A concert in Kuwait seems like a good idea right? Supporting our troops who are fighting for our country with a concert would be something I'd be all for. No one could screw up something as straight forward as a USO concert right?

Wrong.


Great to see that myspace is keeping up its rich tradition of audio/visual torture. Thank you myspace for insulting our troops and the Kuwaiti people with you concert of mediocrity. I'd rather be mustard-gased than see this concert.

Deep Thoughts, by Amir

Do you think George Washington started brushing his teeth with wood varnish after he got his wooden teeth?

Random Thought

At my old work, one of my female co-workers was engaged to this rocker guy. He was big guy, but not fat. They type who could easily kick some ass. He had lots of tattoos too. One stuck out to me. It was a pentagram tattooed on the back of his hand.

This leads me to wonder: what if he were to get in a fight and beat up his opponet real good. Then, right before his finishing blow, would he say, "See you in hell," and then punch his opponet in the face with his pentagram fist?

I think that would be cool.

Your good intentions only go so far if you're an idiot

So I've decided to update my blog regularly again because a classmate (who wasn't in the class I created this blog for) said he was a reader. I was shocked to learn that anyone aside from the people in my class last semester gave half a shit what I thought.

So I begin with this poster that I saw hung up in the Student Union about halfway through the semester.

Translation: Don't go to the Almaden Room at Noon

Okay, seeing as how I come from an Ismalic family, I know the true meaning of Jihad (for those curious, it means 'struggle.') To me, its obvious that the person who created this sign had every intention of educating people about the roots of the word and the fact that it doesn't really mean "Holy War." But even with my background knowledge, this sign sounded questionable. Think about it. If the only meaning of Jihad is the one propagated by the American media, how would this sign come off to you? Would you ask yourself,

"Hmm, I should critically think about the meaning of the word Jihad,"

or might you think,

"Hmm, I better not go to the Almaden room at noon, or I'll get blown the fuck up."

People like this make me lose my faith in humanity.

Apocalypto Sucks

For those who haven't heard already, this piece of shit opened up at number one in the box office last weekend. It's Mel Gibson's film, Apocalypto. I'm here to say this is the biggest piece of garbage to come out this entire year. I'm so confident that this is true, that I make this claim despite not having seen this movie (and nor do I plan to.)

Gibson, who has starred in an array groundbreaking films including Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon 2, Lethal Weapon 3, Lethal Weapon 4, Mad Max, Mad Max 2, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, has decided that he's the right one to help depict the suffering of an entire group of people (the Mayans) to the big screen.

Am I the only one who sees a bit of irony in this? Mel Gibson's movie depicting the real life story of an entire group of people being ethnically cleansed, thus establishing a sense of sympathy for the Mayans and their suffering debuts at number one only a few months after Gibson stated in a drunken stupor, "F*****g Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."


When the Passion of the Christ came out in 2004, there were accusations of anti-semitism from the Jewish community and others, but there was no solid evidence that Gibson was anti-semitic. Others defended Gibson's film by saying it was an accurate depiction of how the death of Christ was described in the Bible. Some, like the creators of South Park, thought that Mel Gibson was just batshit insane.


But Gibson's comments, even though he still denies it, unveiled an inherent anti-semitic train of though he has, which has since been accredited to his father. And although that doesn't not necessarily mean that the purpose of The Passion of the Christ was to build discrimination against the Jewish community, it would be hard to believe that Gibson's upbringing had absolutely no influence in the way the Jewish people were depicted in the film.

Which begs the question (for me at least,) could Mel Gibson's anit-semitism had an influence on his latest film, Apocalypto? Which leads into my theory: Apocalypto isn't really about the suffering the Mayans had to endure as they were taken over by the Spanish; rather, it is a not-so-subtle metaphor for how much Mel Gibson hates the Jews. Furthermore, I theorize that it may even be an illustration of how Mel Gibson would like the tear the heart out of a Jewish man.

Don't see Apocalypto.

Shirley Biagi, Keep Your Day Job

I just got through reading Chapter 11 on Public Relations in the Textbook, Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media by Shirley Biagi, and upon completion of the reading, I feel that I not only did I not learn anything about public relations that I didn't already know, but I feel that my brain capacity has fell down to the level of Forrest Gump's.

I have to admit, I hadn't even opened the book until today, and after reading one chapter, I wish I hadn't. If I had actually read that entire book, I probably would have had to pull a Cobain and splatter the remnants of my brain on my bedroom wall.

I almost wish Shirley Biagi had down syndrome when she was writing this book. Then at least, she would have an excuse for writing such a retarded book. Instead of a biography, it could say

"Shirley Biagi is a 8 year old girl with down syndrome who wrote this book because her dream is to be a college professor when she grows up. And even though we know that she can never achieve this dream, we wanted to keep hope alive in this brave little girl. Half the proceeds from the sale of this book will go to Shirley and her family while the rest will go to the Special Olympics."

Then at least I could think "Aww, how sweet. Even though I won't read this book, I should buy an extra copy because its for a good cause," instead of thinking what I'm thinking now which is, "Wow, if I were Shirley Biagi's publisher and she showed me this mindless dribble that shes trying to pass off as a textbook, I'd pimp-slap her upside the head."

Now I'm going to go over parts of the chapter, so it doesn't seem like I'm bitching for no reason. You'll get to see the true stupidity of this book first hand.

After the introduction to Chapter 11, we go on to the first four sections which span from pages 220 to 221. Essentially, the only relevant information I got from these four sections is "PR helps shape public opinions and Government uses PR." That's it. There is other information, such as when the first PR firm was started, what the first PR message to the press was, and who the first women in PR were, which is good information to know, if you're a contestant on Jeopardy and one of the categories is "The History of Public Relations."

But if you're like me, a college student who needs to learn about the significance of Public Relations, this information amounts to "Fluff information I might put in a term paper about Public Relations if we needed to stretch the length from 9 1/2 to 10 pages."

If we move on to page 222 and if you haven't already gouged your eyes of due to the stupidity of the first couple pages, we find the section titled "Public Relations at Work," and the subtitle "Financial Public Relations." There is about a third of a page of writing under Financial PR, one sentence of which actually has to do with the subject. The first sentence reads:

"People in financial public relations provide information primarily to business reporters."

The rest of the paragraph is pretty much bulleted quotes from James K. Gentry of the Washington Journalism Review about what qualities makes for good and/or bad Public Relations. Granted they are good, informative quotes, but with the exception of maybe his first quote, none of them have anything to do directly with Financial Public Relations. Rather, they seem as though they are quotes that can apply to PR in general.

It would be similar if I were to say I'm going to write you an informative essay about significant Producers in the music industry and all I had as supporting evidence was quotes from Rick Rubin or Kanye West about how to produce a good record.

Directly after Financial PR on page 223, we see the next subtitle, "Product Public Relations," which begins with the enlightening sentence,

"Product PR uses public relations techniques to sell products and services."

If Biagi was famous, she would be famous for stating such a stupidly redundant fact. This is like having an essay entitled, "Communism in Government" and starting with the line, "Communism in government is using Communistic ideas to help govern and rule a country."

I have to give Biagi credit on the next couple pages. She talks about "Crisis Public Relations." Once again, she doesn't say much about the subject itself, essentially saying that crisis public relations is used when a company faces a crisis, but she does give a very relevant example (The Odwalla case) to illustrate her point. More than you can say for any of the other sections.

If we skip ahead to the section titled "Variety of Clients Use Public Relations," on page 227, there follows a bulleted list of various organizations that use PR. This information is mildly intelligent until you hit the last bullet, which is "International." In this section Biagi reverts back to her Keanu Reeve-ish style of writing, writing two sentences about the actual subject and then continuing on for half a page about a completely different subject. She begins the section with two sentences that vaguely illustrate how PR is used in countries other than the United States, and then writes half a page worth of bullets about the "Responsibilities of PR people." Once again, while this information is relevant to the subject of Public Relations as a whole, it really has nothing to do with the subject it is stated under: International [PR.]

Seeing as how I was able to vent all my frustration about this book here, I'm feeling quite better. Rather than going with my original plan of masturbating with sandpaper in order to distract myself from the pain of reading that one chapter, I guess I'll just have to have a good old fashioned book burning: none of the mess, and tons more fun!

My friend is going to hell

So I'm going to keep this blog. I found that I love writing in it, people responded well, and in fact, I'm planning on changing my major to Journalism as a result of this blog. I must say that this class has gone quite well for me.

I'd like to thank everyone who has complimented me on being a good writer and has kept up with reading my entries. That does mean a lot to me.

Also, I hope I've made all of you laugh at least once.

I'll leave everyone with a true story (it will sound unbelieveable) that my friend just told me over the phone. And even though I can't personally verify much of the information, I know my friend well enough to believe him.

--

So as of late, my friend has been living a wild life. He only recently turned 18 and just finished up his first two quarters at De Anza Community College.

So imagine my surprise when he told me he has been hanging around skinheads. As in "I hate anyone who is not white" skinheads.

Not only that, but his friends mom was able to get him a job in the bar she works at.

Furthermore, he constantly gets hit on by hot drunk girls.

On the phone he told me he was heading over to the home of one of the girls he met at this bar for, lets say, "coffee."

On top of this, this girl happened to be a stripper.

But the thing is, the last week, his truck had blown up and he didn't have a car to get there. This begs the question: Whose car was he driving?

His best friend's mom's minivan.

At this point if you're asking yourself, "What does the skinhead thing have to do with anything?"

You see, before he started driving to the stripper's house, he stopped by one of the skinhead's house and the skinhead gave him a book. What book did this happen to be? Mein Kampf.

He also happened to have a bottle of alcohol in his car as well.

And to put the icing on the cake, his best friend, as well as his best friend's mother, are both Jewish.

So to reiterate, my 18 year old friend is driving his best friend's Jewish mom's minivan to a stripper's house to have sex, with a copy of Mein Kampf and a bottle of booze in the car.

I can't make this shit up.