Just When I Thought My Headache Was Gone...

http://findyouredward.com/ is a website devoted to brainwashing young impressionable girls (and some women sadly) into thinking that their significant other or the person they're dating has to wait on them hand and foot. Are you kidding? I had to beg my prom date not to open the door to the car for me and all that stuff. I find it awkward. I would never expect a guy to do all that stuff for me. I mean, if he was trying to impress someone, like my grandmother, then go for it.
This reminds me of when I was on the T recently, and a very pretty girl got on and there were no seats left. I was already standing and the guy next to me leaned over to his friend and said, "Why didn't you give the hot chick your seat?" and he answered (quite cleverly might I add), "You wanted equal rights, you can stand." I couldn't have agreed more. If she were pregnant or I don't know bleeding profusely, then yeah give the lady your seat, but other than that she can stand.
Edward is a FICTIONAL character. FICTION. With a capital "F". It would be like people running around going, "Hold out for your perfect man, your Harry Potter or Ron Weasley!" Which, ironically enough would be an easier feat because although very fictional, their characteristics are much more, How do I say this...real. Ladies, I can guarantee you that you will not find a guy who would love nothing more than to watch you sleep. If you do, contact police, he's probably wanted somewhere. Neither will he ever be the of all and end all of aesthetics. No guy is perfect. Sorry. He can be perfect for you, don't get me wrong but somewhere someone will find fault with him. Namely, your mother. Also, he most likely won't be dead or a virgin. There are guys out there that wait until marriage. 5% of people are Americans are virgins when they marry. That's like, two and a half percent if we're going 50/50 here. Edward waited 100+ years to have sex? I think not. We are animals and have needs. No male I know ever wants to go that long and couldn't care less about whether they have found the love of their life or "sheep" or whatever it's referred to in the book. This brings me to another point. Ladies, the book refers to Bella, the shallow one dimensional female character as a lamb, a sheep, a follower. Do not be a follower. Like the books, like the movies but do not think that you have to do whatever your significant other or some housewife who read the books and thinks since her daughters are near dating age (which tell me, woman,when the Hell is that? Do they have an expiration date? I'll go into more detail in a minute) wants you to do. You are your own person.
Dating age. Oh please oh wise one, when is that? I am twenty years old and I honestly have had such a ridiculous schedule my entire life, I have never had time for men. Not boys, men. I've never had time for boys. It was never of importance for me to have a boyfriend or get one. I am comfortable in my single life. I love it, I can go out and talk to/dance with/make out with anyone I want with no strings attached. Will I consider settling down? Sure, eventually when I'm around 30 or 35 but right now? No. Wasn't Eddie Bella's first boyfriend or something too? You have a less than 15% chance of staying with your high school sweetheart or first love. I can be proved wrong but I'm just saying it's highly unlikely. And another thing, since we're talking about a FICTIONAL story, let's put this into previous centuries. You are living in the 1800's and tell your children the story of Cinderella. Can you imagine telling them to hold out for someone rich, handsome, full of status, and power? No. You tell them marry up from what you have now and provide better for your children which is actually something that may not be done by this generation and their children.
If you're telling you daughters to hold out for a man that treats them the way they want to be treated, kudos, good message. If you're telling them what he has to do like open every door, pull out every chair, refer to people as ma'am or sir, that's a tad ridiculous by today's standards. Just a tad. So, as long as you're not brainwashing people (any more than they have been by Twilight) I guess you're doing an okay job. So, yay to the parents telling their kids to wait for the one that treats them the way they want to be treated and boo to the parents who use chic lit to illustrate a point.

Faith Slightly Restored in MTV

In the light of MTV being absolutely trashy with programs like Jersey Shore and The Real World, it has slightly restored my faith with the new television show called, The Buried Life. It examines the lives of four young males (two of them are related to each other as brothers) and how they created a list of things to do before they died. They then set off in a purple tour bus (which I believe they fixed up themselves) to do their list of deeds. Here's the game changer. For every thing they do on their list, they help someone accomplish something that they have on their list of things to do before they die.


In the season premiere, Duncan, Ben, Dave, and Jonnie head off to California to crash a party at the Playboy Mansion. They discovered the theme of the party was to be a cross between Willy Wonka and Alice in Wonderland. Two of the men dressed up as oompa loompas and hid in a faux cake in a plan to pop out and just act like they're being paid to be there as a form of entertainment. The other two guys were to dress up as Crisitano Ronaldo and Cristiano's agent. They were denied entrance to the party because they were "over capacity". Although only half of the guys made it into the party, they certainly didn't go half way on their deal.


While scoping out the layout of the neighborhood the mansion is located in, they came across a man who taught fifth grade for a few years and felt that his class could really use a computer. A computer is something most Americans have in their home or schools and take for granted.


The boys met the challenge and did a street performance to nineties hip hop and did beat boy dancing while playing guitar. One of them even sold a lady the clothes off of his back for twenty dollars. (She was going to a nineties rap party) He gave her everything but his underwear and sure enough they showed up at the elementary school with a brand new mac.


It is such a nice change as a woman who (no offense) has lost a little hope in men in the twenties age bracket. They set out and actually made a good example for people. While at the elementary school they had each of the kids write down what their biggest dream was. This if anything allowed my friends and I to think about what we wanted to in our short life. Personally, yes, I have a "bucket list". If these kids can get into the Fort Knox of carnal pleasures then, I should be able to get to Europe at some point in my life. If these guys can play basketball with Barack Obama, I may have a shot at seeing a UNC vs. Duke game at the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I these kids can do the seemingly impossible or difficult, then we should all try and pursue our dreams or try to make a positive impact on the world.


A couple people when asked what they wanted to do before they died gave examples of humanitarian efforts. One man said he wanted to give a pair of shoes to everyone in America who didn't have a pair. He wanted to be "the sole of America". One man simply said, "I want to make a difference." It's more shows like this that America needs. Not to be taken personally, but my generation/ age group doesn't really care about Home Makeover or any of the shows where deserving people get what they want or get what they need. MTV found the formula of putting four attractive and genuine males who are doing good things for others in exchange for full filling lifelong dreams. Although a little bit shallow, it still made an impact on my friends and I. I can only hope MTV finds more shows like this and I can only pray that Jonnie, Dave, Ben, and Duncan realize in just one short half an hour, my friends are thinking more about their dreams than ever before.

How Women Are Ultimatley Vicious

The red carpet is a place where people (mostly women and the occasional peacocking male) show off their best outfits and what they exactly pay (or fire) their stylists for. While the red carpet is a great place to see people's outfit choices and jewelery and grossly over expensive accessories, it is a bit overkill making it three hours long. why in the world do I need to contemplate why someone chose those shoes with that dress for three hours? Why do I need to see the same (ok, not the same but they all look the same) tuxedo march down a carpet. Why? Three hours of gaudy although sometimes breath taking dresses and gowns wears on me. It does not wear on me because I find it annoying to see the same emaciated faces gracing the ballroom. It's because we as women cannot be happy for someone's success. God forbid someone is dressed up pretty for an event. I've heard so far at least eight different instances where the people I'm viewing the awards with have openly proclaimed their "hate" for a person. How can you hate someone? And for their outfit choice? Why? and more importantly, how?
Hilary Swank has been deemed by some people looking like a man or a horse. If people think Hilary Swank is ugly what hope does anyone else have? She's positively breath taking. She was impeccable in Million Dollar Baby and Freedom Writers. The Office even went as far as comparing who thought she was gorgeous. Oscar took the initiative to take her face and show how symmetrical it was. Hands down, no one should judge anyone's beauty. Male or female, no one has the upper hand on anyone in the world of beauty and anatomical aesthetics. My friend and I talked about how if people, female people, the people who are supposed to empower us and make us feel good about ourselves are this harsh on one of the most beautiful people to ever exist, we have no hope.

Merryl Streep is wonderful actress. She has excelled in the roles of a single working mother who finds solace in the violin and bringing music to the schools of inner city Harlem in Music of the Heart, she gave a body to one of the most popular Jane Austen characters in Persuasions, and of course no one can forget the seething, biting and caustic magazine editor in The Devil Wears Prada, and she struck fear into the hearts of anyone who attended parochial school in the sixties in Doubt parallel to Amy Adams, she breathed new life into an American icon Julia Child in Julie & Julia alongside Amy Adams also. Recently, she appeared next to Alec Baldwin in It's Complicated. Even if it was a pretty slow film, she did the best she could with the script and gave life to a very common real life role of many women who find themselves in complicated positions with their husbands or recently divorced husbands. You as a person may not think deserves an award for whatever particular reason but she has indeed earned her right to at least attend the award shows. Like it or not she can impersonate any regional diction; as Roberta Guaspari she created the perfect flat tone of someone who moved along with her Navy husband to fort after fort. In Doubt, she had a New York accent that made my father who was born and raised in the south Bronx shudder at the unfortunate memories he had of his private all boys school. Merryl Streep like it or not has done an exceptional job giving life to characters for many, many, years and there's nothing complicated about that.

So, in short, people can have their opinions. It is most definitely a free country. However, to feel as though someone doesn't deserve something someone has worked so hard for and that they don't deserve something based on their beauty, is simply, spiteful. Ladies, retract your claws, and proceed with caution because it won't be long until we're all on life's red carpet. Make sure your words are soft and sweet because you may have to eat them later.

"The album, the music, and the live show. That's what we're here to do."- Rev

As I sat down with my father on December 28th 2009 to eat dinner he said very non-chalant, "Oh, one of your guys, those avenged guys, yeah he's dead." I looked at him expecting to see a laugh or a smile run across his face. Nothing. I pressed him. "Who, Matt, Johnny, Rev-?" "That's it!" he exclaimed. "That's the one. The Rev guy." I sprang to my laptop as I felt the color draining from my face and a lump build in my throat. I quickly went into Google and just typed, "Avenged Sevenfold Rev" and sure enough the predictive search had in bold letters, "dead". I froze. "See? Told ya." My dad said from the dining room. I couldn't believe it. We had learned about death in my adult development class and I thought about the steps I was going through. I was going through the shock and disbelief. I just kept repeating that "I couldn't believe it" and "Oh he was so young..." At twenty eight James Owen Sullivan had expired and was found in his home unresponsive. I then went online and did what any sensible person would do when one of their favorite celebrities dies, updated my facebook status. If anything it would give the band publicity through a horrible event. None of my friends really listen to them and I was kind of alone when it came to "mourning" as opposed to Heath where it was kind of on a bigger scale. After that I shut my Internet off and opened my itunes and put on a shuffle of A7X songs. I then thought of the making the album videos on Youtube I had watched and how funny he was and how talented he had been. He was so talented. Drums, guitar, and piano had been in his repertoire. He wrote a majority or should I say, co wrote a majority of the songs off of the band's self titled 2007 release. You can read up on all of his accomplishments and musical timeline on any music site or a more extensive site like Wikipedia.
Although I never saw them headline I had the pleasure of seeing them when I was fourteen at Warped Tour. They had high energy and even if I wasn't in to their weight of metal or metal core, I still found some of their songs catchy. It wasn't until I saw the video for Bat Country on MTV2 one morning getting ready for school that I took a real interest and made an effort to learn more and get some of their music. On Christmas that year, I got an ipod and the first song I ever bought off of the site was Bat Country. After that I borrowed CDs from my friend who had Waking the Fallen. From there I received Sounding the Seventh Trumpet from my sister for Christmas and I had bought their self titled album from Target two years after they released it for I had forgotten about their album in the latter part of high school. I do not own the City of Evil album yet which is ironically their most successful album, or at least the one that they are known for the most often. The Rev was a big part as to why they were so successful. He laid down drum tracks that would baffle anyone who's familiar with the metal core scene. He was so talented and was (from what magazine articles I've read and personal accounts from the band members) one of the nicest and genuine human beings. As a founding member he put his heart and soul into this band and I only hope they can do what the Rev would want them to keep doing. The hard part is, how not to insult someones memory? Do they get a replacement and keep touring? It would seem wrong to think that he could ever be replaceable. Do they stop altogether and live off of what they have made and get other jobs in the music industry in producing or something? The Rev wouldn't want his friends to stop doing what they loved because of him either.
As I was listening to the songs on shuffle I thought back to a tough time in my life when my family lived in a hotel for nine months. I bought the self titles during that time period and I cherished the calm it brought me and the steady beat it gave my discombobulated life. I thought back to youtube-ing the making of the album videos. The Rev always had the funniest little quips or jokes. (I also want to mention some fans keep referring to the Rev as Jimmy on the message boards and comment areas online. I have no problem with this personally. I feel that I did not know Jimmy however. I only knew Rev. Jimmy I think was someone only his wife, family, and close friends had the pleasure of knowing. I understand of wanting to be formal since the Rev was only a stage name he went by, I don't know just something I noticed) I had reached the part of mourning where the living becomes preoccupied with the memory or memories of the deceased person. I watched some of their really old music videos and thought about what his wife would do. He seemed so happy and normal in the recent magazine articles published and talking about their new album. I hardly knew what to think. I saw on one of their twitter pages that there was going to be a candle light vigil for him. I found this to be the right way for fans to come together and be with each other. After he was laid to rest on January 6th 2010 I found myself to be at the last stage of mourning and that my friends is acceptance. He couldn't be with us any longer and he was needed for something greater.
I can only give my deepest sympathies to his family, friends, and those close to him. As Jay from the band lost prophets tweeted, "Out of sight, not out of mind."