D’Arvit!

Now isn’t such that an awesome way to start my blog entry??? What a cool title!

Now don’t look at me silly.

That was Dominic Monaghan’s weird “talk show” title when he conducted this sort-of… “interview” with Elijah Wood, as shown in the Extended Edition DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [*rotflmao*, I'm not bragging since I don't think anyone else wants to own that DVD... well aside from co-Middle Earthling, May].

Anyway… I’m in no mood to write, so pardonéz-moi if this piece comes out crappily… I just have to do this update. Hehe, right, Julie?

[WARNING: A VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY LOOOOOONG BLOG ENTRY AHEAD.]

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D’Arvit!’s Year-Ender-List-Thingymajigger Part II:

• College Frenzy. Miriam College is a so-called “premiere college preparatory institution.. blah blah blah.. I’m such a kick-ass school… yadeeyah..”, thus, our dear (tor)mentors justify their sadistic acts by repeating their age-old adage: “We’re preparing you for college.” Preparing us for college?? How many students passed the UPCAT from last year’s batch? 10? 20? I’m really worried, because our “futures” look… bleak. How does crocheting fit in the “college preparation” picture? How would the knowledge of Fourier’s principles help me pass the university that I want to get in, when the entrance exams don’t even include questions about it? “Premiere college preparatory institution”, huh? More like “premiere….*&(%&$#^%#%*^#” waaah.. I’ll stop. I haven’t graduated yet… I might get charged with libel or something. Anyway… Now… Did you know that a big percent of university degree-holders end up in jobs that have no connection whatsoever to their majors they took up in college? [It's a rhetorical question, dearie.. You don't have to answer it..] I know a bunch of people who took up some management courses, communications courses, and other stuff… and ended up in call centers. I don’t blame them, actually. You get great pay, great American English accent training, and a great, great, wicked, kick-ass headpiece.. Wow. That’s cool. The thing is, though, being in a call center is a dead-end job: there’s no more “going-up” from that position. My point: being battered to bits in high school just to end up in a University that you absolutely don’t belong to, and to get dumped in a call center isn’t very much worth it. “College preparatory” my foot!
• Skinny blond teenage “pop-princesses” love to emerge in the music scene every four to five years. We first had a taste of Kylie Minogue during the 1980’s [yes, my dear young padawan, Kylie Minogue started out when she was around 16 years old, singing "~I can be so lucky, LUCKY, LUCKY, LUCKY! I can be so LUCKY IN LOOOOVE!!"in tacky pink Spandex™], the less-innocent Madonna, and a few years later, during the post-Backstreet Boys era, Britney Spears emerged from the scene. Now pretty blondie Britney got silicone implants, and five years later, a bevy of other dancing darlings burst into the industry fresh from their pretty manufactured record company boxes. We now had a dazzling dose of déjà vu as we now see Britney-wannabes in Hillary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, Jojo—oh, and that last one—What’s her name again? Sarah Geronimo–though she ain’t blonde, you could practically swear that she is.
• MUZAK MUZAK MUZAK: Music that made our ears bleed. Why do people love listening to that so-called “novelty music”? 2004 was such a year where we saw more of that “genre”, and no thanks to those groups like the Sexbomb Dancers, and a bunch of other “singing groups” whose names I [am extremely grateful that I] could not recall, they have sold their records and “hit singles” in this country faster than you could say “ka-ching”. Not to offend anyone, but I don’t think that these cash-churning, marketable “songs” [I'd rather call them a rhythmic sequence of arranged alternate banging, waling, and chanting] are to be considered “music” at all. Much as I abhor the—forgive the term—faggotry of senti and the madness of electronica, the very marketable novelty songs are but an abomination to Pinoy Pop Culture. We are sacrificing quality music for the sake of earning instant money. Now where is the artistry in that? I hope that 2005 would have less of those nonsensical rhythmic sequences of arranged alternate banging, wailing, and chanting.
• OPM is the New Cool. I think this would be the only good thing I’m going to write about for the year 2004. I’m not a big fan of OPM. In fact, somebody once asked me if there was any OPM group/artist that I am a fan of, and I couldn’t think of a proper answer. “Uhm… Parokya ni Edgar?” I lamely replied. The great thing about this sudden boom in our local music industry is that, as Filipinos, we are starting to realize that there is so much talent in our local artists. Teenage kids get inspired and form their own bands/groups. The only thing I am quite sick of is that emerging musical genre called “Emo”. If I know my terminology correctly, “emo”, roughly is the type of music male-fronted rock/alternative acts play. “Emo” is the type of music that would have rock vocalists with pretty-boy looks, belting out songs with sugary-sweet voices, all whining about a girl. This “whining” theme ranges from wide subjects such as “she dumped me”, “she cheated on me”, and/or “I love her so damn much, but she doesn’t love me back”. Poor guys. That’s “emo” for you. I thought I liked emo, but later on, it just got so passé. That’s why emo is uncool—for me at least.
• The Cycle Ends: 2004 was a year of deaths for me. In my clan, I have had a lot of relatives who died in 2004. I think my clan has reached this “peak”—this “pinnacle” of the Cycle of Life. My mom said that this is what usually happens, and the next stage of the “cycle” would be the weddings. After that would be the births… Then silence… Then death. It feels weird to realize how fragile we all really are. Suddenly, I have realized for the very first time that I am indeed
  mortal; I am not like those immortal beautiful elves that I keep reading about in LotR. Damn. That surely burst my bubble.
• Everybody loves a Conspiracy. The release of Dan Brown’s highly controversial Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code late in 2003 has still sent tsunami after-shocks into 2004. The Internet became an Empire for conspiracy lovers and non-believers alike, each caught up in the eternal debate on who’s right and who’s wrong. The Church made a wrong decision by banning the book: by doing so, more and more rebellious souls purchased the books in droves; little kids devoured the book in Harry Potter proportions. My two cents’ worth of thoughts: I think the books are brilliant works of art, and it is up to the reader if s/he would be gullible enough to believe everything that is written in there. Erudite suspense-thriller novels are quite rare things these days, and Dan Brown’s novels, in my humble opinion, are a breath of fresh air from this “Candy/Meg/Whatever-senseless-teen-magazines-read-by-stupid-spineless-gullible-girls”-infested reading environment.

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Man, I could go on and on forever… I might be boring you with my endless psychobabble. I think you get my point. 2004 was a great year, yeah. A year of ups and downs, disasters and demons, new realizations and bitter experiences: some stranger on the net asked me if I would marry him (!), I got a drivers’ license, I almost ran over an innocent passerby, gained a new cyber-stalker, made new friends, created new enemies, excelled in the art of war, and we even injured and sent two guys flying off their motorbike.

2004 is a year worth remembering, and man, am I glad that you—yes, YOU my dear beloved reader—have been a part of it.

Let’s do it again this year, kiddos!

This is D’Arvit!’s “Kino Das Bang Bang Boom Boom 1970 Gjong-hai Ich Habe Eisen Diese Nacht Willkommen 2004″, and I hope it isn’t too late to say this, but willkommen to 2005.

PS: BIG HUGS to all who have commented/tagged on D’Arvit! ever since its launch last February. I’ll be plugging you on my next post.