New Music

Remember when music just made you get up and want to dance?  When guitar solos made you want to go out and buy a guitar?  Seriously...when was the last time you broke out that air guitar and jammed out some mock riffs to your favorite tunes? 

New music has been committee designed to appeal to their target audience (teenagers) based on the new music being 'new' and the women in the music videos generically worthy of thinking about during a good wanking.  It doesn't seem like that long ago you could hum a toon from J-Lo that would sound like it came from a bored 4 year old stringing random notes together - although I don't understand why you would.  I felt that there would be no going downhill from that point in musical dark ages.  Well what's worse than living in a rat infested, ground floor apartment with one window that is 5 feet from someone's exaust port on the street?  Apparently the creaters of modern music have decided that they can use the area UNDER the floor of said apartment.   You could throw a metal garbage can out of a 5 story window and have it land on a constipated Chihuahua and have it sound better than the crap being produced today.   There is always a 'committee' when you see two normally different things being duct taped together like it would sell twice as much.  I call this phenomena the Ice-cream pizza.  It's what you get when you have two morons telling you there are two things people like; one being ice-cream and the other being pizza...and the second guy saying now WE'VE COMBINED THEM INTO ONE GREAT PRODUCT!!!  Oh yeah...and there has to be a third guy somewhere who is rich enough to be 'in charge' and missing a chromosome enough to say "THAT'S A GREAT FUCKING IDEA!!!"

I grew up in an age where the music just takes you away to a wonderous place of pure enjoyment.  I grew up in a time of Linda Carter's Wonder Woman and Catherine Bach's Daisy Duke.  Listening to my best music while fantasizing about Daisy Duke?  Those were 2 different places of happiness where nary the two were comfortable in the same room.  Enter the 'Ice-cream Pizza' idiots.  Next thing you have gorgeous women getting slutty in videos with music to throw yourself off a bridge by.   This travesty of musical justice is known in the industry as "The Package"
 
Lets round up a list of a few of the usual suspects;

Beyonce
     Probably buys her metal garbage cans in bulk and lives 5 floors above a pet store.   Her videos can be between mildly sexual to outright vulgar.   Oddly enough, it's the ones that are the most subtle that I find the most sexy.  She seriously has it going on.  Too much in the flaunting department leaves me cold though.   She has heart and vision but the music makes me want to put a tin pail on my head and hit it with a hammer until the music stops.

Taylor Swift

      Not exactly using her sexuality to get ratings.  The audience is different in that country music appeals to the more conservative elements of the market.  Still there is no arguing with 'The package'.  This woman is gorgeous.  I can't say I mind her music either.  It doesn't get in my blood and get me dancing or playing guitar solos but I guess I wouldn't mind it travelling between main and the third floor.

Brittany Spears

     Brit was the original 'Package Deal'.  What happens to 'the package' when she grows up and has kids?  Effectively she has to actually work for a pay cheque or put on extra layers of pantyhose, peroxide and makeup.  "Hi Brittany...this is reality calling. You've been making money from 'music' for 10 years...it's time to actually make music rather than wank videos that teenage boys can mindlessly hum to".

Lets take a trip back to where it all began...

52 year old Madonna.  Seriously?  I've seen fat, hairy, middle age crossdressing men that look better than this.  All you 'Package Deal' women take a good hard look.  I'm the ghost of Christmas future and THIS could be YOU unless you change your ways.

World of Warcraft - Just say 'No'

World of Warcraft is a MMORPG or Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.  People pay a fee to play online characters of multiple races and classes in a Midieval fantasy genre RPG. 

There is much to discuss about this gaming addiction.  Much like a nasty fatty pepperoni pizza...we'll need to tackle this point one greasy slice at a time.  Personally I can only handle 3 pieces right now...

Effort and Reward
     This is a big one.  There are many intermingled fun bits about Wow.  Game play is intermingled with long long times of absolute tedium.  In Cataclysm, Wow introduced a new 'Profession'...which are things your character can do to help him or a group out and to make money.  Usual professions are Alchemy, Mining, Enchanting...etc.   The new profession that Cat. introduced is called 'Archaeology'.  This profession allows you to uncover relics of the past; some marginally interesting.  Very few of them have interesting effects.  In the beginning Archaeology is fun.  You continually are driven forward by what 'might be' in the next find page.  Oh...Yeah...you don't just dig up a relic.  You dig up multiple fragments over multiple dig-sites for some piece of crap you wouldn't even bother looting off a lowbie...to see if the next page is something special.  Don't be surprised if you find the same crap 3 times in a row.  Eventually...you will find something good.  The fun that you felt at the beginning has been transplanted by mind-numbing boredom with the hours and hours spent wasting time travelling between dig sites and digging up the same crap.  Eventually you find something and, if you are honest with yourself, you will realize you spent actual time of your life that you could have done something real with to chase after some innane trinket in a fantasy world. 

Build a fucking coffee table...imagine a fantasy character and give him a cool fantasy trinket for fuck sakes.  This system of boredom and reward tricks the mind and robs you of motivation.  Also if you don't have enough clear rewards in your real life, it can be addictive.  Blizzard understands this...they nurture it.  Just walk away.

Ascension in the fantasy world = becoming a douchebag in the real one
     Be warned...these links are of the uglier side of gaming addiction (Spaz Douchebag Not pretty)
This is what happens when your rewards in life are illusionary.  That is not to say everyone who plays WoW is compromising their real world experience...however, what I have seen...most do.  Much like the real world, the World of Warcraft isn't always fair.  Many players thrive, in the game, on the ability to affect others in a negative way... because it gives them a sense of power.  This can be most compelling if, in your personal life, you feel that you have a very limited amount of it.  You can actually find entire groups of kids who feed on each other's desire to do this (and by 'Kids' I mean of all ages). 

     The more you accomplish in the game contrasting your 'real world' accomplishments, the more the game draws you in.  Like any addiction, use of the substance promotes using the substance and you have to use more and more of it to feel better...while your real world experience increasingly suffers.

The lure of becoming an asocial sociopath
     In the real world there are checks and balances for our behavior.  Developing adults need boundaries and a well defined understanding of action and reaction in the real world.  Rebellion is part of the process of growth because it teaches us that, in all things that we do, responsibility ultimately comes back to us. 

     We have children that are literally grown into the addiction of gaming.  'It's a good babysitter' we tell ourselves.  Well look at what they do in some of these games.  Massive violence.  Absolute power.  The games are mostly about killing...specifically 'the kids' killing something...and mostly someone else.  Now if your kids were to spend 5 hours a day imagining killing people in various graphic ways...it would be really time to call the doctor.  Well that is the fantasy world but so are the games.  I'm not saying that the kids won't know the difference between the graphic violence in their fantasy world and the real one.  What I'm saying is that the desensitization towards violence can carry over into the real world in the form of the complete lack of natural human empathy.  That can have a drastic effect but in much more subtle ways such as relationships.   We're making a generation of geeks.

    Enter the game.  etcetera...etcetera

The Armed Forces: "Why do the brave have to die with the stupid?"

Rant:

You might ask yourself where do assholes and shitheads go after highschool?  Where can a man still be a boy right into his senior years?  Where is an organization that the lowliest recruit is still of greater importance than 'everyone else'?  This place where every idiot yells at every other idiot and the best you can hope for is to be the top idiot - so that no one yells at you.  Where the brave and deluded are mixed with the naturally delusional.

Where else?  The Armed Forces!!!

Lets think of new Motos for the Armed Forces:
     - "Be all you can be - which is still someone else's tool"
     - "Don't grow up...we've got the biggest and most expensive toys!!!  You can be a boy 'til you die!!!"
     - "Killing is a sin...unless you are killing to further some politician's ambitions"
     - "Tired of working at McDonalds and too stupid for post secondary?  You're the Perfect fit!!!"
     - "Tired of being a thug or a bully?  Is it getting you into trouble?  Come join us and get paid for it!!!

Hell's Kitchen Season 8 (post Episode 15)

Hell's Kitchen Season 8 has come to a close.  Like all Hell's Kitchen episodes, I was highly entertained.

It comes down to the usual format for the final show which is;  a cooking challenge with the winner being able to pick first the members of their upcoming teams.  The members consist of people who were previously eliminated from Hell's Kitchen.  The final chefs run each of their respective teams in a cook off against the other.  The footage of the competition and many other factors are reviewed by Ramsay for the final decision as to who wins Hell's Kitchen.

I have to say Gordon...I had my doubts.  For a second I thought you were going to give it to Russ.  I'm sure the people in LA Market are relieved as well.  I was criticizing Nona for her early shortcomings but wasn't seeing that she was developing with each passing service.  You saw the potential in her. 

Where to start?  Two words:  Anger Management.  You are a good chef and a good leader.  The problem is much more integral than that.  Russ lost.  Of course he blamed his team and said he would 'Whack the bitches'. 
That last sentence is, in a nutshell, everything wrong with Russ.  Growth cannot happen unless you process the feedback in a positive manner.  Deflecting all comments except those that say 'you are the best' will get you nowhere.   2nd place?  I think I could hear the sigh of relief from the employees of LA Market from here.  You've got the skills, Russ...just lose the dog collar.

 How long do you think you can be anger's bitch?

Someone is going to use that to control you...and your arrogance is going to make you blind to it. 

Nona.  Respect is where respect is due.  I had my doubts.  I saw good leadership and commitment today when you were taking charge of the menu and the kitchen.  I could tell that Trev really wanted to help you win.  When Boris was messing up on fish, Trev stepped in and tried to take over.  His motivation was that he really wanted you to win...or more accurately...make sure Russell lost.   You turned around to stop them from squabbling but you didn't previously take charge of either Trev or Boris directly.  To be honest, if Russell hadn't shown his true colors today...everything else he was doing slightly better than you.  So you get a quarter million dollars a year not because you were marginally more effective in the kitchen...but because you weren't a psycho.  So Congrats.

All in all the most unbelievable season of Hell's Kitchen ever. 

Hell's Kitchen Season 8 (Episode 14)

Well proof positive after this episode.  Ramsay has no integral control of the course of the show.  If he did, I dare say, he would probably have sent them all packing.  So it comes down to a 29 year old arrogant psychopath who CAN cook (at least) Versus a fat drama queen with the Palate of a Boa constrictor.

It's really funny because in the challenge she couldn't taste the difference between Mashed Potatoes, which was supposed to be up, and mashed celery.  At the very end she was described as having 'an exceptional palate' and they even had a scene showing her tasting the mashed celery.  Someone must have slipped in some sarcasm past the crack production staff.   I'm looking at you, Flash.

They say that losers never win and winners never lose.  What about a rat race?  Russ has proven himself to be a capable cook with an unshakeable confidence.  Sure he doesn't win all the time or even most of the time... but those are instances where 'the judges are dummies with unrefined palates'.  This guy scares me.  Not because he is big or has no soul...though those are good points.  He is the face of a brand new and completely selfish generation of 20 somethings.  For this guy to succeed means that his precision bullying and thuggery is an accepted means of getting what you want.  Something no one ever gets is the fact that media carves out its own templates for behavior among the developing new generation.  Social responsibility?  Somehow I don't think that goes with 'FOX'...and I'm sleeping with the lights on tonight.

He's in the last 2.  His opponent cannot win on her cooking or leadership skill against this guy.   I know they are standing at the reward ceremony doors with their family on the other side.  There will be a winner.  Among the casualities will be Gordon Ramsay's integrity.  The best that I can hope for is a followup screen saying "Russ was fired 3 days later for yelling at customers in LA Market"...somehow I think they will omitt that part.

Trev.  Well you weren't the greatest cook and your enemies were persistently forcing you between a wall and a hard place.   I liked how Jillian was yelling at you about the difference in size of the fish portions when they were precut.  Like how you cooked them could have magically changed that fact.  I feel for you mate.  You were the first of the last 4 to go and they were all trying to knock you down from the start.  You stood against the group and you gave it your all.  I respect you for it.

Speeking of....   Jillian.  Wow.  You served mayonnaise to Michelin Star chefs as part of your fusion blunder and got away with it...and won?  Seriously...where the fuck are you hiding those horseshoes?   You finally sunk Trev's boat but one of those torpedoes blew up in it's hatch and you started to sound like a whiny little bitch right in front of Ramsay.  Way to play into Russell's hand.   There were much more deserving people who should have been a contender at the end that weren't you.  It's only because you were more able to stay under the radar that they went home and you didn't.  If you have 5 years of solid growing up and improving your skill, I can see you being a contender.  Best of luck (but you have plenty of that) and all the best to you and your family in the future.

Well Nona, I'm now officially rooting for you.  You're a weak cook.  You break up easily under even the slightest amount of preasure.  You have the palate of a smoking snake.   Why am I rooting for you?  You're not Russ.  

If you hate reality shows, you will really hate...

Scripted 'Reality' shows!  

TV production is suffering from an imagination drought.  Reality TV accells because the regular scripted characters aren't believable enough to actually pay much attention to.  These Hollywood hacks are regurgitating classics because they can't even come up with a new idea.  Dukes of Hazzard?   Hawaii 5-0?  The A-Team?   GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!!!   I don't mind if you take an old idea and give it a massive kick in the ass edge like they did with Battlestar Galactica.  But these hacks are bringing it back just to make it Vanilla Shitty.

Anyways...not getting mired in this topic.  Moving forward....

So there is this excellent reality show on History channel called 'Pawn Stars'.  The guys aren't too pretty but they are all real characters.   A lot of it is scripted to some extent but enough of who they are shines through and makes for entertaining watching.  

Moving on....

Enter 'Hacks' from TLC.  They have come up with their own 'reality tv show' called 'Pawn Queens'.  It's apparently about a pawn shop that serves only women....because when you are struggling in business you can afford to turn half of your potential customers away at the door based on sex.   As unbelievable as this premise is, it's actually believable compared to the characters.

One thing I can say about the women in this show is that they are pretty.  They either have personalities of a damp sponge in a paper bag or the acting skill that would give most porn stars an oscar by comparisson.  The owner of the pawn shop is a guy.   In the episode I saw, he 'forgot' that he had sent a $5000 ring to a jeweller for cleaning.  Yeah that happens to me all the time.  To be clear, this isn't a franchise...this is one struggling shop where they said paying out the 5 grand would 'ruin' them.   Oh...except in the next scene where they paid 23k for a classic car.  Hmmm.  

So the retarded gnome who made this show has both no imagination or recourse to logic.  Nice!  Seriously I want to meet you so that I can mock you in person and under your radar.

Hell's Kitchen Season 8 (Episode 13)

Well Episode 13 is over and there were a few surprises.

We are seeing a kinder, gentler Chef Ramsay.  He took Jillian asside and gave her a straight up talk from the humanitarian side of Ramsay.  Also Trevor got treated to generous amounts of compassion when he panicked. 

Nona won the challenge and selected Russ to accompany her on her day to the spa.  This was a political move since Nona would rather feed the bears than have it rip out her throat.  Jillian got a little chilly about this and made a 'pact' with Trev to vote for Russ and Nona.  Unfortunately, by Jillian's maturity level 'pact' just means 'if I feel like it I will'.  Nona had a terrible service.  Russell had a not-too-great service.  Trev...well...I think I'm just going to nick name that poor bastard 'Bullseye'.  

Nona...if you want to be a good chef, you have to be able to cook Risotto.  I don't really have a whole lot against you.  You screwed up a few times but who hasn't in this batch of cooks.  You gave Russ a bone to keep him from biting off your hand.  Jillian got a little frosty for it but at least you still have your hand.  Ofcourse risking your alliance with Jillian by taking Russ along to the spa was a risky move.  Your luck is not insubstantial.

Jillian.  You would be #1 in 5 years of growing up time under your belt.  Ramsay had a heart to heart with you this episode and got a fire lit under your inspiration.  Looks like it did some good.  I'm slightly miffed about the choice to throw Trev under the bus after your 'agreement' with him.  I would have too if he had a bad performance that stood out obviously from the other two.   The point is; he didn't and your word was not even a speed bump in your decision making process. 

Trev.  Nothing is easy here for you, my friend.  Chef has shown compassion and has taken the time to help you out.  Russell went out and threatened you directly.  You kept your cool.  Jillian blind sided you.  Not surprising.  She has about as much maturity as she does eyebrow hairs.  I'm rooting for you for the simple fact: the rest of these guys aren't people that I respect.

Saving the best for last.  Russ.  I appreciate that it is people like you who make reality TV so addictive.  You are the kind of person that people either love or hate...mostly the latter.  You are a great cook, a decent leader and an incredible thug.  You are the product of an environment of pure self-interest.  There is no way in Hell you are winning because there is no way in Hell anyone is going to want to work with you.   Threatening Trev?  Well that's just the cherry on the tombstone.

Ramsay did a family ambush on you this episode.  Later, when you and your girlfriend are watching this episode, she can see you hitting on the spa lady during reward earlier.   Real classy.

This is why Reality TV is great.  Hollywood simply cannot create characters like you.