#whenmydoglookslikeavelociraptor

Scissors Remind Me of Soviet Russia

I always wondered why scissors remind me of Soviet Russia. I never mentioned it because my friends think I'm strange enough without mentioning Soviet Russia outside the context of a history class.

I asked the question on Yahoo!Answers and the results can be found here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ao7yjyYL_2sD.fvfTeA6rHDty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20130324174229AAcBAbv

Two people took the question seriously. The one who didn't was a bigot. No more Yahoo!Answers for me.

On another note, I was looking at Google's search suggestions. And this happened.

I don't really care about the lower three, but the top one? Well then...

A Rare Movie Review

I'm putting this movie review in because I think that The Lives of Others is an important movie, and I'd like whoever stumbles across this page to watch it. This film could change them.

Ok, that's a load of bullshit. I haven't posted in a long time, and I don't feel like writing today. So I'm copying and pasting this reflection I wrote for school.

            This movie gave me an urge to become an anarchist and get rid of government entirely.

            Let’s start with the intro. We see the main character, whose name I didn’t catch because the movie is in German, teaching a class about how to torture information out of people. Imagine taking that class at your local community college. He also teaches them how to use fictional tells (…such as the scent from their anal glands) to make it look they are lying or telling the truth. Whichever you want really, because that’s what you do when you’re a government worker under Communist rule by the Soviets. Then, a kid asks a potentially subversive question, and the main character—who from now on I will call Lonely Guy—puts a red mark next to the boy’s name. Now, this red mark could mean the boy gets anything from an automatic fail to an assassin in his dorm.

            Then we are introduced to the regulation of the artists. We often associate the artistic types with communism due to famous people such as Diego Rivera. However, apparently capitalist artists are quite common, if the East Berlin government is any indicator. They are so worried about capitalist artists putting the wrong ideas in peoples’ heads that they put Georg Dreyman (I understood his name because I play classical piano and he has the same first name as Handel, never try to learn a fugue by Handel in three days) under maximum surveillance. Luckily for Dreyman, the man in charge of his surveillance is Lonely Guy. Lonely Guy is so darned lonely that he becomes emotionally involved in the lives of Georg and his girlfriend.

            Georg’s girlfriend is addicted to prescription drugs. Since the government is in charge of those, she sleeps with the Minister in order to get them. Corruption, anyone? Anyhow, this makes Georg angry and Lonely Guy sad because he’s living through Georg since he has no girlfriend of his own. In a drunken fit of wisdom, Lonely Guy convinces Girlfriend to go back to Georg.

            Meanwhile, Georg’s friend Jerska is blacklisted by the government. Artists are typically very touchy individuals, especially when you put them out of work. So Jerska commits suicide. Georg is deeply affected by his friend’s death. So affected that he decides to write an article about the insanely high suicide rate in East Berlin and publish it in West Berlin.

            That is not a good idea. Kudos to him for sticking it to the man and everything, but it’s a pretty stupid thing to do. Especially when your girlfriend will sleep with a toad like the Minister for drugs. He gets a safe typewriter and hides it, discussing his article with his buddies because they figured out that his apartment isn’t bugged.

            Except it is. It just doesn’t seem like it because Lonely Guy won’t tell on them. They are the closest friends that Lonely Guy has. I feel sorry for Lonely Guy.

            When the article is published in West Berlin, East Berlin Surveillance flips out. The guy in charge suspects Lonely Guy, because Lonely Guy is pretty lonely and doesn’t talk much. He conducts a few harrowing searches of Georg’s apartment for the typewriter, but it is adequately hidden under a floorboard.

            Naturally, Girlfriend tells surveillance where the typewriter was hidden, except this time Lonely Guy tortured it out of her (because he’s an expert in that, remember the intro?). Surveillance comes to the house to take the typewriter, but Lonely Guy has moved it to save Georg. Girlfriend fittingly commits suicide. Georg is heartbroken, and Lonely Guy stands awkwardly behind him in the middle of the street as he realizes that his entire career is ruined.

            Years later, we see Lonely Guy working in a Post Office when the Berlin Wall comes down. Georg finds out that his house was bugged and dedicates a book to Lonely Guy for his guardian angel-like kindness. Lonely Guy gets the book and smiles for the first time in the entire movie.

            Despite my irreverence, I really loved this movie. I hope that the way I explained it shows the extent of my shock at the East Berlin government’s tight control on artists with opposing views. Whenever I’m emotionally distressed about something, I tend to use humor to hide it. As you can see, this movie was emotionally scarring and I cried.