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Twilight is Bad

Brief injection of truth here, if you don't mind.

Twilight, the popular franchise surrounding the work of Stephanie Meyer, is just not good. It's just really, really, really not good. And I mean that in just about every way possible. Frankly, I'm more confused than anything.

I simply don't understand how so many people, so many millions of people, can be so unabashedly obsessed with something of such tremendously poor quality.

Webster defines "quality" as:

quality: (n) a degree or grade of excellence or worth. synonym: caliber, excellence, merit. antonym: see Twilight.

I just don't get why so many people are obsessed with something that's so obviously shallow and poorly done.

Maybe this entire class of people has somehow failed to come into contact with reality. It seems like if something of quality 0.2 drives you completely wild, then something of quality 1 or greater would be exponentially more engaging.

Considering my scale has "2005 New Orleans Hurricane Preparedness" at quality level 2.4, my hypothesis holds that Twilight fans would stagger around in a constant state of utter infatuation with just about everything around them were they to put Meyer down long enough to notice.

Yet we fail to see this happening.

The thing is, Twilight is not deserving of the hatred it is currently receiving on the internet. It's just a bad series of books and a painful pair of movies. There are plenty of bad books and movies out there that we don't hate, we just don't care about them one way or another. They're inane. Harmless. Mindless. Think toy monkey with cymbals.

The hatred toward Twilight has very little to do with the works themselves.

It's all fine and well for someone to like cheesy romance novels or mindless action movies. Most sane people won't try to strangle someone just because they didn't mind watching Serendipity.

No, the hatred is a (justified, in my opinion) backlash against the sheer obsession so many people have for it.

Imagine if about half of the people you know suddenly began buying lots of toy monkeys with cymbals. Imagine if they got toy monkey with cymbals tattoos and toy monkey with cymbals ringtones. Imagine half the people you know talking about toy monkeys with cymbals for hours every day. Imagine Hollywood pandering to this craze and making a two-and-a-half-hour movie that was just toy monkeys with cymbals, and that half of everyone you know dressed up as toy monkeys and bought their own official toy monkey with cymbals cymbals and all went to the showing at midnight, and then again the next day, and again the day after that.

This might be all well and good if the phenomenon died out in oh, say, a month or two. Your friends went back to being functional human beings, and you could sit down with some Chinese food and have a good solid talk together about non-primate non-percussion matters. Then you probably wouldn't care so much.

But what if the monkeys persisted for a year? Two years? Three? Wouldn't you feel robbed of these people that you loved? Wouldn't you grow to abhor the insanity that took them from you? Wouldn't you murder any monkey you saw on sight?

If you're a Twilight fan, and your answer to any of those questions is yes, you now know how your Twilight-hating friends feel about Twilight and how incomprehensible your behavior seems to them.

Make Me a Flapjack!

It all started in German class.

"Wie alt bis du?" I asked.

In the exercise, we paired up and asked each other a set of questions.

"Ich bin einundzwanzig Jahre alt," said Michael
"I am 21 years old."

"What's your name?" "how old are you?" "where are you from?" and the enigmatic "what kind of person are you?" which seemed a tad deep for introductory conversation.

"Wie alt bis du?" Michael asked.

A seemingly innocent exercise in basic conversational skills.

"Ich bin dreiundzwanzig Jahre alt," I told him.
"I am 23 years old."

"Wow," Michael said, "You're old."

I shrugged. "Fifth-year senior."

Michael nodded. "I'll be doing that too. It's pretty hard to get out in four years, especially if you change your major."

"Guilty," I said.

"Me too."

Wait right there.

While I'm thinking about it, let's talk about pancakes, shall we?

Pancakes are a kind of flat bread cooked in a frying pan or griddle. Depending on region and preference, a pancake may be topped or stuffed with fruits, nuts, jams, or meat. Pancakes are frequently prepared with a rising agent such as baking powder and are cooked on one side before they are flipped to be cooked on the other.

One interesting thing about pancakes is their universality. Unlike kibbeh, which has exclusively Mediterranean origins, pancakes find their roots in many cultures. From Asia to Africa to Europe, pancakes have their own styles and beginnings.

But no matter where you go, you'll be hard-pressed to find a culture that eats their pancakes plain. In Canada and the U.S., we drizzle syrup over these hotcakes and lather them in whipped cream or butter. In France, pancakes are fried thin and rolled into crepes, which are stuffed with cheese, spinach, fruit, sugar, or meat. A Czech "palačinky" is folded and topped with chocolate sauce. Nobody wants to eat their pancakes plain.

I only bring this up because as I was driving home that day, I realized that twenty-three really did feel old. Twenty-three, and I still don't really know what I'm doing with my life. In two years, I'd be halfway to thirty, and it seems like you're kind of supposed to have your life together by that point. None of this mucking about writing pancake blogs.

The truly frightening part was how quickly it was all going. 1999 was a decade ago. I remember 1999. What am I doing now that is so different from back then? I'm still in school, still running through the mazes, still sucking up to the teachers. What for?

Also, twenty-two had gone so fast. I didn't even remember most of it. Was the rest of my life going to zip by like this?

I changed lanes and puzzled that one over. What had I done when I was twenty-two? It seemed like that year didn't even exist. I remembered twenty and twenty-one... what happened to twenty-two?

It was at that moment that I became unsure of my own age.

Okay, it's 2009. I was born in 1987. 109 minus 87 equals...

Twenty-three, right?

Am I really twenty-three? Some of my friends are two years older than me. They couldn't be twenty-five already...

Who else was my age?

Russell. Russell was born within days of me.

I grabbed my phone and dialed.

"Biiiiill!"
"Ruuussseeelll!"
"What's goin' on?"
"Nothing. Quick question."
"Shoot."
"How old are you?"
Pauses. "I am twenty-two."
I was stunned. "Wow. I guess that means I am too."

So that's the story of how I got a year of my life back. I think the moral of the story is to keep things interesting or else you lose track of what you've experienced. You fall into the mundanity of the everyday and forget to grow or experience something new. It's kind of like how the twenty-second plain pancake would be indistinguishable from the twenty-first or twenty-third. You might even lose track of how many pancakes you've eaten. But if you try some crepes, maybe a "palačinky" or two, then maybe it won't be so easy to lose your place.

Markers - Part 3, Every

Glen Olsen's house slept in the sea of woods like an ancient leviathan. It was old, and fat, and covered with vines. In the summer, the floorboards grumbled and the rafters moaned in the heat. It sprawled across a full acre, and the wood that made it outdated the Great Depression.

When we moved in with my stepfather, most of the rooms were already taken. Although there were many rooms and only my stepfather, my mother, and I lived in the house, almost all of the rooms were inhabited by memories. Trophy rooms, hunting rooms, and the study which housed a personal library. Glen had devoted these rooms to markers, things placed to remember. A victory, a kill, a lesson.

My room was assigned to me. I would have never picked it.

Never.

Still people are everywhere. On the sides of the roads, in grocery stores, in movie theaters. There were times in my life when I would see one every day, like the still boy in my kindergarten class, or the homeless still man that the bus passed every day on the way to school. You're not supposed to be uncomfortable around them. Everyone just goes about their business and makes the best of the situation. At age nine, I knew it was taboo to touch them. In kindergarten, I had touched the still boy, and my peers had stared at me. I watched as people in stores respected the personal space of still people without ever making eye contact. The still people didn't make eye contact either. The still people never made eye contact. They only muttered to themselves.

The still woman in my bedroom always whispered about a man named Avery. She wore a fancy green dress, and she stood in the corner of my room, facing the wall. Every night, I went to sleep to the sound of her whispering, "I can't see, Avery," or "What are you doing?" Every morning for six years, I woke up to her mutterings. She never moved, and I never spoke to her.

Sometimes I still hear her whispering when I lay down at night.

Sometimes I still wonder who Avery is.

Sometimes I remember how I pulled the blanket over my head, horrified that her gaze might turn to me, pale in moonlight, as I shivered on my bed. Horrified that she might look at me and see me. Horrified that she would fall silent.

She never did. As far as I know, she whispered right up until the house burned down. I never went back after that. She might still be standing there, whispering as foliage overtakes the ashes.

Whispering like she had over my bedside.

Whispering like all the others.

Every single one.

Computer Doodling

My new pastime: "doodling" in Maya while listening to audiobooks. Here is one such doodle.



Here's another:

Announcement

Changes are coming to Chronocide. For one, there will be posts. For another, there will be multiple authors. Brace yourself for more awesome than your fragile mind can handle.

Am Mart in Baton Rouge

America's Market is the place to get a sandwich in Baton Rouge. Located at the intersection of Nicholson and Lee/College, Am Mart is a one-stop shop with a healthy stock of alcohol, cigars, and essentials like cans of ravioli.

The best part of Am Mart, however, is its deli, which serves warm sandwiches of all varieties. From Chicken Salad to Hot sausage, every single one is a winner that I would stack up against any other sandwich shop in the area. If the quality of food isn't enough to get you interested, then the price will. Even if a good sandwich isn't something you'd sell your younger siblings for, it's hard to beat a foot-long sandwich with the works and a bag of chips for $4.99. It really is a lot of food, too. Sometimes it's enough for two meals for me.

Customer service is unrivaled as well. They know me by name, and I don't even have to give them my order anymore. I almost always get the Cajun Turkey on wheat with provolone cheese and no pickles, onions, or tomato. I highly recommend the Cajun Turkey, by the way.

Anyway, you can walk in and place an order and they'll have it ready in about five minutes. It's a pleasant place to spend five minutes, too. If you're not in the mood for waiting around, call ahead and they'll have your order ready. Here's their information as provided on their fliers.

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American Market
5251 Nicholson Drive, Suite Q
Baton Rouge, LA 70820
Phone: (225)767-7531

Deli-Fresh Poboys & Pitas
Sugar-Buster Wheat Bread Available

-Roast Beef (Extra Lean)
-Cajun Turkey (98% Fat Free)
-Turkey (95% Fat Free)
-Cajun Ham (97.5% Fat Free)
-Ham (95% Fat Free)
-Pastrami (95% Fat Free)
-Salami
-Tuna Salad
-Chicken Salad
-Hot Sausage

All dressed with mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, salad dressing, and your choice of cheese: American, Swiss, Cheddar, Provolone, or Pepper Jack.

All for $4.99 with a 1oz bag of chips

.99 for extra meat, .49 for extra cheese, .25 for jalapenos.

Open 7 days a week!

Mon-Wed 8:30am - 11:00pm
Thur-Sat 8:30am - 12:00pm
Sunday 8:30am - 8:00pm

Deli closes 30 minutes before the store does, so don't wait until the last minute if you want dinner!

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So anyway, go to Am Mart. It definitely has my recommendation.

Am Mart from Nicholson.


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Explanation: Apparently a good number of people find this site by searching for "Am Mart" on Google. Unfortunately, the article I wrote that they find has little to do with Am Mart, so I figured I'd give them something helpful to read.