Why Stuff Sticks In Your Head (And I Don't Mean Brains, I Mean Justin Bieber)

Why the picture of the lemon pie, you ask? It shall all be revealed at the end of the post! But for now, listen to me preach, then you can have some pie.

So anyways (oops, I just said anyways. I know I'm not supposed to (read my rant about it here, second paragraph, but I couldn't help myself) I was thinking the other day (no obvious jokes here, please) about how I want to go see the Hunger Games movie.

Please, hear me out!

I would go for three reasons: 1, so I can effectively argue with my friends about it, 2, to see what the hype is about, and 3... I forget the third one. So there's just two reasons. But I was thinking about how many people said it was so annoying how the camera kept shaking around, they couldn't see any of the (erm) gross and gory violence/killing spree. A shame, right? I think that I might like that, though. As I think I've said before, I have a... um... "sensitive spirit." Gratuitous violence disturbs me, but it should disturb everyone, don't you think?

It's just that this stuff sticks in our minds. I can still remember that scene from Indiana Jones I where the dude went into the temple and got his head stuck through with spikes. It gave me nightmares for a month (granted, I was only nine) but it goes to show how our brain retains images so well. I read a statistic that said (and this is paraphrased a little) if you view an image for even less than 13 seconds your mind can still remember it years later.

Take this analogy: imagine that you're training for a 5-mile race, but you're not a runner. If you started out running without training, you wouldn't make it 5 miles. (Even though there's a McDonald's like, every 2 miles.) Or you'd get hit by a bus. (That happened in a running book I read.) But you condition yourself, running first 1/2-mile, then a mile, then 2, then 3, up until you can run 5 miles without stopping. Just like you would make your body get used to running for 5 miles straight (though why anyone would do that is beyond me) our minds get used to seeing violence, sex, and other gross/bad stuff in movies, TV shows, and music videos. See it for the first time, it would (hopefully) disturb you-- but see it twenty, and soon you're not affected by it at all. This is one of the reasons why I don't watch stuff like that if I can help it.

You may be wondering where Justin Bieber comes in, so here he is! Just like we remember images so well, we can remember lyrics too. If they're catchy and/or annoying (like Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby, Baby, Oh, Baby, Baby, Baby [etc]) it's easy to memorize the words without knowing it! But since your brain automatically does that, you have to be careful what you listen to. I bought a song by John Mayer without listening to it first, and found out it says one curse word in it. It's only one, and it's not even one of those Queen Mother of All Bad Words, but when I was singing it to myself the only line I could remember was that one. (Oops. Glad my mother wasn't in the room!) Suffice to say, the song is removed from my iPod so I'm not tempted to say it, even when I'm just humming the song. Oh, man, it would be BAD, I tell you, if I was humming it and my friend goes "What song are you humming? How does it go?" "Oh yes, it goes "La, di da, di da BLEEP!" o_O

That would probably be bad.

Not to change the subject, but has anyone read the Junie B. Jones books? I had to read one out loud to my sister because my mom, who was reading it to her, started laughing so hard she couldn't continue. This wasn't that part, but it made me laugh, at least!

Yesterday, a very wonderful thing happened!
And it's called-- I had pie for dinner!
Just pie and that's all!
That's because my mother went to the hospital to have a baby. And Daddy and Grandma Miller went with her. And so me and my grampa got to stay at his house. All by ourselves. And no one even babysitted us! And guess what? Grampa smoked a real live cigar right inside the house! And Grandma didn't yell, "Go outside with that thing, Frank!"... After that, I opened up the 'frigerator. 'Cause I was hungry from playing, that's why.
"HEY! GUESS WHAT? THERE'S A BIG FAT LEMON PIE IN HERE, FRANK!" I hollered.
And so then Grampa Miller got down two plates. And then me and him ate the big fat lemon pie for our dinner!!
Just pie and that's all!!
And we're not even going to get in trouble! 'Cause we're going to tell Grandma that her cat ate it!

The cat ate it... So there's your lemon pie. Enjoy, and I promise next time, I won't preach but I'll just make fun of something. :)