A Box of Chocolates

Ellen Degeneres is Getting Married

May 20, ‘08 2:24 PM for everyone

I jsut want to share how happy I am for Ellen.  I believe that the love between two people should be ackowledged regardless of sexual inclinations.

I just ask myself, why is it Ellen Degeneres is far more endearing that Rosie O’ Donnel.  If Rosie made that announcement I’d probalbly just say,”ok ok.. next…”

Tags: ellen degeneres, lesbianism, gay marriage

Why Men Like Straight Girls

May 19, ‘08 3:53 AM for everyone

As I was browsing through the internet, I came across an article wherein a girl goes into an experiment to find out if men prefer curly hair or straight hair. She puts up two profiles: one with curly hair and the other with straight hair; sure enough, there were more winks, more emails, on the straight haired profile. This drove me to ask my male friends which they preferred and why it mattered. They didn’t go into the details of why but just said that it did matter; and most of them were in accordance with the response to the straight haired profile. An online competition website has a Best Hair Ever category and (guess what?) entries were of different colored hair but ALL of them were straight.

So why do men like straight hair? Here are some reasons that I could only speculate upon…

It looks neat and clean. Straight hair looks like a well-ironed shirt. Who would want to leave the house wearing crumpled shirt, right?

Men like running their fingers through a girl’s hair. When a man runs his fingers through a girl’s hair, it’s erotic. With straight haired girls, it goes smoothly, softly, though the hair caressing the scalp and fingers getting tickled but the thin strands that mesh in and out of a man’s fingers. With curly hair, it stops short. Their fingers go through and meet tangles caused by the natural curliness of the girl’s hair. Accidentally, because of the resistance caused by the tangles he inadvertently pulls her hair. What does he do? Say sorry when he was trying to reach out and touch? Hell no… suffice it say it would be a very awkward moment.

Straight is sweet and virginal. I mean really. Straight haired girls even from my perception look so sweet and virginal unless of course they’re all covered with tattoos and have nose rings or what have you. They’re prom queen and cheerleader incarnate. What guy wouldn’t want to go out with the prom queen or the cheerleader? It’s the perfect kind of girl to bring home to mom. And even if they’re not sweet and virginal they could always hide behind their straight hair.

It’s cultural. As mentioned in the article, people from different cultures have different preferences and the culture that has a greater majority for that particular characteristic seems to prefer the norm. So if the culture has more straights than curlys then they would like curly because that is the standard or vice versa. Maybe….

Because of their preference and for the speculative reasons I have given a lot of curly haired girls I know have gone out of their way to have their hair straightened on a semi-long term basis or have married themselves to the flat iron or their blowers. I personally prefer an au naturelle and for me that means curly. Love me love my curly hair. Honestly, I had been told by so many to straighten it. But I am proud of my mane and I carry it with confidence. Just a tip for the guys, curly haired girls are wilder and I bet some of you will attest to it. ;P

Tags: hair, women, attraction

Stressed

May 18, ‘08 5:19 PM for everyone

This week has been one of the most hectic weekends ever. Apart from work piling up because of failing health, personal issues with family are cropping up that honestly I do not need right now. Let’s hope that the coming week will prove to be a better, calmer and more peaceful one.

4 Reasons why we love Sex and the City

May 15, ‘08 3:34 PM for everyone

We love Sex and the City for one reason: they represented stereotypes of single women that most women can relate too. This is the reason why it became such a hit, because it represented a little bit of every woman in America. I know of some people who are affronted by the very existence of Charlotte, Miranda, Carrie and Samantha, claiming that the four characters give a wrong representation of American women. Be that as it may, the point of the matter all four characters is a part of all women, not just in the US but all over the world. We all have our Charlottes, Mirandas, Carries and even Samanthas inside us. Let me tell you why…..

Charlotte York. Charlotte York is our favorite goody two shoes prom queen. She’s perfect – pretty, smart, educated and decent. The kind of girl you bring home to mom. In the show, she represents the conservative woman, who follows the rules of love, relationships and dating. She tries her best not to go against the standards of society and thus believes that sex should always be connected with love and not lust; and that relationships should ultimately end in marriage.

Every woman is brought up the way Charlotte was with regards to love and relationships. Somewhere along the line we turn into a Miranda, a Carrie or a Samantha but charlotte is the foundation stereotype which we all can relate too… We sometimes hate her for being able to stand by the rules or love her for what she represents. But what makes her character real is the fact that she can be naughty too… controlled naughtiness but naughtiness nevertheless and that’s what makes her tick for all of us.

Miranda Hobbes. Miranda Hobbes is the successful and self-made woman who worked her ass off to become a lawyer and to become a good one at that. Among the four girls, she’s the very first one who was able to get her own flat. She’s smart, successful, beautiful, and is an achiever. Although these are all good points, as far as men are concerned, these are all turn-offs. It is a slight on their machismo. Another problem is that Miranda’s own standards are very high. Remember how she held back with Steve because he was a bartender?

Well, for us working women, this may be an issue we share with Miranda. There are just some men who are intimidated with a successful woman and this can prove to be an obstacle for us who maybe looking for Mr. Right.

Samantha Jones. Samantha Jones is the woman we love to hate. She’s too liberal. She’s very comfortable with her sexuality and is willing to try anything under the sun. Some would say she’s a thrill seeker and some would say that she is just plain immoral. If we cannot relate to her, she’s definitely the woman we’re all afraid of. She seems to be the type that will take our man away. And yet, we see that she’s one of the most loyal to her friends. It doesn’t matter if Charlotte disagrees with her, in time of Charlotte’s needs she’s there. We also see that despite that hard exterior she’s one compassionate woman. So we can’t fully hate her can we?

Carrie Bradshaw. Carrie is the combination of all 3 and the fulcrum of the story. She’s very career oriented. She’s comfortable with her sexuality as well and is willing to have sex for lust sake. But although she may deny it, deep down inside she’s a Charlotte. She wants to walk down the aisle, not as a bridesmaid, but as a bride. Because she has all these qualities, she’s the one who always tries to analyze the situation. She tries to figure out her existence especially with regards to love and sex. With her we can most relate for it is her that sees the true issues that we women go through.

We are all in a state of Carrie where we see our friends behave, we see the world behave and we try and figure out how we place in all of this. We try to balance our Charlottes, Samanthas and Mirandas and hope that we can find out own Mr. Big who’ll eventually marry us. And even if we don’t we’re in state where we’ll always be pining for Mr. Big, even when we have a nice secure Aidan with us.

So how can we hate Sex and the City? Hating it would be tantamount to hating our friends, sisters and ultimately ourselves – and that can never happen.

Do you know how many movies have been made about the Tudors?  Why can’t they make more movies about the Plantagenet or the War of the Roses?  Granted that these movies exist, but the production of these movies were not as much as the movies about the Tudors.   I mean really, I think Eleanor of Aquitaine is as interesting as Anne Boleyn…Which now brings me to the movie The Other Boleyn Girl.

Let me introduce the invasion of the Tudors in present movie life.  First we had a taste of Elizabeth I in 1998 which was followed by a sequel about Elizabeth: The Golden Age just last year.  Because of the popularity and success of these movies, where Elizabeth was perfectly portrayed by Cate Blanchett, the populace, if they’d forgotten or taken the Tudors for granted, were now re-familiarized by the story of this Royal House. 

This wave of Elizabeth I is supported by the television series, The Tudors, where again the populace is now made familiar about the character of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.  I do not think that most people even think about the significance of Henry VIII’s action in the history of England as the show focuses on the love, the politics and the sex involved in court life. 

Finally, we have The Other Boleyn Girl.  This movie was just not at par with my expectations.  But then again, whenever has a movie based on a book ever been truly successful, as the readers of the book would always have their complaints. 

In any case, The Other Boleyn Girl was a good spin-off of the Tudor movie series as it focuses not on Anne or Henry VIII but on Mary the sister of Anne and the lover of Henry VIII.   However, the movie lacks the proper characterization of the characters.  The movie was trying to cram too much information in a two hour movie.  The triangle between Mary, Anne and Henry spanned an amount of time which encompassed love, sex, relationships and politics.  All of these cannot be truly developed in a two hour movie.  The motivations of Anne Boleyn for her actions were not fully threshed out making her look nothing more than a ruthless, scheming and manipulative trollop.  Mary who has had her experience in politics, manipulation and court life was made to look so innocent but this innocence was not fully founded in the movie.  Finally, the character of Henry VIII was so two dimensional that Eric Bana’s talents were wasted on the movie.  But I don’t think he fully wasted his time though.  I mean… come on… sex scenes with the hottest actresses in Hollywood. 

According to Ibeatyou.com Scarlett Johansson is the hottest actress in town and yet a lot of others believe that Natalie Portman is the hottest actress in town.  Who do you think is hotter?  Well it doesn’t matter…in The Other Boleyn Girl, equally hot Bana has both girls. 

No matter… after being Mary Boleyn, Scarlett Johansson will come out in another movie about the royalty of England … and yes.. IT IS NOT ANOTHER TUDOR MOVIE… Mary, Queen of Scots, as Mary Queen of Scots.  I mean…THANK GOD FOR THE STUARTS!!!!!

Finally, I have my own blog.

Ok, I’ve pretty much introduced myself in about me.  It may be odd that I just inserted Avenue Q to describe multiply but well I look at it in the same way as Princeton in Avenue Q - a matter of waiting.  I do not want to be idle either else I’ll dumb myself down… so here I am in multiply.

Anyway, the topic for today is Vantage Point.

Have you seen Vantage Point?  What do you think of it?

Well, I was quite pleased with it and by the end of the show was surprisingly thrilled about the movie.

The story is told in the eyes of the 8 different characters in the movie giving the viewer a holistic view of the situation.  There is a saying that states there is always two sides to a story - this one had eight.

I have to admit that initially I was pretty much annoyed by the fact that a particular scene had to be repeated making me think that by the end of the movie I would have memorized the lines, the blocking, and the camera shots of that particular scene.

However, every vantage point added information that made the event clearer and at the same time suspense-filled.  I found myself constantly guessing what was going on.  For every vantage point, I thought I could predict the plot.  By the 4th vantage point I was second guessing my own guesses.

Sure enough, the end caught me completely by surprise.  It was definitely thrilling.

This movie is star-studded.  It had Sigourney Weaver, Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, Forest Whitaker and Matthew Fox.

Of these, I felt that Sigourney’s talent was wasted.  She was in the movie for less than 20 minutes.  She had the look for the part but any Tom, Dick or Harry could have done that part.  She hardly said anything, she hardly did anything, and she didn’t even stand up.  Actually, none of the actors’ talents were really maximized

Nevertheless, I feel that the celebrity factor added to the lure of the movie as I believe it to be a gimmick film.

All in all, the movie starts slow and tedious to the point of it being wearisome but it does pick up and compensates by adding mystery, suspense and puzzlement to the viewer.