Iota Rant

Why I love the internet

2010-10-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

We've recently both laughed about something together. Both you, me, a child in India on a $99 netbook. We all shared a moment in seeing some 2006 footage of polar bears playing with dogs. The ability to connect billionaire telecom executives, college-graduates, and a child whom may never learn English is the secret gift to our future generations; a secret I'm passionate about sharing. Every day I dive into the world wide drama of sharing experience with each other. Some calling it blogging, others tweeting, but for a few million people it's a lotta bit of nothing. Being a casual observer is enough these days to actively participate in our now global drama of growing up together in one large collective conscience.

All you have to do is turn on a television. That phrase sounds familiar. But whether we want to admit it or not the internet has finally arrived in our day to day life. Not in some life altering way, but just in the way that some of the jokes may have originated as some war between two teenagers in some long lost forum, but suddenly grew and expanded until the joke is everywhere. Most people can catch on that I'm alluding to what is known as the "internet meme". A caustic name in itself, it sounds practically like a disease, as if the internet just got sick. Perhaps it's true, before we let the populace arrive, the internet was a place of science, business, and boring logs of engineers interests. Oh I get it, blogs lol. Now 5 million people are jumping on cell phones, laptops, netbooks, and weird hacked together pieces of technology that somehow play video all to see if there's "anything good on".

What is this source material that's being passed around infecting the internet and more importantly where is it coming from? Perhaps it's one of the new social networks powered by hundreds of thousands of information hoarders, or maybe some guy who you met a couple of times in Art class freshman year posted it to your wall. Either way, whether it's some hilarious clip from the 80's or some graphic designer's senior project; it's being watched and laughed at not only by people all around the world, but also extremely bi-polar living conditions. It's that secondary one that usually kills all the laughter.

This is my second favorite thing about the internet. The collective conscience that's uniting people from extremely impoverished walks of life feels as if it tends to have an upbeat mood. The majority of content that people like to share is things that keep us going through the day. If it's funny videos, or a comment posted, people seem to want keep arguments, depressing relationships, and gossip off the front page of the internet these days. It's hard to talk shit about your friend to the world when she's listening too. If they are talking about it online, they are anonymous, their friend's name is removed, and the actual situation is kept vague, then again this only happens in the darkest corners of the internet. So that's where we're at as a society? We are trying to entertain each other as much as main stream media does inside the belly of a trillion dollar industry. Well, it isn't so bleak as that.

Because like any good joke it's usually enough to keep you laughing for a few minutes, but thinking for a few days. Thus the mood across the world can change in just a small span of a few hours or as delayed as several years. Looking at the latest thing trending on Google, and begrudgingly accepting the fact that he's going to be a huge hit come Halloween, Antoine Dodson could be the apotheosis of internet memes in 2010. I'm being specific because I'm trying to actually avoid a cliche'd love affair with this hot new web 3.0, and we're taking things seriously. Millions of teenagers, college kids, and even recent graduates are pouring onto the net this last year. Blame it on a rough economy, a good economy, or cheap devices but they're having trouble avoiding the internet. But laughing about Antoine Dodson bulging his eyes out, having an anxiety attack of fear and rage on network television because he's practically acting like a cartoon once the bass drops and the autotune takes over is only the crescendo.

Sitting at home, bored and curious we can look into the actual situation in Lincoln Park, Alabama. What are the unemployment numbers? How many unsolved violent crimes were there in 2007? People are doing this individually, and the collectively until the joke is completely ruined, but luckily not in vein. Understanding the situation and then passing that around your circle of friends is something that can trace back to grade school social etiquette, but probably traces back to the very origins of our species. Only a millennia later we've corned how pool our emotions and thoughts and collectively make decisions about things. It starts off as entertainment for the masses, the substance of it is then articulated about by our young with too much time on their hands, then after the narrative is formed it gets passed around management.

Without getting too far off the ground, you can see this happening with the discussion about Cannabis Reform. People can pass around an information joint, laugh about it, then basically sell the narrative that the internet is behind legalizing drugs. Management decides the people's opinion on this doesn't matter. So it has to get fleshed out the old fashioned way, in the real world. It seems so easy to write off the internet. Probably because we take it for granted, or maybe everyone's just not using it properly, some would say enough (I wouldn't).

But what if you, and everyone you knew were suddenly asked, "How many times do you use a bath towel before washing it?" Let's say the response average was 1.4 times. Overwhelmingly people only use a towel once. If someone else did a study on how much energy we could save by using that towel three times rather than once, or even how much energy could be saved if people air-dried their clothes once a week. Perhaps enough energy savings that if literally everyone did that and grew up with that habit, we could save enough money to pay for a better pension or some service we could all benefit from, or cut down on enough emissions that we could bring Diesel cars to America.

It's the idealists position of course. To assume that everyone could be consumed by something so stupid, so minute, so pointless that you're surprised anyone else could possibly be looking at the same thing. The interesting thing is that we are. We're growing up being entertained by all of the same things, learning the same habits, and avoiding the same mistakes as everyone else, but we're getting this information piped into our brains 24 hours a day. Perhaps it's by hyperbole, and the loudest of only a small contingent of society is participating, but they're articulate, funny, familiar, and sometimes sobering.

I recently opted for a change in career path. I've decided to lean on my English skills for a bit rather than try to get into a Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychology. I have a lot of my own reasons, but a few I've gleaned from the internet. It's a rough economy, and that isn't a joke. There really is a surplus of Ph.D. students with no career positions in sight, and there's a lot of regret by people in their thirties that's being passed down to another generation of college graduates. I'm hoping to avoid that future by listening to a collective body of people I've never met. Why? Because they sound like me, they share a lot of my interests. Hell, we even laugh about the same jokes.

What happens if they're wrong though? What if their shared information was missing too many key viewpoints to paint the real picture for you. Well, I believe that's what we already have. We have our parents, we have our friends, and we have people we've never met. For the last 2,000 years that third group usually existed as an NPC in some story. Ever character in every other novel has been static in that we've never got to see them change with the times. Now we're privy to that character's real thoughts, birthday photos, political positions, ethics and of course sense of humor in this new collective whole. As we react to memes our character changes, our mood changes, and perhaps our political structures will someday change as with this unsteady collective conscience.

I'm also very tempted to call it our collective unconscious.

Media and Sports

2010-05-19T01:48:00.000-07:00

One thing that I love about sports is the fact that it rarely does evolve. Competition for entertainment, for fun is something passed down from cultures more ancient than we care to imagine. While the game doesn’t change, the players do, they are products of society much like everyone else but rather than being cogs in a machine the best athletes tend to become iconic for reasons outside their play on the field.

When Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Larry Bird brought basketball back to life, their poster dunks and photo finishes were accompanied by headlines attentive to a growing racial tension in the NBA by virtue of its fans rather than the players themselves. However after a few terse and extremely direct interviews Larry Bird came out and tried to put the issue to rest, he doesn’t see race, neither should you. The issue of course persisted, but seemed to be transformed into a tension between their images: small-town, homegrown, traditional American Larry Bird against the larger than life, Hollywood produced, ladies man Earvin “Magic” Johnson. Again the papers didn’t seem to reflect much about two different personalities that ultimately tried to put a ball in a basket for 48 minutes every other night. No, instead those headlines in the Sports section were writing what the Op. Ed. or A1 couldn’t: some felt as though conservative values are being assaulted by Hollywood, the media, and because of that America is changing for the worse.

The Bird and Magic battle of icons may have started superficially, but on November 7th, 1991 Johnson revealed to the world that he had contracted HIV through multiple sexual partners and would be retiring immediately, those background conversations were not longer penned up in barber shops and around water coolers, everyone was talking. Conservative Americans now had a straw man to rest all their criticisms of Hollywood, black people, immoral sexuality (which included homosexuality), even fame and money. Yet, when the dust settled those conversations were eventually pulled back into the very neutral area of sports and rather than becoming a tragic hero Magic began to rise again, reminding people why they ever knew him in the first place. After Magic and Birds retirement, it felt as though America could move on a little from those issues of race or sexuality because no two icons could pull of the genuine polarity both on and off the court like those two.

Yet, just when it seemed like the paper would again stop selling, the ratings would drop a young phenom was taking to the air with a drive, skill, and determination that looked like he had invented competition. Michael Jordan did not create the media that made him a household name, nor did the media create Michael Jordan, the two were products of each other. Companies began connecting to each other with technology that was far outpacing the type of business that existed at the time. There was no need to globalize shoes made in America because there was no demand for the product anywhere else. When Jordan was being broadcast as the penultimate competitor, his fans began trying to consume anything he was attached to. One of his sticking criticisms is that the talent he faced never really showed exactly how good he was, and yet year-after-year he silenced critics with perfection. So as he grew, the demand for images, video, food, shoes, clothes, and even work ethics somehow related to him grew which benefited the companies who could use him as their end all marketing scheme, as well as their business proposal for reasons to expand and get bigger. Essentially, if we can make Jordan popular in China, we can sell them McDonalds, because he eats it. For all of Jordan’s character faults nothing was really harshly examined, because no one benefited from it, except for people who hate jumping on bandwagons or need a flawed hero. Luckily before Jordan could have any major disaster that would tarnish his gleaming rings, or MVP awards, or even worse bore his fans, another basketball phenom was already starting to garner attention.

Kobe Bryant entered the NBA straight out of high school but without the fanfare nor the development that Jordan did when he entered the league. By the time Kobe became an important piece to three NBA Championship teams those rings were truly earned together with Phil Jackson, and the most dominant center of his time- Shaquille O’Neil, not to mention a few clutch shots by role-players along the way. Yet for all the amazing basketball Kobe has produced and all of the talent that he’s gone up against, what is his story? Does he reflect anything particularly important in this generation? Unfortunately for Kobe, just when he started to gain his golden-boy status, the nature of media began to look inward. Perhaps coinciding with America’s wake-up call to terrorism in 2001 or a number of real life tragedies like tsunamis, wars, failing schools across the entire country, closing factories, and a general slip in America’s status, everyone decided fantasy television and entertainment wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Reality T.V. gripped American culture at its inception and has only evolved since. Where at one time when Magic Johnson’s heterosexuality was called into question it was because people were ignorant about AID’s and of course prejudiced. If Johnson had been in Kobe’s shoes, the situation wouldn’t be so simple. When reality television was handed down from multi-national entertainment companies to show people that they could “make” normal people stars, normal people were using networking and the internet to become famous themselves. Thus the phenomenon of learning about celebrities extremely personal lives was born. Could you imagine Magic Johnson’s Blackberry being hacked into because someone was genuinely curious, not in any malicious sense, if he was gay? How about a blog tracking how many times Jordan cheated on his wife? Youtube clips of ‘Sir’ Charles Barkley fighting people at bars, any of these could be par for the course today.

This, sadly, is Kobe’s world. Of course many will point to the incident in Colorado as what truly went wrong for an otherwise storybook success as standard as many before him, but that’s the wrong perception. First, Kobe wasn’t found guilty. That in itself may or may not shine light as to how things have changed in America in terms of how minorities, even celebrities are treated in the court system. Kobe’s case wasn’t a drawn out affair the way OJ Simpson’s was, nor was the charge as serious, and yet there were still parallels (I don’t think rape and murder can be morally scored, yet in terms of prison sentence there is a pretty large difference). Ultimately, finding a black man ‘not guilty’ of sexual assault wasn’t even close to the real issue at hand; Kobe’s case spoke louder about how cold our new modernized world can become for anyone.

Over the years I’ve learned a few things about Kobe: like when he came into the NBA he needed his parent’s signatures on his contract, and that really blew his mind away (as I think it would any 17-year-old). He married a girl his parents didn’t approve of when he was 21 and the two have never separated. Despite making around $25 million dollars a year, on occasion Bryant still has to pick up his own dogs’ shit, and hates it. He lives outside of Los Angeles because part of maintaining interest with the city, and its people is to not get sucked into all the garbage surrounding it. From the dramatic lives of wasteful celebrities, to the mind-numbing traffic of the 405 freeway, learning how to separate yourself from that whole world of prying eyes and attentive ears was made real to him early in his life. Part of the problem of being a modern celebrity, even a sports celebrity is if you are hiding from the public, you are hiding something. Even if you come out to the newspapers with a big smile, funny jokes, and a real personality, that’s not going to move a story, being a stone-cold assassin on the basketball court, drumming up rivalries between with other players, or his favorite- making comparisons to Michael Jordan just to see his reaction, these move papers and none of them work in his favor. Of course there are other stars that seem to be doing pretty well in their own right. Lebron James, Dwight Howard, even Kevin Durant are all well received by nearly everyone, and yet, none of them have won anything.

When Kobe took that stand and laid everything out for the public to scrutinize, there was no evaluation that mattered. If you thought him guilty, or not-guilty, it didn’t matter, if you thought it was about race, it didn’t matter, if you started to question the real value of marriage for people so young, it only started to matter. Simply knowing about Kobe’s troubles made him impossible to write off, he was pushed under the same microscope that Michael Jackson was, except in an age where people around the world could weigh in on a day-to-day basis on every aspect of his life. Now when you talk about sports, you can look up nearly every record of every player, game by game. But rather than fall apart as a human being or even an athlete, there is the same kid from Philadelphia, working hard to earn that reflection of society in the sports pages. If Kobe retires as the most enigmatic superstar of all time, the one who had the rings but not the story, it’s not because there’s nothing to say, it’s because there’s no good place to begin. The information surrounding him, every interview, every highlight real, weighs down anything of substance to be said. So when we start watching movie stars in their homes, or follow the text messages of our President, the wealth of information is being digested, and yet the conversations and quality of “news” aren’t improving.

Ultimately we will trace his steps to greatness and he will become just another great basketball player until the next one steps up, but hopefully if you read between the stat sheets, when that player arrives you’ll start to see a reflection of what we value as a culture, and maybe even where we are going the way we can now with Kobe Bryant.

2.5 Children

2009-09-25T02:04:00.001-07:00

They manage Starbucks, they have tenure at middle schools, they make around $65,000 a year and they have 2.5 children: yes America, they are your middle class. There's a lot to be said about the middle class, for one, they seem to be almost everyone. But secondly and more importantly, they are pretty forgotten. On the news we hear about the struggles of the impoverished, the houses torn apart by gang violence, or about the glitz and glamour of the extravagant rich. Unless one of their 2.5 children dies in some accident there's no reporter digging up the Dickensian aspect of being an accountant for Charter Television. So why bring it up?

Today at UC Riverside faculty and staff staged a walk-out or in some classes a teach-in. They vented their frustrations at the political massaging of budgets so that their days off were no longer paid and the students wouldn't be made aware of any major changes to their professors salary. (The original plan proposed that classes wouldn't be held due to budget restrictions). The concern coming from the top down was that disrupting the students wasn't a priority and the teachers should just have to bite the bullet. To which the teachers retort was simple: You don't give a fuck about students, you just raised their tuition so hard-working youth can't even attend here, thus we come back to middle America.

No one is going to say this because it's a giant middle finger to the largest group in America, but raising tuition doesn't hurt anybody but those caught in the proverbial middle. Tuition hikes open up the bottom tiers of household incomes to qualify for grants and scholarships. While those seem to be drying up as well, they are likely to come back faster than tuition is likely to drop- that's more of a one way street. Nor does it hurt those who make it into the upper tax brackets. Dropping 10g's on a year's worth of college is still completely affordable if you budget right, or even if you don't. If you take out half of the tuition in loans, make your kid work summers to pay off some, and spread it over eight years rather than four, you're looking at an expensive cable package or a bachelor's degree for your kid.

What the walk-out should have been about is where the penalty for bad governance is being carried out. What I saw on campus, or rather didn't see, was a message about being fed up with not the seemingly powerless UC Administrators but a lot of people up in Sacramento. I understand that California was hard hit by the recession because of falling e-commerce and the collapsed housing market. What I don't understand, and I never see conveyed anywhere is why education always gets penalized monetarily before any other programs are shut down. California is a Democratic stronghold, we don't skimp on social programs, but whenever the shit hits the fan and we're in the red, education is the first sacrificial lamb before the slaughter.

The old arguments stand tried and true, it is an investment in the future, that doesn't mean you can fix it later when you have more money. State schools, the UC in particular provide research and patents that help to keep American business, agriculture, and technology far above the competition around the world, but they deserve the first cut? Why not completely cancel programs that exist solely because of a few lobbyists and overactive constituents? The rally behind education and being on the chopping block in the first place should have been the melody, rather than the single note of unpaid vacation days.

The ironic part about this entire situation is that the beneficiary out of this whole horrible situation is actually the college itself. By making it more difficult for those who slip into the middle you start attracting the two polar extremes: the haves, and the have-nots. Who is more likely to give back to their college? My vote is on the first-generation college student grateful for the opportunities that his/her university afforded them, and the group that never worries about credit scores or late payments. This supposition should be supported by some of the data of financial contributions made by alumni, but I'm not privy to it and we're back to the original point. No one gives a fuck about the middle class.

My first photo posts.

2009-09-11T00:36:00.000-07:00

I did a wedding for my friend a while back. The pictures have been delayed because I've been busy and honestly a little lazy (sorry guys, but I needed a break from everything). But after going through 2,500 photos and putting together a wedding DVD I'm almost there. Here's a few sample shots. Hmm, I can't seem to get the color management right...any tips? The first pic is supposed to be a lot more yellow, red, blue without much neutral colors, the second is supposed to be a lot more rich.

I now see the value of Twitter.

2009-09-11T00:30:00.000-07:00

If you can get validation in 140 characters I see no point in creating anything longer than: Epiphany about models of gvnmnt today, it was pretty interesting. Point tak

Feeling Like a Failure

2009-06-18T05:22:00.001-07:00

I have pretty high self-confidence. When I walk into a room of strangers I have a pretty good range of conversation and that kind of thing built-up over a lifetime makes you feel pretty good about yourself. Everything has always been pretty easy but that is all over, as of today. My goal since my first day of college was to get into graduate school-- mind you that goal has wavered, and put on the back-burner-- and now it looks like some far off impossible fantasy.

I fucked up, not on a single test or even a class. I have two C's on my transcript, that's it. When I graduate I'll have two degrees, three or four years invested in an on-campus activity, a lot of research credits, and hopefully high GRE's but collectively it's still not going to be good enough. I can rationalize it anyway I want to at this point. But I fucked it up, I haven't had one quarter of straight A's. I haven't "turned it around" in my junior year. I'm looking at how to get into graduate school, and the acceptance rate isn't even like getting into Harvard or Yale with their respectable 15-22 percent rates. No, some places whittle it down to a measly four percent.

So at this moment of hopelessness and acceptance. My hope is splintered. On one hand I hope that the American dream is still alive, and mediocrity, or at least "good enough" might actually land me at a university I can actually enjoy. On the other, that principally, not fitting that four percent actually means something. So, when I accomplish enough to actually get accepted, to pass that threshold, it's not taken lightly.

But seriously, fuck GPA's.

Video games from the future!

2009-06-08T04:44:00.001-07:00

I read some guy's question about the future of video games

Q: "In a generation of technology where we are swiftly approaching the ability to render photo-real graphics in real-time simulations, there is an important question to ask: At what level of immersion do violent games actually start becoming a problem?"

My comment seemed long enough, and well-thought out enough that I decided to just post my response.

A: Don’t worry your little head about the future of video games and censorship. Fortunetely for gamers the psychology behind both video game immersion and violence won’t change for a very long time. As video games continue on the path of both realism and violence they will continue to act as pacifiers in overly hostile gamers. While violent television has been shown to increase aggression in children, by the time adulthood hits the norm is that participating in violence in a virtual setting is cathartic.

Also, as realism sets in, the depth of emotions in video games is also likely to compete with the polar extremes of unabridged violence. Developers are more likely to self-censor extremely brutal killing games, and instead opt for a game that forces the moral decision of killing or saving lives into the player, and then realize the consequences of that decision.

War games will likely show the pain and struggle of war rather than a one-sided, belligerent, obnoxious tea-bag infused soiled departure from reality as the present form is obsessed with.

Essentially the question you’re asking is ironic, because given the current situation: anonymity over the internet, unrealistic games, and crude violent death imposing “heroes” the future HAS to get better unless humans decide that living as sentient, rational, and loving creatures has become cliche.

What is more likely is that given the willing exposure of ourselves to the world (via facebook, myspace, twitter and weird as it is redtube), there will be an age of accountability on the web. That will likely include gaming. Your gamer reputation will probably be tied to your real life reputation, and swearing at 12-year-olds will be a thing of the past. That level of immersion that comes with your spinal tap scenario will clench the tie between real and virtual, but will also be a huge step forward for mankind as the possibilities of experience in a virtual world can actually expand the human experience to practically centuries rather the mere 80 some odd years we are given now.

To give some weight to my argument I would simply point to both literature and films. As a global culture very few films or novels survive that are deemed gratuitous in nature. Instead we search for examples of morality, balance, and hope. As pessimistic or cynical as people cite themselves to be, when they watch a film as brutal as Gladiator, we are captivated by the story of honor, not the display of gore. Stories like that become championed and win accolades while slasher films, excite, frighten, and engage our senses but there is little replay value; if you know anything about video games, it’s all in the replay value.

2009-05-19T02:44:00.000-07:00

I've never been a sports fan. My whole life I've had many opportunities to latch myself onto great teams, see them compete live, and create great memories and be apart of their history as a fan, yet I always refused. It's not that I have anything against sports, my parents put me in t-ball as soon as I met the age limit, then I ran the gamut of baseball, soccer, hockey, football, and my family's pastime: tennis. My dad used to be a professional athlete, and used his skills to put him through college and med school. He's followed the Dodgers, Lakers, Grand-Slam Tournaments, and Trojans for the last 30 years. Growing up I tried to sit and watch games, but I usually got bored and wandered off. Still, the idea of sitting in front of a TV, day after day, keeping track of stats, player's names, match-ups, injuries, and the reason why your team is going to win it all just completely bored me. (Another additional tidbit, I hated beer until the middle of my sophomore year of college.) Now, for no reason, at least that I know of, I don't want to miss a Laker's game. More than that, I don't even like missing any "good" game. Cav's, Celtics, Magic, New Orleans, and even a few Denver games.

But my sports interest is spreading, this year I'm actually planning on watching football. Baseball is still relatively boring, I kind of just like checking the Dodgers W-L at odd points in the season and guesstimating how far they'll make it. But I will definitely watch all the USC games; college ball always looks faster and more competitive and even plan on attending all the UCR basketball games. I've consistently kept up with the UFC, and the professional poker world. ( Fun fact: Jeremy Piven's character from Entourage is based off of the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion, Jamie Gold).

Compare that with the fact that I used to work at the Rose Bowl, on the sidelines, and about 90% of the time I just wanted to sleep or get free food in spite of helmets cracking 15 feet from mine. I honestly find it kinda weird because I don't do it for male bonding and camaraderie. I started watching avidly on my own; I still see most the games Tivo'd on my own time with just a couple beers and that odd sense of pride or shame depending on someone else's performance.

I'm watching the Watchmen, again and again.

2009-03-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

Zack Snyder's faithful adaption of one of the most celebrated graphic novels of our time is probably the best comic book film of our time. That may seem like hyperbole coming from someone who has no credible history of reviewing movies, or much background in commenting on films in general but, I have read comics, and I've watched movies, so it's fair to say that anyone can make or deny this statement with just those two boxes checked on a list.

From Iron Man, X-men, and Spiderman to the far worse Fantastic Four, Daredevil, or Electra no matter what the translation from panels to film always leaves something to be desired. Despite all they varied and numerous problems with porting comics to film, one of the least addressed is how well the film pays homage to not only what happens in the frame, but the spirit of the comic itself.

What Snyder's adaption does is not only honor the source material in an unprecedented way, but packs the film with so many easter eggs that comic book fans are able to totally immerse themselves, the way that a comic grabs your attention in the tiniest and most subtle manner.

Where most people are going to want to turn away from the film, and question the integrity of its direction are the points at which Alan Moore is really shining. A lot of the critics who support what comes across to some as shoddy dialogue will be labeled apologists, fanboys, etc. But the beauty of Snider's work is that he didn't improve on those scenes, they are mean't to come off as ridiculous, inane, and at some parts pathetic. The characters from Watchmen, are in fact human, save Dr. Manhattan, and their humanity in a comic is rare and beautiful. They show every side by the time the last page is turned: impotence, arrogance, hatred, love- they are insane, and deep, perfect and wretched, sometimes they are even boring. But Snyder could have made them Super Heroes rather than the costumed adverturers that they are supposed to be, he could have undercut the entire message that Moore created by making them out to be cool and identifiable.

Of course every person close to the source material is going to be disappointed when their favorite scene doesn't appear, but that's what happens when you have 300 plus pages to cover. The main point is that Synder's watchmen captures the overtones, the undertones, and the subtleties that can be left open to interpretation in this powerful and visually flawless adaptation. In think we are going to be demanding more when it comes to comics in the future.

I don't know how to really drive the point home, but while seeing The Dark Knight and Iron Man, labeling them as brilliant movies, they are still movies. They fit the form and function, they demand respect, but still, Watchmen is what seeing a comic book come to life is actually like.

Doesn't matter if you're 000 000 or FFF FFF

2008-11-10T05:48:00.000-08:00

I spent a lot of time thinking about our presidential election this year, before, during, and after. Over the course of the week every political pundit, analysist, American, country has had their say about what the race means but the unanswered question seems to be: How will history color this American election?

Did the biggest part of this election revolve around the fact that this man was half-black, or was there something else to the equation; perhaps while important, it is only representative- a word that has wholly symbolized this election year. My hope is that while the onerous steps toward racial equality will be honored by this victory, it won't be the defining characteristic of this campaign.

This entry could be hundreds of pages long pointing out the vast and subtle differences that made this election historical in my mind but rather than paint by numbers I'd rather go through a box of crayons.

- the color of money - In my mind donors to political campaigns seemed unrighteous in their efforts to hold more sway over the elections than the power of a single vote, mainly because money came from the top down. The richest candidate always wins. In this election millions of donators gave as little as a dollar to their candidate, pledging that in their mind, the work they are doing is already for them.

- RGB vs CMYK - from newspapers to twitter accounts, as far as percentages go this could be the most written about election for at least a couple decades. This level of plurality and litteracy is what I think the founding fathers really wanted for our country.

- Black and White - Again this election was more about color, as far as the binaries presented by our 24-hour news feed it made everyone feel alone and part of a group almost daily. Despite this divisive mantra Americans came together in vigils, town-halls, marches, and concerts to participate in democracy.

Anyways, there's more that could be talked about, but I think the beauty of this election lied more so in the people's overwhelming decision and participation. Not to take anything away from the candidate but if people think this election is historic based solely on color I'd invite them to take in more than sound-bytes and headlines.

Fappergasted

2008-10-23T03:40:00.000-07:00

Ey'm coinin' the frase.

I'd like to edit my work below at some point. But it's almost 4:00 a.m., I just finished it while having a fight with my girlfriend, and I have lab at 8:00 a.m. So please don't judge my comma splices or punctuation. And the omitted word, "outsider's" where it just has a " ' ". But whateva. This is a blog anyways, no standards.

fappergasted or fapperfasted

depends is it lent or sabaath?

answer: kcufehttahw

9/11? What about it? Ad Nauseum and the Museam of Triffling Bitches

2008-10-23T02:51:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the title doesn't make sense, but fuck it - I'm okay with it.

Maybe you're drenched in campaign news and can't wait for the election to be over so we can all get back to How I Met Your Mother in peace. I'm posting politically, about the election, but not specifically about the candidates, though they helped in this current dilemma the problem lies solely in you, yes you America - fuck you. I used to love you, in fact we loved each other. Maybe you don't remember but I do, I remember 9/11. Not in the way Rudy does, I remember that for about four months nobody talked shit about anybody except about the actual terrorists, but really, there were already dead.

Cynics can talk about how those shitty little flags that everyone stuck on their SUV's and those white I (heart) NY shirts were bargain patriotism, something we didn't have to sacrifice a penny or a thought about didn't mean anything. When in fact they did actually represent something, a general cohesiveness; that if this is the only token we have to show some love for our country, and some remorse for NY, well at least we're doing it all together.

I've been looking forward to this election for various reasons, at first a hatred towards everything this administration has done, then hope, then disgust, then hope again, and now I just want the whole charade to be over. Cynicism has kicked in, as well as a review of how fucked up our shit is, to reveal that though the better of the two will take office. He won't be able to get much changed in at least three years, and those are going to be very, very tough times.

But the worst time of this election is now. There is a non-America, America. It's located right next to your hate of rap music and disdain for Islam. We are not the cohesive nation that despite an ' attempt to conform us toe their hatred, we shunned it. We slapped ostricism in the face, and we soddamized exclusivity. Everyone was from NY, nobody was Christian, liberal, elitist, or hawkish, we bathed in the new found glory of being called American.

In these last few months the title has been filled with pride and stripped of meaning. Politicians and proponents of the worst kinds of hatred have used it to divide our nation. The pride injected into being called American, or having "American Values", or being "Pro-America" is disgusting, mainly because it's dishonest. It's dishonest because it doesn't include everyone in America. Being "Pro-America" as those who use the term detail a set list of qualifyers that have nothing to do with real patriotism or actually being an American citizen. The most ironic quality they perpetually embrace though is to drown out a dissenting voice, a quality which is perhaps the most un-American you can have.

So I'm waiting. I'm waiting for when I go home to my parent's message machine to hear Sen. McCain's pre-recorded voice tell me that we must put partisanship aside, that though this was a bitter battle we must come together to support our newly elected President. But this is the first time that it's crossed my mind that it might not happen. It could very well be that he doesn't advise us to put our differences aside. I'm hoping I hear that message, and that so do you America. I hope you drink in every word and remember that we are all fucked equally. Maybe we can work things out and be together again, I think you'd like that.

On a side note of divisiveness: Fuck Bill O'Reilly, that mincing fucker doesn't deserve one more minute of his 15.

Substance

2008-09-21T02:43:00.000-07:00

I've been following the 2008 Presidential Election closer than any person hoping for a healthy life should. My eye has a permanent twitch, my skin is way too white for the summer, my soul is crushed and my brain feels smaller. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Digg, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, these are the people I hang out with from midnight 'till three a.m. every night. Yet for all the information pumped into my cerebral cortex I feel kind of empty, half empty?

I've read bloggers criticizing the MSM for lacking substance yet only really echoing other blogs and not contributing to the actual dialogue. I've read main stream publications and watched hours of pundits censure blogs for the same thing, "demagoguery", "liberal bias", "propaganda machines" echo from station to station, paper to paper. Each player casts his own part to someone else so that no one ever does the job of a journalist.

The most information I've received during this election campaign came from Wikipedia, and a single link to a government website showing the voting records of every senator. Nearly 90% of what is being transmitted to the public with the intention of directing their vote is commentary. An event may happen, but rather than cover the Town Hall Meeting, I get a sound byte, a round of applause and forty minutes of some jackass in a suit explaining away what Obama or McCain meant by that remark. It feels as though they truly believe Americans will only respond to controversy, as if they are trying to clue us in on the layout of the next Us magazine.

Every four years everyone claims that this election will be the most important of the century etc, some form of hyperbole to heighten the tensions and create some form of gravitas for the current generation to feel better about their problems. I feel that America has basically been in pretty good shape since the late 80's, there was still that threat of Communism lingering, but that dissolved and for nearly thirty years we've been pretty set. Now there is the possibility of loosing sovereignty of American troops in a foreign occupied territory (seriously the President wants to sign over troops to Iraqi control), a recession (depression) that may rip apart our paper--pushing economy, full prisons, and the receding of rights that have been with America since it's birth.

So where is the substance?
We've had embedded journalists in Iraq for half a decade and I have no idea what's going on right now, not to mention that most Americans don't know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite.
What are the actual Senate records of McCain and Obama?
What did they author, what did they agree on, where did their bills fail?
What are the plans for the CEO's of the companies getting bailed out?
How come Americans can't have 800 billion dollars to be bailed out of their mortgages?
Why did we abandon our staunch stance on torture, and how come American citizens were not involved in the decision?
How come religion still plays such a large part of government especially in impeding technological advancements and standard education?

The list goes on and on, yet every time I feel that a journalist is moving towards a substantive claim or argument their article ends or their time is up. We live in the era of a 24-hour news world, and yet time is always up just when a real discussion is about to emerge.

Lastly I would like to note that there is enough actual reasons not to elect either candidate, so please base your vote on those not on whether you think one is a Muslim or the other is too old. Start to demand more from the news, ask to be informed.

And with that I'm going to leave you with some actual substantive information to lead the first charge...

McCain did not vote 33 times out of 53 bills for Business and Consumers. These bills range from immigrant worker protocol to tax credits for renewable energy.
http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=53270

Obama did not vote 22 times out of 50 bills for Business and Consumers. These bills range from immigrant worker protocol to tax credits for renewable energy.
http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=9490&type=category&category=11&go.x=8&go.y=16

Missed votes may be attributed towards the campaign trail, but perhaps checking what they voted for and reading at least a summary of the bill may tell you more about what candidate you should really be backing.

TL;DR

Read more dammit.

Regarding Anonymous

2008-09-20T16:13:00.000-07:00

I've heard the claims before; there is some Internet hate group that parade around their nihilism like Nazis goose-stepping down the Champs-Élysées. Well, sorry to burst your bubble but the goons over at Something Awful (dot com) and the /btards at 4 Chan (dot org) aren't you're worst enemy as Oprah and O'Reilley would have you believe, they are merely annoying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7mn4mo-QYE

-"What our children are up against."

They are up against over 9,000 penises. I wonder why that seems so scary; to me it's funny. "Oh that's terrible", you might be thinking, but the image it produces in my mind is cartoonish and reminds me of those sketches from Super Bad. Perhaps because "Over 9,000" is a childish reference to a Japanese anime dubbed some ten years ago called Dragon Ball Z. It had to do with Power Levels, a determining factor of who the victor would be in a physical duel. Of course you could find all of this idiotic information at Encyclopedia Dramatica if you wished to immerse yourself in the famous Anon humor but that would be missing the point. The point of this simple reference is that the joke itself came from someone in their teens or even younger.

If the conservative parents were to rage a war against those self-declaring members of Anonymous they'd be breaking into their own houses. Essentially there would be a lot of friendly fire. Oprah wants you to be afraid of Internet "bullies" who claim victory over hacked e-mails, spammed websites, and prank phone calls. I'm not afraid of Anonymous. Maybe because instead of fearing what I don't know, I joined in. What did I find on those sites? Nothing too interesting. It was more like the vicious chat that goes back and forth on Counter-Strike circa 1999 complete with disgusting Sprays, in this case picture posts, and less of the organized assault on "normal" people they are infamous for.
(Also it should be noted that hacking a website and posting ridiculous pictures of male genitalia might be the only way to show programmers security flaws these days.)

What I do find scary is that, "It is estimated that as many as 300,000 American children are working as prostitutes in the U.S.A." Working, denoting that they are employed, likely meaning your average non-internet-folks are the ones paying for a 14-year-old BBBJ. The people with malleable minds watching Oprah and O'Reilly at home and being generally scared of Anonymous pranksters are more likely the ones committing prostitution with youngin's than the 15-year-old nerd gamer with a Napoleon complex, or the 22-year-old college student with too much time and a Chuck Palahniuk book on their hands.

This may be a useless post, because the only people reading it already know all that, but continually hearing that I am in danger of being ridiculed and attacked by the same people that love cats more than life just makes me LOL.

Also one of my posts on 4chan was archived and has recieved over 39,000 views. We are not so different.

God says, "No". We say, "Yes". (More Satire)

2008-08-18T18:34:00.000-07:00

The rapid influx of college applicants over the last few years has forced the hand of college admissions committees to reconsider how students are accepted into college. The option to raise current standards seems like the obvious choice but critics of test scores and numbers feel that high schools and jr. colleges are too varied and different to allow them to judge someone solely on GPA's and standardized tests. When that argument was first heard colleges instituted the admission essay, a personalized letter from students to admissions committees, but recently the UC system has decided to desert this entire venture.

UC President Robert Dynes has come forward to say that abandoning the essay will help the UC system rather than hurt it. But what of the students trying to overcome hardships, or those who didn't find their way in high school but started to show their potential in their later years. "To that I would reply, this is exactly the kind of sob story we are trying to avoid," Dynes argued. "The UC system isn't a counseling center. Students should understand that college is tough, full of vigorous tests that will stretch you thin, and if you aren't prepared now then you shouldn't try to get acclimated as a freshman. My advice would be to experiment and grow in a junior college and come up to the big leagues when you're ready." But the board of Regents at the UC Office of the President didn't agree wholeheartedly. Yes, college is tough. No, it's not a counseling center, but taking away the college entrance essay may take away a college's ability to give opportunities to those who truly deserve it. That is why the Regents decided to employ a new program wherein students will fill out two additional boxes on their applications nearly granting them admission to any UC campus. The two boxes on the application for Fall of 2009 will be “Cancer” and “AID’s”. Recently appointed Regent Benjamin Allen stated, "Well, this kind of balances out numerical standards. In a way if a student has a hardship where they may not be long for this world then I feel we can give them an opportunity."

Longstanding Board member Sherry L. Lansing stated, "Obviously students who check the box will be tested, and must show proof of their diseases, and those checking the box who aren't suffering these extreme hardships won't be considered as applicants at all." But this radical shift leaves questions unanswered. Should the UC system adopt this program much in the frameworks of Make A Wish Foundation as it rails against the arbitrary "boo-hooing" of college essays merely only to replace them with check boxes so admissions staff won’t have to read? The answer lies in the numbers. If college students are told from the beginning that your schoolwork, all of it matters then their performance will reflect the fact that they know they aren't going to lose their spot to somebody who has a "story". Stephan Johnson a first-year Bio major commented, "I'm totally happy with this new system. I mean, my family is fine, I worked in high school, but nothing ever really hindered me. When I saw that question about overcoming adversity on the college entrance essay I knew, I just knew that my killer GPA, and high SAT's didn't matter. Some kid who was abused or got involved with drugs or something was a better college candidate than me-it was like all my hard work meant nothing". On the other end of the spectrum, it's going to be very hard for critics of the new program to deny students suffering from Cancer and AID’s admission to college campuses.

UC President Dynes was asked why just Cancer and AIDs; absent parents, depression, thousands of handicaps and diseases should merit the chance to experience college life. Dynes responded, "This year it's those two diseases, we aren't limiting ourselves in the long-term. I think next year we may add Polio and Lupus".

Eat a PETA (Satire work for the Highlander)

2008-08-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

A small lunch café in downtown Los Angeles is making waves with his new eco friendly business venture. Founder and owner of the hot lunch spot Eat a PETA Johnny Swift has an interesting theory on how to run an ecological friendly restaurant in the middle of Los Angeles, a city known for its poor quality air and high quality dining.
Swift jumped into the interview proclaiming, "The solution was simple enough, it came to me listening to one of those PETA protesters yelling about murder around a hamburger stand," Swift was annoyed, almost angry about the protest.
"It's the hypocrisy of it all that really got me," he stated.
Interestingly this Los Angeles businessman had a humble beginning, working for the first 20 years of his life on a grain and wheat-harvesting farm. Based on current eating habits of vegans- grain and wheat production would soar if everyone simply stopped eating meat.
The drastic increase in wheat bread the hypocrisy Swift harped about, “bleeding through from the PETA organizations.” Continuing, “The amount of field mice, and other rodents killed during a wheat harvest is almost sickening when compared to beef harvest.”
In his conclusion he argued that he would rather kill cows intentionally and actually use the meat rather than be responsible for the “accidental” deaths of millions of animals that get tossed away like garbage.
This balancing act of animal death seemed too much for Swift and thus his flagship restaurant was created; Eat a PETA is Johnny Swift's solution. Rather than get rid of meat eaters the way PETA proposes we should get rid of PETA.
"The only ecologically friendly way to get rid of vegan is to eat them,” Swift noted quite proudly as he reminisced about the first day the place opened.
"It was kind of a new idea to most people…some found it appalling, but then a lot people started to think about the cause behind it all and how bad nasty those people could be so they just showed up, and took a bite”.
That was all this entrepreneur needed, as Swift had procured some of the top chefs from around the world to serve up a new kind of pita sandwiches. Food critics have touted Eat a PETA as delicious as the message of cruelty free dining. The next step for Swift is making this venture into a chain across America.

July is fleeting- Fin, Final, Examine, Game Over You Won

2008-08-12T08:43:00.002-07:00

Finals Week

In and out of the library, studying, locking myself to my computer and writing- school isn’t fun when deadlines hit. Accomplishing weeks of work and preperation in nothing but a day or so is such a gratifying feeling. Pushing yourself to your limits, and the pushing a little bit more can make school more than just training and education, but a real triathlon consisting of denying yourself sleep, speed reading, and writing with your eyes closed as you fall asleep. But first module is over, and second module is ridiculously easy, cutting your class time in half is a huge factor.

Mid July In the Doldrums of awesome

2008-08-12T08:43:00.001-07:00

The next two weeks were kind of uneventful. Visits to a few of the local pubs, tons of schoolwork and reading, and trying to figure out my travel plans for the future. There was a small trip to London for the day; I spent the day hanging out with Claudia, Chelsea, Jen, and Chyl. The trip was mainly centered on a single tourist trap, dinner, followed by a Shakespeare play at the Globe Theatre. Before embarking on our touristy adventure we stopped in China town and got some cheap food including some delicious duck. After we headed for the Tower of London, which was interesting, the torture chambers were a bit of a let down but the most amazing exhibit was definitely the Crown Jewels. The crowns and swords were interesting in their own right, but a giant punch bowl completely molded from gold was the most amazing piece of affluence I have ever seen. There was a complete story inlaid, molded, and carved on this huge bowl that looked almost like a small bathtub. After exhibit we walked to the theatre, at which point my feet were killing me. Paris had left its mark. We stopped for pizza, and started King Leer. I made it halfway through before I just couldn’t stand anymore. The acting was enthralling; the two actors that stood out the most were the ones playing Leer and his jester. Tired and ready to sit we caught our bus back and almost ran back to our beds. The following week was scheduled to be Dublin with the guys, but the trip didn’t work out and I went back to London for a wrap-up of the things I missed: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, a few parks, and a nice little pub with Cornish Pastries for dinner.

July 8th- Rocksmysocksoff

2008-08-12T08:41:00.002-07:00

After a week at Cambridge I managed to already get in trouble for missing classes but it was the weekend’s events that lead me to a meeting about academic performance. Most of the school would be traveling to Edinburgh to see some castles and Scottish museums; I opted out for something more…interesting. It was already Thursday before I started looking at fares; I had figured there would be a relatively cheap way to Paris on Friday. Suffice it to say, the numbers on the screen were giving me slight panic attacks. In desperation I turned to one of my favorite websites, Craigslist. I found London, and searched through the tickets section, after a couple hours of e-mails and phone calls I found a guy willing to sell me his tickets relatively cheap. The details weren’t exactly fitting nicely; he got off work at eight, it was already six, and the train was at five in the morning. Therefore I would have to pack, get a train to London, and stay the night- waking up at five to go to Paris. I think at this point I was unconsciously singing the Clash “Should I stay or should I go” as I reflected on the situation. The main point was that, I hadn’t yet slept. I was hoping for a late Friday train, and things were getting more expensive by the minute.

The guy turned out to be very legit, and very helpful he got me to Kings Cross (the same station for Harry Potter) sometime around eleven. I walked out of the station and most everything looked closed, so I just wandered until finding a hotel. I used the internet there for a bit to sort some details out with Sarah, where we would meet, how to contact etc. After a wasteful couple of hours in the hostel I showered sans towel and headed back to the station.

Walking around Paris at seven in the morning isn’t exactly inviting. I didn’t feel like carrying a map, and decided to follow my nose, sniff out the Eiffel tower and call it a day. I ended up seeing a few major sites of Paris, but without French I didn’t know except by their effect on the people around them. Made my way to the Notre Dame Cathedral, and finally the Eiffel Tower. On the way I took a nap at a Starbucks and ate at a café.

I basically spent my entire day staring at this giant tower, until realizing it was almost eleven and Sarah hadn’t met me in the park. I made my way to another café, plugged my phone into an outdoor outlet and stole someone’s wifi. Sarah was at the train station and I was in the city center. It’s about a two-hour walk if you know where you’re going…I had a good idea and started speed walking. The metro seemed a lot easier and after another hour and of mixed directions we found each other. Swapping stories and starved we found a hotel for cheap and got a very expensive bite to eat.

Déjà vu. Lay in bed for an hour, shower, and head back to the station. We thanked our new friend Sabri for the cheap stay and free internet. A first class train meal, an expensive hotel booking, and a long ass bus ride later we arrived at Rockwertcher. We sorted out our beer situation and headed over to the small tent to get ready for MGMT.
Galactic played, I still don’t know who or what they are, but they were there and they played music. By the time MGMT took the stage we had worked ourselves to be right on the barrier, I whipped out my camera and enjoyed getting some amazing shots, but the music proved to be too overpowering and I stowed the camera and jumped with the crowd. Their stage presence was huge, and everyone responded.

We stayed for part of Band of Horses, but we were ready for a cold beer and some food. After sampling the different stands, we headed over to the main stage. I saw a song or two of the Hives but we were still on the outskirts. Luckily some good bands were playing on the smaller stage, so we were able to start making our way to the front of the stage. The Kings of Leon went on, and their set was amazing, I wasn’t much of a fan before, but they really drew me into their style and sound. Again after each set we were able to move forward, slowly edging our way to the front, a big feat when there are over fifty thousand people crowding the way. Ben Harper went on next but exhaustion had set in, and both Sarah and I weren’t big fans. Much to the dismay of those around we took up a little extra real estate by crouching on the floor, but it only lasted about half an hour before we were forced up. The rain had completely ceased by the time Harper finished, and the long pause between him and Sigur Ros let Sarah and I get almost twenty feet from the main stage. Sunrise, Sigur Ros, everything felt amazing. Their music is always confined on a CD or a computer. They are meant to be heard on a huge stage at a festival. Not everyone really appreciates them as they seem to be an acquired taste; it has to do with their lack of English lyrics, and the pace at which their songs build. We were treated to hear them alongside their full orchestra of strings and brass that accompany them to larger shows. They played through the whole sun set, and the last song they played finished with a huge spray of confetti and floodlights that lit up the now dark sky. By the time they finished everyone’s feet felt like they were standing on fire and sharp rocks, so a huge group of us sat down. Some of the people that were trying to snake their way up to hear Radiohead didn’t like the sitting blockade and forced everyone up. Over the next twenty minutes Sarah and I were forced, swayed, pushed and squished as literally thousands of people tried to force their way onto a packed pitch. We tried to suck down oxygen from above us, but Sarah who stands a few inches shorter than me couldn’t manage to get the air so we both were crowd-surfed out. I lost my phone, and almost lost my backpack but I wouldn’t let ago of it even if I had to stay suspended in the air for another twenty minutes. They finally let go, and I landed, finding Sarah a few minutes later. We hung out on the outskirts, listening to Radiohead for a bit. They also sound basically perfect. They are one of the best live bands in the world for a reason, and if you’re a fan consider it a “birthright” program to go see them. I’ve seen them before, so it wasn’t a huge loss to cut the show short, and Sarah and I decided to see them in LA sometime. We left the show with about half an hour remaining, eventually found the hotel, slept, showered, and headed back to our respective homes. I missed my train but caught a bus early the next morning. I hung out with Sabri all night and we agreed to meet up in the future. I spent the next day completely asleep; the weekend had taken its toll.

June 29th- Departure, Arrival, Arrival, Departure

2008-08-12T08:41:00.001-07:00

I wasn’t sure how or if I was ever going to get around to writing a travel blog. I figured it wouldn’t gel well with the other stuff I had planned on putting on here, but I came up with a whole format to the website so I feel better about it now. I’ll be splitting it into a bunch of parts and this first entry gets to serve as an introduction.

Leaving the airport wasn’t really a tumultuous affair. I said bye to my family and my girlfriend, too worried about security and a missed flight to take anything really in. They reflected my stoicism and everyone left pretty much in smiles. I only had to wait an hour and a half before boarding the plane; I guess I missed my call because everyone was already seated. The crew was British, which made me laugh for some reason. There was some indistinct French(ish) woman already sleeping to my right and a fat guy to my left. Neither of us slept but his size made getting out of my seat an ordeal I didn’t feel like dealing with, so instead of getting up and watching the American Gangster like I had wanted then reading Colbert’s I Am America (And So Can You), I watched nine movies. I only remember Run Fatboy Run, eventually the monitors were shut off and we landed-relatively exhausted now.

I slept through the bus ride after my laptop died, and I had my fill of the English countryside. Caught a cab to the college, unpacked at my new flat, and took a long extremely hot shower which my armpits and face desperately needed. For dinner we had a formal hall, which meant, dress nicely and eat in a huge hall that very much looked like Harry Potter’s, sadly everything was served cold.