Friday, December 19, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The following was written during tonight's class on my cell phone. Be warned, I wrote it while incredibly bored and severely depressed, and as a result I cannot be held accountable for its contents (which is to say, I don't really remember what I wrote). The post picks up about 2 hours into a mind-numbingly boring class, and covers the remaining two and a half hours. Be aware that it probably contains several typos, as those keys are just so damn small, and there are large gaps in time between entries. I have no explanation for these, perhaps I passed out. Now, as further ado would severely impact the tone of the raw, unfiltered crazy, here it is.
MOBILE POST BEGINS HERE
This is a post written on a cell phone.
Why am I writing on a cell phone? Have I forgotten the spacious luxury of a full sized keyboard, and chosen instead the clicky resistance of a tiny array of lettered Tic Tacs? Well, what say you?
Oh, right, those were rhetorical. Please accept my apologies. At any rate, I am pecking away at this tiny keyboard because the fellow at the head of the room who fancies himself an instructor is droning on about the importance of electronic mail. Were you aware of it, dear reader, that mail can be sent over the internet now? Fascinating, is it not?
If it were, I would not be rambling away on my phone.
I have just turned the page in my instructional textbook, and there is an illustration of a cell phone. You might consider that ironic, were you to concentrate on it really hard while bashing your head into a wall. Here I am, concentrating vigorously on a cell phone while inches away, a photograph of a cell phone. And the physical cell phone, the one that exists in the real world, the one I am madly clicking away at, doesn't look anything like the depicted cell phone. I look at the inside cover, and there lies the answer: copyright 1988.
Side note: it took me about 90 seconds to figure out how to type the colon.
Additional side note: I had originally phrased that sentence, "enter the colon," but quickly thought better of it.
What was I talking about again? I could scroll up and check, but on this phone that operation could take the better part of an hour. Guess there's no turning back now, nowhere to go but forward.
This could be a good thing. It's a chance to be spontaneous, real stream of consciousness stuff, without having to stop be slave to constraints like format or grammar (not that I give half a shit about that stuff anyway, but this way, I can be totally shitless).
So, let's do this in a combination stream-of-consciousness/live-blog style. Which I believe may look a little something like this:
8:00 PM
I discover a new level of boredom, having endured this tedium for over two hours.
See that? That's a dead honest timestamp right there. It just so happens that it is exactly 8 pm right now. Crazy, right? Yeah, I know.
8:01 PM
Christ, how long will this go on?
Okay, maybe I should wait a little longer between updates. I'll try listening to the guy for a little while, maybe he's actually saying something interesting now.
8:05 PM
Nope.
He's explaining automated phone systems. And he just brought up those stupid ATT ads with the voicemail personas. God, I hate those. And he just brought them up as being something of actual relevance to network administration. Oh, you want to make sure you're reachable on the phone? Really? I did not know that, thanks for bringing in the stunning real life experience.
8:10 PM
Netscape? You're talking about Netscape? Does it even still exist?
8:11 PM
No one else in the class can say for sure if Netscape is still around. Maybe I could look it up if he hadn't PULLED THE GODDAMN NETWORK CABLE out of the switch, depriving the entire room of Internet access. What a dick.
8:14 PM
Next scheduled break is at 8:38. Maybe I can sneak in a quick nap until then.
I just realized that this doesn't really qualify as a live-blog, because I'm not updating it in real time; I am going to upload the whole thing when I get home.
8:18 PM
I spend another way-too-long amount of time hunting for the semi-colon.
8:20 PM
Hey, I wonder if this phone has an interrobang!
8:21 PM
Sadly, it does not. Why the fuck doesn't it?!
Do me a favor, squint your eyes at that last bit of punctuation, and let's pretend it's an interrobang.
Mmmmm, pretending... Amazing, isn't it? That phantom interrobang? Doesn't it just stare directly into your soul? DOESN'T IT?!
8:27 PM
11 minutes to go. Then I can set off the device, and it will exterminate them all.
EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE!
Can you believe I actually had to type that up all three times? My phone has no copy and paste function.
8:30 PM
:-(
8:31 PM
I've got to think! What would Douglas Adams do in this situation, if he were still alive?
Answer: he would probably blog about it.
8:32 PM
:-(
8:35 PM
I need more Doctor Who references.
Here's one: my short, portly teacher may in fact be a Sontaran.
8:37 PM
One more minute!
8:38 PM
Booyah!
8:56 PM
I feel better now. Over the break I smoked two joints (Full disclosure: no I didn't. That was fictional.), and now I'm feeling fine.
9:01 PM
Some idiot has started randomly pulling cables out of the patch panel, resulting in the physical manifestation of an administrator's nightmare. Nice job, dumbass, bringing about the networking equivalent of hell on earth.
9:29 PM
Hm, an hour left and we still haven't started the lab. Doesn't look like we're going to get to it. And now that I think about it, my teacher is most likely a Rutan spy in semi-Sontaran shape. Probably so that he can lure out Sontaran sympathizers and burn out their insides with the raw energy of his true form.
10:21 PM
I can finally go home now.
FINAL THOUGHT: "At least the screaming of infants drowns out the moans of the dead."
-Idly scribbled on a piece of scrap paper at some point during the tedium.
I don't remember writing it, but it's in my handwriting, so I must have.
END MOBILE POST
MOBILE POST BEGINS HERE
This is a post written on a cell phone.
Why am I writing on a cell phone? Have I forgotten the spacious luxury of a full sized keyboard, and chosen instead the clicky resistance of a tiny array of lettered Tic Tacs? Well, what say you?
Oh, right, those were rhetorical. Please accept my apologies. At any rate, I am pecking away at this tiny keyboard because the fellow at the head of the room who fancies himself an instructor is droning on about the importance of electronic mail. Were you aware of it, dear reader, that mail can be sent over the internet now? Fascinating, is it not?
If it were, I would not be rambling away on my phone.
I have just turned the page in my instructional textbook, and there is an illustration of a cell phone. You might consider that ironic, were you to concentrate on it really hard while bashing your head into a wall. Here I am, concentrating vigorously on a cell phone while inches away, a photograph of a cell phone. And the physical cell phone, the one that exists in the real world, the one I am madly clicking away at, doesn't look anything like the depicted cell phone. I look at the inside cover, and there lies the answer: copyright 1988.
Side note: it took me about 90 seconds to figure out how to type the colon.
Additional side note: I had originally phrased that sentence, "enter the colon," but quickly thought better of it.
What was I talking about again? I could scroll up and check, but on this phone that operation could take the better part of an hour. Guess there's no turning back now, nowhere to go but forward.
This could be a good thing. It's a chance to be spontaneous, real stream of consciousness stuff, without having to stop be slave to constraints like format or grammar (not that I give half a shit about that stuff anyway, but this way, I can be totally shitless).
So, let's do this in a combination stream-of-consciousness/live-blog style. Which I believe may look a little something like this:
8:00 PM
I discover a new level of boredom, having endured this tedium for over two hours.
See that? That's a dead honest timestamp right there. It just so happens that it is exactly 8 pm right now. Crazy, right? Yeah, I know.
8:01 PM
Christ, how long will this go on?
Okay, maybe I should wait a little longer between updates. I'll try listening to the guy for a little while, maybe he's actually saying something interesting now.
8:05 PM
Nope.
He's explaining automated phone systems. And he just brought up those stupid ATT ads with the voicemail personas. God, I hate those. And he just brought them up as being something of actual relevance to network administration. Oh, you want to make sure you're reachable on the phone? Really? I did not know that, thanks for bringing in the stunning real life experience.
8:10 PM
Netscape? You're talking about Netscape? Does it even still exist?
8:11 PM
No one else in the class can say for sure if Netscape is still around. Maybe I could look it up if he hadn't PULLED THE GODDAMN NETWORK CABLE out of the switch, depriving the entire room of Internet access. What a dick.
8:14 PM
Next scheduled break is at 8:38. Maybe I can sneak in a quick nap until then.
I just realized that this doesn't really qualify as a live-blog, because I'm not updating it in real time; I am going to upload the whole thing when I get home.
8:18 PM
I spend another way-too-long amount of time hunting for the semi-colon.
8:20 PM
Hey, I wonder if this phone has an interrobang!
8:21 PM
Sadly, it does not. Why the fuck doesn't it?!
Do me a favor, squint your eyes at that last bit of punctuation, and let's pretend it's an interrobang.
Mmmmm, pretending... Amazing, isn't it? That phantom interrobang? Doesn't it just stare directly into your soul? DOESN'T IT?!
8:27 PM
11 minutes to go. Then I can set off the device, and it will exterminate them all.
EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE!
EXTERMINATE!
Can you believe I actually had to type that up all three times? My phone has no copy and paste function.
8:30 PM
:-(
8:31 PM
I've got to think! What would Douglas Adams do in this situation, if he were still alive?
Answer: he would probably blog about it.
8:32 PM
:-(
8:35 PM
I need more Doctor Who references.
Here's one: my short, portly teacher may in fact be a Sontaran.
8:37 PM
One more minute!
8:38 PM
Booyah!
8:56 PM
I feel better now. Over the break I smoked two joints (Full disclosure: no I didn't. That was fictional.), and now I'm feeling fine.
9:01 PM
Some idiot has started randomly pulling cables out of the patch panel, resulting in the physical manifestation of an administrator's nightmare. Nice job, dumbass, bringing about the networking equivalent of hell on earth.
9:29 PM
Hm, an hour left and we still haven't started the lab. Doesn't look like we're going to get to it. And now that I think about it, my teacher is most likely a Rutan spy in semi-Sontaran shape. Probably so that he can lure out Sontaran sympathizers and burn out their insides with the raw energy of his true form.
10:21 PM
I can finally go home now.
FINAL THOUGHT: "At least the screaming of infants drowns out the moans of the dead."
-Idly scribbled on a piece of scrap paper at some point during the tedium.
I don't remember writing it, but it's in my handwriting, so I must have.
END MOBILE POST
Monday, December 1, 2008
Just How Deep Does the Rabbit Hole Go?
If you live in California, in the weeks leading up the last election you probably saw this commercial for goddamned Proposition 8 where a Massachusetts couple claims that their child was forced, apparently at gunpoint, to read gay porn in the guise of children's book (I'm not going to link to the video, because I don't want Youtube to think I'm some sort of crazy bigot, and start recommending me the KKK's channel or something). Of course, their claim was cleaned up a bit, their claim of hardcore pornography changed to "pro-gay literature" so that they wouldn't come off as obvious psychopaths.
Let's set aside the issues of free speech and censorship. Not even going to talk about it, for the moment it doesn't matter. Let's also set aside the fact that the book is obviously not a propaganda piece, but rather just an exposure to an alternative lifestyle. Let's set aside the fact that the book wasn't part of the school's curriculum, and belonged to one of the students who requested that the teacher read it. Let's even set aside the fact that the supposedly persecuted parents were the only ones actually making threats in the whole affair. All of these are good enough reasons to discount the opinions of these people, but that's not what I want to discuss right now. That discussion has already taken place, and I have nothing to add to it. No, I want to talk about their motives.
Given their persecution complex and ridiculously outspoken bigotry, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that this couple is Mormon. Within its history, Mormonism has always hid its wrongdoings under the cloak of the perceived religious intolerance against them. They whine that the entire state of Missouri declared war on them, neglecting to mention that war was started because they were stealing land in a violent coup. They point out that the country sent an army to kill Brigham Young, but leave out that he had sent the appointed governors back to Washington to deliver the message that if any further government officials were sent, they would be delivered back home in very small boxes. And recently, a white powdery substance was apparently delivered to the Mormon temples in California and Salt Lake, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it were an inside job to garner sympathy for there cause in what has become a very hostile climate.
At this point, the Devil's Advocate jumps in to say, "So what if they're Mormon? Does that make them bad people?" No, not all Mormons are bad people. In fact, a few of them aren't even retarded! However this couple's response is the typical stratagem (Note the use of the singular, that's what we like to call wit!) of the Mormon organization. In fact one might begin to think that perhaps the couple might be insiders, taking their orders from within the superstructure of the Mormon church.
And one would be right. A recent memo from within the ranks of the Mormon church has been exposed, outlining their anti-gay twelve year plan. This memo mentions a man named Dick Wirthlin as a key member of the initiative. Turns out Dick's nephew is the man appearing in these inflammatory videos. And just who the hell is dear old Uncle Dick anyway? Ol' Dick Wirthlin at the time was a General Authority in the Church of Too Fucking Long a Name. To those who don't speak Mormonese, he's the equivalent of a Cardinal in the Catholic Church, pretty high up indeed.
Now here's the kicker, this memo was dated March 4, 1997. The Wirthlins filed their complaint in 2006. These people spent 9 years waiting for something vaguely offensive to happen so that they could scream about it loud enough to get national attention. And then all that media attention was wrapped up with a nice little bow and fed to an unwary public to pass a hateful piece of legislature.
This couple is just another arm of the Mormon church, whose influence has finally stepped just far enough over the line to gain some attention. In fact, as we speak this I-can't-believe-I'm-still-calling-it-a-church is being investigated for election fraud. Apparently they only reported five thousand dollars in contributions. For someone like me, who has seen first hand the organization of the Mormon wing of this campaign through my family, that number is almost precious. It's like asking a little kid how old they think the earth is, and they reply, "weally old, like a hundwed years!" You can't help but laugh at the naivete of someone who thought that number seemed plausible. Their budget is full of huge holes and unrecorded expenses, and one way or another, the Mormon Church is going to pay.
So to everyone who said that the Mormon Church wasn't that involved in Prop 8, you can kiss my ass. As far as I'm concerned, this isn't just a smoking gun. This is the moment caught on video camera, clear as day, and the Mormon church was caught holding the gun, masturbating on the corpse. And this is me flipping the bird at my childhood religion and saying, "Guess what, buddy? You're fucked."
And this is only the beginning.
Let's set aside the issues of free speech and censorship. Not even going to talk about it, for the moment it doesn't matter. Let's also set aside the fact that the book is obviously not a propaganda piece, but rather just an exposure to an alternative lifestyle. Let's set aside the fact that the book wasn't part of the school's curriculum, and belonged to one of the students who requested that the teacher read it. Let's even set aside the fact that the supposedly persecuted parents were the only ones actually making threats in the whole affair. All of these are good enough reasons to discount the opinions of these people, but that's not what I want to discuss right now. That discussion has already taken place, and I have nothing to add to it. No, I want to talk about their motives.
Given their persecution complex and ridiculously outspoken bigotry, it shouldn't surprise you to learn that this couple is Mormon. Within its history, Mormonism has always hid its wrongdoings under the cloak of the perceived religious intolerance against them. They whine that the entire state of Missouri declared war on them, neglecting to mention that war was started because they were stealing land in a violent coup. They point out that the country sent an army to kill Brigham Young, but leave out that he had sent the appointed governors back to Washington to deliver the message that if any further government officials were sent, they would be delivered back home in very small boxes. And recently, a white powdery substance was apparently delivered to the Mormon temples in California and Salt Lake, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it were an inside job to garner sympathy for there cause in what has become a very hostile climate.
At this point, the Devil's Advocate jumps in to say, "So what if they're Mormon? Does that make them bad people?" No, not all Mormons are bad people. In fact, a few of them aren't even retarded! However this couple's response is the typical stratagem (Note the use of the singular, that's what we like to call wit!) of the Mormon organization. In fact one might begin to think that perhaps the couple might be insiders, taking their orders from within the superstructure of the Mormon church.
And one would be right. A recent memo from within the ranks of the Mormon church has been exposed, outlining their anti-gay twelve year plan. This memo mentions a man named Dick Wirthlin as a key member of the initiative. Turns out Dick's nephew is the man appearing in these inflammatory videos. And just who the hell is dear old Uncle Dick anyway? Ol' Dick Wirthlin at the time was a General Authority in the Church of Too Fucking Long a Name. To those who don't speak Mormonese, he's the equivalent of a Cardinal in the Catholic Church, pretty high up indeed.
Now here's the kicker, this memo was dated March 4, 1997. The Wirthlins filed their complaint in 2006. These people spent 9 years waiting for something vaguely offensive to happen so that they could scream about it loud enough to get national attention. And then all that media attention was wrapped up with a nice little bow and fed to an unwary public to pass a hateful piece of legislature.
This couple is just another arm of the Mormon church, whose influence has finally stepped just far enough over the line to gain some attention. In fact, as we speak this I-can't-believe-I'm-still-calling-it-a-church is being investigated for election fraud. Apparently they only reported five thousand dollars in contributions. For someone like me, who has seen first hand the organization of the Mormon wing of this campaign through my family, that number is almost precious. It's like asking a little kid how old they think the earth is, and they reply, "weally old, like a hundwed years!" You can't help but laugh at the naivete of someone who thought that number seemed plausible. Their budget is full of huge holes and unrecorded expenses, and one way or another, the Mormon Church is going to pay.
So to everyone who said that the Mormon Church wasn't that involved in Prop 8, you can kiss my ass. As far as I'm concerned, this isn't just a smoking gun. This is the moment caught on video camera, clear as day, and the Mormon church was caught holding the gun, masturbating on the corpse. And this is me flipping the bird at my childhood religion and saying, "Guess what, buddy? You're fucked."
And this is only the beginning.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
An Heavenly Encounter
Attention Internets: This very night I was visited by our lord and savior Jesus Christ. I was sleeping, and all of a sudden there was a bright light and a choir of angels, and Jesus was standing right there in my bedroom. Luckily, I had a tape recorder by my bed (it came with my review copy of Bioshock), and I was able to capture our entire conversation. Here is the transcript of that meeting:
ME
Jesus Christ!
JESUS
Sup, bro?
ME
Um, nothing much. What’s up with you, Jesus?
JESUS
I’m chill, man. You know, takin’ it easy.
ME
Um, what are you doing here, Jesus?
JESUS
I’ve come to help you out, bro. Show you the way, and shit. Teach you how to live your life, you dig?
ME
Okay... Sure, tell me how I should live my life.
JESUS
You should never be a dick to anyone, man. Just, like, be cool to people. Be a nice guy, like, help old ladies across the street and shit. You know, shit like that.
ME
So, you came into my room in the middle of the night, to tell me to be nice to people?
JESUS
Yeah, man, the good works and shit.
ME
You know, Jesus, I kind of already knew that.
JESUS
Oh, shit man, sorry, my bad. I should have known you’d have your shit together. Fuck, I’m sorry, bro.
ME
It’s okay, Jesus.
JESUS
Naw, man, I was like serious out of line. I crossed a line, I’m so sorry, dude.
ME
Dude, you couldn’t have known. I mean, you’ve been dead for like two thousand years.
JESUS
Aw, buzzkill, man. Are you serious? Am I really all corpsed up?
ME
Yeah, they nailed you to a piece of wood.
JESUS
Oh shit, yeah, I remember that shit now. That was a bad fuckin’ day, you know?
ME
That’s gotta be unpleasant.
JESUS
Shit. Well hey, man, if you already know all that shit, does that mean you’re gonna join my church?
ME
Which one is yours?
JESUS
Fuck, I can’t remember that shit, man. Ummm... Scientology?
ME
Scientology, really?
JESUS
I don’t know, man. I think it starts with an “S.” Or maybe it was an “F.” Ah fuck it, my church is full of assholes anyway, you probably wouldn’t like it.
ME
You’re probably right.
JESUS
Well, bro, I guess I should be going. Get some fucking sleep, man. Oh, and hey, hit me up sometime. We’ll rock some mad ping pong.
ME
Jesus, I am terrible at ping pong.
JESUS
Shit man, me too. I don’t even know why I fucking like it so much.
At this point Jesus laughs for about two minutes, nonstop. Seriously.
JESUS
Hey, you got my cell number?
ME
No, Jesus, I don’t think I do.
JESUS
Hold on a sec.
(he pats down his robe)
Ah, fuck! Where the hell is that shit? Man, I hate this fucking robe. Shit is always falling out of it. Not cool.
ME
I’m sorry, Jesus. Maybe you should buy a pair of pants or something?
JESUS
Yeah, I should do that, shouldn’t I? See, this is why I love you man, you’re a fucking genius, you’ve got all the great plans. Well hey, maybe I’ll just see you around.
ME
Sure thing, Jesus. I’ll see you around.
JESUS
Later, bro.
END TRANSCRIPT
And with that, he vanished. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again, but I guess Jesus is a pretty cool guy. A little scatterbrained, but a decent dude nonetheless. Also, he smelled really... herbal. Not really sure what to make of that.
Hopefully I’ll see him again. I don’t know, where does Jesus like to hang out? The mall? Does anyone know? If anyone knows where I can find Jesus, drop me a line. Anyway, I’m going to go do as the savior-man suggested and catch some more Zs. Good night, Internet.
ME
Jesus Christ!
JESUS
Sup, bro?
ME
Um, nothing much. What’s up with you, Jesus?
JESUS
I’m chill, man. You know, takin’ it easy.
ME
Um, what are you doing here, Jesus?
JESUS
I’ve come to help you out, bro. Show you the way, and shit. Teach you how to live your life, you dig?
ME
Okay... Sure, tell me how I should live my life.
JESUS
You should never be a dick to anyone, man. Just, like, be cool to people. Be a nice guy, like, help old ladies across the street and shit. You know, shit like that.
ME
So, you came into my room in the middle of the night, to tell me to be nice to people?
JESUS
Yeah, man, the good works and shit.
ME
You know, Jesus, I kind of already knew that.
JESUS
Oh, shit man, sorry, my bad. I should have known you’d have your shit together. Fuck, I’m sorry, bro.
ME
It’s okay, Jesus.
JESUS
Naw, man, I was like serious out of line. I crossed a line, I’m so sorry, dude.
ME
Dude, you couldn’t have known. I mean, you’ve been dead for like two thousand years.
JESUS
Aw, buzzkill, man. Are you serious? Am I really all corpsed up?
ME
Yeah, they nailed you to a piece of wood.
JESUS
Oh shit, yeah, I remember that shit now. That was a bad fuckin’ day, you know?
ME
That’s gotta be unpleasant.
JESUS
Shit. Well hey, man, if you already know all that shit, does that mean you’re gonna join my church?
ME
Which one is yours?
JESUS
Fuck, I can’t remember that shit, man. Ummm... Scientology?
ME
Scientology, really?
JESUS
I don’t know, man. I think it starts with an “S.” Or maybe it was an “F.” Ah fuck it, my church is full of assholes anyway, you probably wouldn’t like it.
ME
You’re probably right.
JESUS
Well, bro, I guess I should be going. Get some fucking sleep, man. Oh, and hey, hit me up sometime. We’ll rock some mad ping pong.
ME
Jesus, I am terrible at ping pong.
JESUS
Shit man, me too. I don’t even know why I fucking like it so much.
At this point Jesus laughs for about two minutes, nonstop. Seriously.
JESUS
Hey, you got my cell number?
ME
No, Jesus, I don’t think I do.
JESUS
Hold on a sec.
(he pats down his robe)
Ah, fuck! Where the hell is that shit? Man, I hate this fucking robe. Shit is always falling out of it. Not cool.
ME
I’m sorry, Jesus. Maybe you should buy a pair of pants or something?
JESUS
Yeah, I should do that, shouldn’t I? See, this is why I love you man, you’re a fucking genius, you’ve got all the great plans. Well hey, maybe I’ll just see you around.
ME
Sure thing, Jesus. I’ll see you around.
JESUS
Later, bro.
END TRANSCRIPT
And with that, he vanished. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again, but I guess Jesus is a pretty cool guy. A little scatterbrained, but a decent dude nonetheless. Also, he smelled really... herbal. Not really sure what to make of that.
Hopefully I’ll see him again. I don’t know, where does Jesus like to hang out? The mall? Does anyone know? If anyone knows where I can find Jesus, drop me a line. Anyway, I’m going to go do as the savior-man suggested and catch some more Zs. Good night, Internet.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Xbox Avatars: Do Not Want
Just installed the "New Xbox Experience," and the avatars are fucking garbage. Back when the Wii came out, Miis were charming, fun, and easy to make. Avatars are none of these things. Instead of simple yet surprisingly versatile creation options, we get an endless parade of douchebags, none of which look like you, and the available tools don't allow much deviation from that shitty standard. You can't even create some sort of hideous freak, which would really take the edge off.
I might have some impressions of the "Experience" itself, but I've spent the last couple of hours wrestling with this damn avatar bullshit, so I have no idea what the rest of the interface is like. Once I've managed form my dude into something that won't make me want to kill myself every time I turn on my Xbox, I might share some of that Experience(tm) with you.
Until then, if you see me online please forgive my douchey appearance, and I will forgive yours.
I might have some impressions of the "Experience" itself, but I've spent the last couple of hours wrestling with this damn avatar bullshit, so I have no idea what the rest of the interface is like. Once I've managed form my dude into something that won't make me want to kill myself every time I turn on my Xbox, I might share some of that Experience(tm) with you.
Until then, if you see me online please forgive my douchey appearance, and I will forgive yours.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Wil Wheaton Is Kind Of An Asshole
Here is something exactly one person I know will find hilarious:
http://twitter.com/wilw/status/1005052946
http://twitter.com/wilw/status/1005052946
Friday, November 14, 2008
A Funny Thing Happened...
So, something interesting has happened. While looking through my recent traffic, there was a decent-sized spike right around when I posted my last entry on the California gay marriage ban. The reason this is interesting is because, random searches for off-kilter pornography aside, I would estimate that this blog is read by a grand total of about four people. That's when I noticed I had been linked from a Mormon apologetic message board.
That alone gave me a chuckle. Because of this, far more people have been exposed to my words than I ever intended, and it's because of someone who obviously disagrees with me. Then I read his post, and my chuckle graduated to become something like spontaneous rapture.
See, this guy decided to analyze my post. He posted it in pieces, with his own little comments after each section, analyzing my "arguments." The word "arguments" is in quotes there because I am referring to the points I made in my rant. Because that's what it was, a nice little rant that I only wrote because I was pissed off and writing about it helped me feel better. But I felt about a million times even better when I saw that idiots were obsessing over my own stupid little blog.
This has honestly made my night, that for at least a little while some asshole not only read my off-the-top-of-my-head purposefully inflammatory post, but was forced to actually think about them. Seriously, this is like catching someone watching a fake newscast on a TV show and thinking that it's real. Not that there was anything fake about my words, the opinions are true and valid, it's just that I probably wouldn't go publishing them in any scholarly journals, because it was just for fun. And I am just loving how it's making people squirm.
And no, I'm not going to link to it, because these people are still assholes, and even though I enjoy laughing at them they do not deserve any of the attention they get. Here, however, are some people I will happily draw attention to:
"What's more harmful to society - two well-dressed men getting married and settling down, or two idiots tying the knot and cranking out any number of additional idiots?"
--Robert Kirby, Salt Lake Tribune
--
"To those of you sitting out there gloating, wasn't it enough to have Stuart Matis' blood on your hands? You wanted more blood? You, the vampires of the human spirit seem to have an insatiable need to keep robbing those of us who are different of our lifeblood and our desire for safety and dignity.
"You have robbed wrongly this time. You have unleashed the fury of a thousand gays. You have piled on the final straw, the last drop, the last nail. You have taken your last best swing and now you will pay the piper.
"The smugness on your faces right now will soon be replaced with a more humbled countenance as you begin to realize how much damage you have done to yourselves and begin to be aware of the sound and the fury that is coming. Enjoy your fifteen minutes of smugness because it will soon be over. Oh man, you have no idea. Go back and read about Stonewall and know that this is its second coming."
--TLC, Exmormon.org Recovery Board
--
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
--Thomas Jefferson
--
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow."
--Martin Luther King Jr., Acceptance Speech, Nobel Peace Prize 1964
Quotes like these remind me of the power of words. But it seems, even words shouted into the void, shouted in vain for no reason other than to please the one that spoke them, can wield power, even if that power is just the ability to piss off some religious nutjobs. Which is a fine and respectable power to have. In fact, this power is as close to a genuine goddamned miracle as I have ever seen.
When I wrote my last post, people sat up and took notice of someone who was, in the grand scheme of things, entirely unimportant. After all, who am I? Nobody really, I'm just some guy who writes his opinions down on a blog because it helps him to organize his thoughts. But it worried them. It worried them that someone cared so much, to see that outpouring of emotion. One man writes a blog to nobody in particular, and they go on the defensive. We are dealing with scared people here, who know that their current state of power is built on a house of cards, and the only way they can keep it from blowing over is to blow back as hard as they can.
So do me a favor. Anyone who reads these words, go out there and piss someone off. Someone who really deserves it. It doesn't take much, and remember that the fact that you're getting to them means that you're undermining their position. Show the world your love, your anger, your indomitable spirit, your righteous indignation, whatever. If the best revenge is living well, then live as well as you can. Do whatever makes you happy, and be proud of it. And if the jackasses of the world get their panties all in a bunch, you know you are doing it right.
Words have tremendous power. Even when you are throwing them away on a dumb little blog. And this tiny little splash that I doubt many people have even noticed still contributes to the growing ripple that will one day change the world.
And that is very cool indeed.
That alone gave me a chuckle. Because of this, far more people have been exposed to my words than I ever intended, and it's because of someone who obviously disagrees with me. Then I read his post, and my chuckle graduated to become something like spontaneous rapture.
See, this guy decided to analyze my post. He posted it in pieces, with his own little comments after each section, analyzing my "arguments." The word "arguments" is in quotes there because I am referring to the points I made in my rant. Because that's what it was, a nice little rant that I only wrote because I was pissed off and writing about it helped me feel better. But I felt about a million times even better when I saw that idiots were obsessing over my own stupid little blog.
This has honestly made my night, that for at least a little while some asshole not only read my off-the-top-of-my-head purposefully inflammatory post, but was forced to actually think about them. Seriously, this is like catching someone watching a fake newscast on a TV show and thinking that it's real. Not that there was anything fake about my words, the opinions are true and valid, it's just that I probably wouldn't go publishing them in any scholarly journals, because it was just for fun. And I am just loving how it's making people squirm.
And no, I'm not going to link to it, because these people are still assholes, and even though I enjoy laughing at them they do not deserve any of the attention they get. Here, however, are some people I will happily draw attention to:
"What's more harmful to society - two well-dressed men getting married and settling down, or two idiots tying the knot and cranking out any number of additional idiots?"
--Robert Kirby, Salt Lake Tribune
--
"To those of you sitting out there gloating, wasn't it enough to have Stuart Matis' blood on your hands? You wanted more blood? You, the vampires of the human spirit seem to have an insatiable need to keep robbing those of us who are different of our lifeblood and our desire for safety and dignity.
"You have robbed wrongly this time. You have unleashed the fury of a thousand gays. You have piled on the final straw, the last drop, the last nail. You have taken your last best swing and now you will pay the piper.
"The smugness on your faces right now will soon be replaced with a more humbled countenance as you begin to realize how much damage you have done to yourselves and begin to be aware of the sound and the fury that is coming. Enjoy your fifteen minutes of smugness because it will soon be over. Oh man, you have no idea. Go back and read about Stonewall and know that this is its second coming."
--TLC, Exmormon.org Recovery Board
--
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
--Thomas Jefferson
--
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow."
--Martin Luther King Jr., Acceptance Speech, Nobel Peace Prize 1964
Quotes like these remind me of the power of words. But it seems, even words shouted into the void, shouted in vain for no reason other than to please the one that spoke them, can wield power, even if that power is just the ability to piss off some religious nutjobs. Which is a fine and respectable power to have. In fact, this power is as close to a genuine goddamned miracle as I have ever seen.
When I wrote my last post, people sat up and took notice of someone who was, in the grand scheme of things, entirely unimportant. After all, who am I? Nobody really, I'm just some guy who writes his opinions down on a blog because it helps him to organize his thoughts. But it worried them. It worried them that someone cared so much, to see that outpouring of emotion. One man writes a blog to nobody in particular, and they go on the defensive. We are dealing with scared people here, who know that their current state of power is built on a house of cards, and the only way they can keep it from blowing over is to blow back as hard as they can.
So do me a favor. Anyone who reads these words, go out there and piss someone off. Someone who really deserves it. It doesn't take much, and remember that the fact that you're getting to them means that you're undermining their position. Show the world your love, your anger, your indomitable spirit, your righteous indignation, whatever. If the best revenge is living well, then live as well as you can. Do whatever makes you happy, and be proud of it. And if the jackasses of the world get their panties all in a bunch, you know you are doing it right.
Words have tremendous power. Even when you are throwing them away on a dumb little blog. And this tiny little splash that I doubt many people have even noticed still contributes to the growing ripple that will one day change the world.
And that is very cool indeed.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Proposition Hate
Let’s talk about lies for a moment. Specifically, let’s talk about liars. When I say liars, I don’t mean people who have told a lie, or even people who lie often. A lie does not a liar make, just as a theft does not create a thief. I don’t even mean people who habitually lie, and have only told the truth maybe once or twice in their entire lives, so long as they do it for entirely selfish reasons. No, a true liar, a filthy, goddamn, piece of shit liar is someone who lies to impose their will on others.
I can understand the people who lie for self-serving purposes, their true motives are clear, but the fucking Liars-with-a-capital-fucking-L, who knows what the hell they’re thinking. The idea that someone can see another person and think, “I need to protect this person from themselves,” simply confounds and repulses me. It’s an entirely new level of self-serving attitude, and it’s evil on a level that even puts most murderers to shame. After all, most murderers act out of passion or for personal gain. But deliberately misleading people to try to bring about your own vision of an ideal world, it’s social manipulation at its most twisted.
This past election day, a ballot measure was passed in the State of California revoking certain rights to a certain group of people. This measure was backed, in secret(note: see Addendum below), almost in total by the Mormon Church. While it’s despicable enough that they hid behind a token list of other names despite being the driving force behind the campaign, the campaign itself also hid behind wall of lies. Ironically, they portrayed their campaign to take away civil liberties as a defense of their own civil liberties. Their case was, of course, entirely made up.
The Mormons spent 80 million dollars to cover the state with lies. And it worked. Of course it worked, because how do you counter such a thing? Who could ever imagine that someone would spend 80 million dollars promoting hate? You simply can’t match that figure to oppose it, because in sane society people don’t go around spending millions of dollars to destroy something that offends them and causes them no harm whatsoever. I’d like to think that people would spend a good deal more than 80 million dollars promoting love, but that’s a far different animal than opposing hate. People just can’t conceive of that amount of hate, because it’s an inconceivable amount. It’s crazy. It’s something only a sociopath would do. It’s Nazi-like in its conception, though admittedly much smaller in scope. But at least Hitler was upfront about what he was doing.
This tears me up inside, not least of all because I was raised by people who to this day continue to count themselves as Mormons. Betrayal is perhaps the wrong word, as I didn’t have any faith in the Mormon church to begin with, but on some level I do feel betrayed. For good or for ill, Mormonism remains a large part of my childhood, and much as I’d like to I can’t just shut it off. That church gave me some wonderful friends, and it did much to help me find my identity, to shape me as a person, even though the shape that took form was in opposition to everything the church stood for. So when it goes out of its way to stomp on the dreams of people I care about, and thousands more, I guess that does in fact read something like betrayal.
Joseph Smith started a religion so he could have sex with teenage girls. That’s bad, but it doesn’t make me hate the religion. He led a bloody coup against the United States, but that doesn’t make me hate the Mormons. Brigham Young ordered THE MASS MURDER OF OVER A HUNDRED UNARMED INNOCENT PEOPLE, yet I still cannot hate him for it, because it was done out of ignorance and fear. But this, this is too much. This is enough for me to finally say, I hate the Mormon church.
I hate the Mormon church. Earlier I mentioned how the majority of murderers are better than this breed of liars, but I left out one class of murderer. The final type of people who kill are those that think that their victims would be much better off dead. And that’s what it boils down to, that the logic of these people who are out to save the world from itself is the logic of a psychopath. And there’s really no defense against that. In the same way that a serial killer can terrorize a city for years without being caught, organizations like the Mormon church can continue to pour money into deceptive campaigns for whatever stupid, crazy act of intolerance takes their fancy. Because there is no motive, no good reason for them to be doing what they are doing. You cannot outmaneuver them because they are not maneuvering. It’s a mental illness, and there is no logical way to counter it.
Usually, I like to end these with an idea to change something, to bring about some glimmer of hope. But I honestly see no solution here. You can’t win an argument with a crazy person, you can only hope that eventually everyone else will see that your opponent is crazy. And since everyone is so worried about trampling on anyone else’s feelings, it could be a long time before people start to see that. So instead of trying to find the good in this situation, because damned if I can see any, I’m just going to say one final thing to make myself feel better.
Fuck you, Mormon church.
ADDENDUM: Since writing this, someone has made the point to me that their stupid fucking church wasn't acting in secret. I disagree. The Mormon church never issued any sort of public statement backing the proposition, and the despite encouraging their members to dig deep for donations, not a single cent was donated by the leaders at the top. They obviously didn't want their role to be known because the church would be flooded with bad press, like it is right now. Just because they failed completely and utterly at covering it up does not mean that they didn't intend to keep their influence in the matter a secret.
I can understand the people who lie for self-serving purposes, their true motives are clear, but the fucking Liars-with-a-capital-fucking-L, who knows what the hell they’re thinking. The idea that someone can see another person and think, “I need to protect this person from themselves,” simply confounds and repulses me. It’s an entirely new level of self-serving attitude, and it’s evil on a level that even puts most murderers to shame. After all, most murderers act out of passion or for personal gain. But deliberately misleading people to try to bring about your own vision of an ideal world, it’s social manipulation at its most twisted.
This past election day, a ballot measure was passed in the State of California revoking certain rights to a certain group of people. This measure was backed, in secret(note: see Addendum below), almost in total by the Mormon Church. While it’s despicable enough that they hid behind a token list of other names despite being the driving force behind the campaign, the campaign itself also hid behind wall of lies. Ironically, they portrayed their campaign to take away civil liberties as a defense of their own civil liberties. Their case was, of course, entirely made up.
The Mormons spent 80 million dollars to cover the state with lies. And it worked. Of course it worked, because how do you counter such a thing? Who could ever imagine that someone would spend 80 million dollars promoting hate? You simply can’t match that figure to oppose it, because in sane society people don’t go around spending millions of dollars to destroy something that offends them and causes them no harm whatsoever. I’d like to think that people would spend a good deal more than 80 million dollars promoting love, but that’s a far different animal than opposing hate. People just can’t conceive of that amount of hate, because it’s an inconceivable amount. It’s crazy. It’s something only a sociopath would do. It’s Nazi-like in its conception, though admittedly much smaller in scope. But at least Hitler was upfront about what he was doing.
This tears me up inside, not least of all because I was raised by people who to this day continue to count themselves as Mormons. Betrayal is perhaps the wrong word, as I didn’t have any faith in the Mormon church to begin with, but on some level I do feel betrayed. For good or for ill, Mormonism remains a large part of my childhood, and much as I’d like to I can’t just shut it off. That church gave me some wonderful friends, and it did much to help me find my identity, to shape me as a person, even though the shape that took form was in opposition to everything the church stood for. So when it goes out of its way to stomp on the dreams of people I care about, and thousands more, I guess that does in fact read something like betrayal.
Joseph Smith started a religion so he could have sex with teenage girls. That’s bad, but it doesn’t make me hate the religion. He led a bloody coup against the United States, but that doesn’t make me hate the Mormons. Brigham Young ordered THE MASS MURDER OF OVER A HUNDRED UNARMED INNOCENT PEOPLE, yet I still cannot hate him for it, because it was done out of ignorance and fear. But this, this is too much. This is enough for me to finally say, I hate the Mormon church.
I hate the Mormon church. Earlier I mentioned how the majority of murderers are better than this breed of liars, but I left out one class of murderer. The final type of people who kill are those that think that their victims would be much better off dead. And that’s what it boils down to, that the logic of these people who are out to save the world from itself is the logic of a psychopath. And there’s really no defense against that. In the same way that a serial killer can terrorize a city for years without being caught, organizations like the Mormon church can continue to pour money into deceptive campaigns for whatever stupid, crazy act of intolerance takes their fancy. Because there is no motive, no good reason for them to be doing what they are doing. You cannot outmaneuver them because they are not maneuvering. It’s a mental illness, and there is no logical way to counter it.
Usually, I like to end these with an idea to change something, to bring about some glimmer of hope. But I honestly see no solution here. You can’t win an argument with a crazy person, you can only hope that eventually everyone else will see that your opponent is crazy. And since everyone is so worried about trampling on anyone else’s feelings, it could be a long time before people start to see that. So instead of trying to find the good in this situation, because damned if I can see any, I’m just going to say one final thing to make myself feel better.
Fuck you, Mormon church.
ADDENDUM: Since writing this, someone has made the point to me that their stupid fucking church wasn't acting in secret. I disagree. The Mormon church never issued any sort of public statement backing the proposition, and the despite encouraging their members to dig deep for donations, not a single cent was donated by the leaders at the top. They obviously didn't want their role to be known because the church would be flooded with bad press, like it is right now. Just because they failed completely and utterly at covering it up does not mean that they didn't intend to keep their influence in the matter a secret.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Dick Shandley and the Altamont Divide
Dick Shandley was an unassuming man. He made it a point never to judge people. Never to think good or ill of them or their choices. That wasn’t his job. His job was to insert himself into their lives and expose them as liars and frauds. Dick was a private investigator.
Because of his unassuming nature, he regarded the nervous little man sitting in his office with polite detachment. So what if his eyes had the unsettling quality of never really settling on one thing, instead ceaselessly darting around the room, like a staccato metronome set on “crazy?” Dick knew that this behavior usually indicated that the speaker was lying, just like the beads of sweat at the mans brow, the nervous shuffling of his feet, and the fact that he was wringing his hands so hard he could have crushed walnuts into diamonds. But because he was a man of an unassuming sensibility, he ignored all of this. He ignored, but he also kept his hand on the gun in his pocket.
The man in the chair was in his 50s, with an actively receding hairline and large, thick glasses. What was left of his hair was black, too black, and greasy. He was wearing a dark-colored suit that he seemed to have borrowed from someone two sizes larger than him, and the one thing that bugged Dick was that one of his socks was a slightly darker shade of brown than the other. He jotted down a quick note on his notepad, “Investigate socks.”
“And that’s when the trouble started,” the man said. Dick nodded his head. He wasn’t actually paying attention to what the man was saying, because he was too busy writing down the sock comment, but he knew if he asked him to repeat it, it would hurt the image of his unassuming nature. So he acted as though he had been paying attention all along, and asked the man to continue.
“I trust you know of the incident on the Altamont Speedway on December 6, 1969?” asked the man.
“Of course,” replied Dick, “Hell’s Angels, a handful dead, several injured. It was the end of free love, ‘the day the music died.’”
“Well spoken. Well, as I’m sure you know, the fortieth anniversary of the event is coming up soon, two weeks from now, in fact, and as it gets closer the… incidents have started occurring more often.”
Incidents? Dick wondered what the hell he could mean by incidents. If only he had paid attention earlier. He looked into the man’s eyes for some sort of clue, but they refused to meet his, instead continuing to dance around the room. As he watched, he noticed that the mans eyebrows almost came together to join into a single brow, save for a perfectly circular patch of bare skin in the center. This was interesting, he would have to write this down. He did so, and then looked up again at his client.
“--and then they just vanish. So, Mr. Shandley, what do you think?”
Shit, he had done it again. He would have to continue to fake his way through the conversation.
“Uh, first why don’t you tell me what you think?”
“Well, as I mentioned before, I’m not an expert on this sort of thing, but as I understand it, spirits can be drawn to areas of strong emotional events.”
Ghosts! Aha!
Dick breathed a sigh of relief, because now he knew what the case was all about. The paranormal was something of a specialty of his. Most of his cases were paranormal in origin, a decision he had made because they were the easiest cases he had ever gotten. Ninety percent of the time, he could simply pull out an old walkman he had glued some aluminum foil to, wave it around, say some spooky things and then declare the apparition evicted, and collect his fee. The other ten percent, well, those required some quick thinking.
“So you want me to head out to Altamont to hunt some ghosts, right?”
“Well, that’s not exactly how I’d put it, but yes.”
“I can be on a plane tonight.” Dick leapt to his feet, shook the man’s hand, grabbed his hat and coat and rushed out the door. The man was left standing in Dick’s office, alone and confused. He wondered if Dick had forgotten to lock the door, but looking around, realized that there was not anything worth stealing. Once he had waited long enough to be sure that Shandley wasn’t coming back, he too walked out the door.
---
Dick Shandley arrived at the Altamont Speedway early in the morning, to make sure it was empty. He didn’t want a lot of people around to wonder what it was he was looking for. Actually, Dick wasn’t so sure himself what he was looking for, but he knew he was looking for something, and that set his mind at ease.
He remembered his client saying something about people going missing, but he wasn’t really sure how to check that out. Dick didn’t trust the police, and it was too early for the library to be open to check the newspapers. Well, if he couldn’t follow his only lead, he would have to create one himself. He turned his attention toward the only other person he could find, a man half-heartedly pushing a broom around.
“Hey, buddy,” he shouted, “you know anything about these disappearances?”
“Yeah, my brother disappeared last week!”
That was convenient.
“Anything you can tell me about his disappearance?”
The man moved closer to him. “Yeah, it happened right over there.” He pointed at a small empty space between two portable toilets.
“What do you mean it happened over there?”
“Well, I saw it. He was standing over there, then there was a flash, and then he wasn’t standing there no more.”
“And the place he was standing, it was that little nook between the port-a-potties?”
“That’s it.”
“Why was he standing there?” Dick rightly asked.
The man shrugged. “Derek was always fond of tight, smelly places.” Dick could have used this opportunity to make a crude joke at the man’s expense, but he refrained, instead thanking him for his time.
Dick quickly worked his way into the small gap, wedging himself into a very stinky crevice. Realizing the impact of what he was doing, but unable to come up with a suitable witticism, he simply muttered the word “anus” under his breath. The moment he spoke it, he was instantly blinded by a bright light, and he felt his stomach pulled sharply downward. Before he knew it he was falling freely, surrounded by total darkness. This was particularly surprising, as he had still been trying to come up with poop jokes, and was having a little trouble processing this all.
Before long, the falling stopped, and Dick’s eyes had to readjust to the white room that had formed around him. The first thing he noticed was the eerie quality of the walls, if you could call them that, because they did not seem to have any substance, just endless white, stretching off into the distance. He also was not sure what he was standing on, as there was really no discernable floor. The second thing he noticed was that he was not alone.
Standing near him was a silver-haired man wearing a dark suit. The suit, like the man, had something of a timeless style about it. It had no buttons, yet that did not stop it from remaining firmly closed. An odd thought entered Dick’s head, that it was as though the suit had evolved beyond the need for buttons. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but that was unmistakably the impression he got. The man seemed young, monochrome hair aside, yet there was an ancient and knowing quality about his eyes.
“Good evening, Mr. Shandley,” said the man. His voice was soft and reassuring, yet there was a kind of menace there too, like the translation of a nightmare. “It was very nice of you to visit speak the ancient word so you could visit me.”
Dick was curious about how the man knew his name, but there was one thing he was even more curious about. “The ancient word is ‘ANUS?’”
“Oh yes, you see I was imprisoned here long ago in this place, the Trilogic Dimension. Those who trapped me here sealed the rift with a word that they knew nobody would ever say. The most unpleasant word they could think of.”
“Well, apparently they fucked up. After all, I said ‘anus’ and I’m guessing all those other people who I think might have gone missing, maybe. Right?”
“Indeed, you are correct, Mr. Shandley. These others you speak of, they became my prisoners. You see, I am the Game Master, and the only way out of this place is to defeat me in a game of skill!”
Shandley let out a deep laugh. “Are you serious? The Game Master? Did you come up with that name in your parents’ basement?”
“Fine. My name is Steve, okay? Are you happy? To leave this place you must defeat the ancient and powerful Steve.”
“So to get out of here I have to play Dungeons and Dragons with the Great Steve?”
Steve laughed. “If you’ll recall, I said we would play a game of skill.” Steve snapped his fingers, and suddenly a table appeared, with what appeared to be a chess board with triangular spaces, and a sawed off shotgun next to it.
“The game,” declared Steve, “is known as pan-dimensional shotgun chess. The rules are similar to standard chess, except each space has a light component, and a dark component. This affects which pieces can be captured, and when. Also, the knight moves six spaces instead of the standard five, the queen can only capture while moving diagonally, and the bishop must change between light and dark configurations on every turn. Do you understand?” Dick did not understand.
“Don’t worry,” Steve continued, “either you will pick it up when we start playing, or you will lose and be trapped here forever. Another thing to be aware of is that at the end of each turn, you will be transported to a sub-dimension where you must face a challenge of both wits and physical ability. Try not to die during these, because they can be quite dangerous. Finally, you will notice the shotgun on the table. This can be a great asset to you, but be aware you can only use it once, so make it count. In order to use the shotgun...”
He did not finish, because at this point Dick picked up the shotgun and fired it into Steve’s chest, killing him instantly. As soon as Steve’s bloody corpse hit the ground, a rope was lowered from the sky. Dick climbed it, and soon found himself back at the Speedway.
Dick Shandley wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but then again that would be an assumption, and Dick Shandley was an unassuming man. He hadn’t found the missing people, and he wasn’t even sure that more wouldn’t wind up missing. But then, Dick knew that chasing perfection never led to anything but madness. There were just some mysteries better left unsolved. With that, Dick made his way to a little restaurant to get a bowl of clam chowder, and then returned to his hotel one last time to steal the sheets before catching the next flight home. It was a good day.
Because of his unassuming nature, he regarded the nervous little man sitting in his office with polite detachment. So what if his eyes had the unsettling quality of never really settling on one thing, instead ceaselessly darting around the room, like a staccato metronome set on “crazy?” Dick knew that this behavior usually indicated that the speaker was lying, just like the beads of sweat at the mans brow, the nervous shuffling of his feet, and the fact that he was wringing his hands so hard he could have crushed walnuts into diamonds. But because he was a man of an unassuming sensibility, he ignored all of this. He ignored, but he also kept his hand on the gun in his pocket.
The man in the chair was in his 50s, with an actively receding hairline and large, thick glasses. What was left of his hair was black, too black, and greasy. He was wearing a dark-colored suit that he seemed to have borrowed from someone two sizes larger than him, and the one thing that bugged Dick was that one of his socks was a slightly darker shade of brown than the other. He jotted down a quick note on his notepad, “Investigate socks.”
“And that’s when the trouble started,” the man said. Dick nodded his head. He wasn’t actually paying attention to what the man was saying, because he was too busy writing down the sock comment, but he knew if he asked him to repeat it, it would hurt the image of his unassuming nature. So he acted as though he had been paying attention all along, and asked the man to continue.
“I trust you know of the incident on the Altamont Speedway on December 6, 1969?” asked the man.
“Of course,” replied Dick, “Hell’s Angels, a handful dead, several injured. It was the end of free love, ‘the day the music died.’”
“Well spoken. Well, as I’m sure you know, the fortieth anniversary of the event is coming up soon, two weeks from now, in fact, and as it gets closer the… incidents have started occurring more often.”
Incidents? Dick wondered what the hell he could mean by incidents. If only he had paid attention earlier. He looked into the man’s eyes for some sort of clue, but they refused to meet his, instead continuing to dance around the room. As he watched, he noticed that the mans eyebrows almost came together to join into a single brow, save for a perfectly circular patch of bare skin in the center. This was interesting, he would have to write this down. He did so, and then looked up again at his client.
“--and then they just vanish. So, Mr. Shandley, what do you think?”
Shit, he had done it again. He would have to continue to fake his way through the conversation.
“Uh, first why don’t you tell me what you think?”
“Well, as I mentioned before, I’m not an expert on this sort of thing, but as I understand it, spirits can be drawn to areas of strong emotional events.”
Ghosts! Aha!
Dick breathed a sigh of relief, because now he knew what the case was all about. The paranormal was something of a specialty of his. Most of his cases were paranormal in origin, a decision he had made because they were the easiest cases he had ever gotten. Ninety percent of the time, he could simply pull out an old walkman he had glued some aluminum foil to, wave it around, say some spooky things and then declare the apparition evicted, and collect his fee. The other ten percent, well, those required some quick thinking.
“So you want me to head out to Altamont to hunt some ghosts, right?”
“Well, that’s not exactly how I’d put it, but yes.”
“I can be on a plane tonight.” Dick leapt to his feet, shook the man’s hand, grabbed his hat and coat and rushed out the door. The man was left standing in Dick’s office, alone and confused. He wondered if Dick had forgotten to lock the door, but looking around, realized that there was not anything worth stealing. Once he had waited long enough to be sure that Shandley wasn’t coming back, he too walked out the door.
---
Dick Shandley arrived at the Altamont Speedway early in the morning, to make sure it was empty. He didn’t want a lot of people around to wonder what it was he was looking for. Actually, Dick wasn’t so sure himself what he was looking for, but he knew he was looking for something, and that set his mind at ease.
He remembered his client saying something about people going missing, but he wasn’t really sure how to check that out. Dick didn’t trust the police, and it was too early for the library to be open to check the newspapers. Well, if he couldn’t follow his only lead, he would have to create one himself. He turned his attention toward the only other person he could find, a man half-heartedly pushing a broom around.
“Hey, buddy,” he shouted, “you know anything about these disappearances?”
“Yeah, my brother disappeared last week!”
That was convenient.
“Anything you can tell me about his disappearance?”
The man moved closer to him. “Yeah, it happened right over there.” He pointed at a small empty space between two portable toilets.
“What do you mean it happened over there?”
“Well, I saw it. He was standing over there, then there was a flash, and then he wasn’t standing there no more.”
“And the place he was standing, it was that little nook between the port-a-potties?”
“That’s it.”
“Why was he standing there?” Dick rightly asked.
The man shrugged. “Derek was always fond of tight, smelly places.” Dick could have used this opportunity to make a crude joke at the man’s expense, but he refrained, instead thanking him for his time.
Dick quickly worked his way into the small gap, wedging himself into a very stinky crevice. Realizing the impact of what he was doing, but unable to come up with a suitable witticism, he simply muttered the word “anus” under his breath. The moment he spoke it, he was instantly blinded by a bright light, and he felt his stomach pulled sharply downward. Before he knew it he was falling freely, surrounded by total darkness. This was particularly surprising, as he had still been trying to come up with poop jokes, and was having a little trouble processing this all.
Before long, the falling stopped, and Dick’s eyes had to readjust to the white room that had formed around him. The first thing he noticed was the eerie quality of the walls, if you could call them that, because they did not seem to have any substance, just endless white, stretching off into the distance. He also was not sure what he was standing on, as there was really no discernable floor. The second thing he noticed was that he was not alone.
Standing near him was a silver-haired man wearing a dark suit. The suit, like the man, had something of a timeless style about it. It had no buttons, yet that did not stop it from remaining firmly closed. An odd thought entered Dick’s head, that it was as though the suit had evolved beyond the need for buttons. He wasn’t sure where it came from, but that was unmistakably the impression he got. The man seemed young, monochrome hair aside, yet there was an ancient and knowing quality about his eyes.
“Good evening, Mr. Shandley,” said the man. His voice was soft and reassuring, yet there was a kind of menace there too, like the translation of a nightmare. “It was very nice of you to visit speak the ancient word so you could visit me.”
Dick was curious about how the man knew his name, but there was one thing he was even more curious about. “The ancient word is ‘ANUS?’”
“Oh yes, you see I was imprisoned here long ago in this place, the Trilogic Dimension. Those who trapped me here sealed the rift with a word that they knew nobody would ever say. The most unpleasant word they could think of.”
“Well, apparently they fucked up. After all, I said ‘anus’ and I’m guessing all those other people who I think might have gone missing, maybe. Right?”
“Indeed, you are correct, Mr. Shandley. These others you speak of, they became my prisoners. You see, I am the Game Master, and the only way out of this place is to defeat me in a game of skill!”
Shandley let out a deep laugh. “Are you serious? The Game Master? Did you come up with that name in your parents’ basement?”
“Fine. My name is Steve, okay? Are you happy? To leave this place you must defeat the ancient and powerful Steve.”
“So to get out of here I have to play Dungeons and Dragons with the Great Steve?”
Steve laughed. “If you’ll recall, I said we would play a game of skill.” Steve snapped his fingers, and suddenly a table appeared, with what appeared to be a chess board with triangular spaces, and a sawed off shotgun next to it.
“The game,” declared Steve, “is known as pan-dimensional shotgun chess. The rules are similar to standard chess, except each space has a light component, and a dark component. This affects which pieces can be captured, and when. Also, the knight moves six spaces instead of the standard five, the queen can only capture while moving diagonally, and the bishop must change between light and dark configurations on every turn. Do you understand?” Dick did not understand.
“Don’t worry,” Steve continued, “either you will pick it up when we start playing, or you will lose and be trapped here forever. Another thing to be aware of is that at the end of each turn, you will be transported to a sub-dimension where you must face a challenge of both wits and physical ability. Try not to die during these, because they can be quite dangerous. Finally, you will notice the shotgun on the table. This can be a great asset to you, but be aware you can only use it once, so make it count. In order to use the shotgun...”
He did not finish, because at this point Dick picked up the shotgun and fired it into Steve’s chest, killing him instantly. As soon as Steve’s bloody corpse hit the ground, a rope was lowered from the sky. Dick climbed it, and soon found himself back at the Speedway.
Dick Shandley wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, but then again that would be an assumption, and Dick Shandley was an unassuming man. He hadn’t found the missing people, and he wasn’t even sure that more wouldn’t wind up missing. But then, Dick knew that chasing perfection never led to anything but madness. There were just some mysteries better left unsolved. With that, Dick made his way to a little restaurant to get a bowl of clam chowder, and then returned to his hotel one last time to steal the sheets before catching the next flight home. It was a good day.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Why Super Mario Bros. 3 Was Overrated - and Why EVERYONE is wrong about Super Mario Galaxy
A while ago I mentioned that I thought Super Mario Bros. 3 was overrated and that Super Mario World was far superior. I thought I would take some time to clarify my comments, mainly because they were brief and dismissive, owing to the fact that they were a one-off in a post on an unrelated topic. That, and I want to stat an oh-so-timely discussion about Super Mario Galaxy, which came out about a year ago. So, let's start digging at some old wounds, shall we?
The only word fit to fully describe Super Mario Bros. 3 (which, for brevity, shall henceforth be known as Mario 3) is "extravagant." To understand what I mean by this, let's take a look at the history of the series. The original Super Mario Bros. was clean and simplistic, yet depth existed, not in the form of thousands of collectibles or side quests, but in the form of its basic gameplay mechanics and the pure joy of movement. The fact that it was instantly understandable and fun, and its complex yet intuitive gameplay is what made it such a huge hit, and why it continues to be appealing even today. When the sequel was finally going to come out, there were certain expectations about what the game would be like.
Of course, all those expectations were broken. As we all know, Mario 2 was different. Very different. Even though it had the same characters as the first game, it was barely recognizable as a Mario game. Instantly this turned a lot of people off, people who simply wanted more of the same thing. When it was finally printed in Nintendo Power, for in those pre-Internet times Nintendo Power was our only source for game-related news, the news spread quickly that this wasn't a Mario game at all, but some unrelated Japanese game that had Mario shoehorned in to appeal to American gamers. Thus, Mario 2 was seen as an impostor, a pretender to the throne, a subpar game hiding behind the mask of our beloved Super Mario. In truth, these statements are unfair, as Mario 2 was a good game, and definitely better than Mario 3. It amuses me how people who practically worship Shigeru Miyamoto decry this game for ripping off his work, when it was Miyamoto who designed it in the first place, and in fact had nothing to do with what fans consider the "true" sequel, the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2. However, it also makes me sad, as this attitude is exactly what ruined Mario 3.
This attempt by Miyamoto to continue to innovate in games and take them in new directions was met by indifference by fans both American and Japanese, yet the Japanese took to the official Mario sequel. The Japanese Mario 2 was essentially the same game as the first, yet made arbitrarily harder, with new items and abilities. It played like Mario 1 with all the fun sucked out of it. Everything about the game was mean, from the ridiculous number of jumps that could only be made if your reaction time was about 1/30 of a second, mushrooms that would hurt you and were virtually indistinguishable from the good ones, and secret warp zones that actually sent you backwards in the game. Doki Doki Panic (the game that in America became Mario 2) was fun, and Mario 2 was soulless yet hardcore. At this time, gamers voted with their wallets that they preferred the latter.
Since the preferred Mario 2 was the same game with some extras, there was nowhere left to go with the third one except to release the same game with a fucking shitload of extras. Huge worlds, lots of crazy powerups, alternate routes through the level maps, the ability to collect powerups for use on a specific level, this game had a lot of extraneous shit. You can see this simply in a list of the powerups in the game. In addition to the classic mushroom, flower, and star this game had a leaf that turned you into a flying raccoon, a suit that lets you throw hammers into a useless upward arc, a suit that's basically the same as the leaf except you can turn into a statue, which serves no purpose whatsoever, a suit that made you hop around like a frog, making it extremely difficult to control, and a giant shoe that you could hop around in like a maniac, usually right into a pit. And to think people accuse New Super Mario Bros of having a lot of useless items.
I've heard it said that Super Mario World ruined Nintendo. This notion is wrong. World was an attempt to pare down the bullshit and return Mario to the state of being something fun, rather than being a "videogame." But the damage was already done, not just to Nintendo, but to the entire industry. From then on the focus has changed from creating interesting experiences to making things more "videogamey." There's a formula now, and it's depressing. It's all about stats, and scores, and learning curves, and it just needs to stop. Had Doki Doki Panic done well, the face of gaming might have been very different indeed, for the better.
In fact, between World and Mario 64, it seemed like maybe Nintendo was back on track again. Though World was still part of the same formula that would eventually suck the entire gaming industry dry of innovation, unlike the game that inspired it this was a game that believed that less was more. It replaced all those useless extra powerups with one, one which enabled flight with a wonderfully difficult and complex timing based mechanic that was entirely optional to the completion of the game. Mario 64 added the collection of stars, which was intended to expand the game and make it more open-ended, but really just ended up bogging down the experience with an unnecessary and tedious collection status. There was no logical reason to be collecting these things, other than that you needed them, and they ended up segmenting what should have been a cohesive experience. On the other hand, the game finally managed to recapture the original Super Mario Bros. in terms of fun and joy of movement. Sadly, only the tedious part would endure.
Super Mario Sunshine was, to reuse a phrase that should now have become all too familiar, Mario 64 with all the fun removed. You still had the quest of collecting all 120 thing-a-ma-doos, but without the wonderful physics or sense of presence of the previous game. People rightfully hated the game, but oddly enough praised the sections of the game where the water pack was removed and the player transported to a platforming world made of simplistic blocks. There are two problems with this. One, the water pack was the central mechanic of the game, so it's pretty fucked up that removing it makes the game better. Two, these parts of the game sucked. These sections were described by most people as "challenging," but what they really were was unfair. You would never miss these jumps because you messed up the timing or misjudged the angle. You would miss them because of the terrible camera and floaty physics. This was why the water pack was invaluable in that game, you needed that hover to compensate for these design deficiencies. However, despite the fact that the game was completely broken, there were some clever things going on with the use of water in that game. This became a sign of the Miyamoto to come for the next while, interesting ideas with poor execution. This can probably be owed to the fact that Miyamoto is now simply an idea man, giving birth to wonderful concepts and then stepping aside as others see them through to completion.
Which brings us to Super Mario Galaxy. No matter what you think of this game, you are wrong. Think it's a worthy successor to Mario 64? You are wrong. Think it's a poorly designed game? You are wrong. Think it's a decent game that was over hyped? You are wrong. Think it's exemplary of what has been going wrong with Nintendo for a while now? Guess what? You are wrong. Because here is what Galaxy really is, and I have never seen anyone ever point this out:
Super Mario Galaxy is the best Sonic the Hedgehog game ever made.
Take a moment to let that sink in. It's a heady idea to be sure, and one that is not free of irony. But think about it for a bit and it will begin to make sense.
Galaxy is a game where you never stop moving. Sure, you CAN stop, but then again so could Sonic. Yet for some reason you don't. In both games, some unseen force compels you to continue moving, to continue driving forward. This presence has never been felt in any previous Mario game, each one taking place at a fairly relaxed pace, despite the fact that the majority of them have time limits. In Galaxy, the impulse to keep moving is helped along by the fact that you always know where to go. If this were a Mario game, this would be called hand-holding, but viewed as a Sonic game, this is simply streamlining. Still not convinced this game is a Sonic game? Alright, try this on for size: Mario's main form of attack in the game is a spinning move that briefly makes him both invincible and deadly. Sound familiar?
Now that we've established Galaxy as Sonic game, on to the second part of my claim, that it is in fact the BEST Sonic game. The problem with the Sonic the Hedgehog games is that they are not just game, but also tech demo. For the Genesis to prove its superiority over Nintendo's systems, they had to demonstrate that their games could render at ludicrous speeds. So they made Sonic fast. Really fast. Too fast, in fact. Sonic's incredible speed is a hindrance to the level design of the games. Because the player cannot see the obstacles ahead, all of the levels either have to be nothing but a pretty roller coaster, or they have to throw up a vertical wall to slow the player down for a more slow paced platforming section. It's once you've started to memorize the layouts of these harder platforming sections that the true joy of the game comes out, moving at a brisk pace through dangerous terrain. Anyone who has ever truly loved a Sonic game will understand that it's not really about speed, it's about momentum.
Galaxy cuts the speed in order to preserve all that wonderful momentum while still letting you retain a sense of control and accomplishment. They've even managed to include the "wow" factor of the old experience of going through loops and spirals at full speed, in the form of the star cannons that launch you from planetoid to planetoid. When the idea of Super Mario Galaxy rocketed from Miyamoto's brain down to earth, whoever picked it up must have been someone who truly understood and loved Sonic the Hedgehog.
So, this concludes my brief history of the Mario games. The series rose, started to fall with Mario 3, and finally transformed into Sonic the Hedgehog. Meanwhile, the Sonic games transformed into utter shit. Growing up in the 1990s, one had to take sides either with Mario or Sonic, for the two were representative of their consoles, constantly at war. It's hard to say who won out, Sega for crafting such an incredible concept, or Nintendo for finally realizing it so fully. Either way, Mario and Sonic are now one and the same, and perhaps the fighting can finally stop.
The only word fit to fully describe Super Mario Bros. 3 (which, for brevity, shall henceforth be known as Mario 3) is "extravagant." To understand what I mean by this, let's take a look at the history of the series. The original Super Mario Bros. was clean and simplistic, yet depth existed, not in the form of thousands of collectibles or side quests, but in the form of its basic gameplay mechanics and the pure joy of movement. The fact that it was instantly understandable and fun, and its complex yet intuitive gameplay is what made it such a huge hit, and why it continues to be appealing even today. When the sequel was finally going to come out, there were certain expectations about what the game would be like.
Of course, all those expectations were broken. As we all know, Mario 2 was different. Very different. Even though it had the same characters as the first game, it was barely recognizable as a Mario game. Instantly this turned a lot of people off, people who simply wanted more of the same thing. When it was finally printed in Nintendo Power, for in those pre-Internet times Nintendo Power was our only source for game-related news, the news spread quickly that this wasn't a Mario game at all, but some unrelated Japanese game that had Mario shoehorned in to appeal to American gamers. Thus, Mario 2 was seen as an impostor, a pretender to the throne, a subpar game hiding behind the mask of our beloved Super Mario. In truth, these statements are unfair, as Mario 2 was a good game, and definitely better than Mario 3. It amuses me how people who practically worship Shigeru Miyamoto decry this game for ripping off his work, when it was Miyamoto who designed it in the first place, and in fact had nothing to do with what fans consider the "true" sequel, the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2. However, it also makes me sad, as this attitude is exactly what ruined Mario 3.
This attempt by Miyamoto to continue to innovate in games and take them in new directions was met by indifference by fans both American and Japanese, yet the Japanese took to the official Mario sequel. The Japanese Mario 2 was essentially the same game as the first, yet made arbitrarily harder, with new items and abilities. It played like Mario 1 with all the fun sucked out of it. Everything about the game was mean, from the ridiculous number of jumps that could only be made if your reaction time was about 1/30 of a second, mushrooms that would hurt you and were virtually indistinguishable from the good ones, and secret warp zones that actually sent you backwards in the game. Doki Doki Panic (the game that in America became Mario 2) was fun, and Mario 2 was soulless yet hardcore. At this time, gamers voted with their wallets that they preferred the latter.
Since the preferred Mario 2 was the same game with some extras, there was nowhere left to go with the third one except to release the same game with a fucking shitload of extras. Huge worlds, lots of crazy powerups, alternate routes through the level maps, the ability to collect powerups for use on a specific level, this game had a lot of extraneous shit. You can see this simply in a list of the powerups in the game. In addition to the classic mushroom, flower, and star this game had a leaf that turned you into a flying raccoon, a suit that lets you throw hammers into a useless upward arc, a suit that's basically the same as the leaf except you can turn into a statue, which serves no purpose whatsoever, a suit that made you hop around like a frog, making it extremely difficult to control, and a giant shoe that you could hop around in like a maniac, usually right into a pit. And to think people accuse New Super Mario Bros of having a lot of useless items.
I've heard it said that Super Mario World ruined Nintendo. This notion is wrong. World was an attempt to pare down the bullshit and return Mario to the state of being something fun, rather than being a "videogame." But the damage was already done, not just to Nintendo, but to the entire industry. From then on the focus has changed from creating interesting experiences to making things more "videogamey." There's a formula now, and it's depressing. It's all about stats, and scores, and learning curves, and it just needs to stop. Had Doki Doki Panic done well, the face of gaming might have been very different indeed, for the better.
In fact, between World and Mario 64, it seemed like maybe Nintendo was back on track again. Though World was still part of the same formula that would eventually suck the entire gaming industry dry of innovation, unlike the game that inspired it this was a game that believed that less was more. It replaced all those useless extra powerups with one, one which enabled flight with a wonderfully difficult and complex timing based mechanic that was entirely optional to the completion of the game. Mario 64 added the collection of stars, which was intended to expand the game and make it more open-ended, but really just ended up bogging down the experience with an unnecessary and tedious collection status. There was no logical reason to be collecting these things, other than that you needed them, and they ended up segmenting what should have been a cohesive experience. On the other hand, the game finally managed to recapture the original Super Mario Bros. in terms of fun and joy of movement. Sadly, only the tedious part would endure.
Super Mario Sunshine was, to reuse a phrase that should now have become all too familiar, Mario 64 with all the fun removed. You still had the quest of collecting all 120 thing-a-ma-doos, but without the wonderful physics or sense of presence of the previous game. People rightfully hated the game, but oddly enough praised the sections of the game where the water pack was removed and the player transported to a platforming world made of simplistic blocks. There are two problems with this. One, the water pack was the central mechanic of the game, so it's pretty fucked up that removing it makes the game better. Two, these parts of the game sucked. These sections were described by most people as "challenging," but what they really were was unfair. You would never miss these jumps because you messed up the timing or misjudged the angle. You would miss them because of the terrible camera and floaty physics. This was why the water pack was invaluable in that game, you needed that hover to compensate for these design deficiencies. However, despite the fact that the game was completely broken, there were some clever things going on with the use of water in that game. This became a sign of the Miyamoto to come for the next while, interesting ideas with poor execution. This can probably be owed to the fact that Miyamoto is now simply an idea man, giving birth to wonderful concepts and then stepping aside as others see them through to completion.
Which brings us to Super Mario Galaxy. No matter what you think of this game, you are wrong. Think it's a worthy successor to Mario 64? You are wrong. Think it's a poorly designed game? You are wrong. Think it's a decent game that was over hyped? You are wrong. Think it's exemplary of what has been going wrong with Nintendo for a while now? Guess what? You are wrong. Because here is what Galaxy really is, and I have never seen anyone ever point this out:
Super Mario Galaxy is the best Sonic the Hedgehog game ever made.
Take a moment to let that sink in. It's a heady idea to be sure, and one that is not free of irony. But think about it for a bit and it will begin to make sense.
Galaxy is a game where you never stop moving. Sure, you CAN stop, but then again so could Sonic. Yet for some reason you don't. In both games, some unseen force compels you to continue moving, to continue driving forward. This presence has never been felt in any previous Mario game, each one taking place at a fairly relaxed pace, despite the fact that the majority of them have time limits. In Galaxy, the impulse to keep moving is helped along by the fact that you always know where to go. If this were a Mario game, this would be called hand-holding, but viewed as a Sonic game, this is simply streamlining. Still not convinced this game is a Sonic game? Alright, try this on for size: Mario's main form of attack in the game is a spinning move that briefly makes him both invincible and deadly. Sound familiar?
Now that we've established Galaxy as Sonic game, on to the second part of my claim, that it is in fact the BEST Sonic game. The problem with the Sonic the Hedgehog games is that they are not just game, but also tech demo. For the Genesis to prove its superiority over Nintendo's systems, they had to demonstrate that their games could render at ludicrous speeds. So they made Sonic fast. Really fast. Too fast, in fact. Sonic's incredible speed is a hindrance to the level design of the games. Because the player cannot see the obstacles ahead, all of the levels either have to be nothing but a pretty roller coaster, or they have to throw up a vertical wall to slow the player down for a more slow paced platforming section. It's once you've started to memorize the layouts of these harder platforming sections that the true joy of the game comes out, moving at a brisk pace through dangerous terrain. Anyone who has ever truly loved a Sonic game will understand that it's not really about speed, it's about momentum.
Galaxy cuts the speed in order to preserve all that wonderful momentum while still letting you retain a sense of control and accomplishment. They've even managed to include the "wow" factor of the old experience of going through loops and spirals at full speed, in the form of the star cannons that launch you from planetoid to planetoid. When the idea of Super Mario Galaxy rocketed from Miyamoto's brain down to earth, whoever picked it up must have been someone who truly understood and loved Sonic the Hedgehog.
So, this concludes my brief history of the Mario games. The series rose, started to fall with Mario 3, and finally transformed into Sonic the Hedgehog. Meanwhile, the Sonic games transformed into utter shit. Growing up in the 1990s, one had to take sides either with Mario or Sonic, for the two were representative of their consoles, constantly at war. It's hard to say who won out, Sega for crafting such an incredible concept, or Nintendo for finally realizing it so fully. Either way, Mario and Sonic are now one and the same, and perhaps the fighting can finally stop.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Mission Accomplished
It saddens me to say that this will be my last post, because I have finally achieved the goal that I set out when I started this blog. It's been a long, strange, somewhat infuriating trip, but all good things have to come to an end sometime. Before I started out, I made a promise to my self that I would quit once I had reached the zenith of my blogging career, and not flame out after a long period of gross irrelevance, like some pathetic nobody. I don't want to be like that band that you see in the shitty dive bar, whose name sounds familiar, and it bugs you for a while until you realize that they were some big name band in the 80s, and now they're playing in some shitty dump just to make rent. No, much better to gracefully bow out when you're at the top. And I think once I explain how I came to this decision, that you will agree that this is the best, and indeed only, course of action I can take. Here is the situation:
I got a hit from the following Google search string: "The effect of fucking in the ass"
That's it. I can't imagine it getting any better than this. I can't even make fun of this person, because it's just so perfect. Someone was looking for descriptions (and possibly illustrations) of a stretched out ass hole, and instead they found my meaningless rant page. That is just too great for words, and you can't make jokes about it, because the situation itself IS a joke. Obviously I have no choice but to bow out of the world of internet self-publishing forever. Thanks for reading, and never forget to always check your prejudices at the door. Peace out.
Postscript:
As is hopefully obvious, I am just kidding. The truth is I'm not worried about becoming irrelevant, because my blog is already irrelevant to most people's interests. I have, and will, in the future, continue to write in this space in a way that purely serves my own interests. And no, I don't pity the washed up 80s band. I love washed up 80s bands. If I could be anything I wanted to be, I would be in a washed up 80s band, playing in a shitty bar for unappreciative jerks. That's right, I want to die out slowly and painfully. The fact is, I will continue to maintain this blog long after I and anyone I know has lost interest. In fact, given Google's proclivity for archiving, this site may well last for as long as the human species continues to thrive, because I'm sure as hell not taking it down (If you are reading this post in the distant future, I hope you enjoy my opinions on your now historically ancient software and deities. Actually, I don't care whether you do or not, I was just being polite, though I honestly don't know why. In fact, fuck you, the future. You've never brought us anything but total annihilation by robots anyway. Honestly, I think we should build some kind of device that stops time so we never have to see the fucking future, but shit, I just realized that that kind of technology only exists in the future. Fuck). So look forward to many great times to come, followed by not so great times, followed by downright excruciating times. But hey, at least there will be times, right? And that's what really matters.
Postscript to the postscript:
In that last parenthetical, perhaps I was a bit hard on the future. The truth as, I actually have some very humanistic tendencies, and I have every reason to believe that the future is actually going to be pretty fucking great. I think that I'm being fairly objective when I say that the world is a better place than it was 10 years ago, 100 years ago, and 1000 years ago. I believe that today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow is going to be better than today, every day for a long, long time. But the futures depicted in science fiction are some fucked up futures. Those futures can kiss my ass. Seriously.
Postscript to the post-postscript:
I'm pretty sure this section is already longer than the original post. David Foster Wallace would be proud (If he weren't dead, and if he had any idea who I was when he was alive, or cared about the type of shit that I write about (Also, he might be pissed that I dissed the science fiction futures (Or maybe not, being fucked up is kind of the point, after all))). But now things have just gotten convoluted and silly, and I don't really have any idea where to go with this crazy idea.
Postscript to the post-post-postscript:
I like pie.
I got a hit from the following Google search string: "The effect of fucking in the ass"
That's it. I can't imagine it getting any better than this. I can't even make fun of this person, because it's just so perfect. Someone was looking for descriptions (and possibly illustrations) of a stretched out ass hole, and instead they found my meaningless rant page. That is just too great for words, and you can't make jokes about it, because the situation itself IS a joke. Obviously I have no choice but to bow out of the world of internet self-publishing forever. Thanks for reading, and never forget to always check your prejudices at the door. Peace out.
Postscript:
As is hopefully obvious, I am just kidding. The truth is I'm not worried about becoming irrelevant, because my blog is already irrelevant to most people's interests. I have, and will, in the future, continue to write in this space in a way that purely serves my own interests. And no, I don't pity the washed up 80s band. I love washed up 80s bands. If I could be anything I wanted to be, I would be in a washed up 80s band, playing in a shitty bar for unappreciative jerks. That's right, I want to die out slowly and painfully. The fact is, I will continue to maintain this blog long after I and anyone I know has lost interest. In fact, given Google's proclivity for archiving, this site may well last for as long as the human species continues to thrive, because I'm sure as hell not taking it down (If you are reading this post in the distant future, I hope you enjoy my opinions on your now historically ancient software and deities. Actually, I don't care whether you do or not, I was just being polite, though I honestly don't know why. In fact, fuck you, the future. You've never brought us anything but total annihilation by robots anyway. Honestly, I think we should build some kind of device that stops time so we never have to see the fucking future, but shit, I just realized that that kind of technology only exists in the future. Fuck). So look forward to many great times to come, followed by not so great times, followed by downright excruciating times. But hey, at least there will be times, right? And that's what really matters.
Postscript to the postscript:
In that last parenthetical, perhaps I was a bit hard on the future. The truth as, I actually have some very humanistic tendencies, and I have every reason to believe that the future is actually going to be pretty fucking great. I think that I'm being fairly objective when I say that the world is a better place than it was 10 years ago, 100 years ago, and 1000 years ago. I believe that today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow is going to be better than today, every day for a long, long time. But the futures depicted in science fiction are some fucked up futures. Those futures can kiss my ass. Seriously.
Postscript to the post-postscript:
I'm pretty sure this section is already longer than the original post. David Foster Wallace would be proud (If he weren't dead, and if he had any idea who I was when he was alive, or cared about the type of shit that I write about (Also, he might be pissed that I dissed the science fiction futures (Or maybe not, being fucked up is kind of the point, after all))). But now things have just gotten convoluted and silly, and I don't really have any idea where to go with this crazy idea.
Postscript to the post-post-postscript:
I like pie.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
On 'Athiests'
Here’s the thing: I love a good argument. This is because I don’t see them as a clashing of people, but as a clashing of ideas. History is made through arguments; new ideas are defined by pitting them against the old ones. More can be learned through the meeting of the minds than by any other method. Arguing with someone is inviting another thought process into your life, to present a point of view that you might not have considered. Mind you, I’m not talking about some kind of namby-pamby lovefest where everyone is right and everyone’s ideas are considered worthwhile and valuable, no matter how dumb they are. No, the most useful argument is one where no one holds back, and if you say something, you’d better be prepared to back it up. I say this so that when I say that I’ve been known to hit up religious message boards or chat rooms, you know that I’m not just some jackass looking for trouble.
On these message boards, an interesting misspelling crops up fairly often. The word, as depicted in millions of online message, is “athiest.” It is interesting to note, that it is always the religious who spell it this way, apparently all the atheists in the world know how to spell their own ideology. Now, one could take the easy way out and conclude that all believers are idiots (in fact, many do), but that doesn’t quite explain such widespread misuse of the word; after all, surely even some idiots own dictionaries. No, the answer is not intelligence, but rather the exercise of said intelligence. They misspell the word, because they are not used to using it. You see, these people don’t like arguments.
To love an argument is to not have any personal stake in it. My opinions are fluid, they can be changed. Not easily, mind you, I do have certain convictions that are powerfully cemented from years of observation and experience, but they can, and occasionally have been shifted. This cannot be said of the most vocally religious. These people are not fun to argue with. Anything you say to them will either be ignored or quickly forgotten. Instead of arguing a point, they will turn antagonistic, and either attack you directly or unpack their straw man and have a go at him.
I had an argument a little while ago with a mormon missionary when he mentioned he supported a certain upcoming ballot measure in the state of California that would outlaw gay marriage. Out of curiosity, I asked him what the difference between straight marriage and gay marriage was. He replied by pointing out the most obvious difference, which I guess is what I get for wording the question the way I did. I refined my query to “from a legal perspective, how is a marriage between two persons any less valid than a marriage between two other persons?” He replied that marriage is classically defined as between a man and a woman. That didn’t exactly answer my question, but I continued the debate anyway by pointing out that, in fact, marriage in this country was classically defined as between a white man and white woman, so obviously tradition is not a substantial reason to preserve an archaic law. He then said it was because homosexuality is unnatural, and no doubt in anticipation of my impending “how so?” elaborated that two persons of the same sex cannot have a baby. Well, obviously that was contrary to the facts, because there are lots of gay couples with babies, and I asked him if he thought that the “unnatural” practice of adoption was immoral. It went like this for a little while longer, until finally so many of his excuses had been shot down that the truth finally came out. It was because a preacher at a pulpit had said it was wrong. He said, “I know as an athiest (okay, it was a verbal conversation, but I could swear that the way he spoke it he put the ‘i’ before the ‘e’) that you wouldn’t understand what it’s like to have faith.” I replied that the only thing I didn’t understand was how we had talked for over an hour without the topic of religion coming up, when this was clearly the basis for his decision.
Faith, it seems leads people to duplicitous actions. Or, then again, maybe not. After all, what is faith? I would define faith as a confidence that is not based on proof. The religious use the words ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ interchangeably, but I do not think that they are. You can believe in something without having faith in it. Faith implies more, that not only what you believe in exists, but that it has the power to make everything okay. I do not think this young man had faith. I’m fairly certain he believes in his god, but he does not have faith in him. If he did, he would not be using half-assed, poorly thought out “logic” to try to convince me. He would have spoken from the heart, secure in the knowledge that eventually god would sort everything out.
If you believe in god, then you have one of two things: faith or fear. In my experience, it is the ones who have fear who are the most outspoken. These people are so frustrated by every little thing that dares contradict the thing that they so desperately desire, that they will spit out the most hateful, vitriolic nonsense you will ever hear in an attempt to destroy it. If you truly have faith, there should be no need to destroy anything. No pastor delivering an angry sermon, no street preacher crying judgment day, no evangelical speaking in tongues, nobody in a suit handing out flyers, no shouting conservative on cable news, and certainly no boy with a name tag and bicycle, none of them truly have faith. If they did, they would not need to rely on cheap theatrics and social pressures. In fact, they would not need to do anything, because they should already believe that everything is going to end well.
I’ve talked to people who have faith. They are generally much more productive than the believers who lack it. I’ve had some interesting, and much more honest arguments with people of faith. They haven’t been able to convince me to change my views, nor I them, but in the end we’ve usually learned something about each other. For those of you out there who believe in a god and have faith, real, honest faith, then let me say how much I respect you for that. I still disagree with you, and I will defend that position with everything I’ve got. But if you’ll allow me, I’ll buy you a nice cup of tea and we’ll sit down and have a good argument about it.
On these message boards, an interesting misspelling crops up fairly often. The word, as depicted in millions of online message, is “athiest.” It is interesting to note, that it is always the religious who spell it this way, apparently all the atheists in the world know how to spell their own ideology. Now, one could take the easy way out and conclude that all believers are idiots (in fact, many do), but that doesn’t quite explain such widespread misuse of the word; after all, surely even some idiots own dictionaries. No, the answer is not intelligence, but rather the exercise of said intelligence. They misspell the word, because they are not used to using it. You see, these people don’t like arguments.
To love an argument is to not have any personal stake in it. My opinions are fluid, they can be changed. Not easily, mind you, I do have certain convictions that are powerfully cemented from years of observation and experience, but they can, and occasionally have been shifted. This cannot be said of the most vocally religious. These people are not fun to argue with. Anything you say to them will either be ignored or quickly forgotten. Instead of arguing a point, they will turn antagonistic, and either attack you directly or unpack their straw man and have a go at him.
I had an argument a little while ago with a mormon missionary when he mentioned he supported a certain upcoming ballot measure in the state of California that would outlaw gay marriage. Out of curiosity, I asked him what the difference between straight marriage and gay marriage was. He replied by pointing out the most obvious difference, which I guess is what I get for wording the question the way I did. I refined my query to “from a legal perspective, how is a marriage between two persons any less valid than a marriage between two other persons?” He replied that marriage is classically defined as between a man and a woman. That didn’t exactly answer my question, but I continued the debate anyway by pointing out that, in fact, marriage in this country was classically defined as between a white man and white woman, so obviously tradition is not a substantial reason to preserve an archaic law. He then said it was because homosexuality is unnatural, and no doubt in anticipation of my impending “how so?” elaborated that two persons of the same sex cannot have a baby. Well, obviously that was contrary to the facts, because there are lots of gay couples with babies, and I asked him if he thought that the “unnatural” practice of adoption was immoral. It went like this for a little while longer, until finally so many of his excuses had been shot down that the truth finally came out. It was because a preacher at a pulpit had said it was wrong. He said, “I know as an athiest (okay, it was a verbal conversation, but I could swear that the way he spoke it he put the ‘i’ before the ‘e’) that you wouldn’t understand what it’s like to have faith.” I replied that the only thing I didn’t understand was how we had talked for over an hour without the topic of religion coming up, when this was clearly the basis for his decision.
Faith, it seems leads people to duplicitous actions. Or, then again, maybe not. After all, what is faith? I would define faith as a confidence that is not based on proof. The religious use the words ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ interchangeably, but I do not think that they are. You can believe in something without having faith in it. Faith implies more, that not only what you believe in exists, but that it has the power to make everything okay. I do not think this young man had faith. I’m fairly certain he believes in his god, but he does not have faith in him. If he did, he would not be using half-assed, poorly thought out “logic” to try to convince me. He would have spoken from the heart, secure in the knowledge that eventually god would sort everything out.
If you believe in god, then you have one of two things: faith or fear. In my experience, it is the ones who have fear who are the most outspoken. These people are so frustrated by every little thing that dares contradict the thing that they so desperately desire, that they will spit out the most hateful, vitriolic nonsense you will ever hear in an attempt to destroy it. If you truly have faith, there should be no need to destroy anything. No pastor delivering an angry sermon, no street preacher crying judgment day, no evangelical speaking in tongues, nobody in a suit handing out flyers, no shouting conservative on cable news, and certainly no boy with a name tag and bicycle, none of them truly have faith. If they did, they would not need to rely on cheap theatrics and social pressures. In fact, they would not need to do anything, because they should already believe that everything is going to end well.
I’ve talked to people who have faith. They are generally much more productive than the believers who lack it. I’ve had some interesting, and much more honest arguments with people of faith. They haven’t been able to convince me to change my views, nor I them, but in the end we’ve usually learned something about each other. For those of you out there who believe in a god and have faith, real, honest faith, then let me say how much I respect you for that. I still disagree with you, and I will defend that position with everything I’ve got. But if you’ll allow me, I’ll buy you a nice cup of tea and we’ll sit down and have a good argument about it.
Monday, October 13, 2008
A Post for Garfield
Here are some Garfield comics for your amusement. Be warned, however, the first one depicts severe bleeding of the dick. If that sort of thing upsets you, then you might want to avoid a career in medicine. For all you others out there, who do not fear or look away from injury to the genitals, enjoy.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Twatter
No, your eyes do not deceive you, there is in fact a New Thing(TM) on the side of this blog. That's right, I have embraced that lazy cousin of blogging, tweeting. That's right, you can now look forward to 140 character comments any time I care to describe an amusing hat I saw, or an amazing shit I took, or have come up with a Japanese version of a popular movie title, or any other fantastic witticism I have to share with the world. Don't expect me to update it too often, as my thoughts can rarely be condensed into 140 letters, spaces, and marks of punctuation. However, it certainly will be used to signal my army of trained bears to begin buggering all the members of Congress and key members of White House staff in preparation for my coup d'etat. When you see me twert the phrase, "Have a bear-y nice day," be sure to be prepared for the oncoming revolution.
Until next time, cats and kittens, I do hope you have a wonderful day.
Until next time, cats and kittens, I do hope you have a wonderful day.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Obama vs McCain, Round 2
Just had a few thoughts I wanted to share on the recent debate. I really don’t want this to turn into a political blog, but again, there’s not really much to talk about. I’ll try to keep things brief, and so as not to come off as an asshole, I’m going to try to leave my personal opinions out of it. This should be pretty easy, as I don’t really have any strong opinions on either of these candidates.
So, here we have the second presidential debate. The format of the first one I thought gave a slight edge to Obama, a formal setting with strict rules and guidelines, and since his campaign has been focusing on directly addressing the issues, this would appear to be his forte. And I think it is fair to say that in the minds of all those who aren’t blinded by partisan loyalty, Obama came out the winner that night. Tonight’s debate, I thought, would give the edge to McCain, as he has spent his whole campaign basically trying to befriend the American voters. I was interested to see how McCain would handle himself in this more comfortable, loose, roundtable type setting. I was surprised to see Obama pretty much blow him out of the water.
This was an Obama unlike we’ve seen before. Sure, he’s criticized McCain in the past, but never on this level. Normally I tend to be turned off by attack politics, but in this debate format it absolutely worked, and it was exactly the right time for Obama to take this strategy. McCain, on the other hand, I thought came off as weak and kind of pathetic. He kept cracking unfunny jokes to a deathly silent room, and when Obama broke the formula by essentially assigning himself some time for a rebuttal, McCain was actually whining that he was breaking the rules.
Personally, I thought Obama went a little too far in places, especially when he pretty much laid the blame for the Iraq war at McCain’s feet, but it really doesn’t matter what I think. To the American public the point has been made. Obama demonstrated the strength that voters want to see in the President, and McCain demonstrated that he is Michael Scott from the Office (Thursday nights on NBC!). Based on tonight, I think now is probably a good time for the White House to start printing letterheads reading “President Barack Obama.”
Because you really can’t have enough letterheads.
So, here we have the second presidential debate. The format of the first one I thought gave a slight edge to Obama, a formal setting with strict rules and guidelines, and since his campaign has been focusing on directly addressing the issues, this would appear to be his forte. And I think it is fair to say that in the minds of all those who aren’t blinded by partisan loyalty, Obama came out the winner that night. Tonight’s debate, I thought, would give the edge to McCain, as he has spent his whole campaign basically trying to befriend the American voters. I was interested to see how McCain would handle himself in this more comfortable, loose, roundtable type setting. I was surprised to see Obama pretty much blow him out of the water.
This was an Obama unlike we’ve seen before. Sure, he’s criticized McCain in the past, but never on this level. Normally I tend to be turned off by attack politics, but in this debate format it absolutely worked, and it was exactly the right time for Obama to take this strategy. McCain, on the other hand, I thought came off as weak and kind of pathetic. He kept cracking unfunny jokes to a deathly silent room, and when Obama broke the formula by essentially assigning himself some time for a rebuttal, McCain was actually whining that he was breaking the rules.
Personally, I thought Obama went a little too far in places, especially when he pretty much laid the blame for the Iraq war at McCain’s feet, but it really doesn’t matter what I think. To the American public the point has been made. Obama demonstrated the strength that voters want to see in the President, and McCain demonstrated that he is Michael Scott from the Office (Thursday nights on NBC!). Based on tonight, I think now is probably a good time for the White House to start printing letterheads reading “President Barack Obama.”
Because you really can’t have enough letterheads.
How People Find The FME
Google provides an amazing tool in its search engine. It can instantly return information on any subject on earth, arranged fairly smartly in order of relevance and usefulness. But there are some cases where Google fails, and one must get creative in their searches. Or sometimes, you can make a game out of it, typing strange and obscure things, browsing the dark corners of the Internet. And of course, net corners don’t come much darker than this little one I happen to be squatting on called the Frenzied Mind Effect. So, on occasion, these brave explorers end up crashing their boats on the jagged rocks of my conscious mind. My only hope is what they see there confuses, annoys, or, if I’m lucky, astounds them.
And judging by some of the search strings that lead people to my little corner of the interconnected web, we have quite the rogue’s gallery passing through here. The minority of results belong to phrases that I would actually want to lead people to my site, phrases like “anarchy gun control” or “belief in god the effect of a frenzied mind” (This is perhaps the one I’m most proud of. That, and the one person who found me by browsing all blogs tagged with the word “fuck.”). It also fills my with joy to see that I am the third Google result for “frenzied mind” (with a little luck, soon to be number two, you’d better watch your fucking back, lds.org!). However, the vast majority of searches only manage to confuse, annoy, and astound me (Such as the number of variations on the phrase “horse fucking.” Seriously, a lot of people show up here looking for equestrian themed pornography.). Now, for the purposes of shits and giggles, I would like to share some of these with you, separated by theme and vigorously annotated by my own snarky comments.
fuck apple and their shitty commercials
fuck apple corporation
shitty computer
fucking iphoto
fucking itunes deleting podcasts
a fucking number to apple
fucking apple inside ass
These are the majority of the search hits I get, people who apparently desire to hear someone bitch about Apple computers. This is, of course, only natural. Apple’s sucking is well documented, both at this fine site and elsewhere, and they will continue to suck until Microsoft finally collapses under the weight of its own irrelevance and Apple can no longer market their products because they have no one to make fun of. The last two items on the above list are very near to my heart. The first, because it initially appears to make no sense, but once you think about it, it still doesn’t make any sense, but it has begun to form its own logic, as though from twigs and leaves, and you feel as though to understand it is to discover some deep and crucial secret of the universe. The last one, admittedly does not have anything to do with computers, but yet the homograph creates the link, and thus this site is found. This is perhaps the most beautiful aspect of the search engine, that occasionally it can connect two unrelated ideas in a random and interesting way.
bioshock recorders
last words in bioshock
bioshock screen flickers
bioshock percent complete screen
bioshock family review
can you spend the adam after killing atlas?
bioshock save atlas’ family
bioshock atlas family death
fisting a cream pie
A surprising number of people come here looking for Bioshock spoilers or information. I’m not really sure why this is, I’ve only written the one blog post about the game, and it was actually fairly negative. As when I wrote it, there still isn’t much too say about Bioshock; it’s a game with a brilliant idea that shoots out the frontal cortex of its brain during the final act. I don’t know what the fuck a Bioshock recorder is, or why so many people are so concerned over Atlas’ fake family. If the fisting a cream pie bit’s inclusion in this section confuses you, it is because it’s a phrase I included in my review. Personally I would love to meet the person who typed it in as a Google search, and I am honored that my blog is the first, and in fact only, site returned by this search.
And now we come to the dregs. Be prepared, for some of these searches exceed the FDA’s daily allotted allowance for awesome. I have prepared comments for each of these individually.
dreams are the window to the soul
Fuckin’ a. It seems my ironic use of clichés is finally paying off.
Did anyone take the Redux Bonus?
I don’t know, did they? Also, don’t you just love it when people ask questions to Google, as though it were some sort of living thing? Actually, that’s kind of a disquieting thought.
horsing around fucking
This is one idea I cannot support. I demand that my pornography be straightforward and orderly. There is no room for horsing around while fucking, someone could get injured.
silent vision loose pant
This is another of those ones where you look at it and you try to reconstruct the thought process of the person who entered it. The mind boggles at the idea of how vision can be silent, and what role the tightness of one’s pants plays in the whole affair.
not in cruelty not in wrath the reaper came today an angel visited this path -cube
I can see what they were going for here, but the way they formatted it makes it look as though “cube” is the signature of this quote.
stupid xtians
This one impresses me because my blog does not appear within the first ten pages of results. Whoever pulled out this one must really hate those fucking xtians.
fuck congress
Yeah, fuck those guys! Actually, most of them are pretty old, I don’t think I’d want to fuck them.
frenzied fucking
Wow, I very much doubt you found what you were looking for here.
cons of butter
Man, I just can’t decide if I should eat butter or not. I know, I’ll ask the Internet! After all, the Internet is well known for its reasoned and articulate debates. I feel certain that no one will make reference to the fat content of my ass.
Finally, I’d like to say a few words in conclusion. Here they are:
What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Good night, everybody.
And judging by some of the search strings that lead people to my little corner of the interconnected web, we have quite the rogue’s gallery passing through here. The minority of results belong to phrases that I would actually want to lead people to my site, phrases like “anarchy gun control” or “belief in god the effect of a frenzied mind” (This is perhaps the one I’m most proud of. That, and the one person who found me by browsing all blogs tagged with the word “fuck.”). It also fills my with joy to see that I am the third Google result for “frenzied mind” (with a little luck, soon to be number two, you’d better watch your fucking back, lds.org!). However, the vast majority of searches only manage to confuse, annoy, and astound me (Such as the number of variations on the phrase “horse fucking.” Seriously, a lot of people show up here looking for equestrian themed pornography.). Now, for the purposes of shits and giggles, I would like to share some of these with you, separated by theme and vigorously annotated by my own snarky comments.
fuck apple and their shitty commercials
fuck apple corporation
shitty computer
fucking iphoto
fucking itunes deleting podcasts
a fucking number to apple
fucking apple inside ass
These are the majority of the search hits I get, people who apparently desire to hear someone bitch about Apple computers. This is, of course, only natural. Apple’s sucking is well documented, both at this fine site and elsewhere, and they will continue to suck until Microsoft finally collapses under the weight of its own irrelevance and Apple can no longer market their products because they have no one to make fun of. The last two items on the above list are very near to my heart. The first, because it initially appears to make no sense, but once you think about it, it still doesn’t make any sense, but it has begun to form its own logic, as though from twigs and leaves, and you feel as though to understand it is to discover some deep and crucial secret of the universe. The last one, admittedly does not have anything to do with computers, but yet the homograph creates the link, and thus this site is found. This is perhaps the most beautiful aspect of the search engine, that occasionally it can connect two unrelated ideas in a random and interesting way.
bioshock recorders
last words in bioshock
bioshock screen flickers
bioshock percent complete screen
bioshock family review
can you spend the adam after killing atlas?
bioshock save atlas’ family
bioshock atlas family death
fisting a cream pie
A surprising number of people come here looking for Bioshock spoilers or information. I’m not really sure why this is, I’ve only written the one blog post about the game, and it was actually fairly negative. As when I wrote it, there still isn’t much too say about Bioshock; it’s a game with a brilliant idea that shoots out the frontal cortex of its brain during the final act. I don’t know what the fuck a Bioshock recorder is, or why so many people are so concerned over Atlas’ fake family. If the fisting a cream pie bit’s inclusion in this section confuses you, it is because it’s a phrase I included in my review. Personally I would love to meet the person who typed it in as a Google search, and I am honored that my blog is the first, and in fact only, site returned by this search.
And now we come to the dregs. Be prepared, for some of these searches exceed the FDA’s daily allotted allowance for awesome. I have prepared comments for each of these individually.
dreams are the window to the soul
Fuckin’ a. It seems my ironic use of clichés is finally paying off.
Did anyone take the Redux Bonus?
I don’t know, did they? Also, don’t you just love it when people ask questions to Google, as though it were some sort of living thing? Actually, that’s kind of a disquieting thought.
horsing around fucking
This is one idea I cannot support. I demand that my pornography be straightforward and orderly. There is no room for horsing around while fucking, someone could get injured.
silent vision loose pant
This is another of those ones where you look at it and you try to reconstruct the thought process of the person who entered it. The mind boggles at the idea of how vision can be silent, and what role the tightness of one’s pants plays in the whole affair.
not in cruelty not in wrath the reaper came today an angel visited this path -cube
I can see what they were going for here, but the way they formatted it makes it look as though “cube” is the signature of this quote.
stupid xtians
This one impresses me because my blog does not appear within the first ten pages of results. Whoever pulled out this one must really hate those fucking xtians.
fuck congress
Yeah, fuck those guys! Actually, most of them are pretty old, I don’t think I’d want to fuck them.
frenzied fucking
Wow, I very much doubt you found what you were looking for here.
cons of butter
Man, I just can’t decide if I should eat butter or not. I know, I’ll ask the Internet! After all, the Internet is well known for its reasoned and articulate debates. I feel certain that no one will make reference to the fat content of my ass.
Finally, I’d like to say a few words in conclusion. Here they are:
What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Good night, everybody.
Friday, October 3, 2008
So It's Come To This...
I usually don’t like to talk about politics. People say this is because I am uninformed or apathetic, but neither is true. The real reason is because politics is where logic goes to die. It is a place where men of conviction solve their differences through sheer bluster and gnashing of teeth. Whenever I see a political “debate” all I can think of is French absurdists trying to determine whose hot air balloon is the fastest by throwing big piles of shoes at each other (maybe that metaphor is a bit too obtuse, point is these free soapbox hours are about the farthest you can get from an actual debate). I see all these things going on in the world, and then I ask the people who desire to represent me, what are you going to do about this? And all I hear is the constant warbling of turkeys.
This election year is being touted as the most important election of all time. Though I doubt that, as every election has been trumpeted as such since the beginning of our governmental system, it at least seems to be the one that weighs most heavily on the mind of the average citizen. The world scene has been eclipsed by this election, it casts a shadow which blots out all other news. Lots and lots of people are talking about little else. So, as I sit here, plotting my triumphant return from my long absence, it seem at last unavoidable, I must discuss that which I dread: the machinations of those who wish to rule.
First, I would like to talk about Sarah Palin. Actually, that is a lie; it is more like I must talk about Sarah Palin, and I’d like to get it out of the way. When she was first announced, my first reaction was, “who?” My next reaction was that of intrigue, at this handsome, well-groomed woman who kills moose with her bare hands. Then there was that period for the next couple of weeks where a new scandal would break about her every two hours. I mostly ignored these as reactionary hearsay, but I started to become worried that a few of these were sticking around, despite the fact that nobody cared anymore. In fact, the book banning and law enforcement scandals now appear to actually be backed up by credible evidence, yet nothing has come of it because the country has moved on to other things. As the weeks passed, I kept a suspicious eye on Ms. Palin, until finally that fateful interview aired. At last the truth came out: she is a dunderhead.
This woman is quite possibly the only Republican dumber than George W. Bush. It was obvious from the beginning that she was a half-assed publicity stunt, but good god, she is dumber than a bag of wet coats. She is a hand puppet being held up by a hand puppet. Honestly, I’m not sure she even realizes she’s running for Vice-President; it’s possible she thinks John McCain is some kind of magical troll who will grant her wishes if she says nice things about him.
Which brings us to McCain. What the fuck happened to this guy? A few years ago, he seemed like he had a pretty good head on his shoulders. True, I didn’t always agree with the guy, but at least he had the balls to be a pro-choice Republican. This guy didn’t care who he pissed off, and he made his own decisions. I don’t know if he suddenly incurred a large debt to the Republican National Committee, or if he’s just gone senile, but in his current state, McCain is just sad. They’ve made him fall in line idealistically with Bush, and when they forced Sarah Palin on him, they just cut off his balls completely.
Moving on, let’s talk about the economy. The economy sucks.
What? You wanted more? Ugh, fine.
As I am apparently a fierce goddamn romantic, I tend to see things in metaphor. And to me, the economy is a great big solid oak table, well built, and cluttered with stuff. The only problem is right now one of the legs is mottled and cracked, covered with duct tape and constantly creaking and quivering. If I were a self-important political cartoonist, the leg would be holding up a sign that says “Wall Street.” Now Congress has a choice. They can either put 700 billion dollars worth of duct tape on that leg, which ought to hold it for a while, or they can stand around and do nothing and wait for it to break (I guess the table metaphor isn’t perfect, because there’s no real world equivalent for “rip the leg off and replace it with a sturdy piece of wood,” but I still like it). Now, when the leg breaks, all the shit on the leg is going to come crashing down all over the fucking place: a catastrophe, right? Well, not really. I mean, most of that stuff was just books, so you can just pick them up and put them back on the table. True, your grandmother’s antique tea set is ruined, and you had a really nice watch sitting there that wasn’t shock resistant and now it keeps weird time, and you really wish you still had these things, but fuck, life goes on. There’s not going to be a depression over this crisis, it’s just a case of some idiots wanted to get richer, so they wished some phantom money into existence. It never occurred to them that that money would have to come from somewhere, and since it didn’t, the money turned back into ghosts, who stuffed their pockets with money and flew back away to whatever dimension they came from. Sure, I feel bad for the people who actually trusted and rely on those banks, but you can’t protect everybody from everything. Either way, bailout or no bailout, I think I’ll probably just take this thing in stride.
I suppose I should say something about the Democratic ticket. I feel the same way about Obama that I used to feel about McCain: his views skew a bit more liberal than mine, but he’s a real, intelligent person who is not just at the end of the strings of his political party. I don’t give a rat’s ass about Joe Biden. It could come out that Biden was at Disneyland, shitting into his hand and throwing it at people, and it still would not be enough to get me to care one way or the other about him.
So now you know how I feel about that thing that everyone’s talking about. I hope you enjoyed it. Now fuck off.
This election year is being touted as the most important election of all time. Though I doubt that, as every election has been trumpeted as such since the beginning of our governmental system, it at least seems to be the one that weighs most heavily on the mind of the average citizen. The world scene has been eclipsed by this election, it casts a shadow which blots out all other news. Lots and lots of people are talking about little else. So, as I sit here, plotting my triumphant return from my long absence, it seem at last unavoidable, I must discuss that which I dread: the machinations of those who wish to rule.
First, I would like to talk about Sarah Palin. Actually, that is a lie; it is more like I must talk about Sarah Palin, and I’d like to get it out of the way. When she was first announced, my first reaction was, “who?” My next reaction was that of intrigue, at this handsome, well-groomed woman who kills moose with her bare hands. Then there was that period for the next couple of weeks where a new scandal would break about her every two hours. I mostly ignored these as reactionary hearsay, but I started to become worried that a few of these were sticking around, despite the fact that nobody cared anymore. In fact, the book banning and law enforcement scandals now appear to actually be backed up by credible evidence, yet nothing has come of it because the country has moved on to other things. As the weeks passed, I kept a suspicious eye on Ms. Palin, until finally that fateful interview aired. At last the truth came out: she is a dunderhead.
This woman is quite possibly the only Republican dumber than George W. Bush. It was obvious from the beginning that she was a half-assed publicity stunt, but good god, she is dumber than a bag of wet coats. She is a hand puppet being held up by a hand puppet. Honestly, I’m not sure she even realizes she’s running for Vice-President; it’s possible she thinks John McCain is some kind of magical troll who will grant her wishes if she says nice things about him.
Which brings us to McCain. What the fuck happened to this guy? A few years ago, he seemed like he had a pretty good head on his shoulders. True, I didn’t always agree with the guy, but at least he had the balls to be a pro-choice Republican. This guy didn’t care who he pissed off, and he made his own decisions. I don’t know if he suddenly incurred a large debt to the Republican National Committee, or if he’s just gone senile, but in his current state, McCain is just sad. They’ve made him fall in line idealistically with Bush, and when they forced Sarah Palin on him, they just cut off his balls completely.
Moving on, let’s talk about the economy. The economy sucks.
What? You wanted more? Ugh, fine.
As I am apparently a fierce goddamn romantic, I tend to see things in metaphor. And to me, the economy is a great big solid oak table, well built, and cluttered with stuff. The only problem is right now one of the legs is mottled and cracked, covered with duct tape and constantly creaking and quivering. If I were a self-important political cartoonist, the leg would be holding up a sign that says “Wall Street.” Now Congress has a choice. They can either put 700 billion dollars worth of duct tape on that leg, which ought to hold it for a while, or they can stand around and do nothing and wait for it to break (I guess the table metaphor isn’t perfect, because there’s no real world equivalent for “rip the leg off and replace it with a sturdy piece of wood,” but I still like it). Now, when the leg breaks, all the shit on the leg is going to come crashing down all over the fucking place: a catastrophe, right? Well, not really. I mean, most of that stuff was just books, so you can just pick them up and put them back on the table. True, your grandmother’s antique tea set is ruined, and you had a really nice watch sitting there that wasn’t shock resistant and now it keeps weird time, and you really wish you still had these things, but fuck, life goes on. There’s not going to be a depression over this crisis, it’s just a case of some idiots wanted to get richer, so they wished some phantom money into existence. It never occurred to them that that money would have to come from somewhere, and since it didn’t, the money turned back into ghosts, who stuffed their pockets with money and flew back away to whatever dimension they came from. Sure, I feel bad for the people who actually trusted and rely on those banks, but you can’t protect everybody from everything. Either way, bailout or no bailout, I think I’ll probably just take this thing in stride.
I suppose I should say something about the Democratic ticket. I feel the same way about Obama that I used to feel about McCain: his views skew a bit more liberal than mine, but he’s a real, intelligent person who is not just at the end of the strings of his political party. I don’t give a rat’s ass about Joe Biden. It could come out that Biden was at Disneyland, shitting into his hand and throwing it at people, and it still would not be enough to get me to care one way or the other about him.
So now you know how I feel about that thing that everyone’s talking about. I hope you enjoyed it. Now fuck off.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Dreams, a Window To the Soul
I had the most amazing dream last night, and it would be a crime not to share it. What follows is a full account of an actual dream that I actually had:
I am at a comic convention, and there is a booth where you can meet Jerry Bruckheimer. There is no line, and he looks lonely, so I go over to talk to him. He is very excited to see me, and says I would be perfect for a role in his upcoming Prince of Persia movie. He immediately calls Mike Newell over the phone and describes me, and Mike agrees with his assessment, so he offers me the part of “Heinrich the Space Nazi.” I refuse the offer based on three criteria: One, it’s a terrible idea; two, I’m not an actor; three, I don’t want to have millions of Prince of Persia fans hating me because I’m the goddamn Space Nazi that ruined their movie going experience. Jerry looks disappointed, but gives me his autograph and I walk away. I look at the paper, and notice Jerry has sketched a drawing of me shooting a gun, while riding on a giant gun, which is being shot by a third, even larger gun. The way he managed to actually depict this logic-defying concept in a way that was immediately recognizable impressed me, and I began to think that if anyone could pull off a red-headed Space Nazi in a Prince of Persia movie, it was Jerry Bruckheimer.
I took the offer, and was immediately flown out to Scotland. Jerry wanted to show me an old castle where they were going to shoot a scene from the movie. He walked me around, excitedly pointing out each step of the parkour choreography. “And here, the prince runs on this wall, jumps that other wall, and when that wall collapses, he jumps on another wall!” Jerry’s enthusiasm is adorable, but on a more subtle level, deeply alarming.
As we leave, I am following his car on a Scottish freeway through countryside that looks exactly like Southern California. I want to voice some concerns about the movie with him but, perhaps fooled by the scenery, I remember that it’s illegal to use your cell phone in California. I pull up beside him and gyrate my fist, the universal hand signal for “roll down your window.” As we speed down the freeway side by side, I shout at the top of my lungs how strange it is that we are shooting a movie that takes place in Persia in a Scottish castle. “Don’t worry,” he bellows back, “we do this kind of shit all the time!” He then instructs me to take the next exit.
We follow some sleepy mountain roads for a while, which eventually become dirt roads, which eventually become no roads. Finally Jerry stops at a disgusting bog and gets out of his car. He says we are going to have to swim here. “No fucking way,” I calmly explain to him, “we are going to get so fucking dead doing this.” He explains that if you float on your bag most of the way, it’s actually pretty easy to get to the other side without being sucked underneath into a slimy grave. “Why can’t we just take the freeway?” I inquire. He answers by removing his clothes, and duct taped all over his body are bags of pure, uncut, Scottish cocaine. “You can’t get this stuff in the states,” he explains. “In fact, we aren’t actually shooting the movie here, I just wanted to come here to get it.” I told him I wouldn’t help him smuggle drugs out of Scotland, and that I assumed there was also no Space Nazi in the movie. “Actually,” he said, “we still think that idea is pretty rad.” I told him I would have to think about it. I got home, and decided I would take the part after all. But then I completely forgot to call Jerry back.
Eventually the movie came out, and when I saw the Space Nazi I had to admit that he was, in fact, totally rad.
I am at a comic convention, and there is a booth where you can meet Jerry Bruckheimer. There is no line, and he looks lonely, so I go over to talk to him. He is very excited to see me, and says I would be perfect for a role in his upcoming Prince of Persia movie. He immediately calls Mike Newell over the phone and describes me, and Mike agrees with his assessment, so he offers me the part of “Heinrich the Space Nazi.” I refuse the offer based on three criteria: One, it’s a terrible idea; two, I’m not an actor; three, I don’t want to have millions of Prince of Persia fans hating me because I’m the goddamn Space Nazi that ruined their movie going experience. Jerry looks disappointed, but gives me his autograph and I walk away. I look at the paper, and notice Jerry has sketched a drawing of me shooting a gun, while riding on a giant gun, which is being shot by a third, even larger gun. The way he managed to actually depict this logic-defying concept in a way that was immediately recognizable impressed me, and I began to think that if anyone could pull off a red-headed Space Nazi in a Prince of Persia movie, it was Jerry Bruckheimer.
I took the offer, and was immediately flown out to Scotland. Jerry wanted to show me an old castle where they were going to shoot a scene from the movie. He walked me around, excitedly pointing out each step of the parkour choreography. “And here, the prince runs on this wall, jumps that other wall, and when that wall collapses, he jumps on another wall!” Jerry’s enthusiasm is adorable, but on a more subtle level, deeply alarming.
As we leave, I am following his car on a Scottish freeway through countryside that looks exactly like Southern California. I want to voice some concerns about the movie with him but, perhaps fooled by the scenery, I remember that it’s illegal to use your cell phone in California. I pull up beside him and gyrate my fist, the universal hand signal for “roll down your window.” As we speed down the freeway side by side, I shout at the top of my lungs how strange it is that we are shooting a movie that takes place in Persia in a Scottish castle. “Don’t worry,” he bellows back, “we do this kind of shit all the time!” He then instructs me to take the next exit.
We follow some sleepy mountain roads for a while, which eventually become dirt roads, which eventually become no roads. Finally Jerry stops at a disgusting bog and gets out of his car. He says we are going to have to swim here. “No fucking way,” I calmly explain to him, “we are going to get so fucking dead doing this.” He explains that if you float on your bag most of the way, it’s actually pretty easy to get to the other side without being sucked underneath into a slimy grave. “Why can’t we just take the freeway?” I inquire. He answers by removing his clothes, and duct taped all over his body are bags of pure, uncut, Scottish cocaine. “You can’t get this stuff in the states,” he explains. “In fact, we aren’t actually shooting the movie here, I just wanted to come here to get it.” I told him I wouldn’t help him smuggle drugs out of Scotland, and that I assumed there was also no Space Nazi in the movie. “Actually,” he said, “we still think that idea is pretty rad.” I told him I would have to think about it. I got home, and decided I would take the part after all. But then I completely forgot to call Jerry back.
Eventually the movie came out, and when I saw the Space Nazi I had to admit that he was, in fact, totally rad.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Penn Jillette Disagrees With the Pope
As sick as I am of this topic, I just couldn't resist giving the last word to Penn. I'll now return to my usual schedule of updating once a month.
Just kidding!
...Maybe.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Cynicism Redux, Plus a Bonus Treat
If the Pope’s blatant, self serving game of Pass-the-Blame™ was the straw that broke the camel’s back, then this is the fiery four foot dildo that raped the camel to death and left it lying there in a pile of charred flesh and various bodily fluids. What I am referring to is a commercial by Amnesty International on why you shouldn’t tie a person down and force water down their nose and throat.
In a desperate and tasteless attempt at being clever, the ad begins on a beauty shot of water being poured. The camera then pans downward, and we get a several seconds of high speed footage of a man being waterboarded. Yes, actually waterboarded, as in not a special effect or other type of trickery. That’s right, Amnesty-Goddamn-Motherfucking-International tortured someone to make a commercial denouncing the use of torture.
Okay, so Amnesty International decided that their message of anti-torture was so important that they tortured some guy to get it out there, but the question going through my mind is, why? Who are they trying to convince? Are they sending this tape directly to the White House? No, they are releasing it to theaters to run before the trailers. Meaning its intended audience is us, the general public. To say this caused me to sigh would be an understatement. To say it caused me to throw a pipe through the front windshield of my car would be an overstatement, but closer. Let’s just say it caused me to sigh so hard I might have changed the tides.
I’m guessing whoever came up with this idea doesn’t live in America. In fact, I find it hard to believe they live anywhere near the human race. I resent the idea that we need to be told that torture is wrong. I don’t know a single person who thinks waterboarding is all shits and giggles, and then everyone goes home happy. Even if you’re rabidly pro-torture, you still aren’t going to think it’s pleasant. Because that’s the whole point of torture, and every single goddamn person on the planet knows it. Releasing this for public consumption makes a very clear statement, and that statement is “you’re allowing this to happen.” Which is a heartless, terrible thing to insinuate.
You will notice that nowhere in here have I linked to the video. Don’t expect me to. In all honesty, I wish I hadn’t seen it myself. The idea of this running in movie theaters across the country is disgusting and insulting. If someone made me the offer that no one would ever see this ad again, but that Two Girls One Cup would run before every single children’s television program, I would take that deal. Because Two Girls One Cup at least appeals to somebody.
There is, however, another movie I will link to:
Make sure you watch it all the way to the end. Seriously. You won’t regret it.
Did you watch it?
Fuckers?
Ok, good. While my hat goes off to James Rolfe, aka the Angry Video Game Nerd, for restoring my faith in humanity, his latest video brings to the surface a dark secret, one which I can carry no longer. I just don’t see what the big deal with Super Mario Bros 3 is.
Sure, it’s inspired one of the best things I’ve ever read, but I still don’t get the appeal. It doesn’t feel anything like the original Super Mario Bros I fell in love with, and it’s way too long, especially since it has no save system. Super Mario World managed to capture every good point of SMB3, but also retain the tight, crunchy physics of the original. Plus the feather kicks the leaf’s ass any day of the week. The flying in that game is so deep, it’s amazing what a good player can do with it. It’s funny, the way people felt about SMB3, how it was a return to form after the weird experiment that was 2, is exactly how I felt about Super Mario World.
So to those of you who think SMB3 is better than World, you’ve got it backward. Sure, 3 did it first, but world did it better. You’re being blinded by nostalgia. Also, don’t look now, but all those licensed NES games you thought were so awesome when you were a kid are absolute garbage.
Final thought:
My DVR just updated its software, and during that process it decided to download the movie “Wild Hogs.” I don’t think I’ve ever hated DIRECTV more than I do right now.
In a desperate and tasteless attempt at being clever, the ad begins on a beauty shot of water being poured. The camera then pans downward, and we get a several seconds of high speed footage of a man being waterboarded. Yes, actually waterboarded, as in not a special effect or other type of trickery. That’s right, Amnesty-Goddamn-Motherfucking-International tortured someone to make a commercial denouncing the use of torture.
Okay, so Amnesty International decided that their message of anti-torture was so important that they tortured some guy to get it out there, but the question going through my mind is, why? Who are they trying to convince? Are they sending this tape directly to the White House? No, they are releasing it to theaters to run before the trailers. Meaning its intended audience is us, the general public. To say this caused me to sigh would be an understatement. To say it caused me to throw a pipe through the front windshield of my car would be an overstatement, but closer. Let’s just say it caused me to sigh so hard I might have changed the tides.
I’m guessing whoever came up with this idea doesn’t live in America. In fact, I find it hard to believe they live anywhere near the human race. I resent the idea that we need to be told that torture is wrong. I don’t know a single person who thinks waterboarding is all shits and giggles, and then everyone goes home happy. Even if you’re rabidly pro-torture, you still aren’t going to think it’s pleasant. Because that’s the whole point of torture, and every single goddamn person on the planet knows it. Releasing this for public consumption makes a very clear statement, and that statement is “you’re allowing this to happen.” Which is a heartless, terrible thing to insinuate.
You will notice that nowhere in here have I linked to the video. Don’t expect me to. In all honesty, I wish I hadn’t seen it myself. The idea of this running in movie theaters across the country is disgusting and insulting. If someone made me the offer that no one would ever see this ad again, but that Two Girls One Cup would run before every single children’s television program, I would take that deal. Because Two Girls One Cup at least appeals to somebody.
There is, however, another movie I will link to:
Make sure you watch it all the way to the end. Seriously. You won’t regret it.
Did you watch it?
Fuckers?
Ok, good. While my hat goes off to James Rolfe, aka the Angry Video Game Nerd, for restoring my faith in humanity, his latest video brings to the surface a dark secret, one which I can carry no longer. I just don’t see what the big deal with Super Mario Bros 3 is.
Sure, it’s inspired one of the best things I’ve ever read, but I still don’t get the appeal. It doesn’t feel anything like the original Super Mario Bros I fell in love with, and it’s way too long, especially since it has no save system. Super Mario World managed to capture every good point of SMB3, but also retain the tight, crunchy physics of the original. Plus the feather kicks the leaf’s ass any day of the week. The flying in that game is so deep, it’s amazing what a good player can do with it. It’s funny, the way people felt about SMB3, how it was a return to form after the weird experiment that was 2, is exactly how I felt about Super Mario World.
So to those of you who think SMB3 is better than World, you’ve got it backward. Sure, 3 did it first, but world did it better. You’re being blinded by nostalgia. Also, don’t look now, but all those licensed NES games you thought were so awesome when you were a kid are absolute garbage.
Final thought:
My DVR just updated its software, and during that process it decided to download the movie “Wild Hogs.” I don’t think I’ve ever hated DIRECTV more than I do right now.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
The Last Optimist
It seems the entire world has gone cynical.
And here I sit, seemingly the last person on earth with a positive outlook on humanity. Every day pop environmentalists decry our voracious rape of our planet, the news brays on about every violent or disturbing act, and men of the cloth berate the nature of their subjects in order to save their immortal lucre. The word human has become a dirty word, and that is deeply disturbing to me.
I’ve already established that I never really had faith in any god, and I believe when used in this way that faith is a very poisonous concept. But I’m not altogether opposed to the very idea of faith. In fact, I think faith is a very important thing for people to have, you just need to have faith in something real. For me, the easiest thing for me to latch onto was people. I believe in people. I believe that our species is doing just great, and that each day we’re better off than the day before. We’ve cured deadly diseases once thought incurable, we can cross continents in a matter of hours, and we can communicate with people on the other side of the world nearly instantaneously. We’ve raised our species’ life expectancy by 50 years. Suddenly, turning water to wine or making a whole bunch of fish and bread doesn’t seem so impressive. Not to mention that unlike those stories, I’ve personally witnessed humanity’s miracles, and so can anyone.
So I was understandably disinterested when while flipping through the radio the other day I came across coverage of the Pope’s visit to the US. After all, someone like Mark Twain can put more insight into a single sentence than that old coot has ever come up with in his entire life. But, every other station was on commercial break, so I continued to listen. And I have to say, of all the misanthropes out there, the Pope is by far the most vile.
As with all matters of the Catholic church, it was only a matter of time before the topic of molestation came up. The Pope did a spectacular job of covering his own ass, and placing the blame entirely on the priests who committed the acts. Now, I’m no big fan of molesting children, but let’s face it, those guys were as much victimized as the kids. When under stress, like say the stress of living your life with no form of sexual release, the mind finds it much easier to rationalize things. These priests have been taught that if they break their vow and defile themselves with women, that they will burn in hell for eternity. Children, on the other hand, are a loophole, more of an indiscretion than unpardonable sin, and they can be forgiven for that. Now that’s what I call a broken system, one where having consensual sex with an adult is a worse crime than raping a child.
And here’s why the Pope is the biggest cynic in the world: he can make this whole stupid, scary situation go away just by saying the following words, “I decree that priests can have girlfriends.” But he doesn’t say that, and one begins to wonder why. Actually, that wondering person is rhetorical, because I know exactly why. Because priests have been celibate since the church was founded, shit, it’s even in the Bible. To admit that they’ve been wrong for almost two thousand years would severely undermine their base of power. Admitting your organization is fallible when your whole claim to fame is based on divinity is definitely going to cause some upheaval. Sure, the Catholic church has had a lot of fuckups in the past which they’ve had to apologize for, but they’ve never had to go back on one of their core doctrines before. The Pope is scared shitless of this reaction, so instead he continues to ruin lives so he can keep wearing his fancy hat. If you’re not grasping the severity of the situation, I’d like you to note that following sentence contains absolutely no hyperbole. If you have the opportunity to end a great deal of suffering just by speaking a phrase, and you don’t, that makes you among the worst people in the world.
It only lasted a few minutes, but after hearing it I felt completely drained. It was depressing. Worst of all, I could feel myself starting lose my humanistic optimism. Because this was starting to feel like a pattern. I remembered when the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo scandals broke, and in a fit of ass covering, the sole guilt of these terrible practices was dumped on a bunch of innocent soldiers who were just carrying out their orders. I thought of how Utah leads the nation in unreported rape cases, because nobody wants to contradict the crazy old men who were considered prophets who said that a woman should choose death before surrendering her “honor.” It becomes very hard to remain hopeful of human nature when so many people independently do the same terrible things.
All the same, I refuse to accept it. Maybe I’m completely wrong, maybe the true nature of humanity is ugly, rotten, and evil. But I can’t live my life believing it. Because thinking this way is poisonous and abusive. You know how when you know someone believes in you, it makes you want to do your best so you won’t let them down? Well, I’ve decided that I’m going to be that person for the entire human race. So, against all evidence to the contrary, I’m going to believe in people. And even if it doesn’t do any good, then I’m still going to do it anyway, because I’m going to be way happier than the cynics. Because to me, the world is a more beautiful place than they can even imagine. And you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.
And here I sit, seemingly the last person on earth with a positive outlook on humanity. Every day pop environmentalists decry our voracious rape of our planet, the news brays on about every violent or disturbing act, and men of the cloth berate the nature of their subjects in order to save their immortal lucre. The word human has become a dirty word, and that is deeply disturbing to me.
I’ve already established that I never really had faith in any god, and I believe when used in this way that faith is a very poisonous concept. But I’m not altogether opposed to the very idea of faith. In fact, I think faith is a very important thing for people to have, you just need to have faith in something real. For me, the easiest thing for me to latch onto was people. I believe in people. I believe that our species is doing just great, and that each day we’re better off than the day before. We’ve cured deadly diseases once thought incurable, we can cross continents in a matter of hours, and we can communicate with people on the other side of the world nearly instantaneously. We’ve raised our species’ life expectancy by 50 years. Suddenly, turning water to wine or making a whole bunch of fish and bread doesn’t seem so impressive. Not to mention that unlike those stories, I’ve personally witnessed humanity’s miracles, and so can anyone.
So I was understandably disinterested when while flipping through the radio the other day I came across coverage of the Pope’s visit to the US. After all, someone like Mark Twain can put more insight into a single sentence than that old coot has ever come up with in his entire life. But, every other station was on commercial break, so I continued to listen. And I have to say, of all the misanthropes out there, the Pope is by far the most vile.
As with all matters of the Catholic church, it was only a matter of time before the topic of molestation came up. The Pope did a spectacular job of covering his own ass, and placing the blame entirely on the priests who committed the acts. Now, I’m no big fan of molesting children, but let’s face it, those guys were as much victimized as the kids. When under stress, like say the stress of living your life with no form of sexual release, the mind finds it much easier to rationalize things. These priests have been taught that if they break their vow and defile themselves with women, that they will burn in hell for eternity. Children, on the other hand, are a loophole, more of an indiscretion than unpardonable sin, and they can be forgiven for that. Now that’s what I call a broken system, one where having consensual sex with an adult is a worse crime than raping a child.
And here’s why the Pope is the biggest cynic in the world: he can make this whole stupid, scary situation go away just by saying the following words, “I decree that priests can have girlfriends.” But he doesn’t say that, and one begins to wonder why. Actually, that wondering person is rhetorical, because I know exactly why. Because priests have been celibate since the church was founded, shit, it’s even in the Bible. To admit that they’ve been wrong for almost two thousand years would severely undermine their base of power. Admitting your organization is fallible when your whole claim to fame is based on divinity is definitely going to cause some upheaval. Sure, the Catholic church has had a lot of fuckups in the past which they’ve had to apologize for, but they’ve never had to go back on one of their core doctrines before. The Pope is scared shitless of this reaction, so instead he continues to ruin lives so he can keep wearing his fancy hat. If you’re not grasping the severity of the situation, I’d like you to note that following sentence contains absolutely no hyperbole. If you have the opportunity to end a great deal of suffering just by speaking a phrase, and you don’t, that makes you among the worst people in the world.
It only lasted a few minutes, but after hearing it I felt completely drained. It was depressing. Worst of all, I could feel myself starting lose my humanistic optimism. Because this was starting to feel like a pattern. I remembered when the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo scandals broke, and in a fit of ass covering, the sole guilt of these terrible practices was dumped on a bunch of innocent soldiers who were just carrying out their orders. I thought of how Utah leads the nation in unreported rape cases, because nobody wants to contradict the crazy old men who were considered prophets who said that a woman should choose death before surrendering her “honor.” It becomes very hard to remain hopeful of human nature when so many people independently do the same terrible things.
All the same, I refuse to accept it. Maybe I’m completely wrong, maybe the true nature of humanity is ugly, rotten, and evil. But I can’t live my life believing it. Because thinking this way is poisonous and abusive. You know how when you know someone believes in you, it makes you want to do your best so you won’t let them down? Well, I’ve decided that I’m going to be that person for the entire human race. So, against all evidence to the contrary, I’m going to believe in people. And even if it doesn’t do any good, then I’m still going to do it anyway, because I’m going to be way happier than the cynics. Because to me, the world is a more beautiful place than they can even imagine. And you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.
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