February 1, 2012
One of my favorite books of all time is getting new illustrations… that are so tame they might as well be cereal boxes. Did I mention this book gave me nightmares for years? Good times.
Feb 012012
Jan 172012
Yes, this is real. Yes, I threw up a little.
January 17, 2012
Hollywood, come here. We need to talk.
You need to cut the crap. Right now. You’re going to make a film version of the novel Warm Bodies, a romance wherein a zombie finds love with a human girl in a post-apocalyptic world. I’ll give the book some credit. I read the first few pages, and while it acknowledges some of the squickier aspects of zombie lore with the literary equivalent of a gore discretion shot, it does a decent job of showing that life as an undead is not pleasant or even clean. The writing is fairly clean and tight and I wouldn’t mind reading the whole thing out of morbid curiosity, but we have a problem.
Hollywood, you will NOT turn zombies into teen heartthrobs.
Okay, Hollywood, go away. I need to talk to my readers.
pride and predudice and zombies painted by `Bakanekonei on deviantART
Readers, hi. Welcome back. Did you see what Hollywood is going to do?
Just from reading the first few pages of the book in question, it sounds like it would work well as literature. Maybe not. I’m willing to at least read it to find out. Here’s the first problem, though. In the book, our main character is clearly identified as having a suit and being a 20-something. In the stills from the upcoming movie, the main character, R, looks like a teen. I already know where this is headed.
It’s even the same studio.
They’re going to do it. Don’t think they won’t. I’ve been waiting for this. The trend was strong with vampires. The entire teen literature section, currently the teen vampire romance section, is filled to the brim with this crap, and now zombies are in the mix. Zombie romance stories are not new. Aaah! Zombies and Boy Eats Girl both did it in film years ago, but those stories were told for laughs. Night of the Living Dead 3 played it as a horror film since the protagonist was a woman slowly turning undead as her boyfriend was forced to watch. After all, how could love exist between a mortal woman trying to survive the zombie apocalypse and an undead, barely sentient creature with a hunger for human flesh and tasty, tasty brain meats?
It can’t. Willing suspension of disbelief will take you so far. Like I said, though, I haven’t read the whole novel, and from R’s narration, at least author Isaac Marion has played with the concept to the “mindless zombie” and made his undead closer to apathetic amnesia victims. They eat because they’re hungry. They lack complex motor functions to do things like talk or quickly move.
when zombies attack by ~teamlattie on deviantART
I am, however, having trouble accepting that this prose is being uttered by a creature with no memory of his past life. The writing’s not bad, like I said, but it takes skill to speak, let alone write like this. It’s the problem of Twilight supposedly being narrated by a world-weary 16-year-old who was well-read and yet could not grasp basic emotionally mature concepts such as empathy.
There’s also the fact that zombie fiction tends to be… squishier than vampire fiction. Vampires can get away with not actually showing too much blood since they only need to make two neat little holes and suck the blood away. Zombies actually need to dismember a living person and eat the brains. This involves the kind of graphic scenes best left to R-rated movies.
Then again, I’ve been wrong before. Best prediction? The movie will suck as it’s softened to appeal to the teen girl market and give them a new Edward. We’ll have a deluge of zombie romance (what is it with undead boyfriends?) and the genre will have to wait at least five years before being taken seriously again.
Fear Hollywood.
And now, let us bask in the glory of a real zombie movie. Warning! Gore aplenty ahead.
Sep 162011
September 16, 2011
It’s Mexican Independence day! To me, this is a bittersweet holiday. Yes, it marks Mexico proclaiming itself a sovereign nation. On the other hand, the country is enslaved by the cartels. Right across the border, just a few miles from where I wright this, two people were tortured and publicly displayed for writing negative things about the Zetas. We have a long way to go, but I’d like to start by ending this stupid war on drugs.
And speaking of things that were probably influenced by drugs, let’s get some links out there and catch up with the week’s stories.
- Clint Eastwood doesn’t care who you marry. He also managed to make himself even more awesome.
- I have my reservations about the new Star Wars blu-rays. On the other hand, this promo featuring famous people reenacting classic scenes is hilarious. And Vader gets the best treatment, especially at about 2:14.
- Speaking of Star Wars, here’s a 43,000 piece Lego Venerator-class Star Destroyer.
- To all the new freshmen in college, please, for the love of Bob, don’t do this.
- And speaking of bad decisions, could celebrities please stop taking naked pics of themselves with their phones? You, the thing that can be hacked? Unlike that camera that you need to physically get to retrieve said pictures? The reaction to Scarlet Johansson’s leaked nude pics has ranged from everything from an FBI investigation to the internet having a collective seizure. Because the internet, as you know, has been seen naked boobs and butt.
- Nancy Upton entered a contest for American Apparel. She satirized what I can only describe as really unflattering images of women that look like they need a sandwich. Her pics were… well, they were unique. She’s confident, has a sense of humor about herself and the company, she looks wonderful and natural, and she won the contest by a large margin… and now American Apparel is saying they won’t go with her because she’s not targeting their demographic. Hypocrites, anyone?
- “Gordon Ramsay’s Dwarf Porn Double Found Dead In A Badger Den.” How do you NOT click on that link?!
- It turns out that reading fiction boosts your empathy. I just wish they’d used another book besides Twilight for the study.
- Global warming is doing a lot of things… but did you know that it’s causing giant crabs to invade Antarctica? Be scared…
- Disney does not have the best record when it comes to acknowledging the audience’s intelligence. However, some of their older animators didn’t react too kindly to the higher-ups changing the name of a movie to make it more descriptive since audiences “might not get it.” The result is pure sarcasm and gold.
- And finally, Nice Peter came out with another Epic Rap Battle. Mister Rogers all the way! Represent! And I’ll see you all on Monday!
Jul 212011
July 21, 2011
The voting is coming along nicely both here and on Facebook! keep going, guys. And when you’re done, please help yourself to a link or two. They’re on me.
I know, I know. I spoil you guys.
- Do you like Batman? Well, there’s on easy way to get started.
- And speaking of things that are fun and bring us joy, every time a new harry Potter movie or book comes out, without fail, we get the psychos. Pat Robertson is already out in full force, but this gentleman takes the cake. Yeah, he’s a comedian, but the scary thing is that I’ve heard people who talk like him.
- Michelle Bachmann, for all her gay hate speech, actually has a gay sister-in-law. What does does sister-in-law think of her family’s views? Let’s just say there are some disagreements.
- I like my seafood fresh. Really fresh. I just don’t know if I want it to dance for me before I eat it.
- Rick Perry, possible GOP presidential candidate, started out as a Democrat. Hey, it IS Texas. He probably switched because they use liberals for target practice down here.
- In the world of remakes that probably don’t need to be remade, Diablo Cody is going to direct the new Evil Dead and David Goyer is writing Godzilla. I’m slightly curious about this, but there can be NO substitute for Bruce Campbell. NONE!
- The Amazing Spider-Man is coming out next year, and we’ve already been treated to a blurry teaser filmed in a movie studio. That doesn’t mean we can’t look back on the old cartoon and guess at the kinds of things we can expect from a darker take on our favorite web-slinger.
- The Young Turks found an old speech of Bachmann’s where she announces her hope that the end times are among here. Do we really want to give nuclear defense codes to this woman?!
- Speaking of airheads, here’s Palin TRYING to look sexy. The result is akin to a mildly retarded beagle thinking it’s a ballerina.
- Rebecca Black’s new song, “My Moment,” is… well, it’s better than her last venture, but that’s not saying much. It’s still completely synthetic music, and the lyrics actually say LESS than “Friday.“
- A full-length Mega Man movie? YES! Except it’s a little low on the action, but hey, it’s something.
- And on the heels of the last article, Jon Stewart addresses Fox’s handling of the hacking scandal. See you Friday, folks, and keep voting!
Jul 192011
July 19, 2011
It’s going to be an interesting two weeks. Mary and I are moving in August. I have to get things for the high school summer camp. I started The Weekly Muse, and I’m getting ready to get a podcast up and running once I figure out the software. In the meantime, expect articles on time and general weirdness on the Facebook page and the Twitter feed.
And now, on to the randomness!
- Who are the most violent people in the world? The answer might surprise you.
- That being said, the next time someone tells me that video games make people violent, I’d like to remind them about the other violent pastime our country actually ENCOURAGES.
- Does writing make you smarter? Yes. Does writing by hand with pen and paper, old school gangsta style, make you even SMARTER? Oh yes. Told you so!
- How bad is Palin’s new movie? Only three people went to the premier in Orange County. And they were reporters who HAD to be there.
- Just in time for the final installment of Harry Potter, here are a few alcoholic drinks you can make at home. I’m actually curious about the butter beer…
- A friend of mine got this security question… How the hell do you answer that?!
- Herman Cain, a man who has whined about race more times than anyone in recent memory, now claims it should be legal to ban mosques from being built. His rationale? Islam combines government and religion and is therefore illegal. By that reasoning, his party’s insistence on combining the Bible of law would make THEM illegal.
- Speaking of Islam, here is a wonderful example of how you DON’T champion women’s rights or fight for equality. First, you need to make sure you understand what you’re fighting against. Trust me. It’s a wonderful little read.
- I’ve been waiting for a new Red Hot Chili Peppers album… and here’s the first song! And contrary to what a friend believes, I think they sound just as good now as they did back in their druggie days.
- The Thing stands as one of the great horror films of the 80′s a truly disturbing movie where anyone could be the enemy. The paranoia made it awesome. That being said, and given my caution when it comes to sequels or remakes of classic works, I’m actually a little optimistic about the prequel, strangely also titled The Thing. Here’s the first trailer, and let’s hope it doesn’t suck.
- Rebecca Black is coming back. And I think I just gave them a slogan. D’oh!
- The new photos from the reboot of Spiderman have me thinking that they might actually know what they’re doing. Spidey looks, well, like he does in the comic. The costume changes are odd, but at least they have web shooters!
- And finally… some of you already saw this, but here’s the official, cleaned-up version of the first teaser for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises. Please, dear gods of the four winds, do not let this get threequel rot. I will hunt people down with a fork.
Jun 272011
Next up we'll have a Dalek barbershop quartet.
June 27, 2011
Well, I called it.
We now have fully synthetic pop stars, and not just virtual copies of anime or video game characters. I’m talking full-blown people.
Japan actually had a completely virtual pop star for about a month until her digital identity was revealed this week.
Eguchi Aimi was the latest member of Japan’s AKB48, an all-girl group that consists of several different teams of performers. She was featured in a commercial, a magazine spread, and was listed on the group’s website. For all intents and purpose, she seemed to be a real person.
Then we find out that she’s actually a composite, which really begs the question…
Japan, this group had sixty-plus members, all attractive young women who were willing to work and perform. Did you really need a completely virtual singer?
I’ll give the management credit. The fact that people were even debating whether Aimi was real or not speaks volumes to the level of detail put into her design. Furthermore, the stills, while looking Photoshopped, are nevertheless quite impressive. She sings, she takes photos, and she’ll never ask for a raise. She’s the perfect client for her creators.
Fame by ~ShimmiChan on deviantART
Of course, this doesn’t answer the question of why anyone would even make her. It’s not like they have a shortage of starlets. In fact, Aimi is a composite of other members of the group. This could easily be a test of the new technology, a stunt to show everyone just how far the programming and hardware can go.
Me? I’m terrified. Management managed to pass off this construct as a real person for a respectable amount of time, and given a year or two, the technology might easily be good enough to do away with the tiny imperfections that tipped off some fans. Think about it. Any recording company with sufficient money will be able to make pop stars on demand.
Combine that with this little study that shows there is a scientific basis for what we consider to be “catchy,” that we might be able to scientifically determine if a song will be a hit in the next few years, and we have everything we need for companies to start churning out Justin Beibers, Lady Gagas, and Rebecca Blacks. Given how Facebook and Google can target ads based on your likes, this will make it so much easier to target specific demographics.
Skynet Nokia parody by ~paulelder on deviantART
Do you think the Grammys will give the award to the programmer or the virtual person?
And if you don’t think a company will invest some money in a pop star that doesn’t eat, drink, sleep, and will do anything and everything without complaining or going on a cocaine binge…
Hi. Welcome to America. Land of the free. Home of the Whopper.
Commercialism. by *WhatIfItAllWouldEnd on deviantART
Let’s get the links out there.
- Old Kirk versus New Kirk. Place your bets.
- It looks like Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero is going to be a miniseries for HBO. I have fond memories of that album. I used to listen to it as I walked around the Capitol on my lunch break. The dissonance was amazing for clearing my head.
- A woman chased some shoplifters out of Wal-Mart when security didn’t do its job. She was almost killed. Dumb move? Yes. Brave? Certainly. Would Wal-Mart risk its life to save her the fifty bucks or so the shoplifters took. Not in your life.
- When the state of New York legalized gay marriage, the Empire State Building decided to come out, too.
- Evanescence is coming out with a new album. Without sounding too hipster, I remember hearing them before they got big. Their REALLY early stuff (the albums you can only find on eBay now) is really haunting and a lot more personal, but I’m looking forward to this new one.
- We’ve got the first official pictures from the set of The Hobbit. Squee!
- This is THE most British headline EVER.
- Want to go on a diet but love Mexican food? Here are some tips.
- And finally, seeing as how I ripped the Miss Universe contestants for not understanding basic scientific vocabulary, someone was kind enough to further show how dumb their arguments were by replacing one little word in some of the responses. Enjoy, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.
Jun 172011
Not shown? The smug contempt he holds for you and your kind...
June 17, 2011
I’m going to nip this in the bud right now.
Rick Perry is a moron and if he does run for President, I want the rest of the country to be ready. There are far crazier people, like Bachmann and Kane, and there may be dumber, such as Gingritch, but Perry has something the others don’t have.
A chance.
He has a lot of cred with right-wingers, and he has the backing of a lot of groups like the NRA. The Tea Party loves him. And let’s not forget that he’s actually more eloquent than the last yahoo from this state that ran for president. Before we even get to the primaries, before the ads run, and before people start wondering “Who is Rick Perry?” allow me to fill in the gaps for you, dear reader, and save you some trouble. And as you read these and think to yourself, “NO one could be THAT dense,” remember that Perry also once claimed that Juarez, Mexico was the most dangerous city in America.
At least he didn’t wave at Stevie Wonder.
Wing and a Prayer by ~AreliasPretties on deviantART
Prayer: It’s Good for Ya
Perry’s stance on a lot of things boil down to one word: prayer. Yes, everything from rain to protection from terrorists requires nothing more than getting down and praying to Pops, Junior, and Spooky. Don’t believe me?
The man pushed a declaration asking Texans to pray for rain.
He didn’t ask for plans for irrigation and water storage systems. He didn’t offer aid to the people struck by this. He didn’t even pitch the idea of a PSA to let people know of things they could do to help conserve water. The man asked his state to pray.
Now, I’m no scientist, but I live here, and I can tell you that it hasn’t rained in a LONG time. We’re dryer than a Hemingway story over here. We’re getting lakes catching on fire, and Perry thinks God will come down and bring water from heaven.
Shouldn’t God be doing this without so much prompting? I mean, it IS His creation? I know if my manuscript caught fire, I’d put it out.
Then again, Perry did invite the other 49 governors to join him to fast and pray for our nation to help combat things like terrorism. Five guesses how that went.
Maybe he needs to get a new long-distance plan, ‘cause Texas might be roaming.
The Great State of TEXAS by ~bushassassin on deviantART
Git Back, Varmin’!
Rick Perry jogs and, as the governor of one of the most armed states in the Union, he has a full security detail. Let me repeat that: our governor has a fully armed and trained security team with him when he goes out.
Which explains, I guess, why the governor felt it was necessary to shoot a coyote he found while on a jog.
The story goes that Perry saw said coyote and it approached him. It threatened his dog, so the governor, in accordance with Texas law, took out a .38 pistol and shot the coyote dead.
Sounds like a great case for being able to carry a gun, huh?
Except that’s not quite the whole story. According to Perry, he CHARGED the coyote after it had stopped with a verbal threat. The animal was already stopped in its tracks. All Perry and the team and his dog had to do was go in a different direction. Did Perry do that? Nope. He shot an animal and killed it. And where did this take place?
In a hilly suburban area of Austin. The man pulled out a laser-mounted gun and killed a wild animal like he was Allan Fraking Quatermain. That wasn’t approaching him.
Oh, did I mention he was given a special “coyote pistol” by the manufacturer? Yeah, they engraved it and everything.
Hypocrite by ~LifeLookedEasyOnTV on deviantART
Let My Funding Go!
We’ve already established that Perry is a man of God, a man of Faith, but did you know he is also a man who understands the nuances of economics and basic morality? It’s true! A few years ago, Perry made the bold claim that if the federal government didn’t stop trying to force these draconian programs, like much-needed health-care reform, he and his state would secede!
That’s right. A sitting United States governor openly threatened to leave the Union. I’ve already put my two cents in on the whole “We have the right to leave” business, but I think none other than the king of liberal snark, Keith Olbermann himself, put it best when it came to Perry’s threat.
With that being said, it’s quite shocking, then, that Perry recently asked for government aid when wildfires burned through the state. I guess government is evil and oppressive… until you actually need something from it. Then you’re entitled to it. Which is why he just had to bash the stimulus as unethical two years ago and why he had to nevertheless take billions in federal funds to plug our state’s deficit…
Yeah, that’s right. Publicly, Perry called the stimulus everything from Big Brother to the devil’s wang in our state’s bung-hole. But when it came time to check the books, he took the money anyway. Why? Well, we needed it! It’s not unethical if you really need it right? Unlike those freeloading welfare families.
Which brings us to Perry’s greatest moment…
Welfare hall by ~RadGurlToTheRescue on deviantART
It Builds Character, Dammit!
The recession was caused by a number of factors such as the housing bubble and the banks taking far too many risks with no regulation to keep them in check. It’s a bit complex, but two years down the road, we can look back and see where the country went wrong. For Rick Perry, though, it’s much simpler than that.
God did it.
See, God wants us to be more self-sufficient, to go back to Biblical economics. I guess Perry forgot all the slavery and buying and selling people thing in the Bible, too, but that’s beside the point. Perry believes that the government should do nothing, that we have to fend for ourselves, and this is a lesson from the Almighty.
Coupled with the fact that he actively bashes welfare programs that could help women and children while he takes billions of dollars to plug a deficit he helped create, this only leads to one conclusion.
Rick Perry thinks he’s a messenger of God.
He has to be. It’s the only rationale for why he would be above the rules set for the rest of us. I had to borrow money from the government to go to college, and now I’m paying it off, but in Perry’s world, that makes me a slave. I have friends who have to use food stamps to feed their children. Obviously, keeping their children healthy and fed makes them evil.
But not Perry.
He can shoot animals in residential areas, and instruct people to refuse government aid while he instructs people to be religious and refuse said money themselves.
Even though his numbers are low in Texas, he’s pretty popular with the Tea Party and many Right-Wingers. And we all remember what happened last time a religious fanatic from Texas got into a position of power, right? I’m just trying to warn everyone. I don’t think he’d win, but then again, I didn’t think the leader of the free world would almost be assassinated by a pretzel.
Republican America by ~Innove on deviantART
Let’s go the links before I fully recall the fact that this man runs my state.
- Allow me to write a sentence that may be great or terrible news. Russell Crowe IS Jor-El of Krypton.
- Despite being one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of tech and medicine, it seems that HUNDREDS of counties are reporting a drop in female lifespans.
- Vancouver loses the cup and THIS happens?! Sheesh, people, it’s not like they announced George Lucas was going to “remaster” Kids in the Hall or anything.
- Ever played ding dong ditch? You know, where you ring a doorbell, run and hide, and watch some poor sap go to the door and find no one there? Oh, good times! And as we all know, the appropriate reaction to seeing a kid pull a prank like this is a SHOTGUN BLAST TO THE BACK. I seriously hope they put this guy in the deepest, darkest hole we can find, then cover him in fire ants.
- Neil Fraking Gaiman gave a wonderful interview where he discusses his writing habits, American Gods 2, and what it feels like to be a goth icon.
- And speaking of goth, this live-action fan trailer for the new Alice game is AWESOME. Could the movie look this good and be this creepy?
- Zac Weiner finally explains why babies love peekaboo.
- I’ve read through a half dozen copies of Norton Anthologies, and I never thought there were like this. Kids these days. Stop playing Call of Duty and read a book, you young punks!
- I would have loved the Toy Story movies 100x more if Woody and Buzz really looked like this.
- And finally, we all played with toy guns and such, and I do remember it looking and feeling somewhat like this…
May 272011
Not shown? 105 degree temperature.
May 27, 2011
Okay, this is going to be brief, but I have some advice for all your writers and artists out there struggling to get the next paragraph out. I know you’re staring at the computer screen, or the easel, or something else and you think that if you stare at it hard enough, it will write itself.
Get out of the house.
This morning, Mary and I went to do a little field work. To be honest, I was getting a little burned out on Charcoal Streets. Things started to sound flat. It didn’t pop like it used to. Things just read, well, boring.
I’d wanted to go downtown and take pictures, walk through the border, and experience the sights, sounds, and smells of border culture. Three hours, one hundred degrees, and three hundred pictures later, we had some incredible shots to work with for both photomanipulation and as final works themselves.
The smells of the streets, the feeling of being utterly exhausted in the heat and still feeling accomplishment at everything we did, energized me more than I can explain. People-watching is a wonderful tool for artists, and this trip offered a lot of notes, images, and memories.
The Inspiration Stealer by ~ThatScaryThing on deviantART
We found a church that was bricked up down to the windows. The door was rusted shut and nothing, not even a sign, told us anything about it.
Another church had a beautiful metal cross… though one quarter was rusted and falling apart while the rest remained almost pristine.
Mansions and former elegant homes dot the city, and many have been turned into offices for lawyers and others. Some, however, are empty, overgrown shells that wouldn’t look out of place in a Silent Hill game.
I haven’t sweat like that in years, not since I worked door-to-door sales in a cotton uniform in the middle of July. I still feel hot despite having drunk cool water since we got back to the apartment, but I’m sure it will pass.
I’ve often said how you need to keep moving if you sit all day. I think today I met my quota for at least 30,000 words.
Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to keep drinking water until I’m at least 50% dihydrogen monoxide again. See you Monday, and keep sharing Randomology links!
- This year marks that 10th anniversary of the death of Douglas Adams. Let’s look back at what the man himself said so long ago.
- Courtesy of the awesome Wil Wheaton, here’s what Isaac Asimov thought of libraries. Now go hug your bookshelf.
- Speaking of awesome… this duck has style.
- While we’re at it, anyone want to buy the head of the patron saint of genital disease? It might make an interesting centerpiece.
- Also, speaking of things I didn’t know existed… I though kiwis were extinct! Apparently, they’re breeding more than before, although in captivity.
- Here’s a guy with WAY too much free time. You know those McBain movies on The Simpsons? Well, it seems that if you take all those early clips and put them together, you actually get a coherent plot and movie. A very short movie. But it’s a movie nonetheless.
- The Right Wing’s endless battle against reason and women takes another step forward. In Kansas, lawmakers want women to get a SEPARATE insurance for abortions. One politician even said rape was like getting a flat tire. Why not have insurance specifically for it? Of course, the common-sense response is that THAT’S WHAT NORMAL INSURANCE IS FOR. Of course, it’s just a really transparent way of making sure women can’t pay for abortions.
- And finally, there’s a FOURTH Matrix movie… but it’s a fan film that actually looks better than the official movies.
Apr 082011
She's everywhere! Make it stop!
April 8, 2011
Music’s dead.
At least, pop music is dead. I know, I know. Every generation thinks its music is crap. I’m too old if I start whining about the kids and their music and their Beibers and all that. Yes, I know that we’ve always had crappy music and the really good stuff is the stuff that gets remembered.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to dismiss the utter crap fest I’ve been hearing on the radio.
I stopped listening to the radio in about 1999, back when every other song was Backstreet Boys. I swore off radio and the closest thing I used for a while was Pandora. I really have only a cursory knowledge of popular music in the last ten years aside from what I see on TV, in movies, or happen to read about.
So, Rebecca, as a concerned artist, I want to tell you to stop.
You’re a celebrity. Congratulations. So’s Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Kim Kardashian. Nice list. They’re pretty much famous for making fools of themselves. And you’ve joined them whether you want to admit it or not.
Let’s go down the list of things done wrong, shall we?
Rebecca Black: Friday by ~mexicanpryde2000 on deviantART
Your parents paid for the music video and recording.
Someone else wrote the lyrics.
The video is just one notch above “middle school project with a camera and pirated copy of Final Cut.”
All you did was get dressed and sing. And you didn’t even do that! You got Auto-Tunned for half the song!
Look, I know Auto-Tunning is the latest, best thing to happen to people who want a music carrer. Without it, Ke$ha would be an alcoholic with a camcorder drowning in her own vomit. Even without it, she’s nothing special. You, Rebecca? You had a dream. You wanted to be famous. Did you practice singing? Train yourself in poetry and songwriting? Listen to the classics of pop music?
No. Your parents forked over $4,000 dollars to get your face plastered on a song where your own voice isn’t even heard. It’d be like me paying someone to write Charcoal Streets over a weekend, then putting my mug all over the cover.
Rebecca black by ~ItalianxGal on deviantART
Plus, the lyrics? I’d ask for my money back.
(Yeah, Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ark)
Oo-ooh-ooh, hoo yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah-ah-ah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I already have a headache. It’s the lyrical equivalent of white noise. It also proves that if you have nothing to say, say nothing at all.
7am, waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal
Gotta have my bowl? Are you smoking weed? Are you on the dope!?
Seein’ everything, the time is goin’
Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’
Yup. You’re stoned off your gourd, aren’t you, Rebecca?
Gotta get down to the bus stop
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friendsKickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?
You remind me of that scene in Knocked Up where Paul Rudd’s character gets freaked out by the number of chairs in the room. Just pick a damn seat!
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday
Gettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend
Also, people look forward to happy hour, 5 o’clock, lunch time, and the week’s episode of Criminal Minds.
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend
Okay, a few things. First of all, you’re thirteen. You’re frakking thirteen years old. What “partying” are you doing? Unless you’re snorting coke off a Justin Beiber CD or smoking that bowl from earlier, you’re not “partying.” You’re hanging out with friends at Chuck E. Cheese.
7:45, we’re drivin’ on the highway
Cruisin’ so fast, I want time to fly
Fun, fun, think about fun
Well someone’s been reading The Secret. Hey, I can think about fun all I want, but it won’t make it so. I suppose one could make the argument that by moving faster, as you suggest, you could indeed use time dilation to make time outside your vehicle move at a much slower rate… But I doubt your songwriter knows how to spell relativity.
You know what it is
I got this, you got this
My friend is by my right
I got this, you got this
Now you know it
I’m sitting in a chair. My hands touch the keyboard. My fiancé is at work. Okay, now your turn to spout out more blatantly obvious observations. Also, any point to telling us your friend is on the right? And, from a grammatical viewpoint, what is “this” you are referring to? I’m sorry I don’t speak “street.”
Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?
Wait, you’re hanging out with high schoolers? You’re what? In seventh grade? How are these friends of yours driving?! …Hold on. I thought you were already in the car. What-
It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, FridayGettin’ down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekendPartyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)
Fun, fun, fun, fun
Lookin’ forward to the weekend
Friday isn’t the weekend, Rebecca. On Friday AFTERNOON, you can start enjoying the weekend. People still work on Friday. If you’re so stressed in eight grade that you look forward to getting down on the weekend, you’re either in a very work-intensive middle school or you have no concept of what it really means to be stressed.
I’ve never seen a more blatant example of clutter in my life, too. There are words and phrases here that are just taking space. It’s like the writer simply got the beat for the song, then played Mad Libs trying to fill the void… and the void stared back and said, “Screw you.”
Friday by ~PeaceLoveMulan on deviantART
Look, these lyrics were obviously written by someone who wanted to appeal to teens who think the weekend is about partying all the time and dancing in a brightly lit room, but clubs are full of sweaty idiots who smell like Bud Light because they can’t stomach real beer. Real parties with teens typically have one idiot who brought a controlled substance.
Everyone has a dream. I have mine. You, Rebecca, obviously have yours. And I’m not being unfair by critiquing this. “But she’s just a kid,” I can hear some of my readers saying. “Leave her alone.”
No. You put this out there, you get the same amount of scrutiny the rest of us get when we put something out. I’m not about to give you a bronze medal just because you tried.
You, and Beiber, and Ke$ha, and your ilk are overproduced performers who go hyped to the top. You’re like Episode I, but more annoying because I can choose to not hear Jar Jar. I keep hearing this stupid song everywhere!
Let’s clean out those brain lobes with some linkage.
- A naked man fired an AK-47 into a SWAT robot. There is no part of that sentence that does not sound like some drunken after-party story.
- Not really an upper, but almost half of Mississippi wants to make interracial marriage illegal. Let that sink in for a moment.
- It turns out Ellen has a cameo in the latest Harry potter movie. Really!
- These tree bookshelves are not very practical, but they look pretty cool. I have too many books though. Can they come out with the sequoia book shelf?
- Could this find be the world’s oldest gay man? Maybe, maybe not, but it’s interesting to think that if he is, his culture still gave him a proper burial.
- Pi is wrong? PI IS WRONG? Yes it is.
- I know Fox is not a real news outfit, but could they have a better story than fake outrage over Crayola making more than one skin colored crayon? No, really. They actually complained about this. To paraphrase The Simpsons, they’re not racist. They just cater to racists.
- This is actually kind of neat: an iPhone app that plays specific music depending on your location at the National Mall. Of course, the downside is that you can only hear the music in DC at specific locations… But the concept of an album tied to a location is interesting. Maybe a book you can only read in certain places?
- I never really liked math, but this is the most emotional math test I’ve ever seen.
- And finally, let me leave you with two of the most awesome things in the world: classic Michael Jackson and Transformers. See you Monday!
Mar 232011
Just TRY to find anyone willing to stand in front of twenty or thirty children and speak for 8 hours a day.
March 23, 2011
Teachers have been getting a bad rap for years. I’ve already outlined how educators don’t get the kind of pay people think they do, but there’s another reason it’s easy to blame teachers for failing education and make them scapegoats for everything from union trouble to state budgets.
We’ve set up a system where teachers are unfairly judged and given expectations no person could possibly match.
Let me give you a few examples.
Police state by ~AlanCPhotography on deviantART
If police were held to the standards of teachers, we would fire them after five years if their respective districts didn’t lower crime. Fresh out of the academy, these police would be required to make sure crime dropped by significant levels. Their tools to make sure communities don’t eat each other?
Drills. They would teach people what to do in an emergency, so, when the time comes, they know a few options that are limited to standard responses. Police would not really patrol or investigate. They would go around and make sure everyone knew the drills and, if anyone didn’t, that citizen would be arrested for endangering the community.
Police would host seminars and workshops to make sure everyone knows the proper responses to fire, shootings, and car accidents and that’s it. People would complain that there are many more emergencies than these and a set of general, adaptive skills would be more beneficial than just practicing the equivalent of stage directions, but the police would have none of that.
Teachers have to teach students in order to pass mandated testing. The mandated curriculum leaves little for actual critical thinking skills, questions, or improvisation. This is what people mean when they say “teaching to the test.”
How long did you remember the information in a test after you took it?
doctor cat postcard 2 by ~dalia on deviantART
If doctors were held to the standards of teachers, every doctor would be mandated to treat twenty to forty patients a day. Doctors would have one year to make sure each patient met certain guidelines: cholesterol, body fat, and blood pressure. These doctors would have to make sure their patients all had the appropriate levels of these three things, and we would declare said patients healthy at the end of that year.
But, the doctors would cry out, these are not proper indicators of health! There are so many other variables that must be taken into consideration-
And they would be hushed because, say the hospital administrators, after that year, that patient is no longer your responsibility. These are the standards we’ll use, and you will stick to them.
The doctors would cry out that the patients have red meat, smoke, drink, and don’t exercise and only really work at health and act healthy during check-ups. And the hospital administrators would get after the doctors for the health habits of patients at home.
Teachers can teach as much as they want, give homework and encouragement, but students are ultimately responsible for studying and preparing themselves. It’s a two-way street. Teachers “give bad grades” like doctors give “negative prognoses.”
.: Segwey Army :. by *Time-Clown on deviantART
If the military were held to the same standard as teachers, they would be given a very specific timetable for all major operations. Wars would last no more than a few months and, at the end of that time, whether done or not, the military would pull out of a foreign country. All goals would have to be achieved, and if the military failed, they would be reprimanded and defunded until they got it right or were all fired and replaced with fresh new recruits.
And, in order to balance the budget, soldiers would have to buy their own ammunition. Sailors would need to purchase their own life jackets. Marines would need to buy scopes for their own sniper rifles.
Teachers face penalties if they don’t live up to expectations, but the penalties schools receive for unsatisfactory testing end up crippling the school and make it harder to teach as classes swell and funding disappears. Many educators have to buy their own supplies, out of pocket, to have a proper class.
teacher by ~drFrazer on deviantART
Am I saying teachers are not to blame for any of the educational problems in this country? Of course not. Teachers have to live up to their end of the bargain. But as we cut benefits, pay, time, and force teachers to become little more than machines to spit out test answers for students in a curriculum that bears no relation to real life, we have to ask ourselves…
If we think of teachers as nothing but babysitters, why do we heap all these duties and responsibilities on them? And if they’re not teachers, but mentors and guides, why do we make it so hard for them to do their job?
We don’t need no education by ~Silviaa92 on deviantART
Link time!
- This looks really gimmicky, but damn if I don’t want to at least try vampire wine.
- Amazingly, it looks like people are happier working in the military than working for Disney. Who knew?
- You know me. I loves me a good a drink, so here are some literary lines you can toast to.
- If you’re watching a movie, always be careful of little girls. Especially when said girls are trained assassins whose only purpose in life is to kill and main government operatives.
- Ladies and gentlemen… lesbians. That is all. You may go about your day now.
- Now, I’m not a video gamer, although I play Wii with friends once in a while, but I can’t imagine ever being so obsessed over a game that I do this and land in the hospital.
- Billy Corgan celebrated his birthday this week, so let’s go over a few things you may not have known about this musician.
- Everyone has listened to or watched the “Friday” song and music video, but guess what? As much as I hate it, there are people with even worse lyrics. Beiber and Gaga are among them.
- I’m all for gender-neutral inclusion, but you really can’t do that sort of thing with classic literature.
- It’s one thing to Photoshop an image to correct mistakes. it’s another to give the woman way more bust than she was willing to show.
- What do children think of the Lovecraft Mythos? Check out these Lovecraft-inspired children’s drawings.
- And finally, just because I really need something so utterly cute that it will make this week feel better, I give you a puppy dancing salsa. See you Friday!