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The Most Beautiful Woman?

Jan 112012

January 11, 2012 Posted by Entropy Echo at 12:01 am Art, January, Truth Tagged with: advice, angelina jolie, beauty tips, breasts, cheryl cole, composite, daily mail, duchess of cambridge, fail, gorgeous, gwyneth paltrow, hot, image, jennifer connelly, kardashian, kate beckinsale, keira knightley, kelly brook, legs, marilyn monroephotoshop, megan fox, NSFW, perfect, photomanipulation, photoshopped, picture, self-esteem, sexy, skin, true beauty, win, woman, women No Responses »

She's perfect, and I get to marry her. Envy me.

January 11, 2012

Ladies, please stay. Guys, you can leave. Actually, guys, stay for this one. This is our fault. All of us. Yes, even the ones who are single right now. Actually, especially the ones who are single right now.

The Daily Mail recently put out a picture it claims is a composite of the most beautiful celebrities. Apparently, based on a poll of most attractive features on various celebrities, the final composite should be the most beautiful woman in the world, a Venus of perfection, the genetic offspring of a billion wet dreams.

In truth, it looks like a mutant reject from Victoria’s Secret.

The Perfect face by ~327588 on deviantART

Is this what we’ve come to? It’s not bad enough that we’ve Photoshopped the hell out of perfectly good-looking women. It’s not enough that we’ve agreed on some perfect weight and figure everyone woman must achieve. It’s not enough that “young and blond and cocaine-chic” is standard for any actress who wants to break into Hollywood or stay there. You have to have the same facial structure and body type. The more plastic, the better, eventually.

What happened, people? Look at older actresses. They have their slight imperfections, every one of them. Jennifer Connelly, for example, has those big ol’ eyebrows that would make Robert Pattinson envious. Even someone like Marilyn Monroe, despite actually being quite thin yet well-rounded, is not a sexual icon because everything fit together perfectly or she had no imperfections. It was the way she carried herself.

It’s those little imperfections that make a woman beautiful. It’s everything. Mind, body, and heart. My fiancée is a beautiful. Everything about her is gorgeous. I love the little beauty mark above her lip. I love the way she looks just as she wakes up and smiles. It’s not just her looks, either. I love when she, as she puts it, “gets girly,” and giggles when she’s normally very sarcastic and blunt about things. I love hearing her laugh.

Mi amor… by *dagger3000 on deviantART

Ladies, young women, and girls, you’ve been done a disservice. You’ve been told you’re not young enough, thin enough, white enough, dark enough, any number of things. You’ve been told to get liposuction or get your stomach stapled. You’ve been told to dye your hair to match some unnatural hue. You’ve been broken and beaten and made to feel like crap. Now, someone took the time to show everyone what “beauty” is based on a series of polls and bad photomanipulation.

You’re beautiful. You don’t have to look like Kim Kardashian. In fact, even looking like Kim Kardashain can’t hide the sheer ugliness inside. If there is any ugliness in you, it’s personality-based. No matter how much you hate your hair, your stomach, your breasts, your legs, or anything else, a body that’s been splayed over every magazine cover on Earth won’t help you.

It’s been said every woman has her own special beauty. Don’t be ashamed of what you perceive to be your imperfections. They may be part of what makes you unique.

Guys, don’t forget to tell someone close to you she’s beautiful. Every day. Don’t let them forget. Ever.

And now, so we can all just feel a little better, here are some people getting hurt because of stupidity. Their own.

How to Rewire Your Brain

Oct 052011

October 5, 2011 Posted by Entropy Echo at 12:01 am October Tagged with: activity, advice, all-stars, blu-ray, changes, childhood, chopped, ESL, fun, funny, game, ILI, iron chef, joke, learn english, learning english, lesson., pic, picture, remastered, robert Downy Jr., saturday morning breakfast cereal, secret ingredient, sherlock, sherlock holmes, SMBC, star wars, student, study, sucks, TAMIU, teacher, teaching, texas A&M INternational University, tip, video, zac weiner No Responses »

Show here? Brain power!

October 5, 2011

Even though the Weekly Muse kind of fell through (I plan on bringing it back, though), I used a similar exercise with my ESL students.

For example, after going over the week’s vocabulary and grammar lesson, I usually ask random students to use one of the new words in a sentence. For their test this week, though, I had them do something different. We practiced first, so don’t worry. They weren’t caught unprepared.

I gave them TWO vocabulary words and they had to use it, along with either an adjective, adverb, or preposition (my choice) in a SINGLE sentence. The words could be odd mixes like “bean” and “fur.” It was their job to make sense out of the ideas. Why would I do something so seemingly sadistic, you may add?

Ever seen Chopped? Chefs compete by making dishes with mystery ingredients. Usually, one of the ingredients is a bit… odd. They might be asked to make a desert with ingredients like corn flour, raspberries, and sardines, for example. Check out the following scene for a better idea of what they do.

In many ways, it’s harder than Iron Chef. In Iron Chef, yes, you have to come up with several dishes that feature one secret ingredient, but on Chopped, you have to combine multiple ingredients that oftentimes are not obviously connected. How the hell do you make a main dish when you’re given pork chops, bananas, cilantro, and a small puppy named Earl? A great chef, though, can find the commonality in the food and whip up something extraordinary.

Likewise, I want my students to stop thinking so mechanically. I want them to not only learn the words, but start using them in more than just simple sentences on one topic. Talking and using a language in casual speech is the best way to learn it. It’s the same reason I put such odd things like “Atlantis” and “Mexican restaurant” in the Weekly Muse polls: to encourage people to pick the strangest combinations they can think of. Finding connections between seemingly unrelated thoughts and ideas is what helps the brain think differently.

Take the famous “Sherlock scan” often used by… uhm, Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes by *Hideyoshi on deviantART

All the clues are there. All the parts to put together a sentence, or a story, are present in the world. It’s just a matter of training yourself to find the links and put together something that didn’t exist before. Sherlock doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, though having a background in science and anatomy helps. Likewise, finding links between apparently different words, finding a sentence to use them in, forces my students to find those connections so new words get easier to integrate. They just need the grammatical rules to put their work together.

In essence, using dissimilar topics forces their brain to adapt faster and faster. A time limit for tests also helps.

Now go out and build those neural biceps!

And now, let’s flex those muscles by combining INTENTIONAL comedy with George Lucas’ meddling into our childhood dreams.

Divine by Zero: Summer Glau’s LARP in Arkham City

Jul 282011

July 28, 2011 Posted by Entropy Echo at 12:01 am July Tagged with: akham city, apartment, bachmann, body image, bond girl, depauw university, fabio, fight, gay, gay teen, glamour, hogate hall, homosexual, image, ke$ha, knights of badassdom, LARP, marriage, mexican, mexico, minnesota, mitt romney, mormon, new york, no make-up, NSFW, old spice guy, penguin, photo, picture, solomon grundy, suicide, summer glau, throwdown, trailer, transforming clothing, Wall-E 4 Responses »

July 28, 2011

This will very likely be the last Divine by Zero until August. We’re moving and still need to pack a lot of stuff. Plus, looks like I’ve got another class to teach next week, so time is going to be tight.I will however be posting the Weekly Muse story on Sunday and the new poll will go up on Monday. This will overlap for the rest of the feature’s run.

Well, let’s get started, shall we?

Want to know how to build your own Wall-E? Here you go.

The images of newly web gay couples in New York are touching and a testament to the power of love. Way to go, folks!

When she’s not covered in glitter and assorted party fouls, Ke$ha is actually a pretty attractive young woman. Further proof the make-up and glam only hide what you are, ladies!

Michelle Bachmann does not support gays. At all. Her district has actually implemented measures to even make it impossible to help the victims of gay bullying. The result? Her home state has to deal with a rash of teen suicides because she and her ilk are too conservative to reach out and help others.

Fabio is the new Old Spice Guy. But the REAL Old Spice Guy has some words for Fabio.

Let this be a lesson to all. Body image is seriously warped. Take a look at a classic Bond Girl, one of the standards of beauty and womanhood for decades, with the new standard. Women used to look like, well… WOMEN!

Transforming clothing? Interesting… Check out the slightly NSFW video.

Okay, I’m going to feel really sick in a moment… Mitt Romney has MEXICAN ROOTS?!

What is courage? It seems the definition has changed in the last few years.

I cannot wait for Arkham City, and the new trailer with the Penguin has be salivating. Especially the little bit at the end of the clip…

I’ve lived in small rooms. College dorms come to mind. The singles in Hogate Hall at DePauw University are basically closets with furniture, but nothing beats this ultra-thin home in Asia.

And finally… a movie with Summer Glau that features geeks fighting the forces of evil through LARPing? Why not!? I’ll see you tomorrow!

Divine by Zero: Sean Connery Destroys Jobs and Gollum Loves Gaiman

Jul 072011

July 7, 2011 Posted by Entropy Echo at 12:01 am Divine by Zero Tagged with: adam savage, adaptation, butterfinger, caffeine, carl fake, corgi, cute, cyclops, dark, dark archivist, door, escape, footage, fourth of july, fucking james bond, gollum, gritty, image, impersonation, laser, letter, lolcat, mario, michael bay, monster, neil gaiman, photograph, picture, prank, projectionist, recycled, republican, reused, rooster, Science, sean connery, serenade, sharp, silent hill, sing, singing, steve jobs, the island, transformers 3, whimsical, woof, wtf No Responses »

July 7, 2011

No, I’m not going to address the Casey Anthony trial except for one thing. All I’m going to say is that everyone stunned by the verdict needs to answer one question: is there reasonable doubt? Yes. Is there evidence to show she did it? Oh yeah. But go back and look at that last answer. Reasonable doubt? Oh yes. That’s the basis of our justice system. There were so many pieces of evidence that were not linked that while most of us might readily assume she was guilty, it’s an assumption.

To clean all that nasty stuff out, here is a corgi breaking out another corgi.

Is there any way I could a run a Mario-meets-Silent Hill RPG with THESE monsters? Please? Any players willing to try it out?

And speaking of a Mario game, I’d run it here.

Dark Archivist posted this picture a few days ago. Yes, it is the most whimsical image ever.

Science is cool. Science with space-aimed lasers? AWESOME!

It turns out that exposing children to Fourth of July celebrations is a factor in them turning Republican later in life. It makes sense. The GOP is fixated on American symbols of celebration (even if they don’t understand said symbols and blindly hold on to American Exceptionalism). Immigrants often vote for liberal causes, probably because they were not brought up on such celebrations before moving here.

Michael Bay wrote the projectionists of America and asked them to do a few special things when Showing Transformers 3. That act in on itself is insulting enough and prime diva material, but the response letter is… well, let’s just say that Carl Fake, movie projectionist, needs an award for the written curb-stomp he unleashes on Michael Bay.

This letter is more glaring when Bay himself reused shots from The Island in his latest cinematic bowel movement. Yeah. Multi-million dollar movie and he reused scenes. Maybe it was a sign he had TOO much action.

And speaking of sheer awesomeness, Sean Connery is already a cultural icon, the embodiment of cool and the man who went on to enjoy a career marked by ups and downs but which, in the end, gave us memorable performances and characters. What could make it more awesome? How about Connery essentially telling Steve Jobs to go fuck himself? In a way only Sean Connery could pull off? We are not worthy.

I’ve been wondering how I can get my sugar AND caffeine hits in one easy-to-go package. Behold, caffeinated Butterfinger!

Cyclops shark. Just TRY to unsee this.

And finally, Neil Gaiman alone is already nerd fuel. Adam Savage of Mythbusters? Also cool. Adam Savage serenading Neil Gaiman as Gollum doing a spoke-word rendition of “I Will Survive”? The only way this could be cooler is if Gaiman was being knighted with a lightsaber.

Dunn and Done

Jun 222011

June 22, 2011 Posted by Entropy Echo at 12:01 am June Tagged with: accident, alcohol, bane, beiber, born this way, break, chan, cpu, cyborg, dark knight rises, dead, death, diabetes, drank, drunk, dunn, fish, global warming, how-to, jackass, jackie, justin, k drunk, kfc, lady gaga, memory upgrade, occult detective, offensive, paranormal investigator, parody, pepsi, perform this way, picture, pop culture, r. k. milholland, roger ebert, ryan, saved by the bell, shirt. kelly kapowski, spiderman, train, tweet, twitter, ultimate spiderman, weird al No Responses »

It's funny because... actually it's not funny.

June 22, 2011

Okay, I need to address something about Ryan Dunn’s death.

He did it to himself and no, I will not mourn him, especially since he took a life in the process of ending his own.

And this wasn’t even a sudden accident. Dunn had a history of DUI’s and posted pictures of himself drinking before the accident. He drove his car at over a hundred miles per hour and had to be identified by his tattoos. The car was a wreck that could only be identified as a car because it was on a road.

Roger Ebert and R. K. Milholland both wrote about the death and made no attempt to hide their contempt for Dunn, though Milholland used more dark humor than the former. Both have gotten a lot of flak for it on Twitter and elsewhere.

And So, It Goes by ~PsychoMonkeyShogun on deviant ART

Ebert made a now infamous tweet where he said, “Friends don’t let jackasses drink and drive.” Granted, at the time of the tweet, it was unknown if alcohol had been involved, but the pictures of Dunn made it clear that alcohol was involved. No one sobers up that quickly. Milholland, on the other hand, should be well-known to anyone with a sick sense of humor. If you don’t read his comic, look at the first comic ONLY, and if you laugh, you get it. If you think it’s sick, well, the internet is not for you. If you were entertained, good for you. Keep reading. That online comic kept me sane for many years.

And Randy, if you’re reading this, you’ve been an inspiration for a long time. Keep it up!

Sarcasm 5 by ~applebutter180 on deviant ART

Here’s what this rage over the comments boils down to. A man known by millions got lit like a German Christmas tree and crashed his VERY expensive car, killing himself and another human being.

I have contempt for Jackass, which is how many knew Dunn. I think it’s nothing more than a bunch of guys acting stupid to get attention, that it’s the widely-distributed version of self-inflicted pain Youtube videos. Don’t get me wrong; I love watching people get hurt on Youtube, but I do so with the understanding that said people were trying to act cool or do something stupid and ended up paying a physical price for it. I don’t look up to them or care for them. That’s what makes it funny. If someone purposefully hurts him or herself in an attempt to get attention, well, they’re a ja-

Nah, too easy.

Comedy occurs when someone whom we don’t care for is hurt. Mel Brooks himself said it best. If any one of you actually thought Dunn was funny and if you cared for him, you would not laugh at him for Jackass. Did you laugh? Then you didn’t care, so stop complaining.

Translation? If you act stupid and get hurt, expect me to laugh at you not because I think you’re a comedian, but because you’re an idiot.

DDD don’t drink and drive by *fabioricci on deviant ART

If Dunn had been the only person killed a few days ago, yes, I’d probably mourn the loss of an irreplaceable human life, regardless of what I thought of his career. I’d be right there with Johnny Knoxville and the others.

But Dunn killed a man.

Said passenger should have known better, but Dunn was the one who drove and Dunn was the one who wrapped his car around a pole and burned both men to death.

Ebert and Milholland are right. They were a bit more… creative with their reactions, but in case you don’t follow me on Facebook or Twitter, here was my reaction, date June 21^st, 1:28 PM Central Time:

Ryan Dunn died while driving drunk after twitting a pic of himself drinking for several hours. His car was a twisted wreck since he was driving at triple-digit speed. Reports say he killed at least one other person. Yes, it’s a tragedy. No, I do not feel sorry for him. If the world was fair, he would have been the only one to die. Idiot…

If you don’t like someone pointing out another person’s stupidity and the utter waste of life, get off the internet. I’ve lost enough people in the last ten years… hell, the last ten MONTHS, to qualify me for horror-movie survivor status. I will gladly acknowledge that some of my loved ones had their faults. Everyone does.

But none of them killed a man in the act of inadvertently taking their own lives.

If you can’t accept that fact, if you can’t even listen to someone else RIGHTLY criticize a man for taking a human life in the process of ending his own, stop reading right now.

If you’re still butt-sore and want to vent some rage, I recommend you wear a lead jock strap and get a kryptonite ring before you post anything.

I’m scrappy.

Ryan Dunn Portrait by ~sheriksillo on deviant ART

And if you want to wash the taste of internet rage from your brain, here are some links to numb the brain and waste your time.

I kind of want to order one of these kits and learn to be a paranormal investigator. Or I could just walk around and spout pseudo-Santeria terms.

I want a memory upgrade to my memory!

Good news? KFC is helping fight diabetes. Bad news? It involves half a gallon of Pepsi. Wut?

Jackie is already pretty bad-ass for performing his own stunts. I think it’s more bad-ass that he trained a fish. Yes, he did. There’s video.

Pop culture is dying. I’m sure these pictures will come true soon enough.

Ever felt like you were an insignificant speck in the eye on an uncaring universe? Here’s proof of your paranoia.

Justin Beiber has NO right to wear a Saved by the Bell shirt. Unless he watched the show. And I doubt it.

Speaking of young punks… Ultimate Spiderman is going to die? For real? I’ll believe it when I see it.

The latest rumor is that Bane will break Batman’s back in the first part of Dark Knight Rises and the rest of the movie will involve Wayne trying to reclaim his life. I doubt this would work.

How do you solve global warming? Like this. DARE YOU FIND FAULT WITH HER LOGIC!?

And finally, Weird Al released his video for his parody of “Born This Way.” It’s called “Perform This Way.” It’s… creepy to say the least. Enjoy, and I’ll see you on Friday.

Policing the Tennessee Interwebs

Jun 102011

June 10, 2011 Posted by Entropy Echo at 12:01 am June Tagged with: anne, ban, bank of american, beck, beiber, blockbuster, blood, catwoman, conservative, conspiracy, disturb, ears, FEMA, first amendment, foreclosed, foreclosure, fundamentalist, gore, gorn, hathaway, horror, images, internet, joplin, liv tyler, no make-up, picture, pierced, porn, pornographic, scary, sex, teaser, tennessee, the dark knight rises, trailer, underwear, xxx 2 Responses »

It's scarier when you consider that this image was taken before digital cameras... BUT IT"S ON THE INTERNET! OOOOOOH!

June 10, 2011

Texas and Arizona have been neck to neck in a fight to both dumb down and destroy the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Now, Tennessee has thrown its hat into the ring, and we are in for a great fight, folks.

The state just passed a law that would make it illegal to distribute images that might “frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress” to someone. Let that sink in for a moment. Any image that is may disturb someone is now illegal. This includes a fine and jail time.

Can you hear the First Amendment dying like Lohan’s career?

This is an update to a current law to makes it illegal to contact someone with the intent of causing emotional harm. Most of you can already see the problem with the logic of the update.

What constitutes a disturbing image to you? Me? I watch a lot of scary movies. Many of them contain gore. Blood and monsters and rusty things in flesh may be gory, but I don’t classify them as emotionally disturbing. How about this?

Bed by *Hoffine on deviant ART

Too tame? Maybe, but I have a friend who has a son who is afraid of a duck sock puppet. Putting an image of THAT on the internet is now illegal.

Of course, you could make the argument that law probably means that purposefully transmitting images to a particular person with the intent of causing emotional harm is the punishable offense, not just posing an image ANYONE could find disturbing. That makes a little more sense, but then the question becomes this…

How do you enforce that? How do you figure out intent or police THE INTERNET?

I mean, there are some really sick people out there. Look at this:

Reunited -seriously scary 3 by ~steelgohst on deviant ART

And it being Tennessee, I’m going to assume that what they find disturbing is anything that might offend the Right Wing base. See, laws like this are usually passed by people who cannot handle either something that contradicts their point of view or wish to silence the opposition. It’s very Middle East, you know.

If a Christian wishes to never see any demonic images or anything non-Christian, do we prosecute people who display heavy metal covers? Could a radical Muslim ask that images of American military action be taken down because they offend him? Could I, if I moved to Tennessee, ask that no one circulate any images of Glenn Beck since they remind me of the awful damage he has done to this country?

My guess would be “no.”

They might find an image like this intimidating…

Gay Rights by =digitalgrace on deviant ART

…But the rest of us would just see something to root for.

The whole “free choice” thing is really the spanner in the works here. And, if you think about, it’s a law that keeps people from being offended. There’s such a thing as libel and death threats which have actual repercussions in the real world, but if you’re not mature enough to see an image and either look away, debate someone over its merit in a battle of wits, or otherwise engage the thing in front of you in any way shape or form, and if your last recourse is asking Big Brother to take the image down for you, you have one of two problems.

You are either so incompetent you cannot operate a web browser, or you have the emotional maturity of a five-year old.

You can’t possibly be a non-tech savvy five-year old. Those don’t exist anymore.

the slender man by ~Kreatur-im-Spiegel on deviant ART

Now let’s cleanse that gore and blood with some good ol’ fashioned links. They’re good for ya!

I’ve been trying to figure out the formula for a blockbuster story. The internet beat me to it.

While filming a scene for The Dark Knight Rises, Anne Hathaway apparently nearly poked a stuntman’s eye out. She felt bad and did the only thing anyone could do in a situation like that: she got him a pen engraved with a reminder of the incident.
Star Wars and sex jokes. That’s pretty much it.

Justin Beiber found a way to look MORE like a girl. Amazing…

I have not watched The Human Centipede, nor do I have any desire to view it at any point in my life. However, the teaser for the sequel does something really smart. It takes all the controversy from the first (the gore, the body horror, and the false claim of medical accuracy) and turns it into a spot that would have made 1950′s horror directors proud. I remember the trailer for Psycho had Hitchcock walking through the Bates residence. Not that I think Human Centipede 2 will be anywhere near Hitchcock’s level, but the trailer’s a nice throwback.

Lady Gaga meets Judas Priest for a song mash-up? I’m conflicted…

In the last gasps of air for Beck’s show, Becky Boy is throwing everything out. He’s warning against the coming Progressive-led Apocalypse and urging his viewers to be like the city of Joplin and not accept any FEMA aid so the government sees we can take care of ourselves… Except Joplin DID accept FEMA aid. It’s like Beck’s not even trying with his lies any more.

Liv Tyler is proof that genetics mean squat when it comes to looks. Even without make-up, she looks gorgeous. Her mother must have been an angel, ’cause daddy ain’t exactly good-lookin’.

This… this is perhaps the greatest story of the week. Amidst all the crap going on, I couldn’t stop laughing at this story. it’s a victory for the American people, a victory against banks that think they can take whatever they want, and a true example of poetic justice. See you Monday, kids!

The True Legacy of Any Real Mexican

May 062011

May 6, 2011 Posted by Entropy Echo at 12:01 am May Tagged with: airplane, alchemist, alchemy, amanda palmer, asada, banned, bbq, beans, boobs, breasts, carne, cooking, dog, e-paper, electronic paper, Ever, firefly, flo, frijoles, grandfather, grito, hard rock, heavy metal, hidalgo, hispanic, katie perry, leia, metal, mexican, minority report, mix, mixture, neil gaiman, papi, pencil-necked weasel, pics, picture, playstation outage, poem, princess, progressive commercial, recipe, return of the jedi, serenity, sexiest, sexy, slave, spices, tex-mex, texmex, traditional, tunsinia, video 2 Responses »

It's so beautiful... no words... they should have sent a poet...

May 6, 2011

When my grandfather died a few weeks ago, it was the third of three people (two family, one a friend), that I had to say goodbye to. It’s been a rough year, what with the financial con-job I worked at for a few months, the wedding next year, and upcoming novel complete with contest, I’ve been stressed like no other time in my life. I wrote two thesis as an undergrad in one year and I still don’t think this matches that level stress.

But yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, Mary’s last day of class, and I felt like cooking something.

I was going to make fish, but I figured I could make some pico de gallo, salchicha, and… I was stuck for a while. What dish could really capture Mexican pride and simulataniously satisfy a 12-hour work day full of class, work, and research papers?

My grandfather gave me the answer…

carne 06 by *avaladez on deviant ART

When he cooked, the man COOKED. Years ago, he gave me the recipe for his carne asada, Mexican grilled meat, and I’ve tried to make it for a long time with little success in replicating his unique flavor. I mean, the meat was good, but it wasn’t the same. It was like a photocopy of a photocopy. It just didn’t feel right.

Today, though…

I think I got it.

When my grandparents cook, there is never such a thing as a recipe. They go more by instinct than anything else. They know the specific parts of the dish much like I would know the overall themes and ideas for a story or poem, but I could never really teach someone one perfect way of getting those ideas down on paper. In the same way, they don’t really measure their ingredients, but instead put them in as needed. It’s taken me years to get this close to the actual recipe. I have it written down, but it’s like trying to learn another language by reading it.

I’m close. So close.

- Love Recipe - by ~quaerion on deviant ART

Any self-respecting Mexican knows how to cook. My uncle could make chimichurri from scratch or whip up a caldo de rez to make you forgo vegetables for a month. My grandmother makes delicious dishes with everything from bell peppers to chicken. She’s like Midas with food.

While he was alive, I tried to replicate my grandfather’s recipe. Now, with him gone and only my memories and a piece of paper to guide me, I’ll keep trying to reach that pinnacle of flavor he created so many times for us on special occasions. It’s like kendo training… I’ll just keep going for the rest of my life, getting ever closer to that elusive perfection.

And I’m okay with that.

Years ago, I wrote a poem for my grandfather and his skills. I figured it was appropriate today. Scroll afterwards for the links, and I hope none of you did anything regrettable on Cinco de Mayo.

Alquimista¹

Dried leaves and sticks,

Crushed color and aroma

From plants I could never pronounce.

Papi kept them in plastic bags and jars,

Autumn in a pantry, an old hechicero’s² alchemy.

He summoned a nation with each dish:

August heat, like the Tamaulipan desert,

Unyielding, like El Grito de Dolores³,

Or cool and green, like a Cuernavacan⁴ spring,

Subtle as a pretty morena’s⁵ wink.

One bite and you thought you’d die

From the cinnamon burn in your blood

And la lengua cortada⁶ would make you mute.

A bowl of pozole⁷ was a hundred miles of fields

And boiled muscles under the Aztec sun.

The heat in our tingling veins sang

A slow mariachi ballad,

The living history of our family,

And the old hechicero sat and listened,

While fragrant Mexican autumn filled the room.

¹“Ahl-kee-MIS-tah”: Spanish for “alchemist”

²“Eh-CHi-SE-roh”: a sorcerer

³Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest in Mexico, gave what is known as “The Yell of Dolores.” On the morning of September 16, 1810, he rang the church bells and called on the people of Mexico to rise up against the Spanish, calling out “Mexicans, long live Mexico! Long Live the Virgin [Mary] of Guadalupe! Long Live Fernando VII! Death to the evil government!”

⁴The city of Cuernavaca is known as “The City of Eternal Spring” for its mild weather and seasonal rainfalls.

⁵Morena(o) is a term for someone who is darker skinned, and most likely has native Mexican blood in their heritage.

⁶“LEN-gwa cohr-TA-da” literately means “cut tongue.” It is an expression used to symbolize the feeling of very spicy meals on the tongue. Even people accustomed to spicy dishes reach their limit when they proclaim they have a “cut tongue.”

⁷“Po-SOH-leh” is a traditional Mexican dish, similar to a stew, made with cacahuacintle corn, pork, and guajillo peppers. It is often topped with radishes, lettuce, onion, lemon juice, dried oregano, and powdered chili. It has a very strong aroma and taste.

remedio universal by ~srintestino on deviant ART

Link time! And yeah, the comic’s hilarious if you know Spanish. If enough people ask, I’ll translate it.

Neil Gaiman accepted a speaking fee and got called out by a state representative… who promptly apologized for his insult because his mother made him.

Katie Perry tries to prove she’s more than a pair of boobs… by showing off her boobs.

Flo, aka the girl from Progressive commercials, did a commercial that let her show off her other entertainment skills. The video is locked, but it’s interesting to read about the woman behind the advertisement.

On this holy Friday… I give you 30 cosplay Slave Leia pictures.

Within this case are the two paths to courage… which do you choose?

Electronic paper has appeared in shows like Caprica and Firefly. Here’s a sneak peak at the real-life models.

I think we found the source of the Playstation network problem…

This is… by far… the SEXIEST thing you will EVER see.

I wrote about Lady Gaga’s song, “Judas,” a few days ago, and she finally released the music video to go along with it. It’s, uhm… interesting.

Amanda Palmer, awesome as ever, showing why the best music is not found on the radio. I have to say that I dig the music, even if it’s not the way I first heard her years ago.

And finally, to get your weekend started right, I give you the most metal puppy EVAR!

Death Metal Puppy – watch more funny videos

Tea Party: The Movie

Apr 292011

April 29, 2011 Posted by Entropy Echo at 12:01 am April Tagged with: atlas shrugged, ayn rand, bomb, brothers, conservative, fail, future, GOP, hacker, hacking, importance of being ernest, jersey shore, kitchen, koch, meaning, News, objectavism, picture, playwrite, Portal 2, prank, randian, review, sequel, summary, tea party, terminator, theme, trailer, world war 1 Response »

It's Conservarific!

April 29, 2011

I haven’t seen the film version of Atlas Shrugged. I’ve read about the book in journal articles, heard people explain Objectivism, and generally learned of it through other people’s analysis. The film, though, is being pushed in Tea Party circles as the answer to liberal Hollywood. It’s supposed to show the rest of the country just what the Tea Party hopes to build.

Since the entire book makes Lord of the Rings look like a church pamphlet, let me explain the movie in less than 800,000 words.

A few years from now, the government is going to devolve into a group of petty politicians who only pass laws in order to serve their own self-interests. A cast of successful businessmen and women are trying to save their companies amidst this environment of repression even as the country’s most creative people are vanishing. To put it mildly, it’s like the Spill crew said. Just pretend Forbes Magazine made a movie.

I’m not going to review a movie I haven’t seen, but I am going to tell you why this movie is getting hyped so much by the Tea Party and Libertarians and why it’s bombing like Germany on Poland.

Oh, too soon?

Atlas by ~ZetaxCeti on deviant ART

If you’ve never read Ayn Rand or otherwise read about her philosophies, you’re in luck! It’s dumb. Well, it sounds good on the surface, which is why so many impressionable college students and dedicated men and women seem attracted to it.

And if there are any Randians out there who will instantly label me a close-minded zombie of the system who believes government is the key to all our problems… have you READ my site?

Here is the core of Objectivism, which is at the heart of Rand’s work: the pursuit of your own happiness is the most moral and only good thing in the world. It’s a little more complicated than that, but Rand believed that altruism and sacrifice for others are evil because they rob men and women of the ability to be happy for themselves. The most moral type of economics turns out to be a complete Laissez-faire capitalism in a society where the government’s only job is to protect the people from others robbing them of their happiness. Businesses should operate with zero oversight from the government. In the book, this gets to the point where characters talk about their workers and the conditions they are in (deplorable) as a GOOD SIGN that business is free.

Do you want to know who really likes Objectivism and Libertarianism? People who already have power and want to keep it. People like the Koch Brothers, the two paranoid wackos who helped fund the Tea Party. Yes, the Tea Party was started by billionaire industrialists as a front for their own political and social views. The Tea Party is not a grassroots movement. It’s a way for the uber-rich to get their message out through the people.

Yeah, it really is the Bond-like villain behind all this.

As for the core of Atlas Shrugged, Objectivism, let me say this…

Ayn Rand had no heart.

Free Market Meme by ~Party9999999 on deviant ART

Think about it. Sacrifice for others, charity in all its forms, is evil. If someone is on the street, hungry after losing his or her job due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, it is evil to offer that person money for food or outline directions to the nearest homeless shelter to fend off the cold.

You also have no reason to love your family just because they are your family. If your boss screws you over for perfectly petty reasons, you have no say in the matter.

After all, YOUR happiness is all that matters.

It’s basically Satanism taken to its business extreme, but don’t misunderstand me. I actually agree with some (huge emphasis on “some”) of Rand’s ideas. I think government needs to stay out of our lives, but I also know that lack of regulation in a capitalist society breeds trouble. We’re in this financial mess because no one was making sure the bankers didn’t screw all of us over.

I agree that creativity and the pursuit of happiness are important for the development of a healthy society that accepts criticism and multiple points of view, but I don’t think that happiness needs to come at the expense of others’ happiness. This one is actually one that a lot of Randians have missed when they explain it, and from what I’ve read, Rand herself thought that sacrificing the happiness of others for your own benefit was evil. In that respect, it’s similar to the Wiccan Reede. The problem, though, is that the philosophy has a built-in barrier against helping others unless it somehow affects you.Which brings us to…

Captialism as a free-for-all is the worst idea in the world. It sounds good on paper, though. Let businesses do what they must in order to succeed and create jobs, innovate, and make sure that the world keeps on truckin’. On the other hand, capitalism has no internal monitoring system to make sure that basic human rights are not violated.

SELF by *serah53000 on deviant ART

Does your boss need you to work for twelve hours a day for three dollars an hour? Hey, it’s a job, right? Need to work in unsafe conditions? Tough cookies. Were you discriminated against because of race, gender, or religious beliefs? Hey, it’s your fault for not believing in Sky God.

The entire idea behind the movie is that selfishness is good and the government can’t do anything but get in the way. Okay, I’ll grant that government is run by a bunch of children who think they have a really cool job because they get to tell other people what to do (I used to work for one of them), but government can be a place where we all come together and use our collective resources to actually do something productive. Until the time when we can all afford to take care of all of our own problems and needs, a central government is the best option we have.

Imagine one week without police, firefighters, Medicare, homeless shelters, student loans, or NASA.

This movie is tanking because people who actually known what Rand preached know better than to walk into a theater that serves as a ninety-seven minute infomercial.

The least they could have done was add some sex, explosions, and Michael Bay-like action. It’s really the only thing that can balance the bitterness and utter propaganda of Rand’s work. We actually need Michael Bay for this one. I feel sick.

Links! Quick! Before I puke!

With Portal 2 coming out, here are a few pranks you can play on your friends.

Do you want to type like a hacker in a mid-90′s thriller? Just go here, set your parameters, go to full screen, and amaze your friends with your 1337 skillz.

I love looking at designs for things that look awesome but may never actually catch on due to their sheer weirdness. Check out this kitchen of the future complete with slime-based fridge.

Ah-nold is aboard for a new Terminator movie. Now all he needs is a studio, cast, writer, and money. Oh, and someone who can justify him coming back after Terminator Salvation and Terminator 3.

When did World War 11 happen?! And why did I miss it?!

College Humor thinks there are stages to growing your hair out. From personal experience… it’s crap.

If you need further proof that Twilight is not only God-awful in its story but also a crime against the English language, look no further.

And finally, because I have to get dinner ready for my hunny bunny, let me leave you with some transcripts of The Jersey Shore as read by cast members of The Importance of Being Ernest. The full set of videos can be found here, but here’s the first one just to wet your appetite. Enjoy!

The Book of Gaga: Why the Right Needs to SHUT UP

Apr 222011

April 22, 2011 Posted by Entropy Echo at 12:01 am April Tagged with: band, beck, bible, bisexual, blasphemy, breed, catholic league, christianity, cross, crucifix, donohue, easter, evan rachel woods, expression, fail, fireflies, firefly, first class, Fox, free speech, gay, hot, I perform this way, I was born this way, image, islam, judas, lady gaga, lake casablanca, laredo, leaked, lesbian, lyrics, Muslim, new, picture, piss, pug, release, river, satan, shirt, song, star trek, steampunk, tam, texas, trailer, victorian, video, weird al, wrong, x-men No Responses »

Her will be done! Even if her will is bat-shit crazy costumes!

April 22, 2011

(Sigh)

Here we go again. You know, I respect Lady Gaga for doing something outrageous and performing well, though I’m still up in the air as to whether she’s stealing from Madonna, but could the Right Wing PLEASE stop using her as some sort of moral barometer? For that matter, stop taking pop culture as a sign of the End Times.

The Meat-Wearing One released a new song, “Judas,” that she sings as Mary Magdalene. The lyrics are found here, and you can hear the song by clicking the video below.

Let me start by saying that I cannot listen to this song more than three times because the music’s just… ear-splittingly horrible.

But let’s look at the lyrics for a second. It’s basically a love song to Judas Iscariot. Okay. Weirder things have been done in the name of art. And who was Judas Iscariot? Why, he was only the man responsible for the greatest betrayal in all of Christian teaching! He kissed our Lord Jesus Christ and sentenced him to death. How DARE she sing a song, as a harlot no less, to the man who killed Jesus?

Well, it’s more complicated than that.

If you believe that Jesus was prophesized to die, that his death was needed to save the world, then I propose that Judas was nothing more than a patsy. Judas was framed. Think about it. If this had to happen, if there was no way to avoid it, then he had no say in the matter and was therefore a victim just like Christ. Anyone would have fit the bill. In that sense, the lyrics touch upon the subject by having Mary Magdalene forgive Judas and apparently love him.

That’s not enough for some people. Cue Right Wing hysteria and outrage:

Oh, the number of things that are wrong with that statement… But first, let me wash off after those last ten pseudo-pervy moments…

Lady Gaga does not have a problem with religion. As was stated in the interview, she’s exploring her own religious background. She’s not going after Muslims, as Donohue suggested, because she’s not deconstructing Islam. It’s the same reason I’m making Charcoal Streets a deconstruction of Hispanic Christian beliefs. That’s my background. I’m not about to use European mythology because, frankly, I’m only about one-eight French.

And someone else already cornered the faerie novel.

Donohue then laments that, while Gaga has talent, she’s part of a pattern of artists that seem to go after religion. Why, oh, why, won’t the artists leave him alone?!

Maybe it’s because, again, WE LIVE IN JESUS LAND. Look, I have my qualms with religion in general. And yes, I guess some of the things I say in Charcoal Streets could be applied to organized belief, but I’m targeting Christianity (and I can’t believe I’m writing this) much like Lady Gaga is looking at religion in her song.

We’re working with what we know.

Christianity by ~TechnoJon on deviant ART

It gets even better when Donohue says that Christians don’t enjoy the protection of Muslims because Muslims will react violently if you mock or criticize their religion. Well, yes and no. While I concede that a lot, if not most, Muslims would be offended by something as supposedly innocent as an image of the Prophet, and I’ve explained why that’s actually a really stupid belief, that’s not the point. Just because members of another religion are willing to behead people for the slightest religious offense does not mean that ALL religions are off-limits.

Furthermore, the belief that artists don’t need to criticize religion really misses the point. It’s movie Imperial Stormtrooper-like accuracy. Of course artists need to go there. Hell, I LIVE there. Artists, as John Lennon said, point a mirror to society. That’s our job. If you don’t like what you see, close your eyes and be happy in the darkness.

::Art:: by ~10-GunShOTreSiDUe-01 on deviant ART

You can’t lament that radical Muslims will kill you for criticism, then turn around and say you wish you had that kind of protection. You can’t lament that radical Islam has no tolerance, then complain that someone is looking at your religion through an artistic lens. This sums up the Right Wing’s stance to a T.

“Critique anything you want except my own beliefs and stances.”

Really classy.

Also… “You hang out with Bill Donohue, I’ll buy you a beer, honey, and maybe we can straighten you out.” Did anyone else feel dirty after hearing that? Like, “stepped in gum and had to clean it off with my fingernails” dirty?

Anyway, let’s get some links up in!

Just in time for Easter, check out the latest blog from the Cheezeburger network… Sketchy Bunnies!

Looks like some mad scientists have developed a material that is thin as paper but stronger than steel. Are we closer to getting me my hover car? Nooooo… but NASA gets it’s precious unobtanium shuttle.

A new trailer for X-Men: First Class is out and I’m still excited. I’m scared.

Glenn Beck’s research team isn’t the best, but if they’re going to complain that religious art was defaced and no one reported on it, they should at least make sure that said art was not a crucifix in urine, the same piece of art Beck has complained about before. Yes, he linked to the story. No, he didn’t read it. I’m guessing his “highly trained” staff just saw five words.

I am slowly losing faith in academia, and posts like this are the reason.

Steampunk Star Trek? I’m there!

Laredo, Texas has done some… interesting things in the past, but this little error in a sign on the loop is nigh inexcusable. Way to piss off the writer.

To celebrate Skynet’s birthday according The Sarah Connor Chronicles, here are a few looks atthe Terminator franchise.

Alan Moore sent a message to aliens and doesn’t think we’ll live beyond 2150. Thoughts?

It looks like Evan Rachel Woods likes the ladies as much as the guys. Given how other celebrities are comfortable experimenting and otherwise exploring their sexuality, could we get a percentage of A and B-listers going to see when they all just agree that, in Hollywood, anything can happen?

I’ll be the first to admit that pugs look ridiculous, but it just goes to show what 100 years of dog breeding does.

What if River and the rest of the crew of Serenity started a band?

And finally, Weird Al is one of my personal heroes. He takes pop culture apart and gives us back comedy gold. It looks like Lady Gaga didn’t like his newest parody and so didn’t give him permission to use it… but she finally said yes! Take a listen to “Perform This Way,” which takes a few swipes the Gaga, but it’s all in good fun. Have a good Easter weekend and I’ll see you Monday.

Again! Again!

Feb 252010

February 25, 2010 Posted by Entropy Echo at 7:52 pm February Tagged with: 9, dante, dead, ed, horror, inferno, living, night, outer, picture, plan, remake, remakes, rocky, show, space, wood, zombie No Responses »

You are about to enter another dimension...

February 21, 2010

Bad movies are more than just a good waste of ninety minutes. They’re an affirmation that there has to be something good out there. This dribble I am watching, your brain tells you ten minutes into your cinematic guano pile, cannot be the best in movies, or even the average in movies. I watch bad movies, specifically science fiction and horror movies, because they are the unintentional comedies of our time. I laugh more with them than I do with legitimate comedies. Sure, someone probably put a lot of love and care into each film, poured blood onto the camera like a writer pours his or her blood onto paper and ink…

But it didn’t work. And now we have accidental comedic genius.

It does beg the question, though, of why anyone would want to remake this particular cinematic gem:

Yes, it is going to be remade into THIS:

Okay, I’ll admit. I’ve said it more than once that if you’re going to remake something, don’t remake something that has a great following or is well-respected. You’ll get in trouble. Sometimes you strike gold like Chris Nolan with Batman Begins or you make something new that actually surpasses the original, like Ron Moore with Battlestar Galactica. However, these are the exceptions to the rule. I’ve always said that if you want to remake something, you should remake a film so bad you’ll HAVE to do better. It’s the only safe bet.

Now I’m kind of wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.

This remake of Plan 9 does bring to light another trend in American cinema in the last several years, one that we need to address. So many movies become hits or simply gather a cult following because of a combination of luck, planning, mistakes, and the enjoyment of the first time you saw the movie. Do you think The Rocky Horror Picture Show would ever be remade? No, because it was such a unique collection of shortfalls and successes that it could not be replicated without looking and sounding artificial. While the play is still performed to packed audiences, the actors and spectators both participate and turn it into a social event. Ever tried watching the movie by yourself? Or in a theater with people just watching it quietly? It’s weird…

The Creation of Rocky by ~love-and-commissions on deviant ART

Why remake something that’s already good? To capitalize on it. Why remake something that failed worse than Dubya at a spelling bee? Because you think you can do better. There’s a certain amount of hubris in trying to remake someone else’s work, though. You don’t just say, “I love your work and want to build on it,” but “I can do better,” and writers have fragile egos. No matter how much someone says they want to build upon another person’s work, the original author will always feel like something’s gone awry, like he or she failed at something. Writers are people too, and we bleed like a kosher chicken.

And that’s not what art is about.

Artists borrow from each other. You can’t exactly claim that any zombie movie that comes out is ripping off Night of the Living Dead. Resident Evil, Evil Dead, and any of the dozens of zombie films that have come out in recent years pay homage to Romero’s work because it laid the foundation, but no one’s remade it except a few idiots who thought it was a good idea:

And when I heard someone was adapting Inferno into a video game, I was somewhat… scared out of my mind.

At this point, I’m waiting for Thomas Moore’s Utopia. I’m figuring it’s going to have Moore in a Mario-like outfit as he battles his way through a maze of puzzles. Should come out on the Wii soon.

Movies, books, and music can all create new genres. “Johnny B. Goode” wasn’t remade forty-two times when it became popular. It helped spawn rock and roll. Watchmen showed comic books what they could become if they pushed the envelope. Star Wars changed the way we looked at science fiction movies. It almost seems as though there is a sweet spot on success. If something is successful enough, it can be remade, but if it’s TOO successful, it can stand on its own.

And if it sucks like the vacuum of space, hey go wild. Let’s learn from past movies and books. We don’t need another remake of The Italian Job. I think we’ve seen enough versions of King Kong. We’re smarter and more creative than this. Or at least we should be. Let’s make new gods and monsters.