Horror

What is the purpose of true horror? To present evil in its truest sense and to provoke a sense of fear from its viewer and, in return, forcing the viewer to face his or her own fears. We see this in our culture's heightened fascination with a certain blood-sucking race. Tweeners flock to Twilight like moths to a flame, yet the series pales in comparison to the infamous cultural tide that was Harry Potter. Yet, in this fascination we see a desire to live forever, albeit forever young. Vampirism, in the modern sense has been romanticized into a 13-year-old girl's fantasy world, yet still there is an intentional, yet subtle invitation to question one's passions, face your temptations and long for immortality. As we see in Bram Stroker’s Dracula, the name Dracul literally means “Devil” in the character’s original Wallachian language. Stoker brilliantly portrays a character so convincingly evil and subtly powerful, yet also presents itself as an invitation to choose between good and evil. True evil has been displayed.

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Conformity

There are times when non-conformity just looks like fitting in. It's become a fashion in itself.

Conformity isn't following the crowd. It's following the crowd without thinking.

But non-conformity can go too far, people who resent the "system" so much they will go to great lengths to avoid following the rules and norms of society.

Grow up, and co-operate. You think everyone likes the suits and ties? The nine to five life? But they co-operate because rent isn't free.

Maybe they’ve figured out what it truly means to make this life count. But that doesn’t sit well with your anti-authority, "me against the world" category that you’ve placed yourself in. Do you honestly think the average man celebrates the system? But they cooperate.

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Brain

There are some really bored scientists and neurologists out there coming up with some crazy ideas as to how you can make your brain get bigger.

It is said that brushing your teeth with the opposite hand stimulates brain activity in the morning. I tried it and stabbed myself in the back of the throat. Yeah, I'm wide awake now.

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Growth

"Grow up!” How many times have you heard the demand thrown out with vitriol, shot out of the mouth like a bullet? From childhood, we are conditioned to believe that “growing up” is worthy goal—but in reality, we're often a generation of Peter Pans stuck in a perpetual adolescence, saying “Who wants to grow up and get old?”

We are stuck in flux. We are told to explore, to create and imagine, to find the perfect job and perfect spouse ... but also that settling down is lame and for old people. Yet, there is a longing to be grown-up and be movers and shakers, not just people with ideas that can change the world but people who have the power to change the world.

Where do you stand?

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Bike

I saw a news report recently about some cycling eco-mentalists. And one of them said:

"So your car does how many miles to the gallon? My bike does an infinite miles per gallon!"

Oh, really? Do you fill your bicycle with a gallon of fuel and it just goes forever? I’m betting not. Bicycles don’t run on petrol or diesel (obviously), they’re human powered, and humans don’t run on petrol either (also, obviously). Just as the bicycle gets its energy from you, you get yours from food. Food is farmed. Farms tend to use giant diesel-powered machines to collect crops and move livestock. Slaughterhouses and processing facilities use electricity that comes from coal and nuclear power plants. Then more diesel trucks deliver all this processed food to your supermarket. The store uses electricity to keep everything fresh and so that you can see what you're buying. Then you pedal down there and buy your weekly supply of steak so that you can power your infinite bicycle and be all smug about it.

I understand what you’re trying to say, but the way you say it makes you look like a totally clueless look-at-me-I-care-about-the-environment sheep.

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Security

I get nervous whenever I walk through security sensors leaving libraries or stores, even though I haven't stolen anything. It's a very strange feeling, I'm always afraid they will spontaneously go off and everyone will stare.

Or sometimes, if the alarms do go off, I suddenly panic and think to myself, "Oh no! Have I actually stolen something? Have I gone mad and swiped a whole load of CDs?" At that point I always feel like I should run away, even if I'm innocent...

Or if the alarms don't go off I punch the air and cheer!

Either way, I look like an idiot.

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Comparisons

The other day I was on Facebook and saw someone's status refer to the latest Muse album. This person commented that Muse had gone a bit "Baggy Trousers in one of their songs", this, of course, referencing the famous Madness song. But this comparison is totally unjustified! Just because it had some horns in it does not mean you can compare it to a Ska track!

There are many other examples of people being foolish with comparisons.

Me: "Oh have you heard of the Halo Friendlies?"
Person: "Yeah, they've totally ripped off Paramore."
Me: "What? Are you kidding? Just because it's a girl fronted punk rock band does not mean they've copied Paramore. And they've been around since Paramore were in nappies! Stop being an idiothole."

It stretches even beyond music, it reaches into films and tv as well.

A new teenage vampire movie? Copying Twilight.
A comedy about friends sharing a flat? Copying Friends.

I even heard someone comment that the Narnia films were trying to muscle in on Lord Of The Rings territory.

I despair.


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Flies

The most annoying of all insects, the droning buzz of a fly veering off its course to circle around my head has me swinging my arms up in an often futile attempt to knock it away before it decides to burrow into an ear, nostril, or—worst of all—eye.

Possibly more irritating, however, are the ones who flaunt their fast reaction times by landing in the same exact spot I shooed them away from half a second earlier.

Sometimes they even seem to work in teams, each landing in different places so that while I chase one away, the others are left alone.

I hate flies.

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Superstition

When I was younger I heard some really weird superstitions. For example it was bad luck to walk over a set of three drains. And at the time I always ignored this stupidity. Until something awful happened, and now my mind has been changed.

OK, so you do run a huge risk walking over the drains in the middle of the pavement. They will break and you will fall in, and you will be swept away into some underground world with Master Splinter and his entourage of half shelled talking ninja turtles.

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Hell

Somtimes, not always I hasten to add, you might hear a Christian utter a certain set of words. Either in a preach, in a conversation, on TV or radio. What are those words, I hear you ask?

"Yes, you're going to hell."

What? Are you serious? Why would you even say that?

Is it loving? Can you imagine hearing Jesus say that?

No.

Of course you wouldn't.

Those words do not sound loving. They do not sound encouraging. They are not going to help anyone on their journey!

It is not a Christian's job to dictate who is going where.

"Preach the gospel... if necessary, use words."

By all means discuss it. But carefully and in love.


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One-Up

People who insist that they did whatever it is that you mentioned long before you did, thus making them the “better person”, or “more cultured”, when in fact it only makes them sound like jerks.

I just can’t express the hate that I carry for these people. You tell them a story about something you’ve done, and they immediately tell you about how they did almost the same thing, only when they did it, it was 75,000 times more awesome than you can imagine. There is no way that your grandfather contracted malaria while fighting for peace in Africa. There is also no way that it was magically cured when he got struck by lightning. The second time. While he was inventing cold fusion. I find myself just making up the most outlandish stories that I can think of to see what they come up with in response. I can’t imagine how they’d expect me to believe them. There was a guy that I went to school with that made up so many of these stories I finally just asked him how he found the time to accomplish all these amazing feats. Needless to say I was shocked when he didn’t claim to have invented a means of non-linear time travel. Luckily he got detention for incompetence. Looks like I one-upped him on that one.

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Song

There are songs about nearly anything; love and heartbreak, politics and the environment, skating and dancing.

But when something is going on in my life I find it hard to enjoy some songs that don't reflect that. For example there is an MxPx song called "Brokenhearted" which is all about, well, y'know. It's a brilliant song but at this point of my life I simply can't listen to it. I'm not brokenhearted and whenever that song comes up I have to skip it.

It's strange but true.

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Goblins

First of all, nobody can tell me what a goblin even is. I’m sick of hyper-fantastical authors trying to make goblins something special. Who cares? Any other creature of myth seems like it could make a goblin look like a teacup, so why bother? Why is there a bottom rung on the ladder of mythical creatures? And how can David Bowie be a king of goblins? I know he's a bit weird but he doesn't even look like a goblin!

Anyway, if I ever see a goblin I swear I’ll kick it in the face and explain why he and his whole race are a bunch of no-good gold-snatchers.

I swear I’m not racist against goblins. They just don’t make sense to me.

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Switch

Ever laid in bed just longing to sleep, you toss, you turn, you try anything to sleep. But you just can't.

So, you lie there and think. You think about the day you've just had and you think about the days to come. You get more and more tired but now you've started thinking you can't stop.
You think through scenarios, you imagine whole days, you imagine what would happen if you lost the people you love and it keeps spiralling; endless situations and expectations.

But I have found a simple remedy to this curse.

Keep a notebook and pen nearby. Write it down. Get it out of your head.

And not going online at stupid o'clock helps too.

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Knowing

I feel like I have false notions of so many people, just because I know them only or primarily through the Internet. It's so much more interesting and enlightening to get to know someone in reality, without all that. I like being able to discover things about people by asking them, hearing from them, having mysteries and encountering little discoveries along the way. I like seeing the dissonance between someone’s facial expression and or body language and what they are saying. When we all have control over what we look like and how we define ourselves on the Internet, it removes that mystery. And it turns "friendship" into something that has less to do with knowing people deeply than just knowing whatever bits and pieces of them they want to reveal (which, granted, happens in real-world relationships too, but moreso on the Internet).

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Menu

I find it weird when I'm at a restaurant with someone & say, "Ooh the fettucini alfredo with chicken and mushrooms sounds good. Looks cheap too." They then respond with, "Ooh where do you see that?"
Why does its location on the menu matter? I just described it to you exactly.

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Faith

You wake up. It's Sunday morning, 8 am. Grotesquely early for a weekend. You grumble to yourself and crawl out of bed to wash and eat before going to church.

Notices.
Sing.
Reading.
Sing.
Prayer.
Sing.
Sermon.
Sing.
Home.

You wake up. It's Monday morning, 7 am. You're forgotten all you've heard the day before.

That is religion.

Faith is remembering and living the words from Sunday on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday...

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Hope

I don't believe there is such a thing as "false hope". Hope is a personal thing.

Granted, people may have hope in the same thing but what differs is the level of hope. How much hope has that person put in something or someone?

When it comes to the important things there is no such thing as "false hope". The hope you have is yours and no-one can judge it right or wrong. True or false.

Rob Bell put it this way:

"Every little bit of hope you stumble upon is real."

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Love

You're sat in the park with your loved one, just watching the world go by. The clouds, the children playing, the thud of a football being kicked.

Then something catches your eye, something a little bit out of the ordinary. A little bit weird, but at the same time it's something wonderful.

You look back at your companion and they saw it too. It's like you are the only people in the world to have witnessed this strange event. And you share a look that is understood by only the two of you.

And that look says, "What the heck was that?"

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Phone

Sometimes the phone will ring while I'm cooking or in the bathroom, then as I rush to the phone to answer I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to answerphone. What did you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

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Followers

I think people misunderstand Twitter sometimes, they look at your profile and judge you on how many followers you have.

I believe they are missing the point, don't judge me on my followers. To be honest most of them are either spambots or people who follow people hoping to be followed back! I've only ever received messages from one stranger via Twitter.

Instead of judging me on my followers, judge me on who I'm following. You can find out what I'm like by looking at the people I find interesting. Why do I follow that person? For entertainment? For news? For information?

These are the things that are important.

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Boombox

I hate people who use their cell phone like it’s some sort of boombox. Do you think I really want to hear the latest song by Q-Tip or Lady Gaga? Better yet, do you think people care at all what you’re listening to? Put some headphones on if you really want to hear the song that badly and stop being so uncourteous.

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Quizzed

Nobody cares how sexy some one-question internet quiz says you are. Generally the people who feel the need to display that they are “98% sexy” are the very people that need such ludicrous proof, since they are, in fact, not sexy.

Nobody cares which character from The Hangover you are. Being Allen is most certainly not an accomplishment.

Nobody cares that your true love’s name begins with an “L”. Wow, in real life your girlfriend’s name is Lauren? No way! Let’s be serious, we all know that you took that quiz over and over until it finally came up with the correct result so you could post it for everyone to see and prove that you two are just SOOOO incredibly perfect for one another.

If you honestly feel the need to post these, then you are just trying to prove something to everyone else.

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Hand-Dryers

Whoever thought them up was either looking to make some money or was just plain misguided.

Not once, in my entire life, has one of those machines actually succeeded in drying my hands. Regardless of how much they crank up the air flow, it is never enough. I still always end up wiping my hands on my jeans, inside of my shirt or something.

I love trees as much as the next guy, but lets face it, toilet hand dryers aren’t helping in the slightest. I use more resources with the running of the machine in my futile attempt to dry my hands than with the two strips of super thin paper towels that actually work.

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42

Don’t get me wrong, I love Douglas Adams, and his books are great, but I am so sick of people who, whenever anything even mildly philosophical comes up in a discussion, will somehow manage to make a 42 joke, and then giggle to themselves. Stop it. You are not clever. You are killing the book and what could have been an interesting philosophical conversation.

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Conversation

I hate it when I think of something really great to say during a conversation, but by the time I get a chance to speak, we're on a different topic. Do I let it pass and keep the good thought to myself, or do I awkwardly bring up the old topic again?

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Typing

The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase "Regards" again.

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Grounded

Children that love to read are virtually ungroundable. Parents could take away music, tv, friends, and internet with no sign of remorse. But books? No one in their right mind is going to take a child's books away!

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Genius

You have to wonder how low the threshold for excellence is when people declare the most moronic or simplistic of ideas as genius or brilliance. “Look, he has a cup of water on his head! That’s sheer genius!”

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