Born This Way Hay

This crazy bitch.

Don't you think you're taking the whole "born this way" schtick a little too literally with the egg metaphor? I personally found it rather tasteless and blah. You're Lady Gaga for goodness sakes. Try harder. I was half expecting you to emerge in a velociraptor/Godzilla baby suit, but you came out with a pink ponytail, some shoulder horns and an egg yolk(?) hat. You went to the MTV VMAs in a meat dress and this is the best you can do? Wow. I think your knack for gimmicks may have run its course. If you wanna do something, go all the way. Don't be a tease, like how Britney Spears is with the daily, 5-8 second long "teaser" clips of her Hold It Against Me music video; IT'S ANNOYING AND HAS ACTUALLY KILLED ANY SEMBLANCE OF EXCITEMENT I HAD ABOUT THE VIDEO. I digress. Back to Gaga.

I'm sure by now most people have compared Gaga's Born This Way to Madge's Express Yourself a million times and more (Madge's people even uploaded her 1989 clip of Express Yourself to YouTube right after the debacle started, hur hur - see this), so I shall not talk about it further. Here's what I gotta say about the song though: you don't declare your song an anthem until the people decide to crown it so. It's really contrived and unnecessary. Oh, and PS: Asians don't like to be called "orient"; it's derogatory and very offensive. Just FYI. The next time you spend 10 minutes writing a song (which she apparently did, see this), double check on your language; you're a role model after all.

On the bright side, this song marks Gaga's sort-of departure from her dark era of Bad Romances and Alejandros. In some ways, it reminds me of Michael Jackson's Black or White, in the sense that it tries to encourage people to look away from their differences and embrace diversity because "baby I was born this way". It feels like a good middle ground between her The Fame and The Fame Monster era. I do miss the good ole days of her singing about dancing and poker faces though. She was so much more fun back then.

Dear Hater,

Yes, I'm actually dedicating a post to you. I don't understand why you choose to repeatedly post flaming comments anonymously on my blog or what's going on in your head. You need to know that:

1) I've dealt with much worse in my life,

2) so I don't care if you don't like me because I don't know who you are anyway.

3) Besides, all of the comments are moderated. Every single one of them. I simply delete the hate,

4) so if you hate me, it just means that you care enough about me to do something about it.

5) Or maybe you just want the attention?

If that's the case, do leave a name and an e-mail address, or even better, a postal address. I promise that I will keep in touch with you. Or if you'd like, I could share the information with all of my friends here. I'm nice like that.

But I'm sure you have better things to do with your time. So stay in school (or at work, if you've already dropped out of school), read more to improve your general knowledge, and do some exercise every day. It'll help to clear your head and allow you to make better decisions the next time you feel like flaming me or anybody else behind the facade of anonymity.

Sincerely,
Justin

An Open Letter To Apple

AN OPEN LETTER

TO APPLE (THE COMPANY THAT SELLS iPODS AND iPADS, NOT THE FRUIT THAT HIT ISAAC NEWTON ON THE HEAD)

February 14, 2010

Dear Apple,

As a loyal customer and fervent fan, I applaud your innovations and the constant improvements you have made on your software as well as your hardware products. I fell in love with your brand at the introduction of the iPod in the early years of the new millennium, and subsequently, have come to know and love your products: I am an avid user of the Macbook, I entertain myself with my iPod and I stay connected with my family and friends through my iPhone.

You have managed to remodel essential consumer technological products such as the MP3 player, the laptop and even the mobile phone by repackaging them as niche, simple and clean gadgets that appeal to the average consumer. That’s ok, because who wouldn’t want to walk down the street plugged in to their iPod or talk on their iPhone, having an image of superiority and sophistication? But now, you’ve gone one step further and rehashed your own product while claiming to have birthed your “most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device”: the iPad.

Yeah but…. what? When rumors of the Apple tablet started circling in the technological world, many experts theorized that Apple, the same company who came up with the industry-changing iPhone, would produce a tablet computer that would once again bring about an industry-wide ripple effect. But instead, we were introduced to an enlarged version of the iPhone/iPod Touch (depending on whether we’re talking about the 3G or non-3G capable versions, but it really doesn’t matter). How revolutionary.

Secondly, the name. What were you thinking when you came up with “iPad”? I don’t suppose that there were ladies on the project who thought that it was an odd name for the device and didn’t sound it out? I know that you probably want to keep the associative rhyme (like “iPod” and “iPhone”), but any word that is synonymous with a female hygiene product isn’t exactly ideal in making a good first impression, unless you are actually trying to break into that particular market, which you obviously aren’t.

Thirdly, iBooks is hardly a new concept (much less a feasible selling-point for the iPad). Excuse me while I attempt to refresh your memory. If you do a little search in your iTunes store, you will be able to find the “Stanza” as well as the “Amazon Kindle” App for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. These Apps work exactly like iBooks by giving users the ability to download entire books onto their devices, but I’m sure you already knew that because you probably approved of those Apps for the App Store yourself. I have henceforth assumed that the above mentioned Apps would be facing their demise (along with my collection of e-books) when iBooks is up and running, lest you prove me wrong.

Lastly, please stop congratulating yourself on innovation. You're making your fans (ie. people like me) look like douchebags. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Justin Jap