Monday, May 30, 2011

Fuck, man.

I want a pet. A loyal, loving pet.

There’s a movie called Hachi: A Dog’s Tale based on an original Japanese film. It’s about a Akita Inu who waits for his master at his train station every day. Even after his master passed away. I cried like a baby.  Go watch it. It’s based on the true story of a real dog.

Also, watch this, and cry like a baby:



Man…just—…man. This shit gets me.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

EPIC Animated Short of the Week

Hambuster from Hambuster Team on Vimeo.

This is probably happening in Soviet Russia somewhere.

Watch it, it’s fun. Gets pretty gory, and its hilarious.

[via. theawesomer]

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

A Serious Investment

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DC’s getting ready to release their behind-the-scenes production insider at the end of the month. It’s chocked full of creature designs, special effects processes, a shit-ton of storyboard and concept art—probably anyway, I’m just guessing that’s what I’m going to see when I get my hands on it. And I will, damn it.

I’m 90% sure the four of you reading this don’t give two shits about creature design, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Green Lantern, if nothing else, is a great example of the capabilities of the imagination in creating truly interesting creatures, or in this case, sentient beings.

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What’s interesting is that they’ve gone both ways with interpretting the comic book characters for the screen. Some designs are strikingly similar to the comic book mythos, while others deviate greatly, and that’s where I assume much of the creative gets their hands dirty with figuring out ways to reinvigorate the goal in portraying these characters: truly make them look alien.

With Salaak (left) – the guy has four arms, so that’s already not very humanoid, but they still made his chest distinctly different from a human’s, unlike in with comic book artists who do take liberties with drawing these alien characters and basing much of them off human anatomy. But with Medphyll (right), who’s actually a sentient plant species, the creature designers wanted to play that up in the film, so giving him a much more recognizable plant look as their take on his appearance. Plus, they make the one-eye thing going on not look as dorky as it possibly could have.

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More hi-res Flickr photos of the book here.

My main praise with what I’ve seen so far from the film, is the creature design that I’ve been exposed to. Frankly, I think its astounding, because you don’t normally get to see this kind of art and design in a comparative and relative manner. Usually, creature design comes directly from the imagination, but with Green Lantern, you have a before and after to look at, and to see what those artists have taken with them and what they’ve changed is like looking into a candy store for me.

[via io9.]

Hey if it’s not your thing, that’s okay. But you gotta admit, it’s a bit cool.

I’m gonna jump on the ‘I dont give a fuck if you don’t like what I post, this shit isn’t about you’ bandwagon. Should just get a Tumblr, really.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

For real this time, guys.

Let’s put Green Lantern, Portal, Guild Wars, video games, comic books and other things you have little interest in aside for a while. Change of pace. And by that I mean things I actually used to post that mattered to most people.

By that I mean a MUSIC POST, oh my what?!

The Kollection is a website. With music, oddly enough. A lot of music, actually. And guess what, you’ve probably never heard most of this music. Because most of this music is assembled, produced, scoured or sponsored by the people behind this website and posted for your listening pleasure, and they make sure most of it is special, unique, and creative. Mash-ups, remixes, mixtapes, collected albums, it’s all there for you to download.

Give it a click, and it’ll save me some explanatory effort. But what I can say if you’re too lazy is that most, if not all, of these mixes are very well done. I’ve listened to a few, and this site has some pretty stellar quality control. That whole correlation between artists that are unknown and their quality of music has some validity here. Rightly so, because some of these remixes are absolutely ridiculous. Some of these indie artists and great finds, and some of these mixtapes are tailor-made for your specific situations, moods, and troubles so you have a soundtrack to your life for a while.

It’s a damn civil service. So check it out. It’s your duty as a citizen. Of good music.

ALSO, recommendations. I feel like doing recommendations. You feel like being recommended music? Good. I love you, because you love music and being recommended some by me. I love music because I get to recomme—

ALRIGHT,

1) Starfucker – it’s electropop with an indie style; dream-poppy, raw vocals, some high, pulsing beats on most of their tracks. Their sound is chilled out but still energetic. You like melodic electro? Check ‘em out. Even if you like the glitch or dub sounds, these guys have some sonic references to those genres as well. Also, that band name. I mean, come on now. Reptilians is a good album to start.

2) Chad Smith’s Bombastic Meatbats – Remember the Red Hot Chili Peppers (and how they ‘broke up’—fuck the doubters)? Well, they’re still here. They just took a break. Their drummer looks like Will Ferrell, and this side-project funk rock collective is his version of ‘taking a break’. Don’t let ‘funk rock’ deter you, some of their tracks off their debut Meet the Meatbats are pretty versatile in style and genre. Some sound post-rocky, some even grungy, but with Chad Smith banging those drums with that familiar RHCP rhythmic control, it’s still got groove and flavour. Dig funk rock? Dig rock? Dig 90’s? Dig into these guys. Also, there’s a theme going on with these band names. Guess what it is.

“Drummer swag.” Definition: Chad Smith.

3) All India RadioJus chilllllllll. Describes them pretty well. This band’s been here for a while under the radar of mainstream and pumping out album after album of steady trip-hoppin’/ambient/electronica grooviness. The vocalist has that soothing, ethereal feel to it, combined with the atmospheric and interesting beats, it gets you into another place. Wonderful genre, wonderful band to represent it. Good for soundtracks, discovering one’s purpose in life, falling in love, and slow-motion. I lied about the theme, kind of. India’s pretty epic though. Lots of shit happening there. Echo Other is a good starter for this band’s rich and broad discography.

4) Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – Fun as hell indie pop. If you dig Vampire Weekend, they have sort of the same vocal sound, and a arguably more epic band name. Crisp vocals and up-beat, clean instrumentation make for a pleasing ear-massage whenever you want them for one. Good cheer-up music too, especially their album Let It Sway. Nothing’s in-your-face. It’s laid-back rock pop, approachable, and enjoyable. Melds genre codes, but still gives you exactly what you want to expect from a band name like that.

5) Guitar – Well, this is just deceptive. It’s not a rock band. Not even a band, just a music producer with a very unique sound. It’s trip-hop at its core, maybe—an artist like this doesn’t bode well with categorization. It’s just what it is, and what it is down-tempo beats combined with guitars (accordingly) and other strings; even some cultural traditional instruments from Japan. Again, it’s chill music, but with a nice twist. The classical feel of the guitar against the trip hop/ambient beats provide a damn interesting sound to absorb in. Only album I have right now is Tokyo. Planning on getting to some more. It’s worth it, trust me.

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I know there’s no rap, no death metal, no jazz (full-on jazz at least), and no tribal music, but I do try to be broad with recommendations, buy its my first one so cut me some slack. If you want some more recommendations, The Needle Drop is where to go. I took a page from his book for the post he did today:

My album recommendations aren’t debuts, but still, check them out. I download my music illegally, because its cheap. But I don’t recommend doing that. If you have the money, and the motivation, buy on iTunes or go to a music store. Gives you hipster cred, and you get to support artists worth supporting. Downloading music is a shameful thing. But I’m a shameful person, so it works out.

I might be expanding on one of these artists, audaciously. If anything, there will be more of the good ol’ days of music posts. Been binging on chill music for the past week. Going to need a lot more. If you don’t already know why, you’ll have to keep checking in for the big reveal. That’s right, you’re gonna have to read more. But in the future, I might proofread, and write more concisely, but I sucked at English in first year, so maybe not.

Stay tuned, and happy listening.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Thursday, May 19, 2011

I have the weirdest boner.

(Weird Geeky) Swag.

Slowpoke, I know, but I haven’t gotten to dig into Gambino’s lyrics, especially for this song, until now. Too many brown kids reciting all of his rhymes in a car slightly too well to not be an obsession. But, I hear ‘em now, loud and clear.

“I got some pussy that was insane / So insane, it’s an enemy of Bat-mayne”

There’s a lot of reasons why Black Spiderman/Troy/Gambino/Donald should be listened to, but for me, that one line was enough. It’s a sick line. You probably understand why.

This song is like pop cultural references + weird swag = new age black rapper. Or something. Fuck, I don’t know, I just dig the Joker reference.

Fuck yeah, Joker (well, to be accurate, almost all of Batman’s rogues gallery are legitimately insane in one way or another, hence Arkham Asylum, but you don’t really care so I’ll leave it at that).  Sick beat too.

And dat dolly in. Nothing’s better than a smooth, slow sensuous camera movement on a rapper on crack jumping around spitting about how he digs voluptuous fangirls. Bam, I just made an application of my learned skills at school. How you like me now?

Also, Freaks & Geeks is classic 90’s television. Sick show, go watch it.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

EPIC Follow-Up

Here’s an optional aside for those of you interested.

Have you played the first Guild Wars? Then this 30 minute Gamescom demo footage will please your meagre little brains—by that I mean blow your minds.

Don’t know what Guild Wars is? Too bad, this is 30 minutes of LotR-esque, fantasygasm, magic-spewing, sword/gun/staff/relic/bow-wielding multi-race awesomeness filled with kick-ass armour, instanced gameplay, customized narrative, mech suits, and just about everything that you could possibly think of in something that’s awesome.

You get to click shit, and watch numbers pop up. Hell yes.

Original Guild Wars was addicting. This one will be unfathomably more destructive to my well-being if I get my hands on this dirty motherfucker of a game.

K, I’m done.

EPIC Fanmade Game Trailer of the Week

Sometimes, all you need are some booming orchestral voices and some bare gameplay clips to make something look absolutely epic.

Guild Wars 2 is an upcoming massively-multiplayer online role-playing game. Dragons, magic, swords, guns, and being able to play as a furry menacing gruff-looking lion dude, or a tiny, squeaky alien-looking elvin dude are all reasons I’m going to blow loads of money on this game. Also, it’s free to play monthly—eat a dick, Blizzard.

YUS.

No release date. I sad. Going to have to wait for all the multi-profession PvP and event-based battle gameplay mechanics for not a whole while longer I hope. Must have my fantasy fix!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Anything’s possible if you believe.

Even dressing like a superhero, and looking respectable!

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There’s a an entire site dedicated to professional or unprofessional redesigns of superhero costumes made by comic book artists, fan artists, and I would assume a lot of people who are really awesome, because this site rocks so much.

I mean this post about superhero-inspired high-fashion for normal day attire rocks especially. I can picture those outfits being pulled off pretty damn well in reality--in fact I picture a lot of aweosmeness and then me high-fiving her. Cause she’d look awesome, and also be awesome.

Inspirations are: Raven, from the Teen Titans. Green Arrow, an archer with kick-ass facial hair. Black Canary, she fights well and screams loudly. Miss Martian, Martian Manhunter’s cousin or something.

Here, let’s play a matching game!

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These are the favourites I picked out—yeah, I like women’s fashion, what’s good? There are plenty more at the link above. Next challenge is, if any of you girls are reading, pull these outfits off and find me on the street, and then have your high-fiving hand ready.

The blog is actually really damn cool if you’re into comic books. Check it out.

The post’s author has her own blog where she’s actually doing this for a shit-ton of superheroes, it’s actually insane. Look at this god damn list. For each of her design ideas she actually provides you with clothing suggestions and sometimes links to actual items that match closely to those designs. So half the work is done for you. No excuses people. Her blog’s Asterous Fashion.

Go. Be fashionable. Believe.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Legitimacy, can I has it?

Video games are culture. What this guy is saying, to me, is all correct. At first, I was one of those people who were up in arms with Ebert’s statement that ‘video games are not art’ because, well, the notion of something being a work of art is a notion presented with merit, respect, and significance.

And a lot of people weren’t taking very kindly to the thought that video games did not contain some, if not all, of those aspects of something being a ‘work of art.’ So, really, I think the argument against stemmed from an entirely different basis than the ‘art’ thing, because we associate specific qualities to what makes a product a work of art, outside of simply using such a statement as a figure of speech. Though still, in that instant, those associations work too.

So the criticism against video games being works of art, rather than, say, having artistic qualities (which unless you are blind, or a complete fucking idiot, are obviously not true), is an incredibly flawed one on both sides.

I haven’t read the article, yes I’m too lazy, no I’m not trying to be smart here, I’m just talking out of my ass and you’re gonna like it. But I’m assuming, after watching Sessler’s commentary on it (he’s a host for a gaming review show  on G4, channel 90 on Rogers Cable [fuck those bastards]), that Roger Ebert is not an avid gamer. Don’t think I can picture that either. But my biggest qualm is that I think he’s talking out of his ass when he says what he says. This was a while back, so I don’t know details and I passed on discussing this before, but really, I don’t think Ebert has any basis for what he’s saying.

Nor do I think what Adam Sessler is discussing about what pertains to ‘art’ as a whole in context with video games was the mindset Ebert had when saying those comments. I’m going to be cynical and say he’s with the rest of the bandwagon.

It’s a bandwagon of ignorant fucks.

These three games are by an indie game developer called Thegamecompany, a group of grads from an Interactive Media program in the States that have a very specific development philosophy when creating their projects: the decide what emotions they want to evoke through their games and into their players, and design the game accordingly. The result is art. I dare you to disagree.

What Sessler is saying about participant influence in whatever video games actually are, art or not, is an incredibly valid point. The notion of a work of art having to be presented to its audience in one form by the artist, and that experience needing to not be altered is also a valid point. Once the audience starts being a participant, does the notion of art within a project cease to be?

If you watched that first video, that’s probably one of the ‘philosophical issues’ that video games sparks debate for. And in Sessler’s view, that’s what makes video games so progressive, transgressive, and interesting as an entertainment medium.

The participant is the third piece needed to finish the artwork is what Sessler posits. In that sense, it is true. Does that necessarily mean, given this reality, that a video game, as a whole, in its package, isn’t art?

If everything that surmounts to creating the finished video game product requires incredible levels of skill and talent pertaining to all aspects of art, design and interactivity, does simply making this art more accessible, more personal, deny those elements the ability to assemble together and create a true artwork?

Upcoming MMORPG with a shit-ton of art. Like, in-your-face art. Everywhere. Yup.


How can this be art?! There’s nothing to look at! Joke’s on you, fucker. It’s art, DEAL.


To me, video games, if they are to be considered ‘art’, connect with its audience at another level. Once again, it transgresses a lot of what’s considered art these days. Participants are experiencing the artistic elements in a game first-hand on several different levels. Sessler points this out in his video, visual design, AI design, character creation, environment creation, narrative structure, user interface. The participant interacts with the art, instead of just viewing the art.

The validity of that realization ferments my opinion in that video games are art. Traditional art? No. But I can’t deny the fact that so much of what’s put into a game relies upon every single principle artists of all kinds rely on, themselves, to create a visual, aural, or narrative piece of artwork from their imagination.

Google Team Fortress 2. Example of high stylization and a distinct focus on creating visual atmosphere, and awesomely hilarious narrative mood with their character design. Something like Braid or Limbo. Arthouse games. Yeah, that’s a genre. If you research countless indie games from indie developers, like the three mentioned above, all of them probably have clearer, more traditional artistic elements that may sway your opinion.

Horror. Like in movies (also art), it’s in games too. Horror requires art. Believe it!

Everything in video games has to do with art. Even coding. Programming. All the numbers and code and processing create something visual and interactive and appealing to your eye and ear. Designing not only visuals, but gameplay mechanics, working with gaming engines and designing a product goal rely on artistic vision and execution. ‘Interactive Art’ is sprouting up as the next big thing—new art movement, media topic, whatever, but it’s here, and its getting popular.

Video games as a medium, if not an art, combines everything artists know about creating art, and makes it into something else. Like Sessler says, maybe video games don’t have be categorized inside art, or culture, or society. Maybe it’s something else.

Maybe it’s the next step.

Wouldn’t that be the day, huh?

Friday, May 6, 2011

It’s racial segregation, only cooler.

Look, I may sound like an insane Green Lantern fan, but I’m actually not.

No, I lied, I fucking love Green Lantern. But I do enjoy other comics too.

For instance, X-Men. You’ve heard of them, and probably seen them on your television or movie theatre a couple times. Wolverine. Professor Xavier. Magneto. If you haven’t heard of those three I don’t think you should be reading this post, let alone reading this blog at all. Cause this kind of thing is going to be a common theme for the time being.

So yeah, I’m going to tell you all about the X-Men and how I came to familiarize myself with the mythos of the Mutant Menace and just how awesome they actually are as misunderstood members of the next step in human evolution.

This is a long post. If you don’t give a shit about comic books, stop reading now. Or, you could continue reading. Could learn something. Up to you.

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Basically, think Rodney King or Martin Luther King Jr. Think Klu Klux Klan. Think xenophobia—even more relevant, Islamophobia in relation to contemporary American culture. Think Holocaust and persecution of the Jews in WWII.

And you’ve got the X-Men.

Writing comic books is a flimsy business. And I don’t mean flimsy as in weak or bad, I mean flimsy as in it’s actually not a very solid process. It’s quite fluid in terms of the plot and history behind the characters as a whole. That’s in no small part due to the vast, extensive cultural history that comic books have. All of them. Especially the big guys—Marvel and DC.

In the case of the X-Men, I’m not the top authority to consult on complete historical background of the X-Men comic book runs or their characters. But hey, you’re not looking for a top authority, cause you probably don’t even care at this point.

I’m setting this up, because the X-Men are a cast of characters that, through comic book writers in the old days, Post-WWII towards the seventies, started a pretty different kind of superhero. This was Marvel’s way of saying fuck you to DC and their unstoppable forces, like the Man of Steel and the World’s Greatest Detective.

Not to say they don’t have their weaknesses, troubles, and hamartias, but Marvel’s a street-level company. With street-level heroes and street-level issues. What was the most predominant street-level issue in the old days?

Segregation, racism and discrimination against 'others'—that whole ugly thing. So, what sold in that era (and this is all my logical conclusion by the way, I haven’t researched any of this)? These street-level issues. Marvel wanted representatives in the comic book world to speak to those issues. Get sales by relating to your readers. Make them believe what’s happening in their world can happen to the world of superheroes, and vice versa. Suspension of belief can take you to very, very incredible places.

imageSo, the X-Men were established as these group of humans who were different than everyone else. Some more visibly than others. It wasn’t just a case of black versus white. This was: do you have an X-Gene or don’t you? Are you homo sapiens or homo superior? Are you one of those who are born better than the rest of us?

Are we supposed to fear you and hate you, or not? That one sounds familiar. It’s meant to be. This is the core of the X-Men mythos. They’re the discrimination scapegoats of the Marvel Universe.

  • PROTIP: A comic book ‘universe’ is where all of the publisher’s (i.e. Marvel or DC) characters and events reside in—think of it as a parallel to ours, where wondrous things that could never happen here, indeed do over there.

So, people born with a special gene in their DNA, usually in Chromosome 23 or something (I’m not actually sure) are born with amazing abilities that usually manifest when the individual hits puberty. Then, more often than not, all hell breaks loose. You might wake up with big-ass eyes, tentacles for arms, or collapsing into plasma. Or you could just discover you can read minds. Still, it’s genetic roulette. Risky. image

Enter the X-Men. They’re the crusaders for social justice in the matter of Mutant-Human relations. They’re hated, yes, but it’s hard to kill them and get away with it. Their public image is too good. They’ve established themselves as superheroes, and all those mutant-haters can’t really do their task risk-free nowadays. Thank Professor Charles Xavier for that.

And if you’re a mutant, the X-Men will try to find you. Usually before someone else does. Either a lynch mob or Magneto, is what it was down to until recently. Magneto controls magnetism—if you know about science that’s pretty damn powerful (it’s not just flinging pans at your face). He’ll turn you into a bad guy. Nobody wants to be a bad guy. If you do, then I really hope you don’t manifest latent mutant abilities.

imageWhen the X-Men get to you, they’ll bring you to a safe haven, free from discrimination and persecution, or civilian justice at the hands of all kinds of bigots and extremists. Recently, it used to be a mansion owned by Xavier turned school for ‘gifted youngsters’. Recent major events have proven location changes are pretty common with this troupe. Here, you’ll get to go to school without judgemental stares or screams of horror, feel welcome, find some friends you can relate too, and also get kick-ass training based on your genetic power-set.

Genetic mutation in the Marvel Universe is what genetic mutation in our universe wants to be: awesome. Your mutations, if they have their downsides, have some pretty stellar upsides too. You can fly? Don’t worry. Xavier’s School has teachers who can fly. They teach you how to fly better. Telekinesis? Well, they’ve got telekinetics to help you telekinect things. Good, right?

Wrong. You see, everything in the Marvel Universe is everything on our universe on steroids—refer to the genetic mutation comment. So bigots are not just bigots, they’re super-bigots. Terrorists are not just terrorists, they’re terrorists with giant mechanical robots and unknown sources of billion-dollar funding. Hate is not just hate, it’s super-hate.

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So, you put a bunch of mutants all in one place, and what happens? Bad things happen. Everything that’s happened to mutants in the Marvel Universe, prior to something called ‘M-Day’ which I don't know if you can take me getting further into, has been centered on the X-Men protecting that school from destruction of super-terrorist bigots with guns and a lot of money. And on top of that, a former mutant ally turned mutant extremist hell-bent on the ‘it’s us or them’ mentality (that’s Magneto). And he’s always pissed. If you don’t play on his side, you play on the other one.

Imagine if, in the decades of that turmoil, the hate run rampant, the protests, the media attention, the corruption—there wasn’t a happy ending? What if desegregation never happened? What if the hate grew stronger with each person different from us was born? What would the world look like?

The X-Men are a very good cultural symbol for comparison. This is if those things went wrong. If someone decided that they were a ‘menace to society’ and wanted them away from everyone else. Dead or gone, it didn’t matter. Beside all the other stories with the X-Men, and there’s a shitton, believe me—this is the heart of it all.

What they’ve always fought for is equality, respect, and peace. It’s something they still can’t seem to get. And it’s tragic, and it’s also great how comic book writers, contemporary ones anyways, don’t dare alter that reality with the X-Men, because, like I said, that’s the heart of it all.

There’s writers who come along and introduce HUGE crossover events where the X-Men fight unimaginable foes and universe-changing things happen that resonate not only for the X-Men books, but all across the Marvel Universe. That’s one of the reasons I read comics. Proof that it’s all connected, and that these characters’ actions mean something greater than the page that they’re featured.

But when those writers do those big events, for the sales and the new fans or whatever, they still have to maintain that presence of prejudice and discrimination that the X-Men have to fight with every day, in the face of the millions of lives they usually save with each foe they defeat, they still walk away with their heads hung low and going back into the shadows, because when everyone’s done yelling ‘Hurray!’ it’s back to the stares and the screams and the yells; ‘We don’t want you here!’ ‘Dirty muties!’ ‘Freaks!’

But hey, they don’t care. They save lives and kick ass. They can teleport, read minds, fire concussive blasts from their eyes, heal from wounds in a second, leap from great heights, alter probability, change into elemental forms, use heightened senses, move objects with a thought, absorb all kinds of energy, be indestructible, and fly faster than a speeding bullet even. And they were born with it. And they celebrate their mutations; their ‘powers’. They stick together, and even if they’re not equals to everyone else, they’re equals to each other. They respect each other, they fight bad guys together, and most of all, they stick together.

The X-Men have gone through some tough times. Most of them are gone now. A lucky few came back. Some new ones are just getting to know their power. They’re still here, though. They’re still Marvel’s token discrimination scapegoat.

And if they could talk, they’d say if there’s still one mutant left to bring back home, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s fiction, I know. Suspension of disbelief, remember?

  • PROTIP: M-Day was a very large Marvel crossover event (when a story exists in several simultaneous runs of different comic books) that centered around the X-Men. A mutant with the ability to alter probability used her powers to her fullest extent—changing reality as a whole. She said three words. “No more mutants.” On M-Day, the mutant global population went from a 14 million to 198. The writers did it because other writers wrote in too many mutants for the Marvel Universe, and had to get rid of some. That’s comic books, folks.

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Thanks for reading. This isn’t layman’s terms, and definitely can be more condensed and understandable. Two things I’m not really taking into account. Sorry. If you understand the X-Men a bit more now, then congratulations. You may just like comic books. Don’t worry. You won’t be hated like the X-Men, despite popular belief.

Also, new X-Men: The First Class character profile trailers.

Beast, Havok, and Banshee. Save for Beast, most of those X-Men in the movie are not the actual first class of X-Men. If you were wondering, that roster was originally Beast (pre-blue fur), Cyclops, Marvel Girl (Jean Grey), Iceman, and Angel. They were all in the last trilogy of X-Men movies. But movie franchises can take liberties if they want to. It’s still X-Men, and therefore, still awesome.

New trailer. Still awesome.

If you want to know more about some more Marvel, here’s a bit more about a certain Asgardian god-warrior with a really big-ass hammer.

[all of this via io9]

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

LOLGREENLANTERN

Fuck Death and his bullshit, watch this Green Lantern Trailer.

Bring it, haters. Can you hear it? Can you feel it?

It’s me not giving a fuck.

Getting the last word.

It’s a wonderful feeling, to get the last word. Know you got to express what you wanted, and they don’t have the ability to continue the argument. Settle your score without the game continuing; really, getting the last word is ending the game.

One guy though, he got the last word in a game you can’t really win. A game against Death, the ultimate victor. He always wins. It sucks, but he does. He doesn’t even have to say anything to get the last word. He just ends everyone’s choice of having one. That’s life, I guess.

So I found this article on Thought Catalog on the front page and it’s a pretty surreal topic. This man from British Colombia wrote his own obituary before he died in preparation for when his terminal cancer—Death, really, in one of his most sadistic forms you’d have to admit—ultimately silences him.

So, with the pre-written statement, after he passed his family released it to Thought Catalog and it shows up in the front page. I read it once, and I have to admit, I wasn’t totally immersed in the nature of the story. Dead man writes from the dead. Interesting, yeah. I’ll give you a moment to read it, then I’ll give me two cents.

I always liked to think of Death as a personified presence, just because it’s cooler to think of intangible aspects of reality as tangible. Grim Reaper is a much sweeter thing to completely fear than a simple inevitable truth about the universe. No scythe, no cloak; no fun. This is quite a digression from the said article, but I think it’s interesting to think of this man facing Death with his faceless face (I guess), and taking advantage of what little he has left to flip the finger.

Maybe the intentions were much less hostile, but I think the respect I get from this technical writer writing about something the complete opposite of technical is that he had the mindset to take control of his life—when Death is dragging him slowly down, and make use of what he has left.

What he says in that ‘Last Post’ really isn’t for the readers, I believe. It’s first and foremost, for his family, and doubly as a confrontation against Death and his machinations. Epic? Yes. No doubt we all take for granted pretty much absolutely everything we own, do, have, think, and believe—and how many of us get to sit down and reminisce about it, lucidly, without Death leering over our shoulders telling us to give in, shut up, and come with him into oblivion?

Not a rhetorical question, I really do wonder it. I wonder if I’ll have that gracious opportunity. If Death is so kind to allow me to think and feel for everything I experienced before dragging me off with the blade of his scythe.

This guy? He slapped that scythe away. Because words, unlike body, are untouchable (not in a literal sense, I’ll admit). But his words came across before Death dragged him off—their meaning was immediate, their audience waiting to catch those words as soon as the body fell with Death.

He got the last word. He published it onto the Internet for others to see. And Death is reeling on his throne of bones and dust, grabbing at the Earth-realm with resent. The inescapable, intangible, fearsome presence of a universal force, and this man laughed silently to himself as Death swept him away. His loved ones looked on with hope and purpose. At that moment, nothing could stop the last play against Death’s game.

And you know what? He won. That’s why its a great story. He beat Death. He got the last word. Who doesn’t want to beat the quintessential unbeatable figure?

I may be being extremely existentialist, but whatever. I’m thinking as I’m writing. That’s what stimulated my brain with this article. Interesting—definitely heart-warming, uplifting and saddening when reading the Last Post, but it’s afterwards that I dig deep into some juicy thoughts that I start to have some fun.

I just cataloged my thoughts. How cute.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

CiviliNation– Civil Digital Discourse

Everybody STOP what you’re doing!

Kay, not really. But if you want to learn about a new online movement that actually is really damn relevant to everyone who participates in the internet, look no further.

CiviliNation has a very specific goal; make sure the internet is a place free of abuse or harassment. Take away those bad things, and you have intelligent, thoughtful and educated discussion across the tubes of the interwebs.

For example, if you’re an aspiring internet personality posting on YouTube, fear not of haters if you support CiviliNation, because if it succeeds, the trolls will be bashed out. And all that’s left will be constructive criticism from invested commenters who want you to become a better performer. And better yet, there will be a lot more visible support because, well, there’s no haters to hate on you.

Imagine forums without troll posts or flame wars; it’d be like walking into a utopia of shiny threads lively with happy commenters and stimulating discussion. No grammar Nazis. No trolls. Clean and true.

imageTough task? Yeah. But an organization like CiviliNation might be able to bring about some change that could spark a lot more constructive debate than what we’re so used to seeing spill into the internet. It is for everyone, after all. So why can’t everyone feel welcome?

It’s stopping cyber-bullying, it’s promoting legitimacy of online discussion, and it’s providing users with a hope that one day they can share whatever wonderful idea they’ve been keeping inside because of the fear that some jerk is going to pop in and say ‘lol u gay.’

And that’s just lame.

You can check it out at their website at www.civilination.org. Please do. Learn about this stuff. It’s nice to feel knowledgeable.

And you know me, I hate haters. So help out. Spread the word. Make the Internet more awesome.

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