Hashtags

I knew buying my Three Keyboard Cat Moon t-shirt would bring up my slow-to-catch-on, geek street cred. But I want to go further and take the online around with me everywhere in a way that even my phone can't. That is why I will begin ending every statement with hashtags.

(If you are slow to #, this Google search might help).

So, for example, if my friend Seth says to me, "The Sharks are going to win the cup this year," I will reply like so: "you have a sad, sad understanding of how the universe works. Hashtag losers. Hashtag secondround."

Or, if I have to give a toast at Justin's wedding I might say, "And I hope you have a wonderful time on your honeymoon. Hashtag babymaking. Hashtag penetration."

It's so easy, the world's gonna eat it right up. Hashtag irock.

I Will One Day Crave Human Brains

I have been doing an unhealthy amount of thinking about zombies today. And I have realized one thing: at the first hint of a zombie outbreak, I am finding one and letting it bite me.

I know this sounds backwards, but from what I could recollect from every zombie movie I have ever seen, this is the best plan of action for me.

You know that minor actor who is the friend/brother/life partner who gets bitten in the beginning of the movie? That’s all they get. Bitten. Well, I mean, they get undead disease too, but they only get a bite. You remember that hero who fights off hordes of zombies for ages and saves the pregnant woman/self-centered business man/young dude at personal risk? What do they get? Ripped apart and eaten alive by a mob of very starved zombies. Literally dozens of mouths and hands biting and tearing at them like they were kids getting candy that just fell out of a piñata. Vicious.

I don’t like pain.

So I will just get an easier ow-ie early and then roam around looking for some gray matter. And if the movies are true, later on I will even pop by to say ‘hi’ to my silly friends who try and survive. (Zombies clearly have some remnants of their former, not singularly food-focused selves stored away in there. Or there is a God and he really likes to fuck with people by having their undead loved ones try to devour them).

Say what you will (which is probably that I am the biggest pussy ever), but I don’t like guns and my weak, little, girlie wrists will probably break when I try to decapitate a necromorph with a shovel. Hell, I once struck out at a slow-pitch softball game, melee will do me no good. So I know my best chance at survival is to get in with the in-crowd and start trying to orally lobotomize you.

Or maybe nibble on your left arm. Because even though zombies are supposed to be into brains, I have never seen them cracking at a skull, just feasting on appendages. Which is strange.

Hmmmm. Do they ever show them trying to eat actual brains?

Now I’m starting to think this zombie thing is a gigantic sham. Fuck you, George A. Romero!

Doling Out Peace

The Nobel Peace Prize was created by the man who invented dynamite. This really isn't ironic in that gunpowder had been around for ages prior and the only person I can think of who used dynamite for violent purposes is Wile E. Coyote. But something about it still seems strange. Much like Barack Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Apparently for saying words like 'hope' and 'change' and making foreign countries feel all warm and fuzzy after spending eight years with the Incarnate of Evil Administration, he is the ultimate bringer of peace (this year).

I know all sorts of people truly believe Obama deserved this. Personally, I think it is just going to mire us in more Republican trouble and headaches from cries of 'elitist' and 'Europe is evil' and set progress back even farther. But the prize has been given and I don't have a time machine or clout. However, knowing now how lax the standards are for bestowing the honor, I would like to give my short-list for next year's running.

Marvin Gaye: A posthumous award to the man who made music to which war can never be fought. When you hear those first two seconds of 'Let's Get It On' there is only one feeling roaming your skin. The feeling to start bumpin' uglies, because the blood is pumping to the goods.

Dan Brown: Generally it is believed that ignorance is a leading cause of violence. The theory is that the undereducated tend to be more of an aggressive bunch because they are not civilized blah-blippity-blah-blah. But the way in which Dan Brown dumbs people down does not lead to violence (except among those fairy, 'reader' types, right?). Dan 'The Metaphor Crusher' Brown slaps around the English language like a pimp and makes it his whore, bending whatever ungodly way it needs to bend for the money. The result is a pile of rubbish that leaves the reader a slobbering, lobotomized mess, not likely to hurt a poorly depicted fly.

Glenn Beck: Because that would just be funny as fuck.

The Internet: The award would have to be diced up and given to those sites most deserving, but the Internet on the whole would be the winner. For that first time you came across YouTube and you didn't stop clicking through links until that lingering smell of four day old poop in your pants finally registered with your Numa Numa saturated brain. Facebook quizzes eat larger and larger hours out of your work, personal and love-making time. Your Amazon cart fills with purchases you'd someday like to make and Wikipedia prepares you for Jeopardy. The Internet is a master at keeping the peace (except for WoW griefers) because the only time you get violent is when your DSL lag causes hiccups in your new favorite Kanye West/Debbie Does Dallas/Auto-Tune mash-up. (Don't you try to bring up Twitter and Iran as a 'real' example. I will cut you!)

Television: This is my personal favorite to win. With all do respect to the Internet, Television has been keeping people docile and un-rebelious for far, far longer. And, unlike the Internet, Television is not interactive. When you hang out with Television, you are in a near catatonic state. The only thing proving brain activity is your hand moving from the Cheetos bag to your mouth to your pants (for a napkin!). I think the addiction to reality TV creates far more complancency than even internet porn. Yes, Television has kept Americans (and many other countries' citizens) an apathetic and fat-assed class for decades past and (knock on wood, says the politician) decades future. Also, it has some really, really good shows. I can seriously give you a list for your TiVo if you like. Seriously.

I hope the Nobel Prize Commitee will take my selections into consideration because I think they are genuinely good prospects. And also, the Commitee have really proven that they don't give a crap and just phone in their votes anyway. Maybe Television has had it's way with them too and that's why they gave their award to a man who has done little to nothing. I mean, we all know Television (except for that scrotum-like Fox News section) says Barry rulez.

Steve Jobs < Jesus

I know all you iPhone-toting douche bags want to think Steve Jobs is the Second Coming. He isn't. And despite the fact that I know this because Jesus and I have regular games of drunken darts and tickle fights, I am aware you won't believe me. Still, will you stop trying to convince yourself that the iPhone is the cause for any other company's success or failure within the last century?

I really hate it when articles involve the iPhone in places it doesn't generally belong. Like a recent New York Times piece that, essentially, says that the video game industry is being brought to it's knees by the 99 cent casual games purchased on iTunes.

Here is the question that seems to drive the whole article: "How can Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft keep consumers hooked on game-only consoles, like the Wii or even the PlayStation Portable, when Apple offers games on popular, everyday devices that double as cellphones and music players?"

That is one of the most retarded question I have heard asked by a professional journalist in a... well, OK, probably not that long.

Still what follows is a piece about the recent downturn in the console market and how it is nearly entirely caused by the success of the iPhone and not like, say, oh, I don't know, a MELTDOWN OF THE GLOBAL FUCKING ECONOMY! Yeah, nothing to do with the NEAR DEPRESSION we are working ourselves out of. Video games are fucked because of the goddamn, perfect and heavenly iPhone.

That is like saying that the board game industry fell to pieces when the New York Times added crossword puzzles.

It is two entirely different markets. It can somewhat be related the Wii's success due to it's broader appeal and ease of use. Without these Nintendo would not have a console in my mother's home and even my grandmother's home. Just because Grammy has a Wii doesn't mean that the Halo universe or the GTA franchise have crumbled and moved into the bobble-head racer genre. Hardcore and casual can, surprisingly, co-exist.

Casual gaming on your iPhone is a success because it allows people a simple way to kill time on the subway or in the lobby. But you are not going to get the depth, graphics or many of the other things you get on a console.

Yes, there are things consoles can improve on. For example, Microsoft can make a system that doesn't have a higher death rate than cancer patients. Sony can quit over-charging for technology that is as much of an improvement as putting a little make-up on Natalie Portman (that means it was already pretty to begin with). Nintendo can try and stop all the crappy shovelware and woo real publishers back.

But the game market isn't going through armageddon because of the jEsusPhone. It's not movie theater to home theater crisis or newspaper to internet disaster. It's Sear's Catalog to Sick Fetish Monthly.

So shut the fuck up about the goddamn iPhone.

P.S. The "iPhone-toting douche bags" thing doesn't apply to my sister or her husband.

It's The End Of The World (Again). Sigh.

I have a sick obsession with doomsday. Anytime Discovery or National Geographic or The History Channel air anything to do with Armageddon (in the biblical or the secular, science-y asteroid type), I am there. As a kid I used to love to be spooked by The Weekly World News. I can't stay away.

But even I can't buy this crap: 'Web-bot project' makes prophecy of 2012 apocalypse.

You should read the article, but if you're too lazy I'll summarize. There is this web tool that has supposedly predicted September 11th, The Boxing Day Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina by perusing the under workings of the internet. And now it is saying the Mayan Calendar Doomsday theory is right, we will all die on December 21, 2012.

How does this sophisticated machine work? Much like Google. It crawls the web, finds keywords and trending topics and, unlike Google, tells us we will all perish in a tragic, fiery way. Because you know that those damned tectonic plates were tweeting up a storm about throwing a big wave a Thailand. And those storm clouds were blogging about their true desire to make Bush look bad while getting the satisfaction of drowning poor people.

The internet CANNOT predict natural disasters. Scientists can create simulations for studies that become popular and crawl up the search results, but that doesn't mean it's going to happen! Yes, maybe it could be helpful for human created acts, like September 11th, but that's it.

And maybe these findings are skewed by that crappy new Roland Emmerich movie and searches and stories that would increase the number '2012.'

Still, 12/21/2012 is a Doomsday scenario I know little about, so I took to Google (and helped the Web-bot get even more stubborn on it's feelings of correctness). One of the first few articles I came across was actually a little frightening. The author took the convincing scientific approach to proving the downfall of human civilization. All sorts of events are going to happen to form a perfect fry-the-earth event with solar flares and gravitational forces and pole shifting and celestial alignment.

The only problems are that the galactic alignment happens over 36 years and it's peak was in 1998 and "polar shift" isn't even the correct event, it would be geomagnetic reversal, which happens over 5000 years, not one day.

It's the end of a calendar. As one great article borrowed from a book: "…when a calendar comes to the end of a cycle, it just rolls over into the next cycle. In our Western society, every year 31 December is followed, not by the End of the World, but by 1 January. So 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan calendar will be followed by 0.0.0.0.1 – or good-ol' 22 December 2012, with only a few shopping days left to Christmas."

It's that simple. And this is coming from a guy who might as well have doomsday trading cards and posters and bedsheets. It's a calendar that flips to the next cycle.

And what if it is the end? I don't want to know. Sure, I like shows about super volcanoes, but I am having enough trouble enjoying life while I am trying to find a new place to live. How would I do anything if I knew that I was going to die and there was no way around it? I want to enjoy life while it is right here and stop worrying about tomorrow. (Yeah, like that'll happen).

Also, if I am wrong, we'll apparently be dead so quick you'll never have the chance to say I told you so.

Kitty

My cat had to be put down today. And I was three thousand six hundred some odd miles away.

My friend found PigPen being attacked by some kids about 8 years ago. She had seen him around with no apparent home, so she defended him from the brats and then called me. I have always been a sucker for cats.

And I knew Piggy was special because unlike most cats he was not only very excited to be in my car, but when we got to my apartment, as opposed to running and hiding like most would, he hopped up on my bed, felt around for a moment, seemed to think “this will do,” and curled right up.

He was great like that.

Years ago I almost had to give him up to the Humane Society, which, contrary to their name, probably would have meant certain death. I was moving and I didn't have a definite place for him to live. We tried my girlfriend's family, but PigPen and their dog did not have the greatest compatibility. So I turned to my last source, my parents.

My family had cats over the years, so one wouldn't have thought that turning to my parents would have been that hard. But my sister had to go and ruin the party (sorry, Laurie), because her adorable, fatty cat, Buster, was a pee-er. He had previously marked his territory on her rock star roommate's head while he was sleeping. So my mom was hesitant to let him move in. And sure enough, Buster did some piddling around the household.

So cats were barred. Until Piggy faced a near-death sentence at the hands of non-adoption at the Humane Society.

But my parents took pity on me and my kitty (which is what they would continue to call him). Initially banished to “my” room (or the guest room that used to be my room), Piggy/Kitty was quickly allowed out to wander the hallowed grounds of the house. A few years later, he would be master of the house as I left the east coast for San Francisco.

My mom swears he hated her for the longest time. I don't know if that is true, but I know that he and my dad hit it right off. In fact, the last I knew, my parents' sleeping arrangements consisted of them, their collie, their german shepard and my cat, who would be curled up on my dad. He would lie down on the blueprints my dad was working on and sit on the back of the computer chair when my dad was there. And when I found a new place to live that could have included Piggy, my dad approached me in the most adorable fashion to say how I would probably just end up moving again, and all that moving wouldn't be good for Kitty, so... why not just leave him here. It was sweet.

Which is why I was glad that my dad was there with him, right until the very end.

On Sunday my mom said that Kitty was very melancholy so they would be taking him to the vets. Monday she called to tell me that a tooth infection had potentially caused his kidneys to shut down, so they would be doing blood work overnight. This morning my dad called me and said, “I have some bad news.”

He was already gone.

The thing that is most troublesome to me is that I couldn't be there. I had a whole night of knowing that he might possibly be gone the next day and I couldn't just zip on over to be there with him. I know he probably wasn't really missing me those last few hours, it had been a long time since he actually lived with me. But whenever I came home, he came right out of hiding. He might have not let me pet him because he was a little pissed that it took me so long to come back and visit, but he would always come out. And when I watched my parents house while they went on luxurious vacations, he always slept with me.

Now, the next time I go home, he won't be tiredly strutting around that corner. He won't be doing that love-proving thing where he gets you petting him and then slowly inches away to test if you will move just to keep making him happy. He won't be there doing any of the things that I so fondly remember. And I can survive that, but I just wish I could have seen him do it all one last time.

Which then leads me to the bigger worry. What if a scenario like this happens again? And what if it happens with a family member or a friend? And I'm stuck at my terrible little-box retail store with no resources and no feasible ability to get myself on a red eye and be back home with the ones I love.

That thought frightens the hell out of me.

A lot of things can suck about living in the city: jobs, roommates, expenses. But those things are able to change. The one solid sacrifice that I have to make to live here is to be virtually a universe away from my mom and dad and sister and brother-in-law and nephew and niece. The people who I will always love most in this world. And it's moments like this when I have to question if it's worth it.

To not be able to take a short trip to watch a football game with my parents. To consistently miss my nephew's birthdays. To not watch as my niece learns to walk.

For better or worse, that is the path I have chosen and will continue on. I am sure PigPen knew I loved him just as I am sure my family knows I love them and I guess that will have to do for now. (Cue the “Avenue Q” song For Now.)

I am going to attempt to quit being so mopey now and go and watch The State which, incidentally, was finally released on DVD today after years of fan warfare on MTV. You should buy it because it is one of the greatest sketch comedy shows ever (though some of the routines are a little dated and not understandable if you didn't watch MTV then). Ignore that last parenthetical remark. It may have made you not want to buy it. Which you should. Just as I should stop typing now.



RIP PigPen/Piggy/Kitty

Steroids in baseball is all the rage these days. And, on the whole, creating all sorts of rage. But, unfortunately, not exciting on-field 'roid rage. Instead, “fan” rage. And if you really want to get your finger on the pulse of this elitist fan retardation, you need to read online comments.

There was a refreshing opinion piece on nytimes.com today entitled “Is Manny Ramirez Really All That Bad?” You should read it yourself, but I will recap a little. The focus was on the fact that technology plays an important role in athletes' physique and abilities. So why should we consider a little doping to be the equivalent of crucifying Christ himself? Cyclists train in wind tunnels, there are computer simulations, high-tech footwear as well as other equipment and, best of all, Tiger Woods paid for surgery that gave him 20/15 vision. Those are all OK by society's standards, but a little bit of extra testosterone is disgusting? It was decently thought out and a pretty well put together argument by author Randy Cohen.

Then you read the internet's open mic for douche bags, the comment section. Just like so many self-righteous talking heads, many commenters blindly defend the “integrity” of the game, they whine about cheating and there was even an accusation that getting needled in the buttocks by your trainer is the equivalent to theft.

First of all, let's just make this clear: these guys get paid to hit a ball. Wait, let me rephrase that: these guys get paid ridiculous sums of money to hit a ball. And fans pay equally ridiculous sums of money to wear their jerseys, to sit in the stands, to get an autograph. These are not quantum physicists, brain surgeons or even coal minors. They're cheating is not the equivalent of scientists hiding bad pharmaceutical test results and causing future patients to die. Or an architect cutting costs, despite the knowledge that it will threaten the building's stability. These guys stand in a field while a million eyes watch them and they try to hit a ball.

Your cheating argument is fine, but let's not blow this issue out of proportion. I think Barry Bonds deserves an asterisk after his name. Maybe Manny should be eliminated from Hall of Fame contention. Then again, he is the man for which the adage “Manny being Manny” was created, so it is possible to assume he just juiced once for a lark so he could get an extended vacation in the middle of the season.

As for these fanatics who flip out at the idea of an impure athlete, how pure are they? Whether they are a beer guzzling, Laz-E-Boy type or still fit as in their prime, how many of them have never taken some drugs or cheated a little at their job or said an unforgivable word or had a 42 year-old woman accuse them of throwing her on a bed at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, VA, biting her on the back 15 times, sodomizing her, and forcing her to perform oral sex on him? Glass houses, baby.

You have a problem with performance enhancing drugs? Well then I assume you hate Hendrix and The Who. You would have preferred The Beatles stuck with the “Do You Want To Know A Secret” route. I am sure you despise Dazed and Confused or any Dave Chapelle film. Or many other creative works dated past the 1960s.

And while we're on the subject of performance enhancing drugs, Mr. Critic, why don't we discuss your collection of Viagra? I would say that lasting up to four hours is a better performance than you ever gave in your prime.

Ms. California got a performance enhancing boob job paid for by the Miss California Pageant, so her crown should disappear like her top did on that darn windy day. And let's not watch any actors who get any sort of cosmetic surgery to pretty them up for a few more years, because not all actors can afford that, therefore it is not a level playing field.

OK, comparing ill gotten biceps to gravity defying knockers is a little unfair. But both have an equal amount of impact on my life. Which is less than and not equal to, say, the economy.

One commenter had the stones (most likely in his brains, not in his pants) to say that baseball should have a one strike an your out policy because that's what bankers who cook the books get. Are you effin' kidding me?!?! Do you read any articles outside of the sports pages, jackass?

And this is where the problem lies for me. Yes, in a sport like football, steroid abuse could have a much more dangerous effect than in a sport like golf and it shouldn't be tolerated. Steroids can lead to other drug abuses. Of course we should never promote it because I don't want to see Little Leaguers sneaking HGH like they do with the chew and becoming mutant ogres when they get older. But, as commenter “ron” says: it seems like more people care about drugs in baseball then the torture of detainees in US custody.

You can eliminate steroids and HGH and something else is destined to come along. And athletes will continue to do them because they have little planned outside of sports, not all can become analysts and, did you know, that on average it takes 2 years for NFL players and 5 years for NBA players to go broke in retirement and I don't think the prospects are better for other athletes. Even big stars. In other words, athletes are fucked anyway.

So before we worry about who is juiced and who is not, why don't we get athletes, and everyone else for that matter, a little Economics 101 help today. Because you'll still be a season ticket holder tomorrow.

Thanks to all your integrity.