Word of the Day. 9/15/11

Word of the Day

deus ex machina [deh-uhs-ecks-mak-uh-nah]

noun

1. In ancient Greek and Roman drama, a god introduced into a play to resolve the entanglements of the plot.

2. Any artificial or improbable device resolving the difficulties of the plot.

Ex. "Clash of the Titans is a a literal analysis of deus ex machina."

Today, we need to criticize one of the most important fantasy authors of all-time, if not the father of what we think of as Western Fantasy, J. R. R. Tolkein. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy are timeless and only made more beloved by their film adaptations (which were masterful and impressive, proving a genre film can be good fun). We all have a favorite character in the Lord of the Rings. I can't really choose between Smeagol/Gollum, Samwise, Gimli and wait, of course, Gandalf is the best. Silly me.

This gives me chills every frickin' time!

Furthermore, he set the standard for fantasy world building, creating several languages, both spoken and written, a whole geography and history literally thousands of years long for his world. Yet, Tolkein has a fatal flaw. He doesn't seem to know how to write his characters out of a corner and has to save them from Deus ex Machina. Some more obvious than others.

Back in White, Baby!

The worse Deus ex Machina he uses several times is the Eagles.

To the left, they save our heroes in the Hobbit.

 To the right, in Lord of the Rings.












I really don't want to spoil this one but, to those who know, the eagles save the day about 5 times between all 4 of the books.

STUFF I THINK ABOUT! SOCKS 1

Enlightenment comes in many forms. Sometimes it comes in the form on apple striking your head, or tripping over a pokeball, or in the middle of bath (forcing you to leap up and run naked into the street yelling “EUREKA!”). Life is funniest when the jokes on everyone, but everyone thinks it’s funniest when the joke is on you. Mundaneness can illuminate the obvious but it takes a fire to illuminate the oblivious.  

I thought there were left socks. For as long as I understood the concept of socks and was old enough to put them on my feet, I have silently made a distinction between which socks, in a pair of socks, is the left and the right partner. Now, some of you might already be silently judging me for my foolishness but let’s break down my reasoning as a child.

The reasoning behind my logic was simple. I have a left hand and a right hand. I also have a left glove and a right glove. I have a left foot and right foot. I also have a left shoe and right shoe. It stands to reason, that they would design a sock for the left foot and a sock for the right foot. I internalized this decision, never sharing it with anyone because, to me, it seemed too mundane a think to mention. Furthermore, no one ever observed me looking at my socks to make the distinction. Even more so they could’ve noticed me take a sock off and put it on the other foot when I, foolishly mistaken, believed it to be on the wrong appendage. Perhaps it was my obsessive compulsive order or something else. Before I elaborate further on the “something else” I should probably explain how this epiphany came about.

It began during a lovely evening at the bonfire, celebrating the birthday of one of my lady friends, in a hundred degree weather. I was as jovial as jonquils as I threw conversation across the flickering of the pretty pyre and perpetrated small jest at those closest to me. I am not quite sure what the context of the conversation was, it could’ve very well been vulgar, and I made the statement, “It is like how you can never find the left socks you have lost in the wash.” Internally, this was a fine simile. Instead, it left my friends perplexed. I tried to explain the analogy, but was stopped. “There are no such things as left socks.” I stared at them, then at my feet, I had just put out a small grass fire with my custom leather Chucks and had been feeling victorious, yet as my foolishness was revealed I felt the sting of realization.

I wanted to stand up, toss my chair into the fire, then to rip the shoes of my feet and toss them in the fire, and then, delicately, to rip the socks from my feet and throw them at the heavens before running into the trees and howling a primordial howl of shame, confusion and, goats that I would trip over.

DAILY ROUND-UP 9/14/11

Herp Derp Snore.... Today's round-up is dedicated to my zombie lovin' buddie, Zach.

Zach is Bill, far right, in this pic. I am Coach in the back. -Memphis Zombie Walk 2011

Dat a**.

AMAZING DEAD ISLAND TRAILER!

LITERAL Dead Island Announcement Trailer

FIST OF THE DEAD STAR 

WTF WEDNESDAY 2 THE BOOK OF POKEMON Pt. 1

WTF WEDNESDAY

THE BOOK OF POKEMON Pt. 1

1/8 Human, 1/8 Demon and 6/8 Ditto.

Before I begin I would like to warn you that this really is gonna be a doozy. I am not going to do any research to double check my facts so don't expect perfect accuracy. I am going to tell you the story of the Pokémon world as it has been described to me second and even third hand. It should be quite a kooky trip.


EDIT: I originally was just gonna blog about Gary but this has taken on a life of its own.

THE BOOK OF POKEGENESIS

I. IN THE BEGINNING, there was Arceus and things were pretty sweet for like fifteen minutes or so. But Arceus got pretty bored and his mere thought babies helped to create his first Pokéchildren, the Creation Trio (pictured below). Arceus begat Dialga, the timelord dragon, Arceus begat Palkia, the space godzilla and Arceus begat Giratrina, the matter/anti-matter ghost brontosaurus, and it was good.


Each of these Pokémon control a different dimension of the four-dimensions that make up the very reality that contains everything in the Poké-verse, including the Pokémon World. Simultaneously, from one egg, Arceus birthed the Pokémons that represent knowledge, emotion and willpower, respectively Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf (not interesting enough to picture at all).

From this, we would gather that all Legendary Pokémon are the equivalent of gods within the Pokémon universe, representing different elements of nature, emotion, time, space, wishes, etc. There is even a Pokémon that represents wishes. The legendary Pokémon are either pretty harmless (like Mew, who might be retarded) or completely world shattering (like Kyogre and Groudon, who can pretty much destroy the Pokémon world at any time).

And the picture above is just the legendaries/mythicals from Generations 1-4. I can't even find a group picture of the legendaries from Generation 5. Deoxys is technically from space.Whatever.

A WIKI ON ALL THE LEGENDARY POKEMON!

II. Thus Arceus was pleased after he begat everything- everything but not man. Man was a creation of Mew. Mew was a joke among all of the Pokégods, literally, as he was a pink thermaldahide preserved cat fetus Pokémon who just kinda says its name. Ironically, most legendary Pokémon speak telepathically but Mew is just slow. So, on a random day, he giggled, farted and made a silly looking pink monkey creature that, unlike almost every species on Earth, couldn't evolve (irony lolz). Somehow, despite not having any special powers, the race of man did not go extinct. Nay, he fought the elements and tried to build civilization., and yay, it was good.

Man learned how to kill Pokémon with tawdry spears, but mostly they just made the wise decision to avoid all tall grass. Instead, they lived in a dirty crater where not but tomatoes would grow. But not like good tomatoes, terrible little tomatoes, that smelt of filth. This was kind of lame.

Until a meteor decided to play a game of Chicken with the Pokémon world. Arceus was merciful and thus he summoned all of his power and tackled the mighty rock. He managed to destroy it but in the process he lost the sixteen plates that did provide him life and began to die. That was until a dirt farming monkey man named Damos found the missing plates and returned them to Arceus. 

Arceus thought this was tits and thus as a reward for helping him not die (despite the fact that he was an almighty god and was defeated by a rock, pretty pitiful god if you ask me). He gave Damos the Jewel of Life to fix his dirt farm up nice but made him promise to return it.

Damos was kind of a d***. He did not wish to return it because he was a greedy little s***. Thus he rose up against Arceus with an army of Pokémon he controlled with the the Jewel of Life. This was a minor and annoying inconvenience for Arceus. He killed Damos with a large falling rock and punish his son Giovanni with immortality (weird, right?).

"Soon my pet, soon..."

Arceus left in a tizzy. But not before stirring up all the legendaries and shattering the world into several distinct landmasses that are separated by convenient land barriers.

Thus Arceus abandoned his children to their own devices, for thousands of years, while he went into the deep recesses of space to search for space rocks to tackle. With his absence, the age of man began and various tribes used magic to distort time and space, allowing them to capture and befriend (cough enslave) Pokémon.

THE BOOK OF PROFESSOR OAK

I. Meanwhile the world of men, spread among the Pokémon nations and were forced to find new ways to control the magical monsters that threatened their every day life. Some tribes used magic and others carved magical baubles out of a hybrid of acorns and apricots. This was a scary and confusing time. One land had no magic or baubles. The land of Kanto.


Kanto was a strange land home to lots of strange people. Many towns of all colors, creeds and stuff were raised by the hands of man and their Pokéslaves. Yet, these slaves were unruly, for the people of Kanto had no magic and had to break Pokéspirits with beatings, brainwashing and psychic powers (what is happens?). One town was most despised and some thought it would please Arceus to destroy it. The devilish town of Pallet.


This was until a great hero emerged from the gooey hole that is Pallet Town. The man was Samuel Oak but his origins were less Samuel and more Samiel. More wizard than man, more professor than man and most importantly, more demon than man (wait, what?). They say that his mother was a whorish crank that lived in a cardboard box when the demon, known as Dr. Fuji the Befowler,

Gross. Box sex.

befowled her and from her loins was spat the fully grown man-wizard Samuel Oak.

Professor was a title he earned through dangerous expeditions he didto discover the nature of Pokémon. He created several devices to help him on his way, but most important of all was the Pokédex, a magical book that could be updated at his whim, and was able to identify Pokémon and all of their abilities. He discovered it on a bus ride to Viridian City. The only thing he couldn't discover was a better way to control Pokémon.

Yet, one day, on a walk through some tall grass, accompanied by his trusty Magikarp, tied up with a rope and enjoying the sweet embrace of drowning on land, he tripped over an object in the grass. The small round white and red object was the first Pokéball. The man-wizard discovered its powers by throwing it at the Magikarp that was humping his leg, a red light absorbing his data, destroying the original copy and when the time is necessary, creating a new copy of the Pokémon.


Thus, he discovered the first modern pokeball. Seriously. He then tore it apart, rebuilt it, replicated it and shared his patent for the benefit of mankind. It is said the device may have been created during the great cataclysm that split Kanto from Johto and the other countries of the Pokemon World but that is a mystery unsolved.

Oak went on to discover wonder after wonder and create a paradise from the scumbucket that was Pallet Town. Yet, all was not well.


 II. Oak had a problem. It began when he fell in love with a mortal woman named Agatha. She was a great Pokémon trainer and attuned to the afterlife. Yet, the Befowler was not pleased to see his spawn....well spawn. Thus, he cursed him so that every child he created with Agatha became a Missingno. Missingno are horrible soulless creatures that distort reality and threaten all innocent life.


After trapping them on a small island away from society and going on a hike to discover a higher power than Arceus, Oak made a discovery that many considered an abomination. He met a lovely lady, a fan and bedded her. Yet, upon finishing the deed, he discover she was not all she seemed or even human. She was an evil Pokémon known as Ditto.


Ditto begat Dittoak. Dittoak was an abomination. Yet, not all was lost. The Dittos were raised to human-like status by taking these forms and tried to have a normal family. Oak lived in shame, throwing himself into his work and becoming a little senile (so much so that he ignored his family). That is when Dittoak begat the Rival...Oak's only grandchild...

GARY MOTHER F***in' OAK!
 

To be continued next week with the Book of Gary and finally the Ash Ketchum Testament.

Word of the Day. 9/14/11

Word of the Day

So....pretty.

utopia [yoo-toh-pee-uh]

noun

1. an ideal place.

2. any visionary system that strives for political or social perfection.

dystopia [dis-toh-pee-uh]

noun

1.  a failed utopia

2. a society characterized by tyranny, oppression, misery, discrimination, and squalor.

The City of Rapture was founded as a utopia, not beholden to the laws of the state, bereft of religion zeitgeist and free from the cold war between the forces of communism and capatilism; east or west. Rapture was built by a man with a singular purpose. To build a city with "No Gods or Kings. Only Man." Yet, something went horribly wrong. But isn't that always the story?

SPOILER WARNING!

This is going to be an analysis of Bioshock. Including a full breakdown of the characters, the environment, the atmosphere and how it all relates to the player.

So there is your last warning. Here I go!

Our story begins in the year 1959, on a dark and stormy night, a plane flies over the Atlantic and then doesn't it. A man's birthday present gets lost in the ocean, as he finds a lighthouse sitting in the middle of the tempestuous sea. The first time I played it took me about 15 minutes to get to the lighthouse when, really, it should've only taken me about 30 seconds (what? don't you have off-days? No? Go eat a bag of tin cans you perfect goat you).

The lighthouse should be a beacon in the darkness. A welcome sight. Instead, it is a forbidding watchtower of shadows and cold quiet. You pull yourself ashore and into the front doors of the lighthouse and are presented with a bathysphere. Once you enter the bathysphere there is no going back and you are thrust into the dystopian post-WWII Atlantis, where there is no Aquaman to save you and all is not as it seems.

Your first experience with the denizens of Rapture are not pleasant. You are assaulted, in the dark, by a splicer. You are first forced to watch, helplessly, as the guy who radioed you down is hooked to death and lied there dead. A voice from the radio calls out, "Would you kindly pick up the shortwave radio?"

You soon get your first real look at the haunted world of Rapture. There are signs of a utopian society, 40's cocktail culture and a brilliant world of progressive science (with none of that namby pamby bull**** about testing or government oversight). It is an invite only paradise that once held some of the most brilliant artists, writers and scientists the world has every known. A utopia for the elite, free from the petty morals of religion, the greed of capitalism or the yoke of communism But is has been a while since those carefree days.

A helpful voice in your ear, Atlas, tells you he can help you escape the hell that Rapture has become but first you have to get to the submarine he has provided for you. He warns you that the laissez-faire utopia's founder, Andrew Ryan, is going to try and stop you from saving his family (who he has told you are trapped in said submarine). 

BUNNIES!

It is during your trek through to submarine that you get your first views of what has become of the people who lived here. There are three major dangers. First and foremost, are the splicers. Splicers are the mutated denizens of the deep, who have equipped plasmids and other experimental junk to their bodies. They want to kill you because they have all become psychotic, murderous and at best, just kooky. Where it is a woman pushing a baby carriage with a gun in it or a pyromaniac who can throw fireballs, they all wear masks to hide their disfigured faces.

The other big danger is BIG DADDY!

These lumbering beasts walk the halls of Rapture and are usually harmless. They only really become aggressive when attacked or, worse, when you touch on of the Little Sisters These little glowy eyed girls contain ADAM, a power source that if you harvest (literally from the girls) can make you stronger. All the splicers crave the ADAM but where a Little Sister is found, a Big Daddy is not far behind with a drill or chaingun to end you where you stand. Once you catch a Little Sister it is up to you to either harvest them or to turn them over to Dr. Tenenbaum, another mysterious force who along with a Dr. Fontaine, created them. She offers you a reward (but not as big). 

This game screws with your perception.

It is this kind of moral choice that changes how the story plays out. Harvest or Rescue? You then soon make your way to the submarine, but just as you make it there, it is blown up.  From this point, it becomes your goal to find and kill Ryan, thus avenging Atlas and hopefully finding a way to escape. After fighting your way through hordes of splicers and Big Daddies, you find the Hephaestus and Atlas gives you a final request,  "Now would you kindly head to Ryan's office and kill the son of a bitch?"

You make your way to Ryan's office but once you arrive he doesn't fight back. You grab a golf club from his hands and beat him to death with it. As you do, he repeats the same phrase, "a man chooses, a slave obeys." Little does the player realize they have just fell hook, line and sinker into the biggest video game twist in video game history. Ryan was trying to warn you. To explain to you that you have been duped and that, in fact, Atlas is FONTAINE, and has been controlling you this whole time with the phrase, "WOULD YOU KINDLY!"

As a gamer, you have just went along with everything this guy told you to do. This is a narrative trick that can only work in the immersion of a video game. You did all these things because, well, that is how you play a video game. You have no choice. In a way, to play a game like Bioshock you have to submit to progress the story. From this moment on, you discover you were created by Fontaine, much like the Little Sisters, and are just a tool. But what happens when said tool is turned on it's creator?

The rest of the game is a mad dash to track down and kill Atlas, for revenge, (because as it turns out, he is to blame for much of the downfall of Rapture), and to liberate Rapture before he turns himself into it's new god. 

But wait? What danger did I forgot to mention about half-way up this post? I said there were three? Well, if you would kindly continue, I will tell you about the biggest danger and strength of this game. Environment. Rapture has all the elements of a once beautiful place that has become broken down, dirty and is literally collapsing under the weight of it's own disrepair. The ever present element of dark blue is ever present as you travel past thick panes of glass that separate you from a watery grave. The signs of life lost all around, from abandoned apartments, to the demented denizens, to cracked statues and so on. You are trapped in a world that is corrupt. Paradise lost.

That is why, in my opinion, Bioshock is one of the greatest dystopias of all time. It is was built under the best intentions but falls short. Utopia is unobtainable but dystopia is just a misstep away. 

I guess the question is how will the American Utopia of Columbia fall in Bioshock: Infinite?

DAILY ROUND-UP! 9/13/2011

So what tickled my fancy on this supercalifragilisticexpialidocious day?

BABY CAKES! 

BE AGGRESSIVE!

I had a manic day and could definitely feel the beat of this song in my heart rumbling like a Crown Royale bag of dice. I really enjoy Brad Neely's humor and am excited that on Oct. 2, his creation, China, IL, is getting a new iteration on ADULT SWIM on the Cartoon Network. His humor is a little odd but I really get it.

WIZARD PEOPLE, DEAR READER- POWER BABY CH.1

I really wanna send some awesome fantention the way of Brad Neely tonight. Here is the first scene/chapter from his project called Wizard People, Dear Reader. The project basically involves Neely, someone who has never read the Harry Potter books, narrating the movie like a bizarre book on tape. You can actually download the full mp3 below and get the full experience by playing it over the Sorceror's Stone.

Download the MP3 here.

STEPHEN THE LESBIAN!

Next on the menu is a hilarious video by the ever-amusing Harry Partridge. Stephen started as a one-off joke as a mention of Partridges most famous character but, after this great animation, it is sure to become a reality. Check out his stuff for more twisted but hilarious humor.

THE FUTURE ACCORDING TO SCIENCE FICTION!

This handy dandy chart will give you a run down until, well, the end of humanity. Check it out.

10 ACTORS WHO MAKE SCI-FI BETTER!

Alan Rickman. Says. Check this out, byy Grabthar's hammer! I have been a fan of Rickman since his role as the Sheriff of Nottingham.

MIXED BAG. SCRABBLE CHALLENGE 1!

MIXED BAG SCRABBLE CHALLENGE 1!

GAME 1!

ZACH: 256 

SEAN: 261

GAME 1 goes to Sean. Sean: 1 to Zach: 0.

MIXED BAG. CARD ART 1, XMAS 2010

MIXED BAG: CARD ART, X-MAS 2010

I would like to apologize for not being able to put up a new movie review today. I plan to do a full treatment of The Wickerman (2006), the first full treatment of a Nicholas Cage movie (who is my favorite actor to dissect) but do to complications with school (I am taking 18 hours right now) and between about a dozen birthdays in the last couple of weeks I am having trouble getting my schedule in order. I apologize to all 3 of my followers and the maybe two people who also check my blog regularly.

Thank you Michael Keaton. I almost forgot myself. I don't need to be damned serious. Hell, despite how busy I have become between my blog and school I am actually more content than ever. Kinda kooky how having goals makes you feel good (better when you succeed). So, rather than than sweat the small stuff I wanna share you with you something a little bit special.

Every now and then I have fits of what I suppose you could call artsy stuff. Really its just terrible scribbles I pass off as christmas and birthday cards. Here enjoy a few.