i love big ideas

it's my excuse for not writing here...

self promotion

The Truth

So i'm in Ventura visiting my fam and I started flipping through one of my old high school year books when I discovered a few important things I'd like to share with you:

1) I WAS skinnier in high school than i am now... BUT, i didn't know what i was doing, so I look better now. (win!)
but more importantly:

2) All the boys who rejected me in high school ARE GAY. and they probably were then too.

The moral of the story is Ladies, if a man doesn't like you and you can't figure out why because he seems like he is your best friend and he asked you to be his valentine and you even kissed (but just that one time when it was late/dark) and you feel SOOOO REJECTED AND LAME because he doesn't want to be with you and you think it is because YOU ARE UGLY AND MISUNDERSTOOD... YOU ARE WRONG he is gay.

Oprah

So tonight I felt a little inspired by Newsweek. The truth is my inspiration came from Oprah. Damnit. I always pretend I’m not one of those women who idolize her… but I totally am. Another thing that is true about me is that I get in these weird moods late at night where I feel emotions more deeply (which isn't something that should be possible, considering how emotional my days have been lately, but i digress...) My mother has always attributed this to tiredness, but I secretly hope it has more to do with purity and truth. Things seem clear at night. So clear that I don't know that I even care how valid the truths are... it's a feeling, a freedom. It's a time where it's just me, it's not about anyone else or what's in anyone else's head.

At night I start believing in myself… I read a book or watch a tv show… and I secretly think “I can do that.” It's like i get this little piece of my youth back. When I’m all alone, I have remarkably high self-confidence… it’s just when I’m around others that I find doubt. I hate this about myself. This feeling is one of the reasons I’m not attempting a career as an actor. Too much direct scrutiny. It’s ok if I feel confident, but it is not ok to let others know I feel confident… because what if I’m wrong and I end up on the American-Idol-bad-Audition-Reel of life. I just don’t know that I trust myself. I want to, but I don’t. Not when it is me against them. Eh, what is this?

part 2: who i am.
I'd love to write a book called "who i am." it's something i'd like to be an expert in - both as the statement applies to me, but also how it applies to millions of people (women) who don't know who they are. so few people know themselves deeply. Especially me. I wish. I'm trying to survey reality and see where I fit it, but I acknowledge that this method has yet to work, and might not be a very logical method of finding one's niche. I have hints, but they sit in my head like hundreds of unread emails. I get the gist from the subject line, but I can't yet be bothered to tackle through the text. All of this being said, there are some things I know:

1) I want to matter, make a difference, influence progress in society, lead by example, and help others avoid negative experiences I've fallen into.

2) I want to know what is going on, I want to control myself, I do not want to make mistakes... there are too many other things that can and will go wrong in this world that I have no control over... So i want to know the universal truths as they apply to my finely tuned reality.

3) I want to be focused on a specific, carefully chosen goal so that my efforts might hope to have positive results instead of just general progress.

4) I want to be exceptional.

and i obviously want to be happy... but i don't even want to waste time with that because it's a throw-away.

and now i've got to get back to my sudoku.

I'm moving out of my apartment and moving into myspace.

Apartment - They own it, so they can kick me out.
Myspace - it is my. space.

Apartment - expensive
Myspace - free! (if you don't count the cost of being harassed by sucky bands.)

Apartment - gays!
Myspace - jews, teens, and gays! oh my!

Apartment - 2 roommates
Myspace - 257 friends

Apartment - sounds of lady upstairs making babies.
Myspace - pictures of girls from high school with their babies.

Apartment - refrigerator
Myspace - bulletin board

Apartment - shameless self promotion
Myspace - poorly designed self promotion

Apartment - Reba, the well-meaning Landlord with Alzheimer's
Myspace - Tilla Tiquilla

Apartment - Paul, the pot-smoking, schizophrenic "massage therapist" neighbor with a heart of gold and a thumb of green
Myspace - Tom, the UCLA Film grad who IS a real person, lives in santa monica, and sold his soul to Rupert Murdoch for 100Million (which is totally worth it.)

Apartment - tanned skin
Myspace - new X-men skin

Apartment - gay porn
Myspace - child porn

apartment - real people
myspace - fake profiiles

apartment - i'm tired
myspace - i'm famous!

apartment - people with bad manners
Myspace - people bad grammar

Apartment - talking
Myspace - commenting

Scientology Sucks.

So recently I noticed a new building in Westwood with a big shiny corporate sign on top that read "HELIO." Yesterday I heard that Helio was throwing some kind of cell phone launch party that included a "secret musical guest" (Beck) and was hosted by Danny Masterson, Chloe Seveny, and Milla Jovavitch - it seemed unusual that 2 of the 4 celebrities mentioned were scientologists, so I decided to look it up and see what's the deal. HELIO is a really high-priced cell phone company, it has 2 phone options, they both come equipped with myspace and a full-color yahoo search engine. They're basically a competitor to the t-mobile sidekick (the teenage/media-whore version of the beloved treo/blackberry.) So first when I saw that its "partner" was myspace I thought that HELIO was just another Rupert Murdoch venture, but when I went to see who the CEO was, it was none other than SKY DAYTON, founder of earthlink and BFF of Reed Slatkin, skum of the earth. Sky Dayton is a scientologist. Scientologists suck. Here are some surprising scientologists:

• Sonny Bono, musician and member of U.S. House from California
• Nancy Cartwright, voiceover artist, most famous as the voice of Bart Simpson
• David S. Freeman, writer, video game developer, and screenwriting teacher
• Paul Haggis, director
• Mike Joubert, Bronson Pinchot's voice coach
• Chaka Khan, singer
• Bernadette Peters, actress and singer (source: Bergen Record 3/10/1985, may be an e x-member)
• Marissa Ribisi, actress, wife of Beck Hansen, sister of Giovanni Ribisi, raised Scientologist.
• Patrick Swayze, actor
• Greta Van Susteren, host of On the Record with Greta Van Susteren on FNC


AND Former members
• J. J. Abrams, Writer
• Adi Da Samraj (a.k.a. Franklin Jones, Da Free John), religious guru (renounced Scientology after ca. one year)
• John Brodie, football player
• William S. Burroughs, author, Beat Generation icon (later denounced it)
• Leonard Cohen, singer, songwriter (at New York Org in late 60s)
• Werner Erhard, founder of EST
• Emilio Estevez, actor (renounced it and won't discuss it)
• Soleil Moon Frye, actress
• Philip Gale, MIT student and primary developer of EarthLink's innovative ISP software; committed suicide on Hubbard's birthday
• Gloria Gaynor, singer (later renounced)
• Charles Manson, serial killer (professed Scientology in 1961, but critics claim he only read books in prison in the early 1960s)
• Ricky Martin, singer (says he dabbled in it)
• Van Morrison, singer, songwriter (renounced Scientology in the 1980s)
• Jesse Prince, former church official
• Lou Rawls, singer (renounced Scientology)
• Melanie Safka, singer, songwriter (renounced Scientology)
• Barbara Schwarz, former Scientologist claiming Hubbard parentage
• Jerry Seinfeld, comedian
• Oliver Stone, director (said involvement was finished after 4 months)
• Sharon Stone, actress (reportedly now a convert to Buddhism)

Iwhile it cannot be confirmed i also heard that Baryshnikov is ILSO a scientologist. I guess i just want to say - watch out, and cancel your earthlink/Helio accounts immediately.

I like Ads

SO i hate to say it, but clever advertising really gets me going. The latest and best example being THE DA VINCI CODE QUEST BY GOOGLE. This is such genius advertising! I'm quite proud of google actually - i think that this is a better ad for it, than it is for the Howard Movie!

The deal:
In the "quest," web surfers are challenged to solve riddles, curate virtual gallery walls, translate decoded puzzles, ace davinci-themed Triv, and navigate google earth. There are 24 days of the quest, and a new challenge revealled each day. The first 10,000 people to finish the quest on the 24th day are the "finalists" and will each recieve a "codex" from the movie. (yawn.) BUT the codex will help those 10,000 finalists solve the very last puzzle of the quest, and the grand prize winner will receive a first-class trip to London, Paris, Rome, and NYC - and they get to bring 3 friends! And they get a bunch of mp3 players and flat screen TVs and the like.

So basically I'm planning on winning this challenge as i have NEVER BEEN OUT OF THE COUTNRY and desperately want to go to LONDON, PARIS, and ROME, (and S Africa, but I suppose that can wait.) It should be mentioned that a free trip to NYC would be put to good use too.

AND - I love puzzles. I HATE jigsaw puzzles, but i do enjoy riddles and sudoku-type visual logic puzzles, which - with supreme web-surfing/searching abilities - is what the quest is all about. The chess puzzle is probably the hardest one for me, as I have never had the patience to learn the difference between the tower guy and the horsey man person.

SO what i'm saying is: if you have time to read my blog, you should also try out the da vinci quest... and if you STILL have free time, you should join me at my low-stakes poker addiction at pokerroom.com.

jh