See you all...

LOL too bad I'm not even going to this school next year.

See you all in hell!

Odd Girl Out

This quarter I read the book Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls by Rachel Simmons.  This book is probably close to the film Finding Kind, but it's a lot more real.

In this book Simmons first describes the constant torment she went through in grade school from a 'friend' named Abby.  Growing up, Simmons couldn't trust any other girls through high school or college, but once she opened up to another girl (once in her 20's), she finds out how lots of other girls had their own 'Abby' in school too.

After sending out mass chain emails to all sorts of girls across the country, Simmons developed enough data to come up with the idea that 'relational aggression' in girls was not uncommon.  Girls don't fight with their fists, she came to realize.  They fight with words, looks, or relationships.  They fight with things like "I won't be your friend anymore."

I grew up with that kind of shit, and it took me until last year to figure out that I didn't want to deal with it anymore.  I proudly admit I am friends with about 4 girls.  I won't name them, but I've known two for about all my life, and the others are more acquaintances than anything else.

My mom picked up this book when I was in elementary school.  She told me she wanted to know whether or not what was happening to me was a real concern.  It happens to everyone, the book explains, but that doesn't mean it's OK.

The book follows a bunch of different stories, as well as interviews from different elementary,middle and high schools.  Some sections focus on manipulation, others focus on girls who 'think they're all that.' Like herd structure in horses, there's a pecking order in the social hierarchy.
And everyone knows that.

I like this book because, for one, it gives real stories.  Everyone can believe in a story like Mean Girls, but the fact is, that kind of thing really happens.  Girls 'break up' and 'get back together' practically every other day.  They cast snide remarks or give hairy eyeballs to someone who's dressed differently.  They prey on new girls, no matter what the grade.

The frustrating thing about this book is that there is no solution to girl bullying.  The book doesn't offer one.  It invalidates the fact that it's just a phase, because it happens to everyone, everywhere.  Simmons travelled to rural and big city schools, talking to girls all over the place.  Just because you have money, or don't, doesn't mean there aren't mean girls.

The book never suggests a fix.  Some girls are 'odd' girls and therefore are more subject to being teased or being regarded as 'different.'  I have always felt distanced from the female world, and have on more than one occasion wished I was a boy.  But I've read this multiple times and I know that there are other girls who feel the same.  I generally enjoyed the book and give it eight rhinestone-studded True Religion jeans out of ten.

Mein Kampf

Ich las vor kurzem das Buch Mein Kampf durch den und einziges Führer von dritten Reich Adolf Hitler.  Mein Kampf ist nicht wirklich ungefähr eine Sache. Er ist über viele Themen, einschließlich die Regierung und andere umstrittene Sachen wie Pazifismus und Antisemitismus. Viel ist es auf Hitlers idealer Regierung und viel mehr von ihm ist Kritik über die gegenwärtigen und letzten deutschen Regierungen.  Hitler hat eine Art Hubschrauberansicht von in Wien zu der Zeit wohnen, ganz zu schweigen von diesem Deutschland war teilweise Teil von Österreich auch.

Hitler schrieb dieses Buch, als er ein junger Mann war. Ein sehr junger Mann. Er nicht wirklich beendete Highschool, und er nicht wirklich kam in Kunstcollege irgendein. Dass sagend, Adolf ein unglaublich gebildeter Mensch war. Sie können von seinem Schreiben, sogar in der englischen Übersetzung sagen, dass er Ausbildung in den Leuten sich interessierte und bewertete; tatsächlich kritisiert er sogar viele Regierungsmitglieder für Sein ungebildet oder zu jung.

Das Publikum für dieses Buch war buchstäblich jedermann, das es zu der Zeit lesen würde. Hitler schien hoffnungslos gehört zu werden. Ein Buch mit 700 Seiten ist schwer zu bekommen durch, obwohl und später in Nazi Germany, Hitlers Publikum jeder wurde. Viele Naziideale werden im Text geschildert, und sobald die Partei die Propaganda des Landes übernahm, wurde jeder herausgestellt.

Durch Mein Kampf glaube ich, dass Hitler versuchte, zu sagen jeder seinem Glauben über, wie ein Land laufen gelassen werden sollte. Schließlich hörte jemand, weil Hitler das Führer des Drittes Reichs wurde und er in die Tat einiges umsetzte von, was er ungefähr geschrieben hatte. Aber Sie kennen, was sie sagen, absolute Macht verderben absolut.

Sie können leicht sagen, was eine arrogante Person Hitler durch sein Schreiben war; er bezieht häufig sich auf Leute als Untergebenes zu, und irgendwo am Anfang des Buches spricht er einiges über die jüdischen Bevölkerungen in Europa und es ist etwas erschreckend.

Die in Adolf auszukennen Sache, ist, er wirklich glaubte nicht, dass er alles falsch tat. Er glaubte wirklich, dass Deutsche, vollblütige Deutsche, besser als jede mögliche andere Ethnie überall waren. Und es war nicht gerade Nazi Germany, der Juden hasste. Es war ganz über Deutschland in den Jahren nach WWI und der Krise, die es anfing. Hitler entwickelte nicht diese Ideen und erlegte sie Nazi Germany auf; er verstärkte sie einfach.

Don't think I'm entirely crazy.  It wasn't difficult to read this book and think, Hitler was a maniac.  That being said, I admire him for following what he believed in until it led him to suicide.  I admire him for believing in something so strongly that he died for it, and also for making other people believe in the same thing so much.  (Granted, he did some brainwashing here and there, but still.)  And let's not forget how he fixed an entire country.  Sure, Roosevelt fixed the US, but Germany's situation was a million zillion times worse than the Great Depression.

Call me crazy but this book gets Hitler only did some things wrong out of Hitler did nothing wrong.

Me while reading Mein Kampf.^^

Ahh, die Hoden.

Signs You MIGHT be a Tourist

You use the foot rest on the lifts. Whether afraid of falling or just plain lazy and want a foot rest, tourists do this all the time.

You take pictures of EVERYTHING. Park City is just too pretty to not document through pictures.

You ask people to take pictures of you. People back home need to see that you traveled to Park City!!

Your clothes are brown, black, or gray, and have zero color. This is a big giveaway: Commercial clothing.

ALL of your equipment is rented. ALL OF IT!

You have no knowledge of safety, so you wear a hat instead of a helmet. Unless, of course, you RENT the helmet.

Locals shout at you because you can’t ski. Who, me? I can ski really good!  Wow, that's not even correct English.

You actually slow down in the SLOW ZONES. Although this is what all skiers should do, locals are actually in control so we can go fast and get away with it.

Thayne’s and Pioneer are lifts you never dream of going on. It’s safest if you stick to Payday and Bonanza and crowd the lower mountain up.

It takes you twenty-five minutes to get down Payday.You REALLYdo crowd the lower mountain up!

It takes you 2 hours to eat lunch. And you order ALCOHOL.

You do stupid stuff on snowboards. Sitting down in the middle of a run to rest is really annoying, believe it or not!

You ski down the middle of a run and decide the side looks better and cut 5 people off getting over there. People HATE this! So stop doing it!

You’re the person the chair lift has to stop for. I mean, come on.

You always try to look like you know what you’re doing,when you don’t at all.

When you find Powder Monkey, you think you’ve learned a secret. Everyone know about Powder Monkey, actually.

Going up to Jupiter is like visiting the planet Jupiter.So, you’re never going to reach it.

The only runs you can go on are greens and blues. Self-explanitory.

You have no gauge of how cold it actually is, so you wear a legit fur coat to stay warm. Gross.

Even if you are here for two weeks, you buy day passes everyday, unbeknowst to a season’s pass. This is going to be so expensive! YES!

You look at a map of the mountain. Maps don't even make sense to the locals.

You think “snow cats” are predatory feline species living in the Rocky Mountains. Until you encounter one on any run, at any time.

You ski in a snow plow the whole time you go skiing. Can you say, Ow, my glutes?

You don’t know what to think of the bras and panties hanging in the trees. Ugh.

You call it “snow skiing.” It’s just called “skiing”, actually. What else is there to ski on?

M83

She collects crowns made of black roses
but her heart is made of bubblegum.

-M83

The Hell's Angels from Hell

Alright well here I am again, this time in jewelry, but I already managed to get cut so I'm done with metallurgy for now.

Looks like I ought to blog about my latest nonfiction read...  Admittedly I didn't actually read it.  I mean I read most of it.  There's only so much reading you can do about an awful motorcycle gang that terrorizes most of California on the 4th of July.  I mean, really.

So if for some reason you don't know who Dr. Hunter S Thompson is, you can leave.
Because he's only the greatest journalist of all time.

Maybe instead you're familiar with gonzo journalism, which is basically getting baked/shitfaced and writing articles for the paper.

Or maybe, maybe, you've seen The Rum Diary, which is based on Dr. T's time spent in Puerto Rico working for the San Jose Star (or some newspaper).

In which case, I guess you can stay.

The book was basically about Dr. T's excursions spending time with the Hell's Angels (who are, in case you were unaware, a motorcycle gang).  Around the time the book was written, in the '60's, the gang was getting a lot of attention from various reporters, even filmmakers, about their ideas and lifestyle.
Here's a day in the life of a Hell's Angel for you:

• Get up.  (Or don't if you've been out all night.)
• Put on the 'colors.' The colors is the vest the gang wears with the enigma on it.
• Don't bother putting on other clothes because you're probably already in them.
• Don't shower.
• You can brush your teeth with a bottle of vodka or something.
• Optional: Clean or polish your motorcycle. But probably not, because it's already spotless.
• Go on a ride someplace with the other guys.
• Go to a bar.
• Get drunk.
• Go to another bar.
• Get more drunk.
• Maybe pick up some chicks (although a lot of the Hell's Angels had wives and kids).
  And if it's a holiday or a special renunion for the gang,
• Start out riding in the morning (so you can get there in time).
• Scare every single tourist/person on the highways.
• Get to the place you wanted to go.
• Get really drunk or baked, generally f*cked up, and rape people and terrorize the surroundings.
• The next day, go home.  Take no notice of anyone.

The Hell's Angels were fairly violent to the public eye, but throughout the book I couldn't help but notice how there were various elements of yellow journalism going on in the San Francisco Chronicle or the other papers that reported on them.  Thompson kind of became one of them and I think I'd rather take his word for their nature than some asswipe local journalist who knew nothing about them.

I feel a little guilty about saying this (well, not thaaaat guilty), but the Hell's Angels are not that bad.  Yes, they destroy towns and what not, and scare people, but honestly they're just a bunch of mixed up guys who love being Angels and love their motorcycles just about more than anything else.
And they're good people.

Alright, I'm going to hell for that one.

But really, they just really REALLY care about each other.  They're as loyal as you could imagine, and the only real reason why they would beat people up or get in fights is if someone picked a fight with them.
And they defend each other.  If one Angel's got a grudge, all of the Angels have a grudge.  If a person messes with one Angel, he messes with all the Angels.

(There's one of the rare pictures of Dr. T without a cigarette in his mouth.)

The way this book is written it seems like an appeal to the oblivious citizen that the Hell's Angels are not awful hellhounds that just want to kill everyone.  And it was fairly hard to get through, considering it feels like I'm reading a 200-page newspaper article.

BUHHH.  (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
But there were times when it went quickly.  But not usually.



The book certainly changed my views.  Maybe someday I'll come across the Hell's Angels when I live in San Francisco as a famous writer and I won't be afraid.

This book gets 13 out of 17 dangerous looking motorcyclists.

I know I said I hate Skrillex, but...

"My... name... is... Skrillex."

"My name is Optimus Prime."



"CALL 9-1-1 *bleeeeeep* NOW!!"