It's Just Abbey

As a card carrying woman I find myself being attracted to the strangest men. It was an issue I thought for a while was the minority, but I am finding more and more that I was wrong.

It is common for women to have fantasy crushes with fictional characters be it television or literature. Examples: Mr Darcy, Heathcliff, Romeo, Edward Cullen (I know I know), Noah Calhoun, Jack Dawson, Luke Skywalker, etc.

These figures are the men of honor and romance. They regard women the way we wish real men would. Tenderly, sweetly and with a tad too much protection yet magically still wish for their woman to be herself and free. They are also men of pure good and light. They fight the good fight and always get the girl in the end.

But as of late I have noticed a slight change of pace among women today. While we swoon and beg for these do-gooder men in our life to come sweep us off our feet, we find ourselves impossibly attracted to the villains.

Yes. The bad guys.

I will note before I begin that when I say villain I do not mean truly bad people. Not terrorists, school shooters or serial rapists. I mean people trying to attain a goal and going completely the wrong way about doing it. Thus labeling them the villain. Think Mr Freeze. A man trying to save his ailing wife but doing so in a criminal nature. Had one detail changed in the master plans, any villain could be proved a hero.

But I digress...

Why are women attracted to the villain? Maybe it is just Hollywood today casting the villains with "yummy" boys and flavors of the month but I want to believe it is more than that. In Revenge of the Sith when Anakin slaughtered the last few on his rampage after the Jedi Temple and looked menacingly over his shoulder with cold yellow eyes, my knees buckled. Every brain Sylar removes makes my heart flutter. It has to be more than a pretty face.

But what makes this evil turn sexy? What makes a rational woman yearn for a man bent on destruction?

I will site my first evil and first crush of the vampire persuasion: Deacon Frost. (Blade 1998 played by Stephen Dorff.) A man with a goal, ambition and a true passion. Yes, that passion was bent on evil and self interest, but that's not the point. The point is that this man was active in his goals and dreams. Sure they disagreed with the status quo but that's the beauty in it, isn't it?

But it isn't just our need for a man with a plan. The core of this "issue" is the small part of every girl that craves a bad boy. The leather jacket, the tattoos and the guy on parole. Those of us who haven't dealt with one find the whole idea romantic and dramatic. To those women who have tried their hands at bad boys know that wrangling one down is like hog tying a calf with dental floss. We are all seemingly built with a defect that makes us think we can change men. That the passion and rebellious nature can be honed and refocused. We see that glint in his eye and want selfishly to be the source of it. Like any woman who has dated Charlie Sheen can tell you, this task is (to use another hilarious and visually stimulating analogy) like nailing jelly to a wall.

In the cold face of reality we all seek men with goals. These goals used to be a family, house and a great job. But with the evolution of society and the changing of social norms it is harder for anyone, let alone women, to find a partner with the same ideals and goals as we do. So in fantasy we may all secretly or, in my case, very vocally, crave a man with dreams, no matter how horrible and demented they may seem.

Because let's be honest ladies. Not all of us are Padme. Some of us would love to rule the galaxy.

Everyone has them. Annoyances. More specifically, internet annoyances. It could be old standbys like pEoPlE wHo TyPe LiKe ThIs or p30pl3 wh0 t4lk l1k3 th1s. It could be as small as grammar problems or something more complex like anyone bitching about how much they hate children. My biggest issue is very site specific and just boils my blood. I will try to be calm and mature about this rant. Bear with me.

I will be the first to admit that I am a MySpace freak. I love that damn site and I, for the life of me, cannot even begin to understand it. I enjoy it because it is a site that lets you design your own personalized page while keeping you under certain restrictions. It is all up to you with layouts, blurbs, music, etc. It is far more personal than Facebook’s white page and no nonsense information outlet. You can know nothing about HTML or site design and be at ease. On the flipside, someone who knows what they are doing with web design can still feel free to play around. It is an ingenious site that allows the everyman to have their own site at their fingertips.

Therein lies the problem. If I stumble upon one more MySpace page that makes my eyes burn and cause epileptic fits I am going to scream, or fall to the ground twitching.

First: when it comes to backgrounds and colors, they should be easy to read. Pink background on pink text may seem adorable and fabulous but when I see that I can’t even read anything. I scrunch my nose in disgust for a moment and then come to the conclusion that whoever that person is must be a complete idiot. You cannot have light colors on light colors and you cannot have dark on dark. It is an issue with clarity. It is impossible to read and makes me wonder if it is even worth it.

When I have to highlight your text to read it, you are doing it wrong.
Along with that, busy backgrounds that make it equally impossible to read the text, no matter the colors. We get it guys, you love the new Mustang but do you really need a big, repeating picture of it tiled behind your blogs and text? Tone it down. You cannot tell me that people are incompetent enough not realize how annoying and frustrating busy pages are! Do people even look at these before they finish them? Is it just a copy and paste frenzy ended with a click and save? Come on people. Have a little pride in your site.

Second: Glitter graphics. I cannot stomach one more page with 4 or more blinking and sparkling text boxes. You really don’t need every Marilyn Monroe quote and every text that explains how different you are. Here’s the dirty little secret: You are on MySpace. You are just as bad as the rest of us attention craving cam whores. Shopping at www.glitter-graphics.com is like shopping at Hot Topic. How different can you think you are with all this mass produced crap? That many graphics causes a ridiculous load time for your page and hard to even look directly at. I have a fast connection but these pages make me remember what dial-up was like. I don’t have time to wait for five minutes for everything I will never read to load. I’m a busy woman.

These people were the kids in middle school that made us sit through their Power Point presentations cluttered with clip art and that damned typewriter animation for every word.

I have to question the logic behind some of these cluttered and frivolous pages. It is a site that reflects who you are and what you are. When someone looks at it, they are looking at you. Slutty pictures, drunken images and ranting blogs aside, this is the face value I am talking about. You really cannot judge a book by its cover, but I really believe you can judge a person by their MySpace page.

This is Abbey. And this is Abbey reinventing the blogging world.

No seriously.

The everyman blog is dead in the water. With everyone and their mother prattling on and on about their boring ass lives (see: my LiveJournal) and every random thought anyone has ever thought being broadcast on Twitter, it is hard to find a worthwhile blog you want to read.
Here you go Internet! The only blog you’ll ever need!

Any feedback you have from here on out, please let me know. I don’t care if you hate this site with a fiery passion, I wanna know. Tell me all about it. But on the flip side, let me know if you like it. I’m an internet nerd and my self esteem needs constant padding. Bring on the compliments.

Going into this I only have one true concern. If you find this site and you want to come back, bookmark it now! If you don’t, at least once you will type in the wrong address and end up at justabbey.com and be prompted for phone sex. Hey, if that’s your thing, go nuts! If it’s not, reader be warned!

Cross your fingers!

This site is getting some life as of today.

Buckle up kids.

Here we go.

So, I know it is kind of late in the game, but due to the massive about of backlash and my immense annoyance with it, I figured I would give my whole stance on the Twilight thing.

There are spoilers! Reader beware!

Now, for the record. Yes, I did like the books. It was a good girly novel with romance and some mystery. Sure it was poorly written and I pointed out lots of typos through the series. It was also had plots that were thinner than tissue paper. BUT that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an enjoyable read. It sounds odd to bash the writer, but I am a big fan of the idea and the concept. I love that she shook up the genre a little bit with sparkling vampires and what not. Get this part straight people. They don’t sparkle all the time. Only in the sunlight. Corny? A little. But there is a point. It is a baiting technique, like glamouring in True Blood. Think about it. If you saw someone glistening in the sunlight like a giant diamond (and looked so yummy they were damn near edible), wouldn’t you wander blindly to them? I know I would. Just be honest with yourself.

In the realm of the books, I pretend that Breaking Dawn never happened. It was a TERRIBLE book and an even worse finale. Not just kind of bad writing like the first three, but it was like a drunk NaNoWriMo published without editing. Demon babies born from sterility? Genius! Three page conclusion with a smarmy ending that leave the public unfulfilled and pissy? Golden.

Now, the movie I will say was over hyped. It really was. I went and saw the midnight showing (yes, I am a fan girl) but I wanted to strangle every squealing girl there. It was like when I saw the first Pokemon movie and the kids in the audience screamed every creature’s name as they say them, over and over? (for the record, I was about 13 then. This wasn’t recent. Ha ha.)

It was, just like the books, very campy. The casting other than Edward and Bella was a little off. But the idea was the same as Harry Potter. It was a lot of colorful pictures for those of us who have read the books. Not a good movie by any standard, but it was enjoyable. A good popcorn flick. Enough said.

To all the people going out of their way to bash the books, the movie and the people who enjoy it, calm the hell down. All of the fans are not crazy fans with screeching issues.

In my own defense, I will also say that I have always like vampires. I am not just along for the pop culture train ride. I just got caught in the net. Patricia Briggs still has my number… Get that fourth book out in the Mercy series damn it!
By the way… The South Park episode on the vampire craze was hilarious as hell though. Watch it.

I am really hoping all this insanity plays out soon but I know when New Moon comes out, it will just stir back up. So if you don’t like it, please, shut the hell up. It’s a little tiring. I really dislike The Hills but I don’t hunt out those who watch it and call them mindless, wastes of spaces they are. I think it, but I don’t harass people relentlessly.

Oh, and this crap – “People who read those books are morons.” Let me say one thing: At least they are reading. More people should.

Cross post from my LiveJournal