jack’s musings

So I’m browsing the tubes and came across this article about some dude named Roy Den Hollander who is finally standing up for all men the the world in the world who have been brutally oppressed by women.  He’s lashing out against Columbia University, the chief prophet of male-hate, and I’m thinking, “Where can I sign up!?”  However a quick glance at the end of the article reveals this gem:

 He [Hollander] refused to give his age, claiming it would hinder his chances of picking up younger women at city nightspots.

“I’m always running into women who think I’m younger than I am, so I don’t want to disillusion them,” Hollander noted.

Wow.  It’s truly fascinating when someone arguing against another validates their opponent’s point in such an concise, impressive manner.

Thuuuuuuug life.

They apparently get tropical storm watches on lakes.

So the big news yesterday was that Ron Artest is likely heading to the Houston Rockets.  However Yao Ming decides to let fly with this gem: “Hopefully, [Artest isn’t] fighting anymore and going after a guy in the stands.”  Ok Yao, that was indavisable to do that publicly.  However what was more inavisable was Artest’s response:

I understand what Yao said, but I’m still ghetto.  That’s not going to change. I’m never going to change my culture. Yao has played with a lot of black players, but I don’t think he’s ever played with a black player that really represents his culture as much as I represent my culture. Once Yao Ming gets to know me, he’ll understand what I’m about.  If you go back to the brawl, that’s a culture issue right there.  Somebody was disrespecting me, so he’s got to understand where I’m coming from. People that know me know that Ron Artest never changed.

Not only is it pretty apparent that Artest hasn’t learned anything, he did his best to reinforce negative black stereotypes!  Let the deathwatch begin.

So let me see if I got this straight, DeAndre.  You were recently called out by a legend, you missed the point in your response, and you had the point subsequently hammered into your skull.  After all of that, you appear in the video for this horrific song?

Yikes.  You may be getting paid, but you also appear still to be killing your golden goose.

While sitting watching TV this morning in Laguna Beach, CA, (Yes, that one.) I felt a small rumble.  At first I thought it was just a truck cruising by, but after good solid jolt, I realized it was an earthquake.  Kind of a strange feeling really.  It was really more humbling than anything as I got to experience the raw power of geological forces.  But after about 5 seconds it was all over, and I don’t think any objects in the house were even disturbed.

That being said, I switched on the TV to discover that the local TV news coverage had exploded.  You would have thought we just survived a cataclysmic event.  The talking heads were flexing all of their speculation muscles as grandiose theories, stories, and assessments streamed across the airwaves.  “Survivors” from all other Southern California were interviewed,  KTLA mentioned that it had it’s reporters working “around the clock” to cover this event that happened 30 minutes prior, and  there were reports of BUILDINGS SWAYING DOWNTOWN!!! (They’re designed to do that.)  And don’t forget the damage photos:

SOME BRICKS

The Torrential Broken-Water-Main Flood of Chino

And of course the most horrific photo of all:  OHNO JUICE AND PAPER TOWELS!!!1!!!11

  I love local news.

Perhaps the most hyped movie in years was been Christopher Nolan’s second Batman movie, The Dark Knight.  Nolan’s previous entry was Batman Begins, a film which breathed new life into the quickly sinking franchise.  With that precedent, I was convinced that this movie would be groundbreaking,  joined my fellow nerd brethren, and caught a midnight showing here in Houston.  I think like most people I thought the film was absolutely incredible, but I felt there were some flaws. Don’t get me wrong, it was great, but it wasn’t the groundbreaking, landmark in American cinema that many think.  However has anyone seen the nerd rush on IMDB?  Check out the progression of IMDb ratings.

Yes, it rocketed to the #1 movie of ALL TIME in just a few days with the help of an unprecedented rush of votes.  I can’t say I agree with that rating at all, but it truly was a perfect storm situation as far as the IMDb voting system was concerned.  I mean, you had a genuinely good, hyped, comic book graphic novel movie debuting, and you just knew us nerds were going to flip out.  (I gave it an 8, for the record.)  That’s a pretty incredible rush, but check out the breakdown of the votes…

Any demographics jump out at you?  Namely the “Males” and “Males 18-29″ stats?  Nerds. Nerds. Nerds.

OR

As a regular late-night cable TV viewer, I’m often bombarded by advertisements for some of the worst products known to humanity.  One of the most common types of ads is for commemorative coins.  You know, the kind that are, “Legal tender”, “In limited production”, “Guaranteed to go up in value”, and “Strictly limited to 5 per caller.”  (Did I put my commas where they should be?) However 99.9999% of the time, all of these bills and coins are “legal tender” in places like Liberia and Panama.

One of the more hilariously awful products I’ve seen ads for lately is the “9/11 Twenty Dollar Bill.”  At first glance I said to myself, “Look Jack!  You can finally purchase the insurmountably classy September 11 commemorative item you’ve been so desperately looking for!”  And who could blame me!  Not only is the bill legal tender Liberia, it’s struck with .999 pure silver leaf!  (AKA, decorative metal sheeting.)   The 9 and 11 denominations on the back of the bill “add up” to its face value of $20 Liberian, and it’s available for a limited time at the face value of $20 USD!

However hopefully everyone will immediately notice that the bill is valued in Liberian dollars instead of American dollars.  Furthermore, a quick currency conversion will reveal that twenty Liberian dollars is equivalent to 32 American cents.  (At least as of today.) So basically, you’re spending 20 bucks for a piece of silver tinfoil that has a face value of 32 cents.

If you’ve purchased this horrifically tacky, insensitive, colossal scam of a product, you should probably just go ahead and give all of your money to me as you clearly have no grasp on reality.  No wonder this country is so hopelessly in debt.

Mmmm…disturbing.

Most people appear to have a love/hate relationship with electronic music.  We’re bombarded with it with our jock jams and advertising, and for the uninitiated, the genre is at best a novelty generated by geeks with computers and not a viable musical art form.  I occasionally still hear complaints like “Techno sux,” but electronic music has evolved far beyond it’s clubby beginnings.  While electronic music has been around since the days of Kraftwerk, it really began to take off in the mid 1990s as a marketable force. People were finally starting to take notice of this unexplored genre, and it looked like the music was finally going to get some of the credit it needed.

However there was a problem, popular artists like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers were largely seen as just a novelty. Pioneers were largely left in obscurity in the United States, and the genre’s only popular representation was heavy beat club jams that immediately appealed only to a niche market.  There was no depth, little technical prowess, and above all a bleak future.  The wide assumption was that this burgeoning genre consisted only of artists chugging out throbbing dance songs with a sterile, factory-like regularity, and for the most part, this stereotype was correct.  Worse still, the scene was largely viewed as a haven for drug abusers.  However in 1997, this would all start to change through the efforts of Parisians Guy-Manuel de Homen Christo and Thomas Bangalter.

Daft Punk’s 1997 release Homework came at a time when a great change was needed in the genre if it were to survive, and Homework showed that there was more to this electronic music fad than just vapid club jams.  The first track “Revolution 909″ was designed as a response to the French government’s fearful view of electronic music at the time, and the album only got better from there.  There certainly were heavy influences from the house and club scenes at the time, but there was a certain flair, artistic arrangement, and technical prowess that had been absent in previous popular electronic albums.  (The album also spawned my favorite music video of all time.)  Today, the music may sound dated, but the album served as a critical turning point in electronic music.  While many casual Daft Punk fans will argue that their 2001 release Discovery was better and more accessible, Homework provided the foundation on which Discovery and much of the current electronic musicians today stand.  Additionally, while there are many different sub-genres of electronic music that are quite different than Daft Punk, Homework gave them all the opportunity to earn the respect they deserved.