Unintentional hilarity

protestwarrior.com
As much as I hate giving these people more page views, I can't resist. Follow the link and go to PW in the bit at the top and then signs. Scroll through and laugh at how they publish propaganda in an attempt to "throw the truth back at the Left."
Some examples of their 'truths:'
"Every libertarian is a racist! Just look at some imagined side effects of their goals!"
"The libertarians want to kill all the white males in an attempt to end sexism and racism!"
"Here's some goofy pictures of former Democratic presidents! This somehow proves a point!"
The first time I saw that last one, I laughed out loud because it was so utterly ridiculous and mockable. And mock it I did.
Here's a picture that I made in just ten minutes that makes a point backed up with just as much evidence as theirs, only made to say the opposite. It was really that easy.

Christmas, Christmas Time of Year...

God I hate those chipmunks.
Anyways, merry Christmas everybody! About a day too late.
How was your Christmas?
I got Guitar Hero III! Woo! It's like Tetris, except the gameplay is entirely different and the music is better. Which means it's virtually not like Tetris at all. But it is addictive like Tetris, so take that.
I also got a webcam (By the way, I've got a new video up taken from said webcam) complete with a mic thing, so be prepared for VoIP-quality audio and more regular updates as I no longer have to go through all the hassle with my MP3 player. I also got I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert, a George Bush Out of Office Countdown calender, the Simpsons Movie and Game, Back In Black, and then some other stuff I don't care about so much and probably one or two other things eventually, but that's not important.
[Insert pointless, sappy rant about how Christmas is about caring, blah blah blah yak yak yak so on and so forth here.]

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Now playing: R.E.M. - E-Bow the Letter
via FoxyTunes

5 Reasons the TV in My Room Sucks

I have a television in my room. My Wii is currently hooked up to it, and I'd like to take this time to talk about how terrible a television it is.
1. It's way too small
This thing is as large as my computer monitor, which isn't exactly what you'd call big. Normal sized, I'd say. This isn't necessarily a big deal, but it is a strike against the TV, especially when compounded with
2. It's several feet away on a shelf
Computer monitors are designed with the fact that you're going to be rather close to it in mind, and are sized accordingly. You're beginning to see the problem here, yes? Yeah, bit of a big one. But there's another thing, too. It's ON A SHELF. This means that I have to tilt my neck up (Not a whole lot, but enough) to look at it. This can lead to painful extended play sessions.
3. Mono sound output
Normally, this kind of thing doesn't bug me. It does bug me here, though, because it also only has mono input. This leaves me with a red cable just sitting there unused. Kind of annoying.
4. There's no remote
This is kind of annoying. It's not like a big deal or anything, it's just that it's a pain in the butt to have to turn on the TV when I want to use it. It sounds like whining, but think to yourself how often you have to get up and physically operate the television. I thought so.
5. I can't think of another one
I have no more complaints about it, but 5 is a nice, round list-like number.

I actually had the Wii hooked up to our TV in the living room, which is a decent size, actually has all three connectors, built in DVD player, not bad at all, really. I'm actually glad that the Wii's back here, though. Now that it's in my room, I can actually use it. I was barely able to play it last week because my little brother refused to give up the TV ("It's been your turn for the last three hours!"), and I haven't been able to play it this weekend because my dad is monopolizing the television (Some nonsense about a Wii-free Sunday).
Quite frankly, the whole thing isn't fair to me. It was only downstairs to begin with so that my little brother and his friend could play it without having to be in my room. I kept it down there, partly because I enjoyed playing games on an adequate TV (you have no idea how rare this is for me), but mostly because my little brother threw a fit whenever I tried to take it up. I have to deal with that now, though, because my dad insisted that if I was going to play it I'd have to take it upstairs.
In short, I'm beginning to feel like I'm just changing how and when I do things to keep my family happy. I don't believe in changing myself to suit other people, but it's hard not to when dealing with family. You really can't justify that, because with family not fitting into the mold that's easiest for them isn't refusing to let other people control you, it's being a jerk.

Adventure games

I just felt like writing about adventure games, so hear me out.
Adventure games are one of my favorite genres, right up there with platformers. I love them, and there are a couple reasons I can think of why, but first, a little background.
My first adventure game was probably the Spongebob Squarepants Movie game (I have a little brother). I know it sounds stupid, and it is, and I honestly thought it was overtly meh. Wouldn't replay it, that's for sure. The first adventure game that I played and really enjoyed was Hotel Dusk for the DS. After reading a bit about it, I decided to give it a try, because it was largely described as a film-noir style detective novel, and I love a good plot-heavy game so I gave it a try. Excellent game, the writing was great and the plot was interesting. In fact, my biggest complaint about it is just that there were several occasions when you had to do these completely non-intuitive things to advance the plot. I'm talking about the moments when the game left you without direction, and a sense of "What the hell do I do next?" That was kind of a let down.
Then came Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney- Justice For All. I loved that game, and I still do. The plot was sometimes serious, sometimes light-hearted, always interesting. The characters were well-developed, too. The real clincher for me, though, was something completely different. It was the mystery. The overall "I don't know what's going on." But it wasn't not knowing, it was the moment when it all comes together and you feel "Yes! I know what's going on! I see what I have to do, and dammit, I will!" That breakthrough moment when you finally understand it is what keeps me coming back to the Ace Attorney games.
The real final straw that broke the camel's back, the one that cemented me as a huge fan of point- and- click adventures, was Telltale Games' Sam & Max Season 1. The comedy, the plot, the puzzle-solving, it's all there. I absolutely love them, and the Sam & Max series in general (comics, Saturday morning cartoon, the original LucasArts adventure). Absolutely amazing.
I am a sucker for a good plot. Character development, interesting twists and turns, the whole works. This is what leads me to enjoy games like Pheonix Wright and 5 Days a Stranger (Warning: This game is a definitely belongs in the horror genre. If you're going to be traumatized by large amounts of pixelated blood, give this one a miss(The plot, however, is excellent, if a tad cliche, and I now understand what the whole point to the horror genre is), although I do recommend the rest of Yahtzee's stuff that's not in this series, because just about everything else is either fun or funny.). Another thing that I love that many adventure games have is comedy. The aforementioned Sam & Max is a stellar example of this, as are most of the old LucasArts adventures that they seem, for some reason, to be trying to distance themselves from. Come on, I know it's easy to slap the Star Wars name on something and sell a billion and two copies, but you used to be an awesome company. Of course, there's no point now, seeing as most of the people that made them great (Like Schafer, a number of people on the Telltale team, and Steve Purcell (Well, fine, he was only an artist, but he did create the Sam & Max series. And that awesome Escape from Monkey Island box art.)). Then there's the puzzles. I don't always want to just jump over things or fight things. I want to use my brain. I want to figure out how to progress, and I want puzzles that aren't the action-adventure or RPG style "Use power on obstacle." I want puzzles that are logical and solvable enough to not make me want to resort to a walkthrough, but hard enough to make me feel good about solving them.
Well, that's my... well, it's not a rant. It's more like an essay. Yeah, that's it. It's an essay on why I love adventure games, and it's over now.

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Now playing: The Smashing Pumpkins - Today
via FoxyTunes

Guitar Hero

I've noticed that people get very opinionated about music, and about Guitar Hero in particular. Go to just about any YouTube video for Guitar Hero, and you're guaranteed to find a post that says "GH is teh sux, play a real guitar faggot."
I play a real guitar, but I also happen to enjoy Guitar Hero. You know why? It's because I have an understanding that it's a video game. Not a simulation, not a guitar training tool, a game. A rather fun arcade-style game with a plastic midget guitar. I think that the majority of people understand that. I certainly wouldn't convince myself that I don't need to practice playing just because I've been playing Guitar Hero a lot, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Find the meaning

Them this door are ten n in the bringing up for discussion key of idea. Past is not the different dimension. Dimension of sound arresting. Dimension of confrontation. Dimension of opinion. Them move the inside his country wind with the material of the thing and idea. Them inside dusk were accurate again in inside and it passed and it intersected.

Can anybody figure out what this means in non-engrish?
(For the record, I took a fairly recognizable piece of text and fed it through about ten different languages with Babel Fish, and then back to English.)

Spider-Man 3

Well, I just saw Spider-Man 3 this weekend (I know, I know, I didn't get the chance before, all right?)
It was overall an okay movie, but there's one bit that I just can't resist commenting on. Since you've seen that image over there, you probably know what it is. I know it's been done to death, so I'm going to make it short and sweet. In fact, it's simply a caption for the picture.

"Shortly thereafter, Peter Parker changed his name, didn't take vocal lessons, found some guys that couldn't play instruments, and formed a band. They called themselves Fall Out Boy."

When I'm 64

Once I've reached the age where I'm officially old, I plan to give a speech on my birthday or some other suitable occasion where I'd have a chance to give a speech. It will be short, sweet, and to the point. The speech, in it's entirety:

"My lawn. Get off of it."

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Now playing: The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
via FoxyTunes

Ridiculous ad

"We have your son. We are destroying his ability for social interaction and driving him to a life of complete isolation. It's up to you now... Asperger's Syndrome"

That was the text from a recent ad supporting helping the 'mentally handicapped.'
I find this somewhat insulting. I myself have been diagnosed with a (rather mild, truth be told) case of Asperger's, and I find this whole thing kind of, well, incorrect. It hasn't destroyed my ability for social interaction. I can interact with people just fine, I'm just 'wired' a bit differently. I didn't pick up on all the little nuances like 'normal' people are supposed to, true, but I have a pretty good understanding at this point of how everything works, and in fact, I'd say that the only effects it's had on me are my high verbal IQ (and not-quite-so-high-but-about-average mechanical IQ) and somewhat of an outsider's view of said little nuances, which has led to me looking at some of the little things we do and saying "Why the hell do we do that? It's kind of pointless."
Basically, I'm just saying that I'd like it if they realized that there are people with Asperger's that can read and that it might be found kind of offensive, or at least inaccurate, by said people.

EDIT: I just found this comment on Fark:

Cerberus9:
"Don't they have homes for these retards anymore?"
...
Wow. I have one description for you: Superman.
Really, that was easily one of the most offensive, closed-minded, and misinformed things I've ever read.

PETA

I've noticed recently that many people have a 'They're all crazy environmentalist vegans' viewpoint on PETA. I can't say I agree with this viewpoint. I don't necessarily agree with EVERY message PETA sends, and I don't agree with people trying to make a non-issue into something huge because they're misinformed, but, as a vegetarian, I do agree that animals deserve to be treated fairly. If you ask me, the problem comes from two places. The first is ridiculous PETA sponsored stunts that make them look like nutcases, as well as misinformed animal activist viewpoints against things like, for example, making certain cells of a cat visible and traceable under a fluorescent light, which does nothing to harm the cat and has quite important scientific uses, like furthering our understanding of how mammalian creature develop.
The second source is that people dislike what they perceive to be a goal of PETA: making them not eat meat. People in this country like their meat and don't want to have to give it up. I'm sure you've heard it, people talking about how they love their meat and how you couldn't make them eat tofu because it would taste terrible. Well, I've heard it if you haven't, at least, so whatever,
For these people I have some things to say. First off, tofu doesn't actually taste all that terrible. It's just different and you've seen it portrayed as a disgusting thing would be my guess. I doubt you've actually tried tofu, and if you have and didn't like it, that's fine, but that once again it's probably being different from meat that you dislike. I know I didn't like tofu at first, but it's okay once you get used to it. Secondly, animal rights don't necessarily mean the abolishment of meat. I don't eat meat because I don't have to and because I'd rather not kill animals for my food. You can, however, kill and eat animals and be ethical about it. Raising, say, a cowl from birth and giving it no choice but to go to a slaughterhouse to be brutally killed (do you have any idea where that McDonald's meat comes from? Disgusting.) is unethical. Killing a cow and using it for food is perfectly fine. In other words, the slaughtering en masse of an animal is bad, but the individual killing of an animal for food in a (hopefully) not very painful way is fine.
And that's all I wrote.

BBAD

Today, me and a friend started a new blog. It's called Big Brother Against Drugs. It's a satire of a number of things, ranging from Orwellianism to politics to religion to misguided advocacy groups.
You should give it a look, hopefully it'll be as good as we hope to make it someday.

Well, it's gone down.

Get a Cash Advance

Yep, my reading level's gone down. Not quite sure what caused that, but you never can tell with these things.

This is ridiculous...

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/story.html?id=165016
Now, I understand that this is an opinion piece, but I also understand that I have to right to respond to it with my opinions, which is what I'm doing here. I've put my responses, by paragraph, below. Read a paragraph of the article and then a paragraph of what I say until you reach the end.

Already, I can tell that this is going to be ridiculous and misinformed.

I can't wait for him to go and yak about how they ARE intrinsically evil. Get your hard hats on, we're entering a falling unfounded opinion zone.

So you're just going to spend the whole article telling us that video games are evil and that you should be taken as an expert on the subject? I've heard of that tactic. I call it, the 'no spin zone.'

Pac-Man is sophisticated? No, I get what he's saying, but that's still ridiculous. Anyway, what I'm getting is that he's glorifying his mother's parenting tactics, which would appear to boil down to not instilling a sense of self worth, claiming that only stupid people get bored (Quite untrue. Nobody who knows me would say I'm an unintelligent person, but I'm often bored during the summer. It's difficult not being amused by bad media, let me tell you, especially when all the stories you came up with as a child seem incredibly stupid now\.) Also, someone show me how being entranced by a story someone wrote in a book is different from being entranced by a story someone put in a video game.

So, basically, video games are evil because your parenting sucked and you don't know how to set limits on your game playing.

The only reason life improved was because YOU no longer had to worry about budgeting your time.

I could say the same thing about the books that you as well as I cherish, following your logic.

Hasn't Fark already disproven the whole "lost productivity due to non-work activities" bit? Besides, you wouldn't complain if people were saying that they wasted a couple hours a day reading the Bible and that it caused them to lose productivity at work. As for the next level thing, that's just getting positive feedback, just like what you get by reading to the next chapter in a book. I'm not even going to touch the cocaine analogy, it's just too ridiculous.

Let's find some other possible reasons for kids being indoors: Doing homework that they desperately need to finish thanks to over enthusiastic teachers and after-school activities, enjoying a good book, having intelligent conversations with friends, studying for standardized tests, I think my point is made. Also, have you ever noticed how much money McDonald's is making? I'm sure that doesn't have anything to do with it. Plus, recess has no place in today's schools, it takes time away from studying. Why on earth should we waste valuable standardized test prep time with something frivolous like having fun?

Yes, because reading a book takes so much energy. Plus, have you ever seen how absolute those descriptions are? Little room for interpretation. I also don't see you saying movies are evil, despite how these arguments apply to that medium, too.

Remember the movies thing? Yeah. Plus, there's such a thing as violence and sex in literature, although I know the idea seems crazy.

I'd have to agree with you here on sole virtue of the fact that there are much better, more beneficial things that you can give to people. "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to catch a fish, feed him for a lifetime."

Well, that's that. I think I've sufficiently shown these arguments to be bunk.

Misinformed religious restrictions and not accepting different thoughts...

http://www.denverpost.com/rapids/ci_7696043
This is an article about recent shootings. I won't go too in depth because it's obviously a really difficult issue for some people, but there were some things that really stuck out.
One thing was that the shooter's parents were incredibly strict, reportedly not letting him listen to music, watch movies, or play video games. I think that this is rather interesting, because his motivation was quite obviously rebelling against a religion that he felt had repressed him. I have to sympathize with his motivation, but most certainly not his actions, because he did a terrible thing that just isn't excusable, but I really feel like if his parent's hadn't acted like, well, uptight anti-media fundamentalist Christians things might have turned out differently.
Another thing was that he talked about the religion only rewarding popular, outgoing people that follow along with the religion and don't bother to question it. I can also sympathize with this line of thinking, once again not with the outcome it led to, which I must stress is a terrible, terrible thing. I can't begin to understand thinking that leads to "I'm going to go shoot people because it's right," and I'm in no way claiming to think that's okay. What I am saying is that I have seen historically that religion, and not just Christianity, all religions, has led to terrible things. The Salem Witch Trials, the Red Scare (religion was indeed a major factor behind that, just look at 'reasons' why the Communists were so bad an the fact that they were 'godless' is one of the big ones), Jack Chick, persecution of homosexuals, the list goes on and on. But I'm not even talking about religion, because you can't generalize that people of a certain faith are a certain way. What I am talking about is the tendency of society to ostracize that which is different or asks questions people don't want to think about. It happens, it really does, and it's a terrible thing.
The point behind this whole post is really that you can't be too strict with people and that you can't punish that which is different or questioning because it's going to lead to bad things for everyone.

Debate

So, yesterday I had a debate. There were three rounds. Me and my partner (we were doing Public Forum Debate, a form of debating in which you have two speakers and current events topics are addressed.) lost the first one by three points, the second by two, and we didn't debate the third time. The topic was "Would we be justified to pursue military options against Iran?" The first time, we said no (which I would agree with in real life, but that's not the point) and the second time we had to argue for yes. I was pretty sure we lost the first time, and I was right, but bear in mind that this is only our first year.
The second time, though, we really should have won. The second speaker for the other team (I'm the second speaker on my team), during the crossfire, which is where both sides ask each other questions (There are three: One with the first speakers, one with the second speakers, and one with everybody), spent the entire time ranting on and not really addressing anything I said. The stupidity here? Our incompetent judge only docked him one point, and then docked me a point for some reason even though I did about as good as you can expect when you've got somebody twice your size ranting on uncontrollably. Their entire debate, quite frankly, was misinterpreting our arguments and making claims that they have no right to make. In fairness, though, we really should have called them on that and we didn't. Oh well, there's always next time.

You dissapoint me, Britan.

http://www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showId=10463#
I like how they say "What are children doing wrong?"
I mean, here's an amazing thought: YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG.
Just look at the logic behind that statement:

1. The government really began to push education.
2. Our childrens' scores fell.
3. Therefore, the children aren't learning well.

Now, I like how they show people saying "It's government policy" in the video, but that headline is just so... wrong, really. It's misleading. Instead of saying "The government is screwing with education, this is bad," it says "The children don't learn like they should."
I also like how they have people saying "We're too paranoid and afraid that teenagers will misbehave and this may very well lead to a bad learning environment."
Then they turn around and say "Poor kids don't work with the system" and then have yet another person saying that it's because they've been let down before.
They finish the whole thing off with people saying that they want kids to learn the basics.

In summation, this is a case of a fair and balanced newscast being labeled with a sensationalist headline that leaves people who don't bother to watch the video with the wrong idea.

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Now playing: Foo Fighters - Requiem [*]
via FoxyTunes

...I think I hate Mitt Romney.

http://mitt-tv.mittromney.com/
I suggest you watch the TV spots. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Some highlights:
"Our children are swimming in an ocean of filth. Remember those Columbine kids? They did that because they had violent media. When questioned, I'll say that there were other factors, but for now I'll give the impression that it was only that because it's easy to defend my validity." Okay, I threw some stuff in, but that's really my entire point. Consider this, consider this, the slip of the century: The kids at Columbine were not mentally sound.
"I turned around a Democratic state and made it Republican." Bipartisan much? That's not going to do anything other than make the conservatives happy with him. I bet he's a god-fearing Christian, too, which is a topic I'll probably discuss more in the future, but for now I'll just say 'Why does god need to be feared?'
"Basic values like marriage are suddenly up for debate." I'm going to assume that he's talking about gay marriages here, because nothing else makes remote sense. Marriage isn't any less marriage because it's open to non-standard couplings, and if you ask me, saying that it's such a terrible thing that we treat homosexuals at the same level as all other people is just a downright bigoted thing to say.

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Now playing: Led Zeppelin - Black Dog
via FoxyTunes

LaRouche: Stupid politician, or the stupidest?

http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2007/12/07/video-game-killer-joe-takes-front-lines.html
Umm... What. The. Hell.
Really, what the hell was that?
Here's what I got out of that article:
1. LaRouche hates the media and is convinced that Joe Leiberman, one of the very first anti-video game activists, is 'sleeping with the enemy,' as it were.
2. LaRouche does not need to provide evidence to back up his opinions. Also, LaRouche enjoys referring to himself as LaRouche.
And, if you want more LaRouche insanity, see this:
http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2007/11/27/noosphere-vs-blogosphere-devil-your-laptop.html
Words can not describe how little sense this makes. For starters, what the hell is a noosphere? Seriously. Also, LaRouche believes that Britan wants us dead (WTF? That is totally Worse Than Failure.) All non-LaRouche politicians are secretly double agents trying to ruin us, and children are intelligent, powerful, capable human beings that would ruin us all if given the right to vote. Okay, the right to vote thing wasn't in there, but if you asked him, that would definitely be his opinion. While I believe that children can be as capable and responsible as adults, the point is that he's a hypocrite.
Anyway, I can't figure out anything else from this thing. Really, what on Earth is he talking about? Let me know if you figure it out, I could lose sleep over this, it's that fricking insane.

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Now playing: Green Day - Jesus Of Suburbia
via FoxyTunes

Jumping to conclusions

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/wayoflife/12/07/suicide.shunning.ap/index.html
Let's get this out of the way right of the bat: I'm not saying that what the people accused did was acceptable or shouldn't be punished. I'm saying that they're being persecuted for a crime that NO ONE has proven they've committed. Innocent until proven guilty, due process, so on and so forth. I could rant about that kind of thing all day, but that wouldn't be like me. It'd be bland and unoriginal. Instead, I'm going to write about how people come to these kinds of ideas. Read this with your best southern drawl, because it took place in Texas.


"Hey, Billy Bob. Did you hear about that kid what killed herself?"
"No, really, Joe? I can't believe it!"
"Yeah, I heard from our friendly neighborhood person with a grudge against the Drew family that it was because of the Drews' kids and their fancy intranet lies that she up and killed herself."
"Well, then, it must be true!"
"Let's go ostracize 'em! We don't have evidence, but we don't need any! We're southerners, and that's what we do! Yee-haw!"

That was obviously a complete dramatization, with the obligatory southerner joke, but the point was not 'southerners are dumb,' it was 'people come to conclusions that may or may not be true based on hearsay, and it ends up hurting others, justly or unjustly.'

Find the Fallacy.

Find the logical fallacy contained within the existence of the following statements:
1. God is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent (He knows all, controls all, and loves all, for those who find these words I use too large).
2. God has created/has allowed the creation of an eternal pit of torture, a literal and, in fact, the definition of, hell. THE hell, actually.

First person to comment with the correct answer wins... nothing, seeing as the whole thing is just rhetoric anyway.
NOTE: I'm not bashing your religion. I'm not saying your beliefs are wrong. I'm saying that the Bible, and all religious texts that make the two stated claims, should not be interpreted literally, but only as a 'moral compass,' as it were.
I just ruined any humor value this post may have had, but at least I won't have people getting all PO'd at me because I 'insulted their religion.' Unless they don't read this far, in which case they just end up looking like a jerk.

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Now playing: Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling Into Place
via FoxyTunes

Winter concert

Well, today was our winter concert. I'm in the school chorus (It's a long story; basically, the only reason I'm doing it despite the fact that I don't sing is because we get to go to Hershey park. I'm fairly certain that didn't pan out, though), and we did... well, okay. We really goofed up during one song, and we're talking 30 people not remembering what comes next at the same time goofed up, too.
I left before the band (in reality, the wind instruments) came on, but I did see the orchestra (stringed instruments). I don't know what to say about the song selection, it was all classical. There was one song that the guy in charge introduced as a wedding song. I found it kind of somber, so I guess it really was.
You know, I don't really like the sound of bowed instruments. It's weird, but it just doesn't sound that good to me. It's kind of... well, grating. You have to consider the fact that it was all the lame stringed instruments, too- you know, double basses (although I've seen those used to a rather positive extent), cellos, violas, that sort of thing. If you like those, fine, but I don't for some reason.

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Now playing: Weezer - Buddy Holly
via FoxyTunes

Well, I consider myself amazed.

Cash Advance Loans

Somehow, I've got a genius-level blog.
For reference, GamePolitics.com only got college.
The Dilbert Blog got Junior High.
You know, I kind of wonder how they get to these conclusions.

Congratulations, religious activists, you've overreacted to a nonexistant situation. Again.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/entertainmentfilmreligionusbritain
Just wanted to share this because of how RIDICULOUS these people are acting. The article is actually pretty good and well balanced, but I'm talking about the religious groups here.
I'll have a more full-blown rant later, most likely, but for now I'll say that the books are not a denouncement of religion, but of authoritarianism and the fear and hatred up the unknown.

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Now playing: R.E.M. - Bad Day
via FoxyTunes

This just in: 60% of adults are misinformed!

http://wii.ign.com/articles/839/839797p1.html
In case you're too lazy to click the link, 60% of adults believe that games should be regulated. 51% believe that media in general should be regulated. In addition, 54% of adults believe that violent media=violent child.
What does this prove?
Well, for one, at least 19% of adults are hypocrites who don't measure things equally. Also, 54% of adults are misinformed. The evidence that violent media=violent child just isn't there. You can say 'it's common sense' all you want, but the simple fact is that it isn't true. Your average teenager, and younger child, too, can separate fantasy and reality. The ones that can't are what I like to call "Not functioning at full mental capacity" and it happens in adults, too.
Then there's the problems with the study itself: It only polled 1,147 people. Seems adequate, but it really isn't enough to measure public opinion. I find it more than likely that it's, if nothing else, a biased sample, although I can't provide evidence to back it up, the things we know and logic can lead to that reasoning.
(On a side note, does anyone know anybody who actually participated in one of these surveys? I don't think I do.)
The point? Not 'let's let kids have violent content.' No, the point is 'let's let the parents decide for whether or not their children are able to handle this stuff.'
Plus, government regulation of all media (music, movies, books, games) would mean that I couldn't listen to American Idiot, one of the best albums ever, and it could quite likely put age blocks on books like So Long and Thanks For All the Fish. I just think that it wouldn't be right.
For reference, I don't own any M-rated games, and haven't seen any R-rated movies that weren't comedies. I also only have one CD with a parental warning (and several that might have had one if it had existed when they were released). This, however, is a personal choice made by me. I just don't see the point in overt violence and gratuitous cursing.

On a side note, I've got a video lined up for this week. I won't let on much, but I will tell you that it was shown in schools and shows that the 50s (or maybe 40s or 60s, I forget the date) were one messed up time period, if taken as an accurate chronicle of the times.

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Now playing: Foo Fighters - The Pretender
via FoxyTunes

The real problem with the ESRB.

I think I've figured out the real problem with the ESRB: Clueless grandparents. I have anecdotal evidence from my actual life to support this theory, too. But, instead of explaining it, I'm going to use a poorly MS Paint'd drawing.










See? My theory is INFALLIBLE!!!
Also, here's an image I made to show my thoughts on the upcoming Ace Attorney game:
Don't get me wrong, it's an Ace Attorney game and I know I'm going to love it, but come on. Apollo Justice=Worst. Name. Ever.

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Now playing: Foo Fighters - Monkey Wrench
via FoxyTunes

Welcome!

Well, I've decided to start a blog. It just makes things so much easier in the way of keeping people updated on the things I do.
I'll also put my random thoughts here, so be forewarned. Deep yet quite possibly humorous ramblings may ensue.
If you happen to stumble along here, be sure to see my YouTube page: http://youtube.com/profile?user=NotPigeonV2.