[If you wear a helmet while riding a Segway, you’re a wanker. For that matter if you ride a Segway at all: You’re a wanker. Just saying.
So that this isn't a COMPLETE waste of space - here is a funny picture I found.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Why I like Protagonists who get Their Teeth Kicked In (AKA - Why Old Boy is a great movie) [NARRATIVE CONVENTION]
"Pull the switch you fucking pansy"
I have been made more and more aware as of late by the rather fatalistic preferences I have in storytelling.
Maybe it is from reading too much H.P. Lovecraft or Machiavelli, or maybe it’s a natural inclination that is without a cause. Regardless of the reasons, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I don’t see it as fatalistic or sadistic to see characters in stories fail or suffer. I am of the opinion that that is what helps make a story good.
Or maybe I’m a closet Catholic (I already don’t believe in God and am a slave to several mindless routines, so I’m not ruling it out).
The way I see it is that a story is supposed to be about events traveling from one point to another and the characters involved changing as the story progresses. For good or ill they have to change, along with the world around them.
Just like in life, people change over time, and the characters should do the same. Otherwise, there just isn’t really any point in the story. Otherwise, it is just another ‘day in the life’ and the story holds little significance. The characters can be realizing a love interest, discovering something about themselves, or losing/regaining faith in something, all are valid. The more drastic and stressful the events, the more drastic and dynamic the change can be.
To the example I listed earlier – H.P. Lovecraft. The father of modern horror’s story almost has EVERYONE start off as fairly mundane (vaguely anti-Semitic) people who get driven inextricably insane by the horrors they witness. Most have their infectious insanity taken to such a degree that recovery of the old self is impossible. Along the way they seem to all discover something about themselves and realize with horrible consequence the truth in their own desperately bleak place in the universe in the face of eldritch horrors.
To a more common example: One anyone who has been in a high-school lit class can relate to. Anyone out there remember ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’? (If not, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, if you don’t have time to read go Netflix the Jack Nicholson movie adaptation. It’s great!) Murphy’s whole story was about his struggle to change his surroundings and break from the suffocating numbness Nurse Ratchet’s regime held the ward in. While he failed, eventually breaking himself on the oppressive surroundings, his actions sparked changes in the surrounding characters. The Chief is a perfect example, eventually being spurred by Murphy’s actions to take action rather than mutely holding up a mop.
That is another thing: the change doesn’t have to be an obvious one. In the ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ example, Murphy didn’t change as much as he changed others. It was also a subtle, slow change in the people around him. It doesn’t appear that there is any direct character development. Brave heart was all about the change that William Wallace affected on others through the story through his efforts and sacrifice.
That is another thing: the change doesn’t have to be an obvious one. In the ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ example, Murphy didn’t change as much as he changed others. It was also a subtle, slow change in the people around him. It doesn’t appear that there is any direct character development. Brave heart was all about the change that William Wallace affected on others through the story through his efforts and sacrifice.
So while a character’s development help makes a story compelling, it isn’t all that interesting unless there is a good story to move them along. No one would have given a shit who Kaiser Soze was if he hadn’t killed Dean Keaton (and if Verbal hadn’t done so well to vilify himself- I mean Soze…er…). I think it is better illustrated in movies where it ISN’T done well. Shitty chick flicks or artsy movies that struggle to be feel-good movies or tear-jerkers can often fit this billet.
I am ashamed to say that I watched ‘Elizabethtown’ on a long flight once. Believe me, it is the last thing I ever want to confess to. It was an AWFUL fucking movie, worse even than the Keanu Reeves remake of ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ (I do stupid things on long flights…like watch the movies). The story revolved around Legolas trying to discover that his daddy loved him and that he can move on in life or some such nonsense. The change over the course of the story was drastic, but none of the events in the story seemed compelling enough to have warranted the change. Legolas just went from ‘boohoo I didn’t know my dad’ to ‘Hey, I think I might have known my dad! Let’s make out Kristen Dunst!’
If events don’t warrant change then it’s all pointless. Maybe that’s a better way of saying it.
So: By setting characters in a very grim circumstance and run them pretty much to death and back is a pretty good excuse for having a lot of shit happen to a person that evokes change. People always seem the most changed by the big (almost traumatic moments) in life. Brushes with Death or Life both seem to be the kicks in the teeth people need to change who they are. Wars haunt veterans for the rest of their lives, the birth of someone’s child is the wake up call to shape up and be more adult, having to declare bankruptcy will make someone skittish about money the rest of their lives.
This is why I like the grimmer stuff. It seems to have more potential. When the main character gets the crap kicked out of him, does he give up or keep going? Does he keep going it alone or seek help? Does the character’s cause inspire or deter others? How WILL he react to the mind-flaying horror waiting in the sleep New England town?
As for seeing characters getting killed, well…that might just be my fatalistic streak. It is too easy to have a hunky-doory happy ending where everyone wins, so I really like and admire stories and writers who aren’t afraid of putting a bullet in the head of the main character. (Case in point, Layer Cake, which is a BADASS movie…, or if I keep going for the classics: anything Shakespeare)
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Read the news today, oh boy…
No: The English army did not just win the war (for those out there who can catch the Beatles reference). I was on the bus today and next to me an older gent was reading the news paper. I have been snoopier as to what others have been reading over the last several weeks since I’ve had some genuinely interesting conversations because of it.
However, amidst the news of gunshot victims, oil spills, the monotony of armed conflict, and the standard reports of North Korea being a dick: there was a human interest piece. Normally I ignore these as while I appreciate that fluffy got out of the tree, I don’t consider it real news. Instead of showing REAL positive news, papers and TV journalists throw out feel good hallmark bullshit. This one, however caught my eye.
“San Diego woman turns 111, making history”
I didn’t read the article at the time (I have though and it’s kind of cool, I’ve put it here for posterities sake).
I was just struck at how old she was. 111…after some grinding gears upstairs I figured that means she was born in 1899. RIGHT at the turn of the 20th century…holy shit…That is awesome. Think of all she’s seen? Of all the ages to live through, I think living through the 20th century with its remarkable changes and complete game-changing social upheavals has got to have been the coolest ever.
She saw 2 World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, and 2 Gulf Wars.
She saw Cars go from a luxury novelty to a necessity.
She was alive for the invention of airplane and the full course of its evolution.
She got to see it go from ‘Man will never fly’ to ‘Okay, maybe man CAN fly’
She got to see it go from ‘Man will never break the sound barrier’ to ‘for serious?’
She got to see it go from ‘Man will never walk on the moon’ to ‘STOP THAT!!’
She had the white-knuckle thrill ride of sixty years of potential any-minute-now apocalypse as the Soviets and US squared off.
While we are on the topic she was around for the entire course of the Soviet Union.
She witnessed the rise of America as a world power.
She witnessed the shrinking of the world as global networks have allowed us to instantly talk to people on the opposite end of the globe, people who would take months or YEARS to contact when she was born.
She saw not only the rise of the information age (which many of us have seen) but also its prologue.
There was the Civil Rights movement and the beginnings of a color-blind future for humanity (we are still working on that)
There was Women’s lib and with it the complete upheaval of gender roles that have been in place for thousands of years (And unfortunately we got Fiona Apple out of it too, but you can’t have EVERYTHING, right?)
She saw the assassination of one major US president and the attempted assassination (sometimes on multiple occasions) of at least ten others.
The fundamental building-blocks of all life and those of the universe have been discovered.
Pluto stopped being a planet (Which I still choose not to believe).
Penicillin and Latex contraceptives have been invented and made life infinitely more fun
There was the rise of Rock & Roll and its slow decline into Pop music & Justin Bieber
That’s all I could think of without turning to looking at stuff on Wikipedia. That feels like cheating for the purposes of turning this into a published rant. So I am going to just stop here.
For the cheap seats: What would be YOUR ideal century to live through? Why?
However, amidst the news of gunshot victims, oil spills, the monotony of armed conflict, and the standard reports of North Korea being a dick: there was a human interest piece. Normally I ignore these as while I appreciate that fluffy got out of the tree, I don’t consider it real news. Instead of showing REAL positive news, papers and TV journalists throw out feel good hallmark bullshit. This one, however caught my eye.
“San Diego woman turns 111, making history”
I didn’t read the article at the time (I have though and it’s kind of cool, I’ve put it here for posterities sake).
I was just struck at how old she was. 111…after some grinding gears upstairs I figured that means she was born in 1899. RIGHT at the turn of the 20th century…holy shit…That is awesome. Think of all she’s seen? Of all the ages to live through, I think living through the 20th century with its remarkable changes and complete game-changing social upheavals has got to have been the coolest ever.
She saw 2 World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, and 2 Gulf Wars.
She saw Cars go from a luxury novelty to a necessity.
She was alive for the invention of airplane and the full course of its evolution.
She got to see it go from ‘Man will never fly’ to ‘Okay, maybe man CAN fly’
She got to see it go from ‘Man will never break the sound barrier’ to ‘for serious?’
She got to see it go from ‘Man will never walk on the moon’ to ‘STOP THAT!!’
She had the white-knuckle thrill ride of sixty years of potential any-minute-now apocalypse as the Soviets and US squared off.
While we are on the topic she was around for the entire course of the Soviet Union.
She witnessed the rise of America as a world power.
She witnessed the shrinking of the world as global networks have allowed us to instantly talk to people on the opposite end of the globe, people who would take months or YEARS to contact when she was born.
She saw not only the rise of the information age (which many of us have seen) but also its prologue.
There was the Civil Rights movement and the beginnings of a color-blind future for humanity (we are still working on that)
There was Women’s lib and with it the complete upheaval of gender roles that have been in place for thousands of years (And unfortunately we got Fiona Apple out of it too, but you can’t have EVERYTHING, right?)
She saw the assassination of one major US president and the attempted assassination (sometimes on multiple occasions) of at least ten others.
The fundamental building-blocks of all life and those of the universe have been discovered.
Pluto stopped being a planet (Which I still choose not to believe).
Penicillin and Latex contraceptives have been invented and made life infinitely more fun
There was the rise of Rock & Roll and its slow decline into Pop music & Justin Bieber
That’s all I could think of without turning to looking at stuff on Wikipedia. That feels like cheating for the purposes of turning this into a published rant. So I am going to just stop here.
For the cheap seats: What would be YOUR ideal century to live through? Why?
Friday, July 2, 2010
This first thing I can't stop laughing at
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T CLEAN OUT THE LINT TRAY YOU FUCKING ANIMALS!!! (lol)Another thing that has made this morning a little easier is this video of the 100 best movie insults ever. Watching it just caused me to add about thirty items to my netflix list that I had previously forgotten about. It also has one of my personal favorites "I'm the guy who does his fucking job, you must be the other guy" from the Departed; though I think "Maybe...maybe not...maybe go fuck yourself" should have made the list instead if you could only choose one.
Had a long rant basically about people who take up causes, not do anything about them, and then get all preachy whenever you do something they don't agree with. However, like most of my 'essays' it was really just a rant in written form: and I discovered while trying to edit that it drifted too far off-topic for me to justify putting it out there just yet.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
"The Runaway General"
I am in the process of re-writing something I scribbled last night: but wanted to take a quick second to post a pretty cool article I read by Rolling Stone called "The Runaway General" that was pretty cool...it is covering General McChrystal who was recently fired from his position as head of US forces in Afghanistan for basically talking too much shit about his civilian bosses.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Civilization
MMOs and Starcraft are killing Koreans left and right, but I think there is one highly overlooked game series which dwarfs these in their time-killing power.
Sid Meier’s Civilization
Let’s put aside the fact that Sid Meier is the gaming equivalent of the greasy bastard that invented free-basing and focus on the game for now.
I got my first copy from a friend of mine who handed it off to me in the same kind of burned-CD that I used in those glory days when I was unemployed and still in school. The game had been around for a while, but I hadn’t heard of it. It was a conversation about world conquest I think that sparked the idea of introducing me to the game.
On the disc was a copy of Civilization II Gold Edition and though it couldn’t hold a candle to the graphics of Star Craft or the pace of Half Life. Still I was engrossed. So the stacks of other burned games sat for a long time collecting dust as hours fell from the clock. To this day I feel sorry for some of that neglect…my poor copy of Baldur’s Gate II…
When Civ III came out I was exuberant, but was quickly disappointed as the controls were awkward and the game felt all around too slow. I didn’t care though, I still had Civ II…and I would install/uninstall it over the course of the first decade of the new millennium. I was happy with it, and when the fourth rendition of the game came out I was pretty indifferent. My sister picked it up and had a blast, but even the promise of hearing Leonard Nimoy announcing “I AM the state” was not enough to dissuade me.
But, where reason fails sometimes wallets prevail, and a few months ago Steam offered another one of their ridiculously cheap sales, and for what I think was around ten or fifteen bucks I got the Civ IV bundle with all the expansions. I tinkered with it and was impressed, but at the time and full knowledge of what kind of time-sink the game is, I had to break myself from it till I had the time.
Now…I have that time, and last week I re-installed it. I am LOVING it. There is the thrill of marching hapless units to their deaths in a pointless attempt to take a city for the sole purpose of personal amusement. There is the Machiavellian joy of watching your enemies slowly fold and convert as your cultural influence consumes their cities. And the melancholy of having a city brought low by plague (How was I supposed to know I had to build a fucking Aqueduct!)
I regularly jump on for five minutes and spend two or three hours on the game.
Sid Meier’s Civilization
Let’s put aside the fact that Sid Meier is the gaming equivalent of the greasy bastard that invented free-basing and focus on the game for now.
I got my first copy from a friend of mine who handed it off to me in the same kind of burned-CD that I used in those glory days when I was unemployed and still in school. The game had been around for a while, but I hadn’t heard of it. It was a conversation about world conquest I think that sparked the idea of introducing me to the game.
On the disc was a copy of Civilization II Gold Edition and though it couldn’t hold a candle to the graphics of Star Craft or the pace of Half Life. Still I was engrossed. So the stacks of other burned games sat for a long time collecting dust as hours fell from the clock. To this day I feel sorry for some of that neglect…my poor copy of Baldur’s Gate II…
When Civ III came out I was exuberant, but was quickly disappointed as the controls were awkward and the game felt all around too slow. I didn’t care though, I still had Civ II…and I would install/uninstall it over the course of the first decade of the new millennium. I was happy with it, and when the fourth rendition of the game came out I was pretty indifferent. My sister picked it up and had a blast, but even the promise of hearing Leonard Nimoy announcing “I AM the state” was not enough to dissuade me.
But, where reason fails sometimes wallets prevail, and a few months ago Steam offered another one of their ridiculously cheap sales, and for what I think was around ten or fifteen bucks I got the Civ IV bundle with all the expansions. I tinkered with it and was impressed, but at the time and full knowledge of what kind of time-sink the game is, I had to break myself from it till I had the time.
Now…I have that time, and last week I re-installed it. I am LOVING it. There is the thrill of marching hapless units to their deaths in a pointless attempt to take a city for the sole purpose of personal amusement. There is the Machiavellian joy of watching your enemies slowly fold and convert as your cultural influence consumes their cities. And the melancholy of having a city brought low by plague (How was I supposed to know I had to build a fucking Aqueduct!)
I regularly jump on for five minutes and spend two or three hours on the game.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
E-Reader show down: Nook v. Kindle
I am very attached to books in the same way I’m attached to my eyes. I’ve had them around for my whole life and thus have a very sentimental attachment too them. I have tried in the past to read pdf files or e-books but could never get into them. Something about the tactile sensation of holding a well-worn paperback or hardback book, the feeling of turning the pages, the smell of a new book to lounge out on the couch with and read…it is all very stirring.
I can’t imagine doing something like that with what looks on a strictly physical dimension: an over sized iPod. However a few of my friends have gotten e-Readers (One of which will be doing a similar review over at Milady Geek) and they all seem to enjoy them. So, while I’m not rushing out to purchase one: I figured that I would look into the issue and see what I could come up with.
As a quick disclaimer – I am not even considering Sony’s e-reader because of a personal bias towards Sony products. The only company I have had more negative experiences with then Sony is AT&T…which I unfortunately have to use for home internet access and access on the Kindle or Nook…but that’s that. More on personal biases later...
The market seems to be largely composed of either the Nook or Kindle. First thing of course that stands out is pricing: both are fairly comparable (Homepage listings - Nook w/ 3G+Wi-Fi is $199, Kindle $189). Right off the bat I score the Nook with a point for having the option of a slightly less expensive version (W/ just Wi Fi is $149) for those of us who are perpetually broke, also for the fact that I can actually go into a Barnes & Noble store and hold one and try it out before purchase. However, this point is almost immediately offset for the same reason.
While I had a positive hand-on experience at Barnes & Noble yesterday looking at one, I’m sure it’s a branch-to-branch thing. Some outlets will be having one on display in pristine conditions while others are covered in mysterious sticky substances best left un-guessed at. Also, while you can purchase one with just Wi-Fi, I think it significantly degrades the usefulness of the gadget. The whole point of this is to be able to download and read books on the go, and if I am looking for something new to read I don’t want to have to hunt down an AT&T hot spot. I can easily envision the frustration of running around an airport trying to find one while a Borders or some other newsstand/book vendor is aggravatingly close by.
Since price is about the same, I looked at the warranty coverage, and considering I’m clumsy as shit: a good warranty could be a selling point. Both have decent one-year coverage and optional two-year coverage which will cover your klutzy antics at least once. No great difference in either plan.
So with that: we are back to square one. Kindle is slightly cheaper then the high-end Nook but in the end you are still forking over $200+ for the luxury of having one of those pads Captain Kirk would sign all the time in Star Trek.
So aside from price and availability of products, I take a gander at basic functionality. Battery life is 14 days on the Kindle without wireless active, with the Nook only lasting 10. This I initially dismissed considering that I am rarely hiking through the mountains for weeks on end or anywhere where some form of outlet isn’t available for recharge. However, the whole point of these things is that they are supposed to be supremely portable, so I have to score the Kindle a point for the prolonged battery life (Kindle 1 – Nook 0).
I liked how the controls on the Nook worked, and haven’t heard any complaints about the Kindle either, but since I haven’t had hands-on time with the Kindle I can’t award or detract points for this. However, one of the best written reviews I’ve seen during my research at Evil Genius Chronicles did a side-by-side comparison of the two. Apparently the Nook is slower at loading up a book (they clocked it at 15-30 seconds vs. the Kindle took under a second). Also, the Nook has a function to change font type and size, but it takes a while to load. So Kindle gets a point for being a little quicker on the ball. However, the Nook does have the option for a back-light and is supposedly easier on the eyes, and while slow the ability to change fonts is pretty cool. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can only read Arial for so long before my eyes start to glaze over. So (Kindle 2 – Nook 1)
As far as memory is concerned, both apparently have the same 2GB internal, but the Nook has a micro SD slot. I have more then a few of those cards lying around, so the ability to load books on them for extra space is pretty awesome. Also, I have a large collection of pdf files for D&D, Dark Heresy, and other paper-and-pencil RPG’s, and while both can read pdf files, the ability to just keep a separate card for all my gaming books is pretty awesome. So while it may take a bit to load – being able to carry all of my nerdage around on a little card is pretty sweet. (Kindle 2 – Nook 2)
Both have some web-browsing and social networking tools. I’m jazzed about none of them and don’t really care what kind of peripherals you can pick up for them. I’m just looking for a more portable alternative to my library. It should be said that no review I read said anything positive about the web-browsing function. However with the possibility of more third-party apps that the Nook’s compatibility with the new Android would provide, if you are looking to put apps or extra gadgets on there the Nook would do you better. However, if you want to have a bunch of apps and check Twitter every twenty minutes or hop on to water your gay plants in Farmville: Just save up for a damn iPad. However since as I previously stated I don’t really care about apps or web browsing, I cannot in good conscious give the Nook a point on this.
You can also share your recent purchases with friends if you have a Nook. However, while I love loaning out books to people, I only have 14 days or so using the Nook. It’s still better then NOT being able to share books…but I really don’t like how I don’t have a right to do with my purchases as I please. Perhaps if they did an ‘up to three’ sharing thing I might get all excited for it…but no. So I award Nook no points (or deduct any), I just thought this was also worth mentioning.
So in conclusion – They are pretty much tied. I think it all comes down to personal preference or what you or your friends already have. I have also noticed a lot has to do with reviews. Because there are a lot out there that are pretty aggressively one-sided. It was hard to find any opinion that didn’t feel at least just a little bias one way or another.
My own personal opinion – stepping out of the illusions of neutrality and shedding off the uncharacteristic trait of impartiality…What do I personally think? I am kind of in favor of the Nook. Part of it is my long-time devotion to Barnes & Noble. I have always LOVED there stores. I used to sometimes go down to one I lived near in Silverdale when I wanted a quiet day away. I would park my ass in the Literature section and re-read some Steinbeck and let the rainy day pass. I have always found their sales people to be friendly and knowledgeable, and have never had a complaint when I’ve had to return something (even once when I lost the receipt).
Unbiased advertising at its finest:
Plus “Nook” is more fun to say then “Kindle”. Kindle makes me think of the little-folk from Willow. Nook is just fun. Nook. Nook. Nook. Nook. He he he…it is almost as fun to say as Scuba. Scuba. Scuba. He he he…
So if I end up buying one: I’m probably going to get a Nook unless I see further damning evidence from either camp of fanatic fans.
Some of the articles I reviewed in making this assesment:
Evil Genius Chronicles "Kindle Vs. Nook, My experience"
Macintouch Kindle Review
Brandonlive Kindle Review
The Dreaming Cafe Kindle Review
Business Week's Review
Gizmodo "Barnes & Noble Nook Review"
Gizmodo "8 Reasons you can finally love ebook readers thanks to Nook"
CNET Kindle Review
CRN review
Engadget Kindle 2 Review
Crunch Gear "10 Reasons to buy a kindle 2 and 10 reasons not to"
I can’t imagine doing something like that with what looks on a strictly physical dimension: an over sized iPod. However a few of my friends have gotten e-Readers (One of which will be doing a similar review over at Milady Geek) and they all seem to enjoy them. So, while I’m not rushing out to purchase one: I figured that I would look into the issue and see what I could come up with.
As a quick disclaimer – I am not even considering Sony’s e-reader because of a personal bias towards Sony products. The only company I have had more negative experiences with then Sony is AT&T…which I unfortunately have to use for home internet access and access on the Kindle or Nook…but that’s that. More on personal biases later...
The market seems to be largely composed of either the Nook or Kindle. First thing of course that stands out is pricing: both are fairly comparable (Homepage listings - Nook w/ 3G+Wi-Fi is $199, Kindle $189). Right off the bat I score the Nook with a point for having the option of a slightly less expensive version (W/ just Wi Fi is $149) for those of us who are perpetually broke, also for the fact that I can actually go into a Barnes & Noble store and hold one and try it out before purchase. However, this point is almost immediately offset for the same reason.
While I had a positive hand-on experience at Barnes & Noble yesterday looking at one, I’m sure it’s a branch-to-branch thing. Some outlets will be having one on display in pristine conditions while others are covered in mysterious sticky substances best left un-guessed at. Also, while you can purchase one with just Wi-Fi, I think it significantly degrades the usefulness of the gadget. The whole point of this is to be able to download and read books on the go, and if I am looking for something new to read I don’t want to have to hunt down an AT&T hot spot. I can easily envision the frustration of running around an airport trying to find one while a Borders or some other newsstand/book vendor is aggravatingly close by.
Since price is about the same, I looked at the warranty coverage, and considering I’m clumsy as shit: a good warranty could be a selling point. Both have decent one-year coverage and optional two-year coverage which will cover your klutzy antics at least once. No great difference in either plan.
So with that: we are back to square one. Kindle is slightly cheaper then the high-end Nook but in the end you are still forking over $200+ for the luxury of having one of those pads Captain Kirk would sign all the time in Star Trek.
So aside from price and availability of products, I take a gander at basic functionality. Battery life is 14 days on the Kindle without wireless active, with the Nook only lasting 10. This I initially dismissed considering that I am rarely hiking through the mountains for weeks on end or anywhere where some form of outlet isn’t available for recharge. However, the whole point of these things is that they are supposed to be supremely portable, so I have to score the Kindle a point for the prolonged battery life (Kindle 1 – Nook 0).
I liked how the controls on the Nook worked, and haven’t heard any complaints about the Kindle either, but since I haven’t had hands-on time with the Kindle I can’t award or detract points for this. However, one of the best written reviews I’ve seen during my research at Evil Genius Chronicles did a side-by-side comparison of the two. Apparently the Nook is slower at loading up a book (they clocked it at 15-30 seconds vs. the Kindle took under a second). Also, the Nook has a function to change font type and size, but it takes a while to load. So Kindle gets a point for being a little quicker on the ball. However, the Nook does have the option for a back-light and is supposedly easier on the eyes, and while slow the ability to change fonts is pretty cool. I don’t know about anyone else, but I can only read Arial for so long before my eyes start to glaze over. So (Kindle 2 – Nook 1)
As far as memory is concerned, both apparently have the same 2GB internal, but the Nook has a micro SD slot. I have more then a few of those cards lying around, so the ability to load books on them for extra space is pretty awesome. Also, I have a large collection of pdf files for D&D, Dark Heresy, and other paper-and-pencil RPG’s, and while both can read pdf files, the ability to just keep a separate card for all my gaming books is pretty awesome. So while it may take a bit to load – being able to carry all of my nerdage around on a little card is pretty sweet. (Kindle 2 – Nook 2)
Both have some web-browsing and social networking tools. I’m jazzed about none of them and don’t really care what kind of peripherals you can pick up for them. I’m just looking for a more portable alternative to my library. It should be said that no review I read said anything positive about the web-browsing function. However with the possibility of more third-party apps that the Nook’s compatibility with the new Android would provide, if you are looking to put apps or extra gadgets on there the Nook would do you better. However, if you want to have a bunch of apps and check Twitter every twenty minutes or hop on to water your gay plants in Farmville: Just save up for a damn iPad. However since as I previously stated I don’t really care about apps or web browsing, I cannot in good conscious give the Nook a point on this.
You can also share your recent purchases with friends if you have a Nook. However, while I love loaning out books to people, I only have 14 days or so using the Nook. It’s still better then NOT being able to share books…but I really don’t like how I don’t have a right to do with my purchases as I please. Perhaps if they did an ‘up to three’ sharing thing I might get all excited for it…but no. So I award Nook no points (or deduct any), I just thought this was also worth mentioning.
So in conclusion – They are pretty much tied. I think it all comes down to personal preference or what you or your friends already have. I have also noticed a lot has to do with reviews. Because there are a lot out there that are pretty aggressively one-sided. It was hard to find any opinion that didn’t feel at least just a little bias one way or another.
My own personal opinion – stepping out of the illusions of neutrality and shedding off the uncharacteristic trait of impartiality…What do I personally think? I am kind of in favor of the Nook. Part of it is my long-time devotion to Barnes & Noble. I have always LOVED there stores. I used to sometimes go down to one I lived near in Silverdale when I wanted a quiet day away. I would park my ass in the Literature section and re-read some Steinbeck and let the rainy day pass. I have always found their sales people to be friendly and knowledgeable, and have never had a complaint when I’ve had to return something (even once when I lost the receipt).
Unbiased advertising at its finest:
Plus “Nook” is more fun to say then “Kindle”. Kindle makes me think of the little-folk from Willow. Nook is just fun. Nook. Nook. Nook. Nook. He he he…it is almost as fun to say as Scuba. Scuba. Scuba. He he he…So if I end up buying one: I’m probably going to get a Nook unless I see further damning evidence from either camp of fanatic fans.
Some of the articles I reviewed in making this assesment:
Evil Genius Chronicles "Kindle Vs. Nook, My experience"
Macintouch Kindle Review
Brandonlive Kindle Review
The Dreaming Cafe Kindle Review
Business Week's Review
Gizmodo "Barnes & Noble Nook Review"
Gizmodo "8 Reasons you can finally love ebook readers thanks to Nook"
CNET Kindle Review
CRN review
Engadget Kindle 2 Review
Crunch Gear "10 Reasons to buy a kindle 2 and 10 reasons not to"
Saturday, June 19, 2010
HAWP
I have been a big fan of Hey Ash Whatcha Playin since I randomnly stumbled upon on YouTube...more likely then not while looking at BioShock 2 stuff (Bishock 2 being possibly the most awesomerest game of ever all time ever...but that is another topic). I just found out they have a new one up, and I realized I don't think I've mentioned it here yet.
The duo are a brother-sister pair. The old guy who pops up now and then is their real-life father. A father who is so awesome I've started radical gene-swapping treatments that has absolutely NO NEGATIVE side effects...*COUGH COUGH COUGH*...oh...my soul hurts...is my stool supposed to be bloody?
The duo are a brother-sister pair. The old guy who pops up now and then is their real-life father. A father who is so awesome I've started radical gene-swapping treatments that has absolutely NO NEGATIVE side effects...*COUGH COUGH COUGH*...oh...my soul hurts...is my stool supposed to be bloody?
Friday, June 18, 2010
Link to the Weekend #6
This has been a pretty good week for videos: So figured I'd throw a bunch out there this Friday.
I already talked about Dark Millenium Online in a previous entry: but I saw this the same day and have so far been using it as a substite for my usual girl-on-girl-on-guy-on-girl-on-goat internet porn.
Contra V. Tetris
MORTAL KOMBAT!!!
I’m a sucker for anything that takes a previously established set of kick-ass characters or a badass story line and just makes it gritty as hell. I like gritty. It’s my favorite texture.
I already talked about Dark Millenium Online in a previous entry: but I saw this the same day and have so far been using it as a substite for my usual girl-on-girl-on-guy-on-girl-on-goat internet porn.
Contra V. Tetris
MORTAL KOMBAT!!!
I’m a sucker for anything that takes a previously established set of kick-ass characters or a badass story line and just makes it gritty as hell. I like gritty. It’s my favorite texture.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Web Comics - my substitute for established religion
I’m a whore for web comics. While some other office-bound workers might come in to work and check out the latest from ESPN or jump on Craigslist or link directly to facebook and start declaring “TGIF!” or “HUMP DAY!!” – I turn to penny arcade and PvP.
I can’t say why I have such a fascination for them. I could point out the potential for taking a story its full course over months or years with little distractions from the author’s vision (IE – Atland). That isn’t accurate though, because the majority of them seem to be just random one-offs (IE – Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal). The artwork is rarely of a superior quality (IE – XKCD, Cyanide & Happiness, Dinosaur Comics). You have a full range from your whimsical and in some cases straight up farces (IE - Order of the Stick) comics to the long-running social ‘drama’ comics (IE – Questionable Content). Some of those I keep reading with no idea why I read them, seeing no great redeeming value and finding no attachment to the characters or story (See the last one I referenced).
I think it is just ritual at this point. When the mornings promise to be slow…Or at least at a pace where I can afford to blow off twenty minutes as caffeine begins to coarse through my vascular system: it gives me something to meditate over. Small easily-digestible punch lines or attempts at philosophic insight to mull over while my brain is still in warm-up mode. It’s the same reason I used to do cross-word puzzles.
It’s like church without the proselytizing.
Of all those I enjoy, there are more then a few that slowly drift out of relevance or fall to the way side, but so far only one has been black-listed from my register. Ctrl+Alt+Del is a web comic I followed for some time, after a while I realized that it wasn’t funny and rarely did anything more then state the blaringly obvious. Adding insult to injury; the characters are just cut-and-paste personalities. There is the zany main character, his human-hating robot friend, his straight-faced best friend, and the uber-competitive and sometimes naggy girlfriend gamer. The icing on the shit cake though was when the author tried working in a sub-story at one point where the main character & his girlfriend get an abortion. It was a shitty story line that was just tacky and in incredibly poor taste.
To avoid giving that aforementioned piece of shit too much spot light (in case the adage "No such thing as bad press" is true) here is a listing of ten of my favorite web comics. (Top Three are in order, the rest are in whatever order they came to mind)
1) Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – The king of web comics. It is always random and rarely anything short of hilarious. Sometimes they do video shorts too which are equally hilarious. This is the only one I have bookmarked & regularly check on my home computer.
I can’t say why I have such a fascination for them. I could point out the potential for taking a story its full course over months or years with little distractions from the author’s vision (IE – Atland). That isn’t accurate though, because the majority of them seem to be just random one-offs (IE – Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal). The artwork is rarely of a superior quality (IE – XKCD, Cyanide & Happiness, Dinosaur Comics). You have a full range from your whimsical and in some cases straight up farces (IE - Order of the Stick) comics to the long-running social ‘drama’ comics (IE – Questionable Content). Some of those I keep reading with no idea why I read them, seeing no great redeeming value and finding no attachment to the characters or story (See the last one I referenced).
I think it is just ritual at this point. When the mornings promise to be slow…Or at least at a pace where I can afford to blow off twenty minutes as caffeine begins to coarse through my vascular system: it gives me something to meditate over. Small easily-digestible punch lines or attempts at philosophic insight to mull over while my brain is still in warm-up mode. It’s the same reason I used to do cross-word puzzles.
It’s like church without the proselytizing.
Of all those I enjoy, there are more then a few that slowly drift out of relevance or fall to the way side, but so far only one has been black-listed from my register. Ctrl+Alt+Del is a web comic I followed for some time, after a while I realized that it wasn’t funny and rarely did anything more then state the blaringly obvious. Adding insult to injury; the characters are just cut-and-paste personalities. There is the zany main character, his human-hating robot friend, his straight-faced best friend, and the uber-competitive and sometimes naggy girlfriend gamer. The icing on the shit cake though was when the author tried working in a sub-story at one point where the main character & his girlfriend get an abortion. It was a shitty story line that was just tacky and in incredibly poor taste.
To avoid giving that aforementioned piece of shit too much spot light (in case the adage "No such thing as bad press" is true) here is a listing of ten of my favorite web comics. (Top Three are in order, the rest are in whatever order they came to mind)
1) Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal – The king of web comics. It is always random and rarely anything short of hilarious. Sometimes they do video shorts too which are equally hilarious. This is the only one I have bookmarked & regularly check on my home computer.
2) Perry Bible Fellowship – Don’t let the name fool you. It rarely has anything to do with religion. I keep the complete almanac of this comic close at hand for an easy chuckle. It’s been discontinued but its hilarious archives are still intact.
3) Penny Arcade – I’ve been following this for the better part of six years now, my opinion may be jaded as I think my fandom is encroaching on fanaticsm.
4) XKCD – Stick figures at their best and most insightful/funny.
5) Cyanide and Happiness – I have a profoundly fucked-up sense of humor, and this feeds that sense of humor like an emaciated Ethiopian at Soup Plantation.
6) Realm of Atland – A beautifully colored web comic with a very long and entertaining story with some nice humor
7) Weapon Brown – A post-apocalyptic spoof of the world of newspaper comics. Weapon Brown roams the post-nuclear wastes with his loyal companion, Snoopy. Very over the top. Great artwork and anyone else who spent their teenage years reading as much ‘Heavy Metal’ magazine as I did will like this. It should also be noted that only the Weapon Brown strips on that sight seem to be any good.
8) Amazing Super-Powers – I fell in love with this after seeing their Monopoly strip. The slug at the pages heading changes every time you load the page. Never since Hamsterdance.com have animated gifs made me so gleeful.
9) Dumm Comics ‘Skadi’ – A Thursday segment of the daily web comics at Dumm comics. Skadi speaks to my love of old Conan stories and pulp fantasy…plus the artwork is reminiscent of Ren & Stimpy. So go! Follow Skadi on her world-wide quest to eat of every meat! (In a bacon way, not a sexy way).
10) Diesel Sweeties – Pixilated indie robot humor for the whole family.
In the grim darkness of the future...there is only awesome (Maybe)...
I found this yesterday and immediately skipped like a small child over to facebook to post it on a few friend's pages. One of whom is the infamous Milday Geek. She sited me as a source so I am reverse-sourcing her to this awesome sauce clip to what may potentially draw me back into the soulless void that is MMOs.
*drrrrrooooolllll*
I have always loved the grim darkness of the 41st millenium and just about anything Warhammer. I have been collecting the miniatures for close to a decade and have immersed myself in every aspect of the fluff I could get my greedy hands on.
The only thing that really stands out in my mind as a sense of disatisfaction is with Warhammer Online. I did a trial and played it for maybe about an hour, if that, hoping and hoping that the reviews were wrong and I could claim some new sense of fun and novelty. Needless to say, I didn't. What I got was a bland experience that just felt like WoW with a different set of animation.
I love this Penny Arcade comic as Tychos BEST SPEECH EVER...but in this topic I sadly have to site it with a nod of agreement to Gabe's comic in the first panel.
So, I am understandably hesitant for Dark Millenium Online. On the one hand I could potentially get to tear up shit as a Chainsword wielding member of the Adeptus Astartes (or Space Marines for you mere mortals)...on the other this could just turn into an expirience as disappointing as its fantasy equivalent.
Come on...who WOULDN'T want to play as someone this bad ass?
I will, of course still sign up for the beta.
Now, it should be noted that I am a recovered WoW player. I used to enjoy exploring its expansive world and hanging out with friends with it. After several years of playing on and off due to work issues I eventually quit after growing tired of repetitive gameplay, constant guild bickering, and a general sense of disinterest in what I was getting for what I was paying for it.
This news also comes at the heels of the announcement of a new paper-and-pencil RPG from the makers of Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy: Deathwatch. In this one you play as the near god-like Space Marines sent against the myriad alien horrors that assail mankind. This version of the Fantasy Flight produced 40K RPG series should be a lot more action oriented as you are tasked to track down, flush out, purge clean, and generally wipe out any foul bug-eyed Xenos out there.
"Suffer Not the Alien to Live" - Moto of both the Deathwatch and the Arizona Department of Immigration
(Drawn by DarkLostSoul86 on DeviantArt)
*drrrrrooooolllll*
I have always loved the grim darkness of the 41st millenium and just about anything Warhammer. I have been collecting the miniatures for close to a decade and have immersed myself in every aspect of the fluff I could get my greedy hands on.
The only thing that really stands out in my mind as a sense of disatisfaction is with Warhammer Online. I did a trial and played it for maybe about an hour, if that, hoping and hoping that the reviews were wrong and I could claim some new sense of fun and novelty. Needless to say, I didn't. What I got was a bland experience that just felt like WoW with a different set of animation.
I love this Penny Arcade comic as Tychos BEST SPEECH EVER...but in this topic I sadly have to site it with a nod of agreement to Gabe's comic in the first panel.
So, I am understandably hesitant for Dark Millenium Online. On the one hand I could potentially get to tear up shit as a Chainsword wielding member of the Adeptus Astartes (or Space Marines for you mere mortals)...on the other this could just turn into an expirience as disappointing as its fantasy equivalent.Come on...who WOULDN'T want to play as someone this bad ass?
I will, of course still sign up for the beta.Now, it should be noted that I am a recovered WoW player. I used to enjoy exploring its expansive world and hanging out with friends with it. After several years of playing on and off due to work issues I eventually quit after growing tired of repetitive gameplay, constant guild bickering, and a general sense of disinterest in what I was getting for what I was paying for it.
This news also comes at the heels of the announcement of a new paper-and-pencil RPG from the makers of Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy: Deathwatch. In this one you play as the near god-like Space Marines sent against the myriad alien horrors that assail mankind. This version of the Fantasy Flight produced 40K RPG series should be a lot more action oriented as you are tasked to track down, flush out, purge clean, and generally wipe out any foul bug-eyed Xenos out there.
"Suffer Not the Alien to Live" - Moto of both the Deathwatch and the Arizona Department of Immigration
(Drawn by DarkLostSoul86 on DeviantArt)
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Half Marathon with half the enthusiasm
It’s maybe six o’clock. It could actually be more like five forty-five. Or is it maybe earlier then that? I don’t know because I am lacking a watch – an accessory that I normally absolutely refuse to go without in this day and age where people are more and more replacing them with their cell phones. That is a rant for a different time. For now I listen to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” over the loud speakers as the announcers prattle on as second-hand radio personalities normally do.
When is this supposed to start? Six fifteen? What time is it now? I am in the middle of a vast crowd of people. My particular section is marked as corral #38 by a big black sign being waved above the crowd like some ancient banner. About twenty feet behind me through the press of people in work-out clothes is another banner marked #39.
To my left is a press of mid westerner stereotypes. Thirty to forty year old women in varying degrees of obesity, the one next to me is wearing a visor declaring her loyalty to some bank that I’ve never heard the name of. They all wear the same kind of purple shirt that makes up roughly sixty percent of the crowd. The backs of these purple shirts each exclaim “TEAM IN TRAINING” followed by a name of a hometown or state, and then finally a list of various sponsors.
To my right is a different woman fidgeting with her iPod prior to the event’s start. She pays no attention to the man dressed as Elvis directly in front of her. The song changes to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and the announcer declare the start for the next wave. Since the first gun shot, each corral has been released a minute after the previous wave is sent on the track; leaving me and several hundred others to anxiously shift as we wait for our turn to get the ordeal over with.
How could anyone ever think this would be a good idea?
It is the Rock & Roll Marathon & Half Marathon in San Diego. And this year it begins in Balboa Park on a rather chill overcast Sunday morning. I find myself a little bit glad that I chose to do this since traffic must have been severely fucked up everywhere because of the event. If I had chosen to bail at the last minute any other plans would have been sullied by that continuous reminder. Like a sweaty version of Poe’s Tell-tale heart.
I always thought the Gates of Hell would be less colorful and more fiery.
People with big grins on their face move through the crowd handing out salt packets like those they give at diners. I see some of the more serious-looking runners take a few and shove them in their pocket and I repeat the process. Later I found it helps keep you from sweating out all your electrolytes and having a heart attack. At the time I was just mirroring people who looked like they knew what they were doing. I sure as shit didn’t. As I write this the event is over, and I still have little to no idea. In retrospect I should have trained more, but fuck it. Too late now. If the masochism that comes of forcing yourself to run thirteen to twenty six miles sinks in, I will certainly know for next time to prepare better.
What time is it? Six thirty lately? Seven? Nine? Noon? I have no idea and give up guessing as the corral moves just a little bit closer to the starting line.
When finally I do get going I find the event to be a blur. I am not a runner by any definition of the word. In it is my loathing for this form of exercise that caused me to take up a half marathon (Figured if I have something that forces me to run, it won’t be so bad after a while). The race though is a lot easier then I thought. It goes in a circuit around Balboa-park and then splits off, the full-marathon runners taking a circuit in the downtown while the half-marathon is resigned to part of the 163 north bound.
It was there that it began to suck. While running the lap around the park, there were a few benefits that made the first five miles fly by. As I jogged on I was carried by an initial and unexpected wave of adrenaline as everyone set out on this journey. People were cheering for one another, trading high-fives, and joking with each other for those who decided to wear some form of costume. There were also stages set up along the course where live bands played high-pace rock that helped us push just a little bit harder. The stages would be found throughout the race, but they seemed to be most closely packed around the Park.
Once I passed the five-mile mark on the 163, I overtook the woman I had been running by for most of the race so far: A college student with a wonder-woman cape and rainbow knee socks that seemed weird for an event that would involve so much sweaty. I ran by the clock and distance marker as it clicks off the time since the first corral began the course. It was around an hour or so, I think.
The course banked under our feet and we found ourselves running along an almost forty five degree slope. It was this time frame that the morning chill and cloud coverage broke, and we were hit by a blast of the southern California sun and it jumped maybe ten degrees. It was hear that the initial adrenaline wore off and I began to feel it.
I was trying to find a picture as an example of how ugly the course looked and the steep slope - and Googled '163' foolishly. This is one of the first results I got. WTF?!
For the next few miles I found myself counting away the steps and trying to do everything I could to keep my mind off the fact that I was running. The serene park background had now been replaced with slate-gray over passes and numerous road signs warning of upcoming exits and merging lanes. The hills were not covered with sage green grass but random desert foliage, brown and dying from the lack of recent rainfall.
I tried enjoying the other ‘scenery’ that was available, a tip I had received from an overly energetic woman the day before who was trying to sell me a suspiciously phallus-shaped leg massager. While there were plenty of people not in the greatest shape, there were just as many who were truly in their element in the middle of such an endurance contest. Doing my best not to leer, I admired some of these individuals and occupied myself with thoughts best not shared.
When the novelty of this wore off, I turned to singing quietly to myself or trying to remember stories. This wasn’t nearly as effective of doing a mental catalog and rating the various combinations of ass/legs that were moving along, and I gave up rather quickly. I was back to looking at the urban scenery and mentally counting my paces. It sucked.
My feet ached and cried out as new blisters formed and popped. The outside of my feet bemoaned the stresses of running along a slope and my pace took on a slight limp. After passing another water station around the seven mile mark, the warming sun seemed to take another ten degree hike in temperature.
I began doing half-mile jogs separated by a fast walk. When finally I passed a festival stop that was decorated and entitled by various signs as ‘Margarita Ville’, I gave up jogging entirely. A Jimmy Buffet cover band sung the praises of island living while someone who looks exactly like the real Jimmy Buffet busies himself sweeping up discarded paper cups with a rake. This might be a much better use of the real Jimmy Buffet, to be honest.
From the nine mile mark I walked the next few in relative silence. That initial wave of adrenaline and mutually-motivating energy had abated. The bands were no longer doing it, and most of the people cheering by road side had abandoned what little enthusiasm remained.
All around me I could see only a few joggers, as the courses re-merged I saw sweat-slicked full marathon runners, all with a glazed expression that showed them some place distant, some place where they weren’t running a race that was based on an event of desperation during the Peloponnesian Wars.
Those people who dressed in costume seem to be feeling the full effects. I see a person who for whatever reason decided to run it in a SpongeBob suit at a medical station, probably suffering from heat stroke. A group of guys dressed like Scottish warriors (complete with blue face paint, kilts, and toy swords strapped on their backs) who had begun the race hooting and hollering were now quietly running at an even clip.
This was the part that really tested people. The hump was past and now that most of the race was over and the community of runners had hit the wall, who really wanted to finish? The prospect did cross my mind a few times. I passed an exit where I new some friends went to a game store on Sundays and thought how it would be funny (and a little nice) to call it quits and just walk over to the game store. With that initial small limp having grown into a full-blown Igor impression: I thought about just going and sitting by the road, giving my poor legs and feet a chance to rest until one of the poorly named ‘sag wagons’ could come and pick me up with stragglers.
I chose not to though, knowing my propensity to quit on things in favor of the lazier answer. I was also well aware that there were a few friends and co-workers who had heard through the grape vine that I would be doing this, and I didn’t want to disappoint. So I carried on and as the course became a blur the last few miles slowly ticked away.
Around the bend I came to the twelve mile-marker – and as I walked by I picked up the pace and decided to run the last little bit. On that finally tenth of a mile the course was flanked by a yellow fence of advertisements and a crowd behind it cheering on everyone. Under a great banner marking the finish line a clock hanging from a crane where a photographer documents each runner over the line reads off 4:17:26. It was the time since the first gun shot, but not everyone’s time. We had been provided with an orange band that was knitted through the laces of our shoes and tracked our progress. I would later discover my time was 3:22:31 – something that surprised me more then anyone.
This is the LEAST retarded looking photo of me crossing the finish line. Which isn't really saying much to be fair.
I grabbed a bottle of water and my medal for completion, favoring the bottle of water over the recognition of achievement. Next to me medics carry a woman who collapsed after finishing the run and had pushed herself too hard. Behind her is a man who was laughing and talking with some friends, his white shirt covered in two shot-gun blasts of blood where his nipples underneath had been chaffed bloody. It was then I knew for certain I would never make a hobby of this.
Any hobby where bleeding nipples are a common ailment seems to be worth avoiding in my book.
While some people reunited with friends and family who were waiting at the finish, moving on to enjoy a festival of activities and free samples: I slowly shuffled past. My priority was to take the long trek home. After that run I was sore all over and more exhausted then ever can be recalled by my recent memory. In the line for shuttles to take me back to the trolley I had boarded to get there, I blacked out on a few occasions to wake up still moving ahead with the mile-long zigzag queue.
Once home, I could at last collapse for a few hours and enjoy a good shower. All in all it was an experience, one I am not very likely to repeat: but an experience none the less.
When is this supposed to start? Six fifteen? What time is it now? I am in the middle of a vast crowd of people. My particular section is marked as corral #38 by a big black sign being waved above the crowd like some ancient banner. About twenty feet behind me through the press of people in work-out clothes is another banner marked #39.
To my left is a press of mid westerner stereotypes. Thirty to forty year old women in varying degrees of obesity, the one next to me is wearing a visor declaring her loyalty to some bank that I’ve never heard the name of. They all wear the same kind of purple shirt that makes up roughly sixty percent of the crowd. The backs of these purple shirts each exclaim “TEAM IN TRAINING” followed by a name of a hometown or state, and then finally a list of various sponsors.
To my right is a different woman fidgeting with her iPod prior to the event’s start. She pays no attention to the man dressed as Elvis directly in front of her. The song changes to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” and the announcer declare the start for the next wave. Since the first gun shot, each corral has been released a minute after the previous wave is sent on the track; leaving me and several hundred others to anxiously shift as we wait for our turn to get the ordeal over with.
How could anyone ever think this would be a good idea?
It is the Rock & Roll Marathon & Half Marathon in San Diego. And this year it begins in Balboa Park on a rather chill overcast Sunday morning. I find myself a little bit glad that I chose to do this since traffic must have been severely fucked up everywhere because of the event. If I had chosen to bail at the last minute any other plans would have been sullied by that continuous reminder. Like a sweaty version of Poe’s Tell-tale heart.
I always thought the Gates of Hell would be less colorful and more fiery.
People with big grins on their face move through the crowd handing out salt packets like those they give at diners. I see some of the more serious-looking runners take a few and shove them in their pocket and I repeat the process. Later I found it helps keep you from sweating out all your electrolytes and having a heart attack. At the time I was just mirroring people who looked like they knew what they were doing. I sure as shit didn’t. As I write this the event is over, and I still have little to no idea. In retrospect I should have trained more, but fuck it. Too late now. If the masochism that comes of forcing yourself to run thirteen to twenty six miles sinks in, I will certainly know for next time to prepare better.
What time is it? Six thirty lately? Seven? Nine? Noon? I have no idea and give up guessing as the corral moves just a little bit closer to the starting line.
When finally I do get going I find the event to be a blur. I am not a runner by any definition of the word. In it is my loathing for this form of exercise that caused me to take up a half marathon (Figured if I have something that forces me to run, it won’t be so bad after a while). The race though is a lot easier then I thought. It goes in a circuit around Balboa-park and then splits off, the full-marathon runners taking a circuit in the downtown while the half-marathon is resigned to part of the 163 north bound.
It was there that it began to suck. While running the lap around the park, there were a few benefits that made the first five miles fly by. As I jogged on I was carried by an initial and unexpected wave of adrenaline as everyone set out on this journey. People were cheering for one another, trading high-fives, and joking with each other for those who decided to wear some form of costume. There were also stages set up along the course where live bands played high-pace rock that helped us push just a little bit harder. The stages would be found throughout the race, but they seemed to be most closely packed around the Park.
Once I passed the five-mile mark on the 163, I overtook the woman I had been running by for most of the race so far: A college student with a wonder-woman cape and rainbow knee socks that seemed weird for an event that would involve so much sweaty. I ran by the clock and distance marker as it clicks off the time since the first corral began the course. It was around an hour or so, I think.
The course banked under our feet and we found ourselves running along an almost forty five degree slope. It was this time frame that the morning chill and cloud coverage broke, and we were hit by a blast of the southern California sun and it jumped maybe ten degrees. It was hear that the initial adrenaline wore off and I began to feel it.
I was trying to find a picture as an example of how ugly the course looked and the steep slope - and Googled '163' foolishly. This is one of the first results I got. WTF?!
For the next few miles I found myself counting away the steps and trying to do everything I could to keep my mind off the fact that I was running. The serene park background had now been replaced with slate-gray over passes and numerous road signs warning of upcoming exits and merging lanes. The hills were not covered with sage green grass but random desert foliage, brown and dying from the lack of recent rainfall.
I tried enjoying the other ‘scenery’ that was available, a tip I had received from an overly energetic woman the day before who was trying to sell me a suspiciously phallus-shaped leg massager. While there were plenty of people not in the greatest shape, there were just as many who were truly in their element in the middle of such an endurance contest. Doing my best not to leer, I admired some of these individuals and occupied myself with thoughts best not shared.
When the novelty of this wore off, I turned to singing quietly to myself or trying to remember stories. This wasn’t nearly as effective of doing a mental catalog and rating the various combinations of ass/legs that were moving along, and I gave up rather quickly. I was back to looking at the urban scenery and mentally counting my paces. It sucked.
My feet ached and cried out as new blisters formed and popped. The outside of my feet bemoaned the stresses of running along a slope and my pace took on a slight limp. After passing another water station around the seven mile mark, the warming sun seemed to take another ten degree hike in temperature.
I began doing half-mile jogs separated by a fast walk. When finally I passed a festival stop that was decorated and entitled by various signs as ‘Margarita Ville’, I gave up jogging entirely. A Jimmy Buffet cover band sung the praises of island living while someone who looks exactly like the real Jimmy Buffet busies himself sweeping up discarded paper cups with a rake. This might be a much better use of the real Jimmy Buffet, to be honest.
From the nine mile mark I walked the next few in relative silence. That initial wave of adrenaline and mutually-motivating energy had abated. The bands were no longer doing it, and most of the people cheering by road side had abandoned what little enthusiasm remained.
All around me I could see only a few joggers, as the courses re-merged I saw sweat-slicked full marathon runners, all with a glazed expression that showed them some place distant, some place where they weren’t running a race that was based on an event of desperation during the Peloponnesian Wars.
Those people who dressed in costume seem to be feeling the full effects. I see a person who for whatever reason decided to run it in a SpongeBob suit at a medical station, probably suffering from heat stroke. A group of guys dressed like Scottish warriors (complete with blue face paint, kilts, and toy swords strapped on their backs) who had begun the race hooting and hollering were now quietly running at an even clip.
This was the part that really tested people. The hump was past and now that most of the race was over and the community of runners had hit the wall, who really wanted to finish? The prospect did cross my mind a few times. I passed an exit where I new some friends went to a game store on Sundays and thought how it would be funny (and a little nice) to call it quits and just walk over to the game store. With that initial small limp having grown into a full-blown Igor impression: I thought about just going and sitting by the road, giving my poor legs and feet a chance to rest until one of the poorly named ‘sag wagons’ could come and pick me up with stragglers.
I chose not to though, knowing my propensity to quit on things in favor of the lazier answer. I was also well aware that there were a few friends and co-workers who had heard through the grape vine that I would be doing this, and I didn’t want to disappoint. So I carried on and as the course became a blur the last few miles slowly ticked away.
Around the bend I came to the twelve mile-marker – and as I walked by I picked up the pace and decided to run the last little bit. On that finally tenth of a mile the course was flanked by a yellow fence of advertisements and a crowd behind it cheering on everyone. Under a great banner marking the finish line a clock hanging from a crane where a photographer documents each runner over the line reads off 4:17:26. It was the time since the first gun shot, but not everyone’s time. We had been provided with an orange band that was knitted through the laces of our shoes and tracked our progress. I would later discover my time was 3:22:31 – something that surprised me more then anyone.
This is the LEAST retarded looking photo of me crossing the finish line. Which isn't really saying much to be fair.
I grabbed a bottle of water and my medal for completion, favoring the bottle of water over the recognition of achievement. Next to me medics carry a woman who collapsed after finishing the run and had pushed herself too hard. Behind her is a man who was laughing and talking with some friends, his white shirt covered in two shot-gun blasts of blood where his nipples underneath had been chaffed bloody. It was then I knew for certain I would never make a hobby of this.
Any hobby where bleeding nipples are a common ailment seems to be worth avoiding in my book.
While some people reunited with friends and family who were waiting at the finish, moving on to enjoy a festival of activities and free samples: I slowly shuffled past. My priority was to take the long trek home. After that run I was sore all over and more exhausted then ever can be recalled by my recent memory. In the line for shuttles to take me back to the trolley I had boarded to get there, I blacked out on a few occasions to wake up still moving ahead with the mile-long zigzag queue.
Once home, I could at last collapse for a few hours and enjoy a good shower. All in all it was an experience, one I am not very likely to repeat: but an experience none the less.
Biggest lesson I learned? Get a Kenyan to run it for me next time.
अ हलफ मराठों...वही इस थिस ट्रांस्लातिंग एवेर्य्थिंग इ से इन्तो सहित इ कैन'टी रीड?
I don't know what the fuck is the deal with the title. For some reason it is translating everything I type in the title bar into Hindi. Interesting.
I will fidget with the settings and get back with the actual update I intended. In the meantime enjoy this preview of the latest reboot for the classic series: Twilight Zone!!
I will fidget with the settings and get back with the actual update I intended. In the meantime enjoy this preview of the latest reboot for the classic series: Twilight Zone!!
इ दोन'टी क्नोव वहत थे फुक्क इस थे डाल विथ थे तितले. फॉर सम रासों आईटी इस ट्रांस्लातिंग एवेर्य्थिंग इ टाइप इन थे तितले बार इन्तो हिंदी. इन्तेरेस्तिंग. इ विल फिद्गेत विथ थे सेत्तिंग्स एंड गेट बेक विथ थे अच्तुअल अपडेट इ इन्तेंदेद. इन थे मेंतिमे एन्जॉय थिस प्रेविएव ऑफ़ थे लतेस्ट रिबूट फॉर थे क्लास्सिक सेरिएस: त्विलिघ्त जोने!!
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Link to the Weekend #5
I have tomorrow off, so figured I would try to get the Links to the Weekend up early for those unfortunate souls still in the office tomorrow. Also haven’t done this in a while, so have quite a few I can throw out here.
I am seriously freaked out by Furries, which in case you don’t know are folks who dress up like animals and yiff each other stupid. So far the creepiness of Furries has been unmatched. That is, until I saw this picture. The only thing worse then Furries are Furries dressed as Tauntauns, ruining Empire Strikes Back for me. I will now not be able to do anything but cry when I see Han shove Luke in a Tauntaun and say “I thought they smelled bad from the outside”.
Following the Lost season finale, I found this on io9 concerning how using plot devices based around fate/divine entities negatively effect a story line. Even if you don’t agree with all their points (I certainly don’t) it is never the less a good read. (Some minor spoilers)
Speaking of LOST – here is a quick look at how it SHOULD have ended (spoilers)
Texas is still dashing my hopes that someday we will be able to live in an enlightened society. This article did leave out an important part though, as it fails to details Texas’ plans to build an android and send him back in time to kill Susannah Darwin before she can give birth to her son, Charles.
I have a few lists that caught my eye this week. First being the only vegans that I think I could ever feel threatened by.
Secondly – some things everyone should keep in mind concerning the crazy-haired real-life mini-Lex Luthor…
Whenever I see weird gross out foods it just makes me hungry. This list is little exception to that.
It’s the prospect of encountering and having to tolerate people like these that make me I’m glad out of high school. There were still those who dressed/acted like vampires, but it seems like the subculture is getting even more progressively annoying since it super-fused with emo culture. If I were still going to High School I probably would have been in a lot more fights.
And finally…hit him in his Origin of Species...I had totally forgotten about him, but I can see Dana Carvey is still a funny motherfucker.
And speaking of stuff from Funny or Die, if you haven’t check out the Drunk History videos, they are indeed epic. My favorite so far is the Don Cheadle/Zoey D-something/Will Farrel one talking about Fredrick Douglass. They're posted by Jeremy Konner.
Some of the choice SNL commercials from the 90’s – back when SNL was still funny
The tell-tale funk
I am seriously freaked out by Furries, which in case you don’t know are folks who dress up like animals and yiff each other stupid. So far the creepiness of Furries has been unmatched. That is, until I saw this picture. The only thing worse then Furries are Furries dressed as Tauntauns, ruining Empire Strikes Back for me. I will now not be able to do anything but cry when I see Han shove Luke in a Tauntaun and say “I thought they smelled bad from the outside”.
Following the Lost season finale, I found this on io9 concerning how using plot devices based around fate/divine entities negatively effect a story line. Even if you don’t agree with all their points (I certainly don’t) it is never the less a good read. (Some minor spoilers)
Speaking of LOST – here is a quick look at how it SHOULD have ended (spoilers)
Texas is still dashing my hopes that someday we will be able to live in an enlightened society. This article did leave out an important part though, as it fails to details Texas’ plans to build an android and send him back in time to kill Susannah Darwin before she can give birth to her son, Charles.
I have a few lists that caught my eye this week. First being the only vegans that I think I could ever feel threatened by.
Secondly – some things everyone should keep in mind concerning the crazy-haired real-life mini-Lex Luthor…
Whenever I see weird gross out foods it just makes me hungry. This list is little exception to that.
It’s the prospect of encountering and having to tolerate people like these that make me I’m glad out of high school. There were still those who dressed/acted like vampires, but it seems like the subculture is getting even more progressively annoying since it super-fused with emo culture. If I were still going to High School I probably would have been in a lot more fights.
And finally…hit him in his Origin of Species...I had totally forgotten about him, but I can see Dana Carvey is still a funny motherfucker.
And speaking of stuff from Funny or Die, if you haven’t check out the Drunk History videos, they are indeed epic. My favorite so far is the Don Cheadle/Zoey D-something/Will Farrel one talking about Fredrick Douglass. They're posted by Jeremy Konner.
Some of the choice SNL commercials from the 90’s – back when SNL was still funny
The tell-tale funk
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
A conversational overview of WTF the deal is with Koreas right now...
I was chatting with my sister, who doesn't keep up with current events like I do - and partly as a joke and partly for something for her to read as she tried killing the work day she asked for a history of what the news is on Korea. I wanted to see how much I could accomplish in a five-minute blurb. Here is the comprehensive low-brow description of what is going down and the history behind it.
So, Prior to the US involvement in WWII, The Japanese face-fucked most of East Asia into submission and made them part of their illustrious Empire. During this period, a lot of the former ruling classes of Korea were in exile in the Soviet Union. This is the time/place where Kim Jong Il was born. After WWII, when Japan got curb stomped by the allied nations, and they busied themselves rebuilding Germany and Japan and the Cold War was heating up - those exiles returned to Korea.
Initially it was founded as a Republic, but after a series of failed elections that all saw heavy allegations of fraud and corruption - a growing socialist party tried to grab power. The power grab quickly devolved into a civil war, and both sides brought their backers in. North Korea pulled in the Soviet Union and the recently formed People's Republic of China while South Korea drew aid from NATO and the US. Enter the Korean War and every episode of MASH that you may/may not remember. The Korean War was most noteworthy on a global scale as the first significant armed conflict in the Cold War.
It was also known as the funniest of all 21st century wars due to the wide-spread deployment of wise-cracking doctors...
The war never officially ended, but an armistice was reached on July 1953, with a DMZ established at the current battle-line of the 38th parallel. After lengthy negotiations the world lost interest and Korea rested in the relative obscurity of the World's eye.
Fast forward to the fall of the Soviet Union; With the Soviets down North Korea lost one of its major backers, and its economy turned to shit. Progressively Kim Jong Il, who had recently inherited power from his father, started getting even more crazy and ruthless (an accomplishment for any dictator). With the continued boldness of North Korea and their desire to be viewed as a world power, they started to lost support from their last major supporter, China, who is also turned off by their constant and shady attempts to develop nuclear weapons.
Developing nukes and their constant funding of extremist organizations has seen them under constant scrutiny by the UN and getting slapped on the wrist with numerous economic sanctions and angry letters.
In recent news - on 26 Mar a South Korean corvette (The Cheonan) sunk along the NLL (Northern Limit Line), the northernmost naval boundary between the Koreas and a site of numerous clashes since it was established after the armistice. At first North Korea stayed quiet and all officials were really reluctant to name any cause. A week after the Cheonan sank, it was found that the ship was conclusively sunk by an external explosion, and North Korea started making denials. When the international team of investigators found remains of a North-Korean produced torpedo amongst the wreckage, South Korea was pissed and demanded an apology from the North. North Korea told South Korea to go fuck itself, and in response North Korea cut off economic ties (this was Mondayish)
South Korea is responsible for a HUGE portion of North Korea's income, so this doesn't make the North happy. In response after a day or two they cut off all diplomatic relations with South Korea and expel all South Korean citizens (an action normally reserved for when a country is RIGHT about to go to war).
Now we are in a stand off where China is trying to calm the two down, not wanting to see a fire-fight on their front door. Russia doesn't seem to care and hasn't said much of shit. Japan and the US are like 'Fuck you, North Korea chill out and say you are sorry". With our mutual defense treaty saying that if the two Koreas throw down, we have to jump in to back the South up.
So that's where we are now. While the Obama administration is adamant about trying to defuse the situation, they still make it known that they condemn the attack. They also sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to talk to all the regional heads-of-state for a 'diplomatic' solution. Personally I think this is just to piss off all the countries involved because if I had a lot of shit going on and I had to go and talk to Hillary I would be pretty offended and pissed off. Maybe Obama is also hoping she gets assassinated and the US gets a two-fer out of the deal. Hillary Clinton gets off AND Kim Jong Il gets the piss bombed out of his crazy ass.
Sending this lady to talk to you is like the international way of putting a flaming bag of dog poop at your front door (in my personal opinion)
So, Prior to the US involvement in WWII, The Japanese face-fucked most of East Asia into submission and made them part of their illustrious Empire. During this period, a lot of the former ruling classes of Korea were in exile in the Soviet Union. This is the time/place where Kim Jong Il was born. After WWII, when Japan got curb stomped by the allied nations, and they busied themselves rebuilding Germany and Japan and the Cold War was heating up - those exiles returned to Korea.
Initially it was founded as a Republic, but after a series of failed elections that all saw heavy allegations of fraud and corruption - a growing socialist party tried to grab power. The power grab quickly devolved into a civil war, and both sides brought their backers in. North Korea pulled in the Soviet Union and the recently formed People's Republic of China while South Korea drew aid from NATO and the US. Enter the Korean War and every episode of MASH that you may/may not remember. The Korean War was most noteworthy on a global scale as the first significant armed conflict in the Cold War.
It was also known as the funniest of all 21st century wars due to the wide-spread deployment of wise-cracking doctors...
The war never officially ended, but an armistice was reached on July 1953, with a DMZ established at the current battle-line of the 38th parallel. After lengthy negotiations the world lost interest and Korea rested in the relative obscurity of the World's eye.Fast forward to the fall of the Soviet Union; With the Soviets down North Korea lost one of its major backers, and its economy turned to shit. Progressively Kim Jong Il, who had recently inherited power from his father, started getting even more crazy and ruthless (an accomplishment for any dictator). With the continued boldness of North Korea and their desire to be viewed as a world power, they started to lost support from their last major supporter, China, who is also turned off by their constant and shady attempts to develop nuclear weapons.
He is the reason I have a standing policy never to trust shirtless Asian people (except Bruce Lee)
Developing nukes and their constant funding of extremist organizations has seen them under constant scrutiny by the UN and getting slapped on the wrist with numerous economic sanctions and angry letters.In recent news - on 26 Mar a South Korean corvette (The Cheonan) sunk along the NLL (Northern Limit Line), the northernmost naval boundary between the Koreas and a site of numerous clashes since it was established after the armistice. At first North Korea stayed quiet and all officials were really reluctant to name any cause. A week after the Cheonan sank, it was found that the ship was conclusively sunk by an external explosion, and North Korea started making denials. When the international team of investigators found remains of a North-Korean produced torpedo amongst the wreckage, South Korea was pissed and demanded an apology from the North. North Korea told South Korea to go fuck itself, and in response North Korea cut off economic ties (this was Mondayish)
South Korea is responsible for a HUGE portion of North Korea's income, so this doesn't make the North happy. In response after a day or two they cut off all diplomatic relations with South Korea and expel all South Korean citizens (an action normally reserved for when a country is RIGHT about to go to war).
Now we are in a stand off where China is trying to calm the two down, not wanting to see a fire-fight on their front door. Russia doesn't seem to care and hasn't said much of shit. Japan and the US are like 'Fuck you, North Korea chill out and say you are sorry". With our mutual defense treaty saying that if the two Koreas throw down, we have to jump in to back the South up.
So that's where we are now. While the Obama administration is adamant about trying to defuse the situation, they still make it known that they condemn the attack. They also sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to talk to all the regional heads-of-state for a 'diplomatic' solution. Personally I think this is just to piss off all the countries involved because if I had a lot of shit going on and I had to go and talk to Hillary I would be pretty offended and pissed off. Maybe Obama is also hoping she gets assassinated and the US gets a two-fer out of the deal. Hillary Clinton gets off AND Kim Jong Il gets the piss bombed out of his crazy ass.
Sending this lady to talk to you is like the international way of putting a flaming bag of dog poop at your front door (in my personal opinion)
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Friending your boss
Haven’t had too much to write about lately: partly due to a lack of inspiration and partly due to the bulk of my time outside of dating and work (my “me time”) has been spent on Warhammer & 40K and trying to get stuff squared away and be prepared for the Dark Heresy game I started running two weeks ago. In layman’s terms – my writing time has been shoved to the side in favor of nerding out.
However, some things did strike me this morning as noteworthy and worth scrawling a bit of a rant about. In the ‘that’s interesting’ department there is an article about seals & dolphins used in homeland security drills. However, I don’t want to get on my soap box about that right now for the devaluing of human life that I feel the last part of the article seems to show. In international news It seems investigators have conclusively found evidence of torpedoes being the cause of the sinking of the South Korean Corvette Cheonan back in late March. Also the riots in Thailand keep getting more and more out of hand and it seems just a few poorly handled incidents away from a full-blown civil war. However, I don’t feel like handling anything that serious right now. So instead something that has been popping up more and more lately I thought I would touch on – something a little more domestic and without the likelihood that people will get shot in the head over it.
Some co workers recently complained that their company had started a facebook page, and had started requiring them to ‘friend’ them. This is a phenomenon that seems to be swiftly spreading and has raised some very interesting conversations in how this relates to free speech and social networking sites. I even made an aside comment on it and got one of the longest and most impassioned series of comment replies I have so far seen on Facebook. (Please note – I didn’t get consent to post this, so all parties have been given cunning cover-names and pictures, everything else has been left in there for purposes of leaving the full context of the conversation.)
However, some things did strike me this morning as noteworthy and worth scrawling a bit of a rant about. In the ‘that’s interesting’ department there is an article about seals & dolphins used in homeland security drills. However, I don’t want to get on my soap box about that right now for the devaluing of human life that I feel the last part of the article seems to show. In international news It seems investigators have conclusively found evidence of torpedoes being the cause of the sinking of the South Korean Corvette Cheonan back in late March. Also the riots in Thailand keep getting more and more out of hand and it seems just a few poorly handled incidents away from a full-blown civil war. However, I don’t feel like handling anything that serious right now. So instead something that has been popping up more and more lately I thought I would touch on – something a little more domestic and without the likelihood that people will get shot in the head over it.
Some co workers recently complained that their company had started a facebook page, and had started requiring them to ‘friend’ them. This is a phenomenon that seems to be swiftly spreading and has raised some very interesting conversations in how this relates to free speech and social networking sites. I even made an aside comment on it and got one of the longest and most impassioned series of comment replies I have so far seen on Facebook. (Please note – I didn’t get consent to post this, so all parties have been given cunning cover-names and pictures, everything else has been left in there for purposes of leaving the full context of the conversation.)
There are plenty of articles out there too. Some covering the implications from a privacy rights stand point and how it affects the social dynamic at work (New York Times). Others take a look at it from the perspective of employers and the liabilities it can create (Hubpages). I found more then a few that tackled it from a managerial stand point – most giving mixed results of why its good/bad (MonsterThinking)
To avoid going on a bit of a rant that re iterates a lot of the aforementioned articles cover and continue the beating of a dead horse – I will just throw my two cents out there and just leave this issue be.
I’ve been rolling it over in my head – and while the arguments in favor of an employer coercing employees to join groups or ‘friend’ them have their points: I feel it is in violation of the privacy rights of those employees. More importantly, I think it is contrary to the goal of what Facebook as a “Social-networking utility” is trying to become.
In a mission-statement I found for Facebook - "Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." (Found in an article on the Observer)
So far this seems to have primarily taken the form of people tagging one another in drunken photos. However, it has also shown great potential in connecting people through common concerns worldwide and locally. It also allows people to stay in touch with old friends or family that they otherwise may have completely lost track of, or even forgot about. Quite a few people I knew or were close to in my not-that-long past I have been able to find and reconnect from the opposite side of the globe in some cases.
The part that I keep coming back to is the last part of the mission statement “…make the world more open and connected.” Having your boss peaking over your shoulder as one more needless precaution in our overly nanny-ified society is just one more step back from that. While many postings may seem trite in the grand scheme of things (IE – “Can’t wait till Friday”, “Hate it when the barista gets my coffee wrong”, “Chem class today sucked, FML”, “Will someone plz water my plants in Farmville!!!!?????) without this thought-fodder fertilizing the soil of facebook, the truly prolific will be less likely to grow. If people are constantly afraid they might lose their jobs over one poorly worded post, or are having to wonder what ‘Big Brother’ thinks of what they have to say, they may not say something when they have something truly interesting to say.
All that is the complete opposite of keeping people open and connected…
To avoid going on a bit of a rant that re iterates a lot of the aforementioned articles cover and continue the beating of a dead horse – I will just throw my two cents out there and just leave this issue be.
I’ve been rolling it over in my head – and while the arguments in favor of an employer coercing employees to join groups or ‘friend’ them have their points: I feel it is in violation of the privacy rights of those employees. More importantly, I think it is contrary to the goal of what Facebook as a “Social-networking utility” is trying to become.
In a mission-statement I found for Facebook - "Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." (Found in an article on the Observer)
So far this seems to have primarily taken the form of people tagging one another in drunken photos. However, it has also shown great potential in connecting people through common concerns worldwide and locally. It also allows people to stay in touch with old friends or family that they otherwise may have completely lost track of, or even forgot about. Quite a few people I knew or were close to in my not-that-long past I have been able to find and reconnect from the opposite side of the globe in some cases.
The part that I keep coming back to is the last part of the mission statement “…make the world more open and connected.” Having your boss peaking over your shoulder as one more needless precaution in our overly nanny-ified society is just one more step back from that. While many postings may seem trite in the grand scheme of things (IE – “Can’t wait till Friday”, “Hate it when the barista gets my coffee wrong”, “Chem class today sucked, FML”, “Will someone plz water my plants in Farmville!!!!?????) without this thought-fodder fertilizing the soil of facebook, the truly prolific will be less likely to grow. If people are constantly afraid they might lose their jobs over one poorly worded post, or are having to wonder what ‘Big Brother’ thinks of what they have to say, they may not say something when they have something truly interesting to say.
All that is the complete opposite of keeping people open and connected…
Friday, April 2, 2010
Link to the Weekend #4
Another attempt to alleviate the suffering of others in my normal saint-like fashion, by providing some stuff to kill the last dwindling hours of work with on Friday. I would like to suggest trying to rig a mirror to your monitor to keep watch for bosses or other authority figures. Alt+Tab lets you jump between windows quickly and without reaching for the mouse. Or you can take a screen capture of a bunch of windows of work stuff like I do, set it as your desktop wallpaper, and then Windows+D will jump right to the desktop. BAM! A wad of Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoints to provide real-world CCD for your lack motivation before the weekend.As I currently have wood for the new Clash of the Titans movie, I got a big kick out of this.
Large Hadron Collidor April Fools – My favorite for this past 1Apr, I wonder if it occurred to the time traveler to take out the tracking tooth these use to warp him back?
Hooker Xing – This one needs no explanation. Though it does warrant an account of the mental image it evokes. Something of a drive at night and a hooker bolting out in front of your car. Her wide eyes reflecting light just like a deer’s. You try to swerve and get out of the way, but you hit her anyway. Adrenaline surges and you jump out of the car proclaiming “Oh my God! Oh my God! She just ran out in front of me!” as most people do when they feel guilty about road kill. No worries though, its not really killing: ‘cause they died inside a long time ago. I think this description is actually longer then the article its linked too. Huh.
Mocktopus – I just found his stuff yesterday, the comic at the top turned me on to it.
Two Lists from Wired.com caught my eye – One more sci-fi in general with the other just generic video game nerdage. Warning! The second contains some game spoilers for some and painful memories for others! List #1 List #2
Also from Wired – Some cool stuff on bats
As part of my job, I have to keep up on a lot of World News, here are a couple articles that caught my interest – Jihadi MTV & South Korean ship sunk
A look at the grim darkness of the far future for burritos…Mmmm…plasma-cooked.
Re-imagining flicks of the future
The conversation that actually sparked part of the rant previous, which I now think may need to be a little revised/reworked. In retrospect its weaker then I would like. We'll see. But for now: here is part of the e-mail conversation between myself and a good friend considering this trend
D - Do you think this craze about 'reimaginings' of previous work will soon start spilling over into books and history?
Will there soon be a Re-imagined book of Socrates writings where he's a hard-as-nails veteran trying to re-align his ethical compass by killing a mess of ninja who raped and killed his family?
Will Moby Dick be 'reimagined' so it’s about a great space-whale and Captain Ahab needs to capture it without going under 50 light years per hour or the Stellar Pequod will explode, and Ishmael has to make the hard choice to help or hinder the Captain.
Perhaps Nietszche's "Ubermensch" will feature him training to be some kind of genetically-enhanced super human to the rhythms of Kanye West's cover of Daft Punk's 'Bigger, Stronger, Faster, Harder"
Personally, I can't wait till they 're-imagine' WWII: When the telepathic alien brain-bug named Hitler invades the planet Poland and the Space Marines are sent in. It can feature a covert double-agent deep behind Space-Nazi lines named Anne Frank.
S - Hahahaha, If I were a publisher I would leap on those book ideas like a beast! And then gently have my way with them.
A Christmas Carol: After the Armageddon. The cold winter wind blew bitterly outside the slavers office, it had been 15 years since the last summer, the summer when fire rained from the skies and the death knell of so many was the screech of ICBMs and the grinding boots of marching soldiers. "Hello Mr. Scrooge." The man who greeted Scrooge was followed in by the chill of nuclear winter, however, this was not the most unsettling thing about Bob Cratchet's entrance. He had caught the Blight and was now a husk of his former self (which was not much even in the before days), and his left arm was constantly seething beneath his clothing; thanks to the boils which waxed and waned under his ash covered rags. "Shut the door Cratchet, you're late and the slaves are restless, hurry up and give them a touch of your truncheon!"
D - I love it! Post-nuclear apocalypse Christmas Carol. I think it could also use a touch of Jules-Verne-esque Steampunk. Maybe one of the spirits haunting Scrooge (By which I mean assassins sent by the secret charity organization SPIRIT) can be in a suit of steam-powered armor.
Maybe I'll write a work combining my love of Huck Finn and grim fantasy and 're-imagine' the story as one about Huck trying to seek out redemption for his years as a demonologist along with his black-hearted voodoo comrade Papa N----- Jim.
S – Ha ha, Wuthering heights as a solitary hide-out on the British isles following the release of the Rage Virus
A Tale of Two Cities as a story about two robot cities with giant metal legs for locomotion which meet at dusk everyday to do robot-city battle.
D - Lord of the Flies where the children are trapped on an isle and hunted by a terrible wild boar-man.
'If Androids Dream, Do They Dream of Electric Sheep' Done as a Japanese Anime where Deckard is a twelve year old kid who collects cards that turn into giant robots which he pilots into battle against feral 'replicant' cards which have taken human form and infiltrated humanity. Roy Batty is no longer a replicant, but a rival Blade Runner who you find out at the end IS a replicant.
That last one makes me want to cry. I'm sorry for saying it.
Lolita will take out that edgy pederast kind of stuff and make it more of a romantic comedy.
Of Mice & Men is going to be re-imagined as a comedy about the bumbling tales of two kind-hearted, but retarded, drifters.
S - AWESOME! Sign me up for that future screenplay!
(It is here that for a time the conversation degraded into one about blow jobs, Hollywood’s hiring policies, and video games)
D - Do you think this craze about 'reimaginings' of previous work will soon start spilling over into books and history?
Will there soon be a Re-imagined book of Socrates writings where he's a hard-as-nails veteran trying to re-align his ethical compass by killing a mess of ninja who raped and killed his family?
Will Moby Dick be 'reimagined' so it’s about a great space-whale and Captain Ahab needs to capture it without going under 50 light years per hour or the Stellar Pequod will explode, and Ishmael has to make the hard choice to help or hinder the Captain.
Perhaps Nietszche's "Ubermensch" will feature him training to be some kind of genetically-enhanced super human to the rhythms of Kanye West's cover of Daft Punk's 'Bigger, Stronger, Faster, Harder"
Personally, I can't wait till they 're-imagine' WWII: When the telepathic alien brain-bug named Hitler invades the planet Poland and the Space Marines are sent in. It can feature a covert double-agent deep behind Space-Nazi lines named Anne Frank.
S - Hahahaha, If I were a publisher I would leap on those book ideas like a beast! And then gently have my way with them.
A Christmas Carol: After the Armageddon. The cold winter wind blew bitterly outside the slavers office, it had been 15 years since the last summer, the summer when fire rained from the skies and the death knell of so many was the screech of ICBMs and the grinding boots of marching soldiers. "Hello Mr. Scrooge." The man who greeted Scrooge was followed in by the chill of nuclear winter, however, this was not the most unsettling thing about Bob Cratchet's entrance. He had caught the Blight and was now a husk of his former self (which was not much even in the before days), and his left arm was constantly seething beneath his clothing; thanks to the boils which waxed and waned under his ash covered rags. "Shut the door Cratchet, you're late and the slaves are restless, hurry up and give them a touch of your truncheon!"
D - I love it! Post-nuclear apocalypse Christmas Carol. I think it could also use a touch of Jules-Verne-esque Steampunk. Maybe one of the spirits haunting Scrooge (By which I mean assassins sent by the secret charity organization SPIRIT) can be in a suit of steam-powered armor.
Maybe I'll write a work combining my love of Huck Finn and grim fantasy and 're-imagine' the story as one about Huck trying to seek out redemption for his years as a demonologist along with his black-hearted voodoo comrade Papa N----- Jim.
S – Ha ha, Wuthering heights as a solitary hide-out on the British isles following the release of the Rage Virus
A Tale of Two Cities as a story about two robot cities with giant metal legs for locomotion which meet at dusk everyday to do robot-city battle.
D - Lord of the Flies where the children are trapped on an isle and hunted by a terrible wild boar-man.
'If Androids Dream, Do They Dream of Electric Sheep' Done as a Japanese Anime where Deckard is a twelve year old kid who collects cards that turn into giant robots which he pilots into battle against feral 'replicant' cards which have taken human form and infiltrated humanity. Roy Batty is no longer a replicant, but a rival Blade Runner who you find out at the end IS a replicant.
That last one makes me want to cry. I'm sorry for saying it.
Lolita will take out that edgy pederast kind of stuff and make it more of a romantic comedy.
Of Mice & Men is going to be re-imagined as a comedy about the bumbling tales of two kind-hearted, but retarded, drifters.
S - AWESOME! Sign me up for that future screenplay!
(It is here that for a time the conversation degraded into one about blow jobs, Hollywood’s hiring policies, and video games)
Thursday, April 1, 2010
All franchises need to pull a Kurt Cobain…
Not in a ‘need to get super depressed at the exploitation of their IP and take a shotgun to the mouth’. That would be callous to those who legitimately decide to coat the wall with a fresh layer of cherry pie. I mean the ending-it-so-people-will-remember-you-at-your-creative-zenith kind of way. Stop things at their peak so people remember that and wonder at what directions you would have taken, rather than watch the franchise stretch it out and grow old, fat, wheezy, and star in its own VH1 special thirty years later.
I was initially thinking of this in the vein of books, but while digging for examples movies presented themselves as far more fitting examples (or targets, as I see them). Case in point: any of the Lethal Weapon series after the second, All the Die Hard movies after the first, and Saws III-VI. I am also lumping in all those “reimagingings” or attempts to revive IPs from my youth but in the form of summer blockbusters (Transformers II and GI Joe as the most recent examples). Let them stay in the golden light of nostalgia and times past, don’t try to repaint and package them and shove them out into studio environment where someone like Michael Bay can rape them like pedophile to a group of unsupervised minors.
As far as literary examples of this phenomena - I am more looking at when an author doesn’t end his work in a timely manner and blathers on so long that the story grows stale and dies (Robert Jordan) or when an author kicks the bucket and his progeny need some quick cash, so they root through the waste bin of their fathers/mothers and dig up their rejects to be published (Frank Herbert’s bastard).
In the case of Robert Jordan (May he rest in peace), I began reading his Wheel of Time series with exuberant wonder. It was a fresh, different world that was engrossing with its history and characters. However, as the series went on, it started becoming repetitive and boring…nothing was happening. Eventually, by the fifth book I realized ‘JESUS WE AREN’T EVEN HALFWAY DONE?!’ and promptly quit the series. Now I have recently found out by someone who kept up with the series that his ‘last book’ the one being published posthumously that Jordan promised would be in only one volume “Even if it has to be 750pages” is being printed in three volumes. The first one is easily 750 pages. What the fuck. The publishers aren’t fooling anyone, three volumes of one book published in three separate books is…three books.
I loved the original Dune, and it’s hard not to acknowledge it as one of the classics of Sci Fi literature, up there with Robert E Heinlein’s Starship Trooper and almost anything Isaac Asimov or Philip K Dick published. However, he should have left it at that. I should have left it at that. I knew there were more books, and none could possibly be as good as the first. And what did I get? Some relief in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, they were alright. Then what happened? I got a face full of giant purple space worm. That’s when I quit. While suspension of disbelief is necessary when reading or watching fiction, there is only so far it can be taken (or abused in some cases) before it breaks the fourth wall and the shows over.
There are exceptions to this rule. The redux of some new movies and TV shows have been very good, and there are some books that just couldn’t be done their justice if limited to only three-four novels. That last Star Trek movie and the Battlestar Galactica series stand in mind as movie examples. George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series is still going strong, and if cut short or limited would have been a great mistake.
There is a reason that this is a recent phenomenon. I think people in ages past had a little more sense than dragging out a good thing. What if there had been a Moby Dick II? Perhaps Mark Twain could have written a whole series of Huck Finn books where his friend Jim could spout with increasing frequency “I’m getting too old for this shit!!” I’m thinking there should have been a spinoff of the Divine Comedy where Virgil comes to earth and gets a tour all ‘Fear and Loathing’ style. I want to hear the descriptions of giant bats and machete-wielding Samoans written in Cantos.
So in summary. If you have a really awesome thing going on creatively, resist the urge to ride it out, find a good point and STOP. If necessary take a page from John Bonham’s play book and drink yourself to death while still part of Zeppelin.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Link to the Weekend #3
Sorry haven't posted anything this week, have some ramblings to throw on paper, but work was a little bit hectic and didn't find the time. However, as Friday has struck us once again a creeping lack of motivation has crawled into and dominated the office. Everyone, including myself, is far more interested in pretending to be busy until we can go home then getting any legitimate work done.
If only they'd been gunned down these two could have been Darwin award nominees:
More proof Facebook is trying to systematically destroy human civilization
New Swiss sci-fi movie called 'Cargo'. Caught the trailer of it and then lost it, luckily I found it here on a site that I can actually access from work. It looks pretty epic for a film shot with about half the budget of District 9 (which was awesome) or Paranormal Activities (which sucked).
And on a similiar line as 'Cargo', all the talk of Aliens and the new Predators movie eventually led me to this: a lovable childrens classic which I really wish I could have had as a kid :)
And finally...
Friday, March 19, 2010
Your Link to the Weekend #2
A little sparse this week, but I took a couple days off in the middle of the week, so spent less time surfing shit and more time recovering from the copious consumption of green beer.
A complete chronology of all the swear words in The Sopranos.
http://victorsolomon.com/get-weird/sopranos-uncensored/
Nationalism and Anti-Americanism in Japan (J-Pop to J-racist)
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Matthew-Penney/3116
Square Root of Love
http://spikedmath.com/047.html
Post Secret – I honestly can’t believe that I never heard of this sooner.
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
“McSweeney’s Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond” – This is an oldy, but a goody…something to fluff out the list.
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/
I linked to it in a previous post, but thought I'd put it back up here. A new webseries called "I Hit it With My Axe" combines two of my favorite things: D&D and Porn.
A complete chronology of all the swear words in The Sopranos.
http://victorsolomon.com/get-weird/sopranos-uncensored/
Nationalism and Anti-Americanism in Japan (J-Pop to J-racist)
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Matthew-Penney/3116
Square Root of Love
http://spikedmath.com/047.html
Post Secret – I honestly can’t believe that I never heard of this sooner.
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
“McSweeney’s Open Letters to People or Entities Who Are Unlikely to Respond” – This is an oldy, but a goody…something to fluff out the list.
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/openletters/
I linked to it in a previous post, but thought I'd put it back up here. A new webseries called "I Hit it With My Axe" combines two of my favorite things: D&D and Porn.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
I am the night...
The above may be one of the most awesomerest pictures in all of history.
So I was informed that the series Smallville was originally supposed to be called ‘Bruce Wayne’. The pitch was apparently to follow young master Wayne as he travels the world and learns the secrets and techniques he would someday use when he dons the cowl of the Dark Knight. I would have been ONE HUNDRED PERCENT behind this show. A lot more then the Superman concept that followed it, a hell of a lot more actually…’Meh’ was in fact my original reaction to hearing about Smallville.
I find the idea of watching the ultimate boy scout of the DC universe boring to say the least. However, a lot of people I know seem to really dig the show. So, despite my misgivings, I tried it out anyway. Low and behold, I was right.
It’s a gimmick, an advertisement where we are supposed to act awed and surprised when his powers are revealed one by one. Meeting his future allies and enemies isn’t any better either.
Featuring other comic heroes in Smallville actually serves to discredit them, it robs them of their stories. All of a sudden, their own interesting and diverse back stories are stripped away as they now all of a sudden revolve around Kent. It turns them from free agents with common ideals that will someday align to form the Justice League into followers who just went along with what Superman did. That second dynamic being totally retarded in my mind, not interesting or intriguing in the slightest.
Now, while I’m certain show execs would have very likely turned the Bruce Wayne show into something very similar, it had a lot more potential. I think it had a far greater chance of, if they did (and probably would), introduce other DC heroes: they would have had a much higher chance of maintaining that ‘free agents’ thing. Batman was never a great leader, though he did admittedly start to attract a lot of followers by the power of his ideals. Batman’s force of personality would have definitely influenced and maybe inspired the others, but other heroes wouldn’t have become ‘followers’ like it seems Smallville has turned them into.
Bruce Wayne also would have had the potential of being darker then Smallville can ever be. Superman is an unwavering moral compass. He sees the world in black and white the same way Ma & Pa Kettle brought him up to. Batman always walked in the gray, of all the heroes that stood to fall from grace, he has walked that Sherlock Holems / Moriarty line closer than anyone.
That chance of him turning into the very evil he fights would be great fodder for writers.
On a slightly more irreverent note: A daily dose of awesome. I came across this: a combination of two of the things I hold most dear. Porn and D&D.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)