Net Neutrality: Running Llamas and Indistinct Dress Colors

The internet was hopping last night. It was the kind of night joke writers dream of. Comedian Rhea Butcher tweeted gleefully that “this has been the most internetty day of all internet.” Not only did we see the rise of #dressgate and #llamagate 2015 but net neutrality has become the law of the land. This FCC ruling leaves all of us internet denizens free to continue watching videos of llamas roaming free on the highway and to spend hours on Reddit debating the color of a dress, then posting llamas-in-dresses mash-up memes. It’s the internet’s primary function. Also, I can look up that rash I have on WebMD.

I love me a good llama story so watching videos of two llamas (a black one and a white one) running free on the streets of Sun City, Arizona is 50% of what I even have a computer for. The dress, which was a depressed mother-of-the-bride number was photographed in light that made it look blue and black to some people, and white and gold to others. Why the internet cared so much about this ucking-fugly dress, I don’t know, but the debate itself was a shining moment in the newly established rules of internet neutrality, and everyone who’s anyone has an opinion about the dress.

If all of this sounds foreign to you, then it’s because you don’t spend nearly as much time web surfing as I do. That’s fine, and Google is your friend for looking up these “internetty” things. However, even infrequent visitors to the bright lights-big city of the web should rejoice over net neutrality. Why? Because freedom, goddamit.

In a nutshell, the FCC (that federal arm of the government that you give three bucks in taxes to every month on your phone bill without noticing) has ruled in favor of regulating internet service as a utility. While this may not seem like a big deal, trust me, it is. Imagine if you had to pay your phone bill based on who you called or who called you: If the telephone company you were using thought that Aunt Gertrude had a high volume of calls, they could charge her extra to ensure you got to call her regularly and could make it more expensive for her to call anyone else. This is sort of what some big name internet providers wanted the FCC to do with internet service. It would have been great for creating like two or three uber-powerful internet monopolies and terrible for everyone else. You’d be paying for your internet based on which sites you visited and those sites would be paying more to ensure their users could visit the sites. But the FCC said nope (barely, the vote was 3-2) so we can all continue to use the internet for what it was intended: Hotly debating random, meaningless issues and watching animal videos. Seriously, though, sites like Netflix would have been hardest hit: We all would have had to start paying way more money for our on-demand Star Trek reruns.

In summation, the Feds made the right choice and the internet remains freely accessible for the people, I need to see a video of the two llamas set to Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder’s “Ebony and Ivory” soon, the dress is clearly blue and gold, and according to WebMD my rash is bubonic plague.

UPDATE: Both llamas were recaptured unharmed. The white llama is named Pierre and he’s now seeking celebrity status and granting interviews. A second photograph of the dress has been released to add corroborating evidence to its actual color, but the new image proves nothing since, you know, Photoshop exists.

Echo Three to Echo Seven: Get Those Speeders Adjusted for the Cold

According to the reports coming in from Echo Base, it is a “real feel” temperature is -10 degrees right now. It snowed all day yesterday and the rebel technicians can’t seem to get the speeders adjusted to the cold. Unfortunately, my buddy Luke Skywalker (AKA my car) has been outside all night and may be hallucinating about small green aliens on warm jungle planets.

Once it actually stopped snowing and mostly quit blowing, I set out on a rescue mission across the frozen Hoth tundra (AKA clear out my driveway) so I could reach Luke. My tauntaun (AKA my snow blower) is a little too short to be an effective winter mount. We got about six inches of snow, which is honestly not that much in the grand scheme of things, but my puny tauntaun literally could not even. It dropped dead and I had to improvise. Fortunately, I found Luke.

I think you see where I’m going with this. Yes, I, Han Solo, that roguish daredevil who meets a somewhat unpleasant fate at the end of this particular chapter in the saga (I get frozen solid and do not get the girl) had to save the orphaned hero. Somehow, Luke’s force-sensitivity wasn’t keen enough to sense the Wampa and he wasn’t bright enough to stay inside the cave (my garage) overnight and out of the wind-chill. (Seems like a pretty convenient plot point for Obi-Wan to show up and give him ghostly directions, doesn’t it? But whatever, I’ve always put my faith in a good blaster, not hokey religions.)

Anyway, my tauntaun died before I reached the first marker and Luke was just laying there in the snow, not moving, waiting for me to clear away the ice and get some heat going. I took a semi-conscious would-be Jedi’s light saber (AKA my snow shovel) and managed to keep us both alive until Rogue Two took us back to base. It was nice of those guys to finally show up. The princess was pretty worried.

In summation, I need a more powerful tauntaun, I couldn’t think of a metaphor for the Wampa, and I’m going to move to Dagoba as soon as possible.

Tomb Raider is Stupid: Rage Quitting Video Games

I was originally going to blog about Lara Croft today, but once I started writing about her, I realized that the blog was actually turning into a longer scholarly essay about gender in video games. That’s actually great, and it means I’ve got another opportunity to join the ongoing culture war that is Gamergate with my written critiques. Unfortunately for you blog readers, it means you’ll have to wait for that article to come out before you find out what I was going to say about our eponymous Tomb Raider.

Instead, I think I’ll talk about the game itself, or at least my experience with it. I began playing Tomb Raider when it was called Tomb Raider (like, you know the first game.) Lara Croft was basically a boxy assembly of pixels and the jungle environment a mass of geometric shapes with green texture meshes and weird hulking dino-bot things. It was still really fun even when I couldn’t tell what exactly was attacking me. I still just pulled my out pistols with unlimited ammo and started shooting until everything stopped moving. Good times.

I played TR2 and TR3 with a similar, though somewhat diminished enthusiasm, mostly because they were derivative in terms of what Lara did and where she went. When Tomb Raider 4: The Last Revelation came out, I was psyched. That game was fun, fun, fun. Incidentally, it was also when Lara Croft’s breasts reached the height of their inflation and part of the topic of my new essay. Our Lady of the Guns and Boobs (that’s her christened saint title) made her way through what were now an identifiable variety of landscapes, from Southeast Asian jungle temples to Egyptian pyramids. She got to drive a jeep and swing on ropes and solve puzzles. This was definitely my favorite game of the series. I kind of stopped playing the TR series after that game though, mostly because that’s about the time I discovered The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, which you already know I think is the greatest game ever in the history of games.

I was so freaking excited when Tomb Raider: Anniversary came out a few years ago because it promised to be like the game I loved back in the day but with new and improved graphics and heuristics. Sadly, it was boring AF. I never even got past the first location. The game mechanics required me to hit a series of goals at each interval, and I couldn’t continue to the next stage unless I did it exactly right in the given time. Perhaps this is how the original game was played too, but my memory of it is faulty. Or perhaps I have become spoiled by open world games and just can’t go back to a time when I was required to clear a level in order to progress. I guess that’s how all games were until the era of the sandbox RPG.  At one point, I threw my controller on the floor in frustration at not being able to solve the stupid temple door puzzle and rage quit the series. I no longer have the patience to play the same level over and over until I can move on to the next one. Okay, Dragon Age: Inquisition, time to wow me with your innovation.

In summation, I wonder if I replayed Super Mario World 3 after all these years whether I would rage quit forever after getting repeatedly killed on the water levels. Apparently, I now have the attention span of a…oh, look a bird.

The Busy Blogger’s Guide to Skimming Social Media

I’ve got a lot to do today. I have to prioritize my time-wasting. I can only procrastinate on important trifles. I therefore present my list of go and no-go Facebook posts. Please understand that this isn’t a comprehensive list of things I may or may not look at on Facebook, but it should provide you with a general guide of how I am spending my “free” time.

Three things I am inclined to upvote on Facebook today:
1) Pictures of cats doing cute and/or annoying things: We all need a cat picture with our morning coffee.
2) Posts of cool, creative stuff my friends are doing: I love cool, creative stuff.
3) Sir Ian and Sir Patrick bromance shares: Because pictures of gay wizards and a bald starship captains holding hands in bowler hats is pretty much what the internet was designed for.

Three things I will ignore on Facebook today:
1) Baby pictures charting a kid’s development that look the same as the ones posted earlier this week: Your baby looks the same as it did yesterday. Sorry.
2) Inspiring text placed over nature photos: God, I hate these stupid things. Photoshopped pictures of Marilyn Monroe quotes with trees in the background do not motivate me to change the world.
3) Sportsball posts: Yeah, I don’t care about one sportsing team beating some other sportsing team. Nothing personal; I just hate sportsball.

If you are wondering why I didn’t give your post a thumbs up, then refer to the list above. If you’re looking for me to actually comment, share, read, or otherwise engage with a post, it’s going to need to contain some actual meat and potatoes. Here are some suggestions:

1) Snarky posts about the state of higher education: Mocking idiocy within my chosen profession always makes me chuckle.
2) Idiot politicians saying moronic things: So much fodder for commenting and future blogs. I really love idiocy. Bonus points if there is a creepy animated gif included (i.e. Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann eating a corndog in an ever-spinning loop of insanity.)
3) Bizarre, funny, or ridiculous videos, which contain the word “monkey”: I will watch them. Ikea monkey? Monkey Jesus? Hells yeah. That reminds me, I haven’t reposted Parry Gripp’s “Baby Monkey Going Backwards on a Pig” in a while. Might be time for that again.

And finally, I thought I would share with you the kind of posts that make me actually unfollow or unfriend people. Here’s that list:

1) Chain letter posts: Seriously, stop that sh!t. You’re a grown-ass person. Do your really believe in that nonsense? No one wants your spam in their Facebook feed.
2) Bible verses, especially the ones that tell me I’m a sinner in need of saving: You do know I’m a flaming gaymo, right? Quotes from Leviticus will get you blocked.
3) Trollish comments that employ the repeated use of logical fallacies, especially ad hominem. Stop saying I’m a poopie-face and learn how to engage with others appropriately.

In summation, I’ve only got so much time in my schedule to waste today but I can make room for a video of a baby monkey riding backwards on a pig set to upbeat dance music.

Nuking Your Nintendo: Neo-Dadaism and First World Junk

Microwaving a Nintendo is now considered art, at least according to my very reliable internet sources. Whether the part considered art is the performance of placing an aging (though actually still valuable) video game console into a kitchen appliance for the entertainment of others, or the resulting charred gray and black sculpture, I’m not certain. Perhaps the destroyed microwave is also part of intentional ballet of destruction. As I ponder this art form, I am torn by two battling feelings.

First, as a classically trained artist (seriously, I have a fine arts degree) I love the idea of weird Dada-esque performance/garbage stuff as art. If Marcel Duchamp can stick a urinal with some random graffiti on it in a museum and call it art, then a melted Nintendo husk counts too. I’ve seen some weird stuff called art. (I’ll talk about the artist who pours molten aluminum in ant mounds to make negative space sculptures at the expense of thousands of ant lives some other time.) The performativity of nuking a Nintendo and displaying the resulting mess definitely resonates with my anti-establishment retro-resistance artist self big time. I love it as art. But…

My bleeding-heart-liberal-neo-hippy-depressed-about-climate-change-and-poverty self feels that this kind of waste and destruction is a privilege of middle class hipster artists who don’t recognize that the wanton destruction of technology in this way creates both toxic pollution and actual trash for Mom Nature to try to decompose. This doesn’t count as up-cycling, kids. Honestly, how many of these destroyed Nintendos (and the microwaves) are actually going to end up in the Louvre (or is it in the Met?) with Duchamp’s toilet? None. They’re all going to end up in a landfill. Also, the money these pseudo-progressive hipsters drop on the whole procedure could be better spent on something that actually helps other humans. Also, I’m annoyed because I want to play The Legend of Zelda and there are now fewer consoles on which to do so.

I ‘m getting a vision: Instead of the destruction of actual objects, I suggest these post-modern wannabes make a film in which Mario slips into his Tanooki suit and flies over a landscape of garbage piled high with destroyed electronics while children from developing nations poke through the heaps in search of scraps to sell for food. As Tanooki Mario sails through the air, his sightseeing shows viewers the leftover reality of Western (and wealthy Eastern) technology. Someone go make that movie. We could call it Super Mario Third World. I am a terrible person.

In summation, Dada is awesome, Hipsters are wasteful, and I am confused because I both love and hate the creation of art.

Old School F/X: Bubo the Mechanical Owl was BAE

I am in love with Ray Harryhausen. Okay that may be a little creepy considering the man’s been dead for a few years. I will revise to say that I am in love with what Ray Harryhausen left behind. The body of work he left behind. Stop being a creeper. (I looked it up—he died in 2013 at the age of 92. Dude hung around for a good long time.) He is probably my favorite filmmaker ever. If you’re not familiar with him, I direct you to some of his better known features, including three Sinbad movies (the “Arabic” sailor,  not that ridiculous comedian,) 1963’s Jason and the Argonauts, and one of my all time favorite movies from childhood, Clash of the Titans (the original 1981 version with dreamy Harry Hamlin, not that crap-fest of a remake.) Clash of the Titans is second only to Star Wars as my favorite film of all time from before I was an adult.

Ray Harryhausen is a master of special effects. He taught George Lucas everything he knows. Lucas made up the rest. We have Industrial Light and Magic because of Lucas, but we have Lucas’ Tauntauns and AT-ATs moving through a snowy landscape in The Empire Strikes Back because Harryhausen came up with that stop-motion photography technique. Modern CGI effects may look sleek and sexy but I personally love the jerky animation of the old school effects. Harryhausen’s films always managed to balance just the right amount of classic Greek epic and modern sci-fi weirdness to fit my particular tastes.

Bubo the owl is basically my favorite non-humanoid character in a film ever. He totally got the shaft in the Clash of the Titans remake. Although he appeared briefly, he was mocked and tossed in a scrap-heap by the film’s protagonist, making me hate everything else about the reboot. Harry Hamlin had the decency to treat him as a friend and trust his owly mechanical judgment even if he was too heavy for the branch. Kids these days don’t know what’s important. Mechanical owls. That’s what.

In addition to Bubo, Clash of the Titans featured the creepiest villain ever to scare my pre-teen self: Calibos. I love that I remembered his name just now without having to Google it. Man oh man was he a creepy dude. The scene where his hand gets chopped off in the swamp lives in my memory as one of the scariest PG-13 scenes ever. And that pitchfork replacement he gets…*shiver*… I do go on.

In summation, Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion homunculus is way better than any motion capture Gollum and you should go watch the documentary of his life that’s on Netflix right now. 

Xena: Warrior Princess Coffee Mug - $15/Best Offer

I have a lot of stuff in my house. Some of it is even kind of valuable. This isn’t an invitation to burglars because most of it is in a difficult-to-liquidate form. My house is like a science fiction episode of Antiques Roadshow. For example, I have the original Star Wars soundtrack on vinyl. According to eBay, it’s worth like $25, which is great, except that I’d have to find someone to actually pay $25 for it. Similarly, my metal lunchbox collection is worth hundreds of dollars, but again, I’d have to find someone interested enough in a vintage 1975 Space: 1999 lunch box to pay to have it shipped wherever they are. I know what you’re thinking: Who wouldn’t want Barbara Bain’s face on a lunchbox? But it’s actually not that easy to find buyers.

I bring this up because I am trying to thin out the number of things I own, and most of the items I have in my house are useless collectibles. Perhaps that’s the short definition of collectible—useless items. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are pretty neat and won’t be easily parted with, including the 1988 Commander Riker action figure my sweetheart from college gave me as a gift. In fairness, that thing’s only 3 inches tall so it’s not taking up a lot of room. The lunchbox collection however...I’ve got like 20 of them. And don’t even get me started on my Lord of the Rings Lego sets. They have their own room. EBay tells me they’re a hot commodity.

I don’t know why I even started collecting all this crap in the first place. Perhaps to fill a hole deep in my soul. Believe it or not I’ve collected and sold so much of this kind of stuff over the years that if I actually still had it all, my house would look like a museum of popular culture. I mean more so than it already does. Some of the artifacts I’m trying to clear out are simply no longer technologically relevant. I have every single Star Trek episode from every single series ever made on DVD. (Except Enterprise. In the immortal words of George Takei’s head “way to kill the franchise, Bakula.”) I love Star Trek and will always be interested in watching reruns, but they’re all streaming on Netflix. What’s the point of owning hard media anymore?

Unfortunately, some movies aren’t easily available via streaming, but my hard media versions just don’t cut it. I love owning a VHS copy of the 1977 Rankin-Bass animated version of The Hobbit, but who even has a functional VCR anymore? The tape itself is so degraded that it looks like it was recorded in sepia tones instead of full color. Last time I tried watching it, it was nearly destroyed by the mere process of inserting it into the machine. I could hang onto it and wait until a new breed of hipsters begins collecting VHS tapes with the same vigor that they are currently gobbling up LPs, prompting companies to again manufacture outdated technology, but really, that’s a long term plan to which I’m not prepared to commit. So, what to do with all my stuff? It’s a conundrum.

In summation, does anyone want to make a good faith bid on thirty pounds worth of loose Lego bricks?

Johnny Depp Has Lost His Mind, Remains Adorable

Johnny Depp is now a parody of himself apparently. The next great tale in the never-ending saga, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is in the works. For those of you not keeping score, this will be the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I know, right? There have already been four of them. No word yet on whether Orlando Bloom will make an appearance. Sources say he’s “open” to the idea. Everyone else has had the good sense to jump ship before now. A much less reliable source indicates that the sixth film is slated to be called Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow Versus Freddie Krueger. (Remember when Depp was in A Nightmare on Elm Street? Yeah, it’s that kind of joke.)

I bring this up because I remember when Johnny Depp made movies that didn’t require rehashed sequels and campy pseudo drag performances to make a buck. Remember Chocolat? That was an Oscar nominated film. Or what about Edward Scissorhands? Anyone who ever felt awkward and isolated as a teenager loved that quirky film. He was in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape for crying out loud, which, if you saw that film, you did.

But somewhere on this road of a film career, Johnny has lost his way. He only plays ever increasingly mocking caricatures of earlier characters. Willy Wonka was basically Raoul Duke from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with candy and Oompa Loompas instead of LSD and Dr. Gonzo. His Tonto in The Lone Ranger was just Jack Sparrow as an American Indian stereotype instead of a pirate stereotype. Eventually, Depp will make a movie where he plays every one of his previous characters simultaneously. That will actually be epic.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I actually like Johnny Depp, and I like pirate movies; however, I probably won’t go see this latest one. I didn’t see the fourth one. Was number three on Netflix? I can’t even remember which one was which. I think the first one had zombie Geoffrey Rush and the second one involved some squid-faced guy. The point is, unless the series is supposed to be multiple movies from the beginning, like The Lord of the Rings (not The Hobbit--Peter Jackson pls stahp) then I get bored pretty fast, especially when the plot, performances, and cinematography are identical to what’s come before. I saw Pirates number two at the drive-in and fell asleep in the car. The bottom line here is that the Johnny Depp film sequel we all really need right now isn’t another Pirates movie, it’s Ed Wood 2. Martin Landau is still alive, right?

In summation, Johnny Depp has eaten too much chocolate and is suffering from a sugar-induced mania that may linger for the rest of his career, but he remains as cute and bizarre as ever.

Internet Quizzes: If Ron is Your Harry Potter BFF, You’re Gonna Have a Bad Time

I read an article recently about how we humans will be the most well informed society ever to die of ignorance. The article blamed newspapers and magazines for reporting a wealth of data on Kim Kardashian’s butt and telling us what Jonathan Taylor Thomas is up to these days but not actually letting us know about world events. The article failed to report how much of this information comes from the latest way to be poorly informed about a host of subjects: the internet quiz.

The internet quiz has become the lifeblood of the internet. Yesterday alone I learned how well I know Taylor Swift’s cat, Olivia Benson (not well, apparently) and I found out which Harry Potter character I should have as my BFF (Hermione Granger, thank god.) A single internet quiz is a means of killing a few minutes, and I have killed my share of spare minutes. Of course, the problem is I do like 12 of them in a row and my spare minutes turn into wasted hours. Again I wonder what I used to do with my free time before the internet. With some relief I think I may have just been watching TV, which was a much more passive way to whittle away the hours. So there’s that.

What I find disturbingly enjoyable about some of the quizzes I've taken recently is that they show me my ratings as a percent compared to all the other internet denizens who've also taken the quiz. I find myself competing with total strangers for how many thrash metal albums I've listened to in my life and whether or not I've seen what are considered by user “Abbie316” as the goriest horror movies of 1991. I find it a personal victory whenever I rate in the top 20% of quiz takers. I guess I am naturally competitive.

I have even been known to make an internet quiz or two and share them with the world. I think it’s fascinating how wildly popular people find trivial information. It’s true that internet articles that begin with “do you remember…” are bound to get more views than ones that begin with “fighting erupts in…” I have to say that I think we’re better off for being able to pick from both of those headlines. Free press FTW.

In summation, Olivia Benson is a fluffy white smush-faced kitty, Hermione and I will soon be fighting the patriarchy with magic spells, and internet quizzes allow me to judge my self-worth based on how I measure up to total strangers on the internet.

It’s Monday and I’m Depressed about Climate Change

Do you think there’s an alien planet out there that’s populated by cynical aliens staring at Earth (they call it planet 943) through a telescope debating about whether we exist? These aliens live on a planet vastly different from ours where the sky is orange and the grass is purple. Or maybe they don’t have grass. They sleep on their faces and talk out of their asses. Okay, maybe they’re not that different from us. The point is, their disbelief in us does not actually make us less real.

 Just like Congressional disbelief in climate change. A lot of things exist whether we believe in them or not and a lot of things don’t exist just because we believe they do. Beliefs are fine, but they don’t create reality. Condoms prevent pregnancy and diseases. Vaccines don’t cause autism. A few days ago in New Zealand, a pod of about 200 pilot whales got beached from a low tide and half of them died even though rescuers stepped in to try to refloat them. This didn’t happen because whales are easily confused; although, some disbelievers claimed that’s just what happened. No. Human impact on the planet’s climate is effing everything up. Whales are getting stuck. Bees are disappearing. Polar bears are drowning in the Arctic. Gah!

 Did you know that there is a huge floating pile of garbage in the Pacific Ocean. Seriously, it’s called Great Pacific garbage patch and it has a Wikipedia entry. Google has pictures. Don’t look at them unless you want to get really depressed about the future of the planet. I should not have looked myself because now I have the image of a sea turtle disfigured by a plastic ring forever burned into my head. Apparently the ring got caught around his midsection when he was a young turtle and he grew into the ring, which now splits his shell in half like an hourglass. There, now you have the image stuck in your head too.

 I know you’re reading this hoping I’ll be funny or ironic or even a bit peevish, and I am all of those things most of the time, but today I am annoyed with the human race refusing to take action on actual scientific facts because of stupid beliefs that hold everyone back. I’m not talking about beliefs that can’t be proven one way or another, like whether Jesus was real or whether unicorns poop rainbows; I’m talking about stuff we already know for sure, like that there is a finite amount of fossil fuel and we are less than 20 years away from having caused irreversible damage to the entire planet. Some scientists say it’s already too late. I’m depressed. And yet, I am still driving my car. I am a hypocrite.

 In summation, I wonder if the face-sleeping aliens have an extra moon they aren’t using because I think we’re going to need a place to stay.

B-Horror Movies: Celebrating Love Day Correctly

Happy Friday the 13th everyone! It’s Valentine’s Day: that time of year when we celebrate romance by locking ourselves and our loved ones in darkened rooms in our pajamas to watch horrifyingly disfigured serial killers prey on innocent couples locked in darkened rooms wearing pajamas. Isn’t that considered romantic? Watching gory horror movies with your sweetie? I guess it is sort of appropriate given the bloody history of Valentine’s Day. No one remembers that when it comes to this Hallmark holiday, which, if you’ve been following me, you know I think is the worst excuse for a holiday ever. (Halloween—now there’s a holiday worth celebrating.)

My feelings about Valentine’s Day are perfectly summed up in The Simpsons episode titled “Trash of the Titans.” Executives at Costington’s department store want to manufacture a holiday between Valentine’s Day and the “summer slump” to make more money. Their instructions to their lackeys were to come up with something like “love day” but not so lame. They went with Love Day. It was an instant commercial success. Homer wanted the stuffed bear Lord Huggington but Marge got him the off-brand bear Sir Love-A-Lot. He was disappointed. Also, Lisa’s cynical activism about how Love Day was just for boosting sales made Homer angrily say “Don’t you ruin another Love Day, Lisa!” The rest of the episode is Homer running for Sanitation Commissioner because the town begins overflowing with post-Love Day garbage. This episode gave me the line I quote most often in my classroom when students whine about work: “Can’t someone else do it?”

So, yes, Valentine’s Day is a farce and watching horror movies is perhaps the most appropriate way to celebrate it. Especially if you, like me, are already dating Netflix. I recommend a movie on the campy side of gory like Evil Dead 2 or Re-Animator. If you’re feeling especially romantic, check out the train wreck that is Troll 2. It has the most spectacular romance scene ever put to celluloid. A teen-ager and an ageless witch (in disguise of course) get to some sexy times in a mobile home while eating corn on the cob that (I guess because of the heat they generate and/or the witch magic?) begins to pop and fill the entire mobile home with popped corn. Don’t try to understand it. Just enjoy the ride. I myself had a spiritual experience watching this film. I laughed so hard I stopped making noise and was simply frozen with glee. I definitely recommend this means of celebrating what is otherwise a useless holiday.

In summation, Love Day is a made-up holiday, quoting The Simpsons is often how I express my feelings, and we should all celebrate the holiday in a way appropriate to its bloody origins—horror movies.

Jon Stewart vs. Brian Williams: Exiting News Media Grudge Match

Are you confused about why everyone’s up in arms about Jon Stewart’s exit from late night TV? I have an answer for you. But it’s not about him; it’s about how terrible mainstream news outlets have become. The age of investigative journalism and Walter Cronkite’s fatherly ethos are over. Once everyone over the age of 60 dies, that kind of news is done for. If you’re over the age of 60, nothing personal—it’s just a data point. Brian Williams is under 60 and look what happened to him.

 I have felt so much more well informed about what’s happening in the world since I started using BuzzFeed as my primary source for news. Seriously. They’re not paying me to say that or anything. I know most people may think of them as an entertainment site with lots of silly quizzes about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and videos about people eating foie gras for the first time (which they are) but they also have a pretty credible “hard” news section too. Did you know they interviewed the president a few days ago? Yes, THE president. Of the United States. Granted, YouTubers did it first, but still.

One of the YouTube interviews was by Hank Green, who is better known for his vlogbrothers YouTube channel and for being the younger brother of John Green, author of young adult fiction novel-turned movie, The Fault in our Stars. The day after he talked with the POTUS, Hank wrote an essay on his interview   responding to criticisms from “legitimate” news outlets on whether his interview was credible or worthwhile.  Did they think that because Hank took a selfie with the president, his questions about healthcare and drone warfare weren’t worthwhile? Here’s the thing: Hank rightly points out how younger people don’t trust “legitimate” news outlets anymore. The median age for viewers of FOX News (not that I’m calling them legit) is 68. For CNN, it’s 60. His argument is that those news outlets have no idea what “journalism” is supposed to be anymore and people under a certain age have more faith in YouTube and BuzzFeed contributors who’ve established a rapport with their younger audience. (Read Hank’s article. He says it more eloquently.)

Since I’ve been relying on “nontraditional” news outlets like BuzzFeed and educated YouTubers like Hank and John (who recently put out a well-researched, informative video on the Boko Haram terrorist group) to not only provide information on what’s going on, but provide relevant context for it, I haven’t felt confused and out of touch. Okay, I haven’t felt AS confused and out of touch. Whatever. The point is, if you don’t understand why people are so upset about Jon Stewart leaving The Daily Show, I have just explained it. People trusted him.

In summation, Hank Green hugged the POTUS, “Brian Williams Misremembers” is my current favorite meme, and we can all hope to get all our future late night news from Amy Poehler.

Mid-February Meh: What Day is it Even?

I woke up today in the usual mid-winter way, which is to say that I was roused from my deep slumber by a cat sitting on my chest complaining loudly about the state of her food dish. The dish, I should mention, was less than half full and thus her displeasure. It was about 9:30 this morning (I love my job) and although I didn’t want to get out of my warm bed, I dragged myself forth to face another meh day in mid-February.

While rolling out of bed at the stroke of 9:30 may not seem so bad, it’s really even more depressing than getting up at the crack of dawn (stop talking about my crack) because half the morning is already gone and it still looks dark out. It’s also dark when I get home in the evening. Fortunately, I was more eager to get up this morning: I had actually dreamt about Justin Beiber last night and wanted desperately to shake off that nightmare. In the dream, JB performed a song in my classroom, and then gave my students autographs and concert tickets. They were just throwing them in the trash. How dull is that? Even my dreams have the mid-February meh.

The sky today is gray (again) and last week’s snow is still sitting on the ground. New snow is kind of pretty, as long as you don’t have anywhere to go, but old snow just looks dirty. It gets all blackened from car exhaust and mud, and it sits in giant piles where it’s been plowed out of the way for weeks and weeks, even well into April or May sometimes. I am tired of looking out my window in the morning and seeing gray and white. Winter is so monochromatic.

Some doctors refer to this winter depression as seasonal affective disorder. That’s a fancy name for what I’m calling meh. If you’re one of my lucky friends who lives in California or some other sunny and warm-all-year place, this is a real thing you can be grateful you won’t ever get. Some people buy sun lamps for their homes to give the illusion of a different season. I think I get the meh around Valentine’s Day. What a crappy Hallmark holiday that is. Let’s make single people everywhere feel inadequate and obligate couples to spend money on garbage that will end up in their yard sales by June. I need a Valentine’s equivalent to “Bah Humbug!” I’m going with “Meh.” Some of us are smart enough to just date Netflix until spring. I am eager for the crocuses and daffodils to poke through the snow and let me know I’ve survived another winter.

In summation, it’s Wednesday. Meh.

Feeling Nostalgic for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Raise your hand if you’re an Elder Scrolls video game series fan. (Shout out to DJ Orc’s Blood; I know your hand is up.)  I want to tell you about my love of this pop culture artifact that a million other people also love. Video games are weird because I love something personally and privately in my own home that literally millions of other people love just as intimately as I do.

So, I’ve been playing TES games since 2004, when Morrowind was the latest greatest thing. It changed my world. Unfortunately, it ate up my free time like nobody’s business. I used to write books and stories and I don’t even know what I used to do with my free time before video games were a thing I could actually access anytime I wanted. (It was before blogging.)

Morrowind was (and is, in my opinion) the greatest RPG video game ever. Newbies enjoy Skyrim, and it’s pretty great, but nothing compares to how amazing Morrowind was at the time, and how it continues to be playable a decade later: Swords and magic and a world so open you could play the game for days without actually playing the game. (If you’ve played the game, this makes sense.) I can call lots of gamers who think they’re not newbies newbies because I have been playing video games since literally before they were born. Shut the hell up, kid. I had an Atari 2600 when that was cutting edge technology. Yes, that makes me old. It also gives me hella nerd cred.

Anyway, my love of Morrowind was accidental. I wasn’t looking to fall in love. I was just killing some time in a used CD and game shop looking for some compatible titles for my romantic partner who’d just brought home a fancy new gadget called an X-Box. (No, not an X-Box One or an X-box 360, just a plain old brand new X-Box. It was the dark ages.) I found a game with a picture of an elf standing in the middle of a city looking kind of smug, bought it, and the rest is history. I played that game endlessly. Fortunately, my S.O. left for military training in another state so I didn’t have to share the controller.

I have played and re-played Morrowind start- to-finish I don’t know how many times. I’ve played the expansions and the DLC, and I’ve even run mods. (If you don’t know what these things are, you’re not a gamer, which is fine. Google is your friend.) I know that there are people out there who feel similarly about this game. They, too, want Morrowind to be forever. Sadly, like the penny-farthing and the Nokia 3310, Morrowind has been replaced by faster, shinier toys. I therefore pen this open letter to TES’s developers.

Dear Bethesda Softworks: I have finished every quest in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and have played TES IV, and V, Fallout 3, and Fallout: New Vegas. I am ready for a new game. How are you coming with Fallout IV and TES VI? (For the uber-newbs out there, Fallout is basically the Elder Scrolls in the post-apocalyptic future.) The Elder Scrolls Online was just not for me. I am an introvert with zero interest in playing in a MMORPG environment, and if I was WOW is free up to level 12. (I tried it and got bored by level 2.) I therefore sincerely ask that you please make me a new toy in keeping with the very best RPG work you’ve produced already (see above re. Morrowind.) Thank you, your humble nerd.

In summation, it’s cold and snowy outside and I want to stay in my pajamas all day playing video games. Send Cheetos.

When Liberals Disagree: Annie Lennox at the Grammys

I was originally planning to write a silly blog today, similar to the Super Bowl one from last week, wherein I retold the Grammys from the perspective of what I read on Twitter. I didn’t watch the awards, but this time it wasn’t because I didn’t care. It was because I couldn’t get reception on my TV. (I don’t have cable because eff you, MediaCom.) However, what was most notable about my Twitter feed last night wasn’t actually a bizarre commentary on the spectacle of the Grammys. It was a pretty serious and interesting plot point in the ongoing racial divide taking place in the United States.

Two celebrities that I follow on Twitter are Neil Patrick Harris and Franchesca Ramsey and they both had plenty to say about the show last night. You know NPH as the always adorable and very openly gay actor who’s been in everything from Doogie Houser, MD to How I Met Your Mother to hosting the Oscars. Politically, he falls somewhere between extremely liberal and “do you think Barak Obama would date me if I was single?” He's also white. Franchesca Ramsey is a politically liberal, outspoken woman of color. She regularly posts on various social media about ongoing social issues, including the “black lives matter” movement and being a straight ally of LGBTQ+ people. From a distance, NPH and Ramsey are on the same side of the political fence, far left of center. But race is a marker of difference. 

The racial divide between them was really apparent to me last night as I read their tweets on the same subject:  their very different reactions to Annie Lennox’s performance. While the former Eurithmics’ duet with Hozier was praised by NPH, Ramsey instead reminded her followers of the controversy surrounding Lennox’s performance of the song “Strange Fruit” from a few months back. I am not going to enter into this debate because I don’t know enough about it to take a side. I do know that the Hozier song Lennox sang last night—“Take Me to Church”—focuses on religious intolerance of LGBTQ+ people, while the song she performed a few months back is an old blues standard about lynching people of color. (Part of the controversy, as I understand it, is that Lennox allegedly “whitewashed” the meaning of the song. Google that yourself if you want more details.) The point here is that both of the songs deal with hatred and intolerance of marginalized groups, something Lennox herself is outspoken about.

If Lennox did indeed negate the meaning of the song “Strange Fruit” then her public chastising was justified. Black lives do matter, and I agree with Ramsey that the “all lives matter” revision is problematic and comforting only to people who don’t want to feel bad about being white; however, Lennox did seem especially remorseful about the controversy, and as NPH said about last night’s performance, Lennox “makes everything better. Especially church.” I feel conflicted about this because I like and respect all of these people. It’s like when your two best friends get in a fight and you don’t want to choose a side. While we should definitely call each other out when we screw up, how long should we punish the mistakes of our allies? We’re all on the same side here, aren’t we?

In summation, we should continue to call out ignorance, Lennox singing “Take Me to Church” with Hozier was amazeballs (I watched it on YouTube this morning), and we can all turn our attention back to the real enemy: Anne Coulter. 

Mike Huckabee: Stop Feeding the Troll

Recently Mike Huckabee said he doesn’t approve of the gay “lifestyle” but he would be friends with gay people. While Mike's movie is full of plot holes that I would like to explore more deeply, I’d like to point out that this isn’t the dumbest thing said by a conservative in recent years. It’s not even in the top ten. Who could forget Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” or Michelle Bachman’s whole witchcraft tirade or Todd Akin’s asinine “legitimate” rape comments? Oh, and of course our beloved Joni Ernst and her bread-bag clad footsies. Need I go on? No, Mike Huckabee is more like an internet troll. (I am imagining him dressed as a treasure troll with bright pink Don King hair.)

As you already know because you’ve been keeping up with me on Facebook, I have already rejected Mike’s overtures to friendship. (No, Mike, I don’t want to hang out with you. I’m busy washing my cat for the next six years.)  If you’re not yet friends with me on Facebook don’t fret. Simply send me a friend request. I’ll probably accept it. Unless you’re bat-crap crazy, or an idiot, or Mike Huckabee. Sorry, I said that three times. Actually, I will probably still accept friend requests from idiots and crazy people. Facebook friends aren’t the same as real friends by the way, so don’t worry, I may stalk you on the internet but probably not in real life.

As I was saying, Mike is a troll and I know something about trolls. Trolls have been around for as long as the internet has been around. I recall being involved in an online community in the early 2000s in which we had a barely literate bible-thumping troll who would come around regularly spouting incoherent nonsense on our message board. (That’s an old-timey comments section with multiple posts.) This troll was actually sort of clever in that it would create a new screen name every time it got banned from the site. This led to problems because community members would accidentally engage the troll in conversation before realizing what it was. Important conversation threads got smeared with troll goo and had to be abandoned.

I ended up creating a separate user handle, Spiderman, and would post that my spidey sense was tingling any time there was a suspicious new user saying hateful things. This was an early warning system, which kept everyone else away from the troll post, effectively “shutting that whole thing down.” This works for internet trolling. It is not a pregnancy prevention method, Todd. The community thrived under the friendly neighborhood Spiderman’s gentle warnings and the troll lost its ability to sneak a seat at the grown-ups’ table.

In summation, gay is not a lifestyle, conservatives say some stupid sh!t, and don’t feed the trolls.

Cupcake: The Greatest Page on All of Wikipedia

I like to edit Wikipedia pages. (I mean, I am a member of the grammar police.) Sometimes when I am at my computer with a few minutes to spare I will click "random article" repeatedly until I hit a page with something needing fixed that I can edit quickly. This activity also occasionally leads me to interesting pages I would have never seen otherwise. That's what I was doing yesterday between classes when I found the greatest Wikipedia page ever: Cupcake.

 One of Wikipedia's foundational principles is neutrality in the writing. But I ask you, how can one be neutral where cupcakes are concerned? They are freaking delicious, as this savvy and unbiased user pointed out in his/her page edit:

 "Cupcakes are usually used for heavenly goodness and are very yummy. People who don't like cupcakes are VERY naughty. I am Cupcake Lover and as my name suggests, I go bananas over cupcakes. It doesn't matter what flavour, cupcakes are cupcakes. But, Red velvet cupcakes are the best! :)"

 This is clearly the work of a wise and upstanding citizen. Unfortunately, Wikipedia editors for some strange reason, came along and tagged this text as "vandalism" and called this sage cupcake lover an “idiot.” Pshaw. Those same stodgy old bores quickly removed this person’s editorial about cupcakes. Spoilsports.

 What is even more amazing about this page is how much dialogue exists on the “talk” page. The talk page has even more going on than the main article, which is itself amazingly long. There is actually a debate taking place between editors in the talk section about the veracity of frosting. People are actually bickering about whether cupcakes have frosting. Some of the contributors are arguing for source citations to confirm the presence or absence of icing on a pastry. Also, they can’t seem to decide whether the word is frosting or icing. All I can say to that is LOL, dudes, they’re cupcakes.

 In summation, there must be a good number of people out there who need to consult Wikipedia for unbiased, factual information on the phenomenon known as cupcakes. What a brave new world this is where I can go to the web for reliable data on baked goods.

Robots of the Internet: Follow Me and Be My Minions

I’ve made an interesting discovery in the last few weeks as I’ve been blogging about a variety of pop culture topics: what “bots” do with key words. In case you’re unaware, a bot—AKA a web spider or crawler—is an automated computer script that “crawls” text on web pages to find certain lines of code, text, or key words. When it finds what it’s looking for, executes its mission. Certain types of bots are useful little guys, finding and fixing errors or making changes that would be very repetitive and time consuming for humans to do. For example, on Wikipedia bots regularly crawl the pages looking for categorization inconsistencies and fixing them. These kind of bots are the heroic worker bees doing mundane tasks for the betterment of the interwebs.

However, there is another more sinister type of bot. Just as the hero in my classic 1950s science fiction tale has a nemesis, these hero bots have a dark alter ego. We might call these bots “minions of the deep web”. In fact, let’s do call them that. I have recently become aware of these minions (at least some of them) because they have been crawling through my blog pages on a daily basis searching for their key words in order to execute their primary function. And they are finding what they’re looking for.

Since my blogs frequently contain key words that the bots like (recent examples include The Walking Dead, Katy Perry, and Neil Young) the bots get very excited and telepathically communicate with their bosses (or however that works) to tell them they found something. The result is that a short time after my blog has been “crawled” I end up with random new Twitter followers who are obviously related to key words I've used.

Usually, these automated follows on Twitter are trying to get me to follow them back. I guess there’s money to be made here. It’s pretty ironic since they don’t read the context of the blogs to recognize that much of what I’ve said is either sarcastic or critical. Since I don’t follow them back, they usually abandon me within a few days. But a few stick it out for the long haul.

I currently have a Walking Dead follower and an EDM DJ; my conquest of the world is proceeding according to plan. I am raising an army of internet robots and will shortly be able to execute Plan 9 from Outer Space. (Let’s see what that gets me.) I am now actively calling the minion bots to my command: Benedict Cumberbatch Marvel Comics Beyonce Star Wars Orange is the New Black Xbox Chipotle. That should make an unstoppable army. I can’t wait to see what happens.

In summation, ATTACK, undead robot minions, ATTACK! Cue evil laugh and the sinister rubbing of the hands: Mua ha ha ha ha…

Do Not Attempt: French Philosophy Without Coffee

I made the mistake of attempting to read Bruno Latour’s techno-science theory book We Have Never Been Modern before I had had enough coffee. First of all, the socio-philosophical (what’s he say he is? A sociologist?) text was translated into English from the original French, and whenever I read him I worry I am missing some nuances in the translation. My French skills are not up to the level of reading the original work. I struggled through Voltaire’s Candide in French as a grad student. That’s probably as advanced as I’m going to get. (I read the English version of it when I was 14 so it’s not complex.)

There was actually a moment while reading Latour’s other techno-science text Pandora’s Hope that the editor chose not to translate a passage from French, instead including it verbatim and attempting to explain what it meant. I felt a great deal of academic pride in recognizing the ambiguity of the French verb and understanding why the translation would not work in English. Faire is a French verb. It’s like the first verb you learn in high school French. I am not a genius.

Anyway, after reading about three pages of Latour’s treatise on modernity, my brain got a bit mushy. I was tempted to ask my Twitter followers to give me 140 character definitions of Latour’s idea of modernity just to see what they said but decided against it. I have a number of teenage girls following me on Twitter right now and I didn’t want to melt off their faces. (Don’t ask how that happened; it’s a long story.) It would be an interesting social experiment though. Feel free to try it and send me your answers.

Unfortunately, I really do need a good postmodern techno-scientific definition of modernity for contrast with Cartesian methodology but I am apparently not smart enough or well-caffeinated enough to digest Latour. It’s like he’s speaking a foreign language. (Ha! J'ai fait une joke.)  I’m still not sure what “modern” means. I’m pretty sure this blog isn’t modern.

In summation, you know you’re in neck deep in philosophical theory when Michel Foucault seems simple and straightforward compared to what you’re actually reading.

The Super Bowl Half Time Show As Told by Twitter

I am apparently the only person in the United States who didn’t watch the Super Bowl yesterday. It’s not because I’m unpatriotic (see what I did there?) so much as it is that I don’t care. I was initially concerned I would have to silence my twitter for the evening since I didn’t want to read endless tweets about sportsballing. Fortunately for me, most of the people I follow on Twitter are actually fabulous pop culture icons and their tweets had nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the bread and circuses of the half time show. Therefore, I present to you, my retelling of the half time show as recreated through my reading of other peoples’ tweets.

The show began like The Hunger Games with the girl on fire, Katy Perry, riding in on a giant chariot pulled by a flaming lion. She was stoically waving at the crowd as the blue haired announcer praised her glory. At least one lesbian Thundercat ran out on the field and volunteered as tribute.

Suddenly, a Sharknado erupted unexpectedly and some great whites came out as gay and joined Ms. Perry in playing the video game “Dance, Dance Revolution.” The video game dance marathon apparently triggered a teleportation event, and Missy Elliot was transplanted inside the computer world of Tron. She was reported as having “won” the game with her Light Cycle and her fast reaction times. (Congratulations, Missy!)

All this was followed by Haley Joel Osment recreating the plot of The Sixth Sense to create an insurance company’s “you might die” ethos, and then some sort of Hockey match broke out. According to my sources, some large sea birds placed an improperly inflated sports ball on a Rose Parade float and drove it around the field until everyone wanted to adopt some puppies. It all sounded like a really great time. I'm sorry I spent my evening otherwise engaged.

In summation, this is the way the world ends: not with a bang but with a tweet.