+1 Blog of Rants and Opinions

"OMG!!! I think he's gay!!!" - part 3

2009-02-25T20:52:00.000-08:00

Because two panics were not enough, because men and boys should face abuse and violence for doing something different, the Third Panic is upon us all...

There will be mantyhose ("The exposure to these fabrics and colors are homosexualizing this manly man!", says the team of scientific researchers)...there will be fifth-grade boys doing double dutch ("He must be pushed down the stairs! For America! For masculinity!", says the group of immature schoolchildren)...and just when you think that's all, the truth will emerge...

Oh My God!!! I think he's gay!!! - part 3 - Victims of the Bullies
[/end movie trailer voice (and add tie-in videogame footage that involves bloody-horned-unicorn-riding-grim-reapers-with-chainsaw-maces)]

Perhaps I should know better by now, but why is it that such bullshit marginalization of men that participate in 'girly' things is so tolerated, yet when simpering wimps like Johannes Mehserle shoot normal guys like Oscar Grant, we don't go making fun of them by calling them Joanne and making limp-wristed caricatures to drive home the point that stuff like this should not be considered manly? Isn't using the threats of harassment and violence to keep men from doing certain things the right thing to do? Then it should be perfectly fine to humiliate idiots like said simpering wimp above and anyone else that does the same thing. If we're lucky, no policeman in his right mind would dare shoot a black man in such an unjustified way out of fear of having their manhood questioned, since having your manhood questioned is the worst thing that could happen to us fragile, delicate, unstable men. That of course assumes the above-mentioned shame tactic is both effective and properly applied...

Maybe shaming men and boys out of 'girly' things isn't very effective since for every one that gets beaten to death and featured in the news (if they're that lucky), another one will appear and do something they're not supposed to do. Maybe if the bloodthirsty, psychopathic masses that can pick on people minding their own business were to turn their anger on just a fraction of the people at the top that are directly responsible for our current economic crisis, said people at the top would clearly get the message not to fuck with those they're supposed to serve if they want to continue to be seen as the proper, upstanding men we're supposed to take them for (and not get pushed down the stairs at their jobs by blue-collar thugs).
Unfortunately, I look back at the idiocy that such "hey, men aren't allowed to do that! get 'em!" attitudes produce and dreadfully look forward to the idiocy that it will bring in the future, knowing well that for all the freedom and choice I'm supposed to have in life, my options are limited to either acting and looking like I have the power that men are supposed to have or to take abuse from some moron who thinks he has power.

Post-Election LOL-a-thon

2008-11-12T15:20:00.000-08:00

All those voters out there who gave Obama such a electoral victory that he got twice as much votes as McCain didn't need my help to do it, no siree. Judging by a couple conversations I overheard while on the bus, there were enough voters who supported him just to have a black man as President with not much of an idea of what he's done. A week later after the election and I haven't heard anyone bring up details on Barack's past...or Michelle's for that matter. It wouldn't be so freakishly amusing in the latter case except I've heard so much more about Michelle Obama supposedly being a fashion savant or something to that effect. So, just what do I see when I finally hunt down a story about this famous red and black dress from election night?

It's a bland if not ugly dress, and here I am wondering if maybe my sense of fashion is more fucked up than I think it is, since I am a straight guy and it's not a straight guy's job to be into what constitutes the latest in style. Maybe I'm biased since the only other fashionably dressed member of royalty I have for quick reference in the back of my head is Princess Natalia Luzu Kimlasca-Lanvaldear...

with a dress so pretty...

I don't care that this scene was added to the anime and not in the original game...because I didn't get to see it that much when I played.

Whatever the reason, it could simply be yet another Obama-related pop-culture meme, like the Joebama fanfic, the bastardization of "What 'bout my star?" into "Obama star", and other things I'm sure I have yet to see. Thankfully, I've not spotted any Obama-themed "Motteke! Serafuku!" or "Hare Hare Yukai" dances yet, so I have that much more sanity to hang on to...

Knock The Vote

2008-09-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Back when I turned 18 in 2000 and registered to vote for the first time, I had no idea that I would be as...jaded (is this the word I'm looking for here) toward the election process. Even back when my voting decisions were influenced by my grandparents and they made a habit of mocking campaign ads on television, I didn't think some negativity about the candidates would put me in the mind state that I've spent the last few months in. After eliminating "bitterness concerning the candidates I've voted for" and "expecting candidate X from Y for office Z to be a near-perfect person" as possible reasons, the conclusion that I've arrived at is that the presidential candidates and the scandals plaguing them are simply laughable when not outright scary.

What do I mean by that? Well, let's take the news that yet another high-ranking Republican was revealed to be a fag. Incrementing the "outed gay Republicans" counter by one isn't as amusing as the fact that the people this guy runs with happen to not really like gays. What I find laughable about this is that it comes after Palin being picked as McCain's VP and everyone who's paid enough attention knows that she's been endorsed by ~~Focus on the Family~~ some bunch of far-right crazies. If it weren't for the fact that I don't believe these bastards actually know biblical morality beyond anything that can be used to whip up sexual panics, I'd be flabbergasted that McCain still hasn't proven himself to be 'maverick' enough to renounce his support for amnesty. Not even when the economy is definitely under pressure to the point of calling off his campaign for it.

While I'm sure Obama was supposed to be some great inspirational black figure back when the primaries were the next big event, that's all but gone for me now. Though I didn't care about the "radical black preacher" crap from earlier this year, this whole connection-to-a-terrorrist thing represents a new low. It's a low that may very well cast unfair suspicion toward any future black presidential candidates all because Obama didn't have the sense to consider this before taking that first direct step toward being the Democrats' choice for president. As for Biden, all my lazy ass needs to know about him for now is that he has given us proof that men and women will not be treated equally under law - otherwise know as VAWA. Apparently it's okay to have mandatory minimums for drug use, very harsh sentences against men who batter women, and women receiving lighter sentences for violent crime, yet we need an unconstitutional law that serves as proof that equality is not what's really being sought?

I may just be unnecessarily negative about all this, and I do realize that some people in the past have risked a lot for people like me to be able to vote. Unfortunately, I fear they must be turning in their graves if not cursing us from purgatory for selecting lunatics to run for the highest and most important office in the country. Far from the 'hope' Obama tries so hard to symbolize, I hope looking back on this election, I'll wonder why I didn't beg a few yaoi fangirls to make Ted Haggard x Karl Rove (for lack of a better couple) doujins and mass mail the damned things to every Republican official everytime one of them is outed. After hoping I never see said doujins in my life, I'll wonder if the public gets the irony of thinking anime is a fad for kids and losers when the two women that have captured so much attention are essentially a meganekko and a tsundere even though those words will never be used to describe them in mainstream discussion. It sure would beat memories of a massive economic breakdown and catastrophic war against half of the Middle East going hand in hand. That and I wouldn't feel so...dirty knowing that October 4 sticks more in my mind as the day that the first Tales of the Abyss animation episode will be out rather than the last day to register to vote according to a volunteer that I met on the way to work a few days ago.

Given a choice between rolling on the floor and laughing at the election proceedings and deciding who to vote for as the next President of the United States, I'm heavily inclined toward the former, since McCain and Obama just haven't convinced me enough that either of them are deserving of my vote, let alone that election politics is actually about trying to do what's best for the country and not just being a ruse meant to deceive the common voter.

Hollywood And Its Discontents

2008-08-14T14:13:00.000-07:00

Call me an inexperienced youngin, but upon reading about a supposed deficit of heroism in Hollywood, skepticism was my first reaction. Though apparently all of these superhero films seem to do good in terms of sales regardless of how many people claim to be sick of them (Dark Knight FTW!), it seems that they're not about real heroism so much as about how removed from reality they are. I'm sure it should be obvious to the most casual of observers that superhero movies cannot portray anything real so much as offer a parable or lesson as the crude, coarse, modern equivalent of (insert classical genre format here). Were this the only point the author tried to make, the article could be written off as one of the less harmful pieces of trend journalism. Unfortunately, the issues of 'victim' and 'whistleblower' heroes are introduced and for me at least, the article went downhill from there.

"The point of all three of the kinds of hero in which Hollywood has specialized over the last 35 years has been to make sure that heroism can continue to exist only on a plane far removed from the daily lives of the audience."

To say it is far removed from the daily audience's lives is unnecessary at best and false at worst. If these kinds of heroism were that far removed from daily life, then I would not have read so many articles from journalist and non-journalist alike on things like: how Obama/McCain will fuck up the country if elected president, the importance of having some political representative fight against gay marriage/global warming/immigration/sexualization of children, or why it's important for victims of rape/child abuse/censorship to speak up and do something about it. Such heated subjects clearly invite victims and whistleblowers fighting the corrupt systems that make these things possible. Whatever historical context may have created these archetypes in current cinema and culture, to deny it has close connection to its audience's lives heavily suggests that pop culture should only focus on the stereotypical concerns of the middle class, which would make pop culture slightly less self-absorbed than it is now. Other than that, the denial is there to expose a blind spot that an author older and wiser than 25-year old me should not have.

One response to the article linked above does get some things right that the original missed. Once again though, it goes downhill when trying to explain the victim and whistle-blower hero as if it were confined solely to the concerns of Hollywood:

"If you're Stephen Gaghan, or Joss Whedon, or Alan Ball (AMERICAN BEAUTY) and you actually care that a studio exec was rude to you, or cheated you out of an extra million that was due you (leaving you only $8 million on the deal), and that forms your whole social environment, then yes, of course your view of heroes would be either nihilistic, middle-class society rejecting anti-heroes, or whistle-blowers who show "how corrupt the system is." Of course Hollywood is corrupt. But Hollywood is not America."

Wrong, due to the example I gave in the larger paragraph above. True, you may not want to think of someone who shares your politics is a 'victim' or 'whistle-blower', but when you see a pundit on TV or read one of their articles on a website acting as if society will turn unbearably more evil if their talking point is not heeded, they are trying to be that hero themselves or hoping someone else will fill the role. Just because such a person doesn't explicitly reject middle-class values (or properly embody them for that matter) doesn't make this problem all about Hollywood and the egomaniacs that exist there.

"...Which leaves the cartoon/superhero as the only venue for heroism, and that far removed from both ordinary society, but embodying the "Big Man" jerk-style personal behaviors that Hollywood writers and producers have adopted as the norm."

This is an even bigger blind spot than before, simply because pretending that the "Big Man" jerk is only adopted as the norm by Hollywood requires lots of concentration. I don't think I'd have nearly enough strength of mind to ignore the fact that there are more women attracted to jerks until it's time to play victim - while despising the weakness of guys that don't act big enough, or that presidental election coverage has repeatedly forgone focusing on the candidates' real views and plans to feverishly point out how 'unmanly' one's behaviors are. I know damned well that the American public likes its men to at least act big, if only to reassure them that large numbers of men won't undergo testicle shrinkage followed by a preference for some things 'girly'. Nevermind that somehow our ancestors and others around the world today somehow manage(d) to have bigger concerns than feeling a need to constantly reassure others that they're real men (is it that easy for some to forget?)...

One other problem that both of the authors miss is that to really drive their respective points home, all they had to do was invoke the dread specter of "Liberal Hollywood" and how it has ruined nearly everything. From there, it's only a hop, step, and a skip away to imply that if liberals and their problems were removed from Hollywood, it would once again be an arbiter of all that is right and moral. For that extra jolt of silliness, they could even explain why people should look to Hollywood of all places for examples of heroism rather than to non-fiction books and real people. It sure as hell would've made things more understandable than simply pointing the finger at Hollywood and blaming away.

The Comic-Con 2008 Post

2008-07-31T14:20:00.000-07:00

...now with less to say than the 2006 Comic-Con posts and not indexed by time...

Whether it comes from convention-goer fatigue or the fact that I was only there for one and one-third days this time, I'm almost thinking that this was not a very impressive event this year. Highlights of Saturday (since all that really happened for me on Friday was getting Lego Street Fighter figures after volunteering with the blood drive) include:

Actually playing a match of Street Fighter IV long enough to find that Chun-Li's projectile attack is now a back->forward move instead of a 180 degree motion - after losing round 1 and blocking like hell against a Sagat player for the first half of round 2. Along with that change, the last hit of her multiple-kick super combo apparently has a backflip added on to it, though that may have only been at the highest gauge level.

Watching other people play the new Ghostbusters game, Crysis Warhead, the Warhammer MMO, and some other things I don't remember yet.

Playing the next Castlevaina game on DS (which I found to be better than Castlevania Judgment), Megaman 9, Soul Calibur IV (the only thing really gathering crowds at Namco's booth), and the new Bionic Commando.

Wondering whether or not to buy a few things and in the end leaving almost empty-handed:
- The Revoltech Yotsuba figure (at page bottom on the right) - declined since I wanted the sold-out Danboard figure (at page bottom on the left) more.
- Something of Yuki Nagato - declined since the only thing I found that wasn't in the "mystery prize" category was $30 and the booth didn't take debit.
The Mythbusters panel, where the hosts answered a few questions and showed some clips of next season's stuff and of "sobering up myths" (including a slow-mo slap to the face and very bad results from running on a treadmill while drunk).

The Masquerade, while slightly different than the last time I saw it, was still entertaining enough with "Nintendont's Brawl: The Musical" among other things. I only wish we could've seen the remains of the costume that spontaneously combusted or at least been told what it was...

Tales of The Last Hope...XIII

2008-07-17T16:06:00.000-07:00

Why, oh why did I not take E3 into account back when I was feeling buyer's remorse over that XBox 360 purchase? Even though I couldn't have predicted Final Fantasy 13 no longer being a PlayStation 3 exclusive (or wouldn't have been willing to believe it), the fact that tri-Ace was already working on Infinite Undiscovery (hopefully the game will be better than the title) could've been a good clue that Star Ocean: The Last Hope would also be on XBox 360 - and maybe even another Valkyrie Profile in a few years - had I been clear minded enough to see it.

Though such news was uplifting for me, a roommate that just bought a PS3 mainly for FF13 was a bit disappointed, though at least Versus 13 wasn't also announced for the 360. I should've told him not to feel so bummed unless Kingdom Hearts 3 (and you just know there'll be one once the DS and PSP games are released) also loses PS3 exclusivity...or never gets it to begin with.

Though the demos for Tales of Vesperia and Too Human are now available for download, I'll either have to wait a few days or upgrade my Live account to gold status since silver members don't always get first access to new stuff. I'd rather wait since buying a gold membership that's not going to be used often isn't very appealing. Hell, the $8 toward a 1-month membership will be better spent on ToV as soon as 1)It's released and I have the money for it, 2)It gets good enough reviews, and 3)I'm sure it won't get in the way of my current Tales of the Abyss playthrough of about 15 hours.

This Testicle Will Self-Destruct In Five Seconds

2008-06-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

Of all the things society can get away with, threatening a man's sexuality has to be one of the most idiotic, especially when the issue at hand isn't something as serious as endocrine disruption or excessive drug use but a goddamned summer movie that appeals mostly to women called Sex In The City. Simply not having enough interest in the movie or the show it's based doesn't seem to be enough for some people though, and so we get one "gay panic" article of several along with quite a few confused commenters not quite getting that gay men and women aren't the only targets being aimed at or that it isn't about men not being the center of attention. One such commenter also asks if Sex In The City turns men gay, can Iron Man turn a woman lesbian. It's a nice question, except that if there were a flood of articles on the internet daring to assert such a thing, it would clearly be labeled in no small part of the blogosphere as misogynist, homophobic, etc. in far larger numbers that what's going on here since that's what happens when enough women don't like what an article says about them (one thing to remember about the Forbes.com article concerning career women). In the meantime, we get to pretend that men can easily turn gay and deserve nothing but mockery for it without any more than a murmur of misandry in the crowd, much in the way that the spell checker picks up misogyny but not misandry.

Since I'm in a cynical mood as usual, I'll go so far as to call these gay panic articles for what I see them as - word of mouth marketing. Even if that was all it was, I don't see exactly why it was necessary to take this approach when one thing Sex And The City already had going for it was that the leading stars were female (despite the "gay men in drag" snark from a NY Times piece) in a summer season where most movies are supposed to be male-dominated. Oiling up the hype machine with the ol' sex anxiety snake oil wasn't necessary for anything besides subsidizing the snake oil salesmen and getting frustrated consumers to see SATC just because they're pissed off at what some article writer suggests about some peoples' sexuality. If 'Wall-E' beating out 'Wanted' in the first week is any indication of a trend, maybe the fact that SATC also got #1 over Indiana Jones in it's opening week points to a trend of moviegoers not being that interested in action movies when given a choice between it and another genre. If that's the case, then this is sufficient enough of an explanation for me as to how this summer's movies can be expected to do (and why the videogame industry is still raking it in), though it doesn't immediately invite ridiculous attacks on heterosexual male sexuality, and I guess that's not as important to some people.

Shock, Or Crock?

2008-05-22T23:42:00.000-07:00

One week after the decision by the California Supreme Court on same-sex marriage, I have to say all the controversy surrounding it is just more election-year crockery. Of course, the same arguments as always are offered, though anyone who doesn't fear some bozo with a bible anymore than they would fear two guys kissing can cut through it all without much effort. Let us consider the issues at stake:

If we must follow everything the bible says and believe in it's inerrancy, then why in the hell did a PA bill that would've banned gay marriage get rejected for an amendment proposing to outlaw divorce except in extreme cases - a bill that could've passed in a Republican-controlled Senate and therefore "protect the sanctity of marriage"? (Isn't there something or other in the bible about how "whatever God joins, let not man separate"?) Furthermore, why aren't we calling for the execution of adulterers like Republican Vito Fossella? Leviticus 20:10 states "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death", so there certainly is a case for it. Better yet, let us ask where do we draw the line with biblically-mandated killing and the commandment not to kill, which makes for one glaring contradiction in an 'inerrant' work. After that, a discussion on whether to threaten homebuilders with eternal damnation for not putting fences around the roof of a new house is in order...

If we are to believe that heterosexual relations will be threatened by this, then what do we make of the lack of support for banning divorce, since that surely threatens marriage? Somehow I seriously doubt that your average organization of religious nuts will make a public statement decrying the evils of divorce as often and readily as they will against same-sex marriage, and the lack of public discussion over a "divorce lobby" (as opposed to the "gay lobby") is enough to support my point. It should be noted that of all the problems men have with marriage, hordes of homos wanting to join in never seem to have a significant part in the discussion. As long as the marriage strike goes on, it's not like denying or granting marriage to others is going to matter anyway and yet I get the vibe that I'm not supposed to care about that much, only how to define part of my manhood as being in opposition to men that really like men...big deal.

By the way, if public displays of affection are anything to go by, this generation of youngsters could care less as long as no one disturbs them from smooching at the bus stop. Maybe I'm reading it wrong though and they could be trying to get in every last touch and kiss before a black helicopter full of homofascists arrests the two and tosses them in a gulag, not that I've heard of it happening.

One other thing: is it me, or is all of this objection only directed at free citizens and taxpayers engaging in voluntary, consensual homosexuality and not at prison inmates being forced into it? I'm hoping it's me, because the thought of anti-gay people either secretly getting off on or completely ignoring the latter is about the only thing more ridiculous than the way they act as if heterosexual attraction is just gonna dry up and waste away unless we take lots of precious time to harass, put down, and physically harm gays mostly for existing and occasionally interacting with heterosexuals.

While I am a little upset that discussion of whatever voter referendum it was that banned gay marriage in California hasn't been mentioned much, I don't recall public majority opinion being as important before the war in Iraq began, or now as steadily increasing gas prices make things worse for car owners, among other issues with strong public opinion. Instead we just hear about how (insert institution here) is more important than what a bunch of public nobodies say or think. Then they wonder why some of the younger generation succumb to political apathy...

One Year Later With A Two Core Processor

2008-05-21T20:42:00.000-07:00

It's good to see that the machine I built last year still works great, though being the geek that I am (and seeing systems with quad-core Phenom processors at the same price that I spent), the urge to have parts more up to date - such as a GeForce 9600GT - is rearing its ugly head either despite or because of current financial issues.

In using the live CD for 64-bit Ubuntu Linux 8.04, I've learned just how incompatible things can be from 32-bit to 64-bit, experiencing difficulties in getting the wireless internet to stay up more than 2 minutes and finding that old C++ / C# executables won't run. For all the hype I've heard about 64-bit processors and operating systems being the norm in the next few years, this is not a good first impression. The only reason this experience wasn't a complete downer was the fact that this was Linux and not Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Whee! My First Comment

2008-04-30T22:51:00.000-07:00

After nearly two years of maintaining this blog, I finally get a comment in my "Crisis Bore" post. Sad, isn't it? Sad that it took that long to get a comment, sad that I rarely check my blog enough for comments and note that it went undetected for almost a month, and sad that this post's title actually makes it sound like a sarcastic moment of joy. If that's not enough sad for you, now I try to check out the commenter's blog only to find that it's been removed...boo hoo.

April Is For Fools

2008-04-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

Ah...the wonders of having a hacked PSP...well, that's what I could be saying, except that would require having taken advantage of the hacking by doing something like playing Cave Story, or trying my hand at homebrew coding myself. Instead all I have to show for it is a barely-played copy of Lumines ordered on eBay and a recently-completed copy of Crisis Core that has left me slightly disappointed for several reasons of my own making:

Too damned short and easy (solution: replay on hard mode and do more than the first mission offered)

Not enough ~~Aerith~~ Cissnei (solution: same as above until her DMW percentage is 100%)

Subtle 'stabs' at political allegory (solution: laugh it off as a result of all the media hype about the election/nomination/scandal-of-the-week)

With that said, what kind of fool would need to hurt someone for a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV? Let me get it out of the way now and say that I won't be surprised at all if someone out there actually gets around to blaming the game itself for the violence that someone would resort to in order to get the game. I should be glad that such a thing hasn't happened at my place of work yet...as far as I know.

What kind of fool would act outraged over some tame photos of ~~Hannah Montana~~ Miley Cyrus? I'm more unnerved over whatever face she's supposed to be making in that first photo. Looks like a 'gimme yo copy of Grand Theft Auto IV before I stab yo bitch azz' face to me - if a famous teenybopper girl can make that kind of face, that is. If the other eye were open, it could even be a 'you have done well to make it this far mister Zack Fair, but now you must DIE!' face.

What kind of fool would expect Queen's "Keep Yourself Alive" to sound anything near similar to the multiple versions of "Keep Yourself Alive" from the Guilty Gear series solely on the logic that if Sol-Badguy is the fusion of the game's creator and Freddie Mercury, then his theme tune would also be a mixture of original music with the original - and then be in for quite the shock at how...retro-sounding 70's rock sounds? Well, that would be me, and let's face it - robbing people over a game that 'promotes' robbery and freaking out over a teenage actress' bare shoulder/upper back/upper torso are far more foolish.

Crisis Bore

2008-03-31T21:38:00.000-07:00

The good news: I've gotten my copy of Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII for $32 the weekend it came out. Not bad considering how I missed out on the releases of King of Fighters XI, Devil May Cry 4, and some other games upon the week they were released.

The bad news: Said copy of Crisis Core is sitting in a bag, unopened for two reasons; 1) An anticipated financial rough spot in the next week, which will result in me getting a refund if it happens, and 2) The game's firmware requirements (3.90 if I'm correct) - meaning either I can upgrade my PSP firmware from the official 3.30 to the official 3.90, locking the system out of any custom firmwares, or wait until I get a copy of Lumines from eBay, attempt to downgrade my PSP and get the latest working custom firmware, all while ever-so-slightly risking the PSP becoming bricked and thus unplayable.

The worse news: No blog layout change since whenever it was first announced, and another election-year month of crazy news items, easily summarizable in a format reminiscent of Harry Potter book titles:

*Eliot Spitzer and the Over-Priced Prostitute: Just as some "family values" people have managed to support anti-gay policies only to get caught up in the behavior they denounce, he goes after the same kind of people that he eventually became connected to. Of course, I doubt we'll hear of how straight guys are just hopelessly addicted to sexual sin and that it defines them entirely, or that the next time some openly gay person in public office gets in trouble that we'll see their partner standing behind them, but it would be something new for my cynical mind.

*Barack Obama and the Loud-Mouthed Preacher: Honestly, I don't see why Obama should have to distance himself so much because his pastor says some things similar to what other pastors have said, and why this is supposed to be all so discrediting. If we're going to discredit Obama over his past, there's other areas that would make more sense.

*The Iraq War and the 4,000 Dead Soldiers: I still remember back before the war how some around me believed that the war would be so quick and effortless, only to be given the false positive that was "Mission Accomplished" leading to this. It's not the body count that gets me here so much as the rock and the hard place that this country is between upon either withdrawing or sending in more troops and extending the time we spend over there. The icing on this cake of insanity is undoubtedly the way Cheney and his ilk were speaking out against messing around in Iraq some 10 years ago...we all know now just how much they really believed that.

*Brett Favre and the Questioned Manhood: Here's a guy who has had one long career with some accomplishments and moments of greatness who lets his guard down at the wrong time (while he was still in the camera sights) and he gets attacked for being a woman - by a woman. It wasn't funny when the press did it to Hillary, and it's not funny here. I'm just glad Favre was a retiring athlete and not a political contender, or this would be the beginning of the attacks and not the end (just look at how they treat Obama). What a way to send mixed signals that our men are supposed to be more than uncaring, unemotional brutes, then punish them for stepping out of said uncaring, unemotional appearance...[/sarcasm]

I have to conclude that you know the news - or rather what makes the news - is uninspiring and bad when you don't look forward to it as much as the plot (or in the case of Advent Children, the fight scenes) of yet another spinoff in a cash-cow franchise.

P.S.- My apologies to anyone who finds this post by search and thinks I'm bashing the game just by looking at the title...

"OMG!!! I think he's gay!!!" - part 2

2008-02-20T21:50:00.000-08:00

Last year, there was "OMG!!! I think he's gay!!!" - part 1 (cue hair-raising screams)...and now from the same blogger that bought you that unseen original comes the sequel...

"OMG!!! I think he's gay!!!" - part 2 : Shoot 'em up!
Now with more sexual discomfort and expectations of male violence! Just when they thought it was safe to assume a supposedly heterosexual schoolkid could ignore another supposedly homosexual schoolkid, a gun will be fired (cue gunshot and more hair-raising screams) and a community will be shaken.

[end 'movie trailer voice' here]

Honestly, I'm not going to waste time pretending to be surprised, appalled, or even pleased that yet another case of anti-gay bullying has resulted in the loss of another male life - that of one *Lawrence King. While a woman who dresses like a man may very well become the next President of the United States (at the time of this writing), a boy who dresses like a girl gets a gunshot to the head. Even more depressing than that is how quickly some are to think passing a bunch of laws will be a better step than to encourage 'sexual minorities' to become just as violent and ready to kick ass as their 'normal' peers are supposed to be.

For all the claims that our culture is awash in violent entertainment, no one seems to be able to take away a really important message - that being ready and able to defend oneself is a better option than hoping your enemies will stop on their own or that someone else will save you. I can't recall any movie I've watched or game I've played where one is rewarded more for taking abuse than taking serious action (often violent) against the source of the abuse. Before anyone tries to state the obvious, yes, I know it isn't always possible.

Another thing I'll point out is how misguided some are to claim 'hypermasculinity' is the cause for these kinds of events (not that 'hyperfemininity' seems to get blamed for much). How can people think some moron is hypermasculine for killing a helpless kid over sexual issues when that same moron could have easily went around flirting with (and probably picking up) the girls on campus? Surely displaying the 'aggressiveness' to pursue available girls for courtship purposes would be more 'manly' than killing a boy who probably made no hostile gestures toward you, no? The fact that such misguided souls can consider events like this 'hypermasculine' in the first place represents societal corruption in and of itself. Passing this corruption onto otherwise normal developing boys while teaching them to give up 'girlier' interests and lash out in rage at the slightest questioning of their sexuality has to be the gift that keeps on giving to crooked politicians and religious lunatics alike. It virtually guarantees a steady supply of men that can be made into examples of why we need this law or that program. If that weren't enough, idiots like you-know-who try to convince the gullible that the presence of sensible gays (not to mention the fringes) is a nation-dooming sin; this while not spending nearly enough time and effort to remind the 'normal heterosexual man' that God wouldn't be pleased with all of the bullying and killing being done in his name - unless you know, certain parts of the Bible aren't really true.

All that's left for me to do in light of this tragedy and that other school shooting is to give the true victims (meaning not the gunmen) a moment of silence and wait for the day a bullied gay kid will actually punch/slice/shoot the hell out of a would-be bully. That will be a truly surprising day.

*edited at 12AM 2/25/08 because I forgot to add the shooting victim's name the first time...

THIS...IS...SPARDA!

2008-01-27T17:55:00.000-08:00

If I were the kind of person who sees a lot of movies, I might be more distressed over the whole death-of-Heath-Ledger thing. Going by some responses on the internet, he was such a good actor that actually did other films besides ~~teh ghey cowboy movie~~ Brokeback Mountain. The only other thing I remember about him was about his part as the Joker in the next Batman film.

Since I'm not a moviegoing person these days, there's another hot issue on my mind now - the upcoming Devil May Cry 4. Playing the demo over the past few days has been a nice calming way to spend time before and after going to class. Hopefully the full game will be as good as Devil May Cry 3 and nowhere near as bad as the second...

Another thing that I somehow missed until a few days ago was something called "Meet The Spartans". Sure, I could have seen the trailer on YouTube - and maybe that'll come later - but I was too lazy (or too busy trying to find recently posted King of Fighters XI/Neo Geo Battle Coliseum/Guilty Gear XX Accent Core matches).

Happy Christmas And A Merry New Year

2007-12-31T22:30:00.000-08:00

So I went out and bought an Xbox 360 Pro at $350 for a personal Christmas gift, though I wanted a Wii but either a)couldn't find one at the normal $250 price or b)would have been forced to pay $500 for the system plus extra controller, 3 games of my choice (of which the two I wanted weren't available), and some other accessory. The original plan was to get the $399 PS3...until I found out it has no backwards compatibility (so much for the backlog of games on my list such as Valkyrie Profile 2, Tales of the Abyss (or Legendia), and Xenosaga III). I should be much happier than before with a current-gen console, but then again, there's this thing they call "buyer's remorse" that must be affecting me.

Right now, the only things I can think of looking forward to in early 2008 are Devil May Cry 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, and how long it will take before any New Year's resolutions I make are kicked to the curb and left to die in the cold.

The list of things that happened for me this year includes but is not limited to: my PS2 dying after 5 years, getting a temporary job during NBA All-Star weekend and missing a chance to see Kobe Bryant, getting a non-temporary job 3 weeks after that, having a new car after 6 months of going without one, missing out on San Diego Comic-Con 2007 and Evo 2007, laughing my ass off at the media coverage of some fool named Larry Craig and all of the other idiots who profess "family values" only to get caught up in "teh gay !!11", moving back to San Diego to go back to school, and thankfully not having to evacuate during the whole Southern California Wildfire thing.

Here's to hoping that things turn out great in 2008 - or that at least life won't absolutely suck...

Not Much To Talk About

2007-11-30T01:26:00.000-08:00

You know, there should have been a post for last month, but I just couldn't get around to it, especially once those Southern California Wildfires struck. At one point, I had half of my stuff packed into my car and was staying up all night ready to pack the other half if one of the fires had gotten any closer to the house. Even though the fire didn't come any closer, I still had my stuff in the car, and if I wasn't sleeping for a few hours at a time, I was slacking around when I should have been studying for a test or typing up a research paper. Not only was there no post for October, but no layout change either, and at this point, I'm even contemplating deleting this blog no later than the end of January if I can't make anything about it entertaining on a regular basis to the few visitors that drop by here, some of which are still searching for 'sixteen volts blog'.

In anticipation of some of the newer anime out this season, I recently finished Nanoha StrikerS [while good, it doesn't beat season two, even with the battles against Cyborganization XIII...I mean, the "Numbers"], Kanon (2006) [much better than the original from 2002, with happier endings all around], and Ouran High School Host Club [way too cliche of an ending for me, and something of a chore to watch past one episode or another] to get some of the old stuff out of the way.

My PSP and DS have been somewhat neglected compared to World of Warcraft, though I have been getting back into Phantom Hourglass (why I assumed I would need bombs to get into the second dungeon instead of just picking up the rocks on the way, I don't know, but it did keep me stuck for a while) and regularly playing Tekken: Dark Resurrection (which doesn't help much if I still lose against nearly every human player).

One last thing to note here is that this is the first post in linux - specifically, Ubuntu 7.10 - since the change from 'old' Blogger to 'new' Blogger almost a year ago. Though I did set up my system to dual boot with the master boot record on a floppy disk, this was replaced by installing a second hard drive.

This Isn't Going The Way I Expected...

2007-09-30T22:11:00.000-07:00

Once again, I'm posting at the end of the month and it's the only post of the month. Once again, I've promised some kind of layout change that I didn't deliver on. It's not that I like blogging this way, but between work and play (and now school), I just can't seem to keep a focus on making newer, better postings. Sad, I know...

Before going back to school, I was mildly excited about taking new courses toward my major, and had thought I'd be able to keep up in class. Apparently, that's not the case here. I knew work would get in the way a little, but adding to that, being out of school for a year has made me forget a few things here and there. Falling asleep while trying to read out of the textbook doesn't help much either...

In gaming, Halo 3 has broken some records, not that I'm surprised in the least, oh no...(earlier this year, I saw a blue sportscar in Las Vegas with the license plate "HALO 3"). I wanted to buy Jeanne D' Arc since I've been waiting for it once word got out that Level 5 was behind it, but decided not to for now since I don't play my PSP much (and wasn't sure whether to get the newer 2000 model). One of the bigger pieces of news for me out of this year's Tokyo Game Show was news on the three new Kingdom Hearts games - one I'll most likely never play (for mobile phones), another with a weird name (for DS), and yet another with blatantly recycled character designs (for PSP). I'm still playing World of Warcraft, now with a Draenei Hunter in addition to the Blood Elf Mage created several months back. As for Growlanser: Heritage of War, I never did get that, and the lack of easy-to-find review scores doesn't give me enough of an idea of whether it's worth buying or not.

In case you've ever wondered why "posted in windows" is a post label, it's because I'm planning on installing Linux to the same hard drive as Windows Vista. Success with Ubuntu almost came earlier this week, except that I didn't want the master boot record overwritten, so I tried to have it installed elsewhere, only to fail. Eventually the job will be done right, if the boot record has to be written on a floppy disk or a distribution other than Ubuntu has to be used.

Back To School - Yay Or Nay?

2007-08-31T23:42:00.000-07:00

I suppose you knew it was coming if you've read the 'about me' section. Yes, after spending more than a year in Las Vegas when I originally planned for a three-month visit, I am back in San Diego. Not that I'm really excited though, you see...if the difference in housing prices between the two cities weren't enough to worry about already, there's my schedule. Hopefully taking Linear Algebra, Artificial Intelligence, Operating Systems, and Algorithms all in the same semester won't be too overwhelming for my mind. If I'm lucky, I might even be able to immediately apply some of what I am to learn to the games I keep trying to create in DirectX/SDL only to get distracted by something else and give up.

About the layout, I might change it in the next month to celebrate my birthday, but more on that later - particularly if I can get out of this one-post-per-month rut I'm stuck in now.

It's All A Buch Of Hype

2007-07-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

Not that I care much about the state of politics as it is now, but if there's anything that might 'cure' me of my cynicism, some guy that goes by the name of Ron Paul could do it - besides, one of my coworkers claims to be one of his grassroots supporters. As far as Hillary, Romney, and the others go, I'm more than a little bored with the way their campaigns are going. By now, I'm no longer surprised that few political figures go public on the need to curb illegal immigration, and I'm not surprised that certain Republican sex-baiting loudmouths can't even live by their own example. I'd have more respect for them if they did something more constructive, like raise hell over Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (the way they did over Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)...without reading too much into that title.

If I was the type of person who went to the movies these days, I'd feel a bit bummed about not going to see Transformers or The Simpsons Movie. Actually, now that I think about it, I feel a little icky not remembering the original 80's Transformers in addition to ignoring the newer Transformers Armada series. Besides, while the reviews I've seen for Transformers are mixed, those for The Simpsons Movie lean more toward the positive. Maybe missing out on Transformers wasn't so bad after all...

In yet another change from this time last year, I did not go to San Diego Comic Con due to personal problems...personal problems that wouldn't allow for a two-way road trip totaling 11 hours, starting and ending in Las Vegas. Thus there will be no report of my activities there this year...because there were none to speak of.

There's some cheer somewhere in this post though, and that's due to me finding out that Growlanser: Heritage of War [YouTube video] will actually be getting released in the US. Even though I doubt I'll find any of Satoshi Urushihara's female character designs as sexy as Growlanser 3's Annette Burns [worksafe | not worksafe] (you may have to copy the links and paste the address in a new tab/window to view) this time around, the gameplay looks different enough from that in Growlanser Generations [YouTube video] to make it worth buying. The fact that it's only going to have one Limited Edition print run also doesn't leave much room for waiting until later. That said, I think I could've slipped a Peanuts reference in this paragraph somewhere - lemme know if you find out where. :)

I Seem To Have Missed A Lot This Month

2007-06-30T01:26:00.000-07:00

There's been too much that I've missed out on this month. "Like what?", you ask? We have the Spurs winning the NBA finals 4-0 over the Cavs (I'd have thought they'd win one game), some government plan about a 'gay bomb' (I'd love to see Focus on the Family or some group like them condemn that waste of thought as sinful and immoral), the death of Chris Benoit and his family (haven't watch WWE much since it was WWF, so I don't care as much as when Owen Hart fell and hit his head), Manhunt 2 getting an Adults Only rating (which is equivalent to an outright ban thanks to Nintendo's and Sony's policies), Paris Hilton acting like a damned fool over a 45-day sentence (let's face it...it's not that bad no matter how much she cried), and other assorted brouhaha.

Why didn't I cover any of it? For one, World of Warcraft has been eating up some of my free time. You see, first came the 14-day trial, then purchase of the Burning Crusade during a sale where it was $25, then finding out I needed an active account to play it after I broke the seal on the box, then a call to billing support in which a woman implied rather unclearly that I could use a game card instead of buying the retail version, then a 60-day game card purchase, then failure to activate the account using the card, and finally, purchase of the retail game with success at creating a new account. The past couple of nights has been spent guiding a Blood Elf Mage through the forest, shooting fire and ice at anything that can be attacked.

As if that weren't enough, I've gotten back into programming with the DirectX SDK and SDL.net, where recent experience suggests that the latter will be preferred over the former for the next few weeks.

Finally, there's the anime. Besides Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, Lucky Star and Hayate no Gotoku are most of I've been watching (on my computer) thanks to a lack of cable TV in the house.

If I weren't so lazy upon coming home from work or waking up on my day off, there'd be more content here. Maybe I ought to dedicate 30 minutes a night to writing a blog topic or something...

A Better Monday Than My Last Boring Sunday

2007-05-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

Now that this blog has been here for a year, I can confidently say that I'm disappointed with how I've been maintaining things. I can't confidently say that I'll work harder to make more interesting posts and gain an audience...yet. Unlike last Memorial Day, I actually have a steady job this time around. It's also been nearly a week since I've swapped an old clunker of a Dell (1.3Ghz Pentium 4, 20+40GB hard drive, 128+256MB ram, 64MB GeForce 4 MX 420 video card, 4 USB 1.1 ports) for my new system that I built from scratch (1.86Ghz Core 2 Duo T4300, 320GB hard drive, 1GB ram, 256MB GeForce 7100GS video card, 6 USB 2.0 ports).

Have a nice (remainder of) Memorial Day!

Like The Last Post, Only For April

2007-04-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

I know that not much has been happening here on this blog, and I've been a little too lazy to try to write new posts. I'm sure if I'd put as much energy into writing what I think as I did watching Nanoha StrikerS (which, as of episode 3, is starting off rather slowly compared to the first two seasons) or playing lots of ATV Offroad Fury on the PSP (in which the Enduro races are frustrating), there could have been a couple of posts on something or the other. After upgrading my installation of Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.04, there may also be a few posts made in Linux as well.

Just So I Can Have An Entry Under 'March 2007'...

2007-03-31T23:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry about not being able to say much this month. Between getting a new job and having to take the bus for hours a day, there hasn't been much time for blogging. This means no part 2 of my previous post (yet) or site layout updates. However, for those of you that keep coming to my blog searching for "Ilkka Kokkarinen" or "Sixteen Volts", note that you'll probably want to go to Ilkka's new blog (with thanks to Mangan's Miscellany for the link!).

"OMG!!! I think he's gay!!!" - part 1

2007-02-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

Unless you've been living under a rock for quite some time now, you may have caught on to a sad phenomenon that has been affecting men for a while. What is it, you ask? Well, there seems to be a great big gay panic brought on anytime a man has interest in something other than beer, sports, violence, or quick and easy sex. For example, note that in recent column at Salon, a letter writer tells us of her friend, who apparently loves accusing her dates of being gay. Why? Because they're into aromatherapy or shopping for antique lead crystal. If that wasn't enough, they also like seeing a "stereotypically feminine female" in a negligee in addition to a home-cooked meal and wine. Wow...I dunno about you, but that sounds better than having some thug wanting to live a life right out of a gangsta rap album, complete with the hatred of men, women, and 'softness' that comes with that territory. Not that such hatred is going to be 'gay' anytime soon...

Just when you thought it was safe to think of art and aesthetics as things that mostly straight men have spent several centuries creating, here comes 2 Blowhards to ask why the topic of art is considered so gay in America (though the way the great big gay panic would have it, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a worldwide concern), complete with a theory involving the last 300 years of American history. While it does cover enough good ground, there's a few things they miss that are fortunately picked up by a writer at Our Word and Welcome to It. Particularly, a post influenced by the one linked to above.

One great point referenced in both blog posts is that all this accusation of men doing unusual things because they're gay (for this day and age, anyway) may very well be part of an attempt at creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Another point I find good is the need to reclaim these things, which we have been robbed of. Not that either post elaborated on exactly why straight men are supposed to run away from anything society slaps the 'gay' or 'feminine' label across, but I plan on getting to this myself in part 2 of what may be a new series of posts here. I don't know when you should expect it, but it'll most likely come after my current living arrangement is less crowded than it is now and I can actually focus on making posts more often.

A New Post For A New Year

2007-01-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

Now that I am back to using a friend's internet service to get a wireless connection on my system, I can post again. It's been back since a couple days before Christmas but sometimes the wireless signal picks up interference or becomes too weak to connect to the internet. Also, I haven't felt like blogging much lately due to playing lots of Starcraft and looking for videos of Guilty Gear XX: Accent Core, since it's not likely I'm going to actually find it anywhere soon. Hell, I haven't even found Guilty Gear XX Slash, and that was 2005's new game...

Oddly enough, I didn't make any New Year's Resolutions, though I do expect this year to be just as full of surprises, excitement, and lunacy as the last.

Lack Of Internet

2006-12-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

It's happened again...I have no internet connection in my home, so I'll be much less likely to post anything until I at least get dial-up service. This also means that any layout changes will have to wait, as if it hasn't been waiting ever since this blog was started.

Attention Visitors...

2006-11-22T22:41:00.000-08:00

This blog has just been switched from the old Blogger application to the new version.

There should be quite a bit of playing around with the new template features at the very least. If I'm really feeling bored, some serious changes may take place.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, right?

One Month Later

2006-11-15T16:46:00.000-08:00

Considering that it's been a whole month since my last post here, I suppose that any hope toward regular daily updates would be wasted, at least for now. It's not that I haven't had anything to post about, just that I've been a little too lazy to log in here and type it up.

Somewhere in this past month, Blogger seems to have finally worked out the kinks toward the upgrading feature, so more than likely, this will be my last post using the older version. This is also the first posting I've made while running Linux on my system - Ubuntu Linux to be specific. Not bad considering I've installed Ubuntu 5.10 some 8 times, Slackware 10.2 3 times, and Freespire 1.0 twice in the past month. Lots of system restarts and hacking ensued during all of those installations.

I've also been downloading episodes of Kanon, Death Note, and Code Geass, among other things. As far as The King of Fighters XI goes, I still haven't completed the game yet, not that it should be a surprise for anyone who knows about SNK Boss Syndrome - which should not be confused with Retired Husband Syndrome, although the bit about high life spans applies to both, lol.

Days away from the releases of the Playstation 3 and Wii, I haven't actually seen a working PS3 in any of the stores I've visited, and the Wiis I've seen don't appear to have any games playing or controllers present - just some ad or screensaver running. Even if I had the money to buy either, it would be weird to want to if I can't even see how it works before it hits stores. If I remember correctly, several weeks before XBox 360 was released last year, display units were in 3 out of 4 electronics retailers. The same could be said for both DS and PSP. Yet, this year, the story is different, or I could just be visiting the wrong stores, as if Toys R' Us, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and GameStop weren't enough.

Ever since the clocks were set back an hour, I've been haunted by a creeping sense of boredom, tiredness, and lack of time. It's most likely related to Seasonal Affective Disorder and the lack of sunlight in evening hours. Not having the money to buy Final Fantasy XII doesn't help matters in the least...

Thank God It's Friday

2006-10-14T00:28:00.000-07:00

Today wasn't as boring as I thought it'd be, even though I wouldn't have guessed that upon waking up at 3pm and realizing that I had to pick up my check before 5:30. For starters, instead of having to spend at least 2 hours on the bus - if not more - I was able to get a quick ride. After wondering whether the 2-day, 16-hour orientation for a call center job that I only worked for a week was paid, the check showed that it was.

To add to the non-boredom, I finally got to play The King of Fighters XI, though too much time with NeoGeoBattleColiseum meant that my reflexes slowed down a bit. In any case, there should be plenty of time to practice later on. Now only if I could find Guilty Gear XX Slash...or Guilty Gear XX Accent Core if it's going to get released in the U.S. soon enough.

Finally, a trip to Long John Silver's for a manager's special deal filled me up for only $3.22, whereas most fast food combos going for $4 or $5 don't feel like a good enough meal once it's all eaten. Unfortunately, the parade of non-boredom was rained on - literally. It was bad enough without an umbrella, but without a jacket, the rain meant the end of the fun, in addition to reminding me that I would've expected this were I back in Southern California instead of still being in Las Vegas.

Just Another Update

2006-10-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

Within the past two weeks, I haven't been able to post as much as I wanted to. It's a shame, since on the same day as I got my 256MB memory upgrade in the mail, my neighbor's internet connection was rewired by technicians in a way such as that I've been unable to use his modem to connect to the internet by wireless router.

Strangely enough also is the fact that right after I posted about the whole Sixteen Volts thing, I got quite a bit of hits from a blog called Eunomia, and precisely from a post titled "Don't Be Cruel". I'd say it's a milestone considering that it's the first link to this blog from another blog (that I've seen). Of course, there's also been a few hits coming from Technorati and Google's BlogSearch. On a final note, Half Sigma has discovered an archive of posts from Sixteen Volts.

Trying out the 'new' features on Blogger has been considered, but right now, until I get internet back in my own home, things will remain as they currently are. Further developments on that front will be explained in future posts.

Shock Of The Day: Sixteen Volts Gone

2006-09-22T09:16:00.000-07:00

This is not something I would've really expected to happen...it looks like Ilkka Kokkarinen, the author of Sixteen Volts somehow got hit with so much email that it led to the blog being deleted except for a couple of posts. While the goodbye post does make some sense, part of the reasoning also eludes me. For one thing, why did he use his real name considering that it would only make him an easy target to shoot down when enough angry people reacted to his posts? Also, while some posts may be taken as mean-spirited attempts at mocking feminists and such, why remove every last post - even when those sensitive topics never came up for mocking?

Since I didn't get time to visit Sixteen Volts the day before the deletion, I have no real idea right now what must have been said to trigger the whole incident. However, I defiantly refuse to believe that the author simply decided that his posts were mean and therefore deserved to be taken down. It's much more reasonable to think that some aspect of his personal, real-world life is being threatened and that those doing the threatening are either citing his blog as a reason, or that deleting the blog is meant to destroy evidence before it is seen by the wrong person.

Oh well, time to remove Sixteen Volts from my blogroll, as I'm sure other blogs will also do the same. If I actually discover some new and important information in the near future, I'll revisit this topic, otherwise, all I have to say to Mr. Kokkarinen is farewell.

Weird Studies, Weirder Conclusions

2006-09-13T22:19:00.000-07:00

What would you do if a study involving a group of men and a group of women reached a conclusion that suggested the men showed a more favorable trait than the women? Well, take a look at a MSNBC article titled "Researchers identify 'male warrior effect'":

NORWICH, England - Men may have developed a psychology that makes them particularly able to engage in wars, a scientist said on Friday.

'May have'? You'd think this scientist would be well aware of the several thousands of years of history that were shaped by war and the men that had to fight them to protect their civilization, not to mention the years before that in which men had to hunt and kill or be hunted and killed.

Honestly, this article strikes me as an anti-male hack job more than anything else. Consider that men have always had to fight the wars in history and were sometimes humiliated upon refusing to (see the "Order of the White Feather"). The way this article sounds is as if lots of women were just ready and eager to fight but were instead raped into submission by mean, evil men as a sign of rejection in order to keep war as some kind of male-only enterprise. Have these people no idea that women in general didn't fight wars for other, less sinister reasons? Also, saying that "men are more likely to support a country going to war" comes off as misdirected criticism of the War on Terror, seeing as how the article was written right before the 5th anniversary of 9/11 and the usual opinion that the War is mainly being fought as a bragging contest of manliness. If that weren't enough, note that nowhere in the article is it said or reasonably implied that aggressive men do things to protect their families or communities. What the casual reader sees is there to evoke images of excessive violence and oppressed women.

Guess what the study involved, anyway...

In experiments with 300 university men and women students, Van Vugt and his team gave the volunteers small sums of money which they could either keep or invest in a common fund that would be doubled and equally divided. None of the students knew what the others were doing.

Both sexes cooperated in investing in the fund. But when the groups were told they were competing against other universities, the males were more eager to invest rather than keep their money while the number of women contributing remained the same.

Ya got that? No paintball guns, no obstacle courses, no Civil War re-enactments, no back-alley fight club. All this study really did was measure how differently men and women may handle money given a particular situation. It may very well have given us insight into the way that businesses and economies are run, if only the author could shut the fuck up about aggressive men and wars long enough to let it sink in. Instead of a follow-up article that really focuses on what the study was about, we get yet another hack job meant to twist anything into demonizing men.

The logic is such that men being more likely to cooperate to protect their 'interests' (nice way to avoid putting something more positive in its place, like 'friends' or 'families') is somehow evil and suspicious since women don't also seem to do the same. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that had this study resulted in women handling the money more cooperatively, it would be presented with words like 'caring', 'nurturing', 'generous', and the like. With that in mind, we can conclude that articles like this don't show how science affects conventional wisdom so much as they show how conventional wisdom affect science.

Loony Laws and Legislators

2006-09-04T01:11:00.000-07:00

So, I happen to come across news on some 'law' which is ridiculous in obvious ways upon reading the first two sentences...

COLUMBUS - An Ohio legislative panel yesterday rubber-stamped an unprecedented process that would allow sex offenders to be publicly identified and tracked even if they've never been charged with a crime.

No one in attendance voiced opposition to rules submitted by Attorney General Jim Petro's office to the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, consisting of members of the Ohio House and Senate.

Is it just me, or does this 'unprecedented process' reek of violation of due process and a continuing trend of sexual hysteria? Last time I checked, one had to be charged with a crime to become a sex offender.

The fact that no one has voiced opposition is what scares me the most. Considering that Forbes magazine put out something far less malign recently and immediately got hammered with criticism, I would have thought that we could have at least a tiny sliver of dissent, just like with the Iraq War. However, no such dissent has materialized, and I also doubt that there will be that many 'real men' in the media to question the manhood of some of these senators and house members of Ohio who didn't fight such lunacy. Better to save that for guys that spend an hour or two grooming everyday, I suppose. [/sarcasm]

A recently enacted law allows county prosecutors, the state attorney general, or, as a last resort, alleged victims to ask judges to civilly declare someone to be a sex offender even when there has been no criminal verdict or successful lawsuit.

What the hell is up with this emphasis on "even if they're not found guilty by law"? Is the state of Ohio that desperate for people to treat as criminals? The fact that even alleged (i.e. unproven) victims can get in on the act makes it sound more like an intentional loophole for women that cry 'abuse' to use just in case there isn't a few hundred thousand dollars to give them to shut up. All that would really be different is to replace a financial incentive with a some kind of psycho-social incentive. It's definitely not going to do anything to help people that actually suffer sexual abuse.

The person's name, address, and photograph would be placed on a new Internet database and the person would be subjected to the same registration and community notification requirements and restrictions on where he could live.

Ha ha...after all the gender-neutral language that begins the description of this evil little law, we see 'he' right at the end. Not 'she', 'the person', or 'he or she', but 'he'. Anybody out there care to guess who's going to make up the vast majority of people targeted and unfairly harassed by this law?

A civilly declared offender, however, could petition the court to have the person's name removed from the new list after six years if there have been no new problems and the judge believes the person is unlikely to abuse again.

After six years? Why not just wait until the offender is actually convicted before putting them on the list? Oh, right, because this has nothing to do with actually intending to prevent sexual abuse, but nearly everything to do with sending the state to terrorize men and boys...all while denouncing terror when used overseas. Not surprising at all, given that for all the supposed Christian values in this country, some seem to be content with making pagan sacrifices to harmful government policies.

Fighting Over The Future Of Manhood

2006-08-23T00:02:00.000-07:00

In an article dating back to 2003, columnist Steve Sailer manages to start with what I thought was going to be one of those boastful "'real men' are back" articles and turn it into something I find rather fascinating. I guess it has to do with Sailer being a conservative and his article not jumping on the bandwagon.

"In the distant past, a man who dressed stylishly and enjoyed art, theater, and sophisticated music would have been praised as a "gentleman," but today his sexual orientation is automatically called into question. The average person's "gaydar" has become so sensitive that a long list of traits associated with civilized living are now assumed to be prima facie evidence of homosexuality."

Now, I'm not going to act like an expert in this kind of thing, but I can't help but be reminded of an event earlier this week with some bunch of fools on the bus. One had a portable DVD player and decided to play the remix of Chris Brown's "Gimme That". Following Lil' Wayne's rap portion of the song, one of the other guys immediately starts chanting "Chris Brown is a fucking faggot!" over the singing verses. It didn't take me long to figure out the mentality at work here...that a man singing is apparently regarded as 'sissy' (exceptions include Luther Vandross, Barry White, etc.) and meant only for women, while the 'thug' attitude is supposed to be more manly. Unsurprisingly, the group not only acted like hoodlums, but also looked the part.

"And then there's those new boxes on wheels, such as the Honda Element, that are designed to evoke a college boy's dorm room (just add empty pizza cartons). The hilariously homely new Toyota Scion bears a striking resemblance to Dumpy the Dump Truck in the little boy's storybook. I guess the appeal is: "Nobody's gonna think I'm gay when I'm driving one of these monstrosities!"

I personally find this kind of attitude sad and pathetic, but it does fit with one of my pet theories. The theory goes that while a minority of heterosexual men are actually straight and comfortable with it, most heterosexual men are not so much straight as desperate to not be seen as gay, and that there is a world of difference between the two. The first actually realize sexuality is more of a matter of hormonal reactions and sexual desires, but the second somehow sees sexual orientation in fashions, colors, mannerisms, and other things, thus becoming haunted by a spectre that should not even exist - a spectre that elicits exclamations of "that's gay!" toward inanimate objects.

"If James Bond were introduced today, the New York Times would describe him as a metrosexual rather than as a gentleman. I fear, though, that if you called him a metrosexual, he would make a witty quip, flick some invisible dust from his perfectly tailored lapels with his manicured hands, and shoot you."

This is something that I would wholeheartedly support, though a lightning-fast iaido strike would be cooler. After all, I've never heard of a man being called a fag for running around and kicking people's asses; that's for men who don't immediately jump at the opportunity to commit violence or fuck an attractive woman, so it would seem.

Though Sailer's essay doesn't address much of the reason behind the "straight flight" phenomenon, all in all, it's a good article.

Now for the boastful article, courtesy of Sara Stewart and the New York Post:

"A lot of men feel that a lot of what they like to do has been marginalized," explains Tucker Max, author of the best-selling book "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" and self-proclaimed bad boy of what's been referred to as the "retrosexual" movement - or, if you prefer, the "menaissance."

"Men have been emasculated by the media," rants George Ouzonian, aka Maddox, author of "The Alphabet of Manliness" and another ringleader of the guys-being-guys groundswell. "You don't really see the manly men anymore."
...
"But when pressed to elaborate on what exactly about that trend had been keeping men down - what has inspired such a cringe-inducing backlash of beers and leers - both Max and Maddox came up a bit short."

Though both Max and Maddox try their hardest to avoid directly saying it, I'm convinced that the best explanation for this 'backlash' is simply a fear of being thought of as gay or feminine. It's not like you need the X-ray Visor to see through that. All these concerns about emasculation are purely linked to pretty boys and their grooming habits. Not one iota of attention is given to the staggering rates of incarcerated men in America, or to boys' underperformance in schools, because neither can be directly traced back to those pretty boys and their hair gel. On another note, Max and Maddox are among many who conveniently leave out that there were times in history where men were flamboyant without their precious sexuality being questioned.

I swear, as soon as we 'feminize' loutish and criminal behavior, we'll see a significant drop in crime and lewd activity. However, it seems that "The Establishment" - for lack of a better term - refuses to give it a shot, and only the ignorant have no idea as to why that is. The worst I can see happening out of such an attempt would be the crime rate staying stable (or rising slightly) and men not giving a fuck who calls them something less than manly. It still wouldn't be as bad as breeding the next generation of men to go berserk when their sexual orientation is questioned (how hard can it be to just say the goddamned answer and leave it at that?!).

"When pressed for specific examples, Max cites the images of well-groomed men in print advertisements. "Those guys with perfectly gelled, coiffed hair," he says disgustedly. "And ones that portray guys as wanting the latest, coolest gadget or the newest striped shirt."

Max goes on to compare the psychological fallout from these ads to the scourge of eating disorders in young women inspired by rail-thin models."

A very good point. I can understand this sentiment somewhat, but I still remain skeptical. It's not like making most future ads portray the ideal man as a musclebound chick magnet won't alienate some constituency of heterosexual men out there. Actually, that's probably how we got into this mess in the first place, and if we fail to learn and apply the real lessons of this now, the cycle will merely be repeated so that future generations will get to suffer just like us.

How will they suffer, you ask? It's simple to understand once you realize that some men out there are compelled to adopt identities that women claim they desire, whether that man is cut out for it or not.

"The gender wars are full of wishful thinking and self-deception. In the meantime, I'm heading back to the electronic croft's darkened room, before getting in touch with my inner caveman. Again.
Sometimes it's hard to be a man."

While the first sentence above may be true, the consequences of the "gender wars" are very real and far-reaching. Actually, the division of heterosexual man into metrosexual, retrosexual, ubersexual, and cross-sexual is probably the greatest divide-and-conquer tactic yet in this silly game. It has undoubtedly done a great job at turning men against one another over mostly trivial and superficial matters.

There's a solution to this societal travesty out there somewhere, in which men must be secure in their own identity, in which men must not try to change only to impress women or other men, in which indignation must be directed more at relevant problems than nonconformance to personal preferences, and in which heterosexuals are not automatically repelled by supposedly homosexual connotations. Will we find this solution soon? Probably not, as long as we allow popular perception to act as if the default setting for heterosexual masculinity is always set to "act coarse, chase after women, and be ruthlessly violent". Instead, we'll be treated to more sensationalized news coverage and a bunch of thugs being propped up as the definition of manliness.

BOO!

2006-08-09T22:47:00.000-07:00

What's that? You say you're not scared? That's great, since I wasn't exactly trying to scare anyone. Also, before anyone asks, no, this post will not discuss any dating tips or relationship advice. If you and your boo are having some kind of problem, I'm afraid you'll be better off on a website geared toward that kind of stuff.

So, what's the ruckus about then? Well, let's just say it combines something that I like but don't really use, and something that I use but don't really like. If you've checked out those two links in the last sentence and are still interested, then allow me to introduce you to The Boo programming language. Combining Python's simple syntax and interpreter with C-Sharp's (C#) access to the .NET library classes and ability to compile straight to executable, Boo is the kind of thing I've spent the past few weeks looking for.

There's also something called IronPython that looks to be highly similar, but I haven't played around with it yet. In the event that I find out IronPython is even better for my coding/programming preferences than Boo, I'll make the switch...and possibly dedicate a future post to it.

Trying To Game In Las Vegas

2006-08-09T01:31:00.000-07:00

The way in which I found out that Working Designs is set to come back as Gaijinworks was quite amusing now that I think about it. Somehow, I missed this news when it broke out, just learning of it last week when I saw a copy of Elemental Gearbolt for sale. I suppose I was too busy playing NeoGeo Battle Coliseum [YouTube video] inside the store to ask how much it was then. Later, when I did a Wikipedia search, I didn't find any direct info, but I eventually followed enough links to arrive at the Gaijinworks entry, and then to a review of Elemental Gearbolt later. As I expected, when I went to the store again today, the game was gone. Not that I'm upset or surprised...more like tickled pink.

Now, if that little event could qualify as a setback, then I guess the fact that I haven't seen any Guilty Gear XX Slash [YouTube video] or King of Fighters XI [YouTube video] machines in all the places that I've been to within Las Vegas is highly disappointing.

Seeing as that this year's Evo2k tournament is later on this month, I'll be strapped for practice time - if I still really want to go. It would really suck to pay at least $40 only to get humiliated (or 'pwned') by someone who's played more matches against skilled human competition then I've ever played period. At the very least, that means I'd only really have good odds in two of the 10+ games that will be played there.

"Care to come with me and miss the point, dear sir?"

2006-08-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

As I expected from a Christian website, some article in the archives manages to disapprove of Brokeback Mountain, ignore a glaring double standard, and leave out certain bits of conventional wisdom. Here, the author - one R. Albert Mohler Jr. - gets so caught up in his disapproval of homosexual men that he misses the point as badly as the author that he criticizes - one Christopher Orr. Apparently, Orr thinks that there's something wrong with the way that two men in today's society have to be very careful around each other lest anyone think they're gay. Mohler then accuses Orr of missing the point (his point), that because homosexuality has found more acceptance than in past generations, two men practically have to walk on eggshells in their personal relationships. There's so much points being missed here that anyone really aware of the issue should see...

First of all, why in the hell do two men have to care whether others are going to think they're gay if the two make it clear to one another that they are not (or at least that it's just being friends, and not some fuckin' coercive act)? Isn't part of being a "real man" not giving a goddamn what others think about you? I've sure heard a lot of people say something to that effect. It's almost as if Mohler is too afraid to just "come out" and say that he thinks men should care deeply what society thinks of them - except when it comes to doing such-and-such in the name of God, that is (like starting wars, killing people, getting filthy rich, etc.). Perhaps he should just compel men to form real close friendships (football and beer don't count here) as part of God's will, but I doubt he can give up his anti-homo stance for that long.

Second, why doesn't this seem to affect women as much? Sure, it's been said a lot that women are more sociable/talkative/friendly than men, but that doesn't explain enough. If greater acceptance of homosexuality causes men to repel each other with fears of teh gayness, then what keeps women from doing the same? Why have I overheard many women refer to something they didn't like as "gay", as well as using that same term to try to shame men that don't fit their expectations? Contrary to what you may have heard, men aren't the only ones to do this. Could it be that neither the church nor society itself actually wants to bash lesbians with the vigor that they'll gladly dedicate to maligning gays? If so, then the church is clearly engaging in the moral relativism that it so despises. Surprisingly enough, Mohler doesn't account for this at any point in the article.

It's not like Brokeback Mountain is the only recent pop culture offering that depicts a homosexual relationship. I'll give the critics credit for citing the whole "violation of marriage" thing, but I fail to see how it's much worse than stuff like Child Support and the Andrea Yates verdict, which I haven't seen the church attack nearly as much. Until the church actually makes it clear that such matters as the glaring disparity in jail sentences for men and women and pedophile hysteria are bigger problems than two men wanting a private relationship without fear of being attacked, I refuse to take much of what it says seriously. How can I, when it's clear that attacking homosexuality (and gays in particular) is one of it's highest priorities, even higher than getting out of bed with certain politicians?

Another article, linked to from the one above, covers more ground but still leaves one very important thing out. As a "normal" heterosexual man, I have to ask: How weak do these people think male heterosexuality is? For all the hype about heterosexuality being normal and a gift from God, I'm left with the impression that heterosexuality in men is an extremely fragile thing, something that can easily be overriden and lacking any trace of permanance. It seems that anything from mere words to certain clothing or colors to interests and hobbies can throw a man's heterosexuality into question, as if it's everyone else's business to begin with. Even worse, because gays and lesbians have appropriated certain things, now us straight men have to abandon ship? To hell with that bullshit! Where's the people that say men should fight for what they want now? Shouldn't we see more men passionately fighting (tooth-and-nail if need be) for the right to be recognized as close friends without having to fear teh gayness? Or is the 'majority' content with letting gays and women take what they want from straight men (be it fashion, mannerisms, etc.) and leave those straight men with the scraps? I swear, these people would have me fearing that teh gayness is contagious if I didn't know enough of the truth.

The truth, though some people can admit it easier than others, is that straight men bear some responsibility for letting the whole "gay appropriation" thing happen. Oh, I'm sure that it's manly to fight against something that is considered to be a threat , and that it's rather wimpy to just idly stand by and admit defeat without much of a fight (if you don't believe me, just talk to one of the more passionate supporters of the war in Iraq or the Israel-Palestine conflict). However, there appear to be certain caveats, the easiest to remember being, "Once women appropriate something, men must give up that something...unless they want to be called 'feminine' or 'gay'". Yet another short article doesn't go into much detail, but manages to point out the absurdity of gentleness being appropriated by females to the extent that men are expected to run away from it and become boorish to compensate.

Instead of missing the point as badly as Mohler (and on a lesser level, Orr), I'd rather try to counter all of this male heterosexual doomsdayism by offering up some optimism in its place. Instead of fearing teh gayness, become that fearless manly man that society supposedly adores. Make it so that being a 'risk-taker' applies to human interaction as much as to business and technology. If you really want others to believe that you don't give a fuck what you think of them, you may as well mean it and live by example once the accusations of "eww, he's gay" come at you. Anything less will only serve to shrink the circle of acceptable straight men's behavior for future generations. Keep in mind that there's also the subject of psychos who think they deserve the right to attack gays just for being gay, or any random guy who can be identified as gay. Caring what they think will only seem like a defense mechanism for so long...then it'll be more like a prison in your own mind. At any rate, a crowbar and a shotgun will protect you against the psycho more than giving a rat's ass about them ever could.

On the other hand, if you'd rather cling to mommy and fear teh gayness, I have one last thing to violate your mind with...

...and this is where the fanboys/fangirls scream, "OMG! It's Buri-chan!!!!11".

Comic-Con 2006 Report, Part 2

2006-07-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

Note: The Gameboy Advance that I thought had been thrown away has been found since the previous post, but the digital camera is still missing.

Below is a rough record of events that occured on Sunday (7/23):

12:15 AM - Ordered a combo meal at the Taco Bell drive-thru. It was the first real meal that I had in the past 24 hours. I tried to take my time eating it all, but I couldn't.

1:00 AM - Parked a couple of blocks away from the SDSU campus, heading for the Library Book Reserve room. It's open 24 hours during school, so I went in to use a computer. After checking my email, surfing around, and getting a few "this computer is for coursework only" messages, I decided to wait a little before continuing.

2:00 AM - Fell asleep at the computer that I was using. Surprisingly, I was never interrupted by the library staff or security. Neither did I wake up myself before my cellphone's alarm went off.

8:00 AM - Waking up to my cellphone's alarm, I immediately left SDSU and took the freeway back to the downtown area of San Diego.

8:30 AM - Stopped at Jack in the Box to get a burger and milkshake. As soon as I started eating, some guy came from the line saying, "If you can't understand me, learn some English, or go back to Mexico...I really don't give a fuck!".

9:30 AM - Arrived at the convention center 5 minutes late after parking a little farther away than the day before. Because I was a volunteer, I was let in instead of having to wait in line. Once all of the volunteers were gathered and given assignments, I was directed to the ballroom directly across from the meeting point, where I would spend the next three hours.

9:45 AM to 12:30 PM - Sat near the back of the ballroom in a chair with a yellow volunteer sign on it. My responsibility was only to ensure that no one tried to enter through the 'exit only' doors and to direct people through the entry door.

Around 10:15, the room got a bit livelier because someone came in. It turns out that it was the guy who plays Chekov on Star Trek (can't remember his name at the moment). After answering a lot of questions, he presented a clip of a new episode of Star Trek coming later this year (distributed on the internet), and a teaser for a currently unnamed movie. The teaser was about 4 minutes of a tiny skull surrounded by fire, growing larger over dialogue that sounds like it had to do with the persecution of witches or some such thing. Once that was over, the room was emptied for the next event.

The last hour I spent in the room was for a Marvel comics panel. We were shown the covers of upcoming issues of several series. One of the more interesting things was something called "Bullet Points", in which the identities of Marvel superheroes were changed. As I recall, because of Captain America's death, Peter Parker becomes the Incredible Hulk while on the run in Nevada, Reed Richards becomes an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D after being prevented from going into space, and someone other than Tony Stark becomes Iron Man. There was also discussion of a certain milestone concerning Ultimate Spider-Man #104 and a spoiler (which went over my head) for the next issue of The Runaways. When this event was finished, so was my volunteer work.

Between 12:30 PM and 5 PM, things went roughly the same as the day before, where I revisited some booths, others were gone (or I never found them), and saw some for the first time. I got to play New Super Mario Bros. at the Nintendo booth, which unlike last year, had only DS systems. Revisiting the Square-Enix booth, I played the Final Fantasy 3 remake on DS and a much improved demo of Final Fantasy 12. At Konami's booth, I still passed up chances to play Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, which was the only thing that interested me there.

Newgrounds was there (with the giant Alien Hominid costume) with a new game called "Castle Crashers", basically the combination of Alien Hominid's visual style with Golden Axe. I never asked if the game was going to be on something besides XBox 360, since that was the only system they had it for.

Within the last hour or two of the convention, I wandered back and forth between both ends of the main hall, coming across Keenspot, a booth selling CDs and DVDs of stuff from Japanese rock bands like Psycho le Cemu and Dir en Grey, and several racks of shirts from Stylin Online.

5:00 PM - The main hall and the rest of the convention center is officially closed, and so I had to squeeze through large crowds until crossing the street and trolley tracks.

5:45 PM - Stopped at the mall in Mission Valley to visit the arcade. Like earlier this year, they still had Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection, but newly added was Soul Calibur 3: Arcade Edition. I played two games of both, though I did far worse at Soul Calibur than I expected to.

7:00 PM - Visited the last house that I had stayed at during the school year. No one was there, but I did notice that all of my mail was outside and in the mailbox, so I took the letters that were mine and left.

9:00 PM - Left San Diego, headed back to Las Vegas after filling up with $38 of gas.

10:00 PM - After fighting off sleep and seeing things, I made it to Temecula and exited the freeway, parking by a 7-11 store and intending to sleep only until 11:30.

11:30 PM - The cellphone alarm went off, but I still wasn't rested up enough to leave. It wouldn't be until 4 AM that I would finally be ready to leave, and another 12 hours until I would be back in Vegas.

Regarding the list of costumes I saw at the convention, I'm leaving it out. Why? Because I'm too lazy to include them now, though if anyone actually reads this blog and asks, I'll list them anyway.

Comic-Con 2006 Report, Part 1

2006-07-25T18:31:00.000-07:00

After thinking that I wouldn't be able to go to the San Diego Comic Convention most of last week, I finally managed to know that I could definitely go once Thursday came. All I had to do was take a change of clothes, the cellphone charger, and not much else. Strangely enough, for all the last-minute planning I did, things didn't go as smoothly as planned. Below is a rough record of events that occured on Saturday (7/22):

12:30 AM - Finished packing a few items into my backpack. However, the digital camera I thought I had was nowhere to be found. Then I remembered that my crazy stepdad must have threw it away (along with my Gameboy Advance) because I left it in a box of toys. So much for thinking I'd get to take lots of hi-res photos...

4:30 AM - Just woke up from a nap taken at 1 AM. By this time, I thought I'd have been on the freeway and here I was just getting up. This was 2 hours later than I expected.

6:00 AM - Finally made it on the freeway after filling up my ride with $35 worth of gas. I was hoping to be able to make it from Las Vegas to San Diego in 4 hours and 15 minutes or so, but this didn't happen...

11:30 AM - Arrived in southeast San Diego after sitting through at least 20 minutes of backed-up traffic. I immediately went to Ralphs to use the restroom and withdraw money for a car payment.

12:30 PM - Finshed the car payment and went to go get some quick chinese food. After waiting more than 10 minutes for something that was supposed to be ready in 5 minutes, I left and headed straight for the Convention Center.

1:30 PM - Arrived at the Convention Center after parking in a nearby neighborhood and walking for 15 minutes. At the volunteer desk, I was given everything I needed to get in, but because I got there just a little too late, there was no work for me to do that day. Therefore, I just walked onto the event floor.

Between 1:45 PM and 7 PM, I did quite a bit of walking and standing, visiting many booths, including...

Square-Enix: Played Valkyrie Profile 2 and Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime. There was the opportunity to play the PS2 or cellphone version of Dirge of Cerberus, but I didn't get around to doing that.

Capcom: Played several matches of Super Street Fighter 2, losing all of them but coming closest to winning with Guile. It was one of those that ended in round 3 with under 20 seconds left and both of us with a small amout of life left. I also saw Lost Planet for XBox 360 and Megaman ZX, among other games.

Sony: Played Rogue Galaxy, though something kept crashing the game whenever someone paused and tried to reset it.

Snakes on a Plane: Walked through the booth, looking at the actual props used and some footage.

7:00 PM - The main hall closes, although the rest of the place was still open. If I wasn't walking around, I was watching some anime in the screening rooms while the sun was still up...

8:30 PM - The Saturday Night Masquerade starts. Although I didn't have a ticket to enter the ballroom where it actually took place, it was broadcast in another room, where I watched the entire thing. Most of the costumes (and accompanying skits) weren't that great, though there was one that took the cake. Called "Nintendont's", Mario, Pikachu, Link, Kirby, Princess (I can't remember if it was Zelda or Peach), and two guys from Fire Emblem manage to parody the old Batman TV series, Titanic, Brokeback Mountain, and some other couple of movies in a matter of minutes.

10:00 PM - The Masquerade nearly concludes after a few interruptions, jokes by the presenter, and a redoing of a skit with Evangelion 01 due to a technical glitch (the music didn't play the first time). Because I wasn't ready to leave yet, I went back to the anime screening rooms since I was too lazy to see what else was happening.

11:00 PM - I decided that it was time to leave since I was feeling sleepy and hadn't really eaten since I left Vegas (18 hours ago).

11:30 PM - Got off the freeway around the SDSU area. Before I managed to reach Taco Bell though, I was pulled over by the police. After showing my driver's license, insurance, and registration, they tell me that the lights between my license plate are out. It wasn't like that made it anywhere near impossible to see the plate, especially since anyone with working headlights could still see it...

Part two will be put up soon, detailing the events that happened Sunday and a list of costumes I saw people wearing on the two days that I was at the convention.

Dissecting the Musings of a Moron

2006-07-17T00:12:00.000-07:00

So, I happened to come across an essay from some moron named John Stoltenberg. In a nutshell, this ~~man~~ coward argues that manhood is based on putdowns and therefore, he will refuse to be a man. Now, grab yourself a glass of ice-cold water as I pick apart this essay for the man-hating it is.

"So I got to thinking: If everyone trying to be a "real man" thinks there's someone else out there who has more manhood, then either some guy has more manhood than anybody--and he's got so much manhood he never has to prove it and it's never ever in doubt--or else manhood doesn't exist. It's just a sham and a delusion."

You know, up until this point in the essay, the reader has no idea just what manhood consists of, or how it is gained or lost. Just lots of griping about every guy thinking that every other guy they see must have more manhood then they do. Sort of like one saying no matter how bad you have it, there's someone else out there who has it worse. The reader may guess that manhood has to do with things like having a constructive hobby, generally treating others with respect and kindness, or some such benign character trait. Hell, even some mention of virtue and honor would've helped. Unfortunately, no such positivity will be afforded to real men. You know, because...

"As I watched guys trying to prove their fantasy of manhood--by doing dirt to women, making fun of queers, putting down people of other religions and races--I realized they were doing something really negative to me too, because their fear and hatred of everything "nonmanly" was killing off something in me that I valued.

That's why I feel a connection to feminism. I want a humanity that is not measured against the cult of masculinity. I want a selfhood that does not reject fine parts of myself just because they are not "manly." I want courage to confront the things men have done in the world that are damaging to women and that are also leaving no safe space for the self I hope to be."

This is where the plot thickens, so they say. I'm sure this guy has never noticed any women doing dirt to men to prove themselves as real women (i.e. not dependent on a man, blah blah blah), and why?...that would require the manly virtue of realizing that women aren't just perfect little angels waiting to be tainted by ~~evil brutes~~ men, and we can't have that from a man that connects to feminism, can we?

The author continues in his lame attempt to pull the wool over the reader's eyes by essentially arguing that men are some sort of hazardous presence to women (but never the reverse) and that manhood is just a man's way of rejecting those fine character traits that women must have. By now, I can clearly tell this guy doesn't want to be a real man since you know, a real man might have the manly pride necessary to actually claim certain heretical thoughts.

A real man might claim that manliness is represented by someone other than a drunken wannabe pimp at a frat party who has to settle for slapping the ass of any woman who walks too close to him and putting on a show for every other guy in the room. A real man might claim that a man secure in his sense of manhood doesn't have to lash out in a murderous rage should someone find out that he seems to be doing something feminine (note the use of bold and italics here. have you seen this before?). A real man might note that some the things we've been brainwashed into seeing as purely feminine once were considered masculine and could easily become so again if certain types of people weren't so busy making manhood out to be some villainous concept. A real man might even go so far as to say that men cannot afford to allow advertisers, feminists, and pop culture to define manhood more than your average Joes and your not-so-average Joes. Does the author dare take that bold step forward in the name of all that is man? Absolutely not.

"When I began to see how pornography makes dominance and subordination feel "sexy"--the very opposite of fairness--that affected me in a very personal way too. I had always been taught that dominance was the way "real men" were supposed to have sex; dominance was what I was supposed to be able to do in sex. Men had to be the conqueror, the powerful fucker. Well, I never got very good at that, and I always felt sort of a failure.

...

When I am feeling really centered, it's as if my selfhood doesn't have a gender. In the world I'm perceived as a man, of course; I live with the benefits and privileges of the social meaning of my anatomy. But my life path is really about refusing to be a man. I don't believe that manhood even exists. The only way to prove one's manhood is to win a fight or put someone down--which is just too dumb for words. And anyone who tries to get in touch with "deep masculinity" through myth is bound to be disappointed--because manhood is the biggest myth of all."

I think I see the real issue at work, finally. Here, we have a ~~man~~ loser who appears to have spent so much time worrying about how much he conforms to what enough people says is the standard of manhood that he would rather give up on the idea of being a real man (as in flesh-and-blood, not polygonal or pixellated) than accept the idea that he just may be a different kind of real man. I'd have a little more respect for this fool if he would've just admitted his anxiety outright and tried to address it, rather than placing the blame on men and only on men.

Such blindness to the true nature of manhood can produce this kind of idiocy. The only way to prove one's manhood is to win a fight or put someone down? No, that's just what feminists, insecure men, and the media trick fools into believing. To me, proof of manhood is not visible in silly fights (as opposed to important fights) or putdowns, but in things like technological advances and great discoveries, though morons like Stoltenberg probably don't want you to care about that. Because not everyone can be a genius, manhood can also be proven in less spectacular ways, none of which involve beating others down to prop yourself up, none of which would convince the foolish author.

I won't even say I "agree" with him on pornography. This is because while I detest mainstream hardcore pornography, it's not for the same reason. While Stoltenberg worries his little head off about dominance and powerful fucking, I simply detest mainstream pornography due to its premise - that while a woman is there to derive pleasure on the multiple body parts she has, a man is only there to provide a single body part (a hard penis) which must be prioritized above everything else that man has, only to render him useless after it has had its fun. On certain occasions, the man might actually engage in foreplay toward the woman, but of course his body just has to be so uninteresting or threatening that he'd never get to experience a woman pleasing him all over it. How so many guys can think this is an accurate portrayal of their sexuality is beyond me...I certainly don't fantasize strictly in terms of what I can do with my penis and I'm sure any other guy who doesn't give a goddamn what his peers would call him would say and mean the same.

Anyway, in conclusion, Stoltenberg is yet another self-hating man produced by feminism who obviously loves marginalizing as many men as he can, unless they're fellow self-hating feminists. His history of attacking the concept of manhood puts him on a very low level in my book. A level lower than that for the "I-like-wearing-women's-clothing-and-I'm-a-man-therefore-I-must-be-gay" crowd. Both levels are occupied by insecure men who merely put up with the conventional wisdom that it's perfectly okay for women to do what they want without wanting to be men, yet doubt - if not attack - the idea (and might I say fact) that men can also do what they want without wanting to become women. Both levels are part of a wider mass of men that have such profound disrespect for the continuum of male behavior and variety that they idolize women while trying to diminish themselves and other men who don't conform so easily.

So, John Stoltenberg, you want to refuse to be a man. That's fine with me. You're perfectly welcome to be nothing more than a cowardly wimp who attacks as many non-feminist men as possible, all while acting like women are incapable of doing any wrong entirely of their own will. Go curl up in a corner and shiver in fear as real manly men sound off on what makes a man without trying to focus exclusively on whatever percentage of men happen to actually rape, pillage, murder, consume hardcore porn, or do whatever else is used to make men look bad.

Nothing new, yet...

2006-07-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

What I thought would be a decent week for trying to blog on a daily basis didn't turn out that way. I'm still unexpectedly falling asleep about an hour after coming home from work. Hopefully my proper sleep schedule will return this week, or there probably won't be any new posts this week.

I wish I could say that I'll certainly be going to Comic-Con this weekend, just like last year, but unless these money issues of mine go away, it's not gonna happen, which is a shame because that would probably be my only opportunity at doing something exciting this summer.

Pardon my laziness...

2006-07-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog back at the end of May, I didn't think that I'd neglect it this much. Perhaps blogging isn't really for me, but I'm not going to give up yet. It's just that where the whole Windows/Linux experimenting stuff took lots of time away a couple weeks ago, now it's unexpected naps when I get home from work followed by 2 or 3 hours of Resident Evil 4. I swear, I've seen the "You Are Dead" screen more times in RE4 than the rest of the series combined, and I'm only in Chapter 3-1 of I don't know how many.

At this point, I may as well just say that I'll play around with the blog's template code when I'm damned well ready. It sounds much better than "maybe I'll do it this week" every week. Also, I still very much intend to get around to finding articles and essays on the web to rip apart. There's one I've had saved as a draft for a month now. That one ought to be ready by the next posting.

While at work earlier this week, I listened on the radio as Method Man (or someone pretending to be him) called Las Vegas radio station Hot 97.5 and threatened the DJ over the morning radio show host supposedly claiming that he was bisexual. Soon enough, callers lit up the phones there saying that there was no such claim made that morning, and the show host himself said the same. What weirded me out about the whole thing was how my coworkers turned up the radio when the show host was on the phone denying everything - they made sure to get everyone's attention by yelling in a voice that's typically reserved for calling out part names or order numbers. The next day, Method Man apparently never showed up to the radio station, though he (or whoever was impersonating him) said he would. After that, I knew something wasn't right about the whole thing and that it was all probably just cooked up to get some ratings, and then it hit me...accusations of some male celebrity being other than heterosexual always seem to draw lots of attention from the crowd that otherwise wouldn't give a damn about the latest celebrity gossip like so-and-so getting married or what's-his-face being arrested. It's sad but true. I personally think some male celebrity should admit to being non-hetero on some talk show and open fire on the first 'fan' in the crowd that goes "eww", but that's the Resident Evil 4 and ginger ale talking.

Back From Semi-Hiatus

2006-06-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

It's not too difficult to believe that I've been neglecting this little fledgling blog for a couple weeks now, but then quite a bit has happened within that time frame. For one, I finally got a full-time job through a temp agency, meaning that there's less time to just relax at home or to stay up late during the week.

I've also experienced much frustration in trying to put Windows and Linux on the same system, only to incorrectly remove Linux so that Windows wouldn't start, then having to nuke my entire hard drive (some of it full of data that I spent many hours working to preserve) only to reinstall Windows. Besides that, I watched all 6 games of the NBA Finals, making those times the only ones where I was actually watching something on TV rather than using it to play Xenogears.

As if that wasn't enough, I managed to have a neighbor connect my router to his broadband modem so that I could have a wireless network to jump on instead of using dial-up, at least until I can pay for my own high-speed cable internet plan. In my attempts to download more fansubbed anime, it seems that on my system at least, uTorrent works much quicker and better than BitTorrent. At the very least, it's better than the most recent version of BitTorrent (4.20.0). Therefore, I'm going to keep using uTorrent...at least long enough to get all available episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll also remember to play around with the template code, too.

Lots of Difficulties - part 2

2006-06-10T16:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't forgotten about this blog, neither have I forgotten that this was supposed to be about some rants and opinions. It's just that since this past Monday or Tuesday, my computers have been taking up a lot of time as far as some uninstalling/reinstalling goes. I'll try to have some interesting content up every other day next week if possible.

So, it's been decided...

2006-06-03T23:14:00.000-07:00

Looks like this year's NBA Finals are going to be very interesting, if only because either Miami or Dallas is going to win their first ever title in team history, in addition to the fact that both teams have never made it this far before. I'll have to find other things to do at 'game time' until Thursday night.

I shouldn't be surprised that of all places to find a good deal on computer parts, Fry's Electronics so happens to have a sale on the 1 GB USB drive I've been looking for (and a $10 rebate with it). Of course, from my side of town, the entire trip from home to the store and back will probably be around 40 miles, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Playing around with the template code is on my to do list, but there probably won't be any major changes made until I understand every last line of code.

Lots of Difficulties

2006-06-02T03:24:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be just my luck to have my PC that runs Windows ME to suddenly have a problem with AOL on dial-up...since Tuesday morning, I've been able to connect for about 45 minutes before my connection is dropped and AOL reports an error that makes it so that I have to restart my system to reconnect. I've been considering installing Linux on my system since I've lost my Windows XP disc and Vista isn't due for another 6 months or so. Of course, a 1 gig USB drive and high-speed internet would help too, if only I could hurry up and get hired somewhere...

Nowhere near as disappointing as the fact that I could already be on my way to having a job if it weren't for an out-of-state drivers license is seeing Miami practically give up in the last few minutes of Game 5 by letting Detroit take a 4-point lead to a 13-point win. Even worse, Phoenix makes the same mistakes the following day in their Game 5, losing just as bad, although they at least scored over 100. You just know a game is bad when you're glad to have to go run an errand while there's still a few minutes to go...

A boring Sunday [/yawn]

2006-05-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

I seem to have a tendency to have rather uneventful Sundays. Yesterday, that tradition continued as I failed to pawn my Gamecube at SuperPawn to have enough food and gas money until next week when my next check comes (and I hopefully begin work at a new job). I just couldn't accept only $10 for the console itself and another $15 for nine games. Perhaps I'll either try another shop in a few days or I'll manage to wait until the check comes. Perhaps some Eternal Darkness will help pass the time...

Also, I managed to fall asleep during the 3rd quarter of the Suns/Mavericks game, so I have to find out who won and if there were any crazy plays made that I didn't see. On the other hand, the Heat/Pistons game ought to be more interesting anyway. As long as they don't resort to 'Hack-a-Shaq' to stretch the last few minutes of the game, I'll be entertained.

Fun-wise, today's not looking too good either. Oh well...have a good Memorial Day!

The Obligatory Introduction

2006-05-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the +1 Blog of Rants and Opinions, or +1 Blog for short. This is your host, el-chozo-loco (a hybrid term referencing two certain things, just so you know) and this blog will be dedicated to my (hopefully) daily writings on various topics. I do have another site set up at the time of this post, but it may not last much longer due to neglect, or if it does, I'll have to make it a site for game/webpage programming tutorials, like I've been planning to do for I don't know how long.

Enjoy the blog!

Or at least try to...