11 O'Clock News

My girlfriend and I watched the 11pm news tonight, for the first time in many years. I must say, it's actually rather distressing when you look at it objectively.

When I was a child, the news had a fairly even balance. Bad news versus good news. Then I remember when The media started trying to be sensationalist about nonsense. "Killer Bees" became the buzzword. They started telling us how dangerous these Bees were going to be, how they were making their way towards our community and everyone was going to die.... From Bees.
Clearly they're full of shit, cause it's twenty years later and we're all still here.

Then 9/11 happened. And something change. We got so flooded with horrifying images that the whole country got desensitized to violence. It was horrible, but everyone was riveted to their TV's. And the media took notice. They realized that tragedy would bring in a larger audience than simply reporting the news. So instead of trying to improve everyone's moral they tried to hit us with even more tragedy.

Today when we turned on the news, every single story was a tragedy.

It's not the news anymore, it's a clip show celebrating all the worst things that happened recently. And they don't just report a tragedy once, they report it hundreds of times. They go behind the scenes and they interview the murderer's gardener and his pediatrician and damn near anyone they can find who ever met them.

Here's the truth:
We really don't want to get to know these murderers or terrorists. We want them stopped and we want their victims helped, rescued, or avenged.

But the media's fear-mongering has done more to help terrorists than any suicide bomber ever could.
They've spend years now campaigning for fear.

You want to really give a "Fuck you!" to terrorism?
Ignore them. They do what they do because:
A. We're doing something they don't like
B. We have something they want.
C. They want attention for their cause.
D. And they are batshit crazy.

Don't celebrate them.
Don't play their clips on the news.
Don't show their face.
Don't try to get their life's story.

Just stop them from doing it again, and move the fuck on.

It really irritates me that the NYC government dropped the ball at rebuilding the World Trade Center.
The best thing they could have done would have been to construct the buildings exactly as they were.
With a big-ass American flag in the courtyard.

Like saying to the world "Anything you destroy, we can rebuild. You're not stopping us. All you've done is piss us off."

Instead, with all the fear we get fed every day, the terrorists have won. We're scared. And the terrorists aren't even the cause. It's our own idiot media that's to blame.

The Fourth Estate has failed in it's duties.
It's not keeping the government honest, it's not even keeping itself honest. It's just one massive clusterfuck of skewed statistics and bullshit stories.

If you really want to hear the news, just watch the monologues of the latenight talk shows. They give you a concise digest of what's going on, but they keep it light hearted and brave. The Ruler of North Korea threatened to bomb us.
The media spread the story like wildfire and encouraged us to be afraid of this little man, with little bombs, in his little country.
The Late-night talk shows responded the proper way. They made fun of him. They pointed out how ridiculous the whole thing is.

We could turn that man's country into glass if he actually attacked us. But it's highly unlikely that he will, because he's on the opposite side of the world. He has much more danger from his neighbors to worry about. Attacking us would just be inviting his own destruction. But to remain safe from his neighbors he needs to look powerful. Which he apparently decided to do by trying to look intimidating to us.

And we let him. Our own stupid media backed the story and retold it constantly for weeks.

That's not news. There is always going to be some jackass saber rattling. If it's a real threat, tell us, but even then, it doesn't rate weeks of constant coverage. Cover the story then move onto the next story.

And while you're at it, how about doing some real reporting? Currently all of the TV stations run the exact same national stories. Does nobody pay journalists anymore?
I understand we're in the digital age, but that doesn't mean that everyone should stop doing their own research.

Get the facts straight, and stop trying to scare us.

Review of Sci-Fi's Defiance.

I'll preface this post with this statement:
HUGE GODDAMN SPOILERS.

If you don't want the series premier spoiled, stop reading now, watch the show, then come back and keep reading. Go ahead, I'll wait right here.


Back now? Good.

Ok, first off, despite the negatives I'll be discussing about this show, I'm still interested to see what they will do with it. It has an insane amount of potential, I'm just worried that they won't do anything good with it. The series has a vastly interesting world, much like the Harry Potter series, and like HP the writer seems intently focused on the least interesting parts of the story.

Problem #1 with Defiance.
Dear god, soo many Tropes and Cliche's. It's like the writers went to TVtropes and hit random a bunch of times to decide on the themes of their show.
Listing off the tropes in no particular order, the wrong names, and with whatever evidence I feel like adding:

Gun-for-hire: The main character like Han Solo, Malcolm Reynolds, the crew of Cowboy Bebop, etc, is a wandering hired gun. This is a ridiculously common cliche.

Significant military marking: The main character has a tattoo that shows what famous military unit he was in. Just like Mal Reynolds, Han Solo, etc.

Let's visit the crappy town where I'm Famous: The main character randomly stumbles into town, not recognizing it. But apparently 15 years ago he fought a famous battle in this town and he is instantly popular because of it. Yet none of the residents recognize him, even though he's clearly important to them. This trope of course is famous in Harry Potter and Firefly.

Retired soldier: The main character is an ex-marine/military guy. Like Jake Sully in Avatar, Mal Reynolds, Han Solo, etc. Noticing a trend here?

Alien Side-kick:  Main character has an adopted alien daughter who is his accomplice in everything. Just like Chewbacca, Ney'tri, Ford Prefect, etc.

Side-kick is a kid: Just like in the first Indiana Jones movie, and Ed from Cowboy Bebop. I could list more but I'd have to look them up.

Romeo & Juliet: 30 minutes into the pilot episode it's revealed that there are two rival families and their children are of course in love.

You killed Tybalt!: The Romeo-esque character is accused of killing the Juliet-esque character's older brother. Who was an aggressive douchebag.

The Grand Vizer is always evil: An hour into the pilot it's revealed that the Mayor's aide/adviser is secretly evil and plotting her destruction.

Stop making me feel old: 1/2 hour into the pilot the ex-mayor makes a joke calling the new mayor "grasshopper". Which she doesn't understand (I guess grasshoppers went extinct?).

I was one week from retirement: The city sheriff gets killed and he's clearly really old.

Hooker with a heart of gold: The owner of the town brothel is the mayor's sister and one of the most blatantly obvious good-guys in the show.

The MacGuffin: Not only do they have the vaguely explained doomsday weapon that everybody wants, but's it's actually an Orb. How much more obvious can they get?

Reluctant lawman: After the sheriff is killed the main character reluctantly accepts the job. Just like Wyatt Earp.

I'm leaving you to die, just kidding: This happens twice. First the main character & sidekick leaves the town to be destroyed, then he has an attack of morals and returns with the MacGuffin but the sidekick leaves him to die. Then She has a whooping case of morality and she comes back at the last second with reinforcements who save the day and give the heroes enough time to activate the MacGuffin. This is most famously used in Star Wars a New Hope. Han Solo leaves the rebellion to die, then comes back at the last second, rescues Luke, who then blows up the Death Star.

I'm in it for the reward: Mal Reynolds and Han Solo own this trope. The main character promises to track down a murderer, as long as they pay him for it.

Jinkies!, It was that sneaky former ______ all along.: The villain who arranged most of the problems in the episode was the ex-mayor and mentor to the current mayor who is secretly a psychotic "evil plan for the benefit of all mankind" mastermind. The character was unmasked to the audience, but the protagonists remain clueless.

Problem #2
Please pick one plot and run with it.
The pilot episode had one A plot, which was a murder mystery that never gets solved but ends with a climactic battle. But it also had a dozen B plots, none of which went anywhere. I think they were trying to set up all of the A plots for all future episodes at once. Rather than doing the more standard formula of inserting the A plot for next week as the B or C plot for this week.

All of that being said, I'm still going to watch next week's episode. The writing is terrible, but the setting is amazing. I hope they some how figure out something good to do with it, but I kindof doubt it.

All video game characters are on PCP.

This has been bugging me for awhile and I finally decided to write about it.

Have you ever played a videogame where you are a melee character of some kind and an enemy starts shooting you with a gun or a crossbow or whatever? You know how it's a huge pain in the ass to running over to them so you can hit them while they slowly eat away at your hit points?

Well, this is only possible because your character is on PCP.

There are only a few instances in the real world where someone is shot and then proceeds to run up and murder the shit out of the person who shot them. Generally it's because the shooter only grazed them, or they are some combination of wall-humpingly insane or doped up to their eyebrows.

In real life if you get shot, you don't charge the guy shooting you. If you are still able to move, you charge away from the guy shooting you.
Yes, if you get up close to him you could stab him or beat him with a shoe, but in the time it takes you to get over to him, you are becoming a much easier target to hit.
And with every shot you take, your ability and chances of reaching the shooter go down.

So why the weird logic in videogames?

Well, cause otherwise if you got hit once by anything, you'd be dead.
In videogames your health is graded by a health pool or hit points or whatever. In real life you have one hit point. In videogames you can have millions of hit points.

Ever see a level 1 character try to hit a lvl 90 character in World of Warcraft?
Short version, the lvl 1 character cannot possibly kill the lvl 90. Too many hit points and their passive health regen is higher than the lvl 1 can ever overcome, also the lvl 1 is missing almost all the time. And then the armor of the lvl 90 reduces all damage to 1hp.

So with no health regen and unlimited time (and replacement weapons, cause you'll break your weapons before you ever kill that 90) the lvl 1 could possibly kill the lvl 90. It would just take weeks.

Hit points make combat more complicated than "Who attacks first?".

When you have hit points using a sword to attack a guy with a bazooka makes perfect sense.

But let's look at this from the character's perspective.

Either all weapons are extremely shitty and take forever to even break skin, or everyone is hopped up on PCP so they can keep fighting even though they are rapidly bleeding to death.

That's another thing. "Bleed effects".
Unless someone is hitting you with elemental magic that doesn't create a wound, all attacks should cause you to bleed. Yet for some reason in WoW when I shoot a dude with my poison coated arrow they get the poison but don't bleed from the arrow wound.

Videogame combat mechanics cause the players to behave in a way that is completely opposite from the real world. You don't charge the guy with the bazooka, you run the fuck away and pray that he didn't see you. Cause holy shit bazookas can kill the fuck out of you.