I had a bizarre thought last night.

You know how everyone is going on about TomKat (sorry, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes) and how their “baby” is going to be born soon, and it seems that absolutely no one is taking it at face value? Either it’s a fake belly, or an alien baby, or at the very least it’s not his. Which would be shitty, because the girl said she’d stay a virgin until she’s married, so it should be his, gross.

Anyway, this is my opinion. The belly is a fake, and tomorrow it’ll be “born” and Tom Cruise is going to come out saying “It’s a… Happy April Fool, you morons!” and laugh hysterically. I mean… it’s just too much of a coincidence. Besides, I hope it isn’t a real baby, what with all the shit her pregnancy has gone through. Like, hello, she’s been photographed drinking Starbucks practically non-stop, and all that jumping around the world on press junkets… Heck even Angelina Jolie is having a quieter pregnancy.

Just because it’s an elaborate hoax doesn’t mean Tom Cruise is any less strange, though. I’m pretty sure that jumping on couches and spouting off about Scientology were pretty genuine.

Y’all know I love bunnies. Wabbits. Those long-eared buck-toothed creatures that nibble salad leaves. And now I like Brokeback Mountain. And guess what! I found something that combines both of these, very effectively. Laydees and gennulmen, I present to you, the Brokeback Bunnies. No, that isn’t the proper title. Don’t click on that yet! A few words of warning.

1. It’s a Flash object so it opens quickly, and it’s not a large file so if you’re on a quick connection it can load practically immediately. Watch your sound volume.

2. Well I really ought to rate it R21, for homosexuality, but since it’s not live-action, I don’t see the point. I mean there are kids out there looking at Japanese anime porn, and they ain’t 21!

3. Some animal-lovin’ implied. I mean, heck of course, they’re bunnies ain’t they? But there’s a surprise at the end, so keep watching. I promise it’s not too gross.

And for more bunny goodness that doesn’t involve boys kissing, click here.

I think I’ll be speaking with a Midwestern twang for the next few days, b’cawse ah just saw Brokeback Moun’n and it’s mighty sad, y’all. I mean, every-frickin’-body in this film wears those cowboy western shirts and boots and don’t they ever heard of, like, Abercrombie or nothin’?

But seriously, it’s not the kind of movie you should watch if you want to have a good time. It leaves you feeling all sad inside, and it doesn’t have a proper ending. Well I guess the story of Ennis and Jack had no proper ending anyway, it was cut prematurely short and the movie reflects that.

I wasn’t really disturbed by the nude scenes, after all cowboys got to bathe too, awright? Nothing much to see anyway, they aren’t really the Adonises the press makes them out to be. Jake Gyllenhaal is a mighty cute boy, and he has those puppee-dawg eyes that make you wanna cuddle him, but after Jack starts putting on weight and growing a mustache, it kinda doesn’t work for me no more.

I was kinda disturbed by having to see naked female boobies twice though, is there some rule in this film that the main characters have to show some skin? And I’m heterosexual, see, so naked female boobies don’t do it for me. There isn’t much gay sex to be had, either, and it’s not shown anyway. I’m fine with guys cuddling and all. Cuddling is cute.

Anyway it was kinda sad how love can destroy people’s lives like that… not just Jack and Ennis but also their wives’ and their kids’ lives… I mean how’d you feel if you not only found out your husband had gay tendencies, but also saw him kissing his boy with a passion he no longer feels for you? That’s sad.

The funny thing is that Ennis seems to not be a full-time gay, if you get my drift… apart from his dalliances with Jack, he maintains heterosexual relationships, so maybe he’s only gay as a consequence of loving Jack, and not because he likes men. Basically he only likes that ONE man. That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m not totally sure, cos I don’t have any gay friends. Perhaps it’s not so much the gender of the person that attracts us, it’s just the person and the gender is an (un)fortunate aside.

I think Jack is a full-time gay though, cos after he couldn’t get any from Ennis, he went to find some male prostitutes. And like he said, his marriage could be done “over the telephone”. Doesn’t mean he’s not manly, though. He put his big ol’ bully of a father-in-law in his place! I bet the mustache toughened him up some. Heh.
It’s so lame the way they express their feelings. They never once said the word ‘love’ in relation to themselves. When they find out they’re gonna get separated, they fight. Ennis bottles up all the sadness over losing Jack by going into an alley and crying so hard I thought he was throwing up. I seriously thought he was going to be sick, and maybe he was. He was so sad that it made him nauseous.

Place and time were just totally against them. In San Francisco they might have had a chance, but not in the middle of the macho macho west. In the 1990s it’d have been no big deal (although the cowboy thing would still be a problem) but they were in the 1960s and that was, like, a huuuuuge deal.

I loved the fashion progression though. Lureen’s mother kept her 1950s beehive, and Lureen herself went from a wholesome down-home brunette beauty to a Farrah Fawcett bottle-blonde with feathered hair. But her eyebrows were still dark, so that kinda rankled. I love that she wore that bright red lipstick and nail polish, it’s so Dallas. The girl’s from Texas too, ain’t that great!

Oh, and I likes the sheeps too, there were loads of them, and one that died. I hope that was a fake sheep, PETA would be up in arms if it were real. Unless they roasted it later, that is. Killing sheep for food is no crime, killing for entertainment is. And the horses! Oh, that I were that horse, so that Jake Gyllenhaal could ride me. The horses are so pretty.
I guess I’m glad I caught it before its run ended. It was worth the 7 dollars in the end, it really is a good story. It might get a bit slow in places if you’re not the contemplative type, given to writing blog posts in your head. My seat wasn’t very comfortable so I had a bit of a pain in my back at the end, but I felt that this is the kind of film that really enriches your life. Or maybe I’m just getting older, I’m no longer the teenager who fell in love with Heath Ledger playing Patrick Verona in ’10 Things I Hate About You’. Although he was really damn hawt in that show.

Love is a force of nature. It can devastate your life, despite your best preparations. Like a blizzard or a hailstorm, it can wreak havoc on all it touches. Poor Ennis and Jack just got carried along on the tide.

I have an inordinate fondness for James Blunt. It’s certainly not normal – he sings like a snail on Speed, though I don’t know what snails on Speed sound like, or even that snails can sing. But he sounds like that. I have the video for “You’re Beautiful” on heavy rotation on YouTube, because he strips in that video. =P. Dude, you have to check out that chest! A stint in the Army does one’s physique much good, I think.

But the one thing that intrigues me most is his hair. Yes, the long thready bits that sprout from his head. I’ve noticed that Englishmen in particular favour this look – the messy help-me-my-hair-is-attacking-me look. A comparison:

This is James Blunt, the singer-songwriter.

This is Neil Gaiman, yes THE Neil Gaiman, all bow down and worship at his insanely creative feet. He is a writer, a weaver of words, a thinker-upper of ideas. I, on the other hand, am no writer.

This is Hugh Grant, the actor.

Note how they all have longish hair, a tiny bit curly-wavy, and very much flopsy. I do believe this is the essence of the charm of the Englishman. It’s the hair. The aura of vulnerability and creativity oozing out of the follicles and insinuating their way into fangirls’ collective imaginations.

Lo and behold, I am an anthropologist. And I must disclose that I am very fond of the respective works of the men above, indeed I watch “About A Boy” with “Goodbye My Lover” playing in the background while a copy of the Sandman comics rests near at hand.

Images copyrighted to whoever holds the copyrights. I got them off Google, don’t sue me, I’m afraid of lawyers.

I swear, I’m not going to buy any more Abercrombie and Fitch stuff online. There’s just way too many fakes looking for a quick buck.

Abercrombie and Fitch is an American teenage apparel brand that isn’t available in Singapore except through the Factory Outlet Store, which brings in stock overruns, defectives, etc. Although to be fair, I’ve never bought anything from them that wasn’t 100% perfect, so maybe they ONLY sell stock overruns and past-season items.

Another avenue to buy A&F stuff is online, either straight from their online store, or through merchants on Yahoo Auctions. I go the Yahoo route, since buying from the US costs crazy much when you factor in the shipping.

In the past, I’ve had some good experiences buying A&F and Hollister stuff online, but recently I’ve been duped. Hollister is the surfy arm of A&F. I bought what was advertised as a Hollister polo t-shirt online, and I paid 20 bucks for it. When it arrived, I was disappointed to see that it was most definitely a fake. There was a small defect that hadn’t been noted on the Item Information during the auction, the seagull Hollister logo was very badly embroidered, and it was sewn on a backing of newspaper. Like, what the hell? Who uses newspaper as a backing for embroidery??? However, I gave it the benefit of the doubt since I had nothing to compare it to.

Last week, I bought 2 more Hollister polos. No, these were most definitely the real thing. The seagulls were properly embroidered, and upon comparison it became obvious that the first polo I had bought was a poor fake. The seagull on that one had been “coloured” outside the lines, the thread making up its body overrunning the outline. I was very very pissed.

A month or so back, I bought a boy tank. I’m very fond of these tight-fit tanks because, well, they’re tight-fit. And being sleeveless, they are very good for tropical weather. But when it arrived, I was a little suspicious. The label had a glaring mistake: “See reverse for vare”. Well, I figured someone had made a huge boo-boo and the whole batch had to be sent away because someone’s finger slipped when typing out the care tag. But then I “saw reverse”. No way were these typos.

“Non chlorine bleach whenneeded”
“Machine wash coldwith like colors”

Look, I know it says “Made in China” on the tag, but no way such obvious errors could have made it past quality control. And China makes pretty good stuff, you just never realised it because you didn’t check the tags on your clothes.

I compared the paper tag to the tag I cut off a skirt (also bought online), and there are small but noticeable differences. Then again, there’s a huge difference between the skirt’s tag and the tag on a denim skirt I bought from Factory Outlet. So which is the real one and which is the fake? If it comes from Factory Outlet it’s almost guaranteed to be authentic, because they are authorised to bring in A&F after all. Does that mean that everything else I’ve been buying is fake, fake, fake?

You’d think I’d learn my lesson, but no. I bought a pink version of the same tank, and it has the same “reverse for vare” error. I give up, I’m no product appraiser and I can’t tell real from fake. The cognitive load is killing me. I’ll just take the easy way out, and declare defeat.

No more buying online from dodgy merchants. It’s more convenient, but it’s not any cheaper, and it’s definitely not worth my peace of mind. Damn you, Singaporean fashion trends! Your siren call is nothing but a lure to spend more cash!