watched final destination 3 yesterday and i suggest that you dont; unless of course you have a thing for ridiculously gory and extremely painful deaths.

on the other hand, mrs. henderson presents was way better. i know most of you must be going 'mrs-who-what?' but trust me on this, it really is a fantastic show. kit and i laughed bunches. and if my word alone doesnt do it for you, then maybe the bare breasts, pussies and (occasional) dicks might.

watched brokeback mountain today (dont ask me how) and man it was heart-renching. sure, love between two cattle-ranchin' rodeo-ridin' cowboys goes against the norm and is not your everyday visualisation of the words true-love, but that's what makes it so powerful.

for me, the fact that they were two cowboys shifted some of the attention from gender to the affects of love and what love can do to two people who feel so much for each other. it was just so beautiful to watch them yearn for each as they lived their 'ordinary' lives with their wives.

this is not, as many have vulgarly named it, a gay movie, but a movie of what love really is.

i'm sure many of you have heard about the prophet mohammad caricature debacle. the danish cartoon has caused social unrest amongst muslims all over the world, especially in the middle east where this has given way to senseless violence and killings of innocents.

many will agree that they cartoon should never have been published. unfortunately, they had no way of knowing the repercussions that they would soon have to face and at the point of publication, nothing could have been said or done to stop the newspaper from releasing the caricature and to go against their belief of 'freedom of press'.

as a result, there was an initial backlash - which was to be expected - of mild protest and a demand of an apology, which was rightly given. all was very diplomatic until radicals in the region of the first few publications brought it over to the middle east, with the whole thing probably blown out of proportions.

the muslims in turn feel that their faith has been trampled upon and that they are not gaining the respect from west. nonetheless, those who are responding violently to the cartoons are really going overboard. one muslim government representative said, 'prophet mohammad would not want to be represented for this way'. newspapers report that many are reacting in this manner because this was the 'straw that broke their backs'. many are so replete with anger over their staus quo that this one unfortunate event was all that was needed to spark the violence. even so, embassies attacked and destroyed, flags burnt, the taleban putting a price (of 100kg of gold) over the artist's head and over the head's of innocents (5kg of gold over danish, german and norwegian soldiers)... its too much.

it just goes to show how ignorant some of the developed countries are and how they take things, like the freedom of press, for granted. just because a country enjoys this form of liberation and can say or do or print whatever they wish doesnt mean that it will be globally accepted; and with the world shrinking by the minute since the start of globalisation, news spreads fast. sure, the people over at the danish newpaper would never, in their wildest most craziest dreams, have expected the backlash to be so catastrophic, but i'm sure something along the lines definitely crossed their minds and practicing restraint at the cost of freedom of press would, without a doubt, have been a better option.

freedom of press between countries cannot exist in a world where not every country has embraced this form of liberation. especially in such times where racial issues are still touchy topics in certain parts of the world, and will probably be for a really long time.

don't worry about the future. or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. the real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle tuesday.

don't be reckless with other people's hearts. don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

remember compliments you receive. forget the insults. if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

enjoy your body. use it every way you can. don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on.

work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise. politicians will philander. you, too, will get old. and when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. advice is a form of nostalgia. dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it's worth.

ten things (amidst the many) that i agree with the most from baz luhrman's 'everydody's free', better known as the sunscreen song. very true aint it?

was blog hopping when i came across this link on some random blog and after watching it, this definitely falls under the must-share category.

the guy on the left is hilarious. enjoy.

while scouting for a book at borders during the new year holidays, i overheard a conversation between two guys about books. one of the phrases that i heard was, 'books are the worst things ever invented'. and after relegating books to a position that they were both comfortable with, they slapped each other a high five and laughed the way guys do in shows like dude, where's my car.

firstly, (i really need to get this off my chest because it's just so obvious) you dont go saying stuff like that in a bookstore. i mean c'mon, what the hell are you doing there then? get the hell out.

but the worse thing was that they were about 16-ish, no older than that at least. it was just plain disappointing to see teens talk about books like that. and if there's two asses like that, there's probably a whole clan of book-hating idiots.

can you imagine a whole lot of people (teens) who hate to read and thinks that books are probably 'the worst things ever invented'? it'll spark a generation of idiots. not knowing how to have intellectual conversation, or have their own points of view, or posses information to form their own points of view on issues in the first place. not knowing where things come from and what's going to happen to them, why people do the things they do and what goes on around the world each and everyday. a group with an imagination of snails.

is this the beginning of an anti-reading generation?

i'm not asking for philosophical debates or passionate speeches (the ones people go to jail for when they present their points of view at the speakers' corner), i'm just saying that a book (yes even stupid ones like goosebumps) gives you something to take away with you when you finally finish that last syllable and flip that last page. it gives you material.

unfortunately, it seems like some of the younger generation equate lifting a 200-paged novel to bench-pressing 220.

A kind of hopeless affection he seemed to feel for her: and the essential remoteness remained the same. he was hopeless at the very core of him, and he wanted to remain hopeless. he rather hated hope. " une immense espérance a traversé la terra (a great hope passed over the earth)," he read somewhere, and his comment was: "and it darned-well drowned everything worth having."

d.h. lawrence's lady chatterley's lover.