Misadventures of a Portland Unhipster

The tumblr for the blog unhipster in portland.

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Opinion Time

A story of how this post was made 12:08 am Oh, crap. I was so busy trying to heal up this week I forgot to find stories for my blog post. I can’t find at least three stories of idiocy, research them, and write about them in less than five hours. Oh, what will I do…. Evergreen College Doubles Down On Social Justice You know these stains on the underwear of life think they are bad holding baseball…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Opinion Time 06/12/16

Your weekly dose of LSD has arrived as we look at lunacy from around the world, and no the whole sharia and anti-sharia riots around the US would be an easy one considering that between the two parties both tried to start fights only when to get called out to cry and point to the other. I could beat it up here, but even I have standards. Low standards as some of my past writing can show, but…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Opinion Time

Let’s get to it, grab your drink of choice and join me on some of the dumb and strange moments of the week. Huffington Post Tries to Cross The Line Huffington Post for those who do not know was a slimy, backbiting, disgusting, cannibalistic news site that often times would only print for clicks, and if you weren’t with the liberal extremists then you were not going anywhere fast. They have had…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Opinion Time 05/28/17

#portlandstabbing gets covered and #racists shut down a restaurant for good #sundaymorning

Welcome everyone to the roast of some of the dumbest things the world has reacted to or done, and prepare to feel a lot smarter than most people. This is the often reviled opinion time and let us get to some of the problems that prove that the world is just as full of lunatics as it ever was. Most Likely To Become A Terrorist Okay, despite all times schools do something stupid it has been…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Opinion Time 05/21/17

@uhmanoa, I recently called part of your staff an idiot, read this and see if this offer works

Guess who’s back. Back again. Guess who’s back and tell a friend. I should be saying that this will get easier for some, but as I will never run out of material. Let us jump right in with our first from CBS. Drugs Are Okay As Long It Is Not Scientology Parents flipped their collective refuse straight from the S-bend in Santa Monica because at the high school they had to cancel an anti-drug…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Opinion Time 05/14/17

Welcome one and all to the point in the week where we take moments of idiocy by the collective portion of the worlds, and put them in the vial of acid before seeing what we get. Like every other week there was no shortage of material, so let’s get right into it. Emma Watson Wins Genderless Award https://heatst.com/world/giving-emma-watson-a-gender-neutral-acting-award-is-tokenism-and-nonsense/…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Opinion Time 05/07/2017

For some people this week will be grabbing the low hanging fruit. Screw you, these were some of the biggest moments of idiocy for one reason or another and they were more picked up from the grass then on a low branch, but let us begin. Plenty of stupid so little time, off we go. Colbert Tells Trump to Holster Putin Which why do I go? Which way do I go? If I think the remarks are okay a group of…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Starting this the idea was to do two or three stories for a week and two fall right in my lap right out of the gate, do not know if this for things to come or if it is just a busy time for idiocy, but here we go.

Yale Calls Out Samurai Jack

You know when I think of experts in animation Yale comes to mind just like laundry detergent in an open bar. Imagine my surprise when the Yale herald, who also claims to be the school’s most daring publication since 1986 has a bone to pick with the new cartoon. If you want to read the full piece about them you can do so in the link below, so you can get the full context in case of the future quotes.

http://yaleherald.com/reviews/tv-samurai-jack/

Normally reviews do not bother me as they just are someone’s opinion. However spending just a cup of coffee’s worth of time in art school has made me respect those who can do it. There is really one paragraph that stuck in my craw enough, and it showed something of a problem a lot of stories I have been seeing recently also have so this one kinda picked it.as the figurehead this week for all the problems.

In defense they do go over the detail and style that was put in to this work exclaiming how each frame could be in the MoMA. Well, here is the problem though that stuck in my craw.

“… Jack’s first villain, Scaramouche, with his flamboyant dress and mannerisms which include ending every sentence with “babe,” reads as somewhat tone deaf and homophobic. The portrayal of samurai seems to be rooted in a Wikipedia level understanding of the historical figure and feels appropriative at times. While this season introduces the strong, nuanced female character of Ashi, women’s bodies are often depicted as hyper-sexual, a fact made uncomfortably clear by the daughters of the Scotsman in the latest episode. The show has wandered into this territory before, most notably with the character of “Da Samurai” in the fourth season, who was nothing more than a racist caricature.”

Now, seems like they have some pretty simple gripes, but let us do something that most of these reviewers don’t and put all this in perspective starting with the first villain being somewhat tonedeaf. Unfortunately one cannot be homophobic because he ends every sentence with “babe”.  The word babe is not homophobic, and this kind of shows the problem. We have here a character whose actions which is often one of the bigger pieces of character building not being a problem or even a tirade or even a constant direct issue. It is a single word that could very well be an illumination to something else in his context, but according to the great minds at Yale the word babe is homophobic. Just in case I am wrong let me go check something.

Definition of homophobia

:  irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals

Okay, now let us check the word babe, from Merriam-Webster babe is defined like this.

Definition of babe

1a:  infant, baby  bslang:  girl, woman cslang:  a person and especially a young woman who is sexually attractive

2:  a naive inexperienced person —used especially in the phrase babe in the woods

I am not an Ivy League educated professor here, but I do not see anything about the homophobic issue here. I see that also the villain in question could be calling people babe as a jab at his own perceived superiority. You know that would be something a villain might do. I leave you to figure this conundrum out with the evidence of reality before you. Next point, the portrayal seems appropriative with a Wikipedia level of understanding, and yet these people couldn’t look up the word “babe”. Anyway, the supposed appropriation and Wikipedia-level knowledge of samurai could also be to the fact of character growth considering someone spent 50 years having their spirit and will to fight ground to fine powder, but that couldn’t be it because that would make sense.

Women’s bodies being hyper sexual is the next point, now, I have seen this animator’s work through the Powerpuff Girls, Dexter’s Laboratory, and this. he is known for a very strong style that leans away from natural form to go to a streamlined design with more simple curves and edges, and I am sure it is at least less of a pain in some cases to animate. To see if this is true I have gone through all of season 5 which is worth a watch to see if this is the case picking out every major female character I could find. The only one I did not get was the various rave dancers in a single episode because A. they had about a couple minutes of airtime for a song and B. they were at a rave and it didn’t look out of place because you know characters like those extras have to fit into their surroundings during things like this. I got a bunch of pics at the top so let’s take a look.

I see pretty, I see strong, I see mothers, I see cult members, I see young, old, and families, but nothing hyper sexy seems to pop out of this lineup. This all makes me wonder if this comment about them being hyper sexual just shows that they have some serious kinks and are projecting it. Different strokes for different folks, but if you think all this is hyper sexy then there is this thing called hentai and you can enjoy it to your little heart’s content Yale students. I will not judge you for that.

Overall, despite this review not having a grasp of the English language, the style of the person, the storytelling elements, and even of their own sexuality. This review states at the end this nugget of idiocy. “… Samurai Jack is thus flawed in the many ways that most mass entertainment is flawed, and thus deserves the same critical eye. With this in mind, whether the show is still worth experiencing should be left to the discretion of the individual viewer.”

This view that an entire world of an art or a version of entertainment is flawed just does not hold water. If you want an example you can look the animator’s previous works stated above or search him on IMDB for more. Tartakovsky has worked hard of his career to do a lot of different things and claiming that they all as they are all part of “Mass Entertainment” is insult at best and sheer stupidity at worse. Being critical is fine and dandy but beware when you do not know what you’re doing because some asshole could come out of the woodwork and make you look like gibbering lemurs. Each work of art has in itself a set of problems and responses to issues it may come up with. Putting your nose up saying how it is all the same marks you as absolutely clueless to many facets of storytelling, design, and character these people face. In short to the tribune, you are a complete bunch of idiots, and for such a prestigious place of knowledge, the dictionary seems to escape you. All those resources and you would think they would get pretty early in the life of the school. Do not worry Yale because if anyone reads this, and you really want to get back at me you can always check my grammar because it’s atrocious.

Nordstrom Sells Faux Muddy Jeans

For those that now me I am not a fashion diva. I wear black t-shirts and either jeans or shorts because they work. Seeing the previous trend of worn jeans going in designer shops at high prices was pretty stupid. The businessman in me was smiling about the whole thing while the rest of me was wondering how far we as a species has fallen.

Ladies and gents, this is not a test we now have major brands selling pants that are made to look dirty. We have gone full circle straight into pure lunacy. What happened to just wearing jeans that worked for you and you stressing them or dirtying them yourselves. Also, side point when it comes to girls jeans why don’t you just put pockets instead of things that look like pockets because women deserve the space to put things away just as much as men. Seriously I had to help my girlfriend find clothes and the jeans had no pockets they had these fake ones that made no sense.

Let me make a deal, do you want something like this, well here we can stain them to your wish. We can stain them with mud, oil, even paint splatter, all you need to do is send your jeans to us, and with a fee of $750 we can stain it and send it back to you. You get custom stained jeans, and I get some money because we all know I can do better with it.

I can go on stating how even the creation of a market for stuff like this is mind boggling, or how people who cash in and need stuff like this are trying to look like they work, so maybe they don’t work so hard. Fashion wise it looks like crap, and how that in fashion looking bad is the goal makes me wonder if people just completed the circular logic of being ahead of everything straight to bad decision making. This could fill pages, but you could get the scene of how stupid this is by running full steam into a cement partition.

Oxford Cries Racist Over Avoiding Eye Contact

Well, it seems colleges just are having a crap week earning two of my three spots this week, but is it really that bad?

Yes, yes it is. According to the school avoiding eye contact is part of a list that makes up a group of racist micro-aggressions. I had a good bit of chat about this with different people to kind of bring my opinion to completion. It will also anger some people, deal with it. Recently, Oxford University had sent out their newsletter, and they have already released an apology about this, but I still want to bring it because of a couple factors. Unlike many news outlets, that would just give you snippets here is also the address to the newsletter in question where you can read it with your own eyes. We will be going over the article “Everyday Racism“. Read it if you want and come back because a lot of people will want to be outraged for nothing and will look like a pinhead doing so.

http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/media/global/wwwadminoxacuk/localsites/equalityanddiversity/documents/newsletter/Equality_&_Diversity_Newsletter_trinity17_web.pdf 

Good, back? Going from the title one can probably guess which part sticks in my craw. For those who can’t guess or are speed reading the taking of avoiding eye contact as a racist action in this format is just to me the greatest idea of trying to join the crowd and here is the problem with it.

For some people, though there is something, I will need to put here first.

Definition of racism

1:  a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race

2a:  a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles  b:  a political or social system founded on racism

3:  racial prejudice or discrimination

A reason that we have this here is that people like to throw around the word nowadays without actual thinking if it is true or not. What presents as a problem in this article is a couple things. One is that it does not take into any value the context of the people around the world from their cultures or their upbringing or their education. These things do not gravitate around race as a major factor and in fact, really many of these facets do not care about race. Another thing is the little thing up top that says a belief because we will get to that. Just in case people try to jump the punch to get all hot and bothered over my words let me add some gas to the fire.

Definition of prejudice

1:  injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one’s rights; especially:detriment to one’s legal rights or claims

2a(1):  preconceived judgment or opinion (2):  an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge b:  an instance of such judgment or opinion c:  an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics

Racism is based on opinions, it is based on judgments and while their article states that it can be a racist action what it does not state is how everything can be a racist action. The problem is right now there is a climate of people branding others as racists and discriminatory without even thinking about if it is true or not. Groups get together to call foul when in many cases there is no foul, creating an environment where the law of diminishing returns comes into play. For those who do not know that it is below just for you.

A concept in economics that if one factor of production is increased while other factors are held constant, the output per unit of the variable factor will eventually diminish.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/law-of-diminishing-returns.html

This means that while everyone calls everyone else and everything racist we will not get the change we need to on the things that are actually PROVEN to be racially destructive. We need to know the opinion of the person committing the action if it is a new one not steeped in offense or based in serious numbers to even call it such a thing. Without such things might I add that another problem is that even with the lesser returns on it there are so many things being deemed it nowadays that really no one will be able to work on them all so you make it where people have to pick their battles making the return even less. Stating an action without any evidence to back it or learning about it from people is a bad idea and these schools that do these things to promote an image of togetherness show themselves as people acting a part when really they need to truly pick up the role.

I get no small amount of mirth as the school has already apologized because a group of people representing students with social anxiety and learning disorders claims that it was hurtful to their students. A group of people trying not to be racist just so happened to piss on another group of people.

This post is not to claim how racism does not exist. It does. All forms of discrimination exist, but we need to open conversation before even knowing if something is discrimination because we need to form an opinion or learn it. On top of that it must be something that has to be discrimination and not anything else otherwise you will make yourself out to be that which you hate.

Now, this leaves with this. This article should not have existed. It does no good, and it just left the school with egg on their face specifically for their band of pinheads pushing supposed micro-aggressions over actual problems over there at the school while sporting how they have an equality and diversity group.

If you still think this is racist because you need to bring evidence how this is racist than I can only really mirror the sentiment of Adam Cole in this video. He is in the red trunks.

I think you should click here for it.

So tell me what you think, that was opinion time. If you liked it the best things you can do is share it with others. Hate it or love it if we can maybe start some conversations that are constructive than maybe we wont be living in a fire pit in a century, one can always hope.

  Opinion Time 4/30/17 Starting this the idea was to do two or three stories for a week and two fall right in my lap right out of the gate, do not know if this for things to come or if it is just a busy time for idiocy, but here we go.

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Opinion Time 04/22/17

Bill O’Reilly Leaving Fox News The opinionated golden boy of Fox News has been cashed in amongst sexual harassment accusations. It seems that this storm of controversy is finally the stake through the man’s career that is so polarizing that he may have done the Trump’s routine before the president did. It could be that in his polarizing rhetoric those previous issues were held silent under the…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Coming to One Guy In Portland

Coming to One Guy In Portland

So I recently looked at everything when it came to this blog and like everything else I decided to find a way to keep trying new things. I want this to succeed and something happened recently that I want to tell you about. No secret has been made about my health problems, and I have hoped that honesty has been appreciated. It has been part of my attempt to keep this semi-positive, to keep this…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

When business fails what should happen

When business fails what should happen

As positive as I try to be sometimes nothing beats just showing people how to do it better. Due to just getting over a skin infection one of my projects needs to take a hit so I will use this time to get some time to put everything else in order. (I was in for the better part of a weak and a blackout for another couple days beforehand made work a pretty much impossibility)

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Going By Formula

You know most big businesses has the view of common people mirroring the way us normal people look at roaches. One of the things they hate is how everything can go cold so quickly without knowing why things do so. Well, from my little rocking chair I will impart you the knowledge that we have learned only for thousands of years, so if you are looking at all the small factors trying to find it let…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Oh, How Sad Things Have Gotten

Oh, How Sad Things Have Gotten

I was actually in a good mood for a moment. I think it was about thirty-seven seconds. Thirty-seven seconds is the exact amount of time for me to roll out of bed, try to stand, pop my back, move three steps, take my medicine, and sit in my chair. Seeing there was an attack in London and already in my mind, I know what the next few actions will be. People will lie trying to make others feel…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

No Space Is Safe

No Space Is Safe

*Reads the article* (Is this going to be the nice guy, or the jaded prick writing today…) So, there is this thing called safe spaces in some colleges where people can go away if they don’t like what is being said to decompress and withdraw themselves fro m conversation that may be insulting or hurtful. Sounds good on paper, but really it makes me think that massive groups of people have lost…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Idiots, Drugs, and Mech Metaphors

Idiots, Drugs, and Mech Metaphors

Ok, most people who are reading this for some happy fuzzy thing may want to leave now. It is your funeral otherwise. So living another day I would like to tell you something. I am not a person. I am not a human. I am a bunch of little tiny chibi drawn characters piloting me like Power Rangers Mech. It sounds odd, but really that is how I can go from breaking punching bags in gyms, while talking…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Social justice and Micro Transgressions

Social justice and Micro Transgressions

A long time ago I got into a fight. A fight where a couple people representing a gang wanted to take the money of me and my friend. The lights were painting everything a sickly orange and I just lost my cool because for the umpteenth time someone thought that because they were part of a gang or a group or a clique or had more money or something else that they were better than me. I am not better…

View On WordPress

[doomtrainandtonberries]

Bad Blood

My family has what could be called a strained relationship. Just recently things took a pretty bad turn of events thanks to one person, and that would be my sister. If one has read this blog for a while one could make the assumption that everything wasn’t sunshine and daffodils. I won’t go until the full story because that would be another month of blog posts, and it really wouldn’t be worth it.…

View On WordPress