Venus Rules

During my teenage years, the concept battle of the sexes was very rampant. Almost every discussion would always lead to a girls-versus-boys thing. Now that I’m an adult, I realized how inaccurate that concept was. There is no such thing as men versus women because aside from the fact that there is “too much fraternizing with the enemy” (Jessica Zafra) going on, men are not evolved enough to be on the same level as women. In boxing, you cannot fight someone who is not from the same division as you are. Men are not only not on the same weight division so to speak, they are not even in the pros.

Here’s a newsflash (I’m not gonna hold back so here goes…): most men are stupid. It’s a fact that almost every woman knows. What’s funny is that, even with this knowledge, women still find that men are essential to live a fairly interesting life. So what does a girl do? She pretends that she is even more stupid than her guy. No, we would not want to hurt their feelings. We have to make them feel like they are in-charge or they’ll feel emasculated.

But let’s be reasonable here. Most guys are probably saying, “WTF! How can you say that?” Because, guys, number one, you walk around with the delusion that you are God’s gift to women. You are not. You were created first. But God saw that you were lonely, wandering all alone in the garden. Oh, poor little boy, so helpless and miserable. So God, who is all-powerful and knowing, created us, which in effect makes us women God’s gift to men. But nooooo, you would never admit to this. You are so full of yourselves that you feel like it’s a sin to be keeping yourselves from other women even if you are already with somebody else. Tsk, bad, bad boys. Number two, you think you are smarter than us. I would not even have to elaborate the obvious. We just let you think that you are smarter because, let’s face it, what fun would you guys be if you go around with a long face, moping and feeling useless? Plus, we have a longer lifespan, have higher EQ’s, can give birth to the next generation, are generally more pleasant to be around… the list goes on. But more importantly, men are easy to read. The moment you show yourselves and utter a single word, we know what you want, even if you go on painstaking lengths to hide your true motives. We know. Women, on the other hand, are deceiving. Because it’s what men want, we make you believe that we are damsels in distress because it feeds your machismo to be thinking that you will save the day. You cannot even prove your worth without having to do something physical.

Poor boys, frothing at the mouth as we speak. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, to be the one to shatter the rose-colored glass that has blissfully shielded you from the truth. Don’t worry, you are not completely useless. Yet. Just as long as nobody invents a more viable replacement. A dog would have been perfect. Unfortunately, we need it to be able to stand on two legs and lift heavy objects. So don’t lose heart, guys. You will still find countless intelligent women who will laugh at your not funny jokes, show interest at your boring stories and act impressed by your uhmmm… man stuff. It is so hard to find a good source of entertainment nowadays but one has to make do with what is available, another characteristic which makes women better than men. We adapt and we adapt well.

In conclusion, women are superior. If you guys know what’s best for you, don’t piss us off. We are holding your balls in the palm of our hands. You would not want us to crush them into oblivion, would you? What then would the source of your macho pride be? Oh, the tragedy.

It's Steven Spielberg's Fault

Why, oh why, did I watch this movie? Every movie that I see from here on out will be compared to this film and most of them will fail miserably. Damn you, Steven Spielberg! Why didn't you just stick to making movies the like of E.T. and Jaws? Why do you have to go and challenge my perception of what a great movie should be like?

I never would have thought that I would even consider a repulsive movie to be great. Because that is what it was. It was repulsive and scary but I cannot not watch it. There was a part there where, to make room for more Jews from other camps or settlements, the Nazis conducted medical inspection on the existing Jews on the camp and pick out those who look unhealthy so that they will be sent to Auschwitz. The process involved all of the Jews going out to the yards, falling in line and stripping completely naked. They were then made to run around in front of several doctors. The doctors pointed out those who they think were unfit and immediately a guard would grab that person and pull him out of the line. For the Jews, Auschwitz meant certain death so they did whatever they could to avoid being sent there. During these inspections the women had to resort to pricking their fingers to draw blood and use the blood on their lips and cheeks to appear flushed, ergo healthy. It was the most inhuman proceeding that I have ever seen. Imagine what it was like in real life. Damn you, Steven, for shattering the shield of ignorance that had enveloped me my entire life. How can I go on with my blissful existence now that I know... these?

My favorite part in the film, the part that truly broke my heart, was, toward the end, when Oskar was preparing to leave his employees to flee with his wife after the German's were defeated, he started counting how many more Jews he could have saved with the properties that he still had, even if he was basically bankrupt at that point. It didn't matter that he spent his entire fortune to buy and support more than a thousand Jews for seven months. For him, what mattered was he could have saved more but didn't.

After watching the film, with my brain still on Schindler's List overdrive, I googled Oskar which, of course, only made me hate Steven all the more. After the war, Oskar made several attempts to start other businesses, all of which failed. He lost his wife, he lost money and he was living off of donations from Jewish organizations. By the end of his life, he was penniless. Arguably, he was surrounded by friends and family and perhaps the love of all those he had saved. Many would say that this was better than having all that money and pursued by the Allied Forces for being a "profiteer of slave labor". But I wonder, for a man of such ambition and fine finesse as Oskar, was he happy? Did he ever regret that he went and spent his money to buy every single one of his workers instead of going back to his hometown with more money than he can spend his entire lifetime? Are there still Oskar Schindlers left in this world?

Liam Neeson was perfect as Schindler. He certainly had the aura that would convince a Nazi officer to release all those Jews to his care for a certain fee. Ralph Fiennes was even better as Amon Goth. I didn't even recognize him. He was... portly. The Ralph Fiennes I know was from American Patient and, of course, Voldemort, stately and elegant. In this movie, he was a madman who kills on a frenzy, kills for no apparent reason and kills Jews working on the fields for target-shooting practice from his balcony. Then Schindler told him that real power is when you know should kill somebody but you choose to make him live instead. Oh, the struggle he had to go through to gain that kind of power, it was hilarious. I could almost see his face in contortion as he was stopping himself from killing his stable boy.

I am reminded of another film I saw more than a year ago entitled A Beautiful Life starring Roberto Benigni. It was a comedy about the Holocaust, which was ironic. But I ended up laughing and cringing at the same time. I thought it was a great movie. I still do. But compared to Schindler's List, it was a feel-good movie. That's how heavy Schindler is. It is the best movie I ever saw, one of my favorites, but understandably a movie that I would only like to see again after a considerable lapse of time. It has been a week since I saw it and I have yet to recover.

I still hate you, Steven, but thank you for slapping me in the face and making me realize my mediocrity. I owe you big time.

Brotherhood of Men

I just witnessed a hilarious thing which happened to my officemates. These are two 30-something guys who works on the same field and, more importantly, they are brothers. They got into an argument about something which I didn't understand. Well, whatever it was, it was definitely a subject they both understood plenty because they were arguing so heatedly that not one of them was able to finish a single sentence throughout the entire debate because they kept interrupting each other. If there had been other people present, they would have made quite a spectacle.

So anyway, they were engage in this ferocious battle over who was right and as I was sitting there listening to them, I had no idea how they figured that the other was wrong because they weren't even listening to each other. They were literally talking at the same time. They went like this:

Them (at the same time): Listen to me! Blah, blah, blah...(both stops mid-sentence). You are not listening to me!!!

If they weren't so serious I would have died on the floor from laughing so hard. They would go silent for a few moments while devising another way to rebut the other's argument. When one of them uttered a single word, the whole argument started anew but taking up the same line as above. I am pretty sure that it wasn't resolve up to this point but an hour or so after the debate, they got into talking about another subject and they were laughing like they weren't on each other's throats a few seconds ago.

It's a typical male behavior. If it were girls, even after the issue had been resolved, there would follow a cold war that would last for generations. This also got me to thinking about what would happen if my brother and I got into an argument like the one that they just had. The only thing I could think of is it wouldn't be possible because number 1, my brother and I are not in the same field and number 2, if my brother will argue with me, I will employ the technique I have long practiced over my siblings which basically discourages any of them from arguing with me: I'm going to smack him.

There is no room for democracy when you are snipping sibling rivalry at the bud.