What's so bad about Milli Vanilli?

Ashlee Simpson was caught lip-synching. Big deal. Everyone does it. She should have just said, "Big deal. Everyone does it. So what?" instead of trying to cover it up like, "Oh, I was sick, my acid reflux got to me, my acid reflux is so bad, I'm the victim here, my dad made me do it...waanh waanh wannh...."

This really makes me think that anyone, including myself, can be a recording artist (that's what they're called you know, they're not singers or pop stars, they're artists....like a sandwich artist at Subway...or a barista at Starbucks). You really don't have to know how to sing because computers nowadays are amazing and can do anything with your voice. You don't really even have to write your own songs. I mean Ashlee says she does, but she doesn't fricken write the music. She probably doesn't even know what notes are. She puts words together. And those are probably edited by some real person anyway. She's just an uglier version of her dumber sister and MTV thought she would make good TV because people love seeing related people be successful together. I know it got me watching. That, and because she was on 7th Heaven. :-P

Now that I think about it, Milli Vanilli really got the butt end of the deal. Everyone hates them because they didn't really sing their songs. Who really cares, if most singers aren't for real anyway? It's like, the entire recording industry knew they were as legit as any other artist (because any other artist had their recordings "engineered" too), but to the rest of the world, it just looks like they're totally lame. So is a pop star really just some above-average looking dancing monkey that can lip-sync well enough that people think they're singing? If so, then what's so bad about Milli Vanilli?

Maybe someone should make up a new singing sensation that is this huge deal and after she goes multi-platinum, then the record company will reveal the fact that the singing sensation is nothing more than a computer generated voice. Have they done that already? I feel like they have. Anyways, then maybe pop stars will get over themselves and realize that they're only as good as they can sing live onstage, and then people will learn how to sing and perform just like in the olden days when there was no "backup track". Otherwise, what is the point of going to a concert anyway, when I can just hear the flawless CD performance, which costs me nothing compared to a concert?

Educate yourself, don't let Hollywood educate you

Brad Pitt was on the Today show this morning to talk about some of his own political views. I immediately thought, "oh great, Brad Pitt is going to use his wit and charm and good looks to get stupid women to vote for whatever candidate or thing he's endorsing." Because that's exactly what he's doing. Don't tell me he knows the issues. Don't tell me he isn't getting paid somehow for going on tv to talk about political stuff.

He talked about California's Prop 71, the push to get the state to fund stem cell research, some billions of dollars over the span of several years. What does he know about stem cell research? I have no idea. But a lot of people say, "Wow, Brad Pitt is gorgeous. He must know what he's talking about." Honestly, I don't think Brad Pitt is gorgeous. He has a pig nose and he always looks dirty. Now if he had gone on there to say that, "My little cousin Jeffy has juvenile diabetes and he and millions of other people are going to die unless we find a cure. That's why I want people to vote yes on Proposition 71." But he didn't say anything like that. He didn't give a reason why he's there...which I think is important. Because without a reason, you're just a paid actor there to lure people into doing something.

That's why I really hate this whole "Rock the Vote"/"MTV Choose or Lose" campaign. Not only because my shows get periodically interrupted by P. Diddy telling me to "Vote or Die", but because it's hard to believe that a celebrity (unless they are a really well-spoken and intelligent celebrity, like Al Franken) knows about and understands the issues well enough to tell people what to do. I have a sick feeling that most celebrities are liberal and that they've decided to gang up together to try and vote Bush out of office. Because they know the power of persuasion, the power of a dumb 18-35 year old who doesn't know or care about the issues but really loves Drew Barrymore. And if she says go vote, then they'll go vote. And if she happens to slip out that she's voting for Kerry, then her lemmings will vote Kerry.

I think it's a great idea to try to get more people to vote, but not this way. There's got to be a more unbiased way of presenting the real issues so people can truly go out and vote for what they want, not what someone tells them they want.

Anyways, does it really matter WHO's the president? There's still a government, there's still checks and balances, there's still congressional sessions....can one man really make that much of a difference? I can't tell the difference. But maybe I'm just ignorant. Or apathetic. Or stupid. But at least I'm not fugly like Brad Pitt.

A signal would be nice

People don't use their signals anymore. It's not really for you, it's for the people around you. And I guess it makes sense because most people nowadays don't care about the people around them, they only care about themselves. They think they're the only ones in the world that matter.

I was driving down the ghetto street I live on, which is one lane in each direction (but doesn't stop idiots from parking in the street and blocking half of one lane), and I see a car stopped in front of me in the middle of the road and another pulling out of a driveway, looking as if he's making a u-turn. I stopped to let him go. But he pulls up behind the first car and gets out. Then a third car starts pulling out of another driveway in between the two cars. Of course I waited, because I had no idea what was going down, if they were all going to peel out together like a gang of shriners in their little cars or something. But of course they didn't, just stayed there in the middle of the road. The guy that got out of his car, no signal, no acknowledgment that there were people waiting to use the road behind him, the least he could have done was to wave us by or have HAZARD LIGHTS on to show that he was going to temporarily park in the middle of the road. But these jerks just thought they owned the road, that the part of the road in front of the piece of crap house they were renting was considered theirs. How inconsiderate. But very typical of the way most people are.

I wouldn't be making such a big deal about this stupid thing (actually, I make a big deal about everything :-P) if those people had just had the courtesy to use some sort of signaling device. It's built into cars nowadays you know! You're not the only person in this world.

Movie reviews, by me

Mean Girls
I expected a lot from this movie because I kept hearing about how great it was because Tina Fey from SNL wrote the screenplay and how it was based on her life. I guess I heard wrong, because the movie beginning credits said that it was "Based on the book by...." I know that writing the screenplay is different than making up the actual plot of the movie, but it's very misleading. She's not a very good writer/actor anyway, as evidenced by her lame performances on SNL (which I don't really watch anymore because it sucks anyway...am I the only one in the world that thinks so?). I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that the movie totally sucked.

Now that I think about it, the movie was exactly like "Never Been Kissed", which I'm embarrassed to say I've watched....uh...more than once. There's a popular crowd, a new girl that comes to school, nerds that befriend the new girl, then the popular crowd starts wanting the new girl, the nerds get tossed to the curb, the whole thing culminates in a scary prom situation where the new girl reveals all. Ok, so there are no new plotlines. "Carrie" has something similar too, right? Except all the popular people die.

I guess the whole point of these movies is that you have to just be who you are and forget about trying to be popular. If you fit in with the nerds, so be it. If the popular kids are mean to you, be the bigger person and shrug it off. Very adult commentary for movies speaking to kids. You can't expect kids to be adult-like and just shrug things off. Even adults can't shrug things off. I want to see bad stuff happening to the bad people. That happens on action movies, why can't it happen in teenage movies? Doesn't have to be violent bad stuff, but if someone is bad in a movie, I expect them to pay. And ok, so the popular girl in Mean Girls gets hit by a bus, but people just feel sorry for her afterwards and want to be like her even more. That's not realistic. I'm not expecting movies to be realistic, but at least make it satisfying!

Don't waste any money renting this movie. Wait til it comes out on tv or something. And in the meantime, I'm going to start writing my own original sad high school screenplay.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Sometimes characters in a movie are so well-acted and well-scripted that you don't need to be told in the movie how the character is, you just know. That's the difference between a good movie (this one) and a bad one (like the previous one, where the constant voiceover tells you exactly what the person is thinking and describes what she's seeing in other people, instead of having the actors themselves show you).

At some point near the end of this movie I started to feel really sad. Because even though you might butt heads with someone, you can still love them. And the good memories are what you should keep, even if you break up. I can't think of anything else to say about this movie, except go see it!

Look at me, everyone! Hello.....pay attention to me!

The other day we had a big meeting at work, everyone was supposed to be there to talk about what they're working on. Of course more talkative people went on and on about their projects in great detail, while others just gave the bare bones high level review.

At some point in the meeting, someone brought up a reminder about having to do something. Which triggered me into this out of control rant about how it's so stupid to have to do it and how it's so unimportant anyway. And some people were laughing and agreeing, others were like, "Well, it's because of ", and then one guy goes, "WHY ARE WE SPENDING SO MUCH TIME ON THIS?!?!?!"

"OK, I'm DONE, ok? I'm DONE!" I finally said. Sheesh!

I admit I was ranting just for the heck of it. I didn't mean for anyone to change their opinions or what they do based on what I was saying. And I knew I was probably wasting peoples' precious time, which they would have used to chat with their friends and surf the web and write in their blogs anyway. But I didn't like that guy's attitude about the whole thing.

I felt like he just didn't like it because someone else had everyone's attention and it wasn't him. Sometimes people need to be in the spotlight all the time. Sounds to me like someone who was overly breast fed.

The Surreal Life: Lessons Learned

I thought I posted something about The Surreal Life a while back but I guess I didn't. Anyways...

You can learn a lot from tv. I don't know what people are talking about when they say tv ruins your brain and makes you not think. Because it really makes me think. Especially reality shows. Mostly because I don't want to end up like the weirdos on them.

The Surreal Life is a wacky reality show featuring washed up celebs that need to make money somehow so they signed up to be on this show where they have to live with like 5 other washed up celebs in a house and do stuff together. It really is a learning experience for all of them though. More than any other show I think these people actually learn stuff about themselves and about other people. And I get to learn what kind of person I don't want to be from watching them.

Vanilla Ice was on last season, and he had this thing about how he wanted to put the whole Vanilla Ice thing behind him because he's a different person now and he wants people to get to know that person, not the rapper dude. In one episode, Gary Coleman (Arnold from Diff'rent Strokes) guest stars as their boss at a diner they had to work at. All of a sudden, the guy that played Willis on Diff'rent Strokes walks in to the diner and sits down. Then Vanilla Ice jumps out and grabs Gary Coleman and takes him over to Willis' table and says, "DUDE! Just say it! Say, 'Whatchu talkin bout, Willis?'! Everyone wants you to!" and Gary Coleman throws a huge fit and storms out. He yells about how that was his past and how he doesn't do that anymore, and the whole time Gary Coleman is yelling, Vanilla Ice is yelling back, telling him, "It's not a big deal, just say it! Everyone loves it!" This coming from the dude who was yelling at people for calling him Vanilla Ice.

So the moral of the story? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Don't treat people in a way you wouldn't want to be treated. Especially if you're both suffering from the same psychoses.

This season of The Surreal Life features mostly old music stars, and one of their tasks is to write and produce a song together. Ryan Starr (that freaky-upper-lip midriff-bearing chick from the first American Idol) was crying and bitching that she didn't want to sing the stupid song because she was going to sound like an idiot and people were going to think she was a sellout because she was singing a pop song. "It's like American Idol all over again!" she whines. "I'm not a pop singer! I'm all about rock! That's who I am, I'm rock!"

The moral of this story? Know thyself. What is pop, really? How is pop singing different from rock singing? Shouldn't she play guitar or drums if she's rock? Would a true rock chick go on American Idol in the first place? A true rock chick would have her own garage band and go on college tours and be discovered without having to sellout and go on a stupid tv show to get a record deal. Face it, "Tiffany" (that's her real name), you ARE a sellout. You just haven't figured out when it happened.

If you're distracted because of something else, don't come to work

I was on the tennis team in high school. I really sucked but I think I just got on the team because my two sisters were on the team. My freshman year, I was one of three freshman who got on the team. Naturally, a lot of people were pissed. Mostly people I knew. People that I thought were my friends. But they were pissed that I got on the team and they didn't. They hated me for it. So what they all did was take tennis lessons over the summer. The next year, they all got on the team of course.

One day at practice, the coach made people do "challenge matches" to determine the rankings. For some reason I was pissed because I either had to get challenged or I didn't get a chance to challenge someone. Either way, I was a moody teenager that only wanted to be heard. That day however, was the day that the coach's mom was undergoing kidney stone removal. It was a dark day I guess. He was noticeably upset, and I'm not sure if his being upset made other people upset, but I got upset too and I found myself arguing with the coach or something. The details are all pretty foggy. But the point is is that when people have something going on in their personal lives, they really can't separate that from what's actually going on at that moment.

Like when you're at work and you know in the back of your mind something's happening at home, you can't be the same at work. And if people know that something's going on with you, they feel weird about the whole thing. I knew the coach had something bad going on personally, yet I pushed him over the edge. Are you supposed to treat people differently? Are you supposed to treat someone softly even though they are being jerky because of their personal situation? I think if you have something going on at home that it keeping you from performing at work, you should just stay home. No one wants to feel like they have to treat you special especially if you act like a jerk.

Maybe I'm just a jerk because I tend to kick people when they're down, but oh well.

Stupify Me

I watched "Super Size Me" the other day. It really did its job to make me feel bad about what I eat. I don't eat McDonald's very often, at most twice a month, but I felt like I was bad for eating it that much and that I should never eat there again. Not just because fast food is really bad for you, but because buying fast food would just support the evil corporations that lure you into eating their food just so they can make money before slowly killing you.

The guy in the movie got really sick after eating MickeyD's three times a day for 30 days. On the third day, he was eating a double cheeseburger and super size fries when he leaned out his car and threw it all up. He talked about how sick he felt and how he was already starting to get chest pains, which I think were completely overdramatized and probably psychosomatic. Besides, the guy was probably a vegan anyway since his girlfriend was one. If you never eat meat and all of a sudden you start eating meat, of course you're going to have problems. And don't tell me he lives with his vegan girlfriend who is a vegan chef but he's not vegan himself. She seemed like one of those vegan types that just preaches to people all the time about how eating meat is so bad for you and how everyone should eat like her. I don't know, but she looked pretty pale and sickly to me. Probably because all she eats is vegetables. She's probably constipated all the time too.

The movie also talks about when personal responsibility ends and corporate responsibility begins. People are always looking to blame anyone besides themselves for bad things that happen. People dying of lung cancer blame cigarette companies for not going to their house and telling them to their face that cigarettes are bad for their health. People who are fat want to blame fast food companies for not having warning signs all over the place telling them that fast food makes them fat. I believe in personal responsibility for everything. What is wrong with people? Corporations are always going to do what they can to make money, and it's their right to do so. But people have TOTAL CONTROL over their own lives, what they eat, what they drink, whether they smoke or not. Total control.

On a side note, there was also a guy on there whose title was "Artistic Genius". I don't know if he asked to be given that title or if the filmmaker labeled him as such, but I really don't consider a genius to be someone who copies real geniuses' work (the painting he showed had Van Gogh's Starry Night in the background). Some genius. People are stupid.

Anyways, the movie didn't stop me from eating McDonald's. I actually had a bacon egg and cheese biscuit this morning. So, that probably cut a couple of days off of my life, big whoop. But it was darn good.