Loweded

Go out and learn something.

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"Be a shame to blow it up!“

Movies have changed and in some ways its hard to determine if it’s for the better. Obviously safety is and should be the foremost concern of the movie industry to protect those that are creating these two and a half hour epic fantasy action adventures. But I want to express my thoughts properly by examining two recent films that both include over the top action.

The Avengers 2 and Mad Max could be considered similar outside of their MPAA ratings when it comes to the action itself. But there’s quite a difference of how the filmmakers reach that final production shot, and of you ask me, how that final shot effects me as the viewer.

When Mad Max was announced a few years back I was of the mindset that Im always in when I hear the words reboot or re imagining. So I assumed I would probably see it but that I should prepare for heavily computer generated landscapes and action sequences. Slowly over time, word began to slip that George Miller was behind this picture and that he was staying as far away as he could from computer generated imagery (CGI) and suddenly he had my attention.

Avengers has a harder hill to climb when it comes to one of your characters being a massive hulk and your antagonist is an alien race, so I reserve some mental anticipation knowing that there’s going to be a lot of CGI in an Avengers film. But I found myself drowning in CGI in the most recent film and as much as I didn’t want to acknowledge that it hurt the viewing, sadly, it really did.

Avengers is pretty amazing even considering this, but it loses me a lot while watching. Robot after robot being smashed into bits amounts to little more than destruction porn and overall it reduces tension and dread. Luckily Avengers has some well written dialogue that pulled me back in after these nuts and bolts smashing scenes.

Mad Max changes the production of its film to match the visceral, realistic, and focused vision of seeing a real live car chase. The nuts and bolts of a flipping enemy hotrod, we’re indeed real nuts and bolts. 150 stunt drivers and over 300 stunt shots later and I was sitting on the edge of my seat as real live stuntman jumped from car to car doing everything possible to fight for their leader and kill the protagonists for entry to Valhalla.

But why does it matter if it’s CGI or practical? Probably in the same way that a TV channel fireplace isn’t nearly as rewarding as an actual fireplace. Or how an email birthday message doesn’t resonate as strongly as a mailed hand written card. It’s something we see happening all the time in our daily lives. And not that the thought isn’t there, but that it subconsciously feels like a cop out. And in the same sense that we open that email card and read it and reply with thanks, we just as quickly forget about it. Whereas a mailed card probably goes up on your mantle for at least a few days if not longer constantly reminding us of the effort taken. It sticks with you longer.

I believe this same subconscious feeling holds true in film. There is no real weight to a one ton hulk smashing through a building as cool as that is, if there’s no real hulk or no real building. Where’s the weight? It’s imaginary. Ask an actor whether they enjoy practical sets or green screen, and I’m sure you’ll get a very one sided response. Real objects get a response.

We’re so used to CGI that we have decided as an audience that each following sequel has to out do the other, because we can simply recreate entire vast adventures within a small sound stage or studio so there’s no end to what we can show an audience. But is that a good thing?

I know personally that I fell asleep to both of the last two Star Wars films while sitting in the theater, but last weekend I was engrossed in the earlier film, “The Empire Strikes Back”. Why? Because there is an effort to tell the stories with real practical effects and miniatures. I’m not interested in devoting any fear or tension to a scene where none of the character or environments are really there. Regarding Avengers 2, I didn’t remember much of it the day after outside of some good dialogue. The characters never felt threatened or really beaten by the enemies.

So to conclude this small post, I guess I have to sum up two separate conversations I’ve had with good friends seeking recommendations for both films. One asked me if I had to choose which film to see this weekend which one is more pressing. I told him simply, “Mad Max Fury Road. Hands down, no question.”

My other long time friend asked me what I thought about mad max because he heard it sucked. I asked him who told him it sucked. He said a few people thought it had no plot and too many explosions. I nearly drove to his house to tell him to his face the following…instead I texted him to save gas.

“Remember the first time you saw John McClane blow four stories of a sky-rise away and the feeling it gave you? That tickle that made its way up to your mouth and cracked a smile?…. That is Mad Max Fury Road. It’s holding a beer up just for you.”

Both Avengers and Mad Max are awesome and I fully support seeing them both, but considering how much realism and energy went into the practical effects of Fury Road, if you have to choose, choose Max. You may just be surprised how good and real the tension is.

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Tony Soprano...

SPOILERS IBELOW...

It was June 2007 and I was starting my long walk down Broad Street to meet up with a group of friends. They lived down off Ritner Street in South Philly and I had butterflies, because the previous weeks of that summer had been filled with catching up on Tony Soprano and his Jersey family. Everything was set and we were all a few hours away from an unknown end to a show that had gripped me for the better part of a decade.

I never had HBO. So my first introduction was binge watching the first two season’s years before on DVD and taking advantage of any chance to watch the later seasons by getting together with friends. I can’t really process what it was that lured me into the world of David Chase’s masterpiece, but if I had to answer now I would say that authenticity led the pack. His vision of watching a realistic family deal with the realistic trappings of illegal wealth and organized crime set a tone that almost no show could match for years to come until Walter White entered my world.

When I reached my friend’s house we had food ordered and we were watching the previous episode to try and prepare ourselves mentally for what lie ahead. We all had our theories and we all took time debating how or what could happen, but to this day I don’t think any of us can truly say we understood what we saw the very second it ended. It would be years until the ending finally sunk in for me. Years.

I believe that what drew me to standing behind Tony’s shoulder through six seasons, is exactly what made it impossible for me to accept the ending as I sat there in disbelief and screamed, “Fuck you David Chase!” I was blinded by an inability to let go, and it blinded my ability to see exactly what David was trying to achieve for the end of a show that really could go on forever.

When I was young and my first hamster died, I couldn’t contemplate it. I kept asking why. When my first dog passed I was so distraught that I wasn’t sure how to react. I seemed calm at first, but then slowly the emotion filled me and I broke down. My last moments with my dog only helped bring his show into focus in hindsight. Death creates loss and loss is naturally good at provoking response. Sometimes its sadness, other times its anger. I walked home that night angry, but for all the wrong reasons.

The end of The Sopranos marked the end of Tony Soprano that night in the diner for me. People will debate the intricacy of it all, second by second and find ways to try and extend Tony’s life beyond that final moment, but it couldn’t be clearer that he’s gone. I wasn’t angry because he was gone, but angry out of a momentary second of ignorance where I thought David had cheated my loyalty to the show. And in my selfishness of that moment, my longtime friend Tony faded and I was too self-absorbed to catch it. It almost feels like being in a position where you don’t get to say goodbye because you weren’t paying attention.

Tony entered the diner that night after weeks of hiding out as he tried to weather the storm between his family and New York. He had been very paranoid and cautious, but the diner offered Tony a chance to enjoy a simple night with those he held dearest. I sat like a patron in the back of the diner watching the events unfold, spending so much time looking for a catalyst of danger that no matter how much David tried to show me how happy Tony was sitting there with his family, I still felt it was my duty to protect him in some way. Maybe I could warn him. But in the end there’s nothing I could have done as if I was in a dream unable to act.

I should have taken more notice to the man walking in with AJ, not that David didn’t try to show me, but the reality was that I saw every single person in that diner as a threat. And I was sure that poor Tony was trying to convince me that every time the bell rang as someone entered that he thought his end was near, but that’s simply not the case. He was a man waiting for his family. We all do it. We get there early and watch the windows like hawks until our friend or family member walks through the door.

Carmella and AJ sat down and Tony’s smile showed me how much he loved them regardless of his and their faults and past issues. Here at the diner they sat and ate and the outside pressure melted away. Even when Tony looks as the man enters the bathroom he has no knowledge of the fact that the man stared him down a good bit before heading for the John. Tony even glances at him, but quickly moves back to his menu.

Meadow is late, but that’s OK. She had trouble parking. Tony hears the bell as she is opening the door, and as he had when Carmella and AJ walked in, he looked up and we expected to see his point of view, but in a horrifying instant he’s gone. Horrifying in that he has no concept of it happening and so we are instantly pulled from the view over his shoulder that we shared with him for so long.

I can see the aftermath in my head when I think about it. Carmella and AJ looking up as they realize, like Silvio did earlier in the season long after the shot, that Tony’s blood was all over them. Then the ringing of their ears as reality sets in. They have lost Tony too, but it’s not our business to experience it the way they will. Meadow not even one foot in the door and the shot rings out as she jumps unaware, but also subconsciously aware of what it means. Everyone eating around them screaming and cowering as the gunman runs out the clear path he had mapped out before walking to the bathroom, pushing past Meadow. Horrifying, but none of our business, because we weren’t merely spectators to a world where Tony existed, but rather spectators to Tony alone. We lived that show through his eyes more than anything else. When he’s gone, we’re gone.

The important thing to grasp about this ending is that we all know deep down that he’s gone, but refuse to accept it. Nothing that could be shown instead of the black screen or the proposed aftermath would change that. It would have shocked us to see the man come out of the bathroom and watch Tony slump over, but we had experienced that for years with the Sopranos, and really what would be ground breaking about seeing it happen to Tony? Nothing, but again that’s not the perspective we viewed when watching the show. Watching any other character slump over was ok, because we weren’t inside their heads.

Nothing about the ending felt good: my initial reaction to feeling cheated, the show being over, my realization that there was more to the ending that I was blinded to, the idea of what the aftermath must have been like, and the thought that up until Walter White years later, TV was simply nowhere near the level that The Sopranos was and I would argue that the same goes for our time now after Walter. Knowing that both Tony and the great actor James Gandolfini are both gone, brought this all back to me. They will be missed and I need to tread onward knowing that they aren’t coming back, but that it doesn’t change how much that show played a part in my life, as well as many others.

It’s weird how a single show can grab people, but then again to kind of modify what Bobby said…  You probably don’t even know it when it happens right?

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What IT is, not what YOU want...

Life can be a tough struggle, probably less so if you find yourself in a position where you currently can read this article, but tough relative to your own daily lives. What makes life tough is sometimes out of your hands. Humans can’t control a tornado’s path, we can’t divert a hurricane once it’s formed, and we can’t force rain upon areas of high drought by the simple wave of a hand. In some ways you could say that we are a more reactive collection of minds than proactive. We often want something to be a certain way, and more often than not the reality of it is simply opposite. Our inability to let go of our collective want leaves us in a constant state of limbo where we argue the legitimacy of something far beyond the late bell ringing.

We take a lot for granted right now, and it’s easy to do so in a reactive culture because there is no cause to act until something bad has happened. We have a lot of distraction and noise that cloud our inner ability to empathize or become proactive. Even if we hear that smoking cigarettes is inherently damaging to the internal working of the body, we still light up, not because we aren’t aware of the effects, but because it is our right to. We only worry about lung cancer when it arrives, we never think about how to prevent it while we’re still healthy. Even so smoking is a personal decision that has personal consequences mostly. I don’t increase my chances of lung cancer simply because you smoke. But this is not a post about lung cancer or smoking. This is a post about being preventative and proactive rather than waiting for the problem to veer its ugly head.

Regardless of wanting to believe that something as polarizing as climate change simply doesn’t exist, or isn’t man made, or won’t affect our daily lives… I’m sorry to say, but this is something we are all going to be dealing with soon and in a way that we won’t be able to avoid no matter how much we cling to our political ideology or religious beliefs. Americans avoid the idea of being proactive with climate change because it hasn’t collectively altered their daily routine yet in such a way that they are forced to react to it. Most politicians avoid the idea of being proactive, because if you live in an oil producing state where the effects of climate change have generated 3 years of extreme drought and are withering Texan ranching communities, you’re facing a lobbyist nightmare that will end your career in politics the minute you mention anything to do with water supply or being proactive. But this avoidance does not remove the reality of what climate change will do to the world when it reaches a path where our inability to be proactive will not matter even if we changed.

If you are still reading then I applaud your curiosity and the ability to not simply close the window because a liberal blogger mentioned the phrase climate change. Climate change isn’t a matter of which party wins the argument, because what we have done over the last boom in industrial production is accelerated the Earths Carbon levels to a point where we are seeing massive amount of polar melting in Greenland and Antarctica at a rate which already threatens our very near future. In a very brief explanation, Carbon (a potent greenhouse gas) both emitted from natural sources or man-made sources (cars, factory production, burning of fossil fuels) is essential to life in that it helps to naturally make up a portion of our atmosphere, which plants, soils, oceans, and our biosphere exchange to create and help continue all life on the planet.

We’ve all heard the phrase, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. This is where man jumps in and takes a delicate balance and exploits it to levels that are setting up the future hurdle we won’t be able to escape. Since the industrial revolution man has made a ton of money and produced a level of manufacturing that has strengthened economies and fattened many wallets. That doesn’t sound so bad, because up until recently we really haven’t seen the silent effects of these actions. Earth is very adaptable as long as the levels of carbon are left mostly to Earth’s own natural cycles, but when you add the amount that we have to those cycles you disrupt that natural balance and small natural increases.

Take a simple glass of water. Fill it with ice to the top. Now fill it with water to about 75% full. Leave it out in the hot sun. That is sea level rise in the most elementary form of explanation. Greenland is almost 80% covered in ice sheets which have an average thickness of about 1.24 miles deep. Currently fossil fuel emissions from manufacturing and car emissions send elevated amounts of methane and carbon into the air along with soot (amorphous carbon). This soot can travel large distances and a good bit lands on the ice sheets. You can literally see it as a gray or black coloring on the outer layers of the ice. This is important because ice that is black will absorb more heat than white ice that reflects heat. So in areas where black ice is present you see accelerated melting. Accelerated, meaning a rate of about 27 feet per year. As the ice melting is accelerated due to carbon warming levels and soot, the water seeps down into the ice and creates pockets and crevasses, which basically erode it from underneath. This pushes the massive ice form forward towards the seas and its here where you see giant ice sheets break off into the ocean. It’s often mesmerizing to watch and is constant in Greenland. Ice melts rapidly into the ocean and the sea-level rises.

But who cares? Well New York City should, as well as just about every major costal metropolitan city. Greenland and Antarctica both hold enough ice that if melted fully would raise the world’s sea level by 213ft. Estimates are anywhere from 2-6ft in sea level rise by 2100 if we kept the same path we are on not including any further rapid escalation by releasing more carbon into the atmosphere. If it’s hard to imagine why this would matter, just imagine your front yard with 2-6ft of water that doesn’t just evaporate after a week. When you hear someone discuss the idea of cutting emissions of methane, carbon, and soot, it’s not because someone has made up this idea that they want to destroy American industry or economics, it’s simply because without doing something we will be facing sea-level rise whether we cut emissions or not, but it’s a questions of how much and how fast.

I mentioned before that carbon traps heat in our atmosphere. This is what regulates our surface temperature. You often hear the comment after a heavy snow, that global warming can’t be true if I have 3 more feet of snow than I had last year. Let’s set this straight right away. What is snow? Snow is essentially water vapor that is frozen in the winter cold temperatures as it deposits back down to the ground. What causes water vapor? Ocean warming. As an ocean heats up, its water evaporates (key word in there….E”vapor”ates). The more you heat a puddle of water the quicker it will dry up, but we know that “drying up” is actually evaporation. The ocean is no different and is on a massive scale. The more that carbon traps heat and increases the surface temperature, the more ocean water evaporates. Water vapor moves across the Earth and when it gets heavy enough, will come falling down either as rain, or as snow in cooler temperatures. Weather is unpredictable. This is why sometimes you have snow and sometimes you don’t, but colder temperatures with high volumes of water vapor due to ocean warming actually explains why the thought that snow is all the proof we need that climate change is fiction, is factually incorrect.

What warmer temperatures and higher levels of ocean warming and water vapor sitting above us means, is that you are seeing not necessarily more storms, tornadoes, hurricanes as of yet, but could very well start seeing an increase in their magnitude or destructive capability as more data is collected. Changes in how we reported and tracked severe weather over time leaves us with differences in how we interpret this data. But what we do know is that as moisture increases due to warming oceans, so does the stockpile of fuel that generates severe thunderstorms, but this temperature change also reduces the ability for wind shear to manipulate these storms, which leaves us with an unknown on how future storms will react. So we will only be able to collect data and we are in the preliminary stages of starting to track these effects. But geographical features like the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico are very much linked to where severe weather forms, and they’re features that aren't likely to disappear anytime soon.

Ocean acidity is something that most people don’t even consider when it comes to the effects that man-made carbon emissions have on our climate. Scientist know that nearly half of all the carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution has been absorbed by the ocean, which is somewhat of a blessing, because if it were to linger in the air we would have even more drastic surface temperature increases.  The ocean is a delicate balance of chemistry that relies on certain ph levels to continue stable life under the water. As carbon is absorbed by the ocean (22 million tons per day, and ten times faster than the previous 300 million years of relative ph balance) it forms into carbonic acid found mostly on the surface levels. This affects shell growth in crabs, lobsters, shrimp, bottom feeders, and possibly in fish reproduction over time (reproduction being studied currently). But the ocean is currently absorbing an amount of our emitted carbon in a way that it will slowly reduce the amount it can effectively absorb over time, which means more carbon will eventually be left to linger in the atmosphere, causing a chain reaction where we emit carbon, carbon isn’t absorbed by the ocean, raising surface temperatures and their effects on life on Earth. More stress on the ocean gives way to either rapid pressure on ocean organisms to adapt to the rising acidity of the ocean or disappear entirely. Humans get a huge portion of our food supply from the ocean. Ocean acidity has increased 30% since 1751 through 1994, with the last decade exceed historical increments. Undermining marine ecosystems is not good for humans.

If you’re still reading I sincerely applaud you. Climate change is not a simple subject to express to a population of the world that already has enough on its daily plate, but we need to discuss it. So much of how our food production, future economic stability, energy usage, population location, and ways of life rely entirely on really understanding this issue. You could ask that if we’re all going to be burned up by the sun in a few billion years, or a savior is coming back, then what incentive is their really to do anything about our current path? I would tell you that a few billion years of sustainable and comfortable life is infinitely worth more than a few hundred or thousand. You can believe man plays no part, but you’d be wrong and not because I want to win an argument with you, but because everything we have collected on the interconnected effects of climate change point directly to man’s effect on its acceleration since the Industrial Revolution. The real question is that we know how and can completely implement so many changes that will reduce our need to rely on fossil fuels, reduce our energy consumption, remove man’s fingerprint from being part of the problem towards being part of the solution, so why not have America lead by example? Rather than be the last lonely country to deny its part in leveraging our future sustainability on the ideals of ignorance and stubbornness, why not do something? Many changes that would help reduce man’s effect would actually improve humankind’s daily life and existence on top of its long term survival. It’s a daunting discussion, but we need to take baby steps and start somewhere.

I can’t force you to give a shit, and I’m not sitting on any higher horse either. Only you can put your political and/or religious ideology up to the light to see if it really matches the reality of climate change. Believe what you want about climate change, but it doesn't give a damn about what we didn't do with the information we collected when it’s sitting at our doorstep. To go back to my original analogy; I can’t make you quit smoking, but this is the type of reality where you will get lung cancer and you will give it to the rest of us regardless of how bad you want to believe otherwise. 

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Lego Your Ego...

Legos are fascinating. The concept that any number of what seem to be a random collection of small plastic pieces can quickly become something quite intricate is really quite awesome. But even Legos have a learning curve. For most of the population, their first introduction to Legos is buying a box based on a final design they really like, and then spending the time mimicking the instructions to come to that final result. Step by step we see how one piece effects the others around it. We see how many small pieces can create a completely new functional part, hopefully having fun the entire way through.

The reason it’s fun, is because deep down we want to know how things are put together, literally and figuratively. It’s something we all have in common. However many things in life have barriers that keep us from exploring how something is constructed. Maybe we don’t have a telescope to see far enough, maybe our funds are limited, maybe the risk of damaging the final product keeps us from opening it up, etc. This is why Legos are a good thing. They have a relatively safe level of risk. They come in all price ranges, have instructions that show us every step of construction, and provide us with every part needed to get the job done. They really require almost no risk on our part.

Risk is a son of a bitch. It’s what separates most of us laymen from the professionals we rely on to take on the risk, we ourselves aren’t willing to take on. However, these professionals aren’t going to work for free. So there you have a very simplified version of why each and every one of us works towards specializing in something that others will pay us for to alleviate their risk. If I know something and you don’t, then you pay me to either learn or complete the task for you.

Before the age of the internet this was the law of the land. If I wanted to learn how to work on my own car, saving me tons in labor costs, then I needed to apprentice with a mechanic or pay the steep introduction price to get manuals and try to learn on my own. Take this concept back to the middle ages and the same system prevails (though even more primitive). An expert blacksmith only became so by apprenticing with a former expert blacksmith, and learning on your own was even more costly. This is now becoming less and less the way of things as the internet has made information more freely available to us laymen.

When I purchased my Jeep Wrangler a year ago I decided that I wanted to understand how it worked. Owning a car is a huge expense with the possibility to become a financial hole in my pocket if I don’t understand how to best fix a problem. Luckily I had the help of a good friend who is very versed in the technical language of Jeeps (a mentor of sorts in the ways of Jeep). I learned by watching him and taking note at first, but now have slowly gravitated towards using the multiple forums and free guides online to taking fixes into my own hands. These guides and forums help to alleviate much of the risk I would normally be too afraid of to have anyone but a licensed Jeep technician handle. Now things like oil changes, checking fluids, spark plugs, manifold gasket replacement, air intakes, tire rotation, brake replacement, stereo installation, belt replacement, differential gear fluid, and most recently removing rust and repainting are all things that I feel no hesitation towards. Look at the price difference alone below. The first price is what a shop would charge, and the second is what I paid to do at home.

Oil Change: $40 - $20

Spark Plugs: $80 - $20

Manifold Gasket Repair: $200+ - $70

Tire Rotation: $20 – Free.

Brake Replacement: $140 - $60

Stereo Install: $150+parts - $110

You get the idea…

By learning how to properly deconstruct and then reconstruct something inside or outside your home, you are removing the labor costs you would need to pay a professional in that field by transferring their charged time to your personal time. A few hours under or inside my Jeep while only paying for parts is time I consider well spent.

Now imagine you buy a Lego set that has a really complicated construction on the box only to find that when you open the box up, there are no instructions. Would you still be able to build it? Maybe, if you put enough time into previous Lego sets learning building concepts by following their instructions. Knowing how Legos go together would definitely make this new instruction-less set easier to conceptualize thus minimizing your risk. Maybe you could build it close to exact with only a small few pieces left over. Outside of being a savant or engineer though, it would be tough to imagine us laymen being able to fully construct it based off one picture on the box.

This is the danger with DIY projects. If you have a lot of money to throw at a problem or project then you may feel the risk is lower for you and that maybe you don’t need instruction, but more often than not you’re going to find yourself throwing money into an endless black hole, while defeating the purpose of learning a new skill and ending up with a broken version of the finished product you hoped to create. Most final constructions or projects come together in a very specific way to perform certain functions for the builder and when you don’t bother learning how to work your way up to the level of the professional you would normally have to pay, you end up damaging the ability of the final product to perform the way you originally wanted. The more you know the better the outcome.

When a DIY project greatly exceeds the cost a professional would charge it no longer serves its purpose other than being a very expensive learning tool. Every project’s pricing is a combination of cost of supplies and cost of labor to the professional. DIY is meant to remove the latter cost. When your lack of skill level bleeds the supply cost over into the cost of the professional’s paid time, you have created a situation where you paid more for a lesser outcome. You can still learn from a costly project and if money isn’t an issue, then maybe you prefer to learn this way, but for most of us on a budget (budgets greatly impact willingness to accept risk) this would no longer serve a purpose for us. It would most likely be a partial or total loss.

How do you avoid these losses? Educate yourself using free tools like online forums, detailed walkthrough videos, and manuals. The greatest tool you have on your side now is the massive amount of communication at your fingertips, via the internet. I learned how to grind, sand, Bondo, primer, paint, and clear coat a terrible rust spot on my Jeep this month. I did it first by reading, watching, and learning the concepts and challenges involved before spending even one cent on supplies. Then I price shopped everything I needed and spent 7 hours of my own free time solving a problem that would have cost me nearly $250-300. I only spent $80. Obviously the more I repeat these concepts the better my physical technique will get even if I know what I’m supposed to do.

If you feel the risk is too high and would rather have a professional do the work for your next project then I applaud that as well. Not everyone has the time or interest in doing their own car work (or insert any project). There’s nothing wrong with that at all and I’m all for professionals making money pursuing their passions. If you think you have all aspects of your next project figured out and think it’s worth the risk to try on your own, then I say go for it! As long as you educate yourself on the risk, techniques, costs, and time, you can do anything.

If you want your new project to most likely fail, cost you a ton of money, or take more time then you have available to throw at it, then spend no time planning it out, don’t research the concepts, and stay away from the wealth of information that is freely available to you online. But I warn you, for every successful innovation/project over the era of mankind’s time on Earth, there have been a few people that have changed the way we do things and construct things, and billions who have failed, gone bankrupt, wasted years being able to produce absolutely nothing but unworkable, faulty, broken knock offs of those very successful few. Success in creating anything is educating yourself on the successes of others who came before you and then improving their ideas.

The most successful type of Lego builder is one who takes the concepts learned from his earlier sets, stares at a box full of random pieces, and now knows how they could fit together. Maybe you try something new and it fails, but it should always be based off solid/rational concepts. You can carry this concept over to any example in any field. A great programmer understands the concepts of programing language before creating anything innovative. A great architect can tell you on paper how strong his building will be before a single beam is raised, because he understands physics. Knowing how to do something before investing in it, leads to the highest chance of personal success and lowers risk. Ignoring the knowledge behind successes before you or around you leaves you in the dark. While you fiddle trying to turn dark to light, everyone else that did their homework is light-years beyond you. You only have so much time on Earth, and so you should consider it very valuable to you. Don’t waste it on feeding an ego that believes it can do anything with no help from anyone. Talk is cheap, results are everything. No one is ever impressed with a half-functional DIY project.

http://www.diynetwork.com/

http://www.ifixit.com/

https://diy.org/featured

http://www.instructables.com/

http://lifehacker.com/

http://www.lego.com/en-us/

Now go and learn from others, dammit! And start them young by buying your kids some Legos!

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The More You Owe....

6% of our national debt is comprised of an ever increasing number that signifies the amount of student loan debt that is owed by the borrowers looking to increase their education, thus giving them a competitive edge in a job market where one job for (let’s say) an intern dentistry position will have upwards of 50-100 applicants. That’s true career competition in a sense, but is it healthy? In an economy where the job market is recovering, though slowly, does it make sense that in order to compete you need to plan for anywhere from the average of 30k to possible six figure amounts of borrowed debt to ensure you even get a chance to compete? By the way dentistry is definitely a six figure education.

My situation is what it is. I owe near 50k on my own (not including the 50k my parents covered), split fairly evenly between federal and private lenders. I like to talk openly about my debt, because there’s no hiding from it. My interest rates were in and around 5% for every loan. Maybe only one fell below that range. I had already completed an associate’s degree from a community college paid entirely by my parents (yes I realize how lucky I am). It was 2005 and I wanted to study Graphic Design and four years later I graduated as the US economy tanked. Fun times. Why did it tank? Well partly because of terrible lending practices and partly for the reason that most Americans aren’t educated enough to really handle home buy decisions outside of high school. Not that predatory lenders help this process. The economy tanked and we were told “Good Luck!” by a generation who had a very different college lending experience in their younger days.

So I defaulted. I went over 90 days without being able to send a single dime to my lender. I applied for a credit card through the same private institution who somehow thought my current situation qualified me for a 5k credit line. A person has to eat. That money quickly went and I cringed every time I had to use it. I had to leave the wonderful city of Philadelphia to find some way to cover my loan payments. I was back in my parents’ home, hoping for a job to come along and save me. Nothing is more degrading to your self-esteem like holding two college degrees and having no option but to live at home again. I’m extremely lucky that a good job came along not more than two weeks after I got home. This is not the case for many students in the same position. It’s been almost four years and I’m still rebuilding my credit. Bad credit leads to worse lending in situations where you have to borrow. It’s the reverse of the snowball effect that David Ramsey always trumpets (and to which I follow now. Thanks Sis!). And I will be digging myself out of this hole for another 4-5 years. It’s getting better, but not when you’re reaching the age that you hope to own a home, get married, or start a family.

First things first I’m not a sob story. I don’t want sympathy. There are people in this world who have to steal and beg to even afford basic sustenance, if there is even clean water or food around them to begin with. This is very much a first world problem and it’s not about me. But my biggest question after experiencing the American “furthering education” dream that you are taught from day one is necessary for life achievement, is why as Americans do we allow federal and private industry to place an un-questioned price tag upon something that benefits us all as a whole society?

Think about it. Day one in school we are told how important it is to be educated, how important it is for success in life, and not one politician can run without spewing the same lie that they think education is the most important thing in the world. If all this is true, then why the hell does this country hate education? Why do people who try to run for president think that those acquiring a college education are just a bunch of “elitists”? Why is an education program the first thing we cut when the belt needs tightened? If we really believe the best education is found in this country then why the hell does America rate near the bottom of the list? Even better of a question, why do we place the highest price tag on something we are constantly told everyone in this country should have the opportunity to achieve? I’ll tell you why….. Money. That’s it. There is great money to be made in preaching the importance of education, requiring it for good career consideration, and then saddling each student with as much borrowed money as possible with a hefty interest rate to make sure you make back sometimes half of what you “invested” into the student. This is our system, whether you borrow federally or privately. Both institutions profit greatly off the backs of the average American high school student who just graduated from a high school that doesn’t require basic accounting as part of its curriculum. Why would they require that? It would only damage their returns. Whether you are a homeschooled, private, or public school kid, you will face this same trap come age 17-18.

Borrowing federally is much safer for the student, but defaulting hurts the tax payers and there are limits, thus stunting the economy of which you hope to find a job within. Remember we’re talking about over 1.2 trillion dollars (probably more since you just read that) right now that make up the remaining student loan debt to be repaid. Borrowing privately is essentially taking out a mortgage, except that there is almost no situation where you can ever relieve yourself of this debt if you fall upon hard times. That’s right, you owe till it’s paid or you die. That’s the honest truth of the American dream that no one talks about. In order to participate you had either hope your parents are well off enough so that you can leave college with a fresh financial slate and a degree in hand, or be ready to have a job lined up six months after you leave college knowing that as soon as those required payments start, they don’t ever stop. And remember, in this economy, employers don’t have to pay top dollar because they know supply is low and demand is high.

So what do you do? Well I’d say if you want to play in this system (assuming your parents aren’t fitting the bill) then you need to be ready to ignore distractions within high school that don’t add value to your life after high school. Find an interest you’re good at and develop it. Something you love and figure out whether or not there is any money to be made in it. Design always fascinated me and thus my electives in college were geared towards developing my skills in design. Eh it’s a livin’. I signed up for yearbook, journalism, and any other class that got me in front of the programs and concepts that relate to good design. Along with those courses I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to attend every single elective that relates to accounting or personal finance. Most likely your school won’t require it, because …America! Accounting should be the number one required course, but hey it’s less money in someone else’s pocket if you know what you’re doing, so don’t expect encouragement from the outside world.

Most importantly, ask why. What do I mean? If a counselor tells you that you “have” to go to the best college you can afford, ask them why. For example being from Maryland, University of Maryland was shoved down our throats. They even came in and advertised by talking to our class. Well, for the field I wanted to pursue, that college doesn’t really satisfy a high standard of design education that would help give me any edge in my field. University of Maryland is now on track towards trying to be at the level of IV leagues while remaining a state school. So that means the tuition rates are rising to match the institutions it wants to mirror.

University of Maryland tuition rates for a four year education are around $29,560 for an in-state student (some would say that’s reasonable… I disagree), and $106,304 for an out-of-state student (totally reasonable right?). How does this make sense? It’s the same education set at a difference of 76,744 dollars?! In-state is meant to attract local students and offer a high education at a lower rate, but that means a kid from the District of Columbia will pay over two and a half times the tuition to get the same education. Room, board, and tech fees are exactly the same price for both students but the tuition is completely at the opposite ends of the spectrum. So how much does University of Maryland really cost compared to what they charge? Who knows? Let’s consider the following. Bloomberg has reported based off statistics kept since 1978 that college tuition in this country has risen by a total of 1,120%. That’s about an increase of 32.94% each year for 34 years. Now to put that into perspective let’s say your company gives you a raise annually at an increase of 2%, meaning every year your income raises by 2% of what you made the previous year. Let’s say starting in 1978, your income as well as the cost of tuition per year matched at $100.

TUITION MATH: $100 then x 11.20% total increase = $1,120 now. $1120 / 34 years = $32.94 increase per year.

INCOME MATH: $100 then x .02% increase annually over 34 years = $196.07

This shows us that in the same amount of time (34 yrs.) your income has increased by $96.07. What this means in comparison to the raise in tuition price is that tuition has increased by $1020.00. Now this assumes we start both at $100, but it does the job of pointing out the percentage increase in comparison to the average income increase. Most could say their annual raise is usually in step with the US inflation increase per year, but it’s safe to say that tuition greatly exceeds inflation and it begs the question of how sustainable is this if the goal is to educate as many of our citizens efficiently?

The worst part is that since the economic recession in 2009, I know many people who have been frozen at a set income due to “insert reason from employer”. I’m lucky to work for a great company that rewards success, but many don’t. Meanwhile tuition rates have not stopped their increase. My first year of school in 2005 cost me around 23k, year two was 24k, year three was 28k, and year four was 31k. They have not stopped increasing and I feel bad for anyone who started in 2008-2009 and are either stuck or have had to drop out. I love my country, but this type of profiting off the backs of students regardless of the productivity or strength of the economy is exactly why we will fall behind other countries (and already have) in educating our population. Education brings innovation, makes us attractive, and strengthens the ability for recent graduates to contribute to the economy by freeing up their income to invest in housing, start a new business, and create jobs (not the empty promise that those higher up will provide jobs while stashing revenue offshore, but actual employment). But none of this is possible if we strap the cost onto the students back from the start and tell them to spend, spend, spend that borrowed money.

School needs to be cheaper (or free?…oh god socialism! the horror!), more accessible to everyone, and with common sense we can see the benefits of investing in early education and reform. A high school education basically leads to poverty, with very rare exceptions, and poverty means welfare, unemployment, food stamps, and all the social safety nets that we have (and pay for), but many think we don’t need. Well it’s possible we wouldn’t need as much of them if we provided the education and resources to put more kids on the path to the middle class. That’s the real American dream. To not starve, to have a shelter, to be able to provide for your family while not having to work 3 jobs with no days off. How the shit do we not consider this top priority. Free community college is being offered and voted upon on many states today and the idea is noble. Even MIT is offering free courses of their top fields. If we give Johnny high school the tools to achieve while he’s young, he’s less likely to need us when he’s older. And education investment is literally billions of dollars cheaper than the many billions we give away in corporate welfare to companies that don’t even qualify as small businesses, which Johnny could one day start with proper investment by the generation before him.

This country is backwards on education. I can think of 1,000 things to cut before education, and yet almost every state immediately downsizes classrooms, teachers, learning materials, and even closes schools (See my dear city of Philadelphia) at the mere mention of budget cuts. How can anyone pull themselves up with their bootstraps if they have to buy the boots on credit? I could go on for hours about how many of the top countries outside of the US (yes other countries exist and many have solved this problem decades ago) have greatly reduced costs and some have offered free college education and continue to rate better than the US. It’s sad, but true.

You don’t create better citizens in the latter end of their educational conquest. You start in the beginning and invest in their early education where it doesn’t straddle them with what equates to a mortgage payment. Money should be flowing into public school education starting from the first day these children hang up their backpacks and sit in front of a willing, but publicly demonized former student looking to pass on their knowledge to the next generation. If you think education is broken, then I’d be willing to agree, but it’s not beneficial to gut it but rather re-define and re-invest in a system that will set children from age 5 to age 18 with the skills that allow them to manage a bank account, understand bad lending, navigate further education, understanding the financial repercussions of buying a home, car, and starting a family. I was a kid stuck in a system where I learned little and then straddled myself with debt to compete. I can’t start a business, I can’t afford a home, I don’t have children, and I’, one of the lucky ones with help from my parents. This country is in love with itself but it hasn’t evaluated itself in a very long time. Stop just waving the flag, and lets start backing it up. Sorry for the length. I know many of us Americans hate reading.

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The Future of the Redskins...

There is nothing good about sitting at 3-8 when you defy the odds and win your Division the previous season. Everyone is looking for the key reasons as to how the same top five offense, bad defense and horrible special teams can’t pull it together to win seven straight again. It not easy to explain, but there are many factors that have put the Redskins into this slump that has most of us looking to 2014 for a breath of fresh air.

  Compare the two seasons and you find a different final seven games against very different teams.

  2012:

Eagles (4-12)

Cowboys (8-8)

Giants (9-7)

Ravens (10-6)

Browns (5-11)

Eagles (4-12)

Cowboys (8-8)

  2013: (currently)

Eagles (6-5)

49er’s  (7-4)

Giants (4-7)

Chiefs (9-2)

Falcons (2-9)

Cowboys (6-5)

Giants (4-7)

  The 2013 Cowboys and Eagles are very different teams this year compared to last year. So are the Giants but in a worse way. Last year’s seven game win streak put the Redskins against teams of which only two finished the season with more wins over losses. Already in 2013, it would look to be that we are playing teams of which four have current winning records above .500. This isn’t any excuse of course, and doesn’t explain why we can’t seem to put points on the board.

  Many things have happened in the NFL since Robert’s injury and recovery that have not only effected us, but other teams that run the read option. It’s not working as well as it did last year for most teams outside of Carolina and Seattle. They have success with it because it makes up very little of their total offense. Robert’s skill set was geared towards this type of play and sadly that will not sustain wins in the NFL and will most likely injure him further if used heavily. Colin Kapernick is struggling as well with this realization. It can have success, but it has to be a minimal part or exception. Greats like Rogers, Peyton, Brady, and Brees are extremely successful without running it at all. This is where young rookie QB’s have to place their focus, with allowing the read option to be a small portion of their pocket passing to succeed. It can’t be an all-in strategy.

  Robert has to learn to be a pocket passer and we are seeing week to week that the coaching staff are pushing hard for it. He is having some success and improvement in learning to step up in the pocket and that is encouraging, however he seems to struggle with his pre-snap reads and he still tends to show his intentions too easily, which defenses are picking up. His footwork could use work and he needs to spend time trusting his recently repaired knee. After an injury like that, no QB is going to fully trust it right away, but he will have to work on trusting it more and more to not release throws off the balls of his foot. Planting is central to accuracy and confidence. It will come, but it won’t come immediately for a young QB who had no off-season or pre-season.

  You can’t simply blame Robert for this teams inability to get an offense going. There are issues that start at the offensive line that would have even some of the best QB’s scrambling to get the ball out. The most solid part of our o-line is Trent Williams, and that’s about it. When an o-line can’t hold against a defense bringing four men, you have an issue. A pocket passer needs a good o-line and if the coaching staff expects Robert to learn this unknown-to-him play style then they have to protect him. Nothing kills confidence better than hit after hit and Robert has been taking hits that would make pro-wrestling jealous. Until we have depth here, there is no way to expect a second year QB to make huge strides in his ability to operate in the pocket. We were a team that was known for its unbreakable offensive line and it won us Superbowls. This needs to be priority number one this off-season, with the following priority right behind it.

  There is nothing you are going to be able to get out of our current secondary on defense that can be seen as a positive. Late round draft picks have seen Rambo struggling with a few improvements and Phillip Thomas’s injury only prolongs being able to see what he could develop into. Our defensive front is not all that bad, but Josh Wilson is not going to be the answer at corner and Hall is only getting older. Hall has stepped up to become the corner he should have been all the time we were paying him big money, and more than likely we will need to pay up this off-season. Losing him to another team will hurt and I think the coaches know this. We need big pick-ups in our secondary if we want to even pretend to stop even backup QB’s from shredding us apart.

  One thing we need to talk about is coaching. When you have almost the exact same weapons you had the previous season and those weapons aren’t getting open, tackling, hitting their mark, or blocking, it become clear that at some point coaching has taken a dive. Haslett has done what he can with what he has, but he has also lived off this excuse since we switched to a 3-4 defense. We simply don’t have the players to execute this type of defense, and so I think that at the end of the season it’s time to part ways with Jim. Lovie Smith is waiting out there in the wind and has had success in the past. I’m not against picking him up and seeing if he can light a fire under this teams ass. Seeing Haslett sitting in a booth game-to-game (even though it may be necessary with the personnel he has) seems like a coach who is disconnected from his players. The entire secondary is young and I’d like to see him down on the sidelines firing them up and giving them instant commentary on their successes and mistakes. Keep in mind we went from a top ten 4-3 defense to a worst ranked 3-4 defense. There is an issue on defense and I fear it starts at the top.

  When it comes to offense, I’m undecided on what should be done. I’m not sure firing Kyle Shanahan is the right thing to do, but I will say that there has to be something done about his play calling on important downs. At most, it is suspect. Something about calling pass plays on third and two when you’ve run the ball all day makes me uneasy. He seems to fire on all cylinders in some games and then completely makes calls that boggle my mind in others. Calling a fade to Santana Moss (not a tall guy) on fourth down to tie the game seems like the last play to call in that situation. Something is not correct and maybe it’s Mike’s gambling that he often says he likes to do, that allows these calls to be made? I just don’t know. What I do know is we tend to always abandon the run game when it’s successful, knowing that the Redskins are a run team. I won’t say he needs to go, but I will say he needs to learn to evaluate his situational play calling.

  Drops have been a constant this year. There is always going to be a learning curve and growth period for younger WR’s but too often, big plays have come to a halt because of the inability of Moss, or Garcon to hold onto a perfectly thrown ball. You’re paid millions to catch. You’re not always going to catch wobbled, off-mark, or poorly thrown balls, but perfect passes are supposed to be secured. If its in your hands, then its on you.

  So how do these Redskins get better? Well for one we no longer owe the league 18 million a year for something every team did that off-season, which means we have to be able to re-sign key players and add depth to both sides of the field. O-line needs to take priority and we’ve been calling for it since Mike came to D.C. Secondly our secondary needs depth in ways were veteran players need to come in a teach these younger guys how to successfully play zone and man. Haslett needs to exit and we need to bring someone in who wont radio their dissatisfaction from a booth, completely disconnected from their squad. Mike needs one more year along with his son, but Kyle needs to understand that big flashy plays don’t guarantee wins. If you can win on the ground or in the short passing game, then you stick to what works to grab that W. With an o-line and a full off-season to sync up, you will see Robert improve greatly in the pocket. Robert is still only 23 years old and new to this style of offense. It’s going to take time, but time in the pocket will give you glimpses of what he can be. Just look at Cam Newton now for hope. Receivers need to sync and work on fundamental catching and defense needs to work on fundamental tackling (which has gotten better recently).

  Most of all, us fans need to stop thinking that the solution in D.C. is to blow this team up every year and get all new coaches, systems, players, and QB’s. Development takes time and it sucks waiting, but the success known to the Packers, Patriots, Saints isn’t created overnight and requires vigilance to maintain. This off-season will be huge in being able to determine if D.C. acts in a way that will bring success. Watch them closely, because there are no excuses next year if they address these issues.

[loweded]

Black Friday 2013...Sigh

I write about this every year, but were a week away from that one horrible day of the year where millions of Americans go and waste every penny of their expected bonus check (or their regular pay check…ugh) on big ticket items for, well… who are we kidding? They’re purchasing these items for themselves or their spouse.

  Before you ask the question let me answer it with my one and only black Friday experience. Yes, I participated once. I needed to pick up a camera for my college studies and had narrowed it down to one that was on sale that glorious day. I thought to myself, ‘what a deal! 25% off the camera I want!’ So I got up at three am and drove to my local Staples and low and behold I was fifth in line. Keep in mind this was back in the day when lines started merely a few hours before the store opened.

  So being my first time, I made small talk with the person behind me. The woman in front of me had a walkie-talkie in her hands and was calling out orders to her troops who were lined up at other retailers. The store manager came out and expressed that all the big-ticket items from the ad would be on a table directly inside the doors and that any large items like TVs would be doled out to the first people in line in form of wristbands. I was here for a simple little camera hidden deep within the ad and so I was fairly certain being fifth in line, I’d have no issues.

  I believe the store opened at five thirty am if I remember. As it got close the small talk ended, and everyone started facing forward. My Dad sat in his warm truck probably chuckling at it all. Then it happened. The doors opened and literally the four people ahead of me ran in. I was in shock to the point that the people behind me started shoving me forward as if to say, “Hey asshole, let’s go.” So I walked fast and got through the door. The table was in front of me. I saw the stack of cameras and reached my hand out only to find that the camera I had wanted was already picked clean. Four fucking people had already swiped what look like five cameras off the table. The next level up camera for $50 more was sitting there untouched. The people behind me were nabbing items left and right off the table. So I took one into my hands in anger and called my Dad to explain.

  Another $50 added to my bill, but what was I supposed to do now? I had waited two and a half hours in the freezing dark. I was beyond tired. My Dad had woken up with me to drive me. We had planned this whole thing out and being fifth in line ended up not mattering at all. So in my anger I got in line to check out, which was already long. I sat and observed the entire fifteen minutes I was in line. People were rushing all over; almost none of them with smiles. The lady who had been on her walkie-talkie in line was yelling at a store employee to make sure he got the right TV off the wall.

  It was a huge lesson in what it means to be sold. Being a student of graphic design, I wont lie that it wasn’t fascinating to see how the work I could be potentially doing for a career could drive everyday regular people into mass hysteria. The worst part of it all was realizing that even if a sale got you into the front of those early lines, it was still no guarantee that you’d get the item(s) you set out for. I paid and left.

  We read it every year about the person trampled under foot as the doors fly open, or the shooting over a TV or PlayStation. Every year I ask the same question: what’s the point? There are deals all year long on big-ticket items if you know how to shop online and aren’t susceptible to the idea that you have to get it now or never. ‘Now or never’ doesn’t really exist in the retail sales market. Time is your biggest advantage as a consumer. No matter how fast something sells day one at full price, it simply can’t remain their forever. Eventually once demand is depleted, the price is as well.

  Two years ago online, we bought an elliptical for my fiancé simply by ordering it on Cyber Monday, and we picked it up a few days later for a great price. There was no rushing, no trampling, no freezing cold lines, and no early alarms. Shopping is fun sometimes and I understand the excitement of getting a deal, but in reality black Friday deals happen all year long. The problem is too many people are used to heading to retailers rather than shopping online all year long, so when those ads go out for Black Friday, they seem incredible. Really Black Friday is a chance for retail stores to deplete old stock, while getting you in line with a very limited supply of new items with little mark down.

  For example, Jimmy wants an iPad. Best Buy says they’re selling them at $50 off. So he waits in line, but finds out they only have ten available when the doors open. Well, the ten people in front of him are there for the same thing and they snag them all, so does Jimmy just go home? A smart Jimmy would, but most people after waiting that long in the cold are defeated and decide that they have to get something instead of the iPad to make the line wait worth something. So what does Best Buy offer at huge discounts? Old stock items for dirt cheap that Best Buy didn’t unload all year. Jimmy leaves with a TV he didn’t come for and Best Buy has removed one old stock item from their shelves with cash in their hands. A little profit is better than no profit, even if its already a loss for them.

  The question I have is if Jimmy wants the iPad so bad, then he should do his research, because he’d find retailers make almost no money off selling iPads, because Apple doesn’t discount them. Had he bought it from Apple at the regular price he’d have the item he wants, wont have to wait in line, and doesn’t risk leaving with a TV. This is why Black Friday is so competitive for retailers. If they get you in their line, they get some type of sale from you, based on how long you had to wait to get in. If you try to visit two stores on Black Friday you miss the big-ticket items of the second store you visit. You have one chance to nab that item and if you’re not first in line, its not guaranteed. And trust me, unless you’re a pro, you won’t be first in line, let alone 10th.

  So if you punish yourself every year I challenge you to stay home. Pick the items you want early. Research their prices online. Wait for a sale to pop up and snag them from your couch. Take full advantage of Cyber Monday, and see what’s available there. You don’t have to kill yourself to get deals. If you want that new game console, then do your homework, reserve one before it’s release, and expect to pay full price. Don’t be a dolt and think you’re going to get deals on tech items newly released in November before the sales.

  Most importantly, if you do go out on Black Friday and wait in line, show some fucking respect to the young kids and store employees that are being forced to work so you can pretend you’re getting major deals. You may have had off Thanksgiving and the following day, but more than likely these people had to miss out on their meal to appease your inability to stay home and be a year round smart consumer. Most of the employees at Walmart and other major discount stores aren’t even making a living wage. Walmart, this year, is asking its employees to donate food to its other employees who can’t afford food for Thanksgiving. Where do you think their getting the food from? We’re talking about a company that prefers its employees go on welfare rather than pay them a decent wage. That alone should keep anyone with a heart away from lining up there that morning, but we all know it wont.  

  And remember its not you who are outwitting Walmart for nabbing that Black Friday deal. You’re being sold to the highest degree and in most cases you are the greatest of the ill-informed consumer and that’s exactly what Walmart, Best buy, Target, and others are relying on.

[loweded]

Red Hates Blue's Version of Red...

This issue seems to be pretty divisive amongst the two parties and really it comes down to understanding the idea behind the new Affordable Care Act that helps ease people’s worries. I’m going to try and curb my cynicism, because almost weekly I have to hear someone express his or her opinion on the new law which tends to be ignorant of how insurance worked before versus what a mandate means for future insurance premiums.

  Before we start, I’d like to express that not everything in any law is perfect, but we have many avenues that can be used to responsibly argue, debate, amend, or in some cases even repeal a law. I’ll also advocate my position that I don’t think the law went far enough. The issues I have with the law is that there is still no public option to compete against private insurance, and that ultimately it is still tied to employers rather than a single payer system, which creates fear in the American workforce to take risks. But alas…it does some great things and reforms many aspects of insurance that laws before had not bothered to evaluate.  

  Lets start with how insurance worked before the implementation of the law. Private insurance in this country is and was usually offered by your employer or through your own private means. It was not mandatory that you have insurance and this is one of the issues that added to the rising cost of medical care (amongst many other reasons) and the annual rise in insurance premiums for those that did buy insurance to protect their health.

  In 1986 this country agreed that even the uninsured could not be turned away from medical care regardless of whether they could afford it or not. I like this idea. We’re all human and we all make mistakes, and so it inevitable that were all going to be in a hospital one day and with high costs of care it very possible none of us can afford the bill. If you didn’t make enough to afford even your employer insurance (which means you definitely couldn’t afford any outside of your employer) and you broke your leg, it would be inhumane to refuse to fix you. Tea partiers would argue you should suffer the consequences and die from it, but what wont they argue? But then who pays for your care if you can’t? Well its simple: every other taxpayer, and anyone who could afford to pay for insurance (employer based or private). That’s’ right, the rest of us have our insurance premiums annually rise every year to cover those who cannot afford insurance and especially those who can and simply refuse to get it.

  So how do we solve this problem? We’ll we could tell anyone who doesn’t buy insurance that they simply need to fuck off and die, but then what happens if we find ourselves in that position after we lose employment that we can’t afford it? It won’t matter that we once did have coverage, because we now don’t. We’ll a man from Detroit implemented a conservative system that required everyone in their state to comply with buying some form of health insurance or otherwise face a penalty or fee of sorts. It worked out great in his state, not perfect of course, because nothing ever is, but it is considered a success. This man ran for president and much to his surprise… lost… wait… what?! Why did he lose?

  Well beyond many of his other stances on other social issues as well as a loose tongue, he was enlisted to fight against the very healthcare reform he had successfully set up in his own state. The look on his face when he had to actually tell a national audience that his program in his home state was not going to be successful for this country was the most telling sign of how far his party had come in their hopes to simply regain control of the White House. So he lost and his argument that he could compromise with democrats as he did in his own state wasn’t enough to earn the trust of the nation.

  So the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act headed along on its way. The only thing to do at a time like if you’re hoping to derail it is to create a name for it and push out as much misinformation as possible to get people scared of it. So what does it do? Well go read it right here…

  http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/final-health-reform-bill-patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act.aspx

Seriously...read it...I'm not kidding. Stop pretending you have.

In a nutshell what it does is add protections for consumers who purchase private insurance, and creates a standard of which all insurance companies must provide at minimum. This is where things get interesting. Many have argued that their premiums are going to go up and for some that’s entirely true, but there is a reason for this. The reason is that more than likely, the cheap plan you were paying for actually didn’t cover what you thought it did. Bare bones insurance was cheap and in it’s cheapness before the PPACA, your insurance would have failed you when you reached a certain level of care needed. Lifetime limits, pre-existing conditions, etc. These are all things of the past, which now means that insurance companies have to offer you a better product, and as the market teaches us, that means you’re going to have to pay a little more for that service. However even if it’s more than you can afford you are eligible for subsidies if the amount you owe is over 8% of your total income. Not to mention, your current employer insurance will stay the same minus the few standards they need to update to make sure their abiding to a good standard of coverage.

  What happens though is that those that aren’t subsidized entirely will have to contribute to their own healthcare or pay a tax to essentially cover their annual care so that you and I don’t have to. Now if that type of forced personal responsibility isn’t a Republican ideal, then nothing is. Then again this whole idea was born from a conservative think tank. If you and I don’t have to cover someone else’s care then we don’t have any reason to have our annual premiums increased beyond normal inflation. Thanks to the 80/20 split that forces insurance companies to take 80% of our money and use it towards actual claims, and the other 20% towards administrative services and CEO bonuses, it’s going to be hard for an insurance company to justify ridiculous increases, which again is what we were trying to curb in the first place. Not only that, but have state by state insurance exchanges where you can shop and compare all your options from multiple companies gives the consumer some say in how much coverage they need or want. 

  I’m not going to argue there wont be growing pains, but isn’t that what real reform is all about? Lacing up your bootstraps or whatever other mantra we’ve heard chanted from the conservative side of American politics since we were thrown into a recession by a deregulated finance industry? Half the country doesn’t favor the PPACA, keeping in mind that 20% of those are people who wanted it to go further, but 72% of this country also thinks holding government hostage for the sake of trying to repeal a law that has been passed in the House, passed in the Senate, signed by a President, upheld by the Supreme Court, and survived 40+ repeal attempts, is an unimaginable waste of time and for some …jobs. The Republican Party is eating itself inside out and I’m not sure for what good reason really. This was a conservative idea that modern conservatives are rejecting. It forces the “lazy” (often a term thrown around) who can afford insurance to pay up so that others don’t have to, and it moves us forward in reforming a completely broken previous system. Now if I could just get a competitive public option pushed through… sigh… politics.

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Ben Affleck is Batman...

The title of this post is what I hope I’m saying as I walk out of the theater after my first viewing of Batman/Superman summer 2015. This is probably not the position taken by most with regards to the announcement and truth be told, even my first reaction called for the casting director’s head. However, though I would have preferred to go another direction, schedules and casting rarely line up so easily when you’re hoping for the likes of John Hamm or even Josh Brolin.

  So here we are with our new Dark Knight announced and he’s the same man who enriched great films like “The Town” and “Argo”, but also the same man who couldn't puff out even passable performances in films like “Daredevil” and “Gigli”. So is it fair to judge him on his past? Has he turned a new corner? Honestly none of that matters to me. What makes me nervous is not how he used to be, but more what his current success means for his ego. Ben Affleck was a down and out guy a few years ago and he must have known it. To judge him on his most recent work is probably a better route in gauging whether I think the man can play the dual role of Bruce Wayne and Batman.

  This duality is extremely important to understand if you’re not a huge Batman reader. Bruce Wayne and Batman are not the same person, figuratively. Bruce is the young kid who has everything going for him when his parents are gunned down in front of him. Bruce Wayne essentially dies that night. All his innocence, optimism, and love are stunted in the flash of the gun barrel. What grew up beyond that moment was a lost, angry, and unfocused shell of that young boy. The delicate balance between shutting everyone out of his life and yet his desire to not feel alone, eventually (along with a few key events) leads him to the revelation that fear is motivation. If he can encapsulate, hone, and dispense fear into the types of men who killed his parents, he feels he can save all of Gotham.

  Bruce Wayne becomes a mask. This is key. The Batman is all there is. If you watched these movies growing up thinking that Bruce Wayne is a millionaire who fights crime in his off time, then you have missed the point (though probably due to the films misrepresentation rather than by you own fault). The real state of things is The Batman is a force within Gotham who needs to have a public persona to better help deceive his actions and that deception is Bruce Wayne’s status and roll in Gotham. Bruce is the real mask.

  That being said, the hardest thing for me when it comes to the Ben Affleck casting is whether or not this concept is still spearheading the future Batman franchise. Ben has an issue seeming sincere to me even in his current films. I would say Argo is the first film where I felt his character had an internal motivation beyond the surface of seeming to be the best at what he does. Intimidation is also a huge factor with the Dark Knight and though I hope I’m proven wrong, it’s hard for me to see him as intimidating. Even at his most tense in “The Town” there was no part of me feeling intimidated. All of this doesn’t mean because he hasn’t shown it yet, that he doesn’t indeed have the chops to be so.

  He is starring in a film coming out soon where he seems to be playing a scary mob type guy that shouldn’t be messed with and I’m hoping he brings more to it than the average “cocky frat guy challenging a rival sports fan” type intimidation that he exuded in “Good Will Hunting” or “Dogma”. There’s something special about Ben and I think it lies behind the camera in directing, but I’m not convinced yet that he can expand the role of Batman into a new level, much in the way Christian Bale did. However, I will hold my tongue until we start seeing bits and pieces from the production of Batman Vs. Superman.

  Some people laugh at how much one casting decision can bother so many people, but this is an iconic character that after years of directors high on the 1960’s color scheme of the original TV show, finally had a good director, set of actors and great understanding of the world of the Dark Knight presented in three great movies (none without their small flaws). I hope Warner Brothers knows what they’re doing, because if they honestly expect the fan base to have to rely solely on Zack Snyder’s excitement after the way he handled the Man of Steel, then there’s a big problem. I’ll wait for a trailer, but mostly I hope Ben keeps that awful Boston accent at home.

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An Age of Overvalued Ink…

Every comic nerd my age has that moment where they hit their teenage years and someone tells them that they should take care of their comics, because they could be worth something one day. It happened to me, and it started me on a quest (or hobby depending on how you look at it) to collect, find, protect, and store every comic I could afford. So from that day forth I collected probably over 400-500 issues that I made sure to bag with a white board and store in comic storage boxes. I thought I had it down pat. Buy an issue, read it carefully, seal it up, and store it for long term investment. It wasn’t until many years later that I found out how wrong I was.

  Everyone knows an older relative that will tell you all about the comics they used to read from the 40’s-60’s and how they used to cost five cents. Most of the time those stories end with, “…I didn’t keep any of them.” Those types of stories almost always help fuel the interest in keeping our comics safe and preserved, but there’s a huge difference between the comics we are preserving and the ones they threw away. That difference is perceived value.

  Have you ever seen someone who collects national Geographic magazine and wondered why the hell they keep stacks of them laying around or stored nicely? I mean how much could that collection be worth if National Geographic prints millions of copies f each magazine? Well, it’s worth just about as much as some other person who wants them is willing to pay, whether that’s five bucks or five thousand bucks. This is kind of what were looking at today with modern comics. Before I go further, I want to express that worth alone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t collect, because sometimes the act of collecting can be extremely therapeutic. I’m not here to persuade anyone from it, but rather to expand on the idea and crush the myth that your comic collection will be worth millions when you’re about to retire.

  ‘But I hear about all those Spider-man #1’s that are worth tens of thousands!’

  You sure do, but the important thing to realize is that back in those days the amount of books printed were quite limited compared to the half a million per issue printed today. What makes the first Superman or Batman so valuable is that they were limited run printings, have up to 80 years of age (which requires insane protection from wear), and they are highly popular characters because their introduction changed the industry itself. An important aspect is the amount printed. Action Comics #1, which contains the first Superman appearance as well as being the first popular superhero comic ever, is said to have maybe 50-100 issues in circulation that have survived many ages. Even more so, only a very few of those are of exceptional quality since being first printed. A CGC graded 8.5 copy of this comic sold for 1.5 million in 2010. A CGC graded score of 5 drops its value to around $250,000. Point being that unless you have it hidden in perfect condition in your attic, you should be rolling in millions of dollars to even attempt to own this comic. That’s a true collectible.

  This is not the type of numbers printed today. When it was first published, the first printing ran off about 200,000 copies of which 50-100 remain, partly because being the first comic to really introduce a super hero, there was little concept of what it could be worth decades from then. Comics like this are the dream that inspires many to purchase two copies of a new issue, run to a CDC grading booth and lock one up for storage and collection. However, even the smaller known Marvel issues are getting massive prints, and with the popularity of CDC grading, the value will only weaken. The more that assume a first printing of Spawn #1 is to be CDC graded and protected, inherently, drops it’s value in the long run (decades), which is part of the issue of arguing any modern comic’s worth to future generations.

  ‘But I got it signed by Jim Lee himself!’

  I hate to say this, but… who cares? One of the hardest lessons I learned about getting an issue #1 signed by the artist or author was that its only really worth as much as someone who wants that version of the comic is willing to pay. I have many signed first issue, first prints, but ultimately I will have a harder time selling them (if I ever felt I wanted to), because many feel a signature damages the value of a comic. Yes, you heard me right. Unless Alan Moore signs your first edition, first print of Watchman, you are probably wasting your time with a signature if you seek true monetary value (unless you find the right buyer). If it’s simply for personal collecting, then continue to rock on my friend.

  The problem is that most current artist work conventions to sell their image and art by attending almost any comic convention they can. Reason being, generally you pay a small price to stand in line and they sign a few issues. Sometimes Marvel or DC pays for them to show up and talk or sign, thus their signatures are free, but in the end I’ve seen many of the same artists within the same year and almost always you see comic fans run from the signature booth straight to the CDC grader (who also charges a stiff fee) to lock up their investment. For many of these events, by the time you pay $25-50 for the convention ticket, $10-20 for the signature, and anywhere from $25-95 for the CGC grading process, you could have invested anywhere from $60 - $165 (not including the cost of the issue itself depending on its current value) just protecting your investment.

  I put down $20 for a Marvel, Steven King Gunslinger Variant cover and then waited and hour in line to have the writer sign it. About five years later I looked up the value of this book and even with a signature the value hadn’t moved. What had happened, was that I assumed this single issue was worth $20 for the Variant and that the signature would make it even more enticing, but in the end, every one and their mother had a copy just like mine sitting online waiting to be snagged for $40-$60 when not one comic value guide could justify that price. Even more discouraging was that every single person trying to sell hadn’t had one bid or offer. I would have never sold it, but curiosity often leads me to check in once and a while. Ill check back in another 5 years, I’m sure. 

  The comic industry is fickle. So it pays to have consumers invest a lot upfront for the perceived worth of a possible future value. But I have to wonder, does that actually help add value to a comic over decades of time? With as many issue that pour out weekly, versus the amount of those that are investing in CGC grading, should a brand new comic book that costs $3 on the shelf, be jettisoned to a value of over $200 overnight because it has a sketch variant cover and is contained in a 9.8 Mint CGC rating? I suppose that depends on the perceived value to someone looking to own it. Should we expect that a modern comic could equal the value of an 80-year-old Action Comics #1 Superman appearance of which only 50-100 are believed to exist anymore?

  ‘But I have the variant cover!

  There is some attempt by comic publishers to give comic collectors a chance to see perceived value by printing a limited variant cover, which I suppose would mean that because there are less in circulation that they are thus more valuable. But as a guy who chased many of these during my high school and college days, I had to laugh at the idea that when Ultimate Wolverine Vs Hulk #1 was released, the comic store I stopped into offered its variant sketch cover for $200 on its release day. It was not CGC rated and was sitting in a simple plastic sleeve with a cardboard backing, like many of my own regular comics. This store had found a way to use the limited printing to overvalue the release day purchase price of a variant cover. It sent anger through my body, not because I couldn’t afford it, but because already the abuse of over-valuing was now going to be the commonplace way for stores to make much more money off of unknowing and new comic book fans.

    From that day forward I began researching why a comic (even a variant) could cost $200 on day one and really couldn’t find any solid reasoning other than big comic publishers are going to push to sell the old idea that keeping your comics from your childhood could be worth millions one day. That used to be a true idea, but not simply because DC or Marvel wanted to sell you on the idea, but rather because time, importance, story, and care were the catalyst to understanding why Superman’s first appearance was so extraordinary to our culture. Now we have a system where those great comics of the past are traded amongst those with great wealth as cultural items of importance, while Marvel and DC have adapted their marketing to hope that every comic on their shelves can now be assumed to be the next Action Comics #1. Popularity, mass printing, Variant covers, and high first day prices are only selling the idea of worth, but 50 years from now we could all be looking at a market where no one can afford to trade or sell, because all of the kids my age and younger simply don’t know what it means to hold a comic that’s actually worth something.

  In the end I say collect for your own personal reasons alone. The fact that you invested a lot of money upfront into a perceived idea of a future value doesn’t guarantee that your collection is indeed valuable. The more popular comics become the harder it’s going to be to sell that one modern issue even 20 years from now if thousands of other people invested the same in protection and grading. If you’re like me, you can dream all day long of getting that one issue that means a lot to you and is indeed worth something (and maybe one day you find it hidden in an attic or in a flea market), but collecting comics for an assumed future value is thinking very short term now a days. Ill keep mine and pass them onto my kids, but most of them even though being in my hands for almost 15 years are worth maybe $1 more than I paid for them on their first day and that’s ok, because in the end its all about the stories and not how much I can get for them. I love comics and even have moved towards digital comics to save room, but a comic, like any other collectible is only worth as much as the guy next to you is willing to pay. I have a fear that many new modern comic collectors are going to be upset years from now when they invested so much for so little.

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Being Offended at the Offended...

  We live in a 24-hour news and entertainment culture. There is no way to get around this fact. As soon as Justin Beiber runs over his neighbor’s trash cans we are alerted via the top spot on Google’s news feed, Twitter, Facebook, and just about every social media outlet known to us. CNN usually picks up the story days later and rushes to push inaccurate information to the embarrassment of anyone watching. This type of instant stream of content was not always the case. There was a time where you had to use payphones to check in with people via landlines. At one point, a celebrity fowl wouldn’t reach your small town until the local paper became aware. And since the beginning of mass communication of anytime there has always been someone in the spotlight saying or doing something stupid, where eventually the public catches wind.

  One interesting effect of moving from slow news to instant streaming news is that currently we have a generational gap where those who grew up on slow newspapers are now confronted with instant streaming. Imagine a grandparent operating the newest cell phone and you can grasp a little of what I mean. As a culture we often push back against new forms of technology until we can afford it, in which we then praise and adopt it as standard. Everyone knows someone who has said, “I don’t need all those fancy options; it just has to make calls,” only later to catch that person constantly checking their social media once introduced to it. We are constantly re-adjusting to how we obtain media content. This being said, one thing has never changed and that is the ability for someone held in good standing with the public to make a huge error in judgment and say things or do things that shatter their public image. Nixon was found taping his own oval office meetings in which he personally involved himself in criminal acts. He was also caught snooping the DNC. This was the 1960’s. Not 2010. He was (at a slower pace of media) caught and then due to public perception and opinion, resigned his position as President. His actions offended some and probably didn’t bother some as well. He also was assuming not to have these things brought to light and sadly that was his downfall.

  Recently celebrity chef Paula Deen has come under fire for her under-oath comments relating to a recent deposition regarding lawsuits brought upon her brother and sons managerial practices at their Deen family restaurant. I wont go into specifically what was said, you can read the deposition online on your own free time, but Food Network decided in was in their best financial interests to not renew her contract, which essentially means she is out of a job. What generally happens with these type of situations is that public perception takes the form of two positions: 1) Said person shouldn’t have said that type of comment and it offends me, or 2) She shouldn’t be fired because people are offended at her comments. Personally, I don’t watch Paula Deen and couldn’t care less about what she believes, because I hold no personal investment in her product. I never did and probably never will, though I’m sure I borrowed her macaroni recipe once for free online.

  I tend to be surprised at the idea that those who scream free speech in this type of case are essentially offended at the idea that anyone would be offended by her comments. It’s as if we should be able to hear her public statements and say, “Meh, not my view and thus I wont pay for it or watch it.” And in theory this should be all it takes, but in reality even though her non-selling product and bad ratings could eventually get her fired via the idea of a free market, it doesn’t advance us as a culture to simply stay quiet when something bothers us.

  Did her comments seal her fate? Possibly, but not entirely. Public perception is quite forgiving to a person who makes a mistake and admits fully to being wrong. America loves a good come back when it feels the person genuinely believes they made a mistake. Contrary to the miss-held belief that the public is a bunch of raving lunatics who seek to destroy public figures, we often can relate to the person who says something stupid and learns from it. D.C. mayor Marion Barry, anyone? And for those who jump to say, “That guy was a scumbag and shouldn’t have won his position back later on!” I ask this: do you feel the same way about Paula Deen? Often we tend to begrudgingly snarl at the idea of someone making a mistake that we already disliked, and yet accept the idea when it’s someone we followed with great admiration asking for forgiveness. Rarely do we accept a single standard for all. Hey, it’s human nature and in a scientific sense, it’s a form of confirmation bias. We like to confirm that which we are bias to and ignore that which doesn’t help confirm our bias.

  The reason I throw Marion Barry (for the past times example) and Paula Deen (as the contemporary figure) is specifically, because I grew up in an area where many considered Barry utter trash and unworthy of reelection. However years later I see many of these same people labeling Paula’s issues as a tragedy. Obviously they are of different skin color and often with my area, they are “completely different” circumstances. Marion made enough of an example to change his ways that many in D.C. saw fit to bring him back to office. Paula has seemed to take the different route in that she has her finger aimed at other sources as to why she shouldn’t be held to the standard that every public figure has been no mater the pace of how media gets to us. Some of you may remember also how angry the O.J. Simpson verdict made you, for example. 

  Barry had a problem with drugs and women. Paula made comments that implied an inability to see the cultural issue with using certain derogatory terminology towards those of a different skin color. Both awful things in the eyes of the public. Did Paula lie under oath? No (we assume). Does that make her comments any more palatable? Sadly for her, no. Culture changes constantly. Even today as DOMA is struck down by the US Supreme Court, we are living in a culture of change. The ideals that Paula grew up in as a child in the South are not the ideals that her current culture has evolved to. There was a time where this type of story would not have mattered in the public eye (especially in the South), and so yes things have changed, but we have evolved to understand that just because something once was, doesn’t mean it was right. Had African Americans not stood up, non-violently, in the streets and shown their offense with demands that our culture no longer see them as third class citizens (or 3/5th a person if you consider the founding fathers) then there would have been no movement towards true equality for them. Even today it is still considered perfectly normal to hold these old racist ideals, though they generally survive only in private.

  Culture endlessly changes, which is how we learn and refine what it is to be an American in a country where every person is supposed to be considered equal. There are countries where disobedience to the decided state religion is considered a crime punishable by prison and even death. Even in this country this idea is being tested every day. It’s easy to walk away from Paula’s comments and simply allow the free market to determine her fate, but without anyone being able to take offense to her comments, there is effectively no change in her attitudes towards it. It’s essentially allowing a child to steal a cookie before dinner without ever slapping his/her hand. Growing up a certain way doesn’t exclude you from evolving with culture, just as ignoring any racism or inequality because you aren’t objected to it on any level doesn’t exclude you from the cultural conversation.

  White males, like myself, have it very easy. As Louis C.K. has mentioned in his act, you could essentially transplant a white male back as far as you want in time and they would be able to live a comfortable life, generally free from all persecution. There are no real cultural reigns holding back the progress of a white male’s goals and aspirations though all time. When I was in high school, I overheard a journalism teacher talking to an African American student about a piece he was attempting to write. It sounded like an argument, but the teacher was asking him how it felt to be a minority in an almost completely white school (1.5% black population in my high school and from the same single family). The student kept stating, “You just don’t get it!” The teacher responded, “Well make me get it!” Once again the student responded, “I don’t think I can, you just don’t get it.” And Ill never forget this moment when the teacher said, “If you can’t even explain it to me so that I can get it, then how the hell will anyone in this large school ever get it?”

  At first I thought, that could be perceived as pretty strong verbiage for anyone stepping into the room right at that moment, but in reality the teacher’s point was to push this student to try and show the rest of us why it is we should care about what this lone African American student was going through on a daily basis. It was a moment I vividly remember and try to reflect on when issues of race pop up locally and on the national scale. Perhaps the question shouldn’t be why another’s comments offend someone, but rather why it is that person is feeling emboldened to say them in the first place expecting no consequence. The first step to solving an issue is discussion, which was an unavailable method to the African American community for hundreds of years. They were offended and demanded to be heard and our culture can’t ignore that. The same goes for any minority and even majority. You speak up when you feel wronged or offended, and you should never feel surprised when someone speaks back in rejection of your words. Free speech works both ways. We ARE more politically correct, and it is because our culture is moving away from allowing small-minded people to say anything they want without consequences. In this country you stand for what you believe in and you don’t cry when someone calls you on it. That is what America is and that’s an America I want for my children. Tolerance is a two way street. Deciding not to degrade someone first is always a more tolerant route then to degrade him or her and act surprised when they degrade back.   

  Paula Deen is an adult who said things in the public eye and now can’t grasp why no one agrees with her excuses for it. That is ultimately her problem understanding current culture. She could have easily admitted that the blame was hers alone and many would accept the more learned Paula back with open arms, but she pointed the finger at the language used by young males in her kitchens, “someone evil” trying to get her out of jealousy, and ultimately even you and I, because everyone says derogatory things. She’s probably got a point, but the public is watching her and right now she seems to have a problem seeing herself in the same light as her audience does. Paula got herself fired. That is the true “free market” at work. 

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What Really Scares Us...

  October is a special time. It opens many of us up to the idea of wanting to be scared for fun. The mix of dead leaves, cold temperatures, and harvest festivals offer a retreat from the summer months. We grab our jackets to stay warm and seclude ourselves to the warmer indoors. It is the perfect annual set up for being more susceptible to fear. We even nestle into a dark theater or our living room couch in hopes of allowing a film to take advantage of our natural hibernation and reclusively throughout the changes of sunny and warm towards gray and cool. I find myself completely at home in late September through mind November. My mind spends extra energy imagining ideas that provoke a heightened sense of fear. In general, we all love a good scare.

  Though my mind is always active during these months, it hasn’t been until maybe up to the last two years that feature films have caught up to my overactive imagination. Always on the hunt to be frightened beyond belief, I was almost always let down by the horror genre. Films like The Omen, The Exorcist, The Shining, and even on a more campy level, Poltergeist had moments that stuck with me forever. But these weren’t films of my generation. My sister brought me into the know with frequent screenings of these films, and probably at a much earlier age then I should have, which is the greatest gift you can give a kid who loves to be scared.

  My generation’s additions to the genre are around 80% awful. “Slasher” films, though I hold a special place for some of them, were in no way interesting, thought provoking, or in the most important sense, truly scary. What Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation did in the face of Stephen King’s original work is not only genius, but deserving. There isn’t a time even now watching it where I feel completely at ease, which is not something I can say about most of the horror films of my generation.

  We are now bombarded with the same gimmicks in the horror genre that ruins regular film genres. For example, the first Paranormal Activity was a neat experience. It had moments that were new and exciting. The original (no sequel) ending was intense and created an end to a really scary film. However it was scrapped for the multiple sequel endings, and the series now suffers for it. It’s no longer scary or thought provoking, but rather exercises in jump scares. Fun, but not really meaningful in story. This same thing happened to the “torture porn” genre of horror films like Saw, Tourista, and Hostel. These films are essentially 90-minute blood soaked exercises in torture, and are proof that blood being spilled isn’t necessarily scary. Though these types of films liter the theaters every October, hoping to squeeze another 100 million per film from audiences, there is a movement on the rise that has reclaimed what good horror should aspire to.

  Last year I sat down with friends and watched a relatively unknown film called House of the Devil. We didn’t bother with a trailer viewing and simply loaded it up. Let me preface first that horror films are also only as successful as you allow them to be. If you’re in a room with people who are talking, joking, playing on their cell phones, and have lights on, you are generally doing a disservice to the effect you hope to receive. I have found that in most cases, the person who spent their entire viewing on their cell phone (texting or whatever) is almost always the first person who claims that the film wasn’t scary. So it’s best to scrutinize that person as much as possible before and after viewing the film. Atmosphere is everything, and if you don’t respect it, then don’t bother watching any horror film. Moving on….

  Ti West is only now being recognized for his many films, and in a sense, still is completely off the radar, which is fine by me. Better that then being abused and stretched thin by the normal money grubbing Hollywood executives. House of the Devil follows a simple premise: A college student in the 80’s answers an ad for a babysitting job because she needs to make more money. I know, your first thought is…seen it. You’d be wrong. There is a pacing to this film that leaves your imagination misfiring constantly. You know something is off, but you can’t place it. There are cues that make you consider what you might do in the same situation, but nothing can really prepare you. Everything about the film is nostalgic which adds it’s own level of dread. It’s autumn, this girl is very much disconnected from friends and family (except for a dorm mate), and her decisions blur the line of convincing yourself that you wouldn’t do the same. I can say no more other than after one viewing I was on IMDB looking for more of his films to watch. Lucky for me, I found more….

  The Innkeepers came next. Often you expect to experience a similar type story or feeling when watching a director’s collection of films. A Kubrick film very much holds certain expectations based on his style and technique. Ti West takes this film in an entirely different direction. There is a campy and humorous effect that relieves you of the high tension and yet adds more to the tension, because you can’t be certain of what hand the film will play with each scare. This story follows the actions of two employees watching the front desk of an old Connecticut Inn that is being shut down after a final weekend. These two are into paranormal investigation and decide to use the last couple days to record sound in a basically empty hotel. This film does something unique with sound where in the scenes of the main characters recording with microphones, we get to hear their recordings. And then separately we don’t in other situations. It’s very much a push and play on sound versus visual scares. The sound based scenes are almost more intense than the visual scares. They do say that 75% of a movie is sound, and this film explores it.

  There is a more well-known, yet still direct to cable box film series called V/H/S. The second film has just been released, but the first was hailed as a new genre of found footage. I had essentially ignored the trailers and TV spots because it seemed like a serial killer movie about someone who keeps V/H/S tapes. It didn’t seem marketed correctly, and yet when we sat down to watch it; there was so much about it that was new, that I couldn’t turn away. Found footage has been beaten into the ground and we should expect more and more of it to continue to limp through the horror genre. The story is fragmented, but includes basically a group of delinquents who are tasked with retrieving a certain VHS tape from a home owned by an old man. They enter and find a treasure trove. Each tape watched is a 15-20 minute horror short by many different directors. Ti West has a story in there as well as many other indie horror directors. The camera work is still overly shaky on some of the stories, but the stories are true exercises in different types of found footage ideas. No idea is off the table. Supernatural, monster-based, and even mythical ideas are explored, each with their own level and value of good scares. Some are lesser, but in the end each story only gives you so much investment, so it’s easier to walk away if one lacks the ability to really get to you. The second film improves on the concept and is even more fun and thought provoking.

  In the end, it’s all about the scare. Some like jumps, some like thought provoking scares, some love the slow burn, but if you have felt left out of the horror genre, these are some films to really get you back into the groove. Nothing is better than being able to let off some steam with a good scare. With correct atmosphere and an open mind these films can do just that. I can say that because of my overactive imagination, I won’t watch these films alone, and especially for one particular scene in V/H/S, I didn’t sleep well at all. Ti West has two more films coming this year and I couldn’t be ready enough. The Sacrament is his next film that follows a young man searching for his estranged sister who has become enveloped by an end day’s type cult. Sign me up, because really, the scariest part of a movie should be the drive home afterwards.

[loweded]

Welcome Home Sony...

Well E3 is turning out to be better TV then…well… TV. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo (who I won’t really be speaking about) had their time in the spotlight to get their messages to consumers and it was Sony who decided to make clear of some things.

  As many gamers now know, the Xbox One was presented wholly as a media device that also plays games. This is not something gamers want to hear when they are the exact crowd that got Xbox to the level it is today. We expect games to be showcased at any presentation of a new piece of gaming hardware. Microsoft decided to show off how well its new hardware could gather all of your media into one central box and then quickly switch between that media seamlessly. It worked quite nice, but it lacked quite a bit of the showmanship and excitement that Sony brought with their preview conference a month earlier. Sony instead decided to show simply games. Sony kept silent when it came to discussing DRM (Digital Rights Management) and media features.

  Microsoft was grilled for their statements about the Xbox being always on and how they decided to handle the used disc aftermarkets, to which gamers are accustomed. Sadly for them, they confused the conversation and muddled their message for weeks before finally confirming what sounded better than the worst possible scenario, but in reality is no better. By delegating your physical ownership rights to the developer in deciding whether you can resell the game back to a retailer (that we’re told must be a certified retailer…whatever that means}, they have essentially said that the $60 you just paid only allows you to lease the game. You do not own what you can’t resell. Even if a developer allows someone to sell their game back to a retailer and you go there hoping for a chance to pick up that game a little cheaper, it seems that you will be tasked with not only paying to get the disc out the door, but also possibly to activate it when you get home as well. This kills the used game market.

  Microsoft can try to spin the idea that digital is the way to go, since they are squeezing out the aftermarket and the entire idea behind physical media, but in the end you don’t really own these products if you can only access them via 24 hour license checks (or 1 hour if you’re not on your xbox). Better yet you can’t even play the game you purchased offline for more than 24 hours. No more trips to grandma’s house with your Xbox, where Internet ceases to exist. What do the executives at Microsoft think about you not having solid broadband? Well…go buy an Xbox 360. That’s right. If you don’t have a good enough connection for the Xbox One, then go buy our older, last generation product and get over it. I could write hours about what Microsoft has done over the years to lose my money, but this is about taking your ownership rights, handing them over to the developer who sold you their game, and limiting your use of the game for the "greater good of cloud computing".

  Sony had one job leading up to E3, and it was simply to stay quiet. I’m not sure if Microsoft assumed that Sony would take up a similar type of DRM stance, and we may never know if Sony originally planned to, but they certainly saw what it did to Microsoft’s selling image. So in their first major PS4 presentation since their preview, Sony made it very clear that they have no intention to require an online connection to play single player games. They noted with a huge image on their main screen that the physical media you buy for their system is yours to do what you wish. Once you buy it (used or not) you own it. Sell it back if you want, give it to a friend indefinitely if you feel the need, or keep it forever. They wont restrict you whatsoever, because it seems they understand that even digital media should still be considered something that you as the consumer do indeed own after you pay the asking price.

  This is a 65 billion dollar industry. There is a lot of interest and a lot of money to be made if you can satisfy your consumer base. Being from the generation of 8 bit gaming and watching the industry evolve over time, there is nothing more exciting to me than new gaming hardware. Two years ago I switched the majority of my gaming to the PC, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love a good console title. With the PC market I deal completely digitally and it is a great setup, but it still relies on competitive pricing and discount sales to get me to open my wallet. The idea that Microsoft believes I would be willing to forgo the right to choose where and how much I spend on a AAA title (most of which are rushed with little content worth their full price) is sickening. Why would any gamer assume that without a used game aftermarket, Microsoft wouldn’t slowly but surely extend the full purchase price over longer periods of time, making it harder to save money on even games that are a year or two old? If there is no outside competitive force helping drive the purchase price of an older game down, then what forces Microsoft to lower their digital and physical game prices below the standard $60, at least until that game’s sequel comes out?

  DRM is essentially a way to have a consumer buy something, not own it, and then continue to pay for access to it. This is how the new Xbox will run. Can’t afford Xbox Live? No multiplayer for you (standard for Sony as well though paid online is a respected service). Can’t afford or don’t have the ability for a good broadband connection? Can’t play single player games you bought for $60. Enjoy watching TV and movies on your $500 cable box/BluRay player. It’s never a good idea to drop the consumer to please your developers, because without anyone to purchase, the developers are useless.

  Sony has it right. Gamers know this and outside of the hardcore Call of Duty pre-teens, I don’t see how any gamer (my age at least) could want to invest their hard-earner cash into the new Xbox One. If I have to pay $60 for a game to play it then I should be able to do what I please with that ownership after Microsoft gets their cut as well as the developer (hint: maybe Microsoft should take a smaller cut to help the developer). For me to pay twice for an older game that has run its market course is an insult. You have my kudos, Sony. Goodbye, Microsoft. 

[loweded]

Consoles Aren't Dead...

  I was skimming over my normal morning gaming news articles and saw one written by Chris Kohler over at Wired entitled, “Hardcore Console Gamers Don’t Want Much, Just the Impossible”. Basically Chris makes a valiant effort to explain why Microsoft’s current Xbox One presentation focused on nothing but TV and a few titles that I personally could care less about. His argument is basically that Microsoft will only be successful if it is an All-in-One machine that caters more towards all entertainment rather than just hardcore gaming.

  I think he’s wrong. He does show some stats about their revenues and how it would seem that Sony’s inability to adopt to the all-in-one idea hurt them badly compared to Microsoft, and even explains that it is the exact reason Nintendo has stopped trying to keep up with the hardware specs of the other two. There is a reason all of their revenues took a hard hit. Lets go over each one a little from the perspective of us gamers who have been around since before 8-bit.

  NINTENDO:

I love Nintendo, yet I own none of their hardware currently. Why is that? Chris argues that they dropped out of the hardware arms race (keeping up with specs essentially) because it was killing their overhead. Sure, no one is going to argue that the Wii was obviously a less powerful system compared to the 360 or PS3, but that’s not why I don’t own one anymore. In fact, I did own a Wii and was one of the first to do so thanks to a great friend. I enjoyed Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Bowling, and the whole idea of motion controllers. However the problem started when the Wii market became inflated with third party game after third party game, that essentially added up to the experience of playing flash games on my PC. It seemed as if anyone could create a content lacking gimmicky game by simply submitting it to Nintendo. That flooded the market with crap and made finding a real good set of games almost a chore, keeping in mind that Nintendo’s core titles seemed to take forever to get produced. Launching without many of those core titles was a mistake.

  Second problem Nintendo faced was it’s complete lack of interest in the online community. Can’t tell you how many times I read that “online gaming would never take off” according to Nintendo’s top brass. So what was I left with after buying the Wii? About a year of bowling being the best game for the system, no way to play online that really mattered, and more Pet [insert animal] type games that asked for $50 and really only gave you about $10 worth of entertainment. Ignoring HD didn’t help either. So I sold my Wii back to Gamestop with no sweat off my back. But keep in mind, Nintendo’s price points and ability to cater to the younger gamers is quite remarkable and I very much commend them for it.

  SONY

Interestingly enough, when Chris talks about how the PS3 is the only hardcore gaming machine on the market. Is it though? I seem to remember the marketing for it being so much about making the PS3 the only box you’d need in the living room. I was a huge PS2 user and Sony guy long before that and so when the PS3 was announced I simply couldn’t wait, but time would show that most of Sony’s issues with selling the PS3 were their own freaking fault.

  This was supposed to be the true all-in-one entertainment machine, and I will recognize that they won the BluRay versus HD-DVD race. Kudos to them. However, why are gamers up in arms about the all-in-one idea of Xbox One? It’s because they’ve heard this song and dance before, and you guessed it…from Sony regarding the PS3. How can a system be the all-in-one system when it seemed almost impossible to get content on it outside of physical disc media? Sure it played BluRays (which were overpriced at the release), played PS3 games (which were increased to $60 standard), and it eventually got Netflix capability. But not at launch. The PS3 was quite a lonely experience at launch when you first booted it up. And how much did it cost to get this massive all-in-one machine on day one? …. $600. They increased the starting price of most standard consoles by almost $200.

  Comments from the top Sony brass to the tune of “if you can’t afford one then you don’t deserve to have one” put pretty much everyone off that I knew. Sony also presumed their hardware architecture was amazing, all the while developers found it backwards and hard to develop on. Chris explains that the PS3 is the hardcore gamers machine because it also gives free online service. Sure it doesn’t cost anything to play online, assuming you can get a solid connection at all (I still have not with madden), care about buying old PS2 games sine it’s not backwards compatible, and enjoy walking around a virtual house while ten year olds hit on your female avatar. There is a reason people gladly pay for Xbox live. It’s a real online environment, and one of the only things that gives Microsoft an edge. Sony killed themselves from day one by being presumptuous of their own tech, marketing something they couldn’t offer, giving away shitty online service, and then charging us $600 for a nice piece of hardware that developers hated.

  MICROSOFT:

There is a reason Microsoft can succeed, but is going to encounter much resistance from the hardcore gaming group. They are trying to sell the same idea that PS3 did, except now they have figured out (not very well at explaining it) how to restrict every aspect of how you enjoy their system so that they can squeeze every penny out of the consumer. They’re attempting to deflate the concept of hanging out with friends to play games and allowing friends to borrow your games. This is what gamers have been raised on since the first Atari systems. Gaming is communal. Sure, we all have our Skyrim saves, but it’s those late night Halo matches crammed next to one TV that everyone remembers.

   Nintendo is wrong in thinking they can survive solely on single player. Sony thinks a free service will lure people away from Xbox when this leaves them little revenue to improve the service while getting hacked, and Microsoft recognizes the good of having an online multiplayer market. But… no one is arguing Xbox Live. It’s great and seemingly the only good thing as an entire company they have ever done.

  What made growing up a gamer so much fun? Taking my games to a friends system and playing until 5am regardless of accounts, the owner of system or the disc being used. What Microsoft can seem to answer is what happens with two Xbox Ones in the home? Can one kid in the family play Madden on his Xbox account, and then an hour later can his sister use the same disc on her separate Xbox and Xbox account? If not for free then how much is the sharing fee? Is it the full cost of the game?

  Microsoft doesn’t want to be known as the console that killed physical media reselling and used games, but they sure as hell want to do both as well as Sony with the PS4 as well. This is what has gamers (in a down economy) nervous. We have to pay the hardware costs ($500 and up for the system, $60 per controller, $60 per game) and therefore the only relief we get is the used markets and reselling. Some argue that because these are IP’s, they aren’t the same as selling anything else I physically own, except…yes they are. When I purchase a game new at full price, I own that game to do with what I want, whether that’s resell immediately or play and give away for free. Does this hurt the developer? Probably, but after the initial sale to me, they have been paid what they ask for their product. After that it’s not reasonable to have that developer recharge me because a friend loaned it to me or I bought it cheaper elsewhere. Don’t punish gamers for how a free market is supposed to work. If you don’t like retailers stealing profits, then offer a digital market that isn’t marked up to full price a year after the game comes out. Steam is pretty successful and they aren’t following standard business practice according to EA who thinks Steam will fail.

  It will be interesting to see what happens once these new systems hit the market and the crazy fan boys finish their day one purchases. I have a feeling Microsoft may be in for a surprise. If you create content and give me every access to it to do as I please, I reward you with more money for more content. If you try to tell me how I can use my content after paying your asking price, I will gladly stop buying from you. Luckily I PC game more than any console so this issue can be avoided altogether for me, but for most who game on consoles as their sole source of entertainment…you’re hurting them Microsoft, maybe for the good of your shareholders, but not for the good of your audience. Consoles aren’t dead, they’re just so damn restricting now a days. No wonder people have slowed in emptying their pockets for you.

[loweded]

IRON MAN 3...

  Before you read any further, know this… THERE WILL BE SPOILERS GALORE HERE. So if you are saving yourself for the theater, then stop reading and go look up more trailers. For those of you still here I continue.

  This film has been talked about as a much heavier Tony Stark character piece rather than a straight up Iron Man film as the first two were. This is also not a bad thing, and I think it succeeds well in making Tony more like you an me. I like that aspect and I won’t debate it. But why do I feel more attached to the first two films? There is a reason, and if you haven’t heard already (or possibly you’re tired of hearing about it), then let me explain it quite simply.

  This was the film I was most excited for out of all three, especially after experiencing the first two. Why? Yes, the Mandarin is exciting, but it’s the idea behind the villain in this movie. The first two villains were very much industrial enemies of Tony Stark, locked in competition to excel his talents, and when failing to do so intellectually, resorted to violence and ill tactics. Essentially, both being good films, deal with industrial counterparts, looking to destroy Stark Industries with their own version of “armor”.

  The first film gave us a view of how even long time friends of the Stark family can be driven to jealously or anger when Tony has a change of heart about selling weapons. The second film follows a similar premise with a competitor trying to mimic the arch reactor technology. Though it is more of a revenge plot, due to the action of Tony and Ivan’s fathers. The third film was marketed to change this villain archetype in a drastic way. We were no longer dealing with a “genius” competitor or counterpart, but rather a “genius” madman with nothing but hate aimed towards Western society. How exciting as well as being such a breathe of fresh air. If you’re reading this then you watched the trailers, listened to the monologues and (admit it) were giddy at the prospect of what the Mandarin could mean for a true Tony Stark character arch.

  So what happened? If you’ve seen it then you know. The first hour of the film gives you glimpses into the eyes of the leader of a terrorist organization hell bent on teaching the United States government a lesson. And even better the same organization that kidnapped Tony in the first film, “The Ten Rings”. There is also a little of the industrial villain concept from the first two films infused with the introduction of the nerdiest of all nerds, Aldrich Killian, who is ignored by Tony year before current time and thus his motivations are lacking enough credence to be really taken seriously.

  As the film progresses we see that Aldrich now has seem to have cured his physical afflictions (cane and such), and has created a project that allows humans to upgrade their DNA. Pepper as well as many others (including Tony originally) have turned down investing in the idea, because it could become militarized and that is what Stark is against thanks to film one. So Aldrich walks away again disappointed. Meanwhile the Mandarin is sharing his message through radio waves and television, even executing the owner of a major oil company stating, “I’m sure he’s a really good guy….I’m gonna shoot him in the head.” Chilling stuff, because of Ben Kingsley’s direction with the character and his almost Southern preacher type voice. At this point I was on the edge of my seat. Obviously the Mandarin was seconds away from revealing himself and becoming the driving force in the film. Then only minutes later, the film simply became eye candy.

  It turns out that we get the impression that Aldrich is working for the Mandarin, referring to him as the master, and when Tony breaks into the mansion where the filming of the Mandarin’s exploits has been traced to, we find a very different Mandarin. It turns out the Mandarin is simply an act, or a show. Trevor is a hired British actor paid handsomely with drugs, women, and a mansion to portray the character of the Mandarin, in order to drive attention away from what Aldrich is really doing. And what is Aldrich doing? That whole DNA thing, he now calls “Extremis”. Oddly even for a split second I allowed myself to believe that the Mandarin was simply pretending to be Trevor, in order to fool Tony into believing the Aldrich story. True deception. True illusion. To my anger, and after a poop joke and the pop of a beer can, I’m sadly left with the truth.

  What is that truth? It is simply that the writing was stubborn enough to create such a illustrious character only to service a twist mechanic that then leaves us with a less interesting, poorly motivated, and mimicked copy of the villains from the first two films. Motivated by simple revenge and jealousy. Yawn. Forgive me for being disappointed.

  Some would argue that Killian is not the same as the first two villains in that he doesn’t fight Tony with physical armor, but really all the Extremis project represents (in the limited explanation the writers gave here) is another form of armor. Even better if you can ignore the anger and try to enjoy the rest of the eye candy, you’re left with Aldrich’s explanation as he is about to kill Tony…”I am the mandarin. I have always been the Mandarin.” Taken literally, this would make no sense, but even in the context of him simply meaning that by being the main guy behind the whole mess of events, that he basically would also technically be the Mandarin, is still lazy and unimportant.

  Are we to believe that to cap off the series as a whole, that the terrorists from the first film simply don’t really have any connection to this film? Does this mean that the Mandarin is simply not revealed yet and that maybe Killian creates an illusion based off of the little information known about the Ten Rings? What conclusion is supposed to be drawn from this twist? If the fake Mandarin is based off a real Mandarin that no one knows anything about yet, then this requires explanation somewhere in the film. My guess is that Marvel has successfully allowed the writers under direction of Shane Black to essentially avoid the perceived racist undertones of the original character from the 60’s. Maybe this was Marvel’s way of skipping over any possible controversy they thought could arise from the Asian communities. What would be the reason to think this is even remotely true? Well Shane has been quoted as referring to the Mandarin as a “racist caricature”. Neat, except that doesn’t bother Marvel from printing story after story about him from his early creation to modern day. So I call B.S.

   What’s his defense for the twist?

  "I would say that we struggled to find a way to present a mythic terrorist that had something about him that registered after the movie's over as having been a unique take, or a clever idea, or a way to say something of use, And what was of use about the Mandarin's portrayal in this movie, to me, is that it offers up a way that you can sort of show how people are complicit in being frightened. They buy into things in the way that the audience for this movie buys into it. And hopefully, by the end you're like, 'Yeah, we were really frightened of the Mandarin, but in the end he really wasn't that bad after all'. In fact, the whole thing was just a product of this anonymous, behind-the-scenes guy. I think that's a message that's more interesting for the modern world because I think there's a lot of behind-the-scenes, a lot of fear, that's generated toward very available and obvious targets, which could perhaps be directed more intelligently at what's behind them.”

  Again I call B.S. You didn’t struggle in any way in presenting or depicting him for the first 40 minutes of the movie. In fact the interesting way you portrayed him was showing something entirely new to iron man audiences in that this was a villain not motivated by jealously or revenge against Tony himself and in effect could have played the idea that Tony inserted himself into the villains path endangering everyone he loves. Tony’s willingness to be a hero when he can’t come to grips with the large idea of aliens, gods, and wormholes is a very interesting idea in that he is paralyzed by PTSD and can’t even focus on a single dangerous human. Shane says it himself that he intentionally entrapped the fan base of the first two films into seeing this movie. That’s enraging. He’s right in that towards the end I wasn’t frightened, but neither was I suffering from tension or any type of interest in why I should care. There was no sense that Tony wouldn’t save the day, which ironically he doesn’t. None at all, which disturbs me, because fright, tension, and being on the edge of our seat is exactly why anyone goes to the movies. Not that I don’t get his behind-the-scenes guy (trying to be deeper) theme, but honestly I don’t go to the movies to replicate real life behind-the-scenes bad guys of our current world, but rather to forget them for 2 hours.

  What Marvel has allowed Shane to do along with his writers is to for the first time create a film that not only doesn’t understand the three pieces of good source material it draws from (Extremis, The Mandarin, Iron Patriot), but it makes me worried about the next few Marvel films. The only one it seems I can really trust is Josh Whedon. It’s lazy on Shane’s part because he knows going into Iron Man 3 that he has a vast audience that will show up day one and pay for the film’s production cost three times over, without even having to have a page written. It bothers me even more that he took an artistic theme that he couldn’t replicate on screen as being amazing, all the while selling the fan base on a premise that he destroyed 40 minutes in. That’s not clever, intelligent, or interesting. It’s lazy and boring, and for everyone that paid to go see it…expensive (even for just two people).

  I could address other holes in the story such as the fact that Tony has 40 suits hiding 20 feet below him as his house is being shot at. How he somehow doesn’t have a protocol to facially recognize his girlfriends face as to not kill her. How his DNA is the only one that will work with the suit, and thus the same for Rhodey who has his suit hijacked. How you can have one of the coolest sidekicks in the Marvel realm and not use him at all except to hint at Iron Patriot, which has nothing to really add to this film at all, unless you consider the one time it is hi-jacked as a nod to the Norman Osborne story (unnecessary). The fact that the second film revolves around finding a new source to keep the shrapnel away from his heart when all he needed was one simple hospital operation. Why was the PTSD completely ignored the final third of the film never to really be addressed? There’s too much in this movie that is irrelevant.

  But most of all… what are you trying to tell us Marvel? Is Iron Man done? Is Downey done? We know he is contracted for Avengers 2, so what does this movie do for anyone? This movie is financially successful based on your first two films and a fibbed collection of trailers and TV spots, and as a piece of 2.5 hours worth of film, it has the same eye candy level as transformers with a better stand alone story. It has good things, but where was and is your head at? If someone were to ask me what the best part of the film was, I would say the Easter egg scene at the end. Why? Because for about 30 seconds I get to laugh and connect with the heavy events of the Avengers film (which you hinted at and then ignored) along with being able to forget how badly I wanted this film to matter. I love Iron Man, and it’s what got me into the theaters for Avengers. You owe us better than this. I wont be rushing out to the next film so quickly.

  PS. I’ll give you a nod for the Hulk Buster suit. Kudos for including that.

[loweded]

Europa Could...

  Mars is a fascinating planet. We have sent probe after probe there to discover more about the origins of the planet and how it may have once inhabited life. We know that water flowed upon Mars at one point and we are digging and drilling into small sections of the surface to search for more answers.

  When it comes to the search for extraterrestrial life, however, Mars (though interesting) is second to another mass in our solar system. One of Jupiter’s four largest moons sits quietly awaiting discovery. Europa is a tortured moon. It has scars covering its entire surface signaling its constant tidal struggle from the strong forces of it’s superior. Jupiter has an immense gravity and pulls hard against Europa, which much like the moon pulls the Earth’s water creating title forces, Jupiter pulls on Europa and leaves large constant cracking on it’s icy surface.

  Europa is a cold moon and thus its surface is covered in ice. This ice also cracks and breaks due to Jupiter’s pull on Europa. But there is a key feature to the moon that is hidden beneath the ice. Underneath the cracks is a body of water. Constant tidal flexing generates heat when you’re dealing with masses as big as a planet and moon. This effect also moves tectonic plates generating heat from below. What this tells us is that it is extremely likely that Europa could be generating enough heat below the surface in it rocky top layers to warm a body of water underneath it’s relatively smooth (regardless of the cracks) icy surface.

  Earth has a similar setup deep in its oceans. The one difference being that Earth lies close enough to the sun to be free from a completely icy surface. However if you hypothetically turned off the Sun forever, Earth would quickly become sub artic on the surface and the only chance for humans to survive would be to bury into the deep layers of rock and rely on geothermal heat from our molten core.

  Hypothetical event aside, the Earth leaks heat along with many chemicals from its thermal vents. What is interesting is that much life exists around these thermal vents on Earth and we see primitive life forming in what seems to be the harshest of conditions. The thought is that if the core of Europa is generating enough heat to also have thermal vents release heat and chemicals into the body of water, it could very likely be supporting primitive life. The fact that its surface is comprised of mostly oxygen also adds to this idea.

  So what does this mean then? Are we talking about little green men with spaceships? Not at all. It’s a common misconception that when science talks about the idea of extraterrestrial life forms, they automatically mean highly evolved Martians with super space flight capabilities. Any life we find outside of Earth is most likely going to be either primitive if not microbial. We don’t have the capability to travel outside of our solar system with a human behind the wheel and therefore the likelihood that we find intelligent life is extremely rare. It’s not impossible that life like ours exists within a neighboring planetary system or is found to be plentiful throughout every galaxy (of which there are hundreds of billions), but all of the similar problems we face with interstellar space travel are going to be the same problems another group of intelligent life forms would have to overcome as well.

  So how do we investigate life on Europa? Well due to the icy surface it’s not just a matter of landing, but also of drilling and submersing a vehicle to explore the water underneath. If you thought the recent Mars probe landing was insane, then this would likely blow your mind. Even better, plans are in motion to successfully pull this off over the next ten years. Of course everything sent to Europa will have to be strictly sterilized beyond belief to assure no false alarms. Personally I hope to see the video feed of a submersible probe as it sinks deeper and deeper only to have some organism swim by. That would be quite possibly the most intense scientific discovery of all time.

  It’s not known for sure if we would find anything on Europa, but compared to all the planets and moons we can reach, there is no better suspect. Mars could prove to be promising underneath the soil and rock, but Europa could be a living and breathing collection of life just waiting to be unopened. Europa could change everything.

[loweded]

Groovy...

When I was a kid there was one movie that was a must-rent every Saturday afternoon. There was a small family-run video store down the road and every time I entered, I would run right over to the horror section and grab “Army of Darkness”. At that age I had no idea that this was the third in a collection of films that helped shaped the character of Ash. Of course, Army of Darkness starts by alluding to the ending of Evil Dead 2, but at that age, I figured it was just a quick intro to why Ash begins his journey chained up.

  Years later I would experience the first two films in all their glory. The puzzle pieces fit and connected my childhood to my teenage years. There’s no way around saying this, but all three of the Evil Dead trilogy’s films kick so much fucking ass. With that out of the way I was skeptical about the reboot when it was first announced, as any nerd would be. Slowly, however, they started to win me over with amazing red band trailers and the small amount of on set news that trickled down.

  Last night we got our tickets and headed in to see the Evil Dead reboot, and let me just say it took me right back to what I loved about the originals. Five friends head to a cabin? Check! Necronomicon Ex-Mortis is found and passages are recited? Check! Scary demon camera sails through the trees towards the cabin? Check! All hell breaks loose? Double Check!

  This film is great. There is a connected and seemingly intelligent reason as to why they are all at this family cabin. The main role, Mia, is played by Jane Levy, who is an addict trying to get clean after the passing of her mother in a mental asylum. Her distant brother makes the trip to help her through the withdrawal after years of abandoning his family for a far away job. Early we see how the movie is going to progress in the fact that her friends have decided they aren’t going to let Mia leave until she has overcome withdraw and can begin to heal.

  However, things aren’t right in this cabin. After a gruesome discovery in the basement (yes it has a trap door entrance!) one of the characters discovers a book that seems to be covered in barbed wire to prevent anyone from opening it. With a set of wire cutters and a quick out-loud reading of some of the passages, the shit quickly begins to hit multiple fans. Granted he was warned multiple times by the creepy handwriting. One warning that really got to me was something along the lines of ‘don’t speak the words, don’t read the words, don’t even think the words.’ Don’t quote me on the accuracy but it was something along those lines scribbled on the pages as a warning to anyone who happened to come in contact with it.  

  I wont spoil a minute of it for you. You have all the set up you need and my promise that if you enjoyed these movies as much as me growing up, that you are going to have a fun time. It has moments that will make you cringe, jump, shiver and smile. The film makers did their job in not only keeping very close to the source material and the feel of the original films, but in also bringing something new to the story. It hits home and at the end I couldn’t wait to get a chance to see it again.

  It is graphic and violent, so no worries there as well. Jane Levy’s performance as Mia, throughout the whole film makes you really fear being left alone in a room with her, especially when she is contained below the cabin in the dark basement and the only thing between her and the camera is a flight of rotting stairs. So many times I wanted to shut the trap door myself, but the cameramen must have known that keeping the audience close to her was scarier then not knowing where she was. Though I wont lie…that’s not too comforting either.

  So let me highly recommend you take the time to go see this late at night while it still runs in theaters. You can feel better after watching this movie that not every reboot automatically means sub par quality. This reboot is worth every bit the ticket price.