God does not love dying diabetic children.

Praying parents' other 3 kids removed - Yahoo! News

I like to call this 'bad parenting.'
Look, no matter what your religious affiliation, YOU DO NOT PRAY FOR HEALTH. YOU GO TO A DOCTOR. THAT IS WHY WE HAVE DOCTORS.
Don't count on God healing your children. Sheesh.

A quick word on Scientology

I'd just like to speak (type) for a moment about Scientology. I'm not going to ask for any Anonymous-style raids or anything; in fact, I recommend just ignoring it- organizations looking to take money from gullible rich people is nothing new.
The thing I'd like to say is this:
Don't attack the people, attack the organization.
Why is this? Well, my point here is that by going after people who are Scientologists, you only make things worse all around. I don't know if people have been targeting individuals per se, I haven't looked into raids themselves, but it's a very important thing.
See, here's the problem: What are Scientologists? Really, when you get down to it, they're gullible rich and/or famous people, and you don't attack people for being gullible. Instead, you mock their gullibility. You don't say "You're gullible, die!" You say "Hey, everybody, look! This is such a great example of gullibility! It's rather silly. Don't be like that."
At the very least you can (hopefully) prevent people from acting gullible- and, if you're lucky, you might even convince a gullible person to change their ways.

I'm dissapointed in you, Mexico

Exclaim News: Mexico Declares War On Emo
I'm going to sum this up for you: Subcultures are beating up other subcultures (specifically emos) in Mexico.
This is the stupidest thing ever. They're physically attacking people for being emo. I mean, come the hell on! Just because they dress differently and listen to different music and have a different and incredibly pessimistic (Author's note- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a cynic. There's a difference- namely that I'm just as convinced 'everything is horrible' is just as bad and baseless as 'everything is wonderful) worldview. Come on, people! This is utterly ridiculous. I can't even begin to understand how someone sane would go from "I find emos annoying" to "Kill people belonging to an arbitrary social grouping!"
I blame prejudice and the mob effect- some nutjobs decide that they're going to harm people for no good reason and then the group goes along because the group is a bunch of massive sheep.
Look, I don't farking care what your opinion on emos is, they're people too, whether or not you like it. They deserve to be treated fairly. Do I even need to point out how low we've sunk when I need to make points about FARKING HIGHSCHOOL SUBCULTURES that I could make about race or sex*?

*Not that definition, you perv.

TV Reviews: Phineas & Ferb

If you don't follow the goings-on of Disney Channel (god I envy you), you probably won't have heard of a new show they've got. It's called Phineas and Ferb and it's better than the majority of what they show... but then again, that's not hard when your competition is Hannah Montana. God I hate Hannah Montana...
Anyway, the show itself is actually okay. It's rarely witty and not very often funny, but it's somewhat entertaining at its core.
The basic concept is "Kid does improbable stuff with his brother," and when it's just that it works. Phineas is basically an idea guy who says "Let's do this" without any thought to the consequences. Ferb is probably the best character on the show- he rarely speaks, and when it does it's in a vaguely British accent. These quips usually bring the funniest parts of the show.
And now I'm going to talk about the failings- namely, everything else. First off is Candace, the obligatory stereotypical 'You annoy me, let me talk to my friends on the phone all day long' teenager. She annoys me to no end. First of is the fact that she's voiced by Ashley Tisdale,(a one- woman "all star voice cast" apparently, as the only other notable voice actor in the show has a name that I can't recall and plays a bit character that I don't think I've ever actually seen. Admittedly, I've only seen two episodes, but still.) who I absolutely hate, and her only purpose in the show seems to be acting as a foil to the main characters and being hurt by random objects, presumably to meet all Disney Channel shows' quota of mindless, unfunny physical comedy. All the other characters are one-dimensional supports, from the peppy teamwork inducing Girl Scout to the parents. I don't really like the theme song (it's much better if you cut out the vocals), and it just doesn't live up to the standard set by the 90's.
Also of note is the subplot in each episode involving the pet platypus, who is a secret agent who combats the evil and incompetent Professor Doofenshmurtz. These subplots are usually the funniest part of the show- They follow a set formula, sure, but so do all superhero shows, and the way it plays out could be described as downright satirical by those inclined to look for wit in children's shows.
Conclusion: An okay show that has its moments. Doesn't live up to the standard set by the greats. Better than most of the crap Disney spews out.

I'm going to take a moment here and talk about the aforementioned standard. The 90's had some great cartoons- and I mean really, genuinely good shows. Disney had some good ones- Darkwing Duck is one of the greatest syndicated cartoons of all time, largely thanks to the hero's character flaws, but I think I have to give the award to Warner Bros. They produced some of the best cartoons ever- Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, Freakazoid- hell, even Histeria!, the show produced specifically to fill in the requisite educational spot was great(they honestly didn't have a problem with making fun of revered historical figures, and I respect that immensely). Freakazoid! in particular introduced a unique brand of wit- I still hold Animaniacs as the superior show, but both it and Tiny Toons were technically modern updates to the classic Looney Toons formula. Sure, they did it a hell of a lot better than any of the other shows of their kind, and I always enjoyed the Warner siblings' sarcasm and parody. Freakazoid!, on the other hand, was a hilarious and spot-on parody of superhero shows, and did it in a way that I really admire. It was satirical without being "Holier-than-thou," and, more importantly, it had no proper fourth wall whatsoever. They would often place archival footage in the middle of the show, would have parodies of broadcasting officials deliver public service announcements about the show, and the hero would often talk to the viewer directly. In one episode, they put an advertisement for a toy in the middle of the show. Long story short, it just worked and we should make more shows in this manner.

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Now playing: Foo Fighters - Have A Cigar
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An Unwise Idea: Some Experiments Should Not Be Run

Now, an idea hit me just a little while ago and seemed like a good idea at the time, but now that I think about it more it's not a wise thing to do. However, it still strikes me as one that should be shared, as community reaction was the whole concept behind it to begin with.
The idea was to put a post under a false account name on the Telltale Games forums, the support forums specifically, complaining about how a pirated version of the game doesn't work in Vista and saying that I'd complain to the government if it didn't get fixed. The whole thing was really an experiment in community reaction- the Telltale community here is one of the best I've seen on the internet, you see. Most of the people there are intelligent and loyal to Telltale, which is one of the best games companies I've ever given money to thanks to not only the quality of their product, but to the quality of their support and the fact that no other developer I know of (excluding the incredibly tiny, niche ones- Telltale is a small company and is fairly niche to be sure, but they're not a couple of guys hacking together code so they can release freeware on the internet while begging for donations) actually has people who talk to the customers directly and know what's going on with the product- the two or three employees that are on the forums regularly do know what's going on in the company, this isn't 'put some random people on the internet and tell them nothing so they can't let anything slip.' So, I asked myself a question: "How would they respond to a pirate?"
But it couldn't just be any pirate, oh no. That wouldn't do at all. They'd have to be an idiot, a complete nutjob. The spelling and grammar would have to be below YouTube comment standards, and they'd have to be dumb enough to actually ask a developer to fix their pirated game. Now, I don't really do that. I've always used good grammar, and there's no way I'd be able to pull that off. The answer? Write it out in plain English, with some common word shortenings, and plug it into Babel Fish a couple of times, then make the spelling worse. Here's the result:
It incrs ur gme suck teh i, ws adn with the net which wll move with lotsa breakin this that it will crry it did and cyess the contribution which view it divides it stoled or me it is helthe inside ur person and connects or it works in bcuz and it will make, teh trade mobility it gets teh hazard ur govt.
This is completely unreadable, which is what I was going for. I eventually decided against it, though, because I don't know what the community backlash would be. I couldn't just not take credit for it, but who knows what they would have done? It's probably not wise to do something that might get an entire community of gamers mad at you, at least not when you're actively part of that community, plus I think that would qualify as trolling. The end result is that the whole thing ends up here. I'd put it on the forums, but that strikes me as kind of stuck-up, assuming that people would be interested in this like that, so here we are.

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Now playing: Guns N' Roses - My Michelle
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