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24 marzo Vidya GamesLets talk about the use of video games as a medium for sensitive topics.
First off, the very controversial game titled Super Columbine Masacre RPG! which reenacts the events leading up to and following the Columbine Highschool incident. The game uses the RPG Maker program with a very traditional 3rd person overhead view and retro 16-bit graphics. The battle system, also, is similar to RPGs developed during the 16-bit era, with enemies appearing in first person view, just like Dragon Quest. The game attempts to humanize and explain the actions of the two gunmen, Ed Harris and Dylan Klebold, through flashbacks within the game showing the bullying and torment they experienced. Predictably, the reactions to this game were both mixed and extreme.
At one end of the spectrum, gamers, sociologists, societal outcasts, and so-called media experts regarded the use of a video game to depict the psyche and motivation behind the two gunmen as vital and valuable.
SCMRPG doesn't intend to validate the crimes committed, but tries to offer insight into why and what pushed two young men to deliberate, plot, and execute a bloodbath at their high school. Through the use of an RPG, a Role Playing Game, the player is given options and possibilities that may or may not affect the outcome. When we to say to ourselves "I refuse to put myself into the shoes of these monsters. I refuse to understand why these two terrorists killed and hurt all these innocent children" we are essentially saying to ourselves that we refuse to understand the reasons why and what drives people to commit these acts of violence. Personally, I find this kind of game to be a bit tasteless, especially the part of the game where the two gunmen are in Hell and converse with their favorite video game characters. Did I just ruin my argument? Still, video games is just a medium for a message. Murder and crime can be attributed to video games just as much as violent movies, violent music, violent books, or violent .. sweaters. The imagination and deliberation in controlling a violent character in a violent setting can be just as vivid as reading a well written violent story. The experience is different for everyone. Another thing to note is that the creator of the game, Danny Ledonne, was extremely meticulous in detail, which may not neccessarily mean the game play is unbiased, but offers an accurate retelling of the masacre from a different perspective. Again, the last statement regarding accuracy does not carry over to the segment of the game set in Hell. Fuck!!
One important thing to note is that in the end, SCMRPG! is just a game, albeit a game based on an actual event, but a game nonetheless. The player always has the ultimate choice of turning the game off and telling themselves that they do not respect the story, the portrayal of history, or for any other reason, and refuse to continue their virtual experience, just like any other medium.
At the other end of the spectrum, everyone else.
Family and friends who experienced loss or tragedy from the Columbine incident felt the game, at the very least, trivialized the tragic incident. Super Columbine Masacre RPG!, to many, stepped over the line of proper moral judgement, respect, and would (at it's worse) motivate and educate the very same group of people who would be susceptible to acts of mass murder. Afterall, if a serial killer is found with a copy of SCMRPG! or Grand Theft Auto, news outlets would be all over that like a certain ethnic group at a watermelons/fried-chicken/iced-tea-festival. Actually, I hate this spectrum. Fuck you, Conservative America! If Grand Theft Auto sells 20 million copies, there should be 20 million little fuckers out there toting SMGs, stealing cars on a daily basis, killing cops, and flying helicopters into the Statue of Liberty. The focus on the miniscule percentile of people who own Grand Theft Auto titles or have downloaded Super Columbine Masacre RPG! who also commit acts of murder is smaller than the probability of lightning striking twice in the same place without the use of a lightning rod or other metalic or tall structure. Why do we blame video games for the few times we find a murderer who also happens to own a violent video game when we don't praise the other 99.999% of healthy, productive, and morally upstanding citizens who ALSO enjoy violent video games? Shit, son.. Hitler enjoyed painting, but Van Gogh didn't hate Jews. I'm not too sure about that, actually. That last statement has no truth to it.
Using a more subtle approach, Resident Evil 5 pits the protagonist -once again- into a hoarde of flesh eating zombies. This time, however, our zombie-killing hero Chris Redfield finds himself in Africa, against waves of African Zombies. The controversy of having a white zombie-killing hero killing an army of black zombies raised alarms in the West, though Japanese game designers failed to understand the problem. Masachika Kawata, the producer for Resident Evil 5, stated that "We can't please everyone. We're in the entertainment business - we're not here to state our political opinion or anything like that. It's unfortunate that some people felt that way," though there is inherently a political statement being made about a disease created by science that bites humanity in the ass. Fuck it, I love killing zombies, no matter what race, gender, sexual ethnicity, or flesh-preference they have. Thank you, Biohazard, for providing me the means to satiate my bloodlust for the undead!
16 marzo It's close to midnight, something evil's lurking from the dark If there is one genre I love, it is the zombie thriller/comedy/drama. One needs to look no further than a zombie movie to see humanity at their most depraved, or most noble. Take the novel I Am Legend, for example. The book gives us an insight from the supposed monster's point of view, juxtaposing Neville's humanity (saving Ruth) with his somewhat monotonous killing of sleeping vampires. Another zombie adaptation worth mentioning: John Romero's Living Dead series. The connecting theme between his movies, asides from zombie hordes, is that in times of crisis, humans lose their humanity. It underlies both the obvious monstrosity of the walking undead with the more subtle monstrosity of human betrayal and hatred. 28 Days Later further develops the theme of humanity as the root of the zombie invasion by suggesting that humans created a virus based on human madness and hate, which when exposed to humans, infected them and turned them into mindless killing machines. On an unrelated note, the film I Am Legend is almost the exact opposite of Castaway Will Smith vs Tom Hanks New York vs Deserted Island Dog vs Volleyball Zombies vs No Zombies  Ignoring the fact that this is a Zombie cosplay, why is a nurse wearing a red miniskirt with fishnet stockings and a jean jacket? And have you ever seen a nurse with that stupid red cross symbol? Whatever, you can see her bra! SWEET!! 11 agosto By the hoary hosts of hoggothI remember playing the original Marvel VS Capcom (Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter) game 8 or 9 years back. It had familiar faces from both genres (Spider-man, Wolverine, Ryu, Akuma) and a few that weren't so recognizable. Shuma-Gorath was one of them. Doing a quick wiki, I learned that Shuma-Gorath had quite an extensive history, but was most notorious as a minor Doctor Strange adversary. "Although his true origins are unknown, before the arrival of the First Host of the Celestials, Shuma-Gorath ruled the Earth and commanded human sacrifices, until the time-travelling sorcerer Sise-Neg banished him."
I haven't really read any substantial books lately, so I picked something up at The Annex Smarm Festalia booksale. Now I can hang out with all my friends, Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Twain, all them homefries, in one easy and accessible compilation. All this for the low low price of two dollars fifty cents! I'd have to be blind (or ear piercingly stupid) not to buy it! - - - - - I miss a lot of the fashion suave in Japan, but certainly not all of it. It'll be a cold, cold day in hell when I sport a shoal out to town.  "Oh, hey Tanaka, what's going on? What's with the shoal? Guy thinks he's Clint Eastwood or something.."  "Chill, you don't need to get all worked up, I was just kidding. It's a very fine shoal."  "I said you're coming a bit too close, Tanaka, I -- oh God--"  "Get back! No! Noooooo--" *cue terminator music* 30 marzo A Canned Meat ProductI get a lot of junk mail. I love junk mail. JJKLD8876F - D0 N0T B3 A FAT H0G TH1S SUMM3R HAV3 T3N INCH P3N1S W1TH BUSTY BL0ND3S I've never had any junk mail tell me what my mother was thinking, though. Case in point:
For some reason, when I read that title I thought "sweet" was implying awesome and not delightful. Dude, what does mine say? I'm sure my mother, just as all mothers, would want both awesome and delightful grandkids, but without clarification from the grandmother, the father in question may be confused about how to raise his children. Do I want kids that kick ass, or kids that can sympathize with others? Can they kick ass and be sympathetic, a self-actualized man who is in-touch with both his masculine and femine parts, like a metrosexual? Some of the titles for junk mail are very deceptive, beginning with something that might catch your attention "All over the world, the British are known to be late 15 minutes..," and upon further examination, might contain illegal latinas selling edible watch-shaped aphrodisiacs in Nigeria. Well, jeffw87, when I do get kids, I'll let you know what my mother thinks of them, though the term metrosexual doesn't really translate into chinese. What? My grandson has relations in Montreal's subway system? - - - - - For once, I'd like to listen to some hip-hop that has the main male subject in a friendly and platonic relationship with another woman. Slow Jams, with Kanye West, Twista, and Jamie Foxx comes to mind. Let me [fold] your sheets [straight] listening to Keith Sweat 27 marzo Behold: White People'Rob Savage, a spokesperson for the colleges, dismissed the union’s criticisms over not opening up for classes at the soonest possible opportunity.
"OPSEU's comments are stupid," Savage responded. ' ~From Pulse24's article titled, Happy Returns
 Rob Savage graduated from the University of Toronto in 1983, majoring in English Literature. He was the captain of his debate team during the tri-quarter debating forums in 1981 held in Munich where he was publicly flogged for idiocy. He later led an illustrious career as a lap-dancer while giving morale-speeches at other local gay-brothels. in 1992, he was offered a position on the board of education in the city of Toronto. He currently lives in Toronto with his wife, Megan, and his seven male concubines.- - - - - - - - -
No, stupid, not Tom Usher, senior director with the Portland office of global real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, Inc. Confessions Part II, a ballad by the ever-shirtless Usher, is about a man who confesses about being reluctant to father a child. The melody and beats are very heartfelt, complete with fist-clenching high notes and semi-gospel background singers. I can't help but imagine a smarmy daytime tv talkshow, with the alleged father storming out going "that ain't mine, you a HO, bi*bleep* is a HO, you ain't got no proof," and the audience is booing, and the mother of the child is getting up (equally mad at the alleged father) and hysterically accusing the man of being the father (and the only man she's ever slept with). How different would this situation be if, say, the father was Usher, casually strutting onto the stage with Confessions Part II playing in the background. The mother was Brandy, who counters his ballad with one of her own. Usher and Brandy engage in a singoff, with the illegitimate child (Lil' Bow Wow) ending the fight with his own angry verses. The talkshow host would either be Jeff Probst or Ryan Seacrest, or perhaps a terrible amalgamation of the two.
24 marzo A Pox on Wingdings
The title-box-symbols in the above diagram managed to utterly destroy my MSN Messenger, making it so that service was denied to my account, and mine only. The best part is, I only managed to fix it after I sent out about thirty invites to a brand new diabolistic@gmail.com msn account. Hardy har.
In any case, utilizing http://www.blockstatus.com/msn/nick-changer, which undoubtedly has my password now, I managed to change my nickname back to something resembling coherency. The moral of this story is: never change.
I had my first corndog today in the form of a Pogo™ and it was not pleasant. Understandably, I wasn't exactly famished, so hunger was not a readily accessible condiment. Also, the thought of having a corndog for breakfast seemed to me like a novelty. A ha, a ha .. a .. ha.. :( Still, there is something very unnerving to me about holding a six inch long, batter-dipped, deepfried hotdog that's glistening with a thin sheen of grease. While some would argue that the Corndog is merely a more streamlined (aerodynamic, for when you need to consume it fast.. mach5 fast) version of a HotDog, I have encountered very few hotdogs where the bun contained more oil than the sausage. There have even been allegations from certain bread-artisans that the HotDog is no more than another type of sandwich. Indeed, according to Google (In Google we Trust), a sandwich is:
".. a food item typically consisting of two slices of bread between which are laid one or more layers of meat, cheese, or other filling, together with optional condiments, sauces, and other accompaniments. The bread is often lightly buttered or covered in a flavored oil when it is baked, or added in the sandwich to enhance flavor.."
The only difference between the HotDog, and say.. a Hamburger, would be the variating bread sizes/types. One question that comes to mind after all this is whether a Corndog can be considered a sandwich. If so, where is the line drawn that divides a sandwich from a corndog or a Brötchen from a McMuffin? The thought of a deepfried BLT covered with batter is -- actually not hard to fathom, considering McDonald's McGriddles are disgustingly similar to that description; sausage, folded scrambled egg and american cheese, bacon, served between two pancakes with the syrup already imbued within it's fluffly catacombs. Is convenience a worthy excuse to be eating garbage like this, or is it that the ramifications from consuming fatty foods are not prominent factors that determine consumers' eating habits?
And why did I have two?
28 febbraio Conspiration!Ever notice how celebrities from one country will have some sort of doppelganger in another country? Maybe it's the RF Mask theory, that we are inexplicably drawn towards faces with certain golden ratios and symmetry, thus different cultures choose celebrities with similar universal facial features. The wandering mind can go so far as to suggest an international conspiracy.. one that stifles the imagination of audiences by introducing celebrity after celebrity who all look so goddamn the same. The more likely explanation is that the other countries are copying China.
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