ew, tweens.

oh hello my abandoned blog. it's been far too long. i really don't have a reason for my absence other than being busy with life, which has been pretty monotonous. therefore, i didn't have an urge to blog about anything until a few days ago.

i realized, i really really dislike tween girls. a part of it is that i am jealous that they have such cool clothes, when i was nine, it was all about windbreaker suits and oversized sweatshirts with leggings from limited too.  now it's all about mini adult clothes with funky colors and patterns. ( i have been looking at crewcuts a little too much lately). however, the source of my disdain for tween girls, is because they are a bunch of little bitches. mean girls has moved from high school to the third grade.

this all stems from an encounter i had with a girls soccer team. i was grabbing lunch with my mom and aunt when a herd of girls came in. they all crammed into a booth while the parents grabbed orders. when the parents at their tables, i noticed one girl in glasses sitting alone in the corner. if i noticed, then surely the parents noticed. but did they do anything, no. it wasn't this girl's choice to sit by herself, i watched her as she watched the giggling girls wait for their food. she got up, only to move to a table with her little brothers. she sat there playing with her straw and hawaiian punch, totally ignored. i felt my eyes well up and i had to stop looking. my heart just broke for the little girl.

i don't know why it happens or how it happens, but girls get to an age where they just become huge bitches. they are mean and heartless. not all girls become this way and they all don't stay that way. but it happens, nonetheless.

here however, is one fierce tween that i can tolerate:

kids these days

i honestly don't know what is up with the youth these days. you'd think with all the teen magazines and television shows, they'd pick up a thing or two about presentation. i thought people were upset because teen girls are trying to look older too soon: wearing too much make up, dying their hair, etc., etc. yet, all i have been seeing is sloppiness.  i'm not saying i leave the house looking immaculate everyday, i live for my days off where i can just wear a jeans, a hoodie and slip ons. however, if i'm going to go into a store, any store, but particularly, a store that sells jeans over $100, italian cashmere, and t-shirts over $30, looking for a job, i would not roll in with ratty wet hair, basketball shorts, flip-flops, and a high school gym t-shirt to ask: "um, hi, are you hiring?" while twirling my hair on my finger. (sorry for that run-on sentence.) um, hello, seventeen magazine, don't you have articles about how to present yourself in public. this poor girl isn't going to land a job at wal-mart, let alone any store in a mall. kids these days need to realize the importance of making an impression. they are dubbing them/us, the lazy generation for a reason. you don't have to wear expensive clothes to look good, you just need to look like you put in some effort, not that just rolled out of bed.smh.

smh=shaking my head.

the return of the greatest show of my generation

i like to think that the premiere of mad men and the premiere of jersey shore occurring in the same week, was an act of kindness by the tv programming honchos. on sundays i can pretend to be intellectual as i continue to watch a show that i like but can't muster the strength to get too excited about. where as on thursdays, i can watch the greatest show of my generation-jersey shore.

i was a bit worried that the show would fall into a sophomore slump, especially because it is set in miami but then i remembered snooki- my dear chilean princess, she can do no wrong. i for one am glad to see she has embraced faux-tanning. well, she was sorta forced...by obama. "McCain would never put a tax on tanning. Because he is pale and would want to tan. Obama doesn't have that problem. Obviously."  lol (lol=laughing out loud) oh the irony, it's safe to assume snooki is unaware that mccain had skin cancer. but  i seriously love snooki and her consistently spot on commentary, such as farmer john who "fucks his sister for a living", washing clothes in a sink "like a pilgrim in the 20s"  and of course trashbags aka angelina aka duchess of darkness aka "white rat". 


speaking of trashbags, who the hell invited trashbags?! (and don't say the genius producers to start some drama) i can stand trashbags no matter how much hilarity will ensue because of her. she's a low budget bitch who does not deserve to be in the presence of the princess & classiness that is JWWOW! and rooming with pauly-d & the situation, she is truly darksided and doesn't like people having fun. i really hope she is gone once snooki kicks her ass, which i hope soon!


i also can't stand this sammi/ronnie drama. i know it's going to be the dark cloud looming over the show after that darker cloud trashbags is gone. i really could care less if ronnie and sammi get married and have 10 kids, i just find the whole plot point to be kinda boring. the only thing that makes them tolerable is the stellar commentary from the other guys: pauly d, situation, and vinny. grenades and landmines will become part of my daily vocabulary. however, guys, i also know that pretty much all of them hooked up with that landmine trashbags, i thought they had standards. 


all and all this wasn't the most exciting episode but it did create excitement for the fights to come: the super team of snooki and jwwow fighting trashbags and sammi, the situation dodging landmines and grenades, and hopefully trashbags walk of shame back to jersey. (i really hate that famewhore)

the mecca for immigrants

A few weeks ago, I heard a racially insensitive joke about Asians. It was something along the lines of, the first thing Asians get when the come to America is a drivers license (umm, rude). However, I do think there is something immigrants from all countries get when they arrive to the United States...a membership to Costco.

Everyone loves Costco, but for people recently off the boat, it is like the holy grail of America, anything you could ever want, Costco almost always has it, from plasma tvs and portioned salmon flanks, designer purses and Dom Perignon.  Every Saturday and Sunday, Costco is filled with people of every race, nationality, and religion. They fill their carts up with giant packs of paper towels and giant bottles of olive oil. They diligently inspect the  green mangoes and ripe plums, mixing and matching from different containers to get the perfect dozen. They push and shove to get the first of the hot frozen pizza samples. They buy bulk items in bulk and don't hesitate to drop loads of cash on loads of mayonnaise.

I write from experience. While he isn't the most aggressive shopper, nothing brings out the FOB in my dad like Costco. He is constantly looking for excuses to go there, looking for things to buy. My dad in Costco is like a kid in a candy shop but worse, because he has a shopping cart. When he gets there, he looses track of time, he looses his ability to speak English clearly, and he looses his sense of reality in what we need and what we don't need.  If my dad goes alone, which he does more than he should, he will come home with non-essentials like Kimchi or a Power Washer, all in the name of a good deal. The only thing worse than my dad going to Costco alone is my yia-yah going there. I remember spending an agonizing four hours with her there as she stocked up on toliet paper, olive oil, and rubbing alcohol.

Why do immigrants love Costco more than anyone else? Is it the savings of buying in bulk? Selections they aren't used to having? The opportunity to experience the American way of living in excess?  It's all that and more. It's the space to roam freely and speak in one's native tongue with less eye rolls than the local supermarket. It's the opportunity to find almost anything you could imagine and things you couldn't even imagine. The freedom to buy whatever and however much you want. The ability to provide for your family in ways you didn't think existed.  A place where everything comes full circle, buy things for your newborn, your teenager, your newlywed, your retirement, and your funeral. Costco is like America, land of opportunity, upholding freedom of choice.

world cup fever!

i don't know a lot about soccer. everything i know, i learned from bend it like beckham. but what i do know, is i love the world cup! well, i actually really love major sporting events: the olympics, the world cup, the world series, stanley cup finals, i'm even watching the nba finals (and i know even less about basketball). when i can't watch the game, i am consistently checking my phone for updates. i even woke up early this morning just to watch a game. but why? why would i wake up  to watch a game i don't fully understand? the world cup doesn't frequently come up in my conversations, so i don't need it to be relevant. i think it's because i love sports and what sports can do. the world cup not only brings together people from all over the world but it is able to unite countries despite any internal turmoil. my love for the cup has less to do with soccer and more to do with rooting for the underdog, the potential feel-good sports story...and rooting for USA.

the end of an era

today i had to say goodbye to a part of my childhood. my cherished aim screen-name. even though i haven't used it in years, i never planned on ever deleting it.unfortunately a  spam hacker took over and started spamming the world and my address book (sorry yall). i will cherish my aim memories such as bsb chatrooms and 6th grade chats where i first discovered learned about PEN15.  i will never forget that one time when my class's foreign exchange student asked me to the school dance but i read it too late. i'll miss those seventeen magazine emails i used to get and that missy elliot chime. bye bye hockeyprincess. bye bye.

PSA: Never shop at ULTA in fairlakes!

It really takes a lot to to make my blood really boil. I have had some pretty annoying shopping experiences but nothing bad enough to warrant a complaint email. Unfortunately, on this splendid Mother's Day, this has changed.

First of all, as someone who studied retail and consumer behavior at Wharton, the top business school in the country, I learned that negative consumer experiences can turn a person off from a company for life! They will tell more people about a negative shopping experience than a positive. And it is more expensive to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. As someone who has worked in retail, in both beauty and fashion, I have been trained to NEVER yell at a customer, no matter what the situation is.

So, today, my mother and I went to Ulta to do some shopping. I was looking to pick up some Smashbox primer and a nude nail polish and she was looking for a Bare Esentuals kit she saw in our Ulta flyer. After one sales associate helped us find the kit my mother was looking for, we went to look for nail polishes. I thought I found the perfect one by Essie so I tried it. That's when this little blonde comes up to me and instead of politely informing me of their "do not try" policy, berates me!  She yelled: MA'AM YOU CAN NOT TRY OUR NAIL POLISHES BECAUSE OF HYGIENE NOW YOU HAVE TO BUY IT! I replied, Excuse me, that is not posted anywhere. I was completely taken aback by how absolutely rude she was to me and the fact that she was not yelling at the other woman looking at the OPI nail-polishes a yard and a half away. She continues to accost me by saying: I CAN'T POST SIGNS YOU HAVE TO TEST COLORS ON THE PAPER. I replied, What papers? There were not any papers in sight. She proceeds to go into the cash-wrap and aggressively hand me a paper to test it on but says YOU HAVE TO BUY IT! My mom, fed up, said: You can not just talk to my daughter like that. I want to talk to your manager. She says: I AM THE MANAGER! That's when my mom starts to get into it with her and I just think, oh who is this bitch?!

I don't know if it's in Ulta's training manual to just automatically accost customers when they make a mistake. The matter of the fact is, if she had pointed out the policy to me in a polite manner I would have been fine. I would have even purchased said nail polish. But no, this bitchy manager decided that she would try and bully the ethnic girl. I never cry racism but I did not see her go after anyone else in that nail section and I know they weren't trying polish on any paper either.

We did not buy anything today from Ulta. Instead we went to Sephora in FairOaks where the customer service was excellent and there were testers to use. After years and hundreds of dollars, we will never return to that Ulta store again! Whether we will boycott the entire company, is yet to be determined. But I would never treat a customer the way I was treated and will not shop at an establishment that treats me with such disregard.

 oh hell no,ULTA

things i like

today i decided to share a few things i am currently obsessed with (besides interior decorating). some are new obsessions, while others have become staples in my life.

1. hot rollers
i have hot rollers/curlers in my hair as we speak. a few weeks ago i discovered these underneath the sink. i have vivid memories of my mom putting in her hot rollers as she got ready for work in the morning. i decided to give them a shot. i found it tricky to get them to stay put and there really weren't enough for my thick hair. thankfully, then end result was still so frickin fabulous. volume without being too curly. i will definitely be using hot rollers instead of the flat iron for a while.

2. blazers
so my blazer obsession started off around senior year of high school but it wasn't until late last year that i actually started wearing them. i have black blazers, boyfriend blazers, accidental knock-off blazers (you fooled me ebay), sequins blazers, and a white blazer. it's funny how my favorite ones tend to be the cheapest ones. aka my amazing $7 blue sequins blazer. i seriously could wear a blazer everyday. ironically, i'm not a big fan of suits.

3. vintage fyre boots
i have been on mad quest to find a new pair of vintage frye boots. i'm constantly being outbid on ebay. i run into every consignment shop i see, but alas, no luck. i wonder what i will find first, a sensible boyfriend or a sensible pair of vintage frye boots in a size 9.



4. robyn (fembot)

some of yall must remember robyn from the 90s. she had hits like "show me love" and "always be around". she still makes music, amazing music. she recently released her new single fembot and i have already played it at least 40 times since downloading it on its release day. how can you not love a song who's lyrics include:

"I got an inter access code upon the back of ma neck
Initiating slut mode of space cadets and dexters
A calculator in my pocket, got you all in check" 

she's uber talented and uber adorable when she dances. i almost want to bleach my hair and crop it into a cute pixie, but pamela would kill me...no really, she will flip a shit.

oh hi blogspot

so, i really dropped the ball on blogging. this month i have been really busy unleashing my inner martha stewart. i redid one of our bathrooms: stripped the wallpaper, primed  and sanded the walls, painted, bought new curtains and accessories. it was so much fun, i decided i wanted to redo more rooms. next up was my brother's room, well, i'm still working on my brother's room. you see my brother and father decided to paint his room forrest green! it has been awful, each wall takes a minimum of 3 coats of primer and i can still see that freaky green trying to poke through. i have one wall left and dwindling motivation.

i've also been busy because i got a part time retail job to add to my unpaid non-prof work, my random editing assignments, and job as president of the babysitter's club. i actually enjoy working retail, i find folding shirts therapeutic (i'm not being sarcastic), and the discount is great. however, to my readers, please think twice before trying on all the clothes in a store, not buying anything, and leaving your fitting room a disastah!

speaking of disastahs, christina aguilera's new music video.... as MK from dlisted eloquently put it:

xxxtina's ho shit extravaganza  

i don't know who was the low budge bitch who came up with the concept for this video, but whomever they may be, all they did was watch some old madonna, britney, gaga, beyonce videos and decide to add a bit more of skankiness. christina  is too talented to be such a try hard. the video just reeks of desperation. 

that's all for now. formspring me with suggestions of blog topics or whatever.

i also hate...

the font: cosmic sans
(yes, i believe this warranted its own post)

things i hate

in spirit of itskingsleybitch's video things i hate (which i 100% agree with him on all of his pet peeves) i have decided to post a list of some of the things i hate.


in no particular order:

- i hate eggs, sunnyside up, scrambled, eggs benedict, omlets, hard-boiled, i hate them

 -i hate it when people say, "i'm going to call you (insert lame nickname)" we aren't friends, why are you already giving me a nickname? are you that lazy?

-i hate when you are walking down the street and you look at a guy and his girlfriend  immediately starts grabbing him like i'm about to run up and steal him, i was probably looking at whatever ugly ass shirt you bought him at kmart

-i hate kmart. (but i love target )

-i hate it when people go to karaoke and sing like they are going to their american idol audition, this isn't open mic night, no one goes to karaoke to listen to "good" singing.

-i hate it when people date someone who looks like they could be their father/mother/aunt/uncle, either you need to make yourself look older or he/she needs to get some botox b/c it irks me out and makes me want to call chris hansen fast.

-i hate having to fight with automated messages, i am convinced there are real people just sitting, laughing, listening to us fight with computer generated voices.

JTT=still MIA

taking a break from my new hobby, interior decorating, i was browsing some blogs when i came across "90's Teen Idols-Where Are They Now?" my heart skipped a beat with the thought of finally discovering where in the world is johnathan taylor thomas! the euphoria lasted about 10 seconds till i read their summary, which stated:

 

thanks for nothing:" where are they now?"

"Ryan Cabrera, is that you??? No, honestly, it's too bad that JTT hit his peak at such a young age. Since his teen years, he's appeared on shows like “Smallville,” “8 Simple Rules” and “Veronica Mars," but nothing recently. He also attended Columbia in NYC. And then there were also those gay rumors, which have still yet to be confirmed."

this is pretty much what i wrote about a few weeks ago. this is truly a case for the FBI.

the best parts of the oscars

i don't think i've ever missed the oscars. when i was little, i would fight with my parents to let me stay up until the end; back in the day, the 90's, the show would go till almost 1 am. i have vivid memories of watching billy crystal doing film parodies and whoopi flying over the audience. this year, i was extra excited for the oscars because steve martin and alec baldwin were going to be the hosts; they have great chemistry and i am a fan of the both of them. i used to watch father of the bride every single day when i was 4 years old. thankfully, i was not let down, they were hilarious. the show was a bit wonky, you could tell they were testing some ideas out. ideas that were borrowed from the miss america pageant and should never be repeated again. there was some awkward directing cuts and an overabundance of lamps. and now it seems that every stage crasher will be "pulling a kanye". all and all, the show was entertaining, even if the outcomes were predictable. here are some of my favorite moments. 

 

 oh i didn't notice you back there.

1. hooray for katherine bigelow becoming the first woman to win the oscar for best director! she truly deserved it. the hurt locker was one of the most intense/captivating movies i have seen in a while. i feel like taking it back to 1996 and saying: GIRL POWER! 

2. ok, this wasn't part of the actual oscars but...christoph waltz...i smell an emmy! i've watched this more than four times and i laugh every time. i don't know how funny it is to people who haven't seen the original. i am so glad to see he has a great sense of humor, i am definitely a big fan. another well-deserved oscar, his performance was mind-blowing. even my dad and brother thought he deserved it, and they are the harshest critics with the most awful taste in movies. 

oh gurllll!

3. oh samuel l. jackson. i still don't have the proper words to describe this picture. all i know is when i saw this face, i laughed for a good 5 minutes. but i can't make fun, i know that if i were there, i'd have a hard time controlling my stank face too. 

bi-racial, mixed, mulatto...are you offended yet?

i thought i was done with race posts, but i saw this post on ontd and couldn't resist. actress paula patton recently said:

"I find [the term biracial] offensive. It’s a way for people to separate themselves from African-Americans….a way of saying ‘I’m better than that’. I’m black because that’s the way the world sees me. People aren’t calling Barack Obama biracial. Most people think there’s a black president."

 oh goodness. where do i begin?

-i'll start off with saying, i understand where she is coming from. i know many half-black, half-white individuals who solely identify as black. sometimes it is  because that is how they appear to the "rest of the world" or they are blatantly told to identify as just black. sometimes it's a cultural identification. but, for one reason or another they only identify as black. it's a choice, not a choice that i would make, but i don't judge the people who do.

-not all blacks are african-americans. they are jamaican, haitian, panamanian, dominican, cuban, the list goes on. (sorry, i'm feeling snarky)

-the word biracial is not exclusive to half white, half african-americans. it applies to millions of people of all different mixes.how are they supposed to identify without using such an "offensive" term?
-deeming the word biracial offensive because of a few stuck-up, bourgeois mixed girls is hardly fair. when most people identify as biracial, they are embracing their mixed heritage, not using it as a tool of separation from one community or another. being biracial is not always simple, in fact, i could argue that identifying as one race is a lot easier. 

i just hope that in a country that is finally allowing to check more than one box, people will feel comfortable enough to do so.

it's girlscout cookie time

they ran out of thin mints & samoas!
why do the other cookies even exist?

paging veronica mars

the olympics last night were not as exciting as they had been night's before. therefore, i decided i should go to bed a bit earlier than usual. i laid in bed silently for what felt like hours. something was plaguing me. i couldn't figure it out. my bills were paid, my documents were saved, what was it? i turned my laptop back on, but nothing. then, like divine intervention, a name popped in my head.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas

 if you have recently seen/heard of this young man please contact bonnquisha.

what happened to JTT!?

long before zac efron and robert pattinson, there was jonathan taylor thomas aka JTT. he was the dreamy middle child on home improvement, tom sawyer, the voice of young simba. he was on the cover of teen beat and on the walls of young girl's and probably some boy's bedrooms across the country. (but not on mine, pamela wouldn't let me)

few people know about my torrid love affair with for JTT. circa 1995-1996, i was in love with JTT. it was beyond a crush, i cried when my friends mike and josh stole and drew devil horns and a mustache on a pocket size picture of the cast of home improvement that i used to carry with me. i cried when i heard the rumor that he was dating topanga. i even tried to convince my mom we should move to miami when my aunts teased me that he moved down there. it may have been one-sided, but it was totally love. however, it all ended when i discovered that he wasn't the singing voice of young simba in the lion king. i felt cheated, i felt betrayed.

so, fast forward to 2010 and there i was, thinking about what happened to my tween love. i began searching on google and imdb. all of a sudden, it's 1:30 am, i'm drinking a low budget hot toddy (hot lemonade & scotch), desperately trying to piece together where JTT is. sadly, after suspicious looking articles and posts dated 2007, i gave up. i determined this is a case for professionals, specifically veronica mars, which was one of his last imdb credits. 

i did stumble upon these rumors: 

-he  graduated from columbia with a ba in 2009

-he  lives in canada with his girlfriend

-he  is trying for a comeback

-he  is gay

the only thing that can be confirmed is that he is still under 5'6' and will always be the first love of my life. 

nothing is immune to obesity

obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the united states. NO ONE is immune. not even snowmen.

 

my neighbor made the snowman, not me. 

  

he is so fat he can't wear pants.

snowman obesity has reached pandemic levels in the washington, dc area. every snowstorm the snowmen get fatter and fatter. a cure is not expected for a few more days. if your snowman or snow-woman is obese, encourage it to melt away with hot water and blow dryers.

halfblacktina in a check one world

well, it's black history month and in the midst of debates about its importance and relevance, i came across some bloggers discussing the inclusion of afrolatinos, latinegros, or blacktinos in black history month. this reminded me that i am way overdue writing about my own racial identity. as i noted in the previous post, i don't really have a goal with this other than writing this out for myself or anyone who is curious. back in september i wrote about being half-white. when filling out forms that allow me to check more than one box, i will check the white box, but i don't really identify as a white person. i have tried but for a multitude of reasons, it is not a part of my identity.

so, now it's time to write about being half-blacktina.

a reason why i never had a problem embracing my latin side was because of my schooling. this is ironic since it's one of the main reasons i distanced myself from any sort of white identity. it was a combination of my forms already being bubbled in as hispanic/latino and being ridiculed by some  peers at a young age.

if you've read my blog, you know that my mother is a huge influence in my life. when i was little, people would call me "pamelita". some of my earliest memories are of all the time i spent running around the newsroom, listening to people get into arguments in spanish, rearranging the news articles on the board, and being told that fidel castro is an evil bastard. i was constantly surrounded by latinos and latin culture.  so it's only natural that i gravitated more towards my latin side. even with my inability to speak spanish, i never felt rejected by latinos. 

but my mom isn't just a latina, she's a blacktina. now, not all blacktinos consider themselves black. it really depends on their environment and family. the majority of my mom's brothers and sisters do not consider themselves black. despite having married the blackest man she could find, my grandmother constantly told my mom she was too dark. i don't blame my abuela, there is still underlying racism within the latino community.

however, pamela grew up with her panamanian grandmother and her jamaican grandfather in panama and brooklyn. she went through bed-sty to go to school and her childhood best friends were jamaican. her upbringing allowed her to identify as a blacktina woman rather than just latina. now, you may think, is there really a difference? not always, but since my mom was a journalist when i was younger, she worked for stations that were geared towards either latinos or blacks. she has no qualms with being considered a black woman and therefore neither do i.

while i appear more ethnically ambiguous than anything, i have always felt more comfortable discussing my afrolatina/blacktina roots.  this may have been confusing for some, it wasn't always so clear for me. but, after 22 years, i have figured out who i am in regards to being a multi-racial/multi-cultural female. i have a racial and ethnic identity i fully accept and embrace and i am finally able to check more than one box on official forms.


that's all for now. 

 

the inefficient detective, age 4. if you've never met her she looks EXACTLY the same.  

 

face face face give me face beauty face

in case you've never read my profile info...i LOVE drag queens.

i remember the first time i discovered what a drag queen was when watching to wong foo, thanks for everything, julie newmar. i was still a kid, so i didn't fully understand it but i knew they were fabulous. since then i have seen pretty much every mainstream movie about drag queens. however, it wasn't until i watched paris is burning during my junior year in college that i really appreciated the art form behind it. in summary, paris is burning is a documentary about the ball culture  in new york city in the late 1980s. this is where walk-offs and voguing really started off. the film showed me that it takes more than a wig and some heels to make a drag queen. it really is an art form. i am always transfixed watching the transformations from man to queen. it requires talent (as well as uniqueness, nerve, charisma...thanks rupaul) to become these larger than life personas. i do find it a bit odd when people (including some themselves) refer to drag queens as female impersonators. i mean, maybe i don't get out enough, but i have never met a woman quite like a drag queen.

i am so happy i can get my weekly fix now that rupaul's drag race has started up again. i officially got the inefficient detective hooked. now every monday i will rejoice as two queens LIPSYNCH FOR THEIR LIFE!

and in the words of rupaul: "Remember, if you can't love yourself, how'n the hell you goin' love somebody else? Can I get an Amen up in here?"

words of wisdom from the genius tommy wiseau

hey yall (or as my brother loves to correct me, you all)
i have nothing to blog about so here are some words of wisdom from one of the most "infamous" filmmakers of our generation. name: tommy wiseau, age: unknown, origin: supposedly new orleans, grasp of the english language: better than both my grandmothers, I.Q.: infinity

"Think about first 20 percent, then you think about 100 percent. We have a tendency, including myself to say “I’d like to have this 100 percent,” but you cannot have it. Because you have to plan, you see. Let’s say you want to build a house. You need a foundation first before you have a window. You may think about window but guess what? If you don’t have a foundation, I guess you cannot build a house. As simple as it is. Simplicity is a virtue of success and we tend to ah, forget about it."- tommy wiseau

interview with the room's tommy wiseau

team coco for life

as i am sure you have all seen/read/heard conan "coco" o'brien is no longer the host of the tonight show. for those of you who live under a rock or are still depressed because of avatar, here is what happened: after the clusterfuck of "the jay leno show" in primetime, coco quit because nbc wanted to push him to 12:05am in order to give jay leno a half-hour show. he felt that moving the show would damage the institution that is "the tonight show".  the seemingly unfair treatment of the beloved coco struck a chord with millions of young people, many of which don't know a late night tv without conan. as both a coco fan and a communications major, it has been disappointing yet fascinating to witness this all happen. conan's ratings rocketed his last week prompting many critics to say smart ass things like, why weren't you watching the whole time? while i watched this last week, i proudly turned my little brother into a coco fan as well, better late than never. i even found myself crying during his closing monologue and promised to coco and myself to try and be less cynical. i will google what that entails later.

as this whole mess unfolded, at times i felt my despair over the whole situation was a bit irrational. yes, i have been a legit conan fan since high school and i actually watched him host the tonight show before the whole mess, not every night but enough to say i watched, but i still felt (on occasion) that maybe i was too emotionally involved. i found myself thinking, am i really going to not watch 30 rock, the biggest loser, and the olympics over this? (yeah that's pretty much all nbc has to offer me now anyways)

another comedian i like, michael ian black, was sorta able to rationalize the situation on his website, norma rae i say sorta because while, i understand where he is coming from and don't disagree completely, i have to say.... dude,  i am not that upset. i can't speak for anyone else but i am pretty sure people have the capacity to be passionate about more than one issue in the world, be it "frivolous" or not. maybe he is just hating a little because no one  rallied around the cancellation of stella. (loved that show) however, i think he made a few decent points including this one:

We see Conan as a victim because we feel as though, like us, he wasn’t given a fair shot. If a guy like that, a guy who has everything, can be downsized and demoted, what hope do the rest of us have?

i don't really view conan as a symbol for my struggles or someone i can relate to, but rather a reminder that no matter how educated, well-trained, or talented you are, nothing is guaranteed in life, and you can either act like a petulant child about it or you can have integrity and class and keep going.

stay classy coco!

All I ask is one thing -- and I’m asking this particularly of young people -- please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism, for the record, it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.- coco o'brien

always look on the bright side of life...

since watching monty python's life of brian, i have always tried to look on the bright side of life. it's meant to be a bit tongue and cheek, but it's pretty spot on, life really can be a piece of shit.

it's never easy to look on the bright side of things when things are pretty awful. sometimes, you never find it and sometimes it takes a while to figure it out. for example, being unemployed sure sucks but i've been able to build up my portfolio, do some post-adolescent soul searching (blah, blah,blah), and most importantly, be there for my family when they needed me (but seriously, i've been to the hospital more times than i've been to the mall).

when tragedy strikes, it's nearly impossible to see the bright side. last night, i sat alone in the basement, in tears, watching cnn coverage of the earthquake in haiti. it was heartbreaking to watch the destruction and despair, the pictures of missing family members. i thought of my uncle robert, who is haitian, and praying that his family and friends were alive and as safe as they could be. i was beginning to feel that same depression i had felt when watching coverage of the tsunami, 9/11, and hurricane katrina. i knew it was in my best interest to turn the tv off. but then i saw that small glimmer of light, the only bright side to any tragedy...

images from google/my desktop collection

anderson cooper...and his unbelievably tight t-shirts.


i remember the first time really noticing anderson cooper ( i had totally forgotten he hosted the mole), i was in a hotel in milan watching coverage of hurricane katrina. while most journalists were seeking refuge indoors, he was outside braving it all.  last night, seeing the silver fox reporting in his black t-shirt, with his bulging biceps, and shimmering silver hair made me feel a tiny bit better. it doesn't make things any less tragic. yet, watching him provides a bizarre sense of assurance that eventually things will improve, that help is on the way, and that the silver fox is there to make sure it all happens.

for haiti

i urge the five people who read this blog to pray for haiti (or think about it if you don't pray). donate anything you can. even if it's a couple dollars, it's a couple dollars they need. i prefer to go through the most reliable routes since there are darksided people who try and take advantage of people's generosity in times of need:

mercy corps

red cross

i try not to be preachy about donating or anything but haiti is the most impoverished country in the western hemisphere and i have family members from haiti so it's a country that is close to my heart.

xoxo
bonnquisha

i wish you would step off from that ledge...

okay, so despite what may have come across in my avatar post, i have always really liked james cameron's work. sure aliens and terminator scared the crap out of me but they were still awesome; and i appreciate his consistent use of strong female characters. i think i watched true lies a dozen times when i was a kid. i think he has a gift of creating fictional universes that feel so real. he is able to captivate people and move them beyond belief. literally. beyond belief. because according to cnn, people are suicidal now, all because the world of pandora doesn't exist.

"Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in 'Avatar.'

CNN: Audiences Experience 'Avatar' Blues

i know it's only tuesday but...jesus, take the wheel!

this is just ridiculous. i totally understand that people make profound personal connections with movies (its the only way to explain my love for spice world and the room.) but at the end of the day, you have to put on the breaks and remember these are movies. sure you can dissect them and analyze them to find the meanings and metaphors, but they are still movies, moving pictures, pretend, make believe, not real life! i don't even know, this is escapism gone too far. sigh, oh the humanity.

old people just don't give a shit

when people get past a certain age, before it was sixty but with botox and stuff it might have gone up to seventy, they don't give a shit anymore. they say what they want, do what they want, and don't apologize, why?...because they are old!

when my great-grandmother (who i was named after) met my father, she told him if he ever hit my mom, she would beat his ass with a baseball bat and didn't care if they'd send her to jail because she was old. he never did and even though she passed a way, rip, i'm pretty sure she'd still find away to come after him if he ever did.

today my friend sent me this story: man crashes car into restaurant, eats breakfast

basically, a 92 year old man pushed drive instead of park and crashed into a diner, instead of being fazed and concerned about the restaurant or his car, he sat down and ordered breakfast ( i hope it wasn't eggs). sure he asked if anyone was hurt, but he was probably just thinking about some warm fluffy pancakes. why? because he is old and he doesn't give a shit.

the article stated:

"Come out of his car, no problem. He sat down at the table, has his breakfast, and God bless America, beautiful,"

this was beautiful?.....um...huh?...did he sing god bless america? whose quote is this? probably someone who got hit by the car and forgot about it or just a redneck. oh well.

oh james cameron...i see what you did there

if you haven't seen avatar, go see it! it is truly an awesome movie and it deserves every technical award ever made, i don't really know what those are but the movie deserves them. it is nothing like you've ever seen before.

but, like many people i have my grievances with the film. my issues with avatar aren't very unique and have been pointed out by many people. it's not because great minds think alike but rather,  james cameron is as subtle as a hockey puck to the face. (i used hockey b/c he's canadian and i used to play)

for those of you who haven't seen the movie, this is where you stop reading this post. buh-bye.

maybe they'll produce my film: The Last Nigga on Earth starring Tom Hanks how 'bout that?"- paul mooney

anyways, so my problem with avatar began back during the world series when fox would air those five minute trailer/promos for the movie. i said to the inefficient detective, "ah this is some ferngully shit." she replied, "what's a ferngully?" this was the opposite of the problem i posted about a week ago, instead of being tricked by the trailer, i pretty much knew the entire story of the film, beginning, middle, and end. i didn't predict the giant bird but i knew he'd make alien love to the daughter and end up becoming their leader.

it's actually a bit ironic, for something that felt like something i've never seen before, it felt a whole lot  like something i had seen before. that is because avatar is basically  dance with wolves+ fern gully+ a made up language (ala lord of the rings) + the blue man group. you can't really say the movie has environmentalist or anti-imperialism undertones because that would mean they were underlying, which they were not. 

the dialogue was  corny, "i see you" = "i'll never let go", and the characters were exaggerated and one dimensional, such as, villain is villain, hero is hero, except the tree, the tree wasn't just a tree. and similar to titanic,  you know a lot of people are going to die, something epic will be destroyed, and you'll probably feel more for the hundreds of randos that died than any peril for the main characters. (yes i confess, i didn't cry when jack died in titanic, mainly because it didn't make sense, there were lots of scraps he could have held on to and bitch said she'd never let go but she did. i apologize for this rant but i felt this was an appropriate time). and jake and jack, james cameron that's practically the same name!

however, this is all feels like a  moot point, because avatar isn't a movie you go to see for the story. you go for the visuals. and james cameron sure is an effin visionary! plus, society recycles stories over and over, because it's easy and because in a weird way it's comforting. sure avatar had some white guilt, something i would usually go on and on for hours about, but this time  i choose not to for a few reasons but mainly because i am lazy right now and every once and a while i wish i could watch a movie and not think, hmm what would spike lee say about this?

instead, i will just hope that hollywood will be so amazed at the epic-ness of the film that they will never want to create another story like it, ever again. (or for at least 20 years) because i honestly don't even want to know what other kinds of spin someone can put on the white guy saving native people story. they've already done: dif native american tribes, the japanese, fairies, and blue alien people.

EDIT: i came home and found this article: avatar=pocahontas in space...how did i forget about pocahontas? probs bc i only think of the colors of the wind and forgot the story once i found out it wasn't acurate b/c she was like 10 when she met john smith (calling chris hansen)