I'm Just Sayin

My Honors thesis has been justified or shown to be worth nothing by three New York hipsters.

Being Thankful

Life is pretty good. I have good family, good friends, and good food. I also had a $15 beer today. Life is pretty much wonderful.

Thanks to all who made it so.

This was an okay Monday.

I have a little more work to do before I can take most of tomorrow off, so I have to save my writing for places were I get grades.

- I presented the presentation over Saudi Arabia today. For having been so quickly put together it came out quite well.

- I went to the Bear's Den twice today. Once I had a few drinks before my afternoon class. The second time I had a few more drinks right after my afternoon class. There is just a really good felling about drinking with friends that I forget sometimes.

- I saw a foreign film. It was pretty good. Not depressing like so many others.

- I totally disagree with Donna's and Hannah's score for HIMYM tonight. While I might be willing to give it a low B, I don't see how anyone could give it an A. There was something about the pacing of it tonight that just didn't feel right, but I guess that was just me.

Late Night, Early Morning

I often debate with myself over which I should choose. One one side there is the idea of staying up to get things done, but the other side of just sleeping so that I won't be distracted by being tired also seems swell.

This never ends well. No matter what happens I will sleep at some point and I will get the work done. Just whether or not I get done when I wanted to is the thing.

To all of this I decide often that it is just as well that I sleep. At least then I will not have to have the debate anymore because that won't be an option.

Getting Cold Enough?

I always find that my sinuses seem to be much more sensitive to the temperature than I ever am. This creates a period of two or there weeks in which I am in a constant state of confusion as to why my nose does not want me to get that precious, precious oxygen.

I am pretty sure that this could be fixed if I could just stop changing the temperature of my surroundings. If I could know that going from building to building for class and the temperature for the short dashes between buildings would all just be the same I would be happy to take a more extreme temperature even. Just so long as it is the same.

Playing AMUN

Today I got to co-chair the Security Council for simulation involving a bunch of high school kids. I will continue to do so tomorrow.

I started doing this a few years ago as a way to make a few extra points in a class on the UN, but then I found that it was basically something that I really enjoy. It is a role playing game that gets the people playing to play as world leaders. The delegates then get to solve the world's problems by using their powers of coercion and compromise with their fellow delegates. Meanwhile, I make sure Robert looks down upon us and sees order.

For me this is the closest I have ever gotten to playing any kind of table top RPG. Mostly this is because I have never really found anyone that shares the same mix of love and ironic disdain for a game like D&D to play with. But, I love the way that you have a group of players all out for themselves but being forced to work together by a powerful force in the Dungeon Master. If done well everyone involved feels pretty good. The players with a bit of luck and skill have conquered the challenge, and the DM has made a fun story that will be remembered by all who got to be a part of it.

With the AMUN this is hard to do. There are so many people playing that compromise is rarely going to lead to action, but there is always the chance that you can get Russia to at least not disagree with what's going on. Or maybe you can get the France and China to but author a bill about Africa. Sure it might not be totally in character, but it can still be rewarding.

Chuck Klosterman and "the illness"

I was really quite sick last night. So sick that as I lie in bed about to pass out I thought, "I need to blog." But I could not for, you see, I was close to falling apart if I had moved.

Lucky for me Mr. Klosterman had already left the state and I was not being called to attend any kind of events in his honor. I would have gone. I just would have been afraid of passing out or worse.

If anything became clear from his visit, it is that Chuck Klosterman is the most transparent person I can even remotely think of. Everything he says and does, he means. Worse yet, he has probably already written down his feelings about most everything he has experienced. As he was telling a story about his first experience with metal he did not provide any kind of side not, he almost told a story verbatim from his book. Either this is just a mundane story that he has talked about way too much or it is just that he is such a good writer that his written words have not filter.

I did learn from him how to talk about popular culture though. Because we experience each new thing as a part of everything we have seen before we cannot judge anything without bias. This bias is not right or wrong so much as it is simply the baggage that we bring with us from all of our past experiences. This means that we can only talk about things from our own perspective. This turns each of us as selves into part of the dialog itself.

I am also glad that he dislikes Family Guy.

Coffee, Apples, and Clydesdales

Due to Chuck Klosterman sending me on extended personal rants between me and various people I know, I am forced go to sleep without sending out a proper blog post today.

Tomorrow there will hopefully be a much longer one about my interactions with this Gen X hipster and his views on life, the universe, and everything.

What is there to say?

Tomorrow I get to meet one of my all time heroes in terms of success in life. As a writer Chuck Klosterman is not really any different than most other Gen X music critics, but when he branches away from here he becomes interesting.

He looks at pop culture as if it can actually tell us something about ourselves, as if it is more than just the fluff we fill our heads with when we aren't being productive. He writes as if we are actually affected by the music we listen to and the movies we see, and all the celebrity gossip that we listen for. Unlike most other people he doesn't seem to make judgment calls on just how good or bad it is.

Part of this has to do with his ability to look at overall ideas hidden in the way we watch YouTube or root for sports. He is trying to be a fan of the culture unlike so many others who try to cut themselves away from extremely personal subjects they talk about.

As such I try to write in a way that he might see as interesting when I write here on this blog. I try to write a blog that lives up to the spirit of the essays in his masterpiece Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. This is an evening blog. This blog is written in the moments before sleep and meant to be understood in context of the world around it.

Obama's Crackberry

One think I always liked about Obama was his use of his communication tools directly. He will probably be our first computer literate president and like so many of us, he is hopelessly dependent on his cell phone to give him his e-mail as soon as it is sent. While the question of whether or not we should hold our phones so close is important, for Barrack there are more pressing concerns.

For instance, he might have to give up his e-mailing. While a scary idea for even me, only mildly addicted, this might seriously destroy the way he works. The way that won his election for president. The way that I and so many others want his government to work.

Now the reason for all of this is the Presidential Records Act. It basically was made in order to preserve everything the president does in order that we might be able to have transparency in government as well as a nice historical record. Instead it has only made the White House all the more insular. Instead of opening up records it has only made the president more protective of what is written down. This is unhealthy.

If Obama really wants to change Washington he will set a new trend of allowing everything that he does to be seen by the public. While it might sound like overly loud language for me to say this, we have the right to his information. Not only that, if we want to have a fully functional government we have the need for it as well.

So Obama, I know you don't read my blog. I am just one voice crying out into the night, but I say keep your Blackberry. Leave a huge (figurative) paper trail. Ensure that we will spend the next 8 years looking at everything you do with a microscope. It will keep you on your toes and it will let us warn you if you start to drift away from what it is that we think is proper for our country.

The Piano Bar, Rules and Guidelines

In my limited experience within piano bars I have come up with this advice on how to enjoy them. This is not really for anyone other than foreign kids and younglings but hopefully it is useful.

1. Get there early. You might think it is cool to not show up anywhere on a Saturday night until after 10, but that doesn't fly when there is limited seating and people who are already too drunk to want to get up in the bar. You want to show up around 7 and get a table near the stage. This way you are able to more easily talk to the players.


2. Don't expect the piano players to play your song unless you tip them properly. Ona a slow night this might be a dollar. On a busy night it will be at least a twenty.


3. Don't expect the players to know your song. I have requested so many b-ranked Abba and Queen songs at piano bars only to get the response, "I know Dancing Queen." These people know hundreds of pop standards though so just request another song.


4. Unless you are the DD, never stop having a drink in your hands. No one at a piano bar likes to think that they are with anyone who wants to actually sing well. The singing is just an easy way to replace that awkward conversation that you have to make at most other bars.


5. Don't be the d-bag that requests Piano Man.

The Weekend

I enjoy my Fridays. I try not to do much work and spend the evening basking in the fact that I don't have to go to class for the next two days. This often involves my girlfriend and a good deal of fun.

The thing is, I have stopped really finding joy in the weekends. I have so much school work that doesn't have time to be done during the week or is just due on Monday that I spend a good deal of my weekend reading and writing on things that I would prefer to ignore for more than barely a day.

Everyday there is something to do. All I can do is wait until the Christmas break for a bit of a breather before I throw myself into the fire again.

The Dismal Science

Stephen Moore was on Colbert tonight to talk about his new book. This guy is, what many like economists refer to them selves as, a neoclassical economist. He wants little to no government intervention to allow markets to make function the way that they can (in theory) work best. The problem is that he is living in a bubble if he really wants to apply his theory to the real world.

Economics is a very interesting school of thought. I hesitate to call it a science because while it tries to make predictions about the world, it more often looks at what outcomes should be based on assumptions about the people making the choices. I was attracted to this study of choice because many of its assumptions about people are actually the way I go about life. I try to be rational about everything. I always choose the path that will most benefit me in my life. And I often like to think that I have perfect information. Unfortunately, neither I nor anyone else has that last one.

Now, perfect information, or at least as close as we will ever get without being able to totally predict the future, is coming. I am sure of that, but as of right now we have to factor in that people are ignorant when talking about economic models. Notice: I say "ignorant," not "stupid."

This is why we still need government intervention in our economy. I know that this sounds paternalistic when I say it alone so let me clarify. Right now we have such a lack of information, in some places that the only way to prevent the most heinous things from happening is to have rules against it. For example, social security, one of the most Big Brotherly things we have in the US. It is a system that forces people to save money. There are many people who would just assume that we get rid of it because it causes some economic inefficiencies. These people would much rather let everyone do exactly what they want with their money in order to save for retirement. There is a problem though. No one saves money! In a culture that has been told that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow, we are going to want to spend spend spend. Like our great grandparents who didn't save enough to have money when they needed (thus causing the need for social security), we are to ignorant to be able to see a time when we might need it. We (wrongly) expect to have a constant flow of income, even when we get too old to work, thus we need a mechanism that will not disappoint us, like social security.

Christmas List

At this time of year I like to sit back and look at all the things I have and be thankful. I have my Rock Band set with plenty of downloaded songs. I have an iPhone with which I am always connected to the world. I have Lots of other things that I am happy to have as well, but there is always more. So here now are a list of things that I have not gotten my hands on yet that I would love to have (in no particular order):

• Video Games - Gears of War 2 is about big guns and lots of blood. Fallout 3 this seems like a great vacation and I would love to go. de Blob seems like a cute little game. Little Big Planet might require a PS3 but looks to be one of the best games to come out this year. Dead Space is a scary game that I am sure would be fun to play with my girlfriend on a cold winter's night.


• The Guild Season 1 - While my love for Felicia Day is limited by my inability to get over how much she reminds me of Michael Cera, I think she has made something awesome with The Guild. Season 2 is goinv to start being released at the end of this month, but I still want to see all the extras and commentary on Season 1's DVD.


• Bluetooth Headphones - Specifically those made by Jaybird JB-200i. These will let me wirelessly play music from my iPhone as well as use them for talking on my iPhone. The need for more than one piece of headgear is in the past.


• Shot Glasses - While the nerd in me thinks it would be awesome to shoot Pinky, Blinky, Inky, and Clyde as if I had just swallowed a power pellet there is the other part of me who would love to party hop on New Years taking shoots with people out of easy to transport rubber shooters.


• Seasoning Grinders - After my parents talked about how they longed for a 1-handed pepper grinder I found one. As much as they might like it, I really want it too. After all, it is a bunny!


• Books - I have so many books that I want. Most of them are about popular culture. But what else would you expect from me?

Open Source Goals

(I am sorry if I offend anyone in this post, but my interactions have caused me to think about this.)

I have a group project going on right now. It is in my Strange Communities class, and we must document the way in which a group we know about has changed its goals as it has developed. But that is not the interesting part.

What gets me is that I have no real idea how to communicate with anyone. Beyond just trying to decided if we use Facebook, HCOL, or some other means of messaging is crazy hard. But I think it is only hard because we all come from different backgrounds. Some of the people are regular Facebookers so that is the place to meet... once we are all friends there. I use HCOL because it was the one place where I could find everyone's names and send them messages at one point in time. I am also a fan of using on-line word processors in order to send messages and to write our paper. There are others who seem to be adverse to any of those because they are not connected more than they have to be (very strange).

But the hardest part of communicating with people I think comes in what we see the project as. For some it is just another task to take care of to get done with the class. Others it is a chance to flex our thinking caps. And even others see it as something that doesn't require any thought at all. This means that delegating work will probably cause some to have lighter loads than others even if we all receive the same grade. While I have gotten use to this over the years, I am still troubled by the way that we all wish to take separate paths to our primary goal.

But this is the way open source works. Right? Everyone does a small amount to make something big? This is why without paying many people very much money some versions of Linux are worth more than $10 million. But those projects, even ignoring the idea of motivation, have something I don't. They have time.

A good open source project requires time to really get off the ground. Just look at Songbird. As an open source music player it has been in development for close to three years, and it is just now getting to a usable beta. If I had the time to work with my group and let everyone do a little at a time I would probably be able to produce something really great. Instead I have a little less than a month to put something together that I can only hope is interesting.

The Guild Season 1

As far as the Internet nerd icons go it is pretty much a given that Wil Wheaten is the de facto political leader, but Felicia Day is the de facto sex symbol. I mean, she is pretty much beautiful, went to college at 16 and majored in math, and she play WoW way too much. What more could a nerd as for. I bet she would make a totally awesome DM too.

That mentioned love of WoW she has is very serious. It isn't any kind of girly thing, "Yeah, I play WoW because my boyfriend does." She is an intense player who decided that she needed to make a sitcom out of her experiences being overly connected to her guild while being totally disconnected from the world. Enter The Guild.

As a web sitcom the whole season is over within an hour, but is one of the best hours on the Internet. Day's character is a WoW junkie who feels that her life is being consumed by the game to the point that not even her therapist can help her. The thing is, she is the most normal well-adjusted member of her friends with whom she goes on raids.

The show makes the most of the various stereotypes that populate the game in the real world with its limited cast: from the sheltered nerd to the lonely and unemployed middle aged man to the machisemo/a driven to those just looking to escape into a seemingly more rewarding world. I am sure that you could ask any gamer if they know anyone like any of the characters and they would give you more names than you might care to know. Yet, none of these characters feel overly archetyped. Maybe it is because of our limited interaction with them, but everyone seems to have a back story that while comical is also strangely real.

The writing is also surprisingly good. Even in real life these people think like the avatars they use in the game. Everything to do for someone is a quest that grants you some reward. Every task will give them experience. Every person they encounter is just another PvP battle waiting to happen. I would call the use of in-game jargon cheesy if it wasn't for it being so true to life.

There is going to be a Season 2 soon, and this is a good thing.

As of right now I would really love to get the DVD for all the extras as well as to support the production of this awesome show.

Unproductivity

There are some days in which you just don't want to be productive. On days such as that all that will make you remotely happy is to sit down with someone who is happy to see you and enjoy entertainment put out by our friends at the major networks.

Until you get to this point in the day you are constantly left wondering why you aren't being more productive. Why are you reading your RSS feed instead of reading your books for class? Why are you taking a nap instead of drinking a cup of coffee and writing on your thesis? Why aren't you doing research for any of those other papers that need to be written while you are writing your blog? All of these and so many more make you just feel worthless. You feel like everything around you is caving leaving you unable to do anything but admit total defeat. So yeah you begin to question why you even bother, and what if you just stopped trying to achieve what ever it is you are trying to achieve.

But you keep on going because tomorrow is a new day. And as unlikely as it may seem, you just might wake up and feel awesome and ready to take care of everything you need to do that day and everything you didn't do the day before.

Role Models

This movie is not quite heartwarming, but by the end of it you will be happy to have gotten to enjoy a story whose characters were way more important than their plot.

Paul Rudd, after having a hard day (he hates his job chugging energy drinks and his girlfriend dumps him) ends up being forced to do community service with a Big/Little program. So he gets stuck with a nerdy kid who likes to play fantasy reenactments with the local cosplayers. Oh, and his partner and only friend is a man-child who gets dragged along for the ride and he gets stuck with a foul mouthed little black kid.

Eventually they all learn to like each other and that's when the movie does the most self conscious (or just god awful) thing I have ever seen a movie let itself do. Rudd wins back his girlfriend with the most uninspired written on the fly love song ever. While some might like to think they they were just shoehorning a happy ending on to a story that need to tie of a lose end somehow, I like to think that they were deliberately mocking this sort of thing in other movies. And if this is the case, I might have to watch the whole movie over again just to see if I can catch if they are really mocking the genre of movie that has made this movie's leads stars.

Cool Air

The weather is getting chilly. I have had to keep the house's heater on tonight for fear that the pipes will freeze (they probably wouldn't but I am a worrier).

So because I did actually get a small amount of work done today I am going to treat myself to a good night's rest. Hopefully there will be a new movie review tomorrow.

What To Do?

There are two sides to everything that I want to do in life. On one hand, it seems like i would be totally happy doing close to nothing in the way of work. I would spend the vast majority of my time playing games, reading things I might want to look over myself, and over all live a life with a simple and slow routine. On the other hand, I would love to work hard at something, almost anything, and do something that I can eventually garner fame and pride from. While not totally exclusive, these two things become so as you move to the extremes of each.

Because of this I try to do like so many do in life. Make sure that the very busy days full of things that are hard to do (or you simply don't like to do but feel you must) are offset by a day every so often in which you do nothing but relax and enjoy the day. In thinking about this, I think about how Obama must feel right now. He no longer has to bounce around the country giving speeches every day, so there is some relaxation, but he is also gearing up to spend the next decade of his life never having a real day off.

For me today was a day of peace, I have taken every opportunity I can to be calm and happy and plan to continue to do so until tomorrow morning when I wake up and get to work on the multitude of things I have to get done this weekend.

Playing Games

We have been talking about Second Life and other virtual worlds in my Honors class lately. In fact, one of the assignments has been to go into SL and interact with the world and its inhabitants. This might be all well and good for some, but when it comes to any sort of MMO (massively multiplayer on-line) I just can't seem to get into it. Mostly it is because of two things: the scope and the people.

As a college student, already barely making time for his girlfriend, I find that there is just not enough time to go around learning how to build things in a place that not only has a steep learning curve but also no benefits outside of itself. Maybe if I thought I could gain in any way (even in a intangible way) I would be in these worlds more often, but as it is the job of inserting oneself into a community in a way that encourages the types of things I would want out of such a place... the job is time consuming.

Beyond this, I really just don't care about talking to people. I find that even in communities that I have made myself a part of in my 1st life there are a large number of people with whom I have no reason to interact with. These people do not make me a better person by connecting to them and thus they are but fluff in my social web. The same is true of most people in virtual worlds. Most everyone is friendly and kind, but it is rare that I really find a rapport with anyone. I am lucky to have the friends I have considering how poorly I keep up with any of them.

When I have time to enter a virtual world I like to do it on my own terms. If I have the chance over the Christmas break (ha!) I could see myself getting Fallout 3 and playing it for several days straight. Fallout is a game defined by its large world full of things to discover and do within it, but there is no one else there but you. This means to get the maximum benefit from the game I do not need to join a guild, talk to people to trade goods, or in anyway deal with other players. I can play the game on my terms and my terms alone.

This opposition to multiplayer games probably comes from my development as a gamer. While many of my friends were playing on-line with their Starcraft games, I was sitting at home playing Goldeneye in my room, all by myself. The idea of playing against other real people never really appealed to me until Halo entered my life during my senior year of high school. Being able to play with the few friends I had over two TVs and then talk about how awesome the battles were as we emptied the fridge at whosoever's house we were at gave me some of my favorite memories from that time. I bought a Gold X-box Live account when I first got to college, but playing against random people never really clicked for me. Likewise, playing WoW or any other MMO without anyone I could share some precooked bacon with after we killed a dragon seemed boring somehow.

Maybe I just need to host a kickin' LAN party sometime soon...

The Writing Process

For the past week or so I have had what could best be called writer's block when it comes to my thesis. Part of this is because I have been doing other projects, but most of it comes from an intense need to get it done. I often find that on most projects I can think much more clearly if I know I have a deadline, but it is far away. Right now my thesis needs to be mostly complete by the end of this month.

This is crazy.

I have spent the last year and a half working on this thing. I have read a good number of books, many make it into the paper while a good deal of them are only there in spirit only. I have had so many conversations about cool with my advisor, my girlfriend, my friends, my family, and nerdy guys who work for NASA out in New Mexico. I have written upwards of 150 pages on cool, but have junked most of it or at least refined it down to something between 40-50 pages. I apply everything I learn to cool, from game theory to democratic system formation. I may not be cool, but it is always on my mind.

After meeting with my advisor today and bouncing some ideas off of her, I wrote a little today. I will write more as soon as I wake up tomorrow too. I feel like I have a second wind. I might actually make this happen.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Now that we can get things done, Obama, do these things:

- Continue Twittering. If you want to stay popular and connected with the people make sure that you tweet every time you do anything at the White House.

- Don't till away your grass roots. While you might need to mow the lawn on your campaign support system do not get rid of it. Instead use the people you had generating support for you to begin creating informal local gatherings to talk about certain issues. Maybe every month is a different topic, but you must need to keep people engaged. We all too often turn off our brains when there doesn't seem to be anything going on that we can have a say in.

- Meet with every economic and political leader in the world. Go to China and talk with the people in charge of the business part of government. Go to Middle East and talk about what they can do to ensure that once oil is gone they will have industry to keep them rich.

- Be the leader of the party. Don't let Reed or Pelosi boss you around. You know what you want to do, get it done.


This is just a short list of things, general things, but if you follow them the rest will come.

My Generation

For the last two years I have been looking forward to tomorrow night. That's because tomorrow night will be the first time I feel like I am a part of a generation of people who are willing to make something happen rather than ride on what the babyboomers did in the 60s.

Generation X has done very little in the way of pushing the world toward anything new and better. Instead, they let themselves become idle spectators in history refusing to admit that just because the Cold War was over that there was anything left to do. They seem to prefer accepting that we have reached the "end of history" as some political scholars have put it.

While I think it matters greatly as to who wins the election, I hope that either outcome will result in my peers standing up and making the things that work today better suited for tomorrow. I hope that we are able to spread information to everyone as to allow new ideas to sprout forth from every individual. I hope that we can take a world powered by oil, the sticky black remains of those who once lived and ruled, and turn it into a world powered by the supply of energy granted to us each day anew. I hope that we can soon provide the world with the feelings of joy the very privileged of us here in the West have by simply walking our peaceful streets at night after a full meal. I hope that we can all find a way to make sure that everyone's job is work and not labor.

I hope that I remember these words on the 5th, then again in January. It will be at these moments that our ideals will be tested. We must roll up our sleeves and dig our hands deeply into the soil of the future. Unlike those who came before us we must always know that the future is fertile with new opportunity, but it must be cultivated. From this we can produce something the likes of which has never been seen by civilization. I don't want to be the greatest generation, but I want to be better than any before. And I hope that we can inspire the next generation to the same or better.

My goals are lofty, but I don't think I am alone.

It has begun

While I would much rather be in the situation that the Penny-Arcade guys seem to be in, I am pretty much crazy busy right now. I have to polish up a thesis as to make it worthy of even being submitted for OTA, I have other papers to write, many books to read, and a house that needs constant cleaning thanks to the gathers that seem to be taking place here every weekend.

I am going to try to start blogging every day though. I know it will be hard and some days will be better than others, but it is National Novel Writing Month. And if I were to try to write a novel I might not have time for anything else.

In other news: Happy Birthday Tre!

The Wikiocracy

This semester has been fun. Along with all the typical classes there are two that are really meshing for me more than usual this semester. The first is a poli sci class called "Dynamics of Democracy." It is basically a class on how democracy forms in countries around the world. This is mostly macro level ideas about governments and cultures, but if worked with enough can begin to look at the micro level of people and community. The other is a class on "Strange Communities." This class has looked at gangs, monks, and now Internet communities. Both classes I really didn't need to take and it would have made my life a bit easier if I hadn't taken them, but without them i would not have gotten to think about certain things. For example:

One of the questions that comes up often in my democracy class is that of what is after the stage of large scale republican democracy when it comes to legitimate government that is also as efficient as it can be. Today my communities class gave me the answer. We will form a wikiocracy. Now to see this as being reasonable we have to look at a few things first. Let's also just use Arkansas as the example of choice.

As of right now Arkansas has a legislature that meets every two years (maybe every year after this election) to decide on all sorts of laws and rules and budgets that the executive branch much follow. To do this the representatives and senators meet and draw up all sorts of bills. Most of these things are minor, but they are still important enough to have discussion over. Right now it is almost totally up to the congressmen (with the aid of lobbyists) to do this.

Now we elect people to do this sort of thing because we are all just too busy to have a direct say in government all the time. Plus, if we all tried to have a debate out on the floor of congress all the time nothing would ever get passed thanks to the pure inefficiency of it. This is all well and good for trying to have a light government that speaks where the people can't, but it is no good as we are entering an era of what many might refer to as postmodern complexity. By this I mean that we are at a point in our civilization in which none of us have the ability to see or understand everything (even within our own fields of expertise) thus we must accept that our views can only become more nuanced when combined with those of others.

Because of this new sense of ignorance the best* way we have developed so far of making law has been through professional politicians and lobbyists. This tends to limit the government's view of the complexity I have mentioned. If we are not careful the result will be that eventually the government will only think like a government and not like the wide birth of people it is meant to be serving.

To solve this we can look the movement of collaborative creation, such as Wikipedia and other wikis. These are places where anyone can enter and add their two cents and get out. This means that anyone can put their view of the world in with everyone else and soon there is a mean view that forms that most people can agree with (this mean is known as Subjective Neutrality). This and its self-correcting nature are what drives the wiki to being a useful tool.

Now what I am proposing is not going to be as open as Wikipedia, but it will allow everyone who wants a say to be able to help shape the way the government is run.

I propose a Legislative Wiki. It will contain articles about things that are legislated (such as an article on Fishing that contains information about what, when, where, and how it is legal for anyone to fish), things that people want to be legislated (such as gambling), and most importantly Drafts of Bills being considered by the legislature.

Now the first two types of articles will be open to the public to edit by making sure that public statements by important people and organizations are constantly added as deemed relevant. Because there are almost always two equally passionate sides to most issues and it will be mostly made up of facts this area of the wiki will only have to be loosely moderated by a constantly rotating group of non-partisan government workers. There will also be locked wiki pages constantly linked in these articles of current or past laws. They will be locked because they are the law and cannot be changed at the whim of the wikifolk. These articles will provide the information desperately needed in order to know where laws need to be put into place and just how the laws need to be structured for maximum efficiency.

These pages will of course have their own discussion pages that will allow them to produce debate from both citizens, groups, and government officials on topics from what should be on the page to whether there are laws that need to be changed.

Now comes the truly awesome part of this new legislative method!

Elected officials will constantly monitor the sections that most interest them and their constituents and as they seen clamor for a change in law they will create and moderate Draft Bill Proposal pages. These will either be locked or unlocked based on what the legislator sees as most useful for the proposal, but they will be hammered out by discussion from the people. Much more quickly than in a committee meeting all the potential flaws will be gone and the kind of reaction the bill gets will help the legislators decide how to vote if/when it gets to be put to a vote.

This whole process might seem complicated at first, but once it is set up it will run very smoothly.

The goal of doing this is to create a more democratic government in which anyone who wants a say in what is being said or heard by politicians. It will also give people a say in just how government runs things by giving people almost direct control over things such as laws. And by having more people than just politicos tinkering with bills there will be a more civilization encompassing tone to what is made into law. All of these things are goods and at one time would have been too costly to allow, but now that we have moved past traditional methods of communication these things are all possible.

*Best is a normative term, but I mean it as the most useful and societally efficient way of doing things.

Wealth

A little over a week ago I got an iPhone. I have to say that I love it. As an avid Apple user it meets all the demands I have for a phone that wants to connect me to the Internet. While there are complaints about it from some slightly more hardcore users, I find it fits my needs fairly well.

As I was getting my iPhone activated I noticed a skuzzy looking guy who was probably some sort of manual laborer getting an iPhone as well. That said I recently saw an article on /. that said that even lower-middle class people are getting the iPhone. Now this makes sense seeing as how the plan it only slightly more than what most people are paying for cell service now and the phone itself is not to prices. This bit of news and the economy have got me to thinking about money and buying power.

The day I bought my iPhone we had a discussion about the idea of wealth in my economics class. One student said that thanks to the market "crisis" he didn't feel that wealthy. To this I and a few others tried to correct him by suggesting that he has yet to worry about getting food or anything else despite the slowdown with the professor chiming in, "The US, where a problem is that the poor people are fat." Our point was that we are so wealthy that we feel poor even when we are able to be overweight if we so please.

This is such a stark contrast to a few generations ago. My grandparents, all of whom have passed, were all never high ranking people. They all came from modest backgrounds where they all made decent livings and knew how to save and make a dollar into more than it was when they first got it. These were people who live through the Great Depression, went to war, and worked until they were able to retire comfortably. For them by the time they were ready to retire they were wealthy.

Now, they were not wealthy in the way that they could have gone out and bought manor houses and rare art. They were wealthy in that they could buy large meaty meals every day and feed me just about anything I could have wanted whenever I was over. They loved watching me eat. They also liked giving me nice things like clothes and toys, but it was being able to see me provided with a thick juicy steak that really made their hearts sing. Not that I am blaming them for my being a bit overweight for a good part of my life. I am just saying that they saw intense value in food and wanted me to have it.

My brother has a kid now, making my parents grandparents. However, I don't think that they will get the same sort of joy out of feeding my niece as my grandparents had for me. This is because they have never felt like food wasn't something people simply just have without much question. Now the quality of food, that will always be something to want to improve, but food itself...

I say this because in our troubled economic times when we are riding a roller coaster of an economy trying to find its way in a post-housing bubble world, we need to have some perspective. We need to appreciate that we are so comfortable with our food supply that even the proletariat can buy what might be considered high technology. We don't have to decide between iPhones and butter. We have both, and by most people's standards we here in the US are pretty wealthy.

Meditations in an Emergency

I was just washing dishes when I got a message asking if I was okay from my brother. Considering I hadn't spoken to him in ages and there was seemingly no reason for me to be not okay I was confused. It turns out there has been a shooting on my university's campus.

As of right now the news is sketchy at best, but I really have to say that I am not sure what to make of the whole thing. It isn't likely that I know any of the people shot. I am safe off campus in my little house. Everyone I would think to call and check on is informed of the situation and is not worried about me, nor I them. But there was just a shooting on campus.

The worst part of it is that some of my first thoughts about the shooting were that I would have to watch my tongue and not make any distasteful jokes. But that is jut how I react to things I guess...

All of this just makes me think about all the press coverage that I have seen over the years of random places with sad people out to make a name for themselves the easiest way possible. But those kids did it in the day where there were plenty of people to shoot and plenty of people to see the shooting.

This means that either we have the dumbest camera-whore of a shooter ever or it has to be an isolated incident that happen for some even more random reason. And to be quite frank, I am not sure which I would prefer.

It seems it has made the national news now.

I am just lucky that I am one of the few kids on campus that have access to HCOL as a place to turn for comfort. It is nice to see all the people I know logged in. All of us with baited breath. Waiting for each bit of information to come down the wire.

May we all find the strength and comfort we need and pass these things on to others who might need more than they have.

Nick and Norah's Infinate Playlist

Given my unabashed loved for all things twee I had to see this movie. And I had to love it irrationally. I am sure I will watch this movie again when it comes out on DVD in a long movie night featuring as many movies as I can find that have something to do allowing trendy music to control our hearts and bring us together. That said, this movie is too full of lost potential for me to be truly happy watching it.

The whole plot involves Michael Cera (played with much grace by Mr. Cera) getting over his manipulative ex, hooking up with Kat Dennings, and getting to see a band that is playing after hours in a mystery location. There is also some wackiness with Kat's Courtney Love-esque friend, MC's gay bandmates, and a lame Jewish band. So it is basically set up to be the perfect into the night movie.

The movie fails many ways, but lets focus on the two aspects of the movie that could most easily be improved.

The paths of the characters:

With a premise like trying to find where the best twee band in NYC is playing should have been the biggest focus of the movie in terms of motivations for each of the hipster characters. MC and Kat (Nick and Norah) seem to be using the quest to find Fluffy as the excuse to learn about each other rather than simply being thrown together by the forces of the night to search for the band and fall in love at the same time. This leads to frustrating scenes where the characters are in fact building a connection, but through brute force alone.

Zanny sidequests are bound to happen, but that really should have been left to sidekicks, who were used quite well for the first part of the movie but then suddenly become nothing more than a plot mechanism to find Fluffy without even any work. I point to Superbad's McLovin for how to use the sidekick in a movie like this. They should interact as almost coincidentally connected stories that don't really have to help solve the primary conflict. They just need to provide that bridge the main characters can use to reach their destination.

The music:

While I am happy that Mark Mothersbaugh took care of the original music. The "playlist" was never stressed enough. In a post Garden State age movies about music really need a soundtrack that "will change your life."

I am no music expert. I can barely make myself listen to the newest Jenny Lewis album, much less any kind of truly underground stuff. But I expect the filmmaker to at least have a friend that might be able to do this sort of thing. I need a list of songs by bands that should be popular and will be thanks to this movie. This would drive up the cred of the movie.

The music also should have been a bigger topic of conversation. The one time they really get into talking about music in a deep way is a conversation about The Cure ("More like The Cause."). If these people are such music geeks who are brought together because of their love of music then we need to see that.



Oh, and more bands should have bunnies as their symbols.

This is just Rotten

I am a romantic. I romanticize. Especially when it comes to the icons who were once cool. I like to think that these people are able to grow up and only become more cool as adults who may be part of the system, but at least it is a system that they seemed to have always been associated with. This is why I like Rush (beyond the music). They were basically nerds who tried to be like Led Zepplin with slightly more competent drummer. This has been their MO from day one and has matured tastefully like wine.

I just don't think of punk when I see this:




Maybe my vision of punk is too much Sid & Nancy and not enough just making a buck. Maybe this is punk and I am just missing it. Maybe if California has happy cows the UK has anarchist cows. Maybe, just maybe, punk was never what I like to dream of it as and Mr. Lydon is determined to tell me this.

Whose Responsible for the Economy?

(This is what I would say if I were running for president.)

My friends, I know we are all worried about the economy right now, but fear not. Yes, we are experiencing one of the hardest economic times in recent memory, but things are still good. We still have food to eat and are coming together to make sure we all have a roof over our heads. It could be worse. Remember this.

Now I won't stand here and say that the economy is hunky-dory and we are doing just fine. Everyone from the investors on Wall Street to the corn growers in Iowa know that we are being effected by the bad decisions of a few institutions.

I will tell you this, however it is going to get better very soon. America cannot be kept down. We will bound back and be even stronger than ever.

Now in order to do this we much all stand strong and stand together.

As president, I will do my part to make sure that the government is watching out for its citizens. I will make sure that our workers, with every color collar, do not go without the basic things we need in life. To ensure a healthy democracy we need healthy people out there doing what needs to be done.

That said, I want you to know that the huge businesses that helped cause this mess will likely not be around much longer. The government will help the people. That's its job. But we will not provide a free pass to those who cannot create a stable marketplace for our investments.

This is what I will do. While we are concerned about specifics right now, I promise that this spirit will be in whatever economic plans I support.

Now this isn't enough however. I need, We need, America needs you all to be patient. It is hard right now to sit back and watch the news and the rest of the media sound like Nostradamus soothsaying or investments away. There is the temptation to pull your money out of the economy. Don't do this.

Your savings in your bank accounts are insured. The government will pick up the slack if it came to that, but that is not an issue thanks to FDIC. The reason we insure your accounts is so that you can keep your money in the bank. This keeps the banks strong. If you were to take back your money and put it in a hole in the ground then the banks would have no way to play their parts in the economy.

Along with staying calm I ask for us all to spend the next few months living frugally. This doesn't necessarily mean tightening our belts, but it does mean simply paying attention to what we are spending our money on. If you want to make sure that your money is safe start with looking at how most of us loose most of our money, living beyond our means.

If we simply spend wisely and save over the coming times we will soon be able to bring our economy back to where it was not too long ago.

You do that and I will keep of my end of the deal.

You probably already heard this...

Here is a great interview with Slavoj Zizek. I love listening to this guy.

Birthday Thoughts

I recently turned 22 and have a lot to think about in terms of what I want to do in life. But here are a few things that I would love to do:

Join the Peace Corps - I would love to be able to be some place new and exciting while doing good work. To me this really does seem like the best way to do just that. I am not sure if I have the moxie to do that or the ability to leave the ones I love for two years though.

Teach my way through grad school - If I could spend my time doing research with some interesting professor while doing my own studies and teaching in some capacity I would be happy. It is all a lot of work. More than I have ever had before, but I think I could do a good job of this and maybe give up a bit of the leisure time I actually have so much of now a days. I just need to find a place where I could do this.

Write a book - If I starting really doing research and writing more full time I could very quickly produce a book that would change the world. My ideas and the things I am looking at go so deeply into the way most of us (here in the West) interact with the world. All I need is to put my mind to it.

Have the confidence to be happy - There are times when I go to bed or wake up with the feeling that I am not doing anything in my life that is meaningful or that will make me happy in the long run. While the majority of the day assuages these feelings, I still worry sometimes. To find the confidence I need I just need to be willing to set my mind directly on the path in life I am walking and accept that no matter which direction I go everything will be wonderful.

Sarah Palin and the McCain Campaign

These people just make me feel dirty.

Pop Culture and Religion

Why would you preach a message inspired by a movie that you tell your parish not to see? I only ask this because it seems like one man is.

This guy claims to be trying to reach out to people by simply getting their attention with the movie stuff, but in even joking about them and dressing up as the characters isn't that endorsement of the movies?

Now, as a student of popular culture who gets most of my academic direction from a theologian and religious leader, I have no problem with the idea of the church and the megaplex sharing a common ground. I will gladly tell you that we live in a world where the movie theater is the church, the DVR is the confessional, and the convention is the hajj.* The problem is when you try to use one to boost the other even if that boost is based on something that is condemned.

For example, if I were at a nut allergy conference I would not dress up like Mr. Peanut for the first half of my talk only to take off the monocle and say, "Seriously though, don't eat nuts." The whole point of the gentleman legume is to sell nuts. Likewise, the jokes of white guys playing black guys is about getting people to go see the movie.

This isn't hypocriticalism. That would be much more obvious to see. It is actually a kind of disillusionment. It is a feeling that you can take things from the culture at large and apply them to your pure religion while still condemning them for existing.

This is partially my complaint about Christian Rock. While yes "rock and/or roll music" is a genre that is defined by a distinct sound from its fast tempo to its ability to be complex or simple, it is also carries a distinct philosophy. That is it is all about being subversive. The problem is that Christian Rock doesn't seem to be subversive at all.

This is because of one of two things. First, it could be that no one seems to notice this dichotomy. I doubt this. There have been plenty of louder voices than mine shouting about this. We all know that these two things should not go together when described like this. But there is always the off chance that everyone is really just as dense as this idea would suggest.

The second is much worse than the first. What if rock is no longer subversive? Clearly, it isn't subversive now, but was it ever? While there is always the old joke of the dad banging on the door telling his kind to turn off that shitty music, this stereotype is dieing. Instead we are getting a generation of kinds whose dads are banging on their doors demanding that they return their shitty music.

I might enjoy sitting back and listening to Led Zeppelin with my dad, but in doing so I am admitting that I (and my generation by extension) am neither rebellious nor subversive in the way his might have been.

This worries me because it might mean that we have reached a point where we must redefine rock music, admit that it is mainstream, and realize that the young culture of today is the culture that even the gray feel that they are a part of.



*Yeah, I am sure this is an imperfect analogy. So enjoy it as humor.

The End of Summer

Well, this is the last night before the end of summer for me. I enjoyed it and feel that it was mildly productive. Spending most of it in LA was pretty much awesome, but the parts that were just here in Arkansas were fun too.

With school starting I hope to be getting into a more writerly mode of operations. This means that the several posts I have started on here might get past the draft stage and will become interesting discussions. I also hope that I might start to post sections of my actual thesis here as I work them out. All and all I want to just have more content here.

All said I hope you all had a good summer.

LA is almost gone...

In about a day or so I will be leaving LA for the desert city of Las Vegas. From there I will stop by the Grand Canyon to get a post card or two, then home to Arkansas. Most of this will be driving down I-40, but I have never shied away from road trips.

I won't be sad doing this. When I get back to AR I have plenty of catching up to do in terms of videogames, friends, and rainfall. I also won't miss the horrid parking or at least having to pay to park anywhere that exists out here. There is also the excitement of moving into a house just off campus with some of my best friends that is also less than a block from my sister's residence. Life is waiting for me to get back there in other words.

While I have been out here my time has been fun. I have gone to the beach a few times, been in neighborhoods looking at houses that cost more than the net worth of most people I know, attended a filming of The Price is Right, eaten chicken and waffles at the same time, eaten Pink Berry, eaten Chinese food in a crowded restaurant in which Hannah and I were the only people of Western descent, seen famous movie houses, and over all just been around some of the most awesome places in the world. All said, it has been good in getting a feel for LA.

In terms of productivity... I wrote a bit for my thesis. It needs way more work, but in the pages I have written so far I have the ball rolling with my thoughts. I have read just about everything published by Chuck Klosterman. A man with whom I feel a certain bullshitter's connection. I have read a few other things as well, but nothing to point out. While I wish I had read and written more overall, there is nothing too specific that I did not do that I wanted to.

So while I go off into the future in the next few days I will be ready for it. Soon school will be starting and I will be forced to go into heavy work mode, something I forget that I am capable of doing during the summer but seem to fall right into the moment I find I have dozens of pages to write while studying for that many tests while trying to have a life and be an active Honors person too. It makes me wish I was going to be a PA again...

Why LOST Is Better Than Heroes.

Hopefully this will be the first of many posts about my Comic-Con '08 experiences. It was only one day, but there were many things there that I gave me fuel for writing.

Right after getting our tags Hannah and I went down to get in line for Hall H's morning events of two of the biggest TV shows to be at the con, Heroes and Lost. I am much more of a Lost fan if only because the show lets me create wild solutions to what is going on only to have even wilder things happen on the show. Heroes just doesn't do this for me. Heroes tends to tell a neat story, but I have always felt that it gets bogged down in character development. To that point I do watch and enjoy both though.

Now this line I mentioned, I started walking toward the end of it not really sure where the end was. I just assumed that it was so winding that the end was somewhere within the grassy area next to the public art at the doors to Hall H. I was wrong. It actually was twisty, but the line wrapped around the convention center for what must have been over a mile. If there had been more than 6000 people in front of me I would have been sad.

So I waited. Hannah however felt the need to talk to the two very socially awkward guys standing near us. While I have a distaste for scenesters and pathetic IT guys, Hannah just wanted someone to talk to hopefully about Lost. My how she was disappointed. Both of these guys found Lost to be repulsive. They said that they never could get into it, that it was boring, and then tried to talk about what Hiro and Ando will do next season. Both Hannah and I were just baffled by this. When we finally narrowed down what it was that they didn't like about Lost, it seems that they only really like the cool superhero part of the show making anything about the story and plot development unimportant.

After we got in and the show actually started Jeph Loeb showed us the third part of the Heroes webasodes (I hate that name). The story is neat, if only as a back story for what a character in the next season, so it's cool we got to see it first. Then acting as if he had brought someone back from the dead he brought the entire main cast out on stage only to have them run away so that they could then show the entire first episode of the season.

After what seemed to me to be a pretty typical episode, the cast came back out for some Q&A. The problem with this is that there is nothing to ask any of these people. Anything that we might have questions about, we have no clues or even breadcrumbs to follow to the clues. Sylar says that Claire is different, but we have no hits as to what that means, even thematically. This means we get questions like this:

"Milo, I'm a single mother. Can I hug you?"

"Sylar, you're the coolest, but if you could have anyone's power (thus just one, thus not Peter's) whose would it be?"

"What was Volume 3 going to be called originally."

Only that last question shows that the fans of this show might be anywhere near thinking about the show. There are things that could have been asked if you wanted to learn anything about the show:

"Is Peter's Irish girlfriend going to be able to be saved from a future that doesn't exist any more?"

"If Sylar was able to learn Claire's ability without killing her, doesn't that make all that "Save the Cheerleader..." stuff kind of null and void (especially if she can't be killed like Sylar says)?"

"What things did the strike keep you from being able to do with Volume 3?"

Anyway, the cast just sort of smiled and looked ready to run for most of the Q&A.

When that was finally over a faux news ad for an expose about the Oceanic 6 came on the screens. It was very tasty and pushed that extratextual experience that Lost does so well. Next, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse came out on stage. As the major creative forces behind the show, and probably some of the only people in the world who know how the show is going to play out, they are the public face of the show. They have really achieved this celebrity thanks to their dryly funny podcasts in which they avoid answering fan questions, but always give just enough to keep people satisfied with what they are(n't) saying.

They took Q&A, but that was mixed with a Dharma spokesman calling out for the winners of an "interview" that was given to people in the Lost booth down on the floor of the Con. These people then went off to get to see something that the rest of us were not going to get to see. That is until one of them "secretly" recorded what he saw. This was a video of the guy from all the Lost training videos talking about how the past needed to be fixed and a bunch of other things that are currently being processed by Lost fans on every Lost messageboard out there. All told, not only was the video interesting, but the presentation of it was pretty funny what with the Dharma getting mad and storming off stage.

Back in the Q&A, they did bring out Matthew Fox at one point, but most of the time was spent answering questions in the same pithy way that they do on their podcasts, but with the ability to hand out prizes related to the questions (i.e. ask about Jin get a stuffed panda). And the reason they were able to do this was simple. The fans actually asked good questions:

"Since the name Jeremy Bentham came up as a leader of the Island, would the Island happen to be a Panopticon?"

"Will Kate ever see Sawyer again?"

"Will we ever see Faraday and his tie again?"

While no one really expected a direct answer to any of these questions they were answered with enough tongue-in-cheek to know that the fans are on the right track in some of their discussions.

So in combination of what exactly was done by the shows' producers and the fans' questions it is clear that Lost is a smarter show that has a level of quality that rubs off on its fans.

Some thoughts on the GOP

So it turns out that the GOP is really earning that Old part of their name. This doesn't really surprise me though. Not only is it the party most closely associated with old white guys, it is also the party that keeps making deals with that thrid of the US population who don't actually expect that the world will be around for the next election.

A year or two ago on my campus the president of the College Republicans was also an active member in the Young Democrats. He wasn't even really into politics, he was just a business major who wanted a nice thing to put on his resume, but enjoyed the YDs and thier parties. In fact, I seriously doubt whether or not he was even registered to vote. I do know that he was very much the type of person who would vote Republican if he could.

Now I go to a school located in what I refer to as the buckle of the Bible belt, and yet the YDs have more members than any other group on campus. It's even a public school! The reasons why the GOP is not stronger here is talked around in that article, but I think they are missing the point. Sure reaching out with modern campaign tactics is one thing, but just getting John McCain to start Twittering won't fix the party.

Here's what will:

1) Ditch the old dudes. The only really high ranking Neo-Con of the Reagan era that has not been pushed out of office or died is Cheney. The same Cheney who is hated by most Americans and seen as the guy who helped talk Bush into some of the many thing he has done in the last eight years. Clearly, he and his friends are of a dying breed. Let them and their military plans and overly scary big business connections die as well.

Also McCain... Please never let anyone his age run again unless they are some sort of rock god. Too bad all the Ramones are dead. They would have been perfect for this in a few years.

2) Ditch the Religious Right. Fell free to stay against abortion. That is a basic argument that seems to be going on in most of the 1st world. However, drop anything about any social issue that is only raised that marks your line too far into what many (young people) see as craziville. This means no more barking about a marriage amendment, talk about stem-cells, or even sex education. These are things that if you are asked about say that they are large social issues that must be put to masses to answer. In doing this you will seem not only more democratic, but also less reactionary. And we all know that reactionary is the feeling we all get when politics and religion intertwine on too deep a level.

3) Ditch the connections to the rich. The problem is that most Americans aren't rich and never plan to be. To be fair this isn't so much the GOP's fault as it is the beginning of limits in the US economy, but those limits need to be talked about. No one feels like they will be able to make their own way in the world today the same way they might have in the 50s and 60s.

4) When it comes to the economy push for quality not quanity. This is a problem that most American conservatives have. They see that as the whole pie gets bigger everyone gains more. This often doesn't quite work out in the proportional way that it should, and even when it does it just makes people feel like things aren't changing. All the economists you talk to should at least be willing to admit that Keynes was right about some things.

5) Don't ever talk about Regan or W. ever again. Regan is of a golden past that people seem to remember as being better than it was. This is because the 80s did that to people. After all, it was the decade that had mall rock. If you are going to talk about a president of the recent past, talk about Nixon. Not only is he a figure that had the strength to run again after loosing so bitterly to Kennedy, he also did a good job before the world got to him and made him do something terrible. He is flawed but at least he lacks the cheese of Regan-worship. And as far as W., well lets just say that he will the the most popular president for a long time if only because he didn't do anything good (much less all the bad he did).



*Note to anyone named Jason - I am not a Republican. I just feel like the party does have something to offer, if it could just stop being so one sided.

The Dark Knight

As far as superheroes go, Batman is totally nuts. While I am pretty sure this view became the common and popular one in the 80s, I also think that everyone since Bob Kane has thought this about the guy. After all, what kind of guy spends all of his free time either training for or actually fighting criminals in a bat suit? He has no super powers (beyond the incredible), but is just a kind of smart guy who knows how to fight.

In fact, he isn't even a hero in the way that someone like Superman is simply because he is not seen as some sort of angle that is here to protect ourselves. He is a vigilante. He only does what the cops can't do. He can break in and tie people up as gifts for the police. Because of this he can't be totally trusted and with good reason.

That said it wasn't until Frank Miller that this stuff was really seen as important to the Batmythos. But now it is everywhere. Bats is mad at the world. He sees crime and sin and desires something like justice. He desires order and safety. And for this sort of thing ordinary criminals are not enough.

This is where the Joker steps into the modern story. While just about ever other villian in Gotham has a very clear motive for evil, the Joker is only out to be Batman's mirror image. The Joker's past called him to see the world as not something that needs to be fixed, but something that needs to burn. That people fight all the time to just be decent. The Joker thinks the world would be better without that.

The problem comes in when the Joker and Batman begin to become too symbolic for good storytelling. It is always clear why the Joker doesn't just kill Batman; he is not in for the killing but the fun of torture. Yet, why can't Batman kill the Joker. This is a man who is powerful enough to have a bomb put inside another human being, a man who takes joy in watching people die, a man who thinks all of life is one big killing joke.

In Mr. Nolan's newest bat-flick we see this come up near the end of the movie. (None of this is really spoiler-y if you have seen anything about the movie that just came out.) And this keeps the movie's ending from being truly great.

The problem is that Batman is never allowed to truly become dark. There is talk about being a hero or being "something that is needed" in the movie. Yet, he never quite makes it to the point of being what is needed. Maybe this is suppose to be what keeps him from becoming something like the Joker, but it also keeps him from achieving his goals.

Overall, the movie is pretty awesome. The action is not over the top. The acting is good enough. The Joker is scary as all get out. The pieces were all set for Bats to become what I have always though he should be and he missed it by that much.

The Dawson Fallacy

This is an idea I am toying with putting in my thesis...

The Dawson Fallacy is the suggestion that every interaction with the world must not only be meaningful and important, but also dramatic. While I am sure that there are plenty of examples of this in the world, Dawson's Creek not only represents this, but also seems to be about this.

Dawson as a character never seems to have any interaction with anyone that is simply him being friends. While part of this is just the way television must work conserving time to push the plot forward, but even sometimes a story can move along without the characters analyzing it to death.

Mostly when this sort of thing happens it is very soap opera-y and is cast aside into the pile of low quality characters that populate the pop culture landfill. Dawson is different though. A combination of being right for the times and being somewhat smart in the cultural metaphors used in the dialog and the show works. Anyone who has watched the show will agree that it is good enough to want more, even if they will tell you that melodramas are brain rotting.

This is because there is a feeling that Dawson is self-aware of his acting out for maximum drama with his friends and loved ones just trying to make their way through their pulp romance lives. He knows he is a teenager and guy, but his ideas on what to do as a teen come from what he has seen in all the movies he has watched. His desire to be a filmmaker is then played out through his life. He doesn't want to just be a film maker he wants to live in a movie. He wants there to always be conflict. If as a teen he was ever happy it would be a sign that he is doing something wrong. He is not being a teen the way he should be.

This is why the end of Dawson's Creek is both satisfying to the audience and a painful realization for Dawson. The only way that Joey can ever be with Dawson is in Dawson's world of film. That's why in the TV show Dawson creates they are together. Joey as a real person goes off with Pacey who has always been the one who ended up in overly dramatic situations without having totally put himself in them.

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This is really all I have right now. I have only really seen about half of the show's episodes so I do not feel too comfortable talking about the show in any great detail, but I feel like I am on to something here with Dawson. If anyone would was/is a fan of the show we need to talk. I want to see just how close to base I am.

Writer's Block

The problem with writing is that the moment you take a day or two off from it you begin to loose any ability you ever had. You begin to be unable to make any kind of meaningful or new observation on the world. Every word is just a repeat. Every sentence feels forced and awkward. Oh! The paragraphs are nothing but death squads of letters waiting to make the unsuspecting reader go blind.

In times of being unable to write I turn to reading. I always do this feeling that reading others' words will put me into a literary mindset, but always close the book feeling even more hopeless than before I opened the book. "How can I ever hope to produce anything like this?!" my mind yells with each page. I begin to feel like I am faking at being anything near a writer. This guy is obviously better than I am at putting words into real thoughts. The only things I can even think are self-absorbed feelings that no one hasn't heard before.

At this point I decide that I need to try to write again. I start reading where I left off in my writing and discover that I have written myself into a corner! What was I thinking when I wrote this shit? I need to fix all of this. But then I realize that I can't get rid of it before I can write again otherwise I will have ended up with negative progress for the day! Damn... I frantically add a paragraph to the work in the hopes that I can get on to the next point in my outline, but the transition isn't fluid enough.

I decide I can't care about that. That is for me to edit later when I have the two parts already. But then I can't think of how to make my point in a way that doesn't just come off as me saying something. I need an argument. I need examples.

I go back to reading. I check the news. I check the mail.

I sit down and decide to write a page of pure fiction. Here I start to just let my mind wonder as I talk about the slightly overweight, but mousy girl who works at the late night coffee shop down the road from the bar that hipsters and truckers frequent. But then what happens next is a dead end. Does she meet someone? Do I even want to keep up with this person when the group of friends in the booth by the jukebox is having such an interesting conversation about the worst sexual encounters they have ever had? At least I don't need a plot or a point, but, god, why can't I think of anything worse than the time Marcus was on a second date with a girl and they went to her house and as they were getting naked he finds mint jelly in her bed. "Yeah, mint jelly! As in what you put on lamb. When I asked her about it she turned bright red and told me to get out."

That is when I break down and blog.

American Nerd: The Story of My People

This book was getting just enough media attention for me to crack it, but from what I found inside I wonder if anybody was actually reading it.

Don't get me wrong. It is fairly well written, moderately informative, and mostly entertaining. But, it fails in putting the biographical and the historical together in a cohesive way. Instead it tends to let the two act as if they have no reason to be in the same book. Ben Nugent talks about fictional characters and those from his own life to give one of the clearest pictures of what nerds are, but by separating them he never gets to any kind of universal statement on Nerdom.

This is only accented further by his talks about feudal roleplayers. While describing the social order and complexities of this particular group he tries to connect them to his past of boffing and D&D. This, while trying to show off the way nerds are always trying to create systems of order, seems to distract even more from his thesis.

While none of this is truly offensive, the book provides nothing in the way nerd culture has actually effected the world around it. In this way, Nugent only provides more description to probably one of the most self-described groups in our culture. There are no new thoughts on nerds, just one man's observations.

Finally I have found it!

I can't believe Donna has never told me about it. I guess it has never really come up during all of our conversations, but if it has and she did not tell me about it I will be upset.

I am referring, of course, to my search for a movie in which there is no love story. For years I have been in search of a movie in which romance plays no role whatsoever. This is hard because there always seems to be some dame that the hero has to leave or save or find or be with.

I have had an ill contempt for what often seem like love stories in the middle of a story that would do just as well without. The movie Get Smart which I just saw is a prime example of this. Why Max and 99 have to fall in love is beyond reason. They could have just become trusting partners and maybe friends. But no. They have to fall in love.

What is even worse is the way that love stories make it into stories as plot devices that motivate the hero to save the day. The most despicable instance of this being the climax of The Matrix which forces Trinity to say she loves Neo even though there has been nothing of real romance between them at all. If maybe there had been some sort of development in their relationship during the movie (at least more than her shooting up a building lobby with him--is that a date?) the kiss would not have been so unimpressive.

However, I have found a movie without all of that.

Lawrence of Arabia is truly epic. It is filled with wide shots of the desert, the growth of a character over a long bit of time, and Peter O'toole and Omar Sharif drunkenly riding camels during some of the most physically challenging scenes. That said, there are almost no women in the movie. There are a few here and there in the background mostly, but there aren't even any credited.

To make it even better, there aren't even any female characters. Lawrence has no girlfriend, wife, or unrequited love. Instead he has only his ego and his desire to show that he is an extraordinary man. And for this he is a classic character.

Unlikely School Hero Boys

Well it seems I am not the only one who has noticed a pattern in what I had called "indie movie girls."

For anyone not wanting to click on the second link, I will rehash what I said more or less.

Indie Movie Girls are the fun loving girls who seem cute and eccentric but have some fundamental personality flaw. This flaw is often hidden by the antics but is seen when the antics stop working on the plucky boys they fall in love with. They are never able to ever fully get over their problems, but always are able to face them with more confidence or something... They are named as such because they seem to appear mostly in (if not originating in) what are usually seen as indie films and movies hipsters cry during. They do not exist in real life because they would be too annoying to have around, no matter how attractive they might seem.

Tonight I watched the movie Charlie Bartlett whose boy lead made me see that there is a male equivalent.

I would like to call him the Unlikely School Hero Boy. The moniker comes from where most of these personalities show up. This does not mean that they all have to be in a school setting, but they usually require a large set of peers who love them and see them as a source of guidance for some reason. Farris Bueller is a great example because we never see him actually interact with anyone past two Freshmen yet somehow his popularity is seen as almost a revolutionary social movement.

It is easy to believe this too because these USHBs are all very friendly and somehow are able to say just the right things to everyone. They never fit into any one click, but are certainly the products of white semi-affluent suburbanites. This means they always have wardrobes that make them look like political science kids and access to most anything they want.

Unlike the boys of IMGs, USHBs might go to shrinks, but don't ever need them. They are usually just sent there by their parents who are often overprotective and underinvolved. While there might be some central issue that has caused this distance to become cold, it is also the detachment they need to become the charming people they are. If this conflict between USHB and parent becomes important to the story some how the relationship will rarely change, but the USHB will feel he has grown somehow as a person.

The USHB almost always gets some kind of girlfriend. These girls are usually pretty, smart, likable, and only really seem to have the one purpose in life to be the USHB's arm candy. Even when they do stupid public stunts that would normally embarrass normal girls these girls only giggle at him for being so lovable.

Beyond the two I mention the other place to look for examples of these characters are in Wes Anderson films, any of them. He alone has made them his bread and butter. Even Bill Murry in Life Aquatic is one of these, just a bit later in life.

The thing that made me unable to really see USHBs for so long was my desire to be one. While superheros will always be seen as the adolescent male fantasy classic, I think the USHBs are actually what most adolescent males fantasize about being. Power fantasies are important, but most guys would probably much rather just be able to be seen as super cool by his peers for doing something out of the ordinary. This is a bit more subtle, but the USHB really has everything a high school boy wants to be.

Killing Yourself to Live 85% of a True Story

I read Chuck Klosterman's books for two reasons. The first is that I feel like I end up writing wonderfully self-indulgent books, but knowing Klosterman exists I can feel like I might be able to be successful at it someday. Hopefully this will not show up too much in my Honors Thesis I am currently working on.

The second reason is my voyeuristic need to feel connected to someone. I think that this is the way most people feel about Britney Spears or Brad Pitt. It is a desire to reach out to someone who seems like you (or like you want to be) but successful. It would be safe to say that I don't want to be like Klosterman, but I relate to some of the confusing thoughts he is somehow willing to share with the world.

As a book about how death affects rock stars this book fails. But if you consider that as just the setting for one guy trying to understand why he does anything in life then it becomes about everyone.

Yes, this book once again proves that Klosterman is an asshole. He makes that clear just by writing the book. Also, yes, this book is a bit self indulgent at times. Not everyone will find Klosterman's ramblings about why he reads or loves KISS to be important. Oh, and yes, the way he talks about Elvis should insult you.

I relate to Klosterman. My thoughts are often just as rambling, confusing, depressing, and fun. I would like to think everyone's thoughts are, and that's why I enjoy him.

Rilo Kiley Concert @ the Greek Theater in LA

The Greek Theater is an awesome little outdoor stage. I am just baffled as to how it got clearence to be built right next to the nice little residential area it is next to. I recomend that you get there early for parking that doesn't leave you trapped in the stacks of cars they create. To bad very few people seem to have taken this advice for this concert.

The opening acts were awesome and confusing at the same time. First up was a guy named Benji Hughes. If The Dude from The Big Labowski was an awesome lounge singer who could make any girl fall in love with him then he would be Benji. Benji's songs and banter on stage proved to me that in life one might realy be able to be a functioning hippie-ster.

Benji's follow-up, Lavender Diamond, then proved to me that John Hughes-esque characters do exist and are charming in real life. The lead singer was so cute and awkward that even with she hit that awesome high pitched singing that reminded one guy behind me of the Fifth Element, she still rocked.

About this time people seem to start falling in. Now I had already felt like I was out of my element with the number of hipsters surounding me, but by the time LD was done I felt like I was at the small liberal college that all my pretentious friends went to. Every girl there, I know I could have fallen in love with. None of them were particularly attractive, it is just that they all seemed to fit with the sort of "indie-girl" look that makes me think they are in the know in some way. The idea of Rilo Kiley attracting this type of crowd is obvious now but never occured to me before.

Just as I finally got my first wiff of pot smoke RK came on stage. The boys looked sharp and Jenny Lewis looked like the girl every girl in the audience wanted to be. They played a good mix of there newest stuff with plenty of their fan favorates, saving Potions for Foxes for last. Too bad they played it too soon.

If you get a chance to go to any of these people's concerts you totally should. They are very enjoyable.

P.S. I was kind of sad to see that Hannah and I didn't make the cut for the YouTellConcerts.com video review of the show.

Head Rush

Hopefully now I can get rid of my other blogs so that this one can stand up as mine!

Anyway, I have decided that LA is a nice city. I am sure that if I really got down to it Axl Rose might be right in that it is a jungle, but so far it seems less than sinister.

Fargo Rock City

I read Sex, Drugs, and Coco Puffs about three months ago and found that it is more than just the bit of cultural commentary that I expected. It is a book full of witty, almost ramblings that really do work best when being read after midnight. To me though, the best part of the book was the way in which Chuck Klosterman provided bits of his experience, not as factual experiences, but more like feelings of the past. I honestly wish I could have been his friend getting drunk watching The Real World with him back in the day.

In the hope of finding more of this companionship I went to his previous work Fargo Rock City. Here he seems to be out to prove something that I had no idea was a real problem. People think heavy metal from the pre-grunge era is stupid. He then unfolds an argument that seems to be saying, "Yeah, so what?" In this he is successful. His point is not to prove that the music he grew up with is stupid so much as it is to say that music doesn't have to mean anything as long as it is meaningful to someone who hears it. This was glam metal.

I am not really a metalhead, but I surprisingly recognized most of the bands and songs he talks about within this book. While at first it might seem like he didn't do that much research into the metal scene for the book, really he only wanted to talk about the music that touched him. This is why you cannot read this as a history of the genre so much as one guy's look back on his life and how music affected it.

Speed Racer

The only time I was ever unsure about this movie was when I first heard about it. At that time all I could think was "who the hell wants to see a movie based on that old cartoon?" It turns out that most everyone should.

I can't say that I have ever really watched the old cartoon, but I have seen enough to know why some people really love it. It is full of fun characters, wacky hi jinx, and enough feel-good moments that the show has soul. And from what I remember the attempts to remake it were pretty much lame. Why should a live action remake be any different?

Well from the first moment I started seeing stills though, I knew it was going to be awesome. The way the everything looked so shinny. And then there were a few promos that showed the high speeds. This was going to prove to be eye candy.

It was more like cocaine for your eyes! Everything was so bright and colorful that by the time you leave the theater you expect the rest of the world should look just like that. While I could do nothing

While I never had the child's desire to jump up and fight with the people on TV, I know why many of my friends did. This movie is pretty much what every kid wants to grow up to be. We all want to be successful, famous, and sticking it to the man. Of course having a loving family and a cute, but confident, girlfriend helps too.

All together you are only going to enjoy this movie if you like anime, video games, and that old feeling of being a kid.

In Bruges

I had only see the trailers for this movie, but I took a chance with it this weekend. All to often this method of movie going leads to anguish, but not this time thankfully.

In Bruges is about two hitmen who are laying low in the small Belgian town of, you guessed it, Bruges. From here we find that the younger more wound up one, played by Colin Farrell, who is amazingly the least clichéd Irish actor, has mistakenly killed a kid. Soon his partner is told to kill him, but can't bring himself to even let Colin off himself. And the conflict between them and their boss drives the rest of the movie.

This plot is pretty simple, but what makes the movie so great are all the supporting characters. You have Chloe, the local dealer and hottie; Eric, the local punk; and Jimmy, the American midget actor. Most movies would only be able to make you see each of this characters in detail by destroying the plot's flow, here the plot is almost about the characters.

Along with great characters, the writing is amazing as well. It feels like In Bruges was written by Quentin Tarantino and Samuel Beckett over a few pints of bitters. As Colin, his partner, and Jimmy (along with a bunch of whores) are sitting in a nice hotel doing lines of coke (stolen from the local hottie), a discussion begins on the inevitable war between the whites and blacks. This comes after a number of scenes in which Colin muses over the idea of the Afterlife. Alone each scene seems pretty bland, but as this odd unapologetic debauchery is mixed with the need for peace and forgiveness you begin to wonder if Bruges is heaven, limbo, or worse.

NIN's Ghosts I-IV

There is a reason why Nine Inch Nails has put up the first nine songs of this box set(?) on The Pirate Bay for free. Of course, if you want it all you should go to Amazon to get it for 5 clams.

I was excited about this new album. NIN licensed it under the Creative Commons and it is a quarter free. Not being anything of a NIN fan I still wanted to see what it was all about so I took it for a spin. Why not? I have enjoyed their past successful hits, I was sure this was more of the same.

I have downloaded more listenable things from angelfire sites.

While I can't say the music is really bad, it just isn't all that good either. It picks up about half of the way through but dies down again. At its best it is an ambient noise that makes you feel like you should be walking through an urban industrial area wearing chic clothing while downloading kung fu to your brain. At worst it makes you mind numbingly board.

Maybe I am too "casual" a listener to really "get it" but it seems like this is nothing more than a masturbatory work made by some guys who want to prove they are "real" musicians. The reason they didn't sell it was because they knew no one would buy it. So in order to pump their egos about this music they gave it away for free so that would be why people were interested in it. For them the music is second on this album because the album itself is now beyond any "art" within it.

Of course, these guys are also out for a profit. If they knew that no one would buy it just to buy it they must have also known that there would be some people who would buy it no matter what, its NIN or this ambient stuff rox. These people will also pay a premium to be able to own some cheap swag as well. Maybe I am just cynical though...

I did not enjoy this no do I think most "mainstream" will either.

Halo 3

Why bother posting a review right? We all are going to get it and make sure to destroy each other over a LAN or XBL for the next year. Well, I am here to tell you that is not a bad thing.

This game plays like every other Halo. We do have new grenades and a few new toys, but overall it is the same. There is nothing wrong with this.

The real beauty of this game comes from the way you can create the ultimate multiplayer games. You want to make everyone really fast and only able to use grenades, you can. You want to make everyone slow and only have shotguns, you can. You want to to make everyone only use a pistol in low gravity, non regenerating shields, active camo, and no grenades with only three lives? Well my friend, you can. As much fun as you can have playing Halo you can have fun making Halo.

You may have heard of the Forge. It is fun in the same way. There is nothing funnier than setting up a teleporter exit next to a bluff and then placing the entrance right in front of someone just running along. This is just the beginning of what you can do.

All of this said, don't expect much from the single player game. It is longer than I thought it would be, but it is still not rewarding. I say this as someone who has actually read the Halo books.

When it comes down to it, you should enjoy this game.

Heroes

I have now watched the first season, excuse me, volume of Heroes. This X-Men ripoff that has been the "new LOST" did not catch me at first and with good reason, unlike LOST. Let me start off with what I don't like about it. For some reason I can't help but to think of these things first.

Heroes does not treat me as if I am smart. There is no real mystery, though it acts like there is. That is to say that each episode, excuse me, chapter only makes me ask questions about the next episode. The only reason I was ever encouraged to think ahead to the end of the season was by the future seers' drawings. Even then, I only had to wait until the characters ended up there for them to make any sense.

I am also constantly mad at it for being an X-Men ripoff. While it is self aware of this, the show does not seem to want to be more than its source material. We all enjoy a dystopian future, but don't do it if you will have fans around the world going, "This is just like Days of Future Past!"

Maybe I am too hard on the show. I do compare it to LOST, but only because so many claimed that it had the same scope. This is just not true. Avoid comparing these two shows.

There is a reason why I watched all of the first season and am catching up on the 2nd. It is just interesting enough. I enjoy the characters, particularly Hiro and Parkman. They keep the show unique. There is a soft spot in my heart for character driven shows, and this is such a show.

Heroes wants to be a comic. This is why there is "bad" acting. They are just talking the way comic book characters do. The over-emphasis on seemingly unimportant words, the odd pauses, and the awkward movements are all just what happens when you force a comic into live action. This would fail if not for the camera shots that make me feel like it is a comic too. So often it seems like there is an over-the-shoulder shot that had the person the camera is behind blurred in a very 'drawn' way. There are some awkward camera angles, but once again it is just because that is how a comic would have shown it.

I enjoy this show very much. I may complain about it being too X-Menish, but I can't help but to see where Hiro is going to travel next week.