Friday, June 26, 2009

Open Letter to Angelina Jolie...

Angie (may i call you angie? i've heard that people do...),

ok, so here's the deal. i'm going to come clean. i know i've said some really rough things about you in past posts. i've criticized just about everything that there is to criticize (even things that are, admittedly, totally irrelevant and just mean). call me a bitter bastard, i suppose. i'd like to start things anew with you, if you'll allow that. i'm not going to go back and say that i liked 'the changeling'. i'm sorry, i just can't. but, i understand why you'd want to make the film and who wouldn't want to act with malcovich? i did really like you in 'gia', i've always maintained that. i actually liked, 'hackers', too, in a cracky kind of way. i can even appreciate what you were going for with 'a mighty heart' (although i maintain that, just as constructive criticism, in the scene when you break down, she would have been yelling in her native tongue. when we're in that state we revert to what we know best. you yelled in english. it's a minor point and i'm pretty sure that i am the only person who picked up on that because it was a well acted scene). so, whether i like your movies or not aside, your probably pretty cool and i shouldn't have a go at you because of that. i have denied you credit for things done well because of things that i thought weren't so good but that's simply a matter of personal taste and i shouldn't have criticized you personally for it.
there's another thing that i have to say that i'm sorry for. this one you can thank my friend joseph for... i have, in the past, been a 'team jen' kind of person. i can't help but feel bad for her. i've had my heart broken (haven't we all) and i sympathize with what it must be like to try to get over your ex when you can't escape images of him being happy with someone else. that being said, i've also agreed with woody and his, 'the heart wants what it wants' statement. i think that that is very true. if you note, i did comment on one particular post in which i blamed the whole breakup of that marriage on you that perhaps i was wrong and that brad is now happy where he wasn't before...essentially i had rethought and semi-retracted my statements. so, joseph opened my mind to the fact and thought that it really had nothing to do with you (the breakup, that is). you two fell in love and he made the choice to leave his wife. you didn't force him to, i'm sure he's strong willed and not a malleable piece of clay that you just took and bent to your will. i will give him far more credit than that. i do think that you can bend men to your will, but i think that that's more of a compliment than a criticism. it means that they find you sexy and interesting and alluring... these are good things.
i've also taken a jab at your un work, i know... that one was probably the worst. i said that you spread yourself too thin when it came to that and didn't come out of the areas you visited and spread the word about what you saw there. can i really judge that, though? maybe that's not your intention when you go to these places. perhaps you know that the world knows about the problems in cambodia and africa, etc and that you're there for the people themselves and to shine a brief light on those individuals. i still think that perhaps you should talk more about what you saw when you were there when you get back (although perhaps you do and the media simply chooses to focus more on speculation on the state of your relationship and your womb than what you have to say about poverty-stricken and war-torn countries. i don't know).
anyway, to sum up... i'm sorry for being so harsh on you. makes me feel very tabloidy and maybe (i'm not fessing to this, JUST saying MAYBE, i'm a little but envious of the fact that you're a year older than i am, you have success in your chosen field-- whereas i'm still struggling at best--, you got to kiss gerry butler-- a fact that i will just have to remain green with envy about-- and that you have many opportunities that i wish i had.
PERHAPS my vitriol was far less about you and far more about me. i'm generally not the kind of person who lets jealousy in or who lets it turn into anger but maybe i did this time. for that, i'm sorry).
i will even go so far as to admit that i understand why you wouldn't want to go into whole foods while everyone else was there. i'm sure you've been mobbed a million times and i would probably take measures to ensure that i didn't have to endure that, as well.
that's it really. i hope that we can make up and that you can understand why i've said some of the things i've said and forgive the parts that were just unnecessarily mean. you've never done anything to me, and i don't know what really goes on in your persona
l life. maybe i should let my sympathy for jen and the tabloid press do less thinking for me when it comes to you and think for myself. when it comes down to it i actually kind of think that i would think you were pretty damn cool if we were to meet.
i can't imagine what it must be like to live in the bubble that you live in. i would hate to have people constantly criticizing my every move or spewing negativity in my direction when they really have no idea what it's like to live my life. i feel guilty to have been a part of that. you do put positivity out into the world and that's to be commended, not criticized.
hope you can accept my olive branch...
i'll even go and watch 'salt' with an open mind.
take care,
nic

ps- i am totally jealous of your tats, that i WILL fess up to.

Monday, June 22, 2009

My new obsession...

ok, so there are so many things that are different here in the UK (but we knew that that was going to be the case, yes?). there are also so many things that are the same, though. the grocery stores are essentially the same (other than the fact that we have no whole foods and that they sell things like, 'bovril', which is like gravy that you drink as far as i can tell-- oh, and don't even get me started on the many flavors of 'crips'... things like 'fish and chips' and 'cajun squirrel'). yes, they do drive on the wrong side of the road AND the wrong side of the car. yes, they're weird and don't have guns (but that's a good thing). but so many things are the same... there's coke AND pepsi and all of the fads and television shows that come from the states make their way over here.so, we come to why i've even brought this up...i have been known, in my time, to buy a magazine or two when the mood strikes and the magazine looks interesting. and while they DO have the same magazines (although, of course, they have some that we don't and vice-versa) they're the british versions. this is not the big news, though. the big news is that magazines here aren't just magazines!! magazines here invariably come with some sort of bonus extra that doesn't cost you any more. all of them have free gifts (and i'm not talking samples of perfume that you have to tear out and then apply to yourself by rubbing paper on your body!). they come with PROPER free stuff... bags, books, toiletry cases, make-up, toys, cds, guitar pics... every type of magazine has its own type of surprise free gift (the lamest is the 2 for 1 deal wherein you get 'hello' and 'cosmo' for the price of one-- but still!!! that's something you would never see in the states!!). every time i walk into a shop i MUST scan the shelves for what's on the go with even the crappiest of mags.
here are some examples that i found on the shelves just this month...
my fave! red (which is an ok mag) with this really cool free 'beauty' bag in it (i got the one that is black with white thistles on it-- it's really cool and i would have paid the 3 pounds just for the bag!)
i don't remember what mag this was but it came with a free (nice) beach bag that says, 'i heart urban outfitters' on it
even the kids get toys. a free dinosaur thingy.
ok, kind of lame... the two in one pack of bazzar and hello
maire clair with a free book (lots of them have free books but i won't post more than this one)
glamour with free...mascara, i think it was

a teen mag with free nail care kit
a teen mag with free lip gloss

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Open letter to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Mahmoud (i assume it's ok to call you that?),

we need to talk... what the hell are you doing? you know, it's not as if your country has all that great of a reputation globally, anyway, and now you're just making it worse. we can all see what you've done, what's going on. don't even make me go into the whole thing about the fact that the Ayatollah is backing you and not the people of Iran. we know that you're engaged in wide-spread voter fraud and tampering with the election results. we can all see the differences between the way the results of this election were called as opposed to every other election EVER in your country. why you gotta go and make your country look so much worse than it already does? what is it with you and oppressing your own people? they're dying in the streets because they DON'T want you! is it going to take a full scale revolution and a total collapse of the government for you to see this? i'm afraid that it just might (or maybe i'm happy that it just might). for the sake of maintaining the TYPE of government you want in your country, fess up to what you've done and let the real results of the election be known. otherwise, you're going to end up on the recieving end of a bunch of angry and armed mobs that are going to overthrow your whole way of life. maybe it's time for that though. maybe it's a good thing you're such a blind dick.

yours sincerely,
nic

Friday, June 12, 2009

British to English Dictionary Time!!!


ok, so i've learned a couple of new things since i've been here (vocab wise) and i thought that some of you might be interested in some of them. just going to prattle off a list. if there are any that you know and can think of that i've left out, please comment me with them!

nae- no
aye- yes
tae- to
wee- little
ken- know
winge- whine
to have your tea- to eat dinner
washing- laundry
crisps- chips
chips- fries
ye- you
tak- take
o- of
frae- from
wi- with
wan- one
aboot- well, obviously about
fags- cigarettes
ma- my
bairn- child
fur- for
hauf- half
gienin- giving
oot- out
huv- have
dug- dog
oot- out
auld- old
whit- what
aw- all
oor- our
sma'- small
e'er- ever
gaun- go on
yersel- yourself
hud- had
awfy- awfully
ah- I
masel- myslef
aff- off
hus- has
goat- got
gie- give
telt- told
wance- once
sae- so
yer- your
wir-were
hunner- hundred
pound note- paper money
tenner- ten pound 'note'
quid- pound
juice- soda (anything that's not water, coffee, tea or actual juice!)
pram- baby carriage
guid- good
sma- small

ok, that's all i can think of off the cuff... i'll add some more later as they come to me!!
x