“Yo Derrick, I’m really happy for you and I’ma let you finish, but John Jacobs wrote one of the best articles of 09!”
In 2009 there were lowlights, highlights and things that just shouldn’t have happened. The first disappointing event: the outbreak of Swine Flu! First detected in March, it revealed our true colors: we’re ready to stand up to anything!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an overreaction from the whole country. Suddenly everybody panicked: “Nobody eat pork! You can get it that way!” (You can’t). “We need a vaccine! Oh we just found one? There’s not enough! We’re going to die! Oh there’s enough for everyone now? But I heard you can get a seizure from it! We can’t risk that! I bought 12 cases of water and scotch tape; we’re living in the basement until this whole thing blows over!” It’s December, and most people have forgotten about the Swine Flu, returning to their old carefree ways. I guess we won that one?
Moving on to technology: the intense popularity of the iPhone and all the ridiculous, unnecessary apps bothered me. Sure, the iPhone’s been around for a while, but there seems to have been an explosion of millions of new apps, fulfilling every possible digital chore. Now the iPhone can completely rule your life! You can update your Facebook, check the stock market, bid on Ebay, watch porn and talk to your mom at the same time!”
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear: “Oh yeah, she was a bit scared when she started feeling sick a week later, but luckily I had the ‘home pregnancy test’ iPhone app! She was able to pee right onto my iPhone and see results!” There are even “decision making” apps so you don’t even need to think anymore!
“Where do you want to eat tonight?”
“You mean where does my iPhone think we should eat tonight?!”
Or, “Hey man do you think you’re going to get a divorce?”
“You mean does my iPhone think I should get a divorce?!”
There were also some great movies with deep story lines and rich characters like the new Fast and Furious, a prequel to Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (I know it’s all very complicated) but there’s a new series of movies I just can’t appreciate—the Twilight Saga.
I can already hear every girl on campus saying “F*** this kid!” and tearing the paper up after that comment, but let me explain! I’ll admit I did see the first Twilight movie (shut up, I know), and I had high expectations based off every girls’ obsession with the books. But, all I could think the whole time watching it was “when does something important happen?” I basically watched two people play hide and seek in a forest for a good hour and a half. I understand it’s a love story, but I guess I expected more “things to happen” in this movie.
This is my summary of Twilight: Girl switches to a new high school. She falls in love with tall, pale, mysterious (aka awkward) guy. OMG! He’s a vampire! Let’s play baseball! (Vampires then crank out like 50-mile-long home runs) Oh no there’s more vampires? Two of them fight. The end.
No, I haven’t seen New Moon, and I don’t plan on it, but after seeing Twilight I can’t understand the obsession over this series. Is it the guys taking their shirts off? I’ll never understand.
As for the year in TV, one show stood out to me being unrivaled for the worst show of the year which is The Tool Academy. It’s extremely entertaining, but while you’re watching you can’t help but ask out loud: “How do people like this exist!”
The most ridiculously obnoxious guys in the world gather to embarrass their girlfriends on TV. The average guy on that show will have his hair gelled into a Mohawk three feet high with a pink bandana tied around his head wearing pitch black aviators 98% of the time. These guys’ dog tags have their own dog tags—that’s how much of tools they all are.
And because they’re on TV, they keep trying to outdo one another in their unspoken tool contest by being increasingly obnoxious. Whoever wears the least amount of clothing and says the meanest thing to their girlfriend wins! “F*** you! If I want to touch your sister I’m going to touch your sister! (He then begins break dancing in a Speedo).” I don’t understand how the girlfriends found it fit to bring their men onto a reality show to publicly (and proudly) admit how bad they are at being boyfriends. There’s another option that’s a lot easier. Just break up with them!
Among other lowlights: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are now 1-9 in a three way tie for worst record in the league. Go Tampa! Also birds have now become the biggest security threat to planes (Hudson River crash) and somehow numerous celebrities all died within a month or so from one another. Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, DJ AM, Billy Mays and Patrick Swayze all passed away this year. Two more and we could’ve had the best cast of The Real World Ever! So through 2009 the world had its ups and downs, and hopefully next year can live up to the excitement level 2009 set for us.
John Jacobs can be reached at jjacobs@ut.edu.
cant wait to move in with marello!