Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Here is a Ridiculous picture I created
Sunday, August 04, 2013
Stakeland: A Tragic Journey
So, I enjoy watching mediocre movies in the hopes that I will find a Diamond in the rough. Stakeland is one of them. It gets a poor description in the blurb just saying that there are vampires that have ruined America and that we're following two characters around the country. Simply put, this is what the movie is about, which is nice to see. The movie doesn't focus on how humans are some consumer culture eating everything in our path like zombie movies tend to imply. It doesn't focus on survival, where the characters are just barely surviving, starving to death, and fending off hunger (though there is more mention of hunger here than in the Hunger Games). It doesn't focus on the socio-political aspects of vampires coexisting with humans (stupid true blood), nor does it focus on the SCIENCE of killing vampires or why the exist or anything like that. Its really just a movie about a journey to a place called "new eden" and it highlights the turmoils the main characters face trying to get there. And SPOILER ALERT: the movie ends when the characters get there, and it doesn't even show you what happens, if it is what people have said it was through the movie, or if it is salvation, or what. They Literally get there, and the movie ends, leaving the story open, but closed.
There are a lot of mentions about people, and how the main character Martin finds peace and happiness among only the few people he travels with, and finds that being around other people is dangerous.
Stakeland has a great musical score, unpredictable rises and falls, and a strange climactic sequence and denouemont, which I liked in that it doesn't have a great resolution, its just kinda like "eh, this is where we are now." Which is cool because that is how stories are in real life. In stage play, a person's story doesn't end when they leave stage. You leave a room, and enter another room. This is kinda the feeling I got from Stakeland. We know their Journey is not over, so there is no real ending.
If one can ignore a few poorly delivered lines like "save him" and "I'm just getting old and scary." Stakeland is definitely worth a viewing. I was also happy to see a movie that FINALLY acknowledges that A, cars need fuel, and B. you need a generator to have power if the world is over.
Stakeland is not the type of movie that is going to WOW you, but it is an interesting adventure movie with action sequences that are as needless as they would be in real life.
There are a lot of mentions about people, and how the main character Martin finds peace and happiness among only the few people he travels with, and finds that being around other people is dangerous.
Stakeland has a great musical score, unpredictable rises and falls, and a strange climactic sequence and denouemont, which I liked in that it doesn't have a great resolution, its just kinda like "eh, this is where we are now." Which is cool because that is how stories are in real life. In stage play, a person's story doesn't end when they leave stage. You leave a room, and enter another room. This is kinda the feeling I got from Stakeland. We know their Journey is not over, so there is no real ending.
If one can ignore a few poorly delivered lines like "save him" and "I'm just getting old and scary." Stakeland is definitely worth a viewing. I was also happy to see a movie that FINALLY acknowledges that A, cars need fuel, and B. you need a generator to have power if the world is over.
Stakeland is not the type of movie that is going to WOW you, but it is an interesting adventure movie with action sequences that are as needless as they would be in real life.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Firefly: The Story Unfolds, You Can Take My Life, You Can Take My Soul
As I sit here in my boxers, still covered in the dust of the great concert experience that I just experienced and returned home from, I can only think to reminisce on the events that transpired at the weekend that Was Firefly 2013.
Here we go:
Thursday: Our friends call us (my gf and I) to tell us everything is in order. We are excited to come down the next morning.
Friday: We leave super early. Great choice. We miss most of the traffic and get there by ten. Front row camping is awesome, we had to carry our stuff there since we were "companion" parking. Bands we saw that day:
Leagues - Very cool, weird out-of-place-looking lead singer. Fun Kick off.
The Spinto Band - One of my fav local indy bands who seem to have more fun being weird, playing music, and sharing fun facts with people like "today is the longest day of the year" instead of hitting it big. Almost nobody I know has heard of them. Fav track - Summer Grof.
Django Django - weird ambient-type band from britain. lead singer is irish, seems like an awesome dude. Fav track - Hail Bop (they played it first, it was awesome)
Twenty-One Pilots - Performer of the Day. THIS was the best performance of the weekend. These guys are amazing. I don't know how they did it, but they played the best hour of performance of anyone I saw, and it was just the two of them. The lead singer climbed the stage frame, the drummer did backflips, they drummed on platforms held by the audience, and were just all around amazing. Fav Track - Trees... I will listen to Holding Onto You (their single) more often, but they did some amazing things with this song live that I'll never forget.
Dr. Dog - Fun music. I was too far away to really get into it, but I enjoyed the sound.
Ellie Goulding - I had high hopes for her coming into the venue. The audio for her set was terrible, I couldn't get close enough to enjoy the music since so many people had filtered in at this point in the afternoon. We left to take a break at the campsite (front row camping is SOOOO the way to go). I heard later that the latter part of her set was solid which is good, because she is very talented.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Freakin awesome. Anthony Keatus still has it, Flea is cool as shit, and the new guitarist was baller. Surprisingly some technical hiccups during their show... the solo during Californication, among my favorite tracks was silent. Still it was worth it to skip other artists to be an hour early for their set to be about 50 ft from the stage. Super cool, I have ALWAYS wanted to see them. Track of the night - Around the World.
Krewella - we had planned on dancing hard at Krewella's set, but were totally wiped after RHCP and just sat and watched from a distance and ate ice cream for a while. The builds and drops of House/EDM are pretty cool. Even though its awkwardly 2-3 ppl behind a DJ table the lights and thumping bass are pretty cool to see.
Bands I missed
Sister Sparrow - heard they were great
The Avett Brothers - Really needed a break when they were on, but heard they put on a great show.
Calvin Harris - wanted to get in early for RHCP, but heard his tracks were sick.
Saturday: I waited in line for an hour to get a cup of iced coffee at the hub, no joke. THEN I waited in line an hour to get a cool Firefly headband from Toyota in the festival (they were very trendy and cool, plus i had forgotten all my bandanas). This was clutch as later my scalp was sunburned, so I wore it over my head for protection. Bands we saw:
Japandroids: worst act i saw all weekend. sound was bad, singing was bad. music was eh. I am sorry, I have no idea what they were going for, or what they were doing there.
ZZ Ward - I had never heard of her. She was excellent. So good. Great Blues style heavy beat country-esque music with a powerful voice like Adele. Very fun to dance to.
A Silent Film - Performer of the Day. These guys were great. I only knew one of their tracks, which was excellent. The rest of their music was awesome, too. They played one song, then the drummer had to fix something on his kit. The lead singer kept the crowd interested with some jokes, it was very entertaining. Then he just put the mic in a stand and played a quick song on piano. "I'll just play this for you I guess" Whil the drummer fixed his kit. Awesome. little unplugged track (basically). :) Fav Song - Danny, Dakota &The Wishing Well. Their Single is You Will Leave a Mark. Very good song, I liked DDWW better live.
Alabama Shakes - Didn't really see them. they didn't sound great from a distance, so we took our break at this point.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - So many people, we couldn't get close, but the music sounded weird, too. the Main Stage was Packed. the drunk people were buzzing, and I didn't want any part of this just to see the song "maps" which I only know from Rock Band. She was made up to look like a clown and that was super weird.
MGMT - Their singles were AWESOME. The rest of the music was basically weird stream of consciousness music with no performance; just trippy video behind a stagnant band. The audience was super High. The singles were fun to dance to, but the rest was rubbish.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Classic rock fans will be appalled at what I did here. tough noogies. We really wanted to get a little tipsy and go to some EDM after seeing krewella the night before, so we only stayed for half of Tom Petty's set. We sat in the way back, layed on our blankets and just enjoyed his music. It was fun. We stayed til he played Free Fallin, and then ripped some SoCo shots at the camp site... more on that in a minute.
The White Panda - This was super fun. I'll do this again for sure. We took down about a quarter of a handle of SoCo among 4-6 people and went to an EDM show. Our friend dragged us deep into the depths of the popping glow-stick bearing crowd, and the pandas did their thing. The strange outfits, light up LED panda masks, light show, heavy driving bass. Super fun dancing, good builds... Just all around fun. Will DEFINITELY do it again.
Bands I missed:
Young Empires
Imaginary Cities
Blondefire - Heard all good things about these three bands while I wasted my time at Japandroids. :(
Sunday: Final Day. Miraculously not hungover, but body is sore. Still excited for the last day.
Bands:
The Last Royals - Like the band name! Not super original, fairly vanilla music, but good. solid singer, good solos and beats, pop-rock style music.
The Apache Relay - Big group band. Very neat sound.
Trails and Ways - wasn't super impessed by them
The Last Bison - I had never heard of these guys. They were awesome. Very cool folky music. I bought their CD and got them to sign it. It POURED rain, they played right through it. I danced my heart out with my friends for this family band from Virginia. Great experience with violin, cello and alternate percussion and a pipe organ.
I MISSED MATT AND KIM for the signing. I was very sad that I did. I heard they were great.
Capital Cities - We risked missing half of the Dispatch set for this much to my Gf's chagrin, but we were both happy we did. These guys were cool. Performers of the day! Their song Safe and Sound was so cool. I had been so tired during their set, and they hyped it up and got everyone dancing with an organized dance for one of their tracks. The trumpet mixed with the synths and dual male vocals was SOOO cool and weird. That trumpeter was very talented. Fav Track - Safe and Sound.
Dispatch - I got to hear "the general" as the last track, so I was happy. We missed most of their set for Capital Cities which I did not regret.
Passion Pit - We tried to go see them, but the crowd was humungous as it had been every time we tried to go late-ish to a main stage event. I heard the lead singer lost his voice in the middle and ended their set early which sounds kinda weak. Glad we left early to get close for Vampire Weekend.
Vampire Weekend - Last band we stayed for. They were good. A few of my friends went all the way to the front for their set. I got close enough to see the band well, good thing because the Sun behind us was glaring out the big screens. They played well, their music really drives their show but they aren't the most energetic performers, honestly. Fav Track - Diane Young.
We wanted to leave a touch early to avoid traffic, so we left mid-set. I chose the fastest route out which was CROWD SURFING. I passed my friends in the front, and they took photos. My other friend took a video which I am excited to see. I did get dropped in the beginning, but I was ready for it and popped right back up for the rest of the journey.
Every concert goer should learn the fun fact that if you can't handle the heat, the fastest way out of the kitchen is up. Just ask a big dude near you to put you up and off you go. I recommend for guys doing the superman method, hands forward on your stomach so you can tap the people ahead of you so they are ready since everyone is looking toward the stage (some ppl are dicks and try to ball tap you, assessed risk) Girls can do that, but for obvious reasons prob are not comfortable with that, so just flip to your back, but Be as stiff as a board, and be ready to twist if you start to feel a drop. It happens. girls maybe go feet first instead. Crowd surfing is super fun, somewhat dangerous, but totally worth it. Make sure you are helping by keeping your muscles taught, and if you weigh more than 180 Lbs, you should probably not be crowd surfing. The only thing worse than having to help push a huge overweight person forward is watching them crush some poor 5'1" girl who wasn't ready for it.
Bands I missed:
Delta Rae - Heard they were really good
Matt and Kim - I could hear them from the line for The Last Bison's signing. They sounded very good, I am sad I missed them, probably one of two regrets, missing them, and going to stupid Japandroids.
Foster the People - I didn't stick around for the headliner. After 36 of 72 hours being spent listening to music and battling crowds and dancing my head off, it was time to go home. Not a huge fan of them anyways so, we left a tad early.
Honestly, it was the best musical experience of my life, and maybe the best weekend of my life. It was super cool. Front Row camping was Perfect, Ideal for the situation. The weather was great. Hot, but with a breeze. It poured rain for about 45 minutes total the whole time which only added to the music of The Last Bison.
It was a stellar weekend. Very excited for next year. Suggestions to the out door concert-goer,
Stay sober...ish, Just have a little for a buzz, you should be there for the experience, not the drugs.
Take breaks. You can't possibly see everything, sit down for a while in the shade, take a 20 min nap somewhere cool so you can rock it for someone you are excited for.
Embrace the pain. 12 hours on your feet, you are going to be sore, just ignore it and dance. don't complain you will feel better later.
Go Early for the music you REALLY want to see. The earlier shows, you can get close enough to feel the pump of the music if you arrive on time. Bigger names, you must get there at least 30 minutes before their set starts to get close enough to really enjoy it.
Try something new. my friends were very in-tune with the music ahead of time, so they had some good music in mind to go and see. I was happy I followed them because the music was great. Found some Gems and had some really great experiences to meet some really great people.
Embrace the music. If you feel like other people are embarrassing themselves by dancing, you probably shouldn't be there. Short of fighting, or getting kicked out for drug abuse, you can really do no wrong at an outdoor concert. Move your body, have fun. There is nothing embarrassing about singing your heart out in a crowd doing the same, or dancing among strangers and friends. Let yourself go. its why you are there, the perfect break from reality. I promise, reality will still be there when you're done, but for now live in the music and the moment.
While there I remembered how to be care free again, I remembered how to enjoy music and how to express emotion through more than words on a page and tears down a face. I remembered how to live like a leaf on the wind, dancing through life as just a small shining light. How to live like a Firefly.
Firefly.
Here we go:
Thursday: Our friends call us (my gf and I) to tell us everything is in order. We are excited to come down the next morning.
Friday: We leave super early. Great choice. We miss most of the traffic and get there by ten. Front row camping is awesome, we had to carry our stuff there since we were "companion" parking. Bands we saw that day:
Leagues - Very cool, weird out-of-place-looking lead singer. Fun Kick off.
The Spinto Band - One of my fav local indy bands who seem to have more fun being weird, playing music, and sharing fun facts with people like "today is the longest day of the year" instead of hitting it big. Almost nobody I know has heard of them. Fav track - Summer Grof.
Django Django - weird ambient-type band from britain. lead singer is irish, seems like an awesome dude. Fav track - Hail Bop (they played it first, it was awesome)
Twenty-One Pilots - Performer of the Day. THIS was the best performance of the weekend. These guys are amazing. I don't know how they did it, but they played the best hour of performance of anyone I saw, and it was just the two of them. The lead singer climbed the stage frame, the drummer did backflips, they drummed on platforms held by the audience, and were just all around amazing. Fav Track - Trees... I will listen to Holding Onto You (their single) more often, but they did some amazing things with this song live that I'll never forget.
Dr. Dog - Fun music. I was too far away to really get into it, but I enjoyed the sound.
Ellie Goulding - I had high hopes for her coming into the venue. The audio for her set was terrible, I couldn't get close enough to enjoy the music since so many people had filtered in at this point in the afternoon. We left to take a break at the campsite (front row camping is SOOOO the way to go). I heard later that the latter part of her set was solid which is good, because she is very talented.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Freakin awesome. Anthony Keatus still has it, Flea is cool as shit, and the new guitarist was baller. Surprisingly some technical hiccups during their show... the solo during Californication, among my favorite tracks was silent. Still it was worth it to skip other artists to be an hour early for their set to be about 50 ft from the stage. Super cool, I have ALWAYS wanted to see them. Track of the night - Around the World.
Krewella - we had planned on dancing hard at Krewella's set, but were totally wiped after RHCP and just sat and watched from a distance and ate ice cream for a while. The builds and drops of House/EDM are pretty cool. Even though its awkwardly 2-3 ppl behind a DJ table the lights and thumping bass are pretty cool to see.
Bands I missed
Sister Sparrow - heard they were great
The Avett Brothers - Really needed a break when they were on, but heard they put on a great show.
Calvin Harris - wanted to get in early for RHCP, but heard his tracks were sick.
Saturday: I waited in line for an hour to get a cup of iced coffee at the hub, no joke. THEN I waited in line an hour to get a cool Firefly headband from Toyota in the festival (they were very trendy and cool, plus i had forgotten all my bandanas). This was clutch as later my scalp was sunburned, so I wore it over my head for protection. Bands we saw:
Japandroids: worst act i saw all weekend. sound was bad, singing was bad. music was eh. I am sorry, I have no idea what they were going for, or what they were doing there.
ZZ Ward - I had never heard of her. She was excellent. So good. Great Blues style heavy beat country-esque music with a powerful voice like Adele. Very fun to dance to.
A Silent Film - Performer of the Day. These guys were great. I only knew one of their tracks, which was excellent. The rest of their music was awesome, too. They played one song, then the drummer had to fix something on his kit. The lead singer kept the crowd interested with some jokes, it was very entertaining. Then he just put the mic in a stand and played a quick song on piano. "I'll just play this for you I guess" Whil the drummer fixed his kit. Awesome. little unplugged track (basically). :) Fav Song - Danny, Dakota &The Wishing Well. Their Single is You Will Leave a Mark. Very good song, I liked DDWW better live.
Alabama Shakes - Didn't really see them. they didn't sound great from a distance, so we took our break at this point.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - So many people, we couldn't get close, but the music sounded weird, too. the Main Stage was Packed. the drunk people were buzzing, and I didn't want any part of this just to see the song "maps" which I only know from Rock Band. She was made up to look like a clown and that was super weird.
MGMT - Their singles were AWESOME. The rest of the music was basically weird stream of consciousness music with no performance; just trippy video behind a stagnant band. The audience was super High. The singles were fun to dance to, but the rest was rubbish.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Classic rock fans will be appalled at what I did here. tough noogies. We really wanted to get a little tipsy and go to some EDM after seeing krewella the night before, so we only stayed for half of Tom Petty's set. We sat in the way back, layed on our blankets and just enjoyed his music. It was fun. We stayed til he played Free Fallin, and then ripped some SoCo shots at the camp site... more on that in a minute.
The White Panda - This was super fun. I'll do this again for sure. We took down about a quarter of a handle of SoCo among 4-6 people and went to an EDM show. Our friend dragged us deep into the depths of the popping glow-stick bearing crowd, and the pandas did their thing. The strange outfits, light up LED panda masks, light show, heavy driving bass. Super fun dancing, good builds... Just all around fun. Will DEFINITELY do it again.
Bands I missed:
Young Empires
Imaginary Cities
Blondefire - Heard all good things about these three bands while I wasted my time at Japandroids. :(
Sunday: Final Day. Miraculously not hungover, but body is sore. Still excited for the last day.
Bands:
The Last Royals - Like the band name! Not super original, fairly vanilla music, but good. solid singer, good solos and beats, pop-rock style music.
The Apache Relay - Big group band. Very neat sound.
Trails and Ways - wasn't super impessed by them
The Last Bison - I had never heard of these guys. They were awesome. Very cool folky music. I bought their CD and got them to sign it. It POURED rain, they played right through it. I danced my heart out with my friends for this family band from Virginia. Great experience with violin, cello and alternate percussion and a pipe organ.
I MISSED MATT AND KIM for the signing. I was very sad that I did. I heard they were great.
Capital Cities - We risked missing half of the Dispatch set for this much to my Gf's chagrin, but we were both happy we did. These guys were cool. Performers of the day! Their song Safe and Sound was so cool. I had been so tired during their set, and they hyped it up and got everyone dancing with an organized dance for one of their tracks. The trumpet mixed with the synths and dual male vocals was SOOO cool and weird. That trumpeter was very talented. Fav Track - Safe and Sound.
Dispatch - I got to hear "the general" as the last track, so I was happy. We missed most of their set for Capital Cities which I did not regret.
Passion Pit - We tried to go see them, but the crowd was humungous as it had been every time we tried to go late-ish to a main stage event. I heard the lead singer lost his voice in the middle and ended their set early which sounds kinda weak. Glad we left early to get close for Vampire Weekend.
Vampire Weekend - Last band we stayed for. They were good. A few of my friends went all the way to the front for their set. I got close enough to see the band well, good thing because the Sun behind us was glaring out the big screens. They played well, their music really drives their show but they aren't the most energetic performers, honestly. Fav Track - Diane Young.
We wanted to leave a touch early to avoid traffic, so we left mid-set. I chose the fastest route out which was CROWD SURFING. I passed my friends in the front, and they took photos. My other friend took a video which I am excited to see. I did get dropped in the beginning, but I was ready for it and popped right back up for the rest of the journey.
Every concert goer should learn the fun fact that if you can't handle the heat, the fastest way out of the kitchen is up. Just ask a big dude near you to put you up and off you go. I recommend for guys doing the superman method, hands forward on your stomach so you can tap the people ahead of you so they are ready since everyone is looking toward the stage (some ppl are dicks and try to ball tap you, assessed risk) Girls can do that, but for obvious reasons prob are not comfortable with that, so just flip to your back, but Be as stiff as a board, and be ready to twist if you start to feel a drop. It happens. girls maybe go feet first instead. Crowd surfing is super fun, somewhat dangerous, but totally worth it. Make sure you are helping by keeping your muscles taught, and if you weigh more than 180 Lbs, you should probably not be crowd surfing. The only thing worse than having to help push a huge overweight person forward is watching them crush some poor 5'1" girl who wasn't ready for it.
Bands I missed:
Delta Rae - Heard they were really good
Matt and Kim - I could hear them from the line for The Last Bison's signing. They sounded very good, I am sad I missed them, probably one of two regrets, missing them, and going to stupid Japandroids.
Foster the People - I didn't stick around for the headliner. After 36 of 72 hours being spent listening to music and battling crowds and dancing my head off, it was time to go home. Not a huge fan of them anyways so, we left a tad early.
Honestly, it was the best musical experience of my life, and maybe the best weekend of my life. It was super cool. Front Row camping was Perfect, Ideal for the situation. The weather was great. Hot, but with a breeze. It poured rain for about 45 minutes total the whole time which only added to the music of The Last Bison.
It was a stellar weekend. Very excited for next year. Suggestions to the out door concert-goer,
Stay sober...ish, Just have a little for a buzz, you should be there for the experience, not the drugs.
Take breaks. You can't possibly see everything, sit down for a while in the shade, take a 20 min nap somewhere cool so you can rock it for someone you are excited for.
Embrace the pain. 12 hours on your feet, you are going to be sore, just ignore it and dance. don't complain you will feel better later.
Go Early for the music you REALLY want to see. The earlier shows, you can get close enough to feel the pump of the music if you arrive on time. Bigger names, you must get there at least 30 minutes before their set starts to get close enough to really enjoy it.
Try something new. my friends were very in-tune with the music ahead of time, so they had some good music in mind to go and see. I was happy I followed them because the music was great. Found some Gems and had some really great experiences to meet some really great people.
Embrace the music. If you feel like other people are embarrassing themselves by dancing, you probably shouldn't be there. Short of fighting, or getting kicked out for drug abuse, you can really do no wrong at an outdoor concert. Move your body, have fun. There is nothing embarrassing about singing your heart out in a crowd doing the same, or dancing among strangers and friends. Let yourself go. its why you are there, the perfect break from reality. I promise, reality will still be there when you're done, but for now live in the music and the moment.
While there I remembered how to be care free again, I remembered how to enjoy music and how to express emotion through more than words on a page and tears down a face. I remembered how to live like a leaf on the wind, dancing through life as just a small shining light. How to live like a Firefly.
Firefly.
Friday, November 02, 2012
The Human Mind and Mayans
So, there has been a great deal of chatter about the end of the world and Mayans 2012, and all sorts of hubub about how we are all doomed. To you non-believers out there, I say this: Believe not in the End, but believe in tomorrow.
What I mean by that is, the world is what we make of it. There are written documents in our history to make us believe that what we visualize is what we will become. So I ask everyone to visualize what you will be doing on the 22nd of December 2012, or possibly what we will be doing on New Year's Day 2013. It will be Easy for your faithful blogger (me) to do as I will be in Hawaii on the 22nd of December, and I am not going to let the Mayans take that away from me.
This concept comes from a few influences. Seeing is not believing anymore, but quite rather the opposite, believing is seeing. I watch the show "Supernatural" with my lovely girlfriend, and the last episode I viewed "Hell House" featured a Tibetan Buddhism spirit called a Tulpa. A spirit created out of belief. That is so many people believed the house was haunted, that it actually became haunted.
The second influence is working in a restaurant. If I start my day saying "I don't wanna serve any tables today because I'm lazy" maybe one table comes in, I have a poopy day and walk home with bad tips and no money. On the contrary, if I say "I feel good and my tables are gonna be great today" the opposite tends to occur. This holds relatively true regardless of the weather.
Finally, my hope is that this entry, and its very few followers do not propagate the stupid belief that the Mayans were that damn smart. Maybe it was a joke, or a complete misinterpretation. Before we trust our archaeologist friends who say "this stone tablet said this" think of what someone would think if they read your calendar, or your Journal a hundred years from now.
"Doctor's app on the 8th, oh and End of the world on the 21st" I am sure we can see through the Mayan's stone tablets.
What I mean by that is, the world is what we make of it. There are written documents in our history to make us believe that what we visualize is what we will become. So I ask everyone to visualize what you will be doing on the 22nd of December 2012, or possibly what we will be doing on New Year's Day 2013. It will be Easy for your faithful blogger (me) to do as I will be in Hawaii on the 22nd of December, and I am not going to let the Mayans take that away from me.
This concept comes from a few influences. Seeing is not believing anymore, but quite rather the opposite, believing is seeing. I watch the show "Supernatural" with my lovely girlfriend, and the last episode I viewed "Hell House" featured a Tibetan Buddhism spirit called a Tulpa. A spirit created out of belief. That is so many people believed the house was haunted, that it actually became haunted.
The second influence is working in a restaurant. If I start my day saying "I don't wanna serve any tables today because I'm lazy" maybe one table comes in, I have a poopy day and walk home with bad tips and no money. On the contrary, if I say "I feel good and my tables are gonna be great today" the opposite tends to occur. This holds relatively true regardless of the weather.
Finally, my hope is that this entry, and its very few followers do not propagate the stupid belief that the Mayans were that damn smart. Maybe it was a joke, or a complete misinterpretation. Before we trust our archaeologist friends who say "this stone tablet said this" think of what someone would think if they read your calendar, or your Journal a hundred years from now.
"Doctor's app on the 8th, oh and End of the world on the 21st" I am sure we can see through the Mayan's stone tablets.
Monday, October 29, 2012
THE HURRICANE
Hello non-existent readers... The Hurricane named Sandy strikes the East Coast. Miraculously, the storm has not stolen our power from us yet. I am unfamiliar with the infrastructure in Northern DE, but I get the feeling that many of the power lines are below ground and not at high risk of outages here. I find it strange that in the 7 years I have lived in DE, I have experienced ONE power outage and it was in a college dormitory.
Anyways, enough being relatively droll. Here are some fun hurricane suggestions. 1. The Scorpions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxdmw4tJJ1Y
Ok. That's the only one I have. Seriously, take the advice of the first ally in Area 51 "Stay Low!" and don't shoot anybody in a blue suit wearing a beret.
Anyways, enough being relatively droll. Here are some fun hurricane suggestions. 1. The Scorpions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxdmw4tJJ1Y
Ok. That's the only one I have. Seriously, take the advice of the first ally in Area 51 "Stay Low!" and don't shoot anybody in a blue suit wearing a beret.
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Trial by Combat
Recently, a great many of my facebook friend have been complaining about the budget, reforms, congress, the judicial system, taxes, health care. The list goes on. To them I recommend some light reading: George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire.
Many of you may wonder, “Sam, what does that book have to do with the problems of today?” To you non-believers in the land of Oz, I say three words:
TRIAL BY COMBAT
The modern political climate demands action, but begets sloth at every turn. People are unhappy with their political leaders; they are too lazy to go out and vote to get new ones (56% eligible voter turnout in 2008 presidential election, 37% in the 2010 midterm election). http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html. Pretty weak showing, not that I rocked the vote. Regardless of my irresponsibility to the choosing of our nation’s leaders, the solution is clear. We must start fighting for what we believe in. Not in the traditional sense of standing up for your rights, or non-violently attaining your needs. I am talking old old tradition of literally putting up your fists and fighting an opponent for a cause.
Martin displays this point in many cases throughout his book series. Spoiler alert for anyone living under a rock. In the first book and season of the series, a certain stature-impaired character stands accused by Catelyn Stark of attempting to kill her Son, Bran. The short man has done no such thing, but the injustice of the trial is made obvious to the reader. The dwarf demands a trial by combat; the right of anyone who stands accused of any crime.
A quick Breakdown: accused party and accuser each choose a champion, or fight for themselves. Arms and armor are donned. The two Champions fight to the death. If the accused side wins, charges are dropped.
The theory is that the gods intervene in a trial by combat and only the purest souls can survive the will of the gods. That, and years of training in swordplay to defeat an opponent.
I think we could easily apply this to modern trial and tribulation. Imagine a world where one could hire an MMA fighter to decide whether or not you are innocent or guilty. No longer do we hire people who are smarter than we are, we simply hire people who are stronger than we are. We could basically eradicate the entire system of laws and rules which is riddled with interpretation and loopholes. Although the new system has one GIANT loophole which is that the best fighter should win. And you still have payoffs, and thrown fights… etc. etc. I think that could be easily countered by taking say 5% of the money that is wasted on the prison and legislative system, and spending it on an elite enforcement group that kills people who cheat, and closely regulates registered fighter/defenders (RFs?) and their bank accounts, off-season jobs, etc.
These fights would not be to the death, though some people would probably still volunteer for such a job, and of course, defendants would always have the option of doing a regular trial of their peers, but the burden of proof ought lie on the defense so people are less quick to accuse.
Suing… should just be outlawed. Go beat your neighbor up, and then beat him up again in a trial by combat.
Legislation should all be decided by trial by combat. Our law makers can remain the same people, and normal voting can ensue for most issues. If congress fails to decide within a small allotment of days, let us say two days (every problem should be able to be solved in 48 hours max), each faction on a debate chooses a champion, paid for NOT by the taxpayers, but by the fund allocated for paying their champion (so ultimately, yes the taxpayers). The winning faction gets their way on whatever issue, be it gay marriage, abortions, budget… for a period of 8 years. Equal to a full Presidential term. This way if people like it, it can stay, if they do not like it, there is another fight!
It seems that congress does not seem to care about what the public thinks of their behavior, so we should just take their jobs away from them, and pay them way less, and let the issues decide themselves in the cage, on public television. CSPAN wouldn’t be so fucking boring if they had a cage match once in a while.
“Guerrerro v Ortiz, The Gay Marriage Debate. See it all decided tonight at 9PM on CSPAN. Brought to you by Bud Light.”
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
"Butt Face" carries more weight than initially thought
I read an article today in the Star Ledger. Here is a link to a brief of it from Mercury News: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18513648
Apparently, Megan's Law applies to 14-year-olds. I did a little research on Megan's Law in NJ, and here is the skinny:
Megan's Law registration-level offenses are graded on a scale using the rubric known as the Juvenile Risk Assessment Scale. It has 14 Criteria divided up into Low, Moderate and High Risk. Each of the 14 criteria have a point scale. 0-low, 1-moderate, 2-high. The points are totaled and your sex-offender number is given. Odd that a score of 0 still puts you in the sex offender scale if you do all of the low-risk things. Here is a link to the breakdown. The strangest one that I observed was the victim gender category. 0-female victim, 1-male victim, 2-female and male victim (which implies multiple crimes, or multiple victims) I think women should be outraged at this. I thought we were all equal? So. apparently, sexually assaulting an underage man is worse than sexually assaulting an underage woman. What kind of message are we sending to our sex offenders?
Just for fun, lets do a Juvenile Risk Assessment of this situation based on the news report I read. Take note, these are 14-year olds (now 16) who "sexually assaulted" two 12-year olds (now 14). I don't know where the offense happened.
1. offense history: 1 (Moderate, threats; minor physical force). They have to receive this rating because we must assume that the boys did not consent to having bare butt cheek placed in their faces, so were probably held down somehow.
2. Degree of Contact: 0 (Low, No contact; fondling over clothing) We must assume the victim's clothes were on, but fondling and No contact should surely be in separate categories. RIGHT? isn't no contact.. uh.. NOTHING? so not sexual offense. right? RIGHT? we can't say it was a 1. fondling under clothing because the clothes were probably on.
3. Age of Victim(4 or more year age difference): 1.(11-15) I know in many states, statutory rape is defined by a 4 year age difference. So i guess this category doesn't apply if its less than a 4 year age difference so maybe it should really be a 0. so actually its a 0.
4. Victim Selection: 1 (acquaintance). We may even be able to say these people were strangers making it a 2, but I'll assume they knew each other from school.
5. Number of offenses/victims: 0,1. (first, two known offenses/victims). Again, this is a little confusing, not well defined. 1st offense, definitely two victims, or did one boy only butt face one other boy? I dunno. we will say its a 1 for lack of definition.
6. Duration of offensive behavior: 0 (less than one year). I think the butt face incident only happened once. but now that this has dragged out for more than 2 years. that's offensive behavior, the victims probably still think about it, god a butt in your face. I mean, I don't want a butt in my face, but I don't think that it is worthy of a Megan's law offense.
7. Length of time since last offense: 0 (4 or more years). Why is this category here for 1st timers?
8. Victim Gender: 1 (male). I spoke about this earlier. if women can vote, drive, enlist, drink beer, do everything men can, except get drafted, should not the levels of risk for sexual offense be the same? Maybe its a gay sex offender, does that make him a WORSE sex offender than the straight one?
9. History of Anti Social Behavior: 0 (no history or very limited history). I don't know anything about these kids, but as far as I know, when I was 14, the bullies were the popular kids.
10. Substance Abuse: 0 (no history). I'll assume these kids were on the up and up at 14.
11. Response to sex offender treatment: 0 (good progress) do these kids need to go to treatment? the judges acknowledged that it was to humiliate and degrade the victims through sexual contact. Humiliation and degradation don't seem like the goals of most sex offenders. I think the kids' parents could probably have treated their children in this instance. Is it the state's place to raise our kids?
12. sex offender specific therapy: 2 (no involvement). I am going to assume they are not in therapy... because they don't need therapy, they need a slap on the wrist. yeah its messed up to put someone's ass cheeks in someone else's face, but we also have to change in a locker room full of naked-same-sex people. So... trip the wrong way, and possible law suit says this law. The real rating here is probably a 0. Because the parents are probably forcing them into therapy.
13. Residential support: 1. (stable and appropriate location but no external support) What is an external support system? What is a stable and appropriate location? None of these make sense at all. parents and uh... parents for both... clearly they aren't doing a great job if it came to this.
14. employment/educational stability: 0. (stable and appropriate) probably in school, probably doing ok.
so Even by my gross misinterpretations of these arbitrary grades, they only have an 8. in a more reasonable argument, they would have a 5 or a 4.
And one of these categories is gender... which I am pretty sure if you stuck your butt cheeks in a girl's face, it would be way worse than doing it to a male play-mate. at least from chivalry's point of view.
I am not trying to defend sex offender's here, nor am i saying that these boys' behaviors was OK. It is gross. When I was 13, a classmate pulled my pants down in gym class for all the world to see. What did I do? I pulled up my pants, and never spoke to that kid again. Guess what? He didn't graduate High School, and now he is in the Marines. Maybe he is waiting to strike and pull down more pants. Doubtful.
Megan's Law is an appropriate response to sexual predators. Statutory rape is a crime and anyone who commits it should be locked away forever. These 14-year-olds have been dragged into legislature that they probably didn't even understand at the time. I know, "Ignorance of the Law is no excuse from the Law." But How these Judges interpreted Megan's Law, which is meant to warn Parents of convicted sex offenders in their area is an atrocity. It is a shameful reading of the law and will ruin 2 kids' lives, and possibly more in the future. The act committed by these two boys is not "criminal sexual contact". Children are immature.
The Judges are the true criminals here. They are not doing their Job properly. By interpreting the law in this way, they define this act as criminal sexual contact forever in the future and weaken Megan's Law. A law that covers everything covers nothing.
The next time you are thinking about mooning someone, think again.
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