Tuesday, April 24, 2012

List of Awesome: Part One


I feel very confident in my ability to compile a list of things that awesome.  I plan on making it my doctoral dissertation one day.  Let’s start the list in no particular order or demarcation of importance.

1. Andrew Jackson
The man was bat shit insane awesome.  He was called old hickory not just because he smacked people with his cane but because he was unyieldingly badass.  He participated in fatal duels (he was nice enough to dial back the awesome to allow witnesses to survive) , wars (he got into the Revolutionary war at 13), and he survived the first ever assassination attempt on a sitting President.  This is partially false because he never sat he was always perched on the precipice.  He attacked the would be assassin,  Richard Lawrence, who was being restrained at the time.  Davy Crockett, a fellow badass, was reduced to a mere spectator.  Jackson took not giving a fuck to epic levels.  Plus they had to eject his parrot from his funeral for shouting obscenities at the guests.  If he could materialize as ghost he would have bitch slapped the idiot who threw the bird out.  He wanted the obscenities.

2. Backhands
It’s the move that lets you know the bad guy is truly powerful.  He doesn’t need to hit hard or expend effort.  He just shrugs you off like you aren’t worth his time.   Also known as bitch slap or pimp slap.  I don’t like the connotation of the term pimp slap seeing as pimps are very much not awesome.

3. The End of Prohibition
Not only did this bring back alcohol to the masses it ended a whole lot of Chicago violence.  Plus we had the government essentially admit that it was wrong.  We had Prohibition just long enough to get some amazing films and books out of it.

4. Thongs
If they can catapult Cisco’s career they can do most anything.   Of note thongs are really only awesome depending on what they are accessorizing.  Young men agree thongs are awesome.

5. Sports rivalries
I’m a Red Sox fan married to a Yankees fan.  It makes things significantly more interesting.  This is one of the few socially acceptable ways for adult to brag and boast over actions they didn’t take part in.  Plus backing a team unites you with a whole group of people who you might never have any connection to or like.

6. Video Games
This is the only way I know you can kill dragons, aliens, triads, cyborgs, goblins, super villains, ninjas, and vampires.  Also video games increase hand eye coordination.  Plus as a young teenager you can kick everybody’s ass at Firs person shooters.  As an adult you can make fun of the idiot teenagers who play too much.  As  a little kid you can watch your older sibling play the game.  If you want o see inventive ways to play a video game watch the younger generation.  Some family friends found that in Assassins Creed 2 you can poison the guards then thrown coins on the ground.  This brings the peasants to flock around the poisoned guard who then starts flailing around as he dies hitting all the peasants and workers.  Video games lately have been better written, better acted with better visuals and have had better action sequences than movies.

7. Animal Farts
Farting for humans can be funny or really uncomfortable.  It also depends on who you are surrounded by.  With manboy’s it is funny, with restaurant critics not so much.  Also it is never okay to fart in an elevator.  That doesn’t go away and the person who gets on next might be blamed for your foulness.  Don’t be a jerk.
But with animals it is always funny.  It still stinks, oh my god does it stink, but it’s funny.  Mac, my Wheaten Terrier, farts constantly.  The thing I find the funniest is that he is completely unfazed by the process.  There is zero expression change or reaction.  He farts with complete impunity.
Also on television I saw a British man flip out and giggle nonstop over hearing a snake fart.  For some reason British accents tend to make certain things far more funny.  This was one of them.  Plus the idea of snakes farts is already silly.

8. Martial Arts Movies and or fight scenes
Martial arts movies usually have awful and predictable plots.  We aren’t watching for these things.  Sometimes the bad plot makes it even better and more fun.  We are watching for the sheer awesomeness of watching some dude kick another dude in the head.

9. Adventure Time
Oh my glob, it’s the best example of the animated post apocalyptic science fantasy buddy genre.  Mathematical!  Adventure Time is a cartoon that is just appropriate enough not to mess up kids but edgy enough with doses of quick wit and innuendo for older generations.  It takes all the nuance and quirkiness of Wes Anderson film but with less hipster mentality and actual plot and action.  It doesn’t take itself too seriously and goes in fun and adventurous places.  Plus they had a high five using with catapults, candy people, zombies, guitar axes, animate video game consoles, rainicorns, magic stretching dogs, magic swords and sociopathic ice wizards.

10. Churros
Mexican cuisine has given us so many wonderful delicacies.  A lot of the food we Americans term Mexican is really Tex-Mex and a lot of that came from street food not the true home style cooking of Latin America.  Tacos are really not a meal but an appetizer.  Churros are wondrous fried happiness covered in sugar.  They can be dipped into amazing deserty toppings like chocolate and caramel or served with ice cream.  But whatever they are served with they are awesome and truly delicious.

Ben

Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Butterfly Effect


Now there is a saying that if a butterfly flaps its wings here thousands of miles away there might be tsunami.  This is only mostly bullshit.  Tsunamis as everyone knows are caused by ritualized dancing of bears… or by a displacement of water, specifically a vertical displacement.  But what is real, is the interconnectedness of our environment.  Some things have much more direct impact on our well being than others, usually anything related to our food and food safety we take reasonably seriously.  However there are lot of critical species that affect everything in their microcosm and we don’t feel those effects until it is often too late.

It has been two years since the enormous BP spill and their consistent rape our of coastline during the emergency.  It is an understatement to say that things went poorly.  Sadly this country will continue to allow situations to arise where we place our waters in danger.  The oil companies are not nice people and they will do as they please until there is more federal regulation in place.  If that means big oil goes elsewhere so be it, at least we won’t have to deal with another spill on our shores (except of course for drunk sea captains).  I can only hope we start heavily investing in hydrogen cells and reusable energy in the next twenty years.  Oil can be much safer but safety measures cut into profit.  And yes, profit is good.  Every company deserves to have a good revenue stream but not at the expense of our planet, people’s lives and the economy as a whole.

The ‘little’ spill we had in Alaska took about four years to chart and see some of ill affects to that ecosystem.  We are already seeing the affects to the sea life in the gulf.  Not only is that dangerous for our food its robbing money from all the fisherman as well as tourism in the area.  New Orleans which has had reasonably rough time for the past few years has an extremely important estuary where we catch a large portion of the seafood for the whole of continental states.   Oil getting in there ruins the plant life which means fishies can’t lay eggs there or hide there or feed there or various other fishy things.  And no fishies means no other predators and other fishies.  Plus, oh, yeah, they’ve been spotting shrimp with no eyes.  That’s probably a good thing right?  Well, not so much.  And yes I eat shrimp so I’m okay with them never seeing my face and seeking revenge but the whole mutation thing should be superpowers or you know a better colon not missing your damn eyes because of pollutants.  This never would have happened if they hadn’t cancelled Captain Planet.  I blame Ma-Ti and his stupid heart power.  No one likes you or your monkey.

Fortunately its only a few of those shrimp that are deformed…
“at least 50 per cent of the shrimp caught in that period in Barataria Bay, a popular shrimping area that was heavily impacted by BP's oil and dispersants, were eyeless. Kuhns added: "Disturbingly, not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets."”

But it probably just the shrimp.  Or not.  We’re seeing affects in crabs, in their size and shell consistency. 
‘Hard shell crabs?  Nope, now you’re soft shell too fuck you having different shells.’ – Kyle (probably)
Or lobsters with black lungs.  Or fish with sores and lesions.  Shit, is God pissed?  I thought we were over that whole ten plagues thing.  Better get my lambs blood out just in case.  You guys can crash at my place just don’t drink Elijah’s wine the man’s a lush and he only hangs out with enablers.

Just to remind you this is what happened: “4.9 million barrels of oil. BP then used at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic Corexit dispersants to sink the oil.”  To put thigns into perspective we spilled 250,000 barrels of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska.  So exactly 7.6 times more.  This is not a small amount.  Also think about it this way.  Around that time oil was 86 dollars a barrel which means we wasted $163,400,000.00 of resources.

Corexit dispersant  breaks up the oil into smaller bits which sinks below the surface instead of remaining floating at the top to wash onto shores or into birds and other wildlife.  Don’t take my word for it let’s go to their website:

COREXIT dispersants are deployed on the spilled oil, the oil is broken up into tiny bio-degradable droplets that immediately sink below the surface where they continue to disperse and bio-degrade.  This quickly removes the spilled oil from surface drift…reducing direct exposure to birds, fish and sea animals in the spill environment.  By keeping the oil from adhering to wildlife COREXIT dispersants effectively protect the environment.

Because if its below the surface no other problems could happen as it degrades.  Screw Atlantis anyway.  Aquaman sucks what is he going to do anyway.  I could probably kicks his ass.  If my superpower was talking to fish and swimming really well I probably just ask to take the cash equivalent and go home.  Superpowers work like game shows right?  Oh and this kind of dispersant outside of being toxic to us is a mutagenic.  And outside of the x-men universe a mutagenic is generally bad.

Obviously we would think this would cause the government to have exhausted every measure to have stringent policies in place so that no more spills happen on our shores.  Well that would be smart and logical.  It would also be hopeful that we would fund more efforts to study the effects and plan a way to combat and help the shorelines.  It’s not like we can just grab a bunch of shrimp and fish from somewhere else and dump them in there.  If you don’t know why dumping exogenic animals into an ecosystem is bad maybe you shouldn’t be reading this blog.  But surprisingly we keep introducing non native wildlife into new habitats and get surprised when shit runs rampant.  Like in Australia where they have  huge problem with the domestic cats who have gone feral and run amok in the countryside.  But that’s the cruel irony of Australia; with the horrifying nightmare inducing spiders, snakes and other critters in the outback it is housecats which are messing up the ecosystem.

But there is only so much that can be done in the gulf (more than what we are doing however).  What concerns me is the colony collapse disorder that has been happening to bumble bees.  That isn’t such a good thing.  Bumble bees are those big fat nice guys that don’t really sting very often and are our primary pollinators.  Carpenters bees are secondary pollinators but they are a bit more aggressive.

If you don’t think bees dying off is scary think about how well plants will do without those little guys helping all the flora have sex.  It should be called plants and the bees really not birds and the bees.  And no plants is generally frowned upon.  Perhaps almost catastrophic you might say.  And lo and behold scientist believe it might have to do with pesticides specifically ones getting into corn and thus High-fructose corn syrup.  Corn sugar being fed to kept colonies.  This has taken years to figure out.  And these pesticides were introduced in the nineties.  If it took that long to start taking effect it might take a wee bit to start clearing the effect.  If we actually, you know, get rid of the pesticides killing our bees.

The colony collapse is slow process where the scent and chemical wiring of bees gets thrown off and they leave the nest but are unable to get back then the colony slowly dies off.  It also eliminates the amount of queens, the amount of bees produced and a whole plethora of not so good things for our favorite flower matchmakers.  The only person who can be happy about this is Nick Cage (shout out for the fourteen people who actually saw the wicker man).

I can only hope there is action taken before we find ourselves on a precipice.  But its only animals right?  Maybe if this whole evolution thing were real animals would evolve to be not so tasty and we’d leave them alone.  Maybe we’ll figure out that being top of the food chain doesn’t mean kicking at the species below us and lighting them on fire for our amusement.  Because it more of a pyramid or Jenga and we keep taking blocks out and shit will get real.

Ben


Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle or Why Mitt Romney Scares Me


While I do term myself liberal I am not foolish enough or brainwashed enough to think the Democratic party is in any better or that being Republican means the candidate is inherently evil or bible thumping or cow towing to the wealthy (or to corporate America or the military industrial complex).  That would be silly.  Voting on party lines also silly.  More importantly dangerous and shortsighted and very, very stupid.  It’s not as bad as say voting on who has the nicest hair; Romney does have nice hair though and I respect that… I guess.  My problem with Mittens, as I prefer to call him, is what has been termed quantum politics.  His views alter upon examination.  They are fluid and undefined.  He’s  smile and a denial.  The only thing we know he stands for is… well not so much.

If this man wins the election he could the first President with no opinions without a focus group.  He leaves no footprint of ideas.  How do you argue with a  man with no opinions.  It’s like trying to arm wrestle an a squid but much less awesome or maybe not the arm wrestling part.  Just don’t argue with him.
The good thing about people with opinions is eventually one of them will line up with yours.  I did not like W as a president but I did like some of his opinions.  Like his ardent support of disease, specifically AIDS, research.  Hard to argue with that unless you’re a douche.  There are things I don’t particularly agree with Obama on.  I’m not happy with all the concessions he has made.  We’ve had a succession of President’s side with big business.  Clinton who gave us a surplus also aided in this endeavor, caving into big business and letting the wealthy elite get a better hold of the nation.

You can go through each President and see their flaws and good points.  The elder Bush made the unpopular but correct choice in pulling out of Iraq knowing we had no proper exit strategy.  But his cost him precious popularity.  But his strong point was foreign politics with his CIA background and his domestic platform was a bit weaker.  Plus the image he projected wasn’t as fun as the more youthful and charming Clinton.  Nixon who was a criminal, a liar, and a deep offender against privacy and liberty ended our involvement in Vietnam and brought US ties and diplomacy to China for the first time in decades.  It’s a pretty good thing seeing who much of our future they have bought.

I fear for the future of our Presidency.  I also fear for our reactions to these two men.  While I can justify a lot of detraction for Obama it smacks far too often of outright racism.  And the scarier problem is people playing the ‘antiracism’ card.  Who say Obama is enabled to do wrongly as he can at any point say you can’t be mean to me because if you do I’ll say it’s because you are white and I’m not.  Romney scares me not only because you can’t pin down his beliefs but because the only thing he seems to represent is who he is.  Wealthy white people who came from money. 

But the genius in being a quantum politician is just that.  You can’t be pinned down.  You opinions vary on your current mindset and your surroundings and if you are being recorded (always assume nowadays you are being recorded).  The possibly Romney is/are duality.  They are yes and no.  They can exist as yes one moment but then no the next moment and try to do retroactively.  Basically its bullshit.  It’s just a bunch of playground antics and ‘nu-uh, I never said that.  You’re ugly.”

And it’s catching on elsewhere.  Look at Paul Ryan’s budget proposal.  It intends to close loopholes and debt.  But the first step is “slash[ing] taxes for corporations and the rich while drastically cutting food and medical aid to the needy.”  Which obviously makes sense right.  Well not really.  Not fucking at all actually.  Then there is the problem with the lack clarity or disclosure; it’s just vapor and empty promises.  There are no plans we can see, just a promise and a wink.  They say let me have what I want and you’ll get what you need.  I remember this from the eighties.  It involved cutting education and then backing out of the deal and the increasing military budget.

But who knows if Mittens wins and he really just behaves in a way just to be popular he might do some good… but most likely he would just fuck things up more.  I’ll be hiding my head under a rock for little while.  That might make things better?  Right?

Ben

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Ode to the Socially Awkward Male


I found myself looking through Netflix instant keenly aware of the amount of garbage clogging up the categories that I have to filter through in order to find one or two movies that won’t simultaneously make my eyes bleed and hurt my logic center.  The logic center is just past the caramel center in men and the scented bath soap center in women.  I still can’t decided if it would be a funny to redact the women part implying females have no logic but I know this be false (take that humorous but outdated stereotypes).  There is just so much junk.  The same for so much media.  There is all this nonsense to filter through as if someone said more is better.  I could wish for a filter but that might mean I’d lose the one or two pleasant surprises I’ve found by digging through.  I’ve found my share of crapfests that I regret having witnessed but I chalk those up to a learning experience.  Learning never to let those people be allowed near a camera again; I’m building a list when I eventually have the resources to follow through.

But it’s not just Netflix or media but knowledge in general.  There is no good filter.  No ratings for news or instruction just your ability to figure out if this is garbage or not.  We are constantly bombarded that it is sensory overload.  There really is only so much we can pay attention to.  It’s why we generally attribute city people, especially big cities like new York, qualities like rushed and asinine whereas small town people we associate charm and garrulousness.  This can be explained by the amount of stimuli in each area.  If you paid attention to every little thing in New York you would tire yourself out before reaching work.  It’s not callous it’s your brain compensating for the environment.  That isn’t  to say that there doesn’t exist  callous jerks who wouldn’t glance in your direction or get off the phone with their ‘besty’ as you have a heart attack in front of them, because there are plenty of people like that.  With all the overstimulation it is no wonder a lot of people retreat from social interaction or at least no offline social interaction.  Enter the socially awkward male.

A bit of background.  The socially awkward male is usually what you would term nerd, geek, spazoid, dweeb or various other high school insults.  This does not confer upon them the distinctly intelligence necessarily.  This does not include man boys either.  They act like grown children but they tend to have bit more social understanding.  Manboys lack things like social grace, and tact but not the true fundamentals.  The true socially awkward never quite integrated into school society.  They usually felt ostracized or driven out.  This is part true and in part not so much true.  A lot of this isolation was self inflicted.  The actually act of socializing and being around others causes stress or anxiety.  Little things become monstrously blown out of proportion.  Decisions are made not to increase happiness but to make as little social impact as possible: “I’ll wear this hat to school because they other one might get me noticed.”

The internet society is in no way causing this but I can say it is certainly elevating the chances of proper socialization.  This influx of stuff drives people indoors and away from others.  They communicate through mouse clicks not talking. Very core and basic building blocks of interaction are stripped away.  And the internet is helping this proliferation of the socially awkward.

How you carry yourself is immediately picked up on in very primal manner.  This is something I wish I had known when younger and I was picked on.  I had/have some learning disabilities and that led to bit of the tendencies above.  I was, at various points in my life, rather socially awkward.  Significantly less so now because being alone all day, or constantly worrying about how people will react or treat you,  isn’t particularly fun.  The way predators in the animal kingdom pick out the weak and sick in the herd so do bullies.  They don’t go just by size or by glasses they go by posture and how you carry yourself.  Averted eye contact, slumped shoulder and shuffled feet are big indicators.  It’s easy to notice if you look for it.  Seriously stand in front of mirror with bad posture and worrisome attitude.  Then stand with good posture and a positive but take no shit attitude.  These are two very different people looking back at you.  One of them will not get picked on.

Shows like The Big Bang Theory tend to oversimplify social awkward males.  It’s acceptable to be  dick and a weirdo if you’re a genius.  Same thing with House.  If the guy wasn’t right a;; the time he’d just be an asshole not a savant.  There are people who simple shun social niceties not because of anxiety but simply because they aren’t rather nice.  The social awkward male is a person who thinks long and hard about wearing a new shirt to work even if someone else said it looked nice other said it looked nice because there a chance someone may poke fun of them.  Then think about it all day.  In the shower, during the drive over, at work and they breathe a sigh of relief when they get home with crisis averted.  Even though there was confrontation they played through it in their mind countless time and spent emotional energy during with anxiety.  They could walk in like it was a normal day or even strut in like they were fabulous (probably not).  But socially awkward males have this specter of bullying hanging over them like Damocles’ sword.  They never know when it will cut they simply ‘know’ it will happen.

The worst part of this problem is that the very thing that gives them the most stress and anxiety is the very thing they need to get better.  Being social.  It can be terrifying to a young guy who spends too much time playing video game or behind the computer.  And especially harmful are all the people telling him to just do it like walking out the door into the world will magically cure what ails him (although in a sense it kinda will).  But they don’t know that.  They think the whole world is watching and critiquing them.  Watching for that moment to strike and upset them.  So they shy away and find other people who are awkward and hang out with them.  They discuss with vehement internet rage that the New George Lucas was the evil alternate universe version of the old George Lucas who made movie people enjoyed.  They would recount good Lucas’ fall and subsequent imprisonment and they would plot to free him.

Don’t pity these men but certainly don’t mock them.  But remember if you do they probably won’t do anything about.  Except bitch on the internet.  But they’ll get bored of that and then focus back on EA or BioWare.  Because obviously Origin is awful and only built to torment them.  But it kind of is so they aren’t totally wrong.

Ben

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Future is Mobile


Intelligent phones are taking over; it’s the reason Apple is so dominant.  It’s the reason Microsoft isn’t.  And the sad thing is Microsoft has some bitchin’ phones.  But they have this association with things like crashing and a bad mobile OS.  It isn’t true anymore but the public doesn’t know.  Apple is a juggernaut.  They are shiny, simple, great at marketing and they have the image.  They are way too damn expensive.  And for you fan boys out there Apple had some bots targeting them recently so you can talk about safe but with apple grabbing such a large market share expect more malware to target the operating systems of apple products.  And if you thought malicious code attacking computers was dangerous wait till it’s truly unleashed on an object that also stores all that fun contact info, personal pictures and call history as well.  Hooray!

Smart phone and tablets are grabbing more and more of what people buy.  It is rare to hear of people excitedly telling about this new PC build they are excited about.  I still hear it because I know so many nerds,  I’m like the raft in a sea of socially awkward males.  There is something very off about that last sentence and I am going to chose to not analyze it at all and walk gingerly away.  IT never happened people.  Anyway most computer devices being purchased are not desktops or laptops.  They are phones and tablets. 

This is important for several reasons.  One a lot of companies are going to go belly up.  This is generally bad.  Also a lot of new companies will explode into being with wads of cash swelling their pockets to bursting.  This is good.  It’s like a forest fire.  The old trees die off making room for a bunch of young trees.  They do really well but in a few years only some of those new trees will still be around.  Tech companies unlike other industries, need to be agile and quick moving.  Having a great sales team is awesome.  It gets your product out there fast.  Better than a sales team is cutting edge.  Stay cutting edge and offer a cool product and clients come to you.  But with tech the tide shifts constantly.  What was new yesterday seems boring tomorrow.

How fast are things moving?  Let me steals some facts from a PowerPoint (linked below*) from a new start up monitoring tech trends.  You would assume I wouldn’t need the world new if I’m pairing it with start up but I digress.

AOL, which was pretty popular for a while before it became a joke, grabbed a million users after nine years.  That’s a long time but a lot of users and a lot of users paying money.
Facebook grabbed that same million in nine months.  Facebook has had its ups and downs but is running strongly.   it dethroned Myspace; actually I think dethroned isn’t an apt enough description.  Myspace was smacked so hard it had to pretend the downsize was on purpose so it could focus on the music.  Facebook constantly updated.  We bitch about the changes, the stupid timeline, the annoying apps and all the other constant patch whining but Facebook is always fresh and we won’t leave.  It is entrenched in our social media culture.  Plus Google+ blows.  It might not I haven’t even spent more than a minute or two on it.  But we don’t want more than one of something like this.  We won’t split our attention.  If we give up Facebook we go to the new thing.  It usually isn’t the new thing and Facebook.  Those relationships never work out.  Oh, and Facebook is very aggressive about staying on top of keeping updated for mobile use.  That is part of their core strategy.

Now, Draw Something, the new game app for mobile phones and tablets; guess how long it took them to reach one million users?  9 days.   A stupid little game with a simple interface is making millions of dollars right now. Over one hundred thousand a day from advertising fees alone.  That’s like an opening weekend of a box office summer blockbuster every day all the time.  It’s that kind of nonsense that makes me want to quit work and make silly little time waster games.  Look at the success of Minecraft.

Console games may be doomed.  With sales of casual games emerging as the new profitable thing designers are going to flock to these kind of companies. It makes sense no one works for free and they want to work for the profitable company.  Big console video games cost close to a movie now.  Why put so much work and time and effort when you can make simple drawing game?

So gaming is going mobile.  Computer is going mobile.  What’s next?  Virtual glasses from Google?  Computing on par with old school star trek?  Siri is going there.  So is Wolfram Alpha.  This trend is only getting bigger.  Even small things.  Like maybe waiters using iPads for the order and transferring to the kitchen.  No paper pads then walking to the POS.  They can take your card and print at the table.  The tech is coming fast and furious.  Take advantage and be a first adopter.  You might find some extra money in your pockets.  Or not, Kyle, you fucking luddite.


Ben

Friday, April 6, 2012

Romantic Comedies Suck

Romantic comedies are awful.  Romance films without the genre blend are even worse.  I’m not bashing romance or the idea of romance; in fact I think romantic comedies do immense harm to idea of proper romance.  The problem with romantic comedies is that they end.  Now this is, in general, is a very stupid argument against a piece of fiction.  Stories without endings are mostly viewed as... not so good.  We crave some manner of closure.  Especially when we are invested in the story.  Just recently Bioware announced they are adding free DLC to the third installment of Mass Effect due to player outrage over the ending not having enough closure.  These people have been playing the interactive story for years and they were furious.  I could hear the collective dark denizens of the internet seething with impotent rage.  But with romantic comedies the ending comes when the boy wins the girl.  Being a narrative piece there is generally some obstacle to the two being together.  Otherwise it’s a pretty fast fucking movie.  “Hey you wanna go out?”  “Sure.” “Ok.”  Mandatory sex scene.  Roll credits…  actually I think I just described porn… moving along.  Normally the girl shuns the boy and he woes her back or gains her affection somehow.  It is usually set up as the man being the conqueror and the woman finally relenting/submitting.  There are cases of the woman being the aggressor but it isn’t nearly as common.  But with the normal arc of the story the hero overcomes the reason he was rejected in the first place.  It isn’t necessarily solved it's just overcome.  Looking down the line into the future we see nothing but pain and misery for the new couple.  They won’t make it.  It will end horribly and one or both of them will be unhappy.  Depressing shit.  But it’s the fucking movies fault.  To create dramatic tension they put two characters together who should not be together but through some inexorable circumstances they are drawn together.  They get over their bullshit for a short time and then it’s over.  But the underlying reason for their differences will inevitably pry them apart.

A good chunk of the romantic comedies treat dating as a competitive sport.  Then there are others where they force one partner to change.  Like a lot.  And major life changes against your will to satisfy your partner never breeds contempt.  Sarcasm!

Ever see a movie with a slacker who is happy being lazy, half unemployed and wasting his life.  But the only way he can win at life and get the girl is to miraculously get a good job near the end of the film and turn his life around.  Firstly, it presumes it is easy to get a new job after years of laziness.  Like this guy is some savant and his years of not so much experience will be ignored on the resume.  “I see you have five years in agriculture Mr. Johnston, what was that exactly?”  “Weed, mostly a lot of weed.  So I guess that counts as sales, right?”  Long pause. “We’ll call you.”  Awkward handshake and delayed exit.  End scene.  Remember that movie Big Daddy with Adam Sandler?  He goes from irresponsible and criminal behavior to being a god damn lawyer.  Oh yeah, that twenty seconds of exposition about law school really keeps the logic train on its tracks.  Hint, not so much.

Romantic comedies tend to have this air of 'impossible is possible' bullshit about them.  Which I guess makes sense in the genre.  It’s romantic to think that out of the million people you one and only found you.  But the star crossed lover nonsense leads to thoughts of predestination and that seems like no fun whatsoever.

So it’s silly and full of plot holes and maybe might create a few bad relationships but where is the real harm?  I’ll tell you if you stop being so damn pushy and wait a minute.

I saw a commercial for a new romantic comedy and normally I simply ignore it and file away in the part of my brain that I hate and need to punish.  Now, falling in love with a picture is not normal and not romantic.  The problem is film audiences don’t know that.  Just looking at the commercial for The Lucky One a solider falls in love with a photograph then meets the person behind the photograph and woes her.  The problem with this should be obvious.  So one of our soldiers overseas discovers a photograph while in the war zone and then falls in love with the women in the picture.  Then a courtship follows.  Well actually we didn’t see a courtship we just see this fucking stranger show up and a lot of making out and showering together.  The problem normally with things like this is he didn’t fall in love with that woman in the war zone.  He fell in love with the idea of the woman.  He fell in love with the photo.  And that is not the same.  That is not a healthy start to a relationship.

If you are curious why that’s true watch Vertigo.  James Stewart falls in love with a woman but not really.  He falls in love with her look, her image.  The person he fell in love with dies to his knowledge.  She didn’t but he is made to believe so.  He then sees the woman again but all wrong or at least all wrong for that image he craved.  She isn’t done up with makeup, fancy hair, the right dress or jewelry.  As they begin the courtship anew he forces her to change to that image and because the poor woman actually is in love with him she relents and lets it happen.  The person who she isn’t and only pretended to be is who is in love with.  It is so full with fetish to be a new level of scary.  It is not love but image worship.  She is a an object to him at this point.  The movie did not have a happy ending; shocking, I know.

It’s what this genre misrepresents is what upsets me.  They place so much emphasis on pursuit, and beauty and not so much on the important things.  Like, you know, being compatible.  Plus the tension is generally that of the 'will they, won’t they' variety.  We know the answer, it’s yes.  Yes, they will before the movie is over.  Unless it’s poor Forrest Gump and then it’s a hollow victory because Jenny is a bitch.  The woman does nothing but hurt the poor guy and take advantage of him then make him rear her bastard son.  The man talks to strangers about candy, leave him the fuck alone you heartless wench!  But she didn’t.  Fuck you Jenny.

Ben

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Knock First


The law is a living amorphous beast like the aliens in The Abyss only, you know, not really at all.  It changes incrementally by each important decision.  That is why our supreme court justices are, in some respects, far more important than the President ever can be.  The way we interpret the law is directly affected by these few individuals who hold power as long as they choose or are able do so.  Which is why we have to be vigilant for certain changes that endanger our freedoms.  The hot button issue for many years has been privacy, or rather how much can those in power can run over privacy with a truck and get away with it.  Then run it over again, light it on fire, stare at it laughing to its jerk friends and then pee it out.  Then ask you for thanks for totally doing you that solid and putting out that pesky fire out.  Bunch of jerks.

“The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.”


Oh good.  That fills me with glee.  Let’s have officials (notice not law enforcement but the term officials) given authority, willy-nilly, to pry apart people’s butt checks.  Nothing bad can happen.  Except for the countless times awful things have happened in similar situations.

Let’s think on this for a moment.  The law is meant to protect and safe guard us, the citizens.  Not from our selves but from things like tyranny, persecution, injustice, as well as gross violations of inalienable human dignity and rights.  We should, as a people, treat our enemies better than our enemies treat us.  We should treat our prisoners well.  Crime does not suddenly divorce someone of their humanity.  There are quite a few valid and moral reasons to breach the law.  We haven’t even touched on false arrest, setups, racism as motivation for arrest  – like ‘driving while black’, which I’m sad to relate is real phrase due from common racial profiling practices from police for decades – or any other reason for why that person being brought to jail shouldn’t be there.  If you can strip search anyone why not everyone?  It would seem unfair in a sense that one person is deemed worthy of search while another isn’t.  There is so much room for abuse it's frightening.  It’s decisions such as this one that inch us closer and closer to a state like those in bad science fiction where the government deems thinking dangerous so it removes your ability to think so it can remove the danger.  Benjamin Franklin had a very apt phrase for such troubled times.

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I think we can all agree he was a reasonably smart guy.  Privacy is an essential liberty.  Being clothed and not forcibly striped down is an important right.  We are under constant barrage of threats to our privacy.  From internet companies storing our information, to phone tapping, to increasing powers of search and seizure, to the ability to cart someone away and detain them indefinitely just whispers of suspicion.  That last part should cause a wee bit of discomfort or pants wetting, which ever you prefer, it isn't my place to judge your choice in reaction.  Indefinite detaining.  That sounds fun.  I wonder if there is enough red tape and scary men in suits to keep your family away from the truth?  Long enough for you to be tortured or killed certainly.  The human rights violations in this country are only growing worse.

Our culture has became so shell shocked that we’ve shifted from love of freedom to love of safety.  From love of knowledge and wonder to love of vitriol and unquestioning loyalty.  That is our legacy from the tragedy in New York.  They day everyone in my generation will remember what they were doing and where they were just like the Kennedy assassination for my parents' generation.  The founding principles of this country, to question and act out against poor representation, have slowly become un-American in many eyes.  It is absolutely scary.  Everything should always be questioned.  All the time.  Truth doesn’t sit around to be discovered by accident; you don’t wander around a dark room and stub your toe on truth.  It waits and hides.  It is obscured and obfuscated.  It’s up to the masses to educate themselves.  But it’s hard to look for truth and it’s hard to be vigilant.  It’s just so much easier to go along for the ride and only complain when things noticeably affect you.  Like when gas gets too expensive.  Which, holy crap, it fucking is.

But that’s just prisoners being mistreated.  They are obviously worth less than upstanding citizens so it’s not important…  fuck anyone who says that, and that means you Kyle, you dick.  But what other parts of our lives are being encroached on?  Well, what about airport security?

Obviously we need to take airport security seriously.  Privacy is fantastic but there are certain limits to privacy when it concerns safety.  I think even Franklin would agree to an extent.  We currently have millions of dollars invested in nude body scanners at various airports in the United States.  A million seems like a lot.  But a billion, which is how much we actually have invested, is a touch more.  Holy shit.  Just imagining that much money confuses and astounds me.  Seriously try to picture it somehow.  Just wrap your head around that one.  One billion dollars.  For machines that take naked pictures of you.  Yeah, and those pictures will never be stored anywhere for later viewing or viewed by anyone sexually.  Now if that isn’t aggravating enough imagine that these scanners aren’t even close to fool proof.  But let’s up the ante.  Lets’ assume it was explained that they were not foolproof and the government went ahead with buying them anyway.  Not my government who protects my freedom and privacy?  My government would never allow people to take pictures of my naughty buts if they didn’t think it would work…  If you have read my blog before you know this ends poorly for us.  Yeah, a blogger confronted the TSA over these machines with proof of their failure.  Heck, he even posted his findings.  Not what I would have done mind you with, you know, people out there who seem to want to sneak stuff through with devious intentions looming, ever looming.


Okay, so maybe those things aren’t foolproof and maybe they dose us with carcinogenic ionizing radiation” (X-rays).  You know that stuff doctors run the fuck away from and give you a goddamn lead vest and they just give a quick click.  Yeah, I can assume these TSA guys are trained just as rigorously.  Or not.  Probably not.  But hey it’s not they are sexual predators who enjoy taking naked pictures of attractive young ladies.  Yeah, because a man in that position would never infringe on privacy and human decency to see boobies.

“Not one, but two of the men working for TSA at Dulles Airport on that day have now been arrested for sex crimes.”

Well, that hardly seems surprising.  It seems officials, TSA agents to police officers, really just like seeing people naked.  I feel so safe.  Now if you don’t mind I’m going to go to shower to curl up and have  nice cry.

Ben

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Good Guys and Bad Guys


I was reading a post regarding the moral and ethical implications of the actions in the book and film The Watchmen.  As per usual for the internet it broke down into a measuring contest with people competing on who has been studying Psych 102 and can quote a textbook regarding Kant and other great philosophical minds.  But the idea behind the internet hissy fit was actually interesting.  And I’m being a bit rough on the post, as far as the normal internet discourse goes it was rather tame and I didn’t see all that much doucheyness.

But that debate got me thinking about good guys and bad guys as well as the character that live in the moral grey zone.  If you watch old western films there tends to be a heavy reliance on archetypes and reasonably simple moralities.  Guy in a black hat is not such a nice person.  The guy in white hat is pretty awesome.  The snake oil salesman who nobody listens to or takes seriously but is mostly harmless as the comic relief.  The female lead.  Here we usually tend to have one of three categories for a woman in older film.  The mother figure, the virginal good girl, and the loose woman.  For women in these films and many older films there were only these three roles.  Women were categorized by sex.  And their worth was weighed on their category.  Generally the character starts of as the virginal good girl and then goes one of two ways.  Be married and submit to the male or be a floozy and have sex and not submit to the male.  So essentially its societies way or keeping women in the kitchen by shaming them.  Yay, progressive Hollywood.  Women in film usually exist as the prize.  They are simply awarded to the hero.  And I’m not talking about romantic comedies I’m talking about most films.  The point of the female lead is to be given to the male lead at the end as a reward for overcoming his obstacles.  Cracked wrote a whole article about it.

But as film grew in maturity the moral complexities and the roles which characters could play expanded.  There was room for people to slip into the grey realms where choice and morality grew murky.  There was finer brush strokes instead of the very broad character arcs like; stay good; stay bad; be redeemed; and be damned.  We have seen moral complexity in other mediums for centuries regardless of its place or appropriateness in adhering to the cultural morays of the time of creation.  It is a natural progression of any medium with storytelling.  It happens in comics, film and video games.  All mediums generally looked down upon but are slowly gaining in acceptance as art.  Not too long ago Roger Ebert relented in his criticism of video games as art.  He didn’t buckle and state that video games are a real art form but he quit his firm position due to realizing he had his face firmly in his own ass.  It’s not a terminal condition but it does lend to people calling you and asshole.  Anyway… moral complexities have come to the new mediums.  In video games however there have been issues with it.  Part of the problem when creating moral choice in an interactive environment is that the character in a game is acting as your avatar.  It is this that forms a strong bound from gamer to character.  Obviously decent story helps but Super Mario Bros has very little discernible plot and we still formed a tight bound with the scrappy little plumber.  I think the plot goes like this.  Plumber in a pet store trips on shrooms and almost drowns in toilet pipe.  Flails around screaming about being lit on fire and smashes the glass to the turtle cases.  Calmed down by the blond girl working the cash register but letting him play with pocket change.

But right now it seems to be the latest cliché to give two available paths for your character to take.  Good guy or bad guy.  The problem with video game built around this limiting premise of a stat system based off these choices.  Act like a good guy all the time and your persuasion goes up allowing you coerce people.  Act like a flaming shit stain all the time and get better at intimidating people into doing what you want.  But what happens if you tow the line?  You choice to be a “jerk” sometimes and a nice guy other times.  No reward, no stat boost, nothing.  And I put jerk in those quotes due to a flawed system in qualifying good and bad.  A lot of the time the game doesn’t categorize the whole being a shithead or being a nice guy well.  It isn’t necessarily bad to yell at a character trying to kill someone instead of calmly stating, “hey, stop you might wound this guy and feel bad later.  Douche”  I added the douche part.  But gamers want to get levels, increase stats and up their gamer score.  So they act one way totally and commit.  So its enforcing a moral standpoint not because they feel that’s how they should act morally but how they should act to get more cool shit like a laser sword unlocked at level fifteen.  But video games, even with their growing sophistication, is still an infant form.  And it still has to overcome the image of being a past time for kids.

Back to comic books.  The morality of comic book character is often changed wily-nilly.  This is from the changing industry guidelines and change in the writers for a comic series.  The guys who writes for Batman now is not the same guy who wrote a year ago.  Their ideas on where the character goes differ.  Writers have their story arc and they pass a torch.  This isn’t always bad as the creator often doesn’t see the potential of their creation and needs a fresh mind to pull them from obscurity and bring complexity, character depth and intrigue.  The X-Men were boring with Stan the man.  It took some other writers to bring in the good stuff.  Sadly The X-men were neutered by the films.  If you have read about what the third film should have been about you might want try to make the collective soul of Hollywood manifest into a tangible substance so it could punch it in its spirit dick.  I’m kind of proud of that last sentence.

But superheroes and comic books are rife with moral quandaries.  And oftentimes we find the superheroes questionable.  And it’s often frightening because they aren’t meant to be.  It’s more of a call on the morality of those pushing the graphic novels out.  I always found Superman boring because at his core he is invulnerable and incorruptible.  Where is there tension?  We always know he will win.  Then there was the famous series where he died, sort of, and that rekindled the character for a while until they blew that too.  I always preferred Batman.  Mostly because he’s the goddman Batman and fuck you that’s why.  He is a tragically flawed but amazing character.  He has vulnerability, he has character flaws and he has a set of rules that govern his actions which make sense.  But he wasn’t always consistent.  There was a time when they totally changed how they dealt with violence in comic books.  As he wasn’t fighting aliens or magic beasts just mobsters they had to change the formula.  So they launched Batman into space for a period of time.  Not the brightest days for Batman fans.  Space Batman still give very little fucks and will straight up punch you for say a fashion faux pas.  “White after labor day?!  Wham!”  Or not…

But The Watchmen is not normal comic book with the inconsistencies placed on it by a long run and shifts in culture.  The Watchmen is above normal.  The story is engaging and the characters are thoroughly thought out and engaging.  They take the universe of comic book vigilantes and populate it with the psychology or real people.  As would probably happen most people behind the mask are unhinged one way or another.

The great thing about The Watchmen is that it lives in a world that feels close to our own.  A possibility where the only difference is there were masked vigilantes and there were shifts in normalcy due to do this.  The only series that treats their world in a similar manner is the X-men.  And the X-men was really, when it was good, just a big commentary on racism.  They ignored the sticky trouble of picking out ethnicities by instead using supercharged humans and the hatred generated by that otherness.  They delved into self loathing, divisiveness, intolerance and whole slew of other human rights issues.  But they cloaked in safe quasi-science.

In narrative fiction when the world expressed is different enough that we can’t immediately relate to the issues of the world itself there are often two tricks the author uses.  One trick which pulls you out of the world and the story is an enormous amount of exposition.  The more common tactic is person who experiences the world as you are.  With The Matrix we had Neo.  He was our gateway to the world.  We learned as he learned.  With Star Wars (the ones that still exist in my mind and don’t fill me with anger and bitterness) we had Luke a simple farm boy who barely knew anything.  With Hellboy we had that obnoxious new guy.  In the second film we had enough back story and knowledge that character was no longer needed.  Heck The Never Ending story, and The Princess Bride both had two little kids reading the story.

For The Watchmen we had Night Owl (#2) as our point of contact and moral compass.  Spoilers ahead. 

Night Owl is a morally cautious and unsure hero.  He acted like a normal man who chose a very odd life.  He is appalled at the behaviors of his fellow super heroes for different reasons and forgives certain behaviors and acts.  He is our not always correct guide for right and wrong.  With him we see the extremes of the others, he is the foil.  While he has no distinct moral convictions he is saddled with sexual frustrations, an obvious impotence theme linking his actions as vigilante to worth as a man and translating that to sexual worth (the fight scene with Black Widow #2 and himself can be seen a very odd courtship).

Each character is so convinced in their rightness and their actions.  Rorschach, Ozymandius and the Comedian have no ounce of backing up in them.  They live by the convictions and code, whether it is right or wrong.

Dr. Manhattan is outside this realm of humanity as he has transcended morality and ethics.  He is amoral (not to be confused with immoral).  He is an odd and tragic character.  He sees all possibilities, future and past all concurrently.  So his actions in his eyes are already predetermined.  He has seen them.  He’s simply around for the ride as a spectator watching his own life.  He is passive in decision making as he mostly retreats from confrontation (like teleporting to Mars) or sends it away (as he did to Rorschach).  In the comic book version of Vietnam Dr. Manhattan walks around simply willing the ‘enemy’ to death.  He simply accommodates those around him and really has no drive or motive.

Then there is Rorschach.  Dogged to the extreme.  Ruthless, and efficient.  Completely committed (in both definitions) and unwavering.  His closest comparison is the Punisher but frighteningly enough he goes even further.  So fractured by what he has perceived and so broken he hides behind his shifting mask of obscurity and takes vengeance.  Vengeance for his lost innocence.  Vengeance for being turned into a man with no boundaries.  He has one motive and one drive.  Truth and punishment.  He jauntily walks past Batman’s firmest rule (never kill or let another die by inaction).

The Comedian is a sick and twisted man who exists for himself.  He is quick to judge all around him and quick to admit his own flaws.  He kills the mother of his child in Vietnam and is more upset that Manhattan let it happen.  He is actually upset while the blood is still fresh on his hand that Manhattan with all his power chooses not to act.  He is childlike in his actions in that he never outgrew the phase of immediate gratification.  Rape is acceptable to him because simply, he wants t have sex.  And again when caught he is unapologetic and turns it against his captor with witticism and deep barbs.

Lastly there is Ozymandius, genius and playboy.  I actually prefer the way the plan played out in the comic book versus the one in the movie.  The switch is very relevant.  Yes it is understandable and easier to palate but it takes away from the reasoning.  IN the comic an alien was presented as the one thing humanity would rally against instead of Manhattan.  The reasoning being humanity needs a boogeyman, it needs a common enemy to unite under.  Dr. Manhattan, while he is otherworldly and is something inhuman, he is very much attached to the U.S.  All that rage would funnel that way.  It would aim at the government and it would aim at the science that create him.  There would be collateral damage.  Ozymandius wouldn’t mind this collateral damage as he sacrificed so many lives already but it would be messier and less clean that he would want.  There also were far more explosions in the film so that the attacks seem to affect all of the world.  I think this is partially a reaction to 9/11 as so many things are nowadays and we will find echoes of this National tragedy for decades in our narratives.  Such disasters live within the culture of its people and filter into popular media.  Look at the original Godzilla movie.  The entire thing was about the evil of the nuclear bomb and the extreme danger of science.  The scientist in that movie decided he would unleash his deadly invention but only if he died as well so it could never fall into the wrong hands.

Ozymandius is not crazy but he is morally bankrupt.  He sees his solution as elegant and he feels, as a superior being, he has the right to make that choice.  He is a very seductive form of evil.  But, as we know, truth will win.  Rorschach alone stands opposed to the decision but the others, acknowledging their failure, see no correct option but to allow the plan to follow through.  Night Owl takes his frustrations out with violence which Ozymandius accepts willingly as his form of penance, he seems oddly happy that he is struck and justified I his share of punishment.  You almost hate him more because he says that feels he should be hurt but not enough to die like the other pawns.  Rorschach, knowing he cannot stop the plan but also knowing he cannot allow himself to stand idly, chooses to commit suicide through murder (he lets Manhattan kill him).

Comic books have grown in sophistication due to the niche market they themselves in.  Fewer people buy and the higher price they command demands greater artistry.  Most of the people I know who read are intelligent adults (usually the specific demographic is the socially awkward male) and they need more than boobies and explosions to keep them shelling out every month.  I can only hope that the film craze of comic books produces more The Dark Knight and The Watchmen and less The Fantastic Four.  Jessica Alba’s cleavage can only save so much.

Ben