1) Programs that change your preferences without asking you - For instance, how Itunes, wmp, or most other media players automatically assume you want to use them to play all your media files. Fuck Itunes.
2) People who use lolspeak outside of video games: Lolspeak, L337 sp33k, "gamer talk," or whatever, is generally used inside of multiplayer games where you have to type in order to communicate quickly. Used in the proper environment (i.e. in game,) it's perfectly acceptable. But outside this environment it's just plain silly. Look at this:
Random thread from Gamefaqs that illustrates my point perfectly
I can't even read that crap, and I won't even try. It makes my head hurt. What is disturbing is that over time our normal, ordinary language is going to be supplanted with this incoherent bullshit. People already use the words "download," "upgrade," "noob," and even "lol" in real ordinary life, Usually in context that has nothing to do with what the terms actually mean, i.e. "I upgraded my sandwich to a combo." You get free tech support with that sandwich too?
Stop that stupid shit, noobs.
3) Those little banner ads that companies put at the bottom of Television shows now. It's bad enough that 8 1/2 minutes of every half hour TV show is normal commercials already, now they even insert them while the damn show is still on the air. It targets people who have DV recorders who just skip the commercials. God damn I hate TV.
4) People who complain too much about gas prices: What's the matter, just now noticing that gasoline seems to double in price every few years? Didn't think about that when you bought that gigantic gas guzzling Hummer shit-mobile? Yeah, I'm really crying for you. It's not like this oil peak baloney is old news. We've only been talking about it for the last eight years. Maybe now you'll listen to us when we tell you to stop believing what the government and news corporations tell you.
People continue to buy these gigantic trucks and tanks and shit becasue they want to be cute and stick it to the environmentalists. I saw a Hummer on the freeway with the bumper sticker "Piss off a Liberal - Buy American," thereby making the assumption that real Americans drive 27-ton penis compensators. Yeah, I'm real pissed. If you like giving oil companies your money, by all means go right on ahead. Have fun paying $150 every three days to fill up that piece of shit.
5) People who think life revolves around Movie franchises: Look, just shut up about how much Star Wars sucks already. Yes, we understand the old trilogy is a fantastic masterpiece and the new trilogy is a tragic load of suck. We understand that George Lucas has lost his marbles and should be committed before he ruins anything else. We get it already. Now Please go out and find something more important for your life to be about. Feed the homeless. Plant a tree. Cure Cancer. Invent something. Find something, anything. Just please don't allow yourself to die so pathetic.
6) Apologetics who undermine other people's religions by pointing out scientific inaccuracies yet deny it when the same inaccuracies are in their own holy works. Let's face it folks, religion is not scientifically accurate. None of them are. That's why it's called Religion, and not science. You're not doing your own religion a favor by pointing out how unscientifically sound someone's else's religion is, becasue it begs the question of how well your own holy book holds up under the microscope - not well. Truth is the religious texts for our three main Abrahamic religions were written thousands of years ago, and as thus each expresses an understanding of the universe from their respective cultures. When compared with science each one fails to reach the bar. Yes, your religion does too. So please, stop trying to use your scientific "facts" to disprove someone else's religion. You're only making yourself look bad.
7) People who drive yellow cars with racing stripes: Guess all you need to do in order to sell cars is make a movie about your cars turning into giant robots, huh? How many of you dumb motherfuckers ran out and bought yourself a yellow Camaro with racing stripes after watching that stupid ass movie? Hey, if the main guy had yellow racing stripes tattooed on his buttcheeks would you brainless unimaginative mouthbreathers do that too? Are product placements in movies really that effective? So all I have to do to make you fruitcakes buy something is put it in a damn movie with robot soda machines and transforming Motorolas an' shit?
What's really sad is the guy who couldn't afford a Camaro, so instead paints his old hunk of crap Mazda yellow with racing stripes to try to make it look like he's driving a Transformer. That's like wearing fake gold, or having Wood paneling on the side of your car. Everyone knows the shit is fake, you're only fooling yourself.
It just doesn't make any sense to me. Since when did people base their entire lives over what they see in the fucking movies? When Silence of the Lambs came out did people start eating Fava beans with a nice Chianti and making that slurping sound all the time? When Pulp Fiction came out did everyone start shooting up smack and quoting bible verses? Did Samsung sell a billion Phones after the Matrix?
Oh wait, they did.
God damn you people are stupid.
8) When you're out with friends at a restaurant and no one will allow you to pay for anything. Thanks I appreciate it, but I have money too. You're making me feel cheap, Let me pay once in a while.
9) People who sell roms, hacks, protos, or other game related material that can be found for free like they're rare collectibles - One of the small sub segments of dorkdom I am happy to associate with are people who collect unreleased prototypes and early builds of games. Most of the people who are into this sort of thing are programmers and collect such material because of it's "educational" value, becasue what you get is usually still chock full of bugs and for the most part isn't playable. Once in a while though a game will make it nearly to retail before getting canned, a famous example being Half-Life or Propeller Arena for the Dreamcast, or Thrill Kill for the Ps1. Some of these games eventually get leaked and can be downloaded for free across various sites (some of them even legal :)
Problem is there's always some unscrupulous bottom-feeding dirtbag who burns a copy of said leaked rom, slaps together some off the shelf artwork and Ebays it as a "rare unreleased proto." Same shit with these assholes who burn a and sell full discs of Roms and emulators, it just muddies the hobby for the rest of us. True one shouldn't get too mad at scammers, becasue is it wrong to rip those off who are so eager to hand you their hard earned money? No, the reason they piss me off is the principal involved. These people are taking the labor of someone else and profiting off it. Just like some slimy crackbucket on the corner selling bootleg DVDs of a movie that's still showing in the theater across the street, these shitbags have no qualms about grifitng off the backs of others. Just goes to show, there's maybe 5% of the human population who actually creates everything so the other 95% can rip each other off.
10) Social networking Surveys: More inane bullshit that I'm not wasting my time with anymore. This is one of those ideas who's time has come and gone. I'm sure a few years ago when all these social networking sites that people use now instead of a real social life were the bees knees, filling out a few of these surveys might, maybe, occasionally, sometimes, once in a blue moon be a fun time waster. But as time goes on they just get more and more inane. It would help if they weren't all written by pre-teen girls. I'm not taking them, I'm not reading them, I'm not even looking at them anymore. I don't care when the last time you cried was or what kind of sandwich you ate yesterday or if you've ever cheated on a test, and I don't think I'm the only one. Is there anyone out there who actually pays attention to this bullshit? These surveys are distracting me from finding compromising semi-naked pictures of hot female acquaintances who's profiles I check but who I've only met a few times in real life. You know, the real reason we use these sites.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Fun with ATM fraud
Hey guys, I just got back from the bank, where I found out some dirtbag cloned my ATM card somehow and went on a mall shopping spree.
Yesterday I was using an ATM that I have used many times before in a CVS Pharmacy by my work. This time though the machine reset itself, right after I had entered my number in. I thought that was kinda strange. I watched it for a few minutes as it went up through it’s boot cycle (which it ran OS 2 warp, for some reason.) Unfortunately, I’m not super computer savvy enough to be able to tell what’s going on with a machine just by looking at it’s startup process (never mind the fact that I’ve also never seen an ATM starup before, I wouldn’t know if something’s wrong with it or what.) I shrugged it off, and checked my balance later in the day at a different machine. Everything was cool.
Earlier today at lunch after eating quite possibly the world’s best hamburger for some reason my atm card didn’t work when I went to pay. The girl gave me the "Sometimes these machines don’t work" spiel. I wouldn’t have been suspicious except for the freak resetting ATM thing that happened yesterday.
So on the way home from work I stopped in at the bank to check my balance, and sure enough someone had spent $300 out my account. Whoever it was somehow managed to hack or otherwise compromise that ATM in the pharmacy, then cloned the card and went shopping at the stupid mall (Macy’s and Fredricks of Hollywood, fucking lingerie of all things...)
Luckily I caught it early, and whoever it was apparently didn’t have my atm pin number as all the transactions were credit transactions (i.e. they had to sign for them like a credit card.) So luckily my savings were protected. So now I just got to spend the last hour closing out my account, opening a new account, and having the guy explain to me in intricate detail exactly what I need to do in order to file a fraud claim and get my $300 back.
I guess I should consider myself lucky as it was "only" $300 that the bank covers during the fraud investigation, my account was not frozen, I still have access to the money I have left, I hadn’t deposited my paycheck for this week, and I caught it early enough to prevent any more cash from disappearing. This same shit happened to a friend of mine and his bank totally froze everything.
So anyway, if you’re out using a money machine and suddenly it reboots for no reason, you know what’s going on.
No one ever gets to make fun of me for being paranoid ever again.
Yesterday I was using an ATM that I have used many times before in a CVS Pharmacy by my work. This time though the machine reset itself, right after I had entered my number in. I thought that was kinda strange. I watched it for a few minutes as it went up through it’s boot cycle (which it ran OS 2 warp, for some reason.) Unfortunately, I’m not super computer savvy enough to be able to tell what’s going on with a machine just by looking at it’s startup process (never mind the fact that I’ve also never seen an ATM starup before, I wouldn’t know if something’s wrong with it or what.) I shrugged it off, and checked my balance later in the day at a different machine. Everything was cool.
Earlier today at lunch after eating quite possibly the world’s best hamburger for some reason my atm card didn’t work when I went to pay. The girl gave me the "Sometimes these machines don’t work" spiel. I wouldn’t have been suspicious except for the freak resetting ATM thing that happened yesterday.
So on the way home from work I stopped in at the bank to check my balance, and sure enough someone had spent $300 out my account. Whoever it was somehow managed to hack or otherwise compromise that ATM in the pharmacy, then cloned the card and went shopping at the stupid mall (Macy’s and Fredricks of Hollywood, fucking lingerie of all things...)
Luckily I caught it early, and whoever it was apparently didn’t have my atm pin number as all the transactions were credit transactions (i.e. they had to sign for them like a credit card.) So luckily my savings were protected. So now I just got to spend the last hour closing out my account, opening a new account, and having the guy explain to me in intricate detail exactly what I need to do in order to file a fraud claim and get my $300 back.
I guess I should consider myself lucky as it was "only" $300 that the bank covers during the fraud investigation, my account was not frozen, I still have access to the money I have left, I hadn’t deposited my paycheck for this week, and I caught it early enough to prevent any more cash from disappearing. This same shit happened to a friend of mine and his bank totally froze everything.
So anyway, if you’re out using a money machine and suddenly it reboots for no reason, you know what’s going on.
No one ever gets to make fun of me for being paranoid ever again.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
6 Reasons why the Transformers movie sucks
1) The main character is an annoying dumbass: The sole reason main character of Sam Witwiki seems to exist for is to somehow make an ass of himself or be made an ass of in front of hot chick Megan Fox. This includes:
- Making an ass out of himself in front of her at the park.
- Making an ass out of himself while driving her home.
- Making an ass out of himself while falling off a pink bicycle in front of her.
- His parents making an ass out of him while discussing his masturbational habits while she's in the room.
Now, in a movie about giant transforming robots, belief has to be firmly suspended from the beginning. However, expecting me to believe that a girl this hot would ever settle for a broke goofy baldy headed loser is just asking too much.
2) More plot holes than swiss cheese: Granted, when your movie is about giant transforming robots a few things can be forgiven, like the fact that they even bother talking in the first place. However this movie seems incapable of progressing for even five minutes without asking us to believe truly implausible, inane, and sometimes ridiculous "plot points," such as:
- Sam's father seems to think that two small earthquakes are capable of completely destroying his entire yard, including reducing his stone water fountain to rubble. This is despite the fact that there is no significant damage to the inside of the house. Yeah that makes sense.
- Sam and Mikela instantly trust that Bumblebee is there to protect them, even though Sam was running away from Bumblebee in panic less than five minutes beforehand.
- No one seems to really be astounded or even freaked out that giant transforming robots even exist. Our heroes are quickly able to asses the situation and act accordingly instead of reacting like a real person would, i.e. running away screaming their fucking heads off.
- Even though they are sentient robotic entities comprised of technology that eats ours for breakfast, the Decpticons are required to invade a heavily defended air force base in Qatar to forcibly break into the DoD's mainframe. Apparently they've never heard of free Wifi access points.
- The second attempt the Decepticons make involves sneaking into Air Force one to break into computers located in the Pentagon (um... okaaayyy...) As Frenzy the Decepticon is busy downloading defense secrets, the DOD comes to the conclusion that the only way to stop thievery of said secrets is to "cut the hard line," even though the intrusion is located on an airplane currently 5000 feet in the air. Must be those extra super secret DOD hard-line enabled wireless routers.
- Megatron is supposed to have been frozen in ice for the last 80 years, however he speaks fluent English the moment he's thawed out.
- The first half of the movie involves the Autobots and Decepticons looking for Sam to get his grandfather's glasses, which somehow have Megatron's co-ordinates imprinted on them (how they would know this is not explained, but this is fantasy here, so whatever.) So, Optimus gets the glasses, finds the co-ordinates in the Arctic, and moves out. However it turns out Megatron is in fact being held under Hoover dam by "Section 7," (which is this Men-in-Black type organization that is under the direct command of the President, even though in real life not even the President has high enough clearance for the really secret stuff,) and thus the Decepticons attack. Suddenly the Autobots are there to fight them, even though five minutes before they were on their way to Alaska. No explanation is given as to how they found out Megatron's true location.
- All of the Autobots speak English to each other while conversing privately instead of their native robot language. The Decepitcons talk in robot hieroglyphic subtitles (which is actually pretty cool,) but feel the need to use English also as soon as Megatron shows up.
- The team that cracks an alien code is made up of stoners and hippies with one really hot blonde chick, becasue we all know signal experts double as runway models.
- The hot blonde scientist, against all logic, decides to illegally copy the information to enlist the "world's greatest Hacker," who is a big huge fat black guy that plays Dance Dance Revolution. Big fat black guy is somehow able to not only decipher said alien signal in like 30 seconds, but also somehow instantly becomes an expert in alien languages. She does all this to great personal risk to her freedom when it is quite possible that said DDR expert could just have been enlisted illegitimately if she just would have asked.
- Immediately after deciphering this advanced signal that the entire NSA and Pentagon are unable to scratch with their advanced supercomputers in mere seconds from his home pc, the FBI suddenly smashes through the house in Gestapo fashion, as if they were able to track the hot scientist's whereabouts simply by the fact that she uses a computer.
- Fat black guy is such teh h4X0r that he is able to somehow take old, dusty WWII era radio equipment with cobwebs all up on it and interface it with a modern PC monitor, all with just a screwdriver in under five minutes.
- Entire city blocks are reduced to rubble in the climatic battle in front of hundreds of witnesses, yet the United States military is somehow able to effectively cover everything up.
- Speaking of said cover up, after the end battle instead of confiscating and studying the alien robot bodies that represent technology thousands of years in advance of our own, the military instead decides to dispose of them all into the the world's deepest ocean trench. Like that would ever happen.
3) The robots are stupid: Don't get me wrong, this movie has quite possibly the best special effects of all time. However all the SFX doesn't change the fact that the Autobots are ridiculous stereotypes. It's when they start talking that the whole illusion is ruined and you remember this movie was written with merchandising in mind. Any line delivered by an Autobot who isn't Optimus Prime is cringeworthy - this includes Ratchet remarking that Sam's pheromone level is such that he wants to "mate with the female" (thereby making an ass out of him in front of the girl yet again, see item #1,) Jazz saying "bitch" and acting all gangsta (ugh!), and Bumblebee "lubricating" the Section 7 agent (shoot me now please.)
The Decepticons on the other hand get zero screen time even though each one is ten times more bad-ass than any of the Autobots combined. Megatron himself gets less than five minutes of screen time - pretty pathetic for the movie's arch villian. Starscream, who is quite possibly the third most recognizable character from the cartoon, gets one measly line, and they didn't even try to make his voice sound the same as the cartoon. Lame.
The one robot that gets the most time in the spotlight is Frenzy, who is not only somehow also able to regrow his entire body after being decapitated, but is also able to casually stroll off of Airforce one in front of hundreds of patrolling soldiers and secret service agents - and no one notices.
4) Reason #4: It didn't have Shockwave in it: How you gonna make a Transformers movie without Shockwave, the baddest Transformer ever? If I was making this movie the whole thing would be Shockwave stomping robot guts out for three hours.
5) The whole movie is one giant propaganda piece for the Department of Defense: I realize when part of your budget is supplied by the United States Military that means they get to approve the way they are depicted in your movie script (see Top Gun and Black Hawk Down.) However here it goes to ridiculous lengths. The Secretary of Defense character - obviously patterned after Donald Rumsfeld, down to the glasses - is depicted as like, actually taking civilian lives and international repercussions into his decision making (HA!) I mean, talking giant robots I can accept, but let's be realistic here.
In another scene with the aforementioned Sector 7 where just as the Decepticons begin their attack on the secret base, the ordinary soldiers from Qatar - for some reason that defies all logic - decide to go mutiny because Sam the horny kid wants to "see his car," even though none of the military characters would have any reason at all to believe at this point that this particular captive giant robot would want to help them at all. It's turns out the whole scene is set up to give the Secretary of Defense the line "You better listen to them, they don't like to lose." Suck, suck, suck that Army dick, Micheal Bay.
Micheal Bay chose to portray the President as a useless imbecile, completely out of the loop, munching on Ding-Dongs while other people make decisions for him. So the movie is not completely unrealistic.
6) The rest of the movie is a commercial for something else: Apparently there was plenty of room left in Micheal Bay's mouth after the DOD got finished. Obviously the Autobots are mere walking commercials for General Motors (Chevrolet, Pontiac, GMC, Hummer, etc.) But they're not the only ones, the whole rest of the movie is jammed full of product placements including (in no particular order:)
- Burger King
- Nokia
- Ebay
- Paypal
- Pepsico
- Xbox 360
- Hostess
- Yahoo
This is just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head, which isn't hard considering these placements aren't the subtle, show an ad in the background type from other movies. These ads are in your face - Ebay is mentioned several times by main characters and even has a phony listing take up the whole screen for several seconds. The various cars aren't just shown off, they get more screen time than the robots do in robot form. During the part where the Autobots are looking for vehicles to transform into the movie essentially turns into a smorgasboard of GM commercials, even going as far to show a GMC dealer with prominent showroom.
Why are product placements such a big deal? When done correctly (i.e., not shoved in the audience's face,) I agree that they can sometimes make a movie seem more "real." However when you spend half the damn movie showing various cars and how cool they are and gee these same cars are available for purchase at the dealer across the street, then it quickly becomes apparent you're not actually watching a movie. Product placements are advertisements you actually pay to watch - Watch while you suck, suck, suck on Micheal Bay's commercialized dick, then suck it some more when you buy the DVD, t-shirt, candy bars, action figures, and featured automobile as Bay shoots his load all the way to the bank.
Besides all this the movie ain't half bad.
- Making an ass out of himself in front of her at the park.
- Making an ass out of himself while driving her home.
- Making an ass out of himself while falling off a pink bicycle in front of her.
- His parents making an ass out of him while discussing his masturbational habits while she's in the room.
Now, in a movie about giant transforming robots, belief has to be firmly suspended from the beginning. However, expecting me to believe that a girl this hot would ever settle for a broke goofy baldy headed loser is just asking too much.
2) More plot holes than swiss cheese: Granted, when your movie is about giant transforming robots a few things can be forgiven, like the fact that they even bother talking in the first place. However this movie seems incapable of progressing for even five minutes without asking us to believe truly implausible, inane, and sometimes ridiculous "plot points," such as:
- Sam's father seems to think that two small earthquakes are capable of completely destroying his entire yard, including reducing his stone water fountain to rubble. This is despite the fact that there is no significant damage to the inside of the house. Yeah that makes sense.
- Sam and Mikela instantly trust that Bumblebee is there to protect them, even though Sam was running away from Bumblebee in panic less than five minutes beforehand.
- No one seems to really be astounded or even freaked out that giant transforming robots even exist. Our heroes are quickly able to asses the situation and act accordingly instead of reacting like a real person would, i.e. running away screaming their fucking heads off.
- Even though they are sentient robotic entities comprised of technology that eats ours for breakfast, the Decpticons are required to invade a heavily defended air force base in Qatar to forcibly break into the DoD's mainframe. Apparently they've never heard of free Wifi access points.
- The second attempt the Decepticons make involves sneaking into Air Force one to break into computers located in the Pentagon (um... okaaayyy...) As Frenzy the Decepticon is busy downloading defense secrets, the DOD comes to the conclusion that the only way to stop thievery of said secrets is to "cut the hard line," even though the intrusion is located on an airplane currently 5000 feet in the air. Must be those extra super secret DOD hard-line enabled wireless routers.
- Megatron is supposed to have been frozen in ice for the last 80 years, however he speaks fluent English the moment he's thawed out.
- The first half of the movie involves the Autobots and Decepticons looking for Sam to get his grandfather's glasses, which somehow have Megatron's co-ordinates imprinted on them (how they would know this is not explained, but this is fantasy here, so whatever.) So, Optimus gets the glasses, finds the co-ordinates in the Arctic, and moves out. However it turns out Megatron is in fact being held under Hoover dam by "Section 7," (which is this Men-in-Black type organization that is under the direct command of the President, even though in real life not even the President has high enough clearance for the really secret stuff,) and thus the Decepticons attack. Suddenly the Autobots are there to fight them, even though five minutes before they were on their way to Alaska. No explanation is given as to how they found out Megatron's true location.
- All of the Autobots speak English to each other while conversing privately instead of their native robot language. The Decepitcons talk in robot hieroglyphic subtitles (which is actually pretty cool,) but feel the need to use English also as soon as Megatron shows up.
- The team that cracks an alien code is made up of stoners and hippies with one really hot blonde chick, becasue we all know signal experts double as runway models.
- The hot blonde scientist, against all logic, decides to illegally copy the information to enlist the "world's greatest Hacker," who is a big huge fat black guy that plays Dance Dance Revolution. Big fat black guy is somehow able to not only decipher said alien signal in like 30 seconds, but also somehow instantly becomes an expert in alien languages. She does all this to great personal risk to her freedom when it is quite possible that said DDR expert could just have been enlisted illegitimately if she just would have asked.
- Immediately after deciphering this advanced signal that the entire NSA and Pentagon are unable to scratch with their advanced supercomputers in mere seconds from his home pc, the FBI suddenly smashes through the house in Gestapo fashion, as if they were able to track the hot scientist's whereabouts simply by the fact that she uses a computer.
- Fat black guy is such teh h4X0r that he is able to somehow take old, dusty WWII era radio equipment with cobwebs all up on it and interface it with a modern PC monitor, all with just a screwdriver in under five minutes.
- Entire city blocks are reduced to rubble in the climatic battle in front of hundreds of witnesses, yet the United States military is somehow able to effectively cover everything up.
- Speaking of said cover up, after the end battle instead of confiscating and studying the alien robot bodies that represent technology thousands of years in advance of our own, the military instead decides to dispose of them all into the the world's deepest ocean trench. Like that would ever happen.
3) The robots are stupid: Don't get me wrong, this movie has quite possibly the best special effects of all time. However all the SFX doesn't change the fact that the Autobots are ridiculous stereotypes. It's when they start talking that the whole illusion is ruined and you remember this movie was written with merchandising in mind. Any line delivered by an Autobot who isn't Optimus Prime is cringeworthy - this includes Ratchet remarking that Sam's pheromone level is such that he wants to "mate with the female" (thereby making an ass out of him in front of the girl yet again, see item #1,) Jazz saying "bitch" and acting all gangsta (ugh!), and Bumblebee "lubricating" the Section 7 agent (shoot me now please.)
The Decepticons on the other hand get zero screen time even though each one is ten times more bad-ass than any of the Autobots combined. Megatron himself gets less than five minutes of screen time - pretty pathetic for the movie's arch villian. Starscream, who is quite possibly the third most recognizable character from the cartoon, gets one measly line, and they didn't even try to make his voice sound the same as the cartoon. Lame.
The one robot that gets the most time in the spotlight is Frenzy, who is not only somehow also able to regrow his entire body after being decapitated, but is also able to casually stroll off of Airforce one in front of hundreds of patrolling soldiers and secret service agents - and no one notices.
4) Reason #4: It didn't have Shockwave in it: How you gonna make a Transformers movie without Shockwave, the baddest Transformer ever? If I was making this movie the whole thing would be Shockwave stomping robot guts out for three hours.
5) The whole movie is one giant propaganda piece for the Department of Defense: I realize when part of your budget is supplied by the United States Military that means they get to approve the way they are depicted in your movie script (see Top Gun and Black Hawk Down.) However here it goes to ridiculous lengths. The Secretary of Defense character - obviously patterned after Donald Rumsfeld, down to the glasses - is depicted as like, actually taking civilian lives and international repercussions into his decision making (HA!) I mean, talking giant robots I can accept, but let's be realistic here.
In another scene with the aforementioned Sector 7 where just as the Decepticons begin their attack on the secret base, the ordinary soldiers from Qatar - for some reason that defies all logic - decide to go mutiny because Sam the horny kid wants to "see his car," even though none of the military characters would have any reason at all to believe at this point that this particular captive giant robot would want to help them at all. It's turns out the whole scene is set up to give the Secretary of Defense the line "You better listen to them, they don't like to lose." Suck, suck, suck that Army dick, Micheal Bay.
Micheal Bay chose to portray the President as a useless imbecile, completely out of the loop, munching on Ding-Dongs while other people make decisions for him. So the movie is not completely unrealistic.
6) The rest of the movie is a commercial for something else: Apparently there was plenty of room left in Micheal Bay's mouth after the DOD got finished. Obviously the Autobots are mere walking commercials for General Motors (Chevrolet, Pontiac, GMC, Hummer, etc.) But they're not the only ones, the whole rest of the movie is jammed full of product placements including (in no particular order:)
- Burger King
- Nokia
- Ebay
- Paypal
- Pepsico
- Xbox 360
- Hostess
- Yahoo
This is just the stuff I can remember off the top of my head, which isn't hard considering these placements aren't the subtle, show an ad in the background type from other movies. These ads are in your face - Ebay is mentioned several times by main characters and even has a phony listing take up the whole screen for several seconds. The various cars aren't just shown off, they get more screen time than the robots do in robot form. During the part where the Autobots are looking for vehicles to transform into the movie essentially turns into a smorgasboard of GM commercials, even going as far to show a GMC dealer with prominent showroom.
Why are product placements such a big deal? When done correctly (i.e., not shoved in the audience's face,) I agree that they can sometimes make a movie seem more "real." However when you spend half the damn movie showing various cars and how cool they are and gee these same cars are available for purchase at the dealer across the street, then it quickly becomes apparent you're not actually watching a movie. Product placements are advertisements you actually pay to watch - Watch while you suck, suck, suck on Micheal Bay's commercialized dick, then suck it some more when you buy the DVD, t-shirt, candy bars, action figures, and featured automobile as Bay shoots his load all the way to the bank.
Besides all this the movie ain't half bad.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Hunters are pussies and should be shot
I hate hunters, I hate hunters, I fucking hate hunters. What is this need to blow the brains out of an animal from hundreds of feet away? What is the "need" being fulfilled here? What is the desire that causes people to do this? Is it for food? Is it for the "sport?" Or some kind of arcane mountain man tradition? Bullshit. There is only one reason to go hunting- because you're a sick asshole who gets his jollies off of killing something. Other people may try to dispute that, but they are wrong.
It's obviously not for "food," unless you live so far off in the middle of nowhere that you absolutely must shoot deer and crap to survive - maybe if you're in the fucking jungle or something. But in this country your redneck-ass is never more than five miles away from a McDonalds (probably the same one you work at) so don't give me this shit about hunting for "food."
Some people like to delude themselves and pretend that there's no difference between hunting and slaughtering a cow on a farm or something. But once again we see the argument doesn't fly - Cows and chickens are bred to be slaughtered, we make no illusions otherwise. If we let them go into the wild they would starve by the thousands, because we've bred away their natural survival instincts. Wild animals on the other hand are out there minding their own business and would be just fine if we would stop periodically invading their habitats and blowing them away.
"Look here my good man," you may say, "We have to cull the herds because of overpopulation." Ahh, since we killed all the wolves and mountain lions and other wild predators now it's our duty to go out and blow away a bunch of deer to keep them from overgrazing and thus starving to death. True, true, populations must be managed. But we wouldn't have this stupid problem if the fucking rednecks hadn't killed all the predators in the first place. So, how about we start a program to bring back the predators? Reintroduce wolves into these areas, to naturally cull the deer? Set aside wilderness areas where these animals can live? Unlike human beings, animals will find a natural population balance in a given area (eventually.) It's only with human intervention that the balance gets all screwed up and we have to do shit like club baby seals.
"But but but-" you stammer on, "If we reintroduce wolves then people will get eaten!" True, true, so here's how you stop that: DON'T LET PEOPLE GO INTO THE WOODS WHERE THE WOLVES ARE! Don't let hikers and hippies and shit walk around in nature preserves where they could get eaten. That's why they're called "Nature Preserves," because fucking nature is supposed to be fucking preserved in them, not made into entertainment venues where people can walk around leaving their juice bottles and candy bar wrappers all over the place. We don't let people walk around in Grizzly bear country, do we? Make separate parks and shit without wolves and let the hippies walk around in those. It's not like this is rocket science.
One guy told me he had to hunt, because he lived off in the middle of the woods, and bears and wild asses and crap would go through his garbage and invade his house from time to time. Know what I say to that? MOVE. Get out of the woods. If you live in an area where there are lions and tigers and bears and shit, then move the fuck out of that area. YOU DO NOT BELONG THERE. I don't see what's so hard to understand.
Around here we have a problem with mountain lions. Every year they encroach a little bit further and build houses and stuff inside the territory of these animals, then everyone complains when the lions come down and start eating neighborhood dogs and kitty cats and everything. But no one ever brings up the fact that this wouldn't happen if people stayed out of the woods where they didn't belong. These animals need space to live, and if we take that away from them then they'll start their own hunting parties in our streets and backyards. It's called "ecological balance" people, that thing the Republicans say they believe in but do everything to destroy.
Then we have the "sporting" aspect. Well, let's think about this: How sporting is it exactly, to take a machine capable of firing bullet with such force as to rip through the body of any organic creature that has evolved on this Earth with lethal force, and then go shoot a little animal from a hundred yards away? That's not a sport, that's target practice. If you want to shoot a gun then go shoot it at a shooting range, don't go snipe a bunch of endangered Red-Footed falcons you fucking assholes. Go shoot at a paper target, not at something that's alive. I submit to you that dunking a basketball, hitting a home run, driving a souped up race car, or even hitting a fucking golf ball is way more "sporting" than taking a high powered rifle and blowing the brains out of a duck or goose or something. You know what? Even a marathon night of Halo is more sporting than that shit. At least then someone is keeping score.
Then you get these backwards shitbags who somehow think that hunting is part of "being a man," like real men have to go out and pown little quails and shit with sniper rifles as part of some dumbass tradition - complete bullshit. If you want to go kill something like a "man," then don't use a gun. Go out there with a Rambo knife. Make a sharpened spear with your own two hands and skewer a deer with it. Go out and face down a 500 lb bull elk caveman-style with a couple of sharpened rocks. It's not a sport unless you're in danger of serious injury - buying a three ton Giant hog then getting your 13 year old son to shoot it on your own land and then passing it off like the kid actually caught it in the wild ain't "sport,"and it ain't teaching him anything except how to be a fucked up, beer-guzzling, wife beating, gas pumping redneck. You want to teach him how to be a "man?" Throw the kid out there Spartan style, butt-naked with a sharpened stick for 30 days and make his ass hunt to survive, that'll make him a man alright. Or better yet, why not buy the kid a laptop instead of a shotgun? You know, get him an education so he can actually make something of himself and not have to kill shit to feel like he belongs? Being a "man" is about learning responsibility and making a living, not shooting a fucking giant pig then passing it off like a "hunt."
"This fucking tree-hugger has never been hunting" you may be saying. "He doesn't know what it's like." You're right, and you know what? I don't want to know. I don't really care. It sounds like six inbred yokels standing around sucking beers and shooting in every direction. Fuck that. Yes, you're right, I am a close minded asshole. Now hurry up and sweep up those yard trimmings. I don't pay your ass to stand around.
So, every time I hear about some chinless backward buttfuck country boy getting mangled by a Grizzly or shot in the face by the vice president, I smile a little deeper in the inside. You don't want to get shot? You don't want to get eaten? Then stop fucking hunting. YOU DO NOT BELONG THERE. It's not too late to join the 21st century with the rest of the world.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Naurto and Kindgom Hearts guy iz teh Pownerz
This piece was done as a test on Deviant art - a friend of mine has this theory that anything with Naurto or Sora from KH will automatically generate pageviews. Thus this piece has Naurto shooting smack and eating the brains out of a pygmy while lighting a flag on fire with a bible while Sora stomps on an orphaned baby and bootie ranks Naurto with the oversized key thing while smoking a phatty boombatty blunt. I tried to work in them kicking a pregnant lady but it just wasn't possible.
I've never even played Kingdom Hearts.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
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