Idea

So today I had a very interesting idea today. One that will help me finish a short story that I've been working on for a while, and also set up several others I'll now need to write, and possibly try to publish all in one volume someday. I, for one think this is an interesting concept:

Every seemingly random act of violence is actually carefully planned and orchestrated by a select group of very influential individuals who can manipulate everyday people into horrific acts of brutality. I still haven't decided if this group has some sort of agenda they're working towards, or if they're performing social experiments, or if they're just playing some sort of twisted game to see who can create the highest body count. What I do know is that they'll be the ones behind every major act of violence in recent history: Columbine, Virginia Tech, NIU, hell, even the Kennedy assassination. They control the individuals responsible while making them think they're acting of their own will or are simply insane, often actually rendering their victims insane in the process.
I'm not sure yet how far I can actually take this concept, but I have a feeling it could end up being very interesting...

Spot of bother with the state of the press, mayhaps?

One thing that really bothers me in this country is the sheer amount of complete and unadulterated horseshit I see on the rare occasions that I tune a television set to a "news" station or show. The majority of it isn't news at all, but instead random insignificant gimmicky crap. And when they're not just trying to fill time, they try to scare viewers into watching by exaggerating nonexistent threats like how video games turn kids into murderers or how too much chocolate can make you spontaneously die or any number of ridiculous headlines.

Something very seriously needs to change. The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to keep the people informed, not blissfully ignorant or profitably paranoid. Seriously, whatever happened to reporting meaningful stories? And the truth, remember that? Wouldn't it be fantastic if all of the media weren't owned and controlled as, more or less, corporate puppets? We're never going to get any form of real truth if the people in power (who, let's face it, more often than not have something unsavory to hide) control what the masses watch, read, or hear.

I know what you're thinking: Willows, you pessimistic fuck, why don't you try thinking of a solution instead of just whining all the time? Well guess what assholes, I don't have to. Al Gore apparently already invented the internet.

That's right, my friends, the great vast tube-o-sphere. As full of idiots, twits, and fuckwads as it can often be, it is also one of the last true bastions of real, honest-to-God free speech left in this country (Hell, probably the whole world, the way capitalism is spreading its greedy little tentacles these days). Thanks to the world wide web, anybody can report the news. While this technically means (as clearly evidenced by the rise of the blogosphere) that ignorant, irresponsible clods can go on about nearly anything without any kind of accountability or reliability, it also presents a great opportunity for fans of those currently elusive bastards, honesty and integrity.

Just imagine: a news source online (apart from the blogs and sites already affiliated with the major media corporations) with real, full-time reporters who can pursue stories that actually matter, and report the full truth without fear of censorship or termination from the company fat cats. A place for people who aren't out to promote any kind of political agenda, who won't be bought or controlled, to expose the kind of corruption and underhanded dealings that got the media into its current state in the first place.

Maybe it's hopeless. Maybe the world's too far gone to be saved. But Goddamnit, I'm a young, idealistic writer and future journalist. I have to believe that this can work, that enough independent thinkers in an ocean of automatons can change the world, if only to tell myself that there's still a chance for my future to be meaningful.

A Proposal

A good number of people who know me are doubtless familiar with the Don't Mention Panties Game. It's fun in its own right, but it can be made much more interesting in the hands of adequately creative individuals. My suggestion is this: two people take turns creating a story, one word at a time. The plot can be absurd, but must be coherent. Players can by all means attempt to trip one another up by using words that make things more difficult. Theoretically, this will make for an entertaining writing experience and an interesting final product, although I must admit I haven't gotten a chance to try it yet...

Moving on to other topics,

I'm not really sure why I haven't posted here in so long. I could say I've been too busy, but that's really no excuse. For a conscious effort to make myself write more, this blog is rather pathetic. One post was all it took for my dedication to whittle away...
Although I think it has more to do with writers block than laziness. When a strong inspiration hits me, I can write like a motherfucker. But lately I haven't had much to rant about that stayed with me until I got to the computer. I'd usually vent my frustrations about human stupidity, or ignorance, or intolerance, or what have you to someone in person and get the annoyance out of my system. I have done some work (albeit a small amount) on various works of fiction. I've even finished a first draft of a short story, which amazed even me. Maybe I'll post it here once I make it better, who knows. I really don't feel like trying to fill this little text box with my usual bullshit at the moment, so I'll end here for now.

Am I a bad person?

Some people might say so. For the most part, though, I think that's because they lack my...ah...unique sense of humor. If I'm laid-back enough to be capable of finding humor in virtually any topic, does that make me a bad person? I honestly don't think so. To be perfectly honest, I have nothing against the handicapped, and I don't think the Holocaust was realistically humorous to any extent. But I get a ridiculous amount of amusement from making jokes that I know are grossly inappropriate, because people's reactions to them are amazing. But I've come to terms with my sense of humor long ago. That's not what led me to ponder the question I posed in the title.
Working in a movie theatre (or any part of the service industry, for that matter) has the profound effect of causing a person to realize that they truly and utterly fucking hate people. Now I knew this about myself long ago, but going to work just helps remind me every now and then (READ: every time a customer opens their mouth and speaks). I absolutely abhor people. Not any specific group of people, mind you; I'm no racist. I just hate humanity in general. Or maybe that's a tad too broad. What I mean is that I loathe the American public.
Every time a customer walks past a bright yellow wet floor sign, slips, and complains that the floor is wet, I want to cause them immense amounts of pain. Every time somebody stands near the closed side of the concession stand, with a plethora of individual "closed" signs on each register, supplemented by a gigantic sign reading "This Side is Closed" right in front of their face, and waits for a good five to ten minutes for somebody to take their order, I get a nigh-irrepressible urge to bash some literacy into their idiotic skull. I never do it, mind you. I'd rather keep my job. All I'm saying is that I have a very low tolerance for idiocy and ignorance.
A violent response would incredibly stupid, and I would never give the customers the gratification of stooping to their level. Instead, I take a good amount of joy in exercising what little authority I have as a minimum wage slave to make the lives of particularly annoying people as inconvenient and, if I can, as close to miserable as I possibly can. Case in point: I'm standing there, checking tickets for Saw IV, when a particularly cocky group of teenagers saunters past, triumphantly holding up their tickets and walking past me towards the auditorium doors. This is where a wickedly gleeful grin springs to life on my face as I coolly say, "I'm gonna need to see some ID." At this point, all three of them get the "oh shit" look on their faces as they turn around and try to think of excuses. The first one says he has his school ID, but is quickly disheartened when I point out that that doesn't actually display his age. The second doesn't have any ID at all. The third is a girl who looks like she couldn't be more than thirteen years old, and she claims to have left her drivers license in the car. Needless to say, I greatly enjoyed watching them wait in the lobby for me to stop paying attention so they could sneak back in. Eventually they just wised up and left. I laughed. It felt good.
Call me petty if you will, but I do take a sense of satisfaction from doing things like that to people that I just instinctively dislike. I also enjoy enforcing the theatre policy of not making change at the concession stand and kindly asking guests to go to the box office for their change. Especially after watching them wait in line for fifteen minutes. But I think I'm justified in taking some pleasure out of making their lives difficult. After all, people do the same to me. They complain about all manners of mundane bullshit and insist that I should do things exactly the way they want. But my distaste for people doesn't just come from my job. I get paid to deal with that, so, at the end of the day, it's (albeit barely) tolerable. What really pisses me off is society in general.
What's not to hate? People are the cause of every major problem in the world today. Wars, inequality, racism, they can all be traced back to human greed, intolerance, or ignorance. People (not everybody, but as a generalization) are unwilling to consider the validity of cultures other than their own. They refuse to believe that a life other that the one they would choose to live can be any good, and the ones in power try to force their views on the ones who aren't. People kill each other for no good reason other than money or power, something that the uncivilized beasts of the animal kingdom never do.
So when it comes right down to it, yes, I do hate people. I hate their intolerance, their closed-mindedness, their injustice, their blind conformity, their tricks, their lies, and their greed. But does disagreeing with everything that's making society rot really make me a bad person? Because if it does, that the world is more fucked up than even I thought.

Hello. My name is Willows.

I've fucked around with having a blog before, but I pretty much only talked about my own life, which, quite frankly, just wasn't very interesting. Not even to me. So I can't for the life of me figure out why I thought other human beings, aside from the hopelessly pathetic, would ever bother reading it. I'll just chalk it up to youthful stupidity and boredom. But I digress.

The page you see now is more or less an exercise in writing for me, since I intend to make a living off of my incoherent ramblings someday. So. I'll be using this blog to rant, as rarely or often as I feel like, although I'll try to make myself write fairly often. I'll address whatever topic happens to interest, amuse, excite, anger, or confuse me on any given day. Feel free to read if you want, and by all means comment. But don't necessarily expect me to give a flying fuck one way or another if anybody doesn't particularly care for my opinions.