What? You mean Craigslist didn't invent child prostitution??? Oh well ... the US Attorney General; Douchehole McFuckdinhed seems to think that the streets are much SAFER AND BETTER REGULATED for the control of prostitution and assosiated crimes that tag along with it than is financial records, phone numbers, locations and even pictures associated with the former adult section in Craigslist.
Also ... some retard uses Craigslist to kill women. Well...Blame the sidewalk if that's what he used to walk up to them with. I live in Vancouver. There is a fellow named Robert Pickton over here who slaughtered a ton of sex workers. He didn't use Craigslist. The hazards of prostitution will continue to exist - more so - if these women are forced out on the streets.
So if someone was using Craigslist to run underage prostitutes...or...white slaves....or...bestiality baby burglars ... whatever. Craigslist didn't invent these things. That it exists to retain at least a minute amount of information regarding any of their clients SAVES LIVES. This isn't about that. Someone is saying that Craigslist has these unsavory things running through it's system and it should stop it right away (Waggling the finger). Sound familiar? That's right it's the fucking US Religious Right getting their fat stupid faces in morality issues too complex for them to begin to understand yet unhindering their ability to make judgements about.
To spell it out to the Religious Right
1) Bad things exist - Craigslist did not invent them
2) ads on Craigslist > Women on Streets
3) Information has a trail - Anonymous cash is hard to track
In case you think I am a former John with sour grapes about this decision. I don't use the services of sex workers. Personally I think the trade should be made legal; "Prostitution is legal but solicitation or living off the avails of prostitution is not" Give me a fucking break. MAKE IT LEGAL. We can get the revenue...they get protection. Better the government gets the money than some sleeze-bag, drug addicting pimp. Ofcourse the religious right would enjoy sweeping it under yet another carpet. Prostitution is a concept. It's the world's oldest profession because it works with human nature...not against it. To think of it as evil would be as to think of the rain as evil. It's like declaring war on terrorism - Yeah that was a right wing concept...brilliant!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Modern Warfare 2 - "Freeze or I'll put more holes in you than this plot!" *Spoilers
Ok...I just finished "Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2". This game has plenty of good points but it's no fun to talk about those. There is some serious action scripting. Plenty of cool environments (some literally). The choice of weaponry is vast. Also one of my favorite things in this "Call of Duty" is the fact that they've minimized how often the enemy outflanks you (as if there is no one really watching your back...ever), this required the player to spin like a top and dance like a trained monkey...which is about as realistic as firing an AK-47 with one hand on full automatic (Which they did a lot in MW1 btw). There are still plenty of levels that don't look so much like combat as they do break dancing with guns.
Unfortunately the plot is...well it's like a good "Tom Clancy" novel that has been adopted for Hollywood with all the parts that make the story cohesive left out. Lets discuss a few of these points individually and what was left out (since a game is a lot shorter in plot content than a movie and a movie is a lot shorter in plot content than a book - so really it's forgivable)
1) "Hey this corpse looks American...lets go fuck them up!"
That's right. Russians find Alexei Borodin who just so happened to be shot dead by David Duchovny on a bad day
There...that's one hole that has been filled.
2) "Learn, Speak and sound Russian in JUST A FEW DAYS"
Remember this is the future. Say there is an intense learning program that targets the brain more effectively than in traditional learning techniques. The problem may be that it is an expensive treatment process or that it effectively damages long term memory...or some side effect that makes it unavailable or undesirable to the general public.
Well there's another glop of stucko smoothed over.
3) "This shell was bought by a guy in Rio" - What!?
Well here's the thing (and this is ultra cool): Every munitions manufacturer (in this future) stamps each bullet with a unique identifier using say a 12 digit alpha-numeric (36 base) numbering system. A serious database like this could have benefits in crime as well in that a shell casing found at the scene of the crime could be linked directly back to the person who bought the bullet.
You pretty much have to keep saying to yourself "Oh yeah...it's the future".
Effectively there are plenty more but I don't feel like getting into them all. I have to say that one of the more brilliant points in the story is when Price sends a nuke to DC...detonating it in the upper atmosphere to generate an emp blast that disrupts all electronics. The Russian based attack, being mostly airborne, falls right out of the sky.
Unfortunately the plot is...well it's like a good "Tom Clancy" novel that has been adopted for Hollywood with all the parts that make the story cohesive left out. Lets discuss a few of these points individually and what was left out (since a game is a lot shorter in plot content than a movie and a movie is a lot shorter in plot content than a book - so really it's forgivable)
1) "Hey this corpse looks American...lets go fuck them up!"
That's right. Russians find Alexei Borodin who just so happened to be shot dead by David Duchovny on a bad day
He was shooting up civilians at a Russian airport with a bunch of thugs that talked english in the scenario
"No Russian". Let's fill in the blanks.
Alexei Borodin was an Alias for the American PFC Joeseph Allen. The Identification for this person was suspect and upon investigation revealed a very marginally hidden trail of clues that led to a what was supposed to be a high security file about the facts regarding the identity of this person. The trick was to hide the clues enough but not so well that it looked too easy to find. (I mean seriously...this by itself is a Hollywood movie).
2) "Learn, Speak and sound Russian in JUST A FEW DAYS"
Remember this is the future. Say there is an intense learning program that targets the brain more effectively than in traditional learning techniques. The problem may be that it is an expensive treatment process or that it effectively damages long term memory...or some side effect that makes it unavailable or undesirable to the general public.
Well there's another glop of stucko smoothed over.
3) "This shell was bought by a guy in Rio" - What!?
Well here's the thing (and this is ultra cool): Every munitions manufacturer (in this future) stamps each bullet with a unique identifier using say a 12 digit alpha-numeric (36 base) numbering system. A serious database like this could have benefits in crime as well in that a shell casing found at the scene of the crime could be linked directly back to the person who bought the bullet.
You pretty much have to keep saying to yourself "Oh yeah...it's the future".
Effectively there are plenty more but I don't feel like getting into them all. I have to say that one of the more brilliant points in the story is when Price sends a nuke to DC...detonating it in the upper atmosphere to generate an emp blast that disrupts all electronics. The Russian based attack, being mostly airborne, falls right out of the sky.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Why Excercise?
- Better Sex
- Rubbing it in the face of a pretty ex that treated you like shit
- More energy
- You can fit into those "when I lose a few pounds" jeans
- If you need to do something physical, you actually can
- Girl watching is much better in the gym (unfortunately you care less when you are working out)
- You can see your shoes without bending over
Hey. I'm not making this list for you. I haven't been to the gym in just over a week and am feeling the
effects of inertia.
- Rubbing it in the face of a pretty ex that treated you like shit
- More energy
- You can fit into those "when I lose a few pounds" jeans
- If you need to do something physical, you actually can
- Girl watching is much better in the gym (unfortunately you care less when you are working out)
- You can see your shoes without bending over
Hey. I'm not making this list for you. I haven't been to the gym in just over a week and am feeling the
effects of inertia.
A good laugh at karaoke delusional 'Players' and 'has beens'
You know I enjoy a bout of karaoke a time or two (or is that 'boot'...being Canadian and all). It's a good thing for me when you have enough music behind you and can sing in tune enough that people generally enjoy it. I'll never be a rock star and I'm okay with that. Power up the music and give me a mike...I get the post song spiritual buzz from the acolades and I'm good to go. It's a temporary feeling that you are a rock star before reality hits. How easy would it be for someone to hit that 'La la land' and stay there though?
It's a bit of a trap. Quite delusional. There is more to being a music star than just singing nicely. Bob Dylan isn't a genius because he can sing like a canary...but he's still a genius none-the-less - stoned out of his tree most of the time but still a genius.
RANT
[Today's music is what I call...Attack of the Tramp Pack!!! Where young, attractive women dress in as skimpy outfits as can be legally worn on public media. You could barely notice that the music has as much musical integrity as a bored four year old humming random notes. Ofcourse musical 'spin doctors' refer to the new standard of musical excellence as 'complex'...and while you are reelling from that obscenity to truth... they further add that it takes a much more refined sense of musical understanding to appreciate this complexity. It will take as much as half an hour to dig yourself out of that pile of shit. A metal garbage can rolling down a 45 degree incline of a pile of wounded puppies has 'Musical Complexity'. I know you younger generation have hardly any time in between the computer games you constantly play but seriously; The music that you listen to doesn't have to be sung by a singer who gives you a woody. I know time is short but seriously! Go watch some fucking porn or listen and demand to listen to some fucking good music. Choose one for fuck sakes. Vote with your money. Go listen to some Boston, April Wine, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Styx, Supertramp, Collective Soul, Three Doors Down, Tragically Hip or whatever spiritually turns you on. Really feel the music in your soul not some musical shade of beige performed by some glamour slut.]
It's a bit of a trap. Quite delusional. There is more to being a music star than just singing nicely. Bob Dylan isn't a genius because he can sing like a canary...but he's still a genius none-the-less - stoned out of his tree most of the time but still a genius.
RANT
[Today's music is what I call...Attack of the Tramp Pack!!! Where young, attractive women dress in as skimpy outfits as can be legally worn on public media. You could barely notice that the music has as much musical integrity as a bored four year old humming random notes. Ofcourse musical 'spin doctors' refer to the new standard of musical excellence as 'complex'...and while you are reelling from that obscenity to truth... they further add that it takes a much more refined sense of musical understanding to appreciate this complexity. It will take as much as half an hour to dig yourself out of that pile of shit. A metal garbage can rolling down a 45 degree incline of a pile of wounded puppies has 'Musical Complexity'. I know you younger generation have hardly any time in between the computer games you constantly play but seriously; The music that you listen to doesn't have to be sung by a singer who gives you a woody. I know time is short but seriously! Go watch some fucking porn or listen and demand to listen to some fucking good music. Choose one for fuck sakes. Vote with your money. Go listen to some Boston, April Wine, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Styx, Supertramp, Collective Soul, Three Doors Down, Tragically Hip or whatever spiritually turns you on. Really feel the music in your soul not some musical shade of beige performed by some glamour slut.]
Sunday, February 6, 2011
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.
Lets take a trip back to where it all began...
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;
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.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
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
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
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
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!!!
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!!!
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