American Dream

Last Thursday I finished the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Pretty much, it’s about a guy named Hunter S. Thompson who is a journalist sent out to find the American Dream. He is accompanied by a man who is referred to as his attorney. His story is about the Mint 400 which is a race, although that’s not really key to the story. The story starts off with Hunter and his attorney driving to Las Vegas, and both are high. It starts off right with a laugh as the two encounter a hitch hiker who is eventually sacred away. I thought this book was really funny because its completely random, due in part to the massive amount of drugs that seem to be ingested throughout this story. This book is really just a compilation of stories that all seem to go wrong yet right at the same time. The journey for the American dream takes them to Las Vegas, yet I hardly think that’s where it truly is. The beauty about this book is that you don’t, at least I didn’t, get the meaning of it until you reflect back on it. This guy has no plan other than go to Las Vegas. Nothing in his life is planned further than the next day, yet things always seem to work out for him. He is not rich nor terribly famous and his only concern in life seems to be whether or not he will have enough drugs to get him through his days. He challenges authority and presses his limits like the part in the book when he goes to a police conference after he has bailed out on a hotel bill and is in current possession of illegal substances. He even has the audacity to tell a completely ridiculous story to one of the cops involving a decapitated women. And it is this randomness that gives the story its message. Hunter S. Thompson is living the American dream. it may not be the American dream the people usually imagine, but nonetheless it is the dream. he lives everyday of his life to fullest. He experiences more things in one week then most do their whole loves. The fact that he doesn’t plan and acts mostly on impulse gives his life the fun it is full of, and keeps him from the worry that most people experience. He doesn’t sweat the small stuff, and keeps moving on to the next big thing, and that is the American Dream.

Takin' A Journey

I recently watched the movie Journey to the Center of the Earth. It starred Brendan Fraser and some unknown but still good actors Josh Hutcherson and Anita Briem. Directed by Eric Brevig, it is supposedly based on Jules Verne’s novel, Journey to the center of the Earth. Despite the almost overdone plot of the adventurous common person turn explorer who ends up saving the world, or in this case his companions, and wraps it up with ‘getting the girl’ it still managed to keep my entertainment for most of the movie.Adventure movies can only take you to the edge of your seat so many times before becoming predictable, and if they do it continuously, they at least owe the audience to do it well. The movie was about a scientist, whose department is getting shut down, who has a brother that had gone missing about ten years ago. No one knows what happened to him, but his brother, Brendan Fraser, finds his brothers copy of Jules Verne’s Journey to the center of the earth. In the copy are noted written by his brother that give advice on how it would be possible to get to the center of the earth, and what is down there. This leads the scientist to believe that his brother had taken the book as non-fiction, and had attempted to indeed journey to the center of the earth. The scientist who is currently supposed to be taken care of his thirteen year old nephew, flies both him and his nephew over to New Zealand to find this other scientist who is supposed to have had ideas similar to his brother's. The scientists is dead, however, but his daughter, who is a mountain guide agrees to take the two men up to a mountain where some locator for an experiment the scientist is doing is. While they are up in the mountain, a storm hits, and they become trapped in a cave. They have to go into a cave to find a way out, and while doing so they happen upon the center of the earth and have various spellbinding experiences including a run in with a dinosaur and a dangerous encounter with lava. Overall, the movie is decent, but i would not buy it, for it is hardly worth the 2 bucks to rent it. Being a big fan of the movies Monkey Bone and Blast from the Past, I enjoy Brendan Fraser as much the next person, and in this movie, he is the one thing giving it a decent rating as opposed to sucky.

Mr. President

For those of you whose bedtime is before eleven, or for those of you who decided that the election results can wait till tomorrow, i pity you, for you have missed one of the most influential speeches in history. I just finished watching Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, and no matter who you were, it left you with a tear, or maybe even tears in your eyes. I have rarely heard something that has not only given me goosebumps, but froze me from the inside out. The hope with which he talks is so inspiring. He has set history, and as many people have said, he has provided inspiration to not only the youth of America, but the more experienced people as well. He knows. You can tell, he knows. His cause is noble, and his reach will be global. You would have walked away with such a feeling of hope, of change. You feel it coming, these aren't just empty promises. His slogan was on the tip of everybody's tongue. Yes, we can. And it wasn’t only said, it was believed. The people want change, and with him, they see it coming, and indeed it will. He is filled with hope for not only our country, but the citizens within it as well. He talked to the people who had been McCain supporters saying that he is their president too. He encourages unity between the divided states. No president before this since John F. Kennedy and George Washington has had the support of so many people. People may question the validity of his statements saying that he is not cut out for this job, or that he is lying, and can’t possibly keep all his promises. What they neglect to hear, or rather understand is that he isn’t really promising anything, at least not just himself. He makes promises on the basis of the nation. He has said many times that for any change to occur, we must be united, we must one, and we must be the change. We all have to work together if we want the change we seek, and that is the promise unto us. What people deem his socialistic ideals may not necessarily be bad for this country. We are clearly in need of change, and no matter whether you support him or not, he will have to be the one to bring it. Congratulations President Obama. Yes, you can.

The Book

So I just happened upon this new book. Its entitled “This Book will Change Your Life”. I know, the title is lacking in creativity, but if we judged every book by its title, would anyone have read half the books that are now considered classics. Anyway, this book is meant to be read over a period of a year, one page a day. Each page tells you to do something. I am only on day five, and i already love this book. Its so simple, yet so helpful. It encourages spontaneity which has sadly been lost with time as our society has moved to a more structured planned out one. The first day, it gives you some choices. Some of them being name your gentiles, tell someone your middle name, or pick your favorite toe. I was going to tell someone my middle name to someone since i don’t tell anyone my middle name, but there were too many people around, so i picked which of my toes was the prettiest. Its my middle toe on my right foot, your left. The next day, it has a little paragraph. The paragraph talks about soul mates, and then advises you to on this day, look at everyone as if they could be your soul mate, and act accordingly. See what I mean. This book brings up things that no one really thinks about, and if they do think about them, rarely do they ever act on such thoughts, yet with this book with this uncreative title, people will because it tells them to. And it is because of this title that this book is so appealing. Almost everyone wants to change their life, and this book puts it right out there, that this is what it will do, and the fact that you only have to do one thing a day that normally takes no more than five seconds increases its appeal even more. On day three, you are supposed to throw something away that you like. This has been my favorite suggestion. I am a firm believer that people have put way too much thought and feeling into their possessions. this is dangerous, and recently, I have tried to really think about this fact and detach myself from objects. The more objects one has, the more worry they experience, because there is always that concern that something bad might happen to them. However when I was trying to think of what to throw away, I found it extremely hard. I eventually decided on my nail polish to throw away. I liked it, but without it, I am still the same person. And by simply throwing nail polish away, I have been taught a lesson. And that is the beauty of the book.

SawFive

Yesterday was my birthday, and to celebrate I went to my first rated R movie legally. I thought to myself, what better thing to do on my seventeenth then exercise my new right to see naked people and hear what is now deemed inappropriate language. Its the same concept as going to Chuck E Cheese on your eighteenth birthday or drinking on your twenty-first. But anyway, i decided to see Saw 5 because it looked good. There’s nothing I like more than seeing people killed in sick and disgusting ways. So anyways it was pretty good. I have to admit, not many movies have been able to pull off five movies and still be good. The only one I can currently think of are the Rocky movies, however even those were a little shaky. It usually has to end at three, because by that time, everything has already been said, and everything has already been done to death. Saw five however has managed to not only maintain it’s entertainment qualities and execute its executions smartly, but also leave the plot open for, dare I say it, a sixth one. However, I think the saw movies may have an unfair advantage. You see, in only the first two movies were the actors the same. And even after the first one, the movies were left short, but it seems that these movies gat a new cast every time. I think this allows them to stay fresh and because of this, they have been able to pull off a fifth one. And its not even like those movies that say they’re the sequel to another one, but then there is a completely different cast with a whole new plot. Yes, there is new casts, but usually one of the actors carries over to the next one, where they are killed, but they serve as a link to the previous. Not only that, but the plot is the same as well. Its always jigsaw killing people who have taken life for granted, and some detective looking for them. Its almost as if the movie lacks creativity, because you almost know what’s going to happen, but yet, that isn’t the case. There’s no question though that without the twisted things that the victims have to do, this movie would not be as popular. I almost think that those take away from the movie though because there really is a message to be learned. Jigsaw kills for a reason-to make people appreciate life and stop taking it for granted. Scope it.