Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
and now a few words on internet ads
Nobody reads this site. Therefore I do not make money off of any ads on this site. Therefore there are no ads on this site. Should the very first sentence ever cease to be true, I will be guilty of massive hypocrisy and all the liberals out there can say "I told you so."
There are three points that I, in my ad-less blog post, wish to make. First and foremost, no ads that are hidden at the bottom of the page should have sound on them. Yes, it's true that I only listen to music when I'm surfing the web because if I ever get rid of that distraction and focus all my attention on the content of various web pages, I will break down and cry, having lost all faith in the human race. However, if this persists I may resort to browsing with my computer muted, and just listen to music off my iPod instead. It seems more complicated that way, which makes me sad, because technology is supposed to be about making our lives easier.
The second point is that every website that loads the ads before it loads the actual content should be shot. This is because I do not go to any web site out there to view the ads front and center. I go to every web site out there to view the ads out of the corner of my eye, pretending they can't see me and that I'm actually interested in the other content on the screen (which, as I previously mentioned, would make me break down and weep for the future if I actually paid it any attention). This is remarkably like how I behaved during that one semester of college where I had a roommate, but that had more to do with the fact that his girlfriend had a remarkably lax attitude towards dressing and undressing no matter who else was in the room.
The topic of half-naked girls brings me directly to the third and final point. No ad on the internet should rely on half-naked girls actually getting people's attention. After all, this is the internet. All the porn lives here.
Over and out.
There are three points that I, in my ad-less blog post, wish to make. First and foremost, no ads that are hidden at the bottom of the page should have sound on them. Yes, it's true that I only listen to music when I'm surfing the web because if I ever get rid of that distraction and focus all my attention on the content of various web pages, I will break down and cry, having lost all faith in the human race. However, if this persists I may resort to browsing with my computer muted, and just listen to music off my iPod instead. It seems more complicated that way, which makes me sad, because technology is supposed to be about making our lives easier.
The second point is that every website that loads the ads before it loads the actual content should be shot. This is because I do not go to any web site out there to view the ads front and center. I go to every web site out there to view the ads out of the corner of my eye, pretending they can't see me and that I'm actually interested in the other content on the screen (which, as I previously mentioned, would make me break down and weep for the future if I actually paid it any attention). This is remarkably like how I behaved during that one semester of college where I had a roommate, but that had more to do with the fact that his girlfriend had a remarkably lax attitude towards dressing and undressing no matter who else was in the room.
The topic of half-naked girls brings me directly to the third and final point. No ad on the internet should rely on half-naked girls actually getting people's attention. After all, this is the internet. All the porn lives here.
Over and out.
"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" as a political model
One day, in that terrifying thing we call the future, I will have children. And inevitably there will be two topics that can't be answered with the very satisfying "when you're older." The first will be sex, a topic that will be covered by showing my children their tuition bills and then telling them that unless they have that much money, they'd better keep it in their pants.
The second topic is politics. Hopefully, as I did, my children will have a course on the Constitution before they give any serious thought to Democrats and Republicans and all the rest. Bill Clinton was bad because my dad said so, and since I couldn't vote that was good enough for me.
Now, I promised myself that this post would not become "why I believe what I do about politics." You don't really need me to tell you that. And I couldn't really do it in any way that Milton Friedman couldn't do better. No, I'm here to talk about politics in general.
Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of people: those with loaded guns and those who dig. No, wait, I got ahead of myself. There are two kinds of people in America. One the one hand are those who are partisan, or policy wonks, or political science junkies, or vote the party line all the way down the ballot year after year after year, or have strong feelings about how everything is just fine/terrible. We'll call them "the people who care."
On the other hand are the people who say "well, that W fellow can't string two words together, so I won't vote for him," or "John Kerry is a flip-flopper! I don't know what he flip-flopped on, but I sure won't vote for him," or "I'm not going to vote for a black man no matter how articulate he is," or "I'm not going to put Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency." These are the "apathetic twits." They don't really have the time to understand politics and will generally vote for the most amenable candidate with the whitest teeth and the most realistic smile (did you see any of McCain's or Obama's pictures during the campaign? It was all half-hearted grins from McCain and trust-me-I'm-a-used-car-salesman from Obama).
Now, contrary to what I said in my previous post, Barack Obama did not spend $6.65 per person getting "the people who care" to vote for him. Some of them (the registered Democrats) would, and others (the registered Republicans) would not. Barack Obama spent significantly more than $6.65 getting the "apathetic twits" to vote for him. Not that it was a very tough job given the utter inability of his real opponent to point out that Obama was running against him and not against an incumbent who wasn't on the ballot.
There's not much more I can say about the "apathetic twits." They're apathetic and they're not really twits, but they're the primary reason for all those nasty attack ads you see every fourth October. They're the ones who actually win the elections. There aren't enough party faithful - I mean "people who care" - on either side to do it alone. This is because there aren't that many "people who care." A lot of "apathetic twits" are apathetic because they have better things to do, or because they honestly believe that other people can run their lives better than they can. Come to think of it, a lot of Democrats believe the latter too, as do a depressing number of Republicans.
I guess here I should mention that there is a third group, made up of statists or libertarians. I hesitate to call "the people who care" good, although they're the only ones who usually know what they're talking about, and I even hesitate to call the "apathetic twits" bad, but I don't really have any qualms about calling this third group ugly. Or rather The Ugly. Statists tend to be socially conservative but economically liberal; no, you can't marry your brother and nor can you keep your money. Libertarians are the exact opposite; drugs for everyone, but you're the one who has to pay for your drugs. Statists who are more economically liberal than they are socially conservative will tend to vote Democrat anyway, but they may cross the line in some cases.
The Reagan Democrats were a mix of the "apathetic twits" and the statist/libertarian weirdoes. ("Weirdoes" is a term I'm comfortable with, and I described myself as a "right-leaning libertarian" for about three years.) This is one of the reasons why Republicans tend to chuckle whenever they're reminded that Reagan raised taxes that one time. Because when the Bad and the Ugly put you in office, sometimes you have to make decisions that are Bad or Ugly.
So that's We The People, nicely divided up into the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. But the same can be done with political parties.
Naturally, to "the people who care," the Good is their party, right or wrong, even if that party nominates a gibbering moron or a senile centrist incapable of running a national campaign. The Bad is the other party, even if they nominate and elect a quasi-centrist who will cross the aisle occasionally and then get caught doing inappropriate things with a cigar (sorry, dad). The Ugly is that third-party candidate who steals all the votes for the Good and tips the election to the Bad. Greens, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Socialists, that's you.
The "apathetic twits" see the Good as... well, they see the Good as "that nice old veteran, who looks like he'd have a heart attack if he tried to be as evil as Bush" or "that nice articulate black man who will solve all our problems for us." The Bad to these people are "that crazy witch from Alaska who can see Russia from her house" or "the guy who doesn't know that 'jobs' is a four-letter word." The Ugly? Ralph Nader and Ron Paul. Always. "Well, I'd give them a chance if I thought they had a chance."
And finally you have the weirdoes. I'm going to focus on the libertarian weirdoes here because I honestly know jack about the statists or why anyone would be one. So the Good for the libertarians? Ron Paul. Yes, that Ron Paul, the one who's the Ugly for both the "people who care" and the "apathetic twits." The Bad is the statist candidate for the libertarians and the libertarian candidate for the statists. And the Ugly are the candidates from both major parties.
Hopefully now you understand why American politics are so messed up. Having explained all this to my future children, I will give them Milton Friedman to read. And if that doesn't work, I will then go on to display their tuition bill again and ask them if I can buy their vote for that much money, not just a measly $6.65.
The second topic is politics. Hopefully, as I did, my children will have a course on the Constitution before they give any serious thought to Democrats and Republicans and all the rest. Bill Clinton was bad because my dad said so, and since I couldn't vote that was good enough for me.
Now, I promised myself that this post would not become "why I believe what I do about politics." You don't really need me to tell you that. And I couldn't really do it in any way that Milton Friedman couldn't do better. No, I'm here to talk about politics in general.
Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of people: those with loaded guns and those who dig. No, wait, I got ahead of myself. There are two kinds of people in America. One the one hand are those who are partisan, or policy wonks, or political science junkies, or vote the party line all the way down the ballot year after year after year, or have strong feelings about how everything is just fine/terrible. We'll call them "the people who care."
On the other hand are the people who say "well, that W fellow can't string two words together, so I won't vote for him," or "John Kerry is a flip-flopper! I don't know what he flip-flopped on, but I sure won't vote for him," or "I'm not going to vote for a black man no matter how articulate he is," or "I'm not going to put Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency." These are the "apathetic twits." They don't really have the time to understand politics and will generally vote for the most amenable candidate with the whitest teeth and the most realistic smile (did you see any of McCain's or Obama's pictures during the campaign? It was all half-hearted grins from McCain and trust-me-I'm-a-used-car-salesman from Obama).
Now, contrary to what I said in my previous post, Barack Obama did not spend $6.65 per person getting "the people who care" to vote for him. Some of them (the registered Democrats) would, and others (the registered Republicans) would not. Barack Obama spent significantly more than $6.65 getting the "apathetic twits" to vote for him. Not that it was a very tough job given the utter inability of his real opponent to point out that Obama was running against him and not against an incumbent who wasn't on the ballot.
There's not much more I can say about the "apathetic twits." They're apathetic and they're not really twits, but they're the primary reason for all those nasty attack ads you see every fourth October. They're the ones who actually win the elections. There aren't enough party faithful - I mean "people who care" - on either side to do it alone. This is because there aren't that many "people who care." A lot of "apathetic twits" are apathetic because they have better things to do, or because they honestly believe that other people can run their lives better than they can. Come to think of it, a lot of Democrats believe the latter too, as do a depressing number of Republicans.
I guess here I should mention that there is a third group, made up of statists or libertarians. I hesitate to call "the people who care" good, although they're the only ones who usually know what they're talking about, and I even hesitate to call the "apathetic twits" bad, but I don't really have any qualms about calling this third group ugly. Or rather The Ugly. Statists tend to be socially conservative but economically liberal; no, you can't marry your brother and nor can you keep your money. Libertarians are the exact opposite; drugs for everyone, but you're the one who has to pay for your drugs. Statists who are more economically liberal than they are socially conservative will tend to vote Democrat anyway, but they may cross the line in some cases.
The Reagan Democrats were a mix of the "apathetic twits" and the statist/libertarian weirdoes. ("Weirdoes" is a term I'm comfortable with, and I described myself as a "right-leaning libertarian" for about three years.) This is one of the reasons why Republicans tend to chuckle whenever they're reminded that Reagan raised taxes that one time. Because when the Bad and the Ugly put you in office, sometimes you have to make decisions that are Bad or Ugly.
So that's We The People, nicely divided up into the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. But the same can be done with political parties.
Naturally, to "the people who care," the Good is their party, right or wrong, even if that party nominates a gibbering moron or a senile centrist incapable of running a national campaign. The Bad is the other party, even if they nominate and elect a quasi-centrist who will cross the aisle occasionally and then get caught doing inappropriate things with a cigar (sorry, dad). The Ugly is that third-party candidate who steals all the votes for the Good and tips the election to the Bad. Greens, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Socialists, that's you.
The "apathetic twits" see the Good as... well, they see the Good as "that nice old veteran, who looks like he'd have a heart attack if he tried to be as evil as Bush" or "that nice articulate black man who will solve all our problems for us." The Bad to these people are "that crazy witch from Alaska who can see Russia from her house" or "the guy who doesn't know that 'jobs' is a four-letter word." The Ugly? Ralph Nader and Ron Paul. Always. "Well, I'd give them a chance if I thought they had a chance."
And finally you have the weirdoes. I'm going to focus on the libertarian weirdoes here because I honestly know jack about the statists or why anyone would be one. So the Good for the libertarians? Ron Paul. Yes, that Ron Paul, the one who's the Ugly for both the "people who care" and the "apathetic twits." The Bad is the statist candidate for the libertarians and the libertarian candidate for the statists. And the Ugly are the candidates from both major parties.
Hopefully now you understand why American politics are so messed up. Having explained all this to my future children, I will give them Milton Friedman to read. And if that doesn't work, I will then go on to display their tuition bill again and ask them if I can buy their vote for that much money, not just a measly $6.65.
Monday, November 28, 2011
For people who think there's too much money in politics...
Barack Obama spent $513,557,218 to get 69,456,897 people to vote for him back in 2008. John McCain spent $346,666,422 to get 59,934,814 people to vote for him. (Source: Wikipedia.) I punched those four numbers into my calculator to find out how much the average vote cost in 2008. (I didn't include independent expenditures or votes, because we all know that those dollars and votes were wasted when they could have been put to much better use, like paying homeless people to occupy Wall Street.)
So it turns out that in 2008, your vote sold for... ready?
$6.6482129, or about $6.65.
I could buy a hamburger and a large fry for that. And that's what your vote is worth, apparently.
Now, I hesitate before I put a price tag on my vote, because someday someone might offer to pay me that much... or will pay someone else much less to forge my vote. But I will say that my vote is worth more than a hamburger and a large fry.
Hell, depending on where in the US you live, the minimum wage is between $7.25 and $9.04 (source: Wikipedia). So assuming you work, your vote is being bought for less than you make in an hour.
Here's the part where I get distracted and complain about how it takes me nearly an hour to pay for a lunch I can eat in five minutes, which always struck me as one of the strangest and most perverse things about the job I had last summer (the job paid more than minimum wage, but there wasn't a McDonald's in walking distance).
Here's the part where I get back on track, after quickly pausing and spell-checking and finding, to my considerable amusement, that the spell-checking program doesn't recognize "Wikipedia" as a word. I for one could stand to see a lot more money wasted during campaign season. I'm frankly insulted to think that my vote, my party-line-all-the-way-down-the-ballot-for-the-last-three-elections-running vote, is worth less than an hour's worth of work or a quarter-pounder and a large fry.
Come to think of that, the fact that your vote is worth less than an hour's worth of work means that no candidate ever has spent an hour of his life trying to get you to vote for him. And candidates generally don't work for minimum wage.
So it turns out that in 2008, your vote sold for... ready?
$6.6482129, or about $6.65.
I could buy a hamburger and a large fry for that. And that's what your vote is worth, apparently.
Now, I hesitate before I put a price tag on my vote, because someday someone might offer to pay me that much... or will pay someone else much less to forge my vote. But I will say that my vote is worth more than a hamburger and a large fry.
Hell, depending on where in the US you live, the minimum wage is between $7.25 and $9.04 (source: Wikipedia). So assuming you work, your vote is being bought for less than you make in an hour.
Here's the part where I get distracted and complain about how it takes me nearly an hour to pay for a lunch I can eat in five minutes, which always struck me as one of the strangest and most perverse things about the job I had last summer (the job paid more than minimum wage, but there wasn't a McDonald's in walking distance).
Here's the part where I get back on track, after quickly pausing and spell-checking and finding, to my considerable amusement, that the spell-checking program doesn't recognize "Wikipedia" as a word. I for one could stand to see a lot more money wasted during campaign season. I'm frankly insulted to think that my vote, my party-line-all-the-way-down-the-ballot-for-the-last-three-elections-running vote, is worth less than an hour's worth of work or a quarter-pounder and a large fry.
Come to think of that, the fact that your vote is worth less than an hour's worth of work means that no candidate ever has spent an hour of his life trying to get you to vote for him. And candidates generally don't work for minimum wage.
Photoplasty commentary No. 1
I hate these things, and now I'm going to rant about why.
Yup, Cracked.com put out another photoplasty contest, but fortunately this one actually had a couple of good entries. Not the first page, of course, that’s just bongs and dongs, your usual immature unfunny pig slop that constitutes most of Cracked.com’s guest output.
So I’m just starting on the second page with number nine. Yup, it’s another bong. Next!
Number eight: Alf has been photoshopped into… something. I admit that I don’t recognize the source photo. I’m lost a lot when they do pop-culture crap because the only TV I watch involves British time-travelers or an incredibly dysfunctional family re-enacting of the Book of Exodus/Mormon in space. But if you’re doing a “famous photograph” and I can identify all the other ones on this list, but not this one, you’re doing something wrong. Moving on.
Number seven: Oh look, a bear is flying a stealth fighter. Why a stealth fighter and not a spaceship, I’ll never know but there you have it. Bears can be amusing; this one is not.
Number six: More like it! Buzz Aldrin sees the TARDIS on the moon. I nominate this one for the number one slot. Aldrin is not inherently funny; the TARDIS is not inherently funny; the moon is not inherently funny. But somehow when you slap the three of them together, you get something that even I managed to giggle at. See, this is a thing where all the elements work perfectly. You have to have Aldrin and the moon or else you wouldn’t have this picture. You could do something stupid to Aldrin’s face, but that wouldn’t be funny. Then the item he sees has to be perfectly chosen. It wouldn’t be as funny if it were, say, a big black obelisk, a wrecked Viper, or even a generic alien spaceship (now, the underside of a Star Destroy might just work). Granted, you have to know about a certain British TV show to really appreciate this one, but it’s so obviously the cream of the crop that the fact that it’s back in sixth is just all kinds of offensive.
Number five: Darth Nixious zaps someone with lightning. Not as funny as the one on the previous page about him giving everyone the finger. Also, I’d bet this one was a zillion times easier to do. Nixon’s been done to death, folks, and so has Force Lightning.
Number four: Planet of the Martian Apes. Frak you.
Number three: Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder was staged. For… some reason. Also Jack Ruby has a swastika tattoo and JFK’s hanging out in the background. There’s way too much going on here and none of it is funny. Why is Kennedy even in the frame if this is the angle from which his alleged murderer’s death is going to be staged? If he and his handlers were that stupid, the world would have ended in 1962. Why does the actor playing Jack Ruby have a clearly visible swastika tattoo? Why is the slate (that little “clapper” thing with the words “Oswald Assass” scrawled on it) in the shot once the action has started? Did nobody order a second take? Then again, as far as photoshopping Oswald’s death goes, nothing tops the time they put guitars in everyone’s hands.
Number two: Nixon is getting tattooed. You stole that idea from Jon Stewart and this is at least the third photo that uses Nixon. Getting a tad blah here.
Number one: Look, another dong. It turns out that the Loch Ness Monster is actually Stalin’s dick. Why is this funny? Is it because it’s Stalin? Would it be less funny if it were Hitler’s? How about Mao’s? And if you look at it for more than about a second, the photoshop job is terrible. Stalin’s head is grafted onto somebody else’s, the picture of the guy in the water has been grafted onto the Loch Ness pic with absolutely no subtlety, and it frankly looks like the Monster’s growing out of Stalin’s right thigh.
Yup, Cracked.com put out another photoplasty contest, but fortunately this one actually had a couple of good entries. Not the first page, of course, that’s just bongs and dongs, your usual immature unfunny pig slop that constitutes most of Cracked.com’s guest output.
So I’m just starting on the second page with number nine. Yup, it’s another bong. Next!
Number eight: Alf has been photoshopped into… something. I admit that I don’t recognize the source photo. I’m lost a lot when they do pop-culture crap because the only TV I watch involves British time-travelers or an incredibly dysfunctional family re-enacting of the Book of Exodus/Mormon in space. But if you’re doing a “famous photograph” and I can identify all the other ones on this list, but not this one, you’re doing something wrong. Moving on.
Number seven: Oh look, a bear is flying a stealth fighter. Why a stealth fighter and not a spaceship, I’ll never know but there you have it. Bears can be amusing; this one is not.
Number six: More like it! Buzz Aldrin sees the TARDIS on the moon. I nominate this one for the number one slot. Aldrin is not inherently funny; the TARDIS is not inherently funny; the moon is not inherently funny. But somehow when you slap the three of them together, you get something that even I managed to giggle at. See, this is a thing where all the elements work perfectly. You have to have Aldrin and the moon or else you wouldn’t have this picture. You could do something stupid to Aldrin’s face, but that wouldn’t be funny. Then the item he sees has to be perfectly chosen. It wouldn’t be as funny if it were, say, a big black obelisk, a wrecked Viper, or even a generic alien spaceship (now, the underside of a Star Destroy might just work). Granted, you have to know about a certain British TV show to really appreciate this one, but it’s so obviously the cream of the crop that the fact that it’s back in sixth is just all kinds of offensive.
Number five: Darth Nixious zaps someone with lightning. Not as funny as the one on the previous page about him giving everyone the finger. Also, I’d bet this one was a zillion times easier to do. Nixon’s been done to death, folks, and so has Force Lightning.
Number four: Planet of the Martian Apes. Frak you.
Number three: Lee Harvey Oswald’s murder was staged. For… some reason. Also Jack Ruby has a swastika tattoo and JFK’s hanging out in the background. There’s way too much going on here and none of it is funny. Why is Kennedy even in the frame if this is the angle from which his alleged murderer’s death is going to be staged? If he and his handlers were that stupid, the world would have ended in 1962. Why does the actor playing Jack Ruby have a clearly visible swastika tattoo? Why is the slate (that little “clapper” thing with the words “Oswald Assass” scrawled on it) in the shot once the action has started? Did nobody order a second take? Then again, as far as photoshopping Oswald’s death goes, nothing tops the time they put guitars in everyone’s hands.
Number two: Nixon is getting tattooed. You stole that idea from Jon Stewart and this is at least the third photo that uses Nixon. Getting a tad blah here.
Number one: Look, another dong. It turns out that the Loch Ness Monster is actually Stalin’s dick. Why is this funny? Is it because it’s Stalin? Would it be less funny if it were Hitler’s? How about Mao’s? And if you look at it for more than about a second, the photoshop job is terrible. Stalin’s head is grafted onto somebody else’s, the picture of the guy in the water has been grafted onto the Loch Ness pic with absolutely no subtlety, and it frankly looks like the Monster’s growing out of Stalin’s right thigh.
Friday, November 25, 2011
The upcoming Christmas Special
So my general train of thought on pretty much everything Steven Moffat's done over the last two seasons went something like this:
1, approximately one month before the episode in question aired: this is a stupid idea and it will never work.
2, immediately after seeing the episode in question: well, that flew in the face of common sense a zillion times and I spotted the source material a mile away, but it wasn't as terrible an idea as I thought.
3, some time later: Steven Moffat is the best thing to happen to Doctor Who since Tom Baker!
So when I found out that the Christmas Special this year is called The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe, naturally my first thought was along the lines of #1. Now, full confession time. I haven't read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and probably never will. I know, I know, there's a massive hole in my childhood somewhere, terrible terrible me.
More to the point, Doctor Who is profoundly athiestic. (Maybe that's because my good friend Tom often derides a certain Series 2 two-parter as "the one with freaking Satan in it" and the people at the BBC agreed that said episodes were an awful joke.) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Not so much. This seems only slightly less offensive than adapting the New Testament into a Doctor Who two-parter, or having the Doctor rejuvenated by faith...
Speaking of, the Series 3 reviews start next week.
1, approximately one month before the episode in question aired: this is a stupid idea and it will never work.
2, immediately after seeing the episode in question: well, that flew in the face of common sense a zillion times and I spotted the source material a mile away, but it wasn't as terrible an idea as I thought.
3, some time later: Steven Moffat is the best thing to happen to Doctor Who since Tom Baker!
So when I found out that the Christmas Special this year is called The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe, naturally my first thought was along the lines of #1. Now, full confession time. I haven't read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and probably never will. I know, I know, there's a massive hole in my childhood somewhere, terrible terrible me.
More to the point, Doctor Who is profoundly athiestic. (Maybe that's because my good friend Tom often derides a certain Series 2 two-parter as "the one with freaking Satan in it" and the people at the BBC agreed that said episodes were an awful joke.) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Not so much. This seems only slightly less offensive than adapting the New Testament into a Doctor Who two-parter, or having the Doctor rejuvenated by faith...
Speaking of, the Series 3 reviews start next week.
Raving Wingnut Thought of the Day
It's the day after Thanksgiving and all, which probably makes this sound all the more heartless, but...
Let's make foreign aid conditional on the recipient voting our way in the UN.
Yup, we'd be paying for votes and corrupting the sacred* democratic process, but frankly that's better than pouring tons of money into anti-American cabals. I mean, it's not like the taxpayers need that money or anything.** It's also not like we have a massive recession that could be eased somewhat by spending less money*** and our debt is clearly under control**** so sure, keep up the good work.
*Sarcasm.
**Massive sarcasm.
***Extra massive sarcasm.
****Sarcasm with cheese and a large fry.
Let's make foreign aid conditional on the recipient voting our way in the UN.
Yup, we'd be paying for votes and corrupting the sacred* democratic process, but frankly that's better than pouring tons of money into anti-American cabals. I mean, it's not like the taxpayers need that money or anything.** It's also not like we have a massive recession that could be eased somewhat by spending less money*** and our debt is clearly under control**** so sure, keep up the good work.
*Sarcasm.
**Massive sarcasm.
***Extra massive sarcasm.
****Sarcasm with cheese and a large fry.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Wait... did they count Nirvana as a "good" band?
Anyone responsible for any part of this, you have just lost the right to vote. Forever.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Several ways Bryan Singer can (and will) annoy the BSG fanbase
So, David Yates is making a Doctor Who film. It's not going to be set in the show's canon, which did a lot to assuage the fears of any fan old enough to remember 1996.
So, Bryan Singer is making a Battlestar Galactica film. It's not going to be set in the most recent show's cannon...
...but here are a number of reasons why a second BSG reimagining is a terrible, terrible idea.
1) Shepard Syndrome
For those of you who have never played or heard of Mass Effect, let me explain in slightly more detail: in Mass Effect, there's a very prominent character whose most commonly-used name begins with the letter S. Depending on your preferred version of canon, this character could either be a man or a woman. Now in total contrast, in Battlestar Galactica there's a very prominent character who... oh, you get the picture.
Is Starbuck a man or a woman? Is Boomer a man or a woman? (What race is Boomer? What species is Boomer?) Either way, you're not going to be able to please everyone.
2) How much of the RDM version do you keep?
Directly related to number 1 above, but I felt like highlighting the Starbuck issue in particular. Among other things, will there be: a President Roslin, a Chief Tyrol, a Dee, a Helo, a Gaeta, a political dissident played by the former Apollo, humanoid Cylons (including Number Six), flight pods that close, Raptors, DRADIS, etc? How about stuff from the original show that didn't make it into the RDM version? Will there be Boxey, Cassiopia, Sheba, Muffit, Athena? Which version of the Cylon Raiders and Baseships will you use?
3) Deus ex Machina
Let me just reiterate before going any further that I still love the RDM BSG, despite its less-than-perfect ending, its disappointing prequel, and whatever the frak Blood and Chrome is going to turn out to be. That said, I am very much aware that most BSG fans hated the finale a great deal more than I did. The thing is, the original BSG was essentially the Book of Mormon in space; I've never read it, but my guess is God's involved somehow. So if you don't want religion in your science fiction*, this was never really the show for you in the first place.
*This is completely off-topic, but I'm amused that some Mass Effect fans hated Ashley because she was into God. Then the ME producers turned right around and hired BSG's resident Angel of God to play HAL in the second game. That just struck me as hilarious.
The problem is, RDM BSG had an extremely (literal) deus ex machina ending, and Singer might want to backpedal as far away from that as he can. This, in my opinion, would be a fantastic mistake. The religious angle was far from the only thing that made BSG so unique, but it was an integral part of the show.
4) Doesn't the franchise need a break?
If I were a studio executive looking at the backlash from Daybreak and the atrocious viewing figures for Caprica, I'd be extremely hesitant before I signed off on a very expensive (because space opera always is) feature film. Try to imagine J.J. Abrams's Star Trek film getting green-lit in the immediate aftermath of Enterprise's cancellation. If memory serves, five years elapsed between the time Enterprise was cancelled and Star Trek the Star Trek came out. In contrast, George Lucas has been churning out Star Wars stuff for an entire decade, but we've all stopped caring. It's been two years since BSG wrapped, one years since Caprica went down in flames, and Blood and Chrome hasn't even aired yet.
Now, I know that Singer's not looking to piggyback onto a commercially successful franchise, because he's been planning this movie since before Ron Moore upstaged him back in 2003. But that's part of the problem. David Yates (who has just come off of four Harry Potter films) is almost certainly making a Doctor Who film because there's money to be made from it. With certain other directors, I'd complain, but Yates seems fairly compentent and determined to do right by the show. Singer may be as well, but here's the difference: there is a market for a Doctor Who feature film. The show is popular here in America in a way it never was during the last century. I'm not at all convinced that a similar market exists for Battlestar.
5) Yeah, I went there.
When the original Galactica was cancelled, there was an attempt to get something with the Battlestar Galactica name back on the air as quick as possible. The result was... Galactica 1980, a show everyone pretends never existed.
So, Bryan Singer is making a Battlestar Galactica film. It's not going to be set in the most recent show's cannon...
...but here are a number of reasons why a second BSG reimagining is a terrible, terrible idea.
1) Shepard Syndrome
For those of you who have never played or heard of Mass Effect, let me explain in slightly more detail: in Mass Effect, there's a very prominent character whose most commonly-used name begins with the letter S. Depending on your preferred version of canon, this character could either be a man or a woman. Now in total contrast, in Battlestar Galactica there's a very prominent character who... oh, you get the picture.
Is Starbuck a man or a woman? Is Boomer a man or a woman? (What race is Boomer? What species is Boomer?) Either way, you're not going to be able to please everyone.
2) How much of the RDM version do you keep?
Directly related to number 1 above, but I felt like highlighting the Starbuck issue in particular. Among other things, will there be: a President Roslin, a Chief Tyrol, a Dee, a Helo, a Gaeta, a political dissident played by the former Apollo, humanoid Cylons (including Number Six), flight pods that close, Raptors, DRADIS, etc? How about stuff from the original show that didn't make it into the RDM version? Will there be Boxey, Cassiopia, Sheba, Muffit, Athena? Which version of the Cylon Raiders and Baseships will you use?
3) Deus ex Machina
Let me just reiterate before going any further that I still love the RDM BSG, despite its less-than-perfect ending, its disappointing prequel, and whatever the frak Blood and Chrome is going to turn out to be. That said, I am very much aware that most BSG fans hated the finale a great deal more than I did. The thing is, the original BSG was essentially the Book of Mormon in space; I've never read it, but my guess is God's involved somehow. So if you don't want religion in your science fiction*, this was never really the show for you in the first place.
*This is completely off-topic, but I'm amused that some Mass Effect fans hated Ashley because she was into God. Then the ME producers turned right around and hired BSG's resident Angel of God to play HAL in the second game. That just struck me as hilarious.
The problem is, RDM BSG had an extremely (literal) deus ex machina ending, and Singer might want to backpedal as far away from that as he can. This, in my opinion, would be a fantastic mistake. The religious angle was far from the only thing that made BSG so unique, but it was an integral part of the show.
4) Doesn't the franchise need a break?
If I were a studio executive looking at the backlash from Daybreak and the atrocious viewing figures for Caprica, I'd be extremely hesitant before I signed off on a very expensive (because space opera always is) feature film. Try to imagine J.J. Abrams's Star Trek film getting green-lit in the immediate aftermath of Enterprise's cancellation. If memory serves, five years elapsed between the time Enterprise was cancelled and Star Trek the Star Trek came out. In contrast, George Lucas has been churning out Star Wars stuff for an entire decade, but we've all stopped caring. It's been two years since BSG wrapped, one years since Caprica went down in flames, and Blood and Chrome hasn't even aired yet.
Now, I know that Singer's not looking to piggyback onto a commercially successful franchise, because he's been planning this movie since before Ron Moore upstaged him back in 2003. But that's part of the problem. David Yates (who has just come off of four Harry Potter films) is almost certainly making a Doctor Who film because there's money to be made from it. With certain other directors, I'd complain, but Yates seems fairly compentent and determined to do right by the show. Singer may be as well, but here's the difference: there is a market for a Doctor Who feature film. The show is popular here in America in a way it never was during the last century. I'm not at all convinced that a similar market exists for Battlestar.
5) Yeah, I went there.
When the original Galactica was cancelled, there was an attempt to get something with the Battlestar Galactica name back on the air as quick as possible. The result was... Galactica 1980, a show everyone pretends never existed.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Oh look, another permanent beta
Before I start ranting too much, let me get something out of the way: I adore Steam. Sure, it's a big virtual hole in my wallet, but I love the fact that in this day and age you can order video games right over the internet and they will download right onto your computer and you will never have to worry about losing the CDs.
That said, there are these occasional boxes that pop up on the side of my computer: "Steam has finished downloading Team Fortress 2" is probably the most repetitive one. This is because Team Fortress 2 gets updated approximately twice a month. They're always giving you new weapons, or tweaking your new weapons so they're not Haxxor-uberbuffed, or giving you new hats. Every once in a while, there's a new map, which is nice.
The fascinating thing about TF2 is that so far, you haven't had to pay for any of this (unless you really want to, but items drop often enough that you don't have to). It's DLC in the sense that it downloads, but you have no control over it and it doesn't cost you a dime. (It'd be nice if they fixed the backstab mechanic so that a Spy in front of me can't kill me while I'm ducking, but that's really just a minor complaint.)
I'm not really here to complain about TF2. Nor do I have any intention of complaining about, say, the DLC for Mass Effect 2. The game is complete without Zaeed or Kasumi or the Shadow Broker or half a dozen extra guns. Those are what we call "extras." If you want to shell out money to give Miranda more clothes, that's your problem. (The fact that the final DLC, "Arrival," is essentially an "interquel" for ME3 is a little bit annoying, but I'll let it pass. I'll especially let it pass if it comes bundled with ME3, but I kinda doub it will - besides, that'd piss off the people who already bought it.)
But these patches, updates and DLC are both the symptoms and the cause of the problem; now that it's possible to update a video game after it's been released, quality control is going away, fast. While I'm very happy that Skyrm is finally out and I will no longer be subjected to the poor-man's-Howard-Shore* they seem to employ for the music in all their commercials, the fact of the matter is that everything I've read about it seems to imply that a patch is already on the way.
Okay, so you blew the whole quality control thing. At least you can still give the fans what they want, right? I mean, it's not like there's a game out there where appeasing one section of the fanbase in your latest patch will completely alienate another section...
And this brings us back to StarCraft II, which was the first game where I encountered this problem. My units do less damage this week than they did last week because enough people who play as a different race complained. My powers work differently now because they decided that they actually liked the way things worked before the patch that immediately preceeded my purchase of the game. They're not going to suddenly change the Soldier's health in TF2, nor are they going to change his running speed (and frankly, as long as the latter remains "slower than the Spy," I don't care one way or the other).** They're not going to suddenly decide that Miranda was overbuffed in ME2 and take away one of her powers.
The other thing is that I was reading some of the old patch notes for SC2, and it seems like the game was crashing a lot for no good reason back after it first came out. Again, did you not bother to beta-test it?
Then there's the dark side to DLC, which is what you get when you pay $10 for the first part of a video game, and $5 for each sucessive part. Believe me, it's coming. It's coming for the exact same reason that everything costs $X.99 instead of $(X+1). You think you're saving money.
And one day, the worst will come to pass: a permanent beta that you have to pay money to fix. And the day I'm tricked into buying that will be the day I swear off video games forever.
*I have nothing against Howard Shore. I just thought the music in the Skyrm commercials was crap.
**Yes, they do change various unlockable weapons from time to time, like giving the Backburner a compression blast. Doesn't really affect gameplay.
That said, there are these occasional boxes that pop up on the side of my computer: "Steam has finished downloading Team Fortress 2" is probably the most repetitive one. This is because Team Fortress 2 gets updated approximately twice a month. They're always giving you new weapons, or tweaking your new weapons so they're not Haxxor-uberbuffed, or giving you new hats. Every once in a while, there's a new map, which is nice.
The fascinating thing about TF2 is that so far, you haven't had to pay for any of this (unless you really want to, but items drop often enough that you don't have to). It's DLC in the sense that it downloads, but you have no control over it and it doesn't cost you a dime. (It'd be nice if they fixed the backstab mechanic so that a Spy in front of me can't kill me while I'm ducking, but that's really just a minor complaint.)
I'm not really here to complain about TF2. Nor do I have any intention of complaining about, say, the DLC for Mass Effect 2. The game is complete without Zaeed or Kasumi or the Shadow Broker or half a dozen extra guns. Those are what we call "extras." If you want to shell out money to give Miranda more clothes, that's your problem. (The fact that the final DLC, "Arrival," is essentially an "interquel" for ME3 is a little bit annoying, but I'll let it pass. I'll especially let it pass if it comes bundled with ME3, but I kinda doub it will - besides, that'd piss off the people who already bought it.)
But these patches, updates and DLC are both the symptoms and the cause of the problem; now that it's possible to update a video game after it's been released, quality control is going away, fast. While I'm very happy that Skyrm is finally out and I will no longer be subjected to the poor-man's-Howard-Shore* they seem to employ for the music in all their commercials, the fact of the matter is that everything I've read about it seems to imply that a patch is already on the way.
Okay, so you blew the whole quality control thing. At least you can still give the fans what they want, right? I mean, it's not like there's a game out there where appeasing one section of the fanbase in your latest patch will completely alienate another section...
And this brings us back to StarCraft II, which was the first game where I encountered this problem. My units do less damage this week than they did last week because enough people who play as a different race complained. My powers work differently now because they decided that they actually liked the way things worked before the patch that immediately preceeded my purchase of the game. They're not going to suddenly change the Soldier's health in TF2, nor are they going to change his running speed (and frankly, as long as the latter remains "slower than the Spy," I don't care one way or the other).** They're not going to suddenly decide that Miranda was overbuffed in ME2 and take away one of her powers.
The other thing is that I was reading some of the old patch notes for SC2, and it seems like the game was crashing a lot for no good reason back after it first came out. Again, did you not bother to beta-test it?
Then there's the dark side to DLC, which is what you get when you pay $10 for the first part of a video game, and $5 for each sucessive part. Believe me, it's coming. It's coming for the exact same reason that everything costs $X.99 instead of $(X+1). You think you're saving money.
And one day, the worst will come to pass: a permanent beta that you have to pay money to fix. And the day I'm tricked into buying that will be the day I swear off video games forever.
*I have nothing against Howard Shore. I just thought the music in the Skyrm commercials was crap.
**Yes, they do change various unlockable weapons from time to time, like giving the Backburner a compression blast. Doesn't really affect gameplay.
Who Review: The Runaway Bride
Immediately after Rose is left alone on a beach (and by "alone" I mean "with her hyper-rich and alive father, her mother, and that other guy"), Donna Noble gets beamed aboard the TARDIS by magic.
She accuses him of kidnapping her, finds out that they're in space, and then takes a moment to realize that he just might be an alien. "Martian boy" humor ensues.
I'm not really going to comment too much on Donna's character; either you love her or you hate her. I found her tolerable.
There's an extended freeway chase. Trees that look far too green for it to be christmas zip by in the background. The Doctor controls the TARDIS with just a bit of string, somehow. That's got to be clever trick. I can't do that in any video game, and I usually only have to work in two dimensions. Kids scream at Donna to jump, but mercifully, we can't hear them.
Then we go to a reception for a wedding that never happened. The Doctor learns that Donna and her almost-hubby, Lance, worked for a subsidiary of Torchwood and were secretly doing experiments with Huon particles. A Christmas tree bombs them but hardly slows them down and, magically, no-one dies. Probably. Donna says something about needing to help the wounded. The Doctor's response is something along the lines of "lots of ways to help people. Sometimes heal people, sometimes execute dangerous criminals. Either way helps."
Down beneath the Thames Flood Barrier, they find Giant Spider-Lady, Empress of the Rachnoss (not the Rachni, honest), as well as Lance, who turns out to be a traitor. He gets his just desserts and is fed to a bunch of hungry spiders. Y'see, it turns out that in addition to the Silurians, the Sea Devils, that goop from Inferno, the other goop from Fury From the Deep, three different Atlantises and half a dozen other threats, the Rachnoss are buried at Earth's core. In fact, they are Earth's core; the entire planet was actually formed around the last Rachnoss Basestar in order to hide it.
That (plus City of Death) really puts things in perspective. You only exist because the Rachnoss needed a place to hide and so they created your planet. (Then the Jagarroth needed a place to hide, but they blew themselves up by accident and the radiation from the explosion started all life on Earth.)
Sadly, none of this is commented on at all. Instead the Doctor goes in and bombs the Rachnoss base all to hell, drowning the children and leaving the Empress to die in a fire. +50 Renegade points.
This is commented on.
Bear in mind that this is the first episode of Nu Who that doesn't star Rose Tyler. This is why this episode focuses on the Doctor's actions rather than the companion's culture shock.
For once, the Doctor outright kills the alien threat, but this is so out-of-character (as compared to when Pertwee did it without comment in The Sea Devils) that the whole episode is about how out-of-character this is (despite the fact that all the problems in the last two episodes were caused because a bunch of pansies wanted to give Cybermen rights).
So. The Doctor goes underground to confront a threat that has been hibernating since the dawn of time, and ultimately solves his problems through violence. It's a lot faster than The Silurians, but that's about the only improvement. For once the villain of an RTD script isn't stopped through magic, which is nice.
7 out of 10, which is... exactly the same score Doctor Who and the Silurians got.
She accuses him of kidnapping her, finds out that they're in space, and then takes a moment to realize that he just might be an alien. "Martian boy" humor ensues.
I'm not really going to comment too much on Donna's character; either you love her or you hate her. I found her tolerable.
There's an extended freeway chase. Trees that look far too green for it to be christmas zip by in the background. The Doctor controls the TARDIS with just a bit of string, somehow. That's got to be clever trick. I can't do that in any video game, and I usually only have to work in two dimensions. Kids scream at Donna to jump, but mercifully, we can't hear them.
Then we go to a reception for a wedding that never happened. The Doctor learns that Donna and her almost-hubby, Lance, worked for a subsidiary of Torchwood and were secretly doing experiments with Huon particles. A Christmas tree bombs them but hardly slows them down and, magically, no-one dies. Probably. Donna says something about needing to help the wounded. The Doctor's response is something along the lines of "lots of ways to help people. Sometimes heal people, sometimes execute dangerous criminals. Either way helps."
Down beneath the Thames Flood Barrier, they find Giant Spider-Lady, Empress of the Rachnoss (not the Rachni, honest), as well as Lance, who turns out to be a traitor. He gets his just desserts and is fed to a bunch of hungry spiders. Y'see, it turns out that in addition to the Silurians, the Sea Devils, that goop from Inferno, the other goop from Fury From the Deep, three different Atlantises and half a dozen other threats, the Rachnoss are buried at Earth's core. In fact, they are Earth's core; the entire planet was actually formed around the last Rachnoss Basestar in order to hide it.
That (plus City of Death) really puts things in perspective. You only exist because the Rachnoss needed a place to hide and so they created your planet. (Then the Jagarroth needed a place to hide, but they blew themselves up by accident and the radiation from the explosion started all life on Earth.)
Sadly, none of this is commented on at all. Instead the Doctor goes in and bombs the Rachnoss base all to hell, drowning the children and leaving the Empress to die in a fire. +50 Renegade points.
This is commented on.
Bear in mind that this is the first episode of Nu Who that doesn't star Rose Tyler. This is why this episode focuses on the Doctor's actions rather than the companion's culture shock.
For once, the Doctor outright kills the alien threat, but this is so out-of-character (as compared to when Pertwee did it without comment in The Sea Devils) that the whole episode is about how out-of-character this is (despite the fact that all the problems in the last two episodes were caused because a bunch of pansies wanted to give Cybermen rights).
So. The Doctor goes underground to confront a threat that has been hibernating since the dawn of time, and ultimately solves his problems through violence. It's a lot faster than The Silurians, but that's about the only improvement. For once the villain of an RTD script isn't stopped through magic, which is nice.
7 out of 10, which is... exactly the same score Doctor Who and the Silurians got.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Stuff from ME2 I hope comes back to haunt you in ME3
So the reason I haven't been updating this blog for half a month is the same reason as why there's a $50 hole in my wallet - Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2. On the suggestion of my best friend, who once a long long time ago wrote for this very blog, I got swept up in this absurdly immersive retro-80s space opera and in the process, I killed Worf, let Oz fly me around the galaxy, took orders from Bishop and the President, gave Six the access codes to my ship's mainframe, and listened while Colonel Tigh made a Hitchhiker's reference. (Oh, and I shot Holtz in the head. Repeatedly.)
Overall, I was disappointed how my ME1 decisions largely resulted in cosmetic changes; it didn't affect gameplay one jot whether Wrex, the rachni, or the Council died, and neither did it matter much who you left on Virmire. Just about the only difference is whether or not you can be reinstated as a spectre, and even that only opens up one dialogue option during an optional sidequest. This may be because they had to keep you on the rails for ME2, but they've been pretty clear about how ME3 is the end of the trilogy, so hopefully the endings can branch out depending on what you've done.
So here's a list of all the choices that you can make in the first two games that I hope have dire consequences in the third.
Killing/sparing the Rachni Queen
I noticed that if you just start a new ME2 game without importing an ME1 character, it assumes you let as many people/races die as possible to generally give you the worst universe. Still, despite the fact that the rachni were part of the most generally frustrating level of ME1, I hope they make a return appearance if you spared them.
Killing/sparing the Council
Again, saving them granted you one extra cutscene in ME2, but you had to go out of your way to get it. Let's have something more substantial next time around.
Killing/sparing Wrex
This was another choice that didn't affect gameplay at all, but it's clear from Wreav's comments that the krogan are headed in a different direction under him. Hopefully this plays out.
How you handled Tali's and Legion's loyalty missions
This is so obviously flagged as a massive choice that it's going to be insulting if it doesn't have a massive effect (yuk yuk) on the third game. If your morality score isn't high enough, you either have to get Tali exiled or balkanize the rag-tag fugitive fleet. And then later on you can either re-write or kill the renegade Dal- er, geth, and then the choices you have as Tali and Legion's conflict play out are clearly going to have consequences. Will the quarians and the geth make peace, or will the quarians have to run off to their mythical thirteenth colony, only to find that it's a nuclear wasteland? (To be fair, I thought the quarians were nuts to be talking about re-taking their homeworld until I learned that, in contrast to Battlestar's 50,293 survivors, the quarian fleet has about 17 million refugees. So yeah, there are some differences.)
Who died
Given that Tali and Garrus are supposed to be squad members in the third game, obviously their deaths at the end of ME2 will affect ME3. The others I'm less sure about. (Hmm... can you get everyone killed except for them?)
Destroying the Collector base
Of my three complete ME2 runthroughs, I've only left the base intact once, and it's pretty clear from the discussion with the Illusive Man that no, this was a bloody stupid thing to do.
Basically what I'm saying is that I want the choices you made in ME2 to have consequences to the story of ME3, rather than just triggering tiny events, like an asari thanking you for sparing the rachni.
Overall, I was disappointed how my ME1 decisions largely resulted in cosmetic changes; it didn't affect gameplay one jot whether Wrex, the rachni, or the Council died, and neither did it matter much who you left on Virmire. Just about the only difference is whether or not you can be reinstated as a spectre, and even that only opens up one dialogue option during an optional sidequest. This may be because they had to keep you on the rails for ME2, but they've been pretty clear about how ME3 is the end of the trilogy, so hopefully the endings can branch out depending on what you've done.
So here's a list of all the choices that you can make in the first two games that I hope have dire consequences in the third.
Killing/sparing the Rachni Queen
I noticed that if you just start a new ME2 game without importing an ME1 character, it assumes you let as many people/races die as possible to generally give you the worst universe. Still, despite the fact that the rachni were part of the most generally frustrating level of ME1, I hope they make a return appearance if you spared them.
Killing/sparing the Council
Again, saving them granted you one extra cutscene in ME2, but you had to go out of your way to get it. Let's have something more substantial next time around.
Killing/sparing Wrex
This was another choice that didn't affect gameplay at all, but it's clear from Wreav's comments that the krogan are headed in a different direction under him. Hopefully this plays out.
How you handled Tali's and Legion's loyalty missions
This is so obviously flagged as a massive choice that it's going to be insulting if it doesn't have a massive effect (yuk yuk) on the third game. If your morality score isn't high enough, you either have to get Tali exiled or balkanize the rag-tag fugitive fleet. And then later on you can either re-write or kill the renegade Dal- er, geth, and then the choices you have as Tali and Legion's conflict play out are clearly going to have consequences. Will the quarians and the geth make peace, or will the quarians have to run off to their mythical thirteenth colony, only to find that it's a nuclear wasteland? (To be fair, I thought the quarians were nuts to be talking about re-taking their homeworld until I learned that, in contrast to Battlestar's 50,293 survivors, the quarian fleet has about 17 million refugees. So yeah, there are some differences.)
Who died
Given that Tali and Garrus are supposed to be squad members in the third game, obviously their deaths at the end of ME2 will affect ME3. The others I'm less sure about. (Hmm... can you get everyone killed except for them?)
Destroying the Collector base
Of my three complete ME2 runthroughs, I've only left the base intact once, and it's pretty clear from the discussion with the Illusive Man that no, this was a bloody stupid thing to do.
Basically what I'm saying is that I want the choices you made in ME2 to have consequences to the story of ME3, rather than just triggering tiny events, like an asari thanking you for sparing the rachni.
BtVS: Some Assembly Required
After burning through the entire first season with my aunt, I realized it would be a good idea to get back to reviewing this show. And since we're getting through one episode a night (usually), it means I'll have plenty of blogging material.
"Some Assembly Required" is the 2nd episode of Season 2, which effectively means it's still Season 1 pretending to be Season 2 because the number has changed (in much the same way that the 50s didn't really become the 60s until Kennedy was dead and the Beatles were popular). Unlike a bunch of Season 1 filler episodes, though, this plot doesn't get re-used later on. So at least there's that.
Here's the plot in a nutshell: two members of the nerd squad have resurrected Nicer Nerd's brother, Daryl (Darryl? Daryll? We see his grave at the end and I remember being confused by the spelling). Now they're busy making Bride of Frankenstien for him. As we'll see in Season 3's "The Zeppo," resurrection is a hella lot easier by magic than by science. There was a car crash recently, and the nerd squad harvested the bodies of the three cheerleaders who died, picking and choosing the best bits. However, none of the heads were viable because the mortuary used formaldehyde, which froze their brains or something. So Evil Nerd wants to take some living girl's head, and wouldn't you know, that just happens to be Cordelia.
So having busted their humps explaining why they couldn't use any of the three dead heads (aside from the possibility that Darryl doesn't share their taste in music), the writers then completely gloss over the fact that Darryl died mountain climbing. I somehow doubt Nicer Nerd got to him before the coroner did, unless it was a family vacation or something. But if he brought him back right away, why would Mom be all catatonic?
Also, the big thing about creating a Bride of Frankenstein is that Darryl is now covered in hideous scars and has a metal plate stuck in his arm for some reason. If his head were caved in from the fall, that would be understandable, but unless a wild bear got to him before the coroner did, I don't understand all the scars. The scarring is the justification for why Darryl doesn't just move somewhere else, take a different name, and find a girlfriend. It's pretty important from a storytelling perspective, but the explanation for it either never existed to begin with, or was left on the cutting room floor, and unlike Battlestar, we don't have the luxury of seeing deleted scenes.
Now because Buffy's relationship with Angel is evolving, you'd think the writers would try to insert some deeper subtext into the whole "mortal/undead" relationship issue involving Darryl, but that never really happens. He decides he wants his zombie girlfriend to have Cordelia's head, because they were dating while he was alive. The fact that she has a complete body and a pulse at the moment is a minor inconvenience to Evil Nerd, who dutifully kidnaps her. She protests that she could just keep her head and stay with Darryl anyway. Yeah, she's probably lying - this is the girl who was more concerned with airbrushing her Prom date's bruises out of their photographs than with her Prom date's health, after all. But Darryl's response is all manner of icky. See, he knows she'll just run away unless she's as hideous as he is.
Whereas Angel seems really hesitant to do what his blood tells him and get involved with a mortal, Darryl's attitude is all "hang the consequences, me me me me me." Wait, what am I saying? Cordy's perfect for him.
But then the lab gets set on fire for no real reason and Darryl nearly kills Buffy but instead goes and jumps on his headless bride and burns to death, thus bringing this bizzare and not-at-all thought-out tale to a close.
There's a sort of b-plot to this episode, involving Giles and Jenny Calendar having their first date, which is all manner of funny. But then, their relationship always seems to be the b-plot in the b-movie episodes (cf. "I Robot... You Jane"). Fortunately, the next episode that involves their relationship ("Dark Age") is good. Whew.
Buffy has a smaller body of work than Doctor Who, so it should be relatively easy to grade each episode on a ten-point scale. The problem is, Buffy also fluctuates drastically in quality between seasons. For a Season 2 episode, especially with "School Hard" just around the corner, this one's pretty lousy and probably ranks about a 2 (and that's only because I don't give out zeroes, and only give ones to episodes that are either pointlessly dumb or blatantly offensive polemics... again, "I Robot... You Jane" springs to mind). But given what Season 1 was like, and some of the awful dreck to come in later seasons, I'll bump this one up to a final score of 3 out of 10.
(As a side note, rating Buffy is going to be easier than rating Doctor Who. For a start, there are only two episodes - "Innocence" and "Hush" - that are getting perfect scores, and only a handful more that are getting nines, whereas in Doctor Who I often had trouble differentiating between an 8/10 and a 9/10 serial. Further notes on my rating system: because I don't give out zeroes, five out of ten means "slightly below average" and six out of ten means "slightly above average." 8 and even 7 generally mean "good, but others are better.")
"Some Assembly Required" is the 2nd episode of Season 2, which effectively means it's still Season 1 pretending to be Season 2 because the number has changed (in much the same way that the 50s didn't really become the 60s until Kennedy was dead and the Beatles were popular). Unlike a bunch of Season 1 filler episodes, though, this plot doesn't get re-used later on. So at least there's that.
Here's the plot in a nutshell: two members of the nerd squad have resurrected Nicer Nerd's brother, Daryl (Darryl? Daryll? We see his grave at the end and I remember being confused by the spelling). Now they're busy making Bride of Frankenstien for him. As we'll see in Season 3's "The Zeppo," resurrection is a hella lot easier by magic than by science. There was a car crash recently, and the nerd squad harvested the bodies of the three cheerleaders who died, picking and choosing the best bits. However, none of the heads were viable because the mortuary used formaldehyde, which froze their brains or something. So Evil Nerd wants to take some living girl's head, and wouldn't you know, that just happens to be Cordelia.
So having busted their humps explaining why they couldn't use any of the three dead heads (aside from the possibility that Darryl doesn't share their taste in music), the writers then completely gloss over the fact that Darryl died mountain climbing. I somehow doubt Nicer Nerd got to him before the coroner did, unless it was a family vacation or something. But if he brought him back right away, why would Mom be all catatonic?
Also, the big thing about creating a Bride of Frankenstein is that Darryl is now covered in hideous scars and has a metal plate stuck in his arm for some reason. If his head were caved in from the fall, that would be understandable, but unless a wild bear got to him before the coroner did, I don't understand all the scars. The scarring is the justification for why Darryl doesn't just move somewhere else, take a different name, and find a girlfriend. It's pretty important from a storytelling perspective, but the explanation for it either never existed to begin with, or was left on the cutting room floor, and unlike Battlestar, we don't have the luxury of seeing deleted scenes.
Now because Buffy's relationship with Angel is evolving, you'd think the writers would try to insert some deeper subtext into the whole "mortal/undead" relationship issue involving Darryl, but that never really happens. He decides he wants his zombie girlfriend to have Cordelia's head, because they were dating while he was alive. The fact that she has a complete body and a pulse at the moment is a minor inconvenience to Evil Nerd, who dutifully kidnaps her. She protests that she could just keep her head and stay with Darryl anyway. Yeah, she's probably lying - this is the girl who was more concerned with airbrushing her Prom date's bruises out of their photographs than with her Prom date's health, after all. But Darryl's response is all manner of icky. See, he knows she'll just run away unless she's as hideous as he is.
Whereas Angel seems really hesitant to do what his blood tells him and get involved with a mortal, Darryl's attitude is all "hang the consequences, me me me me me." Wait, what am I saying? Cordy's perfect for him.
But then the lab gets set on fire for no real reason and Darryl nearly kills Buffy but instead goes and jumps on his headless bride and burns to death, thus bringing this bizzare and not-at-all thought-out tale to a close.
There's a sort of b-plot to this episode, involving Giles and Jenny Calendar having their first date, which is all manner of funny. But then, their relationship always seems to be the b-plot in the b-movie episodes (cf. "I Robot... You Jane"). Fortunately, the next episode that involves their relationship ("Dark Age") is good. Whew.
Buffy has a smaller body of work than Doctor Who, so it should be relatively easy to grade each episode on a ten-point scale. The problem is, Buffy also fluctuates drastically in quality between seasons. For a Season 2 episode, especially with "School Hard" just around the corner, this one's pretty lousy and probably ranks about a 2 (and that's only because I don't give out zeroes, and only give ones to episodes that are either pointlessly dumb or blatantly offensive polemics... again, "I Robot... You Jane" springs to mind). But given what Season 1 was like, and some of the awful dreck to come in later seasons, I'll bump this one up to a final score of 3 out of 10.
(As a side note, rating Buffy is going to be easier than rating Doctor Who. For a start, there are only two episodes - "Innocence" and "Hush" - that are getting perfect scores, and only a handful more that are getting nines, whereas in Doctor Who I often had trouble differentiating between an 8/10 and a 9/10 serial. Further notes on my rating system: because I don't give out zeroes, five out of ten means "slightly below average" and six out of ten means "slightly above average." 8 and even 7 generally mean "good, but others are better.")
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Quote of the Day: 11-8-11 edition
Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is, well, utterly massive. My favorites are those books that deal with the City Watch, led by a deeply cynical but still Lawful Good ex-alcoholic copper named Sam Vimes. And my favorite Watch book is Night Watch, in which Vimes gets sent back 30 years in time to the eve of a violent street revolution. The whole scenario is a time-travelling riff on Les Mis, but you don't really need to know that to enjoy the book (which, fair warning, is pretty grim).
Anyway, being about a revolution, the book has plenty of wonderful cynical quotes about revolutions. Here's one of the best:
"There were plotters, there was no doubt about it. Some had been ordinary people who'd had enough. Some were young people with no money who objected to the fact that the world was run by old people who were rich. Some were in it to get girls. And some had been idiots [...] who were on the side of what they called "The People." Vimes had spent his life on the streets and had met decent men, and fools, and people who'd steal a penny from a blind beggar, and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he'd never met The People."
And a bonus one:
"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes."
Anyway, being about a revolution, the book has plenty of wonderful cynical quotes about revolutions. Here's one of the best:
"There were plotters, there was no doubt about it. Some had been ordinary people who'd had enough. Some were young people with no money who objected to the fact that the world was run by old people who were rich. Some were in it to get girls. And some had been idiots [...] who were on the side of what they called "The People." Vimes had spent his life on the streets and had met decent men, and fools, and people who'd steal a penny from a blind beggar, and people who performed silent miracles or desperate crimes every day behind the grubby windows of little houses, but he'd never met The People."
And a bonus one:
"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes."
Friday, November 4, 2011
I just finished a video game wherein a character voiced by Colonel Tigh made a Hitchhiker's Guide reference.
And yes, it was awesome.
(Mass Effect 2)
(Mass Effect 2)
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