A Compendium of Unoriginality

An update? In MY blog?

2010-09-13T15:19:00.000-05:00

Well, I actually got around to updating my Facebook profile today. I didn't really have anything to add, but it's amazing what you can do when you're trying to put off studying. (And, look, I'm updating this as well. It's a win-win!)

I don't really use Facebook all that much, probably because I have little use for it. It's a "social networking" site, a useless tool to the man whose idea of social networking is speaking more than twenty-four words in as many hours. I just don't get out enough to use it.

Then again, I've actually been hanging out with friends lately (mostly to play an awesome card game called Munchkin, which you totally should play. Especially you, Mom. I know you read this) so I have developed some semblance of a social life.

So yeah, nothing funny or interesting here. I thought of making some real posts, but I've been too busy and too lazy. Then I thought of making a comic mocking my inability to post, but I was ironically (or perhaps fittingly) too lazy to make that either. So you're stuck with this.

Quotencommon comments on various songs he keeps hearing on the radio

2010-06-22T21:38:00.002-05:00

So in order to gain a sense of this "musical appreciation" thing everyone in the world but me seems to have, I've started listening to the radio while driving. I chose a station that I know my brother listens to, so I know it has at least some merit of popularity, and have done my best to "appreciate" the noises the device excreted at me. Now, most of the sounds I heard filled me with an overwhelming sense of moderate apathy or mild dislike, but a few of them I have managed to form honest-to-God opinions on. So here some of them are, in full title-and-artist-no-youtube-link glory!

This Afternoon - Nickelback

Okay, this song I absolutely despise. The tune is fine, but lyrically it is nothing more than the acceptance and propagation of the "white trash" stereotype. The house has work that needs to be done, my lawn needs mowing, the landlord is about to kick me out. I know! Let's lie around on the couch all afternoon, then go get drunk all night! Perfectly acceptable! No. Just no. That sort of non-work ethic does not need to be promoted in today's society (although with cell phone ads that promote dishonesty at work, are we really surprised). It's basically rap for white people, except with music in it.

Vv Brown - Baby, There's a Shark In The Water

When I heard this song on the radio, I thought it made no sense. But now that I have looked up the lyrics, I have discovered that...yeah, the lyrics make no sense. They need do way instain VV Brown.

Today Was a Fairytale - Taylor Swift

Okay, if ever there was an example of a poorly-utilized metaphor, it's this song. About a third of the lyrics in the song are simply the mindless repetition of the line, "Today was a Fairytale," but only mentioned what made today a fairytale twice: a few context-less lines in the first verse, and one line in the chorus (excluding the titular line, which saturates the chorus only slightly less than the verses). Worst of all, it uses the metaphor as a reason, not as a result. Here, I'll show you:

Chorus:
But can you feel this magic in the air? It must have been the way you kissed me
[okay, that's the one good explanation for the metaphor in the song. The way we kissed was like magic. But for the metaphor to be so focal, there must be more. Is there?]
Fell in love when I saw you standing there. It must have been the way today was a fairytale

If we look at the parallels in the lines (and listen to inflections in the song), she is clearly stating that she fell in love because today was a fairytale. But they never really explain what makes today a fairytale! And no, the simple presence of magic in a kiss does not a fairytale make. Plus she can't even keep the metaphor; she feels the need to throw a superfluous sci-fi metaphor in the middle of a verse there too.

It may seem like I'm overreacting, but this sort of thing is exactly why I hate music. It's audio-shovelware; tedious, familiar lyrics tacked on to a simple and uninteresting tune. PASS!

Say Hey - Michael Franti

I was actually stunned for a moment when I first heard this. Against all genre conventions, someone had actually made a rap song that I liked! It had an interesting rhythm, which it kept interesting by means of constant interchanging. It had no throbbing beat, no monotone rapper, and no lyrics about thug life. It's a simple, yet original, love song that's quite frankly fun to listen to.

What Do You Want From Me - Adam Lambert

Sometimes, as I listen to a song, a little visual narrative begins to play out and, like a repeated dream or a train of thought constantly explored, it begins to refine itself into something fairly concrete and - if I had the skills - could actually be animated almost exactly as seen mentally. This is one such song.

The setting starts out in Medieval Europe. Or space. I haven't quite worked that part out yet. (Space Medieval Europe? Hmmmm...) Anyhow, a couple is having an argument. It seems there is an army of (space) monsters invading the (space) land, and the woman thinks the man should go out and fight them. The man, however, disagrees. After all, the (space) monsters are attacking far on the other side of the (space) kingdom. The two have a comfortable life where they are, and he's not just going to throw everything away.

As the chorus rolls, the woman gets disgusted with her man's cowardice (and who can blame her) so she grabs the (space) sword and goes out to fight the (space) monsters herself. She manages to make it all the way to the (space) monster king, but she is suddenly attacked by some (space) demon thing which immediately possesses her.

Cut back to the (space) cottage. The woman is lying there on her deathbed, doing her best to resist the (space) demon. The man is reassuring her and chiding his own cowardice, but she slips into a coma anyway. The man refuses to let this continue, dons the (space) armor, and goes out to stop his beloved's (space) possession the only way he knows how: by killing the (space) monster king who is controlling the (space) demon.

The man fights thorough the (space) monsters, but does not do so as easily as the woman, as he is a far inferior (space) swordsman. Eventually, he also makes it to the (space) monster king. The two duel for a bit, but then the (s)mk reveals his secret weapon: the woman, now completely controlled by the (space) demon.

The ending varies. Sometimes, the man kills the (space) monster king, freeing the woman. Others, the king gets away, and the man has only the choice of killing his beloved to free her soul. Sometimes, there's even scenes of an literal internal battle as the woman's psyche is locked in (space) (mental) sword combat with the (space) demon.

So, yeah. No real opinion; just thought I'd share that.

Uprising - Muse

Quotencommon Reviews Movies That You've Probably Already Seen: Transformers 2

2010-06-07T22:40:00.002-05:00

Now, before I launch into this I must admit that it’s been over a month since the last, first, final, and hopefully only time I have seen this film, but don’t deign to think that time has dulled the horrible scarring this film has violated my unwilling psyche with. My memory is still plenty fresh to give the unholy fecal salad its well and deserved ranting-about-on-a-blog-no-one-reads. (hey, I never claimed to be able to do much)

Well, let’s start from the beginning. Shia LeBouf is preparing to go off to college when he discovers a shard of the Allspark in his hoodie, which apparently he hasn’t worn, washed, or even looked at carefully since the climax of the first film. The ‘spark promptly zaps him and burns through the floor, landing in the kitchen and bringing all the kitchen appliances to life. Do these new creations question their sudden existence? Their purpose for being? Do they make any attempt at all to rationalize the strange and unfamiliar world into which their consciousnesses have been suddenly thrust? No! As the default setting for any mechanical life form is (apparently) Decepticon, they immediately try to kill LeBouf. Fortunately, Bumblebee stuck around for just such an occasion, and the blender-bots are quickly destroyed. We are then treated to a heartstring-pulling scene of Shia thanking his friend who has now, once more, saved …or not. Instead, Shia scolds Bumblebee. Scolds Bumblebee! He is now treating his best friend in the world, the bot who kept him alive throughout the entirety of the previous film and who just saved his ineffectual keister from certain painful dismemberment, like he would a puppy who just did his business on the living room carpet! What gives, Shia? Didn’t your parents ever teach you gratitude?

Apparently not, and it soon becomes apparent why. His parents, who were portrayed as a little slow in the first movie, have degraded to full-blown pants-on-head retardation. His father always seems to have little idea of what’s going on, and his mother is an emotional train wreck: one minute she’s sobbing over how her baby is going off to college, the next she’s trading sex jokes with her husband (right in front of their son, I might add), and the next she’s right back to sobbing. All the emotional stability of warm pudding.

And speaking of sex jokes, this movie is saturated with them. Remember how the first movie had a few out of place, and quite frankly awkward and uncomfortable, innuendos and references? Well here, they took that concept and ran with it. Forced sexuality practically oozes off the screen. Sometimes, it seems a scene is not complete without a carnal element. Worse, they no longer restrain themselves to just audible jokes; now they go all out and make the garbage visual. Dogs humping dogs. Robots humping legs. Some chick dry-humping Shia (more on that atrocity in a minute). Giant robot testicles. No longer content with the bottom of the barrel of laughs, the writers have removed the planking and dug far below to a whole new level of unfunny forced humor.

Anyhow, Shia goes off to Beautiful Young People University (uglies and fatties need not apply) where he meets some conspiracy nut who’s really good at panicking. Also, his mom gets high. Yes, she’s so stupid that she thinks that pot brownies with a picture of a marijuana leaf right on the baggie are “green for the environment.” This is another case of unnecessary joke inflation. Remember that scene in the first movie where his mom was a little buzzed on wine and said some slightly embarrassing things about LeBouf in front of What’s Her Name, the heroine? The same basic joke is repeated, but now she’s running around the campus, screaming and showing people Shia’s baby shoes. Banal, unfunny, and forced.

Anyhow, Shia blows off an e-date with What’s Her Name so he can hang out with his new friends at a frat party. At the party, some chick latches herself onto him and attempts to change the rating of the film to R or X right in front of everyone else, yowling like a cat in heat - a display that’s more disgusting than erotic. When that fails, she follows him to his car (Bumblebee in disguise), lets herself in, and continues to try to seduce him. Shia is unable to get rid of her himself, yet when Bee drives her off with a jet of motor oil, Shia is once again mad at him for doing exactly what he wanted him to do. Note to self: never ever try to help Shia do anything, even if he asks. He’ll just get all indignant on me. Eventually, it is revealed that Slut Girl is in fact a Decepticon scout and not, as she seems in this first appearance, a cross between a crude stereotype of college girls and a self-serving fantasy crafted by someone who has never actually set foot on a college campus, but by the time we find that out the damage is done and the viewer has lost any faith he may have been harboring that this movie will accurately portray college life.

This movie continues to be tedious and uninteresting (save for what little amusement can be gained from watching it fall apart on itself), so I shall breeze through the rest of the plot. Megatron is dead but he gets better, Optimus dies and gets better, Shia dies and gets better (but with all the resurrections going on, no one thinks to resuscitate the actual film), more alien robots come from Jupiter and try to activate a Sun-destroying laser hidden in the Great Pyramid. Along the way, they meet such colorful and interesting characters as an old giant robot (who farts a parachute completely out of context. Forced flatulatory humor!), a pair of annoying twin robots who are like fingernails grating against the chalkboard of my mind (one of whom also dies and gets better), and a sniveling little Decepticon whom they capture and who, despite What’s Her Name putting his eye out with a blowtorch, eventually decides to join them for some bizarre reason.

Now I will admit, towards the end of the feature, the movie does get better. Not “great” better or even “good” better; just “tolerable” better, but sad to say that is a massive improvement. We are treated to several Robot v Robot fight scenes that would be interesting if it were possible to tell what was going on. Unfortunately, with the camera angles and fast movements, it’s often hard to tell one enormous metal body from another.

So now we come to the climax of the film. The Humans and Autobots are getting their various anatomies handed to them, and all hope seems lost when suddenly a freshly resuscitated Optimus Prime absorbs the parts of a fallen comrade and proceeds to singlehandedly decimate the enemy forces in about thirty seconds. “Oh,” I think to myself, “That’s not the real climax. After all, the enemies did manage to turn on that Sun Gun. Dealing with that thing will be the real…no it’s ending.” That was it. It’s a shame too. They could have made the movie slightly better with a proper climax, but as it is it just seems…uncanny.

And yes, there was that one giant alien robot that unearthed the Sun Gun that the humans shot at, so perhaps the cannon fire supposedly stopped it, but come on! The pyramids survived Napoleon shooting at them, I think they can survive this. Besides, I’m pretty sure the main villain turned the Sun Gun on after the other one got blown off. (Granted, it has been a while since I saw it)

So that’s Transformers 2 for you. A royally sucky first half, followed by a moderately sucky second half. It’s like a Now and Later, except instead of hardness it’s awfulness. No, better yet, it’s a chunk of horse meat coated in dog feces. Sure, it technically gets better when you suck on it for a while, but is the “better” part really worth it. Do you really want to put that in your mouth in the first place? No, you don’t. Spit that thing out.

Which brings us to the Binareview. As I did with Avatar, I will assign a simple yes/no score, illustrating whether I thought this movie was worth my time.

Did I enjoy this movie?

NO.

No, no, no, a thousand times no. There are few movies I have ever seen that have been as torturous as this one was. I rarely get so fed up with a film that I want to turn it off unfinished, but this one certainly tried. Do not watch this movie. Do not watch this in a house. Do not watch this with a mouse. Do not watch this, Sam-Are-You. Do not watch Transformers 2. Friends don’t let friends watch bad films. If they want you to watch this film, they are not your friends. Run, Simba. Run away, and never return.

8-Bit Theater Has Ended

2010-06-01T21:39:00.001-05:00

Well, that's it. After all these years, it has finally come to an end. It was a good webcomic, and the end wraps things up well (though with a note of uncharacteristic seriousness.) Still, I can't help but wish it would continue. But that's just the way things go.

Nuklear Power � 8-Bit Theater

Breakdown

2010-05-27T21:59:00.001-05:00

As I write this, I am sitting on the trunk lid of my broken-down car, waiting for my family to arrive with the pickup truck flatbed trailer. Not the most apropos location for the construction of a blog post, I will admit. I’ve actually been working on a completely separate entry – a review on Transformers II – but with the more chronologically defined nature of this specific entry, I think it takes precedence. Of course, I could have probably have prevented it entirely with a little foresight.

A few months ago, I purchased a 1997 Buick LeSabre. And by “purchased,” I mean “my parent’s purchased for me and I promised to pay them back. So far, I have only paid them $1000, about a third of the purchase price, but I had (and still have) every intention of paying them back in the future. Unfortunately, at the moment, I am a little strapped for cash. I’ve had a hard time finding regular work (admittedly, this could likely be amended with a little more effort) and I have a handful of debt with the school that needs to be settled before they will let me return.

And so, I’ve been a little stingy with my cash.

“Your shocks are bad,” my passengers tell me. “You need to get them replaced.” “I will,” I say, meaning it fully, but procrastinating until later as well. In the meantime, I can live with a rough ride. “Your tire seems to have a slow leak,” they tell me. “You need to get it patched.” “I will,” I say, meaning it fully, but procrastinating until later as well. In the meantime, I can live with keeping an eye on in and occasionally airing it up. “Your coolant system has a slight leak,” they tell me. “You need to get that looked at.” “I will,” I say, meaning it fully, but procrastinating until later as well. In the meantime, I can live with keeping an eye on in and occasionally adding to it.

Unfortunately, that last one stretched its ugly neck out and bit me square in the keister.

This morning, as usual, I did a quick pre-flight inspection of my car. Kicked the tires, checked the gas, that sort of thing. As my usual routine, I checked the coolant system. I popped open the caps of both the radiator and the tank, added a little water to each, put the cap back on and shut the hood. Everything seemed completely normal.

Fast forward about an hour. I’m driving down a back road in the Speegleville area when I notice a strange flapping rattle sound. Quick experimentation shows that this is tied to acceleration, as the sound is only produced when the gas pedal is pressed. This same experimentation also shows that the acceleration has locked up somehow, for repressing the pedal fails to produce either sound or motion. Instead, I find myself coasting to a stop.

I park the car and pop the hood. There’s a little bit of steam or smoke here – I can’t tell which – but not enough to notice with the hood closed. At first I can’t spot any specific thing wrong (not that I really know much more than the basic science of internal combustion) but eventually notice a small, certain, and rather damning problem: the radiator cap is missing.

Frantically, I look deeper in the engine, hoping it somehow managed to snag on something. The Lord apparently had some mercy for my stupidity, because it was lying right there, caught in the empty space between the engine block and the fan. But as relieved as I was to see it, I immediately noticed two problems. One, the engine is still very hot, and even I realize that is little short of moronic to stick one’s hand in a freshly overheated motor. Two, that space has a small, fluorescent yellow sticker beside it, warning never to stick one’s limbs in the area, as the fan may start even when the engine is off. Clearly, trying to retrieve the cap by hand is a very bad idea.

I glance down the road and see a house a little ways behind me, within walking distance even in the heat of a Texas summer afternoon. To those of you who may argue that summer has yet to start, you must realize that here in Texas we have a different set of seasons than you may be used to. While most Temperate regions have Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, we Texans experience such diverse seasons as Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Deer Season.

Climate jokes aside, I walked down to the house and knocked on the door. Fortunately, a resident was home and, upon explaining my situation, he was more than happy to lend a coat hanger and a jug of water. I accept these with much gratitude, and upon returning to my vehicle I proceed to fish out the radiator cap. It comes out with surprising ease, especially considering what shaking it must have endured to stay where it was in the first place.

I uncapped the jug and proceeded to pour the water in the radiator. The laws of physics had other ideas however, and the water, pressurized and steam-powered by the hot radiator, quickly came gushing back out. Realizing this was a bad idea (and likely to ruin my engine even more than I already had) I poured the rest of it into the overflow tank instead. Then I began the first long and tedious wait. Steam was still pouring out from the water I just added to the radiator, far too hot for me to replace the cap. Eventually, the steam died down enough for recapping, but even then I knew the engine was too hot to safely run. So there I was, sitting by the side of a road with a broken down car. I had no food, no water, and most importantly no air conditioning. Not that I would have used it if I had; an earlier experience had proven that a wonderful way to drain my car battery was to leave the fan running. I tried to distract myself with Census paperwork, but my hands quickly became sweaty enough to damage the paper. I tried working on my computer, but I had no where to sit; the inside of my car was stifling and I could probably have fried an egg on the outside. I tried to eat the trees, but the shoe-gnomes in my left nostril informed me that I was probably just delirious from the heat. I had no choice but to stand around.

I decided eventually that it had gotten cool enough for now (and that I didn’t want to stand in the sun anymore), so I cranked up the engine and fans, dropped off the borrowed supplies, and headed ever so slowly towards home. I knew there was a gas station not too far off, and I resolved to head back there first and give my car more of a chance to cool. I managed to make it there without incident, save for the near suffocation that driving at thirty miles per hour in a stiflingly hot car seems to create. They had both a soda fountain and a table area complete with power outlets, so I was able to spend the next 45+ minutes sitting happily in the air conditioning, sipping root beer, working on paperwork, and playing Slay on my laptop.

All good things have to come to an end however, so I eventually decided the car had to have cooled. I packed up my computer and headed out; this time willing to go faster than before, but unwilling to press my luck. I would definitely have it checked out, I decided. I would take it to the garage the next day, find out if there was any lasting damage. Still, I was glad with how things had turned out. At first, I was afraid this could be some terrible catastrophe, but now things seem to be turning out rather okay….

Then I heard it: the flapping rattle. A little bit of experimentation and, yes, it is tied to the acceleration. I knew what was coming, so this time I was sure to watch the dials. Interestingly, as the car lost power the temperature was not spiking. Instead, it was the oil pressure that was dropping. Not what I expected to see in an overheated engine.

Well, power was gone, so I pulled over to the side of the road. This time I knew I was in trouble. There were no buildings for at least two miles (which I was not about to try to walk in this heat), and even if there were I knew they would do me no good. A cycle of cooling and reheating could only do more damage. I needed a tow.

I called my family. They picked up, but they were busy. My brother was preparing for a Boy Scout trip, and my mother was getting ready for what I think was one of her singing gigs, but I don’t properly recall. Anyway, they said they would bring the flatbed as soon as they could, but it would be a while.

So there I was again. Standing out in the heat. I had brought a cold drink with me from the ice house so I was no longer risking dehydration and the risk of overheating my brain was lessened, but the misery of sitting bored in the heat was still very real. Various people did stop by occasionally to relieve the monotony – friends, strangers, and some road worker who only stopped to put up a nearby sign. They offered me a ride, but I always declined. Help was on the way, I said, and I need to be here when it arrives.

Eventually, I hit upon the idea of blogging this, and thus we arrive at the beginning of this post. I am not, however, currently writing of the present moment. About halfway through this blog post, almost exactly an hour after the latest breakdown, my mother and brother showed up, so I had to cut the posting short. I’m picking it up again about a week later, though I will post it under the original date. Who says you can’t cheat at internet?

Well, we unload the important things from my car and attempt to load it onto the flatbed trailer. We are immediately repulsed by instability; the ramp under the right wheel is turning as I attempt to drive up it. No problem, we think. It’s just because it’s on the downhill side and in the grass. We’ll drive the trailer completely onto the asphalt and it will be fine. We attempt just this, but no dice. The ramp still turns. We pull the ramps up and quickly discover why: the underside of the ramp is bent. Naturally, we panic at first, but soon realize that by switching the two ramps, we’ll be pulling against the bend and thus be probably able to maybe drive the car up the ramp without the ramp twisting on us and dropping the car. I drive, it works, woohoo, nothing interesting here.

There’s a bit more to the story, including a part where my mother, who is normally pious to the point that she considers “butt” to be profanity, calls a man an “asshole.” But my narrative skills seem to have slipped over the course of writing this and frankly I just want to get it posted. NO FUNNY ENDING FOR YOU!

This space unintentionally left blank.

2010-05-19T13:16:00.001-05:00

Greetings, reader! (Or so I would say if I had any) For the first time since starting this blog, I'm actually making two posts on consecutive weeks. Could this be a sign of consistency to come? Could I have actually matured enough to take the bare responsibility of regular blog updates? Don't bet on it!

You may not know, imaginary reader, but I am actually in quite the pickle financially. I had to drop out of college in December due to a substantial balance that had accrued on my account over the past semester. Meanwhile, I purchased a car with the assistance of my parents (to whom I still owe a couple thousand dollars) and my student loan payments have begun to come due. I've tried to build up cash to pay for this over the past semester, but I've had trouble acquiring regular employment.

Through either divine will or freak coincidence (I'm inclined to believe the former), they have begun playing Dave Ramsey videos at my church in lieu of the adult Sunday school class. For the imaginary reader not in the know, Dave Ramsey is a successful Christian financial advisor. He comes from a bankrupt background himself, so his current wealth proves he obviously knows what he's been talking about. Now one of the things Dave is always saying is, when you are first getting a chaotic financial situation in order, sell everything. "Sell so much that the kids think they're next," he says. "You can buy more 'stuff' when you have money." He points out that he's not expecting you to live under a bridge eating rats and bugs, but to gain financial peace, one must pursue it with "gazelle intensity."

For a while, I ignored this specific catechism of his. After all, I'm a poor pseudo-college student. I don't have anything really worth selling (save for my car, which I need for my job). But the other day, something occurred to me: my brothers and I have been collecting videogames for quite a few years now. Granted, I've never bought them often, and not all of them are mine to sell, but between systems, accessories, and the games themselves that I do own personally (plus those I can convince my brothers to part with)... well, I have to be sitting on at least $150. Probably more, but I like to keep my estimates conservative. Sure, that won't go very far in paying off my debts, but ever little bit counts.

But as much as I know I need to do it, I really don't want to. I have a lot of fond memories of many of these games. I'm building a comprehensive list of all that I am selling, comprehensive right down to the color of the system and whether the game had a manual with it, but it does only little to ease my worries. Some of these games I may not be able to find again in the unspecified future when I have the resources to rebuild my gaming library. This is over ten years of my past that I am just giving up, perhaps forever.

And yet, it's still just "stuff." My future is more important than a few button-encrusted knickknacks. And in that future, there will be more and better things. Things, whether gaming or IRL, that will far outshine that which I lose today. And hopefully, in that future time, I will look back on today and know that I made the right decision.

But still, it makes me sad.

Quotencommon Reviews Movies That You've Probably Already Seen: Avatar

2010-05-10T15:29:00.002-05:00

Imagine, if you will, a building in the distance. From where you stand, you can see that the building is of solid quality and well maintained. Friends, known and unknown, have described this building to you. Some have greatly espoused its greatness, claiming it to be a revolution in architecture and deserving a place among the greatest buildings ever constructed. Others have had fewer praises to laud upon it, claiming there seemed to be something wrong with the building. You decide to visit the building and decide for yourself.

As you get nearer, you notice several things about the building. This thing is huge, much larger than you had previously imagined. The architecture is indeed as good as you had heard. Though you recognize many of the “revolutionary” techniques as ones you have seen before, you are easily able to forgive this for how well the techniques are executed. Even the skin of the building seems to radiate glory, light shimmering on a strange metallic exterior. Clearly near unfathomable amounts of effort, both mental and menial, went into its construction, and the effort paid off. This was truly a monumental work.

But then you notice a strange smell.

Well, “notice” may be to soft a word. You are hit upside the head with a pungent odor. You glance about, unable to place it. Is there a dead animal in the road? A leaky outhouse nearby? Is it perhaps caused by chemical mortars and sealants? When you reach the building the source suddenly becomes clear: the entire building is constructed from dead fish.

Bricks of trout form the exterior walls, providing the reflective surface you previously thought grand, but now find only repelling. Tiles of flounder line the interior, each consecutive one flipped to provide a striated pattern of light and dark. Minnows and anchovies are spread on the floor, providing a horrifyingly squishy yet crunchy carpet. The tables, chairs, somehow even the windows. Everything about the building is made from fish.

This, my friends, is James Cameron's Avatar.

I don't mean to take anything away from the movie. It is truly a triumph cinematically, although the allegedly “revolutionary” effects have been used before (Beowulf was entirely motion capture, Up and Polar Express had the depth-of-field 3D). Clearly a phenomenal amount of effort went into this movie, and nearly every part of it shimmers. The visuals are beautiful, the acting is good, the storytelling and pacing well executed.

But the story itself, the very material out of which the entire film is crafted, is a pile of dead fish.

It's not even like they even tried to do anything original storywise. Quite the contrary, it seems to be ripping off other movies to the point of borderline plagiarism, which is good because it allows me to quickly and simply explain the movie: it's a cross between Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, and Fern Gully...in space. Guy McProtagonist is among a crew of eeeeeeeeevil humans invading the pure and holy space forest. In this forest live a tribe of space natives called Na'vi (Hey! Listen! Watch out!) who have a spiritual connection to the land around them. While the humans are incapable of compassion, dignity, or mining in an uninhabited part of the planet (apparently their machines are lubricated by the tears of the innocent), the space natives are good, noble, and incapable of doing anything wrong. The humans seek to drive out the space natives, for the land is rich in the space gold, unobtanium. (Simultaneously evocative of the naming system for unknown elements and insulting of it.) Through a twist in science/happenstance, McProtagonist becomes accepted into the space native tribe, where he is trained as one of them by Space Native Woman With No Last Name. Over time, McProtagonist falls in love with No Last Name, and his loyalties shift from the eeeeeeeeevil humans to the pure and holy space natives. With his help, they fight off the humans and everyone who isn't dead lives happily ever after worshiping space Gaia and avoiding wearing pants.

All this is served with a heart-clogging helping of environmentalism and pantheism. Everything the space natives say or do is saturated with their worship of life, the universe, and everything. As one of the humans comments, “You can't take a walk out there without stepping on some sacred fern.”

Though despite their hippie beliefs, the Na'vi still ate meat, which was good. If they made them condemn the humans' diet without realizing that animals do eat other in nature, it would have been too much.

I don't mind utilizing the misconception of the noble savage, but this movie is obsessed with it. It seems that the Na'vi are incapable of evil, while humans (with a few exceptions) are incapable of anything but. The simple possession of technology in this movie and others like it seems to be what separates the evil man from the good. Protip, guys: the invention of the wheel was not the original sin.

It irks me the way hollywood always portrays people as either near-divine or near-dirt. What ever happened to the middle ground? Sure, man can be incredibly cruel to his fellow man, but with the Lord's help we are also capable of great acts of kindness. One could argue that man's nature in inherently evil, but not even the worst of us in entirely so. To borrow a metaphor from Lemony Snicket, people are like chef salads. We're a mixture of different - often contrasting - thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Not perfectly good, true, but not too far gone either.

A lesser problem was the biology. Many of you may find this a pointless complaint, but as a biology student it irked me. Like the entire movie, so much effort was given into making these creatures seem alien to us. Forelimbs were split into two feet or hands, depending on the creature. Trachea ended in a grid of spiracles at the base of the neck. Auxiliary eyes, smaller and more recessed, nestle beside the primary ones. And every creature had, extruding either from its long tube-like ears or from the back of its head, a filamentous bundle of nerves that allowed for a sort of psyching networking, giving riders a level of unprecedented control of their steeds. All good concepts of an alien ecosystem, all well and consistently (Na'vi excluded) executed.

They go through all that effort to make the aliens seem alien, and yet they don't make them look alien. For example, the creatures the Na'vi ride look like slightly stylized horses. Their face is longer and skinnier and their mane looks like a solid piece, but their appearance still screams, “I AM HORSE. BEHOLD MY HORSITUDE!”

It would have been a simple matter to prevent this. Simply choose any other animal, any at all, and base the steed off of that. Riding mice. Riding ostriches. Riding cows. Riding velociraptors. Like the story, anything else would have been more alien.

The problem continues in the other creatures. Alien jackals look like Earth jackals. Alien monkeys look like Earth monkeys. Alien rhinos look like Earth rhinos. Alien humans look like Earth humans. Just about the only creatures that look acceptably “alien” are the bird-dragon things. Come on, James Cameron, I'm paying you to show me a truly alien ecosystem, not a shaved lion with four feathers pasted on!

I realize I may sound a bit hypocritical here, but I do think we are losing some enjoyment by over-analyzing our entertainment. While yes, I do believe we should be careful of what we put in our minds and yes, I do think entertainment should be intelligent, I think an important factor commonly overlooked is simple enjoyment. That is why I here give a simple yes/no review score here - a binareview if you will – based simply off of whether I enjoyed the movie. This is not an endorsement of buying it or paying the exorbitant ticket fees they charge these days or even renting it; just a statement of whether I think it was worth my time. And my binareview for James Cameron's Avatar is the following:

Did I enjoy it? Yes.

Despite its flaws, this not was a bad movie per se. It is extremely well made visually, and the majority of the people behind it knew what they were doing and did it well. However, the story itself is so grating that its almost difficult to watch. It's a beautiful building built out of dead fish; wonderful to view on the skyline and worth visiting every now and then, but I don't want to set up shop there.

Resurrection

2010-03-16T13:30:00.002-05:00

Well, four and a half months have gone by, so it's about time I dust off the cobwebs and get posting in the compendium once more.

It's been a rather eventful several months, and I have learned a large number of life lessons:

No matter how good the used car seems on the lot, there is something wrong with it. Majorly. If it seems fine save for a gash along the side, be prepared for the parking break to jam on you and/or the transmission to fall out and/or the tires to leak and/or the battery to need replacement and/or the tape deck to spontaneously die the instant you insert a casette.
The United States Census Bureau understaffing is part of and resultant from an internal viscious cycle. They lack employees, so they force extra work and unexpected deadlines and quotas on their existant employees. Frustrated by this and being treated like crap in other ways, many employees resign. As a result, the Bureau further lacks employees, so they treat their employees worse, and on and on ad infinum.
Having to fire people, or even terminate them due to lack of available work, sucks. Majorly.
Laptop batteries and power cables last only as long as the warranty. Once that expires, so do they.
Dell overcharges for everything
Ubuntu Linux is amazing...
...save for the fact that the Inspiron 1501 wireless internet card seems to be unsupoported
Turns out the father (or was it grandfather) of our farm's previous owner hung himself on the property. Perhaps there was something to that doorwatcher thing after all.
Strawberried Peanut Butter M&Ms are nowhere near as bad as they sound. Quite the contrary, they are actuall quite deliciuous.
Same with spaghetti for breakfast
And cheddar cheese melted onto apple pie
Jalepeno Bread and Butter Pickles, however, are as bad as I thought they would be
Munchkin is the greatest card game of all time. Of all time.
4-kids did something right in making Turtles Forever. Awesome tribute to the original TMNT show.
Rowan Atkinson is the greatest actor ever. At least, I think it was him. I am terrible at matching names and faces.
Our president is either an evil genius or a moron. The two can be so hard to tell apart.
Same with Pelosi and Gore.
Bryan Clevenger, however, is definitely a genius. A funny, funny genius.

The Doorwatcher: a true tale of suspense

2009-10-31T14:36:00.003-05:00

Well in honor of the holiday, I thought I'd post something that happened to me last summer. The following story is 100% true and retold to the best of my memory.

I live in Houston for most of the year, in the dorms at my college. During the summer however, I stay at my parents' farm house in central Texas; fifteen miles from the nearest small town, an hour away from the nearest city (Waco). It's a nice little place. We've really cleaned it up in the ten years we've been there. My grandparents live in the original house on the property (and they actually own most of the land), while we live in a trailer home. It's very well built, almost site-built in quality, but plans to expand it have yet to come to fruition.

My mother owns a little dog, a Dachshund, that has taken a particular affection to me. I have a major soft spot for pets of all kinds, so it wasn't long before he began coming directly to me whenever he needed anything. This is especially true (and a bit of a problem) at night, as the guest bedroom is very near the front door.

Well, it was about 3 in the morning and the little runt was barking at the front door. That's usually his signal that he needs out to use the restroom, but it could just mean he smelt something out there. Like all small dogs, he was born with a powerful idiotic bravery. If he smells anything he doesn't recognize he tends to bolt after it, yapping his little head off. Remember, we live in a rural area so there are a lot of skunks, raccoons, and other nocturnal varmints in the area, I always accompany him outside at night to make sure he doesn't run off and get himself killed.

I groaned and began the procedure I had rehearsed so many times that summer: roll out of bed, shuffle stiffly to the front door, turn on the porch light, unlock the door, turn the knob...

A sudden strange feeling struck me. For whatever reason, I'm not exactly sure why, I looked through the peephole in the door. And froze in terror.

Illuminated by the porch light was a man standing halfway down the steps. Not walking up the steps, not knocking, not doing anything. Just standing there, motionless, facing the door. Watching. Staring.

In case you didn't pick up on this before, I will reiterate it: we live in the middle of nowhere. With the exception of my grandparents, our nearest neighbor lives a mile down the road. And he was clearly not some sort of stranded driver looking for a phone, as this man was making no effort to make himself known. He wasn't even moving. Lord knows how long he had been there already, or how often. And most terrifying of all, since I had just turned on the porch light, he had to have known I was there. And yet he still stood unmoving. He was waiting for that door to open, waiting for someone to come out, waiting for...I didn't even want to think about what he was doing there.

I pulled my face away from the peephole and blinked, telling myself it was a trick of the eyes or something. I waited a few moments for my head and eyes to clear and looked again.

He was still there.

I couldn't make out many details, and what I did see told me nothing about him. He was fair-skinned, but I was unable to make out facial features of any kind. He wore what appeared to be a neutral-colored sweatshirt (gray? tan? My blurry eyes and half-asleep brain couldn't quite make it out). His legs I couldn't actually see -- he must have been wearing dark pants. He had a strong but slightly relaxed posture, his hands sitting in his pockets; the kind of pose one could hold for hours if need be. And he was directly facing the door, motionless as a solder. Watching. Staring.

Have you ever been in a situation where what is happening to you is so strange, so out of the ordinary, that your mind refuses to accept that it is happening at all? Where your brain decides, that, somehow, it must be playing a trick on itself? That happened to me then. Contrary to all evidence before me, I abstractly decided that there was not, in fact, a man on the other side of that door. I was still groggy and wasn't thinking quite straight anyway, so when my mind was further clouded with terror it was a surprisingly easy leap of logic to make.

So I locked the door, turned off the light, told the dog to shut up, and went to bed. I decided it would all make sense in the morning. Of course, I didn't get any sleep the rest of the night.

About 5 to 6 am, dawn was starting to crack and the dog wanted out again. I was feeling a little braver at this point, so I figured I would give it another go. So I went to the door and looked through the peephole.

Still there.
After all these hours, he was still there. He had not budged an inch.

Still standing.

Still staring.

But then I noticed something: he was semi-transparent in the morning light. And as I looked in the better light, with a less clouded brain and clearer eyes, I began to put together what I was seeing...

We have two front doors: on the outside is a metal-framed storm door made of glass, while just inside it is the "true" front door, made of wood. On this wooden door, attached to the base of the peephole, is a brass knocker. The "watcher" I was seeing was only a reflection: the head was the peephole, the body was the knocker.

Never have I been so relieved

So yeah, the end. Turns out it was a false alarm. Not as exciting to read about as an actual staring madman, but that's the way it goes. Still, never in my waking state have I been so terrified.

Blagh

2009-10-12T17:12:00.000-05:00

Well, this is the history of my blog so far: write a small handful of halfhearted posts, abandon blog, delete blog, almost post a few dozen times but never finish writing one and end up deleting all in disgust, rinse and repeat.

So, in continuing the time-honored tradition of making and abandoning a blog no one cares about, I present the new and improved Compendium of Unoriginality: this time with Content*!

*may not contain content