Brian Evol's Thought Crimes

Nothing better to do?

2013-09-06T12:38:00.002-07:00

Ten years later I get harassed by some dipshit with nothing better to do in his life than look up people he had a problem with once?

I'm not so much offended as I am flabbergasted by how incredibly pathetic it is. I don't even remember the kid's real name.

Some people never grow up and move on, I guess. Poor guy.

Ex-Girlfriends

2012-08-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

Ex-girlfriends. We all have them, but some are crazier than others. This week I’m going to recount the tale of two especially crazy ones from my past. The reason I do this is that you can’t make shit up this good. I also don’t know why I ever put up with this, but I did. The following is based on 100% authentic and true events. Names have been changed to protect those that are crazier than a shithouse rat.

First off, there was “Tandi.” She believed that everytime you said the word “faggot” or used “gay” in a derogatory manner that somewhere, a gay person would feel it and be ashamed of being gay and/or a hate crime would happen.

She insisted that supporting Microsoft was wrong because Bill Gates uses the money to support anti-gay agendas and that is why she only buys Apple products since Steve Jobs is a closet homosexual who doesn’t come out because Apple stocks would drop.

She also recounted the tales of how she used to be a heroin addict, was once molested by the cops, kicked her drug habit, relapsed and sold her mother’s wedding ring, and then got clean again. All before the age of 17 while living in a miniscule tiny town in backwoods Utah. She also claimed relation to Steve Martin.

"I LOVE heroin!"

After our relationship ended she told me that she had a brain tumor and that she would likely die within 12 months. Obviously, that never happened.

Then there was “Tara.” The first warning sign to me was the day we were chatting on the phone, I was playing Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and pretending to listen as she blathered on about being bipolar. This was pretty much the norm. “Vampires, metal, blood, blahblahblahblahblah.” While I beat Soul Reaver again.

Until the fateful night that she calmly explained to me, in that glossy-eyed lunatic voice where you know the person believes it, that at birth her FANGS were filed down. Furthermore, that it is a common practice for doctor’s to file down excessively large canines on babies. She went on to explain that when she drinks blood, her own being the only source available, she feels healthier and more revitalized.

Okay, whatever. I’ll roll with this. Dating someone crazy makes it wild and exciting or something I guess. So, I’ll continue to put up with this and let her be my special lady. My special crazy lady.

Not long after the “I’m a vampire” plot twist, the other shoe dropped. Once again, the authentic “I believe every word of this” voice came out of her fangless hole to tell me that she could make it rain whenever she wanted it to. Seriously. She said that the weather reflected her mood, when she was happy it was cloudy out (vampires hate the sun, dummy), and when upset it rained. If she felt like rain she just concentrated and it happened. Why she wasn’t working as a meteorologist, the world may never know.

I worked hard on this image.

How was this amazing feat possible? Are these new and unknown vampire powers even gayer than anything Stephanie Meyer could create? Don’t be absurd. Obviously, she’s part fairy. (I’d like to remind you that this took place before the rise of True Blood.) You see, fairies, or fae people, live amongst us like normal people now, but their bloodline sometimes causes certain powers to manifest. Her parents were good at predicting things, but Tara was able to alter the weather as well as read minds. Amazingly, as she told me this she said “I know that you’re thinking I’m crazy right now.” Astonishing! How could she possibly even know that unless it was true?

I asked the obvious question anyone else would when confronted by this situation.

“Does being a vampire conflict with your fairy instincts?”

She explained that the thirst for blood is really just a thirst for LIFE, which is what fairies love anyway. Nature and life and shit.

Shortly after, I calmly explained to her in my “I believe this” voice that we weren’t meant for each other. “Things aren’t working out between us, you’re obviously crazy and I’m pretty much not so I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

That’s it for this week, short and sweet. Next week’s blog is about children (not in a gross way)!

Literature, Twilight and Loving Books

2012-08-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

I’ve come to the realization that my life will never be fulfilled so long as I have not published a book. I think about it everyday. Walking into a bookstore and seeing it there. To be a producer of the magical tomes of entertainment and wisdom that have filled my life with joy since I was a kid.

When I was six years old my teachers told my mother that I was retarded (Okay, not REALLY, but they said I had difficulty reading), little did they know I’d read the newspaper at home and beg to stay up late, not to watch TV or play with toys, but to read books.

It started with shark books, dinosaur books, and my late father’s collection of National Geographic magazines. I can still recall him reading to me from a book of legends and unexplained phenomena. Ghosts, Spring-Heeled Jack, UFOs. It gave me nightmares and I loved it. It eventually progressed to the world of fiction. I would sit with my mom and watch the Stephen King made for TV movies on ABC. Tommyknockers, The Stand, IT, The Langoliers. All of’em. (Yes IT traumatized me, all clowns must die and cannot be trusted. Also, don’t walk anywhere near a storm drain.) I loved them so much that at about ten or so my mother signed me up for the Stephen King book club. I tried to read the first book that arrived, the massive Insomnia, but I was 10 and it was a bit much for me. I did pick up and do well with Nightmares & Dreamscapes, a collection of short stories, which is easily the genre King excels at.

Fast forward a year or two and my sister’s boyfriend lets me play DOOM on his computer. It blew me away, I got DOOM for my Playstation not long after and devoured it. I played it over and over again while listening to Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson and White Zombie in my room. It also prompted me to buy two DOOM novels based on the game, these I devoured in about a week, but in them one of the characters mentioned that the monsters, demons, and the entire situation that was happening was something out of a Lovecraft novel. Lovecraft, huh? I shall have to investigate this name. My mom purchased for me a Lovecraft collection and I was ruined. It floored me.

Over the years since then I read anything I ever wanted to, nothing was ever taboo or off limits. My southern mother’s love of books was passed on to me, along with her progressive open mindedness. I was allowed to read anything I wanted. From the books of “The Great Beast” Aleister Crowley to The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey, nothing was off limits.

It’s for this reason that I can usually appreciate something about nearly everything, but my standards for what is “literature” are a little bit high, biased and convoluted. Basically, I’ve become a jaded book snob. A semester ago on the first day of class we were asked to give our name and list our favorite book or books. A lot of Twilight and Harry Potter answers. Some of the guys answered with things like graphic novels, Watchmen, 300 and the like. I was the first, in my opinion anyway, to answer with actual literature when I said Lovecraft, Homer, and Melville.

My personal definition of literature works like this: it needs to be a text that is prolific enough in scope that the ideas embedded in the story allow it to be timeless.

Basically it works like this:

This is fucking awful.

This is not literature. In fifty years, I sincerely hope no one is reading this fucking garbage. The late Peter Steele of Type O Negative once said that “functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism.” I agree completely. What is the function of Twilight? What does it accomplish? What is the message it conveys?

Does it teach young women to fight for what they want? Well, no. Does it teach men that if they want something they should fight for it? Well, no not that either. So, what the hell is the moral of this story? If you meet a vampire let him put his sparkly weiner in you, it’ll be great?

Something else that always bugged me about the story is this, Bella is a teenage girl and this Edward vampire kid is over a hundred years old, they both look around the same age, physically. But mentally he is much older than her, he’s had plenty of time to read all the classics, visit every major museum, learn every language, study countless fields of science… why in the fuck would he have ANYTHING in common with or be able to talk about with a teenage girl? Teenagers aren’t deep, they’re retards. I’m almost thirty and if I had to carry on a conversation with a teenage girl for an hour I probably couldn’t do it. I can barely tolerate and get along with college kids in their early twenties. I can barely tolerate and get along with anyone. Let alone some expressionless mopey girl in the backwoods of Washington.

I won’t pick on Harry Potter too much, because it does actually bestow concepts like perseverance through adversity, courage and things like that. However, I do get annoyed when people act like J. K. Rowling is the greatest author in the world.

“Hogwarts! Totally original!”

Remember this guy? That's Hoggle. Back in 1986 a young Jennifer Connolly kept bungling his name. You just got it didn’t you? You remember when she called him Hogwart? Yeah, I know.

Then there’s the name for the spells… first of all, Tolkien invented A NEW LANGUAGE for his books. Rowling’s spells are mostly Latin and Greek words cobbled together that just so happen to mean exactly what the spell does. Let me show you how it works, I’m going to make up a spell right now.

Ignarussygkrafeas! I have cast the spell of “ignorant author” on J. K. Rowling. It took me two minutes to assemble that spell.

Now, I’m not entirely innocent of this practice, I’m writing a fantasy/fairytale style novel and coming up with names is difficult. Half the time I want to delete everything I’ve just written because I think it is stupid, we use what we know.

Literature should be thought provoking. It should teach you something, or at least get you to think about things in ways you never have before. Melville can give you a greater appreciation for life at sea and travelling abroad. Lovecraft can redefine what horror is and can be. And Star Wars novels, well you see they uh… increase your power in the Force. Knowledge is power. Yeah.

Darth Bane taught me that “Honor is a fool’s prize.”

That’s it for this week kids, see you next week when I enthrall you with the ghastly tales of… MY EX-GIRLFRIENDS. (Spoiler: I dated a vampire fairy once.) See you then.

Science, GMOs and Why You Should Love It

2012-08-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

While I primarily work with rhetoric and words, I have a deep seated appreciation for science. Let me tell you why you should too.

First of all, science doesn’t require a leap of faith. Computers, medicine, astrophysics; they aren’t magic; they’re just science at work. Some fields may seem like they require faith because the concepts contained in them are so vast and involved, but that simply isn’t the case. Critics of science usually say that astrophysics and other hard sciences require a leap of faith because they (the critics) don’t understand it. Well, of course not! To reach that level it’s like building a skyscraper. You have to clear the ground and lay a foundation (basic math), from there you have to put in support beams (algebra), then you can start adding layers (physics, calculus, etc.). Without this foundation to stand on of course everything seems like magic. This is simply someone mistaking their own ignorance of a subject for that subject being beyond understanding.

It still amazes me that science has so many critics and idiots in opposition to it. People who plug their Facebook page with anti-science sentiments while using a computer and being alive probably due to advancements in medicine prior to their birth.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." -Charles Darwin

In science, if a theory is proven to be wrong, it is discarded. No crying, no feet stomping, no separate sects forming, no reformations, just throw it out. It’s useless to the advancement of science from then on out. It is this willingness to throw out incorrect information that makes science so amazing.

I wish that more people thought like scientists. Where beliefs and incorrect information, no matter how sacred, are discarded without tears or tantrum in favor of demonstrable, repeatable, fact based evidence that may be contrary to what we already know.

Instead we have assholes that fight against science without pausing to consider the ramifications of their fight. This leads to people fighting against Aspartame, GMO crops, and things that are “unnatural.”
The latest trend is “if you read the label and you can’t pronounce it or spell it, don’t eat it!”

Okay, well let’s test that theory. Here are some ingredients: Thiamine, Fructose, Cellulose, Riboflavin, Niacin, Pantothenic acid, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, and Zinc.
Some of these words aren’t very common, anti-science food weirdoes probably wouldn’t eat this product.
What is this insidious and evil product?

Yeah, I know.

Then comes the fight against GMO products. GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organism which sounds scary, but sorry, science is direct and to the point, it doesn’t care if terms sound scary to you or not. They attempt to describe quickly and accurately. Would we be having this problem if they were called GPO’s (Genetically Purified Organisms)? No, that sounds like apples made by Hitler.

Basically, a GMO is… well, pretty much everything. Like bananas? Cool, me too. We’ve been eating the same cloned species of banana for about seventy years, which is itself a descendant of the first domesticated (modified) varieties from about ten thousand years ago. Prior to that there were roughly two different species of bananas domesticated, grown and sold in stores. But disease rampaged one but did not affect the other. Therefore, we have only the one species now. Resistant to disease, huh? Sounds UNNATURAL.

Genetic modification works by either selecting specific genes in an organism to present more strongly, or, more commonly, by artificial selection. Despite what Greenpeace and other whack jobs want you to believe, THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO ANIMAL GENES TRANSPLANTED INTO FRUIT, GRAIN OR VEGETABLES. It simply doesn’t happen. Terms like “Franken food” are misleading and stupid. Here’s how it works, let’s do some roleplaying.

Hi, I’m an (evil) scientist, specifically a microbiologist. Greenpeace and assorted food idiots hate my guts and compare me to Dr. Frankenstein (who is also a pretty good guy but that is another blog). Well, I recently heard that in third world countries there are people STARVING TO DEATH. I will go and help them using the power of SCIENCE!

I notice that the locals’ wheat isn’t producing enough food for people to eat. Well, what if we speed up breeding by using the two growing seasons available in this country? During summer, we’ll breed in the highlands, like what was being done before, but then we’ll take the needs north to a valley with different altitudes and temperatures. Eureka! More crops every year and more food for starving people!

But wait, only the best seeds were selected to be moved from one location to another, and in a short time they started developing resistances to photoperiodism, which is a natural reaction of organisms to day/night cycle changes. This meant that the wheat could now be grown in both regions, nearly all year.

I have created a GMO wheat crop that is saving people’s lives!
“You monster! You’re creating Franken food! They’re KILLING Mother Earth and altering our food!”

But I saved a lot of people from starvation and now we have MORE food for people to eat! I’ll take my techniques and my research and travel to another third world country where people are starving to death. I’ll bet I can help them with science also!
“Evil!”
After many years I have improved wheat and rice strains so that they are resistant to disease, weather, and other conditions. I am awarded a Nobel peace prize for my work and it is estimated that I have saved over a BILLION people.

But now this has happened…

People in countries that don’t have problems relating to starvation are trying to undo my life’s work trying to save people.

Pretty compelling story, isn’t it? Well, it’s a true story. The man that I “role-played” for you there is Norman Borlaug. He has saved over a billion lives by using artificial selection and other techniques to make crops more resistant while yielding more food for people to eat. He dedicated his life to try to feed the entire world through science and now, every day, Greenpeace and other morons disrespect him and his work by protesting GMO food. Remember the part where he immediately transplanted the seeds? There was a scientific theory in place that proclaimed you couldn’t do that, they needed a ‘rest’ period before being planted. When Borlaug’s boss upheld this theory he resigned. The dispute was eventually settled and Borlaug was proven correct. This incorrect theory? Discarded. I could tell you its name, but it doesn’t really matter now, does it?

But what about the health risks of GMO foods?

Well, nothing. GMO food products are some of the most tested products on the market and are still stamped safe to eat by the EPA and FDA.

If it’s GMO, astrophysics or evolution, science is working towards a brighter future. I could write a ten thousand word blog entry on science explaining to you everything it has already done for it and has the potential to do for us, but I think it’s time you discovered some of this for yourself.

Next time you sit down to eat breakfast, pop open your phone, tablet, laptop or whatever. Go to a search engine and type in the name of something you’re eating. Ham and onion omelet? Look up onions. They help prevent cancer cell growth. Using artificial selection, we could selectively breed a crop of onions that were extremely effective at inhibiting cancer cell growth. See where this is going? Science allows us to know these things, more importantly, science allows us to do these things.

Science doesn’t ask for your faith, it’s true if you believe it or not.
Please, watch the video below and I will see you here next week.

For more awesome science information, you can purchase books by or watch documentaries featuring the following:

Norman Borlaug, Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Isaac Newton, Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Louis Pasteur, Albert Einstein… I could go on, but start there.

The Best Music You've Never Heard (Part 1)

2012-07-29T09:29:00.001-07:00

I love music. Ask anyone who knows me. I love all kinds of music. I also love exposing people to music that maybe they’ve never heard before. So I decided to write up a short list of artists that I think more people should listen to. I consider everyone on this list to be talented, enjoyable and worthy of listening to.

Carbon Based Lifeforms

Regardless of your musical tastes, you’ll probably like CBL. Their music is classified as Ambient, but is a little more complicated than that. Some tracks feature thumping tribal beats with sweeping electronic arrangements over the top of that. It is the perfect music to relax to, read to, write to, pretty much anything. It’s fantastic as background music, foreground music, again, pretty much anything. Here’s a sampling of tracks that I feel represent their sound the best, as an added bonus the videos are extremely enjoyable.

World of Sleepers

MOS 6581

Photosynthesis

Arecibo

Official Website: http://carbonbasedlifeforms.net/

Similar Artists: Sync 24, Aes Dana, HUVA Network, Solar Fields, Cell, Asura, Human Blue

Stendeck

Stendeck is a mixture of ambient and noise. While also relaxing, it strays into territories that Carbon Based Lifeforms doesn’t go. Stendeck carefully blends static with engaging bass lines and droning undercurrents to create something pretty unique.

Catch The Midnight Girl

Like Falling Crystals

Waiting For A New Day

Official Site: http://stendeck.com/

Similar Artists: Ginormous, Ab Ovo, Ah Cama-Sotz, Flint Glass

Alestorm
I don’t care if you like metal or not, if you like pirates (who doesn’t?) then you owe it to yourself to listen to Alestorm. Go ahead and get over the fact that yes, they dress like pirates, sing songs about pirates, and perhaps have silly videos. Now that those are out of the way, take a good listen. There is an extremely talented and entertaining band lurking here. Blending several different genres of metal into one and making it extremely accessible isn’t easy, but Alestorm prevails! The music is fun with lyrics that you’ll be singing along to by the third listen even if you’ve taken a broadside of rum to the belly. (As an added bonus, they’re also Scottish, which increases their awesomeness by 11)

Shipwrecked

Keelhauled

Captain Morgan’s Revenge

That Famous Ol’ Spiced

Official Site: http://www.alestorm.net/

Similar Artists: Uhh…..? Gloryhammer features Chris Bowes, the maniac on keyboards that sings the songs. His other band is coming soon and is described as “Heroic Fantasy Power Metal.”

Pig
Before Trent Reznor was making Industrial music accessible to a broader audience, there was Raymond Watts. Raymond is an unsung Industrial pioneer, his music is really damn good and he’s been making it for nearly thirty years. When he wasn’t working on his own stuff as Pig, he was co-founding KMFDM and appeared on some of their (in my opinion) best albums such as Nihil and Anger. If you like Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM or Marilyn Manson, you need to hear Raymond Watts’ work. His music isn’t too harsh for non-Industrial music fans and he has one of the best singing voices in music. He also doesn’t care about genre as he has been known to dive into merengue and other styles.

Flesh Fest

The Only Good One’s A Dead One

God Rod

Hello Hooray (Alice Cooper cover)

Official Website: http://theswining.com/

Similar Artists: KMFDM, Schaft, Cubanate, Schwein, Slick Idiot, MDFMK, Hellbent, Foetus

Puscifer
You’ve probably heard of Maynard James Keenan, lead singer for Tool and A Perfect Circle. Things have been quiet on the Tool/APC fronts while MJK has been making wine and music as Puscifer. The band started out as a joke when they appeared many years ago on HBO’s Mr. Show. A mock interview featured Maynard muttering about something with the name “Puscifer” emblazoned below them. Fast forward a few years and Puscifer has a couple of albums out, really damn good ones. Albums that completely ignore the concept of “genre” as each track shifts seamlessly from style to style. For my money, Puscifer is better than both Tool and A Perfect Circle.

Man Overboard

Telling Ghosts

Momma Sed

Potions (Deliverance Mix) (Co-written by Trent Reznor)

Official Website: https://puscifer.com/

Similar Artists: Tool, A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails, Carina Round

Negative Format
Negative Format is one of those artists that walks the line between genres and ends up falling through and never getting the recognition they deserve. Alex Matheu is easily one of the most talented artists to ever work in the scene. His music is a progressive blend of synthpop, EBM and trance that is extremely accessible and very, very good. Slow builds lead to fantastic climaxes and sweeping arrangements carry the flow of the entire song from point A to point B without realizing you left A. When he isn’t making really damn good music as Negative Format, Lexsine or The Parallel Project, Alex is hard at work making bad ass iPhone and iPad apps such as Glitchbreaks, which allows you to make music from your phone. You can check out his apps here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glitchbreaks/id520451538?ls=1&mt=8

Echo Chamber

Hues of Grey

Translucent

Deleted Scenes featuring Mark Jackson (VNV Nation) by The Parallel Project

Official Website: http://negativeformat.com/

Similar Artists: The Parallel Project, Lexsine, VNV Nation, Haujobb, Covenant.

Faderhead
A fairly new arrival on the EBM scene, Faderhead is yet another artist that really doesn’t care about changing genres from song to song. Faderhead is very in your face and not for the faint of heart. From stomping EBM to dance tracks comfortable in just about any kind of club, Faderhead is really damn good.

Dirtygrrrls/Dirtybois Featuring Ultimate MC

The Way to Fuck God

Horizon Born

Sexyback (Justin Timberlake cover)

Official Website: http://www.faderhead.com/

Similar Artists: Combichrist, Eisenfunk, Caustic, Haujobb

Hopefully you have some new music to listen to, if not, I hope you were at least entertained.

ShiTexting

2012-07-28T20:04:00.004-07:00

So, my friend Joe and I got into this habit of texting each other about our bowel movements. The simple goal of this endeavour is just to make each other laugh by describing our "duties" in amusing and outlandish ways. Below I offer you a sample of some:

"I just gave birth to Shaloob, The Great Worm (from Frank Hebert's Dune). I'm sure there a bunch of guys chasing it through the sewer right now trying to throw hooks in its back so they can ride it."

"I need to call Jeremy Wade for a special edition of River Monsters, I just let loose a Giant Mud Eel that he needs to catch, it is a record breaker. They can call it Toilet Monsters."

"Shore up that anal wall! We be taking on the stink water!"

"Someone spilled a glass of Nestle Quik in here!"

"I think I have a Starbucks in my intestines and the Mocha Frapachino Machine is busted and spewing all over the place."

"I think my Fecal Artery is pierced... it just isn't stopping."

"It's like someone emptied a jar of grape jelly up my ass in my sleep and it is working it's way back out now."

"It looks like someone stole all of Bob Ross' paints and he only had various shades of brown to work with on this canvas."

"I was like Hercules a second ago trying to hulk up on this brown hydra, but everytime I tore one of its heads off it grew two more."

"You mean you've never heard of the Brownlinnium Falcon? It made the Toilet Bowl run in under 2.3 parsecs!"

"I think a Brown Delorian just came out of me going 88 mph, it probably traveled back in time and is back inside my intestines already!"

That is all I can think of for now, enjoy.

Communication and the Internet

2012-07-27T13:16:00.002-07:00

Hello again readers, I may start blogging more often as I am really enjoying it. This particular entry I wanted to discuss slang, saying things inappropriately and communication as a whole.

I used to know this guy who was an asshole and while playing video games or discussing things that were “cool” he would frequently say “oh it’s the BALLS.” Well, most slang that anyone uses is usually through being around it and hearing it a lot. It’s natural. I start saying “bitch-hog” a lot and pretty soon “bitch-hog” is added to your vocabulary as well. One day I also called something “the balls” and my wife asked me why balls = cool and it made me think.
If ______ is cool, why would I call it “the balls”? Balls are not cool. They are squishy, vulnerable and not sexy (to me anyway). A heterosexual female or homosexual male could call something they like “the balls”, but for me as a heterosexual male why would I? I can barely tolerate my own balls, let alone anyone else’s balls. It would be more appropriate for me to call something I like “the tits,” since I am a heterosexual and I do think those are cool.

I also noticed recently that I inadvertently say things that are inappropriate to random people. For example, I called my dentist to ask if I should go ahead and start taking my medications prior to my appointment the following week. I explained that “I wanted to double check and make sure before I went ahead and blew my load with them.” Now, it seems like an ordinary thing to say in a casual conversation between friends. “Blowing your load” typically means you just go ahead and do X, Y or even Z. My wife uses the term a lot in casual conversation, you might say she is constantly “blowing her load.” However, it was only afterward that I put the brakes on and realized that I had just discussed ejaculating to a strange woman at my dentist’s office. It suddenly occurred to me that this is something I do all the time. I’m a pretty friendly guy and I speak my mind almost always, I never noticed that what I respond with might not be socially acceptable.

Grocery Store Employee: Hi, how are you doing today?

Me: Well, I’m not drunk yet, so okay I guess.

It also probably isn’t okay when your server at a restaurant asks if you want something extra, say on your burger or etc, that you say no and call whatever was offered “filth.” I don’t recall where I was, but my wife and I were in a public place when I said perhaps a little too loudly that the crowdedness of this establishment was like a “hogshit menagerie.” Now, I’m not quite sure what a hogshit menagerie is, but it sounds real bad. It’s just a naturally offensive arrangement, like “dumb-shit asshole” or “insipid fuck-knob.”

Since getting married I’ve also become more aware of what I say as it relates to women. For example, I used to say “don’t be a pussy” to people, meaning I wanted them to toughen up and stop complaining. Well, it is scientifically proven that women have a higher pain tolerance than men, so being a proverbial “pussy” would be preferable to being a low threshold dude in agony. (Women having a higher tolerance for pain is not God’s way of saying “it’s OK to beat them.” Just need to clarify in case I have Christian readers.)

There’s also the issue of raised inflection toward the end of a sentence so that everything sounds like a question. Though guilty of doing it in the past, I find it absolutely deplorable and the practice is rampant on college campuses.

“I didn’t bring my book today? Hopefully we’re not going over anything in it?”

Are… are you asking me or telling me? I don’t know how to respond when people do this. My wife even got a voicemail for a job interview where the guy was doing it.
“We’d love for you to come in? for an interview? And I look forward to hearing from you?”

Okay….

Something else I have encountered a lot out here on the West Coast is people saying “pacific” in place of “specific.” Let me give an example.

“Well I pacifically remember it being different than what you are saying now.”

“There was a pacific thing I was interested in.”

Since these people aren’t secretly whales, I assume they are, in fact, not discussing the Pacific Ocean. I don’t know how such a stupid mistake got started but it is awful and makes those saying it look like total morons.

Then there’s the power of assholes on the internet. It seems like you can’t go an hour without someone telling you to perform some sort of sexual act on them. Let me tell you a true story, it happened two nights ago.

My wife is sitting next to me, playing World of Warcraft, she gets into a randomly assembled group to go do a dungeon. Upon entering the dungeon, someone remarks “hey guys, there is a mount that drops from the last boss in here if you didn’t know.” Harmless enough right?

“Tell us something we don’t know you fuckin idiot.”

My wife, attempting to intervene, says “maybe you’re being a little harsh, they might be new to the game.”

“Why don’t you stfu and suck my dick!”

It then exploded into four different people telling one another to simultaneously “stfu” while also sucking their dicks. This sort of explosive, irrational anger is only possible thanks to the power of the internet. Where assholes can do and say whatever they want, to whomever they want without repercussions. Sometimes I wish I could kill people with my mind.

Then there’s stupid Facebook updates. Granted I’ve made a few that might be irrelevant, but for the most part I am trying to keep my family and immediate friends informed on what is going on with me. I can tell everyone only once, without having to do it to each individual. Did Brian get his tooth pulled? His Facebook says yes and it went fine. Easy, right? Now you don’t have to call me and ask while I am not paying attention.

But sometimes it just goes a little too far.

“What a delicious breakfast!” (Insert picture of food.) Here’s a newsflash, no one actually cares what you stuff down your gullet. Unless you’re making something especially unique, amazing, or special (like bacon waffles) it isn’t worth updating us on it. Cool story, I give not a fuck that you had a protein shake with some cereal.
“Goodnight everybody!” Wow, awesome. You’re going to sleep, again absolutely no one gives a shit. You’re just doing it in the hopes that the next day 8 people will be like “omg goodnight to you too! Sleep tight and stuff!” so you can feel special. You’re not, people go to sleep all the time and it isn’t a big deal. Just turn your computer off and go cry yourself to sleep already.

Then there’s internet smartguy who uses anecdotal evidence and doesn’t have credible sources to back anything he espouses as truth. Let me show you, the following is a real conversation between myself and someone else.

“I can honestly say that the hardest thing I've ever tried to do is give up drinking soda. The people who know me intimately are aware that I'm a terrible example of diabetic self-care, but not taking my insulin and always drinking soda are two different beasts. Does anyone have any advice for someone who's chronically addicted to caffeine and has little to no willpower?”

There were some helpful responses like:

“If you just need the caffeine and not the sugar, try black coffee.”

“When I was looking for a healthy replacement for my speed fix I found B12. It gives the same 'up' without the crash or negative side effects. At least as long as you eat something first and drink a lot of water..”

But then this asshole comes along:
Brian H. McLelland: Giant jugs of tea, green/chai/normal with aspartame.
Oh wait, that’s me, I meant this asshole:

Idiot Boy: aspartame is evil, man, stay away from that stuff. It's a neurotoxin. Drink SteaZ Energy Drinks. All natural. There's still a little sugar in it and lots of naturally occuring caffiene and vitamins.

Who was then backed up by a second idiot:

Idiot Girl: Aspartame really is super awful. And yes, soda is fucking hard to quit...I'm always "quitting soda". Also, steaz drinks are sooooper yummy! How is cane sugar for diabetes? I tend to gravitate towards beverages that are sweetened with cane sugar and/or honey that I could recommend if those are okay for you to ingest.

Okay, first of all, sugar, whether cane, raw or even honey are all the same. You don’t suggest “all natural cane sugar” to a diabetic, you might as well tell them to drink a jar of high fructose corn syrup. Fucking moron. But I couldn’t let this stand.

Brian H. McLelland: Aspartame is one of the most tested products EVER. It is perfectly safe for consumption. Do not believe the myths espoused by the scientifically ignorant.
Brian H. McLelland: My mother in law is a diabetic, diet sodas sweetened with aspartame or tea with aspartame are perfectly fine to drink with little to no negative impacts on blood sugars.
Also: http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp
snopes.com: Aspartame -- Sweet Poison?

www.snopes.com

Is aspartame responsible for 'an epidemic of multiple sclerosis and lupus'?

See that? SNOPES, they debunk shit for a LIVING, I’m not talking out of my ass, I have CREDIBLE SOURCES ON MY SIDE.

Idiot Boy: So? Go ahead. Drink all the aspartame you want. There is a REASON there are so many sites up in arms about it. Until you have experienced an aspartame reaction first hand, you will never understand. There was no reason to insult other people's "opinions". I have no need to defend my own beliefs here.
Brian H. McLelland: Beliefs are not science. Instead of saying that you, personally, do not like aspartame, you offered your erroneous “opinion” as a scientific fact when you stated that it is a neurotoxin. I am not saying that you, personally, are ignorant. You are simply repeating information that is incorrect. Not quite so different from people insisting 20 years ago that Mountain Dew is somehow derived from anti-freeze. The information on offer from you is simply false.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0955286394900329
ScienceDirect - The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry : Aspartame consumption: lack of effects on.

www.sciencedirect.com

See that? That’s an article from the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry explaining how aspartame has zero effect on neurological function!

Idiot Boy: (Picture that says “you’re going to have a bad time if you believe everything you read on the internet.”)
Brian H. McLelland: Yes, because the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry is some quack on an Angelfire free webpage making things up.
"Oh god, logic and reason, quick, resort to internet memes!"
Idiot Boy: I sure hope ___ is getting a kick out of all this, because I'm having a great time. P.S.: An opinion can not be erroneous. That's why it's called an opinion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion
Opinion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hey look, the moron caught on and finally understands you can’t offer your dumbshit asshole opinion as fact without backing it up.

Brian H. McLelland: Debating semantics fails to change the fact that your statement was incorrect, nor does it lend credence to your argument. Please return with something more substantial than anecdotal evidence or internet memes. Also, your comment that "There is a REASON there are so many sites up in arms about it."
Just because many people believe something does not, in any universe, make it true. In order to facilitate evidence to this point I offer EVERY RELIGION IN THE WORLD.

This is my favorite part, where the person, at a loss to defend their stupidness attempts to reach a common ground.

Idiot Boy: Brian, you started out as being rude, condescending, and it did come across as a persona attack, therefore putting me on the defensive. This left me incapable of having a reasonable discussion. Any time emotions enter the fray a debate is immediately doomed, which is why I resorted to memes to lighten the mood for the rest of the poor souls who have been subjected to this pointless debate which you continue to prolong. Several people including myself have had palpable reactions to aspartame, but since it's not been proven by enough "medical science" that it is indeed the aspartame causing a problem, I have to go on what I have personally experienced as my own interpretation of the facts at hand. You clearly place no value in the beliefs, opinions, and personal experiences of others unless verified by an independent source, which, is your right and I commend you for it. By all means, continue to scrutinize the facts, because there is indeed lots of misinformation and propaganda out there, which was the one thing we can actually agree on and my apologies as that was not clearly conveyed in my original retort. One day I truly hope you will be directly shown the scientific proof you need to explain the mysteries of the universe. That's the best I can hope for you. Good luck, and may you one day be touched by his noodly appendages.

Yes, he just equated aspartame to being a mystery of the universe. If the world were run by assholes like this, every bit of anecdotal evidence would be on offer as true. Which means no one could have aspartame because one moron in Florida “had a bad reaction to it!”

I guess I fall into the category of being an asshole on the internet, but I like rhetoric and I love arguing. It's why I've become so fond of Cicero, because he loved that shit too.

(Cicero)

When I say anecdotal evidence I mean someone knew someone who experienced __________. This is not reliable, in court they call it “hearsay.”
So , if there is one thing you take away from this article it should be that you should never believe anything someone has to tell you without checking their source.

“Aspartame is a neurotoxin!”

“Organic food tastes better and is better for you! And it’s better for the environment!”

“I believe it therefore you HAVE to respect my beliefs even if they are wrong!”

All these statements are false. Keep your eyes open, the truth is out there.

Next week: SCIENCE!

Pedophiles don't make things I want.

2012-07-19T21:32:00.004-07:00

Pedophiles. I don’t like them. I think child molestation is a heinous act that merits the most severe tortures and punishments. I’m not saying that children should be sheltered from sex. For instance, in the south east a chain of grocery stores, Publix, places plastic covers over the magazines in the checkout isle. Why? Because someone’s child might see some movie star/model’s tits, abs, muscled chest, whatever. We can’t risk having children finding out that people have sex and that they aren’t Immaculate Conception treasures carried down by angels in a giant white sled pulled by storks. But that is another blog, I am getting off track.

Now, in the past I have encountered people who say “oh I don’t care what the artist believes/does; I just like their art/product/stuff.” This isn’t a new concept, in the realm of literary theory, this is based on an idea put forth by Roland Barthes in his essay The Death of the Author. Barthes theorizes that the author should be completely removed from the work that they create. Time of production, authorial intent, authorial meaning, and authorial belief, everything about the author is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what the reader thinks or what meaning the reader derives from the text, Barthes calls this the “Birth of the Reader.” Literary theory is really dry and complicated but hang in there, I’m going to tie this all together.

I disagree with Barthes to an extent. One of my favorite authors is Clive Barker, who is gay. When I read his work I’m not going, “a GAY dude wrote this, how can I even relate?” It doesn’t ever enter the equation because I don’t care. It doesn’t impact his work at all, he can write a hetero character, a female character, anything, and it isn’t affected by the author’s personal preferences. Lovecraft was racist, doesn’t really bother me either because that wasn’t entirely uncommon in 1930’s New England.

The problem begins when you know someone is a pedophile. Ever seen the film Jeepers Creepers? If you have or haven’t watch this official trailer.

It’s a horror film about a flying demon monster thing that just so happens to also drive a big black rape wagon with a personalized license plate. It has been alive for a long ass time by eating specific parts of teenagers. So in the film, it SMELLS Justin Long and wants to EAT part of him. There are awkward scenes where the demon monster is smelling his face and licking his cheeks. This film is directed by a pedophile. Victor Salva directed Jeepers Creepers and is a convicted child molester. Go Bing it, you can find the information readily available anywhere. Prior to making this film he made another film called Powder. Yes, that Powder. The one where a pale albino (as opposed to tan albinos?) emerges from a cellar and has magic powers. He sees the world differently than everyone else, adults fear and reject him, but the children in the film understand him. He can only relate to young people and/or children and/or molestation bait. THIS IS EXACTLY HOW PEDOPHILES VIEW THE WORLD AND THEMSELVES. It’s only made worse to know the film was distributed by Disney.

On a side note, there is a girl on campus that I saw almost every day last semester who rode a child’s scooter while wearing a panda back pack and a Pikachu hat with multicolored hair poking out. I’m 90% sure she is an FBI agent trolling for pedophiles.

Now that you know Jeepers Creepers was directed by a pedophile, go watch the movie again and prepare to get weirded out. The scene where the Creeper’s lair has naked dead people stitched together all over the ceiling and walls? The scene at the end where a naked Justin Long is strung up by his arms with his eyes eaten out of his head? Fucked up, right?

Here’s another one. I see a lot of people who LOVE Alice in Wonderland. The live action one by Tim Burton, the animated one, the classic novel, makes no difference. Alice in Wonderland shit is EVERYWHERE. I was in Barnes and Noble not long ago browsing books, they have this really bad ass Classics Collection series they have started doing. It’s a leather bound, high quality copy of literary classics. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Jurassic Park/Lost World. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Jane Austen. Dracula. Frankenstein. But I noticed there was also one for Alice in Wonderland, brightly colored and sitting on a table remarkably close to the young adult section and the spot where they were was the one most depleted which means lots of people were buying it with its hot pink cover and crazy designs.

The problem, for me at least, arises from the fact that LEWIS CARROLL WAS A PEDOPHILE. Don’t believe me? Read his Wikipedia page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll
Now the thing that is most readily available on that page is controversy. Nearly everything asserted about him are steeped in bitter controversy, primarily due to the fact that family members are fighting to disprove these things. After all who wants to be related to a pedophile? Even without conclusive evidence a few compelling facts remain:

Alice in Wonderland was written for a young girl, named Alice, who Carroll (Dodgson) had an affinity for.

He asked the girl’s family to take pictures of her nude. (This was a common practice at the time… FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS.)

Carroll’s personal diary has missing entries, removed by a person.

Also, here is a picture of Alice Liddell taken BY Carroll (Dodgson).

(Courtesy of wikipedia)

Now, some scholars dispute these claims, but the very fact that there is something to dispute speaks volumes. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Here’s another one, Gary Glitter. Don’t know the name? You probably know this:

It was featured pretty largely in Disney’s The Mighty Ducks, you know, that movie about YOUNG KIDS playing hockey. Glitter was arrested for making child pornography. He also frequented Cambodia and Thailand, two places famous for child prostitution. Kind of ruins the song, doesn’t it?

Jeffrey Jones is famous for his roles in Ferris Bueler’s Day Off, Beetlejuice, Sleepy Hollow and other films.

In 2002 he was arrested for soliciting a 14 year old boy to pose nude for sexually explicit photos.

There are others but this is kind of spiraling into a downer. Ultimately what I am saying is that I don’t want to purchase or consume anything written or created by a pedophile. In my mind the work is tainted.

It’s like tuna, when I buy tuna I make sure the can says “Dolphin Safe” because then I know there’s no dolphin in there. When I buy a book, a movie, an album, or a painting I want to know it is pedophile safe. Oh this book was written by someone who doesn’t rape kids, this is a good purchase and I am happy for my money to go towards supporting this person.

This blog was going to be funny, but I can’t really make this topic amusing. See you guys next week for something lighter.

The Journey to Education Part 2

2012-07-12T21:16:00.002-07:00

Last week I ran my mouth off about the banking industry and my time working in it, the whole post was kind of a downer. This week I’ve decided to focus on my college experiences and some of the mind numbingly stupid things real people have said.

First of all, I value education. When I am sitting in a classroom I understand that I am paying this professor to teach me something. I am assuming this person knows what they are talking about because they have been studying the subject for many, many years. It is for this reason that I listen, try not to interrupt, and don’t second guess my professors. Not everyone seems to understand this.

For example, Core Humanities 201, I took this last semester, it consisted of a 50 minute lecture twice a week with a class discussion once a week. Easy enough, right? As an added bonus the professor giving the lecture was completely awesome. He kept it exciting and interesting, it was great. Except kids in the auditorium talking to each other, loudly, I had to resort to sitting up front so I could hear clearly. Then discussions were even worse. You were required to read the assigned materials prior to class and discussion, these readings were short, relevant and interesting. NO ONE DID THEM, EVER. Discussion class usually consisted of the TA asking a question relating to the day’s readings and, not to brag, but I knew the answer having done the readings, but I would slowly scan the room to see if anyone else was going to speak. There’s lanky jock dude, staring at the blackboard… there’s cheerleader girl pretending to write notes… this continued throughout the entire classroom. No one had anything to say because no one would read the shit! So in this discussion class of about 30 kids we were supposed to do brief presentations throughout the semester in small groups. The TA mentioned that last semester a group had done Jeopardy which resulted in 4-5 presentations THIS semester that were Jeopardy. I mercilessly trounced these kids in Jeopardy. My team won Every. Single. Time. The one that felt best was the Jeopardy presentation on the Bible, not only did I choose the categories, answer my own team’s question, but when the opposing team failed to answer theirs after a minute, I answered THEIRS too. Well, I couldn’t just let this whole event continue on without saying something so I mocked my team and the entire class. “Yeah don’t sweat it guys, let the ATHEIST answer all these BIBLE questions.”

Finally one day, a group of two made their presentation that wasn’t Jeopardy. It consisted of them sitting in the front of the class, reading from the book and ad-libbing an “informative” lecture. It was agonizing to sit through.

My favorite though was in Fall of ’11 I was taking a really awesome class called “Writing About Literature” from a fantastic professor. She knew the subject, was excellent at teaching, enthusiastic and encouraging. The problem is she was teaching it to a bunch of retards. First, there was Obvious Girl, who would usually just reiterate the title of whatever we were reading. So for example we’re going over a poem about seasons, namely, Autumn. The poem has Autumn in the title. The professor asked what people thought the poem was really about or what impressions it gave.

Obvious Girl: “Well the trees being barren of leaves makes me think that this is taking place during like… Autumn?”

You see the trend starting here? Flash forward to a few weeks later, discussing Kafka’s “Metamorphoses” short story…

Obvious Girl: “It seems like he is going through a big change, as if everything about him is transforming…” …LIKE A METAMORPHOSIS?

She did this with all of them, professor asks and her hand was the first one up.

Obvious Girl: “I feel like it is just really stormy and all the characters are tied into this storm and it is really magical.”

Know what that one is? Shakespeare’s The Tempest. This is all true, you can’t write shit this stupid and have the characters be believable.

Another thing is that this awesome professor made it clear at the start of the semester that she doesn’t care how something you read makes you feel only what you think about it. Meaning use your brains and figure it out, yet without fail every moron prefaced their thoughts with “I feel like…”

Do you read Frankenstein with your heart? Do you open a little chest compartment and just rub the book against your innards and you read it by osmosis? Sorry but over here in my seat, I read books with my eyeballs and process the information with my brain. I’m old fashioned that way.

Last semester I took an advanced non-fiction writing class. This is a 400 level English course, serious business. Well, people were called up to read their drafts which was extremely painful if, like me, you have low tolerances for stupid. Well I barely went to this class because A. hearing people read their shitty papers out loud doesn’t teach me anything and B. Peer reviewing people’s shitty papers doesn’t teach me anything either. The second paper assigned was a paper about a place you had been to and why the reader should or should not go there, easy right? I wrote mine about the Redwood National Forest, my peer review partner wrote hers about her dog. Now, I know that NOUNS can be confusing, since they can be A. person B. place or C. thing, but a dog is not a place. I didn’t bother explaining this to her because I’m an asshole and it isn’t my job to make sure everyone writes their paper on topic.

Two of the girls in the class in their papers decided to mention how they were in advanced English classes in high school, one of them was reading at a college level in middle school, wow no way! Have an A+ and a scholarship! But their work didn’t reflect this. One girl’s paper was about how a bad English teacher can ruin someone’s education but then she moved into another teacher’s class in high school and it was so much better! She learned so much more, she finally knew what a predicate is! Now, after a person finishes reading the rest of the class can make comments or ask questions, so as soon as she finished I raised my hand and was called upon. My question, you ask?

Me: “What is a predicate?”

Her: “…..I don’t know….”

Also in this class was The “Grad” Student, I had to peer review with him once where he ignored me while criticizing his fucking terrible paper. This is the same kid who boasted about how when he applied to the English graduate school they asked for a sample of his writing, “so I just gave’em my first novel… yep… my novel…” His three novels are all self-published online, anyone can do this. In addition, they just so happen to be the most insipid, uninspired piles of shit I’ve ever heard. I won’t repeat them to you here now because the ideas are too retarded to subject people to reading. So after acting like he is so cool for submitting a novel to the English grad school he finishes the story by telling everyone in earshot that they said he needed to take some more classes. Despite being, what is called a “Grad Special,” the professor and other students continued to call him “The Grad Kid” and “The Graduate Student.”

Let me give you a little diagram of why it is stupid for A. this kid to have an ego big enough to suffocate the air out of a classroom and B. everyone to play along with his ego trip.

You gave them a novel and they told you to take more classes, sorry son but this isn't a story you should go around repeating. It makes you look like a Downs Special instead of the shitty Grad Special you are.

So it comes down to the end of the semester for Advanced Non-Fiction Writing, the final assignment is: Write a persuasive paper that makes an argument. Present opposition to your argument, then refute it in your own words. Your topic must have opposition.

Pretty easy right? I chose circumcision! But other people chose such hot debates as: Tourette’s Syndrome (wait, what?), How I Got Raped Once by Oversharing Girl, I Cut Myself by Awkward Girl, Better Education Paper by Uneducated Girl, and Grad Special’s masterpiece, Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

First off, the paper about Tourette’s Syndrome was well written, but not the assignment. You should get an F, I don’t care how good the paper is, it isn’t what you were asked for. James T. Generic over there wrote his paper on dams, you know what has a lot of opposition and fulfilled the assignment? His boring ass paper about DAMS.

Getting raped is horrible, I don’t condone it, ever. I also don’t think women who are raped should have to hide the fact that it happened to them. However, a class room of strangers is not an appropriate place to discuss it. I get that you have tattoos, you paint, vegetarian and have ADHD but refuse to take medication because it might suppress your “creativity”, I get all that because you won’t shut the fuck up about yourself. I barely show up for class but I know more about you than the subject being taught. You should get an F.

Weird and Socially Awkward girl reads her paper about how cutting is a real disease and she only cuts to release the pain she is in. People don’t think it is a real problem but it is! She goes on to talk about how most people overreact and believe that cutting leads to suicide. Later in the paper she provides a high statistic that cutting does in fact lead to suicide. However, she DID fulfill the assignment even if her topic is stupid.

“My Dog is a Place” girl reads her paper about how she did so well in high school and how education is important. Children need to learn things. Mind you, while she is reading this her paper is displayed on a projector behind her. It’s awful, misspellings that MS Word doesn’t even know what to do with, terrible grammar, misuse of there/their/they’re. Ugh, I felt more embarrassed for her than anything.

Then we have Grad Special kid talking about his irritable bowel syndrome. I was not there for the day that he presented this jewel, but from what other students told me he frantically reworked the paper to have opposition involving western medicine versus eastern medicine. Either way, he should have gotten an F. People aren’t writing to government officials because of a horrific epidemic of shitpants going around.

College is fun, there are plenty of other incidents but that is enough for this week. Next Friday: Pedophiles!

See you then.

The Journey to Education Part 1

2012-07-05T22:42:00.001-07:00

I am a college student, an older college student. You see, I started going to school in my early 20’s and sort of floundered around trying to figure out what I wanted to do with myself. The usual major switching, eventually I reached the conclusion that I would rather just hold down a normal job and make money. Money gets you Things.

I found a job working at a local call center that handled cell phone service for a major U.S. cell phone cArrier’s business cusTomers. These were cusTomers who got a deal on their phone through their job, or had a corporate phone and etc. Some of these were small, some were serious business major corporation CEOs and their families sort of thing. I had a feeling something was off when in order to work there I had to pass a drug test but not a background check. I passed with flying colors and started my training class. My first instructor would put on random instructional videos and then text on his phone, after a week and a half, he was fired. So we moved on to another instructor who would teach us something for an hour, then go outside to smoke and bullshit for an hour.

Basically, I didn’t learn much and spent a lot of time outside bullshitting. It was through this process that I discovered that I was a minority working here since I did not have a criminal record. Nearly every single one of my classmates had criminal records, usually drug related, but some were more serious such as embezzlement, theft, vandalism, and being retarded. Now stop and think about that for a second, these people were calling in to find out about their account information and providing personal information over the phone to CONVICTED FELONS and/or UNSAVORY, UNTRUSTWORTHY ASSHOLES. I’d offer to look up someone’s account based on their mobile number and confirm their identity using things like Date of Birth, passwords, or last 4 of their SSN (the rest was blanked out). Some of these customers would begin willingly offering me their ENTIRE SSN to look them up by. Anyhow, a lot of other bullshit happened there such as two people snorting crushed up vicodin in training class, people showing up for work on Meth, and arriving to find my usual desk was being used and there wasn’t a single spare headset in the building to use to even start working. I clocked in via my phone so I couldn’t even start earning money for doing nothing.

Eventually I got a job working at the call center for a major U.S. bank, I can’t tell you Which onE since I am reveaLing their intimate business practices. I had to pass a background check to work there, but not a drug test. This was a surprisingLy efficient approach and while many of my co-workerS smoked absurd amounts of weed, none of them struck me as criminal types or meth users. Let me give you some inside inFormAtion about banks and the banking industRy in General. Here we gO. (Did you see what I did there?)

First of all, when your bank tells you they can’t do something, they are lying. Seriously. Remember that time you said “well why can’t you just stop my card from overdrawing my account?”

Canned response: “The infrastructure isn’t in place for us to do that and/or we don’t want to stop your card in case you have an emergency and need gas/Starbucks/burgers.”
This is a total bullshit lie, the bank can stop your debit card anytime they want to, they can stop you from overcharging your account by even one cent if so inclined. There are only a few transactions that are “up in the air” until processed such as transactions made as Credit instead of Debit. Credit means that the amount is subject to change, Red Lobster tells the bank that you spent 47.26 on your meal but the tip could inflate that price. Same with gas purchases where you hit Credit, the gas station asks the bank for approval for 1.00 and then submits the full amount when you’re done. They don’t stop you because they want you to overdraw your account. Canned response: “It isn’t the Bank’s responsibility to manage your account.” That is a total asshole line and I’m guilty of using it.

Secondly, most banks but especially the bank that I W.orked F.or used a marketing tactic known as “Cross-Selling,” this is where you sell someone who is already your customer another product. Most businesses do this, “iPod works great with iTunes!” You just got sold another Apple product. Even if you never make a purchase through the iTunes store you hold an inherent dollar value to Apple by installing and using that product, because for everyone one person who doesn’t make a purchase, three people probably will. Anyhow, when you call your bank and they tell you they are pulling up your account information and their “computers are so slow today!” or “your information is loading right now!” this is also bullshit probably 90% of the time. Maybe once every three hundred calls I’d get one that was slow to load, but most of the time your account is already up and loaded. The reason for the delay is they are flipping through your assets, transactions, opening your checks, and looking at where/how you spend your money. I’ll give you an example.

Mr. Fells Wargo calls in and I give him the line about his account loading slowly and ask how his day is going, time to go to work while he runs his mouth for a few seconds. He has a checking account, does he have a savings account too? Yes/No, refer him one! Does he make a lot of small purchases at Starbucks or other fast food places? Yes/No, get him the rewards program for check cards! Let me open this check written for over a thousand dollars, looks like it is going for his rent/mortgage/car payment, get him to refinance/renter’s insurance/car insurance/roadside assistance program! And what’s this, he is making regular payments on credit cards with other companies? Get him one through the bank and tell him to take a personal loan to consolidate the debt on those other cards! He got some overdraft fees last month, get him to open a second checking account, one for bills and one for pleasure! (My personal favorite since you’re convincing someone to get a second helping of something they can’t even manage one of.)

This customer has just been referred or “cross-sold” on at least 6-10 different products, all through his bank, how convenient! Wrong. The bank gives not half a shit about your convenience, peace of mind or financial stability. They want to make money off you through fees and services.

Not only was this business practice encouraged, it was mandatory. If you were not telling that grandmother surviving paycheck to paycheck in Omaha that she needed a credit card and to save money by refinancing her house, you were getting into trouble for it. It isn’t enough to just mention a product either, you were highly encouraged to “warm transfer” them to a “Personal Banker.” Which is fancytalk for stick you on hold, bring some asshole working on commissions from the Sales department on the line to convince you to buy more shit. And by “highly encouraged” I mean if you didn’t do a certain number of them per day, your boss called you into his cubicle. There were “incentives” for doing this, you could earn EXTRA money for referring enough products! But the standards that you had to maintain in order to “Bonus” were impossible. Meaning, you may have just made the bank 100,000.00 dollars but your calls were 27 seconds over the average, ergo you don’t get your bonus money.

Now, how about fees? Overdraft fees, transfer fees, monthly service fees, excessive transfer fees! The canned response is “well when you overdraft your account, the bank is having to front that money for you, you’re basically taking an unauthorized loan.” How sweet, they’re doing you a favor, they spotted you 2.00 for that soda you bought in exchange for a 35.00 Overdraft Fee. Sounds fair! Now, when you ask for the fees to be taken off because you’re already struggling financially, all bank employees are trained and advised to offer you HALF of the fees back to see if you take that. If the person (like me) decides to go ahead and reverse all your fees, we get reprimanded and called into our boss or our boss’ boss’ office to be lectured about giving out too much credit. (As if we were giving away the bank’s money.) Here’s another one, when the bank tells you that they can’t reverse a fee because of A. the Federal Reserve or B. some other bullshit business practice/law this is entirely false. Fees go directly into the pocket of the bank, they can reverse them at will for any amount.

Now here is the salt in the wound, if you bank with the bank that I W.orked F.or, their processing order for paying out transactions, meaning your checks/debit/credit/withdrawals everything is thus:

1. Deposits. (They need you to have money before they start paying things, as fun as it is to charge you fees they have to make sure you’re somewhat good for it.)

2. ATM Withdrawals. (This is any cash you went and snagged out, the money is already gone and accounted for.)

3. Highest dollar amount transaction.

4. Second highest dollar amount transaction.

5. Third highest. (See the pattern here?)

Your paycheck goes in and all those bills start getting paid, oops you ran out of money because the bank covered your rent, car, groceries, utilities and such before paying those nine times you bought yourself a burger off the dollar menu for lunch or you splurged and got a Starbucks. This means that you just incurred nine fees of 35.00 each instead of one fee of 35.00 for your rent, or your car, or any one of the other things that would have covered you.

Canned response: “We process it this way to make sure that your important things are paid first, we don’t want your car getting repossessed or your rent check to bounce!” How nice of them! They paid the important things first. They couldn’t be bothered to cover your small shit first and then go ahead and spot you the last 30.00 on your rent and charge you the one fee? That’s correct.

Ultimately, the job became too much for me. The stress was impacting my health and happiness, it isn’t easy dealing with people screaming at you, getting bitched out by your boss for reversing too many fees or not referring enough products. This isn’t even mentioning the people who call you crying because their account is totally fucked and they can’t afford food for themselves, their pets, their children and you get to tell them “tough shit” because if Quality Assurance catches you reversing more fees or not offering up their bullshit canned responses they will report it to your boss. Then the person asks to speak to a manager or supervisor. Sure, let me put you on hold. Oh, did you think you were going to talk to someone with authority? Nope. You just got the “Team Supervisor” which isn’t actually a promotion, this guy/gal makes a little more money per hour to only take escalated calls, they can reverse slightly more fees than normal people can (we could only do a certain dollar amount) but they still have no real power.

In addition to all this I witnessed people working there who had been working for this company for decades and they were content to stay. They said they loved working for that company and it was so “great!” This is what ultimately drove me back to education, I wanted to make something of myself that was not a wage slave; gaining weight and having breakdowns from stress on my lunch breaks. (A co-worker of mine actually collapsed during one of his shifts from the stress and pressure placed on him by our boss.)

Next week I’ll talk about my journey into education and all the absurdly stupid things college kids say and do. I promise it will be funnier than this one! See you Friday.

2012-06-29T11:56:00.001-07:00

Last time we talked about Total Recall which has a nice hard R rating and it got me thinking about movie ratings and how watered down everything has become. I won’t attempt to document the sordid rise of the MPAA, that is better left to the documentary “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” which is readily available on Netflix and an interesting watch. Yet, I will point out some of the glaring inconsistencies and just how much it has changed.

This summer saw the release of two really good R rated films in Prometheus and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, both are excellent movies but what was surprising was what made them be R rated to begin with. Prometheus featured no sex, no foul language, not even excessive gore, it was rated R based upon one scene where the female heroine undergoes self surgery. It is brutal to watch to be sure, but is it any more brutal than what Hugh Jackman endures in the Wolverine film of a few years ago that netted a PG-13? On a brief side rant, the female heroine of Prometheus undergoing a surgery and then going on to do a lot of other shit is something I found incredibly compelling. In a world full of movies where men do all sorts of crazy shit to themselves and then “tough it out” this was a refreshing change, shame on anyone who complained that it was unbelievable for being a woman doing the same thing.

Anyhow, another example is that the first Lord of the Rings film, Fellowship of the Ring, upon first screening was rated R! However, after some editing it came down to PG-13, but when Jackson released his Extended Edition, which was in fact the R rated cut of the film, it was still PG-13. Hm, it’s almost like insane amounts of money can sway any decision.

Then a few years ago Spielberg “stepped in” to make sure Transformers got a PG-13 instead of an R according to this article: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/1648436/labeouf_says_mpaa_not_the_boss_of_spielberg_andquottransformersandquot_avoids_r_rating/

But what is so bad about R ratings? I am an adult and I like adult entertainment. Aside from shitty reality TV shows what are some of the most popular shows that you and your adult friends discuss? Well, let’s see: Dexter, Games of Thrones, True Blood, The Borgias, Spartacus, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, Weeds, Sopranos, etc. Plenty of premium channel shows that feature plenty of sex, violence and vulgarity.

The MPAA morons and movie studios have come to believe that PG-13 means instant success just because dipshit teenagers can get into the films, but consider now this list of fucking AWESOME films that were rated R that we’re all still talking about and watching AND all made retard strength amounts of money:

The Matrix (Fucking ALL of them)

Saving Private Ryan

300

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Slumdog Millionare (Won tons of awards)

The Rock

Troy

The Godfather Trilogy

Blair Witch Project (I know, right? YOU SEE NOTHING.)

American Beauty

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Pulp Fiction

The list goes on and on and can is available for your viewing pleasure right here: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic/mpaa.htm?page=R&p=.htm

Look at the Die Hard films, the first, second and third films were all Rated R and totally awesome. The last one was PG-13 and fucking terrible. I could link some relevant information right here to backup my argument that shows how the first three films earned more money and received higher critic reviews but if you’ve seen the films you already know this shit. So instead I’ll show you this youtube video of random Die Hard bits that someone edited together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVaAI9mc4R8

This is still back in the day where you could fucking smoke the bad guy and laugh about it.

Sure, PG and PG-13 still has its place, there are plenty of good PG-13 movies with oddly R rated material in them (Milla Jovovich’s bare “breasts” in The Fifth Element for example). (You know why “breasts” is in quotations, don’t lie.) Titanic comes to mind as well, not only do you see Kate Winslet nude but Billy Zane also slaps the taste out of her mouth.

But, turn your volume up and check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmLP0QQPqFw

The best part is where Bruce mouth-hugs Quint so hard you hear his bones crack and blood comes gurgling out of his mouth. Jaws was and still is rated PG. It’s broadcasted almost every single fucking holiday in the US on television, which is why when I think back to holidays spent with my family I usually think of eating Thanksgiving dinner or Fourth of July hot dogs while Quint gets fucking eaten alive and Bruce devours people. "Remember that Labor Day weekend that we went and ______?" Nope! But I can sing all the words to "Show Me The Way To Go Home" and I can tell you that we're going to need a bigger boat.

On a side note, you know you’re part of the Jaws Generation when the thought of being in the ocean in the water makes you want to throw up. Not sure if you are part of the Jaws Generation that has an illogically debilitating fear of sharks? Go swim in a pool at night with the lights in the pool off and let me know if you’re totally fine doing that. If not, you probably saw Jaws as a kid.

Also, when I went to look up the scene of Quint I stumbled over this youtube gem that someone decided to make that is nearly as obscure as the Total Recall/David Bowie video of last week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjgDzzJebwQ

Some dude was listening to his shitty metal band and browsing his DVDs when suddenly it hit him: “Holy shit bro, as soon as I finish this Modern Warfare map I’m going to edit in some metal over Quint getting eaten in Jaws. That scene is so extreme I’m popping a Broner™ in my pants right now, after I make the video I’ll have to fistbump my Broner™ over how sweet this shit is.”

Well, that’s what I got for this week folks, see you next week when I discuss something interesting.

Total Old Man Recall

2012-06-21T17:40:00.001-07:00

It finally happened. I woke up old. Enough time has passed in my life that I can say things like “15 years ago they’d never put this in a movie!” and “Movies just aren’t what they used to be." I can say things like that about virtually anything, but today I want to talk to you about movies and a few things I’ve noticed.

Let me set the scene for this revelation. There I am, relaxing on my bed with my wife and my dog, a few days prior while browsing recently released movies on Xbox we saw the Total Recall remake had just come out. Christiana (my wife) was unsure if she had seen the original or not. Even after pantomiming the guy’s gross mutant chest baby with its icky articulate hands going “Quaaaaaaid, open your miiiiiiind!” it still wasn’t ringing any bells. So we got it and fired it up. It was during this film that it really struck me how much movies have changed since I was a kid.

First of all, it was released in 1990 and was directed by Paul Verhoeven and stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone and Michael Ironside. Verhoeven went on to do the B-Movie masterpiece that is Starship Troopers, Stone went on to expose her vulva to millions of moviegoers, Schwarzenegger became a governor and Ironside was the 2^nd best Captain of the Seaquest for a few seasons before he became Sam Fisher in the Splinter Cell series.

Now, 1990 doesn’t seem THAT long ago, to me anyway but like I said at the start I am old now. A few scenes stand out because of how outlandish they seem to me now. First off, the film is rated R. This was back in the day when R rated films actually came out in theaters without a ton of complaints from the movie studio. The reason for this R rating is a scene featuring a mutant prostitute with three breasts, lots of violence, and lots of profanity. And I don’t mean the villain or supporting cast kind. I mean the protagonist of the film responds to snarky comments from the film’s arch villain by saying “fuck you.” Those were the days.

There are obvious things wrong with the film, cheesy acting, bad fight scenes and the like, but what really grabbed me was a scene in which Sharon Stone’s character, who was pretending to be Quaid’s (Schwarzenegger) wife confronts him on Mars. She is an evil bitch now and after Quaid’s new girl pulls her hair and throws her around a bunch, she finds herself staring down the barrel of Quaid’s crappy looking futuristic pistol. She makes one last appeal to his sensibilities before the hero of the film executes an unarmed and defeated woman. Wait, it gets better.

See, this was back in the day when movie protagonists were dicks and everybody loved it. After executing his wife he quips “consider this a divorce!” Audiences in 1990 might have chuckled, cried or pissed their pants from that knee slapper, but nowadays killing your wife in a movie seems to be a really, really bad thing. It got me thinking, when was the last time I saw a guy shoot his wife in a movie and it was a good thing? I can’t really recall. (GET IT? I CAN’T RECALL.)

But it isn’t just this isolated case, there is an overtly racist black cab driver that turns out to be A. an asshole, B. a lying traitor and C. a mutant. All of these things in one black character are a little much, but he gets his when Quaid drives a futuristic drill into him while screaming “screw you!” Puns! Heyoo!

This was also the time when villains weren’t just villains, but they were total assholes that had to suffer and the audience wanted to see it happen. Throughout the film Michael Ironside is running around being his usual bad ass self and doing awesome things like casually strolling up and kneeing people over while they are checking the welfare of others. (I couldn’t find a clip of this scene on youtube but I assure you, it is worth watching the film for.) Later, Ironside’s character, Richter, and his boss are rubbing it in Quaid’s face about how they are going to wipe his mind and turn him back into a bad dude so they can have a party later that night where they don’t have sex with Sharon Stone. (Apparently someone shot her in the head or something.) Just wait, this is relevant in a second. So he breaks free and sets off to do some heroic shit that Cohagen, Ironside’s boss and main villain, doesn’t want him to do. Ironside and Arnold have a fight on an elevator, after a little tumbling around Ironside ends up dangling over the side. But our hero notices that there is a ceiling approaching and pulls Ironside back up onto the elevator just enough for his arms to be cut off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URucvvcuItE (Skip to 2:30)

After having his arms severed he presumably falls to a gruesome death. Arnold throws his arms after him and yells “See you at the party, Richter!” Comedy gold, right?

Some other stuff happens and then the main villain of the film is hanging on for his life, after getting shot 5-6 times, because he doesn’t want to be sucked out on to the surface of Mars. You see, when you end up on the surface of Mars your face bulges and your eyes pop out of your head, it’s horrible to watch and I’d imagine pretty shitty to go through. So Quaid, our asshole hero, is also trying to avoid eyeball sucking out is pulling himself along to reach the final alien contraption that saves the day... but not before he makes a brief stop to grab Cohagen’s hand and pull it off the perch he had found so that he gets sucked out. The camera follows Cohagen’s journey down a tunnel and out onto the surface of Mars where we get to watch his eyes begin to bulge. The action goes back to Arnold, reaching and straining for the iconic THING that will save everyone, almost there… yay he reached it! The machine rumbles to life and the process of saving everyone begins very slowly, but wait… remember that asshole villain? Let’s see how he is fairing. Yes, the film cuts BACK to Cohagen getting his eyes sucked out, he is looking worse now and screaming a whole bunch. It’s pretty awesome. Then it goes back to show the oxygen being released that will save everyone, but oh no, Quaid and his accomplice-mistress get sucked out too. We see them falling onto the surface and oh no, eye bulging and sucking time for them!

But first, let’s just check in one final time with Cohagen, in case you forgot, he’s an asshole that got shot and then thrown to one of the worst possible deaths anyone could have in a movie about space.

For reference, here is a clip of the scene from someone who found it funny to dub in David Bowie’s “Life on Mars.” Hilarious… I guess. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9aggVa_Js8

His eyes full on explode out of his head and all sorts of over the top details are thrown in. Nowadays, most of the time when the villain is about to die gruesome death #593 the hero will either A. try to save them or B. look away disgusted. You know what I am talking about; the villain is screaming bloody murder and the hero turns away repulsed. “ugh god, I can’t watch this, it’s SO icky, ugh jesus…. Hngh…. Hngh…. Hngh…” (Hngh is the international spelling for “dry heave.”)

I don’t mean to pick on Total Recall so much; I like the movie despite all the stupid things in it. (Like the scene where Ironside jumps out of a glass window that is approximately one foot from a swinging door.)

But it brings me to another point, movie ratings! First of all, well, perhaps that is enough for this week’s blog. Next week I’ll tackle movie ratings and go over some that just might shock you. See you then!

Future of Gaming is... Integration?

2011-03-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

So recently a video was leaked from Microsoft giving a hint of what they intend for the future as far as Gaming is concerned on your PC. Take a look at the brief video.

I think more integration in the style that this video shows off is a really excellent idea. Let me tell you why, try to stay with me, I may get a little thick because I'm bored waiting for class.

When I sign on to my 360 it is awesome to have Facebook, Netflix and other services right there to use anytime, and since getting a brand new computer with Windows 7 I'm a very happy customer of both products. (Some of you may not be, but this is the realm of personal preference and opinion.)

I thought ESPN was going to be stupid but after using it I kind of like it, I am by no means a sports nut but I like hockey and boxing, I especially like being to pull it up whenever I want and watch a Lightning game or highlights of the Kings - Bruins match so I can trash talk a friend of mine who is a big Kings fan.

I've even kind of been wanting a Windows phone but alas they're on AT&T and Sprint who both blow. My point though is when you have one product by a company that you're happy with, a natural progression is cross sell your own customers. Any GOOD business these days is doing just that. Gone are the days of one product per customer.

Apple does this... get an iPod which works great with iTunes! You just bought two products, even though you may not pay for iTunes, let's assume you use it without making any purchases, you're still using their product and while in your use an inherent monetary value is ascribed to you using it for the company. Your bank even does this, get a checking account AND a savings account AND a credit card AND Identity Theft Protection. If you bank with Wells Fargo you're especially battered by sales when you call in to get your balance, BoA by contrast is a little more subtle, but again I'm straying off topic. You get it, cross-selling.
I've even tried using Windows Media Player again after years of hating it with a passion, but to be honest, once you set it up, it works like a champion and isn't half as annoying as Winamp can sometimes be or as clunky as iTunes.

It is just a natural progression, and personally after being very happy with my 360, now my Windows 7 PC, I think this WGX has the potential to be a great thing. Consider how much Steam has revolutionized PC gaming. Steam dominates almost the ENTIRE market for digital distribution of games. Now if you've used Steam you probably already know how ridiculously awesome it is. You have everything in one place, literally you can launch any game you currently own, or even previously owned (if purchased through Steam) and play it anytime. Add to the fact that they have plenty of demos up and have really GOOD deals and discounts going ALL the time and you've got a business model for success.

Now, give me something similar that perhaps is Microsoft based but ALSO integrates with my 360 and I'll jump on board in a heartbeat. I was already pretty impressed when I was able to play Bizarre Creations' (R.I.P., Activision you bastards!) Blur and post to my Facebook from inside the game after having a particularly awesome race. EA and Criterion expanded on this kind of idea with IN game leaderboards and commenting/sharing with NFS: Hot Pursuit, but I'll spare you that rant. The point is that the integration brings a new aspect to the game, it has the potential to create a METAGAME, and if there is anything gamers like, I can tell you, is having their actions have an effect, even if slight, on something larger than themselves. MMO's prove that. (Even though most MMO's currently out and on top completely disregard and ignore this side of the audience's wants, but that is another blog.)

Windows Live has already had an impact on 360 slightly, you can replay some games on your PC and have it contribute to your 360 gamerscore, two Arkham Asylum playthroughs for example, you'll get credit for both. Same can be said for Warhammer 40k and other titles.

If Microsoft plays their cards right and really capitalizes on the already established partnerships they have currently with Netflix, ESPN (which is owned by Disney and is another potential money market all in its own, but we'll see if that happens in the years to come), Facebook, Last.FM, Twitter, and Microsoft's own Zune line of digital distribution for Music and Movies, then you could end up with a seamless experience from 360 to PC. (Considering also that using the BING toolbar can earn you Microsoft Points)
After setting my 360 up on my home network it is already capable of streaming music, video and pictures from my computer to television. If my wife's PC wasn't already hooked up to our 50" Plasma it would be way more awesome, but still it is pretty damn cool.

Zynga's success with Farmville and other titles is pretty crazy. Last I checked they earn about a million dollars a day. Their success is pretty evident just using simple browser based games. Now consider if you start using your avatar with it and it becomes a 3D game, you just opened up a whole new avenue of gaming. Free little games that you can check maybe once or twice a day. Think about a Risk style game where you can check your war progress twice a day, once from your PC while at work and then once on your 360 when you get home, how sweet would that be? Especially considering social aspects such as making alliances with friends and playing such a thing multiplayer. Ad revenue combined with micro transactions would make such a venture enormous. Zygna's success has even sparked EA to start making browser based games, though if you think about it EA was doing that for years before Zygna just with things like Pogo.com I mean I've played Farmville and Mafia Wars extensively. Is the gameplay deep? Absolutely not. Is it fun? Sometimes it sure as hell is. It draws you in with the sense of accomplishment, often times in our lives we don't have a lot of control over what we do, so to be able to jump on Facebook, check what your family and friends are up to, and then harvest your crops and then plant some more cotton until tomorrow is pretty rewarding.

Ultimately, alot of people are going to say that WGX is going to fail hard, personally I am optimistic and think it could be a great thing. Not just for Microsoft as a company, but for us as gamers and non-gamers alike.

Red Dead Redemption

2010-06-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

I know this review is a bit late but after thuroughly playing RDR here are some impressions. Firstly, this is an excellent game, it has an engaging storyline, fun gameplay, a great open world and hours of playability.

You start off as a classic western hero, part good guy, part bad guy, and you are forced to hunt down your former outlaw gang members and bring them to justice or else 'bad stuff' will happen to your family. The game starts simple enough doing menial tasks like helping herd cattle and then quickly picks up the pace and has to chasing down banditos, shooting the fuck out of outlaws and kicking a bunch of ass Clint Eastwood style. Not Paint Your Wagon Eastwood either.

The side challenges and side missions will distract you for a few hours and are very engaging, however towards the end of the game money is nearly meaningless and once the hunting challenges are complete there is no point to continue mercilessly slaughtering animals for their hides. The lack of anything worth spending money is a bit disappointing, especially considering the well executed upgradeable villa in Assassin's Creed 2, another excellent sandbox game. I imagined buying a ranch, buying livestock, hiring hands. Fanboys might argue something like "that may end up as DLC!" Yes it may, but it seems like a feature that should have been there to start with.

The missions are fun and get you into the action extremely well, it has been a long time since I chose to play through a game as the 'good guy' but I did for this game because Mr. Marston is very likable. However, some missions can be very frustrating, especially if you die and get transported all the way back to your last purchased living space, which could be very far away. Additionally some dialogue was not fully fleshed out, one instance that comes to mind is herding cattle where another character guiding me through the missions repeats the same few sentences in rapid succession over and over again. Very immersion breaking.

The game also has a host of glitches such as suddenly bursting out of cover, getting stuck walking through doors and occasional freezes. Also very agitating but a patch is on the way.

The world is very detailed and nice, not overcrowded like GTAIV, which is a breath of fresh air, it truly feels like a living, breathing western world. Animals kill each other, crimes happen without your involvement and life rolls on in the digital west. Despite this awesome realism comes the most irritating aspect of Red Dead Redemption, GTAIV took a large step forward for Rockstar's open world games by allowing us to SWIM, to move from that game to RDR where going in water above knee high is INSTANT DEATH is extremely immersion breaking and for lack of a better word, dumb as fuck. It is 2010 sir, instant death water is so 1995.

Overall despite the flaws, which every game has, the singleplayer is an excellent addition to the shelf of anyone who likes good story.

Singleplayer Verdict: 9/10

The multiplayer component sounds like it would be decidedly fun, which it is. Free roam is a triumph of game lobbies, allowing players to work cooperatively, solo, or competitively. Levelling up and unlocking new characters, guns, mounts and titles is fun, exciting and well executed. Forming a posse and whacking gang hideouts is also a blast, especially in private free roam with just some friends when you can terrorize each other by executing your friends' horses with a well placed shot to the head. It is even fun to become the victim of heinous acts, such as riding shotgun on a stagecoach that some dickhead you know decides to run full speed off a cliff or into the dangerous and instantly fatal thing known as 'water' for a few good laughs.

The downside to RDR's multiplayer comes in public free roam when trying to play cooperatively and do gang hideouts. The internet is full of assholes, and they WILL come to the gang hideout you are doing and they WILL kill the shit out of you while you're trying to do something. Sometimes this can be fun or amusing, but when you are sincerely trying to have fun and do something it can also piss you off enough to turn your Xbox off.

Additionally some of the multiplayer game modes are extremely laggy with poor hit detection, at times you may lean out to take a shot and be immediately blown away by someone who is hiding in a cheap spot, has a lower ping than you, or some other intangible reason you can't quite pin down. Sometimes it can be a blast where you wreck the other team's joint-anus open and dominate the scoreboards.

It is very hit or miss what type of game you'll end up with, leaving you with a love/hate relationship for RDR's multiplayer.

Multiplayer Verdict: 7/10

All we can do now is wait for the DLC to see how it adds to the game, this is a very solid game worth a purchase if you have the money to spare, if things are tight I wouldn't start getting too anxious about NOT having it despite all your friends playing it. It won't kill you to wait a while.

Game of the Year? No. Top five probably.

Overall Verdict: 8/10.

Bioshock 2

2010-02-27T13:03:00.000-08:00

Just finished reading some user reviews of Bioshock 2 on Gamefly.com, I just finished and mailed back Bioshock 2 myself, first off some thoughts on the reviews.

Every single one of them is fan boy boner popping 10/10 gush fests. "omg the story is so amazing and the multiplayer is flawless! Best ever!" Essentially, all the reviews gladly look over downsides to the game and only promote the ups.

First off, the single player is quite good and fun, I enjoyed it quite a bit, though the whole protect the Little Sister while she harvests Adam can feel tedious and distracting in some parts, otherwise it was cinematic and quite enjoyable. Though I do personally feel the story is a little convoluted at times.

Secondly, the multiplayer despite everyone's inane ramblings is not "perfectly balanced" by any means. It is a gimmick fest of my plasmid/weapon combo is better than yours. Someone runs up, shocks or freezes the shit out of you and then shotguns your skull off. Rinse repeat over and over and over. Is levelling up cool? Yes it is. Is it "revolutionary" as one review claimed? Not by a long shot! The Call of Duty series has had such a system in place for several years now. The multiplayer CAN be fun, for instance every 5 minutes or so a Big Daddy suit is spawned in the level, allowing you to stomp around pwning the shit out of anyone you see. This can be extremely fun and can turn the game around for you if you start having a bad streak. However, the top player can ALSO get the suit and finish up the game.

The entire MP experience turns into a giant gimmick-fest. My cheap gimmick-combo beats yours! I stunned you and killed you before you could do it to me.

Imagine a Modern Warfare 2 map where everyone is running around with Akimbo Shotguns. It isn't a skill-based competition at that point, just a twitch party that ends up being as fun as touching your peehole against a light socket just before you start to urinate.

Overall... Bioshock 2 gets an 8/10. Game of the year? Not a chance.

Aliens Vs. Predator First Impressions

2010-02-17T16:27:00.000-08:00

Aliens Vs. Predator is retardedly bad ass so far. Getting some bad reviews because Modern Warfare 2 and Halo 3 set a standard in FPS games but this doesn't PLAY like a FPS game. If you played the original PC games, this one is everything you wish had been in the originals and then some. Predator is glass cannon stealth mode, Alien is fast paced melee, Marine is paranoid survival horror-ish.

Give it a try, it rocks.

Additionally, the standard set by H3 and MW2 is irritating. While those are good games, Gamefly.com user ratings has The Orange Box ranked down to an 8.2 because it doesn't have aiming down the sights and gimmicks from H3 and MW2. The average retard glosses over The Orange Box's deep gameplay because it doesn't have the gimmicks of the more popular titles.

For my money, The Orange Box is hands down one of the BEST purchases you can make for an Xbox 360, PC or PS3. 5 games for one price? Not only 5 games but 5 games that all had critic meta reviews 80% and over. Anyhow enough tangent on The Orange Box.

Go buy or rent Aliens Vs. Predator and give it a fair shake, don't let the semi-complex controls throw you off, it has a lot of abilities it needs to slam onto your buttons, once you start to master them it becomes smooth and extremely satisfying. Nothing quite like rolling into a multiplayer death match and getting cornered by an alien on your puny marine goob only to end up curb stomping the big bad because you batted his claws away, punched him right in his dick-mouth and threw down some pulse rifle fire right up his gooch pipe.

Go, Play, Enjoy, Nerd Out.