now that you have grabbed the attention in a good, general, introduction, there are several different techniques you can use to get your point across.

                          A. Personification. This can be seen in the second sentence of example #1.  Make your English teacher proud and redirect the attention from you, pretending as though the offense itself is the protester, not you.

                                B. Provide overly simplistic directions to accomplish the desired result, as seen in example #1.  If you wish, you can even cite the steps from a source such as ehow.com, just be sure to add a sarcastic twist to the original direction.  While giving a slightly patronizing air, the steps also ensure that the person sincerely does realize how to accomplish the task.

C. Exaggeration. This is demonstrated in point 4 of example #1 and the first paragraph of example #2.  You can clearly never go wrong with making the connection between the end of the world and the behavior you're trying to put an end to.

Example #2

D.  Threats.  This is demonstrated at the end of example #2.  Just note that all threats should be humorous because if the person were to be murdered you don’t want the police to find documentation of a threat of violence that had been written by you (I watch enough crime shows to think of these things.) Also remember that this is a passive-aggressive letter…not just an aggressive letter.

                                  E. Stylization. This is most strongly demonstrated in example #2.   This is a quick way to ensure that your hostility is masked by light-hearted feelings.  This technique also allows you to use words that are not necessarily real, which is always a good time for the writer.

Step 3. The ending.  Remember to end in a way that is not only a call to action, but also humorous, to prevent hostility towards you as the writer.  Because believe it or not, not everyone appreciates the great art of sarcasm.   

                I know. It’s tragic

Now that you have learned my secrets to writing a passive-aggressive letter, I urge you to write responsibly, for sarcasm often falls upon deaf ears.  And also, I would love to read your passive aggressive letters, so feel free to send them to me.

P.S. To my lovely roommate/suitemates, my letters were not written out of annoyance, but out of a love for the underappreciated art of sarcastic writing. But seriously, if you don’t take out the trash, I WILL let Cletus Oglethorpe the demon fish loose on you…

Curse of the Clampus Cletus

   

Being the responsible adult I am I decided a few months ago that I would finally take the next step in life: Owning my very own pet. Now, since I live in a dorm with about two square feet of walking space (for serious) the obvious recipient of my tender love and care was a fish and thanks to an old suitemate, Heather, I was soon the parent to a beautiful blue betta named Cletus Oglethorpe. 

Cletus is a ravishing, iridescent blue, about three and a half inches long, and lives in a small fish bowl on my desk.  My excitement and excessive affection for the little fish was, however, short lived. We began to have problems about a week after I adopted him.

 They began with his nasty case of clinical strength fish BO. Now I know betta fish have a tendency to stink up a tank fairly quickly, in fact, I've had a betta before (named scarlet fever to be exact).  However, my little Cletus has the unique ability to spread a whale sized odor throughout a perfectly clean bowl and into my suite, not just my room, but the entire suite in a matter of a week.  I have no doubt that left to his own devices, Mr. Oglethorpe's unique stench will have permeated the entire third floor and eventually all of South Hall.

Next is my issue with his questionable intelligence level.  I have reached a dilemma in deciding whether Cletus is incredibly smart or intolerably stupid.  He has spent the majority of his life running repeatedly into his small, plastic, glow-in-the-dark plant (named Ethel), getting his head stuck under his little glass pebbles, and playing dead by floating belly up at the top of his bowl.  Now I have two theories about this suspicious behavior:

 A. He could be abnormally smart and trying to escape the confines of his little fish bowl by exploring and playing dead (because all drains lead to the ocean). However, this theory does not explain the head smashing with pebbles...a scare tactic perhaps?

 B. He could be abnormally stupid and simply trying to entertain himself through self-harm and bouts of insanity followed by a lapse in his memory of how to breathe.

Now the last and most worrisome of his issues is our growing dislike for one another.  He gives me an unmistakable stink face when I look at him and I swear he has growled at me three times now. Yes. He has indeed growled.

Welcome to my life.

 Now these issues have left me with a dilemma because unfortunately I don't think it's ethical to flush a fish down the toilet on the grounds of body odor and unusual behavior. So here I am, stuck in an owner/fish relationship that neither of us are happy about. So we have made an unspoken pact to ignore one another. I feed him once a day and he doesn't growl at me leaving us with a deal we can both live with.