Reconsidering Lara Croft

It's Sunday, January 9, 2011, there's something sour in the air, and this is The Side. Up until yesterday afternoon this post was going to be positive, light and have nothing to do with Batman. This being a nice change of pace. Well, it still has nothing to do with Batman, but after yesterday afternoon it certainly isn't light.

POLITICS

Yesterday, a lot of things got really out of hand. A 22 year old opened fire at Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shooting her through the head and killing five others including a federal judge and a child. Currently there's a lot of people really upset with the government of this country, but this obviously is a horrible act by a very disturbed person. I followed this story quite a bit, but I did make the mistake of drifting down and reading the comments section on of the story on Yahoo. If you are ever feeling suicidal and need that extra push to take the next step in ending your own life, you really should read the comments section of anything remotely political on Yahoo. It makes it very easy to give up all hope for humanity .

Nearly immediately Sarah Palin and the Tea Party were blamed due to a graphic listing districts where the group hopes to get different people in elected positions and it uses gun target graphics to illustrate the areas. This is not the first time anyone has used such graphic in illustrations obviously, but still the image was taken down because considering the events of yesterday it was in poor taste to leave it up. Of course many didn't even need to know about the graphic to blame Palin and the tea party since they blame nearly anything that goes wrong in the country on them anyways.

Something horrible happens, including the death of a child, and people still divide up on political lines ready to fight the other side. Its amazing what assholes people have become. I understand that people are upset and angry and they want a target for that anger. I did a bit a digging. Congresswoman Giffords is an admitted Blue Dog Democrat, meaning she's not very liberal. She recently voted against Nancy Pelosi. Then some other little bits popped up about the shooter. This guy is completely off his rocker. Seems he's been like this for a long time having weird outbursts in high school, posting nutty stuff online, getting rejected by the military, and leaving college. He listed "Mein Kampf" and "The Communist Manifesto" among his favorite books. An acquaintance of his describes him as very liberal. That doesn't add up because why would a liberal try to murder a Democratic Congresswoman.

The answer is very simple: he's got serious mental problems. He's not a Republican, a Democrat, a Conservative, or a Liberal. He someone who really needed to be under the care of doctors.

Will this horrible event spur people on to try to be more civil in the exchange of political ideas and maybe try to tone the venom out there down? Probably not. This isn't the fault of anyone except the shooter, but with someone with the mental problems he obviously has in an environment as abrasive as the political theater in Arizona its no surprise someone snapped and tried to murder a government official.

Bottom line: that guy is an asshole who'll be locked away thank goodness. Everyone out there turning this into an excuse to wave your napalm and pitchforks at the other side of the political aisle, screw you. You're part of the problem.

MODEL CITIZEN!!

For pretty much anybody over the age of eight who has even heard of video games, you've probably heard of Lara Croft, the star of the TOMB RAIDER series of games. The franchise is quite successful and have spawned a couple of movies starring Angelina Jolie. The character of Lara Croft is basically popular for two things, well really four things, two pistols and two giant boobs. Croft's bust size is what most people remember from the franchise. It was to the point that in the movies they actually used CGI to enhance the size of Jolie's breasts thus making a scene where she is running look like there were two strange, round life forms struggling to free themselves from the confines of her shirt. Yes, I have seen both of the movies, mainly due to the Missus being a fan of Angelina Jolie when she's going about the business of kicking people about the ass region. I do think I have one of the video games.

Hang on, let me check.

Sure enough! TOMB RAIDER III for the Playstation. I'm not sure how this got into the house or why. I vaguely remember playing this for about half an hour, maybe and then never touching it again. How did this get into the house? It's a used copy. I know I didn't buy it. OK, this is weird. Moving on.

Here's some big news, Lara Croft is getting a make over. This is an effort to transform her from a two-dimensional game hero to an actual character. The visual look has been revamped. Here proportions are less back straining. She's still depicted as beautiful, but not as an over-the-top sex symbol. The developers are rebooting the series as into what they are calling survival-adventure. The familiar elements of the previous games are there, but they say that they want this character to look a bit more vulnerable. If some rough stuff happens in the game, she will get messed up a bit and dirty.

My friend Michael when discussing the way Greg Rucka writes women said they are allowed to get beaten up, because they will get up, dust themselves off and then hand you your ass. It looks like that mindset is what was in mind with this reboot. Lara croft has never been depicted as dainty or needing to be rescued. However, unless you died in the game you never saw her hurt. You never got to see her strength of character because it never really got tested. Looks like that's going to change.

I've discussed before good feminism versus bad feminism. Bad feminism puts down or demonizes men, places women on a pedestal based solely on gender, and only serves as a wedge driven right into the divide between the sexes. Good feminism embraces women as capable and yet still feminine. Characters like Wonder Woman or Buffy Summers are beautiful, intelligent and just a capable as any guy without making a point of it. Its just accepted that they can handle whatever situation they find themselves in, so when they do need help, its not some damsel in distress situation. They do what they do without having to put a man down to do it.

If you had asked me a month ago if I would put Lara Croft in the same category as Wonder Woman or Buffy Summers, I probably would have laughed. Now the jury is officially out. This new step in the franchise is set to make us seriously reconsider the character, and its a step in a very good direction. Whether it succeeds or not, the game developers have realized that there has to be more to great heroine than looking tough and having a great set of bombs. There's actually being tough, being able to actually connect with players on an emotional level above 'horndog', and still being beautiful.

MUSIC!!

Coo coo ca-choo.


That wraps things up for today. Got another Buzz Tourney starting today so if you're interested you can hit the link on the sidebar. Stay safe and see you on Wednesday.

The Longest Shortest Day

It's Friday, December 24, 2010, Christmas Eve is here, and this is the Side. As you may have realized there was no post on Wednesday, which is the first time since I started doing regularly scheduled updates that I missed one without telling y'all in advance. The reason why is an early Christmas miracle.

As I mentioned at the end of last Sunday's post, my dad was in the hospital. Getting some tests done for a shortness of breath. I was keeping up with things and really thought it wouldn't be anything major. So I got up Monday and typed a bit which I've included below and got ready for work. Here's what was going on in West Virginia.

My Dad was feeling like he couldn't get enough air. It would happen in little episodes and he would be fine. I was talking to him on the phone while he was in the hospital and he sounded fine. He's 62 years old. The doctor asked about his diet, and he eats very well. They asked about exercise, and he's been in Karate for over 35 years. They asked about anything that might be stressing him, and he told the doctor "only that my wife beats me", and actually had the doc fooled for a sec. Then the doctor asked about the family history. His father had had five heart attacks starting at age 42 and his mother had had a quadruple heart bypass operation. The doctor looked at him and told him "You can't win." He was going in with a scope to see what was going on in there.

What the doctor found was a 90% blockage of the main artery which surgeons call, no joke, "The Widowmaker". If that artery goes, it will kill you. They found the blockage Monday morning, and Monday afternoon he was in surgery getting a bypass. My brother and I were heading for West Virginia.

Sound like a miracle yet? Keep reading.

The surgery was supposed to take three to seven hours. He was done in three, because the old man of the mountain does everything with freakish superhuman speed. The hospital up there about 30 minutes from his house is a brand new facility with one of the top five heart surgeons on the east coast practicing there. If this had happened two years ago Dad would have had to have been airlifted to Washington, Baltimore, or Winchester, VA about two hours away. He did not have a heart attack so there was no damage to the heart itself. He knew something in his body wasn't right and he had a good doctor who took it seriously.

By the time we got there my father was out of surgery. My stepmother was waiting on us. It was a bit rough seeing Dad in bed with all those tubes coming out of him. He was on a ventilator, which was good because my brother was gassy. Made the ride up a joy, let me tell you. Still, my Dad's color was really good. I was expecting him to look pale, but he wasn't.

The next day was rough for him. He didn't have much of an appetite which caused the pain meds to knock him for a loop. He was pretty out of it, but by the end of the day he was eating a little solid food and taking a few steps. The day after he was still out of it due to not eating enough. That's pretty common after a surgery like that. Still he was walking all the way around the Cardio-Vascular Unit.

The day we were to leave, my brother and I were feeling pretty guilty. Yes, Dad was doing great, but it seemed like such a long road ahead with his recovery. We had to come home for our families, but were both already planning return trips. We went to see Dad and found him shaving and watching TV. His appetite had returned and after a big helping a french toast and some cream of wheat he was able to handle the pain meds much better. His voice was a little weak from having a tube down his throat a couple days earlier, but he was talking, joking, making the occasional threats, and walking two laps around the CVU. It was amazing how much he'd improved.

There's been a lot of prayers for my father. His church family has been remarkable about everything with their support. All his Karate buddies and students past and present have rallied behind him. His old unit has been fully notified. Even the Karate guys that we split from have been online and on the phone asking how he's doing. I'm fully expecting an Imperial Decree to come from Japan instructing dad to "get well soon".

The "old man of the mountain" has touched a lot of people in his life and those people all responded with prayers and well wishes, and those prayers were heard. Its mind boggling how much worse this entire thing could have been. He's actually due to come home either today or tomorrow.

So yes, my family has been truly blessed by a Christmas Miracle. We get to keep Dad here for years to come.

Thank you God, and Amen.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled insanity, already in progress.

F'N ZOMBIES!!

Zombies continue to be pretty popular. It used to be there'd be a spike in popularity for them. It was the zombie fad that would come around, hang in for a bit, and then head back to its hidey hole until something came along to spark zombie interest all over again. Then came the popularity war with vampires where the pop cultural mindset would ping back and forth between the two. Now its undead-o-rama.

I've gone off plenty on vampires on here and was tempted to do so again since one of my students who is maybe ten asked if I wanted to read the story she was writing about a "half vampire". I suppressed the urge to scream "NOT YOU TOO!" and simply asked "Which half?" Stephanie Meier has much to answer for.

But back to zombies. The zombie/infected genre has been around for years and years starting of course with The Smurfs. Yes, I'm serious. In 1963, long before George Romero started making zombie flicks there was a story in the old Smurfs comic that started the whole genre. Don't believe me? Well, it got adapted into an episode for the cartoon series.



Fast forward to now and zombies are very popular. There's bunches of movies and books. The AMC TV show THE WALKING DEAD broke a record when it debuted. The show is based on a comic book from Robert Kirkman. Its a very good comic and I have been curious about the TV show since I don't have cable and can't watch it. My curiosity comes more from wondering how close the show is the book. From the few clips I've seen, it looks like it departs quite a bit from the book. The scene I saw showed the survivors getting into the CDC and seeing what happens to the brain of someone who gets infected. That never happened in the comic, but it raised even more questions for me. In the comic, if you die for any reason you come back as a zombie unless your brain was damaged enough to prevent it. In the clip they explained how a bite from the zombie spread the infection like meningitis to the brain killing the host which makes me wonder if the only way to become a zombie in the TV show is to get bitten. Very frustrating.

But with the lack of cable I turn to the internet where there's a fun zombie series on YouTube called Bite Me. I say "fun" in that its pretty goofy and funny, but yes the shambling dead still try to kill and eat you so its not all hugs and puppies.

I do like the zombie stuff although the whole zombie apocalypse thing just wouldn't work. The infected thing would in that there could be something airborne to turn a good chunk of people into a serious threat. But let's look at what would happen if the dead really did start rising.

Scenario: the dead start rising and if they bite you, you become a zombie. These are the traditional slow moving dim-witted zombies, not the cheating fast ones.

Outbreak: the main problem areas would be the cities which would have morgues full of zombies. Graveyards wouldn't be a problem as even if the bodies could still function after being embalmed six feet of dirty should hold them. There would obviously be quite a few springing up in hospitals and at accidents.

Spreading: of course there'll be a few people caught off guard and cornered. Then there's the issue of concerned family members seeing their loved one who are now zombies, don't think and get chomped.

Solution: zombies are really only a threat in large groups and confined spaces. Police and military would have this shut down very quickly. Worst case for having this turned around is about 48 hours.

So the main question in these stories is: what went wrong? How could people have screwed up enough that these things managed to overtake us? There's got to be some catalyst. Something had to have gone horribly wrong for zombies to destroy civilization. I have a zombie "apocalypse" story woven into the continuity of my Night Life series, which one day I'll get around to telling in full. I put the quotes around apocalypse because even with the twists I put in to tip the scales in the zombies' favor I just can't get them to the point where they over take people.

MUSIC!!

Tis the season!



That's it for today. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. For those of you who sent some well- wishes and prayers our way for dad, thank you from the bottom of my black, black heart. See y'all Sunday.

Disregard: I've gone mad.

It's Sunday, September 26, 2010. I'm in a mood.

Or five.

Maybe six.

PLOTTING...

I'm plotting against my fellow man in what could be an attack of art and writing to shift the social paradigm to a slightly madder and much more acceptable level.

I've had it with the e-zombies tweeting and Facebook updating their boring mundane little lives into my pop culture peripheral.

If you want your life to be worthy content, then do something content worthy.

Have an adventure.

Have an original, interesting thought for Christssakes!

You are the star of your life story, so go be a star.

There is a conspiracy against you.

I'm the bastard behind it.

I will do things to screw with you for the sheer sake of making the world weird and less boring.

I'll spin utter nonsense into the plausible for expressed purpose of jarring your brain in different directions.

I am a memetic concussion.

You are riding the shockwaves of the mad thoughts that generate in my reptilian brain, filter through the alternate dimension that I created through my will, and ping off everything you see and hear.

The mountain of self importance I possess can crush politicians.

I am the Biochemical Nightmare Revolver.

Dodge my bullets.

I dare you.

HOPING...

I'm just about fed up with the radio. Mike and Bobby are entertaining, but I only get to hear about a half hour of them. The Political Battle Royale with Ham and Cheese has become a bit tiresome on talk radio. That's even with Stephen Colbert holding court in front of Congress.

I need a new album to come out, and I need it to be good. Yes, I know I'm an e-troglodyte and albums are nearly an outmoded thing being replaced by songs cherry-picked online and downloaded into easily lost devices.

I keep going back to that My Chemical Romance video with Grant Morrison in it and hope like hell its an insane concept album of the quality of "Welcome to the Black Parade", but trading in the the exploration of impending death for a mad musical battle in the spirit of SIX STRING SAMURAI. My mind has already filled in the pieces to the story of the Fabulous Killjoys.

I want this album to live up to the story I've created for it.

Screw "hope and change" promised by a pop star who would be king.

Gimme hope for some damn good rock-n-roll. The kind that begs you to find open roads with no speed limits and a car with a fuel tank of gas.

I hope for art.

MOCKING...

Nothing like celebrities to make me feel better about myself. It used to be the big names invoked envy among us poor folks who got work bust our butts to set our tables. Now look at them.

Paris Hilton isn't being allowed into countries, deemed as an "undesirable". That's hot!

Lindsey Lohan didn't pass GO! or collect $200. Apparently, she didn't need the 200 smackers or needed to roll doubles.

Debates rage over who is a bigger scumbag: Mel Gibson or Charlie Sheen. The winner? Sheen publicist.

Idolatry is dead.

WORKING...

"Why did you stop drawing?" was the question that got posed to me this week. Might have something to do with 40 hours or labor and topping it off with hours of Karate are getting to me. My hands are sore and occasionally shake a bit depending on what I've been doing. No that shaking bit is not a warning sign of some horrible neurological problem which should prompt you people to comment and tell me to go see someone about it. Its the result of working with power tools for hours at a time. You grind cement off a couple hundred tiles or sand a wood floor that's older than indoor plumbing into an acceptable appearance and your hands would shake too.

But I haven't been drawing, which should be obvious by know as this post makes it sound like I've gone off the deep end. That's what happens when I'm not drawing. I go nuts. So I might have to do a bit of sketching just to keep the boys in the white coats away. Then its back to the salt mines.

Although if this blog takes weird turns you now know what's up. That or I'm screwing with all of you. I'm in one of those moods which makes me want to start Facebook accounts and just torment any poor soul would tries to friend me there with impossible updates.

I'll drive them mad and call it "art". I wonder if that excuse still works on the authorities? "Yes officers I did make those updates. Why no, I never intended to start a riot with them. No, I didn't really run through downtown Norfolk naked and whack random people with lawn furnature."

Fun fact: Facebook can be used to obtain warrants for arrest. E-art is dangerous.

WATCHING...

The season premier of SUPERNATURAL was last night. This is the first season without the shows creator at the helm. I love this show, I truly do, but I just wasn't feeling it last night. Everyone played their parts. Parker Lewis joined the cast, and is looking good. Last I saw him, he had put on some weight. There's other new cast members.

The whole things just felt a bit too contrived. I completely bought into Dean in retirement. I was eager to find out how Sam, if it was Sam, returned. I'm OK with not having all my questions answered, but the new questions posed don't make me want to walk through the door to find out what's up. It felt like fan fiction. Eric Kripke left the show because he had told his five season long story. The Winchester Brothers stopped the apocalypse. Not a lot of places to go from there.

While the people who took the reigns are very capable, the premier left a lot to be desired. Foremost, what happened to Adam? He didn't even get mentioned. Ug. I really want this season to be good. It still could be, but its not off to a good start.

LISTENING...

Because if Batman played a musical instrument it would be a banjo!



That's it for today. I need to either drink a lot more or a lot less.

I'll let you know when I figure out.

BLOGAGEDDON!

OK, so today wasn't the end of the world. I know some of you are disappointed, but chins up, the end may still be near! We may all be doomed by that most insidious of dooms: pop culture. We see to have things out there appealing to the lowest common denominator. I mean, American Idol is still on, and people still watch it. Wendy Williams is still on TV twice a day. We're following completely vapid crap because someone said it was popular.

It's Bandwagonageddon.

To clarify, allow me to provide a definition from the fanboy dictionary revised edition.

bandwagonageddon - n - the utter destruction of something good due to bad ideas being blindly followed

Example: The Flash is good. We like Him. Wally West is a neat character who long time readers have watched grow up and become a great hero. Bad idea of bringing back Wally's long dead mentor and predecessor, Barry Allen is introduced. The company goes with it, because even though they know bringing this character back from the dead is the stupidest thing they good possibly do, they do it anyways due to nostalgia. People read it, and somehow ignore the stupid because of some sort of memetic trickery.

Its like the idea of something carries more weight than the actual thing. Things are thought of as great, but really they kind of suck, but various factors cause us to overlook the suckage. And this is why we're all doomed.

We can't just go along with this crap! We have to go in and intelligently determine why ultimately Blackest Night was dumb, or why Scott Pilgrim is a tool. Sure there will be die hard fans who don't understand how you have a problem with The Dark Knight and think your dislike of it is some sort of horrible character flaw. You can't convert them. They are lost. Empty vessels waiting to be told what the next thing is that they are supposed to worship, love and throw money at.

But then there are those whose minds can be sparked. They don't care about Tiger Woods. Why don't think the Government should be doing all the crap they're doing despite them claiming they know what they're doing. They've got a few legitimate doubts about the Pop-Star-in-Chief. They see what's popular and are wondering what all the fuss is about.

Don't follow the shepherd. Be the shepherd.

If no one is willing to lead the charge upward, we all fall downward.

Now get off your ass and do something amazing.

Redefining the cool.

Cool is a shifting thing. Things that are cool can quickly turn into things that are lame without much warning. Conversely things that are lame can also inexplicably become cool. I'm saying this because wearing my Justice League of America t-shirt out in public gets more praise than ridicule nowadays.

Actually the only person to ridicule it was the little bitch that works at that Hardee's (aka Carl Jr.'s for those out west) around the corner. The actual ridiculing took place month's ago but she was nice enough justify it by saying her boyfriend was a huge nerd and into 'that stuff'. I was nice enough to ask for anyone but her to take my order the next time I wanted to get a burger there. Her cute, punchable, smiling face twisted into a mask of confusion. She apparently thought we had bonded with her mockery of my shirt as well as me. I think she got the message when the next time I saw her working behind the counter utter 'It's just not worth it' and walked out of the establishment. She doesn't work there anymore thankfully. She's off to charm school, I'm sure.

But, idiot Hardee's girl aside, comics have actually become a bit cool nowadays. This is mostly due to the comic book movies that have been coming out every year like clockwork. It seems Hollywood is very interested in remaking old movies and mining comic books for content. But also nerds have invaded pop culture making it socially acceptable to admit in public to reading comic books. Guys like Kevin Smith and Joss Whedon have no problem dumping their beloved nerd references into their work.

Still even though comic books are enjoying popularity, sales are not through the roof. People would rather watch a DVD than read a comic. This is partially due to it being a bit difficult to actually get one's hands on comic books without knowing the proper protocols. Trade paperbacks and graphic novels are easily found in book stores like Barnes and Nobles, but unfortunately you usually have to get past the manga to get at it.

The manga itself is not the problem. Its some of the manga fans that make it more difficult. At one point I found myself being quizzed by a young woman about some manga that I hadn't heard of. Her English was sprinkled with enough Japanese names to make it incomprehensible and yet again I made a woman's face twist into a mask of confusion when I told her I had no idea what she was talking about. The manga and Graphic Novels were kept in the same aisle of the bookstore and she seemed incapable of comprehending my presence in that aisle having nothing to do with manga. Worse was the fat moron who accosted me in a Barnes and Nobles literally waving a manga book in front of me spouting off about the 'brilliant' storyline about an ancient wizard guy who looks like a twelve year old girl and teaches at an all girl school. I respectfully responded by picking up a FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS and beating the hell out of him with it. I was asked to leave the store, but it was completely worth it.

So yeah, book stores are fun. Comic shops are fun too. Unfortunately there are still a lot of stores that seem like someone's mother's basement. That's why I shop at Comic Kings. They treat me very well and I can walk in there without feeling a sense of dread for being caught in there. The owner, Joey, does a few things that make the store stand apart. First off, the windows are not completely covered with posters thus allowing actual sunlight in. Second, the place does not smell funky. Third, the place is neat and orderly and you can find things very easily. That's why the place works.

We get our nerd on pretty damn well out here. The most popular afternoon drive radio show, The Mike and Bob Show, frequently talk about comic books, superheroes and Star Wars and their loyal fans eat it up. So let your geek flags fly people. It's alright to admit being a big ol' Spider-man fan. Enjoy it, because we could easily be back to being lame again. Our fleeting coolness could be gone in a snap, with no telling whether or not it will return. But no one thought breakdancing would come back, so there's always hope.

Marty versus Wolves

That's right. For the holiday season I'm going to do battle with pack of blood thirsty animals. It's a holiday tradition. Actually, they're no gravy thirsty animals, but with my kinfolk dinner can be a no holds barred event. Especially if there's ham AND turkey.

Onward. Wolves. They're quite the animal. Tons of myths about them. Perhaps that's why they attract douches.

There's a certain breed of loser out there, and the good thing about the internet is that these social misfits are staying in their parents' basement and not annoying me in real life. These people, mostly guys, are possessed with a false self-importance. They want the world to view them as mysterious, deep and potentially dangerous. They also tend to listen to heavy metal music and have mullets. These people, in an attempt to add depth to their douchiness, like to identify themselves with wolves.

In some cultures its thought that people embody to some degree particular animal spirits. To determine which spirit a person would likely have to consult a shaman or other person well versed in understanding these things. We also have things like the Chinese Zodiac in which different years correlate to different animals and people born within those years have certain traits that are related to those animals. Please note that with these cultures one does not declare what animal they relate to, they are told what animal they relate to. Its the different between declaring "I'm awesome" and someone else declaring "You're awesome".

We have instances of people invoking spirituality in meaningless ways for mainly two reasons: first, to try to add substance to their pathetic existences and second, to try to get laid.

Does this work? Yes, but the drawback to it is that it only works on people more pathetic than the person doing it. There's a hierarchy to cool. Claiming to be a wolf in dork's clothing is not cool. Only people less cool would think it's cool.

There's a math equation that explains all of this in concrete quantifiable terms, but it involve trigonometry and I haven't had coffee yet, so screw that.

This has led to open mockery this year, mainly with the Three Wolf Moon t-shirt. This shirt wasn't meant to be funny or ironic, but has become so. This is good for the makers of these shirts because they made some good bank off of it. It was a choice little meme earlier this year. "hey, the Three Wolf Moon t-shirt is a total chick magnet". This also popped up in a TWILIGHT parody on YouTube that I spotted last week. That fact that this is hallow and stupid is not lost on anyone.

I like wolves. I like werewolf movies. I think they're scary. I don't like TWILIGHT, but the wolves looked scary in the movie previews and was impressive until I realized that it's TWILIGHT and it sucks.

So here's the moral of the rant: Be yourself. Don't be a wolf. Wolves are cool. Guys claiming to be wolves aren't.