So, for a little background about myself. I am thirty years old. I started playing table-top roleplaying games around the age of nineteen. I started off with D&D 3.0. Then I progressed on to Old World of Darkness, GURPS, Mutants and Masterminds 1st edition, D&D 3.5, New World of Darkness, Mutants and Masterminds second edition, D&D 4.0, etc. I've played alot of game systems, I was one of the playtesters for the Eclipse Phase game system, basically I've spent the last ten years gaming.
And as I've gotten older I've found myself less and less interested in tabletop gaming for one simple reason.
The more skilled you become at the game, the less fun it is.
All of these games have mechanical problems, certain things just don't make sense, certain things are horribly over powered or under powered. That's pretty much the status quo. But as you become more knowledgeable in the game system, the difficulty fades away. You reach the point where all of your characters are optimized to be as effective as humanly possible, and you develop a laundry list of things you just can't play anymore because the game becomes entirely too easy.
And because of how well you know the rules, you can steamroller over any game master who doesn't know them as well as you.
This leads to the game no longer being fun.
Then there is the massive split between Character driven players and Strategy driven players.
Fully optimized characters tend to be unbeatable in the rules, but they are insanely boring to play because to optimize means to be really good at one thing. Usually combat.
Character-driven means to be focused on developing the character at the expense of it's functionality.
The problem is that both kinds of players are common and if you have both kinds of players in one gaming group then the party will never be happy. The strategy players will want the game to be focused entirely on combat (D&D 4.0 was built specifically for these kinds of players), and the Character-driven players will want to mostly or entirely ignore combat and focus on the story.
When I first started off, I really wanted to be a strategy gamer, but I wasn't very good yet. Then eventually I became a Strategy gamer, and found it entirely boring. Yes it's fun to create a ridiculous character who can do insane amounts of damage or can destroy the moon with one magic spell, but it sucks to actually play those characters. They have one gimmick. And as the old saying goes "If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail."
The Duke mocked you?
Fireball to the head.
Children are fleeing a burning orphanage?
Fireball to the orphanage.
Interrogating a prisoner to find the location of the kidnapped princess?
Fireball to the head.
It's silly at first, but in a character-driven campaign it becomes insanely frustrating to only have one response to any situation. Even if it's a really good response.
No, the most fun I've had gaming have been with characters who weren't particularly good at anything. I played a Blind Barbarian once, who I specifically designed to be kinda shitty, but somehow the dice loved him and he was successful at things that he had no business being successful at. And it was fun playing a character who was naturally that weak. Hell, there wasn't even any rules in D&D for how to deal with a permanently blind character. Usually blindness is temporary in that game. But wacky adventures were had, even though I on paper I was playing a character who should have died at the first sign of combat.
I find myself gaming less and less these days, part of being an adult is we don't have as much free time as we did when we were younger.
But just a few things I've learned over the course of my gaming experience:
1. Find a group of players who want to play in the same style that you do, if you want strategy, don't join a character driven group. It'll just make everyone upset.
2. Always carry as much random stuff as the game master will let you get away with. It always comes in handy, and even if it's not specifically useful to your situation, it might be hilarious in your situation. Especially items that could be used for slapstick comedy. No game master is immune to slapstick comedy.
3. Always be willing to try something new. Some people play one type of character for years before they try something new and realize that they like it better.
4. Beware of girlfriend armor. If a game master has their significant other in the game, odds are, that character will never die. Exceptions: That player is me, or if the couple has been gaming together for years and don't hold deaths against eachother. But especially when introducing a girlfriend to gaming, her character is damn near immune to damage.
5.Never trust a Royal/Grand/Whatever Vizer. Vizer's are always evil, without exception. Even if they seem like a really cool and trustworthy guy, they are playing you.
6.Hilarious off-the-cuff remarks are worth more damage than 100 critical hits. If you can say something hilarious as you are swinging at a guy, the game master is going to die laughing and declare that dude horrifically dead.
7. Try to avoid playing any character that can kill the rest of the party in a single action. If it is unavoidable, Don't TELL them that you can kill them in a single action. This will always lead to party civil-war and campaign death.
8. Always keep a spare character within a couple levels of your current character in case of sudden character death. My character deaths used to be so frequent that I would write new characters on notecards and just pull out a new notecard when the old character died.
9. Remember to take breaks during gaming sessions. It may feel epic being in combat for six hours straight, but your legs and back will be killing you.
10.Don't sacrifice real life happiness for make-believe happiness. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for D&D. Seriously... Don't do it... Do not ditch a girlfriend for gaming, it is incredibly sad and really pisses them off. It's ok if you already talked to your SO about your gaming habits and they are fully aware and supportive, just don't cancel plans with your SO for gaming.
All that being said, I see myself slowly fading into the distance as far as my gaming career is concerned. It was fun, but I'm just not getting the same enjoyment out of it that I used to. That might change, but if it goes away completely I won't be too sad. Gaming characters I've played have been the influence for much of the fiction I've written, It was a good launching point for the character to come from, but now I don't need that anymore to create a character.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Brief update
Sorry for the lack of content lately my readers, been dealing with health issues and working on writing a book. So my attention has been elsewhere. But due to the downtime from being ill I have had a respectable amount of free time for movie watching, so here are a couple movies I've reviewed.
The Island (new version)
Actually kinda enjoyed this one. Ewan McGregor star in this post-modern dystopian thriller where they are basically playing 5/15 year olds in 30 year old's bodies. The progression of the reveal was very solid, you start realizing things at about the same time that the main characters do, with the exception of course of the Title mystery about the Island. Twists like that haven't surprised us since Soylent Green. Not a great film, but if it's on cable, I'd recommend it.
Daybreakers
Really interesting take on a usually very overcrowded genre. Everyone is getting really sick of Vampire movies. They are everywhere. Movies, TV shows, comics, novels, the damn things are everywhere. The market is literally saturated in vampires. And they always follow the same basic rules.
Vampires are rare and hiding among us.
They randomly fall in love with humans.
Their weaknesses only come into play at the climax of the story.
This film says "Fuck that" to all of those rules.
In this world the ENTIRE population got turned into vampires, because they follow the rule that absolutely everyone who is bitten by a vampire gets turned into one. Then there is the matter of adjusting society to a nocturnal lifestyle. Sun protection walkways and cars, the entire civilization is based around hiding from the sun. The love story isn't between a vampire and a human, it's between two surviving humans who are trying not to be eaten by the vampires.
Really well done, if you haven't seen it, go see it.
And as a bonus, Movies I am most looking forward to for the next four months:
(Feb 1)
Warm Bodies: A love story between a zombie and a human? Even if it's terrible, it's such an amusing idea that I am totally in.
(March 8)
OZ the great and powerful: Love wizard of OZ, and this is one where they don't bother with Dorothy or Toto. Kinda like Wicked, which I also enjoy.
(May 3)
Iron Man 3: Do I really need to even describe this one? If you saw the first two, you're going to see this one.
(May 17)
Star Trek Into Darkness: Sequel to the Trek reboot. Yet again, if you are a Trek fan, you're going to see this film.
The Island (new version)
Actually kinda enjoyed this one. Ewan McGregor star in this post-modern dystopian thriller where they are basically playing 5/15 year olds in 30 year old's bodies. The progression of the reveal was very solid, you start realizing things at about the same time that the main characters do, with the exception of course of the Title mystery about the Island. Twists like that haven't surprised us since Soylent Green. Not a great film, but if it's on cable, I'd recommend it.
Daybreakers
Really interesting take on a usually very overcrowded genre. Everyone is getting really sick of Vampire movies. They are everywhere. Movies, TV shows, comics, novels, the damn things are everywhere. The market is literally saturated in vampires. And they always follow the same basic rules.
Vampires are rare and hiding among us.
They randomly fall in love with humans.
Their weaknesses only come into play at the climax of the story.
This film says "Fuck that" to all of those rules.
In this world the ENTIRE population got turned into vampires, because they follow the rule that absolutely everyone who is bitten by a vampire gets turned into one. Then there is the matter of adjusting society to a nocturnal lifestyle. Sun protection walkways and cars, the entire civilization is based around hiding from the sun. The love story isn't between a vampire and a human, it's between two surviving humans who are trying not to be eaten by the vampires.
Really well done, if you haven't seen it, go see it.
And as a bonus, Movies I am most looking forward to for the next four months:
(Feb 1)
Warm Bodies: A love story between a zombie and a human? Even if it's terrible, it's such an amusing idea that I am totally in.
(March 8)
OZ the great and powerful: Love wizard of OZ, and this is one where they don't bother with Dorothy or Toto. Kinda like Wicked, which I also enjoy.
(May 3)
Iron Man 3: Do I really need to even describe this one? If you saw the first two, you're going to see this one.
(May 17)
Star Trek Into Darkness: Sequel to the Trek reboot. Yet again, if you are a Trek fan, you're going to see this film.
Monday, January 14, 2013
What's wrong with Comic Books (and how to fix them)
Ok, I'm sure that title will incite some nerd-rage, but hear me out.
Alot of things in comic books just don't make any sense.
Some of them we suspend our disbelief for like inconsistencies in a character's powers or backstory.
Example: Superman was supposed to be the last survivor of Krypton , but then there is Kara Kent i.e. Super Girl. But then she got ret-conned. But then we still have the Kryptonian city of Kandor. Which has remained canon throughout most of the franchise.
But the audience looks the other way because his title as "The last son of Krypton" is classic.
No, the complaints I have are about logical fallacies.
#1 Batman
Batman hides his face to protect his identity and the identities of those around him. He initially refuses to take on Robin as a partner because of the risk involved. His parents were killed by a random criminal, so super criminals are much more likely to cause loss of life. Batman himself has been "killed" or tragically injured many times. Bat-girl got crippled, Jason Todd was killed, Tim Drake got possessed by the Joker and driven insane. It really does not pay to be associated with Batman. And he knew this. He initially said "Hell Fuck No, I'm not fighting crime with a random 10-year old minor who I just adopted."
Then Dick Grayson put on a pair a pair of green underwear and Batman's latent pedophilia swayed him into bringing the kid along.
Are they fucking serious?
No, Fuck that. Batman is Bat-Man because he's suppose to be scary and solitary.
He can have loved ones, but they need to be in the dark about his second life. Right now in the comics he has an entire batman franchise system where he has "Batman cells" throughout the world who all fight crime in his name.
How to fix it:
Kill off Dick Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth. And keep them dead.
Both characters have been effectively immortal since the very beginning, and he's been mourning the loss of his parents since the 1930's. He replaced his parents, he has a new family now. Kill them off so that he still has a reason to hate criminals. Feel free to keep Bat-Girl around, but make him pissed off that she won't retire. Too many people know Bruce Wayne's secret. It makes literally no sense that his secret identity isn't common knowledge at this point.
#2 DC Universe as a whole.
Ok, two major gripes here. Firstly is the rampant difference in power levels. Realistically Batman could never, ever, ever beat Superman in a fight. Superman could shoot him with heat vision from space and Batman would have no way to defend against that. Yes Batman has some Kryptonite, but fat lot of good that would do against 16 miles of distance. Non-powered super heroes have no business being in the same universe as the god-like JLA folks.
Second gripe, Money. It's the Scrooge McDuck conundrum. All of the money in the DC universe is owned by Bruce Wayne or Lex Luthor. Wayne has his secret Bat-Army and the JLA Watchtower, and god knows what else. Luthor keeps blowing all of his money on trillion-dollar death lasers to use on Superman, which of course don't work and get destroyed.
How to fix it:
Firstly, separate the comics. But Batman, Green Arrow, The Question, Huntress, etc into one comic franchise. Then put all of the Meta-humans in another.
Secondly, Put finite limits on the economy. Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor would have destroyed the world's economy many times over based on how they spend money. Yes, they are rich, but they can't just throw money at every single problem and be completely unaffected. Another key reason to reduce the number of Bat-people is that it reduces his spending. And if you separate him from the JLA then no more spending crazy money on space stations.
#3 Superman
Superman's biggest problem is the ever-changing lack of definition in his power set. Supposedly he has enhanced senses, super strength, flight, super speed, heat vision, and frost breath. However, those powers and how strong they are change from issue to issue.
How to fix it:
Set specific definitions and limits to his powers. If he's truly invulnerable, then nothing should EVER be able to hurt him unless Kryptonite or Magic are involved. If he's just damage-resistant, ok, then all of the bruisers (Darkseid, Lobo, etc) should atleast have a CHANCE to take him down. Be specific. And stop adding powers whenever.
#4 Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a major logic jump. Peter Parker wears a mask because he wants to protect his family, yet because he stays with his family, they are constantly being kidnapped, killed, beaten, brainwashed, etc.
How to fix it:
During the Clone Saga Peter Parker became convinced that he was actually a clone of himself. So he went off and created a new identity for himself. He became Ben Reilly, a random bartender with blonde hair. Instead of Peter Parker, a scientist/ Photographer/ guy whom weird stuff always happens to. If Peter really wants to protect his family, he needs to leave them and become someone else. Those who know the risks and are willing to live with them can join him in his new life. Also, ditch Mary-Jane. Marrying a TV star is not a good way to keep a low profile to hide your secret identity.
#5 X-Titles (X-men, X-Factor, X-Calibur, X-Force, X-Nation, etc)
Ok, so here is some simple math. if there is only supposed to be less than 0.001% of the world's population being mutants, why are there so many goddamn mutants? Seriously, entire countries of mutants, mutants throughout the world. Even after "House of M" there was seriously too many frigging mutants. It's just ridiculous. I barely care about the X-Men, asking me to keep track of the 10 million other mutants is insane.
How to fix it:
Kill off or Ret-con most of the mutants. Seriously, most of them were retarded from day 1, who the fuck cares if they disappear? The protagonists that remain should be a small group with good/ interesting powers that make a complete group.
For example:
Wolverine- immortal melee wrecking machine
Colossus- Buff guy/ melee wrecking machine
Shadowcat- Hello best thief ever, yes, we do want you on our team.
Storm- She controls the weather and can fly, yes, we want you. Plus awesome ranged attacks.
Nightcrawler (or any other good teleporter)- yes, the group needs to be able to travel fast, and as mentioned earlier, I'm not a fan of the unlimited money for a new X-Jet every week.
Iceman- Immortal master of ICE. He's like Mr. Freeze, but cooler.
Cable- Leader who is not afraid to make the tough choices. Plus future technology and teleporting/time travel. Hell, with Cable you could get rid of Nightcrawler. Also, guns. Lots and lots of guns.
Things to avoid with this kind of reboot:
Omega-Level mutants: Phoenix, X-Man, etc. Mutants that can Ret-con the world @will.
Telepathy: It's too easy to sweep everything under the rug when the only thing stopping the title character from world domination is his morality. Plus it's really boring in the art. Hell, make a couple villains telepathic, but keep them out of the heroes.
Pacifism: It's a comic about superheroes fighting, stop kidding yourselves.
Really, the X-titles are just insanely bloated with powers and characters who have them. Why have seventeen insanely strong characters? Just have one. Make them unique. So it's Rock-Paper-Scissors rather than Rock-Rock-Rock.
And my last complaint:
Goddamn Alliteration.
Peter Parker, Lana Lang, Lois Lane, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Wally West, Bruce Banner, Wade Wilson.
Yes it makes the name easier to remember, if you're 7. But when you grow up it just sounds retarded. Bruce Wayne is just as memorable and he has a real name like a normal person (who was born in 1918).
So many great super heroes have normal names, that the ones with Alliteration just seem out of place. It makes the whole thing seem like a Golden Age comics flashback. Fuck that, give them real names.
Alot of things in comic books just don't make any sense.
Some of them we suspend our disbelief for like inconsistencies in a character's powers or backstory.
Example: Superman was supposed to be the last survivor of Krypton , but then there is Kara Kent i.e. Super Girl. But then she got ret-conned. But then we still have the Kryptonian city of Kandor. Which has remained canon throughout most of the franchise.
But the audience looks the other way because his title as "The last son of Krypton" is classic.
No, the complaints I have are about logical fallacies.
#1 Batman
Batman hides his face to protect his identity and the identities of those around him. He initially refuses to take on Robin as a partner because of the risk involved. His parents were killed by a random criminal, so super criminals are much more likely to cause loss of life. Batman himself has been "killed" or tragically injured many times. Bat-girl got crippled, Jason Todd was killed, Tim Drake got possessed by the Joker and driven insane. It really does not pay to be associated with Batman. And he knew this. He initially said "Hell Fuck No, I'm not fighting crime with a random 10-year old minor who I just adopted."
Then Dick Grayson put on a pair a pair of green underwear and Batman's latent pedophilia swayed him into bringing the kid along.
Are they fucking serious?
No, Fuck that. Batman is Bat-Man because he's suppose to be scary and solitary.
He can have loved ones, but they need to be in the dark about his second life. Right now in the comics he has an entire batman franchise system where he has "Batman cells" throughout the world who all fight crime in his name.
How to fix it:
Kill off Dick Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth. And keep them dead.
Both characters have been effectively immortal since the very beginning, and he's been mourning the loss of his parents since the 1930's. He replaced his parents, he has a new family now. Kill them off so that he still has a reason to hate criminals. Feel free to keep Bat-Girl around, but make him pissed off that she won't retire. Too many people know Bruce Wayne's secret. It makes literally no sense that his secret identity isn't common knowledge at this point.
#2 DC Universe as a whole.
Ok, two major gripes here. Firstly is the rampant difference in power levels. Realistically Batman could never, ever, ever beat Superman in a fight. Superman could shoot him with heat vision from space and Batman would have no way to defend against that. Yes Batman has some Kryptonite, but fat lot of good that would do against 16 miles of distance. Non-powered super heroes have no business being in the same universe as the god-like JLA folks.
Second gripe, Money. It's the Scrooge McDuck conundrum. All of the money in the DC universe is owned by Bruce Wayne or Lex Luthor. Wayne has his secret Bat-Army and the JLA Watchtower, and god knows what else. Luthor keeps blowing all of his money on trillion-dollar death lasers to use on Superman, which of course don't work and get destroyed.
How to fix it:
Firstly, separate the comics. But Batman, Green Arrow, The Question, Huntress, etc into one comic franchise. Then put all of the Meta-humans in another.
Secondly, Put finite limits on the economy. Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor would have destroyed the world's economy many times over based on how they spend money. Yes, they are rich, but they can't just throw money at every single problem and be completely unaffected. Another key reason to reduce the number of Bat-people is that it reduces his spending. And if you separate him from the JLA then no more spending crazy money on space stations.
#3 Superman
Superman's biggest problem is the ever-changing lack of definition in his power set. Supposedly he has enhanced senses, super strength, flight, super speed, heat vision, and frost breath. However, those powers and how strong they are change from issue to issue.
How to fix it:
Set specific definitions and limits to his powers. If he's truly invulnerable, then nothing should EVER be able to hurt him unless Kryptonite or Magic are involved. If he's just damage-resistant, ok, then all of the bruisers (Darkseid, Lobo, etc) should atleast have a CHANCE to take him down. Be specific. And stop adding powers whenever.
#4 Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a major logic jump. Peter Parker wears a mask because he wants to protect his family, yet because he stays with his family, they are constantly being kidnapped, killed, beaten, brainwashed, etc.
How to fix it:
During the Clone Saga Peter Parker became convinced that he was actually a clone of himself. So he went off and created a new identity for himself. He became Ben Reilly, a random bartender with blonde hair. Instead of Peter Parker, a scientist/ Photographer/ guy whom weird stuff always happens to. If Peter really wants to protect his family, he needs to leave them and become someone else. Those who know the risks and are willing to live with them can join him in his new life. Also, ditch Mary-Jane. Marrying a TV star is not a good way to keep a low profile to hide your secret identity.
#5 X-Titles (X-men, X-Factor, X-Calibur, X-Force, X-Nation, etc)
Ok, so here is some simple math. if there is only supposed to be less than 0.001% of the world's population being mutants, why are there so many goddamn mutants? Seriously, entire countries of mutants, mutants throughout the world. Even after "House of M" there was seriously too many frigging mutants. It's just ridiculous. I barely care about the X-Men, asking me to keep track of the 10 million other mutants is insane.
How to fix it:
Kill off or Ret-con most of the mutants. Seriously, most of them were retarded from day 1, who the fuck cares if they disappear? The protagonists that remain should be a small group with good/ interesting powers that make a complete group.
For example:
Wolverine- immortal melee wrecking machine
Colossus- Buff guy/ melee wrecking machine
Shadowcat- Hello best thief ever, yes, we do want you on our team.
Storm- She controls the weather and can fly, yes, we want you. Plus awesome ranged attacks.
Nightcrawler (or any other good teleporter)- yes, the group needs to be able to travel fast, and as mentioned earlier, I'm not a fan of the unlimited money for a new X-Jet every week.
Iceman- Immortal master of ICE. He's like Mr. Freeze, but cooler.
Cable- Leader who is not afraid to make the tough choices. Plus future technology and teleporting/time travel. Hell, with Cable you could get rid of Nightcrawler. Also, guns. Lots and lots of guns.
Things to avoid with this kind of reboot:
Omega-Level mutants: Phoenix, X-Man, etc. Mutants that can Ret-con the world @will.
Telepathy: It's too easy to sweep everything under the rug when the only thing stopping the title character from world domination is his morality. Plus it's really boring in the art. Hell, make a couple villains telepathic, but keep them out of the heroes.
Pacifism: It's a comic about superheroes fighting, stop kidding yourselves.
Really, the X-titles are just insanely bloated with powers and characters who have them. Why have seventeen insanely strong characters? Just have one. Make them unique. So it's Rock-Paper-Scissors rather than Rock-Rock-Rock.
And my last complaint:
Goddamn Alliteration.
Peter Parker, Lana Lang, Lois Lane, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Wally West, Bruce Banner, Wade Wilson.
Yes it makes the name easier to remember, if you're 7. But when you grow up it just sounds retarded. Bruce Wayne is just as memorable and he has a real name like a normal person (who was born in 1918).
So many great super heroes have normal names, that the ones with Alliteration just seem out of place. It makes the whole thing seem like a Golden Age comics flashback. Fuck that, give them real names.
Monday, December 31, 2012
2012. A year in review.
This will be a touch more personal than my posts usually are.
Fuck 2012.
I can name a handful of great things that happened:
My sister got engaged.
I got to spend another year with my wonderful girlfriend.
Got to visit with people that I have been missing.
But then there is the bad:
I've been sick for the entire year. I won't be diagnosed and treated until 2013.
I'm on the verge of losing my job. "Happy New Year!.... You're now unemployed.."
I've been so busy with work and illness that I've been unable to do all the things I wanted to do. Parties, gaming, video games, music, writing.
I've been so sick all year that I missed alot of important things that I wish I had been able to attend.
Example: My Great-Aunt died this year. She was a wonderful woman and I remember her fondly. But I was unable to attend her funeral because I was bed-ridden.
So yeah, Fuck 2012.
But as the good song says: "Always look on the bright side of life."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
This year has given me the intense feeling that it is no longer ok to just go along with what life gives me.
I need to stop getting stuck in shit jobs. I need real work, that pays me real money.
And lastly, I need to stop sitting on my problems and waiting for them to go away. They don't go away, they just bunch up and bite you in the ass.
So fuck that, and fuck 2012.
Look out 2013, once I'm well, I'm going to grab you by the balls.
Fuck 2012.
I can name a handful of great things that happened:
My sister got engaged.
I got to spend another year with my wonderful girlfriend.
Got to visit with people that I have been missing.
But then there is the bad:
I've been sick for the entire year. I won't be diagnosed and treated until 2013.
I'm on the verge of losing my job. "Happy New Year!.... You're now unemployed.."
I've been so busy with work and illness that I've been unable to do all the things I wanted to do. Parties, gaming, video games, music, writing.
I've been so sick all year that I missed alot of important things that I wish I had been able to attend.
Example: My Great-Aunt died this year. She was a wonderful woman and I remember her fondly. But I was unable to attend her funeral because I was bed-ridden.
So yeah, Fuck 2012.
But as the good song says: "Always look on the bright side of life."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M
This year has given me the intense feeling that it is no longer ok to just go along with what life gives me.
I need to stop getting stuck in shit jobs. I need real work, that pays me real money.
And lastly, I need to stop sitting on my problems and waiting for them to go away. They don't go away, they just bunch up and bite you in the ass.
So fuck that, and fuck 2012.
Look out 2013, once I'm well, I'm going to grab you by the balls.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
The Hobbit & Wreck-it Ralph
I'm currently on sick leave from my job, so I figure it's time to review some of the movies I've seen in the past month.
The Hobbit
Peter Jackson once again gives us a stunning Tolkien trilogy.... except it's based on one book instead of three. Two books if you count the Silmarillion (yes I did have to look up how to spell that title).
The Hobbit is a short book. As an adult you can read it in a day. Jackson is showing it to us over the course of 8 & 1/2 hours.
So this is a very long movie, and it feels long.
That being said, I still highly recommend this flick.
It has something that LOTR didn't have, and that's adventure for the sake of adventure.
In LOTR the ensemble makes their epic journey because if they don't then the bad guy get's his OBJECT OF ULTIMATE POWER and takes over the world.
In The Hobbit they go on the adventure for wealth, prestige, and to reclaim what was stolen from them. If they suddenly decided to go home and say "to hell" with the stupid quest, they'd be back where they started, but no worse off. Bilbo chose adventure, Frodo had adventure forced upon him.
And the results are telling too. At the beginning of LOTR Bilbo is wealthy and surprisingly old for a Hobbit. His adventures rewarded him. At the end of LOTR Frodo is forced to retire to Elf Heaven only a couple years after his quest. Meaning he never got to marry, probably never even had sex (unless him and Sam got freaky off-screen). Effectively he was punished for the quest that he was forced into. Plus the whole losing a finger and being tortured by the being off all evil.
So end result, The Hobbit is basically the same concept as LOTR but with fewer elves, more dwarves, a happier story, and a goddamn dragon.
Now onto Wreck-it Ralph.
Honestly, this is my movie of the year. I've seen alot of movies this year, but this was my favorite, I went back to see it again in theaters and I added it to my Amazon.com wishlist immediately after leaving the theater for the first time.
Settling in close to the most nostalgic portion of my heart, it tells the story of a old school arcade videogame villain who grows tired of being the villain and wants to be the hero. The rules of his world are such that he literally cannot ever be a hero or else humans will realize that video game characters were alive (kinda like Tron). So he sets off to prove himself a hero in other video games. And of course he fucks it up, because, hey, he's "Wreck-it Ralph" not "Automatically-succeed-at-everything Ralph".
But what really makes me happy in this film is the sense of personal growth for every single character. Everyone in the cast grows, even minor characters get to grow.
The story drops hints about the eventual outcome of the plot, but they aren't so heavy-handed that you're likely to guess the twist until it actually happens.
So yeah, if you can find it still in theaters, go see this movie, if not, just buy it on DVD. Hell, I'm gonna get whatever DVD/Blue ray super combo pack I can for this movie, and watch it until I burn a hole in the disc.
Every time I left the theater after watching that movie I just felt happier, and I want to own it just so I can continue feeling that.
The Hobbit
Peter Jackson once again gives us a stunning Tolkien trilogy.... except it's based on one book instead of three. Two books if you count the Silmarillion (yes I did have to look up how to spell that title).
The Hobbit is a short book. As an adult you can read it in a day. Jackson is showing it to us over the course of 8 & 1/2 hours.
So this is a very long movie, and it feels long.
That being said, I still highly recommend this flick.
It has something that LOTR didn't have, and that's adventure for the sake of adventure.
In LOTR the ensemble makes their epic journey because if they don't then the bad guy get's his OBJECT OF ULTIMATE POWER and takes over the world.
In The Hobbit they go on the adventure for wealth, prestige, and to reclaim what was stolen from them. If they suddenly decided to go home and say "to hell" with the stupid quest, they'd be back where they started, but no worse off. Bilbo chose adventure, Frodo had adventure forced upon him.
And the results are telling too. At the beginning of LOTR Bilbo is wealthy and surprisingly old for a Hobbit. His adventures rewarded him. At the end of LOTR Frodo is forced to retire to Elf Heaven only a couple years after his quest. Meaning he never got to marry, probably never even had sex (unless him and Sam got freaky off-screen). Effectively he was punished for the quest that he was forced into. Plus the whole losing a finger and being tortured by the being off all evil.
So end result, The Hobbit is basically the same concept as LOTR but with fewer elves, more dwarves, a happier story, and a goddamn dragon.
Now onto Wreck-it Ralph.
Honestly, this is my movie of the year. I've seen alot of movies this year, but this was my favorite, I went back to see it again in theaters and I added it to my Amazon.com wishlist immediately after leaving the theater for the first time.
Settling in close to the most nostalgic portion of my heart, it tells the story of a old school arcade videogame villain who grows tired of being the villain and wants to be the hero. The rules of his world are such that he literally cannot ever be a hero or else humans will realize that video game characters were alive (kinda like Tron). So he sets off to prove himself a hero in other video games. And of course he fucks it up, because, hey, he's "Wreck-it Ralph" not "Automatically-succeed-at-everything Ralph".
But what really makes me happy in this film is the sense of personal growth for every single character. Everyone in the cast grows, even minor characters get to grow.
The story drops hints about the eventual outcome of the plot, but they aren't so heavy-handed that you're likely to guess the twist until it actually happens.
So yeah, if you can find it still in theaters, go see this movie, if not, just buy it on DVD. Hell, I'm gonna get whatever DVD/Blue ray super combo pack I can for this movie, and watch it until I burn a hole in the disc.
Every time I left the theater after watching that movie I just felt happier, and I want to own it just so I can continue feeling that.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
What your government has stolen from you.
As a man of thirty years, I've seen much change in this country. Talking to those older than me I see even more that has changed.
We've lost many things in the past fifty years, and what we gained in return is nowhere near fair value.
When I first started going to college ten years ago community college tuition was $9 a unit. When my mother started college it was $3 a unit. When she was a kid it was free. Now it is $36 per unit. That's insane.
To make it worse, back when my mother attended school, community college wasn't a mandatory thing. Hell, university wasn't required. People went to university to become leaders in an industry. Doctors, lawyers, powerful businessmen, teachers, etc. It wasn't required. Your average adult never went to college of any type. They started working straight out of highschool and that was their career. And it was enough to live on. People went to college to join the middle class.
Now we need a college education just to be at the top of the lower class.
To make matters worse, the pay of teachers has become abysmal. These are the people who educate our children and take care of them for us during the day. The least we can do is to pay them better than a nanny.
And whenever the government cuts money from schools, the first thing they do is cut the "non-essential" fields like art, music, and theater.
Now moving on to our tax dollars at work.
Thirty years ago the country was filled with low-cost/free Mental health clinics. These weren't mad houses for the criminally insane, they were places for people who just have some crossed wires and couldn't deal with the real world. Then the country started closing them. All of the mental health care professionals cried out that this would leave our streets filled with crazy people, and they were right.
Before all of these people with mental problems could be treated and medicated so that they weren't a danger to their neighbors. Now they are homeless, or living with relatives or friends because they can't hold down a job un-medicated and they can't afford their medicine.
If you look into alot of the mass-shootings that have happened in the last thirty years, the gunman often suffers from some sort of mental condition that is untreated. Yes, having access to high-powered assault weapons gave them a means to act out their madness, but their madness effected the rest of us because the government decided to get rid of the mental health clinics so that the rich could have another tax cut.
Before it was rare to see a crazy person walking down the street talking to themselves. It's not that we've suddenly developed more crazy people, we just stopped treating them. Before if the police came across a man talking to a tree (in a non-religious way) they would pick them up and take them to the clinic to be examined and treated. Now they just pick them up and dump them at the border to another city. Make them someone else's problem.
Next factor to consider is public transportation.
Prior to 1963 California had a great public transit system. Everyone could take a train or a trolley everywhere they needed to go. Then GM bought out the public transit and mothballed it so that people would be forced to buy cars.
Now this was the act of a corporation to make your life more difficult, but the government let them do it.
Next we have health care.
Free or Discount health centers still exist, but they are much more rare now, and their quality and funding are all but gone. Now they are effectively a place to pay $50 for a antibiotic prescription.
They don't give the care that they used to, how can they when their budgets have been gutted.
Now what have we gained for all that we gave up?
Facebook.
Seriously.
Also, free porn.
I will grant you that the internet is an impressive tool for the people. Mass communication allows us to share information with loved ones across the country, our friendships are no longer limited by zip codes. There are great things that the internet has done for us. We have access to literally any piece of information in the world with just a few keystrokes.
But it also comes with a cost.
Yes twitter, instagram, facebook, myspace, etc allow us to cyber-stalk eachother. We can e-poke eachother, with our cell phones we can reach eachother at any time.
But really, is that an improvement?
When I was a kid, if I wanted to talk to a friend of mine I got on my bike and went to visit them. I would knock on their door and say "Hey, can _________ come out to play?". The same was true for my parents and the generations before them. To communicate with people, we had to be physically with them.
The current generation of young people has got to be the most anti-social humans ever born. They don't see eachother in person, they see eachother online. And what's worse is that this behavior has affected the rest of us. It's the rare people who actually see their friends on a regular (more than once a week) basis. We all remain creepily aware of eachother's lives via Facebook, but really, who the fuck cares what that bitch of a co-worker said to you when you got to work?
Before nobody talked about that shit, because it wasn't important.
Here's a shocker: It's still isn't important.
Nobody cares, but we all know about it because we have the captive audience of the internet. Any stupid little thing we say gets posted online and everyone "likes" us complaining just to make it clear that they were paying attention and not ignoring us.
And then there's porn.
Nothing has done more good and damage to modern sexual relationships than internet porn. Back in my youth porn was a rare thing, and it usually consisted of a half-torn playboy somebody found in a dumpster or half-blocked cable porn.
Now we have access to any, and I mean literally ANY crazy type of porn we can possibly think of.
If you get off to people beating their own genitals with live squid, I'm sure you can find porn of it.
But is that really a good thing?
Before people started having sex, all they brought to the table was their partner and whatever previous first-hand experience that they already had.
Now by the time people actually have sex, they've already seen hundreds of strangers having sex. Internet porn has turned all of us into Voyeurs, Voyeurs with completely unrealistic expectations. Yes, we can find porn of people doing whatever crazy as thing gets our rocks off, but wouldn't it be better just to find a partner who is willing to do that with us?
Honestly, before it was trial and error. People would find a partner and experiment. Now people are going into experimentation pre-disposed for or against whatever the kink is. Before it was new, and most often both partners were trying it together for the first time. So good or bad, neither one had any pre-existing opinions.
So now instead of learning about sex from eachother, we're learning about sex by watching other people have sex incorrectly. Cause let's be real, nobody really has sex the way they do in porn. It's not intimate, it's not comfortable, and most of the positions are too physically stressful for most of us.
It's all stupid. And for the loss of cheap health care, safety from psychos, loss of affordable education, and loss of cheap transportation. All they give us is Facebook and porn.
We've lost many things in the past fifty years, and what we gained in return is nowhere near fair value.
When I first started going to college ten years ago community college tuition was $9 a unit. When my mother started college it was $3 a unit. When she was a kid it was free. Now it is $36 per unit. That's insane.
To make it worse, back when my mother attended school, community college wasn't a mandatory thing. Hell, university wasn't required. People went to university to become leaders in an industry. Doctors, lawyers, powerful businessmen, teachers, etc. It wasn't required. Your average adult never went to college of any type. They started working straight out of highschool and that was their career. And it was enough to live on. People went to college to join the middle class.
Now we need a college education just to be at the top of the lower class.
To make matters worse, the pay of teachers has become abysmal. These are the people who educate our children and take care of them for us during the day. The least we can do is to pay them better than a nanny.
And whenever the government cuts money from schools, the first thing they do is cut the "non-essential" fields like art, music, and theater.
Now moving on to our tax dollars at work.
Thirty years ago the country was filled with low-cost/free Mental health clinics. These weren't mad houses for the criminally insane, they were places for people who just have some crossed wires and couldn't deal with the real world. Then the country started closing them. All of the mental health care professionals cried out that this would leave our streets filled with crazy people, and they were right.
Before all of these people with mental problems could be treated and medicated so that they weren't a danger to their neighbors. Now they are homeless, or living with relatives or friends because they can't hold down a job un-medicated and they can't afford their medicine.
If you look into alot of the mass-shootings that have happened in the last thirty years, the gunman often suffers from some sort of mental condition that is untreated. Yes, having access to high-powered assault weapons gave them a means to act out their madness, but their madness effected the rest of us because the government decided to get rid of the mental health clinics so that the rich could have another tax cut.
Before it was rare to see a crazy person walking down the street talking to themselves. It's not that we've suddenly developed more crazy people, we just stopped treating them. Before if the police came across a man talking to a tree (in a non-religious way) they would pick them up and take them to the clinic to be examined and treated. Now they just pick them up and dump them at the border to another city. Make them someone else's problem.
Next factor to consider is public transportation.
Prior to 1963 California had a great public transit system. Everyone could take a train or a trolley everywhere they needed to go. Then GM bought out the public transit and mothballed it so that people would be forced to buy cars.
Now this was the act of a corporation to make your life more difficult, but the government let them do it.
Next we have health care.
Free or Discount health centers still exist, but they are much more rare now, and their quality and funding are all but gone. Now they are effectively a place to pay $50 for a antibiotic prescription.
They don't give the care that they used to, how can they when their budgets have been gutted.
Now what have we gained for all that we gave up?
Facebook.
Seriously.
Also, free porn.
I will grant you that the internet is an impressive tool for the people. Mass communication allows us to share information with loved ones across the country, our friendships are no longer limited by zip codes. There are great things that the internet has done for us. We have access to literally any piece of information in the world with just a few keystrokes.
But it also comes with a cost.
Yes twitter, instagram, facebook, myspace, etc allow us to cyber-stalk eachother. We can e-poke eachother, with our cell phones we can reach eachother at any time.
But really, is that an improvement?
When I was a kid, if I wanted to talk to a friend of mine I got on my bike and went to visit them. I would knock on their door and say "Hey, can _________ come out to play?". The same was true for my parents and the generations before them. To communicate with people, we had to be physically with them.
The current generation of young people has got to be the most anti-social humans ever born. They don't see eachother in person, they see eachother online. And what's worse is that this behavior has affected the rest of us. It's the rare people who actually see their friends on a regular (more than once a week) basis. We all remain creepily aware of eachother's lives via Facebook, but really, who the fuck cares what that bitch of a co-worker said to you when you got to work?
Before nobody talked about that shit, because it wasn't important.
Here's a shocker: It's still isn't important.
Nobody cares, but we all know about it because we have the captive audience of the internet. Any stupid little thing we say gets posted online and everyone "likes" us complaining just to make it clear that they were paying attention and not ignoring us.
And then there's porn.
Nothing has done more good and damage to modern sexual relationships than internet porn. Back in my youth porn was a rare thing, and it usually consisted of a half-torn playboy somebody found in a dumpster or half-blocked cable porn.
Now we have access to any, and I mean literally ANY crazy type of porn we can possibly think of.
If you get off to people beating their own genitals with live squid, I'm sure you can find porn of it.
But is that really a good thing?
Before people started having sex, all they brought to the table was their partner and whatever previous first-hand experience that they already had.
Now by the time people actually have sex, they've already seen hundreds of strangers having sex. Internet porn has turned all of us into Voyeurs, Voyeurs with completely unrealistic expectations. Yes, we can find porn of people doing whatever crazy as thing gets our rocks off, but wouldn't it be better just to find a partner who is willing to do that with us?
Honestly, before it was trial and error. People would find a partner and experiment. Now people are going into experimentation pre-disposed for or against whatever the kink is. Before it was new, and most often both partners were trying it together for the first time. So good or bad, neither one had any pre-existing opinions.
So now instead of learning about sex from eachother, we're learning about sex by watching other people have sex incorrectly. Cause let's be real, nobody really has sex the way they do in porn. It's not intimate, it's not comfortable, and most of the positions are too physically stressful for most of us.
It's all stupid. And for the loss of cheap health care, safety from psychos, loss of affordable education, and loss of cheap transportation. All they give us is Facebook and porn.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
First Presidential debate Oct 3rd
Ok, didn't manage to catch all of the debate, but I saw a large portion of it.
I'm firmly of the belief that the system for political debates is kinda retarded. Arguing a point with limited prep time and only 2 minutes to speak is crazy nightmare.
But onto the debate itself.
All of the analysts are saying that Romney won the debate. Mainly in that he gave the impression that he was giving concrete details, while he in fact was disagreeing with himself all the time.
Example:
Obama says that his medical plan is exactly like the one Romney used in Massachusetts.
Romney responds that no their plans are totally different because his was a bi-partisan effort.
Obama responds that regardless of who made it, the two plans are the exact same formula, with a couple additions.
Romney changes the subject to complain that medical care should be the problem of the state, not the federal government.
Obama rolls his eyes.
This is something that has been bugging me for the last fifteen years that I've actually paid attention to politics.
Republican candidates always say that they want LESS Federal control, MORE state control, LOWER taxes, but HIGHER spending.
Taking the first two under examination, the Republican party doesn't actually have a good record with those two concepts. Every time we get Republicans in power, they want to Increase Federal control (Hello? Patriot Act?) and try to take the power away from the states by trying to enforce morality/religion. I'm sure I could come up with better examples, but I'm tired.
Second part they actually keep their word on, but it's fiscally insane. You can't reasonably spend money that you don't have. Hence why every time we get a Democrat in office, they have to reduce their spending and increase taxes to pay for the debt of the previous administration.
Romney is doing the same thing in his campaign.
He's talking about reducing taxes again but keeping the budget basically the same, so yet again, more debt. It's like giving a teenager a credit card with $100 in the bank and no spending limit. You hope that they will be smart enough not to spend more than the $100 they have, but with no limit they are spending like crazy. And given our financial crisis, that's fucking insane.
But the whole concept of putting the power back in the states, yes, it's permanently part of the platform, but they'll never actually do it. More control for the states requires more money for the states. So either Federal taxes need to go down so State taxes can go up, or the federal government needs to give a sizable percentage of their earnings to the states.
So yeah, much of the debate was simply massive research and math failures.
But I am looking forward to the VP debate. Mostly to see what crazy shit Paul Ryan will say.
I'm firmly of the belief that the system for political debates is kinda retarded. Arguing a point with limited prep time and only 2 minutes to speak is crazy nightmare.
But onto the debate itself.
All of the analysts are saying that Romney won the debate. Mainly in that he gave the impression that he was giving concrete details, while he in fact was disagreeing with himself all the time.
Example:
Obama says that his medical plan is exactly like the one Romney used in Massachusetts.
Romney responds that no their plans are totally different because his was a bi-partisan effort.
Obama responds that regardless of who made it, the two plans are the exact same formula, with a couple additions.
Romney changes the subject to complain that medical care should be the problem of the state, not the federal government.
Obama rolls his eyes.
This is something that has been bugging me for the last fifteen years that I've actually paid attention to politics.
Republican candidates always say that they want LESS Federal control, MORE state control, LOWER taxes, but HIGHER spending.
Taking the first two under examination, the Republican party doesn't actually have a good record with those two concepts. Every time we get Republicans in power, they want to Increase Federal control (Hello? Patriot Act?) and try to take the power away from the states by trying to enforce morality/religion. I'm sure I could come up with better examples, but I'm tired.
Second part they actually keep their word on, but it's fiscally insane. You can't reasonably spend money that you don't have. Hence why every time we get a Democrat in office, they have to reduce their spending and increase taxes to pay for the debt of the previous administration.
Romney is doing the same thing in his campaign.
He's talking about reducing taxes again but keeping the budget basically the same, so yet again, more debt. It's like giving a teenager a credit card with $100 in the bank and no spending limit. You hope that they will be smart enough not to spend more than the $100 they have, but with no limit they are spending like crazy. And given our financial crisis, that's fucking insane.
But the whole concept of putting the power back in the states, yes, it's permanently part of the platform, but they'll never actually do it. More control for the states requires more money for the states. So either Federal taxes need to go down so State taxes can go up, or the federal government needs to give a sizable percentage of their earnings to the states.
So yeah, much of the debate was simply massive research and math failures.
But I am looking forward to the VP debate. Mostly to see what crazy shit Paul Ryan will say.
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