Star Academy 8: The Season Of Gossip

I am not watching Star Academy 8 and nor do I want to. I watch the occasional prime on a Friday night but that’s pretty much it. The show is now in its eighth season and has been dragged for far too long. Many of the winners have gone into irrelevance, let alone some of the contestants. The show has become a vehicle for those running it to make too much money out of people “voting” and TV ads that bring in millions.

However, it looks like this latest season of the show has one thing that didn’t happen as much in previous seasons: gossip.

It looks like everyone’s talking about everyone else behind their back. How do I know this? Well, last Friday, I was home with my mom when a woman visited us and started telling us about the Syrian contestant Sarah: great voice apparently and horribly impolite. How so? she literally talks about everyone. Apparently, she hates Lebanese contestants (no idea why), she talks about them behind their backs, whenever she sees an opportunity to spur something up, she goes for it. She loves to make people hate each other while she stays on the side. And no one is safe from her.

And apparently there’s another contestant, the Palestinian Layan, who started rumors about one of the Egyptian guys, Karim Kamel, to be gay. Karim has withdrawn from the show on Friday with rumors that his family is suing the show. Now I don’t care if he’s gay or not, he’s simply horrible and the only reason he survived on the show was his country bringing him back every single time he was nominated for eviction. But don’t you think it’s horrible to start rumors about someone being gay when millions are watching?

Moreover, the show has been seeing such flagrant voting manipulation that it’s absurd. Since when does a Lebanese candidate beat a Saudi in voting? And not just by a small margin but by a considerable few percentage points! The look on the Lebanese girl’s face when she saw the results was priceless even though she ended up losing a few minutes afterwards. How did she end up losing? the students who vote publicly for the student they would like to keep are seated in such a way that those who have not made up their minds would vote to bring forth a tie, ultimately damaging a candidate over the other. The Lebanese contestants were placed first, the girl was given a lead and then crashed out of the show.

So yeah, maybe Star Academy should simply call it quits after this season. I mean seriously, when a singing TV show reverts to gossip and rumors to increase ratings, you know something’s wrong, especially when they have great talents that they need to focus on, including the Syrian girl Sarah. Until then, the Egyptian guy Karim will have those rumors, true or not, chase him till God knows when and viewers who have nothing else to do will still be entertained by a show getting useless by the minute.

The Rapture

It’s already May 22nd in some parts of the world, meaning the day the world should have ended has passed with nothing happening.

So let us recap about what some of us did today: got up, missed breakfast, went online for a bit, met up with friends, had lunch, got bored through afternoon, came up with Saturday night plans, executed those plans, got back home and now you’re on the verge of sleeping. Pretty uneventful end of world day, no?

How many end of world days did/will we have in our lifetime? We’ve had Y2K, May 21st 2011, and the Mayan calendar ending on December 21st, 2012. That’s a lot of world-ending dates, don’t you think?

The main problem with this rapture balderdash is that some people take it way too seriously, making it their job to come up with meaningless dates. I do not like to take scripture literally. I do not believe that God will descend someday and literally “save” everyone. Why? simply because the point of Scripture is not to make you believe in the end of days but rather to give you a way of life until that day comes, be it in your lifetime or some other time.  Therefore, this whole talk about analysis of scripture (regardless of what scripture it is) to come up with a failed date of when that’s supposed to happen is, for lack of better word, stupid.

Honestly, if anyone thinks the world ending will happen in our lifetime, they’re seriously delusional. I hate to break it to you people but in the grander scheme of things, we (and I do mean all of us) are irrelevant. How so? In a hundred years from now, even the brightest people among us, will have their legacy either disproved, or lightly used. Some people’s memories do survive into several generations but those are exceptions. Who of us knows anything about their great grandfather? I barely know anything about my grandfather who passed away a couple of years before I was even born.

The world will end someday. It is a scientific certainty. But the world is still young. There’s plenty of room to grow as well as destroy. You might think the current worldwide political situation (weapons race and whatnot) is bad, but if you look at the whole picture, it’s rather silly. No one will use those weapons of mass destruction against another country because, simply, no one has the guts to do so – even the countries that fake almighty strength.

I’m positive as well that each century has had its series of rapture dates. After all, it has been a constant pursuit for man to reach some sort of conclusion and what better conclusion to be reached than to the most puzzling question of our existence: what lies after?

So until the world ends, which is a time when we, our children, their children, their children’s children (I can keep going here) are dead, I don’t think we should be dancing as Britney Spears would say, but rather, maybe we should lessen focus on the development of weapons and maybe on ways to preserve the planet we call home, at least let us enjoy the natural wealth we have, until it all goes away.

American Idol 10 – Lauren Alaina & Scotty McCreery

I haven’t followed American Idol closely this season so I decided to sit out becoming a supporter of a candidate as long as possible. However, the finale is getting nearer and I’ve finally chosen the person I choose to support: Lauren Alaina.

With an all country music finale, I honestly couldn’t be happier. Scotty McCreery is a great performer and he has a brilliant twang to his voice. I can see him get far. But Scotty doesn’t need to win to be able to crack the country music scene.

Country music is known to be a mostly male-dominated business. People get too excited when they see two songs by females artists together in the top 10, let alone when a female artist gets a series of number one singles, something which is very natural when a male artist is involved. So Scotty, if he chooses the proper songs, will definitely be successful in the business. He’s already getting radio stations to talk about him. They’re going crazy for McCreery.

Lauren Alaina, however, needs to win if she wants to make it in that business. Sure, you have the exceptions (Kelly Pickler, anyone? though it’s not like she’s smashing records left and right) but with the hype from being the second female country artist to win American Idol, it should be enough to get her first single to do well on radio, giving her enough momentum to launch. If she becomes simply an American Idol runner up, she’d be at a serious disadvantage.

I see both of them having great careers. But in the country music scene, Scotty, at least to me, is a rehash of already present country artists. How many Josh Turners, Kenny Chesneys, Tim McGraws and Jason Aldeans do you want?

Lauren Alaina, however, is different. She has the potential to add something to the genre: another successful female to shuffle the competition. And the fact that no female has won American Idol since its seventh season is a rather daunting fact.

It’s interesting to note, however, that both of them are still very young and have plenty of room to grow. Lauren and Scotty are only 16 years old. Are they ready to enter such a brutal genre at this time? I’m not too sure about that. Let’s just wait and see.

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with my favorite Lauren Alaina performances:

And she actually took on a Carrie Underwood song, so extra credit for her!

Scotty and Lauren have also had many great duets together, the best one being this:

At the end of the day, both of them are great and they both deserve to win. It’s simply a matter of preference and I prefer Lauren.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – Movie Review

The first Pirates Of The Caribbean movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl, was a strong opener for the franchise, which reached its peak with its second installment: Dead Man’s Chest, a movie that was awesome all around: great acting, great storyline and an awesome cliffhanger, the likes of which you only see in certain TV shows where the wait is simply a few months. So the expectations for the third installement, At World’s End, were very high. But the sophomore slump expected for Dead Man’s Chest apparently skipped a generation and landed on At World’s End, making the movie a total disappointement.

So it’s safe to say that I wasn’t too excited about the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise reboot, with their fourth installment: On Stranger Tides. With most of the cast returning (the only people missing are Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, not that I care that much) and adding new faces in the form of Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane, the franchise was set to restart anew.

And restart it does. Not only is the movie an immense enjoyment, it is also engaging and visually stunning.

Starring Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow, On Stranger Tides is the three-way race to the Fountain of Youth between the English, led by ex-pirate Barbossa, the Spaniards and the ship Queen Anne’s Revenge, which is Blackbeard’s (a rival captain portrayed by Ian McShane) ship. Each one of those three has their separate knowledge of the path to the Fountain of Youth and their own agenda for going there. But the path to the fountain is filled with dangers and in order to harness the fountain’s powers, one needs to collect a mermaid’s tear, two chalices of the ancient ship Ponce de Leon’s wreck, both of which are not as easy to get as it seems.

Penelope Cruz portrays Angelica, one of Jack’s old flames and Blackbeard’s daughter. I thought she was an interesting addition to the franchise, becoming, yet again, the only woman on a crew of pirates. She’s quite safe in her role, not presenting anything groundbreaking on screen, but it works in the space she’s allowed to have in the movie.

On Stranger Tides also welcomes newcomer Sam Claflin, a Christian missionary, whose role as Philip in the movie is essential on two accounts: crucial advancement of the plot and some comic relief at particular tense moments.

On Stranger Tides begins with a set of duels and escape attempts. It isn’t until after the first thirty minutes that the movie starts to bite into its plot, with the characters well off at sea. It is then that you are presented with a truly magnificient scene involving mermaids and the movie starts running full throttle till the end.

Johnny Depp, whom I believe did the last Pirate movie of obligation more so than passion, is back in force for this installment. It’s refreshing to see Jack Sparrow be his regular self again: playful, never serious and uncannily witty.

The special effects in On Stranger Tides are brilliantly executed as well. If the overall acting ensemble didn’t engage you in the movie, the whole effect of this “other world” will do the job. There isn’t any part that looks unrealistic and everything is executed with the utmost care for details. Moreover, Hans Zimmer is, yet again, a genius at what he does. The score of On Stranger Tides is chills-inducing, especially when the Pirates of the Caribbean theme gets played inside the cinema and you get that warm feeling of epicness inside you.

Overall, On Stranger Tides is a breath of fresh air in a franchise I thought had lost its way. It’s an enjoyable movie that, despite its many flaws, manages to entertain you and, at least for two hours, make you forget about the things you left at the theater’s door. It immerses you and you can’t help but be thoroughly enjoyed by whatever’s taking place on screen. You don’t need to have watched the previous installments to understand what goes on in this one, just go as you are and watch!

This Is What A Trillion Dollars Looks Like

During our scholastic years, we were taught that a zero is a bad grade to get, right? And we’ve all panicked nights and days over exams that we hadn’t studied well for (and yet, we all leave ourselves till the last possible  minute in order to study, every single time).

However, with age (some age, others mature, right?), you get to know that the more zeros you have, the better. Especially when it comes to dollar bills.

For those who don’t know, a trillion has twelve zeros. A billion has nine. So a friend sent me these pictures online to come to grasp with the US national debt. I decided to incorporate the Lebanese national debt in this as well.

Let’s start with $100, the largest US denomination in circulation. We’ve all seen it, not many of us have owned it.

A packet of 100 $100 bills is about 1.5 cm thick and makes up $10000.

Now the “little” pile of money next to the man is, believe it or not, $1,000,000. That’s more money than most of us will ever make in our lifetime.

A $100,000,000 pile, however, looks more impressive, right? Yeah, keep dreaming (or drooling). But we’re not done yet.

Now add together ten of those precious previous piles, and you get $1 billion. Now imagine the below picture multiplied by 50 and you have the Lebanese national debt.

But even after the 50x multiplication, you’re not even close to $1 trillion. Why’s that? because you are literally rendered insignificant compared to it. This is what $1 trillion looks like.

The US national debt is $14 trillion. Enough said, right?