Archive for the ‘Pop Culture’ Category
Facebook Revisited
Facebook is ranked second on a survey concerning college student market, before beer and after iPod. By May 2008, it has attracted almost 130 million unique visitors. With seven thousand applications in total (at least a hundred more are created daily), it is the biggest and busiest social network out there.
I think online social networking has made us undermine the real meaning of friends. I see some pages where members have at least 300 - 500 friends’ profiles. I can say that my page is very sad. Maybe only 30-ish friends. But it is safe to assume that at least 80% of them are my friends. They fall into at least one of the category below :
Friend : (1) a: one attached to another by affection or esteem b: acquaintance (2) a: one that is not hostile b: one that is of the same nation, party, or group (3): one that favors or promotes something (as a charity) (4): a favored companion
Friend : (1) a person whom you know well and whom you like a lot, but who is usually not a member of your family: (2) someone who is not an enemy and whom you can trust
When we add someone in our “page”, it should be for following reasons :
We do know that person, as in we have engaged in some way or another in the past - either by email, messaging or some ancient-old way such as spent some time in biology lab or english tutorial.
We would like to know that person, as in we find that person interesting and one day, not so long from now, we plan to send a private message or engaged in some kind of virtual activity that does not involve throwing sheep or kicking-butt.
We use the social networking system, such as Facebook, for the purpose of personal social branding and self-promoting. In that case, the more the merrier!
I might be old-fashioned, but when I visit my Facebook page, I would like to see my “real” friends, not some random people who I don’t even know, might not even call, not in a million years would meet up. That would make my Facebook kind of like my Fakebook.
Please, this does not mean that I am passing any kind of judgement. Just my personal opinion and observation. So, don’t send me hate mails.
Do you have any kind of criteria? What do you do when people that you don’t know are asking you to “add” them as “friends”? Do you eventually engage in a virtual or even real relationships with them? Do you “decorate” or “litter” your page with people you don’t know or would you rather have people you love and care about to be in it? Do you see you “page” as your “home” where you have absolute control of what’s in it or do you treat it as a public display of popularity of some sort? How many of us use our page to sell something, be it your persona or products of any kind?
Hollywood Trivia
I am sure everybody agrees with me when I said we all need to chill. There is enough tension these days that could run a turbine of 500 megawatt and thus providing power to 15 km radius of rural civilization (please don’t pin these facts against me as I am pulling them out of thin air). All the war in the Middle East, the G8 saga and the unspeakable event recently.
Let’s unwind Hollywood style ..
STARS WITH TATOO
Angelina Jolie - tiger (lower back), dragon (left arm), Arabic phrase meaning ’strength of will’ (inside right forearm), Buddhist Pali incantation (left shoulder blade), three sets of geographical co-ordinates indicating birth places of her children (left shoulder), numeral 13 (inside left forearm), ‘Know Your Rights’ (back of neck), letter H (inside left wrist), black cross and Latin phrase meaning ‘what nourishes me, destroys me’ (front of left hip).
Ben Affleck - barbed wire (right arm), cross (right arm).
Charlize Theron - flower (right foot).
Penelope Cruz - number 883 (right ankle).
Kurt Russell - letter G (leg).
Halle Berry - flower (right buttock).
Robert De Niro - panther (right shoulder).
Sean Connery - ‘Scotland Forever,’ ‘Mum and Dad’ (forearm).
Nicolas Cage - monitor lizard with top hat (upper back).
Johnny Depp - ‘Wino forever’ (right bicep), Native American face (right bicep), inverted triangle (left bicep), heart engraved with ‘Betty Sue’ (left bicep), three small rectangles (right index finger), number 3 (left hand), skull and crossbones plus ‘Death is certain’ (lower right leg), ‘Lily Rose’ (over heart), ‘Jack’ and bird in flight (right forearm).
Drew Barrymore - three cherubs holding cross with mother’s name (lower back), another cherub (back), butterfly (navel), flower (stomach), cross with vine around it (right ankle), moon (big toe of right foot).
OLDER MEN MARRIED TO YOUNGER WOMEN
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (16).
Jack Haley Jr and Liza Minnelli (12 years’ difference).
Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland (17).
Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford (17).
Warren Beatty and Annette Bening (21).
Elizabeth Taylor and Mike Todd (23).
Clint Eastwood and Dina Ruiz (35).
OLDER WOMEN, YOUNGER MEN
Sharon Stone and Dweezil Zappa (12 years’ difference).
Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins (12).
Cher and Val Kilmer (13).
Joan Collins and Peter Holm (20).
Elizabeth Taylor and Larry Fortensky (20).
COUPLES WHO MARRIED AFTER MEETING ON SET
Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger(The Marrying Man).
Ellen Barkin and Gabriel Byrne (Siesta).
Warren Beatty and Annette Bening (Bugsy).
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (To Have And Have Not).
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra).
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (Days Of Thunder).
STARS WHO’VE NEVER WON AN OSCAR
Peter O’Toole, Marlene Dietrich, Kirk Douglas, WC Fields, John Ford, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Jean Harlow, Rita Hayworth, Alfred Hitchcock, Marilyn Monroe, Peter Sellers, Orson Welles.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR’S MARRIAGES
All eight and what she said at the time:
Conrad ‘Nicky’ Hilton(May 6, 1950 to February 1, 1951) “Your heart knows when you’ve met the right man. There is no doubt that Nicky is the one I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
Michael Wilding (February 21, 1952 to January 30, 1957) “I just want to be with Michael. This, for me, is the beginning of a happy end.”
Mike Todd (February 2, 1957 to March 22, 1958) “This marriage will last for ever. For me it will be third time lucky.”
Eddie Fisher (May 12, 1959 to March 6, 1964) “I have never been happier in my life. We will be on our honeymoon for 30 or 40 years.”
Richard Burton (March 15, 1964 to June 26, 1974) “I’m so happy I can’t believe it. I love him enough to stand by him no matter what he might do.”
Richard Burton(October 10, 1975 to August 1, 1976) “There will be no more marriages or divorces. We’re stuck like chicken feathers to tar - for always.”
John W. Warner (December 4, 1976 to November 7, 1982) “I don’t think of John as Husband Number Seven. He’s number one all the way - the best lover I’ve ever had. I want to spend the rest of my life with him and I want to be buried with him.”
Larry Fortensky (October 6, 1991 to October 31, 1996) “With God’s blessing, this is it, for ever.”
ACTRESSES’ VITAL STATISTICS
Angelina Jolie 36C-27-36; Cameron Diaz 34B-23-36; Sandra Bullock 33B-24-34; Marilyn Monroe 37C-24-35; Julia Roberts 34B-23-34; Pamela Anderson 34C-24-34; Nicole Kidman 34B-23-36.
STARS’ PHOBIAS
Woody Allen (showers with drains in the middle). Drew Barrymore (claustrophobia). Cher (flying). Joan Crawford (germs). Katharine Hepburn (fire). Steven Spielberg (lifts).
SCREEN KISS
The first screen kiss - May Irwin and John Rice (The Widow Jones, 1896)
The first Hollywood French kiss - Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty (Splendor In The Grass, 1961)
The first same-sex kiss - the orgy scene in Cecil B DeMille’s Manslaughter (1922)
The most kisses in one movie - 127 by John Barrymore in Don Juan (1926).
ACTORS RECAST AFTER SHOOTING BEGAN
Michael J. Fox replaced Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly in Back To The Future.
Martin Sheen replaced Harvey Keitel as Captain Benjamin L. Willard in Apocalypse Now.
Sandra Bullock replaced Lori Petty as Lt Lenina Huxley in Demolition Man.
ACTORS WHO GAINED OR LOST WEIGHT FOR A ROLE
Vincent D’Onofrio (Full Metal Jacket) +70lb;
Sylvester Stallone (Cop Land) +40lb;
Toni Collette (Muriel’s Wedding) +40lb;
Tom Hanks (Cast Away) -50lb;
George Clooney (Syriana) +35lb;
Will Smith (Ali) +35lb;
Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones’s Diary) +25lb;
Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands) - 25lb;
Russell Crowe (Cinderella Man) -50lb;
Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting) -30lb.
FIRST JOBS
Sean Connery (coffin polisher); Bette Midler (worker at a pineapple processing plant);Danny DeVito ( hairdresser); Harrison Ford (carpenter); Keanu Reeves (skate sharpener at the local ice rink); Sylvester Stallone (lion cage cleaner); Warren Beatty(rat-catcher).
GUY RITCHIE’S MOCKNEY RHYMING SLANG
From Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels: Battle cruiser (boozer); Bird’s nest (chest); Chevy Chase (face); Nuclear sub (pub); Ping pong (strong); Tiddly (wink) (drink).
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
Douglas Fairbanks: “I’ve never felt better.”
John Barrymore: “Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.”
Humphrey Bogart: “I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”
Errol Flynn: “I’ve had a hell of a lot of fun and I’ve enjoyed every minute.”
Noel Coward: “Goodnight, my darlings. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Groucho Marx: “Die, my dear? Why, that’s the last thing I’ll do.”
Elvis Presley: “I hope I haven’t bored you.”
From Daily Mail UK
Image credit to SXC.hu
Generation X - Marijuana, Dalai Lama and Internet
The 90’s are about to make a come back. I can just feel it. With the indie movie The Wackness hitting US and creating all sorts of buzz, I simply can’t wait to stroll down memory lane for the decade I thought time forgot.
I came from what seems to be the most prosaic decade of modern times: the 90s. That period of time cannot be encapsulated by a single thought. 70s is love, 80s is excess. Maybe the reasons are that so many things happened during those times that we took those things for granted and forgot to look back.
Lets start with the internet and the information age. Kuwait was invaded. Margaret thatcher resigned. DNA as first used in crime labs. A sheep was cloned. Techno music went mainstream. Grunge was the look. Therapy became pedestrian and Bill Clinton was a rock star.
Everybody who is somebody started becoming an environmentalist and tried to outrun each other to Africa and the other poorest corners of the world to make a difference - so to speak. Entrepreneurial spirit was celebrated. I tried to be an entrepreneur and, like the minute millionaires of the 90s I went bust pretty quickly.
I was also intimidated to have internet at home. It is changing so much of how we live our lives. Not in a million years I thought I can talk to someone who lived three thousand miles away through Skype and that I could buy luxurious lingerie online?
I think what the 90s tried to do was the inspiration to create. It was a modern and experimental decade people started thinking lyrically. The 90s is also the playground of the twenty something millionaires from Silicon Valley. Every month the world was awed by some new innovation, web millionaires were cropping and falling with every breath.
It was also fashionable to edit, thus my least favourite trend, minimalism become mainstream. It was fashionable to be sheer, translucent in manner, dress and attitude. Everything was toned down. Madonna and Paula Abdul had to make way for the Dalai Lama.
A theory on Generation X is that this band of young adults could not identify with the generation that made them. They had to modernize vintage philosophies by wearing vintage clothes. TV captured most of this internal torture and encapsulated the thoughtful and glitzfree voice of our time. Of course, Sex and the City was born, opening minds of women (and men) everywhere.
The hero was the ordinary man with extraordinary thoughts. The nerds lead the way.
Douglas Coupland was the first one to coined the term Generation X in 1991, with his book Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. It hovers around the conflict between secular and religious values, difficulty in aging and taking on adult roles, ironic attitudes as a response to intense media saturation, and pop and mass culture. In other words, everything that went wrong with the young.
Do you think the 90’s making a comeback? I sure hope so. It is an exciting time and we need that to save us from the hardships and hatred that have been going around, online and offline. Bring out the pot, people!
Image credit to SXC.hu
