Geography FAIL

December 11, 2009

Have you heard the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid? That collaborative bit from the ’80s all about how poor Africans are starving and to think of them at Christmas time? That goes “Feed the world… let them know it’s Christmas time!” Sounds nice on the surface, and Lord knows idiots like my mom eat it up without a thought. But when you really look at it, the song is rife with profound ignorance about the place they are singing about.

Alexander Cohen covered this one well a couple years ago already, and I have to agree with everything he says there.

Look at these lyrics: “And there won’t be snow in Africa at Christmastime/ The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life./ Where nothing ever grows, no rain nor rivers flow./ Do they know it’s Christmastime at all?”
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Materialism

December 10, 2009

I’m just going to come out and ask this. Just what exactly is wrong with materialism? And, in order to really answer that, I must also ask: just what exactly is materialism?

In a little resistance to Black Friday and Christmas shopping in general, you get people self-righteously looking down their noses at the shoppers, sighing that the season has lost its spirit, that people are just materialistic and *gasp* want presents, and are thus slaves to corporations by buying into this whole gift thing, that gifts aren’t supposed to be what Christmas is about.

I talked about something similar already three years ago. Though that was more about specific presents and attitudes towards them. Right now I’m referring more generally.
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Founder’s Syndrome

December 9, 2009

Is that what the founders would have wanted?

Or, no, wait, I have a better question. Who gives a shit?

Well, a lot of people. Because to even the most self-proclaimed logical, reasonable people, often “it’s what the founders intended” is a perfectly sound argument. I mean, it’s really not different from saying “it says so in the Bible” or “it’s a tradition”, which just about anyone with half a brain would tell you is fallacious, but somehow whether something was the desire of some revered founder is a perfectly valid question.

It is of course seen most often when discussing our country’s Founding Fathers. Is a particular law unjust? Of course it is. Why? ZOMG, Thomas Jefferson said so!
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Thirty Second Pissing Contest

December 8, 2009

You know what I’m sick of? Commercials that are basically nothing but a pissing contest between two rival companies. You get pretty much no actual information about their products. Just basically “the other guy sucks ass!” I mean, true, that’s about what advertising is, but it seems to be less about advertising and more about expensively airing a stupid spat.

I know right now we’re all thinking of the same spat. Microsoft vs. Mac. The “I’m a PC” crap versus the “I’m a Mac” crap. The Mac ads with the conversation with the “hip, young Mac” against the “old stuffy PC”, so they’re at least mildly ageist. And the PC ads all like “Macs are expensive and shitty, lulz”. Goddamn, STFU both of you.

It’s bad enough our entertainment is being interrupted to view these things, but they also are mindnumbing.
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One Truth Prevails… Nobody Thinks Much of Americans

December 7, 2009

My favorite anime is “Case Closed”, about brilliant 17-year-old detective Jimmy Kudo who got poisoned and transformed into his 7-year-old self under the pseudonym Conan Edogawa, and is living with his girlfriend Rachel and her detective father Richard (coughElectraComplexcough) though they don’t know who he really is, and when Richard is trying solve a case, which he never can because he’s a dumbass, Conan knocks him out with a tranquilizer dart and uses his bowtie gadget to mimic his voice and solve the case for him. It’s basically several hundred episodes of that, with everybody acting like Richard is so brilliant even though never noticing he’s unconscious and that his lips aren’t moving and that he never remembers solving anything. Haha.

Anyway, since the show is of course originally made in Japan, and only about a quarter of the total episodes have even been reversioned into English so far, I figured some things besides language must have changed. Names like Jimmy and Rachel and Richard sounded a bit English.

Yeah, looked it up, just as I figured. In the original Japanese version, Jimmy is Shinichi, Rachel is Ran, and Richard is Kogoro, as well as a lot of other differences in other characters’ names. The only one that’s the same is Conan Edogawa, but that’s because in the second episode he made it up on the spot from Arthur Conan Doyle and Ranpo Edogawa after glancing at some books on a nearby shelf.
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Water Levels

December 6, 2009

Is there some rule that when you’re playing any video game, water levels just always suck? Maybe it’s that for the first while in the game, you get used to the regular dry land controls of the character, only to fall into the lake or ocean to have everything change on you. Not to mention you often lose some abilities that aren’t made up for in any way.

In the early Mario games, you obviously lose the jumping attack and can’t attack anything underwater unless you’ve got the Fire Flower. In SMB 3, you can’t even use your raccoon tail, but at least in SMB World they corrected that with the cape. SMB 3 has the Frog Suit, which enables you to swim against the current and more easily in general, except it has absolutely no offensive qualities whatsoever.

In some games, the controls for underwater maneuvering are just so odd that you can barely move your character around, and in cases where you need to move quickly, you’re in for near-homicidal levels of frustration. The Crash Bandicoot games are particularly bad with this.

Then there are water levels where you aren’t really underwater, but rather the water keeps rising and falling as you progress through it, and you need to stay the hell out of the water at all costs, whether because there’s something that thinks you’re delicious (SMB 3) or because you’ll drown (Bubsy). Those levels can go to hell.

So can all water levels.

So can you, for that matter.

Time on Your Hands

December 5, 2009

Now for an idle, judgmental edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

People who use the profoundly asinine phrase “You have way too much time on your hands” or any variation thereof. It always crops up when someone demonstrates any amount of knowledge or not-so-important accomplishment that would require a lot of time devoted to it, or would at least seem like it. The knowledge or accomplishment may or may not be something trivial, or maybe just something the other person doesn’t like or understand. Usually it’s when someone thinks hard about something that in the grand scheme of things may seem unimportant.
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Delivery Exception

December 4, 2009

FedEx is so goddamn stupid.

So at work the other day, I had to send an envelope to some people in Canada. Went onto FedEx website, filled in the shipment form like I’ve done a zillion times before, and dropped it in the box downstairs.

The next day, I get the Delivery Exception email that the address was incorrect. -_-
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Grown Up Christmas List

December 3, 2009

Now for a festively ageist version of…

YOU SUCK!!!!

I’ve griped about certain Christmas songs many times before, and will surely continue to do so even long after I’m dead. So here’s another whose creator I’d like to throw screaming into the middle of the ocean.

This song is “Grown Up Christmas List”. Just the title threw up some red flags to die-hard pro-youth me. Then at some point I actually heard the song and listened to the lyrics. Yup, I’d say those red flags are quite warranted. :irked:

Basically, the song is about someone asking Santa for wars to never start, for everyone to have a friend, for love to never end. Hmmm… that sounds very nice actually. I can get on board with that. It’s a very nice song.

However! One little problem which completely ruins it and makes it not the lovely song it could be but downright objectionable. Remember that title? Yeah, the idea is that this person is asking Santa for all these nice things, as opposed asking for toys or other material things. In other words, material items are things kids ask for, but adults want nicer things like peace and love and whatnot. Because, naturally, kids are inherently selfish and just want lots of toys.

Oh, boy, yet another example of yuletide hatred of children.

Go fuck yourself with a crucifix, Amy Grant.

Inaction of Grace

December 2, 2009

So last week on Thanksgiving, I was at my family’s house and we were sitting down for our turkey dinner, which was late because Thanksgiving dinner really shouldn’t be served when it’s dark outside unless it’s the second one of the day. My mom is the type of person who doesn’t know shit about religion but clings to certain aspects for no other reason than “you’re supposed to”, which I suppose fits her right in with a good 95% of the world’s population. So when all of us are sitting at the table, she starts to say a prayer of thanks, and my dad puts his head down, too. My brother and I, on the other hand, are having no part of it. I just went ahead and kept eating, and he didn’t join in since he saw I wasn’t. My mom noticed he didn’t and was all like “why didn’t you pray?” and he’s like “Katrina didn’t either!”
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