I've said before that the hardest thing for a writer to overcome is a blank page. The task is even more difficult when you're not a writer, and practically impossible when you're as unimaginative as I am. At this point, I have written two long posts -- one concerning the inner workings of my twisted mind and another about pornographic video games -- and have deemed them "utter crap." I suppose that says something about me as a person, that when offered to write a blog about anything at all, the first two subjects I consider are psychology and pornography. In any case, both of my compatriots have written blog posts, and now to save face I must scramble. (Also, I'm running an experiment right now which means I have about 10 minutes to kill.)
I really thought it would be pretty easy to just sit down and write. I like to talk, and I have a lot of opinions about a lot of subjects. But it's kind of like when you're talking to a girl and she just says, "Let's talk." No subject, no direction. She just expects you to start up a conversation out of nothing, from scratch, instantly, but it has to be on a topic that you BOTH are interested in (alright, let's be honest: she just wants it to be something SHE's interested in. AM I RIGHT FELLAS?!). If you're anything like me, this is paralyzing, because at any moment of the day my thoughts are pretty evenly split between (1) zombies, (2) robots, (3) monkeys, and (4) boobies. Do you know a girl who is interested in having an actual conversation along those lines? Do you know how quickly girls are turned off when you ask: "Could a robot make the distinction between a human and a zombie, and if so, would Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics still apply?" Because I do. Here's a little hint: very quickly. [Side note: I think I know what my next blog post will be about.]
As an example: I can already tell that this little thing I'm writing will be a disaster, because I know how weak it is to write a blog post about writing a blog post. Once I finish, I will stare at the "Publish Post" button for a little bit, highlight the whole thing, consider deleting it, actually delete it, then hit "Undo" to get it back, and waste more time considering what to do.
Wait... hang on a sec...
OH MY GOD. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. I'd like to dedicate the remainder of this post to Digg, for pointing me to this article. It's like the Internet knew what I was writing and gave me a link to satisfy me.
Now, for those of you who didn't read the article, crazy scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine taught monkeys to control robots with their little freaking monkey brains, with the excuse that is used to justify any type of brain research, no matter how outlandish: "It could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's! Somehow!" Basically they stuck electrodes into the monkeys' brains, restrained their arms, and gave over total control of a robotic appendage. Eventually our cousins learned to feed themselves and flip off the researchers with their shiny new arms.
Combine that information with this one, about a monkey trying to kill fish with a spear, and you have set up a terrifying scenario. See, originally we were able to control a monkey outbreak because we were bigger and smarte... actually, on second thought, most of us are just bigger than they are. You'll notice that they weren't teaching "gorillas" to control the robots; the last thing we taught gorillas to do was sign, and seriously, when was the last time a deaf person was a threat to humankind?
But monkeys were always relatively harmless. Most were tiny, and all were furry and sufficiently humanlike to be almost lovable. But having been prodded their entire lives, castrated, vivisected, and ground up into a fine powder and snorted by mad scientists, I can imagine that they'd harbor more than a little ill will towards their human overlords. Now imagine them suddenly having access to technology that is aeons ahead of their evolutionary age. Specifically, robots. And they've watched us long enough to figure out how to hunt like ancient cavemen did. We've suddenly lost our edge, the same way the woolly mammoth did when we learned to throw things.
Let me put it another way. Imagine if gigantic aliens came down to Earth, enslaved us for a thousand years to perform experiments on us, and then thought it would be a hoot to teach us to use their apocalyptic "SunFucker" death ray. What do you think would happen?
Given the choice between a robot revolution and a monkeys-armed-with-robotic-exoskeletons revolution, I'll take my chances with the robots. Mechanical death engines are bad, but at least they aren't mechanical death engines driven by vengeful little animals.
So thank you, University of Pittsburgh. You've given me another reason to be terrified at the zoo.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
We Got Fun and Games
Please allow me to preface the following by letting you know I am not a movie critic nor have I ever claimed to be. I don't even have good taste, apparently. Case in point: I love Jar Jar Binks. I think he absolutely saved what would have been a terribly boring movie and I wish he was in New Hope as well, so that wouldn't be the only movie I've watched more than ten times and only stayed awake through once.
That said, I'll review Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Let's start this review with the start of the movie: the gopher, or prairie dog, or whatever varmint it was. I still don't know why it was there unless it wanted me to get my "wait, what the fuck?" face on early in the movie so I could just hold it there for later.
A lot has been made about the crazy stuff that happens in this movie, and I want to just touch on that briefly before this moves further. If you have a problem with the level of "realism" in the movie, go find a shot gun and shoot yourself in the face. Or just watch the other three movies and realize what a complete douche you are. See? He's survived much crazier things than atomic bombs with much less than a refrigerator. Now go get the shotgun and have at it.
Now we move on to what IS new in this installment, Shia LeBeouf as Mutt, Indy's son. If that's a spoiler for you, then I'm sorry, I'm working on a cure for stupid, I'm just not done yet and you're gonna have to wait longer. Until then continue to try to bite your own ear. Anyway, the name Shia LeBeouf is a bit hard to spell, so I propose an alternative: Terrible Casting Call. Better yet, let's just stop calling him altogether.
George Lucas, however, seems to think he's the next Harrison Ford. After casting him in Transformers last summer, he put him back in action again this year. Last year, though, he was supposed to be an awkward kid and sometimes bumbling idiot, something he slides quite naturally into. This time he was supposed to be a greaser with a good brain in his head, something he does about as well as an elephant trying to play a mouse. But chew on this a second, people: Lucas repeatedly casts him, makes him Indy's son, AND gives him a character eerily similar to Harrison Ford's in the movie Lucas used to give him a career, American Graffiti. Coincidence that he tried to give him Indy's hat at the end of the movie? I think not. I'd like to think Ford ad-libbed taking it back.
The larger problem with the casting call here, though, is that I racked my brain throughout the movie to think of who'd play a more convincing greaser and came up empty. For reasons definitely worthy of their own blog entry, there is absolutely NO ONE who could have filled that role properly, at least not in the right age range. Young men these days are a bunch of womanized pansies and Hollywood is on the forefront of the movement. If you shave anything but your face, you pee sitting down in the ladies room, end of story, you can put your balls outside by the curb for the neighbor kids to play with.
On the other hand, and I'm injecting this in here because I actually really liked the movie as a summer blockbuster even if not an Indiana Jones movie, I really like how they portrayed the Russians. The Nazi's in the first three movies were caricaturized versions of what we imagined Nazi's might be in our worst nightmare's and I'm glad they stuck with this for the Russians. The Russians are caricatures straight out of Cold War propaganda and kudos to Lucas for not going PC.
So let's cut to the chase here, though, because there's one part of this movie that everyone has issues, save for my dad who would have been more than happy if "Rosebud" meant a flying saucer navigated by an army of T-Rexes. Aliens. Let me show both side of the saucer here.
Coming at it from an Indiana Jones perspective, there are two reasons we should have no problem at all with aliens in the movie. First, they were worshiped by a group of ancient people and what we see is a place where ancient ceremonies took place. In this way, its nearly identical to Temple of Doom, where ancient ceremonies were once again revived by the return of ancient stones (just sub in crystal skulls for those weird easter egg rocks). Second, the Indy movies have ALWAYS dealt with religion, in Raiders and Crusade it was Judeo-Christianity, in Temple it was some weird tribal cult, but it was always religion. Many people have called belief in aliens the new religion, and I'd credit George Carlin as getting there first. They're largely invisible, enormously powerful creatures that come out of the sky and can both help and harm us in countless and unstoppable ways. They are gods for some of us. So why NOT have aliens in an Indiana Jones movie?
I'll tell you why. Aliens are modern. Scratch that, they're beyond modern, to a time point in our technological progression we may never reach. Indiana Jones has always been historic. It was set in the past and the characters delved deeper into the past, beyond the pasts of our grandfathers and great great grandfathers. Yes, the culture that worshiped the aliens was ancient but the beings were not. The Templar Knight in Crusade was ancient. The ghoulish witch doctor in Temple was current, but had the appearance of something transported from the past, not the future. Or some other dimension. God that was terrible. Anyway, the problem here is that they did a very good job of setting the time period and then completely destroyed it with a flying saucer. Yes I can hypothetically come up with a multitude of reasons why it should have been OK, but it wasn't.
So, in summary, I thought this was a tremendous summer blockbuster popcorn movie, as were all the previous Indiana Jones movies. But it wasn't Indy. And Frenchy LeBeauf needs to disappear.
That said, I'll review Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Let's start this review with the start of the movie: the gopher, or prairie dog, or whatever varmint it was. I still don't know why it was there unless it wanted me to get my "wait, what the fuck?" face on early in the movie so I could just hold it there for later.
A lot has been made about the crazy stuff that happens in this movie, and I want to just touch on that briefly before this moves further. If you have a problem with the level of "realism" in the movie, go find a shot gun and shoot yourself in the face. Or just watch the other three movies and realize what a complete douche you are. See? He's survived much crazier things than atomic bombs with much less than a refrigerator. Now go get the shotgun and have at it.
Now we move on to what IS new in this installment, Shia LeBeouf as Mutt, Indy's son. If that's a spoiler for you, then I'm sorry, I'm working on a cure for stupid, I'm just not done yet and you're gonna have to wait longer. Until then continue to try to bite your own ear. Anyway, the name Shia LeBeouf is a bit hard to spell, so I propose an alternative: Terrible Casting Call. Better yet, let's just stop calling him altogether.
George Lucas, however, seems to think he's the next Harrison Ford. After casting him in Transformers last summer, he put him back in action again this year. Last year, though, he was supposed to be an awkward kid and sometimes bumbling idiot, something he slides quite naturally into. This time he was supposed to be a greaser with a good brain in his head, something he does about as well as an elephant trying to play a mouse. But chew on this a second, people: Lucas repeatedly casts him, makes him Indy's son, AND gives him a character eerily similar to Harrison Ford's in the movie Lucas used to give him a career, American Graffiti. Coincidence that he tried to give him Indy's hat at the end of the movie? I think not. I'd like to think Ford ad-libbed taking it back.
The larger problem with the casting call here, though, is that I racked my brain throughout the movie to think of who'd play a more convincing greaser and came up empty. For reasons definitely worthy of their own blog entry, there is absolutely NO ONE who could have filled that role properly, at least not in the right age range. Young men these days are a bunch of womanized pansies and Hollywood is on the forefront of the movement. If you shave anything but your face, you pee sitting down in the ladies room, end of story, you can put your balls outside by the curb for the neighbor kids to play with.
On the other hand, and I'm injecting this in here because I actually really liked the movie as a summer blockbuster even if not an Indiana Jones movie, I really like how they portrayed the Russians. The Nazi's in the first three movies were caricaturized versions of what we imagined Nazi's might be in our worst nightmare's and I'm glad they stuck with this for the Russians. The Russians are caricatures straight out of Cold War propaganda and kudos to Lucas for not going PC.
So let's cut to the chase here, though, because there's one part of this movie that everyone has issues, save for my dad who would have been more than happy if "Rosebud" meant a flying saucer navigated by an army of T-Rexes. Aliens. Let me show both side of the saucer here.
Coming at it from an Indiana Jones perspective, there are two reasons we should have no problem at all with aliens in the movie. First, they were worshiped by a group of ancient people and what we see is a place where ancient ceremonies took place. In this way, its nearly identical to Temple of Doom, where ancient ceremonies were once again revived by the return of ancient stones (just sub in crystal skulls for those weird easter egg rocks). Second, the Indy movies have ALWAYS dealt with religion, in Raiders and Crusade it was Judeo-Christianity, in Temple it was some weird tribal cult, but it was always religion. Many people have called belief in aliens the new religion, and I'd credit George Carlin as getting there first. They're largely invisible, enormously powerful creatures that come out of the sky and can both help and harm us in countless and unstoppable ways. They are gods for some of us. So why NOT have aliens in an Indiana Jones movie?
I'll tell you why. Aliens are modern. Scratch that, they're beyond modern, to a time point in our technological progression we may never reach. Indiana Jones has always been historic. It was set in the past and the characters delved deeper into the past, beyond the pasts of our grandfathers and great great grandfathers. Yes, the culture that worshiped the aliens was ancient but the beings were not. The Templar Knight in Crusade was ancient. The ghoulish witch doctor in Temple was current, but had the appearance of something transported from the past, not the future. Or some other dimension. God that was terrible. Anyway, the problem here is that they did a very good job of setting the time period and then completely destroyed it with a flying saucer. Yes I can hypothetically come up with a multitude of reasons why it should have been OK, but it wasn't.
So, in summary, I thought this was a tremendous summer blockbuster popcorn movie, as were all the previous Indiana Jones movies. But it wasn't Indy. And Frenchy LeBeauf needs to disappear.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Welcome to the Jungle
What you are reading now is an expert collaboration of friends, united in the name of blog awesomeness. It is the brainchild of one too many beers and one too many good ideas. Our goal is to write about what we want, when we want to write it. Our interests are mostly similar, but our differences should make this space really fun. There are no rules (except to type nothing that could get any of us in trouble with the law, our mothers, or Ph.D. advisers).
My name is Fred, and I'll get the ball rolling by explaining (another reason) why I hate to go to the gym. Now, I like the idea of physical fitness very much. Even some gyms can be nice places. The one I go to is clean, well-lit, makes above-average smoothies, and sometimes girls smile at me when I work out, which is nice. This stands in sharp contrast to some other gyms I've attended in my life:
So naturally, I'm going to write about it for you to read, since me being uncomfortable = AWESOME.
You see, it's a natural law of mankind that 10% of the people in any room are horrible, human-eating douchebags*. (*This may not be the case in schools, universities, or hospital maternity wards.) However, that ten percent figure turns into 33% when the room is a gym or fitness center. This is because horrible, human-eating douchebags also like to work out, specifically to get buff.
Think about all the really skinny people you know: how many of them would harm an insect, let alone another human? That's right, none of them. They don't care about getting big as much as they care about factor analysis or watching xkcd. Now, think about the giant, muscle-bound people you know. They're really scary, right? That's because they want to be that way. If a person isn't doing manual labor or playing pro sports for a living, they're building muscle only to make themselves look good to other people (lame) or to feel better about themselves (even lamer). They're the kind of person who thinks it's OK to resemble a bison, and that makes them horrible, human-eating douchebags.
And this HH-ED -- with their Tarzan-like ripped tank tops and ridiculously bulging muscles and inappropriate grunting and inappropriate locker room activity (the stories I can tell ::shudder::) -- makes going to the gym a miserable experience for my kind of person. You know who you are. Fitness is a challenge, but you kinda try hard sometimes because you feel your brain is too smart to die young. You might lift weights or cross-train, but nothing too serious. And when some behemoth comes up to you -- always too close -- takes the weight you're looking for so they can work out a muscle you never knew you had, a little part of you that used to want to be fit dies.
A skeptic might say, "Fred, you weak little man. Why not just ignore these people? You're clearly making excuses not to go to the gym." I would say, it's impossible to ignore someone who focuses every ounce of their effort on being noticed. Why do you think these guys wear ridiculous, pink popped-collar shirts when they're "at the club"? They want the attention, and because they're so good at it, they often get it. (I'll leave the skeptic's final point up to you, because I don't have an answer for it. Maybe I am making excuses, because I would rather sit at home and play Xbox. I sure do like video games.)
Now, I don't want you to come away from this blog post discouraged. There are ways around the HH-ED. For example, go to the gym before 6 PM. If your gym is split into two sections, one more hardcore than the other, stay out of the hardcore one. Whatever you do, stay away from mirrors -- HH-ED's cluster around them, like flies to a blue light. And remember, whenever you do get discouraged, that these girls all have herpes.
Stay classy.
My name is Fred, and I'll get the ball rolling by explaining (another reason) why I hate to go to the gym. Now, I like the idea of physical fitness very much. Even some gyms can be nice places. The one I go to is clean, well-lit, makes above-average smoothies, and sometimes girls smile at me when I work out, which is nice. This stands in sharp contrast to some other gyms I've attended in my life:
- This gym (Summer 2007) was almost entirely populated by the elderly. It smelled like Lotrimin AF (not just the men's locker room -- the whole gym), and the staff did not provide free towels for early morning showers. So, why did I really like this place? With Grandma and Grandpa too busy moving 1-lb medicine balls around their flabby middles, I had the weight room to myself most of the time. And, as you'll learn later in this post, pure, Into The Wild-like isolation is my key to a successful workout.
- This gym (Fall 2006 - Spring 2007) was in a part of New Jersey that everyone -- even people from other parts of New Jersey -- hates. The average car in the parking lot was a BMW 530i, even though nobody inside sounded remotely intelligent. Let's just say a lot of "waste management consulting" went on in this part of the Jerz. My high school had a better locker room, and I've already written about all the male genitalia I saw while attending this gym. Free bath towels were a plus, although I have fears that they weren't washed after each use.
- I actually really liked this gym (Summer 2005-Summer 2006). It's a shame that it's in the worst location possible, surrounded by 18-wheelers and bad drivers of ethnicities I won't mention. The one time I technically did something I never should have done in order to improve my physical strength* (*Oops! Call Congress), it was at this gym.
- ...AND the Rutgers gyms sucked so bad, I will not even respect them with a link.
So naturally, I'm going to write about it for you to read, since me being uncomfortable = AWESOME.
You see, it's a natural law of mankind that 10% of the people in any room are horrible, human-eating douchebags*. (*This may not be the case in schools, universities, or hospital maternity wards.) However, that ten percent figure turns into 33% when the room is a gym or fitness center. This is because horrible, human-eating douchebags also like to work out, specifically to get buff.
Think about all the really skinny people you know: how many of them would harm an insect, let alone another human? That's right, none of them. They don't care about getting big as much as they care about factor analysis or watching xkcd. Now, think about the giant, muscle-bound people you know. They're really scary, right? That's because they want to be that way. If a person isn't doing manual labor or playing pro sports for a living, they're building muscle only to make themselves look good to other people (lame) or to feel better about themselves (even lamer). They're the kind of person who thinks it's OK to resemble a bison, and that makes them horrible, human-eating douchebags.
And this HH-ED -- with their Tarzan-like ripped tank tops and ridiculously bulging muscles and inappropriate grunting and inappropriate locker room activity (the stories I can tell ::shudder::) -- makes going to the gym a miserable experience for my kind of person. You know who you are. Fitness is a challenge, but you kinda try hard sometimes because you feel your brain is too smart to die young. You might lift weights or cross-train, but nothing too serious. And when some behemoth comes up to you -- always too close -- takes the weight you're looking for so they can work out a muscle you never knew you had, a little part of you that used to want to be fit dies.
A skeptic might say, "Fred, you weak little man. Why not just ignore these people? You're clearly making excuses not to go to the gym." I would say, it's impossible to ignore someone who focuses every ounce of their effort on being noticed. Why do you think these guys wear ridiculous, pink popped-collar shirts when they're "at the club"? They want the attention, and because they're so good at it, they often get it. (I'll leave the skeptic's final point up to you, because I don't have an answer for it. Maybe I am making excuses, because I would rather sit at home and play Xbox. I sure do like video games.)
Now, I don't want you to come away from this blog post discouraged. There are ways around the HH-ED. For example, go to the gym before 6 PM. If your gym is split into two sections, one more hardcore than the other, stay out of the hardcore one. Whatever you do, stay away from mirrors -- HH-ED's cluster around them, like flies to a blue light. And remember, whenever you do get discouraged, that these girls all have herpes.
Stay classy.
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