. . . when you never spend more than 45 seconds writing! I think I'm just gonna post video clips from now on.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
I'm Crepuscular Ray for Action City News. Back to you, Thax.
I have no idea what the hell this clip is about, but it strikes me as fundamentally hilarious on multiple levels. Commentary from our own little newsman is formally requested.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
America--FUCK YEAH!
Usually, upon viewing something with the feel of pro-America propaganda, I feel my skin begin to crawl. It's not that I hate the United States--I love it, and I rigorously defend it from people who've nothing nice to say about it. The source of my discomfort comes from the realization that propaganda with dubious veracity typically has the opposite of the desired effect on audiences, and the entire enterprise, which entails government manipulation in the marketplace of public ideas, strikes me as fundamentally undemocratic and orwellian. That's why I'm bothered when governments I like engage in propaganda production.
Thus, I cringed throughout the first ten seconds of this video clip:
After it was all over, however, I felt a sense of relief that the United States government had nothing to do with the production of this video. This relief, however, was replaced by a sense of projected embarassment on someone else's behalf. Two crucial opinion-shaping institutions in the western world--academia and the electronic media--exhibit growing anti-American bias. This may be mildly true in the United States (I'd reference Ward Churchill, but I hear Errol's insane antics have forever weirded him off CU's campus), but it's even more true in Europe, where, for example, BBC, the most trusted media outlet in the continent, recently admitted they suffer from an anti-American bias. It's stodgy academics and slanted journalists and entertainment producers who need to have their minds changed about the United States, but I suspect videos such as this elicit little more than a snort of derision from those quarters. Hence, my projected embarassment on the behalf of the producers.
And then I thought about it a bit more. All the video flatly states ... is true.
Sure, the United States has selfishlessly screwed over a significant amount of poor countries over the past century. We have been mostly fair but tremendously dedicated capitalists, and our business acumen has enriched our own citizens often at the expense of poorer countries and their exploited laborers abroad. Our weapons of war have repeatedly, through malfunction or user incompetence or purely rotten happenstance, taken the lives of thousands of innocent people. And our massive production industries have created environmental hardships for multiple countries around the world. Hell, the United States likely wouldn't even exist today had our ancestors not routinely enslaved and massacred weaker groups of people.
That's a tremendously dark picture, and I don't really fault critics of the United States for experiencing feelings of cynical pessimism (I frequently experience them myself). But I do fault the majority of critics for allowing their minds to stop there. I fault them for closing their eyes and plugging their ears and relentlessly claiming that, though they grew up patriotic, they've since taken the red pill and have followed Neo down the rabbit-hole where they've achieved enlightenment and no longer need to listen to viewpoints which contradict theirs. The notion that the United States is, in actuality, the one true evil empire befouling the planet is an irony too delicious for many to move away from.
The reason that irony is so delicious is because it betrays an obvious truth: with regard to the United States, the glass is obviously half-full. You'll find it's true if you scour all sides of all issues with your critical intellect fully engaged. If you haven't the time or the intellect, then take it from me: a man with no family or social life, but with plenty of time, an internet connection, and a curiosity to listen to all voices on any issue which is of interest to me at the moment. I've turned into an all-seeing, all-consuming devourer of news and information. Sure, my sanity is questionable (see last post), but when I'm lucid (as I am now) you can believe me when I say the United States may have a grey-colored past and present, but the truth is our shade is far closer to white than black. Americans do far more good to the world than evil, and, who knows, maybe in coming weeks I'll introduce a moral weight scorecard to this blog with graphs and pie charts that prove what I'm talking about.
Until then, you'll have to accept the simple apparent truths that are right in front of your face and on videos such as the one above.
PS: Matt's a big poopy-pants.
Thus, I cringed throughout the first ten seconds of this video clip:
After it was all over, however, I felt a sense of relief that the United States government had nothing to do with the production of this video. This relief, however, was replaced by a sense of projected embarassment on someone else's behalf. Two crucial opinion-shaping institutions in the western world--academia and the electronic media--exhibit growing anti-American bias. This may be mildly true in the United States (I'd reference Ward Churchill, but I hear Errol's insane antics have forever weirded him off CU's campus), but it's even more true in Europe, where, for example, BBC, the most trusted media outlet in the continent, recently admitted they suffer from an anti-American bias. It's stodgy academics and slanted journalists and entertainment producers who need to have their minds changed about the United States, but I suspect videos such as this elicit little more than a snort of derision from those quarters. Hence, my projected embarassment on the behalf of the producers.
And then I thought about it a bit more. All the video flatly states ... is true.
Sure, the United States has selfishlessly screwed over a significant amount of poor countries over the past century. We have been mostly fair but tremendously dedicated capitalists, and our business acumen has enriched our own citizens often at the expense of poorer countries and their exploited laborers abroad. Our weapons of war have repeatedly, through malfunction or user incompetence or purely rotten happenstance, taken the lives of thousands of innocent people. And our massive production industries have created environmental hardships for multiple countries around the world. Hell, the United States likely wouldn't even exist today had our ancestors not routinely enslaved and massacred weaker groups of people.
That's a tremendously dark picture, and I don't really fault critics of the United States for experiencing feelings of cynical pessimism (I frequently experience them myself). But I do fault the majority of critics for allowing their minds to stop there. I fault them for closing their eyes and plugging their ears and relentlessly claiming that, though they grew up patriotic, they've since taken the red pill and have followed Neo down the rabbit-hole where they've achieved enlightenment and no longer need to listen to viewpoints which contradict theirs. The notion that the United States is, in actuality, the one true evil empire befouling the planet is an irony too delicious for many to move away from.
The reason that irony is so delicious is because it betrays an obvious truth: with regard to the United States, the glass is obviously half-full. You'll find it's true if you scour all sides of all issues with your critical intellect fully engaged. If you haven't the time or the intellect, then take it from me: a man with no family or social life, but with plenty of time, an internet connection, and a curiosity to listen to all voices on any issue which is of interest to me at the moment. I've turned into an all-seeing, all-consuming devourer of news and information. Sure, my sanity is questionable (see last post), but when I'm lucid (as I am now) you can believe me when I say the United States may have a grey-colored past and present, but the truth is our shade is far closer to white than black. Americans do far more good to the world than evil, and, who knows, maybe in coming weeks I'll introduce a moral weight scorecard to this blog with graphs and pie charts that prove what I'm talking about.
Until then, you'll have to accept the simple apparent truths that are right in front of your face and on videos such as the one above.
PS: Matt's a big poopy-pants.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Hi everyone.
School's done. Been busy taking Japanese class. Real busy. Five days a week, four hours a day plus 90 minutes of homework busy. Nothing interesting going on in my life, whatsoever. Thus, prepare yourself for an excruciatingly dull post.
Matt sent me this sketch the other day. He originally drew if for his psychology-student friend who is conducting some kind of psychoanalysis based on artwork from headcase acquiantances.
At first glance, I immediately thought "gay." Perhaps this sketch is Matt's long-awaited and bold "Embrace Me for the Flaming Homosexual Artist I Am" piece for the contemporary visual arts community, which has traditionally been very homophobic. But then, I looked closer at the picture and realized that the art community has never really been homophobic, and Matt's not really gay, and there's no homoerotic content in this picture whatsoever. This was a series of stunningly disappointing revelations.
This raises the question: why do I desperately want to make the assumption Matt is gay?
Maybe I just wish he was gay, so I could legitimately make fun of him for being gay, in that un-PC way that's so popular among rowdy packs of guys these days.
Or ... OR ... ! Maybe I wish Matt was gay for "other" reasons ... ! If you know what I'm saying, wink wink!
And, of course, by "other" reasons, I mean, maybe, if Matt were gay, he could help me coordinate my outfits and give me advice on how to better communicate with women.
Alas, Matt is sadly not gay (which I suppose is good news for his wife), I don't really have any "outfits" in need of coordination (just random pants and shirts whose daily selection is determined largely according to the magnitude of their odor), nor do I have any female situations that might require the counsel of a trusted homosexual.
Sigh. I'm a man with no homosexual friends in no need of homosexual friends.
Anyway, sorry for the lame post. Here's Matt's sketch. I manipulated the colors in the piece so it would better match the color scheme of my overall web page.
PS -- The rumors that we've all heard appear to be true. Errol Jones, aka "Blackass", aka "E-Money", aka "T-bone" (am I missing any nicknames?) has discovered a (surprisingly attractive) woman unoffended by his filthy apartment and vehicle, mismatched socks, and rather creepy sense of humor. At first, I didn't think it was serious, but then Errol related to me that she complimented the texture of shirt of his that he likes to call his "Captain Kirk Shirt."
"I call it my Captain Kirk Shirt," he replied, presumably without an ounce of embarassment, to her tactile sampling of the fabric.
"A Captain Kirk Shirt?" she answered back. "But you're sexier than Captain Kirk."
I know what you're thinking. After hearing James Tiberius Kirk so casually blasphemed, Errol likely fell into a deep rage and spit in her face, or, at the very least, made the "impending backhand slap" hand gesture. Alas, none of these. Instead, he was jubilant.
"Sexier than Captain Kirk!" he cried. "Holy Shit! I didn't think that was even possible!"
And that's how I knew our little man was gone.
School's done. Been busy taking Japanese class. Real busy. Five days a week, four hours a day plus 90 minutes of homework busy. Nothing interesting going on in my life, whatsoever. Thus, prepare yourself for an excruciatingly dull post.
Matt sent me this sketch the other day. He originally drew if for his psychology-student friend who is conducting some kind of psychoanalysis based on artwork from headcase acquiantances.
At first glance, I immediately thought "gay." Perhaps this sketch is Matt's long-awaited and bold "Embrace Me for the Flaming Homosexual Artist I Am" piece for the contemporary visual arts community, which has traditionally been very homophobic. But then, I looked closer at the picture and realized that the art community has never really been homophobic, and Matt's not really gay, and there's no homoerotic content in this picture whatsoever. This was a series of stunningly disappointing revelations.
This raises the question: why do I desperately want to make the assumption Matt is gay?
Maybe I just wish he was gay, so I could legitimately make fun of him for being gay, in that un-PC way that's so popular among rowdy packs of guys these days.
Or ... OR ... ! Maybe I wish Matt was gay for "other" reasons ... ! If you know what I'm saying, wink wink!
And, of course, by "other" reasons, I mean, maybe, if Matt were gay, he could help me coordinate my outfits and give me advice on how to better communicate with women.
Alas, Matt is sadly not gay (which I suppose is good news for his wife), I don't really have any "outfits" in need of coordination (just random pants and shirts whose daily selection is determined largely according to the magnitude of their odor), nor do I have any female situations that might require the counsel of a trusted homosexual.
Sigh. I'm a man with no homosexual friends in no need of homosexual friends.
Anyway, sorry for the lame post. Here's Matt's sketch. I manipulated the colors in the piece so it would better match the color scheme of my overall web page.
PS -- The rumors that we've all heard appear to be true. Errol Jones, aka "Blackass", aka "E-Money", aka "T-bone" (am I missing any nicknames?) has discovered a (surprisingly attractive) woman unoffended by his filthy apartment and vehicle, mismatched socks, and rather creepy sense of humor. At first, I didn't think it was serious, but then Errol related to me that she complimented the texture of shirt of his that he likes to call his "Captain Kirk Shirt."
"I call it my Captain Kirk Shirt," he replied, presumably without an ounce of embarassment, to her tactile sampling of the fabric.
"A Captain Kirk Shirt?" she answered back. "But you're sexier than Captain Kirk."
I know what you're thinking. After hearing James Tiberius Kirk so casually blasphemed, Errol likely fell into a deep rage and spit in her face, or, at the very least, made the "impending backhand slap" hand gesture. Alas, none of these. Instead, he was jubilant.
"Sexier than Captain Kirk!" he cried. "Holy Shit! I didn't think that was even possible!"
And that's how I knew our little man was gone.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
along similar lines... HOW TO POOP.
Here's a mostly-animated video from my current country of residence:
I like to watch this video and marvel at the fact that, not only do I live in this bizarre wonderland, but I somehow like it here enough to attempt mastering the language with the intent of lengthening my stay. Speaking of language, after the young tiger cub masters the intricacies of procedure number two and is awarded a pair of shorts, he exclaims, "pant-su ni kimochii!" I believe he's saying "pants feel good!" I'm unclear as to whether wearing the pants feels good, or being rewarded by his parents for making early strides to integrate smoothly into a hygenic and orderly Japanese society feels good. Personally, since I now live alone and never suffer visitors, I eschew wearing pants at home and do my all household stuff in boxer shorts and a t-shirt. I think that feels good.
I like to watch this video and marvel at the fact that, not only do I live in this bizarre wonderland, but I somehow like it here enough to attempt mastering the language with the intent of lengthening my stay. Speaking of language, after the young tiger cub masters the intricacies of procedure number two and is awarded a pair of shorts, he exclaims, "pant-su ni kimochii!" I believe he's saying "pants feel good!" I'm unclear as to whether wearing the pants feels good, or being rewarded by his parents for making early strides to integrate smoothly into a hygenic and orderly Japanese society feels good. Personally, since I now live alone and never suffer visitors, I eschew wearing pants at home and do my all household stuff in boxer shorts and a t-shirt. I think that feels good.
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