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How Do You Not SEE That?! [Dec. 26th, 2009|12:19 pm] [ Tags | rant, television ] You know what bugs the piss out of me about HDTV? Everyone's talking about it, and yet I don't know a single person who has it and knows how to use it. Every time I go to someone's house who has an HDTV, they sit me down in front of it to show me how much "cleaner" the picture is, but when they turn it on, they always have a standard definition picture. And since it's being up-res'ed it looks all pasty and unattractive. And what's worse is that it's a 4:3 picture being stretched out to a 16:9 screen. Seriously, even if you can't tell a standard def picture from a high-def one, how do you NOT see that the picture is distorted? I can't STAND watching TV like this. I'm like, "Can you at least switch the screen aperture so that it doesn't suck?", but nobody knows what I'm talking about. It's like they're all blind. And you'd think it would be obvious when it's something that's letter-boxed. Folks, if you've got a 16x9 screen, and you see black bars at the top and bottom of your screen, unless you're watching something that is in academy aperture, you're watching it wrong. Seriously, how do people not SEE this?! It drives me absolutely crazy. I can't stand looking at it. But it drives me MORE crazy when people don't even know that they're not watching high-def. It should be so fucking obvious. And what's worse is that I know these people have HD channels on their cable services, so why are they always watching standard def channels? I just want to shake people sometimes. link 1 smartass remark|talk nerdy to me

STILL The Worst Apologist Ever [Dec. 25th, 2009|10:00 am] [ Tags | humor, internet, rant, religion, science ] With VenomFangX's return to the internet, I thought I'd go back and look at someone who, back when was active, was actually worse than VFX. People seem to think that VenomFangX is the funniest and most embarrassing figure that fundamentalism has ever had to offer. In reality, they've had much worse. They have NephilimFree, after all. But even worse than him is the person who I still believe to be the all-time undisputed heavyweight champion of bad apologetics, Jason Gastrich. Jason's internet ministry was mostly active in the first part of the decade. He attempted to become just like his idol, Kent Hovind, by becoming a Bible answer man. He wrote an e-book (actually, just software CD), in which he responded to the entire Skeptic's Annotated Bible. It was the entire SAB website with vapid responses to each notation. His ministry website was the source of much comedy, such as his hilarious "fruit fasts", in which he would fast for several days, allowing himself to eat only fruit (in the real world, this is called being vegan). Jason bowed out of the public spotlight somewhere around the middle of the decade, an act that many of us attribute to pure embarrassment. He's made an ass out of himself so many times, and his apologetics are so indefensibly that even other apologists have gone after him. He also one of many independent candidates who attempted to run for California Governor back when Gray Davis was being (total) recalled. As I recall, his stance on issues was practically non-existent, and from what I can remember, he was doing the whole "change" thing before Obama ever thought of it. I'd love to know how many votes he got, and how many of those votes were submitted by people who also had the last name of Gastrich. My guess is two, him and his wife. The only thing we can say for sure is that it wasn't even close. Nowadays, Jason's ministry website appears to be in arrested development. There doesn't seem to be any actual content updates going on. The one forum link I found leads to a dead page. He's got a games section, but it just leads to a page with a link banner to a game called God's Warrior, which looks like it was made by the same people who made Lightning Warrior Raidy. What seems most apparent about Jason's website is that it seems to exist purely to make money. Jason's made it very accommodating to anyone wanting to put money in his pocket ads on his site. If you want actual content out of Jason these days, it appears that you can find him on health and fitness blog, where he talks about eating right and living on the beach. Still, every so often, he feels the need to squeak up and make a veiled attempt at defending Christianity. In this post, he sheepishly drags out long-debunked arguments, such as the macro/micro thing. Jason actually knows better than this. Many, many people, including myself, have explained to him that evolution is biological process that is not subject to his arbitrary scale. Let there be no doubt; Jason know that this is wrong. He also timidly brings up the common designer argument and ends defensively with the usual "no new information" nonsense, which Jason also knows is wrong. This is pretty sad, actually. that after all these years, he's simply dragging out the same lame duck arguments. I remember a time when Jason was actually fun. He was so funny in his bad apologetics that people generally went after him for fun and not because they took him seriously. There was, at one point, a website dedicated entirely to responding to Jason's bad apologetic arguments. They always picked the best and brightest (or perhaps dullest) of Jason's attempts, particularly ones from Jason's CD, where he would warp the meaning of passages to avoid contradictions. Or in some cases, Jason would be responding to a skeptical argument that was in error, but Jason would come up with something that was even MORE in error. My all-time favorite Jason harmonization is a mathematical harmonization for Ezra 2:5-60 and Nehemiah 7:10-62, which have a series of numerical contradictions based on the number of people returning from Babylon. The two accounts give a laundry list of numbers for each city mentioned, and about half of them don't match up. For example, Ezra has 945 children children of Zattu returning, where as Nehemiah has 845. Now, I suspect that a more competent apologist would chalk this up to human error and ask the skeptic to find a more convincing contradiction. After all, this hardly has anything to do with God or divinity. It doesn't have, in particular, God doing anything silly or human-like. But to Jason Gastrich, this is problematic, because the Bible MUST not contain errors. Even something as negligible as this. What Jason does, dear reader, is a feat that I believe earns him the fool's crown. He attempts a very dubious (and blatantly obvious) sleight-of-hand that is so absurd, I could scarcely believe at the time (or even now) that he was being serious. His argument was that the authors of Ezra and Nehemiah were compiling lists of people returning from Babylon, and that any discrepancy between the the two accounts was due to omission. What he did was to take each contradiction between the two accounts, subtract one from the other, and then add the difference to the lower amount. In other words, he's cheating. For example, in the account I gave above, Jason basically asserted that Nehemiah simply omitted 100 people from his account that Ezra had counted. And yes, this was Jason's entire counter-argument. I explained to him myself, on several forums (ones on which he had not yet ignored me) that this technique makes it absolutely impossible for any such discrepancy to be contradictory, if you can just add the difference to the lower number. It's such an obviously circular attempt at harmonization, because this technique does absolutely nothing to attain any actual truth and is specifically designed to erase mathematical contradiction. It's impossible to get anything other than an affirmation using this apologetic tactic. It's almost as if he's arguing that the two accounts are complementary BECAUSE they're contradictory. It's hilarious that anyone would use such an argument and not expect to be raked over the coals. Those were the days, man. Those were the days. Happy Festivus, Jason. link talk nerdy to me

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays? Who cares? [Dec. 25th, 2009|07:55 am] [ Tags | family, holiday, rant, religion ] Seriously. I grew up in a time and place where these two were interchangeable and nobody was offended by either one of them. And then people sort of became offended by them, and now we have two sides, both accusing each other having a victim complex. On the one hand, I can certainly appreciate the fact that not everyone I know celebrates Christmas. I do know a Jewish person here and there, but I've never known any of them to take offense if I slip and give them the wrong holiday greeting. Maybe it's because they know that I'm not Christian, and so it doesn't mean the same thing when I say Merry Christmas. I still use both phrases interchangeably, mostly because I appreciate irony, regardless of whom I may be bothering. And I just don't care. The way I see it, the secular case for Christmas is pretty good. It's just the Yuletide celebration with a Christian slant, and there are even some ultra conservative Christians who refuse to celebrate what they consider a pagan holiday. But what really gives me a boner is that by adopting Christmas, I continue to piss off the conservative right who think they're engaging in some kind of war over Christmas. They think they're going to bring it back to Jesus and stop all of these people who would dare say such pagan things as "Seasons Greetings". Bah! What kind of goodwill wish doesn't have the name of the LORD in it?! We're celebrating their holiday. The irony is sweat, because how many traditions have the Christian's stolen over the centuries? Turn about is fair play, I say. What I find so funny about the "War On Christmas" is that there IS no war. We've already won. Christmas is the default holiday, not because of Jesus, but because of the retail stores. They're the ones who are in charge. The people who tell me every year that Christmas is about celebrating Jesus are the SAME people who are always lined up around the corner at Toys "R" Us and Target the night of Thanksgiving, waiting for these places to open early for Black Friday. Christmas is run by businesses and mascots. The REAL idols of worship are controlled by Hasbro, Mattel and Nintendo. The only jolly, red-suited fat man with facial hair that I think of at Christmas time is Mario. Actually, speaking of Mario, I'll be going over to my sister's house today with the gift of <shhh!>New Super Mario Bros. Wii</shhh!>, specifically to teach my nieces and nephews how to play and then CRUSH THEM. You know what phrase I truly love using? Merry Fucking Christmas. ...Because then it offends exactly who I intend it to offend. Everybody! ...except for cool people, of course. Merry Fucking Christmas, everybody! And have a bloody good New Year! link 1 smartass remark|talk nerdy to me

The Caricature of Atheism...Also, VenomfangX is back. YAWN! [Dec. 23rd, 2009|12:33 pm] [ Tags | rant, religion, scienc ] As of about six hours ago, Shawn, aka VenomFangX, has returned to the web and is once again polluting YouTube. I guess he's done being grounded. This is a good thing, because Thunderf00t hasn't had any really funny videos in a good long time, so maybe this will reignite some inspiration in him. On the other hand, this could only be the case if Shawn actually has something new to say. Oh crap, what am I talking about? That will NEVER happen. So, a few posts back, I threw this big hissy fit about how I'm done playing philosophical slalom with fundamentalist apologists (is there really any other kind?), because what they basically do is try to pull the rug out from under anyone who doesn't except their version of scripture. This is mostly aimed at atheists, but it also kind of applies to moderate and liberal theists as well. After all, if you don't believe in Adam and Eve and the fall of mankind, then what are you doing believing that Christ died for our sins? That's THEIR argument. Now, I admit that it's kind of a gauntlet-dropping move. I'm not a philosopher, so I get very impatient with Christian armchair philosophers, even if they aren't really very good. I'm not interested in solving ontological problems that are brought up by apologists purely for the purpose of attacking science for coming to conclusions that aren't in line with the Bible. My approach is going to return to what it's pretty much started out as when I jumped into this about seven or eight years ago. That is to say that I've had enough of the bullshit. Show me the evidence for the six day creation, the flood, the Exodus, and so on and so forth. Don't have it? Then shut up. All I've seen from the apologists are convenient excuses and question-dodging tactics to get away from having to answer fairly straight forward questions. It's a simple causal link. If these things happened, then their ought to be SOME evidence, and I'd like to hear someone answer this without changing the subject and starting a new one like, "Really? Let's have a philosophical discussion about the nature of causality." NO! Fuck you. Answer the fucking challenge WITHOUT changing the fucking subject. What they're trying to hide is the fact that, in spite of all this bullshit about philosophical consistency, the apologist really doesn't care whether or not his worldview is philosophically consistent. Look at what these people think good science is. They advocate for intelligent design, a field of "science" in which you can't even apply scientific principles consistently. The attempt to disassociate macro-evolution from micro-evolution is just them trying to make a rule that isn't even coherent. They're trying to define a biological phenomenon by scale, even though it's the exact same process. They think the nature of being a species is dependent upon our external classification. Well, I don't think they REALLY believe that, but that's what their arguments are based on. Listen to fucking Hovind some time. He's always talking about how dogs only give birth to dogs, blissfully unaware that WE have defined what a dog is, and that nature really isn't as cleanly cut as he wants it to be. If dog populations were isolated from each other for a long enough period of time, they would stop being inter-fertile and would inevitably become different species, even if we thought they were still dogs. And eventually, they would morphologically diversify as well. This isn't fucking faith. This is a perfectly observable fact of biology. It's not really a question of IF it happens, but rather HOW it happens. We already KNOW that evolution happens, because of such things as ring species, which is something I've brought up before. In fact, Hovind even identifies a ring species in one of his lectures, when talking about rabbits. How a man could be so oblivious to what is right in front of him, I couldn't tell you. If not blatant dishonesty, I have to believe that it's stupidity. Probably both. So, I called this threat the "Caricature of Atheism", and I've been kind of babbling about the apologetic practice of armchair philosophy. Well, the caricature of atheism is basically the foundation to all of this. It's the belief that atheism is some kind of centralized worldview, and by simply taking a few sweeps here and there, you can knock the supports out from under it. Either apologists are just naive in this regard, or they don't care. I'm starting to think that it's the latter, although naivety is certainly in there somewhere. It's actually expressed fairly well on VenomFangX's own YouTube channel. This is what he has written in his channel descrption... Atheism: In the beginning there was nothing, and nothing happened to nothing, until nothing exploded, and created everything. Then, the nothing that became everything magically rearranged itself for no reason into self-replicating complex life forms, that became intelligent beings that believed in God. Makes perfect sense. LOL. Totally obnoxious. ...and clearly rewritten from some of the stupid shit that has come out of the mouth of Ray Comfort. I particularly like the part where Shawn expresses his fear of the unknown by accusing atheists of believing in magical processes that happen for no reason. This is another folly of apologists. They think that if we don't know EVERYTHING, then there must be a problem with our view of the world, a view that is as unwarranted as it is stupid. This is the sort of crap that you can expect from someone who simply doesn't care to have an honest discussion and would rather prop up a belligerent caricature of his opponent. And what's worse is that this is not just coming from some Christian ass face with a YouTube channel. This is someone who commonly parrots this stuff from apologists who write books and erect creation museums. This is coming from people who are adults and make a living being obnoxious assholes and pissing into the well of knowledge. What every atheist debater and blogger out there needs to know is that apologists don't fucking care what we actually believe, and because of this, we are not obligated to treat them as intellectual equals. So with that, I say we stop humoring their little philosophical mind games and just ask them to provide evidence for their "alternative view". Of course, they can't, partially because the evolution side of the debate has already won, and partially because they're just full of shit anyway, and they know it. The apologists can continue to beat their chests, but they're really a desperate breed. They're losing, and they're going to continue to lose as science moves away from their childish view of the world. And like I've always said, evolution is really the least of their problems. They have all of physics to contend with, and as far as I've seen, the creationist apologists haven't even STARTED. If you guys want to start, I'll be happy to give you a hint. There is one model in science that is absolutely LETHAL to the creation belief, especially that which asserts that the universe is only 6000-10,000 years old. E=MC² link 2 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

The Lost Levels: Not Really A Good Game [Dec. 20th, 2009|02:00 am] [ Tags | rant, video games ] Several weeks back, I wrote a rebuttal on 1UP.com to the Irate Gamer, blasting him for his idiotic "review" of Super Mario Bros. 2, a game which he made his personal mission to hate. In the video, he basically complained that the game was different from the rest of the series and therefore declared that it has ass written all over it. He also complained about the difficulty (of a relatively easy game) and the fact that it's a one-player game. He even went out of his way to express a lot of phony rage over anomalous situations that he set up specifically so that he could complain about them. And to add insult to injury, he heaped on the praise to the Japanese version of Super Mario 2 for being the perfect successor to the original game. (Actually he said "predecessor", but he's a dumbass.) This can only be expressed by someone who has such an astonishing ignorance of the Mario series as to not realize how poor a game the Japanese Mario 2, henceforth referred to as The Lost Levels, actually is. Now, I pride myself on having beaten every single 2-D Mario game. Until Super Mario Bros. Wii came out, I could say that. Now I have a new challenge ahead of me. But otherwise, if it's 2-D platform sidescroller starring Mario, I've beaten it. That includes Super Mario Land 1 and 2. I've beaten them all and can regularly sprint through any given game in the series at the drop of a hat, including The Lost Levels. And no, I'm not just talking about the All-Stars version. I beat the original version of this game. I even beat it on Gameboy Color, which amazes me to this day. The GBC has no back-light and a severely reduced aspect ratio. In this form, beating the original Super Mario Bros. is challenge enough. I'm not sure how I beat The Lost Levels without hammering the GBC D-pad to death with my thumb, but I did it. Now, as much as I wear that honor like a badge on my arm, I don't particularly enjoy playing The Lost Levels. I don't like taking long, sprinting jumps to land on a single block that isn't even on the screen at the time of the jump and then be fast enough to jump the moment I land. I don't like being rocketed into the air by the green spring boards and then fighting the wind while I try to land on the thin platform below. And I must say, I'm not particularly fond of being expected to use Koopas as jumping platforms. The secret to beating this game, from what I can remember, is to sprint and never stop. So many of the jumps, particularly in the later levels require you to be running, otherwise you'll never make it. Also, if you come to a jumping part and you stop dead, the enemies continue moving and will screw you up if you attempt to jump after you pause. They're placed just so you can jump across on your first approach. Any hesitation results in death. THIS GAME IS A NIGHTMARE. Granted, it isn't Battletoads-level ass-tardedness, but it is somewhere in that spectrum. You can at least beat The Lost Levels, whereas I'm firmly convinced that it's impossible to beat Battletoads without Game Genie. Battletoads sucks. But because I'm the Mario guy, I can get through most of this game without TOO much difficulty. It pretty much all breaks down as soon as I get to Level 8. That's where I blow almost all my lives at intervals of about seven lives per minute. That's about eight seconds between deaths. 8-1 is a nightmare of impossible jumps while avoiding the chasing Hammer Bros. Yes, they CHASE you. In fact, you're mercifully given a power-up mushroom early in the stage that serves the purpose of allowing you to take a hit, because I think it's actually impossible not to. If you lose the power-up before you get to the spot you have to use it, you're fucked. World 8-2 isn't so bad, except that it has the most arbitrary and aggravating path to the end of any level I've ever seen. You literally have to jump across this gap, jump on top of a Koopa, hit the block directly above him to make the vine grow, and then climb up to the end of the level. Oh, and if you don't know the vine is there, you're fucked. World 8-3 might be the worst of them all. In this level, you have to jump onto a falling platform, then to a cloud, and then finally up to a higher platform, all while sprinting and making split-second jumps. And what's worse is that Lakitu is there throwing spiny eggs at you. He's positioned perfectly in the beginning of the level so that you just barely miss him as you pass UNDER him during your third jump. Jump too soon, and you run into Lakitu. Jump to late, and you fall to your death. You literally have a pixel's worth of space to jump, and you can't miss it, otherwise you're fucked. Oh, and there are like four Hammer Bros. in this stage, too. And, of course, you have to time your jumps to clear them. Jump too early, and you hit a block, which makes you hit the Hammer Bros. and die. Jump too late, and you just die from getting hit by hammers. I hate this level so much. Surprisingly enough, after all of that, World 8-4 isn't so bad, but it's still quite the challenge, because it has more than one spot where you HAVE to jump on a Koopa to clear a long jump. You will not make it otherwise. And this is the game that idiots like Chris Bores will tell you should have been the sequel to Super Mario Bros. PLAYING this game is enough to understand why Nintendo of America chose not to release this game until much later. This game would have broken my love for Mario in the 80s. I'm glad I didn't get to play it until well after I had beaten the other games in the series. This isn't like playing a Mario game. This like playing a ROM hack of the original Mario, designed by someone who hates you and wants you to experience the frustration that comes from dying every eight seconds. This game inspires controller-throwing rage. This game's only saving grace is that the first level has a 100-1UP trick, otherwise I don't believe I would ever have beaten it. It's just too god damn hard. link talk nerdy to me

Conspiracy Theory [Dec. 19th, 2009|05:20 am] [ Tags | rant, religion, television ] You know who else needs to shut his mouth? Jesse Ventura. I can't believe I actually kind of respected this guy. He's got this new show on TruTV where he exposes big time cover-ups, except that it's just the same crap that's been debunked time and time again. Hey, I appreciate that he put the 9/11 episode out so early in the series, confirming my suspicion that the man has gone off the deep end. He's also investigating secret societies, the 2012 apocalypse, and the Manchurian Candidate. None of which worthy of anyone's time. Way to destroy your credibility, Jesse. Maybe when you're done, Vince McMahon will hire you back as on-air talent. They haven't had a good commentary team since Monsoon and Heenan. In other news, Oral Roberts was still alive?! Holy shit. I remember that asshole when he would be on after Sunday morning cartoons. That sucks when the cartoons are cut short so that Oral Roberts can preach his bullshit. Oh well, now he's dead. Died a few days ago, in fact. Where have I been? link talk nerdy to me

Apologists: Enough's Enough! Provide EVIDENCE or SHUT UP! [Dec. 18th, 2009|08:20 pm] [ Tags | rant, religion, science ] You know what? I'm done with the philosophical arguments. It's time that Christian apologists stop stalling and provide actual evidence for their beliefs, and if they can't or would rather give excuses, then I'm not interested. I'm not convinced by someone who tries to lead the discussion away from evidence and into the realm of psychological analysis and philosophical worldviews. Enough with the unconvincing assault on the "atheist worldview". It's awfully unconvincing when you have to ignore the reasons for disbelief in your God (or any God) and instead choose to lump me in with your caricature of atheism. It is unambiguous and transparent to all non-believers that you're not interested in providing convincing arguments for us. Rather, you're just trying to make examples of us in front of those who already believe. This is both belligerent and obnoxious. Here's the thing: I didn't grow up a student of "evolutionism" nor or any other theory of science that is antithetical to hardcore Christian doctrine. However, since those things actually HAVE evidence, please understand that you're asking a lot of me to throw out those things in favor of Bronze Age mythology. Sorry, but I'm not going to throw out the laws of physics so that I can believe that there was once a boat that carried every species of Earth in populations of TWO, which, by the way, is far fewer than the estimated minimal survivable population. A species that is comprised of TWO is essentially extinct, regardless of whether they're fertile or not. I also am not going to ignore all of recorded human history so that I can believe that there was a person name Moses whose people were held by the Egyptian Pharaoh and that his people then wandered the desert for forty years. I was also not taught to be an atheist. Theism was something that was almost completely absent from my upbringing (and NO, that doesn't count as being "taught" atheism). What this means, though, is that when I was introduced to theism, I found it peculiar and unnecessary, particularly since it seems entirely dependent upon region and culture. Why should this be? If it's true, there should be EVIDENCE. Without it, I find Christian apologetics equally as unconvincing as Muslim apologetics, or any other similar faith. Stop asking me to accept the proposition of an invisible hand wiggling invisible fingers, as if that's reasonable. Don't bother asking me about how the universe came into existence, because God doesn't answer that question. Don't scratch your head and make stupid faces at me as though I'm being difficult. Don't try to frighten me with Hell. Don't try to philosophically analyze my words so that you can avoid the challenge. Provide EVIDENCE. And if you CAN'T, ask yourself WHY you can't. Even if I'm completely wrong, as you believe, then why is it so fucking hard for you to come up with SOME evidence? Why does it always have to be such obviously unconvincing crap? Why is God such a difficult entity to prove? What is the meaningful difference between the Christian God and one that does not exist? And no matter what your answers are, first, don't try to convince ME. Try to convince YOURSELF. Are you honestly satisfied with the answers that you come up with, or are you just making excuses? link talk nerdy to me

grumble... drunk driving... grumble... [Dec. 16th, 2009|02:27 pm] [ Tags | rant ] If there's one vice I have virtually no tolerance for, it's drunk driving. I hate when people do it, and I hate it even more when I'm asked to understand or when I'm told that the person behind the wheel can handle his or her alcohol well enough that the law doesn't have to apply to them. Fuck that shit. You bought the booze. You didn't think to stop yourself. You got behind the wheel. Therefore, fuck you. The only reason I give any leniency to some people is because they were fortunate enough to be arrested before they killed somebody. Guess what. If you ever kill someone on the road, because you were out drunk driving, lose my number. Oh, and you lost your job because you got arrested for drunk driving? Whose fault is that? Target is hiring. link 1 smartass remark|talk nerdy to me

Avatar... it's a movie [Dec. 15th, 2009|10:50 am] [ Tags | movies, rant ] Oh for crying out loud. Right wing pundits are getting their panties in a bunch over Avatar, because it apparently has a lot of pro-indigenous and anti-corporate messages in it. It's anti-war and anti-Bush. And to that, I say, "Yeah... and?" Okay, the anti-capitalism rhetoric is getting a little old, and none of us are oblivious to the irony of a major corporate movie studio backing a film of this nature. It couldn't possibly be more ironic unless, say, there was some big blowhard, fat-ass movie director who is constantly making anti-consumerism documentaries and then selling them for profit. *cough* Otherwise, I'm quite indifferent to the whiny right-wingers complaining about how Hollywood producers are opposed to wars and like making movies about them. Look, DEAL WITH IT. We're in two unpopular wars right now. In one, we invaded to find something that wasn't there, and in the other, we invaded to find a man who we're never going to find. We're wasting time and money. Oh, and by the way, don't throw it back in our faces that Obama is wasting even more money. I'm perfectly aware of that. It's not an argument to say that it's the lesser of two evils. It still makes you look like a jackass to complain about reckless spending and then turn right around and support two wars that are basically unwinnable. Just go watch the fucking movie and stop trying to analyze ever fucking thing, you over-sensitive dipshits. It isn't like it's an Oliver Stone picture, so fucking relax already. link talk nerdy to me

Sick as a dog...also more anime ranting [Dec. 13th, 2009|06:30 am] [ Tags | anime, rant ] I'm still quite sick. My ears are clogged. I'm coughing a lot. About the only time I'm not coughing is when I sleep, but I wake up with phlegm in my throat. I'm just going to take care of myself for the next couple days and hopefully I'll improve. I haven't been this sick in a while. So, I got up early, and I started watching Macross again. Not Robotech... MACROSS. Once you see Macross, Robotech becomes unwatchable. Well, to some extent. It's actually a really good production, all things considered. The localization is really good, in that they took the Japanese script and made it sound natural in English. The acting in Robotech is also pretty good, although probably not as good as most hard core anime fans are willing to admit. After all, it was done by cartoon voice actors, and we all know how people get bent out of shape over that. So, I don't mind that so much. The trouble with Robotech is that, in order to get it to mesh with Mospeada and Southern Cross, they had to nonsensically change a lot of the terminology so that some of the story elements are lost. The aspect of the show that was most destroyed was that of the Protoculture. In Macross, it was the civilization from which our society either emerged or to which was at least similar. The Zentradi were scared of encountering the Protoculture, fearing the impact it would have on their militaristic society. Zentradi weren't even aware of what entertainment was, and they had no concept of sexuality, until they unwittingly witnessed it from the humans. In Robotech, however, protoculture is some weird vaguely defined extract/fuel derived from a flower of life which somehow makes the super science of Robotechnology possible. The whole culture shock subplot takes a back seat to the characters nattering on about robotechnology and the miracle of protoculture. And in the process, the localization is inventing subplots that clearly don't exist in the animation. It's a wonder that the Macross portion of Robotech is as easy to follow as it is. All things considered, it's not THAT much of a deviation, but it is quite a revelation once you watch the source material, when everything is restored to its proper context. Also, I have to say that the musical score in Robotech is just TERRIBLE. When they remixed and remastered Robotech, I really wish they would have used the original scores from the source programs, even if it would have been inconsistent. At least it would have been tolerable. I almost wanted to stab my ears out with a rusty pair of scissors by the end of the Macross saga, and that's still with about fifty episodes to go! Damn you, Robotech. Still, there's part of me that kind of wishes that it was still Rick Hunter instead of Hikaru Ichijyo. And I have to say that I like Tony Oliver WAY more than Vic Mignogna. And yes, as I just indicated, I'm going by the Macross English dub and not the subtitle. Like a normal human being, I like being able to take my eyes off the screen periodically. ADV gets so much shit for their dubs, and I just don't get that. They're really not that bad. Yes, there are terrible dubs, such as the horrible dub they did for the original Dirty Pair, but that was largely due to one actress. I'll admit, I probably have a higher tolerance for questionable voice casting than most people. The acting has to be PRETTY bad before I'll shut it off. I think that's only happened once. As I recall, it was Voltage Fighter Gowkaiser. And that was so long ago, it was on VHS. Fortunately, it was also a rental. Supposedly, the fuss over anime voice acting is American actors often sound like "cartoon voice actors", but I suspect that it's more because they sound AMERICAN. Sorry to say, I really don't care if the actors give the same sort of performance as the Japanese. I don't see any reason why they should be expected to sound like them. I think it's condescending to suggest that they aren't taking it as seriously as the Japanese. If there's anything wrong with ADV productions, in my opinion, it's that they often pay way too much attention to criticisms of this nature, and will often try to go out of their way to be as faithful as possible to the source material when a looser dub would probably be more appropriate. Although, I'm not advocating a dub as loose as Robotech's, where important story elements are trampled in favor of trying to merge unrelated shows. Let's hope THAT never happens again. One thing I can say about the Robotech dub is that at least they translated some of the terminology rather intuitively. For example, the Zentradi refer to the humans as "microns". In Robotech, they used the term "micronian", which is acceptable. In ADV's Macross dub, however, they opted for "miclone". I don't know if they were just trying to be as different from Robotech as possible, but I kept finding that to be somewhat of a stumbling block. And yes, I guess you can say that the Zentradi just assumed they were all clones anyway, since the Zentradi are all clones, but that's one of those stretched explanations that I don't like. It seems so obvious to me that the word should be "micron", since the humans are so much smaller. Maybe it's a trademark issue with the Transformers. I don't know. Now, don't get me wrong. I still largely prefer the ADV dub over Harmony Gold's Robotech dub, which is why I'm watching it. I think ADV did a great job, even as I poke fun at their localization choices. The whole point of a localization is to present the source material to another region. In that respect, Robotech has a slight edge over Macross, because they went out of their way to make the show feel very western, and that largely had to do with its success. Sometimes they even went a little too far, such as removing frames of animation that were deemed "too Japanese". ADV's Macross dub was a little more tied to the source material. Having Hikaru refer to Roy as "senpai" throughout the entire production was a little ridiculous, in my opinion. Yes, I know there's no English equivalent to the word, other than "elder" or "big brother", which aren't really that accurate, but they're close enough to spirit of the relationship that they would have been more natural for an English audience. Robotech got that. ADV didn't. If you're going to localize, then localize. I guess my problem here is that this violates my "don't tell the audience what to do" rule, since it's kind of suggesting that you ought to know what this means to truly understand the meaning of the show. In reality, I don't feel that it was nearly that important. They also got Mari Iijima to reprise her roll as Lynn Minmay, which I find equally as appealing now as it was back in 1986 when Orson Welles played Unicron in the Transformers movie. In other words, I could really give a crap, and I don't think anyone experiencing the show for the first time is going to be like, "Oh, it's the girl from the Japanese audio. Awesome!" Likewise, I don't think the subtitle people really cared, either. It's not like they were going to watch the dub to hear her. It's kind of a cool thing in retrospect, but not really something you actually care about when you're watching the show. Don't get me wrong. Iijima did a great job here. At least she was good for the part and was certainly more appropriate for the part than, say, either of the Lina Inverse voices. And she certainly beats the horrible Robotech version of Minmay. In Robotech, Minmay just sounded like an idiot, but here she's clearly a cock-teasing hussy. It really makes Hikaru's eventual choice of Misa that much more satisfying, if you ask me. And by the way, I'll take "My Boyfriend's A Pilot" over "Stage Fright" any day, but that's getting back into Robotech's horrible musical score, which I already touched upon. Now, in a business sense, I don't exactly know why ADV did this, since it would have been just as easy for them to release Robotech and make a ton of money that way, which is what they eventually did, actually. Releasing a separate Macross dub probably cost them more than it was worth, but I'm glad they did it, anyway. The thing is, until that happened, the only way to get Macross was via AnimEigo's off-the-boat-to-DVD subtitle edition, which makes even less sense to release, when you consider that the show already has limited appeal due to Robotech's existence. Sure, the subtitle purists will buy it, but they're a minority consumer. Again, if there's anything wrong with the anime industry, it's companies like this that listen to idiots, like those on the Anime World Order podcast, who actually think that it makes business sense to release an anime void of English dub and marketed to absolutely nobody outside of a niche minority consumer base. That's STUPID if you're actually interested in making money. Stop doing that, AnimEigo. This is why ADV has this license and not you. I suppose the people at ADV did it to satisfy their own fandom, which is at least a reason, even if it isn't necessarily the most business-savvy one. Regardless, I'm glad that the English version is finally in the can, because now it's out there, and maybe it'll dilute the Robotech brand enough as time goes on, to where Harmony Gold stops trying to resuscitate it. It's a version of Macross that can be broadcast on American TV, and that's where having it is a good thing. Still, it doesn't necessarily do much good for ADV, but I'm kind of talking in a circle at this point, so let's move on. Macross is so much more enjoyable without all of this Robotech nonsense laced into the story. The meaning of the show is restored in spades. It's great to have it in English. I would recommend it to anyone. If you can get past the crude animation, you can really get into the story. I woke up really early today and started it. I'm already on the third disc. I'm just sitting here with a warm cup of soup, watching Macross. link talk nerdy to me

LEAVE TIGER ALONE! HE'S A HUMAN!!!! [Nov. 30th, 2009|06:10 pm] [ Tags | news, rant, video games ] What is the fucking controversy? God! Are we just a nation of gossipy gooses? He doesn't want to talk to police, and he doesn't have to. Why is everyone getting their panties in a bunch over this? Why am I still seeing this on the evening news four days after it fucking happened? He hit a fucking fire hydrant. Move on! Speaking of things that I don't care about, Donkey Kong Country is 15 years old this month. Yeah, that mediocre 2-D platformer that got way more attention than it ever deserved simply because it had rasterized CG graphics. And when it came out, I couldn't have given two shits about it. I'm not saying it's a bad game, people. I'm just saying that it's nothing special, and to innovate the gaming industry, it did nothing at all. Rasterized computer graphics aren't that impressive, people, even by 1994 standards. I never understood why anyone gave a shit about this game. Sorry, I was too busy playing GOOD games at the time, like Metroid III and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. link 6 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Adventures in Grocery Shopping: Applegate Has Ended? [Nov. 26th, 2009|10:15 am] [ Tags | adventures in grocery shopping, holiday, rant, video games ] So, I was really mad when I poured myself a bowl of Apple Jacks recently and discovered that I was, in fact, eating Cheerios. I don't want this bullshit! I wan't my sweetened corn crunch! Well, it seems that my classic Apple Jacks aren't going anywhere. The last three times I've visited the grocery store, I've had little trouble finding my Apple Jacks in their original sweetened glory. Was the fiber thing just a test product? Are they releasing the two versions of the cereal side-by-side? Have I won my little battle? Perhaps. You know, dubbing this "Applegate" made me think of "Married... With Children", which in turn makes me think of Al Bundy. Sometimes I wonder if I've become the internet version of Al Bundy. Al was the champion of small victories. He'd always champion the right to see hooters and violence on TV. I think he'd be petty enough to fight over a cereal recipe. Although, he'd actually protest outside of a Kellogg factory. So, maybe I'm not so much like Al Bundy, even though I live in a Chicago suburb and have a thing for red heads. At least I don't sell shoes. My last trip to the grocery not only earned me another box of my cereal, but I picked up a few party snacks as well. I had a taste for pizza rolls. You know what I hate? The guy at the checkout who has to comment on my purchases. "Pizza rolls. All right! Party tonight?" Shut up. I had a taste for them. In fact, I had a taste for them in the middle of the night the prior night, but... funny thing... the store was closed. This is new. At least once or twice a year, I'd get an urge on a weekend to pull an all-nighter, where I'd watch some awesome movies and nosh on some snacks. But it was always spur of the moment, meaning that I would go to the grocery at 1am and pick up some snacks, because the grocery stores would leave the store open while they restocked the store. Well, now they don't do that anymore. And I'm not sure why. There are lots of people in there, and they're there every night. We can't have one person on register anymore? I'm serious, they ALL do this now. I drove around town, and it's like they all decided in unison that there would be no more nighttime shopping. Maybe they don't want to pay for security. Stupid recession. Well that's irritating. So, speaking of small victories and fighting over nothing, I was listening to the Retro Gaming Roundup earlier in the week, and I had to comment on their atrocious handheld gaming top ten list. They had like three Mario games on it, and one of them wanted to put the Activision Anthology, the collection of 2600 games on the list. And, of course, the British guy wanted to put a Sonic Game Gear title on there. Okay, first of all, what the fuck is it with British people and Sega 8-bit consoles? There's a reason that shit didn't fly in the states. Master System sucked. Game Gear sucked. None of the Sonic games were good. Between the two of them, you had Phantasy Star and Defenders Of Oasis, and that's it. I guess the Phantasy Star games on Game Gear are alright, if Phantasy Star CD is any indication. (Phantasy Star CD is a port compilation of two Game Gear games.) but seriously! I know you guys in England didn't catch on to the NES until much later, but still! Shouldn't hind sight be 20/20? Why do I know so many British people who, when invited into a discussion of classic gaming, think that they can bring up Master System or Game Gear games and not get called out for it? Pah! There IS no Sega before Genesis. (Except Phantasy Star) Anyhoo, after hearing this list, I got all pissed off, hopped on their forum, and got in their faces about it. ...in a friendly way, of course. But I was like, "What the fuck, So Cal Mike?! You can't have a list like this!" I gave them my list, where I vetoed all of their Mario games and put Donkey Kong 94 in its place. Yeah, bitches! DK94 is way better than Mario Land 1 or 2! I swapped Sonic on Lame Gear for the much superior Sonic Pocket Adventure on Neo Geo Pocket, because it was a travesty that there was no Neo Geo Pocket on their list. A travesty, I say! I really got on UK Mike's case over the Activision collection, because I think he was trying to to smuggle his 2600 nostalgia into a portable gaming debate. Clearly shenanigans. That would be like me compiling my favorite PS2 games and including the Genesis compilation. "Yeah, my favorite game on this console is the one that emulates this other console." My ass. Well, that's all I got. Happy turkey genocide day, everybody! link talk nerdy to me

Super Mario Bros. 2: A Rebuttal to Chris Bores [Nov. 23rd, 2009|10:30 am] [ Tags | rant, review, video games ] Irate Gamer reviews suck, so I decide to pick one and go through it to point out how totally asinine Chris Bores' videos are. In no way am I saying that this a comprehensive debunking of his review, since he managed to stuff the video so thoroughly with factual errors, that I'm liable to miss a couple. It's not even his worst video. It's just the one that bothers me the most. Super Mario Bros. 2, the subject of this video, was an innovative and inspirational game that was blessedly bestowed upon the Mario franchise after it had already been released as an entirely different game in Japan. It's also probably my favorite game in the series. Unfortunately, it also gets a lot of retroactive hate. People seem to be making a big fuss about this game, saying that it was a rip-off and that it was the black sheep of the series. But Super Mario 2 was a rousing success for Nintendo. They clearly made the right move. Not only did they invest in a game that earned them a lot of money, but we American players got a superb platformer that we might not have gotten otherwise. So, I'll post Bores' video here, and then I'll pick through it like wild apes grooming each other for lice. Let's get it on! 0:20 to 0:30 Gahd! Proofread your script, man. You have a lot of filler words that don't need to be there. I hate to start my critique on this note, since it has nothing to do with the game, but it just makes him sound stupid to say that "Mario is perhaps one of the most recognized video game characters of all-time." Why "perhaps"? He IS one of the most recognized game characters of all-time. He is the mascot that non-gamers think about when they think of video games. I think that solidly qualifies him as being among the most recognized. 0:40 One of the few factual accuracies in the entire video that Bores didn't have to go find on Wikipedia. Super Mario Bros. 2 does indeed stick out like a sore thumb. Good job, Chris. 0:55 "Now, I don't really hate Super Mario 2..." You're just going to spend the next ten minutes telling us how much it sucks and is too hard and has ass written all over it. But you don't hate it, no. 1:00 "First off, there's nothing remotely familiar in this game that was included in the previous ones." Previous ONES? What ones? There was only one. This is Super Mario TWO. Furthermore, why should we care that it's different from the first game? Super Mario Bros. 2 is as different from Super Mario Bros. as Super Mario Bros. was from Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. There was no precedent to expect the same gameplay, especially with other games of the time, like Zelda II and Castlevania II, which were also startlingly different from their predecessors. 1:05 to 1:13 So Chris mentions that all of the enemies are different, but why is this bad? He never says. And for some reason, he's offended that the last boss is different. Again, back in 1988, we had very little reason to expect Bowser to return. Why can't Chris learn to contextualize his criticisms? Oh, because he's a dumbass. 1:45 It's not Toadstool, you nincompoop. Toadstool is the princess. Toad is the name of the fourth character, and he's not worthless. He's the fastest coin picker, and he's the strongest character, with no negative stat effects caused by carrying items. 1:54 Chris ponders the floating door in the sky, in spite of the fact that the previous game had blocks and coin boxes floating everywhere. This was the 80s. Since when did we care that things float? 2:19 Chris knocks the game for being one-player. Later in the review, he praises the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 (aka, the Lost Levels), in spite of it also being one-player. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Also, I can hardly understand what point is being made here. So what? Does Chris seriously not remember how poorly two-player mode was executed in Super Mario Bros.? Since his videos make it clear that he sucks at gaming, I would think that he, of all people, would remember how much it sucked having to play Super Mario Bros. with two players when one would die within twenty seconds and the other player could play in excess of ten or more minutes without dying. Of course, for Chris to experience that, that would imply that he actually had friends in the first place. 2:26 "Another thing that pisses me off..." Why does it piss you off?! You're just starting your sentence with a negative and filling the rest in with whatever petty thing you think you can find to complain about. Chris chooses life hearts as the topic of this sentence, but as we'll soon see, he has no real contention with anything concerning this aspect of the game. He's just describing the way the game works and then saying that he hates it or that he thinks it's hard. 2:28 "...the game starts you out with a two-heart health meter." Um, those aren't hearts. They might be rupees or some form of gem, but they're definitely not hearts. Yes, I know that hearts replenish your meter, but Bores is talking about the meter itself. I think Bores forgot that he's not playing the Super Nintendo version. 2:30 "And every time you get hurt, they take away an entire heart." They're not...!!! *sigh* Wait a sec, An entire heart? How difficult is this game, Chris? This isn't frickin' Zelda. This is Mario. It's not that tough. You're worried about the value of health in a game that most intermediate gamers could finish in an afternoon after getting used to the game mechanics. 2:36 "...they make it very hard to replenish your health." BALDERDASH! This is one of the easiest games to refill your life meter! It's way easier than the power-up system of the first game. Attacking enemies to replenish health is usually very simple, since they regenerate after you advance the screen. 2:40 "In the first Mario Bros. game, it was really simple. All you had to do was just pound away at coin boxes until you ended up finding a mushroom." Um, Chris. In Super Mario Bros., mushrooms were in limited supply, and some stages had no power-ups at all. This is much different than Super Mario 2, where you can get your life meter replenishment simply by attacking a series of enemies. 2:49 "But with the second game, they decided to make things much harder." What's funny about this part is that, for the next several seconds, the gameplay footage actually contradicts Bores' voiceover by showing how easy getting life replenishment is. 3:15 To make a case that the Starman takes way too long to float up the screen, Bores made sure to find the one spot in the game where the waiting would take the longest, the plateau in stage 1-3. Yes, I know he's exaggerating to make a joke, but the subject of his exaggeration is actually an anomaly. Nowhere else in the game does it take nearly that long to get a Starman. 3:20 "Could it move any slower?" Yes, if you slow the video down...which you did. 3:30 Thank you for closing the door and not subjecting us to graphic "comedy". 3:38 The lid is down when Bores both enters and exits the bathroom. Not the seat...the lid. Now I know it seems like such a minor mistake, but wouldn't you think that Bores might have noticed the lid down before flipping the camera on? I mean, come on! 4:02 One of the few genuinely funny moments in the video. We've all had that rude awakening when Pokey passes through the cactus. Unfortunately, this amusing scene is followed up by a disproportionate amount of rage. Usually, people don't carry on and throw controllers over the Pokey-through-the-cactus trick. And yes, he makes sure to repeat the footage so that we know that it's the Pokey that made him strangle himself with the controller cord. 4:18 to 4:43 The longest stretch in the video without any factual errors. In fact, Bores actually manages to be somewhat entertaining here, even if his disproportionate rage is continuing from the last part of the video. Punching the Birdo is probably the funniest thing he's ever published. And that's pretty sad, actually. 4:45 Bores calls Wart a pushover. First of all, Wart is actually a bit tougher than Bowser. Second, talk about pushovers, all you had to do with Bowser is run underneath him and grab the axe. In later levels, it gets tricky when he throws hammers at you, but his pattern is pretty easy to figure out. Wart, on the other hand, is spitting arcing bubbles at you, while you're trying grab turnips to throw in his mouth. Try not getting hit. 4:55 Bores grabs the last turnip as Wart dies. Not really a criticism here. I just find it interesting that everyone I know does that. 5:10 Chris just flat out says that the game fucking sucks. So much for not hating it. 5:14 "Compared to the other Mario games, this is the one's the worst one of the bunch." Consider proofreading. There is all sorts of redundancy in this sentence. He could have just said, "This is the worst of the Mario games." 5:20 "Nintendo released a game called Super Mario All-Stars..." Well, it's not really a game. It's more of a collection cart of multiple games. Sure, I'm nitpicking, but as long as I'm picking on him for proofread errors, I might as well call him out on this one, too. 5:45 Take note of the fact that we're supposed to believe that Chris is playing Super Mario All-Stars, but when it cuts back to him, he's holding an NES controller. 5:54 "After doing some research..." ...by looking it up on Wikipedia. Seriously, when did he do this "research"? Most people knew about Mario 2 before the internet. It was plainly laid out in every gaming mag, and I believe it also says it in the instruction manual for Super Mario All-Stars. I think Chris was the only person on Earth who was actually shocked to discover that Super Mario Bros. 2 was a different game from the one in Japan. 6:03 "This one continues where the first one left off." He says it like Super Mario Bros. actually had a story. It's basically the same exact game with different level design. This isn't so much a sequel as a ROM hack. 6:06 When Chris mentions that the game has all the same power-ups, he shows a screen shot with a poison mushroom. 6:10 "This game right here is the perfect predecessor to the first Mario game." That's SUCCESSOR, you moron! And no, there's nothing perfect about this game, at all. It's extremely difficult. Hey, wait a minute. Weren't you the one complaining about difficulty just a moment ago? 6:25 Good editing on making the game cartridge pop into his hand. Again, this joke would be funny if he wasn't the only one on Earth who didn't know about the Mario 2 switcheroo. 6:30 "This mystery is very confusing, but we must get to the bottom of this." Not to beat a dead horse, but I just want to point out for the third time that Chris is trying way too hard to make common gaming knowledge seem esoteric and unknown. 6:33 "...and after doing even more research..." ...following a link to another article on Wiki. 6:34 "...I found something guaranteed to flip some shit." ...if people didn't already know and had gotten over it. Chris, seems to be the only one who hasn't. 6:53 "...once you start the game, you will be amazed." ...by the revelation that everyone and their cat has known for the last 15 years. 7:00 Okay, this genuinely pisses me off. Chris Bores proves that research is against his religion by stating that the layout of the levels were "copied" and that the game itself was "stolen". Pardon me for getting into semantics, but there's nothing about this game that is stolen. The game design and stage layout was and is entirely owned by Nintendo. Only the lead characters were licensed. This is actually not unheard of in video games for the game design and the characters in the game to be held by different companies. In fact, most licensed games are this way. For example, Hudson made Wonder Boy for Sega. Sega owns the Wonder Boy franchise, but Hudson was free to port the game to the NES as Adventure Island. Note that Hudson didn't STEAL anything, because it was their game code in the first place. And on top of that, this is actually a Miyamoto game. Miyamoto, the father of the Mario franchise, led the development team on Doki Doki Panic. In fact, he had more a hand in that game than he did with the Japanese Mario 2. At the time Nintendo was developing a sequel to Super Mario Bros., Miyamoto was heading a different team to make the first Legend Of Zelda game. 7:18 "Un-fucking-believable!" Again with the phony rage. 7:27 "Here's Mario." Actually, the Papa character has the play style of Toad, not Mario. You'd think that Chris would notice this, since he appears to be getting all of this game footage himself. Once again showing that Bores didn't do any research beyond Wikipedia. C'mon, even that Mario Wiki touches on this. 7:45 Now he's giving props to the game for making graphical alterations to match the Mario universe when only moments ago, he was talking about how much of a rip-off this game was for replacing the original characters with Mario characters. Make up your fucking mind! 7:50 Why are we giving props to Nintendo for changing the speed of the waterfall? It's like Chris saw a game alternation, flipped a coin, and decided that he didn't hate it, because it landed on heads. 8:00 "It's unclear as to why they copied it in the first place." Again, they didn't copy anything. Nintendo localized their own game as a sequel to Super Mario Bros. Also, Howard Lincoln has made it very clear that the reason the Japanese Mario 2 was held back was that the difficulty curve was too high and that the game didn't innovate the franchise. 8:03 "Many have speculated..." This is like saying, "It's been said." It's amazing how many worthless assertions you can get away with simply by using sentence prefixes such as these. Besides, there is no speculation here. We know why Nintendo didn't want to release the Japanese Mario 2. We have Lincoln's own word on it. 8:12 "Having two of the same thing can get stale and repetitive." Oh, you mean like having two negative classic game reviewers on the internet? Bah-ZING! 8:25 Bores claims that Super Mario Advance was a complete makeover for Super Mario 2, and yet the only real difference between this and the All-Stars edition was that they added a scoring system and a few new enemies. Besides which, none of the changes to the game even come close to addressing the problems that Bores had with the game in the first place, so what the fuck? And once again, he's praising the game for being altered even further into the Mario franchise, even though he claimed that the game was a rip-off earlier in the video. 8:44 Chris claims that they added "a lot more power-ups", and yet there are no power-ups in the game, aside from the Starman. He says this as Mario picks a giant turnip, which isn't a power-up. Does Bores not know what a power-up is? 8:45 "Interesting enemies", is what he says as he shows us the giant Ninji. I suppose he likes that guy, because throwing him gives you a free heart every time. 8:50 Chris is relieved, because the easy task of refilling your life meter is now even easier. You know what? This is actually one of the reasons I don't like Super Mario Advance, because the game is too easy. There are free hearts everywhere, and you get 99 lives on the first level by exploiting the Starman over and over. 9:01 Chris speaks the truth at last. 9:12 I know that Chris isn't making any money off of this... (oh wait, he does sell a DVD) ...but the least he could do is go to a florist and find a better representation of the Fire Flower than whatever plant he has on his dining room table. Also, Chris is talking to himself here, and doing a fairly convincing job of it. I'm guessing he does that a lot. 9:25 Okay, the Dig Dug gag is pretty funny, but nothing after this part is worth mentioning, so I'm just going to stop it here. So, that was only one pass through the video. I'm sure if I watched it again, I could find even more. But I figure I might as well leave that to other people to try. Why should I have all the fun? link 4 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Who put fucking Cheerios in my Apple Jacks?! [Nov. 21st, 2009|09:00 am] [ Tags | rant ] And as long as I'm venting, here's something that's had me pissed off for the past month or so. Check this bullshit out. The Kellogg cereal company has decided that certain cereals need more fiber, so they've changed the formula of Apple Jacks and Froot Loops to have more fiber. And now when I chomp down into Apple Jacks, it tastes like fucking Cheerios. Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, to be exact. Remember that variation? People, I like Cheerios, and I do buy them from time to time. But why do you have to go fucking with my Apple Jacks?! I want my Apple Jacks! I live for this cereal, and they go and fucking ruin it. Now my only solace is that I've been able to find a few remaining boxes of Apple Jacks Gliders, which is the variation that has the blue triangles in it. It's the exact same cereal, except that it has an extra piece in it with a different color dye. As long as I can pace myself on this stuff, I can savor the goodness for a while. And every day that goes buy, that's one less bowl of deliciousness that I'll have. God damn it. link talk nerdy to me

Windows Movie Maker is USELESS! [Nov. 21st, 2009|08:20 am] [ Tags | rant ] Far be it from me to actually complain about the shortcomings of a program you get for free with your computer, but this fucking program just SUCKS. And I'm not talking about the obvious things that should be there that aren't, such as the ability to superimpose text, have multiple audio tracks overlapping at once, or even the ability to control the way audio fades in and out when you're splicing stuff together (it does it automatically... and poorly). No, I'm not expecting sophisticated video-editing software, but I do expect it to work in a limited capacity, the way MS Paint and Wordpad function perfectly well in their limited capacities. No, I'm talking about the fact that you can't even sync audio and video together and have it line up correctly when you go to publish. I've done this like five times. All I want to do is make a simple fucking video with a voice-over track for a friend of mine, and I can't even do that, because the audio is a full seven seconds off when I go to watch it. I could adjust that by timing it out with a stopwatch and then moving the audio track to match, but that takes a ridiculous amount of time to get right, because I have to create the video and watch it in Media Player before i know that I have it right. If I'm half a second off, I have to go back and adjust the audio track blindly, because now that I have to time the audio incorrectly to make up for the program's shortcomings, there is no sync-checking on the fly. Come on! How hard is it to program something that syncs audio and video? This is DIGITAL! This doesn't even make any fucking sense! How can a digital editing program be this inaccurate? Isn't that the point of being digital? And then I finally get it right, but it cuts off the last seven seconds of audio. God dammit! Fix your goddamn program! link 5 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Fuck your forum! [Nov. 18th, 2009|10:55 am] [ Tags | rant ] I posted on a forum this morning. It was a simple post. It was my first time on the forum, but I was being courteous and and brief. I wasn't spamming. I was simply commenting on a video game. And then my comment disappeared. Apparently, according to some arbitrary rule that is buried deep in a sub-folder that is improperly labeled for anyone attempting to find such rules, I did not have enough posts to make a comment in that particular section. You know what? Fuck you! What is this, 2003? I have to post in the "I'm New Here" section before I can be initiated into your inbred community that I'm not even going to be visiting that often? Go fuck yourself. God! link talk nerdy to me

Some things I never need to see again [Nov. 2nd, 2009|07:40 am] [ Tags | dvd, humor, movie, podcasts, rant ] Man, people are douchebags. I got ambushed by a YouTube video of some animal trainer getting his arm bitten off by a crocodile. I forget what country it was from, but it was some kind of seaworld-like show, where this guy in a wetsuit is doing a "trick" with the croc, which promptly snaps his jaw shut while the guy's hand was in its mouth. And then it starts doing the death roll. I am one person who does not like gore. Fortunately, most of the gore was not in the video, since the majority of it was either cut or the guy with the camera stopped shooting after the crocodile started rolling around. Still, I have one image burned into my brain of the crocodile shaking its head back and forth as it's ripping the arm off. Thanks. I needed that like a tumor. And then a couple weeks later, I see the same footage on a commercial for one of those "astonishing videos" programs. It was the footage of the guys getting his hand chomped and the beginning of the death roll. ON THE COMMERCIAL! That still gives me the heebie-jeebies. Although, I have to say that, while I should be more grossed out by the guy getting his arm ripped off, I'm having a hard time saying whether I'd rather watch Two Girls One Cup over watching a croc bite. That is one video I don't EVER need to see, even though, technically, it should be less disturbing. I didn't even like the Crocodile Hunter, even though I knew that there was zero chance of seeing anything gross. Still, I don't need to see people interacting with dangerous animals. I fucking hate that we have these programs now where these guys camp out in bear or lion territory. I like the old nature programs where the camera guys would film from a safe distance, so that I could watch from the even safer distance of my living room. I can watch a gazelle getting attacked by a crocodile, but not a person. Oh, and that's another thing. Why is it that the people who can watch this sort of stuff are often also the same people who have dry heaves if they see a bucket of KFC? "Oh my god! Animal bones! I think I'm going to be sick. Oh wait, did that guy get his leg bitten off by that alligator? Awesome!" WHAT THE FUCK?! What planet do I live on?! How come I can eat a bacon double cheeseburger without a guilty conscience, and I'm the one who gets sick at the sight of gore? Something's wrong here. I didn't even laugh at the guy who got eaten off the toilet in Jurassic Park. I was too busy sinking into my theater seat, trying to distance myself from the fake animal on the screen. The only reason I don't flinch at that anymore is because I've seen it at least a dozen times. And there's no graphic mutilation, which also kind of helps. It also helps that I didn't believe for a second that the animals would behave that way. I'm going digress here for a second, but one of the things that always bothered me about the Jurassic Park movies is how aggressive the animals are. How many times do they need to eat in one night? That T-rex ate a goat and a lawyer, and it was still chasing the heroes in a Jeep. They even brought this up in Jurassic Park 2. After two T-rex adults ate Richard Schiff, they said that the animals won't hunt if they're not hungry. Apparently, they didn't see the first film. But that franchise is another rant in itself. I can't watch most horror films, because of how squeamish I am about people getting disembodied and torn apart. I don't need to see people's eyes getting gouged out or fingers getting cut off. Hostel. Saw. See No Evil. I never need to see these films. I won't even watch Faces Of Death, even though I know that movie is fake. I am that much of a pussy when it comes to human mutilation. I'm not a total wuss, though. I can watch the average action film, like Die Hard, and never be bothered by people getting shot or trailing blood. I don't want it to sound like I'm horrified by the majority of action films out there, because I'm not. Even Star Wars doesn't bother me, and that's a movie franchise notorious for heads and arms getting chopped off. Again, it helps that you never see dangling piece of flesh. I think that's what it can be reduced to; I can't stand the sight of torn human flesh. There's just something about the mutilation of the human body that I cannot stand, and I don't think I ever want to desensitized to that. =================== On a brighter note, I saw something else this morning that, in retrospect, I didn't need to see. See, I was up early, due to Daylight Saving Time fucking up my sleep schedule. Hello, 4am. Anyway, I saw that Rollerball was on Impact, so I quickly booted up the Rollerball commentary from DVD PodBLAST and synced it up with my cable. The commentary was great, but I think I may have a new official "worst movie ever seen", because this movie was fucking AWFUL. It may not be worse than Dude, Where's My Car, but I never saw that film to completion. I walked out on it fifteen minutes into the film. To date, it's the only film I ever walked out on. Although, if I had seen Brothers Solomon in theaters, I'm pretty sure I would have walked on that one, too. Actually, Brothers Solomon may still be my candidate for worst movie ever. I came close to walking out on Blade and The Matrix. More so Blade, because I just fucking hate Wesley Snipes and everything he does. The only reason I don't like The Matrix is because I fucking hate solipsism. And yeah, I know I'm oversimplifying the movie, but it still has that element of "your mind exists, but everything around you doesn't." To me, this is ham-handed philosophical masturbation. Poo on that, I say. Anyway, getting back to Rollerball, I should have known just from the cast that this was going to hurt. LL Cool J and Chris Klein. Right there is a solid argument against anyone who ever wants to see this film. Actually, I'll go a little easy on LL Cool J, since he appears as though he just hasn't gotten a good break, and he dies in the film. Chris Klein, on the other hand, just can't act, and no matter what facial expression he makes, he always looks like a tool. In fact, Chris Klein has the most unconvincing face stubble ever in this film. Seriously, it looked like they colored his peach fuzz with Just For Men beard dye. It was also the most perfectly groomed stubble you'll ever see. Apparently he didn't have time to shave, even though it looks like he took the time to trim it so that it wasn't halfway up his cheeks, like normal stubble would be. Or maybe they just carefully applied Moss-Man-like fuzz to his face, since his skin is like that of a baby's bottom and thus incapable of growing hair, aside from whatever hideous haircut he happens to have. This movie is incomprehensible. It's some kind of roller derby thing where the combatants skate around an arena and try to score by lobbing a metal ball at a target. Apparently, the rules are non-existent enough that you have one guy riding a motorcycle around the arena, but there are still penalties. I don't get it. And if that isn't enough, there's like a ten-minute chase scene in the movie that is filmed entirely in night vision. Why? I don't know! The PodBLAST commentary suggested that they may have just run out of money or didn't want to light the scene, so they did it in night vision. I'm guessing they were trying to do something fresh and edgy, but it's so random and unnecessary. It doesn't even suggest to the viewer that these guys are in near complete darkness, which would be the only reason for doing a scene like that. The only redeeming thing about this movie is that you get to see Rebecca Romijn's boobs, and I'm not even sure if I would say it was worth it for that. There were also a few WWE cameos in this film. Shane McMahon appears in one scene, and ECW promoter Paul Heyman is the play-by-play announcer throughout the film. It's without surprise that WWE would be involved in this film, because now that I think about it, this movie has about the same plot as No Holds Barred, the Hulk Hogan film, in which Hulkster takes on an evil television producer, who is sponsoring a UFC-like promotion against the more mundane wrestling program. (Strangely prophetic, no?) Even the ending is kind of similar, where the star breaks free from the arena and goes after the promoter in the control room. I can't believe I'm saying this, but No Holds Barred is actually the better film of the two. And SPEAKING of No Holds Barred, it's a shame that it never came out on DVD, because that's one movie I would have enjoyed getting the PodBLAST treatment. Actually, DVD PodBLAST never did any of the Hogan films. What the fuck is up with that? I know they could have done Suburban Commando, Mr. Nanny, or 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain. I would rather watch any of those than Rollerball. On a final note, it does seem as though our worst fears have come true. The DVD PodBLAST website went down last month, and I just had an email exchange with William Koenig confirming that the website is gone for good. I know they said that they'd stop at 100, but they teased the possibility of one more for the hell of it at some point. Looks like that's never going to happen. So, if I ever want to see funny movie commentary again, it looks like I'm stuck with Riff Trax. Yay. In retrospect, I think I could stand to watch Chris Klein getting mauled by a crocodile. Maybe their mutual awfulness would just cancel each other out. link talk nerdy to me

Playing the "Ness" [Sep. 24th, 2009|07:05 pm] [ Tags | rant, video games ] Ugh... Worst acronym ever. EVER! Why do people give their Nintendo such a horrible name? The "Ness". What is that? Are they pronouncing NES? Nintendo never called it that. Every commercial from the 80s I ever saw called it N-E-S. They never pronounced it as a word. That's why I always say that I own an NES as opposed to a NES. I didn't hear the term "Ness" until the nineties, practically. My out-of-town friend Jeff stopped by to visit. He picked up my NES Advantage joystick, and he goes, "Oh, you have a Ness Advantage!" I'm like, "I have a WHAT?!". And then it devolved into a "Who's on first" skit. I'll refrain from transcribing it, else we'll be here all night. It doesn't even sound right. Imagine instead of pronouncing XBLA by the individual letters, you started calling it "Ex-Blah". Imagine if, instead of the letters USA, you said "Yoo-sah". Oh god, that just made me think of Jar-Jar. You know what? I blame Nintendo Power. They had to come up with a character named Nester, which incorpated the abbreviated NES into the character's name. People seemed to interpret from this that you could pronounce it as a word. Oh, it's even worse with the Super Nintendo. I generally just prefer saying Super Nintendo, but there are those out there who say... *sigh* ..."Sness". Sness?! SNESS?!?!?! Sounds a lot like SNUH. Sounds like you're clearing your sinuses. That is NOT the name of a game console. Or worse, they'll say "Snez". Ben Heckendorn does that. I want to reach through my ear buds and shake him violently. I'm not going to explain what I think snez sounds like a euphemism for, but let's just say that you should think fast before asking your gal pal if you can play with her "Snez". You might get slapped. (...or kissed. HEY-OHHHH!!!) Man, no wonder so many people went with Sega in the late 80s and early 90s. They didn't have any embarrassing acronyms or abbreviations for their console. It was just one word, and there was no way you could screw that up with a humiliating nickname! No sir! ...oh wait. I heard someone just the other day call it the "Genny". Crap! link talk nerdy to me

"According to your people..." [Sep. 22nd, 2009|03:10 pm] [ Tags | rant, religion, science ] Oh boy! A full-on religion post! Haven't done one of these in a while. I don't like getting into personal one-on-one debates. I'd rather just rant here and be done with it. Carry on my life like a normal person. Because, believe it or not, I don't debate with my friends over whether or not the Zelda franchise has a harmonious narrative. We have far more intellectual conversations, such as which Iron Maiden drummer is superior, Clive Burr or Nicko McBrain. I happen to be in the Clive Burr camp. Anyhoo, I struck up a casual conversation with an acquaintance, shall we say, about my feeling that Ben Stein is an idiot for saying that science leads to killing people. His "documentary" Expelled is one of the slimiest pieces of work to ever be committed to film. Even slimier than Michael Moore, and when you can out-slime Michael Moore, that's pretty impressive. And yes, it's not necessarily what he said in the documentary, but what he said in an interview that bugs me. So anyone looking for that exact quote in the movie will not, in fact, find it there. I believe he said it on a TBN interview. That being the case, it was brought to my attention that Mr. Stein had some "compelling" arguments within the documentary, and I was just "smearing his name" over one thing he said externally in order to "get a cheap victory." I thought for sure I was going to have to explain to this person that the thesis of the film is wrong. The thesis, by the way, is that academic institutions are *unfairly* discluding alternative views in favor of the core dogma of "Darwinism", whatever that is. The reason that this argument is wrong is simply that science is not a democracy. Reputable institutions don't base the curriculum on what is agreed upon, but rather upon what is evident. Fortunately, the conversation didn't go that way. This is good, because then it would start dipping into post-modernism, and I can't tell you how much I fucking hate post-modernism. I hate these people who are like, "You have your worldview and I have mine. You believe in science, whereas I believe..." blah blah blah... And at the same time, this person is looking up the weather forecast on their iPhone, checking their blood sugar, or something else ironic like that. I'd like to go into why post-modernism is not compatible with science at any level, but that's another rant altogether. But no, we barely get into the opening sequence in the movie, where Ben Stein does the whole "lightning in a mud puddle" argument. Now, it's been explained before by countless other bloggers that, at best, this is just someone's sloppy hyperbole, and that nobody seriously believes that lightning striking a mud puddle is what kicked off life. In fact, Talk Origin is this great graphic illustrating the difference between the apologetic caricature of abiogenesis and the actual hypothesis of abiogenesis. And even on the side that presents the accurate depiction, there is a caution that the model is simplified. So, I explained all this, and then we got into this stupid argument that was like, "Well some people on your side say it was lightning in a mud puddle!". Really? Who? Some blogger somewhere? An atheist author? It is possible for these people to be wrong. I don't accept just anybody as an authority, and I'm not going to defend someone just because that person also happens to be an atheist. And then the name that was eventually tossed at me was Dawkins, but I never got an exact reference. Still, even if it was, so what? I don't even see why I should waste my time arguing over context here, although I'm sure I'd find a contextual error, anyway. Instead, I just whipped out my "scientists are not prophets" meme. I explained to the person that just because a religious apologist has a belief system that is authority-based does not mean that he is entitled to project this authority-based belief onto the realm of science. In science, you're only as credible as your work. Besides which, Dawkins is a biologist and a political activist. Neither of these have anything to do with biochemistry. So in that respect, who cares what Dawkins has to say about this? He might have something insightful or entertaining to say about it, and people like me may take notice, but ultimately it's the people in that particular field whose statements would matter, and even then, they are only as credible as the work they publish. No reputable biochemist would tell you that lightning striking a mud puddle would produce life. When an apologist tries to argue against this "model" of organic development, they are, in fact, arguing against a point of view that could only exist within the pages of a comic book. Ironic, if you think about it. link 1 smartass remark|talk nerdy to me

Charlie Sheen: Idiot [Sep. 19th, 2009|01:26 pm] [ Tags | conspiracy theories, rant, youtube ] Editorial Note: Slight correction here. Apparently, Sheen has been a 9/11 truther for a while now, and this is nothing new. This only came to my attention through this morning's episode description for The Skeptic's Guide to The Universe. The footage that follows is from last year. That said, pretty much everything else I say here applies, except for any implication I may have made that this is *new*. 9/11 Blogger said, "this is the first time a major news station has covered 9/11 questions". That's right, asshole. It's finally caught up with the Intelligent Design movement. Maybe if another ten years go by, you guys can be the subject of Expelled 2. Clearly, mainstream coverage is not the hallmark of credibility. Speaking of Expelled, listen to how they're already cushioning Sheen from the "slander", because of his "reasonable challenge" of the official story. It's the exact same tactic. They're trying to say that we shouldn't turn it on Sheen, and yet that's exactly what they're doing. They're elevating him to a hero, which is bullshit. And if this was a celebrity endorsing Intelligent Design, the same people who are eating this up would immediately turn around and identify it for the bullshit that it is. The facts have already been established. 19 religious fundamentalist radicals hijacked the planes. We have phone record. We have physical debris. We have the money trail. GET OVER IT! Oh, and here's a great series of videos (work in progress) from some emo guy... link 3 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Why are MEN suddenly more prudish than women? [Sep. 12th, 2009|08:25 pm] [ Tags | rant ] Have you noticed this? Whenever there's a new movie or video game that comes out with a hot female lead, suddenly all your guy friends are like, "Gah! Another objectification of women!", but your female friends are okay with it. When did this paradigm shift take place? It doesn't seem that long ago that it was reversed. I mean, I can understand the change in attitude for women. When I was in high school, girls would just call us guys pigs whenever we'd fantasize over sexualized depictions of women. After a while, though, girls start becoming okay with this, especially when they start adopting the same behavior (i.e., having similar fantasies about men). But the guys start going to the other way, and I don't get that at all. It's like they're trying to play the whole feminist sympathy card, as if to show that they've tamed the wild sexual beast within themselves. But to quote a female friend of mine, what the hell fun is that? People, it's okay to have fucking fantasies. Nobody is a fucking victim. Look, if the hot guy across the street is washing his car with his shirt off or if the girl next door is undressing in front of the window, I've got just one thing to say. GET THE FUCKING BINOCULARS! (Err... Just pretend I had said that the girl was washing her car in her bikini. Sorry. I didn't want to use the same example for both genders, and I ended up making a very poor one.) Pull the lump of coal out of your ass and stop feeling guilty for being human, for crissake! link 6 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

"We don't know what happened" [Sep. 11th, 2009|09:30 am] [ Tags | politics, rant ] I said a few days ago that we ought not to use the date of September 11 as an excuse to establish a national day of self pity. We need to move on. Chin up. All that good stuff. And most importantly, we need to build some fucking buildings over there in Manhattan. What the fuck is going on over there, anyway? What this means is that, you should NOT write "We remember" with a bar of soap on your car window. You should NOT put your flag at half-staff. You should NOT stop working to have a moment of silence for the people who died on that day. You wanna give the middle finger to terrorism? Just go on about life, business as usual. You know I'm anti-conspiracy. I learned my lesson on conspiracy theories when I got burned by a conspiracy theory. I hate the 9/11 truth movement. I think these people are complete morons. For those of you who are totally anti-government, that's fine. For me, this is NOT about national pride. You can be anti-government without being a truther idiot and assuming malevolence on the part of the government. Government can be accused of being stupid, but it takes a lot of evidence before I'll go the extra step of assuming evil. Even the terrorists did what they did because they thought they were pleasing God by killing the wicked. As twisted and fucked up as their beliefs are, they thought they were doing good. You know that old saying. For a good person to do evil things... yeah, that's what I'm talking about. More so, I'm getting really tired of the fence sitters. The people who are like, "I don't believe or disbelieve. We don't have enough evidence either way." First of all, that's total bullshit. I'm getting so fucking sick and tired of the romanticism of mystery. The devotion we have to not drawing a conclusion, even when it's fucking obvious. Yes, I know the chase is better than the catch, but come on! Learn to draw some conclusions, people. Elvis is dead. There is no Bigfoot outside of a monster truck rally. Lock Ness is bullshit. Aliens aren't abducting people. There are no such things as ghosts. And most importantly, the terrorist attacks on September 11 were not part of an inside conspiracy. These are not hard conclusions to draw. They only get conflated to mysteries when they are conflated to such by people who are in love with the unknown. I think this has been gone over time and time again. You don't need to melt the metal in the towers to weaken it considerably. You don't need demolition crews putting bombs in the towers to bring them down. In fact, unless you've just never seen a real demolition (go to YouTube), you have to be suck a fucking moron to even consider that these towers could have been demolished. You don't need to worry about the hotel (or whatever it was) security camera that apparently captured taped video of the Pentagon crash. You don't need to worry about Tower 7 or the plane that "disappeared" into the ground in Pennsylvania. All of these things have been refuted anyway. What we have that is immediately available for anyone who wants to hear it for themselves is the collection of recordings of people talking to their loved ones on the planes. We have private video of the first two planes hitting, and they're commercial fucking jets. There are pictures of airline debris on the Pentagon lawn. And I know how these things are dealt with. We're supposed to believe that the family members were either paid or coerced into making fake phone calls to their loved ones. We're supposed to believe that the real planes were landed somewhere and that drones hit the towers. And we're supposed to believe that all evidence available was simply planted. In other words, any anomaly that doesn't seem to jibe with the conspiracy must therefore be PART of the conspiracy. That is the hallmark of a crackpot conspiracy theory. You just keep making the conspiracy bigger, to the point where it becomes ludicrous to believe that the United States government could have kept it a secret even THIS long. This is why I think fence-sitters are just enablers. There's nothing about the alternative view that even remotely makes sense. You have to be such a fucking idiot to not see the obvious. We DO know what happened. 19 Muslim fundamentalist boarded and hijacked planes with the intent of attacking what they felt was the three pillars of power of the United States: leadership, military, and finance. We may not have ALL of the details, but we have enough to draw the obvious conclusion. Stop pretending like this is a controversy. So there you go. If you just can't stand not doing anything today, like I suggested, there's a project for you. Stick up for the fucking truth. Don't let these conspiracy nut jobs or even the fence sitters have their sway. Just don't let the day drag you down. Do something that, at the end of the day, will make you feel good about yourself. link 9 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Annual Mope Day is coming up this week! [Sep. 8th, 2009|11:13 pm] [ Tags | rant ] So, we're coming up on THAT anniversary again. The day that the whole country sobs about the only act of war to happen on American soil in sixty years. Granted, each year the national emo parade becomes less obnoxious, although we still have asses like Glen Beck who still try to rally the self-pity every year. Seriously, how long did it take us to get over Pearl Harbor? I know, it's not exactly comparable. Pearl Harbor was a military target. But still, it was a traumatic event. We were vulnerable. It was a sobering reminder, but life went on. FDR called it a date that will live in infamy, and he was so right, because it's so infamous that most people don't even know what the date of the attack IS. And that's good, because we shouldn't dwell on it anyway. That's why I can't stand that the WTC attacks had to be given a dated name like 9/11, because now that date is etched into eternity. We will always know what day that happened on, and it'll always be that black mark on the calendar. The day after the World Trade Center tragedy occurred, I knew that this was never going to happen again. Not because the country was going to lock down into a state of airline security panic, but rather because if anyone was ever stupid enough to try to hold up another plane, they would be mauled by the rabid passengers. They'll be cleaning those assholes off the cabin interior with a spatula. There will never be another airline attack like this. Ever. What are we teaching our children, though? We have this myth that we live in a "post 9/11 world", and I think that's a bunch of bullshit. It's an excuse to justify unwarranted search and seizure. Any time we bitch about this anymore, there's always some dick who throws that one out. We should get legal free slap on anyone who says stupid shit like that. The danger is always there. We don't live in a world that's any more dangerous than any time prior to the 9/11 attacks. Do yourself a favor and just let the day slip by. Don't give it a thought. Do what you normally do. Let September 11, 2009 be a day like any other. link 1 smartass remark|talk nerdy to me

Random shit [Sep. 2nd, 2009|05:25 pm] [ Tags | anime, cartoons, comics, rant, video games, webcomics ] In the comment box on yesterday's Crossoverlord, I made a bunch of jokes about possible Disney/Marvel crossovers, which was promptly met with crickets. Hey, I thought it was all pretty funny. I was rather proud of where I said that Namor found Nemo. C'mon, peeps. Laugh. So, when I draw comes, I usually have to have something playing in the background. Usually Retronauts or RetroforceGO. The only problem is that Retronauts didn't update last week and RetroforceGO is on hiatus. What's an illustrator to do?! So, I decided to try a DVD. I put in Dirty Pair Flash. I'm apparently still the only person on the planet who LOVES those OAVs. Not only that, but I always chose the English vocal track. (In this case, I kinda had to, anyway.) I don't care what anyone says about ADV's actors. I'm not that fucking fussy. The acting has to be pretty bad for me to hate on it. Now, if you want to talk about ADV's dubs of the Dirty Pair movies, that's another story. (Kei sounds like she has a lobotomy.) I also love it because Sunrise blatantly stole the whole rogue Angel storyline from the Adam Warren adaptation of Dirty Pair. Shasti was a rogue Angel well before Lady Flair. Anyhoo, I have the DVD blaring, and I'm laughing at all the funny quips that they put in there (because I also love western humor in my English-dubbed Japanese cartoons). Funny thing happened, though. I soon realized that I was able to follow the story a lot better when I was not watching the screen. I don't know why, but that show has a plot that, while not terribly complex, is hard to follow sometimes. I think it's because some of the secondary characters have very similar designs, and so I was getting some characters mixed up. The character Dr. Capps is one such character. There's another character that looks just like him. On the other hand, there's this one 3WA agent that is seldom referred to by name but is always at odds with the girls. He actually shows up quite a bit, but for some reason, I wasn't paying close enough attention to realize that it was him in almost every episode. Only by not watching the screen did I suddenly realize that he's all over the place. Bizarre. I watched the other two DVDs later on. By the way, each disc represents a particular series of episodes. The first two discs have their own overarching story lines. The second disc's story isn't as good as the first one, although it does have one of the few instances of Yuri being bisexual. So, that pretty much makes up for it. The third disc is just a bunch of random and unconnected stories, although for some reason, I don't remember ever seeing the last episode. It was kind of cool to watch. I'm sure I've seen it, but I don't know why it's such a blank on my memory. I'll get back to my on-going trek through Arc The Lad II later this week. I am quite a bit further now, though. I've got Shu and Tosh, and I guess I'm supposed to blow up a train. Of course, I had to FIGHT Tosh before he would join me. Surprisingly, I didn't die in the process, although I was heeling every other round. In battle, he does around 400 HP worth of damage in one attack, which is A LOT for this game. He's like three times as powerful as my next strongest character. And finally, you know what annoys the piss out of me? Something happened to Firefox within the last few months where the tabs are now really sensitive. Apparently, if you click on it a certain way, it will close the tab in the current window and open it up in a new one. It's really irritating, because it seems to happen most to any window that may have a YouTube video in it, which promptly ends the video and makes it start loading all over again. SONOFABITCH! I don't even know how I'm doing it. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. It always happens when I'm clicking on or around a particular tab, but when I try to repeat whatever it is I'm doing, it doesn't work. I assume it's some new shortcut feature that came bundled with one of the last couple of version updates. If that's the case, then Mozilla needs to fix this shit. link talk nerdy to me

Science! What's the worst that could happen? [Aug. 25th, 2009|10:10 pm] [ Tags | rant, science, youtube ] There's this guy on YouTube named HowTheWorldWorks. Now, I'm going to make your head spin by saying this, but this guy is NOT an idiot. In fact, he's one of the best representatives of conservatism I've seen in recent years. He even gets +5 Charisma for not being a creationist. This is what I wish a representative of the Republican party would actually be like. I may not agree with a lot of his politics, but I have significantly more respect for him than, say, Bill O'Reilly. HowTheWorldWorks is not a gay hater, he doesn't push the Christian agenda, and he actually has a superior understanding of evolution than even most skeptics I know. (Note to the Republican Party: Get more guys like THIS!) So, I can't bash this guy. In fact, I strongly disagreed with both Thunderf00t and The Amazing Atheist for trying to bury this guy in ad hominems, and many other skeptics did as well. HTWW is no dummy, and he didn't deserve to be deluged with the crap he got, even though it kinda worked out for him. TF really bumped his subscribers after that incident. So, he's not VenomFangX. But, he's no Shane Killian, either. (Shane Killian is awesome, by the way.) And as Shane Killian has said in the past, even a skeptic is not immune to being wrong, so allow me to point out the most recent atrocity. Now, my liberal friends will be scoffing at virtually everything that comes out of his mouth. In fact, you're going to want to take a step back, because you'll probably feel the urge to punch your screen, and I don't want to liable for all those broken computer monitors out there. Please ignore all of the Obama bashing this guy does. That's not the bad part. The bad part is when he brings up the topic of modifying chicken embryos to produce modern day dinosaurs. He cracks, "What could go wrong with that?" What, indeed! If you take a look at the link he posts in his sidebar, you'll see that there really isn't much of anything that could go wrong. I don't want to speculate on what this guy is trying to imply (he doesn't say), but if it is what I think it is, then he didn't read the article very well. The idea of turning a chicken embryo into a dinosaur is not new. In fact, it's been around for years. The idea, proposed by Jack Horner, is to take a chicken embryo and flipping certain genetic levers during development. In fact, that's exactly what the article says. It does NOT say that this guy plans to genetically modify a chicken into a dinosaur. Let's be clear. Flipping genetic dip switches is not the same as genetically modifying something. All you're doing is adding a protein during the development cycle that the natural development doesn't provide (and hasn't since the age of the dinosaurs). That means that if this thing ever procreated, it would just give birth to a regular chicken. (Perfectly understandable, unless you're a Lamarkist or something.) So, what's the big deal? Does he think that some scientist is going to create a race of super chickens? That this is going to get out of control, like the killer bees, and we'll be overrun with chicken-asauruses? Does he actually think that making a new race of dinosaurs is even the point of this experiment? Again, it's hard to say, as he doesn't elaborate, but he should have known better than to let his layman audience fill in the blanks for him. Oh, and here's another video, where he makes a similar snide comment regarding the recent scientific claim that we'll be able to make artificial life in a matter of months. What could go wrong with that, he asks. Well, again, nothing. If you actually read the article, there's nothing there that should alarm you any more than the type of agriculture that mankind has been doing for thousands of years. If he's trying to argue that this could be dangerous, because we don't know what could happen, then he's basically making the same bullshit argument that the anti-GM-food people have been making for years. Seriously, what is the meaningful difference between modifying an existing organism (which is what agriculture is!) and making a new one from scratch? In fact, aside from the part about making life from scratch, this isn't even new science. Since the 70s, medical science has been using a genetically engineered strain of the E.coli bacterium to produce insulin for diabetics. Now imagine if we could take that same amino acid that produces insulin and give it to what is essentially a simple, controlled, man-made bacterium. That's what this is about. It's about taking amino acids that benefit mankind and inserting them into benign, man-made bacteria, that doesn't eat your flesh or give you food poisoning. It is a more controlled version of the same science that geneticists have been doing since the 1970s. And this YouTube political commentator, who proclaims to know "How The World Works", should have known better. link talk nerdy to me

Heavy Metal 2000 [Aug. 20th, 2009|08:15 am] [ Tags | cartoons, movies, rant, review ] It only took me 9 years to see this piece of shit. Oh my fucking god this movie sucks so much dick. Don't be fooled by the picture. There's nothing good here. This is a shitball movie is a follow-up to the original movie and attempts to tell a more comprehensive story of the Taarakian legend from the first film, except that it comes off as extraneous and unnecessary. There's nothing here that adds to the story. It's just another Taarakian girl, whose name is Julie, and her tediously uninspired trek to don a ridiculously sexy warrior costume (which I'm not complaining about) and fight the great evil. Tyler, who I'm guessing is some kind of miner, discovers the Loc-Nar at the beginning of the film, which had been sealed away in the safety of an asteroid. He immediately becomes a homicidal maniac and kills everyone until he finds himself in command of a ship, which he then flies across the galaxy and goes on a murderous rampage (and to Julie's home planet). Michael Ironside portrays Tyler, the muderous scoundrel you'll never care about. Julie survives the attack and vows revenge. With the help of some forgettable dipshit who was left behind by Tyler, she chases Tyler across the galaxy... blah blah blah blah blah... Who fucking gives a shit? It's not even a story. It's just this meticulously drawn-out sequence of events, that goes like, "First they go here, and then here, and then here..." and so on and so forth. At no point do you actually care about what's going on. I wanted this movie to end, and just dragged on and on. The animation "quality" certainly didn't help. This looks like every original cartoon series that ever debuted on USA Cartoon Express. Granted, its larger budget gives it a level of polish that you don't get from television animation, but it's still not that far removed! It actually reminds me a lot of the Land Before Time sequels as well as the Lady Death anime, all of which are steaming piles of crap. There's no excuse for this. This is the worst theatrical animation I've seen since My Little Pony: The Movie and Secret Of The Sword. If you could find something that's actually worse that was released in the interim, I'd sure love to see it. The character designs are way too simple for theatrical animation. These are the sorts of character models you expect from television animation, such as Justice League, Teen Titans, and the like. This is NOT the sort of stuff you design for theatrical features. The main character Julie is supposed to have tight, curly hair, ala Julie Strain (who actually voices the character), but you hardly get that from the way she's modeled. There are some hair curls here and there, but you don't get what the character is actually supposed to look like, which, ironically, is precisely what they put in the promotional art! Who storyboarded this? Rob Liefeld?! Also, she wasn't hot! The culmination of this boring story is that we revisit the first movie's Taarakian changing scene, except that the character design is so bad, that it registers a zero on my wood meter. She was so the opposite of hot, that I was actually beginning to notice how impractical her costume is! THAT SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN A MOVIE WHERE THE CHICK IS SUPPOSED TO BE HOT! Epic fucking fail! But the greatest offense has to be the use of CG in this movie. I would give the movie props for making good use of CG, had it actually done so, but they must have had such a small CG animation budget, because what they ended up with is laughable, even by television animation standards. Even for the era this movie comes from, there is no excuse for this. There is a character at the end of the movie, who appears out of nowhere, who is fully CG-rendered, and I swear he looks like something out of a bad PlayStation-era FMV cut scene. He looks like he might have been animated by PlayStation 2 hardware, actually. The lighting done on this character is poor enough that it appears to hide what is surely a very low polygon count. HAHAHAHA!!! Oh, COME ON! This is awful! And he's not even animated well. Amazingly enough, he's actually animated WORSE than the cell animation, and that's a feat! He's every bit as stiff and unlifelike as you would expect from early 3D video games. Okay, I've been bitching about the animation. You get it. It's bad. What about the other music. It's Heavy Metal! It has to have great music, right? Well, if you like Monster Magnet, System Of A Down, Insane Clown Posse, or Machine Head, you might be interested. I sure wasn't, though. I also wasn't interested in the twelve or so other bands that I'd never even heard of. Apparently, there's a Billy Idol song in there, and Pantera as well, but I don't remember ever hearing them. This movie seemed to not feature the music very well. Most of these artists are bands I don't recognize, and whose music was so buried in the soundtrack that I barely noticed any of them. Remember how enthusiastically Transformers: The Movie blared Stan Bush and N.R.G. at us? Heavy Metal 2000 was the exact opposite of that. In the original Heavy Metal, you heard the fucking songs! You remember what scenes they were in. They were even in context with the scenes, and that's something that this so-called sequel totally missed. Why is this movie so fucking bad? Who is responsible for this? Hopefully, whoever did this is pushing a broom somewhere on the Nickelodeon lot, because this person does not deserve to ever direct animation again. This movie fucking sucks, and you should never fucking watch it, because you might be tempted to stab your eyes out. This is the unworthiest sequel I've ever fucking seen. It should be struck from the record and all physical copies, including the master negatives, should be destroyed. Fail! Fucking fail! link talk nerdy to me

Atari's little-system-that-couldn't gets a new game [Aug. 14th, 2009|10:30 am] [ Tags | rant, video games ] New Screenshots of Zaku First of all, WHY? Okay, as much as I hate to bust on Brandon Cobb, I got to call him out on this one. Releasing a new Sega Genesis title in the 21st Century at least makes some sense, seeing as a lot of people have that console. But who the fuck has an Atari Lynx? The only thing that's more painful than it being on Lynx is the fact that it's actually Super Fighter's first original release, AND it actually looks like a fun game. I'm hoping they can up-res it and port it to a more relevant console. Even a Genesis version would be good. They'd have to find someone with enough patience to redraw all of the sprites at double resolution, but that's better than being exclusive to the Lynx. Now, I understand it's the homebrew community. They always pick the consoles that nobody fucking has, like Jaguar and Lynx, which you can only really get excited about if you're already part of the homebrew community. To the rest of us, who gives a crap? I repeat, who the fuck owns a Lynx?! And this sudden re-emergence of news for Zaku comes out right on the tails of the most recent Retronauts (episode 74), where they talked about the Lynx and how it sucked six AA batteries in a matter of hours. Like the Nomad (even though I LOVE the Nomad), you're basically tied to a wall socket unless you actually enjoy stocking up on batteries for your game console. People, that was ridiculous even back then, and it's even more ridiculous now! Besides, I only stock up on batteries for one reason, and that reason is called Mag-Lite. ...oh, and the remote for the TV. I guess that's two. I declared the video gaming's age of batteries dead the day Gameboy Advance SP came out with its own dedicated internal battery that could be recharged and lasted for hours. I will never, ever, ever, ever, EVER go back to buying batteries for a game console. And that includes your bigger consoles on the TV, with your wireless controllers that require AAs. Stop that. Yes, I am the anti-battery snob. Just say no to conventional batteries. Oh, and buy Pier Solar for Sega Genesis. Pre-orders still available for the US and Jap versions. The European version is sold out! link talk nerdy to me

Annoying things that game journalists do [Aug. 6th, 2009|08:00 pm] [ Tags | rant, video games ] You know what? Here's a new rule. If you're a video games journalist, and you still refer to the SNES Final Fantasy games as Final Fantasy 2 and 3, someone needs to drag you into the mens room and give you a swirly. Think about it. These games came out a decade-and-a-half ago. There are people who follow these video games websites who weren't even alive when these games were originally released. Imagine one of these kids reading an article written by some child of the 90s who goes, "You know that game on your DS that you think is called Final Fantasy III? Well, there was a completely different game when I was a kid that had the same name. And since I can't be bothered to separate my job from my childhood, I'm going to continue calling that other game as Final Fantasy III, even though the publisher has since released it under its correct title. Hope you don't mind the confusion." And besides which, even I have trouble adjusting when people still behave as though the SNES releases are relevant. I hate it when I'm reading a game review, and the person starts comparing a current-gen game to one called Final Fantasy III, only he's not referring to the one that came out on DS only a few years ago. He's talking about Final Fantasy VI. And it usually takes me a minute or two to realize this. How annoying. And stop saying, "That's what that game is to me." NO! You're a fucking journalist. Calling the games by their proper titles is more important than your nostalgic rebellion. Take your job seriously, especially if you want other people to take it seriously. It's like when people say, "You know what movie I like? Star Wars." And then I'm like, "Which one?" Oh, silly me! He's referring to Episode IV, because I'm talking to some jerk who still thinks that it's 1977. They're all called Star Wars, ya stoop. That's bad enough, but imagine if a movie reviews editor did that. But seriously, if you're a journalist, don't be a douche. Especially if you work for a vaguely respectable video game website. These games have been re-released multiple times. They're not going to go back to the anachronistic titles that you remember from your childhood. It's misplaced nostalgia that just annoys the rest of us who've accepted that Squaresoft never wanted to rename the games in the first place. And while you guys are at it, stop referring to PS3 and X-Box 360 as "next gen". They're current gen. link 3 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

DAMN IT, FUNIMATION!!!!! [Aug. 1st, 2009|02:45 am] [ Tags | anime, dvd, rant ] Damn it! Dammitdammitdammitdammitdammit!!!! Or maybe in this case, I should be saying... ( CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! ) link talk nerdy to me

People actually believe... IN THE DEVIL! [Jul. 28th, 2009|05:20 pm] [ Tags | heavy metal, humor, music, rant, religion, youtube ] You know that one AC/DC song. The one with all the sexual innuendos? Oh wait, that would be ALL OF THEM. My last post was really inane, I realize. Every now and then, I prove just how much of a loser I am by going off on tangents about crap that nobody else cares about. Sometimes I think I'd make a good Seinfeld character, because I argue about crap like that. Anyhoo, here's something else that doesn't matter. So, I live in Wheaton, Illinois. Well, technically. Anyhoo, if you're familiar with the area, then you know that it allegedly has more churches per capita than any other town in the country. I don't know if that's actually true, but I've been told that a number times. What this means is that I can't have a conversation with anyone in this town without it turning into a confrontation. WHAT?! Don't look at me like that. I don't start shit, honest! All I have to do is say something like, "I still haven't heard the new AC/DC album," and it just starts. Almost on cue, there's the ass hat who goes, "Oh, you mean Anti-Christs and Devil Children?" Isn't that cute? I love when the conversations turn in this direction. There's nothing I like more than Bible thumpers making up acronyms for the bands I like and then pretending as though that's actually what their names stand for. Nevermind that the band had a lightning bolt in its logo, and three of the albums are named High Voltage, Powerage, and Flick Of The Switch. Clearly, this is all window dressing to the band's ulterior motive, which is to spread the word of Satan. Okay, so there's actually a lot of this and that about Satan, but you'd have to be stupid to think that they're being serious. Oh wait, we're talking about fundamentalist Christians. That's right. So, the conversation just derails, because I can't let it go. Me: "So wait. You believe... IN THE DEVIL?! A red man in long pajamas, with a pitchfork and horns on his head? You think this being actually exists and isn't just some mythological acid trip?" Idiot: "The greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince people that he doesn't exist." Me: "That's cute. So what you're saying is that the absurdity of the devil is the work of the devil. Amazing. The only thing the devil had to do in order to convince me that he doesn't exist is to defy logic. He must really be evil if he can do that." Idiot: "You don't have to get condescending." Me: "Need I remind you that this whole derailment started when you became condescending?" Idiot: "I can see that this conversation isn't going anywhere." Me: "Fuck you." Oh, and you have no idea how many times I've heard the one about KISS being the "Knights In Satan's Service". Good one, Gene. Thanks to your little joke, I've had to hear that one on nearly a monthly basis. And I don't even fucking like KISS. It's also so weird looking at the CD collection of someone who reads the Bible like it's a history book. You ever do this? You flip through their CDs, and they have all of those Christian rock collections you see on TV. And they all have the same songs, too, like "I Can Only Imagine", "God Of Wonder", and "Open The Eyes Of My Heart". And the bands are always the same, too. You got Jars Of Clay, Mercy Me, and Amy Grant. What the fuck! Amy Grant? Who listens to that shit? When was the last time she was relevant, 1991?! Seriously, though! It's like looking through the CD collection of someone who lives on another planet. And what it is with Christian album covers? How come they all take the same monochrome picture, usually tinted to Lord Of The Rings brown, of the guy smiling while looking away from the camera? What's up with that? Look at the god damn camera, ya pussy! God damn, Christian music sucks. Well, most of it. I'll give them credit if they write a song that has a good hook, but it can be brutal if the lyrics are too obnoxious. I mean, take this, for example... Now come on! That's not real! ...is it? I know that Bluefish TV is legit, but I can't find anything that suggests that this is a hoax. The video is actually hosted on a Christian website, which I don't understand at all. It's too ridiculous not to be fake, though, because it's like a parody of everything that's wrong with Christian music. They play the same sucky songs and try to gussy them up with a new style of music. If that's real, then that's pretty sad. And if it's not, my hat goes off to whoever made that, because I was roaring with laughter through the whole thing. EDIT: No, no, no! I just watched it a second time. That has GOT to be fake. That's just too over-the-top. When he starts going "Raaghraaghraaghraagh" through Silent Night, that just tops it. There's no way this isn't a spoof. No fucking way. link 2 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Movie Review: Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen [Jun. 24th, 2009|02:00 pm] [ Tags | 80s, cartoons, movie, rant, review ] a.k.a. Transformers 2: Electric Boogaloo a.k.a. Transformers 2: The DaVinci Spark a.k.a. Transformers 2: There Won't Be A Transformers 3 I just watched a 2 and a half hour toy commercial. I can't believe I'm saying that, especially since critics said that about the 1986 film, but it's true! ( Caution: SPOILERS AHEAD! ) link 4 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Ten things the Republican Party Needs To Know For Next Election [May. 17th, 2009|07:54 pm] [ Tags | politics, rant, religion ] 10. Presidents have science advisers for a reason. Listen to them. 9. You don't like liberal politics. Fine. Calling it communism and other forms of hyperbole won't make liberals listen to you. 8. The US was NOT founded on Christian values, and even if it was, that is not a justifiable argument to endorse one religion above all others in our culturally-diverse society. 7. Habeas corpus. It's a good thing. 6. Evolution has a lot of support. Deal with it. 5. You believe in the free market. Wonderful! Then don't fence-off the Mexican border. 4. And while you're at it, legalize prostitution and end the war on drugs. 3. You believe in less government. Great! Then don't write special legislation for zygotes and brain-dead women. 2. Next time you invade another country, have evidence. 1. Homosexuality is not a disease. Mind your own fucking business. ------------- And to be fair, there ought to be one of these for the Democrats as well, but I'll wait until Barack really screws up before I do that. Note: My original #1 was a blatant endorsement of Bob Barr, who is actually a member of the Libertarian Party and not a Republican anymore. Barr did a lot of nutty things as a Republican, including trying to ban Wicca in the military. It's true, though, that he has changed his stances on gay marriage and the drug war, making him one of the best things to come out of the Republican Party. Still, he's probably a little too kooky for my tastes. Besides, I had to fit homosexuality in there somewhere. link 2 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Beating A Dead Horse, Don'tcha Know [Jan. 13th, 2009|08:25 pm] [ Tags | politics, rant, religion, science, youtube ] I don't believe I ever commented on the infamous Sarah Palin fruit fly comment, but since Shane Killian brought it up in his latest video, I might as well take the opportunity to run through this. Oh, that wacky Sarah! Dissing fruit fly research. Nothing fruitful (pardon the pun) ever comes from that! Oh, except that it does. And it's not as though Sarah Palin has an excuse. She has staff. I don't even have staff, and I know more about this shit than she does. She had someone who could have looked this up for her. Instead, she walks out, without a care in the world as to what this research could possibly be about, and she makes a smarmy face as she cracks wise about one of the most beneficial forms of research for the public good. Oopsy doopsy, Sarah! Okay, okay... This was months ago, and the election's over. I'm just sullying her name. (There's that word again: sully. I like that word.) Onto the real meat, though. Shane's latest video is the first of a six-part series in which he debunks Creation On The Web's attempt to discredit evolution via the National Science Education standards, and Shane intends to show how each of their points fail. And, as you have suspected, he's already off to a roaring start! Oh, and beat in mind that, although Shane rips on Palin and McCain, he's not a liberal. He's not a conservative, either. I'm only pointing this out so that nobody tries to jump to any assumptions of political bias. Shane is as straight a shooter as they come. If you're on YouTube, you should subscribe to his channel. link talk nerdy to me

Christine Maggiore: Stupid Bitch [Jan. 12th, 2009|08:00 am] [ Tags | pseudo-science, rant, religion, science ] [ mood | angry ] Who is Christine Maggiore? Well, if she doesn't have Darwin Award Of The Year, she should. Basically, she was a pseudoscience advocate and AIDS-denialist. Oh, and she was also HIV-positive. Here's YouTube user H8UALL66 to explain it better than I can... Okay, so she killed herself with stupidity. Why sully her name any more? Jeez, Neil! Let it go! Nay, I say! NAY! Sully shall be thy name! See, that's not where the story actually ends. See, some time after Maggiore had contracted HIV and chose to ignore such silly things as clinical case studies and evidence, she had a daughter. And I'm sure that you can already see where this is going. Maggiore had a daughter and elected not to take anti-retroviral drugs to counteract the disease during her pregnancy. She also chose to breastfeed, which is also a good way to transmit HIV, assuming that, by some miracle,the child managed to be delivered without infection. So basically, this kid had no chance. Naturally, the kid fell ill and was never taken to a hospital. Instead, she was taken to an herbal healer, who treated her for "a mild ear infection", after which, the child promptly died. The autopsy performed demonstrated no such thing, but rather showed that the child had contracted pneumonia, caused by a fungal pathogen which, you guessed it, just happens to be the common cause of pneumonia in people who have AIDS and the leading cause of death in childhood AIDS cases. Maggiore, dissident in her opposition to the truth, sought a second opinion from a kook, who promptly assured her that the daughter had actually died from an allergic reaction to the kooky medicine she had been taking. Of course, this person was not in any way a doctor, and thus he did not have a chance to look at the body for himself, so it's easy to understand how he could have missed the acute fungal infection to the lungs, you stupid holistic-healing asshole! ...but I digress. Appropriately enough, Maggiore died of the very same affliction just this past month. Hmm...I wonder if Kevin Trudeau and Tom Cruise sang a Scientologist hymn at her funeral. Maybe they shared some chants about the evil drug corporations and how they're all trying to keep us alive longer just so they can make more money off of us. GRRR!!! That's so EVIL!!! We should be allowed to die young and in our thirties and forties! It's natural, dammit! Stop making us live longer, so you can take advantage of our frail bodies as they begin to whither and become more dependent on medical attention and antibiotics. We're not your ATM machines! But if I can be serious again, for a moment, this woman...this STUPID person...basically killed her kid, due to stupidity, and we should look at as a lesson of what happens when we choose nonsense over actual science. And I'm not even appealing the medical establishment as an authority. All you need to do is use your base senses and see for yourself that holistic medicine doesn't work and that medicine that you get at the pharmacy is your best bet at overcoming illness. You know, I have no problem with people contributing to their own demise, especially if they do it in funny ways. Stupidity is funny, except when it hurts other people. The fact that some poor child had to die to her own mother's complete incompetence makes me very not happy. On the day her daughter died, this woman should have been locked up...or punched in the face. One of the two. link 3 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

The Justice Medley [Dec. 20th, 2008|12:30 pm] [ Tags | heavy metal, humor, rant, youtube ] This is going to be a weird post, because I'm going to be simultaneously complementing and dissing Metallica. Mostly dissing, but there's still some stupid part of me that thinks they were once good. Back in 1992, Metallica started performing a medley of tunes from the album "...And Justice For All" at their live shows, because every song on that album is ridiculously long, and some abbreviation would be a courtesy for those of us who get metal fatigue. (You can only listen to chugging riffs for so long before you begin to zone out.) Of course, that's all you heard on this album was guitar chugging, because there's no bass. Well, there is...kind of...but I'm not sure if it's Jason Newsted. It might just be some weird feedback coming off the other guitars. It doesn't sound like an instrument. It just sounds like whoever mixed this album head something against stereo speakers and ear drums, because this album is kind to neither. This album is twenty years old, and I still firmly believe that whoever mixed it deserves to be punched in the mouth. And even more astonishing is that this is actually considered by many to be the last "good" album. Every studio release that followed was terrible. Metallica, amazingly enough, is the only metal band in history that actually got WORSE when they learned harmony. How do you do worse than an album that has absolutely no harmony?! Lars found the way. To commemorate this event, the album that would follow "...And Justice For All" would be colored entirely black and not be given a name. It would be their way of saying, "This is Metallica. Adjust your expectations downward from now on." So, while some some think of "Justice" as being the last good album, I look at as being more of the linchpin that connects the previous three albums to the horror that was to come with later albums. It would only get worse from here. ...except it kind of got better. For one gleaming moment in 1992, Metallica put out a huge gonzo crazy live box set, which featured three different live sets, one from Mexico City, one from Seattle, and one from San Diego, and all of them were made of pure 24 karat awesome. (Except for the parts where they played songs from the "black album", but those were more or less forgivable.) The only real sore spot I had about this set is that, at the time of its release, VHS was still the standard in the video market, so the San Diego and Seattle sets were confined to these honkin' huge cassette tapes. As you might recall, though, I reviewed the DVD re-release of this set, in which they basically bundled the three shows in a five-disc jewel case (3 CDs and 2 DVDs), which rather conveniently fits into the old box set, if you swap out the original 3-CD Mexico set. Mine was all cracked and broken anyway, and one of the discs had a skip. Of course, the best thing about the re-release is that, unlike the VHS, the San Diego show isn't cut into two parts! Hooray! Anyway, about a third of the way through the Mexico City and San Diego sets, they break out into this medley of various songs from the "Justice" album. This is quite a blessed event, because if I had to sit through a concert where Metallica attempted to even play a majority of the songs from that album, I'd likely slit my arms open from wrist to elbow, because just like today's Hollywood directors, Metallica apparently didn't know how to edit or be concise back then. They had ten minutes of song, and goddammit, they were going to record every second of it! Who the hell do they think they are? Iron Maiden?! Unfortunately, "One", the most overrated Metallica song of all time, was given it's own full-length performance. Yay. (The previous "Yay" is to be read with a complete absence of enthusiasm.) There really were a lot of great guitar riffs on the "Justice" album, if you cut down on all the monotonous chugga-chugga-chugga crap, that is. Metallica managed to cut it down to include most of the best parts of "Blackened", "Frayed Ends of Sanity", "Eye Of The Beholder" (I didn't Lars was a D&D nerd), and of course, "...And Justice For All". And best of all, it was actually mixed properly, so you didn't wreck your speakers listening to it! Hellzyeah! If there's one thing that the internet has taught me, though, is that there's always some sick bastard out there willing to devout time to undoing the right that once undid a wrong. For some reason, some dick decided to take the studio versions of the aforementioned songs and splice them together so as to reproduce the famous medley. Why? So we can hear the medley with the speaker hum? Is it so that Lars can be way up front in the mix to emphasize just how terrible of a drummer he really is? Why would somebody do this?! I don't know whether to be impressed or horrified. It's very accurate to the live version, but it's like all the life got sucked out of it. Punishment: Punch to the dick. Here's how it's supposed to sound. link 2 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

People are fucking stupid [Dec. 7th, 2008|11:15 pm] [ Tags | rant, religion, video games ] On the most recent episode of the 1Up Podcast, one of the hosts (I don't recall which one) was talking about the "controversy" of resale games and said, "I can see both sides of the argument." Oh really? Because I don't. I can understand up the point where a game publisher may not want his product sold in a store that offers resold games. It's their choice not to do business with these places. But do I think they're entitled to stop gamers from reselling their old games or accuse said gamers of being pirates? Absolutely not! I don't care how hard you worked on a game. Once you've sold a physical copy, the buyer of that copy is entitled to resell that item any time he wants. If I'm an architect, am I entitled to compensation if the original buyers sell the house to another buyer? Are they house pirates, selling the product of which they contributed very little labor? Of course not! Video game publishers have been fighting resale for years, and even though, music, video, and books all have their own resale markets that existed long before the video game market took hold, video game publishers still think that resale is this emergent evil that must be shackled. Fuck them! You know why I don't have any of the new consoles yet? Because I don't like where the video game industry is heading, where the companies are trying to control the degree to which you own a product. Digital rights management is bullshit. DLC is bullshit. Nickle-and-dime marketing is bullshit. Granted, there is some merit to download services, as fans of sports games can attest. Getting new content for your games, months after you purchased it is a pretty groovy idea. The problem, though, is that game companies have gotten this idea of developing a game and then breaking it apart so that stuff that was intended to be in the game from the start is now downloadable content. And sometimes, it's even already on the disc! Fuck you! That's like buying the game twice! I can't wait until the day comes that people get tired of buying a game at the store and then having to buy the second half of the game online. That needs to stop, and it's the gamers who need to stop downloading this shit. Stop downloading skins for your stupid gun or new levels that come out one at a time. Stop it, stop it, STOP IT! Especially from Nintendo, the company that wants to give you as limited a storage space as possible. I hate Nintendo's storage system, and I won't buy a Wii until they fucking fix it. And I predicted earlier this year that Nintendo's "solution" was going to be online storage, which I know sounds retarded, seeing as they already have customers re-downloading content every time players rearrange "the refrigerator" (You suck, Reggie.), but since they seem to be bound and determined to fight what is essentially the industry norm (i.e., having a hard drive), I can't see what else they could possibly come up with. Besides, it's the solution that would give you the least amount of ownership of the content, so that when the day comes that they shut down the Wii servers, you'll only walk away with, at best, 500 MB of content, so that when Wii 2 comes along, they can charge you for all that shit again. And speaking of their download shit, where the fuck is Earthbound? Why is it that Nintendo is so wishy washy about re-releasing this game? Every time there's a list compiled by fans of the games they most want to see released, Earthbound is always at the top. So what does Nintendo do? They give us every iteration of Fire Emblem, like anyone wants to play that. Gee thanks, Nintendo. Talk about a niche fucking game. I mean, we just got a re-release of Chrono Trigger, a game which, like Earthbound, was an underground favorite at the time of its release, which has since gained overwhelming popularity. If we can re-release Chrono Trigger, now for the third time, why not Earthbound? How come Square can completely redesign Final Fantasy IV from the ground up and put it on DS, but Nintendo can't even be bothered to copy the ROM of Earthbound and put it on a DS card. Cecil and Rosa prepare to knock boots, in their own angsty way. And here's another thing I heard. Gen Con recently attempted to give $17,000 to Christian Childrens Fund, in honor of the late Gary Gigax, who, astonishingly enough, was a devout Christian. CCF refused the money, because they felt that other donors to their organization might assume that CCF was being associated with or sponsoring the Dungeons & Dragons products, which we all know is the work of the devil! You know, I know that it's the Christian Children's Fund, but I still find myself aghast whenever someone cites the devil as a reason to turn down charity. THE DEVIL! A man in red pajamas, with a pitchfork and horns, who has a pointy goatee, who sits on your shoulder and tells you to do bad things to people! Fortunately, another less-snooty charity was chosen, but still, someone deserves to be punched in the dick over this. Although, in CCF's defense, they don't proselytize to the children they help, which is good. There are a number of "watchdog" groups that feel that CCF should "help" these children with the gospel. I think these groups should go suck a dick. link 5 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Pepsi says, "Boring is in!" [Dec. 4th, 2008|12:25 pm] [ Tags | humor, rant ] What the hell is this? Who approved this? This isn't a design. It's just...lazy. Tell me someone didn't actually get paid for this. Okay, to each his own, but it's as if someone said, "You know, these soda bottles are too exciting. People might get the idea that these are refreshing and delicious. Let's tone that down." Really? So you designed a bottle that makes Aquafina look like a party drink? And while the Mountain Dew bottle is the least offensive of the bunch, it's so toned down that it actually draws my attention to the fact of how lazy it is that they actually spell it "Mtn Dew" on the label. Here's a drink that is known for having way more caffeine than any other product in the Pepsi line, but the logo says, "Yawn, it's just Mountain Dew." I just think that this is an odd choice for Pepsi, considering how fervent the cola wars have always been. The cola companies are very polarized. It's either one or the other. Either you're a Pepsi guy or Coke guy. Pepsi is the blue to Coke's red. Which reminds me... Uncanny, isn't it? You'd think they'd pick something that can be as classic as the Coke logo. This new logo just follows the same understated logo designs as the iPod or the Wii. Heck, I'm suprised the bottle isn't totally white. I mean, what if I did that? Hmm...Decisions, decisions. Oh well, the new packaging isn't that bad. At least I don't drink Sierra Mist. The last thing I need is a soft drink that reminds me that I masturbate way too much. Spurt, indeed. link 3 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Whatever happened to Shadow Rising? Oh yeah....Who cares!? [Dec. 2nd, 2008|10:00 am] [ Tags | anime, rant ] Back in 2006, Harmony Gold released the first new Robotech feature in 20 years. Picking up from the end of the series, Shadow Chronicles told the story of the mysterious Shadow Technology that had abruptly caused the Invid to flee planet Earth. The Haydenites, a robotic race which I believe are from the Robotech novels, fills the role of the primary villains. Much of the original cast returned for this production, as well as guest voices Mark Hamill and Chase Masterson. (Wow, a Jedi and a Star Fleet member in the same production!) This movie was to reinvigorate the Robotech franchise, giving Harmony Gold a second opportunity to make a sequel to the original series, which had stalled with Robotech II: The Sentinels. Unfortunately, it looks like things had stalled again. The next movie in the series, Shadow Rising, was supposed to have happened by now. According to my favorite PR rep Kevin McKeever, the movie is in production, but there was apparently some confusion as to whether or not the movie has been postponed, due to Warner Bros. wanting to release the live action film first. (Lame if that's true.) In the meantime, Chris Meadows, of the Space Station Liberty podcast, had Kevin on his show, where things were "cleared up". Kevin didn't really say why Shadow Rising is delayed, but he did say that it WAS in production, but that it was on hiatus for some undisclosed reason, which still sounds as though it could be Warner Bros, but who knows? Kevin's PR news is so cryptic and misleading that I really have no interest in whatever he says, anyway. I mean, whether or not production had started wasn't even the issue. In fact, the last time I attempted to make any sense of his useless babbling, it was around the time that the live action movie was announced. Listeners to Chris Meadows' program called in attempting to ask Kevin about what properties from the original series (referring to iconography from Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada) could be cleared for use in a Robotech live action movie, as much of the original design content is bogged down by multiple ownerships, making use of the original mech designs an expensive venture. McKeever "answered" these questions by stating that Harmony Gold "owns all the rights to Robotech". This is like asking Dreamworks why the fairy tale characters in Shrek don't resemble their Disney counterparts, and then having Dreamworks respond with "We own all the rights to Shrek." The only "rights" that Harmony Gold has in relation to Macross is the production rights for the original TV show, but McKeever's answer makes it sound as if Harmony Gold can use any design they want. He uses extremely vague terminology to tautologically declare that all the properties that currently comprise Robotech happen to be owned by Harmony Gold, which is sort of like saying, "We own everything we own." It's useless conjecture that doesn't even come close to answering the actual question. In fact, it's not an answer at all, because if someone is asking about acquiring the rights to use the mech designs, what sense does it make to declare that you own the production rights to the TV show?! These are two completely different licenses that have NOTHING to do with one another. To further illustrate the degree to which McKeever dodges questions, take Rick Hunter's cameo in Shadow Chronicles. Rick Hunter is, I believe, the only Macross character to appear in the movie. He's also significantly redesigned so that he no longer resembles the Macross character Hikaru Hichijo, which was a necessary legal move. Having this brought to his attention, however, McKeever opts for a different explanation, which is that Rick Hunter had aged. This is pretty asinine considering that the legal wranglings between Tatsunoko Studios, Studio Nue, and Big West is readily available to anyone willing to look them up, and the fact that this is common knowledge among Robotech fans. Fans know darn well that the reason Rick doesn't look like Rick is because Harmony Gold doesn't have any licensing arrangement with Studio Nue or Big West to use his likeness. It would be like if Golden Books produced a version of Pinocchio but without the likenesses from the Disney production. Same thing; they can use the characters but not the actual designs. I'm not going to outright call McKeever a liar, but I will say that nothing he says ever means anything, and you ought not to listen to him. He's a PR worm who will make rhetorical press announcements that barely reveal anything beyond what we already know. He's a master of rephrasing things to sound as though he's saying something new and important. I'm not going to hold my breath for new Robotech. Until the live action movie comes out, which has progressed little since Warner's acquisition of production rights on a live action movie, we're probably not going to see anything new from the franchise. And that's probably for the better, because as much as I liked the new movie, Robotech as a franchise has been fairly anachronistic. It was a show hodgepodged together so that Harmony Gold could syndicate Macross. And we don't even have to watch it that way, anymore. ADV has since released the real Macross, which is like seeing something clearly for the first time after twenty years of seeing it through a murky haze. With all the crap from Mospeada and Southern Cross yanked out of the show, the original story actually makes sense. There's none of this nonsense about the Invid Flower of Life, and you don't have to try to apologetically decipher the waffling definitions of Protoculture and Robotechnology. There's none of this nonsense about Rick Hunter being a war criminal for employing scorched earth tactics against the Invid, because, aside from that making no sense, it doesn't even happen in Macross. And best of all, you'll never have to put up with the worst Robotech character ever Dana Sterling. Forget Robotech. Just watch Macross. And if everyone chooses Macross over Robotech, maybe one day, we'll actually get a localization of Macross 7! Oh my friends! link talk nerdy to me

New G'n'R Is A Streaming Pile Of SHIT! [Nov. 22nd, 2008|08:45 am] [ Tags | music, rant ] Note my not-so-clever pun in the title. The new album is streaming from the band's MySpace page. I woke up to an email from my buddy Mike, who informed me of this tragedy. Yes, Guns 'N' Roses is back, and they've unleashed a new abomination unto the world in the guise of Chinese Democracy. (Actually, it would have been really funny if I had put "Down With Chinese Democracy!" in the title and see if I raise anyone's ire.) Okay, so the band now features a line-up consisting of Axl Rose, Not Slash, Not Izzy, Not Duff, and Not Steven. Honestly, I could go look up their actual names, but that's more work than I'm willing to do for this. Seriously, G'n'R died the day they fired Slash, and, if you want to get technical, the death started with the Use Your Illusion super albums, which were okay, but nothing ever really topped Appetite For Destruction, which is still one of my favorite rock albums of all-time. If you want to experience the suck that Axl Rose has unleashed upon he world, then go listen to the full album. But be warned: The songs are plagued with OBFS (Old Band Fatigue Syndrome) and industrial crap. (Really! Hasn't industrial music died yet??!) Of course, if you find yourself crying to the heavens for the bloody mistake you've made, you can always quickly scroll down and listen to Appetite For Destruction. Someone needs to take this band out behind the barn and put them out of their misery. link talk nerdy to me

The Headless Cross [Nov. 19th, 2008|08:20 pm] [ Tags | music, rant, youtube ] Ah, now here's some classic 80s metal cheese! I love this so much. This is the title track from The Headless Cross. A pity it's been out of print for some time now. The Headless Cross is probably the secret best Black Sabbath album of the "unstable era", a period in time where Black Sabbath's line-up was determined, seemingly, by a game of musical chairs. Check out singer Tony Martin, looking like a satanic Richard Marx. (I suppose some would argue that that's redundant.) He's really rocking that 80s mullet, though! You can see an even worse version of the mullet if you track down the video for "The Eternal Idol". (Only, do that with the sound off, because that recording is terrible. Martin tries to sing a song that was written for the vocal range of Ray Gillen, and it just doesn't work.) This video is actually cut down quite a bit. The album version of this song is a staggering 8 minutes long, and it has quite a few verses. It's a pretty good song, though. Remember when singers actually screamed like this? There hasn't been a good metal screamer in a long time. A pity, really. Normally, I would say that blatantly satanic lyrics are just an opposite extreme of something I really don't like, but Tony Martin's lyrics are so tongue-in-cheek that I don't mind it at all. Really, Martin's lyrics are so over-the-top satanic that you couldn't possibly take them seriously. There's one song on the aforementioned album which starts with him belting out this melodious tune with, "Oooooooh, the devil_______!". Come to think of it, I don't think there's a song on that album that isn't about Satan. By the way, the best song on that album is "Devil and Daughter". There was a time back in the late eighties and early nineties that Black Sabbath was releasing a new album just about every year, and most of those featured Tony Martin. Yes, I referred to this as the "unstable era". You have no idea how appropriate this title is. On mic alone, they had two guys from Deep Purple, the guy from Badlands, and they even had a Dio lineup thrown in there randomly. The most steady singer of this era was, in fact, Tony Martin, appearing on five albums between 1987 and 1995. This streak ended, however, when an extremely elderly Ozzy Osbourne rejoined and put the band's song production into a ten-year idle. To think they fired Tony Martin so that they could hire that no-talent buffon, so they could not do a damn thing except tour Ozzfest for a decade. (Yeah, I suppose they made lots of money doing that, but it still sucks balls!) Thankfully, Dio has been kind enough to form "Heaven And Hell" (Black Sabbath under a pseudonym) and has even motivated the band to produce actual new material. In a way, I'm kind of glad that it happened that way, because Dio is so much better than Ozzy. The last fifteen years of Ozzy's solo albums have been terrible, so I don't see the point in having him back with Black Sabbath. He should just retire and go back to being TV's newest version of Benny Hill. Dio's corny, but at least he knows how to fucking sing. I suppose I should just end this here, because I'm just bitching about Ozzy again, and I think I've already done that before. Hey, if you love metal and you can find The Headless Cross, fucking buy it. And rock out to an album where ever song is about the fucking devil! link talk nerdy to me

I don't understand your comic! [Nov. 12th, 2008|07:40 am] [ Tags | rant, webcomics ] Another cross post with my Dasien blog. Now that the election is over, I have nothing else to fucking talk about. Maybe I should go back down to just one blog. Nah... Okay, so there's this new manga-style comic on Drunk Duck called Transcerebral. I can't tell you what it's about, exactly, because the story moves along like molasses hardly serves us with the courtesy of even telling a story. It's been a long time since I've ranted about another comic. Not many comics have really gone so far as to actually offend me since the days when Sonic and Mega Man were the subject of nearly half the comics on the internet. ...Oh wait, that's still kind of the case. Nevertheless, I've been able to withhold my rage on this subject for some time. ...That is until I read Transcerebral. And what's worse is that this comic is getting almost universal praise. Even worse than that, it got praise from ME before I realized that this author doesn't know how to structure her comic at all. I feel like I'm part responsible for this comic now having the top spot on the Drunk Duck popular comics list. Now I realize the irony of criticizing another comic for being slow, when mine's been stalled for over a month. However, mine doesn't take two months for the lead character to get out of bed. And yes, it's been two months, and the lead character has just now gotten out of bed in Transcerebral. And now she's dealing with the maid, who is trying to serve her breakfast, an act which bemuses the lead character for reasons I can't even begin to understand. Seriously, what the fuck is going on? Let's read the comic's listing description to find out... "Ronald Neumann is a young but virtuous brain-computer interface researcher gone missing. Andrea Welles is a girl that has recently recovered from a long time coma. What connections do they share with each other??." Okay, so I assume that the girl waking up is actually this Ronald fellow who is now trapped in this girl Andrea's body, for some reason. And of course, he goes through the typical "hilarious" panic/joy of discovering that he's in the body of a girl, something which was accomplished much better in Shining Generation Valkyrie Yuuki. Let me just reiterate here that it's the PACE of this comic that drives me nuts. She keeps making these pages in which one very small thing happens. It's like, "Oh no, I'm a girl!", "Oh no, I don't know who I am!", "Oh no! There's someone opening the door!", "Oh no! It's the maid!", "Oh no! She's saying things I don't understand!", and "Oh no! Here's a flashback that has no context." Seriously, I want to shake the person who draws this and say, "GET TO THE POINT!" Today, I just couldn't take it anymore and gave this comic probably the first negative comment it's ever received, because everyone else is too nice to do otherwise. I told her that the comic is too slow and that she could easily structure each page so as to cover a lot more ground than the snail's pace she's been going on since the comic started. You can see that comment rightchere. And again, I betray my own purpose, because I had to be nice and give her a neutral score of "3". I should have given her a "1". I should have also said, "Learn to draw hands, stop copying manga, and have someone proofread your comic." link 5 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Surprise! McCain staff worried about Sarah Palin throughout the election! [Nov. 7th, 2008|09:25 am] [ Tags | politics, rant, youtube ] Oh jeez, the election is over. Why are these news organizations still dragging this woman's name through the mud? This must be the work of some liberal, commie, tree-hugger network with a bleeding heart agenda to pass socialist policies. Yeah... Fox Fuckin' News. Okay, I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that the whole Africa thing may have been a brain fart. Of all the continents on the map, Africa is the one I know least about. It's kind of easy to think of it as one gigantic savanna, especially for those of us who see it most often through the eyes of National Geographic. Maybe I'm stretching this, I don't know. Yeah, I suppose that I would find such a view of the continent to be rather naive for someone running for office, but it's really hard for me to believe that she wouldn't known that Kenya, from which Obama's father came, was anything other than an African nation. I can't see her being that stupid. I mean, c'mon! But if, in fact, she really didn't know that Africa was a full fledged continent and not a nation, she should just step down from the governor office. Or at least appoint Miss Teen South Carolina to help her out by supplying some maps. (By the way, kudos to that young lady for rebounding from that embarrassing moment. She has infinitely more character than Palin.) The NAFTA thing is bit harder to defend. I mean, there are only three countries in North America. Considering what the acronym NAFTA stands for, it should be pretty obvious as to which countries are involved...ALL OF THEM! I mean, come on! Talk about proximity to another country; your state is TOUCHING Canada, Sarah! Shouldn't that make you AN EXPERT about trade between Canada and the US? Otherwise, there's nothing about this report that surprises me, really. I knew that McCain and his people couldn't possibly be that stupid. There had to be doubt within the McCain camp about her. I'm not at all surprised to hear that she obstinately refused preparation for the interviews that became her downfall. I mean, really... as much as I hate to keep harping on this, the proximity to Russia thing was pretty stupid. I can't believe that anyone running for vice president would actually fail to prepare herself and repudiate such an obvious gaff, but instead repeat the gaff to further embarrassment. I have serious doubt about someone being prepared for office when this same person can't even be bothered to prepare herself for an interview. Especially ones in which she knows what questions are coming. Okay, no more Palin rants. link talk nerdy to me

Theistic Evolutionism [Nov. 6th, 2008|03:30 pm] [ Tags | rant, religion, science ] Boy this is a term that annoys the piss out of me. Just to set the record straight, I'm not slamming believers who have solid understanding of biology. While I have no reservations about employing arguments against fundamentalism that may simultaneously be unsavory to more liberal theists, I find the average scientifically-literate Christian to be fairly benign. No, what I mean by "theistic evolutionism" is this way of turning evolution into a form of creationism. It's a Christian apologetic, basically. The basis for this apologetic is the same any anti-evolution apologetic, which is that life is too complex to change on its own, therefore God must be involved. The only difference is that they include evolution as part of God's divine plan. So, it's kind of the watchmaker argument turned on its side. First of all, evolution is not a theological or even philosophical position. Second, you don't get your own version of evolution just because you're a theist. Again, most theists who understand science already know this, but it seems that some people need this explained to them veeery sloooowly. Whether you believe in a god or not is irrelevant. The theory of evolution is exactly the same either way. If you don't like the idea that the force that guides evolution is not an intelligent one, then you've got a problem, because that's exactly what the theory of evolution says. The external pressure of evolution is not intelligence; it's THE ENVIRONMENT. That's exactly what it says. Third, I'm sick and fucking tired of evolution being such a focal point for modern theology in the first place. It's no more special than the theory of gravity, but you don't hear anyone going around calling themselves theistic gravityists, do you? Why is this such a subject of paranoia for some people that they have to arbitrarily pull aside this one theory and make sure God is involved? You don't see people falling over themselves to insert God into General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. And that's kind of funny, considering the cosmological implications of those two. No, for some reason, it's always about evolution. Besides, isn't there a redundancy here? If you believe in a transcendent God, then is it even necessary to single out evolution as a force that requires God's guidance? Wouldn't that be true of EVERY natural process, if you believe in such a benevolent being? Why don't you just say that God controls the universe? Seems a lot simpler to me. The point is, evolution doesn't need an apologetic. It's a natural process on which a theoretical model is based. How many other models are you aware of that employ God in some way? Oh, I know. NONE OF THEM! That's because adding God to a model doesn't add to our understanding of how it works and is therefore asinine. IT'S JUST NATURE! Schmucks! link 3 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

America in the History Books / California in the Stone Age [Nov. 5th, 2008|08:25 am] [ Tags | politics, rant ] So, I woke up this morning, and I see the news about Prop 8 in California hasn't changed. It apparently got an early lead (although that's relatively meaningless, as not even half had been counted), meaning that same-sex marriage could be overturned in possibly the most liberal state in the union. That just boggles my mind, and I hope that bigotry doesn't carry as much weight as it appears to be carrying here. First of all, these assholes behind this aren't even pretending that there's a legitimate reason behind this bill. I would at least expect some attempt to portray same-sex marriage as some sort of social policy that unfairly impacts the average tax-paying American. That argument would be bullshit, but at least it would be some attempt to justify itself. No, they're still worried about what homosexual marriage does to the "traditional family", as if that's what marriage actually represents in America. Sorry to say, but there are thousands of American homes in which couples either choose or are incapable of having children. And yes, there are even those who adopt, where the ability to have children at all is moot. Sorry, Christians. There is NO EVIDENCE supporting the notion that children who come from homosexual households are any worse off than those who come from "the traditional family model". Just to call it the "family model" implies that you have some sort of theoretical framework for family values that anyone with a brain can see doesn't amount to shit. The "family model" holds about as much water as intelligent design. Families who have a mother and a father are no more stable than those of different structures, especially when one considers the staggering divorce rate. It's amazing when one considers the gall these people have to blame the homosexuals for destroying traditional American values. Besides, there's that little bug that I've been mentioning for years, which, if Christians insist on defining marriage a certain way, then they better be really careful that they don't define themselves right out of constitutionality. The fact is, they're trying to define marriage in a very Christian way (note that they make almost no attempt to hide this), which turns the institution of marriage into a very obvious state endorsement of religion. Christians really, REALLY need to shut the fuck up and let this go. link 7 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

Wheel Of Fortune Rant #2: YES! She WILL Pay About Half Of It In Taxes! [Nov. 1st, 2008|08:15 am] [ Tags | rant, television ] Okay, I've been putting this off long enough. I didn't want to do it, because it's just going to make me angry. But I wasted so much time doing someone else's homework for them that I might as well just do it, even though I know that this is fruitless and the person at whom this is directed isn't going to learn a damn thing from it. ( Click if you want. I don't fucking care... ) link 7 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

GODZILLATHON! [Oct. 27th, 2008|01:15 pm] [ Tags | dvd, movie, rant ] James Rolfe is the fuckin' guy. I don't know of anyone on the internet who emphasizes more the notion that "Geek is chic". He exploded into popularity as the "Angry Video Game Nerd" and has since taken on a cult status of his own. I think what makes him so endearing is the way he so reflects us thirty-something-agers who grew up the 80s. He mirrors virtually every geeky passion of the day. This October's Monsterfest was a marathon retrospective of the Godzilla franchise. A Godzillathon, if you will. All 29 Godzilla films, including the 1998 shitfest American remake, are reviewed on YouTube. I strongly urge you to go check it out. Okay, first of all, since I've actually run into people who think it should be called Gojira instead of Godzilla, let me stop right here and say that you people can go die in a fire...after being pushed down a flight of stairs. It's been fifty years. Toho has entirely embraced the American pronunciation. Eat a dick. Okay, so James just wrapped up the Godzillathon up with his review of Final Wars. Toho celebrated Godzilla's 50th Anniversary by giving us a monster brawl, the scale of which had not been attempted since Destroy All Monsters. Classic foes like Rodan, Ghidorah, Mothra, and Gigan all make appearances. Most shockingly of all, though, the American Godzilla even shows up in this film, complete with CG rendering in all of his shitty non-fire-spitting, asexual glory. Or is it "her"? Oh, I don't know. Just watch James' video... Now, back in 2001, I believe (It was definitely before Dasien), I had posted a Geocities page in which I basically pleaded with Toho to produce a Godzilla movie in which the true Japanese Godzilla destroys the American remake Godzilla. It was one of the earliest pages I'd ever posted to the internet. For the sake of authenticity, I demanded that this movie MUST feature the guy in the rubber Godzilla suit beating the shit out of the CG monster. Three years later, Godzilla: Final Wars is released in Japan, and the film delivers with the satisfying end of the rechristened "Zilla" within twenty seconds of the two monsters meeting. Apparently, director Ryuhei Kitamura, who is fluent in English, renamed the creature this way, because it had taken "the God out of Godzilla". Now, it would be arrogant of me of presume that Kitamura actually saw this page and got the idea exclusively from that my humble words, as I'm sure plenty of people were crying for Toho to retcon Tristar's monster so as to differentiate with the REAL Godzilla. In fact, for years, the monster had been referred to as "Gino" (Godzilla In Name Only), meaning that virtually no one accepted that this creature should be regarded as Godzilla. Still, it makes one wonder, seeing as Kitamura more or less executed my idea verbatim. I was so happy the day that someone tapped me on the shoulder one day and told me that Toho had actually done this. From the perspective of a Godzilla fan, this was vengeance, pure and simple. This ugly half-iguana/half-Trex deserved getting the atomic breath roast he got after crashing into the Sydney Opera House. On the other hand, it also somewhat delighted me to see Toho adopt this monster and give it its own persona. In some way, it's actually cool that the United States got to contribute to the Godzilla franchise. ...Even if Zilla is the weakest of all the monsters and could probably even get his ass handed to him by Minilla. Watch more of James' videos rightchere. link talk nerdy to me

Wheel of Stolen Fortune [Oct. 15th, 2008|08:45 am] [ Tags | politics, rant, television, youtube ] You know, it's really sad how complacent we've gotten with taxes. Okay, this isn't going to be full scale rant, but I just had to put in my two cents about the big million-dollar Wheel Of Fortune winner from last night. This woman from California won the big mil, against the ridiculous odds, and instantly became the show's biggest winner of all time. I was on the phone at the time. I go, "How much of that do you suppose she's got to pay in taxes." The person on the other line goes, "Oh, about half." That's disgusting. I realize it's a game show, and it's not as bad as, oh say, someone who worked all of his life only to give half of his money to the government, but still I gnash my teeth over stuff like that. It's never quite sat right with me that making a lot of money is something the government feels entitled to bill you for. It seems like this is the sort of thing that should inspire people to throw some tea into a harbor. ...figuratively speaking. link 12 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

LEAVE CAITLIN UPTON ALONE! [Sep. 29th, 2008|01:50 pm] [ Tags | politics, rant, youtube ] SHE'S A HUMAN!!!!! ...oh, sorry about that. But seriously, there's been a lot of people comparing Sarah Palin's interview gaffs to that of Miss Teen South Carolina, Caitlin Upton, and I'm here to plead with you all and insist that that's not fair! It's not fair to Ms. Upton, who was able to bounce back from her nervous gaff and redeem herself on the Today Show mere days after the horribly embarrassing speech... Did you see that? That girl can really fill out a bikini! Uhhh... I mean... err.... What I meant to say is that she recovered gracefully! This pageant model came back on TV, still nervous, and was able to smooth things over and give us a completely understandable account for her original response. I mean, give the girl some slack. She's young, she's on national television, and she's standing next to Slater, for crissake! What girl wouldn't babble incoherently? And even though the hosts were handing her a lot of cues and holding her hand through the thing a bit, she did, none the less, come to the show prepared. Given a second opportunity, she came back to address a question that she had completely blown on a prior occasion. Again, being a human, we can totally empathize with her. In fact, I personally would like to believe that I pulled an Upton of my own on the Webcomic Beacon a few weeks back. However... In contrast to Upton's outstanding recovery, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has not done so well recovering from previous gaffs. In fact, she seems content to keep inventing new ones. Most recently, Katie Couric handed Palin a golden opportunity to recover from prior comments relating foreign policy to proximity with Russia. Here was Palin's opportunity to follow Upton's example and give a more constructed answer to a question she MUST have know would be coming. Instead, she manages to muddle things further... What are you going to do now, accuse Kathleen Parker and Katie Couric of sexism?! Sarah Palin is not a little girl, nor is she a beauty pageant contestant. (Actually, she was, but let's not digress) She is an adult. She's running for an office in which it is her to job to have the preparation to answer tough questions. And it wouldn't even have been that hard to do so if she, you know, actually had foreign relations experience. Even someone who is nervous can feign some sort of answer under pressure. This Thursday night, Vice Presidential nominees Sarah Palin and Joe Biden are going to debate. I can't wait to see this. I fully expect Palin to come prepared and have all of her canned responses memorized. However, I don't think she'll be able to fake her way through it for too long. Eventually, Biden's going to trail off into territory with which Palin is unfamiliar, and it'll be all over after that. Unless she's got one hell of a tutor, this is going to be a disaster for the GOP. Perhaps Ms. Upton, who knows a thing or two about maps, could give Palin some pointers as to how knowing your proximity to another nation has no particular relation to knowing something about foreign policy. Actually, I would find such an encounter highly amusing. link talk nerdy to me

News Flash! Clay Aiken Is GAY! [Sep. 24th, 2008|10:35 am] [ Tags | celebrities, humor, rant ] So, I open up the newspaper this morning to find THIS news bulletin staring me in the face. WOW! Now that's cutting-edge news! Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, would have ever guessed that Clay Aiken was gay. I am truly shocked. I mean, first Lance Bass and now this! Next you're going to tell me that Jodi Foster's live-in female companion is more than just a friend. Woah, I don't think I could handle that! Seriously, my whole world has been flipped upside-down by this revelation. And immediately afterward, I started having delicious thoughts about all of the backwards-thinking dipshits out there who are going to be outraged and offended that there is yet another male celebrity out there teaching their little boys that it's okay to kiss other boys, if, say, around puberty, they start feeling the urge to do so. And you know, having a gay role model will put your child on the fast track to living the homosexual lifestyle, whatever that is. (Something about massive orgies, needle-swapping drug parties, and Satan worshipping, or so I've heard.) link 2 smartass remarks|talk nerdy to me

YouTube Drama: VenomFangX bites off more than he can chew [Sep. 14th, 2008|02:00 pm] [ Tags | drama, rant, religion, science, youtube ] So, VenomFangX decided to join the annals of pro-censorship apologists, such as Jason Gastrich and Kent Hovind, by file fraudulent DMCA claims against anyone on YouTube using his videos to criticize or even mirror his content. Channels that mirror allows criticism from moderates and non-believers who disagree with Shawn's idiotic creationist view of the world, as Shawn will simply delete such criticism should it appear on his own channel. It also allows people to see videos produced by Shawn that he no longer wishes anyone to see, because they're understandably embarrassing to him. (Quick remedy for that: Stop being a creationist.) ( This is a long one, folks! ) link talk nerdy to me

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