Of idle cats and ironic writers

So, avid readers, your favorite feline got laid off this week. This is the first time in my professional career that I’ve gone under the axe, and so far…I’ve kind of enjoyed it. I’ve been sleeping late, getting housework done, and playing with the kids. It’s felt like a vacation up to this point. Of course, the part of me that likes having insurance and living indoors is a nervous pile of twitching goo, but it’s the smaller part right now.

I knew it was coming – the signs were there – so I was prepared. I’d spent the previous day cleaning out my desk, copying personal files onto a disc, and writing notes so my outstanding responsibilities could be taken care of.

Part of me is relieved. The company I worked for never seemed interested in meeting its full potential. Consequently, we employees couldn’t, either. At least now I have the time to work on getting my own business off the ground.

I joined an online group that brings freelancers and clients together. It’s sort of an eBay-esque arrangement, where businesses post the jobs that they need done, and the members bid on doing them. It’s a good arrangement.

I was looking through the bids on an editing job, and stumbled across one that seemed kind of low. Out of curiosity (you know how we cats are with curiosity), I went to the bidder’s home page.

This is what I found:

Eunikimagination
A writing camileon
Minimum Hourly Rate: $25/hr
Summary
The effective use of words and grammer are my criteria in captivating the mind and complete interest of the targeted readers. As an avid reader, am very critical and strive for perfection. i posses a wealth of knowledge, vocabulary, wild and creative imagination that allows me to customize my writing to your specifications.

I started to send this fellow a note listing all of the mistakes in his profile, but then I thought: “This is my competition. Fuck ‘im.” In the interest of getting a chuckle at his expense, though, I’ll list all of the problems here.

First off – don’t be clever with your name. This isn’t MySpace or some Yahoo chat room, this is a business. If you absolutely cannot resist being cutesy, don’t pick a name where the first bit can be pronounced to infer that you have no genitalia.

You misspelled ‘chameleon’, Mr. Writer.

You misspelled ‘grammar’, Mr. Writer.

You have a subject/verb disagreement right off the bat. “The effective use” is, not “are”. And when you change that, make sure to change "criteria" to 'criterion'. Moron.

You use ‘reader’ twice very close together; it’s awkward.

You dropped the ‘I’ before “am very critical and strive for perfection.” Love irony, don’t you?

You failed to capitalize the first word in the final sentence which, given that it’s the pronoun “I”, is a double party-foul.

You shouldn’t rely on Word’s spell-check to catch your mistakes. ‘Possess’ means to own something. “Posses” is the plural of ‘posse’.

The last sentence is incomplete.

I think $25 an hour is a little too much to be asking, Slick. I wouldn’t hire you to write a fucking grocery list. But by all means, please continue to market yourself amongst the rest of us. You make us look even better.

Seven Windows of my Soul

Found this post over at Oh, The Joys, one of the blogs I try to read daily. That should have been a link, but I can't remember the HTML and I'm feeling lazy. It's already linked over there to the right, so forgive the lack of redundancy.

I liked the idea, so I jumped on board. I intentionally refused to read any other participants' posts until I had done this one, because I didn't want to be influenced by their interpretation. That's the way cool thing with the blogging shenanigans - these little ideas take off and grow a thousand different ways. It's like kudzu, but it doesn't swallow telephone poles.

Any of my four readers are welcome to participate. You just have to add the links below to the bottom of your post and let us know to add yours to the list.


As they occurred to me:


Seven Windows of My Soul



1. Gothic - the dark things in my psyche. Rather than letting them plague my nights, I've made friends with them.



2. Porthole - the murky glimpses I get of future potential. (Yes, that is the Nautilus; the coolest submarine ever.)



3. Bay - watching my children grow and learn, and enjoying finding out who they are.



4. Stained Glass - appreciating created beauty, be it architecture, music, or art.


5. Ticket - travel, and the renewal of the spirit it brings.



6. Clerestory – the trust that Life’s not random, even though I can’t see through to the other side.




7. Bricked - the parts of my personality I don't like.

Other windows participants:

jen with seven windows of my soul

Jessica with Eleven Windows

Tracy from Tiny Mantras

Defiant Muse from Musings...

LSM with Windows

Mrs. Prufrock

Sugarplum's Mom

jakelliesmom

Oh, boy.

So Kentucky rep Geoff Davis said about Obama, "That boy's finger does not need to be on the button." And of course, the congregation of Our Lady of the Perpetually Offended got their panties in a twist over this supposed insult.

Look, folks, I’m from the South, and I can tell you unequivocally that Rep. Davis was not being racist. If you’re going to use “boy” as a racist term, it’s used as a proper noun, as in “What y’all lookin’ at, Boy?” By putting the adjective “that” in front of it, he changed the context from a potentially racist one to a general term Southerners use to refer to anyone with a Y-chromosome, regardless of age. Sometimes, you can drop the adjective, and your listener still knows it’s there, as in “Boy’s as dumb as a stump.”

This reminds me of the incident where one of Obama’s staff told three boys to quit climbing a nearby tree “like a bunch of monkeys.” Seems harmless, right? She was concerned for the boys’ safety. Those boys just happened to be black, so their mother blew it all out of proportion, crying “Racist!” as soon as the cameras showed up. I think the only thing that kept this woman from being lynched on the spot was the fact that she’s of Mexican descent, and the Liberals couldn’t decide which minority would be more oppressed. Even so, she received a $75 fine from her Homeowner’s Association. That’s fucking scary all by itself.

I wonder what the reaction would’ve been if Rep. Davis had said Obama was just “a good ol’ boy.” That’s generally understood to be a compliment, and has the same “offensive” word in it.

Words are neutral, people. It’s the intent behind them that frames their meaning, and intent’s a pretty difficult thing to establish sometimes. If I use the word “faggot,” am I denigrating a homosexual, or am I using an obscure term for a bundle of kindling? If I say “bitch,” is that an insult to women, or a reference to my pregnant dog? If I type “nigger” in my blog, am I being racist, or quoting a randomly-chosen rap star? It’s all about the context, and despite the fact it was a Republican from Kentucky saying it, “that boy” ain’t racist in this context.

Boy, oh boy.

Change the world? Nah. Change the station.

He sits down in the comfortable chair behind the microphone, flips a switch to coax the “ON AIR” sign to life, takes a breath…

Hey there, guys and gals; dudes and dudettes; kids of all ages! It’s time once again for the Electric Tower Power Hour! Playing the tracks from the stack of wax! Spinning the platters that matter! Off of the charts and into your hearts! From seven-thirty ‘til your clothes are dirty! I’m the cat that’ll take you back! So grab a glass of something that’ll make you feel like dancing as we jump into the Wayback Machine and boogie!

~ahem~

Let’s talk about music, shall we? It tames the savage beast, they say. It’s also one of the three aspirations of the “good life” (the other two being wine and women). Seems that we’re hardwired to create and respond to music – from lofty liturgical pieces to dirty dancing and block-rocking bass beats. Full orchestras to one guy pushing a slide guitar. A capella doo-wop quartets to talk box-driven arena rock.

Do you feel like I do?

I have a theory that’s been consistently borne out whenever I remember to pay attention. I believe that everybody has one song that they slip into whenever their brain goes into neutral. It keeps the neurons running hot so you can do a quick boot when you have to rejoin the world. Doesn’t matter if you even like the song, there’s just something about that particular arrangement of notes that fits snugly into the grooves of your mind. This is different from an earworm, though it operates on similar principles. The difference is that you’re usually very much aware of (and annoyed by) earworms. The phenomenon I’m referring to is one where you aren’t even aware that you’re singing, humming, whistling, or tapping out the song that is apparently track #1 on the soundtrack of your life. Mine is usually Pachelbel’s “Canon in D”. Not trying to be pretentious or anything; that’s just the one I catch myself humming. On occasion, my wife will burst out with the chorus to “Margaritaville,” much to her annoyance, because she hates Jimmy Buffet. A coworker of mine whistles that tune you usually hear associated with circuses. If it has a name, I don’t know it, though Three Dog Night used it as the opening to “The Show Must Go On.”

I think it’s fair to say that music in general has made society better. It provides a cultural mirror to observe ourselves in, sets the appropriate tone for certain occasions, or just gives us something to listen to while we fold laundry to help tolerate the drudgery. The reason this has been on my mind lately is that I saw recently where Neil Young has given up on any music changing the world.

“I think that the time when music could change the world is past," he told reporters. ”I think it would be very naive to think that in this day and age."

I think Neil’s just being pissy because it wasn’t any of his songs. I hope he’ll remember a Southern Man don’t need him around anyhow. (Since he’s Canadian, that means everyone in the States.)

Personally, I’ve always thought Mr. Young was too damned whiny. I always get the feeling that he’s wagging his finger at his listeners (until he chopped one of them off, anyway). It’s not the genre; I can groove on the folk rock style. I like Jim Croce, James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, etc. I don’t even mind the pie-in-the-sky idealism of the 60s groups (that cultural mirror I mentioned earlier). Neil - and by extension, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - just always sounds shrill to me. I’ll admit that Young is a good lyricist. I like Cinnamon Girl, (and just to note, if you haven’t heard Type O Negative’s cover of that, you’re missing out), I’d just rather read his stuff than listen to him bloviate at me.

The problem is that no two people have the exact same taste in music. Even if you both like a song, you’re going to get different things out of it, so how can music change anything towards a common goal when it changes people in different ways?

I think this is why remaking songs is more accepted than remaking movies. Movies are successful because the director gets the audience to buy in to his realization of the material. When that many people agree on something, remaking it is very tricky. There’s an agreed-upon template for how that story should be presented – from the wardrobe and lighting to the mannerisms of the characters. Even the subtle things like the types of lenses used can affect the presentation. Think about it – would 300 have been as successful if it had been rotoscoped, like A Scanner Darkly? Probably not.

Songs, by contrast, are open to interpretation. Artists can play with scales and keys, rhythm and tempo – in effect, creating a song that is at once familiar and brand new. A lot of successful bands got their start doing covers, introducing their own material once the audience agreed that they were worth listening to. I have a lot of covers in my collection: Alanis’ cover of Seal’s Crazy, the requisite versions of Tainted Love, and various Weird Al polka remixes. I have a version of Pour Some Sugar on Me by Emm Gryner that’s presented as a ballad, and a version of Mad World that was rewritten as a dark, emo-type song. The aforementioned Cinnamon Girl is in heavy rotation right now. They also cover Summer Breeze and Hit Me Baby One More Time. It’s worth a listen. Anytime you have a 6’6 ½” guy from Brooklyn with a voice than can blow out your subwoofer covering a Pop Tart hit, fun ensues.

Even though song covers are generally accepted, you still have to be careful. When Limp Bizkit covered Behind Blue Eyes, I enjoyed it right up to the point that he dropped the bridge of the song. Don’t edit, people. There are certain parts we expect to hear. It’s especially annoying when radio stations edit songs for length. I know you have to cover over “You’re such a fucking hypocrite” when you air Seether’s Fake It, but cutting Zakk Wylde’s solo from No More Tears really pisses me off. The whole song builds to that one fretburn, and I’m primed to headbang. When you cut it, I use that built-up adrenaline to punch the Scan button.

Another reason music won’t change the world is that there are too many categories. Rock, Classic Rock, Southern Rock, Oldies, Contemporary, Jazz, Swing, Marimba, Big Band, Zydeco, Classical, Techno, Trance, House, Rave, Trip Hop, Hip Hop, Rap, Gangsta Rap, Old School, Beat Box, Grunge, Alternative, Emo, Metal, Speed Metal, Thrash Metal, NuMetal, Death Metal, Goth Metal, Goth, Grave, Pop, Punk, Rockabilly, Psychobilly, Roadhouse, Country, New Country, Latin, Gospel, Disco, Folk, Bluegrass…and that’s just off the top of my head. If I had more than four readers, I’d be getting e-mails listing dozens that I forgot.

I seriously doubt Green Day is going to start a movement when people don’t even agree on which category they belong in.

Again, I just think Neil Young is jealous. If anyone’s music was going to change the world, Cliff Richard had the best chance. He holds the record for most singles sold (21 million), and has been credited on the most Top 40 hits (122). On the other hand, Elvis Presley holds the record for most continuous weeks on the Top 40 (1060), the longest span of hits (51 ½ years), longest continuous run on the Top 40 (135 weeks), most simultaneous Top 40 hits (7), most Top 10 hits (76) [Cliff Richard is second with 66], and the most new Top 40 hits in one year (12). I like Heartbreak Hotel as much as the next person, but it’s hardly a call to action like Do You Hear the People Sing from Les Miserables.

Even songs that deliberately attempt to change the world usually fall far short. We are the World only raised $63 million. Artists that participated were famously told to “check your egos at the door.” If they, by contrast, had just written a check for $1.5 million each, it would have made the same amount of money, and we wouldn’t have had to sit through ad nauseum airings. Ironically, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young declined to participate. They also failed to participate in any of the three Band Aid efforts.

So much for changing the world, Neil.

Something Doesn't Add Up

Twice today, I had to deal with folks in a retailer position that couldn't do basic math.

Twice.

Now, I already know that writing is an endangered skill (lol!!!1! U gots no skillz, WTF!!?), but it seems that arithmetic isn't too far behind. I called an office supply store to price out business cards.

"How much for 200?"

"Well, it's $0.16 a sheet, and there are ten per sheet. Uhh...let me get a calculator."

"So...$3.20."

(Tapping in background) "That's right. And we charge $6.00 to cut them, so that'll be..." (more tapping)

She offered to design the cards for me. I declined.

On the way home, I stopped at the minimart to pick up some ice cream cones for the family. The cashier scanned them and told me my total was $3.98. I handed her a twenty. Somehow, in between ringing my total and taking my money, she managed to add another $1.05 to the cost. The register told her to give me $14.97 in change, and she started counting it out.

"Uhhh...that's the wrong change."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"My total was $3.98. You're counting out $14.97."

"Right."

"So I gave you a twenty."

"Right."

"Uhhh...no."

"Hold on. Let me find a calculator."

"It's $16.02."

"Huh?"

"$16.02. $3.98 from twenty is $16.02."

"But the register says $14.97."

"But $14.97 and $3.98 are only $18.95."

"Well I don't know. I've only worked here a week."

"..."

At that point, I was willing to take the $14.97, just to be able to leave, but I was rescued by her coworker, who apparently was the designated "math whiz."

In the spirit if not the letter of the post title:

My wife has this odd habit of randomly taking out boxes of mix - like bread, cake, or muffins - and leaving them on the counter. For days at a time, mind you. I leave them there at first, because I always think she's going to be baking the next day, but it never happens, and I eventually end up putting them back into the pantry. I've amused myself by coming up with wacky explanations for this behavior. My current favorite is that it's some sort of yeast-based feng shui.

Cloverfield - or Why JJ Abrams Owes Me 75 Minutes of My Life Back

I originally posted this elsewhere right after Cloverfield came out. It's been getting good reviews, so I thought I'd drag it over here.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Cloverfield tried to build up some buzz with their teaser trailers: first by not revealing the name of the movie, then the one scene of the head of the Statue of Liberty crashing into the middle of the street. All well and good.
Unfortunately, that one scene is the best scene in the movie. That one scene has it all: action, explosions, tension, drama, shock – everything you might expect from a big budget “creature feature.”

Just don’t expect it in the rest of the movie.

And to those who think this is a monster movie, think again. This is a relationship movie set against the backdrop of a monster attacking New York. It should have been titled Love in the Time of Camera.

Oh yeah…that fucking handheld video camera. To all you aspiring directors out there…STEADICAMS EXIST FOR A REASON! It worked once, okay? But your budget is a tad larger than The Blair Witch gang’s. Hell…even a lack of a budget is no excuse. Peter Jackson once built his own steadicam for $15, and now he owns New Zealand, so make the investment, huh? But if you absolutely crave the cinéma vérité style, and feel your “artistic vision” would be compromised without it, use it as filler footage in the credits, or only in certain scenes for added impact. If you’re not making a porno, forcing an audience to sit through seventy-five minutes of “amateur” camera work is irresponsible.

Point #1: it’s illogical. If I’m in a survival situation, I’m going to be carrying a Smith & Wesson, not a Sanyo.
Point #2: it’s ridiculous to expect us to believe that this character dodged falling debris, avoided getting shot or run over by the military, fought mutant insects in a subway tunnel, crawled from one roof to another fifty-plus stories above the street, and survived a helicopter crash – all the while keeping the other characters (mostly) in frame – with a camera stuck to his face.
Point #3: the audience would occasionally like some deliberate focus on an event from start to finish. Breaking away in the middle only adds mystery up to a certain point. After that, we wonder what you’re hiding. Incomplete sets? Bad special effects? Lack of a script?

Speaking of the script…Look, I know that a certain amount of backstory has to be established if you want the audience to care about your protagonists, but twenty minutes is too much. That’s better than a quarter of your “action” movie where there’s NO ACTION! Guy 1 still has feelings for old girlfriend; guy 2 likes girl 2 who doesn’t like him; supportive friend. Six minutes, tops. We’re hip moviewatchers, okay? We’ve intuited that these five people will be together for most of the movie, so you don’t need to explore all of the social dynamics between them right up front. Let it come out naturally as determined by the events around them. By completely defining them right away, there’s no room for interesting growth or development, and if we don’t like your definition, we won’t care what happens to them.

Ironically, your tendency to indulge in over-explaining stopped after those first twenty minutes. Nothing else was explained in the movie. Nothing! Where did the creatures come from? Was Manhattan completely abandoned in the end? Was girl 2 shot, or did her head explode? What, exactly, does the title have to do with anything in the movie?

You need better writers.

Another question: Since all of these characters died, how is it that we’re seeing this video? Has anyone else noticed the trend lately to kill off the main characters in the movie? We spend between seventy-five and ninety minutes following their exploits, rooting for them, sharing their story…and then they die. I don’t know about you, but I want a little victory in my escapist fantasies, thank you. And if you absolutely cannot deliver a live protagonist at the end of the movie, make their death mean something, dammit. Give us some sort of resolution; don’t just turn the camera off. And DON’T try to be cute by putting the final scene after the credits. You’ve pissed me off by now, and as soon as I get a fade to black, I’m at home blogging about how awful your movie is. I just sat through an hour-plus of your dreck, I’m damn sure not sitting there another ten minutes in the hope that you knew what you were doing all along.

Here’s another tip: show the critter. You’ve made a monster movie. Great! Show it to us. A few shadowy shots and “corner-of-the-eye” scenes are fine. We like to be teased. But at some point, you’re going to have to go all the way and show us what your CG/FX department dreamed up. Not some five second shot from a “terrified” camera holder, but a real, honest-to-god, full-circle pan in technocolorific stereoscope and THX sound. Preferably, this will be before the creature wipes out all of the characters and the movie ends.

I sure hope this wasn’t supposed to be the beginning of a series, J.J., because you just squandered all of my goodwill and suspension of disbelief. I probably won’t even go see that space thing you’re putting together.

Stop Smoking Your Cell Phones!

Mobile phones 'more dangerous than smoking'

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/mobile-phones-more-dangerous-than-smoking-or-asbestos-802602.html?r=RSS

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded.

“Could.” Not “will.” This is the same slippery phrasing that brought you Anthropogenetic Global Warming and Death by Secondhand Smoke. Prepare for your local bar to become “No Cell” zones.

He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take "immediate steps" to reduce exposure to their radiation.

What the hell can a government do other than enact cumbersome, ineffective laws that do nothing but drive up the costs through higher taxes and insurance premiums?

[The study] draws on growing evidence…that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer.

What about hand cancers? A lot of people text as much or more than they call.

He believes this will be "definitively proven" in the next decade.

Just like that Global Warming film from Al Gore? The one he’s been showing for fifteen years?

Noting that malignant brain tumours represent "a life-ending diagnosis", he adds: "We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and dangerous situation."

Guess what? Life is a life-ending diagnosis, and it’s unchecked and dangerous.

He fears that "unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps", the incidence of malignant brain tumours and associated death rate will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now, by which time it may be far too late to intervene medically.

Just replace “malignant brain tumours” with “global warming”. It’s the exact same panic-inducing jargon. There’s a “problem” that can’t be quantified, but needs to have lots of money thrown at it right now, because in ten years it will be TOO LATE!!! AIIIEEEEEEEE!!!

"It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking," says Professor Khurana, who told the IoS his assessment is partly based on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide, three times as many as smoke.

I bet more people use cotton balls than drink sulfuric acid. Therefore, cotton balls are evidently more dangerous than ingesting H2SO4. Do they not teach correlation vs. causation anymore?

Look, cell phones use RF (radio frequency) waves, which are relatively long waves of radiation. Your microwave oven uses shorter waves (that’s why we call them microwaves), the visible spectrum of light is even shorter, and X-rays and Gamma rays still shorter. We know that the shorter the wave, the more likely it is to do Bad Things to your body, hence the lead apron you wear at the dentist (not to mention David Banner’s issues). That black light you used at your last Halloween party did more damage to you than your cell phone.

It’s just more fear-mongering from junk science adherents hoping to get more control over our lives, and making us pay for it, to boot. It’s the same formula used to sue the tobacco industry, and now the fast food industry.

1. Identify a popular, profitable business.
2. Demonize it.
3. Milk it with punitive taxes and lawsuits until it collapses.
4. Identify a popular, profitable business.

I’d call ‘em on it, but I’m afraid to use my phone now.