Thanksgiving is for Jive Turkeys

Do you want seconds?

       Ahh It looks like the fourth Thursday of November is rearing its flabby, ugly head in America again. There are only three things you have to do in your pitiful existence on this earth: die, pay taxes, and pretend that you love Thanksgiving. God forbid you dislike seeing people and watching them eat food, right? Meanwhile, you're required to shovel it down like an animal or else be bombarded with snide comments from various relatives. Yup. Food and people: the fabric of Western culture.
       I don't mean to sound ungrateful about Thanksgiving. I have a lot to be grateful for (my awesome family and friends, awesome schooling, awesome house, awesome life). But I can't help but feel that we go about Thanksgiving the wrong way.
       Let me start with what makes Thanksgiving so darn famous. The food. People are so food obsessed. What's the big freakin' deal? It's food, people. They talk and talk for hours on end about turkey and stuffing and all the other aliments that feed us to our heart's content (and eventual undoing). In this food-obsessed culture, if you don't eat twice your body weight every day, you're automatically considered anorexic. Here's a medical lesson, everyone: anorexia is a serious problem. There are more serious warning signs of anorexia than someone refusing seconds. Every year, I hear, "Erin, you skinny thing, you need to get more X. You can't eat just Y! Don't be so ungrateful when you have all this food! Think of all the starving kids in Africa who would just love to eat this food!" Well, that doesn't make me want to eat more. It kind of makes me want to mail food. But I can't send stuffing via Gmail! And who sends letters anymore? How archaic! But the point is...why must we celebrate our excess every November when there's so many people in need? Food for thought...pun intended.
      Another thing that's socially (and somewhat food) related is the freakin' people. I barely like seeing people when I'm at school. Why would I force myself into a social situation if I don't need to? Every year, it's the same story. I show up. People say "hello" for five seconds. Then I end up sitting by myself playing GameBoy. I'm sixteen years old and I feel like I'm at a middle school dance *cue violins and avoid John Hughes movie reference*. No, but considering the tragedies in the world, it's really not that bad. What's really bad is when my dad comes up to me and tells me to go talk to everyone. Then, not only am I going to sit there with no one talking to me, but I have to listen to whatever their saying and don't get to play GameBoy. Another thing, I can't eat when I watch other people eating. It's just so...disgusting.
      Lastly, but certainly not leastly, we have the history behind Thanksgiving. Yeah, I know it's about pilgrims and Indians (or Native Americans) getting together to eat pumpkins or whatever. But after the party was over, the pilgrims killed the Native Americans with smallpox and guns, took their land, and then that lousy Bewitched movie came some time afterward. If anyone wants to argue with that, be my guest. All I know is that the Native Americans didn't just die and lose their land all by themselves. Anyway, it just doesn't seem like a real classy cause for celebration. Emily Post would not only disapprove of the way you folded those napkins, but what motivated you to fold them in the first place.
      On a serious note, check out the National Day of Mourning. Sorry it's the Wikipedia link, but I couldn't find an official website. It's a Native American protest of Thanksgiving.
      Thanksgiving must be exposed for how disgusting it really is. Especially if you have a social phobia, social conscience, and don't like stuffing your face. Or don't like hearing jokes about how fat people are going to get after Thanksgiving. Ha-freakin-ha. People should go on the road with that stuff. "Oh my these rolls are gonna go straight to my thighs!" *room bursts with screeching laughter* Really? And I get nothing for my MacGyver impersonation? (Trust me, it was hilarious.)
       So, my only allies, raise a glass and give a hand to the one day out of the year that we could really do without because it's such a pain. Give thanks to Thanksgiving, America's Annual Appendicitis Outbreak.

A Moment of Silence for Unsaved Posts...(and Wizards)

Ugh. Whatever happened to the Hogwarts robes?

WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS A REALLY LONG RANT ABOUT HOW I FORGOT TO SAVE MY WORK. IF YOU WANTED TO READ SOMETHING OF SUBSTANCE, SKIP TO THE PARAGRAPH THAT BEGINS WITH THE "@" SYMBOL.

      Good evening, my children of the night. So, I had an epic (AND I MEAN EPIC) blog post about Harry Potter. It took me two hours and it included the following:

1. Stories from my childhood
2. A few Nadsat words
3. An enumerated list (only the last list had BIG LETTERS LIKE THIS)

      The autosave wasn't working so I thought, "I better finish this thing and post it instead of trying to save it and figure out it doesn't work." Well, an error occurred when I tried to post it, so I hit the back button. All my beautiful work was still there, pristine and untouched. I decided to highlight it, copy it, and save it to a Word Document lest Blogspot make a second error in my attempt to post. Well, after I highlighted all my work, something possessed me to try and use the CTRL + C function to copy it. No problem, right? Well, my pinky slipped on a metaphorical banana peel and then I hit the delete button. Long story short, there were tears, there was screaming, there was substandard frozen pizza. But after the tears dried, the conniption fit ceased, and I found out the the pizza was only four bucks, I began to feel better.
     @ There you go. End of unsaved rant. Now on to more important matters. I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows today. Let me start off by stating my issues with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, a dreadful and boring film (with an enumerated list!):

1. ROMANCE. I hate romantic movies. I don't go to romantic movies. If I hear someone so much as mention The Notebook, Titanic, or A Walk to Remember, I char what's left of their brains by breathing fire through my snarling teeth. I went to a fantasy adventure film based on a kid's book and what did I get? Awkward teenagers bumbling about, breathing heavily for a few seconds, arguing about "snogging" (whatever the hell that is), and staring at each other until one of them says "WHOOPS. I gotta go to class" or whatever. It's stupid. It's boring. Why would I go to a wizard movie if I wanted to see an indie Canadian romantic comedy? (Doesn't make much sense now, but if you compare those babies to this thing...)
2. WHERE'S THE MAGIC? They were so busy doing the stupid romantic tripe that they forgot to do any magic aside from the obligatory Harry-Voldemort wand connection deal near the end.
3. WHERE'S McGONAGALL? She only stopped in once or twice to say "GET BACK TO YOUR HOUSES".
4. WHERE'S NEVILLE? C'mon.
5. WHY WAS I SO HAPPY DUMBLEDORE DIED? Dear Michael Gambon: Don't get me wrong. You were good in Angels in America. You're just a lousy Dumbledore. I'm sorry. Dumbledore isn't zany. He wouldn't have grabbed Harry by the collar just because he put his name in the Goblet of Fire. You do realize that Dumbledore is old, right? Sincerely, Tom Selleck's Mustache. (That's how I sign all my letters.)
6. Boring. So boring, in fact, I won't even bother to put it in all caps or italics.

    Okay, so those were my thoughts on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Now for Part 1 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
     I actually don't have many thoughts on this film. It was very well done, but the writing was kind of lacking, and there were too many shots of people looking off into the distance.
     Sorry if that was disappointing. It just didn't evoke many feelings in me, good or bad. I kind of miss Chris Columbus days of the franchise to be quite honest.
      Okay, so there's the enumerated list. Now all I need is a Nadsat word...litso meaning "face."
      Got that out of the way. Now for a childhood story, and we'll be all set...
      Okay, so this one time I was at Chuck E. Cheese. I ran out of tokens, so I decided to kick the guy in the mouse costume in the shins. He didn't mind the first few times I did it, but after a while, he finally snapped and chased me around the restaurant. I hid under the air hockey table and he dragged me out by the ankle. I said, "YOU WANT A PIECE OF THIS, CLOWN?!" He gave me a lecture on why I shouldn't hit people. Worst. Christmas. Ever.
       Alright, so that's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One in a theater near you. This post isn't as good as the one I originally wrote, and again, sorry for my lack of computer skills with the CTRL button.
       Until then, I'll see you on the radio.

Ludicrous Holiday of November 19th

Oh, how I wish it was.

Hey people of the world! Today is a very important day. It only comes 365 days a year. C'mon, guess what holiday I'm thinking of.
No, I'm not thinking of Thursday.
No, I'm not thinking of Flag day in Brazil.
Give up?
International Men's Day. *rolls eyes*
I know what you're thinking. I'm just being a cynical feminist.  Hear me out, I'm not a misandrist. I honestly hope for gender equality, not female superiority. I look at the person, not the gender.
That being said, is an International Men's Day really necessary? Yes, I have read the article and one of its purpose is to celebrate the achievements of men, not only in culture but in everyday society. I'm perfectly fine with this...except it seems to happen every day. Honestly, think of a time when a person's achievements were ignored simply for the fact that they were male. Exactly.
Part of the argument for IMD is that it sets a gender balance, being a counterpart for International Women's Day (March 8). Fair enough. However, do you think anyone would ever try to pull the stunt of making a White History Month? No, because it's obviously every month of the year.
I'm not saying that IMD shouldn't exist or that its intentions are malevolent. I actually like some of the aspects of it, such as a focus on men's health and working towards gender equality. But if we're truly working towards what really matters in this world, shouldn't that be done every day of the year?
I don't know. I don't like the barrier between genders set up by our cyclically traditional society. No matter how much social progress is supposedly made, there's always another barrier to go up in place of the old one. And I'm not just talking about the stripper outfits in place of painfully long dresses. I'm talking about prejudices that go on in our everyday lives against constantly discriminated groups, for example(s), women, homosexuals, non-Caucasian persons, Muslims. Ridiculous things go on in our world, like women being put to death for being raped. Young kids being killed just because of their sexuality. People not being able to live their lives in the fullest because of a stereotype set up for them (sometimes being killed). People not being able to worship without fear in a country that promises that freedom because they are supposedly "terrorists."
When we consider all these things, maybe we shouldn't have Men's day or Women's day. Maybe just a "Chuck Selfish Pride Out the Window Let People Just Live As They Are" Day.
Run it 24/7/365 (366 in leap years), and then we won't need awareness. Just water and a little bit of sleep.