Andrew's H8LV 6/8/11

      I was on the beach for nine days, and sick all day yesterday. I feel that explains my absence nicely.




H8#3: "You always think you're right..."
          I have a couple of maxims, aphorisms, witticisms, or just plain quotes on my list today. One thing that bothers me quite often is the way people use, or mis-use really, language. I'm not talking about punctuation, or ending sentences in prepositions, or even using, "their" instead of, "there." All those things are annoying, and we should strive to use whichever language we speak and write to the best of our ability, but let's face it, that battle was lost long ago. Still, as a fan of both logic and language, I can find many things to hate on a daily basis (especially by reading Facebook statuses). One thing that particularly bothers me is when (and this has happened to me quite often over the course of my life), during an argument, the person I'm arguing with tells me, "You always think you're right." This is meant to be some sort of insult, I suppose, or something that I am to feel guilty about. OF COURSE I THINK I'M RIGHT. Think this through - if I didn't think I was right, but was arguing with you anyway, I would be some sort of psychopath, creating drama and dissent merely for the sake of drama and dissent. No, the entire reason we're arguing is because I think that I'm right, and you think that you're right.
            Let's address the, "always" thing. No, I don't think I'm always right. I usually am, if we're talking about batting averages, but no, not always. But you know what? If I'm not right I have no problem in admitting it. I don't expect myself to be right all the time, so it's not a point of pride for me to claim I am when I'm not. Therefore I don't normally take strong stands on an issue or subject unless I'm sure I'm right (this greatly improves my aforementioned batting average). However, it bears repeating, of course I think I'm right when I think I'm right. You're merely stating the obvious, not making my argument somehow more illegitimate because you're pointing out the fact that I believe in the strengths of my argument.

H8#2: "This isn't goodbye, this is..."
  Oh God, this one really annoys me. I've heard this a thousand times (LITERALLY) on television, movies, tearful farewells at the end of summer camp (did any of these girls/people honestly think we were going to keep in touch more than 48 hours after we left camp?), and various other places. You can finish the sentence with a variety of words - "This isn't goodbye, this is see you later/ until we meet again/ so long/ hasta la vista baby/ good riddance." Oprah was the latest offender, who ended her unparalleled 25 years in daytime talk show television with this trite unoriginal saying (this is a great opportunity for an Oprah joke, but really, I don't hate Oprah herself. She annoys me incredibly, but I get it, women like her and she probably has done more good than bad). Let's review the concept of this sign off - what does it even mean? The logic hinges on the assumption that, "goodbye" actually means, "We will never see one another again." So the sayer, taking the brave step of refusing to make that claim, replaces it with, "until we meet again." The problem with this, obviously, is that goodbye means nothing of the sort. If it did, we would never use the term. The word wouldn't even exist, except as the ending of eulogies. If that's what goodbye meant, I wouldn't say goodbye every single time I got off the phone - informing the person on the other end I have no intention of ever speaking to them again.
            For this saying to work we have to take a perfectly good word, assign it a completely different meaning, and then boldly reject that meaning in favor of another term (such as, "see you later") that means what the original word meant before we changed the meaning. Who doesn't hate that?

H8#1: Hunting

This is more like hunting than deer stand hunting is.

          I have no moral problem with hunting. I mean, of course I have a problem with some sorts of hunting, like going to Africa and killing elephants and lions to prove how tiny your penis is, but I don't mind the normal, every day, country folk hunting of deer, or pigs, or turkey, or whatever it is people shoot. I understand we have somewhat of a problem with deer overpopulation, as we've killed out all of their natural predators, and I also understand the appeal and efficiency of killing and processing your own meat. I own a gun, and after I bought it I went out in the country to a friend's house (who was out of town) and walked through the fields and woods shooting everything I could see. Once you're holding a gun in your hands you want to shoot things. You want to shoot glass and watch it break, you want to shoot cans and watch them fall, and you want to shoot live things and watch them die (for the record however, I've only ever shot two live things (besides my brother in the head with a .BB gun) - a spider and a bumblebee). So, I can understand the appeal and the need for hunting. Here's what I don't understand: why it's called hunting.
           You see! This does fit in with my other hatreds in regards to the misuse of language. Just think of the word hunting, in regards to anything besides human beings, and what do you think about? How does a lionness hunt a gazelle? How does a pack of wolves hunt a mountain goat? They go out and proactively run down the prey and kill it. They don't sit in a tree, spraying themselves with urine, and hope that a gazelle wanders by not paying attention. When we (and by we I mean you, because I don't do such things) lose our car keys, how do we hunt for them? Do we sit on the couch and wait for our keys to jingle jangle on past? Or do we go and look in every possible place they could be? Imagine, if you will, a movie called, "THE HUNTERS FROM OUTER SPACE," with the tagline, "This time humans are the prey!" That's all the information you have, now create the movie in your head. Would it involve aliens descending on Earth and hiding in water towers hoping that the particular human beings they were hunting would happen to stroll by? I don't mind people hunting, but let's call it, "trapping" or something like that. When you paint your body, wear nothing but a loincloth, and dash through the woods with a spear chasing an animal then we can call it hunting.

LV: Elizabeth Taylor

             Well everyone knows Elizabeth Taylor died recently, and I really knew nothing about her except the fact that she was some creepy old lady who sold awful tacky perfume. The only movie I had ever seen starring her was National Velvet, and I remember absolutely nothing about that movie except that it featured a horse. I used to get her confused with Liza Minnelli. After she died I decided to watch a few of her movies to see what all the fuss was about - I knew she was some larger than life personality from the Camelot era but was she actually a good actress? In short, yes. She's amazing. I've only seen a few of her movies (next on the list are Cleopatra, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) but she's seriously like my favorite person in the entire history of the world. This lady sizzles. I don't remember who played Scarlett in Gone With the Wind but Elizabeth Taylor is the way more awesome version of a real-life Scarlett. I watched A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof where she's married to Paul Newman (who no longer finds himself sexually attracted to her. Obviously the movie has to be fiction) and that seriously has to be the most good looking couple in the history of movies. I defy you to name another pair of actors who play a couple in a film that are better looking than these two.
             Liz Taylor is a huge legend - in the order of Marilyn Monroe and Katherine Hepburn, and I usually hold myself to be disappointed when I compare the legend to reality. Ms. Hilton-Wilding-Todd-Fisher-Burton-Warner-Fortensky-Taylor did nothing of the sort. I'm rapidly growing more and more obsessed with ancient movies, like those from the 50s and 60s and can find none better than she. Elizabeth Taylor, I love you.