We're a geek culture podcast and blog covering video games, music, food and more. We are the kinds of people who evangelize whatever we are into - it could be anything - but it's usually pretty geeky.
While preparing for an upcoming trip this week I created a checklist of things to do. Some items were specific to travel but most were part of the weekly routine that involves feeding not only my own mouth but also those of a few cold-blooded accomplices that have managed to stick around over a decade of constant relocation.
My current digs are in the same locale I grew up in so the choice of where to acquire the premium of gut-loaded insects was a simple one. I'd be paying a visit to the independently owned pet store not only marked as one of the older establishments in the area but also as the very first distant destination I was permitted to bike to as a child. It had supplied me well on and off for the last 14 years whether I was there to gawk with my GT Performer inverted out on the sidewalk or I needed to special order a questionable toad. As time passed I'd buy crickets from the same guy that sold me that one tarantula I had to get rid of while in college or the lizard that once escaped for an entire winter break only to somehow re-emerge fatter than when he vanished.
The list grew shorter and I eventually pulled in to the pet store's lot as I had literally hundreds of times before. Upon arrival, however, I was not greeted by the oddly satisfying view of windows plastered with faded vendor stickers and condensed seawater but instead with the harsh contrasting colors of BUSINESS FOR SALE signs.
I blinked a few times as a random minivan swerved, cutting through yellow lines of the crosswalk despite the moron standing there staring up in confusion.
I've scoured Pricegrabber for years and typically allow a few days of web crawling when seeking the best deal for just about anything. I've clipped coupons, mailed in rebates, and traded in the old to offset the new while taking an intense pleasure in skipping from stone to stone across the swift rivers of commerce both electronic and physical.
This was different.
If ever there were a brick and mortar location I'd pledge loyalty to this was it. I'd been genuinely sad when the store cat, a multi-colored behemoth named Monty that would unexplainably sit on my foot for pleasure, came up missing. Even while working in a competing pet store all through high school each week would end with me stopping by for dozens of crickets at full price. This place and I, we had a history.
Truth told this wasn't completely unexpected; I've watched countless local places trampled either by the fickle economy or links of ever-expanding chain stores, but it was the response the owner gave as to why he thought that pet stores in general were on the decline that I found the hardest stomach.
posted by Chris on September 11, 2008 9:25 AM in Rant
This discussion probably requires tons more academic research and thinking than my anectodal mind is capable of, but this is something that's been on my mind as of late. I am not an adult. I freely admit this. I am not a child, either. I've been called a man-child before, but that description has more of a negative connotation than my lifestyle indicates. I have a pretty good job, I pay my bills, and I've accomplished quite a lot in the short time I've had on Earth so far. While the label "Adult" itself isn't necessarily important, it is important to note that the idea of "adulthood" has changed drastically in this last generation. Granted, these definitions change every generation, but I am of the opinion that we are in the beginning of a new golden age of sorts and we need to accept and embrace change, and redefine who we are in order to succeed and live fulfilling lives. It feels like there is this ambient wave of depression washing over our generation as we struggle to fit into this world, a rampant fatalism that leads to excess and is more focused on the self rather than society as a whole. Is this from a lack of maturity? Are we all just stunted adults, forever doomed to be children and will that drive our society into the ground? I am of course specifically referring to geeks. We're nuts about toys, video games, cartoons and other "childish" pursuits. We are driven by nostalgia, but I wonder if it's just a need to escape to simpler times or a change in the way we define adulthood.
Times are tough. We are mired in one of the most convoluted bullshit wars modern history has known. My whole adult life so far has seen George W. Bush as the commander-in-chief. The world is feeling the strain from having so many humans on it, and global warming and other fears are weighing on the shoulders of society. Life sucks and living in a time when all your concerns surrounded the fate of a rotund plumber in blue overalls is highly preferable to the realities of now. But I don't think it's just the need for escapism that has thrown the modern geek's pursuits into the mainstream but our generation's ability to network. We are very comfortable with the internet and social technologies in general. In the past people would correspond with old friends infrequently, sending letters or making irregular phone calls and yearly visits. Perhaps you had a local club to go to in order to pursue a hobby, and television fed you news nightly. Now we can be connected with friends constantly through instant messages. Our local clubs have become communities on the web, and our news is fed to us from the angry fire hose that is an RSS reader. More than that, there's a new sort of ambient presence fueled by Twitter. With Twitter (and Facebook, to a lesser extent) you can be kept up to date with the minutae of every single one of your friends' lives. A single tweet about making a sandwich doesn't mean much, but a day's worth of tweets and you have painted a picture of what occupies your time. I know which one of my friends is currently traveling and where, which friends are ill and are staying at home. Who is bored and who is busy, who is having a good day and who is having a bad one. I can instantly comfort a friend who needs it, and things like event planning is a breeze when we are all connected. It's just normal to us. We are almost a hive mind and handle it with savvy.
I think that we are very much adults, though some may call us childish. Sometimes our pursuits show a kind of narcissism which can be perceived as negative, however. Fewer of us are choosing to have children, which I think is not the best thing for society as a whole. While we can be immature, we are also often thoughtful, intelligent people. We have an awareness and breadth of knowledge the world has never known and to pass that on to a new generation is an exciting prospect.
Maybe that's what makes you an adult. Perhaps it's when you finally decide to put yourself aside and focus on the life of a small human in your care. The label doesn't matter, anyway. Every generation experiences change such as this, and the differences between who is an adult and who is a child have always been varied. For now, though, I think I'm happy being stuck inbetween.
posted by SecksCab on September 4, 2008 1:06 PM in Rant
The Weekly Geek doesn't get political often, but it should be said that we're all progressive (we don't use the slur term "Liberal" that Bush Sr. invented). Since we're also a blog, we occasionally see things that normal media don't, and I found this on Youtube this morning and am shocked it isn't plastered all over the news. Sarah Palin, praying for a pipeline (since those only go to Christians, apparently).
Oy.
What is worse? A sincere Fundie or an insincere Fundie?
This episode of The Mind Boggleth isn't devoted to a central theme, as it's been a fairly busy week here at Seckscab Inc. I was recently "released" from my job as a picture framer, only to find another identical job at a different outfit, so I have a few weeks unpaid vacation between jobs. This is the advantage of having a skilled trade, I imagine. Somebody, somewhere, is going to need my services at any given time. Picture framing is hardly strenuous work, it's fairly tedious and requires a lot of fine motor skills and attention to detail, so not many people stick with it long enough to learn the details of the job. Add into it the reality that there aren't any colleges who teach picture framing as a major (I had a few seminars in college about general gallery prep, but nothing really specific to how to put the frames together) and I suddenly realize, at the age of 28, that I finally have something to trade goods and services for monetarily.
It's a good feeling, and I suggest to anybody, like me, who hates desk jobs and hates labor work to find a niche service and learn it by rote. Your brain becomes detached from the job and you're free to have remarkable flights of fancy in your head while slaving away, and you develop a sincere case of bipolar syndrome. Not only am I the president of Insane Niche Trade Destined To Drive You To Drink Club For Men, I'm also a member!
While I'm enjoying these few weeks off, I settled in to play the newest installment in the Final Fantasy Ivalice Alliance series, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2. When we last left Ivalice Alliance, Vaan and Penelo were in an annoying Warcraft real time combat environment that involved summoning everything under the sun to kill bosses that are infinitely more powerful than your characters will ever be. If you kill them, it's generally through a combination of luck combined with sheer balls-out lack of strategy.
I was surprised, quite surprisingly, too, in the depth of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2, especially since the first FFTA annoyed the ever loving shit stones out of me. FFTA2 is still annoying at times, but it seems to be of superior mettle. The main plot is far too child-friendly for most adults to get enthralled with (something about an evil clan that wants to rule Ivalice by use of some crazy dimensional rift thing... I dunno, you tell me). What really seals the deal is not the main plot but the various subplots that weave back and forth over 300 quests to build an incredibly funny, character rich, almost Cervantes-esque series of episodes.
One plot arc, possibly my favorite plot arc in anything ever, involves bringing various potions and thingums to a zombie who is trying to commit suicide. If you know the Final Fantasy universe at least in a rudimentary way, the undead are harmed by "White Magic", which is anything that heals HP or MP to living creatures. The plot brings back the suicidal zombie several times, and you get to learn her little story and eventually find a way to bring her back to life, at which point you win a new super-character with lots of love in it. Another plot arc, involving a rival clan from another country who doesn't understand the rules of Ivalice's judge system, moves into your turf and tries to take it over, mafia style.
All in all, if you are a gamer that likes a good laugh and building your characters with the care and attention of a Pokemon Trainer, FFTA2 is your best bet. If you're one of those burly manly-men over at the Xbox playtesting who demand bigger guns, it's maybe not for you. I dunno, I like my games cute and without much depth that I can come back to again and again and check in to see how my d00ds are. FFTA2 fits that bill. I've still got 150 quests to go, even after beating the main plot. I can't wait to unlock them all.
On a complete different note, somebody sent me a link to the Vatican Gift Shop, which offers a peculiar service. Anything can be blessed by the Pope himself for no extra charge, as long as you bought it from them. The gift shop sells enough religious shlock to raise Martin Luther from the dead in rage, but the kicker is that you can have a mousepad bearing adorable Botticelli cherubs BLESSED BY THE POPE. Imagine taking that one to the office on a Monday. And then imagine me as both of your snarky coworkers.
YOU: "Hey guys, my mousepad has been blessed by the Pope. I have signed certificate that says so!"
COWORKER #1: That must be a clerical error!
COWORKER #2: What a nun sequiter!
COWORKER #1: A goddamn cloisterfuck, that's what it is.
COWORKER #2: What'd he do? Wimple out?
COWORKER #1: You're not making this a habit, are you?
COWORKER #2: Quit this bull and take some collars! We can't be Latin starting this Mass of work we've got!
YOU: That last one didn't quite work out.
COWORKER #2: Cardinal since when do I care?
And, lastly, from blessings to blasphemies, we here at the Weekly Geek get a lot of emails begging us to plug shlock. Sometimes it's useful, like when Chris got free beanbag chairs and then forgot to write an article about them, or when Qais got an "intimate massager" and the only thing we heard about it later was a slight buzzing sound as he walked by, here at the palatial Weekly Geek Plaza. That said, probably the worst, least informed attempt at a Plugola/Payola was this week, as a porn site offered us free admittance if we linked them.
Chris runs a tight ship, as well as tight pants, and he tries to keep things as PG-13 as possible. Why he lets me, with a terminal case of Tourette's FUCK ASS COCK, write is beyond me. Still, I'll be damned if he lets me review a porn site on the Weekly Geek.
Trust me, I asked if I could. I explained that it is engaging, well designed and has some of the hottest barely legal vaginas in hardcore scenes with big black studs that will BLOW YOUR MIND, but he would have none of it. He was simply adamant, like the members of the biggest stars the porn industry could summon on the very self-same site, but there was nothing doing. And doing is what they specialize! Lots of doing! Doing it in every position, variation and costume you sick little perverts could possibly get off on!
I just hope they use a condomine patrias et sancte filias.
A phrase you hear uttered by at least one voice in the crowd whenever a movie is adapted from a beloved work of fiction. Novels, comic books, video games, no matter what the source material there's always dissent. The long-time fans come out of the woodwork to frantically stake their claim as the Originals. The Ones Who Knew About It First. There's a bit of selfishness there, almost a protectiveness being displayed. Books and video games are much more of an engrossing, personal experience than film and the depiction of narrative that plays out in your head is as intimate as one can get. When a big-name director and hotshot actors get attached to the movie adaptation of a favorite, it can be jarring. Fear of mangling the source material. Fear of not giving the material the respect it deserves. And maybe a little bit of fear that the movie version will be entirely different than the version you saw in your head. That disconnect is so loathsome to fans they'd do anything to stop it. And by "anything" I mean angrily posting on message boards. And by "stop it" I mean annoy the shit out of people.
There's nothing wrong with enjoying a movie adaptation. There, I said it. Breathe a sigh of relief, fellow nerds! You don't have to act elitist in the face of mainstream movie-goers anymore!
Take Watchmen as an example. This twenty-some-odd year old story has been read and re-read and obsessed over by fans. It's on the Time Magazine Top 100 Novels of all time list, which tells you something. Not "graphic novels", mind you. Novels. It's good. Really good. Incredible, in fact. I just picked up the trade paperback version and read it for the first time this week and it's already one of my absolute favorites, no hyperbole. I am intensely excited for the movie adaptation, which is being shot by the director of 300 in a similar frame-by-frame comic to film approach. Mixed feelings pervade the internets about this adaptation. Some fear it's going to be just another summer blockbuster action movie, failing to display the true gamut of emotions, the sheer gravitas of a world filled with flawed superheroes with everyday problems. Making a Watchmen movie is like, well, making a Lord of The Rings movie. There's so much that would be lost in translation. Watchmen relies heavily on its literary style, on you as the reader becoming engrossed in the words and intimately relating to the characters one by one, chapter after chapter. Even writer Alan Moore has stated he wants nothing to do with the movie, nor does he plan on watching it. What an asshole.
"Nothing is any good if other people like it." It's an indie rock and nerd mantra that I admit I often live by. But movie adaptations of excellent works are inevitable. Why not embrace that fact and treat these films as companion pieces to the greater work? Why not get upset when action figures are created or t-shirts made? Why not take it as a whole and use it to personally enrich your experience and understanding?
One of the things I love to do is to pick apart a story and relentlessly analyze tidbits of mythos. To piece together the puzzle of characters and plot and, ultimately, pick out the differences between book and film. The best fiction is able to engage everyone depending on how much you want to engage with it. From Lost to Shakespeare there's a perfect balance of highbrow and lowbrow content. You can enjoy the weirdness of the island and chat about how Kate and Sawyer are toooooootally made for each other - or you can decipher intricate codes and maps to delve deeper into the mysteries they've laid out for you. Or you can just marvel at how dreamy Sawyer is. How dreamy? SO dreamy.
Shakespeare liked to write fart jokes and add gore to fill the front rows of the Globe with commoners. The cheap seats. In the back were the intelligentsia, silently appreciating the literary tapestry unfolding between bloody sword fights and bawdy displays of machismo and lust. It's classic. It works and it is fantastic.
The fact of the matter is that as fans we want to evangelize what we believe to be truly good while still maintaining the integrity of the product. It's contradictory in a way: we want to keep these things as our own yet we still want to share our enthusiasm with the rest of the world. When it comes down to it we're all just insecure. Who cares if the whole world knows and loves a mainstream version of Middle-Earth, or a watered-down Watchmen? No matter how exposed our favorite works get, it doesn't change how we feel about them. We should learn to appreciate the fact that more people are being exposed to great works of fiction every day.
And hey, if they like the movie maybe they'll read the book.
Jesus McGreesus. With what is quite possibly the most retarded news item of the last decade, ABC News officially declares itself to be the enemy of sanity. That's right, parents. Your kids might be listening to MP3s right now, MP3s that support the drug trade that supports terrorism!! That's right! BINAURALS!!!!1
"Or, go to YouTube. You'll see videos of teens experimenting with digital drugs. You can decide for yourself if binaural beats induce drug-like effects."
That's right, parents. Press your legislators to outlaw something that YOU CAN DECIDE FOR YOURSELF IF IT ACTUALLY WORKS. While you're at it, let's get placebos outlawed, since sugar pills are made out of sugar and might actually give you cavities.
Seriously, ABC News has really reached the bottom of the barrel with this one. Not only do Binaurals not work, but they're not even an illegal commodity. I suspect this might be an RIAA-plant article, since they haven't had a good "Illegal downloading supports Al-Quaeda" article in some time.
Seriously, d00ds. Try harder or we'll slip some Heroin Binaurals into the overhead music they play at K-Mart, just to see what happens. We can do that, you know. We are Anonymous.
This past weekend, Jinny and I fulfilled our collective destiny to be the last two people in Seattle to see The Dark Knight. A few factors contributed to our lateness in maintaining geek status quo by absorbing media as fast as the companies can sling it at us: we wanted to see it at IMAX and the IMAX showings at Pacific Science Center have been sold out for most of August, and we both greatly despise the current state of the theater experience. A venue has to offer us something unique to drag us away from our fancy HDTV and 5.1 surround setup at home. Where we can pause the action to go to the bathroom or get a drink. Where we can watch the movie with subtitles so we never miss a line of dialog. Where we don't have to worry about people around us talking or incessantly chewing popcorn. Ever chewing. Ever munching.
The Dark Knight? Amazing. You already knew that. Heath Ledger was incredible as the force of nature that is the Joker, Aaron Eckhart was compelling and sympathetic as Harvey Dent and Christian Bale's Bat-Lisp annoyed the crap out of me. The IMAX scenes were well-worth it: high-altitude shots of Hong Kong and Gotham, breathtaking and enormous in scope. Stadium seating and a 6 story screen meant even the most comically tall hat couldn't impede our sight. Snacks were overpriced as always but in my opinion you just can't watch a movie in the theater without Sour Patch Kids. It just doesn't happen.
This experience was special not only because of the film format or the venue, but because it was the first movie we'd seen in the theater for about half a year. The Pacific Science Center's IMAX Theater showed me that going to the movies doesn't have to be a painful experience, but there can always be improvements. This made me think: what would my ideal movie theater experience be like? I know there are some venues around that offer this stuff, but I think that the big theaters would do well to adapt some of these ideas to boost sales and not have to keep increasing ticket prices. At the very least it would bring me back on a regular basis.
Assigned seats would be nice. Being able to nab 6 seats in a row for you and your friends would save the frustration of walking into a darkened theater and trying to find a spot that would accommodate your group. Even with just two people this would be a great benefit.
A personal listening device would be neat. Being able to focus on the movie when there's people around you making random noises would be awesome. Imagine if you could have a little headphone jack in the arm rest of your seat (like in an airplane) that you could use in addition to the main sound system. You'd still get the booming bass and surround sound, just with the added benefit of being able to ignore the giant blob man next to you who is enjoying his popcorn a little too much.
Maybe I'm missing out on the social aspect of going to see a movie. Perhaps the big draw is being around other humans and sharing the experience with a large group of random strangers. I just don't see the appeal when it comes to the large-chain movie theaters. I'd much rather wait until the movie is out on DVD, where I can pop open a beer, eat dinner and be terrified of the Joker all from the comfort of my own couch.
What would you suggest to help improve the movie going experience?
posted by SecksCab on August 8, 2008 6:16 AM in Rant
If you're reading this on Friday, August 8, 2008, then you will be happy to know that you are not dead due to a man-made black hole sucking you, and the rest of the solar system and surrounding environs, into oblivion. Yesterday, or tomorrow, as I'm writing this, the CERN Large Hadron Particle Collider was turned on for the first time.
First off, this thing is ENORMOUS. It's a 17 mile tube, with the price tag of 6.4 BILLION EUROS. Since Euros are super expensive incomprehensible moon moneys, that's like a billion trillion zillion dollars. Hadron collider? More like HARD-ON collider.
Of course, the likelihood of a black hole forming is extraordinarily remote. Vegas chances are that we'll survive and nothing will have happened. Worst case scenario, Switzerland is evaporated. But will we miss Switzerland?
Let us explore this idea a little further.
- I have never met anyone from Switzerland, or anyone who has personally encountered anybody from Switzerland. I have met somebody who has met Rick Steves, who has been to Switzerland, but Rick Steves is a ginger with eyes that are a bit too close together. I think he's one of the Lizard People, or possibly a Weasley. Maybe both.
- History books are full of countries that do shit. France had Napoleon, Italy had Mussolini, heck, even Belgium has Tintin and Belgium is a completely arbitrary made up nation that exists solely out of certain treaties that were signed after a "war" consisting of twenty people armed with pointy sticks. The fact is that war makes history, not particle colliders, nor, for that matter, the Calvinists. The only thing Switzerland has ever contributed to mankind was Calvinism, and we can all see how that turned out.
- When was the last time you said to your loved one, "Loved one, let's order out for Swiss?" Exactly.
QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM: Switzerland does not exist, except on the Platonic conceptual level, in the same way that love and justice and freedom and George Lucas exist, i.e. they are simply words we made up to describe things that are ephemeral at best, laughably void from our lives at worst.
If you're reading this, and if we survive our impending doom, then Switzerland suddenly has something that proves it exists after all. This is a harrowing thought. What other things may exist that we never had proof of before?
I have considered this possibility, and it occurs to me that the last horizon is not space travel, nanotechnology or particle physics. The last horizon is the Christian Science Reading Room, four words that do not, in any way, describe what is inside those innocuous doors. There is no Christianity, no Science, little to read and more than one room. Furthermore, nobody ever goes in, nobody ever comes out. It's the religious equivalent of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.
There could literally be anything behind those doors. ANYTHING.
There could be a Victorian style opium den of vice in there. There could be a child porn ring that puts Jeffrey Jones' basement to shame. There could be Jimmy Hoffa, Amelia Earheart, Resurrection Mary and Don Knotts back there.
We just don't know.
So, if you're reading this, congratulations on not being vaporized. There's an end to a Lifetime Exclusive Movie of the Week for you.
Welcome to the return of The Mind Boggleth! Every Friday you will be treated to rants, screeds and tirades against society courtesy of the mad mind that is Max Brooks. No, not THAT Max Brooks. Enjoy. --Chris
I recently renewed my membership at Hollywood Video, because I just like the visceral experience of going somewhere, something I rarely do these days, what with Netflix, Youtube and the liquefied food hose I just had installed (they just pump it straight from KFC to my arterial veins, it's pretty sweet; only $60 a month for continual life support, and no need to brush my teeth anymore!). I decided that I actually prefer a video store. Hollywood Video is pretty good at getting rarer DVDs these days, and have recently installed a new "Arthouse Basement" section that amuses me to no end because I can think of exactly two things wrong with that title, but it's a gimmick that works.
They've separated "Arthouse Basement" in very small genres, such as "Foreign - European", "Foreign - Asian", "Gay and Lesbian Friendly" (also known as "Foreign - Australia"), "Animation" (changed from "cartoons" after the Otaku apparently threw a hissy fit, throwing John Kricfalusi from the top of a cathedral in the process) and "Cult Classics", which was always in Hollywood Video in the first place, just over next to "Special Interest", which is where they put the concert DVDs. All this subdivision of genre got me thinking about other, smaller, yet equally important genres that perhaps need their own space on the shelf.
CAR MOVIES: These are generally not Dramas or Comedies, they've been filed under "Action/Adventure" for decades, but I think the Car Movie is it's own genre, and the qualifier is pretty simple. If a movie's content is 75% car chases, people talking about cars, or cars killing people, it goes in "Car Movies". Naturally, this includes 90% of Steve McQueen and James Garner's repertoire, everything involving Jason Statham, and "Christine". Also, did you know that 1/10th of all Pixar movies are about cars? It's true. That's a commanding percentage.
PEOPLE IN SPACE MOVIES: I've always been torn about Sci-Fi. On the one hand, you have some really deep, philosophical, introspective movies that challenge conventional thinking ("2001: A Space Odyssey", "Logan's Run", "Gattaca", etc.), while the rest of Sci-Fi is just Star Wars inspired dreck that tries to sell you on Joseph Campbell somehow being more than a racist nerd who really liked Dairy Queen porn. "Universal Hero" my ass, Campbell. It's lazy writing and even lazier film making. Still, I think that if we remove all the "People in Space" movies from the Sci-Fi section, you maybe could separate the wheat from the chaff, theoretically. Also, while we're at it, let's move the Fantasy section further away from the Sci-Fi section, maybe across the street and into the Android's Dungeon. "Lord of the Rings" is great and all, but Fantasy is a realm reserved for genuine freaks.
On a side rant, I've given up tabletop gaming and anything fantasy related. In a world where John McCain is theLEAST DYSFUNCTIONAL AND INSANE Republican candidate possible, the need for fantasy in my life has diminished. We're living the dream, folks. This is it. Sauron has turned his eye toward the Shire, and us hobbits are about to get steamrolled.
Dueling MAGICIANS: A newcomer to the "Smaller Genre" world, the Dueling Magician movie may perhaps go down as the defining genre of the 2000s, in the same way that Blaxploitation only happened in the 70s and "Starring Seth Green" only happened in the 90s. Films such as "The Prestige", "The Illusionist", Mitchell and Webb's "Magicians" and the latest Quentin Tarantino masterpiece: "Bonzo the Clown vs. The Amazing Anzelini On The Moon". These films have built an exciting world of magic, intrigue and Doug Henning into a new standard. Scientists estimate that by 2009, nearly 30% of all films shot in Hollywood will be about dueling magicians. The other 70% will be sequels to superhero films.
VINCENT PRICE STARING OBSESSIVELY AT A PORTRAIT OF HIS DEAD WIFE: I know, it sounds like a crazily obscure genre, this genre fills up exactly 100% of Vincent Price's career. Films like "The Abominable Dr. Phibes", "Tomb of Ligeia", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "House on Haunted Hill" and "Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle" have brought us exactly what we, as an audience, demand: nothing but Vincent Price staring obsessively at a portrait of his dead wife. If a formula isn't broken, don't fix it. Keep hacking at it, until it is sublime perfection.
NAZI MOVIES: With all the movies about the Holocaust, it's sort of silly that a few people still believe it never happened. There has been so damn many movies about the Nazis and the Holocaust that it's become a cottage industry, or as the Germans call it, cottagenbrickdermakenzegeschelleshaft.
The Weekly Geek is less a blog and more a podcast, this much is true. I completely admit that my little rants here and there on this site are the equivalent of the Tom Jones that's playing over the speakers at the grocery store. You're not there to listen to Tom Jones, you're there to buy rutabagas. Why are you buying rutabagas? I don't know. What's a rutabaga, anyway? I don't know. I don't know a damn thing about rutabagas. It's just a fun word to type.
Rutabaga, rutabaga, rutabaga.
So, ultimately, as far as the Weekly Geek's blog goes, it's here for your convenience while you wait for the podcast to download. A crunchy, sesame flecked breadstick before the Baloney Alfredo that is Mack and Caspian. Would madame prefer some FRESHLY CRACKED PEPPER? Would sir enjoy FRESHLY GRATED PARMESAN? Would Her Majesty gasp wistfully at some FRESHLY BUTTERED HAGFISH CUBES?
While the Weekly Geek's Blog is just a side dish, there are, believe it or not, blogs that exist solely for the pleasure of blogging alone. Self-induced bloggery is a disease and a scourge upon the urban landscape, somewhere between prostitution and those embroidered jeans with pseudo-Victorian motifs on them. Blogs like Perez Hilton and Ain't It Cool News are essentially shill-magnification zones, the rebirth of the Payola Scandals of the 1950s.
If you aren't aware of the Payola Scandals, they worked a bit like this: Record Company A would come to Radio Show Host B, and offer Radio Show Host B several hundred dollars to play one of Record Company A's records over and over again until the public had no choice but to accept it as a required purchase on their next record buying trip. This was, of course, the days before iPods and mp3s, so if a record was being pushed heavily by the record company, your Montgomery Wards or J.C. Penney's or Wilburson-Cockshit-on-Cam's would stock it by dearth of knowing that it was being played so often on the radio.
The Payola system explains why Buddy Holly became famous. I know I'm going to get hundreds (well, maybe one) of hate mails about this, but Buddy Holly was, and still is, the worst singer/songwriter of all time. Buddy Holly is to singing/songwriting what leprosy is to a Fourth of July Barbecue. Thank GOD he died in that plane crash. He fucking deserved it. As he currently burns in Hell for his crimes against humanity, we can all be thankful that Congress took the Payola problem into their own enormously chubby and checkered hands, and outlawed it.
Still, the Payola system lives on, in the so-called NEW MEDIA. NEW MEDIA must always be capitalized, because NEW MEDIA is here to stay. Basically, in the NEW MEDIA Payola, the Payola is even easier than it ever was, because bloggers are generally amateurs who have day jobs, and therefore, no dignity. Whereas before the NEW MEDIA, people who reviewed media were called "critics" and generally had doctorates or war correspondent credentials or very large hats, "critics" these days are rarely actually critical of anything at all, and hopelessly fawning over whatever they're given for free.
A few years ago, the decision was made that E-3 would restrict it's invite-only system to make it much more difficult for bloggers to attend, and the bloggers threw an unholy fit about it. I find it interesting that E-3 has to restrict attendance, whereas the Adult Industry Convention in Las Vegas actually SELLS tickets, and people who are otherwise completely passively associated with the "adult industry" (i.e. they've certainly been on a few covers, and interior pages, if you know what I mean) have no problem getting in. E-3, however, is different, and exceedingly exclusive, and this works to the favor of the gaming companies, because a ticket to E-3 is the blogging equivalent of a Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Bloggers will do literally anything to attend, going so far as to give Will Wright a complete pass on his child molestation rumors. Now, I'm not saying Will Wright is a child molestor, but I'm not saying he isn't, and you're free to read between the lines on that, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
And now, the Weekly Geek will never again be invited to E-3.
Will Wright's supposed tendency toward underage pederasty aside, there are a few tricks and tactics to being a successful Indie Blogger Cock and, thus, scoring as many freebies as possible.
1. DRESS AS ECCENTRICALLY AS POSSIBLE
Nothing says "NEW MEDIA" like dressing like an explosion at a K-Mart. Harry J. Knowles, who makes Two Ton Torres look like Karen Carpenter, seems to have started this tendency, although Matt Drudge's "Lemony Snicket" affectations certainly didn't stop that ball from rolling any further than it needed to. Perez Hilton, who otherwise looks like a total cuddlebug, personally keeps Manic Panic in business, and Ana Marie Cox, "Wonkette", tries to buck the trend by presenting herself as a fashionable Barbera Bush style proto-matron, but ends up looking like Cruella de Ville on a chubby day.
I, personally, admit to a certain predilection toward velvet and leather in my wardrobe, and I own a pair of trendy black nerd glasses. Of course, unlike the pretenders, I have spent time in a mental institution, so "eccentricity" is not my goal, it's just the polite way of describing it.
2. PICK A SUBJECT AND NEVER DEVIATE FROM IT.
If your blog's subject is "film", for instance, pick A film, preferably a sci-fi trilogy of some sort, and yammer on and on about it endlessly, comparing every new film you see unfavorably to the brilliance that is your particular hobbyhorse. If your blog is political in nature, pick a hilariously offensive nickname for the leader of your party's opposition ("Black Insane Obama" is a good one, "John McGain" is a slightly more subtle equivalent) and refuse to call that person by their real name. If your blog is about fashion or celebrities, obsess over one certain person ad absurdam.
Remember: Blogging isn't journalism. You're not supposed to be objective. You are to be slavishly one-sided and utterly devoted to your pointless "insider" position.
3. DEMAND AS MUCH FREE SWAG AS POSSIBLE, AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE, AND TO AS MANY PLACES AS POSSIBLE.
And don't be afraid to threaten to throw back the thinly woven curtain of deceit surrounding the pedophilic tendencies of your quarry, either. Please give me free Spore stuff.
Again, the Weekly Geek is guilty of this one, although I am, admittedly, not a recipient of as much largesse as others. The worst I get is emails offering me "sneak previews" of shitty web cartoons. And while my particular sickness gets off on cultural fecalphilia, I should, by all rights, be demanding much, much more. I should be demanding paid junkets to the Lucas Ranch for hookers and blow and handjobs from Robert Rodriguez. I not only demand these trinkets, but I also demand to be put on VH1 as an "I Heart the ________" talker. I heart the ________ more than you do, and I can prove it, because I have a blog.
Incidentally, Michael Ian Black* the penultimate hearter of the ________, opened his blog a scant few weeks ago, to coincide with his book of essays about his van customization service. 90% of it is him (charmingly) attempting to start an East/West Rap style feud with David Sedaris. Good for him! My dream is to be a heart-er of something, preferably the 80s, maybe the 90s, but I'll settle for the Oughts in due time.
The Free Swag situation is a problem, sadly, especially in the geekier parts of the blogospheroidmatron. The comic conventions, which have long basically just been an excuse to throw free shit at increasingly desperate nerds, excel (saga) at this tactic. Nerds will love anything they get free shit for, which explains why Iron Man somehow became this century's version of Citizen Kane overnight.
On the video gaming front, from Nintendo, I was given a plastic mannequin hand for my DS. X-Box once gave me a foam rubber brain shaped stress ball and a LANYARD(!), and Sony gave me a keychain shaped like a tomato, in one of the great non-sequiters of all time. Of the three, Nintendo's was the best, thus tainting my opinion of Nintendo for decades to come. Still, I sigh longingly whenever I see that LANYARD(!) and think of my close personal friends at Microsoft (especially Ted in Accounting, KEEP AIMING FOR THAT STAR, YOU CRAZY DIAMOND!). As for Sony, they can choke on their own vomit, so far as I care.
APPENDIX: WEBCOMIC BLOGGING
This one is tricky, and, admittedly, a salvo for the few brave souls who have webcomics AND blogs. Your webcomic must be understood by reading your blog, and your blog must be completely unreadable without first reading the webcomic. This cyclical system is required, and cannot be broken, lest the whole balance of the Chi be thrown off.
Your webcomic explains your blog, and your blog explains your webcomic. Break the circle at your own peril. Penny Arcade once broke this rule, and the next day, Tycho got fat. I know, man. I KNOW, MAN.
*I harbo(u)r a personal lust for Mr. Black that few would ever understand. You think I'm joking. Ha ha. I'm his own personal Mark David Chapman. I'm right behind you, Bright Eyes.
Well, it's safe to say that the power of animated character is not only made incredibly apparent but thrown right into the face of those who fear it most, as Wall•E takes the metaphorical ball and metaphorically runs with it. Despite positive reviews from just about everybody, a few hold outs are doing what the Internet does best (factionalizing ad infinitum) and the conserva-prigs at Free Republic are hilariously fuming at the film. Whatever it takes to keep the headlines off this douche, right guys?
It looks like Republicans are hating this movie, just because Fred Willard's character drops the "Stay the course" line. Why, yes. Yes it is anti-Republican. It shows us exactly what the world would look like 800 years after a third Bush presidency. The earth will be full of garbage and devoid of human life, and the rare few who somehow manage to escape will be fantastically wealthy and their society will be built on the remnants of whatever and whoever they stepped over to get there.
They didn't complain one bit when Grade-A Crank Brad Bird's looney Randroid screed, The Incredibles, told their audience that some people are born "special" and are therefore criminally suppressed by the rest of society, who should be thankful just to have them around. Republicans LOVED that one, because it reinforced their deep seated paradigm notion that there are, indeed, certain people deserving of much more than others. Brad Bird, you're a cock. Choke somebody on you.
Fat people are now, apparently, a political base of their own, now. I guess I should start getting my membership card pretty shortly, I could use that 10% off at KFC and the Enema Bag Emporium. Being a man who could stand to lose weight, but not a man whose weight has lost him the ability to stand, I have not yet lost touch with the reality of satire. The ultimate animated "Americans are fat" movie, The Triplets of Belleville, to which Pixar owes a great deal in the comedic style and pacing of Wall•E, was never given a broad release by Sony because the fat "lobby" was so offended by it. The "Fat Lobby" sounds like a really smelly place.
But then, of course, fat people are more than welcome to head over to Kung Fu Panda, a film tailor made to their purposes. I believe they just wheel in the Happy Meals by the cart now. It's got everything that Wall•E doesn't... a happy-go-lucky (yet insipid) main character, dozens of well known (yet insipid) A-list voice actors, and more pop (yet insipid) cultural references than you can shake your enormous, enormous booty at. Let them have it, I guess. It's all there, and by the truckload.
If I seem to be commenting frequently on the H.G. Wells characters, the Morlocks and the Eloi, Wall•E seems to reinforce my suspicions that the distinction is happening faster than we think. The film doesn't answer everything, and that's really great. A truly good film won't prechew thought for you like the food the Hoverchair family in this film has to slurp down.
All is not so bleak, I suppose. The truth is that Pixar is a proven quality, and not a single one of their films has ever lost a dime. Parents will bring their kids to Wall•E, young adults will go to Wall•E, post-ironic hipsters such as myself will go to Wall•E. If, perchance, it makes people think about the ramifications of a McCain presidency, so much the better.
I sometimes think that maybe I'm the one who is living in Bizarro World. In the real, non-Bizarro world, George W. Bush is an Austin news weatherman, the dollar is worth the same as a Soviet ruble, and the evolutionary distinction between the Eloi and the Morlocks still had several thousand years before it really kicked in. Unfortunately, here in Bizarro World, everything is the complete opposite. Therefore, instead of heckling the current situation, I think I should just accept it like the good White Male Consumer 25-33 like I am.
Still, there's one Bizarro thing that I know is Bizarro and is going to stay Bizarro: I am not wealthy enough to even comprehend renting a villa in Italy. In fact, I have never actually paused to think to myself, "Self: We should really think about that villa in Italy, what with all this spare time and all of these millions of gold coins we have in the Money Bin, maybe we should get a little place in Tuscany instead of swimming around in all of this obscene monetary excess," that is, of course, before Facebook decided to tell it's advertisers that I am.
Now, every single time I check my Facebook profile, there it is.
The Villa.
It sounds a bit like an M. Night Shyalaman film, doesn't it? "The Villa". The obligatory twist at the end? It's full of BATS. It would be just like The Birds, only, you know, with bats. Even worse yet, it's full of ITALIANATE bats. Bats with names like "Manny" and "Guido". Bats with really great shoes. Bats that own fish markets on the South Side and mysteriously get Christmas cards from Sammy Davis Jr. Bats that have Steve Buscemi on speed dial for blow. Those kind of bats.
Only Facebook isn't trying to rent me a house full of adorable winged mafiosa with echolocation, no. Heavens to Mergatroyd, no! Facebook is trying to honestly convince me, and their respective advertisers at Invitation To Tuscany, that I am in the mood to rent a villa in Italy, and, conversely, that Invitation To Tuscany is not throwing away their hard earned Euros in advertising to riff-raff like me. I'm the kind of jerk that throws financial caution to the wind to splurge from time to time on a Grilld Stuft Burrito at Taco Bell, a place that is so inexpensive they can't even afford to put certain vowels in the names of their products. Even in this time of global kicking up of heels and international high spirits, when people like Henry Kissinger are doing the Charleston with glee since there's just so damn much money around, renting a villa in Italy is just a tad bit pricy for the likes of me.
It's not like I'm blaming Invitation To Tuscany, they're probably owned by a senile necromancer, and their call center is staffed by the zombies of old people, typing very slowly and growling with rotting, pallid lips into those teeny little earpiece/microphones that every office has these days. Nor am I placing the blame on Facebook. No, I'm placing the blame on Hanna-Barbera, because ever since Jabberjaw, the increase in natural disasters, childhood obesity and lupus has increased exponentially.
They call him Jab-Jab-Jab-Jab-Jabberjaw, the most demonic Faustian manipulator you ever saw.
So, Facebook, I know you're trying to build a successful business model and not end up like that shmuck Tom over at MySpace. I can rid you of the influence of Jabberjaw, trust me. It'll be a long, hard process. Lucky for you, I'm a trained professional Life Coach. Just leave all your problems to me. That mean ol' Jabberjaw won't get you.
Your advertisers need to be relevant to the audience, stores like Target or Borders, possibly. Then, once you've got a good, steady set of appropriate advertisers, start slowly picking off Facebook members at random. I can think of a few already, personally. Nothing TOO violent, of course. Just a quick injection of bleach in the buttock, or maybe a nice, quiet strangulation with a necktie. Guns would be a bit messy, yes, but maybe that would be a good idea too. Snipe them in public.
Once you've got a few random Facebook murders under your belt, things will slowly become evident. I've provided you with a business model, Facebook.
1) Ramp up your advertising to be relevant to the audience. Low-to-middle market retailers, bookstores, convenience foods, florists, funeral homes, manufacturers of black textiles, taxidermists, that sort of thing.
2) As you slowly start to pick off Facebookers, one by one, your advertisers will suddenly experience a spike in return clicks.
3) Reign of terror, followed by profit. Reinvestment in Facebook branded cemetaries and the new "WHO'S DEAD YET?" application.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that Facebook hasn't already started this new campaign. That would explain the sudden rise in advertisements for FTD.
I'm slowly starting to wean myself off my RSS reader. Being a blogger and a podcaster has really taken its toll on me as I try to find a good work/life balance. Whereas in the past I thought it would be cool to be a pro blogger and get shipped around to press events and be wined and dined by major game companies, now it's starting to look a lot less appealing. For today's rant, I'm going to tell you how the basic model for the video game blog is broken and useless.
There was a time when I was subscribed to as many game and geek blogs as I could find, and I was motivated to keep up with them. That was when they still all had original content. Remember those days? The culture has shifted now to the point of over saturation, where there is very little original content and in order to fulfill quotas and sound like "real journalists", game bloggers have ensconced themselves in the echo chamber. Here is the usual process:
1. A press release is sent out by a game company stating that their new game has gone gold, released new screenshots or gameplay video or has hit store shelves. 90% of the time this is non-news that the normal everyday gamer shouldn't care about. These press releases are sent to every single game blog in existence.
2. Game blogs who thirst for pageviews/popularity/money/whatever republish said press release and attach a cleverly photoshopped header image.
3. Every single other game blog republishes the already republished non-news press release, either citing the release proper, or whatever other game blog got the press release first.
Only occasionally is there ever original content on a game website, and it's usually poorly researched and lackluster. If you're lucky it ends up being an intelligent rant, but these rants are more blog than news (see: this website). In the rush to get their post numbers up, these blogs allow egregious journalistic mistakes such as spelling and grammar errors and publishing rumors as fact without researching them first. We see articles about bland industry-related facts, such as NPD numbers or sales statistics. Why should gamers give a shit about on what console a cross-platform game sold better? Why not just enjoy the games?
We, and by "we" I am referring to the hardcasual early adopter gamer, have lost our way. We are being dragged around by the games industry PR machine and to what end? Bloggers are hurried through media events and fed data which they are expected to digest and spew to their readers without coming up with any original ideas. We're expected to review games and promote them in order for the game company to make enough money to release the next one and the next one and the next one. And this is the culture. It's a sea of early adopters catering to other early adopters who obsessively read these blogs.
Take a look at Kotaku, one of the web's largest and most popular gaming websites. Kotaku must publishing something like 70 articles a day. Just keeping up with Kotaku is a full time job in of itself. There are literally people who sit all day on Kotaku, waiting for the next article to be posted so they can comment. Kotaku publishes so fast I imagine their editors don't even edit the content before it's pushed live.
We're geeks, I get it. We are passionate about our "hobby" and our lives revolve around it. We eat, drink and breathe video games and fail to realize that the rest of the world doesn't. The rest of the world is content with bringing out the Wii Fit every time company comes over, showing off the shiny new gadget and putting it away until the next chance. We're stuck in a loop, an echo chamber. We don't need all these PR blogs, we don't need gamer's day events. We don't need companies showing us brand new screenshots every week until a game release. The PR blogs are being driven by the needs of the game companies, not the game consumers. Here's what we should do to fix it:
1. STOP POSTING EVERYTHING A GAME COMPANY SENDS YOUR WAY. We don't need 500 websites all posting new screenshots for the Hulk game at the same time. We don't even need one. The PR company should just post new content on their own website and allow the game blogs to research and notice on their own.
2. DO RESEARCH. If a friend of a friend of a friend told you that Gamestop posted a release date for Starcraft II, it's most likely not true. Don't post a "Rumor" post to your blog just for speculation sake. Do some research. Reporting on rumors is like telling your readers you're too lazy to give them accurate information. Anyone can say they heard a rumor from someone. You're not providing content, you're just adding to the chatter.
3. STOP POSTING ARCANE INDUSTRY NEWS. Do your readers really need to care when an exec from EA steps down? How does this have even the smallest bearing on whether or not the games you play will improve or decline in quality? The games industry is so obsessed with its shitty minor celebrities, it will pretty much post anything. These people are not celebrities. They are normal people. Please start treating them as such. Sales numbers aren't amazingly interesting.
4. POST LESS. I like reading blog posts about video games. It's the reason why I have my own blog. But when a blog posts 70 times a day, there's no way to filter out the mundane from the high-quality. Focus on quality. Post less frequently and not only will you improve the level of discourse, you will save the sanity of people who actually have other things to do during the day than keep up.
What would you guys add? Have you been feeling the same frustration I have, or is this limited to people like me who run their own blogs?
Perhaps there are others amongst you, dear readers, who felt the familiar, icy grip of The Fear when, upon watching Sin City you saw Frank Miller's name listed as a "director". Perhaps, like me, you may have shuddered at the thought of the horror that would be wrought by giving this man such a lofty title and, perhaps, you too felt ill when it was announced that he would be "directing" the film adaptation of Will Eisner's The Spirit.
It is unsurprising that Miller would choose The Spirit for his first solo project; after all he has a history of gallantly and self- righteously attaching himself to comics's old guard, like a vampire, riding their accomplishments and championing their causes as if they were his own and I'm sure it's been difficult now that Jack Kirby is gone.
The Spirit, then, is a gift from the gods. Here is an opportunity to take the work of one of the medium's greatest contributors and, due to the average movie-goers ignorance, shamelessly co-opt it. Congratulations Mr. Miller, they may never name an award after you, laud you for expanding the breath of what comics could accomplish, or stand in awe of your storytelling abilities, but fuck 'em right? Judging from these posters it is better to have made Sin Spirit instead. That's a legacy you can be proud of.
Mike linked me to this article today on Gizmodo about a single mother who's 13 year old kid wouldn't do his chores. The story goes that the kid wouldn't quit playing Xbox and do the list of chores that his mother had typed out for him. After repeated requests, he deviously broke the vacuum in order to get out of vacuuming. She even found out he was surfing porn sites on his computer! So she retaliated by hacking his MySpace profile and selling his Xbox and games. Good parenting or horrible parenting? Gizmodo seems to think that this is an appropriate response, but I have to disagree. I don't know the specifics of this family's relationship with each other, and I don't claim to be an authority on parenting, but I think this was probably one of the worst things she could have done to raise this kid, and let me tell you why.
While I do think that we need less 13 year old Halo players spouting ignorance over Xbox Live, let me discuss this from the kid's perspective. All kids are biologically pre-programmed to rebel. At around age 13 they are supposed to start showing signs of rebellious behavior. It's called being a teenager. There are myriad ways to deal with teenagers, but more often than not extreme forms of punishment only serve to push them further and further away. I had a very similar experience as a kid, as I am sure a lot of you have. I think this kid is going to hate his mom even more for her actions, which I would imagine is not the desired effect.
I was a lazy kid. Hell, I'm a lazy adult. I never liked doing chores, and I would usually put them off in favor of video games. Even more I despised the parental notion that going outside and doing things under that burning ball of fire we call the Sun was somehow more life-enriching than, say, experiencing the brilliance of Final Fantasy. We were always on different planes of thought. I'd request something like a new Game Boy game for my birthday and I'd get a pair of rollerblades. I'd ask for a comic book subscription for Christmas and get a telescope.
I'd get a list of chores, do them and then go back to playing games. My parents, however, weren't satisfied with that. They'd always leave one thing off of the list, such as taking out the trash. Of course, since it wasn't on the list, I wouldn't take out the trash. And then they'd get pissed off and take something away, such as computer or video game privileges. They'd even rush into my room after getting off of work and yank the cart right out of my SNES while I was playing it. It was a completely mind-boggling discipline process to me. In my opinion they weren't teaching me any sort of valuable lesson, just flailing because they didn't know what else to do. That's not good parenting, that's just retaliation. These kinds of experiences actually caused me to disassociate myself from my parents. I just recently got back in touch with my father after about 7 years of silence. While extreme, I am sure the mother mentioned in this article doesn't want anything near that.
I understand that kids are a bit different these days. They tend to be more independent, more uppity, and more prone to backtalk. What I think would have worked better is regulation of said child's game time, rather than getting rid of the thing altogether. Kids may be pre-programmed to rebel against you as a parent, but you can do things to help hold back the tide. Compromise is one of those things.
And as for the porn sites the kid was surfing? How about you teach the kid about sex in a frank and honest manner instead of keeping it taboo and mysterious? Now he's just going to be more careful in the future about hiding his porn. 13 year olds are obsessed with sex. Teach him how to deal with it instead of making him think it's a shameful, horrible thing. Put your computer in the family room so that someone is always monitoring what he's seeing, and talk to him. He is an intelligent future adult who deserves your respect no matter what vitriol his mouth is spewing. He's meant to do that. It's up to you to deal with it in a manner that results in a well-adjusted individual.
What do you guys think? Is this bad parenting or good parenting? Follow up question! Did any of you experience something similar with your own parents, and do you think it was positive or negative for your personal growth?
Love them or hate them, the Puritans at least had a goal. Several of them, in fact. Redeeming the Church Triumphant from the besodden hands of the Papacy and Powers Temporal, saving the souls of the faithful, guiding them toward an outward perfection suited for their inner Godliness, moving the educational and aesthetic commonweal toward the everlasting love of Jesus Christ, and burning an assload of witches. At least you knew where they stood on any given subject.
Good was good, bad was bad, and in case of confusion, steer toward hatred. They were anything but not apathetic. Sure, they were vicious bastards who'd slit your throat and throw you in the oubliette if you so much as talked out of place, but what's the harm with that? I can think of few people that need a good bit of 17th Century Puritanical asskicking more the absolute titchuckers at Spike TV.
If, in case you are doing the reasonable thing when faced with modern reality and your head is currently encased in a bucket of rapidly solidifying Plaster of Paris, you haven't heard of Spike TV, perhaps you've heard of it's predecessor, The Nashville Network. The "The" is capitalized because it was founded and perpetuated for twenty years by people who called it "TNN", instead of "NN", which logically it should have been. Then again, we are dealing with the utter fuckwits who would watch something called "The Nashville Network" in the first place. People so neanderthalic that the sheer concept of images moving around on a lighted box constituted entertainment, doubly so when said moving images were SINGING AND YODELING, just like the folks on the radio tube!
The fact that "The" in "The Nashville Network" was capitalized is a sticking point, because it led to a cultural dynamic that still haunts us to this day. While The NN never took a political stance officially, it was pretty much de facto Republican, and, along with the Pat Robertson owned Family Channel, built the fundamental anti-rational force of the 1990s, the Christian Coalition. These piddling little factories of nincumpoopery created the atmosphere that led to the fullscale official amnesia of the Bush administration, fed by the belief that nothing between Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan actually happened. When pressed, TNN would revert back to "IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC!" just like Robertson would retort "IT'S ALL ABOUT JESUS!", proving that country music fans are not only dogmatic and conservative to the Nth degree, but piranha like in their refusal to admit anything might actually be open to debate.
Then, of course, Viacom put a bead out on TNN, and it was assassinated with one bullet to the forehead like a Yucatan drug lord on a parade float. It was swiftly transmutated into "Spike TV", the idea being a snarky male response to the female Lifetime Network, which is similarly insipid in nearly every context. Whereas Lifetime produces overblown soap operatics by the bushel, Spike doesn't actually produce anything at all, and sticks to the truism that men actively enjoying being able to recite every line from every rerun science fiction and cop drama they can get their greedy, Cheetos-besmirched fingers on.
Spike TV, just so you understand, is a rerun dump. That is all it is, that is all it ever has been. in case Viacom has a movie or television show elsewhere, they advertise it ad nauseum on Spike, since the theory is that anybody who would conceivably want to watch Spike is at least sentient enough to have another, better, network on the Memory button, just itching for a reason to turn elsewhere. In fact, Viacom has taken this into account, and it's a somewhat twistedly brilliant example of Corporate Symbiosis in all it's evil, mutant glory.
As an irrelevant side note emphasizing their patronizing attitude toward the hand that feeds them was the notoriously silly "Video Game Awards", hosted by noted albino marionette, David Spade. I'll give you pause to snicker to yourself at that idea. HINT: They gave an award to "Best Power Up".
In response to this theory, Spike has actually found ways to start disregarding commercials altogether. To this end, they've come up with the "commercial show", which is a mini-show that runs IN THE COMMERCIALS, with advertisements in little sprawling banners under both shows. Where it used to be that you only put up with the commercials so you could watch the show, with the grim reality setting in that with seven million other options available to you on Comcast alone, advertisement and entertainment are now fused at the spine like some sort of freakish, hateful Siamese twin garden gnome that attacks you while stabbing your grandmother with a rusty railroad spike.
The rusty railroad spike, of course, is what the network is named after, y'see.
AH, BUT WHAT IS HE RANTING ABOUT, you ask. And rightfully so.
Weekly Geek (Greek?) HQ recently received a not so thinly veiled attempt by the Spike TV treants to get us to pawn off to you their latest awful idea, a Commercial Show called "Hot Chicks with Cheat Codes".
Hold it. Scan up. Read that again. Then read it out loud. Then read it in a silly voice.
"Hot Chicks with Cheat Codes".
The morons reign victorious. We're doomed. Humanity only has a good few years left, it's been a great run, but all things need to come to a timely end. Yoko has joined the band. Better cash your Economic Stimulus checks ASAP, because it's the last hurrah before the concentration camps.
There is a saying in advertising circles, "No publicity is bad publicity". Therefore, we at the Weekly Geek will not be giving this foreskin wrinkle the time of day by linking you to it. That would be giving them exactly what they want. Oh, no. We have a much worse idea. I will be illustrating it for you with MS Paint.
The effect, to be frank, is exactly what we saw.
Braindead models stroking controllers like dildos, "bitchin'" pseudo-rock music, playovers of Halo greenscreened behind them.
Yes, we get it. You have absolute, utter disdain for your desired audience. And we can't blame you. If they're falling for this, we hate them too. The British equivalent of Spike TV, "Nuts TV" (yes, you read that just as correctly), has a show called "Fit and Fearless". Scantily clad models are locked in haunted houses with cameras, the idea being that presumably young British men enjoy a bizarre combination of sado-masochism and 19th century Blavatsky Spiritism.
Brilliant media commentator Charlie Brooker has written his piece about Nuts TV, and I boldly stride forth in his jowly shadow by saying that the point behind "Hot Chicks with Cheat Codes" is equally terrifying: presumably you're supposed to be masturbating while watching it, but doing so means you're totally, undeniably insane. "Fit and Fearless" is the next logical step, followed by "Bikini'd and Bound", which is essentially just softcore dungeon play with a streaming banner underneath inviting us to purchase Axe bodyspray. After that it's just a long, languid close up of a bleeding corpse, although doubtlessly, Spike will ace that up a bit with some tips on how to avoid the police read by wacky, sarcastic jerks deserving of a good unwrapped SlimJim being rammed down their tanned, impossibly intolerable little snouts.
I leave this blahdy-blah with this final thought: according to Wikipedia. Spike TV's average viewer age is 42. Mayhap they should reconsider their concepts just a bit. "Hot Chicks and Tax Tips", 'Hot Chicks and Mortgages", "Hot Chicks and A Solid Plan for Building That Patio You've Always Been Talking About" may be a little bit less insulting.
posted by SecksCab on April 10, 2008 4:37 PM in Rant
Unlike the rest of the Geeks (Greeks?), I live to the south of Seattle, in Olympia, Washington, which is a lovely little slice of heaven somewhere between Tolkien's Shire and the Green Greens arena in Smash Brothers. It's basically a town interspersed by enormous sections of forested hills, running straight up against Puget Sound. I really do like it here, and not simply because I'm not forced to drive on 75 degree angle streets. Sure, there's lots of foul smelling hippies, there's only one 24 hour grocery store, and renting movies from a foreign land is impossible without the help of Netflix.
Still, there's something most foul that lurks just a few yards away from my Sensory Deprivation Chamber, and that is a garter snake hibernaculum. What's a hibernaculum, you ask? OH DEARIE ME. From Wikipedia:
"In zoology, a hibernaculum is the location chosen by an animal for hibernation. Commonly this may be a hibernating mammal or insect."
Of course, this is Wikipedia, so it's also got "In music, Hibernaculum is a single by Mike Oldfield from his The Songs of Distant Earth album, and the name of an album by the band Earth." Thankfully, Wikipedia has a policy where they try to discourage trivia sections. Hopefully that also applies to everything I'm not immediately interested in.
Garter snakes, in case you were not aware, are not hatched from eggs like other snakes. They are born live. Female garter snakes secrete a pheromone that attracts male garter snakes for miles, gathering in one little hole by the hundreds around the one female. One of these female garter snakes (and presumably her many female offspring) has chosen the vacant forest lot behind my apartment as her mating space, not to mention the hundreds of females she also has pumped out over the years. I don't know (or even care) how long garter snakes live. I don't want to.
I need to preface this by saying that I actually like creepy crawly things, generally. I like rats, after a roommate bred them and I learned they were actually fairly clean and intelligent. I like spiders, especially after I allowed one that lived in my window to live and I watched it make it's lovely web every morning. I even have an emperor scorpion encased in orange lucite on my coffee table, which I consider to be one of my favorite objects.
But if there's one thing I hate, more than anything else on the planet, it's snakes.
Sweet Christ do I hate snakes. I hate everything about them, I hate everything they do, I hate their activities and, most importantly, I hate the way they writhe about. I hate their cold, unblinking eyes. I hate their glassy, alien, evil scales. I hate that they manufacture neurotoxin like it's going out of style.
I. Hate. Snakes.
I once dated a girl (zomg, I know, rite?) that was equally terrified of snakes. It was probably the only thing we had in common. She took it the next step and hated anything that reminded her of snakes, included pussycats, which admittedly have that cold predatorial streak to them, when they're not being ADORABLE. So, clearly, I'm not THAT bad. I'm not phobic of snakes, I just hate them. I feel no compunction whatsoever fulfilling the Biblical mandate to crush their heads beneath the heel of my foot. I swerve to hit one on the road.
Anyway, with spring comes snakes, by the hundred. I always jump when I see one, every single time. I think that maybe it's an ancestral Jungian imperative. Somewhere in my genetics, snakes were a serious problem. Ancient Sexcabs were flung into a daily life-or-death struggle with these demonic creatures, and I am doomed to repeat their struggle even into the modern world and the Pacific Northwest, where our snakes are actually fairly innocuous.
I not only wish that all snakes were eradicated, but that we set up some sort of Department of Herpetological Homeland Security, where all governmental bureaus have a single clearinghouse from which to attack the ever increasing snake menace. I, personally, am for the death penalty for any being caught being a snake without legal authority to do so. Of course, I might be a little old fashioned in these things, so a snake Abu Ghraib and a snake Gauntanamo is also acceptable. The snakes need to be humiliated, first. They need to be photographed in sexually humiliating poses and forced to recant their snaky ways at gunpoint. These snake prisons will have very tiny bars on the windows, so the snakes can look out and see the world that they are no longer allowed to be participants in, to remind them that their kind cannot be tolerated in this modern day and age. Imagine little orange snake prison uniforms. Little snake shivs and little snake gay rape scenes. Little snake prison law degrees and little snake dining halls and little snake murders in little snake laundry rooms. Little snake Aryan Brotherhoods.
Yes, a prison for snakes is what we need, because they've been snakes once, they will be snakes again, and they will continuing being snakes as long as they're allowed that freedom. We have the children to think about, first and foremost. He have to keep these recidivist serpents off the streets and out of the playgrounds.
You know what I think would be great? If gamers stopped being so damn selfish, collectively removed themselves from their couches for once, and used all that energy they spend playing games for the betterment of mankind. Wait, no, I don't think that, the Red Cross thinks that, or at least that's the implication given by their latest ad. The reason I don't think that? Gamers are are spending time, money, and effort to make the world a better place to live, and we're doing it with the thing we most love, games.
Now I'll be the first to admit that I can get a little reactionary when it seems like someone that isn't "hip to the lingo" is using games as a scapegoat or device in their advertising to drive people to action. And this ad by the Lebanese Red Cross is really clever, well designed, and is ultimately advocating something that I am behind 100%, but lumping gamers into the mix to make their point because it's convenient causes exactly what they're trying to avoid to occur; it's a divisive message and is going to make those of us sensitive to this kind of thing less likely to lend aid to their cause.
Thankfully, those of us that are now unwilling to lend aid to the Red Cross are likely still involved in any number of the multitude of charitable organizations run by and for gamers and the rest of the world. There are organizations such as Child's Play which donates games, books and toys to sick children across the world, Folding@Home which can be run in the background on a PC or a PS3 and distributes computer processing across the globe in order to better understand the evolution of viruses, or Gifts From Gamers which sends consoles, games, DVDs, CDs, books and magazines to soldiers currently stationed on the front lines. That last one is interesting considering the International Red Cross' roots are in assisting soldiers during war time. Seems the Lebanese Red Cross is a little late in their appeal, we've been on point helping those that need it for years now, especially soldiers.
Again I'd like to state that I don't disagree with the Red Cross' underlying message, we should be saving the world for real. The world is a horrible place full of violence, illness, tragedy, and horror, and we as human beings have a responsibility to put an end to that. The thing is though, we are, and we have been for a long time without any other unifying factors in place except that we all enjoy gaming and we aren't the shallow, thoughtless gang that we're often painted as. Take a look at gamers as a whole and you'll find an incredibly diverse group of people, a group that has put aside any differences it might have in order to help those in need. How many other charitable organizations can you think of whose members ignore the boundaries of race, age, gender, sexuality, and religion simply so they can give aid and make the world a better place to sit on your couch for hours at a time, seemingly doing nothing but accomplishing so much?
We all want to help, that much is obvious, but alienating gamers isn't the best way to get that help, no matter how many ignorant cause-heads titter at your clever joke.
I'm going to break down the fourth wall here for a second and let you in on some industry information. Game journalists get a lot of email. Most of it is complete trash, it's usually a PR company trying to tell you that their most recent game (usually with a title like Mageknight: The Reckoning or Knightmage: The Fightening) is coming out. Over and over again. It's difficult to sift through the good news and the awful news, and recently a major company has made it even harder: Sega.
I understand that no matter what press release comes into game journalists' inboxen, it will get posted to some blog somewhere. Just by the sheer fact that there are SO MANY game blogs out there, someone will be aching for a story and will post your news. That's fine. When you abuse that system, that's when I take issue.
Sending out press releases when your hot new game finally releases first screenshots is appropriate. Sending press releases every single day with brand new screenshots is an abuse of the system, no matter what the game. Sega, for the past six months or so, has been spamming my inbox on a daily basis and I'm a bit fed up. On one hand, I'd like to keep good relations with the company as they do send us games for review. On the other hand, I'm really tired of getting daily updates on The Incredible Hulk game. It's not a highly anticipated game, yet they are treating it as such. Perhaps it's my own jaded mind, but when I see a press release I turn on my bullshit meter.
Most PR companies are full of shit. It's true. Take, for example, the weekly emails Nintendo sends out in order to announce new Wii Virtual Console games. Whoever writes the copy has to come up with an appealing description for each new title, no matter how incredibly awful the game. They have to find some way to drum up hype for a poor product, so they usually revert to hyperbole.
An amazing jaunt through a highly imaginative world with stunning graphics and gameplay!
The blockbuster franchise returns with the most action-packed story yet!
You can tell these are lies because of all of the lying. You can feel the desperation in the copywriter's voice. During the last holiday season, I literally got one email a day from Sega PR telling me that a brand new gameplay video for Mario and Sonic Go To the Olympics was released! Oh yay! It's a lackluster idea of a game, banking on the fact that people enjoy Mario and Sonic and will buy anything with those two attached. Do they honestly think I am going to want to post their new gameplay video and screenshots every single time they send them out? Even if it was only half of the time, I wouldn't post them.
This is the worst way to generate hype. Currently, all new Sega releases are on my shit list. PR, like all things in life, requires restraint. You want to promote only your best content, and keep that promotion rare. Keep us chomping at the bit for your game-related media, don't try to shove it down our throats.
The icing on the cake? Sega seems to have hired another PR company to help them with email blasts for The Incredible Hulk. Just today I received two emails, one from the new company and one from Sega proper, with the exact same press release.
One of the things about being a misanthrope is that people are constantly not inviting you to things. Usually, of course, I don't mind. This is because I don't like people. I don't understand them. They stand around with their hands in their pockets and their haircuts and their clothes and their breathing of oxygen and I think that, ultimately, I just would rather not talk to them at all.
Still, in those circumstances when I have to (and there's not so many of them these days), I am at a complete loss about what to talk about. I don't watch television. That's not an idle liberal pseudo-hipster boast, I seriously just don't have the time, money or interest required to maintain a hobby like watching television. I'd rather sit in here and type away at my Livejournal, TYPE TYPE TYPE, and pretend that when I do watch Arrested Development endlessly on DVD while drawing, it's somehow not creepy and reductive at all when I sometimes like to act out the part of Buster Bluth, who I identify with the most (largely because I lost my left hand to a loose seal in 1997). When I absolutely must indulge in the unforgivable sin of "yak", I have very little capability of starting it.
One time, I had a feckless wanker of a friend tell me that every conversation is about give and take, and that if I wanted to be successful, I need to pretend to be interested in the other party's half. This tells me that not only do successful conversationalists actively enjoy the activity, they're also perpetuating the deceit. Of course they're not interested in my half of the conversation. They are only waiting for me to stop talking long enough to get their attack of opportunity.
I'm told that most conversations involve one of the following things:
The weather
The past weekend
The upcoming weekend
The weather of the past weekend
The weather of the upcoming weekend
I'm also told that public conversations are supposed to try to avoid religion, politics or sex. I would like to point out that these are my three favorite topics, and the only things that I am possibly qualified to talk about, having personally engaged in all three multiple times with multiple partners. I think that this is why I am at a loss when it comes to talking. I don't really notice the weather or the weekend, and I don't really think that talking about either will do anything. It's just wormy talk for wormy talk's sake.
On the plus side, I can think of one reason why I should have conversations: each time I meet somebody new, that's one new person to hate completely and wholeheartedly. That's a grand thing. A fine shot in the arm to keep my misery intact.
And, lo, this is perhaps why I love Facebook so much, and my invitation to join was accepted with some wariness that eventually sprouted like a turtle covered in mutagen. Every day is just a brand new person to loathe utterly. Even better that Facebook is little more than friendly, Chuck E. Cheese style Orwellian surveillance. I can watch all of my "friends" meet other "friends" and add annoying doo-bobs and widgets which all ask me the ultimate question... do I want to accept or REJECT them?
Oh, how I love to press the REJECT button. If only real life conversations had the option.
"Oh, hi. How are you today? How was your weekend?"
REJECT.
"It's a scorcher!"
REJECT.
"Stop, collaborate and listen, Ice is back with a brand new..."
REJECT.
It's wonderful. Thank you, Facebook. Now get offa mah lawn.
While preparing for an upcoming trip this week I created a checklist of things to do. Some items were specific to travel but most were part of the weekly routine that involves feeding not only my own mouth but also those of a few cold-blooded accomplices that have managed to stick around over a decade of constant relocation.
