GOD! GIRLS! GUNS! PIE!

In Honor of Veteran's Day/Remembrance Day

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:11:51 GMT

Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

(via mavx )

It's somehow even better than this article.

And of course:

You May Inadvertently Trigger an Interstellar War

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:32:16 GMT

This was going to be a post about my roadtrip to Nevada, with an aside about how I was disappointed about how the landscape around Area 51 looked completely different than it does in one of my all-time favorite movies, Independence Day.

Movie vs Real. Maybe they would have had trouble driving over all of those shrubs and things.

But then I decided to make the whole post about Independence Day instead.

Independence Day is either one of the last, or the last, of the self-confident American blockbusters. I am trying to think of one that was produced after this, but I can't. It probably has to do with appealing to international audiences or something, but it sucks.The fact that the writer/director, Roland Emmerich, went on to make The Day After Tomorrow says a lot about the evolution of Hollywood ideas.

But even leaving that fact aside, this movie is a forgotten nerd goldmine. I know because I have shown it many times to fellow nerds, who remember it only vaguely as a mid-nineties blockbuster, and who then react with delight as they realize how many obscure sci-fi actors the movie features. Obviously, there is Jeff Goldblum in the unique role of The Anti-Technology Scientist Who Nobody Listens To. But there's also President Roslyn, Jayne from Firefly, and BRENT SPINER. And that's just half of them!

Plus, it has a scene where Will Smith punches an alien in the face, knocking it out, and says "Welcome to Earth."

Flightsuits: Making even Jeff Goldblum look cool since 1941.

A side effect of watching the movie this many times is that you start to think too deeply about a plotline that was obviously designed for audiences to watch only once while being distracted by the cool explosions and stuff. For example, the director uses the same plot technique as he does in The Day After Tomorrow, which is to humanize a large-scale disaster by focusing on the relationships of a small number of characters introduced beforehand. Unfortunately, much like in the original Battlestar Galactica, this ends up making a number of the characters look like unfeeling sociopaths.

For example. The president's adviser hangs up on Jeff Goldblum when he tells her that the invading aliens are going to blow up America's major cities, forcing him to drive from New York City to Washington DC to tell her in person. By the time she and the president realize he's right, they only have 30 minutes to act, rather than half a day. And yet, despite being directly responsible for the deaths of literally millions of innocent people, the adviser spends the rest of the movie angsting over her past relationship with Jeff Goldblum, and trying to decide whether they should get back together.

On the other hand, since it's never revealed what political party she and the President are a part of, maybe it was in her interest if America's large coastal cities were destroyed, if you know what I mean.

In another scene, one of the main characters is trapped in a tunnel full of people running from an fiery explosion. She finds a maintenance cupboard, which in movie-land (where fire doesn't need oxygen or produce any ambient heat) can shield her from the inferno. Despite all the extras (which include children) running from a horrible death in front of her, the woman calls to her dog, who jumps into the maintenance cupboard at the last minute and avoids the horrible death of all the innocent humans around him. Phew!

And yet. For what it is, it's a perfect movie. What movies these days actually have a scene where a pilot's best friend blows up to the sound of him screaming "Jimmy! JIMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"? Or images of Israelis and Palestinians cooperating together against an alien threat? WHAT MOVIES HAVE BRENT SPINER?

Brent Spiner! Jayne! Some guy!

Also, despite the fact that Jeff Goldblum's character is an environmentalist, there is not a single moment of "HEY MAYBE WE DESERVE THIS" in this movie. Which is good. Because the "OMG WHO ARE THE REAL MONSTERS" was deep when it was done in 1968 in Night of the Living Dead, guys. Now it's just dull. Yeah, that means you as well, Later Seasons Of Battlestar Galactica.

An interesting fact about the movie: Despite being happy about the movie portraying the military in a positive light, the US military apparently would not advise the movie unless all mentions of Area 51 were removed. The people making the movie said that this was impossible, as the plot revolved around Area 51, so the military didn't advise Independence Day. Which might explain why it has stuff like a Navy Admiral commanding a random submarine. Or might not. I don't know.

Fun fact number two: Although one of the characters looks at a map of Nevada and says that there's no Air Force base in the area, Area 51 is actually right next to an Air Force base! Your map-reading skills failed, silly drunken man!

Anyway, I give this movie four stars, because it has Brent Spiner.

IDF MONDAY: SPECIAL EDITION

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:17:10 GMT

Still limited internet time around here

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:55:49 GMT

So for now, here's a picture of WWII Italian resistance fighters, sent in by a kindly commenter!

IDF MONDAY

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:59:04 GMT

It's a late night edition, but boy do I have an excuse. Let's just say I have now driven across more of the Nevada desert than most Americans ever will.

Because most Americans are sensible.

Back in America

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:36:02 GMT

For good this time! In fact, I'm pretty much unable to leave the US at all right now, so nobody do anything interesting in another country for the next year or so.

It's still all sinking in, really.

I will probably be sparse for the next week or so because I'm traveling. With the exception of possibly posting sparkly American-themed blingees.

IDF MONDAY

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:10:21 GMT

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Maybe this means that reality TV is good for you

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:47:00 GMT

There have been all these studies on the effects of violence on television, but I have never heard of any interest in the effects of other TV characteristics. Like the underappreciated TV trope that I was talking about in a previous entry that I can't find now, in which any character who expresses joy or hope at an upcoming event is immediately punished by a cruel television god because it's more tragic and dramatic that way.

If a person gets a large amount of their widespread social interaction/instruction from television and movies, does this have any influence on them? Like, if a television character is shown gushing about her upcoming perfect wedding, how often is it that the wedding will actually go off without a hitch? And how many fictional weddings does the average person see on TV, compared with the number of weddings they experience and attend in real life?

It is a bit like the long-running joke me and some friends have about how dudes stationed in the Middle East are forbidden to ever talk about their fiancées or to show anyone pictures of them, because anyone who does this will immediately get tragically killed.

And I wonder if there is like, a widespread-but-silent psychological phenomenon of police officers developing low-level anxiety disorders in the weeks leading up to their retirement.

IDF MONDAY

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:04:49 GMT

Free Website Idea

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:56:40 GMT

HousesThatLookLikeVampires.com

New Cracked article!

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:13:08 GMT

5 Myths That People Don't Realize Are Admitted Hoaxes.

Please digg! I'm actually kind of proud of this one, because it's the first Cracked thing I've done that doesn't feature extensive gay jokes or crude references to genitalia.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

ETA: Front page of digg! Yay! And yes, that Jesus one totally deserves to beat me.

Why can’t I stop watching Mad Men?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:24:35 GMT

Nothing ever happens on the show! Nothing! But I can't stop!

I don’t get people who watch it and then make comments like "Oh, it was so horrible/weird/wonderful/whatever back then!" or the like. Um, it’s a drama show, not a hidden camera documentary, people. I mean, imagine humankind in 50 years watching Grey’s Anatomy and taking that as a snapshot of what life was like in whatever this decade is called. "Wow, everyone sure was skinny and culturally harmonious! And they sure did sleep with a lot of people at work!" And that show was made without a 50-year gap.

Anyway. I know the internet is in love with Christina Hendricks*, but come on:

By far the hottest chick on the show.

* Although, one of my favorite bits so far is that really subtle scene where Joan goes home and starts rubbing at the spot on her skin where her bra strap was. I admire a TV show that can show so much in so little.

You mean the movie LIED?

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:35:17 GMT

So, I didn't actually hang around waiting for the antibiotics on Saturday. Not long after I posted I decided to be proactive about the whole thing and walk across to the emergency room (there's a hospital opposite my place, which is convenient.) They took a look at me and admitted me on the spot. I learned a few things from my hospital experience:

- Morphine actually isn't cool. I guess I assumed that because I'd heard of so many morphine addicts, being on morphine would be awesome. Actually it's not; I felt really creepy and disconnected from my body, and I kept thinking I was a different person. Like, I'd think I was a different person that I knew, and start thinking about all their problems and making plans and stuff, and occasionally my brain would go "Wait! You know you're not actually that person, right?" but it doesn't work. And now I write this all down, it seems kind of cool, but it really wasn't.
- Having watched several medical dramas about doctors in hospitals, I assumed that doctors in hospitals walked around examining their patients and paying attention to them and giving them careful diagnoses and stuff. This is in fact not the case. In fact, 23.9 hours a day patients in hospitals are taken care of by nurses. The nurses ask the patient all the questions and give them medication in response. They write up the patient's condition and medications in huge charts, which the doctors eventally come round to collect, skim, and ignore.
- For example, when the doctor came to visit me, there were about three nurses hanging around telling him that I had been throwing up and was still sick with a bad reaction to something and shouldn't be discharged. He asked if I wanted to go home, and I said I did. The doctor told the nurses to discharge me. As they were preparing to do the wheel-you-out-of-the-hospital thing I threw up again, and the nurse with me begged me to stay a bit longer because she was worried about me. They lost the discharge papers and put me back on an IV, which was good of them because I kept throwing up for about 10 more hours before I suddenly got better.
- The doctor also told me not to take any antibiotics when I went home because he'd dealt with the infection. The home nurse came around yesterday, examined me (the doctor hadn't), said there was still a mild infection and that I should be on antibiotics. Now I have to go back to another doctor and pay another fee so that she can prescribe me some.
- This whole doctor situation might be entirely different in America, where most of the medical dramas I've seen are from. I sure hope it is, because I am moving there soon.
- I have been using a private hospital and doctors, so I have pretty much zero savings left for after I move. But on the plus side, I don't have MRSA, and I don't live in Canada. (Sorry, Canadians.)
- Speaking of bashing foreigners, my dad was telling me he was glad I hadn't gone to the closest public hospital, because he'd been there recently, and it was so awful "it almost looked like one of those English hospitals!"
- And speaking of nurses, there's a profession that makes you feel like an awful person. Dealing with the bodily fluids of a bunch of ungrateful miserable sick people and being totally friendly and cheerful while doing so? And meanwhile I get mad when my kitty pees on something.

Anyway, all of that is pretty much inconsequential, because I JUST GOT MY VISA. YAY. DRINKS AND AMERICAN FLAG PIE ALL AROUND.

SPN 5.05

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:47:46 GMT

Okay, I got almost halfway through the most recent episode of Supernatural and then I had to turn it off. Without being spoilery, can someone who has seen the episode tell me if the wax museum plot continues? Because I have wax model phobia. Yes, I wish I was joking. And I think the phobia was made a lot worse from watching that other wax museum movie with the same two actors. I was really sick when I watched it and the gore almost made me black out*. Now I associate feeling nauseous with wax museums. As if they are not totally sick and gross enough already.

I guess I'm asking would you recommend the last half of this episode to someone who has wax model phobia?

*it was the Paris Hilton death scene. You know, the one everyone else on the planet watched for laughs. I will never be a hardcore horror-watching person now.

IDF MONDAY

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:11:37 GMT

Because it's still Monday somewhere in the world.

If anyone here is the prayin' type

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:01:01 GMT

Because I'm sure most of you are in better standing with God than I am :) Would you mind saying a quick prayer that these antibiotics kick in within the next 18 hours or so so that I don't have to go to hospital? It's only a minor procedure I'm facing and I'm not in any real danger healthwise, but it could be a physical and financial inconvenience I really don't need right at this moment.

Thanks! In return, I give you a right-wing kitty:

(yes, she dragged those books off the shelf herself)

Yeah, from the old school

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:50:17 GMT

There is an antique store in Seattle that sells vintage magazines for around $5-11, depending not so much on how old or rare they are as how much porn is inside. Don't ask me, I'm not a Seattle antique person. Anyway, I decided this was the best thing ever, but luckily I didn't have too much cash on me, so I only bought a couple:

This one was, as promised, full of girly romance stories of about Twilight-level explicitness. But that's actually exactly my thing, so now I think I am going to blow several thousands of dollars tracking down as many of these as possible. The advertisements were really interesting, as well. Especially explaining to my male companion what a 'sanitary belt' was (luckily I am young enough to never have had to use one of these, but not so young that I don't remember reading about them.) There was also a lot of shapewear, an area in which Western society definitely seems to have regressed. Apparently we can invent the internet but we can't make shapewear anymore that doesn't suck.

I also got another magazine from the early 60's, which was more 'current events' oriented and which I can't scan the cover of because it was so awesome we tore it up and framed it and put it on the wall. Just take my word that it was awesome. Among the stuff inside:

Why aren't fugitives this interesting anymore? "Fond of roller skating, Chinese checkers, small kittens"? "Talkative cowboy travelling with 11 year old son"? Before reading this, if I had come across any of these people appearing as characters in a crime novel, I'd have thought the writer was a hack. But apparently they were real! Do we just write less interesting things about our criminals these days, or are they really just more boring?

They also had a "Why Don't They" section in which people sent in suggestions for things which should be invented.

Mrs. Frank A. Bogard can be glad that her prescient dream finally came true! I'm sure she is a multi-millionaire by now. Maybe she can take a holiday to Cuba!

I wrote to the Miami address and requested a sightseeing tour, but for some reason they haven't got back to me yet.

IDF MONDAY

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:27:29 GMT

And there's no possible way to segue into this, but to save myself posting twice...

sephira's wacky first-time experience with creepy sleep paralysis

Sometime very early this morning I found myself awake and lying on my back. I think a noise from downstairs had woken me up, and I remember being slightly frightened, because I was alone in the apartment. I slowly became aware that I could hear a faint conversation between a man and a woman to the left of me - it sounded like it was coming from a very quiet radio from beside the bed. Somehow, the male voice slowly turned into a definitely-malevolent presence also to the left of me. The woman (who unlike the evil presence, I could ‘see’ quite clearly at my bedside) started telling me that I was 'susceptible' to this and that if I spoke out loud or opened my eyes, the presence would go away.

I responded (with far more insouciance than I would have given myself credit for) that I would simply keep my eyes open. But eventually I couldn't; they kept closing. At first the presence would immediately disappear when I opened my eyes. But when I could barely open my eyes it kind of stayed there even when I forced them open. It looked like a dark shadow. Obviously I can't really explain how, but I knew that it was evil and not human (ie, not a ghost) and that it meant to do me great harm.

Then the covers started lifting off the bed, from the lefthand side where the presence was. When I managed to open my eyes again the covers were hanging suspended vertically in the air above me. Which, understandably, kind of freaked me out. I was still pretty much paralyzed at this point. At one stage I managed to reach out to try to turn on the light but it didn’t work; nothing happened. For some reason I felt compelled to pray. I couldn’t think of any my 'own' prayers so I kept saying the Lord’s prayer and also Philipians 4:13 (I don't know why this particular verse came to mind.)

Eventually I ‘woke up’ for real (I can’t really remember the exact sequence of some of this) and the covers were still on me and the lamp that I’d ‘reached for’ was actually on the other side of the bed.

When I got up I googled 'sleep paralysis', which I'd only really heard of in the context of alien abduction before. (I wrote down all this stuff beforehand, so my memories wouldn’t be retroactively influenced by the other stories.) Apparently a lot of what happened is quite common (a shadowy presence off to one side, compulsion to pray, etc). But on the other hand, being able to move my arm enough to try to turn on a light seems to be out of the ordinary. The prayer thing was the oddest part about it for me: if something like that had happened in real life, I would have assumed I'd be in a total blind panic. But although I was terrified, it was like my brain knew exactly what to do and didn’t consider another option. Weird. I'm not really sure what to make of all this, to be honest. I mean, was it a manifestation of some sort of spiritual battle? Or just a result of drinking Galliano and listening to creepy christmas carols before going to bed?

The most relevant and informative thing you'll read this week.

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 23:51:26 GMT

I do a guest review of some special Twilight merchandise over here.

This is weird.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:03:39 GMT

It's become apparent that someone made a deal with God on my behalf (or maybe I did it when I was drunk) that I would get this television show designed entirely for me that is delivered to my house every week. I should be really happy about it all, but I'm actually kind of creeped out, and a bit intimidated.

On a tangential note, here is a great visual demonstration of how horror movie writers get around the 'everyone has a cell phone' problem.

ETA: SPN spoilers in teh comments.

Eat blackberries today! Your God commands it!

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:13:37 GMT

Oh Catholicism. How could I stay mad at you?

Young ladies with guns!

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:56:12 GMT

SPN 5.03

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:41:26 GMT

So in the last three episodes we've had Emily Perkins!! and the return of three major non-dead female characters; and then in the first five minutes of this episode we had Sam without his clothes on, and then a Twilight joke. OKAY, WHO HAS BEEN WRITING TO SUPERNATURAL PEOPLE ON MY BEHALF. YOU CAN ADMIT IT, I'LL EVEN GIVE YOU A PRESENT.

ETA: "That's how you become president"? Okay you people are just writing this show for me now. Thank you, God.

I was talking with a friend last week about how weird it is that TV writers have not only started acknowledging slash fans but actually also pandering to them as well, by playing up innuendo between non-canonical male pairings (as in True Blood, and the later seasons of House). At the time I said something about how Supernatural had gone the opposite route by basically saying 'fuck you' to the slashers. Now, I can see that I was wrong and they're actually doing it as well. You know what I mean. Personally, even if I was a slash fan, I would be unhappy about this. Having the writers play along takes about 90% of the fun out of it. I mean, what's the fun of making D/C jokes on Cracked if the writers are also making those jokes?

"There shall be hail and fire mixed with blood." Man, apparently the apocalypse is going on in Australia this week. I want an episode where they're researching all these apparent harbingers of doom like earthquakes and volcanoes and radioactive dust storms, and Dean is like "Wait, that's an Australian newspaper," and Sam is like "Oh," and puts it down.

I like how Dean's entire character now largely consists of "commenting humorously on how ridiculous the show's plotline has become."

So season three's "why doesn't Sam just shoot Dean with the Colt so he doesn't go to hell" has become this season's "Why doesn't Sam just stab himself with the demon-knife which seems to function in the same way as the Colt when the writer's want it to"? Or whatever. I miss the Colt. I like this new plot development, but only because it's hot.

Speaking of which, I had one of those language-anxiety dreams last night when I was teaching a bunch of Japanese schoolgirls the three rules of gun safety and I couldn't remember the word for "loaded." I still don't remember it.

Hipsters + Country

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:49:14 GMT

"A true hipster would never make a blanket statement condemning country, since they worship Johnny Cash (and increasingly also Hank Sr. and other old country artists) and love 90s and 00s alt.country."

When I was in Seattle to see Devil Makes Three at Bumbershoot, I was discussing musical tastes with an internet person I'd met up with. He hadn't heard of a single one of the bands I named, which he told me meant that I had officially out-hipstered him. This led to a conversation about how we both secretly feared being hipsters, mostly because of the amount of things we apparently did out of irony. He said "I'm pretty sure one day me and my girlfriend are going to get married and have children ironically."

I told him that I sometimes worried about the same thing. He said that by coming to America to get married, I was in fact performing a similar role to the hipster who buys a $700 album from Japan just so he can have the original copy that none of his friends have.

I guess it's not so much a fear of irony being behind so many of my decisions as a general concern about them not being my own; for example, gravitating towards 'conservative' lifestyle choices simply because my parents chose the opposite path, and it sucked for everybody. But then again, making a decision based on the fact that the opposite choice has caused those around you pain is not really mindless rebellion, it's common sense.

Also, Converse sneakers are really comfortable, dammit. Seriously.

(Tangentially, the people I saw at the Woven Hand concert in Seattle were dressed pretty much the same as people dress in Oak Harbor, except I'm pretty sure they were doing it ironically. Many of them were drinking PBR, as well. I didn't realize that that actually happened.)

Internet Advice Column #1

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:02:11 GMT

Dear Bloodslides,

I have a big problem. A little background: I am engaged to a wonderful man. (I'll call him Walter) Walter is the VP of marketing for a large regional copper recycling company. He is a dependable man with a level head and a good job. The kind of guy every girl dreams about.

The problem is (this is embarrassing), well, Walter is a meme-er. He wasn't always. When we met he didn't even like the internet. But then my mother got sick and I went and stayed with her for a couple of weeks, and Walter was alone at the house. And while I was gone he started meme-ing.

I noticed the change quickly after I got back. It started with little things, like he would say lol instead of laughing sometimes, and when I wanted to go to my friend's daughter's ballet recital the told me that his name was Chris Hanson and that I should have a seat. But it kept getting worse. He actually suggested that if we have a son we name him Richard Roll. But the straw that broke the camel's back came last night when, at the climax of a productive love-making session, he screamed out that it was "over 9000." I cried myself to sleep.

You see the situation I am in. Is it hopeless? Can a meme-er be cured? Did I lose the wonderful man I thought I loved?

Yours Truly
4chan Widow

Dear 4chan Widow,

The initial temptation here, of course, is to fight fire with fire. For example, next time you and your fiance make love and it becomes apparent that he is about to climax, you could push him away and then tell him that you are going to let him finish, but that you must tell him that his best friend is one of the best lovers of all time.

Unfortunately, this is unlikely to solve your problem, because there is a good chance that your fiance will find your clever memeage both hilarious and sexy, and possibly even take it to be the start of a meme war. The sad fact is that this problem that is unlikely to get better. The very things that you like about your fiance (his thoughtfulness, intelligence and dependability) are the same things that make him susceptible to internet humor infestation. The higher many men are in verbal intelligence, the more likely they are to assume that all women are amused by inappropriately-timed internet quotes. They are also more likely to try to convert you to atheism. Nobody knows why.

I am afraid that the only way to solve this problem is to end the relationship with your fiance. In future, try to only date men to whom internet access is largely restricted. This could be done by finding a social circle of people who are functionally illiterate, or perhaps moving to Iran.

Until next time,

bloodslides