Porocrom’s Crappaper

Yesterday I didn’t know what to do, so I went over to the video store and I looked for hours to find a movie I’d like to watch, but in vain, as I had seen most of them already. I asked for a good comedy because I didn’t want to be bummed out again (“Lilja 4 Ever” sucks and so does “Sonny”), and I was promptly instructed that “comedies are over there”. So, here I am, going over there, and as I was browsing the movies on the shelf, I see… “THE SEARCH FOR ONE-EYE JIMMY!” So I’m thinking “Hey, there’s Steve Buscemi, and that guy from Mr. Jeeves and some other dude I don’t know, and there’s a one-eyed dude in it, so I can’t lose, can I?” BIG mistake.
I rented it, took it home and popped it in the DVD player. Things went kinda blurry from there, but I will narrate what I DO remember. There was this journalist or something that did a story on the particular neighbourhood for some reason, and he stumbled upon the discovery that One-eye Jimmy had been lost like a few days ago. “Eureka!”, he thought! “This story is going to make me rich and famous”, he also thought, hoping that One-eye Jimmy would be dead and that he would be the only reporter to document something of that magnitude on tape. And so, THE SEARCH FOR ONE-EYE JIMMY begins!
They roam faraway lands and strange places (their neighbourhood) in a futile quest to return Jimmy to his rightful owner (his mother). In this quest they meet many a farcical character like the guy from Mr. Jeeves (John Turturro? Yeah, him) and other useless people. At some point they “rescue” a hooker from her manager who rightfully wants to claim his share of her earnings, the bastards. At some other point, they throw a party hoping that Jimmy would hear about it and show up(?) or something like that.
After the party, and while Jimmy is nowhere to be seen, his mother begins to despair and realise that she is never going to see her dumbass lazy son alive again. At that exact moment (or maybe earlier or later, I don’t remember), like a deus ex machina, Jimmy appears! Everybody is overjoyed (except the reporter who lost his only shot at becoming famous, because he’s obviously a hack and stupid), and they ask Jimmy where he had been. After these breathtaking (yawn) two-or-so hours, the question that was on every viewer’s lips is about to be answered: “Where was Jimmy?!”
Wait for it… Jimmy had LOCKED HIS DUMB FUCKING ASS IN THE BASEMENT LAUNDRY ROOM when he tried to do some laundry and the lock jammed or something, and he couldn’t call the super because he was away on vacation. HOW FUCKING STUPID CAN HE BE?! I was overjoyed at having wasted my money to see this piece of shit, and I wished wholeheartedly that Jimmy died after losing his other eye.
The picture was horrible (it looked like it had been shot with a goddamn camera obscura), and the plot was so dumb that made you think “Wait, it can’t be that dumb, I must have not understood something and this is actually great.” Only it turns out that you didn’t miss anything, except maybe your $2.50. How did all these actors get together in this monstrosity? Did they just say “hey, let’s see if we can make a film that costs more to rent than make, while ruining our reputations at the same time!” Well, they succeeded. This is a good movie to see if you are suicidal, it gives you a purpose in life, and that purpose is not to rest until every single person in this movie is dead or in jail for the rest of their lives.
Other than that, I enjoyed the film a lot.

For those of you who don’t know, I am currently enrolled at the University of Waterloo. It is a great place, usually. The people are friendly, for the most part, we have some very decent-looking girl-types, and our campus is well… okay it’s ugly. Last week I came to campus and was walking to class when I saw, drawn in large chalk lettering, the words “DO YOU AGREE WITH BYRON?” Assuming they meant the poet Lord Byron…

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies

I said “yeah sure, she’s pretty hot, whoever she is.” I later found out that this question was in reference to a more contemporary Byronic figure.

Byron is a guy from Mississauga, Ontario who, according to his bio, was living a fairly sweet life until he found Jesus, and now he is happy all the time, or something like that. The chalked-out questions, which were smeared ALL OVER the campus, were a reference to Byron’s quest to spread the message of rebirth in Christ to everyone.



I didn’t think too much of the message until I happened to run into some friends of mine discussing the issue. “If I ever met Byron, I would kick his fucking ass” said one friend. “What right does he have to force his beliefs on me?” “You’re right,” said another “What if I had put up signs that said ‘Do you agree with Hitler?’ I would be kicked out of school!” My university bubble crumbled under the weight of their senseless retorts. I had assumed that university was a place where people made rational decisions and reasoned out their opinions. Apparently I was wrong.

Many people are going to be upset that I do not share their hatred for Byron and his tasteless ad campaign. I assure you that I do not support this method of advertising. Byron’s group, Campus Crusade for Christ has taken the ground we walk on, the buildings we learn in, the very place many of us call home, and defaced it to further his own selfish goals (I will come back to this). It is the severity and focus of people’s anger that I question.

The most common complaint I’ve heard is that beliefs are being forced down other people’s throats. People, you need to realize something. Every time someone puts an ad on television, in a magazine, on the radio, in the bathrooms, on a bus, etc. they are forcing their ideas just as much as the morons from CCC. These are in fact more forceful than the chalk scribblings in question. But, as intelligent consumers, we know that just because the commercial says “Buy Tide”, you have the choice not to buy Tide. Do you want to kick the ass of the president of Tide? Unlikely. We live in a society where other people’s opinions are constantly being thrown at us (case in point, you are reading a post on a website that is 100% based on opinion). We have the choice to agree, disagree, or ignore the opinions of others.

I beg anyone who goes to UW or who finds themselves in a similar position to keep a sense of perspective. Byron isn’t going to come to your house, hold you down and baptize you. CCC isn’t kidnapping lone students and brainwashing them into going to church. Chalk drawings can’t get up off the ground and yell at you. If you don’t agree with Byron, then you have an easy answer “NO!” Then you can go on with your life.

There is another side to this though.

CCC has made the grounds of the university a billboard. They, like any mega-corporation are interested in selling their product to the general populace. The only difference between the two is that CCC is getting advertising for free. If Nike had representatives draw logos and sayings on the grounds, there would be a major law suit. Why does CCC get away with using our school-grounds as a place to hock their religious messages? From time to time we will see a club with an ad for a barbecue or other event chalked out on the sidewalks. These are University-sponsored events, and as such, subject to Feds regulations (Feds – the Federation of Students). CCC is an independent group that operates outside the auspices of the university, and as such has absolutely no right to spread their message on school grounds.

Secondly, these advertisements are intended to change people’s minds. That is the goal of advertising an opinion. The stupidity behind this campaign is mind-boggling. You’re taking a weak premise – the experience of a single person – and marketing religion (a big no-no in Canada) to a large group of educated people. The most likely response you are going to get, Byron, is people who want to kick your ass. You have taken away people’s ability to decline to hear your advertisement by placing it EVERYWHERE THEY GO. Even if people agree with your message, your methods are reprehensible. This campaign will give you the opposite effect than you intended – it will make people less likely to listen to you.

So, in conclusion: people, try to keep your heads on straight. This is not a person asking you to commit mass murder or give away your life savings or anything like that. CCC, get your shit the hell off my campus. If I ever catch one of you shitheads I am going to throw stuff at you.

OK, this is a first. I am posting an EXTERNAL LINK! Amazing! I hope this doesn’t happen frequently and we get to post every single piece of shit we find on the net, but this is the funniest thing I’ve seen in my entire life, except the time when my friend sat on… No, this is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Bash top something quotes

While I was on my toilet pondering the deeper aspects of life, I remembered the notion of teabagging. This led me to cogitate about the wonderful and largely unexplored continent that is America, and, more precisely, the United States. In the following text I shall present you with fundamental issues questioning the sanity of the American culture.

Teabagging

First and foremost, there is teabagging. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I think it has something to do with the scrotum and the forehead or the oral cavity. I am unable to understand what kind of sick, twisted individual could come up with this noumenon, for its genius is truly beyond mortal intellect. I seriously believe that if you rounded up a thousand of the least mature 16-year-olds they would not be able to conceive something even remotely resembling this. The only situation where teabagging would be acceptable if the receiver is a blender, a lawn mower or a chainsaw (all turned on). I don’t know about you, but where I live, if one was to say “Hey, look at this passed out dude, I should put my balls in his mouth”, he would instantly be carried away by a mob of angry people and would be castrated publicly.

Wedgie

Ah, the art of violently pulling underwear. Seriously, who comes up with this stuff? I told my 4 year old brother about it and he said “wow, that’s immature!”. Well, actually he said “ti anorimi malakia”, but you wouldn’t understand that, would you? I don’t know if the teens we see in teen movies really exist in the U.S. or if they are a figment of Hollywood’s imagination, but if they do exist, their collective intellect is lower than that of a celery stalk, because I’ve never seen a celery stalk perform a wedgie on another celery stalk, and if I had, I would bring it to the Jerry Springer show and I would be rich. I cannot even begin to comprehend what pleasure one might possibly get from performing this manoeuvre. Again, if one was to perform it here, one would get his ass kicked by two, the receiver of said wedgie, along with the aforementioned angry mob.

Swirlie

The king of imagination, the epitome of intelligence, a swirlie is performed by inserting the victim’s head in the lavatory and then flushing it. All my vocabulary has been exhausted on the previous two pearls of human genius, therefore I cannot find words to sufficiently describe the revolution in enjoyment that is the swirlie. Uplifting, morally cleansing and intelectually stimulating, the swirlie is indeed the king amongst human inventions. I would have to spend my entire life finding someone (outside the U.S.) willing to perform a swirlie if I paid them, let alone receive one. I assume violence would work on the latter, as is usually the case, but even if I could find the two parties involved, I would still not be very proud of myself because I just wasted a life.
I guess that there are two sides to every coin, and the home of cheap electronics, $1 Big Macs and the Statue of Liberty also has its bad sides, although I must acknowledge that only an intellect of the magnitude of Einstein, Aristotle and myself could come up with these amazing innovations, so that is not necessarily a bad thing. Due to a phenomenal lack of a good way to close this post, I will simply stop writi

I just finished watching Jackie Chan in Legend of the Drunken Master. Great movie, awesome fight scenes, funny jokes. What struck me most though, was the valuable life-lessons it taught.

For those of you not familiar with the Drunken Master films, I will give a brief synopsis. Jackie stars as Wong Fei-Hung, a rebellious Chinese youth who spends his days carousing with his ne’er-do-well friends. When he’s not mocking his kung-fu instructor or slacking off with his friends, he also enjoys sexually harassing his cousin. This eventually gets him in trouble when his aunt kicks his ass, then tells on him (which I think is unfair. Either one or the other, but both is a little harsh). Fei-Hung is sentenced to train under So Hi, whose training methods are notoriously brutal. Despite running away, Fei-Hung is caught by So Hi and must learn the style of the Drunken Master in order to defeat the assassin sent to kill his father.

In the second film Legend, Fei-Hung returns much chastened by his experiences as a kung-fu master. However, his rebellious streak lands him in trouble when he gets mixed up in the world of artifact theft. Apparently the British are stealing Chinese artifacts and Fei-Hung must stop them with his kung-fu styles.

These seem like short enough plots, but luckily for you and me, each tiny bit of plot development is punctuated by a 15-minute fight scene. These aren’t your sissy Matrix-style fight scenes either. These are Jackie Chan fight scenes (I direct your attention to Supercop when he beats up like 15 ninjas using an A-frame ladder!)

The movie’s simplicity belies the deep and moving lessons one can learn by watching attentively. For your convenience, I have outlined them here.

1) Kung-Fu is the strongest force in the universe
This is the primary lesson, around which all the others orbit. If your kung-fu is strong enough, you can stop multi-million dollar international intrigue. The guys who are highest up on the command chain have the best kung-fu. All the other average Joes have barely passable kung-fu.

2) Every Chinese person knows kung-fu
It’s not just a sterotype. If this movie is to be believed, every single person in China is at least a 2nd-degree black belt in kung-fu. Don’t go to China to pick a fight! You will lose. North-American kung-fu is not strong enough to compete. I wonder why China doesn’t win more medals, considering they can all run up walls and stuff

3) It is possible for one man to fight off a gang of armed men
Numbers do not matter if your kung-fu is strong enough. A million guys with axes are no match for one old guy with a take-charge attitude. Also, if your kung-fu is good enough, enemies will not realize that if three attack at the same time they will easily defeat you. They will also forget that they can throw their axes.

4) There are no negative side-effects to alcohol
Don’t believe the pamphlets or the doctors. Alcohol doesn’t destroy your liver, give you delirium tremens, reduce your higher brain functions or reduce your motor functions. Instead, it gives you incredible wisdom (provided your kung-fu is strong enough), makes you incredibly witty and lovable, and actually improves your chances of winning a fight. By dampening the amount of pain you receive, your co-ordination improves as well as your judgment and reflexes. Also, the more you drink, the sharper you become.

5) The average kung-fu master is indestructible
In Legends, Fei-Hung suffers multiple punches and kicks to the head and face, takes several hits with iron bars, drinks flammable chemicals, and is dragged across molten coals. Yet the next day, all he has to do is sleep off the hangover. This is why the Chinese army has never been defeated (unless you count that time when they were completely occupied by Japan). Not only are they invincible, but they are really good at math. Also, blocking kicks with your face is a really good idea.

6) The government, police and authority figures are useless
It’s not just a rumour anymore. If you have a problem, be it someone you don’t like, a dispute at work, or an entire country attempting to plunder historic treasures, it can be solved by kicking ass. Going to the police, army, government or any authority figure will not help you solve your problems. Nor will calm discussion or diplomacy. The only way to ensure that your way of life can continue is if you kick everyone’s ass until they agree with you, or are dead. (Hmm, I wonder if the American government of the past 60-or-so years watched these movies too)


So kids, draw yourself a pint and practice your kicks, because once you learn kung-fu, your life will be perfect. Except that everyone will want to kill you. But don’t worry: if all else fails, block stuff with your face and no harm shall come to you.