Thursday, September 24, 2009
For shame
HIV/AIDS is a worldwide epidemic. The infection rate all over the world is huge, especially in areas where people are poorly educated. Like the United States of America. Seriously, no one in this country is ever taught how to use a condom or why wearing one is so important. Do you have any idea how hard it is to put on a condom for the first time if you don't know how? Good, neither do I since I am as pure as the driven snow. But I hear its incredibly difficult if you do not know how. Also, I'm astounded by the number of people who eschew the use of condoms. Really? They're not that expensive and you're almost always less than 5 minutes from a place that sells them (or so I hear). I'm always critical of older generations being upset because people are sexually active. I say to each their own, mostly because what they do with their genitals doesn't really effect me. However, when they're spreading a disease like AIDS, that does effect me. So wrap that shit up, its not that hard, expensive, or time consuming. And I hear they even make ones that make sex feel better. Not that I'd know, these are just things I hear.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
You look like you just ate soap
This'll be a short one. Probably
Have you ever noticed how when you're standing waiting for an elevator on the first floor of a building, every person will come up and look to see if the up button has been illuminated. They're basically saying, "You look like someone who is barely able to stand up straight, let alone operate something as complex as an elevator button, I'd better check your work." Seriously, what do they think I'm doing there? Do they think I just enjoy elevator lobbies? Then again, I probably do the same thing. Can't trust people today, they're all stupid.
Have you ever noticed how when you're standing waiting for an elevator on the first floor of a building, every person will come up and look to see if the up button has been illuminated. They're basically saying, "You look like someone who is barely able to stand up straight, let alone operate something as complex as an elevator button, I'd better check your work." Seriously, what do they think I'm doing there? Do they think I just enjoy elevator lobbies? Then again, I probably do the same thing. Can't trust people today, they're all stupid.
Friday, September 18, 2009
The New Batman
As many people know, DC Comics has recently killed Bruce Wayne in much the same way as I put my dog outside: sure, he's outside right now but everyone knows when the neighbors complain I'll bring him back in. I'm not 100% sure that sentence works but I'm going with it because my backspace key is sticking today. Basically, Bruce Wayne will be back soon. Everyone who has ever read a comic, seen a comic book movie or taken a breath knows that they won't keep the real Batman dead forever. In the mean time, however, this gives the artists at DC a chance to tell a new story, a story that could never be told with Bruce around. That story is Dick Grayson as Batman.
I've always liked the character of Dick Grayson. As a kid, its easy to like Batman's wisecracking sidekick, mostly because at that age it would be more believable that I could be Robin rather than Batman. The thing I liked about Dick as I grew up was that he had faced most of the same horrors as Bruce but he'd come out of it with a bit of what I'm going to call sunshine for lack of a better term. His costume was brighter. He cracked jokes at inappropriate times. He just seemed happier.
The one thing I always hated in the comics was the modern trend of putting Bruce and Dick at odds. It must have seemed edgy when they first put friction between the most famous crime fighting duo this side of Holmes and Watson. Now, though, its just a tired cliche and yet DC sticks with it. These guys are in their universe literally the most successful crime fighting duo ever. And yet they can't seem to stand each other. I liken it to the Beatles: sure, they fought and broke up after being the greatest band of all time but its not like they hated each other, at least not for long. The same thing applies to Bruce and Dick. I can see them fighting as Dick grows up and becomes his own man (much like a father and son would in real life) but eventually they would come to see that the other had a point and come back together. Originally in the comics Bruce was proud when Robin become Nightwing after retiring as Robin. However, that's been retconned out in favor of Bruce firing Dick as Robin because he's saving other parts of the world. Because Bruce never helped the Justice League, the Outsiders, or any of the other superhero groups he's been a part of in his time.
Damn, that was a long preamble to saying that I'm excited about the new era of Dick Grayson as Batman. I think he deserves it. He's been the loyal helper for so long, he deserves a shot at the top spot. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait for the comics he's in right now to hit tradepaper back because there are two comic book stores near my house: one is in a demilitarized zone I wouldn't go into without Batman backing me up and the other closes at 7 every night, even Saturdays. You know, some comic book fans do have jobs. That's how we keep you guys in business. I'm just saying.
I've always liked the character of Dick Grayson. As a kid, its easy to like Batman's wisecracking sidekick, mostly because at that age it would be more believable that I could be Robin rather than Batman. The thing I liked about Dick as I grew up was that he had faced most of the same horrors as Bruce but he'd come out of it with a bit of what I'm going to call sunshine for lack of a better term. His costume was brighter. He cracked jokes at inappropriate times. He just seemed happier.
The one thing I always hated in the comics was the modern trend of putting Bruce and Dick at odds. It must have seemed edgy when they first put friction between the most famous crime fighting duo this side of Holmes and Watson. Now, though, its just a tired cliche and yet DC sticks with it. These guys are in their universe literally the most successful crime fighting duo ever. And yet they can't seem to stand each other. I liken it to the Beatles: sure, they fought and broke up after being the greatest band of all time but its not like they hated each other, at least not for long. The same thing applies to Bruce and Dick. I can see them fighting as Dick grows up and becomes his own man (much like a father and son would in real life) but eventually they would come to see that the other had a point and come back together. Originally in the comics Bruce was proud when Robin become Nightwing after retiring as Robin. However, that's been retconned out in favor of Bruce firing Dick as Robin because he's saving other parts of the world. Because Bruce never helped the Justice League, the Outsiders, or any of the other superhero groups he's been a part of in his time.
Damn, that was a long preamble to saying that I'm excited about the new era of Dick Grayson as Batman. I think he deserves it. He's been the loyal helper for so long, he deserves a shot at the top spot. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait for the comics he's in right now to hit tradepaper back because there are two comic book stores near my house: one is in a demilitarized zone I wouldn't go into without Batman backing me up and the other closes at 7 every night, even Saturdays. You know, some comic book fans do have jobs. That's how we keep you guys in business. I'm just saying.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Never give up, never surrender
Too many people are ready to give up on President Barack Obama.
We fought too long, too hard to just give up now. Has his Presidency been a little disappointing? Of course it is but that's forgetting the fact that nothing he could have done could have lived up to our expectations. If he had gotten us single payer healthcare, ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and balanced the budget all while pulling us out of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, people would have bitched about not closing down Gitmo fast enough. He's been a victim of his own success. He came from such long odds (being black, being new on the scene, going against the Clintons) that people began to believe he could do anything. He can't. No man can.
This is not to say that he shouldn't be criticized. When he does something wrong (like cave too early on single payer which would have been a useful card to play during the debate on healthcare rather than before) we should criticize him, that's about being a responsible citizen. But to abandon the President that we helped put in office less than a year into his term, that's just stupid. There is so much left to be done. In a couple of months healthcare in this country could be radically different, its up to us what that difference looks like (something helpful to people or yet another cash grab for the insurance industry). Then the President is trying to ramp up regulation of the financial sector (and people not in the financial sector that are basically loan sharks with slightly less knee cap breaking). From there who knows where we'll be headed to next (though I'd guess it rhymes with Fuckghanistan). Its not time to give up hope, not when there is so much left to do.
We fought too long, too hard to just give up now. Has his Presidency been a little disappointing? Of course it is but that's forgetting the fact that nothing he could have done could have lived up to our expectations. If he had gotten us single payer healthcare, ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and balanced the budget all while pulling us out of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, people would have bitched about not closing down Gitmo fast enough. He's been a victim of his own success. He came from such long odds (being black, being new on the scene, going against the Clintons) that people began to believe he could do anything. He can't. No man can.
This is not to say that he shouldn't be criticized. When he does something wrong (like cave too early on single payer which would have been a useful card to play during the debate on healthcare rather than before) we should criticize him, that's about being a responsible citizen. But to abandon the President that we helped put in office less than a year into his term, that's just stupid. There is so much left to be done. In a couple of months healthcare in this country could be radically different, its up to us what that difference looks like (something helpful to people or yet another cash grab for the insurance industry). Then the President is trying to ramp up regulation of the financial sector (and people not in the financial sector that are basically loan sharks with slightly less knee cap breaking). From there who knows where we'll be headed to next (though I'd guess it rhymes with Fuckghanistan). Its not time to give up hope, not when there is so much left to do.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Now, this is what I'm talking about
The title of my blog is born out by the fact that many sports stadiums now have a service where complaints about fans behaving poorly can be texted to security and that person will be observed and removed if necessary. Seriously, it might actually become nice to go to games soon if this keeps up.
Pay no attention to the timber in my eye
Does it strike anyone else as hypocritical that so many people in the US argue that we have to go to any means necessary to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons when we're the only country on the planet to ever actually use nuclear weapons? I mean, in the interest of full disclosure, I still think that America did the right thing, faced with an insanely militaristic Japan and possessing a very limited nuclear arsenal, if they were ever going to be used, that was the time to use them. The thing that gets lost in all this talk about how Iran shouldn't have nuclear weapons is the question of why any of the rest of us should have them.
In a perfect world, Superman would exist and he could fly around the world with his x-ray vision and take all the nukes in the world and throw them into the sun (ok, maybe not a perfect plan since I have no idea what this would do to the sun). But, crappy movie plots aside, the elimination of nuclear weapons should be a serious topic of discussion for the whole world. With Russia rising from the ashes of the end of communism and China chugging towards a spot at the hegemon's table we seriously risk going back to the days when the end of the world could be any day. The idea, to paraphrase JFK, that a few men hold in their mortal hands the power to end all life on this planet is scary. I barely trust Obama with this power, let alone people I didn't vote for and don't know. I don't even trust our allies with nukes. Its just a bad idea overall. The problem is, can we ever close pandora's box?
Let's say that after years of negotiations and political arm wrestling the world finally rids itself of nuclear weapons (how they would get rid of them, I don't know, I say launch them into space and hope for the best). What stops some country from deciding that if they can create nuclear weapons before its enemies realize what they're doing that they can conquer the world? Then a nuclear arms race begins anew or most of the countries in the world are just charred craters leaving billions dead and most of the world uninhabitable. That's a bright sounding future. Is our safest option really to keep all our nukes around for mutually assured destruction? Doesn't that plan rely on everyone involved being rational? Doesn't the fact that George W. Bush was once President of the USA prove that that is not always the case? This whole issue makes me depressed. When do we get to have Gene Roddenberry's awesome rational future people with their space ships?
In a perfect world, Superman would exist and he could fly around the world with his x-ray vision and take all the nukes in the world and throw them into the sun (ok, maybe not a perfect plan since I have no idea what this would do to the sun). But, crappy movie plots aside, the elimination of nuclear weapons should be a serious topic of discussion for the whole world. With Russia rising from the ashes of the end of communism and China chugging towards a spot at the hegemon's table we seriously risk going back to the days when the end of the world could be any day. The idea, to paraphrase JFK, that a few men hold in their mortal hands the power to end all life on this planet is scary. I barely trust Obama with this power, let alone people I didn't vote for and don't know. I don't even trust our allies with nukes. Its just a bad idea overall. The problem is, can we ever close pandora's box?
Let's say that after years of negotiations and political arm wrestling the world finally rids itself of nuclear weapons (how they would get rid of them, I don't know, I say launch them into space and hope for the best). What stops some country from deciding that if they can create nuclear weapons before its enemies realize what they're doing that they can conquer the world? Then a nuclear arms race begins anew or most of the countries in the world are just charred craters leaving billions dead and most of the world uninhabitable. That's a bright sounding future. Is our safest option really to keep all our nukes around for mutually assured destruction? Doesn't that plan rely on everyone involved being rational? Doesn't the fact that George W. Bush was once President of the USA prove that that is not always the case? This whole issue makes me depressed. When do we get to have Gene Roddenberry's awesome rational future people with their space ships?
Monday, March 23, 2009
In Defense of the Jedi
I'm writing this because I think that the Sixth (or third) film in the Star Wars Saga, Return of the Jedi, is unfairly maligned. Sure, it, like every other George Lucas film, has its flaws, but overall it is a good movie with fewer flaws than people think. I'll tackle what people usually complain about one at a time.
The DeathStar again?
Sure, the Deathstar already showed up in the first movie and it is a bit of a cop out to do it again, but in this case I mostly feel bad for George Lucas. The movie he originally wanted to do was too long to every be filmed, so he had to break it up into three parts. Of course, that left the first part without an ending. Since Lucas never thought people would let him make a sequel to his crazy movie and he probably believed that audiences would want a real ending to the first movie, the Deathstar was moved up. Its hard to think of another setting for a showdown between the Rebels and the Empire. Just try to ignore the fact that it apparently took them twenty years to build the first one and built the second in like six.
Teddy Bear Picnic
Harrison Ford famously called the last segment of the movie a Teddy Bear Picnic because of the party involving the Ewoks. People's problems, however, go much deeper than just the party to the very involvement of Ewoks. I loved the Ewoks as a kid, hated them as a teenager, and have turned back around to them as an "adult." First, if the people of the forest moon of Endor (not Endor itself as many people mistakenly believe) had been scarier than midgets in bear costumes the Empire would have picked somewhere else to park their moon sized space station. I mean, really, what did the Empire have to fear from a bunch of teddy bears? I think that is the ultimate reason why I like the Ewoks once again, it shows how cocky the Empire was. They got so full of themselves that they ignored a technologically unadvanced people, let the Rebel Alliance bring all their ships to a "trap," and took their two biggest players out of the fight (more on that later). The Empire got cocky and they ended up getting screwed because of it. Also, everyone complains about how rudimentary the weapons used by the Ewoks were in taking down Imperial Forces. If you really think about it though, the Empire has marched across the galaxy, stamping out resistance from people who shot at them with blasters and had space ships. Do you really think they spent a lot of time in basic training covering what to do if your AT-ST gets logs rolled in front of it? I don't think so either.
Luke was basically useless
Some people like to claim that Luke was basically wasting his time during the last act of Jedi. I have a different take. Those saying that Luke wasted his time point to the fact that the Deathstar was going to blow up soon anyway as proof that Luke really didn't do anything. However, if the Skywalker saga doesn't take place, do things really unfold the same way? First, Luke is one of the main reasons that the Emperor decides to set his "brilliant" trap for the Rebellion in the first place. I mean, he has to be sick of hearing Vader talk about his kid all the time. He also probably heard about Vader's offer to Luke about joining him and overthrowing the Emperor (which, coming from a Sith is not that surprising, but still couldn't have been pleasant to hear about). Also, I'm sure he would be more than happy to trade Vader in for a younger, less messed up model. Anyways, the Emperor decides to spend his and his right hand man's time during the biggest battle of the Rebellion dealing with one boy who isn't even a Jedi yet. Can you imagine what might have happened had he set Vader loose on the Battle of Endor? Do you really think that the shield generator gets blown up if Vader is guarding it personally? I mean, lightsabers work just as well on Ewoks, you just swing a bit lower. What if Vader had hopped into his TIE fighter? Do you really think that Lando flys the Falcon into the Deathstar with Vader flying around? Luke took the Empires two biggest pieces out of play for the Battle of Endor, which was certainly valuable. Less valuable was when he threw away his lightsaber after defeating Vader. Did Luke think the Emperor would just let him go?
Anyways, that's my defense of Return of the Jedi. Maybe soon I'll try to defend the prequels.
The DeathStar again?
Sure, the Deathstar already showed up in the first movie and it is a bit of a cop out to do it again, but in this case I mostly feel bad for George Lucas. The movie he originally wanted to do was too long to every be filmed, so he had to break it up into three parts. Of course, that left the first part without an ending. Since Lucas never thought people would let him make a sequel to his crazy movie and he probably believed that audiences would want a real ending to the first movie, the Deathstar was moved up. Its hard to think of another setting for a showdown between the Rebels and the Empire. Just try to ignore the fact that it apparently took them twenty years to build the first one and built the second in like six.
Teddy Bear Picnic
Harrison Ford famously called the last segment of the movie a Teddy Bear Picnic because of the party involving the Ewoks. People's problems, however, go much deeper than just the party to the very involvement of Ewoks. I loved the Ewoks as a kid, hated them as a teenager, and have turned back around to them as an "adult." First, if the people of the forest moon of Endor (not Endor itself as many people mistakenly believe) had been scarier than midgets in bear costumes the Empire would have picked somewhere else to park their moon sized space station. I mean, really, what did the Empire have to fear from a bunch of teddy bears? I think that is the ultimate reason why I like the Ewoks once again, it shows how cocky the Empire was. They got so full of themselves that they ignored a technologically unadvanced people, let the Rebel Alliance bring all their ships to a "trap," and took their two biggest players out of the fight (more on that later). The Empire got cocky and they ended up getting screwed because of it. Also, everyone complains about how rudimentary the weapons used by the Ewoks were in taking down Imperial Forces. If you really think about it though, the Empire has marched across the galaxy, stamping out resistance from people who shot at them with blasters and had space ships. Do you really think they spent a lot of time in basic training covering what to do if your AT-ST gets logs rolled in front of it? I don't think so either.
Luke was basically useless
Some people like to claim that Luke was basically wasting his time during the last act of Jedi. I have a different take. Those saying that Luke wasted his time point to the fact that the Deathstar was going to blow up soon anyway as proof that Luke really didn't do anything. However, if the Skywalker saga doesn't take place, do things really unfold the same way? First, Luke is one of the main reasons that the Emperor decides to set his "brilliant" trap for the Rebellion in the first place. I mean, he has to be sick of hearing Vader talk about his kid all the time. He also probably heard about Vader's offer to Luke about joining him and overthrowing the Emperor (which, coming from a Sith is not that surprising, but still couldn't have been pleasant to hear about). Also, I'm sure he would be more than happy to trade Vader in for a younger, less messed up model. Anyways, the Emperor decides to spend his and his right hand man's time during the biggest battle of the Rebellion dealing with one boy who isn't even a Jedi yet. Can you imagine what might have happened had he set Vader loose on the Battle of Endor? Do you really think that the shield generator gets blown up if Vader is guarding it personally? I mean, lightsabers work just as well on Ewoks, you just swing a bit lower. What if Vader had hopped into his TIE fighter? Do you really think that Lando flys the Falcon into the Deathstar with Vader flying around? Luke took the Empires two biggest pieces out of play for the Battle of Endor, which was certainly valuable. Less valuable was when he threw away his lightsaber after defeating Vader. Did Luke think the Emperor would just let him go?
Anyways, that's my defense of Return of the Jedi. Maybe soon I'll try to defend the prequels.
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