Detemination

Hi there my fellow creatures of the night!

I know I never write in Spanish, but given that a few of my posts are going to be published soon (thanks Santiago by the way), I might as well publish them here first.

The first one is on determination:

“The woods are empty, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep”, nos dice el hermoso poema de Robert Frost. Pero el significado de la frase es mucho más profundo. Es un escrito que habla de una de las virtudes más importantes del ser humano, la determinación. La fuerza para continuar guiados por sólo el poder de nuestras mentes y convicciones. No importa donde estemos o las circunstancias, nada puede más que el poder de la osadía. Podemos estar cansados, podemos estar débiles, pero siempre se puede hacer lo que se quiere. Sin determinación, muchos de las grandes mentes y logros de la humanidad nunca hubiesen sucedido. Piénsenlo, mi cama puede verse tranquila y cómoda, pero todavía hay mucho por hacer y millas por recorrer.

That is all,

I'll see you in the future,

"I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me."

Happy Hunting,

The WikiVampire

The Autumn Wind: The Oakland Raiders

Hi there my fello creatures of the night!

Just dropping in to catch another line. It's been about a week since I last posted anything, and due to the fact that I was very upset at what had happened to a few friends of mine I wasn't really in the mood to write another blog... but now I am.

Today's blog is about something different, some of you might like it, some of you may not...

Oh yes, I almost forgot... this is a message to the guy I am going to kill pretty soon: "I guess that's what they mean by poetic justice! I though you said it couldn't be done? Praise the Lord, I hail from Schwarzenegger's school of thought, and the words 'impossible' and 'I can't' are not in my dictionary... Stick it up your ass man!"

Well now on to the topic at hand. There's no denying this has been a very strange NFL season. I've been watching football since 1994 and I have never seen a season with such a high playing level, such a balanced talent base and such equality between teams. No matter what happens, any team can beat any team, there are no dominating teams anymore and pretty much every team can still make the playoffs (except the Lions, Bengals, Chiefs - even though they are much better than their record indicates - and a couple more), a few "new" offensive techniques, particularly the wildcat (a variation of the vere) are being used on a regular basis, the teams set to go to the Super Bowl since the preseason are now fighting for a Wild Card Spot (do the Patriots, Cowboys and Chargers ring a bell?), Dan Marino's "unbeatable" single season passing yard record of 5105 yars is about to get squashed by two quarterbacks, and the list goes on and one.

But one thing definetely hasn't changed... and that's the fact that the Oakland Raiders are still the same mediocre team they have been for the last couple of seasons and are still fighting to make their high paying roster win football games... Which brings me to the topic at hand.

The Oakland Raiders have always been one of the great franchises in the history of professional football and sports. While the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears are known for their devoted fanatics, the Cowboys for their large, out of Dallas fanbase, the Steelers for their still devoted 1970's fans, the Raiders hail from a great tradition of winning as well as possibly THE MOST devoted fanbase in all of professional football: the so-called "Raider Nation".

The Raider Nation is a term used to define the large, devoted fans of the Oakland Raiders. Not only do they dress in jerseys for the game, but many carry pirate like banners and dress up in very elaborate costumes for the games and cheer their team on with an almost psycopathic love (no matter how bad they might be doing). Don't believe me? Check out the picture of the VIOLATOR, possibly the world's best known raider fan or go to Oakland and attend a home game sitting in the so-called "black hole", in sectinos 104,105, 106 and 107 of the Oakland Coliseum.

The Raiders, giving justice to their name, are a sports franchise of magical tradition that skyrocketed to fame during the 1970's, when they won two superbowls under John Madden and were hosts to possibly one of the toughest players in the history of the game. Names like Jack Tatum, George Atkinson, Lyle Alzado, Ken Stabler ring bells not only of victory, but bells of immortality, roughness and of the seeds that sparked the golden age of the raider nation.

They are and have always been the tough guys of the NFL, wearing a black uniform with death painted on their helmet, killing their oponents both on the football field and on the scoreboard (if you don't believe watch a video of the Oakland-Minnesota SuperBowl) and becoming one of the most well known and respected franchises of the NFL.

Such is the fame of the Oakland Raiders that Steve Sabol, the CEO of NFL films and one the best known names in Football, wrote them a poem titled the Autumn wind, a poem that, in a much simpler and more effective way than this blog, describes who the Oakland Raiders are.

Read it... not only is it the anthem of the Raiders' franchise, but a symbol of who they are, and in a nutshell, the essence of the team.

Notice the powerful words and the imagery (yes I know it's not Shakespeare, but it still serves its purpose - and if I hear a word about how ignorant I am because I analyze football poems instead of the great epic writings I will hunt you down and kill you!... and I will take my time!)

The Autumn Wind

The Autumn Wind is a pirate

Blustering in from sea

With a rollicking song he sweeps along

Swaggering boisterously

His face is weather beaten

He wears a hooded sash

With his silver hat about his head

And a bristly black moustache

He growls as he storms the country

A villain big and bold

And the trees all shake and quiver and quak

eAs he robs them of their gold

The Autumn wind is a Raider

Pillaging just for fun

He'll knock you round and upside down

And laugh when he's conquered and won

Want to see it in video? Narrated by non other than John Facenda, the voice of God? Log on to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmiVYFueNvQ

That is all,

I hope it wasn't too disappointing,

I'll see you in the future,

"I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me."

Happy Hunting,

The WikiVampire

In a Sentimental Mood

Hi there my fellow creatures of the night!

I apologize for the sintax, but I wrote this when I was crying, so it might feel more like interior monologue than anything else...

I'm crying... I really am... I'm feeling so sad... I feel sad for all the things I can't control, and for everything I must control but I cannot change... Is forever enough? Is forever enough? I just love that song by the Dixie Dicks titled Lullabye. Everytime I listen to it I can't help but cry, as I am doing now... and as I look back upon everything sad that has occurred in the world these last few months I can't help but cry and think about the great things that surround us and the beautiful things that make life worth living... "You can close your eyes and you're miles away", says the song... I keep thinking about my maid and everything she lost, I keep thinking about that asshole, that guy I will kill very soon, and about that poor girl who lost her sister, about my dog who's on his way out (whom I never talked to), about my lost friendships, about the person I became last week, about all the suffering going on this in this world, and about how lucky I really am and about how I don't deserve everything I have. About how good my parents and family has been to me, and about how fuckin' ungrateful I have been... I am sorry, I really am... why does suffering exist? Why is the world so ugly and so terrible as though there is so much suffering? Why?
You know the sad part? I have never had a girlfriend... I have never had a relationship... Why do I try to be someone I'm not? Why have I tried to rise up to everyone's bullshit, especially that guy I'm going to kill? Why can't I just be free and not care? Why? No more... I'm a free man and I don't care about anything... I really don't...
Why am I so weird? Is being weird a curse? Is it? It has been... for some reason people always think of me as insane... "how long do you want to be loved? Is forever enough?"... I've become a stone... I'd love to love... but I can't... why do I reject love? Please tell me, someone tell me. Where are you? Where is that special person? I know it's not you!... Kate was the one.. and I lost her, but I need to find another one... I really do...

That is all...

Happy Hunting,

The WikiVampire

Reflexion on Injustice Applied to a few friends of mine

Hi there my fellow creatures of the night!

This time I don't feel on writing about anything illuminating,
I just want to use writing to rid my body of all the sadness I feel.

I can't even start to grasp the vastess of this melancholy, and I shouldn't even be writing about it. But I must. My father taught me to let go of frustration any way that I can, and right now, this is the best I can do.

A few days ago, my maid told me she had to go home on an emergency because somebody had vandalized her house and taken her stuff. "Poor soul", I thought. "These people work very hard to make ends meet and now everything she has every saved as been taken from her."

The moment I heard that I felt as though I had been stabbed in the heart. My maid is a very nice person, she lives in my house with her three kids (all of them in one room). Her three kids are all from different fathers, and even though they have been living unstable lives throughout their existance, now, while living in that small room in the basement of my home, they live a happy existance as a family. They spend on nothing (as they have free room and board), the boy goes to a school near here, the oldest daughter works at a nearby pharmacy, and the youngest one (a 15 month old child), plays throughout my house the entire day. So, needless to say, they live a very happy existance.

People have criticized me often for giving this kind of aid (and I confess I have second guessed myself more than once), but I have always been of the idea that when we are well off, we must do whatever we can to help the community, and in some strange way, helping this struggling family has helped me in my life. I am happy to see them happy, and I am happy to see them living as a family (the eldest daughter is going to be married soon).

So, to get back on track, this last sunday the maid gets a call that her house back in her home town (about a 90 minute drive from where I live), had been burglarized. I told her to leave and to go home to see what she could do (she was in tears - and I was getting there-), that hopefully nothing had happened, but I knew that there was no turning back.

I consider myself a good man, and I pay her a good salary apart from the free room and board, and this salary has allowed her to purchase things that were normally above her social scale (a computer, television, DVD player, celular telephones, cameras and a refrigerator).

But somehow, the bad guys always prevail.... and by the way, I am already in tears while I write this... God I feel so bad about this.

As it turns out, they were robbed, everything they owned was taken from them. The television, computer, DVD player... everything except the refrigerator. Their house had been vandalised and everything they had achieved and everything they had done to rise above their former social status had disappeared. And what made it even worse was the fact that they had purchased everything via deffered payments, and now they are still going to have to pay for them.

I try to think and compare this event to my own life and reflect on what would I do if everything I had worked for with my own sweat had been taken from me. Think about it, it's a very sad and frustrating feeling. I feel very bad for them, and bad that I can't do anything more for the family living downstairs... a family that survives thanks to their hard work and thanks to the fact that there are still decent human beings out there that won't deny a family to be together.

Now, all they have done has disappeared... it's a tragedy. And it's not something that happened miles away, it's something that happened right here in my own home, with people that live in this house. I feel frustrated, and I feel sad. They were just playing the hand they were dealt, working their asses of to rise above their condition. And now, it's all gone... it's all gone and there's nothing they can do about it. They want to find the burglars and bring them to justice, but she doesn't want to risk her children's lives. And she's right. It's not worth it.

And I keep thinking to myself, why did this happen? I can't come up with a conclusion except that they are living in an area filled with people who are far worse off than they are, and they decided they were going to take everything from them. And that's what they did.

I cannot grasp with words how sorry I am for them. I truly am. I am moved, I am frustrated... in fact, I am so frustrated I can't even look at them in the eye, I can't spend money on anything out of solidarity, and I am punishing myself because I see them suffering. And I shouldn't punish myself. But I just can't help it.

I need to bring them back what they lost. My sister is changing computers soon, and I will give them hers when she switches, I will give the one of my DVD players, I will give them the Television set they have in their room here at my house, I will give them a celular phone I have here that I don't use, and will give them an old camera I have never used. They need them more than I do, and I really want to see them happy again.

You must know that I am not normally a religious man and I rarely pray, but now, after what happened, I very much feel like praying for them, and I will now...

That is all my friends, I just wanted to share this with you guys...

I'll see you in the future,

Happy Hunting,

"I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me."

The WikiVampire

The Ship of Fools: Applied to the Nov 2008 American Presidential Elections

Hi there my fellow creatures of the night!

First of all I would like to apologize for my short hiatus. I am very sorry, but I have bee busy with work and school. As it turns out I have already started writing my second book, my first one is now being read by an editor (I hope he's not too disappointed), I've been watching a lot of football (expect an article on this season anytime soon), and hell... it was halloween, the best time of the year.

But hey, now that I'm done apologizing I'll head on to the topic at hand.

Given that the US has elected a new president and people believe the election was won by a landslide I am writing an article not only to refute this believe, but to comment on the US electoral system and the power of vote in general.

But before I start, consider this. Even though Obama won by a "landslide" (something like 350 to 170 votes) in reality he only won by 7 million popular votes... That's nothing! 7 million votes in a country of 300 million? It's only 2%... nothing!

Now, onto the article.

Considering the whole issue surrounding the controversy of electoral vs. popular votes I will try and explain two very important political questions that have yet to be resolved in the modern world that directly affect us.

There was once a great greek philosopher who went by the name of Plato (there are actually some people who haven't heard of him) who wrote about a very intersting concept that surrounds political philosophy. Nowadays everyone speaks about democracy, about popular vote and about the people making the country's desicions. We have been raised to think that this concept and format is the perfect one, and those who think otherwise fall under the category of dictators, despots, kings, oligarchists, etc. We have been raised to believe that only those governments which cater the desicions made by the public are free, and those that do not, only believe in opression and no governmental freedom.

But I ask you. Who says that the people are capable of making desicions? Who says that people have the moral and political abilities to decide who will be THE best leader and who will benefit the country the most? After all, people are generally stupid, illiterat, ignorant and vote on basis of appearance rather that after a thorough assessment of the candidate at hand as well as the pros and cons of voting for or against him. So, ask yourself again, are people really qualified to elect their leaders?

Plato created a philosophical concept that directly adresses this question: The Ship of Fools. With the ship of fools Plato makes a very direct question in regards to this issue. The ship of fools describes a vessel being directed by non-sailors. The ship has no captain or navigator, and it inevitably crashes into the rocks...

The same thing happens with the elections. If no one knows about politics and knows how to elect a leader, the country will crash unto the rocks. Why? Because we have non-sailors driving the country. People who are not qualified to make political desicions should not be able to vote because their vote is just as valuable as that of a trained politician or cultured person (who will most likely take the desicion that helps the country the most). The presidential election affects everyone, and being that it is such an important desicion, only those which have the most knowledge on the subject should be able to make the desicions.

So in summary, normal people should not be able to vote because they don't have the necessary intelligence or knowledge to make the desicion that is best for the country. Letting untrained people vote is to give a monkey the power to kill its owner, it is as if a group of non-sailors try to navigate a ship. What happens? It will eventually crash into the rocks.

Now, how does this apply to the US electoral system?

The US electoral system was founded upon the belief that people are stupid and can't make the right desicions, which is why only electoral votes count. Originally, people would vote just to give the real voters an idea of who they wanted as president. Then, based on the popular vote, the politicians would vote for whom they chose, (they could vote for whom the people chose or for a candidate of their choice), as they were the ones who really knew what the country needed the most.

Of course, the electoral system has morphed into a monster of a system. Nowadays, neither the popular vote nor the electoral votes count. What we now have is something very strange. An irrational system that doesn't work because it follows neither one of these philosophies. The US electoral system works in the following manner: Each state is given a certain number of electoral votes depending on their population. People vote, and whoever candidate wins the designated state gets each and every one of the electoral votes, no matter if he one by 1% or by 100%. So a candidate could get all 55 votes from California when in reality only 50% voted for him, meaning that there are 27 electoral votes he shouldn't have. He could win the election and lose the popular vote...

So in summary, the US electoral system works only if applied as it was originally conceived. If not, what we have is a flawed system that doesn't work for the people or against it... it just doesn't work... and the worse part of it is that people don't understand it...

So to sum things up: DON'T LET PEOPLE VOTE... PEOPLE ARE STUPID AND DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY NEED! Letting people vote means giving people power they don't know how to use. People don't know what is best for their country, and their vote affects everyone. The only people that should vote are those that are educated enough to vote. If not, stupid desicions and stupid people get the power. Examples?

Presidents like Vicente Fox get elected, and countries like Mexico suffer greatly as a consequence. People shouldn't vote. People are ignorant and stupid, and only those with sufficient knowledge about politics should be able to vote, as they are the only ones who make real desicions.

That is all,

Happy Hunting,

The WikiVampire

Predator: The First Horror Film With a Worthy Hero

Hi there my fellow creatures of the night!

It's 2:11 A.M. and I'm taking a break from my new novel (I'll tell you more about it later) to talk to you about a great film I recently watched. No, it's not an art film by Bergman, Herzog or Fellini, and it's not a porno either... It's a straightforward action film with a lot to offer and with a characteristic that action films almost never have: originality. I'm talking about Predator, possibly one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's finest films.

To quote the world's top film critic Mr. Roger Ebert, Predator is such a great action film because it flows through a near perfect dramatic turn: "It starts like Rambo (or to that effect Commando) and ends like Alien." True. But Predator's brilliancy does not stop at that.

Apart from the tremendously well done action scenes, great cinematography, the larger than life music score, jungle sequences (which according to Ebert are even better than those in Herzog's Fitzcarraldo), the brilliant and still up to date special effects, and the well achieved acting, Predator has a special quality to it that I have never seen on film before.

For those of you that don't know, Predator is a Science Fiction/Action/Horror Film about a group of US Army Commandos who are sent to the jungles of South America to rescue a Cabinet Minister from the hands of the guerrilla (Schwarzenegger stars as the leader of the group) but upon returning from their accomplished mission they run into an alien who hunts them one by one á la Most Dangerous Game, killing them for sport. And the alien is nothing less than an expert and near perfect hunter, as he is almost immune to gunshots, tremendously agile, invisible and has heat seeking vision (which means that the men are never out of his sight). So yes, he is the perfect hunter; "the ultimate enemy". But this time he's not fighting just anyone, he's fighting ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER as Major "Dutch" Schaefar, the best rescue commando in the entire world.

As a horror film, Predator is a standard slasher film with an excellent and never before achieved variant: The “Bad guy” aka Psycho-Killer (in this case and Alien or "Predator") is not facing a group of helpless teenagers in a fraternity or kids in a college camp, he is facing an elite rescue squad armed with machine guns and lead by the same man who single handedly killed an entire Army in "Commando", Wiped out an entire police unit in "The Terminator", Exterminated the Entire Chicago Mob in one day in "Raw Deal", disbanded the modern day equivalent of Al-Qaeda in "True Lies", and killed Satan himself in "End of Days"... a team led by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

So yes, the villain does have his hands full on this one. "This time he picked the wrong man to hunt", says the tagline with much objectivity. Predator marks THE first time in the history of horror films where the villain faces a worthy adversary who can actually turn the tables on him and hunt him down with a real chance of beating him (no offense but Jamie Lee Curtis turning the tables of Michael Myers in Halloween H2O is not really what I'm talking about) in an effort to turn the Hunter into the Hunted.

And the outcome is near perfect. With all his comrades dead (killed one by one by the Predator) Dutch (Schwarzenegger) turns the tables on the Predator, discovers his weakness and hunts HIM down, finally fatally wounding him with a prefabricated trap and forcing him to activate his "self destruct" application, which blows him to pieces, effectively making Arnold Victorious.

So avoiding a standard slasher-like structure (where the group of teens accidentally kill off the villain at the end) Predator breaks genre and creates a new stanza in the Horror Film Poem, it finally provides the killer with a real rival; a person who can actually beat him and turn HIM into the Hunted one ("if it bleeds, we can kill it!" claims Schwarzenegger after he discovers that the Predator had been wounded).

Apart from being an excellent horror film with a great dramatic twist Predator is simply a brilliant movie that is not only deliciously entertaining, but also has a genuine quality to it that, if it had not been a studio feature (Studio features are generally disliked by "artsy festivals" and "art filmmakers"- don't ask me why but they hate them without even watching them- I'll talk about that in another article titled "Hollywood Vs. Art Film"), it would have probably won many awards at festivals.

So don't waste anymore time. Go buy or rent Predator and tell me how much you liked it. I guarantee you won’t regret it. It is one of the few serious Schwarzenegger films and possibly the best one.

I leave you know with a list of the best Schwarzenegger films with a respective rating and commentary.

I'll see you in the future,

"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me."

Happy Hunting,

The WikiVampire

1.- Termiantor 2: Judgement Day 9.5 (one-of a kind display of special effects - a true work of art-)

2.- Conan the Barbarian 9.0 (one of the best music scores I have EVER heard in a feature - the other two are Little Women and the 13th Warrior).

3.- Predator 9.0

4.- Last Action Hero 8.5 (An excellent premise with a great genre spoof story)

5.- The Termiantor 8.5 (This is where it all started)

6.- Kindergarten Cop 8.0 (Sentimental Flick)

7.- Commando 7.5 (Simply THE best film for ONE-LINERS)

Writer's Block is out!!!

Hey there my fellow creatures of the night!

This time I don't really have a lot to talk about, don't have interesting subjects to tell you about and don't have a particular mental issue to discuss here...

I just wanted to let you know that I have beaten writer's block and I have already begun writing my second novel. I can't really tell you what it's about, but what I can tell you it's titled "El Clásico" and that it revolves around what happens on a thursday afternoon in Mexico City. It involves 4 sepparate storylines and is being written á la James Joyce's Ulysses, utilizing interior monologue, newspaper articles, music, standard narrative and other diverse literary methods to push the plot forward.

I am already working on chapter 3, and, being that I am a fast writer, (I actually wrote a screenplay in 5 days, and rewrote it in 2) I'll have the first draft ready very soon.

That is all my fellow creatures of the night.

I'll see you in the future,

"I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me."

Happy Hunting,

The WikiVampire