Whoo... Two posts in a week... Must be really bored then...

In a society where looks are everything, everybody has something to complain about... Being too big, too small... Too fat, too thin... Too tall, too short...

The good thing about this is that there have been campaigns about this, with people fighting against looksism, for magazines and television to start paying attention to the not-so-perfect-aesthetically members of society...

Which is all fine and dandy but then there's those of us that have been left out in all the hassle...

We are the in-betweens... Or the average janes and joes... We're neither too fat nor too thin, neither perfect nor imperfect, neither too all or too shart... We're just... Average...

The worst thing about being average, I would say is that you're pretty much stuck to being in the background... You don't fully fit into any of the black and white categories society has built up for its members to over-simplify things, and to categorise yourself is just way too much trouble because of all the grey areas...

The worst part about being average? You really can't complain about anything or somebody from a category will bite your head off... Case in point...

'I need to lose weight, my pants are getting tighter'
'Yeah, insult me, why don't you? At least you're not FAT.'

'Damnit, I got a C on that test!'
'A C?! What are YOU complaining about, you didn't FAIL did you?'

Being average means you lose all bitching rights which really actually sucks... You're not allowed to complain about anything, even though you've got quirks that you absolutely abhor, just like everybody else...

Then there's the fact that you get totally overlooked, especially if you're trying out for some production or other... You're either not pretty enough or not ugly enough... Not thin enough or not fat enough... Not tall enough or too tall...

The WORST thing about being average is that when you really look into it, nobody really actually fits into a category... Everybody just tries hard to get into one, which just adds to the problem... Nobody's born fitting perfectly into any category, but people work towards those 'perfections' to give themselves some sort of identity... Which really defeats the whole purpose of individuality...

The point is, nobody wants to be ambiguous because they feel that doesn't make them stand out of the crowd enough... But with everybody else trying hard to stand out, maybe in the end it's those of us who embraces our ambiguity that will ultimately be different from everybody else...

Maybe there's something about being average after all... =P

I go through phases of self-loathing sometimes, which I don't really like sharing with the people around me... I suppose that's what blogs are for, eh?

For the past weeks I've been sitting around at home feeling incredibly restless, wanting to do something but unable to do anything so I just end up really frustrated... Then last night I actually did have plans but I couldn't bring myself to actually go out and go through with them...

I'd been having a pretty bad couple of days, the heat was really getting to me I suppose... I've had what feels like a non-stop headache for the longest time...

Oddly, even my mom's been telling me to go out... This from the woman who complained that I went out too much...

Anyway, I was contemplating going out when I started going through one of my bouts of self loathing... You can't really call it pitying myself cos it's not... It's more like my head telling me what a fat, useless cow I've become and another voice trying to stand up for myself but it not working out...

My first initial reaction was to email the girls and tell them what's what, but I figured if I can't convince myself of any self worth what can they do?

Every once in awhile I go through these phases, and while some times I've fairly confident of myself, little things can trigger these thoughts...

Yesterday I think it was the fact that while we were meant to go out (the girls and I) somewhere not too far away from me, because of the fact that they were already somewhere else they decided to make it there... I mean fair enuff they did call to ask whether I minded meeting there instead, but hey, nobody told me they were going there in the first place...

For some reason that made me feel insignificant... Like I wasn't important enough to fit into their initial plans...

Made me contemplate so many things last night it was really a bit scary for awhile...

But now in the jarring light of day everything seems to be all right again... Which convinces me that these things are phases and that this too shall pass...

I haven't felt so lonely in the longest time, which explains why I'm here I suppose... Like a loyal old friend who will never let me down, I've always turned to my blog when I'm feeling down and out...

The phase hasn't fully gone yet I don't think, but I'm forcing myself to go out today, though my first instinct is to hide under the covers and hibernate till next week...

But this too shall pass...

I had a dream the other night... Now this is a big deal to me considering I seldom dream and even when I do it's few and far in between and I rarely if EVER remember any of them...

Now dreams have long been considered the means through which your subconscience relates messages to you, or your heart telling you what it really wants, so when it comes to pass that I remember my dream, I take it seriously...

So imagine my shock and horror when the one dream I've managed to remember vividly was one where I was directing porn in my apartment... =/

My immediate reaction was, naturally, WTF?! But after a cigarette and a cup of tea to calm my shaken nerves I was thinking logically again and realised that vivid though it may have been, dreams don't necessarily have to be literal...

So okay, I decided to look up what it might mean on dream interpretation websites...

My first search on google was a dead end, as the first site I managed to find was of a porn star who was into dream interpretation, and although I was tempted to just email her and ask what's what I ultimately decided against it...

The rest of the search turned up links to books on directing porn, books on interpreting dreams and well a whole bunch of porn...

So I thought I'd just search for dream interpretation sites next...

Oddly enough, none of them seemed to contain references to dreams of porn directing ( you know what I mean, damnit!) but there were two references to pornography...

Pornography

To dream that you are watching pornography, indicates your issues with intimacy, power, control, and effectiveness. You may be having concerns about your won sexual performance. Alternatively, you may be afraid in exposing some aspect of yourself.

To dream that you in a porno film, suggests your desire to be more sexually adventurous. It also implies lust and wish-fulfillment.

Now I wasn't sure how to see this, as I wasn't technically simply watching porn and I wasn't exactly IN it... Kind of a mix of both actually...

I couldn't find any references on directing or filmmaking either, although watching a film apparently means you're trying to analyse yourself or somethng like that...

I DID find an entry under obedience whereupon if people were being obedient towards you that is a sign of good fortune and success in your business... But I don't think that counts...

So okay, now to put it all together...

Hmmm...

From what I can tell it DOES mean that an aspect of myself that I'm afraid of exposing is that I want to direct pornography... =/

As a society dictated by the media, we have been taught that happy endings do exist and that no matter what happens it's never our fault... While this has it's pros, sometimes I feel that the cons far outweigh them...

While I enjoy the anti-hero movie just as much as the next guy, it makes me wonder if that could be part of what is causing the rise in crime rates... While before society has been fed the traditional villain in black hats with a hideous smirk on their faces, today's media criminals are smart and stylish and oh so sexy...

Then there is the portrayal of the government as selfish and greedy and who's only aim in life is to control the people over whom they watch over... Governments are greedy and corrupted and should be rebelled against, not obeyed...

Then there are the cops... The good old police who are not only corruptible, they are also generally portrayed as more or less stupid and incompetent...

The whole thing seems like a bit of a catch 22 to me, to be honest... While I admit that there are governments and police forces that are like that, they do still have an important role in society...

If these movies are a reflection of society as many believe they are, then it's not the people who need the regulating, it's the government... Yet the government is the one who is meant to be guarding the people... Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodios?

Then there's my favourite rant subject of all time... Romance...

Everything's romanticised in movies, most of all relationships... This I blame for the lack of respect, compromise and understanding in most people today...

See in movies, no matter what happens, it's never your fault... As big of a pig as you are, if someone breaks up with you because of it, it's not your fault... It's their fault for not being able to accept you as you are...

In reality, relationships should be all about compromise, and while that doesn't have to mean you changing everything inherent about you for someone else, it means changing certain things to make the person you supposedly love happy... It's meant to be a two way thing after all... You can't possibly have a relationship by yourself...

Selfishness is a given in most films, where the hero/ine is always right and things always work out for the best for them... In real life we see ourselves as the hero/ine and when this doesn't happen, we get disappointed and disillusioned by life...

My conclusion? It isn't life that sucks, it's just how you perceive it...

Yeah, yeah, I don't blog enough... Bite me.

I figure I should open my own advice column... People seem to come to me for advice, regardless of the fact I know shit all about relationships or the fact that I've got bad taste in men... Whatever the case, I'm a great advice giver, even if I do say so myself... =P

So since I'm such a great agony aunt and I love you guys so much, here are some handy tips on how to deal with those agonising few months when you like someone but aren't sure of how to go about it...

Tip #1 : Make Sure He REALLY Likes You.
Don't ever EVER jump the gun... That's just embarrassing for you when at the end of everything he tells you he just 'wants to be friends'...

Tip #2 : Make Sure YOU Really Like HIM.
Ditto, except that it's embarrassing for him when right at the end of everything YOU have to tell him you just 'want to be friends'...

Tip #3 : Be Sober When Making Your Move.
Drunken 'Durrr... D'youwannagomakeout?'s don't count as opening lines to a meaningful relationship.

Tip #4 : Plan What You're Gonna Say.
'Hey, d'you think we could go out sometime?' = good... 'If I could rearrange the dictionary, I'd put U and I together!' = bad...

Tip #5 : Accept Rejection Gracefully.
Things don't always go according to plan, and sometimes even when everything seems to be going right, in the end he's just not that into you... Always prepare for the eventuality of something like this happening...

'Oh well... Friends it is then!' = good... 'But WHY?!' and breaking down into tears before leaving tearful messages on his voicemail every half an hour = bad...

Well then, with handy tips like these, you're bound to get lai... Uh... A meaningful relationship sooner or later... So go forth and prosper!

I went for coffee with friends a few days back and it just occurred to me how hard it is to order coffee nowadays... I mean way back when, coffee was just coffee and ordering it was simple as - 'One coffee please?'... Then a little later the sizes were introduced and you could now choose between a regular or a large... Then there was skim milk as opposed to regular milk... Which was cool since I could still understand what I'm ordering...

Today, to order coffee you need to learn an entire new language, with foreign words like espresso, machiatto and frappes... Instead of saying coffee with milk please, you go 'Tall decaf nonfat latte, thanks!'... We don't even say small, regular or large anymore, it's short, tall and grande...

What happened to the good old days when everything was more simple? Why the hell are there three different names for good old coffee with milk (four if you count cappucino, which is basically a latte with extra foam)? Why do you have to ask for an espresso instead of just really strong coffee? Did you know an Americano is just a cup of regular coffee? Why can't I just say cup of coffee? Why is it chai instead of tea? Why? Why? Why?

While researching this post, I also found out a couple of kinda cool facts... I mean hey, who knows, it might come in handy one day if I ever decide to go on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire...

Did you also know that frappucino is a name made up by Starbucks for ice-blended drinks? And that 'Iced Blended Mocha' is copyrighted by Coffee Bean?

Did you know that a caramel machiatto is just a vanilla latte with caramel sauce on top of the foam? There is no caramel inside the drink itself...

So in the end when you go into Starbucks (or every other Starbucks-like outlet) and see that big ass menu behind the counter and wonder what the hell to order, just take the plunge and just randomly pick something out... A cup of coffee's a cup of coffee after all, even if they decide to put extra foam on it... =/

You read about breakups all the time in magazines and see them all the time on television, or the movies... And I suppose all this is supposed to help you understand what it's all about and how to handle them...

Anybody who's ever been through one will tell you that that is entirely untrue...

My point of views always have to do with the media, mainly because I study but mainly because the media is what one considers a technology of perception, that is it structures a point of view that the audience is expected to accept unquestionably, because as much as we have to study audience theory, the truth is the perfect audience for ANY kind of medium is the passive audience, where they just take in what they are being shown without putting any sort of judgements on them whatsoever... But anybody can tell you that that's entirely impossible, unless you sequester a group of people from the moment of their birth from any sort of outside influence...

Hell, the reason WHY we have audience theory is simply because it's entirely impossible to formulate a single text that will have the same meanings translated onto the audience as the intended meaning by the producers of the text...

Cultural theory session aside, the point of the article is to bring up the question of why the media is still so powerful, when you think about the fact that despite what they tell us on screen, we are still able to tell that what we see on the screen does not mirror real life...

In magazines they tell you that sometimes breaking up is exactly what you need to do, that right after that you'll feel oh so good about yourself... The movies tell you that you'll never be alone and that no matter who you are and what you do there's a gorgeous member of the opposite sex just waiting to discover your potential then sweep you off your feet so you can ride off into the sunset together...

In reality there is a tremendous shortage of gorgeous members of the opposite sex, especially ones who'd bother to stop looking in the mirror to look at you... There is also entirely no guarantee that when you break up with that special someone there's another more perfect special someone just waiting in the wings to make you forget the mess that was your life...

The truth is, there isn't a special someone for every single one of us... The truth is a lot of us end up alone for the rest of our lives, and only a select amount of us are lucky enough to leave this world with more than the priest and gravedigger by our gravesites...

Nothing in the world is perfect, and nobody marries the man/woman of their dreams... In the end you settle for that one person who happens to be there at the right place and time and then you spend the rest of your lives with them pretending you're happy when all you do is wonder about whether that one person who can make you happy is still out there and why you haven't found him yet...

Uhm... Yeah... Heh... Couple of people've been asking me to blog... I don't think y'all expected something like this though, eh?

Been a little busy lately, cos I'm moving out to a friend's place, well today actually... I've got two suitcases full of clothes and like a gazillion on hangers... I'm still not sure how I'm going to fit all that in the little closet and the little chest of drawers... I seriously need a walk in closet... =P

I go to these two forums every so often and one thread that they both have in common is a picture thread... Which is only natural, since there's a constant interaction between these people but it is almost entirely conducted behind the veil of a computer...

Now me, I'm not very fond of the way I look... In that I don't think I'm disfiguringly ugly or anything, I just don't like what I see in the mirror every day... Hence, I seldom if ever put pics of me up... I also seldom talk about the way I look, or my weight, two areas of my life that I seriously need to get under control...

Okay okay on to the point... In every thread, there's at least this one person (generally a girl) who goes an a whole 'Oh, here's my pic, I'm ugly so be warned' type raving before putting on their pictures... More often than not however, they are anything BUT ugly...

Now here's my question - why would you do that?

I honestly don't believe that people would do that to fish for compliments... At least not online, cos how incredibly desperate would you have to be to need validation from members of an online community you may never meet anyway?

Okay then... So maybe you really DO think you're ugly... If so, why put your picture up at all? I don't like the way I look, so since I don't like looking at myself, why would I subject other people to it?

So yeah... Don't like people who fish for compliments... Don't feel like that's really much of a compliment anyway... The whole point of fishing for compliments is that you get some, and the way society has structured that act means that you'll get some... Nobody's gonna go 'Oh yeah you really are ugly... Geez...' though I honestly believe that someone should every once in awhile...

Ugliness is regarded as a negative thing, right? Not something people would generally be proud of... So if you really thought you were ugly, would you really want to put up a picture of yourself to advertise that fact? Would you even have wanted to take a picture of yourself in the first place as a record of that fact?

So yeah... Go find validation away from the computer screen... Trust me, it's worth SO much more...

Greetings all... How's it going? I'm doing great, although my walker's rage has increased since the last time I've blogged... More and more people annoy me when I'm doing my rounds although now I'm wondering if it's them or I'm just uh... An angry walker... =/

So anyway to take my mind off things I thought I'd do something I hadn't done in awhile (on the blog anyway)... So this marks the return of my Hot Men edition...

[disclaimer] Just a little note to the readers - this post is entirely pointless and I'm too lazy to actually rant or rave or argue about something simply because I've had enough of thinking... So what's gonna happen is I'm just gonna post up drool-worthy pics of the latest celebrity I've got a crush on... [/disclaimer]

Okay then, moving on...

It says a lot about a person when they're able to age gracefully, so I'm more than happy when I find a hot old man... And here, ladies and gentlemen, is my favourite hot old man of the moment... Mark Harmon...

Mr. Harmon there is 53 years old and most people probably remember him from his role on Chicago Hope... Nowadays he can be seen on NCIS, this Naval crime drama thingy...

That's not important though... What IS important is that he's absolutely gorgeous and incredibly yummy and we should all be so lucky to get past 50 and still look like that... Here's another picture just cos I think he's gorgeous...

And we're done =D

I'm the kind of person who's slightly antisocial but easily adaptable... I like my alone time... VERY much and if you happen to intrude on my alone time, woe betide you... However, I'm also okay with a group of people, if I feel like it... =P

So yeah, what I'm trying to say is, I'm fairly moody but in general not a people person...

Which is probably what leads to today's rant on annoying people walking...

I went in to get groceries today and the mall was slightly crowded... I went around noon so heaps of people were in there getting their lunches... And that's totally fine...

My beef is - THEY KEEP GETTING IN MY WAY!

I walk fast, which probably isn't a good idea cos I'm easily like one of the clumsiest people on Earth, I like knowing where I'm headed and just going there... Not so for most people I realise...

Now don't get me wrong... I'm not the kind of person who'll walk up an escalator to save like three seconds, but when I'm on the move, I'm ON THE MOVE...

Anyway, a total of three times in the space of an hour I was walking in the crowd when suddenly the person in front of me decides for no reason whatsoever to just stop dead in their tracks...

Now why would you do that? Hmmm? Why would you walk at a nice, brisk pace and then suddenly just stop abruptly to look around? There are no signs around you, you're not in front of a shop, you don't seem to have bumped into someone you know... So why? To annoy me? To become the bane of my existence? WHY?!

Then walking home I was passing the bus stop when this guy who was standing there looked up at me and JUST a step before i would've been passing in front of him he decides to take a step forward resulting in a very near collision...

Once again... WHY?! WHY?! The bus stop sign wasn't there where I was walking... The bus hadn't come yet... WHY WOULD YOU MOVE SUDDENLY LIKE THAT?

WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP GETTING IN THE WAY AND PISSING ME OFF?!

WHY PEOPLE WHY?