Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Nifty McNiftington's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, November 19th, 2009
4:56 pm	Quick Obvious Comment of the Day Variety and Hollywood Reporter keep being baffled by the fact that sports - especially football - are dominating the TV ratings. Now, football is indeed awesome. But why is it dominating now more than in the past? What about football has gotten better? They don't understand. The obvious answer: Football hasn't gotten any better. It's just maintained its quality while the rest of TV has gotten worse. Duh. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
4:34 pm	Comic Books I have a hankering to read some comic books (collected in trade paperbacks) or graphic novels. For those of ye who know more about the subject than I do, can you make some recommendations? Some things to keep in mind about my personal tastes: - My favorite comics are the classic Silver Age Spider-Man, followed by classic X-Men*. I have an old-man-crush on Stan Lee. But I'm not excited by all classic Marvel comics. I found Iron Man and Daredevil to be pretty dull, and Ant-Man was just dumb. - I like fun/exciting comics, not dark/depressing comics. I've read quite a bit of Frank Miller and Alan Moore, and I don't think I've actively enjoyed a single book from either of them. Most (but not all) of their stuff is extremely well-written. It's just not for me. I'm also not a fan of quirky/alternative/goth comics like Neil Gaiman. (I'm just making up that category. If there's better terminology for that type of comic, let me know.) - I saw in a book store that DC has started putting out "Showcase" TPBs, which are like Marvel's Essential series: Cheap black & white collections of old comics. They had a set of the 1960s run of Batman, which I was curious about. Have any of you read that? Is it worthwhile? (I don't care that much about the artwork. So cheap black & white reproductions are fine with me.) So please throw your suggestions at me. Bonus points if you actually have the books you're recommending and are willing to lend them to me. * To clarify, I'm not talking about the old old school original X-Men. I'm talking about when Wolverine, Storm, and the rest of the X-Men we know today started showing up, and lame-wads like Angel were booted out of the comic. (13 Comments |Comment on this)
3:32 pm	The Fundamental Disconnect in the Health Care Debate I'm not locking this politics post because I think it's important for both sides to read this. I think I've hit upon the key difference in the way the two sides see the issue, and why they've just been screaming past each other: Those in favor of the health care bill believe that those specific reforms will necessarily improve things. Those who oppose the bill disagree with this premise. Both sides want high quality, low cost health care. Both understand that there are lots of problems with the current system. Neither side really understands all the implications of the 2000 pages of dense legalese that just passed the House, because nobody on Earth actually understands that. But those in favor of the bill believe those implications will be beneficial, and those opposed to it believe the implications will be harmful. It should be obvious that for any situation, no matter how messed up, government action can either make things better, worse, or the same. Which of these is most likely depends on the specific government action being contemplated. So the debate should focus on the specific things the bill does, and evaluate those. I think that proponents of the bill are losing the argument in the court of public opinion (if not in Congress) because they aren't recognizing this is the true disagreement, so they waste their time and energy arguing the wrong things. At best, they point out all the flaws with the current system. But this is ineffective because the people who oppose the health care bill already know there are all sorts of problems with the current system. They just think the bill will make those problems even worse. And often, proponents of the bill (correctly) assume the enormous problems with our current system are obvious, but they forget about their much more controversial premise that any reform will necessarily improve things. So they conclude that anyone who disagrees with them must be either too stupid to notice the obvious problems, or too evil to care about them. Which is why they spout hate and insults, because it's not worthwhile to have meaningful debates with stupid/evil people. But of course their opponents aren't stupid or evil. They just have a difference premise about the efficacy of government intervention. For those in favor of the health care bill, if you want to convince people it's a good idea, you should explain why the specific actions of the bill (to the extent that they're known) will improve things. It's not enough to point out that currently lots of things are wrong or to insult those who disagree with you. Of course I can't force you to make intelligent arguments. But if you continue to insult and stereotype anyone who disagrees with you, you should at least recognize that *you* are the one who's sacrificing health care out of hate. As usual, please remember my "no idiotic flamewars in comments" rule. If you disagree with the way I characterized the debate, it's fine for your to (politely and civilly) explain that disagreement. But I'm not interested in arguments over which side is correct. I'm not going to screen comments because I want to treat you like grown-ups, so please don't be the childish jerk who makes me regret assuming you had a basic level of restraint and civility. (I will screen anonymous comments, because I've learned through experience it's generally a mistake to treat anonymous trolls like grown-ups.) (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
12:30 pm	Video Game System Decision: The Revenge I'm still trying to figure out which video game system (if any) we should buy. After the first round of advice, I've eliminated the Wii from consideration. Here are the benefits I've found of the three choices I'm considering. Once again, keep in mind that we're only interested in two-player games that aren't sports or Rock Band/Guitar Hero. XBox360: - Project Natal, which sounds nifty enough that my Apple-obsessed brother-in-law was willing to get excited about a Microsoft product. On the other hand, it's not coming out until next year, and I assume it will be another year after that before they work out the kinks, make it non-sucky, and come out with games that use it as more than a gimmick that gets old in a few minutes. - Netflix streaming, but it requires an XBox gold membership which costs (if I hunt for discounts) around $40/year - Lots of our friends have XBoxes, so I could borrow games. But I don't know how many of those games are two player. - Cheaper than a PS3, although that may not be true when I factor in yearly membership costs, which as far as I know the PS3 doesn't have. (Someone please correct me if that's wrong.) PS3: - Little Big Planet, which several people have suggested as a game we would really enjoy, and is exclusive to the PS3. But does it really make sense to buy an entire $300 system for one game? (And is it really $300? Or is it a lot more once we buy necessary accessories like a second controller, memory card, etc.) - Netflix streaming coming soon. Though I'm not sure when exactly it starts. I don't think it costs extra, but I'm not 100% sure about that. And since this is new, it will probably be more buggy than the XBox's Netflix streaming - A BluRay player, which we really don't care about. Sticking with the original XBox and PS2 we already have - Much cheaper - With the exception of Little Big Planet, all the games people recommended (The Lego series, Marvel Ultimate Alliance) are available for older systems. Obviously this won't continue to be the case in the future, but we can always buy a new system in the future when there are more compelling games. -- So what do people think? Right now, I'm leaning toward not getting a new system. Really, it's all about the games, and there don't seem to be many new two-player games we would enjoy. If any of you know of a bunch of awesome two-player games that would make it worthwhile to get a new system, please tell me. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
10:04 am	Media News Catches Up With Real Time Fantasy Island: The Reality Show I would assume that Ricardo Montalban and Herve Villechaize are both too dead to participate. But then again, I don't think Mark Burnett is above digging up their corpses. Predators Reboot/Remake to Star Girlie Men Instead of Arnold and Jesse Ventura, it will star Adrien Brody and Topher Grace. Seriously. Note to Hollywood: If I can kick an actor's ass, he's not an action star. Yet Another Unnecessary Sequel: Son of Vacation It's about Rusty, who was the son in the original movie, who now has a family and takes them on an ill-fated vacation. They don't have a script of course. But they own the rights to make a sequel, and that's all that matters. Venom A spin-off from Spider-Man. Only they'll make Venom into a good guy. WTF. Yet Another Biopic: Richard Pryor: The Movie: Starring Marlon Wayans Yet Another Obscure Comic Book Adaptation: Gravel About "a soldier in the British S.A.S. who uses his skills in dark magic to moonlight and battle supernatural beings for clients in order to make some extra cash." Sounds incredibly generic, and a rip-off of several other comic books. Moses: The Action Movie Seriously. They're taking the same story of Moses that was told in The Ten Commandments (which I think was based on some obscure book) and doing it in the style of 300 and/or Braveheart. No, I'm not making that up or being snarky. That's actually what the producers tell Variety. And yes, I know that 300 and Braveheart aren't remotely the same style, but apparently the producers of this movie don't know that. Warcraft: The Movie Directed by Sam Raimi, and written by the dude who wrote Saving Private Ryan. But before you get too excited, remember that Sam Raimi's last two movies were Spider-Man 3 and Drag Me to Hell, and Robert Rodat's last movie was The Patriot. Psy-Ops It "revolves around a covert U.S. military unit of psychological operatives who specialize in exploiting their target's deepest fears. When on a routine mission to the Amazon Basin, they discover something more terrifying than they could have imagined." Holy crap! It's a movie based on an idea! Blatant Rip-Off of What Women Want That's So Blatant They're Barely Bothering to Change the Title: What Boys Want About a teenage girl who hears boys' thoughts. Starring Disney Channel star of the moment Selena Gomez. Blatant Rip-Off of The Phantom of the Opera: The Animated Movie A Monster in Paris "is set at the turn of the 20th century. It follows a monster who lives in a garden and falls in love with a beautiful, young singer." Hey, I'm caught up on media news! I'm sure that won't last. (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
4:35 pm	Which Videogame System (If Any) Should We Get? I've asked this question before, but I figure the answer would change over time, so it's worth asking again. electricia and I are thinking about getting a current generation videogame system. Since lots of ye know more about videogames than I do, I'll throw it out for your advice. Here some information about our preferences that anyone giving us advice should know: - WE ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN TWO-PLAYER GAMES. We have limited free time to spend on games, and want to spend that time together. Please don't tell us about awesome one-player games available for specific systems, because we won't play them and therefore they won't affect our decision of what system to get. Yes, this applies even if the game is really really awesome. - We don't enjoy Rock Band/Guitar Hero, sports games, realistic racing games (cartoony racing games are okay), or most games with a split screen. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with them for those of you who do enjoy them. Just that they aren't fun for us. - We aren't fans of the "Whee, I'm using a Wii!" genre of games. We've played games like Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, and Wii Punch Out at friends' houses, and got bored with them after half an hour. We would still consider buying a Wii if you guys point out a bunch of awesome two-player games for it, but they would have to be fun beyond the novelty factor. - We're casual gamers. We aren't interested in games that require you to be an experienced hard-core gaming expert to play them. (I'm glad those games exist so you hard-core gamers can enjoy them, but they aren't for us.) - I recognize that the PS3 is a great deal for people who want a Blu-Ray player, but we don't really care about Blu-Ray, so that's not a selling point for us. - We especially like two-player RPGs like Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, Champions of Norrath, and X-Men Legends. We also like silly fun two-player cooperative games like Lego Star Wars/Indiana Jones/Batman. We find cartoon racing games like MarioKart and simple fighting games like DOA and Soul Caliber moderately enjoyable, but not as much as the cooperative adventure games. - Being able to watch Netflix Instant Download through the game system instead of our current kluge of hooking up my netbook to the TV would be a selling point. I know XBox 360s can do that, and I'm not sure if the others can. Also it would be a selling point if we could watch YouTube and other internet videos. I'm not sure if any system has a reasonable interface/ability to do so, but it seems somewhat likely so I'm asking about it. - It's entirely possible that none of the three systems have many two-player games we would like, in which case we'll hold off for a while. If you think that's the case, feel free to say so. (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 19th, 2009
4:41 pm	Media News - It's Better Than Working Yet Another Adaptation of a Doll: Barbie Yet Another Obscure Graphic Novel Adaptation: Mal Chance "tells the story of Lola, part of an ancient clan of assassins targeted for death by a powerful gangster. Her only recourse is to bring down the gangster's entire operation with the help of an honest FBI agent who is unaware of her true identity." The Exact Same Movie as A Bug's Life: The Movie "Leaf Men focuses on a troop of bugs that try to save a garden and need to battle an evil spider queen. The bugs turn to the mythical Leaf Men to help them." Dimension Studios to focus exclusively on unnecessary sequels and remakes Scream 4. Spy Kids 4. Halloween (remake) 3. Children of the Corn (remake). Hellraiser and Scanners sequels. Remakes to Short Circuit and An American Werewolf in London. If there's a pointless non-idea, Bob Weinstein is all over it. Also note that the kids from Spy Kids are now 17 and 21, so perhaps Spy Young Adults would be a better title. Noah's Ark: The Animated Movie I doubt it will include this scene, which will appear below in the unlikely event that the embed works: Also I tried to find the Far Side cartoon where Noah's on the ark saying something like "So much for the unicorns. From now on, all predators are confined to Deck C." But my google-fu was weak. Yet Another Remake: A Star is Born Insert your own joke about "A Star is Born-Again" and converting to Christianity here. Supermax "The story centers on a skilled prison guard who is re-assigned to Supermax. After a riot erupts, he must join forces with one of the prison's monstrous inmates in order to survive and fight his way out." Not to be confused with the entirely unrelated script Super Max, which is about the DC Comics hero The Green Arrow being wrongfully sent to prison. Hollywood's so afraid of ideas that on the rare occasions when they have them, I guess they feel the need to disguise them by giving them the same name as something else. Yet Another Video Game Movie: Spore I'm unfamiliar with the game. Variety describes it as "players create their own creatures and the worlds they live in and share them with other gamers to create an overall universe." Which sounds like it doesn't remotely have a plot. Of course it's possible for a good movie to be made about a unique creature and world. But the fact that they're moving forward without a script, writer, or even a vague idea as to what the hell this will be about tells you how likely that is. By the way, the article also mentions that they're working on a Sims movie, which is definitely in the top 5 dumbest movie ideas of all time (to date). The Sims is a game about people living their lives, which is vague enough that it could describe nearly any movie. How the hell do you adapt that? Answer: You don't. You just get funding from clueless companies that know nothing about movies and only care about the game's sales figures, then slap together a generic script at the last minute, with predictably terrible results. Yet Another Adaptation of Something That Doesn't Have a Story: The Future Is Wild: The Movie The Future is Wild is an animated documentary series where scientists speculate on what animals might look like 200,000,000 years in the future. That's not a story. I assume the movie will be set far in the future with crazy animals, and the only connection to the TV series will be that they used its name which some people have heard of to get funding. Also whatever scrape off their shoe for this could work equally well as a script for Spore, and vice-versa. Yet Another Obscure Comic Book Adaptation: Cla$$war "a political thriller that revolves around a super-soldier known as "the American," who discovers the sinister truth of the government program that created him and is forced to take on the rest of his super-powered team." Which sounds like an incredibly generic rip-off of a storyline that has appeared many times in Captain America, X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, and probably 50 other comic books. But it uses dollar signs instead of Ses, so that makes it edgy. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 16th, 2009
3:07 pm	The Onion Imitates Life It's funny because it's true: Vince Vaughn Appears On 'Tonight Show' To Deceive Country About Latest Film HOLLYWOOD, CA—Popular film actor Vince Vaughn appeared on NBC's Tonight Show Monday to brazenly and unapologetically deceive the American people about his latest movie, Couples Retreat. "It's a really funny movie, and I think people are going to enjoy it," lied the 39-year-old performer, knowing full well that he was misleading viewers into making a decision that was not in their best interests. "It's got something for everybody." Much more at the article. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
2:00 pm	Thought of the Day If in regard to any contentious issue you ever catch yourself thinking, "My side wants good stuff. Therefore, anyone who disagrees with my side wants bad stuff," that's a sure sign that you aren't thinking about the issue clearly. Both sides want good stuff. They just disagree on the best way to bring that about. If you don't already understand that, you're letting political bigotry trump logical reasoning. If you can't understand why people disagree with you about the best way to bring about good stuff (beyond a cartoonish assumption that anyone who disagrees with you is necessarily stupid and/or evil), that just means *you* haven't thought about it hard enough. Note that this applies to Democrats, Republicans, and independents. If you read this assuming it was only directed to people on the other side from you, it's time to re-examine your own political bigotry. (15 Comments |Comment on this)
1:18 pm	Softest... Schedule... Ever... Via non-LJer Nate comes this article about the Washington Redskins, who in the first six weeks of the season haven't played a team that's won a single game. In other words, every one of the first six teams they played was winless. Obviously that's not meaningful in the first game when their opponent was 0-0. And in this first game, the Redskins lost to the Giants, a good team. But since then, they've played the St. Louis Rams, Detroit Lions, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Carolina Panthers, and are playing the Kansas City Chiefs this weekend. In fact, even through today these five teams have a combined record of 2-22, with the only two wins coming against the Redskins themselves. The Redskins even lost to the Detroit Lions, who at that point had lost 19 straight games and are widely considered to be one of the worst teams in the history of major American sports. Living in DC for four years left me with a strong distaste for the Redskins and their fans, so I'm amused by this. (Comment on this)
Monday, October 12th, 2009
9:44 am	Attack of the Media News The A-Team movie is really happening They have a cast and a shooting schedule. Since this article came out, some of the movie gossip blogs have posted photos from the set. This makes me sad, because I'm sure they'll ruin what was one of my all-time favorite TV shows. Real Steel About robot boxing. As far as I know, the producers didn't pay any money to the makers of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, which makes them a hell of a lot smarter than the producers of Battleship. Automotive X-Prize - The Reality Show Penn & Teller: The Comedy Series Loosely based on their real lives, except in the show they'll be Las Vegas comedy-magicians by night, and private detectives by day. Really. It's a dumb idea, but they're entertaining enough that I'll give this show a shot. A sequel to the Sherlock Holmes movie that hasn't even come out yet Yet Another Unnecessary Remake: Highlander Facebook: The Movie Sweet Valley High: The Movie: Written by Diablo Cody (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 9th, 2009
4:46 pm	Chuck! According to some dude on Entertainment Weekly, NBC is strongly considering premiering the next season of Chuck later this month, rather next March as had been originally planned. Basically, the ratings on all the NBC shows they're airing now blow. So a show that barely got renewed at the last minute only thanks to a fan campaign to patronize its sponsor is now considered solid compared to all the other crap they're showing. And if it does vaguely well, they'll probably order more episodes than the 13 that were originally planned. Since Chuck is my favorite show currently on TV, I'm excited by this. To celebrate, here's a picture of Yvonne Strahovski looking hot: (7 Comments |Comment on this)
3:31 pm	(3 Comments |Comment on this)
9:59 am	Media News: The Revenge Yet Another Comic Book Adaptation: Lobo "He will be an indestructible, blue-skinned, 7-foot-tall and heavily muscled antihero who drives a pimped-out motorcycle and lands on Earth in search of four fugitives bent on wreaking havoc." All I know about Lobo is that I dimly remember a web-comic spoofing it 8 or 9 years ago, so I can't comment on the comic. But from the description, it sounds like some fanboy jerking off over how bad-ass this character is, without thinking about whether it makes a good movie. It seems like he would suffer from the Superman Problem: If he's indestructible, then the only way for the writers to create tension is by making his so stupid that he forgets his own powers. It will be directed by Guy Ritchie, who's made some good movies, but also made Swept Away. Yet Another Entirely Unnecessary Sequel: Big Momma's House 3 Yet Another Adaptation of Something With No Plot: Texts From Last Night: The Sit-Com It's possible that this might be non-terrible. My hope is that a producer developed a good idea for a sit-com, then realized he couldn't express why it would be good in monosyllabic terms. So to avoid scaring off network executives, he bought the rights to some random thing they'd heard of, and claimed it was an adaptation of that. In which case they're scamming the network, not the viewers. Kind of like how How I Met Your Mother is really a show about five funny people living in New York, and the search for the mother is just the gimmick they came up with to sell it to the network. It's from a writer on The Big Bang Theory, which started out dreadful, but eventually became pretty good. I don't know if this particular writer was more responsible for the dreadfulness or the goodness. One Less Crappy 80s Cartoon Adaptation: He-Man movie is killed Yet Another Remake: The Coen Brothers present True Grit starring Jeff Bridges Transformers crew members trash Megan Fox After Megan Fox wished for the genocide of everyone in flyover states and compared Michael Bay to Hitler (really), three anonymous crew members wrote a diatribe about how horrible she is to be around. (Some suspect this was secretly written by Michael Bay himself. I have no idea how likely that is.) It's somewhat entertaining to read. Also, for someone who can't act and lucked her way into being a big star based solely on Michael Bay giving her her big break, she sure is ungrateful. She may possibly be an even worse actress than Scarlet Johannson. At least Johannson was clever enough to convince people that clinical depression was the same thing as depth. Disneyland to finally update Star Tours ride It will be in 3-D, incorporate prequel characters, involve the vehicle being chased by Boba Fett, and have a pod-racing sequence. Click through for a YouTube trailer. Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy: The Movie Battleship: The Movie I've mentioned this before, but it's worth mocking again. Hasbro doesn't own the concept of battleships. Someone could make a movie about battleships without paying them a cent. They could even call it "Battleship" (though that's a pretty lame title and they could easily come up with something less generic), because Hasbro's trademark only extends to board games, not movies. So the studio just paid a bunch of money to Hasbro solely so they could claim that this original script was based on a game with no plot. Why? Aside from the fact that they're afraid of ideas. Details about the Harry Potter theme park I admit that I would certainly be interested in this, and it makes me a lot more likely to go to Universal Islands of Adventure when I ever get around to visiting Florida. (Which my wife and I have been vaguely planning on doing for several years.) (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
2:09 pm	Media News I'm coming pretty close to just declaring an amnesty on media news and jumping ahead a month to catch up. But I haven't given up yet. Yet Another Entirely Unnecessary Remake: Rob Zombie's The Blob Zombie says, ""My intention is not to have a big red blobby thing -- that's the first thing I want to change." So basically it's The Blob without the Blob. I suggest that they should call this movie, "The." Rambo 5 Disney buys Marvel This was all over the news and people's blogs a month ago when it happened, so I don't expect it to be news to most of you. I don't expect this to have much of an impact in the short term. Disney isn't just buying the rights to characters. They're buying the business that made those characters into successful, profitable movies. They'll let Marvel Studios keep doing what it does well, and just collect the profits. The same as they did when they bought Pixar. However, it's not necessarily a good bet in Hollywood to assume profit motives will beat out ego over the long term. At some point 5 or 10 years down the road Disney will have a new management team in place that will want to impose its will on Marvel (and Pixar). But then, who knows if Marvel would have continued to have good management in 5 or 10 years, so this could be good or bad. Also, don't expect to see any Mickey Mouse-Spider-Man crossovers like a lot of people were predicting. That's just silly. Warner Bros. has owned DC Comics for a long time, and you haven't seen Batman battling Wile E Coyote. Yet Another Obscure Comic Book Adaptation: Deadman Yet Another Remake: Fantastic Four That's right. A remake of a movie that came out four years ago. That's how afraid of ideas Hollywood has become. At this rate, they'll be remaking movies before they're even released. I'm not sure how that's possible or makes logical sense, but Hollywood is so desperate to avoid ideas that I'm sure they'll find a way. Yet Another Obscure Graphic Novel Adaptation: Cowboys and Aliens "Story is set in the Old West, where cowboys and Native Americans battle in Arizona -- until a spaceship crashes and a new enemy equipped with superior technology emerges." Directed by Jon Favreau and starring Robert Downey Jr. I thought Iron Man was the second-best superhero movie of all time, so I'm looking forward to this. On the other hand, this movie has been in development hell for 12 years. Usually there's a reason for a movie to get stuck in development hell, which is that the concept just doesn't work. And the final result tends to be a mess. For example, see Hancock. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
4:24 pm	Politics and Things That Have Nothing to Do With Politics Here's a fact that might surprise you: Rush Limbaugh is a huge fan of Apple products. Does that seem weird to you? I admit when I first heard it, it seemed strange. But upon further thought, this sentiment doesn't make any sense. There's no reason to expect political orientation to have any connection to taste in personal electronics. There are lots of reasons someone might prefer Apple products, none of the which have the slightest thing to do with whether someone's a Democrat or Republican. In fact I'd say the one factor that Apple fans have in common is that they're willing to pay more money for a product that they really want. Rush Limbaugh's a gajillionaire, so the price difference between Apple and its competitors is essentially meaningless to him. Even if you didn't know his electronics preferences, a rational analysis would suggest that it's more likely than not that he'd prefer Apple. Yet we have this prejudice that Apple products are somehow for liberals and not conservatives. Which when you think about it, is just as much dumb stereotyping as believing that only men can enjoy watching sports. And it's just as wrong. Even sillier than thinking it's weird that Rush Limbaugh likes Apple are those who are somehow offended by this fact. (You know those people exist.) These people are doubly engaging in absurd Us-vs-Them tribalism. First, they're deriving a sense of identity based on their taste in electronics. But then they're upset that someone who's part of the Them politics tribe dares to classify themselves as part of the Us electronics tribe. "We don't want any connection with Them! Get out of the Us tribe!" On a related note, check out this ridiculousness. Glenn Beck mentioned on his show that he enjoys the music of the band Muse, and the band demanded a retraction. That's just idiotic. There are lots of rational ways the band could have responded to an endorsement from someone whose politics they disagree with. They could have been polite and graciously thanked him, as he did them a huge favor by praising them to his millions of viewers. They also could have said something like "We don't agree with his politics, but we're glad that all sorts of different people can enjoy our music." They could have simply ignored it. If they felt like being rude ungrateful jerks, they could have said something like, "Oh yeah? Well we don't like you!" That would have been obnoxious, but at least it would be sensible. But demanding a retraction is flat-out absurd. A retraction would mean that Beck was somehow lying when he expressed his enjoyment of their music. The band simply can't conceive that a member of the Them politics tribe could belong to the Us music tribe, so they feel the need to insist that Beck's statement about his own tastes must have been untruthful. Which is both bigoted and dumb. Please note that nowhere in this post have I made any evaluations, either positive or negative, about the quality of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck's shows, Muse's music, or Apple's electronics. So there's no need for those of you who strongly like or dislike any of those things to start idiotic flamewars in the comments. [Edit:] Apparently Muse didn't actually demand a retraction. Glenn Beck made a joke about that, which some idiotic news station reported on as if it was true. Then a bunch of different sources (myself included) repeated this falsehood, because we didn't realize the news station was too dumb to tell the difference between a joke and reality. So ignore the entire second half of this post. I should have known better than to believe a "news" source that thought Muse allegedly demanding a retraction of a compliment was a good thing. I apologize for the confusion. More details here, and thanks to other for correcting me. (15 Comments |Comment on this)
1:03 pm	Best... Memo... Ever... This is [allegedly - for all I know it could be fake] a memo that Matt Stone wrote regarding edits made to the South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut film to address MPAA concerns and get an R rating. It's awesome. ( Contains NSFW language, but not pictures ) (Comment on this)
10:19 am	People Who Should Be Punched Whatever idiot at Microsoft came up with the feature of "We just installed new updates. We're going to interrupt what you're doing every 10 minutes to ask if you want to restart the computer, and automatically restart (without saving anything) if you don't tell us not to fast enough." I think the best part of that (using a nontraditional definition of "best") is that it doesn't work when you're logged out and no programs are running. It only does this when you're logged in and doing stuff, so as to be as inconvenient, annoying, and problem-causing as possible. I wonder if the guy at Microsoft who designed that feature tells all his friends he's a drug dealer just so he doesn't get beaten up on a daily basis. (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
7:15 pm	Explaining Football to Someone Who's Never Watched It Before A friend of mine who's never watched football before said she was interested in my wife and me teaching her how it works. Now, football is by far the most complicated major professional sport in the world. So I thought I would write something up and post it here. That way, other people who are curious about football could read it. And people who are knowledgeable about football can point out if I forgot to mention key pieces of information. Keep in mind this is meant to be Lesson 1: Things to Know Before Watching a Game. I'm not going to try to explain everything. I don't want to overwhelm her with too much information, and there are a lot of things that would be clearer once she's seen them. I'm sure when we watch a game together, we'll have to pause at least 30 times to clarify what's happening. But I first want to give her a basic framework so that she can have a vague understanding of what she's watching. For simplicity's sake, I'll used the Chargers and the Bears as example teams. So here goes: ( This is pretty long ) (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
3:46 pm	Roman Polanski's defenders Lately I've been obsessively reading about people's reactions to Roman Polanski. Not about Polanski himself. I don't understand how someone could say, "I think I'll rape a child now." But I also know that as a decent human being, I'll never understand it, so it's not worthwhile to try.* I've known for a long time that evil people will do evil things, and I don't consider that interesting so much as a sad fact of reality that I'm powerless to change. I try not to think too much about such things because, well, I'm powerless to change them and they make me sad. But what I am interested in are his apologists. Now, raping a child is one of the least defensible things imaginable, so it's fascinating to see the tortured rationalizations people will come up with to defend it. Of course any possible defense is trumped by pointing out that he raped a child, and is so obviously trumped by this that it's baffling to see people offering defenses at all. "The judge was going to give him a harsher sentence than he originally expected." It still would have been far too lenient for a child rapist. "But his wife was murdered and his mother died in the Holocaust." So you're saying anyone who's gone through tragedy gets free license to rape children? "That was 30 years ago." So child rape is okay as long as the pedophile rapist can evade justice long enough? "He's been punished enough." So 30 years of living like a king in Europe is a reasonable punishment for raping a child? "The victim wants to move on with her life." I'm sure she does, after all the horrific psychological effects of being raped as a child. Are you saying that makes raping a child okay? Of course all his defenders are carefully tip-toeing to avoid saying the obvious reason why they're defending him: They don't believe that either laws or standards of human decency should apply to the rich and famous. Do you really think they'd be trotting out these pathetic excuses if Roman Polanski was, say, a Catholic priest instead of an Academy Award winning director? Of course not. Scumbags like Whoopi Goldberg, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, and Alexander Payne see themselves as a modern aristocracy, and believe that laws and morality are for the little people. When a feudal lord abuses a serf/peasant/slave it might be seen as mildly distasteful, but certainly not worth making a big deal out of. I mean, it's not like the child he raped was someone important. And that's the essence of their point of view. Normal humans aren't worth anything. Only the glitterati matter. Keep that in mind if you ever consider giving any of these terrible people** any of your money. On the bright side, there aren't a whole lot of names on that list. There are few that I recognize, and even fewer that I respect. (Or more accurately, there are zero that I respect, since I can't respect anyone who condones child-rape. But there aren't a whole lot I respected before finding out that they're a pedophile-apologist.) Certainly a sense of entitlement is rampant among celebrities. But it's nice to know that for the overwhelming majority, at least it doesn't extend to believing it's okay for celebrities to rape children. *I know there are some decent people who are capable of understanding what makes monsters tick. I'm glad those people exist so they can advance the sciences of abnormal psychology and law enforcement. But I'm not one of them. **If anyone knows of a more updated list, please link to it. (19 Comments |Comment on this)