What Freedom of Speech Really Is

To some people, one of the most important basic human rights is freedom of speech, and that means being able to express any words or ideas freely without censorship.

Which I think is stupid.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean you can say/write anything you want. As an existentialist, I truly believe that you are free to do whatever you want to as long as you do it responsibly and execute your actions without being offensive to the point of endangering others in any way.

While I was in Trondheim, Norway, a very wise Afghan ex-minister closed one of her speeches by saying, and I'm rephrasing her quote due to bad memory, "Freedom of speech is like a long piece of wood. You can do whatever you want with it, play with it, throw it, or swing it like a whip. As long as it doesn't hit anyone, it's fine. The moment someone gets hurt, that's when you're in the wrong."

The next time I hear someone using freedom of speech to defend their being insolent, instead of applauding them for exercising their rights, I'll just dismiss them as another bigoted imbecile. Like we need any more of those.

At Last

Etta James passed away this week. I've never been a big fan of her voice, but I like some of her songs.

People have been giving tributes to her by singing her most famous song, At Last. I guess it's kind of a tradition that when a famous singer dies, people would pay homage to them by singing their most well-known song at their funeral.

I just find it weirdly inappropriate that when Etta James passed away, everybody starts singing At Last. It almost sounds like we've been waiting for her death for so long that when it finally happened, people are like, "At laaaaaaaaaast!"

But not singing it would also be inappropriate.

You And Your Powerful Vagina

Women amaze me.

I have a friend who just had a baby a few days ago, and she put up the baby photos on Facebook. That baby's HUGE. I have not seen that many newborns in my life so I don't really know what the average size is, but from the looks of it this one is going to be Shaquille O' Neal.

How the hell did she push something that big out of her vagina? Yeah, yeah, I know, contraction and dilatation and stuff, and women have been doing it since the dawn of humanity so there's really no magic to it. But still, pushing something that big out of any body orifice must be so painful it must have felt like giving birth to a transformers truck.

Men can jump over cliffs, swim with sharks and go to the moon, but we can't function if our balls are flicked. Women are dainty and pretty and small, but they can push out human beings out of their body. And for that, I applaud all the women of the world, because if the tables were turned, I don't think men could handle it.

This Would Make Me Very Happy

You know what would make me very happy? This:

The very rare, first UK edition of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, published in 1947. When I saw this on eBay, the first thing I thought was, "I NEED THIS." No, I don't even want it. I need it. Like air.

I can't even imagine how the smell of the pages is. It must be intoxicating. The best smell of all. If only they could squeeze all moisture out of the pages and bottle it up, I would buy it and make it my default cologne. I want to walk around smelling like old, used pages from this book. When people come up to me and ask what cologne I wear, I want to say, "It's Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. First edition." The smell will be so intoxicating it'll make people around me undress themselves and have an orgy.

The starting bid is at US$ 999. Yes, a triple figure starting bid for a book.

And I can't afford that. Duh.

Renato Carosone

I love old songs with humour. That's why I prefer The Kinks over The Beatles because The Kinks' songs are a lot wittier and are full of humour.

And I just spent hours listening to Renato Carosone, an Italian singer from the 50's famous for the song Tu Vuo Fa' L'Americano. If you've seen The Talented Mr. Ripley, you would remember this extremely infectious Neapolitan tune Jude Law sang in the bar the first time he went for a night out with Matt Damon. With my lousy Italian I can tell that the song is about a man who badly wants to pass himself off as an American and becomes the laughing stock of the town.

And all his other songs are just as funny. All of his songs are in Neapolitan, but you don't have to speak the language to enjoy them. Such is the beauty of music.

It reminds me of the first time I heard the song Viva La Mamma by Eduardo Bennato. I didn't understand a thing but I played it over and over during an entire weekend and ended up knowing the words by heart.

Annoying People Part MM: I Just Unfriended Some People on FB

Once I saw a guy's status on Facebook which went something like this:

"Phew. I just deleted 30 people on Facebook because they are annoying f**ks."

What's that? A warning to your remaining friends? Like we'd be all "Shit this guy's on an unfriending spree, I better behave now lest he'll delete me too!".

By all means, if you want to unfriend people, do it. But you don't have to be an asshole and announce it to your remaining friends like they should give a shit. It makes you look self-important, as though we should be thankful to still be on your friend list.

I know Shakespeare said the world is but a stage and we're all actors, but that doesn't mean we should all consider ourselves celebrities. Life is not Hollywood. Being unfriended by you doesn't mean I'm going to spiral into complete irrelevance.

In other words, your self-esteem can use a little dial-down, so eat some humble pie and be thankful that some people still want to be friends with you.

Because you, Mister, are also an annoying f**k.

A Hairy Situation

I'm not one of those people who can look great bald.

I would love to be able to pull off a bald head perfectly, you know, like Jason Statham or Sinead O'Connor. But I guess I lack the chiseled jaw.

So if I must have a resolution this year, it would be to pull off the bald look without looking like a pumpkin.

The Year of the Dragon

2012 is the year of the dragon. And I was born in the year of the dragon. Ergo, this is my year.

Out of all the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, the dragon is the most powerful because it doesn't exist. I'm starting to believe that they were in dire need of a fierce animal to represent my year of birth and they decided that no existing animal was good enough so they invented a new animal that is as stealth and quick as the snake, is able to fly like the bird, has scales so it can swim like the fish, with the eyes of the tiger, has horns like the bull, and CAN SPIT FIRE like nobody's business. No, seriously, can YOUR zodiac animal spit fire?

The dragon has all the coolest elements of all species in the animalia kingdom AND it has some demon in it so you wouldn't want to piss a dragon off because it can kick your ass in ways you can't even imagine.

If that's not enough, the dragon is fiery red and orange. They could have made it dark green or even black, but no. The dragon is so cool it needs to be seen from a thousand miles away so let's make it red. The dragon is so awesome that all mangas and movies with 'Dragon' in their titles are sure to make money. Can you imagine if those writers weren't as ambitious? They would have come out with "Pig Ball Z" or "Kiss of the Sheep" or "The Girl with the Rat Tattoo". Who would want to see those?

So yeah, let's all just agree that I'm going to kick serious ass this year.

Solve This Save The World

There's one conundrum of the world that is so simple yet so mysterious:

How is it that everyone needs the same thing but some have too much and some have nothing?