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Goran_Duk
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Name: Goran
Country: United States
State: Ohio
Metro: Toledo
Birthday: 9/24/1917
Gender: Male
Interests: HIM!!!! Stalking. Cherries. Sadism. Smiling. Killing. Massaging. Homicide. Puppies. Impalings. Charity. Destruction. Happiness. AIDS. Hugging. Zombies. Movies. Evil movies. and Your Mom.
Expertise: Fighting invisible sheep. Attacking walri and killing their alien offspring. Destroying the rain forests. Saving African children... and by saving i mean converting to Christianity and forcing to sing really lame songs. Attacking tigers that only have one eye. Eating spinach and then fighting my little green friend, Yaldo.
Occupation: Military
Industry: Hospitality
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  Quaker44121
AIM:  The Last Bystander
ICQ:  What's ICQ
Member Since:
6/5/2005
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| BLAME MOVIES
Oldboy is one of my favorite films. Like, top 10
stuff. I've seen it many times. And honestly, I believe Cho Seung-Hui,
shooter of VT, probably did too. He probably loved it... the pictures
are very fetishized and glamorous, and the hammer pose probably was
influenced by Oldboy. However, that's part of "art"... bad people see
it too. It affects people of many different mentalities. I know when
the Beslan shooting happened, people blamed Rammstien because they
listened to their music to get pumped up. The thing is, people can
twist something into whatever they want to. It doesn't make that thing
bad just because someone twists it.
Let me give an example of how I see this. What if back in the
1500's someone saw Hamlet and found all the death at the end exciting
and then went out and exacted revenge on people they thought were evil.
It's not impossible. Any great work of art, especially a dark one, is
likely going to inspire many, but also find itself twisted into the
hearts of bad people. But bad people will always exist, and if Oldboy
never existed the VT shooting still would have happened because it was
CHO and who he was and what happened to him most likely (molested) that
lead to the bloodshed, not a movie.
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| Why I think the film 300 is so popular -
Now hear me out, I'm one of the people who thinks
it is silly to put modern politics to this film, and that's just
tiresome and annoying. Also, a great trailer and unique visuals and
heavy online marketing all had a hand in making this the smash hit it
was.
However, especially for America, we are now in a tiresome war that
has few too chances for glory. Many of our troops are getting killed
because they are put on patrol routes in very dangerous areas and they
keep getting blown up. People can say whatever they want about anti war
protesters (who annoy even me) bringing down morale, but I think the
real reason is because Marines and soldiers are trained to take land,
to kill and to fight. They did that, they took over Baghdad and won the
"initial" leg of the war. However, they are not trained to do patrol
duty, and I think a lot of it feels like waiting to be attacked. Like
many wars, it's a mix of long amounts of boredom and short moments of
adrenaline and terror.
Now in the second American-Iraq war there is no "clear" enemy, there is no "clear" goal,
and there is no land to take back or to stave enemies away from, since
Iraq is not US soil and because we are trying to "keep peace" and
create order.
300 however is about the classical battle, the one every soldier
dreams of. There is a clear bad guy with a clear objective (the
Persians, wanting to take over Greece and dominate the world - not
saying this is how the history was, but this is how it is portrayed in
300.) The Greeks know their enemy, and they also have a spot of land to
fight on, to hold the enemy back. Mainly, they have a CLEAR GOAL...
don't let the Persians take this soil, don't let them take over Greece
and force Sparta into submission. Simple and easy.
And then the battle
itself, it's not patrolling and being killed by roadside bombs and
other deadly but annoying and hard to fight back against stuff. It's
warrior on warrior, it's glory and bloodshed and using military smarts
to stave off the enemy. It's the fantasy I think every soldier wants, not to say the troops
aren't fighting with honor, but that the battle they find themselves in
is not the "dream" battle. 300, however, is that fantasy battle, one
where it's one army against the other, men shoulder to shoulder
fighting for a clear goal and using clear strategies to attain a
set-in-stone objective.
This is why many US marines are said to love the movie, and why
especially in a cynical America where we are fighting an unclear war
with unclear motives, objectives, and a rocky future ahead, that this
film fuels the warfare fantasy we all have in some way. As the poster
says, PREPARE FOR GLORY.
By the way, I would give the film an 8/10 on the IMDB scale, because all art can be fit into a neat little 1-10 scale.
(note the guy in the back with the shirt on)
http://i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=22520
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| Dead Tomorrow, Dead Yesterday
I look into the sky. No planes- emptiness. The war is over. It is 1918 and I am heading home. I will see America again. I clench my teeth hard, focusing on home and my family. Is it a dream? Am I really alive? I feel dead; I pinch myself and feel nothing. Yet I yearn to see the people I love again. Even if I am a ghost, I’m sure they want to see me again. I may be numb but they are very much alive. I need to find that again: life. I need to remember what it’s like. Please God, let me get home and feel alive again.
The days pass. I stare out into the infinite ocean, the waves ceaseless and unending. They are peaceful and yet they remind me of the shelling, ceaseless and unending. Home is over the horizon. I don’t see it, I don’t sense it, but I clench my teeth and wish I still had hope. I take out my razor, army issued and a great travel companion. It is rusty but still sharp. A couple nights ago I woke up and found blood all over my hands. I had slit my fingers with the razor. I don’t remember doing it, I just remember the blood. I remember I felt nothing. Everything is a haze. I’m almost home.
At last, the horizon. Land, buildings, horseless carriages. I have arrived. It is funny how civilization seems to have been so unaffected by the bloodshed. If only they saw what I saw, if only I could feel as they do. I am angry at them because they are alive. I feel jealousy. Hell, what is wrong with me? I am still alive. I feel guilt. I let down my friends in the trenches. I am confused, but all that matters now is the horizon. Home.
I see my family again. For a moment I feel happiness. It is a fake happiness overwhelmed by emptiness. I am home but when I close my eyes I still see the ocean, forever alive. Waves billow in my mind, the memories of the trenches evaporated into my soul. I find I don’t dream anymore. I don’t have the nightmares I know plague my friends. All I have is nothing. All I have is death. I go about my daily routines quiet and desperate. I am polite. Why do I have to go through the motions?
The days pass and I hear news about more death. The struggle is not another war but a plague. Maybe nature is striking back at us for our sins. I stopped reading the Bible long ago but I sense there might be a connection, I honestly don’t know. They say it started in Spain, but others say it was Thailand. An old lady from the store says it started right here in America, but I may remember that wrong. I don’t give much notice to it, I have seen enough death and I see no use in worrying or mourning.
I come home and find my mother in bed. She is sick. The sun begins to set. She is dead.
I have seen so many strangers die that my own mother’s death doesn’t even affect me. Then I cry. I don’t know, maybe it has affected me. Maybe everything I’ve seen has finally come back to haunt me. Maybe I’m angry that I have to worry about death again. I realize there cannot be any real purpose to life. Or maybe this is all a sick joke. We are all Job. I have become too accustomed to death. The next morning my older brother dies. He avoided going to war but it seems fate has caught up with him in the end. Again I feel nothing, and it hurts me that I feel nothing. It is a weird cycle, I guess to best explain it I’ll use the metaphor of a burn: you’re hand is burnt to a crisp and you can’t feel anything because you’re nerves are severed, yet when you look at it you feel sick inside because you know what it should feel like and what it will feel like when the wounds begin to heal.
I think. Maybe I am afraid to heal because that requires me to revisit the pain. My mind wanders, above all things confuse me. The war, the epidemic; confusion. The clock ticks. My sister is sick. It is night and she lives. Somehow she lives. A week passes, and another. I get a headache and fall into bed. I hear of entire towns dying out. I realize I am near death and I do not care. The war gave me a sickness deep inside my soul, a sickness far worse than any epidemic. At least that’s how I see it, but I begin to wonder if I think too much. I know if I survive this plague that I will pay for it later, much like surviving the war. I know that one day I will realize the significance this pain has had and the numbness will go away. I will probably die of a heart attack right then and there. At least I will have felt something.
More time passes, I am not sure how much. Perhaps hours, perhaps weeks. The epidemic is gone. Nobody knows why it came or why it left, but it is gone now. My sister is alive. I am still alive, right?
A new threat rises: prohibition. It seems my numbness is not exclusive. The New Year hits, welcome 1920. The war is over, the epidemic is over. Those who are dead are dead, and the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves. I find I feel sick at home. I clench my teeth but my mind is blank.
I head out at night, I get drunk, and I meet random people- strangers who always will remain strangers. We drown away our sorrows and our numb spirits become numb to our bodies. What use is life anyways? Death could come at anytime, and it already has for so many. I find I am still a ghost haunted by invisible demons, a man who has fought for an invisible cause and battled against an invisible plague. It doesn’t really matter, I guess. I think too much, that’s my problem.
As they say: Let the good times roll.
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| Luck of the Draw
It is a seedy bar in a seedy district of a seedy town. The time is 2 or 3 am, the city motionless except for a bar on the corner. Inside, a man sits at the counter, a mostly empty bottle of whisky at his side as his hands fumble with a coin. This is Ian. A TV hums in the background, a politician on some news program. There are a few other people in the bar, most of them silent and in their own worlds except for a kid, Mikey, in the back. He begins protesting a pool game, getting loud and then louder. The bartender asks him to leave; the kid yells profanity at the bartender, then the TV screen. He leaves. Ian has not acknowledged any of this. He keeps twirling the coin over his fingers. The coin is a Yugoslavian coin, a Para coin.
Ian stands up, paying the bartender and leaving a large tip. The bartender, knowing him on a first name basis, begins to thank Ian when another man rushes past, nearly knocking Ian back onto his seat. Ian says nothing as he gets up and walks out a side door.
The door leads to a deserted alley, except for a beggar at the far end. Ian slowly works his way to the beggar, taking out a fistful of coins and dropping them down. He accidentally drops the Para coin. He reaches down to snatch it back when his eyes catch the beggars. The beggar says nothing, and Ian lifts his hand. The coin is left in the pile. Ian turns, walking towards the other end of the alley. He begins to roll a cigarette when Mikey emerges from the street corner, talking loudly and addressing Ian.
Ian says nothing, giving Mikey only one glance. Then, out of the shadows comes the same man who had just knocked into Ian. The man stabs Mikey: once, then again, and then once more. Mikey doesn’t have a chance to scream. The attacker stares at Ian for a moment before running. Ian looks down at the fallen Mikey. Blood sputters from a pained mouth. Ian barely reacts, his eyes focused on the dying man. Then, his neck contorts, his head shifting to look over in the direction of the beggar. The beggar is gone. On the ground, a pile of coins remain.
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| Okay, so I don't usually like to write about serious stuff.
However, here at the lovely UC, I have discovered a scam. You have a meal plan, and you're given 330 dollars per semester. I noticed a while back that my money seemed to be going down a bit quick, so I started asking for receipts (since they don't give them to you unless you ask, also suspicious.) Today I finally proved that in fact, every 5 days or so, 3 or 4 extra dollars is taken. It's a great scam, because most people would never notice, and come week 11 or 12 when all the money is gone you'd assume you just spent it all or were drunk or whatever the hip kids today do. I got my 3 dollars refunded but I think I'm on the verge of discovering a major scandal...
It's a brilliant scam, though. Just take a little bit every once in a while, add-up to maybe 40-60 dollars or a bit more total and add it up from the thousand or more students here and you've made a lot of extra money. I don't even know how to really prove it, when I went down this one chick seemed to understand, while the one who claimed to be in charge (though as a young black woman I doubt she's the one who set-up the systems here... ooo yeah racism AND sexism) said she keeps track of stuff and assures me everything is fine.
I blame Mayor Daley, the current mayor of Chicago known to have significant connections to the mafia!
 (not corrupt at all)
 (Al Capone is out there somewhere...)
Edit: I've talked to others, and I'm not the only one who noticed this. I actually saw one girl in front of me reacting when she was told her balance, going, "how did I spend all that?" I'm onto something, bitch!
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