Category: entertainment

Part 1

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It was not long after the nuclear wipe out took place, a monumental event known as The Great Purge. All that was left were just scraps of the human race, the vagabonds, the cowards, the rats from the very darkest corners of grime.

How ironic, only the people too afraid to live were the last one’s left on the earth. The meek shall inherit the earth – it was foretold eons ago, well it seems that prophecy had finally come to pass, and the world had gone to spiraling out of control for it.

In the days before Act III of Humanity came to pass, the people left to breathe in the ashes of their loved ones sank to their knees.

Religion had long since faded from the lips of those whose God was so seemingly absent; it had turned into a simple words used to describe The Great Purge. But even so, with lungs clouded with ash, the people looked to hazy orange skies, with blood-shot eyes and veins bulging painfully from beneath sickly and wan skin.

They looked up at the unmerciful smog and smoke-filled sky as oil slicked tears fell from shattered souls, the meek prayed for the absent, so-called, messiah.

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The last of humankind had gathered in small groups of tired and hopeless people, scattered throughout the world; but, the only ones that matter were gathered in the center of what had once been called the city of the future.

It was on that day, one day till night officially fell, that a scruffy teenager barely sixteen dragged himself through the streets of the burnt city.

He had the eyes of days past; clear and pale green; offsetting, in a face caked with death and heartache; hopeful and optimistic, set into the face of someone forced to grow up to quickly.

He had the tooth of a long starved animal buried in his abdomen and he was quickly running out of blood to spare.

The surviving meek where huddled at the very tip of the city near the, now poison, ocean; as the boy stumbled down the road toward them, his eyes met with the eyes of a girl standing at the front of all the survivors.

The girl stared at the boy who was slowly making his way toward her. She was short with even shorter hair, it was cut into a choppy bob that fell midway down her neck. She was distinctly Asian in heritage, Singapore, this city had once been Singapore.

She was pale, powdery, with dark jet black hair and they eyes of a bird of prey. Her eyes though, that is what truly set her apart from the rest of the meek.

They were tawny and gold like a lion, rimmed in a thick layer of dark lashes. Although warm in color, her eyes had the cold, impersonal, precision of a microscope, they were like ice and fire in one person.

She did not strike one, outright as meek, but what had grouped her in with the cowards and vagrants was not that she was cowardly, but she had never tried to live.

What Would You Do?

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“What Would You Do” – It’s my favorite American TV show.

The show is about exactly what its name states.

It sets up very dramatic situations, involves ordinary people in them, and watches their reactions to the dilemmas given, with the hidden cameras rolling.

It usually deals with serious social issues, and a lot of its episodes have unexpected touching results, in which people step up and take action without hesitation in order to do the right thing.

However, in this particular episode, the result surprised me in a quite different way.

It takes place at a family restaurant in Utah, where African-Americans take up only 0.05% of its population.

In this scenario, a white girl introduces her black boyfriend to her father. Unlike what she expects, the father rejects her boyfriend because of his race.

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As she rushes out of the restaurant with her boyfriend, an old lady sitting next to his table talks to the father. “I am with you,” She says. “I think they should stay with their own.”

A woman behind her, nodding in agreement, is brought to tears.

“I have a daughter,” She tells her story in a shaky voice. “She has a friend that’s black… I told her, “He’s fine to be your friend, you are never going to get involved with him…” They were just friends, but… I worried about that.”

Then, the old lady adds her racist comment: “A pretty girl like her would pick something like that.”

Photo Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UuEegi4Ojo

Trying not to get emotional about her cutting comments, dying inside, the actor keeps the conversation going, asking if he is wrong.

“I was very proud of you,” The old lady responds. “Because that’s a shock to anybody.”

When the reporter of the show, John Quiñones, shows up in the restaurant, explains her about the show, and interviews her, the old lady tells us about her strong belief.

“I’m sorry,” She says. “If you are white, you are white. If you are colored, you go with colored people. And keep it in your family. Don’t put it in somebody else’s.”

She ends her comments with another incomprehensible statement: “It’s alright if you are a Mexican person, they are still white people,” She explains. “But black people and white people, no. I’m sorry, it breaks my heart.”

Finally, Quiñones introduces the man who acted a black boyfriend to the old lady. As they shake their hands, the guy asks her for a hug.

To my surprise, as she gives him a hug, she says, “You know, but I just think we should stay with our own, don’t you?”

This Episode shocked me. I thought racism was dead in America.

As an international student in California, I never considered rejecting an interracial couple as an option.

I heard of the word, “colored people,” for the first time in my life when I was studying To Kill a Mockingbird in my English class. Also, I was surprised when I learned that the setting of the story was within less than a hundred years.

Some people might think that racism no longer exists in America. However, for a lot of people, racism is still a big issue in their lives. A big chunk of generations was taught to be racist in its youth.

Now, the real question is, how should we react to this issue?

The episode ends with an interview with the African-American actor.

Quiñones asks, “She even hugged you. How did that feel?”

“Very weird, but I believe in people,” the actor answers. “I wanted her to know that, no matter what she thought, I was still going to shake her hand and I was still going to hug her because that’s how I am.”

Urban Exploration

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Just the other day I was browsing some dank memes on Reddit.

I got really bored so I went to “reddit.com/r/random/” which directs the user to a random subreddit.

After three attempts I finally stumbled upon a decent-looking subreddit that I had never even heard of: /r/urbanexploration.

I spent the rest of my evening on that subreddit. The subreddit is dedicated to exploring ruins in urban areas. It’s all about people’s findings of abandoned monuments frozen in time.

Spanning from secret basement doorways that lead to a massive tunnel system that were likely used by Al Capone, to old Yugoslavian monuments from the 1960s.

Photo credit to Michael Mehrhoff

The subreddit is mostly crap, but every few posts is an amazing story. The stories are really just a bunch of captioned pictures in the order of their findings.

My favorite was the post titled “Bad Ass Bunker.” The album is a series of 31 pictures with detailed captions.

The person who explored the bunker was visiting his old friend in northern Germany, which was formerly GDR.

They found a massive bunker. Some of it was already explored and had been tagged by teens. But the further and deeper they went, the more they found.

Eventually, the bunker was flooded and they had to turn back.

Photo credit to Johnny Joo

Urban explorers find a thrill in going through these abandoned buildings. Some even travel around the world.

They love it because the building tells a story and they get to be the ones to figure it out. Like what is this place, who was here, why was it abandoned?

Urban explorers are each like a modern-day Indiana Jones. Some of the explorers are photographers that actually take photos of abandoned places for a living.

Photo credit to Daniel Barter

For those who want to get started, the subreddit is a great place to get advice and learn of new locations.

Keep in mind, in most cases breaking into abandoned places is trespassing, and a lot of people on the subreddit have been arrested.

But there are websites that can be found on the subreddit that help avoid this issue.

Tim Burton

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Tim Burton has always been my favorite director. 

From the first time I saw Nightmare Before Christmas I knew I loved his style.   Burton’s dark and quirky genre of film has attracted many fans, including me, over the years.

The thing that always appealed to me about his work, is that no matter how dark the colors and the characters may be, the movie always seems so bright. 

Take Edward Scissorhands, for example. This movie terrified me the first time I saw it, 7-year-old me would cling to my mother at the sight of a transformed Johnny Depp.

As I got older, I began to look past the frightening front of this movie to the much deeper meaning found in it. 

Edward Scissorhands was much more than a bizarre story about a man with scissors for hands.  It was about isolation and self discovery, and I learned so much from it. 

Movies have always been a constant in my life. 

Whenever I was sad, angry or just felt alone, the eccentric and beautiful characters of Tim Burton would fill me with laughter and joy. 

I related to his characters so deeply – so much they’ve almost became apart of me.

In my life, I’ve always been considered an outsider, I’ve done my own thing and been happy while doing it. 

When I started high school things began to change.  If you weren’t like every other girl in the school you were suddenly weird. 

Not fitting in is an age-old story, especially for teenage girls, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.  I was different, and I knew that, except suddenly it didn’t feel so great.

 Naturally, I turned the imagination of Tim Burton.  His characters are almost always outsiders, look at Lydia Deetz from Beetlejuice or Sally from Nightmare before Christmas. 

These two outsiders both have huge hearts and make a difference to the people around them.  That’s what I strive to be. 

While I know I’ll probably never be a Tim Burton character (though Tim if you’re reading this, call me), I know, no matter how weird or different I may be, I can make a difference.

And that’s what I’ve learned from Tim Burton.

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Photo Credit to: http://www.d2fzf9bbqh0om5.cloudfront.net

 

Time Travel

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Time Travel is real, and I can prove it.

Let’s start with my favorite, often referred to as the time-traveling hipster. In 1940, a photo was taken at the reopening of the South Fork bridge in Canada.

In the photo, everyone is dressed in very time-period-appropriate clothing; all except one man, who I call the Time-Traveling Hipster.

He is wearing a cardigan with a graphic tshirt. His sunglasses are very retro and his haircut does not really fit the time period.

The strangest part is what is in his hands. In his hands appears to be a DSLR camera which weren’t invented for another 50 years.

Film cameras were around during that time but they were mainly silver. His camera is black. The time traveling hipster has been debated over for years, but no conclusion has been reached.

In 2008, another unexplained mystery emerged when a Chinese archeologist opened up a 400 year-old tomb. The tomb is believed to be untouched by anyone since it was sealed 400 years ago.

But that makes it hard to explain how they found a small ring made of metal, shaped into a watch, with the time 10:06 and “Swiss” engraved on the back.

It was in the soil on the outer layer of the coffin. The ring is believed to be only 100 years old. The question is, who in 1908 would enter a tomb, not open the coffin, not loot the place, not announce the discovery, then close the tomb they were in.

The best answer would be time travelers. Maybe time travelers have a creed, and they gather research and try to leave little evidence behind.

Although another theory attempts to debunks this theory, saying it is more likely be some sort of “quantum strangeness”, where random object disappear and reappear in different places for unknown reasons.

I think that theory is far-fetched, and I’ll stick with time travel.

Of all the far-fetched stories, this next one beats them all.

It has the potential to be real, but odds are if it was, we would not know about it.

The story from Andrew D. Basiago seems to be loony. In 1970, the defense advanced research project agency A.K.A DARPA worked on a top-secret project known as Project Pegasus.

Basiago claims to be a child participant in the program. I say “claims” because all the websites are not what I would call factual. The mission statement which has not been confirmed by DARPA is to research and perform “time sensing”; it is the US time-space exploration program.

Several children were a part of this program, but I had trouble finding names. But Andrew D. Basiago says that on one of his temporal trips he was at the Gettysburg address, and he is in a photo, in which he claims to be the boy in the bottom left.

I looked at Basiago’s childhood pictures; there were very few, and in none of them he had long hair. But it would make sense that he didn’t have photos from the time he was a part of Project Pegasus.

This is either a massive government cover-up, or just a man who wants attention. Either way, the government doesn’t care, because it would be nearly impossible to prove, especially with his reputation.
Don’t take this too seriously. Most of these examples have explanations which kill imagination. I believe in time travel, and I wish I believed the stories. But whether or not I believe is not the purpose of article.

My purpose for writing this is to raise curiosity of time-space and open up minds to different views even if they are far fetched.

Funny Girls

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Before I began to write this, I googled “funny topics to write about”. 

I did this because I am uncreative person who relies on the ideas of others. 

What surprised me was that the number one “funny” topic on the website was “Women can’t be funny”.  Seeing this invoked my inner Hillary Clinton or Susan B. Anthony or whichever feminist you wish to compare me to. 

Obviously I was outraged.  The idea that women can’t be funny is crazy; if I learned anything from my 10 years of watching Saturday Night Live, it would be that Kristen Wiig is hilarious and Justin Timberlake needs to stop writing songs about his…you know.

 In days past, it used to be only ugly girls were funny, now it seems to be only good-looking female comediennes who can crack a laugh.

It used to be that when performing you wanted to look “comical”, much like Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy, but now, if you don’t have good looks and, of course, above a C-cup, it’s hard to even score spot at an open mic night. 

While the comedy world isn’t 100% free of sexism, it’s pretty close. 

That person who wrote that “women can’t be funny” topic isn’t really an outstanding model for the entire comedy world. 

I mean that guy probably thinks “that’s what she said” jokes are hilarious and has based his entire sense of humor off South Park. 

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credit to Vanity Fair

Geniuses are the downfall of society

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Image credit to preventdisease.com

Throughout history there have been people who are different from the rest. These “different” people are famous in the history books and are considered geniuses. I’m not talking about great warriors or generals. I’m talking about the scientists, engineers, architects, the innovators of the world, the geniuses. People like Davinci, Wright brothers, Alexander Fleming, Marie Curie, and Steve Jobs. They are some of the smartest people to have lived and most people are thankful for their contributions. I’m not thankful, however; I say screw them. The human race will die at their doing. The contributions they made have greatly impacted the earth. The damage done is beyond repair and at this rate, Earth has 100 years left. I am thankful for the lack of contribution made by everyone else; they should be the ones in the history books. Sure, there have been people that have made designs that help the world, but it’s not enough. I can only think of a few things that could save the human race: Intergalactic travel or time travel, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Thanks a lot smart people.

Cult Movies

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Most of us know at least one person who can’t get through the week without quoting their favorite cult film,whether it be Heathers, Carrie, Rocky Horror Picture Show or some other enthusiastically admired film. 

But what makes a movie a cult classic?  The term was originally coined in the late 1970’s but has now grown into many captivated fan bases. 

Films that are able to be called a ‘cult classic’ were usually box office flops, or movies nobody really cared about at the time of their release but gained popularity in the years later. 

Cult films are usually timeless, adored by people who watched them at the time of their release along with teenagers and young adults.  Even today you can catch a midnight screening of Rocky Horror Picture show at the Art Theatre in Long Beach.

Even though I have never attended one of these legendary screenings, I’ve heard it’s quite an experience.

Along with a love of Whole Foods, Arcade Fire and ugly shoes, admiration of cult movies have become a defining characteristic of the young hipster. 

This probably has something to do with the fact that these ‘cult films’ were ripped to pieces by the critics and virtually ignored by the public at the time of their release, and like any good hipster, they loved it just because it was hated. 

While most cult movies were not positively received at the time of their launch, doesn’t mean they are all bad. For example: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – it’s a great movie but Roger Ebert gave it a 1/4. 

Likewise not all Cult Movies deserved to be on the high pedestal their zealous fans have put them on, such as “The Room”, which one IMDB comment stated “watching this movie felt like being stabbed in the head”.

Why this movie still has a following, I’m not sure. 

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photo credit to cultmovieresearch.com

Car Chaos

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This week, I stumbled across yet another technological advancement while reading news articles.

Since September 2014, Google has released roughly 50 self-driving cars out and about on the streets of California. These futuristic Lexus’ and Audi’s have been roaming the streets in hopes to prove that they are safe to drive themselves.

So far, there have been only 11 accidents that were minor and included no injuries.

“Not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident,” said Google’s Chris Urmson.

In my opinion, although self-driving cars sound kind of cool, they also sound terrifying. What if we know something is wrong with our car, but we cannot control it because the car is in control of itself?

However, Google makes some very strong points as to why their cars are safer than human driven cars: robots do not get tired, they are not emotional, they are over-cautious rather than fearless, and these cars can see things human’s cannot always see.

Is this an unrealistic plan with too many issues involved? Or what our future will be like?

Photo Credit: extremetech.com

Best and Worst: Met Gala 2015

kennyroo

With every star studded red carpet, comes along the best and worst dressed list – and this years annual Met Gala was no fashion disappointment.

This year’s Costume Institute Gala Benefit was celebrating the opening of the China: Through the Looking Glass exhibition – which is co-chaired by Jennifer Lawrence, Chinese actress Gong Li,Vogue editor Anna Wintour, and others.

To start off this years best dressed list is The Fault in Our Stars actor, Ansel Elgort. Elgort is wearing Tom Ford and a Harry Winston watch.

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Photo Credit: dailymail.co.uk

Next up on the best dressed list is Poppy Delevigne in Marchesa. It’s always a risky move to wear a red dress on the red carpet, but Poppy showed no fear with her daring plunging neckline – and it was absolute perfection.

To start of the worst dressed list, we have Keeping Up with The Kardashians star, Kris Jenner.

Jenner was draped in an ill-fitting Balmain gown. The dress had chunky shoulder pads and overall too much fabric that she just seemed to get lost in.

Photo Credit: buzzfed.com

 

The entire look was overall too much of everything from head-to-toe. There is a fine line between wearing the dress and having the dress wear you, and Kris sadly identified with the latter.

Next up in line of fashion disasters is Miley Cyrus. Miley is always making risky fashion choices, but her Alexander Wang gown for this year’s Met Gala it felt like a déjà vu. A high neck and complete side cut outs – Miley, you can do better.

Another star of the best-dressed list this year had to be Pitch Perfect’s, Hailee Stienfeld in Michael Kors. While her red dress may have been the most worn color that evening, her elegant gown made an everlasting impression.

Amanda Seyfried stunned the crowd in a gorgeous Cream Givenchy gown. She looked like a romantic angel, yet having a dark lip color gave her look a gothic edge.

Last up on the worst dressed list had to be American Horror story star, Chloe Sevigny in JW Anderson. The star took the Chinese theme too far and in all of the wrong ways.

Her gown, or shall I say strange take on a kimono, was done poorly. The slit down the middle and large bow on her chest was the cherry on top of this over-done sundae.

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To close the show, Queen Bey (or as some people know her, Beyonce) was absolutely jaw dropping.

Beyoncé wore a sheer, bejeweled Givenchy dress with a high ponytail. She has left social media in a complete uproar, and we cannot wait to see how she will out do herself next year.

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Photo Credit: vanityfair.com